Explicit

Richard Marx

Published Aug 21, 2024, 12:17 PM

The “Right Here Waiting” hit-maker opens up about the 14 number ones he’s penned and the grateful life he leads. He takes it back to his early days when Lionel Richie called Marx’s family home (!) to encourage him to make the move to LA, and Kenny Rogers bought his song when Marx was still a young backing singer. He also explains how Barbra Streisand passing on one of his songs proved to be the biggest break of his career, and why Twitter proved to be an unlikely meeting place for him and his now-wife, Daisy Fuentes. 

Our Way with yours truly Paul Anka and my buddy Skip Bronson, is a production of iHeartRadio. Hi, folks, this is Paul Anka.

And my name is Skip Bronson. We've been friends for decades and we've decided to let you in on our late night phone calls by starting a new podcast.

And welcome to Our Way. We'd like you to meet some real good friends of ours.

Your leaders in entertainment and.

Sports, innovators in business and technology, and even a sitting president or two.

Join us as we asked the questions they've not been asked before, Tell it like it is, and even sing a song or two.

This is our podcast and we'll be doing it our way.

I wanted it this moment to happen when you don't expect it, and the song went to number one. It just defied the odds, and I remember my record company like saying this is never going to go and pop radio, and the song became number one single. And then, as will happen, sometimes I just got paged. Is this romantic balladeer?

Guy Any Richard?

Hey Paul of what's happening? I've spoken to you a while? What you do?

I'm glad you're using my real name too. Can't hide behind can't hide behind the nickname. People are getting confused. I getting a lot of Texan well because we had two Richards. Because your friend Richard Marx is coming on today, and yeah, I'm really looking forward to talking to him. I can't believe this guy's got just one of his songs on Spotify has five hundred millions. It's his mind by me, and he's like you, he's always working. Another energizer bunny that's always out there working. I've got but I've got to tell you, I've got to ask him. I saw the reference to Kenny Rogers when I was doing my research on him. Kenny and I, as you know, Kenny and I were very close friends. He was just a very special friend of mine. I can't wait to talk to him about him. Yeah, you're gonna love him talking Richard. I've known a guy a long time and he's really one of those guys that's lasted predicated on talent. And he said so many hits. He said Billboard Chide fourteen, number ones. He's written for other people. He's got fascinating stories about you know, Lionel Richie in his life how that started. His father was a great jazz pianist, and when I met him, he was so young, and I just you know, there's certain It's like you and your deals. You know, he can smell a deal and you know that it's got legs to it. You can meet certain artists, you really can that when you hear them, whether it's working with Jackson or John Prine or any artists that really turned it on for me. He turned it on for me when I first met him, and we went away and we wrote together. But I knew that this guy had to last. And when he comes on, you're gonna you're gonna see a guy that's had a full career and still doing it, still working.

And that's and I'm so proud of them.

The thing that I love is when we get these guys that you've known for such a long time. Tony Orlando is an example. They don't talk about themselves. They talk about you, oh, which is really pretty special. I just love that part. But this is a guy I'm interested in hearing about his relationship with his wife, Daisy Fuentes, who we first saw on MTV Great. I want to hear about the people he collaborate with you know, you and I talked nightly. But when I mentioned the fact that he's had five hundred million downloads of one song just on one platform. That's only Spotify, that's not Apple, that's not Amazon, just one platform. Could you've ever imagined anything like this when you've now first getting out. I mean, if you sold, you sold records, what did you need? How many records typically did they have to sell to get gold record? Five hundred thousand, five thousand, Yeah, they were just records.

Yeah, he'd got multiple gold records.

This is a whole in the world different, it's changed to Any of the dynamics from the fifties, sixties do.

Not prevail today. What do you like about it and not like about it?

The whole streaming thing, Well, I can't look at it that way because I'm a guy that I have no rear view mirror.

I think we need evolution. I think we need change.

I think what I don't like about it today is you new young great artists can't get record deals because you know, I defy you to name the head of any of these record companies. Maybe we'll seean Grange, but they don't invest in artists they don't give them a chance. You know, they're upredicated on finding and developing new people, and so many good people out there today, so they don't have a shot and they sit around with old catalog These companies today they're making their money. But with the steaming and the way it's changed, Skip, I.

Mean, I defy it. Okay, tell me what's the number one? We'll go there today?

I couldn't tell you, but I could tell you this that that's the point. One of the number one songs on TikTok is put your head on my shoulder. Okay, oldie Goldie. No, they're using it like crazy.

Thank you, thank you.

But the point is it's so changed that you don't know who and what that next hit is or how. And I take artificial intelligence, which you know me, I'm all that bad wagon for years. That's going to even make it even more complicated. So you know, I like it. I'm optimistic the music industry they'll have. They'll be doing AI Paul Ankers, they'll be writing songs scripts me. It's all open, you know, it's just send me the check. What are you going to do at eighty three? I've done it, you know, just give me my little piece of a pie and go do what you want to do. But there's this sapp I told you that I'm high on called perplexity, which is an AI driven form of like a search engine. And you wrote an entire song, no exaggeration, twenty seconds and you know it's not going to replace songwriting the same way.

You know.

I know in the past you've talked to guests that we have about songwriting and why that's so critical, not just singing, not that just anybody could be a singer, but to have that special talent of being a songwriter is like in my business, whether you're developing shopping centers or casinos or golf courses, it's about storytelling. So that's our form of songwriting. You know, we don't use lyrics, it's different, but storytelling. That's the key to everything at this point, isn't it.

Yeah? Yeah, sure is.

I mean, you're reminded me of when Gates and what was Buffett that called Gates was with them and the same machine and app that you're on. Gates showed them the original machine, the g whatever it is, and he said, Paulie, I got to sing. Gage just brought it and I asked the machine to give me four different versions of my way, and in two minutes it's spit out four different versions, and by way incredible and I couldn't believe it when he told me. Then it's evolved into what we're talking about today. It is incredible. Licensing has to be a disaster because if you sing a verse of a particular song, Jordan gets nervous, right because of the copyright everything that goes along with it. And yet you can do things now with these apps where you know the people are just spitting stuff out. Yeah, exactly. Yeah, it's going to be interesting. Lawyers are going to be busy. China is going to become interesting because they we don't get royalty from Russia or China, and we are we're on the path now with BMI and ask gap to try to get over there and get I don't get a sent out of China or Russia. It's like all the bogus bags that are made and jewelry and Rolexes that are over in China that you can go and you can get the French government. Because I was just in Hong Kong, have gone to China and said look, no more bogus handbags, brick and bag. We shut down those places, and they're starting to shut them down to protect the properties of air mess and we'll be telling all of that. But we don't get a thing out of China.

It's amazing.

Yeah it is.

Well, you're gonna go to drink some alligator tea here, some new concoctions. No, no, no, I gave that up last month. Seaweed, seaweed, seaweed. I gave him alligators. See, it's still just sticking my throat. That a tooth come through my nose. Hen't wait here the next concoction. That's all I can tell you. Well, it's working so far anyway. I love your brother, You're the best. Just love you to death. I'll catch up with you tomorrow. You just get some sleep, you got it. You sound like you don't need it. You're full of energy. Love me, skip, Love you too. Thanks for calling your brother.

What do you say? Kids? Yeah? Hey, how you doing, buddy?

You're back from the tour?

Huh? Well for a minute, yeah, well's I know what you mean.

Still, let's skip Bronze and my buddy skip skip.

How are you pleasure?

How are you doing? Real name Richard.

Till Richards so so skippy.

Listen.

We've been so damn lucky because we get all our buddies on here and we get to share our experiences with our thousands of listeners. And today's no exception. You know, two of the most important days in our lives, the day you're born and the day you figure out why. And our guest today figured out at a young age when I met him, and I've talked to you about him, and I've known him for so many years and admired him. He sold like over thirty million albums worldwidees been on the Billboard charts forever. But he's kept his ship together all these years. He's still working, still viable all these listening is the chunk of being a movie star. And I keep prodding him.

Give this up.

I mean, this fucker is so good looking. So but I'm so happy to have him on and introduce you to him. He's done it all, he continues to do it all. And I've been blessed with probably two of the most talented people out of Chicago, from where Richard is from, originally John Prine, who I took to New York, and that I'm started and then Richard and I met up and we've had this connection all these years, right up until now, and I'm thrilled to have him all with us and share my experiences with him, because he is some kind of cat. Richard. Welcome, folks. Richard Marx my buddy. I'll tell you right out front, let's tell about this great career years.

Well, first of all, I want to say thank you. I'm so happy to be here with you. And yeah, I mean you kind of said it all. I was blessed enough at I think I would just nineteen or I was just a couple of months into my nineteenth year when I met you and was such a fan of yours, respected your songwriting so much as well as your artistry, and we met and you I think to this day one of the things that's always set you apart is that you've always tried to spot young talent and not only nurture it, but embrace it in a way that to see, hey, maybe this could help me, Maybe this is good for me, rather than these insecure people who want nothing to do with up in the commerce. You know, and Paul has always been this guy who has championed younger people, but has also been smart enough to go maybe that is something good for me in my you know, my songwriting in my career. So I benefited from that when I was nineteen, and can I try I tell the great story of how we are songwriting life together.

It's all about that today and more. Absolutely, But I want you to do me, do us and you okay.

Well, okay, okay, but but it's important. This is a great story.

But if you got something really great to say, go ahead, I'll send them down.

Well this is actually this, this whole story is in my memoir which came out a couple of years ago called Stories to Tell.

Great book.

Thank You. So I I met Paul and within a couple of months he called me and he said, hey, I got to go to Hawaii, to Honolulu. I'm playing a few shows and I'm going to rent a house there. Why don't you come over. I'll bring you all fly here to I'll put you up and we'll write songs, you know, after my shows or during the afternoon. We'll just you know, we'll write songs every day. And I said, wow, that sounds great. So sure enough, you know, a couple of weeks later, he flies me to know why. I'm with my girlfriend at the time. I brought her with me, so I'm thinking, you know, I'm going to be here to work, but in between, we can hang out and go to the beach. So the first day I get to my hotel and Paul's assistant calls me and she says, listen, Paul wanted me to call you and he's very busy today. It's got a lot going on. He said, just enjoy yourself, go to the beach, hang out. He'll call you tomorrow and we'll figure it out. Oh okay, great. Tuesday comes same phone call. Paul's crazy busy. He's very busy today. This went on every day for four or five days, and now it's the last day of the trip and I'm thinking, holy shit, like I feel horrible. I haven't done anything. I haven't worked, I haven't last day. Paul calls me himself and he says, Richard, it's been a crazy week. Here's the plan. You'll come to my show tonight and then then after the show, you'll come to the house that I rented and we'll go right And I'm thinking to myself, after a week of shows, this guy wants to write songs. Okay, I go to the show. It's phenomenal. I meet him at this house that he's rented on the beach and I'm sitting I'm waiting for him to come downstairs, and I'm sitting at the piano and I'm just noodling. And he comes down the stairs and he doesn't even say hello. He goes, what is that? And I said, I don't know, I'm just new. He goes, that's beautiful. Play that again. So I'm playing this melody, and of course he and I remember the melody I was playing. I was going but you, and he went, no more wine and roses. Keep going and we wrote this song in about eleven minutes. I'm playing melodies. Paul's spitting lyrics like he's rehearsed them. I've never seen anything like it. And we have a song. It's like no time and I'm so happy. And I said, wow, that was amazing. Impulsays, yeah, it's beautiful. It's really good, really really good. And I said, okay, well that was fun. He goes, wait, what are you talking about. Let's keep going and we wrote I think it was four or five songs between that, like eleven o'clock at night and three point thirty in the morning, and every one of those songs that we wrote that night got recorded. One wasn't a Kevin Costner movie. Paul recorded one of them. That kid Glenn Madaneros cut one of them. And it was the most fruitful evening of songwriting. And it was such a masterclass in just getting the shit done. It was unbelievable. And that's how we started working together.

But I saw in you unlike a producer we won't name that didn't think you had it. Instead, just write song. If you want to mention his name, go ahead.

Well, I will say his name. His initials are David Foster. And he told me when I was at that same age that I shouldn't sing. That was the He looked at me and said, you should not sing. So you know, what are you gonna do?

Meanwhile, sonically, when the record pubby heard you, forget what it was, they freaked because we know sonically amazing your voices. You know, we all listened for told with artists and everybody in the beginning absolutely knew. And then you just you went from there. But you had dinner one night you told me the story which I never knew that year. Big break came when I think nyl Rich called you your else when you were a kid.

Yeah, I was.

Fascinated that because that's one of the things I didn't know about you. But I love you. Tell Skip Skip You'll love this story. Check this out.

Yeah, it's pretty amazing. So I was in Chicago. I was in my senior year of high school, and at that time I had written three or four songs. You know, it's my first handful of arms. And because my father was in the jingle business, I had access to a decent recording studio and some good musicians, studio musicians, which I had to pay for. By the way. My father wasn't like, you get no free studio time. You pay it just like anybody else. And I'd saved up some money to record some demos, and I had this cassette tape and I'd sent it to a friend of mine who was He was a year older than me, So he was freshman year in college in Atlanta, Emory University. I tell you this because it's a very important part of the story. His roommate, his dorm mate, they would play music all the time, like you do in school, right, But it was the music of the day. It was Ario Speedway again, it was Queen, it was whatever. And so my my friend would play my demo tape along with those other records because he just loved what I was doing. And his roommate says, who is that? That's really good? And my buddy says, my buddy from Chicago, Richard Marks, and does he have a record deal? Note, And so his roommate says, you know, I grew up with this guy who knows a guy who works with the Commodores, and I wonder if we could get this tape to Lionel Richie. Well, you know, this is just ridiculous on its you know, on the face of it, but I remember getting excited about even the possibility of it. And six weeks later, my parents' phone rings and it's Lionel Ritchie on the phone. He had not only gotten the tape, but he listened to it. And my phone number was written in pencil on the back of the cassette box, and he called me on the phone to tell me that he really liked my songwriting, that he really liked my voice. What was my plan really encouraging this was when he was he and Michael Jackson were probably the two biggest artists on the planet, and he took the time to call some kid in Chicago he didn't even know. It tells you everything you need to know about Lionel Ritchie. What a class act he is. So he encouraged me and I, you know, I thought about maybe going to college and studying music after high school because I didn't really have a plan. And he said, you can always go to school. Your parents are going to kill me, but you need to come to LA You need to try it out here. This is where it's happening. So I my parents actually gave me their blessing and they said, you know, not go as soon as I graduated, and Lionel had given me his number, so I looked him up and he was recording his first solo album when I arrived in LA like six months later, and he invited me to enter the studio and he just happened to be recording background vocals on this song called You Are, which became a huge hit for him, and I overheard in the conversation in the control room that they'd been working on these background vocals for two days. And I come from the jingle world where you've got to have that shit done in two minutes two days to do background vocals on a record, like who's got the time and money for that? But I couldn't believe it. And they were struggling to find this blend that Lionel was after, and he had these three other singers and he was singing with them, and I was watching. I was sitting on the couch in the control and watching the session, and he was getting frustrated, and finally he looks into the controller me, points to me. He says, come here, and I come out and he said, you've been listening to you. Do you know what part I was singing? I said, yeah, I think so, and he said, okay, you sing my part, and Debbie, you changed this party. You do this, And he came in the control room and they rolled the tape and they hit record and we all sang and Lionel Richie hit the talk back and said that's the sound I want. And I had a job and he said come back tomorrow. I got another song I want you to sing on. And I ended up singing on like four songs on his first solo album, but more important and then Paul Will really understand on the importance of this. It wasn't just the gift of having a little paycheck and a credit on a big record. What Lionel said to me that day was, I don't know what work I'm going to have for you. You know, there might be another song or two for bere to sit on, but I just want you to know, as long as I am in this room meeting in the studio, you're welcome to be in this room. And I went into every day. I didn't miss a single session. I watched them cut basic tracks. I watched them do string overdubs. I watched them do horn overdubs. I watched the horn arrangements being tweaked and created. I watched percussion overdubs. I sang back on vocals, And I went to Hit Records school for three or four months, and I've never missed a day of that session. And the gift that Lionel Richie gave me was just so incredibly powerful at that time. And then he tells his buddy Kenny Rodgers, you got to hire this kid. You gotta have you doing a new album. You I get this kid to sing on He can sing anything. He sings really high he can sing anything great pitch. So Kenny Rodgers people call me and hire me for a session, and then I end up writing songs for Kenny Rodgers, which launched my songwriting career, and I had two number one songs with them out of the box. So I mean it. But it all traces back to Limebridge, who I to this day. I every once in a while, every few months, I text him and I just I literally do this. I go, hey, buddy, just wanted to thank you again for my career. Love you. And he always texted me back, laughing. He says, you did it. You did it, man. It was like I couldn't have stopped it. But no, you know, Paul.

Right, fourteen number one songs later, right man. But the lu the Luther Vandros. You know, at first, really it came out, you know, well, I'm going my way, you're doing your thing. I had no idea you had written that with Luthor.

Did you just say you're going on? Did you just say I'm going my way? Did you say that?

Yeah?

Yeah, I was going my way. You were half a song there, But I didn't know in the beginning. And when I found out you wrote that with him, probably one of the greatest voices, if not the greatest, right.

Agree, the right one hundred percent.

How did that come about writing that with him?

Well, Luther and I met at the American Music Awards in the early nineties and we were both as I recall, he won Favorite R and B Vocalist and I had just lost Favorite Pop Vocalist to Bobby Brown, I believe. But you know how you at those awards things you go, if you you're nominated, that you're presenting or whatever, there's always like a press room in the back after you walk off the stage, and there's press that wants to talk to you. And it just happened to be Luther and I were back there at the same time, and we had never met, and Luther came over to me and he just said such wonderful things that I was a huge fan of his, and like you said, Paul, I mean from back then to the day he died, I think he was in the top three best scene we've ever had, and for sure, so I was just it was a lot of mutual compliments, and we exchanged numbers because we just sort of immediately, you know, you just click with somebody, right, you could tell like you get a good vibe from somebody. And we were both touring a lot, so we ended up becoming friends on the phone. We would call each other from whatever, God knows wherever town we were in on tour. And then I came home. My first son had just been born, so I was taking a little time off, and Luther and I started hanging out and becoming friends. And he came and sang background vocals on some tracks on my you know, the album that I was making at that time, and then he called me and said, I'm doing a new album. I'd love to try to write a song with you. I'm doing a Christmas album. So we wrote a song called every Year Every Christmas, which became a pretty big hit on his Christmas out. It was the only single from his Christmas album, and it was effortless. It was very unlike you and me, Paul. It was I wrote several songs with Luther, including Dance of My and we were never in the same room. It was very much like an Elton John b Berniey Topplin thing, where in a distance it was separate. Yeah. I wrote the music. Luthor would listen to the music. He wrote the lyrics which is opposite of Bernie and Elton, but that's how he would do it. And so we wrote several songs over the years, and one day he called me two thousand and three, I guess it was, and he said, I have just a title and it's danced with my father. And all I know is I have to write it with you because years before, like several years before, I had very tragically lost my father in a car accident, and it was we were very close, and it really wrecked me for a while. And there was, you know, a lot of my loved ones and my friends tried to be there for me and help me, but no one could seem to pull me out of this depression and this grief. And one day I got a call from Luther, and I don't it wasn't even the specifics of what he said to me, but we talked for an hour and at the end of that conversation he just knew what to say to me. He helped pull me out of this depression I was in. And we talked a lot about fathers, and he his father had passed away when Luther was like eleven or twelve. He barely knew his father, but he had these very vivid memories of his dad dancing around the kitchen with his kids and his and his and Luther's mom, and it was such a beautiful image. So he said, I don't want to write a song called dance with my father, So go write me something. Go write me some music. And so I immediately went to the piano and I came up with you know what became the song, and I sent it to Luluther and he was like, yes, yes, that's exactly what I wanted. I got, but I got so many lyrics. I'm gonna can I change some of the verse melody? I said, do whatever he want, so he, you know, he wanted more syllables and and within a couple of days he called me and he said this is it. I'm calling I'm going into the studio tomorrow and I'm gonna cut this song. And he ended up using my you know, I did a little demo in my studio, so there was MIDI you know, the the files were there, and he just took my piano part and then built the track around it, sweetened it, yeah, and uh mixed it maybe ten twelve days later called me said I'm FedExing you this the mix, and he said, I just want to say that this is the most important song I've ever been a part of. He said, any I remember him saying, this is my piano man, this is my signature song. This is going to be the song I'm really going to be known for. And I went, don't say that. You're putting too much pressure. You're putting like it's just a beautiful song, man, Don't don't over hide a bit. You know, he knew. He just knew it was going to resonate, and you want to Grammy And we won the Grammy, and like two weeks after he mixed it, he had a stroke. And you know, he lived to see us win Song of the Year at the grounds, but he didn't get to go. I went and hung out with him in the hospital. After that, I went right from the Grammy stee New York and spent a day with him, and then he hung on there with us for maybe another eight months or ten months. I missed him every day. He was Paul. I've said this if you can believe it. He was as funny and kind as he was talented. That's how cool that guy was.

That was his reputation everybody felt the same way about it. Yeah, yeah, so that voice unbelievable.

Oh yeah. I used to say you could sing the menu to a Chinese take up place, and I was.

The phone book, the phone, the phone book.

Yeah, so bring it up to real time, you know.

No matter how well Paul and I know the guests that we have on this podcast, we still do our research. I was looking and I found that your song right here waiting, which everybody knows. Everybody knows that song has five hundred million downloads on Spotify.

Where's my check it's coming?

But think about this, that's only one platform. That's not Amazon, that's not Apple Music, that's just Spotify alone, five hundred million. I mean, neither of you could have imagined when you first started in your careers that there could be a phenomenon like this where you know you'd get this type of exposure. But I want to ask you about Kenny Rodgers for a minute. I can't explain to you, Richard, how close I was to Kenny Rogers.

Oh really.

I met Kenny because I worked with Steve when at Mirage Resorts, and Steve was close to Kenny. We became good friends. We did fun things together. I'll never forget the time Kenny White to go to Kenny Rogers Roasters and go through the driving lane. And we went to the driving lane, and I can only explain to you what the guy what it looked like when he gave the order to the guy, and it was Kenny Rodgers ordering at Kenny Rodgers Rops.

Sounds like Kenny. That sounds like Kenny.

But that was that was Kenny, right. So Kenny and I probably played one hundred rounds of golf together. I went to his farm in Athens, Georgia, hung out with him there. He was just a special guy. But while this was going on, my wife left me and I was devastated. I was just literally upside down. Kenny Rogers was my shrink. I swear to God. He called me every day to check in how you doing, Here's how you get through this, this is what you do? Do that and call me tomorrow. He had good experience, but he you know, he was just such a remarkable guy. But then again, in doing the research, I read where you had said that Kenny wrote one line in a song and he wanted fifty percent of it. I was just curious, how'd that come about?

The story is, and I mentioned it in Passing a minute ago. But so I got hired when I was nineteen to sing on Kenny's album that he was making. I was booked for two days, so I went in and I sang on one or two songs, and they really liked what I did, so they said, come back tomorrow. We've got a couple more songs for you to sing on. And I overheard Kenny talking to his producer, a guy named Richard Perry very, you know, successful producer Kenny. I overheard Kenny say, you know, Gos, we still need that one ballad, We need that that Lady, We need the next Lady, we need that song, that that love song. But it's just you know, over the top, like no brainer one listen, And I knew. I had a session the next day, and I went home to my apartment and I sat at my little electric piano and I wrote Crazy, this song called Crazy, and I modeled it after Lady and Lionel's truly And so I like wanted to do a one word title. And you know, Paul understands, like you you got to you got to write smart, you gotta you had to really think about what the target is, and I wrote this thing that I knew Kenny's range because I was a fan of his and I so I came in the next day and I did exactly what you should never do if you're there to be the background singer. This is a good way to get fired, to go up to the artist and say I'm a songwriter too. You know, I got a song for you. That's bad form. But I couldn't not. It was like it was the opportunity was too good to pass up. So I at the end of the session, I did my work so I wouldn't get fired before they had me sing. I went up to him. I remember my legs were shaking, and I said, you know, no, I overheard you yesterday. I called him, mister Rogers, I overheard you yesterday saying you're still looking for a song and I'm a songwriter and I wrote something for you. And you could see the look on Kenny's face. I know, here we go, but he was gracious, says, you know skip and he said, well, let's hear it. So I started to reach into my pocket for the cassette. He goes, no, no, no, no, just go to the piano. I was like, oh my god, Now I got to play the piano and sing the song fan like I'd just written it, you know. So we went to the pian and he sat next to me and I played it and he he was had his eyes closed and he said, this is really good. This is really good. And at the end of the song there's a line that I had written with this, iigh, note you are the dream that finally came true. And Kenny, at the end of the song, he said, go back to that part. You are the dream that finally came true. I said, He goes, is there any way you could say you are the dream that finally came true for me? And I sat the pian, I looked I said, yeah, I just go for me, just the end of line, whatever you wanted. And he said, great, I'm now you're co writer. And we wrote this song together fifty to fifty. And I'd heard these stories about that stuff being done, and for whatever reason, instead of me being offended or feeling like how dear, I was like, one hundred percent of nothing is nothing and to have my name next day is on a song is good for my career. So that I gladly gave into that and skip, you'll because you were friends with him too. I was friends with him to the end. In fact, the last email I got from him. He wasn't a text guy. He was an email guy. And remember he would always email in all caps. He would always yell at you in his email, yelling right. It was about two months before he passed, and he I'll never part with it. I've saved it. I look at it. Everyone I saw because I stayed friends with him to the end of his life. So I really loved the guy, and I loved spending time with him and talking to him on the phone and getting emails. And he said something like, we both know you really wrote that song, but I still get half the money.

I didn't know he had some Morris.

It's called yeah morse LEVI heard again, and it's called write a word, write a word and get a.

Third, get a third, or in this case, just ask for half and you got it.

Well, I did it with Johnny Arson, right you. I felt the same way you did, man, you know exactly.

And look at what we did the right We made the right move. My friend.

Yeah, half a something, half of something.

When you were hanging out with him, did you ever encounter Rob Pinkus.

You know that name. I do, but I don't remember. I just remember the.

Name he was. He was Kenny's sort of bodyguard arranger. You know, he collected all the phone numbers, right, you know he was. He was his right.

Hand of the plumber the electricians.

But they were like Batman and Robin. You know, Rob got Rob got the leftovers. But you know it was quite a it was great thing. I have to ask you. When we have Michael Boobley on, I asked him this question. I'd like to ask you the same question when you first decided you want to I know your dad was a jazz musician. Yeah, but my father was a window trimmer. That didn't inspire me to went to his business. When you first started, why not rock and roll as a young person, wasn't that the un that was the whole big thing to be a rock and roll star, to be you know up on the stage.

Well I was, I was. I started, I started at rock radio.

You had some rock songs at first, but you pivoted from that, right, I mean, you wouldn't consider yourself a rock and roll artist.

I don't think I'm considered that now as much but they was it was. I mean, my first hit was a song called Don't Mean Nothing that featured three of the Eagles, and my first single in nineteen eighty seven was actually went to number one on the rock chart, so I and I crossed over from rock to pop and the song became a top five pop single. And then the next song was that front row Seat. No, frontwar Seat was just not that long ago. That was that was way way later in my career. Don't Main Nothing was the first single, and then the second single was a song called shit None Better that became a huge rock hit, and then another and crossed over the pop. But at the end of that album, that first album, I had written this about one. There was one ballad on the album called hold On to the Knights, and I had arranged it and recorded it. You know, I was very influenced by Peter Gabriel at the time, and still I'm a big Peter Gabriel fan, and I loved the sparseness and the space that Peter always created in his records. Open real open, yeah, very open, not commercial really, So I even though the song was was a very memorable, catchy melody, I deliberately produced the record with all this space and to the point where it didn't like nobody's gonna sit through that on the radio. Well, guess what, well, I loved it.

I'll interrupt you because that's one of my favorite. The drums did not come in for about a minute and a half exactly, and then that great guitar solo. Whose guitar solo was it Mike Landau? Was it Landau Guitars? Anyway, go ahead, I know exactly what you were doing with that.

Oh, I love that you just pointed that out. Yeah. I said, I want there to be this moment like in the Air to Night by Phil Collins. I wanted this moment to happen when you don't expect it. And the song went to number one. It just it defied the odds, and I remember my record company like saying this is never going to go and pop radio, and the song became a number one single, and then, as will happen, sometimes I just got pegged as this romantic balladier guy and it was hard to like come back to. I did have another couple of rock hits. I had a song called Sa Satisfied. It was number one, and you know, big on the rock charts. But I started to get sort of pegged as this romantic balladeer. And then the record company at the time they knew what was easy. Just give him more of that. Oh he's he's a love song guy. Girls love him. Let's just keep hyping then, and I would say, okay, we can do that, but I'm also a rocker, like, let's keep let's not lose that. It was a matter of a year and a half, two years. It was sort of like rock radio went now he's a pop guy, and that was that. So then I just dove headfirst into Yeah. I never stopped making rock records. I mean, even my last album has probably some of the hardest rocking songs I've ever done. But I'm just not that's not the perception, and that's okay with me.

Just reading your memoir, you talk about you're having had a mysterious illness. Yeah, but you don't you don't say what that illness was. I don't know if you want to say.

It here, but I would if I knew what it was. To this day, we don't know where it.

Was mysterious illness. He didn't know what it was at all, What were the symptoms Richard, what were the symptoms.

The symptoms were very COVID like, and it was at the very it was even a couple of months before COVID. So I woke up in a hotel in New Jersey. I was playing show somewhere and I was shivering with cold chills. I had a one hundred and four fever and I started, having never happened to me before. I'm a very healthy guy. I started having convulsions. I started to seize like I was. I remember thinking I'm going to have a heart attack because I couldn't stop thrashing in my bed. And it lasted for several minutes and I couldn't even reach for the phone call somebody who called nine one one. I couldn't. I was just convulsivet I was having a seizure and it finally subsided, and just as I was about to try to move, it happened again. And I remember thinking I'm gonna die in Inglewood, New Jersey. This is not sexy. But I got through it. Ended up doing the show that and I because Paul, you know, the show must go on. My voice was okay, so I was like, I pulled myself together to get on stage. And do a show. I ended up going to the infectious disease experts at UCLA Medical Center. I went to CEDARS. I got tested for everything you can imagine, no COVID, no lupus, know this, all the things that could have explained this fever that would not stop. I had a fever at least one hundred and two forty four straight days well, and so of course my doctor thought I had an mphalma. Somebody self said I had a heart infection. I kept getting tested for everything, nothing, and it finally went away about you know, after forty four forty five days, and that was four years ago, four and a half years ago. I haven't had the sniffles since. So it was just this crazy mystery illness that hopefully never returns.

Fright me, fright.

I have to give a plug to Paul's and my doctor at UCLA, Robert Spinner s HPI in e Er. He's the doctor that the other doctors send people to when they can't figure out what's wrong, and they refer to him as doctor Clouseau. Yeah, he's the most remarkable guy, and he just he just can figure things out that nobody else can figure out.

Oh, text me his number. You got it just in case. We help each other, We look each other up, we help each other out. We're brothers.

You know something people have lost, the meeting of friendship. Skipstered my rap on this. I try to teach my son. People have to get back to understanding what real friends are and how to treat them and be with them. We've lost that. They've lost it. I agree, And you're that buddy. Other than when we go to dinner, you overdose me with Rod Stewart, who you're madly who you are madly in love with, and I've choken on my fucking foot. But tell Skip a budget, you're all appeal with the with Stewart.

I just you know, I've always been a huge, huge Rod fan since I was a kid and met him in passing at like an award show or a radio thing, and he was always very nice, but you know, not hanging out. But he was the only person really who I when I would run into him or I would see him, and there were even times I would see him in a restaurant and I didn't know him well enough. I didn't want to interrupt him or whatever, but I would just be like, he's so fucking cool. Rod Stewart is so fucking cool and not like from Uh. He'll be the first to tell you he's not like this. You know, he's not Sinatra vocally or you know, p variety, But it's the sound of his voice, it's his phrasing. I think he's a really nderrated songwriter. Maggie May Tonight's the night. Some of these songs he's written, you wear it well anyway. I'm a massive, massive band and seen him in concerts so many times I was in. I did a tour in Australia at the beginning of last year and I had been talking about him for a couple of days in the interviews, mentioned his name to my band a couple of times. This is like two days in a row, three days in a row. And we ended up going to Perth to finish the tour and we're having dinner and he just walks right in front of us, like right. I had mentioned his name about ten minutes before we sat down, and then he's in this restaurant in Perth, Australia. I couldn't believe it, and I hesitated again because they don't know him, know him, and I thought he was leaving with some people, and I was like, fuck that. I went Rod and he turned he looked to me and I said, it's Richard and he looked like did he go? And he came running over. He gave me the biggest hug, introduced himself to everybody. He had met my wife Daisy before because they had done some events on with MTV, and so he had met Daisy before. And we stayed and talked and then he said, are you busy tomorrow night? Do you want to get get together for Drakes or something? That's okay, We're gonna be here for another two days. So we ended up getting back together the next day and we just hit it off and that was it. And from that point on, we're in touch all the time. I'm seeing him in a couple of days because we're both playing the Mountain Winery in Saratoga back to back, so I'm staying over to hang out with him, and he's just become, like you said, Paul, like once in a while. And I feel like this has happened since our reconnection. There are people you just go, you know, I have to deal with so many people day in and day out who like don't really care for. If you connect with somebody and you you become friends with somebody where there's mutual respect, there's mutual interest, there's laughter. You gotta hold those people close, you know, you gotta like make the time. And that's what that's what I do with Rod, even though it annoys you. I see you, I see you even more than I see Rod. See what does that tell you?

You have good judgment? But you just glanced saying the word Daisy. And I know your passion for your music, and you know how blessed guys like you and I who have made the longevity trip, we hope we submit. But like Skip with his wife, my woman, Michelle, you know when I go out to dinner with you and Daisy, that is in our world alone, the business that we're in. What an amazing and beautiful love story that is. Because I know some of the nuts and bolts of the two of you and whence you came, and you wear that so well and how much it means to you. You know, some of us too late in life realize if you don't have that other person, that that's kind of friend that's there for you, you're missing a whole lot.

In that piece of ply, I agree.

Tell us about Daisy, how you guys connect it up? Oh my good woman. And I'm so happy for both of you.

Yeah, I know, and she loves you too. She has actually thanked me a couple of times. She's like, just spending time with somebody like Paul and Michelle. She loves Michelle, she says, it's just that's like, that's time well spent. As she said, you know, and well, where do I even begin. I mean, she's had an incredible career as a TV personalities and as a model, but she is a really smart business woman who started her own brand in twenty years ago. It's one of the longest running celebrity brands. And she started it when a lot of people were like, oh no, no, no, we don't do that, We're too serious. Where she was like, I want to be a you know, I want to do everything. And she's had this incredible brand, that clothing brand, sunglasses, home furnishings, perfeme, you name it. She was the only person on MTV who I never met all those years, I would beat I have. We have found video of her introducing my videos. Never met her. I met everybody else at MTV. I was fancyater, as they'd say. I always thought she was, but it was more than just her physical beauty. For me, it was all of this. When I would see her on TV. There was something about Daisy that made me think I would want to hang with her. She was cool, there was something she was funny, and we just never our paths never crossed. And then we found each other on Twitter, of all places, we ended up we were following the same person and this thread of tweets connected us, and so then we started following each other. And then it was maybe a year or two later we didn't meet, and it was not It wasn't I wasn't flirting with her. I wasn't like what they called sliding into her dms at that point. It was very respectful. I just was thought, Oh, Daisy's like, she's so cool. I bet she's really cool. And I was Mary at the time for a very long time, but my marriage was starting to unravel and I was on my way out of that marriage. And I'm a very private person. I've never been in the top boys. Nobody taught you know, there's nothing to talk about. So I was separated for quite a while before anybody knew publicly, and I did a show in La ten years ago, nine years ago, ten years ago, and I invited Daisy. I didn't even have her number. I just messaged her on Twitter and I just said, Hey, I'm going to be doing a show in LA at the Grammy Museum. If you're in town, i'd love you to be my guest. And Daisy, to her credit, saw the message and didn't answer me. She immediately called her publicist and she said, Hey, Richard Mars just invited me to the show he's doing in a couple of weeks at the Grammy Museum, and I'd like to go, but i'd like to answer him and say that I already have tickets. Can you help me get tickets? Classy move right? Her publicists, he's my client. She goes, what the fuck are you going to tell me that? She goes, I don't talk about my he doesn't know.

You're like ying.

She goes, you'll come with me. So my publicist brings Daisy to the show. And there's a hang in the dressing room after rooms, all these people around, and the door's over been and I'm kind of talking to some people and I keep looking at the door because I'm not sure if she's going to come backstage or not. And all of a sudden, she walks through the door. Now, Paul, you and I both know we've written song after song about that lightning bolt thing. It's good poetry. I never really experienced it until that moment. I'd written songs about it, fantasizing about it. But when she walked through the door, all I remember thinking was I'd never experienced anything like that, seeing a human being and she's walking to me. All I remember thinking was my life just changed. And I didn't know what that meant. I didn't know she could have been married. I didn't even know if she was involved whatever. I just knew everything that I've known up until this moment is different now because of this presence of this person. And so she came over and she gave me a hug, she told me how much she loved the show. There's a photo there was a Getty photographer, so we have a picture of the moment we met, which is pretty amazing that we have framed in our house. And then we just she gave me her number and we started talking, and we very slowly started dating. I was still kind of even though I was the one who sort of made my way out of my marriage. It was a very hard time for me. It wasn't like hey party. It was a lot of partache and it was painful time. So we went pretty slow, and also because Daisy didn't want to feel like she was just a rebound relationship, you know. But we found our way to this beautiful romance that always had this major component of being best friends. Like, she's the best friend I've ever had in my life. I trust her more than I've ever trusted anybody else. Be married nine years in December, Paul knows. I mean, in a limited time you spent with her, she's just remarkable. She's a really remarkable person. Yeah, I'm a lucky guy.

You guys are cool. And you've got three sons.

I got three sons who are grown.

Men in the music business.

Right.

They're all in the music business. They're in their thirties and they're trying it. You know, they're they're very talented. But it's tough.

It's tough tough time for business today, is it, Richard. Yeah, it's so changed.

But you know, this is an important thing to mention. Three sons who are in their thirties and they're one of their best friends. Is days. You know, you hear about these when you you know, somebody's married for a long time, they have kids, and then they remarry and then the kid there's there's drama with the kids and the new wife, and it's just the most seamless vacation together. My boys are around all the time. They hang out with her when I'm on the road. Sometimes one of them will call me and say, I'm gonna go over and talk to Daisy about this girl. I don't know what you know. I went to Daisy's advice on this, So let's listen.

You think of the alternative, which can be so miserable.

Exactly, you're so lucky it works that way.

So you said that you have sons in their thirties, after say, you look like you're in your thirties.

Go on, this is my favorite show I've ever done.

Yeah, you know, but well late thirties, but thirties. So what's your regimen?

He met nineteen thirty.

Yeah, exactly, what's your routine? Like you get pick get up early, get up late. Do you do you work out? If you work out? How do you work out?

I get it pretty early these days. I wake up and I do some crystal math to get started. I get really whacked out. No, I work out.

He is a health nut like I am. You I am, and we're just one of those kind of creatures, you know.

Yeah, yeah, we're I'm very very careful with my diet. No sugar, no no rehre at me since I was eighteen. You know, I've always had a pretty healthy diet. But I work out like a maniac because a I want to live as long as I can, but in a healthy way. I don't want to just live to be old. I want to be vital. I want to be able to travel and do whatever I want and stay active. You know, Paul and I talk about this a lot, because you know, Paul's an inspiration too. I mean, look at this guy.

But when you say work out like a maniac, just describe what that what that means?

Well, First of all, I don't take days off, even on the road, even if I'm tired. I get an hour at least in the gym uh weightlifting, strength training, because that's really important as we get older. I used to do a lot more cardio in place of that, and I was just skinny. I wasn't I was lean, but I wasn't fit. And then I switched to strength training and I work out like usually two different body parts a day and I just alternate them. And you got to you got to shock your body. Everyone. You can't do the same thing all the time. You get it, like introduced new stuff. I do pilates with Daisy, which when she first asked me to do it, I was like as the girls, and she was like, just come to one session with me. This is a couple of years ago, and it kicked my ass harder than anything I'd ever experienced. And it's an incredible full body workout. So I try to do pilates at least once a week. You know. My only advice is I like a martini or two at night. You know, that's it.

Martini or two twelve.

If I'm with Rod Stewart, it's twelve.

Who's up stage, Skippy, She's waiting there with a martini. I mean he's not even off stage. You see an arm Yeah right there, boom.

He's there with a martini and a kiss in that order, in that order.

Yeah.

But what you're talking about with your teen it made me think of friend of mine, David Geffen, he had just lost like fifteen pounds, was looks really great. So another friend of brace said, so, David, did you use those empic? He said no. He said, oh, big use Banjaro?

He said no.

He said, well, what did you use? David leaned in and said discipline.

Yeah, exactly, I mean those You know, I know that some people tout those drugs as being affected for them in ways that other things weren't, but it really it's just not for me. I think that there's there's payback. Payback's a bitch with stuff like that.

By the way, those drugs are saving a lot of lives.

Yes, I agree, I agree. I'm not putting it down.

I'm just saying, no's some people it shouldn't be doing it, but the ones that really needed it is helpful.

It's big time. But you know, I got up one day's skip and I just said, I've eaten enough. You know, the way we've been brought up and Vega. I just looked at the goddamn food. It was plates and piles of shit, and I said to myself, I've fucking eaten enough. And from that dayay forward, I don't need messages we see aha eat.

Yeah, but look at you Paul, Like if you look at pictures of Paul in the beginning of his career, I mean, yeah, I remember because you were You were a little chubby when you.

Were a teenage, very chubby when I was a teenager.

From the time from the time he became a star, and then you look ten years later in his career, he looks exactly the same. Ten years later when he's forty, he looks the same. And he's always been fit, and that's he's just maintained that. It's a very consistent thing for him.

But how can we work. You look at a lot of guys we know Richard who can't sing anymore because they've abused themselves. Yeah, and when you start like I did, and you've been aware of it, you know what those guys in Vegas they're drinking and smoking and that's at noon.

Yeah, and you just.

Make a decision. I can't sing, I can't go on stage, I can't write if I'm buzzed out or whacked out. And some say or even overweight, I can't go on stage to overweight can't do it.

Yeah, it's remarkable. Yeah, I have guys that I play golf with and they're hammered and they play good golf, and it's like, are you kidding me? I mean, if I have a sip of bourbon and I try to play golf, I can't. I can't perform, But they can't perform. Here's the trick. They can't perform without it. Yeah, you know they need that in order to go out.

I think skip that there's a bow. There's a happy medium there for me. I never ever drank. I was not a drinker at all, and I never ever did any drug until I was fifty and then I took a little hit of something, a little little puff of something. I never smoked a cigarette in my life to this day. Yeah, and I'm not a drug guy at all. But Daisy introduced me to Martinis to buy a Martinis and it's just clean and so it's something that I found. If I have a few SIPs of a martini before I go on stage, and I don't know what it is because I don't get nervous. I'm sure Paul's is saying, wait, we get excited. I can't wait to get out there every night. I'm never nervous. It's not nerves, but there's something about the sort of like extra little tiny bit of relaxed that I think works for me and gott to be coincidence because I never really had I never had much problem with my voice prior. But when I say this, in the last eleven years that I started like having a little sibit of Martini on stage, or I have lost my voice once like I could sing. I wake up at seven o'clock in the morning and I could do two hours. My voice is just so like I'm knocking everything that he can knock because you don't want to jinx it, but my voice is just so there for me.

Are you doing a scales or warm up before you'd go on?

Richard?

Never? Never, never warm up?

See I do about twenty minutes. And I got a steam kettle because steam takes the cords and shrinks.

So yeah, I try to do that in my hotel room.

Very important.

You know, my son is vegan. He wanted me to ask you a few and days. You're vegan at this point.

We're mostly vegan, but we're not one hundred percent vegan anymore. We've introduced a little bit of dairy and you know, so no chicken or fish or meat of any kind but a little bit of dairy and I feel a little better from it. But it's I'd say that we're eighty percent Degan, you know at this point.

So when you were talking about the MTV days, did you ever cross paths with Bob Pittman, John Sykes any of those pictures? Sure, because this platform that we're on is iHeart and that was the chairman and CEO is Bob Pittman.

Yeah. I met John also when he was at A and M right with an idiot A and M.

Yeah, he's a very close friend of mine. He's just yeah, a wonderful, wonderful Yeman.

Love him, give me my best.

But if our ratings drop, there's no friendship there.

You know that exactly.

Right out the window.

You'll find this on Spotify.

Well, you know, speaking of Vegan Skip, I don't know if you if you knew or know Tom Freston from those days, but I know very well his ex wife, Kathy, who's a big animal rights Activistygan. She's she's a power of ours and really wonderful person, really really lovely lady.

And I feel the same about Tom.

He is terrific Yeah, he's alway. It's been a gentleman to me today, you.

Know, speaking of pals Skippy. Probably in the late fifties, I fell in love, you know, musically with a guy that became just an amazing influence in my life and an idol. And Richard and I through the years were very very close to him, and he was uniquely unlike any other artist composer that we've seen in the music industry. And Richard got very close to him near the end. And I've spoken to you about him, Richard. But Bert Bacharach was a good buddy of ours. And Richard has so many wonderful moments he had spent with this amazing talent. And you know, guys like us, Richard and I, we like to keep the names alive of those that were such huge influences in our lives. But tell us about Burt Bacharak who you and I loved and you were right down to the end with Burt, and so many of our listeners I know are totally into Burt.

Yeah. Well, and again I'll talk about him. I talk about him all the time because I don't want anybody to forget. I have the same thing with Luther Bert I was obviously, you know, like everybody else. I mean, he wrote, he was part of the American Songbook. I mean, he was just such an incredible composer. I ended up when I was doing before I had a record deal in those days when I met Paul, and I was making a living as a session singer and I played keyboards or sometimes on records. I got a call. Kenny Rogers had done a song with Bert for a movie of Burt Lancaster Kirk Douglas movie, and Bert wrote the music for the movie and wrote the theme song and Kenny recorded it. And I had already worked with Kenny for a while, so Kenny said, get that kid, Richard Marks, and you're to sing all the harmonies. He's quick, he's easy.

You'll like it.

So I went into the studio with Bert and he produced a session and it was just me singing harmonies, and we spent about an hour and a half doing vocals on this Kenny Rogers, and it was such a pleasure. I was nervous, obviously because it was Burt, but he was just so kind and such a pro and it went easy. It was easy. And then I ran into him a few months later at some event and he was so complimentary about me in front of me to somebody. He said, I just worked with this kid. He was such a pro. Like made me so happy to hear him say that in front of me. And then that was it. I never I never ran into him again, but I always had this dream of writing a song with him, and I would mention it every once in a while, would say, you know, that's really the person who's left on my list is Burt. And when I started dating Daisy, you know those early days of dating, you ask all those questions like what's your favorite city you've been to, what's your favorite color, what's your favorite cuisine, blah blah, and I said one day we were sitting I said, what what music do you like the most? And without missing a beat, she turned to me she goes, I love Burt background, and I remember thinking, oh, for fox Ske, I have to marry her now. It was not what I was expecting. You know, she's this sort of spicy Latin. She loves you know, Latin music, and she loves hip hop and she loves you know, but she the first thing she say is Burt backgrack. Well, flash forwarding a year After that conversation with Daisy, we go on sump trip to Cabo. I remember was Cabo and we're walking through the airport and I'd hear there's a bird song playing San Jose or walk on by, And whenever there was a bird song would come on, Daisy and I would be we would be aware of it and we would dance. And because we just our mutual love of Bert, right, so I said, oh, it's Bert, and I said, God, I'd love to write with him. And she turned to me very deliberately, she stopped. She said, Richard, make it happen. Just make it happen. You know what to do, Just make it happen. If you want it that bad, just make it happen. And I was like, oh my god, you're right. We get to the hotel, I said, give me a few minutes before I changed for the beach, and I got on an email and I thought, who do want to know? Who knows somebody? And I figured it out. I did the trail and I sent an email, and I sent email and the next day I got an email back saying Bert would love to write a song with you. Holy shit. So I mean at the time, and he was just turning ninety, I think, and he was on tour in Europe, and so it was like, well, it's going to be a couple months because he's doing this and he's doing that. But I ended up going to his house and we wrote this song over a couple of days called Always. That is one of my favorite things I've ever been a part of. And the experience of writing with him and spending time with him was incredible. But the friendship that formed out of that where we started just talking and we would call each other on the phone. We texted a lot. I you know, he had a very small birthday dinner of his last birthday, and I'm very honored that Daisy and I were there at this table with him, and he and I became like pals, real pals, I'd say, just because we're talking about it, and Paul, you'll you'll understand why I feel the need to say this, But to admire someone that much for so long and have this dream of working with them, but never thinking about what might transpire personally, to think that the last two and a half years of his life, every time I talked to him on the phone, when we hung up, we said, I love you to each other. That's how close we became. And I've saved every voice message he's left me. I have every text he ever sent me, every email. He became not really a father figure but a mentor at a time when I didn't think that was possible for me at my age. And he was just so wonderful. And we all knew that, you know, Paul, we knew that he was getting he was getting so frail. He never ever he was sharp, mentally sharp, one hundred percent to the end, but he was. He was getting so frail that it wasn't a shock when when I got the call, but it fucking killed me. And I miss him all the time. I think about him all the time.

So what's next for Richard Marks? What's the next chapter for you?

I'm going to go and do a long hike in the hills to stay fit. What's next for me? It's a couple of things, you know. I'm very happy to say that I'm touring like a maniac. You know, at a time when people are seemingly like struggling to fill seats and canceling tours, and I'm doing two tours at once. I'm doing my own shows, And I'm also doing this tour with Rick Springfield, who's an old friend in mine, where we instead of it being I do, is say he does is that we do the whole show together and it's two acoustic guitars and we just take turns backing each other up on our hits and it's just nothing but our hits for two hours and it's a fun show and it's really connected with people. They keep adding shows for that show, as well as my own tour to Australia in November, Singapore and September. I'm touring all over the world. New album next year that I'm still in the midst of recording because I never want to stop making new music. I think it's really important. Paul knows this. You got to you gotta keep writing and we're going to do something.

Skip.

I'm gonna top my buddy and we're going to do something.

Yeah, we are for sure. Yeah, I think it's a no brainer. I mean, just for the fun of it.

I got some ideas.

Yeah, okay, I'm in. I mean I would love for us and do stuff together.

You got you gotta workaholic there that that just said that. It's boy, Paul just loves to work.

He's yeah, but that's why he's still at the top of his game. That's why he's still you know, you listen to this guy now, you would think that maybe there's a little bit of like loss of the vocal bay or the presence. It's like he's just like he's just at the top of his fucking craft. It's so inspiring he is.

He's timeless.

Hey, he's so handsome.

Look at that. So, speaking of time, we took a lot of your time and really appreciate your doing this.

It was time well spent, gentlemen. I enjoyed it very.

Much, as as Daisy would say, time well.

Spent, very well spent.

Richard will be real, really appreciated man, my pleasure. I'm glad that my friend here, the other Richard, got to rap with you a little bit and give our love to Daisy.

And Anton Michelle.

I'll see you real soon and probably dinner in a couple of weeks. You got it, I said, Skip, he goes out when he says, oh, I go to a cause, he goes out sold out. That people fucking freak out. I mean, you know, I hear, because we all know what we're each doing in the business, and he walks out with his guitar no overhead. Right now I'm slepping fifteen people and he kills it everybody right, which you'll love to hear because there's so many acts today skips. As he said, it's scary today because the consumer really knows what they want and only what they want. People that you think would do the business set aside, Taylor Swift, it's just not happening. They don't want to sit up in the back, they want to sit in expensive seats, and they're just not showing up for a vast array of people, and it's frightening. But you know, Rich Scott his core audience. I'm blessed with a core audience. We're very lucky and as long as we can do that, we do it, you know.

But you know, we just what you just touched on, and you know this is something that not to mention your art rival, Rod Stewart, but one of the things that you have in common with him is that whenever I'm hanging out with Rod and whenever I'm hanging out with you, I'm always aware that we're always talking about gratitude. We're always we always mentioned how lucky we are in our lives, and a lot of people need to take a breath and take a minute and be grateful because think about you know, we all look around at the misfortune that befalls so many people, and we are we are really really lucky.

Well, I live with I'm prepared to go back and live in Ottawa, Canada and whatever else.

Yeah, I'll come visit you.

No, seriously, I prepared.

In the wizard now, not in the winter.

Fuck that that's why I left.

Friends. Don't ask friends to come to Autawa in the winter. Listen.

I was working on my father's restaurant. He wanted me to run a restaurant, so you know how quickly and went to music and I'd sit at home. Back in those days, you couldn't open a window. He had three little holes, and I used to poke my pencils through the hole just to look outside at sixteen feet of snow outside that I said, if I don't get out of here by sixteen I'm want to kill myself because you know, you're just inundated. The first time I get out, Richie was you don't know. But I started adding the paper that said if you collected Campbell's Soup Rappers. You'd win a trip to New York. And every record I was playing was recorded in New York.

You know.

It was only a couple of places. And I say, shit, I got to get to New York. But we couldn't afford it, you know. So I went and got a job at ig Fusta's and I write down the name all these women buying the soup cans, and I rip off what I could in the back warehouse. Then I'd go to the women and get the soup cads, tear off the wrappers, right my name, put it at a box. What about two months later I won the contest.

Oh my god, with forty other.

Kids across Canada. I was like fifteen fourteen, and I'm now on a train schlepping down to New York City with a fucking sandwich, a ham sandwich that was lunch. And I get there and they pook me at the Sloanhouse and I'd never seen the high rise in my life. You know, oto, what dann it is like you right? And I said, man, one day I got to come back to this place. And it was a year later that I bought a hundred bucks and I went back and to the word you use got lucky with Diana Don Costa.

Yeah, you wrote your own destiny, you wrote your way out.

I had no shot if I wasn't writing at you. Now, what it is the longevity to you? Answered me. If I wasn't a writer, I'd be still peeling fucking potatoes in the back of a restaurant. I mean, you know, I played Diana for Chuck Berry a broken backstage when he was in town, and he was an idol like all of us, and I went and sang Diana to him. He said, the worst song I've ever hearded back to school. Well, that was my first rejection Chuck Berry. Right, But if it wasn't for that, there's no way I'd have a career. Nobody's going to write for me in the fifties.

Yeah.

But that's another thing that you and I have in common, which is that in our careers as artists, when there have been periods of like we're not getting loved at radio, or we're having up a down period as artists, we just said, Okay, I'm gonna write songs for in Sync and Luther Vandross and Keith Thurban and this one and that one and you did the same thing. It's what sustains an overall career. And then when you can come back out and you got on stage and you do all the hits that you had, but then you do the hits you wrote for other people. That's a special thing. I know that every night when I do the songs that I wrote where hits for other people, my audience goes crazy. They didn't know, they don't read liner notes. They're like, holy shit, it's a really great thing.

So true. Man was so blessed to be the writer. Yeah, we are the gravatas of being the writer. It's so important. It's a difference in a lot of careers, I must tell you. Even though the world I came from, guys, it was the brill building and writers were writing for all the artists, not a lot of the artists. When I first met the Beatles, they weren't writing. They'd sit with me over in England. They came to my show they say, you know, we walk to be like you. You know, you write your old songs. You produced you because they were a cover band.

Yeah, they did all Chuck Berry and everything.

They were ripping him off. They sat in that studio and turned it out. Man, they turned it out some great stuff. Well you keep doing the great stuff.

Man.

I love you.

I love you to your pal and.

I'm so glad you showed and Skip and I love to have you on here.

It was a real pleasure, guys. I really enjoyed it. Thanks for having me.

Thanks Uchue.

Doc sitting by Skip for sure. See it.

Our Way with Paul Anka and Skip Bronson is a production of iHeartRadio.

The show's executive producer is Jordan Runtogg, with supervising producer and editor Marcy Depina.

It was engineered by Todd Carlin and Graham Gibson, mixed and mastered by the wonderful Mary Do.

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Our Way with Paul Anka and Skip Bronson

Music icon Paul Anka and business visionary Skip Bronson are dear friends, and together they boast t 
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