And The Writer Is...with Ross Golan - Ep. 20: Desmond Child

Episode Date: June 12, 2017

With 5 decades under his belt in the music business, this songwriter is what you call a legend. He is a member of the Songwriter's Hall of Fame AND personally cofounded the Latin Songwriter's Hall of Fame. With credits like Bon Jovi's "Livin' On A Prayer," Joan Jett & The Blackhearts's "I Hate Myself For Loving You," and Ricky Martin's "Livin' La Vida Loca," among countless other smash hits, this songwriters catalog of collaborations is seemingly endless. He is showing no signs slowing down either, having just collaborated with electronic dance artist Zedd on his single "Beautiful Now." And The Writer Is...Desmond Child! Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Hey guys, this is, and the writer is. And I'm your host, Ross Golan. I've written with hundreds of writers and artists over the years, and my favorite part of each session is the first hour when we catch up about life and the industry, politics, composition, whatever. If you ask me, songwriters are some of the most worldly and intelligent people I've ever come across. So this is a journey of learning why people write songs, how people write songs. And most importantly, who the people are who write songs.

write the songs. Now I'm co-producing this with my friend Joe London, who is nominated for a Grammy earlier this year for Best Country Song. He makes us sound like angels. If you want to listen to the songs we discuss in this podcast, go to Spotify and look up our playlist, And The Writer Is, or go to our website www.com. Oh, and if you enjoy this podcast, please rate us on iTunes, or whatever your preferred podcast listening site is. We really appreciate that effort. This week's episode is with Desmond Child. If you don't know Desmond Child, you should go on Wikipedia right now. His credits are way too long for me to list in this intro.

He's had hits in the last five decades. Literally the 70s, 80s, 90s, the 2000s, the 2010s. I mean, the guy basically defined Bon Jovi and Ricky Martin. He's had huge hits with Kiss and Joan Jett and Katie Perry. and Aerosmith and Michael Bolton. I mean, you don't get into the Songwriter Hall of Fame if you're not writing songs like Live in La Vida Loca and Living on a Prayer and The Thong Song?

I mean, he's probably the most venerable writer we've had. So, without further ado, here is Anne the Writer is featuring Desmond Chak. Welcome to And The Writer is. I'm your host, Ross Golan. This week's guest is a songwriting icon. He was inducted in the Songwriter Hall of Fame because he's

written hits in five different decades. These hits defined rock and roll Hall of Fame legends like Kiss Joan Jett and Bon Jovi. He penned copyrights like Thong Song. Live in La Vita Loca and she bangs. I mean the guys recently released songs

with Zed and has the number one record with Katie Perry. By way of Nashville, this writer has been an activist and a pioneer of the co-writing game. And the writer is, my fellow Hungarian, Desmond Child. Serbos. I just figured I throw that in there just so you knew you're at home. Yeah, my dad was Hungarian and my mother was Cuban.

So are you first generation American? Yes. Yeah. Did they move to... They met in Venezuela after World War II. Oh, okay. So that's how they hooked up. and then I now I'm me.

Yeah, exactly. My family moved to Nicaragua because they weren't allowed in the U.S. Oh, really? Yeah, Hungarian Jews who needed a place that the, since the U.S. wouldn't let them in. Right.

That's crazy. Awesome. So do you speak Spanish? No, my mom speaks like with a Nicaraguan accent. So whenever we go, like it speaks Spanish and a Nicaraguan accent.

That's cool. We go places people, you know, they turn their head funny and they somehow figure out that she's not, she speaks fluently, but she's not from Spain, she's not from Mexico, you know? Right. Do you speak with a Cuban accent?

Cuban accent, which is super Africanized. Wait, so when did they move to the U.S.? Well, sort of worked out like this. My mom and dad weren't actually married to each other. It was an affair that my mom had. And so I didn't really feel. find out who my real father was until I was 18. So in the meantime, we lived a life of poverty in Miami and, you know, the movie Moonlight,

you know, those projects. Yeah. That's where I grew up. Wow. That's, was it, when you watched that movie, which deals a lot with homosexuality in Miami in the 80s, right, 90s, did that, you? did it feel somehow reminiscent of... Well, first of all, their apartment in the movie

was exactly like the one we lived in. Like exactly. You know, those white walls and the staircase and coming in through the back. I mean, so, you know, my mom was a bohemian, so there were a lot of men coming in and out. It was kind of a very kind of loose scene in those days. but that was the 60s.

Yeah. And so, I mean, we lived there 14 years. When you were 18 and you met your dad and that was, how was that experience? Well, I'd always known about Uncle Joe kind of friend of the family that would visit with his Hungarian wife. And, you know, she was the Holocaust survivor. And, you know, they were always super nice. and he would kind of look at me in this kind of tender way. And so at that point, when I met him,

I had dropped out of high school, Miami Beach High, and I had gone up to Woodstock, New York, with my co-writer, and we had a duo called Night Child. So her name Virgil Knight, and I'm Desmond Child. So we thought it was cool. And so we were up there for about eight months And we were you know Got so cold our car didn't have heat

It was a Buick with the The back windshield was like all destroyed So the air was just like running through And we would be driving with mittens on shaking And working at an apple packing plant With migrant workers from South South Carolina So

I think that my mom who never wanted me to find out, finally said, okay, go get him. So I met him in New York City and he told me and it was kind of, kind of a, you know, one of those Luke moments, you know, when he says, I am your father. So then from that point on, he coaxed me to going back to Miami, getting my high school equivalency. I managed to graduate with my class. And then I went to years to Miami-Dade College and then two years to NYU, which he paid for all my education. So you guys ended up with a pretty good relationship. Oh yeah. And I, you know, I adored him. He passed away in 2004. And in the meantime, the Hungarian government reached out to me. And because they had read in some,

music magazine interview that I did, that was published in Hungary, that I am of Hungarian descent. And so they reached out to me and they offered me citizenship. So last year I got my dual citizenship. And June 10th, my sons, Roman and Nero are going to get sworn in as citizens as well. So it's a great thing because I wanted my sons to really feel the Hungarian heritage. I love that. Congratulations. I mean, so it's important for in a world where we are assimilating and, you know, I'm a Jew married to a Lebanese woman. You know, it's like these things are important for our future children to learn about where we come from.

I think it's easy to get lost. and the homogenizing of people, but it's still important to pay some homage to your heritage. Exactly. And so I'm also very strong with my mother's side because my mother was a songwriter, and she got a lot of cuts. I mean...

She was a professional songwriter? She was assigned to peer international, and she was a BMI writer, her whole entire life. Ironically, I've been an ASCAP writer and next year will be my 40th anniversary and I'm also on the board of ASCAP but my mom was BMI all the way Why did you go ASCAP?

I didn't think about it. I was with managers at the time and they knew somebody at ASCAP and signed me up and I didn't think twice about it. I had a song that was going to be big I was made for loving you so that's when I got all signed up in 1978

So, okay, let's go back. When you were saying you went up to New York with your co-writer, and from then, that's somewhere in 1970s, right? That was 1970. Wow. No, it was like, yeah, 1970. It was something like that. No, no, no.

It was 1971. So you were saying a co-writer, so you were writing through your childhood because your mom's a writer. Were you playing piano? Were you just singing around the house? Piano. And my mom played guitar. So I never, I don't know, it was like maybe one of those things because she played guitar.

I didn't learn guitar. I just played piano. Right. And, you know, my mom struggled her whole life to get cuts. And, you know, she'd got a lot of cuts, but we never got paid. Why? You know, because it just wasn't a flow. Right.

You know, it just, that's the way it was. Sure. And so when she passed away five years ago, I helped to found the Latin Songwriters Hall of Fame. And although she may never be inducted, a statue of her is the statuette that we give us the award. It's called La Musa. And it was based on a sculpture that was done of her around the time when I was born in. and so it's a very beautiful sculpture and so we have our

we're going into our fifth anniversary which is the gala is going to be October 19th at the James L. Knight Center in Miami and you know it's we're modeled after the songwriters Hall of Fame where I'm also on the board there and the Latin songwriters Hall of Fame

was my committee but it turned into an organization onto itself So I have this whole strong Hungarian thing. This year actually I wrote a song for the anniversary of the 1956 Revolution. And the prime minister, Victor Orban, was very kind to me and also very inclusive of our family, you know, alternative family. And was very sweet and embraced us. gave me the opportunity and uh andreas carlson and i co-wrote this big theme based on a song that we

had already uh written called steps of champions and we adapted it with one of the top um hungarian um lyricist um thomas orban not related but his last name's orban and this thing is fantastic and it was like a we are the world and it's all filmed it's all on um it's all on um it's all on the, I can't pronounce the title of it. Do you speak Hungarian? NEM. Just, I know a few words. Yeah, it's a really hard language.

I don't even know curse words. I don't even know how to say like, you know, dick or something in Hungarian. I like that dick is the curse. But anyway, our song has over two million views. I think it's one of the most viewed Hungarian songs ever in history. Does that change your, you know, when you've had, I mean, we'll go through some of the songs, but

you've had so many songs that have been just so unbelievably massive. At this point, when you have a national song, does that have a different weight to it than having... I was just thinking about my father the whole time and how proud he

would have been. And it was so sweet because we went to his grave in Budapest. And I went with my sons, and we, you know, my sons washed it down, polished it and we put flowers and candles and stuff. It was like so sweet.

And because I think it's, you know, for me, because my origins were kind of, you know, kind of not clear, it was very important to me that my sons know where they came from. Yeah. And their heritage. So, you know, they're wonderful. And we're going back there this summer. Great. for young songwriters.

And so I did one last year a master class and I'll be doing them again. And my hope is to bring Hungarian songwriters to the U.S. to work and to also bring writers from here over there to interact. Because, you know,

the Swedes are the perfect example of how they just, you know, first of all, they know incredible English. 90% of the Swedish population speaks flawless English. Where in Hungary it's the opposite. It's only 10%

of the population speaks English. And the language is very strong, so the accent is very difficult to manage. But I think that they've also been isolated. 60 years of Soviet domination did a number

on them, and they're landlocked, they're kind of in. And it's very important to me to bring Hungarian music and, you know, contemporary to come and compete. You know, and I always point to, you know, Dennis Pop and Max Martin, how hard they worked and how excellent they, you know, Max, I mean, Dennis passed away,

but Max's and his work ethic is just incredible. I just admire that so much. And that's something Hungarians relate to because they're very hard work. workers. But right now, you know, it doesn't seem like they have enough resources. And so that's my, that's one of my things that I want. That's, that's a mission of mine. Well, you, you have a few missions. I know you've talked a lot of, you were saying before we even started this, you were talking about how important it is to give songwriters credit to get, you know, it's not just Hungarian songwriters, it's all songwriters. And how important in an era where you have a lot of

people who essentially get songwriting credit but aren't really songwriters and how you help define who's who

and how copyrights work and whatnot but you're so you're very vocal about how songwriters and topliners

are defined in a way. Well, the true definition of what constitutes a copyright is melody and the

lyric. And in fact, some songs don't have lyrics, but you can't have a song without the melody. It wouldn't be a song. Yeah. It'd be like a cough or a sneeze or something. Sure. Yeah. But the point is this, that in our very highly competitive sonic world, the guys that you used to be able to pay as a rangers began, you know, being very very very competitive sonic world. The guys that you used to be able to pay as a rangers began, you know, being very, important to whether you could have a hit record because their sounds and and the beats that they were making and that they are making are driving the commercial sound of the song. So then the successful ones began saying, hey, you know what, you can't just pay me a fee. You have to cut me into the copyright of the song. Right. But technically, it's not their arrangement that is the copyright. It's the melody and the lyrics. It's not even the chords because you can hard.

harmonize a song every which way in my major, minor, jazzy, classical, and it's still the same song. It helps put power back into what songwriters are versus producers in a way. It's like a power shift. Right. Well, but what happened was that, you know, like myself, I was a, I was an artist, and then I co-wrote a song with Paul Stanley. I was lucky, you know, we said, okay, you write a song for me and I'll write a song for you. So this is, we're late 1970s. I was made for loving you. Yeah. And so...

Is it a trade-off? You and Paul Stanley? Yeah. But I got the better end of the deal. Yeah. Right. Because he and I wrote a song with David Landau called The Fight that was on my first record. And then... Were you an assigned

artist at the time? Yes, with my group Desmond Child and Rouge. Yeah. And so then the trade-off was I write a song with him for kids. How did you meet Paul Stanley? He was a fan of ours. At that time, we were kind of playing the small clubs and cabarets, and we had become a sensation.

Where were you bass out of at that point? New York City. So I had gone there to NYU, and my dad was bankrolling me, and I didn't even do homework. All I did was do songs and go and play in clubs. and with these three girls, and one of them was my girlfriend, Maria Vidal. I have an interesting story about her because at the time, she was kind of helping to support me as well. My dad was, you know, he was born in the Depression and all that.

So his idea of bankrolling me was $250 a month. That was it. In New York City, yeah. So, you know, Maria came up from Miami. we had met it at Miami Day along with a friend of ours Diana Griselli and then I had met another girl when I was up in Woodstock Miriam Valley

and so we we created this singing group and it was really revolutionary for its time because we were combining R&B and dance music with guitars and singer-songwriter lyrics telling stories and it's all the same stuff that I did later with Bon Jovi and with Ricky Martin. You know, we had some Latin sounds.

We had, you know, Cungas, and we were trying to do... It was a good foreshadow of sort of the eclectic. Yeah, a kind of Latino, urban, you know, thing, whatever. The record company didn't understand us whatsoever that we signed to Capitol Records. They were all about Bob Seeger at the time and Taste of Honey. And so we sort of got left in the dust, and we made two albums. One was this very pop... album, beautiful pop record.

Then the next record was like all punk oriented and they were released six months apart. People didn't know what to think of us. We did a whole tour of the U.S. and we appeared on Saturday Night Live on the Christmas of 1979 with the original cast.

And so we were meteoric and then at that time then I kind of also, our second album was about this. I realized I was more gay than I was straight. and so Maria and I broke up. But yet we were still Desmond and Maria, the ones that put this group together. And so it was very difficult, you know, touring, you know, and all that because the tour only paid for one room for us to sleep in together.

You know, so it was a nightmare. Right. But, you know, we, it was very difficult to continue the group after that. Being out of the, were you out of the closet or were you? just out of the closet to her. Let's just put it this way. The opening song of runners in the night, our second album is called The Truth Comes Out.

Right, okay. So then Paul's... Just read the lyrics on that and you'll see what I'm talking about. But in 1979, that's ahead of its time to be open. I mean, so many rock stars, so many songwriters were closeted. I mean, we can name a lot of them that were closeted for 20, 30 years beyond that. that. I mean, you had the confidence to come out at that point. Did the other bands that you're working with, you know, you're talking about really

masculine bands in a way. I guess Kiss isn't particularly masculine. You said it. I didn't. But, you know, like, when you're talking about Kiss and you're talking about Bon Jovi, you're talking about Aerosmith, these are, you know, sex icons. No, right, true. Exactly. I guess it's it. Yeah, I keep trying. No, no, maybe that's a point.

Maybe it's like, Joan Jett. Right. Hello? Right. I mean, you know, they always kind of threw the kind of, you know, androgynous weirdos to me. Alice Cooper.

Right. You know. It's funny when you say, well, now that we're talking about it, it kind of like, it kind of shows it. Share? Yeah, right. Yeah. Yeah.

Hello? What could be more gay than share? So you, it actually was, maybe it was even an advice. that people felt comfortable no matter what around you? Is that what it... Well, I mean, you could look at it this way. They guys knew that they could leave me in the kitchen with their wife, and I wasn't going to be fucking them when they went to the 12-step, you know, meeting.

Right. Right. And then I'd always help them with their decorating and stuff. You could both do melodies and the living room. Well, you know, that's why I call it. it living room on a prayer. But the thing is, is that

charm has a lot to do with success. Yeah. I mean, some people aren't charming at all and they're super successful, but maybe they're more talented. Right. But with me, coming up from where I did in the

ghetto, it's like, you know, you hustle. There's a hustle. And so you use everything you've got and it can't be inauthentic. You have to really, you know, take the shine off your soul, you know, to make it real. And you have to commit yourself. And, you know, as you, and it's an attitude. It's like, I love everybody I meet. Right. And, you know, I, I have very few people that don't like me or that I don't like them. In the process of actually writing, like, because, okay, I don't even know how to go through. The list of songs is so, is so ridiculous.

I mean, you start in, you have, you know, I was made for loving you, and then you start doing a bunch of records with Sherry, you do all these records. I mean, from 1979, I guess you're still probably in your band then for a few years after 1970. No, no. Or did you quit right away? As soon as, like, you have this massive kiss record, you're like, oh, I'm out. Because I had met Bruce Springsteen's manager and producer, kind of, in a way, John Landau. and he really believed in me. So he didn't...

As a writer. As a star. As a person. And he told me, you know, you're the only other person I'd ever consider managing. And so he believed in me. And so, but Springsteen just ate up all his time. So I would go every few weeks and sit with him and we would talk about, you know, how he made, you know, Jackson Brown's record, the pretender, or how he was made. making, you know, darkness at the edge of town or born to run or whatever.

And I was just waiting, waiting, waiting. So he didn't like the girls. He didn't think that that was cool. He thought that was cabaret and corny. Meanwhile, Prince and everybody later all had, you know... I was doing exactly that. You know, with corsets and makeup and all this kind of stuff. I didn't have a strong...

Because of how I grew up, I was looking for a father figure. So it's like if he told me that they're no good, then they're no good. And so I didn't believe in what I had created. So that's been a thing for me as an artist. I think it was very hard for me to say who I am. In a way, I can surreptitiously be myself pouring all of my creativity into somebody else. Right.

And you can, in a way, diversify all those emotions in a different way. I feel like when you write with all different artists, There's a place, a personal aspect to all these different songs. But if you were the artist, you wouldn't necessarily touch on all those, all those different emotions the same way. I'd be neurotically looking for my next single and desperately calling people to write me a hit. Right. Because once you get into something like that, it's actually kind of a terrible curse to be famous.

You know, the glory is so. brief and the pressure and I see it and I deal with it all the time and you know what made somebody famous usually was when they just spontaneously they were some they did something fresh they were themselves and then everybody expected them to be that and be that and be that until they didn't want it anymore and then they lost themselves yeah so I deal I've dealt with that you know condition many, many times with very successful people that have come to me and I've helped to revive their career.

But even before you help revive them, you kind of help there are a lot of people who make a career out of reviving careers, but not a lot of people can make a career. And when you think about, if you go to like, you know, if you

look at the Bon Jovi records and we don't have to just talk about Bon Jovi, it's 1986, but you end up with living on a prayer you give love a bad name bad medicine along with a bunch of others but any one of those is a life-changing song for an artist

let alone three just massive songs I mean at that point are you um does that change the pressure for you as a writer where you feel like you have to compete with the kind of pressure the artists have or was that freeing I mean you had had hits

before that but those kind of feel like that blows the doors open. I don't know how I did it actually, but I did do it. Were you in the room with them? Of course, yeah. There was no transfer the files. Right. There was like pass me, you know, the coffee. Yeah. Yeah. Um, you know, I was just driven to make it. Because I wanted to also, you know, I love my mother very much and, you know, I wanted to make sure that I could always support her and take care of her in which I did. And she lived like a queen till the end of her life, you know, so I'm very proud. out of that.

I'm sure. And, you know, and also I'm competitive. You know, I guess that's the Hungarian part. It's like I want it. And I still wake up like that. I mean, I wake up going, am I still in the ghetto? Oh, no, Pew. Thank God.

I better get up and start making those emails and, you know. Did you worry the way, did you worry throughout the whole process that this was your last on, this is your last paycheck. Do you feel, is that worrying? Or is that... When you're an independent songwriter, yeah, it's every day is the start of your career again.

Yeah. Nobody gives a fuck about the hit you had last week. Because after number one, there's no doubt, I mean, that it's down. Yeah. And especially in this world, in France, like if you did something once that was great, people like see you on the street and they they you know make way for you like you could have done something 40 years ago and you're revered you know like Jerry Lewis or something like that um here it's like so uh you know you'll be in a in a meeting with an a and our guy and he's like checking his phone and you know checking his screen and you know he's looking and he's looking at you and so uh when was your last hit it's like oh well um last year i had

a hit with Z. It was number one EDM or something. Oh, no, I mean, but I mean, what did you do like this year? You're like, I'm in the Songwriter Hall of Fame, slap, slap. I mean, I feel like you should just wear your, like, wear a metal around. There's just like,

a name tag. Like, when I met Buzz Ezrin, sorry, he was wearing the congressional medal, a presidential medal of honor like around the net. He's the second person to walk on the moon. He should. I I feel like it's offensive for him not to in a way.

Like at least a tattoo on his neck or something. He was fantastic. Something he for sure can't hide. Anyway, I mean, we're kind of talking about a lot of things all over the place. But, you know, what made me was this feeling like I don't want to go back to the ghetto to Liberty City where I grew up. And, you know, it was a lot of suffering because poverty sucks, man. It's ugly. It's dangerous.

It doesn't taste good. It's boring, terribly boring, and it's frustrating. And, I mean, it's terrible things. It's hot. Air conditioner's not working. The car is broken with no gas. So now you've got to walk seven blocks to where you can get a bus, three buses to wherever you want to go.

Right. You know, and it takes hours and hours to get there. Or standing in line with my grandfather trying to get the Cuban refugee food. In the heat, my grandfather had lung cancer, and he's there still smoking, and we're standing in lines for hours just to get a box full of, you know, dried egg yolks and, you know, rice and flour and spam and cheese. And my aunts were like master chefs of how to make that stuff taste like food. And so, you know, it's like, I don't want to go back there. When did you realize that you probably aren't going back there? Was there ever a point?

No, man, anybody can go upside down. Anybody can go upside down. I mean, friends of mine have gone upside down. They lived too large, and they started keeping their studios and their engineers and everybody going, and they went on credit lines, and they took mortgages against their house and this and that, and then, you know what, they didn't have another hit. So anybody can have anybody, you know, at one point in Miami, I had 12 employees, four studios.

We were like, you know, we live, you know, four blocks from Ricky Martin, and it was convenient for him, and we became a Ricky Martin factory. We once had seven studios going with the same song, she bangs, you know, because I wasn't even the producer. And they kind of dumped it on me to straighten out. because, you know, Walter A. M. Draco had enough of that song. And so, you know, it took me like two weeks to untangle it. They gave me 250 takes of, like, tracks of all different things. Five different sets of background vocals, done with different people, you know, until... So how did you...

When are you... How do you write in that environment? I mean, it's one thing where you start in a room that's all white. walls and you're with your mom and she's playing guitar and you learn how to play piano and you write a song. That's something everyone can relate to. How are you able to actually function creatively when you start having the pressure of having whatever seven studios running at once? Are you at all able to actually write a lyric that... Well, I did write the lyric, but that was when I wrote the lyric. And then I had to get Ricky in to produce the vocal. And then I had to try to get

Draco to come in and help with the background vocals. And at that time, he was, you know, thinking about his own music. He was, like, over it, you know. And, you know, so it was a difficult time. But I made it happen. And they also only gave me a month to make the record. And this is all the way in... It was like he comes off the road.

His voice is shot. And I even got in trouble with, you know, the head of Sony. of Columbia Records. No, it was, I think it was epic. No, Columbia Records. I got in trouble with Donnie Einer because in an interview, I said, you know, I don't think they're giving us enough time

to make this record to just cranking it out. And, you know, it feels like they just want to cash in. And he got so pissed, I got like on the blacklist of Sony and never got hired there again. Had you done, was that after Living LaVita Loka? Or was that?

After? But Donnie was also the one that called me and said, you know what? We love this song, but do you think you could write it in English? And I said, it is in English. What? I said, every word is in English except for... Liva Loka.

Vita, La, and loca, whatever. Vita, living... It's just three words are in Spanish. Everything else is in English. Even her skin's the color of Moka. Moka's not a Spanish word. Right. You know, it's like, really?

Oh, well, you know, and so then when they released the song, it said, Live in Love You the Look, and then big letters underneath it said, Living the Crazy Life. He said, no one will ever understand that. I said, they will. Because have you ever gone to Pollo Loco? Right. Because when I went to write the lyrics, I said, you know, they wanted a spanglish song.

I said, but what words are like easy to remember? So I managed it. Where were you when you wrote that? At one of my studios of the four studios, you know, with Draco. And then we were so lucky to have Randy Cantor there. He was our arranger. And he came up with this kind of like rat pack. So, yeah, he came up with this rat pack thing.

Feel because Sinatra had died that year. So we're listening to Sinatra like over and over again everywhere we went. And we had this vision of Ricky being the Latin... Very Sinatra. More like Elvis rat pack

kind of like Vegas, you know, kind of thing, right? And when they went to make the video, they copied the black Elvis outfit and he did the Elvis hips and moves and it all worked. I mean, incredibly.

I feel like you go through phases looking at the hits where some of them are you have like these moments of really emotional songs you know joan jed i hate myself for loving you and and you have michael bolton how can we be lovers and it's these really emotional concepts and then you go into a phase of doing living levitaloka she bangs thong song song is that intentional or are there points in your life free. Like, what's cool right now are songs that are dramatically emotional and they say something? Or is it just how you felt during the day and that artist? I never have been a person like, oh, what's cool right now?

Because that, to me, is deadly. I just, you know, I'm in life. I'm listening to stuff. So obviously, I'm influenced by, you know, what I'm listening to and inspired by new things I hear. but when you're in the weeds you're in a kind of in my world it's like a creative circle it's a sacred place

you go in there and you start you open the container and you start pulling stuff out and you keep chasing it and chasing it till you can't anymore till you have to abandon the song and then for better for worse that's what you turn in

that's how I look at it because there's always a better line so many times I listen to something on the radio, it's like, it should have been and not but. Why did I put butt in that song? What? It has nothing to do with the previous line. You know, and so sometimes

when you can get myopic and then many years later go back and say, that was crap. Right. But the point is this is that I'm very much about I can really bear down on the moment, the vertical moment,

with you here. I'm here with you. I'm not somewhere else in my mind. And I could sit here for three days if you want me to, except that you know, have something else to do. Yeah. We can have our own little romance.

The stories you have about, I mean, being with these artists in their prime that are all over the Hall of Fame, you know, they shares in Bon Jovi's and Kiss and Michael Bold and the Nero Smith. I mean, it's not, it's that thing where you're saying the revival. That sounds more like the Wax Museum. Maybe.

I mean, obviously, you know. You know, I've been very, very lucky in my career. First of all, to be born to a mother that was a songwriter. So she was writing songs when I was just at her feet crawling. And then when I got old enough to speak, I would start saying, you know, singing along and telling her different lyrics to write, you know. And so... Was she asking you?

No. It was like, get away, get away. Did she have, like, her math? Did she have her, like, the way we used to talk about math, was she, as a writer, did she have her philosophy? Well, she wrote in a Cuban bolero style. So she was into writing, like, you know, how Diane Warren writes these incredible ballots.

And in fact, my mom, and, you know, that's why I'm so close to Diana. She reminds me so much of my mother. So my mom was a bit, you know, like Diane, just obsessed and kind of ADD and all she cared about was writing songs. And wherever she went, she had tapes and lyrics in her purse and she was hoping she'd run into a singer at a beauty parlor and she'd lay the song on them. And she was, you know, relentless. There was a real hustle because she wanted to give us a better life. She wasn't able to, but I was able to fulfill her dream in a way. So in a way, when you have a mother like that, it's kind of like you are, you know, it's like, it's like she wasn't a mom.

She was like we were partners, you know, in a way, kind of in life. And so the thing is, is that aside from that, I had amazing mentors. Like a very kind lady in Ecuador that when I went for the summer taught me how to play piano on this big old brown, upright piano. I mean, like, I knew how to pick and peck, but she actually gave me piano lessons. And I, you know, she passed away two years ago. In 91, I always stayed friends with her. She was a call at Tura soprano when I was in high school. Her name was Marie Louise Leeds.

And she had retired, and her husband was an art collector. And so I'd go in. And so all the high school kids, they came from. from rich families. They went to her for voice lessons, the kids in the choir. So they were always talking about it. So I went and I knocked on her door. And I said, well, I'd like to take voice lessons.

The only thing is I don't have any money. And she said, okay, well, I'll teach you for free. But you have to promise me not to smoke, not to drink, and not to take any drugs. So I made the promise. And that's probably why I'm still alive. So you stayed sober through all those 80s and 90s years? Well, yes, yes. I mean, I'm not surprised because...

I'll drink a glass of wine or a mojito or something somewhere, but I don't like being tipsy. You know, I like being in control all the time and, like, thinking my thoughts. Like, my thoughts are more interesting when I'm sober than when I'm tipsy, you know, inside my own head. Like, I wrote with Bon Jovi last year, and he was telling me a story about this guy

who is basically like OD'd on his couch when he was 18 in Malibu, and he's got his house, and he's got some of these other neighboring bands that were living in the houses kind of nearby where everyone was doing drugs, and he was like, he didn't want to do drugs, which is why he and his wife moved back east, because he was like, these guys are not,

they're living in different life that he wanted to lead. But it seemed like that era... Yeah, it was the early 90s. There's so much money in... There was so much money then in the music and... history, I assume, right? Yes. If you're successful, yes. Yeah.

But the thing is, you know, having amazing mentors, you know, having this lady teach me how to sing. And she taught, you know, she would teach me, they weren't like hour lessons. These things were like four hours long. Life lessons, history, the whole World War II, what she and her family went through. everything. I mean, it was just like the lights. The sun would go down. We'd forget to even turn on the lights. We'd be sitting in the dark. You know, I was mesmerized with her stories. And then after that, my next mentor was Sandra Seekat, an incredible acting coach that she still is coaching Andrew Garfield for the last 10 years. Jessica Lang, Harvey Keitel. And I joined her class. Were you acting? Or are you joined her? class as like a i just wanted to be a see how she worked with with people and that taught me how to work with artists just being a fly on the wall and i did scenes with jessica lang and um you know in our class

was jessica uh Christopher reeves um oh my god Michelle fifer Francis Fisher is this before they had done stuff or this wall they were they were they were they were They were working. I mean, some people were more further along than others. Jessica had just done King Kong. Wow. And she had just done postman, and she was getting ready to do Francis and country and all these amazing, you know, Oscar-nominated parts. When is this?

This was in 1979. When I was leaving my group, I decided, you know, I just started going to this classes. Lawrence Bender was there, who's a college student. He's the producer of Pulp Fiction and Inconvenient Truth and all this. He was there. In fact, I'm going to see him this afternoon. I mean, the acting culture teaches you how to have constructive criticism rather than just putting stuff down. It allows you to communicate with the people around you because you have to be in a scene together

and you have to interact in a different way than when you're in a session and someone's like, I don't like that. that's the end of the thought process. But if you're in a session and somebody says, I think you can beat that, or what if you were to take this and move it over here? Well, no, it's not like that. You don't feel like that? Not the way she was teaching.

Well, how did she teach? Well, she came from Lee Strasberg's actors in Axter's studio, and she parted ways with Lee because he kind of was very hard on people, kind of berated them to get them to cry, let's say. And they said, okay, now do the scene. and then of course they'd be you know split open but her approach is as a kind of much more kind of zen you know the being of acting you know and it's not acting as being

and kind of like you find you find the character inside yourself and you start to you know find your way into it and so then then once you're with your creative imagination you fill up the gap and then all of a sudden you're crying, you're screaming, you're like picking up a knife or a gun or whatever because you aren't acting.

One of her top well most famous actors is Mickey Rourke who I went to high school with. Oh cool. So he was just kind of leaving her world when I was coming in but we saw each other a lot through Sandra.

Does that acting allow you to be, I mean, in all the different artists that you've worked with, it's a lot of acting. I mean, singers are actors. You know, you're more of a screenwriter. Well, that's the whole thing. When I work with singers, most of the time they're just like unfurling the lyrics, you know, and putting them up on the music stand and they're reading as they're singing. I mean, no one's going to feel anything unless you're feeling something when you sing it. Because our voices, it isn't just like sing pretty and this is how the song goes. Or sing scratchy because it sounds like that would sound good to sing scratchy on this one word.

It's like the people who are great, like Adele, she's living and breathing those vocals. She's feeling the words that she's singing. And you feel that because it's communicating like a baby girl. crying, you know, or a bird call or a dog cowling. You know, those are real sounds. And somebody who's singing and feeling what they're singing, immersing themselves into it, creating in that four minutes the world of the point of creation of the writers and then their interpretation, it's art.

And it's the art of singing. Nobody seems to understand that. Not in the world of Pro Tools. I was like, oh, it's cool. like, you know, just sing this and then they're like, even the wrong notes are like pitched into shape. Sure. I mean, I've been doing all those tricks myself, you know.

And we had like what we called slow tools, you know, one of the first like satellite studios. And in fact, we made recording history by being the first, Live in La Vida Loca was the first production and song to be completely done in the box. reach number one. Wow. And that was in the report

in the Wall Street Journal. So this was in Miami and it was 19 breakdowns a day. And I was, I kind of cut my teeth with an artist named Billy Myers. I think she had a nervous breakdown from it. Yeah, she couldn't handle it.

She couldn't handle all those breakdowns and stops and starts and oh my God. Yeah, and you're in the middle of cutting a vocal all of a sudden, you're like, hold on. Yeah, it's not working. Like, what the, you know? And computers didn't turn on this way that they do now. Then it's like you have to review it. Then the engineers like on the phone with

Pro Tools giving them the note and then they're sending us a revision and then we're like you know, guinea pigs. But I was determined on that and I had brought a Nashville producer Mark Bright who ended up producing Carrie Underwood and you know has a fantastic career producing her. And he came down and for some song camp or something that I was doing and I said, listen, this is the future. Nashville has got to all get on board with Pro Tools. And he said, that'll never happen

in Nashville. Within one year, all those machines were out in the hallway. Yeah. And everyone was like reading that Pro Tools manual. Like crazy. And he then later said, you were right. But, you know, to him, to him it was like, you know, just that's not in Nashville. We're real, you know. Late 90s, early 2000s, when people are really in denial about what MP3s are, what streaming is, what digital music is, and there's either the past. How did you evolve from, when you're talking about five decades, you're talking about 70s where people are selling vinyl through tapes, CDs, MP3s, what,

like how do you view the way people record and how we listen to music? Well, I'm in it, so I'm doing it, and I think it's all good. I mean, back in the early days, you know, we didn't have these kind of high-deaf processing things. So I was a little bit still going to the studio, cutting tracks,

and then transferring them to Pro Tools and editing them there, thinking that it was still going to sound better than if we had just recorded them straight to Pro Tools. So I went to Criteria and I did the test with the drum set. I mean, we spent a lot of money on this test. I think it was Kenny Aronoff and we said, okay, we had... We played through the song, we had the tapes going,

we had the Pro Tools recording at the same time. I said, okay, let's all just sit back. A and B this shit. No one could tell the difference. No one. Not even Kenny. No, no one could tell. the difference.

The only thing I miss is like that fabulous reverb. We're not getting that. I don't care how many plug-ins you do. That fantastic reverb that

we could get at the record plan or media sound that these were rooms and you know where the reverb, with the mics in there and all that. We're not getting that. And I think the vocals are less for it. They just do not sound as good. Interesting.

Your last big pop number one is the Katie Perry waking up in Vegas, right? Yes. I know we talked about Zed and whatnot, but every time you have one of these hits, does it feel different at this point than the Kiss hit, which is your first? No, it's always exciting. Are there moments in it where you, you know, I guess your first hit, I can imagine that it's sort of something where you kind of feel like they'll continue to come. And then, I don't know if that's true. I guess we already kind of talked about how you don't feel like, that you feel like you have to keep pushing and pushing because you're Hungarian and that's what we do.

But when you have these recent hits, do you look back and recognize how many hits you've had? or is it individual? How do you feel about having hits now? I'd love to. Will you help me? Yeah, exactly. Next trip to Nashville. We're into it.

You know, I just don't think about the past. Yeah. But, I mean, sometimes if somebody pisses me off, you know, excuse me. Right. Don't you know who I was? Yeah. Yeah. I mean, I hear, you know, I guess that comes with

being old and wisdom and I hear people say things and I sometimes I just stay silent because you know I've lived so long I've seen every you know seen them coming going Diane and I used to Diane Warren and I used to joke

that you know there's this old Buddhist saying that maybe it's not Buddhist but it's like if you sit by the side of the river long enough you'll see the bodies of your enemies float by and we we said we sat by the river long enough to see Michael Bolton's hair float by.

That guy's great. He sat at a, I was at a wedding. He sat next to me at a wedding recently. He's hilarious. Yeah, he's hilarious. You know, I love his sense of humor. And we, you know, we had great fun cutting the songs that we did. All right, I'm going to list five things. Just say what comes out the top of your head. And I'm just curious. Kiss. Well, behind it all was Hungarian, right? Yeah. Gene.

That drive, man, you know, he's amazing. And Paul was the visionary and Gene was the driver. I mean, still is. I mean, I just admire those guys so much. Because they are another team that they didn't take drugs. They didn't believe in the image that they were creating. Those were characters. And the songs were written with very strict rules.

You know, they could never be victims. They had to be winners. They had to conquer. And to this day, you listen to the songs, and people are uplifted by them. And both of them are fantastic writers. And so I co-wrote the songs I did with Kiss, not with Gene, but with Paul. So Paul would kind of regroup with his group of writers like Jean Bouvoir and, you know, others. And then Gene had his own troop.

And then they'd come and throw, you know, the best song, may the best songs win. And it worked for them like that. And I think they co-wrote a lot of stuff together too. Yeah. But fantastic professionals. And, you know, they went on tour with Aerosmith. And they're the ones that made money. Why?

Aerosmith, every guy in the band had to have his own car. They were all smushed into one little van. You know, they did their own makeup. They, like, their amount of people that were kind of, their roadies and all that was like a fourth of what everybody else's was. They worked it out. And they made money. And they continued to.

And their relentless packaging. Packaging. That's really interesting. It's fantastic. So admire them. My next one was Diane Warren. Well, last night I was at the ASCAP Pop Awards, 2017, for those of you in the future, wondering.

And she was given the Founders Award. And, you know, they did this kind of retrospective of her music, which, you know, she has timeless songs. I'll never forget when she called me up one day. And she said, you know, I came up with this time. Do you think it's stupid? And I said, what is it? She said, unbreak my heart.

Doesn't that sound kind of like unbreak, you know, like kind of like two country or something? Said, no, no, that sounds cool. Do it. Write that song. And she did. And she like conquered with it. It was like with Tony Braxton. And then I, you know, her songs are very personal.

Like her song, because you love me, that Celine Dion recorded was all about her dad, who she loved very much. She was like the single only person in her life that believed in her. And I got to meet him. And like way in the beginning and then he passed away. And she really suffered, you know, when he was gone. And so she's a very special person. I mean, she's a genius, a musical and lyric genius unto herself.

She is driven. Yeah, she is. And she's relentless. You know, she, you know, she spent so much time on the phone making sure her song stayed on the record she'd you know do crazy things you know gosh i have a great story we were both after the theme song for a share movie called burlesque and so i wrote a song and i thought it was fantastic and you know the director didn't like it so i don't think share even got to hear it she wrote another song and i thought it was fantastic and you know the director didn't like it so i don't think share even got to hear it she

wrote another song and the director didn't like it. And so she didn't give up. And she had a CD of it with her at all times and she saw it at store on Melrose Lori Rodkin

who's Cher's best friend. And Lori was looking at leather jacket, you know, and kind of walked away and Diane rushed up and said, do you like that jacket? Oh yeah, I love it, but it's too expensive. I could never buy it. She says, it's yours. And Diane is notoriously cheap. And for Diane to actually buy something, she bought this $4,000 jacket like on the spot. He said, and she said, oh my God,

you're so nice. Why are you doing this? I said, well, I want you to play this for a share in your car. Make her get in your car and play it in the car. And she did and shared, loved the song. And she was really pissed off that they didn't play it for her. and then the director dug in his heels and said, you know, I'm not making a movie with that song in it. I don't like it. And Cher said, well, then I'm not going to be in your movie if I don't sing that song.

Unreal. And she got in, and I gave up on my dream. She didn't give up on hers. And that taught me so much. So last night in the program, I took out an ad to her. It said hats off, a low bow to you, a low, deep bow to.

you, Diane, you're always a threat. That's why I love you. I love it. Wow. You got to do Bon Jovi. When I met Bon Jovi, they had a very dynamic, legendary manager, Doc McGee. And so somehow, I got a chance to go and write with them. They had had kind of a not-so success. second record 7,800 Fahrenheit or something like that. And I went out to New Jersey and rent a car because I was living in New York and we

went to the Richie's parents' house which is where they were co-riding in the basement. And I got their little house and it was kind of like at the end of this little cul-de-sac and behind them was marshes. And at the very, like far away

were the refineries. The oil refineries like it was Emerald City over there. Can you imagine how toxic this place is? Yeah. You know? And so I walk in, I make a left. I look to my left as a room, and that's Richie's room. Poster

of Kiss, Farrah Fawcett in the red bathing suit, you know, typical high school boys' room. And then you're right there in the kitchen and John was on the wall phone, like this avocado green wall phone. And he's kind of

like, you know, kind of waves to me. And Richie, who's very, very, very nice and, you know, you know, very accommodating. Well, why don't you just come downstairs? And, you know, I'll set you up, you know, for our session. And so, you know, I went down there and it was the laundry room with like, you know, it was literally the laundry room with some transoms, like muddy transoms around the side. And then for my, an old for Micah table that must have been retired from the kitchen and this little keyboard that was kind of teetering on it, some amps buzzing. And finally, finally, John came down. He was obviously doing big business on the phone, whatever. And I had a title in my back pocket. So we started fooling around, you know, writing this and

that and the other thing. And I said, okay, I guess I better pull out the title. The title was you give love a bad name. Because I love, you know, I haven't talked about my mentor, Bob Crew, but he taught me about writing songs that have a lot of inter rhyming and irony. And once you have a title that tells it all, the song just spills out of it, like a magic spell. And so John instantly responded, and he had had a song on his previous record called Shot Through the Heart. So he doesn't give up on his good material either.

And so, you know, he just instantly said, shot through the heart and you're to bling. name. Darling, you give love a bad name and the rest was history. It's so crazy. In a, in a laundry room. Yeah. And oh, by 4 o'clock or after like 3.30, school was out. There were already girls circling the house.

You could see their ankles, you know. Yeah. I mean, because we were kind of loud down there. And I said, who's out there? He said, oh, that's our fans. Wow. I mean, now you'd have like an army of, I mean, because of social media, you'd have everyone from every state around the area trying to get into that house. It would have been unsafe for you guys to have.

Well, later on when they were successful, then John bought a house and it was in like Red Bank or something. And to get out of the, it was at the end of the thing that was a compound with a gate. And he'd have to be on the floor, you know, and I'd be like driving, you know. and then they still chased my car and I was trying to get through lights and kind of, you know, go all Princess Diana on it to get away. You know, but I mean, they were relentless.

And Dorothea was like not happy about it. Oh, I know. Oh, my God. It's classic, yeah. You know, but he's, when we're out, people still are coming up, he's so gracious he'll take a picture with anybody that comes up,

signs any autograph, never treats them bad because he says, you know what, they're my boss. Right. It's amazing. Alice Cooper. When I met Alice Cooper, he really wasn't, you know, happening, you know, career-wise. I think his previous record had sold something like 75,000 records. And I was brought in. And, you know, I said, okay.

I'll do this because at that time I was trying to become a producer. So if people wanted my songs, then they'd have to take me as a producer. Nobody really wanted me as a producer because I'm a gay man. And yeah, co-write is like equality, but the producer is the guy with the biggest dick. The boss. And a lot of bands and stuff like that who are very macho and all that. they don't want a gay guy dick slapping him in the studio.

And I really felt that was the glass ceiling. So, of course, they gave me the weirdos, like Alice Cooper, meatloaf, Joan Jett, chair, you know, because, you know, they were from, you know, they didn't care about that kind of stuff. But I did have a hard time, like, let's say, me producing Van Halen or, you know, all those kind of corporate rock dudes that were, you know, happening. It was like, I didn't fit in. because, you know, whatever, it was like a psychological thing. I really felt that ceiling.

So I kind of arm twisted to them and said, okay, well, if you want me, then I have to write the whole album with Alice. And then, you know, he came and worked with me. And he explained that Alice Cooper is a character. He's really Vincent Fournier. And Alice Cooper is a character he invented. like, you know, Ziggy Stardust or something like that. And so every song had very strict rules. And I was used to that from Kiss.

In his case, he does very terrible things, but he always has to pay the price. He always has to be punished for what he does. If he cuts off a baby's dollhead on stage, then he has to go in the guillotine and lose his head. And so everything was like that. They're all morality plays. his songs because he was the son of a preacher man.

And he himself is a very spiritual, you know, person, the sweetest person ever. But he understood, you know, that, you know, he found a character that represented our dark side. Wow. And that's why he's successful because it's very clear about his archetype. And I think even if you... And people who didn't, who don't get it, they're not paying attention. They're just, they're just viewing. Alice Cooper as like what that

from from a picture. They're not really paying attention to that. But when I worked with sorry, when I worked with Sandra Seekat, when she was, we were studying acting, she was explaining that there are archetypes in

theatrical works and you know, and they come from Greek and Roman mythology. Venus is you know, goddess of love, all this. There's Venus. There's Juliet. There's, you know, know, Jean Harlow, there's Marilyn Monroe, and there's, you know, Gwen Stefani.

She's, her archetype is clear. We don't have to guess. We know what to expect from that archetype, that sweetness, the femininity, the, you know, all of that. You know, Alice Cooper, you know, there was, he looks like the devil. So there was always pan. He was always the, you know, the kind of devilish person that was talking, yeah, do the bad thing, you know, in literature and even the look of it. So his archetype was so clear, we didn't have to do, there's no guessing, because I think human beings are hardwired, you know, to recognize these archetypes. So even if you're not part of Western culture, you know, they're hardwired to recognize it as well. Like we're hardwired to, if we see a snake and the side of our vision, we should.

see something's, you know, squirling, you know, down, we jump away. You don't have to like know about snakes to know that that's not a good thing. Fly. Right. Get away. And so in the same way for our own survival, we've been able to recognize who's the leader, who's the healer, who's the comforter, who's the warrior, who should we follow into the battle. And so, you know, most of the star,

the ones that are really big have very distinct archetypes. Look at, you know, Medusa, snakes on head. Right. Who's that in our current archetypes? And we're sort of, it's kind of like Lady Gaga. Exactly. She actually literally has snakes coming out of her head. We're very clear on her, and we love her because her wickedness, you know, is, we're

drawn to it. And the great thing about her is that she embraces all the weirdos, all her little monsters. She has the biggest heart. That's the thing with Alice and her, though, is that they both are, they do it so authentically. And that's really hard. It's hard to be, those are both really strong characters. But it's hard to make that not cheesy. It's hard to make that.

The songs have to be phenomenal to pull that off. They have to be structurally amazing. and they have to be lyrically accurate. Well, to do anything that has value that stands the test of time. Right. But even if somebody is weak, if their archetype is clear, they can still make it. Because you hear a lot of very thin songs. And then you go, well, who did that?

Oh, that's so-and-so. Yeah. You know, that, you know, featuring so-and-so. And it's like, really? And then it all starts to make sense. Yeah, it's that idea of, I always try to explain. the young artist that, you know, pop stars are superheroes.

It's that archetype. You have to view it as a superhero. And when you see that stage production around that pop star, it's because they've become a superhero or a comic book character or something that's really strong that is not human.

You can't just be a regular human. I mean, there are some, but you can't really be just a regular human in the middle, headlining staple center. It doesn't stand the, test of time. Right. And so, you know, when we talk about Alice Cooper, he's the perfect example of an archetype.

And we wrote these songs, you know, including poison. And I got everybody I was working with, do me a favor and be on the record, Joan Jett, Arrowsmith, Bon Jovi. And that gave him some kind of new fresh blood credibility. Yeah. But, you know, unfortunately, we had an A&R guy that wanted to be a co-writer. And, in fact, Sony had very strict rules that A&R people could not co-write with the artist. And he wanted to be a co-writer. And I said, no, we need you to be objective and tell us if these songs suck.

But he resented me. So when it came time to do the next record, okay, he went from 85,000 records. Oh, no, no, it was worse than that. It was like 7,000 record. I mean, to 4.5 million with me. Then when he came to make the next record, that guy who was buddy buddies with, you know, whatever, you know, management, whatever, talked them into like, we don't need Desmond Chow.

So he fired, I didn't get rehired. And he wrote all the songs with Peter Collins, this kind of, you know, rock producer. and Alice. And Alice is such a passive, wonderful person. He didn't, you know, think anything. He didn't challenge it because his mind was on his golf game or whatever. And he sold

like 85,000 records from 4.5 million. And I had a vision for his next record. I was going to go all 9-inch nails with it. I was going to go electronic. I was going to go into the future. I was already seeing it. And they just made a

bad version of our record with really weak songs and some castaways that we had written for that weren't good enough to be on trash. Do you know when you write a hit song? Do you know when it's a hit? I know when something feels so right, you know, that it's just like, wow, how could it not be successful? But Bob crew, my mentor, he was the one that co-wrote all the songs for the four seasons. And if anyone has seen Jersey Boys, he was the ultra, you know, kind of gay, pretty. producer and he was my mentor. After I left John Landau, I worked with him as a solo artist for two years. And we wrote 38 songs together. None of them really took off, but I could not have written all the songs I wrote without his tutelage.

You know, the power of the title being all, everything. Because before I just play some chords and start mumbling and hoping that my mumbling, would sound like something and then I'd build on that something. No, we wouldn't even start a song unless we had a terrific title. Then everything was spilt out. Not even just a concept, like the title. The title.

The title. And I still do dumb things like start a song with somebody that has a great start and we're going towards nothing. And then all of a sudden we're there, there's no chorus. What is this all adding up to?

Versus like waking up in Vegas, you know exactly what this, like you know when you're going into it, what kind of party song you're going into. Or like, you know, it gives, it's pretty clear. Yeah. So, so Bob,

Bob crew was like so important to my development. So like, you know, I had all these mentors along the way that I really depended on. And, you know, I still draw on their knowledge. When I'm mentoring, I always give them credit.

And I share, I share that when I do my master classes and stuff like that. I like that. There are a lot of people that don't be giving credit where credits do throughout this whole conversation. You've said first names and last names. You've given me tidbits about every single person. And everybody around you must feel that kind of appreciation that you have for them.

And that says a lot because I think a lot of people feel like they deserve a certain amount a success and not that they've earned it and that they that they people feel like they did it on their own it's i think it's important that you've you've shown this whole time it's inspiring to hear other people who feel like they need to they it took a village for you to be this successful that it took your mom going through the struggle and then it took your mentors and it took your bandmates in 1970s in New York and it took the different managers you've had and different co-writers along the way for it to be

you know for you to be Desmond Child it's a it's not just it's it's the archetype of a songwriter you've kind of become that for songwriters well I never was somebody that was rested on my laurels you know that had a hit and thought well I'm cool you know I just like keep working

like Diane, she doesn't care about any of her past hits. She only cares about the song she's writing at that moment. And that's how you have to be. Do you still feel that now? Do you still feel like you have, that it matters what your next song is right now? Yeah, I care. I go in there 100% and figure out the Rubik's. My problem is that I'm usually writing with people that aren't better than me.

So, you know, they always say your song is as strong as its weakest writer. And so, you know, I'm always in the position with a new artist brand new, 22 years old. I'm teaching them how to write songs. Yeah, you're spending their time. So I'm not getting the feedback that I would get from a contemporary that's really throwing it at me, you know, so I can be challenged. I love writing with Antonina, Armato, and Tim James of Rock Mafia because they, they, you know, they're excellent. every time Antonina writes a lyric it's like wow you know it's like she blows my mind

and Tim he gets in front of the microphone to sing the top line it's like wow it's already what he sings we're editing together that's the that's what the artist learns how to sing I mean he gets it right first time like that those are geniuses and I'm like it makes me be better and it's like guys I don't feel like I've contributed to this song

no no we couldn't have ridden you know we like you being here because otherwise we'd fight you know because i'd like side with one or the other you know and so um no but i really i said by the end i do make sure that i'm i earned my keep but that's what i love that's challenging for me and that's where i can grow and continue to be in contemporary music because those guys are living breathing this the music of the streets you know and pop and all that, like big time. The sounds, the shit's dialed up and it's like, wow, sounds amazing. So, you know, I struggle with that, you know, to be able to, you know, and also living in

Nashville for pop is a difficult thing, you know. So, but more and more people are moving there and all that because they did the math that, you know, if they want to have families and kids and all, it's better to be there and then take their trips here. There are a lot of pop writers there now. Claude lives there now, Cloud Kelly. Yeah, I heard that. There's a lot of big writers, you know, in the pop world in Nashville.

But one of the things that Bob Crew always said, a hit is, you know, like, it's like what a, like the Bethlehem star. It was probably not one star. It's probably a bunch of things that just kind of lined up. And all of a sudden there was like, you know, come all you faithful. Right. it's the song of course and the marriage of the song with the archetype and the talents of the interpreter together they make a strong like combination but the management has to be right a label has to be right the promoter has to have just the right drugs to give to the you know program director at the radio

and the right strippers to call. I mean, all of that has to line up for something to be a hit. I mean, you know, that's why I'm like so odd when I see Max Martin just knocking them out of the park, went out of, one app, every year after the other. And last night, he wasn't able to, he was the songwriter of the year again. And it was so cute because he went on the screen and he said, well, I'm so sorry I could not be there. You know, well, I'll see you next year. you know and that was a big laugh

it's like you're going to win again next year give us a chance you know and you know but he's got it together and he's a genius so his talent overrides sometimes even the talent

of the person who's singing it you know he's like the producer's more important than the artist in a way these records sound amazing but it goes back to what you said a little bit ago about that the charm of a writer

I mean, nobody's nicer than Max to so many people and that's what, you know, when you're nice to people, people want to work with you and if you're fun to hang out with, people want to spend time with you. And then you'll write some songs

because you're having a good time and assuming you understand composition and all that, put that away for a second because of course you know that if you're a professional writer. And then if you're a good hang, it's like it's just keep hanging out and keep writing songs

and they sort of flush each other out, but not only is he a musical genius, but he's also just an exceptionally nice human. Somebody told me a beautiful story about Quincy Jones because they were a kind of a fly on the wall when they were making thriller. It was somebody that was in the room a lot. And he said that Michael would do a take

and just like, you know, give it his all. and then Quincy would say, oh my God, that was the best thing I'd ever heard. That's incredible. Come in here. She says, what? No, no, no. You got to come in here.

I've got to give you a hug for how you just sang that. You know, so he would come in and get his hug, you know. And that was like such a, he understood the vulnerabilities and insecurities of that artist so well that he, you know, just showered him with love. showered him with love and compliments and I hear that he's that way with everybody it's like you know somebody does a take that's like goose bumpy you know and we usually want eight takes of goose bumpy so we can comp the best of the best of the best and he'll make that person go in there and he'll just like go crazy on them and you know I love that story you know I don't think I'm that nice you know because I'm a little bit more Hungarian which is you'll vase you must work You must bark hard, you know. Yeah. And, you know. You sound like my grandpa, for sure.

And so I'm a bit more of a slave driver. And I don't know, sometimes I've heard the second people that people have said, I'm difficult to work with. It's like, what? You know, I don't think I'm difficult. I think I'm funny, you know, but I also, you know, when it's time to, when we're in the final thing, It's like, yeah, come on, let's do this. Stay focused.

No, you can't go and make a phone call. Yeah, it's work. Yeah, I remember once Ricky Martin just like, you know, kept going out to make phone calls. And I took the phone away from him and locked him in the thing. And then he said, well, I have to go to the bathroom. I said, piss right there. Piss right there.

So he took all the Evian bottles and started pissing in there. So then one of the engineers in the studio to be a goof, he got some beer and shit and put it. and started you know to freak us out but I mean but that's because of a story

that Bob Ezarin told me with Alice Cooper when they were making Welcome to My Nightmare or something he Alice was so like on drugs and shit he chained him to a chair

and made him sing this like one of the biggest songs welcomed him with chained in chains shackled to a chair and then once they took taped him to a wall with duct tape

and put the mic up and made him sing like that. That feels like such a different generation. I'm sure those artists still exist, but maybe not. I mean, that doesn't... Hey, those records are still standing the test of time. Yeah, maybe that's why. That's why, because it was like

they fucking were feeling it, whatever. And remember going back to when we talked about singing being like acting, well, yeah, kind of, you know, that a lot of what we know is popular music came out of opera. So they were singing this very complicated music but they also, the best, most successful ones

were known to be great actors. And there is that to it, but I think that when you're the real deal, like Amy Winehouse or Frank Sinatra, you know, it's like, it's not that hard because you're a true genius and you have the taste

and you have the skill to knock it out of the park in like one take. You know, and that, you know, unfortunately, one of the biggest problems it goes back to our education in this country.

Starting two generations ago, the arts were yanked out from under us. And then the only people that got lessons were the people that could afford to get private or they they taught themselves somehow. So this terrible focus on reading, writing, and arithmetic is to the detriment of our creativity. No doubt.

So, you know, I see my sons on video games and all that, all that creativity. It's not theirs. They're just riding the wave of somebody else's creativity. Do you make them play instruments? I don't make them, no. We gave lessons. they've had lessons since they were like two years old. Right.

You know, and so we set up their rec room with the drum set and all that, and now they're jamming. And I'm hearing them downstairs and they're playing, da, da, da, da, da, da, da, da, da, da. You give love a bad name. And it's like, I say nothing. I say nothing. Dude, that's like, that's got to be the most proud moment for a dad to hear your kids

learning your songs, you know? Yeah, that I think they are proud of me. even though they do nothing but criticize me. Don't say that. You're laughing too loud. Why are you wearing that? Those are, you know, those are, you know, that's not what, that's not cool, you know, like, constantly, like, criticizing me.

I'm feeling like bullied. You got bullied by your own kids. Yeah. That's awesome. Well, I mean, I can't think you enough. I feel like I, now I want to spend the next six hours talking about more of these people and more of your journey because it's so it's inspiring to know that the journey doesn't end. A lot of people stop at some point, but I like hearing that you're still pushing to get another

hit and that you're still working across the industry and we didn't even get into the other things. And the fact that you're doing a lot of, you know, you seem to be involved in all these activist things, whether it's for songwriters or whether it's for Hungary or whether it's for gay rights or whether it's for, you still are, you are that archetype. I mean, I'm, I'm considered a topliner. I play instruments. I write songs, but I'm considered a topliner. And it's like, it's really just following in your footsteps. There aren't a lot of people, because before you, it was there weren't that many people that I know were jumping around from band to band artist to artists there really aren't that many people who were who were leading away the way you

are and it's like it's it's really cool to sit down and get to know you I know that you know that you know we've been in the same probably vicinity a million times but uh could ask you favor yeah ask you a favor sure don't ever say you're a top liner it's the worst right it's like But people consider you Like don't you think people say like Even though you play instruments And you could write a song alone

And and the lyric and melody is the song It's become a terrible Division And only ever say You're a songwriter Deal And may those That do the drums

You know They can call themselves the track guy And we're the songwriter And we're the songwriter Let's shake on it Okay. The deal. All right.

Thank you so much. Okay. Thanks for listening to this episode of And The Writer Is. If you want to hear music from this songwriter I just interviewed, be sure to check out our Spotify playlist or visit our website at and the writer is.com. If you like what we're doing, please subscribe to us on iTunes. You can also like us on Facebook and Twitter. And The Writer Is is is produced by Joe London, edited by Miles Bergsmah,

and published by Big Deal Music. A special thanks to Jeff Sparger, David Silberstein from Mega House Music, and Michael White. Here's a sneak peek of next week's, and The Writer is. Dang, like, I don't really like the person that I am right now. Like, I don't like the way that I'm feeling.

I can't understand it. You know? I couldn't understand it. And I was like, so I was like, why am I running away from these feelings? You're okay to feel sad and you're okay to feel anxious. You're okay. You're in a business.

We're in a business that's, it's so beautiful, but it's hard. You know, do you know how many people like want to try to do this shit? Yeah. You know people I see every day sending me fucking MP3s on tour seeing to me at meet and greets? I'm like, it breaks my heart because I'm like, there's so many talented people. Like there's so many talented kids or older people that this is like a blessing. Like for us to be doing this is a blessing. blessing, we forget. Totally. We get caught up. And it's okay. It's a fucked up business, but it's

okay to have moments. Every day is not going to be great. So at the time, I was like trying to understand. I was like, I hate myself like this. Like I don't want to feel this way. And I was like angry at myself. And then I was like, wow, I'm like, instead of like trying to help myself, I'm like, I'm like victimizing myself, you know? And I went into the studio and the session was set up. And it was John Belion alias frequency. And I said, there's a quote that I love about monsters. And it fucking, that was, it's, the song was originally before Eminem did. Obviously, he was talking about his monsters.

Um, in the darkest of my times, a little light began to shine. Woke up and I realized that imperfection is divine. And this creepy heart of mine, it keeps tiptoeing on the line. But I know it'll be just fine. Because I'm friends with the monsters that are under my bed. I get along with the voices inside of my head. You're trying to save me. Stop holding your breath.

And you think I'm crazy. Well, that's nothing new. And it's a song about this is who I am and I'm pretty fucked up, but I'm okay with myself. And it's about like looking at yourself in the mirror and being like, you know what? I'm pretty fucked up. You're fucked up too. Don't try to save me because I'm okay with me being the way that I am. Until next time, this is Ross Bowling.