David Foster | Club Random with Bill Maher

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For problems worth solving, get started with Claude at claude.ai/random. That's claude.ai/random. And check out Claude Pro, which includes access to all the features mentioned in today's episode. claude.ai/random. Well, folks, if you're going to spend money on something, it might as well be something you actually like. That's what I always say. That's where the club random merch store comes in. That's right, get yourself a cozy, look at this, this is really well designed, that's right, get yourself a cozy hoodie to snuggle away your sorrows or some new club random shirts, look at all this shit I have, to attract a partner with similar interests and live happily ever after. I've seen crazier rom-coms, so head over to clubrandom.com and bring home some random. I worked with Whitney a lot. The song I Will Always Love You, she said, "I love it, I love it, I love it, don't change a thing." I said, "Well, actually--" ♪ Club random ♪ It was called Flowers in the Dirt. What? What? No! It's not good. Oh, you're so wrong. ♪ Club random ♪ Okay, David. Young Bill. Hey. I had a girlfriend who called me that. Oh, really? Late in life, too. Nice to see you, man. Ironically, I assume. Yeah, well. This is it, eh? This is what I watch all the time. You do? I'm so glad. Well, I'm a big fan. Well, likewise. And you know, I know you don't do this a lot. Your daughter, I think, is the one who, 'cause I ran into her. Sarah. Yes. Yes. And she was so nice, and I said, "Well, you know what, have you ever wanna pass along?" 'Cause I'm sure people, everybody wants to get you on, and it's just, why would you? You don't need it. Yeah. What's it gonna do for you? Yeah, I mean, at this point in my life, just telling the same story seems a little bit redundant, you know, and I think I've sort of told everything at least once, so I have friends that have podcasts, and I've just sort of said no, because, like you said. Well. There's nothing more to say, really. I won't say much to you. Oh, yes, you will. You don't even know you will. I don't even know. And I'll do it all without smoke. I know you don't. I'm sorry about that. No, no, no. I have a story about it. No, about having a bad experience with pot? Yeah. Really? Well, you know what? I have never been a proselytizer for pot. I am not Johnny Apple Pot. No. I'm not trying to get people-- It just works for you. It works for me. Yeah. It works for some people. Yeah. Works for other people in different ways. It gets me high, other people, it puts them to sleep. And some people, it doesn't work at all. What happened to you? I was in a band when I was 18 in Edmonton, Alberta. I'm Canadian. And we had this incredible saxophone player in the band. Right. To this day, he's world class. People love him. And he was a druggie. And he said, can I live with you for a couple of months? I can't remember if he was getting divorced or whatever. And I said, sure, very innocently, because I knew nothing at 18 about that world. And we had a party with some people over, and he convinced me to smoke a little hash, which I'd never done before and have not done since. Well, starting on hash is a little like-- you know, that's not the bunny slope. No. You know, you're going right-- I went black. I went to the black run, right? And we made too much noise. It was in a condo. And the police came. Now, instead of him saying-- handling it at the front door, he went to the door, and then he said, I'll get the owner. And I was pretty out of it. And I had to go to the door. And that was you, the owner? That was me, the owner, yeah. And the cops were so great. They were like, what's that smell? I was like, ah, you know, I don't know. And they said, just try and be a little quieter. And it freaked me out so much, that plus not wanting to-- It's so Canadian, this story. Yeah. Yeah, it is. And then some nice people showed up. The cops. And nothing bad happened. Nothing bad happened. And I also never wanted to disappoint my parents. I know that sounds corny. Tales from Canada, ah! Tom Green. Yeah. What else didn't happen to you, David Foster? Well-- Tell me about the time you didn't go to prison and-- Yeah. What is it like? What would you say is the worst thing that ever happened to you? Because I think about that a lot, because I feel like I've had a charmed life. And I know the perspective of the things that could happen to people. You could go to war. Never did that. No. Your parents could die young, or they could have been shitty. Or you know, I feel like a lucky person, because a lot of the-- Were your parents great? Yes. And still alive? No. No? OK. Come on. Well, you're a lot younger than I am. Yeah, they could be 100. Yeah. Well, not a lot younger. But yeah. So what's the worst thing? The worst thing that happened to me, I say it was the-- excuse me, the worst night of my life. I was producing Michael Bolton. And-- Already, I'm not sad for you. Already, I hate the story. No, no. But I'm just not sad. Michael Bolton, I loved him. Live in Malibu. I live in Malibu. I was at the record plant. And it was like 1 o'clock, and I was like, Michael, I really got to go. I got to go home. No, come on. Just one more take. And he kept egging me on, right? Finally, at about quarter to 2:00, I roll out of there. I'm driving on PCH. It's dark. I'm looking at the ocean. I'm doing about 50 miles an hour in my SUV. And I look. And all of a sudden, I see a figure in the middle of the road. And it takes about one second, as you probably well know, for you to go, that's a person. Right. The second second, you hit the brakes. Right. And the third second, you hit him. And I hit this guy going probably 48 miles an hour. Right. It was a mad scene. The helicopters came. He bit his tongue off. He broke both his legs. They got the body bag out. And in the midst of all this, I thought I had hit a homeless person because he had no shoes, no shirt, just shorts. In the midst of all this, one of the policemen said, you know who you hit, right? I said, no. And I'm spinning. And he goes, you hit Ben Vereen, the actor. Oh, I know Ben Vereen. Yeah. I remember this story. Yeah. I had forgotten that you-- Yeah. --were the guy. And that is horrendous. I mean, no jokes there. That's just got to be one of the-- you can't-- I mean, and it's not your fault. I mean, people-- It wasn't my fault, but still. And they talk about flashbacks. And I never thought flashbacks were real. But I swear to you, for about two weeks, every 30 seconds, I went like that. Like, I just couldn't-- I'm sure. --get the hit. And he didn't die from it. He did not. In fact, he recovered pretty much 100%. Right. Yeah. But it was tragic. I remember there was a joke. I may have done it myself. I know. How do you get to Malibu? Right. 20 miles in Pitch VH to hit Ben Vereen. And turn right. Because we have to laugh. Yeah. But you can-- No, I can see why that is. You probably haven't even hit an animal before, let alone a person. No. Right? That's right. Yeah. And that would-- That would probably bother me more. But on an up note-- As a PETA board member, no, I would be horrified. But yeah, that is a horrifying thing. Yeah. On the way here, my wife and I, Kat and Kim, were listening to the Nikki Glaser one that you did. And then a little bit of the Charlie-- Charlie Kirk one. Oh, my. Just so I could refresh myself and get a taste of-- Well, yeah. --what you are. I mean, it's-- I feel it's more intimate than anything I see. I mean, I keep saying this, and I hope people don't think I'm just, you know, trying to put other people down. I'm not. I'm just saying the other ones just look like talk shows to me. They just changed. It's not on TV. It's on podcasting. Yeah. But it's still microphones and cards and producers and questions. And now we're going to take a break. I mean, I have never had one single thought about one thing I'm going to say before I get here. Do you prepare at all? Of course not. This is the anti-real time. Right, which I love that show. Oh, thank you. Yeah, but I already have that kind of show. This is just like, what would it be like if I had a drink, and usually a smoke, with someone, you know, sometimes it's somebody I know. And sometimes it's somebody like you who are like, I don't know, but I want to know. It's fantastic, because we probably would not do this unless there was podcasting involved. But also, why not? Why not let the people have the treat of seeing these two old warhorses compare notes? Oh, by the way, speaking of that, I thought. I thought of you, like in the last year, because, this is again, you know, kind of a downer. But I felt like, you know, within a year, I think we lost two of the lion, two of what I would say, three lions of your generation who created so much of the music we listen to. And I would put you in that category, Quincy Jones. Of course. And Clive Davis. Oh, Clive just recently, yeah. I mean, between Quincy Jones, Clive Davis, and you. Yeah. That's a lot of the music, what they call the soundtrack of our lives. Yeah. And, you know, I'm glad they don't come in threes, because that's a big chunk. Well, they do come in threes, by the way, I think. Good night. Well, you know, folks, 60 tabs, a wall of sticky notes, pure panic. That's how most people run projects. Ask our producers. Or hand-clawed the heavy lifting in the cloud. And go do. Literally anything else. Claude's made by Anthropic, a public benefit corporation dealing with AI's hard questions in the open, which is refreshing. And it's not just the cloud. It's the AI for problem solvers. The AI for problem solvers. Next question. Next question. Wow, five questions. Wow, five questions. But they're rapid fire. Oh, jeez. Oh, jeez. Meaning, I know you know what that means. But don't give me an explanation. Your answer may be different tomorrow. Well, you got the wrong guy for this game. Really? No. No, I'll play along. Go ahead. First question. Beatles or Stones? Cats. Sorry. It's like Jeopardy. I want it to be Beatles. Okay. Second question. Desert Island CD. It can be a Greatest Hits, and I know there's no CDs anymore, but if there were, for the rest of your life, one CD, it can be a Greatest Hits, it can be a double album, but it can't be a playlist. Let's try saying it in Barry Gibb, "Guilty." What? Whoa. Whoa. Do you know how much I've just learned about you? Just with those two questions. Bad or good? I mean, you could have said Stones and Gordon Lightfoot, or whatever, but. If you could read my mind, David. Quick. You would know. Quick. Okay. This is good. Wait. I got to. Go ahead. It's your show. Would you love this? No, no. I want to know about Guilty. I love that album. Okay. Well, so we agree. So it's not bad. No. Oh, okay. Just, I didn't think of you as a Streisand person, but. Oh, are you kidding? Barry Gibb. We're good friends. That's why I'm here, probably, right? That kind of music? My little pussy music that I make? Pussy music? I make pussy music. Okay. You got the wrong guy for that, too. I have never been someone who gives a fuck what people think about the music, whether it's too popular. Oh, my God. A lot of people like it. It must be terrible, or it's corny, or. If it's good, it's good. Yeah. You know? A lot of your records are good. In any genre. In any genre. Yeah. In any decade. Yeah. You know? You know what the miracle of the Guilty record is? Barry Gibb made Barbra Streisand sound like Olivia Newton-John. You think about it. Go listen to it again with those ears. He made her sound like Olivia Newton-John, like a pop singer. She's not a pop singer. I'm sure Olivia Newton-John is very different. Olivia Newton-John is very talented. That's an insane thing to say about Barbra Streisand, and I don't just say that because we are close. I've said it to her. We are close. And you're still here to report it? I'm shocked. Yeah. The day is not over yet. I mean, she has a voice and an interpretive ability of a song that I think is. There's a reason why she is in a class by herself. In fact, they did her promotion once for. They did a follow-up album. Called Guilty 2. Yeah. You're aware? 2005, I think. Yeah. Not good. Also has some very good songs on it. For some, I said. Yeah, some. It's not like the first one, which is just. Right. Everyone just has a song. The first note to the last. Yeah. That's why I would take it. Because I don't get tired of it. I haven't heard it as much because it was 1980. I've heard the Beatles since 1970. No. Listen to it again with those ears. He took some of the personality out of her voice. Right. Yeah. Yeah. I mean, it's a great song. It's a great song. It's a great song. Yeah. Listen to it again. Took the per. out? He took some of the personality out to make her more of a pop singer. I don't know what that means, took the. First of all, try taking the personality out of Barbra Streisand. He did. Have you read her book? Yes, I have. It's awesome. Well, I might read the parts with me in it. No. You didn't read the whole thing? No. It is long, but it is worth it. It's a fun. No, she's. And you could tell it's her. Yeah. You could tell there was no ghostwriter. As with everything she does. Yes. Yeah. So, I mean, and her. I mean, talk about a strong personality that is in. I mean, almost every part she played in her movies, you think about it, like she sort of insisted on, "You know, in this country that is still a little anti-Semitic, you know, we're not hiding that this character is Jewish." No. You know? And the nose, you know, "No, my nose is fine," which it was. Yeah. You know? So, I just don't think you could take the personality out of anything she does. Go listen to it again. What are you. And get back to me. Okay, wait. You really didn't play the game that well. Question three. Did you? Well, I didn't because you leaped forward and went, "I found so much about you now." So couldn't. It's true. So what? So dramatic. So we paused there. Now on to question three. Question three. Dead dinner date. And there's some rules. Dead dinner date. Cannot be a family member. You can pick any time of his or her life. Language is no barrier. And they have to tell the truth. They're dead and you're going to have dinner with them. Oh, I see. They're dead. Yeah. Can't be a family member. Oh, I should have thought about this before in my life. I mean. Well, maybe in your life, but. I mean, just off the top of my head, I'm going to go with Genghis Khan. Yeah, okay. That's a good one. I mean, and the reason for this is he apparently. There you go explaining it again. He murdered 11% of the population of the earth, but he may also be related back to DNA-wise, 11%. So he did a lot of killing and a lot of raping. I'd like to. Of his own kin. Yeah. That seems like the whole world. Yeah. I'm sorry. You're right. Go ahead. Fourth question, and of course this one is. For people like us, we have so much access. It's kind of an easy question, but live dinner date. Live dinner date? Live dinner date. If you haven't had dinner that you'd like to spend some time with. What are you doing Friday? Look, in any guy's closet, it's 80% regret, 10% clothes that fit a man who no longer exists, and these things he wears until they disintegrate. We spend thousands on a mountain of fabric we hate and then wear the same sweater four days straight because it's the only thing in there that feels good and it's the only thing in there that feels good. That's where Quince comes in. 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Again, I should have thought about this. By the way, Friday I'm doing a concert in Seattle with Zimpany and my wife. No, can't make dinner. A concert in Seattle with my wife, with Zimpany. So can't make dinner, but go ahead. Boy, can she sing. I was at a Seth MacFarlane party once and I sang with him at that party. That's how I opened this party. Yeah, I got it. Because I turned him on to this Sinatra album that he was not aware of. Really? Yeah, yeah. And we sang the song and then she came up and it was like, oh wow, that's what singing is. And Seth's a great singer. He's done really well. He's really spread the word. You know? Anyway. Live dinner date. Live dinner date. Let's see. Is Nelson Mandela still alive? I don't believe so. Oh, damn. He should have been my dead one. He could have been your dead dinner date. He should have been my dead one because that name always works. Mother Teresa, she's gone? She's gone. Oh, fuck. Greta Thunberg. She's a professional. She's a professional, useless idiot. And I would like to talk some sense into her. I like that. And I know the Swedes have a very good command of English. They do. Yes. Some people could take an easy course there and pick someone they like and would agree with them. But I choose Greta not because it's easy, but because it's odd. 1962 or whatever. How did she get to be so Greta? Is that your fifth question? No. Oh. Now you're doing it to yourself. No, I'm just so curious. I mean, I can't believe it. How did that whole generation get there? My short answer, lack of education. We stopped teaching kids things. They don't know anything. They're not stupid. Stupid, you know, ignorant is different than stupid. Right. If you're stupid, it just means you can't learn because you're fucking stupid. If you're ignorant, it just means you don't know things. And it's not their fault that the schools stopped teaching them things. History, economics, anything. And so they just pull anything out of their ass. And because the parenting was so indulgent, they just thought every brain fart that a kid came up with was genius. They didn't challenge it. And, you know, the upshot is you have people running for president or elected office now who want to, like, get rid of the police and get rid of prisons and get rid of borders and make shoplifting legal. I mean, there's a lady in the news this week from New York who wants to, says, just, you know what? Toothpaste, diapers, just stuff people need. You know, you can't arrest someone for shoplifting certain items. I mean, some of this stuff is just so. Did you see Momdami said you need to have an ID now to go into his grocery store? Well, his grocery store. His grocery store. Well, the state, I guess. Well, that's not the part of that that I object to. It's the fact that I don't think we should have government-run grocery stores. I remember what they looked like in Cuba and the Soviet Union. It wasn't great. You know, kids. We tried this shit, you know. Name a place where it works. I dare you. It doesn't. No, it doesn't. You know, I mean. Look, I saw you take shit because you did a. Spencer. Yeah, Spencer, who was here. I heard it. It was great. It was fantastic. You know, I mean, you know, I don't hate anybody because of where they're. Especially a guy like that. Right. Who. I told him up front, you know. Wants to do the right thing. I said, you don't know a lot that you really need to know before you take elected office. I've never been on the page that someone can just waltz into elected office. It is actually something people study about, you know. Obama was a constitutional lawyer. I mean, a constitutional professor of constitutional law. You don't have to be that far, but you have to know some. And he doesn't, which is okay. But he had instincts, and we do have a failed system here. And it just shows that in this state, I guess everywhere, we're so bipartisan now. That we will accept failure, which we plainly have here in California, over voting for the party of Trump, which I understand, because he does a lot of things that are. I mean, plus, Jesus, I mean, I get a lot of shit from him for the things I criticize, just off the top of my head, vulgar, corrupt, doesn't concede elections, you know, inept at things that sometimes, were a good idea to begin with, close the border, you know, get rid of nuclear weapons in Iran, but fucked up the execution. As long as he's there, this state will never vote for a Republican, no matter how bad the Democrat gets. And that is a bad place to be. Do you realize the journey that you've taken, because I've watched you over the years politically, and on your other show, the CNN show, you've really kind of morphed. I didn't. They did. Are you sure you didn't? I am positive. Were you not a staunch Democrat 10 years ago? I wrote a whole book about it, which was, it said in the introduction, the reason I'm writing this book is to examine this very question. Did they change, or did I change? Right. The thought that 10 years ago, which was the Obama era, was I mostly making fun of the Republicans? Yes. Reason? Democrats weren't funny. Nobody in the Obama era was suggesting we cancel Thanksgiving. People say, why do you make fun of the left? Because I'm a comedian. And they're giving me a fucking barn full of gold with their nonsense. I haven't stopped making fun of the Republicans. These people just joined the party. And their insanity is just as funny. Certainly as funny. As dangerous? That's debatable. But as funny? Oh, yes. I mean. Do you remember the first time you heard the word woke? Because I remember the first time I heard it. Must have been maybe eight years ago. Yeah, and it used to have a noble meaning. It used to mean, alert to injustice. And then that's something that morphed because people just took it so far it became an eye roll. Now it strangles us. It's an eye roll. Yeah. You know, for most people. Yeah. I mean, if you still think woke means only good things, you haven't really been paying attention for the last six, seven years. Yeah. But I'm sure you got shit from this town, which is a one true opinion town, for doing that. Yeah. And that's, I mean. I don't even think of him as a Trumper, quote unquote. Right. He ran as an independent and, you know, got upset when Trump endorsed him. But you're not allowed to have a different opinion. Do you remember the Reagan years? Of course. I mean, you're a little young for that. Of course. No, I'm not. Yeah, you are. Hold you. What? I'm 70. Oh, well, you're younger than me, but you remember it. Yeah. It was so great. I mean, you could talk about it. You could. There was none of this. You know, you could have dinner with the other side. And you could-- You're saying pre. I don't mean have dinner with him. I mean just dinner with a Republican. That's who I want to have dinner with. That would be good. No, he'd be boring. Yeah. Boring. He was a boring guy. You think so? Reagan? Yeah. Certainly by the time he was president, he was just, he was a well-meaning, old fuddy-duddy. He had his set ideas. Some of them were great. Like, you know, I love what he said about the Cold War. My strategy, we win, they lose. Yeah. You know, that was pretty awesome. Mm-hmm. And he was right. Yeah. Interesting. He also said you don't help the poor by taxing the rich. Just saw that today, actually. Or something. Am I paraphrasing? No, that's probably what he said. Of course, it's not 100% true. You do help the poor. I mean, my complaint is stop saying the rich don't pay a lot of taxes because we actually do. And that's okay. I guess not on the super corporate. That's true. If you're Amazon and you have an army of 1,000 lawyers. And also, some of it is just they're plowing the money back into the business. Yeah. That was always Bezos' thing. But I'm sure a lot of shenanigans go on there. He actually said you don't help the poor by trying to take down the rich. That's what he said. And that is true. You know, we all sit around watching the news pretending we know exactly what is going to happen next. Kalshi actually lets you trade on those predictions. As America's number one prediction market platform, Kalshi turns everything from major global events to absurd pop culture questions into a live trading market. Take the market for who will be Spotify's top artist. Right now, Bad Bunny is dominating at an 84% probability, meaning a $100 trade pays out $119 if he takes the top spot. I might put my money on Bad Bunny. Not because I've ever heard a Bad Bunny song. But because betting against Taylor Swift is still the only edgy thing left in America. On Kalshi, you're trading against peers in a live market, meaning there is no house. And as the probability changes, you can buy in and out of your position. Download the Kalshi app and use code RANDOM to get $20 when you trade $20. K-A-L-S-H-I. Kalshi. Trade on anything. 18+. Only. Restrictions and eligibility requirements apply. Event contract trading involves risk and may not be suitable for all investors. Kalshi products are not available in all jurisdictions. Prices, values, and available markets may differ from those mentioned. For more information, see Kalshi.com slash regulatory. I mean, our money does help the poor. We pay over half of what we make. Yeah. Right? That's right. We pay over half. 53%. Okay. Now, it goes to the government, which then, you know, you're only. Pisses it away. Pisses a lot of it away. Some of it, it doesn't. And instead of. If there was an alternative universe where there was no government, it was direct, instead of us giving the money to the state of California, we could stand outside the free clinic every day. And when someone came out after a checkup, I'll take that bill. And that is actually what's going on with just the state of California in the middle of it. And I'm not against it. I'm happy to pay because I'm lucky. And I do make a great salary. I'm happy to pay for people who can't afford medical care. But if that bucket you're transferring my money to them in is so leaky that like. Good point. You know, 10% of it is getting through, then I'm going to get pissed off about that. Yeah. Question five. Yes, sir. Event in history. Oh. that you would like to change. Not taking into account the domino effect. The cancellation of McHale's Navy. You know, they. God, yes. The last year they went to Italy. Ernest Borgnine. Oh. And Tim Conway is Mr. Parker. The last year they moved to, you know, the show's dying as shows do, and they moved it to Italy from the South Pacific. I thought it was a great move because you have new characters, the crazy Italian mayor in the town. I don't know what that is, but I might as well have a little bit. Oh, there it is. It's tequila. Yeah, go ahead. Good. Okay. And I just thought it deserved one more year. So maybe that isn't the most important thing, but you asked me and that's me. And that's your answer. That's my answer. And you're sticking with it? It's your final answer? Wait, what was the question? If I could change one event in history. Event in history, you would change. Maybe Lincoln's assassination. That really had terrible repercussions. Yeah. Not many people say that. Most people of our age say the Holocaust. Some say Ferdinand, the people that are a little older, the assassination of Ferdinand. Oh yeah, the Holocaust, but I didn't know. And then younger people say 9/11. That is their Holocaust, so they say. Nothing compares to the Holocaust. No. And it's. I mean, there are things in history that absolutely do, compared to the Holocaust, but lots of people just love to throw that term around. I mean, this country is so anti-Semitic now that people. You hear sort of mainstream-y people say, "Oh, stop whining about. " Whining? What turned the Democratic Party into a Republican? What turned the Democratic Party. Anti-Semitic?. against Israel? What turned them? It's a question I explore a lot on my show. I don't know the answer. And you don't either? I do. Again, it's lack of education. It's lack of education. They don't know anything about the Middle East or the history. They just know one thing that they've been indoctrinated in, which is that the world is divided between oppressors and oppressees. People who are oppressed, and it has everything and only to do with race, which is ridiculous. It has sometimes some things to do with race, certainly in America it did. But slavery wasn't invented in 1619, and as far as this connection somehow between the brown people who are Palestinians, they must be right, because they're brown and they're poor, and the Israelis are rich and white, which is not even true. Israelis are brown too. They're different. And they're not all rich. There's Ashkenazi, which are white from Europe, and there's lots of Sephardic who are from the Mediterranean. And it's very complicated, but they just got it into their heads, that one side, and somehow it's always the Jews, at every point in history, it just seems to always land back at the Jews. I mean, it's so bad now that the right wing is doing it, Tucker Carlson is doing it, and Candace Oh isn't doing it, and so is everybody in the Democratic Socialist Party. You have to get on the page that Israel is the monster country of all time. I'm all for criticizing Israel where it deserves to be. There is lots of stuff going on in the West Bank that really does need to stop. But it's a much more complicated situation, and especially Gaza, which they got into their head as a genocide. I won't bore you with why that's just a ridiculous thing to say. There's an actual meaning to that word, and it didn't happen there, and they were attacked. And blah, blah, blah. But they just, the problem with white liberals is that it's so much more important to them to feel like they're the good people, who are doing the good things. And they know who the bad people are. That's how they know they're good. They're so bad. They are bad. And so it all comes down to- Bad. Bad. Bad. I'm bad. That's how I know I'm good. Yeah. Yeah. And so it all comes down to this kind of very simplistic thinking. They don't really think it through, and that's how you wind up with people with T-shirts that say "Queers for Palestine," a place that would throw you off the roof for just being queer. Yeah. I mean, the fact that they can't see a discrepancy like that makes me really worry about people like that. That's why, you know, I can't guarantee I'm going to turn over the country to you to answer your question of a while ago. I didn't change. I didn't change. I've heard you say that before. I haven't. If the Democrats had been all about wondering which side should have won the Cold War, as a lot of these Democratic Socialists do, and flirting with Communism and all this Jew-hating, I mean, I could call it anti-Semitism, it's Jew-hating, I wouldn't have been for them in 2010. But they weren't- No. They weren't. They weren't close to that back then. No, they weren't. People change, parties change. Yeah. You know, the Republican Party was the liberal party at the time of the Civil War. Lincoln freed the slaves. That's right. That's right. It was the Democrats who were the racist party. That's right. For, like, the next 100 years. Mm-hmm. Things change. And then Kennedy came in, he switched it up. I have a good. When you were talking about Clive, let's go light now for a while, shall we? Want to lighten up? I don't plan anything. Yeah. Like, when you meet somebody at a bar, do you have an agenda what you're going to do? Yeah. Do you have an agenda what you're going to talk about? No. Well, I don't go to bars, but. Well, anywhere. Okay. Anywhere. When you go out to dinner. Right. This is that. Yeah. Yeah. I don't go like, "Oh, let's go light now." Yeah. After this break. Right. And a word from Del Monte. Yeah, yeah, yeah. But I love to talk about Clive. Okay. I have great. I think I saw you. I think that's the place where I met you was at a Clive event. I was at every one of those. I worked at once. The dinner? The party? Yes. Getting older in America means everything you loved eating in your 20s. Yes. gets reclassified as a threat. One day it's a dinner, the next it's a conversation about your cholesterol. 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Did the bodyguard. Yeah. So Clive notoriously, when you turn in a record to him, he notoriously has comments. Even when there shouldn't be comments, he has to have his thumbprint on it, for better or for worse. Sometimes he makes the records better, sometimes he makes them worse. So he always has something to say about it, which makes you have to redo the mix, or the drums, or the whatever, right? So I thought, okay, the song I Will Always Love You, it sounded pretty good to me. And I said to myself, I'm going to trick Clive this time. I'm going to do a rough mix that takes 20 minutes. I love this. And normally mixes back then, before there was computers. A mix would take 10 to 12 hours. So I'm going to do a 10-minute rough mix, just shove all the instrument up on the faders, and send it to him. He's going to have comments, and it'll save me all that worry and time of 12 hours worth, just to do another 12 hours. I'll do 10 minutes on this, he'll give me all his notes, and then I can do the mix for real. So we yardsticked the mix, which is basically put all the faders up like that. Sent it to him on a DAT, digital audio tape. And then I waited for the phone. I called to say, God, then the drums of this. You can't have her sing without music in the front, whatever the fuck he was going to say. He loved it. He loved it. He loved it. He loved it. And when I say he loved it. Is that the record that went out? Yes. But don't kill my story. Because there's more to the story. Bill, it never has happened to me. And all the times I worked with him, with Kenny G and Tony Baxton and all these people that I had worked with him on, always comments. He said, I love it, I love it, I love it, don't change a thing. I said, well, actually. I have a few things I want to do. I want to tune the saxophone. I want to add a guitar. He said, well, you can do whatever you want. But I'm telling you, this mix you've delivered is the one. And this was at the beginning of the summer. So as the summer went on, I sent him other versions, right? With the fixed sax in tune and this thing fixed and more guitars and all that. He said, no, no, I love the original. We finally got into this huge argument on the phone. And he said a great, I started yelling at him. I said, fuck you. I mean, I was really. So wait. Crazy. Now you're defending the thing that you thought was a piece of shit? Yes. I love this. Yes. Good observation. How dare you say my piece of shit is a piece of shit? He gave me the, he said the greatest line. He said, David, I think we should hang up now before one of us says something that we don't mean or that we're going to regret. Which was a great line. I calmed down. By the end of the summer, I said, well, Clive, I have a confession to make. And then I told him what I'd done. I said. That mix doesn't even exist anywhere. It's only on that little digital audio tape, like a cassette that you have. I said, you probably don't even have that anymore. He said, I've carried that around in my pocket all summer. I played it for everybody. And that's the record. So we took that digital audio tape, little thing, took it to mastering, and that became the record. Just as you said. Well, not that I've ever had Paul McCartney here, but I would love to. Yes. But I would probably tempt his wrath by telling him apropos. Of this. I like the long and winding road with the strings that Phil Spector put on it. And I know it's cool, apropos of our discussion about what's cool. It's cooler to like the naked version. No, I don't give a shit. You like the strings? He did the right thing, I think. Phil. Phil Spector. It's a song that demands a choir. And the murderer. What? The murderer. Okay, well, let's leave the unpleasantness out of this. We're just talking about a record. The long and winding road by the Beatles. Yeah, love it. I love it. I love it. And I love it with the strings and the choir. It's that kind of song. Give me what I want. Yeah, okay. I'm just the young man in the 22nd row. No, you're right. So when I produced Paul McCartney in the 80s, apropos to that. Which record? Nothing that was any great. It was called Flowers in the Dirt. It was not so good. What? No, it's not good. Oh, you're so wrong. Well, I only did three songs on that record. You're so wrong. Well, I'm not wrong. No, no, because they re-released it. I know. They don't re-release everything. I know. First of all, he did it with Elvis Costello. So he finally had the John Lennon replacement. Not that he didn't do great things on his own with Denny Lane and other people or just by himself. But he finally had another Liverpudlian who was just, I mean, My Brave Face, this one. I mean, there are some great. I should back up. I did three songs on that. Not the whole record, not the whole record. Which ones? Oh, I don't even remember. It's a great record. Lindiana. There's no Indiana on it. Lindiana. No. After his wife. Yes, it was a bonus track. No, it wasn't. Yes, it. I have the. Jesus, what do you mean? I have the. It's not even a bonus track. It's a bonus track. No, it isn't, because I got the remastered. Google it. I don't have to. I had. I was there. Google it. There is no. What is it? Lindiana? Lindiana. No, there's no. But there's two other songs I did. That was never released. There's one song, Flowers in the Dirt, I think. Flowers. Is there a song called Flowers in the Dirt? No, that's a line in a song. I did three songs. It's a great record from top to bottom. It really is. Okay. It absolutely is. I love him, but. There's three songs on there that would have been giant hits if they were Beatles songs in the day. My Brave Face, this one, and Circle of. Something. Talk Amongst Yourself. Circle of something. I don't know. But it's a great record, and you should be proud of it. Any songs you put on it. Okay, here we go. There's one song that they didn't include. No, they're saying Indiana. I said Lindiana. Yeah. It doesn't exist. That's why you can't get it on Google. There's one song that they didn't put out called Tommy's Coming Home or something. It was like about a soldier. And you can hear that. But I do get producer credit. Yeah. Along with a bunch of other people. But that song, is it on there? Fuck. What? It's okay. That's a boss track? Hey, bro. I feel like I've. Happens to me, too. You get older, your mind moves the furniture, you don't remember everything exactly. I couldn't think of the other two songs, though. Maybe this was even a different artist. No, it was Paul McCrane. Well, it didn't even make it on the outtakes. No, but that's one song I did. Two other songs. What's in the other ones? Well, let me find them. You don't even remember? Come on, man. No. How come I'm not supposed to remember that? We Got Married. Yes. Yes, I did that song. Okay. Yes. All right. I'm glad you had an orgasm. It's a good song. We Got Married, yeah. We Got Married. It's funny, when we walked into that session, he said, I asked a mate to come over to play guitar. I hope you don't mind. I walked in the room, and it was Dave Gilmore, which was kind of heady. But my point was. What was my point? Paul McCartney. Yes. When I got together with Paul, I thought that I was going to write The Long and Winding Road Part II, and I started playing all this stuff that. Everything that I could conjure up from that vibe. And he was like, I don't want to do that shit. I already did that. I don't want to do any of that. That's why he's a great artist. Yeah. Because you don't want to repeat yourself. Yeah. But doing another great ballad would not be repeating yourself. No. If it's great. No. You know. We Got Married. You'd got married. No. Many times. You got married a lot. So did you. I've never been married. Have you ever met me? We did meet once, but. I am like. You just talk about your girlfriends all the time. I don't talk about. I avoid talking about it. But what I would say we have in common is we are age gap guys. What does that mean? We are guys who defend the concept of the age gap, which, you know, for some reason, not any reasonable reason, is somehow immoral. It's not. You know what? Age gaps work. Oh, you're talking about man and woman. No. Man and Jimothy. Yes, of course, man and woman. What do you mean? Well, you've got to be more specific. Age. Well, what could it be? Age gap. You know, I've always gotten shit about it. You've gotten shit about it. And it's not for everybody, but nobody complains when a woman does it. It's okay when Cher and Madonna do it. Right. Well, it's not really. People still complain about it, but. They complain. How do you have the right to complain about another person's. See, I always thought with Kat and I. I started with Celine when she was 19, right? Celine Dion. Celine Dion. And at that time. there was a little spark. but nobody really knew what was going on. By the second album, they were together. And it was odd. - Who was together? - Her and Renee, her husband. - September rolls in with that fake New Year energy. Everyone pretends they're getting their life together, buying planners, they'll ghost by Halloween. And in all this resetting, we skip the number one that actually matters. Try 120 Life, a once a day functional drink with ingredients that support healthy blood pressure. It's simple, drink it daily, check your numbers, see if it's working. Many people notice improvement in as little as two weeks. And if your numbers don't budge, you get your money back. No hoops, no awkward emails, no fine print, tastes great, made from a blend of super fruit juices and the powdered version has just one gram of sugar. Smart if you're watching "Blood Sugar 2." Go to 120life.com, that is 120life.com. And use my code RANDOM for 20% off. Try it risk free for two weeks. If your blood pressure doesn't come down, you get a full refund. Go to 120life.com and use the code RANDOM to save 20%. Don't guess, start measuring. Nothing to lose except higher blood pressure numbers. Go to 120life.com and use my code RANDOM for 20% off. Use code RANDOM today. These statements have not been approved by the Food and Drug Administration. This product is not intended to diagnose, treat, cure, or prevent any disease. Okay. - Right? Did you know about him at all? - I've heard the name, yes. - Right, and he's 25, 30 years older than her. - She's French-Canadian. Oh yes, right, he's older than her. - Right, 25 or 30 years. And we all thought it was weird. But eventually, after many years, it just became, "Oh yeah, that's Celine and Rene." And it just looked right. And I'm waiting and hoping that, I mean, Kat and I are going on 10 years now, I'm hoping that eventually, if not now, that it just looks right to people, that they don't think about it. - People are, David, people are looking for reasons to hate. - Well, that's true. - They have shitty, empty lives a lot. The ones who are actually writing shit on the internet, I'm not characterizing all of America this way, but if you have the time and the inclination to do that and write about your personal life, you're a fucking loser who should be spending your time doing something about your life. So they're just looking for things to hate, and this is an easy target. And you know, the answer is, you're having a great life. And by the way, I just think a lot of even younger people realize these days that, as opposed to the days of yore, when we expected to live our whole life with one person, maybe that isn't really reasonable anymore, or even desirable, we go through very different phases of our own lives. - So do women. - No, I don't mean just you or that. - You and Nikki talked about that. - I mean, humans. - We did? - Nikki Glaser, yeah. - Ah, she was probably stoned. Humans, we all do. We go through phases. We're not the same person at 20 as we are at 50. So the idea that we have different partners isn't necessarily a moral failing. Now, can you find the person, some people find the person who they go through the whole journey with? They can, and they do, and that's great for you. Other people, I think, understand, oh no, you know, for this era of my life, eras, we just had a big eras tour, didn't we? - E-R-A-S, not E-R-R-O-S. - Well, Taylor Swift, right, wasn't it? - Yeah, yeah. - Okay, we have eras in our life. Maybe it's gonna be painful when you have to transition from one era to the other if it involves another human, but in the end, that's what we do. And it seems right at the time. You feel right now, don't you? - I do. - You do. - I mean, the invention, I mean, the concept of one person was invented by probably people that were eaten by dinosaurs by the age of 25. - Well, I'm not gonna invite them to dinner. - Bada bing. - They can go get their own fuckin' dinner. - Yeah, so do you currently have a girlfriend? - Well, see, these are the questions I avoid. - Really, why? - Because, first of all-- - To make you uncomfortable? - I don't want to, I don't think people treat personal information respectfully enough to give it to them is the main reason. - Got it. - And if I did have a person in this world who I love so very, very fuckin' much, I wouldn't wanna subject her to the scrutiny that that might bring her. You know what I'm saying, Dave? - Yeah, I got you. It's David, by the way. - You hate Dave? - No, I don't hate him. - 'Cause I call everybody like by their personal first. - Can we talk about your childhood a little bit? - Yes, Doctor. - No, I'm curious. - No, let's do it. - Do you have brothers and sisters? - That's a little personal. - Is it really? - No, I'm fuckin' with you. I'm drunk, and I. - Okay. - Yes, I have an older sister. She just finished a lovely visit here. She was here for 10 days. She does every summer. - Did you have her on your show? - No. - No. - No. - No, but she was in the box when I got the Mark Twain Award last month at the Kennedy Center. - That must've been something, huh? - Yes, and it was wonderful for her. I think I am. I'm sure she had a very good time, and I know she's proud of her brother, and I'm proud of her. - Yeah. - And it was great that we could share that moment. You know, I'm sure she remembered me as a child who was trying to be funny. So to see your brother after all these years at the, you know, the award you should win if you're a comedian. - Yeah. - I'm sure it was, you know, among the reasons why I liked that night was what I could and did do for her. - Right. I actually have the same exact feeling. I have six sisters, five of whom are alive, and I just did a big event last weekend in my hometown of Victoria, a three-night event. We raised $15 million for my foundation, and one of the three nights was a concert to the city of Victoria, an outdoor concert for 70,000 people, all my sisters were there. And one of the great things, as you say, about doing that stuff is to show your sisters a good time. - How many sisters did you have? - Six, but five were still alive. - Six? - Yeah, and no boys. - On purpose? - Well, I had nothing to do with it, eh? - I'm kidding. - Yeah. - Six sisters. - Yeah. - Well, that-- - Does that explain a lot? - It kinda, I was gonna say. It, you know, you seem like a guy who gets, and attracts women. You know? I mean, you've had, talk about phases and errors in your life, right? - Yeah, yeah, that's true. - You had the, who was your first wife? Was somebody famous? - No. - No? - No. - Who? - A good singer named BJ. - BJ Thomas? Let's talk about that song. - Okay, I thought you wanted to talk about my ex-wives. - I do, but let's talk about "Brain Drops Keep Falling on My Head." - Let's talk about Bird Background. - Loved him. He loved me. He used to always come to my show. - Really? - Yeah. - Yes. Don't say it like it's so hard to believe. - Well, he's kind of an icon. - Such an icon. And why is that hard to believe? A lot of icons love me. He used to always come to my show when I played San Diego. I guess he lived down there. - He had the racetrack. Well, he lived near the racetrack, Del Mar. - I don't know. I mean, I drank with him after the show many times at that theater. It was an outdoor theater, which I don't like for comedy, but I played it a million times. Humphreys, was that what it was called? - Oh, yeah. - Maybe. And I loved him, and-- - I loved him, too. I remember when, a year ago, I went to Boca Raton and did Billy Joel, which, if you haven't heard that one-- - You did Billy Joel? What do you mean? - Did this, but I had to go to Boca to do it, where he lives. - I bet you it was amazing. - Please listen to it. You'll love it. - I will. I love Billy Joel. - As a musician. And they had just aired the documentary about him, and I-- - They had just, or they-- - They just HBO-- - Which I love. - Which I did, too. And what I didn't know was he's German, you know? - Billy Joel. And it's, I think, the original name, I forget, was something closer to-- I mean, Burt Bacharach has Bach right in the name. German composers kind of own it. - Yeah, beat 'em. - Kind of own it. - Yeah. - They kind of set the standard a long time-- - The big three, all German, or Austrian. - And one of Billy Joel's biggest hits, you know, he credits to, I think, is it Beethoven or Bach? It's, you know, oh, I can't remember it now, because I'm still-- I don't know if I'm still stoned, but-- - Are you stoned or drunk? - I'm both. - You smoked before you got in here? - I ate it, because I knew you didn't want me to smoke. - Got it. How do you think it's going so far? I mean, you can't tell, right? - That's why I love this show. This is exact-- all my career, I've tried to, like, get on camera exactly who I am. It can't get more real than this. - No. - It just can't. - OK, stay on track here, Burt Bacharach. - Germans. - Yes. - Germans, Bach, Bacharach. - As in Munich, I saw, like, a lot of the names, Bachrock this, Bach this. Oh, OK. I bought a pair of shoes that were like Johann Sebastian Bach's-- oh, no, Mozart's, the kind of boots he wore, two-tone gray. - Really? - Oh, beautiful. And you have to do them with a button hook up. - Let's talk about catalogs, OK? - Yeah. - That's another guy that makes me want to burn my catalog, Burt Bacharach. Go ahead, name a song. - You know what? The one I talked to him about, because it was so unsung, any day now. Right. And Jack, to shannon elvis did it uh close to you oh go carpenters go what what do you mean another bracket song oh i mean alfie you ever hear this dry sand version of course no personality boom okay that catalog is just insane and he had a partner you know hal david hal david oh the unsung hero let me tell you something i had a birthday party should i lean into this yeah you should i had a birthday party near my 70 big one i don't usually go in for parties but for this one i actually sang six songs that were meaningful to me no that's not the point really not at all not really okay that's not the point the point is that they were meaningful to me and it was a very special kind of party the only people here were like the closest people in my life right and i kind of shouted out all of them as opposed to usually what they do at a birthday party was they make it about you i was like the opposite these are the people who've taken care of me in my life gave them all and i did songs that were meaningful to me along the way i mean i opened with uh sammy davis i gotta be me you know what i closed with i did six songs so i had a funny song at the end i had one prop a hand mirror and i sang the fifth dimensions wedding bell blues oh so good funny right awesome it was awesome you should have them on your show they're still out there touring billy and marilyn what yes they're great i want billy billy marilyn mccoo and billy davis yes that's who she's singing to yeah they're still touring get them on the show let's call them should we call them that's and that's a bird back rack hal davidson yes should we call them now one last bell to answer one less egg dimension one less egg that's a back rack song too totally you sure it's not a jimmy webb yeah you're sure no i'm not i'm actually not no i think it's back i think it is one less one less bell to answer one less egg to fry one doesn't sound like a hal david lyric one less man to look up after oh well that sounds like hell david you know what i think we can all relate to that am i right ladies wouldn't you love to have them on your show or not um i guess i mean i mean i don't i don't know but i mean i love the records remember stone soul picnic of course you know who wrote that laura nero i think that's probably yes i think you're right yeah also wrote strice ends stoney end yep produced by richard perry were you ever a session guy i was so i was watching some documentary you know who was the session band at shirley bassey's recording of goldfinger it's english guys i presume right you're yes you're you're getting warmer english scottish no they're english right um i don't know led zeppelin you know i kind of read that not all of them though right no but the the main two guys yeah yeah yeah robert and the page and the bass player yeah page and john bottom yeah we're the back that's the drummer but they were there really yeah so i love i did sessions for about three or four years when i first came to la i had a um a hit record a band called skylark and we had a hit record called wildflower we were a one-hit wonder skylark skylark one hit wonder it was a big big top ten it was also a buick it was also a song but wasn't it yeah yeah there was a buick yeah i'm not i'm not putting you down i'm just saying your name the band is the name of the people um so the band broke up and i started doing i played uh piano in the rocky horror show when it was here in 1975. wow do you remember the rocky worship of course yeah i've seen it and for a year and two weeks i was in the pit eventually become the musical director then i met a great drummer named jim keltner oh yeah he took me under his wing george harrison yeah introduced me to george harrison i did george's records i did um i just he just introduced me to everybody and i did sessions for about three or four years me and the guys from toto and all these guys i i wanted to be a producer and i looked at the other side of the glass and i was like god dang i'm sure i can do that i know i can do that and so one morning i woke up i said i'm gonna do it i'm gonna stop doing sessions now at that time i was making over a hundred thousand a year as a studio player like jingles in the morning fifth dimension in the afternoon rod stewart at night whatever it was making over a hundred grand in the 70s i stopped it all i produced three records and all of them failed i was like god dang this is harder than it looks i might as well go back to playing sessions because that's i had a baby and you know i needed the bread and just when i was going to go back to sessions i met earth wind and fire and they took me in started writing songs i started writing songs for them with them and then alice cooper and then chicago and then chaka khan and it's just like was a plethora of things that happened to me where do you meet an entity like earth wind and fire well specifically specifically i mean either one of them yeah earth or wind um specifically i had written a song called after the love is gone which ended up being a big hit oh yeah and my love is gone right with jay graydon and bill champlin you wrote that yeah my co-writer and that we had a i had a really good girlfriend girl friend named carol chiles who said that song belongs with earth wind and fire i said do you know them she said yes i do i think she was dating dylan at the time she took the song to him he maurice white who i loved was my mentor i met with him at sunset sound he said i like that song i want to record it i said when he said tonight and we did and then that ended up i ended up writing the whole album with him and the next album became a real great thing for me did you ever see that documentary on the making of the we are the world yes i loved it were you involved no not at all no because it was quincy's show yeah you didn't need to he didn't need me no right no but it was great though huh i love who was it that left this country yes waylon jennings well well to put it into context about why he was racist yes stevie wonder suggested we may be singing the chorus in swahili right and waylon jennings was check please it's true but you know think about how far we've come like yeah i bet you in 1985 when that record was made most country artists were kind of racist they're not now no they work and they work together but they get slagged as though they are they get slagged as though they are yeah and and you know the country just has changed a lot it has it's more rock um it's a country is totally pop music yeah and sometimes somebody like brad paisley he actually addresses racial issues in his song in his song yeah i mean it's it's very impressive yeah and also they just work together you know there's collabs yeah or isn't shibuzi isn't he love him country yeah he is yeah you keep up with like the latest yeah pretty much i have a um sarah who you know my daughter sarah yeah she has a sister many sisters one of her sister's name is aaron yeah uh and aaron uh who wrote the show nobody wants this for netflix which is really good big hit um aaron is married to a guy named simon tickman and simon tickman along with his partner chief manage bailey zimmerman florida georgia line dan and shay uh josh ross they got they got a lot of names they got a lot of names josh ross they got tons of so i'm sort of half forced to keep up with the country music and i love it i do too i mean i didn't when i was younger but when i was younger it was all picking in and grinning right you know there was an occasional country tinged song that got onto the radio on wabc in new york my station well like the eagles the eagles would get you know eagles were yes eagles at the beginning were were country tinged you're quite a conundrum you know musically oh i i still i kept the great stuff from every decade that's what i kept and harper valley bda is still an amusing record and it's a great record i mean there's something wrong with the music there's something i mean when i was with billy joel i mentioned macarthur park we were talking about that and immediately he just played it yeah like and i know you could do the same thing like you should have a piano here by the way uh i have one in my house but but i mean for the broadcast i could have backed you while you sang your so not just well it's good we don't um but uh like he just started to play macarthur park which uh i told him i said you know if you google it it says this may be the worst song ever and i think it might be the best song ever you know the story right see we have very similar taste richard harris yes who had the hit with it right before donna summer of course uh he said to jimmy jimmy apparently jimmy webb jimmy who wrote it he said if you write me a number one hit i'll buy you a rolls royce song you know where it got to you got to two really no rolls royce that's the wives tale i don't know if it's true or not but i could check because that's the error where i kept the survey at least in new york i could tell you what it was what well i was just going to look up billboard i don't know do we care no we don't we don't care no we care that it's a great song yeah we care that we like the same kind of music yeah and I don't put anybody down who doesn't like the kind of music I because I certainly remember my father thinking who art in heaven who art in heaven who you know thought that the kind of music I liked was kind of whack because he grew up with big big band music I still love Sinatra of course I mean but I like the later Sinatra I don't like the the 30s for you like the live at the sands Sandra sands and also in the 60s yeah he had lots of hits and hits pop hit yeah bill when you think about music since let's just say since the 40s so when Sinatra came out mm-hmm he was considered by parents to be a horrible teenagers loved him parents hated him then the fifties come along Elvis comes out shaking his hips Sinatra's good and Sinatra's good Elvis is the devil right right then in the 60s the Beatles come up Elvis is good the Beatles are the devil with her dropping ass and all the shit then the 70s punk music comes out Beatles are good I mean it's just this really it's just like clockwork like you can just you know it's the evolution of music and it's every generation the parents hated until the next thing came along it's all true the other thing is true too both things are true at the same time one yes generations do reflexively feel threatened by the next generation and some of that is irrational and also sometimes what we feel threatened by is actually stupid like retrying communism that's not just us being old no it's actually stupid but it's so hard to convince anybody of that if they're 22 years old you're just old you're old white men yeah but is it impossible that we also could be right about that because we lived through it and we saw it and we know well I have a question for you but me yes we know about Venezuela yes we know about Cuba yes we know about North Korea you know all these places where it doesn't really work you know all these places where it doesn't really work does communism or any part of it work in China China has an interesting system I mean they more socialist or they they well jen zhao ping was the ruler who took over after now and in nineteen not directly but in 1979 he was the ruler and he said his famous quote was whether a mice whether a mouse is white or black it does not matter as long as it catches vermin or no whether a cat is black or white does not matter if it catches a mouse what he was saying was I don't care if we're if you call us capitalist I don't care if you call us communist we're gonna keep the communist dictatorship part we're gonna definitely keep the dictatorship part we keep a lid on the people but they're definitely a capitalist society I mean they have billionaires yeah and they have a very successful economy yeah they just have one where the government at the snap of a finger will step in and tell you what to do or put you away oh yeah I mean they are not a free country like this country we are way freer than China I mean we do not want to become true I know this for a fact because when I did China I did China's got talent for a couple of years I did Asia's got talent for five years China's got talent for a couple of years like America's got talent only obviously in China and in the audience was college kids it was all college kids and the people running the show the people like in their 40s and 50s they were all just like status quo everything is great but in the audience you could feel that these college this was just like three or four years ago you could feel the college kids going like we're not taking it you could you could it was palpable this was what was a three or four Shanghai it was not in Shanghai it was in a actually in what in what's the new province where the covid came from Wuhan yeah Wuhan province cut that out will you no that's too perfect I got to do something with that the Wu-Tang virus you were in Wuhan I think so yeah it was it was not I love Shanghai Shanghai is great so you've been to China a lot many times I've been to Asia probably 30 times wow because in Asia I've been going there for 40 years they like they think that the people that make the music are as important as the people that sing it so when I go to Singapore or Malaysia or Thailand or any of these countries Jakarta they think I'm as important as Celine or Whitney and they don't hear no I feel like now the producer is the one who I feel like the the people who took the brunt of the change in the music industry were the writers and now it's the producer but the average person you could say that but the average person doesn't know any names no they don't right I mean look I was having a discussion the other day with Canadian star Anjali very dearest friend of mine and you know she's won the Juno the Anjali Anjali she had worldwide hits she's won the Juno in Canada and now she tells me AI is just taking over this industry and people will put out a thousand versions of a song AI did you see which one catches on yeah and people don't care people don't people don't know you must be you must be concerned about well I'm done I retired 10 years ago you know I retired really yeah I tour with my wife that's it I haven't written I haven't made a record in 10 years and you don't go or 12 I don't care well you got out at the wrong right time well the right time and uh sidebarring I felt like I wanted to be like a good athlete you know I don't want to say great because I don't want to call myself great but great athletes know when it's time to leave they may they maybe stick around just for one step too long you're right but they don't stick around to the end you're right get the out you're right and I got out I didn't want to be sitting by the phone that's what Billy Joel did did he get out Billy just tours he doesn't write he didn't even tour he goes nobody wants to hear a Billy Joel song I do no you don't not a new one yeah he put out a new one a couple of years ago it was fantastic he put okay well I I seem think it fits very well with his catalog yeah do you know but but it wasn't a hit because he's not gonna have a hit nobody's gonna have a hit at 75 right well it's just not one person did who Elton John he's the only one what was the hit with Dua Lipa yes because it was with Dua Lipa I don't care it was like everybody else is welcome to do that too but they didn't okay he's the only one yes and if I do a buddy cop movie with Timothee Chalamet it'll be a hit too but it won't be because I'm in it no I'm the other cop I'm just saying I'm too old for this Timothee anyway I got out I think and maybe the right time yeah smart move the reason why I like the sound of AI on records on songs you know all over the country writers use AI for their demos you just it's just madness how great they sound the reason why is because in my record making I always wanted I always tried to be perfect and I never achieved that but in my mind I was always trying to be absolutely perfect fix every bass note fix every drum beat fix every snare drum fix every guitar if there's a mistake I'm gonna fix it because my theory was that you could let any one thing go and you'd still have a good record but if you let everything go you're gonna have a shitty record you're gonna sound like the stones and I didn't want to sound like the stones you know stones are great but they're great for they're a party band you know it's not the kind of music that I want to make I want perfection that is such a snobby thing to say and not even true there's such great production on so many of their records for example you know you can't always get what you want yeah they do this guitar bass and drums you're ridiculous like at like at the very end of that record they change the tempo great like the way that the way Charlie Watts kicks in with this whole different kind of it just it just the way it just well and it's a great record can I rephrase who cares how many instruments are on it can I rephrase sorry it doesn't have a harp can I rephrase yes counselor I I want perfection I always struggle for perfection the stones did not they were a party band they got into the studio made great records but they didn't give a if there was mistakes on them all right and I don't give a because again I'm a young man in the 22nd row I'm not you I got it that's who you have to the Beatles used to like to listen to thing on a shitty transistor radio because that's how the people were going to hear it okay the stones yes there are more raw which I also like sometimes I like raw but also they're well produced when they want to be when they want to be well produced they are very well produced I mean those they had so many 60s hits yeah like under my thumb and paint satisfaction black well satisfaction of course iconic iconic but lots of and and some ballads not too many layers of goodbye Ruby Tuesday remember that yeah of course no actually Brian Jones he used to be the one who put those like sounds on a record that we hadn't heard before really yeah he was great at that that's I mean listen to some of those records no Beach Boys dandelion well Beach Boys Beach Boys were a Harmony group and they were great too yeah but who do I have more of probably the stones and yet you answered beetles when i said beetles are stones yes because the beetles first of all they're much more varied and their catalog is much more complete yeah immense immense and they did it all in nine years nine years from start to finish i mean do i have everything from their early years no some of them are just too basic love me do which was the first one that charted i i don't need to hear that ever again it's a pretty good song it's not they wrote it when they were 16 the the lyrics are childish i mean it has their energy which you can never replace it's you know but is it a good song love love me do you i know i love you i mean please good enough for you to remember my 10 um they have so many better ones why would i listen to that why would i listen to that when i can listen to i am the walrus the evolution of the beetles over nine years is just amazing see the the stones didn't progress the stones are a party band the stones are for a good time the beetles are for a long time i'm sticking to my story i know i know what you mean but i think you're short changing the rolling stones i mean i think they had some amazing records they did that they did are not just party records and again some angie is a great ballad i mean dandelion uh it's a great well let me try to rephrase one more time okay they would have hated me as a record producer because i would have been trying to make them too perfect we would have tried to sober them up yes well they would of course they would have hated you yeah because first of all you ask them to show up on time who do you think is the greatest record producer of the last 10 years not sitting here not definitely not me because you weren't i wasn't making right i mean i don't know because i don't follow music that closely in the last time i'm going to give you the name okay okay undisputed king max martin ever heard of him never what oh my god what is he what has he done all the backstreet boys don't welcome don't know any of that katie perry rihanna uh taylor swift none of the none of these artists ringing what i claim i know well but what i've heard never made me want to listen to more wow i mean am i missing something with the backstreet boys and in sync pretty great records really i think so if you say so i'll try it i think so i will i will try it you should look up max martin he's he's incredible i mean when i think of record producers i think of of course phil spector richard perry quincy jones richard perry right my old friend richard perry yeah um and maybe me and you and uh um who else also georgia marauder in the 80s yeah um i'm sure there's the great rock producer uh what do you mean there was a great rock producer that i can't think of his name well rick rubin for rock rick easy boy what have a drink yeah i never never really got on with him but you didn't get on with him well i mean who cares i mean he's a weird guy um i don't really know him but you're gonna arrive at greatness a bunch of different ways you could do it my way where i play everything and i'm right there like my shirt sleeves up rick rubin is in the category with clive davis because there are two guys who have no knowledge of music they just know what they like well rick has a knowledge of music no he doesn't he actually just i'm sorry unless 60 minutes is lying because they did the story on him and he said he doesn't play an instrument he doesn't know instruments he just sits there and knows what he's like what he likes you know he hears it and he's just the young man in the 22nd row i that would be me and that's clive davis he's also not a musician but sometimes that's an advantage to be just the fan to have those ears yes just the fan i can't hear music that way no of course you can't because you were born with the talent yeah right yeah and that can be great and it also can be um divorcing you from the regular person yeah i've always said that the only thing you need to be a great record producer is a great love of music that's the only thing you need yeah it just so happens that i can get in i can write for the orchestra i can play the piano i can play the bass i can program the drums i can do all that but you don't need all that you can hire people to do that if you have the the brain to pull it all together so let me just ask again about ai because again i mean like i know angelia's put out like so many amazing records in the last few years and it's like if you don't have a record label and you're not ai how does it just seems like these ai records are lacking the kind of human connection that we used to look for in music i mean for the whole reason why we were loving music is because it made us feel something as humans i thought spotify banned ai music no right that that's not i don't know how i could ever tell um but no i i think i think it's out there and people don't care people don't care look i have an ai record elvis they made an ai record of others called poor man's gold yeah how is it good yeah enjoyable i like elvis perfect i'm a huge elvis fan yeah like uh and very much like sinatra not the early stuff right but the later stuff when he was a mature guy and like from you know the suspicious minds that era yeah he did great stuff 70s yeah that's when he did any day now yeah um and it sounds like a record he would have made and didn't or maybe he recorded maybe it's using a demo i'm not sure but it's definitely not him well i'll tell you something that might surprise you you ready you need to sit up for this no um nine uh not nine eight tenths of all the records that i made i made by myself with no humans just me playing the bass me programming the drums me playing the street or somebody else programming for me me playing the strings synth strings also decided that's how pretty i mean that's the precursor to ai that's how prince did it yeah well did but would you argue that um like i'm breaking my heart that i did for tony braxton does that sound like it had no heart no no no all computers but it's still you it's still one here it's still one person you're a human yeah you're right i'm not saying you have to have a whole bunch of humans yeah good point mccartney won nobody else on that record 1970. yeah maybe is that after wings no it's the first record after the beatles okay that was the one you mean ram ram was the first one no no no that's the second one the first one was mccartney got it what was the hit on it or was there maybe i'm amazed wow he played the piano yeah every he played everything he was living in a farm in scotland and drinking much but he was playing real instruments versus since yes mccartney too 1980 nobody else on it no you're obsessed with ram ram is this is the second mccartney solo album well you said mccartney won and mccartney too mccartney one is this 1970 first album after the beatles uh that's maybe i'm amazed at mccartney two is one he did in 1980 and that has nobody else on it but him either was there a hit on that record um press don't know that by the way do you think anybody gives a about anything we've talked about today do i give a no do you think anybody else does i you know what this show has its own fan base like was it dull no it's if it's if if it's people who only have to hear about things they already know about i've already lost them that's not who i'm working toward you know um i thought it was fascinating me too i loved it oh how many drinks did you have just one no that's not true okay no that's not true either okay two and a half no that's not true no it was two and a half it was it really yeah but they're a lot i mean i'm still no no that's why i feel this and that's why i use this because i don't want to have more than i i've learned that because we're not young no no and and we can't drink like we used to i mean you're a young father five-year-old yeah five-year-old five-year-old and it's the greatest yeah i have kids in my 40s i say that every day if i only could have kids i'd be so happy is that no you don't say that but you must think of them when these kind of issues we're talking about coming up come up like like what is the world going to be like with ai in 20 years is it are you on the page of like well people have always said it's going to be ridiculous in the few and then it wasn't because things just changed or are you on the page of no this is really dangerous well i can only go by my musical bubble and just in the music industry every 10 or 15 years ago every 10 or 15 years we hear the trouble's coming right it's the end of the music business right from you know the 33 and a third to the cassette oh cassettes are going to ruin the business and then it was the cd and there's the dad a track yeah a track and you know and then it was television that was mtv same thing with movies same thing with movies none of it ruined it right no none of it ruined it i can't imagine ai will especially well but i'm more more worried about it ruining our lives in in more fundamental ways You know, but am I going to let it upset my life now? No, I don't have any sympathy or I should I say patience for people who are so desperate about, oh, my God, Bill, what are we going to do? Trump is president. Yeah, I agree. He's not the kind of president I voted for. But, you know, how's your life? Let's not pretend your life is terrible either. Let's find a middle ground between reality and, yes, we should be alarmed about a lot of the things that are happening. But somehow a lot of them didn't. And, man, we have good lives in America. I mean, yes, there are problems. There are. We're very lucky in the kind of lives we live. Yeah. But we have a champagne life, let's be honest. We do. Yeah. You know what I found about you in the last hour? You're not nearly as cynical as I thought you would be. I'm not cynical at all? No. No. I don't even know where I got that impression from because you're not. It's what I said about McHale's Navy. Who was the other guy, Ernest and Tim? Who was the third guy with the blonde? Oh, that was Gruber. Darren McGovern? No. No, that was the love boat. No, that's Gavin McLeod. No, you're thinking of Gruber. Yes. No, not Gruber. That's Mayberry. No, no, no. Gruber was like the shyster in the crew. The ensign? But he wasn't the main part. The other guy, the guy who was brilliant was Joe Flynn as captain. Joe Flynn as the captain. Captain Binghamton. With the glasses. Yes. Yeah. And Carpenter, the ass-guesser. Yeah. Oh, yeah. It was just, I don't take back that. Do you ever watch Me Too TV? Me Too TV? I think it's called Me Too TV. It reruns all those shows. From Love Boat and Gilligan's Island. Me Too, like the name we. It's called. or Me TV. It's called. It's called Me TV. Anyway, I've kept you long enough. I love this. I couldn't tell you how much I enjoyed this. Thank you so much, Bill. Yeah, yeah. Honestly. I hope this is not the last time I see you. Either and I meant to talk about my wife and my kids more. Talk about her. No, but we'll do it next time. I mean, Kat, as you know, is amazing. Amazing. All my daughters are amazing. And Allison, Amy, Sarah, Aaron, and Jordan. And the thing that I would say. You're not a father, so forgive me for pulling you into this conversation. But I've talked to so many parents about this. The goal is to get your kids off the payroll. That's the goal. And all mine are. Off the poll? Off the payroll. Oh, the payroll. I thought you said off the poll. Well, that too. I mean, that is definitely what you want to do. Yeah, no, I mean, and you've touched on some of my kids and what they're doing. And they're all off the payroll. And it's really a great feeling. But you have. You have famous kids, right? Aren't your kids the model? Oh, well, that's stepkids, yes. Gigi and Bella. They did well. And Brandon and Brody Jenner. And Brandon and Brody. I mean, yes. It's amazing the way you sort of transverse so many different cultures. You know, there's the serious music culture. And then there's the pop culture. Yeah. And, you know, I think. You were married to Carrie Fisher. I'm sure that's not right. But somebody. You're thinking of the Elvis girl in the Thompson. Elvis girl. Oh, look at that. That's a whole show. Oh. Sometime. Later. She was hot. Miss Tennessee. Was she not? When Elvis met her? Well. It was so perfect. I guess. Elvis and Miss Tennessee. Perfect. Yeah. I had to hear about it the whole marriage. Every. Every. You know, come January 10th or 11th, I'd come. I'd come downstairs and there'd be a whole fucking TV crew in my living room. It was like. Okay. There she'd be. The date is January 8th. Or whatever. January. January 8th is Elvis's birthday. It's like, get these people out of my house. January 8th, 1935 to August 16th, 1977. That's Elvis's life. Got it. Get it right. Okay. Don't let your bitterness get in the way of my. Because Elvis. I mean, people wonder why I love Elvis so much. Yeah, I wonder too. It's just. Seriously? Yeah. I mean, I kind of get it now that he was pretty great, but. Really? Yeah. Well, first of all, just the voice. I mean, I love the voice as much as any voice ever. I love Streisand. I mean, I love Linda Ronstadt. Yeah. I love Natalie Maines. I mean, there's some amazing Celine Dion. Some amazing voices. I just love the John Lennon when he's like, you know, twist and shout. Did you love Whitney? Yes. Yeah. But the record's not as. Not as much as others. I like them, but, you know, I mean, you're a big one. You know, I will always love you. How about Natalie Cole? Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Natalie Cole. You did hers. You did. Well, I did the Unforgettable. Unforgettable. Yeah. Huge hit. Which is a great turnaround in her career. But Elvis, I mean, that period from when he returned from the movies, and he did Suspicious Minds, and he did From Memphis to Vegas, and all the songs on there. And one of the songs I sang at my birthday party. People don't know it. It's called How the Web Was Woven. Nice. You should look it up. It's a great song. A lot of great songs on that album. He's svelte. He's in the jumpsuit now, but he's not fat yet. And he's singing songs like Suspicious Minds. Daddy's Girl? Was that song in there? Don't Cry Daddy. Don't Cry Daddy. Which I did with him and his daughter. Yes. Great singles. Don't Cry Daddy. In the Ghetto. In the Ghetto. It was a great song. Written by? Mac Davis? Yes, sir. Good man. Man, I'm impressed. Wow. But Elvis, I mean, the hits that came out of that era, The Wonder of You, is that a terrible song? Who's that? Him? Him. Is that Elvis? I don't know that song. You don't have to say you love me? He did My Way, too, right? Cover. Yeah, but that was later. That was Fat Elvis. That wasn't. Right? Yeah. Yeah. But, I mean, he put out so many great records in that era. I could turn you on. To some of them, and I'd love to. Okay, great. How about that? That would be awesome. Okay. And I'll finish up by saying thanks to my wife, Kat, who is a great singer, who came here to support me, along with Kim, and it was really nice, because it's a long fucking way away from my house. All right. It is? It is. I'm sorry. All right. Thanks, Bill. I'll come. I'll meet you halfway next time. Okay. All right. Do I sit? I'm going to sit here, and you walk out like the king. No, no, no. We're going to take a picture. Oh, we are? This is podcasting. There's no rules. Ha, ha. ♪ Club Random ♪ ♪ Club Random ♪ How are you going to take a picture? There's nobody in this room. Somebody will come out. ♪ Club Random ♪