The last guest I had in my recording studio before the Covid curtain fell, was the insanely talented and twice as charismatic, Richard Marx. That was waaaay back in January of 2020, and today we're finally getting another chance to get caught up with one another.
Richard has a new TWENTY TRACK album out, "Songwriter" that features 5 tracks from 4 different genres, pop, rock, country, and ballads. We'll get some inside info on how it all came together, as well as what it's like collaborating with Richard's talented trio of sons he fondly refers to as "the Marx brothers". You'll love every minute of our conversation - come on in! ~ Delilah
The calendar says so, the early mornings say so, and the grocery aisles full of Halloween treats and decor due to it is officially pumpkin season. And I'm not a coffee fan, I am surrounded by a lot of folks who are who have to have at least one two, maybe three cups of coffee a day. And the pumpkin spice wafting from those tall take out cups inspire me, inspire me to bake pumpkin loaves, pumpkin bars, pumpkin pies, and one of my favorites, pumpkin dump cake. If you've never had pumpkin dump cake, look it up. It is so good and so easy to make, you know. I find myself in the kitchen more than in the garden these past few weeks, preserving some of the year's harvest. Packing lunch is for school, throwing together after school snacks, cooking up big meals for our family. We have dinner together every night over the sounds of my whistling teapot, a sizzling fry pan, or the clanking of dirty dishes in the sink comes in nostalgic playlist that reminds me of so many other pumpkins seasons past, those of my childhood, those of my older children's childhoods. This is a beautiful season. Fall is a beautiful season of color, of passion, of nostalgia. And there's nothing more nostalgic than the music created by Grammy winning singer, songwriter, producer great guy Richard Marks. Besides crafting and recording his own hits, Richard has pinned chart toppers for the likes of Natalie Cole, Luther Vandross, Keith Urban, Barbara Streissan, Barry Manilow, Tony Braxton, Kenny Rogers, Josh Groban. The list goes on and on and on, Doughtry, so many others. He made history as the only male artist whose first seven singles reached the top five on the Billboard Charts, and he has sold more than thirty million albums worldwide. Richard Marks came by the farm in early I think he was actually my last in person guest before the COVID curtain fell. We had an amazing visit then, and his ah depth and breadth of knowledge of the music world blew me away. I mean, if you ever want to play trivia music trivia and you want your team to win. Get Richard Marks on your side. He knows everyone, and he knows every song, and he knows every lyric, and he knows every person who played every instrument, and he knows every producer. He was me, He was engaging. He was someone who made all those in the studio feel like we had been friends forever. I've been right here waiting to welcome Richard Marks back since then, and I'm thrilled to be able to do so today. I wish we were together at my farm, what like we were the last time. But he is calling us from the UK, where he is promoting his brand new, multi genre spanning album Songwriter on a new label, Shelter Records. Songwriter was released on September details several decades of his music. His songwriting accolades across many different genres throughout his amazing career. My gosh, when I met this guy, I was blown away with how many things musically he has done. Richard Marks has made history over and over again. Now he's showcasing his amazing versatility with the release of Songwriter. Songwriter has twenty tracks spanning four genres. I love that this guy mixes it up. He's got pop, rock, country, and ballads. He's got contributions from legendary American composer Bert Back, Iraq, Keith Urban, David Hodges, and more. Richard has written on a number one single in each of the last four decades, so every ten years at least he's had a number one hit. The only person other than him who's done that was Michael Jackson. He's co written chart topping hits with numerous artists and has scored fourteen number one singles both as a performer and a songwriter producer. He constantly challenges himself and blesses his fans. I can't wait for Richard to tell us about songwriter. We will get to that shortly, but let me take this opportunity to tell you about one of my amazing podcast sponsor is. This podcast is sponsored by a company solving a family problem. They've got the greatest name, forever Forever dot com. I love my family and I love all my family memories, especially on the photos and all the videos of my children and my grandchildren. But I have the same problem as many people. My photos my videos are everywhere. Some are in old boxes and old photo albums. Others are on social media. Sites and cloud storage accounts, and thousands are on my phone. But with all these memories spread about everywhere, they're really nowhere. They're difficult to share, and they are all in danger of being lost, and many are being data mined by advertisers. 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I was I was heading to New Yorker, maybe even sooner than that. And I went to New York to do the Kelly and Ryan Show, and I was leaving the next day to fly to Estonia to start my European tour behind the Limitless album. And uh, we all went, yeah, well, what a crazy, crazy, crazy time that was. How did you fare? How did you make it through? You look great? Thanks to you. I was just about to say, you look great. Um, you know, other than it took me a little time to adapt to being still, because I've never in my adult life stopped. I've always been in motion. I've always been either on the road or traveling, or in the studio or you know, doing something. Um. I've certainly I've developed a much better balance over the last you know, eight or nine years since I met Daisy and we got married, and she's taught me how to have as much fun as work. Now. See, I I find it hard to believe you weren't always fun, because since I've known you, like fun and charismatic and just full of life are some of the words I would use first to describe you. That's very sweet. I mean to have the career you've had, you had to be very focused and very work Yeah. Focused, I mean, you don't have number one hits decade after decade after decade after decade unless you can laser focus. But you have a very light spirit. You're full of light. Well, I take that as a great compliment. I would say that the truth about me up until the last you know, however many years, is that it was difficult for me to really unplug and relax and not be you know, churning inside about whatever was next. And days taught me to just take a breath. But it's still this long time. It wasn't it was. It was a little rough in the first couple, like six weeks or seven weeks, as it was for so many other people. And listen, I'm well aware we had it better than most. You know. We were our circumstances were so blessed and we were very grateful. Um, and then I settled into just like really loving being quiet for a long time. So I ended up faring pretty well, and we as a couple like we loved it because we just love to be alone. I feel guilty when I say that to most people because there's mental health issues and alcoholism is is crazy, and poverty and all that the negatives that came with it. Bote I loved it. Yeah. For me, if you give me a choice between spending a week quiet playing games with my family or a week all expenses paid in Disneyland, I will take the week with my family any day. And that's what we. We got to spend time having family meals every day. Now, the negative of that was I put on the COVID twenty. You know, I'm working hard these days. I went and saw Woman King. Have you seen the Woman King? Richard? Take Daisy to go see the Woman King? And it's like, yes, I'm gonna get in shape. I am going to be viola. I mean it's so inspiring for getting in shape and claiming your power and all that. But I am having a hard time re engaging and I will never ever re engage to the level I was or plug back into the level level I was before COVID. I just I don't have it in me. I don't. I don't want to. Yeah, I will say that. Um, the two things that I missed the most I am doing now in a way that is heightened one is just hugging people I love, especially my son's um. We would see them from a distance. Sometimes they would come over and they would be twenty ft away. Whatever. The hugging now I appreciate more than ever. And I've always been a huggy guy. And not just sounds so cliche, but like, I didn't realize how much I missed, not just performing and not just an audience, but I missed the communal event of a concert. I missed, like I realized we all missed it, like that connection between a performer and honest when we're all together, there's no politics, there's no there's nothing. There's just music and love and fun and energy. Yeah. And so I'm you know, I'm making up for it, man, I'm doing a on the shows, and I'm just every night I walk out there, I'm just so extra grateful. Amen. Amen. So you're doing a tour now because you have released a project that blew my mind. Uh. Having been in the radio industry for so many years, I have record producers or promoters or record labels come and they say, Okay, what songs should we release first? What genre? You know what our our producers will say Okay, we're going in the studio in a month, and just tell me, Delilah, like, what's what's really hot right now? Is like country crossover really hot? Blah blah blah blah blah. Trying to pigeonhole somebody And in this project you're releasing, there's no pigeon holing you. You're just like, no, No, I'm gonna do what I love to do. I'm gonna do music. I'm gonna do great music that is from my soul. Yeah, twenty cuts, Like, did the did the folks in the business because you and I both I mean, we're in the business, but we're not you know, did they just like freak out when you said, no, this is what I want to do. I want to put country on there. I want to put pop on there. You know, it would make sense, It would make sense that for me to tell you, like, all the people that rejected it or told me I shouldn't do it, the only two people that, the only two entities I should say that matter when it comes to this kind of thing is my manager, who is my teammate in terms of like, you know, my career and what we do. And I could have done this independently, but I started a relationship with BMG which Shelter is a division of BMG. That's the label that's putting out songwriter. It's all still BMG. UM. We had a great success a couple of years, three years ago almost with Limitless Um. It was a very collaborative, nice relationship with a record company. And you know, I've had a lot of the opposite throughout my career, of course, because you've had a long career anybody who's been in the industry for more than a minute. Yeah, but I was kind of shocked, pleasantly shocked, starting with my manager and then the folks at the label. They all went, Wow, this is so cool, this is really cool. There was no pushback. There was like, nobody's ever done this, this is a great idea, this is gonna be so much fun. So it was invigorating. You know how invigorating that must be. I remember when I switched companies eighteen nineteen, almost twenty years ago. To feel that instead of somebody pushing against your face and pushing you down, to feel the wind against your back pushing you forward. WHOA, Well, it's the feeling of Zaiah was coined or stated you know, the first twenty years of my career, I'm so grateful for the amount of success and the amount of hit songs. There wasn't one success that was because of my record company. It was in spite of in spite of Yeah, and they fought me at every turn. They tried so hard, they wrecked everything. I would have to put out, every fire I had had to like jump through ten. So did right Here Waiting change that for them? I mean that was such a mega hit and still is one of my most requested songs. Yeah, I love hearing that. No, it didn't change anything. No, all that happened then was that they kept wanting me to do right here waiting again, right here waiting too. And I would come to them with and I'd go, but you already have you already have it. You can go listen to it anytime you want, like, yeah, called Delilah, She'll play it for you. I already did that, Like I want to do some other stuff. So it was it was even that even on the height of that, in the height of that success, the people I was working with were just they made everything so difficult hard. So now you've got a record label that believes in you and supports you. A wife that is so beautiful, like stunning and adores you. And tell me about the collaboration with the boys. Oh my goodness. So all three of my sons have three sons, the March Brothers, and uh, they're all incredible. I'll give you a second to sorry now literally, um there. First of all, they're just the most amazing human beings there. I'm so proud of their humanity. M my oldest son, Brandon's dirty just turned thirty two. Lucas, my middle son, just turned thirty. My baby point Jesse, will be twenty nine in January. They're just such good people and they're my best friends. Were really close, but they're all really great talented singer songwriter musicians. So we've done stuff together since they were old enough to practically open their mouths and make sound, you know, um, to get to a point where I'm now creating records with them, and not in a way that's sort of like Dad leading the way, but I'm learning from them and I'm relying on them. I have Brandon and I didn't do anything on this record. I know we will. We just haven't figured out his style of music. We you know, he's like, we'll figure it out one of these days. But he's cheerleading for all of us. Lucas worked on my last album. We had a hit that you were kind enough to play on another one down that was me and Lucas, and Lucas is just on fire as a writer and producer. You did a Katie Perry track last year. He is really doing well and so he's a big part of this album. He he and I did three or four tracks together. And for the first time, I wrote songs with my youngest son, Jesse, who's a rock artist. He has he goes. He just put out his first EP under the band name Mark This Hour, and it's a heavy rock EP but it's very melodic and he sings so great. But it's it's peavy, it's heavy guitars and so something my teenage boys will love. Yeah, they'll love it. They'll love it. Um. So, he and I did two tracks rock songs for this project. And you know when I say it's hard to put into words, I know that you really understand this. If I were to really get deep into it, I'd get really emotional because it's well, let's get deep into it. Well, the privilege of it, the privilege of it. I think people with young kids, especially teenagers, who are going through that I roll stage right now where you're so stupid, you don't know anything, mom, or you know, people who are raising children in a divorce family and might feel like, I am I doing enough? Am I contributing enough? Am I there enough? Um? To hear your heart of what it feels like when you become best friends with an adult child, Ye tell me, tell me in your heart what that's like. Well, there's there's two things. To watch your children become adults, and to watch the kind of people that they that they're becoming and have become, what they stand for, what matters to them, and to be really proud of that, and to and to say to yourself, I'd be friends with them whether they were my kids or not. But then to take it to another level where you're very close and there's no subjects off limits, there's no eggshells, there's no dancing around anything. We talk about literally everything and anything. Um. The relationships that I have formed with them over the years, I confide in them, they confide in me, They get advice from me. Sometimes I get advice from them there's a very affectionate, deep love between my sons and me that is sort of indescribable. I I only can relate to it in that my father and I had that relationship. My father was my best friend and I know I was his, except that I lost my dad when I was thirty three, so I kind of got ripped off. I didn't really get as I was getting older. So many times when I turned forty. When I turned fifty, I remember thinking, I give anything to just have a conversation with my dad about what's going on with me and what I'm thinking about. Like it's real stuff, Like we're not afraid to be vulnerable with each other. We're not afraid to cry in front of each other. We're not afraid to just show each other the love that we have for each other. And it's it's a gift. It's just beautiful. Now cut to being in a room with them where a minute ago there was nothing, and now there's something amazing that we created together. Are you kidding me? It's insane. It's like I feel like the luckiest person on earth. You are you are You are the luckiest person on earth because you have so much good and love in your life and you recognize it. Oh yeah, every minute. There are so many people who are surrounded with goods, surrounded with loves, surrounded with people that cherish them, and they never recognize the depth of that blessing. There's nothing you could give me, Richard, if somebody walked up and said, here, here's a blank check, fill it out anything you want, money, riches, a yacht, you name it. There is nothing in the world that has any tangible meaning to me outside of the relationships that I have with my family and well, I mean I didn't obviously, I was only with you briefly in person the last time I saw you, but I saw a sense of that. I couldn't wait to tell Dajus that there's just this vibe in that in that house, and just like there's a there's a real sort of like team, like this is our tribe, you know what I mean. I felt it even in the brief time that I was there at your place. And every day, I'm sure you did have the same thing with your boys. Every day you discover something new and you're like, yeah, I never even knew you had that Tallenger, I never even knew you had that thought. Yeah, and I'm just like whoa blown away? Blown away? Lucas came yesterday. He met us on this tour. Jesse will meet us on Monday in London, but just Lucas Medicine Amsterdam. I played in Amsterdam last night. It was just one of the It was one of my favorite shows of this tour. And he was really jet lagged, but he was in the wings, sitting next to Daisy. Daisy usually sits in a chair in the wings and watches the show, watches the audience, and it is this beautiful venue in Amsterdam. Carrey Theater is absolutely remarkable, and the audience was insane and we were having the greatest time, and they started chanting Luca because I mentioned that he was there, and he ended up coming out and we did the song I wrote for instinct as I Promise You, and he just jumped into he's done it with me before. It's been a long time, but he just remembered all the lyrics and he remembered his parts, and we did it in an impromptu duet of this I Promise You and you hadn't rehearsed it. No, no, no, no no, come on. It was so great and the audience I had a couple. I met a couple of the audience members as we were leaving. The fans outside as we were getting in the van, and I always signed stuff and take pictures and stuff, and somebody said, watching you with your son tonight is something I'll never forget, and I was like, Wow, that's what a beautiful thing to say. You know, you are a blessed, blessed man. We're having so much fun catching up with Richard Mars. There's more to this conversation, but before we finish our chat, I'm going to share some love with one of my podcast sponsors. My friends, family and listeners know my love of tea, especially all things that come from the Bigelow Blends. Did you know that they have an incredible line of wellness teas called Bigelow Benefits. Benefit Tea blends helped to fuel our bodies with quality ingredients that are both good for you and full of aromatic flavor. Maintaining our health is important all the year through, but the months spent indoors can be especially challenging. With blends such as lemon and Echinasia to support our immune system, rose and meant for stress relief, Cammel and Avander for a good night's sleep, and others that helped to create balance, focus, and even one to help calm tummies. They've got me and my family covered. Cold weather is coming, but you can rise to the challenge, like the satisfying steam from a hot mug of Bigelow benefits wellness tea. Let's commit to keeping ourselves as healthy as we can by sipping a cup together as I play all your request and dedications over the airwaves each night. So if somebody wants to to get hold of songwriter, if somebody wants to come see you, where do they go? Well? Songwriters available everywhere, all the streaming everywhere, Amazon and tour dates are always on Richard Marks dot com my website. I was gonna call it Michael Bolton dot com, but that was already taken. That was already taken. Yeah. I have not talked to Michael in a long time, but I have. I have some very funny Michael's stories, So do I. He he and I having buddies from Oh my god, he's funny. People don't know how funny he is. He's hilarious. I love Michael, Oh my god. I've worked with him a bunch and we stay in touch. But we when we get together, especially if there's a little tequila involved. Ah, Like we have those not since I was a kid. Like when you're twelve and you're thirteen, you're with your buggy, are your best friend, and you didn't those laughing fits, but where you laugh so hard that it hurts and then you can't breathe and then the next day your stomach hurts. That's me and Bolton. That's me and Bolton. Oh my god, what a fun life you have. Yeah, I'm very lucky, so are you? Yeah, I am, I am, And I'm so happy you're able to tour again because the people that I know that are entertainers and the soul of their being, the core of their being, really missed that energy. And they said, you know, we did room concerts and we did skype concerts. But to be able to to soak up that energy and that love, you know, it's it's palpable. Yeah. Alright, Richard Marks, thank you for spending all this time with us. Have a wonderful tour. And I can't wait to come and see you. You're the best, So good to see you and talk to you. And I can't wait for the next time. All right, love you Hunt, Bye Bye You. Songwriter begins another busy season for Richard, who last summer released his best selling memoir Stories to Tell, available now via Simon and Schuster, a ruminative and refreshingly candid account of his successes and failures in the music industry as he's experienced it over the last four decades. There's so much going on in this remarkable man's world. To share it all would turn this into a two hour podcast. I wish I had much much more time with him, but he's got other commitments. He's on tour right now, so instead I will encourage you to visit Richard Marks dot com Richard Marks dot com for the album, for the tour and memoir information. You can keep up with him on Facebook, on Instagram, on Twitter, and YouTube. The twenty tracks on Songwriter should definitely get you through a patch or to a pumpkin muffins or pumpkin dump cake, and combined with the heavenly scent coming from your kitchen, would be the perfect background as you cozy up to sip some tea and open the covers of his book, Stories to Tell. As you wait for all the goodness to come out of the oven. Enjoy pumpkin season and every sweet and spicy combo it has to offer. It only comes around once a year, and there are memories to be made in each and every moment. Bring me along. I love spending time with you, and don't forget to join me each night as I remind you to slow down and love someonee