- 7 hours ago
Master musician and Grammy-wining songwriter John Oates has just released his latest masterpiece, simply titled Oates . The Rock Hall of Famer says he's taken on a fresh wave of inspiration to plug his '58 Stratocaster back in and deliver a vibrant mix of R&B and pop, reminiscent of the sounds he made famous in the '70s and '80s. He sat down with LifeMinute editor-in-chief Joann Butler, ironically the day after the long legal dispute with former musical partner Daryl Hall came to an end, to talk about his new music, the creative journey behind it, and what fans can expect next. This is a LifeMinute with the legendary, John Oates.
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00:00Hey there, this is Jon Oates and you are watching Life Minute TV.
00:05Master musician and songwriter Jon Oates has just released his latest masterpiece simply
00:10called Oates. If you think it sounds somewhat familiar, you're right.
00:14With some newfound inspiration, he's plugged back in his 58th Stratocaster
00:18and has pumped out a groovy R&B and pop sound that he made famous back in the 70s and 80s.
00:24He stopped by the Life Minute studios to tell me all about it and more.
00:32This is a Life Minute with the legendary Jon Oates.
00:36You got a new album out simply called Oates.
00:39Wow, what a concept.
00:41Well, I figured, you know, I'm at a certain point in my career where I deserve to have a self-titled album.
00:46Damn right.
00:47And actually the reality is I just couldn't figure out a better title, so there you go.
00:52Tell us about it. What inspired you?
00:54Well, you know, I've been really playing in the field of roots music and Americana and acoustic
00:59music over the past really 15 years in Nashville. It's been great. I mean, I've been embraced by
01:05the Americana community. I've been part of it and really making great relationships and really
01:11enjoying that. And I made an album called Reunion, which was very introspective, very acoustic,
01:16very singer-songwriter in style.
01:24I ran into some young artists in Nashville, one in particular named Devin Gilfillian, who's from
01:31Philly. And we immediately bonded and I loved his energy and I love his voice. And we wrote a song
01:37together. It was called Mending.
01:47When you work with someone for the first time, you never know how it's going to turn out, right?
01:50So he came over to the house and my wife had some tarot cards. She held the tarot cards out,
01:55she said, pick one. And Devin pulled out a card that said Mending and went, what a great title.
02:01That's our song. And we literally walked into my music room and wrote that song.
02:04Oh my gosh.
02:05Yeah, yeah. And so I loved his energy and we did it as a duet and we released it about a year and a
02:10half ago as a standalone single. But it really kind of sparked my interest. I've been playing acoustic
02:16guitar for so long and I wanted to like pick out my old Stratocaster and plug it into an amp. And I
02:22wanted to kind of get my groove on a little bit. And that's what happened. I started writing songs that
02:27were much more groove oriented, tapping into that Philly soul thing, the old R&B, vintage R&B,
02:34which I love so much, which is also as much a part of my musical DNA as the folk acoustic thing is.
02:40It was time to move to another level. And that's what happened. Yeah.
02:45You know what's so neat about you? You have a vision and you just execute on it and you always succeed.
02:51Well, I don't know about that. I hope so. I don't overthink it. I can tell you that.
02:56I really try to go with what feels natural. Yeah. I always feel like that's usually the best way to
03:02do it. Well, it's lovely. It's a beautiful album. Oh, good. I'm glad. Thank you. It really is lovely.
03:06Your last few things were very Americana folk, but what inspired you to go back?
03:11It just felt right. The song Mending that I did with Devin, what we did is we put a band together
03:16in the studio that were different from the Americana players that I was used to playing with.
03:22They were different players and they, and they brought something different to the, to the recording
03:25session. You know, I learned a long time ago, actually, this goes back to the early days of
03:29Hall and Oates when Daryl and I were recording with Arif Martin for Atlantic Records, doing the
03:34Abandoned Luncheonette album. I learned so much from him on how to kind of choose the right musicians
03:40for the right moment. And so, you know, it's one thing to, you know, to, you kind of know your
03:45players. It's almost like having a virtual Rolodex of players, you know, who does, you know, which
03:50bass, there's a million great bass players and million great guitar players, but who's the exact
03:54right one for that particular song. And what we did is when we put this band together to play Mending,
04:01I love the bass player. I love the keyboard player. I love the drummer. And it just felt like a new,
04:06a breath of fresh air with a different sound and different style. So I began to use basically
04:11the same players on the rest of the songs as I wrote more and more songs for the album.
04:16Right, right. And what about the band Lawrence? You worked with them as well, right?
04:19Well, they're a, they're a New York band. I don't know how much you know about them, but
04:23they're fantastic. It's a brother and sister, Clyde and Gracie Lawrence, and they are real New Yorkers.
04:29You know, they're, they're dyed in the wool New Yorkers. They're amazing, amazing singers, amazing writers,
04:35players, whatever. And what I loved about them when I was introduced to them was that it felt
04:40like everything that was, that should be good about pop, about modern pop music. As I said,
04:45they sing, they write, they play, they don't use samples. They don't use a lot of digital technology.
04:50It's really organic and real. And I love that about them. I started listening to them and I was
04:55inspired by them. And I thought, wow, they have such a, it was such a joyful energy to their, to their
05:01music. And I said, wow, I wish I could write something that sounds like this. And I picked
05:04up my guitar and I started writing and I came up with this song called Enough Is Enough.
05:17To me, it sounded just like them. And I went, wow. And then I got to the second verse and I
05:21couldn't come up with anything that was, well, came up with something that was crap. And I said,
05:26wait a minute. And I took one of their songs called Don't Lose Sight.
05:37And I said, wait a minute, they're talking about the same thing I'm talking about,
05:40except they're talking about it from their point of view. And so I took their words and I put them
05:45into my second verse.
05:46And I didn't, I didn't want to like be stealing their words. So I literally sent them the song.
05:59And I said, Hey, you know, full disclosure, I used your words in the second verse, and I'm
06:04happy to share the publishing and the writing credit with you. And they were like, oh, this is great.
06:08Well, they loved it.
06:09To make it even better, they were really super busy. Gracie was on a Broadway show.
06:14So they said, let's do, let's do it in New York. Let's, you know, record our parts in New York,
06:19because I had already recorded the actual track for the song in Nashville. And I hadn't recorded
06:24in New York since the 80s. So I went back to the Hit Factory, which was where Daryl and I
06:29first started recording in New York back in the late 70s. So it was kind of a full circle moment to
06:35to be working with a New York group in New York, recording in a New York studio was really cool.
06:40And so I love the energy on that song. And that's, that's how that happened.
06:43So cool. Yeah.
06:44And produced by David Komolsky.
06:47And myself. Yeah. David's my co-producer.
06:49Want to walk us through some of the other songs on the album?
06:52Sure.
06:52Or some of your other faves?
06:54Well, my favorite favorite of all is A Ways Away.
06:57I love that song. I wrote that with a guy named Jed Hughes, who's a very highly in demand
07:10studio musician, plays on a lot of the big country records, but he's actually Australian,
07:15but he, he does his own thing too. Some of his solo work is amazing. We just met and I,
07:20here again, I just go with a gut feeling. I just felt that we could do something together. I didn't
07:24know what it was going to be. And what happened was it's funny anecdote with that song. He's so busy
07:30and I was so busy that we couldn't find a time to get together, but we wanted to get together.
07:35And we kept trading phone calls and emails and texts. Finally, you know, we looked at our calendars
07:41and we picked a date that was like two months out or maybe three months out. I can't remember.
07:47And I was talking to him and I said, look, at least we have a date we've agreed on, but I said,
07:50it's, it's really a ways away, but you know, we'll do it. And I went, wait a minute. And I,
07:56and I said, that's our song. He laughed. He said, I said, a ways away. That's a great title. That's
08:01our song. And so I said, don't forget it because three months from now, we're going to write that
08:05song. And sure enough, he came over and we wrote that song. Amazing. Yeah. You never know how it's
08:10going to happen. Let me be the one. I wrote that with a guy named Ron Artis II. He's a really cool.
08:24He's from Hawaii, but he lives in Nashville. Well, he travels constantly. I had seen him perform and I
08:31really liked his directness. He has a very, very pure spiritual directness to his vibe, his whole
08:38persona. He came over and I was really conscious of not trying to make it or to overthink it and
08:45make it too complicated. And that's a very, very simple song. The chord changes are very simple. And
08:50we wrote it in about an hour and a half. We were like, yeah, that's it. We're done. It was good.
08:56Amazing. Pushing a rock.
08:58That's a song that I released digitally prior. It worked so well. A lot of people, because it was
09:11released digitally, especially with some of my older fans, you know, they don't stream all the time.
09:15And so I wanted to put it on a collection. It worked. And I'm really proud of that song. It's a very
09:21important song to me. It's about never giving up. It's about overcoming obstacles. That has a crazy
09:27story, too. I wrote that with a guy named Nathan Paul Chapman. Now, you may not know his name, but
09:34when he was a young kind of starting out in Nashville in the early 2000s, he got a very fortuitous call
09:41from a record label saying that they needed help with a young 13-year-old curly-haired blonde girl from
09:47Pennsylvania. Gee, I wonder who that could have been. And they couldn't, they weren't making the
09:53right record with her and they didn't know, but they had, but they believed in her. And he started
09:58working with Taylor Swift and made her first four or five albums together. Multiple Grammys, Superstar,
10:05you know the rest of the story. But at the time, Taylor had moved on with different producers and this
10:09was 2014. And so I called him up and I said, what are you doing? And he said, I don't know. He says,
10:14I don't know what I'm going to do now because it was like a life change for him not, you know,
10:19to have had such success and working with, you know, someone as dynamic as her. And so I said,
10:24well, you know what? My, my solution is let's try to write a song and kind of capture whatever that
10:29is of the moment. And as I was going over to his house, I was thinking about the old myth of Sisyphus,
10:34pushing a rock uphill and having something that was just, you know, overwhelming and something that
10:40you needed to overcome and that it rolls back down, but you can never give up. And I, all those
10:45thoughts were in my head and I gave him that idea and we wrote the song and we put, I put it out on
10:50an album in 2014, but it was a different song. And when COVID hit, I was sitting around the house with a
10:56lot of time on my hands. I said, you know, the lyrics in that song are more important now during COVID
11:03than they were in 2014. So I called him up and I said, you know, I think the music is not very
11:09good, but the lyrics are really good. I said, would you mind if I try to re rewrite the music? And he
11:14said, no, man, have at it. So I did. And then I sent him a newer version, an updated version. And he
11:20said, that's the way it always should have sounded. The version you're hearing now is the revised version
11:26of the song. The lyrics are essentially the same, but the music is completely different. I loved it so much
11:31would put it on the album. That's so good. It really is good. World Gone Wrong.
11:44World Gone Wrong, I wrote in Colorado. My family had left the house and Amy went back to Nashville.
11:51My son went back to work in DC and I was in the house by myself. And I was sitting there for a
11:57while and it was great because I like being alone. I can really think and, you know, do things. But I
12:03thought, God, it would be terrible if I was really alone, like if they weren't around. And that's what
12:10I wrote that song about. Disconnected. Disconnected was the COVID song. That was a total COVID inspired song.
12:23I felt like we were all disconnected. We weren't talking. We weren't interacting. People were staying
12:29home. It was weird. And the word disconnected just summed it up. And I wrote it. And get your smile on.
12:44Get your smile on. I also, well, I also did that during COVID. I came up with the idea for it and
12:50there was no one to work with. Couldn't go into the recording studio. There was no one to collaborate
12:54with. And so I wrote the whole song and I actually recorded the song that you hear on the album. I
13:01recorded on my laptop completely. I played all the instruments, sang all the parts and I did it just
13:07just because it was COVID and I was bored. And then when I listened back, it sounded really good.
13:14So we put it on the album just like that. It's literally from my laptop right onto the record.
13:20Dreaming about Brazil.
13:21When I was younger, I was a real bossa nova fan, especially a fan of Carlos Jobim. I learned all
13:33those songs. I can play a lot of those songs and that's what I kind of do, you know, just for fun.
13:39Every once in a while I'll play bossa nova. I started writing that song and I wrote it and then I realized
13:45I couldn't sing it because it was too hard to sing. I really love the song and I didn't want to just
13:51ignore it. So I got a good friend of mine, Wendy Moten, who's an amazing singer. She actually came
13:58in second on The Voice a few years back and she's really one of the top background singers in the
14:03world. She sings background for everybody on everyone's record, but she's also an amazing artist
14:08on her own. And I just thought it might be a fun thing to get her to sing the lead because I knew she'd
14:13she'd kill it and she did. And then I sang a little bit with her, but it's really featuring her. It's
14:18just a great opportunity to work with her. Don't make me say the next one.
14:22A good friend of mine made an indie film called Gringa. He was the director and he sent me the
14:40script and I loved the script and I started seeing some of the rushes from the film. It's about a
14:44young girl who is from Southern California, graduates from high school. Her dad had left
14:51prior to that and her mom gets killed in a car accident and she literally is alone and she
14:56doesn't know what to do. So she decides to go to Mexico to find her father. And when she finds her
15:01father, it's not all that she hoped it would be. But it's a really nice story. It's a really great story.
15:06She falls in love. She meets a young Mexican boy and it really has a good Hollywood ending, right?
15:13And he asked me if I could try to write a song for it. So I wrote a couple songs actually and that
15:18was the one I think I like best. So I added a few Spanish lyrics in there. And Walking in Memphis.
15:28First of all, the Mark Cohen song is a classic. It's so good. I don't know if you're aware of this
15:33or not, but I did The Masked Singer. A couple years ago. I was the Anteater. Yes. Okay, Maneater,
15:39Anteater, get it? The first song, you know, they don't let you just do whatever you want. They have
15:43themes for each show and they gave me a list of songs and I had to pick one and I picked Walking
15:49in Memphis because I had never sung it before. And we did it in kind of an R&B kind of up-tempo way,
15:54a little bit more aggressive version than the Mark Cohen version. You know, I realized how cool the song
16:00was and it was fun to sing. I got through three episodes of The Masked Singer. You know, I kept
16:05making it, right? The show is great. Don't get me wrong. It was horrible being inside that crazy suit
16:10because I couldn't see out of it. It was hot. It was this big giant nose that came down to the ground
16:15and giant shoes and it was just weird. I made it through the first round and when I had to do the
16:21second song, I got out there and I thought I was going to faint. I actually thought I was going to faint
16:26and I'm in pretty good shape and I don't normally think that. And I was thinking, oh God, I hope I
16:32lose because I've got to take this suit off and get out of here. And I did. I got eliminated. And when
16:37they took the head off me, I was like, I was trying to be cool about it, but I was like, thank God,
16:43thank God I'm going home. Yeah. So anyway, you got to suffer for your art. Yeah, right. That's right.
16:49And are you touring with a new band? Yeah. Okay. Brand new band. I call it the Good Road Band because
16:55I had an old Good Road Band. This is Good Road Band volume version two, I guess you'd call it.
17:00Yeah. A lot of the guys, the same guys who played on the record. It's great. They're younger and
17:04they've got a lot of energy, which is good for me. Kind of keeps me on my toes. That's so neat.
17:09Yeah. How does it happen for you? You know, it's got to be natural. It's got to feel real,
17:15especially in the songwriting process. You know, I know when something's good, the hairs on my arms
17:19stand up. No. And really it's, it never fails. If I'm writing a song and all of a sudden the hairs
17:24on my arms stand up, I know something has happened. I don't know what it is. It's just one of those
17:29weird things. If I can't pick up an acoustic guitar and play that song for you and you don't get it,
17:35then it's not right. There's something wrong there. It's not like, you know, I remember a lot of
17:40instances where, you know, I'd be writing a song and I go, yeah, it's pretty good. You know, once
17:45we get in the studio and we put this on it and we put that on it, yeah, it's going to come alive.
17:50It's got to be real from the source. It's got to, it's got to be real from the inception. And if it
17:56works, you'll know it. And I can play it with an acoustic guitar or I can play it with a full band
18:02and synthesizers and strings or whatever. And that just, that's the icing on the cake.
18:06So cool. And did you play with William H. Macy? Is that right? How did that come to me?
18:13He's my neighbor in Colorado. Yeah. And his niece used to be our babysitter and our nanny. She used
18:21to travel with us on the road when our son was really young. So yeah, he's, he's a really good
18:26guy. Well, we met a while back and then I was at an event where he played the ukulele and sang these
18:31really unique quirky songs. And I was like, my wife and I were listening. I said, God,
18:37it might be fun to like do a show with him. So after he, he did this, it was like a private event.
18:43I said, have you ever, do you want to like play live? And he was like, what do you mean? And I said,
18:49yeah, like I'm, I've got a couple of acoustic shows because I have an acoustic show that I do
18:53that's different from what I'm doing now. And I said, yeah, I've got, I've got one in Steamboat,
18:57Colorado and one in Denver. And since you're in Colorado, I said, you want to just come and
19:01and he said, okay. So the shows were already on sale and there was no one on the bill except for
19:08me. And I called the promoters and said, Hey, I'd like to bring William H. Macy. And the one promoter
19:14in Steamboat said, well, what does he do? I said, well, you know, he's an actor, but he's like really
19:20good. And he does these really funny songs. So they said, okay. So, and he came out and the people
19:26went absolutely nuts because we added him at the last minute. It was kind of a surprise thing.
19:31First of all, he's a consummate actor. He's now, well, you know, you know, his work,
19:35he's just so engaging and so funny and so smart. It was great. So now we've, we've done a thing
19:42and I think we're going to do more shows together. That's so cool. Yeah.
19:46I have to ask, it's been all over the news that your legal dispute with Daryl has gone into
19:51arbitration. Can you say anything about that? It's finished. It's completely, yeah,
19:55we have amicably separated our business interests basically. And it was really a business thing.
20:00And, you know, now we're, we're pursuing, we're pursuing whatever is in our artistic future. We
20:06don't know, but it's, it's great. I'm really relieved that it's come to conclusion and it's
20:12everyone's satisfied. Good. Good. Are you guys amicable? Yeah. Well, sort of, I guess. I don't
20:18know. We don't, we don't really talk very much. You've been in this business a very long time.
20:22What's your secret to longevity? Well, I do have good genes. My dad died at 101.
20:30What I lost in the altitude department, I gained in the ethnic genes department.
20:34I really try to stay healthy. I do a lot of biking, hiking, skiing. I do a lot of yoga. I try to eat
20:40well. I don't drink and I don't smoke. I don't know what else I can tell you, but I'm still here.
20:46Amazing. Well, thanks. You sound better than ever. I appreciate it. Thank you. Did you always know
20:51you wanted to be a musician? I didn't have a choice. I was a kid. I have a recording of me
20:56singing at four years old. You know what my first paid gig was? What? Believe it or not,
21:00right here on Broadway, literally, probably two blocks from here, there was a restaurant called
21:05The Brass Rail. And my uncle was getting married. And the family, of course, went to the wedding. And the
21:12reception was in this restaurant right on Broadway. And they had a little band. And my mom, who was a
21:20stage mom, she pushed me up there. And I sang a song in Italian when I was probably five or something.
21:26And they gave me five bucks. So I've been a pro for a very long time. Wow. So they were supportive
21:33then of your music career. They were more than supportive. My mother was a real stage mother.
21:39Wow. Yeah, she pushed me. She used to make me wear a red blazer and white bucks. And to this day,
21:45I can't wear red. Did they just hear you singing one day? And they knew? I don't know. I was four
21:51years old. But you loved it, right? I just sang. I probably sang nursery rhymes or whatever. I have
21:55a recording of Here Comes Peter Cottontail. And then a little bit later on, when I was about six,
22:00I have a recording of me singing the Elvis song, All Shook Up. Oh my god. Yeah. What about writing? When did you
22:06know you could write? My first song I ever wrote was in seventh grade, when I was about 12 or 13.
22:13I had written, the class was assigned to write a poem. And at the time, it was, it was what was
22:19going on in the world was the, the Cuban Missile Crisis. I wrote a song about that. Because I was
22:26also playing folk music, and it was the protest songs were in vogue at the time. So I wrote this poem
22:32about the Cuban Missile Crisis. And my teacher knew that I played guitar and said, hey, that's pretty
22:37good. You should put that to music. And I thought, wow, I never thought of that. I said, wow, that's
22:42an interesting idea. So I put some music to it. I don't know what it was, or I don't remember anything
22:47about it. I never recorded it, of course. But that was my first song. Does that teacher know?
22:53I hate to tell you, but that teacher's long gone. Oh, did she see you become famous?
22:57I have no idea. No idea. Can you imagine? What about guitar? Were you self taught?
23:03Combination. I took some guitar lessons when I started when I was six. And my mom took me to the
23:09local music store in the adjacent town, because I lived in a very small town in Pennsylvania.
23:15I remember my mom saying, well, he's left handed. And the teacher said, oh, that won't matter. And so
23:19I just picked up a guitar. So I play right handed, even though I'm left handed. And no, I just, I loved it.
23:25You know, yeah. So what do you think you'd be doing if you weren't doing this?
23:29I could have been a race car driver. I did race professionally for a very short period of time.
23:34Yeah. And amateur as well. Yeah. I love that. I still love to drive. It's one of my hobbies and
23:39passions. You know, I would, I would have liked to have been a teacher. Yeah. I liked, I liked a mentor,
23:45and I like that. I think it's important.
23:48That's a neat noble profession. What would your current self tell your younger?
23:52Read your contracts. Get a better lawyer.
23:57Who were your influences growing up?
23:59Wow. Well, you know, I'm old enough to remember music before rock and roll.
24:04My parents used to play me big band music, and swing was the music that they loved as kids. Because,
24:10you know, people always play the music that you liked as a teenager. I remember, well, we moved from,
24:17I was born in New York in the city at Bellevue Hospital. And our whole family was in New York,
24:21and we moved to Pennsylvania when I was about four. So, but we would always come in every
24:26weekend to New York because my parents were homesick and they had all their friends and
24:29family here in the city. So as we would drive in from Pennsylvania, you know, I remember sitting
24:35in the back of the old car that we had. And they, as we would get near New York, the New York radio
24:41station, I think it was WNEW, used to come in as we were coming across the Pulaski Skyway into,
24:47you know, toward Manhattan. There was this guy named Marvin Block who had a show called Make
24:52Believe Ballroom. And he played the old swing and big band music. And so I always knew we were getting
24:58near New York when I could hear that song or those songs. So I knew all that Glenn Miller and, you know,
25:03Tommy Dorsey and, you know, Lionel Hampton and, you know, Duke Ellington. And I knew all those songs.
25:09So a few years later when rock and roll actually started and radio in the Philadelphia area where
25:16we were living started playing rock and roll music, I said, wow, something new had happened.
25:22I was totally aware of this. Even though I was young, I knew that something new had happened.
25:27And so I immediately, you know, started listening to Fats Domino and Chuck Berry and Elvis and
25:32Buddy Holly. And then, of course, I'm six, so I played guitar. And, you know, those early rock songs
25:38were super easy to play. There were only three chords. And so, you know, I started playing early
25:42rock and I just, my whole life has been parallel to what's happened in rock and roll, you know,
25:49and then folk music hit in the early, late 60s, early 60s, actually, and among the college campuses.
25:56And I had some older, I had some friends who had older brother who went to college and brought back
26:01these folk records. So I started listening to, you know, Dave Van Ronk and Woody Guthrie and
26:09the Carter family and all that kind of stuff. And so I started doing that. And so, you know,
26:13it's really amalgamation of the roots of American music that's very important to me.
26:19I really, I feel like, you know, being part of that, a very small part of the
26:23tradition of great American popular music. Yeah, that's for sure.
26:27What was the first album you ever bought? Well, you know, we bought singles back in 45s
26:32at first because I didn't even have a record player who could play an album.
26:36I probably bought Ray Charles' Greatest Hits around 1960, I would say, something like that.
26:42How do you hone your voice? How do I hone it? Yeah, do you do anything?
26:46Well, try not to talk too much, but that's not working out too well today.
26:51All I've been doing is talking about myself for about the last 12 hours.
26:55You know, it's a muscle, you have to be careful, you have to learn how to sing,
26:59you have to learn how to breathe correctly, and you have to learn how to use it.
27:02So I have to be very careful when I'm on tour. I have to make sure that I don't overdo it.
27:07I have certain ways of singing where I can push a little harder than others.
27:12I have to make sure I take days off, you know, that kind of thing.
27:15Yeah, good.
27:16And then you've been married a long time.
27:18What do you attribute it to?
27:20Well, I'm married to Ms. West Farmer's daughter, so she comes from a good family,
27:24and they've really, you know, they've become my family now, obviously.
27:27And she's a great, she's a great person.
27:29She's smart, and she keeps me in line, and she's been a great partner.
27:33That's nice.
27:35You struggled with depression, who hasn't really?
27:38What are your strategies for keeping your mental health in check?
27:41You know, just trying to stay as objective as possible about what you're doing,
27:45and not allowing your self-worth to be defined by your career success.
27:50I think that's really important.
27:51I've seen so many musicians who really their self-worth is wrapped up in
27:57what they perceive to be the success in their career.
27:59It's a dangerous place to be, you know.
28:02And you have to understand that what you do is not necessarily who you are.
28:07That's good.
28:08What does music do for people?
28:10Music's essential for people.
28:11I think it's part of the rhythm of life, you know.
28:14It's like your heartbeat, you know.
28:15Your heart beats, there's a beat, there's a flow.
28:18Music has always been a part of people's lives from primitive man, you know.
28:22Especially rhythm, I think.
28:24Because if you go back to drumming and things like that,
28:27which is the most primitive version of music, you know.
28:29It's just, it's somehow built into us as a species.
28:33We're getting pretty deep here, girl.
28:34What are we doing?
28:35Good.
28:35What's the secret to a happy life?
28:37Oh, my God.
28:38What do you think I'm like the old man on the mountain, you know?
28:42You're John freaking Oates.
28:45Let me ask you everything.
28:46Oh, my God.
28:50Secret to a happy life.
28:52Yep.
28:52Read your contracts, get a good lawyer.
28:55Musicians, they just, they want to make music.
28:58They, of course, want to get their music out there.
29:00And they'll do anything, you know.
29:01They can be taken advantage of because, for the most part,
29:04they're usually not that sophisticated.
29:06At least old school musicians.
29:09I know for a fact, because I deal with a lot of younger artists now,
29:12and they're much more sophisticated,
29:14much smarter about what they're doing.
29:16Unfortunately, they live in today's world,
29:19which is a terrible world to be living in if you're a musician.
29:22So, unfortunately, they know what's happening,
29:24and what's happening sucks.
29:26So, it's a weird dichotomy.
29:28But, you know, really, you just, you know,
29:32someone puts a piece of paper in front of you
29:34and tells you that they're going to, you know,
29:35help you get to where you think you want to go,
29:38and help you make money, and sell records, and go on tour.
29:42And it's easy to succumb to when you're not,
29:46when you're not sophisticated about stuff like that.
29:49When did you realize it was happening,
29:51and how did you get out of it?
29:52Yesterday.
29:59I'm really happy about where I am right now.
30:01I've got a great wife.
30:03I've got my son is healthy.
30:05I'm making the music I want to make.
30:07I've got the new band.
30:08I've got new music.
30:09I'm playing.
30:10You know, I'm healthy enough to do it.
30:13That's the big win, you know?
30:15Because look around my contemporaries.
30:17Look, people that I know, personally know,
30:19and others.
30:20You know, Ozzy Osbourne, and the list goes on and on.
30:23People are passing away, and, you know,
30:25creativity has a time stamp.
30:28And, you know, I can still write.
30:29I can still play.
30:30I can still sing.
30:31I can still travel.
30:32You know, as you get older,
30:34those things become more precious.
30:36You realize that it's like a house of cards.
30:39You pull one out, and something changes,
30:41and you're done.
30:43So while I can still do it,
30:44I want to make the most of it.
30:45And that's why I'm doing what I'm doing.
30:47And that's why I don't take it for granted.
30:50Beautiful.
30:51Can't top that.
30:53To hear more of this interview,
30:54visit our podcast, Life Minute TV on iTunes,
30:57and all streaming podcast platforms.
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