Episode 126: With Bruce Hornsby
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Transcript
Transcript
Time Crisis back once again. It's summertime. So in this episode we will change our formula slightly
to give you a summertime edition of Time Crisis. We will be joined by the absolute legend Bruce
Hornsby to talk his new album The Grateful Dead and of course The Range. This is Time Crisis
with Ezra Koenig.
Let's begin.
Passed me by, all of those great romances
You were a felt rubbing me of my rightful chances
My picture clear, everything seemed so easy
And so I dealt you the blow, when a bus had to go
Now it's different, I want you to know
One of us is crying, one of us is lying
In a lonely bay
Time Crisis back again, what's up Jake?
Not much, how are you?
I'm alright, what'd you do during your bye week?
Let's see, that's last week, things have been a little slow
Well you've completed your Chuck E. Cheese painting
That's right, that was last week, that was a big moment
For anybody who hasn't seen, Jake, I think you posted on Instagram
But you just finished this great Chuck E. Cheese painting
We've been talking about Chuck E. Cheese recently
I think even since the last episode they went bankrupt
So they've really been in the news lately
You've been wanting to paint a Chuck E. Cheese for a couple years?
I don't think that long, I mean I've just been dealing with that subject matter for many years
But specifically Chuck E., I was like, in the last six months
I just had kind of a hankering for a Chuck E. Cheese painting
I mean, your timing couldn't be better though
Yeah, then I worked up a good image that I thought would work at a large scale for a painting
And started it like three or four weeks ago
Right around the time that I think we did the Chuck E. Cheese history episode
Yeah
And then the news dropped last week and then my social media was blowing up with TC heads being like
"Dude, Chuck E.'s going out" and then I dropped the bomb of this brand new painting
So, is Chuck E. Cheese really going out?
I've always been confused about that because like, declaring bankruptcy
That's kind of like an accounting maneuver
Right
I don't totally understand
I feel like I've heard that Sears is like going out of business for the last like 20 years
But we just bought a dishwasher from Sears yesterday
Really?
And there's going to be a Sears technician that comes to the house and installs it
Interesting
I wonder if he's going to be wearing a Sears uniform or if he's some kind of third party hired gun
This came up
He's going to be wearing a Sears uniform because the plumber was over yesterday
Here we go
Boring domestic quarantine stories
The plumber was over yesterday and he was like
"Look, you could buy the dishwasher from like Best Buy or Home Depot"
"But they're going to farm out installation"
"And if there's a problem, then it's like, 'Oh, who's left holding the bag?'"
So he's like, "Get a dishwasher from Sears"
"So if there's a problem with the dishwasher, if they're missing a part, whatever"
"The Sears guy, it's all one company that's handling the sale of the product"
"And the installation of the product"
More accountability
This is weirdly related to Chuck E. Cheese
The reason we had to get a new dishwasher is that this is nasty
Our last dishwasher started leaking
Wait, I got a guess, Nat
Wait, I guess it either has something to do with rats or pizza
You're right
It has to do with the first, rats
You got a rat's nest in your dishwasher?
Well, under the dishwasher
The dishwasher started leaking
I removed that little plastic skirt at the bottom of the dishwasher
And looked under, and there was a rat's nest
It was so nasty, dude
It was like, they dragged in sticks and just random garbage
And they just burrowed through the wall and back of the dishwasher
And they chewed through all the piping
Oh god
So rats actually build a nest?
I guess so
They chew through all the plastic tubes where all the water runs through
So that was causing the leak
I read an article when quarantine first started
That was about mechanics getting a lot of people coming in with car trouble
That he determined was caused by rats
Because people's cars are sitting around more
And it's similar, in the article they described that rats chew through wires
Because it's kind of what they're programmed to do
In nature, they would chew on vines and stuff
Because their teeth grow so fast and so sharp
That if they're not constantly gnawing
Their teeth would actually grow into their jaw
And like, yeah, it would mess them up
So basically their teeth grow way faster and sharper than a human's
They need to always be gnawing
So in an urban environment where they're not finding all the usual things to gnaw on
They're always looking for wires
And there's sometimes even certain things used in the casing of wires
That they find kind of like, tasty or attractive
So anyway, a lot of people rolling up with rat nests in their engines
I've wondered about that
Because sometimes I get in my car and it like, inexplicably smells like s***
Like animal s***
Like cat s***
Because I park in this alley under this tree usually
And you also, as we've discussed, you have a big minivan
With only two seats up front
So there's a lot of room to party in
Oh my god, can you imagine like some insane horror movie?
You come out to your car at like three in the morning
And there's just like 800 rats just like...
Just swarm you while you're driving
A rat king
A rat king? I was actually thinking about that
Are you familiar with the concept of a rat king, Jake?
Deeply
So a rat king is just when a ton of rats get their tails
Irreversibly tied together in kind of a circular formation
Yeah
Oftentimes it's gum that adheres the tails together or sap
Gum?
Yeah
You wouldn't think gum would have the power to do that
This is an awful conversation
Yeah, truly terrifying
Just the plumber rolling up just like
"All right, you got a rat king under the dishwasher"
"It's gonna cost you"
Oh, I think I smell a rat
Oh, I think I smell a rat
All you little kids seem to think it knows where it's at
Oh, I think I smell a rat
Walking down the street, carryin' my face to the back
Oh, I think I smell a rat
All right, well that's gonna be cool
You can get to check out a uniformed Sears officer
Yeah, maybe I can ask them about the status of the company
I thought you guys declared bankruptcy like three or four times
What's going on?
I feel like Sears has gone bankrupt every other year
like since I've been 10
Yes
What are companies that straight up vanished off the face of the earth?
Like are done done?
Pan Am went fully out of business
That must have been pretty wild
You had the giant building in New York was the Pan Am building
So that must have really felt like the end of an era
Blockbuster Video
Does Blockbuster Video in any way still exist?
There's like one in like Bend, Oregon
But like as a corporation, it is not a thing
They were defunct as of January 12, 2014
The Bend, Oregon, you're right, absolutely
That's the final one
And I guess before that, there were a few left in Western Australia
But they all closed last year
Western? That is so deep
Western Australia is very deep, you know
Like we've been there a lot over the years playing shows in Perth
It's a cool city
You don't definitely don't feel like you're in the middle of nowhere or anything
But the thing people always say
I don't know exactly what the language is
Is that Perth is like the largest metropolitan area that's the most isolated
Just because the next metropolitan area that's like the same size of it is so far away
You know, Australia is like roughly the same size as the US
In terms of ge- wow, yeah, that's crazy
In terms of geography
It is kind of the same way I feel about Pennsylvania
I always forget how wide it is
So you're like getting on the flight from like Sydney to Perth
And you're just like, wait, how long is this flight again?
You're just like, oh my god, it's like flying from New York to LA
But I think the geography of Australia, maybe an Australian could correct me
But it's almost as if the US was like LA
And then all the other big cities of the country were just like New York, Atlanta and like New Orleans
Right
So I can imagine outside of Perth in this big state of Western Australia
There probably were tiny little like towns where people still really relied on their blockbusters
I was thinking about DVDs yesterday because I was in a Best Buy
I was checking out dishwashers
This is before we decided to go with Sears
They were just like selling Rambo 2 and Rambo 3 on DVD for like $14.99
Yes, they're selling like full price Rambo DVDs
And they had like multiple copies
I've been working on a song
Well, I've been messing around with a song for a few years that's called DVD Store
Oh
That's all I'll say about it
Okay
Maybe it'll be on the next album, maybe on something else
But I've also found that a very evocative phrase, DVD Store
Yo, I wanted to watch the film Inland Empire by David Lynch a couple weeks ago
Oh yeah
And I learned that it is only available on DVD
You can't stream it, you have to buy it
For whatever reason
Well, David Lynch famously will not let his movies be streamed
And
That's not true
No, most of his
All the ones that he can, that he has control over
Maybe
Does not want to stream
And if you buy the DVD, in my experience, or watch the DVD of all movies
Certainly Mulholland Drive and the other ones I can remember
He won't put in chapters, so you have to watch the whole movie
Oh
Because he doesn't like people skipping around it, it's wild
Interesting
That might be the only movie he controls
Because I feel like a lot of them were on Criterion's channel
So wait, did you buy a Seinfeld?
No, because I don't even own a DVD player anymore
So I had this whole debate over, like, do I buy a DVD player
Just to see this one film that I just wanted to watch right now
And the answer is no
I'm going to do a number crunch for you right now
I'm going on eBay
And I'm going to see what the cheapest DVD player I can find is
I guess it's the starting bid
But it says Free Local Pickup in Crystal Lake, Illinois
It's a DVD VHS combo
Starting bid $5, there's nobody's bidding on it
So I bet you could actually get it for $5
I'm seeing some other ones that are like, buy it now for $30
A little steep
I don't want the hardware in my house, though, just to watch a single film
Buy the DVD, buy the DVD player, watch it, and then throw them both away
That's, no
If I give you the DVD player for $5
And the DVD, what's that running?
Like $15, $20?
But guys, now I have to, like, get it in the mail, like, open the box
You know, before COVID, you would sometimes go see, you know, Avengers Flavor Blasted 4D
You know, the ticket could easily have been $19
Plus parking and all this stuff
Even just for a solo viewing
It could easily cost $40 to go see the Avengers
So you would pay $40 to go see the Avengers
But not $20 to support local business
It's an experience
That's, you know, that's contactless
As soon as I walk out of the theater, I'm not saddled with the machinery of the film
I'm not finding much
But I feel like there must be somebody on eBay who's just like, okay, this is what I'm looking for
Just selling, like, a ton of DVDs
Seinfeld, I have a Blu-ray player you could borrow
So I drive to your place
I borrow a DVD
I then order the film from wherever
It's a lot of work
It's a lot of legwork
You know what this makes me think of with David Lynch
Trying to prohibit his movies from streaming is
Garth Brooks
Garth Brooks does not have his music on streaming services
He's like one of the last big holdouts
Did you guys watch that doc?
No, you were saying that that's good
I gotta check that out
Amazing
Wow, he's something else
I've been fascinated by him when I've seen his little videos here and there
His little social media posts
He seems like a very intense guy
How familiar are you with his music, Jake?
It was interesting to watch this doc because I was sort of like, well, I know Friends of Low Places
And after that, I couldn't think of a single song
And I was like, well, maybe there'll be some others that I recognize
And there weren't
You know one Garth Brooks song
But he's like the biggest selling artist
Wait, what was it?
There was some screenshot I took of it that blew my mind
It was like
The biggest selling solo male artist in US history
Some book cooking happening
But yeah, it was something like the biggest selling solo artist
Like more than Michael Jackson
More than Elvis
More than Springsteen
Oh my god, yeah
Garth Brooks just crushes Bruce
It was like over 100 million records or something
Yeah, I know he's massive
It feels like not that long ago
It could have been 10-15 years ago
But I'm pretty sure he like sold out Yankee Stadium
Dude, he played to a million people in Central Park
Garth did
Yes, Yankee Stadium is only like 50,000 people
There was like a free show in Central Park in '97
This is in the doc
And they were doing this whole thing
He was like in his trailer and he's all nervous
He's like, I don't know man, it's New York
Oh, he's fancy New Yorkers
Is anyone gonna be there to come to check me out?
Little old me
And then he's like, I open the trailer door
And I hear the roar of the crowd
They're here for me
And then like it was like
Wait, no Garth, there's 200,000 people here
Oh no Garth, there's 300,000
There's 400,000
Garth, there are 600,000 people
Like he's just doing this kind of thing
He's such a ham
He kind of gives me like L. Ron Hubbard vibes a little bit
Garth Brooks has sold the most albums in the world
Of anybody?
Of anybody
He's the highest selling recording artist of all time
It's like peak CD sale
Like what do they say?
Like '98 or '99 was the peak of the record industry
1999, that was the peak
The close of the 20th century
It's like perfect
My familiarity with Garth Brooks' really intense demeanor
Comes from this video that a friend showed me
This is probably four or five years ago
It's kind of like germane to what we're talking about
Because it's also Garth Brooks like
Hesitantly stepping into a new arena
Right
And this is him posting his first video to Facebook
Probably when he first launched an official page
After not being part of it for, you know
The early rise of social media
So let's listen to this because this is a very classic video
Well, I guess it's official
We're now on Facebook
I really wasn't sure about this at the start
But then a friend of mine said something that just made all kinds of sense
She said, think of it more as a conversation
I like that
But I'm already finding out on my own
So it's wiping the walls out between you and me
And I really like that
I really like that
It allows us into each other's worlds
Or I guess in my case, hotel room
When I think about things I want to post
I want to post cool stuff, slick stuff, neat stuff
But most of the stuff I'm going to post is going to be raw stuff like this
Super raw
This is just who I am
Raw indeed
So if this is truly a conversation
No, it's not
Then I say let the conversation begin
Oh my god, this guy drives me up the wall
There's something about
You said that Garth Brooks drives you up the wall?
Yeah, so the doc is a lot like that
Except he's weeping through half of the doc
He's got a little bit of like in that clip, like super villain energy
His cadence is real like bad guy from a movie
Just like that
And I really like that
I want to post slick stuff, raw stuff
Wait, so Jake, why does he drive you up the wall?
What's the phrase?
Do you say he drives you up a wall or the wall?
I say the, he drives me up the wall
I guess a is better
Garth Brooks drives you up the wall
He drives me up the wall in this doc
I mean, I didn't know anything
I didn't know much about him
I hadn't really seen him before this doc
I mean, in terms of being interviewed
He's just like acting
It's not like he's giving like a candid interview
The whole thing is a performance of like
I'm being so candid and like real with you
But the whole thing is it's so self-conscious
And then he'll frequently break down into tears
Like recalling like an early gig where like
You know, I was playing at a college bar in Oklahoma
And I couldn't believe the reaction I got
And I just knew that music was my life
It's just like, dude, whatever
Like he's just like the most banal stories
That result in him like tearing up
The guys in his band tear up a lot too
It's like these very like weepy, doughy guys
It's just like
It's okay to cry
Is this just Garth not living up to your standards of machismo?
It's Garth being a transparently fraudulent dude
Like it's just like
If you're gonna cry, man
You gotta like
You bust it out for one moment
Like where like your dad dies or something
You can't
It's literally crying through half the doc
It's truly insane
That could be a good title for something
The transparently fraudulent tears of Garth Brooks
Like a George Saunders short story
A collection of poetry by Jake Longstreet
A series of haikus
[Laughs]
Well, yeah
Because when you're describing it
It is like
Of course
Somebody who's moved by emotion to cry
That can be a very beautiful thing
Sometimes people who cry are very in touch with their emotions
Sure
But you're right that the
And I mean you see this discussed quite a bit
These days online is a
You know when tears are manipulative
Yeah hard to diag
You can't diagnose the guy
Very performing on a documentary
But it did seem
The whole thing seemed very calculated
Very cloying
I mean it was fascinating to watch
Like I said you reminded me of L. Ron Hubbard
Because he has this smooth kind of delivery
And it's just like
Do you even believe what you're saying man?
Like that kind of thing
Like
He's probably in too deep to know
Right and I was also picturing like
The guys in his band and his friends
Just like hating him at this point
Like there'd be like early footage of them playing gigs in the 80s
And it'd be like
It was like oh this is cool
Like bar band and like
It's everyone's young and they're playing
Like and then like he's been with the same musicians for like decades
And everyone's like in this like beautiful like sterile recording studio
Doing these like very like intense taping sessions
And I'm just picturing those guys just like eye rolling
Like as soon as the camera stops
I could be totally wrong but I mean I don't know
We're gonna get an angry email from Garth Brooks' bassist
Just being like
How dare you?
That's my guy
We weep together
Garth Brooks is also interesting because he kind of um
I'm sure other people were involved but he really
More than anybody else invented the modern country superstar vibe
Like he is that transitional moment from the 80s to the 90s
Where of course they're always big country stars
And I'm sure like in any genre
Sometimes the biggest stars are a little bizarre
Because they live in a in a weird bubble
Yeah
He was like the first like modern slick stadium country dude
Well the latest news from Nashville ain't all good but it ain't bad
The worst I ever found there was the best I ever had
The new hats and the no hats are still coming on pretty strong
While me and Chris and John and Willie keep plodding right along
Clint Black's moved out to Hollywood
He's in love and that's a fact
Dunn found himself a movie star
Gonna show him how to act
Garth Brooks keeps selling millions
Well that show ain't no joke
But I can't help but keep on looking for a pig down in the pole
On a totally different note we got a major guest coming up today
Which is Bruce Hornsby
But before we set him up I just had something that
I actually made a note that I wanted to discuss today
Because obviously there's so much going on
And you know we're back to bi-weekly now
It's hard to even stay on top of everything that's going on
But I had a conversation with a friend recently
And I didn't want to do any research
I thought maybe we could do some live research
So Seinfeld get your best number crunching tools ready
So I was talking to my buddy Andre
Who I've known for a long time
We grew up in the same town
He was telling me about how he used to work in a bike shop in New York
And that his boss was a fanatic for Reese's Peanut Butter Cups
And he said...
I've never heard this before
So he said that his boss would always be telling him
To go run to the corner store to buy him a thing of Reese's Peanut Butter Cups
And sometimes he would eat it
But other times he would be very disturbed
He'd like take one bite and say
You can have the rest of it
You could have like the other one in the package
And Andre would be like
What's wrong with it?
And that he would say
This one's a summer edition
I guess the first time Andre was just like
What?
And he's like
Yeah they're still selling the summer editions
They didn't get the winter editions yet
And Andre's like
The packaging is the same
He's like it doesn't say on the packaging
But they taste so different
In the summer they do a summer edition
And it's got different chemicals in it
So it doesn't melt
But then in the winter they go back to the normal formula
And I hate it that even once the weather changes
And you know it's November or December
Certain stores because they didn't sell it in the summer edition
They still have them
And it's very frustrating when you're trying to get a winter edition
I'd never heard of this in my life
So I just made a note
I didn't do any research of course
In TC fashion
But I was like
Either his boss is just like totally nuts
Has like made up this story in his head
Or this is like a major bombshell
Is this a thing that candy bars have different formulas in summer and winter?
Well first of all Jake have you ever heard of this in your life?
Never heard of it
It's a great urban legend
I don't buy it
Maybe it was a thing back in the day
But Seinfeld what'd you find?
First of all let's start with the fact that there is some precedent for this
Apparently in the 1930s
The Reese company was unable to make their chocolate
Because it was too hot
And they didn't have the proper cooling and air conditioning systems
So what they did is in the winter months
They turned to a canning company
They would can beans and tomatoes
In the months when they couldn't make chocolate
And then revert back to the chocolate when it cooled down
That's totally insane
Wait wait so hold on
They just stopped making chocolate in the winter?
Yeah correct
It was a seasonal confection
I can believe that in the 30s
If you're sending a truck out from your factory
And by the time it gets there it's melted
And then you got the shop owners calling you angrily
It's like I got this stuff yesterday
Today it's all a mess I can't sell it
You'd be like alright let's just pause
But is there anything about
Did they learn from that and start changing the formula?
So you know I haven't had a ton of time to really dig deep here
But from what I can tell
According to the first few pages of Google
There's no different summer recipe in the winter
Unless this is something that's like a deep Reese's secret
But I mean maybe what your friend is talking about
Is that they have a certain amount of inventory
That they produce for half the year
And then maybe it gets a little stale
Near the end of the season
And then they refresh it
But I'm not seeing anything on a different recipe
Based on you know different seasons or anything like that
Fresh mass-produced candy
Just stuffed with preservatives
I mean look we've all had something that wasn't technically expired
Like a candy bar but just didn't taste that good
Because it was like a little bit old
I'm not sure if I have
You never had like a Nature Valley granola bar and just like
Granola bar is a little different
I feel like a Snickers and a Reese's that kind of stuff
That's like truly pure chemicals
You've never had a stale Snickers?
I don't think so
And you know I'm eating five or six Snickers a year
They do have some seasonal Reese products that come out around
Like there's like Reese Easter egg
Which comes out around Easter
That kind of thing
But I'm now like seven pages deep into Google
Not seeing anything like that
And nobody's talking about it
No variance between the recipes
I just like this boss character who's obsessed with Reese's
Like I also like that it's like one man's fight for the truth
It's almost like some QAnon conspiracy theory
Just like showing up at the Reese's factory
Like I'm a journalist holding a camera
The people have a right to see
And they're just like "Sir we do not change the formula"
He's like "They do, I know they do"
I mean you know it's also kind of like
Do you guys believe in chemtrails?
No
You don't think that none of the lines in the sky made by planes
Are chemicals that the government's using for one reason or another?
Do you believe in it?
I do believe that planes leave trails
I kind of remember seeing a video a long time ago
That was like a guy who's just obsessed with chemtrails
So he'd just be like sitting in his like suburban backyard
Pointing his like phone at the sky
And just like you would just see like
What appeared to be a regular commercial plane
Just like zipping across the sky leaving the famous trail
Yeah
And this guy would just be like zooming in on it
And just be like "You bastards, wow"
"Oh here comes another one, you absolute pieces of sh*t"
Every plane he saw he was just kind of like
"Oh man, look at all these chemicals"
So of course I don't believe that every plane is doing that
I gotta research it a little more
I'm not up on the deep parts of the conspiracy theory
But I guess the one thing about it
That I'm sure there is some precedent for
Is that I think the reason people believe in chemtrails
Is because the idea that the government
Or some the Illuminati or big corporate America or something
Has some reason to put chemicals into the atmosphere
Obviously there's precedents for that belief system
Obviously there's like fluoridated water in some places
Sometimes it's for a good reason
And then you have these dark stories about like
Big corporations like Nestle or something
Experimenting on desperate people in a third world country
Making the women use their formula and studying it
So there's the idea that there could be things we don't know
About what's going into our food or our atmosphere
I buy that
So you know maybe there's a bit of healthy skepticism
In both chemtrail conspiracy theorists
And Reese's conspiracy theorists
So you are chemtrail curious
Are you Reese's winter edition curious?
I'm convinced that the government puts really bad stuff
In Reese's in the summer
Not just to keep them from melting
But also to control our minds
So I believe that
And I believe there's a dude in Brooklyn
Who has such an advanced palate
You can tell
But truthfully he might have a very advanced palate
And maybe it is just that he can tell
When a Reese's has been sitting at the corner store
For two weeks versus two months
I'm willing to believe that
And that he might...
Somebody told him once
Oh yeah it's because there's different editions
And now he just assumes when he bites in
It tastes kind of funny that that's why
So you know in that sense he's not wrong
That something's different
It might just be nature
It just might be all father time
A Reese's peanut butter cup has a shelf life
Of about nine to twelve months
Well that's pretty crazy
To imagine that you could be going to a store
You could be eating one that's a day old
You could be eating one that's 12 months old
That's a big difference
I wonder where they're manufactured
If there's only like one place that manufactures them
There are several plants
There's one in Ashland, Lancaster, PA, Hazleton, Memphis
Hershey, Robinson, Illinois
Any west coast?
Oregon, there's Ashland, Oregon
There you go
That's your west coast distro
Well if anybody has any info about this conspiracy theory
Or just personal experience
Please let us know
Because I would love to get to the bottom of this
I'm not entirely convinced that this man is not correct
There's a little something more going on in the Reese's universe
All right Jake we got a true legend coming on the show
I know this is crazy
This is a really big one
We're going to be talking to Bruce Hornsby
Of course he barely needs an introduction
I'm sure everybody at the bare minimum knows his song "The Way It Is"
Which was a big hit in the 80s
Introduced to a whole new generation via Tupac in the late 90s
A posthumously released song called "Changes"
So he's done amazing work solo with his albums
He put out with his band The Range
And then of course he played over 100 shows with The Dead
So he's a big part of the Grateful Dead universe
Um he's got a new album coming out
That has a friend of the show Justin Vernon
Jameela Woods
Leon Russell
And Vernon Reed from Living Color
He just dropped a single with James Mercer from The Shins
It's a very cool song
He's been doing it for decades
Now Justin Vernon really introduced Bruce Hornsby to a whole new generation
Because Justin, I think he talked about it when he came on Time Crisis
He's a massive fan
And if you listen to the Boney Ver albums
At least the second and third ones
And the fourth
When Justin shouts out Bruce Hornsby
He's not just being like
"Oh no, he's a great pianist and songwriter"
Bruce Hornsby is a fundamental
He's a cornerstone of Justin's music
Yeah
In a huge way
But anyway, even before
I guess Justin's a lifelong fan
But even before he kind of introduced yet another generation to Bruce
Jake, I feel like you were flying the flag way back in the day
You've been a longtime fan, right?
I guess so, yeah
I mean I just, you know
I'd always, like I'd heard the songs
"Mandolin Rain" and "The Way It Is" on the radio
And just was like, always loved them
Bought the first record years ago
Always had it
I never like checked out his work before that
But yeah, I just always thought it was like incredibly
Melodic, beautiful playing
And great songwriting
And I always was a fan, yeah
I guess maybe when I was, you know, into it
Like whatever that was 15, 20 years ago
It was like seeing his son of like
Cheesy, like adult kind of soft rock or something
You know how people would like clown on like Phil Collins 20 years ago?
Yo, totally
Even though his music, obviously
As a musician and a piano player
It's just on another level
But I think a big part of that
Which is something we've discussed on the show before
Is like in the 90s
The 90s was actually one of the harshest decades in a way
Because people hated on the previous decades so hard
Right
It's not like now in 2020
People are like
Of course, there's always going to be this awkward time
When people like feel a little bit funny about things
That came out 10 years ago
Because it's like the uncanny valley
But you don't have that same kind of just like
Oh my god, the 2000s were pathetic
The 2010s ruled
But in the 90s, there really was this like hatred of like
Some of the synth tones of the 80s
And you know, Bruce Hornby came out in the 80s
So his music is very idiosyncratic
But it, of course, it sounds like the 80s
So I think in some ways
A lot of artists from the 80s
Especially ones that had like a mellower sound
Or had moments of like soft rock
It was seen as like deeply uncool compared to like
I don't know, like bargain bin grunge music
From the next decade
And it probably took like
Other people to be like
Wait, what are you talking about?
This is like excellent American music
And especially when you really look at it
Such a cool mix of Americana
A little bit of jam
Cutting edge 80s production
It's really fascinating music
Like some bluegrass sort of
Yeah, it's like truly Americana meets 80s
Well, talking about his 80s work
At least the first two big albums
Well, anyway, let's talk to the man himself
Can we get Bruce Hornsby on the horn?
Now, let's go to the Time Crisis Hotline
Oh, hey, Bruce?
Yeah, yeah
Oh, hey, how are you doing, man?
Sucking too bad
Oh, cool, I'm Ezra
This is my co-host, Jake
Welcome to Time Crisis
Hey
Jake and I are both big fans
And we're very honored to have you on the show
So where are you calling from?
Williamsburg, Virginia
The colonial tourist town
You may have been dragged there in seventh grade
On a school field trip
It would have been the local townies
Helping you with water balloons
That was our self-appointed job
When we grew up in this town
So Williamsburg, Virginia
That's your hometown
Yeah, I grew up here
And I went away to school
I did a little bit of school hopping
I started at University of Richmond
Just an hour away from here
But it was one year of normal college
Enough for me to realize that I wanted to cast my light
Unequivocally with the musos
Much to the chagrin of my parents
Who made me
He said, "Okay, well, if you want to do this, you pay for it"
And so I did
And then I went to Berkeley College of Music in Boston
And then finished my last two years at the U of M
Suntan U, University of Miami
And that was a great experience for me
And then came back home and started a band
And we got discovered
And we moved to LA in 1980
I lived in LA for 10 years, 80 to 90
And then came back here in 1990
And that's it
My next move is into a pine box
Heavy
Well, at least you'll be underneath the green, green grass at home
Yes, that's right
That's absolutely right
It's interesting that, yeah, you lived in LA for a decade
But made it out of the jungle
I did, yes, that's right
And tried to find some property like we did
Away from people as, you know, as I get older
I'm increasingly misanthropic
And so I like living out in the woods
It's just great for me
But look, LA for me was a necessary place to be
And I learned a lot out there
I came out there and realized what good was
Because around here in Virginia
There's some good music going on
But nothing like out there
And so I just got a sense of what good is
So it helped me and kept on going
And was fortunate enough to get something going out there
So you already gave us some of like the rough biography
Yeah
Why don't you take us to the early days of The Range
How that came together and kind of moving into your first album
Well, we ate a lot of junk food
I hear you guys like to talk about that
So I'll throw that in there
Oh, definitely
Mid-80s, Bruce Horn is being The Range
What were you guys snacking on?
Carl's Jr.
Okay
The big burger, you know, an in-and-out burger
Carl's Jr. in the East Coast
Aren't you guys a little bit from the East?
Yeah, actually I grew up in Jersey
And Jake's from Connecticut
So yeah, we're both out here mostly in California these days
But definitely East Coast guys
Okay, so you know Carl's Jr. is the West Coast version of Hardee's
At least that's my impression
Yes, all the same branding and basically the same menu
Yeah, I think that's true
Yeah, the one-third pound thick burger is something that can really clog a vein
But I'm not against it
I just remember going to Carl's Jr. one time with my guitar player Pete Harris
I drove this funky-ass old station wagon
And I never washed it
And it was just a wreck
And I walk in and we've kind of gotten ourselves going fairly strongly
On our first record at that time
We're going to Carl's Jr. taking a break from rehearsal
Then I go back to the car where some guy accosts me and says
"Oh, come on man, you can do better than that"
He just recognized you?
I guess he did, yeah
I guess he did
And then he saw me get into this jalopy
Because cars have never been that heavily gave a rat's about
That's just why I think of Carl's Jr.
Because that was just a funny little moment, little vignette
There's a guy somewhere just telling people
Like once in the mid-80s I saw
Bruce Willis be rolling into a Carl's Jr.
Then he got in this f***ing car
It was just sad, man
With his old, mobile, Cutlass 98 station wagon, yeah
So one question I have for you
Because we're going to ask you a lot of questions about The Grateful Dead shortly
But you're born in '54
So you're in your late 20s, early 30s around this era of...
You're in LA
And I know that you'd been a big fan of The Dead previously
And then we'll talk about you actually playing with them later
But so at this point you're somebody who's been interested
And I'm sure a lot of music
But certainly jazz and The Dead and Americana
But you're from a different generation than those guys
So when I'm picturing like you in LA, 1980 to '84
For me when I picture LA then
I'm picturing like really big-time slick record business music
I'm also picturing just like Black Flag and X
And like punk and hardcore and like kind of Repo Man vibes
So I guess I'm curious, what scene did you see yourself in?
Well I'd say probably I would fit in with the Laurel Canyon singer-songwriter crowd
You know the Jackson Brown, CSN, Warren Zvon, Tom Petty
You mentioned Americana
So those I would say are sort of tangential to what's called Americana
All those people are like minimum, you know, five to ten years older than you
You're like the young dude kind of in the mix?
Well at first I couldn't get arrested
At first I was just some sad sack out there playing on publishing demos
Just to pay the rent
I was a staff songwriter for 20th Century Fox
It sounds like a big deal
But it really wasn't
It was kind of a B-team publishing company
And they thought I was going to get signed and all that business
Lenny Warren, the great Lenny Warren, Kurt Warner Brothers
Gave me some demo money in '82
But he just ended up passing what we gave him
And he was right, I really wasn't ready then
So when I started rubbing shoulders with that crowd that I was mentioning
Well that was after, you know, first record came out in '86
And then that went pretty far pretty fast
And then these people started to know me and ask me to do things for them
Probably about '88 and then on and on
So then starting from about '89, you know, I was getting calls from Don Henley to write
And we wrote that song, "End of the Innocence"
And then I started getting calls to play on people's records
And man, that was amazing
I just got to jump into different people's worlds
Who I, you know, iconic artist's worlds who I loved
It was sort of like painting yourself into the mural
That you were looking at the poster you had on your wall
And so I wrote a song with Robbie Robertson for one of his records
And then played on a Dylan record and a Bob Seger record
And the Bonnie Raitt record that's so well known
So when I started hanging out with him, yes, there was a clear
Little brother vibe, I guess you could say, from them toward me
But it was very kind, it was very warm and embracing
And so I guess you would say I was trying to be sort of an American rocker, you know
Cougar, Petty, Springsteen, that kind of thing
But when I started playing piano, getting a little more of the jazz influence
Of my piano playing into the music on the first record
That's what actually sort of made it seem a little more special
Than just another guy plying his trade with some guitars and B3s
Standing in line, marking time, waiting for the welfare dime
'Cause they can't buy a job
A man in a silk suit hurries by as he catches the poor old lady's eyes
Just for fun he says, "Get a job"
That's just the way it is
Some things will never change
That's just the way it is
Ah, but don't you believe them
So let's talk about The Dead a bit
Because you had kind of like a Dead cover band when you were growing up
Well actually I didn't, I was not a...
When I started playing the piano, I started playing late, age 17
And I got into it because my older brother was the real muse of the family
Because I was more of a jock at the time
Kind of like the Justin Vernon of Williamsburg, Virginia
Right, and you were into sports basketball
Exactly
So he got me into Elton John and Leon Russell
And that got me into the piano
And it came pretty naturally for me
I played guitar, had little bands in 6th grade, 7th grade
Battled the bands, winners
And mostly we won because we had my older brothers
Again, the big brother, badass musician
Had his Fender Bandmasters and Dual Showmans
And we were just louder than everybody else
So that's probably why we won
So my brother Bobby Hornsby, my older brother
He was a huge Deadhead
He was in this Grateful Dead hippie fraternity at University of Virginia
That used to drop acid, paint their faces and go play intramural volleyball
They just were lucky if they ever hit the ball once
They probably lost 15-0, 15-0, 15-1
If somebody hit it too long
So he had a band called Bobby Hightest and the Octane Kids
And he had me come up in my second semester of my freshman year at University of Richmond
I was little Brucie playing Fender Rhodes and singing lead
And singing Jack Straw, etc
So we would play four grain alcohol parties
Frat parties with three layers of dancers
The normal dancers, the people dancing on tables in the back
And the people doing the Dying Cockroach on the floor
Those wild, wild times
But great fun
And so I got into the Dead
I liked them a lot
I loved Europe '72
That was the first record I had
And that just, that was a big deal for me
That and the band's Rock of Ages
Along with Elton and Leon
Because if you remember in that era
Elton's music was very much influenced by that Americana
But by the band, frankly, specifically
Tumbleweed Connection, that record
With Burn Down the Mission
The great Burn Down the Mission at Amarina
Country Comfort
So much greatness on that record
The great Paul Buckmaster string arrangements
I mean, they just came out and said it
This is our version of the band
And then same with Mad Men Across the Water
With Indian Sunset and on and on
I'm a big Elton fan as well
And I've always been interested in that
Because obviously his public image
Being an English dude with the big glasses
And the flashy sequined outfits
Couldn't be more different than the kind of plain Jane vibe of the Dead
-Exactly, that's right -Or the band
But he's always said Leon Russell was his huge inspiration as a piano player
Big fan of the band
And then Bernie Taupin, his lyricist
Another just suburban English guy
So obsessed with the American West
-Absolutely -Great point that you mentioned
Because Elton John, I think today
It's easy to forget how much his music is rooted in Americana
And everything's always happening on the farm
It's such a funny juxtaposition
Yeah, everything's happening on the farm
Right, exactly
Yeah, all the pines will be falling everywhere
You know, all that stuff is straight out of...
You could hear Richard Manuel singing the same thing
Or LeVon, of course
So I was into all that
Now Leon...
And Elton had his gospel roots too
You know, "Holy Moses I have been received"
But the real gospel titan to me was Leon
I don't know if you...
Most people see... they know Leon
I think it's a little bit like Elton too
Most people know Elton from his hits
Possibly my favorite record of Elton's is "Tumblewee Connection"
Which was the one record back then that had no hits on it
But it was just... to me
Just had this deep gravitas musically and lyrically
And so Leon...
I know this now because I got to work with him a ton
And so I really got to know him and got to know...
I thought I could do a good Leon Russ limitation
Until I actually started hanging with him
Then I realized it was way deeper than my sorry little impression
But I was able to learn at the feet of the master
And learn how to do a credible Leon imitation
And he told me his music came...
His biggest influence was a beautiful black church group
Called the Church of God and Christ
Kojic for short
Based in Memphis
And their music...
For instance if you listen to Sam Cooke and the Soul Stirrers
Though are you into those old gospel records from the early 50s?
- I don't know if I know early 50s Sam Cooke
- Well check it out Sam Cooke and the Soul Stirrers
We've been using that music as our pre-show music for about 20 years now
Maybe longer
And it's just once again a deep well
And you'll hear in the background
Because the vocals are so up front
But sometimes they have instruments playing
That kind of octave piano playing
Which is so Leon-esque
Or you know and so I guess Leon is Kojic-esque
And so that's where he got all that
And again such a deep well of soul and groove
And just musicality
So I grokked all that
Or tried to
So that's also very American
But not quite as sort of folk as Elton and the band were doing
It was a little more bluesy
Not that the band wasn't bluesy
But Leon was really bluesy
And so I loved all that
And that got me into Dr. John
And on and on and on
So I could bore the dog @#$@ out of you
So I stopped
- So that's kind of your piano lineage is those guys
- Well but then I used to read Rolling Stone magazine
And I saw this full page review of two albums by this guy named Keith Jarrett
And one of them was Expectations
Which was the only record that he made for Columbia
Where they put strings on the record
And tried to make him commercial quote unquote
And his first solo piano record called Facing You
Which was then on the import only label ECM
And so I was intrigued by that
But you couldn't find those records in Williamsburg, VA
But I went to a trip looking for schools in Boston
And I went to the local store, whatever it was called
And found the import section and found this
You know how, and I'm sure you'd know Ezra
When you're that age and you're deeply interested
And you're looking for something obscure
It's such a eureka moment when you happen to find it
You know a thousand, six hundred miles
Seven hundred miles away from where you are
So that I remember it like it was yesterday
And took that record home and put it on
And that kind of changed my life
I really moved away from what I had been involved with before
With the Eltons and Leon and Dr. John and all that
So that made me dive headfirst into that world
Which is a deep world
You can dive into that world and never come up
And it might not be the best thing for you to do that
But soon enough I was headlong down the path of
What the hell is this guy doing?
How can I figure this out?
And so that's, and I'm still trying to
One thing that I'm kind of curious about is
When I picture the late 70s and the early 80s
Which would have been the time
Kind of just before your career really took off
And I imagine you're figuring a lot of stuff out as an artist
Creatively and also just career-wise
So when I picture the late 70s, early 80s
I always picture that that was this time when
What was considered very cutting-edge music
There's like the beginnings of hip-hop and punk
And there's still disco and post-disco
You know, obviously you could connect all those musics
Back to Americana and jazz
And some of the things we've been talking about
But those things were considered
These very new cutting-edge types of music
There were all sorts of new archetypes of stars
In every genre coming out
And one thing's for sure
Even though they were still selling a lot of tickets
A band like The Grateful Dead
A band that also, their influences include jazz and Americana
And all these things combined
Their cool factor may have been at an all-time low
Like of course, they have very dedicated fans
But it was still, you know, a significant amount of time
Before the kind of revival
Where everybody started to be like
"Oh yeah, The Grateful Dead, they are maybe the greatest American band"
So I guess I'm curious
What did that time period feel like for you
As somebody who's kind of figuring out
What you were interested in
Did you ever have an impulse like
"Maybe I should stop listening to Keith Jarrett"
And just like try to write some new wave songs?
Well, to address something you just said
Do you really think the Dead gave a rat's ass
Whether they were cool or not?
I really don't think they did
Oh no, I don't think the Dead did
But I'm curious about an up-and-coming Deadhead like you
In your mid-20s
Who's looking out at like
"How am I going to make a living and express myself as an artist?"
Yeah, okay, well for one thing
I wasn't really a Deadhead
I was definitely a fan
But I was more of a Keith "Herbie" Chick McCoy-head
Right, I see
The 401 Namers who constitute the pantheon of modern jazz piano
Yes
So man, I was pretty, I'm kind of a slow learner in this way
Because I didn't start writing songs
I was so into playing and that was it in my college years
So I came to songwriting, I considered pretty late, 22, 23
We got out of college, we put together a band
And said "Okay, well how do you make it?"
"Oh, I guess somebody's got to write the songs"
"You know, well you know the most chords"
"Well, I guess why don't you do it?"
So, or I just signed up for the job I guess
And so my years of sort of trying to figure out who I was
They're a little blurry
We liked Steely Dan, we liked Asia and Gaucho
And the records, oh the Pretzelogic records
And Don't Take Me Alive and what is that, Royal Scam?
And because that was just sort of a little step
That had sort of a couple of toes in the jazz world, sort of
Yeah, no, no
Harmonic, a chordal level
So that's where we were
We also liked Mike McDonald who, I'm sure you know
Because you seem to be a bit of a historian
He was in Steely Dan
So his songs with the Doobie Brothers were a little more jazzy
A little more R&B
And we really, or I really loved him
I mentioned that we were discovered
Well, we were discovered by him, okay
In a bar in Hampton, Virginia
And he tried to help us out
And I guess you could say that we sounded a little bit like
Pat Metheny meets Steely Dan meets rock, okay
So as far as what was considered cool, man
I think we were way outside that Venn diagram, okay
We did not intersect
Because that music that I'm just referring to
Is not part of that pantheon
You know what I'm saying?
It just wasn't then
It was pop, it was hits top 40
And so, oh, the people like The Clash and Next Pistols
And the new Wave acts
And the cars and all that
That, I mean, and this is my perception, man
And frankly, I guess you could ask about me
What I asked about the Dead
Did I really give much of a rat's?
But I think it wasn't me not giving a s***
It was mostly me not really having a clue about it, okay
But I knew that I was not your guy to open for the flock of seagulls
You know, I knew that's not who I was
There's another main influence of mine
And that's Joni Mitchell
Because, again, she was making "Azura"
Which I totally love
And Don Juan's "Reckless Daughter"
And before that "Hissing of Summer Lawns"
Which really, then "Cord and Spark"
Which really started her little dalliance
With the sort of jazzy chords
And "LA Express," "Tom Scott" and all that
So I was more into that thing
Like, for instance, I loved Ricky Lee Jones' second record
I loved the first one
But "Pirates" to me was just transcended
And still is
When we had Justin on the show
You said that between you and specifically that album, "Pirates"
That's basically his whole inspiration
Me and "Pirates"?
Well, that's...
Yeah
Woo!
Man, Justin, thanks
That's high freaking praise
Because I can't hang with "Pirates"
I'm not...
That's another level from me
But thanks to my friend Justin Vernon
Thanks to him
So when "The Way It Is," the first album with The Range came out
Which obviously we know now went on to be a huge success
Iconic
You guys won Best New Artist at the Grammys
Right before that album came out, what were your expectations?
Oh man
Was there a lot of rumbling?
Like, "Oh man, Bruce Horn's being The Range
This is the next big thing"
Not at all
No, no, no
I'll give you the true story
The 30th anniversary of that record occurred in '16
2016
So I was asked a lot about this
And I just told the truth about it
And the truth is not what people expect
We were mastering the record
This is all new to me
Getting these test pressings and refs
And my wife comes home from...
She taught school in the Valley
We live in Van Nuys
Nice
The lights are off
I'm sitting on the couch in sort of a dark room
And it's the evening with this morose vibe
I'm sitting in between our two JBL speakers
And she says, "What's going on?"
"I hate my record"
"That I..."
"Okay"
And I did
And to be honest, I know this sounds ridiculous
But I still kind of do
There was so much about it that I thought
Could have been so much better than what it is
I'm just being honest
I know it sounds goofy
I'm a...
Whatever it sounds like
That's just the truth of the matter
What are the things you wanted to change?
Was it like a mixing thing?
To be honest, I'm not a big fan of that singer
On those early records
Just hard to listen to your own voice
Yeah, I'm just not
I just think it's a little wooden and a little straight
And it's not good
Not it
And so...
So did you feel that way when you were listening to the ref of Mansard Roof?
I would say that the earlier one of our records
Like the earlier the record is
The more likely if I happen to hear it somewhere, I cringe
But even now I don't
I hate listening back to vocal stuff
And it really slows down the process
Because I love living in the world
When all that exists is a little instrumental demo
And I don't have to listen to my vocals yet
And you know, you got to rip the band-aid off
But I can 100% relate to it
I saw this on Wikipedia
So I don't know if it's totally legit
But it said that...
Yeah, I can't believe that one
Yeah, I know this
So you got to tell us
It says that the album was originally targeted
At the new age music market
And it had slightly different versions of songs
Is that true?
That's completely untrue
Untrue
My Wikipedia page says that
The album Wikipedia page
It says there were slightly different versions of Down the Road Tonight
And The River Runs Low
And it says it implies that they were new age-ier
No, that's just somebody guessing
Here's the deal with that
Here's the...
Those three songs were produced by Huey Lewis
Those are two of the three
Before I had learned to say no
You know, learned to say put my foot down
And be assertive when I thought something was not right
And he was my good friend
He's still my good friend
But I didn't like the versions
And so I went back in
And stripped everything off River Runs Low
And turned it into a keyboard vocal
So the second pressing
And you know, luckily for me
There were several pressings of that record
And so only the first whatever hundred
Had the one that I wasn't too fond of
And same with Down the Road
And so, yeah, that's so funny
That someone's just guessing that
And that they couldn't be more wrong
That's the reason
I wonder with the new age thing
So I see that maybe with different pressings
There were different album covers
The original one that doesn't have you guys on it
I guess I can see that
That has that kind of vibe-y abstract painting
I'm not sure what it is
I guess that maybe reads a little new age-y
Maybe that's what they meant
Well, no, here's how that happened
That's so funny revisiting this
I haven't thought about this sort of stuff for years
But yeah, okay
So it was the Blurry Accordion Man
That was the first cover
The record was released in America first
And then about three or four months later
It's being released in Europe and in England
And the Europeans came to the American label and said
We think this record's okay
But the cover just does not speak to us at all
It feels a little country
So can you come up with another cover?
So we came up with that cover
Which was really the inside sleeve picture of the band
As the cover with the picture of the truck
Rolling across the Chesapeake Bay Bridge tunnel
That became the background of the cover
So that's the reason for that
But speaking of new age now
It's funny to note the demo tape that got me signed
I got two offers
One from RCA and one from Epic
And that was it
I picked RCA and that was it
But before that I had made this tape very quietly
Just by myself
Just me and a Linn Drum machine
And playing synth bass on an Oberheim OBX
And piano and vocal
And I knew this woman who worked for Wyndham Hill
The quintessential, the archetypal new age label
Or George Winston's label
And I thought maybe they might be interested in it
Because I thought no major label would have any interest in this music
So I sent this to her
I sent two songs to her
The way it is in Mandolin Rain
And she said, "Well, Will Ackerman, the head of the label
He loves this
Can we hear a couple more?"
I said, "Well, I'm doing a session this week"
So she came down, took a tape from there
Gave it to Will
And Will Ackerman called me on a Sunday night
I'll never forget it
Because I'd been trying to get something going for many years
And all of a sudden this was so easy
He called and said, "Okay, we want you"
So we went from there
And a couple of labels heard about it
And got in the picture
And I didn't go to Wyndham Hill
But I would have been just satisfied
I don't think my music, that music sounded like new age music
But they were starting a vocal label
And so this was going to be on the Wyndham Hill, I guess, pop label
But no, there was never that thing that you read
Yeah, that's just a complete load
We got to get that changed
For what it's worth, there's no footnote on that part of the Wikipedia page
Oh, so it should be very easy to get it taken off
Will, I'll leave that to Jake Longstrap
Jake said his Wikipedia page vandalized himself
So he's very familiar with the feeling of something untrue being up there
Oh yeah
The song came and went like the times that we spent
Hiding out from the rain under the carnival tent
Laughed and she'd smile, it would last for a while
You don't know what you got 'til you lose it all again
Listen to the band you're in
Listen to the music on the play
Oh, listen to my heartbreak
Every time she runs away
Oh, listen to the band you're in
My sad song, I'm drifting along
Listen to the tears rolling
Down my face as she turns to go
When did you start playing with The Grateful Dead?
And how did that happen given that you must have been incredibly busy just with your own stuff?
Well, right, I was pretty bad at being a pop star in those early days
I was a little laughable
Because for one thing, I was 31 years old
It's a little bit like Justin really or like Mark Knopper, people who get a later start
So at that time, I'm being sent around to these, you know, say the Q104 star party in Cleveland
You know, WMMS, whatever it is
And I'm sitting there at a table signing autographs for little children
On one side of me is Tiffany and the other side is Debbie
And it's like, man, what is wrong with this picture?
It's me, I'm what's wrong with the picture, wasn't it?
So it was a little clownish to me
I just, that meant, what have I gotten into?
This is not what I want
This is not what I was aiming for here, you know?
I'm like Ornette Coleman, you know, what happened here?
So the first record went pretty far pretty fast
And so we had to learn how to become headliners on nine songs that comprised our first record
So we're fleshing it out
We played two covers
One of them was the band's version of "When I Paint My Masterpiece"
"Oh, the streets of Rome"
You know, the "Levant"
"Are filled with rubble"
You know, that's a great version with Garth's great accordion
And I would play accordion on it
And then we would take my song, the last song on that
Waiters record called "The Red Plains"
We would take that into sort of a spacey segue jam into "I Know Your Rider"
So that's what we were doing
We were playing those 11 songs every night
And so then all of a sudden we got a call out of the blue in February of '87
From the Grateful Dead asking if we would open shows
"Rike Hooter" and "Us and the Dead" two days at Laguna Seca Racetrack in Monterey
So of course, you know, I'd been the Bender Rhodes player in the Octane Kids
Hell yeah, I'm saying yes to that
So we'd had a great group of people that we'd opened for that year
We first guy we opened for was Steve Wynwood
And then Huey Lewis, then John Fogarty, then the Eurythmics
And then, yeah, it was fantastic
We played the Rike stock with the Eurythmics
And afterwards I got on the phone from different hotel rooms with Annie Lennox
And we just talked for an hour, you know, just beautiful memory
That was just incredible
So right, we did two days with the Dead then
I remember very well where I was playing and saw Phil Lesch on the side of the stage
So I was doing a piano intro to some song and I saw Phil there
And I knew he liked bitonality
So I decided to go into this thing
A bitonal version of Scott Joplin's The Entertainer, you know
But one hand in C and one hand in C sharp
So it's just hateful to most ears
It just lifted and it was just another just great memory to see Phil all of a sudden rear back
And just short all the way to Glee as I'm just inflicting this bitonal pain on the poor
Unsuspecting deadheads, you know
So then the next year, '88, they asked us to open a couple more shows
We played Buck I Like and this time they asked me to sit in with them
I played Sugary and Stuck Inside a Mobile on accordion with them
And Jerry gets on the mic and says, "We don't let just anybody sit on accordion with us"
You know, just those memories that you will just not forget
You know, it was just amazingly beautiful
And then we played Rainforest Benefit at Madison Square Garden, Susanne Vega
and Holland Oates
And then the next year they asked us to open some more '89, three more shows
RFK, the late great JFK in Philly
And so I would sit with him all the time at that point
Then I got so I would sit
I just come in when they were geographically close to me and sit in with them
Say at the Forum in LA and Garcia then played on our third record
It just was this growing relationship, especially between Jerry and me
That just kept on going on and going on
Jerry played on our third record and then he came down and did this taped concert
And then Brent died and I was walking down the street early in the morning in Seattle
I've just gotten a call telling me this
And not an hour later at six in the morning I'm walking down the street
And somebody comes up to me and said, "Hey Bruce, are you gonna join the Dead?"
I mean, it was already out
It was unbelievable, the rapid
The Deadhead on the street just saw you and was like
Yes
Right
And sure enough, a few nights later, Garcia and Phil came out to Conker Pavilion
Where we were playing and asked me to join the band
And so I said, "Look, if you'd have found me four years ago, five years ago
I would have absolutely said yes
You know, I love you guys and I'll help you through any tough time you have here
But I got this other thing going fairly solidly now
But I will help you"
And so then they took me up on that and I played with them for the next 20 months
And then so after that, you would just kind of come in and out for when you were close
And that's exactly right
At the end though, when he was really, he was really struggling
The year '95, they actually, someone who wouldn't know sort of the inside dope about it
Would just all of a sudden see me show up in Charlotte
And then see me show up in, at RFK for the last two nights in June
And that was because they would call me when I was geographically close
And they either, they'd fly me up or down and rent a piano
To ask me to play because they thought it would pick Jerry up
So that was really sad
But I, look, I remember those gigs fondly
And I had a great time doing those last three 1995 shows right near the end
And yeah, I talked to Garcia four days before he died
Wow, heavy
I called him to check on him after the tour was over
And Steve Parrish answered
You know who Steve is?
Oh yeah
Big Steve
Part of the crew
His guy, his manager, his minder, long time, right hand man to Garcia
And he answers the phone at Jerry's house
And he says, "Well, hey man, we're getting ready to take Jerry"
As you probably know that we're getting ready to take Jerry to Betty Ford
And here he is
So he got on the phone and said, "Yeah, okay, I'm gonna be there for a month or five weeks"
"And hoping for the best"
He seemed in good spirits
And so, okay, we had a nice talk about it
And then about two weeks later, I decided to just call and check in and see if anyone answered
Get a little progress report on him
And he answered saying, "I think I'm good"
Two weeks was enough
And he proceeded to tell me all about the people he'd met
This young kid who was a big Django Reinhardt fanatic
And so how he bonded with this guy and this other guy
He was sounded in good spirits
And we were talking about things we were going to do
He knew that I was at the time going to work with Ornette
Ornette had called me about doing something
And I think he'd called Jerry about the same thing
So we were making some fun plans about the fall as far as doing some things
Even though I wasn't playing with the band anymore
And then four days later, he was gone
Miss him a lot even now, totally
It's hard to think of too many other just like absolute shredder iconic musicians
Who also, obviously we didn't know him personally like you
But also who radiates such warmth
It seems like that combination is such a huge part of the Grateful Dead's appeal
Even just like his smile
The fact that there could be somebody playing like that
But it's couched in kind of happiness and warmth
It's a combo you don't always get with amazing musicians
Well, now let's be honest, he was a snarky guy too
But always not in a nasty way
He was just...
Playful?
Yeah, playful
He was a very warm guy
Just ready to f*** with somebody
But again, joyfully, just in jest
It was always funny
Yeah, he turned me on to the Jerky Boys in his tent
Get out of here
Yeah, oh yeah
He was just like, "Bruce, you gotta hear this, these guys are hilarious"
Yes, exactly right
Wow
We used to listen to Henny Youngman tapes in that tent
He loved the old Borscht Belt, Catskills comedy
And so did and do I
So look, I could go on about this
But there's lots of people who have their Garcia memoirs
And I'll just be another guy doing it
But I have my own versions of it
I used to phone prank him, which was great fun sometimes
Oh, you pulled Jerky Boys on him?
Well, that sort of thing, yeah
That type of thing, yeah
Until I couldn't get him anymore
What was your go-to prank call, like, shtick?
Okay, back in that day
You may or may not have heard of this
Hopefully you came after that day was over
But that was an era where the beginning of a session
Of a record being made was all about the poor bastard
The poor drummer with 20 different snare drums
And that they're in the control room as he's playing each snare drum
To get a sound and to try to find the exact perfect snare sound
For the project or for a particular song
I can picture it, sure
So our guy Molo, John Molo, while he's in there
Just getting flogged by whoever reducer is in there
We're in the little lounge with lots of time on our hands
So we used to phone prank people and try to interest them
In buying our product, wireless drum pads, okay
Which is a complete joke, it's a complete load
Yeah, you got the wireless drum pads
But what are you going to do with them?
You have to move them
You can't strap drum pads on your body and run around with them
Anyway, Garcia, we had this goofy thing we would do
With friends of ours who were not working at the time
Maybe this is a little cruel
But of course we'd always let them in later
I would call them as the lawyer
The Irish-Jewish lawyer Mel Oberg
And we're trying to hire you for our band
The super group, the Jefferson Stocky
Grace Slick and Rico Starr
We're going to do the Colors Medley
White Rabbit into Yellow Submarine
It's going to be huge, kid
And we're paying five grand a week
And a thousand bucks a day per day
You know, just astronomical fees
And lining these guys up
So I called up Garcia one time with the same Mel Oberg schtick
But this time I said, we're starting this super group
The Jefferson Starcia
And he's just really befuddled by this
This really threw him
But he actually took it seriously?
He was just like, really?
Grace and Ringo are in for it?
Okay
So that was...
I'm sorry, it's a little pitiful
I'm laughing at my own jokes here
But it was quite...
Did you ever tape your calls?
We have several of these
Oh my god, I mean
Yeah, we don't have...
Is it going to get an official release?
Yeah, well, we don't have the Jefferson Starcia ones
But it's possible that there's a tape somewhere of you pranking Jerry?
No, unfortunately there's not
Because that was...
Music people
Yeah, mostly these were having before we knew any sort of big time celeb music people
You know, the first record was the record where we're just listening to the guy
And he's making Molo play
Hey, put this other...
He had another snare drum, you know, so
But I really got him one time when I was...
Okay, we used to love these bootleg tapes of the great New Orleans disc jockey
And former one-hit wonder Ernie Kado
You ever heard of him?
No, not familiar
She's the meanest woman I know
Mother-in-law, mother-in-law
You guys know that
Yeah, that was Ernie Kado's big one
He had this great show on WWZ, 90.7 on your radio dial
It's Ernie K-D-O-E, I'm the baddest motor scooter ever hit New Orleans
On and on
He was just fantastic
We loved him, we collected him
So I called up Garcia one time as Ernie Kado
And it was around Christmas time and I said
Jerry, I said, "This is Ernie Kado, live on New Orleans radio
What you got to say to New Orleans, Jerry Garcia?"
"Oh, well, hey Ernie, well, yeah, okay, well, all right
I'd like to say happy holidays, merry Christmas, happy holidays to everybody"
And I went, "Oh my God, I've got him"
So I just kept winding him up
Went Grateful Dead, go play New Orleans, Jerry Garcia
I just called him by his full name every time
And went Grateful Dead, go play mother-in-law
You know, "Oh, we like that, yeah, okay, well"
So finally I said, "Hey man, it's Orange B"
And he said, "You weasel"
And that was it
He really thought he was live on the radio
He really thought he was live on WWZ with the man himself
I love that, just straight up asking
Like, "When's the Grateful Dead gonna cover my song?"
Just trying to be diplomatic
"Well, you know, man, it's a good song"
It's such a bygone era
Because I'm just thinking now
Like, I loved doing prank calls too when I was growing up
And just think like now, nobody picks up
I would never pick up a call that if I didn't recognize the number
And if I picked up and somebody was like, "Hey, you're live on the radio"
I'd just like immediately hang up
But back then, people got calls all the time
You had to kind of roll with it
Yeah, they were kind of ready to buy it more
Yeah, so that's right
But you can still do it with Star 67 now
And you mostly have to call people you kind of know
But not know well enough that they would get your voice
If you're disguising it with, "Hey, how you doing?"
You know?
Right
That's my Garcia rap
[Laughter]
♪ Well, she moved back around here ♪
♪ 35 weeks ago today ♪
♪ Oh, down the lane ♪
♪ Well, tonight she walks on the banks ♪
♪ And remembers how she dreamed of rolling away ♪
♪ And how she left one day ♪
♪ She left her driven, broken life ♪
♪ Came back around with this dream inside ♪
♪ Said, "Give it some time, you'll forget about it too" ♪
♪ We know they always do ♪
♪ Well, I know someday ♪
♪ You will find your way across the river ♪
♪ Across the river ♪
♪ Oh, down the slope ♪
♪ There's a long way to go ♪
♪ Across the river ♪
♪ Across the river ♪
You've continued to sit in with members of the
in the post-Jerry era, notably the huge Fair Thee Well shows
And I guess you always, every year or two, you're always playing with
some combination of dead guys
You're still very, you've been in that orbit ever since, right?
Not really anymore, not for a while
Right away, Jerry died in '95
And the next year, we did the Further Festival
And so it was Mickey's band and Bobby's band and my band
and Los Lobos was on it, which was great
And then we also did '97, the Black Crows came on with us then
And same other bands, Mickey, Bobby, and I was doing it
And then '98, though, Phil got interested in doing it
Phil came out and sat in with us at Shoreline Amphitheater in '97
The last gig of the '97 Further run
And so we did with Phil and Molo, my drummer, I got him into the thing
And that catapulted him into a great place of prominence in that world
For a long time, he still plays with Phil, it's fantastic
He's fantastic in that
And so we had to group the other ones, do you know about that?
Yeah, yeah
We started playing, we played one night in Atlanta, the other ones
And we played for about maybe 8,000 people
And then the next night, we played in Charlotte for about 11,000 people
But we played St. Stephen that night
And then the next night in Vienna, Virginia, there were 18,000 people
And the rest of the tour was just sold out
So that was fun, but we didn't do that again
Well, then they became The Dead in the early 2000s
And Phil asked me to do it, but I just thought I just wanted to
concentrate on what I was doing
And so I really felt I'd done what I was supposed to do there
And I pretty much stepped away from it
We would play some gigs with Bobby now and then in the mid to late aughts with Rat Dog
We'd open for them sometimes and that was always fun
Bobby and I actually did a couple of duo shows in the early teens
We did two in Paramount Theater, I think in Oakland
We were talking about doing a whole tour, but he, I don't know
Seemed to get in a little trouble with something then
Something was bugging him then, so he ended up canceling it
But since then, I think, and I think it's right
Jeff Comente is a fantastic musician
He's just the man for the job, you know
Anyway, so I'm really happy doing exactly what I'm doing
I got really busy with Spike Lee in those years too, the teens
Right, I was going to ask you about that
So you have a long-time relationship with him
You've been contributing music to his stuff since the mid-90s, right?
Man, you really know my history
Thanks for being so interested
I will turn it back on you though and tell you that your song "Cousins" just kills me
Oh yeah
I love the video
Oh, thank you
And I love just breakneck strumming you're doing on that
It's just crazy
And I love how some people jump out front and another guy jumps out front
And yeah, it's just great
Oh, thank you
That might be our highest energy song
It really is, although there's another one that you have that's just, oh, "Worship You"
The rapid-fire words, man, it's amazing
We didn't even try to do that live for years
And then finally I was like, you know what?
I can do this
And now we do it live and it's a great moment
Well, I'd like to hear it because it's totally impressive
And just, I love it
Yeah, so I could turn all this back on you
But I'll just do those two
No, that's very cool, man
I appreciate it
Well, tell us a little bit about the new album, by the way
Love the first single with James Mercer
Oh yeah
Oh, I was going to tell you about Spike, but I'll go on to this
Oh yeah, talk about Spike first
So how'd you guys make up?
Okay, we met through our great mutual friend, Branford
And Branford said to Spike, "Hey, you want to meet Bruce?"
And he said to me, "Do you want to meet Spike?"
And we both said yes
And so we did
And I asked him to make a video for me for a song off my fourth record, "Harbor Lights"
That Branford was playing on called "Talk of the Town"
A song about the first interracial romance in my town here
And all the consternation it caused among the old, crusty old conservative geeks
But then we really started doing more when he asked me in '95 to contribute the end title song
To his movie at the time, "Clockers"
It's a great movie, Delroy Lindo
It's amazing, as it always is
A high five for his first film
And so it happened that Chaka Khan had called me
And asked me to write a song with her
And so she was down here in my studio where I am right now working
And I said, "Hey, I'm writing a song with Chaka"
He said, "Well, give it to me"
So when we finished with it, we gave it to Spike
And it was the end title song
That's called "Love Me Still"
And it's had a nice life
For instance, when I sit in with the Roots, Jimmy Fallon group
They always say, "Okay, we gotta play 'Love Me Still'"
That's our song
So great fun there
So that just kept on going
But it moved into high gear in 2008
When he asked me to score an ESPN documentary
He was making on the late, great Kobe Bryant
"Kobe Doing Work"
So I think it was sort of an audition for me
I think he was just testing to see if I could do this
So I did this and he liked it
And he kept hiring me for the next 10 years
To do a bunch of projects
Mostly his sort of mid- to B-level stuff
Terrence is his guy for all the A-team stuff
I contributed a little incidental music to "Black Klansman"
I think he just threw me a bone there
But he's hired me for a bunch of, like I say, mid-level
Seriously, indie projects
Such films as "Red Hook Summer" and "The Sweet Blood of Jesus"
NBA 2K16, things like that
And so I wrote all this music
And it segues into your next question about this new business I'm dealing with
Because I wrote from 2008 till last year, 2019
And in that time, I've probably written almost 240 different pieces of music for him
- Wow
- Say 40 per project, and there were probably about six of them
He's probably used about half of them
But through that time of amassing all this material, I would often think,
"Well, this song, this instrumental cue needs to become a song"
It just has too much of a vibe in it
And I needed to do that
So a couple years ago, I started "Down the Road"
The first time I'd ever tried writing songs this way
Had all this lyrical content that I'd accumulated through the reading I do
And great writers, Don DeLillo, David Foster Wallace, on and on
So I tried to meld these ideas that I was getting from this reading
With the music, and that became "Absolute Zero"
So it's a very different type of record because of the process
The process was very different
And so consequently, I think the record feels cinematic for obvious reason, you know
Because the music was written with that feeling in mind
And so this new thing, "Non-Secure Connection" is, I guess it's sort of a sequel
It's not really like the last record, but it comes from the same place
But as on "Absolute Zero", there are several songs that didn't start as cues
They're just written like I write a standard song
And one of those is the new single you're mentioning, "My Resolve"
I got the great James Mercer, who said to say hello to you
Because he said that they did some gigs with you guys about 15 years ago, he said
Yeah, you were talking earlier about important, great early memories of opening for people
We got to open for The Shins just before our first album came out
A few European hits, and it was so exciting for us
And I've always been thankful to them for that
Well, I'll let him know
I love what he does, I think he's one of the great songwriters
And such a great singer, I always love his voice
Oh my god, good lord
He's like you, he has that high tenor thing
He can sing those high, full voice notes, you know
And you guys have that, it just pisses the old, old crone here off
A little bit, to be honest
[Laughter]
In electrified skies
Incandescent light
Born with flash-bold eyes
And no one knows why
I've been drawn to this life
I'm downwind and high
On a survival life
In my resolve I move the rock
Baby fall down trying
My ineptitude stares me down
In this space I cower
I try to stand above the grave
Stand apart, not buying
And I move on up another hill
To maybe fully flower
I flower
We haven't heard the whole record, obviously
But we noticed there's a song
And I wonder if this is related to being a film cue
Because it has a very interesting name
It's called "Porn Hour"
[Laughter]
I love that you ask about that
Okay, "Porn Hour" is "Bleep" crazy
And the title song, "Non-Secure Connection"
Are the three songs in this new record
That deal in more advanced, like I say, dissonant
Chromatic harmony
I guess I mean using the black notes and the white notes
Rather than just the white notes
With, you know, most pop music is
Virtually all of it is white note music
And that's a lot of my favorite songs that I've written
Are that too
But now and then I want to try to push the envelope that way
And so "Porn Hour"
Okay, "Porn Hour" is a song
That I wrote out of an article in the New York Times
That posited that early innovation on the internet
Should be credited to the porn industry
And it makes its case very well, so
Because porn is such a big part of the internet
And probably makes so much money
There was people incentivized to figure out
How to make the video stream better
And how to collect information, all that
Ezra, you have it exactly right
That's exactly it
So musically it's
Okay, are you familiar with the great French
Avant-garde composer Olivier Messiaen?
Oh yeah, yeah
He is well known for
Going out in the forest and fields of France
With score paper, he had perfect pitch
And he would transcribe
The "musique des oiseaux"
However you say it
And the music of the birds
So I've tried my hand at a couple of these pieces
I love playing them
And I regularly inflict them again
On my poor unsuspecting audience that hates it
But I wanted to write a song with that language
I wish I could play it for you
I'm not at a keyboard right now
But you'll hear it
And you'll know exactly what I mean
It starts off, it's very dissonant
But it's also kind of fun
So I think, hopefully you'll like "Porn Hour"
But if you don't, I get it
Well definitely looking forward to hearing it
She bought tube socks on Amazon
I watched girls remove their bras
She wrote a paper on Babylon
While she's busy
Time to toss
You know what tossing means, right?
Don't you?
Oh, oh, okay
Gutenberg, then Sony 2
DVDs, the cloud
What's next?
Next big thing when this one's through
Will be huge if it's got sex
We salute the industry of the San Fernando Valley
We've got everything we want with a mouse click
Because of the mighty porn flick
And then it goes on from there
Whoa
Yeah, there you have it
Internet's capacity
Compounding since it was born
Boundless in veracity
But in truth it's mostly porn
And then back to the chorus
We salute the industry of the San Fernando Valley
True internet music
There you have it, "Porn Hour"
Right to the top of the chart
I guess maybe just to finish, just one simple question
What is your favorite Grateful Dead song?
"Warfrat"
Oh, interesting
I used to get chills playing it all the time with them
It's so simple, but it's so deep
It's just like I keep talking about this deep well
I love modal music
Drone music
I love all that
And that's what "Warfrat" is
It's a beautiful composition where it goes through these different sections
Where the time changes
You know, but I'll get back
On my feet someday
All that
It's just as good as it gets for me
So "Warfrat"
I know I said that very quickly
And I'm sure there are others that are right in there with it
But I gotta say that's my number one
That's a great song
And also I feel like a long time ago
Jake and I discussed that we both like songs
Where somebody says, "My name is..."
Just like true storytelling
You're the character
My name is August West
Obviously it comes from like a folk tradition
And then what I spent half of my life doing time for some other f***ing crime
That's kind of how modern life feels a lot of the time
That we're all doing time for somebody else's crime
It's hard to put your finger on
But it's very moving though, yeah
Yeah, it's a beautiful song
And by the way, Bruce, Jake is in a Grateful Dead cover
I know, yeah
Richard Pictures
Yeah, it's a little cryptic
We originally were called Dick Pics
Okay, I gotcha
Yep, yeah
And then we actually played a few school fundraisers
And we changed our name from Dick Pics to Richard Pictures
And then it kind of stuck
I gotcha
Okay
Oh, Jake, what's your favorite Dead song?
I'd have to say one of those like deep Jerry ballads
Like, "Maybe 'Til They Lay Me Down"
Mm-hmm
"Thumbs of Time"
Yeah
"Days Between"
"Broke Down Palace"
I mean, I just think it's so incredible
Bruce, did you ever play on a "Days Between"?
Obviously, there's no studio version
So, because how many times has that song ever performed?
Couldn't have, like...
My last tour with them was the March of '92 tour
And they had started playing "Lazy River Road"
"So Many Roads"
One of Vince's things, "Long, Long Way to Go Home"
And "Days Between"
I'm almost sure
So I think I played on among the first
I think they played them all without me sometimes
When I wasn't there
I could have it wrong and maybe I didn't
But I do feel like I did that
And if not, then maybe some of the times where I would sit in with them
After I stopped playing with them mostly full-time
I sat in with them one time in Nassau Coliseum
One time at Capital Center in DC
I thought in Baltimore
RFK a couple times in '93 when Sting was opening
Here's a good story
In '93, they were playing RFK and Sting was the opener
And my wife and I had twin boys
They were one and a half at the time
And so we brought them up to the gig
Rolling them around the stroller backstage
And the first person to see them is Weir
And so he goes, "Oh, all right, the boys"
"There they are, here they are"
And picks one of them up
You know, just as most babies would do
As someone, some foreign person puts their hands on them and grabs them
They're not psyched, you know
So gives them back real fast
For years, Don Henley would ask me about playing with the dead
I just wasn't sure about it
So I said, "Well, why don't you come to the gig?"
So Don Henley came to the gig
And so he's backstage
So he said, "Oh, okay, there they are"
Picks up on the boys
"Yeah, wah!"
You know, they just freak out
"Okay, back to dad, back to mom"
And then Sting comes by
"Okay, I love you"
Picks up the boys
"Wah!"
And then we're up on stage
And we see Garcia
He said, "Oh, far out, Keith and Russell"
Because he knew their names
And we hand him one of the babies
And they didn't freak out
They just grew up with
It was just beautiful
It was like Santa Claus or something
But they were just one and a half
So they're still little vegetables then
You know, they're just sensing something
And they seem like they sense something
His frequency, his vibration
Exactly right
That's right
That's a beautiful story
I just, sorry, I just have to ask though
Just clarify
So Henley wasn't really a fan of the dead
So he was kind of asking you
What's really up with the dead, man?
You were like, come check out the show and you'll see
Is that the way the exchange went?
That's pretty much it
A lot of my sort of, I don't know how you describe it
Mainstream, more mainstream music friends
Didn't get the dead
I would just say to them
Well, one, maybe you have to hear them live
And two, you've just got to deal with
The amazing quality of some of these songs
That's a great way to end
Thanks so much, Bruce
It's been great talking to you
I hope we get to meet in person one day
I know we have also another friend in common
Or I think you know each other, right?
Our producer, Ariel Rekshide
Oh, is that how you say his name?
Rekshide?
Okay, I always say Rekshade
So thanks for correcting me
Yeah, I even thanked him on my record
Because he helped me a couple months ago
In the throes of the end of the record
Where I hate everything, you know
Where you're just cured of every song
Because you've heard it so much
Like the repetition of it just makes you finished with it
You've experienced that, right?
Absolutely
Yeah, well, so anyway, I'm at that point
And I'm not sure about this song
"My Resolve" the one I did with James
So I sent it to him
And he just was very effusive
And incredibly complimentary
And it seemed very legit
It seemed sincere
But I wasn't sure about the mix
And we did a little stuff with the mix
And I sent it back to him
And he was really nice about it
Really complimentary
And it really picked me up
Because I was in a fairly blue place about things
Oh no, I screwed this up again
You know, so you tell Ariel when you see him
That his little emails were a big deal for me
And so much so that he's getting a thanks on our record
For, you know, that
Oh, he'll be psyched
He's a huge fan
And then also he's definitely a straight shooter, so
And I know that
And that's what makes it mean more
You know, if somebody says everything's great
Then you just, it doesn't mean anything
But it's so, so that's great
Well, okay
All right, thanks so much, Bruce
Great being with you guys
And maybe our band will work up cousins
Oh man, that'd be insane
All right, have a good one, dude
Okay, bye-bye
Bye-bye
Way down, down, down by the docks of the city
Blind and dirty
Ask me for a dime, a dime for a cup of coffee
You're listening to Time Crisis
Well, Bruce Hornsby, absolute legend
That was awesome
He's kind of a rare figure in the sense that like
I mean, he was talking about how he didn't
When he became a star, it was such like so awkward
Because he's like in his early 30s, first album
Has this big pop hit with the way it is
And it's like he's sitting next to these kind of like
Teen mall pop icons
I can imagine that he felt a little bit between generations
A little bit out of place
But he really is kind of like sits at the center of a lot of things
I mean, just even the fact that in the same year
He would have been opening for Eurythmics and The Grateful Dead
Yeah
And then even the fact that he's like doing music for Spike Lee
And being asked to write songs with Don Henley and Chaka Khan
He's just like somebody that's just like everybody likes, I find
Right, and then famously, The Way It Is was sampled by Tupac
Just like another weird kind of avenue of culture that he's touched
Yeah, that's just the way it is
So Jake, one interesting thing about having Bruce on the show this week
Is that there's been a buzz in the music community
That you've been working on yet another Mountain Bruise EP
Which this would be the third
So do you call it like MB3?
Yeah, MB3
You've been working on MB3?
Yeah, we're just in the beginning stages of MB3
The concept is because we're not getting together and recording
Our rich, organic vocal harmonies or anything
So everyone's doing it separately
So the idea is we're doing like a
The Mountain Bruise characters are now making a record in like the mid-80s
Right, as if like the song Mountain Bruise came out in like early 70s
Yes
The same guys who made that now it's a decade later
Exactly, so we're like 70s rocker guys making a record in the mid-80s
So yeah, I asked my buddy Ryan who plays keyboards in Richard Pictures and Mountain Bruise
And sort of like kind of produced all the Mountain Bruise stuff
Write some like Bruce Hornsby style instrumental tracks
And send them to me and I'll try to like write songs over them
And so just like the other day it was funny
We had the Bruce call scheduled
Like the other day he sent me an instrumental track
And he titled it Raised in a Place
Which is like a funny title
I was like that's actually a great title
Because it's a funny riff on like my hometown
Or like I was born in a small town
Or just like Raised in a Place
He was just trying to throw some words
Just give a name to the file
Because obviously it's instrumental
But you actually liked it
So you wanted to actually try to write a song called Raised in a Place
Yeah, I thought that was a great idea
And then, but I don't have recording set up yet
I'm gonna like buy some mics and stuff
And like maybe Logic or something
So I just like played his instrumental track off my laptop
And then recorded the vocals into my voice memos
Let's hear a little bit of your voice memo demo
The idea is like a Bruce Hornsby demo tape
Right
Like a lost demo tape
He was talking about his early demos
And Linn drums and synths
I'd love to hear that
I gotta say Ryan knows his Bruce Hornsby
Yes
Because this, this is like
He nailed it
I was raised in a place
That's become a disgrace
Everything I've ever known
Is now a disgrace
I'm not a disgrace
Everything that I once knew
Now there is no trace
The pumpkin patch for the fall harvest
Has been paved with a new target
They call it progress, but for who?
They tell us all, but it's only a few
They tore the old buildings down
Replaced it all with beige and brown
What do I see when I drive around?
It's all the same from town to town
From town to town
And then that riff comes back in
That piano riff?
Yeah
That's a great start
My only suggestion
Take it or leave it
I love everything that's there
I want to just hear it at some point get big
With kind of like, maybe like big harmonies
Like 80s gang vocals
Like I was raised in a place
Oh yeah
Just like a big "I was raised"
Like I love that it starts
I love the way you took the line of it
"I was raised in a place that's become a disgrace"
I just love just the idea of just like shouting
"I was raised in a place"
That's tight
I mean if you want to take a step at the second verse
I mean it was sort of a riff
I'd love to
I was born in a small town
So it's like this guy's coming back to his town
And it's like my paintings
It's all just like the pumpkin patch has been paved
It's a target
It's a new target
And it's all like beige and brown
And he's just like bummed on it
His small town became like gross and suburban
So that's the subject
So take a stab at verse two
Well and also it's like "raised in a place" by itself is like
A like you said kind of just like a funny line
And then in your first verse you totally explain
Well what does that actually mean?
"I was raised in a place"
You explain what it is about this place in particular
But then the way you explain it
The anonymity of the phrase "raised in a place"
It's like everybody was raised in a place
It's such a weird thing to say
But it actually
You explain why that you used to be in a place that had
Local flavor, character, whatever
And now it truly is just a place
Any town USA
It's almost like I was born in a small town
And then it became just a place
It's nothing
Just a place
That's what drove me crazy about that "Melon Camp" song
I was like you're born in a small town
I take sh*t in a small town
Whatever he's saying in that song
I'm like tell me something about the town man
That's not enough information
Wait I'm looking at the opening stanza
Well I was born in a small town
And I live in a small town
Probably die in a small town
Oh those small communities
And then
What?
Wait
Oh those small communities
All my friends are so small town
My parents live in a small town
My job is so small town
Provides little opportunity
All right that's a little bit of commentary
Okay
Later he says
Got nothing against a big town
This is almost like Jerry Seinfeld-esque
Just like
You got big towns?
I'm from a small town
Now I got nothing against a big town
But I'm from a small town
I mean we're allowed to clown "Melon Camp" a little bit
Because he was out there campaigning for Bloomberg
Well that ruled
And Jake at least gave him a little bit of hell on Twitter
I think we talked about this on the show
But you treated it "Melon Camp"
I never bought your small town shtick
Now he's out there advocating for a billionaire
Yeah that song "Small Town"
It's like compared to Bruce
Or compared to either Bruce
Springsteen or Hornsby
Who like
I think also their writing captured the weird moment
Or their 80s writing at least
Captured that weird transitional moment
Of like the small towns falling apart
And things change
Like kind of Ray Guerra buffness
I would say the two Bruces really captured that
With like sensitivity
And the kind of generational thing
Anyway in tribute to our illustrious guest Bruce Hornsby
For this top five
We're just gonna do the top five songs this week in 1986
Which apparently is a year we've never done
Why 1986?
That is when Bruce Hornsby and the Range
Dropped their debut record the way it is
That's right
Also I gotta double check
But there's also a Vampire Weekend connection to the Range
Because Brian Jones, our illustrious guitarist
I think he like studied with John Molo
The drummer from the Range
Maybe at USC or something
I gotta ask Brian about that
But he has like a real connection to John Molo
So Molo teaches at like a college at this point
I think so
Unless it's a story like
One of Brian's teachers knew John Molo or something
But anyway, yes somehow related to that
It's time for the top five
On iTunes
The number five song this week in 1986
From the iconic album Control
Janet Jackson, "Nasty"
Give me a beat
Jake, are you pretty familiar with this album?
No, not really
I mean
Dave is
Like your brother is like the control head
Yes
I think I know some of the other singles off this better
Huge album
Sounds crazy
Yeah, drums are so hard
Terry Lewis and Jimmy Jam
I mean that whole album just like
Must have sounded so futuristic at the time
Totally
So hard and weird
And it's like obviously it's very catchy
And there's like pop appeal
But it's like, you know, in some ways
It's like creating a blueprint that people still follow to this day
For like a minimalist, hard, futuristic pop music
I wonder what Hornsby thought of that
Back in April of '86
When it came out
But I guess we're in July here
So July of '86
Bruce is cruising the Top 40 stations
Driving around, hitting Carl's Jr
I think you'd probably be like impressed by the production
You know, it's funny
I'm like looking at the word now
"Nasty" is like one of those words
If you look at too long
It's just like such a strange word
"Nast"
"Nasty"
It's also like funny
Because it says here that
"Nasty" got a Trump bump
When then presidential candidate Donald Trump
Made a dismissive comment about his opponent Hillary Clinton
Which I'm sure everybody remembers
He goes, "She's such a nasty woman"
Supposedly streams of this song spiked by 250%
Because I guess people hear the word "nasty"
And they think about it
But it's also like funny
Wait, Jake, when we were talking about Aerosmith
Didn't you keep calling them "nasty"?
When were we talking about like
I think I did, yeah
Was that the word that you were using?
"Nasty"
Yeah, yeah, just kind of a nasty groove
But it's also like, yeah
Obviously Janet Jackson's using it
In a kind of like a sexy way
Like "nasty"
Because obviously you could be like freaky and nasty
But for me, again
Might just be a product of my era
I just feel like being a kid in the 90s
I just think of like some like little skater dude
With like a butt cut
Just like a bunch of ants
Like on a hot dog bun
That's like on the street
Just be like, "Oh, nasty"
It's like Beavis and Butt-Head vibe
Or like Bart Simpson
"Nasty"
"Ew, nasty"
Yeah, and then there was those
Like on the 1990 Reds
There was these three relief pitchers
Called the "Nasty Boys"
Really?
Yeah
You think that was referencing the Janet Jackson song?
Because she's talking about "Nasty Boys"
No, because I think it's like
It's a classic like baseball term
Like "That guy's got a real nasty slider"
Right, but not "He's nasty"
It'd probably be like "He's got a nasty slider"
"He's got nasty stuff"
It was derived from the lyrics of Janet Jackson's song "Nasty"
Oh, it was?
Oh, the "Nasty Boys"?
Yeah
That's amazing
"Nasty"
The number four song this week in 1986
We're just sticking with '86 right now
Howard Jones, "No One Is To Blame"
Oh, damn
For some reason, this just sounds like a song that you would know, Jake
I love this song
Is this a Eileen's car kind of childhood memory?
Oh my god, yeah, dude
I always get confused
It's legit gorgeous
So he was kind of like an 80s pop guy?
Yeah, British
I think I'd always see his name around
And I'd be confused because it sounds like a dude who'd be in a punk band
Yeah
Like one of the dudes in the Buzzcocks name was Howard
And then obviously there's like Mick Jones from The Clash
So like Howard Jones just sounds like a punk dude to me
Totally
Phil Collins produced this and sings harmony on it later in the song
That's a little context
It's like 80s power ballad
I wonder what Hornsby would have thought of like this type of music
It's not a million miles away from his stuff
Right
But obviously with his kind of like jazz stuff
He's like a little bit more sophisticated
You know, I think it's a good thing that he's not a musician
He's like a little bit more sophisticated
Yeah, Hornsby has a more specific and unique kind of language
This doesn't sound like people who love Steely Dan and Keith Jarrett
No
It's good though
This is like big Peter Sotera fans
Yeah
Do you know this song, Anthony?
I don't know this song
Really?
I like his voice
I take it back
This song is sophisticated
It's just different
The number three song this week in 1986
Elda Barge, who's Johnny?
Hello
How familiar are you with Elda Barge, Jake?
Not very
This is s*** that Rashida knows inside out
Oh wow
I knew very little about Elda Barge
What's the Elda Barge story?
It's like a really successful musical family
So they had the group that was called Da Barge
And I guess Elda Barge was like the oldest brother in the group
Who like wrote a lot of the songs and stuff
Oh
This song is sick
Johnny
So you remember this?
Oh yeah
I guess Elda Barge didn't write this song
But he's like a great writer
This is written by Peter Wolfe
So this song is from Short Circuit
The movie about a robot named Johnny Fog
He's talking about Johnny the Robot
I guess
Of course we can't recommend that anybody watches Short Circuit
Because it infamously has a white person playing an Indian person
Oh really?
In brownface
I kind of remember being a kid and like seeing this on
Like really like a little kid seeing it on TV when I was like seven
I mean like this is an interesting movie
And then having like very vague memories of it
And I kind of remember that there's a
One of the lead characters was Indian and had a strong Indian accent
But you know I was like a little kid so I didn't remember much about it
It was played by that actor Fisher Stevens
Then years later being like oh that was just like a white dude
With his like face done up like
Wild
So anyway if there any TC heads were about to throw on that film
I have not seen that movie in like 35 years probably
Short Circuit
And I think there was like a sequel
It must have been pretty successful
Apparently the character in Short Circuit was named after the song
Not the other way around
Yeah I'm looking at the lyrics it doesn't really sound like a robot
There's no references to circuits or robotics
Lasers
Cool song though
Yeah it's fun
The barge had like so many massive hits
Rhythm of the Night I like it
They're almost like the Jackson 5 of the 80s
The number two song is another kind of like very classic 80s soft rock
I mean this must be the type of s*** Jake you're hearing driving around
In Aileen's car back then
Simply Red Holding Back the Years
I feel like Hornsby would respect this song
For sure
Oh
Yeah okay
Love this one
Thinking of the fear I've had so long
When somebody's here
Listen to the fear that's gone
Strangled by the wishes of fate
Hoping for the arms of fate
I'll get to me the sooner or later
You know there's that R.L.Fink song that seems like deeply influenced by this
Yes
Holding back the years
Great production
For me escaping from all I know
Yeah but there's a lot of tension you know it's like it's building
It's interesting it doesn't just sound retro either
Right
It's like obviously they're referencing cool 70s like soul music
I've wasted all my tears
Wasted all those years
I should really work on that Aileen's car playlist
Would this be on it?
This would be on there the Howard Jones would be on there
It's very interesting lyrics too because the song's called Holding Back the Years
Which is the opening line but then he only says it once
Because then later he says the more expected holding back the tears
And then the chorus is not I'll keep holding back the years
It's I'll keep holding on
I guess that's what like real poetry is
Is when you kind of match up a phrase
That doesn't totally make sense on its face
But then the more you think about it it actually does connote like a weird feeling
Holding back the years
What does that mean?
Like you're holding on to time passing or you don't want it to pass
But it does feel like appropriate and heavy holding back the years
What's your interpretation Jake?
Well yeah it's a great phrase
I don't think he was like I'm seeing this little note here that
The songwriter uh Mick Hucknall was in art school and his teacher said
The greatest paintings are produced when the artist is working in the stream of consciousness
Which Hucknall then tried to apply to songwriting
Holding back the years was the second song he wrote using this method
Of stream of conscious consciousness
I mean my guess would be he kind of just stuck with the first words that came to him
Right maybe this phrase just tumbled out holding back the years
I mean that must happen when you're writing songs right?
That like
Oh yeah of course
But then it's like you could have just called the song holding on
But he knew there was something about that phrase
Maybe because it was stream of consciousness that weirdly felt like deeper
Yeah
I'm sure a lot of people if you're like you know that uh Simply Red song
They'd be like oh yeah holding on
Right
The number one song
I don't think I know this one
1986 this week the number one song from the album Love Zone
Billy Ocean there will be sad songs to make you cry
Did we hear this recently?
I think we heard a different Billy Ocean song
I guess he was just crushing it in the 80s
We did like 85 recently maybe
Yeah
We listened to Billy Joel or Billy Ocean suddenly on the recent Jonah Hill episode
That was another ballad
Yeah
Sometimes I wonder by the look in your eyes
When I'm standing beside you
There's a fever burning deep inside
Is there another in your memory?
Do you think of that someone
When you hear that special melody?
I always stop and think of you especially
When the words of a love song
Touch the very heart of me
There'll be sad songs to make you cry
Love songs often do
They can touch the heart of someone new
Saying I love you
I love you
I often wonder how it could be
Hell yeah
I mean he's a great singer
I don't understand what this song is about
There will be sad songs to make you cry
Love songs often do
They can touch the heart of someone new
Saying I love you, I love you
I guess it's just generally about the fact that songs can be tied to people and memories
Yeah it's a bit of a word salad
Play the second verse maybe that'll clarify things
I'll count the hours until that day
A rhapsody plays a melody for you and me
Until the moment that you give your love to me
You're the one I care for
The one that I would wait for
There'll be sad songs to make you cry
He's talking about the potential of songs
Yeah
There will be sad songs to make you cry
Is there an element of maybe this is like a new relationship?
She's totally done with her ex
But she has to admit that there's like a deep reservoir of emotion there
She's really excited about this new relationship but sometimes she gets caught up in it
And sometimes she hears a slightly older song
And she's overcome with thoughts of that former love
And this is like her current boyfriend being like
One day there will be new sad songs and love songs that you'll associate with me
I have a bit of context on the track if you want
Oh, oh please
So according to producer Barry Eastman
The song was inspired by an incident involving Ocean's hit song from the previous year
Suddenly Eastman said the song is about a friend of his wife's
Who had recently broken up with a long-term boyfriend
While at a party thrown by her new boyfriend
The song suddenly was played and she broke down in tears
Being reminded of her ex
Oh, damn
Eastman used this scenario as the basis for writing
There'll be sad songs to make you cry
So kind of a meta commentary
Everybody's entitled to feel the way they feel and experience their emotions
But that it's got to be pretty harsh to be somebody's new boyfriend
And you're just throwing a party
All your friends come over
And then somebody throws on a Billy Ocean track
Next thing you know, everybody out
She's really upset
Why?
That song reminds her of her ex-boyfriend
Just like, damn
Oh, man
Jake, do you have any songs that just like stop you in your tracks?
Desperado
When you hear that, just like, give me a minute
That stops me cold in my tracks
Like the Seinfeld
Yeah, just like the Seinfeld
Your wife being like, hey, guys
You got to go watch the Super Bowl somewhere else
Jake just heard Desperado
Now he's thinking about his ex-girlfriend
Thank you for understanding
He's a complete wreck
I don't really think so
Do you?
I mean, I feel like we're too like
Too tough
Too alienated and, you know, ironic or something
Yeah, even the most beautiful love song is not going to penetrate
All those Borgesian layers of irony and alienation
Well, no, of course I can be very moved listening to music
Of course
I could never see myself getting so overwhelmed at a party
That I would potentially embarrass my current partner
By becoming a wreck about a former one
I guess also the times when I can really connect to music
Often are in quiet contemplative moments
Like say in a movie theater or just watching a movie
Where sometimes, you know, nobody else is talking
And all you can do is listen to the song, you know, augmented by the images
I can be really moved in that scenario
Obviously at a concert where the music is taking over everything
And definitely when I just sit down to listen to music
And I've definitely had that, you know, sitting at an airport or something
Sitting on a train
You're just like scrolling through a playlist
And then you just start listening to a song
And then like 30 seconds in you're just like
It hits you really, really deeply
A hundred percent
But I guess what all those scenarios have in common
Is that it's like your whole brain is listening to the music mostly
Versus like, I guess what this Billy Ocean story sounds like to me
Is almost like Pavlovian
Yeah
I could name 20 songs that could like bring tears to my eyes in the right moment
That can make me think about life and the past and the pre-
You know, a hundred, of course
But again, that would have to be in a moment where I'm really engaged with the song
I don't know about like hearing it like tinnily coming out of a speaker at CVS
While somebody's like, "Uh, excuse me, where's the shaving cream?"
I'm not gonna like hear a little bit of a song and just be like, "Oh, oh my God"
Like, where'd you go, man?
Just like, I assume you heard those opening notes
I was 20 years ago, you know, I don't, I can't relate to that
I think a lot of people are like transported emotionally by music
Like when you hear like an oldies station
And they're like playing like Good Times and Great Oldies
And then like they'll play like a little drop from like a listener that's like
I just love this oldie station so much
It reminds me of my like being young and like
Right
Feeling the way I did in those days, basically is what they're saying
And I've never related to that
I don't like listen to like 90s pavement records
And I'm not like, "Summer of '96, dude, let me tell you, dude, I was crushing it"
I know, yeah
And like, do you know what I mean?
I feel you, maybe, I don't know
Yeah, my, of course, I have associations with music
And of course, as both a fan and somebody who makes music
I'm very interested in those kind of like
I guess, slightly dry conversations about just like
What makes this sound like 1992 and not 1994?
Of course, I love that [ __ ]
That's the show
That's this whole show
So obviously, like we're both very engaged in like
What makes a year feel a certain way
But I know what you mean
It's like music is also
I can have new experiences with music all the time
And I definitely do
In some ways, I've thought about this a lot
Like I think I've learned more about songwriting and stuff
From going back to the same songs throughout my entire life
You know what I mean?
Just like some classic [ __ ]
Just like
Sure
I don't know, Hornsby was talking about
Joni Mitchell or something
And I could think about like, you know
Some of those iconic songs from Blue
Like "Case of You" or "California" or something
I really feel like every decade of my life
I've engaged with those songs and like thought new things
And learned new things about songwriting
And learned new things about human emotion
You know, all that stuff
So the things that make me feel like
Overwhelmed by like nostalgia
Or like take me back to a different moment
It's not exactly a song
You know, occasionally you end up on YouTube
And you see like
It might be just like tacked on to a video you're watching
Or it might be the whole video
Where it's just kind of like a block of commercials
From Sunday afternoon
Sure
From a local New York station, 1997
When I see stuff like that
And that combination of like all of those elements together
That is the stuff that almost can send a chill down my spine
Where I'm just like, I kind of feel like
I stuck my head into like a river of time for a second
And it's weird, it's disorienting
It's emotional in a sense
Yes
Even watching like "The Last Dance" or something
Where it's like all from the 90s
And you just see this weird mix of like the clothes
And what's happening
That's the stuff that I'm like, wow
I feel like I'm back in that moment
Anyway, we'll be back in two weeks
Thank you so much to Bruce Hornsby
For coming on the program
Hope everybody's doing okay
Make sure you're registered to vote, man
There's been some good news last week
There's also a few heartbreakers
So for the love of God, you know
Get it together before November, if you can
All right, we'll see you guys in two weeks
Peace
Time Crisis with Ezra Koenig
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