And The Writer Is...with Ross Golan - Ep. 66: Ross Golan's 'THE WRONG MAN' - Special Episode with Guest Host Ricky Reed

Episode Date: July 29, 2019

Ricky Reed hosts this episode of “And The Writer Is!” Ricky interviews Ross in a candid conversation about Ross's 14 year project called “The Wrong Man.” Ricky produced the concept album released on Interscope Records that is being adapted into a musical opening in NYC by the Hamilton director by Tommy Kail and music director Alex Lacamoire. How does a project grow through word of mouth to a major label release and Off Broadway show without every releasing recorded music until last week? Listen to find out about this amazing journey from a West Hollywood apartment in the mid 2000s to a worldwide distributed album! 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 artists and writers over the years, and my favorite part of each session is the first hour when we catch up about life, the industry, politics, composition, whatever. So this is a journey of learning why people write songs, how people write songs, and most importantly, who the people are who write the songs. I'm producing this with the Great Joe London, big deal music publishing and mega house music management if you want to listen to the songs we

discuss in this podcast follow us on our socials find out about special events or buy some of our merchandise go to our website www. www.com oh and if you enjoy and the writer is is please rate and subscribe to us on apple podcasts Spotify or whatever your preferred podcast listening site is and this gets it are you recording us because this isn't your update but I'm with Ricky Reid right now and it's kind of an update but not

I say that because maybe we'll use this but when we this was the very first interview I ever did was yours. Really? Uh-huh. Whoa. I didn't realize that. Your episode I think came out third. Okay. I forget why we did that but whatever was it came out third

and I just remember when we recorded it because it was right at this desk I was pretty nervous. Wow. I'd never done it You didn't come off as nervous. I was pretty nervous. Dang. Like I had those moments of like I was performing.

You know where that kind of like butterflies. Right, right. It wasn't because we were staring into each other's eyes. Yeah, exactly. Well, we know each other pretty well, but I'm just saying that that was actually really, that was really intense for me. Damn. Well, you know how I feel.

Well, there you go. I mean, and then here you go. So are we ready to do this? Cool. Okay. Welcome to And the. the writer is, I am your co-host, Ross Golan. And today's

host executive producing geniusesosity-ish person. I'm producing the host today. The guy is Ricky Reed. Hey. That's my ice coffee.

All right. So this is a special episode. We've never done one these before and we decided to do this together because we've been going on this journey together. This is the wrong man episode. This is the wrong man episode. This is a big week for you. Yeah. This is a big week for you. We texted a little bit in advance and I was like, are you doing a big thing for the week of? And you were like, you know, always the humble and demure.

You were like, yeah, you know, I was like, dude, you should really talk about it. you have a show and you've been working on the wrong man for 14 years you should talk about it like really talk about it so I'm going to attempt to kind of interview

you if that's cool I'm excited man I'm like I'm nervous I'm in the hot seat hey we're both in the hot seat whose seat is hotter weird

yeah exactly Well, let's get into it. So the place I kind of want to start with this is you and I meeting. And I know in my proper episode of And The Writer, as we talk about us meeting as like scrappy songwriters, which was probably, did we ever determine when that was, like 2010, 2011? I think it was just before that. I think that's probably about right, though, you know,

about 10 years ago, 9 and 10 years ago. Right, right. So when we met nine or ten years ago, you had already been working on the wrong man for four or five years at that point. I mean, you could say, I don't know if I've worked on anything for more than two years. I mean, this album that we'll talk about is probably that for me. So I've known you for a decade and you were already about half a decade into this work. That's insane.

Do you remember the first time you played anything for me regarding the wrong man and what it was? Wow. I mean, I do remember you seeing it in living rooms because I know that for sure, but I don't know the actual first time that I played it for you. I think I was sitting on the bed of that much-famed condo. Oh, my God. How weird is this? But that's totally right.

Yeah. And I definitely remember the first time seeing it actually live was I must have been a house I feel like Hollywood Hills but I did not even know L.A. then. Sadowski's house. It was like one amorphous blob, this whole city. I remember the floors were hardwood. Yeah.

And it was like a cute old house. And I think it was what's so crazy about this project is that when I would play it in people's houses, you know, I feel like you know you're doing something right when people come back to see it again or they say to their friends, hey, you know, you got to see this or they say, can I host it? Even if they're your close friends, it just has this other vibe to it when you know they're not there just to be like, hey, good job. And I had been in bands and I had had record deals and during this whole time, people were coming to see my bands and some pretty, high-profile LA venues

but the thing people talked about was seeing the wrong man in somebody's living room. Right. And so you're just like, oh man, I guess I'll just keep playing it. So tell, I mean for people who are not familiar, what paint a picture of what that is. What were these early shows like?

What is seeing the wrong man in a living room? How long is it? What's the setup? Sure. Well, it's changed a lot since when it started because, you know, it'd be the first song was called The Wrong Man, and I would play for people and the character in it is a guy named Duran and

I guess he didn't have a name yet but everyone wanted to know what happened to that guy or how he got in that position and you know my friends would always just they'd see me perform and I would always play this one song right and I spent a few years just trying to explain

how do you get how does a guy get you know it's a murder ballad it's sort of the anti-murder ballad because it's the guy who didn't do the crime right You know? Whereas, you know, the, you know, the Tom Waitses and Johnny Cash and the Tupac's and all these people who do great murder ballads.

And then, but they're always the guy who did the crime. Right. And here's the guy who didn't do the crime. I thought that that was really interesting. And then to try to describe it, you know, it'd be that thing where I would, I think in 2005 is when I wrote the first song. And then around 2007 or eight, I got into the idea of, I should go down this, see what happens if I really explain who this guy is.

Right, right. And I just remember when I first started playing for people, it was really 2009. Okay. Where I played it as a story. Ah. Where it was done. I had stopped it in 2007 or eight after I had written maybe the first six songs because the climax of that was a song called Stay Positive.

And that was like song number seven. and I never knew how to finish it. And so I took the song out for a minute, and my band started playing it, and I wrote this one song called When Evil Men Go on the Run. And it was the song where it kind of was the first time in the story where it goes elsewhere. And it happens in Mexico, and it's this whole thing.

Right. And I was starting to tell that story, and I remember this song, the longest lyric, the lyric that took the longest was the chorus of that song. Wow. where I said, well, even evil men believe in getting even is fair. And that internal rhyme scheme and all of that is so good, but I never really knew what the next line was.

And it took me so long, but the next line is, so they go where extradition is rare. Right. And when I found, I was like, I got it, I got it. And I, like, zoomed through writing the rest of the wrong man. Oh, wow. That line, like, stalled me for, like, a month. Wow.

I'm not exaggerating, because I'm really slow. when I write for myself. Right, right, right. As he should be. But when I finished the, you know, maybe nine songs, that's when I started playing it for people from front to finish in people's living rooms and stuff. Right, right.

Let's talk about when it moves to the first theater experience. Because when you see this thing in its entirety, even in a living room, you realize, oh, I'm kind of, I'm watching a musical right now. I mean, it's a guy with a guitar and 20. 50 friends or whatever, but you soon realize this is a musical and at some point you do move to a theater. Tell me about that and also how many songs were in the show when it was at that point. So I think in 2009-10 I started playing it for people kind of regularly and more and more people said,

can I host it? Can I host it? And people would say, can you send me like a voice note of it so I can play for some people? or can you send me a CD or an MP3 or whatever. And I always said, no, I'll fly to you, but I'm not going to play it for you or I'll drive to you. So I played in countless living rooms, offices, and then ended up flying to Sydney, London, or sorry, not London, Sydney, New York, Nashville, Chicago,

playing it for people who would host it in their houses. And the people who hosted it around L.A. in early 2000s, Wendy Goldstein, who's the head of VP for Republic, who's signed in The Weekend, and Ariana. I used to play it in her dining room. Or, you know, Aaron Bayshuck, who's now the head of Warner, who is, you know, president of Interscope when we signed there, is, you know, he saw it in living rooms, you know.

Pete Gamburg and Craig had seen it in a small room. Right. Zach, cats, all these people. But they all just happened to see it because I'd played it so often. Yeah. And someone would host it. But the gist of it creatively, I started adding songs when I would play for people. I said, man, I really could use this part of the story would help clarify.

Right. And it was me workshopping a musical without knowing I was doing that. And then Susie Deetz was this woman who had done Hedwig and the Angry Inch on Broadway. And she said, I played it in her house. And she said, well, her husband is actually the head of hits, started a Hits magazine. Oh, wow, okay. So that's sort of like this random connection. And she said, well, why don't we put it in a theater in Los Phila's in L.A.?

So we did that, you know, is that thing where I think it was two weeks of previews, was originally four weeks end up being, I think, 10 weeks. So I think a total of 12 weeks of me just playing on stage. We had a dancer. We had five screens behind me. And there's these things called the Ovation Awards, which is the L.A. sort of drama desk or critic circle or whatever. Right, right, right.

And it was us against the Almond Center Geffen, which is a multi, you know, they used many millions of dollars to put on their shows, and we did not, but we won Best New, Best Book and Lyric and, or sorry, best book, best music and lyric, best digital, and we're nominated for Best New Musical. Wow. And no other show won two awards. And we just, this small thing, which was basically just me and acoustic guitar. at the time compass my lady anabellum song i think was just climbing to number one in country

but i hadn't i'd had a lot of i had you know written songs for maroon five and beber and niki manage demi a bunch of these things but no like hit hits so you're how far into the wrong man are we at this point what year are we so this 2014 14 so it's everything's about to sort of bust out into the open right here well the weird thing is that Netflix didn't exist cereal didn't exist so there was no making a murder

it was no cereal. I got to say that my first thought was breakfast cereal. Yeah, perfect. There was no cereal. Wait, what year are we talking about? People were taking oats

out of the field and just chewing straight out just hoeing. They were frying their oats and pans and no one even realized so there's no cereal No one's even surviving. No milk.

No milk. Everyone's dying. This is tough. Tough in the morning. Dark time in 2014. Just have to skip straight to lunch. Every day. But I think that's all the thing.

It's like, you know, at the time, I felt pretty satiated. The show that I had been doing in people's living rooms won awards. Right. We had 100 people a night every time I'd perform it. So many cool people, Jason Alexander to like, you know you Stargate

Benny you know Steve Mac all these people coming to see it on my writer's side my you know

and then to have like these crazy actors come and see it I just felt really complete right well that's something that I think

we're going to touch on as we go through this is that you know when you just focus on the work and making great work you

you will feel satiated and you'll feel complete all the time and the only ambition you'll have is just to make

the make the art better, push the art farther. But that's one thing that's really great about this is that, you know, addressing one of the elephants in the room here is that like Hamilton is starting to take off around this point. Yeah, totally. And at no point did you, you know, this wasn't like you saw Hamilton or you had any awareness that that was going to be a cultural phenomenon when you started all this.

You were just making it because you wanted to make it. Hamilton debuted in 2015. And by 2014, we had done the show already. I think what was crazy is that I felt satiated and still no one had ever heard it. There's not a recording in the world of it. So all of this was word of mouth. All these people who had seen it, all these people who had talked about it, was only because somebody told them to see it.

So 2015 happens. You know, Hamilton becomes big through 2015, 16, 17, 17. now, you know, huge. And Netflix becomes big, Cereal becomes big. So the subject matter wasn't as offensive of people who are wrongly accused.

Which is kind of surprising, but when you think about how popular of a subject that's become, it was just not popular previous to Night of, and all these things that brought into the zeit guys, let alone Central Park 5, which we'll get to later.

Yeah. Which even though it had been existing, you know, they weren't exonerated until 2012. So people didn't really talk about that yet either. So basically people were like, well, who's got the next, you know, quote, Hamilton. And they were going to, two different publishers talking about it. And a bunch of people were like, well, what about wrong, man? Like, they all know it. Right.

And I was actually celebrating same old love. I had just gone number one, and I was having dinner with Aaron Beshuk. And he said, well, what's a deal with wrong man? Right. You know? At this point, he's the head of Interscope. Yeah.

Right. And I said, well, I might be going to, you know, I'm going to Nashville. I'm actually playing it in Nashville in like a week or something and say, well, come to Interscope on Friday. Before you leave. Play it for the staff. I played it.

And he's like, come back next week. before you leave again, play one more time. 60 people, another 60 people, and if you don't know anything about record labels, to heard 60 people to see anything, let alone a second time for a guy sitting with an acoustic guitar to tell a story is virtually unheard of. Yes.

And from, you know, John Janick and Aaron were the guys who helped me get my, publishing deal, introduced me to Ryan Press at Warner Chapel. Wow. And they're you know, they were running Interscope. So they've been supporters of mine and friends of mine

since 2010, 11, around the same time. So naturally it's like, well, of course they're going to do this because everyone who's a part of the wrong man has been family and friends. Right. You know? Another theme that's going to run through this is when people are excited

when they raise their hand early, you just, you walk through the door. Huge lesson. If you're thinking that you're going to go and spend your whole life going through trying to get bidding wars and trying to find a situation because you're going to make, play hard to get, when there are so many good people who are qualified

who come up to you and whoever raises their hand first who's qualified and is willing to put their name on the line before everyone else is, that's almost all the time the person you should go with because otherwise you might find something different maybe you'll make more money in the beginning but it will not make you happier and it will not make them experience more fun

for sure you got to be with people that are fun to celebrate with but also are tolerable when the shit it's the fan but I guess my question to you because this is where you come in like we had signed the deal with Interscope it takes a while you negotiate stuff

I remember where I was when you called because I was in a house that we were renting and I was standing on a balcony and I remember you calling being like essentially saying you know I'm going to do this I'll tell you my side what my side of that story is it's so odd because I can't remember

what prompted me to call you for the life of me in a way that's almost a little strange because I feel like I usually remember my motivations for doing things. But what I can remember clear as day, which I usually don't remember, is the fact that it was a Sunday afternoon. I know exactly where I was in my house.

I know that I used my landline. I know that I was looking at this one specific window, the whole conversation. I can see the exact scene, even though I don't know why that's important, but it's for some reason stayed with me and I just the one thing I do remember about

it was I I've been talking to my wife and talking about the wrong man a little bit and I was just like I wonder what's going on with that like if if you know Ross is going to make an album if there's been a deal done I don't think I knew that you had

signed a deal for it crazy but maybe we had been in talks that you know you were continuing to develop it and this and that. So my whole thing was like, well, this might be really fun. And you and I didn't have anything that we were like really properly teamed up on. Of course, we've written songs together. But I felt like our relationship had so much more potential that we had never tapped up until that point. So it was sort of a, to me, kind of a

harmless just like check in to see what was going on. And I remember you saying, yeah, we've been talking to this person and that person. But again, you gave me that impression. Like, if you're really into it, let's go. You know, and that's a huge thing for you to hand over the keys to because you're, at this point, you know, a solid, like decade into it. And you're like, yeah, man, if you're excited, I trust you. Well, that's crazy.

I trust you because you've known me since before, like you would write with me when I had nothing. And I don't really care about, I'm not, this whole project is genuinely about sharing this journey. Even the point of doing this podcast, it's sort of to share the journey with the people who listen to the podcast. Right. Like this podcast being the wrong man special, you know, is really to share this journey with people who will watch this thing live in some capacity.

The fact that you saw, that you remember it in this famed condo that at a point when I couldn't afford the condo and you couldn't afford a car to get to the condo. And, you know, in context of how crazy this is, that that year is when I got Songwriter, of the year for BMI's and you got nominated for producer of the year for the Grammys. That's crazy. And that's when it's like the

way the I kind of wanted to read the thank yous that I put in the album at the end of this. But the very end of it, spoiler alert, essentially is like sometimes like you as an artist you want to

happen to the world and sometimes the world happens to you. Right. And this project really is that, where you knew this project in 2010, 11. I knew this project then, but both of us knew it wasn't time to record it. Right. We just knew it's time to record it when we did. But that said, you encouraged me to perform this live in front of people.

So we did it really uniquely. What you hear is genuinely a live performance. performance. We did it over four nights and that's the performance that you hear. Yeah, let's break down the production of this. I was going to say, why did you want to produce it like this and not like an album how you normally would? Right. So my thought going into it was, you know, you've been playing this for, you know, whatever that was at that point, 10 years in front of people in living rooms and on stages and this and that. and of course we could go through and do it like a traditional album and we can get nice clean vocal takes and nice clean guitar and everything

but I thought that the oh you know I had at that point seen you do it more than once a couple times and every time you do it you know you would like step in and out of character in different ways you would have like different points that were really exciting maybe you would um you know sort of be hot and bothered one night and rush something but it was like really great and crazy and as you know there's a different energy when you perform in front of people

versus being in a vocal booth like okay let's get that line again let's get it again let's get it again so my thought was how can we get a studio level recording that doesn't sound like a live album there's no applause there's no like distant reverby vocal sound except for the birds in the very first song

which is a real moment I mean it was like sun was setting and you heard birds but that's a good performance. So we kept it. Right. Those days are real, yeah. They're very real. So what we did was we, yeah,

recorded you over the course of, yeah, I think it was four nights in front of a live audience here at my studio in Elysium Park. And yeah, it was about, I think we were able to fit about 20, 25 people in there. We rented chairs. We, you know, lit candles and made it a whole vibe. It didn't look great because we had to put about six microphones

in front of you. It looked like a press conference. But, you know, the audience was really respectful and really quiet. And at the end of it, we had these, you know, emotionally vibrant, supercharged vocal and guitar performances that I knew the next step was going to be even more challenging, which was going to be having a band, and in fact a great band come through and help complete the picture,

which was our goal from the beginning. beginning was to actually not make an acoustic album, but to make an album with a band with you at the center of it. So it was tremendously challenging, but I'm really proud of it because we have, what you hear on the final recording are these raw live performances in front of an audience, which is really exciting. And, you know, whatever those total 60, 80 people that were here, they were sitting in there for an album being recorded, which is crazy. I think there are a few things to this that I've tried to explain to people is that if you invest an hour into it, then you'll have ownership in it, where Tommy Kale, who's producing the show that's opening in New York,

he said, you know, people tell people about plays, but they bring people to musicals. Wow. And this feels like that with this as an album. It's sort of when, you know, you'll tell someone to go listen to an album, but you'll show them dark side of the moon timed up with Wizard of Oz. Right, right, right, right. Because there's something about this project that people keep telling other humans about it. Right.

Enough so that one of the cool parts of the people that, the personnel that you brought in to record the album, you know, Mike Elizano and I've worked together, obviously it's a classic bassist. And he brought in Trevor Lawrence because they do a lot of, they've been playing together forever. And obviously a lot of... Since they were kids. Yeah. Dr. Dre and Eminem and all that.

You brought in Nate because you're friends with Nate to Nate Mercero. I brought in Yon Carlson, who has seen this countless amount of times because we've done a million recordings together. We did Dangerous Woman in my house and stuff like that. And how many times have we had an artist in the room where he says, go play wrong man for them. And we spend like an hour doing that. And then we just drink and then that's the end of our session kind of thing.

Right, right, right, right. So we're talking about the band here. This is the band. Drums, Trevor Lawrence, Michael Elizondo on bass. Nate, co-producing and lending guitar. And then Johan also adding keys. Yeah. And then Neil Averron who mixed it,

who produced my old band, Glacier Hiking 10 years ago, 11 years ago. You know, the amount of people on the personnel of this album that have ownership in our respective careers individually and together

I worked with Neil on 21 pilots of course also I mean to have all like that's the part of this that's so fun to me too is when you make an album with people you respect but friends that you respect

sort of like the whatever whatever came out of it even if the music was terrible. Again, would have felt really satisfied having gone through risking these songs on this

production. I was proud to go down and see what happens with this group because everyone is so good and you just want to neither of us have that kind to micromanage how people play and it's really easy to not micromanage

Mike Elizondo, Trevor, Nate or Johan when they're so good. You just say you know play and knock yourselves out well a lot of it more you know as we were going through the recording was kind of talking to them about what part of the story this is okay like this takes place in a bar this put takes place in the bedroom this takes place here there and then these guys are so good and they're all such uh sort of song song focused virtuosos that you tell them about the story and they're like okay i know where to put the drum

Phil. I know what kind of baseline this needs. Based on the details of Duran and what he's going through, which is so cool to be with people that are on that high of a level, they can channel their virtuosity into storytelling. I mean, like, incredible band.

Totally. Incredible band. So tell me about, you know, as we're finishing the album, I'm like going crazy, working on the post production with Nate. How did you get introduced to Tommy? How does the New York stuff start? We're going to talk about the show here, the off-Broadway show.

So one of the guys who came to see me record it in your place is a guy named Kurt Deutsch, who's the head of musical theater for Warner Chapel. Right. He sees it. He comes into the control room with us after, and he's, you know, we're drinking. We all drink. We're drinking a lot. Yeah.

And he says, you know, come to New York in two weeks. At that point, I had played it for. a couple more people, you know, because that's just what I do. And someone else had called Tommy Kale, who had directed Hamilton, said, you've got to hear this thing, the wrong man. Right. And Kurt happened to be on a subway, saw Tommy and said, hey, have you heard the wrong man?

And Tommy said, you're the second person to bring this up in two weeks. Wait, on a subway? On a subway in New York. God, of course. Of course. that's the thing that so I'm in I'm in New York I play it for three theaters you know

you're playing for the theater that did once and and rent and then you're in the you know you're in this theater that did Hamilton you're in this theater that did you know and I'm sitting there in the acoustic guitar playing you know and Tommy calls me and he says

uh or sorry Kurt calls me and says Friday morning, 9 o'clock, this is New York time, play it for Tommy. Now, this is Thursday night. I'd played it three times in less than two days. Oh, boy. And I had to meet.

This is about a 75-minute vocal performance? Yeah, maybe just a hair under that. Yeah. Wow. And, you know, I just played it for a bunch of theaters. They were really excited about it. But, you know, I don't know what would have happened. But I went into Kurt's office, 9 in the morning, played one song for Tommy and he's

like you know play the next one play the next one until we were done and he just said why don't you come back to New York in a month and this is while we're doing post-production for the album he brings in Alex Lacamoire who just got his honorary doctorate from Berkeley this year with Missy Elliott

and Justin Timberlake he did he was a music director for Hamilton Deervin Hanson in the Heights Greatest Showman oh man a legend yeah so it's me Tommy Kill, Alex, the two of them

just won the highest medal the United States gives to to artistic contribution for the Kennedy honors. Back when they used to give medals for artistic things. Well, they do it. They do it for a bunch of guys people who are in their 70s and 80s, and here are these

two guys who are about our age who win this award with Lynn Manuel and their choreographer as well. And so They went and they brought in the guy who's playing the lead as well. And this is in an office in December a year and a half ago. So in that time, I just kept flying in New York every three months to do some workshops,

would write new songs, would edit songs. And the show now is shockingly different from the album, using a lot of the same themes from the album but when you have a cast of 14 people performing what I perform in one album each of the character has they have their own journey if you're telling a story about five people you know

you're going to have your bias but if each of those five people tell their own story then they're going to have an empathy for their own motivations right right and in the wrong man the album the one that we've made. You're really seeing it through Duran's eyes. Through Duran's eyes.

Versus this one you see through the community's eyes a little bit more. So what's crazy is that this album comes out, you know, July 26th. And the tickets go on sale July 26th for the show that opens October 7th, preview starting September 18th. So here we have a show in New York with the director from Hamilton, music director from Hamilton, their first show since Hamilton. Is that so? Yeah.

Gosh. That's crazy. You have this album with seven Grammy nominees playing on it. Or winners. And... I'm not a winner yet. Don't count me. Not yet.

All of this is word of mouth. Right. Right. Right. Right. And I can't say how crazy it is. is all these people are involved in this because they spend an hour to listen to this at one point.

Listen to the wrong man, see what happens to your life. Yeah, exactly. But, I mean, look, I met my wife seeing this. That's what I'm talking about. She came up to me after I performed it in 2010. We did a sizzle reel of this that I think will be on the internet in the next few weeks. Okay.

We did a sizzle reel of it where somebody had snuck in the footage. I didn't know that they did this from 2010. Oh. And, you know, and I introduce it then saying, hey guys, this is my, this is my new, this is an album I'm working on called The Rawman in 2010. I never recorded it. Wow. And she came out to me after it.

She goes, you have really nice tone. And then took off. I was like, the greatest glass slipper. You could ever leave a singer. You don't say like, wow, great songs, not like, wow, you sang really well. I really liked it. She said, you've really nice tone. Gotta go.

Disappeared. And I, you know, asked her friend for her. her email and she said yes and then her friend asked Jackie if she could give Jackie's email to me and Jack said no but it was too late I'd already got it and here we are

still together nine years later oh man well that's I mean that's what this thing really seems to all be about like you and I talk about this comes up often the concept of legacy oh yeah and how you and I both feel like

the concept of legacy is kind of trash in the sense that, you know, if you do, I guess the thing is legacy has a motivational tool. That's really what is truly garbage. That we like to do things

that are, you know, motivated just by an artistic pursuit or being around people you love. But something that you said it was actually so beautiful and I'll never forget this

when we were recording it I think it was like night three or something it was oh no it was actually the last night do you remember how I like made you take a big swig of Bert was it bullet I don't remember what it was

I think so and I have to make sure I don't make that a standard but that made it such a fun experience but yeah you've never performed this like thoroughly drunk so we're going to do that.

So we did it on the last night because you'd already nailed it a few times. I said, we're in the clear, let's have some fun. That was probably the night that we hung out with Kurt afterwards as well. But one of the things that you said to me and my wife and my daughter who was just a little baby there,

you said, you know what, this is going to sound crazy. You said maybe this is going to sound morbid, but you were like, you know, I've been working on this for nearly half my life and if I was to go tomorrow, I will, you know, creatively at least in my career, I would be happy. Like I laid down the thing that is most important to me. And that was so beautiful.

And I also was like so inspired and admired you so much in that moment because I felt like, man, I can't even relate to that feeling. Like this guy has been working on this. this for so long and and he's done it like you said you were you were sated we were a tenth of the way into the studio album there this broadway stuff wasn't even there and again you check in at every point in this and you're happy because your motivations were coming from the right place it was really beautiful thank you it's amazing how we we forget um that our job is just to entertain people

and studying music history and this sounds weird but the thing that brought music into the secular world out of being just music for the church

for Western music was these poets, these troubadours who would go and play stories for rich people right you know and at the time I was really broke when I first started it and I didn't

I was doing it yet and I didn't understand what it was but somehow the human instinct was even in from 1,100 to the plague in 1350 the thing that moved music away from the church were these guys

who would tell stories about love and murder and they would talk about they'd be funny they would sometimes juggle while they're playing but they would go around and they would just entertain people and they would tell poems

and they would tell stories and you realize that that's what we're doing now, now that we have the ability to record it and distribute it amongst millions of people, doesn't mean that the human instinct should change

and if we can just sort of tell a story and entertain the listener and make it about the listener and not about who's performing it because I'm not the guys playing the lead in the show in New York. I'm totally,

really fine with that. Right. Just like, I know I get to, I'm fortunate enough to be the guy who gets to perform this on the album. Right. And we said, you know, we said that when we were making this,

the dream is that it's performed by other people with their own spin on it, their own twists on it, that the book is distributed and kids or high school theaters or whatever. I mean, that, to me,

that's the ultimate, ultimate, ultimate outcome of this. is making a story that people get to share with others going forward. Yeah. Well, thank you for going on the journey with me because, you know, I set it on the balcony that day and, you know, I trust you because I know that we're in this journey, this career journey together for all the right reasons, you know.

And so to do this album with you is amazing. and to be honest whatever thank yous or whatever I was going to read off the album the first thank you on the album is you so thank you for

giving me the privilege to work on it awesome well go check it out it's available everywhere hit me up on social media maybe I'll respond maybe I'll respond to it like and subscribe and meet me on MySpace

I will see you guys on Friends shortly. The wrong man is everywhere and crazy journey to go on it with everybody who's listening to it. And if you get a chance to turn down the lights, put on some candles, turn off your phone,

bring out a couple of bottles of wine or whiskey and sit and just listen to it and bring some friends over and that's how everyone's been hearing it for years and I'm just excited that now people can do without me there.

But thank you. All right. Thanks, man. Thanks for listening to this episode of And The Writer Is. If you like what we're doing, please subscribe to us. You can also like us on Facebook and Twitter. And The Writer Is is produced by Joe London, edited by Miles Bergsmouth, and published by Big Deal Music. A special thanks to David Silberstein from Omega House Music and Michael White.

Until next time, this is Ross Golden.