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[00:00:12] [SPEAKER_01]: Well, it's the same band. It's the first time we were in the studio together. I've been on stage with Billy Gibbons, John Tiffin I've known for years, the singer, and who else, the drummers on the last album that's fired up. This one's called Friendly Town. And we put everybody in the studio, cut all the fractions one day, I think.
[00:00:33] [SPEAKER_00]: I assume that the last time it was a result of the pandemic of you're not being able to be in person?
[00:00:37] [SPEAKER_01]: It was. And I think I said on the album, I said, when Beth sang in the background, I said, I just walked through the backyard. She didn't have to get covered or anything. She just walked through the backyard and saw it on the mic. The good news is she lives next door to John Tiffin. Do what?
[00:00:58] [SPEAKER_00]: You're such a studio guy. I associate you so much with your studio work.
[00:01:02] [SPEAKER_01]: Well, nobody had to overdub or phone their part in this song, this album. It was all done live. Even the overdub were done live in the studio.
[00:01:12] [SPEAKER_00]: I remember that experience of doing that remotely. How big of an impact did that have on the album?
[00:01:18] [SPEAKER_01]: Right. Well, it would have. And I think Billy did. Billy Gibbons came in, came back in after we cut the traction and overdubbed on eight or nine songs the same day, one day. He's quick. Thought it was one take. He's so good. It just blows my mind how good he is. He was on stage with me on my 80th birthday. Now I'll be 80 for you next month.
[00:01:45] [SPEAKER_00]: It's incredible that you're still able to do this and you're still touring this.
[00:01:50] [SPEAKER_01]: Right. It's great. And the only one that sent a part of him was Brian May, I think. The single is out there now called Too Much Trash. He sent it from England. He did all his stuff over in England and sent it to us. So here's the deal on that song.
[00:02:07] [SPEAKER_01]: So John Collard said, hey man, I hadn't heard from you in about a month and a half. He said, I know, man. He said, I apologize.
[00:02:15] [SPEAKER_01]: There's been too much stress. And John says, that's your song right there. He's just like me. He writes like I do. He's pretty good. He's not pretty good. He's real good.
[00:02:26] [SPEAKER_01]: I'm not talking about me. I'm talking about John Tiffin. Sorry.
[00:02:29] [SPEAKER_00]: How would you describe your own writing process?
[00:02:33] [SPEAKER_01]: It's okay.
[00:02:35] [SPEAKER_01]: It's all right.
[00:02:37] [SPEAKER_00]: You've done pretty well for yourself, Steve.
[00:02:39] [SPEAKER_01]: It's all right.
[00:02:40] [SPEAKER_01]: Okay.
[00:02:40] [SPEAKER_01]: How'd you like the cake?
[00:02:41] [SPEAKER_01]: It's all right.
[00:02:42] [SPEAKER_01]: He always says that.
[00:02:43] [SPEAKER_01]: How'd you like the sushi?
[00:02:44] [SPEAKER_01]: It's all right.
[00:02:47] [SPEAKER_01]: It can go either way.
[00:02:48] [SPEAKER_01]: All right.
[00:02:48] [SPEAKER_01]: It can either be bad or good.
[00:02:50] [SPEAKER_01]: It doesn't matter.
[00:02:51] [SPEAKER_01]: It's peated anyway.
[00:02:54] [SPEAKER_01]: So my writing is all right.
[00:02:58] [SPEAKER_01]: Well, I've been lucky than most guys.
[00:03:00] [SPEAKER_01]: Most guys, I do a lot of golf tournaments and stuff where they have celebrities come.
[00:03:04] [SPEAKER_01]: Most of those guys have one hit.
[00:03:06] [SPEAKER_01]: They're one hit wonders.
[00:03:07] [SPEAKER_01]: I've had six number one records.
[00:03:10] [SPEAKER_01]: 16 top tens and six number ones.
[00:03:14] [SPEAKER_01]: I guess.
[00:03:16] [SPEAKER_01]: That's good.
[00:03:16] [SPEAKER_01]: I don't know if it is or not, but it sounds good.
[00:03:20] [SPEAKER_01]: They were introducing me one time.
[00:03:21] [SPEAKER_01]: I said, damn, I got to meet that guy.
[00:03:24] [SPEAKER_01]: And the audience laughed their butts off.
[00:03:26] [SPEAKER_01]: So they thought that was pretty funny.
[00:03:27] [SPEAKER_00]: So you said that your writing style is similar.
[00:03:30] [SPEAKER_00]: It sounds like from the standpoint of, I guess, just being influenced by what's happening in the moment.
[00:03:35] [SPEAKER_01]: Yeah, it's all over the place.
[00:03:36] [SPEAKER_01]: It just depends on the artist I'm writing with.
[00:03:39] [SPEAKER_01]: And the same thing with guitar playing.
[00:03:40] [SPEAKER_01]: They made me a guitar player.
[00:03:41] [SPEAKER_01]: I said, I'm not a guitar player.
[00:03:43] [SPEAKER_01]: I better use it as a tool.
[00:03:46] [SPEAKER_01]: If it called for a baseball bat, it would be used to a baseball bat.
[00:03:48] [SPEAKER_01]: But now they call for a guitar.
[00:03:50] [SPEAKER_01]: They wanted a guitar player.
[00:03:51] [SPEAKER_01]: And so most of the guys said, how come there's only one guitar on most of those records?
[00:03:56] [SPEAKER_01]: I said, well, we couldn't afford two guitars.
[00:03:58] [SPEAKER_01]: That's why.
[00:04:01] [SPEAKER_01]: It's actually, they couldn't barely afford me, let alone anything.
[00:04:05] [SPEAKER_01]: They had to pay me twice.
[00:04:06] [SPEAKER_01]: They had to pay me for sessions and a salary.
[00:04:09] [SPEAKER_01]: That didn't go down well with Jim Stewart.
[00:04:11] [SPEAKER_01]: But he wasn't tight with his money.
[00:04:14] [SPEAKER_01]: He was tight with his money when he had to be.
[00:04:18] [SPEAKER_01]: Otherwise, he was the most honest guy in the record business.
[00:04:20] [SPEAKER_01]: He'd sit up all night long doing everybody's royalty to make sure they got, not trying to figure it out.
[00:04:24] [SPEAKER_01]: He'd just make sure everybody got every penny they had coming to him.
[00:04:29] [SPEAKER_01]: A lot of guys stay up all night long too, but they stay up to cheat people.
[00:04:34] [SPEAKER_01]: Don't write that in the article.
[00:04:37] [SPEAKER_01]: You can write about Jim Stewart, but don't write about the seat.
[00:04:40] [SPEAKER_01]: And they don't cheat.
[00:04:40] [SPEAKER_01]: They just do what they got to do.
[00:04:42] [SPEAKER_00]: I get the sense that with Saks specifically, that you had a lot of control over things.
[00:04:48] [SPEAKER_00]: I mean, you were doing A&R.
[00:04:50] [SPEAKER_00]: You were doing production.
[00:04:51] [SPEAKER_00]: I did, yeah.
[00:04:52] [SPEAKER_01]: One time I had a lot of control over the whole company.
[00:04:56] [SPEAKER_01]: Even though Jim was in charge of the president, I still had a lot of stuff going on.
[00:05:01] [SPEAKER_01]: So I asked one time, I said, Jim, can you give me a raise?
[00:05:04] [SPEAKER_01]: He said, yeah.
[00:05:05] [SPEAKER_01]: He said, what do you want to be?
[00:05:06] [SPEAKER_01]: I said, on the second floor.
[00:05:07] [SPEAKER_01]: So he gave me an office on the second floor and took away my stick.
[00:05:11] [SPEAKER_01]: When I say took away my stick, it took away all my power.
[00:05:17] [SPEAKER_01]: I couldn't call the South anymore.
[00:05:19] [SPEAKER_01]: And that's when we started having ups and downs.
[00:05:21] [SPEAKER_01]: And we had a lot of hit records, but we had some flop too.
[00:05:26] [SPEAKER_01]: So it didn't matter.
[00:05:28] [SPEAKER_00]: What was your role of A&R like during that time?
[00:05:32] [SPEAKER_00]: What did you actually do?
[00:05:34] [SPEAKER_00]: Did you seek out the artists?
[00:05:35] [SPEAKER_01]: Well, that's a good question.
[00:05:38] [SPEAKER_01]: I didn't turn down anybody good.
[00:05:40] [SPEAKER_01]: Let's put it that way.
[00:05:41] [SPEAKER_01]: A&R?
[00:05:43] [SPEAKER_01]: That's hard to say.
[00:05:45] [SPEAKER_01]: Otis, maybe.
[00:05:46] [SPEAKER_01]: And who else?
[00:05:48] [SPEAKER_01]: And I called Jim down.
[00:05:49] [SPEAKER_01]: I said, Jim, I knew I'd get the power if he didn't come down out of the control room.
[00:05:53] [SPEAKER_01]: I said, Jim.
[00:05:54] [SPEAKER_01]: He said, Steve, what do you need?
[00:05:56] [SPEAKER_01]: I said, I need you to come down and hear this guy sing.
[00:05:58] [SPEAKER_01]: He said, I can't do that.
[00:05:59] [SPEAKER_01]: I'll say you can.
[00:06:00] [SPEAKER_01]: Just stop whatever you're doing and come down here and hear this guy sing.
[00:06:03] [SPEAKER_01]: Okay.
[00:06:04] [SPEAKER_01]: You know what we're doing the rest of the afternoon?
[00:06:07] [SPEAKER_01]: Cutting these arms from my hand.
[00:06:08] [SPEAKER_01]: And then the next morning, they were cutting the B-side for these.
[00:06:11] [SPEAKER_01]: A baby, I think, was the B-side.
[00:06:16] [SPEAKER_00]: Excuse me.
[00:06:16] [SPEAKER_00]: How did you and Otis cross paths initially?
[00:06:20] [SPEAKER_01]: That way.
[00:06:22] [SPEAKER_01]: I heard it for the first time.
[00:06:23] [SPEAKER_01]: I stopped.
[00:06:24] [SPEAKER_01]: And I said, I got to let Jim hear this.
[00:06:26] [SPEAKER_01]: He said, what?
[00:06:27] [SPEAKER_01]: You don't like it?
[00:06:27] [SPEAKER_01]: I said, I love it.
[00:06:28] [SPEAKER_01]: I just want Jim to hear it.
[00:06:30] [SPEAKER_01]: He's the only singer I know ever in history to make my hair stand up on my arm.
[00:06:35] [SPEAKER_01]: Nobody ever did that.
[00:06:37] [SPEAKER_01]: But Otis did.
[00:06:37] [SPEAKER_00]: And the two of you were writing partners for a while.
[00:06:42] [SPEAKER_01]: Did I what?
[00:06:43] [SPEAKER_01]: I'm sorry.
[00:06:44] [SPEAKER_00]: You did a lot of co-writing with him as well.
[00:06:48] [SPEAKER_01]: Oh, yeah.
[00:06:50] [SPEAKER_01]: Love Man and what else did I co-write?
[00:06:53] [SPEAKER_01]: Five, five, five.
[00:06:54] [SPEAKER_01]: That song.
[00:06:55] [SPEAKER_01]: I've been singing his sad sad songs.
[00:06:57] [SPEAKER_01]: Seth and Doc of the Bay, of course.
[00:07:02] [SPEAKER_01]: So if you see, I'll tell everybody this.
[00:07:05] [SPEAKER_01]: If you see Redding Cropper on any record, you're going to find out it's all about him.
[00:07:10] [SPEAKER_01]: It's pretty easy.
[00:07:11] [SPEAKER_01]: He's a big guy and very streetwise.
[00:07:15] [SPEAKER_01]: He was easy to write about.
[00:07:22] [SPEAKER_01]: And he rhymed his own.
[00:07:23] [SPEAKER_01]: He had his own dictionary.
[00:07:25] [SPEAKER_01]: So we put in an album called Dictionary Soul.
[00:07:28] [SPEAKER_01]: On the back of that album, there's some of the things he used to say, like ooh-ee and that kind of stuff.
[00:07:34] [SPEAKER_01]: And pretty little thing, let you light your candle.
[00:07:36] [SPEAKER_01]: Not candle, but candle.
[00:07:38] [SPEAKER_01]: Mama's so hard to handle.
[00:07:39] [SPEAKER_01]: That's the way he said handle.
[00:07:41] [SPEAKER_01]: He didn't say handle.
[00:07:42] [SPEAKER_01]: He said handle.
[00:07:44] [SPEAKER_01]: Heard another thing, let me light your candle.
[00:07:46] [SPEAKER_01]: Mama's so hard to handle.
[00:07:47] [SPEAKER_01]: Now, yes, I am.
[00:07:48] [SPEAKER_01]: You have to-da-da-da-da in Bump City.
[00:07:50] [SPEAKER_01]: I did that one, too.
[00:07:52] [SPEAKER_01]: Most people don't know it because my name is not on the producer.
[00:07:55] [SPEAKER_01]: I did the tower power one time.
[00:07:57] [SPEAKER_01]: And that was fun.
[00:08:01] [SPEAKER_01]: I know how.
[00:08:03] [SPEAKER_01]: Go ahead.
[00:08:05] [SPEAKER_01]: I was going to say, I know how we mix it.
[00:08:07] [SPEAKER_01]: And one of the engineers, we sent that tape off.
[00:08:11] [SPEAKER_01]: And the guys at Warner Brothers said, man, that is the cleanest damn album we've ever heard.
[00:08:16] [SPEAKER_01]: They didn't know we were using Allison Research and Horse Gates.
[00:08:19] [SPEAKER_01]: We had four of them tied into the system.
[00:08:22] [SPEAKER_01]: They sent them to us, and we put them in there.
[00:08:24] [SPEAKER_01]: And it worked.
[00:08:25] [SPEAKER_01]: So when the horns come on, they come on immediately.
[00:08:27] [SPEAKER_01]: Da-da-da-da-da.
[00:08:28] [SPEAKER_01]: You know.
[00:08:29] [SPEAKER_01]: And there's silence until they come on.
[00:08:32] [SPEAKER_01]: I see the room sounding noise.
[00:08:36] [SPEAKER_01]: That's the old record style.
[00:08:38] [SPEAKER_01]: So we were the one of the first with that, I guess, with noise gates.
[00:08:41] [SPEAKER_00]: It strikes me that there's a certain level of, I don't know if modesty is the right.
[00:08:45] [SPEAKER_01]: They make them anymore.
[00:08:46] [SPEAKER_01]: I'm sure they're out of business, but I haven't checked on the years.
[00:08:49] [SPEAKER_01]: They got different stuff now, those noise gates.
[00:08:52] [SPEAKER_01]: And I think MXR did one during that time.
[00:08:56] [SPEAKER_01]: And they were their competitor, but it didn't matter.
[00:09:02] [SPEAKER_01]: They were mainly pedals for...
[00:09:06] [SPEAKER_01]: Allison Research did stuff for studios, for mixers.
[00:09:10] [SPEAKER_01]: And MXR did stuff for guitar players and bass players and all of them and piano players.
[00:09:15] [SPEAKER_01]: They were foot switch stuff that you could incorporate into your sound.
[00:09:19] [SPEAKER_01]: For stage, I think Allison Research did stuff for the studio.
[00:09:25] [SPEAKER_01]: They were just a little more sophisticated in their wiring, I think.
[00:09:29] [SPEAKER_01]: Maybe I'm wrong.
[00:09:30] [SPEAKER_01]: I don't know.
[00:09:31] [SPEAKER_01]: That's my analysis.
[00:09:33] [SPEAKER_01]: I love it.
[00:09:33] [SPEAKER_00]: Between the songwriting, and it sounds like, and understandably so,
[00:09:39] [SPEAKER_00]: in the case of somebody like Otis Redding, that you really let him take the lead.
[00:09:44] [SPEAKER_00]: But that you're fine sort of taking a back seat,
[00:09:52] [SPEAKER_00]: or not necessarily having your name on a piece of music.
[00:09:54] [SPEAKER_00]: Or even on this new record, you're a great guitar player,
[00:09:57] [SPEAKER_00]: but you're bringing other guitar players in to play on the album.
[00:10:00] [SPEAKER_01]: I am, and they're the drummers.
[00:10:02] [SPEAKER_01]: But I've always done that all my life.
[00:10:07] [SPEAKER_01]: Excuse me.
[00:10:08] [SPEAKER_01]: I've always taken a back seat on stuff.
[00:10:10] [SPEAKER_01]: And that just is a natural way for me to think.
[00:10:14] [SPEAKER_01]: And they say, he's so modest.
[00:10:15] [SPEAKER_01]: I say, no, I'm not.
[00:10:15] [SPEAKER_01]: That's just my measure.
[00:10:18] [SPEAKER_01]: Deep inside, I'm really digging what I'm doing, or I wouldn't put it out there.
[00:10:22] [SPEAKER_01]: But I think songwriting has become a lot easier than it used to be.
[00:10:25] [SPEAKER_01]: You don't need as much as you used to.
[00:10:27] [SPEAKER_01]: Or you either need more or less, one of the other.
[00:10:30] [SPEAKER_01]: It used to be two verses, a bridge, and a verse.
[00:10:33] [SPEAKER_01]: Now I see the two verses, no bridge.
[00:10:36] [SPEAKER_01]: And that's it.
[00:10:37] [SPEAKER_01]: And then the rest is all just kind of grooving music.
[00:10:41] [SPEAKER_01]: So I've written 12 songs.
[00:10:44] [SPEAKER_01]: I wrote, how many did I write on this album?
[00:10:47] [SPEAKER_01]: About 15, I think, for the whole album.
[00:10:50] [SPEAKER_01]: And we have got unrecorded, or two of them have been recorded, non-relieved.
[00:10:55] [SPEAKER_01]: I wrote 12 songs with Aaron Sparling.
[00:11:00] [SPEAKER_01]: Not Aaron Sparling, Aaron Sparling.
[00:11:03] [SPEAKER_01]: And we're still writing.
[00:11:04] [SPEAKER_01]: That's good.
[00:11:05] [SPEAKER_01]: And I've written about, yeah, enough for an album with Steve Cook, bass player.
[00:11:12] [SPEAKER_01]: He just lost his wife last week.
[00:11:15] [SPEAKER_01]: Damn it.
[00:11:17] [SPEAKER_01]: To breast cancer.
[00:11:18] [SPEAKER_01]: And she had breast cancer, but she had a bad reaction to chemo.
[00:11:24] [SPEAKER_01]: And they lost her.
[00:11:25] [SPEAKER_01]: It was almost like getting COVID.
[00:11:27] [SPEAKER_01]: So my wife says the hospital killed another dude.
[00:11:31] [SPEAKER_01]: They wouldn't do that.
[00:11:32] [SPEAKER_01]: But I'm not going to tell her that.
[00:11:34] [SPEAKER_01]: If I do, I just ensue in an argument.
[00:11:38] [SPEAKER_01]: You know, women are going to want to win no matter what.
[00:11:41] [SPEAKER_01]: So I hope they win on this album.
[00:11:44] [SPEAKER_01]: So far, so good on the Brian May thing.
[00:11:46] [SPEAKER_01]: I hope they like Billy Gibbons as much as they do Brian.
[00:11:48] [SPEAKER_00]: That, I think, speaks to your willingness to take a backseat on things.
[00:11:55] [SPEAKER_01]: That's what I did on this album.
[00:11:57] [SPEAKER_01]: I got Brian May on it and Billy Gibbons.
[00:12:00] [SPEAKER_01]: And I just cut a little rhythm.
[00:12:01] [SPEAKER_01]: That's all I did.
[00:12:03] [SPEAKER_01]: Yeah.
[00:12:05] [SPEAKER_01]: Wrote most of the songs.
[00:12:06] [SPEAKER_01]: Most of the grooves are mine.
[00:12:07] [SPEAKER_01]: So, you know, they are what they are.
[00:12:10] [SPEAKER_01]: The lyrics are theirs.
[00:12:12] [SPEAKER_01]: The grooves are mine.
[00:12:13] [SPEAKER_00]: I think people comment on it because, especially in a business like the music business, it's refreshing.
[00:12:20] [SPEAKER_00]: And, you know, you deal with a lot of egos, as I'm sure that you've dealt with a lot of egos over the years.
[00:12:26] [SPEAKER_00]: And that's the kind of thing that, you know, that causes conflicts.
[00:12:30] [SPEAKER_00]: And that's the kind of thing that breaks up bands.
[00:12:33] [SPEAKER_00]: But I think a testament to your collaboration and ability to work with people is how much you end up working with the same people over and over again over the years.
[00:12:44] [SPEAKER_01]: Right.
[00:12:46] [SPEAKER_01]: I hope so, anyway.
[00:12:48] [SPEAKER_01]: I've had other people outside that say, man, your ego's in the way.
[00:12:52] [SPEAKER_01]: I say, that's kind of hard.
[00:12:52] [SPEAKER_01]: I don't even have one.
[00:12:55] [SPEAKER_01]: I check behind the door when I walk in.
[00:13:00] [SPEAKER_01]: But some artists, they have such a big ego, it fills a room before they walk in.
[00:13:04] [SPEAKER_01]: It fills us outside, too.
[00:13:05] [SPEAKER_01]: Oh, they're so stuck on the surface.
[00:13:07] [SPEAKER_01]: And I noticed in L.A., someone will send scat singers.
[00:13:13] [SPEAKER_01]: They don't show up until it's time to sing.
[00:13:15] [SPEAKER_01]: And I don't blame them for that.
[00:13:16] [SPEAKER_01]: I'm not knocking for it.
[00:13:17] [SPEAKER_01]: I just think it's weird.
[00:13:19] [SPEAKER_01]: They should be there for the whole process.
[00:13:21] [SPEAKER_01]: So they feel the same thing the musicians feel.
[00:13:24] [SPEAKER_01]: That's why most of the service are so big and the staff are so big because the musicians are in it just like they were.
[00:13:29] [SPEAKER_01]: Tom Dowd found that out.
[00:13:30] [SPEAKER_01]: He started giving up all the musicians to sit there.
[00:13:33] [SPEAKER_01]: They can sing along.
[00:13:34] [SPEAKER_01]: Then they would know what they were playing about.
[00:13:39] [SPEAKER_01]: I always know what I'm playing about.
[00:13:40] [SPEAKER_01]: I like to hear the song first and then play it.
[00:13:44] [SPEAKER_01]: So I have a subject matter.
[00:13:46] [SPEAKER_01]: If I had the lyrics, maybe.
[00:13:47] [SPEAKER_01]: I don't know.
[00:13:48] [SPEAKER_01]: I don't do it lyric by lyric.
[00:13:49] [SPEAKER_01]: I just do it something.
[00:13:50] [SPEAKER_01]: The idea by idea.
[00:13:53] [SPEAKER_01]: I like titles that write themselves.
[00:13:55] [SPEAKER_01]: You say a title of mine and you can make up your own song.
[00:14:00] [SPEAKER_01]: It doesn't matter.
[00:14:03] [SPEAKER_01]: It is so good.
[00:14:04] [SPEAKER_00]: It always struck me how people, especially in, you know, obviously you've done quite a bit of instrumental music over the years, you know, especially with the MGs.
[00:14:13] [SPEAKER_00]: It seems like choosing titles for an instrumental is just this kind of a crapshoot.
[00:14:20] [SPEAKER_01]: It is.
[00:14:21] [SPEAKER_01]: And it was a book of 10 MGs.
[00:14:23] [SPEAKER_01]: A lot of people didn't know this.
[00:14:24] [SPEAKER_01]: Everything was marked as a track.
[00:14:26] [SPEAKER_01]: Track one, track two, track three, track four.
[00:14:28] [SPEAKER_01]: Then we name everything when we mix it.
[00:14:31] [SPEAKER_01]: What does that sound like?
[00:14:32] [SPEAKER_01]: Well, that sounds like.
[00:14:33] [SPEAKER_01]: I remember when one was Booker.
[00:14:36] [SPEAKER_01]: He said he wanted to name one of our songs.
[00:14:42] [SPEAKER_01]: I said, Booker.
[00:14:43] [SPEAKER_01]: They're not even sound anymore.
[00:14:44] [SPEAKER_01]: That was 10 years ago.
[00:14:45] [SPEAKER_01]: Now they're called Hiphugger.
[00:14:47] [SPEAKER_01]: He said, yeah, Hiphugger.
[00:14:48] [SPEAKER_01]: That's what I meant.
[00:14:49] [SPEAKER_01]: I said, good.
[00:14:50] [SPEAKER_01]: Can I spell it?
[00:14:51] [SPEAKER_01]: He said, I don't care.
[00:14:52] [SPEAKER_01]: He said, yeah, that's fine.
[00:14:54] [SPEAKER_01]: Same thing with a marquee.
[00:14:55] [SPEAKER_01]: So I spelled it Hip-Hug-Her.
[00:14:58] [SPEAKER_01]: Hip-Hug-Her.
[00:15:01] [SPEAKER_01]: Hip-Hug-Her.
[00:15:03] [SPEAKER_01]: Anyway, you know why they designed them in the first place.
[00:15:06] [SPEAKER_01]: Keep girls from catching their jeans or their slacks in the chain of this bicycle.
[00:15:15] [SPEAKER_01]: So they were tied at the bottom or cut off at the bottom of one of the other.
[00:15:19] [SPEAKER_01]: That's why they called them pedal pushers.
[00:15:22] [SPEAKER_00]: I did not know that.
[00:15:23] [SPEAKER_00]: Hiphugger.
[00:15:24] [SPEAKER_01]: Aha.
[00:15:26] [SPEAKER_01]: Yeah, there's a line to everything, basically, I think.
[00:15:31] [SPEAKER_00]: You're a big fan of wordplay as well.
[00:15:34] [SPEAKER_00]: It sounds like, you know, you made two, what are basically puns right there?
[00:15:41] [SPEAKER_00]: Right.
[00:15:43] [SPEAKER_01]: Well, they talk about this AI stuff, artificial intelligence.
[00:15:47] [SPEAKER_01]: I said, good.
[00:15:48] [SPEAKER_01]: Why don't you make me a phone that'll work?
[00:15:50] [SPEAKER_01]: My other ones and my flip phones didn't work either.
[00:15:53] [SPEAKER_01]: It's good.
[00:15:54] [SPEAKER_01]: I mean, they work better than this one.
[00:15:56] [SPEAKER_01]: This new phone, this new iPhone doesn't work at all.
[00:15:59] [SPEAKER_01]: Intelligent phone.
[00:16:00] [SPEAKER_01]: Yeah, that's what it looks like.
[00:16:02] [SPEAKER_01]: It works sometimes.
[00:16:03] [SPEAKER_01]: When it's laying down by itself, it works great.
[00:16:05] [SPEAKER_01]: When you touch it, it's all over the place.
[00:16:07] [SPEAKER_01]: When I touch it, I got electricity in my hand.
[00:16:10] [SPEAKER_01]: So, I don't know.
[00:16:11] [SPEAKER_01]: Maybe that's from playing too much guitar.
[00:16:13] [SPEAKER_01]: I don't know.
[00:16:13] [SPEAKER_01]: I just play at night.
[00:16:17] [SPEAKER_01]: I played all day long.
[00:16:18] [SPEAKER_01]: And then a little over the night too.
[00:16:20] [SPEAKER_01]: But not on stage.
[00:16:22] [SPEAKER_00]: When people discuss, you know, and I suspect maybe this is a conversation that you've had
[00:16:28] [SPEAKER_00]: as you're talking about AI, people discuss what this is going to mean for creativity moving forward,
[00:16:35] [SPEAKER_00]: you know, if these machines are making music.
[00:16:38] [SPEAKER_00]: But it sounds like you don't think that's going to be much of a problem since they can't figure out how,
[00:16:44] [SPEAKER_00]: you know, how to get simple things right.
[00:16:50] [SPEAKER_01]: So, my son came to me a few months ago.
[00:16:52] [SPEAKER_01]: This is how I found out of him.
[00:16:53] [SPEAKER_01]: He said, Dad, can I borrow your buzzer?
[00:16:55] [SPEAKER_01]: I said, buzzer?
[00:16:56] [SPEAKER_01]: I don't even have a buzzer.
[00:16:57] [SPEAKER_01]: Yeah, he said, you know that thing you shave with.
[00:16:59] [SPEAKER_01]: I said, you talking about my shaver?
[00:17:01] [SPEAKER_01]: Yeah.
[00:17:02] [SPEAKER_01]: You call out a buzzer?
[00:17:03] [SPEAKER_01]: He said, well, everybody does.
[00:17:04] [SPEAKER_01]: I said, what if they need a buzzer?
[00:17:07] [SPEAKER_01]: Somebody hands up your shaver.
[00:17:09] [SPEAKER_01]: That's not what I'm looking for.
[00:17:10] [SPEAKER_01]: I'm looking for a buzzer.
[00:17:11] [SPEAKER_01]: I need a buzzer.
[00:17:13] [SPEAKER_01]: Okay.
[00:17:15] [SPEAKER_01]: You know, it's funny to me.
[00:17:17] [SPEAKER_01]: We spent 200 years trying to perfect the English language.
[00:17:21] [SPEAKER_01]: And then we got to perfect it and they want to change it all.
[00:17:23] [SPEAKER_01]: Okay.
[00:17:24] [SPEAKER_01]: Whatever you want to do.
[00:17:30] [SPEAKER_01]: Songs are the same way.
[00:17:31] [SPEAKER_01]: I said, why do you call that song?
[00:17:32] [SPEAKER_01]: Well, they would know it was a real song if we didn't change it to that.
[00:17:36] [SPEAKER_01]: They'll sing I Love You 500 times.
[00:17:38] [SPEAKER_01]: They won't call a song I Love You.
[00:17:39] [SPEAKER_01]: They call it the Great Pinchblower song.
[00:17:41] [SPEAKER_01]: Oh, really?
[00:17:42] [SPEAKER_01]: Okay.
[00:17:43] [SPEAKER_01]: And I found out also in Poland.
[00:17:45] [SPEAKER_01]: I said, how come you don't have pictures of the Bruce Brothers?
[00:17:48] [SPEAKER_01]: Well, they'd think it was a fake band if we had pictures of the Bruce Brothers.
[00:17:51] [SPEAKER_01]: So they did two pictures of two voters of the cops.
[00:17:56] [SPEAKER_01]: Instead of the Bruce Brothers hat, they had the, you know, the captain's hat, whatever they call them, with the bill and all that stuff.
[00:18:03] [SPEAKER_01]: They didn't even look like the Bruce Brothers.
[00:18:05] [SPEAKER_01]: Well, if we did the Bruce Brothers, they wouldn't take us a fake.
[00:18:08] [SPEAKER_01]: Oh, okay.
[00:18:10] [SPEAKER_01]: I believe you.
[00:18:13] [SPEAKER_01]: Well, so on their way to the airport the next morning, they said, Steve.
[00:18:17] [SPEAKER_01]: I said, yeah.
[00:18:17] [SPEAKER_01]: He said, we learned the hard way.
[00:18:19] [SPEAKER_01]: I said, I tried to tell you.
[00:18:21] [SPEAKER_01]: They changed the venue and everything.
[00:18:23] [SPEAKER_01]: They went from 12,000 to about 3,000 people.
[00:18:26] [SPEAKER_01]: They had more than that outside.
[00:18:28] [SPEAKER_01]: But more than 3 outside.
[00:18:30] [SPEAKER_01]: Anyway, that happened in Tunisia, too.
[00:18:33] [SPEAKER_01]: They had 3,000 inside, 5,000 outside.
[00:18:36] [SPEAKER_01]: Holy mackerel.
[00:18:37] [SPEAKER_01]: So the promoter said, we're going to bring you back.
[00:18:39] [SPEAKER_01]: I said, yeah, I guess so.
[00:18:40] [SPEAKER_01]: You want to make that money, don't you?
[00:18:43] [SPEAKER_01]: If you listen to me first, everyone.
[00:18:45] [SPEAKER_01]: So they don't know.
[00:18:46] [SPEAKER_01]: The fans do not know about the Blues Brothers until we show up.
[00:18:49] [SPEAKER_01]: And when we show up, if the guy says, we haven't sold any tickets to your concert, I said, good.
[00:18:56] [SPEAKER_01]: They'd take glueing out to the nearest radio station.
[00:18:59] [SPEAKER_01]: And we feel it every time.
[00:19:02] [SPEAKER_01]: They just want to know they were the real guys, not some funny band.
[00:19:06] [SPEAKER_01]: They had 25 worldwide at one time.
[00:19:08] [SPEAKER_01]: 25 Blues Brothers.
[00:19:12] [SPEAKER_01]: So hopefully they won't have that with this album.
[00:19:14] [SPEAKER_01]: They didn't know the last one, so they don't know what this one is.
[00:19:18] [SPEAKER_01]: But the problem was they never saw the band, Booker T or the Blues Brothers.
[00:19:23] [SPEAKER_01]: They didn't know the Blues Brothers.
[00:19:26] [SPEAKER_01]: But they had some fakes out there.
[00:19:28] [SPEAKER_01]: A lot of them.
[00:19:29] [SPEAKER_01]: Well, with Booker, there was no problem with Booker.
[00:19:32] [SPEAKER_01]: But with the band, there was a problem with the habit fakes because we weren't on the album until way later.
[00:19:40] [SPEAKER_01]: But I think the Green Onions album, all they did was take a picture of a band of green onions.
[00:19:46] [SPEAKER_01]: And the guy, what's his name?
[00:19:48] [SPEAKER_01]: Mark Albert, what is his name?
[00:19:51] [SPEAKER_01]: A famous photographer.
[00:19:52] [SPEAKER_01]: Took my picture yesterday.
[00:19:54] [SPEAKER_01]: He had some green onions in the hat and my guitar.
[00:19:58] [SPEAKER_01]: Okay.
[00:19:59] [SPEAKER_01]: I told my wife.
[00:20:01] [SPEAKER_01]: I said, we may need to get a headshot out of this.
[00:20:04] [SPEAKER_01]: We haven't won the last.
[00:20:05] [SPEAKER_01]: It still looks the same, basically.
[00:20:06] [SPEAKER_00]: It's the music, though, at the end of the day.
[00:20:09] [SPEAKER_01]: Well, at the end of the day, it is the music.
[00:20:12] [SPEAKER_01]: I agree with you.
[00:20:13] [SPEAKER_01]: It either feels good or doesn't it.
[00:20:15] [SPEAKER_01]: And I tell everybody on the live show, I say,
[00:20:16] [SPEAKER_01]: if your buddy isn't working on the second bar, you're already dead.
[00:20:20] [SPEAKER_01]: If your buddy isn't working on the second bar, you're already dead.
[00:20:22] [SPEAKER_01]: That's what I'm talking about.
[00:20:23] [SPEAKER_01]: That always brings a little laugh.
[00:20:25] [SPEAKER_00]: You alluded to this a little bit, but the evolution of language and music is similar
[00:20:31] [SPEAKER_00]: in that music is obviously always changing.
[00:20:35] [SPEAKER_00]: And one of the things that's really impressed me with your career over the decades
[00:20:38] [SPEAKER_00]: is that you change with the times and, you know, you've never really stayed still.
[00:20:46] [SPEAKER_01]: Well, it's not a good politician.
[00:20:48] [SPEAKER_01]: If you're not in touch with the audience, you're not in touch with anything.
[00:20:51] [SPEAKER_01]: So, Doug, you say, keep in touch with yourself.
[00:20:57] [SPEAKER_01]: I always give him credit for something.
[00:20:59] [SPEAKER_01]: Keep in touch with yourself.
[00:21:00] [SPEAKER_01]: I love it.
[00:21:01] [SPEAKER_01]: Now, you've got to keep in touch with the audience if you want to play.
[00:21:05] [SPEAKER_01]: Well, I do.
[00:21:06] [SPEAKER_01]: I said, I know you do.
[00:21:08] [SPEAKER_01]: Otherwise, I wouldn't say anything.
[00:21:13] [SPEAKER_01]: He was something else.
[00:21:15] [SPEAKER_01]: It is what it is.
[00:21:16] [SPEAKER_01]: It's going to be what it's going to be.
[00:21:18] [SPEAKER_00]: You grew up with him.
[00:21:20] [SPEAKER_00]: You knew him for a long time.
[00:21:22] [SPEAKER_01]: Yeah, Doug and I were together from the sixth grade on.
[00:21:24] [SPEAKER_01]: I think we met on a softball field before the bell rang in the morning.
[00:21:30] [SPEAKER_01]: Yeah.
[00:21:31] [SPEAKER_01]: So, the guys that showed up early used to play softball.
[00:21:34] [SPEAKER_01]: And Doug was one of those guys.
[00:21:36] [SPEAKER_01]: He was a transfer.
[00:21:36] [SPEAKER_01]: I was, too, basically, to this one school.
[00:21:39] [SPEAKER_01]: And he came from South Memphis.
[00:21:41] [SPEAKER_01]: I came from East Memphis.
[00:21:44] [SPEAKER_01]: Or North Memphis.
[00:21:45] [SPEAKER_01]: I was at Granwood for half a year and Sherwood for half a year in the fourth grade.
[00:21:50] [SPEAKER_01]: I said, yeah.
[00:21:52] [SPEAKER_01]: Half of my fourth grade at Granwood and half in Sherwood.
[00:21:56] [SPEAKER_01]: And that's where I met Doug in the sixth grade.
[00:21:58] [SPEAKER_01]: I'd already been there a couple of years.
[00:22:02] [SPEAKER_00]: I assume the two of you must have had a really profound impact on each other's musical styles.
[00:22:08] [SPEAKER_01]: Well, here's what I thought.
[00:22:09] [SPEAKER_01]: I thought we could read each other's mind.
[00:22:11] [SPEAKER_01]: And we were pretty good at that.
[00:22:12] [SPEAKER_01]: I never looked at Doug.
[00:22:13] [SPEAKER_01]: I could hear him.
[00:22:15] [SPEAKER_01]: Feel him.
[00:22:16] [SPEAKER_01]: That's the only thing I miss nowadays.
[00:22:18] [SPEAKER_01]: The bass player is good.
[00:22:20] [SPEAKER_01]: They play the right notes a lot of times.
[00:22:22] [SPEAKER_01]: But they don't kick me in the butt like Al and Doug used to.
[00:22:25] [SPEAKER_01]: I never turned and looked at Doug.
[00:22:27] [SPEAKER_01]: I never turned and looked at Al.
[00:22:29] [SPEAKER_01]: Doug, I said, Doug, why do you turn your back to the audience all the time?
[00:22:33] [SPEAKER_01]: He said, all right.
[00:22:33] [SPEAKER_01]: Now I'm watching the drum.
[00:22:34] [SPEAKER_01]: I said, I do, too.
[00:22:35] [SPEAKER_01]: But I would look at Al out of the corner of my eyes.
[00:22:37] [SPEAKER_01]: They said, how did you guys play so tight and you didn't have headphones?
[00:22:41] [SPEAKER_01]: I said, well, it's pretty simple.
[00:22:42] [SPEAKER_01]: So when Al came down with his stick on the snare, I would come down with the guitar.
[00:22:48] [SPEAKER_01]: Oh.
[00:22:49] [SPEAKER_01]: So they don't understand that.
[00:22:51] [SPEAKER_01]: People don't.
[00:22:51] [SPEAKER_01]: They don't know about the Doppler stick like I do.
[00:22:54] [SPEAKER_00]: You had a similar kind of connection with Al as you did with Doug?
[00:22:59] [SPEAKER_01]: I did.
[00:23:00] [SPEAKER_01]: I did.
[00:23:00] [SPEAKER_01]: We could read each other's mind.
[00:23:02] [SPEAKER_01]: We knew that.
[00:23:05] [SPEAKER_01]: I think that's what made Booker so great.
[00:23:07] [SPEAKER_01]: He could read our minds, too.
[00:23:09] [SPEAKER_01]: And I never looked at Booker 1 and played Booker 10 AMG.
[00:23:12] [SPEAKER_01]: Sometimes, maybe.
[00:23:13] [SPEAKER_01]: But I doubt it.
[00:23:15] [SPEAKER_01]: I never did look at Doug or Al.
[00:23:16] [SPEAKER_01]: Not during a song.
[00:23:19] [SPEAKER_01]: I didn't have to.
[00:23:20] [SPEAKER_00]: What do you attribute that to?
[00:23:22] [SPEAKER_00]: Is that just playing together a lot?
[00:23:24] [SPEAKER_00]: Is that a lot of practice?
[00:23:25] [SPEAKER_01]: Well, I think we were listening to each other.
[00:23:27] [SPEAKER_01]: We, yes, we could read each other's mind, but we played together.
[00:23:30] [SPEAKER_01]: We listened to each other.
[00:23:32] [SPEAKER_01]: We listened to what the other guy was playing.
[00:23:34] [SPEAKER_01]: That's what they don't do.
[00:23:35] [SPEAKER_01]: They don't listen to themselves.
[00:23:37] [SPEAKER_01]: So I knew one time in a session, it sounds like sound.
[00:23:40] [SPEAKER_01]: They were bragging on their new headphone system.
[00:23:42] [SPEAKER_01]: Oh, this is going to be great.
[00:23:43] [SPEAKER_01]: Every musician can dial in himself.
[00:23:46] [SPEAKER_01]: He wants more of him, and he can bring more of him.
[00:23:48] [SPEAKER_01]: He didn't have to yell at the engineer.
[00:23:50] [SPEAKER_01]: I said, okay.
[00:23:51] [SPEAKER_01]: So I knew something would happen.
[00:23:52] [SPEAKER_01]: So the producer got on and talked back, and he said, guys, why don't you take a lunch break,
[00:23:57] [SPEAKER_01]: and we'll come back and do this this afternoon.
[00:23:59] [SPEAKER_01]: Okay.
[00:24:00] [SPEAKER_01]: So I stayed, and I went in the control room.
[00:24:02] [SPEAKER_01]: I said to the engineer.
[00:24:03] [SPEAKER_01]: He said, can you put up that last thing we just did?
[00:24:06] [SPEAKER_01]: You want to hear that?
[00:24:07] [SPEAKER_01]: I said, yeah, I want to hear it.
[00:24:09] [SPEAKER_01]: So he put it on, and I went outside, and I listened to each of the headphones.
[00:24:12] [SPEAKER_01]: There was more me, more me, more me.
[00:24:14] [SPEAKER_01]: Every one of them.
[00:24:15] [SPEAKER_01]: I said, I knew there's something wrong.
[00:24:18] [SPEAKER_01]: The new sound system sucked.
[00:24:20] [SPEAKER_01]: The new headphone system, I thought it sucked.
[00:24:23] [SPEAKER_01]: Instead of listening to the band, they only listened to themselves.
[00:24:26] [SPEAKER_01]: That's why I wasn't grooving.
[00:24:27] [SPEAKER_01]: So that's why I wasn't locked in.
[00:24:28] [SPEAKER_01]: They didn't have a choice for the old way to do it.
[00:24:31] [SPEAKER_00]: Would you say there's a parallel as far as songwriting goes, as far as being able to read
[00:24:35] [SPEAKER_00]: somebody's mind, and how important is it to actually be in the room with someone?
[00:24:40] [SPEAKER_01]: Well, I think it's important.
[00:24:41] [SPEAKER_01]: I think you need to listen to the other musicians instead of just yourself, and then you play
[00:24:45] [SPEAKER_01]: accordingly.
[00:24:46] [SPEAKER_01]: You don't worry about how you sound and all that sort of stuff.
[00:24:49] [SPEAKER_01]: I mean, if you're out of tune, you're out of tune.
[00:24:51] [SPEAKER_01]: And the producer or the engineer is going to tell you you're out of tune with the singer.
[00:24:55] [SPEAKER_01]: So you don't think about the tuning.
[00:24:58] [SPEAKER_01]: Most guys nowadays, they tune forever and listen to themselves to show everybody how good
[00:25:04] [SPEAKER_01]: they can play.
[00:25:05] [SPEAKER_01]: Who cares how good you can play?
[00:25:06] [SPEAKER_01]: Nobody.
[00:25:07] [SPEAKER_01]: You play a 40-bar solo with a thousand notes in it.
[00:25:12] [SPEAKER_01]: Nobody gives a crap what you're playing.
[00:25:14] [SPEAKER_01]: They won't remember your name.
[00:25:16] [SPEAKER_01]: They're going to remember the singer and what the singer was singing.
[00:25:19] [SPEAKER_01]: And that's about all they're going to remember as far as the person who buys the record.
[00:25:24] [SPEAKER_00]: It sounds like there's a little bit of frustration as far as not being able to necessarily find
[00:25:28] [SPEAKER_00]: that kind of connection that you had with all the members of the MGs.
[00:25:33] [SPEAKER_00]: But have you had that connection with anyone else since?
[00:25:39] [SPEAKER_01]: I think that's the way I play.
[00:25:40] [SPEAKER_01]: I always listen to the band first.
[00:25:43] [SPEAKER_01]: And I walk into a session, there'll be the engineer down listening to something.
[00:25:47] [SPEAKER_01]: Or, you know, push the knobs.
[00:25:49] [SPEAKER_01]: I say, shouldn't you go out there, listen to the instrument that you're trying to get?
[00:25:53] [SPEAKER_01]: Instead of trying to make the sound happen on the board, why don't you go out there and listen to it and find a mic that works and turn that up and see if that works?
[00:26:00] [SPEAKER_01]: They're not going to do it.
[00:26:01] [SPEAKER_01]: They're going to do it their way.
[00:26:02] [SPEAKER_01]: Okay, fine.
[00:26:03] [SPEAKER_01]: Don't do it my way.
[00:26:04] [SPEAKER_01]: I've only been doing this for 40 years, so don't worry about me.
[00:26:11] [SPEAKER_01]: But they are.
[00:26:12] [SPEAKER_01]: And they make some good records.
[00:26:13] [SPEAKER_01]: I'm not going to knock that.
[00:26:14] [SPEAKER_01]: If they didn't make good records, I would do it.
[00:26:16] [SPEAKER_01]: A lot of crap on the radio today because the dish artists don't know what they're doing either.
[00:26:21] [SPEAKER_01]: Neither do the programmers.
[00:26:22] [SPEAKER_01]: They don't know what they're doing.
[00:26:23] [SPEAKER_01]: But they just throw darts at the board.
[00:26:26] [SPEAKER_01]: And wherever it sticks, that's where you play next.
[00:26:28] [SPEAKER_01]: That's the way producers or promoters used to do.
[00:26:32] [SPEAKER_01]: They just get a handful of darts and throw them against the map.
[00:26:36] [SPEAKER_01]: And wherever it sticks, that's where you play next.
[00:26:39] [SPEAKER_01]: Ding, ding, dong.
[00:26:40] [SPEAKER_01]: I said, no, I can't do this anymore.
[00:26:41] [SPEAKER_01]: Ding, ding, dong.
[00:27:11] [SPEAKER_00]: Everybody's kind of operating on their own.
[00:27:14] [SPEAKER_02]: Just a touch.
[00:27:16] [SPEAKER_02]: Just a touch.
[00:27:17] [SPEAKER_02]: Just a touch.
[00:27:18] [SPEAKER_02]: We were saying.
[00:27:19] [SPEAKER_02]: Yeah.
[00:27:22] [SPEAKER_01]: Yep, well, this time you got Billy Gibbons in my seat.
[00:27:25] [SPEAKER_01]: He's a strong man, too.
[00:27:27] [SPEAKER_01]: Billy's always been a friend of mine outside the guitar world.
[00:27:31] [SPEAKER_01]: Now we're friends in the studio as well and on stage.
[00:27:34] [SPEAKER_01]: So we've done both.
[00:27:35] [SPEAKER_00]: I get the sense that you felt going into it, though, that he was somebody that, even having
[00:27:41] [SPEAKER_00]: not played with him, that way you'd be able to connect to him.
[00:27:44] [SPEAKER_01]: Well, I just wanted to remember.
[00:27:46] [SPEAKER_01]: You know, Billy does something I don't do.
[00:27:48] [SPEAKER_01]: He can play two parts at the same time.
[00:27:49] [SPEAKER_01]: I can.
[00:27:49] [SPEAKER_01]: And so.
[00:27:51] [SPEAKER_01]: And I play one part at a time.
[00:27:53] [SPEAKER_01]: And when it comes to time for solo, I can do that.
[00:27:56] [SPEAKER_01]: He doesn't play behind himself on the solo.
[00:27:58] [SPEAKER_01]: He might off stage or he didn't in the session.
[00:28:00] [SPEAKER_01]: So I couldn't understand on stage.
[00:28:03] [SPEAKER_01]: And I'm sure nobody could.
[00:28:04] [SPEAKER_01]: How three pieces can make that much music.
[00:28:08] [SPEAKER_01]: Now I know.
[00:28:09] [SPEAKER_01]: I think I do.
[00:28:11] [SPEAKER_01]: So if I play with Billy and the ZZ Top, it'd be like four guitar players.
[00:28:17] [SPEAKER_01]: One guitar player, bass player, and a drummer.
[00:28:20] [SPEAKER_01]: I knew Rushy's pretty well, too.
[00:28:22] [SPEAKER_01]: Frank, I never did really know Frank was a drummer.
[00:28:24] [SPEAKER_01]: I didn't know him all that well, but I knew Rushy pretty well.
[00:28:29] [SPEAKER_01]: I think his name was Rushy.
[00:28:30] [SPEAKER_01]: Rushy or does?
[00:28:32] [SPEAKER_01]: I said I knew him pretty well.
[00:28:33] [SPEAKER_01]: I can't even know his name right now.
[00:28:35] [SPEAKER_01]: I think it was Rushy.
[00:28:36] [SPEAKER_00]: You weren't that close, it sounds like.
[00:28:39] [SPEAKER_00]: You feel...
[00:28:41] [SPEAKER_00]: Are you still learning on the guitar?
[00:28:45] [SPEAKER_01]: You're damn right.
[00:28:46] [SPEAKER_01]: Every day of my life, I'm learning.
[00:28:48] [SPEAKER_01]: I never did know how to play one.
[00:28:50] [SPEAKER_01]: I'm learning now.
[00:28:52] [SPEAKER_01]: They want me to be a guitar player.
[00:28:54] [SPEAKER_01]: I'm not a guitar player.
[00:28:55] [SPEAKER_01]: You know what I'm saying?
[00:28:56] [SPEAKER_01]: I'm a record producer.
[00:28:58] [SPEAKER_01]: And an engineer and a writer and all that shit.
[00:29:01] [SPEAKER_01]: But I play sessions, but I'm not a guitar player.
[00:29:05] [SPEAKER_01]: I don't know what it means.
[00:29:07] [SPEAKER_01]: It just means I'm not as good as they say I am.
[00:29:11] [SPEAKER_01]: But even though I'm on a list of top 100 in the United States, I don't care.
[00:29:17] [SPEAKER_01]: I don't give him anything about that.
[00:29:19] [SPEAKER_01]: So here's where I got in trouble.
[00:29:21] [SPEAKER_01]: Steve Crawford definitely got in trouble one time.
[00:29:24] [SPEAKER_01]: They said, you're here with Tom Jones.
[00:29:26] [SPEAKER_01]: What's it like playing the Royal Albert Hall?
[00:29:27] [SPEAKER_01]: He said, it's just another venue.
[00:29:28] [SPEAKER_01]: So I shouldn't have said that.
[00:29:30] [SPEAKER_01]: Just another venue.
[00:29:31] [SPEAKER_01]: Not the Royal Albert Hall.
[00:29:32] [SPEAKER_01]: I forgot it was their sacred religion.
[00:29:36] [SPEAKER_01]: I mean, the Royal Albert Hall to Anderson is like going to church.
[00:29:40] [SPEAKER_01]: That's what it's actually used to be with me.
[00:29:42] [SPEAKER_01]: It's like going to church or something.
[00:29:43] [SPEAKER_00]: Maybe what you're getting at there is there's a point in which humbleness can actually kind of get you in trouble.
[00:29:52] [SPEAKER_01]: Well, that time it is.
[00:29:54] [SPEAKER_01]: I should have never said that.
[00:29:56] [SPEAKER_01]: And if I could erase it, I would.
[00:29:58] [SPEAKER_01]: If there's one thing you've said in your life you'd like to get rid of, yeah, that one.
[00:30:02] [SPEAKER_01]: That's pretty good.
[00:30:03] [SPEAKER_00]: If that's the worst thing you've said, I think you're doing pretty well.
[00:30:06] [SPEAKER_01]: If somebody said that, smack them in the mouth.
[00:30:11] [SPEAKER_01]: Well, I've done pretty good so far.
[00:30:13] [SPEAKER_01]: But I'll tell you that.
[00:30:14] [SPEAKER_01]: That was the low life of my life.
[00:30:16] [SPEAKER_01]: And so I go back to get my guitar and stuff.
[00:30:20] [SPEAKER_01]: And I'm cleaning up.
[00:30:21] [SPEAKER_01]: And so Tom Jones, he's getting stuff.
[00:30:22] [SPEAKER_01]: I said, Sir Tom, what are you doing?
[00:30:24] [SPEAKER_01]: He said, Sir Tom, whatever.
[00:30:26] [SPEAKER_01]: He said, you're the first guy today to call me Sir anything.
[00:30:29] [SPEAKER_01]: All week.
[00:30:30] [SPEAKER_01]: I said, Tom, I know you were not.
[00:30:34] [SPEAKER_01]: He said, yeah, but I was.
[00:30:36] [SPEAKER_01]: He said, but over here, you think they call me Sir Tom?
[00:30:38] [SPEAKER_01]: He said, they don't.
[00:30:39] [SPEAKER_01]: Now you call me Sir Tom.
[00:30:41] [SPEAKER_01]: Okay.
[00:30:41] [SPEAKER_01]: It is what it is.
[00:30:43] [SPEAKER_01]: I had nothing and not much left.
[00:30:48] [SPEAKER_01]: I had nothing and not much left.