Huey Lewis

Published Feb 12, 2020, 5:01 AM

The 80’s icon talks about the years leading up to superstardom, his current battle with the inner ear disorder Ménière's disease, and everything in between.

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Quest Love Suprema is a production of I Heart Radio. Supremo Suprema Roll Call, su Prima Supremo roll Call, So Prema so Premo roll call Frema roll This is the brother. Yeah, no one asked quest Lover. Yeah and I may Yeah, roll call so Prema roll calls sugar. Yeah, I want a new drug Yeah, I want old drugs too. Yeah, just give me all your drugs. Supremo roll call, so much roll call. I'm on pay bill and I can't complain. Don't need no credit card to ride this fucking ain't. So Prima su Primo roll call Primae Primo roll Call's my name? Yeah, here's my role call Ryan. Yeah, oh man, I'm off beat. Yeah, I gotta get back in time. So Primo roll call some prima primo roll call. It's likelier Yeah with huet Lewis. Yeah, this is it. Yeah, I'm cool with it. S Prima roll call, sub Prima se prima roll call. My name is Hui. Yeah, I'm six ft tall. Yeah, I'm president accounted for Yeah at the Roma roll call, s Prima su Primo, roll call, So Prema sub primo. Yeah that's cool. Looking forward to this one. Yes, absolutely ladies and gentlemen. Welcome. Oh yeah, welcome, welcome to another episode of course Supreme. I am your host, UH couess love, and we thank you for joining us. Uh. Joining us is UH team Supreme. We got a boss Bill in the house and uh unpaid build in the house. Yeah, and we have a sugar Steve correct. Yeah, and we have a right yeah. Well, I'll never get your name wrong, that's true. Yeah. Anyway, I will say that our guest today is one of my personal favorites. UM. He's a fine singer. It's steeped in the tradition of what I What I'll say is blue eyed lose with a tinge of raspy soul on the side. UM, A hell of blues heart man, definitely hell of UM. He's front at one of the in my opinion, one of the sharpest UH units in music. UM over twenty top ten singles, so plenty a thirty million, a count of thirty million albums UH in the past thirty plus years. I don't want to it's just down forty years. It sounds like a lot um embarrassing me. Now we'd just begun UM not to mention UH. I'd like to say that. You know, what can't be ignored is uh their foray into really effective music videos and and using humor and personality. UH. During the age of the dawning of MTVS, Rise really captured our hearts and millions. I'm trying my hardest to not sound like Patrick a Bateman of UH American Psycho U. He is front of one of my favorite favorite favorite units. UH. I'll say that their their live performance kicks, as their harmonies are bar none. The music everything's in there. Ladies and gentlemen, please welcome to Quest Left Supreme. Sir Hugh Anthony Craig the Third as Hugh Lewis Quest le Supreme. Thank you, Thank you great to be here. How goes it? Good? Good good. I had a little trouble getting here. You know, I'm I live in Montana really more cheese, less rats. So you're you're you're just a lifetime nomad kind of really well, I've been on the road for you know, forever. Uh. Well, you know, I have a driver who reminded me that since you know, I lost my hearing here a year nine months ago, and I haven't been able to work because I can't hear music well. And I but so I've been in one place sometimes more than My driver reminded me that after forty years of driving me, he can't ever remember me being in one place for more than three weeks. I was gonna say, like, I know of your history of of traveling since your youth. Where do you I won't say, where do you consider home? But what's your sentimental that's home? San Francisco? Okay. More importantly, when all is said and done, where would you like to rest? Probably Montana? Really probably Montana. It's beautiful, air is clean, got animals, turns of animals, all kinds of wildlife. We've got horses. And so you lived on you live on the ranch. I do a little ranches. So you and Kanye know something that none of us, none of us. So this is the thing I never start the show on at the end, but sell me on Montana, Like, tell me why, because you know something? Kanye knows something. I'm hearing a few other celebrities, sort of unspoiled, not too many people, more critters. You know, it's just out if you like the outdoors, and I love the outdoors, it's uh, it's it's a great place. Kanye love the outdoors. Well, he loves Montana. Okay. I mean we've mentioned Kanye way too much on this episode. Can and he's Wyoming anyway? Yeah, oh yeah, Wyoming not Montana. Oh damn, I thought it was Montana. Either way, they don't want no more select what I take that back? Okay, Kanye does not different, A different I don't know, just thinking like a home on the ranch, deer different down there. It's way different. Really okay? Really? So where were you born? New York City? Manhattan? You were born? What part French Hospital? But I mean what part of Manhattan where you? I don't know, where's the French Hospital? Midtown? Maybe? I don't know? Okay. How how long did you stay in Manhattan? About a year? Oh, it's a baby, and that's tired of the How when did music enter your life? Real early on? My dad was a was a drummer. What my dad was a was a radiologist by trade, but a jazz drummer by by hobby. Okay, And he loved and he played piano as well, and he played with a jam man. And there was a I'm with a jazz band, And there was always a set of drum set up in our in our living room, and he taught me played drums. Initially he would play jazz music that with no singers. He hated singers. Okay, you know if the singers just kind of got in the way. Yeah, so I gravitated toward the vocals slide of things, you know. Okay, okay, So what did your mom do? My mom was an artist and she was born in Poland and escaped during the war, lived in Brazil for about four or five years, moved to New York City, was a commercial artist here in New York City. Her parents finally got out of Poland and arrived in He was a die chemist and knew about and and they were pretty wealthy and so on. It moved to Lawrence, mass and then, uh, tragically, my grandparents, my mother's parents, uh, committed suicide together, which was a real tough deal on my mom, and she switched and kind of dropped out at that point. She was an artist and so she my dad realized he had to get her out of here when I moved to California, moved to San Francisco when I was five, and my mom fell in with the hippies and became like the very first hippie my mom, So she was part of that Timothy Leary generation that tune So what does that entail? Like I always, you know, I hear of like tune in, dropout, And is it just like stop trying to perform to what society wants us to do and just like live by the moment. And I think so, I think that's initially what it was. Yeah, And there was some LSD involved, okay, that made everything a little easier, was drugs run. So in San Francisco fifth Boat between you and Steve for those that missed that. So in San Francisco, were you kind of in a commune community? Like no, no, no, because my my my mom my dad had sort of resisted all that and they just divorced when I was eleven. And when I was twelve, I skipped second grade, so I want to wait to school. And in New Jersey and the prep school New Jerse, I worry. Even So, how did that make you feel inside? Like just this consistent going back and forth? It was a little crazy, to be honest. My did you met friends easily? Or I didn't because I was moving so much, you know, so I had to kind of rely on myself. I grew up pretty fast that way. I actually went to prep school in New Jersey with coat and tie, all boys, and neither one of my parents has ever been there, so they just kind of set me off, and I was, I was, Were you the only child? No? I had a brother, a younger brother, five years younger, and he stayed with my mom. My mother had custody, but my father petitioned the court to allow me to go to this prep school, saying this was a smart kid or something, you know, whatever whatever he told them. But how long were you away? Well, I'd go back on summertime, you know, in Christmas, Christmas and summer, but I was away for four years for the most part. It sounds like then it depends he was independent, because what was that like? As a boy in prep school? You have freedom in a different way then most kids doing away, because you're like, it's like college but for kids. I mean, I was horribly homesick when I first left, obviously, but you know, you can get used to pretty much anything. And uh after while, I was fine, And I'm sure it was a girls school down the street went to. I'm sure it was a girls school down the street. Like not everything is dead posts society. Clear, that's a movie. So what was your describe? Well, wait, before you do that, do you remember the first record you purchased? Yep, what was it? Quarter to three? Here are Us? Are Us? Okay? And then or it might have been Wild One, Bobby Right Out, a Little Bitty Pretty One. Those are the first three I remember. So you you're post dwops, early British rocking start, but immediately became a R and B snob, and I started playing harmonica and became a blues R and B snob. Hated contemporary stuff, just all of that until I joined my first band, which was after prep school. Uh well, I took a year off and bummed around Europe. I took my harmonica and my my old man made me do that. He I graduated from from prep school year young because i'd skip second grade and he said to me I was sixteen. He said, look, you're sixteen years old. As far as I'm concerned, all the decisions are yours. You do whatever you want, only one more thing I want to make you do it. So what's that said? Don't go to college yet? I said, really, well, I want to go to school and I'm going, you know, I was accepted at Cornell. I said, I really want to go to He said, no, no, take a year off and bum around your up. I said, but dad, I was gonna play ball, and it's the last thing I'm like. So I did it. It was like a tester, like what happened when the father put your son in the woods, and see if you can survive a little bit of folks and white kids get sent away to Europe. Yeah, just throw me away to Europe. Our challenge was just escaping bullets in college. And if in that a little bit, you know, oh that I couldn't afford it. So I just got a record deal. So but to wait sixteen in Europe? How does that work? Did he mist? It was nineteen sixty six, sixty seven? There was no So wasn't that one a big deal? No? No, LSD, no walk us through this like was it a hostile sit Now? You didn't stay at a hostile No? No, no, Hughey, Lewis didn't stay at Well. I stayed. I stayed at a buddy. I had a paler from prep school English exchange students. I stayed at his house in London for a few days, and then I met a guy from South Africa, Michael Jefferson. Together we had checked all the way through Europe and all that stuff, and I would go every night, we'd go to the youth hostel and I just play harp in the in the Square. Not all the bustle are rich, not every single one of them. Some play harp in the Square for money. Okay, So all right, as a fellow busker, I gotta ask you what what were the what were the going what were the going rates for it? I'm assuming this is uh sixty eight sixty seven? What was a al right for me? Sixty to eighty dollars? Was like date night? That was you know, like I mean there's four of us, so you know, you know you were killing that. No, that's a sandwich at Wawa and you know the afternoon movie. That's a date was it? Was it a uh not do or Die? Um survival? What? Yeah? Like? What for you? What was like? Okay? I made it through the day? Or it was it day to day? Like what am I going to? Like? I remember in Africa, in in Europe, Europe, but I got to North Africa, went down to North Africa, Italy, I went, I went to Marrakesh, in Morocco for just to see it. And then I got so stone I couldn't leave every month. We're gonna leave every day. But then we'd wake up and seventeen. Are you how you let's say I was seventeen, that's right, Oh my god, like, hey, you want to go? Just was it a boat from Italy that just right across the water or get there? Why did you choose Morocco? I flew to London right and then and that's another long story. But then I hit checked all the way from London, all the way through France down through Spain, took the little that's see, he hits tyke. He didn't have a limousine, hitch hyped. But there was a stowaway story. Yeah, I wanted to get back to that. I heard that you stowed away on a plane to That's an interesting story actually, as I was seeing how does one do that? That's that's what I want to know. I didn't really stow away. I thought I could stow away. But this was remember nineteen sixty seven or sixty eight, probably sixty seven or six, yet right in there, and I hit checked across the country first and to go to Europe and then I stayed with my buddies and at Harvard who were at school there for a minute, and then I went back down to New York here and I went to and while I was hit check across the country, a guy picked me up and told me. I said, I'm trying to get to Europe. He says, well, you know, um, but you know I don't have that much money I had. I think I started off with three and then plane tickets were like two fifty in those days. And so I said, I don't have that much money. I can't spend it all on a ticket. And he said, well, you know, you can still away, and he showed me. He told me about this idea where you get the you know, the jacket the ticket goes in. In the old days, used to take a special silver pen and right on the jacket, and all they looked at was the jacket. They never actually took. This is before you know, uh, computers all that stuff. So he says he or he says, you can stow away on this freight airline too. So I had checked back down to then was I Idlewile Airport which is now Kennedy Airport there, and I went to the freight place and I couldn't get across. They couldn't figure it out. So I went back to the terminal, the t W A place, and I just I lay there for you know, I just kind of stay there for till midnight. And I befriended this agent t W a ticket agent. So you know, buddy I was hitching, who tells me there's a way you can kind of sneak in and bow. He said, he what if you wait till I get off, I'll show you wall collective jaw dropped in this room right now. Like so he explained to me that to get the jacket, he got a jacket, a jacket out of the you know, those envelopes out of the drawer, and he had a special silver pen. He says, you need this, and then he says, you're right on the outside London LHR fight seven oh two. And then he says, and then go into the gate real early and just kind of make yourself invisible and it will fill up. And then when you get on the airplane, all they're gonna do is look at your jacket and then go take the seat, middle seat over the wing. And then he said it and then but not you're right the middle seat over the wing, and take another terrible seat in case they say, oh, you're not in someone else takes your seat, you say, ah, my seats up there, and then you go. But but none of these fights were full in these days, so the middle seat over the wing was like the last one to go. So he says, I said, wow, that what happens if I get caught? He said, the only way you're gonna get caught is at the end of the deal, she's gonna count all the people on the airplane and it's not gonna jibe with all the people they had the check into the podium, he said, But you're only gonna be one off, and she's gonna They're not gonna hold the flight up. They're just gonna go, he says. If you want to be really safe, he says, you can buy a ticket and then just put it in the jacket, but don't give him the ticket. And when you keep keep the ticket and if you if it works, you get over. When you get to London, you refund the ticket and if they find you out, you give him the ticket. And that's what I did, depends and refund Ticke ship Huey Lewis. Wait wait, I'm just curious when does this finesse game? Like when what you do you think it was stopped? Like you couldn't computers computer computers, Yeah, damn computer stopped everything, ruined everything. You can't even get the T s A loud a ticket, nass sucked up. No t s A no, no t s A. Hey they were not only were there no security, you just walked right on the airplane, but they gave you a little packet of cigarettes that you can smoke on the airplane, little tiny four cigarettes. So cool, like man smoking on airplanes. Can you imagine every every armrest had a little ash tray in it. I remember room it had on the on the wall. What scary to me is when you get on an airplane now and you still see the ash plane. Take the hell off this thing. I embarrassed the living crap. Then my mom was listening to the story one of my very first plane trips, went to the bathroom and there were, um, you know, they would have napkins there and whatnot and like feminine uh napkins as well, and so I thought pads. So I took like about tim pads, and I was in the front row there in the back and said, Mom, you don't worry about I got you. That's all. You know. That should be like an advertising camp, like came on, I got your Ta tam box backlass last, don't worry I got you. So do you remember the first concert you went to? That's a good question, that's a really good question. Might a memorable content. It might be with Paul Butterfield at uh here in New York at the Fillmore East. No, it went over away before Fillmore. We're talking nineteen sixty four, sixty five town Hall. Oh, the town And it was so it was so crowded that I got a seat, as I remember it, I mean, I know I got the seat, and I don't know how on the stage. They put seats on the stage and I sat on the stage. I saw Bob Butterfield with Mike Bloomfield, Elvin Bishop, Jerome Marninold on base, Sam Leon drums. They were awesome. They took that was it And this is pre well sixty four was like kind of pre probably six psychedelic, might be sixty five like that pre psychedelic. Yeah, So was that a moment for you where you like maybe I could do this, Yeah, absolutely, I want to do this. I don't know if I can or not, but that's happened. So how did that? Was already playing Harmonica a little bit, you know, how did that lead you to Clover go into how Clover came in? Well? Then, uh, well, I took a year off, bummed around Europe after after high school, played Harmonica all the time. I went back, went to Cornell. I was an engineering student at Cornell. As you do, well, I had it all before in prep school, so I got I didn't even hardly have to go to class my freshman year, and I got a four point. It was no problem because I literally had it all before. You were you were a meth with right kind of you know, perfect school and a kind of like that kind of Dwayne Wayne, Dwayne Wayne fixing a different world of taxing, a character that's quit perfect going. Yeah, but I uh and so after that year off, I went back to Cornell and I went to engineering school and I went in and that was not near as much fun as bumming around Europe with Harmonica, and so I joined the bands and I didn't really have to go to class much. So I played in fraternity bands until my sophomore year. It started catching up with me. You know. So halfway through the sophomore year, and that was the year at Cornell where UM the Afri American Student Society took over the wood Straight Hall and it was all that stuff sts and all that so you could take pass fail was the good news. So we took past fail. That was another semester. I got under my belt and I was like then I was dead and it was caught up with me. So I called my own man. I said, bops, I'm I'm dropping out. I'm gonna be uh, I'm gonna I'm gonna try and be a musician. He went, whatever he said, go for it. You know you did what you did your bum around Europe. I told you I wasn't gonna tell you what to do. Your life is your own. Good luck, good parenting, Well it looked like pretty bad parenting for the first ten years or fifteen years. Let me tell you, as a parent, good for your father for just being like, do what you want. During the formative years before you formed Clover, Uh, did you have any interaction with any notable uh future singer song right, like anyone that that's a good question. Let me think, not really, I mean we can try out. Why why did that take me so long? No? Running into spring Steen during the days of bar banding, I didn't see that, you know. I mean, Butterfield was a was a thing for me. And then when I when I dropped out, I went back to San Francisco, and then I started going to uh, the Film More and and seeing that stuff and seeing uh, you know Aretha with Ken Curtis and at the film are Auditorium. Well once one night, well they eventually since then released all of them eight nights. Yeah, it was unbelievable. You know this video of that online too, right, I did not know it was unbelievable. You know that Film War holds about eight hundred people people, don't the Film More original film or auditorium, it's like eight hundred to a thousand people. Oh so the one that I play at has been expanded and where this one over here or the one that was that was that was a huge film winter Land right, Yes, Oh, you're talking about Film More Easier written on the original Film War Auditorium in San Francisco. Still there's still a gig still there, but it only holds eight hundred thousand people. I didn't know that. In my mind. I thought it was like a three thousand and seems like that. Go there again. We just work there. It's it's just tiny, little place, tiny and you don't realize that at Hendricks in this place like here, you had cream in this place back here. It was unbelievable. When did you consider yourself a heart player or vocalists or we're both at the same time, or when did you switch to from one to the other, because you talk a lot about being a harpist, right, mostly playing her until I did my busting thing, and then I sang, and then I then I joined the band when I when I get when I joined Clover, I sang like a song or two, you know. But my voice, rough as it is, was not a seventies hair band, you know, Journey Boston, it wasn't happening. So I was an R and B guy and so I just played harmonica in the Clover thing. So vocal wise, who did you Ray Charles? Okay, I have to get the question. Do you want to take questions? And Johnny Taylor, Um, yeah, I'm a castello freak. So everybody knows. Um your connection to well, Clover's connection to my aim is true. Um they were the backing band on that album. For those that don't know, right right, sorry, So yes, Clover was was umh well, Clover was first discovered by Nick low in l a right at actually by it's a kind of a funny story because our Clover had made a record before I joined them. There was a kind of vintage uh country rock. In fact, Clover had a record in the sixties were the on the cover There was John McPhee had hair down, had he had overalls on with hair down to his waist, and they and they're all standing. They all had long hair and they're standing in front of six ft high marijuana plants. Well, this was like sixty eight. This is Willie Nelson had a coat and tie on at this point. Seriously, it was. It was and the Dolly Borden Border Wagner Show was on and Willie was on it and there was no and this was Clover. They were really ahead of their time. And um so when I joined that band, uh uh we we we labored for a while and then Jake Rivera, who managed Elvis and at the time was helping out with a group called Doctor feel Good and feel Good was and he was. They asked Jake two road manage their trip to sit to l A. They were going to play at the CBS Convention in l A and so, and they brought Nick Low along as a guitar roadie just for a free trip. That for a free trip to America. So it's the Doctor Field Goods, Jake and Nick Low. So we're playing the Palomino Club in l A. Clover Is. It's a country club, you know, country western club. We're playing the Palomino and in want these six guys in like gray suits and short hair. You know who were these guys? And turned it was Nick and Jake because they'd seen that we were there and they knew about Over his first record, and they were big because they left Country Rocks. They thought they thought country rock pub rock was going to be the next big thing. So they signed us to Phonogram Records and and we came to we and brought us over to England. We're gonna do it for the British side from London. Well, the day we landed, Johnny Rotten spit in the face of the first enemy reporter and the game was on and we were in the wrong place at the wrong time. But we did a lot of sessions and the band the Core BT started and what he needs is punk rock has just started people listening, and uh, country rock was not necessarily gonna happen in London right at that moment um. So then uh so they were starting Stiff Records. They started Stiff Records, Jake and Dave together they managed Delvis Costello and Nickelod Graham, Parker, Rats, Gabies, the Damned, and then they created Stiff Records. And then unfortunately they had already signed us, so they stuck us. They realized that we were more kind of an American band, so they uh they got Langer to produce our records in Wales. Uh and m all right, this is before he ever had a hit, Before his mag he was a staff producer at Phonogram, and he did like some amazing amount of records a year, some like six or seven records a year, and and you know City Boy and all these acts that never happened. And until you know, until he kind of moved over here, what was his what were his work habits? Like brilliant still the same, I mean, was consistent on just an unbelievable work ethic and you know he's brilliant. I mean, he's just that's all he does. He's just he's of one mind. He just loves just lays in the studio. Man loves loves it. Okay, So, um, just to continue where you where you left off. So you Clover wasn't on Deff. They were on Clover on Phonogram Records. Did they moved to Stiff? They didn't because if Stiff, there was no Stiff when we first signed a Photograph Ja Davis, and then simultaneously when the punk hit, they started Stiff Records. They signed all these bands and we were still on Photograph and then they um, yeah, so then I guess, and they signed Elvis. They found Elvis. Uh, Jake gave him his name. I think Decline McManus gave him Elvis Costello, and they was his name previously Decline McManus. We've known him forever. How come you were you know you did a record with the man. You didn't know what his real name was. I didn't know, I thought, obvious. Still, let me get this need to know. It's just this notorious thing with Clover and my name's Trip. So my question really comes down to, so how did how did Clover get that gig? And they'll have a follow up question. So Jake signs Elvis Costell and we got Nick Lowd to produce it. And Nick used us not me, not me and not my singer out and not our singer I was called, but the other four guys as a rhythm section for that that record. And they cut that record at path Ley that my amistry was cutting, really cutting, and the studio was was literally the studio and control room were as big as this room right here. And studio and room was like four by four thing with a board like eight track e or maybe maybe it was sixteen. I don't even know, but it was. And they cut that record in In fact, here's a great story for you because the first thing they did was rehearse obviously for before they went into cut, and we were we were living in a place called Nigel Grange and Surrey down. They rented a house at the same house that led Zeppelin cut all them big records and where they make the drums big. So that was our house called Headley Grange. So they when Elvis rehearsed, we set up. We are set up in the in the living room, and Elvis came down, took the train down and rehearsed with the band for the first time. Well, I went to London because you know, the harmonica player, and he was just gonna rehearse with them. And when I came back that night, we had dinner there and we all had dinner and Elvis is gone. I just how was it today? And everybody's kind of it was good? It was good good. And my keyboard player, Sean Hopper went, I'm telling you what the this This guy's lyrics are unbelievable. He's really a genius, I'm telling And Sean Hopper was the first guy to know how great Elvis Costello was. I think even before Jake and Dave and all these before the management was in, Sean was was a fanatic. Okay, So as you just said, you you you were a singer and harmonica player, and um, I guess weren't needed. There's no harmonica on the on the record. When they got ready to do it, Elvis said to me, I got a couple of songs that you could play on if you want to. I said, yeah, it seems like there's a couple that could have had her, but but they were cutting this this week and it was we they had were They had worked us like crazy, the management because you know, they had to make money, so we were working at all time. Uh, And so I took the week off. I said, it's okay, but I went to Amsterdam. I was okay. My girlfriend flew over and we we had it. We we we saw it as a vacation week for the other two of us. So I didn't play the record, but you were and you weren't at the sessions. I was one session briefly, but no, I guess maybe it was a mixed session. I don't think. I can't remember. I recorded at that studio a lot and with the band, so I know what it was like. But okay, Ultimately the question was I knew you weren't on it. I just want to set you at the session. I had nothing to do with it. But you might have been one mix session. You're saying, oh, yeah, that's the piece of information. I'm trying to mind. He I'm sure I was there. And then of course we had the same management, you know, so we would bump they were happening, and we we went to a lot of Elvis's early shows when he played the Nashville Pub and all that stuff, and I watched him ascend, you know, and he's he's a wonderful guy and and smart as you can, as you imagine, and so is Jake by the way, and so is Nick Low and those three guys were so smart. It was I have one more question about this. Um was Clover Uh upset that they didn't get the permanent gig with him and that he got the attractions starting with the next album the next year. No, we we were you know, there's that band thing. We thought we were going to make it any minute, and just you always think you're gonna make it any minute. You know. Failure never breaks up bands. Its success that breaks up right down. Yeah, ship, all right, So when when we can come back, don't you know they're very close. I'm a huge you know, I'm also a huge Huey Lewis fan. Just the band imploded in you guys broke up. We broke up. It was amicable or just well kind of we we lost our record deal and we came back and UH and then McPhee and Uh joined the Dubie Brothers. Sort of that's kind of what happened, I mean, but yeah, it was pretty amicable. So what leads to the development of Huey Lewis and the news. Well, let's see, I was so now we had always played Monday Night was a fun night for us in in in Marin because it was I don't know, it was just a night that we always used to have jam sessions and stuff. And one of the local studios asked me, I want to local clubs said do you want to resident to some residency here? So I said, look, give me Monday Nights. And so I didn't think on Monday Night Live that I invited all these different musicians and we had a Monday Night Live band and that we had a theme song and all that and comedians and and it was kind of fun. And with the band, we would slowly I was singing, I got I got to sing all the songs for the first time. Were either reluctant leader by this point, I wasn't that reluctant. I had but I wasn't gonna work, you know what I mean. It was trying it out a little bit. So but that's that, and that's what we developed that in Monday Night Live and this studio owner saw us and made it and and said, hey, would you like some demo time? Was it original stuff? And I said, well, we didn't have mostly covers. We'd written three songs. Uh. And then I said do you want some free studio time? I said sure, and they gave us like a day, so I thought, and we were doing funny stuff in our monday that live. We didn't a discover it of Exodus extra disco. We called it that. Actually it was pretty funny and it's actually not bad. I've heard it. Yeah. And and the horn player on it we got. We got pee Wee Yellows to play horns on it. Pee anything after his James Brownston. He he can play though man pee Wee can flat play man, and so we we we cut this disco version of Exus for a laugh and it was very funny. We had a nice day. Well, now I get a call from Nick Lowe and saying, look, I've just written this song and I think I think I swiped it from you. I said, what you mean? He says, it's called what looks the best on you? It's me? And I told him that joke, you know, So I said no, not said, don't worry about. He's no, Seriously, I feel like I owe you something. I said, no. I said, tell you what, give me a ticket to London and back and I'll visit. He says, okay, I'll do that. Sometimes calls me and says, I got an idea, come to London and play on my record. And Edmonds wants to cut Bad is Bad one of one of my songs, and we'll do both of those things and we'll do them in Lone. I said great, So he flew me to London. We went straight to the studio those days and uh, cut Bad is Bad with Dave Emmons and rock Pile, and then cut Born Fighter with Nick Lowe played harmonica on that, and we were done and it was like two or three in the afternoon. Now come the record company to hear the tracks. And they come down. They come to the thing and they listen to this a couple of songs and they go, oh, man, that sounds great. And there was a lull in the moment. I said, you guys want to hear something funny. He said yeah, and I put on extra Disco. Well they loved it and they said, man, that could be a hit. I said, whatever. They said, come come see us tomorrow. We'll make a deal. And they left. So I said that Jake, that they leave the room, and I go, Jake, what do I do? You go in there? Yes, for thirteen points. You want three thousand pounds advance and and and there you go. And if they want anything to be a remix or in that stuff, as long as they pay for it, that's good. But make sure you get the three thousand pounds and don't leave without the check. And I said, So I went there and made a singles deal. And I came home to San Francisco. I said, boys, we got a singles deal. And then I cut with with with a three thousand pounds. I've got studio time. Actually funny, it's a funnier story because they wanted more vocal on on on exit disco. It's all I say. It's come on, bhaby, come on down. You're that kind of thing, you know. So they wanted me to a little more vocal on it. I said, no problem, give me the three thousand. They gave me the check. You were your own manager and negotiating and everything. So now now I get back and and and I go to the studio. I said, man, we got a deal for it. I gotta put some vocal, some more vocal on it. We go to the multi track tape and it was also had tones on that reel and while they align the machine, they erased thirty seconds of the master tape that we had recorded extrad Just go on this is you know. So I went, oh my god, what I said. That's a great engineer. So now I told him, I said, look, I'm gonna have to replicate this record. You gotta give me a week. They said, we'll give you whatever you want. We're I said, we'll give me five days. Okay, fine, good. So I took the exit disco, don't sick around. I took the two track that we had and I put it on two of the twenty four track, and I sang on another track, and I mixed it down to a two track and that took like four hours and we were done, and then cut these three other songs with the arresting time. This is the best hustling. Okay. Those three tunes got us our manager and eventually our record. Louis, I know there's a guy documenting your every life, but do you have like a book deal? Will you tell everybody how to make up in the music business, because I'm in the music business and I would totally buy that ship and say, like, I mean ship, So I kind of want to skip over, not skip over. No, no, no, no, dude, Like this is education. First of all, Can I assume that the baddest bad that you come for niccolo is also the badest? Was Dave Edmonds blue shuffle the way did? But it's kind of but then what we repriised it as the acapella thing on sports? Okay, so still the same song, that same song to know, but a completely different version. Yeah, okay, okay, So what I do want to know is how was Bill Snee being a skilly dan head that I am? How is Bill Snee? Uh? How did he get involved with the very first Huey Lewis record? His engineering stuff? We'll see, This is the thing I wanna because the thing is is that well Shave has done a lot of stuff, right, yeah, but most of the like he was the engineer of the classic steely stuff, and really I feel like his sound was the proprietor of I don't know if you consider that the four letter word of the perfection of yacht rock sounds that that clean. She I see that. So what was it? Did you have reservations with? Like? What was your view? Because the thing is, you express a lot of opinions, especially on sports with bad as bad and also the heart of rock and roll about what I assume your criticism of you know what, what is raw and true to the music versus you know the shene of whatever is commercial today. So I'm assuming, I'm assuming that you're coming from a purist standpoint to work with the sound American Psycho. I know where you're going at, But I wasn't. Was it the fact that I mean, what made what? Was he chosen for you? Or yeah, he was chosen for us because they even though we'd had you know, we were more experienced than most new bands. That was twenty but I was twenty nine years old at that point, which is and so um he was you know, he'd worked with he did Boss Boss Silk degree, he ended up and he was down and he's a great, a famous engineer. He's a great engineer. And so yeah, we worked with we worked together, and we have this joke because we worked together a couple of times over the year and we don't work together well, I mean what you're talking about, Yes, what was the was there conflict in musically? It never worked? I love Bill Schnay, He's a good friend of mine, but it just we just never I guess our taste maybe didn't match or I don't know why. And he's a brilliant engineer. It just we just never could hit it. You know, we never got Anything we ever did together just didn't happen. So the second record, now we get a secondment wit it? And I told h the manager, my manager, I said, look, we can do this ourselves. You know, by this point we had we auditioned producers and you know, gone through a zillion of them, and um, why weren't you using Nick Low as a producer? Well because what we were now here blah blah nicka, you know, I don't know he hadn't he hadn't you were on crystals at this point, or we're on crystals and just a different label. But at this point we we felt like we could do it ourselves. That our manager went to fight, went to bat for us, and so then we started making our own records. I also want you to discuss U fil from Thin Lizzy feel Hill, Yeah, and you played on Aton Lizzy records as well, Like what was the relationship there and how well we When I was in Clover, we toured with Thin Lizzy and Philip was an unbelievable guy, an unbelievable performer first of all hard rock band with soul, you know what I mean. They were just great. And Brian Downey he's back up now, but he could play and he can shuffle, you know, which he didn't used to happen in London. In England. You know, there were guys, there's certain beats that just the British, just British weren't too cool and blue. You know. He couldn't couldn't swing somehow. And but but Brian Downey was great and thin As he were unbelievable, And uh, Philip just kind of took me under his wing man and said he I played on a few of his things, and I lived with him for a minute and he would dress me out of his closet, you know, and uh, he was just a He taught me more than anybody how to run a band and how to you know, just all kinds of stuff. I learned everything everything nothing the sorry musically, but everything other than music Okay, so on your second album, based on where the placement of do You Believe in Love is on that album, which is like kind of the middle side too, can I assume that was the last song recorded for the record Damn, I'm good, you are good and yeah, because they you know, we needed a hit kind of thing and they thought this was a single that said okay, the thing is what makes that song stand out so much to me. So how did you guys as well? First of all, as a unit, how long were you guys together before in the jelling process and the practice process and to get that good because you guys play like you like each other. Yeah, we were, We were. We were inspection moment right now, Okay, saying maybe for the roots to like each other. We love each other now because we're old ask men, we all we got wow, but ship just got real therapy. I will say that, yes, the chemistry and the jelling of course comes together on that record. But I based on the tightness of the harmonies. That's where I feel like you guys really shine where most groups don't, like you know, in case, only Eagles with that level too, soars how we have we have the secret is good singers, and Johnny Cola are our saxophone guitar bird is a great singer, and and and also and a great arranger. And Bill our drummer, sings, and Sean sings bass and and we have a kind of okay, blend. We're just lucky that way. You never know, you never know, but I mean it's a little bit better. It's like a blend is a blend, you know what. It either works or a dozen or it is what it is. But uh, but that's what that is. And Johnny Cole gets most of the credit for that, for the vocals, arrangements and stuff. He's great. So how did you wrestle that song from much without him producing it? Well, how do we get the song? Or did he demo it perfectly? And you guys, and I rewrote it a little bit. It was he had it. We both believe in love. We both believe it's ours. You really give enough? Yeah, you really make me see the stars? Wait? Did you just ask him for a throwaway? Like, do you have anything that you're not asked for a song? I said, but you got a song, we got a record. We you know, we need a song. And this is the post a c d C because now, oh so now he's on fire and that sort of thing. Well, yeah, I think it's posted. Yeah it has to be. Okay, you're right. So how did you wrestle it from him? How I wrestle it from him? No, he was he was happy to It was great. He just sent it right away. He's a good friend. And he's a brilliant you know, you know, I mean's a c d C and for foreigner and so can you tell me? I mean, of course, I mean Beaver missed to not say that. We have to announce that. Of course, the rise of MTV was very instrumental and the millions of records you sold that, you know, for the Sports album, your third album. But could you tell me what was the touring environment like before Sports as opposed to afterwards? As far as what was what was what was rock? What was touring like for pre MTV? Kind of like what was were you guys Chitland circuit? You know, you had one top ten hit? Like what what was the environment like? What? We had one tour were called working for a Living tour where we had all of us on one bus, right and the crew and the thing and we went out for ten weeks. We held our record back because we were just finished with sports record and we basically just finished it. And then uh, the record label we hadn't mixed it yet, and the record label went belly up. Chris was and sold out to CBS. Chris was sold out to CHRISS went shut down their whole distribution and all their stuff and went with CBS distribution. They fired about most of their employees and a lot a lot of their independent stuff they got rid of and just became a label. And then and and CBS was going to distribute. Well, we weren't sure how that was gonna work out. So manager decided we just hit the road and try and pay for ourselves. So we did a ten week working for a living tour. We did all the clubs and all that, all that sort of stuff, you guys, and with other acts are but one. As soon as the record hit, well, you know, we got a tour. We toured with thirty eight Special Turn with Total a little bit Total Turn With and you could feel the record happening, you know, are you could just feel people showing up for the record. Now, I mean there are different types of audiences for pop music and you know. I mean, have you ever encountered or a toured with an act whose fan base was different than what you desired? I mean, Clover, we opened for Alice Cooper at the Nassau Coliseum, got bombed. Island representation land here and here and boom and damn. Step Gordon then protect you guys, ship you said has been on the show not known for its security. I mean the thing is is that you know what what what audience do you feel is specifically your audience as opposed to like, was it was there any worried, any worries about pairing with another acting Yeah? Yeah, I mean we are first, Hue Lewis the news his first store was with the Doobie Brothers because they were and McPhee, our Clover's old guitar player was now playing with the Dubies, so that we we got that tour with the same agency and all that. So we went out with the Dubies for a national tour and we got basically booted off the perfect not quite boot up, because we knew enough to go from song to song before they could book. But if you, if would, if you just wait, just be quiet, I remember where's your all? Right, what's the worst, let's say, in North America in your mind, what's your favorite territory where they're open mind? Like I got my spots, Like I know where they're open minded and where I can stretch with the stuff, and then I know where it's going to be a cell even twenty years in the game, where I gotta hit him with the hits and get out. For you what are you rolling your eyes at? Like, oh god, we gotta go back to like what territories were not to stuff. L A has always been tough for us to San Francisco band, and we've always you know, well in the in the I mean we'd go down there and we you know, there was X and then there was the who are the other bands? There's zillion bands who all did great, but we never they never reckoned us down there. We could never never get over, never get until and then one once I remember, um, we find a years later we played we we played three forms, three l A forums and you know, now we're back in l A again and we had three forums. First night. Everybody's there, you know, all the music, all the total guys, all the all the musicians are there. Snai's there, you know, all the all, I'm nervous, you know, I'm I'm you know, yeah, all that stuff, and then sold out. And so I remember thinking, be just don't press relax, Just don't press relax, you know. And it's like, I'm I'm a kind of a veteran now. So I go out the first night and I play what I think is a great show. We have a great show. Finally, I wasn't nervous. I feel great any time I get before that when I would get a bad review, when we actually got great reviews starting up, but whenever I get a bad review, it was always from a bad show, and I could always think to myself, you know what, He's right, I could have been better. That's right, it's no problem. So this time l A Form first night, I think it's a great show. We go back to the hotel, we go to bed. I wake up in the morning. I want to see the paper. Everyone, everyone, everybody in this room knows where this is going on. And my managers having breakfast, and he goes, hey, Hugh, he says, everybody who had a got a great review in the l A Times, come on down and eat breakfast. Not so fast, Robert Hilburn had just tore me up. You damn it. What's that about? Well, here's here's you guys will appreciate this, I think, I hope. But so I struggled with that because I know we were good that night and I wasn't nervous and I knew we were good, and it just bothered me for years. Now I'm recording another record at Lucas Uh Lucas's studio, Skywalker Ranch and George Lucas they just opened it. This is amazing studio and a and George has given me a personal tour and we go around. He shows me everything. It's really great. And he says, now at first the house and they have this unbelievable where they have lunch and all this ranch. Now the ranch and all. He says, now let's go look, let's go. Let me show you the studio. I said great. He says, Linda's in there now, Lynda runset. That's when he was dating she was dating George. I said, oh great, great. So we go in the studio and there's Linda and then she goes, oh, man, hi, hi gout. I love your stuff, but it's just funny. Should be here because Brian Wilson's showing up in a minute to do some vocals. I said, you're kidding me, you know. I said, wow, do you mind if I just hang out? She just no, no problem. Great, So I finished, I'm hanging around. But like lunch, they're taking a break. Boom, here's Brian. I said, well, I entered do some self to my Brian is hughey, Lucy goes, oh man, Uh, you know there's funny ways. I knew who you are. I knew you are just I saw your show. I've seen the show. He's top ten, might have been top three, top three shows I've ever seen ever, top three, top three shows. I said, whoa, thank you really great? You might if I shared that with my guys. Yeah, no, no problem. I said, wow, that's gonna make our whole day. You have. I said, where was it? He said, l A four? I said, I said, I said, which night? Which night? He says, first night? I said, thank you, Brian Wilson. Brian true story, look up disgust there's three quarter. No, Well, it's funny he's mentioned Wilson because I didn't want to go super quest love of hyper Bowl when I hyper Bowl, Yes, I am hyper bowl. That's my favorite sport, hyper bawl. No I happened. I didn't want to go full quest love hyperbole when I wanted to pair their harmony game close to that of beach Boys. Like, but that's how tight and they were, and you can clearly in that ship you can hear it. That's why you know. I agree. Okay, I won't embarrass myself, but sorry about Robert Man. But I mean, now that you say it, yeah, l A has not been kind to a lot of greats. Um there's the infamous uh Prince Rolling Stone uh show where he got mercilessly boot. I mean, there's plenty of others. So that's weird that you say that l A is. I can I can imagine. I can imagine that. I think it's for you. It's probably easy to do a spot outside of l A where there's not the pressure. Here is watching Detroit, Tulsa, Oklahoma. These are good towns for us. It's collar town. It's like LSD. You can't stop how to with you, Like, what the fun is happening? Belt We're getting the contact? Yeah, I mean it's magic. No, I mean it's it's it's like a sports sports towns, the great sports also great rock and roll towns, and the towns where you know, I mean, l A is the worst baseball town in the world to this day. We had heard for years the Cleveland was was the was the best rock and roll town in America, and I thought, really, how can Cleveland be? I had no clue. So we played the Agora there and had this amazing gig. And afterwards we're driving out of town in the bus and it and it's a gray, kind of a dismal day, and the skyline of Cleveland is not every pretty rough looking, and I said, I said to the guys we had this. I went, wow, guys, you know what the harder rock and roll really is in Cleveland. I said, oh, my god, that's a song harder rock and roll in Cleveland, And and my that's the genesis of it, and the harder rock and rolls in Cleveland. Alright, I'm working on I'll work on it. And so but that was the too, because I've been saying the harder rock and roll is the beating that Initially I just thought it was the beat, still beat, like still beating, still beating. The old boy might be barely breathing. Okay, harder rock and roll would still be ok. Thank you. And really what it's about. It's about you know, the rock and roll business is in the l A and New York, but you find good bands everywhere, and good music is everywhere, and that's what that's That was how vindicated? How vindicated did you feel when they announced in eighty seven and that the Rocket Hall of Fame was going to be because we were all like what And then once they gave their reasons, I was like, okay, okay, So were you at all shocked at the reception of sports at all? Well? Yeah, I mean, you know the thing is when I listened to sports right as I realized then we were making our records and this is eighty We made the record in eighty two, releasing eighty three. So sorry what studio? Uh? We cut mostly at the record plant and it uh Fantasy Records and UM and a place called Studio D and sas Alito did some overdubs air and Bob Clear Mountain mixed it here at the power station right here in New York. Um. But if you think about it, eighty three radio was king, MTV had just started. There was a big beef about how MTV wasn't playing any diverse artists and all that stuff. But what they were doing is they were following radio and records this playlist exactly. That's why some of the tunes which your hits had those horrible videos that they kept showing over and over again. And then we have those. But it was a radio world and there was no internet. There was no you know none, no radio, no, no computers, no, none of that stuff. So um, you we had and by then c HR radio was the only format. You know. Radio Top forty started with a guy in Fresno with the advent of push button radio, a programmer, and Fesno figured out that if with push button radios, if people heard something they didn't like, they'd switched the channel. So the idea was narrow your playlist Top forty, play the hits over and over again so they never leave and and and then FM came as an alternative to that with all the the album cuts. But but within eight years it was programmed and c HR was the or Matt Contemporary at radio on Fever Radio, and so we all competed for that format, which was a hit single and if you did not have a hit single. You didn't exist. So our job making our record was to have a hit, and so we named six. Well that's it. We aimed everything. We are looking at the but we animed every song at radio and different. One was kind of a rocker, one was kind of not a rocker. One was kind of a little more R and B. But we knew we needed a hit. We didn't know we're gonna have six of them, but we knew we needed one. And what's the beginning? What did you aim for, Like, let's just have three top ten hits and a single a hit. I tried to make everything I hit and and now that I listened back to sports, it is an album of its time. It's a collection of singles. It's one song doesn't have anything to do with the other song. I mean, finally found a home and bad is bad? These are these are like different genres of music entirely in a way. Our subsequent albums hold together much better as albums. And you didn't, clearly you didn't think about that as you were making this. It was just like it was just a hit. It was just make a hit. It wasn't like make I'll go one above MTV and ask you, did you ever uh fathom in your life that one day your song, uh specifically the harder rock and roll would ever be utilized in a Soul Train dance line? Are you even where the fact that you guys have rotation on Soul Train for one year? We really would? So here's the deal had taste, here's so confirmed the deal four Okay, So Black People's relationship with MTVS rather strange because of course, you know, Rick Rick James had legitimate b was like, well, I've sold out stadiums. No, no, I'm not on TV. So the thing is too watch Michael Jackson videos. Um. Especially that most cable uh networks weren't in the actual inner city. They were more of a suburbia thing. So we would have to plan weekends. So I would spend like a weekend. I just remembered, like going to my aunt's house in in in Kentucky and she had MTV. Yeah, and that's the thing most of my weekends in eight four yo. Can I kest been to night on Ontar and Uncle Juny's house, So I would go to the suburbs was a suburb and I would sit in front of MTV seventeen hours now, Yes, to wait for those five rotations of beat It to come on and Billy Jean. However, all that other stuff is coming to me too. You guys are coming to remember the pet Benet one where the Nazis are doing this. Yes, Hells for Children. Yeah, so literally, like all this time is Dolby and Nina, Yes, everybody, everything that defines MTV. I'm I'm absorbing just so I can wait for the Michael Jackson videos. But I'm after nine nine rotations of this now I'm fans of them too. And the thing was moments a Mirror. I just want to think the whole audience is wait, That's why I know all this ship. Yeah, we were waiting for Beata to come on every hour and a half. So the thing is is that in eighty four, I think Don Cornelius saw the paradigm shift. So the first sign of it was during the during the Tina Marie episode of eighty four, he showed everyone remembers where they were before. It was like that time, no, no, no, well, I'm saying they showed the wrap around your finger thing and that was weird to say. And now from the video world, one of the rock grades the police are wrapped around your finger. We're like, we look at each other like, huh, white people like this. So during the run DMC episode of you Know, they were I mean breathing breathing people. I get it. So the point is that during the run DMC Dads Band episode they showed the hard rock videos have been awkward. No, it was. I mean then it was like, you know, I realized that Don realized he had to play the game of the day, and the thing was you had to amalgamate modern pop inside your format. I mean some things were weird, like I think once he tried to make Genesis Illegal Alien work. But the song is like onm it's too song to dance, it's too fast to dance to can't do the whole line thing with that ship. So no harder rock and roll got three for you guys to be placed on the souldiering and dance line, which is like, not that's prime real estate spot. That is some major ship. You know about the dance lin did? I said, do you know about the dancing? So you know, that's like about it. I never saw a harder rock and roll on soul. It is, but it's a thing. Trust me, it's a major thing. It's crazy. Can you describe the night of the USA for Africa? Jesus? Was it just a routine stop for you? Wasn't? It was unbelievable. I mean you mean we are the world right, Yes? Yeah, it was unbelievable. I mean, you know, you can imagine just you don't get to meet all those people in in a lifetime or a career. And I mean, and Ray Charles was there. I couldn't. I couldn't. I couldn't even introduce myself to Ray Charles. Really, I just I just hung back and watched him a lot of times. I totally understand it was I was just I'm just totally you know, Ray Charles. And then did you bond with anyone there? Like, yeah, Paul Simon was crazy. Was there anybody you were nervous to be around? Besides Ray Charles? Everybody? Well, Bruce we hung out with. Bruce told jokes for a long time. It was they letting nobody in there but the artist for a long time, and it was really amazing. So all your people had to stay in a green room or agree room there with the things, and then we're just it was just us and man, it was. It was an amazing evening. How long did general background vocals take to do for that session, because I know you that you're one of the leads, but all the background not long. How long did it take the record in general? Oh? Yeah, we started after to the American Music Awards, so that was probably eleven, well early in l A, so six to nine. So we're there at ten o'clock and we went all night and then the Dylan's thing that he sang was in the morning, was like six seven in the morning. We can tell it looks he looks, so he looks like six am. So okay, here's the thing. I mean, background votes probably done, tan, I bet they were done by midnight or twelve thirty. Were all saying the same part. He did all the parts, and then we all sang the same part unison, and then they put them together. So I would almost say that your your A game has to be on point because I would assume that it could be very timidating to sing in front of all these people. So was there it ways were like, look, okay, you got me singing right after Michael Jackson. Can I just punch in like punch it in or like it was funny because I, you know, I'm nervous. My legs, my leg was shaking my kiss I couldn't I couldn't stop my leg from shaking. I was so nervous. And and of course we start and Amburdo uh Gatica was the was the engineer, and so they start boom, and they wanted to go one full pass all the way around because they had to bleed the microphones one down, one up and like that, and with the ambiance and everything, so they didn't want to punch and all that. They want to get one full performance. So they started with Lionel and Stevie Wonder, and Stevie's messed this thing up kind of almost on purpose, just being cute and funny. So they stopped the tape and then they go back and they started again and again about halfway and al Jarole messes up. They stop and they go back and and now he comes out to adjust if like I said him, can you run the whole piece so we can have a shot at her. You know, I just Quincy just sang me the line. No, he had Michael sing me the line. Quincy says, sing it for me. I sang it he says, great again, So I want to try it right, and and he keeps stopping, and he keeps stubbing. But funny, we went all the way through and uh then we finished and and now Quincy says, Chrit's good. But I'll tell you, let's do one more and Hughey, why don't you sing a harmony with with uh? Cindy, He comes in, I'm staying together. Okay, okay, well that's a creative choice. Yeah, sing a harmony with what am I and I got? Look, I'm looking at it, Stevie Wonder and you know what I'm forget about. I'm gonna make up this thing. And you know, so you know it worked out. I don't even know what I did. I was so that vocal wasn't concurrent, no pun, all the way through and when we cut it, you know, Michael was right next to me, and and he was he didn't miss a trick, man, I mean, he, in his kind of little spacey way, did not miss a trick. He knew exactly what was going on. And so when I asked, humburdle, I said, can you let it run? It throw so we can run our lives. You went good, idea. That's good. So now and finally we do this one past that's really good. And now he goes and and Quincy goes, all right, good, let's do one more. And we go one back to one more, and he goes, and Michael urgently grabs they're gonna save that, aren't they. I said, yeah, they're gonna say that when he goes. That was one, I said, I know it, it was one. Yeah. I got anxiety just listening to Michael did not miss a trick man. He was on it. How did you get how were you picked as one of the solo people? I got got than I got Princes line? Oh sorry, I did Siren. Well, you know, I gotta imagine Print singing right before Michael, that little dirty Prince. Michael tried to set Prints up like remember, I'm gonna go first, and then you you follow me upside Wow. Yeah, Remember Prince didn't show the whole deal. I think he was just too nervous to be around all those people. And plus he's the type of person that has to have a complete control over everything when he records. Yeah, so he wasn't about to Michael had way too much. But the last minute, I didn't know. I thought it was done and I'm over there. Well we finished the vote. Great, come guy, gonna give us this. Quincy wants to see it. And I came walking back into the studio. He goes, smell he singing the line. He called Michael, just singing the line. It's Michael sings a line. I sing it. He goes, good, you got it. And it was Prince's line that I got. But also that line, it's fairly high in your range, if I'm not mistaken. Were you afraid of that line or were you just you felt it? What's that? Were you afraid of the line because it's it's higher in your range? I think I just went forward. Yeah, he sang it. I sang it back. That's all you know. I was so I mean, that is kind of like a fog for me. I was so nervous. You can imagine. Yeah, yeah, I mean there's your was Bruce Springsteen, Bob Dylan, under Ray, Charles dan Ackroyd, forget about it? Yeah? Wait? Was this Stephen Bishop there too? No, it was someone somebody like really odd was just like dan Ackroyd. He was the odd one out because it was USA for Africa and he's Canadian Waylon Jens Jennings. He did not have a good time, really, he was he was upset. He was upset, and he and he walked in the middle of the deal. He split. Oh wow, serious, Stevie. At some point I wanted to the background vocals to be in Swahili. Yeah, yeah, yeah, I hearing about that. So we we got we sent out for two African gals who knew speak Swahili, who could translate the background vocals. And when they came into the studio and they and we're all stating around, they stand there, Okay, now what does this say? This in Swahi anyway? Something like that. At this point, at this point, Ray raise over here, riggles ring the bell, Quincy, Is that any good? You know? There was a break that's sucking awesome. There was a break. There was a break in the action. And now we're taking a break and I'm just shadowing Ray Charles. This is what I did, right, I just staying three ft away from just checking them out, talking shadow But he now sits down at the piano and starts playing this kind of blues thing and he goes a Q remember this one. And he's playing like that, and Quincy looks at me and he goes, you know, Lanta, Richie wasn't even born when we cut that song. You know they did in Seattle. It's pretty cool. Now I'm now I'm talking to Willie Nelson over there, and he's going He's going, hey, I hear you play golf. I said, yeah, I just started. It's fun to do on the road. He goes, yeah, that's what we do. I said, I just you put your clubs on the bus. I said, yeah, we put our clubs on the bus and we play. Said yeah, that's what we're doing too. And we're talking and Bob Dylan comes over, walks over and he goes, are you guys talking about golf? He said yeah. He goes, wow, that's outrageous. I said, no, no, Bob, now us Phil Skyline was outrageous. This is just golf. Is this officially the first time that you're meeting your peers or so? Was there any bonding in your career to that point with notable celebs like you weren't bff with or I mean, you know, but Dylan wrote me a really nice note. Man at the end of the deal wrote me, sent me and he sent me a song. Really, he sent me a song that I didn't cut, which is a complete mistake. Dylan sends you a song you it did somebody else end up cutting it? No, I never heard it. I never heard it. So but he also sent me a Junior Parker song. He was great. He wont me a really nice note. He's smart, you know, Bob, Bob Dylan is smart. So okay, I have a question now, having joined uh Columbia House. Always always say that. Also my education comes from the fact that I never sent the records back when I got them at Columbia House. So it's like, you know what, Combia, you want something, you have thirty days, you have thirty days, and if just never pay for them, that's what that's what. Oh that the scamp. No, I didn't have hustle with me. So that said, and having having all all of your your your your records, I'm now noticing that with the massive amount of units sold for sports, usually people figure out, Okay, I'm gonna do the departure record like the opposite of it, which I'm gonna safe for a small world. But you guys actually decided to keep up the stamina with four So how hard. Was it too live up to that pressure? Like okay, now we're in the machine, like I feel like breaking in his heart, but staying there is even harder. Very very perceptive, man, you're very perceptive. Really, I actually told him to ask you that, Steve, that might be true. It isn't, and it is stop continue no, because it's rare. It's I can name a few instances. I mean, so Richie, try to follow with we cancelo down and dancing on the ceiling with thriller and bad Sports for anyone else does the departure record next? So what what was your mind state of Okay, we gotta come back the same or well this is because this is economics here because in back in those days, you know, it wasn't it was what an Internet and all that stuff. So if you sold a big if you got a big record at your next record was gonna ship you know, a million units right out of the box. So the idea was, hit them while they're hot, make your next record as soon as you can, and no matter what, and and that's and that's how you make it. But you know we so we sold you know, ten million copies of Sports. Well four was was already gonna go four million, no matter what it was like. So that was a problem, you know, because we we had and they were honest for deadline one of them, and you know, you gotta write the songs. It's hard to write, and so that was a tough record to make for us. We were struggling, and we wound up over here and in the power station, finished fishing off under deadlines with two studios going and singing in one and playing guitar the other and mixing in a third. And it wasn't wasn't a fun record to make, because you're right, we did it really too. Just capitalize on our success, you whole. But I think there's an art to not overthinking it. And that's why. Now the thing is do you with with the with the words that Brett Ellis wrote for American Psycho, did you feel as though they were being sarcastic or do you feel I feel as though he wrote that in truth? As far as for being your most accomplished records in the in the I thought he did it was amazing what I read I heard about it. I read the book, and he had these little dissertations not only on us, but Phil Collins and Teena and he nailed it. I thought, I mean, he was clearly a fan, and he was he understood, you know, I mean I thought he did a pretty critical job. And then they asked us for the film, would would he uh, would we go to use the tune? And I knew the book, I knew the story and all that. I said, sure, what's William Dafoe? Right? Yeah, I love William Dafoe and it's an art Christians male And I said, no problem, you got it, and they paid us and they got the song. Then what happened was maybe a month before the song, before the movie was released, they said to the manager, said they want to do a soundtrack, and he said, well, great, what that's gonna what's that gonna look like? And it was it was hip to be square. I think there was a Phil Collins tune and the rest was like source music. It was like a kind of a crappy record. You know. It wasn't gonna be a great album. The album, and so my managers just to buy your record too, Huh. It's probably best to just buy your album. So my manager said to me, says, what do you think about this? They want to do a soundtrack albums. I said, well, that's not gonna be fair to our fan. I mean, fans are gonna buy that for what for one song? I mean, that's just do we have to do. They said, no, no, well it's not a part of the deal. They just they just mentioned it. I said, yeah, let's politely decline what you did. So now, on the eve of the release of the movie, literally, they send out a press release that says that Huey Lewis has pulled his tune from the soundtrack because the movie is too violent, trying to gin up attention for the movie. Really, and I thought, come on, fellas, please not cool? You know, not cool. Well, let's go back to Back to the Future. Um, which, by the way, can I say that I did not realize that you had a cameo in that movie until like a week ago. You don't know he was I did not realize that was you. That was the idea. Really, that just kind of disguised me. And that was the mega sis. It worked. It took thirty years for me to realize that. Because it worked. This guy was pretty good, so well, I just wasn't expecting it to be you, you know, with with how you treated music videos and your your Hollywood looks, you could have been the Cluney of videos. Well why did you not explore acting for are In? Or? Were you loyal to the guys? And I don't want to leave them out there? And we were doing what we wanted to do. We were writing our songs and selling out venues everywhere. Everything was great, you know. And the video thing is funny you because we actually did our own We did it. There was an outfit called Video West in San Francisco. First video camera, ever, videotape. This is brand new. This was brand new, and so she said, we'll video a couple of year songs are a song if we can show it on our Video West program that and on cable. Cable was all this stuff was new. I said, sure, so we and you can have the video. So we shot the video. They showed it, and the video helped us get a record deal. And when we got the record deal and we had do You Believe in Love? Was our second single and now the record label decided im was the first single off the that record of the second album. The we and were by this point we were making our own rep. We're producing our Records. We produced their second record, Picture This ourselves and so, but they decided that we needed a professional video, and so they hired an ad agency guy to do the do You Believe in Love? Video? And the set was all in pastels and Matt we had kind of pastel shirts that we were kind of matching with makeup, you know, and a little rouge on our cheeks and stuff. This is the video where the five of us are in bed with the girl and all that stuff. And so they shot this video all day and night. And now we go home. And now two weeks later we go back for the playback, and we go back into and at Christmas Records, and a bunch of people from the record company, a bunch of people from the video company, my band, a bunch of our guys are probably thirty people in the room. And so they say, okay, here's the new video, and they share off lights and they play the video and my I just sank. My heart just said I was so terrible. It was just horrible. I just there was no direction. The guy wasn't singing to the amorros he lose, he singing to what's going on here? The whole thing was a mess, I thought, and we look silly with a rouge on our cheeks and all that stuff. I said, this is horrible. Almost at Billy Squire out and I remember thinking this is this is terrible. This is horrible. And the video ends and everybody stands up and applause. Gotta standing. So I thought to myself, anybody can do this. We're doing our own records. We need to do our own videos. So from then on we did our own videos. And the idea was, don't ape the song, don't have anything to do with the song. If the song ziggs, make the videos agg don't tell, don't retell the story and and just goof. And we did him in San Francisco on different sides of Patrol Hill, almost just to let the let the seagulls and the ocean, Let that be the be the production stuff. Let let show the scenery, and that was the theory. And we did a bunch of them that way. We did one new drug if this is it, uh, stuck with you? That is bad. All these were done in the same manner, in the same place. I got to interrupt you because I just thought about something I can't I can't count the amount of times I filled the kitchen sink with water, and that is one of the opening scenes. If I want a new drug, is you know, filling up the sink with water and ice water, And I swipe that right, I sti't wear Paul Newman Harper. The opening scene of Harper and Paul Newman, he wakes up hungover with ice in the sinks, his head in the ice. I never was it cold, unbelievably cold, And this is what people want to fucking not trust me. It was unbelievably cold. It really was. It was cold. Um. I really wish I knew you back early in my career, because this is the second thing that I never thought about until right now, that sometimes you should just make a video for a song that has nothing to do. I never thought of that. Whatsoever, we want to stay out of the way of the song. I was always where I always thought of, you know, why do we have to retell this story? Songs tell a story? And I always say much in the way a good book is better than the movie, A good song is always better than the video for the same reason. Damn never thought of that, and it's now way too late, so can I can why Aerosmith oar videos. We just never appear in our videos. Now, so can I follow up? Yes? Um? So Nick love with that back to your Future? So so with with um, with with that theory of yours with the videos, and now you're supplying songs to a movie. Did you use that same theory like power of love is not necessarily telling the same story exactly? Yeah, Steve. What happened was, uh, Steve Spielberg, Bob Zamerica's and Bob Gayle asked to take a meeting with us at Ambling at Ambling in l A. We went there and took a meeting and Zamega said, look, we've just written this film, uh called Back to the Future, and our hero are lead characters, a guy called Marty McFly and his favorite band would be Huey Lewis in the news. So we thought, how would you like to write a song for the film? And I said, wow, I'm flattered. I don't know, I don't know how what writing for film means. And I said, you know, I've never written for film. Don't have any idea, I said him, besides, I'm not too keen on writing a song called back to the Future. And they said, oh, we don't care what you call it, do. We just want one of your songs. So I said, okay, I'll send you the next thing we write, which was it was literally the next thing he wrote after that phone call. That was the next thing we wrote. Wow, really put them back in time was written specifically they wanted another song for the credits, and by then i'd seen the film. I hadn't seen it, and so I wrote that, as you know, specifically for that. All right, So my my over riding question with regards to those songs that was elm there. I mean, so we we understand that that they they You got the cameo in the movie based on your probably your video acting and your Hollywood good looks, as quest Love pointed out, is attractive dude, And and you can correct me if I'm wrong, but probably got the gig for the songs because you were like the biggest band happening at that moment. And and yes, I guess Marty McFly would be a fan. Um. But but there's something else going on, is something that makes you like super perfect, and those songs like it seems like that it's meshing in a way that's more than just a regular match like it seems like like Verte the song for the film but didn't not. Just like the combination of you and Michael J. Fox and whatever they did in that movie, it just seems like it's perfect. You know. I have a theory about that, and I'm not I'm not. Uh. It's interesting in that, you know. And Zamacha's always said that he he always credited you know, power Love. The song was released before the film, and they released the song and it went to number one. It took it takes like nine weeks or something to get to number one, and then and so they released the movie when Power Love was number one, and Zamacha's already uh, to this day, we have a reunion sort of every five years, and he says it was the best marketing come out ever. You know, you got a number one song. But and the interesting part about it is for me is that the fact that it had when I when I wrote the song, when we wrote the song and I sent it to Zamacha's, I didn't think it was gonna work for them because there was no love object in the film. By that point. I read the script, at least I hadn't seen it, but I read the script and there was no I didn't think it was gonna work, but they used it in the chase scene. And I think, and i've I've I've thought about this subsequently. When when a song is it's not when you don't retell the story, it's it's a it's its own story, and it only it only is relevant tangentially to the thing. Yet it it becomes another leg for that whole thing to stand on. In other words, it's better to have a song that stands on its own. That's not exactly about the film. It's better for the film because it gives us. You get a good, strong song out of it. So many times we write songs just for the film and they're not that's all they do. The knowledge he's dropping it it makes no sense, but all the sense it makes perfect. It makes perfect sense to me. I've learned three I've learned. It's like from this episode question of Supreme, like, what do I have any other what he just said? It almost it seems so obvious that you just kind of like want to ignore it because it just seems obvious that it can't be right. But you've proven that it's because it's another contrast it's another leg of that, if you know what I mean. There's it makes perfect sense. So if someone asked you to write a song for a film, now, what would you do if I had to write a song for a film? Now, well, I probably do the same thing. Just write him a song. We have we have a musical that we're trying to get to Broadway. We we just put it up in San Diego and I wrote a new song for that, and um, it was really kind of fun because it's really fun to write for other situations than your own right another voice. It's it's it's really creative and and easy as opposed to writing for something that you want to say. But speaking of musicals, how do you feel watching people taking your songs that they're more or less the same songs but in a totally different genre, and watching like this, what if doesn't make you feel as a songwriter? Very interesting? Good question. I I, Um, that's why I that's why I engaged in this music musical. I had a friend of mine, long story, they they wrote the script and uh, and we got it all up and then and I'm just I was worried about how the songs are going to be handled and so you know, I was very careful about that because but our our musical director is a guy called Brian Yuseffer who worked on Kiki Boots and a bunch of other stuff. He's absolutely brilliant. He again went against type with a song when the song was like like um uh you know, uh, well hit me like a hammer, which is a man. He had a girl's girls girls sing it and all this, so how they're handled is super important, right, and uh, and you gotta be careful that because it can be a little silly sometimes. Sure, so you do you worry about Do you worry about that? Because I'm coming from I just got back from London two days ago, but working on a jukebox musical of similar ilk and you worry about songs that were totally masculine based, are totally male based, switching them over or a song that was a fast I think that's a good idea to be honest, right, is to totally avoid whatever the zig when when the when the original zagged. Seriously, I here's what I learned from Peter Lewis zig fuck it go zag. That's a lesson number two. Okay, keep going, Sorry, that's on the show. You talk infiltratee then double gross that's Mike dropping. Okay, so I know how how attached you were uh to based on your press the Small World album, right, did you feel by the way Rolling Stones worst album of the year, Small World, worst album of the year. I read that Rolling Stone? How does that sound? Did you? Did you feel as though it was like is there a fear of riding too high? And you wonder, okay, is this overkill? Is this overkill? Is this overkill? No? No, you know, honestly be four You're called you got me on four? You know four was an economic thing. We just rushed it out and tried to get capitalized on our momentum. But the win is a win. They're still hit at least, but because we had a couple we had left or but after that we honestly and even that even forward to a certain extent, since that time, I have never done anything for commercial reasons period. That's the deal I've made with myself. I said, look, you know, you gotta stay pure to your just do stuff that matters to you and that and then you can't go wrong just you know, integrity. And so that's what Small World was, what we were trying to do expand and do some other stuff. And you know the best part of that one is stand gets his soul. Yeah, I mean he just killed that thing. And that's a kind of a funny story because my dad was a jazzer, you know, and so, uh, Zoot Sims died and and so they had a tribute to him at at Kimball's I think, or somewhere in San Francisco, and wouldn't Kimball's. It was the old Jazz Cup. I can't remember it, but now it was three yeah, maybe maybe. Anyway, my old man loved all that stuff. So I secretly I got tickets for for him, and I said, Pops, I got two tickets for the for the Zoot Sims benefit and stand gats and and uh, they had all these guys. So now, Jimmy Jones, what do you So? Now we go and we and they showed me too, and I go and they go, oh my god. And my dad, you know, he didn't know anything from me. He hardcore jazzer. You know. He thought what I'd do is comic book stuff. I love the house, though, didn't he at first he paid no attention. And now we go and we get the two seats and they put us down the right on the island. Who's sitting right next next next to where I'm sitting is Phil Elwood, the critic from the from the San Francisco Examiner, who's a jazz critic. And my old man knows all kinds of I mean, he knows, he can tell you Jimmy Lunsford's band. He knows every musician in chick Webs band. I mean, my old man knows jazz, you know, and he loves it. And so he sees Phil Elwood and Phil Thatllwood goes, oh my god, Hue Lewis, And my old man goes, oh my god, that's Phil Elwood. And he's recogned, said who he knows who my kid is. So now he and Phil Ellwood are talking and they're going about this and Jimmy Lunsford and this bubble. And then I feel a tap on my shoulder and I turned around and it's gets. He's wearing his horn and he's tap it's the houses. It's kind of early. He's wearing his horn and he taps me on the shoulder and and and I go, I look up. He goes, hey, Yue Lewis. Yeah, stand Gets, He says, my girlfriend wants to eat your shorts. What do you say to that? Right? So I said, well, why don't you let me play on some of your ship? You know what? I can play that ship too. Oh my gosh, sure of course. Yeah, do you have a Yeah, let me give you my card you wrote on you wrote stand Gets wrote his phone number and put have sacks will traveler and gave me the card. But I'm a ride home. My old man says to me. You know he's got cancer and he's not gonna be around very long. And if you don't take him up on that, I will never ever forgive you the record man that it was? What kind of dad are you at this point? With your dad given so much sh it happening like your dad has been, Like go to Europe and off from you. Don't forget to get stand Gets on your record, because that's a real statement that people say, what my kids? Can we get them on the next question, Girl and a boy with stan Gets in my head. Stan Gets is the most laid back cat ever because all his playing is like that, Like if stan Gets on a Huey Lewis record, you'd be like rocking. You get to the sack solo and I'll be like, wow, wow, that's on this record as well. Right, we had we had to find out. We had to find a song, and Chris Hayes, our guitar player, wrote this little jam and I thought this would be great and first so we we did a demo of it and I talked it at first. I went all around the world. There are people like you and me, from the poorest beggar in the street, the richest king and queen, well the well things wailing, and I was just kind of talking against it, which is kind of cool, I thought. And then and then, and that's all we had. And we and I sent it to Ghets and he said, great, I'll do it. So we made an appointment to do it. And then meanwhile we put tower Power on it, and we had all the tower Power horns on it, and I sang it, I you know, sang it instead of spoken it. So he comes up to do it at the session, comes the studio DD just dry. He comes out, he puts on it, gets his horn out, he goes out and think he starts plainting, goes, oh my god, it's in C sharp I'm it's how you know, C sharp for for a for a tenor for you know? Is it concert? So be concert? Really? Was it a B concert? It's a whole step. It's tenor. I was a tender player grown up. I wonder if we were whatever he said says to me, it's a funny key or something like that, and you can't key at all. It sucks. So and I said, wow, I didn't think of that. What I guess we could train vs O it or something. He says, really, what does that mean? I said, well, we can slow the tape down you play. He says, okay, let's try it. So we tried to do that, and it sounded like and so he was not that gonna He's just don't worry about I'll just do it. He says, what I said, you sure, He says, yeah, it's just a challenge for super Jew goes out. You say that all the time and all the time. Now now gets goes out and and he starts the thing, and oh my god, clearly he had shedded it and he was he was just fooling. He had he had to shed it because he played it. And and what was amazing is he starts his solo and he's playing along real nice and and here comes Tower Power Bump bump it butter, butter, butter. Let you know these kind of lips and I and the big one they goes butter. And so in his head he's playing along bubba uh. But but and then then he was but he uh. I mean, it was such a musical lesson watching him react to when when stuff got busy, he went, when was low, he got busy, I mean he was. It was unbelievable watching him like one of the great experiences of my life. I mean, those are the most polar opposite things ever heard of. Tower of Power and stands it's it's still And it was a seven minute track, and I got the idea of splitting it up and making it the first cut and last cut, which was a complete mistake. Should have kept the whole thing together. Yeah, because his solo on there, which is part two, is the best musical moment on that record by a long shot. I mean, it's just really cool. He's just such a great player. I just thought about something, and I know we gotta wrap it up soon. We have one more question. You go, you're the boss? No, because I'm about to go to movies. Okay, I forgot you're in the Robert Altman film. Sir, you no, no, no. I was like, you know, no, that's what I'm saying, Like you're before that bullshit? Um and Mr Lewis, sir, uh, did you ever funk with the chromatic harp? Because you're such a dietonic car player, You're known for that like that. You always carry on like eight different harp and different keys and ship sorry sorry with a harmonic car. Yeah. Uh, but I what I do is playing C chromatic in D minor the third position. Why is that funny? Bill? Can you explain it to the dumbies? I don't know what you're laughing at. Okay, because no one would do that. That's why it's interesting sometimes. So like, okay, so here's what you know. So, like the average I'll explain this in front of Hughey Lewis and I'll feel real funked up about it, but I'll try so. So, uh, harmonica has blah blah blah holes. It's in it is a specific key, and it's diatonic means it's in a scale. So it's like C or D or E or F so most So let's take for a bad example, like John Popper blues travelers carrying around eight hundred different harmonicas and different keys so they can playing different keys. A chromatic harmonica is like something that Stevie Wonder plays, which has a little button on the side so you can go, but you can always you can play all different notes, whereas the other ones are just eight notes. Although unless you're Howard Levi right, unless you're Wow, that was cut, unless you're Howard Levy a great great artutes or like one of these guys, all right, Leo would go real deep anyway, So so so so Hughie is known as not a chromatic player, but a guy who would Did you carry around a bunch of different harps? Is that? Yeah? Okay, so so so, Hi losing the news. Tunes are written in an A and E and s are in C minor like that's some weird ship, so you'd have to adjust the harmonic you're playing for the song you're playing in. So he would carry around Tell me if I'm wrong, I'm gonna tell Hughie lewis his business while he's being right here that like he would play He's had a bunch of different harmonicas and different keys, and so if you have a chromatic harmonica, the idea is that you only would have one. Right now, you should talk, But you have to be a much better player than I. I mean you're but it didn't matter at that point. I mean, like, no, you know, all you need is the chops to say what you need to say. And what is it that you want to say? You know, where said there's there's hamburgers and there's fui g raw. You know, I mean, so what really? Whatever? I mean? You know, it's it's it's all creative. Yeah, dude, man man, he's my spirit and can we have a time? Might be? Might be the new? Wait? Did I just say that? Oh God? Alright, wait, I just want to get to movies while we have a couple of minutes left. He's a miracle too, because we have to get to that. Yes, we'll get to that. Okay, So with you? How did you get the role in short I'm such a Robert Altman fan. I forgot you were in Shortcuts? How did you get that role? Good looks? Quest love that he's amazing, good looks his Hollywood good looks. We um they you know, I don't know how I got the I think it was I think it was my eight. Bill Robinson was an agent, and I think he was. He was he was Alban's agent, and then he he he was a fan of mine, and he said, look, I'll be your agent. I said, well, I don't need an agent. I don't do anything. He said, well, let me just be your agent, just in cases. Well, so then he got me the gig or the audition or whatever it was. And so what I did. I went out to Santa Monica and just talked to Robert Altman and he invited me and he sat me down. He said, uh, you your your fisherman, right you you flat fish? I said yeah. He says, cool. He said, look, let me give you a scenario. He says, two guys, three guys are going to go on a fishing trip, he says, And they go on a fishing trip. And they've been worried about it for like a year. They've been planning for this trip. It's a big deal. And they got to pack in all the way, and they pack in all the way and they get in there in the evening and they set up camp and one of the guy goes to take a leak. I was about to say, he goes to take a leak in the river and sees a dead body, right, he says, uh, And so what what are you gonna do? He says, And meanwhile, the fish are rising like crazy and it's nighttime. What are you gonna do? I said, probably fish? You got the game. It's been a minute since I've seen shortcut. Wasn't that full frontal? Who I remember when of you taking a piss me? Was it full frontal? Full frontal? I was gonna say, there was something about only for all, but only for wait, remember there was something very unusual. Oh that's right. You definitely have to face the camera. You're taking a piss hub? Are you serious? She's really probably know she's getting on porn hub right anyway? But he would Yeah, and his favorite. You know. I was telling them earlier that you were the only reason that I saw duets I was I. I was a big Huey fan. Yeah, sweet yeah, because I was like, he was gonna be the star of the whole movie. Fuck yeah, because I was your first biggest How did you? How did you? How did the same thing I read for the part with with Bruce Paltrow, you know, when his dad directed it right, And then they they had apparently tried to make it earlier with but they couldn't find the right Ricky Dean, so with the not Huey Lewis, and so they in the game. He uh, you know, he cast me. And then they said we want you to sing a song. I said, great, Um, he says the song. The song in the script was song few Leon Russell. Huh and uh, and they changed She's but Gwen is going to change the song. That no problem. So now I get the part. We're gonna film it in Vancouver in like five months. But I get a call that Gwyneth has chosen the song, uh, cruising. It's just chosen a song. It's a Smokey Robinson tune. I went, great, what smokey Robinson dude? Cruising? I never I didn't know. I didn't know the song right. So I said, we'll send it to me and we'll check it out. They send it to me and said, okay, I got it. Let's um. I called him Mac. I said, it sounds great. Let's let's we need to get together around a piano and pick a key. You know. Oh, no, we already cut it. Really another we are in the world. Say what key did you cut it in? They said original key. I said, okay, So I listened to it and it's super high, you know. So I fashioned this other part together. And then we went down there and now we got into the studio, Gwyneth and me and forty five other people I don't know, like we've making people and camera people and then record coming and Larry Klein for do shit and he did a great job. And she just sang her butt off. Man, she could really sing that girl. It were you surprised it with number one? Yeah. You know what they did is they messed up on the film. What they should have done is the power power love, release it, let it go abot then release the movie. They released the movie and the song at the same time, and the movie went and then two months later the song was number one. Right, so his cruising did better than d'angelo's cruising. Okay, that's very okay there, you know it's d'angels was great. Just look at that Simpsons placement. So he's cool he did. Yeah. Yeah, when there there's I think like margin Homer riding around a car and cruising was on the radio, kidding, how do you know that? It's the Simpsons? Okay, Phil, it makes sense? So okay, I do have to ask you, um with with having trouble with your your hearing right now? When was the beginning of you? This is weird because I just got my ears cleaned out today? How does that happen for? Was it just years of abuse so on your ear drums or they the and the answers they don't know, um recent right, this is like the last year and change. It's not like you're actually diagnosed with some called Minire's disease. It's first for me. It started thirty five years ago. I got vertigo so bad I couldn't do a gig one time. I had to go to the hospital and then they gave me a thor zine suppository and then I was fine. And then five years later had another vertigo about then suddenly I lost my hearing in my right ear, like maybe five years ago, twenty years ago. I went to see my E. M. T. Guy says, get used to it. I said, what whoa it happens? You only need one ear? Said, what do you mean? I'm a musician, he said, Jimmy Hendricks had one ear. Wait, Brian Wilson had one ear. He says, I have one ear and I'm in a barbershop quartet. I said, really, so yeah, he says, you only need one. I said, all right, So I went home. I told my wife that I he said to get used to it. She say, you can't do that. You gotta go to UCSF get second opinion. I went and got tested up and down it could. Nobody knows anything about this. So now, a year and nine months ago, I lost my other ear, went before a gig, just went deaf and um. I have a particularly acute case of Miner's disease. Manier's disease is a is a syndrome based on symptoms, which means they really don't know what it is. It's um um. You know if you have vertigo, hearing loss, fullness in your ears, and tentatives. They call it many airs disease, but they don't know what it is. I've been everywhere from Stanford here, Institute House here, Institute, Mayo Clinic, UCSF, Mass General ironeer no help. I've have chiropractic, I've had acupuncture, low salt, all organic diet no caffeine, no chocolate, essential oils. You know, I've tried everything. I've been to, the been to all the holistically I've nobody knows it. And yet my hearing fluctuates still, but it's episodic, it's weird. It'll be okay for like for eight days, it'll okay, still crappy, but it's and then I'll then I'll go a week almost completely deaf, almost entirely deaf. What is that like? Especially is you're forget music. I don't even think about music. It's worse than that. I think about being able to exist. Because when I can't hear speed each when I'm bad right now one to ten, I'm a four. I've only been as good as six ever and and i'm a four, which is good. But I can beat one or one and a half. When i'm one and a half or two, I can't hear anything. And so I exist in a cocoon. And it's it's it's it's okay. But you're better off by yourself. So there's nobody not to hear. And I read and I write, you know, I'm writing some stuff and and that's all. That's that's what I do. I haven't watched television in a year and nine months. I haven't listening to music in almost two years. Oh, look like the performance thing must be clearly issue then. But like when you're at like a six, I was, I was, we're watching your The teaser for your documentary is, is singing versus harp playing different because because of the because of the vibrations of the harp, can you feel it in your head? Versus singing is different? No, it's all the same. And in fact, instrument playing an instrument in many ways, like harmonica is almost worse because you know, when you bend to note, you need pitch and you can't find pitch. When when I have a bass part, which would sound bow bo bo bo bo goes to me, it sounds everything through a blown speaker, and you have to fight for pitch. You can't find pitch. Forget fun, you know, like what a song is fun? You're in the middle of it. It's just playing itself, you know what I mean. You're singing or playing and it's playing itself. That never happens once. If I'm a six and somebody plays quiet cocktail piano kind of thing, I can almost sing, but but the points moot because I can't book a gig a month because I don't know what I'm gonna be like, got it ship? Wow, boy, that's your casketball. So you you got that done? That wasn't felt good to make that happen, right, I said, you got a brand new record and you got that done, so it must have felt good I had. We had this. These were seven tunes on our new record that we had cut before this happened. And what I we were just taking our own sweet time. We're doing shows a year and trying to stay out of the limelight while we make another record, just keeping everybody alive fingering. The longer we stay away, the better if we're good when we come back. And my band, we were as good as we've ever been two years ago. We were still improving and um. But now that this happened, you know, we figured what and we were recording songs along with I mean, some of these songs we've been playing for ten years, you know, but we record them a little bit as we went because we have lives as well, you know, and doing seventy five shows, you don't have a lot of time to get in the studio. But we had these seven songs done. So now, when this happened, we said, what the hell, let's release the song. So well, I was gonna say, are you big on vacations? But I guess living in Montana, that's sort of like your your quiet place here. I mean, now, how does it feel to slow down and just well, you know, I miss I don't miss doing five shows a week, you know, but I missed doing one. And I miss my guys, you know, the camaraderie of of all that we did together. I miss that. And and I feel bad for my guys who you know, are gone, and and and the fans have been great. I mean, the letters and stuff, the support I get. You know, it's funny because you do this stuff, you know, just day to day, and you don't think about your impact or any of that crap. I don't. You don't think about it at all. And now that I'm not doing it day to day and I get these letters and stuff. Wow, you know, it's really moving to people with cancer, people who have you know, we've lost people and all that stuff. How your music consoles them and so on. So it's really a wonderful thing. So I try to remind myself that I have in spite of this, lots to be thankful for. You know, there's always somebody up worse off. So amen. But you didn't know you what the joy bringer, Hugh Lewis. You know what I said. I said, you didn't. You didn't know you were a joy bringer. It's funny because I'm sitting here listening to you for the last two hours and I was like, Hugh really doesn't understand the impact of his music and how certain he's only a select amount of bands or artists who can evoke such joy that whatever you're doing at that moment when their song comes on, happiness, everything just stops. And that's like sweet. And prepping for this interview, you know, you go through the go through the catalog, you know, and I'm listening to songs and I'm like, damn, I haven't heard this song in a long time. And then like, you know, like Heart and Soul came on and happiest moments in my life. Yeah, I'm like, I like I the song came on and I vividly remembered, like I used to sleep with the radio and when I was a kid, and I remember that song coming on and it was two o'clock in the morning when the song came on and the first lyric in the song, yeah, it's two o'clock and like all that ship just came rushing back and then like um Jacob's Ladder comes on and like fuck I remember driving down this riding down this street. You know, it's just like you're the soundtrack of my are Like you're very sweet to say that, you're very very sweet and that means a lot. Really, thank you very much at all. Thanks well on behalf of the uh the Supreme team like you, I pay bills, Boss Bill. The audience can see it. Sugarsty. We would like to thank you so much for coming on the show. There's been a major education. It's been wonderful and it seemed like I went by like that. It seemed like five minutes. However, board in Montana. You wanna come hang out with us? You just come hang out with us, yea, yeah, what's that? Sorry, anytime you're in Montana, your board because there's a lot the wildlife, you can come hang out with us anytime you want. Or if you're lonely, you just want us to come over here. Yeah, like I got it. Here we go y'all. Well, thank you very much and we appreciate it. Before we before we log off, I just want to ask you, as as the the boss of all of us, can we have a couple of shows off? That was a Hue Lewis reference horribly and I will edit that out. You won't keeping that. We will see you on the next go around, y'all the Supreme. That one wasn't as big as hit as I will say. That is one of my favorite who listened to new songs? I thought it was a good one too. It's a couple of days off. You know we're gonna have to pay for that, don't anyway? Next around? Thank you very much. M m h m h m hm. For more podcasts from my Heart Radio, visit the I Heart Radio app, Apple podcast, or wherever you listen to your favorite shows. M

Questlove Supreme

Questlove Supreme is a fun, irreverent and educational weekly podcast that digs deep into the storie 
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