transcript

Speaker 1:
[00:00] Wait, tell me this story.

Speaker 2:
[00:01] Okay, so I-

Speaker 1:
[00:02] Don't just stop there.

Speaker 2:
[00:04] I was a massive Commodores fan in Lionel, and Lionel was just leaving the Commodores at this time, right? I was a senior in high school. My best friend in high school was a year older than me, so he was in college in Atlanta at Emory. He had a roommate, and they would be playing tapes, and right, that's what you did. You'd crank up the cassette on the boombox. Well, my best friend, he had my demo tape, and they were playing it in their apartment like they were playing REO Speedwagon. It was just in the mix. And his roommate said, he's your friend from high school? He's really good. He goes, something's got to happen with this guy, right? He goes, you know, I grew up with a guy who works with the Commodores. I'm going to send him Richard's tape. So I get this call from my buddy going, it's my friend's friend who grew up with the guy, right? And I'm like, yeah, right. I don't know. Six weeks later, my parents' phone rings and it's fucking Lionel Richie.

Speaker 1:
[01:00] No way.

Speaker 2:
[01:01] At first I thought I was being pranked.

Speaker 1:
[01:09] You look very healthy.

Speaker 2:
[01:11] I don't look a day over 61.

Speaker 1:
[01:12] You don't look...

Speaker 2:
[01:13] I'm 62.

Speaker 1:
[01:14] You look 40. You look a year older than me. I'm 46. You look incredible. Is there like a wellness routine?

Speaker 2:
[01:21] I'll tell you the number one thing for me was when I turned 60, I cut out sugar.

Speaker 1:
[01:25] Sugar.

Speaker 2:
[01:26] I dropped sugar. The toxic sugar. I kicked it to the curb because I used to love... I was a big fan of baked goods. And it wasn't even a weight thing. It was just a... I went and got one of those pre-nuvo scans. You know, the pre-nuvo scans?

Speaker 1:
[01:38] I got one too.

Speaker 2:
[01:39] And when I did it, I was 60, just turning 61. And my doctor, when he read the report, he called me, he goes, dude, I don't think I've ever said this to anybody your age. He said, you have no traceable inflammation in your body because I cut out sugar a year before. I drink, I love martinis, that's the only sugar I get really, fruit and vodka.

Speaker 1:
[01:59] Well, fruit's a good sugar. I'm learning about all that now because I'm trying to get my health in order.

Speaker 2:
[02:04] Was it bad?

Speaker 1:
[02:05] No, but it wasn't as-

Speaker 2:
[02:07] Is it because you're nearing 50?

Speaker 1:
[02:09] Yeah, I'm heading that and you know, like I turned 46 and it like was like, oh, I'm now four years from 50, not five years. So now I'm like almost 50. So then I think about that, even though-

Speaker 2:
[02:22] You're not really almost 50. You're in your mid 40s.

Speaker 1:
[02:25] But to me, like to me, 50 is the new 40, 60 is the new 50. Like I feel like when I was a kid in the 90s, 50 sounded old and now it doesn't sound old. It's like we're in our prime almost, it feels like. We're, in fact, I know guys that are 70 that are killing it.

Speaker 2:
[02:42] Yeah, me too. I know a couple of guys in their 80s.

Speaker 1:
[02:45] Right. Actually, I agree. The other day, I know this guy, he was, I was hitting golf balls and I know, I roughly know this guy, but he's 80 and he's an incredible golfer and he's like in incredible shape.

Speaker 2:
[02:59] Yeah.

Speaker 1:
[02:59] And he's just living. Yeah. And when I was a kid, that sound 80 sounded really old. It's not actually now when you see people who take care of.

Speaker 2:
[03:07] Well, it depends on the person.

Speaker 1:
[03:09] If you take care of yourself.

Speaker 2:
[03:09] I know some people 45 that are old.

Speaker 1:
[03:11] Yeah.

Speaker 2:
[03:12] And I know guys in their 80s that are so youthful. Rod Stewart's a great example, like, and he's a really good example of what I've been focusing on lately, which is after a lifetime of keeping fit and wanting a certain aesthetic and wanting a certain look, which you know, you drift in and out of it. I've never been so dedicated that I look as cut as I want to all the time.

Speaker 1:
[03:31] Right. Me too.

Speaker 2:
[03:33] But when you turn 60, the last two years, I'm focused on what they call functional training, which is I'm planning for when I'm 80. When I'm 80, I want to be able to put my bag in the overhead. When I'm 80, I want to be able to carry a bag of groceries up a flight of stairs, or get up off the floor with using one hand. Do you know what I mean? It's those things, instead of like, how much can I deadlift?

Speaker 1:
[03:55] Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.

Speaker 2:
[03:56] It's like, can I do the things I do now effortlessly 20 years from now?

Speaker 1:
[04:02] Yeah, because think if we get to 80 and we have another 20, think about this, like by that time, here's what I think. I think in the next five to 10 years, there's going to be a bunch of breakthroughs. And there's going to be an expansion on how, what we think is possible, for how long we can live.

Speaker 2:
[04:18] Don't you think that AI will create a longer lifespan within the next five years?

Speaker 1:
[04:22] Yes, I do.

Speaker 2:
[04:23] And will benefit from that.

Speaker 1:
[04:24] And we're already seeing it because you're now being introduced to treatments on things and there's people. I'm seeing it in my own life with people that I know that have had illness that are getting treated for things 20 years ago that would have been pretty life changing, that are now not life changing. So when I think about the same thing, right? When we get to 80, if we have vitality for another 20 years by taking care of ourselves, lifting weights, doing things where we can actually go up the stairs, we can be active. I think there's like, it's a richer life. You know what I mean? Like to be able to have that functional. Have you always been this way? Or was there like, oh, I think that's a very...

Speaker 2:
[05:07] Oh, you mean, conscious...

Speaker 1:
[05:09] A mindful, conscious relationship with...

Speaker 2:
[05:13] Come on, when we were in our 20s and 30s, we were invincible. I was just as ignorant as I'm sure you were, and also everybody. I mean, I was mindful of appearance, because I was on stage or I was on record covers. So it was just vanity. And still, by the way, a huge part of what keeps me motivated is still vanity.

Speaker 1:
[05:37] I think that's really cool to say.

Speaker 2:
[05:40] It's true.

Speaker 1:
[05:40] Because I feel the same way, if I'm being really honest. Like I grew up in a place and a time, like my dad was not a vain person. He was like an old school, hardworking...

Speaker 2:
[05:50] My dad wasn't either.

Speaker 1:
[05:51] Rough guy who didn't care about what he wore, didn't care about... He had some swag and style, like naturally, but to be vain was a very like... And I don't know how else to say it, but like where, when we were coming up, it was a very kind of feminine quality. Like I was kind of felt it was told. I was told that was a very like he was a man and it was around men. And then I chose a very vain career. And I started going and prancing around on stage and dressing up in outfits and doing my hair and looking how I look. And then that's how I saw it actually because of what I came from. And so there was always like a... It took me years to reconcile like that actually, no, like this is a craft, it's worth the effort.

Speaker 2:
[06:39] When you are in an audience, as audience members, because a lot of people forget that we also go to shows. We're fans of people. When you go see someone who you love or have loved for a long time, and maybe you haven't seen them in a while, and they look like shit, doesn't it bum you out?

Speaker 1:
[06:56] It bums you out.

Speaker 2:
[06:57] I don't want to be like that. I don't want to be that. I don't want my audience to go, Oh, wow, he really let himself go. So it's... I mean, I can't stress this enough. I have no issue with people having plastic surgery. I haven't.

Speaker 1:
[07:12] Yeah.

Speaker 2:
[07:12] But I...

Speaker 1:
[07:13] I haven't either.

Speaker 2:
[07:13] I ain't going to say never.

Speaker 1:
[07:15] Right, right.

Speaker 2:
[07:16] A couple of guys I know who are older than me, who look amazing, have had something done. Right. And I don't have any judgment about it because they look fucking amazing. So I don't know, at a certain point, I might go, you know what, I'm going to...

Speaker 1:
[07:31] I have zero judgment on anyone doing anything. I'm fully covered in tattoos, which you could say is aesthetic. It's like a, it's a procedure. You know, it is actually a procedure.

Speaker 2:
[07:42] Yeah.

Speaker 1:
[07:43] And where...

Speaker 2:
[07:43] One of my sons is pretty heavily tattered, not quite that much, but... And that's part of his...

Speaker 1:
[07:50] It is what he likes. It's expression. And it also is like being comfortable in your own skin. For whatever reason, this made me feel more, more me.

Speaker 2:
[08:00] Yeah.

Speaker 1:
[08:00] And so that's why I have always like, I don't have any problem with, in plastic surgery. I'm like, I think it's interesting how we live in a world that'll beat a woman down on how she looks and then beat her, beat her up for changing how she looks or you're damned if you do.

Speaker 2:
[08:17] Or they beat her up for being completely natural.

Speaker 1:
[08:19] Exactly.

Speaker 2:
[08:20] You know? Yeah. Like Paulina Porchkova. I think that's how you pronounce her last name. Paulina. Everybody knows her as that. My wife showed me some posts of hers and she just looks beautiful. But I mean, she looks her age. Yeah. You know, or she looks younger than her age, but she doesn't, she's not, she hasn't done anything. And my wife said, look how great she looks. And I said, yeah, she looks great. And she goes, now read the comments.

Speaker 1:
[08:44] Yeah.

Speaker 2:
[08:44] And I said, well, the first thing is you should read the comments.

Speaker 1:
[08:46] Yeah.

Speaker 2:
[08:47] Yeah. That's a really unfair. And it's much more, it's 100% skewed against women.

Speaker 1:
[08:52] It's way harder.

Speaker 2:
[08:54] It's brutal.

Speaker 1:
[08:55] Men get away with it. We get away with everything. I just think about it that way. Cause I have a daughter and I'm like, I don't care what you do. Just like be happy.

Speaker 2:
[09:02] Yeah.

Speaker 1:
[09:03] And love yourself.

Speaker 2:
[09:04] Right. Whatever that takes.

Speaker 1:
[09:05] Whatever that takes. And your version of that, the world is mean. Don't take it personal. I know it's going to be easier said than done.

Speaker 2:
[09:13] Yeah. That's, that's the hardest thing.

Speaker 1:
[09:15] Very hard.

Speaker 2:
[09:15] It's really hard. I mean, I, have you ever thought about when we were coming up and I'm, you know, 10, 15 years, least 15 years before you guys. But can you imagine if social media existed when we were young and coming up? I don't know how badly it would have fucked with my head, but it would have been bad.

Speaker 1:
[09:31] It would have been really bad. That's the thing we have to give our kids a lot of credit because I think we had 20 years to adjust.

Speaker 2:
[09:41] Yeah.

Speaker 1:
[09:41] So we, we kind of grew up in it and you know, we were in our careers working while it was developing.

Speaker 2:
[09:48] How old were you guys when you put out like the first Good Charlotte record?

Speaker 1:
[09:51] It was 2020. No, I mean, it was 2000. So it was 25 to your kids six years ago. Yeah. So I was 20.

Speaker 2:
[09:59] Yeah. I was 23.

Speaker 1:
[10:01] So yeah, exactly. So, which is still like, like now when I look back on it, 20, I was, I was still so immature because of, I think one, the house I grew up in was very religious. So we weren't allowed to experience anything. And then when we left home, we left in a very kind of, we ran away kind of because you escaped, escaped. Yes. And then we went into the world, which we weren't allowed to learn about or know about. And we discovered everything kind of the hard way, cause we had no information.

Speaker 2:
[10:33] Yeah.

Speaker 1:
[10:34] And then I think about, we were probably like 16 until we were 27. Probably took me that long to like, would you say, it's a personal question. Yeah. I love personal questions.

Speaker 2:
[10:46] Would you say that your religious upbringing, which I'm assuming because of the way you phrased it, was pretty, not severe, but strict?

Speaker 1:
[10:55] Yes.

Speaker 2:
[10:55] It was severe. Intentional?

Speaker 1:
[10:57] Yeah. It was traumatic.

Speaker 2:
[10:58] Would you say that that helped you in life going out or hindered you?

Speaker 1:
[11:03] Oh, that's a really good question. And as you know, I think probably it's complicated.

Speaker 2:
[11:07] Yeah. If you had to skew one way or the other.

Speaker 1:
[11:11] I would say it hurt me more in the functionality of like knowing how the world works. It's a causality to life that is like anyone listening. Because I listen, a lot of the people that listen to the show are figuring out just kind of, they want to optimize, they want to grow, they want to figure out how to succeed in life overall. And I think it's like this like positive thing we do. We sit around and talk about how we did what we do. People are listening, they admire you. You're a legend, right? So they go, well, that's cool. And then they get to hear the person and the philosophy behind how they approach life and their stance and their worldview. And I think that helps inform them whether they realize it or not. And like having a bit more of a self love, positive, optimistic look overall. Like how can I go forward and go up? And then how does the world work? And that's the thing with religion. What happens is there's this really good set of principles, values, these good ideas, you know, that are, I do still hold really dear, but there's this magic element of like, if I pray hard enough, it'll happen. So that's one part of wanting anything is thinking about it, wishing for it, praying for it. The other side of it is actually going forward and taking action towards any goal.

Speaker 2:
[12:34] Well, a lot of people forget that step.

Speaker 1:
[12:36] Yeah.

Speaker 2:
[12:37] You know, it's the same thing with manifestation, which is a huge part of my life.

Speaker 1:
[12:42] Yeah.

Speaker 2:
[12:42] And it's something that I've been doing my whole life that I did unconsciously. And then in the last, I'd say, 10 years, I started to really zero in on that. And that's just, for lack of a better word, it's intention. There's this amazing book that's sort of my Bible called As a Man Thinketh.

Speaker 1:
[12:57] Oh, I love that.

Speaker 2:
[12:58] Yeah, James Allen. When I read that book, everything started to make sense to me in my life. And that all the amazing things that happened to me, especially interactions with other human beings, I hold into my path. And the things that were bad that happened to me are negative for the most part. I somehow thought... It's like, I think it was Henry Ford whose quote was, whether you think you can or you think you can't, you're correct. Well, okay, so what I've been doing the last ten years since I really came into that is with the people closest to me, particularly my sons, I have three sons. Wow. Is I constantly remind them that it's all about how you think and what you think. Your thoughts dictate your path.

Speaker 1:
[13:41] Absolutely.

Speaker 2:
[13:42] And there's no two ways about it.

Speaker 1:
[13:44] Some people are just such instinctive wild animals, they are not even conscious, they just believe, they think and they believe and they go forward. And then there's no question, you know, those is something like an athlete who just goes towards the goal and it's just their natural inclination. Now, some people like artists, I'd say, a lot of us are heady, neurotic, kind of thoughty. We think a lot, because what are we doing? We're imagining the things and then we make them. And so we can fall into negative thought loops in those processes that get in the way of that.

Speaker 2:
[14:19] But not to interrupt you, but you referenced athletes. In my opinion, this is a great example. Michael Jordan clearly early on in his life decided he was gonna be the greatest. He decided he was gonna outwork everyone, outperform. He was going to be the best. It's not enough to just think that. If you go back and trace his history, who was in the gym the longest? Who practiced the most? Who did all the extra work so that he could fulfill that prophecy? So it's a two-part, you can't just think it. You have to act on it. You have to make the moves or else you're just, you know, and that's where prayer as on its own for me falls flat, where it's like, I don't, I think if it works for you and it makes you feel good, I'm all for it. For me personally, that's just not, and it's somebody who did pray, you know, I'd say the first 35 years of my life, I had a connection and I felt something that I, one day it vanished and it was replaced by what I believe now and what works for me now.

Speaker 1:
[15:32] But it maybe it was an evolution.

Speaker 2:
[15:33] Yeah. I think if you think the same things and go about things the same way your whole life, You missed the point. You missed the point. Like change is inevitable, but also change is good. I love having my mind change, don't you?

Speaker 1:
[15:47] I love to be enlightened on something by someone.

Speaker 2:
[15:51] I love to be wrong sometimes. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Especially when it benefits me. Because being wrong doesn't mean that it's bad. It just means you were incorrect. Everybody's capable of that and regularly. When I'm proved wrong about something or if I go, wow, man, I got that so ass backwards, thank goodness I know that now because that's going to help me going forward. That's a good thing.

Speaker 1:
[16:14] Yeah, I feel the same exact way. That's interesting because I remember my mom used to say, stand for nothing and fall for anything. And she was saying that about religion. That's a good idea. That's a misguided kind of, if you apply it to the wrong place. Everyone needs a value system. Yes, but your values can be different than mine. Yeah. If you value this and I value that, I do think that whatever your values are, you should take the time to establish them in yourself. If you're too constricted, which I can be sometimes, actually, I am very sensitive to hurting people's feelings. I really feel...

Speaker 2:
[16:58] You're an empath.

Speaker 1:
[16:59] I do. I don't want anyone to feel bad about how they feel. Even if I don't agree with it, I really don't. Like, I know that sounds crazy. And I think...

Speaker 2:
[17:07] It's admirable.

Speaker 1:
[17:08] The personality of this show is like a positive regard.

Speaker 2:
[17:12] Yeah.

Speaker 1:
[17:13] At all costs, kind of, which sounds really...

Speaker 2:
[17:16] But have you ever, at least in this format, sat across from somebody who you know you are diametrically opposed to on almost every level?

Speaker 1:
[17:24] So, that's interesting. No. Which would be interesting. I don't know if I'd do it though, because...

Speaker 2:
[17:30] Right. Why?

Speaker 1:
[17:31] There's a few people I feel that way. There's only a few people in the world that I feel, and I almost feel like if I met them, they might change my mind. I might understand a little bit more.

Speaker 2:
[17:41] Well, that would be good.

Speaker 1:
[17:42] Maybe.

Speaker 2:
[17:43] But there are also people who you know and I know, who I just know enough about their views on certain things that I go, I don't want to sit at a table with you.

Speaker 1:
[17:53] No, yeah.

Speaker 2:
[17:54] You can feel that way.

Speaker 1:
[17:55] I pass all the... But you get to an age...

Speaker 2:
[17:58] That's the exact kind of energy I want nowhere near me.

Speaker 1:
[18:02] But don't you feel like you get to an age where you can just pass and you don't even think about it? You're like, I'm not going that. Oh, God.

Speaker 2:
[18:07] My favorite word is no.

Speaker 1:
[18:09] Yeah, you're like...

Speaker 2:
[18:09] Well, actually, my favorite two words are no, thank you. No, thanks.

Speaker 1:
[18:12] Yeah, you're like, yeah, I'm not going to that. That just sounds like I'll feel terrible with being there.

Speaker 2:
[18:17] Well, the best criteria, the way to do it, and it took me 60 years to figure this out, is when somebody asks you if you want to do something, pretend you have to do it that day. Think about what your brain tells you. And if your brain is like, oh, fuck, then say no.

Speaker 1:
[18:31] Yeah, it's simple.

Speaker 2:
[18:33] And it's... I've been practicing this now for a year and a half, more than ever in my life, where day in and day out, I get an email or I get a text or I get a phone, and I go, no, thank you. Thank you so much, but I'm going to pass. Or as my wife's sarcastic reply is, oh my God, I totally would, but I don't want to. And that's the other thing.

Speaker 1:
[18:54] I wish I could.

Speaker 2:
[18:55] There are certain things we have to do, right?

Speaker 1:
[18:57] Yeah.

Speaker 2:
[18:58] We have to do. But if you get to a certain point in your life, if you're lucky enough to get to a point where you don't have to rely on doing things you don't want to do, then don't do them. Don't do them. And it feels cold to say this, but sometimes the things that you don't want to do, you do because you don't want somebody to feel bad or you know that they would really like you to do this or be there or whatever. Then you have to do, for me I do sort of a, I take stock of that dynamic and go, I'm not gonna go, I'm not putting myself through that for that. I'm just not. And it's not like, I'm not going, it's not that, it's like, thank you so much but I pass or I have this other thing or whatever. And dude, saying no is so fun. I love saying no.

Speaker 1:
[19:50] It feels good.

Speaker 2:
[19:51] And that's why the yeses become really special.

Speaker 1:
[19:54] And the no can feel.

Speaker 2:
[19:55] Like this for example.

Speaker 1:
[19:57] I was about to say, well, you come and do this.

Speaker 2:
[20:00] You have no idea how many no's. And I'm sure most people that sit in the chair opposite you, they don't do a bunch of stuff. They don't. But you look, you know, you do your due diligence.

Speaker 1:
[20:12] Yeah, you dive in and you say, what is this?

Speaker 2:
[20:15] That looks like time well spent. And I was right, so far.

Speaker 1:
[20:19] Well, I would say that, first of all, I can see why you're so close to your sons.

Speaker 2:
[20:27] Well, they're just such smart asses. They're so much fun to talk to.

Speaker 1:
[20:30] Yeah.

Speaker 2:
[20:31] The sarc, it's just a sarcasm extravaganza.

Speaker 1:
[20:36] But also you're easy.

Speaker 2:
[20:37] It's sarcasm palooza.

Speaker 1:
[20:39] But don't you think that your success and your experience, right? Because I know that when I say your success, right? When I say a legendary career, legendary songs, things like that, those are moments divided by all these other moments of rejection and failure and work and hardship and haters.

Speaker 2:
[20:57] Right.

Speaker 1:
[20:57] And going through the whole spectrum and the pendulum of a career, which is highs and lows. And only someone who's been, I'd say, in a career long enough, let's say five, seven, 10, 15 years, you start to put years behind you and you start to realize like, oh, a career, I can only call it a career because it's behind me. And I've put these years together and I stayed in it. I didn't quit. I didn't kill myself.

Speaker 2:
[21:22] Right.

Speaker 1:
[21:22] And so you have an accomplished career that you can hold, I think, because of the time and the experience you have. But then when I sit with you, I can still sit with a person who it doesn't feel like brought that whole career in the room with them. And there's space for two people that talk and hear each other. I just think it's interesting when I meet.

Speaker 2:
[21:49] That's a lovely compliment, man. Thank you. Very sweet of you to say.

Speaker 1:
[21:52] The one thing I'll say is when we first saw each other out there, and I did not think you would remember meeting.

Speaker 2:
[21:57] And you said, security, who is this guy? Yeah.

Speaker 1:
[21:59] Like what is this guy doing here? I didn't think you would remember meeting me. So I took the liberty of saying, nice to meet you.

Speaker 2:
[22:07] Oh. And I was like, dude, we met in...

Speaker 1:
[22:10] And you were like, we met in Amsterdam or Germany, wherever we were. And it was at the very beginning of my career. It was a...

Speaker 2:
[22:15] Weren't we on some radio?

Speaker 1:
[22:17] We were on a show together.

Speaker 2:
[22:19] A TV show or something? Yeah.

Speaker 1:
[22:20] And you were one of the first like legends I'd met. Someone with like these, this big career, big songs, legendary guy. And so it was like a big deal for us. We were like...

Speaker 2:
[22:30] You guys were so cool.

Speaker 1:
[22:31] We were so young.

Speaker 2:
[22:32] I remember feeling like, I think we wanted to go hang out.

Speaker 1:
[22:36] Yeah.

Speaker 2:
[22:36] We couldn't.

Speaker 1:
[22:36] Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. We were on like some radio tour, press tour. You know how those things go. So I always remember it.

Speaker 2:
[22:43] I remember it too.

Speaker 1:
[22:44] And I did not think you would remember it. And that's like an interesting thing. Why would I think... But in my mind, I'm like, ah, he's a legend. He wouldn't remember. But that was the first thing you said to me. It's like, well, no, we met back. And I was like, I did not think you would remember that. Yeah.

Speaker 2:
[23:00] Well, plus, you know, the things that we have in common are kind of crazy, too. Not crazy, but they're good coincidences.

Speaker 1:
[23:06] Yeah.

Speaker 2:
[23:06] You know, the two degrees of Lionel. Yep. You know that, right? You know that back story. And that we're both, I'm a coach on The Voice Australia.

Speaker 1:
[23:15] Yep.

Speaker 2:
[23:15] And you were.

Speaker 1:
[23:16] Yep.

Speaker 2:
[23:17] I mean, that's kind of.

Speaker 1:
[23:19] That's interesting.

Speaker 2:
[23:20] Interesting that we have that in common. I'm sure there's plenty of other things. I forgot. Incredibly handsome.

Speaker 1:
[23:24] We're both good looking. We both care about our health. Yeah.

Speaker 2:
[23:28] We both love being dads.

Speaker 1:
[23:29] We both love being dads.

Speaker 2:
[23:30] Even though it's a selfish act.

Speaker 1:
[23:32] We're very, I feel like we're very, we're feminists.

Speaker 2:
[23:35] Yeah, totally.

Speaker 1:
[23:35] I feel like we're big feminists.

Speaker 2:
[23:36] Well, the most influential people in my life have been women.

Speaker 1:
[23:40] Mine too. Every guardian angel I've had has been good women.

Speaker 2:
[23:45] Particularly the woman I'm married to now.

Speaker 1:
[23:47] Same, which is Lionel's daughter.

Speaker 2:
[23:50] She is, my Daisy is, I mean, I could do two hours on what she represents to me other than my wife, my lover, my confidant, my best friend.

Speaker 1:
[24:04] How long have you guys been married?

Speaker 2:
[24:05] We just celebrated 10 years, 10 days ago.

Speaker 1:
[24:09] That's great.

Speaker 2:
[24:10] And this is my second time around, her second time around. I think the fact that we met later was a big contributor. You know, there's trade-offs. There are things that we realize, like we don't, we won't have as much time as we would have if we'd met back then, but we might not have survived. There are things that we, you know, we didn't have kids, we didn't have that thing, but it's, the glass is so half, more than half full on this one, but more to the point, she, my mother, there were women who were just the best teachers for me, and the people I admired, and I admire my wife's tenacity, vision, curiosity, she's the most curious person I've ever met. That's so sexy.

Speaker 1:
[24:56] Yeah, it's cool. Yeah, my wife is, I would say the same thing. Everyone knows her as one thing, which is, it's always weird to talk about her, because I feel like people have, there was a top line or a narrative that she couldn't really control, that people could run away with back in the day when that was like really like, there was no Instagram where you could go on and go, that's not true, I did that, whatever. And she's always been so dignified to not try and sell anything to anyone.

Speaker 2:
[25:28] Isn't it great that we speak about our wives like this?

Speaker 1:
[25:30] Yeah, but that's how you should, right?

Speaker 2:
[25:31] We also both seriously outkicked our coverage.

Speaker 1:
[25:34] I punched above my weight because I don't know if I had as much integrity when I met her as I do now because of her.

Speaker 2:
[25:40] Oh, what a great thing.

Speaker 1:
[25:42] Do you know what I mean?

Speaker 2:
[25:42] Are you watching this, Nicole?

Speaker 1:
[25:43] Because I hope so.

Speaker 2:
[25:45] Somebody's getting lucky later.

Speaker 1:
[25:47] Yeah, defy lucky. I think I like to think I did or I had the potential.

Speaker 2:
[25:55] Well, you obviously had the potential or an aspect of it or an amount of it, but the same with me. I've become a much better person.

Speaker 1:
[26:04] Better person. That's what happens. They give you that cliche.

Speaker 2:
[26:07] You know, you make me a better man. Yeah, it is your better half.

Speaker 1:
[26:10] All that shit. And she doesn't feel the need to prove it. So that's the thing is I kind of need to sell things. I'll be on here talking about it or I'll be there. Like I kind of go a little over the top sometimes and like telling everyone how great she is. And because that's my wife and I'm proud of her and I believe in her. And sometimes I feel like it's been an unfair narrative. And back in the 2000s, they were awful. The women, there was all this like, if you, if you Wikipedia her and you read, you're reading the narrative that they wrote back then that no one ever went and said, Hey, that was wrong. And actually she could have fucking sued you. And in today's world, she, if she sued you, she'd probably win.

Speaker 2:
[26:49] Right.

Speaker 1:
[26:49] But back then everyone got away with more and you could say whatever you want. And there's no rules and everyone was running wild because it was the time when it all took form to now it's evolved to where it is now where it's more like this independent people can get two sides of a story, all these things. But what I, what I, she doesn't care about any of it.

Speaker 2:
[27:11] But maybe her reluctance, even back then to fight it or to be counter punching is what contributed to the elegance that you're talking about now.

Speaker 1:
[27:21] Which is, elegance is a great word. She's very elegant.

Speaker 2:
[27:25] Yeah, I feel the same way about Daisy.

Speaker 1:
[27:26] And in turn, it makes me more elegant, which I don't know if I am, but in relationship to her, I am. It's kind of just natural. It just happens. When I think about my wife, I think about how I shudder to think if I hadn't met her.

Speaker 2:
[27:40] Yeah, me too.

Speaker 1:
[27:41] Everything that we've done together, which is just build a life. It's not just the kids or the businesses or anything we're doing. It's everything. It's just us showing up every day, trying our best and working together and figuring things out.

Speaker 2:
[27:55] I have never thought about this until the second. I think that in terms of our wives making us better men, in terms of character alone, right? There's a similar thing. I was a really good kid growing up. I really caused my parents very little trouble.

Speaker 1:
[28:12] So was I.

Speaker 2:
[28:13] Like really. And I was free to express myself.

Speaker 1:
[28:17] Where did you grow up?

Speaker 2:
[28:18] Chicago.

Speaker 1:
[28:18] Oh, wow. There's a lot of trouble you could find in Chicago.

Speaker 2:
[28:21] There's a lot.

Speaker 1:
[28:21] Yeah.

Speaker 2:
[28:23] My dad was a great musician, composer, jingle writer. My mom was a singer. She sang on the commercials. So there was it was a musical family. But my parents were pretty progressive and very about like I from the time I was a kid, I remember hearing my parents talk about civil rights and women's rights and gay rights and all that, like this inclusive, humane philosophy. And so I was always allowed to express myself up to a point. And then I had to be respectful that I didn't I didn't have free reign or any of that, you know, but my parents, the way they raised me and because of the kind of people I knew they were, I think what helped define my character was that I never wanted to disappoint them in me. I never wanted them to go. Oh, like they could be pissed off at me, but don't be disappointed in me. And that's how I feel about my wife.

Speaker 1:
[29:18] That's how I feel about my wife and my kids.

Speaker 2:
[29:20] And my kids too. I just would, I clock myself sometimes going, oh, this would disappoint the people I love the most. And I, because I respect their opinions so much that I would never do something instinctively. I just won't do something that I know that they would frown upon.

Speaker 1:
[29:37] That's something like, to me, that's something like God. That's something like religion.

Speaker 2:
[29:43] Yeah, that's a version of that. Yeah, I agree.

Speaker 1:
[29:45] It's a standard that you hold yourself to because there's a higher purpose. It's not about money. It's not about, yeah. It's like about something else. And it's a feeling you couldn't bear to live with. And I think at the same time, the only way I got there was because she was gracious and forgiving. And when we were younger, I was still growing, learning, figuring it out. It takes a long time and a lot of experience of being around people who are entertained for a living to get comfortable with separating the famed person from the real person and then actually interacting with them with no judgment of that. It's one thing I love about my wife. She can separate. She doesn't care what company someone owns or what movie they were in or what. It doesn't matter what kind of success they had. It does not factor in. She's like, that guy's cool or that person's not.

Speaker 2:
[30:46] I guess my perspective over the years has been, and I'll tell you why. It's a great story, actually. 1986, I'm making my first album in LA and I've been influenced over the years by a lot of people, but when I finally got a record deal and I was making my first album, it happened to be the year that Peter Gabriel put out, so.

Speaker 1:
[31:05] I love Peter Gabriel.

Speaker 2:
[31:06] And so along with Earth, Wind and Fires, I am, or my two favorite albums of all time. And I was so obsessed with the Peter Gabriel, and I was a huge Peter Gabriel fan before that, but then when So came out, I remember standing in line at a record store on Melrose that's long gone and waiting in line the day the album came out, because you were afraid that it was going to get sold out, right? And I bought the CD and I took it home and I couldn't wait and I had headphones and the first track came on, Red Rain, and at the end of Red Rain, I was sobbing. I was crying my eyes out because it was so, I thought it was just the most magnificent thing I'd ever heard in my life. I was so happy that he delivered, you know?

Speaker 1:
[31:48] Yeah, yeah, I remember that feeling.

Speaker 2:
[31:50] And his voice, so I was obsessed with Peter Gabriel. Four months later, I'm in the studio off and on. I'm having lunch at a restaurant and Peter Gabriel walked in with a group of like five people. And my first thought was, I'm in the same room as Peter Gabriel. And I was with my ex-wife and she said, you gotta go say hi. And I was like, are you crazy? Say hi, like what, there's no way. She said, no, no, no, you're gonna really regret it. You should, you gotta say, you gotta talk to him. I was like, what am I gonna say to like, and I was like, no, no, no. And she just kept peer pressuring me. And I don't know how I got up and I was shaking and I didn't want to interrupt. So I just sort of lurked there for a second. And then I saw a lull in the conversation and I stepped forward and he turned and looked at me. And I said, Mr. Gabriel, I don't want to interrupt. I'm so sorry. I just, and I didn't know what I was going to say. And I said, I just, I needed to thank you for making music. And he got up from the table. And he was, what a lovely thing to say, man. What's your name? Are you a musician? I said, yeah, I'm making my first time. And he was so lovely. And when I walked away, the way I felt is how I want people to feel when they walk away from me.

Speaker 1:
[33:05] That's a great mantra for everything. Do unto others.

Speaker 2:
[33:10] You and I know the road is, can be a blast, but the road is really hard. It is. And especially sometimes you don't know what's going on in somebody's day or life. Right. There have been many times when I'm going, I've gone through, been at like my lowest low and I'll be in a restaurant or I'll be in an elevator or and somebody comes, if they come up to me, because of that Peter Gabriel interaction, this thing clicks in me.

Speaker 1:
[33:37] It clicks in you.

Speaker 2:
[33:38] And I immediately shift into, the minute I connect eyes with them, I think I want them to walk away feeling the way I felt that day.

Speaker 1:
[33:46] Well, it's interesting because if Peter Gabriel heard this, I would say it's something that we all have to remember is that we're helping shape, grow and form the...

Speaker 2:
[33:58] The way that impacted me, if I impacted somebody in their life...

Speaker 1:
[34:02] But you have.

Speaker 2:
[34:03] Yeah. Well, we have with our music for sure. Or with a performance or... But to personally interact with a stranger who you'll probably never see again.

Speaker 1:
[34:12] Yeah.

Speaker 2:
[34:13] But if there's something in that encounter, even if it's as simple as they walk away and they go, I'm so glad I went up to him.

Speaker 1:
[34:20] Well, that's all you want someone to say is, man, I'm so glad I met that guy.

Speaker 2:
[34:23] Yeah.

Speaker 1:
[34:24] Across everyone, your friends, your family.

Speaker 2:
[34:26] Which is like, I met the him and he's a total dick. I've got a few, I got plenty of those.

Speaker 1:
[34:31] I would say that I have the same, generally the same philosophy. I think that if you walked up and met me, I'm a pretty nice guy. I think I'm probably more-

Speaker 2:
[34:42] A pretty nice guy who goes, what the fuck are you looking at?

Speaker 1:
[34:44] Well, I think, I think, and early on, I felt threatened, you know? Yeah.

Speaker 2:
[34:51] Also, when we're young, there's no handbook for this.

Speaker 1:
[34:53] No.

Speaker 2:
[34:54] There's no tutorial.

Speaker 1:
[34:55] No.

Speaker 2:
[34:56] On how to deal with fame, which happens overnight.

Speaker 1:
[34:59] And I had a low self-esteem.

Speaker 2:
[35:00] Okay. Well, there you go. So you were-

Speaker 1:
[35:01] I didn't feel good about myself.

Speaker 2:
[35:02] It was all kinds of other stuff. You were projecting other shit.

Speaker 1:
[35:04] Yeah, yeah. But I was always pretty nice. I wanted people to like me. And I think at this stage of my life, I kind of meet people where they're at.

Speaker 2:
[35:12] Yeah.

Speaker 1:
[35:12] So if someone only see, if someone sees me and they're like, you're the guy from Good Charlotte, and I love your music, I meet them there and I'm happy.

Speaker 2:
[35:20] Yeah. Oh, don't get me wrong. I can be a total dick. Yeah. Given the right circumstances, I'm no wallflower.

Speaker 1:
[35:26] Right.

Speaker 2:
[35:26] If you fuck with me, it's gonna be bad for you.

Speaker 1:
[35:30] Oh, you're smart.

Speaker 2:
[35:31] Well, but my point is in that very specific way, when there is no, there's nothing prior. It's just an initial encounter with someone who comes up to me because they like what I do, or even just because they recognize me. You know, they might even be fans, but they're like, oh, I think that's Richard Marx. I'm gonna go say hi. In those circumstances, I have a sort of mantra.

Speaker 1:
[35:53] I feel the same way.

Speaker 2:
[35:56] And I do think that having that philosophy about strangers does feed into the fact that I think that like, I'm sure you, our default position is nice. Our default position is polite, respectful.

Speaker 1:
[36:08] Polite. I think manners, good manners. You know, like please and thank you.

Speaker 2:
[36:13] Yeah.

Speaker 1:
[36:13] And just like...

Speaker 2:
[36:14] My sons to this day in their 30s, especially if it's an older person, they say ma'am and sir.

Speaker 1:
[36:21] Yes, sir. Yes, ma'am.

Speaker 2:
[36:22] Yes, ma'am. Yes, sir.

Speaker 1:
[36:23] I tell that to my kids as long as they've ever heard me. If they'll be things that they say, my dad always said that type of shit.

Speaker 2:
[36:31] Yeah.

Speaker 1:
[36:32] One of them will be that manners are the thing that got me everywhere in life. Good manners.

Speaker 2:
[36:37] Yeah.

Speaker 1:
[36:38] Just having good manners.

Speaker 2:
[36:39] Yeah. And those kind of...

Speaker 1:
[36:40] Please, thank you.

Speaker 2:
[36:40] Those old fashioned statements. Do you ever hear George Collins about his grandfather?

Speaker 1:
[36:45] No.

Speaker 2:
[36:46] George Collins said, you know, my grandfather used to say something to me. He used to say, I'm going to go upstairs and fuck your grandmother. See, got a good laughter.

Speaker 1:
[37:03] That's funny.

Speaker 2:
[37:04] Not me, George Carlin said that. Boy, that's your ground to a halt, this conversation.

Speaker 1:
[37:10] Well, there's a lot of weight in that statement. What would you say is, when you say the low point, what would you say the lowest point of your career was?

Speaker 2:
[37:22] Was one of my career?

Speaker 1:
[37:24] Yeah, let's say career in life, if they're intertwined, because they feel like if I'm not doing well in life, in my personal life, in my life where if things aren't going well with something really consequential, like my relationship or if it was my kids or if it was my health or if it was something like that, I could not enjoy my career. It wouldn't matter what I'm doing.

Speaker 2:
[37:49] I think those are two very different things. Let me answer the professional question first. The two lowest points that come to mind.

Speaker 1:
[37:56] Does anything stand out?

Speaker 2:
[37:57] Yeah. When I was, I guess, 20, 19, I'd been out here thanks to Lionel. Lionel was the reason I moved out to LA. Lionel Richie heard my demo tape of my first four songs when I was a senior in high school. It's a miraculous, crazy story of how he even got the cassette tape.

Speaker 1:
[38:17] Wait, tell me this story.

Speaker 2:
[38:19] Okay, so I was a massive Commodores fan and Lionel was just leaving the Commodores at this time, right? I was a senior in high school. My best friend in high school was a year older than me, so he was in college in Atlanta at Emory. He had a roommate and they would be playing tapes, right? That's what you did. You'd crank up the cassette on the boombox. Well, my best friend, he had my demo tape, and they were playing it in their apartment like they were playing REO Speedwagon. It was just in the mix. His roommate said, he's your friend from high school, he's really good. He goes, something's got to happen with this guy, right? He goes, I grew up with a guy who works with the Commodores. I'm going to send him Richard's tape. I get this call from my buddy going, it's my friend's friend who grew up with the guy, right? And I'm like, yeah, right. I don't know. Six weeks later, my parents' phone rings and it's fucking Lionel Richie.

Speaker 1:
[39:17] No way.

Speaker 2:
[39:18] At first I thought I was being pranked. But then when he started talking, I was such a fan. I knew his speaking voice from watching him in interviews and stuff and I was like, oh my God, it's really Lionel Richie.

Speaker 1:
[39:28] It's really him. His voice is unmistakable.

Speaker 2:
[39:31] And he said, doctor, you know what I hate, right? Doctor, you know, I get a lot of tapes and man, I just wanted to tell you, I think you're really talented and what's your plan? He talked to me for like 20 minutes. Wow. And at the end of that conversation, he said, look, I can't help you. I don't, you know, I'm just, I'm about to make my first solo record, but I don't think you can make it from Chicago. You got to come to LA. And if you do look me up and he gave me his number and I graduated a few months later.

Speaker 1:
[40:00] You were in high school.

Speaker 2:
[40:00] I was in high school.

Speaker 1:
[40:01] Holy shit, dude.

Speaker 2:
[40:02] And I, I had applied to Northwestern to, to this music program at Northwestern and I bailed. And with my parents blessing, as soon as I graduated at 18, I packed my bags and I got an apartment in LA. My dad flew me out to kind of help me get set up.

Speaker 1:
[40:19] Yeah.

Speaker 2:
[40:20] I called Lionel. He said, I'm in the studio. It was then A&M now it's Henson. He said, come on, you should come down to the studio tomorrow. My dad and I come in. Of course, he's as gracious as he can be, Lionel. We're sitting on the couch in the control room and they're working on background vocals for the song You Are. And Lionel...

Speaker 1:
[40:38] That's crazy, dude. That's gonna change my life.

Speaker 2:
[40:40] And these other two background singers who he worked with all the time. I still remember James Cochran and Debbie Thomas. And I'm sitting there and I could see that they had been working on this song's background vocals for two days in a row. And my dad and I looked at each other, coming from the jingle business, my dad was like, this shit had to be done in 10 minutes. But we're watching and it's a blend issue. And Lionel's out there singing and he's frustrated. And they're not getting the... And all of a sudden I can see he's frustrated and Lionel looks through the glass. And he goes like this, he points to me, he goes, come out here. And I literally did one of these like, like look behind me kind of thing. And I go out and he goes, you've been listening to what we're doing? I said, yeah. And he goes, here, here's the headphones. You sing my part. And Debbie, you sing. And he went in the control room. And they counted it off. And we, you are the sun, you are the rain. We did the first pass and Lionel hit the talkback. And he goes, that's the sound. And I did all the choruses. And then he said, we got another song. Put that other song up, Richard, sing. And then he said to me that day, and this is the most important thing. He said, come back next week. I can use you next week because we're cutting another track. I think you'd be great on this other song. I ended up singing like four songs on that first solo record. But what he said to me, Joel, was...

Speaker 1:
[42:00] Did they keep your vocals?

Speaker 2:
[42:01] Oh yeah.

Speaker 1:
[42:01] Are you fucking kidding me?

Speaker 2:
[42:02] I'm on that record.

Speaker 1:
[42:03] Are you on You Are?

Speaker 2:
[42:04] Dude, wait, just wait.

Speaker 1:
[42:05] I knew we were soulmates.

Speaker 2:
[42:07] No, no, just wait. All night long, all night. That's me.

Speaker 1:
[42:12] Yo.

Speaker 2:
[42:13] All night.

Speaker 1:
[42:14] I did not know this.

Speaker 2:
[42:15] Running with the night. I didn't know this.

Speaker 1:
[42:17] I thought that, I just thought that Lionel discovered your music and-

Speaker 2:
[42:21] Dude, he gave me my first job.

Speaker 1:
[42:23] Holy shit.

Speaker 2:
[42:24] But the first, what he said to me that day, and this is so powerful, you'll really understand this. As we were leaving the studio, and I'm so grateful that my dad was sitting there when that happened, he was so, he was beaming.

Speaker 1:
[42:34] Yeah.

Speaker 2:
[42:35] Lionel said to me, I don't know how much work I have for you on this. You know, I'm gonna, I'll probably bring you in on a couple of things, you know, just sing some background vocals. But he said, just know that if I'm in this room, meaning the studio, you're welcome to be in this room. And I said, what do you mean? He said, like, if you wanna be here, you can be here. And I, and I was there every day.

Speaker 1:
[42:56] Of course you were.

Speaker 2:
[42:57] That was college.

Speaker 1:
[42:58] That's college.

Speaker 2:
[42:59] If he was doing a horn part, a horn section overdub, I was there.

Speaker 1:
[43:03] That's right.

Speaker 2:
[43:04] He was cutting basic tracks. I was there. I went to fucking hit record production school with Lionel Richie and James Carmichael, his co-producer. I watched them record Truly. Wow. I watched them record My Love and Kenny Rogers coming in and singing, Just thinking about you baby.

Speaker 1:
[43:23] That's crazy.

Speaker 2:
[43:24] Then through Lionel, I now know Kenny Rogers, and Lionel recommended me to Kenny. Kenny hires me to sing background vocals on a record, and I was booked for two days. At the end of the first session, I overheard Kenny mentioned to the producer that they still were looking for a song. He described it. I went home to my apartment, and I wrote a song, and I came in the next day, and I did exactly the thing that would usually get you fired as the background singer, which is, I've got a song.

Speaker 1:
[43:52] Yeah.

Speaker 2:
[43:52] And Kenny Rogers, instead of kicking me out, took me to a piano and made me play it. Number one country song. Crazy. I wrote three songs on that Kenny Rogers record, all tracing back to who? Lionel Richie. So cut to, I met Nicole, by the way, when she was that tall.

Speaker 1:
[44:09] Yeah, that would have been the time.

Speaker 2:
[44:11] Six, seven years ago, I had this incredible invitation. Barbra Streisand asked me to come and play with her at Hyde Park.

Speaker 1:
[44:20] Legendary.

Speaker 2:
[44:22] She was on the main stage, I was on the B stage. Still, I got to play for 20,000 people or something like that. She played for 75,000 people or something like that. And...

Speaker 1:
[44:30] All big.

Speaker 2:
[44:31] Yeah.

Speaker 1:
[44:31] Big shows.

Speaker 2:
[44:32] And Lionel was in London playing the next night. And I didn't know that. So I go and I do my show and then I hung out and, you know, I'm with Barbara and watched her do her thing because we've worked together and we're friends. And I didn't even look at my phone all night, you know. I get back to the hotel and there's a text from Lionel. And he says, my brother, I was sitting on my patio of my hotel room and I was listening to 20,000 people singing your songs back to you. And I'm just so proud of you. And I was like, dude, it's all because of you. And, you know, so my relationship with him, he's one of those... There's no way for me to really, truly accurately describe the impact that he had on my life.

Speaker 1:
[45:14] Yeah.

Speaker 2:
[45:15] That's, oh my God, I just realized you asked me about like the worst low points and then we went off.

Speaker 1:
[45:19] Sounds like a pretty high point to me.

Speaker 2:
[45:21] Yeah, it was a high point. Well, around that time, after I had had some hits as a songwriter and I've got the support of somebody like Lionel, every record company rejected me.

Speaker 1:
[45:32] Your songs for you.

Speaker 2:
[45:34] I'm talking about Endless Summer Nights, the number two single. I'm talking about Shit or No I'm Better, a top five single. Wow. Every record company was like, nope, doesn't look right, no hits, don't like his voice. That happened for so long, for like a year, year and a half, that I really thought it's not meant to be. I'll be a songwriter, hopefully. David Foster told me I shouldn't sing. I was working with David a bunch and we joke about it to this day, but he said, man, you should totally be a writer and producer, but you're not an artist. You shouldn't sing.

Speaker 1:
[46:05] Yeah, that's funny.

Speaker 2:
[46:06] So that was a low point. Cut to 12 or 13 years later, I've had 10 years in a row of platinum hit after hit, and then I put out an album in the late 90s that instead of going double platinum and went double plywood, just didn't connect, didn't work.

Speaker 1:
[46:24] Happens.

Speaker 2:
[46:25] And I was devastated. I was like, oh, because I knew I couldn't, well, not couldn't, I knew that I didn't have it in me at that point to reinvent, and I didn't want to go chasing something that wasn't me. Looking back, it was a big mistake at that point to know, because I produced all my own records, that would have been a great time to reach out to somebody else and say, help me.

Speaker 1:
[46:48] Let's try something.

Speaker 2:
[46:48] But it felt desperate. It felt, and so I went, I'm just gonna write and produce for other people for a while, which is kind of like what happened after that. But I will tell you that that period between deciding that and then having the luck and the success of writing for NSYNC and Josh Groban and Barbara Streit and all those other, Keith Urban, the little period between deciding that the public doesn't like me anymore, or I'm not having hits anymore, that was hard. That was really low, a really low point. I thought that I was smart enough and intellectually honest enough that I expected this to happen at some point. I thought nobody has hits forever. But when it happened, I was like early 30s cause I started so young. Yeah, me too. It really, it felt like such a rejection.

Speaker 1:
[47:39] I had the same moment in my 30s, but I think that's a natural too, cause you're also coming of age.

Speaker 2:
[47:44] Yeah.

Speaker 1:
[47:44] And I think there's a disillusion of where you like realize like one, you realize age.

Speaker 2:
[47:50] Yeah.

Speaker 1:
[47:51] Two, you realize that nothing stays the same. So things only evolve.

Speaker 2:
[47:56] And so I also look back and I took it so personally, but then I realized soon after that it was a part of the evolution of music, which is that this happened in the late nineties. And guess what? The same thing happened to Brian Adams and the same thing happened to Billy Joel. The same thing happened to all white male pop singers.

Speaker 1:
[48:16] Anne Lionel. No one wants to talk about it cause it's...

Speaker 2:
[48:19] Well, particularly white male pop singers were like the most uncool thing. And that was it. And our domination of the charts ended. It wasn't just me. It felt like it was just me. And I looked around and I was like, oh, okay. Yeah.

Speaker 1:
[48:34] And also, you got to also zoom out and go, the size of the songs you wrote and the songs you put out and the records you put out were so big, you have to kind of remember that like, if your music defined a decade, right? A defined, a time, right? And it's part of this landscape of this incredible music. And then whatever era comes in the nineties or whatever, and suddenly the world has shifted in some way. And if you're not careful, you can feel left behind.

Speaker 2:
[49:08] Right.

Speaker 1:
[49:09] And you're not actually.

Speaker 2:
[49:10] Yeah, but it's impossible to know that when it's happening.

Speaker 1:
[49:13] When it's happening the first time.

Speaker 2:
[49:15] It just feels like your membership is canceled.

Speaker 1:
[49:17] But what it is, is like, then you go and you start producing and you write for NSYNC and you write for this person, you write for that person. And then the world, there's like this, a new generation of people are getting to know you in a different way.

Speaker 2:
[49:30] Yeah.

Speaker 1:
[49:30] And then you come back to your music and you start to realize like, oh, I'm weaving this like very interesting career versus.

Speaker 2:
[49:37] I'd love to be able to take credit for it. Like I thought that.

Speaker 1:
[49:40] But you're an instinct, you're an animal. You're just going and going, I'm going to go that way.

Speaker 2:
[49:44] I just knew that even though I wasn't welcome on the charts as an artist anymore, I could go back to what I was doing before. And luckily there were so many artists that were like, I'll take your song or I want you to produce me. Even Michael Bolton, bless him, who we, I guess we felt maybe competitive with each other a little bit. Really? Yeah. I sang on one of his early records. And we were always, we were nice to each other, but we, I think we were both.

Speaker 1:
[50:11] We felt competitive.

Speaker 2:
[50:12] Well, you know, it's like you were the band where you were competing for chart positions.

Speaker 1:
[50:16] Of course we did.

Speaker 2:
[50:17] Right?

Speaker 1:
[50:17] Yeah. Yeah.

Speaker 2:
[50:18] I lost a Grammy that he won. Yeah. You know what I mean? That kind of thing. And he reached out to me and said, Coke and Pepsi. Will you come? Yeah. But will you come to my house and write some songs with me and produce some songs on my record? I was like, sure.

Speaker 1:
[50:30] Yeah.

Speaker 2:
[50:30] Well, not only do we write a couple of songs I'm so proud of, they weren't hits, but they were like, was such a great experience. And we were friends forever. My heart's broken for him right now, but we've been great pals ever since. He's one of my favorite people.

Speaker 1:
[50:46] I went through the same kind of journey from 2000 to 2011. It was nonstop. And then 2012, 13. Okay, so from 2000 to 2011, 2012, was the final kind of extinction of physical product in that time when CDs went away and then MP3s were there, but there was no platforms. So it was all music was free for like five to seven years, six, eight years, nine years. There was no way to know which record was doing good when you were put a record out. It was like everyone's stealing music and there was no way of tracking like what's big as far as like what people are.

Speaker 2:
[51:24] Authentically.

Speaker 1:
[51:25] Yeah.

Speaker 2:
[51:25] And not that the Billboard charts were ever really truly authentic.

Speaker 1:
[51:29] True, you're right about that. But Spotify didn't really materialize until 2015, 2016 was when it really started going like, oh, they have this many followers and there's charts and all that. And streaming really took form in the mid teens. So from 2010 to about two.

Speaker 2:
[51:47] Can you imagine if a stream counted as an actual radio playback in our day?

Speaker 1:
[51:51] I mean.

Speaker 2:
[51:52] We would be trillionaires.

Speaker 1:
[51:53] Yeah.

Speaker 2:
[51:54] Just like the Spotify owners.

Speaker 1:
[51:55] Yeah, exactly. So in between that though, isn't that awkward six, seven, eight, nine years of development of between physical going away and streaming becoming music was dead. And everyone said it was over. And everyone said that this industry is done. And it's not a worthwhile thing. And artists only make money on tour. Now it's true that touring is our likely one of our biggest revenue streams. But at the end of the day, a career is now looking more like there's multiple revenue streams. We're in a modern time where artists make more than they ever have, I think. So it's interesting. I look at it a lot like sports, like basketball players, baseball players in the 90s versus today. Right. It doesn't even touch night and day. So but in that time, and you were there too. So we were both there when they said, it's all done. It's dead. It was a scary time because I actually believed them. I didn't know that the world keeps turning and that things evolve and that the next thing will come and everything will be fine. Just now. And that was in my 30s. I was in my early 30s when we were going through that, I thought I was done. And I was really depressed and but it was really great because I had Nicole. So I thought I was done and that was my worth. That was it. The success of that band was the best I had and that would define me. And that's only how they know me. And I was going to be a failure and a joke. And I was really afraid of failure. I was really afraid of also embarrassing. You know, at that point, when you've had, it's embarrassing.

Speaker 2:
[53:25] You had hit after hit after hit. And then it's like, not what do you mean?

Speaker 1:
[53:28] You only sold a couple of thousand tickets. You're like, it's still pretty good. But we kind of live in a world where if you're not at the top, number one is the only spot. And the other hundred people who have success don't count.

Speaker 2:
[53:42] The only perspectives in that scenario that are more warped than ours is the public's.

Speaker 1:
[53:48] And it's mean. And they love to see you, it feels like this. It feels like they love to see you fail. They love to see you make a mistake or they love to see you not do well. Because it's funny, right? Because haha, look at that guy. He was so big. But that's all about them.

Speaker 2:
[54:06] It's like the people who say, where are they now? And I was, well, where were you ever?

Speaker 1:
[54:12] Yeah.

Speaker 2:
[54:12] You know what I mean? Like, my favorite is has been. The people who use that term crack me up. Because when you try to explain to them, let me tell you, I don't think you understand what that means. It means has been successful, has been all over the world touring, has been all the things you have not been.

Speaker 1:
[54:35] And there's nothing more gratifying than hearing the thing you didn't know.

Speaker 2:
[54:41] Yeah.

Speaker 1:
[54:42] Right? Like, okay, think about this. Let's say you're somewhere in this point that you're talking about, that I'm talking about, and you wrote a hit song for NSYNC, right? And now, it's not going to be general knowledge until it becomes general knowledge. So someone will be like, oh, that guy, and he goes, yeah, did you, he wrote that fucking song. It's number one. Or it's this or it's that. I started to embrace that. I started to embrace the things I could accomplish in silence and the things I could accomplish that no one knew about.

Speaker 2:
[55:13] Yeah. I hope for you, because it's true for me, it's taken a long time. I'm much older than you. There is this beautiful freedom if you can come to the point where you combine that with, yeah, I don't care whether they know or not.

Speaker 1:
[55:25] That's right. And when you can walk in a room and you can be like, oh, I've almost become, I really love the idea of feeling like people don't know what I'm up to and that I'm doing things I really love. And it gives me a lot of freedom and privacy. And-

Speaker 2:
[55:43] Look how quietly I sang, You Are and All Night Long and you didn't even know.

Speaker 1:
[55:48] It's true.

Speaker 2:
[55:48] Look at that. Look at that success. So quiet.

Speaker 1:
[55:51] And let me finish that story with this. When I was a kid, my dad left when I was younger, but he was around until I was probably when I was like 10, 11, 12 is when it started all falling apart. And when I was little, he would play You Are. He loved that song. He got that record. He loved Lionel. And that song really like had a huge effect on my perception of like a good song.

Speaker 2:
[56:16] It's a great song.

Speaker 1:
[56:17] And so it's always kind of been burned in my songwriting DNA of how you write a song.

Speaker 2:
[56:23] I'm sure you've told.

Speaker 1:
[56:24] I told Lionel, it's interesting. When I first started, when me and Nicole first got together, Lionel was a very warm, loving from the jump.

Speaker 2:
[56:36] As opposed to the asshole that he is now.

Speaker 1:
[56:37] You would almost expect you have to warm from the father-in-law gets to know you and then likes you. He kind of just...

Speaker 2:
[56:44] He just, but that's him.

Speaker 1:
[56:46] Artists see other artists, I think. That's why he saw you.

Speaker 2:
[56:49] Yeah.

Speaker 1:
[56:50] We find other artists. We know, we know real. We know when someone's a real songwriter.

Speaker 2:
[56:54] Yeah.

Speaker 1:
[56:55] We go, Oh, that guy's for real or a real guitar player or a real, you just know like, you're like, Oh, that he's a real one. Like he's the real deal.

Speaker 2:
[57:01] Yeah.

Speaker 1:
[57:02] Not faking that. You can't fake that.

Speaker 2:
[57:03] No posing.

Speaker 1:
[57:04] And maybe it was a little bit of that, but also I had good manners and I think he's like old school like that. And so from the jump, he was always like a really loving and supportive father-in-law. And through like, also just like a crazy time in those early 2000s. And I remember telling him in passing, my dad used to play UR all the time. And that song has a huge, it's burned in my.

Speaker 2:
[57:28] And he didn't immediately say, you know, Richard Marx is singing on that.

Speaker 1:
[57:31] No, but he loves you. He loves you. And I'm sure he'll hear this and he'll be tickled.

Speaker 2:
[57:38] And I love him.

Speaker 1:
[57:39] And at our wedding, I had no idea. Right. We get married at his house. It was a small wedding, small enough to be small, but big enough to be big. It was like 150 people, 100 people, something like that. So it was a great wedding, though. It was at his house. In the reception, he jumps up and plays UR.

Speaker 2:
[57:57] Of course he did.

Speaker 1:
[57:58] And this was, I told him two years. I got choked up. It was really important. This is why I'll tell you. My dad and me had just reconciled a couple year, a year or two before I got married. And it was a huge deal that he was coming to my wedding. Cause I didn't think he was going to be at any of my life moments cause we hadn't talked in decades. And then we reconciled and we had this really beautiful kind of like...

Speaker 2:
[58:27] Is he still with us?

Speaker 1:
[58:28] No, he's gone. That's all right. And it was a really big deal for me because I reconciled with him after I met Lionel. And Lionel was kind of one of those were voices of wisdom.

Speaker 2:
[58:41] He's a very wise guy.

Speaker 1:
[58:42] He's just like, what are you? What are you? What are you so mad at? Or you know, you'll regret one day if you don't make peace with that, whatever that means.

Speaker 2:
[58:50] Yeah.

Speaker 1:
[58:51] So he's not telling... He's a person who doesn't want it. He doesn't tell you what to do, but he will tell you like, he's always kind of had a wise way of taking the weight out of some things and going like, man, just you're going to regret that, right? Or say like he tried his best and he was a very, he's very gracious and also when he meets people, my dad was a fan of his. So imagine this, I reconcile with my dad. He comes to my wedding, Lionel plays you are, which is like both me and my dad are just like, that's a moment you'll never forget. My dad comes to Thanksgiving that same year, before we got married. That's when they met. So the wedding was in December. The Thanksgiving was when we were getting the family together. And I was like really nervous, like my family, oh my God. This is a great bunch of people.

Speaker 2:
[59:45] This can go sideways any second.

Speaker 1:
[59:47] It's a rough bunch. They're a great bunch of people. But I'm like, so I just was, I was told Lionel, I was like, listen, me and my dad, we've had a complicated relationship. It's, we're still, but we were in this like honeymoon of reconnection and it lasted all the way till he died. So we had 10 years of like a honeymoon. So I could say in 10 years with my dad, I got more out of that than maybe some people get in a lifetime.

Speaker 2:
[60:09] Yeah.

Speaker 1:
[60:10] Right. And I've tried to replicate that 10 years with my son and be as close as I felt like we got. Anyways, I told Lionel, I was like, hey, my dad, my dad comes to Thanksgiving with a black eye. He's wearing Ray-Bans. He's hilarious. I was like, dad, why are you wearing Ray-Bans? It's two o'clock and we're inside. And he's like, oh, I got into a little fight. And I was like, oh my God. And then Lionel comes and he just loved on my dad was so, they loved each other. They actually, they saw each other. My dad was a very old school guy and Lionel appreciated that. And he loved him. And he was like, I see a lot of you after the fact. And he said, I was like, hey, Lionel, thanks, man. That was, that was means a lot to me. He's like, your dad's great. I see a lot of you and him and you. And then he plays that song at the wedding. And anyways, all to say, there's a part of him as big as he's always going. He's always on tour. He's always, he's iconic. He's got all the things he is. But there's a part of him where you go, did he see, did he hear, and he did.

Speaker 2:
[61:10] Oh yeah.

Speaker 1:
[61:11] He caught that. He heard that.

Speaker 2:
[61:13] Yeah.

Speaker 1:
[61:14] He heard me say that that song was important.

Speaker 2:
[61:16] Yeah.

Speaker 1:
[61:17] He saw the interaction with me and my dad at Thanksgiving. He told the band at the wedding to have that song ready. No one, I didn't talk to the band. It was a great band. We got this amazing band that played all these classics.

Speaker 2:
[61:30] I can just see him. Here's what we're going to do.

Speaker 1:
[61:32] He did. He caught that. So when you think this big iconic guy whose whole life has been poured into this legacy, and you go, did he notice that? Did he see that? And then you see that moment and you're like, yeah, he did.

Speaker 2:
[61:47] Well, as big as he became, okay, the same year that he did Endless Love and wrote Lady for Kenny Rogers, and was leaving the Commodores to start his solo album, he called the number written on the backup of cassette tape, cold called My Parents House.

Speaker 1:
[62:05] Think about that.

Speaker 2:
[62:06] Because you heard a tape and he just wanted to tell this, whoever this kid was, hey man, you should, I really think you're good. You should do this. Who does that? Who takes the time to do that? And it wasn't like, hey man, Lionel Richie heard you tape, but he was like, we talked for 20, 25, like the first time I saw him after this recording session, he was playing one of the last gigs with the Commodores. They were wrapping up like a farewell thing. And he invited me and my parents to the gig. I forget where the gig was, but we had to, we got a hotel room or motel room nearby because it was far from where we were. And I was with my parents and he came to the motel room. This is such a vivid memory. He's sitting on his, sitting on the floor. There's this tiny little hotel room because he wanted my parents to feel comfortable about them leaving their one and only child in LA to pursue this. He wanted them to, this is after a gig. He spent an hour in this hotel room with my parents and me, just talking to them and going, you know, I'm, I can't protect Richard from everything, but there are ways I can protect him and he's always got, he can always come to me and like just to make, put their minds at ease. And I look back at that, especially at that time of his career. And I think, who the fuck does that? Lionel does that.

Speaker 1:
[63:32] Yeah, Lionel, he acts on feeling.

Speaker 2:
[63:36] Remarkable, remarkable human being.

Speaker 1:
[63:38] Yeah, he is.

Speaker 2:
[63:39] I never, I never see him. I ask him, I ask him out sometimes and he'll be like, Oh yeah, we can. No, he's not.

Speaker 1:
[63:46] No, no one ever sees him. He's, he's working. That's all he's doing. He's, he's working. He's going to always, he's always playing shows. He's always, he'll text me, he'll go American Idol.

Speaker 2:
[63:54] Richard, I would love to, I'm in Hawaii.

Speaker 1:
[63:57] Or he's on vacation. For the weekend between the tours, I've only witnessed a few people, I would say a handful of people that can't go anywhere without being inundated and the amount of energy he spends because he's so, he is like that, same as you, he's gracious and he's nice to everyone. And I think that's a real old school thing is like, there is something under the understanding of like the people.

Speaker 2:
[64:22] He navigates it really well.

Speaker 1:
[64:23] He does. But I don't know that it leaves a lot of time at the end of that day, when he comes home from that world.

Speaker 2:
[64:31] He's doing, he's saying no.

Speaker 1:
[64:33] Yeah.

Speaker 2:
[64:33] He's saying no when he needs to and that's smart.

Speaker 1:
[64:36] And the people who love him, I think-

Speaker 2:
[64:37] Just don't say no to me anymore.

Speaker 1:
[64:39] Well, I think the people that understand that, like understand too, like, God, I think everyone goes, that must be so fun. I'm like, that looks awful. It's not that I'm not saying that the people are awful or anything about it. It's just the amount of energy you have to spend out there in the world, meeting and greeting everyone all the time. When I see that happening, because I see it with people with huge amounts of success. And I always kind of go like, I feel like I had the perfect amount of success at this age. When I was young, it wasn't enough for me. But now at this age ago, that was perfect. I get to have a career that I still go on stage and I have a great time and we don't have to do it too much, but we do it enough. It's like perfect. But I still get to...

Speaker 2:
[65:20] The years where I was on MTV every second and on the radio and on tour and like all that.

Speaker 1:
[65:27] Where could you go? Nowhere.

Speaker 2:
[65:28] My point is that experiencing that, even on that, whatever that level was, which was the highest level in my life, made me uncomfortable. I was gracious, but I didn't... I felt in a fishbowl. I felt watched. And then over time, I think now the balance is really nice where, you know, dinner last night, somebody came over and just said... And it's so nice to have somebody come over and compliment you. But I don't feel like I'm being watched. And I don't... And I go every day. I'm somewhere and nobody gives a shit. No, or doesn't... If they do recognize me, they don't say anything or they don't have any clue. And I think that that fishbowl thing that you're talking about is exhausting.

Speaker 1:
[66:09] It's exhausting. And I think at some point, if you can't turn it off, you could almost feel like... Well, that's the thing is I think it's not that you can't turn it off. I think at some point you feel like you can't turn it off. And that's the thing with Lionel. The only thing I genuinely worry about, if I'm being honest, is how much energy he spends having to greet the world.

Speaker 2:
[66:39] Gotcha.

Speaker 1:
[66:39] Because everyone loves him. They love his songs. It's remarkable when you go places with him.

Speaker 2:
[66:45] He's a part of tens of millions of people's lives.

Speaker 1:
[66:49] Yeah.

Speaker 2:
[66:49] And they feel like they know him. Because his persona is so close to really what he is, in terms of friendliness and openness. There's not like this dark where he's an asshole or there's none of that. So that's tricky for someone like him. And it's also tricky for someone whose public perception is important to him.

Speaker 1:
[67:11] I agree. I think he cares about it because I also think he comes from a different time. That's the other thing that people don't always factor in with him. He's from Alabama in the fucking 60s. And you think about that and no one ever like no one leads with that. Like this is where he comes from.

Speaker 2:
[67:27] Yeah.

Speaker 1:
[67:28] And now in 2026 in the world and people are still relating to him number one through the songs. And obviously he does TV and he does all these things. But I've asked him, I'm like, is there anywhere you can go in the world where you're you aren't doing the meet and greet the whole time? And he doesn't even if that's the thing is I'm sitting there complaining for him.

Speaker 2:
[67:50] Right.

Speaker 1:
[67:51] He's not complaining. He's just like, no, that's what he's used to. That's what he's used to.

Speaker 2:
[67:55] I spend a lot of time, not a lot of time, but I spend a considerable amount of time with Rod Stewart.

Speaker 1:
[67:59] Yeah.

Speaker 2:
[68:00] And we've become friends in the last two and a half years.

Speaker 1:
[68:02] Legends amongst legends.

Speaker 2:
[68:04] I mean, and he's a hero, my lifelong hero, and I manifested him into my life.

Speaker 1:
[68:08] How'd you meet him?

Speaker 2:
[68:09] I met him a couple of times over the years at American Music Awards or at this radio event, like in passing, hey, he's always polite. We'd chat for a second, but like he didn't know that I was totally fanboying out.

Speaker 1:
[68:20] Right.

Speaker 2:
[68:21] One time we were standing at the American Music Awards, I was about to present and he was up after me and we were both wearing the same shoes. And he went, nice kicks, mate. I was like, oh my God, Rod Stewart just complimented my shoes. And then just about almost three years ago, I was touring in Australia and the last show, I'll try to make this brief, talk about manifestation. On the flight to Australia for that tour, sit next to Daisy on the plane, she's watching, whatever she's watching, she's downloaded. She goes, she looks over, she goes, what are you watching? I was like, an interview with Rod Stewart from 1988 on MTV. I downloaded all these interviews with Rod and performances of Rod. I've seen him live, well, I'll get to this. So I'm watching that on the flight over to Australia. I do an interview, somebody in one of the interviews early on in the tour says, you've worked with so many artists, who's somebody you always wanted to work with but never did? And I said, oh, Rod Stewart, that's always been my dream to work with Rod, never happened. He certainly didn't need my help, but that's one that was my bucket list that I didn't get. Next day, flying somewhere, my drummer says, who have you seen in concert more than any other artist? And I went, Rod Stewart. He went, really? I said, I've seen Rod like 11 times.

Speaker 1:
[69:38] Wow.

Speaker 2:
[69:39] Real fan. Huge fan.

Speaker 1:
[69:41] Every record, you have every, every, you know the catalog.

Speaker 2:
[69:44] We end the tour in Perth. Wow.

Speaker 1:
[69:46] Yeah, the furthest point.

Speaker 2:
[69:48] The night before the last show is off, because it's a travel day. My tour manager's birthday, I take him and the band, Daisy's with me, to this beautiful restaurant in this hotel. And as we're walking into the restaurant, my guitar player looks down and he goes, dude, where did you get those shoes? And I was wearing these two-tone black and white, kind of like what Elvis wore in Jailhouse Rod. And I said, you know, funny story, I tell him about Rod and I running into each other wearing the same shoes. We sit down at the table and 30 seconds later, Rod Stewart walks in front of us.

Speaker 1:
[70:18] No shit.

Speaker 2:
[70:19] And Daisy goes, Richard, isn't that Rod? And I can't fucking believe it. In Perth, at the end of this week of me talking about him.

Speaker 1:
[70:27] The edge of the earth.

Speaker 2:
[70:29] My brain initially goes, you don't know him to go, hey, right? And then the other part of my room went, fuck that. And I went, hey, Rod. And he turns, it's dark in the restaurant. I said, it's Richard. And he goes, oh. And he comes running around the table, gives me the biggest hug, introduces himself to everybody. He met Daisy a couple of times over the years at events and stuff like that when she was on MTV and stuff. Actually, he tried to date her years ago.

Speaker 1:
[70:55] Yeah, it's understandable.

Speaker 2:
[70:57] And I say tried.

Speaker 1:
[70:59] Understandable.

Speaker 2:
[71:00] We stand there talking for a few minutes. He says, I'm starting my tour tomorrow. You're ending your tour. Let's meet back here tomorrow night. Have a drink. And I was like, it's going to be late. I'm thinking he's like older man.

Speaker 1:
[71:15] Yeah.

Speaker 2:
[71:16] He's like, no, mate, let's do it. We'll meet back here. It's cool. Like after there's our shows. Okay. I'm thinking I'm going to get a text that he's canceling, whatever. No, I get a text from his assistant. Roger, really looking forward to seeing you tonight. So we all end up back at this restaurant the next night. And Rod and I, there's, my wife was sweet enough to take pictures of this. We end up in a corner, the two of us talking and talking and talking and talking. Cut to, I'm going on tour with him.

Speaker 1:
[71:39] Like this without the mics.

Speaker 2:
[71:41] Not only am I going on tour with him this year.

Speaker 1:
[71:43] Wow.

Speaker 2:
[71:44] He did a duet with me on my new album. It was his idea. He and I become so, such great friends. We text each other all the time, but we spend a lot of time together. We go to dinner, just the two of us, we go, I love Penny, his wife, he loves Daisy, Penny loves Daisy. It's the four of us go out to do, like he's become my new pal.

Speaker 1:
[72:04] That's awesome.

Speaker 2:
[72:05] And cut to like Lionel, especially looking like Rod Stewart.

Speaker 1:
[72:11] You can't hide anywhere.

Speaker 2:
[72:12] Even if you didn't know who Rod Stewart was, you'd go, who the fuck is that? That looks like somebody.

Speaker 1:
[72:16] Fucking guy, rock star.

Speaker 2:
[72:17] The way he does it, you know, we went to Mr. Chow, I don't know, six weeks ago, just me and him. And when we walked in, we both, you know, we know the owner, whatever. We go, hi, how you doing? Then we sit in the corner and you know, you can tell people are looking, but nobody's like, it's totally like fine. And then, and then the waiter comes over and says, this table over there, bought your dinner. And so Ross says, oh, Mike, let's go over. And like, so we go over and we took pictures with them and we're sitting there and both of us had had a couple, you know, and oh my God, it's, it's been the most fun friendship.

Speaker 1:
[72:54] That's fun.

Speaker 2:
[72:55] Because, and I, and we actually went, we were invited to his 80th surprise birthday party a year ago this weekend. So Daisy and I flew to London to be part of the surprise party. It was a small group of people, but, and I toasted him. And I said at the table, many nice things, but I said, and the last thing I'll say is, the people who say never meet your heroes, never met Rod Stewart, because he is like everything I wanted him to be.

Speaker 1:
[73:19] He's everything you hoped he would be.

Speaker 2:
[73:20] Everything, and then some, like a really good friend, and gives me advice. And we just love hanging out together.

Speaker 1:
[73:28] That's cool, because you, at this stage in your career and in your life, you could be jaded, and you could be like, fuck everybody. I know too much. I've seen too much.

Speaker 2:
[73:39] I have.

Speaker 1:
[73:40] I don't want to meet any new friends because everybody in this business, this is a fucking silly business sometimes. Yeah. Like we all know it. It's a business where we go out, we work, we try our best. We're trying to. What I always say is like, I'm trying to make an honest living in a very dishonest business sometimes.

Speaker 2:
[73:56] There you go.

Speaker 1:
[73:57] And I literally just want to work to support my family habit, which is I just want to work, make a living and be with my wife and kids and do my best.

Speaker 2:
[74:07] But when it comes to human interaction, I think that the best mantra is some people are really going to disappoint you. And some people are going to exceed your expectations.

Speaker 1:
[74:17] And that's a nice thing to know about Rod Stewart because I've always had a really nice impression of him. Met him in passing, like not enough to say I've met him, but met him and he was like, he's very gracious. And he's not arrogant. And he doesn't it doesn't feel like you can't be in the room with him.

Speaker 2:
[74:38] You know, it's a humility to welcoming him.

Speaker 1:
[74:41] You know, you're the same way. This is what I would say to you. You're a legend amongst legends. You come from this cloth of guys who write songs and make to me there. It was a time that will never be again when these songs and these songs wrote other songs. These songs are songs that we grew up and every generation is like, there's something to me about the eighties and nineties for music. Yeah, that was a turning point for what was possible and what kinds of songs we could write and so I look at this legendary time with all this catalog of music that I love and it'll never be again. Doesn't mean that there won't be great music, but it'll just never be again. It was a time that you... There's something about meeting certain guys and you're one of them, who there's a humility to... You don't feel like you're not rich enough or good enough or you haven't written enough hit songs to sit. Like I certainly, my songs have not been as big as your songs.

Speaker 2:
[75:49] That that being said, my songs have not been as big as Rod's or Lionel's or...

Speaker 1:
[75:54] I notice a through line with you Rod, Lionel. I could go on a list of guys who have had to work really hard. They've seen music and the world change a few times over now. Where you're like, I've seen the world change a bunch of times. It's going to change again. And you start to... And there's a wisdom and almost like a... There's something really classic feeling about it. There's a wisdom that where it feels like you're sitting with these guys and they've seen a lot and they know the world's going to keep turning, keep changing, the music's going to do this. It's going to do that. But never once have I ever felt not respected. Like you see me coming behind you 15 years or whatever, and you go, oh, he's doing the same thing I was doing.

Speaker 2:
[76:35] Yeah.

Speaker 1:
[76:36] He's... There's something honest about what we do. We're just trying to make records, tour.

Speaker 2:
[76:41] Yeah.

Speaker 1:
[76:42] And then write another... There's something about it that I feel is true.

Speaker 2:
[76:46] Yeah.

Speaker 1:
[76:46] What about your new music?

Speaker 2:
[76:48] Well, I hadn't made an album in a while, and I decided that the idea of doing a standards record was never appealing to me because I'm a songwriter, first and foremost. Second of all, I didn't... I mean, I love that music, but is that really what I do, you know, coming from rock and pop? And then I thought about, well, Rod did very successfully 20 years ago, 25 years ago, Buble is great, and then I was thinking, who else is doing that? It's not really... it's been done a million times, but it hasn't been done in a while.

Speaker 1:
[77:19] It also looks really fun.

Speaker 2:
[77:21] It's really fun. And so then I thought, well, wait a minute, what if I did half an album of my favorite standards, but then I wrote the other half to sound like they fit with those? That's a challenge as a songwriter.

Speaker 1:
[77:34] And writing a standard.

Speaker 2:
[77:35] And writing those chord progressions and writing melodies and chords and even lyrics that I would never write in a pop song. That became fun. And so then I started, when I started writing those songs, and then I met this guy, I did a thing called The Piano Room at the BBC, which is a great show in London. And I worked with this young British arranger conductor named Rob Eklund. He does a bunch of stuff for the BBC Orchestra. And he wrote the arrangements for my performance there. So I worked with him and he's brilliant. He's absolutely brilliant. So I called him and I said, would you want to do the charts on this thing? I don't know when I'm going to do this album, whatever. He got really excited about it. And then the kicker was I decided one day, I'm going to do this whole album live.

Speaker 1:
[78:18] Oh, wow. You recorded it live.

Speaker 2:
[78:19] I did it down the block. I did it at Evergreen here in Burbank.

Speaker 1:
[78:22] Oh, wow. Do you live in LA? Yeah.

Speaker 2:
[78:25] I live in Miami and here.

Speaker 1:
[78:26] Okay, cool.

Speaker 2:
[78:27] Three afternoons, three hour afternoon sessions in a row, 13 songs. We did every song two or three times. I sang live with 28 piece big band orchestra and that's the record.

Speaker 1:
[78:41] How did you get your vocals to not crap out like at the end of each day?

Speaker 2:
[78:45] Cause I'm awesome.

Speaker 1:
[78:47] Yeah. Cause you're a fucking G.

Speaker 2:
[78:49] No, I'll tell you why.

Speaker 1:
[78:50] You're a fucking gangster.

Speaker 2:
[78:50] Cause I tour so much. Yeah. My voice is in shape always. Like it's never, it was challenging and it's stressful because you're like, cause you know the other 28 people are gonna get their parts, right? And I just wanted to make that record that way cause that's how Sinatra did it. That's how Dean Martin did it. So we would just do each song.

Speaker 1:
[79:07] That's badass.

Speaker 2:
[79:08] Two or three, thank you for understanding. Like you understand what that means.

Speaker 1:
[79:11] That's so gangster.

Speaker 2:
[79:12] Must build, don't get it.

Speaker 1:
[79:13] Dude, I couldn't do that.

Speaker 2:
[79:14] Like there's no computers. It's not, like it's just-

Speaker 1:
[79:17] It's so gangster.

Speaker 2:
[79:18] 29 people doing a song.

Speaker 1:
[79:21] In-

Speaker 2:
[79:21] Live.

Speaker 1:
[79:22] Playing live and it's gangster.

Speaker 2:
[79:24] The only overdubs were my guest. So Rod Stewart, when I told Rod I was doing this, he was the one who said, we should do a song together, mate. And I was like, I think this is the Guinness talking. And the next day he texted me. No, he texted me the next day. He goes, I was serious. We should do Young at Heart, which is this old Sinatra song. We did a duet of Young at Heart, Kenny G. He was one of my closest friends in the world. And the funniest guy you'll ever meet.

Speaker 1:
[79:48] He seems like he's fucking funny.

Speaker 2:
[79:50] Such a blast. He is so not what you think. I don't know what I think.

Speaker 1:
[79:53] I just think he's cool as shit.

Speaker 2:
[79:55] The dirtiest jokes I've ever heard in my life, I heard from Kenny G.

Speaker 1:
[79:58] Kenny G is...

Speaker 2:
[80:00] It's true.

Speaker 1:
[80:01] I just think he's cool as shit.

Speaker 2:
[80:03] He is so cool.

Speaker 1:
[80:03] I don't know him.

Speaker 2:
[80:04] Brilliant guy.

Speaker 1:
[80:05] I just think he's like insanely talented, obviously.

Speaker 2:
[80:07] He's so talented. But he's just such a hang. He's one of my best friends.

Speaker 1:
[80:11] That's super cool.

Speaker 2:
[80:12] So I wrote this song. That's a cool room.

Speaker 1:
[80:15] Imagine you, Rod Stewart, Kenny G, Michael Bolton.

Speaker 2:
[80:20] We're the new Rat Pack.

Speaker 1:
[80:21] The fucking crew of like these guys is just like, I don't know.

Speaker 2:
[80:24] That's cool. We have good times. So Kenny played on the song called Big Bam Boogie, crushed it. And then another great friend of mine, Chris Bodie, the trumpet player, played on a song.

Speaker 1:
[80:35] So serious musicians and stuff. It's cool.

Speaker 2:
[80:38] Yeah, dude.

Speaker 1:
[80:39] How did you write the songs? Did you write them on like a piano or a acoustic guitar? And then you had your guy in London arrange. How did you do that?

Speaker 2:
[80:48] For years now, Joel, I'm not sure why. I stopped writing songs at an instrument.

Speaker 1:
[80:53] Okay.

Speaker 2:
[80:54] Because I realized that as good as I might be as a player this way or that way, I'm still limited to write what I'm able to play, right? But as a singer, the sky's the limit. So when I need to write a song, I just walk. I hike and I go outside. I hear Sting say this. And I truly believe this. I think that great melodies and lyrics are hiding under rocks and behind trees and in the bushes. And I need to be out in nature. So like there's a song called All I Ever Needed on the album. That was the first song I wrote. I just took a long hike and I pretended that I was a songwriter in 1948 trying to pitch a song to Frank Sinatra. And I was like, free. I live to be free. Like that kind of melody. I would never have written that. But I was like, what would Sinatra want, right? And then I wanted my version of sort of like, I've always loved Sway, you know, the song Sway, that Buble's done and Dean Martin did. When the stars to play. I wanted to have a tango, like that kind of vibe. I wrote this song called Magic Hour. And Daisy, my wife, wrote the lyrics with me. Oh, wow. Sitting on a beach in Australia.

Speaker 1:
[82:09] That's really sweet.

Speaker 2:
[82:10] So all the songs were sort of me just channeling. I was ripping stuff off, but just very delicately. So it wasn't a rip off. It was just sort of like, you know, we've all done that. We go, you hear a song and you go, I want to do my version of that.

Speaker 1:
[82:23] Yeah. It's like a, it's a tribute to the thing. Yeah. It's a tribute to the thing you love. That I think is a really nice way to express yourself in a different way than maybe what you're like. To me, it just sounds like a lot of fun to, to like, it's kind of like almost like a fantasy to be able to go into something that when I think about a standards record, when I think about Frank Sinatra, when I think about that stuff, it's just like, it's so amazing. Well, what am I going to do? Am I going to sing one of those? And then you go and make a record like this. And I'm like, that sounds really cool.

Speaker 2:
[82:56] It was the most fun I've ever had.

Speaker 1:
[82:56] And the music is good.

Speaker 2:
[82:58] And I'm super proud of it.

Speaker 1:
[83:00] And then touring it is going to be really fun. And then also like the way you can perform the record. When I think about it, I'm like, oh my God, do you realize how many gigs you can do now in places you couldn't have done a gig, where you're like, I could do a gig now at a private thing or at a thing there or a thing there because I have a standard set that I couldn't have done that gig. I had one gig. I could do this rock gig. And so when I think about that, I'm like, that sounds like a really fun project to dive into. And it also takes balls because not, there's only a few guys who can do it. So it's cool that you did that. I thought it was like the fucking coolest choice. I was like, that's cool.

Speaker 2:
[83:40] I'm glad I just went for it because it was such a, I'm so proud of it and the experience of it was, it was like the best drug all three days in a row. The cover was shot by my son, Brandon, which is like extra cool. We went to the beach in Malibu and I dressed up and had a martini and just spilled it and he snapped it. And everybody who worked on the record, it was just, I had a bunch of those musicians, a lot of them older, been around a lot longer even than me, string players, horn players, come up to me and thank me. Man, nobody does this anymore. Nobody makes records like this. We're never together in a room as human beings. We all come in like little sections and we're like, we never, this never happens.

Speaker 1:
[84:23] Yeah, think about that. It's a, it's a lost art.

Speaker 2:
[84:26] Yeah.

Speaker 1:
[84:27] It doesn't exist. How many records are being made live in a room this year? You could probably count them on one hand if it's even happening. And then how many musicians that are working musicians, think about this, guys who get hired to play, right, that love playing music. And that's what they've dedicated their life to, being an excellent trumpet player, an excellent string section, an excellent, these are excellent musicians who, when you think about the limited scope of what kind of work they get to do because of the time we live in where everything's digital and we don't need to have a band. We got a good sound system.

Speaker 2:
[85:02] I've got a great string sample right here in my keyboard. I don't need the orchestra.

Speaker 1:
[85:05] So really incredibly excellent musicians who...

Speaker 2:
[85:08] You can't replace the bow on the string, the sound of that. You can't replace the emotion with which someone plays their instrument.

Speaker 1:
[85:17] It's emotional when you hear instruments all being played together. It's emotional.

Speaker 2:
[85:21] Yeah.

Speaker 1:
[85:22] Mr. Marx.

Speaker 2:
[85:24] Mr. Madden. Or should I call you Mr. Richie? I call myself Mr. Fuentes, by the way.

Speaker 1:
[85:31] I would accept it. I would accept it. You're great, man. Thanks for coming. And this was cool as shit. I really enjoyed this. Yeah. I hope I see you again, maybe in Australia.

Speaker 2:
[85:40] Yeah. Congrats on the record. Thanks, Brian. Thanks.

Speaker 1:
[85:44] Thank you for watching Artist Friendly. If you like this episode, please make sure you hit the like button, you follow the channel, and please share it with your friends. We appreciate the support. That is why this show exists because you listen to it. Thank you guys and we'll see you next time.

Speaker 2:
[86:01] I don't wanna have bad.