The Knowledge Project with Shane Parrish - #65 Shep Gordon: Trust, Compassion, and Shooting Friends from Cannons

Episode Date: September 3, 2019

Legendary show-business manager, agent, and producer Shep Gordon talks sex, drugs, and rock and roll. He also shares the formula for manufacturing fame, and his unique philosophy on success, love and happiness.   Go Premium: Members get early access, ad-free episodes, hand-edited transcripts, searchable transcripts, member-only episodes, and more. Sign up at: https://fs.blog/membership/   Every Sunday our newsletter shares timeless insights and ideas that you can use at work and home. Add it to your inbox: https://fs.blog/newsletter/   Follow Shane on Twitter at: https://twitter.com/ShaneAParrish   Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Physically, I don't think I ever felt scared. But scared every day that I'm not going to pull it off. That's a lot of weight to have people's lives on your shoulders. I still get scared when I'm doing something. But I think that fear is good. It drives you to make sure it's better. Hello and welcome. I'm Shane Parrish, and this is The Knowledge Project, a podcast Explore.

the ideas, methods, and mental models that help you learn from the best of what other people have already figured out. You can learn more about the podcast and stay up to date at fs.blog slash podcast. We also have a newsletter that comes out every Sunday. It's called Brain Food. It's free impact with all the best content we've come across all week that's worth reading and thinking about it. It contains quotes, book recommendations, articles, and so much more. You can learn more at fs.blog slash newsletter. Today I'm talking with Shep Gordon. The Rolling Stones name Shep, one of the most 100 influential people in the world. And while Shep prefers to remain behind the scenes, you've likely heard of some of the people he's worked with or helped create. Alice Cooper,

Mike Myers, Jimmy Hendricks, Sylvester Salone, Michael Douglas, Emerald, Wolfgang Puck, Roger Verge, and so many others. I would go on, but it would just sound like I'm name-dropping for the next hour. At first, the audio is a bit windy because we're sitting outside on his lawn in Hawaii. Eventually we move inside, so it gets a little better. Shep is one of the most interesting people I've ever met, and it's very difficult to summarize this conversation. We're going to talk drugs, how fame doesn't equal happiness, how to manufacture popularity, and explore life. It's time to listen and learn. You grew up with a brother who was the favorite child. What was that like?

You know, as I think probably every child, it's all you know. So that was life. Probably after a lot of my foundation was formed, that I realized not everybody's brother treated them like that. And that those were choices you made, not life choices made for you. That you could choose how you dealt with people. Were you as competitive at all?

Not at all. We don't. I love me as my brother, but we don't know each other. I probably know you now as well. as I know him. What was the biggest lesson you learned from your mom as a child? Listen and be compassionate to people. What does that mean to you, the compassionate part?

You know, be sensitive to people, show them love, listen to them. Don't be cruel to them. Don't take out your whatever wrong with you that day on someone else. And try and make every interaction sort of like a Johnny Act. apple seed. You know, make someone's day a little bit better by interacting with you. You can't do it all the time. It's not possible, but I think that thought makes for a better world. We just one species on this very complicated web. Totally. Is that what made you, and you became a parole officer, I think, for a day or two? Yeah, that was just to buy lunch. And a little bit of altruism.

You know, I don't know if it was watching the Western movies. I don't know if it was the Jewish culture of understanding that I was from a group of humans who had been persecuted for whatever the reasons were. I was very quiet. I sort of stayed in my room most of my until I got to college. But I always had this vision of really, you know, silly vision of myself on a white horse like charging in and saving the day when i saw the job for

the parole officer was really one of the first times i manifested that i was at the new school for social research in new york i was a psychedelic head um it was during the reagan era there was a big song called i want to wear a flower in my hair and go to san francisco i love that So on. At the new school, they came in recruiting for parole officers for California because we were all sociology majors. They were the only two jobs you could get was parole officer social worker. That's all sociology in those days led towards. And I didn't graduate, but I said, geez, one an opportunity. The guy said, you don't have to. You can still apply. And I said, what a great opportunity to save these kids from Ronald Reagan. And, you know, my image was kids

up against the wall at the whiskey and long hair's up against the wall and Latinos up against the wall. And I could be that Jew on the white horse. I was a little high on acid. And so that's what brought me to California. I stopped in San Francisco, lived in a commune for about a week, got the song out of my system. And I never had hair to put the flour in. But I got the song. And they went down to L.A. the job and came in with that attitude okay kids everything's great now i'm here very naive i'll save you i'll save the day here he comes to save the day like mighty mouse and um the officer showed me very fast who was in charge and they didn't want me they sent me out they said uh the kids are going to have a softball game we need you to just watch and make sure they don't hit each other

and slowly the kids got around me and i saw they were not so they were not no other guards. They were pretty cool. I think they could have really hurt me. I realized after I left there that day that they really didn't. They probably could have, but they made it appear as if they were. And finally, but it seemed like five minutes, it probably was 30 seconds. The guards came out, took me in the office, and had a very frank conversation with me.

I had long hair down in my shoulders and California penal system. So I quit that night. That was my first time on a white horse charge. into her room not the last time not the last time though but sort of become my life i still get that image i'd laugh at it now but i'll be in the middle of a project and oh you know shit here you go again god damn horse and then you you ended up at a hotel and you heard a scream I think it was Jenner's job one. That was the second time on my horse.

Yeah, that was, so that was that night. So this is the white horse again. Yeah, it hit twice in a 24-hour period. But this time, it would be more of, I mean, it would be more benefit. It would lead to. It led to something. No, no. So what happened?

So I was feeling very dejected. The white horse had been slaughtered. And I drove it. And I dragged myself off the battlefield. And I'm driving in L.A. I was sort of daydreaming about how it fucked my life was and I had no money. All I had was some acid with me. And for my old days of a pharmaceutical dealer, that's Anthony Wardane put it.

If anyone knows L.A. that there's when you come off the freeway, I think it's Highland or Librea. If you're in the right lane, you have to make a right. And I was daydreaming. I was headed towards Sunset Boulevard where I heard there were cheap motels. one of the other probation guys that told me. And I had to get in the right lane, and it took me onto this place. And there was a motel-side vacancy,

so I went in, and I got a room, I think it was $59, and I had, like, enough money for 20 days or something. And I went out on the balcony. I took some acid. And I'm just thinking about how fuck my life is one day at work. I got no job. I have no money. I have no family out here.

I have nothing. And I heard a girl screaming, and I had just come from jail. So my thought was something ugly, which is where I'd just come from. And I saw these two sort of bodies wrestling, and I, for some reason, my mind went to rape, and for the second time, I'm going to be the guy on the white horse. I'm going to go save her. So I went down, and I threw this guy off her, and she punched me in the jar. They were making love.

And my lip a little bit. I went out at a pool in the morning, and the girl was laughing and pulled me over, and she was Janice Joplin. I don't know who she was making love to that night, but at the pool, she was sitting next to Jimmy Hendricks, who was not the guy that night, a lot of people have interpreted this as those two,

but that's not true. He became a good customer of my pharmaceutical business. And luckily for me at one point, gave me a street education, which I never had. I was in the suburb. And I went and bought a car because I was doing fairly well. And he said, what are you going to tell the police if they ask you where you got the money for the car?

And I said, you know, I come from Long Island. Nobody asks you where you got the money to buy a car. And he said, well, here in L.A., they do. He said, you better have an answer. And because I had long hair. I was a hippie. Right. You're targeted. Yeah. So I said, I don't know.

He said, are you Jewish? And I said, you should be a manager. And the Chambers brothers were sitting there, and he turned to Lester and said that band from Phoenix still in your basement. He said, yeah, you should tell him you found the Jewish guy to manage him and let Shep manage him. And that's how I started with Alice Cooper 50 years ago. That's a crazy story. Most of my life has been that. I was talking to a new friend a couple of weeks ago.

We were talking about that subject because he's very calculated. I never wanted to be a manager. I never wanted to make movies. I didn't care about chefs. There's nothing that I ended up making my living at that I ever woke up and said, I've got to make a movie, or I got to be in the music business.

I didn't have a stereo here for 25 years. Music doesn't really interest me. I rarely watch a movie. I haven't seen most of my own. It never was about that for me. I realized through Alice and a few other people, I actually was good at, helping people get what they wanted, if what they wanted was fame.

I wasn't the best of getting him wealthy, but I was really good at getting him fame. Like, at the time, Alice wasn't famous at all. Nobody had heard of him. And you were not, you had no idea what you were doing as a band manager. Luckily, I had no idea what I was doing. So walk me through a little bit about how this... I mean, Alice was complicated. They started as a track team, put on Beatles' wigs, the girls screamed.

They decided to be a band. Not really musicians, not really, you know, sort of like me. A couple of them were art students. Alice was told the Arizona State Record for the 26-mile run. They were athletes. Dennis was an art student, and Alice and Dennis were art students. And their idol was Dali. And not being musicians, their shows started to take on some Dali-esque things.

but very disjointed and very abstract. Nothing that anybody in the audience could understand. Lester took me to see him, and they were opening for the doors at a place called the Cheetah. And they basically emptied the room. It's terrible. Terrible.

Well, I mean, terrible is a strange word. That's judgment. It was very strong. It got, you know, 1,500 people to get up and leave. That's powerful. especially when the doors are up next. And they were doing these really weird things, like one song was a picture frame,

Alice's head out the window, and the whole song was, Nobody likes me, nobody likes me. Why don't you like me? You all hate me. Nobody likes me. Okay, we don't like you, we leave. So it was an interesting art statement, and it certainly had power,

but it wasn't what you do if you want to become famous. Right. But isn't art supposed to be polarizing? Yes. No, it is, no doubt about it. So that's what I saw when I went to see it. There were two hands to this. I was doing very well in my pharmaceutical business. I didn't know anything about management.

I didn't really want to manage. And here was- That was just your cover story. Yeah, so the last thing I wanted was somebody successful. And here was a group that emptied the room. This is the perfect act for me. Yep. Then people all around me started getting into trouble.

And I didn't want to get into trouble. The only thing I had in my life was Alice. And I didn't want to starve to death. So we had a very frank conversation, all of us. You know, we weren't maybe the best of what we all did. But what I remember the line, I told him, I said, it only took like 12 people to start Christianity because they believed they had less to sell than we did.

We got seven people. we could do pretty good and then we started to develop a story we could get people to believe in in the new school there was a a professor who gave a lecture about the effect of Elvis presently not being able

to show his hips on TV the effect of the Beatles having long hair that how it motivated the kids was hatred of parents and that art was a very abstract form but there were cultural revolutions like Every kid rebelled against its parents.

So if you can be that definition of rebellion, if you can be the thing that the parents hate, that they can say they love, that's how you get to be Elvis Presley, the Beatles, Sinatra. You can't get that big by people just liking your art. So, you know, he said, hey, fuck it. Everybody ran out of the room. That's, uh, if we can get parents to say they ran out seeing you,

their kids will flock to see you. And that's where we went to. And it worked. And during the course of it, they figured out how to transform their artistic endeavors onto the stage. So they became better players. Alice became a great songwriter, in my opinion.

I think in the last 20 years or so, he's become a great vocalist. They really developed their stuff, but that was the opening volley. So then for me, I didn't know if I got really lucky or if this theory really worked. Not necessarily that one theory, but the way that you look at the world of creating history

rather than waiting for it to happen because that's what we did with Alice. We just created what we thought we wanted to have happen. We wanted pickets every night. How do you get pickets? Harmon animal, ASPCA will show up every single night. I said chicken. Yeah.

So the story, just so everybody listening, understand, is I think it was Toronto, wasn't it? It was opening for John Lennon. Right, so there's a Canadian connection here, which is also, you got him played on the Canadian station. That's how we got their play. Yeah, and then you threw a chicken on the stage, and he threw it. It was very important to our career. He threw it into the audience, and it came back fairly dismembered. Yeah, fairly dismantled.

It wasn't a pretty sight. But it made for great press. Actually, the press was that Alice, ripped its head off and drank the blood. And we never claimed that it wasn't true. It wasn't true. We never claimed it wasn't true. And that's what catapulted them. And then that led to the first record.

Canada passed the Canadian content law. The two-thirds of the records played on Canadian radio had to be two out of three. Canadian recorded, Canadian produced, Canadian musicians, Canadian written. It was two out of the four or three out of the four. And the number one, what was called Breakout Station in those days, was CKLW, out of Windsor, Ontario. It was very early in the game, and I said, that's how we're getting on the air. And we went up to Toronto and found the guys who did a guest to, who had a studio in Toronto, and gave a guy, found a co-writer Canadian, and brought the record in as a Canadian content,

which I don't think an American band had ever done before. one of the ways that you've helped people become famous you're not a one-trick pony by any stretch of the imagination because one of your other early clients was anne murray the canadian folk singer who didn't you know throw chickens in the audience you know ed was the other side of the coin and was a great artist who had no credibility with the audience she had no image she had no credibility she was an unknown until you told him snowbird and oh what a great song so my challenge with her with how do you get her to be

the sweetheart of Rolling Stone when they won't even put an interview in a three sentences and I knew her talent at that point as opposed to Alice who was developing his talent her talent was her vocal cords she'd just sit on a stool

but she had the purest voice the most amount of octave. She's got to be who she is. How do you do that? So I always used to laugh at a thing I called guilt by association. You put someone famous next to someone who's not famous. All of a sudden, they become famous. Kim Kardashian is maybe our prime example today of that.

That was what I thought I needed to do for Annie. And I knew if I got the right group of people to take a photo with her, I could then talk my way on to like the Midnight Specials, the Rolling Stones, But I, and I got really lucky John Lennon and happened to be in L.A. It was this dark period. He was never in L.A. And Harry Nielsen was in town, Alice, and Mickey Dolans was in the picture. And they all went to a place called the Rainbow to drink.

And I used to be the designated driver home. It was Thanksgiving, or the day before Thanksgiving. Andy was playing the Trubidor. I begged and got them all to come over for like three minutes and take a photo. And that photo changed her life. How does the pharmacist become the designated driver? Yeah. I was always the driver even on the control was always good for me.

Yeah. Always stayed in control. So yeah, that broke her. She then hosted them in that special. And got big space in Rolling Stone, and she was off and running because once you looked inside, she was so powerful. You want to, you know, my job was to get people to look inside. How did you feel at this point?

I was on a role. I was a Hollywood kind of, you know, more Coke, more cars, more girls, more fame, more, all that shit. What's life on the road like? Life on the road for me was making sure there was a bloody Mary next to my bed when I woke up in the morning. That was the most important thing of life on the road. Life on the road for me was different. I never really, after Alice, I never really had, I always had a tour manager, someone who took care of him. So my life was much more back at the office, trying to find quiet time to figure out.

I always felt my job for an artist, whether they were a chef or a filmmaker or a musical artist, was to get ahead of him a year and build a highway for them and try and make sure they avoided the potholes, come back every once in a while and check. But that was sort of, you know, because I had a lot. lot of artists and a lot of things going. I couldn't really get personal service. They're artists I managed that I met once in my life, twice in my life.

I managed for years. My job was to get him down to one name, at least I felt my job, was to get him, you know, no one asked Luther who or Raquel who or Groucho who or Alice who or that. It was that, and it was to give him a roadmap for the year. Other than that, pick Barry's, you know, take the phone calls and pick the right ones.

Because so much of it is not planned, but it's knowing what to say yes and know to for your artist, because they come at you. You know, you can't sell a car commercial or a Disney voice very hard. You have to be consistent with this image that you're... Yeah, and you have to understand what's coming in that's real and not real, because once they get to a certain point of fame, the filtering system is really important. So my job wasn't to be with the artist, not to get to know him, not that dinner. My job was to get him famous and then filter. So I would do the filtering for all the acts, and then I'd give it to some guy. I'd give it to him and say, pass on this immediately, or investigate this, let me know what's happening.

Or if we want this, get it immediately, just to keep that highway on path. What's it like dealing with all of these egos, I would imagine, as people became more famous. Do you think that revealed who they are or do you think it changed who they are? Once I did Alice and Anne Murray, what I realized fairly early was the toughest thing was dealing with the fame. That was really the hardest thing. And it was the thing that was completely out of my control, just out of my control. I couldn't feel it, you know, psychologically. So what I did, as I set up a rule in my office, that we didn't take acts until after they had already had a number one act record.

And they were meaningful on the road. I think we set our barrier at 3,500 people or something, so that they had already been testing. If they were going to drop out from fame, they had this shit together. We may take it to a new level, but at least Alice was the only act I ever created, Anne even had a number one record when i took it but it was snowbird so that was my filter system so i didn't waste my time is that where a lot of people sort of like run into problems that 3,500 sort of audience size yeah and you you don't see it as the public what are the problems

everyone's different and when i say problems i'm not speaking as much problems for them or problems for the audience problems for a manager um they're not smart enough to understand that it's a team so many of them still think it's just them so you come up with this brilliant idea and they shoot you down and i don't you know i'm i'm not i don't do this to buy lunch right i'm really proud of what i do mine and i feel like i'm performing art and i want to deal with people who really appreciate what i do really understand that i'm going to fuck up at times because I go way out, but then we're going to protect them. And I don't want to deal with those conversations that I see every other man that you go through.

We have to, you know, convince him that you're on their side. My thing is sitting in a jacuzzi, having a joint, getting really excited and getting to the phone and saying, I got it. And then going to mirror myself for like a year later and going high five and going, motherfucker you pulled that off that's my joy yeah you know that's for me that's maybe that's my white horse still I've come to realize what my joy is

I've come to realize I'm never going to be the guy the name's going to be on an office building you know that's a amount of accumulator Sammy Hagar in his book I think tells it the best when he joined Van Hale and he wanted them to for me to manage him and they came over the office and the first thing I said to him Listen, if money is your goal, I'm the wrong guy.

And he said, that took care of that meeting. What's the difference? I mean, I would imagine a lot of people are sort of in this for money versus sort of like in it to serve. Oh, I'm in it for money. There's no question I'm in it for money. But that's one of many things. I don't want to overstate it. Everybody's in it for money.

All the artists are in it for money. I'm in it for money. It's those choices that you make for. For example, the way I met Sammy, Alice was headlining in Orlando, Florida, an outdoor show. We were getting $3,500 maybe, $2,500 as a headliner. The opening act was Montrose. They were getting $150. They had five guys in the band.

A hurricane came and blew the stage that promoted didn't pay anyone. I knew that these guys at $150. That's a fucking killer. That means you're not in a motel, you're all in one room. That night you're not in the one room. That means they're missing a meal. So I went into Alice and I said, hey, here's what happened. I think we should give him the 150 men.

And he said, absolutely, whatever you think. As you get bigger, those choices you make every day, what do you pay the lighting guy? His wife's pregnancy isn't good and he doesn't have insurance. There's choices like that every day that. If you're there for the money, the answer is always going to be no. Everybody has a right to their choice. I don't want to be a part of those knows. I want to be a part of something where I can be a human being, do my job, win, and have everybody else win.

Why is that important to you to have everybody? Maybe it's my white horse. I have no idea. Maybe it's my father who always felt that way. You know, there was a large time of my life when I used to question it, And now I just don't question it anymore. I know it makes me feel good. I feel better about myself.

Soon after Alice, I became at a point in my life where I didn't have to do other stuff. Which is not to say, I don't work hard. I mean, take the weight of a person's life on your shoulders. That's tough shit. Because they only have one life. You as a manager can destroy that life or make it. I got 35 lives.

I move on. I move right to the next one. Have you maintained integrity in an industry that seems, at least from the outside, notorious for a lack of integrity, a lack of relationship? You've never had a contract with Dallas. Never had a contract. I didn't have a contract. I mean my artist. The only artist I ever had a contract with, with Ann Murray, who's lawyer made me sign a contract. That's the only one I ever had a contract. It doesn't mean anything. It's meaningless. They want to leave. Goodbye. No problem. The way I do my business, it's all based on trust. They have to trust me. And I have to trust them.

And if we don't have that trust, for me it doesn't work because of what I'm looking to get out of it selfishly for me, which is to be able to win and win in a way that everybody else wins, win, win. So if they don't trust me and I don't trust them and they don't, why are we doing this for? Yeah. You know? If you need a contract to enforce trust, then you have a problem. And it's not only a problem. That creates the problem.

You've now created the problem Because now you're getting into technicalities And now you're into a place where Fuck, I had a sign to trust It's a whole now it's lawyers Now it's a whole different game And it goes both ways You know

When you fuck up If you have a contract They beat the shit out of you When it's trust The guy can say to you I know you did the best you tried I appreciate you trying That's what I would always say to my artist

Or they say to me I've never had an artist when I failed, backtrack on me. Ever, I don't think. Because we cover it. We cover the failure. What happens when people become famous? I think everybody's very different.

I think you'd certainly have to figure out a way to live your life through it. It's certainly different because you have all the energy coming out. But Alice, it hasn't changed one iota. Michael Douglas, who's a good friend, hasn't changed one iota. both of them have gone through valleys

where it has just beat the shit out of them but they've come back to be exactly who they were so I don't know I'm not famous enough to really completely understand what that total loss of privacy is all about but I know that the advice that I give to everyone I've worked with and the ones that are able to do it

or are able to later on in life do it is to always think about the person that's out there as a character put it to sleep like when you go out to dinner and you're Michael Douglas you got to be Michael Douglas the second you get back to the house

zip up the costume put it in a closet and go be who you are just thinking about it in those terms makes it so much easier because when that guy gets a bad review he's in the closet fuck him when you get a bad review

you have to take it personally you can't not take it personally Alice is completely not affected by anything than anybody ever does or says professionally. That sounds pretty unique. I mean, that doesn't sound... No, I don't think. I think more and more. I mean, a lot of the chefs I've worked with,

I've seen them having trouble and then just changing that little... Mindset. Just that little mindset. Talk to me about cooking. That's become, like, a large part of your life. Yeah, it was. How did you get interested in that? Same kind of way.

I had a chef who mentored me. That was Roger. Roger Verge. I had an amazing amount of respect for and loved for and imagined my life without him and I saw the way that his class of artists was being treated and the lack of monetizing of it

which led to the lack of respect and here were some of the greatest artists in the world who were doing the most other than mothering maybe the most important thing in the world feeding us and they're being treated like cooks like pieces of shit for these great artists, it just really hurt me. So I decided I had the skills that could change that.

It was the same thing I was doing for my other artists. Much easier because already the way, the cultural wave, was so evident to anybody who looked at it. You couldn't get into Spago. You couldn't get into Charlie Trada. You couldn't get into Lusirc. I don't care how much money you had. You could be, you know, the Texas billionaire,

of all time. You could buy front road tickets for the theater, 10 minutes before the show starts. You could be on the 50-yard line at the Super Bowl. You could be behind the home plate at the World Series. You couldn't get a table at Spada. I don't give a fuck who you are. And that shows demand. For what I do, demand is everything. That's 100% of my game is creating demand. So the demand was already there. It was how do you explain to the people who think, and write the checks, that the demand is there and to use them to create demand for their products. I always think of this in the sense of there's the value you create and the value you capture, and if those things are out of balance, like, to one side of it, you capture more than you create,

you'll go bankrupt or out of business. If you don't capture enough, you won't be able to create. Yeah, define. I mean, you have to open the curtain to peek in, but when they peek in, you better have to have something there. Right. Or they're gone forever. Yeah.

You know? So, for me, the chefs were easy. It was really how did groups of artists get from a place where they made nothing to where they're billionaires. And they all had the same kind of things in common, which was broadcast. So food network, you know, some network became my goal. The first thing I said to the guys in the meeting, I signed everybody the same day. So what happened was, so everything for me is indeed jerk.

So I went with Mr. Verge on a tour, and for the first time realized he wasn't getting paid, he was paying his own hotel rooms and places where they were throwing million-dollar dinners. It reminded me so much of the Chitlin Circuit for black artists with Teddy. It was exactly the same thing. It was here with these, you know,

Stoufers opened a resort in Palm Springs. They called it the million-dollar opening, featuring Roger Verger, and they had $100,000 worth of caviar and crystal champagne. So we went to check in, and they gave him the shittiest room in the hotel. They asked for his credit card for extras. I said, how much are you getting paid for this? He said, oh, Shep, I do not get paid. Are you kidding?

I would not answer money. You're not getting paid. It's a million dollars. When we're trying to leave, I can't find Verge. He's at the bar. Stoufers came out with a wine. He's at the pool holding the wine. He has his own wine line, Roger Verge.

Shooting for Food and Wine magazine. I said, excuse me, Mr. Verge, how much are they paying? Oh, shit, they would not pay me for this. And that happened this whole journey, and I got so pissed off. I said to him at the end of the trip that I was going back to L.A. I had Kenny Loggins at the Ritz on the Big Island for a corporate affair for one of the car companies. And I got so pissed off.

I said, Mr. Vijay, from now on, please have these people call me. me. This is what I do for a living. This is after I knew him for 10 years. I said, I can't see you treated like this. I don't care about the money, but I can't see you treated like this. It's just not right. When I got to the Big Island, I ran into Wolfgang Puck. He was doing the dinner for the event that Kenny Loggins was playing at. And I told him the Verger story. And he said, are you kidding, chef? You want to hear my story? I said, tell me, Wolf. And he said, and I knew Wolf only through Verger. You know, I knew all the chef Steve Bruget. He was doing the same convention we were. We were getting

$150,000 plus all expenses a week at the hotel for the ban everybody. He was promised two first-class tickets and a suite. Two days before he left, they called him up and asked them, they couldn't source the food. Could he bring the certain products with him? He came up to 150 pounds of food. He gets to the airport at Stu Coach tickets. He gets to the airport at the Ritz. There's no one to meet him. He calls up the chef, who said, I'm so sorry, we're very busy, take a cab.

Now with the 150 pounds, he's got to take three caps. He gets to the hotel, there's no one there to pay for the caps. They don't have room in the refrigerator, so he said they gave me a cart, and I had to walk at a quarter of a mile to the hotel next door, and walk it back this morning. And I said, how much are you getting paid? And he said, paid, nothing.

Now, that night, we do the show, and there's a meat and greet for corporates, always. Kenny Loggins had 30 people waiting on the meet and greet. Wolfgang Puck had 400 women. Kenny's getting 150,000. Wolfgang is getting nothing. So I said to Wolf, I said, you know, I'm going to do this thing for Verge. You guys got to get yourselves organized. This is insane.

You can't take this shit. And when I got back to L.A., he called me, asked me to come over to a restaurant. There were, I think, 100 or 110 or 85 of the world's great chefs. Nobu and Thomas Keller, Paul Prude Holmes. And they asked me if I would represent them. I told them I would do it pro bono. But they had to, if I could get them a TV network, they had to work for free for a couple of years, two, three.

They had to let me go tell somebody I can get all the talent free. But if they get broadcasts, they don't need me anymore. And that's what we did. We started an agency called Life Culinary Resource. culinary resources. A person I knew peripherally was, I just left CNN. He started CNN, Reese

Schoenfeld. And all the guys worked for free and we got really lucky because what I got them was a 30 second commercial on each of their shows to sell a product in lieu of payment. And we developed Emerald Spices for that.

And that I share it. That's the only thing I share in those days. So for me, it was like representing artists. It was the same basic thing. How do you get above the noise? I think the first gig we did was Dean Fearing for the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame dinner when Bruce Springsteen was inducted at the Century Plaza Hotel, which was actually pretty funny. It was the first gig I booked for the chefs. Dean Fearing was the chef at the mansion in Dallas, very, very, very famous, very well respected by all the chefs.

And I got him, I think, $50,000, which was the first time any chef got paid for anything. Money equates to respect. If you work for free for people, you don't get their respect. That's where a manager's job comes in, and to make them do it in a way that they're not going to, where they win also. Reading, playing, learning. Stellist lenses do more than just correct your child's vision. They slow down the progression of myopia. So your child can continue to discover all the world has to offer through their own eyes.

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visit td.com slash small business advice to find out more or to match with a TD small business banking account manager. What goes into sort of like creating that? I wouldn't call it the celebrity of whatever industry, but sort of like becoming more of a person and a brand than... I think everything's different. Killed by association, very important. It's why people pay for these tweets on social media by stars.

Do you think we're going to see more of this in sort of like with the backdrop of counterculture to algorithmic? I think it's always the same. I think, you know, there's people who come through in every generation that are artists who see it. You know, you look at the Lady Gaga today. She's exactly what Alice was. 40 years ago. Yeah, I think it's basically the same.

Just the economics change, the delivery systems change. But it's the same kind of thing. You know, it's just figuring out how to get attention and then having the real goods behind the curtain. I remember a moment in my life where I would walk past my kid's room. They were playing hip-hop music. I opened up the door. I said, when you turn that shit off,

and as soon as I said it, I shut the door and said to myself, that's the next big thing, because that's the way the cycle works. Anything I don't like, they're going for. Right. And so I think now you're seeing guys like Ed Sheen who are quiet, go out on their own. That's a counterculture, you know, the Swedish stance mob. Because guys like me don't go to the Swedish.

Yeah. But the next generation does so they have young kids who are seeing their parents. It's just kind of like cycles over and over again. I think so. I think much as we think we're in control, the human cycle is still a lot stronger than us. Was there a moment when you ever felt like a failure or a fraud? Every day. Still, I think anyone who doesn't say that I look in a mirror

and see a schmuck is sort of kidding themselves to me. How do you get through that? Like, how do you recover from you? I just laugh. Yeah. Because I know I'm not. I know, you know, had a good life and been lucky and do it all. But I still, you know, you're still that, at least I am.

And I think most of the people I say it to, or at least the kind of people I'm drawing to are in my friends. you know they just start laughing if you watch supermage I mean you seem like you've had you know a lot of successes it doesn't go into a lot of failures are there any that stand out to you

in terms of particularly? I think most of the ones that stand out to me with Alice because he was the one that I took the most amount of chances with we've had so many with them I think in the movie I tell the canon story we got a first stadium date at three

River Stadium in Pittsburgh. I was trying to think of what would Alice Cooper do in a baseball stadium? That big, gigantic, how do we use that space to do something really unique? And for some reason, getting shot out of a cannon across the stadium, sort of hit my head, that that would be like an Alice Cooper thing to do. Big, dramatic, I could do by flame light and a big explosion. So I went to Warner Brothers studios who had built my guillotine and other props for us. And there was an old man, they were a little half-glasses who did all our stuff and told him this idea.

And he didn't even look up in me. He said, what period canon? And it was the most confident answer I've ever gotten on a bizarre question. And I told him, we went to a drawer, and he pulled out blueprints. So I thought I was home, completely confident. Alice, sweetheart, baby, you're going to get shot out of a cat? No, really? Cover it.

I got it. So he builds this 40-foot, three-ton or four-ton cannon. The gag was that the lights go down. The whole band goes to torchlight, except for the drummer who's on a snare. They take Alice in a procession. Two guys are holding them with torch lights. Load him in the cannon. The band goes up steps to where this big fuse is in the cannon.

I like the fuse and the tape recording comes on a really loud fuse sound. Alice catapults out, spotlight hits the top of the stadium on the other side, and there's Alice. So he goes into a dummy, he's supposed to get in a golf cart to race around, and they spend enough time with the schmooze to get him around. The problem is the dummy only comes out like two inches and falls on the stage. Alice is the golf cart. He hasn't quite gotten to the top. When he gets to the top, there's no noise.

It's the end of the show. No one's applauding. No one's going crazy. The spotlight hits him. He's right there. It's like completely silent. He comes backstage. He said, what happened?

I said, it was really horrible. This thing came out. We had an explosion the next night. The cannon blew up. Alice was in it. He went to the hospital. But the doctors were going to allow him to do the show from a wheelchair. So we came and we did the stadium show.

and people were just like the newspaper was I can't believe he came and played right from the hospital bed what a great guy that says so we got through the cannon not working but with a normal relationship with an artist that would have you'd be up all night screaming and yelling how could you do this to me how could you put me out there I can't believe what you did to me

and I never would have gotten to the next night or the next night he didn't say one word to me except is it going to be okay I got it covered, he left me alone. And that's where trust, another corner where, you know, especially in failure, if you don't have trust, those are dark moments when you got a guy slapping your back and laughing and saying, okay, well, that's all you can do is the best you can do. And if you really have done the best you can do.

Were there any moments that you ever felt scared? I mean, in the 70s, wasn't Teddy's former manager before you killed? Yeah. in different ways. Physically, I don't think I ever felt scared. But scared every day that I'm not going to pull it off. That's a lot of weight to have people's lives on your shoulders. I still get scared when I'm doing something. But I think that fear is good. It drives it and makes sure it's better. It seems like fear has different effects on different people. Sometimes it's paralyzing and means you won't do anything. And sometimes it's like motivating. Yeah, for me it's motivating.

Again, it gets back to that. They only have one life each. I make a mistake. I really screw up a life. There's always a scare that, you know, are you doing the right thing or you're not doing the right thing? Is it going to work? Especially when you get way out on the edge, is it going to work? It's a big question. They were asking a lot of another human to trust you that it's going to work. For Teddy Pendergrass, for women only shows there wasn't a person in his life who didn't tell him he shouldn't do it. Lawyer told him he'd get sued. Record company told him he'd never sell a record to a male ever again.

There was nobody who wanted him to do it. And he just looked at me in the eyes. He said, this is going to work. And I said, this is going to work, man. This is going to work. This is what you need. This is the thing that's going to put you over. So that was in the 70s when you met Teddy. And at the time, black artists were being suppressed.

What was going on for people? I don't know if suppressed is a word to use. They hadn't been liberated, I think, is a better way maybe to put it on. Just like the chefs. A system had developed probably was greed-based, but I'm not going to be the one to make that judgment. But in the black world, there was a thing called the Chitlin Circuit. And just like the reason Wolfgang worked for free at the Big Island,

all the chefs were convinced that if they had an expensive restaurant, the only way to keep it full was to go reach out to Chicago, to Pittsburgh, to Hawaii, to all these places, and promote themselves. And that that was the only way their restaurants back home were going to survive. The Chitland Circuit was exactly. with the same thing. It was record companies, radio stations, and promoters. Teddy would have a single. He wasn't even told. It was just the way it was. If you were a black artist and you had a single, you went to Cleveland. You played a concert for a promoter who was a partner

with the radio station. They played your record. That's why you went and did it, not to get paid. You did it because if you didn't go, you wouldn't get your record played. Or that's what the record company would tell you. Right. If they didn't have a chitlin circuit, they'd have to pay a fortune to independent promotion men. So what they would do is deliver the artists free to the city. They'd get their records plays.

They sell a ton of records, and they wouldn't pay the artists for the record sales anyway. It just wasn't even discussed. It wasn't... It's just how it was. It's how it was. And once we said, fuck you, just like the chefs, everyone realized,

wait a second, I'm the power. It's not Stoufers in Palm Springs that they come in for They come in because I'm cooking here Just like, wait a second Then I come into the club Because I'm on Philadelphia Records They come into the club because they love my music

And the radio station has to play my music Because that's what the people want And that's changed everything And that just started to change everything What have you learned about how to be successful And not hurting other people? Try and make relationships about win-win instead of win-lose.

And you may not be able to do that every time, but if that's your focus, is to try and make sure the person that you're dealing with gets something out of their transactional. Whether it's emotional, economic, career-driven, don't just take what's on the table

and run for cover. A lot of people talk about win-win, but few people live it. What do you do when you're on the other side trying to figure out if this person's sincere or... It depends. It's two different areas. One is for my artists and one is for me.

For me, I'm pretty successful at doing win-win because I don't have to jump into stuff. For my artists, I'm not as successful because there are a lot of people out there that want losers, and you have to make sure you're not. One of them, that your artist isn't one of them. You're how old now?

73. 73. You've lived an amazing life so far. Oh, my God. Hopefully lots of years left. I was reading the Rolling Stones article before that came out right after the book. And in there, you briefly sort of like, you were asking a philosophical question, but you never answered it, which was, what's life all about? I don't know if you ever get that answer.

Where are you with this pursuit? It's an interesting moment in my life. I have a new lady, which I didn't think would happen again, very much in love with and a very different relationship than I've had before. So that's open the gateway to a much calmer, personal. journey. So I'm sort of at a questioning period. I don't really know what I would like, not that I am in control of it, but if I have choices, what I want life to be in the next period that I have, I've been getting very focused on Chinese cooking. And I've never given up the thought of a child, even though I'm 73.

Still got some years left now. Yeah, yeah. Not very interested in commerce. I see these opportunities go by my eyes that are really nice, and I can see that I'm really drawing back from that world. It's been a nice time. I feel like I've moved into sort of fourth or fifth gear. I think I'm happier with myself. What does that mean happier with yourself? I don't see the schmuck in me as much.

I get happier with who I am. We all see our own faults. So then it's like a normal time of life. I don't think you ever stop. And one thing for sure, you'd never find out the answer of what's it all about. What does happiness mean? I think happiness is just feeling good about the way you're living your life. I think it depends on the moment, and particularly the person.

There are some people who anger makes them really happy in some sick way. I don't know where those emotions come in. I think compassion is one I understand. Right. Much more than happiness as a way of dealing with life. You met the Dalai Lama through Sharon Stone when you guys were dating. How did that change you? Just fortified my feelings I had picked up through my association with Mr. Régé

as a way in which you can live your life of service from a position of strength, not weakness. When I met His Holiness, they were exactly the same person, compassionate to every living thing. I always thought with the two of them, the thing that always impressed me with both of them, although I never discussed it with either one, is no matter what we were doing, no matter what, it didn't matter. They always saw the miracle in something before they saw the something.

The holiness, he meets so many people. Every time he met a person, you could see that first. And Mr. Vergeo was the same, whether it was a chicken that came in to be cooked that night, or a customer, or a flour. It was like the miracle of that essence of that thing came first, and you can't be anything but compassionate to it.

So, you know, they were as compassionate to like a piece of paper as they were to their relative. They see the miracle on everything. So that's the way I sort of, that was my takeaway from both of them. And I try and incorporate that. I have not been able to do that in my political conference. conversations. Do you think it's like a mental habit that you consciously practice until it becomes?

Yeah. For me, for me, definitely. Yeah. Especially if I'm in a moment where I'm confused or not feeling the joy or complaining about something, the flight's too long that this is it. I just stopped. Oh my God. My two thoughts are first world problems.

And then what a miracle. How do you jolt yourself out of that? My first two thoughts are first world problems. Do you put that in perspective in the sense of... Yeah, I just thought laughing. Yeah. Outside my girlfriend, I said, boy, the service here is long. And then I do, wow, what a first world problem.

Look at me. Yeah. We all catch ourselves doing that, right? But I think it's nice to have something that, you know, clicks you out of it as soon. We're all... I'm wondering if you could go back and tell your... yourself, your younger self, any message that you want to pass on, what would it be? I don't know if I would change anything.

No regrets. Yeah. I mean, I'm sure plenty of regrets. I would have like to have children at a younger age, but it just didn't happen. I wish my dad had lived longer. I know, I have things that I would have liked, so I could have spent, you know, more time when I understood who he was rather than being the kid. I don't know.

I mean, there are moments when I think, why did I do too much drugs, and I party too much. And then I go back to, you know, whatever you're doing, you're supposed to be doing. And if you do it with compassion, and I've always had that stroke in me, I just never knew what it was, and I used to be ashamed of it instead of proud of it. Right. Just happy I got here. Whatever got me here.

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