#2550 - Rick Springfield

30:41Right. But when you're at a concert, everyone's pointing the same way. Also, it's all positive. Like if your team loses, you don't leave there dejected. If you're there to see, you know, fill in the blank, whatever band, and you leave there, you're like, fuck, that was awesome. Yeah. I say actually that our job is to give the audience 90 minutes, two hours of freedom from the crap that bothers them during the day. Yes. And it frees us too. Yeah. It frees me when I'm out. I don't think of all the shit that, you know, that the monkeys talk in my head. So it's a mutual, you know, mutual good feeling.

31:18Yeah, 100%. And it's also, it's like such a uniquely positive thing that you can give to people. And if you can perform to your fans every night, the amount of positivity you're spreading and the amount they're receiving and you're receiving is just what a unique life. Because the average person will never experience what you experience on a normal night. Yeah, that's probably true. I think there are different versions of that. I mean, like you understand that. You get a lot of attention for what you do. You know, it's basically somewhere inside you going, someone's noticing me, what I do. I'm not just, it's not just, you know, because we create art.

32:16We create art because we just have to. And art doesn't exist to be liked. Our ego wants it to be liked. and it's our ego I think that that whole thing charges you know the whole audience thing charges but I think if you don't have any any ego you're not going to get into the business anyway right and I think it feeds that and I think it's uh it's the smart person who can try and put it into perspective and not you know like certainly Mick Jagger has put it into perspective He certainly had time to put it into perspective, and his is a huge experience. I think Paul McCartney, the same way, is very – it seems – considering what he's done, he's amazingly grounded, I think.

33:12Yeah, for sure. I mean just to be not completely insane when you're that famous for that many years. The most famous. I think everyone has to have an ego and the ego kind of gets you to the dance. But if I think if you're objective about it and if you're smart about it, you realize that like serving the ego is it's a fruitless effort. It's there's that's not the way to do it. No, I agree. I think the way to do it is to eventually transfer from I want all these people to like me to I want to put all my energy into whatever it is, the craft, whatever it is, and making it amazing. And don't think about anything else like, oh, they're going to love me for this.

33:59I think that poisons the well. I agree. And I think that's what I meant by art just is. You just create art out of, you know, because you have to, because you need to. But it's the ego that makes it want to be liked, you know, which is not I don't mean that's a good thing. I just mean that's it gets you to the dance. Yeah. There's no without ego, without wanting that. And most most people who start out in it, they start out from a place of being an outcast and feeling like they don't get enough attention. So, well, me too. And then you decide, oh, this will get me way more attention than I've ever had in my life, and it'll fill that hole.

34:41Fill that hole, but it never does. Never does. But I think once you become centered or grounded in this experience, then your focus should not be on you and attention. All of your energy should be into what you're doing, whether it's making songs or writing jokes and performing them, whatever it is. It's like then it becomes, OK, now the new task with all this energy is just let me do the best I can with whatever this thing is that I'm doing. Yeah, I agree. I think like the first, I always say the first couple of years when I went first hit for me, I thought it was all about me. And then I realized it was all about the audience, all about the fans.

35:29Was Jessie's Girl your first big hit? I had one when I first came over here in 72 from Australia. I had a song called Speak to the Sky that got me the deal over here. It was the first solo hit I'd had in Australia. And it was like number 10. I got to number 10 over here and it was a hit in Canada. But it was kind of a weird country, you know, holy roller kind of song. I wrote it for my mom. That's cool. Very different than what I became known for. but that was kind of the first hit. And then they kind of managed, I started getting picked up by teen magazines, which I'd never seen before. In Australia, they didn't have them.

36:11They had one music paper, and that was it. And they're asking me, you know, I'm doing all these interviews, music interviews, and I look at the finished article, and it's like, you know, cuddle up with Rick. You know, is Rick too tall to love? I'm like, what the fuck is this? This is not what we talked about. I talked about, you know, yeah, I come over here. I'm a songwriter, and I went up, you know, all this kind of stuff. And I'm going, what is this? So I started, you know, my ego got the better of me, and I started going, well, I'm getting noticed in America. It's a big apple, you know. So should I kind of lean into this, I guess, you know, because I'm getting a lot of press.

36:57So I did for a little while, and it was going nowhere. I wasn't writing the music. I was writing songs about a guy that committed suicide, writing songs about a woman that was trying to decide if she should leave her husband because he's cheating on her. And they're going, where's Cherish? Where doesn't somebody want to be wanted? We're giving him all this press, and there's no hits here. I have to speak to this guy. So I eventually left my managers who were kind of pushing me in that direction. Which was a drag because I loved one of the guys was Steve Binder, who actually I still talk to, who was the director of the Elvis special, you know, the comeback special.

37:38Oh. And I met Elvis on a plane once, and I said, you know, my manager, Steve Binder, and he goes, I love Steve. You met Elvis on a plane? Yeah, yeah, going back to Australia. Because I was having trouble with getting a visa here. I had to prove I wasn't putting an American out of work, right? That was their phrase. Who was president back then in America? What year was this? It was 71, 72, 73. So that was post-Nixon. Was that Lyndon Johnson or was that Nixon? When did Nixon get kicked out? Is it still Nixon? When was Watergate? Watergate was when I was over here. 74? So it was Nixon. 70, yeah. Yeah, so I had to prove.

38:26And we're taking all these like – it was really weird. We're taking these scrapbooks full of these crappy stories in the teen magazines. Cuddle up with Rick. Yeah. Look here. Mr. President. Look how much press I'm getting. An American – this is not going to put an American out of work. Anyway, so the plane stopped at Hawaii to refuel because it couldn't go all the way to Australia back then. And I get on the plane and I walk in and there's Elvis sitting like right there. I was in the back of the bus back then. Elvis was sitting in the first class. He looked great. He was skinny, jet black hair.

39:03His skin looked great. Powder blue suit on. I wasn't a fan really back then because I was more into the British invasion and everything. But I said, oh, that's Elvis. That's cool. So I go back there and I had a girlfriend in Australia at the time who was a giant Elvis fan. So he did a thing I've never seen anybody do. Now when you get in a plane and you see a celeb that got like a hood on and their glasses and they're like they're looking down. He got up before the plane landed in Hawaii and walked back signing autographs and taking photos with all the people in the plane. Wow. And he got to me and I went, hey, Steve Binder, my manager.

39:44because I know him and Steve got along really well on the Elvis special because the colonel wanted it to be Elvis in a Christmas sweater singing Christmas songs. And Steve walked into the dressing room one time and his Elvis playing with his buddies, you know, and he goes, I want to put that on film, which became him jamming in the boxing ring. And the colonel's going, absolutely not, absolutely not, we're keeping it, you know, a family thing. And so they butted heads like crazy, but Elvis was on Steve's side. And for once, Elvis took, yeah, I want to do this. You know, he didn't go with what the colonel said.

40:24So I know he got along really well with Steve. So anyway, I'd heard that before I met him and said, yeah, I love Steve. He's a great guy. And I said, would you sign this to Allison, who was my girlfriend at the time? And he signed it. and I had my little tape recorder that recorded all my songs in it, and I put the autograph in there and went through Australian Customs, and they saw my tape recorder and said, oh, we're going to see what's in this, mate. It might be porn in here. Who knows? So they took it and came back, and the Elvis autograph was gone. They stole your Elvis autograph? These motherfuckers.

40:58I know. Don't trust them. They're bastards. Oh, back in the day, too. They didn't have any cameras on them either. No, exactly right. I know. Dirty people. Oh, that must have been so wild. His relationship with the colonel was so creepy. That movie was fantastic. What did Tom Hanks kill it as the colonel? It's just like, what a creepy relationship. And it's so common, for whatever reason, for these really talented people to have some person managing them. This, like, fucking creepy character. Clueless. Yeah. Weird. Enabling them. The Beatles were rare in the respect that they had Epstein, however you pronounce his name, Brian Epstein, that was a smart guy and on the cusp of pop really happening and did good things with them.

41:52you know cleaned them up uh told him you know bow and they stayed with the music was the music but he was one of the really few that really i don't think he knew what he was doing but he had a good intent and so he found ways to make you know do the right thing but but i've never met anyone or read anything that the colonel wasn't a friggin jerk you know yeah i just don't understand how Elvis had no one who was capable of separating him from the colonel. Yeah. Well, if anyone could have, Steve Binder could have. But he felt secure around the colonel, I guess. Well, there's certain people that, especially because Elvis had a pill problem, right?

42:36So it was probably he was his enabler. Yeah. He shielded everybody from him, kept him safe and kept him isolated. And his whole group did, too. Yeah. Yeah. It was great. How was the performance? He was overweight. Yeah. It was great, man. You were great. One of my favorite performances of his was when he was really fat, when he was singing in Vegas. And he sounds like he's mumbling. And then what is the song that, do you remember the song, Jamie? We've played it before. But once he starts belting out the song, you're like, my God, he's good. Oh. on the piano he's on the piano what is it yes unchained melody my god it's good yeah and you just realize like you see him and the way he's talking he's clearly high as a kite there's something wrong he's so fat it's like so sweaty and he looks terrible you're like oh my god poor elvis what's wrong with him and then you sit you hear him sing you see him sing and it all goes away like who fucking cares who cares my god that's magic that's magic that is live performance like personified there's something about the magic of an insanely talented person performing live and that one elvis song was that and it came through all the drug use and everything and all the yeah it's pretty amazing i mean i i know exactly the thing you're talking yeah here it is can't play it it's getting harder and harder and harder yeah we could get kicked off of YouTube we did copyright strikes and shit you know which is unfortunate because like look how fat he is poor guy and that's when he was performing was that when he was living in Vegas oh I think it was probably I think it might have been after that but he was doing the Vegas things right to pay for the colonel's gambling debt Yeah, isn't that nuts?

44:36Wow. Well, I bet it also was probably easier for him, too, to not have to go anywhere. Yeah. He didn't like planes. I heard that. 1977. Wow. My God. So that's right before he died, right? Didn't he die in, like, 78? When did he die? Yeah, I think that's, yeah, I know where I was when he died. It was actually like, wait, what day did I say that was? No, it was two months before he died. Wow. Two months before he died. He died on August 16, 1977. Wow. And how old was he, like 40? 42. 42. Isn't that insane? That's crazy. And look at you. Keep on trucking, dog. What do you do to stay healthy? I work out every day, oh, six days a week.

45:30I eat well. My dad died early. My dad died when he was, well, he died twice, actually. He died when he was 51, and they brought him back. And he had an ulcer on his major artery in his stomach, and he was worried about it. He thought it was cancer, and so he didn't want to go to the doctor. He didn't want to hear the bad news. He thought, what you don't know. Right. And he eventually passed. I was at home, actually, when he passed out, and they took him into the hospital. And he's in bed, and the ulcer burst, and he starts bleeding, blood coming out everywhere. Luckily, there was a doctor just down a couple of beds down.

46:22They rushed him into emergency. But he did die, and his heart stopped, and they took 15 minutes to get it going again. Oh, my God. And he came back. You know, he's a real in-charge guy, just really loving, really amazing person. He came back because he was basically a five-year-old. Oh, wow. And I remember sitting in the backyard trying to help him remember who was who in his life. And he'd go, so Michelle is married to George. No, no, George. Michelle is George's daughter. He's married to Nan. You go, okay, so Nan is a daughter. No, and it was just heartbreaking trying to get him to remember his old friends.

47:11And so that stuck with me because he hadn't paid attention to it. And so I'm kind of the opposite now. I do pre-nuvo. I do blood draws. What's pre-nuvo? Pre-nuvo is a body scan, MRI body scan. I mean, you were asking about, you know, just how I say in shape, but this is all part of it is knowing what is going on inside you, you know, and not ignoring anything, which is not to say, you know, I won't sip off a curb and get in by a bus one day. But, you know, you do what you can as you know. Yes. You know. Yeah. I have a blood draw as soon as I get home, actually, just to keep an eye on things. Anyway, so he didn't pay attention, and that kind of stayed with me.

47:59And so I started focusing on what I ate. I started being aware that earlier, maybe than normal, that there is a use by a date. Yeah. So I guess I started running. Running just happened to be a new thing in the early 70s. So I started that, and I'd always loved running. The only thing I was good at at school was actually was running in English. And so I started running, and that kind of got me into the whole, well, if you're running, then maybe you may as well eat well, and you want to get some upper body strength and work out. So I just started doing it. I've run all my life until about 15 years ago when my knees suddenly said, no, we're not going to do that anymore.

48:56That's pretty good. Fly something else. To get that long running is pretty incredible. Yeah, it was great. I did love running. Like on the tour bus, I'd get up at the tour bus and wherever we were, I'd just put on running clothes and start running. I'd run 20 minutes one way, 20 minutes back. Sometimes I'd go into some pretty weird areas of a city, and you'd start worrying about who was around. But it was a great way to stay in shape. We actually came off the road in better shape than we went on. We'd go to gyms and work out. I wasn't a big druggie or alcohol guy back then. So that was what I did with my time off, was stay in shape.

49:43And watch what I eat. And my wife's an amazing chef. And we always eat real clean, organic. And I have, you know, she turned me on to skin routine back when I was kind of too embarrassed to tell my band members that I took care of my skin. They call me a freak, you know. I thought skin was, you know, I thought, well, guy's skin is different from woman's skin. You know, we've got whiskers. You don't need all that stuff. But skin is skin. And she got me, my wife, she got me, my girlfriend then, she got me into, you know, taking care of my skin. And I still do that. I still take care of my skin. And I'm actually in a trial with a company called BEMI that is really unique.

50:30And I've been in the trial for four years with this stuff where they take a sample of your cells from behind your ear and they grow your cells. and the growth serum, they pull the growth serum from that and put it into something that you put back on your face. And have you heard of SkinMedica has one, only they use baby foreskins. Baby foreskins for real? Yeah, newborn foreskins. Really? Yeah, that's what they get the growth factors from. But this is your own growth factor, so you're putting that back on your own body, back on your face. It's been pretty amazing. I would prefer your method. Yeah.

51:11Yeah. I'm not into baby foreskins on my face. I know they're doing it with different stem cells. They're doing it with – what they do is they do microneedling. Yeah. And so they kind of like microneedle your whole face and then they use exosomes and they also use something called mu cells, which is the latest and greatest version of it. Right. But that's outside stuff. Yeah. The BEMI stuff is your own cells, which is pretty great. Mm-hmm. Definitely. I think that's a difference. I think the thing that's different is that with your own cells, as you get older, they're just not as good. Oh, you think the younger ones work?

51:47Well, they certainly seem to, like mu cells in particular, which is the newest iteration of stem cell technology, seems to work much better than cells that they used to get from either fat, they used to get it from your fat, or they used to get it from bone marrow. Yeah, I've had the bone marrow stem cell done. And I had that injected into my hips. It works. Yeah. Well, it definitely works. It just doesn't work as well, these mu cells. I mean, there's people that are going over to Saudi Arabia and doing it in Dubai. That's right. It's always. It's never here, man. I've gotten to Regenikine, Orthokine.

52:25I've done Regenikine. Yeah. Because Colby used to have to go to Germany for it, right? And now they've bypassed the law somehow. And so I get that pretty regularly, not regularly because it lasts a couple of years, but I'm due for it now in my shoulders because, you know, it's lifting weights, you know, no matter how heavy you go. You still, you know, as you get older, you're aware it just happens. How long are you in town for? I'm leaving after this. Oh, okay. I was going to send you down. This is a great clinic that my friend owns in Austin called Ways to Well. And they do all the latest and greatest, like state-of-the-art, all the latest and greatest stem cell technology.

53:11They have hyperbaric chambers, red light therapy, all this. I mean, everything that's state-of-the-art they have. Wow. Yeah. I wish I had known that you had a bunch of injuries. I would have had you come in there. I'd make a trip back to check that out. Russell Crowe comes down all the time. He comes down specifically just for that. So they do red light? Oh, everything. And hyperbaric. I've done hyperbaric. You should get one. You should get one at your house. It's a fucking game changer. Yes. There was a study out of a university in Israel. They did these. Right. They did. The protocol is 60 sessions of 90 minutes over 90 days.

53:51And they show that it lengthens your telomeres. It's equivalent to a 20-year difference in biological age. I read that to him too. It feels different. Like when you do it, you feel better. Do you have one at home? Yes, I do. And if you have like a whoop strap or an aura ring or anything like that, it'll show that you've had an incredible recovery. It'll like specifically show from one session, you have an amazing recovery today. And it's specifically because of this hyper oxygen saturated environment of the hyperbaric chamber. I wonder if that would help me sleep. I have trouble sleeping. Do you?

54:24I have trouble sleeping, yeah. Why do you have trouble sleeping? What's going on? I don't know. I wake up every couple of hours and haven't been able to sleep all the way through for quite a while, actually. Huh. This episode is sponsored by BetterHelp. Imagine waking up tomorrow with perfect discipline. Whatever you decide you're going to do, you just do it. No procrastinating. No negotiating with yourself. No making excuses. Yes, it's a little unrealistic. but everyone wants to be better at something, right? Better is a feeling defined by you. And for BetterHelp, it's a BetterHelp therapist who really gets you.

55:03It's a focus on global emotional well-being with thousands of therapists and millions of members in over 100 countries. So while it can't magically help you keep plants alive, it can help in other ways, It's like teaching you how to set and stick to goals as you chase your horticultural dreams. Sign up and get 10 % off at betterhelp.com slash J-R-E. That's betterhelp.com slash J-R-E. Do you ever do sauna before you go to bed? Mm-mm. Do you do a sauna at all? Do you do that? Not a lot, no. Okay, that's another one. There was a study out of Finland that followed. Red light one for me? No, no, no.

55:47Red light, eh. The thing about red light is like infrared, I don't think there's anything wrong with it. I think it's good for you, for sure. But there's not robust studies on it like there is with the dry sauna. So the Finnish have been using dry saunas forever, and they did a study over 20 years with quite a large sample group. And they found that the people that use the sauna four times per week for 20 minutes had a 40 % decrease in all-cause mortality. 40 % less strokes, cancer, heart attacks, everything. And it's because of heat shock proteins that your body develops when you're exposed to that.

56:25It also has an effect of increasing your endurance because it's essentially like static cardio. Because as you're sitting there in that heat, your heart beats faster. And it actually literally increases your cardiovascular output. Wow. It's incredible. I'll check into that for sure. And one of the ways that they use it is contrast therapy. So what they do is they'll go in the sauna for 20 minutes, and then they usually have their saunas by a lake. And they'll, like, go in the cold water of the lake and then back into the sauna. And so what I do is I have a cold plunge. So I have a cold plunge that's right next to my sauna.

57:04And I go back, 34 degrees. Wow. And so I go back and forth. It's it seems cold, but I'm so used to it. It's not cold anymore I mean it is cold no no doubt about it, but I'm so used to it I just climb right in and it's nothing In the beginning. I was like I can't do this. This is crazy I think the first time I did it I did it for like a minute. I was like this is this sucks so hard I got to get out of this thing and then eventually that I got to the point where I do three minutes like it's nothing Wow easy yeah Wow, but that's also incredible, not just for your body. You don't want to do it after workout.

57:40So one of the things about after workout is it's not good. It's not terrible for you, but it's not good in that it decreases hypertrophy, which is like increasing muscle size, because a lot of that is dependent upon the inflammation that happens during exercise. So when you exercise and you break down your tissue, the strength comes because your body heals after the exercise. So you blunt a little of that recovery by getting in the cold right after exercise. So the way I do it is I get in the cold before I exercise. So the first thing in the morning, I hop in that thing. Every day? Yeah. I do three minutes.

58:16And then after I do three minutes, then I start my workout. And the first thing I do is a series of mobility exercises. I usually do those right after I get out, right outside. Right after I get out, I do these like swings and twists and all these different things, these like golf swings. And it's all just loosening the body up and getting my heart rate up and warming my body up since it's been cooled down. And then I start my strength workout. So I do my workout after that. And then after I'm done with my workout, then I get in the sauna. Wow. Yeah. It's awesome. You feel so much better. First of all, just the cold, when you get out of that cold, your endorphins are flying.

58:56Your norepinephrine spikes, your dopamine spikes, you feel fucking amazing. It's worth it just for that. If you could sell a pill that makes you feel as good as I feel when I get out of that cold plunge, that shit would be on every shelf. Without the cold plunge. It's available. You just do it. Also, it gives you a certain amount of mental toughness. That's a bad... Yeah, I know. I get that. Yeah. The discipline of it. Perseverance. There's a thing where you don't want to do it, but you do it. And when you can just train your mind to just do things you don't want to do routinely all the time. That's what I do with working out.

59:37I hate walking into a gym, and I love walking out. Yes, exactly. Everybody feels the same way. So many people, the daunting task is the first few steps. It's just so hard to get going. But once you get going, then it's not hard at all. Yeah, I agree. I agree. It becomes the good habit, you know, rather than the – Yes. And you make it, you know, I have a gym. I don't – I've had a gym at home for a while, but I prefer going to a gym so I work out. But I have it close by so I don't have an excuse, you know, to, ah, it's late, you know. Right, right, right. So, yeah, I get all that. I do. And being on stage when you said the endorphin hit is kind of I get that on there, too.

1:00:21For sure. Oh, for sure. Like, wow. Yeah. The thing is, like, you can't live on that. Like, you can't perform every day just to feel better. Well, you can, I guess, if you're on tour. But it's nice to have that in your actual life as well as your performing life. I get it. I get it. Are you a supplement guy? Do you take supplements? Yeah, I do, actually. I've been through a lot of different ones, but right now I'm doing IM8. Is it IM8? It's the one all in one. Oh, okay. And I do creatine before a workout and the protein after. Creatine is actually good just for mental benefits. Creatine increases cognitive performance, and it's really good if you're tired.

1:01:16One of the studies they've shown is that people that have sleep deficit, like if you're sleep-deprived, one of the very best things for performance, mental performance, is creatine. Oh. Yeah. So you take it before you work out. That's what I do. It's good for just overall metabolic health, but taking it just as a regular part of your day, pre - or post-workout, doesn't matter. just taking it as a regular part of your day will increase your mental performance but like if i'm flying and if i have to go somewhere and i'm on the road and i might be tired i bring i take it every day anyway but i bring it with me everywhere and i like routinely if i'm tired and i know i'm going to be tired i take creatine i can soar through really yes instant uh you feel it right away it completely mitigates any of the sleep deficit brain fog how much i take 10 milligrams twice a day or 10 grams rather twice a day so i take 10 grams in the morning and i take 10 grams at night that's how i usually do it me i eat mostly protein my diet is like 90 percent meat that's mostly what i eat wow yeah i eat meat and fermented vegetables i'll fuck around and have a sandwich or a slice of pizza or some pasta like last night i had chicken parmesan it was great But most of my diet like 80 to 90 percent is meat.

1:02:38Yeah, chicken that's off off the menu for why I Had chickens when I was a kid that I named And then we ate them. I have chickens now and I still eat them I don't eat my chickens. My chickens are pets. You know, they're wandering around the yard I talked to them like hey ladies. We used to do only my dad every Sunday And, you know, I was like a kid. Oh, I want to chop his head up, Dad. So he'd throw it, and it would, like, flap around. And then he'd take them, and we had this laundry room, and he'd throw it in the laundry room, and I'd, like, boil hot water in the laundry room to get the feathers would come out easier.

1:03:20And that smell, I walked into a group dinner somewhere, and they were having chicken, and that smell came back to me when I was about 30, and I have not been able to touch chicken ever since. Really? Yeah. Wow. I have no problem eating chickens. I know. It would be much easier for me. I eat turkey, which is weird because it's not much different, right? It's just a little stupider. But just the thought of chicken, I just can't. You think turkeys are stupider than chickens? They're the ones that will drown if they look up at the rain, and the rain will drown them. Really? Oh, they're stupid, man.

1:03:58Well, they're very cautious, and they have very good eyesight. I've turkey hunted before. It's like. Oh, really? Yeah. Oh, wild turkeys may be different from, you know. I'm sure. Aren't they? Yeah. I mean, if they're wild, they're probably. Yeah. A lot smarter than that. There's a lot of them in my neighborhood, actually. But they see really well. You can't move at all if you're turkey hunting. You have to be very cautious. Wow. Yeah. They have some of the best eyesight of any wild animal. Really? Yeah. Yeah. That's why you see guys when they turkey hunt. They have these crazy ghillie suits where they're completely covered, and they sit with their back to a tree where they're completely motionless.

1:04:37And they usually have a fake turkey, like a turkey decoy sitting out there, and they make noises like, quack, quack, quack, quack, quack, quack, quack, quack, quack, quack, quack. I'd probably rather not go turkey hunting if that's what I've got to do. You'd probably like to go turkey hunting? I'd probably not go turkey hunting if I had to sit there and go, quack, quack, quack, quack, quack. Yeah, you have like a little box, and I have this little box, and it's almost like a fiddle. And it makes a turkey noise? Yeah. And you've done that? Yeah, I've only done it once. The thing about it is my thought was we hunted for a few days for one meal.

1:05:12And I'm like, I would rather go deer hunting or elk hunting. You've got a week's work. Months and months of food. And, you know, and it's better food. Like I'd rather, way rather eat elk than I would turkey. There's nothing wrong with wild turkey. And I certainly would do it again. It's just not what I prefer. I prefer mammals. I eat mammals. I think they're better for you. They're more nutrient-dense. There's a lot more iron and a lot more amino acids and all the... Have you had kangaroo? I have had kangaroo, I think. I think I had it when I was in Australia. Let me make sure I did. No. I've had ostrich a bunch of times.

1:05:51Emu. I haven't had emu. I don't think they've... God, I don't know if I've had kangaroo. It was so long ago. The last time I was in Australia. Maybe I didn't. That's gamey. But I have some friends that live over there, and they've had it a bunch of times. Oh, yeah? There's an infestation. Australia, it's crazy how many kangaroos. They've got more camels in Australia now than there are in, like, you know, any of the Arab states. That's nuts. But kangaroos, for sure. And they had rabbit infestations. Yeah. They bring, except for the kangaroos, everything's imported, you know. The kangaroos are like, you know, you've seen the videos of them on the golf course.

1:06:28Yeah. They come up and stare at you while you're about to whack a ball. It's freaking hilarious. Well, I've seen these videos of these fields where you have like thousands of kangaroos bouncing down these fields. It's a wild look. It's a wild. They have so many wild animals in Australia. I didn't appreciate it when I lived there, but it's pretty freaky. When Captain Cook, who supposedly discovered Australia, brought back a platypus to England, they thought it was – they thought it stitched it together from three different animals because it had a duck bill, a body like a beaver. No, a body like a – yeah, I guess like a beaver.

1:07:07Like a beaver. And web feet. Yeah. And it laid eggs. And they thought, no, this is not a real animal. Well, it doesn't seem like a real animal. It's such strange. Everything kills you in Australia. Oh, yeah. Yeah. I have a good buddy, my friend Adam Greentree. He lives there. And there's so many weird things they've done in Australia by bringing in invasive animals to deal. Cane toads? Yeah. They brought in a bunch of cats to deal with a bunch of different animals. Then the cats wind up killing all the native stuff. Then they become the problem to bring something in for that. Yeah. It's crazy.

1:07:40Yeah. The cane toads were they brought in to get rid of the rats in the cane fields. And now they're the problem. They're like everywhere. They did that with rabbits. The English brought the rabbits in because they wanted, you know, for food, and they're frigging everywhere now. Yeah, Australia is very strange in that a giant percentage of the animals that are there are completely invasive. Yeah. The Asian water buffaloes they have. Do they? Yeah, the North Territory. Well, the ones that kill you are all the local ones. Well, those water buffaloes would kill you too. They're huge. But they're massive, and they're everywhere.

1:08:16And, you know, the only way they die is by people hunting them. Yeah. These are just— Well, they've got a cull of kangaroos, too. They're just, you know—I mean, I would—you'd often see kangaroos lying on the side of the road out in the bush because you get hit by a car. It would demolish your car. Oh, yeah. Some of them are huge. And you had to see the guy defending his dog with the kangaroo. Yeah, we punched it. He's punching the kangaroo. He's lucky that kangaroo didn't fuck him up. No, no. The red kangaroos can stand on their tails, and with their back legs, they can disembowel a guy. Those are the big ones, right?

1:08:53Some of those get like six feet tall. Yeah, what do they say? They're like deer that went to prison. That's a good way to describe it. Do you live in America now? What's that? You live in America now? Yeah, I'm a citizen. I became a citizen a bunch of years ago because I love this country and because I wanted to be available for jury duty. Have you done that yet? Yeah, I have actually. That must have been weird for people. You know, you're getting tried. Is that fucking Rick Springfield? Holy shit, dude. I'm a fan. Please make me not guilty. Yeah, don't convict me. I'm a fan. there. I didn't get selected because I was actually in a lawsuit at the time with this woman who claimed that I hit her with, we called it butt gate.

1:09:43I'd hit her with my ass while I, because I go in the audience sometimes. And she said, I'd hit her with my butt and she'd fallen and like hurt her brain or something. So it was obviously bullshit. But so I, they called me back twice to New Jersey to testify because I wasn't going to go down, you know, pay this woman money to go away. I was going to fight it. How much did she want? She didn't have a figure because it didn't get that far. It was still to find out who would win the case, first of all. And so, yeah, it was like what was I talking about? No, I've totally lost. It's all this space shit.

1:10:23Oh, Buttgate. This room is distracting. It's very distracting. I love the whole UFO thing. anyway I forget what I was talking about you had to go back

1:10:42so that's how you got out of jury duty you were talking about jury duty yeah right that's right I was called up for jury see

1:10:54you're used to this room I'm not I'm used to this room too and I was called up for jury duty and they said was there any reason you wouldn't you would be you know not eligible for this and I said oh I just got called up I mean I just got in a lawsuit myself and I think it's all bullshit and they said you're out of here so it was great it was good timing yeah but no that's not the reason I became a citizen I make that's a joke I just I mean I it's actually because if I go first or if my wife goes first I'd get screwed by taxes You mean die first? Is that what you mean? Yeah, yeah. Oh, like you said go.

1:11:33We're always saying, you know, I'm going to go first. I don't want to be the one left. Oh, that's funny. Well, the last thing I'm worried about if she goes first or I go first is taxes. Yeah. No, I know. But, I mean, no, that's not why we talk about it. But that's why I became a citizen was for the tax thing. But, yeah, no. What year was that? When did you become a citizen? 10 years ago? Oh, wow. 15 years ago? And were you living over here the entire time? Yeah, yeah. I've been here since 72. I mean, except for the trips back, you know, to meet Elvis on the plane. It was, yeah, I've been here, you know, since 72, basically living here.

1:12:14Just for your career? Yeah. Well, I mean, this is my life. My family's here. My friends are here. My life is here. Now. Yeah. I used to go back to Australia until my mom died. My mom lived until she was 96. so I'm hoping some of those genetics are in there. I am curious to see how long Mick can keep cracking. How long is he now? I'm curious to see how long Keith can keep cracking. That's the funny one, right? Because Keith is not doing any of the things that Mick is doing. He's still shredding. He was shredding. Drinking beer. Drinking beer, smoking cigarettes, doing acid. I did a movie with, which we shall not name, but it was with his girlfriend, who was Patty Hanson at the time.

1:12:57It was his girlfriend at the time. It was his wife now. And we got along really well, right? And so Keith came down to the set to find out what was going on with this Springfield guy and his girlfriend. And he was, he looked like fucking Dracula, man. It was like 83 or something. And we took photos, and he looked so bizarre.

1:13:21and yet here he is yep here he's still cooking you know everyone's going yeah it's got to be this year he'll be gone no and all these you know bowie's gone my god that one hurt bowie gone yeah but you know he was a lifelong smoker and uh he was okay you know it's amazing but i mean it's gotta something's gotta be said for the love of what you do and that energy keeping you alive and And the fact that there's still, like I said, the Circuit of the Americas show is over 100 ,000 people. I mean, they're still drawing giant crowds. Who is that now? The Stones. Stones, yeah. The Circuit of the Americas is the local racetrack.

1:13:59Oh, okay. So Circuit of the Americas is where they do Formula 1s, this huge racetrack. And they also have a giant theater out there, amphitheater. And then they do concerts out there where they have this massive concert venue. Like for huge acts. Like Post Malone was there. It was like 100 ,000. Eminem was there. it's just a giant performance theater but seeing the Stones there and seeing Keith there if he gets to do that all the time just the energy from that is probably what's sustaining that absolutely I think it's really really important for your longevity that you love what you do I think that has been a big driver for me and I've seen it in other people certainly in someone like Mick Jagger he admits he still loves the roar of the crowd and it's a lot of so many people do I like I have friends that who did a job because the retirement which was good and I get that but I that they don't love the job you know it's just something that they do yeah you know we're fortunate you know that we do something that we love.

1:15:09Insanely fortunate. Yeah. And it's a lot of luck. It really is a lot of luck. And I don't, I don't deny that. It's luck with everybody when they, they, they lucky enough to, don't you see a shooting star up there? Yes. Yes, you did. Oh, that's freaky. Sorry. I'm in a flashback. I should have told you. I should have told you that it does that. I've had a lot of people just go, what's going on? Yeah. We have shooting stars on our ceiling. Yeah. That's freaky. Yeah. Yeah, I think it's a lot of luck, but it's also working really hard to make that luck so that when if luck does happen, you're ready for it.

1:15:47And being able to capitalize on that luck. So many people get so terrified of the unknown and the possibility of success that the anxiety of whatever it is, they can't handle it. And they'd rather just live a simple life and not have the pressure. Fear of success is a real thing. It's a real thing. It's a real thing. Fear of success and maybe even more fear of failing to succeed when you're attempting to succeed. Yeah. That cripples people. Yeah. I get that totally. Yeah. And it does hurt when things don't go your way. But it still drives me. I mean there's still things I want to do. And I think that's, you know, I mean, I love playing, but I do that.

1:16:37That's kind of my day job, you know. But outside extracurricular stuff is stuff. What do you do extracurricularly? I write. I've had a couple of novels out. I wrote my own autobiography. I'm writing a book on just, you know, what I've done with my life to, you know, be where I am, you know, health-wise and everything. Yeah, I do. And just, you know, there's all kinds of things on the side that you can do that, and I just love to write. I mean, I consider myself a writer really before anything. I only started performing because no one would do my songs. For real? That's crazy. I used to be in a band.

1:17:23If you go on YouTube and you look up Zoot, Z-O-O-T, and look up Eleanor Rigby, I was the guitar player in this band. It was like a four-piece band. And I arranged this version of Ellen Rigby that was, to me now it sounds like Black Sabbath, although I'd never heard Black Sabbath back then. But it's a lot of, like I did Billy Corgan's thing, and he was like focused on this band because we were kind of like psychedelic before, as that was just starting, you know. Oh, there it is, yeah. Wow. Wow. And that Beeb, he became part of, formed Little River Band, actually, the bass player. What year is this?

1:18:06And that was our singer. He passed away a few years ago. But it was a great band. It was, that's me. Look at you, dude. What year is this? 69, 70. Wow. Yeah, it was kind of very heavy. it was much heavier stuff than I'm doing now. Well, maybe not now, but it was for, they'd been a pop band and they dressed in pink and I'd been in a band and my band split up because I got to sing the single and the bass player was so pissed off they didn't pick him that he broke the band up. So I was a free agent and they said, well, you want to join us because our guitar player's leaving. So I said, okay. So I wore the pink thing for a while and I said, this has got to go.

1:18:51You couldn't deal with pink? Yeah. There's photos and it's horrible. But so I said, I've got this great idea. We'll get rid of the pink and we'll do a photo of us like looking over our shoulder totally naked, like in our original pink suits. And we dumped the pink thing. But we'll have a high contrast so they won't really see anything. But they printed the photo like full on. Oh, there we are. So what was up with the pink thing? They had a theme called Think Pink Think Zoot. And it was good for the little girls. It was like, you know, yeah. I was so pissed at that album. That was the first album, the only album we did.

1:19:30And they cut out our heads to stick them. That was before Photoshop. And they miscut my hair. You got like a granny haircut. It was horrible. What a horrible album cover. One of the worst ever made, I think. Well, at least you weren't wearing pink. But that was such a weird choice that that was a part of the theme. It was this guy in Australia that thought it would be a great... And it caught on for a while, but it lasted about six... I find it very strange. Yeah, six months. It was about a life of six months, and then everyone got sick of it. So I said, we've got to lose that. So we had this photo taken, and they printed it in full color of our bare asses, and my mom lost her shit when she saw it.

1:20:13She goes, oh, Richard, how could you do that? I said, no, Mom, it was supposed to be like high contrast. You weren't supposed to see all the creases and stuff. And you can still see it. It's still online. The photo's still online. Oh, I gotta see that. I have a sign that every now and then I get to sign one. Oh, that's funny. Be careful what you put online. Hardcore fans bring you that? That's funny. They must know it. It probably bugs you, too. They want you to sign it. It's pretty bad. So I pushed him more, because Led Zeppelin was on the horizon, and I pushed him more into the guitar. You know, I play guitar, and I wanted the guitar to be kind of the center of the thing.

1:20:46So I pushed him into a much heavier thing. and this Eleanor Rigby was our first really big hit that we had over there that I'd arranged. It was like...

1:21:00And we actually got a deal. We had an EMI. We were interested in this over here. But our manager kind of screwed us by saying, oh, you're still under contract here, which we weren't in Australia. Anyway, so we split up and I came over here and Beeb went on to form Little River Band and the singer became a TV star in Australia. Oh, wow. So we all went on to other things, you know. But it was... God, you've had such a great run, man. You've done so many different things. Yeah, I look back and I guess I have. I always thought I'd be a band guy, you know, and I had this, when they split up, I said, oh, I'll just join another band.

1:21:43But I had this writer, woman writer, who was a big fan. She said, no, you've got to go solo. I said, I don't want to go solo. And she said, no, you've got to. You've got to go solo. Why did she say that? I don't know. She just thought it was the next step for me. You know, she thought getting back in another band and being the guitar player was, she said, she thought I had more to offer, you know, more going for me and a better career if I went solo. So I released this Speak to the Sky song that I wrote for my mommy. It became a hit, and that got me the deal over here when they were signing everybody in the 70s.

1:22:21It was the weird time when you were the Zoot time. 1969, such a strange time musically. It was changing pretty drastically. Well, I mean, I always point to the difference between 59 and 69 as being one of the most radical changes in culture and music in all of human history. It's just such a strange—if you go, like, from Buddy Holly to Jimi Hendrix, I mean, is there a more radical transformation of rock and roll music than that time? Like, there was something amazing. A lot of it was the drugs, for sure. It was the whole psychedelic movement. It was the anti-war movement. It was— Yeah, it was definitely sociological, and I think music is always driven by what happens.

1:23:08And it drives what happens, too. I mean, a lot of kids... Yeah, I think... I know people think that it... I think it becomes a soundtrack of what's happening. I think more that society drives what's happening in music, and then they adopt what the music is, you know, we've got a tune, you know? Yeah. And it shows what we... But it... You're talking about 59, and you're talking about 69, where the changes happen, right? Yeah. Well, that 10-year period is just massive. massive yeah yeah it is just an incredible transformation between the 50s and the 60s yeah it was and it was considered kind of disposable you know well that's the kids do that and by 69 70 it was suddenly it had this more more weight yeah you know and uh and people got older and they were now almost adults and they still liked it yes well it's also that music has had a shelf life that is above and beyond anything that came after it like stuff from like there's a lot of rock and roll music from the 80s that just you know it doesn't have the same feeling as like cashmere yeah you know what i mean like if you go and listen to a whole lot of love like to this day when whole lot of love comes on i'm like oh turn that up they they were the originators of that i mean they would really push that that whole his idea to get the the kind of the bluesy singer and he used the blues riffs and that was all his idea and it was so friggin unique and like he wanted Terry Reid.

1:24:45You know Terry? Familiar with Terry Reid? No. He's a great English singer. I think he's passed now. I hope I'm not wrong in saying that because I hate it when they say oh Rick Springfield's dead. You know you look up someone the first line that comes up on Google is is so and so dead. Right. Anybody. body especially when you get older yeah yep yep and um uh yeah so it was amazing terry reed had this great voice but he was gonna actually tour with the stones and jimmy page asked him if he'd be the singer in led zeppelin he said i can't i got this gig coming up with the stones but i know this guy there's this guy down in this club and it was freaking robert plant and john bottom in the same band.

1:25:26Wow! In a pub band. And Jimmy Page walks in and he goes, they might be the right ones. How amazing. I mean, Bonham, one of the, you know, just a unique feel. He wasn't just a drummer. He was a, just an incredible, sonically he was different. And the sound of his drums, what he did with them was unique. His feel was just so laid back, but so right on. And it was just, in the same band as Plant. And it was like, that's crazy. That is crazy. Like a little club band. And you were saying, you know, music has more weight, certain music has more weight. And I think England has always amazed me because this little tiny friggin' island, the Beatles, the Stones, Led Zeppelin, the Who, Kinks.

1:26:20Yeah. I mean, well, Clapton actually was Canadian. Was he really? He's born in Canada. Oh, I thought he was from England. Or he had Canadian parents or something. He wasn't from England? I bet he is, right? I like it when you... He's born there, yes. Where? He's born in the UK. He was born in the UK in 1935. Canadian parents, right? Let's see. Am I right on that? I'm not joking up on... I'm right on that, aren't I? Eh? Eh? Eh?

1:26:49Born to Canadian soldier from Montreal, Quebec. Ah, there you go. Anyway, but the little island that had all these amazing bands. Incredible. And I think it's because everyone wanted to conquer Britain. The Romans, the Vikings, they all came in. The Germans, they all came in and spread their seed. First thing they did was, you know, have sex. And I think all that came together, and I think that's a lot of reason there are so many great bands, Is it a collection of all this genetic material from, you know, from Europe and all around? And the Romans? I mean, look what they did. But it is interesting how Europe, if you look at it, the UK uniquely contributed to music.

1:27:42Totally. As opposed to all those other countries. Obviously, they're English speaking, which helps how it spreads the word. But it's kind of amazing how much of an impact they had on America. I mean... And how long it didn't have an impact, you know? I mean, it was... And it was because it was bottled up for so long, I think, that it exploded so much with the Beatles. It was never... It never crossed the Atlantic. It was always America... Same with Australia. It was always America to England. It was America to Australia. There was one Australian guy that had a hit when I was a kid in England in school named Rolf Harris called Timey Kangaroo Downsport.

1:28:22Timey kangaroo down, sport. Timey kangaroo down. It was a horrible song, but it was a huge hit in England, and it was the only one that ever came over from Australia. And the same with England. There was really nothing that crossed over. And then suddenly Kennedy was killed, and America was looking away from America. They didn't want to look, I think, was a big part with the Beatles. They didn't want to look at America right at that point. Suddenly here were these four mop tops, and they came and smiled and sang great music and took our attention away from darkness. Well, they were probably the first real super band, right?

1:29:03The Beatles? Yeah. That was just so huge that people would faint when they saw them and just scream when they saw them. Well, they used to faint for Frank Sinatra. That's true. They used to faint for Mozart. I mean, they had groupies that would pass out they were so hot. Really? Yeah, yeah, yeah. And there were pop stars, you know, there were pop stars back then. But it wasn't on television, it wasn't on the radio. I mean, well, that's what the internet's done now. You have a friggin' opinion, and now you can put it out there. Welcome to this show. Yeah.

1:29:42That's what it is. Yeah. It's just, it must have been very strange to be the first global super group like that. I think, yeah. I don't think there was any... I think Elvis was probably the first super famous individual where, I mean, he got to a point... First of all, I think that level of fame is almost unsustainable for a human being. I think it's just too crazy. I don't think it's manageable. And especially when there was no roadmap. And he was the first, yeah. Yeah, he was the first. And then Michael Jackson was like, hold my beer. I'll show you the next level of this shit. Michael Jackson took it to a place that was just like.

1:30:22Totally agree. Yeah. Totally agree. Unbelievable. I mean, I'm just young, but the Jackson 5 and Beatles both starting off in 64 is crazy. Wow. McCartney was 22 and Harrison was 21. Yeah. Wow. That's crazy. When you think about what you were doing at 21. Wow. And Jackson 5 is same time. Wow. Wow, 64, the Jackson 5, wow. I guess they were, I mean, it took a year or two, I guess, before they got famous, but still, same time. Amazing. Yeah, I just saw This Is It, is it? This Is It? Oh, the Michael Jackson documentary? Yeah, where he's preparing for the show. Yeah. It's pretty wild. It's just amazing.

1:31:06I mean, you see him just kind of going through it like, you know, like it's nothing. I mean, he's cutting back, but he's still doing, you know, he knows what he's doing. And just he did seem kind of weak to me and didn't know if he could sustain all of that by that point. But, God, he was amazing. Well, I think the pressure and the stress was probably just so overwhelming for him. Unbelievable. That guy couldn't go anywhere. He would get swarmed. Like no one ever. People loved him in a way. He was so big that I don't know if you're familiar with Boston Radio, but they had WCOZ, Rock of Boston.

1:31:49It was like the big Boston rock and roll station. And when Thriller came out, it was such a big album. They go, look, I know the DJ goes, I know this isn't rock and roll, but this is so awesome. I'm going to play it anyway. and I think it was Billie Jean they played and I remember like thinking this is crazy they're playing this on the Rock of Boston like this is nuts but it was that big it was that big it transcended everything well they wouldn't let him on MTV right they they wouldn't play they said we don't play we can't you know they were saying come on this is huge you got play why weren't they playing black artists really yeah initially and I forget who it was one of the Atlantic someone atlantic or you know somebody called up and said if you don't play this song and em to Billy Jean on the next in the next 10 minutes we're pulling all our artists and they played it and that was that was it that was just that's crazy yeah because thriller was obviously the biggest music video of all time.

1:32:59It was a film. I mean, he got Rick Baker, the guy who did the American Werewolf in London. I know you're a horror fan. That wolf outside, by the way, we have two of those. Yes, I just posted a photo of me with my arm in that guy. The reason why we have two of those is because Rick Baker saw the original one that Pat McGee did that we had back here, and he said the proportions were wrong. So Pat McGee, the guy who made that for me, said, I'm going to make another one that has the right proportions. So Rick Baker saw that one? Yes. So Rick Baker came to my studio, did my podcast and said, that's great, but the legs are too long.

1:33:37The body's too long. This is the wrong proportions. And Pat McGee went crazy. He's like, fuck. And so he made another one. And then the new one that he made that was even better because it's all animal hair. Yeah, it's incredible. I'll show you the other one. The other one's in the other room. The not so good one. Right. It's in the other room. I still have both of them. um but he saw she don't get rid of werewolves no i mean i would give it to someone cool but the uh he did the special effects for thriller when he turns into that cat monster thing like he turns and the girl screams i mean then he's a zombie like that fucking video was crazy i remember everybody waiting for the premiere all my friends in high school like waiting around the tv for the premiere it was incredible there was like nothing like it yeah and you know i mean he was a superstar in a way that like i don't think anybody's ever been come close maybe taylor swift like maybe she's in that sort of realm now yeah i i mean i think it's elvis beetles and michael jackson were the three that absolutely transcend yeah i mean every you know there's been people as famous but they did something so different.

1:34:50You know, first of all, Elvis was Elvis. Yeah. And the Beatles, they wrote the best songs. There's not many songs left to write now because the Beatles wrote them all. Right. And Michael Jackson did the whole thing. Well, they also had such a different range of music. You know, you go from love, love me do to the more psychic. Oh, it's how fast they grew. Oh, yeah. That's just, I mean, I don't even know if that's possible anymore because the audience is so fragmented now. Back then it was, you know, your parents or you and your friends. There was nothing, you know, in between. There was no... Now it's like, well, if you're 13 years old, you like, you know, K-pop.

1:35:32If you're, you know, 15, 16, you're like this. If you like heavy stuff, then there's this. And everyone's... It's so fragmented. There's not, like, us against them anymore. Right, right, right. And so I don't know if it allows for, I think Taylor Swift is actually the first one to really get that amount of gigantic following. And it seems to be a lot of like young girls still. Yes. But I mean, I like a lot of the songs. I think she's a great writer lyrically. I think the girls are killing it in pop right now. You know, I miss rock and roll on the radio for sure. It's weird that rock and roll has kind of faded.

1:36:14What's that? It's weird that rock and roll has kind of faded. I never thought the guitar would kind of become uncool. I thought once we got through disco, where it was just in the background, and suddenly there was ACDC, and you're going, oh, thank God the guitar is back. You know, now it'll never leave. It's left again, unfortunately. But hopefully it'll, you know, I don't know if it'll come back. I think— The window's open. What's that? The window is open, because people still love the old music. Yeah, yeah, but there's, I mean, I hear great stuff from rock bands still, you know, but you don't hear it unless someone sends it to you, really.

1:36:49Yeah. Or there's a specific, you know, rock, you know, like I don't know where you hear, you know, new Foo Fighters other than you certainly don't hear it on, you know, any of the AM stations anymore, do you? Are there even AM stations? Yeah, I know. I mean, I don't know what even plays. FM is what played big music in this country, but there's no real radio presence anymore. I don't know of any... My mechanic still listens to FM music. I know that because when he fixes my car, when I get it back, the radio's on the local FM rock station. But it's all... There's no DJs anymore, and if there is a DJ, they don't have control of the music anymore.

1:37:30Exactly right. And Jessie's Girl was a product of the DJs. it wasn't released as a single really yeah it was uh back when the djs if they liked a song they'd they'd play it they said oh i like this song let's put this on and they started doing that with jesse's girl and they started getting a lot of phones and they called up the record the record company said you probably should put this out as a single it's getting a lot of phones and the record company goes okay so they put it out but it wasn't their choice i mean it was It was actually on then, back then it was RCA was me and Elvis. That was pretty much it.

1:38:05Wow. It was old Elvis and, you know. What year was Jesse's girl? 81, 80, 80, 81. 81. I throw it over to our maestro at the controls over there. Yeah, I was a freshman in high school. Yeah. Wow. I was 14 years old when that song came out. Oh, my God, really? That's wild. Yeah. What was that like for you? That had to be insane. That song was so giant. Every girl in my high school was in love with you. It must have been nuts. Yeah, it was, I mean, I was 29, 30 by the time that happened, 31. And I was, I'd imagined it for so long because I'm very, one of the things I really believe in is, you know, which I'm sure you do too, manifestation, believing, you know, visualization, seeing what you want and committing to it.

1:39:00And I'd seen it so many times in my head that when it happened, I went, yeah, that's how it is. Really? So you expected it? Yeah. I always expected something. I knew something would happen. I had faith. You know, there was times when I was, because of the teen magazines, I get letters sometimes, I can't wait to come over and meet you and visit you in your mansion. And at the time, I was living in a$180 a month apartment in a seedy area of Hollywood, eating TV man dinners and fishing quarters out of my goofy piggy bank so I could go down and buy milk. So, yeah, it was quite a dichotomy, you might say.

1:39:50So when it first started happening, it started happening because of DJs. And how long was that before it became like a massive hit? It was quite a haul. It was actually a long time on the charts crawling up. And I thought, oh, I'm never going to make it. You know, it's going so slow. Usually they go boom, boom, boom. Right. And it crawled and crawled and crawled and crawled. And I remember Joe Gottfried, who owns Sound City, which is one of the reasons I happened to be in the Dave Grohl Sound City documentary, because I used to hang out there all the time. And he came in with this cheap bottle of champagne and said, we just made number one.

1:40:33Wow. And it was a long time that it climbed. And they weren't going to release it. I actually took General Hospital because I didn't think they were going to release the album. That's right. I forgot you were on General Hospital. You were on a fucking soap opera. Fucking soap opera. By the way, the biggest soap opera. Well, it happened to be. The whole Luke and Laura thing was crazy. Yeah, it was the biggest soap operas ever got. And I just happened to be on it that summer. And it was, but I got, this guy called me up. I hadn't worked as an actor in like nine months. And this guy called me up and he'd seen me for, they were trying to do a male Charlie's Angels.

1:41:18Thankfully, I didn't get that and that didn't work out. but I'd gone up and auditioned for it and it didn't work out but this guy obviously remembered me and he called up my agent who hadn't done a fucking thing for me in 12 months and said I remember this guy Springfield we'd like to see him for this part on General Hospital and I said General fucking soap opera I don't want to do that and he said just go in and I'm thinking well it's mostly old ladies ironing in the afternoon that still can have any effect on my music career, I guess, because they totally, you know, it's apples and oranges. So I went up, and I wasn't that interested in it, and I did the reading, and then he calls up and says, you got the part.

1:42:01And Keith Olsen, who was a big producer at the time and who'd produced Jessie's Girl, he'd done me a favor because he was, because the Sound City connection, he'd done Fleetwood Mac and Pat Benatar and Foreigner and a lot of big hits. And so I said, I'll do a favor for Joe. And he actually cut together my very first album. He'd been a guy that cut all the clicks out of my first album where they punched me in, the vocals in. And so he did that. And he said, you don't need to do this. This is a great record. You don't need to do this soap opera. And I said, I don't know. Man, I've had four albums and they've done nothing.

1:42:38So I don't know what this one's going to do. So I had no money. I said, I'm going to take it for the money because it was 500 bucks an episode. was like mind-blowing money to me back then. Wow. I'd never seen regular money, and I'd never seen that much regular. That was a hell of a lot of money to me back in 1980. So I said, I'm going to take this show. So I took it, and the record company was not releasing the album. I'm going, oh, God, it's going to happen again. It's going to hit 100 in the top 100 and go away because there was disco and there were ballads on the radio. They didn't know what to do with a guitar-based pop record.

1:43:17So they finally released it. And that whole DJ thing happened. What was the single that they released? What's that? What were the singles that they released from that album? They released I've Done Everything For You, actually. Because Sammy was a known quantity, and I wasn't. And it didn't do... Is that Sammy Hagar? Yeah, Sammy, yeah. That's right! Yeah, he wrote it. And Keith also had worked with Sammy on a bunch of his solo albums. And he really liked the song. And he said, I'll do two songs with Springfield. So he picked one of mine, Just These Girl. I had my demos that I'd done on my little four track.

1:44:00And I was pissed that he didn't pick a second one. He said, I want to bring an outside song in. I went, oh, fuck. Because I'm a writer. I wanted to do my songs. And he brought this song in. I went, OK. He must know what he's talking about. He's got a lot of hits. and everything, so I did it, and it happened to be the right second song. It was absolutely the right second song, but that was the first one, and then I thought, oh, and then they picked Jessie's Girl, so fortunately it was the DJ's call, and I'm forever thankful for that, and I don't know what would have happened if they hadn't picked it or if they were still, like now, you play these ten songs and that's it, you don't deviate.

1:44:44Well, it seems like now it's all sort of pre-programmed by executives. They just decide what is going to be pushed and what's going to be famous. Yeah. I mean, I don't really understand it, and I don't know if anybody does, why some are pushed and others aren't. Well, there's no tastemakers anymore. That's the thing. Without DJs, without Wolfman Jack and these big DJ guys, he was awesome. He was so good. I did an interview with him on my first album. I don't know Rick I said this is a song about a woman, a guy that commits suicide oh I don't think so, not in my radio station he puts it on and he listens to it and he ends up playing it was really great, we actually got along really well and he would introduce me occasionally at shows and things he was a lovely guy funny as hell man well there were tastemakers back then there were people that you believed in that were DJs, that were cool And could call it.

1:45:42Yeah. And they were kind of cool guys who liked cool things. And they had personalities and people, you know, yeah. They had personalities and they were interesting to listen to. And they would tell you why, like, you're going to dig this. And they would play it and you're like, ooh, what is this? And they'd know shit about the songs. They were real music aficionados. And they were, you know, sort of like the Siskel and Ebert of music. Like, they would tell you what was cool. What was cool, yeah. And slowly but surely, that all just completely went away. I can't name a DJ currently. And I think that's nuts.

1:46:17When I was a kid, you knew everyone. Mark Parenteau and all these different people and Charles Laquadera. Those are the guys in Boston. Everybody knew who they were. And it was a national thing. In every city, they had your morning DJ guy. Scott Shannon. Yes. And all these guys would play. Kevin and Bean in L.A. And all these guys would play cool music. and they knew cool stuff. And it was like, you know, you learned about culture from these people pre-internet. They were the tastemakers. Yeah, it's trippy. I mean, I don't know how you fall in love with an artist anymore, you know, because, you know, it's an old story.

1:46:54You get the record, you open it up, and as it's playing, you read who's playing what, who wrote what, and you read about them. And I remember years ago, I had a copy of the record, like a No Doubt CD or something anyway. And this young girl, daughter, friend of mine, I said, oh, I got the No Doubt CD, the new CD if you want to. She said, oh, no, it's okay. I download it. Well, it's got the album cover and everything. She said, no, it's okay. I just download it. And now it's weird. It's weird. Yeah. Yeah. I used to buy albums based on the cover. Yeah. I'd go to the record store and I'm like, wow.

1:47:32It's just fucking big. I know. It's impossible. But you would go and see an album and you're like, wow, this looks cool. It's a cool artwork. You'd open it up. Hypnosis, hypnosis, whatever they spelled it. Oh, they were brilliant. And look at the, you know, I mean, the Pink Floyd one is still an epic image. Yeah. Still, you see it everywhere, you know. Well, when I was a kid, my Uncle Vinny was, he was an artist. And he worked for Howard Marks Advertising, which was a company that did all of the album covers for Kiss. And so when I was a kid, I was really young. I was like seven or something like that.

1:48:13I got to see, I got to go to his office with him and he would take me around. You'd see them before anybody did. I met Ace Frehley with no makeup on. It was the craziest thing I'd ever seen in my life. He has no makeup on. This is nuts. This was back before Kiss had taken the makeup off. It's like seeing him naked. It was so insane. Like, he came into the office, and everyone was like, what's up, Ace? I was like, what? That's him? Because I was, God, I don't remember how old I was. I couldn't have been more than 10. It was so strange to me. I was like, this is crazy. I can't believe he's right there.

1:48:46This is nuts. Isn't that wild, yeah? Actually, I might have been a little older. I might have been 11 or 12. But either way, I was, like, blown away by it. I couldn't believe I was actually meeting Ace Frehley with no makeup on. But their advertisement company would do all the album covers and the album covers were a work of art There's so much going on inside of them. You would open up the albums artwork inside It was like even like when they had their solo albums the albums themselves had an image of each individual band member Printed on the album. Oh really? Yes, like the album itself Like when you look at the record you saw the image of their faces on the record.

1:49:24It was great I remember when they came out, I think this has got to be huge. I've had the photo. Ace Frehley actually came back to see us at a gig we were doing, and I had a photo taken with him, and my drummer was a... You know, Kiss were his Beatles. So I was selling guitars at the time, like just these Red Fernandez that we had a bunch of. So he had Ace sign it, and he did the Ace card and everything to Roger, Rock On, whatever, Ace Frehley. I copied it exactly onto another one, exactly like the guitar. And in the middle of the show, the guitar tech brought it out to me, and I smashed the shit out of it like this.

1:50:05Oh, wow. And Roger lost his shit. He thought it was a real one. Ah! He played so many terrible pranks on us that it was fucking worth it. That's hilarious. That's hilarious. so you kind of knew that eventually it was gonna hit but when it did hit what was the feeling like to go from being someone you know you'd been in pop magazines but then all of a sudden you are the guy like for a year or two whatever it was in in the early 80s you were so huge man i mean it was It was crazy. What was that feeling like? It was exciting. It drove me to write more and more. You know, I mean, I directed it into performing and writing.

1:50:57I really don't know what else. You know, I didn't party a lot, you know. I mean, we did a little bit on the road, but it wasn't. I directed it into what I was doing. And it was exciting. you know I remember getting on the phone with DJs saying oh yeah the record's gonna be it's going up and up and you know it was all real exciting stuff but it was kind of like I said I expected it you know and was like oh my god this is so weird I was like yeah about fucking time you know I've been here for 10 years that's crazy that you like totally were comfortable with it and expected it yeah it was there were like 4 ,000 fans around a police car trying to tip it over.

1:51:44And I was like, okay, this is what it feels like.

1:51:51God, it's so wild. It's so wild that you were like, okay, this is happening. It was exciting. I mean, I didn't lessen the excitement, but I prepared myself for it. Do you remember what it was like the first time you started playing the first few chords of Jesse's Girl, and the whole crowd knew what it was? Yeah, I do, actually, because I'd seen... We saw all these English bands in Australia, because they all came to Australia. I saw the Stones twice in 65 and 66. I saw the Beatles in 64. And I saw the Kinks in, like, 65. I saw the Who in 65. And they started out with, you really got... Kinks started out...

1:52:38And the audience went, oh, shit. I said, oh, man, that is so fucking cool. I want to feel what that's like. Do you remember the first time you felt it? What's that? Do you remember the first time you felt that? Yeah. We did the Beach Boys 4th of July show from the Queen Mary. And I was like the new artist. In Long Beach? Yeah, on Long Beach. It was the Beast Boys, Three Dog Night, and Brian Wilson was still with the Beast Boys. He had come back with the Beast Boys, right? And we started, we were on there, I started playing, and the audience went nuts. I went, that's it! That's the feeling! And it was so weird, because we came on, after the show, after the Beast Boys finished, we walked on stage, right?

1:53:31And Brian Wilson's like a god, right? and I'm walking on stage, he's at the piano, and he goes, he follows me like this. I'm going, this is open, what's he following me for? He was a giant soap opera fan. Him and his wife used to sit all and watch fucking General Hospital. That's crazy. There's Brian Wilson with his mouth open following me across the stage. That's crazy. When I'm doing the same thing, going, that's Brian Wilson holy fuck wow it was pretty and same thing with Sammy Davis Jr. where we did I was on the first Night of 100 Stars and I'm walking we're walking along the red carpet and I feel someone tugging on my jacket I'm going what the fuck I look around at Sammy Davis Jr.

1:54:20hey man love you on this show and I'm going what the fuck that was the stuff that was weird for me was that kind of thing and like I met Paul McCartney later maybe 15 years ago at a thing and I went to see him because I was a giant fan and he said oh what are you here for? meaning he obviously knew who I was and what was I coming to the event for because everyone was announcing new projects I just said I'm here to see you he goes oh and no one was taking photos and I didn't realize at the time he said I want to get a photo so I said that'll be 10 quid so I go like they said no I'm only joking I'm only joking so we had a photo it was one of my I keep that photo it's a pretty cool photo wow that's awesome and speaking of album covers the Sgt.

1:55:11Pepper's cover was oh yeah I have the War of the Worlds Time Machine H.G. Wells one of my favorite writers I love sci-fi always loved H.G. Wells they're very political too And he wrote some great, great, great novels and articles about the war and the possibility of atomic war. And, I mean, he was a really deep guy. And he was one of the cutouts, right? It was H.G. Wells on the Sgt. Pepper's figure thing. You know, all the cutouts, the heads on the front. You know what I mean? Sure, yeah. And so I got that actual H.G. Wells. I got that actual cutout, and Paul had signed it. So I got one of my favorite writers and my favorite artists, and it's a really cool thing.

1:56:02I have that in my studio. Wow. The people don't understand today the General Hospital thing. General Hospital was a soap opera, but it was a soap opera that transcended regular television shows somehow. Yeah, it was the most popular show in the summer. Very strange. It was very strange and it was a completely, it was a organic viral moment. For whatever reason... I have no idea still. Never happened again. No, never happened again. Only happened once. The most popular soap now has about a third of the viewership that General Hospital had at the time. And it was, you know, like I was on it, this one, you're talking about, you know, new fame and all that kind of stuff.

1:56:47and I was I had a little house that I bought on BMI Advances because I had a record deal which I don't do anymore but in Montrose in La Crescenta and I'm walking down the street one day and nobody's looking at me two weeks later after being on the show for two weeks I'm walking down the same street people are going isn't that and it was like so sudden that that was like Like, you know, it was before MTV, so you had to have at least three albums out before a musician was recognized. So to get it that fast, that was kind of odd. And I wasn't ready for that, for that amount of recognition. Well, it was just so strange.

1:57:32My whole family was watching General Hospital. I was watching it. My sister was watching it. It was like it was a television show, but it was a soap opera. And soap operas were like housewives watching. Yeah, it was, you know, your cousin invented the toothbrush. It was like low production value, shitty writing, bad acting. Horrible, horrible writing, terrible acting. Something about that Luke and Laura storyline, for whatever reason, caught the nation and held it captive. And I believe he raped her and then they became boyfriend and girlfriend. Is that really what the storyline was? That's nuts.

1:58:13And Elizabeth Taylor was on the show, too, and I got to do a couple of scenes with her, and that was weird. I'm walking down the stairs as she's walking up. She goes, Noah. And I'm going, wait, stop, Elizabeth Taylor. And we do a scene, and we're walking away together, you know, off to a blank alleyway until they say cut. And she goes, isn't acting stupid? And Tony Geary actually did the best thing. He's doing a scene with her in rehearsal. And he goes, oh, my God, it's Elizabeth Taylor. And everyone's like, yeah, it's what we all wanted to say, right? But it's amazing, the people who were fans of this show.

1:58:58It's, you know, crazy. It was literally the biggest show in the country. Yeah. And it was a soap opera. And it was on during the day. It made no sense. And the acting sucked, and the writing sucked, and the writing sucked. and it was, if you got through the scene, they printed it. You know, I mean, I got really good, because they handed us a three-page scene once, me and a character I was working with, said, we're shooting this in 20 minutes. So, I got really good. They'd have the camera here and they'd have the words right coming down the... Teleprompter? Yeah, the teleprompter down the screen and a red light.

1:59:36And I got good at looking at them while I was talking. And as soon as I saw the light go off, I'd look at the screen and memorize the words for the next line and look back at them and go, yeah. You know, so I began. It wasn't about acting for me then. It was about line memorization. But there were good people on it. Like my best friend, actually, Doug Davidson, was on Young and the Restless. This is Paul. God, what's his last name? Sorry, Dougie. But anyway, Paul Drake. No, wait. Oh, there's me and Liz. Wow. Yeah, babe. Yeah, hey. Let me invite you to. That's crazy. You want to come? Oh, that was it.

2:00:19Isn't acting stupid. That's the scene. Wow. That's nuts. Isn't acting stupid. That's so crazy. How weird is it? Yeah, so he was really good. Doug Davidson played Paul Drake. I think that was his name. Sorry, I forgot it. But he was great on it. He would cry and get angry, and he was very, very good. And there are some great people that can do it. Not everybody can. And they picked young, pretty people who aren't necessarily the best actors, but they have a presence. I remember walking by the phones when Demi Moore was on the show. They would take calls from everybody and listen to everything. And I walked by as a woman going, oh, doesn't like Demi Moore's voice.

2:01:09They would take calls from the audience to find out what they thought about it? People would call in and say, oh, we really like this guy or we don't like this guy or hate this storyline. They'd listen. And Gloria Monti, she was the, oh, Tristan just passed away. And Brian Cranston together. Wow. Tristan, he just passed away. He's a good, a cool guy. That's Brian Cranston. That's crazy. Wow. Yeah. Lovely guy. Funny guy. Is that to me? So strange. Wow. Wow. 1982. Wow. Trippy. Trippy, yeah. That's amazing. I can't believe Elizabeth Taylor was doing a soap opera. That's so strange. Yeah, but there were fans, and it was a big show, and it was kind of like Baywatch, how Baywatch became this big cultural thing.

2:02:03I remember reading Paul McCartney saying, yeah, my daughters love Baywatch. I'm going, fuck that, man. it's just so strange that it never happened again that general hospital moment it's like a strange anomaly in culture totally was yeah and it was a combination probably the characters you know i mean it was kind of the the best of the worst storylines you know and um and uh there was you know a lot of characters good characters on it plus you know they were aware at that point that I had a recording career, you know, and they wanted me to sing on the show. There it is. There it is. Wow. Tony took us around and we were in Amsterdam.

2:02:4830 million viewers. That's insane. For Luke and Laura's wedding on General Hospital. I mean, what has even come close to that? Yeah. What has even come close to that in terms of soap operas? Is there anything even close? No, no. That was a golden age. Fucking bananas. Yeah. It's kind of insane. Yeah. Wasn't it during the middle of the day, too? Yeah. Still have no real explanation, you know? I don't know what time it was on, but I remember it was like right after high school. Yeah, they used to cancel, rearrange classes in universities because they knew people wouldn't show up. That's nuts! And I had no idea that these people, you know, they were the same people that would come into concerts.

2:03:31Wow! And I had no idea that there would be any kind of crossover, you know? How crazy is it that the guy from General Hospital all of a sudden has the number one song in the country? Yeah. They had no idea. I was on the show for like six weeks and Gloria, the producer, who was really responsible for the success of it, she was so smart. Her and Tony used to get together and go over the scripts at night and, you know, that had something to do with it. And she came up and said, I hear you're also a singer. I went, yeah, but it's not happening on this show. I've already got enough shit that I'm on the show.

2:04:06Oh, they wanted you to sing on the show? Oh, God. Which I did as kind of a callback way later on, you know, after I'd left the show. And then I came back for like the 50th anniversary or something. But, yeah, when it was, you know, she wanted me to like go up there and sing Jessie's Girl as a doctor suddenly. You know, we'll make it work, you know. How weird must it have been for those Luke and Laura actors? Because like no one had ever done that before no no no soap opera had ever gotten that huge before and then after it was over Nothing the girl who played Laura was 21 and still lived at home.

2:04:45Wow That's she was 21 and still lived at home at the time Yeah, yeah, wow wasn't allowed to drink the bubbly because she was underage. How was she underage? Oh, not even 21. It says not not Eve not yet 21 Wow Wow. Wow. That didn't stop him from getting drinking. We got so drunk on the set. We had a party. It was supposed to be this party. And the professor from Gilligan's Island played my father. I'm going, wow! That's freaking cool. We're sitting around this and we're supposed to be drinking and we all drank. It was so bad they had to reshoot it the next day. You're all drunk. Everyone kind of, let's cut loose.

2:05:29It's the end of the day. Wow. That's nuts, man. Tell me about your writing, like the novels. What have you written novels about? They're very bizarre. They're both about a plague that comes to the world and takes out like two-thirds of the people. Both of them are about that? Yeah, the other's a continuation of it. One's called Magnificent Vibration, the other one's called World on Fire. And it's dark humor, very dark humor. Had you written before that? I wrote my autobiography by myself. But had you written any fiction? Yeah, as a kid, that was the only thing I was any good at at school was I got great marks in my essays.

2:06:26Nothing else. was any i was terrible at everything else math geography history all that shit and um so you know i was already doing what i was planning on doing anyway so um yeah i started writing poems and then you know and i songwriting to me the lyrics are are something i really take time yeah music just comes through it either is there or it isn't there but the lyrics you have time to sit back and go, does that work? Or does that not work? Whereas with music, it's kind of instantaneous, or it doesn't happen. So, yeah, I've always kind of written. And when did you write these novels? I don't know.

2:07:11Can you tell me that, my friend? You don't remember? I don't know. It could have been the 90s, could have been the 2000s. It was probably 2000... 2014 and 2021. What is it? 2014 was the first one, follow-up 2021. Oh, so 2021 is recent. Yeah. It was fairly recent. Yeah. The first one was on the New York Times bestseller. Wow. I sign them all the time. You know, fans bring them and that. But, yeah, I like writing. I'm writing something now, but it's just something that I do when I'm not writing songs. You know, I kind of gravitate towards that. I've got to be doing something. And it was like I'd take a guitar to the beach.

2:07:57We'd go to Bora Bora, and I'd take a little guitar when I sit on the beach because I can't just sit on the beach. It feels like a kind of waste of time. That's wild. I do relax, but I've got to have a guitar. I've got to be doing something, either writing or whatever. And when you write, do you write longhand? Do you write with a keyboard type? No, I write on a computer. You write on a computer? Yeah. And that's the thing. I have a bunch of Beatle lyrics, handwritten Beatle lyrics, right? And they don't exist anymore because everyone writes on the computer. I have Jessie's Girl. I have the original paper that I wrote Jessie's Girl on.

2:08:39What are you doing with that? Is it framed? No, I've got it, I don't know, in a closet somewhere or something. Really? Yeah. Oh, God, you should frame that. Yeah, I probably should. But I have all my songs, really, the ones that made it and the ones that didn't. I have them all. So I got interested in that, and I started collecting Beatle lyrics because I loved that moment of creation. How did you get those? I have a friend who trades. He's the guy that validates them all for Christie's and for Sotheby's and all the big auction houses. And he knows where all the bodies are buried. So I collect stuff like you obviously do.

2:09:23You know, I have the Titanic number two lifeboat plaque that says SS Titanic on it. And it's in a show now in Branson or somewhere. We rented it out. Wow. I loved collecting stuff. I have robots and old 50s robots. Well, there's something about collecting something like Beatles lyrics that you know were written by the Beatles. Their hand touched that paper and wrote that down. No, as a huge fan, it's very powerful stuff. The coolest one I have is Lucy in the Sky with Diamonds. Whoa. They both have written on it, which didn't happen much. Mostly they wrote their own songs. But they both got their hand on this, and there's even Wednesday morning at 9 o 'clock written at the bottom too, the first line from She's Leaving Home.

2:10:13But Paul did a drawing of the Sergeant Pepper cover when he still pictured it as them in Victorian, you know, with curtains. That was his original idea. And there's a drawing of that. And there's a drawing of Rocking Horse People, which is really good. Because they were really good artists, him and John. And that's really cool. It's got a lot of mojo, you know, that looks like there's time been spent on it. What was the origin of Lucy in the Sky with Diamonds? Wasn't that supposedly about LSD? No, no. Everyone thought it was, but it was a painting that actually Dave Gilmore owns. David Gilmore owns the painting that Julian Lennon did of a painting that a girl, Lucy, his friend at school who recently passed away, but he brought it home.

2:11:07and his dad said, what's that? And Julian said, there's Lucy in the Sky with Diamonds. And John took that. And it just happened to be almost an anagram for LSD, which is crazy. But it's one of the millions of things that happened in the Beatles' lives that you went, that didn't really happen. They had to manufacture that. But no, it really friggin' happened. And that's part of what made them almost like angels that it was just so supposed to be. And that was one of the things. But everyone thought it was LSD because Lucy in the Sky with diamonds. Right, right, right. But it was really about the painting that Julian did.

2:11:43And John just took it. And, you know, he was doing drugs at the time. But he really loved Lewis Carroll. And it's really what it is, is Lewis Carroll. The lyrics are Lewis Carroll. Wow. Wow, that's crazy. But Lewis Carroll, who wrote Alice in Wonderland. And Alice in Wonderland was also about LSD. I don't know. I think there was a lot of influence. The Caterpillar was probably high. I don't know how aware that they all were then, but I know that the Beatle, John, loved him and loved his writing. I mean, I'm sure he had a wink in there somewhere about it being dope. Well, there was all these substances.

2:12:28What's that? There was all these substances. Yeah, yeah, sure. in it yeah oh he was yeah they were definitely you know high at the time and high a lot of the time yeah but they had that talent and you know a lot of i a lot of people think that you know the drugs but it wasn't it was they had the talent but the drugs just maybe took that talent somewhere that they maybe wouldn't have gone if they hadn't done the drugs but it wasn't drugs that make people creative. It's what they have inside them that the drug, you know, frees whatever resistance there is. It was the talent and it was also the volume.

2:13:06Have you ever read Malcolm Gladwell's Outliers? No. Well, one of the things it talks about is it just talks about, it's a great book. And one of the things in the book, it talks about why something became extraordinary. And he talks about the Beatles. Oh, wow. And what the Beatles did, they were in Hamburg, and they got a gig, I think it was at a strip club. And so they were playing every night, five, six hours a night, six days a week. And they were constantly playing. And so they did this for a couple of years, and then they went back to Liverpool. And everyone was like, what the fuck happened to you guys?

2:13:44They were just tight. They were just so locked in and so good that that's when they really became the Beatles. and it's just volume. It's where he came up with the concept of 10 ,000 hours to achieve mastery in something. Right, I've heard that, yeah. I mean, they're a great example of that. It's just an incredible amount of volume of work. It's like Robert Johnson, too. He was an okay guitar player, and he went away for a year or something and came back, and suddenly he was this amazing slide player, you know, Crossroads. Yeah, so that's why everybody thought he sold his soul to the devil. Yeah, and he was...

2:14:21It just happened, you know. But I don't know if they realized they were woodshedding for the great moment, but that's absolutely what they were doing. I think they were just doing it to stay alive. It wasn't paying much. It was just, I mean, working at a strip club. Paul, one of the greatest bass players of all time, he said, I got lumbered with the bass because he was a guitar player. And Stuart Sutcliffe was the bass player, right? And he fell in love with Astrid, what's her name, who gave him the haircuts. and he said, I'm leaving the band and they said, and John said, I'm not playing bass and George said, I'm not playing bass and so Paul said, I guess I'll play it.

2:15:00So he got the Beatles, found the Beatles bass in Germany and there's a photo where you can see it and it's still on his case up against the wall where they're playing and he's playing the piano in the strip club and what he became with that is just freaking unbelievable. Incredible, yeah. It's just so strange how after the fact you go back and look back on all the different events that had to take place in order for them to become the Beatles. And many bands would become what they became. It's just so fascinating to me to see that. I think everyone's life has that. You can look back. Like I look at my marriage.

2:15:41I've been married for 42 years now. and, you know, I was in Australia and my wife was over here in Beloit, Wisconsin and I went to England and she moved to California and I went back to Australia and she moved back to Beloit and I came over here and I happened to hook up with a manager at Sound City and at the same time she happened to meet this woman who she liked her accent, she was an English woman and she became friends and she worked at Sound City so Barbara came in to work at Sound City and I met her there and, you know, there's all these, I mean, it happened in everybody's life, and it's just amazing that we have successful lives.

2:16:20It all seems like it's meant to be, but I always wonder if that's like just you're looking back and you're looking for a pattern why it makes sense. You're just tracing what happened by happenstance, you know. But that it ended up in a good way, you know. Well, it seems like whenever anyone has had an extraordinary life, there's always this fortuitous series of events that take place that enable this to just become what it became. Yeah. And I think, you know, you said a lot of it's luck, but the luck happens when you stay in the game. And I think that is the core of it, is staying in the game so that, you know, when the moments happen.

2:17:08that you are ready. It's certainly not just luck. No, no. There's certainly a lot of other elements involved. You've got to be ready. I mean, you've got to woodshed. You've got to have your craft down. Yeah. You've got to be competent. Yeah. You've got to have something to offer. And you've got to be able to believe in yourself enough to perform when the moment is there. And that's daunting for a lot of people. Yeah. The anxiety of it all is just very... I played with my back to the audience for the first three months of being in the first band I was ever in. Yeah, yeah. Why? I was nervous, you know.

2:17:43I was a blues band. I mean, I kind of was raised, my guitar playing was based on, you know, because of Clapton and all those guys, was based on a lot of the blues players, B.B. King and, you know, all the early players. And I was in a blues band, and I was like 15, and they were like 25, and one of them had been impressed. There was a really rough group. One of them had been in prison, and there was one guy that had been in prison a couple of times. And they were the kind of guys that would go to pubs in the weekend and go out and fight, which is an Australian tradition. It's the only place I've ever been where you go into the men's restroom, and there's a sign that says, This is what you do if your buddy gets into a fight.

2:18:24Like in every bathroom. So I played. And I was shy. They all seemed like adults to me. And they went to my mom and they said, why does Richard play with these backs of the audience? My mom goes, oh, he's probably shy. And they accepted that and eventually I turned around. Do you remember the first day you turned around? No, I wish I did, but it must have been a girl or something. I'm sure it was. Wow. I was the last virgin in the band to be in the youngest. And believe me did they give me shit Because of that I'm sure Listen man, you've had a hell of a life It's just awesome to see you out there kicking ass.

2:19:11It really is like that video of you that went viral with your shirt off Singing Jesse's girl like that pumped me up. Okay. I watched I was like fuck. Yeah, good for him Look how good he looks like this kind of crazy. I just love I love first of all that the passion that you had for singing that song was really like it was a new song and the fact that you've been I mean you've been singing that song for how many fucking years man 40 what 46 years? Yeah that's closer to the when that was released or written it was closer to the end of World War II than it is now That's crazy That's crazy And she is probably in her early, late 60s now.

2:19:58Wow. The girl I wrote it about. Who is the girl that you wrote it about? Well, I never learned her name. She was at a stained glass class. It was one of those moments when I was between record deals. And I always wanted to do things with my hand. I would make things out of clay. I was making mirrors out of clay, like sci-fi things, and selling them at the local swap meet. And I started thinking about stained glass, and I thought, I could support my family doing stained glass, which was bullshit. So I went to this class, and there was this girl, and she was hot. It was just another girl that I found hot.

2:20:40And she had a boyfriend there, and I would try and chat with her. I never really had to chat with girls. That's one of the reasons the guitar really helped there. I never could go up and go, hey, babe. I was never that guy. And I tried to talk to her, and she didn't want anything to do with me because she had a boyfriend. So I went home and wrote about her in this song. His name was Gary. And I tried Gary and didn't sing. So I tried Randy, and that didn't sing right either. So I ended up with Jessie, and that seemed to work. Wow. But, yeah, Oprah went looking for her, actually. She was looking for the women behind the songs.

2:21:25And they found the stained glass guy. And he died two years before. And they'd thrown all the paperwork out a year after that. Wow. But they could have found her. They missed her. But it'd be wild to me. I don't know if I'd recognize her now. I remember her, what she looked like. I wonder if she loved that song. Yeah. I mean, she had no idea. She had no idea it was about her. No one's ever come up and said, that was me, right? that's crazy wow well listen man it's been awesome meeting you I really enjoyed this very much thank you very much and thanks for everything and congratulations thank you and you're a bad motherfucker alright go see Rick Springfield in concert ladies and gentlemen he's still out there kicking ass I love it alright thank you very much bye everybody

2:22:22Thank you.