S4: E1: Tony Carey (Rainbow, Planet P Project, Pat Travers, Joe Cocker) A Musical Magician From Hawkeye Rd.

Tony Carey Mixdown Master

Sun, Jan 08, 2023 9:18PM • 2:11:03

SUMMARY KEYWORDS

record, day, song, played, band, years, music, wrote, tony, big, studio, rock, kid, called, lucky, put, buy, great, thought, albums, Tony Carey, turlock california, Peter Grant, Led Zeppelin, Fee Waybill, The Tubes, Staples High School, Julliard, Tom Petty, Rainbow, Richie Blackmore, musicland, RocShireRecords, Joe Lynn Turner, Lucky U,s Graham Bonnet, Sepsis, Post Sepsis, Frank Sinatra, Hammond Organ

SPEAKERS

Randy Hulsey, Tony Carey, Adam Gordon

Randy Hulsey  00:00

This is a chat I've been waiting for for some time now. My guest today is California raise but it didn't take him long to sign a major record deal and start touring the world. Hey everyone, it's Randy Hulsey. With backstage pass radio, we will chat with composer, producer, singer songwriter, rock star and my pal Tony Carey when we return.

Adam Gordon  00:20

This is backstage pass radio, the podcast that's designed for the music junkie with a thirst for musical knowledge. Hi, this is Adam Gordon. And I want to thank you all for joining us today. Make sure you like subscribe and turn the alerts on for this and all upcoming podcasts. And now here's your host of backstage pass radio. Randy Halsey.

Tony Carey  00:49

One hand clapping.

Randy Hulsey  00:51

Tony, here we are. Welcome to the show. Brother. How

Tony Carey  00:53

are you? Hey, man. Hey, man. Pretty good.

Randy Hulsey  00:56

Well, thanks for gracing me with your presence and your time. I'm glad you're here. And I have to tell the listeners that the interview today will definitely be the Tony Carey career cliff notes as there's probably no way that we could cover your entire career in the show. But we'll we'll give it a we'll give it a whirl. So how how are things? How are things man Good to see you?

Tony Carey  01:21

Good man. I'm in I'm in Germany, as you know, and it's the weather's turned inwards which winter and there's Christmas music everywhere. Because yesterday was the first advent Sunday and we're you know, winding in toward Christmas. So I visited my kids I got three three adult children here and they wanted Berlin it's up north ones in Munich double the mountain system south. I'm kind of exactly in the middle. So I'm on a lot of trains visited him and granddaughter and, and looking forward to the holidays.

Randy Hulsey  01:55

That's awesome. Well, that's something that we don't as you probably as you Well, remember, we don't do much by way of trains, I guess if you're in a big city like New York or something like that you move around on, you know, city run transportation, but you know, the trains are big. They're where you are, right?

Tony Carey  02:14

Well, the country is small. I mean, I think I think Germany is the size of Oregon and a half at most. And, you know, I've heard for years, there's a why doesn't why doesn't America, the United States have a high rail system like like Japan or whatever, or Europe and the face because too big. I mean, you know, they get all that these huge states. I mean, if you want to if you want to go to Nebraska and Kansas and Iowa and Idaho, to get up to Spokane on a train, you build just three days on a train. Yes. There's nothing there's nothing longer than about six hours in the day, I think goes 150 miles an hour. Wow. Okay, and they're comfortable, like a living world. I mean, that's just the way it's just the way it is. You're sure. And in France, France is amazing trains, they have a little table lamps with lampshades on them. And it's just it's like, you know, a real

Randy Hulsey  03:06

intimate, intimate setting, right?

Tony Carey  03:09

Like Hercule poro, in the Agatha Christie. Like the Orient Express, I bet on the Oregon is really the way that it goes. It goes to build a steel rod, and it's got legs. It's all been out of walnut. It's beautiful. And yeah, train trains are big here. And the Otterbox out about it just means highway, the highways are so jammed, especially at Holiday season in rush hour and all that, that I sometimes will drive somewhere. But if I'm going alone, which I did this last run, I just I just get in that train because it

Randy Hulsey  03:41

Well, it seems contrary to popular belief, because when you know here in the States, when we hear autobahn, we think this is a road you jump out on and drive 7000 miles an hour. And then you know, you're telling me like the polar opposite, you sit in traffic and you can't move. So it's kind of contradictory.

Tony Carey  04:01

Okay, it used to be like no speed there still, I mean, there's just stretches with no speed limit. Okay, but it used to be like, like you said, 7000 miles an hour and no brakes, you know, and hang up for dear life. In fact, I drove fast as I ever drove was 250 kilometres it's 140 miles an hour. And that's fast. Yes, for a matter Pro, or anything. I'm hungry. I was a kid and out of my mind. But I mean, it takes two hours to get into Berlin, the city, huge city and have this ring around the city and it takes two hours to negotiate that at the best of times. It's Jebus urban sprawl, you know, yeah, like everything else, but in 4d. I've been here for 45 years and 40 years ago, you could drive in Bavaria by the Alps. You could drive a long way. And I had a buddy that would, it was an engineer and he would drive to the studio on his rice rock. And he would go to 70 which is like 150 miles an hour just a bit. Geez. And I mean just zoom and he had to he had the leathers and he had the helmet but still if he came off that thing you know he he'd slide it slide into the studio from 10 Miles

Randy Hulsey  05:18

Well, I guess I guess it

Tony Carey  05:19

is falling is falling prey to urban sprawl just like everywhere else

Randy Hulsey  05:24

gets everywhere. It is everywhere. Well, if we turn the dial back, just a little bit you were born in Watsonville. Correct. Watsonville Calif. Joe capital of the world. That's right, California, but I believe it was Tearle was at terlato that you were you were raised in Turlock? Correct. Yeah. Okay.

Tony Carey  05:43

I guess I was three, I don't remember the course. My dad built a house in Turlock, California. Here's an interesting fact I zeroed it. And my old man bought it or built had it built for $11,000 in 1956. It's a half a million bucks right now. And it's still a piece of shit. So

Randy Hulsey  06:03

Wow. Yeah, it's crazy. I, I looked up something on the same thing the other day, and just this little, like, 1600 square foot home that was like 40 years old was $1.7 million. And I'm Mike, and I'm in in, I'm in Houston, Texas. And I'm in you know, I'm in a modest house here is not big, 2800 square feet. And I think I bought my house for like, a quarter of a million dollars. We've got a pool. And you know, it's like, you get so much more here than you do like somewhere like California can't even afford to live out there.

Tony Carey  06:41

You know, that show fixer upper? Yeah. So they're in Waco. And we get that here. So we watch it. Let's ship a job gains. And I like it. You know, she she turns him into like, she's a professional interior designer. But the whole run up to this show is we find rundown houses in the best neighborhoods and fix them up. So. So I said, Wait about at least these houses are all like 3000 square feet and 212,000 by that. I said, Wait a minute. Let's go back to the the credits and see when that was filmed. Was there six and seven years old? Yeah. And so I Zillow owed Waco, Texas Real Estate. And it's tripled since then. Oh, yeah. Since fixer upper? Yeah. Yeah. So what, what do we do? And now there's an analogy in there. What do you do if you're young family? You want to buy a house interest rates? And now 7% They're gonna go up? I think I just said no, there. What are the interest rates? And

Randy Hulsey  07:43

I think they're about that my son's in real estate. And he was just mentioning that yesterday that yeah, that they're probably around six and a half 7% ish, somewhere around there, and

Tony Carey  07:52

it's gonna go up. And so what's a what's a young family? Do not they want to buy a house in America? How do they make that nut? Well, they don't. Yeah. And the analogy to that is the music business here. I came up at a time, this 70s 80s and 90s, when you'd actually sell physical albums. And if you if you did, well, you could do well, in these days, you got to have a billion streams to put a down payment on a free lunch. I mean, it's just craziness. So young bands that are just as talented as any other young bands ever were including Nirvana, Black Sabbath or whatever. When they started out, how do they start out? How do they how do they even get going? Where did they play? How do they get known? You know, this? It's calamitous? Yes. It's the same as the real estate market and young bands, young musicians still ask me you know how to get going, how to get a start. That's why it's all day. It's always been it's the right place, the right time, the right amount of talent, but keep your day job and go back to school and get a lot of great.

Randy Hulsey  08:58

Absolutely. I look back at it a little bit. So I'm a local artist here and cypress, Texas wood, which is a little northwest of the Houston area. And I just look at how the music business is and at one time I was playing I think upwards to maybe 120 130 shows a year as a as a part time entertainer, right? And and it's a lot of shows for somebody that works a full time you know, job and I always said you know as much as I as a kid, I wanted to be a rock star like every young boy does. I'm glad that I kept a day job, you know that I had something steady to fall back on because it seems like it just seems like the the music industry is so watered down and like you said a minute ago. You used to sell records. I think that that's where the money came from back in the early days. And now there's no there's no money you

Tony Carey  09:55

finish your thought and I will expand on that. Yeah, yeah. And

Randy Hulsey  09:59

I think And you correct me if I'm wrong, because you're the professional, right? But it seemed like that that's where the bands were making their money. Of course, they made it on tours, but, but they were selling records. And that's where a large portion of the money came from. But now fast forward to 2022. It seems like a lot of these local artists are relying on merchandise sales, and T shirt companies. Yeah, as a t shirt. Yeah. And there's no money. There's no money in the selling of the records in the albums anymore. One, okay,

Tony Carey  10:30

I'll go one farther, okay, in the 70s. In the 60s 50s, and 40s. Everybody got thought, I mean, in the 40s, they would buy a big ticket or 50s. They take some blues man, immortal blues man and buy his whole catalogue for a bottle of Jim Beam, you know? Sure. And he never got a penny. And until Led Zeppelin came and changed the game in 1969, with Peter grant, or 68. And all of a sudden, he said, No, this is 9010, the artists gets 90% of the gate, you take the 10, or you don't get Led Zeppelin, and they were the most popular band in the world. And he changed the rules, that's one thing. But when Fleetwood Mac was selling 26 million copies of rumors in the late 70s, it wasn't the whole band that was making the money, it was the songwriter and the writers make the money on record sales, not the band unless they have an internal deal. Deeper, for instance, that first few albums had to deal with this. We split everything five ways. The writing, then, actually, Richie and and Ian at the time, got a little smarter. And they said, Wait a minute, I'm writing the music and Ian's writing the lyrics. Fuck you guys, basically. And then things got a little more lopsided the other way. So if you wrote and there isn't an IT, Congress has tried to put this through for years, there isn't a performance, royalty. So if your songs on the radio and you're in a band, they pay a lot of money to the writer, and none to the drummer, bass player, or whatever, in general. And that is slowly changing. But it's disproportionate in every sense of the word. Now, of course, you need a good, it's only good, that's in quotation marks. We'll get into that too. But you need a good song to get on the radio. And the writer is supposed to do the credit for providing a good song, but without the infrastructure of the band and without being able to record it. I mean, Tom Petty was of course the writer, but without the Heartbreakers breakdown wouldn't have been a number one single shirts, he didn't talk about 70s, late 70s. So as the songwriters that make the money, so you'll see guys from really, really famous bands, and they're driving a 15 year old beater, and they're paying and they're late on the rent and they can't make their alimony and, and they're flat ass broke. Life's not fair, and then you die. I mean, we know that sure what the music business is. It's specifically not fair.

Randy Hulsey  13:02

Well, it's interesting that you said that Tony, because I what I've loved about this show, since I started it in February of last year. It's it's a it's a learning platform for me. I'm learning things that I didn't know. Right and, and I have the pleasure of talking to fee label from the tubes on my show. And fee, we had a conversation about bands that had re made their song I think it was white punk song dope. And, and I said, Well, did they have to call and ask, you know your permission to record that song? He's like, no, like, like they can they can record it and you know, exactly. And I had no idea of that. Like, the songwriter is the one that's making all the money on the song and

Tony Carey  13:48

there's a pop there's a popular misconception that if you do a cover if you would do on a cover a Beatle song you got to call Get a hold of Paul or Ringo and or and get permission No, you don't anybody can record and release anything. With the caveat that you won't make any money Paul and Ringo make all the money. I mean, the songwriter writer makes the money so if the tubes without fee, rerecord white punks on dope assuming fee wrote it which I think he did. He's happy to have them rerecord it and also to him because he's gonna make all the money Sure. Now it might be the tubes might get a bump they will get a bump if it's a if it's a rediscovered loss classic they'll get jobs from it tickets shows and you know and you'll be able to sell T shirts and and hopefully attract a paying audience right but the real money if it's any kind of a radio or streaming sensation will go to the writer and in this case that's fee so the correct answer to Can I cover your song first of all you don't have to ask. Second of all yes,

Randy Hulsey  14:51

the more the merrier, right?

Tony Carey  14:54

No, no Yes is the answer. Nothing exceeds

Randy Hulsey  14:57

like excess right as what they say Well, you had moved out to New Hampshire at the ripe old age of I think it was 1714 and it was Connecticut. Was it Connecticut. Okay. And you you land. I think it was a major deal that you landed with ABC Dunhill records. Now, did you just up and leave home to make this move? Or was this kind of planned out for you talk to me a little bit about

Tony Carey  15:25

everything's accidental in my life. And here's the thing. My dad was an entomologist, and he went to school in Tucson, Arizona and went to college. He got a bachelor's degree in entomology. So I saw about bugs, bugs, the study of insects. So he got a job with a chemical company who's you know, whose job was to kill bugs. Were in Turlock, California, which is now a metropolis. I mean, it's a 70 or 80,000 people, but that at the time in the 50s, was six hours a day, it was a little Burg. A lot of more cars of people and and I spoke Spanish when I was really small, I don't anymore. And they promoted him to a Manhattan gray flannel suit commuter job. The corporate headquarters of the company was in Westport, Connecticut was one of the three or four richest towns in America. And he would take it he hated this. And he did this for us for the kids. We I have two brothers at me. And in Westport, he would take the train into Manhattan and work as a product manager for this company. And he didn't talk commuter thing. And I got the opportunity to go to probably the best music High School in United States was staples High School in Westport, Connecticut. I had 30 music classes and one chemistry class and a note for PE that I didn't have to show up. And that's all I did in my sophomore junior and senior years is music and orchestra. I learned orchestra I learned string bass, a contract the Bode contra bass played symphonies I was all Connecticut orchestra. And the thing is, was that gonna go to music school, or was it going to, you know, go out and rock and roll and I don't know what that was, if you have any kind of censorship on his program, but I'll tell the story like it happened to you. You decide if you're going to cut it out. No, go ahead. I had a I had a bass teacher who had a combo my instructor, orchestral bass instructor had a combo played at the country club at Paul Newman was always there and he lived in town and all these movie stars because it was really really ritzy town. And he had a tree or they play on Sundays at the country club and, and I got accepted to Julliard, which is the music school for frustrating bass controversial, and to Eastman, the Eastman School, which is upstate New York and Rochester. And I wasn't really planning on doing it, but I asked him, I said, Listen, I've been accepted to the schools and, and he said, Donnie, he says, and I had a had a rock band, and he knew that and I played piano in a rock band, and sang and he said, Listen, you go to Juilliard. In five years, you'd be the number two bassist in Cleveland Symphony Orchestra says that's what choice one, Choice two is hit the road and within five years, you'll be somewhere with all the posts that you can eat. I said

Randy Hulsey  18:29

number two

Tony Carey  18:30

is not even a joy. And he says you're right. It's not go for it. But you know, these are different. These were different days. And it was it was wasn't it? It was it was 19 7070 Yeah, teach a different days and we have now and in 71 Being up my my buddy, the guitar player, went up to New Hampshire and and we'd heard about a singer up there lead singer and I was always kind of on the offensive. I was the singer I was more I played bass in the band and we were we were I poco or or what the Eagles Eagles weren't there yet, but country rock and Neil Young influence and poco actually big simply. So we had this country band. And we got signed not then then I was I was I think 18 a year out of high school. First I got drafted and got out of that with a my mother to a psychiatrist wrote this letter with a horrible person I wasn't drug addicts schizophrenia and you know, partially true letter and whatever. So I had that experience of I got I got inducted I got I got to the you know, cup your hands and cough I got the all the way that physical and everything. Then the guy says is there anybody in New Haven, Connecticut with all the other inductees? This was 1972. Three more years Vietnam to go. Yeah. And it's big old Staff Sergeant with me and all that all that Jewelry, all the metals and everything's stood up. Is there anybody here who says reason should not serve Uncle Sam and I pulled up my letter and went had a chat with him as often as he did, Anthony? I'm not sure what you're the right material for the United States Army. I said, Gee, sir, that's a disappointment and so I got a house

Randy Hulsey  20:20

that broke your heart.

Tony Carey  20:24

And but this letter just put a scribe to every mental illness and physical addiction that's possible to me. So like it was 50%. Gay gay, so it was gay. And that was like, not a hip thing. Like it is now that was like, awful back in the day in AD and all that. And I won't get into that. That's disgusting.

Randy Hulsey  20:46

And now and not and now your wife confirms all your mental issues now.

Tony Carey  20:51

She says in German, so you didn't understand. I didn't shit my pants. I didn't know. But so anyway, so being in the right place at the right time. We met a guy in in Westport. It came back from New Hampshire down to the Westport area was about 300 miles after after a year of writing songs and get a trio we were trio and we added a drummer and a bass player. We met a guy who know a guy in New York City and a record executive for ABC, Daniela and he came out to where we were living and playing hurt his blade. He signed this, this huge deal. And he gave us he said, okay, kid, you're going to Hollywood. It's okay. And we get to Los Angeles. They put us up for seven months in the Chateau Marmont hotel one of these bungalows. The high point of that was the actress Carol Lindley, who was hot stuff in the 70s would get up before she thought anybody else was up and swim naked in the swimming pool class I caught on to that really quick and we would be sitting there like like hiding behind the bushes watching Oh, Carol do a thing and 5am in the Chateau Marmont Hotel. Anyway, that was does that was a disaster they gave us as a producer Gary Cass who produced Steely Dan, and was legendary for hiring and firing session bands. He would research Gary Katz a little bit there. Perfectionist is not even the word he would hire the five a list guys five of the eight first call session guys to play a Steely Dan song and then the next day he would hire five new guys to play the same song. And if these guys are getting like triple scale, which at the time that means like 1000 bucks. A night is needed seven a lot of money. Three tons of money. Tons of mindmap these guys are these guys were rich, but you don't play with the Cairo brothers and Leigh Sklar and skunk Baxter and I forget the names the guy that played the great Steely Dan solos, whatever, all these guys and we couldn't get the record done. Because and I mentioned Tom Petty before he he was lucky enough to get signed I think by Warner's and they gave him Ted Templeman as a producer. And Ted Templeman liked the band and he liked what they signed, but they'd never been in a studio said Tom Petty told a story that they did break down. At least 100 takes, you know, over, you know, several days to get that first song. It before Ted says, Okay, now we've got something and the ABC Dunia was approached to approach was well the first thing Gary cast did was fired the drummer and bass player and wouldn't let the two other guys play on the record. I was allowed to play keyboards, okay. And we never got anything finished. I mean, decided that based on the charm that we'd had, so logically, they would have I would have hoped for a TED Templeman. And we've gone to the studio had learned how to do it to his satisfaction and we would have had some because we were more along the lines of America state like a trio. Okay, and that kind of thing. And because I'm versatile we were had rehearsal studio in Hollywood SAR where it's a studio, which is where everybody rehearsed at, and it was Jeff Bakar was playing drums. His brother Mike was playing bass and our two guitars and Mian Hammond and Richie Blackmore was two studios over and I play really, really loud heaven. And he was looking for a keyboard player, he had way more put together minus a keyboard player. So he heard me play through to five walls in the soundproof walls so loud and he sent somebody over to Jimmy over database page Jimmy Boehner over to say listen was like the audition for Rainbow and we'd been in LA for two years. And we didn't have anything finished on the record. And no, no, no land in sight. So I jumped ship. So I call my dad. The night before my audition. I said, Hey, Dad, I'm going to be a rock star. And my dad says he was funny. He says, I thought you already were. I said, No, I mean, a real one is well, good luck with that. Okay, thanks, pop. Yep. And the next day, went down and got the job with Richie and then got to see the world. And that was still It wasn't 20 I think it was 19.

Randy Hulsey  25:39

That's an amazing story. And I think that was sometime around 1976. Was it not?

Tony Carey  25:45

7575. And we actually, not everybody knows this, but we we did a whole tour of America. We played. We played in Florida. In Miami, we played Detroit we played in Montreal, we played in Texas somewhere we played about nine or 10 shows. Just a warm up. And then we went into the studio in December of 75. Or March or January or something. Maybe February sure winter in Germany, because we went into studio in Munich, and recorded rebel rising and that was the beginning of 1976. Like you

Randy Hulsey  26:23

did, I think was it to two world tours with rainbow and this was the time when Rodney J. James Dio and cozy power in the band. Yeah, what a lot what a lineup now for a musician of your caliber, you know, we talked about the Juilliard and, and first seat and all this kind of stuff, which is, which is really cool to find out about you. What is it like for a young kid, I guess at this time in your early 20s, to play with world renowned like, I mean, what I guess later became world renowned musicians, right? I mean, what was

Tony Carey  27:04

well, he was rolled it out and cozy already had cozy. Cozy was huge. He got hit singles in in England. And he was like a real catch. Because he was in Europe was already a big, big deal. What was it like? I gotta say, with all modesty, because I have modest. I thought it's fit. I thought it was right. I didn't ever give it a second thought. I'm not. I mean, some people would have Mohammad Ali would impress me, you know, like a hero. But there isn't a musician that. You know, I take that seriously. I mean, I appreciate the talent and all that sure what, but these are just just guys doing the same thing I do. Yeah, basically, I've always thought that way. If I've tried to say that in a way that that doesn't make me out to be like, Oh, well, I deserve this because it's all about being in the right place at the right time. We'll take a good fit. I was a good fit for the bed. They tried to everybody. They tried Mark Stein for Vanilla Fudge. They tried to get from Roxy Music. They tried some Italian guy who was hotshot they tried every hammer play they could find to feel John Lord shoes, basically. And I was there they hurt me by accident, and I could do it. And I didn't mind genre hopping because it's all music. And it was a great experience. Got to see the world. Yeah, you know,

Randy Hulsey  28:27

what were you playing three blind mice? Is that what they heard in the recording studio? There?

Tony Carey  28:32

Must be a maybe Christmas carols. It doesn't even matter. Does it sound fast, flashy shit. Doesn't even matter. Dan was high energy. Oh, yeah. When I when I listened back to the recordings of the band at that time. We played everything about three times too fast. And rule of thumb is if you have a heavy song and you want to be a heavy band, the slower you play it the heavier it gets. Yeah, I very rarely, and I mean, I, the tempo of man on a silver mountain on the original record was slow and heavy. And we played like a Mickey Mouse version, like way too fast. But it was loud. It was energetic. We had a vibe. The kids loved it. The fans loved it.

Randy Hulsey  29:21

It's funny that you mentioned that the high energy, the look and everything and I just saw yesterday I just saw an interview with Richie Blackmore talking about Graham bonnet who he spoke of pre hitting the record button. And I think Richie was just stayed pissed off with Graham, because Graham he told grandpa, you've got to grow your fucking hair out we have an image you need a denim jumper, a denim long hair rough looking band and you come in here looking like a Sears and Roebuck fucking sales guy, right? grow your hair out and get jagah

Tony Carey  29:59

Oh my son in law

Randy Hulsey  30:03

and they were he was saying that he made one of his tour people guard Graham's door because Bran was solid heart Colin hartje garden the door to keep him from going out to get a haircut and he snuck out the fucking window and got the haircut

Tony Carey  30:21

Graham went out the window stuck his thumb Oh, God is gonna ride to a to a great hairdresser somewhere. And God is like his neat look back at any come on where the red pants he had red pants, you know, we all had like satin flares and right shoe and platform soles grandma's Australian and his idea of, of what a pop musician look like was not what know the rough, rough rock and roll look, you know, right? This is hilarious.

Randy Hulsey  30:54

And I think that a Ricci was what pissed him off even more is that he said that his hair had actually got to the length of his collar. It was actually getting long, right? Yeah. And he went out and cut the shit. So

Tony Carey  31:06

yeah. And Colin got endless buckets of shit for that. And he says, Well, man, I didn't think about the window. That's funny stand in a setup. Instead of a chair in front of his door. He's written a book or whatever and grab snuck out the window. That's legendary story.

Randy Hulsey  31:22

And you know what the funniest part of the story was, he said on stage that night. He's sitting there playing, you know, his guitar behind grandma's grandma's singing. And he looks and he sees that neatly cut hairline. And he said, I just wanted to smash that motherfucker over the back. Yeah.

Tony Carey  31:41

I love that. That's, that's that's great stuff. And, and I've known Graham now for I mean, I've known him forever. And he's a great guy. And he's funny, but I mean, you don't tell him what to do. Especially about his hair. I mean, you know, and he wasn't that impressed. You know, he been up and coming fairly successful popstar. And yeah, and he'd already had hits. And okay, you know, it's crazy Englishman calls him up and he's a singer. So yeah, I'll try it out. But you know, grandma's grandpa, he looked the way he looked. Yeah. When they played this huge festival Donington? I guess it was his red trousers. And I knew that was gonna be the end. I think that was his last gig.

Randy Hulsey  32:24

The red trousers that right there

Tony Carey  32:26

at the end of the road roll grant. That's

Randy Hulsey  32:30

right. Well, you left rainbow I believe sometime around 77 and move to 7777 and move to Germany around 78 Which is where you still reside today. And it's interesting, because all this all this stuff that we've talked about takes place before you even hit the age of 25 This is crazy. Oh, geez, you've already lived a lifetime by the time you're 25 years old, right?

Tony Carey  32:59

Yeah, well, I mean, one thing I'm thankful for it's having like I said seating the world and I met people in Munich and one of the people I met in Munich was it was quite successful musician here and producer and I was everything but I didn't I wasn't fired by the way from Rambo. He fired me a couple of times and it's just really funny to couldn't find anybody to replace me so not that he's not that that not that he do it himself. He had to have Colin Hart come hire me back. And I was like, naive enough to say yeah, what the fuck? And but the last time I left I things got crazy. And I left during the recording of Long live rock and roll which was Brad's at the honky chateau. And things got really nuts and things got dangerous and these guys are crazy and it's so I left so I'm back in the States and again a telegram remember those don't for this guy in Munich and he says can you come over and play piano and and I'm producing a hell yes. If you send me a ticket we didn't even talk about money I didn't care still don't money makes itself if you're in the right place at the right time. Sure. And if you add if you write the song exactly that so I got in a plane and August 11 1978 and strolled into this. The same studio where we recorded Rambo rising, which was music land in Munich. So as you know, intimately familiar with the staff, the hotel the people, it was in the basement of the hotel still is it was it had been Giorgio marauders disco studio, he discovered Donna Summer and did interesting love to love your baby in that studio. And then then the rockers discovered it and I think bad company was there Led Zeppelin might have been there we were there at Queen was there. And this guy who sent me the telegram was there so all of a sudden I'm back pretty much on home turf to me because you know, just a thing and so I hit on the girl that the bar girl from the Hard Rock Cafe in Frankfort, which is another story and I had a lot of competition. David Coverdale was after, and Mick Ralphs was after. I mean flirting with him. Bad come. And I don't know why I was thinking that I'm married.

Randy Hulsey  35:34

You win. Right?

Tony Carey  35:35

You know, I don't know what I was thinking. Right. And that lasted as long as it lasted was actually quite a while but what I got out of it is my daughter is she's, she's 41 now and she's got my my grandchild who will be sick. Okay, perfect next week, and I'll be down in Munich. Awesome. Yeah. So that's, so that's what I got out of it. And then, and then I seem to be the Marian kind. And then I had, I got three kids now. And they're all German to the core. And they speak English because of me, but they're German. Sure. So we get to up to Frankfurt and a guy had a studio that was pretty much booked except for nights when the sessions when everybody had gone home and he let me go in with a cassette recorder at play the piano all night long the wanted, and just record shit just record anything I wanted to. And I was like learning by doing and then that escalated to where he would let me actually have sessions with with an engineer and I recorded five electronic music albums. More than that, but we released five where I didn't even sing. And I wasn't sure if I was going to be a song. Obviously, these were like in the vein of Kraftwerk or Tangerine Dream, like, but it wasn't it was more like silly, silly electropop. And I was having a balk because there's all these synthesizers, and I was having a great time. The polar opposite of either the country rock where I started, or hard rock where, you know, the complete opposite thing. So I am making demos for a girl group. That was a complete invented product like Milli Vanilli Okay, yeah, the girls were cast, they didn't sing. Okay. They were just there to look pretty. There was three of them. And I'm making demos for them, and singing them. And I played him for another producer, Frank Ferien. Who did me live in LA, and got tons of shit for that. But he also did. I don't know if you've heard of Boney M. Huge over here at an Africa and they sold 300 million records to an enormous and so I was visiting his studio. He was not far. And I played him these demos. He says, What are you talking about girl grooves as those are hits? I said we don't really he says yeah, I said who should say to you there's a hits. What are you talking about? So we shopped them and got it. A deal with rock Shire records with Graham bonnet also got his deal with Alcatraz. And these stories get wild. So got an album deal with rock show records. So they flew me first class. This is a brand new record label. Put me up at the sunset on the Sunset Strip at the Hyatt House. The Continental house the right house, picked me up in a stretch limo drove me down to Anaheim, where they'd had their they had this office complex. This state of the art studio and even me in my naivety was thinking this is a brand new record label who's where's the billionaire? And it turns out that the guy's wife was the comptroller of Hughes Aircraft, and she embezzled 10 million bucks from US aircraft to fund rock shy records and they cite Alcatraz with Amy Bob Stein and grant Bonner they said me and I had the biggest hit I had I won't be home tonight was on rocks I records and that's that was the single and it was all over the radio. And they they all went to jail. Jesus. And he got it. If you're listening to this podcast, Google rock Shire records as Roc Shire s h i r e like the hobbit rock Shire records. And this is a fascinating story and they all ended up going to jail. So the owner of the master of a won't be home tonight. My first hit single in America is the Internal Revenue Service.

Randy Hulsey  39:58

No way.

Tony Carey  39:59

Yes Unbelievable. I mean, I've had a candidate crazy run

Randy Hulsey  40:04

so were they getting mailbox money every time this records played.

Tony Carey  40:08

I don't get shit. I don't get anything. All right, yeah, go Sam to get caught they finally caught me. Was this

Randy Hulsey  40:17

Hugh this Hughes Aircraft or airlines? This was the Howard Hughes Yes. And all for whatever it was right? Yes. Yeah. Where he was okay.

Tony Carey  40:26

He was he was. Remember he was into planes? Movie. DiCaprio. Yeah. And he was into planes and flying an aircraft company. And I guess they supported the bill plan for the military in the Second World War, or F I don't know when Howard Hughes was but in or in the 50s at least, and this was the 70s and it was Hughes Aircraft. And they did government work, of course, okay. And she was the guy she was the person that signed all the paychecks and had the comptroller so she started writing checks to Rocky Davis that was her she was surely Davis and started writing checks to her husband and for 10 million bucks in total and that's where the limo and the risk recording studio and the big advanced they paid me and grabs bed and two others I don't remember where they were and oh the singer from Tower of Power they signed him to but none of them had any any any any success except me and won't be home tonight was all over the radio. Still people talk to me all the time about that song. If it was an MTV Video even. They were how do I say this? And as as pristine as I am? Well, there was all that stuff. You could eat that I mentioned an hour a lot of a lot of substances. Yeah, sure. And then, yeah, and then it's just turned up out of nowhere. And you know, in my, in my room service and all the time, and it was just nuts.

Randy Hulsey  41:54

Well, it sounds like it was fun while it lasted but it sounded a little short lived. Right?

Tony Carey  42:01

What do you mean they're in jail? Right. What? And I said I knew that I did. I said knew there

Randy Hulsey  42:06

was something something. Yeah, too good to be true, right? The old adage, label

Tony Carey  42:11

you expect somebody to pick you up in a Chevy Impala.

Randy Hulsey  42:16

That's funny. You had some charting success while you know you were in rainbow but you also had charting success after leaving and going solo I think the first album from the planet P project peaked around 42 on the Billboard Top 200. And then you had the song? Why me? I think that was was that the first single from Planet P that went to 64.

Tony Carey  42:44

Before that. I won't be home tonight was 79 on a on a hot one. Okay,

Randy Hulsey  42:49

so it was that song that really kicked off your, your solo thing? It wasn't why me that kicked you Oh, no, this

Tony Carey  42:57

was this is another kind of crazy story. We were planet who was signed to Geffen Records, which was the most powerful record company in the industry in the 80s. And that, a&r guy, I won't say his name twice. That's, you'll get that if you know what I'm talking about. But this anyway, this guy came over and signed planet P. But at the same time, I'd be I had my my rock album, planet, he was a space opera. And so I had to record deals with rock star, which had already charted and then one on Geffen. And the understanding was that I wasn't allowed to use my image my face for Planet paid. That's why I'm not in a video. There's three videos to I'm not in the MTV Video. And a very unusual situation. But I was I was just writing all this stuff. I was in the studio 24 hours a day, and I had I never really cared much about genre. And one day I said, Hey, I want to write a space opera, which it did, and I got signed to Gavin and then why me it exploded. It was in the top 10 radio charge, which I always thought were more reflective of what I was doing than the actual pop charts because I'm not a pop artist, but I was on the radio a lot. And then Gavin had the option to release the some tough city record which had a fine fine day at the first day of summer, but both top 40 hits on it. And this guy whose name shall not be mentioned, hated the lyrics and wanted me to change the lyrics he wanted me to call a five vine day something else. And he didn't like the line on the first day of summer. The whole world knows your name, which I thought was pretty literate and I liked it. And I also like a fine fine day. So they treated me like a baseball player or old mule, to MCA Records. Who Yeah. And, you know, without my knowledge really or something's going on and so MCA Records was awesome was Irving Azoff is also a huge label in 80s released some tough city. And a fine fine day was number one in the pop into radio charts. And I kind of stuck it to Richie a little bit because because Stone Cold had been number one in the radio chart.

Randy Hulsey  45:31

Yeah. And that was the black in the Joe Lynn Turner days. Correct.

Tony Carey  45:34

Exactly. Exactly. Joe and Joseph buddy are my two girlfriends. I kind of felt good about that, that it was number one in the radio check. But then the single was 22 with a bullet in it and number one in the radio charts, and then lost the bullet and disappeared. And I suspect and know that this really really powerful guy that was pissed off at me for not changing lyrics. Had his finger in that because that's how influential Geffen Records was in the early 80s. It's this the label that resurrected Aerosmith. And they had missing you with John wait Ned and resurrected Whitesnake. Yeah, and same guy. And what's the girl?

Randy Hulsey  46:28

Yeah, I was thinking what and Guns and Roses on that label Geffen Records. Yes,

Tony Carey  46:33

they were and this is the same guy that a&r them. Okay. And he was used to like everybody said Yes, sir. No, sir. Three bags full sir. And I wouldn't change the lyrics and I wouldn't and they also wanted to cut the whole bridge out of five times a day which would have ruined the meaning of the song and and made it a comfortable three and a half minutes, it was a minute longer. And so I think he tanked it and he had it tanked because 22 with a bullet, and then the book goes away and the singer starts to drop this somebody's somebody's talking to somebody, but that's the way it is. And then the first day of summer followed that, and that was top 40 as well. With me, I was in telegram TV and if you notice, there's lots of really pretty girls in a swimming pool in that video and none of them has a tattoo. Really? Yeah, and they you don't see that no more

Randy Hulsey  47:27

no you don't. Why? Why was why was it important? To have no face? What What was the whole what was the idea behind that?

Tony Carey  47:37

Well, I had two concepts to record deals and competing labels

Randy Hulsey  47:42

was that your decision or was that their decision? DeRozan Okay, okay.

Tony Carey  47:46

I would have done I was up for editing for me it's all music you know and I'll you know I'll promote it but they said no, we can't do that it's too confusing. Is he a rocker you know with with with I won't be home tonight or is he the new Pink Floyd with why me you know, and the thing about why me is why me is about an astronaut and the county they're counting down and he has a panic attack. And he says I don't really want to be here anyway it's it's all it's all a joke and every planet P lyric was tongue in cheek you know? Not not a not a haha joke but but steeped in irony as is Yeah. Like, like the guy says, Hey, let me out of here and he said there must be 1000 other guys 1000 Other ways to look good in your eyes. He's doing this to make his girlfriend think he's awesome. And then they're counting down he has a panic attack. So

Randy Hulsey  48:36

while well you you mentioned that and you you had a hit with the song back in 1984 off of the some tough city record and I wanted to share just a quick clip we talked about a fine fine day and I wanted to share that with the listeners and then come back and chat just a little bit more about that particular

Tony Carey  48:56

audio right you're gonna see the video

Randy Hulsey  48:58

nope no video just audio audio. Video is a trip to audio Alright,

49:04

I'll see you what I see you what we're back Alright, sounds good

Randy Hulsey  49:13

we always knew I was gonna tell you that I saw you open for night ranger in a I think it was the Lake Charles Civic Center in Lake Charles, Louisiana back in 1985. And my buddy Scott to Cody from Lafayette, I was going to school at USL in Lafayette at the time, and we still talk about that show today. So yeah, it's been a long time for me. Was that me or night Ranger?

Tony Carey  50:23

What? What was your question about me? Are you talking about No,

Randy Hulsey  50:27

no, we're talking about it was Tony Carey and planet P that was opening for night Ranger. Yeah, it was a great show. Oh, thank you. Yeah. I wanted to ask you about the characters in the song. First of all, are the are the characters in the song? Real people or no? Uh, fine. Okay, have you asked me that song specifically, though?

Tony Carey  50:55

Which, which was one a fine, fine day? No, but I've always had an affinity for people with a light criminal beds. I knew. I've hung around with a lot of Hells Angels is still I mean, I've not actually not anymore. I've been I've been I'll preface this by saying I've been sober for 30 years and clean. Since 1994 30 years, excuse me. 29 years.

Randy Hulsey  51:24

Before you tell me before you get into telling me about the song. I want to see if what I think is correct before you say it, but go ahead. Okay. So I'm a big I'm a huge mafia buff. Okay. This song sounds like it was written with an old mafia boss by the name of Sonny Francis and mine. And oak. Okay, so I'm off. So this Shane, his YouTube channel. Sure. And so that's his son, Michael Francis. But Sonny was the head of the Colombo family. But everything in the song Tony sounds like, you know, took off his fedora stuck his fingers in the you know, crown. It's like he's coming out of prison. And then he pulls that old Houdini like we always knew like he's, you know, reuniting with people coming out of the pen after getting pinched for his crimes. So that's what I've for years, I said I wonder if he's writing with with a mafia person. That's fine, right? Actually,

Tony Carey  52:28

I wasn't and I didn't have an Uncle Sonny. But Sonny was to me and I hadn't heard of Sonny fed Jersey when I was writing SEPTA city but suddenly seemed to me to be like a mafia name. Okay. All right. And obviously, it obviously he didn't even embezzled the money or did whatever and they were they were after him and he gets into a taxicab was he was pulled out $20 Keep that meter run until the $20 marker and that got him all the way to Central Park for the bus station. So these are the definitely the old days. Oh, yeah. And like I said, I've always I was I wrote about a lot actually the whole albums about criminals because I saw shit in LA I lived in, in West Hollywood and what's now after the ABC Dunhill days, I took an apartment and it was on wet on Sunset Boulevard and what's now the hotel Mondriaan. Okay, and it just this really hip hotel. But it used to be at 440 sunset and it was like a whorehouse slash drug cartel place on Sunset Boulevard and I had an apartment there. Rod Stewart lived there for a while. I was just full of people come and go on all kinds of crazy people in the 70s people on the Sunset Strip. So I saw all kinds of stuff and I met all kinds of people. And I've always had the bikers, these tough guys. They're like little little wimpy rock stars and rock guys, they like Matt We're like mascots, okay, sometimes to them, you know, like the guys are gonna do security for the stones. The angels. Yeah, like, you know, Mick Jagger, the little pretty boy prancing around, you know, but but he's got the Hells Angels with pool cubes behind me to say anything he wants? Yeah. So all of my buddies that my oldest dearest friend is after he got out of prison. I had to wait four years before I saw him again. But we've been buddies for 35 years and he was a biker as the age. And so no, this wasn't written about about the Colombo family boss, but it could have been

Randy Hulsey  54:40

Yeah, sure. Well, it was funny because I just reunited with that buddy of mine I was telling you about here in Houston. There was a band out of Louisiana that was playing a show here by the name of zebra. And, and Scott and I were huge zebra fans and it was almost like when we reunited I haven't seen him in yours reunited gave each other a hug and said, Man, do you remember that show we saw at the Lake Charles Civic Center and in Louisiana, Mike? Yeah. Tony Carey and night Ranger and we kind of both started singing. It's a fine, fine day. Yeah. Good times for sure. So hitting the fast forward button a little bit on you. Yeah. 2009 rolls around. And I'm sure it becomes one of the maybe the hardest and darkest times of your life. I'm quite sure. Yeah. Okay.

Tony Carey  55:34

No, all I did was get cancer.

Randy Hulsey  55:37

That's it. That's it? Nothing. Nothing. Oh, okay. I was thinking it was some some big deal you were going through or something?

Tony Carey  55:45

You know what? I'll tell you what, I saw some blood where I shouldn't there shouldn't be any blood. Okay, my doctor. He says, you probably got a bladder infection. I said, Okay. It wasn't a bladder infection. And I said, how, how scared should I be doc on a 10 scale? He says not too easy, buddy. So what do you got to take all these tests? Is this a process to find out what you got. And I'm not to just describe the final process. But it involves having a camera inside your bladder. Now, there's only one way I can get there.

Randy Hulsey  56:20

Sure. Whatever. And it's not through your mouth either as it

Tony Carey  56:24

isn't, it doesn't go through your body. So anyway. Anyway, it goes to a to another place that the sun doesn't shine. So anyway, I got the diagnosis. My father had died of prostate cancer, because he was an idiot. And he tried some kind of, he was a scientist. And he tried this experimentally implanted radioactive pellets around his prostate. And it melted him and he died awfully. So I got to finally got the diagnosis. And it took about three months with a bunch of tests to go from specialist to specialist. So the guy said, You got two tumors in your in your bladder, and they were inside the bladder then spread or anything like that. And I said, Great, what's the next hospital that does this cut operation and he gave me two phone numbers. And I called one and the first one was full and the second one took me three days later, three days later, I was on the table that they took my prostate, Mike my bladder out. And then I was cancer free. They made a mess of it, and had to do a second operation A week later. So I was you know weakened stuff. Sure. But cancer free. And I went through the to the MRI, what's the English MRI in English? It's something else here. But that with a, they put it they they shoot you with a contrast to a deadman. So I went through that four or five times. And if there had been a cancer cell, it would have lit up like like a Christmas tree. Yeah, that was absolutely cancer free. So that was I fuck it. I mean, you know, if this cancer cut the fucker out, I mean, lose it. Yeah, which I did like three days as soon as they could get an appointment, which is, luckily three days later. So nothing escaped the inside of my bladder, there were two enormous tumors actually got a six year of it at one, one overlapping the other. And it was, you know, days, weeks, months from exploding. And then it goes into you get put into your bones and that's the way to go. That there is I mean, that's like being lit on fire and goes into your brain and it's miserable.

Randy Hulsey  58:36

So there were more than like five, five surgeries or so that you had the half.

Tony Carey  58:41

I had yet five. Yeah. And but the hell. I mean, they say the body doesn't remember pain. Remembers the good time they do say that. They being somebody I mean, I read it somewhere. And so 2009 and I was doing I was in a band with Joel and turned out a band group project. We for a while for fun with Joe Lynn Turner and Ritchie's son, you're gonna you're gonna called over the rainbow and we were playing. We did we toured Russia, we took all the way back to Kazakhstan. And had a crazy time. That was amazing, because I can really see it in the world. Trade Moscow, St. Petersburg, and then way back with 10 shows in Russia. Greg Smith and we've been able basis and Bobby rod Donnelly, we're in a bed who'd been able to draw her and so I got the diagnosis. And so I believe that project did two operations that three operations Dan findings that we patched up. I was weak and I wasn't sure I was going to survive it because I got sepsis which is this Yes. Infection. I've had sepsis four times, Jesus, any here I am this is like crazy substances like

Randy Hulsey  1:00:04

you've got three lives left Tony, you know

Tony Carey  1:00:06

now now. So anyway so this is 2009 so I was not in any shape to do much except by hand I have a studio so I recorded my my bucket list records I did two records called the Stanislaus County kid which is where I'm from Texas Stanislaus County, California. And I am a candidate Stanislaus County kid and I am actually a country singer. And I did what woody Nelson covers and add some soul covers and it did two albums of that I did an album of church Christmas music but not not like a pop out but like, really solemn like you sing in the church, the personal well, Silent Night, things I grew up with in church.

Randy Hulsey  1:00:57

You're like a musical. You're like a musical mutt aren't if you're like,

Tony Carey  1:01:03

you know what, I wrote a list of my influences, and I gave up.

Randy Hulsey  1:01:13

Hagrid feed just said fuck it.

Tony Carey  1:01:15

Here it is. Wow. And wow, because I just I just showed Randy a crazy list of people. But the people that have influenced me would be the outlaw country, which is Willie and Merle Haggard and Waylon Jennings, the keyboard players, I stole everything I do from Greg Allman and Raymond's Eric and L. John, Floyd Cramer, and then going way back. It's the first country piano player. And I don't know I mean, that's complete a complete mutt. And it's funny to me looking back, like when a guy say, Richie, who you know, comes from Deep Purple, which is you know, hard rock semi classically tinged, loud, aggressive band. And I, you know, I said, Oh, we can do that. And it did happen. It's completely out of character. And then my favorite piano player probably in the world is word bitten for the E Street Band. Sure. My favorite song in the world is probably Thunder Road. Which is, which is I think Rolling Stone agrees with me, it's the best I've ever heard. This is funny when we were in Munich recording rising and I was listening to wonder run. And then we were in France listening to recording Long live rock and roll rainbow and I was listening to rumors that Fleetwood Mac Wow. And just all over it all over the map. And as far as keyboard players go, My favorites are the guys that don't show off Richard Wright from Pink Floyd. His name escapes me who's the who's the keyboard player in Genesis. What's his name?

Randy Hulsey  1:03:04

Oh, Tony banks are

Tony Carey  1:03:08

brilliant because he plays really simple stuff that just works. The best recorded Hammond organ still to this day, it'll never be topped as a whiter shade of pale Matthew Fisher. And these just the simple stuff propyl hair and red ravens Eric's riders on the storm. I mean, this perfect, it is perfect in every way for me and I was never impressed by the genre. Keith Everson, Brian auger these these

Randy Hulsey  1:03:35

these fancy, fancy, fancy classroom?

Tony Carey  1:03:39

Listen, I knew John was a great guy, wonderful guy, great musician. I'm not not even being critical, but it's not my style. Yeah, my style is simple and with some swing, and there's a difference between hard rock that in your face and in some kind of subtle swing and the doors swung? Yeah, yeah.

Randy Hulsey  1:03:59

Well, it's interesting that you mentioned that because I was always a huge REO Speedwagon fan. Yeah, one of one of the draws for me to that man was the playing of Neil Daughtery the keyboard player went man when he fired up that Hammond that that that Hammond you it stood out like a sore thumb and man it sounded good you think of songs like roll with the changes and it features that that Hammond in there it's like amazing like I love that song.

Tony Carey  1:04:26

Another another fabulous Hammond that was even earlier that was 60s. Habit was Steppenwolf, though short on magic carpet ride and they're Born to be Wild. The Hammett is astounding. And Mark Stein with the Vanilla Fudge on you keep me hanging on. There's like five notes in his introduction and it's it's heaven. It's just that was carbon piece. Mark Stein and who else was in Vanilla Fudge but that stuff all blew my mind was was was complete influences Yes. Then in 1971, Miles Davis released Bitches Brew. And that was a double album with four songs on it. Rainbow live on stage is a double album with six songs on it. Two of them are short. The idea being that you get musicians. And you don't play the same thing twice. And miles will call up. Miles Davis, brilliant, and especially brilliant in the groups he'd put together. And he called people up. He said, We got to session, be at Columbia Studios, you know, in New York City, at 9am or 10am, or whatever. And we're going to play and the songs are 15 minutes long, and they only played at once and it'll never happen that way. Again, nobody nobody was reading charts is improvisation. Sure. I've never played a song the same way twice in my life. I understand why. Taylor Swift. It sure as hell even Bruce or ACDC they can all they're so popular. They can only play football stadiums. They cannot play for 100,000 feet. And I understand that that's a show Ramstein is best band in town. They can still be they can only play open air for like a lot of people. And the show is down. If you're standing in the wrong place. You can get blown up by the pyro. You know, you mean everybody's got to get their marker. Yep. And the show has to run. Like it has to run. And these days, these shows run from a computer, they run from a laptop and the drummer has got to click in his ear. And there's queues and everything is exactly the same every night. And I get that it showbusiness

Randy Hulsey  1:06:49

but you weren't doing that. But rock and roll, right. Yeah. A little rehearsed. What's going on these days

Tony Carey  1:06:56

reserves down to the last bourbon. sure that that is showbusiness. I get it. Yeah. Taylor Swift's a great songwriter, Ed Sheeran as a great songwriter. But it's not rock and roll. If you want to rock and roll. You got to go to oasis. Yes.

Randy Hulsey  1:07:11

Well, I think yes. And I think it's really cool. You've dropped the you know, you've talked about a lot of different artists, you know, going back to, to poco. And your, your influences, and your style are very eclectic, which I had no, that's why I love the interview process, because I would have never guessed that. Of course, I detected a little bit, you know, pop from you rock guy, but you know, there's some other genres of music that I would have never guessed that you would have dabbled in. Right. So this is cool to learn this about you. And to walk back just really quick. When we were talking about the cancer earlier. Yeah, your bandmate I think Ronnie James Dio, he pretty much died from almost the same cancer that you had when he was what's his

Tony Carey  1:08:02

bladder, okay. Thing is he'd been having I know, Wendy, his wife, and we're not so much recently, but we're always in touch. And Ronnie won't had wanted me to go to Black Sabbath. I heard this like, years and years later, and that would have ruined Black Sabbath. That was a non starter. I wouldn't have done it. I wouldn't want it to be that bad. But me and Ronnie were brands. And he did. He suggested me Black Sabbath. I knew that. Anyway, he had stomach cancer, and I have bladder cancer. And he's on a road drinking on an empty stomach probably or whatever eating shitty road food. I know. I get it. And he's it. He's got this stomach pain. He went he waited too long to go to the doctor. I'll give you a worse example. Jimmy Bain, deals Rambo's bass player and then deals bass player he had under he died on a cruise ship and his cabin didn't come up for the show. On one of these rock cruises. He had undiagnosed lung cancer. Now he's a Scottish guy living in America. If he'd stayed in Scotland, they would have found it. Yeah, he definitely didn't have health insurance because he's one of these guys that didn't write the songs. Yeah, no money for having a Phipps the 15 year old, you know, mercury, cougar or whatever, with no brakes and bald tires. And just like a dirty man rock guy. And I've been in Germany for 44 years. And here if you get sick, you go to the doctor. And I never got a bill for anything for five surgeries would drive most Americans into bankruptcy. And, in fact, 70% of American bankruptcies are because of health. For health related problems have not failed businesses, you know, do somebody gets sick and can't pay the 4 million bucks to do the hospital, right? The five surgeries. So, whatever. When I when I heard that Jimmy had died, he had lung cancer and it wasn't diagnosed. I've got me crazy. And I don't want to get in any kind of politics here. But in civilized countries, they give you health care. Yeah, exactly.

Randy Hulsey  1:10:28

Well, my mom and dad just turned 80. And they have been pretty much at 80 years old. They're still healthy as horses for the most part. And in well, for you. Yes. And, and we've always kind of teased them over the years about Jesus, you're going to the doctor again. Yeah, we got to go. Just check this and check that and we've always kind of picked on him a little bit. But I believe they're as healthy as they are, because they did the preventative maintenance along the way. Thank God. And I think that's our our public service announcement here for the listeners is, when you have an ailment, don't look past it, you have to, you have to get checked out somehow, because

Tony Carey  1:11:15

I tell you what you need, you need your bloodwork done. Sure you need your prostate check, right, but from 50 on regularly, you need a colonoscopy, and Oh fun. But you need to have a look up there and see if you got anything going on. You need. The blood work is super important. Yeah. And, man, but if you'd but you know, if it's, if the thing is, do I feed my kids this this month? Or do I get the bloodwork? What are you going to pick? Yeah, I get it. Yeah, it's awful. Yes, it's, it's, the rest of the world looks at, you know, the greatest country on Earth. And in many ways, America is the greatest country on Earth, the rest of the world looks on in shock. I mean, in Norway, and England and France, you don't pay anything. In Germany, I pay, I pay for my health insurance, but it's, it's 300 bucks a month or something. And if I had eight kids, they'd all be on the same plant, or say, just one time fee. I don't I don't have children on anymore. But you know, I'm past that. But still, it's 300 bucks a month, and it's the most it could it could be as 600. And that's for billionaires, you know, like, really, really rich guys. Yes. And I never got a bill. Wow. And no way Great Britain, France, Sweden. It's nothing a month. It's just, you know, that's crazy. Now I understand infrastructure, you got to pay for it somehow. And I understand having, you know, spending $2 billion on an aircraft carrier, I kind of understand it, I'm okay, whatever. And we don't do that here. But at what cost? You know, and it is, how many million Americans don't have health insurance or are afraid to go to the doctor. And if they do go to the doctor, they go to an emergency room? Sure, which isn't going to give it which they know they're gonna skate on a bill because they can't pay it. And emergency room knows that too. But they won't turn them away. No, that's not the care you need. That's not the level that's concentration and everything.

Randy Hulsey  1:13:23

Well, it's crazy. I was in Iraq in 2013, where I broke my neck in the wreck and just the ambulance ride. Oh, back in 13 was like $13,000. And you You spoke of it earlier? Like, if you don't have health insurance, you file for fucking bankrupt. I mean, who can afford that shit, right?

Tony Carey  1:13:44

70 70% of the cases in America are medical. Yeah. And these people that means they ruin their credit rating, never buy a house never get a cell phone. Correct. For however long it takes after a bankruptcy. The hospital health agency writes it off, because they're, they're making obscene profits. One other thing is that, you know, you know, the old trope of the Jewish mothers had marry a doctor and all this because doctors in America make a lot of money here. My doctor drives an old Volkswagen. He's, they just it's just a job. They do it because they're committed and that's what they want to do. Sure, but they're not they're not rich, right? I mean, maybe a plastic surgeon, you know, maybe you know, some exotic and and German health insurance does not cover cosmetics. They're exactly so maybe these guys maybe these guys are rich, but the doctors are just doctors and I have a bunch of buddies that are doctors and they do it because they they want to do it. They like to science they like helping people. You know just whatever you absolutely good doctors. They're not they're not. Lobster, facia window. ductus.

Randy Hulsey  1:14:51

Yes, exactly. Well, in 2019, you put out a record called Lucky us what an amazing is a piece of work, I want to thank you for that music because I use you went, you went to another place, I think in your soul to write the material on this record and it shows tell the listeners about the record and what inspired Lucky us for Tony Carey,

Tony Carey  1:15:20

okay, it will continue what we're just talking about if you got health insurance, and you can have five cancer surgeries and not get a bill. And if you've got a roof over your head, if you got something to eat, and if you can heat your house, etc, apartment, whatever, if you got a car to drive, if your kids are getting an education, if there's no war going on outside, you're lucky. I mean, there's 2 billion people that don't have enough to eat on the planet. This is astounding to me. And just to be in a position where I have a recording studio upstairs, but when I'm on the ground floor in your attic is a really really cool recording studio. Well, lucky me, man. Yeah, I mean, it's the right place the right time. I could have been born in Somalia. Yes. And there's not even they don't even have a government there. It's a warlord outlaw state. And you know, Richard Bona, He's the world's best bass player. He's Quincy Jones manages. And you seen this in the jazz world. He's from Cameroon, okay. And that's one of the poorest countries in the world. And he got out lucky him because he's brilliant. And he lives in Miami, and he's doing fine. And he's world famous. And it's a beautiful diet and makes beautiful music. But he's a he's a black African. From the poorest country in the world. The streets are paved, it's all mud and disease and mosquitoes and malaria. And so this is this basic concept of lucky. So that would be like, in this case, me and my wife, Marian. And the song. Lucky us is about me and Marian. Okay, but the overriding concept of the album is if you've got the basic survival needs, and you got enough money to buy groceries and whatever, go to the doctor

Randy Hulsey  1:17:18

are way ahead of the curve, right? Yeah, yeah, you're

Tony Carey  1:17:21

rich. You're already lucky and ratchet, stop bitching pace. Yep. So that being said, lucky us, as you know, is only piano and some orchestra. Yes, I my voice. Yep. And it's 100% autobiographical. And I mentioned this, I think before we were on the air, I've published 1200 songs. And I would pretty much split them into the ones that are real and the ones that aren't real, none of our lives but some of them are just songs. And some of them are really real and other ones that I think are important. Not important, important to me. And the ones I think are realized Yep, lucky as took me four years to make because it started off with drums, bass, guitar, choirs, brass, you know, the kitchen sink production.

Randy Hulsey  1:18:13

All the things you didn't even need right here. Well,

Tony Carey  1:18:16

you know, that's the thing and I kept taking stuff away and take a step away and then I heard Bruce's couple of Bruce's record and went back and listened in Nebraska again, was just him on a cassette cassette player and then I saw Bruce Springsteen is a big huge influence on me, and my generation is the reason that New Jersey kidney writes about what Greenberg worked in the factory. So whatever and he admits it, he admits that you know, he's kind of not I would say authority, but he's that he's an inventor, he advances characters. Sure. But lucky as every every word of it is true. And it's autobiographical. And I kept state kept taking stuff away till I finally said, You know what, fuck it. I took everything away. I think there's a small percussion part in one song and there's a trumpet on a song from a friend of mine, Dutch trumpeter on the wind is a trumpet. But other than that is piano, my voice and some orchestra and that took me four years to wow, and the and songs that made it to the record, I wrote 50 or 60 that are still in folders on my my desktop and executor and it just took fucking forever and I really wanted I know not going to make that that many more records. I'm gonna make the next one. I'm gonna surprise it, should I But talk about genre genre hopping, but I know I'm not going to make that many more records. I've made 30 or 40 and produce 30 or 40 More for other artists, and I really, really wanted this one to be honest. Yeah. To me To be honest, and thank you for the compliment that means so much to me. I mean, if you tell me like playing a PSA great, I like it too. But it's science fiction, you know? Yeah. And luck. Yes is like the story of my life from when I was a little kid to through all the Hollywood days and what happened later and the cancer or the song, hallelujah, I'm alive. It's about waking up from that was actually my first thought I woke up from the anesthesia after the fourth surgery and had been in a coma for a week and my kidneys shut down. And as sepsis and septic shock and all the rest. And the chances of surviving that are first of all, 5050. Anyway, I'm just in the ICU of walking out of there is 5050. And then 60% of people that survived that a dead within five years. Yeah. So that's an aggregate total of 80% of the people that have this experience dead within five years. And this is, you know, 10 years ago,

Randy Hulsey  1:21:08

yeah. Wow, here I am. I could detect i n. And I don't know how or what what even gives me the right to say this, to be honest with you. But you know, when I first reached out to you and started trying to pick you up as a, somebody to talk to on my show, I started just going back and listening to your catalogue. And somehow I stumbled across hallelujah, I'm alive. On YouTube, where it was just you in the Steinway. Right? Yeah. And it took on a whole different meaning than everything I've ever heard you do. It was sincere. It was like it was just it was raw. It was you in the piano and and that was it and it's amazing. Music and it was so great to me. I bought two of the Lucky us vinyls. One is floating around in Germany somewhere like I don't know where and the other one is sitting right there. Yeah, so So let's do that. Bought the record. Yes. So yeah, me and one other guy right. But thanks for that. You're You're welcome, Gary. I want it to feature a song off the luckiest record and this is a song called Hawkeye road. Let's share this with the listeners and then we'll come back and chat about Hawkeye road.

1:22:38

The walls look like they were over everybody seemed to have a job. mailman put us down in a high clover. Three bedrooms on cautery we were Daniel Boone and Divi cracking Florida patchy mini orchard close the streets out all day zoom zooming around leg rocking shins Coda's into st age you can never go home again if you do anybody can still hear the choir in church where we when I can still smell me on all

Randy Hulsey  1:24:03

that was Hawkeye road what an amazing song Tony and I'll and I have to tell you that when when I spend that vinyl through that Evie 50 over there in the corner. Man that sounds good. Cool. Sounds really good. Have

Tony Carey  1:24:18

a record player. And I don't have a CD player really anymore? I do actually this I mean it's a little cheap when Aaron has one in the car but CDs dead? Yeah, I never I never liked wine. Ah, I thought Milo was best when would you if you hold a lighter underneath it you ended up making Cheetos Cheetos I never like I never not vinyl because you got to get up every 90 minutes and change the sign.

Randy Hulsey  1:24:44

That's the that's the drawback to it. You know from you know I go from listening to Spotify here in the studio, which is really nice because I can just sit here and stop it and start it when I want to. Yeah, but there was something really cool when I when I bought my first vinyl I said, I'm going to start collecting vinyl. I don't know what inspired me to do that maybe I was just going through a midlife crisis. Who knows. But But I remember buying my first piece of vinyl. And it was so nostalgic to me to bust the wrapper on this thing. And to hold a physical piece of music in my hands that I hadn't done since I was a kid.

Tony Carey  1:25:23

We could actually read the line and

Randy Hulsey  1:25:26

yes, and I and I've told this story at nauseam, I was always the musical savant. The kid that bought the record, busted it open and read the liner notes before I even put the music on the turntable. That was that was me. Right. I wanted to know, who played with Tony Carey. Where did they record it? What year did it get? Like, I wanted to know all the behind the scenes stuff, right? that intrigued me for some reason. And most people, if you say, hey, who played heart of the night, you know, I'd say Oh, well, that was poco and blah, blah, you know, 77 or whatever. Most people would say, man, I've never even heard of that song. You know, they've heard it a million times, but they don't know the title. They don't know the players. They don't know anything about the detail of the music, right? Yeah. But where where is where is Hawkeye road.

Tony Carey  1:26:20

It's it Turlock, California, and it's now called East Hawkeye Avenue. And it's a four lane. I mentioned for the patchy and had been a TV show in the 50s and in Walnut orchard across the street from from Hawk where I'm not gonna give the address because people will be will go look at it. He's talking I Avenue now in Turlock, and it was a walnut orchard across the street. And we dealt me and my brother, my kid brother, still my best friend, my kid, brother, David. He's 66 We dug as far as we could do with a shovel put boards over the top and that was for to patchy. We were you know, five, six, and four or seven and fives and just kids. And there's two points that you mentioned is present to talk I wrote it's a literary trope. You can't you can never go home again. But it's really true. It's really about being in the moment because you know you I tell my life story and that's true and it says that I got a real Lowry Oregon notice I didn't say a real Hammond dog and they were too expensive. We didn't have much money at Lowry Oregon was a little home entertainment calm so that we we and my older brother took apart and figuring out how to plug it into a tiny guitar amplifier. That thing screamed like you were whipping a cat. It just was probably such an awful sound. I learned the first two doors albums on that record. I was 14. Wow. And so every word of that is true and you can't go home again. I have two of my dearest friends. I haven't seen him in over 50 years. Shout out to Mike and Phil Rojas, Turlock, California grew up with him. I mean really grew up with him from that pneumocystis that was three years old. And they're still there then we still correspondence. But the I think about to buy buy here's the thing about buying on the internet ruin the music business. I love the internet but it ruined the music business because there is absolutely no mistakes left. Anything you want to see some idiot with an iPhone is filming. And it looks like shit sounds like shit and it used to be Zeppelin bad company or purple or Yes. Or one of these Neil Young these Crosby Stills in any of these bands. You didn't know much about him. No. And you you'd wait for Rolling Stone or cream magazine if you're a rock fan, to come out and you'd read something and look at the pictures a million times. The Allman the Allman Brothers live at the film when 1971 They got this beautiful album cover with them standing in front of the Fillmore and all their equipment cases and this is the Allman Brothers Band and it's so exciting to me as a as a teenager. But now there's so it's so over exposed. It's in your face you see everything you see anything you want and because somebody's filming, said Dave Grohl Come on, out of a hotel room in a shitty mood and all of a sudden is a scandal. Because some idiots got Dave gross. The nicest guy ever wanted me. But you know, somebody's got an iPhone. It catches him in a bad moment and it goes viral. And all that. And in the pandemic, you see conscious everybody's doing conscious from their living room. And you got my having a senior moments married married to the redhead oz Keith Urban. Oh yeah in Australia did a did a show from his garage. As, at best of the show, a show is it's dark and there's lights on it on a lonely stage and there's a piano or or a band. That's a show. And you wait for it and you get your ticket and you go and you see the show. It's not watching the guy seeing his greatest hits in his kitchen, right? And live streaming on YouTube, that the mistake just kills the mistake. Yeah, me. There's this way, which is why I never did one.

Randy Hulsey  1:30:26

There's really none of that you. You're right. And we're our thought process. Yours and mine are very much in lockstep. And I just mentioned this not too long ago to another guest. Back in the day, you didn't even know what the fucking artists look like, half the time because there was a mistake. Like, you know how many years I went and didn't even know what the band's suite, or 10, CC, or poco, or any of the aforementioned artists. I didn't even know what they look like. And then years later, the internet and YouTube rolled around, and I pull up a song cover of the Rolling Stone by Dr. Hook. And it's like, Wait, that guy wore an eye patch on his eye like I had? No, you know, I had no idea. Yeah, exactly. I did know exactly. And it's like, you know, there was something cool about not knowing exactly this mystique about the guys. And now every you know, when these people take a shit, you know, because it's all over the internet. It waters down the artist, I think to a certain degree, right? And I think maybe I'm

Tony Carey  1:31:38

wrong on economics 101 something is worth what somebody else will pay for it. Absolutely. Gold has value because somebody said it did otherwise that is just a soft metal. That makes pretty bracelets, whatever. fiat money has value because Fiat means by decree, somebody said this has value. Otherwise, it's just paper. So music has value. Because it costs something. Yes. And it needs to effort. You need a system. You don't need to buy records, you need to invest some go see the band buy the t shirt. That's the old days. Yes, these days music is free. It costs nothing Spotify, if you get it with the normal Spotify subscription where they have ads. It's free. So you you tell me if music is if an object A is worth what Customer B will pay for it. What's the music worth?

Randy Hulsey  1:32:34

Exactly? Yeah, nothing. Yeah, who's gonna go buy the record if you can get it for free? Right? No, yeah, nobody can get it. Absolutely.

Tony Carey  1:32:43

And, you know, like I said, I don't even have record player or a CD player. I listen to Spotify myself, although it used mostly YouTube. And I have premium YouTube, which means no ads. So that's nine bucks a month. Sure. And I could be on there and watch it as everybody every song is on YouTube with or without a video every every one of my songs 20 albums of my songs. Since 2019. I made a deal with the record label it's ratify Arizona, iTunes, Apple Music, YouTube, every platform in the world, Pandora, whatever title whatever the call 920 of my albums are and then the other ones from other labels to almost all of them. So 30 albums of mine are basically trade. Yeah. Okay, now I did really, really well. And I'm endlessly thankful for that because I'm I don't want to work and I don't want to be homeless and I just want to do what I want to do. And I've been astoundingly lucky in that I've never done anything I didn't want to do. But imagine a kid now. That's really really talented. The next Dylan Springsteen, Van Morrison, you name it. How's he gonna get anywhere? You know? I mean, you see? Well, here's an example of somebody that I think done an amazing job. Chris Stapleton, a country singer, amazing singer, amazing songwriter. It looks like a biker. He looks scary. He's got his big beard. He wears denim. He looks scary as hell, when you want to meet him, you know, buying a bar and brilliant musician, and he's done well, and he's the he's the exception. But then you look at all the pop music. And where I come from the guy that sings the song wrote it, hopefully wrote some truth. Or at least at the entertaining and now you see songs with 30 riders listing. Eight riders listed 12 or 15 or 17. And it's it's all. Not all. Taylor Swift is a great writer. She writes her own and she's fantastic. And it's your enriches own and it's not just pop, it's not denigrating pub at all they feel football stadiums. And they're good. It's your ad writes his own songs. You've seen the copywriters he read music and lyrics Taylor Swift musical. But did you see the lion's share of these pop productions with 878 12 writers, five producers, and everything's all smoothed out and they have something called Auto Tune and everybody's heard that word. And that just means making it in air quotes. Perfect. Perfect. Isn't art perfect is what robots do. Yes, a robot can make a widget 5000 widgets a day forever until it breaks breaks down. It needs to be repaired. And they'll all be perfect. Yes, but that's not our art. Art is a human being doing something best he can and as immodestly as he can, and I tell you what, the internet killed that day. Yes. So I lucky back to Lucky us. I learn my stuff in the 60s had a job for the 70s 80s and the 90s, which were the best years for the music business they ever were. The music business died in 2001 when streaming started, Lars was right. Napster Napster days, Napster Sure, was was right. Yeah. And

Randy Hulsey  1:36:17

but everybody thought he was a dick, right.

Tony Carey  1:36:22

And he included me and said, Oh, come on. Lighten up. What's the big deal? Well, the big deal is by popular Apple Music. Yeah. It appears to be business a lot I have on Spotify it now not not a lot. Not it's not like Adele lot or you know, Taylor Swift. But I looked something I didn't look somebody looked I had 93,000 listeners a month on Spotify. Okay, you know, that's, he said, That's really good. I said, Okay. And I'll take it and you know, whatever it is what it is. And I get, you know, they pay me I get I can learn from it. It's okay. But how? I mean, what if you only have 40 listeners a month and you're the next Elton John.

Randy Hulsey  1:37:05

Okay, now you're going to be eating bologna sandwiches is probably what you're going to be eating with with no bread. Yeah,

Tony Carey  1:37:12

I mean, you got you got huge rock beds, not huge, middle, middle, and the huge rock has to do well. I'm moving Iron Maidens playing arenas here in Germany next month, Uncle Sam. And I know the drummer and Nico, and they're still doing well. But remember the band we talked about from Roger the Graham was in just as the touring England and post pandemic and some of these bands are? Sales 6080 tickets. Yeah. People are worried they're going to freeze this year. They can't pay the heating bill, my heating bill just just quadrupled. Recently I used pellets, wood pellet, heating systems supermodel. So to be very economical is no tell us went from 220 bucks a ton to 800 G's overnight gas prices, people are old older people and retirees are sad do I eat or do I pay the heating bill and it gets cold here. Crazy. And the big stadium games are still happening for the superstars. But your usual musicians that used to sell four or 500 tickets you could make a living by now sell 60 or 80 or 40 or nothing or cancelling them. And yeah, that's a grouchy, old curmudgeon This is everything used to be better. But in the music business, everything used to be better.

Randy Hulsey  1:38:40

Well, you know, I'm not I'm not old. By the definition of the word, but I'm not a teenager anymore, either. And I think the older that I get it, it's it's a scary thought to get old cuz a lot of things change. And I think life gets tough, you know, hurts medically. Financially, you know, we could I mean, we could talk for days about that. But I let's go back. Just real quick. So did you say that? You have Have you not been back to Hawkeye road since you were a young boy? You have not

Tony Carey  1:39:19

okay. 1969 really? Well, was the last time I've been there. But but you know, because of the internet. You can Google it. Sure. Google. Google Maps and Google Earth? Yes. Like I said, it's the house my dad built for 11 grand was a lot of money in 856. And it's now it's over half a million bucks.

Randy Hulsey  1:39:39

So will you say that you knew what you wanted to do? Back in 1959. And I think you must have been five or six years old at this times. Did you really know? Oh, five or six years old that you? Oh yeah, I'm gonna be a musician. And that's how I'm

Tony Carey  1:39:54

not gonna be I am a musician. Okay, wow, whatever. Whatever comes up. I had no idea of what that except my mom had a Harry Belafonte record. And Joe Baez, his first record played, and my dad had Shara Zod from RIMSKY KORSAKOV, a Russian composer, this big Symphony Sinbad the Sailor symphony, and my dad would play that for being said this we're sitting bed price to pirates isn't that I was just enthralled, and by Harry Belafonte, his boys, Joan Baez, his voice, and I was four or five. And we got a piano in the house. Thanks, dad. And I would just monopolize on a piano all day long every day. I was I was a musician when I was five. And I didn't know what that meant. Yeah, sure, you know, but I knew what I was gonna I knew I was.

Randy Hulsey  1:40:43

It's, it's interesting that in six, I think I'm 61 episodes into my show. Yeah. And I have asked that question of a lot of the artists, when did you know that that music was going to be what you did. And you know that if I've asked 61 People that and I haven't asked 61. But if I did as 61 people, 95% of them have said, six years old, six years old, six years, there's this common denominator amongst musicians that they know, at a very, very early age. Yeah, that that's what they're gonna do. And I find that very intriguing,

Tony Carey  1:41:27

too, if you define yourself when you're that young, that's what you are. Now, of course, a six year old has no idea about the music business or our gigs or about what it means. But just his own self definition. Mine has always been I'm a musician, and I never had another job. It's my job I've ever had. And hell, I mean, if I had gone south, I would have eventually come to my senses. And I would have studied marine biology, probably Sure. Okay. Something something with a future or I'm a writer, not a novelist. I found that out. And I like the song form, you know, more versus in a bridge. And I've spent my whole life trying to get better at that. Like I said, if that hadn't worked out, I guess, marine biology would have been my choice. Well,

Randy Hulsey  1:42:17

you could have been a supermodel. You know, you could have done that. Right? My mom, I was always told I have a face for radio. So

Tony Carey  1:42:26

I was gonna say I could have been on a date.

Randy Hulsey  1:42:30

Probably better to just date one, right? Well, you were

Tony Carey  1:42:34

Heidi, if you're listening. Right?

Randy Hulsey  1:42:37

You were 14. I think you were 14 when you got that Lowry? Where do you think that Lowry is? You think is just in the trash? Yeah. These days? Okay.

Tony Carey  1:42:47

Sure. Yeah, sure. I mean, yeah, I don't know the serial number or anything. But I mean, hey, we're talking about 55 years ago, and it was my 40th birthday. And I knew as you know, I was get a birthday present. And we didn't have very much money not at all. And this lottery was two or 50 bucks, my dad paid for it. And after I said, I got a real Lowry Oregon one of my birthdays. My father must have robbed a bank to pay for that. So I'm standing outside my my house on Hawkeye road, and a truck goes by old flatbed pickup truck wrapped with just the organ was strapped on with belts on the flatbed. And it was had a had a sheet over like a tarp over it. You couldn't see couldn't see through it. But it that's a musical instrument. And it drove by my house and my heart sunk. But he was looking for the address. And he went to the end of the street and turned around and came on the address. Whose carry I said, Oh, yeah, it's got something for you. And he pulled the tarp off, and it was his organ and it changed my life. I was delirious, changed my life, because I had been I've been playing the hold of it playing this little piano. Yeah. Yeah. But Ray man's Eric and the doors were the thing California in 1967. Absolutely. And so as I said, we put a band together with Bill Rojas, oops, genius guitar player who still is a genius guitar player, but he's a physics professor Turlock who I give a shout out to before, and we had a band and our repertoire was basically the first two tours really, and I know that thing was the sound it's so I know it's so piercing. And we figured out how to run a jack into the back and plug it into a little guitar amplifier and it was loud. And like the song says, My folks let us rehearse it in the living room. And we set a rock band up in their living room, and they would be out in the kitchen and we unbelievable support for the parents just amazing. Wow. And the next line is they never got that living room back. They didn't ya

Randy Hulsey  1:44:56

know, I'm sure they didn't

Tony Carey  1:44:58

and My mom had dragged us to gigs and we you know we truck the Lowry around in some in a pickup truck or you could almost fit in the trunk of a situation wagon. It wasn't it wasn't a big hammer and I didn't get those till a lot later. But you know, still it made Oregon like sounds really loud. Yeah.

Randy Hulsey  1:45:17

Do you own a hammer in these days?

Tony Carey  1:45:21

Ah, the truth is no, I've had five or six. And I've always had see threes was the one that John Lord played and Matthew Fisher played a 100. But that's the same it's the same in a different body. mp3 is the same. The Jazz one that you see everybody playing Greg Allman played one and that's it. This is all the same organ with different doing differences that the body do. Okay. And I've had five and then I found out that now there may have been it's called a Hammond clone. And is about five, including Hammond and they make one that weighs 20 pounds and says eat that nickel or better than any of the five that I had anyway, yeah. And I haven't ordered was like 375 pounds. And the Leslie speaker that she needed with it was you know, 150 pounds a really really heavy issue needed roadies, and they always break and you have the oil and the mechanical intervention from the 30s. You know, yeah. And no, so I don't know what virtual Hammonds short ad and with with the soulmates group I told you about before with just this super group here in Europe, I always get a habit v3. That's fun. It's like nostalgic. Yeah, but in the studio, I use some kind of Cologne.

Randy Hulsey  1:46:47

Yeah. One more song. I'd like to feature a clip up and this is a song called hallelujah, I'm alive. Let's take a quick listen to the clip. And we'll come back and chat about that. Okay, see you in a minute. All right.

1:47:00

When I was there, boy, is it in my blood run in every way. I could feel you could feel you didn't see the lightning didn't hear the thunder. three letter words and the rug pulled under me. And a feel you I still feel you. Hallelujah. Hallelujah. Elkins see you Hallelujah. Hallelujah. I will be with you. Until we die.

Randy Hulsey  1:48:02

That was a song called hallelujah. I'm alive off the Lucky us record. Tony, this is a the song is a deep song. And it's a touching song. And I've probably listened to this on vinyl. 50 times. Hopefully your head doesn't get too big. Your ego doesn't blow up by me telling you that but

Tony Carey  1:48:22

oh, it's exploding. I wanted to ask. I'm expanding and all kinds of parts of my

Randy Hulsey  1:48:28

body. Exactly right. Ones that I can't even see right now. Yeah. You mentioned poison in your blood in the song. Are you referring to chemo and not just cancer in general? Okay.

Tony Carey  1:48:45

sepsis. Yeah. Sepsis is septicemia is by definition, blood poisoning. And I woke up from this adventure and my youngest daughter was there. She was nine. At the time. This was 13 years ago. She might have been 10. And the first thought that I had when I woke up was hallelujah. You're I mean, I made it, you know, because, like I said, a septic shock. Your kidneys shut down and your organs start to feel overwhelmed. And they rush into the ICU and they pump it full. And they, you know, I mean, I wasn't aware of it. I was in coma. Yeah. It's, I'm well read enough to know how dangerous it is. Yeah. And so anyway.

Randy Hulsey  1:49:36

Absolutely. And it's kind of interesting. I went to dinner with my wife, Terry last night, and I don't even remember how the conversation came up about Casey Qassem. Yeah, right. And she's like, When did he die? And I said, you know, I don't know. So I started doing some googling on Casey and you know, of course, you know, he did the voice of shaggy forever. are on the cartoons, right? And I didn't realize that sepsis is what he died from as well. So I just really,

Tony Carey  1:50:07

really common and it's often fatal and it gets 10% more fatal every hour. No kidding you Chad to sink. If you get this if you get it sepsis and they recognize it by your white blood cell count, and it goes over 30,000 or 40,000. That's just a just a number, but it needs to do to the scientist, then your septic not like the tag of the same name. But you're right, you have septicemia which is blood poisoning, and it's really, really dangerous. And there was a famous actress here in Switzerland, she bumped her head, she slipped and fell down but on a rugs such as okay, but she clipped at the side of her head on a coffee table. And nothing you know, and you know, she didn't even go to the doctor for She's always got a bump on her head. And she said that that gave her sepsis and she died. You know, and like a week a week later, she felt punky waking up and said I you know coming down with something and the way you feel when when your septic is otherworldly. You think you're in a parallel universe. It's just a crazy feeling. It's not particularly uncomfortable. You know, that's what I'm saying. There's a huge fever, but you don't really notice it. And it's just like you're spaced out. You know,

Randy Hulsey  1:51:30

I found that really ironic that that conversation came up with us. And I found out that he had sepsis. And then we talked about you having sepsis in the you know, here the next day later, it's a theme but was the song hallelujah, I'm alive. Was it written two or four, your wife specifically noted my daughter, your daughter,

Tony Carey  1:51:54

my youngest daughter. And like I said, she when I woke up, she was there. Okay, I scared scared to death just a kid. Wow. You know, and I mean, the reason I stayed in Germany all these years, I've had a chance to go back in 1986. Which if I had done and I don't think this way, I had should have had it would have been if I had gone back to the States. I would have continued to be in charge and all that and in the States. But I had other things to do here. I was producing and writing I had a lot of success in Europe. What my point is, I have three kids, you know, and there are and the German kids, aka can't transplant them to LA, right. I mean, some people do, but I would. And they go to, well, everybody's got health insurance, they go to the best schools in the world. They're cosmopolitan, they're in Europe. And if you get on a plane at the next airport, which is you have to be fine for Germany here. Within two hours. You're in the Mediterranean, you're in any one of 15 countries, Scandinavia, Austria, Sweden, Norway, Poland, wherever you want to go. It's all it's all right there. And that's what I like about Europe. So that's why I stayed here because I get that question a lot. Why did I stay here so long am I add to American? No, I'm American data. My mom's been I wasn't going to transplant a family to the states that

Randy Hulsey  1:53:27

that makes perfect sense. And it's funny I was just having that conversation with with Graham bonnet. And I said it's it seems more common that a lot of and I know quite a few musicians, American musicians that have made the leap to Europe and are they're performing doing their thing. But then it seems like the ones over there including Graham bonnet are now here in America. The Europeans are now here it's like they're doing this across the pond they like if you're from here you go there if you're from there, you come here. So it's interesting how that how that works out. But like like I just

Tony Carey  1:54:05

grabbed Australia don't

Randy Hulsey  1:54:07

forget Sure. Sure. long way from home. Yes, absolutely. He is because we talked about you know, his writings with the Beegees and things of that nature. Like I asked Graham, outside of outside of music What keeps you busy these days when you're not doing musical things? Is there anything that Tony carried? Do you have a hobby? A bunch

Tony Carey  1:54:31

of them? Gardening? Gardening? I have a really problematic difficult garden with 14 the house 100 years old stone house from 1920 big garden with 14 fruit trees. Really? I fucking hate fruit trees. I would saw that would solve all that if it didn't keep me so busy.

Randy Hulsey  1:54:53

Well, do they produce anything? That's the $64 million question. What are you growing there? What were the trees

Tony Carey  1:55:00

Well I mean the trees or the trees or apple tree is right outside the porch is 4050 feet high and a good tree a commercial apple tree is 10 feet high really first of all so you can reach it to pick them and second of all that doesn't add the nutrition doesn't have to go up 60 feet for the apple so the apples are worthless. They fall down like 100 tons of apples fall down cherries are three cherry trees tons a chip but they're way too big to be like viable you know if you go to Cherry farm you see rows of evenly spaced 10 foot short Jerry Jones loaded with Jerry no these are big monsters negative they go over the roof so again up there with my chainsaw and cut the limbs down I got more than lon you gotta I got I got bamboo which was a mistake but I got it will kill much anywhere

Randy Hulsey  1:55:54

you can't kill that shit. No and banana tree

Tony Carey  1:56:01

it'll it'll travel underground and send a shoot out underground and and show up at the on the far end of the of the backyard. And what it'll also do it to the Navy so I gotta go to the neighbors of left. And I gotta go over there at least once a year and say sorry about that and and cut the bamboo down from his yard. That that's that escaped wide. So that was not the wisest decision but so let's gardening and go fishing. Okay, I love I love to fish a fish up in Norway, mostly, and Sweden. And when I was a lot younger I've my Hemingway days I did like deep sea fishing, I caught every kind of Marlin there is and I fished in Florida and murky water issues in Indian Ocean and in Cabo San Lucas. And in Hawaii, everywhere you can fish for my bill fish. And I did that. And I read it. I read about four books a week, I read all the time. And the best invention that I've ever seen is the is the ebook, which hold 4000 books because they're small files. And one of the problems I'd had when I was I always read since I was a kid. And one of the problems I'd have when I go on tour is that I have to take extra duffel bag to books and I come home with with 70 books, go on a bookshelf. And we moved down to Spain for I was down to Spain, for with my with my baby daughter for seven years, six years until she had to go to a real school that we had to move back to Germany, but the island of Majorca and it was 25,000 books, and a library of just paperback nothing valuable in first editions rather than just novels. And I tried to give them away. And I know what it takes them because they're in English here. And I call the the American School here. I figured out they'll take them for sure. And he said, Well, we'll only charge him three grand to pick them up. To him away, that hurt so much more. But then the ebook came and I get I got everything in my library is complete. Again, I got 1000s of books on my computer, I can move forward to the book. I read all the time.

Randy Hulsey  1:58:23

And it's funny that you say that because most avid readers, they want to fill that book in their hand when they read in the beginning. Okay, so that there is some there is some truth to that.

Tony Carey  1:58:37

Smell the web. Okay, yeah, the paper.

Randy Hulsey  1:58:39

Yeah, yeah,

Tony Carey  1:58:40

what, but the ebook. You don't need a reading light. You don't keep the Wi Fi. That's true. It's illuminated by itself, you know, and you can make it as dim as possible and turning on the web. It didn't keep your web away.

Randy Hulsey  1:58:53

Well, we talked about it earlier. There's there's pros and cons to everything. Technology included. Right?

Tony Carey  1:59:00

Yeah. I mean, how I love technology. By business. Yes.

Randy Hulsey  1:59:04

And how great is it that you and I can talk you know, you're in where booton time in Germany or wherever in Germany. And you know, I'm here in the states and the audio is just perfect. And the video was wonderful in real time. Whereas, you know, it cost you a million dollars to travel over there to have the same conversation right?

Tony Carey  1:59:26

Or the operator says 40 cents more.

Randy Hulsey  1:59:31

Please, Mrs. Avery. That's right.

Tony Carey  1:59:34

Yeah, top 10 favorite songs. His mother love that song of all times written by Shel Silverstein. Yep.

Randy Hulsey  1:59:39

Love, love that song. And you know, it's funny you probably as I, as I kind of worded it along with you. You might have been thinking wow, he knows that song. Surprise. You

Tony Carey  1:59:51

told me already what you had to get. Yeah,

Randy Hulsey  1:59:53

yeah. Well, on a more personal note, how are you feeling these days? Old

Tony Carey  2:00:02

get old get hurts I got I mean, I don't want to get into detail but this year, there's something called post sepsis syndrome. Okay? You had sepsis and in my case, it manifests itself in my legs hurt that really hurt all the time and I'm running around to the doctor's I got another appointment with a with a pain clinic here, a very good one in two weeks actually. And it took forever to get the to get to get the appointment and I had to send them all this information. And they're gonna look at it, but it's neuropathic pain and, hey, events, but But you know, you could tell it talk to me, I'm in a good place, if just the fact that I'm here. Lucky me, too. You know, I don't have any any reason or room to pitch and I'm not pitching. Sure. Get No hurts. hurts more than others. And you know, I use a wheelchair service at the airport. They do that for free that you know, that that'd be hard for me to check in and then walk all the way down to the gate. Sure. And I take trains and taxis so I'd have to walk by much and I don't even bother to drive. It's always trains me. The German trains are fabulous and fast and usually on time and so jobs lovely. Okay, yeah, good. Well, I

Randy Hulsey  2:01:20

think

Tony Carey  2:01:21

about that got to do the guard got to do the garden. It's my middle daughter is going to visit me in three weeks. Okay, well, I do the garden together because she's disturbed with the chainsaw early. Don't do it anymore.

Randy Hulsey  2:01:33

Yeah, well, that's the thing. You know, take some of that money you made and just pay people to chop down that fucking apple tree. And

Tony Carey  2:01:42

nobody touched my hand. I won't, I won't. I can't do ladders anymore. That's one thing I won't go on. But my But Jackie why my kids, she's 31. She loves ladders. And she loves chainsaws. She's cowboy like, like her dad. And we have, we have a great time when she comes in. We're about to also God for the next sprint.

Randy Hulsey  2:02:03

Anything new the listeners can expect from the Tony carry camp as it relates to a tour, new music anything that you can tell the listeners about before we

Tony Carey  2:02:16

knew about gender hopping, I'm doing something I'm calling the song book. I know that's been done, but I don't have a better name for it. And I'm doing Frank Sinatra covers, and that thing and Rat Pack type stuff with a full big band and very crazy, eclectic, orchestral and big band arrangements. And I've been working on it for about three years with a brilliant Dutch arranger who does actually just films and TV ads and everything and we're about halfway through and I mean we do over the rainbow that Judy Garland Summer wind which one of my favorite songs ever from Sinatra summer when and it was a very good year. And what else was what we did was a que sera sera really bluesy with big band arrangement to whenever that's finished and I can't promise when that will be I'll release that and that is like a genre mind for sure because it's nothing like nothing I've ever done

Randy Hulsey  2:03:29

it's all crooner crooner kind of stuff. And And I'm assuming you're singing on all of those songs. Okay.

Tony Carey  2:03:37

All right, I'm having a I'm having a ball I made you know, I see myself in Caesar's Palace and 1963 and in a tux with martini and a cigar and singing when I was 70 was a very good yeah, just

Randy Hulsey  2:03:54

man you're gonna you're gonna have a residency in Las Vegas after you put that out. You know that right? Yes. How awesome well listen, where can the listeners find you on the internet? If they want to find all things Tony carry? Where would they go to do that?

Tony Carey  2:04:10

Well, I don't have much of a social media presence. I hate social media, but I am on Facebook. This Facebook, Tony carey.com Is that much information on it? But so that's a that's a get a hold of me go to Tony carey.com or Facebook. And you'll find me

Randy Hulsey  2:04:28

Yeah, and I I'm not hiding the Right exactly. It's hard for public people to hide right? It's funny I kind of feel privileged because you know, you gave me your phone number and we shared some text and you said I'm gonna put you in my my contact list until you piss me off. I thought that was hilarious. And I'm still in there and I still correspond with you there so I haven't apparently I haven't pissed you off yet. So one thing to add to the socials there. You guys can also find And Tony on facebook@facebook.com, forward slash, t e c, e six, eight TC 68. And I think there is also a link to some of the the Apple Music and the Spotify stuff that you can find at hyper Ural. It's called hyper url.co forward slash Tony Carey. So if you guys go to a web browser and type in hyper url.co forward slash Tony Carey can find a lot of this stuff there as well.

Tony Carey  2:05:37

Tony, way easier. It's go to YouTube and put my name in the thing and you get 400. So on there you go modify or go to Apple Music or iTunes or whatever. Yeah. And

Randy Hulsey  2:05:47

I think most people know how to find Yeah, most people know how to work Google these days to write Tony Carey. Yeah, sure. What did we do before Google that? Yeah,

Tony Carey  2:05:56

I didn't do anything. Google is the ultimate arbiter of truth. You can't you can't bullshit your way through an argument anymore, because somebody's gonna have Google. Absolutely. And prove us wrong.

Randy Hulsey  2:06:07

And I think about that, as a kid, you know, when we would have to write a paper or something for school, you went to the fucking encyclopedia, which is static information. It's old, it's outdated. And I said, What in the hell? How did now you have everything at your fingertips up to the minute real time information? What the hell were we doing when we bought an encyclopedia? You know, 50 encyclopedias.

Tony Carey  2:06:34

We had one to share. Of course, yeah, it's just crazy how times have changed. I know we're running long, but I'll tell you, like, I needed a new lawnmower blade. And it's because I ran over too many rocks, and it ships the blade up, I couldn't sharpen it anymore. So I needed a lot more than that. So I tipped it over to blade off, got the model number ordered one on Amazon came the next day that I had to put it on. And there's a trick that they don't tell you the description is a little tiny hole. And you have to put like a pin or something really fell in the hole to be able to screw the new logger to reverse thread or a lot more blades. Because so I sat there for half an hour trying to get the thing to screw on and it would just like revolve, it wouldn't it wouldn't attach. So I got an idea. And I went to YouTube. And I said Bosch lodwar lathes change, and there was a three minute video so no shit. No, no, no, it wasn't video says you need to put a pointy thin object in this hidden hole here. They need to screw the law more. Because it works. And I did it and had it. So there is a there's a there's a strange to modern age. I'd be still sitting there bitching, or I want to send it back. Absolutely.

Randy Hulsey  2:07:50

Absolutely. And it's a tongue in cheek thing. But they say you can actually learn to build a house by watching YouTube videos, right? Good luck.

Tony Carey  2:07:57

You can learn anything interested in music production, for instance, they're I think YouTube gets 400 hours of content every minute.

Randy Hulsey  2:08:07

Can you imagine what the hard drive spaces they need? You know what's fun? You know, what's funny is I just bought a new car about a month ago, three weeks ago or whatever. They said if you if you want the owner's manual, you can purchase it on this website. And I'm like, Yeah, who needs a fucking owner's manual to a car. I've got YouTube man. It doesn't cost me a penny to go out. And I can figure out how to do anything on this car that 73 people have already videoed how to do this shit. Right. Exactly. That's amazing. Absolutely amazing.

Tony Carey  2:08:41

That's absolutely wonderful. And all these old vintage instruments I don't really have them anymore but but for people that collect or repair habit or events, Moog synthesizers, all the stuff from the 60s and 50s and 70s There's instruction manuals online anything how to oil a Hammond and not fuck it up? Because it's a tricky spin. It's manual setting thing. And you have to oil it nuts in a while. And you know how to maintain a 53 Studebaker? Whatever? Yeah, it's all there.

Randy Hulsey  2:09:13

What will we be doing and 20 years from now? What will it be? You know, it'll be it's it's mind boggling how everything progresses. But yeah, Tony, listen, this chat has exceeded my expectations. chatting with you was was worth the weight, my friend. You're one of the great songwriters and performers of our time. And I and I thank you for all the amazing work that you've given us over the years. And this has been a true pleasure. So so thank you for that.

Tony Carey  2:09:41

I'm getting aroused.

Randy Hulsey  2:09:44

Don't tell everybody this is public man and shoot me a text right?

Tony Carey  2:09:48

You can only see my face. You can't see what's happening. That's right. We're on Zoom, folks.

Randy Hulsey  2:09:55

So as always, I asked the listeners to like, share and subscribe to the podcast also. Make sure to follow Tony on all of his social media outlets. You can find the show on Facebook at backstage pass radio podcast on Instagram at backstage pass radio, Twitter at backstage pass PC and on the website, backstage pass radio.com Thank you guys for listening and tuning into the show. And make sure you take care of each other. And we will see you right back here on the next episode of backstage pass radio.

Adam Gordon  2:10:27

Thanks so much for joining us. We hope you enjoyed today's episode of backstage pass radio. Make sure to follow Randy on Facebook and Instagram at Randy Halsey music and on Twitter at our Halsey music. Also, make sure to like, subscribe and turn on alerts for upcoming podcasts. If you enjoyed the podcast, make sure to share the link with a friend and tell them backstage pass radio is the best show on the web for everything music. We'll see you next time right here on backstage pass radio