Insights In Sound 75 – Mr Bonzai, Author/Artist – S8, E5

0:00welcome to insights and sound where we talk to the people behind the scenes behind the technology and behind the music people you may not know but you should and
0:1010 secondsplease check out getitinwriting.net/shows for a full list of our podcast youtube series [Laughter]
0:2020 secondsmy guest is mr banzai he is an internationally renowned journalist artist photographer so many
0:2929 secondsother things he’s got you’ve got probably a more diverse and confusing career than i do which is
0:3535 secondssaying quite a bit you’ve been all over the map and done a whole lot of different things can you
0:4040 secondssort of summarize it in 30 words or less or well i was thinking about this you know i i’m hoping that
0:4747 secondspeople will see this and i don’t expect them to follow my steps because i don’t know if you can
0:5353 secondsever do that again but if you see something in my life that goes oh that’s interesting
0:5959 secondsi think you have to be very open-minded and also when i was in my when i graduated from
1:061 minute, 6 secondscollege i noticed that everybody was starting to think about their future and planning or not
1:171 minute, 17 secondsplanning this was kind of the extended summer of love you might say i was going to say this is the
1:231 minute, 23 secondsmid-60s when priorities were changing right i noticed that most people by the age of 25
1:321 minute, 32 secondshad either decided to get a job like knuckle down and bite the bullet and start organizing that way
1:411 minute, 41 secondsor they just said ah screw it i’m just gonna see what happens well i’m kind of the the first school
1:481 minute, 48 secondsi graduated with a degree in english literature after uh studying three years here and one year
1:571 minute, 57 secondsin scotland um so was your goal to be involved in academia or no i i think it was when i was a kid i
2:052 minutes, 5 secondswanted to be a teacher but then i got over that uh i started writing poetry in high school i was kind
2:122 minutes, 12 secondsof post beatnik pre-hippie but i did dress sort of like manergy crabs with a cut off sweatshirt
2:202 minutes, 20 secondsand went to high school i didn’t have a beard i don’t think you could have a beard in high school and although i did see a i did see a photo of you and you sort of looked like an uh an
2:302 minutes, 30 secondsextra on a monty python sketch with the the little mustache and whatnot it was quite dapper well when
Chapter 2: Career Goals
2:362 minutes, 36 secondsi moved to la uh i saw it because i sold a story i figured i’m legit now i’m a writer i sold a story
2:452 minutes, 45 secondsafter publishing for two years in an airline magazine with no pay they were going to pay me
2:502 minutes, 50 secondsso small an amount i said look don’t pay me don’t change one word i was really you know i had a way
2:592 minutes, 59 secondsthat i wanted people to read my work and um so i i i get back to the way people are growing
3:093 minutes, 9 secondslet’s see what was your question my question was what your did you actually have goals in terms of a career because you mentioned that you were of the former well in college yes i
3:193 minutes, 19 secondswanted to be a writer you want to be a writer and then you felt that that was how you were going to make your living quote unquote well i have to tell you i first enrolled as a philosophy major
3:293 minutes, 29 secondsand that pays well yeah but i studied with dr daniel dennett who’s world-renowned outrageous
3:363 minutes, 36 secondsprofessor now we’re still in touch i did a portrait of him in wire two years ago and
3:413 minutes, 41 secondshe’s going to use it as his head shot oh i’d love it so we’re still in touch and he remembered me
3:483 minutes, 48 secondsbecause i was a member of the gorilla theater and stuff like that and in college um
3:553 minutes, 55 secondsbut i that didn’t work out when i got to medieval philosophy i couldn’t i couldn’t
4:014 minutes, 1 secondhandle it so i i switched over to english with an emphasis on creative writing and i started
4:074 minutes, 7 secondskeeping a journal like rainer maria milka and i’ve kept a journal from the 60s until
4:144 minutes, 14 secondsi moved to l.a in the 80s probably the mid 80s and then i picked up a camera and that became
4:204 minutes, 20 secondsyou know the follow-up of the journal but i did keep an elaborate journal about all those years
4:274 minutes, 27 secondsin between well that’s one of the things that i think is interesting though is that you have always melded the visual and the verbal that was in my mind but uh and when i first started doing
Chapter 3: Visuals Writing
4:394 minutes, 39 secondsinterviews first interview was with van dyke parks oh wow who who introduced me to
4:474 minutes, 47 secondsharry nilsson and timothy leary and a bunch of other people and i for that interview i brought a
4:554 minutes, 55 secondsbottle of beaujolais jado and it be and he didn’t want to do the interview because there was a
5:025 minutes, 2 secondsfamily thing going on but i convinced him i’m on deadline my first deadline and uh
5:095 minutes, 9 secondsit worked out and i uh i realized then that all that writing stuff uh was where i wanted to go
5:185 minutes, 18 secondsthe first interviews i actually did a drawing of van dyke and i would have them sign it for this
5:255 minutes, 25 secondsstory in mix and uh after a couple of these you know with michael palin from monty python it was
5:325 minutes, 32 secondsjust taking too long to set up into a portrait drink a bottle of wine do an interview so i
5:395 minutes, 39 secondsstarted bringing a little olympus clamshell camera little black and white camera which i used for
5:465 minutes, 46 secondsphotographs that are still look great of les paul in his home studio and a couple years later
5:535 minutes, 53 secondsi met my wife who’s a japanese artist and i wanted to document her work so then i got a big camera
6:006 minutesa nikon things developed along those lines simultaneously but i didn’t stop drawing either
6:076 minutes, 7 secondsi haven’t made a big splash in the art world but i continued to do it uh until today so you’re right
6:136 minutes, 13 secondsthere is a combo thing going on with visuals and writing that’s what i wanted to mention to
6:216 minutes, 21 secondsour whoever is watching is that you know if you can get a couple of skills down that you can be
6:286 minutes, 28 secondsuse them in many different ways writing good communication is essential it also makes you look
6:366 minutes, 36 secondsyou know like you’re intelligent if you can write correctly and if you can’t you look like a dope
6:426 minutes, 42 secondsthen um as far as visuals go uh you know it’s easy it’s much easier now than it is
6:506 minutes, 50 secondsthan it was for me because i figured out the way i shoot i was explaining to you that the way i shoot
6:556 minutes, 55 secondsnow is with a tripod a big camera a very wide angle uh cinematic lens and i use a flash on in my
7:047 minutes, 4 secondshand so that i can i can find localize the light and with digital you can find out immediately
7:127 minutes, 12 secondsit took weeks and with analog film to get it back and go you know this doesn’t work well you know what’s funny about that is i was just having
7:227 minutes, 22 secondsa conversation the other day with uh a record producer and we were talking about the idea of
7:287 minutes, 28 secondswalking around the room and listening to where things sound good you know and i love that
7:357 minutes, 35 secondsschmidt and bruce well you know so many of us share the same philosophy that al helped to foster
7:427 minutes, 42 secondsbut i think that that’s one of the things that is remarkable to me about what we can do with digital
7:487 minutes, 48 secondsbecause you can really localize everything and use these things as a tool and change the result yeah
7:547 minutes, 54 secondsbecause i was telling you when i started out i had a big flash i’m photographing bonnie raitt and i
8:018 minutes, 1 secondrealized that it was going to take two seconds to recharge and this was not going to work she
8:078 minutes, 7 secondswas kind enough to let me bust in on her session i better get in and get out right and be a fly on
8:148 minutes, 14 secondsthe wall and disruptive as minimally as possible yeah because i was a recording engineer oh by the
8:208 minutes, 20 secondsway yeah yeah i after college i i was in a theater group called um strange mouth our motto was
8:318 minutes, 31 secondsin the great oral tradition and um i started doing gorilla theater in college then we had a theater
8:398 minutes, 39 secondsafter graduation we put on a 50-hour play it was we actually did a play each night and just slept
8:478 minutes, 47 secondson the stage a dj came down at midnight probably fried out of his brains on acid and we did the
8:558 minutes, 55 secondswhole show for him alone in the audience he he went to the radio station he worked for and said
9:029 minutes, 2 secondswell we got to hire these guys they’re great so we got hired as a comedy group but that ended up
9:089 minutes, 8 secondsme doing commercials because we were funny and we could write and we did radio commercials
Chapter 4: Storytelling
9:169 minutes, 16 secondsfirst of all i want to say i’m hanging on for dear life here at all these twists and turns yeah but
9:209 minutes, 20 secondsi think you know we’ve talked about this offline before you and i how uh how we’ve had such diverse
9:289 minutes, 28 secondscareers and really just kind of following the muse and following the the connections where they go
9:339 minutes, 33 secondsbut there’s a common thread here that i think is really interesting and it’s storytelling and i’ve
9:409 minutes, 40 secondsalways considered myself a storyteller and i’ve always considered you one as well and i think all of these all of these different mediums that you’re talking about all of these different
9:499 minutes, 49 secondsadventures chapters of your own career whatever it is they’ve all involved telling stories in some way or another and getting stories from people and well and i think that’s the thing too
9:599 minutes, 59 secondsbecause it’s not just telling the story it’s being able to get the subject of that story to open up
10:0610 minutes, 6 secondsin such a way that you get those little gems yeah i don’t know it’s like record production
10:1010 minutes, 10 secondsyeah it is i don’t know exactly why it is but people uh start unloading their lives
10:1810 minutes, 18 secondsto me i think the value is getting inside that person’s head to be able to pull those
10:2610 minutes, 26 secondsthoughts out of them pull those that spontaneity out well maybe
10:3210 minutes, 32 secondsthe way that i work is is because uh well you know mr bonsai doesn’t have a driver’s license
10:4010 minutes, 40 secondsthis this pseudonym nom de plume stuff started when i was in radio
10:4710 minutes, 47 secondsbecause i really didn’t want people to come knocking on my door because of some of the
10:5110 minutes, 51 secondsthings that i said on the air so i at first it was david strange mouth the comedy group broke up this
10:5910 minutes, 59 secondsis where i learned about production too because i could probably cut i cut you know i could cut 60
11:0811 minutes, 8 secondsbits into a one minute commercial if they were recognizable bits of music like aqua lump
11:1711 minutes, 17 secondsthat’s all you need yeah and you know i cut commercials for beatles uh collections and of course and this is all on analog tape by the way right oh yeah yeah with a razor blade and
11:2711 minutes, 27 secondseverything oh yeah i i you know i barely know anything about digital but here’s a side light
11:3311 minutes, 33 secondsi started making money uh as a ghostwriter to introduce this new thing called digital audio
11:4011 minutes, 40 secondsto the professional audio industry oh my so you know i met with the head guys at sony this is
11:4711 minutes, 47 secondswhere i learned about public relations because i was nobody else knew how to to explain this
11:5211 minutes, 52 secondswell i had advertising background and radio i’m a writer you know i after my years in radio
12:0112 minutes, 1 secondproduction and i was pretty good you know and working with people as a voice-over artist and
12:0612 minutes, 6 secondsother djs and stuff i quit radio again we get back to this i changed my life about every five years
Chapter 5: Serendipity and Trust
12:1512 minutes, 15 secondsand and i want to i want to divert to that for a moment because you’re you’re kind of bouncing into all of these different things oh and i did this and i did this and i’ve been the
12:2512 minutes, 25 secondssame way i’ve been you know i think a lot of it comes down to a combination of serendipity and trust because you just trust what the universe is going to throw at you but you know i recently
12:3512 minutes, 35 secondshad a conversation with a friend who’s also been in the music business his whole life and
12:4112 minutes, 41 secondsone of the things that we talked about was the idea of success not necessarily having to be a
12:4712 minutes, 47 secondspermanent thing you do something you’re successful at it do you keep doing that at infinitum or
12:5412 minutes, 54 secondsdo you say you know what i’ve done that i’ve had that experience now i’m going to move on to something else well you know sometimes fate tells you absolutely that’s your principle you
13:0413 minutes, 4 secondsrise to the top of your talent and that’s it yeah and if you’re if you’re somebody who is
13:1113 minutes, 11 secondsa lot of times motivated by learning something new you know i i joke around a lot about myself being a lead actor in short attention span theater i think you know once you’ve gotten to the point
13:2113 minutes, 21 secondswhere you’ve done something you say oh you know i’ve done that that’s good i i enjoyed that now
13:2713 minutes, 27 secondswhat’s what’s that over there you know you know for me it was more frustration it was it that uh
13:3313 minutes, 33 secondsyou know i i just didn’t like doing this anymore or i got tired of it i or i thought that i so i
13:4013 minutes, 40 secondswas a big shot in canada montreal radio creative director of the number one station in canada
13:4613 minutes, 46 secondsand i you know i i almost became a canadian citizen but i decided to bag it and come come
13:5413 minutes, 54 secondsback to california via jamaica and florida and i was in car accidents and stuff and
14:0014 minutesi ended up in california recuperating from a back broken back and i found a story about a
14:1014 minutes, 10 secondsyoung guy who had opened a recording studio a young brother of a girl i dated in college so i
14:1614 minutes, 16 secondsgot in touch with him i ended up you know working in a real recording studio and again after five
14:2414 minutes, 24 secondsyears um i we built it up from eight tracks to 24 i’ve got credit on a stevie wonder album and
14:3114 minutes, 31 secondsworked with edgar winter and people like this but i didn’t know how to fix these kind of things was this the inspiration for studio life yes because i could i no longer
14:4214 minutes, 42 secondscould fix a console at three o’clock in the morning and it would be embarrassing and also
14:4714 minutes, 47 secondsi i worked from six in the morning for commercials to late in the night with you know drug
14:5414 minutes, 54 secondsfueled rock and roll sessions and i’m trying to collect the money from you know some uh
15:0215 minutes, 2 secondshells angels type guys and i you know i could have gotten killed and i i went oh now i’ve had
15:0815 minutes, 8 secondsenough of this so that’s when i started writing stories about life in a recording studio when it’s
15:1415 minutes, 14 secondshappening it’s horrible afterwards you’re telling somebody and and then the wall fell through and
15:1915 minutes, 19 secondseverybody’s laughing i’m going well this is a this is good humor so i satirized all all of my
15:2815 minutes, 28 secondsmemories for two years live and every month in mix magazine ran out of stories decided to take this
15:3415 minutes, 34 secondsmr bonsai character into the real world and interview van dyke parks and that ended up
15:4015 minutes, 40 seconds167 consecutive months where i and i would bring lunch too and and boom and i’d take pictures
15:5015 minutes, 50 secondsit was quite an adventure and but people would liked it and they would pass me on to the next
15:5515 minutes, 55 secondsguy you know harry nilsson led to uh timothy leary to uh bunches of people i’m still doing it but not
16:0616 minutes, 6 secondsand after two years of the of the stories then we took mr bonzi and bonsai into the real world
16:1416 minutes, 14 secondsand then i did that for a long time and i’m still doing it but daniel this is your lucky day i have
16:2216 minutes, 22 secondsthe 2005 collection of my stories i love this faces of music almost killed me 400 photographs
16:3016 minutes, 30 secondsscanned from black and white film and 160 interviews cut down from 3 000 words to 500
16:4016 minutes, 40 secondsum it’s not available in hard it’s out of print but you can get it digitally and the photos look
16:4616 minutes, 46 secondsgreat anyway thank you sir i just want to tell you pardon the plug from my book no no
16:5216 minutes, 52 seconds25 years of launching it’s pretty amazing actually um i i don’t want to put that on faders
16:5816 minutes, 58 secondsi um i have been in a recording studio before yeah just a couple times i used to manage the studio so
17:0617 minutes, 6 secondsyeah i had to deal with yeah making sure what was working and it’s it’s funny um i worked at a studio a well-known studio run by three brothers and uh
Chapter 6: Studio Life
17:1717 minutes, 17 secondsone of the brothers had this habit of always putting his coffee cup right there and of course he’s the owner of the studio so all of the texts every time he would do that would just go
17:2717 minutes, 27 secondsyou know coca-cola is really bad it is it is actually i’ve cleaned the faders
17:3217 minutes, 32 secondsfor that and and the other kind of coke and uh it gets really nasty and messy very quickly yeah that
17:3917 minutes, 39 secondscombined with the nicotine centaurs and everything in the air oh yes back then it was a studio life
17:4617 minutes, 46 secondsi parodied everything um it was pretty close to the truth i know well yes johnny terrific
17:5317 minutes, 53 secondsis really stevie wonder and that’s all i’m going to say my inspiration for the style of writing
18:0018 minuteswas uh robert benchley you probably not have heard of him his i think his grands nephew wrote jaws
18:0918 minutes, 9 secondsbut anyway and i had it illustrated by a lady who grew up with benchley uh teresa vanilla so it’s
18:1618 minutes, 16 secondsthe illustrations are very much in keeping with uh you know new york magazine in the 30s and uh you
18:2418 minutes, 24 secondsknow and the satire you know the funny it’s all jokes about working in a recording studio a long
18:3018 minutes, 30 secondstime ago but some of the the characteristics have not changed at all in so many ways it’s almost
Chapter 7: Spinal Tap
18:3718 minutes, 37 secondsa prelude to to spinal tap right it’s that same sort of tongue-in-cheek yes almost real
18:4318 minutes, 43 secondsuh you know plausible deniability as it were you know yeah i got some nice endorsements for
18:4818 minutes, 48 secondsstudio life from some pretty well-known humorous people well it was definitely it was um one of
18:5418 minutes, 54 secondsmany things that inspired me to want to be in the studio and uh well i think you got to
19:0019 minutesyou got to make some money so i suppose i told my story you came without a job i sold a story but i
19:0619 minutes, 6 secondsdidn’t have a job you asked about me uh i was an extra for a while when i came up here i was
19:1219 minutes, 12 secondsin true confessions uh with robert i can say i co-starred with robert de niro right man walking
19:1819 minutes, 18 secondsdown the street kind of that’s where yeah why i’m wearing hollywood stuff from the 30s with my
19:2419 minutes, 24 secondsi had to shave my beard off so that i could look like a you know a cool cat from the 30s
19:3019 minutes, 30 secondsum but here we are today in ocean way i mean oops it used to be used to be ocean way yes yeah it’s
19:3719 minutes, 37 secondsit’s been united it was originally united and uh you know it was ocean way for a while and
19:4219 minutes, 42 secondsit’s back as united these rooms are the same rooms that were have been used since the 50s
19:4919 minutes, 49 secondsand i’ve had the great fortune to be here taking photographs for more than 20 years
19:5719 minutes, 57 secondsin this very room i photographed brian wilson and jeff beck no doubt green day
20:0520 minutes, 5 secondsa really sweet session with paul anka and al schmidt because uh paul anka you know he co-wrote the theme to the tonight show it was a very
20:1520 minutes, 15 secondsvery talented do you know who his co-writer on that was because there’s no words johnny carson
20:2320 minutes, 23 secondswhen carson heard well you mean i get half the yeah every night okay let’s do it so
20:3020 minutes, 30 secondsuh paul anka is like you know a modern-day king in the studio tons of people he’s got his herb tea
20:3720 minutes, 37 secondsyou know and he’s preparing for a vocal and i know al i don’t know paul anka i’m just trying to be
20:4420 minutes, 44 secondspresent right not too much and so i yeah al right here i said al do you think we could get a picture
20:5120 minutes, 51 secondswith uh with mr anka because that’s who he is in the studio well let me ask him so i’ll ask and
20:5920 minutes, 59 secondsmr anka just gets all excited and it’s hugging al and i get the chance to get these photos
21:0621 minutes, 6 secondsof these two guys who’ve known each other probably since he was a teenager i don’t know
21:1121 minutes, 11 secondsbut that’s a great thrill of this place and it’s got integrity uh and uh the rooms i know now so
21:2121 minutes, 21 secondswell that because you got to get in and out in a hurry if you’re busting in on a session so that’s
21:2621 minutes, 26 secondsthe way i work and i continue doing that and i also write stories about what’s going on here at
21:3221 minutes, 32 secondsthe studio and other studios i photographed in most of the student main studios in la
21:3821 minutes, 38 secondsuh and that’s my story and i’m sticking to it well and you know you have been i i one thing that i
Chapter 8: Serendipity
21:4621 minutes, 46 secondsthink is really unique is the way serendipity has played into so much of what you’ve done and i’ve
21:5221 minutes, 52 secondsalways believed that you know many of us we’re we’re building the bridges we walk on it we’re
21:5621 minutes, 56 secondsfiguring it all out as we go and you know i i have taken solace in meeting other people who have had
22:0422 minutes, 4 secondsthe same odd career path type of thing that i have and i love that because it takes a certain courage
22:1122 minutes, 11 secondsi think to be able to just say i’m going to trust that whatever happens is the right thing you know
22:1822 minutes, 18 secondsand that is something that you know i think we you know you talk about going to college and preparing
22:2422 minutes, 24 secondsfor things and saying okay this is what i’m going to do. and that’s great for some people but i
22:2922 minutes, 29 secondsthink there are many of us who are just creative souls in that sense and just to be able to say
22:3622 minutes, 36 secondsi’m going to try this because it interests me and maybe it will lead to something even if it doesn’t
22:4322 minutes, 43 secondsuh you know i think what’s what’s wonderful to me is the idea of being you know there’s the old joke about jack of all trades master of none
22:5322 minutes, 53 secondsi feel that in certain ways i fit that description and and and you do as well although i think you’ve mastered a lot of things but you but you’ve well you’ve mastered a lot
23:0223 minutes, 2 secondsof things but but what i think is interesting is that you’ve you’ve kind of gone in you know just
23:0923 minutes, 9 secondsblindly you know um we used to say you know just balls as big as coconuts just walk in and brave
23:1523 minutes, 15 secondssomething do something you know and see if it fits and if it doesn’t fit you’ve at least still
23:2223 minutes, 22 secondsgained that experience you do have to uh but again many of my life decisions came about
23:3023 minutes, 30 secondsbecause i just got pissed off and tired of doing things short attention span and i didn’t i didn’t
23:3623 minutes, 36 secondswasn’t enjoying it anymore you know yeah uh but you know if you’ve got a job and you want to do
23:4223 minutes, 42 secondssomething else you don’t have to just quit and go to the newspaper right you know start doing dabble
23:4923 minutes, 49 secondsdabble over here until maybe some cash starts flowing in that dirt and towards you from that
23:5423 minutes, 54 secondsstuff and slowly get your self but sometimes you know i just i just blew it i just left well and
24:0224 minutes, 2 secondssometimes radio sometimes you need to because sometimes i think you need to just stir it up
24:0824 minutes, 8 secondsyou know stir up your own life yeah exactly move to a different country you know i’ve done that i know you have as well oh yeah my quick history i was born
24:1924 minutes, 19 secondsi started life in manhattan i i went to school elementary school in new york
24:2624 minutes, 26 secondsnorth carolina miami junior high in miami came out to california
24:3324 minutes, 33 secondsfor high finish high school i was a smart kid i got scholarships i went to the university of
24:4024 minutes, 40 secondscalifornia uh uc berkeley uh no you see irvine i was in her first year we you know i’m somewhat
24:4824 minutes, 48 secondsresponsible for the anteater being the mascot this was the this is the style of the 60s you know
24:5724 minutes, 57 secondswe did not trust the establishment we didn’t trust older people i still don’t even though i am
25:0325 minutes, 3 secondsa bit older um that led to um theater i said that and then radio
25:1125 minutes, 11 secondsbut before that i wanted to meet john lennon so i got accepted to the study
25:1825 minutes, 18 secondsabroad program i applied for sussex because i knew that’s near where he lived waybridge
25:2425 minutes, 24 secondssurrey so that was your entire motivation for applying to well escaping america during the
25:3025 minutes, 30 secondsvietnam war oh yeah and being having a student deferment you know decide while i went over there
25:3725 minutes, 37 secondsbut i packed everything in a duffel bag and didn’t know if i was coming back but i had been involved
25:4325 minutes, 43 secondsin an experiment at irvine i was the lab manager for an experiment that involved biofeedback
25:5125 minutes, 51 secondsand brain waves and monitoring that activity in your brain with headsets and stuff like this uh
25:5925 minutes, 59 secondsand i discovered some stuff that i thought i think john lennon would should know about this among
26:0526 minutes, 5 secondsother things i you know it was mostly uh his sense of humor i enjoyed his books and his cartooning
Chapter 9: John Lennon
26:1226 minutes, 12 secondshe had written some really amazing books back then spaniard in the works in his own right yeah
26:1826 minutes, 18 secondsso with that and i wrote letters to the beatles management and when i uh did you receive responses
26:2526 minutes, 25 secondswell no but when i got to london oh i got assigned to go to university of edinburgh in scotland
26:3426 minutes, 34 secondsinstead of sussex but what can i do so i had 10 days in london to meet john and i met with the
26:4426 minutes, 44 secondsyou know the head of their company and explained i i had some stuff that i thought john would enjoy
26:5126 minutes, 51 secondsoh very interesting well we’ll be sure to give you give him your request absolutely we can’t
26:5826 minutes, 58 secondsgive you his phone number oh okay well with that i figured i’m gonna get a rest so i went down to
27:0727 minutes, 7 secondswaybridge and find out where he lived well i walked around the town and uh
27:1327 minutes, 13 secondsand there was a kid about my age and i asked him if he knew where john lennon lived and he said oh
27:2027 minutes, 20 secondscertainly he lives up the road here let’s go take a look so we go up and i can see the house from
27:2527 minutes, 25 secondswe’ve seen some stuff from the history but you see this big gate it’s like this 12-foot gate power
27:3327 minutes, 33 secondsgate don’t step over that line you’ll be arrested oh oh but his wife takes his kid to school every
27:4227 minutes, 42 secondsmorning in a yellow porsche over here maybe she could help you okay great so i go back to london
27:4927 minutes, 49 secondsget there at 5 30 in the morning uh came came very respectfully up to his wife as julian toddles off
27:5827 minutes, 58 secondsto school show her that i’ve embroidered john’s face on my back uh in my tie dyed shirt jacket and
28:0728 minutes, 7 secondsshe was friendly and kind and she said well i’ve got to go shopping in london sorry i can’t help
28:1228 minutes, 12 secondsyou bye so i went all right here we go stepped over the gate the gate didn’t close i didn’t
28:1828 minutes, 18 secondsget arrested i was scared a little bit got all my notes and everything i go up walk up to the house
28:2628 minutes, 26 secondsand out of the second story window a lady sticks or the housekeeper sticks her head hello can i
28:3228 minutes, 32 secondshelp you and i went uh yes is jon home um you know he’s asleep right now could you come back later
28:3928 minutes, 39 secondssure thereby giving you license to come back later so i come back later and she says he’s still sleeping she says uh i think it’s okay if you wait in the
28:4928 minutes, 49 secondsgarage until he wakes up i’ll get you some tea and biscuits that would be the garage what the garage
Chapter 10: The Garage
28:5728 minutes, 57 secondsso i’m sitting in the in the this is about four months after john got the painted rolls
29:0329 minutes, 3 secondsroyce ah so you’re sitting next to the famously loud i’m going like this and also all that tea
29:0829 minutes, 8 secondsi really had to pee it just went on and on i kept wandering around is there and it’s i think
29:1529 minutes, 15 secondsso finally uh john’s the beatles manager peter brown comes out and um he’s holding some postcards
29:2229 minutes, 22 secondsthat they’re supposed to sign and he says well what’s all this about anyway and i gave him
29:2829 minutes, 28 secondsi guess you call it your second elevator pitch and he said i don’t know i’ll see
29:3429 minutes, 34 secondswhat i can do so he goes in the house again nothing happens finally john lennon walks out
29:4229 minutes, 42 secondsand he walks up to me because i’m standing at the open door of the garage with my legs crossed like this and he comes out and he doesn’t say anything and i walked up to him and i said
Chapter 11: Meeting John Lennon
29:5229 minutes, 52 secondsgee you can’t do this and he he said what what’s that i said meet john lennon he goes oh i suppose
30:0030 minutesnot uh come on in i’m having breakfast so i go in and they park me on a sofa and john’s
30:0730 minutes, 7 secondsalone at the table eating breakfast cynthia made eggs and tomatoes really special stuff
30:1430 minutes, 14 secondsso i brought my notebooks i sat down at the table started talking to him and he went
30:2130 minutes, 21 secondsand he says after he finished he said we got to go into london to do the frost program would you like a lift oh yeah so the rolls comes out with a chauffeur
30:3330 minutes, 33 secondsuh i sit on the jump seats i think with peter brown john’s in the big seat it’s a huge car
30:4030 minutes, 40 secondswe drive a couple blocks away and we have to pick somebody up george comes out he climbs
30:4730 minutes, 47 secondsin and for an hour we spend in the car um they had just gotten the script to yellow submarine
30:5630 minutes, 56 secondsthey were joking about eric burden wanting to tour in china impossible then and um
31:0631 minutes, 6 secondsand i also talked we talked about spirituality and transcendental meditation i didn’t have any
31:1231 minutes, 12 secondsexperience with that at all but george was very kind to me he had these really you know
31:1731 minutes, 17 secondsdark penetrating eyes and he took my journal and he he drew the levels of consciousness and
31:2431 minutes, 24 secondsgave me some tips on which books to read you know and uh we got to london and it was the you
31:3031 minutes, 30 secondsknow sergeant pepper had only been out a couple months and it was just nuts thousands of people
31:3831 minutes, 38 secondsuh you’re in a very identifiable vehicle too so yeah and it helps as we’re driving through the countryside people on their bicycles would go [Laughter]
31:4931 minutes, 49 secondsso we get there and and peter brown drags me through the crowd up to the back of the studio television studio and they start talking they’re on their way to india and they start
31:5931 minutes, 59 secondstalking about stuff and and john paraphrase paraphrase what i just told him about uh the
32:0532 minutes, 5 secondssimilarity between meditation and and sleep you don’t know when you fall asleep until you wake up
32:1132 minutes, 11 secondsand he used that uh in in the interview with david frost and i’m going am i really here
32:1932 minutes, 19 secondswow so uh the show finishes we go down i’m introduced to david frost
32:2532 minutes, 25 secondswe all head out to to with security to get to the car we get in the car we’re driving
32:3132 minutes, 31 secondsuh for i don’t know 10 15 minutes i don’t know what’s going on um i sense that we’re going to do
32:3832 minutes, 38 secondssomething now it’s maybe it’s recording i don’t know i’ve never even been in a recording studio
32:4432 minutes, 44 secondsi think i nudged john and went like this and he says oh yeah come on in so he pulls me in
32:5232 minutes, 52 secondsuh i go into abbey road never been in a studio we go upstairs i ringo’s reading a comic book
33:0133 minutes, 1 secondi meet george martin paul showed up later or he was there sleeping under the piano i
33:0833 minutes, 8 secondsdiscovered later and i was there the night that they were finishing uh the tidbits for
33:1433 minutes, 14 secondsuh i am the walrus oh the sound collage at the end tuning in the radio live ring goes spinning
33:2033 minutes, 20 secondsthe lock the dial on the radio and just see if he can find something and they can hear this
33:2833 minutes, 28 secondshell yes yeah right yeah that gets laid down it i talked to george martin years later but
33:3733 minutes, 37 secondsto me at that time john was really running the show i mean he was interesting these were these faders that went like this and all right i remember that i’ve never seen any of this stuff
Chapter 12: Meeting Mal Evans
33:4833 minutes, 48 secondsbut i was there for about eight hours and they didn’t uh i had fish and chips mal
33:5433 minutes, 54 secondsevans wouldn’t get the fish and chips nobody uh they i wasn’t a you know a journalist maybe
34:0034 minutesi don’t know i was just a student they just accepted me and i asked questions
34:0534 minutes, 5 secondsoccasionally you know i heard that chorus to walrus i asked george what are they saying
34:1534 minutes, 15 secondshe said no everybody’s got one yes everybody’s got one oh and then yeah later i heard it uh
34:2334 minutes, 23 secondsand everybody thought it was everything everybody smoked pot yeah well not according to george well i mean there’s so much of that you know that’s open to interpretation but but if if i may
34:3334 minutes, 33 secondsredirect you i’ll just stop quickly because i left on my own because i didn’t want to ask for a ride
34:4034 minutes, 40 secondsat midnight and i caught a tube but i corresponded with john during the year and two days before i
34:4834 minutes, 48 secondsfinished school i got two letters one from peter schotten one from peter brown saying if you’re in london please come by john would love to see you again so we’ll get to that later
34:5834 minutes, 58 secondsokay yeah i’m only redirecting you because we’re running tight on time here and i want to i want to i mean i love all this and i could do three hours with you if we had the time um but
35:0935 minutes, 9 secondswe had discussed earlier that certain things we wanted to cover and one of them is i think
35:1435 minutes, 14 secondssort of a a zoom out if you will on your career path because your career path is so um i i think
Chapter 13: Career Path
35:2835 minutes, 28 secondsyou know i don’t like to use words like inspirational and stuff like that because quite honestly um as with my own career path i think no one should try and follow what we’ve
35:3735 minutes, 37 secondsdone because it’s so convoluted and out there and everybody’s got their own path it wouldn’t work
35:4335 minutes, 43 secondsright exactly but there are certain facets of what you’ve done that i i personally find
35:5035 minutes, 50 secondsa commonality with and i think it’s so to me as endeavoring to teach younger people i think one
36:0136 minutes, 1 secondof the things that is so interesting to me is just this idea of really being open to whatever happens
36:1136 minutes, 11 secondsand that story is proved positive of that i mean you certainly could not have prepared for that
36:1836 minutes, 18 secondsin fact you were prepared to basically get arrested well no i wasn’t i i prepared as
36:2436 minutes, 24 secondsmuch as i could but it just didn’t work out right but you know i’m not sure but when i
36:2936 minutes, 29 secondsgot to the top of their uh management and they s and uh tony barron i think his name says sorry
36:3736 minutes, 37 secondsi can’t give you his phone number they might have mentioned something to each other i have no idea
36:4236 minutes, 42 secondswhy it worked out so well but i followed through i did drawings of from lewis carroll
36:5136 minutes, 51 secondswhich i sent to john penn and inc because i studied drawing by the way with david hockney at
36:5736 minutes, 57 secondscollege and i know a little bit about life drawing and i got invited back that’s that’ll be another
37:0437 minutes, 4 secondsstory though but you can’t plan on these things you can only project what you think might work
37:1137 minutes, 11 secondsuh you do have to have cojones though because if you walk in you want to do something like that
37:1637 minutes, 16 secondsso somehow i walked the line of i was determined and but i wasn’t obnoxious
37:2537 minutes, 25 secondsin fact the year later when i met yoko uh at uh in the apple offices she kind of went who’s this and
37:3837 minutes, 38 secondsjohnson well this is david he’s from california i found him in my garden last year and um you
37:4537 minutes, 45 secondsknow he’s a garden gnome yeah so that’s how it happened but but you know what i think is really
37:5237 minutes, 52 secondsit’s it’s funny in certain ways you know there’s that old saying about making plans in the universe
37:5737 minutes, 57 secondslaughs you know i think the idea of making plans but being completely open to them being tossed
38:0538 minutes, 5 secondsout the window is really in certain ways it’s it’s how we live isn’t it it is and here’s a specific
38:1238 minutes, 12 secondsexample of that when i’m doing an interview with somebody and i’m known for asking some kind of weird questions like what music would you like played at your funeral
38:2238 minutes, 22 secondsand i think willie nelson said well wait a second i still feel pretty good you know i do things like
38:3038 minutes, 30 secondsthat and sometimes it backfires and if you’re in the middle of an interview and it backfires
38:3638 minutes, 36 secondsyou got to back pedal you got to change the subject you got to you know but not getting
38:4238 minutes, 42 secondsangry or whatever just be sensitive to who you’re talking to if that’s not working
38:4838 minutes, 48 secondsyeah pick something else to talk about well it’s improvisation to a certain extent oh yeah and i’ve always been a big fan of improv as well you know and i think i did my share of i’m sure you did
38:5738 minutes, 57 secondsyeah somehow another i think whatever i mentioned you could take a box and say yeah i did that too and so but but you know and i love that and that’s something that people tell me about myself as well
39:0839 minutes, 8 secondsi think we’ve we’ve dabbled in so many different things and um well i’m genuinely interested in
39:1539 minutes, 15 secondspeople yes exactly how they got where they are and they have wonderful stories and that’s what
39:2139 minutes, 21 secondsi’ve been sharing with people in my books and in my interviews and i do video interviews too i mean
39:2939 minutes, 29 secondspresently i’m doing the bonsai beat with nam and in the past couple of months i’ve talked to steve
39:3539 minutes, 35 secondsvi and asked him if his eyebrows ever get tired and uh mitchell froome wonder i’m gonna uh coming
39:4539 minutes, 45 secondsup as cat edmonson oh wonderful who i interviewed with uh al schmidt uh on stage at an aes show
39:5339 minutes, 53 secondsso i’m not i’m not retired well thankfully no i can’t retire i still got bills to fail well
40:0340 minutes, 3 secondsisn’t that all of our well you know it’s funny because i don’t think i would retire even if
40:0840 minutes, 8 secondsi could because i think for what we do this is not work this is sheer enjoyment and this is in
40:1740 minutes, 17 secondsa certain don’t believe him well it’s much harder it’s really hard work you know and i will give you that i mean everything that we do some of it it’s hard work it definitely is you got to be organized
40:2740 minutes, 27 secondsyou do you do and but you know the other thing about it is it’s lifeblood man i mean to me i live
40:3540 minutes, 35 secondsfor those moments when i can be in touch with someone when i can get that story out of them
40:4140 minutes, 41 secondsi think it’s isn’t that inspiring to you it is i mean it’s again it started probably for me
40:4840 minutes, 48 secondswhen i was at abbey road that night i’m hearing things i’m hearing fool on the hill
40:5640 minutes, 56 secondsjust just a vocal i’m hearing bits of this and bits of that some stuff didn’t show up for a
41:0341 minutes, 3 secondscouple years but i knew that magical mystery tour was going to be a big deal and all the songs i was
41:1241 minutes, 12 secondshearing were going to be heard by millions and millions of people there was something about i’m
41:2041 minutes, 20 secondshearing it first right right and i still dig that absolutely i love that experience i waited outside
41:2841 minutes, 28 secondsa vocal booth uh while willie nelson didn’t take after take chris christopherson is producing and
41:3441 minutes, 34 secondsi’m going i don’t mind waiting to hear another tape i could hear it through the door you know
41:3941 minutes, 39 secondsand then i took my photos yeah well and that’s you know the experience of um it’s interesting
41:4641 minutes, 46 secondsi always consider places like this temples of sound to a certain extent and we are creating we
41:5241 minutes, 52 secondsare watching things being created in these within these walls and that to me was what drew me to the
41:5841 minutes, 58 secondsstudio as well was the idea of i’m working with other creatives i’m watching these moments happen
42:0442 minutes, 4 secondsand uh in fact i do a panel at nam uh every year that about the creative process where uh i call it
42:1142 minutes, 11 secondscapturing lightning where we talk about not what microphone did you use but how did you get inside
42:1742 minutes, 17 secondsthe artist’s head to get this performance exactly what i try to do is yeah find out uh the inside
42:2442 minutes, 24 secondsstory uh that they might not have told right the human aspect of it oh and once again it’s your
Chapter 14: Music Smarts
42:3142 minutes, 31 secondslucky day because another book now this one is still in print this is music smarts and this has
42:3842 minutes, 38 secondsjust one quote from the people i’ve talked to with a little photo that i took uh it’s like a handbook
42:4542 minutes, 45 secondsand note the cut corners here so look at that it’s a field guide you can put it in your back pocket
42:5142 minutes, 51 secondswait a second i’m finishing the mix there’s a point that just clicks in and you know
42:5642 minutes, 56 secondswhen it works instinctively there is that point mike shipley no longer with us but fine
43:0343 minutes, 3 secondsand for you thank you sir i love this music smarts that was a double meaning
Chapter 15: Trust
43:1143 minutes, 11 secondsyeah well and i will tell you that i have been uh wanting to interview you for some time because uh
43:1843 minutes, 18 secondsi won’t say that i have followed in your footsteps in that sense because i don’t think anyone can but
43:2343 minutes, 23 secondsa lot of what you have done has been has inspired a lot of what i’ve been doing and i i find that
43:3143 minutes, 31 secondsthere’s a certain affinity that one must have with the creative process as a concept as well as with
43:4143 minutes, 41 secondsthose who work in creative arts because there’s really there’s a trust that you have to place
43:5043 minutes, 50 secondsin just everything’s going to work you know we’re going to catch that magic we’re going to have that
43:5543 minutes, 55 secondshappy accident and that’s the same kind of trust that i think you’ve exhibited in your career i
44:0244 minutes, 2 secondsknow i’ve exhibited in mine it’s just a matter of whatever happens is gonna be okay whatever happens
44:0944 minutes, 9 secondsit’s gonna lead to something else that is going to be the right thing and i i love that because i
44:1744 minutes, 17 secondsthink that’s something that you can’t preordain no and it also might not work and and you know what
44:2444 minutes, 24 secondsyou got to be live absolutely but you know that’s what i love about it is yeah it might not work but
44:3044 minutes, 30 secondsit’ll lead to something else and that experience is going to be with me no matter what and you’ve
44:3744 minutes, 37 secondstaken all those experiences and even as disparate as they may be you’ve melded them into a career
44:4644 minutes, 46 secondsthat it’s hard to describe you know and that’s what i love about this it’s like if i try and say
44:5344 minutes, 53 secondsoh uh author artist you know whatever i’m going to leave something out well you know i i’ve always
Chapter 16: Freedom
45:0245 minutes, 2 secondsbeen skeptical about authority so i’ve always questioned all of that and uh you know i i’ve been uh
45:1445 minutes, 14 secondsi stopped going to the office in my early 30s there was an office well a recording studio okay
45:2445 minutes, 24 secondshas an office a radio station as an office sure a theater has an office you know it requires you to
45:3245 minutes, 32 secondsbe someplace all the time regularly i didn’t like that um so when i decided to become a writer all
45:4145 minutes, 41 secondsi i said i’m just i i’ll do anything as a writer i had a typewriter i had a telephone and that was it
45:5145 minutes, 51 secondsand if a job came in that’s how i got the job to enter you know introduce digital
45:5745 minutes, 57 secondsaudio to the industry is they wanted to pay me to explain have other people explain it
46:0446 minutes, 4 secondsso anyway i that’s that was the big change in my life is not no longer having to i mean i can eat
46:1346 minutes, 13 secondswhenever i want whenever i’m hungry i can go to the bathroom whenever i want i have my privacy
46:2046 minutes, 20 secondsthanks to technology has made my life easier every decade has made it easier and easier
46:2746 minutes, 27 secondsnow i can do my thing via the internet and do live
46:3446 minutes, 34 secondszoom things up with people all over the world and that i think that freedom
46:4146 minutes, 41 secondsof personal freedom was the main motivation factor in my life it wasn’t trying to accumulate material
46:5046 minutes, 50 secondsstuff although i’m not adverse to that and you do need a certain amount of sure cash to keep sure
Chapter 17: Doing the right thing
46:5946 minutes, 59 secondsbut that comes if you’re doing what you really want to do eventually well hopefully it comes i i’ve always believed you know and it sounds a little bit hippie woo-woo but i’ve always
47:0847 minutes, 8 secondsbelieved that if you’re doing the right thing eventually it will pay off you know and and there have been times for myself as well and i’m sure it’s happened with you where you’ve changed
47:1947 minutes, 19 secondssomething you’ve changed careers or whatever it is and there’s been this fallow period of
47:2547 minutes, 25 secondsam i doing the right thing here you know it’s not quite working out but if you’re impassioned about
47:3047 minutes, 30 secondsdoing something and you know like myself you’re impassioned about the arts you’re passionate about
47:3647 minutes, 36 secondsthe creative process i think being around that eventually something’s going to click
47:4347 minutes, 43 secondsat least we hope so anyway yeah you know we’re not alone but again we are yeah i used to say
Chapter 18: Motivation
47:5247 minutes, 52 secondswe’re all alone in this boat together you know that’s you know you i have uh faith and humanity
48:0148 minutes, 1 seconduh i’m an example of you know kind of an oddball career that worked out
48:0848 minutes, 8 secondsi couldn’t have done it alone but i had to motivate myself and others to make it happen um
48:1748 minutes, 17 secondsnot just once either continually yeah it’s not going to stop you’re not you’re not going to graduate uh and then everything’s going to be smooth you’re not going to always oh i figured
48:2748 minutes, 27 secondseverything out now oh great now of course relax of course doesn’t work like that so and yeah and
Chapter 19: Success
48:3448 minutes, 34 secondsas you said earlier you’re not going to reach a certain point and go ah i now i’m successful
48:4048 minutes, 40 secondsyou know because what’s success anyway exactly you define success for yourself but what i also think
48:4548 minutes, 45 secondsis applicable especially in this conversation is you reach a successful point with one thing
48:5248 minutes, 52 secondsand you move on to something else because yeah you know what i know how that’s done now i’ve experienced that and life is all about experiences it’s not about material things yeah well of course
49:0349 minutes, 3 secondsi mean that goes without saying yeah a recording studio there’s a lot of stuff going on behind the
49:1049 minutes, 10 secondsscenes that uh that make it happen you know the technicians that you know i used to do it yeah
49:1849 minutes, 18 secondsyeah and and there’s there’s the people who are behind the scenes work the hardest oh that’s
49:2449 minutes, 24 secondsso true yeah yeah yeah and that’s one of the things i love about this industry too is that as you’re coming up doing that hard work you’re learning all that stuff you know yeah yeah oh
49:3449 minutes, 34 secondsi’m having a good time you and me both man i love this i wish you the best you too and everyone else
49:4149 minutes, 41 secondsthank you mr bonsai thank you for being my guest pleasure maybe we’ll talk again i’m sure we will
49:5149 minutes, 51 secondshey i’m daniel keller don’t forget to hit the subscribe button and join us each week for insights and sound
50:0250 minutes, 2 secondsyou