The Bob Lefsetz PodcastThe Bob Lefsetz Podcast
Bob Lefsetz is the author of “The Lefsetz Letter.” Listen to his new podcast where he'll address the issues at the core of the music business, interne…
The original drummer for Tom Petty and the Heartbreakers has a new band, The Speaker Wars. You'll love Stan!
Welcome, Welcome, Welcome back to Bob Leftste's podcast. My guest today is drummer, songwriter producer Stan Lynch. Stan, you have a new band, speaker wars. Why a band? Why?
Now? You know I'd have to go to therapy to figure that one out. But I think it was just the time was right to play. And I think a wise man once said to me, while you can and still want to, you should. So I'm enjoying being in a group. And I love the guy that my partnered with, this guy John Christopher Davis. He's great and he's the one who sort of talked me into it. How do you know this gentleman, Stan who John?
Yeah?
We met on a blind date in Nashville, Tennessee. We were both staff writers at the time different publishing companies, and John was being groomed to become a country star, if you will. We got together to write songs and bonded instantly over old rock and roll and gospel and all kinds of cool stuff. We'd both just have the same north Star. And then they I got asked to produce his record and went in and the first thing that happened was they played us both five songs that we had never heard of, and we'd been writing for his album. They played us these five Puppy Mill Nashville songs that were just horrible, and they said these are going to be your first five and I remember, without missing a beat, I didn't know you couldn't say this, but I said, these songs are horrible. Why would we cut Why would we cut these when John is such a good writer. Well, I didn't know it, but we were both fired right then, instantly, And on the way out the parking lot, I was walking out and I thought, well, this guy's gonna kick my ass. He's gonna hate me forgetting his ass fired. And I'm walking to my car and I hear it, you know, hey Lynch, And I'm thinking, oh great, this is where it ends. And he runs out and gives me a big hug and he said, thank you man. He goes nobody's ever stood up for me like that, and and he just gave me this big hug, and I went like, God, this guy's got soul. You know, he's got soul. And that kept the relationship going. It started there. We started his buds and I love the way he saying, you know, I'm a sucker for a guy who can sing. You know, as from a drummer's point of view, there's nothing more important than a singer that will set you up, you know that you want to set up. And he he, he made me feel good, you know, listening to him sing. So that's that's the story.
Tell me about you said up a singer and a singer setting up the drummer.
Well, and for me, this isn't every drummer, but for me, it was always about the vocal, like I was playing with it, playing around it, toying with it, trying to be inspiring and being inspired. And that was what was so wonderful about my old band was that Tom would sing every take in the studio if we if we cut sixty takes, that guy was at the mic sixty times. And that's kind of unheard of nowadays. But back then we were either so unsophisticated and didn't know any better, or that was just what we wanted to do. We wanted to be a performing band, and even in the studio we were performing. So that to me is if you know, I would work around the vocal. I never really knew what my drum part was going to be. Till I heard the singer.
Okay playing live. Now, there are some drummers who wear headphones. Things are different today within ears, but back in the seventies, could you even hear the vocal to play along with it?
We could once we had monitors, yeah, and that there were some unsung heroes in the band. You know, everybody thinks of like a band as they there's five guys or whatever, but there's so many. It takes a village to make a great rock and roll band. And we had this guy, Davey Bryson, who was a monitor man. And as soon as we could get a monitor guy, he was on stage with us. I mean, I can't He was as close as the bass player to me, and he was part of the show. And you could give him the little look with your upper lip that said I need more vocal or But yeah, as soon as we were a tour ring band of any whatever you want to call it, of any statulate bird, yes, we had a monitor guy who was second to none, and so yeah, I could hear that. I could definitely have Petty was Yeah, that would be the number one thing I needed to hear.
Okay, So you met John how many years ago.
Man, it's I couldn't put the date down, but it's probably been a good eighteen to twenty.
Maybe, So why a band?
Now?
Why not? Okay? The record is very straight ahead rock and roll. Okay, there's a ballad that I've heard that could go, as we say in the old days, to different formats. But what I mean, you know, radios other than country doesn't really mean that much traditional radio. But you have a band. I'll just put it straight. The record's great, but it's out of sync with what's going on in the world at large. So how do you beat the system?
Well, that's a two part. You made a statement and then asked a question. It's out of sink, thank god, because I'm out of sink. My whole life has been out of sink. I wouldn't know if bell bottoms are in. I wouldn't know if synthesizers are in. I wouldn't know what's in. I've never known, and it's been the ultimate blessing. So let me address that. And then the question was I forget.
Well, you know you're going well and you've got a great memory, and you can play back pretty well. But you answered the first half. But the decision to actually do it, And what are your thoughts in terms of, you know, getting it out to the world.
Oh yeah, okay, right, Well, let me first and foremost say I have extremely managed expectation. My goal, if there is one, is I'd like John to be heard because I think he's a cool singer and I think he's a cool dude. And I would like to be able to play live with guys that can play and play songs that I was part of molding and creating because I don't really want to be in a cover band and I was never worth a shit as a hired gun. I couldn't play anybody's charts but my own. And so what do I hope will happen? Maybe is hey, I hope it gets heard, and I hope you get a shot at playing some live gigs because it'd be a lot of fun.
Okay, live is where the money is today, and also with this kind of music, live is the best way to break it at this age, with this experience. How much you're willing to work.
I like work, I enjoy it. This isn't work, this is this has been my church. Like the last thing I remembered, I was fifteen years old, I was working at McDonald's. That was the last time I had a job where I remembered kind of dreading going to work. And after that it was like, shit, this is this is ah, this is just what I get to do. And I'm when presented with a possibility of playing, I would play. And how much is my willing to work. I'm willing to wear my balls down to a nub if it's fun.
Okay, if I say you're gonna play thirty dates in thirty five days, I mean, you might have a couple of questions, but you're gonna say no way, Are You're gonna say, oh, okay, let me hear the details. I could do that.
I'd probably go, that's a lot of gigs in a short number of days, but let me hear the details. You know, if if it's not oppressive, or the travels not odious, or the everybody's got a good way of doing it, I would I would question the thirty five what was it thirty and thirty five days?
Something that was like yeah, yeah, yeah, I.
Would go, like, could be tough. At the same time, I'd go, I'd have to once again, I'd ask my singer, how many times can you walk up to the mic and do this before dust comes flying out of your throat. You know.
Okay, is it just the two of you or is it really a band?
It's really a band now. It started with the two we added over time. Well, John had a band in Texas, so we took the pick of the litter from his group and we found a couple other guys that I really liked. I've got a really good We wanted good singers. That was really important to me that we had guys that can really sing. So we kind of handpicked and we got a band.
Okay, he was in Texas. He's not a household name. No, was he earning a living playing music?
Yes, good question. He's well, he's kind of an entrepreneurial guy and he owns a I got the what do you call it when lone star attitude. He's got a whole marketing thing that supports himself. He runs several businesses. One of his businesses is a booking agency, and he keeps himself busy and booked, and he loves to play gigs in Texas. Is a still has what I had when we grew up. Places to play. You can actually go work like it's that's that's gone the way of the Dodo bird now. But you can actually in Texas be a working musician with a working bands, and that's what he loves to do.
Okay, so the record's done. Now, how long ago did you guys say we're making a record, we are a band.
It was very organic process. I don't know if those two statements wherever made you consecutively. It was really during COVID that, you know, when the world came to a screeching halt, and I think I about six weeks into it, I went, well, shit, I got to do something, and I have a recording studio, and I started learning how to fileshare, you know, and create records. You know, send me this, I'll send you back, and send me this I'll send you And I did a lot of that file sharing recording during COVID. And one of the guys that was the most exciting for me was John. He would send me pieces, I'd send him back pieces. He'd get on a plane and come down because I mean, you remember at the time when we were setting fire to our groceries because we're all gonna die and you didn't, you know, So John was the you know, we'd both get tested and we'd come he'd come down and stay with me. And so we started assembling our songs and we have We got tons of songs. And then we went and to a guy Larry Maser, who uh he sort of orchestrated it. He helped us pick what he felt should be on a record, what he and we kind of went to committee at that point, which I never even considered doing. You know, I was just going, I don't know, let's just record a bunch of songs. And we did. And then after that, I've gone into band mode, which is what do y'all want to do. I'll listen, you know, I'm listening.
Okay, So you've cut the record in your own home studio?
Uh yeah, amongst others. There was here Dallas, I think where else we recorded, but mostly in between this another guy, Mike Pisteercy, who's really a great engineer. He's a guy in Texas who has a great facility there and he warmed to us early in the game and said you can come and work here, and he's got a sound stage and that's where we learned to be a band. We went in there and just you know, threw down and ate pizza and played our asses offten we figured out what we're doing and so, like I said, it takes a village. A band requires so many people to give a shit before it works.
Okay, you know the initial Tom Petty records were cutting shelters studios, which certainly wasn't the record plant. Then there was a lot of success. You could basically work and pay whatever you want. What are your viewpoints about today's recording situation in terms of budgets? You know, do you need a big room to cut the base or you could do everything on a small level and you're happy, or you wish you had more money. What's your viewpoint there?
Yes? Both, I mean it home recording now, it's no excuses. I mean, your demos can be records, and many people's they are. I mean, you know a lot of artists don't even know how to interface with a real recording studio quote unquote with musicians. And I mean, i'd say a great majority of the records we hear today are track. You know, they're created, and I prefer I mean, you know, my dream would be, you know, to go like the way I grew up. You know, I want to I want to record like Free and Bad Company, and I want to go in and just rumble for it, you know, like I love that shit counting four no click tracks, four or five guys in the room that you know that is the best. That does require a budget, because you do need some form of facility, and you're gonna need engineers, and you're gonna need people to help. Once again, when you're bearskins and knives and you're doing it yourself, you just do it. You just get in, You do whatever you can to create your product. And I'm good with either one, but I would love to have the old school way where you kind of rehearsed your songs, you knew what you were kind of gonna do, or had a rough idea, and you go in and cut three or four tunes at a time, and you had great engineers helping you get sounds and you got that energy together and it was very romantic and exciting. I'm not sure that's happening a whole lot anymore.
So, how did you actually cut this record track by track or band in the room.
Most of it was done. A lot of it was assembly, Like we'd start with a song as a demo and we just listen to it and go, well, how would it grow up? Would what would this thing do if it started to walk and talk? And we would build And then a few of the songs we actually did just kind of go, why don't we just play this damn thing. We've got enough guys and we've got an engineer, and the time fell on it where we could do it. But we were pretty we're pretty ghetto.
Okay, you know this is not like you're seventeen. Everybody here needs to earn a living. So let's say, oh, yeah, we want to go on the road next month, never mind six months. Rough is one band member gonna say, oh I already have gigs booked, or I got to do this, or is everybody saying this is a priority.
I feel a priority out of the guys, and they've already proved it, you know, when we've had like, look, we've got two weeks and Mike set his facilities available, everybody drops everything and gets their asses there, and we all we all dig it. We're all getting it. You know. It's like and everybody's bringing something to the table, and but yeah, I don't I don't really know everybody's personal story. I mean, I haven't put my nose into everybody's tent. I'm probably in a unique situation because I can do what I love when I want to do it. So I'm hopeful that that will not be a problem. And I'm pretty pretty sure that everybody's ready to roll.
And at this point in time, are there any live dates booked.
We're working on that. We'd have to ask Larry, but I think that's we We just did a gig in Gainsville that was fun. We went and played and just to make sure we could actually what happens if you count for live and make sure nobody make sure I don't have any excessive drinkers or you know. So it was. It was a scratching sniff to make sure everybody could do the gig. And I thought everybody did great. But at the moment, I think we got a record coming out and what is it in April? I think? Uh? And so hopefully then, like I said, I have manager expectation, but I'm feeling a little frisky that we can get some work and have some fun.
Okay, you live in Florida, right, true, we're in Florida. I don't need your specific address, but generally.
An undisclosed location almost at the Georgia border. I'm I have a place that's out in the middle of the woods in central Florida, outside of the town I grew up in. And uh, pretty much if you were thinking of the Panhandle, you'd be I'm kind of dead between the Panhandle and the Atlantic, right square in the middle of the state.
Okay, did it snow there the other day?
Close? But it's just north of us. It did, But yeah, it By the way, you're in La correct, correct? How are you?
Well? Thanks for asking. You know, I'm not that far from the fires. And there were a couple of scary moments, and you know, we got say, okay, I got my shit ready to evacuate, but didn't have to. I know a lot of people lost their houses. It's kind of like a death in the family. You take it. I don't think we've completely metabolized.
How could you?
But uh, going back to your story, how much property do you have?
I got it just coming on too close to forty acres out here. It's a tree farm that I started back in I think around seventy nine or eighty. I got started buying property here because it was just a pretty spot, and we planted a lot of trees, and we've already done a first cutting, and we've got lambs up on the pasture, and you know it's it's it's cool. I got it, Uh, I have the life. I would have never thought this was what would have been so appealing when I couldn't wait to get the hell out of here. But when it's somewhere in the somewhere. After about I guess about fifteen years of Los Angeles living, I realized, like, this isn't my home. I love it in LA. And I got great work. I had a great life, fully energized, fully realized, but I could never relax. I had an assbucker that was just tight. And when I came down here, I went like, oh, it's too close, so close to nature. I grew up on the water. I got a little place over and on the on the coast. That's fun. I can go over there, I can attempt to surf. Still, I'm that guy, you say, we, who'se? We? Me and my gal?
And how long has this gal been part of the picture.
Probably since I wrapped up LA. So I'm thinking she would correct me and tell me exactly, but probably since mid nineties.
Okay, I've been with my girlfriend for twenty years. We're not married. You've never been married, right.
Well, we never bred. Neither of us had kids, so I think it's very I think with children, it would be probably helpful if everybody had the same name. I get that. You know, that would be convenient, Like you know, all those name left SAIDs, get behind me and let's go, you know, like I mean, that would make more sense. But without kids, I want to be I'm on my best behavior as a non married man. I'm still semi courting. I'm doing my best, you know, Like, I get the feeling i'd be the kind of guy with married I might have. I would have the potential to be a dick pretty quick.
Okay, this woman you met her in La? Is she from La? What does she think about living in the moonies in Florida?
Well, she's from Texas. So I met her in Texas on a blind date.
And wait, wait, wait, stop, stop there your rock and roll star. How did a rock and roll star go on a blind date? Tell me, well, it was nice, I was. I found myself without a well, okay, take a picture of this. I'm turning forty I've lost my job. I'm I'm kind of like, I'm scared to death. I'm single.
The woman I was with had decided she'd had about enough of me, and and then I was sort of just hanging and a dear friend of mine and his wife said, you know, because I was spend a lot of time in Texas, and they said, well, we we got a gallop, but next time you're in why don't we go out for dinner? And that's how it happened.
Okay, so you're living in Florida. What's your everyday life like? Are you pretty much cloistered in your own world? Or do you have friends there you so you're more isolated?
D all of the above. I mean, I've got the same crowd. I've got friends that I went to high school with. I'm that guy. I've got the same guys literally that are We talk every day. And I was in my first band with these guys when I was fourteen. There are still my friends. One of my buddies, you know, we had a music store together in Gainesville for twenty years. And so I've kept my roots were always here. My father lived here, so I got to come back here and live down the road from him and get to know him, and my everyday life is it's cool. I try to stay engaged creatively as much as I possibly can, I mean, without burning out. So I set aside time every day or you know, every other week, actually four or five days a week every other week to get in my studio and try and that's always good. My daily routines are fairly banal. I get up and take a walk. I like to cook, I like to enjoy. I'm very grateful, Bob, that's the bottom line. I'm very fucking grateful. You know that. I you know.
Okay, let's go back. You're the one who mentioned losing your job. You know we have not met previously. You've emailed me a couple of times in the past. Okay, what do I know? You're a very just from these twenty minutes, you're a very affable guy, very easy to talk to. You work with Don Henley, who you know, generally speaking, let's call him not easy at a little prickly, okay, and you seem to get along with him. You go with Tom, who's not the most easy going guy but is easier than Don. Yet there's some friction there, you know, what's going on there?
Boy? Is that a layered group of questions and statements. Don was never prickly for me. I met Don in nineteen eighty and was immediately welcomed by him and Tony Tavy, who was his guy. You know, for lack of a better term, he handled you know, his Don's dude probably handled everything from his drums to making sure he got in the car. And I met them in eighty at a gig. They immediately made me feel welcome. And I didn't know him from Adam, and I'm probably more smitten with the concept of look, it's the Eagles, it's Don. And he immediately said, hey, you can sit right here on stage and if you want to watch me play drums. He immediately took treated me like I was family. So I never sensed the oh my god, you know the I never got it. I heard about it, you know, I would hear just like you like, oh, gee, Don can be tough. He's a tough Customer's this that never got it. Never felt that he was a big brother. He always looked out for me and made it real easy to hang and also gave me my second act. But that's another conversation. Okay, So then you asked Tom Now Tommy. When I met Tom, I was a little boy in Gainesville. They were a little older, and I found him to be hysterical. They were these guys were They were intelligent, They were Southern, but they weren't Hicks, and they weren't rednecks. You know, I'm from Ohio, I grew up in Florida, but I'm not so blood simple that, you know. I I see the world outside of my box. And so did Tom, So did Benmont, So did Mike, so did Ron. They were all kind of worldly even though they hadn't been exposed yet. They were wide open. They were curious, That's the one. They were curious people. They were exciting, and so my early run with the band was nothing but brotherhood. It was hysterical, and I couldn't have asked for goof of your guys to go on the quest with.
So what ended? Why did it end?
I probably several components to that. I think first and foremost was I had a belly full of Los Angeles. I was starting to branch out, and thanks to Don and Danny Kortschmeier and Steve Lucather, I was writing and being asked to do things beyond the drumming, and that was something that always intrigued me and I wanted and I'd kind of worn out. I'd worn out on Tom Petty and the Heartbreakers. Where it was going and what music they were making. Didn't I didn't feel part of it. It was like, not what I want, not what I wanted to do naturally, and I wasn't willing to grow in the way that they needed a drummer at that point. So it was almost a subconscious conscious decision to say, fuck it, I'll just make myself so uninterested and they'll feel Everybody felt it, and I just didn't. I didn't fit in anymore, you know. I just didn't fit in. And I had a home in Florida, I loved going to and I had a whole other life, and Tom was making solo records, so it was like it was a natural movement.
Well, how did you find out you were no longer in the band? And was it a shock when it happened.
No, it was a surprise, but it wasn't a shock. It was no. I it was a fully executed swan dive away from the group. It wasn't he had a point of no return for everybody. Uh and how did what was the question? How did I find out? Yeah, Tony Dimitriotis called me the Bandager yep. And but you know, it was like, yeah, I was sad. I was a little I was scared, you know, because that would have been you know, I used to kid my last name is Stan drummer for Tom Petty and the Heartbreakers. I didn't have a last name, you know, so you know, you couldn't say that anymore. So that was weird, you know, after so many years to like go, well, I woke up with my own last name. You know, my name is Stan Lynch and I'm doing something else. So and then you know, you went through the couple of years of weren't you or did you? Or what happened? Or and then you know, it's a nice evolution, you know. And I'm very grateful and thankful that I caught the wave when I did. And I'm also incredibly grateful that I didn't do that last twenty years for everybody's sake, including my own, because man, that would have been horrifying for all of us.
Tell me how it would have been horrifying for you?
Well, I didn't particularly care for the music, so that would have been the first and foremost. I couldn't find a way to play drums like that, which was very metronomic and that should That's sounds strange for a drummer to say, because that is your job. But it wasn't what I wanted. I wanted to be. I came from a different style of drumming. I wanted to be British. I wanted to be Keith Moon meets Mick Fleetwood meets Charlie Watts. You know. I wanted to be this free and important component within the music, not just the thing that goes boom schmeck, boom schmeck, and that once they needed boom schmack. I couldn't really even do it. Quite frankly, it was intimidating. It was it's not what I know how to do, and I'm not any good. I'm better at it now after owning a studio and producing records and learning the the job of the drummer, I've gotten better. I can do that and uh and but I just it's not where my love of drumming is.
Okay, Tom Betty and the Heartbreakers, you know they have big breakthrough after declaring bankruptcy on the third album. So starting you know, around nineteen eighty they're playing arenas, but you are one member of a five member group. In addition, you're not the songwriter in the group. You lose your job. What about the money, Let me think about that.
Well, I think there's always a fear of going broke when you're a musician, no matter how much money you got. I think that's just the nature of the beast. Like you're you know, you're essentially self and Floyd your whole life. I mean, I I was pretty good at not freaking out about money once I had some, and I wasn't. I never lived an extreme life. I lived well within my means, and so I never really felt like I was going to be living under a bridge or you know what about the money, It's nice to have it, and I've been very lucky. It seems like I've been able to do well with that. That's never been a real problem for me.
Okay, So, when you're no longer in time Pitty and the Heartbreakers, did you have enough money that if you didn't want to play musical work you could have done that?
Well? Depends on your lifestyle, don't It Absolutely I mean, yeah, I probably had enough to go live in an airstream out out on the Swany River and fish for the rest of my life. But that might not have been what I wanted. But at the same time, that didn't scare me. I was never scared of having a used car and having a small house. That just didn't freak me out. I mean, I mean, I liked it. When I was a kid in LA it was fine. I had the fancy car and the groovy apartment, and you know, I had all that cool shit, the trappings of a young buck, you know. And uh, but you know, after the band was over, I was like, well, shit, I got a little place in Florida. It's fun. I got my old friends. I just didn't want to be an embarrassment. I guess more than anything, I was more. I didn't want to be I didn't want to feel like I let anybody down. I remember asking my dad, like, hey Dad, I'm not in the band anymore. You know, it didn't It's just I couldn't take it, or you know, it didn't work out. And I remember I think, and you know, am I going to be Is he gonna be ashamed or something? And it is a perfect father. He looked at me and he goes, Stan, what took you so long? And I thought, wow, he knows what I've been. You know, it was hard. He just knew, like you know, Jesus and Tom. One of the last things he said to me goes, you know, eighteen twenty years stands an ice run and I went, yeah, hard to complain, you know. And like I said, the last twenty that those guys did, I was never envious. I mean, I was happy for them, for the guys I love. I was happy that they were enjoying it. But I was never thinking, man, that should be me up there. I never had never crossed my mind.
Okay, did you communicate all this to your father? Very intuitive and really knew who you were.
I think Dad a little both. Yeah. Dad was smart, you know, he's he was a professor, you know, psychology, and he could overthink anything with me. You know. It was fun and I you know, I loved having him in my life because he was such a grounding force at the time. You know, he was because he never he didn't give a shit about anything, you know, Like I mean, I think I sent a couple of platinum albums to my dad, you know, when he had an office, you know, said doctor Lynch on him or something. You know, he thought that was cute. You know. He came up to Madison Square Garden we were playing up there with Dylan, and he thought that was fun and put him on the bus and you know, but he was never like taken in by it. You know, my mom loved it for different reasons too, But it was fun. I mean I had a good family, you know, I really did. You know, it was cool.
Well, just before we leave the money behind, you know a lot of rockers who you're vintage will complain that streaming doesn't pay and this and that. How are your royalties at this point.
I I don't know how. That's the sound of me not fucking wood. So far, my life has been good. I got a full refrigerator, nobody's ever, the lights have never gone off, got pretty cars I got. I don't want for anything. I'm sated, and uh it's a wonderful time right now for me. I mean literally, if I want it, I've got it. And if there's something in the that I see that I gotta have, I get one. And but mostly I can't speak to the actual like you asked me, like, you know, spotify royalties in these roles.
Well, let me let me let me generalize the question. Sure, do you have a significant or adequate or some kind of income from having been on those Tom Petty records.
Yes, I've been very fortunate. I was well protected and my divorce from the band was well handled by a great attorney. And I'm uh, you know, because I was ready to just throw anger and add everybody. And he I remember, my attorney was so sweet. He goes, let me go back and let's make sure we formalize all these deals and and he said, Stan, it's not I'm going to try to get the QUO quote Jeffrey Light, fabulous attorney. He said, it's not how you feel in the next seven days, it's how you're going to feel in the next seven years. And I couldn't even think that far in advance. But he was basically saying, let's make sure everything is protected and you don't just go running off into the woods screaming fuck you or you know, no, let's don't get into that. And he was lovely. And I've been very fortunate to have people take care of me. I have a great administrator, who handles all my songwriting and publishing, guy named Wicks and Wixy Music and Los Angeles and these people. Like I said, it takes a village to make someone's life work. And uh, I've tried to be a decent guy, you know, I've tried to be straightforward. And they've been really the people I've been with now for man, they've been with these people for decades and they're very wonderful and they're straight with me, and and uh, but yeah, in an issue of your question, I think I'm you know, I got something most guys don't have, Bob.
Okay, just to put a bow on it. At this point in time, in terms of royalties, how does it break down between the work you did with Tom and the work you the songwriting and other work you did in terms of percentage half and half, three quarters, one quarter.
It would very you know, it depends on the what what you know when your songs are being used for certain things that require certain licensings and then you do better there or you do but generally it's a good I wouldn't know what the percentage is, but it's probably somewhere, like you know, you'd imagine somewhere in the middle it works out well.
Okay, let's go back to you were born in Ohio. Did your parents stay together while they were alive?
No, they split up pretty quick when I was around fifteen.
What was that like, being fifteen years old and having your parents put up freedom?
It was the smell of freedom. It was. They all took off and got their own separate lives. My dad had a girlfriend, my mom had a boyfriend, and they took off, and I think they kind of forgot where I was, which was almost perfect. And I was in a band already, and so I just moved in with the bass player. So I was feral by the time I was sixteen and pretty much living in a band house with guys older than me. And it was amazing because they were we were beyond broke and having the time of our lives, the funniest shit guys. And I'm playing in a titty bar, you know, three nights a week while I'm still in high school. So my life was like a fairy freak brother.
Okay, how many kids in the family too. I got a big sister, And what's she up to? She's cool, she's got three kids, she's living down the road from me now here. She's a designer, interior designer. And once this schism happened, and you win feral. Was she on her own path or was she like being your big sister?
No? She split, she went to she's a little older, so she went to college. She left.
Okay. So you say you spent the first ten years of your life in Ohio?
No? No, first two?
First two, Okay, And you moved to Florida because.
I think Dad had a shit winner. He was working for UPS, and he woke up one day and just said, it's cold. I don't remember this obviously, according to according to my mother, he piled us all into a nineteen fifty five bell Air convertible and drove until he ran out of road. He went to mile marker one basically and drove to almost a key west and said we're here. And my mom went like, what the shit is happening? And Dad's like, I don't know, but I'm You're never going to see snow again as long as I fucking live. And he dropped anchor I think in like Coral Gables in Miami in nineteen fifty nine, and then we lived in Miami on and off between Miami and Gainswell, when my parents, we would commute to Gainsville, they go one would go to college while the other worked. And you know, Dad got his PhD. Mom made it to our masters. So we were bouncing between Miami and Gainesville, Florida throughout the pretty much the sixties.
Okay, you said your father was a psychologist. What about your mother.
Mom's cool. She was a I think she got her master's in art and she was an artiste, and she taught and she was like a substitute teacher and my librarian in school, and she's very wonderful. Like mom was, was super artistic and laughed at everything.
Okay, people who haven't been there don't know that North Florida and South Florida are really pretty different.
Oh man, it's night and day.
Okay. North Florida is more like Georgia. But in any event, you know, Miami was always a place for people to come down and Florida place to come down, but it became gargantuan in the eighties with Madonna and the drugs, et cetera. What was it like growing up in Florida in the fifties and sixties.
In Miami don't know wherever you were. Oh, Miami was a gas We lived in a well. It's one of the few places where you can create real estate, like you just dredge a canal and then you have an island. So they were creating this thing. We lived in North Miami in a place called Keystone Island, which I gather is pretty tony now, but at the time this was just like you, I don't know. Houses were probably twenty nine to five, you know, and you had a dock and you lived on a canal. So it was fantastic. Man, I wanted a boat before I could, you know, I didn't give a shit about a car, you know, I just wanted So my sister and I we had an eight foot boat with a three horse and we could just put in the canals. It was like Huck Finn. It was unbelievable. Miami was great. My grandparents would come down from Ohio, of course, like a pilgrimage to Miami and stay at the Fountain Blue and it was all. It was great, you know, like the Beatles were playing in Miami, you know, we went to the Jackie Gleason Show was being taped in Miami. It was it was. It was racy and kind of sexy and and uh and a little forbidden me. It was. It was wonderful. You know. I took drum lessons in Miami when I was a little kid, and Gainesville was a more of a a bicycle hippie liberal bastion in the middle of Florida. You know, when you got to into Gainesville, it was uh, I mean, hell, the town games was probably fifty five thousand people when we moved there. And and it was a college, you know, and they had a football team, and you could sell Coca Colas, and I could park cars, and I had a rock band, and you know, it was it was unbelievable. The simplicity of it all was, and the kindness. You know, occasionally you'd meet a real douchebag, or you'd beat somebody was a schmuck, or you get beat up, but by and large, every but he was.
It's pretty cool, Okay. Was there any thought that you were off the beaten track? No one's off the beaten track today with cable and streaming TV and the Internet. But did you ever think, well, it's really happening in New York, in la or London, and I really got to go there, I feel out of the loop or that didn't even occur to you.
You mean back then? Yeah, oh yeah, we knew. We knew that as soon as because you max out in Gainesville by the time. And I'm fortunately being a little younger than the guys, like they were probably in their twenties when they went to California, the guys in mud Crutch and there was a band called RGF that Ron Blair was in, and they had maxed out by the time they were twenties, and they were already you could see it. They were like, we got to get the hell out of here. I'm still in junior high school, but I'm already maxing out. And you knew it. You knew you had to go measure your dick against a bigger, bigger pond than you were in. Like and I remember literally my mom going, well, honey, don't go to New York. The weather's terrible, because she'd lived in New York as a kid, and she was like, no, you don't want to go there, no, honey. And I'm like going, like I said, because I'm thinking of going to LA and you know, as soon as I can get you know, I want to drop out of school and go And she was like, oh, well la is at least it's you know, your great weather, you know. So that was it. I mean, it was either going to be New York or la for me. You know, I knew you knew you were going somewhere, you know.
Okay, going back a little younger, What kind of kid were you growing up? Were you they could tell you were never isolated? You have a lot of personality. Were you the straw that stirs the drink like you know Reggie Jackson in New York? Were you the leader who have a lot of friends, you play sports, You're the class clown? Were you good in school? What were you like?
I was terrible in school, I kind of was. I was borderline dyslexic for the longest time, never read a book until I even really went to California when I finally read Jaws and the Family, you know, I mean, I finally sat down and decided I got to read a fucking book. And I was probably the class clown. I got beat up a couple of times. I wasn't a jock. So you were either, you know, you were either a long hair or you were a jock. When I was a kid, and the jocks did not dig the long hairs. You know, we were pussies. So you know, I mean I got revenge when people realized I was in the band that was playing the dance tonight. You know, that was like, that was how I got back, like, you know, oh shit, we beat up Lynch. Oh shits, he's in the band tonight. Probably don't want to beat him up anymore. Oh yeah, he's cool like you know, and I'm you know, and it was all about getting the girls attention. When we were kids. That was the only thing you wanted to do, you know, like I want I want to be noticed. And uh but yeah, I don't think I was particularly a bad kid. I mean I ran a foul of the law a couple of times, but not you know, nothing too serious. But it was it was cool. I had a good life. Man.
Still, do did you finish high school?
Kind of there was I went to every high school in Alachua County, you know, because I was living alone. I was living with a band, so I could change high schools at will, Like I could just walk into the next high school after four months and go we moved and make up a new address and they'd go okay. So my theory was if I was always the new student, I couldn't say well, I just didn't know, and so I'd get d's and c's and that was fine, you know, as long as I passed is all. I cared. And I bullshitted my way through school. And then at the last minute I was going to drop out, and I got accepted to this laboratory school in Gainesville at the last second, and I went there, and thank God for them, they would give me credit for going to California. Literally, I went to LA and as long as I came back and told the story, they'd go great. You know, So, yes I did. I graduated, but under odd conditions.
Okay, it was the sixties and early seventies. Other than beating the system, was there anything positive about going to the laboratory school?
Oh yeah. They were creative as hell. They would kind of let you do your thing, you know, like if whatever your thing was, like I claimed I was a musician, Great, you're a musician, do your thing, let's see it, you know. And and you know, I'm going to be in pottery. I'm going to make pottery. It's like, yeah, the great thing about it was then. The people there were progressive, they were forward leaning. They were you know, because this is a time too during integration and segregation. Segregated South was you know, melding and not very well. You know. So this school was mostly it was all actually uh, faculty members from the University of Florida's children, So they were I felt that they had a little more of a liberal leaning and a little more open mindedness as a result of that, maybe that family background that was my after being in all the public schools. These people, these kids were they were more open minded, you know, they were just kind of like, I don't know, so that helped.
Okay, you've lived in Florida much of your life, certainly been to Florida a number of times, never lived there. We hear about this incredible right wing turn as someone who's lived in Florida, is it different? What's different about Florida today from when you were growing up?
Honestly, maybe it's just me and maybe that I do live a little bit obviously isolated life. It's no different. And stupidity knows no geographical location. Uh, simple mindedness knows no geographical spot. You know, Racism knows no place. You know what I mean, it's it's everywhere man, And so I find life is kind of a mirror like if I if I, if I show a cool face that's accepting and caring and uh, you know, and curious, that's that tracks that crowd of people. Now, if I want to go and wear a maga hat and be a dick or whatever, I you know, whatever, whatever flag I want to fly, I'm going to find that. I'm gonna find my people. And you could do that in La You could do that in the most quote liberal living leaning places in the world. That's my impression. My Florida is really loving and kind and honest. The people I work with and meet and that I've surrounded myself with, I would trust them literally with my life. I'd give them my car keys. Everything comes back to the tanks always full.
Okay, going back to music. You're growing up. Was there music in the house or was it a matter of the transistor or seeing the beatles on Ed Sullivan? What got you into music?
There's a little music in the house. Dad could play trumpet kinda and my mom could play piano kainda and my grandmother on my mother's side was a pianist, and she was very big in the symphony in Cincinnati. And so I had some music in the background.
But were they playing records in the house. How did you get involved in popular slash rock music?
Oh? Man, the radio, I remember it. I had a bake light radio in Miami and there was a big, you know, fifty thousand watch station in Miami. And man, I would go to sleep with that thing glued to my ear. And you know, sitting the dock of the bay, Wilson Piccott wass be playing Pretty Woman, will be playing you know I walked the line would be playing. These were stations that played everything. You know. It wasn't It was just you know, sixteen Tons was playing Love and Spoonful would be playing occasionally catch a Beatles and Dave Park five and and I would listen to literally it would be like in a lightning storm. I would have that radio on and you'd hear it crackle and it would just come to me like magic. It was just the music came. It just sent me away to this special place where I don't even know how to describe it. It was like a drug when you're a little boy. For me, it was I just couldn't wait to get home and turn on the radio.
I know what you're talking about. So when did you start playing an instrument?
I started playing violin in the first grade. Tanked, I was terrible. I tried to play trumpet probably in the later maybe a couple of years later, tanked terrible. And although I did play bugle in the cub Scouts, so I could play all the bugle calls. And I started playing drums. I think I was about eight or nine. I took my first drum lesson in Miami and just fell in love with it. The guy there who was teaching me was a bebop guy and he had a drum kit, so that was magic, you know. And because and I'd already seen the Beatles obviously on TV. I was about eight when that came out, I think, and that just sent me. And then seeing Charlie Watts and seeing Mick Avery's from the Kinks, and you know, it just I just couldn't believe what I was seeing. You know, my sister screaming because Paul McCarty's so cute, and I'm watching Ringo like there's nobody else on that stage. And the same with mc Jaggery's amazing. I'm like Charlie Watts, holy shit, you know. And they both had those small four piece kits. And when I went and took my drum lesson, he had the same kit, you know, and it was like, I need to know how to do that. And then I just took lessons all the time. I took drum lessons in Gainesville for another few more years, and I was just bit bit up with it.
You know, people played full guitars and eyelin string guitars. Then the Beatles hit, a lot of people picked up guitars. Why did you pick up the drums as opposed to any other instrument?
I don't know, man, that's just like, uh, what's your favorite color? You know, like most guys pick blue, some guys picked green. And to me, the guitar it just didn't look as fun. It looked more I think the drums looked more physical, and they looked exciting, and it looked probably looked I mean, how puile is this? I got to smash shit? You know, like it looked like something like yeah, like I'm gonna bang on stuff, and it looked like you were getting to me. It seemed like you were the center of attention, which was probably what I wanted to be.
Okay, you know, back in those days, they would start you with a drum pad. Yes, so at what point did you get a drum kit? And we're the kind of kid who practiced or not.
Well. The Jean Bardow, who was my drum teacher in Gainesville, he was that guy. He had a beautiful drum kid in the corner and I wasn't allowed to sit behind it or even touch it. And for literally a year and a half I played on a practice pad with a metronome, and he taught me all my twenty six rudiments. You know, there's thirteen essential and there were twenty six, and there was a diploma you got called National Association of Rudimental Drummers or NARD. And I won in my NARD card. And so I practiced. I'd go once a week and I only didn't practice once. And I came back and he said, you didn't practice, And he said, if you're not going to practice, I don't want to teach you. And I was so heartbroken that he busted me. That I always practiced whatever he taught me, and I learned all my rudiments and then at the end of that, I passed, I got my nard, I got my diploma. I still have it up. And I said, now can I play drums? I want to play the drum kit and I'll never forget it. He said, you know, I thought better of you, He said, I thought you were going to really be a percussionist. I taught you to be a percussionist. I wanted you to be a symphony player. Essentially. He wanted me to be a real musician. And he said, if all you want to do is play the drums, he goes, I don't want to teach I don't I don't have anything to teach you. And he was and he basically dismissed me, and it was kind of like, okay, But at that moment it was already like I think I was already ready. I was ready to be in a band, you know, I wanted. So I had a Mutt you know, I got Mut drum kits, like you know, you'd buy a crummy bass drum from a pawn shop and a you know, you'd steal a snare drum from school, or you know, you'd so I had these Mutt kits that never made any sense until Finally I was making enough money because my parents weren't gonna buy me drums. They weren't those kind of they weren't that kind of family. They were like, we might do matching funds, you know, like if you have thirty dollars, we'll do thirty or But mostly I got a job. I was playing, and I was playing in a band that was a kind of a corporate band, and you had to wear Dickey's and.
Wait, wait, wait, wait wait before you get there. Did you ever play in the drum corps at school?
Oh? Yeah, I sucked at all that. I got washed out of that pretty quick too. I got washed out all that.
Okay, you say you took lessons from years, so you must have taken lessons from other teachers.
Really just two guys.
Who's the other guy?
His name was Sonny and I don't remember his last name in Miami and uh, and then Jean was the guy in Gainesville. And then you learn from other drummers. Go over to another guy's house and he'd go, have you heard the drum solo from Toad? Or do you know how to play the lick? The opening lick for love is a beautiful thing by you know the Rascals or do you know how to play? In my life by the Beatles and other drummers would learn the parts that they teach them to you. So I was pretty self taught as a drummer, like from the drum kit.
But a lot of people who play the drums have no education, no classes at all. But if having classes did that give you a little bit of a leg up?
Maybe, I mean maybe maybe. I know I played weird. My hand position was traditional, Like there's a thing it's called traditional drumming, and then there's match grip. Charlie Watts's traditional ringoes matched and I played traditional, which I think was kind of weird in rock, like I mean the cats that I grew up listening, you know, Mitch Mitchell and the Henrick's Experience played traditional, and McK avery's from the Kinks played traditional. A lot of cats from the British era, they were jazzer's I think they were. They were inventing rock and roll, those guys, you know what I mean, Like Charlie Watts kind of invented it, you know, like he was a swing he swung so hard, and those cats like Ringo and all those guys were they swung when they played. It was it wasn't just it wasn't stiff, It wasn't you know, meat and potatoes. It was all the subdivision and the goo and the and it was like listening to the you know, the great drummers like Al Jackson Junior from Booker T and the MG's and they all played traditional and cool, and that was where I was coming from.
You know, it's a practical matter. If you were a traditional or you know, you're holding both sticks the same way, how does that affect your ultimate playing and ultimate sound?
Well, I can only say what it does for me. Playing traditional allows me to do. Okay, drums are math. You know you've heard the you know one, two, three, four, we've all heard drummers count off. Well, traditionally that's a quarter note, there's four to a bar. That's math. But if you go one and a two and a three and a fouriena, that's different math. And those are the subdivisions that create the goo and the the grit in rock and roll is how you subdivide. And that's what I think is missing when the drum machine entered. You know, when Roger Lynn invented the drum machine, and became the most influential drummer of the eighties. It's like it didn't subdivide as. It was very staccato, like boom bap boom bap, and playing traditionally it allows you to drag and rush. You can articulate all these cool little things with your left hand. That's what I think it allowed me to do. And it was very frustrating for certain producers. You know, I know a couple of them just hated it. They hated that I played like that. They made fun of it, and I'm I thought it was just drumming.
Okay, So you're putting together this mutt kit. At what point do you form a band? Join a band?
Probably pretty quick. It's all happening pretty fast. I'm fifteen and I'm hanging around with Marty Girard who later him and Jeff started the Motels, And I'm Marty and I are in a band in Gainesville and he's a little older than me, so sweet, can well, let's.
Go back a little bit. Sure, I'm two years older than you. Beatles hit. If you didn't have a guitar, you'd one. There was always a drummer. You went to somebody's house, they played Gloria, you played some Beatles songs. True, you know, ultimately there were bands that worked every weekend, but there were a lot of little steps between that. What was going on for you. Garage bands we called them. And yeah, I was in a couple of fun garage bands, and one with my buddy Jeff, who I still know that I.
Grew up with. His parents had a two car garage, you know, and lived out in a subdivision, and we went out there and would play all four songs we knew, you know, like probably a Creten's Clearwater song or whatever, you know. And yeah, there was this not that many of those. I probably was in maybe two different garage bands, and you know living room bands, you know, where we could and the parents were very tolerant, you know, they were like they would let us just because we mised of us have sucked and we were loud, and we had much equipment and you know, but yeah, that that that happened pretty quick. And then you could see in the garage band who wanted to make money, who wanted to go get a make a living, you know, like who wants to give this a go? And that was where the living room balls guys with living room balls sort of stayed there like that's as far as their balls would let them go. Then the other guys would go like, wait a minute, I got I got gymnasium balls. I can go play the high school gym. Wait I got auditorium balls. I'll play the U off auditorium. And you'd sort of lose certain guys on the way because everybody's you know, it's a little scary. You know, the first time you play, and first time we play in a bigger place, you're like, am I really cut out for this? Or is my impostor syndrome raging? Are they going to see through me? You know, you're you're worried, you're going to be laughed off stage at every at every step, and then at some point you just grow balls. You just go, well, I got arena balls, I got I got the balls. I'm doing it. So, yeah, there was a lot of fun. It was a lot of fun being in a band back then because you didn't really know what was going to happen, but it was something. It was always fun. It was really fun.
So your experience going from the living room to the gym to the VFW, was it natural or did you have to get over your stage fright? What was your experience.
I kind of always suffered from stage fright all the way through the end. I had a little bit of it, but I always felt that it was probably that was I learned that that was okay, Like I think maybe it was Bill Graham. I remember one day we were playing Winterland and I said, you know, I'm nervous, you know, and he played ping pong with me, I remember, to cool me out, and I said, he goes, you're still nervous, and I said, yeah, a little bit, and he goes, make it work for you. And I remember thinking he's right, like use that energy, use it, you know, harness it. And so yeah, I was always a little scared when I look out and see my friends. Or that's the worst is to be playing at a gig and you know there's five really great drummers out there. You know, that's the worst. You know, when my drummer buddies would show up, be like, ah shit, you know. But most of the time, when you're in a band and they're good, and you know everybody in the band is like going to be like a finger on a fist, most of that nerves goes right out the window the second you step on stage with them. And that's what it was with the Guys and the Heartbreakers. I mean, everybody out there was so good. If I was feeling nervous, I just look over at Ben Mott and go, Jesus, that guy's fucking good, you know, and all your nerves would disappear because you were I'm in the bosom of greatness.
Okay, So after you left the garage from the living room, was the first band that hung together for a while and how much.
Did you work? Well, it would have been the band with Marty Girard. We worked for about a year and a half and it was good. I mean we played a lot of gigs. We played everywhere from between West Palm Beach to Atlanta to Chattanooga to Alabama, and you know, we play a week in Tampa, and you know, we were working. We were like a working band, and we play one nighters at the University and we played the three nights a week at the Titty Bar, and so we put in our By the time I got to California, we'd already put in our ten thousand hours for real.
Okay, when you're in the band with Marty Gerard. Are you done with school?
No, I'm still faking it. I'm still kind of fake in school.
Okay, So you're in the band with Marty Gerard. Is that the last band before you go to California?
Yes?
So how do you decided? Under what aegis? Do you actually go to California?
Well, the band was breaking up because Marty's pop had died, and Marty decided to make a different because I thought he was my ticket out of the ghetto. Marty was smart, talented, we still is, and you know, and he's cool, and he was older and he liked me. So I thought, Man, I'm riding Marty all the way to the show. But when Marty said, you know, I'm putting a fork in it for a minute. I'm going to go to college. You know, my pop's gone. I got to deal with some family stuff. I spent probably about a week in Florida and went, that's it, I'm out, And so I just loaded my shit up, took my share of the PA, and loaded my shit into the van and drove to California.
Did you know anybody in California? Did you have any money? What was the plan?
I had no money. I remember my dad loan me a hundred bucks and that was it. That was it. He was pretty disappointed in me because I think he thought I was going to get that out of my system at that point, like you probably got this oide of your system now. And he thought I was going to go to college. And I remember one of the last thing I said, Dan, I'm going to la and he goes, uh. I think his quote was great, just what the world needs another fucking out of work drummer.
That's a lot of encouragement.
Yeah, yeah, well he was. He he's stuck with that theme pretty good throughout the entire you know, my entire career. But it was I think he was basically scared to death of what was going to happen if it failed. I think my father was. He was, he was fear of verse. He wasn't you know, he wasn't going to go into the abyss. He was like, I'm going to get a well, hell, he had kids and a wife. He's going to get a job at the post office before he takes on something that stupid. So I went to California. I didn't have any money, but I didn't know a few people. My sister had already moved there and with her boyfriend who was later to be in the Heartbreakers. Briefly he was the guy who started the motels, Jef Gerard, and I went out there and I probably stayed with him for a for a maybe a week or two, and then I was sort of booted from their house because they didn't need me hanging around. And then I think I knew of people. I knew that the Mudcretch guys were in LA but I didn't know how to find him or didn't know where they were. But the Coconut Telegraph, the Florida Telegraph was working pretty good, like we you know, by the time I got a phone, I think I was living in a basement and one of the guys, the guys who lived up stairs, was from Gainesville and he was a singer, so he was telling me where Ron Blair was, who was living next door. And then I ran into Benmont and we would It was very natural, like we all just sort of, oh, we ran into each other.
You know, Well, if you left with one hundred dollars, did you have to have a day job.
I did briefly get a day job, but I was scamming a lot too. I was, uh, you know, I was not above cashing a check that wasn't mine, you know, if I found one or I was you know, the world was different. Let me put it that way, you could. I was scamming. I got food stamps, I got you know, I was a punk. But I did get a job at Peaches Records on Hollywood Boulevard. I remember, yeah, yeah, so that was cool. I got there until you know, so I worked, but I did get a real I actually got it, you know. But but fifty bucks or one hundred bucks a week was plenty, you know.
Okay, but you came to be a drummer. So how were you going to further or what did you do to further your musical career?
I signed up with mcs LA Musicians Contact Service for fifteen bucks a month. You could you wrote, you wrote a like on a business not a business card, an index card, and you put your thing on the wall. It would say like, you know, drummer seeking, all original seeking, you know, original band members, originals only, pros only you know, like have gig well, you know, have professional gear. And I auditioned for several bands in California and I got a job with one that was fun, a bunch of guys from Texas. I was playing with them for about a year or six maybe six months. I guess they were great, a lot of fun. And then in that time frame I met Re met Ben Monteche again, and that's when the band. That's how that all got together, well a.
Little bit more granular. You reconnected with him. How did it end up being Tom Betty Heartbreakers?
I think I was living in the basement. Ben came over told me mud Cretch had broken up, which was that was the band that got to They took to California and got signed. I think it all. I don't I don't know really what happened, but it it fell apart. Ben Mott was in my basement and we were probably drinking and talking and and we came up with this idea though of we both we both loved British rock. Benmont has wide ranging tastes, but we we had that in common that we both loved, like the faces and free and we both loved all of that. We loved that kind of mutt in the stones, sort of somewhat machismo, just cool. We liked all that stuff and we decided we were going to put together a band called Drunks and we were going to be like the baddest, coolest band ever. And during this, you know, fever dream somewhere along. And during that couple of days, he got studio time and we ended up in a recording studio to cut Benmont's songs. And Ben said, well, who do you want to bring? And I said, well, Ron Blair lives next door. I'd never played with Ron, but I'd hung out with him a bit and loved his record collection and he was just a cool guy. So he came to the session and Ben brought Mike.
Okay, then how does it become Tom?
I think Tom showed up to play harmonica at some point and I didn't really think anything of it, and then, uh, I think the next day literally Tom called me, probably called everybody, but I remember him going, you know, like Stanley, you know, what are you doing? And I said, well, I'm in a band. I'm in this band with these guys from Texas. He goes, what do you want to throw in with me? You know? And I said, well what does that mean? You know? I said, I don't want to leave a band unless I'm getting in a band. And he said, well, let's start a band. And I said, well that sounds good, and and he said, we're gonna I've got a I'm going to make an album. I've got to I guess he had a deal, you know, he still had a deal as a writer. And that's how that worked in its way into.
That Okay, he makes that phone call, then what happens do you rehearse, do you go on the road, do you immediately go in the studio? How does it play out?
Kind of Yes, we all got together in the at Shelter Studio, which wasn't a studio yet. It was called the Brown Room, and it was just a room on top of a like a just a room. It was terrible, you know, had Christmas lights and it was just gross. It was hot, and it was in the a ceedy part of town and just what you'd expect. And we went up there and just bashed our brains in and we learned covers and we learned to communicate with each other, like we learned what we both what we all liked, like, you know, we found our common ground probably within it felt quick, but I mean I'm guessing maybe a month we found our common ground in that brown room, and and then Tom would start introducing pieces of songs that he was writing, like, you know, starting from the groove, you know, you would just say like how you know you He would just show you little snippets, and then I think this is about right chronologically, Danny Cordell said, sent me and Tom to Tulsa and we went to the church where Leon had a church and to go I guess just to go check it out. I don't even know what we were doing there, but we shared a room and we went and walked around and we recorded a song just the two of us on the first record called Luna.
My favorite song on the record.
We did that in some weird I don't know what the hell was going on that night. We were probably both blitzed, and who knows how that happened. And then we came back and we were started. Denny Wood if he had a we went into a proper studio. I think we went into A and M one night and cut a song. We went into other places, and then at that time the shelter was being moved to the brown room, so we had a quote recording studio to work in, and we made those first records. At least the first record was very primitive. I mean, whoa, I mean the drums are on one track, you know, like you can pull the drums out by pulling one fader, which is for those of you that don't know, that's pretty primitive recording, you know. And and we made those records almost like we didn't even know. I didn't know we were making records. I thought we were just recording. And then Denny would come in and go, oh, that sounds great. Guys, you know that's fantastic.
Okay, you're throw in with Tom. He's got a deal. Do you think you hit the big time or you still I'm just figuring it out.
Any day that I was moving up the food chain, I had hit the big time. Any day that I moved from shit to a little better shit, you know and a little less shit, was was almost the day I could retire.
Okay, what did Denny Gordell add as a producer?
Swa DIVI? You know, he had this worldly it just had this sense of him like you know, he he he had been exposed to a lot more music. Well you know his background, I'm I'm pretty sure you know. And and he had a tremendous pedigree, you know, and he turned me on to like. I remember one night they were all using these words like groove and feel, and I'm like, how do you quantify that shit? You know, like Stan, we're looking for a feel and I'm like, ah, but I remember, he said, and he just he burned this giant joint with me. And he had a Ferrari Daytona out in the parking lot and he said, get behind the wheel, and I did. I got behind the wheel and we went under the underpass. I forget in la which one, but he said, put it in a second gear and punch it. And I did. The twelve cylinder car just what you know, and he goes, he goes, that's a groove and I go that helps, and he goes. Then we went and saw it at the same night. We're stone out of our minds, or I was. We go to the Santa Marcocific and watch Bob Madley and the whalers and the place is just you know, they're hypnotized. The whole place is hypnotized. And I'm just freaking out. And he goes, he looks over me and whispers in my ear. He goes, that's a feel, Stan, and I go, there's groove and feel. So that's what Danny brought. And he brought that like how to make the intangible real to a young, a nineteen year old guy, how to make it real for you, Stan? And when I was struggling with a drum part, I remember looking at me and just blowing smoke in my face and going, you know, if you leave all that shit out, Stan, they'll always misinterpret you as tasteful. Haha. I mean so when you say what did he bring, he brought everything right, Like he the fact that he didn't fire me and just bring in Jim Calder, who was sitting there the whole time. You know, Calder and Jim Gordon were in that in his per you know, they were in his sphere. Those were his drummers. The fact that he just said, Hey, let this fucking idiot figure out how to be in a band, and I'll help him along. Jim give him a little advice, you know. And it was like, so, you know, a guy like Denny Cordell without him, I don't know if there is it's another It takes a village, you know.
Let's back up for one second, you're stan Lee in an era where that's not really a hip name. What was it like growing up as Stanley?
It was you know, it's just like what you just said. It was said you could say Stanley, or you can say it in a way that's just yep. You know what's coming next. You know it's a you know, I mean, it was kind of cool for a minute when it was standing man, you know, musual a right, like you know, it was cool for a minute for those of you that even know that is, but like, you know, stand the man. But then it was like, yeah, you're right Stanley. Oh oh you know whatn't I don't.
Know, Okay, the first album is done before it comes out, do you guys think American Girl will be a hit?
I don't even know what that means. But just so you know, when we recorded that song, one of my dear friends who I still know and love to this day, happened to be there as my buddy. He was there when we recorded that, and I remember when we played it back, I didn't really think anything. I was probably kind of so excited that I was still on the record, you know that they were liking it. But I remember him looking over. He goes, that's a hit record, and I'm like, what the fuck are you talking about? He goes, that's a hit record, man, you know, And I'm like, so people knew something about that song was special before I did, you know. But I always knew that there was something big about it, you know.
So the record has come out out on Shelter, which is not the most powerful record label. It's nineteen seventy six. Because Tom wears a leather jacket on the cover, people throw the Heartbreakers a little bit into a punk world, which it isn't. And because it's the era of the press, gets a lot of press, almost no action. How do you decide to go to England and how does it get traction in England?
Once again entered Danny Cordell, who probably had I believe had contacts with Island Records, you know, in England. He was tight with those cats. And I think we were offered a slot in England opening for Nils Lofgren, and we went there on a wing in a prayer. I think we borrowed twenty grand from the Kiddy, you know, like we asked if we could get our hands on that. That's my memory of it. And we ended up there. You know, we flew there in each other's laps, and you know we're all living in you know, like two rooms, and off we go.
Well, you know, we were reading about it across the pond. How much did you work and at what point did you say it's working?
Well? England was really good to the band quick. Some something happened in England that was not happening for us anywhere else. And we opened We did that tour with Nils and we were good. That's the other thing I mean, I can honestly tell you, without Bravado, that was a fucking good band. And we knew what we were doing. We didn't know many songs, but we knew that. We knew that album, and we knew how to play it, and we knew a couple of covers, and we we were disciplined when we walked. I didn't care if if you were half dead, you went out and played a great We played great, and we did that tour with Nils and then literally we were going to come home the next night, next night and the record label said, why don't you stay in headline all those same shows that you just did. We were like, holy fuck, really, So that's how that it was that quick walking around London and seeing posters with our name on them, and you know, it was very quick.
Okay, since you mentioned covers, how did you guys end up doing The Animals? Don't bring me down?
We were stoned in love with the Animals, I mean the band. That was one of the things we all could agree on, like, well, there were many things like what is cool, Eric Burda The Animals, that's fucking cool. And so I didn't even know it was a goffin King song. I didn't, you know, I had know concept of who wrote this shit. I just knew that that song that whole you know, I loved every There wasn't an Animal song I didn't love. So I think the fact that Benmont could could play that correctly, and when as soon as I heard him play it, like you went game on once again. I turned to Ben and Mike because those guys had it. If they heard it, they knew it. And that was almost the concept of the everybody in that band. You didn't have to write it down, you didn't have to You heard it, you know it go and Tom had an amazing sense of retention for lyrics. I mean Jesus Christ. That song Jaguar and the t Bird, it's verbal diarrhea for three minutes and Tom remembers words. So he had a special extra chromosome that made all that work. You know, that was really beautiful like so that that the animals, no brainer?
Okay. So on this side of the pond in La, which is you know, is regional radio, totally different market, they started playing a live version of Breakdown. At what point do you guys realize something is happening, quantify something, help me out here? Okay? If you were paying attention, which is not everybody, but it's a different world, either you were reading the magazines or you weren't. Okay, you know to that song original they played at k Rock was a free format station, and then you guys played the Whiskey a couple of times, which is really only three hundred and fifty people. Yeah, but there was a lot of press about it, etc. Did you guys feel like, Okay, we're on our way now.
Nah. I don't think I ever thought that. I thought. I guess, okay, people Florida. Nobody in Florida had heard of us yet. So that was my litmus test in a weird way, like you know, I call home, or I call an old girlfriend, or I call somebody I knew, and they'd say like, yeah, man, we're blah blah blah, and go, oh, really, you're in a band called the the heart Heartbreaks. I haven't heard that. Or you're in a band called the Breakdowns. Oh that's cool, you know, like it'd be like, oh shit, it's not. It wasn't getting through home yet. I didn't think we'd I knew we'd connected probably by the time. That's not really your question. But Saturday Night Live the first time we played that and you walked off the stage and you walk down the street in New York City the next morning and they went yo yo yo, petty hey yo at a refugee. You know, it was like that was when to me because being on TV was a big deal back then. People don't realize that now, you know, because everybody's on fucking TV and TV you know what it was, it even mean, But back then, being on Saturday Night Live was was a big deal, and MTV was a big deal, and I think we were. I didn't. I didn't. We didn't get MTV on the West Coast. I don't think that was what was so funny. I think when it came up, I was in New York staying with a buddies place in the village, and he got MTV and I remember turned on the TV and it was like, holy shit, it's us eight times a day, you know what I mean, Like and uh and he's going like, yeah, yeah, we're all sick it, you know, like going right, of course, you know.
Okay, the second album, you're gonna get it. Very good album in my own eyes, not as good as the first.
Sure, you know.
The big press story is listen to her hard. Tom won't let the label change the word cocaine in the band. Did you feel like you'd lost any momentum or it seem like we're still you know, we're going forward.
I wish I could tell you there was any thought or any even aware self real awareness. All I knew is we were still in business, literally, like the boys from Florida were still in business, Like we got to make another record and we're actually I think we were, unless I'm mistaken. I think that was around the time we're playing like civic size gigs and we're playing the Paramount, We're playing theaters. Now I think I got a I can think I got that right, and so in my mind, we're kicking ass. So I wasn't. And I think we even had a gold record when that thing came out. I remember, yeah, there's pictures of us getting We got our gold records, and I put one on the wall. So loss of momentum contraire, I would say, in my mind, it's like the foot was on the you know, it felt like it felt like victory to me. You know, it smelled like smelled good, you know.
Okay, So Shelter is sold to MCAM is very lame label at the time. Ben doesn't like that there's a declaration of bankruptcy. What does it look like from inside the hornet's nest there?
Well, I think you left out ABC in there too, I think.
Yeah, Well, AB Shelter had to deal with ABC, and then ABC was sold to MCA.
Well, the cool thing about ABC was we met John Scott, who was the you know and that one again it takes a village. John Scott was the guy who heard break. He has certainly told me and he wrote a book about it exactly. But with all due respect, got to love that guy. Man I mean, you know anyway, Okay, like I said, it takes a village. Let me name a few people before this is over, okay, MCA. I wasn't really privy to all the bookkeeping, horror of all of that. All I knew was the bottom line that we could sell. I think it was postulated we could sell five million records and never break even. That was the log line the takeaway for me, and Tom just said, well fuck it. And I remember we were making torpedoes. We were all taking tapes and sequestering them away under weird names, and we're not even making a record, and it was, uh, it was an odd time. And then filing for bankruptcy. I think once again, Tom was a master at spinning that which to me could have been an embarrassment. That could have been embarrassing, like oh here he goes following, Tom flipped the script and made that into a on a battle, uh you know, like it was like Dave and Goliath, and he made he made it as the underdog versus the overlord. And I think that that played beautifully. And I think you know, to his credit, he never felt embarrassed or shamed by bankruptcy. He felt this is the way. This is the way it's got to be handled. That's my fifty cent tour of it.
Okay, you start working with Jimmy Ivan. He'd been working with Dinny Cordell. What's it like with Jimmy and what does Jimmy do? He brought a lot of awareness. I think he was very good for Tom in his song selections. I think he pushed Tom to bring him great songs. And I think that's probably any good producer, now that I've learned the job. First order of business, do we have great songs?
And I think Jimmy went right to Tom and said let me hear him, and to Tom's credit, most of them were there. He brought Shelley Acus, who was unbelievably talented engineer compared to what we had previously been dealing with, which was you know, I wouldn't have known that there was between a soup spoon and a SM fifty seven, you know what I mean. So Shelley brought all this incredible knowledge to the table microphones recording, and he even took me drum shopping, you know, literally to help me get a drum sound, because he said, your drum sound starts here. You know it starts with you and your drum sound isn't what we need. And so he literally spent three days going to music stores helping me create a sound. So Jimmy brought a lot of that New York energy hit records. He even knew what the fuck that meant, you know what I mean, he actually knew what that meant. And I believe he also knew that MTV was fixing to become the biggest radio station in the world, and he knew that Tom was going to be part of that. I think he had all He had a big picture that I certainly didn't have.
Okay, damn, the Torpedo is gigantic, Okay, hard promises after that not quite as big, but the band is on an arena tour. Long after Dark not as good as the previous two From Inside the gold Mine.
Do you feel like, hmm.
Maybe this is going in the wrong direction or is it just another you know album you're making?
You know at that point where Heart promises now no long after Dark, oh, long after Dark, I don't know. I thought from a you're you know, you've got a nice forty thousand foot view that I don't have. You know what, I mean like you're looking at it. I'm looking out at out through it. And from my perspective, it was pretty cool, you know what I mean? Literally, I don't know, like you said, we're on arena tours, there's new songs on the set list. Now there's these. I enjoyed that record more than Torpedoes because I thought the drums were more fun and more bombastic, you know, like I enjoyed like the Waiting and night Watchmen and.
No, I love that album. I'm talking about the album after.
Oh Long, After Dark, Right, Yeah, I kind of guess I might have felt a little bit of a you know, maybe some little like a sag is that the word? Like, you could feel like the arc is like it's well and but Tom was a very good cheerleader too, and he would say, you know, like when like you Got Lucky is a hit, and he would say, Stanley, that's going on the set list. So as long as long as we were thinking about the live gig, my life was made. That was my depth of my awareness at how old a guy I was at that point, you know, my late twenties. Was like we're gonna tour, you mean, we're gonna go go on the road again.
Right, okay, But then you switch everything up, you know, more time goes by two and a half years. You start working with Dave Stewart, who's hot with the rhythmics. You put out an album that whatever people's expectations are, suddenly it's played on MTV and the band is as big as it ever was, if not bigger. So what was the view from inside there?
God? I was such a simpleton. I mean, I wish you could the guy you're talking to you right now is not that guy. So that guy was probably thinking, boy, the girl in the video is really cute. We're getting to make videos. This is awesome. I got a nice car. I was such a bonehead. But you know what, I think I was actually the perfect drummer at that point. I was exactly what you'd expect out of a rock and roll drummer in his late twenties experiencing success. So from my perspective, it was Alfredy Newman, What me worry? You know, It's like, so what did Dave Stewart add to the bis? Dave was cool, you know, it was like not really my cup of tea for the band. I didn't understand, like, you know, I cool guy, I mean really cool guy, but I didn't understand what he was doing with our band. To me, we were a gang and I don't under you know, I would never understand why any people were in our gang that weren't in our gang. You know, so Dave. But but I played on a record. Dave had me play on a sisters are doing It for themselves that you're you know e rhythmic Aretha and I Love on a session four Dave. He was very exciting. I didn't understand what he was doing in our band, but that was but Tom loved it. He was having fun. So what am I gonna say? Great?
Okay? What was it like touring with Dylan?
Oh? Man? Uh? That was the high point of drumming for me? It was It was never as good and it will probably never be that good again because that was a high, total high for me. And what was it like? It was like a high wire act every night, but knowing you were gonna, you were gonna, you were gonna connect it was but every night was shot from a cannon. I don't even know we're gonna what we're gonna do, but it was. He was amazing, the most soulful, fearless, uh rock star. I've ever had the pleasure of looking at it, at his ass, you know, from like that guy is the shit. That's all I remember thinking. And I wasn't enamored when we started. I became a fan as we played with him. I missed Bob the first time. I was so stupid I missed it. But boy did I get it when we were on the road with him. That guy taught me that you know it's your way or if you ain't doing your thing, you're doing somebody else's thing. And he was the shit.
Okay, I know people have been on the road with Bob, worked with Bob. They're on a thirty day tour. He nods to them, doesn't he really even talk to him? What was your experience?
Extremely personable, he talked a lot. We actually kind of hung out, like we we went and saw Frank Sinatra and Sammy Davis together. Like I won't say that we were like asshole buddy, he's I mean, I don't think he needed an asshole. He didn't need a new friend. He was, but I think he he was extremely tolerant of this bombastic load of shit that was playing behind him. The whole time, and he said, I think he kind of got a kick out of it. I think, you know, I never asked him, but I got great feedback from him. Uh uh. He was funny. He's funny as shit. Man. He was personal nice to my mother.
Well, can you say, Okay, are you the type of guy, because you're verbal and agreeable, that you're the one who's gonna make the friends with Bob Dylan or you just want to five friends of.
Bob Dylan and the band? Good question. I I just did what felt natural, Like if Bob and I were in the room, I'm going to start talking, you know, I'm gonna and if he doesn't want to talk, he'll walk away. I mean, I don't know. I don't think Bob is that concerned with everybody else. I think if Bob was in the mood to say hi to me, he would then, and if he was in the mood to make a joke, he'd make a joke. And and if he was in the mood to be jocular on stage, I don't think he premeditates. He's not a lot of showbiz in Bob. You know, there's like a I think it's his personality off stage and on stage, I don't know that the veneer. It's very thin between them, if there is one at all, it's like, eh, but yeah, I found him to be hysterical and uh, I loved it, and we got to go places I would have never gone if it hadn't been for Bob.
You know, Okay, you know people make movies, go on the road with people, best buddies. They never see him again. You ever hear from or run into Bob Dylan again.
It's been ages, but I got to say. When Sammy Davis died, he left a message on my answering machine that touched me. And I got a Christmas card from Bob oddly enough once where he had He was so sweet, and I felt that maybe I I didn't know how to respond. I was, Oh, I was, and still am in over my head how I would or why I would reach out, or if he would even give a shit. But I've always sent messages through his manager or anyone near him. Please tell him I love him, tell him, I hope he's well, and you know, because I mean it. It's like, but no, no, I don't think, no, I don't know. We're not communicating.
Okay, it ends with the Heartbreakers. You're now Stan Lynch, How do you pick yourself up? And where do you go from there?
I was very fortunate. Probably within about two days of sitting, you know, in my house, just kind of going what the fuck is going to happen? The phone rings and it's Don Henley and it's like, he goes, you know, hey, Bud, what are you doing? And I'm like, I don't know. He goes, you know, he basically like I heard, you know, that's Don. It's always pretty curt very short, and I heard, you know, what are you doing? I go, and he goes, We'll get your ass on a plane, put your studio in a bunch of boxes and get it out of here. I go, what's going on? He goes, I'm putting the Eagles back together, and I need a song and I want you to help. You know, see what you got. I want to see if you got a song for the band. So I went from like fucked beyond belief to wow, my big brother calledy has something for me to do. So it went. It was it was a complete like I went through I shot through a door courtesy of Don and ended up at his place writing songs.
Well, you have a song on the Health Wheezys Over album, but from the moment you get on the plane, how much work is there with How long did that period of time Health wheeze Is Over last for you? Before that happened, before the No No no, once it started. Once you came to LA, come to write songs. You know, you can write song in a day and go home. You can write song, can make a record of be a year. I mean, how long were you out working on that before you had to figure out what we're going to do next?
Oh well, one thing leads to another, Work leads to work, work begets work. So with Down, I went out there and you know, I wrote a lot of stuff that didn't connect with him. He didn't like it great, but you know, you go through your process and then one thing did connect and the next thing he said was wanting you come co produce it. So I went to LA and started writing with Don, and then probably an album came up after that. Like I would just I stayed in gear. I never stopped really with with Don and with other people. It's just one thing led to another and I just stayed working.
Well, how busy were you.
As much as I could stand.
And you talk about having a staff writing deal with John, how did that come together?
Well, when I throughout with the Heartbreakers, I always had a publishing deal is what they called him, and you were a staff writer essentially, you know. And I probably had been through six or seven publishing companies by the time I stopped doing that, So I was always a writer. Somebody had my my publishing, you know. I made a series of goofy deals until finally Wickson said, quit making deals. We're going to get all your shit back and we're going to administrate it correctly, and we're going to organize you. And I'm not quite sure if that answers your question.
Well, you said that when you met John, it sounded like you were one thing to have a publishing deal. It's another thing where they give you money every week. So I guess I thought it was the kind of deal where hey, you know, we'll pay you write a certain number of songs other people try to get covers. Or is it just like, hey, you have a deal, like you always have a deal.
It's the deals were there's every kind of deal. It depends on how hungry you are and how broke you are, Like you can make co publishing deals where they give you an advance annually and then they own pieces of it for a certain amount of time. It's very complicated. And that's where I said, like this guy Wicks and Randall came in with an army of lawyers and figured out my trail of tears for the last twenty five years of publishing, and you know, and got it all back for me. But with John and I, we happened to both be in Nashville writing for separate companies. He was with I think Pierce Southern. I might have been with Warner Chapel, and we were both just writing songs for other people.
Okay, you end up having a country hit with Tim McGraw. How does that happen?
I don't know.
You tell me, I mean it, I don't know, dude. Well, let me ask you. You know, in Nashville they have these writing sessions. Yes, how was the song written? And how long until it got to Tim?
Relatively quickly? I mean it was we were we were all thrown together. There was a guy I was working with who I had known pretty well, and it was we got together and we wrote one afternoon, but probably wrote three songs is what you do in Nashville. You know, you you write a lot of songs, which is not what I do, but when you're in Nashville, you do it. And we wrote, then you demo. At the end of the week, we demoed the song and I think we played for the publisher. Now at that point, I was gone, shit, I just wrote I was out of there. And then I think I got the call from my Cope part, my Cope writer on that, and he said, yeah, it's on hold for McGraw and I'm like, eh, cool, whatever that means. And then he said, oh, yeah McGraw cut it. Well, whatever that means, because you could probably cut fifty songs. And I make the you know, it's like all this is all and then he goes, I think it's just it's going to be a single. I'm like what. And then it was like then Steven's called me when he goes Son of a Bitch went to number one. So I flew to I flew to Nashville and we drove around of the car till we heard it together, which was really fun.
Okay, let's go back with Don Henley. You know he reaches out after you lose your gig with the Heartbreakers, but you worked with him on a second and third solo albums and have songwriting credits. How did that come together?
Because he's a he's a good dude, and he must have seen he saw something in me that he felt it was entertaining, and he really trained me into the discipline of writing. Like my first writing with Henley came from Danny Kortzmeyer introduced me to Don. Danny and I became friends and Don Danny said, come down. He's producing Don's second album, and he said, you know you should come down, you know, come down, you know, hang out and hang out with us. And in the process, Dany said something funny to Don, like, you know, you should get together with this guy. He's funny. And Don's like, oh yeah, what's he got, you know? And they gave me a track and uh and and I wrote words like and you know, Don corrected my spelling literally like before he would even read it. He remember him saying, you know, you can't read. He goes, can you fucking read? And I remember going like, oh JESU, this is the most embarrassing day of my life. And he was like, Tony, get this idiot. Some books. You know, he needs to read these books. And you know, Stan, you're smart, but you you're basically a functional illiterate. And so Don took me under his wing and taught me how to co write, you know, essentially for him for his process. He said, here's what I need, here's how it works for me. And that's not universal, that's very specific for Don. And and he's, uh, but what an education? What an And that's an invitation only room. You know, you don't invite yourself to co write with people like that. You just you wait and if they invite you. And he's invited me pretty much every time since his second solo to try, Hey, pony up, there's no guarantee, Stan, pony up? What do you got? And then the last few records we've co produced together and it's been great. I mean, what an education? What an education?
Okay? On the two thousand album, you know, Inside Job, which I love, not as commercially successful as the one before. Sure, my favorite song on that album is My Thanksgiving. You have a writing credit on that. Can you tell me what you did on that? If you can remember music music?
Basically, I think I had a twelve string guitar that day, and and Jay Winding was there and he's these guys are really talented, by the way, you know, when I say Jay Winding, it's like for those that don't know shit, these guys are top, top drawer. And he had a relationship with Don, and we were all in the room massaging chord changes and Don would say, I like that, I like where that's going, I like how that feels. And Jay would say, you know, hey, what if we do this? And we were three on a match. That's really what it was all reassuring each other that's going to be cool, you know, But I agree, you know. But but Don's Don's gift is well, he's got a few but that he can phrase, and he can convey emotion, and he's a poet.
Okay, the average person doesn't know how the music business really works. But if your name is not on the record and you want to work, you got to hustle. You gotta keep relationships. Obviously, you make friends, create opportunities. But once you were on your own, starting in the mid nineties, to what degree did you work it and still work it?
Was I still working in the nineties.
No, No, okay, let's talk about people further down the food chain from you, someone who goes on the road playing with the band, but it's not a member of the band.
Ah.
Okay, that person is keeping up relationships twenty four to seven, sure because they know this job is gonna end. I'm gonna need another job. Okay, you've been independent for thirty years. To what degree are you working at networking? And make sure that you have enough work or is it always just falling in your.
Left I can honestly tell you I have no hustle. I don't. I never had a manager, you know I didn't. I have no social media presence. I reach I work, I think around after my tenure with the group, I decided subconsciously I would only work with friends. I'm only going to work with people who like me or I like them. And it became more like a canoe trip metaphorically, like music for me was like, I'm not getting into the canoe with an asshole or somebody that's just gonna yell at me. I'm gonna go get in the river and we're gonna paddle together and we're gonna laugh, and if we get somewhere cool, we're gonna pull over to the side. And eat, and it's like, I've been really fortunate that I haven't had that experience where I've had to be what's gonna happen next, Shit, this gig's gonna end. I was almost grateful when a gig ended because I needed the break. Like, you know, those Don Henley records stressful. They're stressful for Don, they're stressful for me. They're stressful because he has a high bar. He's hard on himself, so he demands everybody bring their best game and he's disappointed if you don't. So there's a lot of stress when you work with someone of you know, that kind of heat. So when those records would come to an end, I would honestly go home and sit on the beach for six weeks grill and chicken and drinking a bottle of wine, going, oh great, you know, it felt like a tour, you know. So I've been very fortunate that it's the work has been there with the people I love to work with.
Okay, outside of your village where you live, to what degree is Stan Lench recognized?
Nil? You know, my body is, my physical presence has changed so dramatically. You know, it's like, you know, I'm a grown man. I mean I was, I was a boy when I was in the Heartbreakers, you know, I you know, like, you know, the most important thing you can be in your twenties and thirties is is good looking. You know, in your forties and fifties, you better be smart and you know, and and hopefully rich whatever that means, you know, accomplished, you know, and by the time you're my age, you know, you don't trade on any of the same things that I traded on as a kid. I now I trade on you know, joy and created, creativity and and you know, I trade in those areas now, Like so I'm not. I'm It's not that I feel like I've made it. It's more like I feel like I don't. The only thing I got to prove is to the people that that respect me. And most of the people I'm trying to impress are dead.
You know, who are you trying to press? Who's dead?
Oh jeez, I'd love to impress John Lennon, you know, I'd love to impress you know, I shoot, I'd love to impress Charlie Watts. I'd love to impress Brian Jones, you know, I mean, there's so many it's like, you know, like my heroes, most of the heroes i've you know, they were older than me, so therefore they've moved on. And those are the people in my jury. Now when I'm working, I'm going, you know, Charlie Watts would go, no, man, that's not swinging, get the fuck out of here, or uh, you know. And I'm lucky, like you know, I still have friendships with the people I admire, like you know, like Steve Lucather. He'll call me and goes, Stanley, let's let's work on a tune. And I'm like, are you shitting me?
Man?
Of course I will, you know, and you know, and you know Luke so I mean, how he's a fucking bonfire. Just stand next to you know, like you want to get warm, Call Luke. It's like you're on fire by the time you hang off the phone. And that's how I feel about the people. Well, hell, one hundred percent of them now are that way from me, because otherwise I don't answer their calls and they don't they don't call me. We turn each other on. And that's why I'm maintaining these kind of friendships business relationships. There there's very it's all messed up, you know, as fucked up as music is it as fucked up as the sounds. It's my social life.
I know what you're talking about. Okay, So the speaker Wars albums coming out, YEP, it could set the world on fire. You say you're managing your expectations. Let's assume that you have some you know, are you saying, I'm committed no matter what happens, We're going to make another second record. This is another record of second record. This is a band. We're saying, this is what I'm doing now, all.
Of the above. It's like we're John and I are always writing songs. We've we've already got a we've got a chest full to look at for another record already which will be better than this record, because that's the evolution. I feel like with this band, we're putting a like us like a bookmark in the in our lives right now. We're kind of going, this is what we can do today with given what we had to work with. If we get another shot, it'll be better because that's what we do, you get better. And I'm looking forward to hopefully getting a shot at playing so we can evolve more as a band, and that will allow us to record more as a band. So I look for natural evolution. There's been no planning to my life to this point, so there's no point in planning.
Okay, Stan, you're very entertaining, very warm. I'm sure my audience will love you. I want to thank you for taking this time, and I certainly wish you luck with a record. You know, that's the kind of record those of us were died in the wool rockers cotton right too. You know it sounds like what you know we believe in the song is right there. You can hear the instruments, there aren't the trappings. It's good.
Well, thank you. It's very it's it's primitive and it's basic, and it's what we wanted to do to get started. You know, Like I said, it takes a village. So your listeners, if you have a chance, I hope you listen. And it means the world to me to just be allowed to keep I keep being allowed to do this. I uh shit, don't stop.
But we're gonna stop right now until next time. This is Bob left Sex
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