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[00:00:11] Laurel Canyon was right after the heyday. I lived right at the corner there by the grocery store, where the road, Lookout Mountain Road goes up to where all the illuminaries, you know, Joni Mitchell and Graham Nash and all them lived up there. I never made it up that way. I was kind of right there on the boulevard. And it was great, you know, in those days we were young and had no idea what was ahead of us.
[00:00:41] And we were, it was a nice place to live. I felt kind of cool. I lived in Laurel Canyon, you know.
[00:00:47] Even in the early days, it must have felt like to a certain extent you had made it. I mean, you were kind of living the dream.
[00:00:55] I was and I still am. You know, and after Laurel Canyon, we moved over to Hollywood Boulevard and I used to love writing my letters like from Hollywood Boulevard, you know. Of course, we lived in a pretty crappy section, but still it was Hollywood Boulevard.
[00:01:08] Yeah, it is a funny thing about Hollywood is people who are not from the area, I think, don't understand that it's not always the most glamorous of spots in spite of the name.
[00:01:19] Well, parts of it are. Yeah, but it's still Hollywood Boulevard. There's only one place that, you know, is like that. So I was happy to be there, you know.
[00:01:28] Was it the record label that effectively moved the band out there?
[00:01:33] Yeah, we came out and signed with Shelter Records, which was Denny Cordell's label.
[00:01:38] And they had an office on Hollywood Boulevard, the other end of Hollywood Boulevard.
[00:01:43] And that office, eventually we put the Tulsa Church Studio equipment into that office, and that's where we made our first two records.
[00:01:52] So that's how we ended up there, yeah, through Denny Cordell.
[00:01:55] It sounds like you fell in love. You've been there for, what, 40-some-odd years now?
[00:02:03] Yeah, a long time. I like California, and I like L.A., you know.
[00:02:08] I've been to lots of places. I don't know where I'd live if I had a choice, but I grew up here.
[00:02:12] I've raised my kids here, and I'm 20 minutes from the action, you know, which is nice to have a little buffer from the Hollywood buzz.
[00:02:22] And the weather's great, you know. I like it here.
[00:02:26] I would argue that you have a choice to live where you'd like to live at this point in your life.
[00:02:30] I mean, the kids are grown up.
[00:02:33] Well, I could, but my point is, I don't know where that would be, you know.
[00:02:37] I like Ireland. I like Boston. I like certain areas of the world.
[00:02:42] I also have a house in Hawaii, which is pretty nice, on Kauai.
[00:02:46] But, you know, this is my home. You know, I have roots here now. I feel like I've been here my whole life.
[00:02:51] I know a lot of people do, but to me, it would almost feel like cruel to have a dog.
[00:02:56] And you've got plenty of space for that.
[00:03:01] You've got Central Park. If you get out and walk your dog, it'd be fine.
[00:03:05] Sure. I've got to get on a subway.
[00:03:06] I don't know what you mean. It's nice to have a yard.
[00:03:09] You've got, what, three, four now at this point?
[00:03:13] Yeah, I've got two bloodhounds and a little travel dog.
[00:03:19] And actually, just right now, we just have the three.
[00:03:23] One of ours passed away recently.
[00:03:24] But we're about to get a new one when I get done touring this year.
[00:03:28] We want to get another male bloodhound.
[00:03:30] Bloodhound's my favorite breed.
[00:03:32] We've had them for years, and I just connected with them.
[00:03:35] So, yeah, it's dog world over here.
[00:03:37] What is it about the bloodhound?
[00:03:39] The bloodhounds, I mean, I've had different breeds.
[00:03:42] I like all dogs, you know, but the bloodhounds are something comical and deep about their soul.
[00:03:52] You know, they look right in your eyes, and they're just, I don't know.
[00:03:55] I just feel connected to them for some reason.
[00:03:58] They're rescue dogs, right?
[00:04:00] They've been used for rescue and tracking.
[00:04:02] You know, their noses are scientifically advanced more than any other breed.
[00:04:06] They use them to track criminals or, you know, drugs or whatever.
[00:04:11] I think they're the only breed whose testimony will be upheld in the court of law.
[00:04:17] I just meant in a sense that you and your wife, it sounds like you've rescued the dogs.
[00:04:24] Yeah.
[00:04:24] Well, my wife used to have a dog business, a daycare training facility, which is still there, but we've since sold it.
[00:04:33] But, yeah, we've had dogs.
[00:04:34] We were introduced through a dog.
[00:04:36] You know, dogs have been a part of our life the whole time.
[00:04:41] There's just something magical about dogs, you know.
[00:04:44] They make life better.
[00:04:45] How were you introduced through a dog?
[00:04:48] Well, it was a Halloween party.
[00:04:49] I'll give a short story.
[00:04:50] And I went there.
[00:04:51] I didn't want to go.
[00:04:52] There were supposed to be some girls there.
[00:04:54] There weren't.
[00:04:54] Just a bunch of dudes on lewds.
[00:04:57] And this girl showed up.
[00:04:59] It was her friend's apartment.
[00:05:01] She showed up.
[00:05:02] She had a dog.
[00:05:03] And the dog came over to me because I was in the other room.
[00:05:05] I was bored.
[00:05:06] And the dog and I started talking to each other and connecting.
[00:05:09] And then she walked by.
[00:05:10] And I said, is this your dog?
[00:05:11] And we were off and running.
[00:05:13] I find that to be a very relatable story.
[00:05:15] I think we've all been at a party that we don't want to and, like, gravitate towards the cat or the dog in the corner.
[00:05:22] On those times when, like, you're not feeling super social, it's a lot easier to connect with an animal.
[00:05:28] It is.
[00:05:29] Animals are magical that way.
[00:05:31] You know, and the end of the story is I talked to her for hours.
[00:05:36] And we both left.
[00:05:38] And I didn't get her phone number because I was, I don't know, too stoned or whatever.
[00:05:42] And next day I wanted to call her.
[00:05:45] And I didn't know how to get a hold of her.
[00:05:46] So somehow I found my way back to her friend's apartment.
[00:05:50] Which was somewhere in the valley.
[00:05:52] And I don't know how I found it.
[00:05:54] But I walked up to her friend's door and knocked on the door.
[00:05:58] I was going to ask her for Marcy's phone number.
[00:06:01] And when she opened the door, before I could say anything, she had the phone.
[00:06:04] She goes, here.
[00:06:05] She was on the phone asking about me.
[00:06:08] So it's one of those vortexes, you know.
[00:06:11] It's like a movie moment almost.
[00:06:14] It is, yeah.
[00:06:16] I get the sense that you are, you're doing something right in your life.
[00:06:21] You know, that you've been married for as long as you have.
[00:06:23] That the heartbreakers were together for as long as they did.
[00:06:28] What do you attribute that to?
[00:06:30] You know, that's a great question.
[00:06:32] I think about that quite a bit.
[00:06:34] Because I've had a very charmed life.
[00:06:36] And I don't know why.
[00:06:39] I think it's, you know, if you believe in karma, maybe I'm owed some good karma from some other life.
[00:06:45] Or maybe I'm just lucky.
[00:06:47] But things just seem to come to me, you know.
[00:06:51] Blessings.
[00:06:52] People that I've worked with.
[00:06:54] And meeting my wife, of course.
[00:06:56] And the band for all those years.
[00:06:57] And now my new band.
[00:07:00] Things just seem to be dropped in my lap.
[00:07:03] And I don't know why.
[00:07:04] I must have a...
[00:07:06] Some kind of blessing in my heart or something.
[00:07:09] I don't know.
[00:07:10] But I'm very grateful that I've had such a good life.
[00:07:13] I'm really enjoying it.
[00:07:14] It seems that for people for whom things come easily, that there's a tendency to take it for granted.
[00:07:22] Well, I guess some people might.
[00:07:24] But, you know, I grew up very poor.
[00:07:26] And I don't take the success for granted.
[00:07:30] I don't take anything for granted.
[00:07:32] You know, maybe I'm lucky.
[00:07:33] Maybe I'm just lucky.
[00:07:34] But I'm very grateful.
[00:07:35] And I think being grateful is the secret to happiness.
[00:07:39] Was yours a musical house growing up?
[00:07:42] Not particularly, no.
[00:07:43] I had a cousin, Shirley Ann, who played the piano.
[00:07:47] She played stack piano.
[00:07:49] And that was the first time I was probably sucked into being curious about playing music.
[00:07:54] But no one in my immediate family played an instrument except for her.
[00:07:58] But back in the 60s, you know, there was a lot of AM radio.
[00:08:02] It was just an explosion of beautiful music that I was inspired by.
[00:08:06] It was a perfect time for someone to grow up and find music.
[00:08:09] And I'm grateful for that, too.
[00:08:12] I was in the right place at the right time.
[00:08:14] I've heard you talk a little bit about your dad's record collection.
[00:08:17] And that was something that, I mean, this is how things come full circle, something that I found really relatable.
[00:08:23] You know, for, I had some difficult times with my father growing up.
[00:08:28] But that was the one thing I think that we consistently could bond over.
[00:08:32] I mean, you know, we saw you guys at the Shoreline Amphitheater a few times.
[00:08:37] And there's something about music that I think is just transcendent when it comes to those kinds of relationships.
[00:08:48] It's the great communicator.
[00:08:49] You know, music is the magic of life.
[00:08:53] You know, it makes life bearable and makes it beautiful.
[00:08:56] And it brings people together.
[00:08:58] You know, even if you don't speak the same language, music can communicate between two people.
[00:09:02] It's magical that way.
[00:09:03] That's why I'm drawn to it.
[00:09:05] Were your parents receptive to you living a life of a musician?
[00:09:11] Oh, yeah.
[00:09:11] They were so proud of me.
[00:09:13] Yeah, they were great, you know.
[00:09:15] My mom used to call the station and request my songs.
[00:09:18] And my dad was real proud of me.
[00:09:22] My dad had an electronics store and people would come in to get their stereos repaired.
[00:09:27] And when they'd find out that I was his son, they'd get all excited.
[00:09:30] And he was real proud.
[00:09:31] I love to ask this question of musicians because musicians with kids, and I've heard it on both sides.
[00:09:42] But as far as whether or not, I guess how supportive, you know, you might be of your own kids' interests in music.
[00:09:52] Knowing, you know, obviously, as you said, you led a charmed life.
[00:09:55] But you know how difficult of a life it can be.
[00:09:58] And it seems to only be getting more difficult as time goes by.
[00:10:03] Yeah, I wouldn't suggest it as a career move at this point in time.
[00:10:07] But I made music available to all my kids.
[00:10:13] I didn't push it on them, but if they showed an interest, I helped them along.
[00:10:16] And they've all got musical ability, but none of them wanted to pursue it.
[00:10:20] I think most of them didn't want to do what I do.
[00:10:23] You know, they wanted to do their own thing.
[00:10:25] But music, if you get the fire about it, you're going to chase it, you know.
[00:10:31] And so I left it up to them.
[00:10:33] But it's interesting.
[00:10:34] They've been through, you know.
[00:10:36] My kids have kids now, and I have grandkids.
[00:10:39] And my kids grew through the 80s and stuff and all that kind of music.
[00:10:46] And they've kind of come out the other end, and they like the same music that I like.
[00:10:50] You know, they were exposed to it.
[00:10:53] And then, of course, for a while, it wasn't cool to like, you know, the 60s music.
[00:10:58] But now they see that there's a really special quality to that music,
[00:11:02] and that's their favorite music, you know.
[00:11:04] And they're turning their kids on to it.
[00:11:06] So it's cool.
[00:11:07] It sounds like once you had the bug that there was really no plan B for you.
[00:11:14] No, there wasn't.
[00:11:16] I never had a plan that I was going to be successful.
[00:11:19] I had dreams, you know, pipe dreams, really.
[00:11:22] But I was just drawn to it.
[00:11:25] Everything else, once I found music, everything else became unimportant,
[00:11:28] except for maybe girls a little bit.
[00:11:31] But those two things are connected in a new way.
[00:11:35] Well, one attracts the other, I guess.
[00:11:37] But yeah, music.
[00:11:39] Once I found the guitar, that's all I wanted to do was just play the guitar.
[00:11:43] I just loved it.
[00:11:44] You know, and if I didn't make any money, I would have been still playing it.
[00:11:47] Yeah.
[00:11:48] Yeah.
[00:11:49] Yeah.
[00:11:49] I mean, maybe in hindsight, it feels like things came together pretty quickly.
[00:11:55] But, you know, you were definitely out there, you know, paying your dues and playing around Florida.
[00:12:04] You know, it didn't – as charmed as you are, it didn't come to you immediately, it sounds like.
[00:12:09] Well, success did not, but it was a great surprise and relief when it did.
[00:12:15] But like I said, I wasn't doing it to get rich.
[00:12:18] I was doing it because I had no other desire to do anything else.
[00:12:22] And that's what I love doing.
[00:12:23] And I think maybe if you really love something, you're usually pretty good at it, you know.
[00:12:27] So maybe that's why we got through and actually caught on, you know, doing it for the right reasons.
[00:12:35] Did the Heartbreakers in that earliest form, did the Heartbreakers feel different from your other musical experiences?
[00:12:42] Not really.
[00:12:43] I mean, I never had that many musical experiences.
[00:12:45] It was my first major commitment of a band.
[00:12:49] Excuse me.
[00:12:51] Oh, man.
[00:12:53] But it seemed like they were – I mean, I had a little band before that that was just a jam band at the college.
[00:12:59] But they were the first band that was the real band, you know.
[00:13:02] And so that's just the way it felt.
[00:13:04] I like being in a band.
[00:13:06] I like having, you know, a gang to share the experience with.
[00:13:11] And we were just connected and had the same ideas and same desires and stuck it out together.
[00:13:18] What do you mean when you say that was really the first real band?
[00:13:21] What's the distinction?
[00:13:23] Well, the band that actually played gigs, you know.
[00:13:26] I mean, we played around Florida as Mudcrutch.
[00:13:28] Well, the Heartbreakers were actually formed in L.A.
[00:13:30] By then, I had been – well, let me – I guess I should clarify that.
[00:13:34] I was in Mudcrutch with Tom, which became the Heartbreakers with Benmont.
[00:13:40] But being in the Heartbreakers was just like being in Mudcrutch.
[00:13:43] It's me and Tom and Ben dreaming the same dream.
[00:13:47] Yeah, it seems like a big difference as well is once you introduce original songs and you're doing the songwriting.
[00:13:56] Like that completely changes the math on everything.
[00:13:59] Well, yeah, it's all about the songs.
[00:14:01] And I've always written from the day one, you know, when I learned the guitar, rather than practice blues, which I did or whatever,
[00:14:10] I was always trying to form chords together and writing bits and pieces.
[00:14:13] But it never really came together.
[00:14:16] I always seemed to not be able to crack that code until around the first album, I started to figure it out, how to put songs together with Tom.
[00:14:25] And he was a great collaborator, you know, because I could bring him a little riff or a chord progression,
[00:14:29] and he would take it away and come back with incredible lyrics.
[00:14:32] So once again, I was blessed to have found my partner when I did.
[00:14:37] What's your sense of how that period was different for you once you actually really cracked the code on it?
[00:14:43] It was just a further continuation of my commitment to following the muse, you know.
[00:14:55] And it's all about, you know, that as a musician.
[00:14:58] The muse is this mysterious, inspirational force that comes into your body.
[00:15:04] And once you get the bug, you're in, you know, and you chase that muse the rest of your life, I guess.
[00:15:10] I mean, I will.
[00:15:11] And so as I started to get cracked the code by that, I mean, there's a little switch that goes on,
[00:15:19] and you start to get the ideas start to come through your antenna.
[00:15:23] And once that started happening, I just wanted to do it more and get better and better at it, you know.
[00:15:27] And I'm still doing that, you know.
[00:15:29] I'm still trying to get better and looking for ways to put a song together and hoping the muse will come through me.
[00:15:37] Hello, Jolene.
[00:15:38] You want to be part of the interview?
[00:15:40] Come here.
[00:15:41] Come here.
[00:15:42] This is Jolene.
[00:15:43] I don't know if you can see her or not.
[00:15:44] Jolene, come over here.
[00:15:46] Here she is.
[00:15:48] Is she named after the Dolly Parton song?
[00:15:51] No, not really.
[00:15:53] Maybe subconsciously.
[00:15:54] I just like the name.
[00:15:56] You know, bloodhounds have to have kind of southern-sounding names.
[00:15:59] Yeah.
[00:15:59] Yeah, that makes sense.
[00:16:01] To your sweet heart.
[00:16:02] Yeah.
[00:16:03] Yeah.
[00:16:03] She just drooled all over me.
[00:16:05] That is the downside of bloodhounds.
[00:16:10] Yeah, the muse is an interesting one for me.
[00:16:13] I always think about that Keith Richards story of, you know, where he wakes up in the middle of the night and hums music into a tape recorder and wakes up in the morning.
[00:16:28] He has the riff for satisfaction.
[00:16:33] Yeah.
[00:16:33] Yeah.
[00:16:34] Obviously, it's wonderful when it comes.
[00:16:35] That's what it's like.
[00:16:36] When you're not expecting it?
[00:16:38] A lot of times when you're not expecting it at all, you know, a little, a little.
[00:16:42] It's hard to describe.
[00:16:43] It's like magic, really.
[00:16:46] But getting an inspiration or a riff or a germ of a song can happen at any time.
[00:16:53] When you're driving, when you're watching a movie, you get bored, your mind wanders.
[00:16:56] Or when you're sleeping, you're going to happen in a dream state, you'll wake up.
[00:17:00] That happened to me many times.
[00:17:03] There was one song called Heart of the Matter, which I did with Don Henley.
[00:17:08] And I had sort of dreamed something about that vibe.
[00:17:11] And I got up and just picked up the guitar.
[00:17:13] And I wasn't even out of bed yet.
[00:17:15] My mind was half awake and just glang, glang, glang, glang, glang, glang.
[00:17:18] That's all it took.
[00:17:20] And I was off and running, you know.
[00:17:21] It came from the subconscious.
[00:17:23] You know, I wish I understood it.
[00:17:25] But I also don't want to because it's so magical and mysterious.
[00:17:29] That's the beauty of it.
[00:17:31] But yeah, I heard that story where, you know, he was playing in the cassette.
[00:17:35] I thought I'd done that and fall asleep.
[00:17:36] And you wake up and you don't remember.
[00:17:37] And you push play and you go, oh, that's cool.
[00:17:40] I'm glad I recorded that.
[00:17:42] Perhaps you could rely on it too much.
[00:17:44] Because what do you do in those times when the inspiration just isn't there?
[00:17:49] I mean, surely you've had some blocks during your life.
[00:17:52] Well, I'll tell you the honest truth.
[00:17:54] I've been thinking about this a lot.
[00:17:56] I have the opposite of writer's block.
[00:18:00] And it's a blessing and a curse, you know, because I rarely get blocked.
[00:18:04] You know, in fact, I usually have a problem where I get too many ideas.
[00:18:08] And I start things and they pile up on me.
[00:18:11] And a lot of times I don't go back and finish them because I get new ideas.
[00:18:15] So I don't know.
[00:18:16] It's like a switch turns on and it's just on, you know.
[00:18:22] I've described it like, I mean, you've heard different analogies of what songwriting is like.
[00:18:29] Like the antenna, blah, blah, blah.
[00:18:30] But I have, if you picture it like you're in a room and everything's black.
[00:18:35] You can hear people.
[00:18:37] You can hear things happening.
[00:18:38] But you can't see anything.
[00:18:40] Okay.
[00:18:41] But you know there's something interesting going on.
[00:18:43] And somebody walks in and turns on the light.
[00:18:44] And boom.
[00:18:46] There it is.
[00:18:47] You can see it.
[00:18:48] You can write it down.
[00:18:49] You can see the characters.
[00:18:50] You can see what they're doing.
[00:18:51] And that switch just turns on and there you are.
[00:18:54] You know, you just receive it.
[00:18:57] It's mysterious.
[00:18:58] It really is.
[00:18:59] But it's fascinating.
[00:19:00] It's very, almost religious in a way.
[00:19:03] I guess to quote Bob Dylan, you know something is happening but you don't know what it is.
[00:19:08] Well, there's that funny line I heard about, you know, the analogy of the river of consciousness that's above you, the astral plane or whatever.
[00:19:17] And all these ideas are floating down this river.
[00:19:19] And if you're lucky, your antenna pokes into the water and grabs one.
[00:19:23] And then somebody said, yeah, but nobody ever caught any fish downriver from Bob Dylan.
[00:19:30] It's interesting hearing you, you know, in both senses, you describing it.
[00:19:34] It does sound, you know, you compared it to religion in a sense.
[00:19:38] And certainly it sounds like it's a very spiritual process for you.
[00:19:43] It is.
[00:19:45] It really is.
[00:19:46] And it kind of gives my life meaning, you know, and I love it.
[00:19:50] You know, it's very fulfilling when it works.
[00:19:53] Sometimes it takes, you know, every idea you get is not genius.
[00:19:57] Sometimes you have to go, well, that was crap and throw it away.
[00:19:59] Or that sounds like a kink song.
[00:20:01] You throw that away.
[00:20:03] But when it comes together and you come up with your own little germ or gem, it's a very gratifying feeling.
[00:20:11] And you feel very blessed once again and grateful.
[00:20:14] And the more you do it, the more you want to do it, you know.
[00:20:17] Broadly speaking, would you consider yourself to be a spiritual person?
[00:20:21] I think, yeah.
[00:20:23] I'm not a member of a church or any organizations, but I have a deep feeling for the universe and the force of life and the mystery of why we're here.
[00:20:35] I don't, you know, I don't.
[00:20:37] My concept, I think everybody's concept of God is their own personal choice and feeling.
[00:20:43] But I sense a higher power of some sort out there.
[00:20:48] And I respect that, you know.
[00:20:51] That's the way I look at it.
[00:20:52] But I guess that's spiritual.
[00:20:54] You almost have this superpower as a musician where you get to connect with all of these.
[00:20:59] Just a giant, in some cases, stadium full of strangers through music.
[00:21:05] Well, that's your job, you know.
[00:21:07] And that's the beauty of my job is when I take these little bits of spirituality or whatever.
[00:21:12] And if I can put them into a song and then share them with people, and if it communicates some kind of joy or good feeling to them, then you've done your work.
[00:21:21] You know, that's your payoff is to make people happy with your music.
[00:21:25] Of the songs that you've written or co-written, what would you point to as being your most spiritual?
[00:21:35] Spiritual?
[00:21:36] Wow.
[00:21:37] Let me think about that.
[00:21:39] That's a deep question.
[00:21:41] Spiritual.
[00:21:42] Whatever you take that to mean.
[00:21:45] Yeah, yeah.
[00:21:47] Well, spirituality a lot of times takes a form of love, you know.
[00:21:52] I've, I mean, here comes my girl.
[00:21:55] Of course, Tom wrote those lyrics.
[00:21:56] Now I'm writing my own lyrics, so I would pick one of the songs that I've pulled from my own lyrical world.
[00:22:03] There's a song that was on the first Dirty Knobs album called I Still Love You, which to me is very spiritual.
[00:22:11] It's a deep love song.
[00:22:12] It has ache and redemption in it.
[00:22:16] And there's a song on the new album called My Hands Are Tied, Hands Are Tied.
[00:22:20] And it's, I feel spirituality in that song.
[00:22:23] Like there's a connection to the other person that you're singing about that's very deep and moving.
[00:22:28] So I would pick those two.
[00:22:29] But there's so many.
[00:22:30] They all have some kind of spirituality in them.
[00:22:32] When the time came to write your own songs and really sit down, as you said, Tom was doing all or most of the lyrics writing.
[00:22:44] Did the floodgates just open in terms of writing words?
[00:22:48] Well, at first, it was like beating my head against a wall for a while.
[00:22:53] And then when all of us, I don't know, it wasn't a day, but there was a point at some point, I don't even know when it was.
[00:22:58] When that light was turned on, that door was open, I was able to find my way in there.
[00:23:03] And now I'm finding that, of course, with Tom gone, I have my own band.
[00:23:09] I write my own songs now.
[00:23:10] And my challenge is to write the lyrics.
[00:23:14] But I've found that that's a really rewarding part of my expression that I never tapped before.
[00:23:21] It was always musical.
[00:23:23] But now I'm really deeply into the wordplay and the characters and the rhyme schemes.
[00:23:29] And that whole part of songwriting has opened up to me for some reason now.
[00:23:35] And I'm totally fascinated with it and chasing it, trying to get good at it.
[00:23:40] I've been having the opposite experience recently.
[00:23:42] I'm a writer by profession.
[00:23:45] And I used to play the guitar very poorly.
[00:23:50] But I recently bought a ukulele.
[00:23:52] And I wish I had done it sooner because it's just opened up this entire different part of my brain that I haven't really been exercising.
[00:24:02] It's crazy, isn't it, when that happens to you on whatever level, when your brain opens up and you get the spark.
[00:24:09] It's like, wow, that's been there the whole time and I didn't even recognize it.
[00:24:12] Now I've got it.
[00:24:13] I found it.
[00:24:13] I'm not going to let it go.
[00:24:15] George Harrison was really into ukulele.
[00:24:17] And there's something about the simplicity of the four strings and the chords are very simple that just kind of opens up.
[00:24:25] And it's easy.
[00:24:26] It's easy to grab onto.
[00:24:27] So good for you.
[00:24:29] Yeah, I think that's what it is.
[00:24:32] Are you going to be the new Tony Tim?
[00:24:36] I can't hit that high.
[00:24:38] So I don't have the aptitude for the guitar.
[00:24:45] But yeah, it's easier, basically, is what it comes down to.
[00:24:49] And it's really been good for my...
[00:24:53] It's fun.
[00:24:53] Yeah.
[00:24:55] Yeah, you're right.
[00:24:56] Absolutely right.
[00:24:57] I was just going to say it's good for your health, your mental health, and your calmness and your clarity.
[00:25:05] And it's fun.
[00:25:07] It's a simple little thing.
[00:25:09] It's a gift that you can have fun with your music.
[00:25:12] And I think it is like therapy.
[00:25:14] I think it keeps me sane.
[00:25:15] I don't know what I'd do with all that energy if I didn't have an outlet for it.
[00:25:20] Yeah.
[00:25:20] I'm good.
[00:25:21] I'm curious what, over the last four years, as you weren't able to tour for a while there,
[00:25:29] it seems like you really embraced Instagram and social media as a way of continuing to not only play music,
[00:25:39] but connect with people.
[00:25:40] You're talking about the pandemic years?
[00:25:42] Yeah.
[00:25:43] Well, I'm talking about the pandemic years up till now.
[00:25:45] Yeah.
[00:25:47] Yeah.
[00:25:50] It's ironic that that happened when it did.
[00:25:54] It's in terms for me because I had just lost my best friend and my musical partner.
[00:26:00] And then there was this free time.
[00:26:01] I was at home and I had things I wanted to do.
[00:26:04] And that gave me the time to really focus on and realize that I have to go on with music.
[00:26:13] And yeah, that couple of years was crazy.
[00:26:18] In some ways, it was good for some people to isolate from the world and just focus on their inner peace.
[00:26:26] So I guess some of that happened.
[00:26:27] I don't know if that answered your question or not.
[00:26:29] Was it ever a question when that happened?
[00:26:31] Was it ever a question that you would continue making music?
[00:26:36] No.
[00:26:37] Not for a split second.
[00:26:39] I couldn't live without music as much as I miss Tom.
[00:26:43] And you know, Tom was so great for me, but he also enabled me to be really lazy with my writing
[00:26:48] because he was always so good.
[00:26:50] Why am I going to write my own lyrics if I can hand it to him when he's going to do what he does?
[00:26:56] So when he was gone, I realized, well, now I have to do this and I'm going to embrace it.
[00:27:02] But I never once considered, no, I'm going to quit music.
[00:27:06] I mean, what would I do?
[00:27:07] Now I have to carry on.
[00:27:08] That's my life force.
[00:27:10] It didn't make sense.
[00:27:11] I mean, obviously, you know, you still play with some of the members, but it didn't make sense to continue on in that configuration.
[00:27:19] Well, no.
[00:27:21] I don't know how that would feel.
[00:27:23] You know, I'm not.
[00:27:24] I did know that I had my band for several years while the Heartbreakers were still together.
[00:27:31] I had the Dirty Knobs together and I always assumed that if the Heartbreakers ever quit or whatever for whatever reason, that that's what I would do.
[00:27:39] I would put my energy into that.
[00:27:40] And then when Tom passed away, I just can't, you know, killing on with the Heartbreakers without him.
[00:27:45] It just seems like, why?
[00:27:49] I mean, you know, on some level I can see it, but it's like, it'd be like, OK, well, where's he?
[00:27:54] Where's the guy that makes this all work with us?
[00:27:56] You know, I mean, we're good musicians, but it would just maybe I'll get to that point.
[00:28:01] I mean, I played with Ben and I played with Ron and Stan here and there, but we haven't like had a Heartbreakers reunion because there's one guy to be missing.
[00:28:10] And so I don't know how I feel about that.
[00:28:12] I'm still grieving, you know.
[00:28:14] Of course.
[00:28:15] Yeah.
[00:28:15] But obviously, you know, you still love those guys.
[00:28:18] It sounds like you still got a great connection.
[00:28:20] Oh, yeah.
[00:28:21] And I get the sense that probably given the fact that you continue to play with them off and on, that it's the kind of thing that once you get into a room with them, it just kind of clicks on.
[00:28:32] Yeah, we have a telepathy.
[00:28:34] I mean, you know, Ben Montt plays on my new record on one song.
[00:28:37] And Steve Ferroni, who was the Heartbreakers drummer for the last 30 years, he's joined the knobs.
[00:28:43] He was an original knob, but he's back in the band.
[00:28:45] So I have a Heartbreakers connection there.
[00:28:48] And Ron, I've worked with here and there.
[00:28:51] And Stan, like I said, did some gigs with us.
[00:28:54] So I've played with all of them in different formations.
[00:28:56] Or Ben Montt played on this Ringo Starr song that I did.
[00:29:01] But all of us have not grouped together in one glob, you know, and I just, I don't know if there's any need for that.
[00:29:08] I mean, there's something to be said about leaving the legacy the way it was and letting it, you know, exist on that level without, you know, tampering with it.
[00:29:20] But you seem to have formed a really good friendship, certainly working relationship with Ringo.
[00:29:30] Yeah, God bless him.
[00:29:32] He's a great guy.
[00:29:34] You know, he's such a, he is probably the best drummer just instinctively, the way he plays with songs.
[00:29:39] And it's just, I mean, I had met him a few times, you know, at the George Harrison thing at Albert Hall.
[00:29:45] And he had been in a video with me and Tom for I Won't Back Down.
[00:29:48] But I didn't really know him that well.
[00:29:50] And his manager called me one day and said, have you got a song?
[00:29:54] And I pulled out an old tape that was like 15 or 20 years ago, this song called Miss Jean that I liked.
[00:29:59] And I took it over.
[00:30:00] I didn't know if he'd like it.
[00:30:01] And he immediately said, I want to play drums on it.
[00:30:03] I'm going to sing it.
[00:30:04] And then we had, I called Ben Monin to play piano on it.
[00:30:08] And so I consider him a friend.
[00:30:10] You know, we don't hang out all the time.
[00:30:13] But he's a great guy, you know, and he's a true musician.
[00:30:17] And he still loves it the same way I love it, you know.
[00:30:19] Yeah, I actually didn't realize this until today as I was researching it.
[00:30:23] But he actually played on two tracks on Wildflowers.
[00:30:27] Yeah, he did.
[00:30:28] We were on that session too.
[00:30:33] That was funny because at the time on Wildflowers, it was a solo record.
[00:30:37] But I was kind of involved to a great extent.
[00:30:40] But it wasn't, the band was not around.
[00:30:41] So I was playing bass a lot on those tracks.
[00:30:45] And that day, Ringo was up the hall with Don Wise or somebody.
[00:30:50] And he came by to say hi.
[00:30:52] And we said, well, why don't we cut a track, you know.
[00:30:54] And so I'm sitting and I'm playing bass with Ringo Starr.
[00:30:58] And I have to get over being a fan for a second.
[00:31:00] And okay, I got to do my job.
[00:31:02] And I said to him, you know, on the break, I said, you know, Ringo, I'm not really a bass player, you know.
[00:31:07] And he says, oh, well, Don Wise is right up the hall.
[00:31:10] I said, oh, no, no, I can do it.
[00:31:12] I didn't want to give it my seat, you know.
[00:31:17] He's got a great sense of humor.
[00:31:19] Yeah, you could tell.
[00:31:20] You can just tell from conversations with him.
[00:31:24] At this point, I can't imagine that you still have those surreal moments anymore, having experienced all the things that you experienced.
[00:31:32] Oh, being starstruck?
[00:31:34] Oh, yeah.
[00:31:34] Or just realizing, like, how strange it all is that you've, you know, that you've been able to do what you do.
[00:31:41] I'm constantly amazed.
[00:31:42] I'm always asking myself, how did I get here?
[00:31:48] When the time did come to sit down and start writing, you know, as you said, the Dirty Dumps were around for quite some time prior to actually releasing any music.
[00:31:58] And obviously, the Heartbreakers were taking up a lot of your time.
[00:32:01] But was there a sense that you really had to find your own voice separate from Tom and the Heartbreakers?
[00:32:11] Yeah.
[00:32:11] Yeah.
[00:32:12] I went through a little bit of that because when I started singing my own songs, I realized by, without trying, that I had a lot of the nuances and the cadence and the slang that Tom and I have.
[00:32:25] We talk a lot the same, too.
[00:32:27] And I noticed that and I thought, oh, this is going to be a problem.
[00:32:31] I don't want to come across as trying to copy my brother, you know.
[00:32:36] And I didn't, you know, actually, I played something for Tom once and he goes, it sounds like me.
[00:32:42] And I said, well, I didn't mean to.
[00:32:44] I didn't mean to, but that's a compliment, you know.
[00:32:47] So as I continued working, I just, I, it wasn't a struggle.
[00:32:52] It was an effort to try to find my own voice, you know.
[00:32:56] But I can't filter out all of the Southern boy in me, you know.
[00:33:00] And so occasionally, I think it comes out.
[00:33:02] But I think at this point, I feel pretty confident that I found a voice that's similar, maybe, but my own voice is different from Tom's.
[00:33:10] I also have noticed that and I'm sure that some people have pointed that out to you.
[00:33:14] What, obviously, coming from, you know, the same or similar places geographically is a part of it.
[00:33:20] But is it just the fact that the two of you in every sense came up together that it was just bound to happen that you were going to sound like each other?
[00:33:30] Yeah, it's bound to happen, you know.
[00:33:32] We grew up in the same neighborhood, Florida, you know.
[00:33:36] We have the same roots and the same, around the same people with their slangs and their phrases and the way they think.
[00:33:43] And then we were joined at the hip for 30, 40 years, you know.
[00:33:46] So, and always talking and sharing and interacting with each other.
[00:33:50] You're bound to rub up on each other.
[00:33:52] And people say, sometimes they say, well, you sound a little bit like Tom.
[00:33:55] I go, well, he sounds like me.
[00:33:59] I don't know.
[00:34:00] I don't want to, you know, I'm not going to, that's another reason not to put the heartbreakers together because I don't want to look like I'm trying to do a Tom thing.
[00:34:07] Yeah.
[00:34:08] So I'm just going to do my own thing, you know.
[00:34:10] And if some of that slang seeps through, I'm okay with that.
[00:34:14] But I know I'm not copying him.
[00:34:16] And based on some of the Dirty Nobs music, but also even, you know, in preparation for this, I was listening to I Don't Want to Fight, which I don't know if that's the only, is that the only track with the heartbreakers you sound?
[00:34:30] It is.
[00:34:30] Yeah.
[00:34:31] And it was because Tom was under the weather that day.
[00:34:34] So he let me do that one.
[00:34:36] It's not much of a vocal, really, but it was my first recording that came out on a record.
[00:34:41] And, you know, so I didn't have an ambition to be a singer because I had such a great singer in my band until he was gone.
[00:34:52] And then I now I have an ambition to try and be good at it, you know, and I'm getting better all the time.
[00:34:57] I really enjoy it.
[00:34:58] And I love connecting with the audiences live.
[00:35:01] I'm getting a handle on how to really be in the moment and pull them into the party.
[00:35:06] You know, that changes the math pretty dramatically of actually suddenly.
[00:35:11] Suddenly, suddenly it's all on you.
[00:35:13] You know, when your name is out in front of the band, whether or not this thing succeeds or fails, you get to take the credit or blame for everything.
[00:35:21] Yeah, I'm OK with that.
[00:35:24] I'm OK with that.
[00:35:25] You know, I do have I have learned.
[00:35:28] Of what an easy job I had in the heartbreakers.
[00:35:32] And I used to get sometimes we get on each other's nerves and Tom would go, oh, you guys are playing too loud.
[00:35:37] I can't hear my voice.
[00:35:38] You know, we've got to get our sound, you know, and we'd have we butt heads over that.
[00:35:43] And I never really understood what he was going through like I do now.
[00:35:46] But if I'm at the microphone and I can't hear my voice because one of the guys is too loud and I'm going to sing off pitch because I'm trying to scream over him.
[00:35:54] I'm going to tell him to turn down, you know.
[00:35:57] And so and also in dealing with the audience, I understand that there's a lot of work he was doing.
[00:36:03] That was a lot more work than I had to do just sitting back there playing guitar along with him.
[00:36:08] Now I have to do all that work.
[00:36:10] But it's very satisfying and I've embraced it now, you know, and I enjoy the the responsibility.
[00:36:16] Part of the reason why I brought up I don't want to fight is because, you know, I you might disagree with this, but in some ways it's almost like it's a punk song.
[00:36:24] You know, it is like a hard.
[00:36:26] Oh, it is absolutely a punk song.
[00:36:29] Yeah.
[00:36:29] And and there's four words, I think, in the whole song.
[00:36:33] We were talking about the Ramones earlier.
[00:36:35] So there might be either conscious or subconscious, a little bit of a little bit of influence there.
[00:36:40] But I was going to say that I think one of the ways of you finding your own voice is that, you know, maybe maybe the stuff you do is a little bit harder or a little bit, you know, more punk with than a lot of stuff you did in the Heartbreakers.
[00:36:54] And then then today I heard you cover Refugee and just do an incredibly like slow, soft version of it.
[00:37:03] So it sounds like you're kind of working on the sides of the spectrum.
[00:37:08] Well, I'm trying to.
[00:37:10] Yeah, I like that song a lot and the people love it, but I wanted to do it different.
[00:37:15] You know, so I found kind of like a three quarter time waltz folk kind of approach to it so that the words can be can come forward.
[00:37:25] And the crowd likes to sing along and it gets loud at the end and back to the waltz.
[00:37:29] And I think it's it's a song that has legs, you know, and it means as much as it does now as it did back then with the state of the world.
[00:37:39] You know, don't have to live like a refugee.
[00:37:40] Lord knows, you know, what's going on out there.
[00:37:43] So I think and, you know, I co-wrote the song.
[00:37:45] So it's half mine and I feel proud to do it.
[00:37:50] You know, and people always like it.
[00:37:51] You know, there's a couple of songs that we do occasionally in the knobs that are usually songs that I co-wrote that are heartbreakers songs.
[00:38:00] And I enjoy doing them, you know, and I think I can do them pretty well, you know, better than most people because they don't understand the nuance and the cadence of it.
[00:38:08] Yeah.
[00:38:08] I always talk to musicians and I'm kind of I'm kind of curious where you where you land.
[00:38:14] We can end on this because we're close to time right now.
[00:38:16] But I'll talk to a lot of people who have written this.
[00:38:20] They've written a song and it was about a, you know, maybe like an old relationship or a bad breakup.
[00:38:25] And and every night they have to play it.
[00:38:27] And to a certain extent, they kind of relive some of those those those bad vibes.
[00:38:32] And it, you know, it can can be sad.
[00:38:34] It can really bring out the feelings.
[00:38:35] And I'm wondering, you know, obviously so many great times in the heartbreakers, but it, you know, it ended in a very sad way whether it was difficult for you to reconnect with a song like that.
[00:38:49] Well, you know, it's your you hit a good point.
[00:38:52] There are some songs when I do the heartbreakers songs.
[00:38:55] I do them out of out of love and respect and to share them with the crowd who who knows where I came from and they like to hear them.
[00:39:02] But I must be honest, at times I get a little choked up, you know.
[00:39:07] Like we're just this tour is coming up.
[00:39:09] We learn this song face in the crowd, which is a song I did not co-write, but we were doing it in rehearsal.
[00:39:16] And it's just such a sweet song.
[00:39:18] And it really conjures up Tom's ghost in me, you know, and it kind of it kind of got to me a little bit, you know, but that's OK because I want to feel a connection.
[00:39:28] You know, I don't want to let it go.
[00:39:30] So it's it's a bittersweet experience.
[00:39:33] I think it is for the audience, too.
[00:39:35] I think they want to remember Tom and they want to relive it.
[00:39:38] And even if it's a little bit of a sting, at least you still feel like those songs, you know, have a life and he's still with us, you know, in that way.
[00:39:46] So it's it's all those things.
[00:39:47] Thanks.
[00:39:48] Thanks.
[00:39:48] Thanks.
[00:39:48] All right.