Episode 780 - Jonathan Daniel / Nick Thune
Marc:Alright, let's do this.
Marc:How are you, what the fuckers?
Marc:What the fuck buddies?
Marc:What the fucking ears?
Marc:What the fuck nicks?
Marc:What the hell?
Marc:What the fuck?
Marc:What?
Marc:What did I just do?
Marc:What's happening?
Marc:This is Mark Maron.
Marc:This is my podcast.
Marc:This is WTF.
Marc:Thank you for joining us.
Marc:For joining us all here this morning.
Marc:I am sitting...
Marc:Right now I'm in transit or I'm about to be in transit.
Marc:Just wanted to get this done before I took off because you never know with air travel.
Marc:But I'm sitting in a hotel room looking over the city of Tallahassee, Florida.
Marc:I'm looking out, I don't know into what state.
Marc:I don't know if it's Alabama or Georgia or deeper into Florida.
Marc:The air and the sky is crystal clear.
Marc:Very lush, very green.
Marc:Tallahassee is not a large city, so just beyond the city, it looks like nothing but woods.
Marc:And that makes me nervous, but I'm here.
Marc:Oh, squeaky chair.
Marc:All right, sitting there.
Marc:Sorry, folks, just bear with me.
Marc:Let me just get that out of the chair system.
Marc:We have two guests on the show today.
Marc:Well, I mean, there's the traditional, when I do it this way, there's the short interview or the shorter interview and then the long interview.
Marc:Today, Nick Thune will be here with us again.
Marc:I haven't spoken to Nick in a while.
Marc:He's got a special coming on soon.
Marc:It's a new stand-up special, Good Guy.
Marc:It's available on CISO and Amazon.
Marc:You can also check out my full interview with Nick on episode 189 of WTF, and that's available on Howell.
Marc:Go to Howell.fm and sign up for a premium account.
Marc:Nick's a good guy.
Marc:We always get pretty deep pretty quick in a specific way that I don't usually get with other guests, so it was good to talk to him again.
Marc:But the other guest...
Marc:The longer interview today is my old buddy, Jonathan Daniel.
Marc:John Daniel and I go back, way back actually, to New York, mid-90s, when he had hit the wall after being in a hair band in L.A.
Marc:and was in some sort of horrible accounting job in the music business.
Marc:And he went on to create a very big music management program.
Marc:a company, Crush Management, where he handles people like Weezer, Panic at the Disco, Fall Out Boy, Courtney Love, Sia.
Marc:But when I knew him, man, he knew what was going to happen, and it wasn't looking good.
Marc:So it's great, and we haven't talked like this probably ever.
Marc:And it was great to see him and great to talk to an old friend, but also great to hear the whole story because even when you know people for decades –
Marc:Almost.
Marc:You don't always know the whole story.
Marc:So, yeah, I'm going to talk to John Daniel and Nick Thune today.
Marc:And I'll tell you, man, if you spend...
Marc:You know, a minute and a half on any social media platform, you just assume that you go out into the world and everybody's yelling at each other or everybody's full of hate or everybody's like, there's no possible way for us to communicate with each other as people.
Marc:Just nothing but suspicion and contempt out there.
Marc:And so it works my brain.
Marc:I don't have the greatest personal boundaries or the ability to insulate myself emotionally that well when I take shit into my eyes.
Marc:When I eat shit with my eyes, it affects my brain and fucks my heart up sometimes.
Marc:So, a little paranoid.
Marc:But I get down here and I'm trying to, you know, I like to engage with the city.
Marc:I check into the hotel late at night and check in with the news of the day, which did not help me sleep.
Marc:And I get up and, you know, I'm just to go find some coffee, found some coffee that the city does not did not seem very booming, but I might be in the downtown area.
Marc:I don't know.
Marc:This is the capital of Florida.
Marc:And then I, you know, I'm trying to find some healthy stuff to eat because, you know, it's weird.
Marc:You know, when you're thinking about a possible impending apocalypse and carbohydrates, it's a tough place to be.
Marc:One of them has to give.
Marc:And I thought it would be the carbohydrates.
Marc:I thought it would be the shitty food.
Marc:But I somehow managed to find the fortitude to go out and find some decent veggie food in Tallahassee.
Marc:So, you know, I took care of that.
Marc:So I honored my fear of dying from a clogged heart.
Marc:The pending apocalypse fear persists.
Marc:But God damn it, I'm going to go out and eat myself some reasonable protein and some not so fatty.
Marc:So I got to go find some tofu in Tallahassee.
Marc:There's that chair.
Marc:Sorry.
Marc:So I find a place online called Soul Veg, vegetarian soul food.
Marc:And it looks like it's about a mile away, so I'll walk it.
Marc:And I walk, and I'm looking around, and there's not a lot of people on the street, but I don't think there's a lot of people on the street in general.
Marc:There's a huge college here.
Marc:FSU is here, and the gig that I performed last night is actually at the college, part of their opening night series.
Marc:Segura was on.
Marc:Tom Segura was the night before me.
Marc:Nice little 1,200-seater place, from what I'm told.
Marc:And, well, so I take a walk.
Marc:I go out and walk and I come to this little strip mall.
Marc:It's always weird to walk in places that are, you know, you can tell are fundamentally driving cities.
Marc:Well, most cities are, I guess.
Marc:But you do feel a little isolated.
Marc:And when you see someone walking towards you from a half a mile away, you have a lot of time to think about how that's going to go.
Marc:But I walk, say hi to some people, friendly face, not from around here.
Marc:How are you?
Marc:And I walk to this vegetarian place, Soul Veg, and it's this great little place.
Marc:And I got curry tofu, brown rice, collard greens, yams, cornbread.
Marc:It was awesome.
Marc:Excellent food.
Marc:And it was quiet.
Marc:And it was a little, I don't know who owns it, but there were some interesting pictures on the wall.
Marc:They seem to be from Africa, actually, I believe.
Marc:And I'm just eating and having a juice.
Marc:And I'm still not quite comfortable and I'm not really sure what the temperature of the area I'm in or how things are going to go because I'm living in a bit of fear in my mind.
Marc:And then over at the next table from me, I see some older people, a little older than me, maybe in their 60s.
Marc:One dude had a long gray ponytail and down south that could go either way.
Marc:in terms of disposition.
Marc:And I saw another older couple there and there was a woman was wearing a certain type of sandal that led me to believe that, well, maybe, you know, maybe they were like-minded or at least they can give me the pulse if they're locals.
Marc:And, you know, I just want to know what the, you know, politics of the area were so I know what I'm walking into and, you know, what's the general sense of the population.
Marc:I could have done this online, but why not do it hands-on?
Marc:Why not just engage people
Marc:So I eat and then I just walk up and I say, so you guys seem like you're talking a little news, a little politics.
Marc:You seem to be from around here.
Marc:What's the story here in Tallahassee?
Marc:And we sit there and we talk about, you know, what Tallahassee is and what the surrounding areas are.
Marc:And they tell some stories about where they're from.
Marc:A couple of them are from Georgia.
Marc:And one of the guys, the guy with the ponytail is a local photographer who does some amazing portrait work.
Marc:And it was just interesting.
Marc:It was just interesting to kind of get out of the world.
Marc:of, you know, online, you know, insanity and out into the world of real life and just casually impose yourself on people to have a conversation about what's going on.
Marc:And then I started, you know, when I was sitting there in this little, you know, soul food, vegetarian restaurant in a strip mall in Tallahassee, I pulled my chair up next to some people I didn't know and just talked a little bit about the world, about the news, about politics.
Marc:And it was it was nice.
Marc:And then I started to think like, wow, is this how we're going to be talking?
Marc:Every, all of us have a certain ilk.
Marc:Is this where we're going to be just to kind of quietly huddled in a corner talking in a small restaurant in a, in a strip mall and places, you know, looking at each other going like, okay.
Marc:Yeah.
Marc:You okay.
Marc:Can we talk here?
Marc:Yeah, we can talk here.
Marc:Just turn the sign on the window to closed and let's have a conversation.
Marc:Is this what discourse is going to be?
Marc:Is that how it's going to go?
Marc:That was the dark vision.
Marc:But then I get to the show and got this local kid opening for me, Austin Mann.
Marc:He did a good job.
Marc:We packed the place out.
Marc:1,200 people.
Marc:Did an hour and a half.
Marc:Talked about everything that I'm feeling and everything that's funny and some things that aren't funny that I made funny.
Marc:And it was a great show.
Marc:And I think it was appreciated.
Marc:I appreciated it.
Marc:And onward we go.
Marc:So I'm leaving Tallahassee today and going back to L.A.
Marc:for a little while.
Marc:Might take a little vacation if possible.
Marc:I got to check out for a while.
Marc:All right.
Marc:So Nick Thune, you know, we go back a bit, not that far.
Marc:He's younger than me.
Marc:But the first conversation that we had got very into his faith and it was unique conversation for me and it was respectful and good.
Marc:It turned out that this little conversation we had, it kind of got there pretty quickly because we were checking in.
Marc:I haven't talked to him in a long time, but he's a good guy, and it was great to talk to him.
Marc:Again, his stand-up special, Good Guy, is now available on CISO and Amazon.
Marc:This is me and Nick Thune.
Nick Thune
Guest:It's been a long time, buddy.
Guest:Been a long time since we talked on here.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:That was, I think, in your first hundred episodes.
Guest:Was it?
Guest:I think so.
Guest:Or, like, maybe right after.
Guest:So much has happened.
Guest:You've got a beard.
Guest:You've got a kid.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:New man.
Guest:Yeah?
Guest:How old is that kid?
Guest:Three.
Guest:How's that going?
Guest:I just picked him up at school.
Guest:Really?
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:He had a big... When I picked him up, they go, hey, we do need to tell you.
Guest:I'm like, oh, God.
Guest:And then I realized he's got a huge gash on his forehead.
Guest:They're like, he was riding the car over there and he flipped.
Yeah.
Guest:He rolled a car?
Guest:He rolled a car and they iced it, they checked the concussion, everything seems fine.
Guest:Yeah, is he a bruiser, that kid?
Guest:Not really.
Guest:No?
Guest:No, but he... Didn't I meet him briefly?
Guest:You've met him twice, I think, actually.
Guest:You flew behind us on a flight from Austin.
Guest:Uh-huh.
Guest:And you said, this is like a quote that I'll put on his website someday.
Guest:You said, he's actually a good kid.
Guest:because he didn't cry.
Guest:And I remember being pretty nervous that you were going to be pretty frustrated if he started to cry.
Marc:It's weird, dude.
Marc:Like, not having kids, like, I'm not a cranky guy about that shit.
Marc:And it doesn't affect me.
Marc:I mean, I've had crying babies.
Marc:Like, I imagine if you live with a crying baby, it probably can really be grating.
Marc:But, like, I don't, I'm not one of those people that's like, duh, fucking kid, first class.
Marc:I just, you know what I don't like?
Marc:People who fucking snore loud.
Marc:Yeah.
Marc:I can take a baby crying for an hour or two more than I can take some asshole just snoring, and that's even more vulnerable and sad.
Guest:Or armrest or people that immediately want to talk, and you can tell that you've got to cut them off because it's good.
Guest:I don't talk to people.
Marc:I don't know if I put off the vibe, but I generally, I really haven't in years, I have not done the sort of like, we're in the air, we're talking thing.
Guest:But you've had a unique experience before, I would assume, on a flight with a person sitting next to you.
Marc:You know when it happens and it's just a weird thing and I've noticed it over and over again?
Marc:I could not say a fucking word other than excuse me to get out if I'm unfortunate enough not to have the aisle seat for the entire flight.
Marc:And then right as we descend, literally minutes before we land, they're like, so what do you do?
Guest:You know, like the conversation starts.
Guest:It does there a lot.
Guest:Isn't that weird?
Guest:Sometimes it's right away and sometimes it's right there in the end.
Guest:Right, it's so bizarre.
Guest:Yeah, and you're like, oh, I was really looking forward to just checking texts right when we land and not having to talk to you.
Guest:Yeah, getting right out.
Guest:I had this moment, though, where I was flying from upstate New York to Boston on a really small flight.
Guest:Propellers?
Guest:Yeah, yeah.
Guest:And this woman, right as the plane starts to speed up, I feel her hand.
Guest:She puts her hand on my hand.
Guest:It's an elderly woman.
Guest:And I look over, and I just think, okay.
Guest:And I hold her hand.
Guest:And then we get to the top and she said, thank you for that.
Guest:It's the first time I've flown since my husband died.
Guest:I think I did cry.
Guest:But it was like, you know, that was worth it.
Guest:Oh, my God.
Guest:That had a punch to it.
Guest:I'm all choked up.
Guest:I kind of wish I could have that on every flight.
Marc:What?
Marc:Oh.
Marc:Yeah, I mean, flying is a very vulnerable place for some people.
Marc:People get drunk on flights.
Marc:Oh, no.
Marc:Yeah, I know.
Marc:I've heard stories.
Marc:I've been fortunate lately, knock on wood, that travel's been pretty easy.
Marc:There haven't been incidents.
Marc:I haven't found myself furious.
Marc:It's been okay lately.
Marc:I've been paying more for comfort and less interaction.
Marc:That's the one thing, like, I don't buy much.
Marc:And, you know, I don't know living.
Marc:And I don't have to worry about dependence at this point.
Marc:So I'll fly first.
Marc:I don't give a fuck.
Guest:I feel like everybody gives you most things except probably your shirt.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:Maybe somebody gave you that too.
Guest:Not this shirt.
Guest:Your fans love you.
Marc:This pants.
Marc:No, what I do is I take everything from wardrobe.
Marc:I did four seasons of my show.
Marc:If I hadn't done four seasons of my show, I would have had five shirts and two pairs of pants.
Guest:I've never been able to do it until I just did these Dell commercials and they let me keep all of it.
Guest:Dell computer?
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:They gave me a Dell too.
Guest:Really?
Guest:Do people still use Dells?
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:No kidding.
Guest:I guess- You'd be surprised not everyone's an artist who lives in- In Apple land?
Guest:Yeah.
Marc:No, but like there's definitely, I guess it's what you, I've always assumed that there are some businesses that require PCs.
Marc:Yeah.
Marc:I don't know why.
Guest:Most.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:Oh, that's the deal.
Guest:I mean, I don't, I was just thinking this the other day.
Guest:Somebody next to me had a Dell.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:On a flight.
Guest:And then I realized I don't, that's all I really see unless I'm in like JetBlue first class, the LA to New York flight.
Guest:Oh, come on.
Guest:Now, you know, you're drawing lines.
Guest:You're telling me you don't see Macs or iPads.
Guest:Not a lot on planes.
Guest:I don't, I feel like I see like Samsung devices, you know, like people have.
Guest:Like PCs.
Guest:Like fire.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:Yeah.
Marc:I kind of think you're right.
Marc:When I see people actually working on a plane, it's usually on a PC.
Marc:Yeah.
Marc:So you did some commercials.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:A bunch?
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:I think now it's been two years I've been doing them.
Guest:You're the guy?
Guest:I mean, I guess I'm what they call a celebrity spokesperson.
Guest:You're the Dell guy?
Guest:I think the word celebrity is pretty...
Marc:But do you say your name, or are you just like the guy that's in all the commercials?
Guest:They said my name in the last ones.
Guest:They did?
Guest:They added it to the script, and I was talking to my friend.
Guest:I was like, do you think I should say, like, I don't want my name in it?
Marc:Well, it's not like Nick Thune for nuclear energy.
Marc:Like, hey, here's a reasonably priced computer.
Marc:Yeah, you're going to get knocked down a few hipsters.
Marc:Thanks, Nick.
Marc:Well, they're probably using your beard as cachet.
Marc:Yeah, the beard, yeah.
Guest:They're like, yeah, we got to, let's make these PCs hip.
Guest:Yeah, it's the first job that I've had where I didn't walk in and they were like, do you mind shaving?
Guest:They were like, hey, do you mind not shaving?
Guest:We want to use that for our brand.
Guest:So when did you shoot this new special?
Guest:What's it called?
Guest:It's called Good Guy.
Guest:Good Guy.
Guest:Actually, well, here's why I text you.
Guest:Because this is the second time that you've met my son was at the cafe around the corner.
Guest:Cafe del Leche.
Guest:He's a little man then.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:Well, this is what I thought was so funny is you, you know, we're in there and I was just stressing about the special because CISO had given me an offer to do it.
Guest:Oh, right.
Guest:And, you know, it's that thing of like, it's something I've been working on for years and-
Guest:do I take this offer or wait, or I don't really know much about CISO or, and my son was back in the corner in that play area.
Guest:And you sat down with me.
Guest:And the first thing you said was you're definitely, you should do it.
Guest:If somebody is going to pay you for this, do it.
Guest:And then as you were telling me this, my son dragged from that back corner, a small chair with a juice in one hand and set it at the table with us.
Guest:And you just were staring at him and
Guest:Just kind of in awe that he wanted to take a seat at the table.
Guest:Dragging it like a kid in a school room, just the loudest screeching noise.
Guest:And then he was a little man at the table.
Guest:He is a polite little man.
Guest:Yeah, he says, I taught him something that I shouldn't have taught him because... Had to steal?
Yeah.
Guest:Well, lying.
Guest:I taught him how to lie.
Guest:And then that really kind of turned.
Guest:They learned that on their own.
Guest:He was crying.
Guest:He's like, I want to watch a cartoon.
Guest:And I go, hey, how about if you stated it like this?
Guest:What if you said, hey, dad?
Guest:Wouldn't it be a good idea if when we got home, I watched a cartoon?
Guest:Uh-huh.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:And then he said that.
Guest:And I was like, yeah, that's a great idea.
Guest:Good idea, Towns.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:We'll do it.
Guest:Towns.
Guest:And now he does that with everything.
Guest:Wouldn't it be a great idea for me to have a cookie right now?
Marc:Oh, his namesake.
Marc:His name.
Marc:Yeah.
Marc:Boy, I hope he doesn't honor that legacy, maybe creatively, but not lifestyle-wise.
Guest:I was at the park.
Guest:in Glendale.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:And this guy with his daughter was like, hey, Towns, get over here.
Guest:And the guy goes, your son's name is Towns?
Guest:And I said, yeah.
Guest:And he goes, after Towns Van Zandt, I'm like, oh, here it goes.
Guest:Yeah, I know.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:Yeah, it is.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:And he said, well, that's crazy because I manage his estate.
Yeah.
Guest:I was like, what?
Guest:And he's like, what's your email?
Guest:I'll send you an unreleased song.
Guest:So you're a big Towns fan?
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:I'm just fascinated by him and some of his history and also just his guitar, like Travis Picking style.
Marc:Oh, yeah?
Guest:I love that stuff, yeah.
Marc:Are you getting pretty good on the guitar?
Guest:I think I'm getting worse, actually.
Guest:Really?
Guest:Well, this whole special, I don't play it.
Guest:I stopped playing it, you know, taking it on the road.
Yeah.
Guest:Wait a minute.
Guest:What?
Guest:Newsflash.
Guest:So no guitar this one.
Guest:Nope.
Guest:And it was, I use it for a couple minutes in the middle when I'm mocking a youth pastor kind of a bit.
Guest:Not really mocking, but a little.
Marc:Well, what is this?
Marc:Is there a through line to this thing?
Marc:You say you worked on it for two years.
Marc:Is it just stand up?
Guest:Three years.
Guest:Three years.
Guest:It's two stories.
Guest:And then the middle is kind of a prelude to this TV show I'm writing about a church thing where it's like what I, you know, kind of my thought on hip youth pastors and
Guest:Because I heard this youth pastor, this really famous one, I'm not going to say his name, but he opens a sermon up in front of thousands of people with millions of views with the line, I'll never forget when I was five years old and I got lost at a grocery store.
Guest:Have you ever felt lost?
Guest:And it just drove me... Did hands go up?
Guest:Insane, yes.
Guest:And it just drove me insane that you could take this non-memory and equate it to people with deep spiritual issues, of feeling lost.
Guest:And I just kind of thought, it's just...
Guest:the thought of Christianity kind of having this sort of mediocre element to it when it could be so much stronger because I just think, I don't know.
Guest:And it's not even ripping on that.
Guest:It's just, it seems simple.
Guest:It seemed like a simple thing to.
Guest:But it annoys you.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:You thought it was a cheap hook.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:Which, I mean, I'm sure you could kind of pull my stand up apart and say the same thing.
Marc:No, no.
Marc:But I mean, like, you know, as we discussed in the last episode, you know, you're a Christian dude that, you know, at the time I talked to you last time, you were having some mild crisis of faith.
Marc:And, you know, you're still engaged, apparently.
Guest:It didn't push you out.
Guest:Well, I did the tonight show last week and did the youth pastor bit.
Guest:And the next day I, I got some, you know, it was like the most bit, the biggest thing I'd ever done response wise.
Guest:And on both sides, the tonight show, the Christian, yeah.
Guest:People that loved it.
Guest:And then Christians that thought I was mocking them, but then cool Christians that were like, all that stuff is so true.
Guest:It's so funny, you know, like, and then people that don't, aren't involved with the church that kind of related to in some way, but yeah,
Guest:I emailed the producer.
Guest:I was like, hey, man, I was curious if you guys are getting any backlash.
Guest:And he goes, yeah, if you mean by letters from the Christian Defamation League all morning, yeah, we are.
Guest:And I go, well, if you need to take it off YouTube, that's fine.
Guest:And he's like, no, we love it.
Guest:This is great.
Guest:Any response is great.
Guest:Really?
Guest:Cool.
Guest:Interesting.
Guest:So it was provocative to people.
Guest:But see, Christians have such a loud voice, you know, and they will be heard.
Guest:And I respect that.
Guest:I
Marc:They seem to have a lot of them.
Marc:There's a very seemingly grassroots movement of people that appear to have a lot of time on their hands.
Guest:Seems that way.
Guest:Well, the show that I'm writing for ABC is called, well, we were going to call it Holy Shit, but ABC was like, well, that's not going to happen.
Guest:Right.
Guest:Right.
Guest:Right.
Guest:Um, cause it's still workplace comedy at a church, but they got announced in the trades and immediately these, these Christian websites like filed petitions to send Disney to change the name.
Guest:They dug out like.
Guest:Holy shit was filed.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:Oh, okay.
Guest:Like they were just like, you can't say holy shit.
Guest:Like, you know, this petition and.
Guest:They reference stuff that I said in your podcast and stuff that I've even said in other podcasts.
Guest:Really?
Guest:Because I think at some podcast, I've referenced this, like, verse in Revelation where the Lord says, you know, either you're hot or you're cold because if you're lukewarm, I'm just going to spit you out of my mouth, you know?
Guest:Right.
Guest:And I said in some thing, they were like, so what kind of a Christian are you?
Guest:And I was like, probably the most lukewarm Christian.
Guest:Like, God probably wouldn't want to have anything to do with me, but maybe that means that he would actually...
Guest:maybe care more about being around me.
Guest:I don't know.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:It seems.
Guest:Wait, who are we to know?
Guest:Yeah.
Marc:So that, that got people worked up.
Marc:Yeah.
Marc:They're, they're building a dossier.
Marc:A guy admitting that he has flaws really got people worked up.
Marc:Interesting.
Marc:Yeah.
Marc:The entire religion's based on that.
Marc:Yeah.
Marc:You'd think.
Marc:That's why sin was... The notion of sin was invented.
Marc:Yeah.
Marc:Is to realize that we cannot be perfected.
Marc:We are flawed.
Marc:And you have to keep these ones in check if you can.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:And I guess it was... It's like the same... It's a Townes Van Zandt lyric and I think done over and over.
Guest:But there ain't no dark until something shines.
Guest:It's like there is no forgiveness if there is no sin.
Guest:Because the whole progression of the special is...
Guest:wanting to be good which you know essentially means that I'm not yeah and and the what what really wanted me to be good was my son you know that yeah makes you want to live longer just so you don't hurt them with your death right it's too young of an age wow you're thinking that before it even came out oh yeah huh I mean I quit smoking uh-huh just ways that I could be a dad for longer I guess uh-huh which I never thought about before uh-huh
Guest:But yeah, in the end, it's about this doctor that the story of finding out that it was a boy.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:He told me it was a girl.
Guest:And I looked at the screen and said, isn't that a penis?
Guest:And at a real hospital in Los Angeles, he said, if he thinks he looked at my wife and said, if he thinks that's a penis, I want to know who got you pregnant.
Guest:He probably used that joke so many times.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:Other comedians have gone to this guy.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:I mean, not only that, because I wanted a boy for some whatever misogynistic, you know, whatever.
Guest:And then we went to another doctor a month later.
Guest:It's not misogynistic for a man to want a son.
Guest:It's just it is what it is.
Guest:Yeah, yeah.
Guest:A month later, another doctor, he was like, you know, my wife, we'd gone through so much to where I was so caught up in what this doctor had said.
Guest:And then it turns out it is a boy.
Guest:That other doctor was just an asshole.
Guest:And he was calling the shots way too early.
Marc:So you had a healthy son.
Marc:Yeah.
Marc:And what are your primary struggles now around?
Marc:Because, like, the last time I talked to you, which is years ago, your struggles around...
Marc:whether or not you're good or a good Christian were really selfish and kind of lifestyle struggles.
Guest:What changed with a kid?
Guest:Well, I stopped worrying about that as much.
Guest:I think that was a...
Guest:The progression of not caring about what people think, especially from that perspective of the church.
Guest:Right.
Guest:That took a long time, but eventually it was just like, yeah, why am I trying to keep on good guard or impression with them?
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:But now it is like, you know, this morning we went, I was telling you, we were going to look at houses.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:And my wife said, you know, in the mornings you have a tone and Towns asks me if you're angry sometimes.
Yeah.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:And it's been a widely known thing in everyone in my family forever that you just kind of give me an hour in the morning.
Guest:Really?
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:I need it.
Guest:I need to like get ready.
Guest:What are you feeling when you wake up?
Guest:I think it's like the most depressed I feel.
Guest:Oh, really?
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:I think I feel like weight on the shoulders of the day.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:Am I doing enough?
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:Is there more, you know, um, on all levels.
Guest:And I have really dark dreams.
Guest:I think that's also the social media thing I need to stop because, you know, I kind of go down these holes and like, I just have these dreams that are just horrible.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:A lot.
Guest:Really?
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:And, uh, I went, I did see a doctor about it for a while and then every now and again, a good one will pop in.
Guest:I'll feel good again.
Marc:Yeah, like surprise, this one's going to be fun.
Guest:But I do a thing where I wake up a lot in the night and then have a radically different dream again four times in a row.
Guest:Like bad ones?
Guest:Yeah, bad.
Guest:Really?
Guest:And just things like I can't help my son, he's lost.
Guest:That kind of stuff.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:So just like panic.
Guest:My dad's dying.
Guest:Panic, fear, things out of your control, Nick.
Guest:And I had this really bad one that I'm sure people will interpret and this might lose my show on ABC.
Who knows?
Guest:Where I walk into my childhood bathroom.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:My mom is sitting on the edge of the tub and she's distraught.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:She looks at me and she says, why did you do it?
Guest:And that's it?
Guest:And I wake up.
Oh, my God.
Guest:That's great.
Guest:That one hurts.
Guest:And that's like once every couple years.
Guest:Because it's so vague.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:But you know you did something.
Guest:I've been wondering.
Guest:It seemed like it's pretty bad.
Marc:It seems like...
Marc:But I think that, you know, if you really take dreams for what they're worth or what they're saying, it's a, you know, I think it's a representation of your own, you know, self-doubt.
Marc:I mean, like, you know, it's like almost like a confirming thing that, you know, here you have the woman that brought you into the world with no real other information other than like, well, what the...
Marc:What'd you do?
Guest:Why would you do that?
Guest:What's wrong with you?
Guest:Well, and I'm so sensitive.
Guest:And this morning when my wife said that on the way to this first house, and we finished the first house, and we get back in the car, and she's like, why are you being so quiet?
Guest:And I go, because you told me I'm a horrible dad.
Guest:And she goes, that's not what I told you.
Guest:I said you're grumpy sometimes in the morning.
Guest:Yeah, I do that too.
Guest:You've interpreted it.
Guest:It's gone through the Nick self-hatred interpreter.
Guest:Yeah, yeah.
Guest:Which seems to be getting more and more...
Guest:like far apart from what people are actually saying sometimes.
Marc:Well, yeah, I find that too, that like, you know, my interpretation of what's being said is so informed by my own insecurities, right?
Marc:Yeah, every time.
Marc:Right, and that's a problem because, you know, you're not, you know, and my girlfriend's brought this up, it's like, you know, we're not having the same conversation because you're projecting all of this stuff that's coming, you know, she didn't say this, but I realize it's coming from my own,
Marc:ideas of who I am.
Marc:If they say something that reinforces my negative ideas about myself, then they're part of it.
Guest:Yeah, well, I wake up in the morning and I know that I'm grumpy and I hate it.
Guest:And I'm trying to find options for what's a better routine.
Guest:So when she mentions that, it's like...
Guest:I thought I'd fixed it.
Marc:But why are you putting all this on yourself?
Marc:I mean, shouldn't Jesus be picking up a little slack?
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:You're going to probably get a lot of letters from the Christian defamation.
Guest:I doubt it.
Guest:I will get some emails.
Marc:No, but this is an open, honest conversation.
Marc:I don't understand.
Marc:If we talk about anything we've said here, if they send emails, it's like, what are they sending emails about?
Marc:But where is the practice of your faith at this point?
Marc:Do you guys go to church on Sunday?
Guest:No.
Hmm.
Guest:no and and my mother-in-law told me this summer that she wants me to pray with my son at nighttime yeah and i said that makes sense yeah i should and and it's a pretty fun experience are you doing it yeah okay yeah and he says some pretty interesting stuff he thanked god for his daddy's beard the other night
Guest:i love how every the two times i've every time i've come in here it really goes down this interesting religious conversation which i like i think we did all right i hope i think that's how we ended the last one
Guest:I think I said last time, I was like, oh man, I'm insecure about that.
Guest:Well, and you know, I don't, I mean, to name drop, but I got a, after doing the last one, I got some really nice messages from some cool people that I just, that just, you know, I didn't know that about you.
Guest:That's really cool.
Guest:And, but Anthony Jeselnik sent me a text that said, if all Christians like, were like you, I wouldn't hate them.
Marc:Oh, he's a devil.
Marc:Well, congratulations, man, on having a healthy son and, you know, being okay and earning a living and the marriage still working and still working on your relationship with God.
Marc:It seemed good.
Marc:Thanks, doctor.
Marc:Okay, buddy.
Bye.
Marc:See, that was nice.
Marc:Good to see Nick.
Marc:Good to have the conversation.
Marc:Good that he's doing okay and that, you know, his family's all right.
Marc:You know, I don't know.
Marc:It's nice to check in.
Marc:It's good.
Marc:It's good.
Marc:Again, his Nick special Good Guy is now available on CISO and Amazon.
Marc:Now let's get to my buddy John Daniel.
Marc:So John and I lived in New York at a time back in the day, mid 90s, when I was married or almost married.
Marc:I met him because he was a friend of my manager's.
Marc:And this guy really, you know, I was a little late to the party back before the Internet was as popular and as intense as it is now.
Marc:And there really is no late to the party.
Marc:The party is ongoing and can get pretty shitty, apparently.
Marc:But he filled in a lot of areas in my music education and turning me on to music and, you know, as a musician as well, you know, just telling me stuff about music that I didn't know, turning me on to a whole world of bands, but also being a good friend.
Marc:And we, you know, it's not like we have lost touch, but we're not...
Marc:We don't have the time we used to, and we don't really talk as much as we did.
Marc:We don't talk much at all.
Marc:But I love the guy, and it was great to talk to him about his story and about music and about his place in the music industry now.
Marc:It's pretty fascinating.
Marc:Smart guy.
Marc:It was great to see him.
Marc:And I think you'll dig it.
Marc:I think you'll dig the interview.
Marc:This is me and Jonathan Daniel talking in the garage.
We'll be right back.
Marc:All right, John, I guess what we got to do here is we got to like, there's some gaps.
Marc:There was a slight gap from when I knew you in New York and then like, I don't know, maybe you were worried about me, thought I'd slide off the grid.
Marc:And then the next thing I know, you're the hugely successful music manager.
Marc:And all of a sudden, I was like, what?
Marc:You own a bar?
Marc:I feel like there was some sort of 15-year gap.
Marc:We can get to that.
Marc:But I guess I want to establish at the beginning that I've known you for, I guess, what is it, 20 years now?
Guest:Yeah, that sounds about right.
Marc:Does it?
Marc:95-ish?
Guest:Yeah, it is like 20 years.
Guest:That's crazy.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:Right?
Guest:Yeah, it is.
Marc:So I've known you for like 20 years.
Marc:When I met you, you were a washed-up musician.
Marc:But you had tasted it.
Marc:You had tasted fame.
Guest:Yeah, when you met me, it definitely like a low.
Guest:Right.
Marc:But the thing that's amazing about our friendship is that at the time,
Marc:You know, I was sort of stuck in a rut musically in a lot of ways.
Marc:And like you taught me, we'd have these discussions sort of like, I don't get power pop.
Marc:What is pop?
Marc:I had this blues-based idea of music, and I just couldn't wrap my brain around the difference.
Marc:And you were like, well, there's a fourth chord, there's a minor chord, and then there was a B minor chord or something like that.
Marc:And I was like, that's it.
Marc:That's the key.
Marc:Changed my whole life.
Guest:Well, it's like a, it's a, you know, there's like the Beatles and Stones divide and you were definitely Stones.
Marc:Right.
Marc:But I liked the Beatles, but I just didn't understand what came from them.
Marc:I understood.
Marc:I remember it was like, I get Elvis Costello.
Marc:I know the squeeze, but right.
Marc:There was a, it was a, it was about a minor chord.
Marc:Yeah.
Marc:Right.
Guest:It was about minor chords.
Guest:It's just like a minor instead of those, you know, it's instead of going like E to D. Yeah.
Guest:You know, you would go E to C sharp minor.
Guest:Yeah.
Marc:Right, and because I was a guitar player, I was like, oh, there's a whole world out there I just don't get.
Marc:And that's when you turned me on to Cheap Trick, and I was able to make the replacements connection and categorize some of the bands I did like as pop bands, and then move into that whole other world.
Marc:That was because of you.
Marc:Thank you for that.
Marc:But let's go back, because I think at that time, your biggest claim to fame that anyone would know would be the band Candy.
Guest:It would be that Gilby from Candy, Gilby Clark, had joined Guns N' Roses.
Marc:Right, but Candy had its day, didn't it?
Guest:Yeah, yeah, we had some moments.
Guest:That's actually how we met.
Guest:We met because your manager at that time was- Dave Becky.
Guest:Dave Becky was a big fan of Candy.
Marc:Right.
Marc:And that was in the 90s, so I was not married yet, but I was living with Kim, right?
Guest:That sounds right, yeah.
Marc:And I was living on 16th Street, which is around the corner from you.
Guest:Three blocks, I was on 19th.
Marc:And Becky thought we should hang out.
Marc:You were kind of hanging around with Becky a little bit, and you knew some of the comedy stuff, but you weren't all in.
Marc:And then we met because you told me the other day, what was it?
Guest:It's so dark for me.
Guest:It's a...
Guest:There was a time, and I'll borrow your joke for it, but there was a time I had had three record deals, and I had this thought that, oh, maybe music's not going to be right for me.
Guest:Maybe I'm not going to be an astronaut when I grow up.
Guest:And a girl who liked my bands had given me this job at Sony doing accounting work.
Guest:Right.
Guest:Oh, yeah.
Guest:It was horrifying.
Guest:And so I could get a discount on CD players or DVDs or something.
Guest:And so Becky was like, oh, call my friend.
Guest:He'll get you a discount.
Guest:And I was like, oh, God.
Guest:And so I think I probably gave you like – I have this memory that's fairly embarrassing of me giving you like my CDs and like maybe articles I'd written going, hey, I'm not the guy that's an accountant, you know, just trying to like –
Guest:buy my own way into credibility.
Marc:Right, and I remember going up there to the Sony building and you came down from your office.
Marc:I don't remember going up to that office and you met me in the store.
Guest:Right, right.
Marc:And I think I bought one of those mini disc recorders.
Guest:That sounds about right, yeah.
Marc:Yeah, because there was like, that was what, instead of a cassette recorder, that's what we were using.
Guest:Right, because that would have been something that would have been worth getting a discount on.
Guest:Right, it was like $400.
Marc:Right, yeah.
Marc:Also the connection was,
Marc:That we were in Hollywood at the same time.
Guest:Yeah, definitely.
Marc:That we started talking.
Marc:When I was out here doing drugs with Candison, you were like down the street.
Guest:I was sitting in the audience while you were doing drugs.
Marc:Watching Sam.
Guest:That's right.
Marc:I was backstage cutting up lines for him because the band was Candy.
Guest:Yeah, there was a big thing with that era of music to go to the store.
Guest:It was like a boon of stand-up comedy.
Marc:Right, it was all connected then, because of Sam, really.
Guest:Yeah, he was definitely the lynchman, but Dice to an extent as well.
Guest:So both periods, both the 80s period and then when we hung out in the 90s with all your friends, those are real pinnacle eras of comedy, completely different.
Marc:right yeah no i and that was what i think why we started to become friends is i i knew you were sort of beat up i was kind of beat up we both had chicks and we needed to do the couple thing occasionally that's right and you were three blocks away that's right so you and renee would go out with me and kim was great because you and i could talk they could talk and it just it was what you were supposed to do that's right
Marc:So you're a bass player and a songwriter.
Guest:Yeah, so I grew up in Berkeley.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:I grew up a hippie.
Guest:My father was a left-wing radical.
Guest:Now he's a right-wing radical.
Marc:David, what's his name?
Guest:David Horowitz.
Guest:David Horowitz.
Marc:People know him, right.
Marc:I remember that was compelling to me too.
Guest:It's sort of like, how do you live with that guy?
Guest:Right.
Guest:Yeah, so he was a left-wing radical.
Guest:He was the editor of Ramparts.
Guest:Then he...
Marc:Which was a big kind of left-wing rag at the time, like in the late 60s, early 70s.
Guest:And then he was a big supporter of the Black Panther Party.
Guest:Right.
Guest:And yet there was an episode or an incident or whatever you call it where he had recommended one of his friends to be the bookkeeper and they killed her.
Guest:And that's what flipped him.
Guest:Right.
Guest:And sort of like, basically he's an idealist.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:And then his ideals flip the other direction.
Marc:Yeah, well, I mean, I think that, yeah, there was idealism and there was sort of like the grand worldview.
Marc:And then when it came right down to action, you know, that can get pretty scary.
Guest:Yeah.
Marc:Especially when they just killed her for how that happened.
Guest:I think they killed her because she realized that they were running guns and drugs, you know, because she was the bookkeeper.
Guest:And she was like, hey, wait a minute, like...
Marc:oh and that was your dad's friend yeah and that just that was it yeah from then on out it was the other way because i think you know i think that there was probably like a lot of incredible about the black panthers and a lot of real bad about the black sure yeah i mean yeah my girlfriend reads about it too there was yeah there was definitely a lot coming at them and a lot within the organization that was yeah
Guest:It's so hard.
Guest:It's like being super famous.
Guest:It's like being Kim Kardashian, but with an idealism.
Guest:So they may have started out and been incredibly right, but as you get so famous and people are attacking you, it's hard to know what happened.
Marc:And also they're trying to kill you from the inside.
Marc:They were always being penetrated by those agent provocateurs and people that were starting...
Marc:So your dad came up in that craziness in the Bay Area in the 60s.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:So I grew up like that.
Guest:And then when punk rock hit, I was like, oh, I want to be in a band, right?
Guest:Right.
Guest:So I sold my comic books.
Guest:I went to LA and New York.
Marc:You were a big comic book guy?
Guest:when i was 12 yeah i sold my spider-man so i could buy like a bass and a keyboard and you didn't know how to play no i didn't know i don't know if i still know how to play but uh but you know it was punk rock so like seeing the ramones and the clash and the pistols i was like oh i could do this you didn't see him live though
Guest:Oh, I saw all those bands, yeah, very early on.
Marc:In San Francisco?
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:Really?
Guest:I saw The Clash as one of their first gigs in America at the Temple Beautiful in San Francisco.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:Definitely made me want to play music.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:I saw The Ramones at the Keystone Berkeley opening for Earthquake.
Guest:I saw the last Pistol show at Winterland.
Guest:So, yeah, I was super into it.
Guest:And I went, I took my paper route money, and I went to London, New York, and L.A.,
Guest:because I was like, well, I can't be in a punk band in Berkeley.
Marc:Not for a few more years.
Guest:Yeah, not for 10 years.
Guest:If I had been 10 years later, I would have been friends with Green Day and Rancid.
Guest:But this is 78, 77, so I went there and- To where?
Guest:To LA.
Guest:First?
Guest:Yeah, I went to LA first.
Marc:And you're like 18?
Guest:No, I'm 16.
Marc:Oh my God.
Marc:Did you drop out of school?
Guest:No, no, I was a good student, so I was getting a college scholarship and all this, but I knew what I wanted to do.
Guest:So I went to London.
Guest:It was like the summer of punk.
Guest:That was incredible.
Guest:New York was terrifying, just walking in the Bowery.
Guest:Late 70s?
Guest:77.
Marc:So that was it?
Guest:Yeah, nothing but junkies.
Guest:I was just like, oh, my God, I'm going to die.
Guest:And I went to L.A., and there's like a giant billboards of Warren Beatty and shampoo.
Guest:I'm like, oh, I think I should be here.
Guest:This thing's good.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:So I got a scholarship to UCLA, which paid for me to live.
Guest:And yeah, I moved to LA to be in a punk band.
Guest:And then I started going to the- What were you going to the school for?
Guest:To pay for me to be in the punk band.
Marc:But you weren't majoring in anything?
Guest:Oh, I mean, sure.
Guest:I graduated.
Guest:With what?
Guest:I was a good student.
Guest:I was good at taking tests.
Guest:So I was, economics, sociology, nothing's all bullshit majors.
Marc:But it must have done something.
Marc:school no it must have sunk in those seem to be you know relative to the guy i know and i didn't know any of this probably it probably all you know it's all a path right it's so funny because you and your brother uh are sort of like you know geniuses yeah like some things like what he invented netscape right
Guest:So his partner is really a genius.
Guest:So he's good at being friends with geniuses.
Guest:A facilitator?
Guest:Helping the genius come out.
Guest:Right.
Guest:He did all right.
Guest:Yeah, yeah.
Guest:So my brother is wildly successful.
Guest:He's got this VC company.
Guest:We basically do the same thing, except he has like, I deal in millions and he deals in billions of the opportunities.
Marc:He's dealing with tech companies?
Marc:Yeah.
Marc:And you're dealing with rock and roll people.
Marc:That's right.
Marc:Music people.
Guest:Yeah.
Marc:All right, so you go to LA, you're 17, you're at UCLA.
Guest:I go to this club called the Starwood.
Guest:Every Tuesday and Wednesday, it's punk night.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:Like, you know, Darby Crash, and the Bags, and the Germs, and Fear, and these bands are playing.
Guest:And I walk into the Starwood one of these nights.
Guest:This is my favorite thing.
Guest:I go see every Tuesday and Wednesday I go.
Guest:And one night I walk in and there's this Nikki Sixx standing there.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:And I went, I want to be that guy.
Guest:Fuck punk.
Guest:Just standing there with his hair out.
Guest:I was like, wow, and he looks like Johnny Thunders.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:And so I grew my hair.
Guest:And that was like the start of that era of, you know,
Guest:Hair metal?
Guest:Yeah, hair metal became like, it became such an exciting, crazy time.
Marc:So that was a time where punk was sort of arcing out and rock was redefining itself?
Marc:Because, I mean, this is post Aerosmith, it's post all that shit.
Marc:And New York Dolls, I guess.
Guest:hair metal was was well metal and rock was like persona non grata right it was uh this is 79 when i moved to la so it's really just uh it's at that time in la what's happening is stuff like the knack right it's like post-punk very new wave yeah new wavy cars ish kind of stuff so that created the power vacuum for hair metal to come in
Guest:That's right.
Guest:Because it's always a counter.
Guest:And there was the British metal scene in the UK that was exciting.
Guest:With Motorhead?
Guest:With Motorhead and Saxon and Def Leppard ultimately came out of that Iron Maiden.
Guest:And you could feel the underground of what metal was.
Guest:And in LA, Los Angeles bastardizes stuff and makes it shinier and more presentable.
Guest:And that's what hair metal was.
Marc:So when you were coming, so you grew your hair out.
Marc:Yep.
Marc:And are you learning how to play bass at this point?
Guest:Yeah, definitely.
Guest:Because I started thinking I was a better piano player, keyboard player than I was a bass player.
Guest:So I thought I was going to be a keyboard player.
Guest:But it just looked a lot cooler to play bass.
Guest:And it seemed easy enough.
Guest:Were you playing in a punk band?
Guest:I had played in several punk bands, yeah.
Marc:With anybody?
Guest:Not anybody of consequence.
Guest:In LA, it's great.
Guest:There used to be this magazine called The Recycler, which I guess is what Craigslist would be now.
Guest:Right.
Guest:And you would just meet people in this thing.
Guest:I met Mick Mars that way.
Guest:just people would answer ads.
Guest:And that's how I met Gilby, who ultimately went on to Guns N' Roses.
Guest:He was my guitar player in Candy.
Guest:I had an ad that said, I think it said something like, I want a guitar player with messy hair into David Bowie and Nick Gilder in the suite or something like that.
Guest:And yeah, and said, Gilby called.
Guest:That's how I met Gilby.
Marc:So, all right, so you guys are like 18, 17, 18?
Guest:Yeah, 18 years old, yeah.
Guest:He's 17, I'm 18.
Marc:And you're growing your hair out, and who were the bands?
Marc:Did you start going around to watch metal now, after the punk, when you decided?
Guest:There really weren't metal bands.
Guest:That's the thing.
Guest:There were, but they were just playing out in Pasadena and Monrovia.
Guest:Wasn't London around?
No.
Guest:Well, that was Nicki's band.
Guest:They were just starting there.
Marc:Pre-Motley Crue?
Guest:Yeah, pre-Motley Crue.
Guest:So that's the band that I really loved.
Guest:London.
Marc:Yeah.
Marc:So they were just starting out.
Marc:They were just starting.
Marc:So this scene was pushing out, you know, like punk had receded, and I guess as a live event or as something that people could respect, those sort of new wave bands kind of evolved more into a dance thing or what?
Guest:Yeah.
Marc:Or they weren't a live thing?
Guest:They weren't.
Marc:were but it was like they were they didn't look cool like you know they they had they were just not exciting right the knack were a good band yeah yeah they didn't look cool so you're seeing london and you you get gilby and you guys are growing your johnny thunder's hair that's right what you told me about how it was done at one point i was sort of fascinated by it like it was a lot of spray net right
Guest:Yeah, Aquanet.
Guest:Aquanet, right.
Guest:There were different ways.
Guest:Gilby figured out that you could take ivory soap and rub it on your hands and just go like this to your hair and it would stand up for a long time.
Guest:It would stick.
Guest:Yeah, it was pretty gross because the soap, when you sweat, when you played, the soap would get in your eyes and sting.
Marc:So you guys are all living together?
Guest:Yeah, we all had a two, the four of us had a two bedroom apartment on Palm, right below Sunset.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:And Motley Crue was one block away on Clark.
Marc:Yeah.
Guest:And so we'd go to the parties at their house.
Marc:But they weren't big yet either, right?
Guest:Oh, no, they were just starting.
Guest:So you're all just starting.
Marc:So you're hanging around with Motley Crue and your candy and who else was around?
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:I mean, all of them.
Marc:GNR wasn't around yet, was it?
Guest:They weren't around yet, but Izzy was around.
Guest:Izzy Stratton?
Guest:We loved Izzy, yeah.
Guest:Good guy?
Guest:Great.
Guest:Unbelievable.
Guest:Like, he's your guy.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:He was Stones.
Guest:He would just listen to Exile Main Street.
Guest:He had a boombox with that tape.
Guest:Oh, and listen, over and over.
Marc:And he's a good player.
Guest:He was the right player.
Guest:Right.
Guest:All rhythm.
Guest:Yeah, to balance Slash.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:Slash worked at that time.
Guest:He was at Tower Video working.
Guest:But Izzy and Axl had a band called Hollywood Rose.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:I booked their first gig in LA at a place called Madam Wong's Chinatown, which was a Chinese restaurant.
Marc:I remember that.
Guest:And the audience was basically me, Gilby, and our friend Timpy, who had a group called Flies on Fire that was really good.
Guest:And I remember watching their first gig, not Guns N' Roses, but Hollywood Rose, the first Axl gig, going, holy shit, this guy is a superstar.
Marc:You knew it?
Guest:Oh, yeah.
Guest:Just from the minute he opened his mouth, you're just like, oh.
Marc:When's this going to happen?
Marc:So when does the scene start coalescing?
Guest:So what happens is no one will sign the bands, no one will play the records.
Guest:A couple of the bands get people to make their own records.
Guest:Motley Crue got some rich investors.
Guest:I think there was Alan Kaufman, I think was his name.
Guest:But it said Kaufman and Kaufman on the record.
Guest:And then Quiet Riot got Pasha.
Guest:Quiet Riot really blew it up.
Guest:Rat got Milton Berle's kid.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:Made their record for them.
Guest:So everybody had like an investor to make the records.
Guest:Yeah, a patron.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:But...
Guest:Then KLOS, which was like the classic rock station in LA, started playing these bands and the phones lit up.
Guest:And then MTV- And they were local.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:They were local bands.
Marc:So there was that connection, like, this is from LA.
Marc:This is what's happening.
Guest:That's right.
Guest:And then MTV started playing Quiet Riot.
Guest:And then Bang Your Head became like, you know, and come on, feel the noise.
Guest:And all of a sudden, Quiet Riot had sold like five million records.
Guest:And every record company was in LA going, get me one of these.
Guest:so everybody was trying to do their thing yeah everybody was like five you know yeah so so everybody was getting signed so you and gilby who are the other members of candy uh kyle who i went to high school with yeah that's my is my friend and john schubert who uh i met through a guitar player that i found in the music connection ad yeah and we're we're those guys
Guest:So Kyle's in, I talked to Kyle yesterday.
Guest:He's great.
Guest:He's still singing.
Guest:He makes his own records.
Guest:And he lives in Massachusetts now.
Guest:And John is a teacher.
Guest:John's the best guy ever.
Marc:He got out.
Guest:Yeah, he's a teacher in Inglewood.
Marc:Oh, good.
Marc:It's weird.
Marc:I've gotten to this age where I'm thrilled when people get out.
Marc:Good for you.
Marc:You have the courage to get out.
Guest:There's that thing where sometimes I think about it and I'm like, wow, if I had had a hit, I'd probably still be in candy.
Guest:Still trying to get another hit.
Marc:Well, you said that amazing thing to me, too.
Marc:This was outside of reconfiguring my music brain.
Marc:There was some conversation we had.
Marc:There's a couple of great moments, and we'll get to them when we get to that period.
Marc:But you said to me, you have to realize being an adult is realizing your limitations.
Marc:And I just remember you saying that to me.
Marc:We used to have these walks, you and I, in New York.
Marc:We'd just walk, and I'd tell you how I was doing the wrong thing in every way.
Marc:And you'd be like, yeah, yeah.
Marc:And then you'd just lay one of these little gems on me.
Marc:But realizing your limitations, like if you're talented,
Marc:Like, I never forgot that.
Marc:Like, it stays with me.
Marc:I don't know where you got it.
Guest:You know where I got it?
Marc:Where?
Guest:Dirty Harry.
Guest:Come on.
Guest:You know this famous Clint Eastwood speech where he goes, I know what you're thinking.
Guest:You fire six shots or only five?
Guest:Right.
Guest:The end of that speech, he goes, a man's got to know his limitations.
Marc:No shit.
Yeah.
Marc:And that resonated with you philosophically.
Guest:That speech was so important to me that I used to love movies, so I would tape those kind of things.
Marc:Yeah.
Guest:And that was one of the ones I had on tape, and I would listen to it.
Marc:What other ones?
Guest:Terrible things like Fast Times at Ridgemont High.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:I definitely know all the words from that.
Guest:Chinatown was a big one for me, Jack Nicholson.
Guest:Yeah.
Yeah.
Guest:But when you tape these old things and then you tape these movies, sometimes those things just stick with you.
Marc:All right, so you and Gilby and the other two dudes, you're kicking around.
Marc:Who's writing the songs?
Guest:That's me.
Marc:You're the songwriter.
Guest:Yeah, so I...
Guest:I think that that was, I think it was probably a mistake.
Guest:But I was definitely, I was very much a control freak.
Guest:I probably still am.
Guest:And I definitely didn't share.
Guest:I think I, you know, it's like...
Guest:And I'm glad that I'm not in a band in the social media age because I think I'd hate myself because of the narcissism.
Guest:Right.
Guest:But at that time, I was like, oh, yeah, I'm a genius.
Guest:I'm going to write these songs and you guys are going to play them.
Guest:And they probably would have been better.
Guest:I think I was good at lyrics.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:But I think the songs would have been better if I had...
Marc:had everybody right but now like you know as a manager and i know that you know part of the evolution of of surviving in the music industry now is that you know you grew to respect uh managers and producers that were hands-on with the band and crafting songs and sounds and uh but at that time you were in the dark about that stuff
Guest:Yeah, I didn't know anyone in the music business.
Guest:So I didn't know what a producer did, a manager did, a record company.
Guest:I didn't know anything.
Guest:In some respects, that was amazing because there was this naivete from what we did.
Guest:If I had known, I probably wouldn't have done half the stupid things that we did.
Guest:I remember we lit the drop curtain at the Roxy on fire because we had homemade flashbots and they went off.
Guest:We could have burned the place down and we probably shouldn't have done that.
Guest:Had the homemade flashbots.
Guest:We didn't know.
Guest:We didn't know anything.
Marc:Did you ever play the Roxy after that?
Guest:Yeah, yeah.
Guest:Fortunately, we saw the curtain go up and me and Gilby stomped it out because we were in the front before it became a problem.
Marc:So who signed Candy?
Guest:So Candy was first signed to a label called Curb Records, which is Mike Curb, who does well in country, but he's definitely notorious for being very tough on the deals.
Guest:Yeah.
Marc:And then- How'd you get that guy?
Guest:That guy came through Kim Fowley.
Marc:you knew kim fowley kim fowley was yes so kim fowley was really who helped candy get he was like a notorious monster in some ways he taught me the music business yeah kim fowley did yeah like i don't know i don't know so i know so little about him other than these bits and pieces from the runaways and his solo career was sort of odd correct
Guest:He's such an interesting, odd, strange person.
Guest:So we were playing a show.
Guest:So this is how I got in the music business.
Guest:So we're playing a show at Madam Wong's West.
Guest:We're on at 11 o'clock at night on a Tuesday.
Guest:No one cares.
Guest:And the band before is this band called Tantrum that has somebody from a band that Kim produced before.
Guest:So I see Kim in the elevator.
Guest:And I'm like, oh shit, that's Kim Fowley.
Marc:How'd you know him?
Marc:From what?
Guest:just from pictures in Cream Magazine of him with the Runaways.
Guest:So I'm like, oh, this is my ticket.
Guest:I'm going to make this guy like me.
Guest:So he looks at my shirt and I've got this super cool Bowie print.
Guest:It's like a black and red print shirt.
Guest:He's like, that's cool.
Guest:I'm like, you got to come see my band.
Guest:We're a cross between the Ramones and the Monkees or whatever I said.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:He was like, all right, kid.
Guest:So he watched the band.
Guest:He's like, all right, you're doing it all wrong.
Guest:He's like, come to my apartment, play me all your songs, and I'll tell you how to do this.
Guest:And we went to his apartment till like seven in the morning.
Guest:He's like, you know, he's kind of a creepy, strange guy.
Guest:So we don't know what's gonna happen.
Marc:It's just you and Gilby or all of you?
Guest:It's all of us.
Guest:It's a whole band.
Guest:And I'm playing him like every song I've ever written.
Guest:And he goes, okay, kid, when's your next gig?
Guest:The Troubadour, he goes,
Guest:Here's my Rolodex.
Guest:Call every single person in this and put them all on the guest list.
Guest:And it took us a week.
Guest:We called everybody in the Rolodex, said, hey, we're calling from Kim Fowley's office.
Guest:You're invited to our show.
Guest:We played the Troubadour.
Guest:There's a lion around the block.
Yeah.
Guest:I'm like, it's like we're the Beatles.
Guest:There's girls throwing roses at us, taking pictures.
Guest:I'm like, oh shit, it's show business, of course.
Guest:So yeah, and so Kim was like, oh, he's like, all right, we're gonna get you a record deal.
Guest:And he started bringing people down and we played for Clive Davis and just the usual people.
Guest:Oh yeah.
Guest:By the way, like two months into being a band, no business playing for anybody at this point.
Marc:Playing for one of the biggest guys in the record industry.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:And at the Clive Davis showcase, Michael Lloyd, who's an A&R guy and a producer for Mike Kerb Records, was there.
Guest:And he goes, oh, I'll sign you.
Guest:And he had produced Sean Cassidy and Leif Garrett.
Guest:And we didn't see eye to eye.
Guest:He wanted us to be more of a bubblegum band than we wanted to be.
Guest:I was like, well, we got to get out of this deal.
Guest:And we started building.
Guest:From that Troubadour game.
Marc:You signed the deal and you realized after?
Guest:Yeah, of course, because we were 18.
Guest:We signed, oh, it's a record deal then.
Guest:Sign it.
Guest:And then, so we just started, and we were building.
Guest:We had a real thing going in LA.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:Because from the Troubadour show, it was like, oh, I get it.
Guest:It's show business.
Guest:So let's figure out how to make us feel bigger than we are all the time.
Guest:Right.
Guest:And, um, we got, uh, we got a manager, we got a TV deal cause it's Los Angeles.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:The Ryan television wanted to make a TV show out of the band.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:Cause we, we, you know, we all live together like the monkeys and we all had like the same kind of haircut.
Guest:So it seemed like a TV show.
Marc:And to your credit, just by coincidence, none of you guys were fuck ups.
Guest:Right.
Guest:Yeah, that was probably our downfall.
Guest:But you weren't boozers.
Guest:There was no junkies.
Guest:No, we were definitely reasonably clean.
Guest:Right.
Guest:We would drink.
Guest:I mean, we were kids, too.
Guest:So we would drink, but not, you know, it was girly drinks.
Guest:Right.
Marc:You weren't gunning for the end.
Guest:That's right.
Marc:Yeah.
Marc:So you get this TV thing too?
Guest:So we get the TV thing with Orion.
Guest:She goes, well, you need a manager because we didn't have a manager when we signed a record deal.
Guest:And so she brought in Howard Marks, who was managing Kiss.
Guest:And he said, oh, I like you.
Guest:And he's like, oh, this record deal is terrible.
Guest:And I was like, yeah, I hate this record deal.
Guest:And he was like, okay, I'll get you out.
Guest:I'll bring Kiss as A&R guy.
Guest:So then he comes, flies in from New York and signs us.
Guest:That's all you had to do?
Guest:Get out of a deal?
Yeah.
Guest:Pretty much.
Guest:We bought our way out, but it was like relatively inexpensive.
Guest:It was a few thousand bucks, I think.
Marc:Right, right.
Marc:Because I think Michael... Because you weren't a known quantity.
Marc:You weren't making money.
Guest:And I think Michael... No, we hadn't done anything.
Guest:And I think Michael, the producer, was like... I think he probably was like, this kid's really full of himself.
Guest:I don't need this in my life.
Marc:Right.
Marc:Because you were fighting him.
Guest:Yeah, I would fight him on everything.
Marc:So now you're signed with the Kiss guy.
Guest:Yeah, so he brings that.
Guest:He's a manager?
Guest:Yeah, he's a manager.
Guest:Marks.
Guest:Howard Marks.
Guest:And he brings Jerry Jaffe, who's an A&R guy in New York, out to see us.
Guest:And Jerry, I love Jerry, and he signs us to Mercury Records, and that's how we got the deal.
Marc:For the first Candy record.
Guest:First Candy record.
Marc:And you go into the studio and that's where you learn what a producer does?
Guest:And we go- Who produced it?
Guest:So, you know, we have no idea what a producer is.
Guest:So we go, oh, can Phil Spector or George Martin do it?
Guest:We're going on like the list of the-
Guest:guys that we've heard of that are producers.
Guest:And they're like, no, no.
Guest:And I'm like, well, Jimmy Ioner had done the Raspberries records and we really liked the Raspberries.
Guest:So it was like, well, let's call Jimmy Ioner.
Guest:Jimmy was like, all right, I'll produce it.
Guest:You kids need a lot of work.
Guest:Everything Jimmy said was right.
Guest:We needed a lot of work.
Guest:But again, it's- What was that process like though?
Marc:What was the learning curve on that?
Marc:And when he said work, what did it mean to you as the sort of bass playing leader of the band?
Guest:Oh, I was so arrogant.
Guest:I wasn't listening to anybody.
Marc:Yeah.
Guest:I was just like, we got this.
Guest:Yeah, right.
Guest:We're playing the Roxy and the Whiskey and selling out.
Guest:We've got the kids.
Guest:We've got the kids.
Guest:What do you know about getting on the radio or whatever?
Guest:And so I would do what he asked.
Guest:He would ask for lyric changes and things.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:But it was in a begrudging way.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:We do the record.
Guest:You like it?
Guest:No.
Guest:Because it's like, because we didn't really listen to him, we didn't really make the record that he wanted us to make.
Guest:And it wasn't as punk as we were.
Guest:Yeah.
Marc:Right, but you were still drawing from, it seemed like the pedigree was pretty poppy.
Marc:I mean, if you're talking the raspberries.
Guest:Yeah, yeah, yeah.
Guest:We wanted to be a successful Ramones.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:A commercially successful Ramones.
Guest:Right.
Guest:Obviously, the Ramones are genius.
Marc:Yeah.
Guest:But we wanted to be the Ramones that were on the radio.
Marc:Right.
Marc:So what happened?
Marc:So they released the record.
Guest:It's pretty much crickets, except that MTV takes a liking to the video.
Guest:Which song?
Guest:I had to write the treatment, Whatever Happened to Fun.
Marc:Oh, yeah.
Marc:That's your big almost hit.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:So I had to, you know, because I couldn't give up control, I wrote the video treatment.
Guest:It's all stupid shit.
Guest:Okay.
Guest:And so MTV starts playing the video, and we get some tours with Rick Springfield and Corey Hart.
Guest:But because we're not as big as Michael Jackson, we're just like, fuck this.
Guest:Kick the singer out of the band.
Guest:It's all kinds of stupid.
Marc:But those are who you're billed with.
Marc:So this is not really the world of testosterone and metal.
Guest:No, because the record didn't sound like testosterone and metal.
Marc:But that's not your bag anyways.
Guest:No, I was I was fine with not being a metal band.
Marc:Yeah.
Guest:But the thing like but one of the things that was interesting that happened where and it's maybe it's all of it affected like how I manage is so.
Guest:At that time, I was friends with the Poison guys, and I was helping them slightly.
Guest:I wasn't a big part of their thing or anything, but they were living in Harrisburg, Pennsylvania, and I would give them some tips on how to come to LA, and it's real fun here, and you can get a record deal.
Marc:How'd you meet them?
Guest:um i met them through another band from baltimore called the vamps yeah and uh and then they got a friend of mine and gilby's cc deville to play guitar for them so then that's how i became like good friends with them
Marc:And you pulled him out to LA?
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:Come out to LA, meet Kim Fowley, all that kind of stuff.
Marc:You stayed in touch with Fowley?
Guest:Yeah, he passed away recently.
Guest:I know.
Guest:But I've stayed in touch with him the whole time.
Guest:Oh, really?
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:He heckled me at South by Southwest at a panel.
Guest:It was amazing.
Guest:But one of the things that I realized that they did much smarter than we did is they did pop music, but they...
Guest:put it in the guise of a metal band.
Guest:We were just floating in no man's land.
Guest:There was a guy who, the college radio guy at Mercury, a guy named Jack Iskwith, who I'm still friends with, who's a great guy.
Guest:He was the first guy to tell me the truth in the record business.
Guest:He goes, kid, I know what you are.
Guest:He's like, but you're fucked because you think you're lord to the new church and this label thinks you're wham.
Guest:and i was like oh no that was the truth and that's when i realized that it was like oh so we that's so if if we're gonna stay on the labels business that's why we started doing the rick springfield cory heart it was like they think we're a pop band okay we got to play ball in that world and did you go over with those audiences oh we killed
Guest:yeah yeah because my singer was he had a great poppy voice which who kyle yeah it's just like it's such a nice it's such a good pop star voice and uh we were and we were we were dangerous for those crowds right so little girls yeah all little girls yeah they loved it and but but you know we wanted to be we had no patience whatsoever so we were like fuck this
Guest:Get rid of the singer.
Guest:Gilby's going to sing.
Guest:So we imploded ourselves for no good reason.
Marc:After the first record?
Guest:After the first record, yeah.
Marc:And then what happens?
Marc:What does that look like?
Guest:So then what happens is L.A.
Guest:changes.
Guest:We come back from tour, and all of a sudden, Guns N' Roses, it's a new scene.
Guest:It's a darker scene.
Marc:So now it's the real hair metal thing.
Guest:That's right.
Guest:And so it's L.A.
Guest:is an explosion.
Marc:Yeah.
Guest:And it's it's incredible.
Guest:It's like everyone's walking around in a band passing out flyers and right up there on sunset on the strip is like all metal kids.
Marc:That's like that's Penelope's Ferris's second movie.
Guest:Penelope Spears' second movie, which is incredible.
Marc:Decline of Western Civilization with the guy from Wasp in the pool.
Guest:It's one of the greatest documentaries.
Marc:That guy didn't turn out well.
Guest:No.
Guest:I don't think anyone in that movie turned out that well.
Marc:And just all those kids, too.
Guest:It was unreal.
Guest:But that's the time.
Guest:That is the time.
Marc:So you get back and you're like, what the fuck?
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:It was like, wow.
Guest:It's so crazy what's happening here.
Guest:So...
Guest:What happens is... And that's when the comedy store is cranking.
Guest:The comedy store is cranking.
Guest:Right.
Guest:And Gilby and I go, well, if we split into two bands, we'll probably get two record deals, because everyone's getting a record deal.
Guest:And if we stay candy, we're going to probably just like... At that time, if you lost your record deal, you were kind of persona non grata.
Guest:So we split into two bands, and John, the drummer, and I became Electric Angels...
Guest:Oh yeah, I had that CD.
Guest:And then Gilby becomes Kill for Thrills.
Guest:And we both get record deals.
Guest:We moved to New York and we get a record deal three weeks later with Atlantic.
Guest:Gilby gets a record deal with MCA.
Guest:So yeah, that was part two.
Guest:It was like the gypsy years.
Marc:All right, so the Electric Angels comes out and does nothing.
Guest:The electric angel comes out, does nothing.
Marc:Did the label get behind it?
Guest:They didn't.
Guest:But in their defense, knowing what I know now, we didn't give them a record to get behind.
Guest:Labels are really good at radio.
Guest:That's their thing.
Guest:They have control over it.
Marc:At that time.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:Still they are.
Guest:It's still there.
Guest:That's what they're exceptional at.
Guest:They're the best in the world.
Guest:If you really want to be on the radio, you have to be on a big label.
Marc:They know what hits are.
Guest:They know what hits are, and they also know when to spend the money, spend a little bit more money promoting a hit, all that kind of stuff.
Guest:But they also have people that work at those places that are really good at radio.
Guest:Yeah.
Marc:And this is something you learn later.
Guest:I learned that the hard way.
Guest:So with Electric Angels, we gave them a record that sounded like it wasn't a metal record.
Guest:It was kind of dark and glammy.
Guest:And it wasn't like a pop record.
Guest:It was like, what do we do with this?
Guest:Radio is what we do.
Guest:So we did a lot of touring.
Guest:And we built up a good cult following, just like Candy did.
Guest:But same thing.
Guest:It was like, fuck this label.
Guest:Same implosion.
Marc:All right, so Electric Angels craps out.
Marc:So when do you start applying the Know Your Limitations?
Guest:So that's when I start to go, okay, maybe I'm not going to... Be an astronaut.
Marc:Let childhood dreams pass.
Guest:Yeah, let the childhood dreams pass.
Guest:Let me get a job.
Guest:Let me earn some money.
Marc:Yeah.
Guest:And that job was so terrible.
Marc:But you had no vision for what that would be in terms of how am I going to get big?
Guest:Yeah.
Marc:Like you had to let that go because you had to start somewhere.
Guest:That's right.
Marc:So how do you end up in the fucking accounting department at Sony?
Guest:It was more like, well, maybe quality of life is different.
Guest:Like maybe I'm wrong.
Guest:Like maybe I'm wrong about everything.
Guest:Right.
Guest:That maybe I shouldn't be in music.
Guest:Maybe I shouldn't, maybe there's like, I was never driven by money.
Guest:Like you were never driven by money.
Guest:Right.
Guest:It was driven by, yeah.
Guest:How do I get big?
Guest:Yeah.
Marc:Or how do I do what I want?
Guest:How do I do what I want?
Guest:It's like maybe I'm good at accounting.
Guest:It's easy.
Guest:I do it for my band.
Guest:And it was easy, but it was such a miserable job.
Guest:I got Bell's palsy.
Marc:I remember that because that's when we were friends.
Marc:So this is like the mid-90s and we're hanging out and you're miserable and you got me a deal on things.
Marc:You're teaching me about the music business.
Marc:We got our girlfriends.
Marc:We're eating Italian food by your house.
Marc:And I'm telling you what's going on in comedy and you're like, you know,
Marc:kind of you know uh chiming in about that and we're you know seeing because at that time it was me and louie and todd berry and nick de paulo is sort of like right around the beginning of alt comedy and a lot of things were happening for me but that weren't happening and then your face drops half your face just falls down yeah and i remember we went out to dinner i'm like what the fuck and you're like i don't know man
Marc:And it's like it's supposed to go away.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:It was with you when I first noticed it.
Guest:Where like, yeah, my face dropped and I was like, what the fuck is going on?
Marc:Yeah.
Marc:Yeah.
Marc:Yeah.
Marc:Because I remember when we went on one of those walks.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:And I went to, you go to a doctor for Bell's palsy and they're like, we don't know what causes it.
Guest:Right.
Guest:We don't know how to cure it.
Guest:Right.
Guest:I'm like, fuck.
Marc:Yeah.
Guest:Like this is- I'm gonna look like this, like a stroke guy.
Marc:I felt so bad for you because you're like, I don't know, they say it'd probably go away.
Marc:Yeah.
Marc:I don't know how long.
Guest:And I went to an acupuncturist and the guy goes, you don't like your job, quit your job.
Guest:I was like, yeah, that makes sense.
Guest:How did he know that?
Guest:And so I was like, okay, I'm going to dive back into music.
Guest:And I started producing things.
Guest:Remember I produced that girl, the New York Loose?
Guest:Do you remember that?
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:What was her name?
Guest:Bridget.
Marc:Yeah.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:She was great.
Guest:And so I was producing things.
Guest:And so I was just like, I'm going to quit this job, dive into music.
Marc:And then New York Loose happened, right?
Marc:I'm trying to remember what she looked like.
Guest:She was like blonde, like cool looking, like a Debbie Harry kind of looking girl.
Marc:Yeah, yeah, yeah.
Marc:So you got her a deal.
Marc:Got her a deal.
Marc:As her manager?
Marc:No, really.
Guest:No, just like- Like you were kind of A&R.
Guest:I was just hustling.
Marc:Right.
Marc:You know, and- Who'd you call to get that deal?
Guest:I just like, just, she was a good hustler and I was a good hustler and we just started like working everybody in the business.
Marc:Right.
Guest:And then once that happened, I got that job at Fiction.
Right.
Marc:Right.
Marc:That was the guy from The Cure, right?
Guest:The manager.
Guest:Chris Perry, the Cure's manager.
Marc:He set you up in an office in the BMG building.
Guest:That's exactly right.
Marc:In New York.
Marc:And you were just sort of like doing his whatever he needed.
Marc:But yeah, a lot of free time.
Marc:I had a lot of free time.
Marc:And that was the amazing thing.
Marc:It's like you never could really tell me exactly what you did for him.
Marc:But this is his rug.
Guest:Oh, yeah, that's right.
Guest:Right, because he left his New York apartment.
Guest:It was like, you just take whatever you need.
Marc:You need a rug and I'll take that.
Marc:This is the same rug, dude.
Guest:So Chris Perry, he's my hero, essentially, because he's the one who showed me how to do it all.
Guest:So he was in a band from New Zealand called The Formula when he was a kid.
Guest:Moved to London.
Guest:He had a big hit in New Zealand, moved to London, the band stiffed.
Guest:He became an A&R guy.
Guest:He's the guy in the great rock and roll swindle that gives the pistols the demo money and then they sign with somebody else.
Marc:That's him.
Guest:Yeah, and then he signed the jam and he produced the jam albums and he became, and then he found The Cure and he quit his job as an A&R guy and became The Cure's manager.
Marc:Who was he A&R for?
Marc:DMI?
Guest:Polydor.
Marc:Polydor.
Marc:Yeah.
Marc:See, like you were the guy who taught me what A&R is.
Marc:I didn't know any of this shit.
Marc:And like A&R people, they're the guys that signed the guys for the labels and that's a big money game.
Guest:Yeah, that's right.
Marc:If you're good at it.
Marc:So your guy, what's his name again?
Guest:Chris Perry.
Marc:Chris Perry is now the manager of The Cure.
Marc:But by the time you meet him, The Cure is like already huge.
Guest:Huge.
Guest:They're doing- They're almost done.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:In a way.
Guest:So he was like, by that time, he had moved on to doing radios.
Guest:He built a radio station in the UK called XFM.
Guest:Right.
Guest:Right.
Guest:But he just showed me that the music business, it's what you make of it.
Guest:It's kind of like what I did when I was in a band, only I'm not in the band anymore.
Guest:So I can do it with different bands.
Guest:And it's just like, it really is whatever you want it to be.
Guest:There's no rules.
Marc:I remember the one thing that kind of blew your mind when you were at Sony.
Marc:The thing that I think started giving you the Bell's palsy was that these artists were not picking up their residual check.
Guest:Oh, yeah, that was crazy.
Marc:So they would just be like, what would you say?
Guest:Van Morrison was like $860,000.
Guest:Just sitting there.
Guest:Yeah, yeah.
Guest:And they're not going to find him.
Guest:Yeah.
Marc:And so I think that was part of the sort of like, holy shit.
Guest:Yep, yep.
Guest:Yeah, there's like all this money here.
Marc:Right.
Marc:Yeah.
Marc:All right, so you can do whatever you want in the music business when you have that zone to sort of produce, manage, A&R.
Marc:Like, you know, it's sort of once you're in the house...
Marc:You can kind of do whatever.
Guest:Yeah, and it's more like you do what you think is right rather than what you think you're supposed to do.
Guest:But what did he expect out of you?
Guest:He just wanted me to find bands or find writers and sign them to publishing deals, which I did for him.
Guest:And we had a bunch of hits.
Marc:Just to have as a manager.
Marc:You were sort of doing some- A publisher.
Guest:He wanted me to do it for him as a publisher.
Marc:Okay.
Guest:So sign like the songwriting part of it.
Marc:Right.
Marc:And you sign people?
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:Yeah, yeah.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:And we had a good run.
Guest:Who?
Guest:Like with who?
Guest:We did a- I had a-
Guest:The first hit I had was Primitive Radio Gods.
Guest:No, I remember that.
Marc:It's like, listen to you, like the first hit.
Marc:You got, what was it?
Marc:You were sitting there and you told me you've got some unsolicited.
Marc:Yeah, it was an unsolicited demo.
Marc:Just came to the office.
Guest:And like, I'm listening to it and the kid's like, oh, like I sent that in years ago.
Guest:And I'm like, oh shit, I don't know what I'm doing.
Guest:But then it became a giant hit.
Marc:With the B.B.
Marc:King sample?
Guest:Yeah, with the B.B.
Guest:King sample.
Marc:I've been downhearted, baby.
Marc:Been downhearted, baby.
Marc:Right.
Marc:And that was, you're like, I'm going to make this a hit.
Marc:And that was the first time you did that.
Guest:That was the first hit.
Guest:And how'd you do that?
Guest:You just took the... Got it in the Cable Guy soundtrack.
Guest:And from the Cable Guy soundtrack, it just took off.
Marc:Like radio stations started playing it and then... So you... The publishing... Part of the publishing world, which I remember now that you were involved with, was getting these smaller bands...
Marc:that had been around for a while, these deals to just have their music on shows that wasn't, because I know a guy who does that for my show, that's still a route to go, is that, because people don't want, they don't have the money to pay for hits.
Marc:That's right.
Marc:From the history of music.
Guest:That's right.
Marc:Because it's ridiculous.
Guest:Right.
Marc:So there's all these hungry bands around that if you go, you'll get residuals and they'll give you 10,000 up front.
Marc:That's right.
Marc:Yeah, if you let them do it, put the song on the show.
Marc:So you got on the cable guy and then it became huge.
Marc:Yeah.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:Then it became a giant hit.
Guest:Now you're a hit maker.
Guest:Now I'm a hit maker.
Guest:So then I find this kid Jive Jones.
Guest:I put him with a writer to write for because somebody's developing a new girl and they need a girl song and they write Candy.
Guest:I give it to Mandy Moore as A&R guy and it becomes a giant hit for Mandy Moore and launches her.
Marc:And what's your cut on that?
Guest:we get 25%.
Marc:Oh, this is when you're still at the BMG building.
Guest:Yeah, this is in the BMG building.
Guest:So things are going well in the BMG building.
Guest:I'm doing these things for him.
Guest:But then Napster hits.
Guest:And when Napster hit, that's when I started... Because you were still in New York then.
Guest:Remember I got... I was like, oh, the internet's going to change everything.
Guest:I'm like...
Marc:you'll be able to make your own records and all this stuff right you saw that coming and then also there was this i remember there was a time where you were actively scouting i can't remember for what reason because you remember when cmj came and there you know you'd always have all those records and you're always running around doing stuff you you weren't managing yet were you no that's when i was i was but i was like i had this thing in my head where
Guest:I was going to be able to do it the way I would have done it as I was in a band, like do it yourself, basically, because of the internet.
Guest:Okay, so that was around that time.
Marc:Oh, I get it.
Marc:So you saw this coming.
Guest:Yeah, so when Napster hit, it just changed everything for me.
Guest:It was like, oh my God, it's like the whole business is going to change.
Marc:Broke open.
Guest:Yeah.
Marc:And at that time, was that when you developed the relationship with Don Arden?
Marc:I remember that was a big life changer.
Guest:Yeah, that was crazy.
Guest:I'm very glad that I didn't do anything with him because like- But how did that happen?
Marc:Don Arden managed Black Sabbath.
Marc:His daughter is Sharon Osbourne, but he also managed like Jerry Lewis and ELO.
Guest:ELO, yeah.
Marc:Big, big British manager.
Marc:Yeah, so- Old school.
Guest:Very old school.
Guest:Right.
Guest:And at that time, he was probably past his-
Marc:Right, I remember that because I don't remember how he reached out to you.
Marc:What was that?
Guest:Well, those guys, the older guys like Seymour Stein and Don, they took a liking when I started looking for bands and saying I was going to do things on the internet.
Guest:Because there weren't very many people saying that at that time, these older guys that were really good at their thing were like, I don't know what the internet is, but this kid's talking about something and maybe there's something there.
Marc:So they were looking to be part of it.
Marc:Yeah.
Marc:Okay, so how does Don Arden reach out to you?
Marc:Because I remember, didn't you go to London and hang out with him?
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:So Don came to me through a guy who worked at Sony named Greg McBowman.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:He was a business guy at Sony, but he knew Don.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:Because Don had a deal with Sony, and he was like, oh, you should meet this young guy who likes the internet.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:So that's how.
Marc:And what was your experience meeting him?
Marc:Because I remember it was pretty impactful.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:I mean, he was an amazing character.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:You know.
Marc:What did he learn from him?
Guest:You know, it's the same thing.
Guest:It's sort of like if you if you create the character of what you, you know, again, like it's show business.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:You can make stuff happen.
Guest:You just you can't like everything like the idea of having records that are going to be huge is is a ridiculous idea.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:But it's not impossible.
Guest:right it's just improbable yeah so the difference between that is what i learned from guys like don and seymour and chris is just like oh yeah like everyone's it's really an even playing field right on what the song that's going to be the song of the summer is yeah you just have to like get a song that you believe in and then try and will it you know figure out how to get it through
Marc:Right.
Marc:And that's what you learned from those guys.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:You know, because the record business was started as like a street hustler business.
Marc:Right.
Guest:They're all street hustlers.
Guest:Right.
Guest:In the best of ways.
Marc:And you were the guy that had the foresight to start to hustle the internet.
Guest:I was like, I was definitely one of the early... I was definitely early in that process.
Guest:Certainly like from...
Guest:coming from an A&R angle.
Guest:Other people were hustling the internet, but they were more looking at it in terms of security and stuff that was more business-y.
Guest:I was early on going like, this is gonna be a new way to market things.
Marc:So when did you become a manager?
Guest:So at the end of the 90s, Chris that owned the BMG thing, he was like, I think I'm going to retire.
Guest:I'll give you some money.
Guest:He gave me like 30 grand or something, which at that time to me was a lot of money.
Guest:And he's like, you should do what you want to do with this internet thing.
Guest:You don't need Don Arden or...
Guest:any of these guys, just do it yourself.
Guest:It's like, you don't need any money.
Guest:If what you're telling me is right, you don't need any money.
Guest:And he was right, so that's how I started.
Guest:I started with a little bit of money and an office in SoHo and some interns.
Guest:and uh i started looking for do-it-yourself people and the first artist was a still my artist is one of my best friends butch walker yeah and um he was just like me only way more talented yeah and i was like oh this is gonna be easy i know what to do with him yeah i'll just do what i would do with me he's a producer
Guest:He's an artist and he's a big producer.
Guest:He's done Taylor Swift, Katy Perry, Avril Lavigne, Pink, and also many other cool things like Frank Turner and Brian Fallon and Weezer.
Guest:So he's done a mix of all kinds of music.
Marc:But when you met him, he was what?
Guest:He was a singer-songwriter, which he still is.
Guest:But in my mind, thinking like how I would think for me, all these bands thought he was great.
Guest:So I was like, oh, you should produce these bands.
Guest:And it started out with small bands like Bowling for Soup and...
Guest:And SR-71.
Guest:And he had hits with those, which led to Simple Plan, which he had a hit with, which led to Avril, which led to Pink, which led to Katie.
Marc:And now he's bigger than big.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:So he was my first guy and really like a super...
Guest:That was like, we can do this.
Guest:Because he took a real chance on me because he had a record deal.
Guest:I didn't have any clients.
Guest:There was no reason to let me manage him.
Guest:But he believed my hustle.
Guest:And yeah, we've had a really good run.
Marc:Yeah, and then who was the next client?
Guest:Do you remember my friend Pablo, who's an A&R guy with Benji at Columbia?
Marc:Yep.
Guest:So Pablo, he was always a great A&R guy.
Guest:He was always early on things, and he was like, you know, there's this kind of music called emo music.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:It's like kids really like it, and it's all over the internet.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:So I started, I was like, all right, so I started looking for...
Marc:So is anyone making money?
Marc:Are CDs still selling at this point?
Guest:CDs are still selling, yeah.
Guest:Okay.
Guest:Everyone's blind to the fact that that part of the business is going to be obliterated.
Guest:Right.
Guest:Everybody's just like, yeah, whatever.
Guest:It's like a little fad that kids like, but we don't care about it.
Guest:Right.
Guest:So I find these emo bands on mp3.com.
Guest:There's a whole scene of them.
Guest:And I sign a bunch of them.
Guest:Because there's nobody in the music business doing it.
Guest:And one of those bands is Fall Out Boy.
Guest:And Fall Out Boy, if not for Fall Out Boy, I'm probably not a successful manager.
Guest:Or certainly not as successful as I am.
Guest:Pete from Fall Out Boy is like...
Guest:of no joke marketing he's me but better yeah and uh he's no joke at marketing but he has that ambition that i had yeah and then he has a singer patrick who's so talented yeah and so we built this thing uh oh and one more key thing happens at that time i always thought i needed a partner yeah in my thing like somebody who was completely different than me you didn't call me i didn't get the call
Guest:I don't think you would have been the right guy.
Guest:I don't think you would have wanted to do it.
Guest:That's probably right.
Guest:And I met Bob McClendon, who is still my partner.
Guest:And I was like, oh, I have this band, Fall Out Boy.
Guest:Can you get them some tours and do that stuff?
Guest:And he carried them on his back.
Guest:And they became this giant band.
Marc:He was their road manager?
Guest:No, he was like, I would say he was like, he worked for me, except I couldn't pay him because I had no money.
Guest:So he was just like, you know, he had the right spirit.
Guest:He was like, yeah, whatever, I'll look after it.
Guest:And then that's how we sort of built the company, is we built that band, or he really built them on tour.
Marc:So you took these kids off the online world, basically out of community boards or what would have been Reddit at the time and realized that they had a following of kids who were off the grid because they were now alienated from mainstream music and they had their own thing.
Marc:And you realized at that time that the nuts and bolts of the game always were, but now more than ever, was going to be touring.
Guest:That's right.
Marc:And merchandise.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:And really just like, but building community.
Guest:Like if you have fans and you have the right song and the right singer, then you can be big.
Guest:Those are like the three things, right?
Yeah.
Marc:Yeah, because that's why when we finally reconnected, you're like, yeah, I'm huge.
Marc:I mean, you didn't say that, but you're like, I got these huge bands, Fall Out Boy and Panic at the Disco.
Marc:I'm like, who?
Guest:So Pete found Panic at the Disco.
Guest:Pete was like, yo, I found this other band, Panic at the Disco.
Guest:And it was like, it sounds like you.
Guest:And he's like, yeah.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:They're cooler than me.
Guest:He's like, we should sign them.
Guest:They'll be big.
Marc:So Pete was the A&R guy on that?
Guest:Yeah, basically.
Guest:And so we sign Panic at the Disco.
Guest:We make a record for like 10 grand.
Guest:And we hear the record.
Guest:Bob and I hear the record.
Guest:We're like, holy shit.
Guest:This will probably sell 50,000 records.
Guest:We put the record out and it just goes batshit crazy.
Guest:Like kids flip out.
Guest:We, we ended up selling 3 million of the record we made for $10,000.
Marc:So now the record company thinks you're a genius.
Marc:Yeah.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:So now it's like, okay, these guys, we don't know what this emo thing is, but these guys do.
Guest:And so we've got the, he's got these bands and they're like, you know, they're selling out Madison square garden size places.
Guest:It's pretty, pretty nuts.
Marc:So, so at that time you've got Butch and these two bands.
Guest:These two bands.
Guest:And we have a couple more of these kind of emo bands.
Guest:We have a hip hop one called Gym Class Heroes that Pete found that's also selling like massive hits.
Guest:Same thing.
Guest:So that was your wave.
Guest:So yeah.
Guest:So we're the kings of emo.
Guest:Right.
Guest:We do that for a few years.
Marc:Now, when do you start using your experience and also your pop sensibility to guide these guys?
Marc:I mean, what's that relationship?
Guest:That definitely started just... It gets better.
Guest:The more I do this, the better I am with artists.
Guest:But that started from day one.
Guest:I think there's like a...
Guest:Because both Bob and I, we're in bands, we can speak a common language.
Guest:It makes a lot of sense for people, you know, for the bands.
Guest:They're like, oh, when they say, you know, if they go, hey, you might want to like repeat that part.
Guest:It comes from a sound place.
Marc:Like you're like, we need a hook.
Guest:Yeah, or, yeah, put, this song needs a post-chorus, yeah, yeah, put this at the beginning.
Guest:Right, right.
Guest:Yeah, so, like, we, that, we, I mean, there was, you know, there's a period where, like, in a three-week period, both of them were on the cover of Rolling Stone, so we're just, like, riding a wave.
Guest:Right.
Guest:And, but, and that scene was very much like, you know, it's a scene, like Seattle or the hairband scene.
Guest:I'm like, you know, I'm a paranoid Jew, so I'm like,
Guest:What happens when this ends?
Guest:We're a really only emo.
Guest:So I start thinking like, okay, the record, what do I know?
Marc:Well, now you have some cachet.
Guest:Now I have some.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:But it's still like, it's very specific.
Guest:Right.
Guest:So I'm like, well, what do I know about the record business?
Guest:What have I thought?
Guest:that I could do different in a contrarian way.
Guest:So I was like, well, the record business abandons artists before the public does.
Guest:So if we could find some artists that were successful, but that fell off, and just have one more hit, they'd be right back in it.
Guest:And so that's when I met my friend Sam Hollander, who's a writer-producer who had worked with our bands, said, you should meet Pat from Train.
Marc:Yeah.
Marc:I remember the first Train record.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:You remember Drops of Jupiter and Meet Virginia and they were big.
Guest:And then they had five years where they were not big.
Guest:So I was like, you know, I don't know if Train goes with my stuff.
Guest:He's like, you'll like Pat.
Guest:He's very funny.
Guest:He's very dark.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:And what I didn't know is he's also very ambitious and very talented.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:So I meet Pat and I like him because he's funny and dark.
Guest:And I'm like, all right, well, you know, he's like, well, you listen to my, you don't do bands like me.
Guest:It's like, no, I don't.
Guest:But he's like, well, would you listen to my songs?
Guest:And he plays me.
Guest:I go, how many do you have?
Guest:He goes, 80.
Guest:I go, 80.
Guest:It might take a minute, but yeah.
Guest:So we sit down and I'm listening to his songs and he's got these songs.
Guest:He's got this one, Hey Soul Sister.
Guest:I'm like, well, what's wrong with this?
Guest:He's like, well, the label doesn't like it and the producer doesn't like it.
Guest:I was like, all right, I'll be your manager.
Guest:But my first two jobs are I'm going to fire the label and fire the producer.
Guest:This song is a hit.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:And there was another song called Marry Me that I thought was a hit.
Guest:And we make a record.
Guest:And Hey Soul Sister became the biggest hit.
Guest:It was the biggest hit of the year that year.
Guest:I think it sold like nine million copies at this point.
Guest:And now we've had like maybe 10 hits with Train.
Guest:We have another one that just came out.
Guest:And so that was like, oh, okay, I get how this is.
Guest:And so that's how I met Sia.
Guest:Same thing.
Guest:It's like, well, she had a career.
Guest:She'd never had a hit, but she had like a little indie career.
Guest:She was in bad place.
Guest:And I didn't know if I could manage Sia because she wasn't pop.
Guest:She wasn't what I knew and she was female and I know bands.
Guest:So I was like, well, I don't know if I'm the right manager for you, but I know how to get you out of the bad position you're in.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:Because she was in a deal she didn't like, and she was miserable.
Guest:She was just sick, and she thought she was an alcoholic, and maybe she was or wasn't, I don't know, because I wasn't friends with her then.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:And we just became friends, and I was like, oh my God, this girl is the most talented person I've ever met.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:I was like, she can do pop music.
Guest:And so we started figuring out how to do pop music.
Guest:And once she figured it out, she's no joke.
Guest:And she's also, I think she's one of the most successful pop writers in the game.
Guest:Wow.
Guest:It's maybe the most successful female.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:But one of the things that just happened to her this year, which makes me like money and numbers on a chart, they're just like measures of things.
Guest:But what's super great about this one is she's one of the only women ever –
Guest:that's 40 years old that's had a number one record on a road.
Guest:It's Cher, Madonna, and Sia.
Guest:Mm-hmm.
Guest:That's pretty like- Yeah.
Guest:In a game where they tell you that you can't age women, it's pretty cool, yeah.
Marc:That's great.
Guest:That is cool.
Guest:The thing about the company, and it really is like a team.
Guest:We manage like a band.
Guest:Right.
Guest:I've got like 25 people that work there.
Marc:Crush management?
Guest:Crush management.
Guest:Mm-hmm.
Guest:All of them are, like everyone there is so talented that I don't have to be a control freak.
Guest:They do, you know, like Dan Kretschke, who runs marketing, is so much better than I am at marketing.
Guest:It's so great to have that, you know, and we have that and we've got, you know, radio people, we've got this two guys, Eric does pop radio and Capone does alternative.
Guest:They're like animals.
Guest:They just don't know.
Guest:They won't stop until the records are hit.
Guest:So it's awesome.
Marc:And you've got an office here in LA and in New York?
Guest:New York and LA.
Guest:It's all crazy.
Marc:No London?
Guest:No London yet.
Guest:Don't tempt me.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:I always say, if I have a great song, my job is easy, and if I have a good song, my job's impossible.
Guest:And it's really what it is.
Guest:You have to keep raising the bar on yourself.
Guest:Great artists, no matter what kind of artists, they're always in competition with themselves.
Guest:I think one of the things that both of us had when we were younger...
Guest:It's just like we'd be in competition with others and we'd be envious of others.
Guest:But when you're really good, you drop all that stuff.
Marc:You don't even think about it anymore.
Marc:I'm very surprised it happened to me.
Marc:I mean, there's a couple that if you give me a minute.
Marc:I can get there pretty quickly, but it's not guiding my disposition.
Guest:Yeah.
Marc:Yeah.
Guest:And when you can let go of that, it really helps the success.
Marc:Well, right.
Marc:But usually the only way you can let go of it, you know, without, you know, intense vigilance is if you find some success.
Marc:Yeah, sadly.
Marc:That's right.
Marc:I mean, you can be consumed with that shit and it can kill you and it can end you.
Marc:If you're lucky enough to get a little success, it starts to ease up.
Guest:That's right.
Marc:But that's not a guarantee.
Guest:The truth is, it's great when your friends are successful.
Guest:It's way better.
Guest:It's like, you brought me to a poker game.
Guest:Right.
Marc:At Eddie Brill's?
Guest:at eddie brills yeah the during the during like my lowest period when you know the bells bossy days we used to play poker with right and pretty much everyone in that poker game is huge now jeff ross it was like but louis and sarah silverman and dave cross you know it's like all of them became like wildly successful right and it's like
Marc:Long before me.
Marc:So I didn't play, I didn't stay in the game long.
Guest:You didn't play poker enough.
Marc:I always lost.
Marc:I was bad at it.
Guest:But the thing is, is like.
Marc:And Louie immortalized that game in his show.
Guest:Yeah, that's right.
Guest:Yeah, that's right.
Guest:But it's just like, it's like having that is much more fun than if, you know, as a memory, than if I play poker with your friends and none of them got successful.
Guest:Sure.
Guest:I played poker with some comedians.
Marc:Yeah, yeah, right, right.
Guest:But now it's like an incredible story.
Marc:Yeah, yeah.
Marc:Well, yeah, I mean, you definitely got that feeling in whatever business you were in that, you know, it was a smaller world in a way back then, certainly in comedy.
Marc:Right.
Marc:You know, and you just didn't think about that that was the next generation that would become great and then really hold on to it.
Marc:Now, like, getting into the current day, you know, along the same lines that, you know, you took on Train, you've taken on Weezer and Courtney Love, kind of?
Guest:Weezer, Courtney, yeah.
Guest:The newest one we have is Lorde, which I'm super excited about.
Guest:But she wasn't a has-been.
Guest:No.
Guest:Well, that's why I'm saying the newest one, because this is the first time anyone's given me something that was currently successful to work on.
Guest:So that's exciting.
Guest:How'd that happen?
Guest:If you ask her, she'll say I was the only manager without a publicist.
Guest:I think she just like she met a bunch of people and, you know, and I think I was probably less.
Marc:And what do you do for that for her?
Guest:uh the same same things you know just like you look at look ahead at the new record you see where she's at and yeah just trying to like with her it's been a lot of strategy of like okay she she was her record was so big like how do we roll this out how do we start it you know what festival should we play how do we position her on the bill to make the next record same level yeah right exactly and with courtney i know you did a record that you were very hands-on with
Guest:So with Courtney, Courtney is always and will always be her own category.
Guest:So with Courtney, my friend Michael Beinhorn, who I told you about, is a producer.
Guest:He's a genius producer.
Guest:He called me up and he said, you know, can you help Courtney?
Guest:And I was like, I don't know, let me meet her.
Guest:And she was in pretty bad shape.
Guest:And we've become very friendly because...
Guest:Like you and I, she grew up in the 80s in that time.
Guest:She was dancing at Jumbo's Clown Room and hanging out with those bands.
Guest:Celebrity Skin, the whole album came from Celebrity Skin, a band that I used to play with when I was in Electric Angels.
Guest:So we have like a real common thread and she's super into music.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:And I think she likes that I'm successful and so I don't need her.
Guest:I'm not like a hanger on with her.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:So we've been working on a book, which I think is going to be really good.
Guest:Uh-huh.
Guest:And I'd love to make another record with her because she's- What was that last one that you did with her?
Guest:Nobody's Daughter.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:You like that record?
Guest:I do.
Guest:She wasn't in retrospect.
Guest:I'm glad we made it because she had been trying to make it for eight years.
Guest:Getting it finished was an accomplishment, but she wasn't in the right place.
Guest:I think she's in a much better place now.
Guest:She's awesome now.
Guest:Good Courtney is awesome, and bad Courtney is the worst person alive.
Guest:So now that she's good, Courtney, she's what you signed up for.
Marc:Now, getting more up to date, the last time we were out of touch for a while, you had a little health crisis.
Guest:Oh, yeah.
Marc:Yeah.
Marc:And what happened?
Guest:It felt like a giant was standing on my shoulder.
Guest:I had never been in the hospital, not since I was born.
Guest:I was like, I think I need to go to the hospital.
Guest:I go to the hospital and they're like, I think you might be having a heart attack.
Guest:So it was like a minor artery was blocked, so it wasn't like a triple bypass surgery or anything.
Guest:So they put you out.
Marc:It wasn't pain, it was pressure.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:Weird.
Guest:It's like crazy pressure.
Guest:Weird.
Guest:And so they put you out and it's really an interesting experience because they gave me, I think it's nitroglycerin maybe.
Guest:And you just pass out immediately and you're sort of awake, but not really.
Guest:And so people are yelling.
Guest:Like a roofie.
Guest:yeah i'm like am i dead like people are yelling around me like maybe i'm dying and then you start thinking about things like you know like what's gonna happen to my air miles you know you just go through all these like strange thoughts yeah it's really like an interesting not none of them were like life flashing before your eyes did i do what i set out to do none of that it's like air miles or i had
Guest:who's gonna feed the dog minutiae yeah it was all that kind of stuff and it and what you realize is like so it's not your life that flashes before your eyes it's like what you should what you got to do tomorrow yeah who's gonna do that i was like shit i hope i can get out of here tomorrow because like c is doing a tv in la i need to be there that kind of stuff yeah yeah interesting definitely all that were you afraid uh
Guest:Probably.
Marc:Yeah.
Marc:So what'd they do, put a stint in?
Guest:Put a stint in, yeah.
Guest:I was there for a couple days.
Guest:I definitely didn't like being in there.
Guest:And so when I got out, I started reading about stuff.
Guest:And actually...
Marc:Because you're a vegetarian, lifelong vegetarian.
Guest:Yeah, I was a lifelong vegetarian.
Guest:So my friend Russ Irwin, who plays keyboards and Aerosmith, he's a great guy.
Guest:He said, oh, my brother had that.
Guest:He's like, you got to become a vegan.
Guest:You got to read this guy, Dean Ornish's book.
Guest:I know Dean Ornish.
Guest:This guy, Caldwell Esselstyn, read these books.
Guest:And I started reading.
Guest:And I realized that what happens when you're a vegetarian and not a vegan is you overcompensate by eating too much dairy, too many carbs, too much sugar.
Guest:It's all the things that lead to heart disease.
Guest:Interesting.
Guest:So, yeah, so I just switched to being a vegan.
Guest:It's been amazing.
Guest:You look great.
Guest:Oh, thanks.
Guest:Took off some weight.
Guest:You exercising now?
Guest:Yeah, exercise, added exercise, stopped dairy, and it's been great.
Guest:And, like, I don't think everyone needs to do that.
Guest:Right.
Guest:But...
Guest:If you're if if you're unhealthy, you should do that, because those are the it's very obvious.
Guest:Like when I go to my doctor for the checkup every six months, you go to the heart specialist.
Guest:He's like, you should just be a poster boy, whatever you're doing, like every all the cholesterol and all of the problems that you had when you came in are all gone.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:And it's because when you're a vegetarian, you overdo those things.
Guest:Right.
Guest:Because you're not eating correctly.
Guest:Yeah, cheese.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:Sugar.
Guest:Beans.
Guest:Carbs.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:Like pasta.
Marc:But you do a little pasta.
Guest:I do a little, but a very little.
Marc:Yeah.
Marc:And you've been with Renee since I've known you, so that's good.
Guest:Yeah, she's the best.
Marc:Yeah.
Marc:And I'm proud of you, man.
Marc:It's very impressive.
Yeah.
Guest:Yeah, man, I'm very proud of you.
Marc:You're relieved.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:No, it's, you know what it is?
Marc:I remember when I saw you and I finally kind of got out, like when the show, this show, started to get successful, you're like, you did it.
Guest:You know what it is?
Guest:Well, you know how I knew it was successful is I would be places.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:Really, there's always that moment, the apex, the point of inflection.
Guest:So I'm meeting with the head of Warner UK and I'm sitting in the waiting office and his assistant comes out and she's like, are you the John Daniel that knows Marc Maron?
Guest:I was like, wow.
Guest:Sometimes I'll listen to you and you'll be talking to a band about me and I'll be like, hey, I'm right here.
Guest:What's going on?
Guest:No, you know what?
Guest:Like we were saying before, having your friends be successful is awesome.
Guest:So many of the bands, but also the producers and things, they're all fans of you.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:What's great about the way you did it, and it's very punk rock, is like to be successful you can do it by any means necessary or on your own terms, right?
Guest:And you did it on your own terms, and that's punk rock.
Marc:Yeah, it was not by any means necessary.
Marc:It was a Hail Mary pass.
Guest:That's what's so awesome, though.
Guest:It is.
Guest:It's like it was a Hail Mary.
Marc:I don't know anything about that any means necessary business.
Marc:It got close.
Marc:Well, thanks for talking, man.
Guest:All right.
Guest:Yeah.
Marc:It's great to see you.
Marc:And send me that record.
Guest:All right.
All right.
Marc:All right.
Marc:Good.
Marc:That was great.
Marc:It's great.
Marc:It's great that you can, if you're hung in there, that you just witnessed me catching up with an old buddy and also learning things about him I've never known after knowing him for years.
Marc:And we used to talk all the time.
Marc:But then I started to realize back in the day, I did most of the talking.
Marc:That guy was at my first wedding.
Marc:Anyways, hope you like that.
Marc:Thanks for listening.
Marc:Go to WTFPod.com for all your WTFPod needs.
Marc:The tour date's upcoming and whatnot.
Marc:No guitar.
Marc:I'm in a hotel room.
Marc:I'm in Tallahassee.
Marc:I'm leaving Tallahassee.
Marc:Enjoy your day as best you can.
Marc:Boomer lives!
Marc:Boomer lives!
Thank you.