Club Random with Bill Maher - Chris Robinson | Club Random with Bill Maher

Episode Date: February 25, 2024

Bill and Chris Robinson on The Black Crowes controversial album cover, Chris’s gift for Bill, Chris’s favorite billboard in Vegas, the time Chris spent a weekend with Don Rickles, Chris’s meeting with Rod Stewart, Jim Morrison’s way of ruining a party, what would make Bill leave show business, generational differences in comedic style, the similarities between comedians and musicians, the rise of female music stars, and why bands formed by brothers tend to have the biggest fights. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

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The thing is though, bad behavior is not only indulged in your industry. It was celebrated. I really envied the bands that got to build up to something. You leave Atlanta with one suitcase and then 12 months later You're worth millions of dollars Press you hiding behind the high I'll just hang out the Supremes. How you doing? Oh, isn't that awesome? That's great You know what that's from the is it from the album or correct from the inside. I was trying to explain it to somebody Doesn't know about records.

Yeah, because they saw it and she was like, that's so cool. Why is it? I was like, well, that was in the old days when there was an album, they give you posters. Yeah. I just had a bunch of them framed. I brought this for you. Where did I put? Oh, here.

This was on my wall because I remember that album you had with showing the little pubic hair. I had to go through an explanation of that the other day during an interview and I was like... What was Amorica? Amorica, yeah, our third record. And that was an old hustler cover from the Bicentennial. People don't remember what we're talking about. It was just it was awesome and for its time amazing because it's the the brief for its time, amazing, because it's the briefest of bikini bottoms, and it's not covering the very top as I recall. It caused a huge.

Curly black. Pubes. Pubes. You just see a little bit. A little bit peeking out through the top. It caused a huge thing. And then I realized, of course, in my, yeah, like they wouldn't run it in Rolling Stone,

that we had these giant, there's people still, they had these, you know, in England, they'll do the posters on the tube. They wouldn't play, they wouldn't even show pubic hair in Paris. What? The home of pubic hair. They have perfumeds that show that.

And they did back when we were... Well, anyway, so this... When I was a kid, my father worked at a radio station. We used to get Record World magazine. And as a music... Teenager, you're like crazy for music. It was like the greatest thing. And I cut this ad out.

This is from, like, I think 1972. Mom's Apple Pie. I don't even know if this is, I guess that's the group. But. I think it is. Yeah, I mean. They got this through. It's for the people that were listening.

It's just lady, right? Holding a pie. A dripping pie. Like she's from 1900. If you think Warren's Cherry Pie was offensive, Lady Eugenie. And it's like she's holding this full pie, but there's a triangle cut out of it. And they got this through, because you know in 1972...

I think in 1972, I think people were pushing... You know what? Some people are watching this. What am I doing? Here, I can actually show... That's why you should watch this show. Look at that. Mom's apple pie.

I think people would, I think there's a real history of putting pussy in things and selling with it. But you know what's funny about our record cover at the time? I was really making, I realized in my naivete now that I'm much older, but I was like, to me it was just about, you know, 1995,

1994 when that record came out, we made it in 94, and you know, it was heroin chic and you know, and my whole point was it was just about the gratuitous nature of how Americans were like. To me, I didn't really think, oh, we're putting this, it was more of a, I wanted it to be more of a like, counterculture statement about it. You know what I mean? Then like, oh look, sexy vagina people or whatever.

I gotta say, for somebody who I know, I don't know, but I get the feeling you always lived like a rock and roll lifestyle. You don't wear, but I get the feeling you always lived like a rock and roll lifestyle. You don't wear it on your face. You look good. Really, I mean, you should look a lot worse. You should look a lot worse.

Well, I'm working on it, too. I mean, you know, I think. I was told you. No, I don't know if the cliches are, I mean, some of the cliches have to be legit. And then some of them I think I've avoided speaking of cliches. This is for you too, I brought something for you.

It's about fucking time somebody brought me pot. Trust me, this is my new strain from Mota over there in Silver Lake. Oh wow. The Mota boys. I brought the, I'm an Endicke guy, so I brought Sativa for you. I'm an owner with Woody Harrelson of a pot store.

Do you ever go to the woods? It's nice. It's awesome. We should go there some night. They have those lofts. Oh yeah? You know those. I haven't seen that.

Oh, I gotta take you there. I'll take you there. I always wondered when that was gonna happen because you know, I always loved that about in my first trips to Amsterdam, you know, there was so much more humane Until an English football hooligan threw up in your weed tray or whatever But the woods on Santa Monica Boulevard if you're here in the LA area

Open from it is it's different than any other pot store. I've ever been in because yeah, there's the store in the front And the back is this whole jungle. This is garden garden with, I mean, you feel like you're in, I don't know, a, you know, a tubette or something. It's a, and it's lush, and there's these lofts that they built up in the trees. So you can buy it, smoke it there, and they also have a liquor license now, another part of the club. That was another thing I always wondered when that was gonna happen.

Well, try to get fucking, you know, the state of California to act quickly on stuff that's friendly to business. Why, it's what bugs so many people, me included about this state and you live in this state. Like, you know, it's like they're trying to make things difficult for you in a bureaucratic way. It's just, to me, it bugs me because it's like, it's easy pickings for the Democrats to fix this, I think.

Well, maybe it's not easy, but it's something they should try to do. I was berating Gavin Newsom on my show about this only a month ago. It's like, Gavin, you know, like, it's just common sense. Yeah, it's anti-logic. There's no pragmatism in any of it, you know? Just make it, people don't want to like have to, ooh, I can't throw a Frisbee here. That's why we need old school gangsters again.

You know, people who could really get some shit done. You need to run the good government? They'll run everything. Well, there are people, and I wouldn't say I'm not one of them, who say Vegas was better when the mob ran it. Yeah. I mean, I don't think it was better. We were just there.

You go all the time for your shows. I'm there this weekend. There's a fucking billboard. My wife and I are going to, we played two nights and then got out of there for the Super Bowl. But there's a billboard and it's a lawyer, Larry Friedkin, I don't know who he is. But it says, if you've been injured,

this is a billboard, if you've been injured looking for dead bodies at Lake Mead or whatever. And I was like, is this a movie? I was like, is this funny? And our driver goes, no, there's a lot for dead bodies at Lake Mead or whatever. And I was like, is this a movie? I was like, is this funny? And our driver goes, no, there's a lot of dead bodies out there. They're in barrels. I said, what do I get in a tetanus shot?

I'm like, but who by the way, why are you looking for dead bodies? And who do you sue? If you hurt yourself looking for dead bodies. And the guy's like, I'm the number one dead body. if you're looking for dead bodies and you hurt yourself. I didn't know who you sued. I was like what who and the guy goes no there's shit tons of dead bodies out there and barrels and stuff. It's not really fair but you sued the Sinatra estate. It's complicated but I know you know that's how I was

gonna say it's like yeah the the town was better with the mob rented, unless you were in a shallow grave. I thought it would be good if every body they found was Siegfried and Roy. It was more fun. You know what that town needs? And I love it. I love playing there. But I can only take it in those limited doses.

That it's great. I wouldn't want wanna live there. But it needs lounges. There used to be lounge shows, which if kids don't remember, a lounge, it was in the hotel, it was like, you know, in the lobby. It wasn't the main room,

it was somebody who was either either on their way up or on the way down. I went, so I- Which is fantastic dynamic though. You know what I mean? That's a a cool way because not everything is built towards like that superstar billing and there's still people on the way up or on the way down who are funny. Great. Where do you think Don Rickles started? He was in the lounge for years and Sinatra and those people would get done with that. And go over there and yes, have 38 martinis.

Right. Slap of bunny on the ass. The great thing about the lounge shows, they weren't at the same time, they were later. They were like at 11. Yeah, they weren't the main eight o'clock. Or even one in the morning. So if you were like a, like I am, somebody who works in that town,

I can never see another show, because we're on stage at the same time. But you could go, and it's such a, maybe you don't wanna go to. Were you friends with Don by the way? Don Rickles? Yeah. I met him, no.

I mean, I only met him a couple of times. You didn't have like a... No, no, no. Some of the younger guys did. I spent a weekend with him. Really? In the early 2000s, Kennedy Honors Day Edit thing, we had made a record with Don Was

and he was the musical director. And Chuck Berry was being, yes, I'm not gonna kiss you, you smell like piss Chuck Berry. Right. Who's the king of rock and roll. But he asked us to come do this thing for Chuck Berry. Of course, but I didn't really, I wasn't that hip to it.

But Don was there, and for some reason, you spend these whole weekend, you have dinner at the State Department. Right. And I was, as a kid growing up, I mean, Don Rickles was one of my heroes. And there I am having dinner with him. And you're at the State Department,

Madeline Albright, whatever, all these people. And everyone has red or white wine on the table. And that's all you can get. You couldn't, if you wanted a beer, you couldn't get one. And Don Rickles is like, I want vodka. And he was like, hey, sweetie, we're the only fucking table with a bottle of gray goose. He got it. I mean And he was like, hey, sweetie, we're the only fucking table with a bottle of gray goose. He got it.

I mean, he was like that. And he was the most wonderful man. Did he insult you? Yes, of course, the whole time. But what would he say about you? What would he say? The hair? The rock and roll?

Yeah, you know, he insulted everyone. You smell like a hippie. Yeah, all that shit, you know. But my ex-in-laws, Goldie Hawn and Kurt Russell, he's like, he was all over that. You stick with these guys, kid. But he was this guy too, you know? He's the old Jewish artist. Yeah, a lot of this.

You know, Chris, you know, and I'm like, you know, my grandfather was a first generation Atlanta and a Jewish person. Shicks a lover, whittled it down to my father. Shicks a lover, so I've been whittled down to about 20%, but there was a lot of the. I have something I say to people like that. Make your points verbally.

I've said that on more than one occasion. I get this as emphasis, but it's not working on me. But did I, I remember being once at Goldie's house. Yeah, you came to Kate's house. Kate's house. So I didn't dream this. No, you were there. Right, we were in your house.

I lived there, but it wasn't my house. Right, but. But we were there together. Remember sitting on the couch, and I seem to remember my date falling asleep. Yeah, well, it was that action-packed. I guess we had been in a party. Yeah, there was some of us. It must have been late.

It was late. Right, okay. All right. But the reason maybe you thought it was Goldie's was because that had been Goldie's house. No, no, I remember. And Kate bought Goldie's old house and then lived there. I think she still is in that, perhaps we won't say where it is, but. No, she actually bought the house next door and has bought the house.

Same street though, I remember the name of the street. I remember where it is. But yes, you were there, we were there together. I was. Right, wow. We're old, huh? I'm older than you, damn it. Yeah, there together, yeah. Right, wow. We're old, huh? I'm older than you, damn it.

Yeah, but probably not that much older than me. Well, you know. We're mid-century products. You know what I found out about how kids look at this? When, remember when Leno and Conan were going through that battle for the Tonight Show, it was like 2009. And it was kind of ugly. And I remember.

It was the last time late night TV was interested, really. Well, thanks. It's good. I guess. Well, I guess you don't consider my show. Regular TV. You've had the freedom. And also, I'm not even.

You also had the freedom to do it. You want to do it because of. I'm not late night. I mean, we were always on at 10 o'clock on HBO. Yeah, but not the network talk show thing. It's like what you do is completely different. It's completely different. You're right.

I'm the one who's always trying to make that point to them when they lump me in. With that wall to the light back. But I remember I had a girlfriend at the time. She was 25. And I remember saying to her, she was asking about this. I'm like, well, it's part of it. It's a generational thing.

I said, Leno's 59. And the Conan's 45. And she said, yeah, that's the same thing, part of it's a generational thing. I said, Leno's 59 and the Conan's 45. And she said, yeah, that's the same thing to me. Yeah, well, when you're 25, it is. You know what I mean? That's when I got it. Like, it really doesn't matter. I mean, I'm 68 now, but I could be-

Oh no, you are much older than me. 40, really? I just turned 57. Yeah, but we could be 40. It's kind of the same thing to them. So it's, you know. I think it is about the being, it is a being a 20th century product.

I mean, we spent a lot of time in the 20th century, you know? And that, I think, singularly, culturally, I mean, that's what all the culture wars are about in a lot of instance, You know what I mean? If I was born in 1866 and it was 1924, I'd be like, whoa, submarine or whatever. I wouldn't even know what to do. Like, they're underwater? I wouldn't know.

Everything would be so different. Now it's obviously so much more intense because of technology makes that move much faster. But you know what? You still go to the airport and take your fucking shoe off. You know what I mean? Like whatever. And if you're 20 something, you always did. We remember it as a disruption. They just know it as something that people do when you go to the airport. You know, people would wonder, you know, I remember when the government took great strides

to protect our health on airplanes by letting people smoke cigarettes in every other seat. I remember being able to... That was like fantastic. Remember going up to the gate, no security at all, then being able to buy a ticket with cash. At the gate, yeah, at the gate. I used to do this bit about let's start, fly at your own risk airlines.

Yeah, yeah. I mean, I think it'd be very popular you can bring your shampoo on board, you can wear a fucking gun on board. Just fly at your own risk airlines. The price is right. Right, I bet you it would be very popular. You know what else is really, always, like really fucks me up is like,

you don't think about it just because of the way the world is in rock and roll. But there's pictures of like the Grateful Dead in 1968. And this is before the world would be, you know, mechanized the way it is. You go on tour, you play Houston, Dallas, New Orleans, then there's a science to it. You still do, don't you?

Yeah, yeah, but back then, and there's famous stories about Jimi Hendrix, you see there's a picture of all the Grateful Dead and every piece of their gear on the runway loading it up on a fucking Eastern Airlines flight or whatever. And they have to load up all that shit that would go on SimIs and that's how you went.

They would have their whole entourage, all their shit, guitars, amps, fucking, maybe you would get a keyboard or something. You mean a bandit didn't have their own plane. Yeah, right. And you just went to just the thing. Right. Jimi Hendrix would have his amps on the runway.

Right, I've seen those pictures. And they would, you know, Jimi Hendrix day, you know, that 60s era, he'd be like, I play Seattle tonight, and I fly to LA, then we do New York, and then I'm in Miami, and then I'm in Chicago. Just like the, you know, wonder like how. So, Jimi Hendrix, let me ask you about that

as a great guitarist about another great guitarist because there is, it's funny, like. I'm a horrible guitarist. You are? I play guitar, but I'm in the black crows. I don't even attempt to play guitar anymore. Oh, it's your brother who's the guitarist? Yeah.

Okay. I'm the song and dance man. I know you hate him, oh that's right. I know you hate him, but he's a great guitarist. Jimmy Hendrix? Your brother. No, I love my brother and he is a great guitarist. He's very unique guitarist, very different in what he does.

Well, it's funny, I mean I am a big music fan, like when I, and this, you know, music is very much about your mood. So I have a playlist, crunch. I don't know why I picked that word out because it's like the crunchy sound. There's a certain- Like a guitar sound, definitely.

Yes, definitely guitar. Definitely, and sometimes I'm in the mood for that. I don't know, it's a little teeth grimy. Like what would it be? Like what's on the playlist because- Like a lot of your stuff, your band. Yeah, we're very, right. I mean, our guitar sound has always had that.

Yes, you are, you know, Pearl Jam. Crunchy. Look at my lighter. Pearl Jam lighter? Eddie Vetter came in that. Nice. Yeah. So.

Is that someone surfing or something? And like this, yeah, well, he's a big surfer. Like this, you put out that, I guess it was an EP. I don't know. It wasn't like a full album, but it was just covers. The 1972s. Yes, yes.

Yeah, yes. And it's funny. All covers from 1972. Yes. Of Cal Originals. No, no, it was a great. The 1972s. Yes, yes. All covers from 1972. Yes. Original. No, no. It was a great idea, actually, for it.

And there was three of them were like big favorites of mine. Rocks Off, which I don't know if that was that a hit for the Stones or was that just... It wasn't really, you know, they... I don't think... Tumbling Dice was the only real semi hit on that record, but X on Main Street is still probably my top rock and roll record, but people forget. How you see that record is the stones, it was maligned up until the last decade or so.

It was never my favorite stone, Dope. Oh, that's the one. But that song was my favorite song on it, Rocks Off. Well, for stones people, it's a huge one. Then you did, You Wear It Well. I don't know if that was a hit for Rod Stewart. Yeah, it was a big hit for him. Okay, that I always loved.

I had dinner with him once, a few other people, and I asked him, and I was interested when this came out, if you would use the same name, because there's a line in there, Matamone Nassas got nothing on you. He wrote that song. Yes, I told him that. He's a great lyricist.

I told him when he was on Real Time, I said, you're very underrated as a songwriter. I don't think most people even know you are a songwriter as well, Maggie May, a song without a chorus. All of those great lyrics on those faces songs. Yeah, I mean, he went on to do, so was he fun? I've never met Rod Stone. Oh, yes.

I met him one time, and it's a funny story because he was my dear friend. From the faces, he was the keyboard player and he played with the Rolling Stones. And Mack was like, we had played a, it was a big concert at the Munich Stadium where they had like the 1972, the hostage thing and the whole thing, they had a big concert.

And I, so it's a giant place. We're sequestered on one side, and then like, with Jimmy Page and Robert Plant, because we were like in their world. And then Rod Stewart and like. You did that whole record with them. With Jimmy. Yeah. Oh, but Rod Stewart's on the way on the other side.

And Mack was like, oh, Rod, man, let's go say to Rod, you never met him. I was like, fuck it, it's a long way. He's like, come on, he loved to meet ya. Oh, he's loved to meet ya. And I'm like, all right, I'll go meet him. It's like two miles almost to walk to this thing. And I walk, I walk over and they're all getting ready

for the show. They're like kicking soccer balls around and they're like these pastel suits and stuff. And he has like the quaff and everything. And, uh, and Mac walks me up to him and he and like, we're how to stand in there like this. And he goes, Hey, hey, Rod, and he turns, you're me. And he turns and he goes, I want to introduce you. This is Chris from the Black Crews. He goes, hmm.

And then I turn around and Matt goes, that's it, did you see what he did? I go, yeah, did we have to walk two miles to that? But you know, he's a very nice guy. I would really like to be. I think he's got that side to him. But anyway, the question I had for him was, That was amazing by the way,

was your line, Matamone Asses got nothing on you. Okay, when you wrote that in 1974, it made sense, because she was Matamone Asses. Yeah, yeah. And now she's gone. She's been dead for a long time. And I said, who, if you're redoing the song, would you put in there?

Now, you just still used that name, but it was like super dated. Like, if we had to put somebody in there, you know, who would you put in there? And of course, now people start fronting on the internet. Tell or Swift, no Beyonce! Michelle Obama, Oprah, no! The mom of the Kardashian.

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So Jimi Hendrix, if I may, go back to that. I'm just curious. Like, I don't have a lot of Jimi Hendrix in my, you know. Is it why? What do you think it's to? Like, are they good songs? I know he was a great guitarist. I mean, are they really great songs? I mean, was a great guitarist. Are they really great songs?

I mean, like, little wing is pretty strong composition. Don't know that one. Or maybe I do. You would know it if you heard it. And I would say. I know Hey Joe and. Which is a, he didn't write that song. Okay.

I mean, everyone was doing that song in LA at the time. And birds do Hey Joe. I think the first one, and please, someone who, I mean, I think the Leaves from Los Angeles maybe did the first hey Joe. Oh, Leaves, that was a band? The Leaves, yeah.

It sounds like they're begging for a joke to be, you know, what'd you think of the Leaves? I did! I mean, we left. Leaves, leavings. But no, I think it's different. And then, you know, it's also, he does a lot of different things.

He's, you know what people fucking say? People, they really dislike Jim Morrison. Still to this day. I fucking love the doors. I love the doors. And I love Jim Morrison. Still to this day. I fucking love the doors. I love the doors. And I love Jim Morrison. See the doors, I don't know why we're comparing them to Jimi Hendrix, but the doors have songs I really like.

Great songs. But we're also talking about, you know, the 27 Club or whatever. They died in 27. Right. But, okay, the 27 club or whatever, they died in 27. Right. But, okay, so what if Jim Morrison, and by the way, I was dear, dear friends with David Crosby.

Wow. And David fucking hated Jim Morrison. But he'd say, he told me, I'll tell you why I fucking hated him. But everybody hated him. I know, but not everybody. Everybody, he even says it in his document. Damn.

Everybody. He was rough, I think. I don't know, I got a pass with him We just got he was much older when he met true, you know, but in his heyday everybody must have been some sort of Monumental prick. I mean, that's what they say, you know, but you know, he told me like, you know, you be at a party, and it'd be the most beautiful chicks and the best drugs, and everyone's feeling it, and then Jim Morrison would show up,

shove someone down the stairs, and then go lay in the street until the cops come. He goes, that's bullshit. He's like, fuck up the whole scene. And I was like, it's kind of cool. I mean, it's kind of punk. But my thing was, Jimi Hendrix, this is just because they both died at the same age.

But Jim Morrison, you said he got older and I knew David, I mean, I knew him for 30 years. So, you know, he was my age when I met him or something a little younger. Right. But he was, Jim Morrison died, he's 27 years old. You're still, he didn't have a chance to like, rail it in and one day be the elder statesman of the sea. Exactly.

You know, we didn't get to see that. Oh, I don't want to think about how I was in my 20s. I mean, I don't want to think about it. I, yeah. My, fuck, yeah, fuck. Yeah, the thing is though, it's bad behavior is not only indulged in your industry. It was celebrated. It was celebrated.

Let's face it. Yes. But wasn't that part of it, I mean, that's another thing that I think is weird about, I mean, I think there's so much great music and there will always be talented people, you know, in music, there will always be people that we connect to on an emotional level, through our experience,

through things. But I think the main difference, what I don't see, and I work, I have this record label, I work with lots of talented young people and they're all beautiful. But, and I get that the culture has changed, but we were defiant in our attitudes and everything about art to us,

if we were going to put it in rock, we're gonna be, we're rock and rollers. So I understand Jerry Lee Lewis is like a real artist. You know, is he someone who went over for dinner? You gotta have the right mindset. But- Right, and put the kids away. Yeah, and all the guns, the guns, it'll shoot you.

But the idea that if we, part of our stance was defiance, right, against whether it was, we used to smoke weed because we were outlaws, not because we were patients, and, but now it's all compliance, because people, you can't say something bad about a band You you know back in the 80s and 90s it like what t-shirts you wore what bands you read was everything I mean it was serious rap artists are really serious do nothing, but rail on each other There's a giant feud going on now between

Nicki Minaj and Cardi B, I think. Well, I mean, I think... They're the rock and roll people now, the rap people. Of course. That's where it moved. They can bring that attitude now. Yeah. Exactly. But you know what's funny about that? What is also the thing that derails some people in that world, at least from my adjacent view,

is what one thing we always are obsessed with, or at least the records I like, the films I like, the comics that are, there's an authenticity about what they are. Absolutely. And it's funny because Rock and Roll did it too, all of a sudden there's a lot of people who are like, they're not on stage drinking Jack Daniels, it's fucking tea or whatever,

and they're like, woo, you know, that kind of stuff. I have a friend, I was living in, my wife and I, we were living up in Colorado for a while. You're married now. Yes, yes. Remarried for the second time. I mean, after Kate. I was married after that as well, so this.

Oh, so third? Yes. It's the charm. I'm not afraid to love, after Kate. I was married after that as well. Oh, so third. Yes. It's the charm. I'm not afraid to love. Not only is it preferable to settle down or find the person who's really right for you later in life, it's almost a necessity. When I think back, when an idiot, I was about my own self,

of course, how could I know who was right for me when I was 30? Because I was just like, I was making decisions like fucking Trump. I mean, they were just pulling things out of my ass and just going by emotions. I mean, it was just, it was a wild ride. Right. I can imagine what that must be if you're also a rock star and all of this is being thrown at you That must really fuck up a mind

Well, well one thing is just funny. I When I was single whatever I'd be a single man in the world this happens to be a successful musician And the lead singer really good and how far can he cost on charm truly not with these looks I hate it to be judged by my looks fine. It looks are fine, but I truly in my I've I've Prefer the intimacy of a single partner of Daily cohabitation, you know what I mean? Like it's that intimacy. It's important and I would give it, I gave it a good try, but I usually have always been

in a relationship during my tenure. Easy for a rock star to say. After he's had like innumerable flowing reams of pussy. I mean now I'm fine, but yeah, of course you are. What about all the other regular guys like us out here? Mine was more like stumbling onto the perfect vintage pants or something. You know what I mean?

I don't know what you mean. It wasn't a stream. I don't know what you mean by that. I do not. It was more of somebody who, what did they do a lot of vintage, go to the antique store, and occasionally I would find something I like.

No, I mean, rock I from my knowledge from what I rock stars always get married. I've known very few rock stars who never been married it's not like that I'm the one who never got married. Well you practice the dark arts sir you know what I mean? What you do is traverse. Well. And which is funny because I think that's another really, it's one thing to say, oh, people say rock and roll is dead or whatever, it's totally ridiculous. It's not the same, but comedy is the thing

that now you start to see that people, now you're not around to say whatever you wanna say. And comedians are always know, are always, isn't that the fucking job? Isn't that why it can... I'm on the front lines. Yeah, and you have been even before this sort of... No, I try, if I don't...

Cultural shift. If I don't think, I mean, I'll never get my due from the people who don't even understand this, but if I don't see myself as the tip of the spear, I'll leave. Like I will leave this business. Somebody comes along and is like can still get an audience, not anybody can say you're really crazy shit

and get some, but to be reasonable, but also gutsy about something. If somebody can come along and do that better, I will get out. By the way, I somebody can come along and do that better, I will get out. By the way, I also understand like when you do that at a certain level, when you do that with a talent and you're in what you have to say, you're at one with it. When people do come in and the great comics

that I really can do that, and you know, there's different comics that do different things. Yeah, of course. Do I know? Yeah, yeah. I started with all of them. I know, yeah. And then, you know, but again, that's like anything else.

But if you're gonna be that person, if you're gonna be a part of the spearhead at all, then the ones that really are heavy-handed, and you know they that's That kind of stuff that people get so mad about like let the people say who's funny Don't fucking tell people say who's funny. We'll tell you who we think is funny And you know what like and then some shit will come along where people get mad like you know Let them it's good. Well, you know, it's gonna go away you know ultimate proof of that was,

I'm stealing the thunder of a number of people who wrote about this, but there's a comedian, oh I don't know if we even say that word anymore, Angie's trans or a lesbian. I don't know, I'm fucking it all up, but Hannah Gadsby. Funny mammals are good, they're funny, you don't have to worry about any misgendering or anything, I know this funny mammal.

Bipedal mammal. Anyway, Hannah Gadsby, and I must admit, I don't know her work, so I'm not gonna pass judgment on it. Everybody I know has one opinion on it, and that's across the board, but you know, it could be wrong. I haven't seen it. No, exactly.

Anyway, her net, I mean, well, it's a different kind of comedy that a lot of the younger generation does. It's not so, I don't wanna sound snarky about this, but it's not really about the jokes. I mean, there are jokes, but it's like, there's feelings and story and my victimhood in a lot of these people, it comes first. Okay, maybe that's where the society went and fine, I'm gonna stay old school.

But anyway, her Netflix special. So really they don't wanna be funny. Let me just finish this point. Netflix special, the critics loved it. Like their score was like 95. And like the people. Yeah. Was like, you know, I don't know the numbers, but it was like, you know, not good numbers. It was exactly the opposite of what the saintly priest caste of the media thought this was appropriately

wonderful, and the people were like, come on man, we just came to laugh or whatever it is. Again, I don't want wanna pass judgment because I have not seen it. Maybe it's the funniest thing since the Three Stooges. But that's just, that was the story. That's like numbers. We know what I mean. We laugh, the real laughing and the stuff that makes us go, is the stuff that is the most painful thing too, right?

Singing is pain in a way, right? Well, a lot of it is about pain. Yeah, I mean, that's why it's born. That's why I call it the dark. No, some of it's happy. A lot of it is. Well, some of it's funny. I mean, you know. Well, some of it's everything.

What is that thing Mel Brooks says? Someone asked me, what's funny, what's not funny? I'm in my office, I'm opening a letter, I cut my finger, I get a paper cut. I say, Jesus Christ, that stings. That's not funny. But if I'm standing on 57th Street, and Sixth Avenue, and an old lady steps off the curb,

and gets hit by a bus, that's funny. And I was like, I mean, that's funny too. Kind of paraphrasing, I think. What it is, W.C. Fields said. Who's also very funny. Okay, I think this is where the origin of this, and I think it's a purer version. He said, if someone dressed as an old lady falls down

a manhole cover, people will laugh. But to make a comedian laugh, it has to really be an old lady. It's unbelievably funny. And it's kind of true. Yes, that's the nature of like, the deviant nature behind it. Here's, you're early twenties, you had,

I'm sure, an amazing time, you're young, you can come back from drinking and drugs and still do shit the next day and girls and blah, blah, blah, we didn't have that as comedians. But we did have some amazing camaraderie. Like, probably your thing was better, but I wouldn't... No, I don't think so.

For anything give up. Like, those three years when I lived in New York, right out of college, working in the clubs and being in the clubs every single night of my life, seeing the same people. It was your whole world. My whole world and my social world and there was bumps here and there

but basically you're hanging out with a bunch of funny people who you like a lot. Some of them. So it wasn't an Uber competitive? It was. Is it under this? I wrote a book about it. I wrote one novel in my life

and it was about my early days and the epigraph at the very beginning says, they loved each other because they shared a dream, but they hated each other because there wasn't enough of it to go around. Yeah, which is, yeah. And that kind of sums it up. We loved each other, but we knew it was kind of like the army.

Like, a lot of us going into battle are gonna get shot, meaning not gonna make it. You know, I mean, of the guys they started with. Do you still have that group, core people that are... Well, I mean... Then you would feel that way with everyone's changes and fame and success. Some, but you know, it's just the truth of the matter that people just don't feel comfortable on either ends of it when they're hanging out with someone who's on a very different

level of success. The person who isn't as successful, I guess feels bad that they're not. The person who is doesn't feel necessarily, I'm better than you, but he knows you think. You know, it just, you can't cut through that. Well then some people turn that inward and start playing out those archetypes

or whatever right there. And then they behave that way. But yeah, I think they, you know, I agree with We Share the Dream, you know, the one thing about like, that I remember like the 80s in Atlanta being in a band and you know, bands were really important. It's not like now, you know, like bands were-

I know. What happened to bands? It's amazing the now, you know, like bands were bands. I know. What happened to bands? It's amazing the way the culture. It was your gang, it was your, you know, we're like, you know. Back then. They had to escape the horrible angst of suburban Atlanta. Back then, like music was guy bands

and the rarity was the female rock star. Now all the female rock stars are women singers. I'm not complaining about it. I'm just saying this is where the culture, and it's very hard to find, all the great bands are older, like you guys. Yeah, I mean, and well, I think that. It just went out of vogue.

It was a style that went out of vogue, like the novel. People used to read novels, then TV came in and they went, well, these are very slow TVs, these things. And if you sell 50,000 copies of a novel, that's like a huge hit. You're like, have you seen Roda? I mean, Roda. Wasn't the day that this came out?

The TV show? What I'm saying, instead of sitting around, you know, you're like, oh, Nelson Algren. Wow. Walk on the wild side, wait a minute. Wait a minute. Wait a minute. Rod is on. But the fact that you would choose Rod, I love that.

It's just so, like, you know. Well, you said TV comes along, you know. Yeah, like when you, I think of TV shows here in 2024. Of course the first thing that comes to my mind is Rhoda, right kids? Listen, what do you know about me? What do you, so do you watch TV with your wife? Is that like a thing?

You know, we never watch TV until, Really? Until the pandemic. In the 90s, I never saw any TV ever because we were on tour constantly. And my taste run towards hanging out. pandemic in the 90s I never saw any TV ever because we were on tour constantly and My taste run towards hanging out. I I do read a lot of novels. Yeah novels are great I read a lot and So yeah, our life is gonna give you money. We do watch TV. All right, and there's some shows that I think are that I really liked actually oh

TV I couldn't live without TV. I love it. You know, kids today, they don't even have, they don't, it's like a typewriter. I like YouTube because as a dork, it's like I want to see, you know. Sure. Anything. Yeah, I want to see the fucking faces

on French television in 1971. Oh shit, there they are, you know. It can't be good for the human brain or really I feel like the development of the species that everything that was ever interesting is available at all times. And why am I so bored? Well, I'm kidding. But I mean like, I don't even do it. But that, you know, my thing with that is that half of the people are still like looking

at people falling down or, you know what I mean? It's like, I get that, but there's so much information that maybe you would think is interesting or important to know or that I would, and like the average person's like, they could give a fuck. But they just want to watch the same shit over and over, right? Don't you think that's a part of it? Here's, yes, but I also think this,

and I'm not even someone who often even looks at Instagram. It's just that, you know, God bless, but. So, but. I'm on no social media. On the occasion, right, I don't, very rarely tweet, but I do sometimes, it's nice to have that as, you know, outlet, but Instagram, but every time I like, you know, when I was first on it was just pictures.

It was good, it was like playboy on your phone, like, you just follow 10 hot models. And it's like, okay, then it changed into more like TikTok. It's just videos and, you know, just, and okay, I don't do this a lot because I'm busy and I have a life and I respect myself. So like, I'm not gonna let myself go down this rabbit hole. I have shit to do.

But I can see when I do do it once in a while for like 15 minutes. But you have to do it just to be aware. I'm scrolling through this thing and a lot of it is like dog stuff because I guess they know that's what they know about me. I guess you dogs being adorable. And like, but there's some of it.

Like, you know, like guys doing crazy athletic things and an amazing like, you know, pinch you, macho, temple that I never saw. And I was like, as I'm scrolling, I'm like, no, you're not wrong, this is very interesting. No, you're right, that's interesting. Yeah, that's right. It's like, okay, yeah, oh, a squirrel, water skiing.

And I'm like, yes, you're right, you're not wrong. These things are interesting. And I could just do this all day until I died of starvation. I feel like that's the ultimate. It's like Richard Pryor with his crack pipe. Remember that thing about he had in the bedroom and he was always talking to the crack pipe? That's his best friend.

Oh. Yeah, I don't know. I mean, to me, ultimately, like you said, you know, one thing I love about playing music is I work very hard. But to work very hard, you kind of have to be in it all the time, so when I do, I watch dumb shit. Like, I like English comedy. I watch old episodes of the young ones.

I watch the Mighty Bush. I watch stuff from, you know. It was weird, you would, I didn't know this really. I was watching the Monty Python documentary because I still think the best of that is unbelievable funny. And I'm interested in that show, the kids show they did, they had the Bonzo Dog Band,

you know, that did all those amazing songs and really funny mix, really futuristic almost. But then, the day, I guess Eric Heidel said, you know what, outside of us doing this, we weren't at each other's, it's like we weren't friends. Like I'm like, that's unimaginable that that is so nuanced and sophisticated.

I feel like first of all, I mean, you hear this with all bands and, I mean, you're famous for... Fighting with my brother. Correct, which is like common band, the Everly Brothers and I'm sure you've heard the list of brothers who like the King, Kings, Kings. Yes, and it's like, wow, that's stronger.

You know, they say blood is thicker than water. Yeah, and apparently this shit, whatever it is, when you're in a band together, is thicker than blood. I tell you what it is. It's just something weird, man, that you grow up. First off, the Everly Brothers. They take a lot of their stuff from the Louven Brothers. You don't know if you listen to the Louven Brothers,

who were from Alabama, and they were kind of, they were a duo, Charlie and Ira, and you should read a book about these brothers because they don't get lumped in the rock and roll stuff, but they easily had the tail of like the most fucked up shit people can do each other. But they sing this close harmony together. Oh yeah.

That is, they're most famous for a song called the Knoxville Girl about a guy who kills the young little girl in Knoxville Town I know well every Sunday evening In her home I dwelled I took her for a little evening stroll about a mile from town I picked a stick up off the ground and knocked that fair girl down Why is she really brutal? He's just crazy, he's a murderer. There's a lot of murder ballads in that era. But so they sing like that

and then the Everly Brothers sing like that but then they're like, been in show business together since they were like on the radio and their dad's like chicken feed shit or down, I don't know, dentist Annie sells eggs or something. It's a weird trip, you know? Do you remember Tom Jones? But oh, by the way, before I forget,

it would be weird too, like you guys are great, you do this together and you make this magical sound. But then if they go off on their own, they could still be talented and good. And you know, that's really something I learned about me and Rich, like he's talented when he does his thing. I go do much different music than the Black Crows. But until we got back, I was like,

and again, you change your perspective, whatever. And I'm like, fuck, what we do is kind of cool. That's what I like. There's that element. Then there's also the element that people who come to your music, anybody, any band, are coming to it at such a formative time in their life, teenage years, their first feeling the pulsation.

That's what my wife says, when you're teenagers, you feel like there's no, yeah, it's the most raw, it's the most raw they are. So the music they encounter at that age is gonna have this emotional resonance with them that stays with them forever. So they're gonna always put that in the mix. Yeah, of course.

That's why when bands break up, the fans' attitude is like, why are mommy and daddy fighting? Because it's important in my life to think that Simon and Garfunkel like each other because they played at my prom. This is Romance or whatever it is that you can't separate that emotional element, which is, you know, a double-edged sword. Of course, of course. And especially if you throw into the mix, you know, like you asked me earlier, but being, you know, we made this record in 1989, Rich was still living at Mom

and Dad's. We had no idea. You know, we have no idea What's the guns and roses is the biggest thing in the world? We're this band who don't sound like anything we We sound enough like things that because we have the same influences of stuff before that it was like Oh, well, they sound like old music Even though we felt we were pretty modern. I mean except for the bell bottoms But but then that record, you leave Atlanta with one suitcase, and then 12 months later, you're worth millions of millions of dollars, it's on.

You went from, and we were one of those bands that had, I really envied the bands that got to make a record, and then another one that got to build up to something. I would never take it back, and we get what we get and we're happy and thrilled and blessed to have this. But that would be a cool dynamic. Like we didn't have to just fucking jump in with the sharks initially. You did great because you put out things that you have a sound that not everyone is a fan

of every kind of sound, but if you're a fan of that kind of sound, I'm a fan of many kinds of sounds, that is one of them. You always satisfied the customer. You know, it took something. I made some weird turns, I mean. But you get that sound, like when you want that, I'm the crump. I hear it. When you want that sound, I want it done right,

you guys did it right. When you want an ex-sale and sandwich, you can't really ask for more than that. Well, and I think it's funny that's I'm sure they get around to where we are today because and actually brought The this is the first one. I have one, but that's the first one to a person other than the person. I don't know I don't have this. This is the new record. Oh, it's new. This is the one coming out in March And if you look.

And if you look. Wow, I feel like I'm Jay Leno in this 19th. But if you look closely, you maybe wouldn't recognize people. You can be cleanly, I'm contagious then. My wife did the artwork. But if you look, this is Southern Harmony, our second album.

She painted all the new art on old album covers. Oh, wow. That's like an egg. Is that what they call an Easter egg when they hide something for the fans? I think it's just in our case we want to celebrate the past and we're into vandalism. And once again I saved my pussy poster from the 1970s. Not poster, ad. Ad in Record World magazine. What kind of pie did you want? Just that dripping pie please. What's in a dripping pie? I don't know.

I wonder if I have to. So. That could be your solo album for your crunchy guitar band. But you're happy now that you're back with your brother and you don't fight about the shit you did when you were kids? Yeah, I mean, it's, it took me a long time to like, kind of get out of my own fucking bullshit.

I say that like on every show, but like, of course, would we like to be 30 again? Yes, but I still wouldn't trade it if I had to have that stupid mind I had. Knowing now that like life is easier and better when you're not a fucking idiot. Well, but you have to take those lumps and you have to learn to lessen. You have to get older.

I also... men. Men need to get older. They just don't get it quickly. Not that I'm telling women anything they don't know. No, of course not. But that's why you're not fighting with your brother. Because you're older and smarter and you see ages, a process of seeing things come up and up again.

It's a pattern and then the third time they come up, you go, okay, I know what that is and I'm not falling for it this time. I'm not taking the bait. I sinned myself once and not again. Or many times, yeah. Or many times, yeah. Acceptance is a big thing.

That's everything. And that's really where I think Rich and I found ourselves at a different time in our lives. Right. If a shrink was playing word association, and he said age, I would go accept it. That would be my like, that's what I said. You know what though?

I demand it and I give it. It's important. And I give it. And that's just what you just do, don't do that's what I said. You know what though? I mean, I- I demand it and I give it. It's important. And I give it. And that's just what you just do. Don't do that when you're young. I think this is also how we handle adversity when you get older. Dictates a lot of the attitudes and a lot of the way that you can communicate and deal,

in my case, not be being a dynamic group of people and make it fun and work and interesting and soulful. And I don't know in my youth, it's also that, okay, so back in the 90s, there was no, there were no therapy catch words. You were just like, fucking do it. There's another band who wants this spot behind you. It's very competitive.

Right. Now, you know what I mean? And very. And you want to stay on the ride, but you don't really realize that every band that has ever been any band, I think, success or not. But the success brings a certain intensity to the thing. If every band will say, if we had just taken six months off

one time, and you never know what ever does, they never, you never stop. Because it's a hamster wheel that if you don't stay on, someone will eat your lunch. And I think you just, I don't know about other people, but I think you just get it in. Well, first off, you want the, it's a good time, you know, when everything's new, like I'd only written 30 songs, now I've written 300 songs, you know what

I mean? Like the process is different. As someone who has no musical ability but is a great fan, I feel like they're misreading the public unless I'm not like other fans. But to me, if a band or any artist puts out an album and I like it, I'll never forget it. If they put something out 40 years later, I'd be like, oh. We started by saying the Supreme's posters and your parents were in the radio and you had tons of records and stuff. So, you know, records are really important to that.

Like if you grew up around a lot of records, it changes the way you think about music. The average family didn't have a lot of records. Since we're doing a show and tell, I'm going to get this. For the people, or, oh, I guess they got it on one of these cameras, but I've never actually showed it like this. This is from, I don't know what album it is, but I don't either. I was smart enough as a kid to know, I think, I just loved it, but like that is the Supremes, and I have some other ones like this.

It's so good. It's so good, I mean, and yes, this is, of course, the size of an album. I used to love first of all. Perfect visual, perfect visual size. You remember cleaning pot on a double album because there were seeds. And you had to take them out.

That was the perfect thing to do. That's why every P-Funk live album, Mothership Connection is all ballroom. No one ever listened to both. To Parliament? Yeah, yeah. Parliament, Mothership Connection live record. This is the double one.

That's why that record, it's always fucked up when you see one of it. If you can find a real good one, let me know. You still have your vinyl? Oh yeah, like, it's thousands of records. I'm obsessive records. So is my wife. I'm sure.

Well, because... It's horrible, we just moved, and it's like a nightmare. I'm like, oh, here come move my anvil collection. We won't give away exactly, right? But you live in this area? Yeah, I'm in Lafayette Woods. Oh, so everybody lives here.

We're very close. You had no idea. I'm going to take you to the woods. Yeah, let's go. Oh, we've got to do that. OK, so and how long have you been in California? Because you don't betray any Georgia accent. No, I mean, sometimes.

If I'm in the South, I like to prove it. I was from there, but I'll be like, oh yeah. That sounded gay, not Southern. Oh yeah. But Southern and gay are very often similar. We are English. You know what I mean? We're very English on my side.

And, yeah. Maybe, I just think I really like the Southern plus gay accent, the Southern plus gay character. It's one of the best ones. I've seen many times. I mean, I might catch the vapors. Well, something like Tennessee Williams, was he not a homosexual? Yeah. And do we imagine that his characters, like in Streetcar Name Desire, Blanche,

really he's really writing about a gay relationship. That's very dramatic. What do we say? We're not certainly not saying that gay people are dramatic in the best kind of way. Chris, in the best kind of way. Of course, of course. Yes, I'm just saying it gay people are dramatic in the best kind of way. Chris, in the best kind of way. Of course, of course. Yes, I'm just saying it's very dramatic story.

If you think Angels in America is one of the funniest plays ever to run on Broadway. I hardly think that's demeaning. I fucking agree, because I don't. But it is, I mean. See, that's highly dramatic scenes. But see, that's my world that I live in. Genetic reporting.

Always having to shoot down the people, trying to shoot down things that are innocent, but we can find something about it that'll get the people on the internet very bad. You know, it's also, I love, you forget how many people are so shocked about books being banned. You know, they didn't want you to read what they banned William Burroughs.

I mean, again, the problem is that it keeps happening. Like, and don't you know, you know what I mean? They banned books all the time. Like people are- You mean throughout history? Yes, and especially in this country, and even in France or whatever, like in the real era of all this kind of... Yes, I mean, they banned Playboy. I mean, they were perhaps never fought in the 50s,

who was constantly in court and stuff for just Playboy, which is a pretty tame magazine. Ulysses was, I think, not allowed to come into this country. And this is 1922, James Joyce, Ulysses. I read it in college. It's, ooh, I'm glad I did that kind of work when I was young, because I couldn't get through that now. We had a day afternoon in Zurich when the band was there, not this fall, the last fall.

And I took my wife to James Joyce's grave. Wow. There's a statue of him. It's in Zurich? Yeah, he's buried in Zurich. He lived out there. He loved it there. Oh. Yeah. Zurich. Yeah, he's buried in Zurich. He lived out, he loved it there. Yeah, and he has, it's the coolest.

He's like, you know, it's a little bit abstract of himself and he's like, has his pipe and it's really, it's one of the coolest simit, we've got a lot of simitics. Did you ever read Ulysses? You said no. I attempted Ulysses and I couldn't, I didn't, I have to go back.

I think I could maybe get a better grip on it. But it's funny when we were kids, at Emory University there was a club across the street and we played there and worked there. And one of the girls that worked there, her father only taught Ulysses as a class and he was old. And I remember he used to come in and only want a hot water and lemon. But and I remember he used to come in and only want hot water

and lemon. But I was like brave enough to add he goes maybe one day I'll unlock the Ulysses. So he's this big guy studying it. Well I mean that kind of intimidated me. I could unlock it for you in 30 seconds about the basic idea which is brilliant I thought what many people did. I mean Ulysses is Odysseus, the same Greek, and this is, you know, the Iliad and the Odyssey,

the foundation of literature in the West, anyway. And Ulysses is a man who cannot get home. He wants to get home. He has fought the Trojan War. That's the Iliad. The second half of that thing is the Odyssey. And that's his Odyssey. She's trying to get home. All these adventures and the sirens and all the people

captured by pig people. And James Joyce took this metaphorically to be a guy who was trying to get home spiritually, basically, is what it is. So the Odyssey is 24 books, Ulysses is 24 books, it mimics it on every turn. Right, right, yeah. Which is kind of a genius thing, this is 1922. And deep as well. You can understand Ulysses, you know, there's, read it with the monarch notes or whatever. Did you read Finnegan's Wake as well?

That's the one you can't. Finnegan's Wake is the hardest one. Yeah, that's like, I don't even know, I don't know what you're doing. The ramblings of a man make? the hardest one. Yeah, that's like, I don't even know what you're doing. The ramblings of a man. I'm not so, yeah. I'm not so okay. Maybe I'm just not smart enough.

And I don't even want to be that smart. I just, I read a fairly interesting book recently about the French decadent poet. So it's, you know, Baudelaire and Rambo, you know, the Gunkor brothers or whatever. And it's funny, it's called The Horror of Life. It's this funny book I got. But everyone-

Of course it is. But inevitably, every writer in the book, about three pages in, we don't know if he had syphilis, but we're pretty sure. And I was like, let me tell you something. Some of my favorite poetry is, you know, the raving of a lunatic. And it's interesting to think about Every poetry is the ravings of a lunatic.

It is interesting to think about so many of the things that cause people so much pain, that they did not have any sort of cures for, any sort of monuments. Well, you're saying just wiping mercury all over yourself, right? That was the best they had. Yeah, whatever. People went through a lot of stuff that caused them just a lot of pain.

How much of that pain is what inflected their work? I mean, that's the horror of life. I mean, I think a lot of it. But again, isn't it funny because the work is cathartic in the idea of, I'm good, in the idea of what I was saying, you know, adversity, you know? Like if that's what you, you know, that's the thing that pulls you across the, you know, crawling across the dark cave floor of that kind of life and stuff.

But they're all pretty well-fitted, as a matter of fact. I mean, you know, there's the old analogy of the oyster that produces the pearl. You know why a pearl is produced? Because grain of sand. It's an irritant. It's an irritant.

The irritant is what produces the pearl. And yeah, it's like you got sand in your ass. And every time you scratched your ass, it caused your brain to have a really smart idea or something. But yeah, look, you don't really have a choice in life because you're gonna go through the pain anyway. I always think, you might as well get a receipt for your pain, that's what art is.

It's kind of a receipt for pain. It's like, yes, you went through this pain, but you wrote the song about it. We wouldn't have this play. It's funny too because you never know. I have people, one of the things I love and I'm very lucky and we had a type of music that, you know, we were, Rich and I started off as songwriters.

That's what interest us. That's, we knew we had some sort of inkling that that's maybe we would be better at that than learning how to play Stairway to Heaven or something. You know, like we weren't really that, we weren't like that and we would be better at that than learning how to play Starway to Heaven or something. We weren't really that, we weren't like that. And we liked all sorts of different music. And that's kind of the thing that starts us

into made it different. And then I meet people and they're like, and it happens a lot and it makes me happy whether it's a, you know, she talks to angels famous is like a song. But I wrote that song before I knew anything about real, you know, relationship with drugs and leading a certain late night lifestyle

or whatever I was into. I wrote that song out of some dark romanticism of what it might be like because I was like adjacent to it. That happens a lot. But that song is like the most poignant one for people that I meet all around the world. It's amazing how young musicians, poets, can channel like very old thinking.

You know that time in a garfranco, old friends? It's like, well, you know why I think. I mean, I think it's, I mean, this sounds weird, but the song has always been sung. There's nothing even in their most ancient form, I imagine the endothel probably wouldn't be too different. The human voice is only the human voice. It's the same scales, the same range of things.

Nothing is really the worst of the worst and the joyous of the joyous are still part of the same experience. And if you express that through music, you're singing the same song. And it's the same poem as well. You know that talking about Ulysses and the Odyssey, they were not written, they were sung. That's how, I mean, they think that the Odyssey, they were not written. They were sung.

That's how, I mean, they think that the Odyssey and the Iliad were written around 800 BC. When someone finally did it, wrote it down. Homer. Well, I don't know if that, well, that's a good question. I don't remember. That's 800 BC is the night, I'm sure that date is right about one of the two.

I don't know whether it's's that's when they wrote it down or that's when he lived and wrote it. I think it's that's when he lived and wrote Homer. They're talking about, I think it was sung for hundreds of years before somebody wrote it down, probably in fifth century Athens or, and you know, were they even writing a lot? And yeah, they were like.

I mean, it goes back pretty far. It was an oral tradition. This is before TikTok, so people... That's all the Brahmin and Indian things, too. And those things they would maybe say are even older, and they've been reciting them really like forever and forever. But I mean, that's a long book.

Can you imagine singing that and having people remember it over centuries? That's... Yeah, it's like Roger Waters, you know what I mean? And The Wall, it's... No, I'm just kidding. Why? Why?

Can you imagine singing this for The Wall? Yeah, it's going to be going on forever, forever. Why? Because that song goes on forever? Yeah, yeah, yeah. Or just like, you know, something that is like... Can you imagine singing? That's what I'm, that's what I'm.

Do you love Pink Floyd? I love Pink Floyd. I especially love the very early Pink Floyd and the, you know, up to Umaguma kind of times. And I love the live things of like when they, when like early 71, Fat Old Son and all that kind of stuff. There's like some great John Peel, BBC stuff. But Sid Barrett is one of my heroes and musical.

He was the early leader of Florida. Yeah, he had kind of fell into mental illness and then I'd also accumulated with his his excessive amounts of LSD and stuff. But he makes these really beautiful records that are really special to me. I probably like the wrong Pink Floyd era. Oh no, there's a lot of Pink Floyd, that's another thing there.

No, I am, you know what? Look, you have your wearing Chelsea boots. I am, okay. You know that's what that's called, right? I don't. That's a Chelsea boot. I thought it was a Beetle boot. It's called, right? I don't. That's a Chelsea boot. I thought it was a Beetle boot.

It's a, Beetle boot is a Chelsea boot as well. But by the way, this would be in the like first Pink Floyd Sid Barrett would wear these. But I am a good one to talk to about music, not because I do know about it, because I don't. Because I am, I always say, I am just a young man in the 22nd row who sees you as something more than just sexual, just our Marilyn Monroe. But really, and I love being that, because I don't wanna think,

music is a pleasure for me. Like for you, it's always a bust mentality to a degree. No, no, are you kidding? I told you, we have music, besides my relationship with making music, I'm obsessed. Oh, yeah, so you can just enjoy it. I collect records, we listen to music, I wake up in the morning,

I have to keeping it, keeping my world. There's something like Spotify has like, like two million new tracks a month or something. It's like, I'm all for egalitarian, but like, I feel like there needs to be some, a little more gatekeeping. Not that it really is gonna affect me that much, but like, I'm telling you.

Well, I'm torn with that because I do like the idea of it, of everyone being able to, and again, I'd let people, you know, there's a whole world outside of the shit we do, like, I don't, people tell me about it, there's like TikTok music stuff, and they'll like, these kids will be like, doing some TikTok shit in their house,

and then they're like in a stadium, and then they go away forever, you know what I mean? It's like... Right, well, I'm telling you, the most prescient thing anybody ever said was, Andy Warhol. Everyone will be famous for 15 minutes. Just, I don't know when he said it, but long time ago.

Like before everything. He saw it. And he saw that, and that's sort of what it is. He saw it a lot, you know, the character and the look of Andy Warhol, I think sometimes overrides what was really, his contribution in art maybe isn't in the look of Andy Warhol I think sometimes overrides what was really his contribution in art maybe isn't in the physical art as much as it's the ideas around it. You know.

Is it either one that John Lennon said about like that because he had these factories Andy Warhol did right. The factory was one of the space he, the famous space he worked in. But people were, he wasn't physically himself making all the art. Not all of it. He made some of it. But I think his whole thing was he had to have this kind of little…

John Lennon said, it might have been about him, it might have been about this artist Kastavi. It could have been, it was kind of, he did kind of a war-holy thing for a while. I remember he was on politically incorrect in the early 90s. And Lenin said, oh, I see. He doesn't make anything. He just signs it. And, you know, I'm not sure. Yeah, Lenin being super snarky. I mean, that's amazing. But I'm not sure. I'm not really sure about the concept of not doing it yourself and having other people do a kind of a, you know, you tell them, you delegate.

I don't, it's delegating art is what that is to me. And oh, I don't give a fuck. You know what, what am I talking about? I just like, if something, I'll put this fucking thing in the Supremes that I had when I was 12 years old or something. Andy Warhol's cousin painted this by the way. I would have this in a Picasso. It just means something to painted this by the way. I would know about this than a Picasso.

It just means something to me, it's cool. But you know what's funny, that's the cue. I think that's the idea in a way of, but it's there for everyone, that's the point. And so much art today is just driven by status. You know what I mean? You really only ever hear about things because they have generated a certain amount of commerce

around it or whatever. You have to really be out in the trenches, I think, to find the real interesting things. I feel like of all the bullshit in the world, there is nothing more opaque than art. Well, I'm talking about like paintings and sculptures. Like why like three people in the world decide that this is, and then when I see the things that are like,

oh, I'm like, yeah, okay, it's different. And it's like, I have no idea why you think this is better than a thousand other things, or things I could see on the street at Venice Beach. It's like, it's so fucking subjective. I'm a classicist in the way of a lot of the things I like are antiquated, but also the idea of the hours of the craft.

You know, that's one thing like I- It's about art. Yeah, the painter who really, you know, like the amount of hours that went in to make this. It's like music is different but the same. Like one thing when I talk about what's really interesting is writing songs and it's like Rich and I, this guy, George Ciculius by any chance,

you ever met the wonder of George Ciculius? Who's that? He does a lot of movie music now and sinking music supervision but he signed us and produced our first record. And the one lesson that George taught us that continues 30, whatever years later, is like, when we wrote that first record, a song like Jealous Again,

he heard it a little bit of it and Rich and I did it and we taped it and sent it to him in New York. And he called back and goes, eh, pretty good, why don't you get in there a little more? And then we would do another, and it did that. And we still do that. You know, we're obsessed with like the craft of it and making sure like that we have to really like think,

this is good, you know what I mean? Me too. I mean, that's one reason I still love my job is because I work all week on writing an editorial at the end that's eight minutes long, but I can spend 20 hours. Yeah, but you know, the significance of when it really hits one, you know.

I love that I have Monday through Friday to get it right, that I can rewrite it every night until it's just perfect. Yeah, I love the process. I do, you almost have to. That's the craft, you know? Some people don't. Some people just want the result. Do you think that's what you're talking about

with some of the new things that you see? There's a lack of craft. Like with the comedy that's like not comedy, now it's feelings or whatever. Well, don't you know I'm funny because I can't access my feelings? But that's the fucking point. Why are you so funny?

You know, I mean who said sarcasm is the lowest form of like social I'm like you're in an asshole What are you kidding how far can we get in life without the sarcastic person? You know like yeah No, they have a word now for I can't remember what it is for like when people Now, if I can't remember what it is for, like when people, it's like political laugh or something that there is a type of audience, liberal audience, which is a large part of my audience. But there's this part of them that just really puts, I agree with this point of view about whatever this issue is, more importantly than I wanna laugh. So that to me is going backwards about things.

You should wanna laugh first. And then if you laugh at it, that's when you know it's true. Even if it's not how you thought about it, maybe at the beginning. Yeah, of course. So that's what I'm always trying to do is like, put that, no, let's give this a laugh test.

If you laugh at it, then you're gonna have to ask yourself, I'm always trying to do is like, put that, no, let's give this a laugh test. If you laugh at it, then you're going to have to ask yourself, oh, is there something true in this? But isn't it, I mean, we live in the same, we've seen it a million times with bands, with comics, TV series or whatever. Nope, you can't say that, you know what I mean? Or whatever, it's like, well, I just always thought it was funny that you can't say that, you know what I mean? Or whatever, it's like, well, I just always thought it was funny that you can't say things, but that, you know, the world is full of atrocity and the most horrible things.

Like that's acceptable, but this Puritan... There were many weeks when my producers said to me, I was mulling doing something, and my producers said, you can't say that. And I would tell it to certain friends, and would say, oh, you got to say that. The exact opposite. Well, that's what I mean. That's where you trust in your, but you manifest.

It's a tightrope. And that's why they pay me the big bucks. Right. There's comedies, I think, in a tightrope, at least. Yeah, I mean, it's funny when you look back at what people used to be able to say, but pretty much anything. I mean, I don't know any comic over 40.

I don't know any comic at all. Maybe I'm wrong, I haven't talked about it with all of them, but none of them want to play colleges. Oh, God, why didn't I? There's a certain type of, there must be comics who do that circuit, but it must be the most excruciating kind of comedy on these, because somebody did an article about this

and they said like, the comic had to like take a sort of a test or answer a bunch of a questionnaire about what he was gonna talk about. Cultural appropriate. Right. They say Amherst. Right, so before he went on and it's like, wow, is that where we are?

They used to have Charles Bukowski go to a college. Like his shit face, they're telling out of here, like saying they could have fist-fucking people and stuff and drunk, like, he got the fuck out of here! You know, I want a ham sandwich, you know what I mean? Like, that's a good night on the campus. Is that true that Charles Bacassi did college-speaking engagements, or are you making up?

He did bookstores, but yes, he did. He did some, I believe, at the University. And they would be full of young people, and he's like this lecherous person. That would be a good movie Just him doing that to well instead of somebody did a movie about him didn't they yeah Mickey Rourke plays I mean bar fly bar fly Right that was kind of a big movie. It was a big movies and Lauren Hutton in that film as well. I believe

Yeah, Mickey Rourke and Lauren Hutton. It's hard to believe they're down and out drunks in some way. You know what I mean? It's like, she doesn't have a black eye. You know what I mean? Is it just me or? This is no simple baritay. I was like-

What year was that? Because they always have to get beautiful people to get the money to make a movie about people who weren't actually physically gorgeous. But that's true. Everything is gorgeous. What year was that? Barf Lodge. Must be like 87, 88 maybe?

Oh my God, something like that, yeah, wow. And I forget who made it. Cause that was Mickey Rourke saying, oh my friends, oh my friends. But he's all drunk. Yeah. And then, I mean, I feel like before that, people weren't too aware of Charles Buchal's,

and it kind of made him a folk hero because Mickey Warrick played, I mean. But he was. Definitely he was having a big moment then. But is he a good poet? I mean, you know, we look at the world now of a guy who said some nasty things and had some nasty behavior,

but I think, again, he's comes from a great poetic nature. His happens to be violent and sometimes brutish in a masculinity that escapes us in this like era. But I'm not looking, I don't read yet. He was a drunk, right? I mean, that's the big part. Yeah, but he's also a writer. So I mean, I think he was loudish in those ways,

socially and with people. But this is my... His writing is, I mean, read Ham on Rye. I mean, I think he was loudish in those ways, socially, with people, but. But this is my theory. His writing is, I mean, read Ham on Rye, I mean, it's good. This is my theory about pain. Like, in years past, people were just in a lot more pain. So you got more people like this, who just were like, oh, and I hated a nice man drinking, I kept a drinked to survive.

And it's like. I've had crises recently. And that's funny. Have you ever read 120 Days of Sodom, The Marquis de Sons? Have you ever actually picked up the book and read it? I certainly remember it, the look of the book in college, but I don't remember if I read it. I feel like we did.

Yeah, that was sort of, what, know, did I read the, a branch version, hand job in Schenectady or whatever? Oh no, it's in hand jobs in Schenectady. No, but, no, it's funny because I picked it up recently because it kept coming up and I've been reading on, you know, I get on these things. So a lot of decadent French. So the Marquis de Sade, let's set the stage,

18th century France, right? Yes, aristocrat. Aristocrat, and. He is jailed. Jailed, yep. And he begins to write. For sodomy. He's jailed because he's an aristocrat,

but I think they also, yeah, brought him in, which is pretty funny, and that class of people to get arrested for anything. He was a libertine, it's where we get the word sadist, right? Well, he's written, but that's the thing, he gets really, and he also, I believe he wrote, it's a long book, he writes all the book, a little piece of the paper, and stuck them in the walls.

I remember they made a movie of this. Yeah, they stuck it, he stuck them. Yeah, stuck it, right. But, so I'm reading all of this stuff, and I read, and I'm like, you know what? It keeps coming up in different things that I'm interested in. I'm like, I've never bought It keeps coming up in different things that I'm interested in. I'm like, I've never bought the book.

I never picked it up. Go to the bookstore. But by the book, I take it home and I get about 80 pages in and I'm like, I don't think I can do this. It is fucked up. This is fucking. Really?

I don't, and then, and I've been asking people. What, why? Like, really weird. Disturbing? To me, it was disturbing. And it's not just set, it's like. Is he hurting people? Oh yeah, hurting people and,

I can't, you gotta check it out. But the like, children. Ass stuff? Butt play, yeah. There's a lot of, but it's also an unbelievably, you know, it's diabolical and it's imagination of what's happening. But I had this crisis of like, do I can, you know,

who am I now in my late fifties? I should have read this book when I was 18. I wouldn't have, you know what I mean? I don't think it would have been as jarring. I don't think you would have understood it. Yeah, maybe. Definitely. Sometimes I watch a movie that I remember seeing

when I was really like 14 or something. And I remember it as good and I watch it and I'm like, this sucks. Yeah. I was 14 And I remember it as good and I watch it, I'm like, this sucks. Yeah, yeah. I was 14 when I saw it. I will do that with, and I'm lucky at 57 to grow up in the Golden Age. The best thing about Suburbia was the local video store

because they always had the one midnight movie, foreign films, you know, something like the Tindrum or something. Like I'm watching the Tindrum and I am Asuka, the drummer, the kid who throws himself down the stairs, the Gunter Grass novel, because he doesn't want to grow up in the horrors of war. And there's the scene where they pull this horse head

out of the ocean, they've been fishing, it's covered in eels or other. And I'm like, if my parents just were, I mean, I imagine they were just fucking tired and didn't really like each other They had no idea that I'm like 14 watching like anything I want from the video story because the people the video story They don't know that they never watched those movies. You know, I wonder what kids today think I mean, it's I'm sure they're aware of it because they may have seen it in a movie or something But like I remember that era

and it was going to the video store was like, it was also that era when I was like, in relationships with a lot of girlfriends and so that was the thing we did with your girlfriend. Like what movie do you get? Yeah, like what are you doing? Let's go to the video, let's just stay in tomorrow. I took a date to Blue Velvet in Atlanta.

It was like she looked at me about, by the time they show the ear, you know. She was like, why are you bringing me to this? And I was like, because you know what? We missed out on Smokey and the Bandit 3. You know what I mean? I'm like, we were too late. Cannonball run, we missed it.

Blockbuster. I mean, the people who remember the blockbuster days, it's a different. But that was, it was amazing because that was, you know, it was also a, you know, before you had access to everything, anything strange and anything bizarre and dark that wasn't presented in the normal world was interesting. And that was was record stores, that video store and book stores always contain things of great interest. You know? I just remember,

I don't know why of course a regeneration you think, you know, we're this cool, we can actually rent movies, our stupid parents couldn't do that. So there was always a giddy feeling I had when I left the blockbuster. And I always rented three, in case the first one or two sucked.

I was like, hey, it's just another two bucks, I can afford it. There's still someone paying off their blockbuster bikes. Right. Today they're like. Then we had to rewind it and then put it in the slot to make sure it got back. If you didn't rewind it, they took another couple bucks.

It was just crazy primitive, and we thought it was fantastic. What's crazy primitive are people, I'm sure, if you have records, like I, not only did I buy lots of books, lots of records, when the DVD thing was going, and I was like, this is my DVD collection. And I was like, that is like, you know,

they're like, it's nothing now. You know what I mean? It's just like, oh wait, here it is. You know what I mean? Like, they got me. They got me for a big, big paycheck on that. I want my receipt. Wow.

And do you have kids? I do. You do. How many, how many kids? I have two. How old are they? My son, Ryder Robinson, is 20. 20.

He's at NYU. So you can talk to him about anything. Very proud of him. You know one thing, my daughter's 14, she lives on the East Coast as well. You know one thing that I wanted to cultivate that was not available because of the nature of our world with my parents was a level of intimacy with my kids that, you know,

the world is weird and, you know, you're just little people and I love you and I'm here, but you don't have to, you know, you can tell me whatever you need to tell me, you know what I mean? And I know that that doesn't mean everything, but I know it means most things. Yeah, because I think it's the right thing to say to a kid,

especially that old, because you're always gonna be the father, so you can't unware that, which is good, because then you can say that, that you have the license to say this other thing, which is tell me anything. Because they're not gonna wanna make you feel shame to them. They want you to be,

I'm sure they wanna you feel proud of them. But you know, I mean, again, it gets back to like the way you handle like, we, does it look like a normal family? No, but we, you know. And then you have a daughter? My daughter's 14. 14, wow.

But you know, the you have a daughter my daughter's 14 14 Wow, but you know what the guy the one cool thing is like We I Writer I don't talk to every single day because he's in college But I still talked to him three or four times a week and I'm on FaceTime with my daughter maybe two times a day and Are they like woke like are they marching for Hamas and shit? No, but they're cool My daughter's especially, they don't care who you sleep with, what bathroom you wanna use. They care if you're a cool person, you know, like,

and I think as an artist, I've never been uptight about it. Well, that's, yeah, I mean. But they're generation, like, they, I mean, maybe even my daughter, Cheyenne's kids, those kids, they really don't care. They're like, whatever, you know what I mean, maybe even my daughter, Cheyenne's kids, those kids, they really don't care. They're like, whatever, you know what I mean? And I think they're probably the ones that could, at some point, it will really be the future.

We won't be the ones dragging our feet on the bumper of the spaceship, you know? To like, take us back, you know what I mean? And I get it, I love, but I've always been weird. I like old stuff, you know what I mean? I hate technology, I don't care. That's why we listen to records, you know what I mean? It's like, I read books when I write songs,

I write with a pen and a notebook. I don't do it on a computer. Some people my age have done a lot better with it than I have. I'm certainly not gonna cripple myself completely by being a Luddite like some people have. But it just doesn't come naturally to me. I'm just not native to it.

I always say it's like anything technological with me is like doing something left handed. I'm telling you, I'm dyslexic and it's always been a little bit, I have to do it by rote because. I can do it, but you know, like, my friend was showing me, he has Alexa in his house, you know, and it's like, or whatever he calls her and then like,

hey, computer, add socks to my shopping list and this is what people do. Yeah, but I mean, didn't we all see 2001? It's not gonna go good. Did we see that movie? Don't remember what happened when you talk to your computer all the time? Howl has an agenda.

I just, to me, the cost-benefit ratio of like, okay, as opposed to just writing down on a pad, socks on a list, right, or looking at my watch to know what time it is. You know, just that, okay, maybe she's a little faster, but at the price of having this bitch in my house who's spying on me and hears everything, and it's just creepy. You know what, you think you're better than me and you won't auto spell fuck when I and it's just creepy.

You know what, you think you're better than me and you won't auto spell fuck when I want it on my phone. You know what I mean? It's all over you. Don't tell me what to do. I think it's important for me, but I have to do it out of habit to write things down and cross them out.

Yeah, I think there's something actually physically, neurologically beneficial in the brain hand connection when you actually write like on a piece of paper. I think I haven't, I haven't feeling like I'm completely pulling out of my ass. Going back before our brain. But I do think- It's rudimentary, a guy with a piece of chalk in one hand.

I think it's on a cave. Yeah, well, true. They didn't go... By the way, there's a lot of other... I think about... I love that too, is, thank you, Warner Herzog, for going into the back of that cave. But the thing that because of that time goes back so far, there was lots of art. It just wasn't sacred art in a place like that.

It wasn't like that was the only art, you know? Of course. Well, I mean, I forget, I think it's, Harari makes the great point that everything from the Stone Age is not representative of the Stone Age. It's just that other... The Stones are left. The Schwartz left. It's just the stuff they did on Stone. And they keep having to change the timeline. Right.

And they find having to change the timeline. Right. I'm not sure that, you know, the great stuff was on wood, but that's gone. But it doesn't mean that they weren't doing it. No, no. I mean, art, I think we trace art back to 32,000 BC, something like that. There's some... The figure from Germany, the lady, that's where a lot of people would say like the first human figure that they found or whatever.

Not human, but the first thing that they say is sort of this departure is, it's not a creature that they would have seen in nature, it's like a human body with a lizard head or something. It's a way to know that, oh, this is when human beings were using their imagination. And relating to like, trying to make answers of the natural world around them. But that wasn't literal.

They knew literally there wasn't that. What do you think about the people who like throw paint on paintings and fucking glue their hands and shit? I'm like, that really upsets me. Well, it's so counterproductive and I did an editorial about it. Throw a rock at a gas station if you're mad. You know, in the car.

Leave the Mona Lisa out of this. Years ago and the theme of it was, look, I don't know what the answer environmentally is, but I know it doesn't work. And what doesn't work is shit like this. And counting on people to do the right thing and be good, that's not gonna work. I hate to say it, but all these individual things we do. No one's ever done that.

You think we're gonna do it today? That's my point. Humans are just, you cannot help being seduced in the near term by convenience and consumption and now India and China. And you know what else? Syphilis. It was a big, it was a big thing. Well, well, well that's twisted everyone for a long time.

You can't tell, you know, all these people in India and China who now for the first time are Getting cars and air conditioning You can't have that we used up all the environment So you have to go sorry what terrible timing on your part China? We forget that China's there's like the oldest What civil is it? You know what I mean? but they're not the ones who used all the energy. No, no, no. Because they were poor up until recently. Was the Belgians.

And I, you know, it was not the, well, yes, it was Europe. There was some Belgium. It was Europe, the United States, it was people. I mean, most of the United States, we are amazingly big consumers. We just consume and fart out a lot of shit. And from the deep south, where like every house is a morgue when you walk into it in the summertime with the air conditioning. and fart out a lot of shit. I'm from the deep south where like every house is a morgue

when you walk into it in the summertime with the air conditioning. I'm like, Jesus Christ, really? Oh, right. Yeah. Yeah. And we are not going to... I don't think we're going to win this battle by shaming people. I'm all for doing all the things we're doing,

although I do feel like a fool when I find out, like I've been separating plastics out for all these years and then you read like, yeah, 94% of it winds up in the ocean anyway. Then what the fuck am I doing? Well, my point is it's like, okay, you know what you're doing, you know what we're doing, we're trying to do our best.

Because we know that we like the ocean and we know this is a problem. But no, you know what? Hey Gavin Newsom, why don't you just say if you're gonna tell everyone what to do, take all the plastic fucking bottles away and deal with glass again or whatever. At least there's a better way to do it.

I know I'm still doing it. I know it's not that easy, but you know, and I restaurants can be more responsible I think, especially since the pandemic, when you order shit more, like, come on, guys, man, you can do better with the fucking mountains of shit that comes with your food. Amazon.

I mean, the amount, you get like a shoelace, and it comes like in this giant box, because sometimes a guy needs a shoelace. And also, like if something doesn't fit, they just send it back, all this sending your pants all over town. Where are they going? Yeah, those. It's costing.

Go to the store. Put it on your pants. We are not serious about the environment. So. People are serious about talking. They're serious about talking exactly. And like I said, I think we're trying to do our best. And I think by recognizing it is like,

no, we're plainly not doing our best and we're not gonna come close. Why have trains? Who cares, like in Europe, where people can go anywhere they want. During World War II, that generation on the home front did their best. They was rationing, they didn't complain about it.

You know that during the World War II, the auto companies stopped making cars. That's their business. They didn't make a single car, World War II, the auto companies stopped making cars. That's their business. They didn't make a single car except maybe a couple of cars for the generals to ride around in. They just completely turned over on a dime to make planes and tanks. They didn't have sugar or meat.

You had to get a ration. They were fine with it. That's doing their best. You know what else is going on? Why not that generation? The guy's brother-in-law was sleeping with his wife while he was away fighting for this. God, stop it.

Now, these are, even- No, I hear you. I thought that about in my own way. But we have to accept that that is the fact. We have to deal around that fact. We're these generations which only get worse and worse. I mean, they called our generation, fucking the me generation and these,

everybody gets softer. It's just the way of a civilization. But we're not going back to that. So what are we gonna do? It sounds to me like somebody's gonna have to fucking figure out some technological Should we have some sort of Manhattan project for Figuring out from a different angle because I just don't think people are going to conserve their way out of this

And then you get to other places where it's truly You know, you know poverty you know, poverty speaks for itself. And I'm trying to feed these kids and I'm trying to not get stabbed in the place. And I don't care where I sit this plastic rattle. You know what I mean? I don't care if I throw my shit on the road. People have much bigger immediate issues.

Real things in their lives that are, and another weird thing is, you know, and we forget because, but we're still people who are just trying to survive every day, you know what I mean? Yes, it's changed, but truly that's our function, you know what I mean? It's just to survive.

Yeah, there was an environmental friendly bill that Macron tried to pass when he was first president of France and it, you know, did not go over well with the working class French. And the great line, one guy said, yeah, Macron, he thinks about the end of the world. I think about the end of the month. I watched the, I'm flying in from New York today. I watched a horrifying documentary called Utopia about this, this pastor in South Korea who helps people defect. And it's, wow, wow.

Did they get footage from North Korea? Yeah, I mean, their footage is really spotty. They have footage more when they cross into China and they're on cell phones and they follow this family. Although they have to, no one can get out through the South because of the amount of landmines and shit. It's a smaller, of course. And they have that like, you just can't do it.

So people go through China, but if you get caught in China by the government, they send you back and then they'll kill you. And the Chinese, the people who broker the sort of defectors, they end up just wanting to take your wife or whoever they and sex traffic them or whatever. So it's really difficult and really treacherous, but they have to go through Vietnam and Laos and then get to... They're not safe till they get to Thailand. Oh, bad. It was a really intense movie.

What's the scariest country you ever played? Mississippi. I mean... intense movie. What's the scariest country you ever played? Cause like, you know the- Mississippi, I mean- Ah! Motherfuck, I'm kidding. But you know the Beatles history, right? You know they- No, I played Chile at the end of Pinochet's regime

and it was- Harry? It was weird. It was very strange and it's somebody, somewhere in our entourage, we were playing with Jimmy Page and Robert Plant and this is January 1996. And this is, and I come to find out

because the Black Crows just recently visited Santiago for the first time since then. And I met the kids in the opening band and they were really nice and they had a really cool band and the show was great. And I invited them to dress and they were really nice and they had a really cool band and the show was great. And I invited him to dress him and they're like, oh, do you realize all kids are, everyone was at that concert through the whole country.

It was the first rock music. Right. And I didn't realize that. But I have a picture like El Comedante, this guy in full, like in Banana Republic. Right. Like Regalia comes. With all the medals.

Yeah, and he comes backstage and he has like armed guys and he goes, I want to take a picture. And we started taking pictures. And then the guy holds his gun and he is acting like he's killing me. And like, I took a picture. It was funny, but it wasn't kind of funny. And then we went, we climbed on the stadium and somebody,

I've never seen this, somebody said let the crowd in. So they opened the stadium gates and kids start to come in. But whoever that guy maybe had said, wait a minute, I didn't say do that. So they tried to close those gates and we were on the top of the stadium

and they had maybe, I don't know, 10, 12 guys on horseback with these huge like canes, like really long. And they rode these horses into these kids and just started whipping them and whipping them back. And that's like one of the most violent things I've ever seen, except for when we played Moscow with ACDC and Metallica in 1991.

Wow. Wow. That was wild. That was the weirdest surreal trip. And it was like at the end of that stuff. So like, there's nothing, I don't know what was going on. You know, like we were in the middle of Red Square. This thing we've seen, it's three in the morning, our old keyboard player, Peeing in Red Square,

drunk. The Soviet Union fell in 1991. Yeah, it was right after that. Right after. So it's right after the whole thing falls. What a moment. And Yeltsin was the president? I think so.

And they, you know, the tanked the building or whatever. And we get there and the gig is like so we're on first of course I think Pantera went on first actually and then us they were on that bill somehow and It's there we went on there were 300,000 people there they say there was a million people there for There were, they say there was a million people there for ACDC and Metallica. But at one point, I don't know, they were trying to, I guess the same thing. They were just trying to, within the morass of people, they wanted to form some areas. So how did they do that? Just riot police beating people with clubs till they could, like, both sides, like, fighting,

like digging holes towards each other. And that day I got kicked. There's 600,700, there's millions of people on the other side of this fence. There's millions of people backstage, soldiers for miles and policemen. I couldn't find a bathroom. So I go all the way around to this, there's 38 semi trucks back there.

I go around to where I don't see anyone. No, you're not gonna see me, you know what I mean? I'm not peeing, I go back there, I look around, I'm not getting my stage clothes, I pee behind this truck and I look up at a guy with a rifle and on that long green Russian jacket, he starts yelling at me, Russian, I'm like, I don't know what you're saying.

And he just comes up behind me and he kicked me in the small of the back so hard. My face up against the thing, I'm like peeing still. And he like is yelling at me and holding his rifle and I pulled up my pants and I was like, I'm, you know, he let me go and he was screaming at me. I was like the word. He knows who you were.

No way. He was just some dude. And I guess he was saying you don't pee over by those trucks. Like there's 700,000 people here. Someone's gotta pee sometime. It was, that was like, all right, that was, it hurt too. And how was the show? The crowd.

I thought it was amazing. And Chili too, you liked the crowd? Oh my God. The crowd in that, it was amazing because Chili seems like a place that hasn't really rebounded or found it, you know, it seems a little, there's a melancholy or shame maybe or something that's collective.

But the show was outrageous. I mean, I didn't expect it and it was like, they were amazing audience and so joyous that you came back after 26 years or whatever and then to talk to the guys from the band and I didn't know about the cultural significance of that concert for them so that was do you know the band blood sweat and tears from the 60s do you remember that what that's there was no that they're a couple of good ones. You've made me so very happy.

Great song. Great song. Great vocal, right? You could do that one. I could find my way around that one. That would be a fun one to do for you. I didn't really see the Blood, Sweat and Tears coming in. Okay, by saying this, that was your road up to that.

No, no, no, because it connects. Because they did a documentary on them recently. No. I'm pretty sure it was them. And I think it was Rob Reiner who did it. And they went on a, it's about how their career was on the upswing and was sort of derailed because they went on a, they agreed to a goodwill

behind the Iron Curtain tour, like in 71. This is before the... Early days. This is Cold War. Brezhnev, straight up Cold War. Nixon, okay. And they went in 71. Yeah.

And they went to... Because artists did it. Count Basie did it and stuff, or Duke Ellington did stuff like that. Yes. Okay. So I think he said our first up was Yugoslavia, which, you know, Yugoslavia was behind the iron curtain, but it was not a Soviet satellite. It had its own dictator, Tito. He was independent, Yugoslavia. He also had his own freeway.

He had his own lane. They all did. That was... Elvos communists did it. That's all Elvis. Elvis would still be alive if he could have got that. So and then they said, oh, this isn't that bad. We saw kids with jeans on and stuff.

It's like, then they went to Romania and they were like, oh fuck. I see what they mean when they say the iron curtain shut behind you because like they were watched every minute, drab, dreary, like and here's the great story. The guy says, they obviously got paid to do this. And why would you do this? And there wasn't some, well, the adventure. I am the wrong one to ask all the details about this, but I think it was just like the

patriotic thing to do or whatever, whatever the gist of it was when they got home, they caught shit from both sides because of it I forget what the what why the hip the hippies hated them for like I don't know selling out or doing the government's work and the other people were like how dare you know the hippies hated them for their last and Sullivan performance They were like guys So here's the great story about how bad Romania was, how bad communism is. They're having, they're in a cafe and they suspect that the guy a few tables over is what happens in those communist countries, somebody watching them.

Foreigners are just watched constantly by, okay, so the guy's reading. He can run amok. I mean, what a couple of guys. He's telling us something. The guy is reading a newspaper could run amok. I mean, what a couple of guys. He's got something stuck. The guy is reading a newspaper on the table while he's surveying it. Wait, no, he's just sitting at the table drinking his coffee, reading the paper.

And they suspect he's watching them. And a certain way he gets up and another guy sits down. He starts drinking the same coffee and reading the same newspaper. You know, when we landed, it was cool. That was the first time I was ever on a private plane. And we were with Metallica, and we were on Paul McCartney's plane. Wow.

Yeah. But we didn't go to the main international airport. We went to like a local airport. And none of the paperwork was done for the concert. So we were like, the black, you know, we were starting out, Metallica had just put out the black album. They're like the biggest thing in the world. And we're all like on the runway.

And, but when I went in and went to the bathroom and stuff and like saw the roads and everything, I was like, oh man, you know what I mean? Like these guys, this country's a little long in the tooth, man. You know what I mean? Like, look like America now, the bridge is falling down, there's a big bunch of concrete on the road and shit, you know what I mean? But at the time, I was like, oh, what we see isn't really what this looks like.

And of course, we knew that would be the case, but to really see it for the first time as a young man was. But it is a good time to be doing it when you're young because you just you just don't get scared by it's a f**k it you know everything is you don't know enough to be scared by s**t the more you know the more you have to worry about. Yeah death lurks behind every corner. Not exactly. No I know what to say. All right, speaking of the road, I am gonna plug my dates. March 2nd at the Hobby Center for the Performing Arts. I'm sure there are no actual hobbies going on there because I'll be performing. There'll be a guy with balsa wood in the front row.

I'm gonna be like, yeah. I'm gonna be like, yeah. A big Etsy sign in the back. That's in Houston. March 3rd, my mother's birthday, Performing Arts Center in El Paso. And March 23rd at the Jackie Gleason Theater. Oh, that's one of my favorites. I did my last special there in Miami. What do you, what, like, what's your favorite city to play in America?

To play in, I mean... In America. In America. America. America. Good old America. Good old America. You know, it's hard. I like to go back to Atlanta. I think when we go back, it's exciting.

And we were really, we left there really quick. We were stomping grounds. Yeah, and it's just, and like it's cool to be, and we're, this time, we've been in two bigger places now for this next tour, this Happiness Bastards tour. We're in the Great, the great Fox Theater, which I'm sure you've played. Let me plug that one more time before I go back to my day job.

Here, look at that. I feel like I'm so professional, Happiness Bastards, but people don't bring shit here. If they did, I would plug it. I'm not like other guys. You're not like other guys. You're a pleasure. I could do it all night, but I have this other show I'm not like other guys. You're not like other guys. You're a pleasure. I could do it all night,

but I have this other show I got to fucking work on. But thank you so much for doing that. Cheers, fantastic. You know, I was so thrilled when I heard that you were coming by and that you wanted to do this. You did not let me down. Excellent. I hope I see you at the woods.

Thank you, kind sir. Anytime. You club. Random. Excellent. I hope I see you at the woods and... Thank you, kind sir. Anytime. You know, when you're not constantly working, come see the Black Crosse. I would love to see the Black Crosse. Take care of me.