Episode 682 - Herb Alpert / Mark & Jay Duplass
Marc:all right let's do this how are you what the fuckers what the fuck buddies what the fucking ears what the fuckadelics what's happening i am mark maron this is my show wtf thank you for joining me welcome welcome i'm out in my garage sweating after a long day shooting i'm
Marc:Marin, my TV show that will be on IFC in May.
Marc:This is the fourth season spent today working with Joey Diaz, just me and the doctor, Joey Diaz.
Marc:Exciting.
Marc:It's been very fun.
Marc:I've heard, I know that all three seasons of the Marin show,
Marc:show are on netflix but in other me news i believe that my special my epic special more later will be on amazon prime and perhaps hulu beginning in march march 3rd ish that's my understanding
Marc:What about today?
Marc:What about today's show?
Marc:What is happening today?
Marc:Well, today I talked to Herb Alpert.
Marc:Herb Alpert from Herb Alpert and the Tijuana Brass and A&M Records.
Marc:I don't know where you grew up or what your parents were like or how old you are necessarily, but...
Marc:My parents had Herb Alpert in the Tijuana Brass Taste of Honey album, and I just looked at the cover, and I'm like, who the hell's that dude?
Marc:That dude's got something going on.
Marc:And then, of course, there's the famous Whipped Cream and Other Delights cover that everybody is familiar with, but you may not know his music.
Marc:But his career as a...
Marc:The creator of a label and a producer is vast.
Marc:He's a major force in modern American music, and he was available.
Marc:He came up in conversation.
Marc:I'm like, sure, I'll talk to Herb Alpert.
Marc:I mean, that guy's one of the big guys.
Marc:I like talking to the big guys with stories.
Marc:So that's happening today.
Marc:Also, the Duplass brothers, Mark and the J. Duplass, are going to come in and talk to me for a while.
Marc:And they are a very talented and charismatic duo doing a lot of stuff.
Marc:They have a little empire, a little filmmaking empire, those Duplasses, film and TV.
Marc:Hard to not resent them, but they're such likable guys.
Marc:Well, that just might be me.
Marc:I will say this.
Marc:If you're avoiding or ignoring or dismissing or not making time for the Coen Brothers latest movie, Hail Caesar, you're out of your fucking mind.
Marc:You're misled.
Marc:You've prejudged based on garbage and
Marc:And look, I don't know them.
Marc:They've never wanted to come on my show.
Marc:This is not a paid promotion, but I'm an incredibly big fan of the Coen brothers, as are most people who like good film.
Marc:These guys really are probably...
Marc:if not the best american filmmakers that we have in the top five or four and i've been with them since the beginning and i've been through some of their more difficult movies but the one thing you know about the cohen's is that you're probably gonna have to see it again maybe two or three times
Marc:I've seen most of them.
Marc:I'm Blood Simple.
Marc:I remember when that came out, I was like, what?
Marc:And then Raising Arizona, Miller's Crossing, Barton Fink.
Marc:Barton Fink, one of the greatest movies ever made.
Marc:And oddly, this new film, Hail Caesar, sort of picks up where Barton Fink left off in a way.
Marc:Like, you can draw a comparison to that.
Marc:But this movie, Hail Caesar, is one of the tightest...
Marc:deep movies that the cohen's have ever made rich in in in in levels of interpretation i mean it just is all there i can't even begin to tell you how upset i was then look everyone's entitled to their opinion but if you really love film and you are really engaged on in anywhere in your past or in your heart or in your mind with the history of cinema there's no way you can't like this movie i
Marc:I guess I'm aggravated because I was led to believe that it was a mediocre Coen Brothers film.
Marc:Obviously, nothing that they do is bad, but sometimes you have expectations and sometimes not unlike a Paul Thomas Anderson movie where you're like, well, maybe I missed something.
Marc:And you're talking to a guy.
Marc:Well, you're not talking to a guy.
Marc:You're listening to a guy.
Marc:I'm not a Big Lebowski guy.
Marc:I've watched that movie four or five times.
Marc:I want to feel what the cult of Big Lebowski feels.
Marc:But I'm not that guy.
Marc:For me, Fargo was genius.
Marc:Raising Arizona, genius.
Marc:I mean, I like the Hudsucker proxy.
Marc:I loved Miller's Crossing.
Marc:Barton Fink, for me, is one of the best.
Marc:Oh, Brother, Where Art Thou?
Marc:I loved it.
Marc:Man Who Wasn't There I even liked.
Marc:No Country for Old Men.
Marc:I fucking saw that six times.
Marc:I'm going to see it again right now.
Marc:I might even turn it on while I'm talking to you.
Marc:Burn After Reading.
Marc:Didn't love it, but that was a minor issue with Malkovich.
Marc:Wasn't the Coen's fault.
Marc:Serious Man.
Marc:One of my favorite movies ever.
Marc:I would have to say A Serious Man, No Country for Old Men, Barton Fink, really, and Fargo in that order.
Marc:But Hail Caesar.
Marc:This is the... What's the word?
Marc:Apotheosis?
Marc:Is that the word?
Marc:This is the apotheosis.
Marc:I hope it's a word.
Marc:Of everything the Coens have done.
Marc:And people were dismissing it as like being fragmented or a mishmash.
Marc:Are you out of your fucking mind?
Marc:I mean...
Marc:I went in there knowing that a lot, you know, I put it out.
Marc:I asked on Twitter my resource for the the general opinion.
Marc:And it was very it was divided.
Marc:But a lot of people were like, it's a mishmash.
Marc:It's fragmented.
Marc:It's just a series of cameos.
Marc:It's the story's not there.
Marc:And it's like, are you out of your fucking mind?
Marc:So I went in there kind of nervous.
Marc:but excited to see a coen's brother movie i'm always excited to see a coen brothers movie and i watched that movie and i sat there for two hours and right away i was like oh no this is fucking gene this is fucking genius this is fucking good and that as it's going on i'm like oh shit this might be the best one this might be and that feeling of elation and
Marc:Well, watching a movie, everything was there for me.
Marc:Now, again, this is just my opinion.
Marc:But again, if you have an appreciation for the history of movies and for what can be done with a film and smart films, I mean, this is the fucking movie.
Marc:I don't know who the fuck doesn't give this movie a chance.
Marc:And look, I get excited about things, but it just seemed like...
Marc:To call it a mishmash or fragmented or lacking story or just a series of cameos, one dude even said like, yeah, there was these non sequitur dance sequences.
Marc:This was the Coen's
Marc:Celebrating movies.
Marc:I mean, there are bits and pieces.
Marc:First, you got Josh Brolin, this beautifully working class, flawed character who is a studio overseer, a fixer, but more of a lot manager and also a troubleshooter.
Marc:But he's Catholic and he's, you know, things weigh heavy on him.
Marc:And he is a morally not challenged guy, but he's a thoughtful guy.
Marc:He's a man of faith.
Marc:And throughout the movie, you know, there is an ongoing struggle with quitting smoking.
Marc:But then there becomes there is this big sort of moral struggle that actually happens in the midst of him producing a film about Jesus Christ.
Marc:And also having to manage several problems with actors and shifting an actor who is primarily a Western, a cowboy actor who wasn't used to talking into a different type of picture.
Marc:Then you have this side story where these communist writers kidnap George Clooney.
Marc:And where does that go?
Marc:And it was one of the best depictions of why and how the writers in Hollywood became attracted to
Marc:To communism, to the ideas of communism.
Marc:It was really about payment and about work and about the nature of capitalism.
Marc:And in the middle of all this, you have Josh Brolin's character who is just balancing all of this and trying to do the right thing by himself.
Marc:for himself and for the studio and for movies, which as you watch the film, he believes deeply in.
Marc:He's like the Jesus figure of this film.
Marc:And if you move with him through these stories and through the primary story, which is really about whether or not he makes a decision,
Marc:And there's engagements with the priests.
Marc:There's confessionals.
Marc:There's a meeting with the devil.
Marc:You may not be able to identify the devil right away, but he's definitely the devil.
Marc:When the three primary working forces in the film...
Marc:are Catholicism and a man's moral struggle and a man's burden of carrying the weight of the studio and the personalities within it and the future of the movies themselves and yet what does he choose to do in the end?
Marc:What do movies really mean?
Marc:What do they really give to people?
Marc:It's a movie about the levels of work and about creativity and about making something and about certain elements of class and also about the insipid disposition of some actors, but the genius disposition of others.
Marc:But the greatest thing about the film is that it celebrates the history of movies.
Marc:It shows you all the different jobs on a soundstage.
Marc:It shows you a soundstage in general.
Marc:It shows you a fully executed and choreographed musical sequence.
Marc:And it shows you a fully executed and choreographed aquatic ballet sequence.
Marc:It shows you a fully executed and choreographed old-timey Western stunt writer sequence.
Marc:And it shows you the making of almost like a Noel Coward-ish film.
Marc:And the reason they spend time on this is that when you get as much distance as we have from those types of films when they were made, and if you studied film or you saw those films, if you were fortunate enough to see those types of movies in a movie theater and really understand the elation and excitement they can create, you know, even the Western –
Marc:They did these things perfectly.
Marc:There was a slight tinge of satire to them, but they honored the genre and they showed you why they were amazing.
Marc:They humanized the history of film by showing what went into making the film and then by showing the execution and the beauty of what those films were trying to do.
Marc:That was all going on throughout this story.
Marc:You know, what do movies mean?
Marc:What is the power of film?
Marc:And it was actually the same movie studio that was in Barton Fink, I believe.
Marc:It was Capital Pictures.
Marc:What I'm telling you is I am still thinking about this film three days later because the levels of interpretation and sort of speculation and the levels of emotional, philosophical, and cinematic...
Marc:Depth that is possible when you look at it.
Marc:I still can't wrap my brain around a lot of it.
Marc:But all I know is you got it all in there.
Marc:You got it all in there.
Marc:Love, hate, good, evil, dedication, commitment, work, trust, and comedy.
Marc:And some deep comedy.
Marc:But one of the things that I read a lot was people basically saying like, it wasn't the movie that I was led to believe I was going to see from the trailer.
Marc:Who gives a fuck?
Marc:Grow up.
Marc:Grow the fuck up.
Marc:It's a Coen Brothers movie.
Marc:So it wasn't a slapstick comedy.
Marc:It wasn't really that funny.
Marc:How do you go into a Coen Brothers movie?
Marc:How do you just take it in on a surface level?
Marc:How do you not allow your mind and your heart
Marc:How do you not allow them to open up and engage with guys who are at the top of their game and completely in control of their craft and are deeply philosophical and intellectual and beautifully constructed cinematically and script-wise?
Marc:How do you dismiss that?
Marc:There's something about the culture today that, you know, maybe I'm an old man, but for someone just to dismiss something like, you know, like, nah, Hail Caesar.
Marc:It's like, no, go reckon with it.
Marc:Geniuses made it.
Marc:I don't know about HBO vinyl.
Marc:Scorsese made a two hour piece of film for a television project.
Marc:It's Scorsese.
Marc:Who the fuck are you to just be like, nah, give it more than that.
Marc:Jesus Christ.
Marc:I guess I like the movie.
Marc:I guess that's what I'm saying.
Marc:I would like to talk to the Coen brothers, by the way, if anyone knows them.
Marc:Look, folks, Mark and Jay Duplass, the Duplass brothers, the infamous Duplass brothers, the now famous Duplass brothers, makers of film and television.
Marc:They have a new season of their show Togetherness, which premieres this Sunday on HBO.
Marc:Their animated show Animals is currently airing on HBO.
Marc:I play a rat in that, I believe.
Marc:So now I'm going to talk to him right here in the garage.
Marc:Me and Mark and Jay Duplass.
Guest:A quick thing before we get started.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:Dried fruit.
Guest:A lot of dried fruit at lunch.
Guest:So are you saying that you're going to gas?
Guest:I'm going to try not to.
Guest:I'm going to try to hold.
Guest:But that's not what you're supposed to do in here.
Guest:You're supposed to release.
Guest:But it's like a thread.
Guest:It was.
Marc:It was a little bit of like... Now it's sort of like a punchline.
Guest:I wouldn't call it a thread.
Guest:I would call it a power play.
Guest:It's a power play.
Guest:Yeah.
Marc:but but okay so it's a power play but at some point that just means like two other guys go like oh fuck yeah and then i lose all my power yeah but that's why i'm holding this knife it's a one-er you're the guy who farted yeah all right so the brothers duplass i mean is was it hard to take 10 fucking minutes out of doing you know a dozen projects to come over here am i starting with the wrong attitude no no no
Guest:It was hard.
Guest:The truth is it was hard, Marc Maron.
Guest:It was hard.
Guest:We talked about it.
Guest:We talked about your worth.
Guest:We talked about your energy and whether we wanted to allow you into our lives.
Marc:I mean, how big of a reach does WTF really have now?
Marc:Yeah.
Guest:We checked your star meter.
Guest:Yeah, we checked your star meter.
Guest:We...
Guest:How is my star meter?
Guest:That didn't cut it.
Guest:It didn't cut it.
Marc:No, I'm sure it wouldn't.
Marc:I don't know.
Marc:What is the star meter?
Marc:Is that a site you can go to?
Marc:Is that on Rotten Tomatoes?
Guest:On IMDb Pro, you can check people's star meter.
Guest:Holy fuck.
Guest:That tells you how hot they are.
Marc:Oh, goddamn it.
Guest:Well, now.
Marc:And it gives an instant.
Marc:Mm-hmm.
Marc:Now we got it.
Marc:What's your number?
Marc:I don't fucking know, dude.
Guest:And you know what?
Guest:They make you green when you're on the rise, but when you're not doing so well and the bloom is coming off of you, they put you red.
Guest:I think I got there.
Guest:Oh, 5,447.
Guest:Right between our predictions.
Guest:That's great.
Guest:What is that?
Guest:It's a great star meter.
Guest:It's a good number?
Guest:It's a great number.
Guest:I guess a lot higher for you, so that'll tell you something.
Marc:Yeah, I guess a little lower, but that's okay.
Guest:I'm gaining the advantage now.
Fuck both of you.
Marc:Hold on a second.
Marc:Fucking smartass.
Marc:Let's see where our star meters are at.
Marc:Let's see where the smartass Duplass brothers are.
Marc:You guys checked like right before you got here.
Marc:We wouldn't have brought up the star meter if we didn't feel like ours.
Marc:If you hadn't fucking checked, I know.
Marc:Actor, producer, writer, Mark Duplass.
Marc:All right.
Guest:What's Mark got?
Marc:It's probably a good one.
Marc:It's not good?
Marc:Maybe if you fart.
Guest:Maybe I'm against it.
Guest:We'll get that up.
Guest:If you fart right now, watch those numbers just go up.
Guest:2470.
Guest:Yeah, that's a little on the lower side for me.
Guest:Wow.
Marc:You might want to retract that statement.
Marc:A little on the lower side.
Marc:Oh, and you too.
Marc:2008-42, Jay.
Marc:You know, this was sort of an ego boost for me.
Marc:I feel pretty good about myself.
Marc:I just beat the... I've almost doubled... I'm two Duplass brothers.
Guest:No, that's... Higher is worse.
Marc:Oh, it is?
Marc:Higher is lower.
Guest:Oh, so I want to be... Like Jennifer Lawrence is like number three.
Marc:Oh, so I'm not that good then.
Marc:You guys are better than... Like, I was all excited.
Marc:But your show is just starting to... But you're down this week, just by the way.
Marc:I am?
Marc:Yeah, you're down.
Marc:Down this week.
Marc:No, I mean, what am I going to do?
Marc:You guys are on television and you're in a Golden Globe winning thing.
Marc:Aren't you on television?
Marc:Yeah, but it's not real television.
Guest:I was on your television show one time.
Guest:Yeah, how was the feedback on that?
Guest:Remember when I came in and we shot a scene?
Marc:You're up 17 this week, by the way.
Marc:That's not bad, 17.
Marc:Nice work.
Marc:Yeah, we shot a scene in the fake garage.
Marc:It took about 22 minutes to shoot.
Guest:Yeah, you were in and out.
Guest:It was great.
Marc:My show does good on the Netflix a year later, but I'm happy.
Marc:I'm okay with that star matter.
Guest:That's like our movies.
Guest:That's our whole career.
Guest:It does good on the Netflix later on.
Marc:Well, that's where it's at, but no, it must do okay on the HBO.
Marc:Do you get numbers on HBO for the togetherness?
Guest:We do, but they don't mean anything anymore.
Guest:And that has been a benefit for people like us, I find.
Guest:People trying to skate under the radar.
Guest:Yeah, if your shows are well-reviewed and people generally like them, I think you get picked up on HBO.
Guest:But we're not bringing in massive numbers on togetherness.
Marc:I watched it, and at certain points I found it upsetting.
Marc:Let's talk about it.
Marc:Well, I mean, it was good, but I think there's reasonable depictions of the strains of... I don't know.
Marc:What it is, it's what grown-ups look like now.
Marc:Yeah.
Marc:Do you know, like, there was a different time where grown-ups looked different, but you guys look like grown-ups.
Marc:Some version of them.
Marc:Which is really weird.
Marc:What are you, 40-something?
Marc:I am 39.
Marc:Come on, Mark.
Marc:You know what?
Marc:You're not going to lose any points.
Guest:How old are you?
Exactly.
Marc:he's gonna lose points man there's emotion emotionally i'm like 46 but uh my body's 39 but there's there's not a lot of depiction honest depictions of uh people of your ilk and your age and your class that uh that that that are really kind of um relentless yeah like there's some sad moments that the genius at the funny guy what's that guy's name steve zisses steve zisses our high school buddy
Marc:Yeah, I don't know where you found that guy, but boy, he's funny.
Marc:He is funny, isn't he?
Guest:We grew up with that mofo.
Guest:We went to high school with him.
Guest:Was he always an actor?
Guest:He's always been an actor.
Guest:However, he has not always been known.
Guest:And that was part of our genesis of the creation of the show.
Marc:So he's playing him in a way.
Guest:He's playing a version of himself.
Guest:We're looking in the world, and I'm sure this happens in the comedy world all the time, but we got a guy pushing 40 who is a god.
Guest:I mean, that guy was...
Guest:He always has been and has never lost it.
Guest:Just so funny, so dark, so tragic.
Guest:And you see him sort of like, is this kind of going to die with all of his magic inside of him?
Guest:And so you see this black star dying and you're like, you want to shine light on it.
Guest:So you've known him that long and it got rough for him in real life.
Guest:Oh, yeah.
Marc:Oh, yeah.
Marc:Because he seems to be pretty comfortable with the darkness.
Marc:Yeah, he seems with it.
Marc:You can't manufacture that.
Guest:He would do very well in this room here.
Guest:Sure, I'd love to have him.
Marc:Yeah.
Marc:So he's a genius.
Marc:Amanda P doing comedy.
Marc:Great.
Marc:She's hilarious.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:I mean, in season two, she really gets to like stretch.
Guest:Really?
Guest:We do this fun thing where like after we're done with all of our episodes, we invite a group of people in and we watch them all in a row to just check and see if we fucked anything up and mess anything up.
Guest:In terms of where the characters are.
Guest:Yeah, where the characters are going, what people wanted to see, you know, whatever.
Guest:You make eight episodes kind of in a microcosm.
Guest:You're like, let me see these in a row.
Guest:Does it all work?
Guest:And we laid them all out and it was kind of consistently shocking.
Guest:People walking out of the room being like, I haven't seen Amanda do anything like that before.
Guest:I've never seen her do anything.
Marc:She always plays like, she's always a little dangerous.
Marc:She's a little dangerous in this too, but there's a humility to it.
Marc:Like there's a desperation to her character along with like, she's hurting that guy.
Marc:What's his name, Steve?
Guest:Steve.
Marc:She's hurting Steve, and that hurts me, which is one of the reasons why the series was difficult.
Guest:Yeah.
Marc:Like, why does she keep hurting that guy?
Marc:When does this wet up?
Guest:Why does he keep showing back up?
Guest:What's the pain all about?
Marc:Yeah, yeah, yeah.
Marc:But it's sort of funny because he can shoulder that, and they do seem to love each other somehow, whereas the couple with you and Linsky, that love seems strained, whereas the unrequited love of the two clowns,
Marc:That seems like it's undeniable.
Guest:Yeah, some pure beauty in that stuff.
Guest:We had a lot of questioning, too.
Guest:It was like, how is this going to work?
Guest:How are people going to believe that a guy like Steve, that a girl like Pete would be even interested in hanging out with a guy like Steve because no one knew who he was or whatever, and then he showed up and started doing his thing, and then it started to flip.
Guest:It was like...
Guest:Why is he even hanging around?
Guest:This guy's pure magic.
Guest:And then later on we brought, I mean, this has been an incredible thing for Mark and me is like, I mean, Amanda walked into the room and we weren't sure, you know, we've all been watching her forever.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:And she started dragging him around the room and beating the crap out of him in the audition, like in the first 30 seconds.
Guest:And they had this electric chemistry going on.
Guest:Well, she's a bully.
Guest:She was a bully.
Guest:But then we start, when we were hanging out with her and we were doing scenes, like every week we hang out with her.
Guest:That girl has more going on.
Guest:Like she's got...
Guest:You were saying this the other day.
Guest:She's raised Upper East Side in New York.
Guest:She's classically educated in Columbia, extremely intelligent, gorgeous.
Guest:She has the sense of humor of a 12-year-old boy.
Guest:It's just her and fart noises all day long from Video Village.
Guest:Wait, so you're going to see her later?
Marc:Is that why you ate the fruit?
Marc:that's why i built it all up for her we are going to her birthday party tonight oh are you good stuff yeah oh good yeah i want you to announce that right when you get there that it could happen dried fruit party dried fruit at 1 p.m makes for a great party favor at 7 30 dry fruit's good man yeah are you concerned with your uh bowels do you are you somebody gifted me with dried fruit and i am an eating maniac and so i was just in
Guest:the office working and there was dried fruit in front of me and i just ate about like 18 dried pears and so yeah you know yes we'll just see what happens but you're not a guy that that's hung up on that yet like you know i got i got to eat some fiber no no but i do think jay and i think about energy a lot and we think about like how can we have more energy to do what we want to do should we be working out more jay and i are really you have this discussion ridiculous emotional eaters yeah it there's no stop button
Guest:well you grew up with it right we grew up in new orleans yeah just eating yeah eating and loving food i mean it's a it's insane that we're thin yeah it is kind of it's insane and relative not likable really it can be annoying yeah the guys complaining about how much they eat but don't are not heavy at all like we work our asses off we work out all the time you do just pretty much we do we can keep eating so we
Guest:can keep eating but it's it's weird like people see us on set and when we we're big stress eaters big emotional eaters it's hard when you're on set and shit and when you're working oh in the office even it's impossible not to eat constantly and especially when you have your own show like this is one thing like we've been loving this tv thing but when you like carry a whole when you're like the daddy of a whole universe right
Guest:it it's not that fun right it's hard as shit it's fulfilling yeah yeah but it's people are like oh is it fun you guys just look like you're smoking dubers back no we're killing ourselves every second let's clear this up we never smoke weed on set we everybody thinks we smoke weed on set no we really don't smoke weed actually when it comes down to no we don't smoke weed it's okay you smoke a little weed occasionally
Guest:Every time we smoke weed, we're like, we should smoke more weed.
Guest:And you don't.
Guest:And we don't because we're like ruthlessly efficient with ourselves.
Guest:It wouldn't be good if the brothers were like, oh, dude, you didn't do it?
Guest:Yeah, exactly.
Marc:There's no cameras, so there's no cameras?
Guest:We're off.
Guest:We're off.
Marc:Yeah.
Marc:It's true.
Marc:But how does it work?
Marc:So you guys write the show together, and then how does it work on set?
Marc:Because I know you both wear all the hats, producer, director occasionally, but you're the actor in this, but you are getting a lot of attention for your acting in Transparent.
Marc:I thought you were very good, by the way.
Marc:Thanks very much.
Marc:I don't need to tell him.
Marc:He knows.
Marc:I get tired of telling Mark that he's good in everything.
Guest:Yeah.
Marc:Because he's in everything.
Marc:There's a thing on now, right now, while we're talking.
Guest:Let's talk about me.
Guest:Let's talk about me and my acting.
Guest:What's the matter?
Guest:Do you feel left out?
Guest:I think we should talk about what do you do when you have two brothers in a room, and you want to compliment them both, and you have to be careful with who you're complimenting.
Guest:Do you have any anxiety about that?
Guest:Do you have any feelings about that?
Marc:No, I'd like to see.
Marc:I'm trying to get you to turn.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:See, what I need is you...
Guest:By the way, everybody needs to know that Jay and I are on the other side of the table from Marc Maron here.
Guest:And the most apparent object is there is an enormous knife sitting right between me and Jay.
Guest:I believe you could maybe call it a buoy knife.
Guest:But what is this thing?
Marc:It's a knife.
Marc:I just have stuff where it's always interesting to me to see what people choose to fidget with.
Guest:A knife, a hammer.
Marc:It looks like a mushroom.
Guest:What do you call that?
Guest:Everybody be quiet.
Marc:Anybody know what that is?
Marc:What do you call those?
Guest:Hand exercises?
Guest:I don't know.
Guest:It's one of these things that... Yeah, you clamp exercise.
Guest:It's a hand squeezer.
Guest:It's what Matthew Modine uses in Vision Quest to work out before he wrestles shoes.
Guest:That's right.
Guest:But how does the work break down?
Guest:What do you do?
Guest:Well, it's different on every project.
Guest:The real honest truth of it is that Jay and I are...
Guest:We drive ourselves really, really hard.
Guest:We're both anxious and we're both a little depressive and sad people.
Guest:And so we get beat up.
Guest:Is that true?
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:So we show up on set.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:And we kind of look at it.
Guest:I mean, look at our... Just look in our eyes.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:I know you know this thing.
Marc:Well, he seems like a pretty sweet guy.
Marc:You seem to... Like, he seems to be... Jay seems a little more...
Marc:Comfortable with his vulnerability and his sensitivity.
Marc:You seem to put a lot of energy into keeping the party going.
Marc:I do a ton of energy towards that.
Marc:Yeah.
Marc:It's true.
Marc:That's what I called it.
Guest:Incredible amount of energy.
Guest:I'm so tired, Mark.
Guest:We talk about it a lot.
Guest:I'm so tired.
Guest:Mark does a lot of driving, and I do a lot of quality control.
Guest:Okay.
Guest:I do a lot of watching.
Marc:Yeah.
Guest:But honestly, we both, this is the interesting part.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:Honestly, if we're totally just cutting to what's going on with us.
Guest:Hold on, let's cut to it.
Guest:Cut to it.
Guest:uh when you when you work together the way that we have for our whole lives not just 20 years of movies and music i mean like 30 years of just like you know uh making the job of being brother the job of being brothers and making shit together and what happens is is you become two parts of the same being yeah and that is awesome for making art it's awesome for like making a tv show being a director like directing's too much right it's too much
Guest:for anybody right yeah like all directors get crazy by the time they're 50 because it's too much yeah so we share a lot of those things but the problem that happens is that we become the same person you even go the same party and like the way we talk about is like one person's like doing the the duplass persona and yeah he's doing that okay i'm gonna just lay back over here for a
Guest:little bit you know what i mean because like we were curated in the same household like we and mark is a little more type a and i'm a little more type b but on any given day or if i go by myself i get more type a and more probably gets and you're not even twins and we're not worse than twins yeah it's a weird thing and we talk about that a lot which is like you're older uh jay's older by three and a half years and so i just look older because i drive all the time right
Guest:so when you got the camera going you're both sort of like mark come here jay come here you know who's usually you know watching the the takes well he's acting so you got to be mostly at the if he's acting i mostly watch but i you know honestly we have all these credits on imdb pro but we just we're just brothers who make stuff that is truly how it is so everybody wears all the hats we wear all the hats and it's really it's not like auteurish like the cohen brothers we tried to be
Guest:the cohen brothers we wanted to be them and we failed miserably how'd you why'd you fail because they're they created a singular form of making telling stories and you can't beat the cohen brothers at being the cohen brothers when were you trying or difference but to well this was like us in like film school in the early 2000s
Guest:so you guys did a lot of stuff together so you're you're stuck because the the cohen brothers are very you guys are driven but they're very meticulous i imagine that every they have such clear vision from what we understand like they see the whole movie in their head before they show up on set storyboards like 95 and then they just they just walk the movie through whereas all of our filmmaking happens right on the set very organic in the moment like a therapy session right we're improvising we're trying things we're getting upset and nervous because it's not working we have a
Guest:breakthrough holy shit this is so exciting get the camera it wasn't even the script let's go get it you know it's very uh organic i guess it's like trying to capture energetic light like the best version of what this scene can be in this moment with the people we got and where we're at yeah we know what the scene's supposed to be so let's just like see what happens
Marc:And that's become your style.
Marc:I mean, that's what you're known for.
Guest:But with the TV, you've got to write scripts, right?
Guest:We write scripts for everything.
Guest:There's a script for everything.
Guest:We just veer off of the script a lot to get stuff that's more organic.
Guest:But to your question of who's doing what role, it's actually harder for us to pinpoint that because...
Guest:on any given day someone can be more excited more ready to drive a little more anxious a little more depressed and then you know i remember the front of season two i was really tired and down and like i was like i don't know if i'm gonna make it through this thing and jake came up and started driving and it was like so great that i had somebody like
Guest:helping to carry me through it, and then Jay got bronchitis and started tanking, and I was like, okay, here I come, I'm gonna start driving now, and that's just, it's this weird sine, cosine wave of like... And the people on set know this is the way it works.
Guest:They kind of feel it out from us, you know?
Guest:And also, you know, we have relationships with actors, we have different relationships with actors, sometimes we find that one of us, it's easier for us to talk to somebody, or just understand what they're going through.
Guest:Or about certain kinds of things, too.
Guest:but you're in a lot of the scenes though too yes so on a big emotional scene like uh in our fourth episode of the first season where we have that you know sex in the hotel and it's like really rough jay is very clearly in the creative driver's seat there we have conversations after the takes we see make sure it's on the rails but i'm kind of like dude i'm out you well you got to be in the thing tell me what
Marc:to do can't be all like that on the set i mean you got to be in the scene you can't be like that on the camera especially the way we shoot he has to be able to just be let let anything happen basically now when when you say you get all down what the fuck was going on
Marc:Were you tired?
Guest:Were you got mental, like biological mental issues?
Guest:Most of it from stuff.
Guest:Most of it for us is, I would say, a combination of just being kind of at our core people who are desperately driven to and compelled to do this stuff that we do.
Guest:And that we can't quite figure out.
Guest:That might take a long time, but we are...
Guest:driven to come up this mountain yeah keep making stuff and the ideas come and we do it and then there's just another part of us that is like i would say slightly bipolar um you know i i personally take depression medication to keep me even keel yeah from crashing to work oh 10 years 10 years which one which one i take celexa yeah which is and like a lower dose of it right and
Guest:It's like a compression system for me that keeps me from going nuts, and it also is a little net under my ass when I'm like, I drive myself too hard, I fuck myself up, I fall down, and it kind of catches me.
Guest:Well, that's nice that it works for you.
Guest:Yeah, and some people it does, some people it doesn't.
Guest:This has been something that works for me.
Guest:But it sounds like it's been working for the long haul.
Guest:Big time.
Guest:And Jay and I both have just a little bit of that, I don't know if it's just an artist thing or just in our chemistry.
Guest:We just like...
Guest:Oh, yeah.
Guest:What are you going to do?
Guest:We feel deeply in the world and we just get... We tank a lot.
Guest:We feel a lot of things.
Marc:I don't let myself go... I don't seem to go down, but I get anxious and overwhelmed.
Marc:That's my thing.
Marc:I don't have the depression because I don't let it.
Marc:I grew up with the depressive.
Marc:Yeah.
Marc:So there's some part of me that's hypervigilant about like, I'm not going to be him.
Guest:I'm not doing that.
Guest:It's going to slip out sideways in an anxious way.
Guest:There's a whole theory that like anxiety and depression are the same thing.
Guest:Right.
Guest:I believe that.
Guest:That basically, you know, type A people don't really get depressed because when that thing, that feeling that comes to you actually turns you towards anxiety because you fight against it.
Marc:Right, but then if you get too anxious, then phase two is the paralysis.
Marc:Yes, that's the tank.
Marc:For me, that reveals itself as exhaustion more than darkness.
Marc:Thank God.
Guest:That's a nice brand.
Marc:Okay, so that's something to look forward to.
Marc:Let's talk about the other projects.
Marc:You were great on Transparent, as I said.
Marc:I've not seen you act.
Marc:Perhaps you were in some of your older movies.
Guest:I haven't seen them all.
Guest:This is my first acting job.
Marc:Really?
Marc:Yeah.
Marc:It was great.
Marc:You play a Jew.
Marc:Yeah.
Marc:And it's sort of a challenging, disturbing character.
Marc:He's very different from me.
Marc:Yeah, you guys play shit very different than you.
Marc:He's a total dick.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:I mean, he has... Is he a dick or is he broken?
Guest:He has more sex in the first two episodes than you've had in your entire life.
Guest:It's true.
Guest:Let's fix that.
Guest:Good for you.
Guest:How'd that feel fictional?
Guest:Sex with more people.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:Sex with more people.
Guest:Yes.
Guest:uh yeah it's really different and fun and i uh it's weird to um be 40 and like find a whole new thing that i like to do which doesn't seem that different it's very adjacent to writing and directing but it is nothing like you at the uh you at the the the scene eater here take up all the screen time the baby the baby gets to do what he wants baby gets that's right
Guest:Everybody's like, well, why didn't you do this sooner?
Guest:And the answer, I swear to God, is since we had the double Panasonic VHS camera, I was three and a half.
Guest:In 1983.
Guest:In 1982.
Guest:I was three years older.
Guest:I knew how to operate it.
Guest:And so Mark would act and I would shoot.
Guest:And literally up until togetherness, I've been shooting physically and Mark has been acting.
Guest:So although our friends have...
Marc:encouraged me to try it yeah it's just never been i'm literally behind the camera now did you just go with your gut on it or did you talk to mark about it or did you like it's weird because i talked to actors on especially people like me who come about it through you know i didn't train to be an actor yeah yeah
Marc:You didn't either.
Marc:Nope.
Guest:None of us did.
Guest:I think all three of us share a thing where we were maybe like writers, makers of stuff that accidentally fell into it.
Marc:But it's interesting because with togetherness, you make some pretty solid choices to temper some of your shit into a real character.
Marc:You structured that thing.
Marc:You know, and I've seen you do it in Lynn's movies, and I've seen you do it in some of your movies.
Marc:Like, you know how to... Like, for me, I'll just... You know, what do I have to turn down?
Marc:You know, like, which part of me do I turn down?
Marc:But, like, sometimes you kind of become a different character.
Marc:Now, what... And that's just a natural ability.
Guest:So what did you sort of employ...
Guest:Well, the guy's so different from me, and the stuff he says and the stuff he does is so different.
Guest:So you want to write from the script.
Guest:I just went straight in and just went full blast.
Guest:I got lucky because my roommate in college was a guy named Lee Cohen, who's a Jew from Chicago.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:I spent four years with him.
Guest:He looks exactly like me.
Guest:Everyone thought we were twins in college.
Guest:He is a music manager.
Guest:He managed Dandy Warhol's.
Guest:Am I saying too much about Lee Cohen right now?
Guest:Yeah, you are.
Guest:Hey, Lee Cohen.
Guest:What's up, dude?
Guest:Just know we love you.
Guest:We've always loved you.
Guest:He's in town right now.
Guest:I'm actually seeing him tomorrow.
Guest:And so I kind of channeled him.
Guest:Like he has this stuff.
Guest:Did you tell him that?
Guest:Yeah, I did tell him that.
Guest:I even talked to him about it.
Guest:Before?
Guest:Yeah, I talked to him about it before.
Guest:I was like, dude, I'm going to pull you into this thing.
Guest:I'm doing this whole new thing.
Guest:And it's like deep Eastside Jew thing.
Guest:And I got to go for it.
Guest:And, you know, I just want to kind of have your blessing, you know.
Guest:And he was like, yeah, yeah, absolutely.
Guest:Go for it.
Marc:Wow.
Marc:So Lee helped you out.
Marc:Yeah.
Marc:And the Danny Warhols for a while.
Guest:And Danny Warhols.
Marc:Thank you, Lee Cohen, Danny Warhols.
Marc:But you guys have a lot going on, and Togetherness is February 21st, and then you're working on the third season, and you have a movie in development for Netflix.
Guest:We have four movies we're making for Netflix.
Marc:I'm available for a small part in any of those films.
Marc:Excellent.
Marc:Wonderful tonight.
Marc:You got something for me?
Marc:Great talking to you guys.
Guest:Love it.
Guest:Wait, what was your star meter again?
Guest:5,000.
Guest:Yeah, we got something small for you.
Guest:We got something good for you.
Guest:What if I get my star meter up to yours?
Guest:If you get your star meter up to 2,600, come talk to us.
Guest:All right, thanks, fellas.
Marc:workers they're workers i like to do plot brothers the first time i met jane i and i and i i liked him i was glad that he his brother let him talk i don't even know where to to start with herb albert in terms of you know if you don't know who he is this this guy is a legend
Marc:a fucking legend in the music biz.
Marc:I mean, you may have known about Herb Alpert and the Tijuana Brass.
Marc:You may have heard of A Taste of Honey and all.
Marc:He's had so many fucking hits, man.
Marc:I mean, he's had so many hits and like forever, for decades.
Marc:And then he and then he like started, you know, A&M Records and, you know, he's sort of responsible for the Carpenters and, you know, and all the way up, you know, through like, you know, Janet Jackson.
Marc:I mean, it's just I'm sort of fascinated with the with the with the music business.
Marc:and um and and you know i always knew that he was a big deal i knew he was the a in a&m records and i i i jumped at the opportunity to talk to him so i hope you enjoy this conversation herb alpert's uh record come fly with me is available now still out there playing the music too with his wife it's amazing
Marc:I remember you because my parents had a copy of... Whipped Cream and Other Delights.
Marc:No.
Marc:Oh, okay.
Marc:No, it was the one where you got your hand up, the girl on your arm.
Marc:What Now, My Love?
Marc:Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.
Marc:Okay.
Marc:So I just remember that cover.
Marc:I remember you.
Marc:I was young.
Marc:I was eight or nine.
Marc:I'm like, who the fuck is that guy?
Guest:Yeah, that's me.
Guest:That was me.
Guest:That was me.
Guest:I'm still here.
Guest:And you're 80.
Guest:I think so.
Guest:Let me check my ID.
Guest:Yeah, I'm 80.
Guest:Okay.
Marc:I'm excited, man, because I'm sort of fascinated with the music business.
Marc:And when I look at your career, it's astounding.
Marc:You're one of those guys that I don't know if you could really quantify who could have had a bigger impact on music, both in recording and in creating a label.
Marc:That was powerful, man.
Guest:Yeah, well, it was a different time, man.
Guest:We couldn't do it today.
Guest:I mean, if we tried to start A&M in today's music industry, I don't think it would happen.
Marc:Well, walk me through it, because I am a little like, I love old stories about how the music business used to be, because it used to be a pretty intimate business.
Marc:Where'd you grow up?
Guest:Well, I grew up in LA.
Guest:I'm a native of Los Angeles.
Guest:Really?
Guest:Yeah, but the music business in 62, that's when we started A&M, was totally different.
Guest:Man, there were little labels operating out of the trunks of their car, you know.
Marc:You just had to deliver the single, right?
Marc:Was that really the market?
Guest:Well, you could come to some radio stations with a master, and if the program director happened to like it, he'd either put it on immediately or...
Guest:Or they'd put it in the meeting and then you'd get immediate feedback, which obviously doesn't happen anymore.
Marc:In sales and in making hits, if they played it on the radio.
Guest:Yeah, if people dug it.
Guest:I mean, you can't anticipate that.
Guest:So you grew up in what part of L.A.?
Guest:Well, I was born in East L.A.
Guest:and then grew up in, you know, around...
Guest:Fairfax and Beverly.
Marc:Are your folks from around here?
Marc:I mean, were they originally from here?
Guest:No, my dad was from Russia.
Guest:My dad was a real hero.
Guest:When he was 16 years old, he took a boat from Russia alone, not speaking the language.
Guest:He just spoke Yiddish at the time and landed in Ellis Island and little by little worked his way.
Marc:to uh you know through the states i think he's was working in chicago for a while then los angeles and that's where he met my mom and those are amazing stories because my family's eastern european jewish and like i they came in from russia through ellis island but i did you have you gone back to how far with the roots have you gone did you ever get fascinated with like uh where he came from in russia and
Guest:Well, I haven't been to Russia, but I was in Ellis Island, and you can feel that vibe, man.
Guest:You can really feel all the things that happened through there, and it's pretty amazing.
Marc:Was it the same name, or did they change the name?
Marc:No, it was the same name.
Marc:No kidding.
Marc:Yeah, Alpert, right.
Marc:So that made it all the way from Russia?
Guest:Made it from Russia, but he was really an unusual guy.
Guest:He, little by little, brought his entire family over from Russia.
Marc:Brothers, sisters?
Yeah.
Guest:His brothers and sisters, right.
Guest:And what did he do?
Guest:He was a tailor.
Guest:Yeah?
Guest:Yeah, he was a really good tailor, too.
Guest:You know, he had like a flair for design, and we used to walk down, you know, Wilshire Boulevard, and he'd get on his little sketch pad, and when he'd see something he'd like, he'd sketch it and then try to, you know, improve on it or do his own little take on it.
Guest:Did he have a shop?
Guest:He was manufacturing ladies' coats and suits in downtown Los Angeles.
Marc:Oh, really?
Marc:Yeah.
Marc:Were they originals or knockoffs?
Guest:No, they were originals.
Guest:Oh, wow.
Guest:They were originals.
Guest:Knockoffs.
Guest:You know, it's possible.
Marc:I don't know about that.
Marc:Well, no, it's just that's the schmata business, right?
Guest:Yeah, now he was in the schmata business.
Marc:Sure, man.
Marc:And your mom, did she do stuff?
Guest:Well, my mom played violin for a while, but she was a great spirit.
Guest:You know, she really was encouraging for me.
Guest:You know, every time I, you know, I started playing trumpet when I was eight.
Guest:So when I was lax and I didn't practice, you know, she'd always get on me for that and said, you know, you got to keep it up.
Guest:And then I'd play and then neighbors would yell and then she'd open her window and say, shut up, my kid's practicing.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:So she was cool.
Guest:So eight years old, what kind of music do you remember playing at eight?
Guest:Well, I couldn't play at all, man.
Guest:I was lucky because there was this music appreciation class in my grammar school, which obviously doesn't happen anymore, which should happen because I think to rub elbows with some type of form of creativity at a young age, I think really, really...
Guest:It puts a nice foundation.
Guest:Kids get to feel their own uniqueness, and hopefully they can feel the uniqueness in others.
Guest:It might be a whole different story.
Guest:They make sounds.
Marc:My mom was very supportive of guitar playing, so it changed my life.
Guest:Oh, yeah.
Guest:So anyways, in this class, there was a table filled with various instruments.
Guest:I happened to pick up the trumpet, tried to make a sound out of it, couldn't do that.
Guest:I thought you'd just blow hot air into the mouthpiece.
Guest:But I finally realized I could make the sound.
Guest:And little by little, this horn was speaking for me because I was super shy.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:I just loved the idea that this horn was speaking for me.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:Get some attention.
Marc:Blast out some sounds.
Guest:I got attention and got the chicks and the whole thing.
Marc:So many of the people I talk to in the arts, you ask them why they got into it, and they're like, chicks.
Marc:Yeah, well, that wasn't my motivation at front, but it certainly didn't hurt.
Marc:What music was speaking to you once you started to get the hang of it?
Guest:Well, I was classically trained.
Guest:I had a teacher.
Guest:Actually, he was from Russia as well.
Guest:And I studied with him for about 12 years.
Guest:And it was mainly playing Beethoven, Bach.
Guest:Yeah?
Guest:And you played in orchestra a bit?
Guest:I played in junior symphony orchestras.
Guest:And then at one point, I was playing in this orchestra.
Guest:orchestra and i uh we were playing pictures at an exhibition by mazorski uh-huh revel did the arrangements and i was so enamored by the sound of the orchestra i was really knocked out by it so i was leaning forward listening to everybody and it was like this stereotype effect and i forgot to come in yeah i forgot to come into my park so i realized at that point there you know i
Guest:I'm not sure I want to make this type of music.
Guest:And then I started listening to Louis Armstrong and Miles and the jazzers.
Guest:That looked like fun.
Guest:Man, these guys were closing their eyes and just playing whatever was coming out.
Guest:And to me, that's what I wanted to try to do.
Marc:But from that early education, you learned how to read music.
Marc:You learned how to arrange music.
Marc:You learned how to write it.
Guest:Well, I learned how to read it for sure.
Guest:Arranging is a whole other animal.
Guest:I mean, you've got to really study that.
Guest:It's not like you can play the trumpet and you can be an arranger.
Guest:When I got to the keyboard, I started playing piano, and I realized the arrangers need to have that because then you can see the harmonies.
Guest:If you're playing just a single-tone instrument like a trumpet trombone, it's just one sound that's coming out.
Marc:So you can't really play out the other parts.
Guest:Yeah, you can't.
Guest:And when you put your hand on 10 different notes, it's a whole different feeling.
Marc:You pretty good at piano now?
Guest:No, I'm good at just fooling around with chords and moving it around.
Guest:But that's the genesis of the Tijuana Brass was I was fooling around with this song that a friend of mine wrote called Twinkle Star, which was a beautiful melody, but it was really corny, man.
Guest:He gave me a demo of it, and it sounded like a music box.
Uh-huh.
Guest:That type of thing.
Guest:Yeah, yeah.
Guest:And so I was arranging it, and at that time I was going to bullfights in the springtime.
Marc:Down in Tijuana?
Guest:In Tijuana.
Guest:There was a major place.
Guest:They had the greatest matadors from around the world.
Guest:So I got inspired by that.
Guest:I never heard mariachi music, but I heard this band that was in the stands in Tijuana, and they were announcing the different events.
Guest:Right.
Guest:So I tried to translate that into a record.
Guest:When I heard... And the bull would charge out.
Guest:Right.
Guest:And then this one guy came out.
Guest:It was named Carlos Arusa.
Guest:He would come out on a white horse...
Guest:And the reins were around his waist.
Guest:He would never touch the reins with his hands, and he was just giving the horse directions by the movement of his body.
Guest:And it was exciting, man.
Guest:And then he'd do whatever he had to do, put the banderillas in to lower the bull's head or whatever they do for that.
Guest:and he put the horse away, and he walked across the arena, and he wouldn't look at the bull.
Guest:The bull would just be looking at him with smoke coming out of his nose, and he wouldn't even honor him, and he'd be within three feet of him looking the other way, and the crowd would go crazy, and I was drinking wine at the time.
Guest:I tried to translate that whole feeling into a song.
Marc:And that changed the face of certainly instrumental and popular music.
Marc:I mean, the Tijuana Brass did.
Guest:Well, I can't say it changed the face of it, but it was certainly a moment.
Guest:And when the lonely bull happened, it just like took off like a rocket.
Marc:I think it was that tone.
Marc:I think it was almost like an international flavor that people hadn't really heard.
Marc:And it's so compelling.
Guest:It was a good song, and the arrangement was good, and it worked.
Guest:It's like when that door opens, man, it really opens, because three days into the release of that record, we were getting calls from distributors from all over the world.
Guest:international hit yeah and wanted to have us you know to give them the distribution rights which my partner jerry moss you know doled it out and uh the lonely bull was happening i got a call from um our distributor in washington dc he says man you guys gotta smash that acapulco 1922 is happening i said brother
Marc:you're on the wrong side so you know when it starts happening man when the door opens for you it swings the b-side did well too yeah well we eventually had him turn it over but yeah the b-side was happening too well the language you're speaking around music like you know i how what was in between like learning how to play and and what were your first sort of forays into the music business
Guest:Well, I played dances, parties in high school.
Guest:We had a little group, a trio.
Marc:Mostly standards?
Guest:Yeah, mostly standards and little flashy stuff, triple ton.
Guest:Because of the classical background, I could do some fancy things on the horn.
Guest:Not very creative, but it was like fancy.
Guest:Right.
Guest:Impressive.
Guest:Yeah, it was impressive.
Guest:It was impressive enough because this was in the 50s.
Guest:And in L.A., there was this show called High Talent Battle, and they were pitting high school bands against one another.
Guest:And we entered, and we won.
Guest:For six weeks in a row, we were seen on television.
Guest:And because of that, we started playing parties and weddings and
Marc:Working as a musician.
Guest:Yeah, that's right.
Guest:And I got my union card at 16.
Guest:At that time, I wasn't sure I was going to be a professional musician.
Marc:What was the other option?
Guest:I didn't have another option.
Marc:Girls.
Marc:So when do you start writing songs?
Marc:Because I know that when I think about that time, I mean, we're talking about what, the late 50s?
Guest:When you were in high school?
Guest:No, early 50s.
Guest:Early 50s.
Guest:Yeah, I graduated high school in 1953.
Marc:So the music business, there were guys around writing.
Marc:The deal was you tried to write hip-hop songs, right?
Guest:Well, in 53, I didn't write any songs then.
Guest:I was drafted in the army after high school.
Guest:Well, I went to college for like about a year and a half.
Guest:Studying what?
Guest:I went to SC.
Guest:I was studying music.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:And I wasn't into it.
Guest:I didn't feel it.
Guest:I wasn't.
Guest:The timing was off.
Guest:Sure.
Guest:And I got drafted.
Guest:So when I was signing up or whatever I had to do, I told him, look, the only thing I know how to do is play the trumpet.
Guest:That's all I can do.
Guest:And I lied a bit.
Guest:I said, I played with Count Basie.
Guest:I played with Duke Ellington.
Guest:I mean, I'm just a trumpet player, man.
Guest:I'm not a secretary.
Guest:Don't give me a gun or whatever.
Guest:Anyways, they sent me to band school in Fort Knox, Kentucky for, I think it was six weeks.
Guest:For like marching band kind of stuff?
Guest:No, it was a band school just to organize musicians for the Army.
Guest:Did you learn something there?
Guest:I learned that I wasn't as good as I thought I was.
Guest:There's a lot of good players there from all over the country.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:You know, I had a good aha there.
Marc:Uh-huh.
Marc:Just about your skill set?
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:And I realized that if I was ever going to be a professional, I really had to hone in on a particular direction.
Marc:And did you play revelry and that kind of stuff?
Guest:No, not at band school.
Guest:I did later.
Guest:I was sent to the Presidio in San Francisco.
Guest:Oh, yeah, yeah, yeah.
Guest:I spent almost two years there.
Marc:You were stationed there?
Guest:I was stationed in Presidio.
Guest:It was a fabulous place.
Marc:Beautiful there.
Guest:Oh, it was gorgeous.
Guest:Oh, right there at the bridge.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:So there were 12 trumpet players there.
Guest:And every 12th day, you'd go to the Federal Cemetery and play taps.
Guest:Uh-huh.
Guest:So I had that.
Marc:And then you're in San Francisco, which is sort of happening, right?
Guest:I love San Francisco.
Marc:In that time, in the mid to late 50s, it must have been amazing.
Marc:Yeah.
Guest:Yeah, it was amazing, and I think it still is amazing.
Guest:Sure.
Guest:My wife doesn't like it.
Guest:She's not crazy about it.
Guest:Lonnie thinks it looks like a movie set.
Guest:Well, it does.
Marc:It's that beautiful, in a way.
Guest:Yeah.
Marc:But what was going on there?
Marc:Did you tap into the music scene?
Guest:Oh, yeah.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:They had a great jazz club there called the Black Hawk.
Guest:I used to see Miles and Dave Brubeck.
Guest:Oh, yeah.
Guest:Let's see.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:Cal Jader.
Guest:Uh-huh.
Guest:You know, all the greats.
Guest:Were there comics working with those guys at that time?
Guest:Well.
Marc:Did you see, like, Lenny or Jonathan Winters?
Guest:Well, we played with Lenny once.
Guest:You know, yeah, this is when the Tijuana Brass started.
Guest:We're moving up in time now.
Guest:But we were playing at the Crescendo on Sunset Boulevard owned by Gene Norman.
Guest:Uh-huh.
Guest:Lenny was playing upstairs, and he did his thing, and then we came on.
Guest:He was a knockout.
Guest:I mean, this guy could have you laughing, rolling on the ground.
Guest:I mean, he was that funny.
Guest:And I remember after we played the set, I went downstairs, and Count Basie, man, was playing in the bottom section of this club.
Uh-huh.
Guest:And Lenny was up on the top of the piano, man.
Guest:He was introducing Count Basie.
Guest:And he says, you know why I like Basie?
Guest:And everyone says, why, why, why?
Guest:Because he has big black balls.
Guest:And he jumps off the piano and runs out.
Guest:That was it?
Guest:Yeah, that was it.
Guest:The guy was special.
Marc:Did you get to hang out with him at all?
Guest:No, not at all, but I talked to him a couple times.
Marc:Was he at his peak then?
Guest:He was at his peak.
Guest:That was the height of his thing.
Marc:So when you're seeing Brubeck and Miles and all these cats, because you came a little after that scene, like the bebop scene?
Marc:Yeah.
Marc:And who were some of your role models in that era?
Marc:Chet Baker?
Guest:Well, I love Chet Baker.
Guest:I gave Chet Baker one of my trumpets, actually.
Guest:I became friendly with him, and he was a genius.
Marc:He was an influence on you, though, right?
Guest:He was an influence, but there were a lot of influences.
Guest:He was one of them because Chet didn't know music.
Guest:He didn't know a C chord from his left elbow.
Guest:He was an instinctive musician.
Guest:He could play through a minefield of chord changes without...
Guest:Knowing what he was doing, but he was doing it.
Guest:Strung out, too.
Guest:Well, unfortunately, he was his worst enemy.
Guest:I used to see him at The Hague with the Jerry Mulligan Quartet, and I fell in love with that sound, and Jerry as well, because they'd play a set, and then Jerry would walk up to the microphone and say, in his blurry eyes, staring out, he'd say, shortly.
Guest:Yeah, that was him.
Guest:And I became good friends with Jerry after a while because he recorded for A&M along with Stan Getz and Chet did a record for us too.
Guest:Yeah, I gave Chet a good old Martin committee trumpet that he loved to play.
Guest:And, you know, he pawned that thing two days later.
Guest:Oh, really?
Marc:Yeah.
Marc:It's hard to deal with the guys who were strung out like that.
Guest:I tell you, and he was the sweetheart of a guy.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:He was very sensitive, obviously, but just did not have a handle on himself.
Marc:Yeah, like Art Pepper, too, right?
Guest:Like, art was like... Art was... That's tragic.
Guest:I mean, art was...
Guest:absolutely brilliant yeah and i was i had this idea i was going to do this with him at a&m we had these acoustic chambers yeah on the lot and i was i wanted to put him in a chamber and let him just wail just play whatever he wanted to play and that right he passed out uh passed on about uh two or three weeks before this might have happened oh really yeah yeah he fought it too man like i mean those that that heroin just knocked out a lot of cats right just uh it's just no good
Guest:yeah yeah and did you ever see who was it what was uh art pepper's mentor or his guy lester was it lester young is that well yeah well he was everyone's mentor right that was the president the president and that was the name that billy holliday gave him oh yeah the pres yeah but uh you know most sax players when you talk to them you know it goes from uh probably coleman hawkins to lester young and then it's the new guys you know charlie parker
Guest:Well, Charlie, well, Charlie Parker was on his own planet, man.
Guest:This guy was, you know, he was really unusually special.
Guest:And a hundred years from now, you will still hear him and it's still unique.
Guest:He was.
Marc:Did you see him?
Guest:Never saw him.
Marc:Oh, yeah.
Guest:Never saw him.
Marc:And in terms of trumpet, like, so Chet was sort of responsible for what they called the California sound?
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:was the cool school yeah uh but there were a lot of guys you know uh shorty rogers lived in la he was a really he had a band called shorty rogers and the giants and that picard pepper played in that band uh-huh uh shelly man was his drummer he had a lot of great musicians with him and and and shorty was a really good trumpet player too
Marc:Did you like to play that bebop?
Marc:I mean, like when you were younger?
Guest:No, I didn't know how to do it.
Guest:The transition from classical music to jazz is pretty dramatic.
Guest:It's not that easy.
Guest:Right.
Guest:In classical music, you're working all these scales, diatonic scales.
Guest:Mm-hmm.
Guest:Jazz is a particular language.
Guest:Unless you can play into that language, it doesn't sound good.
Guest:It can sound really corny.
Guest:I was really careful with that.
Marc:But you got to play with some of those dudes in your career, certainly.
Guest:Well, I got to feel more comfortable in that whole genre.
Guest:To me, jazz is...
Guest:Jazz is really special.
Guest:I mean, I think jazz is what we're all looking for.
Guest:Right.
Guest:Jazz is freedom.
Guest:Yeah, yeah.
Guest:And that's the thing.
Guest:I think that's what exemplifies jazz the most.
Guest:You get to do your thing within a group setting, so it's...
Marc:And it doesn't hinge on commercial success or necessarily, you know, context.
Marc:Like, if you're in it, you're in it.
Marc:Yeah, it's just jazz.
Guest:Well, you know, that's the sad part of what's happening in this country.
Guest:Because a dear friend of mine was Stan Getz.
Guest:I mean, we were like brothers the last four years of his life.
Guest:He used to go to Europe.
Guest:Red carpet service, man.
Guest:It didn't care whether he had a hit record or not.
Guest:They just remembered that he was a great musician.
Guest:They hung on with him.
Guest:Whatever country he went into.
Guest:Respect.
Guest:Respect.
Guest:He'd come back to L.A.
Guest:and, you know, it'd be a whole different story.
Marc:What do you attribute that to, that jazz is so specific and so niche in this country, as opposed to like France or anywhere where they have a true appreciation for all forms of music?
Guest:Yeah, lack of education, I think.
Guest:We've managed to carve out the arts program and music in the public and some of the private schools, so that's what you get.
Guest:People are coming up to their own water level, and it's kind of low at the moment.
Marc:Right, right.
Marc:Now, okay, so you're taking all that stuff in, so what's your first foray into pop music before the brass?
Guest:Well, let's see.
Guest:Before the brass, when I heard this record by Les Paul and Mary Ford, but Les was layering his guitars on this record, and his wife's voice, Mary Ford, as well.
Guest:So I started doing that at home in my little studio.
Guest:In my garage, I built a room inside a room.
Marc:Shit happens in garages, man.
Guest:I'm telling you.
Marc:Yeah.
Guest:What happened?
Guest:Yeah, so I started fooling around with layering my horn on this, from tape machine to tape machine, and I came up with this sound that said to me, mm-hmm, that's good.
Guest:And that was the genesis of the Tijuana Brass sound.
Marc:And who were the guys who, how'd you recruit the dudes for the original Tijuana Brass?
Guest:There were no dudes.
Guest:It was like, there was no group until after I recorded the Whipped Cream and Other Delights album.
Guest:Then I got a group together.
Guest:But no, I was using, you know, there was this...
Guest:um the first record was was pretty uh gee was i was playing piano on it and singing parts and and playing percussion you know did everything yeah and played the trumpets and it was a cost a couple hundred bucks to make uh then after a while when we did the uh lonely bull album and album after that we were using you know these guys called the wrecking crew
Marc:Yeah, Danny Tedesco did a documentary about his dad, Tommy.
Guest:He did a fantastic job with this, honoring his dad, who was a phenomenal guitar player.
Marc:Yeah, I knew nothing about any of that until I really talked to him, and I'm so happy that he got the rights and got everything he needed to get that out in the right way.
Guest:Well, it really took him a long time to get the copyright straight and all that, but he hung on like a pit bull.
Marc:It was great.
Marc:Yeah, and just learning about those musicians.
Marc:I saw the Brian Wilson movie and just an unbelievable bunch of people.
Marc:But you lived in it.
Guest:Yeah, it was fun to watch those guys because they were very flexible.
Guest:They'd go from our session to the Beach Boys, to Sinatra, to wherever, and they'd be... And I think they got off on it.
Guest:Totally got off on it.
Guest:And they were...
Guest:in the moment you know yeah yeah hal was uh totally consumed with what i i was trying to do and is trying to you know get into it you know yeah try to see the music through me and he always did it so like you know you've had like you've made like do you even know how many records no no a lot
Marc:And you've had a lot of number one hits, and you've had concurrent hits, and you've had several Grammys.
Marc:I know that music's magic, but the Tijuana Brass comes, and that sound locks in.
Marc:What was going on culturally in music that you think just blew everyone's mind about what you were doing?
Marc:Do you ever think about it?
Guest:Yeah, I think about it, and I think it all has to do with the song.
Guest:I think it's all about songs.
Guest:Good melodies.
Marc:Yeah.
Marc:Taste of Honey, I remember.
Marc:Taste of Honey was like huge.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:It was in the back door, by the way.
Guest:How so?
Guest:Well, after I did the Whipped Cream album, finally got a group together, a traveling group together.
Guest:Uh-huh.
Guest:My partner loved this song that I did called Third Man Theme.
Guest:Mm-hmm.
Guest:And Taste of Honey was on the B-side.
Guest:Uh-huh.
Guest:So when we got the group together and we were playing at this place in Seattle, Washington, the Edgewater Inn.
Guest:Uh-huh.
Guest:Every time I played Taste of Honey, people would go crazy, man.
Guest:And so I called Jerry.
Guest:I said, Jerry, I'm telling you, man, there's a focus group here that's telling me Taste of Honey is the side, not third man theme.
Guest:He says, well, man, you can't dance to it.
Guest:It stops and starts.
Guest:I said, look it, man, it's Taste of Honey.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:So we finally turned it over and it became a big hit.
Guest:And that was the door opener.
Guest:That was the door that swung so wide that we got Ed Sullivan and Dean Martin and all those major shows.
Marc:So to put together a touring band, who were the guys you chose for that and why?
Guest:Well, we auditioned musicians, and I just chose the guys that I felt could represent what I was doing.
Marc:And how long did you travel with them?
Guest:Oh, a long time.
Marc:Yeah?
Guest:Yeah, through 1969, from 1966 or 1965 and a half to 69.
Marc:And that sound, man, I mean, it's a very specific sound you created.
Marc:If you hear any of your music, you know it's you.
Yeah.
Marc:That's a rare thing.
Guest:Well, it might be rare, but that's the thing you're all going for.
Guest:Sure.
Guest:For as an artist, whether you're a dancer, a poet, a writer, a disc jockey.
Guest:Sure, man.
Guest:You go for your own thing, you know?
Guest:And that's what I was doing.
Guest:I wanted to express myself.
Guest:Uh-huh.
Guest:Because I could have done the Lonely Bull sideways and tried to do, you know, the fancy stuff with the same thing.
Guest:No, I wanted to see how far I could push it.
Marc:There's a swing to it, right?
Marc:I mean, what do you call your sound?
Marc:I mean, what?
Guest:It has a good feel.
Guest:It has a good feel, and I can pick on good songs.
Guest:But I'll tell you what happened when The Lonely Bull was top ten.
Guest:I got this letter from a lady in Germany who said, Dear Mr. Alpert, thank you for sending me on this vicarious trip to Tijuana.
Guest:Now, I chuckled when I saw it, and then I thought, wow, that music was so visual for her, it transported her.
Guest:I mean, I want to make visual music.
Guest:And that's pretty much the way I hear it.
Guest:And the other thing that happened was that I had this great experience with the great Sam Cooke, and he taught me a lot.
Guest:And I would...
Guest:I have this ability because, you know, I paint and I sculpt and I blow the horn and do my art stuff because I'm 85% in the bright side of my brain.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:I have become an audience to what I do.
Guest:You know, when I listen to a recording of mine or when I'm recording and I play it back, I'm not listening to the trumpet player.
Guest:I'm listening to the overall feeling.
Guest:Does it feel good?
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:Is it something I would want to buy myself if I heard it or, you know, does it touch me?
Guest:And that's the measure and that's...
Marc:You can detach from it a little bit.
Guest:I can detach from it completely, man.
Guest:I have nine huge totems at the Field Museum in Chicago at the moment.
Marc:Sculptures.
Guest:Sculptures, yeah, in bronze from 13 to 18 feet tall.
Guest:And when I saw them a week later, because we happened to be playing in Chicago, I went to the museum and I looked at these pieces.
Guest:I said, wow, man, that's good.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:I mean, I know it sounds corny, but, man, that's the way I feel.
Marc:Hey, man, if you can have that detachment and that appreciation and know you're done with something and you're proud of it, I mean, that's the best.
Marc:I mean, what, are you going to be one of those guys that's, like, never good enough?
Marc:What do you want to live like that for?
Guest:Well, I think you have to believe in what you're doing.
Guest:I mean, if you don't believe in it, why are you expecting someone else to believe in it?
Guest:Right, right.
Guest:Yeah, I do have that...
Guest:feeling about what I do, but that other little dimension of, you know, when I produced records, you know, not my own records, but other artists, and I'd have the drummer or the bass player or the piano player in the control room when we're listening to a playback.
Guest:Well, the drummer's saying he's not hearing enough drums.
Guest:The bass player wants to hear more bass.
Guest:Of course, right.
Guest:So you got to block that out.
Guest:And just, you know, I just, I would go for the feel.
Guest:Does it feel right?
Guest:When it feels right for me, I stop.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:And I had that experience in 1968 or so.
Guest:We recorded This Guy's In Love With You.
Marc:Yeah.
Guest:Which was amazing.
Guest:number one record and you did vocals on that which wasn't your thing I did a vocal because of this television show I was doing and Burt Bacharach did the arrangements and I was we had the track and I was at Gold Star Studios and I wanted to see whether my voice would sound good on this track if it was in the right key so I'm in the studio singing the song and Burt and some of the other musicians are in the control room I finish it and I walk into the control room and they said don't touch it
Guest:I said, don't touch what?
Guest:He said, don't touch it, man.
Guest:It was just great.
Guest:I mean, I was honest.
Guest:It felt good.
Guest:You know, and I listened to it and I said, yeah, it does.
Guest:It does feel good.
Guest:I mean, there's little things that I would probably could have improved on it.
Guest:Uh-huh.
Guest:But the feeling was there.
Guest:I think it's all about feeling.
Guest:Sure, man.
Guest:And that was a huge hit for you.
Guest:It was number one.
Marc:You didn't do much singing.
Guest:No, no.
Guest:I don't think of myself as a singer.
Guest:But if you get the right song and the right arrangement.
Marc:Yeah.
Guest:Hello.
Marc:And the feeling's there.
Guest:Yeah, it's all about feeling, man.
Guest:That's what I try to impress on artists that, you know, with A&M.
Marc:Yeah.
Marc:What about Sam Cooke?
Guest:Oh, man.
Guest:Well, I wrote, you know, Wonderful World with him, with Lou Adler.
Guest:Me and Sam wrote Don't Know Much About History.
Guest:Yeah, sure, I know that song, yeah.
Guest:And Sam was an unusual artist, man.
Guest:He had magic.
Guest:He had that it thing, whatever that is.
Marc:I got a collection of the, what was his gospel group?
Marc:The Soul Searchers?
Marc:The Soul Stewards.
Marc:Oh, my God.
Guest:Sam was the lead singer.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:And he had just an innate ability to do the right thing.
Guest:He'd come in with this notebook filled with lyrics, and he'd look at me and say, Herbie, what do you think of this lyric here?
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:And I'd look at it, and the lyric really looked really corny, man.
Guest:It really looked like trite stuff.
Guest:I said, well, what does it sound like?
Guest:What's the song like?
Guest:He'd pick up his guitar, and holy moly, man, the thing would transform into something fabulous, you know?
Guest:He had it, because his passion was there.
Guest:His intent was there.
Guest:And I think that's the whole thing would transform.
Marc:And that's what you learned with him, that there was a magic?
Guest:Oh, I learned a lot more.
Guest:You know, he was the first black artist to have his own record company.
Guest:He had Sarr Records.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:And he was auditioning this artist for his company.
Guest:And I was in the control room with Lou and Sam was listening as well.
Guest:And this artist came in.
Guest:He was from the Caribbean.
Guest:Beautiful guy, man, green eyes and tall.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:Playing guitar and singing.
Guest:And I'd look at him and Sam said, what do you think?
Guest:I said, man, I think the guy's great.
Guest:You ought to sign him.
Guest:He says, well, turn your back on him for five minutes and let me know what you think.
Guest:I turned my back and the guy wasn't happening.
Guest:You know what I mean?
Guest:And that's when he said, man, it doesn't matter what you look like, you're black, you're white, what kind of echo chamber you're using.
Guest:He said, the people are listening to a cold piece of wax.
Guest:It either makes it or it don't.
Guest:And it's all about, you know.
Guest:So I got into that, the feel of it.
Guest:And then any time I'd audition an artist at A&M, it was always with my eyes closed, you know.
Marc:Because of that experience.
Guest:because of that experience because i didn't want to be intimidated i didn't want somebody who could dance like michael jackson and and just yeah distract you from me yeah yeah that guy's a hell of a showman and you don't know that he's terrible oh well yeah i mean of course it's taken another turn you know with mtv and all that when that came in all of a sudden people were listening with their eyes you know sure and now the spectacle of a of a pop show is insane dude
Marc:I mean, and some people don't even sing their own tracks.
Guest:Yeah.
Marc:And it's insane.
Marc:So what was the incentive for starting a label at that time?
Marc:What year was that?
Guest:Well, that was 1962.
Guest:And like I said before, there were like a lot of little labels hanging around, just taking a chance.
Guest:And we weren't starting a major company.
Guest:We were just, you wanted to release a record.
Guest:Of yours?
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:And so the original label was called Carnival Records.
Guest:And how did you meet your partner?
Guest:Well, Lou Adler and I were working for a company in New York and the head promotion man went to school with Jerry, Jerry Moss.
Guest:And he introduced us, introduced me, and Jerry at the time was in New York and had desires to move to L.A.
Marc:Lou introduced you?
Guest:No, this Ted Fagan, who was the head promotion man of this company.
Marc:Okay.
Guest:And how did you know Lou?
Guest:Okay, Lou.
Guest:Lou used to date my ex-wife.
Guest:Hey.
Guest:I met Lou when I got out of the army, and Lou was married to my ex-wife's girlfriend.
Guest:Uh-huh.
Guest:And we became friends.
Guest:We just hit it off.
Guest:Like, we clicked.
Guest:Lou and I just clicked immediately.
Marc:What did he do then?
Guest:Well, he was selling insurance, whatever that called, and then he was working for a clothier, Zeidler and Zeidler.
Guest:And he'd write poetry.
Guest:So he wrote a lot of poetry, and I took the poetry and wrote some music to the poetry, and then that started.
Marc:So he came in as kind of a songwriter in a way?
Guest:Well, yeah, we were both songwriters at that point.
Guest:And then we had about six songs that we made demonstration records of, and we took them around the various publishing companies, and we took it to one company...
Guest:We took it to specialty records, and Sonny Bono was the A&R director at that time of specialty records.
Guest:And we had to go downstairs in this little funky room, and Sonny listened to the thing, and he said, I don't think you guys are right for this business.
Guest:You know, he tried to talk us out of it.
Guest:so and that's a young shiny before phil specter before anything uh yeah that was before that yeah we finally got a job with keen records k-double-e-n you and lou lou and i and uh that time uh sam was their major artist he had that you send me record which was number one and we started working for bumps blackwell who produced sam's uh records as songwriters
Guest:As songwriters.
Guest:And, you know, just watching people record and learning that bit.
Guest:What other songs did you write in that time?
Guest:Well, we wrote a song called All of My Life, which didn't happen.
Guest:But the experience I had, which was the aha for me, was we were at...
Guest:radio recorders in los angeles and i was privy to watch this session that this producer i think he was with challenge records and he was a noted producer and he made some hit records and i was in the control room watching him and they were rehearsing in the studio and he got on the horn and said plaz johnson was playing uh tenor sax so
Guest:And he said, that was great.
Guest:Plaz, play that again.
Guest:Plaz said, did you record it?
Guest:He said, no, I didn't.
Guest:But you know what you played.
Guest:Just play the same thing.
Guest:And Plaz looked at him in disbelief.
Guest:And I thought, like, holy shit, man, I can do that.
Guest:I didn't believe that he didn't put it together, that Plaz had just played something off the top of his head and couldn't reproduce it.
Marc:So, OK, so A&M, it's you and Lou Adler and Jerry, right?
Marc:Yeah.
Guest:Well, no, I left Lou in around 1958 or nine.
Marc:As a songwriting partner?
Guest:Yeah, as a partner, because I was working at a gym when I was in high school, and I used to go to this gym now and then.
Guest:This guy looked at me, he says, man, you should be in the movies.
Guest:I said, okay, put me in.
Guest:I took his challenge, and he introduced me to some people at Paramount Studios.
Guest:Oh, yeah.
Guest:And I took an audition for some things, and I was really green.
Guest:Man, I couldn't act.
Guest:They liked me, but they said, you need... Chops.
Guest:Yeah, you need more chops.
Guest:So I started studying.
Guest:I studied with...
Guest:uh jeff cory and then uh leonard nimoy oh really that was before leonard you know hit the big time uh-huh and that was fun but i realized that that wasn't my thing yeah did you do any movies as a musician as background which ones oh man i was in 20 years oh really oh yeah like in the band
Guest:In the band, but like in the Ten Commandments, I played Kettledrum and Aida Horn.
Marc:On those big sets?
Guest:Oh, the huge sets.
Marc:Didn't DeMille direct that?
Guest:Cecil B. DeMille.
Guest:Oh, my God.
Guest:Let me tell you, I was playing Kettledrums in the Idolizing the Golden Calf scene as Moses was coming down from Mount Sinai and...
Guest:The scene was going to open up on my back.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:Oh, right.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:And I turned around and DeMille was up with the cameraman.
Guest:I turned around and said, Mr. DeMille, do you mind opening up on my face?
Guest:And he looked at me in disbelief and he said, not this time, kid.
Guest:Give me a shot, man.
Guest:That's beautiful.
Guest:Yeah, no, that was quite an experience.
Guest:I was on that movie for like three months.
Guest:Because DeMille would just have extras outside there just in case he wanted to change directions.
Guest:Cast of thousands.
Guest:Oh, it was ridiculous.
Guest:Doesn't happen.
Guest:He was a trip to watch because he had, let's say, one, two, three.
Guest:There were five guys around him.
Guest:One on each side.
Guest:And then there was a guy following him with a stool.
Guest:So anytime he wanted to sit down, man, he wouldn't look behind him.
Guest:He would just sit down, man.
Guest:The stool would be there.
Guest:I wonder what that guy's up to.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:And then the other guys were like, you know, if he took off his coat or something, he would just take it.
Guest:He was kind of one of those guys.
Guest:Old school.
Marc:Yeah, real old school.
Marc:He defined something.
Marc:When you have the idea of the stereotypical old director, that's the guy.
Marc:Yeah.
Guest:Yeah, yeah.
Guest:With a bullhorn?
Guest:Yeah, really.
Guest:And there were a lot of stories floating around with them.
Guest:This lady that was supposedly in his movies, every movie ever made after the 30s because she called him a ball-headed son of a bitch, you know?
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:Because he wouldn't break.
Guest:No, she said, this was in the 30s, and there's...
Guest:A lot of disruption on the set.
Guest:And he said, I'm not going to continue until somebody tells me what's the deal.
Guest:And she chimed in and said, I wonder what this baldhead son of a bitch was going to break for lunch.
Guest:And he looked at her and he asked her to lunch.
Guest:And ever since then.
Guest:That was it.
Marc:Every movie.
Marc:That's hilarious.
Marc:So you're in the acting racket for a little while.
Marc:Yeah.
Marc:And Lou goes and does his thing.
Marc:And then how do you meet up with Moss?
Guest:Well, Moss eventually landed in Los Angeles and he wanted to do a record with a friend of his, an actor friend.
Guest:I helped him put that together and I recorded this record prior to meeting Jerry called Tell It to the Birds.
Mm-hmm.
Guest:I was singing on that thing because I wanted to really make a demo for, I thought it would be good for the Beatles or something.
Guest:Right, right, yeah.
Guest:Yeah, who wouldn't want a Beatle record?
Marc:Sure, right?
Guest:Okay, so anyways, we put that record out under Carnival, and it started making some noise.
Guest:And with that, we turned it over to Dot Records at the time.
Guest:Wink Martindale was the...
Guest:Really?
Guest:Yeah, he was the A&R person at Dog Records.
Guest:They took it.
Guest:They gave us like 500 bucks for it.
Guest:And with that money, we recorded The Lonely Bull.
Marc:And that was it.
Marc:And then history was made.
Marc:Yeah.
Marc:And that was the beginning of A&M?
Marc:Oh, 1962, yeah.
Guest:Lonely Bull was the first record.
Guest:And my partner Jerry, you know, he took care of all the heavy-duty stuff because he had more of a business concept.
Guest:Need that guy.
Guest:Yeah, definitely need that guy, you know.
Guest:So Lonely Bull was 101.
Guest:That was the name...
Guest:when we took the number of the record.
Guest:I said, well, how come it's 101?
Guest:He says, let's let the distributors think we had 100 records out before this one.
Marc:And you could get away with that back then.
Marc:Yeah, so that was good thinking.
Marc:This guy's been around for a while.
Marc:So you did every record of yours on A&M up until you left A&M for the most part.
Marc:Yeah.
Marc:Wow.
Marc:But here's the amazing thing about A&M is like the artists you guys signed, who was your A&R guy?
Guest:Well, me and Jerry to start with.
Guest:Really?
Guest:Well, there was just the two of us.
Guest:That was it, right?
Guest:No, it was in my garage.
Guest:We started in my garage.
Guest:That's crazy.
Marc:Who was the first artist you signed?
Guest:Oh, boy.
Guest:We signed a group called the Ken Jalairs.
Guest:It was a vocal group.
Guest:They didn't do much.
Guest:A couple of nice records.
Guest:Then we signed George McCurn, who was the...
Guest:The bass singer with the Pilgrim Travelers.
Guest:I learned a lot from that group, too, by the way.
Guest:The Pilgrim Travelers were recording for Keen Records.
Guest:And then Little Brothers.
Guest:You know, the brass was...
Guest:we were you know really the ones that were keeping a&m alive you guys were big you had hits yeah yeah but that was uh like like around 1968 or seven we picked up we five yeah that group and that was the number one record and then we got in 1966 we signed sergio mendez in brazil 66 which was a nice move
Guest:And they opened the show for us for some time.
Guest:And then because of that exposure, and I produced the first couple albums of theirs, they took off.
Marc:Yeah.
Marc:And then you're off and running as a label.
Guest:Yeah, then we're off and running, and then Jerry wanted to get a little harder edge, and we got Joe Cocker and Cat Stevens.
Marc:How'd you get all those guys?
Guest:Well, from London.
Guest:You set up an office there?
Guest:Yeah, we set up an office in London.
Marc:Wow.
Marc:You did the Carpenters?
Guest:Oh, yeah.
Guest:I signed the Carpenters in 69.
Guest:Huge.
Marc:Yeah.
Guest:Right?
Guest:They were huge.
Guest:It took a while for them to really catch on.
Guest:It didn't happen right overnight.
Marc:And Burt Bacharach did his solo stuff with you?
Guest:Oh, yeah, Bert was recording for us.
Guest:And then, like, I'm just looking at the... Well, Quincy Jones and Janet Jackson and Supertramp.
Guest:The police?
Guest:The police, for sure.
Guest:The police were outstanding.
Guest:I mean, first time I saw them live, I mean, it was like, wow, isn't that great?
Guest:Three guys, man, making that type of sound.
Guest:Oh, it's amazing.
Guest:Sting, you know, wrote wonderful songs.
Guest:But you did Humble Pie, you did Free.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:Did Joe Jackson.
Guest:Joe Jackson, yeah.
Guest:I mean, these were like sticks.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:Oh, yeah.
Guest:We had a great roster.
Marc:But at some point, you hired A&R guys, right?
Guest:Oh, yeah.
Guest:At that point, we really were stretching out.
Guest:But that was why we sold.
Guest:As far as I'm concerned, we sold the company in 1990.
Guest:It started with the two of us, then three, five, ten.
Guest:And all of a sudden, we had 500 people.
Guest:I said, man, this is...
Guest:Way beyond me having a good time doing this.
Marc:But you had no, I mean, that whole side of the business, I imagine initially was not your goal, right?
Marc:And then it just became this amazing thing.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:When I first had the group with Tijuana Brass, before we traveled to Seattle, that story I told, we played it in Los Angeles and we opened the show for Dave Brubeck.
Guest:And, you know, and I remember coming off stage and Paul Desmond, who was like one of my all time favorite musicians, you know, he was leaning against the wall as I was coming off and he was scratching his head.
Guest:He said, I don't know what I just heard, but I think I like it.
Yeah.
Marc:It seemed that there was a transition in terms of instrumental music.
Marc:Instrumental popular music has always had its own place in a way, right?
Marc:I mean, there was a period in, I guess, the 30s, 40s, and then a bit in the 50s where it was all the music, all dance music, was a lot of instrumental.
Marc:It was a big band and swing and that kind of stuff.
Marc:But it seemed that you were sort of at the beginning of redefining instrumental music as popular music that kind of led to all of them, to Spyro Gyro, Kenny G, all these cats that did that.
Marc:It's a very specific area, right?
Guest:It seemed like it.
Guest:Unfortunately, now, instrumental music is kind of on the back burner.
Guest:A lot of these stations won't play music if it's just straight instrumental.
Guest:But it was a popular thing for a long time.
Guest:Yeah, it was very popular.
Marc:And you never stopped playing.
Marc:Throughout all of A&M, you were recording dozens of records.
Marc:You didn't stay with the Tijuana Brass?
Guest:No, I didn't stay with them.
Guest:We ended in...
Guest:In 1969, then I got another group together, a little different group of the Tijuana Brass in 74.
Guest:We played for a command performance for the Queen Elizabeth, which was a trip.
Guest:What songs did you play?
Guest:Oh, the Tijuana Brass songs, but with a little different group.
Guest:And it was, you know, some other songs as well, but it was quite a moment.
Marc:How many Grammys?
Marc:Nine.
Marc:For records and production, right?
Yeah.
Guest:Yeah, I don't know.
Marc:So as a producer, I've asked this to other music producers who I've talked to, what are you servicing?
Marc:What is the job of a producer when you're producing someone that is maybe not even necessarily the type of music that you play?
Guest:Yeah, it depends who you're producing.
Guest:And when I did Sergio Mendez, after I did that first album,
Guest:And Sergio kind of got the hang of it.
Guest:In that first album, we had Moshkinata, which was a big hit in clubs and moderate hit on the charts.
Guest:I remember in the studio, in our Studio B, with my feet up on the desk and listening to the music, thinking, man, I don't have to do anything.
Guest:It's happening by itself.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:So all I have to do is get out of the way of this thing.
Marc:Yeah, and watch those levels, I guess.
Guest:Well, not let the engineer do that, you know.
Guest:So it depends on who you're producing.
Guest:But it's about the songs.
Guest:It's about making an artist comfortable in the studio.
Guest:You know, at A&M, in Studio B, I put in this huge crystal embedded into the wall.
Guest:Mm-hmm.
Guest:So, you know, a lot of times artists would come in, even if they weren't recording in that particular studio, they'd be in front of that crystal like they were in Jerusalem, a wailing wall, davening against the thing and with the thing.
Guest:And I don't know what they were thinking about.
Marc:Well, you know, I guess we got room for a little magic.
Guest:yeah well you know it's funny you say that word that's that's the word that that strikes me about art there's a mystery about art what makes something that makes you want to listen to it over and over again or a piece of sculpture that you know gives you a rush or a painting or walking in front of a jackson pollock painting and getting it if you think too hard and you try to analyze it man you ain't gonna find it no you gotta let it hit you
Guest:Yeah, and I think that's what art is.
Guest:It's that mystery.
Guest:What is that thing?
Marc:Yeah, thank God they haven't figured out how to quantify it.
Guest:They try.
Guest:Well, so do I. I'm chasing it all the time because what is that thing that makes me feel good when I hear a particular song or when I'm playing and I get a little charge up the back?
Marc:Yeah, that's it.
Marc:So once you left, I mean, you stayed at A&M after you sold it for a long time.
Guest:Just for a couple years.
Guest:It kind of changed hands and it changed what they had promised Jerry and I. It kind of morphed into a more corporate type of thing.
Guest:Our thing was not corporate at all.
Guest:It was like Jerry and I, we'd make decisions constantly.
Guest:quickly and you knew everybody in a way yeah well smaller business not when there was 500 people but i mean yeah when we wanted to sign an artist he said i'm signing the carpenters yeah he said great you know that was it wasn't like he had you had to pass judgment on it uh-huh and then whatever he wanted to sign we signed and where'd you find them
Guest:I heard a tape, and I heard a tape, and I put this tape on in my office and did the Sam Cooke thing.
Guest:I was sitting on my couch, closed my eyes, listening to this music, and it felt like this voice, Karen's voice, was like sitting next to me or something.
Guest:There was something powerful about her voice, even though she didn't think she was a singer.
Guest:Man, she was playing drums on these demos.
Right.
Guest:But she had that certain something.
Guest:I met them and realized, you know, it wasn't the music that I loved to listen to myself, but I recognized their passion for what they were doing.
Marc:Yeah.
Marc:And it was come from a heavy place, it turns out.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:But, you know, it took a while.
Guest:I mean, there's a whole story connected with the success and how it came about.
Guest:But it's, you know, the first...
Guest:year or so, I think some of the people in my own company were in doubt why I signed them.
Guest:They thought they were maybe a little too light, too cute, whatever.
Guest:And then I gave them Close to You, that song that Burt Bacharach and Hal David wrote, and that was the one that did it.
Guest:It did it because they recorded it, and I listened to it.
Guest:I said, no, man, it's not right.
Guest:It's not heavy enough.
Guest:It needs more artillery.
Guest:They recorded it again, and Karen was still playing drums on it and rejected it.
Guest:And the third time, they got the wrecking crew.
Guest:Joe Osborne was playing bass, and Cal was on drums, and they got the...
Guest:the motor going yeah and then you know this great arrangement that Richard did it was beautiful and that was the and that's what did it yeah the big door opener for them A&M did some of the first comedy records didn't they
Guest:We did.
Guest:Oh, man.
Guest:This was a mistake.
Guest:When we played in New York for the first time, we were playing at the old Basin Street in New York, and who was opening the show for us?
Guest:George Carlin, man, was opening the show, and he was fall-down funny.
Guest:He came in suit and tie and short hair, and he was talking about commercials and the weather and all that.
Guest:And I recorded them.
Guest:And for some reason, our people didn't get it.
Guest:So it was never released.
Guest:Really?
Guest:And, man, on top of that one, in California, we played a series of colleges with the Tijuana Brass.
Guest:And Woody Allen opened the show for us.
Marc:Really?
Marc:Yeah.
Marc:In that short period that he was a stand-up?
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:There was only a couple years there.
Guest:This was before the movies.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:And he was drop-dead funny.
Marc:Did you ever release any comedy records on A&M?
Guest:Yeah, we did.
Guest:Did you do Cheech and Chong?
Guest:Yeah, well, Cheech and Chong was on Lou Adler's label.
Guest:Right, yeah.
Yeah.
Marc:So he had a label within A&M?
Guest:Yeah, we distributed his label.
Marc:Okay.
Marc:So that was really the first huge comedy record of the new comedy.
Guest:Yeah, and of course Lou had the Carole King record of Tapestry.
Marc:Oh yeah, that's a big record.
Guest:And that was recorded in our Studio B. That's a huge record.
Marc:Huge.
Marc:So do you take any time in between moving out of that environment and your job at a record company, do you take any time or do you just keep playing?
Guest:Do you just sort of like... Yeah, I'm playing all the time.
Guest:I mean, I play for my own pleasure.
Guest:It's one of those things.
Guest:If I'm down and I feel kind of the day ain't happening, if I go in my studio and pick up the horn and start fooling around playing various exercises or...
Guest:the beauty of being a musician and being an artist you get to be in the moment of your life that's the only thing that matters is the thing you're doing at that moment and your wife now is also a musician my wife was the lead singer with Brazil 66 she was that voice and that's how we met and we were friends for some time before anything else happened she's an outstanding artist she's a world class singer
Marc:So there's two of you in the house.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:So we have a grand old time doing concerts around the country.
Guest:We just got back from Japan and that was, except for the time change, it was fun.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:Well, you got it all together.
Guest:That's a gift, man.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:I'll tell you what happened in Japan.
Guest:I didn't realize most of the people don't speak English.
Guest:And when they do, you can't understand them very much.
Guest:You know, there's obviously some that really do well.
Guest:And we were playing at this club.
Guest:We were playing at the Blue Note Club.
Guest:And I started singing.
Guest:I do that in the medley, This Guy's in Love With You.
Guest:And they all started singing with me phonetically.
Guest:Man, it was fantastic.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:Oh, that's beautiful.
Guest:Yeah, it's been a beautiful LeBron for me.
Marc:Doesn't that shit make you weep sometimes?
Marc:Just with that joy of it?
Marc:Something about singing to me, I get very moved by it, especially if there's a lot of people doing it.
Marc:I go to musicals.
Marc:I don't necessarily consider myself a musical lover, but there's something about people singing and dancing.
Guest:Yeah, well, singing is quite a thing.
Guest:I had an experience watching...
Guest:Billie Holiday, believe it or not.
Guest:Yeah, this was maybe a few months before she passed on.
Guest:And she was singing here in Los Angeles at a place called, I think it was Jazz City or a place like that.
Guest:I don't know if I have the name right.
Guest:But anyway, she was singing and the drummer behind her was... And she turned around and looked at him and said...
Guest:If you wish to solo, I will go out in front and listen to you.
Marc:I love that.
Marc:Put that guy in his place.
Marc:Yeah.
Marc:So this new record is down.
Marc:Now, what do you do for labels now?
Marc:How do you handle your relationship with the labels?
Guest:Well, we have our own label.
Guest:You do?
Guest:Okay.
Guest:It's a wonderful little label.
Guest:Do it right out of your house?
Guest:Boutique label.
Guest:It's out of my wonderful nephew's house, Randy.
Marc:Oh, yeah?
Marc:Everyone's in the business.
Guest:My pursuit always has been if I can find a song that I like the melody, if I can do it in a way that hasn't been done quite that way before.
Marc:Yeah, Chattanooga.
Marc:I never heard Chattanooga choo-choo sound like that.
Guest:Well, check out Take the A-Train on the new album.
Guest:Okay.
Guest:That's pretty amazing because it's not written in three.
Guest:I do it in three, four, and it's written in four.
Guest:You know, I always remember what...
Guest:uh picasso once said he said you can paint the same picture over and over again but if you don't do it the same way that's the way to do it that's the trick that's the trick what kind of rooms you playing well 900 to 1200 to 1400 people yeah nice venues and some would play clubs will play clubs in like uh jazz alley in seattle which is i don't know maybe hold 400 people
Guest:But it's fun.
Guest:I love to play.
Guest:I just really do get off playing the trumpet.
Marc:And who comes out?
Marc:You see a mixture of people, all ages?
Guest:I'm telling you, man, they're young to old.
Guest:It's beautiful.
Guest:When we first thought about getting a group together, I was very reluctant.
Guest:I thought maybe, okay, I'm going to go out there and people are going to say, play Taste of Funny, play all those records that...
Guest:It hits with, and it hasn't been like that.
Guest:People are accepting us on the level that we're presenting it.
Marc:It's beautiful, man.
Marc:You've had an amazing life, sir, and I appreciate you sharing some time with me here.
Guest:It's been fun.
Guest:Thanks, man.
Guest:There's more to come.
Marc:Yeah, I feel that.
Marc:I definitely feel that.
Marc:Thanks, Herb.
Guest:Thank you.
Marc:Pretty lucid.
Marc:Pretty lucid, man.
Marc:I love when these old dudes can fucking talk and they're still living life and they have just a peace of mind.
Marc:He's 80 years old, that dude.
Marc:So that's our show.
Marc:I hope you enjoyed that.
Marc:Go to WTFPod.com for all your WTFPod needs.
Marc:I will play a little guitar, I think.
Marc:I need to take some time to learn some new stuff, but let me get it together here.
Marc:Let me get it together.
Marc:Thank you for listening.
Marc:And I'll outro with something here.
Guest:Boomer Lives!