WTF with Marc Maron Podcast - Episode 691 - Todd Rundgren

Episode Date: March 21, 2016

If you look at Todd Rundgren’s body of work, you might think it’s the product of a dozen different people in various fields of the music industry. But it’s just one guy. Todd talks with Marc about his many projects, including his own music and his work with The Band, Meat Loaf, XTC, and others. Plus, Todd explains how he came up with Bang the Drum All Day quite literally in his sleep. Sign up here for WTF+ to get the full show archives and weekly bonus material! https://plus.acast.com/s/wtf-with-marc-maron-podcast. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

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I'm Mark Maron. This is WTF, my podcast. Thanks for coming by. Thanks for sticking me in your head. Thank you for taking me in wherever you may be, in a cave, under the ground. Todd Rundgren is on the show today. Todd Rundgren, who I've known all my life just by virtue of seeing his albums my entire life. I know his face. I know I could identify him all my life, I think. Since I've been cognizant of looking at records, I've known Todd Rundgren's face. And I don't know that I really connected him with his music until, you know,

not long ago because how did I get to it? Rundgren is one of these guys that look, I know he's a genius. I know he's made a million fucking records. They just released a box set last month of all the Bearsville records. He's also on tour. He's taking a tour, making a tour, doing a tour all over the country in canada you can go to todd-rungren.com to find out where he's playing

but it was one of those situations where and this has happened a lot on the show most people whether you may know a couple of todd's hits but a lot of you are sort of hung up. Maybe not you, but I'm sure you've heard that Liv Tyler grew up with him as a father, basically. Because Todd was with Liv's mother, B.B. Buell, I believe is her name. Steve Tyler kind of checked out on that front, I guess. I don't even know the story, but I will tell you right now. I wasn't going to talk to todd rundgren about that you can go find that kind of cultural detritus dialogue elsewhere i wanted to talk about the genius i wanted to learn because i get very intimidated i don't

know if some of you know this but you know I don't have the power to book anybody I want. I like when you assume I do, but I don't. Some people aren't available. Sometimes you've got to find a time window. Some people don't want to. And then some people are offered. Some people are presented that want to do the show. And Todd Rundgren was one of those people.

And we had him booked. And I rescheduled it or kind of blew it off or pushed it up a bit because i felt insecure about my knowledge of todd rungren when you're looking at somebody that's got a career that spans you know almost 50 years with his own music and with production and with and knowing that there are full-on todd rungren nerds out there i that's what always intimidates me when i i have the opportunity to interview somebody with a massive career is that uh i i just assume you know people are going to be out there going like oh how could you not talk about that time he broke his toe in Woodstock because he was running from an angry guitar player you

know I made that up why didn't you talk about the two notes that he took out of the thing like I have a series of people I make up in my head and there's always the the one voice one of the guys I make up in my head in relation to anybody i talk to is the guy that knows everything about him even the most esoteric nuanced stuff and that uh they're just waiting to call me out didn't do a good job didn't bring up uh the soundtrack for peewee's playhouse i didn't know that yeah you should have done some research i don't know maybe i just want to talk to the guy and learn about him go experience it myself so that's what i do when i have somebody that has a career spanning the amount of time that todd has

is that that means i have to enter the world you know aggressively and and fill my head up and try to understand because i'm i wasn't a lifelong fan i had sort of a hard time with his music because it didn't necessarily resonate with me but you know you listen to some of the records you're like well this guy's definitely touched you know he's definitely a genius but uh he might not be my genius but that doesn't mean i'm not interested so why don't i gather what i know what i can know from listening to the records and some tidbits here and there and i relied on a friend of the show mr paul myers who wrote a pretty thorough book about uh todd in the studio it's called a wizard Star, Todd Rundgren in the Studio. It is the book on Todd Rundgren's studio work. So I emailed Paul, and I'm like, dude, where do I start, man? So he got me on it.

And the first time that I became sort of fascinated with Todd, and I picked up one of his records that he used record store, was because the Sales Brothers, Hunt tony hunt who i've uh interviewed who were both uh the offspring of soupy sales but hunt is one of the great drummers one of the great rock drummers as is his brother one of the great rock bassists played a bit with um todd and with uh iggy pop on lust for life and with Bowie and the Tin Machine. And when I talked to Hunt, he said that he was playing with Todd when he was 18 years old, 17 years old. So I became sort of fascinated with Todd then.

I listened to those records and I did what I could, but I wanted to talk to him. And I wanted to learn from him and just engage in that. It's always amazing to me that when I'm insecure about an interview and that usually happens when they have amazingly long careers and are incredibly prolific or have created a lot of great stuff that I just know that I'm not, I'm going to miss something. So I overcompensate and I talk for a really long time. And then I really learn some stuff. So that's coming up here. You're going to hear me talk to the wizard himself, Todd Rundgren,

who great stories and a lot of stuff that, you know, in terms of the history of music and the music that I do listen to and enjoy that I didn't know. And it was great. And he's got opinions, man. The buzz. So let me just loop you in. Been having some trouble with the buzz.

My phono. Fuck. When I talk about this this it's so stupid but it's you know it's it's i get obsessed with this stuff because i don't want to deal with my you know pending mortality and uh the terror of meaninglessness so i'm locked into the buzz situation i talked about building a faraday box which is an insulated cage, usually with grounded copper or something. There's a lot of different variations on it that you put over the piece of equipment or over all your equipment. So it'll fight off these intrusive electromagnetic waves from cell towers.

Well, here's the crux. Here's the rub. Here's what I found out. the crux here's the rub here's what i found out i did all the troubleshooting i could and i thought that now i'd limited it to the wires because i brought my receiver down the hall to brian's office and we plugged it in there got no buzz then i brought his amplifier phono amplifier down to my office and the buzz was there so that means the buzz was on four different pieces of equipment that i rotated out and in in my office. So I figure, got to be the plugs, got to be the electrical system.

Now there's this mysterious door down the hallway. That's why I keep out, don't open. It's got a card lock on it. And all I know is that there's AT&T equipment in there, but I didn't know what that meant. You know, I thought there was, I'd heard there was an AT&T antenna on top of the building, but I thought that was for the building Wi-Fi. I wasn't thinking. So what happens, what I learned is that it's not a Wi-Fi antenna.

AT&T actually rents space in that building, both in that hallway and on the roof for a fucking cell tower. There's a fucking cell tower on the roof of my building and what i learned from the electrician who i had come over all of the technological and mechanical infrastructure of the cell tower is situated behind a fake brick wall directly on top of my office so i am being bathed with waves all the time and no piece of equipment can stand up to the pummeling of these waves no phono preamp is insulated enough to not share with me and whoever's listening the horrible frequency of people making calls everywhere in this area. So what do I do?

I don't fucking know. I talked to my landlord. She don't want the thing there anymore. I got to talk to AT&T. Some guy said, you know, just to file a complaint with the FCC, man, they're not allowed to interfere with your shit. And then the other side of it is,

I got people that say, well, maybe you should just listen to, you know, your iPod or your phone and just plug it in and get a jam box or something. It's like, no, no, I don't want to lay down because corporate intrusion is causing me a slight inconvenience that I find annoying. it's my right to have freedom to listen to my records and not just bow down to the automobile sized infrastructure of fucking wi-fi network on top directly on top and what's it doing to my brain i don't know probably nothing maybe i don't know i don't know i'll let you know i thought it was really peaceful in there maybe that's got something to do with it. Maybe I shouldn't look a gift horse in the mouth. Is that how that saying goes? Anyway, all I can foresee is that it may be a Davy and Goliath story. David and Goliath, not the claymation.

And I, of course, would play the part of David, who only armed with a certain amount of disappointment and anger is going to fight the waves that run the world. What else do I got to tell you real quick? Oh, Daniel Klaus, who I'm a huge fan of. You may know him from the eight ball comic books or Ghost World, the graphic novel or, you know, several other great pieces of comic art has released a book called Patience. This is his new graphic novel, which I enjoyed a great deal. And we're going to have him on the show soon.

We're going to put it up soon, but I just wanted to tell you that Patience, the new graphic novel by Daniel Klaus, is out, and it's great. Okay? So now watch me learn. Don't watch me. Listen to me learn from a true wizard, Todd Rund. It's hockey season, and you can get anything you need delivered with Uber Eats. Well, almost, almost anything.

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This bonus episode is brought to you by the Ontario Cannabis Store and ACAS Creative. Todd Rundgren's here you're here at the garage where were you today uh well I got in very early this morning from Kauai where I live you live in Kauai the whole time the time I can live there yeah we've been having this discussion all day how much time i've been spending on the road with your manager you've been having that discussion yeah and and does that discussion is that like how much fucking more dates can i do or is it like i i don't i gotta keep doing dates no it's how much less dates can i do more or less i mean when you live in Kauai you want to spend at least some time at home no absolutely I've gone there it's the only place in Hawaii I've been I've been

there like two or three times wow because you know I meet people all the time they say oh I've been to Oahu oh I've been to Maui nope never been only Kauai only Kauai for a honeymoon or something like that I've taken several different three different. Oh, for a deflowering. Is that what you're saying? I don't know what it is. I just don't know where to go. I'm a sort of an anxious guy. And I think I went there with the first wife, not for a honeymoon, but for a vacation. And we, I was so taken with it. I'm like, this is going to be the go-to place. I thought it might be with her for the rest of time. It didn't out that way what uh where did you stay the first time the first time was uh this uh the the south and poipu that was the mistake yeah that's a mistake right so that's like uh you know hotel row exactly horrible but you know it was okay we got a condo

and then the second time i'm like north side north shore so i went up up there now where what was the date of your first visit? Oh, boy. 96, 7 maybe? Oh, gosh. So you never had the opportunity to stay at the Coco Palms? No, no, no. How long have you been there? Well, I've been going to the island since the mid-70s. Well, is that the one that there's still burned remains of up towards the North Shore? There's like a hotel there that I've seen like two or three times where it's just it looks like well it's on the way to the

north shore that's the cocoa palms on the left yeah that was where blue hawaii was filmed no shit with elvis so is that the one that's got like all like a haunted house kind of like well no no it's a it's full of black moss and you'll die if you go it's like nothing not it's worse than haunted it's like a rotten shell right but it's there yeah they keep saying they're going to rebuild it there's another consortium says they're going to rebuild it it'll never be what it used to be because it had just the perfect amount of tack yeah to it but it was like everything you thought about because you saw blue hawaii yeah and it was everything you thought about yeah when you went to the islands right right you're eating lunch in the lanai

while birds come and eat out of your hands and it's right next to a canal full of koi swimming around and every evening they have a torch lighting ceremony. A pig is roasted. Oh yeah, and the guys in their pareos are rowing their little canoes down the canals and everything and it's just like, and if you ever saw Blue Hawaii,

all of that is kind of reenacted in there. Right, right. And gone. It's gone. That was the first place that I stayed, the only place I ever stayed until 1993, Hurricane Iniki came through, and the eye of the hurricane, 200 mile an hour winds,

went right over the island. Leveled it. It totally leveled it. So you were there maybe three years, three or four years after that happened. You know, the place took a real haircut. Well, I mean, so, but you've been going there since the 70s? Yeah. What the hell was down there in the 70s?

Nothing? I was getting away from an evil girlfriend. Oh, yeah? See, you took your girls there. You ran away. I went there to just get a little respite. As far away as I've, you know, I was living in New York at the time. In the city.

So what are we talking, 71, 72? About then, 73, 74. Somebody suggested, you know, why don't, you know. Go, get out. She's going to kill you, man. Go for a while. Well, no, all that came much later, and I almost killed her, so...

Oh, where's that song? Some things are not meant for publication. Really? Yet. Yeah, well, you know, there's always time. You know, the deep, dark record that's when you can't quite sing anymore. That's when you do that one.

Yeah, when I start to sound like like where's just wisdom coming out yeah johnny cat yeah right right there you call rick rubin up and argue with him about it here's the deal with uh with me and you is that yeah why am i here you wanted to come i did want to come but i was surprised to be invited to come well the weird thing is is like i've spent my whole life you know saying like you know i got to get into todd runger and how do i start there seems like a lot here yeah how do i start you know and then like a few years ago i i started and i obviously it's it's very difficult because you continue to put out stuff but that happens

and then in a panic when I knew you were coming uh I I dm'd Paul Myers and I'm like dude what would it which ones what am I well he's pretty authoritative but he's the guy right well uh he wrote the biography well he wrote the biography He wrote the story of my productions. Yeah. Essentially, it was, you know, each chapter was about a particular record that got made. And he interviewed me, and he interviewed the musicians who were involved in the record and anybody else. So it's real record-y stuff. So, yeah, it's pretty much, it's not gossipy. Right.

It's, I mean, if there were any significant things going on, those were certainly related, but otherwise it was mostly an insight into the process. Right. Well, the thing that blew me away is that because I've gotten into vinyl again, right? So I've got the ballad of Todd Runger and I've got that one on.

Wow, nobody has that. Really? That was kind of the lost album. It was my second album. Right, yeah. First album came out on what was originally Ampex Records. really that was the that was kind of the lost album it was my second album right right yeah first album came out on what was originally Ampex records yeah what happened wow what is well Albert Grossman you know who was like the uber manager let's talk to let's talk about that let's go let's go into in sequence

and if we're gonna go like cuz like well that we're going there yeah exactly okay so so what happened was you know I started getting into psych rock. So then somebody hips me to Naz, and then I'm listening to Naz, and I'm like, holy shit, that's Todd Rundgren. He's in Naz. So how old were you when Naz was in existence? I was 18 when we put the band together. And where were you from?

Where did that happen? Philadelphia. So you're a Philly guy. Grew up in Philly. I did not grow up in Philly. I grew up in Westbrook Park, which was in Upper Darby, the westerly suburb of Philadelphia. And I went to Upper Darby High School. Yeah.

Other notable graduates were Jim Croce and Tina Fey. Did you know Jim Croce? And Sherry Oteri. He graduated before I was there. And, of course, Tina Fey is much younger than me yeah so whatever yeah so anyway uh but when you were so that we're talking uh mid-60s you're in high school yeah i graduated in 66 graduated air quotes in 66 so what's going on musically in philly that was like an r&b town right well we were sort of an r&b town because we you know we're right on the mason dixon line right and so like anything above the mason dixon

line that's the north that's the yankees and as you move below that it gets more questionable until you get into the deep south right and in the deep south records by black people were called race records yeah and they only got played on really low wattage stations you know and in rural areas but in philadelphia right on that sort of cusp and we had a dj his name was jerry blavitt yeah and he played nothing but r&b records yeah you know everybody else is playing white music you know and jerry blavitt the jewish guy that jerry blavitt the geeter with the heater yeah he's playing the black records. He plays all the black records.

He's still alive, and he's still DJing. Have you met with him and thanked him? Never met him and never got to thank him. But there's time. There's time. So is that what you were taking in? Was that your thing? Well, when we were growing up, yeah,

that was a thing that a lot of other areas didn't get they didn't get that sort of r&b music so that influence you know that's in me it's in daryl hall it's in you know a bunch of people who come out of philadelphia and what um when did you start like what kind of childhood were you in what your dad do? My dad was an engineer. He worked for DuPont. Oh, really? And in Philadelphia. Yeah. Had a big plant there.

Yeah. Quiet guy? Stern guy. Yeah? Well, he didn't really have a father figure. So his father figure was Jackie Gleason on The Honeymooners, a childless couple. So he never really kind of figured out how to deal with the kids. How many were there?

Four, ultimately. Oh, my God. Yeah, he knew how to make them, but managing them was a different story. Are you the oldest? I'm the oldest, yeah. Oh, my God. Everybody's still okay? They're still there.

We were never okay. Oh, they're still there we're never okay go on but oh they're still in outside of philly and stuff uh still in yeah in the philadelphia area but when did you start like here's here's the thing i have when i when i listen to you as much of the catalog as i can fit in my head is that it becomes sort of difficult to define you know what you do because you're singular and i and i i guess that's a good problem to have but like i don't know like i don't i don't that it becomes sort of difficult to define what you do because you're singular. And I guess that's a good problem to have. But I don't even know what to call it. I know that you've spawned a lot of, like when you say Hall & Oates or Daryl Hall.

Yeah. It feels to me that without you, there'd be no him. Nah. Okay. I worked on Hall & Oates' third album. Okay. And up until their third album and through the third album, they're a pretty eclectic band. Okay. I worked on Hall & Oates' third album. Okay. And up until their third album, and through the third album, they're a pretty eclectic band. You think of them now as those kind of blue-eyed soul, hit after hit after hit.

Right. Before that, they were much more sort of, they were still trying to figure out what they wanted to do out of all the possibilities. what they wanted to do out of all the possibilities. So their first album, which was called Whole Oats, almost had like an acoustic sound to it. Second one called Abandoned Luncheonette had this whole variety of songs. And if you listen to the title song, you wouldn't even know who was singing it.

But no real identity as a... Well, no, it's just so different from what people now associate with who knows. And they were still kind of in that mode when we did War Babies. But at that point, you know, Darrell was starting to think a little more conceptually. You know, he wanted to capture an era. He also wanted to push the envelope, you know, to experiment a little bit more. He also wanted to push the envelope, you know, to experiment a little bit more. David Bowie was a big influence, you know, because he was doing all of this kind of.

It's hard to explain that, huh? Yeah, it's hard to explain what it was. What year are we talking? Well, we're thinking, you know, it's a little after Ziggy Stardust. Okay. You know, it's past the science fiction thing. Right. Did he have an influence on you as well?

I always thought he was an interesting artist. Uh-huh. But I never, except for particular things that he did. Right. I never got into his process, which was essentially just trying to stay on the tip of whatever's hip. Right, or a little ahead of it if possible. A little ahead of it as possible, but never really, you never write songs about yourself. Right.

You write songs about things that sometimes don't even make any sense. Sure. You know, they use this process, him and Eno use this process sometimes where they just pull clippings of books and magazines out of a hat, and that would be the next line in the lyric. Right. Because lyrics are so hard to write.

But also, if you're the kind of artist who is constantly building artifice, in other words, you yourself are the art piece in a way. You don't write songs about your real self. You're creating an image for people, and you write songs about that image. Well, you, on the other hand, I imagine, but I've gotten this wrong with songwriters before. But you, when I listen to your music, especially the earlier stuff, it seems very heavy-hearted and uh and and and a little painful are you writing about yourself throughout like well in those you know early years you know my first three albums i was learning how to be a songwriter right and i was learning how to sing i already knew kind of how to be a producer well how okay let's get back to that when did you start

playing all these instruments well we started playing other instruments like in the NAS. But what was your first way as a kid? What did you start on? I started on, well, if you want to go way back to the beginning. Well, in those days, they offered music lessons in school. Right. It wasn't like they had a great music department, but people would go around from school to school. Yeah.

And they had a great music department, but people would go around from school to school. Yeah. And you could rent an instrument, and someone would come and give you some lessons on that instrument. Yeah. Ideally to teach you how to read music as well. Right. And the first instrument that I actually seriously tried to play was the flute. Really?

Yeah. Your choice? I just liked the sound of it. My dad didn't like a lot of pop music in the house, so we heard a whole lot of symphonic music all the time. Yeah. Did you like it? I loved it. Yeah, because you can hear that in all the records. Yeah.

A lot of layers. I love all that stuff. I love a band like Melt Banana. Who's that? Is it good? I love a band like Melt Banana. You know, it's like. Who's that? Is it good? Oh, it's a Japanese trio that if. Find yourself some Melt Banana. I'm going to write it.

I'm going to write it down. I'll make note. They got like a girl singer, a guy guitar player. Yeah. With a bunch of, a whole bunch of pedals. Yeah. And a drummer. Right.

And they just torture everything out of their instruments that they can during these performances you know you can't believe how much they are better what this girl is doing to her voice and how crazy the drummer is he's like keith moon times two you know and the guitar player is doing everything possible you know with pedals and yeah yeah switches and stuff like that and creating these loops on the fly, and it's just, it's amazing, and it makes no sense. And that's good. Yeah. It's not pop music, but it's good.

No, but it's like, you know, part of music has always been, we've gone through this entire illusory period since Edison discovered how to record sound. Yeah. Illusory in what sense? Well, before that, you couldn't hear music unless somebody played it for you. Right, right, right. Yeah.

When's the guy coming over? Yeah. Now we got able to capture the performance, the sound of the performance. Right. And we've really perfected that over 100 years or so, 100 or more years. Too perfect sometimes. Whatever. years or so, you know, 100 or more years. Too perfect sometimes. Whatever, but people have lost the idea of the difference between

like a performance, which is always there. Imagine all the technology disappears. Right. You know, tomorrow what are musicians going to go back to doing? They're going to learn to get better at playing. Right, right, right. Stuff like that. So that's the

under layer that was always there this whole thing about you know the recorded artifact right has not really come into full perspective yet you know right i mean just because this you know there is a performance and sometimes it isn't even a performance right it's a construction of sound right Which you've done a lot of. Which I do. Yeah. But you love to perform live, clearly. Yes, and I also enjoy performing live.

And I realize that if you stop doing that, you take most of the joy out of making the music. Uh-huh. Yeah, that makes sense. And it doesn't mean you can't perform in the studio, but that's the hardest part of all because you don't have an audience there right and when you're producing records for other people it's the hardest thing to get in their head you know right don't look at that as a microphone right what do you look at it is that it's supposed to be the ear of the listener

oh really yeah so you start on flute then play that for a while yeah Yeah, my sister decided she would take clarinet lessons, but she sucked, and I got better at it than she did. And I learned how to play, like, Two Strangers on the Shore on the clarinet, and I chuffed my dad no ends, you know? That's when they started to realize that maybe I had some musical talent. So they did buy me the guitar lessons that I really wanted

when the Ventures came out with Walk, Don't Run. Right, of course, yeah. And I said, oh, guitar. Yeah. That's what I want to do now. So then you get to guitar, and you're jamming, and it's the 60s, and it's time. Yeah, eventually I get a real guitar. Actually, I had crappy guitars until, but I did have a band.

Yeah. I played a little bit while I was still in high school. Actually made some. Covers? Originals? pocket change. No, all covers. All covers. But that was when we also started to incorporate a lot of blues

into what we were doing. Did you like playing blues? I did. I liked listening to it and playing it. Who were your blues guys? Well, in those days, of course, there were the old masters, Sonny Boy Williamson, of course, and Muddy, Wolf, oh, Junior Wells. Yeah.

Buddy Guy. And Buddy Guy, world's longest guitar chord. Yeah. So you're listening to that. The Butterfield Band. Oh, they were around already? Yeah, the Butterfield Band. I think their their album came out 65 or something like that and then we said so yeah white guys yeah playing the blues all right yeah just before the english guys yeah

no the english guys had already done that oh they had no see the whole thing was in england they had this merchant seaman tradition. And in a lot of towns, especially places like Liverpool and stuff like that, merchant seamen would just go back and forth to Mobile, to these port cities in the south, go out and buy singles in the little record shops and stuff like that and bring back all this blues music to England. None of it was getting played in america yeah i know i talked to may all about that you'd have to wait for it like you know you'd have to

wait till the one guy who got those records got those exactly you know some merchant seaman can't have loads of all the kids home will love this you know buy a bunch of singles come back to liverpool you know and then suddenly all those kids are playing this music and we don't find out about it till the yard birdsbirds play I'm a Man. Right. Yeah. And it's a couple states down from you. Exactly.

Just below the Mason-Dixon line. You could have driven there. It's so weird to think about that, that it's sort of like the spice trade, that the world in certain places didn't have cinnamon until somebody brought it over on a boat. But you don't think about the blues being like that. But that's what it's like. yeah that's the interesting part about it is it was so close and yet had to go so far you know to get back so how did how many records did you do at the nas uh we did uh in actuality two we did a debut album and then we did what was intended to be a double album but the label was not happy with the double album concept.

So one album came out, and then after that, sort of a leftovers album came out. And you were writing all the songs? Pretty much, yeah. And that was part of the problem. Why? I suddenly got smitten by Laura Nero. Yeah.

Eli and the 13th Confession came out, and it totally, like, rocked my world. Changed your whole way of thinking, didn't it? Yeah, about music. Up until that, you're writing for the group you're in. This was like, holy crap. What about it? This girl's like 19 years old.

Yeah. And she is writing and singing like she was 50. And yeah, she was like a star overnight, but she didn't know how to manage her career very well. Right. But kind of what happened while I was still in the NAS, I arranged for, got my manager to arrange for me to meet her. It wasn't Albert Grossman yet, was it? No, it wasn't. Right. It was the manager of the NAS.

Okay. We were still in the NAS. How's that guy doing? Gone. Gone, yeah. But. So you meet Laura Nero. So I meet Laura Nero.

I go up to her apartment, which is in the Dakota. Really? Yeah. And she makes tuna fish casseroles, the only thing she knows how to make. Because she's a kid, in a way. Still pretty young. But also, that's the name of her publishing company, Tuna Fish Music. She loved it.

Yeah. Anyway, she made some tuna fish casserole. Yeah. I was just really nervous the whole time. So what were you expecting out of this encounter? Nothing. I just wanted to meet her, you know, maybe get some, you know, reflected inspiration or whatever, figure out how she did what she did. And did you?

She called me like a week or two later to come visit her again. So I went to visit her, and she said, would you like to be my band leader? And the Nats had just signed their first record contract. And I'm thinking, jeez, I'd love to be your band leader, but I have to do this thing with this band. But the upshot was I started writing all these Laura Nero songs. For her or for you? No, for making the nas record all these laura nero songs

that just you know in the end it just didn't mix well with our original were the fellows no i started writing everything on the piano at that point before that i wrote most everything on the guitar right and uh i mean even hello it's me the first song i ever wrote was written on a guitar before i ever figured out how to play it on the piano yeah so yeah it just didn't with the other guys sort of like what the fuck is this they're kind of yeah what are we doing yeah yeah kind of where's the rock and roll man kind of yeah so i was saying we could have rocked them up a little bit more but they were not enthusiastic well what what was it because you have a very specific sound there are certain

progressions that you like to use or certain chords you like to use and and what what was it about and i imagine that all tracks back to that moment with laura nero that there was a there was a tone to it what what was it essentially that changed for you in that moment? What opened up? Well, in a broader sense, you know, it was the personal nature of the music. Right. You know, is that, you know, she was really sort of pouring out her soul on every performance. And that was something that was sort of rare generally in music. Yeah. You know, most artists, I think of artists as being in two

general categories. One is that they are revelatory. In other words, you get the idea that they're really singing. They really believe what they're singing. And the others are like obfuscatory.

Like David Bowie. Somebody who's like, you're creating an image, you know, you don't want that image to crack. So you can't be revealing too much of something that isn't that image. Right. But at some point you entered a phase of stagecraft that certainly was large. Well, yeah, you could call that maybe even a third category, which is a... I'm showing too much of myself.

I better put on some eye makeup. No, it isn't. No, it isn't. It's when you start thinking in actual theatrical terms and you write for that moment. Oh, okay. You write for the stage. Right, right. You know, like you're writing a musical or something like that.

And so you're trying to figure out what's the unifying theme here. If there is one, that's how concept albums and the tours that follow them are built. So it's like a theater piece. Exactly. Is there a unifying theme, first of all, that we should play off of? Does it involve costumes? Does it involve special effects it doesn't involve special effects yeah things like that you know we could totally dove into that when we could afford it

so when still will but those those first records did you see them as as whole pieces all of them no i mean my very first record was a total pastiche i just was curious about how so run and the the one i have the uh run the ballad of todd rungren and i guess like the the album after that was something that was a big record that was like two record double record that was a double album that had like three hit singles off of it and it was like uh that was a concept record wasn't it well the only concept initially was that i was going to play all the instruments myself which i had not previously attempted to do but that would that take two years to make no no then you played all of them i played well except for the last side on the last side those are all live tracks like

the something anything that everyone's familiar with that was a live session that i called in the morning we did three songs that day yeah um why did you decide to do that just run out of steam or no i had already gone over the single album limit yeah i already had an album and a half and i thought do i want to do four sides yeah yeah of just me or do i want to do something that's like oh the good old days right good old days being like before you ever got a record contract right you got demo time in a label studio in those days there were those very few independent studios yeah you wanted to demo for a label you had to go into their studio so you had to do this over and over and over again until you got signed but you got like an hour maybe even less half hour got an hour with

an engineer record as many songs as you can in an hour and you do them all live right there's no overdubbing no right no no we don't overdub you're only going to two track anyway yeah so well that's more exciting isn't it in a way yes it brings a whole lot more attention to it yeah yeah yeah and that in a way makes can make a better record and and hello it's me was huge it was a huge song uh it did become huge it was like the second version of it though uh-huh because the flip side of open my eyes the first naz single was hello it's me done at a dirgy pace with me playing vibes instead of guitar wow and. And that's a whole different song. A whole other thing, yeah.

And did that song, did you feel that, like the Hello It's Me that became the huge hit, was that, did you feel like you defined a sound at that point? No, it was nonplussed. What were the other hits they were on that record? I Saw the Light. I Saw the Light was the first hit. Right.

Hello It's Me. And I Think It Wouldn't Have Made saw the light was the first hit right hello it's me and uh i think it wouldn't have made any difference was a lesser hit right but it was a big record so now it was a great record as a matter of fact it opened a whole lot of very interesting doors for me is that where grossman comes in all of my solo albums are under the grossman regime and he was a character right that guy oh yeah? Oh, yeah. He looked like Ben Franklin. Right. And he managed, who did he manage? Dylan, Baez, the band?

Well, he managed like every significant folk act at one point because he had a club in Chicago called the Gate of Horn. He was originally a restaurateur, but he decided he would put on these folk acts. And anytime he saw somebody he liked, he signed them up to a management contract, which they never got out of, ever.

Yeah, by the time I met him, the Naz, there was a partner in the management, like a junior partner, and he went on to work with Albert Grossman. And after the Naz broke up, I was on the street street i was living with clothiers in the west village um people that i used to buy clothes from when i was in the net yeah i wound up living with them i designed lights in a club i was doing anything you know you're like 22 less yeah yeah no that would be about 20 yeah and uh and this guy approached me he said you know like i watch you do the production and the mixing on the last nas album you think you might have

some talent here so come to the grossman organization and help us modernize all these folk acts oh so that was your so they started putting me you know with uh ian and sylvia and james cotton and you know butterfield band and stuff putting me you know with Ian and Sylvia and James Cotton and you know Butterfield Band and stuff like that you know just in the booth yeah

yeah essentially you know I did Jesse Winchester album I did Stage Fright I did wow Stage Fright

that's just in house stuff did you like those guys the band what's that well I was a really you know those guys were very very experienced Well, I was a really, you know, those guys were very, very experienced. Yeah.

And I was not. Right. You know, they had already been like the Hawks for Ronnie Hawkins. Right, Ronnie Hawkins. Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. And, you know, played probably like forever doing that. Were they impressive when you looked at them? Were you like, holy shit?

No, I was not. Okay. I mean, you know i i think we got along they were sort of like you know they found me you know amusing in certain ways but also i got things done yeah you know i exuded a certain confidence about what i was doing which always sells yeah and did you find did you did you when you listen to that record can you identify your sound as a producer? No, and I was not a producer. There was no producer on Stage Fright. Yeah. They were kind of scrupulous about that.

You were just mixing? I did all the recording and mixing and enduring. And after that, I was in England and I helped to mix the Albert Hall show that they did there. And then I had, you know, my first solo album, Levon and Rick Danko did a song for me. Oh, that's, was it, did you ask them? No, I got along with all those guys. They had an internal dynamic that was so tense anyway.

Oh, yeah, Oh, yeah. You know, there was a lot of tension about the fact that Robbie wrote everything. Right. And therefore owned the publishing to everything. Right. And so they kind of felt sometimes like side men, you know, to Robbie's thing. I never really got into the, I never thankfully had to get into the details of that but i knew that that was kind of right a constant source of tension so then during the during the sessions there was it got very

hard it was hurting hurting felines yeah it was like it was trying to get everyone all at their instruments and ready and in the mood to do a take all at their instruments and ready and in the mood to do a take, seemed to take most of the time. Most of the time was not spent doing takes. Okay. It was getting everyone onto their instrument to do a take. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Well, you know, a lot of things, you know, would impinge.

Yeah, yeah, yeah. One is that Garth was and likely still is an narcoleptic. Uh-huh. So he would just fall asleep at some point, you know, even in the middle of a song. Yeah. Levon, unfortunately, was involved with opiates and stuff like that. Yeah. He'd be trying to do a take.

We're looking. We're at the Woodstock Theater. Right. And we can't find Levon. We're ready to do a take. We're looking, we're doing, we're at the Woodstock Theater. Right. You know, and we can't find Levon, you know, we're ready to do a take, can't find Levon, finally find him under a pile of curtains somewhere fast asleep. Yeah. We do a session one day and Richard doesn't show up. Where's Richard?

Nobody knows where Richard is. Richard apparently has spent the night in his car nose face down in a culvert all night long. They had issues. You got into that with Grossman. But that's kind of like, you know, it characterizes them. You kind of channel those issues into the music

ultimately. And that's the job of a producer? Ultimately, but as I say, I was not the producer. I did not have the authority to say, hey, let's get to it. But you had the authority to say, come on, guys, can we just, hey, leave on. Well, I did.

Apparently, I don't remember literally what I did, but I could be very sarcastic and needling and stuff like that. I remember they all got angry with me because at one point I referred to Garth as an old man. Oh, really? Because relative to me he was. So that's

how you got in with Grossman. So what happened? What were these opportunities that opened up for you after you did the big one, something, anything? You were about to say a lot of doors opened. Well, this is essentially what characterized my output from that point on and why it is so difficult for you to absorb it.

Right. Oh, good. You're going to answer all my questions. Yeah, because I was making more money as a producer than most people make as an artist. Okay. At that point. I had done Bad Finger. I was doing Grand Funk Railroad.

Grand Funk. Yeah. Eventually, I did Meatloaf. Bad Outta Hell, right? Yes. That's a big record. It was a very large record. Still a big record.

Big boy, big record. Yeah. Yeah. Still pretty large, actually. Yeah. Ironically enough. You guys friends? We never see each other.

I was wondering about that. Not about you and him specifically but you know we were never close right thankfully so you were hired by the label after something anything no no no exactly wrong okay i'm just throwing by i know i know assume nothing now meatloaf and jim steinmanman essentially came to me after they had demoed for everybody in the business. And nobody could figure out what to do with this big, fat guy with the overly long songs. And the weird, creepy guy with the white hair and the white gloves playing the piano. White hair and the white gloves playing the piano.

Yeah. But they rented a demo studio, and I came in, and they performed most of what turned out to be Bad Out of Hell live. Right. Yeah. With four people. Right. Steinman on the piano.

Yeah. Ellen Foley and Rory dodd on vocals yeah and the big guy so anyway i i watched them do this thing yeah and at that time i could afford really to take on anything okay as long as there was just like sort of a minimal production advance. Yeah. And I thought, this is a spoof of Bruce Springsteen. This is the ultimate Springsteen spoof. Springsteen was just starting to happen. He's on the cover of Time magazine.

Yeah, yeah. And what does Springsteen do? These overwrought, overlong songs. Yeah. You know? Yeah. So I thought, this is like the anti springsteen you know it's the same sort of thing but it's all like taking it to at some other extreme yeah and also it's like you don't look at him and think what a hunk yeah unless you think whoa yeah what a

hunk of something you know yeah but so i thought that i gotta do this it's gonna be a spoof of bruce springsteen. Yeah. And he had a label at the time. Really, they just couldn't find a producer. Right. Who was sympathetic to what they were trying to do. And so we rehearsed for two weeks.

And to put a little icing on the cake, I think we had at least two, I'm trying to remember, we had three members of the East Street Band on the record. We had Roy Bitton and Max Weinberg played on the record. So it's kind of like almost East Street Band now. And we rehearsed for like 10 days or something like that. Worked out the arrangements and rehearsed so we could go in the studio and bang it out. And the day before we're supposed to come in to the studio, Meatloaf comes to me and says,

I don't think my label understands me. I want off my label. And I'm not his manager. I can't tell him what to do. I say, well, you can do that. But we just rehearsed for two weeks. We already run up a considerable bill on this record already yeah and now you want to fire your label yeah so i wound up underwriting the record uh-huh i went to bearswell and said if you let me use the studio and if you you know pay for the expenses of making this record then you get right of first refusal on the record so but this means you you had money in the record so you were on the back end as well essentially if they didn't want to take the record yeah i essentially all of that is my bill to them right they have to collect all that money from my future right residuals of something or other. Or they won't give me something.

Yeah, yeah. But we finish the record, and Bearsville doesn't want the record. And neither does Warner Brothers, the distributor of Bearsville. They decide they don't want the record. So you got no labeling, you got no distributor. Yeah, they don't get it.

Yeah. Don't get the record. They shop it everywhere. It takes them like six months. They can't find anyone to put the record. They shop it everywhere. It takes them like six months that I can't find anyone to put the record out. Really? Yes.

So finally, find this guy, Steve Popovich, with a little subsidiary of I think was Epic Records or something like that. Yeah. Cleveland International.

Yeah. Had one other artist. Yeah. And Ian Hunter, the artist. And for some reason, he thought he could make something of the record. And I think three things happened at the time that really turned it into what we now remember it being, but it could have been not on the ash heap of his history yeah three things happened yeah one was steven popovich never gave up on the record

he put out a single nothing happened hell i'm putting out another single yeah he put out three singles before anything ever happened with the record so he never gave up on the record yeah ever happened with the record so he never gave up on the record yeah second thing that happened was during that whole period meatloaf was touring incessantly just never came off the road he played anywhere anybody would have him yeah you know and people and word of mouth started to happen about we didn't have social media then right some sort of word of mouth started happening about this big fat guy who's running around the stage and he's got this little sexy girl on his leg and that sort of thing. People say, oh, you got to see this. So that started to happen.

Then the third thing that happened, maybe the most significant thing, was MTV came on the air. Right. And Paradise by the Dashboard Light was the longest video that they had. And just like any other dj this is where you go get high yeah yeah you put on dark side of the moon and you go up to the roof yeah come back later you know so this was the equivalent you know right seven minutes of i don't have to do nothing you know yeah and that's what i think you know kind of pushed it all over the top and then they re-released the other singles and they all became hits and that's what i think you know kind of pushed it all over the top and then they

re-released the other singles and they all became hits and that was a big payday for you too ultimately it was the biggest payday i ever had because i hadn't gotten anything and here's where albert grossman came in a little handy yeah uh he went with me to their management office or their you you know, whoever, the lawyer, whoever it was who was dealing with their business. Yeah. And, yeah, the record had been selling, and I had never been recouped or compensated.

So we went to negotiate the terms of that. Yeah. And he negotiated for me more points than both Steinman and Meatloaf got combined. Okay. Did he bring a bat with him and the check that i got was just under well by about 30 a million dollars yeah and that's day i remember the first when i looking at this check yeah and counting the digits in it yeah seriously six digits yeah now i have the

opportunity to do really stupid things with money. Right. That's when I bought a video studio after that. Yes, but, well, you're a creative guy. You needed equipment. You need a lot of, you know. So when you say that they would explain your output, how does that explain your output, the production opportunities?

Because most artists, when they make a record. Right. Or make anything that they make a record right or make anything that they make whatever it is that's intrinsically linked with their economic well-being in a sense in other words if you don't put out the hit you don't get the money you don't get the money you don't get the power you don't get the woman you know it's like it's uh it's all they have in a way yeah i'm making money off other other people's records why do i have to think that way when i make my own records yeah so i'm just out there like musical explorer music is like other planets to me you know so that was so you were able to detach from the pressure of making hits. Exactly. Or even

honoring the system. In a sense. You had to deal with the physical limitations of the disc. Right. That's your limiting factor. But when I put out a Wizard of True Star, that was exactly my philosophy. I got 20 to 30 minutes.

I can put anything on there I want. And were you challenging yourself or did you think it was a joke? No, it was definitely not a joke. You were like, now I can really cut loose. No, it was like, you know, there's all this stuff. I figured out the formula to write a pop song in something, anything. And I realized at that point it's a formula. Yeah.

I could do this over and over again. I could continually refer to that high school relationship that inspired all the earlier lyrics, even though I'm well beyond that now. You're in trouble now, right? Well, no, there's other things to think about. Right. You know, besides getting laid.

Right. You know, it's not a bad thing to think about, but there are other things to think about. And I realized I never bothered to try and make anything musical or turn it into sound or anything like that, all those things that are floating in there. And I essentially said, okay, I think I understand the songwriting formula. Now I'm going to destroy it.

I am not going to abide by that songwriting formula. Now I'm going to destroy it. Right. I am not going to abide by that songwriting formula. Drugs and vodka? If I do, it's because I'm paying tribute to it. Which you did. In an arch sort of way. You did some covers in a way. Yeah, when I did that sort of R&B trilogy.

This is also in my head. This is my influences, stuff like that. This is my aspirations in some way geez i'd like to be able to sing this stuff well yeah yeah yeah but you also wanted to to deconstruct it entirely in a sense you know that's why that's why i became medleys and after you take it more and more seriously as you're going through the thing it gets sillier and sillier it's like but that but that record's almost like it it's it's completely progressive in some points where you're almost doing something that that doesn't make inherent sense in a pop music sense in mind it's almost like i don't know what if you

the comparison would offend you but it's almost like a like a zapper record in your own style in some ways that i'm certainly not offended to be to be conflated with Frank Zappa. But do you see that conflation? Well, Frank Zappa was also, you know, a destroyer. In a way, too.

Yeah, in a way, it was almost my version of Absolutely Free. Right, yeah. Which was one of my favorite records and a real revelation for me you know where you just are throwing musical fragments out they don't turn into whole songs yeah some of them are just little transitional elements to another thing yeah you know that he did probably more coherently than i did you know in other, he has an overarching message of sarcasm, I guess you would call it.

Yeah, yeah. No, definitely. He was, you know, cutting. But he had some humor. There was like, you know, on Wizard of Tristar. Well, I had some humor. That's the other thing about Frank Zappa. It's like he doesn't mind being silly.

Right. And you did a little of that when you're playing with the sounds. Oh, yeah. I mean,'t mind being silly. Right. And you did a little of that when you were playing with the sounds. Oh, yeah. I mean, I love being silly. It's part of your, you know, when you were a kid, you know, really young. And kind of the first time you hear music or you start experiencing music and the just nearly spastic response you have to it. Yeah, yeah, yeah yeah yeah yeah and sometimes you know you'd like to be able

to get back to you know to some sort of nursery rhyme level yeah yeah just silly things that rhyme yeah you know but the kind of things that you know a naive mind can find enjoyment yeah and and you can do that with music too so you blew it all apart with that record, but then you sort of reconverge a bit. Well, that thing sort of split. After that record, then we sort of officially founded the Utopian concept. Yeah.

So I had a band that I played with, and then I continued to make solo records, although most of the touring through that era was with the band. Was there a manifesto to the Utopian concept? Yeah, it was kind of this, you know, aggressive, you know, collaborative, aggressive musical exploration again. You know, there were a lot of, for us, as players, you know, when you start to think of yourself as a player,

you know, you play enough to get kind of good at what you're doing. There are these gravitational influences that come by. You know, one of them was Mahavishnu Orchestra. That blew your mind? It blew everybody's mind, you know? Yeah. Not just my mind, but we were collectively blown.

Yeah. And what those things do usually is open you to possibilities you didn't think of. Yeah. Playing in modes that you didn't think of before. of before um creating melodies that don't have the typical cadences that you're used to and that sort of thing creating textures that are hard to pin down in terms of their tonality but add to the right it's like when joe zavanel puts the ring modulator on the piano. How the hell do you put that in standard notation? There's so many weird harmonic things coming out. So it was jazz, essentially.

That's what we call it. It was like they call it jazz fusion or fusion rock, but it was all about having those jazz chops. After all, John McLaughlin was a famous jazz musician. A lot of the guys that he played with had some reputation before, but weren't as well known. Right. Well, I just watched, I had Flea and Robert Trujillo in here. He produced a documentary on Jocko, which I just saw.

And I didn't know, I don't like, I never registered Fusion. Like, I like Bebop, but Fusion just never resonated with me. So I had to go back within the last month and try to wrap my brain around weather report and stuff oh yeah well there's you know whenever you hear like a an apathem like fusion right it always conjures up assumptions about what you're about to hear you know but these are very vague reference points right you know it's that's the reason why there isn't a word or a genre that describes what i'm trying to do right although people will struggle to find one what do they usually label you as alt rock maybe yeah but the point is you know rock is a thing you apply to anything that has bass and drums nowadays yeah do you have a problem with what's going on musically now are there people

you must be able to find whatever you want but i mean in terms of pop music do you feel like uh do i listen to the radio yeah well i haven't for a long time no one has a radio anymore no but the point is it's kind kind of, you know, it's very weird. Things are, it's pretty dynamic nowadays, but a lot of it is because of social media and the fact that memes travel way faster than they used to. You know, it used to be literally word of mouth. Well, before we get to that, so Utopia was this thing that you created to explore music without any boundaries and exactly and personally it was an opportunity for me to be more principally a guitar player than a singer songwriter front man so that's going on you know that's your vacation almost

that's your your no it was my vocation we were playing arenas at that point, and we had huge productions with lasers and smoke and stuff like that. That's where I met this guy back then. Your new manager. Right. But you were still doing the solo records. Yeah, but during the course of that, all this bombast, I'll do an album like A Hermit of McCollough. And then you get a hit out of that.

Accidentally. Right. Because I didn't write a hit. It just became a hit out of that accidentally right but i mean i didn't write a hit you know it just became a hit but that's that was a big big song no it's a familiar song it was not a big you know can we still be friends i know where did it top off i don't know i don't have that information yeah i can i could probably find it where did it top off i if it made the top 40 i think that maybe u.s billboard 36 yeah. Yeah. Okay. That's what I mean. It's like I have things that people think are hits, but they're actually just fan favorites.

Well, I know the song. Yeah. You know what I mean? It's like a Beatles song or any other song. Yeah, but also you may know it because two other artists recorded it. Rod Stewart and Robert Palmer both recorded that song. No, it wasn't Rod Stewart's version. I remember your version.

I know. But I mean, that's the reason why people, why more people remember a song that only got to 36. I like the song, Todd. I know. I don't dislike the song. You're just saying you didn't do it on purpose. No.

And you told me it was more important. No, no. Well, all I'm saying is it was not a hit in the usual sense. Do you think that most of the people, because you are a guy that has a specific following, a specific audience that stayed with you for many years, and you have these two lives, there's something about some of the hits

which can be classified as pop rock or softer rock, and Utopia is fucking, you're a spaceman, you're an astronaut. Where do you think you garnered most of what you're known for in terms of an audience i would say that the larger audience yes utopia utopia sure right because it's the live experience partly that the big show but we just you know we we got into a certain sweet spot there you know where the big production and stuff like that. How many people on stage usually?

How many people in the band? Only four. Oh, really? Always? Well, no. Originally, we were six. Wait a minute. Two keyboards, drums, bass, me.

It's like a parliament show. And a synthesizer player. It's like parliament. Yeah. So it was usually six people on stage. Yeah. And we would carry out big, heavy sets and set them up every night you know we designed you know the stage in a certain way and had you know people doing our lights

you know it was very important the production and people in those days i think appreciated that idea now everyone's numb numb to it. Production is so intense at this point that most people are numb. And that's a bad thing, numb. Numb's not good. Well, you know, it's... Don't get me started. Why?

Well, I'm just saying, you know, sometimes you got to get comfortably numb sure because at least for me i try to be optimistic you know and whatever i write you know is not you know i don't write death metal that sort of thing i like to challenge you know, I don't write death metal, that sort of thing. I like to challenge, you know, conventional ideas. But it's founded in a certain sort of basic belief that there is a better nature somewhere in people. Yeah.

Yet we're going through times which make you really almost ashamed to be a human being. And that's the hard part, you know, is to continue to search for that, you know, like... Utopia. Well, how do we justify ourselves? Right. And you think through art there's a purity to music that enables that ability to transcend? No, music, you know, talking about music as if it's all the same is still the problem. Okay.

It's like there is music that neo-Nazis like to listen to. Yeah. There might be a few neo-Nazis that love Can We Still Be Friends? Yeah, even that. And they're more tender moments when they're breaking down on the stand. moments but you know when they're breaking down on the stand but but uh but otherwise you know it's it's a I to me it's a challenge you know to stay in that groove of hope yeah to not just go out and write a record say you you feckless motherfucker yeah I'm just so tired of looking for what's good in you you know if you don't freaking care yeah you know you're just angry oh god give me a break yeah everybody's

got an excuse to be angry you know was that one of the reasons that you know like because it seems to me that in most of your performances and in a lot of the music, for me even, there's a vulnerability there, a sensitivity that's almost painful. And it's part of what, I'm not saying that in a negative way, but it seems like some of your stagecraft is around vulnerability. Do you feel that? do you feel that i'm not satisfied unless i feel like it's coming from a certain place which is what makes it so hard to sing certain songs over and over and over and over again because you get that you get numb because yeah you get numb to it and the only way you can get through it is like don't torture yourself through the song you know just do the freaking song you know right uh yeah there is something to be said for numbness and just focusing you know

yeah go numb but don't lose focus you have to be going somewhere you know right and now to talk about memes as as being somewhat uh you know destructive and part of the problem that the song Bang the Drum All Day has to be considered a meme at this point. Yeah, and it used to be an extremely lucrative meme until Carnival Cruise Line started sinking all those ships. That's right, that was their theme song. Yeah, now they had to change their image to I don't know what. But I feel like it's like one of those songs that they have,

they always run on the radio or they play baseball games almost. It's like an anthem of some kind. Green Bay Packers. Oh, do they? Touchdown song. Yeah. And it was for the Rams for a while. I don't know if it still is, you know.

So that was it. Yeah, for the amount of times that people hear it, you'd think I'd be a rich man but no no and the irony of it of it is and the reason why i don't really care that much yeah i was making an album at the time which one i think it was uh ever popular tortured artist effect is the album that that appears on. Right, that's on, yeah. And, you know, I was not happy with my label, hence the title, you know, which is they constantly hector you with expectations and don't see kind of what you've buried in there that they could kind of go and run with.

You know, they want their job to be really easy. Mm-hmm. So I was, you know, at that particular point, a little cynical about the whole process, and I just look at the album as a deliverable. But, you know, I came up with a few songs you got to write. You know, you still got to write. So I came up with a few songs and when i get into

that moment especially when i'm in my ideal environment which is alone and sometimes i don't see people for days in kawaii uh well nowadays but that album was recorded in minkalo where's minkalo it's uh upstate new york It's a little beyond Bearsville. Yeah. It was at the very end of a little country. So you're up there and you're like, I got a service. No, I am not. In that mode, I'm saying, no, I don't give a crap at all. You know, I'm just making a deliverable here.

Right. I'll collect my money. That's all I got. And give me a deliverable and not try not to think about it too much. Yeah. But what happens is when I get into the mode of writing, sometimes I write subconsciously. In fact, most of my writing is subconscious. And it will permeate every aspect of my life as long as I'm not disturbed by something.

And so I will start to write songs in my sleep. And I don't actually write them. They just come like completely written. And you wake up with them and go do it. And then I wake up and I have to remember them long enough to go do that. So Magna Drum was just something that I dreamed. Really?

Literally, exactly the way you hear the chorus, that's exactly what I dreamed. I didn't have verses yet. I knew I had to build verses around it. Right. But that chorus just came to me fully realized. And that happens a lot in your life? No, only when I'm when I have the luxury to be

fully immersed in the process. And that means not being disturbed by other people. In other words, for me, see, a lot of people, they thrive on interaction with other people, and they get a lot of inspiration from, you me, see, a lot of people, they thrive on interaction with other people, and they get a lot of inspiration from things that get input maybe during the course of the process because most people kind of go into the studio. They don't have a whole 12, 15 songs all done, ready to go.

Let's just bang them out. It's not Frank Sinatra anymore. You go in the studio, it's something of a dragging things out process. Well, if you get into that mode where there isn't, which is opposite of the collaboration in a way, where it's just internalization, constant, incessant internalization, the only time you've actually, you know, that noise level comes down and you've suddenly realized you know, that noise level comes down

and you've suddenly realized, oh, that's what I'm thinking, you know. Yeah, yeah, yeah. I don't have all these other little details that are like gnats flying around you all the time. Yeah, yeah. And, you know, a lot of people can somehow get to that space without having the solitude. But when I have the solitude, that's kind of what happens. It becomes all about just making the music all the time, and a song will come to me in my sleep,

and then I'll go and try and jot it down. I had a song come to me in my sleep when I was in Kathmandu, and I had to visualize a piano in my head and teach myself how to play it because I was nowhere near any way to record it. And I had to do that night after night until I got home like two months later. Did you record it on your phone?

Oh, yeah. It became a song. Which song? That was Lost Horizon. And then there was a song called The Waiting Game. It was the most incredibly complex song that I ever dreamed, and I can't figure out how I ever managed to capture it. What album's that on?

That's on Nearly Human. And that was like you blew your own mind. I was in the studio. I dreamt I was in the studio producing Manhattan Transfer. And that was the song they were singing. It was coming out of the speakers. Did you actually produce Manhattan Transfer? No, I think at they were singing. It was coming out of the speakers. Did you actually produce a Manhattan Transfer? No, I think at one point I was approached to do that.

So you're dreaming you're producing the Manhattan Transfer. Yeah, but they covered one or two of my songs, too. And you did a vocal album like that. You almost did. Acapella. Yeah. Yeah. So you've tried a lot of things.

A few, yeah. At one point i thought i wanted to do an album with a marching band why didn't you do it well tusk came out and they kind of yeah it took the took the bloom off the rose in a way i remember am i wrong in this memory i think one of the first times i ever remember listening to you was I had a 45 of like a cover of Good Vibrations. Is that possible? That is possible. Like it was like perfectly reproduced. Yeah, I did an album called Faithful. It was done in what was essentially the 10th year after I had left high school and became a professional musician.

And one side of it was a tribute to everything you would have heard in 1966. Right. What was coming out of the radio, what was in the boutiques, music store, and all that other stuff. So I picked out i think a half a dozen songs that represented that right and made my own radio show i did them as literally as i could more or less as an homage yeah as an homage but also it was like as if you were listening to the radio in 1966 wow what you might have heard. That was the idea. Yeah.

And you did it. And then I did another side of original songs. Yeah, so I remember having that 45. So now, are you exhausted? Is your cynicism invading? Because I know you put out a record every year almost. Mentally, I'm not exhausted, no. Yeah. Being on the the road is exhausting do you have to do it sorry we can pretend like your manager's not here no he's already he's heard all this already um i mean being on the road works for me in a certain way you You like it. But the problem is I have two gigs now, at least for the last four years.

Yeah. Which is whatever I do as Todd Rundgren and whatever I do with Ringo and the All-Stars. Yeah. Which is at least two or three months a year. And some years has been more than that. How's he doing? He's doing great, as far as I know. I haven't seen him yet this week. And what happened with

the cars thing? Ah, that was sad. There were possibilities there, I think. You were approached by a couple of the guys? I was approached by Elliot, whom I knew. So they approached me. I guess they approached a couple

people, but they thought it might work. We did a little bit of a run-through in a studio here in LA, and we thought, okay, let's give this a try. We'll incorporate some new cars. Rick would not let us use the cars as a name. So that hobbled things a little bit because people are thinking, is this the old cars or just a different, you know. Was he mad, Ocasek?

Was he mad? Yeah. he mad yeah jealous jealous maybe yeah oh it's funny steven colbert made a whole freaking riff about it yeah something to do something to do with me being in the new cars and rick okay sick you know like trying to assassinate me or something i don't remember what it was right it was pretty hysterical for a while to hear your name just pulled out of the blue but you guys toured no we never you didn't hear this i don't i don't pay that much we like you know we were so heavily invested in this you know we financed the whole thing on a giant merchandising advance we're about two two and a half weeks on the road and i wasn't there at the time because i was hanging out with my son in cleveland it was going to fly to the next gig

but the bus pulling into washington somebody some jerk off yeah yeah you know it doesn't know it doesn't think a bus is a big deal and pulls in front of the bus without signaling the bus driver slams on the brake elliot has just woken up to go to the john yeah he gets thrown against the bulkhead yeah breaks his collarbone oh yeah he soldiers on for like another three gigs but if you look at his, you know, over here, the bone is starting to, Oh my God. Poke up. See,

fortunately, he's left-handed, so the strap was on the other side, but eventually, he says, this is crazy. You have to have surgery. Yeah,

yeah. And that was just the end of it, and recuperation and stuff. So, essentially, two and a half weeks into what was supposed to be like three months, to touring. Is he all right now?

And lost all of our investment and everything. Sorry, buddy. That's ancient history. Is Elliot all right? Yeah. Oh, good. And the one thing I didn't cover. Greg plays with me all the time,

and whenever I see Elliot, we have a good time together. There's nothing, I mean, between the guys and the band, there was never any sort of, you know. Right, right. It's just bad luck. Yeah, bad luck.

So I didn't ask you about the... Like, you know, I listened to... When I found out you produced that New York Dolls first record, I listened to that a lot, too. I really try to identify... Because I've talked to a couple of producers, and it seems like that you actually, when you do produce, you...

Like, some guys are like, you know, I'm just going to get out of the way. But it seems like, you you know you actually make things clearer my philosophy is you do what you have to do it isn't like doing a certain thing right because every band's or every act you know it's not always a band but they always come to the studio with strengths and weaknesses and things you can count on and things that maybe you're not sure you can count on. Right.

Like, for instance, the songwriting. Yeah. At a certain point, well, up to a certain point, I thought, well, if the band comes in the studio and they don't actually have the songwriting all together, I will ghost write for them. Yeah. And they don't mind that usually? Well, they want to get

the record done and get to get paid and you know but and if they don't have any other ideas yeah you kind of have to do but do a lot of them go like oh shit you made it better most of the time or is it most of the time like no christ rungren wants to well no if they have if they have something i'd always rather use what they have, but they have nothing. Right. That's the problem. You've got a song, you've got all these great chords, no lyrics. Right.

Somebody's got to write some lyrics eventually to this song. Yeah. And if you don't come up with some, we're going to get this done. So, I mean, the example would be like Remote Control, the album that I did, first album I did with the Tubes. Yeah. Lots and lots of great musical ideas, but no kind of overarching concept. So I kind of had to invent a lot of that for them. And nobody's particularly bothered about that.

I think for them being still at the time essentially a theatrical act, they're looking for music to turn into a show. Right. And so there's not a whole lot of problem, especially if I'm ghostwriting because I'm not taking any freaking royalties. Well, what about someone like XTC when you produce them? And they're a pretty together outfit. Together in the sense that, yeah, there's a lot of music to work with there. I kind of got lucky because I caught them at a point of vulnerability.

Because they'd already, when I say they, we mean Andy. Let's face it. It's a band, but essentially Andy was the one who called the shots most of the time. Probably the guy that said to Colin, hey, let's make a band. And I was contacted by their label, by the A&R man at the label,

and he said, well, you know, their records have been selling less and less. Right. And costing more and more, you know. And I knew about the band. I was a big fan of the band, and I knew about their history. You know, why don't they ever perform? Well, it's because Andy has debilitating agoraphobia or something like that. He can't get stage fright, can't play.

And also that he was notorious for driving his own producers out of the studio with his constant sort of anal demands and things like that. I mean, eventually you got another project you got to do. You can't mix this album for another year. So I knew about the situation. I had been listening to their music anyway even before they even approached me.

You were a fan? I was a fan, but I also knew what was wrong with the records because I was listening to their music anyway, even before they even approached me. You were a fan? I was a fan. Yeah. But I also knew what was wrong with the records. Yeah. Because I was listening to them. Right. And essentially, what was wrong is that Andy had too much of a free hand. Mm-hmm.

And the reason why Andy had too much of a free hand or why so much time was being invested in these remakes and stuff is because they never played live yeah once the album was over the fun was done you go home you sit around until you come up with another album right unlike most musicians go tour the record we'll go out and play the record and stuff like that yeah so so they didn't mind if it took forever or at least he didn't mind if it took forever to make a record yeah so you know i knew from listening to the records they were getting more more anal they were the sound of them was getting in a subjective sense worse right but for reasons that wouldn't be obvious to most people there's a thing called

psychoacoustics which has nothing to do with the actual music that's happening yeah but with the kind of stress that sound puts on you yeah so for instance if you mix the vocals at just that level you can just kind of hear them, psychoacoustically, you are squinting through the record. Right, why can't I hear that guy? Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. Right. You know, and plus, you know, he's like,

the process usually is you go in the studio, spend a day mixing a song, you take it home, and then you listen to it more. Yeah. You know, at least that you listen to it more. Yeah. You know, at least that's, you know, essentially like Andy's process, listening to it to see whether there's something else you can do to it. Right.

So he comes back the next day, he's got an idea for something else to do to it. And usually what that is is to take out more air, you know. Right. To fill in some space with more sound, you know. I don't think the hi-hat is, like, high enough. Let's make that even higher, you know? So he's anal and he's...

Yeah, and the bass is not, like, low enough. So you wind up with, like, you know, if you were looking at it on a spectrometer or something like that, spectrum analyzer, it would be completely flat, you know? It goes there, you know? It goes, like, every freaking space is filled in right with sound and you don't realize how hard it is to listen to that yeah you know because

you're constantly straining to drain yeah pick things out of it you know and so they had completely lost track of that as well and fortunately as i say i caught them at a vulnerable point they didn't know exactly what to do. They had gotten an ultimatum from the label. Which record was it? Skylarking. Okay, so they had done, like, what, three records? Oh, no, more than that.

Oh, yeah? So they were vulnerable. They were in trouble. They were a little bit in trouble and vulnerable, and they just sent me their song demos. And I listened to the songs, and this whole idea of a song cycle came to me, that you could make it all a piece like it's from dawn till dusk. It could be a day, or it could be a week, or it could be a year.

It could be a lifetime, it could be a year it could be a lifetime yeah you know traveling through all these phases but it's coming from one place and going to another place yeah and so i essentially took a reel of tape and i've done it i did it before with an album with the tubes where we kind of mapped everything out beforehand. Mapped out all the tempos, came up with the running order before we ever recorded anything. Yeah. The only question was refining tempos,

you know, and then doing some overdubs, laying some stuff. We went to San Francisco, laid on all the drums and orchestras and things like that. Right. Came back, did a few more vocals in Woodstock. But essentially, it was kind of preordained by me.

Yeah, right. The order. What the record was going to be like, which is something that they never had endured before. Yeah. And so they trusted you. I think 60% of the band trusted me. Andy never trusted me. Was he happy with the record?

Initially, no. He went back to England immediately after we finished the record and took every press opportunity to say it was the worst record they ever made. He hated me at that point, and he was willing to sabotage his own career through his vitriol over me and the fact that I did not give up what I said I was going to do at the beginning of the record. I said, I'm going to be here at the end of the record. You may have driven these other producers off. I'm going to be here when this record is done. All right? And lo and behold, we got through three mixes yeah we got back to my studio three

mixes and they went home yeah they went back to england said they were homesick said there was something wrong with the well water yeah to explain whatever you know but in any case i finished mixing the album myself without andy yeah without anyone looking over my shoulder mm-hmm and delivered the record and then what happened was and it was perfect at that point yeah it was a perfect record you know took it to Greg Calvi one of the world's premier masterers Sterling sound in New York and we got the best master we could possibly get out of it. We delivered it.

I hear a couple weeks later, okay, we're going to change the running order on the record. We're taking Dear God off the record. We're going to take the hit record off the record. Right. That's Andy? That's Andy and his A&R man. Andy because he was afraid that there would be repercussions personally for him for taking on such a thorny subject what a pussy yeah and then the anr man who didn't like it

because there was a child singing on it and he hated children singing on the records so you had to fight that fight no i well i did see i never do that yeah i deliver the record so i'm here to make the product you have to market the product yeah you figure that out right but i did call him and said this is a mistake you know to take this off to put on this other crappy song that andy made us record yeah called another satellite had nothing to do with the record at all he made us essentially re-record his demo note for note just to mollify him we did it yeah right but the point is had nothing to do with the record right was not in the running order yeah so he decided to

take dear god off so he could stick that stupid song on there yeah next thing you know they put dear god on the b side of grass what's supposed to be the first single yeah everybody flips the record yeah dear god becomes like a giant phenomenon saves their career they have to go and remaster the record again and put dear god back on it your mix of course yeah yeah well there were no other mixes there were only changes in running order did he thank you no he did not what he did was he's such a yeah okay such a brat yeah even at his age he's such a brat yeah that he's decided that his campaign is the original record was not mastered properly that there was something out of phase in the original record and these new vinyl releases

that i've just come out with have fixed that. Which is essentially him trying to impugn me, but not just me. Greg Calbee, one of the world's, somebody who's mastered every record you've ever heard of. Did they make a mess of it? I mean, they re-released it? Well, if there was something, I think it's just total bullshit.

They did nothing. Complete bullshit. Yeah. But if such a thing existed, it's because they changed the running order of the record and had to remaster it which I had nothing

to do with that's fucking ridiculous what a prick alright did you do nothing's happened in the 30 years since

since what since Skylarking it's been that long yes oh my god but you keep you keep working there's a you have a what was the last full record you put out It's been that long? Yes. Oh, my God. But you keep working. You have a... When was the last full record you put out?

It was called Global. It's sort of like I listen to some of that. So synthesizers, it's almost dance music, right? There's a bit of EDM, but it isn't as EDM as the one before, State. And how did those do for you? We had great shows. but you know we're independently distributed now, so it's really not like the good old days, but then that's a new reality. You know, selling recorded music, people used

to think that was what, you know, what music is, what the goal is. Yeah. From an artist's standpoint, under that old commoditized model, you know, you're selling a thing, you know, an object you can hold. I'm buying records. Yeah. But, you know, the artist and whoever recorded that record, depending on the deal he got, could be making like five cents.

Library deal. You know, he could be making, God knows. They were issued rent. Do you get any of that? I don't even know what the terms of that are. But I would guarantee you that original. Well, you know, under the old commoditized model, there are all these so-called material expenses.

The actual manufacturing of the product and the carting the product to the retailers where it gets sold and stuff like that and that was considered to be considerably significant aspect of the process plus the label figures you know our expertise in terms of promotion the fact that we're a bank for you, you know, we loan you money to make these projects and things like that, that justifies a major participation by us. Right. You know, we should be able to take a lot of money back.

But when they reissue a record like Run, like whoever bought the rights to that material, because it's not the label anymore when no it isn't but i'm trying to make the distinction between a commodity and a service sure okay and what we have now is you know and what i've always believed was the proper model is more of a service model. Music is a service. You pay Rhapsody $10 a month, you listen to anything you want. The idea of ownership of music never was real.

You owned a piece of plastic, but until you put it on the table, it didn't have the value that the artist intended, which was for you to hear it. So people with giant racks and racks of vinyl doesn't mean crap. Anyway, okay, you got the thing, but you're not hearing the music. Got a lot of things. Yeah. We all got things. So from that standpoint, I'm perfectly happy with the service model, but we're still in

this phase where figuring out how to compensate people for the service model is much easier to keep track of a thing than it is bits flying through the air. And it's easier to pirate bits. But also, we're reevaluating where the value is. Right. And a lot of it's in the live performing again, right? As I say, the greatest value is. Right. You know. And a lot of it's in the live performing again, right? As I say, the greatest value is in live performance.

You know, whatever small percentage, 12%, if you're lucky, if it's Michael Jackson, 20% maybe of the recorded song, you get 80% of the ticket price. Right. And it costs at least twice as much

for a concert ticket. So that's where your payoff always was. Right. The music is promotion and a lot of bands have started to realize that and t-shirts t-shirts are big t-shirts and if you want to sell cds at your merch table yeah how many cds do you think jimmy buffett sells not at his merch table none exactly so you know i mean bands like radiohead they realize this you know, I mean, bands like Radiohead, they realize this, you know? Yeah.

Pay whatever you want for the record. Download the music and pay whatever you want, but they realize that that's going to encourage them to buy concert tickets. Right. And other merch and stuff like that. That's where it's at. The music, recorded music was always promotion for the live performance. Right.

Now, okay, in closing, you produced Grand Funks, we're an American band, did you? Yes, I did. Was the cowbell your idea? Likely. More cowbell. More cowbell. Thanks for talking, Todd.

My pleasure. Wow. Right? Good stories, man. wow right good stories man he's he's a little prickly but i enjoy talking to him that todd ron grin it's always nice to have to sit as audience with a genius go to wtfpod.com for all your wtf pod needs get on the mailing mailing list. Check my schedule. I'm going to be in Mission Creek Festival at the Ingward Theater in Iowa City on April 8th. The Rococo Theater in Lincoln, Nebraska, April 9th. And Harvest Bank Theater at the Midland in Kansas City, Missouri on April 10th. The last I heard, that one's a little weak,

a little slow, so come on out. It doesn't matter to me if it's just me and 50, 60 of you in a place that seats however many thousands. It'll be interesting. It'll be a little intimate, and it'll be hard to transcend the weird sadness and absence of others, but it will be an experience that none of us will forget. Thank you. Boomer lives! Get anything you need delivered with Uber Eats. Well, almost, almost anything. So no, you can't get snowballs on Uber Eats. But meatballs, mozzarella balls, and arancini balls? Yes, we deliver those. Moose? No.

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