#2550 - Rick Springfield

Joe Rogan Podcast, check it out. The Joe Rogan Experience. Train by day, Joe Rogan Podcast by night, all day. I think something's going on. I don't know what that something is. Yeah, I know. The whole argument of, you know, a species living long enough to, surviving long enough to actually have faster-than-light or at-faster-than-light travel is a tough one. It is a tough one. Are we rolling? I think they probably have some unique propulsion system that has nothing to do with moving in one direction to another. I think they fold space and time. Yeah. This is what, yeah. What is it, the wormhole that brings the two things together so you skip all lifts? Yeah, I think that's the. I don't know the theory, but I mean, obviously, in practice. But then that's them living, that's species existing long enough because we're like, we're getting close to, you know, and we're nowhere near that. So the species living long enough to achieve that and then come here is the, you know, that's the stumbling block I have. Yeah. Well, a lot of people have that stumbling block. I think it's also the possibility that they didn't evolve in the same violent world. That we did. But then there's the question, well, then what gave them the motivation to innovate and move forward? Because for us, a lot of it is survival and competition. And that's the reason why people innovate in the first place. Wars create great innovation. I mean, the real, the more interesting theory is that they're monitoring us to make sure that we can successfully pass this sort of adolescent phase of evolution that we're currently in. That's why they hover over us. They hover over nuclear bases and shit. We hope, we hope we get there. It's very debatable. Yeah. Well, listen, man, thank you for being here. Yeah. It's kind of cool to meet you. It's fascinating. I mean, I listened to your music when I was in high school, which is crazy. And to see you look as good as you look now, I mean, we played a video. I don't know if you ever saw it. We played a video. We were freaking out. Like, this guy's like, how old are you? 77. 77. That's fucking incredible. That's incredible, dude, because a lot of your contemporaries, when they've, you know, even guys younger than you, they're falling apart. And you were out there singing Jessie's Girl like you wrote it a week ago. It was crazy. That was actually a great comment. I really appreciate that, because it's, I'm still very passionate about playing music. And, you know, they say, how can you deliver a song that you've played a million times? It's because of the energy. It's because of the energy of the audience, you know? I mean, I wrote the song, and to see an audience react like that to it, it's pretty difficult to just sit back and go, you know. So it charges me up, too. Well, it's nice that you still enjoy it and appreciate it, because I think even though it's the dream for everyone to become a rock star, for some, I mean, for some people, something happens along the way, and they just get so accustomed to it, and they get, you know, a warning. They get so worn out by it, and then they don't love it anymore, which is crazy. I know. Well, I, obviously, it depends on the person, you know? Yeah. And it depends on whatever experiences they have. I've had pretty good experiences, and I just, I've always wanted to do it, you know? I mean, since I was 11 years old when I first saw. and held my first guitar, that was what I wanted to do. And really, it's kind of centered around playing guitar, although that's not what I'm necessarily known for, but that's what I enjoy the most, you know? And when I started to write, that kind of changed everything for me, too. You know, it gave me a great forward focus, rather than just playing, but going somewhere with the writing. How old were you when you first started performing in front of people? Uh, about 15, 15 I started playing. I, you know, I had a school band together, and then I got kicked out of school, actually. I got kicked out of 11th grade. For what? What happened? I didn't show up anymore. I just, you know, I'd show, I discovered the guitar, and I was having, I was, I had a serious depression when I was a kid. I still deal with it, but, but it, I was failing in the only. the arena that was available to me at the time, which was school, you know, with friends and school and work and all that, uh, school work, and I just wasn't doing well, and it was really dragging me down, and I started, discovered the guitar, started staying away from school, because I couldn't face going to school, um, but, you know, instead of playing video games and getting stoned, which wasn't available to me at that point, um, I was reading, um, Robert Bloch and August Derleth and great writers, because I loved horror, and, uh, playing the guitar, and that was my education, really, after, once I learned to read and write, you know, that was what I took out of school. Where were you living? Uh, I lived in Australia until I was 10, then we moved to England until I was about 13, and that was a big, that was a game changer for me. Because your accent is weird. Yeah. It's like, it's all over the place. It is, yeah. It's like, try, try to. I'm sorry. I'm sorry. I'm trying to lock it in and figure out what the hell's going on. I know. There's some words I can't say with an American accent. I can't say Australia without, with an American accent. It's just not possible. Um, yeah, we moved to England, and that's when I discovered girls and guitars, and that was, like, this was the beginning for me. It was a band called Clifford in the Shadows, Cliff Richard in the Shadows. They were before the Beatles. And, um, yeah, it was, uh, and then I moved back to Australia, and then I went to Vietnam for a couple of months. And then I was, uh. What were you doing in Vietnam? Uh, 68, 69. I was, um, there was, uh, promoters in Saigon and Da Nang, and they were looking for the closest Occidental country was Australia. So the GIs wanted to see, you know, girls that reminded them of home. So as long as we had a couple of girls in the band, they would hire you, and you could tour Vietnam during the war zone. Wow. It was pretty insane. We were there for about four months. What was that like? Uh, it was insane. Uh, I, I thought, oh, great, we'll make money, you know, and of course we didn't make any money. We spent it all at the PX, and, uh, we weren't making much money anyway. But we, based out of Saigon and Da Nang, and we toured from Cam Ranh Bay up to, uh, the DMZ. We were at the DMZ, the TET after the TET where they'd crossed over, the Viet Cong crossed into the cities and everything, and, like, done the big, um, assault. You know, the TET assault. We were there. I was two miles from the DMZ on that next TET, and I remember New Year's Eve, and the flares, you know, the parachute flares started going off like this, and we were, and there's like a line of guys heading towards us, and it was frickin' freaky. They, you know, they kept them at bay, but we got shot at and rocketed, and we'd be playing, and there'd be mortars landing. Holy shit. Stayed over, and we, we befriended some, uh, uh, Navy guys that were there. Uh, Marble Mountain, which is outside Da Nang, and we went back there for, for, uh, to give them a free show, you know, because they were so appreciative, you know. I mean, they, they loved seeing the girls, but they, they wanted connection with home, you know. Yeah. So they'd take you into the tents, and we'd play Hendrix and, and get stoned, and, and, you know, I mean, even though we're Australian, there still was, there was a connection there. And, uh, so we met these guys, and we really got along well, and we stayed overnight at the, uh, the DMZ. Uh, with them at the, on, and we went, uh, all got in the bunkers, in the perimeter bunkers, and I stayed in the radio shack, and we got attacked, and I'm throwing mortars down the friggin' tube of the radio shack. You were throwing mortars? It was freaky. Yeah, this was before, you couldn't do any of this now. This was 1968, 69, and it was, uh, the, you know, you'd see tracers going off the guys, the rest of the Bamber and perimeter bunkers, and it was, uh, it was pretty insane. Yeah. This show is presented by DraftKings. The wait is over, football is here, and so is DraftKings. The DraftKings sports app is now live in all 50 states, and this September, DraftKings is giving customers the opportunity to get boosted every football game day. New DraftKings customers sign up with code ROGAN, spend just five bucks, and get 200 in total rewards within 21 days, includes all markets. That's code ROGAN in partnership with DraftKings. The crown is yours. The crown is yours. If you have a betting problem, call 1-800-GAMBLER, 1-800-MY-RESET. Connecticut, call 888-789-7777, or visit ccpg.org on behalf of Boothill Casino in Kansas. Bet tax pass-through may apply in Illinois, 21 and over, void in Canada. 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And this September, DraftKings is giving all customers the opportunity to get boosted every game day. That's right. Every game day, all month long, DraftKings customers can get a profit boost for every football game. New DraftKings customers sign up with code ROGAN, spend five bucks, get 200 in rewards within 21 days. The crown is yours. Event trading offered by DraftKings Predictions, a CFTC registered introducing broker. Trading involves risk of loss. Market availability varies. Eligibility restrictions apply. $50 in non-withdrawable Predictions dollars issued every seven days via click to claim for 21 days. Predictions dollars expire in one year. One football boost per customer. Maximum trade limits and restrictions apply. Tokens expire at the end of the final select game each day when offered. Holy shit. We actually went up on a mission in Apache helicopter too. Cause they said, you guys want to come? And we're all like, yeah. But it was, you know, we, uh, it was, uh, pretty hairy. Holy shit, man. That's gotta be insane. Were you, when we, when you were over there, were you like, what the fuck have I done? It was, it was fear. Sorry, I went down the wrong way. It was pretty much fear factor the whole time. Holy fuck, man. We, we, we, you know, we slept with a lot of times is where the GIs slept in there, you know, their hootches and wake up with, with dust. Is that you over there? Oh yeah. There we are. Holy shit, man. That's what we slept in the hootches a lot of the time. How old were you then? Um, was I, uh, 67, 68, 69. I was 18. Wow. Wow. Yeah. And those jeans hadn't been washed in about three months. Do you, you had to be like rethinking that decision to go over there? Um, I was there and it was okay. We make the best of it. I mean, there was, you kind of fall into a mindset, although I wasn't, you know, it wasn't going out, you know, shooting with the GIs and that you fall into a mindset there that everything's legal, you know, anything, anything goes. We, um, we did some pretty nutty things. Our, at one point we were standing in line with 40 other guys in a, in a, a hut and, uh, being serviced by this one, one Vietnamese hooker. And it was just 40 guys waiting for one hooker. Yeah. Holy shit. Um, and there was nothing much to do, but smoke, you know, I smoked dope, started smoking dope there. That was the first time. Yeah. But I haven't, I didn't, I haven't not really been a doper, you know, but I did there and it was kind of considered just a thing to do. Everybody was stoned. All the soldiers were stoned. All the time. Yeah. Yeah. Wow. The last thing I would want to do is be high in a war zone. Dude, I, we were in a, we're in the Trang, right? Which is this beautiful beach town and the, and they go there for R and R cause they could surf. Right? But it was still dangerous. And we were in a, uh, we stay in these, sometimes if we weren't with the, staying on an army base, we'd stay in these old villas that were all French villas that were once beautiful. And now we're rat infested, you know, I mean, we'd be sleeping on cots and rats would be going underneath. We got stoned. I remember one night we got stoned. And the next thing you hear, machine gun right outside the house. And you hear the guy goes, hit the lights, hit the floor. So the lights go out and we all hit the floor. And you didn't know what was going on, but when you're stoned, it's like, oh my God, it could have been anything. Holy shit, man. But it was, it was freaky, but the, but being stoned helped you deal with it, you know, not have the constant fear. Although when the fear hit, if you're stoned, it's like you'd go over the, over the top, you know, but it was just the way we deal with it. I mean, I remember, um, we'd be playing for the troops, you know, we'd play on the back of a truck and we played in, in, um, uh, uh, fire bases. We didn't know. I, we all thought it was going to be like a Bob Hope tour. You know, you come in a fleet of helicopters, you play, they, you know, they were sitting in bleachers. I applaud you getting a helicopter fly away. It was nothing like that. It was just a, a guy out of Saigon that hired, uh, hired us. And, um, uh, what was I, what was I talking about? I get lost very easily. I have ADHD and there's so much awesome shit around here to look at. Um, we were talking about getting stoned and, uh, oh yeah. And we were sitting on a plane on a, on a, on a back of a truck and there's the guys sitting there on their helmets with their M 16s, right? Just watching the show. And if, and we finish and this guy comes up to me and he's stoned out of his head, he's go, I'm going to go out and see what I can kill now, man. And he put this helmet on and walks out into the jungle with a boat with a company. But it was just bizarre experiences like that. But now I look back and go, what the fuck was I thinking? You know, it was, uh, it was unreal. And it's so weird. Cause I've, I remember Arthur C. Clarke telling the story about how he's sitting with a guy on a plane. He said, what do you do? He said, oh, during the war. And he went on for two hours about what happened during the war. And he says, what do you do now? He says, I'm an insurance salesman. And that was it. You know, what he does now was a, but the whole, the war experience, you know, it's, it's, you could go on forever because it's so much happens and it's such a, in a space so much is lived, you know, and the fear is, uh, kind of when having that much, that much fear constantly is, is, is pretty taxing. And now it wasn't, we weren't even going out and shooting, although we did, uh, we'd shoot everything from 45s to tanks and we, and, um, you know, we'd be driving along and get shot at. And like I said, we'd be playing and the rockets or the mortars would start landing and they'd hustle us into a, into a bunker. But it was, uh, you know, we weren't actually going out like those guys were and walking point, you know? Well, that was also one of the strangest wars ever. Cause it didn't make any sense that why we were over there. And then when, the soldiers came home instead of being greeted like heroes, like they were in world war two, yeah. I mean, it was, uh, it was really a terrible for them. Cause I know it's meeting them over there. They go, you know, that you think, Oh, when they get over there, probably. Yeah. We were here. We'll do a job. You know, all the ones I met was dude, I don't know why we're here. I don't know what I'm doing here. All of them while they were, you know, fighting. So it's, uh, it was, it was a, it was a bad war for sure. No, one of the worst wars ever. And these guys coming back from that, it was, it just, that, that experience must've been so different because you're over there, you're killing people. You don't know why you killed people. And then, then you're in the grocery store, like that scene from, uh, what's that movie? You know, the movie I'm talking about. No, apocalypse. No, no, no, no, no, no, no, no. Um, hurt locker. Remember when the guy comes back, he was, uh, you know, uh, diffusing IEDs. He comes back and he's walking to the grocery store and he's just like, what the fuck am I doing? Like the, the contrast between the two places is just too much. It's too crazy. Yeah. It's, uh, my mom said when I came back and they picked me up at the airport, uh, she said a car backfired and I like jumped and I don't remember it, but she said, you know, my eyes look kind of haunted. I could only imagine. It took me a while to kind of get through it. Did you see people die over there? What's that? Um, we saw trophy albums, which were kind of scary. They said, well, the GIs kept trophy out, where they'd photograph, like, body parts or a guy that had a 50-millimeter shell go through his head, you know, and it was pretty freaky. The leader of the band actually died when we got home from a disease he picked up over there, a lung disease. Died at 25. What was it? His name was Pete Watson. He was the leader of the band. I was a guitar player in the band. I wasn't the lead singer or anything. And he must have gone somewhere where we didn't go on the days off and, you know, picked up something. Just some jungle disease? Yeah, the doctor said, you've been anywhere exotic lately? He said, I just got back from Vietnam. Why? He said, well, you've got this thing in your lungs that is pretty rare. So, you know, I don't know if it was Agent Orange or if it was something he picked up from, you know, whatever was in Vietnam. But, yeah, he lasted about a year. Oh, wow. Unfortunately, none of you guys got it. Yeah, we all raced to the doctors and got, you know, chest x-rays. But it was okay. But, yeah, he was weird. I was looking him up the other day and didn't realize he was so young when he died. You know, he was older than me then. So he seemed like an older guy, but he was only 25. Wow. How much time in total were you over there for? About four. Four months. Holy shit, man. And there was a point where they wanted us to go play in North Vietnam. They said, we'll keep the choppers going. There's a troop over there that wants you to come and play. And we'll keep the choppers going. So if we get into trouble, you can get, you know. And luckily, he said, no, we're not doing that. The wait is over. Football is here, and so is DraftKings. That means from Texas to California to Florida, every fan is in. And this September, DraftKings is giving customers the opportunity to get boosted every football game day. That's right. Every game day, all month long, DraftKings customers can get a football profit boost. The crown is yours. Gambling problem? Call 1-800-GAMBLER, 1-800-MY-RESET. Connecticut, call 888-789-7777, or visit ccpg.org on behalf of Boot Hill Casino in Kansas. Limited time offer. Varies by state. We'd had enough, you know, of that experience. What was the decompression like when you got back home? I don't really remember because it's just one of those, I mean, the hardest thing for me was that I'd thrown a mortar down and it had hit somebody. And they came in the next day and said, you got one, you got one. And that was, it still has a place, hard place to land in me, you know? Yeah. That's really the, kind of the one thing I brought back with me that I couldn't really find a place for that to land. And still, it still seems like, you know, years ago, another guy, another place. So explain to me how this is happening. Like, where are you? Were you throwing these mortars down? I was in a place called Marble Mountain. Marble Mountain is outside Da Nang. And it was a Navy encampment on the beach. And I was in the radio shack. And the band members were in the perimeter, the perimeter boxes, you know. And they said, radio, you know, it was like the movies. Radio came in, actually, we're seeing movement over here, check for friendlies. And they said, no, no friendlies there. So they said, hey, you want to throw some mortars down the tube? And it was John Wayne time, you know? I mean, as a young kid, I didn't really understand what I was doing. I said, oh, yeah, let's fire a gun, you know? So I threw the mortars down, about five or six mortars, which I could have easily lost a hand, you know? I mean, that kind of thing. And they came in the next morning and said, you know, I've got a gun. And the gun had hit a VC. Wow. How long did that sit with you for? What's that? Like, how long? Oh, I think it's still there, you know? I mean, it doesn't, I, it's, it's hard for me to, you know, kind of face that I was responsible for the end of a, you know, a life, even though it's distant and it's war and I didn't, you know, I didn't, you know, I didn't really have anything to do with it and didn't really know what I was doing. But, you know, as a kid and playing, like I said, John Wayne, but it was, it's, it's pretty heavy when I, you know, when I think about the reality of it. Did you write any songs about that experience? No, I wrote about it in my autobiography, but it's not really, well, not yet, hasn't been sung. It's not really material. Yeah, because it seems like there's probably something there. Oh, yeah, there's definitely something there, for sure. I have, I mean, not to commercialize it, but I have a record, a new record coming out that deals with, which probably could be elements from that, it deals with getting older and, you know, like my first album, Working Class Dog was, I was 29. At 39, 30, it was all about getting laid, you know, because that's all a guy thinks of, and that's what you write about. But as you get older, there's other things to think about. So there's, you know, getting older, you know, the thinking of death isn't somewhere out there. And so you write, I write about stuff that I think about, and that's what I've been thinking about. You know, sex is still in there, but not as much as it was when I was 29 or 30. Of course not. Yeah. Well, it's kind of amazing because when you were young and when you first started on this musical journey, there were no 76-year-old rock stars. It didn't exist. No. And it was thought to be a young man's game, period. And when people got to be a certain age, they just stopped playing. And, you know, the Rolling Stones were like sort of the first to defy. Yeah. I remember in 88, they put out an album, and it was a big deal. God, the Rolling Stones put out a new album? This is crazy. These guys are going to go on tour? This is crazy. I know. And they just recently said, well, I don't know if I can do it anymore. Keith did, right? I know. Recently, now. I saw them at Circuit of the Americas, the racetrack out here. It was like 100,000 people. Three years ago, three years ago, whatever it was, when they played in Austin. It was fucking incredible, man. Mick has two trailers that are just gym equipment. He has two huge tractor trailers, and the inside of it is just a gym. That's awesome. And that guy works out every day, just so he can keep doing it. Yeah. I mean, he's the inspiration as far as how far you can push it. He's the canary in the coal mine. The last, I mean, their last album, he sounds incredible. Incredible. He sounded like he's 18, you know? I mean, Pauly is now starting to, you know, I love Paul McCartney. He was the guy I looked up to as a kid, you know, and he's starting to get a little, you know, a little weaker, but he's still amazing. I mean, to me, he's one of the great rock voices. Oh, for sure. But Jagger, it's crazy. I mean, he still sounds the same. Not just sounds the same, but when he's on stage, he's moving. He's nonstop. Nonstop. And dancing and moving and singing with emotion. Yeah. And it seems just like when I saw you perform Jesse's Girl. Like, he's singing it like he still loves it, like he still appreciates the experience and never got jaded by it all. Yeah, I think, I mean, I saw an interview recently with him and the guy said, you know, do you feel different? Because, you know, you've been this all your life. He goes, yeah, I feel different than other people because of it, you know, I feel separate from them. And I understand that there is a degree of that that just happens. Because it's not normal to get up in front of, you know, a couple of thousand people and have them want to be there and to be with you and to sing, you know. I guess that's kind of the element of everyone wanting to be a rock star. As an actor, you're not. An actor's done on film or whatever and then played, you know. But the rock star has it on record, plus he's got it live. That live connection is, I think, what everybody kind of looks at in the end as far as that's what I'd love to do. Yeah. Is have all those people go, yeah. Well, it's also that experience is such a positive experience for everyone. Totally. For you, for them. When I go to a live concert, I'm always amazed at how good it feels. It's like you're on a drug, like you're feeling it. It's like everyone is loving the music, the sound, the performers there, and the fact that they're actually right there. There's so much going on that it's like you walk out of there like, that was fucking awesome. I know. I feel like it's kind of taking the place of church, you know, where we go to commune with people. We have fellow, you know, humans, and we're all, it's different than a sports event, because sports event is generally two sides. Right. But when you're at a concert, everyone's pointing the same way. Also, it's all positive. Yeah. Like, if your team loses, you don't leave there dejected. Yeah. If you're there to see, you know, fill in the blank, whatever band, and you leave there, you're like, fuck, that was awesome. Yeah. Yeah. I say, actually, that our job is to give the audience 90 minutes, two hours of freedom. From the crap that bothers them during the day. Yes. And it frees us, too. Yeah. It frees me when I don't think of all the shit that, you know, that the monkeys talk in my head. So it's a mutual, you know, mutual good feeling. Yeah, 100%. And it's also, it's like, it's such a uniquely positive thing that you can give to people. Mm-hmm. And if you can perform to your fans every night, the amount of positivity. The amount of positivity you're spreading and the amount they're receiving and you're receiving is just, what a unique life. Because the average person will never experience what you experience on a normal night. Yeah, that's probably true. I think there are different versions of that. I mean, like you're, you know, you understand that. You get a lot of attention for what you do, you know. It's basically somewhat. And somewhere inside you're going, someone's noticing me, what I do. I'm not just, it's not just, you know, because we create art. Art, art, we create art because we just have to. And art doesn't exist to be liked. Our ego wants it to be liked. And it's our ego, I think, that that whole thing. Charges, you know, the whole audience thing charges. But I think if you don't have any ego, you're not going to get into the business anyway. Right. And I think it feeds that. And I think it's the smart person who can try and put it into perspective and not, you know, like certainly Mick Jagger has put it into perspective. He certainly had time to put it into perspective. And his is, you know, a huge experience. I think Paul McCartney is the same way. He's very. He's very, it seems, you know, considering what he's done, he's amazingly grounded, I think. Yeah, for sure. I mean, just to be not completely insane. Yeah. When you're that famous for that many years. The most famous. I think everyone has to have an ego and the ego kind of gets you to the dance. But if I think if you're objective about it, if you're smart about it, you realize that like serving. The ego is it's a fruitless effort. It's there's that's not the way to do it. No, I think I agree. I think the way to do it is to eventually transfer from I want all these people to like me to I want to put all my energy into whatever it is, the craft, whatever it is, and making it amazing. And don't think about anything else like, oh, they're going to love me for this. That I think that poisons the well, I think I agree. And I think that's what I meant by, you know, art just is you just create art out of, you know, because you have to because you need to. But but it's the ego that makes it want to be liked, you know, which is not I don't mean that's a good thing. I just mean that's it gets you to the dance. Yeah, there's no without ego, without wanting that. And most most people who start out in it, they start out from a place of being an outcast and feeling like they don't get enough attention. So. Well, me too. And then you decide, oh, this will get me way more attention that I've ever had in my life. It'll fill that hole. Fill that hole. But it never does. Never does. But I think once you become centered or grounded in this experience, then your focus should not be on you and attention. All of your energy should be into what you're doing, whether it's making songs or writing jokes and performing them, whatever it is. It's like. Then it becomes, OK, now the the new task with all this energy is just let me do the best I can with whatever this thing is that I'm doing. Yeah, I agree. I think like the first I always say the first couple of years when I when I first hit for me, I thought it was all about me. And then I realized it was all about the audience, all about the fans. Was Jesse's Girl your first big hit? I had one. When I first came over here in 72 from Australia, I had a song called Speak to the Sky that was it got me the deal over here. It was the first hit solo hit I'd had in Australia. And it was like number 10 or got to number 10 over here and was a hit in Canada. But it was it was kind of a weird country, you know, Holy Roller kind of song. I wrote it for my mom. And that's cool. Very different than, you know, what I became known for. But it was that was kind of the first. And then they kind of they manages. I started getting picked up by teen magazines, which I'd never seen before in Australia. They didn't have them. They had one music paper and that was it. And they're asking me, you know, doing all I'm doing all these interviews, music interviews. And I I look at the finished article and it's like, you know, cuddle up with Rick. You know, is Rick too tall, too tall to love? This is not what we talk. Talked about. I talked about, you know, yeah, I come over here. I'm I'm a songwriter and I went up, you know, all this kind of stuff. What is this? So I started, you know, I my my ego got the better of me and I started going, well, I'm you know, I'm getting noticed in America. It's a big apple, you know. So I like should I kind of lean into this, I guess, you know, because we're getting a lot of press. So I did for a little while and it was going nowhere. It was I wasn't writing the music that, you know. I was writing songs about a guy that committed suicide, writing songs about a woman that was trying to decide if she should leave her husband because he's cheating on her. And and they're going, where's where's Cherish? Where's doesn't somebody want to be wanted? We're giving him all this press, you know, and there's no there's no hits here. I have to speak to this guy. So I eventually left my managers who were kind of pushing me in that direction, which was a drag because I love one of one of the guys was Steve Bender, who actually I love. I still talk to who was the director of the Elvis special, you know, the comeback special. Oh, and I met Elvis on a plane once. And and and I said, you know, my manager, Steve Bender. And he goes, I love Steve. And you met Elvis on a plane. Yeah. Yeah. Going back to Australia because I was having trouble with with getting a visa here. I had to prove I wasn't putting an American out of work. Right. That was it. That was a phrase. Who was president back then in America? What year was this? It was a 71, 72, 73. That was post Nixon. Was that Lyndon Johnson or was that Nixon? When did Nixon get kicked out? Is it still Nixon? When was Watergate? This episode is brought to you by SimpliSafe. Think back 20 years. Home security meant blaring alarms, few surveillance cameras, but not much has changed since. 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And it's clinically studied to fill nutrient gaps and increase healthy gut bacteria. And now there's AG1 Pro. It contains creatine, one of the most studied compounds in sports science that helps support energy. Plus CAHMB for muscle protection and zinc carnosine for your gut lining. Because we all know how important it is to keep your gut happy and healthy. AG1 Next Gen or AG1 Pro both are here to help you level up. Whichever you go with, your body will thank you. Go to drinkag1.com slash joe. And for a limited time, save 20% on your first subscription order of AG1 Next Gen or AG1 Pro. That's drinkag1.com slash joe. Watergate was when I was over here. 74? So it was Nixon. 70, yeah. Yeah, so I had to prove, you know, we're taking all these, like, it was really weird. We're taking these scrapbooks full of these crappy stories. It's in the teen magazine. Cuddle up with Rick. Yeah, look, here. Mr. President. Look how much press I'm getting, you know. An American, this is not going to put an American out of work. Anyway, so the planes stopped at Hawaii to refuel because they couldn't go all the way to Australia back then. And they get on the plane and I walk in and there's Elvis sitting, like, right there. I was in the back of the bus back then. Elvis is sitting in the first class. He looked great. He was skinny, jet black hair. His skin looked great. Powder blue suit on. Looked really, just, I wasn't a fan really back then because I was more into the British invasion and everything. But he said, oh, that's Elvis. That's cool. So I go back there and I had a girlfriend in Australia at the time who was a giant Elvis fan. So he did a thing I've never seen anybody do. Now when you get on a plane and you see a celeb that got, like, a hood on and glasses and they're, like, they're looking down. He got up before the plane landed in Hawaii and walked back. Signing autographs and taking photos with all the people in the plane. Wow. And he got to me and I went, hey, Steve Binder, my manager. Because I know him and Steve got along really well on the Elvis special because the colonel wanted it to be Elvis in a Christmas sweater singing Christmas songs. And Steve walked into the dressing room one time and there's Elvis playing with his buddies. And he goes, I'm going to put that on film. Which became him jamming in the boxing ring. And the colonel's going, absolutely not. Absolutely not. We're keeping it, you know, a family thing. And so they butted heads like crazy. But Elvis was on Steve's side. And for once Elvis took, yeah, I want to do this. You know, he didn't go with what the colonel said. So I know he got along really well with Steve. So anyway, I'd heard that before I met him. And I said, yeah, I love Steve. He's a great guy. And I said, would you sign this to Allison, who was my girlfriend at the time? And he signed it. And I put, I had my little tape recorder that recorded all my songs. And I put the autograph in there and went through Australian Customs. And they saw my tape recorder and said, oh, we're going to see what's in this. Might be porn in here. Who knows? So they took it and came back and the Elvis autograph was gone. They stole your Elvis autograph? These motherfuckers. I know. Don't trust them. They're bastards. Oh, back in the day. Back in the day, too. They didn't have any cameras on them either. No, exactly right. I know. Dirty people. Oh, that must have been so wild. His relationship with the colonel was so creepy. That movie was fantastic. What did Tom Hanks kill it as the colonel? It was just like, what a creepy relationship. And it's so common for whatever reason for these really talented people to have some person managing them. This like fucking creepy character. Clueless. Yeah. Weird. I think the Beatles were rare in the respect that they had Epstein, however you pronounce his name, Brian Epstein, that was a smart guy and on the cusp of like pop really happening and did good things with them. You know, cleaned them up, told them, you know, bow and the music was their music. But he was one of the really few that really. I don't think he knew what he was doing, but he had a good intent. And so he found ways to make, you know, do the right thing. But I've never met anyone or read anything that the colonel wasn't a frigging jerk, you know. Yeah. I just don't understand how Elvis had no one who was capable of separating him from the colonel. Yeah. Well, if anyone could have, Steve Binder could have. But he, I think, you know, he felt secure around the colonel, I guess. Yeah. Well. There's certain people that, especially because Elvis had a pill problem, right? So it was probably he was his enabler. Yeah. He was, you know, shielded everybody from him, kept him safe and kept him isolated. And his whole group did too, you know. Yeah. It was great. Elvis, how was the performance? You know, he was overweight. Yeah. It was great, man. You were great. One of my favorite performances of his was when he was really fat, when he was singing in Vegas. And he sounds like he's mumbling. And then. What is the song that, do you remember the song, Jamie? We've played it before. But once he starts, once he starts belting out the song, you're like, my God, he's good. Oh. On the piano. He's on the piano. What is it? Unchained Melody. Yes. Yeah, Unchained Melody. Unchained Melody. My God, it's good. Yeah. And you just realize, like, you see him and the way he's talking, he's clearly high as a kite. There's something wrong. He's so fat. It's like so sweaty. And he looks like he's fat. It's terrible. You're like, oh, my God, poor Elvis. What's wrong with him? And then you hear him sing. You see him sing. And it all goes away. You're like, who fucking cares? Who cares? My God, that's magic. That's magic. That is live performance, like, personified. There's something about the magic of an insanely talented person performing live. And that one Elvis song was that. And it came through all the drug use and everything. Yeah. It's pretty amazing. I mean, I know exactly the thing you're talking about. Yeah, here it is. I can't play it. It's getting harder and harder and harder. Yeah, we keep getting kicked off YouTube. You can't play the music? We did copyright strikes and shit, you know, which is unfortunate. Because, like, look how fat he is. Yeah. Poor guy. And that's when he was performing. Was that when he was living in Vegas? Oh, I think it was probably, I think it might have been after that. But he was doing that. He was doing the Vegas things right to pay for the colonel's gambling debts. Yeah, isn't that nuts? Wow. Well, I bet it also was probably easier for him, too, to not have to go anywhere. Yeah. He didn't like planes. I heard that. 1977. Wow. My God. So that's right before he died, right? Didn't he die in, like, 78? When did he die? Yeah, I think that's, yeah, I know where I was when he died. Wait, what day did I say that was? No, it was two months before he died. Wow. Two months before he died. He died on August 16th, 1977. Wow. And he, and how old was he, like, 40? 42. Isn't that insane? That's crazy. And look at you. Keep on trucking, dog. What do you do to stay healthy? I work out every day, or six days a week. I eat well. My dad died early. My dad died when he was, well, he died twice, actually. He died when he was 51, and they brought him back. And he had an ulcer on his major artery in his stomach. And he was worried about it, and he didn't, he thought it was cancer. And so he wouldn't, he didn't want to go to the doctor. He didn't want to hear the bad news, you know. He thought. And what you don't know, you know. Right. So, and, and he eventually, I was at home, actually, when he passed out, and they took him into the hospital, and he's in bed, and he's, the ulcer burst, and he started bleeding, coming, blood coming out everywhere. Luckily, there was a doctor just down a couple of beds down. They rushed him into emergency. But he did die, and his heart stopped, and they took 15 minutes to get it going again. Oh, my God. And he came back. And, you know, he's a real in-charge guy, just really loving, really amazing person. He came back, and he's basically a five-year-old. Oh, wow. And I remember sitting in the backyard trying to help him remember who was who in his life. And he, I go, so Michelle is married to, no, no, George, Michelle is George's daughter. He's married to Nan. And he go, okay. So Nan is a daughter. No. And it was just, it was heartbreaking trying to get him to remember his old friends. And so I, that stuck with me because he hadn't paid attention to it. And so I'm kind of the opposite now. I do prenuvo. I do blood draws. What's prenuvo? Prenuvo is a body scan, MRI body scan. I mean, you were asking about, you know, just how I stay in shape. Yeah. This is all part of it, is knowing what is going on. on inside you, you know, and not ignoring anything, which is not to say, you know, I won't sip off a curb and get hit by a bus one day, but you, you know, you do what you can, as you know, you know, I have a blood draw as soon as I get home, actually, just to keep an eye on things, and anyway, so he, so he didn't pay attention, and that's, that kind of stayed with me, and so I started focusing on what I ate, I started being aware that earlier, maybe than normal, that, you know, there, there is a, used by a date, you know. Yeah. So I guess I started, I started running, running just happened to be a new thing in the early 70s, so I started that, and I'd always loved running, it was the only thing I was good at at school was actually was running and English, and so I started running, and that kind of got me into the whole, well, if you're running, then you maybe, may as well eat well, and, and you want to get some upper body strength and work out, so I just started doing, I've run all my life until about 15 years ago, when my knees suddenly said, no, we're not going to do that anymore. That's pretty good. Find something else. To, to get that long running is pretty incredible. Yeah, it was, it was great. I did love running. I'd get, like, on the street. The tour bus, I'd, we'd, I'd get up at the tour bus, and wherever we were, I'd just put on clothes, running clothes, and start running. I'd run 20 minutes one way, 20 minutes back. Sometimes I'd go into some pretty weird areas, you know, of, of a city, and you'd start worrying about who was around, but it was, was, you know, a great way to stay in shape. We actually went on, came off the road in more, better shape than we went on. We'd go to gyms and, and work out, and. I wasn't a big druggie or, or alcohol guy back then, and so it was, that was what I did with my time off, was, was stay in shape, and, and watch what I eat, and my wife's an amazing chef, and we always eat real clean, organic, and, and I have, you know, she turned me on to, to, to skin routine back when I was kind of too embarrassed to tell my band members that I took care of my skin, because they'd call me a freak, you know. I thought skin was, you know, I thought, well, guys' skin's different from women's skin, you know, we've got whiskers, you don't need all that stuff, but skin is skin, and, and she got me, my wife, she got me, my girlfriend then, she got me into, you know, taking care of my skin, and I still do that. I still take care of my skin, and I'm actually in a trial with a company called Bemi that is really unique, and I've been in the trial for four years with this stuff, where they take care of my skin, and I'm actually in a trial with a company called Bemi that is unique, and I've been in the trial for four years with this stuff, where they take a, a sample of your cells from behind your ear, and they grow your cells, and the growth serum, they pull the growth serum from that and put it into something that you put back on your face, and it's, have you heard of, SkinMedica has one, only they use baby foreskins. Baby foreskins, for real? Yeah, newborn foreskins. Really? Yeah, that's what they get the, the, the growth factors from, but this is your own growth factors, so you're putting that back on. Your own body, back in your, you know, on your, on your face, it's been pretty amazing. I would prefer your method. What's, yeah. Yeah, I'm not into baby foreskins on my face. I know they're doing it with different stem cells. They're doing it with, what they do is they do microneedling, and so they kind of like microneedle your whole face, and then they use exosomes, and they also use something called mu cells, which is the latest and greatest version of it. Right, but that's, that's outside stuff. Yeah. The Bemi stuff is European. own cells, which is pretty great. I think that's a difference. I think the thing that's different is that with your own cells, as you get older, they're just not as good. Oh, you think the younger ones work? Well, they certainly seem to, like Mu cells in particular, which is the newest iteration of stem cell technology, seems to work much better than cells that they used to get from either fat, they used to get it from your fat, or they used to get it from bone marrow. Yeah, I've had the bone marrow stem cell done. I had that injected into my hips. It works. Yeah, well, it definitely works. It just doesn't work as well, these Mu cells. I mean, there's people that are going over to Saudi Arabia and doing it in Dubai. That's right. It's always, it's never here, man. I've gotten to Regenokine, Orthokine. I've done Regenokine. Yeah, and because Colby used to have to go to Germany. Yeah, yeah. Germany for it, right? And now they've bypassed the law somehow. And so I get that pretty regular, not regularly, because it lasts a couple of years, but I'm due for it now in my shoulders, because, you know, it's lifting weights, you know, no matter what, how heavy you go, you still, you know, as you get older, you're aware it just happens. How long are you in town for? I'm leaving actually after this. Oh, okay. I was going to send you down. This is a great clinic. This is a clinic that my friend owns in Austin called Ways to Well, and they do all the latest and greatest, like state-of-the-art, all the latest and greatest stem cell technology. They have hyperbaric chambers, red light therapy, all this. I mean, everything that's state-of-the-art they have. Wow. Yeah. I wish I'd known that you had a bunch of injuries. I would have had you come in there. I'd make a trip back to check that out. Russell Crowe comes down all the time. He comes down specifically just for that. So they do. Red light. Oh, everything. Hyperbaric. I've done hyperbaric. You should get one. You should get one in your house. It's a fucking game changer. Really? Yes. There was a study out of a university in Israel. They did these. Right. They did. The protocol is 60 sessions of 90 minutes over 90 days, and they show that it lengthens your telomeres. It's equivalent to a 20-year difference in biological age. Right. I read that too. It feels different. Like when you do it, you feel better. Do you have one at home? Yes, I do. And if you have like a whoop strap or an aura ring or anything like that, it'll show that you've had an incredible recovery. It'll like specifically show from one session, you have an amazing recovery today. And it's specifically because of this hyperoxygen-saturated environment of the hyperbaric chamber. I wonder if that'd help me sleep. I have trouble sleeping. Do you? I have trouble sleeping, yeah. Why do you have trouble sleeping? What's going on? I don't know. I wake up. Every couple of hours and haven't been able to sleep all the way through for quite a while, actually. Huh. This episode is sponsored by BetterHelp. Imagine waking up tomorrow with perfect discipline. Whatever you decide you're going to do, you just do it. No procrastinating, no negotiating with yourself, no making excuses. Yes, it's a little unrealistic, but everyone wants to be better at something, right? Better is a feeling defined by you. And for BetterHelp, it's a BetterHelp therapist who really gets you. It's a focus on global emotional well-being with thousands of therapists and millions of members in over 100 countries. So while it can't magically help you keep plants alive, it can help in other ways, like teaching you how to set and stick to goals as you chase your horticultural dreams. Sign up and get 10% off at betterhelp.com. Do you ever do sauna before you go to bed? Do you do a sauna at all? Do you do that? Not a lot, no. Okay, that's another one. There was a study out of Finland that followed. Red light? No, no, no. Red light? The thing about red light is like infrared. I don't think there's anything wrong with it. I think it's good for you, for sure. But there's not robust studies on it like there is with the dry sauna. So the Finnish have been using dry. Dry saunas forever, and they did a study over 20 years with quite a large sample group, and they found that the people that use the sauna four times per week for 20 minutes had a 40% decrease in all cause mortality. 40% less strokes, cancer, heart attacks, everything. And it's because of heat shock proteins that your body develops when you're exposed to that. It also has an effect of increasing your endurance. Because it's essentially like static cardio, because as you're sitting there in that heat, your heart beats faster, and it actually literally increases your cardiovascular output. Wow. It's incredible. I'll check into that for sure. And one of the ways that they use it is contrast therapy. So what they do is they'll go in the sauna for 20 minutes, and then they usually have their saunas by a lake, and they'll go in the cold water of the lake and then back into the sauna. So what I do is I have a cold plunge. So I have a cold plunge that's right next to my sauna, and I go back, 34 degrees, and so I go back and forth. It seems cold, but I'm so used to it, it's not cold anymore. I mean, it is cold, no doubt about it, but I'm so used to it. I just climb right in, and it's nothing. In the beginning, I was like, I can't do this. This is crazy. I think the first time I did it, I did it for like a minute. I was like, this sucks so hard, I got to get out of this thing. And then eventually, I got to the point where I do three minutes, like a three-minute, and I'm like, it's nothing. It's easy. But that's also incredible. not just for your body you don't want to do it after workout so one of the things about after workout is it's bad it's not good it's not terrible for you but it's not good in that it decreases hypertrophy which is like increasing muscle size because a lot of that is dependent upon the inflammation that happens during exercise so when you exercise and you you know you break down your tissue the the strength comes because your body heals after the exercise so you blunt a little of that recovery by getting in the cold right after exercise yeah so the way i do it is i get in the cold before i exercise so the first thing in the morning i hop in that thing i every day yeah i do three minutes and then after i do three minutes then i start my workout and the first thing i do is a series of mobility exercises i usually do those right after i get out right outside right after i get out i start i do these like swings and twists and all these different things these like golf swings and it's all just loosening up the muscles and it's all just loosening up the muscles and it's all just loosening up the muscles and it's all just loosening the body up and getting my heart rate up and warming my body up since it's been cooled down and then i start my strength workout so i do my workout after that and then after i'm done with my workout then i get in the sauna wow yeah it's awesome yeah you feel so much better first of all the just the cold when you get out of that cold your endorphins are flying your norepinephrine spikes your dopamine spikes you feel fucking amazing yeah it's worth it just for that it's worth it just for that it's worth it just for that if you could sell a pill that makes you feel as good as i feel when i get out of that cold punch that shit would be on every shelf yeah without the cold plunge but it's available you just do it and also it it gives you a certain amount of mental toughness that's a bad yeah i know i get that yeah the discipline of it perseverance you have there's like there's a thing where you don't want to do it but you do it and when you can just train your mind to just do things you don't want to do it routinely all the time that's what i do with working out i hate walking into a gym and i love walking out yes exactly everybody feels the same way and that's so many people it's the daunting task is the first few steps it's just so hard to get going but once you get going then it's not hard at all yeah i agree i agree it becomes the good habit you know rather than uh yes and i and you make it you know i had i have a gym i don't like work i've had a gym at home for a while but i prefer work going to a gym so i work out but i have it close by so i don't have an excuse you know to ah it's late you know right right right so um yeah i get i get all that i do and and being on stage when you said the endorphin hit is kind of i get that on there too it's for sure oh for sure like wow yeah the thing is like you can't live on that like you can't perform every day just to feel better you know what i mean well you can i mean guess if you're on tour but uh but it's nice to have that in your actual life as well as your performing life i get it are you a supplement guy do you take supplements yeah i do actually um i've been through a lot of different uh ones but uh right now i'm um i'm doing uh i i am eight is it i am eight that's the one and the one all in one okay um and i do you know creatine before workout and the protein after creatine is actually good just for um mental benefits creatine increases cognitive performance and it's really good if you're tired one of the studies they've shown is that uh people that have sleep deficit like if you sleep deprived um one of the very best things for performance mental performance is creatine oh yeah it does so you take it before you work out anyway right that's what i did it's good for just overall metabolic health but uh taking it just as a regular part of your day pre or post workout doesn't matter just taking it as a regular part of your day will increase your mental performance but like if i'm flying and if i have to go somewhere and i'm on the road and i might be tired i bring i take it every day anyway but i bring it with me everywhere and i like routinely if i'm tired and i know i'm going to be tired i take creatine i can soar through really yes instant uh you feel it right away it completely mitigates any of the sleep deficit brain fog how much i take 10 milligrams twice a day or 10 grams rather twice a day so i take 10 grams in the morning and i take 10 grams at night that's how i usually do it me i eat mostly protein my diet is like 90 meat that's mostly what i eat wow yeah i eat meat and fermented vegetables i'll fuck around and have a sandwich or a slice of pizza or some pasta like last night i had chicken parmesan it was great but most of my diet like 80 to 90 is meat yeah i can't eat chicken that's off off the menu why i had chickens when i was a kid that i named and then we ate them i have chickens now and i still eat them i don't eat my chickens my chickens you know they're wandering around the yard i talk to them like hey ladies that's what we used to do only my dad every sunday we and i you know i was like a kid oh i want to chop his head off dad so i and he'd throw it and it would like flap around and then and then he'd take them and he and he dropped we had this laundry room and he'd throw it in the laundry room and like boil hot water in the laundry room to get the feathers would come out easier and that smell i walked into a group dinner somewhere and they were having chicken and that smell came back to me about when i was about 30 and i have not been able to touch chicken ever since really wow i have no problem eating chickens i know it'd be much easier for me i eat turkey which is weird because it's not much different right it's just a little stupider but but i just the thought of chicken i just can't well i just can't you think turkeys are stupider than chickens uh they're the one not they're the ones that will drown if they hold their look up at the rain and rain will drown them the rain will drown them the rain will drown them really oh they're stupid man well they're very cautious and they have they have very good eyesight i've turkey hunted before it's like oh really yeah oh wild turkeys may be different from you know i'm sure aren't they yeah i mean if they're on the wild if they're wild they're probably yeah a lot smarter than they're alive there's a lot of them in my neighborhood actually but they are uh they see really well like you can't move at all if you know you're turkey hunting you have to be very cautious wow yeah they have some of the best eyesight any wild animal really yeah yeah that's why you see guys when they turkey hunt they have these crazy ghillie suits where they're completely covered and they sit with like their back to a tree or like completely motionless and then and they usually have like a fake turkey like a turkey decoy sitting out there and they make noises like i'd probably rather not go turkey hunting if that's what i gotta do you'd probably like to go i'd probably not go if i had to sit yeah you have like a little box and i have this little box and it has like it's almost like a fiddle and it makes a turkey noise yeah and you've done that yeah i've only done it once the thing about it is my thought was we hunted for a few days for one meal and i'm like i would rather go deer hunting or elk hunting you got a week's worth months and months of food and you know and it's better food like i'd rather way rather eat elk than i would turkey there's nothing wrong with wild turkey and i certainly would do it again it's just not what i prefer i prefer mammals i eat mammals i think they're better for you they're they're more nutrient dense there's a lot more iron and a lot more amino acids and all the have you had kangaroo i have had kangaroo i think i think i had it when i was in australia let me make sure i did no i had i've had ostrich a bunch of times aim you i haven't had emu i don't think they god i don't have had kangaroo it was so long ago the last time i was in australia maybe i didn't it's gamey but uh i have some friends that live over there and they've had a bunch of times oh yeah there's an infestation australia is crazy how many camels got more camels in australia now than there are in in like you know any of the arab states that's not kangaroos for sure and they have rabbit that infestations yeah they bring except for the the the kangaroos everything's imported you know but the kangaroos are like you know you've seen the videos of them on the golf course yeah they come up and stare stare at you while you're about to whack a ball it's freaking hilarious well i've seen these videos of these fields where you have like thousands of kangaroos bouncing down these fields it's a wild look that's a lot there's have so many wild animals in australia i didn't appreciate it when i lived there but it's it's pretty freaky they brought the captain cook uh who you know supposedly discovered australia brought back a platypus to england they thought it was uh they saw they stitched it together from three different animals because had a duck bill a body like a beaver no body like a like a um you know yeah i guess like a beaver and webbed feet yeah and it laid eggs and they they thought this is not a real animal well it doesn't seem like a real animal it's such a strange everything kills you in australia oh yeah yeah i have a good buddy my friend adam green tree he lives there and it's uh there's so many weird things they've done in australia by bringing in invasive animals to toads yeah they brought in a bunch of cats to deal with a bunch of different animals then the cats wind up killing all the native stuff. Then they become the problem to bring something in for that. Yeah, it's crazy. Yeah, the cane toads where they brought in to get rid of the rats in the cane fields. And now they're the problem. They're, like, everywhere. They did that with rabbits. The English brought the rabbits in because they wanted, you know, for food. And they're frigging everywhere now. Yeah, Australia is very strange in that a giant percentage of the animals that are there are completely invasive. Yeah. The Asian water buffaloes they have. Do they? Yeah, the North Territory. Well, the ones that kill you are all the local ones. Well, those water buffaloes will kill you, too. They're huge. But they're massive, and they're everywhere. And, you know, the only way they die is by people hunting them. Yeah. Because these are just— They've got a cull of kangaroos, too. They're just, you know— I mean, you'd often see kangaroos lying on the side of the road out in the bush. Because if you get hit by a car, it would demolish your car. Oh, yeah. Some of them are huge. And you'd have to see the guy defending his dog with the kangaroo. Yeah, we punched it. Punching the kangaroo. He's lucky that kangaroo didn't fuck him up. Oh, no. The red kangaroos can stand on their tails, and with their back legs, they can disembowel a guy. Those are the big ones, right? Some of those get, like, six feet tall. Yeah, what do they say? They're like deer that went to prison. That's a good way to describe it. Do you live in America now? What's that? You live in America? You live in America now? Yeah, I'm a citizen. I became a citizen a bunch of years ago because I love this country and because I wanted to be available for jury duty. Have you done that yet? Yeah, I have, actually. That must have been weird for people. You know, you're getting tried. Is that fucking Rick Springfield? Holy shit, dude. I'm a fan. Please make me not guilty. Yeah, don't convict me. I'm a fan, man. No, I didn't get selected because I was actually in a lawsuit at the time with this woman who claimed that I hit her with, we called it butt gate. I'd hit her with my ass while I, because I go in the audience sometimes, and she said I'd hit her with my butt and she'd fallen and, like, hurt her brain or something. So it was obviously bullshit, but, so they called me back twice to New Jersey to testify because I wasn't going to go down, you know, pay this woman money to go away. I was going to fight her. How much did she want? She didn't have a figure because it didn't get that far. It was still to find out who would win the case, first of all. And so, yeah, it was like, what was I talking about? No, I've totally lost. See, it's all this space shit. Oh, butt gate. This room is distracting. It's very distracting. It's probably not the best thing for conversations. I love the whole UFO thing, man. Thank you. Anyway, I forget. I forget what I was talking about. You had to go back. Yeah, I had to go back, and it was, oh, I don't know. So that's how you got out of jury duty. What's that? You were talking about jury duty. Yeah, right. And, oh, that's right. I was called up for jury. See? Called up for jury. Creature. You're used to this room. I'm not. I'm used to this room, too. Yeah. And I was called up for jury duty, and they said, was there any reason you wouldn't, you would be, you know, not allowed to do this? Not eligible for this. And I said, oh, I just got called up. I mean, I just got in a lawsuit myself, and I think it's all bullshit. And they said, you're out of here. So it was great. It was good timing. Yeah. But, no, that's not the reason I became a citizen. I make that. That's a joke. I just, I mean, I, it's actually because if I go first, or if my wife goes first, I'd get screwed by taxes. You mean die first? Is that what you mean? Yeah, yeah. Oh, like you said, go. Oh, we're always. Saying, you know, I'm going to go first. I don't want to be the one left. Oh, that's funny. Well, the last thing I'm worried about if she goes first or I go first is taxes. Yeah. But. No, I know. But, I mean, no, that's not why we talk about it. But that's why I became a citizen was for the tax thing. But, yeah, no, it's. What year was that? When did you become a citizen? 10 years ago. Oh, wow. 15 years ago. And were you living over here the entire time? Yeah, yeah. I've been here since 72. I mean, except for the trips back, you know, to meet Elvis on the plane. It was, yeah, I've been here, you know, since 72, basically living here. Just for your career. Yeah. Well, I mean, this is my life. My family's here. My friends are here. My life is here. Now. Yeah. I used to go back to Australia until my mom died. My mom lived till she was 96. So I'm hoping some of those genetics are in there. I am curious to see how long Mick can keep. Fracking. Because how old is he now? I'm interested to see how long Keith can keep. Right. That's the funny one, right? Because Keith is not doing any of the things that Mick is doing. He's still shredding. He was shredding. Drinking beer and. Drinking beer, smoking cigarettes, doing acid. I did a movie with, which we shall not name, but it was with his girlfriend, who was Patty Hanson at the time. It was because his girlfriend at the time is his wife now. And we got along really well, right? And so Keith came down to the set. To find out what was going on with this Springfield guy and his girlfriend. And he was, ah, he looked like fucking Dracula, man, it was, it was like 83 or something. And that's, I got, we took photos and he looked so bizarre. And yet here he is. Yep. Here he's still cooking. I, you know, everyone's going, yeah, it's gotta be this year. It'll be gone. No. And all these, you know, Bowie's gone. My God. That one hurt. Bowie gone. Yeah. That was a tough one. But you know. Bowie was a lifelong smoker. And, ah. This episode is brought to you by Squarespace. If you're thinking about building a website, you should try Squarespace. I know because I use it. That's right. Joe Rogan.com is powered by Squarespace. It has all the features that you need to create a standout website, like an AI enhanced website builder, SEO optimization tools, and seamless checkouts with mobile pay links. Head to Squarespace.com/Squarespace. You can get your free trial for a free trial and when you are ready to launch, use the offer code Rogan to save 10% off your first purchase of a website or domain. This episode is brought to you by Ketone IQ. I've tried a lot of supplements, but for years it's been one thing that I've been obsessed with to keep my brain locked in, and that's ketones, an energy molecule our brains naturally create when pushed to our limits. Ketones used to cost thousands of dollars a shot and were only used by super elite people. But now, thanks to a $6 million research contract, we're able to do more than we used to. We're able to do more than we used to. whatever it is, they can't handle it. And they'd rather just live a simple life and not have the pressure. Fear of success is a real thing. It's a real thing. It's a real thing. Fear of success and maybe even more fear of failing to succeed when you're attempting to succeed. Yeah. You know, that cripples people. Yeah. No, I get that totally. Yeah. And it does hurt when things don't go your way. But it still drives me, you know. I mean, there's still things I want to do. And I think that's, you know, I mean, I love playing, but I do that. That's kind of my day job, you know. But outside extracurricular stuff. What do you do extracurricularly? I write. I've had a couple of novels out. I wrote my own autobiography. I'm writing a book on just, you know, what I've done with my life. To, you know, be where I am, you know, health-wise and everything. Yeah, I do. And just, you know, there's all kinds of things on the side that you can do that. And I just love to write. I mean, I consider myself a writer really before anything. I only started performing because no one would do my songs. I'll do them. For real? That's crazy. I used to be in a band. If you go on, YouTube, and you look up Zoot, Z-O-O-T, and look up Eleanor Rigby, I was a guitar player in this band. It was like a four-piece band. And I arranged this version of Eleanor Rigby that was, to me now, it sounds like Black Sabbath, although I'd never heard Black Sabbath back then. But it's a lot of, like I did Billy Corgan's thing, and he was like focused on this band because we were kind of like psychedelic before. As that was just starting, you know? Oh, there it is. Yeah. Wow. And then Beeb, he became part of, formed Little River Band, actually, the bass player. What year is this? And that was our singer. He passed away a few years ago. But it was a great band. It was, that's me. Look at you, dude. What year is this? 69, 70. Wow. Yeah, it was, was, it was kind of very heavy. It was much heavier stuff than I'm doing now. Well, maybe not now, but it was for, they'd been a pop band, and they dressed in pink, and I'd been in a band, and my band split up because I got to sing the single, and the bass player was so pissed off they didn't pick him that he broke the band up. So I was a free agent, and they said, well, you want to join us because our guitar player's leaving. So I said, okay. So I wore the pink thing for a while, and I said, this has got to go. You couldn't deal with pink? Yeah. It's horrible. But so I said, I've got this great idea. We'll get rid of the pink, and we'll do a photo of us, like, looking over our shoulder totally naked, like in our original pink suits, and we dump the pink thing. So, but we'll have it high contrast, so they won't really see anything. But they printed the photo, like, full on. Oh, there we are. So what was up with the pink thing? Why? They had a theme called Think Pink, Think Zoot. And it was good for the little girls. It was like, you know, yeah. Oh, I was so pissed at that album. That was the first album, the only album we did. And they cut out our heads to stick them. That was before Photoshop. And they miscut my hair. You look like a granny haircut. It was horrible. What a horrible album cover. One of the worst ever made, I think. Well, at least you weren't wearing pink. So, but that was such a weird choice that that was a part of the theme. It was, yeah. It was this guy in Australia. Australia that thought it would be a great, and it caught on for a while. I find it very strange. Yeah, six months. It was about a six-month, life of a six-month, and then everyone got sick of it. So I said, we've got to lose that. So we had this photo taken, and they printed it in full color of our bare asses. And my mom lost her shit when she saw it. She goes, oh, Richard, how could you do that? I said, no, mom, it's supposed to be, like, high contrast. You weren't supposed to see all the creases and stuff. And you can still see it. It's still online. The photo's still online. Oh, I got to see that. I got to sign that every now and then. I get to sign when it's, be careful what you put on mine. Oh, that's funny. Like, hardcore fans bring you that? Yeah. That's funny. They must know it. It probably bugs you, too. They want you to sign it. Oh, it's pretty bad. And so I pushed him more, because Led Zeppelin was on the horizon, and I pushed him more into the guitar. You know, I play guitar, and I wanted the guitar to be kind of the center of the thing. So I pushed him into a much heavier thing. And this Eleanor Rigby was our first really big hit that we had over there. It arranged, you know, it was like. Like that kind of thing. And we actually got a deal. We had an EMI. We were interested in this over here. But our manager kind of screwed us by saying, oh, you're still under contract here, which we weren't in Australia. Anyway, so we split up, and I came over here, and Beeb went on to form Little River Band. And this singer became a TV star in Australia. Oh, wow. So we all went on to other things. But it was. God, you've had such a great run, man. You've done so many different things. Yeah, I look back, and I guess I have. I always thought I'd be a band guy, you know. And I had this. When they split up, I said, oh, I'll just join another band. But I had this writer, woman writer, who was a big fan. And she said, no, you've got to go solo. I said, I don't want to go solo. And she said, no, you've got to. You've got to go solo. Why did she. Why did she say that? I don't know. She just thought it was the next step for me. You know, she thought getting back in another band and being the guitar player was. She said I. She thought I had more to offer, you know, more going for me and a better career if I went solo. So I released this Speak to the Sky song that I wrote for my mommy. And that became a hit. And that got me the deal over here. And, you know, when they were signing everybody in the 70s, so. It was the weird time when you were. The Zoot time. 1969, such a strange time musically. It was changing pretty drastically. Well, I mean, I always point to the difference between 59 and 69 as being like one of the most radical changes in culture and music in all of human history. It's just such a strange. If you go like from Buddy Holly to Jimi Hendrix, I mean, is there a more radical transformation of rock and roll music than that time? Like there was something amazing. A lot of it was the drugs, for sure. It was the whole psychedelic movement. It was the anti-war movement. It was. Yeah, it was definitely sociological. And I think music is always driven by what happens. And it drives what happens, too. I mean, a lot of. Yeah, I think. I know people think that it. I think it becomes a soundtrack of what's happening. I think more that society drives what's happening in music. And then they adopt what the music. Because, you know, we've got a tune, you know, and it shows what we. But you're talking about 59 and you're talking about 69 where the changes happen, right? Well, that 10-year period is just massive. Yeah, yeah. It is just an incredible transformation between the 50s and the 60s. Yeah, and it was considered kind of disposable, you know, well, that's the kids do that. And by 69, 70, it was suddenly it had this more weight. You know, and people got older and they were now almost adults and they still liked it. Yes. Well, it's also that music has had a shelf life that is above and beyond anything that came after it. Like stuff from. Like there's a lot of rock and roll music from the 80s that just, you know, it doesn't have the same feeling as like cashmere. Yeah. You know what I mean? Like if you go and listen to a whole lot of love, like to this day, when a whole lot of love comes on, I'm like, oh, turn that up. Dun-dun-dun-dun. Dun-dun-dun-dun. They were the originators of that. I mean, they would really push that whole. His idea to get the kind of the bluesy singer and use the blues riffs and that was all his idea. And it was so frigging unique. And like he wanted Terry Reid. You know Terry, familiar with Terry Reid? No. He's a great English singer. I think he's passed now. I hope I'm not wrong in saying that because I hate it when they say, oh, Rick Springfield's dead. You know, you look up someone, the first line that comes up on Google is, is so-and-so dead? Right, right. Anybody. Especially when you get older. Yep, yep, yep. And yeah, so it was amazing. Terry Reid had this great voice, but he was going to actually tour with the Stones. And Jimmy Page asked him if he'd be the singer in Led Zeppelin. He said, I can't. I got this gig coming up with the Stones. But I know this guy, there's this guy down in this club. And it was frigging Robert. It was Robert Plant and John Bonham in the same band. Wow. In a pub band. And Jimmy Page walks in and he goes, they might be the right ones. How amazing. I mean, Bonham, one of the, you know, just a unique feel. He wasn't just a drummer. He was a, just an incredible, sonically he was different. And the sound of his drums, what he did with them was unique. His feel was just so laid back, but so right on. It was just in the same band as Plant. And it was like, that's crazy. It is crazy. Like a little club band. And you were saying, you know, music has more weight, certain music has more weight, and I think England has always amazed me because this little tiny friggin' island, the Beatles, the Stones, Led Zeppelin, The Who, Clapton. Yeah, I mean, well, Clapton actually was Canadian. Was he really? Yeah, he was born in Canada. Oh, I thought he was from England. Or he had Canadian parents or something. He wasn't from England? I bet he is, right? I like it when you. He was born there, yes. Where? He was born in the UK in 1935. Canadian parents, right? Let's see. Am I right on that? I'm not sure I'm coming up on that. I'm right on that, aren't I? Eh? Eh. Eh? Born to a Canadian soldier from Montreal, Quebec. Ah, there you go. Anyway, but the little island that had all these amazing bands. Incredible. And I think it's because everyone wanted to conquer Britain. The Romans, the Vikings, they all came in. The Germans, they all came in and spread their seed. First thing they did was, you know, have sex. And I think all that came together, and I think that's a lot of reason there are so many great bands, is it's a collection of all this genetic material from, you know, from. From Europe and all around. And the Romans, I mean, look what they did. Yeah. But it is interesting how Europe, if you look at it, the UK uniquely contributed to music. Totally. As opposed to all those other countries. Obviously, they're English-speaking, which helps how it spreads the word. But it's kind of amazing how much of an impact they had on America. I mean. And how much, how long it didn't have an impact, you know? I mean, it was. It was. And it was because it was bottled up for so long, I think, that it exploded so much with the Beatles. It was never. It never crossed the Atlantic. It was always America. Same with Australia. It was always America to England. It was America to Australia. There was one Australian guy that had a hit when I was a kid in England in school named Rolf Harris called Timey Kangaroo Down Sport. Timey Kangaroo Down Sport. Timey Kangaroo Down. It was a horrible song. But it was a huge hit in England. And it was the only one that ever came over from Australia. And the same with England. There was really nothing that crossed over. And then suddenly, Kennedy was killed. And America was looking away from America. They didn't want to look, I think, was a big part with the Beatles. They didn't want to look at America right then, at that point. Suddenly, here were these four mop tops. And they came and smiled and sang great music and took our attention. away from you know darkness well they were the probably the first real super band right the beatles yeah that was just so huge that people would faint when they saw them and just scream when they saw they used to faint for frank sinatra that's true they used to faint for for mozart i mean they were you know they were they had groupies that would pass out there was that they thought they were so hot really yeah yeah yeah yeah and um there were pop stars you know there were pop stars back then and um but it wasn't on television it wasn't i mean well the internet's done now you have a freaking opinion and now you can put it out there and welcome to this show yeah that's what it is exactly yeah it's just um it must have been very strange to be the first global super group like that i think yeah i don't think there's that i think elvis was probably the first super famous individual where i mean he got to a point first of all i think that level of fame is almost unsustainable for a human being i think it's just too crazy i don't i don't think it's manageable and especially when there was no roadmap and he was the first yeah he was the first and then michael jackson was like hold my beer i'll show you the next level of this shit yeah michael jackson took it to a place that was totally totally agree yeah totally agree unbelievable i mean i'm just young but the jackson five and beatles starting off in 64 is crazy wow martin mccartney was 22 and harrison was 21 yeah wow that's crazy you think about what you were doing at 21 wow and jackson five is same time wow 64 the jackson five wow i guess they were i mean it took a year or two i guess before they got famous but still same time amazing yeah i just saw uh this was it is it this is it oh the michael jackson documentary where he's preparing for the show yeah it's pretty wild it's just amazing i mean you see him just kind of going through it like you know like it's nothing i mean he's cutting back but he's still doing you know he knows what he's doing and just he did seem kind of weak to me and didn't know if he could sustain all of that by that that point but god he was amazing well i think the pressure and the stress was probably just so overwhelming for him unbelievable that guy couldn't go anywhere he would get swarmed like like no one ever is people loved him in a way he was so big that um i don't know if you're familiar with boston radio but um they had a wc i think it was wcoz rock of boston it was like the big boston rock and roll station and when uh thriller came out it was such a big album they go look i know the dj goes i know this isn't rock and roll but this is so awesome i'm gonna play it anyway and uh i think it was billy jean they played and uh i remember like thinking this is crazy they're playing this on the rock of boston like this is nuts but it was that big it was that big it transcended everything well they wouldn't let him on mtv right they uh they wouldn't play they said we don't play we can't you know they were saying come on this is huge you gotta play why weren't they playing they don't play black artists really yeah initially and uh i forget who it was one of the the atlantic someone atlantic ahmed erdogan or somebody called up and said if you don't play this song and empty and billy jean on the next in the next 10 minutes we're pulling all our artists and they played it and that was that was it it was just that's crazy yeah because thriller was obviously the biggest music video of all time that was a film i mean he got rick baker the guy who did the american werewolf in london the you know i know you're a horror fan um that wolf outside by the way we have two of those yes i just posted a photo of me with my arm in that in that guy the reason why we have two of those is because uh rick baker saw the original one that pat mcgee did that we had back here and he said the proportions were wrong so pat mcgee the guy who made that for me said i'm gonna make another one that has the right proportions so rick baker saw that one yes oh that's so rick baker came to my studio did my podcast and said that's great but the legs are too long the body's too long this is the wrong proportions and pat mcgee went crazy he's like fuck and so he made another one and then the the new one that he made though is even better because it's all animal and it's all animal and it's all animal hair yeah it's incredible i'll show you the other one the other one's in the other room the one not the not so good one right it's in the other room i bought i still have both of them um but he saw you don't get rid of werewolves no i mean i would give it to someone cool but the uh he did the special effects for thriller when he turns into that cat monster thing like he turns and the girl screams i mean then he's a zombie like that fucking video was crazy i remember everybody waiting for the premiere and all my friends were like oh my god i'm going to all my friends in high school like waiting around the tv for the premiere it was incredible there was like nothing like it yeah and you know i mean he was a superstar in a way that like i don't think anybody's ever come close maybe taylor swift like maybe she's in that sort of realm now this episode is brought to you by trager food cooked over real wood is just on another level and that's why trager is such a game changer their grills run on real hardwood pellets so everything gets that legit wood fired flavor whether you're grilling steaks smoking ribs cooking chicken or even baking a pizza you just set your temperature put your food in and let trager handle the rest it's simple if you like food that tastes like it came off a real fire without all the work check out trager grills this episode is brought to you by lifelock it may be hard to believe but identity theft is the number one crime in america right now millions of people are 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Terms apply. I mean, I think it's Elvis, The Beatles, and Michael Jackson were the three that absolutely transcend. Yeah. I mean, you know, there's been people as famous, but they did something so different. You know, first of all, Elvis was Elvis. Yeah. And The Beatles, they wrote the best songs. You know, there's not many songs left to write now because The Beatles wrote them all. Right. And Michael Jackson did them. Well, they also had such a different range of music. You know, you go from Love, Love Me Do to the more psychic. Oh, it's how fast they grew. Oh, yeah. That's just, I mean, I don't even know if that's possible anymore because the audience is so fragmented now. Back then it was, you know, your parents or you and your friends. There was nothing, you know, in between. There was no, you know, now it's like, well, if you're 13 years old, you're like, you know, K-pop. If you're, you know, 15, 16, you're like this. If you're like heavy stuff, then there's this. And everyone's, it's so fragmented. There's not like us against them anymore. Right, right, right. And so I don't know if it allows for, I think Taylor Swift is actually the first one to really get that amount of gigantic following. And I think. There's, it seems to be a lot of like young girls still. Yes. But I mean, I like a lot of the songs. I think she's a great writer lyrically. I think the girls are killing it in pop right now. I mean, you know, I miss rock and roll on the radio for sure. It's weird that rock and roll has kind of faded. What's that? I never thought the guitar would kind of become uncool. I thought once we got through disco, where it was just in the background, and suddenly there was ACDC, and you're going, oh, thank God the guitar's back. You know, now it'll never leave. It's left again, unfortunately. But hopefully it'll, you know, I don't know if it'll come back. I think. The window's open. What's that? The window is open. Because people still love the old music. Yeah, yeah. But there's, I mean, I hear great stuff from rock bands still, you know, but you don't hear it unless someone sends it to you, really. Yeah. Or there's a specific rock, you know, like I don't know where you hear, you know, Fighters, other than you certainly don't hear it on, you know, any of the AM stations anymore, do you? Are there even AM stations? Yeah, I know. I mean, I don't know what even plays. FM is what played real, played big music in this country. But, I mean, there's no real radio presence anymore. As far, like, I don't know of any. My mechanic still listens to FM music. I know that because when he fixes my car, when I get it back, the radio's on the local FM rock station. But it's all. Like, there's no DJs anymore, and if there is a DJ, they don't have control of the music anymore. Exactly right. And Jessie's Girl was a product of the DJs. It wasn't released as a single. Really? Yeah, it was back when the DJs, if they liked a song, they'd play it. They'd say, oh, I like this song, let's put this on. And they started doing that with Jessie's Girl, and they started getting a lot of phones. And they called up the record company and said, you probably should put this out as a single. It's getting a lot of phones in the record company. And the company goes, oh, okay. So they put it out. But it wasn't their choice. I mean, it was. Actually, back then, RCA was me and Elvis. That was pretty much it. Wow. It was old Elvis and, you know. What year was Jessie's Girl? 81, 80, 80, 81? 81. I throw it over to our maestro at the controls over there. Yeah, I was a freshman in high school. Yeah. Wow. I was 14 years old when that song came out. Oh, my God, really? Yeah. That's wild. Yeah. What was that like for you? That had to be insane. That song was so giant. Every girl in my high school was in love with you. It must have been nuts. Yeah, it was. I mean, I was 29, 30 by the time that happened. 31. And I was. I'd imagined it for so long. Because I'm very. One of the things I really believe in is, you know, which I'm sure you do too, manifestation, even, you know, visualization, seeing what you want and committing to it. And I'd seen it so much, so many times in my head that when it happened, I went, yeah, that's how it is. Really? So you expected it. Yeah. I always expected something. I knew something would happen. I had faith. You know, there was times when I was. Because of the teen magazines, I get letters sometimes. I can't wait to come over and meet you. And visit you in your mansion. And at the time, I was living in a $180 a month apartment in a seedy area of Hollywood, eating TV man dinners and fishing, you know, quarters out of my goofy piggy bank so I could go down and, you know, buy milk. So, yeah, it was quite a dichotomy, you might say. So when it first started happening, it started happening because of DJ. And how long was that before it became, like, a massive hit? It was quite a haul. It was actually a long time on the charts, crawling up. And it was. I thought, oh, I should never get to make it. You know, it's going so slow. Usually they go boom, boom, boom. Right. And it crawled and crawled and crawled and crawled. And I remember Joe Guthrie, who owns Sound City, which is one of the reasons I happened to be in the Dave Grohl Sound City documentary. It's because I used to hang out there all the time. And he came in with this cheap bottle of champagne and said, we just made number one. Wow. And it was. Yeah, it was a long time that it climbed. And they weren't going to release it. I actually. I took General Hospital because I didn't think they were going to release the album. That's right. I forgot you were on General Hospital. You were on a fucking soap opera. Fucking soap opera. And it was. By the way, the biggest soap opera. Well, it happened to be. The whole Luke and Laura thing was crazy. Yeah, it was the biggest soap opera it's ever got. And I just happened to be on it that summer. And it was. But I got. This guy called me up. I just. I hadn't worked as an actor in like nine months. And this guy called me up. And he'd seen me for. They were trying to do a male Charlie's Angels. Thankfully, I didn't get that. And that didn't work out. But I'd gone up and auditioned for it, right? And it didn't work out. But this guy obviously remembered me. And he called up my agent, who hadn't done a fucking thing for me in 12 months, and said, I remember this guy, Springfield. We'd like to see him for this part on General Hospital. And I said, General, fucking soap opera. I don't want to do that. And he said, Go on. Just go in. And I'm thinking, Well, it's mostly old ladies ironing in the afternoon. That still can have any effect on my music career, I guess. Because they totally. Apples and oranges. So I went up, and I wasn't that interested. And I did the reading. And then he calls up and says, You got the part. And Keith Olsen, who was a big producer at the time, and who'd produced Jessie's Girl, he'd done me a favor because the Sound City connection. He'd done Fleetwood Mac and Pat Benatar and Foreigner and a lot of big hits. And so I said, I'll do a favor for Joe. And he'd actually cut together my very first album. He'd been a guy that cut all the clicks out of my. First album where they punched me in, the vocals in. And so he did that. And he said, You don't need to do this. This is a great record. You don't need to do this soap opera. And I said, Oh, I didn't know. Man, I've had four albums, and they've done nothing. So I don't know what this one's going to do. So I had no money. I said, I'm going to take it for the money. Because it was 500 bucks an episode. Which was like mind-blowing money to me back then. Wow. I'd never seen regular money. And I'd never seen that much regular. That was a. Hell of a lot of money to me back in 1980. So I said, I'm going to take this show. So I took it. And the record company was not releasing the album. I'm going, Oh, God, it's going to happen again. It's going to hit 100 in the top 100 and go away. Because there was disco and there were ballads on the radio. They didn't know what to do with a guitar-based pop record. So they finally released it. And the whole DJ thing happened. What was the. What was the single that they released? What's that? What were the singles that they released from that album? They released I've Done Everything For You, actually. Because Sammy was a known quantity. And I wasn't. You know? And it didn't do. Is that Sammy Hagar? Yeah, Sammy. Yeah. That's right. Yeah, he wrote it. And Keith had worked with. Keith also had worked with Sammy on a bunch of his solo albums. And he really liked the song. And he said, I'll do two songs with Springfield. So he picked one of mine, Just These Girl Up. I had my demos that I'd done on my little four-track, you know? And I was pissed that he didn't pick a second one. He said, I want to bring an outside song in. I went, Oh, fuck. Because, you know, I'm a writer. I wanted to do my songs. And he brought this song in. I went, Oh, okay. You know, he must know what he's talking about. He's got a lot of hits and everything. So I did it. And it happened to be the right second song. It was absolutely the right second song. But that was the first one. And then I thought, Oh, it's. You know? And then. - And then they picked Jesse's girl, so fortunately, It was the DJ's call And I'm forever thankful for that And I don't know what would have happened If they hadn't picked it Or if they were still Like now, you play these ten songs And that's it, you don't deviate Well, it seems like now It's all sort of pre-programmed by executives They just decide what is going to be pushed And what's going to be famous Yeah, I mean, I don't really understand it And I don't know if anybody does Why some are pushed and others aren't Well, there's no tastemakers anymore That's the thing Without DJs, without Wolfman Jack And these big DJ guys He was awesome I did an interview with him With my first album I said, this is a song about a woman A guy that commits suicide Oh, I don't think so Not in my radio station He puts it on And he listens to it And he ended up playing it It was really great We actually got along really well And he would introduce me occasionally At shows and things He was a lovely guy Funny as hell, man Well, there were tastemakers back then There were people that you believed in That were DJs, that were cool And could call it Yeah, and they were kind of cool guys Who liked cool things And they had personalities They had personalities And they were interesting to listen to And they would tell you why Like, you're going to do this Or you're going to dig this And they would play it And you're like, ooh, what is this? And they'd know shit about the songs Yeah They were real music aficionados And they were, you know Sort of like the Siskel and Ebert of music Like, they would tell you what was cool What was cool, yeah And slowly but surely That all just completely went away I can't name a DJ currently And I think that's nuts When I was a kid You knew everybody Mark Parenteau And all these different people And Charles Lockwood era Those are the guys in Boston Yeah Everybody knew who they were And it was a national thing In every city They had your morning DJ guy You know, and these morning Scott Shannon Yes And all these guys would play Kevin and Bean in LA And all these guys would play cool music And they knew cool stuff And it was like, you know You learned about culture from these people Pre-internet They were the tastemakers Yeah, it's trippy I mean, I don't know how you fall in love With an artist anymore, you know Because, you know, it's the old story You get the artist You get the record You open it up And as it's playing You read who's playing what Who wrote what And you read about them Yeah And I remember years ago I had a copy of a record Like a No Doubt CD or something anyway And this young girl's daughter A friend of mine I said, oh, I got the No Doubt CD The new CD if you want to She said, oh, no, it's okay I'd download it Well, she's got the album cover and everything She said, no, it's okay I'll just download it And now it's weird It's weird Yeah Yeah I used to buy albums based on the cover Yeah I'd go to the record store And I'm like, wow It's just fucking big I know It's impossible But you would go and see an album And you're like, wow, this looks cool Cool artwork You open it up Some of those hypnosis Hypnosis, whatever they are They've spelled it Oh, they were brilliant And look at the, you know I mean, the Pink Floyd one Is still an epic image Yeah You see it everywhere, you know Well, when I was a kid When I was a kid My uncle Vinny was He was an artist And he worked for Howard Marks Advertising Which was a company that did All of the album covers for Kiss And so when I was a kid Well, I was really young I was like seven or something like that I got to see I got to go to his office with him And he would take me around You'd see them before anybody did I met Ace Frehley with no makeup on Back when It was like It was the craziest thing I'd ever seen in my life He has no makeup on This is nuts This was back before Kiss had taken the makeup off It's like seeing him naked It was so insane Like, he came into the office And everyone was like, what's up, Ace? I was like, what? That's him? Because I was God, I don't remember how old I was I couldn't have been more than ten It was so strange to me I was like, this is crazy I can't believe he's right there This is nuts Isn't that wild, yeah Actually, I might have been a little older I might have been 11 or 12 But either way, I was like blown away by it I couldn't believe I was actually meeting Ace Frehley With no makeup on But their advertisement company Would do all the album covers And the album covers were a work of art There was so much going on inside of them You would open up the album There was artwork inside It was like Even like When they had their solo albums The albums themselves Had an image of each individual band member Printed on the album Oh, really? Yes Like the album itself Like when you look at the record You saw the image of their faces on the record It was crazy I remember when they came out I think, this has got to be huge I've had the photo Ace Frehley actually came back to see us At a gig we were doing And I had a photo taken with him And my drummer was a You know The Kiss were his Beatles So I was selling guitars at the time Like these Just these red Fernandez That we had a bunch of So he had Ace sign it And he did, you know The Ace card and everything To Roger Rock on, whatever Ace Frehley I copied it I copied it exactly Onto another one Exactly like the guitar And in the middle of the show The guitar tech brought it out to me And I smashed the shit out of him Like this Oh, wow And Roger lost his shit He got all my He thought it was a real one Ah! And it was He played so many terrible pranks on us That it wasn't fucking worth it That's hilarious That's hilarious So you kind of knew That you were going to That eventually it was going to hit But when it did hit What was the feeling like To go from being someone You know You'd been in pop magazines But then all of a sudden You are the guy Like for a year or two Whatever it was In the early 80s You were so huge, man I mean, it was crazy What was that feeling like? It was It was exciting It drove me to write more and more You know, I mean I just I directed it into Performing and writing I really Don't know what else You know, I didn't Party a lot, you know I mean, we did a little bit on the road But it wasn't I directed it into what I was doing And it was exciting You know, I remember Getting on the phone with DJs And saying, oh yeah The record's going to be It's going up and up And you know, it was All real exciting stuff But it was Kind of Like I said, I expected it You know, and It wasn't like Oh my God This is so weird It was like, yeah About fucking time You know, I've been Here for 10 years That's crazy that you like Totally were comfortable with it And expected it Yeah, it was It was You know, there were You know, like 4,000 fans Around a police car Trying to tip it over And I was like Okay This is what it feels like God, it's so wild Yeah It's so wild That you were like Okay, this is This is happening It was exciting You know, I mean It didn't lessen the excitement But it was I prepared myself for it You know Do you remember What it was like The first time You started playing The first few chords Of Jessie's Girl And the whole crowd Knew what it was Yeah, I do actually Because I'd I'd seen We saw all these English bands in Australia Because they all came To Australia I saw the Stones Twice in 65 and 66 And I was like I saw the Beatles in 64 And I saw the Kinks in like 65 I saw the Who in 65 And they started out With You Really Got Kinks started out Da-da-da-da-dum Da-da-da-da-dum And the audience went Yeah Oh, apeshit I said Oh, man That is so fucking cool I want to feel What that's like Do you remember The first time you felt it? What's that? Do you remember The first time you felt that? Yeah We were doing We were doing We did the Beach Boys Fourth of July show For the Queen Mary And I was like The new artist In Long Beach? On the bill Yeah, on Long Beach It was The Beach Boys Three Dog Night And I had Brian Wilson Was still With the Beach Come back with The Beach Boys, right? And I We started We were on there I started playing Da-da-da-da-da-da And the audience went nuts I went That's it! That's the feeling! And it was so weird Because we came on After the show After the Beach Boys The Beach Boys finished We walked on stage, right? And Brian Wilson's Like a god, right? And I'm walking on stage He's at the piano And he goes He follows me like this I'm going I was just We're open What's he following me for? He was a giant Soap opera fan Him and his wife Used to sit all And watch Fucking General Hospital That's crazy Brian Wilson With his mouth open Was following me Across the stage That's crazy When I'm doing The same thing Going That's Brian Wilson Holy fuck Wow It was pretty And same thing With Sammy Davis Jr. Where we did I was on the first Night of 100 Stars And I'm walking We're walking along The red carpet And I feel Someone tugging On my jacket I go What the fuck? I look around At Sammy Davis Jr. Hey man Love you on this show And I'm going What the fuck? That was the stuff that was weird for me. Was that kind of thing. And like I met Paul McCartney later, like I don't know, maybe 20, 15 years ago at a thing. And I went to see him because I was a giant fan. And he said, oh, what are you here for? Meaning, you know, he obviously knew who I was and what was I coming to the event for because everyone was announcing new projects. I just said, I'm here to see you. He goes, oh. And no one was taking photos and I didn't realize at the time. He said, why don't you get a photo? So I said, that'll be 10 quid. So I go, like I said, no, I'm only joking. I'm only joking. So we had a photo. It was one of my, I keep that photo. That's a pretty cool photo. Wow. That's awesome. And speaking of album covers, the Sgt. Pepper's cover was, you know. Oh, yeah. I have the, because War of the Worlds, Time Machine. H.G. Wells, one of my favorite writers, right? I love sci-fi. Always love H.G. Wells. They're very political. They're very political, too. And he wrote some great, great, great novels and articles about the war and the possibility of atomic war. And, I mean, he was a really deep guy. And he was one of the cutouts, right? It was H.G. Wells on the Sgt. Pepper's figure thing. You know, all the cutouts, the heads on the front. Sure. Yeah. And so I got that actual H.G. Wells. I got that actual cutout and Paul had signed it. So I got one of my favorite writers and my favorite artists. And it's a really cool thing. I have that in my studio. Wow. People don't understand today the General Hospital thing. General Hospital was a soap opera, but it was a soap opera that transcended regular television shows somehow. Yeah, it was the most popular show in the summer. Very strange. It was very strange, and it was a completely. It was an organic, viral moment. For whatever reason. No idea still. Never happened again. No, never happened again. Only happened once. The most popular soap now has about a third of the viewership that General Hospital had at the time. And it was, you know, like I was on it. This one, you're talking about, you know, new fame and all that kind of stuff. And I had a little house that I bought on BMI Advances because I had a record deal, which I don't do anymore. But in Montrose, in La Crescenta, and I'm walking down the street one day, and, you know, nobody's looking at me. I'm going, you know, I was walking down. And then two weeks later, after being on the show for two weeks, I'm walking down the same street. People are going, isn't that. You know, and it was like so sudden that that was like, you know, it was before MTV. So you had to have at least three albums out before a musician was recognized. So to get it that fast, that was kind of odd. And I wasn't ready for that, for that amount of recognition. Well, it was just so strange. My whole family was watching General Hospital. I was watching it. My sister was watching it. It was like, it was a television show, but it was a soap opera. And soap operas were like housewives watching. Yeah, it was, you know, your cousin invented the toothbrush. It was like low production value, shitty writing, bad acting. Horrible, horrible writing. But something about that Luke and Laura storyline, for whatever reason, caught the nation and held it captive. And I believe he raped her. And then they became boyfriend and girlfriend. Is that really what the storyline was? That's nuts. And Elizabeth Taylor was on the show, too. And I got to do a scene, a couple of scenes with her. And that was weird. I'm walking down the stairs as she's walking up. She goes, Noah. And I'm going, wait, stop, Elizabeth Taylor. And we do a scene and we're walking away together, you know, off to a blank alleyway until they say cut. And she goes, isn't acting stupid? And Tony Geary actually did the best thing. He's doing a scene with her in rehearsal. And he goes, oh, my God, it's Elizabeth Taylor. And everyone went, yeah, it's what we all wanted to say, right? But it's amazing. It's amazing. And the people who were fans of the show, it's, you know, crazy. It was literally the biggest show in the country. Yeah. And it was a soap opera. And it was on during the day. It made no sense. And the acting sucked and the writing sucked. And the writing sucked. And it was, if you got through the scene, they printed it. Yeah. You know, I mean, I got really good because they handed us a three-page scene once, me and a character I was working with. Said, we're shooting this in 20 minutes. So I got really good. They'd have the camera here and they'd have the words right, you know, coming down the teleprompter down the screen and a red light. And I got good at looking at them while I was talking. And as soon as I saw the light go off, I'd look at the screen and memorize the words for the next line and look back at them and go, yeah. It wasn't about acting for me then. It was about line memorization. But there. There were good people on it. Like my best friend, actually, Doug Davidson, was on Young and the Restless. It was Paul. God, what's his last name? Sorry, Dougie. But anyway, Paul Drake. No, wait. Oh, there's me and Liz. Wow. Yeah, babe. Yeah. Hey, let me invite you to. That's crazy. You want to come? Oh, that was it. Isn't acting stupid? That's the scene. Wow. That's nuts. Isn't acting stupid? Stupid. That's so crazy. How weird is it? Yeah, so he was really good. Doug Davidson played Paul Drake. I think that was his name. Sorry, I forgot it. But he was great on it. You know, he would cry and get angry. And he was really very, very good. And there are some great people that can do it. Not everybody can. And they pick, you know, they pick young, pretty people who aren't necessarily the best actors, but they have a presence, you know. And I remember walking by the phone. It was when Demi Moore was on the show. And they would take calls from everybody and listen to everything. And I walked by as a woman's going, oh, doesn't like Demi Moore's voice. They would take calls from the audience to find out what they thought about it? People would call in and say, oh, we really like this guy or we don't like this guy or hate this storyline. They'd listen. And Gloria Monte, she was the, oh, Tristan just passed away. Brian Cranston together. Wow. He just passed away. He's a good, a good, a cool guy. That's Brian Cranston. That's crazy. Wow. Yeah. Lovely, lovely guy. Funny guy. Is that Demi? So strange. Wow. Yeah. 1982. Wow. Trippy. Trippy, yeah. That's amazing. I can't believe Elizabeth Taylor was doing a soap opera. That's so strange. Yeah, but there were fans. And it was a big show. And it was like, it was like, kind of like Baywatch, how Baywatch became this big cultural thing. And I remember reading Paul McCartney saying, yeah, my daughters love Baywatch. I'm going, fuck that, man. It's just so strange that it never happened again. That general hospital moment is like a strange anomaly in culture. It totally was. Yeah. And it was a combination, probably the characters, you know, I mean, it was kind of the best, the best. Of the worst storylines, you know, and, um, uh, and, uh, there was, you know, a lot of characters, good characters on it. Plus, you know, they were aware by the, at that point that I had a recording career, you know, and they wanted me to sing on the show. And I. There it is. There it is. Wow. And Tony took us around and we were in Amsterdam. 30 million viewers. That's insane. For Luke and Laura's wedding on general hospital. I mean, what is even come close to that? Yeah. What has even come close to that in terms of soap operas? Is there anything even close? No, no, no. That was a golden age. Fucking bananas. Yeah. It's kind of insane. Yeah. Yeah. Still have no real explanation, you know, I don't know what time it was on, but I remember it was like right after high school. Yeah. They used to, uh, cancel, uh, um, rearrange, uh, uh, classes in, in universities because they knew people wouldn't show up. That's. And I had no idea that these people, you know, they were the same people that come into concerts. Wow. And I had no idea that it would, there would be any kind of crossover, you know? How crazy is it that the guy from general hospital all of a sudden has the number one song in the country? Yeah. They, and they had no idea. I was on the show for like six weeks and Gloria, the producer who was really responsible for the, for the success of it. She was so smart. Her and Tony used to get together and go over the scripts at night and you know, they, that had something to do with it. And she came up and said, I hear you're also a singer. I went, yeah, but it's not happening on this show. I've already got enough shit that I'm on the show. So. Oh, they wanted you to sing on the show? Oh God. Which I did, I did, I did as kind of a, a call back later on, way later on, you know, after I'd left the show and then I came back for like the 50th anniversary or something and did, but, uh, yeah, when it was, you know, she wanted me to like go up there and sing Jessie's Girl. This is a doctor. 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better sleep that's code rogan at eight sleep.com slash rogan how weird must it have been for those luke and laura actors because like no one had ever done that before no no soap opera had ever gotten that huge before and then after it was over nothing yeah the girl who played laura was 21 and still lived at home wow that's she was 21 and still lived at home at the time yeah yeah wow wasn't allowed to drink the bubbly because she was underage how is she underage oh not even 21 it says oh not even not yet 21 wow wow you know that didn't stop him from getting drinking we got so drunk on the set when we had a party it was supposed to be this party and and the professor from gilligan's island played my father on the set of the show and i was like oh my god i'm gonna i'm going wow that's fucking cool and we're sitting around this and we're supposed to be drinking and we all drank and it got was so bad they had to reshoot it the next day you're all drunk but you know everyone kind of let's cut loose it's the end of the day you know wow well that's nuts man tell me about your writing like like the novels like what have you written novels about um they're very bizarre uh one uh they're the ones uh they're both about um a plague that comes to the world and takes out uh like two-thirds of the people um both of them are about that yeah they're one the other is a continuation of it one's called uh magnificent vibration the other one's called world on fire and it uh um it's uh it's dark humor very dark humor had you written before that i wrote my autobiography by myself but you had you written any fiction um yeah i as a kid that was the only thing i was any good at at school was was i got great marks in my essays nothing else was any i was terrible at everything else math geography history all that shit and um so you know i was already doing what i was planning on doing anyway so um yeah i was starting writing poems and then you know and i songwriting to me the lyrics are are something i really take time yeah music just comes through it either is there or it isn't there but the lyrics you have time to sit back and go does that work or does that not work where the music it's kind of instantaneous or it doesn't happen um so yeah i've always kind of written and when did you write these novels um i don't know can you tell me that my friend he don't remember i don't know it could have been the 90s could have been the 2000s it was um probably 2000 2014 and 2021 what is it 2014 was the first one follow up 2021 oh so 2021 it's recent yeah it was yeah fairly recent yeah um the first one was on the new york times bestseller wow i sign them all the time you know fans bring them in that but uh um yeah i like writing i like i'm writing something now but it's uh just something that i do when i'm not writing songs you know i kind of gravitate towards that i've got to be doing something and and it was like i take a guitar to the beach we go to to bora bora and i take a little guitar when i sit on the beach because i can't just sit on the beach it feels like uh kind of wasted time that's wild so i do relax but i gotta have a guitar i've got to be doing something either writing or you know whatever and when you write do you write longhand do you write with a no i write in computer yeah yeah yeah and that's the thing like i have uh i have a bunch of beetle lyrics handwritten beetle lyrics right and um they don't exist anymore because everyone writes on the computer i write i like i have jesse's girl i have the original paper that i wrote jesse's girl on and and what are you doing with that is it framed no i gotta i don't know in a closet somewhere or something really yeah oh god you should frame that uh yeah i probably should i you know i have all this all my songs really the ones that some of the ones that made it and the ones that didn't i have them all um so i got interested in that and i started collecting beetle lyrics because i loved that moment of creation how did you get those uh two friend i have a friend uh who um trades uh he's the guy that um validates them all for christies for um you know sotheby's and all the big auction houses um and he you know he knows where all the bodies are buried so i collect stuff like you obviously do you know i yeah i have uh uh the titanic number two lifeboat plaque this plaque that says ss titanic on it and it's in a in a show now on uh branson or somewhere we rented it out wow i loved collecting stuff i have robots and old 50s robots and well there's something about collecting something like beatles lyrics that you know were written by the beatles like their hand touched that paper and wrote that down no it's a huge fan it's it's very powerful stuff the coolest one i have is lucy in the sky with diamonds which they both have written on it which it didn't happen much you know towards they mostly they wrote their own songs you know but they both got their hand in this and there's even wednesday morning at nine o'clock written at the bottom two for the first line from she's leaving home but paul did a drawing of the um the sergeant pepper cover when he still pictured it as them in victorian you know with with curtains he that was his original idea and there's a drawing of that and there's a drawing of rocking horse people which is really good because they were really good artists him and john and um and that's really cool it's uh got a lot of mojo you know that looks like there's time been spent on it what was the origin of lucy in the sky with diamonds wasn't that supposedly about lsd no no it's not everyone thought it was a rumor but it was a painting that actually um dave gilmore owns david gilmore owns the painting that julian lennon did of a painting that a girl of lucy his friend at school who recently passed away but he brought it home and his dad said what's that and he said and julian said there's lucy in the sky with diamonds and john took that and it just happened to be almost you know an anagram for lsd which is crazy but it's one of the millions of things that happened in the beatles lives that you went that didn't really happen they had to manufacture that but no it really freaking happened and that's part of what made them you know almost like angels that it was just so supposed to be and that was one of the things and it was uh but everyone thought it was lsd because lucy in the sky with diamonds right right right but it was really about uh the painting that julian did and um john just took it and you know he was doing drugs at the time and but he really loved lewis carroll and it's really what it is is lewis carroll is is uh the lyrics are lewis carroll wow wow that's crazy but lewis carroll who wrote alice in wonderland you know alice in wonderland was also about lsd um i don't know i mean i think there was a lot of influence the caterpillar was probably high you know and he was like oh my god i don't know i don't know and i don't know how much how aware that they all were then but i know that the beetle john loved him and loved his writing And he would – I mean I'm sure he had a wink in there somewhere about it being dope, you know, but – Well, there was all these substances. What's that? There was all these substances. Yeah, yeah, sure. In it. Yeah. Oh, he was – yeah, they were definitely, you know, high at the time and high a lot of the time. Yeah. But they had that talent. And, you know, a lot of – a lot of people think that, you know, oh, the drugs. But it wasn't. It was – they had the talent, but the drugs just maybe took that talent somewhere that they maybe wouldn't have gone if they hadn't have done the drugs. But it wasn't drugs that make people creative. Right. It's what they have inside them that the drug, you know, frees whatever resistance there is. It was the talent and it was also the volume. Have you ever read Malcolm Gladwell's Outliers? No. Well, one of the things it talks about is – it just talks about – It's a great book. And one of the things in the book, it talks about why something became extraordinary. And they talk – he talks about the Beatles. Oh, wow. And what the Beatles did, they were in Hamburg and they got a gig. I think it was at a strip club. And so they were, like, playing every night, like five, six hours a night, six days a week. And they were constantly playing. And so they did this for a couple of years and they went back to Liverpool. And everyone was like, what the fuck happened to you guys? They were just tight. They were just so locked in and so good that that's when they really became the Beatles. And it's just volume. It's where he came up with the concept of 10,000 hours to achieve mastery in something. Right. I've heard that, yeah. And, I mean, they're a great example of that. It's just an incredible amount of volume of work. It's like Robert Johnson, too. He was an okay guitar player and he went away, like, for a year or something and came back and suddenly he was just amazing. He was an amazing slide player, you know, crossroads. Yeah. So that's why everybody thought he sold his soul to the devil. Yeah. Yeah. And it just happened, you know. But they, I don't realize, I don't know if they realized they were woodshedding for the great moment, but that's absolutely what they were doing. I think they were just doing it to stay alive. Yeah. It was just, it wasn't paying much. It was just, I mean, they're working at a strip club. Paul. Yeah. One of the greatest bass players of all time, he said, I got lumbered with the bass because he was a guitar player. And Stuart Sutcliffe was the bass player, right? And he fell in love with Astrid, what's her name, who gave them the haircuts. And he said, I'm leaving the band. And they said, and John said, I'm not playing bass. And George said, I'm not playing bass. And so Paul said, I guess I'll play it. So he got the Beatle, found the Beatle bass in Germany. And there's a photo where you can see it. And they're still on this case up against the wall where they're playing. And he's playing the piano in the strip club. And what he became. You know, with that is just freaking unbelievable. Incredible. Yeah. It's just, it's just so strange how after the fact, you go back and look back on all the different events that had to take place in order for them to become the Beatles and many bands would become what they became. It's so, it's just so fascinating to me to see that. I think everyone's life has that. You know, you can look back. Like I look at my marriage. I've been married for 40, 42 years now. And, you know, I was in Australia and my wife was over here in Beloit, Wisconsin, and I went to England and she moved to California and I went back to Australia and she moved back to Beloit and I came over here and I happen to hook up with a manager at Sound City and at the same time she happened to meet this woman who she liked her accent. She was an English woman and she became friends and she was worked at Sound City. So Barbara came in to work at Sound City and I met her there. And, you know, there's all these. I mean, it happened in everybody's life. And it's just amazing that we have successful lives. It all seems like it's meant to be. But I always wonder if that's like just you're looking back and you're looking for a pattern why it makes sense. You're just tracing what happened by happenstance, you know. Yeah. But that it ended up in a good way, you know. Well, when it seems like whenever anyone has had an extraordinary life, there's always this. There's always this fortuitous series of events that take place that enable this to just become what it became. Yeah. And I think, you know, you said a lot of it's luck, but the luck happens when you stay in the game. And I think that is the core of it is staying in the game so that, you know, when the moments happen. Yeah. That you are ready. It's certainly not just luck. No, no. It's certainly a lot of other. You've got to be ready. I mean, you've got a woodshed. You've got to have your craft down. Yeah. You've got to be competent. Yeah. You've got to have something to offer. And you've got to be able to believe in yourself enough to perform when the moment is there. Mm-hmm. And that's this daunting for a lot of people. The anxiety of it all is just very. I played with my back to the audience for the first three months of being in the first band I was ever in. Yeah, yeah. Why? I was nervous, you know. I was a blues band. I mean, I kind of was raised. My guitar playing was based on, you know, because of Clapton and all those guys, was based on a lot of the blues players. B.B. King and, you know, all the early players. And I was in a blues band. And I was like 15. And they were like 25. And one of them had been in prison. It was a really rough group. One of them had been in prison. And there was one guy that had been in prison a couple of times. And they're all the kind of guys that would go to pubs in the weekend and go out and fight. Which is an Australian tradition. It's the only place I've ever been where you go into the men's restroom and there's a sign that says, This is what you do if your buddy gets into a fight. Like in every bathroom. So I play. And I was, you know, I was shy. They were all like, seemed like adults to me. And they went to my mom and they said, Why does Richard play with his back to the audience? My mom goes, Oh, he's probably shy. And they accepted that. And they said, Oh, he's probably shy. And eventually I turned around. Do you remember the first day you turned around? No, I wish I did. But it must have been a girl or something. I'm sure it was. Wow. I was the last virgin in the band to be in the youngest. And believe me, did they give me shit because of that? I'm sure. Listen, man, you've had a hell of a life. And it's just awesome to see you out there kicking ass. It really is. It's like that video of you that went. It went viral with your shirt off singing Jessie's Girl. That pumped me up. Great. I watched that. I was like, Fuck yeah. Good for him. Look how good he looks. This is kind of crazy. I just love. I love, first of all, that the passion that you had for singing that song was really like it was a new song. And the fact that you've been singing that song for how many fucking years, man? Forty what? Forty-six years? Yeah, that's closer to when that was released. It was written. It was closer to the end of World War Two than it is now. That's crazy. That's crazy. And she is probably in her early late sixties now. Wow. The girl I wrote it about. Who is the girl that you wrote it about? Well, I never learned her name. She was at a stained glass class. It was one of those moments where I was between record deals. And I always wanted to do it. Do things with my hand. I would make things out of clay. I was making mirrors out of clay, like sci-fi things and and selling them at the local, you know, swap meet. And and I started thinking about stained glass and I thought I could support my family doing stained glass, which was bullshit. But so I went to this I went to this class and there was this girl and she was hot. You know, it's just another girl that I found hot and she had a boyfriend there and I would try and chat with. I. Never really had chat with girls. That's one of the reasons that the guitar really helped there. I was never could go up and go, Hey, babe, you know, it was not that I'm never that guy. So and I tried to talk to her and she had nothing, didn't want anything to do with me because she had a boyfriend. And so I went home and wrote about her in this song. His name is Gary. But and I tried Gary and didn't sing. So I tried Randy and that didn't sing right either. So I ended up with. With Jesse and that seemed to work. So. Wow. But yes, she Oprah went looking for her. Actually, she was looking for the women behind the songs and they found the stained glass guy and he died two years before and they'd thrown all the paperwork out a year after that. So wow, but they could have found it. They missed her. But but I'd be be wild to me. I'd I don't know if I'd recognize her now. I remember her what she looked like. But I wonder if she. She loved that song. No. Yeah, I mean, she had no idea. She has no idea it was about us. No one's ever come up and said, that was me, right? That's crazy. Wow. Well, listen, man, it has been awesome meeting you. Yeah, I really enjoyed this very much time. Thank you very much. Thanks for everything. And congratulations. Thank you. And you're you're a bad motherfucker. All right. Go see Rick Springfield in concert, ladies and gentlemen. He's still out there kicking ass. I love it. All right. Thank you very much. Thank you. 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