SPEAKER_03: 0:46

Today's guest is the kind of musician whose guitar tone is the story. A road warrior, a studio assassin, and a rock and roll lifer who's played alongside the biggest names on the planet, from David Bowie to John Lennon. Hey everyone, it's Randy Holsey with Backstage Pass Radio. My guest today in the studio doesn't chase trends, but he does help define them. This is a conversation with grit, groove, and no filter. Grab the popcorn and a drink because we're going to get into all things Earl Slick when we come back.

SPEAKER_02: 1:17

This is Backstage Pass Radio. Backstage Pass Radio, a podcast by an artist for the artist. Each week we take you behind the scenes of some of your favorite musicians and the music they created. From chart-topping hits to underground gems, we explore the sounds that move us and the people who make it all happen. Remember to please subscribe, rate, and leave reviews on your favorite podcast platform. So whether you're a casual listener or a die hard music fan, tune in and discover the magic behind the melodies. Here is your host of Backstage Pass Radio, Randy Holsey.

SPEAKER_03: 1:57

Slick, welcome, brother. It's good to chat with you again, and it's good to see you.

SPEAKER_00: 2:02

Yeah, we've had a couple chats on the phone, so it's kind of cool. You know, you get to know somebody a little bit before you do one of these things. Right on, right on.

SPEAKER_03: 2:09

I'm I'm digging the uh the the wood-paneled uh room there that you have. It looks like we got that in common going on.

SPEAKER_00: 2:16

Oh, the entire house is wood, floor to ceiling, the whole damn thing.

SPEAKER_03: 2:20

Oh, yeah. I love wood. Well, we just got through, I guess, Christmas, and now we're moving into uh the new year already. Where does time go? Man, I think the older I get, the the faster the clock ticks. Would you agree with that a little bit?

SPEAKER_00: 2:35

You know what? I I do agree with that. And and funny enough, I've my I have an aunt that's 93 years old. And uh, remember when she was in her 70s, she goes, I she could use a computer, she could upload files. Think about that generation. 20 years ago, she was doing this, and she used to read quizzes all the time. I said, Why do you? I mean, quizzes are fun. She goes, you know what? I learned so much from that. So when I'm 90 something years old, I won't be able to have a conversation with people. And you know what? I I do I do them a lot. I love it. Yeah. You know, 93, even with a stroke two years ago, you wouldn't even know it. Yeah. You know, still lucid. So, yeah, I'm a quiz master.

SPEAKER_03: 3:15

That's that's great, you know. And I think you have to uh I think when we're young, the brain has a lot of elasticity in it. We're learning, we're we're absorbing, and the older we get, there's that old adage you can't teach an old dog new tricks. I I think you can I think you can still teach the dog tricks, but they just don't want to learn as much of the tricks, right?

SPEAKER_00: 3:35

Well, there's some of the tricks that just you go, you know what, I need this shit like I need a hole in a head kind of stuff. Which I'm conscious of that. It's not like I don't know what it is, I just don't want to deal with it, you know? But there's something of uh uh uh Neil deGrasse Tyson, and then there's an English gun, I can't remember his name, uh, Cox, Brian Cox. Uh actually, he was in a rock band when he was younger. Now he's like one of the top astrophysicists. And he talks about the relativity of time. And apparently, and I've noticed this myself, is that when you're doing nothing sometimes, time goes way faster than it does when you're doing something, which seems ass backwards, but it's not. And when I'm off the road, even though there's nothing going on, all of a sudden two months go by. When I'm on the road, it's different. Uh it things seem slower. And you are right. The older you get, the goal of your perception of time gets goddamn scary. It's like, wait a minute. It's it's it's gonna be January 1st. Okay, the last thing I remember was I was releasing a record in a book last summer. Yeah, like which seems five minutes ago. Of course. Of course.

SPEAKER_03: 4:48

It all it all yeah, it all creeps up on you.

SPEAKER_00: 4:50

All the young fuckers that are laughing at us right now. Guess what? If you're lucky enough to live this long, you'd be complaining about the same shit.

SPEAKER_03: 4:57

You got that right. Well, I wanted to uh give a quick shout out and a thank you to our mutual friend, uh the lovely Dana Steele, for putting us uh in the same text message together, Slick. So cheers to Dana. What do you think, man?

SPEAKER_00: 5:12

I love it. You know, everyone's I've known Dana since about 1980 or something. And uh at the time she was uh working at KLOL in Houston, DJ, and then she went up the ladder to the program director, and then she did a lot of stuff, you know. Matter of fact, she was campaigning a few years ago down there, and I and I flew down and tried to help out with it and that. And uh, you know, every once in a blue moon, I'll get this. I'll go, okay, who is this person and why did you text me to meet them? And you know what? This shit happens. So she's wonderful, she's great. All right, and Ernestman, Charlie, I love those guys.

SPEAKER_03: 5:51

Yep. No, she's awesome. I think they're still out.

SPEAKER_00: 5:53

She's gonna be watching because I texted her for it.

SPEAKER_03: 5:56

Oh, good, yeah. Well, I I know that they're out in Palm Springs. I think she she said that she would be back in um February, so we'd have to get out and play some golf in February. Of course, you want to do that before it gets so bloody hot here in Houston, Texas, right? It gets way too hot to be played. Right, exactly. Well, you know, here's the thing, Slick. I know, and I think the listeners that didn't know before today will know once they've listened to this interview, but you've played along some of the biggest names in, you know, in rock and roll history, and you've also lived inside of moments that I think people mythologize in a way, right? Like there's listeners of this show that aren't as technically astute in music like like you and I are. They're just casual listeners of music. But, you know, at this stage in your life, do you feel more like a witness to rock history, or do you feel like one of its architects? Because you've been around, dude. Let's just get props more props. Well, I you know, the the question is more like do you feel like, you know, you're more of a witness to rock history, or do you feel like you've kind of architected it along the way? Like, like have you have you been a, you know, have you do you feel like in your own words that you've made an impact on music like some of your heroes have, right? Because in a lot of people's eyes, you're the hero, right? That's a great question.

SPEAKER_00: 7:33

Uh okay, I mean, look, age is age, and I don't give a shit because I'm still I my brain stink thinks it's 15 years old. So I basically, when I started playing my guitar in 1970, 64, rock and roll was only 10 years old. It was in the fourth fucking grade. Okay. It was a little kid, right? And uh by the time I was 15, I had bands, local, you know, lashiti bands. By the time I was 17, I was good enough to make enough money to earn a living every week. Okay. Right? Uh that's where I was. It was the time it was. Rock and roll was new. The rock and roll community was a lot different. And as I progressed, uh, not only in my own playing and learning my craft, I got great opportunities. You know, like, you know, uh even before David Bowie, I'd done sessions with Dr. John and some of the Neville brothers and Michael Kamen, who was my mentor, you know, and oh, I was in a band with David Sanborn before that, who, you know, I mean, so uh I was around really good players. And then the time I spent with David and other artists as well, I I I feel about my career sometimes like I'm a spectator, and sometimes I feel like I've contributed an awful lot to this.

SPEAKER_01: 8:58

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00: 8:59

And basically both are true. It depends what mood I'm in. Yep. You know, if I'm sitting home and I haven't done a gig or been in the studio for three weeks or a month, I start thinking I'm a spectator, you know. Like, oh, wait a minute, did you really do that? Of course you did, and you're just fucking bitching because you you're you got so much time on your hands, right? So I I've actually contributed things, I think, to history of this uh business. Absolutely. I I'm a rock and roll history contributor. Absolutely. That's good to think that way.

SPEAKER_03: 9:31

I mean, you do talk, and that's just I know what I did. I get it. Facts are facts. I mean, you can't you can't deny the facts. Yep. You know, we go back, but you know, we talked about, you know, the teenage years. Who were you as a teenager? Were you just a music guy as a teenager, or were you were you a sports kid? Like what kind of kid were you coming up?

SPEAKER_00: 9:53

Um as a kid, kid, let's say going from the first grade up to whatever, uh sixth, seventh grade, first year high school, I was uh I I was the kid that didn't fit in. I didn't join any of the groups, the social groups. I I I didn't join any sports teams. I cut class all the time. Matter of fact, I don't think I ever went to to what do you call PE gym? In the whole four years I was in high school. I got cut every single time. Uh I had a small group of friends, and with the before that, okay, say up to the age of about 12-ish, the love of my life was baseball.

unknown: 10:35

Okay.

SPEAKER_00: 10:35

I started playing Little League when I was six years old, and I was really good. And uh I want, I mean, a Mickey Mantle and that whole era of of of the you know, the really iconic, like, you know, I look at Mickey Mantle and Roger Maris and Babe Ruth, like I look at Chuck Berry and Elvis Presley and and the guys that started rock and roll. And I wanted to be them. And then I picked my guitar up. And then the I was still playing ball, and then the uh they I used to pitch a lot. Once in a while, uh, they sick me in as a catcher, and kids love throwing goddamn bats, right? I think that summer I broke three fingers at three different times, and I said, well, it's either the guitar or the baseball. And I chose the guitar. That was the end of my and that was my dream. At the end of the day, though, I made the right choice because the chances of you being Mickey Man or nah.

SPEAKER_03: 11:34

You know what? But in all fairness to you, man, it's like for people, you know how many aspiring musicians, me being one of them, and I and I have a full-time job, right? I'm not trying to go out and make a living in music, but do you know there's probably just as many, if not more, that aspire to be in the same seat that that you're in at the level that and some of the people that you played with, your talent, right? You're you're kind of in the music world, you're kind of you're the top shelf guy, right? You're one of the top shelf guys, right? And you can't you can't really discount that. So you're I would say you're kind of the you know, the the the Roger Maris or the Babe Ruth of of rock and roll. Would you not agree with that in any kind of way?

SPEAKER_00: 12:18

Okay, you you're hitting you're hitting the subject which which with me is always a touchy thing. Like as soon as somebody refers to me as a rock star, I I lose patience, like really quick. I hate the word. Okay. Uh I the way I know where I fit it in the business, right? I'm not Eric Clapton. I'm not the guy with the day job that plays on the weekends, I'm not the guy that plays cover tunes in a bar for a living until he's 120 years old. Of course. You know? Yep. Uh I I sit somewhere in the middle, and I've had people say to me, you know, look, John Lennon, David Bowie, and they start rattling off my credits, and they go, Well, why aren't you out on your own? Because you could sell Dallas to see and all that. You know? I don't want to. You know what I I what I pride myself as being one of the best side men ever. That's and they go, and they think that's insulting. Matter of fact, um, I think it was either Rolling Stone or guitar player a few years back, had a list of the 50 greatest rhythm guitar players. I was on the list. And somebody saw it, go, oh, what an insult. And you know, you know, you know, you you play great lead. I said, Well, you want to know what, man? If you can't play rhythm, you ain't a guitar player in the first place. So fuck the solos. Yeah, yeah, you know, that was an honor to me. I know where I fit in. I I mean, uh I know a lot of people, and I've worked with a lot of people that I've admired since I since I was a kid, and they street me as a peer, and that feels good. Sure, you know. I yeah, it it's uh I I I I sit somewhere in this weird spot in the middle, you know, and I and I'm I'm comfortable with that spot.

SPEAKER_03: 13:59

Yeah, and you know what's interesting that you say that because I play currently in a duo here in Cyprus, Texas, and the guy that I've been playing with for five years now, his name is Chris Hughes. He's he's a well of a guitar player, but he said, you know what? I'm cool just being your side guy, your side, your side man. That's that's where I want to be. I don't I don't want to be out front. I don't want my name on the marquee. I don't I don't want any of that stuff. I just like serving the song. That's what I love doing. And Chris is 100% cool with that.

SPEAKER_00: 14:30

But what he just did is describe the side man because, you know, I look at uh, you know, it when I started with Michael Kamen, um, if anybody who doesn't know who he he was, uh he had a band in New York that was a bunch of guys from the Juilliard School of Music that kind of combined rock and roll with a little bit of classical. And the band broke up and he went on his own. Uh and I was in his band with with uh with some of Paul Butterfield's guys, David Sanborn on Sacks, Hank DeVito, the wonderful songwriter and pedal steel player. And uh I learned about the side man, thank God from him, because when when David Bowie hired me, I was a side man. And as we did more work and more tours, I I I I a matter of fact, I I did a movie about this of the BBC and uh it came, it came out in 17, I think, 2017. And I I David Bowie always, if you look at videos for the tours, especially in the 2000s, I'm up front a lot. And we could read each other so well on that stage that I could tell he's going, you know what? I need a goddamn break. And he wouldn't even look at me. I could tell by his body language, he would walk off the stage or to the back, and I'd go up front. That was my job. Yeah, rest of my job was to stand abandon, make sure that me and the band were doing what needed to be done so he did not have to think about anything but performing. Right. That's it. He didn't need to be looking at me, playing stupid shit or the drummer, you know. It was all together, and that's what side men do. And the and the first official side man to me, and he just passed away, and he was one of my heroes, was Steve uh Steve Cropper. Okay, because Steve, his main job was a producer, a songwriter, and a guitar player in the studio. The only band he ever had played that live was Booker Tini MGs, right? Uh he never played as a sidebar. And and when Otis went on on tour, uh and and because Steve was writing with him, he insisted that Steve went. And Steve went. And so Steve was playing on the records and live. Because back in those days, this group played on the record, that's all they did. And then the artist would hire a whole bunch of different guys to go on the road. Okay. So it was two groups of guys. And then Steve kind of created this other thing where you could be the guy on the record and you could be the guy playing live. That was a long-winded answer, but it it's kind of what it is. Sure.

SPEAKER_03: 17:13

What's the old saying? Know your role, right? I mean, that's the role you want to serve, then you're happy with that. Yeah, exactly. And that's the way, that's the way Chris feels. And, you know, I'll say, hey man, you want to sing a few more tonight? He's like, no, no, I'm good. I'm good. Just sitting back here doing my thing. And and he'll sing, he'll sing a few. He'll sing a few, but he doesn't want to be like the upfront guy. He doesn't want to be the David Bowie. He just wants to sit there.

SPEAKER_00: 17:39

I can't stand it. Right. Yeah. It embarrasses me, you know. When we released uh my autobiography on Penguin uh Book Company in in the UK uh a little about a year and a half ago, and I had to go do because book signings at all stores and stuff. Uh ain't the first time I've done that, but it was the first time it was my thing. So we're at uh Rough Trade Records in London, and there's a line all the way out the street of people that bought bought books and want to sign them. And for the first like 20 or 30 people, it was I so uncomfortable until I finally kind of got on a roll. Yep. You know, because the whole focus is on me, and I'm not used to that.

SPEAKER_03: 18:20

Of course.

SPEAKER_00: 18:21

I don't like it.

SPEAKER_03: 18:22

I really don't like it. Yeah. Well, you know what's interesting? I I think it was yeah, I could be wrong, but I think I was watching an interview with James Taylor and his backup singer. I don't know the backup singer's name, but James Taylor said, This is this is one of the best vocalists on the planet. And he just he he's he's my backup guy. And the person interviewed, it might have been Stern, right? Stern looked at him and said, Uh, you have you never wanted to be out front and do your own thing if you've got that good a voice, he's like, I'm perfectly fine sitting right back here in the pocket. You know what I'm saying? You know, you know what?

SPEAKER_00: 19:01

I don't know, one of my best mates is one of those guys. Really? Okay. Uh, yes. The Rolling Stones have had a man named Bernard Fowler as their main guy, backup guy, since '89, 1989. It's a long time. And he's still there. And even though Lisa Fisher left and uh uh Blondie Chaplin was there, people have come and gone. He matter of fact, before shows, it's really funny watching him give Mick Jagger little focal tips, how to make the backgrounds work, right? Wow. And he's a on his own, he's a great singer. Matter of fact, we've done a few tours together where he's been the singer, right? Uh, but he's happy as hell doing what he did. Look, he could easily have left. Look, even after doing one or two Stones tour, with the amount of coverage he was getting, could he could have easily gone out and been that guy. He likes it. Yep. And he's great at it.

SPEAKER_03: 20:04

That's why he likes it. I bet you would agree with me that when I when I say that, I'll bet you that six to seven times out of ten, the background singers are probably technically better singers than the lead singers. Not in all cases, but it's just those lead singers just so happen to be the face of the band, and that's what people know. It doesn't mean they're the best singer in the world, but I'll bet you a lot of those background singers are just as talented, if not more talented.

SPEAKER_00: 20:36

Well, look at uh oh my god. Uh you saw 20 feet from stardom, I'm sure. Yeah. Right? One of my favorite what the hell's wrong with my brain now. She was in Lethal Weapon. She played the the wife of uh uh what's it um goddamn um Darlene Love. Okay, she was in girl bands and and there were some hits that came out in the 1960s that were under somebody else's name. She was the lead singer. Wow, she is killer. She used to sing back up on all those old shows like Shindig from the 60s, and yeah, she's great.

SPEAKER_01: 21:12

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00: 21:13

Uh on her own, she does she does things, but that's not her main thing. I I spent time at Mary Clayton, who was the one that sang uh uh the girl voice on uh Give Me Shelter. Okay, right? Um, because we did a show at the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame with a bunch of the Stonesman in 2013, and we just fell in love. I mean, she was just wondering, and I always admired her. And she could still see, but you know what? She sang one song as a lead. The rest of the time, she was in the back with the rest of the ladies singing. Of course, you know, and she loved it that way. So, you know, there's something to be said, and also there's something about singing that I think really became a thing in the late 70s, where they were looking at uh a guy's vocal range and you know, okay, let's just name some guys, they probably hate me already, you know, like what's his name from Germany and Foreigner. And all of a sudden that became what a singer was supposed to be. Sure. To me, the lead singer, whether he's a folk artist or rock and roll band or a country guy, he is basically a communicator. Yes, he's communicating vocally, which happens to be his voice. And and you know, I mean, goddamn, Bob can Bob Dylan sing? You know, what about Waits, Tom Waits, Jesus Christ, uh, Keith, even Mick, but when they open their mouths, magic happens. Of course. And that's it as I don't consider myself nearly a proficient guitar player as a lot of other guys. Of course. What I do, I I can communicate with my guitar. I can sound like me. And to be honest, I'm happier playing rhythm than I mean, you know, solos are fun, you know, but uh the rhythm's what it's about. And and that that that gives me that's the proudest thing I am of of of any of my guitar playing, is that? Because it it it gives me a vibe. Hold on a second. No. You've been out. Go lay down. Hold on, let me deal with this. No worries. Okay, okay. You want to come out front. Let's go. See you later. Bye-bye. All right, I just stuck him on the front board.

SPEAKER_03: 23:32

He's doing it. Well, you know, you you can you can be a guitarist, but if you don't have rhythm, are you really a guitarist, right? So, I mean, I think a lot of people discount rhythm as uh yeah, but you're just a rhythm player, right? I'm just a rhythm player too. I'm not a lead player, yeah. But you know what? You can either play rhythm or you can't fucking play rhythm, just like you can either play lead or you can't play lead, right?

SPEAKER_00: 23:56

You know what? Rock and roll is all about rhythm, rock and roll, baby. You know, you gotta have rhythm. Yep. And my favorite guitar players are the ones, I mean, Jesus Christ. In terms of rock and roll in a particular style, there ain't nobody better running guitar player than Keith Richards ever. You watch him play, and I learned this, and I've been doing it for years. I was doing it when I was young and then learned as I went along, but I drop out a lot during songs. And I let the other so if you got two guitar players on stage, sometimes I might drop for a measure or two. Okay, and I don't play with the other guys playing. Okay, I'm playing a different rhythm than him. And it's just talking, it's a conversation, you know? And and it drives it. You know, and look, I've done a three-piece where I had what I've done rhythm, you know, on my own. I still do it. And that's the part that I love, you know. Uh I think it's so-one thing. When we do a show, the the rhythm guitar is always gonna be on spot on. I know when I do a show, not all of my solos are gonna shine. I know that.

SPEAKER_03: 25:08

Yep. It's interesting that you talk about those intricacies of the music, of the live performance, because I think the casual listener of music, the person that gets in the car in the morning, turns on the radio, and does this on the way to work, but they're not musicians, they don't they don't know about these things that we're talking about, how two guitars can communicate. They were like, they would probably be more like, what does that mean? Right? Well, guitars talk just like people talk, right? They're not saying verbal words, but they feed off of each other, right?

SPEAKER_00: 25:45

It's all call and response. Yep. Well, now you know, and you know what I think that even though your your average listener may not know what's going on, they sure as hell feel it. And that's why they gravitate towards that music. They feel it.

SPEAKER_03: 25:59

100%.

SPEAKER_00: 26:00

It's creating a feeling that makes them feel good, or it makes them cry, or it creates some kind of emotion, it gets them excited, it does something to them. And to me, I don't care if they know why. Yep, my music that I'm playing on makes them happy, then shit, job done.

SPEAKER_03: 26:18

Right. When did the music bug bite you? At what age? Do you remember the age? Because a lot of people I've had on my show, I mean, they'll they'll say five, six years old, some later in life. When did it bite you?

SPEAKER_00: 26:35

It came in stages, right? Because uh my mother listened to a lot of country music. Very weird because she couldn't even speak English till she was six, you know, because her parents were from Italy. And um, she had me when she was quite young, and I was hearing Patsy Klein, I was hearing all the stuff from that all the time, either on the radio shows or she would play them. And I enjoyed them. I remember that. I remember um the first real guitar record I ever heard was Shit Atkins, and she bought it, you know, uh, and it was there, and I was conscious of it. Then I saw the Beatles on that Sullivan, and and what happened then was it's a 13-year-old testosterone-ridden kid looking at four guys on a stage with thousands of girls screaming, and the music was cool. They looked like I've gone, my own, my dad's gonna hate these motherfuckers, man. So I'm in it. Right? And and and that kind of started it. Within a few months, I got a guitar because I just kept listening. And actually, uh I found the stones pretty quick after that. I also found muddy and uh all that shit, Muddy Water, the whole Bo Diddley, all that stuff, the Hall and Wolf stuff, uh, through the stones. So I love the Beatles, but once I heard the stones, that was the magic bullet done. I'm in because I was already learning about like the where they got their blue stuff from.

SPEAKER_03: 28:07

So you you so it's safe to say that you had a heavy influence of of Ronnie Wood and and Keith Richards, right? I mean, absolutely.

SPEAKER_00: 28:16

Okay, yeah, as you know, as both rhythm and lead naturally, I would be playing more like that. But you know, uh, I'm a side man and I do have to earn money, and and it's it taught me things too, because Bowie pulled me so the hell out of my comfort zone sometimes. Yeah, but you know what? It really wasn't because once I once I did it, it came naturally to me. Yep. He knew it was in me, or he wouldn't have tried to pull it out. Of course. Of course, he never did that. He wouldn't try to pull something out of there he knew he couldn't get.

unknown: 28:48

Yeah.

SPEAKER_03: 28:48

From a from a guitar playing perspective, you know, they say that us guitar players are always chasing tone, right? Do you feel as though tone's something that you chase, or do you feel like tone chases you, right?

SPEAKER_00: 29:06

Oh, I uh tone is in me. I don't chase it, it don't chase me. It's just there. It's there, yeah. Okay. And when I plug in, I need to hear a certain sound. Period. Yep. If it ain't there, uh I make it there. But I also been doing it so long, I know what ant, well, I know exactly when I plug into an ant what's gonna happen, unless it's blown up or something. You know? Yep. Uh yeah. And it depends on also depends what kind of a record I'm doing, you know. But I also naturally know that it needs this or it needs that or it needs a telly or it needs whatever. Uh it's it's it becomes second nature. Uh, I just bought a pedal. My my nephew's 31 years old, right? And he thinks if he buys certain guitars, if he sees or hears you, he's gonna yell at me, but fuck him. Uh you know, so he he'll see a pedal or a guitar or an am goes, oh, I gotta get one because so-and-so, and I can sound like that. No, you can't. I said, here's my guitar. Here's my aunt, sound like your uncle. Right. He won't even do it. I said, you know, so anyway, he was talking about this one pedal, and I thought it might be interesting, so I bought one, right? I I got I just sold it to a guy the other day. I I used it, I like I tested it for an hour. And I'm going, what am I gonna do with this? Sure. It all looks good on paper, but it it's just another goddamn pedal that that a certain person uses that he makes good use out of. That none goddamn thing I thought that maybe it could be a little trick thing I could use in the studio once in a while. I could do that shit with my hands.

SPEAKER_03: 30:44

Yep, yeah, yeah. That's the experience right there, right? I mean, you just either know how to do it or you don't know how to do it. Yeah, yeah. Do you ever think back to the days of limitations when you had no gear, no money? That you think any of those times before you actually got some money that that shaped you as the player you are today, just learning how to to you know make the sounds from from what you owned versus going out and buying all of these expensive cool pedals and stuff like that, right? Do you feel like those limitations developed you as a player?

SPEAKER_00: 31:22

First of all, I have a pedal board, which rarely gets used. Live, for the most part, I might use a clean boost pedal or a fuzz tone. Okay. I hate overdrive pedals. I hate the way they squash my sound up, make me sound ridiculous. Okay. A fuzz pedal to me is an effect like echo. Okay. You know what I mean? So I use it once in a while, but that's it. Yeah, I don't really use pedals much. Okay. Uh uh at the beginning, though, I had um for any the guitar player people will know this. There's a brand new called Dan Electro. It's uh uh very low-end, cheap guitar, but they're good. So I when I finally got one, that I after I beat my father for God knows how long to get me one, it it came, it was it was hollow and it didn't have pickups in it. It looked just like the normal ones, right? And that's what I learned on. I learned based on an acoustic guitar. So I had to make it sound good. I didn't even have, right? And then I started to get better, so I got a job, right? And I saved every dime. As soon as I had the last dime, I traded in the other one, and I got me an electric, a low-end electric guitar called Hackstrom, which used to be made over in Scandinavia, right? Okay, not bad, not great. And then I went, uh, I go, well, I'm gonna need amp. So got another job. And the jobs would last just as long until I had the exact amount to buy the gear, and I quit, right? Of course. So and then from there, it happened, you know, and the best one was there was a teacher strike. Uh I forgot we were high school, and and so we had like five months off from school, and I made a lot of money. So I bought me a telly, I bought me uh uh a fender amp, uh, and and uh yeah, that went for a while. And then I saw uh the telly I got because of Jeff Beck, and then the SG was the next one, which I still have that same one. That was from Eric Clapton. So I would emulate my heroes. A lot of it had to do with what it looked like, but the sound they were getting out of the guitars, right? Uh and then as I went along, I realized I could make either one sound just like the other one.

SPEAKER_03: 33:42

Of course.

SPEAKER_00: 33:43

That's interesting. And I learned at an early age. Plus, when I first started playing, I think the only pedal that was common was the fuzz tone that my show fuss tone, the thing that Keith used on satisfaction, and then a wahwa pedal or common, and then there was this weird octave fuzz thing that Jimi Hendrix used. That was about it. And you know what? You had to look for them. It wasn't like you walked into uh uh a store and had all this stuff, it wasn't like now we walk into uh uh any of these guitar centers. Yeah, you know, I mean that's like going in in a dumb supermarket down the road for me and buying, you know, Welch's jelly and and and processed peanut butter and white bread. Yeah, it's garbage. Right.

SPEAKER_03: 34:28

Yep. Well, you played with some of the biggest names in the industry, and I wondered if there was ever this moment for you when you realized I I belong here. I belong in this room. Like, did was it ever a pinch yourself moment for you where you were playing with some of the bigger names and you're like, man, how did I how did I get here? Why am I here? And then you woke up one day and said, you know what? I belong here. This is this is where I when did that hit you? Do you remember when that started? You know what?

SPEAKER_00: 35:01

It's funny you bring that up because at the beginning, that wasn't even a thought. You know, I went from I you know, you know, there's a book called Outliers, they talk about the 10,000 hours, right? I already have my 10,000 hours between playing clubs every night and all the rest of this by the time I was 21 years old. So when I got into York Bowie, I I was so young, I was just being what a 23-year-old guy does on the road. Never thought about it, right? Uh, sure, I thought I was big shit and a rock star and all that kind of stuff. Wasn't until years later, and the first time it happened, uh I was in a band with Slim Jim Phantom and Lee Rocker, who were the rhythm section for the Straight Cast. They broke up, they needed a guitar player. Somehow we met up, which I always thought, look, this is kind of a mismatch. But we jammed a few times, we wrote tunes, we the first record we did did quite well. Uh, we had a top 10 single off of it. We sold, you know, uh it did eventually break up, you know. And anyway, but because of because of their connection with the rockabilly world, they were doing uh uh a special about call Perkins in London for HBO. And they invited us as a band. We went. Also, George Harrison, Ringo Star, Eric Clapton, you name it, was there. I mean, Roseanne Cash, Dave Edmonds, I mean, the list goes on. And uh we rehearsed at some dingy little rehearsal joint in London. Uh, of course, there was a pub next door, that's why we liked it. Uh, and I was on the stage rehearsing, and this is exactly what you mentioned. To the right of me was Eric Clapton, to the left of me is George Harrison. Behind me was Ringo Starr. And all of a sudden, I had this out-of-body experience go. What the fuck about this? What is going on here? How did I get in a room with these motherfuckers? I don't get this. Wow, you know, and then we had a break and we're in the coffee room, and I'm just sitting talking to George or Eric, and it was all normal. So I felt like I belonged, but I didn't feel like I was anywhere. I still re-revered them as the men that came before me that opened the door for me to do what I do. Of course. And that respect is still there.

SPEAKER_03: 37:28

100%. Around what year was that, Slick? Do you remember? That was 1986. 86. Okay. Yeah. Well, how long was uh Phantom Rocker and Slick? How long did you guys do your thing? Was it pretty short-lived? I don't know. It was damn too short-lived.

SPEAKER_00: 37:44

I mean, uh, we did the one record with a couple videos. Uh, MTV played the video forever. Uh, Men Without Shame was a big hit. And then uh the usual story drugs, alcohol, and stupidity. And we did a really lousy second record because we we were fighting, it was just crap, band stuff. I always look at a band like you're married to five wives at the same time. You don't know what the hell we're gonna do. Of course, and it's what happens, so it fell apart. Yeah, that was that. Yeah, you know, and we spent some time because we were so close, we had a great fan base really fast, and if we'd have taken six months off, you know, slowed down on the stupidity, we might have made a good second record. We made a shitty second record and we broke up.

SPEAKER_03: 38:33

Yeah. Hindsight's always 2020, right? Always. I'm really good at it. I got perfect. Well, you have a you have a book out called Guitar, and and correct me where I'm wrong, right? And I and I believe that surfaced sometime, was it May? Uh was it 24, 2024? Yeah, it was May. It was May 24, yeah. Yeah, yeah. Well, and so congrats on the book. And I I wanted to find out from you, like what what kind of made you decide that the book needed to exist?

SPEAKER_00: 39:10

It had nothing to do with me. Okay. Um, I had other people would occasionally mention to me about writing a book, and I go, you know, I didn't listen to them. Then I had a manager named Jennifer Kennedy, and um she started talking about the book thing. And we I was invited to do the double fantasy record that, you know, uh John Lennon's second to last record that was released uh with Yoko. I was the only band, for some reason I was the only original band member invited. So there was a backup band, English guys, uh, with our son Sean was there, uh Suzy Sue, Boy George, a lot of different people. And uh I wanted David Johansson to come over to do one night, because they it was for the um, oh god, the the the what you call it festival uh at the uh South Bank. South Bank Festival, yeah. Every at the South Bank Center in London, they have what they call a curator, and that's the like the you know, like David did it one year. They get to pick the artists and all that. Yep so that year was Yoko. So I did the show with her, and so they did have one room open because, you know, I you know, Johansson and my schedules didn't match. So they gave me the room for the night, and they go, What am I gonna do with it? She said, I got an idea. I've already got a whole bunch of stuff here. We can do a slideshow. We invite people in. Uh, I had uh um the guy that runs David Bowie's uh uh social media, uh Mark Adams, otherwise known as Total Blam Blam. Uh he got on stage with me and we had a chat and And I spoke to the audience and took questions, and the reaction was great, which made me feel maybe I should write a book. And then not too long after that, I was approached by a man named Francis Waitley, who at the time was a really he still is a great film director, producer, right? And he goes to me, that's not a book, it's a movie. I said, okay. So, long story short, over a period of time, we made the movie because he did four volume movies. He did do it's like the next year, the next five years, you know, uh all the ones that we did. We did one before, and it were two posts, David passing. Anyway, so it was because of him of the movie, and then I was I spent a lot of time in the UK, and I was doing a lot, me and Glenn Mack are uh from Pistols, we're we're great friends. And uh, so we had a little band and we go out and do three or four gigs a week and just have fun. And there was a guy kept coming, this guy from Penguin Books, which is the biggest publisher in the world. And we got to chatting, and I didn't even realize how far up the food chain he was. He goes, Do you want to you want to put a book out? I said, you know, it would be a good idea. He says, Well, guess what? If you want to, Penguin wants you to write one for us. Wow. That's how I that's how it happened. Okay. All by itself. Just organically. I was not looking. Okay. Yep. Wow. Sometimes that's we try we try and we tried it here, and we we basically were getting kicked out of publishers' offices. They could give a shit. And here we go with Penguin, and my book is number three in the charts there within a week coming out.

SPEAKER_03: 42:22

You know, I think sometimes things are just better, whether it's a book or music, when it's just organic and it's not forced, right? Uh, would you agree with that to a certain degree?

SPEAKER_00: 42:32

Absolutely, because uh um the book took a while to try for, well, first of all, we started it before the pandemic. So it, I mean, it that just elongated everything, included coming out because the pandemic caused them to release their main publishers late. Yep. Right? So, you know, even when they go in the studio, uh uh, there's a there's a guy named Robert Fleming. He has got this uh uh band called uh Kill a Star. Uh and I I I've done these last couple of records. I I did two gigs in them last year. I'll be in London in March for a couple days as a guest uh uh at a show. And um he's always wanting to send me. Oh, he goes, let me send you the demo, the CDs and stuff. I said, No, don't send me any MP3s. Well, what do you mean? I said, send the files directly to the studio in New York, and I'll do the rest there. And it works for me. You know, because if I sit down with it and I start playing, all of a sudden they start getting married to those little parts, and it's the ones that pop out of me organically when I hear the music and it makes it makes me emotional. Bang, out comes the gig. Out comes the two. It's there. Yep. Usually first takes. Even when we work, because I did a few days of the last record with him in London as well.

SPEAKER_03: 43:54

Yeah, you don't want it to be you don't want it to be fabricated, right? I mean, this is fabricated if you if you listen to it and learn it note for note. Yeah.

SPEAKER_00: 44:02

Now, if I'm writing with somebody, right, I'm writing with a guy named Cody Melville right now, who I love. Okay, and uh uh, you know, um I played in this last couple of records, and I said, you know, maybe you gotta sort of change direction because you can't make the same record over and over again. People get bored. And he's really open-minded, and and I drew some curveballs at him, right? He loved them. So that I listened to because I would send him the track, he'd put a vocal on it, sent it back to me, and we were writing that way. That way I would use an MP, that way I would work out.

SPEAKER_03: 44:34

Makes sense.

SPEAKER_00: 44:35

You know what I mean? Yeah, absolutely. Because we we don't live close enough to sit in the same room. Yeah, you know, absolutely. Actually, we're gonna start recording some of them uh in in January. But no, when it comes to even live, uh the less thinking I do and the less preparation I take. Now, the only thing I would prepare for mostly with Bowie was we would always get six months' notice for tours, and as soon as I got notice, I would just make up, I would guess what the set list would be. And when we had CD players in cars, right? And I'd stick it in there and I just let it roll when I was driving. And then when we would get about a month away from rehearsal, I knew the set list, and I would sit there with songs that I played a thousand times and just play along a couple hours a day just to get my head into it, you know. Sure. That way when it got to rehearsal, it wasn't like I had to learn the songs, but it just it got me in the headspace I needed to be in. 100%. I don't think you don't like a fighter that does these little workouts, a lot of them have their little quirky things they do before fights, the same thing. Yeah.

SPEAKER_03: 45:45

And I don't want to get off that book topic, but you said something and I wanted to ask you a question about it. When you went out with somebody like Bowie, like what what would how much rehearsal time would you guys have to prepare to go out for a major tour? Six weeks. Six weeks. Is that is that seven days a week, three days a week? Is what did it look like?

SPEAKER_00: 46:07

It would start off at six days a week, and by week five-ish, six-ish, we'd be in like five days a week. Okay, but they wouldn't be, you know, brain damaged 12-hour rehearsals. We'd get in there about 11, piss around, have coffee, eat some sweets, and we'd be at it by six or seven. Okay. That way it didn't burn us out. Okay.

SPEAKER_03: 46:30

Was there a story in the book, or was there a story in general that you hesitated to include because maybe it revealed too much about you, or is there no such thing? There is a such thing. Okay. Uh and I don't and I don't want the story necessarily. I'm not sure.

SPEAKER_00: 46:50

I'm gonna I'm gonna give you one example. All right. Uh we still have 80,000 words left. Right, exactly. Uh it's ridiculous how much, you know, because think about it, we had we had way more time than we thought because of the pandemic. Yeah, because the Jeff uh Slate, who basically wrote down everything that we were doing, I was in London and he was in New York. And we were zooming, or what was the other one that platform, I don't know, whatever, uh uh I don't know, it had a blue icon, just like they all do, whatever. Uh and uh we ended in the manuscript, and you know, we we did 12 versions of it before uh the editor was happy. And I don't know a lot about book business. I'm publishing, I know about music business. I was like, you know what? I gotta trust these guys because they're the biggest goddamn bookseller in the world. So, and plus the uh um the main dude that the NR is working with there, uh Rowan White, um, he's very hands-on with the stuff. So we did 12 edits before it was right. We added, we we subtracted, we did all this kind of stuff. It was the personal stuff about my family of when I first grew up that when I was six years old, before when I was six years old, they didn't realize that my mother was having like mental problems with depression and anxiety. So in the first grade, uh, this all also adds to my probably why I became a musician too. That at uh in the first grade, she wasn't even out of bed, right? Uh and uh there'd sometimes be a little no. Go around the store to the to the grocery store, pick up some donuts, right? Uh and I fed myself, I made my lunch, I had a sister two years younger than me, I gave her her breakfast. Then a girl who was in the sixth grade or seventh grade used to come by and walk me to school, and she walked me home. By the time I got home, my mom would be up and normal and all that kind of stuff. But that was my whole experience there. At the end of the first grade, she had a total meltdown breakdown, and she was put away for a year. And I lived with my grandmother for a year and didn't even see my mother for a year. Uh she was in the institution. My father didn't even bother visiting me for the whole year, and I loved it. I had a blast with my grandma and stuff, you know. And then uh I went to the second grade there, so we moved to a new place in Brooklyn when I was going into the third grade, and at that point, what whatever they did to my mom, she was back to normal. And she was like that for the rest of her life. Wow. Which is I I had them pull that out. I made them pull it out and they and they put it back in. They said this is very important to the story. You know, you know what?

SPEAKER_03: 49:49

I think they're right though, Slick, uh, because I'll tell you why I think that. Because I I think that, and I fought with anxiety and depression in my days, like many people have, right? I still do. And I and I think when we suppress those and we don't talk those feelings and those emotions and we don't talk about them. I'm a firm believer, believer in the fact that there's uh there's healing and talk therapy. When you talk about things, you you know you can somewhat get better or make sense of things, but when you try to suppress it, it's just it's something that you continue to live with. And I can't tell you, I'm probably 140, maybe even 150 episodes into this show. And I'll bet you on 75 of them, I bet you anxiety and depression conversations have come up, and and that many of them. Uh, it's just it's a real thing, man. And so many people fight with that. And the PSA here is like talk to somebody and and get the help that you need because you you can get better. I I think a lot of people don't think you can when you're at that low of a point, like your it sounds like your mom was, but but there's help, but you got to go find it, right?

SPEAKER_00: 50:58

And you gotta but you're you're also talking about a young girl, but it was normal back then that was having a baby at 18 years old, married at whatever, you know.

SPEAKER_01: 51:07

Yep.

SPEAKER_00: 51:07

Uh these days, uh mine doesn't come from I mean, I've uh these fucking Gen Z, man, good luck. There's so much information and shit going through their brains, I don't know how, because I have one. I got a Gen Z, and he is brilliant. He understands what all this means. A lot of them don't. So I feel that somewhere down the line, maybe they'll figure out, or maybe they won't. But if you look at information on the internet, uh if you even look in just up information and plus the rhetoric that's on there, what's true anymore? Where's where's the truth? Up's not down, downs, not ups. Everything's fucking sideways. And sooner or later, that's gonna cause problems. I think I was inherently born with this shit. Uh I don't get it when I'm gone. I I'm on a tour bus on a plane, I am fine. I am perfectly okay. When I'm by myself, I'm a mental case half the time. Uh, I've had this conversation with Dana, you know? Yeah. And uh it is what it is. Sometimes I get too much time to think, right? Too much time to do something. Yeah, there's time to think, and then there's just this thing that happens from isolation. Yeah. And uh, you know, once in a while, if it takes medication, fine. If it doesn't, fine. And, you know, uh people, there's still a stigma about it. I mean, if you went to somebody and you said, oh my god, uh, I just got cancer, god for it, right? They will, oh my god, you know, are they taking care of you? If you tell them, you know, I've been going through some real depression, they go, Oh, go for a walk. Suck it up.

SPEAKER_03: 52:52

Yeah, suck it up. Suck it up, fuck you, suck it up.

SPEAKER_00: 52:56

You're right, you're right. That's my answer to those motherfuckers is fuck you, you suck it up. I agree. It's real. I've experienced it. Bowie had it, he talked about it, we talked about it. Lennon had it, he talked about it. You know, uh truth be told, I would bet you that a good number of actors and musicians and the likes of writers and people that do what you do suffer from some form of it. And I think that the art is comes from there. I think I think it's a coping mechanism.

SPEAKER_03: 53:32

Yeah, and you know what, Slick, I would echo your sentiment by saying, yeah, fuck you, uh, to people that say that because I've been at such a low point in my life, and I don't discuss this a lot, that I put a pistol in my mouth, but I was too big of a pussy to pull the trigger, and I thought there was something bigger, you know, that that I needed to accomplish, right? So we all go through those dark times. Absolutely. What what the the facade is, oh slick, he's a he's a rock star traveling the world, he don't have no fucking problems. Randy, he has a good paying job and a nice sports car. He don't have no we all have fucking problems, and you know what I'm saying? You don't get away from that, man.

SPEAKER_00: 54:16

They don't see, you know, they don't see, they have eyes, but they don't see. Sure. Yeah, I'm looking at the back of what you got there. Give brave motherfuckers are going, man. I'd love to have all those guys in charge. How the hell could he get depressed? Yeah, duh. Some of some of the most depressed motherfuckers I've known have been the most famous and rich guys I've ever met. And I'm talking about people I just work with, you know? And I've been through it and I go through it. And uh, I'm the opposite of you. I never thought about hurting myself. I would, I would ra I would hurt, I wouldn't want to hurt other people, right? That's crossed my mind a few times, too. I'm gonna take it out on your ass, man. Exactly. That's for me. Yeah, you know, because when you go in a talk search thing, they say, Do you think I'm so far? I said, actually, no, I think hurting other people. But I would love to punch somebody else right in the kisser. Hell yeah. I might even punch you for rap here.

SPEAKER_03: 55:07

There you go. I I can dig that. Well, is there anything in the book that you look back on now and wish that it wasn't in there? Like, is there any regrets from the book?

SPEAKER_00: 55:20

I haven't read it. Really? I haven't seen any of my movies and I don't listen to any of my records. Okay. Fair enough. There is something in there that I might have bypassed, but I don't know. I I've been actually, because I just spoke to the person and uh about something just to say hi. And I thought, you know, I wonder if I covered that in there or if I covered it properly. Uh that's the only thing I've thought about. No, I don't have regrets about anything that I said in that book. Uh and also uh I was truthful about it, which uh there were things that were said about certain very close people to me, David Bowie in particular, about some of his habits, some of his shitty behavior uh over the years, and my own shitty behavior, but one thing was always the silver line is you know what though? We were growing up, man. And look at what we did together. If I didn't have him, I wouldn't have this career, and if he didn't have me, he wouldn't have station to station. And god damn it, when you put us together, we were one hell of a team. Yeah, so it was a truthful thing. Everything was truthful. I didn't, I mean, it wasn't about some of these idiots, you know, the sunset boulevards, let's fuck 20 strippers a night, whatever. That's how they write their book their books and their movies. Yeah. Boring. Yeah. You know, I I did get into depth about some of that stuff, and that book went directly to Bowie's people from the publisher.

SPEAKER_03: 57:00

Okay.

SPEAKER_00: 57:01

And it came right back to them with a big star on it. So I said I'm gonna tell the truth. I'm not gonna lie and say the man was perfect. That's bullshit because nobody is. Wow.

SPEAKER_03: 57:12

How do you feel your relationship has changed with the guitar as you've as as you've gotten older? What has it changed much or is it the same as it was 40 years ago or 30 years ago or whatever?

SPEAKER_00: 57:25

It's gotten back to what it was at the beginning. Okay. Weird enough, uh besides what I sit around and play at home, or like some of the new stuff that I'm writing, or I'm going in the studio with, because I spent uh 2015 to 2019 sitting with Buddy Guy all the time. And I loved it, man. Every time Buddy would play, invite me to play, I used to go to the club and sit in. And even before that, uh I started to gravitate back towards kind of how I played at the beginning. Uh, you know, with with obviously with a whole lot more knowledge and experience and what and a better guitar player, but even the guitars I'm using, I mean, you know, I I tell you's all over the place. Yeah. Acoustics, you know? Uh yeah, straight through the amp. Yeah. And and I've gone. I mean, this this week I've been on a Hank Three Jag, right? Uh on the country records he did. Leon Russell, I've been on a Leon Russell Jag this week. Yeah. Uh it's been about four or five artists. Wow. And I and I love playing along with the stuff. Wow. And I still learn things. Yeah. You know, I still learn little bits and bobs from that. And that's the beginning, really. Sure. I went back to the beginning. And you know what's funny you helped me with this? I was at a, I think it was the last NAM show I ever went to. Uh, for those in the audience, NAM is uh National Association of Music Merchants. And what it is, they hold a big ass convention uh uh in LA in San Diego, right? San Diego. Uh either LA or San Diego. Yep. It's the Anon Convention Center. So all the companies have booths there with their latest stuff, and you go there, and all of a sudden fans come in, it turns into a bit of a circus. But I was checking out this guy that had this amp company, and I was playing a telly through it that was just sitting there and go, Jesus Christ, this thing's good. And I never heard of the brand, so would you get this? And this voice comes around me, goes, Yeah, I said, I made this, my company. This guy named Bill Nash, right? Nash guitars. Yep. Uh he's from Olympia. God damn it, he makes great guitars. And and he said, Do you want one? He said, Well, you know what? I just did an endorsement with a company. He said, This is not an endorsement. He said, When I heard station to station, I heard Fan Rocco and Slick, my head was not great, and that helped me through some shit. This is my gift to you. And he personally built me my first one that he gave me. No kidding. And once I got that telly my hand, I go, holy shit, I miss playing my telly. But even when I first started, if you see early clips of the 2000s, I was playing a telly with Bowie. You know, I went back to the Les Paul's in 2004 because he wanted a little more of that going on. Yeah. But you know, I went back, I'm back to it. I just got a Dan Electro, another lecture one.

SPEAKER_03: 1:00:23

Yeah, I don't I don't want to go down too much of a rabbit hole about brands and whatnot. You you spoke of Telly. When when you say telly, there's there's the get there's the telly body, of course, but are you talking about Fender Telecaster? That is that your go to guitar, or is it a tele body that you're talking about? No, no, no. It's either a fender. Or an ash, period. Period. Okay. Period. And then what about when what and what about from the acoustic side for you? What's what's your go-to brand of uh acoustic?

SPEAKER_00: 1:00:55

Uh Gibson would be the number one. Okay. Uh, and I got some off stuff here too, that's kind of nice. Okay. But when it comes to a good acoustic guitar, I mean, I I mean Gibson is my number one, you know. Uh I did, yeah, I've got, yeah, we we can go crazy on this stuff, but there's like one, two, three, four, there's six acoustic guitars in this room. Yeah.

SPEAKER_03: 1:01:20

You know what? I was I I was I was in uh Nashville a few years back doing an interview with a guy named Dave Rowe who played bass guitar for Johnny Cash for 11 years. I think he did some work with Dwight Yokum and John Mellenkamp. But there's a place in Nashville, if you're not familiar with it, it's called the Gibson Garage, right? And it's this I've heard of it. Absolutely. It's it's like the it's just like a, I don't know, man. It's a it's a mecca of Gibson guitars. And I can remember Slick going in there and I gravitated to this SJ200, and this thing just sounded like a canon. And that's like that that's like the guitar for for me, and I've always wanted it, but the price tag on it was, as you know, they're not cheap. They don't give those guitars away. And I had to come back to that guitar probably three different times before I bought it, but goddamn does that thing sound amazing. It's an SJ200 standard, and I've always been a Taylor guy. I've always loved Taylor, and I said, you know, so many people rant about these SJ. What is this SJ200 shit everybody keeps talking about? I tell you what, man, it is a good sounding guitar. I'm not gonna lie.

SPEAKER_00: 1:02:30

You know, there's also something about a guitar with a join neck that's a lot different because the tailors underneath there are bolt-ons. Okay, and they do do a certain thing, and they're good. They're not my cup of tea, neither is Martin for that matter. Okay. Martin's one of the best acoustic guitars ever made. But I, you know, I have actually have a Gretch here that's from the 90s, which I'm guessing was made in Japan, I think it was made in Japan. Okay. It's it sounds amazing. Wow, you know? Um, some of the most unlikely ones sound great. Interesting. Uh, you know, um, yeah, and and and the go-to, it depends what I'm doing. Yeah, you know, I'm playing a blues thing. I have a uh uh a gypsy jazz, like a Django Reinhardt one that sounds amazing for blue stuff in the studio. So you know, I use them for different things. Of course. I do. Oh yeah.

SPEAKER_03: 1:03:18

If you if you peel away the charts, the tours, and all of the noise, what does success mean to slick?

SPEAKER_00: 1:03:32

Wow. Um, what it really means to me is that I love to play guitar, I love to play music, I love to sit in with guys, I love to perform live, I love to play in the studio. To me, success is if I can do that, take care of my family and pay my mortgage, and that's all I get out of it, I'm a success. And sometimes it's like that, and sometimes it's a lot different than that. Of course. You know, but uh you know what? Uh the fact that uh, you know, there hasn't been that much going on the last couple of months, I I said, you know what? Enjoy it, play with the dog, make some fire, you know, string your guitars, make use of the time, you know? But that's it, I wouldn't be able to do that, would I? If if if uh I wasn't lucky enough, because that's how I look at it. I mean, if you could do something you love that you would do for free, but somebody wants to pay you for it, it's a no-ball. You're good, man. Yeah, and and and you know what? If I don't have to worry about the mortgage and the shit and whatever, I'm a success. And sure, there have been times in the past where things have hit the fan the wrong way, but you know what? Uh I always I always pop back.

SPEAKER_03: 1:04:50

That's for anybody though, slick, right? I mean, we all have trials and tribulations. It's called life, right? We all have to life, right? It's it's we don't, you know, even the ri even the rich people have their own sets of problems, right?

SPEAKER_00: 1:05:02

You don't better admit it.

SPEAKER_03: 1:05:04

Yeah, exactly. When you when you turn off the amp for the last time and the stories start to fade out, who do you want to be, or how do you want to be remembered? Have you ever thought much about that?

SPEAKER_00: 1:05:23

Uh a bit lately as I've gotten older. Uh I want to be remembered as a stand-up guy. That's it. I was a guitar player that was successful, but I was a stand-up guy.

SPEAKER_03: 1:05:39

I think that's synonymous with all New Yorkers, though, wouldn't you say? I I mean, you know, you talk not these days. Not these days. Okay. Maybe I'm talking about the older days, but you know, you think back to the the days of the mafia running around in in uh the the boroughs of New York, right? Everybody was a a stand-up guy. They wanted to be known as a stand-up guy, right?

SPEAKER_00: 1:06:01

I I I hey some of those guys were in my family.

SPEAKER_03: 1:06:04

Yeah, you know, yeah, a knock-around guy or whatever, right? So it means a lot, sure.

SPEAKER_00: 1:06:10

And my father, who I did not get along with at all, I'm not gonna get into that, but in hindsight, now that he's been gone for like, I don't know, 15 years, I thought, you know, the man never talked to me. He never taught me anything. But I learned things from him just by being there. Uh he was a clean, he was a cop for 30 years, NYPD. I know he wasn't dirty. The man owned the worst, the worst cars on the planet. He would be, you would buy these cars six months later, they would just they would just be in a junkyard. You know, he had nothing. And he was a straight-up guy. Uh and you know, he didn't spend the money that he needed to for his family on bullshit and gambling or whatever people do. Sure. And he took, you know, in that way he took care of things. He was a stand-up guy. A lot of ways. He had other problems, but when it came to that part, you know, as people from the outside looked at my father as he was a man of integrity. And um that's important to me. I I agree with that a hundred percent. You know, and I can be I can be that bad guy sometimes if I have to be. If it's business stuff and something gets screwy, I can lose it. I can lose my temper. I have a manager now that kind of keeps that at bay.

SPEAKER_03: 1:07:33

Well, you can't be you can't be people's doormats, or you can't be successful, you know what I mean.

SPEAKER_00: 1:07:39

You know, and people try to get over on you. And a lot of us happens to say that died with these festival things and all this bullshit that goes on. Uh, you know, but um that's always been a thing, you know. Just just do what you're doing and be straight up, man. And that's all I ask. Right. You know, but don't fuck with me. Yeah.

SPEAKER_03: 1:07:57

Because I'll fuck with you back. Right. And it's really not that hard to be a stand-up guy, but so many people struggle with that for some reason, and I don't fucking get it. I really don't get it.

SPEAKER_00: 1:08:06

You know what? I get it because I never in my life thought that I would get past my bedroom with my den electro. I didn't even have a desire to do it. I was just happy to play. Sure. And then I progressed and I got my electrics and that, but I never thought in a million years that I was gonna end up where I am, but I never thought about it. I didn't have, like I see guys when they start off, their whole goal is I'm gonna be rich, rock star, blah, blah. Never even thought about it. Now, of course, when it happened, I was quite pleased and act just as much of a jerk as any 22-year-old does at the time, but it wasn't the goal. No, no, not at the beginning. It wasn't, and it still isn't. No. Well, we talked about people that are great players, that that are the right players, that treat each other with respect, and and I'm good. And I and you know, uh, that's a choice you make too. You can make choice to have assholes in your life, or you can remove them and then put the right people in. And if you want to keep them around, you got nothing to complain about. Don't call me about that. If if you if you got some asshole that you don't want to fire or something, just fire them.

SPEAKER_03: 1:09:19

Yeah, 100%. 100%.

SPEAKER_00: 1:09:22

It sounds a bit crude, but I've done it.

SPEAKER_03: 1:09:24

Yeah, but I I I I share the sentiment with you. Like I totally get where you're coming from. I I'm a little bit wired that way myself. And maybe it's an age thing. I don't I don't know. I I don't know. I mean, again, I don't I don't want to go down.

SPEAKER_00: 1:09:40

I think I think the age makes you aware of it. Yeah, you were probably like this the whole time because you know what? Even back in the day, I got it's funny. I did an event in Liverpool at the Liverpool Philharmonic with Tony Levin and Andy Newmark, who uh Andy uh Andy played on every record, everybody, you know, uh you name it, Bowie Records, uh uh well shit, John Lennon Records, uh uh uh um Roxy Music. I mean, he was the guy too. He was his sly for a while. And then Tony Levin, who's been playing with Peter Gabriel forever, and everybody else, and uh so we we did the gig and um the promoter, the guy that does it there, John Keats, who runs the Cavern Club, uh did it, and we did Double Fantasy, and we we we got a really good group of Liverpool guys. We sold it out and it was great. So uh John says, send me, John had paid me before I even left. He goes, send me the extra expenses. So I sent him whatever it was, but then he sends me back the expenses with my whole paycheck again. He didn't even know he did it. I could have easily kept that money. Wow. I and I called back, I said, John, I said, I sent you this much. No, I go, Oh my god, yeah, I said you double paid me. I said, let me just wire you the money back, you know. Uh a lot of people, I'm not tooting my horn about that, but I also like to sleep at night. Of course, of course. And what would also, I'm not stupid, what would happen sooner or later the accountants would have picked that up, and they said, You better call Earl Sick because it appears he just stole some money from you.

SPEAKER_01: 1:11:17

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00: 1:11:18

And that's bullshit. You don't want to do that. No, it's not gonna make you friends.

SPEAKER_03: 1:11:22

No, absolutely not.

SPEAKER_00: 1:11:23

They will not be taking you out for tea when you pull that crap.

SPEAKER_03: 1:11:26

No. You know, we've we've talked a little bit about uh John Lennon. Um what's something about John's musicianship that that the fans rarely talk about, but musicians quickly recognize about about John?

SPEAKER_00: 1:11:50

Um you're not talking about vocals. Just musicianship in general. Oh my god. Uh I was very surprised when we first started the record, his guitar playing, his rhythm playing was really a killer. Matter of fact, I can equate it to Keys. It had that feel thing, you know? Uh and he know he played lead on some Beatle tunes. People don't even know. Oh, I didn't know that. Uh Get Back. That's John.

SPEAKER_01: 1:12:20

Yeah, yeah, wow.

SPEAKER_00: 1:12:21

Uh shit, there's uh oh, there's a number of things that he played lead on. You know, George did most of it, but you know, John did some stuff, and and it was really garage, crude, but really, you know what it would be? It was something that nobody else would think about. Sure. Doing. It just wasn't. And he also wrote a lot of stuff on piano, yeah. You know, so he could play piano. Now he was no Nikki Hopkins, but Christ, he could write great songs on a piano as well as a guitar. He was he was a wonderful musician. And as a vocalist, he the emotion that came out of that man's throat got you every time. I don't care whether it was a rock and roll song or a ballad or a tearjerker, he had that thing. Wow. And you know, you don't make it to that point and and and create that kind of art by mistake. People just don't like you by mistake. Right. No, no, no, no. Don't happen. Not not at that level. Not at that level. No, not especially at that level.

SPEAKER_03: 1:13:24

Did did John ever challenge you in a way that changed how you played or even thought about music?

SPEAKER_00: 1:13:35

Or not so much? Uh no, but there is a beginning to that. Because when I got the call for the record, uh, I had a manager at the time, and Jack Douglas, the producer, who also produced Cheap Trick, then Arrow Smith, and a bunch of stuff. Jack's a friend. Uh, and he said, I got an artist on producing, and the artist asked Slick to play guitar on it, and they wouldn't say who it was. So I did the math, we put it, I figured out it was John. Everybody in there but me could read music. There were session players in there. Like Hugh McCracken, the guitar player who played, Oh my god, on so many hit records. Like he was wonderful. He passed the ways back. Tony Levin at the time did a lot of sessions. He could read music, everybody could, except me. And they referred to me as the wild card. He said, John wants one street rock and roll guy in the band to offset the session, guys, and that's you. Because that's the only thing as far as that goes that John had influenced me on. Because he didn't have to influence me, you just do what you do. Sure.

SPEAKER_03: 1:14:42

So you don't read, you you don't come from that world then, right?

SPEAKER_00: 1:14:45

No, I can't, you know what? If you put a chord trunk in front of me, I'll just screw it up because I'm trying to play and look at the same time. And so if I I'm going to session cold, I I don't I say, look, you play it, play the damn track.

SPEAKER_01: 1:14:58

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00: 1:14:59

Play a song. I can hear the chords in my head, I know what they are. Wow. You know, that's a gift. That's a gift in and of itself.

SPEAKER_03: 1:15:08

And they make them my own. That's a gift in and of itself, though, Slick. You know, like uh I I read, uh, I read music, but I don't hear things like you hear, right? And that's a that's a gift that you either have or you don't. I don't, I guess you can develop it over time. Maybe you do, but you know, I've been a musician since I was a teenager, and I haven't I haven't developed it yet, brother. You know what I'm saying?

SPEAKER_00: 1:15:32

I think there's certain things that you that we all have. I don't care if it's your guitar player or a plumber or electrician, some things just come naturally to people. Okay, fair enough. And me doing it the way I do it comes naturally to me because I did a couple of the records in the 70s with the uh uh and I did one in the 2000s with Japanese artists. Oh my God. I had worked for this one producer, he really liked me. So we did the one record and it was charts, and it was a nightmare. And then the second record we did, he let me lose. But the first day in the studio, they took a whole string of sheet music and put it across a uh 24-track board with my name on it. And as soon as they walk in, they all start laughing. That's funny. Because they knew, yeah, you know, yeah, uh, yeah. I can't. I don't understand.

SPEAKER_02: 1:16:26

You're gonna be like, what the hell is all of this?

SPEAKER_00: 1:16:28

You know, and it's funny. I mean, uh in school, I was a terrible student. I mean, I got ADD to death. I mean, you know, I'll go in one room to do something real quick, and the next thing I'm in another room doing something going, how do they get here? Uh you know what I mean? That's me. But one thing though that I that I can hyper focus on real quick are my guitars. Yeah. I don't interesting. I don't do that. Like if I'm in the studio, for instance, recording something, I'm methodical. I know, you know, uh uh it's step one, two, three, four, five, six. You don't start with step five.

unknown: 1:17:08

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00: 1:17:09

You naturally step one, you you build your you build your house on a good foundation, you go from there. And that's experience though. Yep. That I had to learn that one. Yep. And and and the guys in Bowie's band, the first band that we did, the Diamond Dogs band, with Tony Newman on drums, we used to be with Beck, and then Herbie Flowers, who was one of the most famous bass players ever in Great Britain, like the uh uh the Lou Reed uh walking on the wild side, that's him. And it's two basses on that. I said, How the hell do you do that? He goes, Who's two basses? It was an upright bass and electric bass together, doing different things. You know, I learned all this stuff from these guys, you know. I learned how to play for the song when I started recording with David, as opposed to, I was always kind of good at it, but I was also young. And there'd be licks in between every vocal thing, and you know, you know, you know, you're learning, so you got all your licks in time. You learn to play for the song. Not all guitar players do that. I love coming up, and David did too. When this, no matter whether it's a rocker or whatever, there'd always be a signature kind of lick somewhere because that's a hook. Yep. Yep. It's a hook. And you know, you know, when you're in the beginning of golden years, all you hear is the first two bars, you know what you're hearing. You know what comes next. Absolutely. That's important.

SPEAKER_03: 1:18:36

How much, how much freedom did you have as a musician inside of David's world? 100%. He just let you do slick things, right?

SPEAKER_00: 1:18:47

Yeah, we would discuss things, you know, feel wise or this, that, and the other thing, but uh, I was never dictated to play this note, play that note, play this inversion of a court. He didn't know anything more about music than I did.

SPEAKER_03: 1:18:59

No kidding. Wow.

SPEAKER_00: 1:19:00

You know, so we had this sort of symbiotic relationship where we knew each other well enough. And and, you know, um, there'd be once or twice, I remember doing some bits where uh I was up stumped by the solo or something. And he'd sit with me in the in the room with amps, and we keep banging it around. He goes, Okay, try playing it kind of like this or that. He goes, Ah, got it. Now you're on the right track. And then he'd leave, he'd go in the control room, he goes, Okay, it's all on you. Which not a lot of artists can do that at that level because you're sitting, oh, you didn't play that. No, right? And the note is like, you know, one millimeter faster than the track, and who gives a shit? It's rock and roll, baby. Yeah.

SPEAKER_03: 1:19:47

It's not supposed to be perfect, right? No. No, no. Was it the Bowie or the Linen environment that you felt was more demanding on you as a player?

SPEAKER_00: 1:20:03

Neither one was because they were both so easygoing. Uh the only thing I felt with John, which is really weird, was that, you know, I'd already played with Bowie and other people before I played with John. Uh, and uh nobody ever made me nervous, right? It happened once with David, but not David in particular. But the first day of the Lennon sessions, I was nervous, you know, until I met him, and then it all went away in about five minutes. But, you know, it's a Beatle, and it was my favorite Beatle.

SPEAKER_01: 1:20:34

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00: 1:20:35

You know, because I loved what he did, not only with the Beatles, but I loved the dark side of John's writing. Because some of the really records are dark, man. I I love

SPEAKER_03: 1:20:49

I'm a melancholy guy too, right? I love the melancholy.

SPEAKER_00: 1:20:53

Talk about fucking, you know, the worst feelings you ever like. You know, songs like isolation and shit, you know. I love that stuff. I do too. You know, I'm a sucker for it. But yeah, there was there wasn't uh no, it was never pressure. And and I've done records where pressure has been so bad that now listen to record, it doesn't even sound like me. Yeah. Because I'm doing what somebody else wants to do.

SPEAKER_03: 1:21:20

It goes back to the fabrication, right? It was all fabricated because somebody wanted you to sound a certain way and not the way you sound.

SPEAKER_00: 1:21:28

You know, there are guys that do that, and my favorite guy that does that is Steve Lukather. Steve can play anything, a lot of guys can, but what they can't do that Steve does is if if you give Steve a pop record, a rock record, a blues record, and he plays on it, he sounds like a real guy playing those genres where a lot of session places don't, you know. Yeah. Crapper was able to do that, you know. Not many can do that, you know. Uh, but that's also not what the artist wants. They want that shit, they want that sterilized, perfect shit. And I've been hired for some of those records, and I was either fired or quit after time anyway. Yeah, they're not your bag, right? Yeah, and you know, whatever. I mean, you know, hire the right guy, you'll get the right shit.

SPEAKER_03: 1:22:16

Absolutely. If if John Lennon and David Bowie were both in the studio with us right now, and we were having a four-way conversation, what would you want both of them to know that you learned from them? Is there one thing that sticks out in your mind for both of them that you learned from them that you'd love to tell them that that maybe you never did?

SPEAKER_00: 1:22:44

I never had time to tell John anything because we were getting ready to go on tour and we know what happened next. Uh with David, I didn't have to say it. He knew it. He knew it. I learned a lot and he knew it. Because I would also ask him stuff. I remember a few times uh uh every once in a while somebody wanted to do a biography because you can write a biography about anybody. You're allowed. It's free speech, you know. Uh some books are sanctioned and they're authentic and they're approved by the artists, some aren't. And uh a particular book came up by a writer. I said, I don't know who this guy is. He goes, Well, he's a good writer, but you know, I said, What do I do? I said, Do I do it? Do I not do it? He said, you know what? I think you should do it because if you don't, he might put you in there and have you say words that you never said. So he said, just do it. And and that I learned a lot how to do that. I learned how to do interviews with journalists. Uh, I learned how to work a stage. Uh, I learned how to play for the song. I learned also that sometimes you got to pull your own self out of your comfort zone to do something different, which I'm about to start doing uh soon because I feel like I got a little too comfortable with certain things and I want to stop messing around. Yeah. And then I'll see what happens. And if it sucks, great. Or it might work, who knows? But if it don't try, I don't know.

SPEAKER_03: 1:24:16

Yeah, you won't ever know. Absolutely. Talk to the listeners briefly about your uh guitar line. I think there's a guitar line with your name on it, right? Can you speak to that?

SPEAKER_00: 1:24:28

Yeah. Um, as a friend of mine named Jay Aband who put together a company called guitarfetish.com years ago. Okay. Uh, and uh he he makes everything. If you need a pick guard for a strat, if you need a goddamn screw that holds a bridge in first, he's got all that, right? He makes very good products. He has two lines of guitars, and then um back from the Bowie tour, and I had I had a road case in my basement. I had no open since the tourism for two years. I'm like, what the hell's in there? So I pulled out a shitload of these black leather straps. I'm going, what am I gonna do with this crap? I had none, I had I was bored, so I got my sander out and I beat them up a little bit and I put some artwork on them and I started wearing them. And they were cool. As a matter of fact, Steve Luca just got one of the first ones. He wears it sometimes. And uh long story short, I said, you know what? Maybe, you know, um, I used to visit Jay once in a while anyway, because he lived in Massachusetts. You know, it was a three-hour drive. So I went to visit, and I didn't say a word to him, brought my straps over, some new ones. I threw them on the kitchen table. He goes, What's that? I said, I made those. He goes, we're gonna do those. So we started a strap line and it took off very well. And then I started doing it with some guitars. Uh, you know, pulling them apart, repainting the bodies, doing weird shit to them. So we, matter of fact, the first of the stressed bodies beat up guitars was us. Oh wow. Because it was been a long time ago. And we started the line and we use good stuff on them. You know, we're using good brass bridges and brass twins. We do it, you know, uh for the price. Uh, if it had a name on it, like a bigger company name on it, it would probably be twice as much as we sell them for.

SPEAKER_01: 1:26:23

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00: 1:26:24

You know, and they work great. You know, they are. They're really good. Now, the only thing that's happened lately is I've taken a beating because of uh people are afraid to spend money. We got tariffs and stuff like that. So the orange menace has cost me some fucking money this year. But, you know, what we uh I just designed a whole new line uh for it, you know, uh because the only complaint we ever got ever was some of them were too heavy.

unknown: 1:26:52

Okay.

SPEAKER_00: 1:26:53

Right? And I love lightweight guitars, so we found the place, we got the wood, and we got the weight down by two and a half pounds. And they're gonna be really killer. We're looking at March to release them. So they're not less Paul heavy, huh? Here um, oh, you know what? I noticed lately, uh I picked up a Brad Paisley uh uh Esquire from Fender. Okay, men, they're really good, you know, and they're inexpensive. And I was in Canada when I bought it, and I went to a store. This guy had about 200 tellies in the store, and I picked some of them up and they weighed like Les Paul's. I didn't have to play them to know they were not gonna sound like a telecaster. Yeah. Part of what a tele sound is, it is a lightweight body, and the resonance of the body has a lot to do with the outcome of sound. Of course. So I love lightweight because it's not, you know, look, I went through my 12-pound guitars for years on stage, you know. Matter of fact, I had tennis elbow after the last Bowie tour because I kept every time I switch guitars with my right hand, right? God damn, these weigh 12 pounds, you know. Uh, but uh I I prefer, you know, uh a proper telly with the old school three-piece bridge. Yep. A telly a telly. Yeah. Period. But you know, we make variations on the theme because obviously it's a business and we want to make sure we got plenty of colors and styles, and that's what we do. That's awesome. You know, it's a nice little side business, and and and we also have slick pickups and stuff, and you know, yeah, it's part of a big company. It's it's in guitar fetish.

SPEAKER_03: 1:28:33

So, so if someone is looking to learn to play guitar or is an intermediate player or an advanced player, where where can someone go to purchase one of these guitars, Slick?

SPEAKER_00: 1:28:48

In terms of going to a store, you mean or store or online, right? I don't know if you have a website or something where no, they can go, they can go to guitarfetish.com and they'll see Slick products, they'll see the guitars there, right? Okay. Uh I always tell the beginners, get an acoustic guitar, get somebody to set it up, because you know, they're not gonna have a lot of money. And sometimes the strings are about, you know, three inches off the fretboard. I say, get something halfway decent, have somebody put the right strings, set it up so you don't get frustrated and quit, so you can play it. Because I think if you can make an acoustic guitar sound good, you're on your way.

SPEAKER_03: 1:29:30

Well, they say if you can play it on an acoustic, you can play it on anything, right?

SPEAKER_00: 1:29:35

Pretty much, yeah. And you know what? There's a lot of halfway decent brands out now coming from everybody everywhere that you know buying them online's a bitch though, especially if you're new. You don't know what you're gonna get. Yeah, you gotta it's a feel thing, right? Yeah, you don't know. Uh the only thing I bought online, it was an accident. Last February or something, or January, uh I said, Oh, I watched the Zeppelin thing, right? And I'm seeing Jimmy play that black Danelectro. I go, you know, I miss my Danelectro. Maybe I should get one. So I go online to order it, and something got screwed up. I said, fuck it, right? Well, I guess it went through. So last July, out of nowhere, a delivery company, I get a thing, UPS delivery. I didn't buy anything. It was a guitar. I guess they were back ordered. And I called up the place I got it from, and they said, You want to send it back? He said, No, actually, I already opened it up. It's great. I'm having fun. You know, I mean, those guitars don't cost a lot of money. You know, uh, it almost depends what they want. Do you want a metal guitar? What do you what's the you know? I always tell people when they learn things too, is uh whether it's they want to learn, they want to learn guitar, for instance. Uh, I said, listen to the stuff that really gets you going. Yeah. The stuff that hits you. And learn that first. You know, um, that's the way to do it. I mean, you know, uh, unless they're really adamant on reading, and I tell them, go find a good teacher or a school that can do it. You know, I've just done some uh, I did I did a uh couple days of seminars and stuff at Berkeley College in Boston. So when he called my manager, going, why these kids know more about me than I do? I can't read or anything. They can. He said, that's not why they want you there. They want you to sit with the kids, play along with them, and talk to them about what happens when they leave. How do they make money doing it?

unknown: 1:31:39

Okay.

SPEAKER_03: 1:31:40

Interesting.

SPEAKER_00: 1:31:41

And that's that's kind of why I was, yeah. I'm doing another one, I think, in the spring. Okay.

SPEAKER_03: 1:31:45

You know what you you just made me think of something. So my my oldest son, Brandon, is a hell of a player. Uh, he's probably played, I don't know, probably a handful of shows with me over the years, but does not yearn for any stage. He's uh he's uh I like playing in my my music room at home, and that's that. I don't want to play for anybody else, but he's a phenomenal guitarist. Without dad telling him what he needs to do, what would what would Earl Slick say to a musician like that that secludes themselves and doesn't get out and play with other musicians or try to play some live shows? What would you say to somebody like that? What advice would you give them to get out of that?

SPEAKER_00: 1:32:37

I would I would basically ask them question number one. Uh obviously you like to play. Yeah, I love to play along with my records and stuff. I said, Do you do you want to do anything else? You want to mean not really, I kind of like this. Conversation over. Yep. Or they say, Yeah, I just don't know what to do next. Yeah. So the next thing I tell them is find some like-minded guys that like the same kind of music you do, that can play at least halfway decent, find a little she rearse room someplace and play and have fun and see what happens. Maybe it'll turn into something, maybe it won't, but you you know, being in a room with other people, man, what a difference.

SPEAKER_03: 1:33:18

Yeah, so you would agree that playing with other musicians makes you a better musician in and of itself, right?

SPEAKER_00: 1:33:26

Oh, not only that, it makes the it makes the track and the song better. You know, uh now I I do uh 90% of the work I get comes from the UK, right? I'll get the files for the record and it and they want me to overdub, you know. They give me free reign. I'll do rhythm tracks and I'll put guitars on it. It's good and it's fun, but man, when I'm I'm in a room with a drummer, man, that's when the magic happens. Especially the drummer, drummer bass player, that's how I start. The rhythm section. Every time. Matter of fact, that's what I'm gonna do. Uh 8th of January, I think I'm going in to cut this new track. And the bass player that was in the band, I wouldn't happy with. You know what? All I need is me and Zach Alfred to cut the basic. I'll do the rest. There you go. As long as me and him do it, the feel's there. You can't argue with it. You got the rhythm guitar player and you got the drummer. You got it.

SPEAKER_03: 1:34:25

Yep. And that's a great segue into talking about um any upcoming projects or music that you can or you want to speak of, right? You spoke of that. Is there anything else that the listeners of Backstage Pass Radio might you might want them to know about you, right? We're hurting uh almost 135 countries.

SPEAKER_00: 1:34:52

They're gone. And that's basically because we all got older. Some of us aren't here anymore. Those things don't happen. And the last thing I'm gonna, I've seen some clips of some guys doing gigs that are out of shape, and they got the name of the band, and they're still out touring, and I go, oh my god, no, I can't. I can't do it. You know? Uh, so I love recording and I love this new, this artist that I'm working with, and that's why I got Zach Alfred to sit in with me. We're gonna do that. And then I've got this idea in my head that I it's been hard to me explain to anybody. I'm gonna have to go in the studio with a drummer, which is gonna be Zach, and screw around and see what happens. You know, uh, if I can get what it is in my head out, because I want to make another record this year. Uh also doing, I just I finished the new Kill a Star record, which just came out, and I'm doing two uh guest uh uh spots with him in London in March. Um we have a big event coming up at the end of the year, which I can't really say too much about yet. Uh and also while I'm in in London, another friend of mine uh who uh I I've done some work with before uh has access to uh I'm not gonna mention his name, but a well-known uh guy uh uh in in Britain that we could use the studio. So we're gonna just go cut a couple tracks, and every time I go there, my phone rings and somebody wants me to do something. That's awesome, man. You know? Uh so that's kind of where my I love sitting in with people, and uh I'm really liking making records because my producer chops got good. And I love playing live. I do, but it's got to be the right thing. Yeah, you know. Uh I love sitting in with guys. If you know, I get calls so and so on town, oh, come up and sit in. Great. I don't have desire to put together a band. Uh I I mean I I can think of a few artists that I that you know that I would love if they called me, I I'd go and do it. Hell yeah.

SPEAKER_01: 1:37:01

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00: 1:37:01

You know, but as far as anything coming up, uh it's it's a lot of uh hit and miss. Um I'm doing a lot of experimenting in this year coming up. That's good. But I was gonna say You know there'll be another killer star record before the year's over. You know, they'll be they pop up, these things just pop up.

SPEAKER_03: 1:37:21

Right on. Well, isn't it great to be relevant? It's great to be relevant, right?

SPEAKER_00: 1:37:28

It is. Yes. And that's the part that makes me happy. Yeah. I'm still, I mean, some of the guys I worked with lately, god damn it, they're 30, 40 years younger than me. Yeah. And if you think about it, when I first started, if there was a guy 30 or 40 years ago, I go, Are you kidding me? I mean shit. I I took two lessons, right? And they the guy tried to teach me, the guy was maybe he was 25 or 30, 30 at tops. Sure. And when I went, I'm going, I I don't want to do this lesson with this old man, and I quit. Old man, he was 30.

SPEAKER_03: 1:38:08

Yeah, wow. Times have changed, man. Yeah, they really have. Where can the listeners find uh find you on social media if they're out looking for, I don't know, merchandise, videos, like where can the the best thing to do is there is a there isn't Earl Slick.net.

SPEAKER_00: 1:38:28

Okay. Uh, and then there's the Earl Slick official Facebook page. Okay. Because I have the original one that I did before they had the band pages, right? But I can't, I want to get rid of it, but I can't, because if you get rid of it, then the other one goes with it. You're stuck with it. Thank you, Mark Zuckerberg, for just, you know, stuck in that. Sorry I gotta bring these assholes' names up, but they're always causing some kind of problem. Uh no, yeah, Earl Sick official, my manager does it. I hate social media. I don't want to even look at the shit. But I did, I posted something yesterday that it was the first post I've done since February. Uh, and uh we'll leak something out now, uh, and it won't backfire at all. Uh, David Johansson was one of my best friends, and he passed away last uh uh 28th of February. And the only regret after he died, I said, you know, we always talked about making a record together, you know, because we did the dolls tour, he did the Rocker Hall of Fame things with me. We we we we did thought we did things, you know, but he never made the record. But then I remembered in 2011, we went to the Clubhouse Studios in New York and we caught two tracks. So about a week or two after David died, I had them pull the tracks. I said, holy shit, they're good. And Mick Morris co-wrote, this is a funny story. Mick Mars and me and Johansen co-wrote. Wow. Right? Yeah, and um, I didn't have to fix anything or add anything, they needed to be mixed and everything. So they're mixed. They're at the pressing plant in Germany now, and we're gonna release when I when I originally would it would be like you know, slick Johansson Mars or something, but it's gonna be David Johansson. On the bottom, it'll say featuring me and me, you know, because it's it's for David. It's it's my tribute to David that it's something that we didn't do. So that will be out that I think pre-sale start in January. Okay. Good to know. Yeah. Um and and you know, yeah, I'm sometime I'm gonna bet, you know, when I get back from England uh after March, I will probably be back in the studio messing around to see, you know, all I need is four, I'll go in there. For four days, and after four days, I'll know whether I'm barking up the right tree. Sure, sure. Oh, I also do, I just finished. Well, I didn't finish, I started. Uh, I'm very friendly with the Indian nations. You're allowed to say that, by the way. I asked them. Uh, it's the Ondaga Nation, which is part of the Iroquois, that whole Northeast Indians, and I became friends with them years ago. And the chief son, Orin Lyons, who's still he's 95, and he's still running around a planet. Uh, he's amazing. And his son, Rex uh, as Ben, and he's a great guitar player, and we just got some really good old blues tracks. Wow. We really did. The last one we released a couple years ago, I actually got a NAMI, is it a Nama? Native American Music Awards, right? They have their own Grammy thing. I was the only white guy that won best blues album. No kidding. You know, so I go up and do stuff with them. And that's not a money gig, man. That's a labor of love. Yeah, and it's great, you know. I love doing that kind of stuff. Uh, and you know, I always know that the future holds something that we don't get to know until it happens. So who the hell knows might happen would happen next year? I don't know. Exactly. And you know what? I like it like that. It's kind of cool. Some people have to know everything. I don't need to know what I'm having for dinner. Yeah. I don't need to know what's happening next week. I get it. I get it.

SPEAKER_03: 1:42:13

You know, and I'll be here next week, so it's a moot point. Yeah. You you dropped the name just a second ago. I wanted to just touch on that before we wrap up, but you uh you spoke of Mick Mars. And you know, I've over the years I've always been a crew fan, you know. I think they there's been a lot of scrutiny with the band uh in in the recent years. But from your chair, what what do you think of Mick Mars playing? Are you a fan of Mick Mars in general?

SPEAKER_00: 1:42:43

He's a great guitar player.

SPEAKER_03: 1:42:45

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00: 1:42:45

And one of the nicest guys I've ever met in my life, and we're very close friends. Yeah. Really great musician, you know. I mean, the first I hadn't met Mick until 2011 when the dolls opened up for Motley on some dates. And he came over, introduced himself to the eye, and you know, I said, Man, it's great to see her out still touring doomslow. He goes, God, you know, I was so jealous of you, man, when Station and Station came out. I was playing that shit in a bar. Yeah. You know, he's a humble man, and and he's a great guitar player, man.

SPEAKER_03: 1:43:20

Yeah. Well, you know what? I not talking shit about the band at all, but you know, you read comments and trade rags and all the things, and you know, they said, you know, the I guess um what word am I looking for? Oh, I don't know why I'm drawing a blank on it. It was like the talent level. The talent level of Motley Crue was here, but Mick Mars was like on another level from the other guys in the band. No shit.

SPEAKER_01: 1:43:52

Yeah, yeah.

SPEAKER_00: 1:43:53

Look, Nikki's a good friend of mine. Okay, an adequate bass player on a good day, and I think he knows that. Yep. Uh the singer's a screamer. I don't know what the hell he's doing, but you know what? It worked for them at the beginning. It really did. Absolutely. They had it together, you know, because look at look what they look like. Their whole thing came from the New York, the truth, the clothes came from the dolls. Yeah, you know, it was the whole thing. Uh, I've seen Tommy play where he's really good. Drummer. You know, um, trickery doesn't help his credibility. I mean, we like to tour. He had this thing that spun around upside down. I'm going, okay, whatever. But you know, everybody has a gimmick of some kind.

SPEAKER_03: 1:44:34

Yep.

SPEAKER_00: 1:44:36

Well, we've covered the gimmick is just me.

SPEAKER_03: 1:44:38

Yeah. Well, we've covered a lot of we covered a lot of ground here, Slick. What did what did I miss uh that that we didn't cover that I wanted to give you uh the soapbox or the podium to talk about? I don't know if we we missed anything that was near and dear to your heart, but I mean you you're one of those guys that I could talk to for seven hours and probably not certainly not cover everything. And I wanted to just make sure that if there was anything um, you know, that that was near and dear to your heart that that you that we talked about it, right? So I wanted to open up that podium to you.

SPEAKER_00: 1:45:16

You know, I I think it's a getting older thing. Uh I I had a I you know, I lost not only a few dear friends lately, but some acquaintances and people. And uh it bothers me a bit. It does. It it it it uh it just twists my head around the hair, you know. Uh and I uh I'm conscious of staying relevant in a way. And the only way I do it is I just do what I do. I go, if you change who you are, you you won't be relevant, you know? And uh and and I don't know, I mean, as far as aspirations go, uh you know, I mean, I would love to be able to go out and do a tour with somebody that was compatible to what I do that that knew and I could have fun with. And of all people who I'd love to go spend some time on stage with Eddie Vetter. Oh yeah, wow. I love Eddie. I love what he does, but and I love what he does when he assists with his acoustic, and he'll do John Lennon songs and shit. I mean, he's got that together. Uh, you know, and there's a few other buddies of mine I want to do some, but I know, you know, uh other than the fact that uh the young guys right now, uh I don't know how the hell they're gonna make it because there's this falsehood that the internet is gonna do it. It ain't gonna do shit. Um, you know what it does? I mean, if if you if you're really good into politics, maybe, uh, and you know how to speak properly, or you're an asshole, you know, like you got a Tucker Carlson or some other jerk off that that spout shit, sure, you can be famous and make money on the internet. When it comes to art and music, I've seen some guitar players that have blown my mind. But they're not gonna, you know, that's they're not gonna go anywhere. But, you know, I look at the young guys and I think, man, I don't even know what to say, how to start. I said the first thing you probably need to do is to get in a room with a bunch of guys that you really feel are the right guys and start playing, and obviously use the social media to promote yourself, but I I don't know where to tell them to go from there because it's a whole new world. Because the record companies now, they want a mixed record done.

SPEAKER_03: 1:47:47

They want a silver platter, and it's like, well, you know, it's a it's just a different world, period. You know what's interesting about that that thought, Slick, is that I've had my friend Tony Carey, who was with Rainbow uh on my show a couple of times, and I asked Tony, how how has the music business changed since you know the 70s and the 80s? He's like, you know, we used to go out and you know, with Rainbow and sell millions of records, and that's how we got paid, right? Now we're fucking glorified t-shirt salesmen. We sell merch to make money, right? It's crazy how the industry has changed with with social media and the internet and streaming and all that.

SPEAKER_00: 1:48:32

You know, and that's one of the things I have conversations with the guys in my age group, uh, even down to your age, where it's like there's a lot of resentment about it, going, dude, you know, things changed. It used to be a manual transmission, then it was an automatic transmission, and then it was a shitty radio, then it was a good radio. Then there was a uh uh a clay record that that ran at 78 RPM that broke if he dropped it. So they started making other ones out of vinyl, which went 33 in the third or whatever. Then that became old, and then they started tapes and NCDs is always changing, right? Yep. Uh having said that though, uh, I think the chances of getting, I don't think this is gonna sound like a negative thing. This also has to do with society. Elvis did not happen by accident, neither did the Stones, neither did the Beatles, neither did a whole lot of other bands. Those those artists reflected the times. Of course. They did. And that's what got the attention to their music, and that changed the world. You know, I mean, Elvis, think about it. I mean, he he he loved gospel stuff. You know? At first, you know, when he started, they would oh, look at that guy, man. He's he he's an N-word lover guy because he likes the black music and stuff, right? Uh but then he he put black shoe polish in his hair and he got some clothes and he was good, and he got Scottie Moore, and he got all these guys, and he made great records. He had great writers. And and it that happened because he was rebelling against the straight-ass bullshit McCarthyism period of the 1950s, which anybody listening don't know what I'm talking about. Look up McCarthyism and you'll see it happening now to a degree, actually. And then the 60s went from that 50s thing was still there. Everybody looked the same, got the same haircut, wore the same clothes. And if you didn't do that, you're a freak. Then there was kind of a rebellion. Everybody's growing their hair and doing all the rest of that stuff. And the music started to reflect that. And every decade it happens and happens and happens. Now we're dealing with stuff that's done electronically, right? Now there are some artists that can write songs and sing. Uh uh, but I don't know what their chances are. Like if you take uh and I even even somebody's artists aren't brand new, you look at Gaga, right? And the first time I saw Gaga, I said, uh uh, there goes the little Madonna impersonator. Well, when I saw that woman sit down in the piano and sing, I cried. Yeah. She wrote a song for a movie that put me in tears. She's amazing. Yes, she is. Uh, and even you look at Madonna, right? Not a great singer, but Christ Almighty, she knows what she's doing or she wouldn't still be here. But I don't know how you do that now. I'm not even sure how Taylor Swift has pulled it off. I don't know. She sure has, though. Simbi Myers, because she had the opportunity to be a child star, but that song Flowers that she that she did was well worth winning an award for. I think it's a great song.

SPEAKER_01: 1:51:49

I agree.

SPEAKER_00: 1:51:50

You know, they're still there, but as far as a band goes, I don't know what to say.

SPEAKER_01: 1:51:55

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00: 1:51:55

You know, uh what do you do? I mean, because I know that if they go to a club and book a club, they're not gonna get paid anything. And then the clubs want them to bring an audience that, you know, it's uh that's where I got baffled. But I I I did, when I did spend time with the kids at Berkeley, I did have some ideas for them and stuff like that. But I did tell them this is what's going on, and don't rely on your Facebook, Instagram, and TikTok to have a career, unless you do weird TikTok shit, but it's got nothing to do with music. Yeah, exactly. I don't know. You don't know what to tell them. No, you really don't. You know, you just uh do that all fucking day.

SPEAKER_03: 1:52:41

I don't know. Exactly. Well, Slick, listen, you know, I I I really want to thank you uh for the chat, not not just for the stories or the history, but for the honesty. You know, you you you don't or didn't have to go as deep as you did, so that means a lot that you chose to. Uh, I I think that your your music has been part of the soundtrack for so many people, uh, but hearing some of those stories is the real gift. So thank you for that. And I'm genuinely grateful that you spent time with me. So I very much appreciate that.

SPEAKER_00: 1:53:14

It was fun, man. It's good having, you know, just shooting the shit, and you know, uh, and I was a good boy, and I I didn't attack the politicians. There was a jab here and there, but I we could have done that for three hours. And you know, they would have been coming after you to throw you after that.

SPEAKER_03: 1:53:31

That's right, that's right, that's right. Well, you guys make sure to follow uh Slick on all of his social media platforms, including the website at uh www.earlslick.net. I also ask the listeners to like, share, and subscribe to the podcast on Facebook at BackstagePass Radio Podcast, on Instagram at Backstage Pass Radio, and on the website at backstagepassradio.com. You guys to make sure you take care of yourselves and each other, and we'll see you right back here on the next episode of Backstage Pass Radio.

SPEAKER_00: 1:54:05

Yeah, and it's the Earl Slick official page.

SPEAKER_03: 1:54:08

Earl Slick official page. Yeah, you guys heard it from the man.

SPEAKER_00: 1:54:11

Yeah, Earl Sick official, and then you'll see all the new stuff. You know, this week there's nothing going on, so I went out and played with my dog, and you know what? They love it. I'm having fun. They like it's awesome, man.

SPEAKER_03: 1:54:24

Stick around, I'm gonna sign off or I'll come back and chat with you in just a second.

SPEAKER_02: 1:54:29

Thank you for tuning into this episode of Backstage Pass Radio. Backstage Pass Radio. We hope you enjoyed this episode and gained some new insights into the world of music. Backstage Pass Radio is heard in over 80 countries, and the streams continue to grow each week. If you loved what you heard, don't forget to subscribe, rate, and leave reviews on your favorite podcast platform. Your feedback means the world to us and helps us bring you even more amazing content. So join us next time for another deep dive into the stories and sounds that shape our musical landscape. Until then, keep listening, keep exploring, and keep the passion of music alive.