00:02Hey Ronnie.
00:03Howdy, howdy, howdy.
00:04Thanks for sitting with us.
00:06We just got about five minutes working.
00:08Okay.
00:09You got it.
00:21You were going to put it down there to me about.
00:27It's a long way, turn away.
00:30Here we are.
00:31The geese brothers.
00:33This is not a reason to go out and party.
00:35This is a reason to be good at what we do.
00:37I could probably do this forever.
00:39It's just easy for me.
00:41It's just easy. It's a joke but it's a joy.
00:43It's my life. I'm the luckiest person in the world.
00:46His real name is Father Geese.
00:48We call him.
00:49Prayer.
00:51He's been seen on other planets
00:53after we've been going to the bicycle places.
00:57Hey, it's good copy, please.
00:58Trust me.
01:01I try to go for something very unusual.
01:03I mean, everybody can write a song called I Love You Baby.
01:06I don't write love songs anyway.
01:09So I try to write something that's very unusual,
01:11coming from the far left,
01:12from very oblique kind of things.
01:14I decided early on in my life
01:17that if I had to be a songwriter
01:19and I was pressed into service,
01:20I didn't want to be a singer.
01:21I just wanted to be the bass player.
01:23I always was a bass player.
01:24So when I was, you know,
01:26kind of told that this is what I had to do
01:28and I had to be a songwriter,
01:29in my own mind,
01:30I decided I was going to put things in a fantasy situation
01:33and talk about things that people didn't know much about.
01:36Because you can really tell the same story
01:38over and over again.
01:39It can be a love story,
01:40but I don't put them in the same terms
01:42that anyone else would.
01:43So I create scenarios and scenes,
01:46scenes that you must use your imagination for.
01:49I use a lot of fantasy kind of things,
01:50times of dragons and witches and wizards and all that.
01:54Nobody knows these people or these situations,
01:56so you have to use your imagination.
01:57That's what I always did as a kid.
01:58I read books and didn't know what a dragon was,
02:00but I created my own.
02:02So to me, it's teasing people to use their minds.
02:18I'm overly truthful.
02:19Always tell the truth.
02:21Gets me in a lot of trouble sometimes,
02:22but I don't care.
02:23Because if you want to accept me as a person,
02:25you have to take my truth or my lies,
02:27whatever they may be.
02:28And luckily I don't lie.
02:30Five.
02:31You can do that with the cards.
02:33Five.
02:35I don't know what it's like to be nervous.
02:37I've never ever been nervous in my life about performing.
02:40I've been nervous about other things,
02:41but I've never been nervous about that.
02:43Only because, you know, I'm just really confident in myself.
02:46I know what I can do.
02:47I mean, you know, it's easy for me to do this.
02:50So I've always been lucky enough to have parents
02:53who taught me really early on,
02:55you are not any more special than anyone else.
02:58You may be able to play that horn very well
03:00or sing very well, but can you fix your car?
03:03No.
03:03Can you fix your TV?
03:04No.
03:05Can you fix your computer if it goes wrong?
03:06No.
03:07Well then does that make me better than the TV repairman
03:09or the tech who can do the computer thing
03:11or, you know, the mechanic?
03:13No.
03:14I mean, obviously I had to create a lot of that myself,
03:16of course.
03:16I mean, you can't just listen to your parents say that.
03:18I mean, you know, I'm a rebellious kid.
03:19I'm a rock and roll guy, you know.
03:21What the hell are you talking about?
03:22But I believe what they said
03:23because I respected them very much.
03:25And they always did the right thing by me.
03:26I really cared for my parents a lot.
03:28They gave me everything that I ever could have wanted
03:34and they worked their asses off their whole lives.
03:37You know, my dad in a steel mill,
03:38my mom behind a sewing machine.
03:41I just admire them so much for giving me
03:43what they gave me and suffering for it.
03:46But they were always proud of me.
03:47It was my role in life, make them proud of me.
03:49Go to university, get a degree.
03:51If you do that for us, everything will be cool.
03:54So I did that because I deserve, they deserve that.
03:58But because of them, I've always tried to just be,
04:01you know, one of the boys.
04:02You get a lot more out of people that way.
04:04You know, I mean, I love the crews that we have.
04:06I know everybody on the crew.
04:07A lot of bands I play with don't have a clue who they are,
04:09don't care who they are.
04:11You know, they're more important than anybody else.
04:13These guys aren't like that,
04:14but I'm still one who likes to get involved inside the crew.
04:17I like to get involved in everything.
04:18The stage set, all the things that happen,
04:20because I'm a control freak probably,
04:22and I like to be in control of my own destiny.
04:24But anyway, I give my folks credit for,
04:26you know, allowing me to be a pretty level, level-hearted person.
04:46I don't think I have an adult as a musician anymore,
04:49only to be good all the time.
04:51You know, when you get to, you know, more or less the end of your career,
04:54which is, you know, let's face it, I'm not going to do this for the rest of my life.
04:56Obviously, I'm going to, at some point, want to lay down on the couch and watch TV,
05:00not have to worry about all this and have to do all the things I have to do.
05:04I don't see that coming for four or five years, but it's going to happen eventually.
05:07My next project with the Dio Band is going to be a big one,
05:10because I've done one album called Magica, which was one part of the trilogy.
05:15Now, the next album after this finishes will be parts two and three.
05:19So, for me, that's the only next obstacle and the only next thing that I really want to do.
05:25And I just don't know what else more I have to prove.
05:27I've proven myself as a singer. I've proven myself as a songwriter.
05:30I don't think that I'm going to be writing the song my way.
05:33I'm not going to, you know, reinvent that one.
05:35So, you know, I'm not going to write, you know, a charade,
05:39or I'm not going to write Breakfast at Tiffany's or anything like that.
05:42I'm not going to do anything like that. I've done what I've done.
05:44I've been lucky enough to write some songs that have defined eras.
05:48So that has given me my fame, I guess.
05:53So I don't think I've got much more to do.
06:05I'm not very much of a party person, you know.
06:07I mean, I like to drink.
06:10I'm doing as much moderation as is necessary for, you know, the gig that we do.
06:14I mean, I'm trying to take that easy.
06:16But, you know, you get to the point where you just destroy yourself
06:19and what we're trying to accomplish here.
06:21We're not, you know, at the no beer on the rider stage
06:26or the crew can't drink beer, you know, because we don't have problems ourselves.
06:30So we don't impress that upon others.
06:32But there are bands, as you know, who have rehabbed and everything is a taboo.
06:35And I think that's absolutely stupid because if you can't beat it like you were supposed to,
06:40well, then, you know, you're going to see a beer advertisement.
06:42Does that suddenly make you go, I want to have a beer?
06:45Well, then you can't watch television.
06:47You can't see advertisements, you know.
06:48To me, it's all back to front.
06:50The world is full of grown-up people at our ages, and it should be.
06:53So they should be able to do what they have to do and what they can do.
06:57It's not up to us to be their proctors or to be their monitors.
07:00And if someone screws up, you know, just like a guy in a band,
07:03you screw up enough times, you're not in that band anymore.
07:04Well, you screw up enough times on the road as a crew, you're not in the crew anymore.
07:08You know, they like us, our professionals.
07:10Boom, and then all kinds of changes out in there.
07:12Will that be any better?
07:14I don't think about the crowd, you know.
07:15I mean, I never look at the stage until we go out on it.
07:18A lot of bands, a lot of people will go out on the stage,
07:21and while the opening act is on, perhaps, you know, check it out.
07:23Wow, I want to be surprised all the time, so I never go out and look.
07:27I want to have that first step on the stage be as exciting for me
07:32as it's supposed to be for the people.
07:33For me, every audience is different.
07:35Every audience is an animal to please.
07:40I just think in terms of people, not in terms of places.
07:44Why should New York be any more special than anywhere else?
07:46Just because New York thinks it's more special?
07:48No. No, I don't think so.
07:50The only specialness about New York for me is that the New York Yankees come from there,
07:54and that's, you know, those are my heroes.
07:56Then the Giants and Knicks and, you know, and Rangers,
07:59those are my teams because I grew up with them, so that's special to me.
08:02You know, sports is really what I really am involved in and have been all my life.
08:07Unfortunately, I mean, I never got big enough to be a basketball player,
08:10and I always wanted to be a baseball player.
08:12It was always what I wanted to do with my life.
08:14I never got big enough for that either.
08:15But, you know, I follow it through other great athletes and through sports radio
08:20and, you know, like Jim Rome's show, which I listen to faithfully every day.
08:24I love him.
08:26Those kind of things just inspire me because athletes are just so amazingly gifted.
08:32Unfortunately, we usually deal with athletes who are, at some point, not terribly bright,
08:37and they always make a very great mess of their lives.
08:39But people like Tiki Barber, whom I just mentioned,
08:41who's a great citizen and a great person and an incredibly talented man,
08:46are the people that I would rather pattern myself after, not, you know, not T.O.
08:51I don't want to see him, you know, pull his magic marker out and sign my cheek or something.
08:55I mean, what you might do.
09:04And, you know, to me, this is a special man.
09:07I want to help continue to make it special.
09:09The music was special.
09:10Well, let's make the rest of it special, too.
09:12Well, I've always been disappointed in the fact
09:15that there were great singers went away, great guitar players went away.
09:22Everything just became this great big slam bang, you know, whatever it was,
09:26thank you, ma'am, that just didn't have any grasp for me.
09:30I just wasn't beautiful.
09:32I didn't have passion.
09:33I didn't have soul.
09:34I didn't have any heart.
09:35Because, you know, metal music, especially the way, you know,
09:37Tony and Gee's conceived it, has passion, and it has heart, and it has feel.
09:42It was not just, you know, not just this great big loud noise doing nothing.
09:46And, you know, we've tried to perfect that and, you know,
09:49change it around a little bit in a couple different generational passages
09:53that we've made together.
09:55They invented it and invented it, but I just didn't hear it stay that way.
10:13Every time we get back together, which is about every 12 or 13 years,
10:16like locusts, because that's what we are, we're locusts.
10:19You know, we're able to do it because we do genuinely like each other a lot.
10:41You don't think of yourself more as a special person.
10:44Think of yourself as someone who survives in this world under the rules
10:48that the world gives you.
10:51Say please and thank you.
10:52You'll get a whole lot more out of life if you do that.
10:56Be open with people and, you know, just be yourself.
11:01Thanks a lot, Ryan. Thank you for your time.
11:02You're welcome. Thank you, guys. Thanks very much.
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