In this episode of the Joe Rogan Experience, the comedian and podcaster talks about what it's like growing up in Los Angeles, how he got into comedy, and how he ended up on Skid Row. He also talks about how he almost didn't move to LA at all, and why he's glad he did. Also, he talks about why he doesn't want to move back to his old neighborhood. And he explains why he thinks it's a good thing he's staying put in LA, even though it's only a short drive from where he grew up in Calabasas, CA. It's a great episode, and I hope you enjoy it as much as we did making it to the bottom of the list of podcasts I've listened to over the years. I'll be back with more episodes in the future, but for now, enjoy this one! -Joe Rogan Logo by Courtney DeKorte. Theme by Mavus White. Music by PSOVOD and tyops. If you like what you hear, please leave us a review on Apple Podcasts and/or wherever else you're listening to this podcast, and tell us what you think about it! We'll be looking out for you in the next episode. Thank you so much for listening and supporting the show! Timestamps: 1:00 - What's the worst thing you've ever done? 2:30 - What do you like about LA? 3:40 - What are you looking for? 4:00 5: What's your favorite city? 6:20 - Where do you want to go to go back to? 7: What is your favorite part of Los Angeles? 8: What are your favorite place to grow up in LA or where do you have the most? 9:00s - What kind of place to live? 11:30s - How do you feel about LA is the best place to work? 12:40s - what do you're most excited about LA's best nightlife? 15:00 | LA's biggest meal? 16:30 | Los Angeles's most interesting place? 17:40 | LA s biggest day? 18:00 s? 19:00 // Los Angeles s biggest commute? 21:30 22:40 27:00 & 30s | California s biggest problem?
00:01:01.000Those downtown buildings, that was when I first found out about Skid Row was working for Fear Factor.
00:01:06.000If you're a person that just spends time in Hollywood or Beverly Hills or Tarzana or whatever, you don't know that there is this crazy spot in downtown where they've basically contained homeless people.
00:01:20.000They've set up shelter and food and then people just camp out on the street.
00:01:24.000And obviously that's an issue now in LA. But this was 2003. Yeah, that was mainly where you saw it then, but if you've been out there lately, it's pretty much everywhere.
00:02:49.000Even if you lose a million people or two million people or three million people, you still have 25 million people jammed into an area where when I moved to LA in 94, I guess, It's probably, I mean, I gotta think the population was like a third of that.
00:04:16.000At this point, if you're from L.A., yeah, I know more people in other towns.
00:04:20.000So many people have left for a lot of different reasons, but I know more people out of L.A. than certainly that I know in L.A. Is the Troubadour still happening?
00:04:30.000I heard that the Troubadour was about to go under.
00:05:03.000And we were talking about how Bill has your friend Dean Del Rey opening for him, which is hilarious that you know Dean from the music days.
00:05:09.000Yeah, I've known Dean for more than 25 years or so.
00:05:13.000Well, he was always a great entertainer and always a funny guy, and I know you know him as well.
00:05:17.000I was not surprised that he decided to be a stand-up, but I guess you made me aware that it's surprising to do that in your early 40s.
00:05:25.000It's real odd, yeah, for someone to take a chance like that and shift careers because it's a risk.
00:06:37.000But I tour every year, so I'm far enough along where I don't need to worry so much about making records all the time if I'm not focused or have the ideas.
00:06:47.000So if you don't pay attention, you just keep touring and touring.
00:06:51.000And then I did a movie as well, a documentary, which had a soundtrack in between that, the Echo and the Canyon movie, which was an interview where we spoke to a lot of people who were around in the mid-60s, particularly 65 and 66. The bands went to Laurel Canyon.
00:08:40.000Just because it was like when these bands, you got Buffalo Springfield, you got Neil Young, you got Stephen Stills in the same group together.
00:08:48.000It's just two giants in the same space.
00:08:50.000So they were kind of figuring out what groups could do.
00:08:52.000I don't think anybody imagined having jobs very long.
00:08:55.000I don't think anybody was Looking at each other's paychecks yet and noticing how the dream is not going to probably stay together too long.
00:09:02.000But that's what we found to be interesting.
00:09:04.000Really, if you wanted a documentary about Laurel Canaan, I wouldn't be capable of doing it.
00:09:44.000The hippie movement, you might say that was dumbing down America intentionally.
00:09:48.000I mean, there's a lot of conspiracy in that.
00:09:50.000Well, if not dumbing down America intentionally, this is what I think about a lot of conspiracies where people think that they're engineered.
00:09:56.000I think more often than not, they take advantage of a moment and exacerbate a situation rather than engineer it from scratch.
00:10:04.000Like, I don't think it's possible to engineer the hippie movement.
00:10:07.000But I think you can take moments like that and make the people involved look more ridiculous and more stupid and dumb down America in a certain sense or make people have a, like, you know, the 70s bounce back from what the 60s represented was a lot of it was people being upset at the negative aspects of the hippie culture in the 60s.
00:10:30.000Yeah, I mean, I wouldn't be, you know, the most informed to get into too much of that.
00:10:49.000None of those people, there's other conspiracies that none of those people, including Frank Zapp, wound up on the Royal Canyon for no reason at all.
00:11:36.000It's been a while since I read that book, but when you read that, That's why when I bring that up, because people ask about Laurel Canyon, it's like, I did not attempt, we did not make a documentary about Laurel Canyon, because that's the other half of Laurel Canyon that needs to be discussed as well, if you care about it.
00:11:49.000And that's, I mean, bands are endlessly interesting to me, but that stuff, up on the hilltop, having the CIA, having like a photo, you know, they had a film place up there where they had loads and loads of film that's gone, that's burned, the building is gone, why is it gone?
00:12:04.000I mean, you'll have fun with that book if you want to check it out.
00:12:38.000That's why most of those bands were good.
00:12:40.000They didn't have any bad influences yet.
00:12:42.000I mean, not to name names, you get further down the line, I mean, as much as you might love David Bowie, he also was responsible for influencing a lot of stuff that you don't like.
00:12:53.000Because it becomes harder and harder to find your influences, and you're You're having to sift through the muck of not only just bad influences, but bad equipment, bad guitars, bad microphones.
00:13:02.000This all starts to change, and it becomes, instead of, I got four choices in front of me to listen to, and they're all really good, to now I got 20 choices.
00:13:09.000It becomes more difficult to figure out which stuff is just clouding up your influences.
00:13:14.000But anybody around the 50s, that's why you get those compilations.
00:13:34.000I mean, it's kind of interesting if you think about it.
00:13:36.000I mean, even the most mildly talented person, if they were only listening to great stuff, they'd probably be pretty good just because their sources are so good.
00:17:18.000And I still can't really, I mean, if it was like that every night, like, Jesus, like, I never saw that.
00:17:23.000It wasn't the music I listened to, or none of the fashion, any of that stuff appealed to me.
00:17:26.000But they took over that street, and it was literally, like, the street was just nothing but paper flyers, and it was pretty something, pretty wild.
00:17:34.000Yeah, you didn't experience any of that?
00:17:36.000You never went to like the Rainbow Bar and Grill?
00:18:32.000And now they don't care if you bring people in or not because they already made their $500 for that band and there's five bands that night.
00:18:45.000So when you're going to ask your friend to go, who doesn't care about your band anyway, and then you're going to say, can you spend $15 to get in?
00:18:51.000It just wasn't a good model for a lot of bands.
00:18:53.000And we did it one time and we ate all the money.
00:21:43.000I didn't hear about any bands who were not from Seattle who went up there with their flannel shirts and got a record deal after that explosion.
00:21:53.000I remember very clearly when Nirvana came out, because I was at a buddy of mine's house, and he goes, dude, you've got to listen to this shit.
00:22:00.000And he put on the Nevermind album, and we were all sitting around listening to it, going, I've never heard anything like this before.
00:22:09.000I think I remember the same thing, too.
00:22:12.000It wasn't at your buddy's house, but I was in a van.
00:24:04.000Well, it's one of those things when people hear those old songs, it brings it back to high school or brings it back to when they loved those songs.
00:24:29.000That's the people who, when you're growing up, they either wear a shirt or a sticker on a notebook that really just want to tell you what kind of guy or girl they are.
00:24:43.000And there were people, when I grew up, I remember you couldn't like the Smiths.
00:24:46.000If you also like the police it's just like you got to pick a team and it's just like so childish and that's high school in general really but when you get older I think you just you realize wait a second you know what I really did like Adam the Ants and I really did like I did like The Clash at the same time but I didn't realize I was allowed to do that.
00:25:02.000Yeah I loved Led Zeppelin but I also loved Kiss and Kiss was the embarrassing one and I had to hide it from people.
00:25:15.000I mean, I've been around those people, and I like them, and I see the merit in it, but that did not blow through my basement and knock me out when I was a kid.
00:25:23.000When I was really young, my uncle Vinny worked for Howard Marks Advertising, and they were the ones who did the album covers for Kiss.
00:25:32.000So I met Ace Frehley when I was like...
00:26:04.000And I'll actually tell you a funny story.
00:26:06.000I don't think he might have seen him in a long time, but the first time I met Paul Stanley was in a studio out in L.A. probably in like 97, I want to say.
00:26:14.000So my son was four, maybe, and he was with me at five at the studio.
00:26:21.000The studio had a big lounge with a big fish tank, and I was...
00:26:25.000I was small talking with Paul Stanley, and my son didn't, he didn't have makeup on of course, and we were just catching up on stuff, and an intern from the building, or somebody who worked upstairs, came down with, they just reissued the new Kiss dolls, and he came down with a box, and he was hoping Paul would sign it.
00:26:39.000Because you gotta have it in the box, can't open it, and if he's in the building, you gotta have it signed.
00:26:43.000So Paul notices that my four- or five-year-old is looking at the doll and looking at him and realizing that there's a person in front of me who's actually a doll also.
00:29:19.000That's a weird thing that happens with certain bands where when they become more popular, the original people that got into them get upset.
00:29:28.000Like, they go, man, I fucking knew these people when they were underground.
00:29:57.000It's such a stupid inclination because, obviously, if it's good, If you like it and it's good, wouldn't you want other people to know about it?
00:30:06.000Like, isn't it good if more people find out about- Well, you know, the goal is to be awesome and really big.
00:31:21.000We were talking about this before the show, that you're not a social media person.
00:31:25.000You're not interested in any of that stuff.
00:31:27.000But a lot of people use that as like...
00:31:34.000As a thermometer, to read the temperature of the audience, to try to figure out what people like or what they don't like.
00:31:42.000That influence can either be beneficial, like you can learn something from your audience and get feedback and it can help you or it can fuck you up.
00:31:52.000The way you developed without all that stuff, is it detrimental for artists to have that much interaction with people that are into them?
00:32:04.000And to be doing social media back and forth with fans?
00:32:09.000Well, I would say first, if you enjoy doing it, you should do it.
00:32:14.000There's people not unlike myself who don't actually find the joy of it.
00:32:19.000And that's when I feel bad for people who engage in it who aren't genuinely just enjoying it.
00:32:24.000And for people like myself, if you just put up tour dates and record release stuff, that's not interesting enough to people to really get that kind of traffic you're talking about.
00:32:48.000You know, he was large enough that he'd probably get over anyhow, but he might stumble a while because people are expecting that format of the interaction, of closeness, of pretending to be friends, and maybe it wouldn't work for him.
00:34:33.000And if they don't get that, you look at people's Instagrams.
00:34:35.000If you notice this pattern that starts out, whether it's people like yourself or people in bands or actors or anybody, it starts out with pictures of their plants.
00:35:36.000Yeah, it's just the concern that I would have for young artists is that I think you need a lot of time developing your thoughts and thinking about things from an honest perspective.
00:35:51.000You know what you're never going to read about me?
00:35:53.000You're never going to see my name in a quote that says, in a now-deleted post.
00:35:59.000I mean, everybody's gonna get their first one of those, right?
00:36:33.000It's a good way to get information across as far as if you're a journalist or something.
00:36:38.000I think Twitter is better for journalists than it is for anybody else.
00:36:42.000And maybe up and coming comics, it's not bad because I've followed quite a few people while I see their posts and I go, that's a fucking funny person.
00:37:33.000It seems like for bands, you gotta get on something.
00:37:37.000There's gotta be something where somebody showcases you, whether it's the Jimmy Kimmel show or something, where you play a song and go, oh, that's fucking great.
00:37:49.000I mean, I don't participate very much in it, but there's, I mean, I look at the stuff too, I get it, you know, but if it feels natural, you enjoy it, then you should do it.
00:37:57.000But if you don't, like, I feel bad for people who just go along with it, even though it doesn't feel good.
00:38:03.000Well, now there's new things like TikTok.
00:40:17.000I mean just that your business like if you're if you're reading music memoirs that is your business and it's a strange business right and it's a business it's very much like comedy in a way that you know you're off with your first footsteps and good luck who knows where this journey is going to take you and it's fascinating to me I've read a bunch of comedians memoirs or autobiographies or biographies on comics And it's fascinating just because I contrast those to my own life and just think about this weird path that they
00:41:13.000You know, talent is not, you know, it's not a genetic thing.
00:41:17.000You know, it's like literally just thrown up in the air and it just somewhere falls on the brand of people around the world.
00:41:22.000You know, so how does it connect to one person who then has the ability to figure out a way to make it through, call it a dream, whatever, and get there?
00:41:33.000Any template you might try to follow, it worked for that person, and there's just no reason for you to think it's going to work for you, too.
00:41:38.000You might start out chasing that, but inevitably you're going to have to find your own path.
00:41:42.000A hundred percent, but it's really interesting watching someone's path when you know that they already did it.
00:41:48.000There's something about that, like reading about Kinison, like knowing that he already did it, just to read the path and how it all went down.
00:41:56.000Yeah, and it's interesting, too, if you look at like, you know, Prince had a really good book.
00:41:59.000It was actually a collection of things he'd written with somebody just before that he passed.
00:42:03.000You read the book and it's interesting because of course you know he's going to be Prince, one of the more talented people that may ever walk the planet.
00:42:12.000So you're reading it and you're hearing him get denied with demo tapes and you're hearing no one's believing in him, that he's a weird kid and all that.
00:42:24.000This stuff doesn't really matter what you're going through in your high school and you like basketball and this person denied and that person didn't want to be.
00:42:30.000It's interesting, but what's actually most fascinating is you literally were destined to be Prince one way or another.
00:42:58.000You can read that, and you can hear the people who don't believe in him, and you can be like...
00:43:02.000We all have a, I miss that one kind of moment, or I didn't see that, but like, imagine being the guy who's like, yeah, you know, I had, Prince came in and I didn't hear it.
00:43:50.000It's like he's singing in a falsetto about being in love with a girl and his voice is incredible.
00:43:56.000Or you could be that outrageous if you're gonna be really good.
00:43:59.000We get a lot of the other, which is people who are outrageous and they're compensating for not really having much to sing or say, but he was fully loaded, he had all of it.
00:44:30.000And I forget what the club was, it was crowded, and somebody, this is a true story, somebody had come to me and tapped me on the shoulder and said, you know, Prince is here, he wants you to come sit down.
00:44:39.000And I seriously, I started, I followed, and I thought I was gonna go sit with Prince William.
00:47:37.000I think it was one of those, there was a lot of nights where I would do the UFC, and then after I did commentary, then I would do a show, and then after I did a show, I was done.
00:48:07.000If you're in bands traveling through Minneapolis, every time you went through there, no matter what, from like, maybe like 91 when we started...
00:48:24.000And they'd tell you, and, like, you would, like, hang out, and you'd be like, you know, well, he doesn't go on until four.
00:48:29.000I mean, it was, like, literally every time the rumor would circulate that he's playing right around you, right around the corner, you should stick around.
00:53:39.000I mean, when you do any show, when you go to Letterman, yeah, you do an interview with somebody, and they'd have some things you're going to talk about, and it would feel kind of natural.
00:53:44.000But that is, like, one person is going off hysterically about, you know, this car that he bought, and then it just goes right into skiing.
00:57:54.000As long as they just leave it alone and broadcast it live.
00:57:57.000The problem is Comedy Central, they wanted to get their greasy little PC fingers all over it and fuck it up, because it is literally the most ruthless show I've ever seen in my life.
01:00:04.000Well, that is one of the things that brought me back to the Comedy Store.
01:00:06.000When I went to the Comedy Store in 2014, the first time I saw that, I hadn't been in the Comedy Store in like seven years, and I saw that and I was like, wow.
01:00:17.000Obviously, you're insulting each other, but it's all new stuff.
01:00:20.000And one of the things that I told comics, I'm like, there's so many guys that are doing this, that are writing, and girls and whatever, that are writing these bits.
01:00:29.000That they're doing such a good job crafting this material, but then when you watch the regular act, they're not taking any chances.
01:01:12.000I mean, you always kind of thought so, but now you know because you just watched this person set up the song the same way the last ten nights.
01:01:18.000Because there's great storytellers who set up songs.
01:01:24.000And then what happens when suddenly the magic of I know for bands, a lot of people brought that back a little bit.
01:01:36.000They curtailed that because it's just not a good look.
01:01:39.000You've basically scripted your bits to set up songs.
01:01:44.000But it's been fascinating to me Watching you guys do that, that I watch...
01:01:49.000For me, it's the first time watching, but you've got friends on the side of the stage, and you're telling jokes you've told before, and they'll come up to you afterwards and say, you killed it tonight.
01:01:56.000But you're telling a joke you know they've heard 20 times, but it's kind of like a singer, songwriter, or anybody in a band who had a great performance of that song tonight.
01:02:03.000You know the song, but you killed it tonight.
01:02:05.000It seems so interesting to me that you can do that with comedians.
01:02:07.000You'll tell your friend, even though you knew those jokes, boy, you nailed it tonight.
01:02:11.000And you, the person telling the jokes, is not self-conscious that my friends are over here having heard me tell this bit 20 times.
01:02:43.000Yeah, it helps a lot when someone's there and they could say, you know, last night you said it this way, but tonight you said it that way, and that way's better.
01:02:50.000Or it's also, there's a thing that happens with comedy where you really don't know what works until you do it in front of an audience.
01:02:58.000Like, I would imagine you could write a song completely without any audience member, just you and the band members, and you guys could put it together and record it and not have any feedback from anybody else other than you guys, and then it would be an amazing song.
01:03:46.000We can record it, and I can hear it come out of the speakers, and I can get a rush of how that's what we wanted to do, and that sounds good.
01:03:52.000You don't get any rush unless you tell the joke.
01:03:54.000No rush unless it's in front of an audience.
01:04:26.000You're putting it together, and you kind of know how it's going to go out, but you don't really know until you're performing in front of people, and then when they see it for the first time, they decide.
01:04:36.000And then you have bits you thought were going to be the strongest part of the set and nobody getting it.
01:07:05.000That's what authors say about editors, that you have to have some sort of a working relationship where you trust that person and appreciate them.
01:07:13.000Yeah, and hopefully they can be really helpful to you.
01:07:15.000And people in your student studio are not different than editors really in a way too.
01:07:19.000That's what record producers maybe could do for you.
01:07:22.000I don't really need one because I know how to make records on my own, but it's somebody else, the different set of ears that can help you edit and be honest with you.
01:07:29.000And so you bring the music to them, and then they will say, hey, Jacob, this is a single.
01:07:47.000Well, because a single, you know, doesn't that bring up the picture of like a 45 and go on radio stations and like, I got some wax, I got to play this?
01:11:37.000For a lot of acts, you know, selling CDs out of your car or whatever, that was enough to make a nice little living for themselves.
01:11:44.000And with that gone, those people have regular jobs now.
01:11:46.000Do you think it's possible for someone to develop a YouTube-style streaming service where the artist can upload directly to it and then they can profit off of it and they can maybe split the profits?
01:11:58.000You know, the way YouTube does it with content creators, like say if you decide to be a content creator and you want to make some videos, you're splitting the revenue with YouTube, but you can make a tremendous amount of money.
01:12:07.000That doesn't exist with streaming, right?
01:12:11.000I think, you know, again, I'm not an expert in this, but you're talking about such a small little file.
01:12:15.000Like, yeah, in concept, what you're saying makes sense, but how are they not just going to steal that and it'll be up somewhere else for free within five minutes?
01:12:22.000But doesn't YouTube have a music service?
01:12:58.000If they could have something similar with music, and then people just adopt it, because I know a lot of people, they're using, there's a YouTube music app now.
01:13:07.000You know, they can have that sort of same sort of similar situation.
01:13:11.000Artists can become very popular inside of that world.
01:13:16.000Would that be exclusive with that artist?
01:13:18.000The only way it could be is if you would have a copyright on that.
01:13:21.000Like if you have a copyright on a video, like say if you upload a video on YouTube and then someone else puts it on their channel, you could have that struck.
01:13:29.000You have a copyright strike, you can take it down.
01:13:31.000I think at the end, you know, you're talking about...
01:13:34.000Asking a younger people today specifically to go pay for stuff maybe getting for free for a long time I don't think but that's not what it is You don't ask them to pay the revenue comes from advertising So you you you ask people to pay for the service the same way they pay for Spotify the same way they pay for Apple music It's not an exorbitant amount of money.
01:13:52.000It's a small amount of money per month, but in that you get an unlimited amount of music or I'm for any experiment.
01:14:40.000So again, we miss out just because a lot of those people that need that time to develop, need the support, need the funding, they've got to have jobs and they can't devote all their time to doing it for us.
01:14:50.000So we're the ones who miss out on the end.
01:14:52.000There's always been that situation, too, where you have these really hungry, talented artists and they get taken advantage of by whether it's executives or whoever is the money people that figure out how to lock these people into some long-term contract where the lion's share of all their work and creativity is going to be enjoyed by the company and not by the artists themselves.
01:15:20.000I mean, there's a certain number you get to where you probably don't care anymore how much they're making because you're making so much also, you know.
01:16:20.000You know, some really supportive, positive people who've been a great part of my career.
01:16:27.000You know, I actually can't, I can only name, like, I can name out of 30 years, maybe like one or two people I came across who I hope I never see again in that end of the business.
01:16:35.000Otherwise, like, that's a pretty good ratio.
01:16:38.000So, essentially, there's always going to be people that take advantage of people that don't really understand or are too eager and accept a bad contract.
01:16:47.000Yeah, but there's no excuses for not reading that.
01:16:59.000And I've been in situations where I've looked at a contract, and that's the nature of most business deals is someone's going to do better than somebody else.
01:17:04.000So when you look at that and you realize it looks like you're, no matter what, going to do better.
01:17:46.000There's no reason that you're a great talent that you should also have a great understanding of the business side of things.
01:17:51.000You're not really interconnected for most people.
01:17:53.000But we are far enough along now where hopefully you have somebody with you and things are more transparent that you shouldn't get locked into these horrible deals anymore.
01:18:00.000Do you remember when Courtney Love wrote that piece where she was explaining the music, I think it was in Spin Magazine, where she was explaining the music business in terms of where the money goes and how they fuck over artists?
01:20:49.000They're just funding your trip, and you have a big bill at the end.
01:20:53.000And they have a connection to streaming services.
01:20:55.000Yeah, they have all those contacts that you wouldn't have on your own.
01:20:59.000Now, when a person is like, say if you're a new band, and you get signed by a record company, how does someone find out about you?
01:21:07.000I mean, what is the primary way they find out about you?
01:21:10.000If it's not the radio, which it always used to be, do they find out about you through streaming services?
01:21:15.000Like, are there channels that are sponsored that people get excited about because they know that this channel is where new interesting music gets broken?
01:21:23.000We're both gonna do some homework after this, and if I find out, I'll let you know.
01:21:30.000I mean, because it's just jammed up everywhere.
01:21:33.000So a lot of great things about the way things work now.
01:21:36.000The models that we had before were really effective, too, and at least you could put yourself on a path that if you did X, Y, and Z, maybe your band would get a shot.
01:21:44.000Play your clubs, get your demo tape together, maybe a rec company wants to work with you, and they're gonna give you some money to practice.
01:21:50.000You know, you make that record, you make a video, and they give you some money to go on tour.
01:21:53.000Like, this was a path to maybe being a band that was successful.
01:21:56.000So you take that away, you know, it is just every man and woman for themselves just, you know, trying to find a way to quote-unquote kind of get lucky.
01:22:05.000If you're an established act, you got opportunities.
01:22:08.000If you're doing it the other way, it's really everybody who's trying to get lucky.
01:22:13.000And when someone sees what that person did, by the time you figure it out, it's too late.
01:26:14.000But, you know, then you ask yourself, whatever you were listening to with that gadget, like the record you were listening to, was it even made analog?
01:26:19.000Was it made on digital equipment to begin with?
01:26:49.000Well, Henry Rollins, who's a gigantic record collector, showed us his setup and he has these enormous towers in his living room that are like six feet tall and they're a quarter million dollars plus of just- Where those are speakers?
01:30:24.000But if you want to keep going, you have to adapt.
01:30:28.000But I think for many people, and it's the same in the world of comedy too, the thrill of performing, it just makes everything else seem so boring.
01:30:38.000Any other kind of job that you would have, even if it's satisfying and you enjoy it.
01:30:43.000There's many times where I've come off stage with my friends where we're like, can you imagine if you could never kill?
01:30:48.000There's people out there in this world who've never gone on stage and killed.
01:30:52.000They don't even know what this is like.
01:31:09.000But the point is, once you've already experienced that, for many of these people, you've been a rock star.
01:31:14.000It's got to be really hard to not be a rock star anymore.
01:31:18.000Well, you just don't want your life to be just about getting it done and just having a...
01:31:22.000I mean, that's like, what kind of life is that?
01:31:23.000And live for the summers or when you can get a few weeks to go skiing or something.
01:31:27.000I think most people wouldn't like that.
01:31:30.000And most people don't have the opportunity to not have those kinds of jobs and go to a high-rise.
01:31:35.000But like, you know, I won't say the lucky people, but if you do what you do, yeah, it's impossible to imagine that kind of life.
01:31:43.000Yeah, I just imagine a guy like Mick Jagger that is pushing 80 years old, who is still, like, we played a video the other day of him doing his, like, dance routine, like, at a dance studio, going over his stuff and dancing, and still got the moves!
01:33:02.000With a lot of bands, especially classic bands like The Stones, people don't necessarily want to hear their new stuff.
01:33:09.000They really want to hear this entire catalog of amazing songs that goes back decades.
01:33:15.000So what is that like when a band stops making new music and they just sing the old music?
01:33:22.000That's got to be a very different feeling as an artist because isn't part of being an artist creating and isn't that part of the thrill of being an artist?
01:33:30.000You can't name anybody that's not true of.
01:33:52.000And hopefully your ego accepts that so that you can be a performer and put stock in that you have a catalog that people like, even if you're disappointed that it's from 20, 30 years ago.
01:34:47.000And then maybe you can have a career because of it.
01:34:50.000And that's that intoxication that a lot of people just can't get out of their mouth is just being the center of attention and the prom king.
01:37:27.000And part of his, you know, I think that what works for him is that he is willing to do whatever it takes to make a record regardless of who it's meant for or the popularity.
01:37:37.000I mean, he's got one of the biggest rock records of all time.
01:37:39.000I mean, you don't have to do that twice.
01:38:19.000But it's this really nice line that he rides of pleasing himself, but also respecting the relationship he's built with these people for many years.
01:38:27.000He's not one of the guys who says, or artists in general, who says, I'm doing what I'm doing and I don't care who does or doesn't like it.
01:38:33.000I think he really respects his audience very much.
01:38:37.000And he's found a way to make the records he really wants to make.
01:38:39.000It's some kind of sleight of hand trick that he pulled.
01:43:24.000It's like, well, I don't think you're living in a shack and I don't think your pickup truck's probably pretty tricked out.
01:43:31.000It's kind of telling you about your life and maybe that's what they like about it.
01:43:34.000Maybe there is something that is similar to country music that's always done that, but I'd rather have Merle Haggard or Carter Family or any of those.
01:44:28.000Yeah, it's no mystery that they identify and they've kind of shortened that gap, the close in the distance, because it's rock, essentially.
01:44:35.000And then the Eagles, are they country?
01:44:36.000They're not country music either, but there's country elements.
01:45:10.000Do you consume music while you're doing other things?
01:45:14.000Yeah, unfortunately, like most people do, even if you thought you were hanging on to that thing for long, over time it's just slipped away.
01:45:20.000You just showed us Henry Rollins' studio.
01:45:22.000Like, yeah, if I had that studio, that situation, and I had it, yeah, I'd go in there and just shut the door and listen to music.
01:45:29.000And I can't shed a new light on that experience with music, how it is different with vinyl.
01:45:36.000It is something about it that's different.
01:47:20.000Vinyl had very important parts of that vinyl.
01:47:23.000There was the first song you're going to start your record with, and then there was how you're going to close out side one, right?
01:47:28.000And then how you're going to open side two, and then what's the last song on the record?
01:47:32.000There's like four out of ten spots that were really crucial.
01:47:36.000It wasn't just a collection of your best songs first, like CDs.
01:47:39.000When we started sequencing for CDs, it was just typically your best song first, your shittiest song goes last, because that's all anybody's going to do.
01:47:47.000They're going to listen to it in one straight order.
01:47:49.000They're probably going to leave the room within three songs.
01:47:51.000So they may never even get to the end of the CD. Do they still have...
01:48:05.000Because we used to make records, when you listen to records, your favorite records, sometimes there's purposely a shitty song on the record.
01:48:14.000Because you can't have 10 singles on a record.
01:49:37.000The real good vinyl, you know, was, like, I think that ended, like, maybe mid-60s, 70s.
01:49:42.000Take your records when you were a kid, and they'd go like this, and you could, like, fan yourself, and, like, you know, you could make a noise.
01:50:05.000Well, there was also the experience that people don't get today, where you open up that album, and a lot of them, especially a double, like Kiss Alive 2, or Kiss Double Platinum, like, ooh.
01:51:15.000And they're going to do that about this generation because, oh, before you fuckers with your holograms, we used to actually watch music videos.
01:53:36.000Okay, you feel a little fooled that it wasn't them, but should these guys be sent out to pasture for their whole lives and be humiliated because you still got something that was pretty good that you liked?
01:53:45.000I feel like one of them put out an album where he did sing.
01:54:37.000And, you know, whatever moves you should do, but remember when people do that, when they play with tapes on it, they're restricted by these tapes.
01:54:44.000So they can't go off the script at all.
01:54:50.000Which is when you play with tapes, I'm sorry, when you go see, you know, Def Leppard, they do not use tapes.
01:54:56.000You know those stacked vocals you hear on those famous records?
01:54:59.000They're not young men and they go out there and they insist on, from what I understand, insist on It'd be so easy to have just fly in those walls of background vocals.
01:55:09.000But from the time they came up and from their integrity, they seemed to refuse to do that.
01:55:27.000And I'm not surprised, but then my mind just goes back to this was so...
01:55:31.00020 years ago, this was so insulting and you want to destroy these bands for how dare you?
01:55:36.000The only justification that I've ever heard for using the lip sync is some artists do a lot of physical shit on stage where they're like dancing and jumping around and doing...
01:56:18.000They had to work together with You're singing and you're dancing and you had to know, well, if I do that stuff, I'm probably going to be winded and can't sing.
01:56:30.000Let's get a good dance routine together.
01:56:32.000But if someone does sing and dance together, the impact of watching them pull it off, like James Brown when he was in Zaire opening up for the Muhammad Ali fight, holy shit.
01:56:42.000That video is one of the most iconic videos of a person performing ever.
01:56:48.000She flies around upside down and sings.
01:56:50.000And when you see that, you can see things next, you can feel it, and it's moving.
01:56:55.000That's what separates some people from other people.
01:56:58.000If you can't sing and dance, then just pick one or the other, but don't pretend you can do both, because some people can.
01:57:04.000And she really does hang from those fucking things, and she fell once and really fucked herself up.
01:57:09.000But you've got a superior voice, and you've got somebody who really can trapeze-style maneuvers.
01:57:17.000It's just interesting when you just think about how people were so punished 20 years ago when you found out there was one little tambourine in the background that wasn't live and real and people just felt like you fooled them and they were pissed.
01:57:28.000And you might still feel like that and I might because you were around them, but if you're young today, you wouldn't know the difference.
01:57:33.000You're not expecting the act to just give you what they're able to do.
02:01:47.000I'm trying to read through it to see if there's anything that makes sense that we haven't said, but I can't find anything that makes sense.
02:01:53.000So this is just pre-COVID, just a couple months before the pandemic hit and everything locked down.
02:03:07.000I knew a guy from South Africa who told me when he was a kid...
02:03:10.000They had heard all these crazy rumors about him, that he died in a car accident, that he committed suicide, this conflicting story, but he was a huge hit over there.
02:05:40.000But it's just so crazy to think that this guy lived his whole life not knowing that he was a gigantic star on another continent.
02:05:47.000Well, if I remember correctly, the story itself wasn't that unique, just in terms of getting that record deal, getting your songs in the late 60s, whenever he was starting, and that dream doesn't work for most people.
02:05:58.000And then you go back to your life and not knowing, quietly over here, something just took off.
02:07:13.000See, the one on the middle left, that one, and this side, middle left, that right there, that's more the typical image that you might recall.
02:10:20.000By the time that band was really popular, people were already come and gone.
02:10:23.000It already evolved from different members.
02:10:27.000That's gotta be one of the hardest things about a band is getting all the personalities to sync up and get along with each other while you're touring, while you're making albums, while you're putting music together.
02:10:42.000And your chances of really sustaining that for very long are not very good.
02:10:46.000Because generally bands are put together when you're kids.
02:10:50.000It's kind of a young person's dream being a rock band at 21. But you don't really have any experience and you don't have any needs yet other than Rent or something.
02:10:58.000So to be together by the time you guys are now 41 or 42, 20 years later, that's not really a normal arc.
02:13:24.000There are bands like what you're talking about.
02:13:27.000Nobody wants to see The Edge leave U2, it just won't be U2 without them.
02:13:30.000But you did put up with a couple of changes in the Rolling Stones.
02:13:34.000Brian Jones died, or he was fired, and then McTaylor came in, and now you've got Ron Wood.
02:13:40.000Some bands, if we do it a little bit at a time, it's like, don't steal all the money at once, just take a dollar at a time, no one's gonna notice.
02:14:47.000But you've seen, there's like 40 people on that stage.
02:14:50.000Yeah, there's a lot of people up there, right?
02:14:52.000Yeah, so, but what used to work doesn't work all, you know, you can't, like with Zeppelin we're around, I'd like to think they wouldn't have...
02:15:03.000But, you know, if you have a long career, like the Stones, and you've got your disco records from the 70s, and you've got a lot of percussion, yeah, people kind of want that full show, as long as the core people are up there.
02:15:43.000Well, yeah, I have friends who are musicians.
02:15:48.000One of the things about comedy is we all get together and we talk about the art form a lot.
02:15:53.000One of the beautiful things about podcasts is we've had so many conversations with comics where we talk about how you do it, what's the process.
02:16:03.000Do you get together with other musicians?
02:16:06.000Yeah, we do, but there's a certain amount of it that you can have a dialogue about and then there's a certain amount of it that none of us know what the hell we're doing.
02:18:01.000You have to be in a certain state to do it, and I've done it when I didn't expect it.
02:18:04.000It's crazy that you actually just shut down.
02:18:06.000You could be so inside that these things will come out, you'll write them down, and like, They literally will make you into some kind of zombie phase and it happened.
02:18:21.000If you're open, you kind of leave your brain clear.
02:18:26.000These ideas will come to you and they're going to come to only you probably.
02:18:29.000So that in itself makes it a unique idea.
02:18:32.000And then hopefully you've got some level of ability and skill set to put that together in the song that you or yourself or someone else might want to listen to for three and a half minutes.
02:18:41.000Like they're coming out of something that's not your conscious mind.
02:20:51.000But that car, the Firebird, obviously you know you could have the Camaro, but isn't the guy who noticed that the Firebird is the one you want?
02:25:00.000They're still tricky to drive because they're not really designed for it, but there's some companies now that take old cars like that and they do a different chassis.
02:26:18.000Okay, so you're in Huntington, New York, Lexington, Massachusetts, East Greenwich, Rhode Island, Alexandria, Virginia, Brooklyn, New York, a lot of places.