The Joe Rogan Experience - Joe Rogan Experience #2177 - Chris Robinson

00:00:03.000 The Joe Rogan experience.

00:00:05.000 Train by day!

00:00:07.000 Joe Rogan podcast by night!

00:00:09.000 All day!

00:00:12.000 The first season is like 1972 or 3 I think?

00:00:16.000 Columbo.

00:00:17.000 I almost forgot about that show.

00:00:19.000 They used to tell him not to smoke?

00:00:21.000 Well, no, the character, I can tell they're probably just building up.

00:00:24.000 You notice that he has a cigar in his hands the whole series or every episode.

00:00:29.000 But it's funny that in 1972 people are like, please don't smoke in here.

00:00:34.000 Or Lieutenant Columbo, he's always being reprimanded for it.

00:00:39.000 Interesting.

00:00:40.000 I forgot about that.

00:00:41.000 And he's always really, you know, Peter Fox's character, he's always like, oh, sorry.

00:00:45.000 And he puts it out always.

00:00:47.000 He's never upset or anything.

00:00:48.000 Yeah, that was an interesting character, right?

00:00:50.000 Because he was like this bumbling guy who was actually not.

00:00:53.000 He was kind of setting you up the whole time.

00:00:55.000 Letting you underestimate him.

00:00:57.000 Acting like...

00:00:59.000 Pardon me.

00:01:00.000 What another thing?

00:01:01.000 He's always about to leave, and he's like, oh, yeah, and he comes back.

00:01:05.000 And he's annoying people, and they're like, oh.

00:01:07.000 Incredible, though, aesthetic.

00:01:10.000 And the other day I'm watching this episode that Jonathan Demme directed, Steven Spielberg.

00:01:15.000 I mean, all of these famous directors start to cut their teeth in TV and on episodic things like that.

00:01:22.000 But there's a real tone to it and stuff that's cool in the way everyone looked.

00:01:27.000 But one other funny thing about it that I've noticed in Columbo is that it always starts with a murder and then usually a lot of times in the arc of the story someone shows up to the crime scene.

00:01:41.000 Usually whoever did it or whatever, right?

00:01:44.000 And so...

00:01:46.000 But they're never upset.

00:01:48.000 There's never someone that runs and says, what happened here?

00:01:50.000 Your uncle's been murdered.

00:01:51.000 Oh, I didn't do it.

00:01:53.000 It's kind of like how it starts instead of some dramatic, you know, like, oh my god, you know, how could this have happened?

00:02:02.000 No one's even, they're just like, okay, well, you're bothering me now.

00:02:07.000 In cop shows, you can always tell police, even SVU, they're always like, I've had enough.

00:02:11.000 Can you guys leave?

00:02:12.000 And they leave.

00:02:13.000 I'm like, is that how it goes?

00:02:14.000 I don't know.

00:02:15.000 No.

00:02:17.000 It's weird how many of those shows there are where they catch the bad guy.

00:02:23.000 It's like something that I guess people with anxiety need to let them feel like if someone is a bad person and they do commit a murder, they're going to get caught.

00:02:32.000 Like, are the interest in those kind of dark scenarios, you're only interested in them when there's justice at the end?

00:02:41.000 Is that what you're saying?

00:02:42.000 Oh yeah, for sure.

00:02:43.000 Because anything nebulous or whatever is like too real, maybe.

00:02:47.000 Yeah, there's those shows, and then there's medical shows. 0.90

00:02:50.000 Remember when there was a time where every other fucking show on TV was about a hospital? 0.97

00:02:55.000 Yeah, yeah. 0.98

00:02:56.000 And the only one that I really remember is Quincy.

00:02:59.000 So Jack Klugman yelling at everyone.

00:03:02.000 He's yelling about the sandwich.

00:03:04.000 He's yelling about the blood sample.

00:03:07.000 When we were kids, we were hardcore.

00:03:09.000 We were in that initial phase of American kind of hardcore punk stuff.

00:03:14.000 Because we had just missed out the, like, 77, 78, 79. And then there was an episode about the L.A. scene.

00:03:24.000 And Quincy goes to the punk club.

00:03:27.000 Don't you see what you kids are doing to yourselves with the loud music and the anger and the...

00:03:34.000 The pills or whatever!

00:03:36.000 And there was a thing when we were kids, and there was this song, I forget which band did it, but you were fake if you were a Quincy punk, because they took the way people looked on Quincy or whatever, and that instantly became...

00:03:51.000 A fake punker. 0.99

00:03:52.000 Yeah, yeah, you're bullshit now. 0.98

00:03:54.000 When you started out, what was the inspirations for your band? 0.98

00:03:58.000 What were you guys into?

00:04:00.000 I mean, it's hard to untangle because my dad was a singer.

00:04:07.000 So our dad was a singer.

00:04:09.000 And he was very...

00:04:12.000 Well, my dad's kind of a strange guy in general.

00:04:16.000 A lovely guy, but dynamic to say the least.

00:04:20.000 But he had like a hit in the late 50s called Boom-A-Dip-Dip.

00:04:24.000 Like a top 40 kind of record.

00:04:26.000 And a couple of subsequent sort of...

00:04:31.000 You know, rock and roll singles.

00:04:33.000 And he was living in New York and stuff.

00:04:35.000 And that kind of pales out and then he moves back to Atlanta and he immerses himself in the folk music scene.

00:04:43.000 And he was signed to a label called ABC Paramount.

00:04:46.000 So by the time I come along in 66, he's not doing it anymore.

00:04:53.000 What was he doing?

00:04:54.000 He was a schmata guy. 0.95

00:04:56.000 He was like Willy Loman.

00:05:00.000 He was in the garment business.

00:05:04.000 My grandfather, Ike Robinson, they were in children's wear.

00:05:09.000 My dad was in women's wear and then ended later back in children's wear.

00:05:15.000 But the one thing around the house that I remember earliest memories are him pulling out his guitar and singing folk songs.

00:05:22.000 And just...

00:05:26.000 I don't know.

00:05:27.000 I'm a dyslexic person.

00:05:33.000 You know what I mean?

00:05:34.000 I don't know if that has anything to do with it, but there was something about always singing these songs.

00:05:39.000 It would open up stuff for me.

00:05:41.000 Almost like being high, not in a psychedelic way, but in a way that it changed the space.

00:05:50.000 You know what I mean?

00:05:52.000 Records started doing that to me very early.

00:05:55.000 And that kind of is where, so it's kind of, we think it's normal.

00:05:59.000 Other kids' dads aren't playing old folk songs at the house that I know, you know.

00:06:03.000 But by the time Rich and I, you know, we're kind of like angst-ridden suburban youth, you know.

00:06:10.000 For some reason my parents decided to move to the suburbs, financial reasons, general apathy, you know, ready to, you know, begin the mound of resentment and regret.

00:06:23.000 I don't know.

00:06:25.000 All the things the suburbs represent me, you know what I mean?

00:06:30.000 I would say, for me, There was a television show.

00:06:36.000 Do you remember Night Flight on USA Network back in the early days?

00:06:41.000 I remember the name.

00:06:42.000 I don't even remember what it was about.

00:06:43.000 Yeah, it would come on at midnight and it would be concerts and films.

00:06:50.000 It was probably the first time I saw Eraserhead or Rude Boy, the movie about The Clash.

00:06:57.000 Decline in Western Civilization, punk things, and new wave things.

00:07:03.000 I always had an interest in stranger things and things that weren't normal.

00:07:12.000 You know, Mr. Roper on Three's Company or whatever.

00:07:15.000 You know what I mean?

00:07:17.000 And this show, they had a show that came on at 2 in the morning and it was from Los Angeles called New Wave Theater.

00:07:23.000 And that was like huge, huge.

00:07:26.000 Being a kid in the suburbs in Georgia where, you know, it's still pretty much like that band, all the people that's in that band, Alabama, you know, they wear like trucker hats and flannels and like want to beat you up because you have a Ramones record or something.

00:07:43.000 And that's how it was.

00:07:44.000 Wow.

00:07:45.000 So this show was like a real beacon of, you know, my mom was like, oh yeah, Peter Ivers.

00:07:52.000 A very interesting character, Peter Ivers.

00:07:59.000 Wealth of material they've serviced in many incarnations tonight.

00:08:02.000 They're here as 45 graves, pieces of wax.

00:08:08.000 45, yeah, so this is what I'm really into.

00:08:11.000 Don Bowles is the drummer in 45 Grave, who was in The Germs.

00:08:19.000 Not a happy childhood amongst them.

00:08:21.000 No, but, well, I don't know.

00:08:23.000 But they definitely made amazing, beautiful, cool outsider art.

00:08:28.000 And, you know, I think something that we have a hard time understanding in this day and age is art that's made because of the visceral interaction with you and other people that has nothing to do with, I'm going to be a big star.

00:08:44.000 Right, right, right.

00:08:46.000 Some of the things I think... 0.99

00:08:48.000 I mean, fuck, I'm like one of the last... 0.99

00:08:50.000 I mean, the Black Crows, we have to be one of the last bands of the time where we kind of felt it was our duty to never truly give in to the other side, you know what I mean? 0.99

00:09:05.000 And kind of understand this us versus them You know what I mean?

00:09:11.000 Or vibe.

00:09:12.000 It's something that's inspiring and something that is like...

00:09:15.000 You know, I was always interested in counterculture, you know?

00:09:18.000 And anyone...

00:09:21.000 Again, that's like why the algorithm maybe isn't as perfect or it never will overtake everything because there's always going to be the one person who's like, I'm going this way.

00:09:30.000 That's not enough for me.

00:09:32.000 You know, the deep dive people.

00:09:34.000 And so we kind of found ourselves in the crosshairs of...

00:09:38.000 This kind of stuff.

00:09:39.000 The Cramps.

00:09:40.000 We were in The Cramps.

00:09:41.000 The Gun Club.

00:09:42.000 And then R.E.M. comes around, their first record, Chronic Town.

00:09:46.000 And so my mom and dad had a lot of records.

00:09:51.000 Maybe 250 records, 300 records, you know?

00:09:54.000 Which was a lot of records back then.

00:09:55.000 Bluegrass records, Lester Flatt and Earl Scruggs records, or Moe's Allison records, Jimmy Reed records, Johnny Guitar Watson, and then they had Buffalo Springfield records.

00:10:10.000 Bob Dylan records.

00:10:12.000 I mean, that's a big...

00:10:13.000 I mean, for millions of people, but something as a kid that...

00:10:19.000 I knew no other kids would go...

00:10:21.000 You guys want to come over and listen to records?

00:10:23.000 I'm going to put on the times they are changing.

00:10:26.000 Again, that would be a reason to get beat up.

00:10:30.000 But that kind of stuff catapults us into...

00:10:33.000 Then punk rock comes along and it's like, oh, anyone can do this.

00:10:37.000 You don't have to be...

00:10:39.000 We'll figure it out later what talent or whatever.

00:10:42.000 You know what I mean?

00:10:43.000 We just want to plug in and start going and singing horrible things and trying to be offensive.

00:10:50.000 You know what I mean?

00:10:51.000 Because think about...

00:10:52.000 Now people walk around in Dead Kennedys t-shirts and it's like, oh, cool.

00:10:57.000 But back then, Dead Kennedys made people...

00:11:00.000 The name of that band, the Circle Jerks, the names of these bands made people upset.

00:11:05.000 Right.

00:11:06.000 Legitimate rebellion.

00:11:07.000 Yeah, yeah.

00:11:08.000 Instead of, you know, posturing.

00:11:11.000 Exactly.

00:11:11.000 Which is a lot of what's going on today with Dead Kennedys t-shirts.

00:11:14.000 But, I mean, I think inevitably anything like that, I mean...

00:11:19.000 Edgar Allan Poe was that in a literary way in the, you know, the tail end of the Victorian age, but now he's just like a thing hanging in some goth kid's car, like an air freshener or something.

00:11:32.000 You know what I mean?

00:11:33.000 Yeah.

00:11:34.000 So things get swallowed up culturally.

00:11:36.000 Right.

00:11:36.000 And regurgitated as just a, you know, and it just so happens the dead Kennedys have one of the greatest logos of all time, but...

00:11:42.000 Yeah.

00:11:43.000 There's always going to be adherence to what most people are interested in and what's popular, and then people that are trying to mimic what's popular so that they can become popular.

00:11:54.000 And then there's always legitimate counterculture where people are just like, I don't vibe with any of this.

00:11:59.000 Yeah, I'm looking for something else.

00:12:01.000 Yeah, I'm looking for something that's real, something that's raw.

00:12:05.000 And I think that's going to accelerate with AI music and, you know, all this electronic music.

00:12:11.000 And again, as you were saying before, stuff that's sort of created to feed the algorithm.

00:12:16.000 Yeah.

00:12:17.000 You know, there's strategies to become successful rather than just expression that resonates with people.

00:12:24.000 Let the people...

00:12:24.000 Yeah, yeah.

00:12:25.000 In a way, I mean, someone took a chance...

00:12:29.000 You know, a band like Alan Vega and, you know, like Suicide.

00:12:33.000 Like someone...

00:12:33.000 You know, the no-wave music in New York in the late 70s.

00:12:36.000 Someone took a chance and said, yeah, I always think about how weird was that?

00:12:40.000 You know, like bringing that into a studio where...

00:12:43.000 Who was just in here? 1.00

00:12:44.000 Fucking 38 Special or some shit. 1.00

00:12:46.000 You know what I mean? 1.00

00:12:46.000 And then there's like this or whatever. 1.00

00:12:48.000 You know what I mean?

00:12:49.000 I mean...

00:12:51.000 The cool thing about the first Sex Pistols record, the Clash record is a little different, but even the Dead Boys or bands like that, a lot of those early punk records and a lot of the post-punk records Those bands,

00:13:07.000 they're not making records trying to sound... 0.95

00:13:10.000 Oh, I can make a record sound like I Don't Give a Fuck or something on my GarageBand. 0.95

00:13:15.000 You can do anything now with a button and people... 0.99

00:13:21.000 And I like lo-fi shit, too, of course. 0.97

00:13:23.000 But back then, these bands, they're not making lo-fi records. 0.99

00:13:26.000 They're in just...

00:13:27.000 That's a real band, but with great gear and people who are making records that we would think are...

00:13:34.000 Sonically, like, oh, that's correct.

00:13:37.000 Right.

00:13:37.000 And then you have, like, these punk people in there just like, you can't turn it up all the way.

00:13:43.000 Well, we're doing that.

00:13:43.000 You know what I mean?

00:13:44.000 Wasn't this sort of rebellion out...

00:13:46.000 You guys had, like, a falling out with ZZ Top, right, when you were on tour?

00:13:50.000 Wasn't part of it something about corporate involvement?

00:13:52.000 Yeah, we were always...

00:13:54.000 And it's funny, I just saw Billy Gibbons a couple weeks ago in London, and we've been friends for many years, and a massive ZZ Top fan.

00:14:02.000 I mean, those records, especially the early records, I mean, they just sound delicious, you know what I mean?

00:14:09.000 I just...

00:14:11.000 And when...

00:14:12.000 What is it?

00:14:13.000 Which one is it?

00:14:14.000 Is it Rio Grande?

00:14:15.000 I don't know.

00:14:15.000 One of those records where you open it and there's a giant plate of Mexican food.

00:14:20.000 Growing up in Atlanta, that was...

00:14:22.000 I didn't know what that...

00:14:23.000 You know what I mean?

00:14:23.000 You could get that?

00:14:26.000 We had barbecue and we had soul food.

00:14:28.000 We have our own regional culinary identity.

00:14:32.000 But to see stuff like that, I was like, wow, I gotta try that.

00:14:35.000 You know what I mean?

00:14:36.000 But no, we...

00:14:40.000 I don't even know if ZZ Top, where they were in their career, if they knew anything that was going on about these guys that were the opening band.

00:14:48.000 Except for the fact that in the music business at that time, when you're still selling records, and you're selling 250,000 records every week or whatever for a couple years, it starts to be kooky when it was a thing.

00:15:02.000 But they were sponsored by Miller Lite.

00:15:05.000 And...

00:15:08.000 I just got into this thing.

00:15:10.000 So we'd go on stage and do our thing.

00:15:13.000 And there's big Miller Lite posters all over the state or whatever.

00:15:19.000 And I got in my little troublemaker mind, we're the Black Crows.

00:15:25.000 You know what I mean?

00:15:26.000 No one gives us money.

00:15:27.000 We don't drink this beer. 1.00

00:15:29.000 No one gives us fucking money. 0.99

00:15:31.000 I'm standing under this sign because I have to be here tonight, but I want you to know that no fucking beer company sponsors our music. 0.99

00:15:38.000 No one owns us. 0.97

00:15:39.000 You know what I mean?

00:15:44.000 These naïve sort of thing about...

00:15:48.000 I don't know.

00:15:49.000 My brother and I talk about it a lot.

00:15:52.000 And as we've gotten older, and especially since we've put the band back together these last few years and have been in a really positive place and a really good place, I realize...

00:16:06.000 Part of that that we were involved in, we believed in what we feel is really the true essence of rock and roll.

00:16:15.000 It's like, I describe it as like the movie Quest for Fire, you know, when they have to keep the fire burning in that little thing and they're going across the swamp and they don't want the Neanderthals to get it or whatever.

00:16:28.000 That's kind of how we felt in a weird way about everything that was out.

00:16:33.000 You know, one minute you're in control.

00:16:34.000 Your kids were writing songs.

00:16:37.000 We're in control of that.

00:16:38.000 I'm in control of like, this is what we're doing.

00:16:41.000 This is how we...

00:16:42.000 Look, this is what we are.

00:16:44.000 And then you're in the grown-up world and you've made people tens of millions of dollars.

00:16:52.000 And I'm hardly a savvy business person.

00:16:56.000 I never could be.

00:16:58.000 I never would be.

00:16:59.000 It wasn't in the cards for me.

00:17:02.000 And so part of our, like, being hard about it or being difficult...

00:17:10.000 Not being compliant was trying to, in our minds, keep this pure thing.

00:17:17.000 You know what I mean?

00:17:18.000 And in a way, that still is part of what we are today.

00:17:21.000 How old were you guys back then?

00:17:23.000 Oh, in the summer of 89. Rich was 18. I was 23 when we made our first record.

00:17:30.000 Wow.

00:17:32.000 Just a young rebel.

00:17:36.000 Well, you know, the other thing is, you know, you remember, rock and roll was, culturally and socially, its place and its importance and its reverence was a lot different than today.

00:17:49.000 Yeah.

00:17:50.000 You know, I think, it's one thing I think is cool about hip-hop music is that hip-hop stars have taken over that kind of attitude.

00:17:58.000 Yes.

00:18:02.000 Which I, when I see their fashion and I see, you know, I mean, there's lots of, hip hop's not one thing, of course.

00:18:07.000 Right.

00:18:08.000 And I'm 57. I like what I like.

00:18:10.000 You know, I like old records anyway.

00:18:12.000 But when I hear new things that I like, and I'm like, okay, so they're singing about drugs, they're singing about sex, and, you know, they're singing about, you know...

00:18:22.000 Maybe I can't really identify with the violence of poverty and stuff.

00:18:28.000 You know what I mean?

00:18:28.000 The extreme nature of some of it.

00:18:33.000 But that's another form of rebellion as well.

00:18:38.000 Yeah, and hip-hop itself is an interesting art form because there's not a push to popify it.

00:18:46.000 The hardcore hip-hop artists are very successful.

00:18:50.000 The lyrics are rough.

00:18:53.000 They're very hard-edged lyrics, but yet these are the lyrics that get millions and millions of views.

00:18:59.000 You can't even say millions of sold albums anymore.

00:19:03.000 That had to be the weirdest thing, to watch the sale of albums evaporate.

00:19:08.000 Not just the sale, you're absolutely correct.

00:19:11.000 Not just the sale, but the The meaning of a record.

00:19:15.000 Again, in the big scheme of things, the record business isn't as old as, say, writing or whatever.

00:19:23.000 But in the way that we would listen to music and there's a company that would find talent and put that whole thing.

00:19:30.000 But yeah, making a record and saying, okay, we're songwriters.

00:19:37.000 This is our latest work.

00:19:40.000 This is what we've been working on.

00:19:42.000 This is our craft, and this is our talent, and our poetry, and this is what we want to say.

00:19:48.000 Now it's like, you know, an album, you know what I mean?

00:19:53.000 I personally think that it's still an important medium, and I've yet to give up on it, you know what I mean?

00:20:04.000 If they said, you know what I mean?

00:20:06.000 That's what Rich and I have always done.

00:20:09.000 We write songs.

00:20:10.000 It was one of the only things, again, the way we could experience the world was through that.

00:20:17.000 Because he's, you know, as crazy as me, just doesn't talk as much. 0.58

00:20:24.000 Not crazy, but I mean different. 0.77

00:20:29.000 Artists.

00:20:29.000 I think it resonates with a lot of people, which is why there's this resurgence of vinyl, right?

00:20:34.000 People still want to listen to actual vinyl.

00:20:37.000 They still want to see an actual album.

00:20:40.000 Agreed.

00:20:40.000 And there's a lot of looking at that, there's a lot of reminiscing from people my age and your age that were around when these things were the way you consumed music.

00:20:50.000 I've been buying records since I was 12 years old, you know what I mean?

00:20:54.000 And it was weird, maybe that's because my mom and dad had a lot of records.

00:20:59.000 But, you know, my wife and I, we just moved just around the block in L.A. And we've been together seven years, but we kept our records separate.

00:21:10.000 I don't know.

00:21:11.000 We have thousands and thousands.

00:21:13.000 I just put 4,000 records in storage because we don't have space for them.

00:21:18.000 Wow.

00:21:20.000 But it's funny because...

00:21:25.000 No matter what, I see a record store, I'm going in, and after however many years of buying records, I know what I'm looking for.

00:21:34.000 And I don't buy records online very much.

00:21:37.000 How come?

00:21:38.000 I don't know.

00:21:40.000 I'm like a kid.

00:21:42.000 If I've been looking for something and I see it, I get a shot of endorphins.

00:21:49.000 You know what I mean?

00:21:49.000 I'm looking around like, I don't want anyone to...

00:21:51.000 It's weird.

00:21:52.000 It's geeky stuff.

00:21:53.000 It's nerd stuff.

00:21:56.000 But the record store was really important to me as a young person and a musician because before you could go on your phone or before the algorithm, whatever, there's another person that looks cool.

00:22:10.000 You know what I mean?

00:22:11.000 They have Chelsea boots on or a cool band t-shirt.

00:22:17.000 In the suburbs back in the 80s, if you saw someone, you took the chance to go to their house and look through their records.

00:22:29.000 It's funny that it's still that way.

00:22:31.000 You know what I mean?

00:22:32.000 I have so many friends in my life, and we're friends because of records.

00:22:35.000 You know what I mean?

00:22:36.000 And it's like, my wife and I DJ all the time in LA, and we go to New York, and we carry our records around.

00:22:43.000 You DJ? Yeah.

00:22:45.000 My wife's name is Camille.

00:22:47.000 So we have the best DJ name ever.

00:22:49.000 The Captain and Camille.

00:22:53.000 We do concerts and bars and parties and gigs and stuff.

00:22:59.000 Really?

00:23:00.000 When did you start doing that?

00:23:01.000 DJing?

00:23:03.000 I started like, well, back in the 80s, everyone used to take a turn playing records at the pizza place.

00:23:09.000 They had two turntables called Fellini's in Atlanta, where all the As my dad referred to them, Dirtbags and Low Lives hung out. 0.98

00:23:17.000 Everyone in a band, of course.

00:23:20.000 But then in the early 2000s, a friend of mine that worked at the great record store Other Music in New York, my friend Michael, We started doing these nights and playing like a lot of weird psych folk as a kind of genre and we both loved those records and we called that,

00:23:41.000 we called Gurus Galore.

00:23:44.000 When I wasn't doing the Black Crows I had this band called the CRB. We were like a little psychedelic folk rock little group that toured around and made a bunch of records.

00:23:59.000 But we played two sets a night, so it was kind of like Grateful Dead model, like very heady, trippy.

00:24:05.000 But the CRB, especially in California, we always had friends DJ. The doors opened until after the show and in between sets, playing records.

00:24:18.000 I don't know.

00:24:19.000 She's something we've always done.

00:24:20.000 And my wife used to DJ before I met her and stuff.

00:24:24.000 So just something you enjoy?

00:24:26.000 By the way, if I could make money doing it, I would never do it.

00:24:30.000 If me and Camille could just play records, I would be the happiest person in the world.

00:24:35.000 You would stop performing?

00:24:35.000 No, I'm kidding.

00:24:37.000 I love singing.

00:24:38.000 I love performing.

00:24:39.000 I love being in a band.

00:24:40.000 You know what I mean?

00:24:43.000 I love, it's changed a lot, like anything else, and travel and everything, but I personally, it's yet to beat the adventure out of me.

00:24:53.000 You know what I mean?

00:24:54.000 You never know.

00:24:55.000 Same thing about why I could go online and buy whatever book or record I want right now.

00:25:01.000 Anything, almost anything you can imagine.

00:25:04.000 Is available.

00:25:05.000 Is available.

00:25:06.000 But, you know, I know when I'm in Denver, I'm going to this certain bookstore and I know that they have really curated things in there that I'm looking for.

00:25:18.000 I can wander into, you know, you never know who you're going to meet.

00:25:21.000 You never know what you're going to eat.

00:25:23.000 You know what I mean?

00:25:24.000 The laughs and the...

00:25:26.000 You know, it's still a lot of stuff out there for someone like me.

00:25:30.000 A lot of stimuli.

00:25:32.000 Real experiences.

00:25:34.000 Yeah, that are good and human.

00:25:35.000 Yeah, human experiences.

00:25:38.000 Yeah.

00:25:38.000 I mean, that is what live music and live performance is all about, right?

00:25:42.000 I mean, music is great.

00:25:43.000 Live music is something really special.

00:25:46.000 I tell you, the pandemic was weird for the world.

00:25:50.000 And it was for artists and musicians.

00:25:53.000 We had no government bailout for the guy who was playing guitar or whatever.

00:26:01.000 But as hard as it was, one of the worst parts of it to me was not just being able to do what we do, but not going to see bands.

00:26:11.000 You know what I mean?

00:26:13.000 I have a label called Silver Arrow, and we've been doing this for a few years.

00:26:18.000 The Black Crows records come out on Silver Arrow.

00:26:20.000 It's a little different, but...

00:26:22.000 I'm always going to see bands.

00:26:25.000 You know what I mean?

00:26:27.000 Whether it's the Rolling Stones or whether we go see a band at a little club in LA. And I'm always looking for new, you know, things to people that are interesting.

00:26:38.000 If I could help them out in their careers.

00:26:40.000 A lot of it is with really young artists.

00:26:42.000 I want to put them in the studio.

00:26:44.000 I want to give them good experience.

00:26:45.000 I want to give them a great record deal because it's changed, the model.

00:26:51.000 But to do that, you have to go out and get in it.

00:26:54.000 You know what I mean?

00:26:55.000 We always laugh.

00:26:55.000 I'm like, is there anyone older here tonight than me?

00:26:58.000 You're like, oh, there's one!

00:26:59.000 You know what I mean?

00:27:01.000 There's a freaky dude who still goes to see bands.

00:27:04.000 Yeah.

00:27:04.000 Well, people don't want to let it go, and why should they?

00:27:06.000 I mean, in L.A. right now is a great time.

00:27:09.000 I mean, there's a lot of good music going on in L.A. Really?

00:27:11.000 And there's a lot of bars where, you know, we know if someone plays great records, we'll go listen to them play records.

00:27:18.000 You know what I mean?

00:27:19.000 There's a lot of good record people, bands.

00:27:23.000 There's a lot of cool...

00:27:23.000 L.A. is very alive right now.

00:27:25.000 No kidding.

00:27:26.000 What parts of L.A. are this happening?

00:27:28.000 I mean, it happens all over, but especially more downtown and to the east.

00:27:32.000 Downtown.

00:27:33.000 I mean, yeah, you have to survive getting into the place. 1.00

00:27:37.000 Downtown is so fucked up. 0.99

00:27:39.000 I know. 1.00

00:27:40.000 But that's probably something that adds to the feeling of it.

00:27:43.000 You know what it does?

00:27:44.000 And it's funny, because I had a nostalgic moment when we started talking about Look, man, don't get me wrong.

00:27:50.000 My parents did the best they could. 0.99

00:27:51.000 They're just fucking people, too. 1.00

00:27:54.000 But part of the other part of adventure and the other part of being interesting in, like, New Wave Theater, my mom's like, they all look like mental patients, just like you! 1.00

00:28:03.000 You know, like, great.

00:28:05.000 But was...

00:28:07.000 To go to downtown Atlanta in the 80s was dangerous, too, during the crack epidemic.

00:28:14.000 It was a violent place.

00:28:18.000 Obviously, we were white kids from the suburbs traversing this urban place to get into these little underground clubs to see these bands.

00:28:28.000 That added to it.

00:28:30.000 You know what I mean?

00:28:31.000 And just the aesthetic.

00:28:33.000 You know what I mean?

00:28:34.000 I still am an obsessive influenced by the beat writers and beat culture.

00:28:41.000 And so for me, like, you know...

00:28:45.000 Jack Kerouac isn't writing about the suburbs.

00:28:48.000 He's writing about the, you know, Mexico City or whatever.

00:28:51.000 You know what I mean?

00:28:52.000 Gregory Corso or Allen Ginsberg, all these poets and people are writing about all these experiences that don't seem to be happening in, like, a neighborhood where they call the houses a five, four, and a door.

00:29:04.000 You know what I mean?

00:29:06.000 So a certain angst is...

00:29:11.000 Cultivated.

00:29:12.000 The only thing that could satisfy that would be something that I felt was gritty and real.

00:29:17.000 Well, there's something about...

00:29:19.000 I mean, I haven't been to downtown LA to see music in quite a while, but the last time I went there, I saw Gary Clark Jr. in Honey Honey at this very small place...

00:29:30.000 With, you know, maybe there was like 200 people in there.

00:29:34.000 I took my daughter and it was like a late show on a Monday night, like 1130. And here we're seeing Gary Clark Jr. in Honey Honey play a cover of Midnight Rider.

00:29:45.000 And it just felt so special because there was no one there.

00:29:50.000 And you survived.

00:29:51.000 And you survived.

00:29:51.000 And you get out.

00:29:52.000 You're like, let's get out of here.

00:29:53.000 Where's the car?

00:29:54.000 Let's get out of here.

00:29:55.000 But you know what's weird about that?

00:29:56.000 And I get it.

00:29:58.000 But haven't...

00:29:59.000 I spend a lot of my time reading.

00:30:02.000 I read a lot of varied materials.

00:30:04.000 And one thing that comes up is humans are dangerous. 0.98

00:30:08.000 And places where there's a shit ton of them are usually pretty gross and dangerous. 0.98

00:30:14.000 It's just a numbers thing, right?

00:30:15.000 It's totally a numbers thing.

00:30:18.000 It's other things, ills as well, that are hard for us to deal with.

00:30:24.000 And look, if we're lucky enough to be walking upright and somehow mentally stable or whatever, right?

00:30:34.000 But...

00:30:38.000 I think cities have always been dangerous places.

00:30:41.000 They certainly have.

00:30:42.000 Ancient Rome was a dangerous place.

00:30:43.000 Oh, yeah.

00:30:44.000 You know what I mean?

00:30:45.000 I mean, it was so wild.

00:30:46.000 We were just in Sicily, and we went to Palermo for the day, and it was wild.

00:30:50.000 Have you ever been to Palermo?

00:30:51.000 Yeah.

00:30:52.000 It's wild!

00:30:52.000 Yeah.

00:30:53.000 That city is like an electric wire that's got sparks shooting out of it, and you can't get a hold of it.

00:31:00.000 That's where my grandfather's from.

00:31:02.000 Yeah.

00:31:02.000 From Palermo.

00:31:03.000 Yeah.

00:31:03.000 When we went to Italy, one of the most interesting things- By the way, is this water?

00:31:08.000 Yes.

00:31:09.000 And there's coffee in this if you want.

00:31:11.000 Cheers.

00:31:12.000 One of the most interesting things is, just Italy in general, is like- Every time I go there, I'm like, maybe I should live like this. 0.95

00:31:20.000 Like, they fucking know how to relax. 0.90

00:31:23.000 These people know how to relax. 1.00

00:31:24.000 Like, with the way they sit down and eat.

00:31:27.000 No one sits down and eat for 40 minutes.

00:31:28.000 You sit down and eat for two hours.

00:31:30.000 French people have it dialed in pretty good.

00:31:32.000 They do.

00:31:33.000 And they have pastis, which is the, you know...

00:31:37.000 What is pastis?

00:31:39.000 Pastis is a...

00:31:40.000 It's a aperitif from the south of France.

00:31:43.000 You ever see it says Ricard...

00:31:46.000 Marseille.

00:31:46.000 Marseille is famous for pastis.

00:31:48.000 All Mediterranean cultures have an anisette-based drink.

00:31:52.000 Italians have zambuca. 0.94

00:31:53.000 The Greeks have ouzo. 1.00

00:31:56.000 Arat in Lebanese people.

00:31:58.000 And there's all sorts of them.

00:32:00.000 In the south of France, they drink one that's a little more sophisticated.

00:32:06.000 A lot more herbs and things in it.

00:32:08.000 And they say you always know in France someone from Marseille because they always have a pastis in their hands.

00:32:13.000 It's a high alcohol level, a lot of sugar, but it's delicious.

00:32:16.000 You put it in ice and dilute it with water and it makes it all this kind of milky color.

00:32:23.000 It's genius.

00:32:25.000 Well, it's just you only have a certain amount of time on this Do you think that any of that has to do with embracing a certain...

00:32:44.000 A middle-classness or even lower middle, you know what I mean?

00:32:49.000 Like the working, you know what I mean?

00:32:51.000 Even in a blue-collar way, I think, you know what I'm saying?

00:32:53.000 Whereas here, it seems that's been stripped away from something to be proud of, unless it's kind of, in a way, distortedly proud, you know?

00:33:02.000 The distortion of what that could be.

00:33:05.000 Right, I know what you're saying.

00:33:06.000 Yeah.

00:33:06.000 Well, in here, it's supposed to be your main goal is to get to be the type of person that can look down upon that.

00:33:14.000 Yeah, yeah, totally.

00:33:15.000 Yeah, your goal is not to exist in that and just accept it.

00:33:20.000 This is life.

00:33:20.000 That life is, you have money for food, you have money for your house.

00:33:24.000 Like, you're not wealthy, but you're okay.

00:33:26.000 Well, if you look at, like, media, like, sitcoms from the 70s, whether it's Archie Bunker or whatever, like, they're just people with jobs and...

00:33:34.000 Even Taxi or Barney Miller or whatever.

00:33:38.000 You know what I mean?

00:33:39.000 And then it turns into Full House where somehow all these people and these kids live in this amazing house and everyone has clean clothes.

00:33:47.000 You know what I mean?

00:33:48.000 There's no struggle.

00:33:50.000 Yeah, totally.

00:33:50.000 Yeah.

00:33:51.000 And no...

00:33:53.000 It's not just recognition.

00:33:55.000 And it's not celebratory.

00:33:56.000 It's just like, look, man, this doesn't make the man, right?

00:34:01.000 My material things don't make me who I am.

00:34:04.000 It's who I am, how I feel, what I've learned.

00:34:09.000 That's the big problem is what we're sold in Western culture, that the goal is to acquire things and to achieve a certain financial status.

00:34:18.000 And then you'll have made it.

00:34:20.000 I get it.

00:34:20.000 Pastis doesn't grow on trees.

00:34:22.000 You know what I mean? 1.00

00:34:22.000 I gotta pay for that shit. 1.00

00:34:23.000 Right, but it's not that expensive. 1.00

00:34:25.000 You know what I mean?

00:34:26.000 It's not...

00:34:26.000 It's just...

00:34:27.000 There's a distortion of goals. 0.81

00:34:29.000 But you know what's fucked up about that, though? 0.62

00:34:29.000 Like, when we were kids, and I get it. 0.62

00:34:31.000 Like I said, I made the choice in my life.

00:34:34.000 Mom and Dad, we weren't...

00:34:35.000 You know, they were middle-class people.

00:34:38.000 But I made the choice...

00:34:42.000 When I said I'm not going to university, I'm going to be in a band, that was like the last dollar I ever saw.

00:34:49.000 Not even like, hey, you know what I mean?

00:34:54.000 But I made that choice.

00:34:56.000 That choice wasn't made for me.

00:34:57.000 Right.

00:34:58.000 You know what I mean? 0.95

00:34:58.000 And within two years, I'm on the cover of Rolling Stone magazine and we're fucking around, you know what I mean? 0.95

00:35:05.000 Like selling millions of records. 0.93

00:35:06.000 Right.

00:35:07.000 I get that, you know what I mean?

00:35:09.000 It's not lost on me, but...

00:35:11.000 It gets back to where we started talking about there will always be a part of me...

00:35:19.000 That is making music because it's really maybe the only place where I'm truly free.

00:35:27.000 You know what I mean?

00:35:27.000 I have the freedom.

00:35:29.000 You know, it's funny.

00:35:29.000 I tell this story.

00:35:30.000 We were on Saturday Night Live two times.

00:35:32.000 The second time was on our second album, Southern Harmony.

00:35:36.000 And we went on the show.

00:35:38.000 It was the number one album in America.

00:35:41.000 It debuted at number one.

00:35:43.000 Our new single was a song called Sometimes Salvation.

00:35:47.000 We were going to play that.

00:35:48.000 We were going to play one of our big hit records, and at the time it was called Remedy.

00:35:54.000 And we had just written this song called Nonfiction, and I was like, let's play Nonfiction.

00:35:59.000 And it's funny, because it's different.

00:36:01.000 My brother and I are rich. 1.00

00:36:02.000 We were like, yeah, fuck it. 1.00

00:36:03.000 You know what I mean? 1.00

00:36:03.000 It's a cool song. 1.00

00:36:05.000 The guy, whoever was the music guy, he was like, you can't do that.

00:36:09.000 And I was like, well, I mean, we can do what we want, I think.

00:36:16.000 He was mad because we were smoking weed in the dressing room.

00:36:18.000 I'm like, didn't John Belushi OD in the bathroom? 0.99

00:36:21.000 I'm like, what do you fucking care? 0.99

00:36:22.000 Call the cops! 1.00

00:36:23.000 I told him, call the cops.

00:36:25.000 We get arrested and Saturday Night Live for smoking weed will be bigger than this.

00:36:29.000 But the guy, now that I'm older, I realize I'm just totally being just a horrible kid.

00:36:36.000 But he goes, you're making a big mistake not playing this single.

00:36:39.000 And I said, okay, well, here's the deal. 0.99

00:36:42.000 You're on this show next week with some other fucking band. 0.99

00:36:45.000 And then the next week after that. 0.99

00:36:46.000 And then the next week after that.

00:36:48.000 This is my band.

00:36:49.000 So let me make the mistake.

00:36:52.000 I'm not going to let you tell us what to do. 0.97

00:36:54.000 And if it's a mistake, then we'll fucking eat it, won't we? 0.97

00:36:58.000 And I'm still here. 0.97

00:37:01.000 And where is he?

00:37:02.000 Well, it's funny.

00:37:03.000 Someone told me he has a...

00:37:04.000 I forget his name.

00:37:05.000 I ran into him once before.

00:37:07.000 He did not like our attitude.

00:37:09.000 He was on a podcast about Saturday Night Live or something and said we were the worst people he ever dealt with in his entire career there.

00:37:17.000 And I was like...

00:37:18.000 Well, thank you.

00:37:19.000 That's funny.

00:37:20.000 The worst, how?

00:37:21.000 Because you just didn't listen to him?

00:37:22.000 Yeah, yeah, we didn't do what he wanted.

00:37:24.000 That's not what you're supposed to do with artists.

00:37:26.000 Especially when you're young and you're still like, the fire is so intense.

00:37:31.000 That's always the problem with executive mindsets versus artistic mindsets, right?

00:37:35.000 A producer character who just wants everything to go according to this very specific plan they have laid out.

00:37:42.000 And you're trying to take an artist, and first of all, just trying to take an artist and making them sing one song is kind of crazy, right?

00:37:49.000 Yeah, I mean, I think we see that now.

00:37:53.000 You know, we see people who are like, I'll do it, I'll do it!

00:37:56.000 You know what I mean?

00:37:56.000 There's someone who's ready to jump up and do anything.

00:37:59.000 And I think that's been a part of showbiz.

00:38:01.000 But that's kind of what we were saying before.

00:38:04.000 I think the talent show thing, you know, the vote for me!

00:38:08.000 Right.

00:38:09.000 You know what?

00:38:10.000 No one was voting for us.

00:38:11.000 We were unvotable.

00:38:13.000 And that was part of the reason that we were drawn to these characters and these people and these other outsiders and these other whatever kind of spectrum we're on or whatever that's different.

00:38:27.000 That we were like...

00:38:30.000 You know, music to us represented...

00:38:33.000 Everything anti-vote for me.

00:38:36.000 But did it feel weird to transcend that and become mainstream, massive?

00:38:41.000 Yes.

00:38:42.000 It's still weird sometimes.

00:38:43.000 What is the juxtaposition?

00:38:44.000 It has to be so strange. 0.99

00:38:45.000 You're these rebels, and then all of a sudden, you're the number one fucking band in the world. 0.98

00:38:50.000 And then, yeah. 0.98

00:38:51.000 And it was tough.

00:38:55.000 It was maybe tougher for me because I was more boots on the ground in the scene with people, and now it's like...

00:39:02.000 Especially in the 80s in Atlanta, it was like... 0.99

00:39:09.000 You know, fuck major. 1.00

00:39:10.000 Anyone who signs with a major label, man, fuck them. 1.00

00:39:13.000 You know what I mean? 1.00

00:39:13.000 And I'm like, yeah, you know, like, power to the people or whatever, you know? 1.00

00:39:16.000 And then it's like you're on MTV 30 times a day, you know, in between fucking Toyota commercials and Snapple or whatever. 0.94

00:39:23.000 You know what I mean? 0.98

00:39:24.000 Right.

00:39:26.000 And it's weird because our politics are so in line with so many of the alternative politics of music, the grunge or whatever.

00:39:40.000 I'm the same age as all of the grunge bands.

00:39:44.000 But I don't exist in the 90s in the same way.

00:39:47.000 You know what I mean?

00:39:49.000 Because we were doing something...

00:39:51.000 But it is funny. 0.99

00:39:53.000 People say, no fucking label is signing Kurt Cobain today. 0.98

00:39:58.000 As a matter of fact, Kurt and our generation of people, we were talking about compliance and defiance. 0.98

00:40:05.000 You're making a mistake. 1.00

00:40:07.000 Fuck it. 1.00

00:40:07.000 It's my mistake to make. 1.00

00:40:09.000 It's my band.

00:40:10.000 It's my art.

00:40:11.000 And my kind of generation, it's not about being old, but now I think there's so much compliance.

00:40:18.000 Okay.

00:40:19.000 I don't want to cause any trouble at the record label.

00:40:22.000 We're all distorted right now with social media and all the different avenues for people to get attention and to get Famous.

00:40:28.000 It's so easy.

00:40:30.000 I shouldn't say it's easy because it's rare but common.

00:40:33.000 So it's more highlighted which way you can go to achieve success.

00:40:39.000 But do you remember that famous time where Kurt Cobain and Nirvana were playing and they were forcing them to lip-sync?

00:40:46.000 Yeah, yeah.

00:40:47.000 And so, what did Kurt do?

00:40:48.000 Did he start reading out of a book or something like that?

00:40:50.000 Like he did a bunch of wild things?

00:40:52.000 Yeah, yeah, yeah, of course.

00:40:54.000 I mean...

00:40:55.000 See if you can find that, Jamie, because it's kind of hilarious.

00:40:57.000 Yeah, I know.

00:40:58.000 Nobody did that at the time.

00:41:00.000 And they were telling them, no, no, no, you can't play live.

00:41:04.000 Yeah, here it is.

00:41:05.000 Set to perform the recent single Smells Like Teen Spirit, the British music chart television program Top of the Pops.

00:41:11.000 Time to show it a policy requiring artists to sing live vocals over pre-recorded backtracks.

00:41:16.000 As you would expect, Kurt Cobain and his bandmates would not let this go without having some fun. 0.98

00:41:20.000 So they started fucking around in the middle of the song.

00:41:23.000 The result was, and still one of the greatest middle fingers to live performances ever, the band literally made its own shred video. 0.97

00:41:30.000 Yeah, amazing.

00:41:32.000 Yeah, because you got to sing the live vocal over the track. 0.98

00:41:35.000 Yeah, so you start fucking around and coming up with new lives. 0.98

00:41:37.000 It's great. 0.99

00:41:38.000 Yeah.

00:41:39.000 I mean, we loved The Replacements.

00:41:42.000 And their being on Saturday Night Live was a disaster.

00:41:47.000 But we thought, that's our band. 0.99

00:41:50.000 I remember every fucking person that we knew in Atlanta that Saturday night that The Replacements came on in TV on Saturday Night Live, we all were at parties and watching it and getting completely shit-faced. 0.99

00:42:03.000 They shaved their eyebrows off and shit and were rolling around and changed clothes. 0.99

00:42:07.000 And people were like, oh, dear! 1.00

00:42:11.000 We were like, yeah, cheering it on.

00:42:13.000 That's how you...

00:42:15.000 That's it. 1.00

00:42:16.000 Isn't that part of one of the goals is to be that big of a pain in the ass to the... 1.00

00:42:21.000 And who are you being a pain in the ass to? 1.00

00:42:23.000 Some authority. 0.99

00:42:25.000 Something that says you can't do that or this is the way it goes.

00:42:29.000 That changes.

00:42:30.000 But I think as a youth...

00:42:34.000 That's definitely something I'm not feeling with a lot of bands.

00:42:36.000 I mean, I think it's there in the punk scene and stuff like that, but they're not getting access to them.

00:42:43.000 Green Day is still that way, I feel.

00:42:45.000 The carrot is still dangled right in front of everybody's face.

00:42:48.000 It's so close now.

00:42:50.000 Especially with people that make it independently through YouTube and TikTok and all these different venues.

00:42:56.000 There's just so many different ways that someone could become massively successful now.

00:43:01.000 See, this is where I become...

00:43:04.000 The time traveler.

00:43:05.000 I am from the last century.

00:43:09.000 I get it.

00:43:11.000 I think a guy smashing his nuts on a rail on a skateboard is as funny as anyone, but I've seen it.

00:43:19.000 You know what I mean?

00:43:21.000 It's not like...

00:43:22.000 You know what I mean?

00:43:24.000 It's not like...

00:43:25.000 Steve Coogan or something, you know what I mean?

00:43:28.000 Like craft and like subtext and like all this other weird cerebral stuff with comedy or whatever.

00:43:34.000 I just don't...

00:43:35.000 I will never...

00:43:37.000 It's just me as well.

00:43:39.000 The cinema that I enjoy, the books I read, the records that I listen to, there is all of them.

00:43:47.000 If there's one thing in common, there's a level of craft.

00:43:50.000 There's a difference between having a fine meal at a very nice restaurant versus eating garbage.

00:43:56.000 Yeah. 0.99

00:43:57.000 Eating tasty garbage. 1.00

00:43:58.000 And TikTok is tasty garbage. 1.00

00:44:00.000 Yeah, you're right. 0.99

00:44:01.000 That's absolutely...

00:44:02.000 I've never thought about it like that.

00:44:03.000 It's bad for you, and you can't put it down.

00:44:06.000 You keep going to it, and you overconsume it.

00:44:08.000 And at least when it's just visual, you don't get a big stain on your shirt.

00:44:14.000 I think you get a stain on your brain.

00:44:17.000 On your soul! 0.79

00:44:17.000 Yeah, I really do. 0.79

00:44:18.000 I do.

00:44:19.000 I think so much of what's going on today, even if I just waste 10 minutes scrolling through TikTok, when it's over, I just feel confused.

00:44:28.000 I'm like, what am I doing? 0.99

00:44:29.000 Why am I fucking paying attention to this shit? 0.99

00:44:31.000 I never did any of that. 1.00

00:44:35.000 You don't have Facebook, Twitter, nothing?

00:44:36.000 No.

00:44:37.000 I mean, the band has one, I guess.

00:44:40.000 That's perfect.

00:44:41.000 But I don't, personally.

00:44:42.000 Good.

00:44:43.000 I never tweeted or any of those things.

00:44:45.000 Good for you.

00:44:45.000 And it's funny, my phone...

00:44:47.000 I'm still this way.

00:44:48.000 You want to...

00:44:50.000 My best friends, the three or four people in the world that I'm super, super the closest people, we talk on the phone.

00:44:58.000 Yeah.

00:44:58.000 Oh, yeah.

00:44:59.000 I love talking on the phone.

00:45:01.000 For hours, you know what I mean, about whatever.

00:45:04.000 I get it, but I'm one of those older people. 0.98

00:45:11.000 Well, you developed in a different time, and this time is fucking bizarre. 0.97

00:45:15.000 I can't imagine spending your life, grown-ass people, spending all of their time playing video games. 0.97

00:45:24.000 That's a real thing.

00:45:25.000 Well, at least that's exciting.

00:45:26.000 It is?

00:45:27.000 Yeah, video games.

00:45:28.000 Why does it give you a shock or something?

00:45:30.000 No, some video games are so immersive, man.

00:45:33.000 You have 3D sound and incredible graphics and running through corridors and people are chasing you.

00:45:38.000 It's very exciting.

00:45:39.000 It hits all of your dopamine receptors and fires you up. 0.84

00:45:43.000 I mean, video games are pretty fucking amazing now.

00:45:46.000 But it's just that the world that we're living in today is... 0.57

00:45:50.000 It's not designed for human beings.

00:45:52.000 It's designed to capture human beings, capture your attention.

00:45:57.000 If you're spending your time going from a coffee shop, to a restaurant, to a bookstore, to a record store, to a live concert...

00:46:06.000 Museum, to an art gallery...

00:46:08.000 These are human experiences.

00:46:09.000 These are human experiences.

00:46:10.000 But if you're spending your time arguing with people on Twitter all day, like, nothing is more depressing to me than seeing old rock stars argue about politics on Twitter. 0.99

00:46:19.000 It is so goddamn depressing watching rock stars virtue signal and attacking people personally for having differing political beliefs, like, and then looking at their timeline and realizing these poor fucks are addicted to this shit and they're doing this five, 1.00

00:46:36.000 six hours every day. 1.00

00:46:37.000 Get off my lawn!

00:46:39.000 Yeah, it's get off my lawn.

00:46:40.000 You, get off my lawn! 1.00

00:46:42.000 But it's fucking rock stars. 1.00

00:46:44.000 It's like, good lord, man. 0.99

00:46:46.000 Do you have friends?

00:46:47.000 Get out.

00:46:48.000 Get out of the house.

00:46:49.000 Stop doing this.

00:46:50.000 You know, it's funny.

00:46:51.000 We were gone for three months.

00:46:53.000 We did the States on this... 0.54

00:46:56.000 Latest tour.

00:46:57.000 We played a lot of new songs from our latest record.

00:46:59.000 It was amazing.

00:47:00.000 And then we finished in Europe.

00:47:03.000 And my wife and I stayed in Sicily and went back to London at the end.

00:47:09.000 And I've been doing it for 35 years of that.

00:47:14.000 1990, first time I go to Europe.

00:47:16.000 And it's still like, I don't care.

00:47:19.000 35 years?

00:47:20.000 It's a lot of shows.

00:47:21.000 I don't care if I wake up and I'm tired.

00:47:23.000 And we have friends all over the place.

00:47:25.000 Which is a beautiful thing.

00:47:26.000 Friends in Amsterdam, friends in Paris, friends in London, friends in Madrid, friends in this, you know, Germany, whatever.

00:47:31.000 But we're constantly out doing, you know what I mean?

00:47:35.000 There's no way we're not heading the town in any town and finding what it has that makes maybe it unique or special, whether that's tastes or touch or whatever.

00:47:46.000 I mean, it's...

00:47:47.000 It sounds silly, but like I said before, there's still adventure in the world.

00:47:51.000 And I'm not talking about jumping out of an airplane adventure.

00:47:55.000 Just stimuli.

00:47:58.000 I think it's cognitive nutrition.

00:48:03.000 I think it's actually good for you to experience different cultures and see how people hang out and see their restaurants. 0.99

00:48:08.000 And you see everyone's doing the same shit. 0.98

00:48:12.000 They're just styling it a little different. 1.00

00:48:14.000 Doing it in a different way.

00:48:15.000 But it flavors your understanding of human beings.

00:48:19.000 That's why my very, very special place, the thing that I love almost more than any other thing, is Jamaica.

00:48:27.000 Really?

00:48:27.000 I was lucky enough to have a dear friend introduce me to Jamaica 30 years ago.

00:48:35.000 And I have friends there and... 0.99

00:48:40.000 I have a whole life there that has nothing to do with anything other than Jamaica shit. 1.00

00:48:46.000 And I go to the country and we have a country kind of life there. 0.99

00:48:51.000 By the ocean and no resorts. 0.98

00:48:55.000 The food there is fucking incredible. 0.99

00:48:57.000 Amazing! 0.99

00:48:57.000 Amazing food in Jamaica. 0.99

00:48:59.000 Jamaican food is so delicious.

00:49:01.000 And you have to get out there and eat it, and they have, like, anything else.

00:49:04.000 You know, the fruits there, the vegetables there, the seafood.

00:49:08.000 And, you know, they say in Jamaica that a goat in Jamaica only has one bad day, man.

00:49:15.000 Yeah.

00:49:17.000 It's not even a whole bad day.

00:49:18.000 It's just a quick moment.

00:49:20.000 One bad moment, and that's a wrap.

00:49:22.000 One bad moment, and the rest we're all happy with.

00:49:25.000 Yeah, and then the rest, everyone's eating it.

00:49:28.000 Yeah, that's one of the things I loved about Anthony Bourdain's show, you know, that he would go and really immerse himself in these cultures and eat their food and hang out with their chefs and hang out with the people and get toured.

00:49:40.000 You know, someone would take him on a tour around the town.

00:49:41.000 You know what happened too?

00:49:42.000 Sometimes he would be tired.

00:49:44.000 And hungover.

00:49:45.000 Oh, yeah.

00:49:46.000 Most of the time.

00:49:47.000 But again, I get it, man.

00:49:51.000 Everyone has a tough thing, but it's like, oh, dear.

00:49:53.000 I don't know.

00:49:55.000 I better get this.

00:49:56.000 I'm like, okay.

00:49:57.000 If you enjoy what you're doing, being tired is not that bad.

00:49:59.000 If you enjoy what you're doing, it's okay.

00:50:02.000 So what?

00:50:02.000 Just get up, have a coffee.

00:50:04.000 Let's go. 0.97

00:50:04.000 And I bullshit you not. 0.97

00:50:06.000 If for some reason... 0.97

00:50:09.000 I had to, like, get a quick 20, 25 in.

00:50:12.000 I could curl up right there and do it.

00:50:14.000 And you wouldn't even know I was here.

00:50:15.000 I believe you.

00:50:16.000 Like, expert.

00:50:17.000 That's 35 years of being on the road.

00:50:20.000 Knowing how to power nap.

00:50:21.000 I gotta go down or I'm gonna, like, be in an intersection, like, waving a gun around with my pants down by my ankles or something.

00:50:29.000 I've learned how to sleep instantly on planes.

00:50:31.000 I get on a plane and almost always I'm out cold.

00:50:33.000 Me too.

00:50:34.000 I annoy every single person I'm traveling with.

00:50:36.000 Yeah.

00:50:38.000 Like, how's he asleep so quick?

00:50:40.000 She's like, what?

00:50:41.000 How'd you fall asleep that quick?

00:50:42.000 I fall asleep on takeoff.

00:50:43.000 Even with my Jamaican dog in my lap. 0.99

00:50:45.000 We brought a...

00:50:45.000 When my wife and I were married in Jamaica, and...

00:50:48.000 We have a little street dog that we brought back.

00:50:51.000 Oh, that's cool.

00:50:52.000 Bami Longface.

00:50:54.000 She's 35 pounds, but I can even sleep with my Jamaican street dog on my lap. 1.00

00:50:59.000 That's cool.

00:51:00.000 So Jamaica's your spot, huh? 0.80

00:51:02.000 And they just got hit very hard with this hurricane.

00:51:07.000 My friends are okay and stuff.

00:51:09.000 Everyone's really shooken up over it in Jamaica. 1.00

00:51:12.000 That's scary shit, man. 0.99

00:51:14.000 They haven't had something like that since 2007, and this was worse. 1.00

00:51:18.000 I saw live footage of it, some live cell phone footage of it.

00:51:21.000 Unless you've experienced that live, when you're around the sky, and the sky becomes an angry monster, and everywhere around you is dangerous, and the winds are 120 miles an hour, it's so humbling.

00:51:33.000 I was in a tornado in Atlanta in the early 70s, and that was...

00:51:40.000 I mean, I was probably too young to be, like, traumatized, but I remember feeling my parents' trauma about this thing going over our house or whatever. 1.00

00:51:50.000 Oh, it's fucking terrifying shit, man. 0.99

00:51:52.000 When it was over, though, when you were a kid, it was, like, amazing. 1.00

00:51:55.000 Like, the whole world was one big pine sap jungle gym.

00:51:58.000 I mean, for weeks, we were just...

00:52:00.000 Because you're just climbing in all the fallen trees, and my dad had some old Pontiac And that thing was like a U in the car.

00:52:08.000 Some giant pine tree smashed that thing.

00:52:10.000 So it was like a surrealist thing, too, as a kid.

00:52:14.000 You know, like, wow, everything's been shaken up.

00:52:17.000 Yeah, it's also a lesson in the temporary nature of things.

00:52:20.000 You can look out and think, this is my lawn.

00:52:22.000 This is where the cars park.

00:52:23.000 This is how things are. 0.99

00:52:25.000 And then all of a sudden the sky's like, not today, bitch. 1.00

00:52:28.000 Let's throw a tree through your fucking house. 1.00

00:52:30.000 What was that commercial in the 70s? 1.00

00:52:32.000 Mother Earth gets angry or whatever.

00:52:33.000 Remember that?

00:52:34.000 It was like shampoo or something.

00:52:36.000 But it was like...

00:52:37.000 Oh, there was their catchphrase.

00:52:40.000 And it would be like...

00:52:41.000 Oh, yeah.

00:52:43.000 I remember that.

00:52:44.000 I don't know.

00:52:44.000 It was like a...

00:52:45.000 It might be shampoo or something. 1.00

00:52:47.000 Something stupid like that. 1.00

00:52:48.000 But it's true. 1.00

00:52:49.000 You know what I mean?

00:52:50.000 You have to do it. 1.00

00:52:52.000 I mean, shit. 1.00

00:52:53.000 Fuck. 1.00

00:52:54.000 Katrina is still something. 1.00

00:52:56.000 I love New Orleans.

00:52:57.000 New Orleans is one of the most special cities in the world.

00:53:01.000 It's still amazing.

00:53:03.000 It's still vibrant, dynamic, alive.

00:53:08.000 But I think the scars of that place are still there.

00:53:13.000 Devastating.

00:53:14.000 Brutal.

00:53:14.000 Yeah, unbelievably brutal.

00:53:16.000 I mean, when hurricanes hit places and devastate them, it takes decades for them to recover, especially without aid.

00:53:23.000 And then sometimes it's like the people that are there, they just don't want to do it anymore.

00:53:26.000 It's like when you realize you're in a place that this happens and there's other places where this doesn't happen, you just get the fuck out. 0.89

00:53:33.000 But there's a humbling of being attached to nature in that way that I think. 0.93

00:53:37.000 I grew up in Boston, and there's something to the people that live up there that understand that every winter it's going to get so cold that you could die outside.

00:53:47.000 That's a reality that no one in L.A. experiences.

00:53:50.000 Because in L.A., it's like...

00:53:52.000 Earthquakes, fire, floods, zombie apocalypse.

00:53:55.000 I get a little bit of that, but you can kind of get away from that.

00:53:58.000 It's just...

00:53:59.000 It's not going to overcome your entire city.

00:54:01.000 You can build a very high fence and have the state-of-the-art security system.

00:54:05.000 The fires are wild.

00:54:06.000 I was evacuated three times living in L.A. because we were in the valley.

00:54:10.000 Yeah, yeah.

00:54:11.000 Three separate times.

00:54:12.000 The last time, the two houses across the street from my house burned to the ground.

00:54:17.000 It was wild.

00:54:18.000 It's just wild going through your old neighborhood and seeing just house after house.

00:54:21.000 There was 40 houses in our neighborhood that were burnt to the ground.

00:54:24.000 We were in Marin County, Northern California, out in a place called Lagunitas.

00:54:29.000 This was four or five summers ago.

00:54:32.000 And we just kept shitting the car.

00:54:36.000 Guitars.

00:54:37.000 There's one guitar I just can't live without.

00:54:40.000 Just in case.

00:54:41.000 We just kept both our cars filled because you're out, just ashes falling in the yard every day.

00:54:46.000 Scary.

00:54:47.000 Well, when it goes bad, it goes real bad.

00:54:50.000 I was filming Fear Factor once, and it was about an hour and a half away from L.A., and the fires get so bad, we had to stop shooting and drive home.

00:55:02.000 And on the way home, we were off the 5 freeway, and on the way home, the entire right side of the highway for an hour was in flames.

00:55:12.000 Like completely in flames like a Lord of the Rings movie.

00:55:15.000 Like you're waiting for demons to ride horses over the top of the mountains.

00:55:20.000 There's something about those kind of scenes that puts you back in check.

00:55:26.000 That's like, hey man, maybe the things you're concentrating on aren't all that important for real.

00:55:32.000 I think it also touches us in a...

00:55:36.000 In our animalistic DNA of like still being that person, you know, these people, again, it's a quest for fire, being these people who are really not just completely immersed in their environment as well for survival and sustenance and everything.

00:55:55.000 Yeah.

00:55:55.000 That it's still like in the way I guess, you know, there's an instinctive thing in those moments that has to be the exact same chemical reaction in every human being in any expanse of time that we've been like this.

00:56:12.000 Yeah.

00:56:13.000 When we were in Sicily, I guess there was an eruption there recently.

00:56:17.000 There's one today or last night.

00:56:19.000 Mount Edna.

00:56:20.000 That's right.

00:56:21.000 I was seeing it on the news.

00:56:22.000 But when we were there, we were near this one island that had a constant eruption.

00:56:28.000 At nighttime, you could see the red at the top of the mountain.

00:56:32.000 Just a little bit of red bubbling up off the top of the mountain. 0.96

00:56:35.000 It was so fucking cool. 0.76

00:56:36.000 I've never really got close to something like that. 0.94

00:56:41.000 Have you ever done a tour in Hawaii where you fly over in a helicopter?

00:56:44.000 No.

00:56:45.000 Hawaii is wild.

00:56:45.000 The Big Island is wild because it's growing every year because the lava is constantly flowing into the ocean.

00:56:51.000 You can literally watch the island expand in real time.

00:56:55.000 That's wild.

00:56:56.000 And you fly over in helicopters.

00:56:57.000 You're flying over.

00:56:58.000 You're looking down at the lava pouring out of the earth.

00:57:01.000 Is this Italy?

00:57:03.000 Mount Etna.

00:57:04.000 Look at that.

00:57:05.000 Isn't that wild, man?

00:57:07.000 That's incredible.

00:57:08.000 Not to be confused with regular Italy.

00:57:12.000 Yeah, Sicilians think of themselves very differently.

00:57:14.000 Look how beautiful that is, man. 0.95

00:57:16.000 God, that's so fucking cool. 0.96

00:57:19.000 We visited Pompeii, too. 0.96

00:57:21.000 I did that as a kid, and it's still one of the coolest.

00:57:25.000 But I was like, you know, it's funny when I look back, you know, they have like up the streets, they'll have like the fountain at the end of the street or where the water would come, and you could see like where people lean their hand.

00:57:38.000 There's like an indention for the centuries of people leaning in to get a sip of water.

00:57:42.000 I just put my hand on that.

00:57:45.000 As a kid, I almost couldn't stop thinking about that.

00:57:50.000 I do that all the time. 0.99

00:57:51.000 I do that with my kids when I'm fucking around. 0.99

00:57:54.000 I'm like, shake the hand. 0.99

00:57:55.000 I shook Chuck Berry's hand.

00:57:58.000 Bo Diddley's hand.

00:58:00.000 I shook Little Richard's hand.

00:58:03.000 John Lee Hooker!

00:58:04.000 You know, they're all like laughing. 0.99

00:58:06.000 Damn, you met John Lee Hooker? 0.99

00:58:07.000 I did one time, yeah. 1.00

00:58:08.000 Wow.

00:58:09.000 That's a guy I'd love to meet.

00:58:11.000 It was...

00:58:12.000 His handshake was amazing.

00:58:14.000 It was just like a...

00:58:15.000 He touched my hand.

00:58:16.000 It was just like a cloud.

00:58:18.000 It was the softest pillow.

00:58:21.000 I was like, wow.

00:58:24.000 And it was early, you know, early days.

00:58:27.000 We headlined the Memphis Blues Festival, and he went on before us, and I was like, I just don't think that's right.

00:58:34.000 Right, right, right.

00:58:35.000 I was like, I know we're selling a lot of records, but that's...

00:58:38.000 It's crazy.

00:58:38.000 That's John Lee Hooker, man.

00:58:40.000 Yeah.

00:58:40.000 Never get out of these blues alive, you know?

00:58:42.000 Yeah.

00:58:43.000 Boom, boom, boom.

00:58:44.000 Yeah, he was as cool as it gets.

00:58:46.000 That's amazing, man.

00:58:48.000 Have you ever met anybody that just, like, you're like, can't even believe I'm talking to this person?

00:58:56.000 Yes.

00:58:57.000 But one time it was Dr. J. Oh, wow.

00:59:01.000 I was at some party in Vegas.

00:59:03.000 This was back in the mid-'90s, some VH1 thing or something.

00:59:07.000 And I was standing outside.

00:59:09.000 I was at the Hard Rock.

00:59:11.000 And this is the guy's name, Steve Wynn, who owns the thing, the hard rocker, Wynn.

00:59:16.000 Yeah.

00:59:16.000 Or something.

00:59:17.000 He owns a bunch of that stuff out there.

00:59:18.000 Yeah, and this was, you know, 30 years ago.

00:59:21.000 And I was there, and he was like, oh, hey, Chris, have you ever met Julius Erving?

00:59:26.000 And I was, I mean, I was like, I loved Dr. J so much growing up, you know?

00:59:32.000 He and George Girvin were my heroes.

00:59:34.000 I played basketball.

00:59:36.000 And I was like, and he was just so cool, you know?

00:59:40.000 And he was like, hey, man, nice to meet you.

00:59:42.000 And I was just, I was like a little kid.

00:59:45.000 You know, I just couldn't believe that I met Dr. J. I shook Dr. J's hand.

00:59:49.000 I gotta throw him in there, too.

00:59:51.000 Wow.

00:59:52.000 And the other one would be Robert Altman, the director.

00:59:58.000 Oh, really?

00:59:58.000 I met Robert at a party.

01:00:02.000 I was at a party, like a Donatella.

01:00:07.000 Versace party in London, and there were a bunch of famous people there, but everyone sat down at a table and, you know, different things, and I was just like, Oh, and he was with Richard E. Grant.

01:00:23.000 They were making Gosford Park.

01:00:25.000 Richard E. Grant, also, I was impressed to see and meet because of the film Withnail and I is one of my favorite movies of all time, and there's Withnail, you know, like, there he is.

01:00:35.000 I mean, it's Richard, but...

01:00:37.000 But there's Bob Altman who is, you know, lord of my imagination and, you know, one of the best films, my favorite film, some of my favorite films of all time.

01:00:47.000 And so after when the dinner kind of like is less whatever, people are up talking to other people, I just go over to him. 0.99

01:00:55.000 I'm like, fuck it. 0.98

01:00:56.000 I'm just going to, you know, because I would be a little bit timid or shy in that situation. 0.99

01:01:01.000 And I would never think anyone, I still to this day never imagine anyone knows who I am or what I do or whatever.

01:01:07.000 It's a good way to go through life, actually.

01:01:09.000 You know what I mean?

01:01:09.000 I'm being totally honest.

01:01:11.000 And then you find out most people don't know who you are, give a fuck what you do. 0.99

01:01:16.000 But I go over and I introduce myself and I instantly recognize that he smells like weed, like he's got a roach in his pocket or something. 0.99

01:01:27.000 And I'm like, Bob, are you holding it?

01:01:29.000 He goes, yeah, you want to get stoned?

01:01:30.000 I was like, yeah!

01:01:32.000 So he pulls out a joint and we're sitting there and we're just talking about weed.

01:01:37.000 He's like, it's hard to get, I get this from California.

01:01:40.000 And I was like, wow, man.

01:01:42.000 And we smoked a joint and talked a little bit about music and jazz and London.

01:01:49.000 And that was kind of it.

01:01:50.000 And he was like, oh, you should come by the office.

01:01:53.000 And I never took him up on it, the production office, just because I felt out of my depth.

01:02:00.000 You know what I mean?

01:02:01.000 I should have.

01:02:03.000 But that was one of those things I will always remember.

01:02:09.000 It's interesting when you meet people that were heroes to you, and they're just human beings.

01:02:13.000 They're just normal.

01:02:14.000 And then you realize, especially in your case, you've become that to other people.

01:02:18.000 And then some kid will come up to you, Chris Robinson? 0.99

01:02:23.000 And you're like, yeah, a fucking normal person. 0.99

01:02:26.000 Just a person. 1.00

01:02:27.000 But to them, you're the Black Crows. 0.82

01:02:29.000 You're not a normal person. 1.00

01:02:31.000 You're a fucking god. 1.00

01:02:33.000 You know, it's weird. 1.00

01:02:34.000 You're an inaccessible, like, plateau of society that very few people ever experience.

01:02:40.000 I think music is a part of that as well, you know, like you said.

01:02:43.000 I mean, and I, you know, there will always be...

01:02:46.000 I don't know.

01:02:49.000 I think that there's a connection in...

01:02:54.000 Creation, art, you know, where does the idea come from?

01:02:58.000 I mean, I think there's people who can manipulate that and make like, I'm going to make a pop song and it's going to sound like this.

01:03:05.000 I'm not saying that it's not special, not good, but then I think there's other things that there's...

01:03:11.000 I'm not using it in a Christian way or whatever, but there's a divine spark of something that happens or whatever...

01:03:20.000 Drops in your lap, imagination-wise.

01:03:22.000 The muse.

01:03:23.000 You know, the muse is real.

01:03:24.000 The muse is real.

01:03:25.000 I think it is real, too.

01:03:26.000 And the one thing that I do believe about the muse, and I consider the muse a female...

01:03:34.000 A female dynamic. 1.00

01:03:39.000 And I feel that the muse, at least the muse that I feel, is a very jealous thing.

01:03:48.000 And I don't mean it in any sense.

01:03:51.000 Possessive way or anything weird, but just like the second your devotion is turned somewhere else, the muse could leave you.

01:04:01.000 That might be as superstitious as throwing salt over your shoulder or whatever, but I honestly believe that. 0.98

01:04:07.000 And it makes it difficult in life because life isn't...

01:04:11.000 Just the muse.

01:04:12.000 Life isn't just the dream world that I live in and my imagination.

01:04:16.000 And the ideas have to come from somewhere.

01:04:18.000 It's not just singing and dancing.

01:04:20.000 You have to have ideas.

01:04:22.000 What is this?

01:04:23.000 For me, I've always had to be involved with every aspect. 0.99

01:04:27.000 The album covers, the stage design, the fucking laminate. 0.51

01:04:29.000 Everything has to fit into a world that I can feel like I want to inhabit. 0.97

01:04:35.000 Something that's comfortable and interesting.

01:04:37.000 Yeah.

01:04:37.000 And I think if you remove...

01:04:38.000 So it's not just the musical part of the muse, it's the whole thing.

01:04:42.000 And I think if you're like, oh, you know what, I'm gonna get into...

01:04:46.000 I'm not...

01:04:46.000 If my reverence for that goes away, and even in the slightest, I feel that she will turn her back on me forever and I'll have nothing...

01:04:55.000 No more poetry, no more music.

01:04:59.000 Well, you're probably right.

01:05:00.000 Because let's assume the muse is real.

01:05:03.000 The muse would probably reserve its greatest inspiration for its most devouted followers.

01:05:11.000 I think so.

01:05:12.000 Yeah.

01:05:13.000 The most devout followers are the ones that are going to be adherent to a ritual.

01:05:17.000 Sit in front of the computer or the notepad or however you write and just spend time.

01:05:22.000 Yeah, I could never ever write lyrics on a screen.

01:05:24.000 I could never do it.

01:05:26.000 You write it on paper?

01:05:26.000 Oh, yeah.

01:05:29.000 Does anybody write lyrics on screens?

01:05:33.000 I think, yeah.

01:05:34.000 I think a lot of people.

01:05:36.000 Artists that you know of?

01:05:37.000 Yeah, yeah.

01:05:37.000 Interesting.

01:05:38.000 I think a lot of hip-hop people write rhymes on their phones.

01:05:41.000 Yeah, no, I know a lot of guys do that.

01:05:42.000 I know a lot of rock and roll people who are like, hey, you know.

01:05:45.000 Well, the phone thing is convenient.

01:05:47.000 I transfer all my notes to phones because occasionally I'll write something on the phone.

01:05:52.000 The best thing about the phone, honestly, is like sometimes I have an idea.

01:05:55.000 Maybe I've had a couple of cocktails, too, which is like, you know, Memory is slippery.

01:06:00.000 When you're drinking with friends and you're having a good time, but you have an idea, I'll just run into a bathroom stall and I'll hit the voice recorder and just say it.

01:06:07.000 I do that too.

01:06:08.000 I do the voice recorder as well for if I'm plucking around a guitar and I get a little something that I like.

01:06:16.000 Or when Rich and I are writing songs too.

01:06:19.000 If we're not...

01:06:20.000 But you know, I've never had a home studio.

01:06:22.000 I've never wanted that.

01:06:23.000 Really?

01:06:24.000 You want to go to a place?

01:06:25.000 I want to go to a place and part of my thing is I like everyone's contribution.

01:06:33.000 You know what I mean?

01:06:34.000 Right.

01:06:36.000 I mean, in the Black Crows, Rich and I write the songs.

01:06:39.000 But the contributions can be musical or it could be anything.

01:06:43.000 Right.

01:06:44.000 I mean, sometimes it's the engineer and the producer and the band and the And it's the vibe of those people being together.

01:06:50.000 And it's all of that circulating and percolating and making something, everyone in on it.

01:06:57.000 You know what I mean?

01:06:58.000 Like an old submarine movie or something.

01:07:01.000 You're being depth charged and everyone has a job to do so you don't die.

01:07:05.000 Right.

01:07:08.000 But I think that's important for me.

01:07:12.000 Prince is one of my musically... 0.99

01:07:16.000 There's an argument you made that maybe Prince was the baddest motherfucker of all time. 0.99

01:07:21.000 Definitely an argument. 0.98

01:07:23.000 Because there's people who can write, there's people who can play, there's people who can produce and record, and there's people who can dance and sing and perform.

01:07:33.000 That guy did it all at its ultimate level.

01:07:38.000 Every musical instrument.

01:07:39.000 I mean, yeah. 0.54

01:07:40.000 Yeah, he was insane.

01:07:41.000 He was so good.

01:07:42.000 And he was so different.

01:07:44.000 I remember when the first album came out, it was just that picture of him with his shirt off, with his hair.

01:07:49.000 And you hear the songs, and you're like, wow, this guy's out there.

01:07:52.000 Yeah, the second record, Prince.

01:07:54.000 Is that the second record?

01:07:55.000 Yeah, the first one's called For You.

01:07:57.000 And there's a picture of him kind of like...

01:07:59.000 He was...

01:08:00.000 For you, is that one with Jack Me Off?

01:08:03.000 No, that's later.

01:08:04.000 Oh, okay.

01:08:05.000 For you, the first single is Soft and Wet, which is before Jack You Off.

01:08:10.000 It has to be Soft and Wet.

01:08:12.000 I always laugh because by the time we're in the suburbs, I live in Atlanta.

01:08:17.000 I'm obsessed with black radio at the time.

01:08:20.000 Only listening to V103 FM Atlanta.

01:08:22.000 My first concert is Slave and Cool and the Gang and Sky at the Omni.

01:08:26.000 I'm going to see The Time, Vanity 6, SOS, Lakeside, Cameo.

01:08:31.000 Oh, wow, Morris Day.

01:08:33.000 Yeah, that was one of the best concerts I've ever seen.

01:08:35.000 Wow.

01:08:37.000 At that, you know, at that time in my life and only listening to that radio.

01:08:41.000 So the first Prince single comes out and it's Soft and Wet.

01:08:44.000 It's a great song.

01:08:48.000 And like funky and cool.

01:08:51.000 This little kind of disco breakdown in the middle. 0.99

01:08:53.000 A little roller skating shit in the middle. 0.81

01:08:55.000 And I'm like, but I didn't really know what Soft and Wet was yet. 0.98

01:08:58.000 You know what I mean?

01:08:59.000 I was like, is this like a washcloth that he left in the back?

01:09:01.000 What is this?

01:09:02.000 Yeah.

01:09:02.000 No, he was a character man.

01:09:04.000 I never met him.

01:09:05.000 A very original character.

01:09:06.000 I never even...

01:09:06.000 I saw him.

01:09:07.000 I only saw him in concert once.

01:09:08.000 Really?

01:09:10.000 And it was fantastic.

01:09:12.000 He was amazing.

01:09:14.000 He was doing a residency once at House of Blues in Vegas, but it was like really late at night, and I had to do something in the morning, and I passed on going.

01:09:22.000 To this day, I could kill myself.

01:09:24.000 Yeah, because he would do the concert and then go play another eight hours or whatever.

01:09:27.000 Yeah, well, he was going up really late. 0.94

01:09:29.000 It was after midnight, and I was like, I got shit I have to do tomorrow. 0.90

01:09:33.000 I can't do this. 0.99

01:09:34.000 I can't be that tired. 1.00

01:09:36.000 To this day, I'm like, fuck. 0.98

01:09:38.000 You know, it's funny, the other person I met that put me very much at ease when I first said hello that I was totally freaked out was George Jones. 0.99

01:09:47.000 Oh, wow.

01:09:48.000 I met him at the Ryman Auditorium after Johnny Cash passed away.

01:09:52.000 It's like meeting Jesus at the Sistine Chapel.

01:09:55.000 Man, man, I mean, I was like, I got ushered into this dressing room, you know, I was a guest.

01:10:02.000 Chris Christopherson was there.

01:10:03.000 I was amazed to meet him. 0.99

01:10:06.000 But I'm like, fucking George Jones. 0.99

01:10:10.000 Old Possum's right there. 0.99

01:10:11.000 And I end up talking to him.

01:10:14.000 He was really, really sweet, man.

01:10:16.000 I wanted to talk about Kansas City Chiefs.

01:10:19.000 He loved the Chiefs.

01:10:20.000 I used to watch football back then.

01:10:23.000 But I will always remember...

01:10:25.000 He was taking over for Johnny Cash, singing...

01:10:32.000 I think it's Johnny Cash.

01:10:33.000 Maybe it was Waylon's part.

01:10:34.000 I don't know the song that great.

01:10:36.000 The Highwayman.

01:10:36.000 I was a highwayman on the Columbia River.

01:10:40.000 Yeah.

01:10:41.000 And he was the dam builder on the Columbia River or whatever.

01:10:46.000 But he kept looking at the lyrics and he went, I'm a dam builder?

01:10:54.000 And Chris Gustafson's like, man, it's not like...

01:10:56.000 He goes, I don't think my fans want me to... 0.99

01:10:58.000 I'm a damn builder. 0.99

01:10:59.000 I mean, he just kept thought it was so funny. 0.99

01:11:02.000 And I was like, what amazing, you know, that I got to be in there.

01:11:05.000 But the other funny part of that is they were like, Chris, we take a picture with George and Chris. 0.96

01:11:11.000 And I'm like, I'm getting my fucking picture taken with George Jones and Chris Gustafson. 0.98

01:11:16.000 That's pretty wild. 0.99

01:11:17.000 This is the coolest thing.

01:11:20.000 And I'm like in the middle.

01:11:22.000 I'm like, man, this is the coolest day ever.

01:11:25.000 And then the door opens.

01:11:28.000 Look at that.

01:11:30.000 My ex-wife is there too.

01:11:32.000 But then the door opens and Al Gore gets in the picture and ruins it.

01:11:40.000 Get out of the picture!

01:11:44.000 How did he get in there?

01:11:45.000 I don't know.

01:11:46.000 Did he start talking about the climate?

01:11:47.000 Yeah, that was his initial climate thing.

01:11:50.000 But I'm like, let's talk about your wife telling people what they can listen to.

01:11:55.000 Get out of here.

01:11:57.000 Who are you?

01:11:58.000 Self-righteous.

01:11:59.000 Yeah, people forgot about that.

01:12:00.000 She was the one who actually helped albums.

01:12:03.000 Because when they put those warning labels...

01:12:04.000 Everyone wanted them.

01:12:05.000 Everybody wanted a warning label one.

01:12:07.000 And they never even got a warning label.

01:12:08.000 Oh, I remember when NWA had the warning label on them.

01:12:11.000 I mean, all of them.

01:12:12.000 But I mean, I'm like, you guys are really seriously upset about...

01:12:18.000 The band Wasp?

01:12:21.000 It's really ridiculous now in hindsight, but I remember when I was in high school at the time, it was a big thing.

01:12:27.000 Well, they're telling you what to do, again, you know what I mean? 0.84

01:12:30.000 And a lot of it was racist.

01:12:33.000 I guess I was out of high school.

01:12:35.000 It was like when rap music was really starting to emerge.

01:12:38.000 And those lyrics were so shocking, like early Ice-T, Ice Cube, all that stuff.

01:12:43.000 I mean, it happened with rock and roll, you know what I mean?

01:12:45.000 Elvis Presley.

01:12:46.000 They wouldn't let him shake his hips on TV. I mean, it happened with Chuck Berry, too, you know what I mean?

01:12:52.000 And there's that. 0.96

01:12:53.000 The initial phase, the cosmic fucking blood and brimstone of rock and roll ends pretty quickly when it starts. 0.97

01:13:04.000 And then you turn into the... 0.95

01:13:06.000 Paul Anka, Pat Boone sort of style until the Beatles really come back around.

01:13:11.000 Right, right.

01:13:12.000 You know, you have lots of cool records in between there, but they're small.

01:13:16.000 But it's interesting like that where things come in waves.

01:13:19.000 They come in waves of great artists for whatever reason.

01:13:24.000 Yeah, yeah.

01:13:24.000 Well, I think...

01:13:27.000 I mean, at least if you look at, like, when I look at my age people, we were just, we were close enough to the Beatles and close enough to the Sex Pistols and close, you know what I mean?

01:13:37.000 And the Stones and Zeppelin. 0.92

01:13:39.000 That shit's long gone for a lot of younger people, you know, as time moves on. 0.99

01:13:44.000 Yeah. 1.00

01:13:44.000 You know what I mean? 1.00

01:13:45.000 I have to ask you a question because before I forget, did Rick Rubin try to get you guys to change the name of your band?

01:13:51.000 Yes.

01:13:52.000 And did he really try to get you to change your name of the band to the KKK, the Cobb County Crows? 0.99

01:13:58.000 I know that the king of yoga or whatever the fuck he's selling Under that beard, that guy... 0.97

01:14:10.000 And it's funny because good for Rick Rubin, whatever. 0.99

01:14:12.000 He can do whatever he wants.

01:14:14.000 He has very little...

01:14:16.000 But he did say that.

01:14:17.000 That's a true story.

01:14:19.000 And by the way, it was unimaginably offensive.

01:14:25.000 Unimaginably...

01:14:28.000 Why would you say that to us?

01:14:30.000 Explain the conversation.

01:14:32.000 How does it happen?

01:14:32.000 Because I think, well, we were called Mr. Crow's Garden, and it's a book.

01:14:39.000 It's like a children's book from the 20s called Mr. Crow's Garden.

01:14:45.000 With an E, so it's a name, you know, he was Mr. Crow.

01:14:49.000 And we were kind of, you know, into like psychedelic, you know, like it was our, that was the name of our band.

01:14:56.000 So when we made Shake Your Money Maker, a few years had gone by since we first were Mr. Crow's Garden, and now we don't sound like that.

01:15:05.000 And George Triculius, our producer and our A&R guy and our lifeline to the music business, to the world, who signed us and stuff, he was like, we need, you know, we've got to change the name.

01:15:19.000 So there was a little bit of time where before we said we'll be the Black Crows.

01:15:25.000 And that's when Rick interjected that that's what he...

01:15:29.000 Because we're Southern. 1.00

01:15:31.000 Aren't all Southern people fear-driven, ignorant bigots? 1.00

01:15:35.000 Isn't every one of them? 1.00

01:15:37.000 But he didn't say it that way, right?

01:15:39.000 No, he said it like, it'll be cool.

01:15:41.000 It'll be like controversial.

01:15:43.000 I'm like, yeah.

01:15:44.000 Jesus Christ.

01:15:46.000 Yeah.

01:15:47.000 And how did he bring it up?

01:15:49.000 Like, I think this is a cool...

01:15:51.000 You're from Cobb County.

01:15:52.000 We're not from there, but we're from Atlanta. 0.71

01:15:56.000 By the way, it's fucking hard to get it to change Wikipedia. 0.77

01:16:00.000 They're like, me and Rich are born in Marietta. 0.89

01:16:03.000 We're from Atlanta, Georgia.

01:16:05.000 You know, third generation Atlantans.

01:16:08.000 And I was like, my grandfather was born in Atlanta in 1906. You know what I mean?

01:16:15.000 So it's hard to get that shit changed. 0.99

01:16:17.000 But he was like, oh, so you live in Cobb County, C-O-B-B. Well, you should change it to Cobb County Crows and put them all Ks. 1.00

01:16:24.000 And we were like, that's so foul and disgusting.

01:16:31.000 It's also such a crazy idea to not have context to it.

01:16:36.000 Just to imagine that you're going to call a band the KKK. Like, what the fuck? 0.99

01:16:42.000 Cobb County Crows actually sounds cool. 1.00

01:16:45.000 With C's. 0.67

01:16:46.000 You know, it was Cobb County CCC. No problems.

01:16:50.000 Great name.

01:16:51.000 Nothing wrong with it.

01:16:52.000 You probably would have achieved the exact same success as the Black Crows.

01:16:56.000 I don't know, because the poet in me and the armchair occultist would believe that...

01:17:03.000 The only way we achieved what we achieved, became what we became, is because of the way, some reason, also leaving the E in it, that was the one thing that I said we would do.

01:17:18.000 And by the way, leaving the E in it was also great, and it's still great to this day when someone requests something or wants something from you and they misspell the name of the band, we're like, no. 0.98

01:17:29.000 Fuck that. 0.98

01:17:30.000 No. 1.00

01:17:31.000 You could've looked there out a little bit.

01:17:34.000 A little bit of a search.

01:17:35.000 It's right there.

01:17:36.000 You know what I mean?

01:17:36.000 Isn't that hard to add an E? I just can't imagine that conversation.

01:17:40.000 Someone's saying...

01:17:41.000 I can't imagine it either, to be honest.

01:17:43.000 Especially Rick.

01:17:43.000 Rick is a friend of mine, just for clarity.

01:17:48.000 I don't hate Rick Rubin or anything.

01:17:50.000 He's a genius.

01:17:51.000 He did say that.

01:17:52.000 He's a fascinating guy.

01:17:53.000 I mean, he's a very interesting thinker.

01:17:55.000 And I can imagine this idea intrusively embedding itself in his mind and then coming out of his mouth.

01:18:01.000 I just can't see how anybody...

01:18:02.000 I mean, to be honest, I found a lot of...

01:18:06.000 Especially in this...

01:18:09.000 When our first record came out and...

01:18:12.000 You know, we're on tour, and we're working that record, and I'm the one who has to get up in the morning, and okay, so we're playing.

01:18:22.000 We're in Cleveland.

01:18:22.000 Now we're playing Cincinnati.

01:18:23.000 I have to go to 10 radio stations in Cleveland and Cincinnati and do the handshaking and the talking and, you know, sell the band.

01:18:34.000 I meet all the...

01:18:36.000 Like local promo people, you know, so they pick you up and stuff.

01:18:40.000 And most everyone was really super cool and they would be the people that could get you drugs and pay for drinks and stuff, you know?

01:18:49.000 But, wow, I would be driving in the car with some of these guys and they'd be like, must be tough being...

01:18:55.000 You know, like talking down to me like...

01:18:59.000 You don't know me. 0.98

01:19:00.000 Just because I'm Southern and I'm a musician doesn't mean that, you know, talking down to me like I'm stupid or something, or I'm like, whoa, whoa, you don't know. 0.93

01:19:08.000 Well, they sound like it must be tough in what way? 0.89

01:19:10.000 Well, like, you're from Atlanta.

01:19:12.000 Like, do they have schools there?

01:19:14.000 You know what I mean?

01:19:14.000 Like, yeah, like, just kind of patronizing me or thinking that everyone's supposed to go, oh, I just happen to be here.

01:19:22.000 You know what I mean?

01:19:24.000 I'm like, we're not...

01:19:25.000 I'm from Atlanta, Georgia.

01:19:27.000 You know what I mean?

01:19:27.000 You don't know what books I read.

01:19:29.000 You don't know what I'm into.

01:19:31.000 You don't know anything about me.

01:19:32.000 Well, there's always been a deep history of prejudice about people in what they would call the flyover states.

01:19:38.000 The arrogance of New York and Los Angeles.

01:19:41.000 And, you know, you kind of sort of accept...

01:19:42.000 Dude, these are the flyover state people talking to me!

01:19:45.000 Oh, that's funny.

01:19:46.000 Even worse.

01:19:47.000 You know, there's some people that like accept Chicago a little bit and some other cities, Detroit a little bit. 0.99

01:19:52.000 But the reality was it was about the coasts and everything in between was bullshit. 0.92

01:19:57.000 As if everyone in Rochester, New York has like a PhD in French literature. 0.90

01:20:02.000 By the way, that used to be kind of true when you would go on the road.

01:20:06.000 Not true, but you would notice a marked difference in the awareness.

01:20:10.000 If you were talking about anything...

01:20:13.000 Out of the ordinary.

01:20:14.000 The awareness of people's...

01:20:16.000 What they knew in certain cities and certain places in the country versus what they knew in Los Angeles and New York.

01:20:22.000 There was a difference.

01:20:24.000 I mean, they're a hipper audience or something.

01:20:27.000 Yeah, they weren't as sophisticated.

01:20:27.000 They didn't know as much.

01:20:28.000 But that changed with the internet.

01:20:31.000 Yeah, everyone has exact same references. 0.99

01:20:34.000 You go to fucking Cleveland, Ohio, wherever you go, there's fucking people that get it. 1.00

01:20:39.000 They get it. 1.00

01:20:39.000 Do you remember when Bill Hicks used to just... 1.00

01:20:42.000 Look at the audience and go, Moo! 1.00

01:20:45.000 Moo! 1.00

01:20:46.000 Oh, yeah.

01:20:48.000 A lot of people still haven't caught up to Bill.

01:20:50.000 Oh, he was great.

01:20:51.000 I mean, he used to call it his Flying Saucer Tour because he would only go to places where flying saucers would land.

01:20:58.000 Weird little out of the way spots.

01:21:00.000 What's that record called?

01:21:01.000 Rant in C minor or something?

01:21:03.000 A minor?

01:21:04.000 Is it A minor?

01:21:05.000 I don't remember.

01:21:05.000 I don't know what key it's in.

01:21:08.000 I mean, I still put that on and it's just unbelievably funny.

01:21:14.000 Changed comedy.

01:21:15.000 Changed comedy.

01:21:15.000 Made people want to become profound.

01:21:18.000 It changed comedy from just a bunch of stuff to laugh at to stuff that made you think about it after you're done laughing.

01:21:24.000 I think George Carlin had that as well.

01:21:27.000 For sure.

01:21:27.000 Yeah, for sure, in a different way.

01:21:28.000 But, you know, Hicks was more psychedelic-inspired, and it was just more esoteric.

01:21:33.000 There's a rock and roll-like thing in him that, for lack of another description, I think, that gave him that kind of energy.

01:21:40.000 Yeah, it's the right way to describe it, I think.

01:21:42.000 I had a chance to see him live a bunch of times, luckily.

01:21:46.000 Like, in a way he understood what, you know...

01:21:49.000 What a great underground band means to someone.

01:21:51.000 Oh, yeah.

01:21:52.000 And what it meant to him.

01:21:54.000 Exactly.

01:21:55.000 He was an artist.

01:21:57.000 He was an artist that was also a comedian.

01:21:58.000 He wasn't trying to conform to whatever the stereotypical, this is the guy that's going to get a sitcom act is going to create.

01:22:07.000 Yeah.

01:22:08.000 But there's not a lot of those guys.

01:22:10.000 Is the sitcom worth it?

01:22:11.000 It doesn't exist anymore.

01:22:13.000 No, but I mean for those comics that took that route.

01:22:15.000 You know what?

01:22:16.000 It was the golden carrot.

01:22:17.000 It was the thing that they held over all of our heads is that if you develop an act that could be converted into a sitcom, all of a sudden you're Tim Allen and you have $50 million in the bank.

01:22:28.000 Or your Jerry Seinfeld or your Brett Butler or your Roseanne Barr.

01:22:32.000 There was like a few of those people.

01:22:34.000 Yeah.

01:22:35.000 And there's a bunch of people that had managed some more obscure shows that people forgot about, but they made a lot of money as well.

01:22:41.000 And it was this thing that if you could get on a sitcom and then all of a sudden you're the king of queens.

01:22:45.000 You know, like my friend Kevin James, that was his thing.

01:22:47.000 Right, right.

01:22:48.000 And that's how he got through it.

01:22:50.000 And that was the magic portal.

01:22:52.000 The magic portal to wealth.

01:22:54.000 Yeah.

01:22:55.000 It also fucked up a lot of people's acts, because there was a lot of really funny comics.

01:23:00.000 That's what I mean, like, after that, now you're kind of stuck and...

01:23:03.000 Censored.

01:23:04.000 Yeah, and now the things that you want to say you can't say.

01:23:08.000 They self-censor.

01:23:08.000 This is the saddest thing.

01:23:09.000 I know some of the great comics of, like, the 90s that are ruined.

01:23:13.000 Because they self-censor now.

01:23:15.000 Because they sort of developed this act for television.

01:23:18.000 And then once they were on television, they got all that TV money.

01:23:21.000 They wanted to keep it coming in.

01:23:22.000 So they never really branched out into more offensive subject matter or just more provocative.

01:23:30.000 More provocative.

01:23:30.000 You know what I mean?

01:23:31.000 And I think irreverent in some ways.

01:23:34.000 You know what I mean?

01:23:34.000 And you feel free.

01:23:35.000 Everyone else will judge what that is.

01:23:37.000 Yeah.

01:23:38.000 But it's just the problem is you're never gonna make everybody happy and now way more people have an opinion they can express like because of social media.

01:23:45.000 Like everyone can express their opinion.

01:23:47.000 It's not as simple as you hope to get the favor of a reviewer.

01:23:52.000 Like someone who's cool, really likes bands, comes to see, oh, Bob's here. 0.99

01:23:56.000 This guy's fucking cool.

01:23:57.000 He's gonna review our show. 0.98

01:23:58.000 And you're like, you kind of trusted Bob.

01:24:00.000 Bob was a good guy.

01:24:00.000 He really loved music.

01:24:02.000 Wasn't trying to tear things down.

01:24:03.000 Those guys don't exist anymore.

01:24:04.000 Yeah, yeah.

01:24:05.000 You know, now what everyone's trying to do is get people on social media to like them and or not be mad at them.

01:24:11.000 So when they put out a special, you see...

01:24:13.000 Not be mad at them.

01:24:14.000 Yeah, you see these, which as a comic is...

01:24:16.000 The role of the artist sometimes is to make your audience mad at you, to challenge them.

01:24:20.000 Yes.

01:24:20.000 I mean, you know what I mean?

01:24:21.000 In a way like, God, how many...

01:24:25.000 Things in life that I didn't like at a time that I finally found my way through later and be like, oh, of course, thank you.

01:24:32.000 You know what I mean?

01:24:34.000 Of course, that's the natural progression.

01:24:39.000 It's the natural way.

01:24:39.000 And by the way, not everything is supposed to be, like you were saying, I guess that's where we are with this social media.

01:24:47.000 Nothing can have that sort of mystique around it anymore because it's forcing too much out of someone.

01:24:56.000 You're expecting too much from someone to either follow you and or understand, get it, or acceptance.

01:25:01.000 Right.

01:25:02.000 Yeah. 0.99

01:25:02.000 Well, it's just a foolish pursuit. 0.99

01:25:04.000 The pursuit of other people who you don't even know, their love and attention, and you'll morph and change and adapt whatever you're trying to produce in order to gain their favor, that's a fucking folly. 0.99

01:25:16.000 That's such a foolish way of interacting with human beings. 0.98

01:25:20.000 And whatever you create is not going to resonate. 0.97

01:25:22.000 Well, it's false.

01:25:22.000 It's completely false.

01:25:24.000 And you can see, personally, I think you're starting to see culturally where that hollowness and that falseness isn't helping.

01:25:36.000 Oh, it's definitely not helping.

01:25:37.000 It's pushing us over the edge.

01:25:39.000 Yeah, it's not good.

01:25:41.000 You need experiences from people where when they resonate, when they put out these works, whether it's a book or music or anything, This thing represents their soul and their perspective and their actual...

01:25:58.000 This is a thing they've created.

01:26:01.000 Not a thing they're doing so they hope you like it.

01:26:04.000 Not a thing they're doing so they hope you don't get mad.

01:26:06.000 Not a thing they're doing where you highlight social issues so people think they're a virtuous person.

01:26:12.000 Yeah, yeah.

01:26:13.000 It's not...

01:26:14.000 Well, it's funny when you say that, the virtuous part of it.

01:26:17.000 That's funny, too, because, you know... 0.99

01:26:22.000 Especially like, you know, the lobby of your place is full of pictures of famous people who have been arrested for shit. 0.99

01:26:28.000 Yeah, all my mug shots. 0.98

01:26:30.000 And it's like, I mean, in a way, in a counterculture way, whether it's a poet, a musician, a jazz musician, anyone, you know, Robert Mitchum.

01:26:39.000 You know Robert Mitchum's cooler than Kurt Douglas?

01:26:43.000 Because he got busted for smoking pot, okay?

01:26:45.000 So Robert Mitchum's cooler than you, Kurt Douglas.

01:26:52.000 The outsider in culture.

01:26:54.000 You know what I mean?

01:26:55.000 The loser and the outsider are other themes that we do not celebrate as much.

01:27:00.000 And I'm not talking about some fabricated pop star who pouts and is like, look how dark I am.

01:27:06.000 That's not...

01:27:08.000 What I'm talking about.

01:27:09.000 And that's always there.

01:27:10.000 Again, showbiz and corporate things, you know, can manipulate these kind of archetypes and put them in the genre-specific things that they want because they know. 0.70

01:27:23.000 Formulating a rebel is so gross.

01:27:25.000 Yeah, yeah. 0.98

01:27:26.000 Totally.

01:27:26.000 Oh, my God.

01:27:28.000 A formulated rebel.

01:27:30.000 A disingenuous formulated rebel.

01:27:32.000 Yeah.

01:27:32.000 You see them.

01:27:34.000 You do.

01:27:34.000 But I think they sort of make you really appreciate people that are true artists.

01:27:39.000 It really is just their expression, what they're trying to create that they hope people enjoy.

01:27:43.000 I mean, it's funny because that's, you know, more than ever, not just for the fact that I really had to go through certain things to come full circle with my career and my brother and what the Black Crows mean.

01:28:02.000 In my life, a lot of things.

01:28:04.000 A lot of it's starting with my wife, Camille, and stuff.

01:28:08.000 But one of the things that keeps me excited and one of the main things that I love is I know that we're...

01:28:19.000 Call us old-fashioned or call us naive or...

01:28:24.000 Anything you want, it doesn't matter. 0.96

01:28:27.000 We were talking about that stupid flame idea, this purity, but I know when we go out on tour and we write songs, make records, play concerts, it's something that is raw still in there. 0.94

01:28:40.000 We're not in-air monitors. 0.96

01:28:42.000 There's no computer on our stage.

01:28:44.000 You know what I mean? 0.99

01:28:45.000 You see these fucking bands cancel a show because their laptop didn't work. 0.99

01:28:50.000 I'm like, well, borrow your mom's! 1.00

01:28:54.000 Buy your mom's laptop.

01:28:55.000 Do they really cancel shows because their laptop crashes?

01:28:57.000 Yeah, it happens all the time! 0.98

01:28:58.000 That is fucking hilarious. 0.86

01:28:59.000 And there's bands that are up there not even playing, and they press a button and they're up, you know what I mean? 0.93

01:29:06.000 Which is fine.

01:29:07.000 Whatever you want to do to get over, I get it.

01:29:10.000 Again, I was born the same year the Beatles made Revolver.

01:29:13.000 I get it, you know what I mean?

01:29:16.000 Not that in my daughter's lifetime. 0.98

01:29:17.000 The Beatles will be a fucking hundred years old. 0.97

01:29:20.000 Those records will be 1964 is a hundred years ago. 0.99

01:29:23.000 That's crazy.

01:29:24.000 You know what I mean?

01:29:25.000 That's so crazy when you think about it that way.

01:29:28.000 Because when I was a kid, it was just a decade or two ago.

01:29:31.000 Well, in the same decade between the Beatles, if that 100 years was the end of the Civil War and the Beatles, you know what I mean?

01:29:38.000 It's weird.

01:29:39.000 It's a weird thing to look at time that way.

01:29:42.000 It really puts it into perspective, because we look at everything through this lens of a finite lifespan of 100 years, if you're lucky.

01:29:50.000 We look at everything like, this is a long time, but it's not a long time.

01:29:55.000 I used to do this joke about...

01:29:58.000 The Constitution, like, America was founded in 1776. I go, people live to be 100. That's three people ago.

01:30:05.000 Yeah.

01:30:05.000 Three people ago they started this.

01:30:07.000 Like, it's nothing.

01:30:08.000 It's so new.

01:30:11.000 Everything's so new.

01:30:12.000 Civilization itself.

01:30:13.000 Oh, my God, it's so ancient.

01:30:15.000 Is it really?

01:30:15.000 It's not.

01:30:16.000 I mean, you're talking about 3,000 years, but in the big scope of things?

01:30:21.000 It's not that much time.

01:30:22.000 And they...

01:30:23.000 And I think, historically, and because of science and things...

01:30:30.000 You know, it's like that idea of, well, this was the Bronze Age.

01:30:32.000 It started on Thursday, but then they find a corpse in the ice in the Italian Alps, and the guy has a bronze sword, and he's 2,000 years before they thought. 0.99

01:30:43.000 They're like, fuck, I gotta re... 0.96

01:30:45.000 There's a problem with that with archaeologists. 1.00

01:30:47.000 I gotta get my abacus out and do the math.

01:30:49.000 Yeah, they're very reluctant to change the dates of things they've been publishing about forever.

01:30:54.000 But there's some things that they find every now and then that force them.

01:30:57.000 Like, there's a place called Gobekli Tepe in Turkey that's 11,000 years old, and they found it in the 90s.

01:31:02.000 I believe it was a sheep herder found this, like, piece of stone in the ground.

01:31:06.000 He kicked at it, moved it around, and then realized it had an edge to it.

01:31:11.000 And then they excavated it, and it's this enormous temple structure.

01:31:15.000 And to this day, they've only excavated, like, 5% of it.

01:31:18.000 There's a lot of controversy behind it because people are like, why aren't they continuing to excavate?

01:31:22.000 Like, what are they doing?

01:31:22.000 Like, Well, now in archaeology, they can do almost just as much with sonic.

01:31:29.000 They can plan out what's going on and not disrupt the thing.

01:31:32.000 Well, that's how they know there's many, many of these structures around that same area.

01:31:37.000 But these things are 11,000 years old.

01:31:39.000 The last show of our tour, we were in Merida, Spain, playing in a Roman theater.

01:31:47.000 That they had only done the excavations in the 50s, because I guess at a certain point, they just filled...

01:31:54.000 There's an amphitheater next to it where they would have gladiatorial games and things, and then a theater for theatrical and religious purposes.

01:32:03.000 Pink Floyd gets Pompeii, we get Merida.

01:32:07.000 It's still cool, you know what I mean?

01:32:09.000 But you're playing in this place.

01:32:11.000 It was built during the reign of Augustus, and... 0.85

01:32:17.000 And then the guy goes, yeah, well, you know, it was just filled with trash. 0.87

01:32:21.000 There it is.

01:32:22.000 Wow, that's incredible.

01:32:24.000 It was just filled with trash, and then finally they dug it all out of there, you know, and so then this was down there.

01:32:29.000 Wow, that was all covered?

01:32:31.000 Yeah.

01:32:32.000 That's nuts.

01:32:33.000 That is so nuts.

01:32:35.000 It was fantastic, beautiful place.

01:32:38.000 We went to Greece last year.

01:32:39.000 I got to see the...

01:32:41.000 Delphi?

01:32:41.000 Well, we went to Ulysses, or no, how do you say it?

01:32:46.000 Elysian?

01:32:46.000 Well, the Elysian Mysteries, right?

01:32:49.000 Elysian Mysteries.

01:32:50.000 Where you could descend into the cave, I think...

01:32:54.000 At one point it was a parking lot, from what I read, because I'm really...

01:32:58.000 You mean now?

01:33:00.000 Yeah, yeah, like where the original mysteries took place?

01:33:03.000 No, no, you can still go there.

01:33:04.000 Oh, really?

01:33:04.000 Yeah, it's all cartoned off.

01:33:06.000 It's protected.

01:33:07.000 You have to go through a gate to get in.

01:33:09.000 There's guards there and stuff.

01:33:11.000 But we went to there, which is where the Illusinian mysteries were, and I got really lucky to go with my friend Brian Murorescu.

01:33:18.000 I was there with my family, and Brian was there at the same time, and Brian Murorescu is a scholar.

01:33:32.000 Yeah, of course.

01:33:41.000 I mean, they're tripping balls and trying to give everybody an equal participation in society and figuring things out. 0.99

01:33:47.000 But you're around these structures, and these are fucking thousands of years old. 0.98

01:33:52.000 What is it? 0.97

01:33:52.000 What was it? 0.97

01:33:54.000 The kukion? 0.96

01:33:55.000 The drink?

01:33:57.000 Yeah, the kukion. 0.99

01:33:58.000 You know, and they find this almost exact same structure in Peru as well.

01:34:03.000 Really?

01:34:04.000 And down in the thing, psychedelics, mirrors in the corner where they could build fires and send lights around and stuff.

01:34:12.000 That's awesome.

01:34:14.000 But what happens in Greece is...

01:34:19.000 What is the law?

01:34:21.000 It's a once in a lifetime experience.

01:34:23.000 But then the rich people get their hands on it and they start having their ceremonies, private ceremonies, more exclusive or elitist.

01:34:32.000 And that's kind of the fall of that.

01:34:34.000 Well, the Romans put a stop to it.

01:34:36.000 No, they didn't.

01:34:37.000 No, these people are like rethinking society the same way they put a stop to it in the 1960s.

01:34:44.000 When the government made all psychedelic drugs schedule one, when they were doing that so they can go after the anti-war protesters and the Black Panthers and they changed the counterculture movement.

01:34:54.000 Cannabis is close to the same thing.

01:34:56.000 I mean, you know, when I first made the decision to be a daily cannabis user, I was an outlaw.

01:35:03.000 Now I'm a patient.

01:35:05.000 Yeah, isn't that interesting? 0.99

01:35:07.000 You're like, we used to be like, you know, people think they killed Bob Marley because of shit like that, but now it's just like, it's my medicine. 0.98

01:35:15.000 Yeah. 0.97

01:35:16.000 Well, you know, it's now in how many states, Jamie?

01:35:20.000 Legal in how many?

01:35:21.000 Didn't we say it was like legal in 19?

01:35:24.000 I think it's half the country has legal marijuana.

01:35:28.000 Half the country.

01:35:29.000 And the other half the country wants it.

01:35:31.000 Like, what are we doing? 0.98

01:35:33.000 Like, how the fuck is it 2024 with all that we know about all the drugs and that this one? 0.90

01:35:39.000 24 states, three territories in Washington, D.C. have legalized recreational cannabis use. 0.97

01:35:44.000 Seven states have decriminalized its use.

01:35:46.000 Commercial distribution is legal in all jurisdictions where possession is legal except for Virginia and Washington, D.C. Personal cultivation for recreational use is allowed in all jurisdictions except for Delaware, Illinois, New Jersey.

01:35:58.000 That's surprising.

01:35:59.000 And Washington State, that's even more surprising.

01:36:01.000 Well, first off, let's just be honest.

01:36:03.000 No one's ever, ever had fun in Delaware.

01:36:07.000 I'm just kidding.

01:36:08.000 Isn't that where Biden's from?

01:36:10.000 I think it's just a dumb thing for us to be hanging on to, the fact that they're still allowing grown adults to tell other grown adults what they can do with their consciousness.

01:36:19.000 With all the data that we know about things that are very harmful, that are not just legal but prescribed by doctors, How about just everything is harmful that they allow in the world? 0.98

01:36:29.000 You know, they don't give a fuck about the sea being a plastic desert, but don't smoke pot. 0.77

01:36:35.000 I mean, I find that's always been the case with authority, isn't it? 0.98

01:36:39.000 You know what I mean?

01:36:40.000 Like, language, you know what I mean?

01:36:42.000 You know what I mean?

01:36:45.000 What language can you use and how you use it? 0.97

01:36:48.000 Sex and violence. 0.98

01:36:49.000 Talk about Rome. 0.97

01:36:51.000 Now we're going back to Rome.

01:36:52.000 And one of the reasons Rome was so successful is because they placated – and we talk about Rome.

01:36:58.000 We're not talking about Italy.

01:36:59.000 We're talking about the city-state of Rome.

01:37:01.000 That is the thing that conquered the Rome, the city-state.

01:37:05.000 And the surrounding areas were other things.

01:37:08.000 But they keep their masses happy with violence and free bread.

01:37:14.000 And, you know, in the same way that you keep people, you control people by fear and ignorance.

01:37:21.000 Keep them, you know what I mean?

01:37:23.000 And it's exactly...

01:37:24.000 And TikTok.

01:37:27.000 Just keep them mildly entertained all day long and distracted.

01:37:30.000 I find the idea of TikTok about as interesting as the game TikTok.

01:37:34.000 Oh, TikTok toe?

01:37:36.000 TikTok toe, yeah.

01:37:37.000 I'm not doing that either.

01:37:39.000 No, I'm not doing that either.

01:37:40.000 It is crazy when you go to the Coliseum and you realize the extent of the construction of it and how elaborate it was and how many different things they had going on.

01:37:47.000 They'd have boats.

01:37:49.000 Naval battles.

01:37:50.000 They'd fill it up with water.

01:37:51.000 Incredible. 1.00

01:37:51.000 Wild, wild shit. 1.00

01:37:52.000 They had animals in cages. 1.00

01:37:53.000 They could race through the floor.

01:37:55.000 It's unimaginable.

01:37:56.000 And now, you know, the thing about going there, too, is you go, I wonder if they ever thought this was going to end.

01:38:02.000 Did they ever imagine?

01:38:03.000 No, of course not. 1.00

01:38:04.000 No, they certainly never imagined some idiot comedian and his family from California at the time. 1.00

01:38:09.000 We're going to go visit and go, whoa, cool. 1.00

01:38:12.000 This is where they had sword fights.

01:38:14.000 I mean, I... I imagine...

01:38:17.000 Yeah, it's...

01:38:18.000 I think some of the emperors probably in an egocentric way felt...

01:38:24.000 And it's true. 0.56

01:38:26.000 Everyone knows...

01:38:27.000 There might be some kid who never heard a Byrd's record, but he might know who Nero was or Caligula or something.

01:38:34.000 Or the most dramatic, deranged parts of where the...

01:38:42.000 Where that period of Rome of the dictator starts to become...

01:38:46.000 It's just always shocking when you go to a place that was in complete control of, like, most of the world.

01:38:51.000 And then now it's nothing.

01:38:52.000 Now it's gone.

01:38:53.000 Now it's just ruins that people visit.

01:38:55.000 And it's just a city.

01:38:56.000 Yeah, what if Bill Gates had been like, you know, Guido, you know, whatever.

01:39:00.000 It'd be a different thing.

01:39:03.000 What if the whole internet came from Italy, not America, you know what I mean?

01:39:08.000 Right.

01:39:10.000 It's just always weird to go to a place, too, when you're from America.

01:39:13.000 Claudio Gazzo, whatever.

01:39:14.000 Like, he came up with this, you know what I mean?

01:39:17.000 But they had a pretty good run in the Renaissance.

01:39:19.000 Oh, well, they've had amazing runs.

01:39:21.000 Artistically, I mean, that's also something I think about when I go to Italy.

01:39:25.000 Like, there is something about their life and their lifestyle that contributes to this incredible body of work when it comes to art, when it comes to music, when it comes to sculptures and paintings.

01:39:38.000 Like, there's so many great artists.

01:39:41.000 Incredible.

01:39:41.000 They came from that part of the world.

01:39:42.000 Have you ever seen a book called Naples 44?

01:39:46.000 No.

01:39:46.000 Do you know this book?

01:39:48.000 A friend of mine gave it to me a couple years ago.

01:39:52.000 It's a British Secret Service officer, comes to Naples in 1944, directly in the, you know, push of the Allies pushing the Germans and then fascists up the peninsula.

01:40:07.000 From Sicily and then landing in Italy.

01:40:10.000 And it's an unbelievable book that this guy writes.

01:40:14.000 And it's...

01:40:17.000 The sadness and the tragedy of it, and like anything else, war is dramatic.

01:40:23.000 War is pain and violent.

01:40:25.000 The aftermath of war is something that people rarely can wrap their heads around or are interested in.

01:40:32.000 Maybe because it's even, you know, you take away the drama of the battle and stuff, it's bleak.

01:40:36.000 But there's something about, and this guy is not Italian, English guy.

01:40:41.000 But he captures the spirit, the humanity within, like, this transitional period in Naples, but unimaginable stories.

01:40:52.000 Depravity, but also great exalted human things as well.

01:40:57.000 And then just some things that are incredible, like, you know, Italians in their clothes. 1.00

01:41:01.000 And even the rich, the aristocratic class in Naples to the person that could, when they didn't have any fabric...

01:41:10.000 Around this time after that, they're walking around Naples in beautifully tailored suits made of old army blankets that they would use black paint on to make them look chic.

01:41:22.000 Really?

01:41:22.000 Yeah, and I was like, wow, I would love to see that garment in a museum.

01:41:26.000 But just all manner of...

01:41:30.000 There's another American guy who was there at the same time and wrote another book about it, which is also very interesting because this guy was one of the only books of that time that talks about the gay scene with the soldiers in Naples and stuff,

01:41:49.000 too, during this thing.

01:41:53.000 You know what I mean?

01:41:54.000 Incredible stories, incredible survival and heroics and art and culture that still survive during the darkest time.

01:42:04.000 It's a great, great book.

01:42:06.000 Unbelievable.

01:42:07.000 Unforgettable.

01:42:08.000 Well, it's always interesting, too, when you're thinking about things thriving and existing against resistance in a dark time or a different time, a time of much more difficulty.

01:42:20.000 And you get a chance to...

01:42:22.000 Sort of feel what they felt when they were doing what they were doing.

01:42:25.000 I mean, I think culturally, historically, I mean, I think one of the great reasons Europeans have a much different attitude, you're talking about, you know, Sicilians, Italians, everyone, French, Spanish.

01:42:39.000 Spanish people know how to have a good time, too.

01:42:41.000 Oh, yeah.

01:42:41.000 Sure.

01:42:42.000 Sure.

01:42:44.000 To have two events, like the World War I and World War II, yeah, we have very little...

01:42:55.000 It's hard for us to understand what those two events must have felt like through communities, cities, families.

01:43:03.000 I just read another amazing book called Wine and War, and it's a history of the wine business during the Nazi occupation during World War II. Unimaginable, wild shit going on. 0.98

01:43:15.000 But the French people, you know, because the Germans... 1.00

01:43:18.000 They knew as well.

01:43:20.000 What's the blood of France?

01:43:22.000 It's the wine.

01:43:23.000 What is the thing that holds it together in all these things?

01:43:26.000 But it's also a great commodity and also something of great elevated status.

01:43:30.000 All this stuff with the way they dealt with the Vichy...

01:43:34.000 I'm like, wow, man.

01:43:37.000 These guys had a lot on their plate for five years.

01:43:40.000 And leading up to the inevitable Nazi occupation.

01:43:43.000 Well, even in World War I. In World War I, France lost 25% of its men.

01:43:50.000 And then in World War II, they lost another 25%.

01:43:54.000 In the book, I mean, and also just history, I think that's one of the reasons I think Germany, I mean, a lot of French people just didn't want to do it again.

01:44:06.000 You know what I mean?

01:44:07.000 Right, right, right.

01:44:08.000 And I think, you know...

01:44:12.000 You know, it's funny, too.

01:44:13.000 History repeats itself all the time, and we know this.

01:44:16.000 There was a lot of infighting and political things within the French government at that time, whether that's through the military or whatever, that made them really a soft spot.

01:44:27.000 There was no cohesiveness of the way they would think about fighting or defending or whatever.

01:44:34.000 Yeah.

01:44:35.000 But they went out in the end, you know what I mean?

01:44:37.000 But this book about just how that affects all the different wine regions and the characters and stuff.

01:44:42.000 That has to be insane.

01:44:43.000 It's a great, great book.

01:44:44.000 Because it's so important over there.

01:44:46.000 Wine is everything to them.

01:44:48.000 It's so important.

01:44:49.000 And, you know, it's funny.

01:44:50.000 One of the things in the book, you're like, okay, so they're obviously confiscating everything for the Wehrmacht and doing all this stuff.

01:44:58.000 But they take this...

01:44:59.000 I might be wrong, but I think it's the Pue Fusse.

01:45:03.000 They take this...

01:45:05.000 This guy has, like, you know, however many casks or whatever.

01:45:10.000 And they just take everything.

01:45:13.000 And then...

01:45:14.000 The guy's upset.

01:45:16.000 He's been in his family for 400 years or whatever.

01:45:18.000 And he's sitting there with his head in his hands, and they're like, it's just wine.

01:45:23.000 He goes, I know it's just wine, but they destroyed 300-year-old casks, the oak barrels.

01:45:29.000 That's the secret to our wine.

01:45:32.000 And they chopped them up and threw them on a fire or whatever.

01:45:35.000 You know what I mean?

01:45:36.000 And he was more upset about that than the wine itself at that time.

01:45:40.000 And he was like, they're irreplaceable.

01:45:42.000 I could never, ever have that again.

01:45:44.000 It's been in my family for, you know, stuff like that really gets my head spinning of, oh yeah, forget it.

01:45:49.000 It's not just the grape and the person that makes the wine.

01:45:52.000 You know what I mean?

01:45:53.000 It's every detail, every aspect.

01:45:56.000 Well, they can also destroy the history of how it was made.

01:45:59.000 Like, people won't know how to do it correctly.

01:46:01.000 I mean, that's one of the darker aspects of occupation is when they destroy ancient stuff, like the burning of the Library of Alexandria.

01:46:09.000 I mean, could you imagine what that...

01:46:10.000 I mean, we have no...

01:46:12.000 I mean, unimaginably...

01:46:14.000 And by the way, who burned it down? 0.70

01:46:16.000 Christians. 0.51

01:46:17.000 Did they?

01:46:18.000 Yeah.

01:46:18.000 It was Christian people who ran amok because of something that had...

01:46:24.000 Happened some sort of crime that was committed or something, and it was the early Christians who burned that down. 1.00

01:46:30.000 Those motherfuckers. 1.00

01:46:31.000 Can you imagine if that had some sort of an explanation as to how they built the pyramids and was lost forever? 1.00

01:46:37.000 It could be anything.

01:46:38.000 I mean, millions and millions of...

01:46:41.000 But that was the most sophisticated society that has, even today, ever existed.

01:46:46.000 If you look at ancient Egypt, in terms of their ability to construct things that baffle us to this day...

01:46:51.000 The Great Pyramid baffles people to this day.

01:46:54.000 There's hundreds of thousands of people debating how and why and what they were for and what they did, and we really don't know.

01:47:03.000 I'm also interested in anything where before science becomes one thing and the occult is another thing.

01:47:11.000 Right.

01:47:12.000 There's a certain time, and I'm really interested in John Dee, the great occultist, scientist, English, around Elizabeth I's reign.

01:47:22.000 Alchemist.

01:47:23.000 But that his scientific ideas were equally – they possessed the same gravity as his occult ideas.

01:47:31.000 And those things were in the same world.

01:47:34.000 They weren't removed from each other. 0.61

01:47:36.000 It wasn't like one was silly and one was serious. 0.67

01:47:38.000 They were both taken with the same level of sobriety or whatever.

01:47:47.000 And that's what we were talking before.

01:47:49.000 I think there's a...

01:47:50.000 To remove the mystic from everything or not to be able to at least have a nod to it or understand...

01:47:57.000 I mean, what is ancient Egypt?

01:47:58.000 You know what I mean?

01:47:59.000 Yes, they're a great civilization that could organize, but at its base and what's holding it together is this mystical, weird thing.

01:48:09.000 So to remove that completely...

01:48:12.000 I think it's...

01:48:13.000 I don't know.

01:48:16.000 It seems so rigid. 0.99

01:48:17.000 It's a foolish, rational reductionist. 0.96

01:48:19.000 There has to be integration of different things because... 0.98

01:48:24.000 You feel people's need for that, to integrate those things.

01:48:28.000 Well, there has been in all great cultures, right?

01:48:30.000 I mean, in Chichen Itza, have you ever been to the ancient Mayan structures?

01:48:34.000 I've been to some, but I didn't go to that one.

01:48:37.000 They all involve places of worship, and they all involve rituals.

01:48:43.000 I mean, there was a lot going, and what they did was incredible.

01:48:46.000 And psychedelics.

01:48:47.000 And psychedelics, yeah.

01:48:48.000 I mean, as well.

01:48:49.000 I went through Chichen Itza.

01:48:50.000 We got lucky.

01:48:50.000 There was a really good professor that was kind of explaining things to us.

01:48:55.000 And he was talking about the different psychedelics that they believed that they would use and the way they had structured all their buildings to align with constellations and the way they had sort of worshipped this whole...

01:49:09.000 It's an integration of the sky into all of their architecture.

01:49:12.000 I mean, it's an integration into a universal consciousness.

01:49:15.000 I mean, that's really what it is.

01:49:18.000 And it's funny, like, because you think, well, you're poisoning the water.

01:49:21.000 Well, you're poisoning...

01:49:22.000 We're all...

01:49:23.000 It's all one living organism, and the universe is one living organism.

01:49:27.000 Right, right, right.

01:49:28.000 I mean, I don't want to get too far out, man, you know?

01:49:31.000 But, of course, it's all...

01:49:34.000 Just like the ecosystem or whatever.

01:49:36.000 Like the frog eats the tadpole and then the bird eats the frog.

01:49:39.000 You know what I mean?

01:49:39.000 But just because you can't see it doesn't mean that it's not...

01:49:43.000 It scales up.

01:49:44.000 Yeah.

01:49:45.000 And out and within.

01:49:46.000 And in.

01:49:47.000 Yeah.

01:49:47.000 Forever.

01:49:48.000 Yeah.

01:49:49.000 That's the reality of it.

01:49:50.000 So it's not just we're poisoning the water.

01:49:52.000 We're poisoning ourselves.

01:49:53.000 Yeah.

01:49:54.000 And of course, you know, again, I would like to think the earth is a strong thing.

01:50:00.000 And I don't get wrapped up in it.

01:50:02.000 But it's like, I mean... 1.00

01:50:04.000 If you live in your own shit, you get sores. 1.00

01:50:08.000 You know what I mean? 1.00

01:50:11.000 Hence the plague.

01:50:14.000 When you think about the universe as a whole, it's just too big for our brains.

01:50:21.000 We just think about our neighborhood or our lives or our personal problems or our bills.

01:50:26.000 Or our TikTok.

01:50:27.000 Yeah, nonsense.

01:50:28.000 And it's just thinking about nonsense seems easy.

01:50:31.000 You know what people think about?

01:50:32.000 That they can buy shoes that they don't have to touch to put their feet in.

01:50:37.000 You just order them?

01:50:39.000 I see a commercial and the guy walks over there like, never touch your shoes again.

01:50:43.000 I'm like, wow.

01:50:45.000 You know what I mean?

01:50:46.000 Like, finally.

01:50:47.000 Oh, it's shoes you can slide into.

01:50:49.000 Yeah, and I'm like, amazing.

01:50:51.000 Everything is, everyone relax.

01:50:53.000 You never have to touch your shoe.

01:50:56.000 What if I want to touch my shoes?

01:50:58.000 Yeah.

01:50:59.000 Yeah.

01:51:01.000 Well, some people don't understand.

01:51:03.000 They want comfort.

01:51:05.000 And some people, especially if you're doing something you don't enjoy, you think of struggle as like your job or work.

01:51:12.000 And then once you're not doing that, you don't want any struggle.

01:51:14.000 You just want relaxation.

01:51:16.000 But isn't it funny also that our culture is dictating a certain health thing?

01:51:19.000 Take the sober challenge.

01:51:21.000 Go to the gym.

01:51:22.000 Buy these gym clothes and walk around in them.

01:51:24.000 Do all this, but we're not going to take care of anything else.

01:51:27.000 You know what I mean?

01:51:28.000 Like, you don't care about our mental health.

01:51:30.000 You don't really care about our health.

01:51:32.000 You know what I mean?

01:51:33.000 You don't do anything, but it's like, but culturally, let's start putting this out there.

01:51:38.000 You know what I mean?

01:51:39.000 Like why, you know, there's When I first went to New York City there were bars and bookstores and weird junk stores and all sorts of things that weren't corporate.

01:51:49.000 And now it's just gyms and banks.

01:51:53.000 And I think, I don't really go to the gym, but I imagine you could get an ATM in the gym next door to the bank with the ATM. I'm sure you could.

01:52:00.000 A lot of gyms, I'm sure, have ATMs.

01:52:02.000 I'm just saying, you know, like, be healthy.

01:52:05.000 You know what I mean?

01:52:06.000 But I'm like, it is funny.

01:52:08.000 There's nothing that's saying to you, be cerebral.

01:52:11.000 You know what I mean?

01:52:12.000 There's not a lot out there.

01:52:13.000 You know, you watch old...

01:52:15.000 Dick Cavett shows.

01:52:16.000 They're smart people. 1.00

01:52:17.000 They're not promoting a movie or a fucking book. 0.98

01:52:20.000 They're just talking about ideas and philosophy and art and their culture and the society. 0.99

01:52:27.000 Even...

01:52:28.000 What was his name?

01:52:30.000 Mike Douglas show.

01:52:32.000 Muhammad Ali.

01:52:34.000 Yeah.

01:52:34.000 And John Lennon and then some senator from Oklahoma or whatever.

01:52:37.000 You know, like, they're just talking.

01:52:39.000 You could do that back then.

01:52:40.000 Now it's got to be, you know, the interview is pre-done.

01:52:44.000 It's about the mood.

01:52:45.000 They show the...

01:52:46.000 But that's only on television, but that's also why podcasts are so popular.

01:52:49.000 True, true.

01:52:49.000 You can just kind of talk about anything.

01:52:51.000 You have a new...

01:52:53.000 Yeah.

01:52:53.000 Place that's also not under the scrutiny of having to play commercials every five seconds.

01:52:59.000 That's a big factor, but it's also not under anybody else's direction or advice.

01:53:05.000 That's what's really important.

01:53:07.000 No, no, I know.

01:53:09.000 I'm just being cynical.

01:53:11.000 But if I'm not doing it, at my level of the game, if I'm not doing it, you don't have to do it.

01:53:15.000 You don't have to.

01:53:17.000 All you have to do is make something that resonates with people and avoid anybody else's input.

01:53:22.000 I've had a lot of bad input come my way that I've ignored.

01:53:25.000 You know, and especially in the early days when things started to kind of take off, everybody has an opinion about how you can grow this thing to the next level, which is what I want to talk about.

01:53:33.000 You know how to take the show to the next level.

01:53:34.000 You know, thought about having more celebrities and more this and that.

01:53:38.000 Everyone has advice, but maybe just avoid these kind of topics or maybe this and that.

01:53:42.000 As long as you don't have any input from other people, then whether people like it or don't like it, At least it's you.

01:53:50.000 It's you and the people you're talking to and it's a real thing.

01:53:53.000 It's not a...

01:53:54.000 It's not a promotional thing.

01:53:55.000 It's not a buy this or...

01:53:58.000 Yeah, yeah, exactly.

01:53:59.000 It just exists as...

01:54:00.000 Which is just one dimension of things.

01:54:03.000 Yes. 1.00

01:54:03.000 And, you know, it's nice to be clean cut and your teeth are white and you're smiling and you're selling shit. 1.00

01:54:08.000 You know what I mean? 0.99

01:54:09.000 By the way, I got a pair of shoes.

01:54:10.000 You don't even have to touch them.

01:54:12.000 What size are you?

01:54:14.000 I don't even understand that.

01:54:16.000 But it's just...

01:54:18.000 If I could walk around like an 18th century French Duke, I would.

01:54:22.000 Well, look at that jacket. 1.00

01:54:23.000 That is a rock and roll fucking jacket. 0.99

01:54:26.000 I've been looking at that thinking the moment I saw you, can I wear that? 0.99

01:54:29.000 I don't know if I can pull that off.

01:54:30.000 Your muscles are too big to get in here.

01:54:33.000 Well, I mean, I could get one tailored.

01:54:34.000 Yeah, yeah, we could get you one.

01:54:35.000 But I'm just thinking, I don't know if I could pull that off out in public.

01:54:38.000 People are like, what are you doing, dude?

01:54:40.000 As a comedian, you can't be too cool.

01:54:43.000 Unless you're Cat Williams.

01:54:44.000 I knew you were going to say Cat Williams. 0.99

01:54:45.000 Cat can be cool as fuck. 1.00

01:54:47.000 I'll tell you why Cat Williams is cool. 0.98

01:54:49.000 Because he's still out there. 0.99

01:54:51.000 Talking shit and an eight-year-old beat him up that time. 1.00

01:54:54.000 Remember that shit? 1.00

01:54:55.000 Eleven-year-old kid in the hood grabbed that motherfucker in the headlock. 1.00

01:54:58.000 He's like, let go of me! 1.00

01:55:00.000 He's like laying on the ground.

01:55:01.000 I was like, man, you gotta be cool to come back from that.

01:55:04.000 Well, he's just real.

01:55:06.000 He is who he is and everybody loves him.

01:55:08.000 That guy can wear anything.

01:55:10.000 But I can't.

01:55:11.000 I can't wear sparkly shoes.

01:55:12.000 Look at him!

01:55:13.000 Dude, that's amazing! 1.00

01:55:15.000 Look at him at his fur coat and his fucking giant rings! 0.99

01:55:18.000 He's an awesome dude, too. 0.99

01:55:20.000 Fun guy.

01:55:21.000 I only got to meet him the one time where I did a podcast with him.

01:55:25.000 And it was because he did another podcast where he said, Joe Rogan will never have me on his podcast.

01:55:30.000 And I'm like, I'll have you on anytime you want.

01:55:32.000 I never met him before.

01:55:34.000 Oh, really?

01:55:35.000 No, and then finally I met him.

01:55:36.000 I thought comedians were like drummers.

01:55:37.000 They all know each other.

01:55:38.000 Most of us.

01:55:39.000 Every drummer knows every drummer in every band.

01:55:41.000 Well, I know everybody else.

01:55:42.000 I just never met him.

01:55:44.000 That's funny.

01:55:45.000 He was already so huge that when he would stop by in comedy clubs, this is like after the Pimp Chronicles, he would only go to a bunch of different clubs, and if you weren't there when Cat was there, you missed him.

01:55:57.000 So he only came to the comedy store like a handful of times.

01:56:00.000 And the Comedy Store, that was my haunt.

01:56:02.000 And that's where I went with all my friends and all the best comics in LA and Europe.

01:56:06.000 We all collaborated at the Comedy Store.

01:56:08.000 And I never got to see him there.

01:56:10.000 I'd heard he smacked somebody once.

01:56:12.000 He got to fight with somebody in the front porch one night.

01:56:15.000 I missed it.

01:56:18.000 I'd always admired him.

01:56:20.000 And I'd always talk nice about him.

01:56:21.000 I didn't understand why he thought I wouldn't have him on the podcast.

01:56:24.000 But once I met him, he's a joy. 0.96

01:56:25.000 He's a funny, smart dude who's a lot of what he's saying, he knows what the fuck he's doing. 0.98

01:56:31.000 He's very tongue-in-cheek and just having a good time with it. 0.98

01:56:36.000 But he's a...

01:56:37.000 Genuine character.

01:56:38.000 Like a genuine, unique character.

01:56:40.000 I would love to meet him.

01:56:41.000 Oh, he's great.

01:56:42.000 You'd love him.

01:56:43.000 Very smart dude, too.

01:56:44.000 If I see him at the airport, I'll say, yo, man, you like this jacket?

01:56:49.000 He might be able to fit in that.

01:56:50.000 He'll be a little long.

01:56:52.000 Might have to get the sleeves taken in. 0.99

01:56:54.000 Where the fuck do you get that jacket? 0.99

01:56:55.000 You know, my wife got me this jacket. 1.00

01:57:00.000 It's pretty dope.

01:57:00.000 She's got good taste.

01:57:01.000 Yeah, she truly does.

01:57:03.000 Yeah, and then you're wearing about 10 pounds of silver.

01:57:06.000 Yeah.

01:57:08.000 It's true.

01:57:08.000 They call me the silver stacker.

01:57:10.000 I don't know if you've done that.

01:57:11.000 That's what the kids call it.

01:57:12.000 My daughter calls it that when she wears a bunch of bracelets. 1.00

01:57:15.000 That's my stack, man.

01:57:15.000 Stacks.

01:57:15.000 They have stacks.

01:57:16.000 I'm just learning about these things.

01:57:18.000 I just got to be careful not to fall in the pool, you know?

01:57:20.000 Yeah.

01:57:21.000 Well, I just love when rock stars stay rock stars.

01:57:25.000 Nothing bums me out more than seeing an old rock star in a golf shirt.

01:57:28.000 I'm like, dude.

01:57:29.000 Yeah, yeah.

01:57:30.000 Come on, man.

01:57:30.000 You gotta hang in there.

01:57:32.000 I know you're 60. Fucking hang in there, bro. 1.00

01:57:34.000 I just saw the stones. 1.00

01:57:36.000 They're 80. Bro!

01:57:37.000 They're amazing.

01:57:39.000 Amazing.

01:57:39.000 I love...

01:57:40.000 I mean, I'm wearing...

01:57:41.000 I have stones.

01:57:42.000 I mean, the stones are everything.

01:57:44.000 I love the Rolling Stones.

01:57:45.000 I always have.

01:57:47.000 And the Black Crows toured with them in 1995. We did all of Europe with them.

01:57:52.000 We did Wembley Stadium with them.

01:57:55.000 I've got to hang with Keith and Ron.

01:57:58.000 I've hung with Mick a little bit. 1.00

01:58:01.000 They're the fucking Rolling Stones. 0.99

01:58:03.000 And so my wife and I and my 14-year-old daughter, who lives on the East Coast, she was with us for the few weeks this summer. 0.99

01:58:11.000 I'm like, let's go.

01:58:12.000 You know what I mean?

01:58:13.000 I haven't seen them in a while.

01:58:14.000 And we went and...

01:58:17.000 I went without any...

01:58:19.000 You know what I mean?

01:58:20.000 I went with nothing.

01:58:21.000 I wasn't going in with any expectation except to be there with everyone and see the Rolling Stones and be there.

01:58:31.000 And they were great.

01:58:33.000 Mick Jagger's voice was incredible.

01:58:36.000 Incredible at 80 years old.

01:58:36.000 I mean, his energy and stuff's incredible, but his singing, I mean, they did Wild Horses that night, and I looked over, and my 14-year-old was, like, crying, and I was like, I'm so proud of you.

01:58:46.000 She's feeling it so deep.

01:58:48.000 Yeah.

01:58:49.000 Great Midnight Rambler.

01:58:52.000 They're in a stadium with just like...

01:58:54.000 Ronnie and Keith just had like two speakers on stage and still playing.

01:58:58.000 A lot of bands don't play live anymore. 0.97

01:59:00.000 They have their digital shit through the PA. There's not even any sound on stage. 0.97

01:59:05.000 Wow.

01:59:05.000 It's all through their in-ears.

01:59:06.000 And to me, that's really weird.

01:59:09.000 Whatever it takes for you to get the gig, I'm hip too.

01:59:12.000 I've seen cool shows like that, but personally, I like a lot of sonic chaos.

01:59:17.000 You want it real.

01:59:18.000 I want to feel it.

01:59:19.000 I saw them at CODA, the Circuit of the Americas, a couple years ago.

01:59:25.000 When you watch Mick Jagger walk out on the stage, you almost can't believe he's really there.

01:59:30.000 How is that really him?

01:59:31.000 I told my wife, he's like a Sasquatch, but everyone's seen him.

01:59:36.000 Right.

01:59:36.000 It's like, and he's still out there.

01:59:39.000 I remember Bill Hicks had a bit in 1988 about the Stones still doing it.

01:59:46.000 In 1988, it was this crazy thing.

01:59:49.000 Oh my God, the Stones have a new album.

01:59:51.000 Like, what?

01:59:51.000 This is 88. And here we are in 2024, and they're still out there killing it.

01:59:57.000 And the show was amazing.

01:59:59.000 It was amazing.

01:59:59.000 Amazing.

02:00:00.000 It's so good.

02:00:01.000 I consider myself a Midnight Rambler aficionado.

02:00:07.000 One of the best Midnight Ramblers I've ever heard.

02:00:09.000 Oh, they were so good, man.

02:00:10.000 It was so good.

02:00:11.000 You know what I mean?

02:00:12.000 It was really...

02:00:14.000 I'm so happy that we went to SoFi Stadium.

02:00:18.000 You know what I mean?

02:00:19.000 Yeah.

02:00:20.000 It was great.

02:00:22.000 I will admit, sometimes...

02:00:24.000 Okay, let's be honest.

02:00:25.000 I get access to backstage.

02:00:27.000 It's cool.

02:00:28.000 But sometimes in big places like that, I get a little bit like...

02:00:32.000 Not because people would know who you were.

02:00:36.000 I just get weird around giant crowds.

02:00:38.000 I did when I was little.

02:00:40.000 I didn't like theme parks.

02:00:41.000 You know, all sorts of weird stuff.

02:00:43.000 But it was so cool.

02:00:46.000 I was so inspired.

02:00:48.000 You know what I mean?

02:00:48.000 I like floated out of there so happy.

02:00:51.000 That guy has two trailers that he takes with him everywhere that are just a gym.

02:00:55.000 Two huge trailers.

02:00:58.000 Mick Jagger works out every day. 0.99

02:01:00.000 And when he gets out on that stage, he's fucking 80. He might be 81 now. 0.98

02:01:06.000 If I live to be 80, you can come find me.

02:01:08.000 I'm going to be 300 pounds living in Sicily.

02:01:11.000 You know those beautiful painted wagons?

02:01:14.000 They'll drag me around.

02:01:15.000 But you won't even get to 300 pounds eating their food.

02:01:18.000 No, you don't.

02:01:19.000 That's what's crazy.

02:01:20.000 That's when you realize we're being poisoned.

02:01:21.000 When you eat in Europe for a week and you don't gain any weight.

02:01:24.000 You're like, this is nuts.

02:01:25.000 I had pizza.

02:01:26.000 I had pasta.

02:01:27.000 I didn't feel bad.

02:01:28.000 You come over here, you feel like you got hit with a tranquilizer dart. 0.99

02:01:31.000 Like, we're fucking poisoning ourselves. 1.00

02:01:33.000 You won't get to 300 pounds if you live in Sicily. 1.00

02:01:35.000 Unless you drink a lot of fucking wine. 0.99

02:01:38.000 Yeah, and even the wine is like... 1.00

02:01:40.000 It's better.

02:01:41.000 Well, it's just there's something about, like, just the air there.

02:01:44.000 Just something about the atmosphere.

02:01:46.000 I'm not a—you know, I'm not—I have no—I'm English—we are pretty much, in our DNA, English and then, like, a big scoop of Polish Jew on top, you know? 0.89

02:01:55.000 Not even a big scoop at this point.

02:01:57.000 Both my grandfather and my dad were shiksa-loving Jewish men who've whittled me and my brother down to about 20 percent. 1.00

02:02:08.000 And— I don't know.

02:02:12.000 There's something about there that is so just...

02:02:16.000 I don't know.

02:02:19.000 I love to go to Paris, but Paris isn't relaxing.

02:02:21.000 I'm out all doing stuff.

02:02:23.000 I love London.

02:02:24.000 I love Madrid.

02:02:24.000 I love lots of places.

02:02:25.000 I love Rome.

02:02:26.000 I love lots of places in the world.

02:02:29.000 There's something about Sicily, man.

02:02:32.000 I'm in.

02:02:34.000 You know what I mean?

02:02:35.000 Like you said, it's something about the lifestyle.

02:02:38.000 Just so laid back.

02:02:40.000 Maybe I like it because it's a bit of anachronism.

02:02:44.000 You know what I mean?

02:02:45.000 You feel like you've stepped out of The same pace and or rhythm of the modern future world that we see every day.

02:02:54.000 Yes.

02:02:54.000 It's a different vibration.

02:02:56.000 It's a different...

02:02:56.000 I mean, and then everybody's doing it that way, too.

02:02:58.000 So you sort of settle into their way of life.

02:03:01.000 You sort of settle into their pace of things.

02:03:03.000 And then if you need a shot of adrenaline, just hit Palermo, because that place is wild.

02:03:08.000 Oh, I'm sure.

02:03:09.000 It was so good.

02:03:09.000 Is it still run by the mob?

02:03:12.000 They say no.

02:03:14.000 Oh, then yes.

02:03:17.000 They say that it doesn't exist anymore.

02:03:21.000 But if I remember, there was a big scandal during lockdown in some small town in Sicily, or maybe it was Palermo.

02:03:31.000 I'd have to research it.

02:03:32.000 Did they...

02:03:34.000 The police were upset because some old mob guy had died and they had a giant parade.

02:03:39.000 No one was in here.

02:03:41.000 Yeah, everyone was just out there.

02:03:42.000 Old people, you know, everyone was out there doing their thing for Don, whoever it was, who was not with us anymore. 0.74

02:03:49.000 And I was like, okay, they didn't want that story out.

02:03:52.000 You know what I mean?

02:03:53.000 Yeah.

02:03:54.000 Well, those people ran that place for a long-ass time. 0.95

02:03:57.000 They're an integrated part of their society, like the Yakuza is in Japan.

02:04:01.000 Yeah.

02:04:01.000 For a very long time, actually.

02:04:03.000 For a very long time, yeah.

02:04:04.000 The way it works.

02:04:06.000 Have you ever seen a funny movie called Johnny Stichino?

02:04:09.000 No.

02:04:09.000 With Roberto Bellini, the Italian comedic actor?

02:04:13.000 No.

02:04:14.000 You would love it.

02:04:15.000 Yeah?

02:04:15.000 It's so funny.

02:04:17.000 It's from the 80s, and Stichino's a toothpick, yeah?

02:04:20.000 So he's Johnny Toothpick.

02:04:23.000 What's the story?

02:04:24.000 It's a famous story.

02:04:28.000 He's a school teacher in Naples or whatever, or in Italy, and this girl whose wife or lover or whatever, some big gangster in Sicily, he's in hiding because he ratted on someone.

02:04:44.000 I don't know, something...

02:04:45.000 She sees him, and he looks just like him, so she brings him to Sicily, and he's walking around.

02:04:50.000 People are like, yo, what are you doing?

02:04:51.000 You know what I mean?

02:04:52.000 So it's that kind of thing, but it's an unbelievably funny movie.

02:04:56.000 It's insane.

02:04:57.000 Do you remember there was an Italian singer who created a very popular song where it was fake American lyrics?

02:05:07.000 God, I'm trying to remember his name, but it was a song where he's singing fake words that sound like he's singing like the Rolling Stones or the Beatles or something like that, but he's doing it with fake words.

02:05:22.000 It's like what he thinks American songs sound like, but it's gibberish.

02:05:27.000 This is the guy.

02:05:28.000 What is his name?

02:05:30.000 Adriano Celentano.

02:05:31.000 Give me some volume on this.

02:05:32.000 Wow.

02:05:34.000 It's really cool.

02:05:35.000 That's amazing.

02:05:36.000 I love that.

02:05:36.000 It's a cool song, too.

02:05:38.000 This song is very cool, but there's a couple of different versions of it.

02:05:40.000 This is like a live performance of it, but there's another one that's like a music video of it, and it's really fucking interesting what that guy did.

02:05:47.000 That's cool.

02:05:48.000 That's really good.

02:05:49.000 Yeah, he just made up fake American music.

02:05:53.000 It's cool. 0.99

02:05:53.000 That's fucking great. 0.99

02:05:54.000 I'm gonna do that next week. 0.98

02:05:55.000 Why not? 1.00

02:05:56.000 Fuck it. 1.00

02:05:57.000 I mean, you know, that's... 1.00

02:06:00.000 There's a lot of songs that have, like, words that aren't really words.

02:06:03.000 You know, they're just kind of like sounds, you know?

02:06:06.000 Dan Arbok talks about that from the Black Keys.

02:06:09.000 Like, a lot of times when he sings things, he's just like, Making up sounds, making up words.

02:06:13.000 Mick Jagger did it.

02:06:14.000 Yeah, I'm sure.

02:06:15.000 Yeah, or he took words and mashed them into something that was more...

02:06:18.000 Especially live in the 70s, he has a lot of vowels going on, and you're like, I don't know what he said.

02:06:24.000 It's so good.

02:06:25.000 But man, he's not lost any of the energy.

02:06:28.000 If you watch his old performances and now, it's just an older guy doing the same vibe.

02:06:32.000 I mean, it's also very cool because they play everything in the same key.

02:06:36.000 You'll find a lot of older...

02:06:38.000 And I get it, man.

02:06:40.000 Singing is a physical thing.

02:06:44.000 I mean, my one thing is kind of like the muse.

02:06:47.000 If I stopped singing, it would go away.

02:06:51.000 You know what I mean?

02:06:51.000 If I didn't sing...

02:06:54.000 If I'm going to take two years off, I would never get back to where my voice is.

02:07:00.000 Why is that?

02:07:01.000 It's just the nature of the physicality, I think.

02:07:04.000 You know what I mean?

02:07:05.000 Especially as it's 35 years, 40 years of singing.

02:07:08.000 So it's like you're working muscles in your neck.

02:07:10.000 Your vocal cords are just muscles, yeah.

02:07:12.000 Wow.

02:07:12.000 And you're working them on a regular basis and they can get out of shape.

02:07:15.000 Yeah.

02:07:15.000 And then like that.

02:07:18.000 And then it just won't come back.

02:07:19.000 Oh, wow.

02:07:19.000 Or it won't come back to where I'd like to...

02:07:22.000 I'd really like where my voice is.

02:07:25.000 Yeah.

02:07:26.000 I say we sing the songs in the same keys, you know?

02:07:29.000 It was funny.

02:07:30.000 We played the Forum.

02:07:31.000 We were the first concert in the Forum, LA Forum, after COVID. And it was a bit...

02:07:36.000 I had never played there.

02:07:37.000 It was a big night.

02:07:38.000 It was, you know, friends and family.

02:07:41.000 It was great.

02:07:42.000 But George Duculius, who's produced our first records, first two records, and signed the band, after the show, he was like, if I had known you'd still be singing them 30-whatever years later, we could have put the keys down for you, you know?

02:07:55.000 I was like, that wasn't how it worked back then.

02:07:59.000 Because, you know, in rock and roll, you have the verse, and then you get to the chorus, and you want to get it exciting.

02:08:04.000 Yeah.

02:08:05.000 You want to knock it up a notch, you know?

02:08:08.000 But we don't change them either, and I like that.

02:08:11.000 I mean, my voice has changed, obviously, but...

02:08:13.000 But it's still the same key.

02:08:14.000 Do you wonder how long you're going to do it?

02:08:17.000 Do you ever think about stopping?

02:08:19.000 I don't...

02:08:20.000 I do sometimes.

02:08:22.000 I mean...

02:08:25.000 You know, the pandemic was funny for me because at first, not financial things or whatever.

02:08:33.000 It was just like, you know, since I was a teenager, pretty much this is what we do.

02:08:37.000 We tour and we do concerts and we make music, blah, blah, blah.

02:08:41.000 And I was like, maybe I'm going to go a little kooky not doing it.

02:08:46.000 And then I really, I mean, I had horrible days like everyone else and, you know, despair and fear and stuff of the unknown.

02:08:55.000 But a lot of those days, I have a lot of interests.

02:09:00.000 You know what I mean?

02:09:01.000 I have a lot of others.

02:09:02.000 I'd like to write a book.

02:09:03.000 I'd maybe like to write more than one book.

02:09:07.000 Find my voice outside of the musician in another artistic way or whatever.

02:09:14.000 And just loving my wife and...

02:09:17.000 Living life.

02:09:18.000 Yeah, and moving to Sicily.

02:09:20.000 But...

02:09:22.000 A lot of those things, you know, I'm not ready to do that now.

02:09:27.000 But also I look ahead and I'm like, do I want to be on stage when I'm 75?

02:09:35.000 Do I want to?

02:09:36.000 There's a difference if I have to.

02:09:39.000 I don't know.

02:09:40.000 I guess I'll call it if I'm lucky enough to get to 75. You know what I mean?

02:09:44.000 I get through the end of the week.

02:09:46.000 You know what I mean?

02:09:47.000 But I do...

02:09:48.000 I love it.

02:09:51.000 But that event gave me the perspective of there's other...

02:09:56.000 You know what I mean?

02:09:57.000 I would hate to be...

02:09:58.000 I've always hated the idea that this is all I could do.

02:10:03.000 That might sound weird, but...

02:10:04.000 No, no, it's a great thought.

02:10:05.000 Because I'm born to do it.

02:10:06.000 I love that kind of scenario.

02:10:08.000 Like, you know, like, this is my wife's...

02:10:11.000 Like, when I watch you, we're friends.

02:10:13.000 When I see you in your element, this is obviously what you're supposed to do.

02:10:18.000 Yeah.

02:10:19.000 But I think I have...

02:10:21.000 I don't know if ambition is the right word, but I definitely have interest in things that have nothing to do with this.

02:10:26.000 Yeah.

02:10:27.000 Well, that's part of being a human, right?

02:10:29.000 You don't want to be isolated to one specific interest.

02:10:31.000 There's so many fascinating things.

02:10:33.000 And the isolation, that's a thing, too.

02:10:35.000 And I'm really happy with...

02:10:38.000 Could we have a level of success that's greater or whatever...

02:10:43.000 Yeah, maybe.

02:10:44.000 I don't know.

02:10:44.000 But the one thing I like about my life is I'm not the kind of...

02:10:49.000 I'm not so well known that I still can't do my own grocery shopping.

02:10:55.000 I love to cook.

02:10:56.000 I like to go to the market. 1.00

02:10:58.000 I like to pick out my shit, you know? 1.00

02:11:00.000 Or that you can't get... 0.99

02:11:02.000 You know what I mean?

02:11:02.000 We have access to the whole world, you know?

02:11:05.000 And I don't have to worry about anyone giving a shit, you know what I mean? 0.95

02:11:08.000 Yeah. 0.98

02:11:09.000 Or...

02:11:10.000 The people that do like it, that come up to me wherever I am in the world, they're usually real fans.

02:11:15.000 They're not celebrity people.

02:11:16.000 Right, right, right.

02:11:17.000 So they're like, man, I saw you when you played this song.

02:11:21.000 And that's the other thing about music.

02:11:22.000 It's like rock music.

02:11:25.000 You can do a lot of stuff, but one thing about the songs we've written, and I meet people...

02:11:33.000 And people play the songs we've written at weddings and at funerals, you know what I mean?

02:11:38.000 Not just parties and not just things, but like, you know, my brother, I wrote, you know, when we wrote She Talks to Angels, I always have time and I'm always humbled by people's experiences with that song and addiction and things in their lives,

02:11:57.000 whether it's them, a family member, loss, Or people that have overcome things, you know what I mean?

02:12:05.000 And that we, you know, just wrote that song one day when we were kids, and that means so much to people.

02:12:10.000 I mean, there's a lot of songs like that in our repertoire that people come up to.

02:12:13.000 I mean, really funny things sometimes.

02:12:15.000 People will pick some song.

02:12:17.000 I'm like, that was your wedding song?

02:12:18.000 I'm like, okay.

02:12:19.000 Yeah.

02:12:20.000 That's weird.

02:12:21.000 Jealous?

02:12:21.000 Or more obscure, even.

02:12:24.000 Really?

02:12:24.000 You know, like, some weird, like, this song called Nonfiction.

02:12:27.000 Like, we walk down the aisle to non...

02:12:29.000 I'm like, nonfiction?

02:12:30.000 Really?

02:12:30.000 It's kind of a dark song.

02:12:35.000 Well, you're giving out with music.

02:12:38.000 It's an art form that changes people's feeling.

02:12:42.000 When you hear a great song, it literally gives you energy.

02:12:45.000 Completely.

02:12:46.000 It's a drug.

02:12:47.000 It really is.

02:12:48.000 It's like an audio...

02:12:49.000 And I'm exactly the same.

02:12:51.000 I mean, it's maddening to be with me because this is the only time during this day that I don't have music on it.

02:12:59.000 You know what I mean?

02:13:00.000 But I listened to French music from the 20s and I listened to Peruvian cumbias from the 70s or avant-garde electronic composers, whatever.

02:13:11.000 Or blues and rock and roll and jazz and funk and R&B and whatever.

02:13:16.000 But a lot.

02:13:18.000 Yeah.

02:13:19.000 Well, that means you're doing the right thing, right?

02:13:22.000 You really love it.

02:13:22.000 I also need it, like you just said, not only just for energy but for some soulful...

02:13:29.000 Connection as well.

02:13:34.000 Especially when I was younger, we all suffer from depression, and some people have more acute relationships with that.

02:13:45.000 But if there's a certain melancholy that comes over me, there's only some artist that can...

02:13:54.000 I can sail across that deep water with, you know what I mean?

02:13:59.000 To kind of assure me that I'm not the only ones that feel this way.

02:14:03.000 We're not the only ones that...

02:14:09.000 You know, life is, that is what it is.

02:14:13.000 You know what I mean?

02:14:14.000 Like, no matter how rich you are, no matter how successful you are, no matter who you are, you still have to deal with the ups and downs of it.

02:14:21.000 Absolutely.

02:14:21.000 And I think adversity is the thing that really makes us who we are.

02:14:26.000 You know, it's one thing as, like, being a father.

02:14:28.000 I'm like, I'm not afraid of the adversity my kids face.

02:14:31.000 As a matter of fact, that's what I really want to get to, is how, because what makes us who we are is how we deal with adversity.

02:14:37.000 Mm-hmm.

02:14:38.000 And if you don't deal with any adversity, it's not good.

02:14:41.000 And if you push it under the table or this or that and...

02:14:44.000 Avoid it.

02:14:45.000 Yeah, then where are you?

02:14:48.000 You know what I mean?

02:14:48.000 You're lost.

02:14:49.000 And these things are cliches, but the greatest lessons are the hardest ones.

02:14:55.000 You know what I mean?

02:14:56.000 Those are the ones that stick to you the most.

02:14:58.000 Yes.

02:14:59.000 And those are the ones that make you grow.

02:15:00.000 I have a great friend who's in a fantastic band.

02:15:04.000 They just opened for us.

02:15:05.000 We've been friends.

02:15:06.000 His name is Jim Jones.

02:15:08.000 His band's called the Jim Jones All-Stars.

02:15:09.000 He was in a band called The Hypnotics.

02:15:12.000 And we've known each other for 30 years, and he went through really deep heroin addiction in the 90s.

02:15:24.000 And it's funny to talk to him, and I love him.

02:15:28.000 But he's like, yeah, man, it was a lesson.

02:15:31.000 You know what I mean? 0.89

02:15:32.000 I'm like, that's a fucking tough lesson, and I'm happy you're still here to talk about it. 0.95

02:15:37.000 But I love his attitude. 0.97

02:15:39.000 You know what I mean?

02:15:39.000 I love that spirit in people.

02:15:41.000 You know what I mean?

02:15:42.000 That it didn't...

02:15:45.000 I learned from this.

02:15:46.000 And I've moved on from this.

02:15:48.000 And I don't have any regrets.

02:15:50.000 I don't have any resentment towards this or anger about it.

02:15:53.000 And it's no one's doing but my own.

02:15:56.000 That responsibility, to take responsibility for stuff, you know, is a big...

02:16:00.000 And that's important.

02:16:01.000 And I think we see a lot of that gone away, you know what I mean, with people.

02:16:10.000 And every story is different, you know what I mean?

02:16:13.000 Not everything is the same.

02:16:17.000 What is real and what isn't real between there, that's for everyone to figure out, for people.

02:16:22.000 But the fact that that can be captured in a song, and like you said, sort of carry you through these bad moments, we realize other people are experiencing grief, hardship, depression, darkness, terrible thoughts of loss.

02:16:37.000 And that's the reason why those songs are so popular.

02:16:39.000 It's not like people want to suffer.

02:16:41.000 No, there's something they're resonating with.

02:16:43.000 And anger is a part of that, too.

02:16:45.000 You know what I mean?

02:16:46.000 And it's funny, with the newer music, I'm like, you guys...

02:16:50.000 The world looks pretty shitty. 0.70

02:16:52.000 Aren't you guys pissed a little bit?

02:16:54.000 Or are you just like, no, I'm just gonna get some likes and my pants fit right and my hair is good.

02:17:01.000 I'm like, okay.

02:17:02.000 I get pop music is light sometimes, but...

02:17:05.000 I would like for the young people to...

02:17:08.000 I'd like to see in the art a little more anger.

02:17:13.000 I'd like to see more rock.

02:17:16.000 When I'm looking at music coming up today, there's a great absence of strong new rock bands.

02:17:22.000 That seem like rock bands from the past.

02:17:25.000 Guitar bass.

02:17:26.000 Yes, yes.

02:17:27.000 I mean, goddammit, people still love that music. 0.99

02:17:29.000 What the fuck is going on? 1.00

02:17:31.000 Yeah, you go see ACDC there at a fucking stadium. 1.00

02:17:33.000 Yes. 0.99

02:17:34.000 You go see Metallica there at a stadium.

02:17:36.000 Yes.

02:17:36.000 So people are going.

02:17:38.000 So what the fuck happened? 0.98

02:17:39.000 Where is everybody? 0.98

02:17:41.000 I mean, I think it's definitely there.

02:17:44.000 Again, I think people for some reason think the music business is supposed to be the gauge. 0.99

02:17:50.000 They're just like any other fucking salesman. 0.99

02:17:54.000 They always have been. 1.00

02:17:55.000 Just because one salesman had a cool taste and one didn't, don't kid yourself.

02:18:01.000 They're not artists.

02:18:02.000 They're salesmen.

02:18:04.000 And there's cool people and not cool people, but they're not, you know what I mean?

02:18:08.000 And I think, like, now we live in a time, and you see it a lot, you see people making comments about it in our industry, about how you're just following. 0.98

02:18:19.000 Whereas before, yeah, you had things that were popular, but someone, you know, someone said, fuck, sign the Stooges. 0.99

02:18:27.000 Yeah, yeah. 0.96

02:18:28.000 You know, Danny Fields did that, but he had great taste, but he was still a record company guy, the business side of it.

02:18:36.000 Someone, you know what I mean, someone said, sign Susie and the Banshees or whatever.

02:18:40.000 Someone said, dude, I mean, Bob Dylan, you didn't know when they made first Bob Dylan record that he'd be 83 years old, Bob Dylan, you know what I mean?

02:18:49.000 Yeah, yeah.

02:18:50.000 And a lot of people said, don't sign him.

02:18:53.000 He's not marketable.

02:18:54.000 He's not commercial.

02:18:57.000 And, you know, that's my thing.

02:19:00.000 I'm looking for still that maverick spirit or somebody who does have the wherewithal and or vision to see that maybe something is a little bit outside the box still could have not just it would have importance and it can be popular as well.

02:19:18.000 Well, of course.

02:19:18.000 And it always has been that way.

02:19:20.000 The idea that everyone has a short attention span now and we're interested in frivolous things.

02:19:25.000 No, that's not true.

02:19:26.000 That's just still junk food.

02:19:28.000 It's still junk food.

02:19:29.000 Right.

02:19:29.000 And there's still people that like a nice meal.

02:19:32.000 I'm glad you're out there, dude.

02:19:34.000 Thanks, man.

02:19:34.000 Thanks for doing this.

02:19:35.000 I really appreciate it.

02:19:36.000 Thanks for having me.

02:19:36.000 Yeah, it was super fun.

02:19:37.000 I really enjoyed talking to you.

02:19:38.000 We got to talk about a lot of weird stuff.

02:19:39.000 Yes, sir.

02:19:40.000 Thank you very much.

02:19:42.000 Cheers.

02:19:42.000 Bye, everybody.

The Joe Rogan Experience - July 18, 2024

Joe Rogan Experience #2177 - Chris Robinson

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Transcript