Jeremy Weiner

okay Rupert David Letterman hasn't been on CBS for Years yet his merchandise is still killing it the only place that you can get official Letterman Late Show with David Letterman merchandise is right here at the hello Deli how do people get this merchandise other than coming in here obviously you want to come in here if you're in New York all right come to the end selling theater come to uh the hello Deli get yourself a Paul Shaffer sandwich or something else and then buy some merchandise if people can't make it to New York what's the best way to get some of this merchandise they can get on my website um hello Dash deli.com yep now do you pack that yourself do you pack it uh this merchandise and send it off to people yourself I I do okay if um if people ask you to add onions to the order will you add onions to the order absolutely that sounds great uh the hello Deli is the sponsor of the Lettermen podcast we are so grateful for that River we're so grateful for you and on a personal note thank you for the years and years and years of entertainment that you have brought not just America I'm Canadian but brought the world thank you very very much my pleasure thank you for watching absolutely la la la la welcome once again to the Letterman podcast my name is Mike Chisholm I am uh stoked very stoked I'm always stoked to do this show let's make no mistake about that there are some times where somebody uh who comes on the show or has given me uh a green light of some sort maybe in the background um you know the stokedness of the Fire gets a little bit more uh intense and and and today's episode uh would definitely fall into that category um I've made no um I don't think I've I've hidden the fact about how much I love music I'm a huge music guy and the thing about Letterman is how much of the culture of everything about what Dave has done uh all the way up to his current projects in fact uh how how much music um is a part of that and and and and right from the very very beginning and speaking of the very very beginning uh there's only a handful of people who were there from the very beginning all the way to uh the end of the run of the Late Show in 2015.

um and that includes on the musical side of things one of those people is Will Lee uh Willie is uh was of course the basis for the world's most dangerous man and the CBS Orchestra uh but so much more so much more and and and the um the collaboration and The Ensemble um that Paul and Company had I mean man if if if if I could do a separate sister show to this show about the music of Letterman I would certainly do it in a second um yeah I I just it is such a part of the show and in my opinion there it's mixed right into the DNA Willie uh a big part of the creation of that DNA and uh and and through the fabric of time um it made so many contributions to the show uh in so many different ways um including you know comedically including some of the biggest musical moments uh that have happened on the show he was um a tremendous part of uh I'm very very proud uh to have uh made this connection thank you to the those in the background that helped to make that connection uh you know who you are uh we have a phenomenal episode here tonight we talk about uh we're gonna keep it in one part even though we probably could move it to two parts it's just a really awesome conversation that starts talking about modern music and and just where we're at when it comes to music and then it kind of moves into uh different anecdotes from over the years within Letterman's programs uh will is just a great great guy who loves music I can't wait for you to hear some of these stories um you know all sorts of stuff why wasn't he there uh the last late night the night Bruce Springsteen came in and uh blew the roof off the dump uh why um you know the the we talk about MacArthur Park and by the way um this is one of those things when we become official uh hopefully we do become official but I I'm saying when um where at the end we would tag the performance of MacArthur Park in 2014 uh that will did the lead vocal for we talked all about that and how that came to be in this episode we talked a little bit about fabfo uh although interestingly enough you know he's in Fab foe guess who's also in that band Jimmy vavino from uh the leader of of Conan's band and we didn't even talk about that like there's so much being on the bone of things that we haven't talked about yet um but the seeds are planted this is an awesome episode I'm gonna stop the intro here as soon as I can I've just got two last little shout outs number one of course the Letterman podcast brought to you in part by the hello Deli if you want Late Show with David Letterman merchandise a mug a shirt um and or Rupert G merchandise from the hello Deli go to Hello deli.com check that out now there's one more piece of thanks uh that I need to no one more piece of business I do need to do in this introduction uh by the way of thanking somebody and that's to Don Giller we have always thanked John Giller of course for his contribution um to the Lettermen uh Mythos to the Lettermen Community um incredible archivist and curator of Letterman content has the greatest uh David Letterman collection of of footage in uh in history the definitive collection in fact so that being said um he has fact checked us along the way he has been a a very um oh man very needed support for this production uh very grateful to have him here well this episode here we started testing things out and we turned it up a notch Dawn was actually here real time uh with will and I and he was throwing in uh if there was any fact checking to be done if there was any interesting um you know things that could be added to the conversation and I gotta say oh does it ever make this show a better show uh with with that mechanism uh coming into play here and and uh it's a little bit janky how we do it right now um you know but as the technology and as things upgrade and as we we stumble forward in the darkness of uh trying to learn how to make this show even better uh the fact that Dawn is here and will be a support and a tool for that I cannot thank him enough for that as well so uh hopefully you enjoy that aspect of the show you'll be seeing that more and more as we move forward but why are you listening to me oh my gosh I gotta finish this intro here because you're in for a treat anybody who likes David Letterman who likes music uh broadcast history um you know especially including the two formation topics you are gonna love this episode without further Ado the Lettermen podcast is proud to present will Lee I might have to ask you if you know anything about music okay I'm a huge music fan you and I came up in different Generations clearly um and and and so I I'm super super curious because of the nature of uh you know working for for late show and all the things that you guys did um I'm I know that you had to keep up with what was going on in music uh professionally but I'm very curious personally about albums in sort of the more Modern Age that really spoke to you are you a fan of current music or do you just default back to your comfort food or the stuff that you grew up with well first of all it's more possible to know what was happening before today because there was so much less of it so it was easier to to amass a more complete catalog of what was available because you know first of all they were like there were three TV stations there were like six radio stations there were 12 artists yeah you know now everybody in on on my floor of this apartment building is an artist right and everybody up and down the block has an album out yeah you know what I mean because you can and and you know everybody's a star and all that stuff and sure regeneration and whatever the hell yeah nobody looks up to anybody because they want to be looked up oh anyway that's that song no problem well and as you're as you're uh tending to uh whatever it is you need to tend to there like Letterman talks about that all the time he talks about how having a show back then was different than having a show now anybody can have a show right now present company included by the way um and and it's it's nice because it is so accessible for those who have whatever it is inside them that wants to come out in various ways and how that happens I mean the Muse the getting that out there uh but I appreciate the point it's a lot easier to kind of keep track of the whole industry when the whole industry only has a handful per genre that are that are that are coming out that makes a lot of sense look I would never have a career if I was starting out no no matter what my age or what no matter what my hipness level or or Talent or anything because I just keep thanking God not that I'm religious but I keep you know being very grateful that I'm not starting now right you know it'd be really hard to a serious career off the ground of doing what I do whatever that is which is basically I consider myself a studio musician okay so yeah okay so I find that extremely interesting because I I did not it didn't occur to me for a second that you would have some of the same similar traits to the other staffers I kind of look at the band as a separate entity I almost I want to do a a podcast just on the music of Letterman as well because they're so it's so expansive um but the way that you just kind of diminished your talent there just blew me away it's what everybody on the staff does it's what Dave does all the way down I I didn't expect that from you I was kind of taken aback by it um well you're an extremely talented musician I mean to be a studio musician at any time or place you gotta have chops like I mean I I I'm I'm flabbergasted that she would say that uh we're gonna get to that in a second here when we go back to uh by the way French horn Beginnings I love that um I adore the fact that you've got uh you want to talk about French words when was the last time you played a French horn never I sucked so bad on that um okay but I want to talk about modern music now like um you know we talked about just before we uh we hit play here uh or hit record here I should say uh we're talking about our friend Don Giller and the other day I tried very very hard because I know he has a musical Taste of uh you know a very high caliber I tried to get him into Radiohead Okay computer which is one of my like that's one of my albums my defining albums is is that that record can I just say that my wife 20 years younger than I the same thing she loves that album oh my God like to me Radiohead is my Pink Floyd like I think about my older uh my older sister and all of her friends and all that who the reverence they had for Pink Floyd that's kind of how I feel for Radiohead so I tried to introduce him to it but I mean you know is there modern albums that have come out that have kind of knocked your socks off um I'm still waiting actually no you know something I here's my thing I come from like my my my parents were jazzers yes so and and what does that have to do with anything Jazz to me was something that because without me knowing it it gave me some kind of a foundation that that let me know you know how music is supposed to feel basically yeah and that and So within Jazz within the kind of jazz I'm talking about I'm not talking about um you know Kenny G no no not smooth jazz we're not talking about smooth jazz right the kind that repeats every every bar every two bars yeah my father used to listen to the radio and go that's jokingly to a smooth jazz station play that again of course they play it again look at that again let's hear that can I hear that one more time but but the kind of jazz that I grew up listening to was obviously like uh I guess you would call it Bebop okay my parents were playing on their record players and stuff so within that you got like you got guys playing like with a great feel yeah so so you so your body started to understand what a a good Groove feels like yes and that informed you for forever if whether it's something's grooving or not right yeah and then you also got composition like great pieces of music were played in the Bebop realm like imagine Miles Davis playing uh Someday My Prince Will Come or something yeah or think about um interpretations or in Ensemble playing you got the whole lesson on that all the time because cats were like playing off of each other you know yeah until it would play a thing that would suggest something that another person would like to feed off of and take it to the next level and all that kind of stuff yep go so that little bit of accidental education let me know that you know and and it also opened kept me open because when I hear music that's I mean here's my criteria for good music or bad music is it grooving is it and is it in tune that's about it if it's got all those two things I'm I'm there I love and that includes a lot of stuff oh yeah so I'm open and and I don't like to live in the past even though I have a Beatles band called The Fab foe we're going to talk about that I'm going there next by the way but anyway keep going even though you don't uploaded in the past no I mean to me music is music a Groove is a Groove is a Groove and all that kind of stuff so I just like anything that's got those elements um I appreciate that Insight very very much and I do want to Pivot to fabfo let's let's go there right now uh I'm fascinated by one of the premise um that I love uh about what you guys do um so I guess I'm a huge music fan there's a vocalist whose name is Mike Patton Mike Patton came out with uh he was the lead singer of like Faith No More and a whole bunch of other bands one of those bands is a band called Mr Bungle Mr Bungle came out with um an album in the I want to say it's the late 90s or early 2000s uh called Disco Volante and it was very like John zornish like uh well I had elements of that in it where you listen to the album and you were like okay this is a crazy Ensemble of there's got to be 20 or 30 percussion instruments going on in the background and all of this experimental where are they going with it seven and a half eight minute songs and and um I went and saw them live and one of the reasons not just because I love the music but I was like how in the hell are they gonna do this thing live and and on stage quite literally worth 30 40 percussion instruments and they were literally going going back and forth and they they were able to replicate um this seemingly impossible uh music that you would hear on a compact disc um perfectly on stage your guy your version of a Beatles cover band is playing his specialty is playing the stuff that you would not think like I'm the walrus how do you play that live and you guys can go and replicate that thing on stage Strawberry Fields like some of these some of these impossible Beatles songs to play Live the stuff they did they never ever would have dreamed playing live that's where you guys kind of well it seems like that's where you started was that the original uh idea for fabfo simply bringing the records to the stage was the whole concept you know because I was so much more fascinated by the actual recordings of The Beatles than somebody out there trying to pretend to be them live you know what I mean and I think a lot of those four piece bands missed out on all those great textures that we got to enjoy from the records like the percussion parts and and the keep keyboard over dubs and all that cool so and and the doubled vocals you know which we are we're allowed to cheat on we had five guys and that's a very forgiving thing I learned that in the studio when you double a vocal it becomes a little bit more it has a little bit more credibility than than a guy who's not exactly Pavarotti if you know what I mean 100 I love those layers yeah yeah so so that became to me the Beatles was kind of a gang sound you know I didn't for the longest time when I was a kid I didn't know if if one guy was singing or other next I just said it's the Beatles you know a sound for me and I love the way they progressed and I love the way they um you know even when they went and did The White Album say which wasn't kind of thought of as being you know their most apart uh album that they did yes and kind of they were in little camps in a way but I didn't know that as a kid I'm just thinking well that's the next level of what they're up to you know yeah just as great as everything else in a different way because they kept challenging themselves so you expected it to something whatever the next thing was going to be different than the last thing you know yeah it's like putting those pieces together and like you know taking them apart to find out what they are and then trying to replicate him by putting all the pieces back together on stage with a number of people on you know in an ensemble first of all I I I I hope you're recording this that I can hear this back because I want to I'm not writing for for the sake of keeping this thing moving I want to write down all the things you're talking about but I do want to hear I want to learn about this John zornesque thing again oh yeah yeah because I'm not really I'll offend it to you yeah when we're done here I'll send you that oh Mr Bungle Mr Bungle it's on stage and they do what note for note what was on the album yeah like I mean there was it was Acid Jazz that went into swing that went into like death metals that went into like it literally just was was was uh frantic but genius as well like just and and they did they performed um that CD that particular one like I mean and they've had many incarnations and and each show tour or each tour that they would have that uh would represent the Incarnation kind of like sort of like what the Sparks did you know they would reinvent themselves for every album but this particular album it was one of the most layered things I've ever heard um and you talk about process bands like like The White Album I think is the precursor for bands like uh like I'm current resident I rock God like Nine Inch Nails and all these this processed music and the hybrid of the instrumentation versus the computer and the processing and all of that they went and did everything uh organically like it was literally 30 40 percussion instruments one of those things might just be played once in a song and then discarded and uh it was it was it was quite something and it was satisfying to you a fan who knew the record how high were you by the way just I am from British Columbia BC bud is uh is definitely full full in full effect here um but I didn't start partaking in it until I was 38 years old so for that show and all of the shows that I saw uh in Vancouver back in the day um you know very very very very little substances involved which kept the Mind very sharp the music however um and I've always maintained that a phenomenal Music Experience is a religious experience that you do not need any substances for because it takes you into a different place those have always been my favorite types of bands that's the best music can do right there transform you to another place and just take you for a ride I love that how old were you by the way uh that would have been 21-22 I started going out so I live in a place called Kelowna which is about a three hour drive from Vancouver uh from about 16 on so 16 would have been like Lollapalooza 92 which was like Pearl Jam and Soundgarden by the way like having both of them in one show and they did like Temple of the Dog stuff in the middle so like Soundgarden plays Chris Cornell stays on stage Eddie Vetter and them come out they do a Temple of the Dog and then Pearl Jam plays a set one of the greatest shows ever um same thing Bowie Nine Inch Nails Nine Inch Nails did a set Bowie came out played with them Trent stayed on stage played with Bowie and then Bowie did a full set after that like oh man that's all you need that's all anybody needs that's amazing yeah oh yeah at that age I mean you're gonna like that's going to disappoint you for the rest of your life that you're not going to get that again you're yeah no kidding well and I mean that's that's where the whole conversation about you living in the past like you having all of these amazing experiences you toured with Bette Midler like oh my god um well you know yeah I mean that was it was exciting for me because it was her first tour you know and and it was a pretty cushy ride if I remember it wasn't like a you know getting the bus you know it was pretty sweet with the with plane rides and all that kind of stuff so she was out of the clubs by this point she had kind of gotten herself grind grounded out uh probably no pun intended a lot of grinding it out for her uh coming up and and it was the first kind of look at me national tour that she did is that is that kind of the picture absolutely I mean she had radio play and so people were really hip to what she was up to I think uh it's some some amount of Johnny Carson had happened for her so she had already had some of that kind of TV type exposure maybe yep but you know a very gay audience a lot a lot of a lot of big supporters from that world you know we're we're we're giving her her big rise at the time and uh it was exciting I mean it was a great band you know and hurt and I cried every night man because the music because she was such an incredible deliverer of song you know just when we got to hello in there by uh by John Prine I was it was just a you know a whimpering you know pile of fetal I don't even know on them every night yeah and then like that that is um that's astounding to me I I Adore that um I just had lunch a couple weeks ago or about a month ago now with Walter Kim and and uh and I don't think I'm I'm not uh I'm not divulging anything here when I I said to him I said are you like he he's he looked at me he goes you're having a lot of fun aren't you I'm having so much fun and then I looked at him and I said you're doing you're kind of doing your dream gig right now too aren't you and he gets his smile on his face his little childlike smile that and and what a thing if you can be immersed somewhere in that that thing inside you that brings out that emotion you're talking about on stage and you can somehow make that part of your vocation or your life I mean you're you're a kid at that point just starting out um and and you're feeling these types of I would almost call it Transcendent type feelings of love and gratitude and emotion all these things that just beautiful beautiful things that that uh art music uh in this particular uh part of the the conversation can bring out um you seem to be a very very grateful man will and and uh that's that's not just are you kidding me I just slashed on something I wanted you to uh you just took me to that place with the Bette Midler thing this is why I don't like to live in the past because I'll probably stay there if I ever go there um because it's probably where I belong anyway we were in LA and this is like Bette Midler it's like big time you know we get to La we get to Universal uh Amphitheater and a three-nighter there and and the the the front rows are filled with Lucille Ball Kirk Douglas you know share you know red fox I mean you know just like what you know Show Business and I'm sitting there I'm sitting there I think I might have had a I feel like I had a maybe still had a music stand for one or two songs or something I can't remember but anyway I see this face in the audience and I and I see this girl and I go this is a real aside by the way you can you can click you can definitely we're not clipping anything this is this is I love this I love this well I'm looking at this I see this person in the front row and I go oh no oh my God I I can't remember where I know that girl from but I if she sees me it's going to be a problem and I'm like playing like this and this girl's looking at the at the show and later I found out it was Mackenzie Phillips who had played the part of this really annoying little sister in in the movie I think American Graffiti yeah George Lucas yeah yeah does that sound like a thing was was that a thing where there was like a Deuce Coupe and a couple of races with a couple of cars and things young man named Harrison Ford yes yeah I always wanted to avoid her because I could remember why I knew her but I knew if she saw me it was going to be a problem you know it was one of those weird surreal actor versus real life moments um I finally figured out what it was I was so relieved oh yeah that's right that's a pain in the ass and blah blah blah how old would you get back to her I probably just Twitter let me say 20 20 to 21 Maybe what a thing I mean um the the wisdom you would have gained if you chose if you chose to accept it the wisdom you would have gained in those experiences uh mind-blowing um I mean wow what a what what a gift um you're also a studio musician as as as as you like to say Don actually said something you have a quote about saying you're a studio musician that can play that that likes to play Live or or there's a there's a there's a quote that that you said something about that um what do you prefer do you prefer being in the studio do you prefer being live they both have their great attributes I mean I because you know I because of being in the studio and seeing different kinds of players in the studio there were some guys who just to me kind of brought like no real uh there was a missing energy for those who had not had a Live Career that just wanted to be Studio guys right and it was it was it wasn't that they didn't have I mean they had plenty of technical ability and technique and and and and like great sounding instruments and all that stuff but they just didn't have that thing where there had been a back and forth between them and and a bunch of excited kids in the audience yeah so I always thought it was great to go out and and get some from the live world and bring it into the studio you know and I think Paul Schaefer is is one of the rare sort of bosses if you will that that puts a band together leaders of yeah band leaders of people that he really wants to be in the band and and and at the same time once he has him he still remembers why he likes them in the first place and I think a lot of the energy that I was able to bring in had a lot to do with me going out and and going out and getting keeping keeping energized and then bringing it to the party you know um we're gonna get to Paul here in a second I I I I yeah we'll get we're going to PS that I I love what you just said there all right see what you did there thank you um I'm not assuming that you're gonna be on another episode we're going to PS it for this episode if if if I have the uh the wherewithal to get back to it um I appreciate where you're coming from when you say that extra perspective that you have um let's let's go down that path a little bit more did you always like to be a vocalist as well or did you do that begrudgingly uh or were you always the the you know yeah I like what Sting's doing I'd like to do both Paul McCartney I don't know I mean I I love music so much that you want to replicate it you know I mean that's how the whole that's how the whole spark of my career happened and many other people too you see the in my case you see the Beatles on The Ed Sullivan show and and you just this is there to do besides that right that's exactly what I'd love to applicate at some point you know so you start trying to make it happen you know and and my mother was a singer my dad was a keyboard player a jazz pianist yep and I used to I used to walk around the front yard leaning on trees and singing like I was on a video in a video or something how old were you when you were doing that I was uh well I did it last night so I was seven was back in Texas uh I don't know eight nine that's precious that's the dream that's the dreamer right there wanting to manifest stuff and that is that's precious that's really awesome you're on on TV or in a music video I don't think there weren't even music videos I don't know what that what they were called and there was a guy singing to a pre-recorded version Sullivan's stuff right no but it Sullivan was live oh yeah yeah well that's yeah that's yeah difference I mean I think I was pretending that I was singing I don't know what am I Andy Williams I don't even know what the hell I'm talking about I can't I can't think of a reference that took me to that place but but so so the singing thing is semi semi-natural for me and semi working my ass off to get there because I work on my voice every day in the shower I do a thing it's 25 minutes long every day of my life and it doesn't make me a natural singer but it helps me to get to the to the music you know oh I love that very very much um well okay and right now hey everybody uh you know once not now obviously don't pause or stop this in fact like share and subscribe right now but when this is over go watch will uh at the at the at the end of The Late Show a lot of people think I'm doing it I'm doing good thanks buddy I appreciate that um near the end of The Late Show run it wasn't in the last six weeks a lot of people equate this moment with the last six weeks of the show it was it was shortly before that was the year before uh go watch the performance of MacArthur Park um I mean I I I I salute you for that that is that's I talk about comfort food for me sometimes and there are a lot of musical moments uh through the entire run uh both above both shows that I love but near the tippy top is you doing MacArthur Park uh live with the entire ensemble that was an incredible performance and you nailed it um oh did you nail it right to the very last I don't know if that would be a falsetto note or not but that last note that you did oh my god did you nail that um how many how many in the shower exercises did you do for that one man I had to wear a device in my pants for uh to get that high note anyway um seriously though that was it was a harrowing experience because first of all you're playing and you're singing at the same time so you got to like figure out some some kind of you gotta fake out some kind of way to coordinate those two things and to either like pay attention to one or the other to not screw up the whole Orchestra you know so you screw up one and that's going to throw everything off and you screwed it the other one is going to throw everything else off you know so we got the bass playing you got the singing and I had written out like a hybrid kind of chart for myself to to appear on the teleprompter oh no kind of let me know you know basic it was a lyric thing but it also had like some hints about what to play you know I have it somewhere I don't even know it had just enough information for me to be able to pull this thing off but the physicality part of it um you know I had my vocal coach there um I was kind of bummed because when I sing on stage I have enough I have enough breaks in between phrases that I can just go to clear my throat right not not when you have the Madonna mic on when yeah here's Mike on every sound is heard so different animal yep and I did you know I did tons of Prilosec tons of uh down a few gallons of water my vocal coach was had warmed me up all day long and you know yeah there was no abridgement in this version too you guys played the whole damn thing like it was it was believe it or not as long as it was there was actually a missing verse there oh my god really yeah there was uh it wasn't the whole version but I can't believe that I know it really felt like a complete package for sure it was epic and I mean and you talk about the Fidelity even you the blocking of it because it starts with Paul on the piano as well and and everything but by the end of it Paul is leading the entire you know the the entire ensemble there and you're on top of a cake like it was yeah it was very complex okay so let's go to I want to talk a little bit about the old days versus uh versus that this is a good pivot for that um the rehearsal uh you guys were and I mean I go back to the original uh band um I mean it made it look like in the original band that you guys were literally jamming and the lead singer of a group would come and just kind of jam with you and you'd be having fun and all that now obviously the reality would be meticulously rehearsed and and and um you know MacArthur Park how much rehearsal went into that at that point uh we had the the basic band you know without the strings and extra hard you know this horns Etc Jimmy Webb had a rehearsal one night because we were learning bumper Tunes okay and then Letterman had sort of said you know could you guys try to do MacArthur Park as a as a bumper right I believe this is how it went well okay Paul Shaffer who's really more on the inside we'll know more about the exact way it went down but to my knowledge to my uh from what I've heard we were we were rehearsing it at the bump at the bumper rehearsal rehearsal and um we you know I think shafe got the sense that I could sing it pretty okay and thought it went and maybe he went back to Dave and said um this you know we don't know exactly how to treat this as a bumper because it's such a such an epic piece of music yeah where do you start where do you end but it's it's got the potential to sound pretty good you know I think he talked Dave into and Dave said well let's do it as a feature or something like this that my order of events is maybe way off but it did when that means you know Paul negotiating for can we get strings and can we get can we build it up and do a thing can we get a prop can we do a cake thing and whatever meetings went into all that stuff right and the funny thing was you know I'm friends with Jimmy Webb he's a really wonderful human being and a good friend and I was excited when when I got the call to say Dave wants to do this as a feature and I and I even had a date that I knew that it was going to be and I was able to call Jim Webb Jimmy and say look I want just want to let you know that I've been asked to do this your song this is MacArthur Park thing and I don't want you to miss it you know are you going to be anywhere near a TV set on blah blah blah whatever the date was I think it was like in july-ish or something how cool is that that's awesome whatever whatever it was going to be he got like really emotional about this and he said he said um man yeah because at this point it had been announced that the show was going to be ending at a certain place at a certain time or whatever it was known that the show was going to go away and that's what he got emotional advice he said man I'm Gonna Miss This show so much I watch it every night blah blah blah and then and then a light bulb went over my head and I just thought wait a minute I gotta see something are you going to be in New York at that time you know and he said well I'm just coming off a tour yeah I'll be in town I'll be around you know when it's happening and I said you know let me call you back in a couple of minutes and I went over and I to my memory and I think Shaffer had already had this idea but I think it's my idea but you know I went to those guys and I said can we ask Jimmy can we invite him to do this with us you know and which because everybody said yes including Jimmy it was like the Saving Grace for me that that that day and night of doing that because I have to tell you that he was so into it that he was like a little kid he was so nervous he had to play that intro that harpsichord intro that he hadn't played since the actual recording with Richard Harris he hadn't played that since that time and I think he felt a great deal of of like pressure and responsibility to get that right so he was just like I was I was chilling him out which cooled me out which really gave me the the freedom to to go ahead and just do it you know yeah you know in between breaks I could see how nervous he was and I'd be hey man it's going to be great you know and I'm over there like who's telling you it's going to be great I needed one of those in my ear but instead I was Jimmy's guy um by the way I loved Felicia's Solo in that as well and right I love the whole thing but there are moments of it where I'm just like oh uh my wife believes Felicia Collins is one of the coolest human beings that has ever walked the planet um right she's right yeah I'm going back and forth with her a little bit trying to get her on on here as well uh I mean but that that bad um all the in the entire every Incarnation every member of that band and the previous one um in my opinion from what I see top shelf um we could talk about MacArthur Park for the entire rest of the episode here uh I want to go back to the words and gentlemen welcome to another episode of MacArthur Park on the 11th that's right yeah the Deep dive into the MacArthur Park uh Diaries um the world's most dangerous band you're in Loathing in MacArthur Park oh my man um do you have a Hunter S Thompson story um really no I just really I just found him you know any any word he said to me was entertainment yeah that's an amazing human so smart yeah uh yeah I mean yeah relaxed smart I like that relax smart I saw a guy speak last night there was a tribute to somebody here in town and I just older guy and he was had been at the top of an organization called God's love we deliver which is a thing that I I'm a musical director thing every year called Love Rocks NYC and it's to to benefit that organization and one of their main people was retiring so I went to the sting and this guy who was speaking and he was just got up in the microphone and I said man and he was just seeing so so many smart things in such a relaxed way that's exactly what I'll never be yeah me too but I'll find it I'll find it endlessly fascinating yeah he was just cool you know yeah absolutely yeah uh well and and Dave and and and Hunter and there are a few others had kind of a they occupy a same a similar spot in my mind when it comes to adoration it's just the the person that knows what to say when to say it and it's almost reflexive um and and and when they do it's just it's it's kind of like that musical thing that just a different version of it right it's almost it's almost Transcendent yeah yeah it's it's hypnotic and all those things um back in the day when you would have artists show up to again the viewer looks at it and says it's seemingly jamming together with you and and you guys adapting to play their music and make them shine how much prep went into that like how how long did you have like okay we got 45 minutes to nail this um were there times where the band would be prepping for the person to come in beforehand where you'd you know okay we got 45 minutes to do this year and then when they get here the day of we'll do another 45 like how did that work do you have any stories that can you can prick out and give us a uh you know I think it was a variation of all of those themes you know sometimes it would be like Paul would would write a chart out sometimes we would write our own chart out I think we would almost always get a recording of it at least the day before yep then I think it when they got more organized through the years they learned how to do organization because you know you could just tell by the beginnings of the show from the first show on into the you know on into its trajectory into you know all the decades that had gotten a little bit more and more organized as time went on but in the beginning everything was so experimental that you know it took a while for them to finally I think I was in a State of Shock one week when I got at the beginning of the week I got the whole week's music on one tape this is great but that was a revelation at that moment because before then I think it was very very day-to-day you know yeah where were okay early years like obviously you'd already had this um you know experience of life on the road experience of life in the studio working with top tier uh musicians but at the same time clearly even today the um the Enthusiast the Fanboy in you was still alive and well during those moments um you know this day and age we talk a lot about being present in in these moments of of of uh well all of our Lives the ups and downs all of that stuff were you like early on in the uh late night run were you like were there moments where you became like shockingly present like oh my God I can't believe this is happening did they happen all the time or by that point were you like I got my stuff together I'm a professional this is just another day at the office it was mostly just normal yeah feeling you know in that way that as weird as our parents are that we now realize it was normal for us back then so that's what we knew you know a little bit of that stuff is going on but they're you know recently it dawned on me that and I can't believe I never really put this together you know in an objective way before but when I was a kid going back to the age 11 in Texas in Huntsville Texas and the Ed Sullivan Show was coming on and everybody knew it was going to be the night of the Beatles February 9th 1964 right yes and I was one of those kids who wouldn't let anybody near the TV sit because I wanted every pixel of that oh yeah I got this you know to get my nose to the yeah basically everybody shut up I was picking up every little thing I could I just wanted to you know Savor this you know well and recording it in your mind there is no playback that right you know you're you're seeing this it's an event not taping this show no we're watching this show yeah yes and so is everybody else in the energy that was focused on that moment was just tremendous and and um so you got to see like close-ups of like those guys doing the thing that made the sounds that you'd heard on the records and that oh my God and that's what they look like when they're doing it and look at the reaction from the chicks in the audience that's what I'm gonna do you know so you just knew that that's what you were gonna do from that moment on yeah so that was from The Ed Sullivan Show at the Ed Sullivan Theater and fast forward several decades later it dawned onto me just about two weeks ago that all these times of people have come up to me and said you know I got so much from watching you do the thing you do and it made me do my thing and blah blah and I realized holy that's that's where I came from the circle has has met its you know the snake is its tail yeah in a way you know it's like wow that same thing and I got to sort of give a little bit of that back a little bit you know it's pretty wild um I appreciate you saying that that's that's uh what a what a phenomenal Revelation that is um same the same stage oh I was going there I was I was going there I I um you know people talk about the Majesty of 30 Rock and and and uh and I mean for this show here I mean much of our community uh I wouldn't say divided but certainly opinionated on on which incarnation of what you guys did they liked better um you know the 30 Rock years there's a lot of majesty when it comes to the broadcasting um and and and and and the moments that happened inside of that building um and and phenomenal uh um you know uh history but the Ed Sullivan Theater stage holy crap like I mean I don't know which one I guess I guess through sheer volume 30 Rock has an edge but the magic moments that happened on that stage that you get to play on for over two decades uh as a standing gig like I said this to bones when he was on Studio musician but who also loves live but also had a gig for 30 plus years um handfuls of people can say the same there aren't very many people who can say that and and again this is where we go back to presence and just what a thing you know it's a real thing yeah and it's uh it's one of those kind of record book type of things in a way it's like I don't know if other people you know I hope more people get a chance to have that kind of amount of that stuff you know but I don't think it's going to happen for many no yeah everything has changed you know the way that uh you know history even the word history is a completely different deal than it used to be you know you think of Johnny Carson and and and the amount of time he was on and and how much of a legend he was well now history is like oh yeah we've got four albums out or or you know like it's it's just it's become such bite-sized uh moments even like I love going long form on this show like it's my I love it but at the end of the day I've got all these people in my ear going okay yeah but you need to bite size it you need to throw things you know shorter episodes and all that stuff I'm like um no the long form that's that's that's where the meat is and I feel the same way about these uh these historical um you know bodies of work that have been created that's why we exist is is is to transfer this this knowledge over um can we go and do some like I love the fact that I don't have uh you know specific other than Springsteen I want to talk about Springsteen and and that was a that was a cool thing um who were some of the artists that you're like okay I'm really glad I took this gig um I'm glad okay yeah thanks Paul Yep this is great I like The Ensemble we're doing this and then suddenly these moments start to happen uh early on at late night what are some of those either artists that you got to work with or moments that you got to be on the stage and and witness uh what pops into your mind as I say that I was just thinking about Stevie Winwood I was thinking about doing higher love with him and and give me some loving I was thinking about uh Peter Gabriel even though we weren't playing with him just just to sit there and witness him being Peter Gabriel on the stage was pretty wild for me because that's one of my big huge like focal you know his album's so yeah you know top of the food chain kind of music um you know having sting on all those times that we did um he ever teach you anything huh he ever teach you anything or did you ever teach him anything teach yeah Inspire maybe we're always teaching each other stuff yeah I do all of his rainforest benefits and stuff here in town and stuff like that so we have a nice camaraderie and a really sweet friendship and he's a wonderful wonderful guys done me favors when I needed to have somebody Supply some some music for something I was mding or something around town he would just do it yeah and but anyway so uh I was thinking about of course you know obviously the number one thing ever was James Brown right ever ever and it never got any better because that was like really early in the show that was like back in 1982.

yeah you know and we would you would think that you'd have some moments that could even match it but nothing ever really came close to that to that night no Paul Paul even has said the same thing like it's it's cool that two of you have kind of isolated that moment and you know what's special when you're both like yeah this was oh yeah we still talk about it all the time oh wow yeah it was it was a life lesson if nothing else you know it was just so exciting and unprecedented that he not only did James was not only already being allowed to do two songs but we did an unprecedented third song that night which was you know they bumped somebody to make that happen and then of course that never happened again so it was not only unprecedented it was unfollowable or whatever the word next word past this moment is yeah it was a little repeatable yeah here yeah that's a historic moment too that that people can go back and they can look at too I I uh Don's got a compilation of that on his channel I believe I don't think that's made the the rounds to uh the official YouTube uh Letterman YouTube I was having a discussion with him the other day about is is his channel official or not my contention is is that it is um and and and I'm so grateful for that again we talk about this uh idea of long form these a lot of these historic moments are there um so go back and watch these uh again not until you're done this episode and after you've liked and shared it but then go back yes watch this James Brown moment phenomenal um moment um Bruce Springsteen showing up you know Project X I think it was called or uh you know you guys you guys kept it under wraps pretty good um the rehearsal footage is out there as well uh I love that so do you guys you rehearse that one night and then it was the night of the show and that was it like that's the uh I'm trying to remember what that is oh I'm sorry the very last night um I was in Japan you're in Japan you weren't there that night okay let me tell you my whole story about that yeah there was a sub for me that night Francisco centeno is the bass player's name that did that night but the thing that happened was you know I I I always got these calls to come do other things and I turned most everything down but this was a really cool Japan like a week or two in Japan and chafe as I said before was it was one of those rare guys who knew that you had to go out and do this other stuff to come back in and be fully you you know and for his band right so I needed to go out and do that Japan charge the batteries recharge the batteries yeah he knew how important that was to me but I also knew that there was this was during the last Letterman show and and the the way Dave was getting kicked off the network to me was was really not cool and so for that reason and also for for the reason that that I actually checked in with Dave to say hey Dave listen um I got this offer to do this and I know it's the last show you know what are you thinking he he said well I'm not going to really make a big deal out of it anyway because he was also pretty sour about the whole thing right but of course when the time came to do the last show he was going to go out with a more of a splash than he told me that he was going to so I missed out on a pretty great night that night and not knowing that I was going to be missing out on that but I found out later oh man they got Springsteen for the last show had I known okay yeah there's there's a little bit of uh you know money money Monday morning quarterbacking there uh had you known would you have changed your like is it you know charging up the batteries are important I'm sure you were doing something awesome uh had you known would you have altered things to be part of that well it wouldn't it wouldn't have been because it was Bruce Springsteen or any other particular person it would have been because Dave had more of a uh I don't want to say it emotional attachment to that moment but but he he was going to do it with more panesh than than I had thought if if I had known that if you know that would have put way more importance on it so yeah you know I would have opted probably just to hang around and do it can I just tell you that I'm really grateful for you to say this right now go ahead it's really easy to say this uh after it after the fact by the way well it's a beautiful Beauty about Monday morning quarterbacking like that's right that's uh and that's what this culture has become you know The Walking Dead it shows up well let's watch Talking Dead right after and and I mean um you know for whatever reason Gen X and and the Millennials passed us love this stuff the whole reason the show exists and again these moments um I've used this analogy forgive me uh to the audience who's heard it so many times but I mean at the end of the day all of you guys every day you were miners and and you and you found gold nuggets you found diamonds you found rare uh materials in the earth and then the next day you just drop them on the ground and the next day you had to go mine some more and and and so the idea that it's 30 some odd years of this and it's it's fun to take to look at some of those things that were found in the mind and picked them up in and and this is the whole reason why we exist doing this uh that Insight I can't I can't tell you how grateful I am to hear you tell that story um I feel embarrassed knowing that not knowing that it wasn't you playing bass at night um but but at the end of the day the pro that you are uh turned that into something really really sweet I I appreciate that will um I just wanted to say that um you know those nuggets that you were talking about yes sir it's it's it's it's really odd that that we were so on automatic because there was so much to do and there was so much content and there was so much music being thrown at us to be a part of and it's it's really incredible that a guy like Don Giller has allowed us to go back and remember some of those moments that might have not I mean I have to confess that I think it was Schaefer that was telling me how how he was remembering um Curtis Mayfield coming over and giving me a big hug during doing Fred is dead during the bass solo and I had to say to him we played with Curtis Mayfield oh my God yes how did I forget that right true I had to be reminded because I mean and I was sober by then well Dave talks about it might have even been the night the anecdote that he told before he announced to retirement you know they were talking about this oh what kind of a bird is this and the whole staff got in on it we were looking to see what kind of a bird it was and all that stuff and and then I got home and she said oh that's great who was on the show tonight and he said no and and they do they blur together and and all this stuff but it's it's greatness that blurs together and all of these things like what an analogy I have forgotten more magic moments than many musicians have in their entire lives you know like like that is a that is a crazy sentiment but the Breakneck speed at what you guys did guys then gals did um is is it's just this is again why this show exists it's marvelous it's a Marvel um and I I appreciate that um I want to get into some nuts and bolts stuff that the fans uh of of the show will really really like um moving over uh from The Ensemble to the to the big band you know my Tonight Show uh and I look at The Tonight Show I think of Johnny Carson my father's Johnny Carson my Tonight Show was The Late Show with David Letterman you guys obviously uh significantly changed the band when you found out um about the change you knew you had the invitation to come over over you were already working with Paul you had this uh amazing relationship when you found out that it was going to get bigger and more grandiose was there ever a thought or a consideration to you going Kate now I I I'm not going to do that uh did you talk to Paul about this already oh man okay so I haven't talked to Paul yet and if we can figure out a way to make that happen uh I I really really would love that we've only had Bones on the show here so far from and I want to have all of you of course Paul being um you know a very special uh uh you know consideration in there but I haven't talked to Paul about that no I didn't want to repeat but I'm sure that you're gonna if you ask him this question he's gonna give you some version that's going to be a little bit like okay so there was the Carson Show already yep it was the Doc Severinsen band which was the greatest absolutely all Paul not wanting to do that even though Dave had asked okay we're going into more prime time when we go to CBS can we have horns I really want horns yep all you know being the hip guy that he is went as far as he could go by by talking Dave uh into letting him have more Rhythm Section people right yeah if you remember the beginning of the CBS thing we we added Felicia so there's one more there one more guitar now we have two of those yep and can I can I bring in Bernie Worrell as a second keyboard player the great Bernie Worrell who was most known uh visibly probably for being part of Parliament-Funkadelic right and being like a great synthesizer genius wizard that he was yep and you know and lots of other things too you know he was involved with Tom Tom Club I think and like things that Tina Weymouth was doing whatever that project was I guess talking has itself I think he was part of even at some point yep so Paul you know Dave trusting Paul acquiesced and said yes go ahead and fatten up the Rhythm Section and I'll see if I like it so so these these extra musicians that he added to our regular four-piece core band um he gave like a 13-week contract to as in let's just see how it goes you know right uh no guarantees but let's try it you know and sure enough it's some some semi didn't work out with the second keyboard scenario but we all loved Felicia because she brought a lot to the party uh on on a number of levels you know like her vocal stuff yep she was a genius with like 70s 80s r b stuff I mean she brought in material that we never even heard of and and it really changed it really helped shape the band A Lot yep yeah because she's just so hip and and Street wise and uh you know and then that was the end of that little era and then horn started to trickle in and they finally got his way and then years later here was the big shocker this is uh this is to me this to me relates it may not mean anything to you may not be part of the topic but it's kind of all the same it's about the image about the way the thing feels yeah you know for 22 years starting from day one back at NBC with the with late night with David Letterman yep the man was never ever suggested to wear any particular kind of anything clothing-wise yeah so we're just you know I remember going back and looking at one of the original Darlene Love Christmas songs yep you did we're all in sweatshirts basically she's in a bloody sweatshirt right and can I say something I love as a viewer I recognize that and loved that about you guys you guys look like you were all different individuals with different styles and different everything but you played together so be I had a cognizant thought of that many times watching it ain't the clothes that make the music happen that's no and it's not even the nature of the individuals actually inspired me that much more because it's like people from different walks different talks coming together and collaborating and here's what you get I I think that that's a subliminal message from that it was like one of those neighborhoods where you're walking down the street and all the houses have different style I love totally totally instead of like Truman Show you know so so Darlene if you look at that first time we did it you know throughout the years there were so many bells and whistles put on onto that thing different you know orchestras and choirs and oh yeah blah blah blah and things and vocalists and huge but if you look at that first one it's all her you don't miss a thing about it you know as far as far as the listener's concerned I think all the elements that you could ever need are right there with the four four piece Rhythm Section and her we're doing the backgrounds Paul's playing all the textures she's wailing just delivering the goods but but to uh to to round back to almost what we were talking not what you were talking about but when I was interrupting what you were talking about we're good it was 22 years in the Shocker of shocker happened when we got a memo deer band uh let it be known that from today forward Dave has requested that the band wear jackets and ties and that just smacked us upside the head like like like a like a bulldozer was coming down the road and wailing on us it was like what after 22 years what is this this is so weird but you know there was that actual turning point where that happened and again part of that image the way the whole thing felt and and he was of course right you know I mean we were pretty Motley up there with you know with Pittsburgh Penguins you know hockey shirts whatever the hell last week the next guy would have a suit make sure Dad he was working for Century 21.

he was wearing a Hawaiian shirt absolutely all that stuff yeah uh and I I love that Evolution um I love just what you were talking about there you know you look about the evolution of the show over Christmas um you know the tradition was Paul and you guys you know monkeying around with shares Oh Holy Night and then you know but then it turning into Darlene Love all the way up to 2014 the very last uh you know Christmas episode on the end on The Ed Sullivan Theater and and that I mean that's a culmination of a lot of damn history that brought it to that place um you know the production was never bigger than that year and it was magic and I remember I remember you know openly tears coming down my face on that last episode and don't get me wrong there are other Productions uh that will put something on you know Radio City Music Hall or whatever um that will put on a production that is that is as tight but they don't have the emotion because it's 30 plus years that are going up to that moment um the last year for you um you know I I imagine that you would have been present for a lot of those moments MacArthur Park being one of them um you think about some of these big moments at the end to uh uh John Mayer doing American Pie and and some of these other really really big moments those moments are big they're great but they're not nearly as big without that 30 plus year history that leads up to those moments um am I am I am I on base there or is that just my my ticket what you're saying it almost reminds me because you know it's the end it's almost reminds me of uh of Warren zevon's last appearance on this show oh my God yeah you know what I'm saying I mean that you know boy knowing that we're gonna do Rowan The Headless Thompson Gunner for the last time that really got me yeah hey what's that is that book behind you not to change the subject which one uh uh yeah last days what is that last days the Lettermen oh my God have you read this book no I I didn't know about it Willie you must read this book um I love I love uh zinnamon's book I love Bill Carter's books oh they're so good the last days of Letterman by a good friend of mine Scott Ryan um it's a it's uh it's told um Scott doesn't write there he writes very little in it the entire thing is I think it's about 27 28 staff members that he interviewed about the last six weeks and it goes through every single show for the last six weeks leading right up to the end lots of behind the scenes uh little tidbits all told uh from the mouths of the people involved um oh wow it is it is my favorite Letterman book simply because the the last six weeks of uh The Late Show is my favorite run of any uh television entertainment run of anything in history I think that that last six weeks and no offense to Mr Carson's ramp up but the ramp up that you guys had and the moments that you guys had that lives in my heart and it will forever so this book uh recaptures that I was gonna say you're odd but I'm gonna say that's very nice man beautiful and I get it hey man I'm watching I'm doing this page Turner right now I really recommend it I'd like you to oh there we go back yeah yeah oh hey what's what's can I can I can I just pull out one real quick yeah please okay um wow okay when she died speed reading Pioneer Evelyn wood was working on a way to watch television more quickly oh I'm gonna say Steve Young wrote that one but that's actually didn't love this show you think I don't I that's my guess I'm gonna guess that oh man I I really loved your interview with Joe Grossman man that was really spectacular thanks man um I love that guy and and I you know like we talked about that during the interview I think and I have the same affection for you guys again because of the music that you would play um you know it it it it it would it would stay current right like you'd play Hurt by Nine Inch Nails and and and so or or Eddie Vedder would come out and do his uh you know do black again right during their when when Grossman showed up I'm like there's a gen xer writing for Dave like I was just uh it connected me more just like your music connected me so so much you gotta love the velcro suit though oh yeah check this out yes sir at Brigham Young University parties feature kegs of club soda that's a fun fact the thing I love about that book is that's one where you're almost like is that is that true like I love the ones that make you go wait a second is that one actually like that that seems like a logical product progression for the good folks that Brigham Young University here's logic at work this kind of reminds me of pineapple porcupines are neither Pine nor pork to read from this book for the rest of the interview oh that could be the podcast well if this was delivered well this would be a really good you know couple hours of entertainment oh yeah well you know you can deliver it I I'm terrible at that stuff but you're you're uh I I freeze on cameraman they never I never liked being on camera on the Letterman show I would always freeze really yeah something inside me be like hit them on camera even by the end anytime yeah okay let's talk about the screams now um I mean you screamed Don gave me a uh I appreciate this very very much I jokingly said to him I'm gonna ask how many times will uh gave the blood curdling scream on camera I want to know when they knew who knew that you could do that because it was right out of the Foley of a horror movie uh that scream that you have uh Cheney's dungeon whatever and and you just went for it um and and Don then sent me a spreadsheet of like 80 times of the shows that you saw I thought you were gonna say he sent you audio of them tape of all glued together like end to end no that'll be the next oh man oh there okay hey Walter there's a you know you two get yourselves together let's have the extended Willy scream um so when you would do that you'd be like committing obviously would there be in the back of your mind God damn it I'm on camera right now would that be would that be in your head oh that that was nothing for me to really do just make a noise but uh kindly they would tell me ahead of time they're going to ask you to scream tonight okay okay get my chop my chop ready right uh this leads to another question that's very very interesting uh that you would have a bit of a a bit of a heads up were there nights where you didn't have a heads up and a scream is expected like now do it yeah I didn't enjoy that very much as much um again that's one of those uh you know it's a it takes the village to do that screen because you've got Paul sitting it up with this right yeah the creep organ thing and then you'd have like Dave setting it up in his way about the gym The Cheney deal and then you'd have you know then you'd have me making the noise and you'd have you know Harvey downstairs you know putting Reverb on it Harvey Goldberg our engineer you know it would be the whole thing um well it's the reason the show exists again it's David Letterman and Company um I don't ever expect to have Dave on uh but the company is what I mean obviously the greatest broadcaster in history the greatest uh repartee uh um uh wit all of that but it's it's it's surrounded by what I believe is the greatest team in in history and that's every Department uh all the way down to the uh the interns and the audience greeters and all of that we're gonna have David K on here he's going to talk about that um uh you know that part of it all of these things working like gears and a watch together meticulously and beautifully um to go back to you for a second when it came to okay the scream what would you call it uh whether it's on panel or Dave says something and it's like what did you call that when you grew when you do the glissando on the bass to accentuate a joke what was the shorthand for that what'd you guys call it uh reaction I don't know okay I have no idea it wasn't anything it was just me being an idiot idiot no it wasn't it was it was great and especially great when someone like I don't know if Julia ever did it but it was somebody who was sitting in the chair it might have been Julie Roberts that I'm thinking of right now but it would say something and then would show up and look out thank you for that like I love those moments um was that of her Paul talking into the microphone telling you to do that or is that always just you paying attention and just doing it your idiot Behavior just nothing I love that I love that you were given that Latitude did anybody ever uh encourage discourage anything shape it uh aim it uh before this is this is off the air before we go on before the before uh the tape started rolling yeah um the band would come out and play for the audience and I always have a a big supply of of custom picks guitar picks and I would throw one out one or two out into the audience right cool and it would be you know just picks I don't know whether it be my signature picks or glow-in-the-dark picks or whatever and um they weren't always colored white until I until this thing happened um I had learned that a lady had gotten hit in the eye during the warm-up of the show but because tickets were so hard to come by she wasn't going to leave her seat she was going to stay there for the whole duration in pain and ended up having to go to the hospital eye infection and I think they were threatening to sue the show but they thought it was cool so I kept doing it also you gotta admire the commitment of the lady to stay there yes differently of course sure and and I had him paint you know they had him colored white after that too so and I threw them completely different like you know not a straight on yeah anyway that's just a complete ridiculous aside no it's not that's a that's the note that you'd never expect uh to be part of the production there's here's a note for you um you know you can keep flicking the picks but just uh you know let's let's try not to injure let's try to use them as a shuriken or a throwing star let's leave the eye the audience eyes out of this wait you possibly can thank you very much um I've been given a note to ask about the uh the Paul bobblehead or the bobble heads the bobble head um that was the thing that I just you know my wife and I thought how could we how could we do something that's uh really cool honoring Paul for a Christmas present for all the staffers that's the one made in China and um we're all good bobble heads come from um so so between century and my wife and I we looked into it and found a company that would do this you know uh I forgot how we got it happening I think we must have sent multiple images of Paul from different angles or something if you didn't know this was happening of course and we made like a couple of hundred and we gave it to the staff everybody on staff as a Christmas gift that year and I think most people thought it came from Paul but oh that's hilarious yeah uh you were talking about Joe Grossman earlier have you seen the Joe Grossman flip book no yeah you know like those little flip book those little cartoon books that we used to have when we were kids okay yeah I believe this was the Steve Young creation as a gift for everybody uh but don't tell me it doesn't move that's exactly it it's a football game Joe just sitting there I don't know how I was able to guess that but what else could it do it's not going to do flip yeah well it's from the mind of Steve Young and it's the vision the Visage of Joe Grossman now boom there you go um oh man there's so many Fantastic writers on that show yes I mean just I I ca I'd love to be the garbage can at the end of the day of the stuff that gets thrown out yep I wish I'd had privy to that garbage can you know exactly uh Jeremy Weiner and I just just shot an episode and it hasn't aired yet but we talked about that the thing yeah I mean oh it was great um he's actually our next episode is going to be kind of cool he's got a box I always ask if people are many times ask if people collected things he's got an entire box up in his attic uh or up in a storage room of things uh and it's full but he hasn't looked at it in years we're gonna do an episode where he just opens it up and we just start looking at things um but yeah it's gonna be fun um we talked about cutting room floor stuff and and I hope that uh as this thing which which I'm desperately trying to shoehorn myself to be a part of but as Walter and Company and and and and everybody um starts to you know pick up these these nuggets and we re-examine them Cutting Room floor stuff is one of the things that I would love to see there's a whole bunch of bits and things that haven't ever seen the light of day they were cut for whatever reason and they were just maybe put into an archive but never actually shown um and and he was like there's so much stuff um I I hope that that can that there's there's an aside from me as the Fanboy saying that uh I do have another question for you though um and it goes with the with kind of the bass glissandos and the screams and all that stuff how much was improvised how much wasn't we also used to see Paul all the time in his microphone to you guys that's the lisandos yeah that's the word that's what it is it is a glissando okay okay gotcha I think the word swoosh is already taken by Nike but yeah well and they copyrighted I yeah you know we're gonna be shut off the air just for saying that now um but okay I'll give you I'll give you a great Schaefer ISM that that we took advantage of the microphone by having the microphone that nobody else could hear about us yes so first of all shape I don't know how he did it man he must have been some kind of you know he had 12 Minds going at once because he had the A.D talking in his ear at all times he had Dave to to respond to he had he had what what was Dave was you know when Dave wasn't talking to him to respond to the the room itself you know and just to set up the band and also to be a bad on the on the on the keyboards which he all has always been right yes genius on the keyboards and and everything I don't know what you know just the brand and listening to people make mistakes and you know making notes while we were making the mistakes and everything yep um but one of the great advantages of of that microphone that he was so genius about never talking into the wrong one of that's the genius because that could have been pretty interesting yep um his father um was a was a really great guy and uh Bernie Schaefer and he had this uncanny ability according to Paul to to uh to call out somebody's wig hair piece uh black spray paint on the bald spot you know those kind of those kind of things it's a hell of a gift and yes he could nail it every time and I think Paul got that inherited that Gene as well oh so he would he would point out you know when people certain people would come on he would point out one of those it's a weave it's a thing plugs he would just you know and we would just go really and then the more you look the more you realize man he nailed it so fast you know so that was one of the great uses of the microphone by the way this is the reason we do this show that's fantastic um how are you doing for time and energy and all that stuff I I don't wanna I don't want to encroach on anything I'm good in there but you know um I appreciate this very very much I'm I'm I'm fascinated and having a ball um I appreciate that we can we can round out now uh can we you'll come back we can have you back and I can uh bring up some moments and stuff edit this down to a good two minutes this is what we just did here uh yeah that's what the that's what the the YouTubers tell me to do I uh uh I voraciously opposed that idea I love this long form this is so good talking about these you're talking about these people who call something that happened two weeks ago throwback Thursday that's exactly exactly that's I'm not that's uh that is not the camp that I went to um that's not my deal at all up okay uh how can I okay yeah I want to talk about this part here uh I want to talk about Paul Shaffer as a leader um and I want to talk about bones as an arranger and and and I just in my mind as a viewer not just because of the grandiose nature of of what happened with the band um but it seems like you couldn't have two people whose skill sets complement each other more than than Paul who you know the ear of a prodigy uh Bones the theory of a prodigy uh that's the way I look at it and and then having them both in the same band working together just seems amazing to me um where do you see yourself when it comes to skill set like are you are you a natural sight reader um are you more the feel are you both um um I guess I you know I just what I bring is a little bit of uh sort of uh you know a little bit of everything from all the different musical worlds because I understand a lot of different kinds of music because I I come from this foundational position within the orchestra which is the bass yeah which kind of has a view of of everything that's going on from a very root level literally yeah so I think Paul loved that I could you know that I could you know uh and because of a studio musician like you know I can I can I can uh zero in on a feel of a thing really easily you know and I've always sort of had that ability to to fake a certain genre you know because I I kind of understand the uh the bones of of it if you will yeah and so I can I can provide like a lot of uh a lot of that stuff to to a situation and I can pick up on stuff pretty fast too you know I can get there quickly and I was actually very critical of of of the horns a lot and I have to confess that you know I was critical of people that didn't have everybody in their their in in their mix they just wanted to hear themselves because they were they would drag the pitch and the temp and and the feel of the of the band down and I was always policing that and being a real jerk about it because I I really didn't like when people weren't listening to the point where it would drag the whole Groove down you know right and I was making everybody painfully aware of that and and I was calling out people once in a while you know can you please put some pitch in your phones you know that kind of stuff so I think Paul enjoyed not not having to be the jerk 24 7.

so I was there for him with that you know well over you know once we got a fatter band and all that stuff to me that's the that's kind of the job of the uh of the Rhythm Section is to is to do that though right like you guys are kind of you're kind of driving the truck aren't you yeah and it's easy for it's you know it's easy to want to make it better you know you do it as diplomatically as you can until you lose patience and then you start to get circus Maximus but time to go out and charge the batteries in Japan um Paul elected that I sang he dug that you know yeah I could bring some of that to the party yeah I think you just like my energy and ability to get there quickly I think Kinda Yeah um I want to finish by talking about some of the stuff that you're doing now I uh I I you know for those who haven't uh listened to some of Will's solo stuff um you know Sahara being a lovely lovely song I Love by the way getting an email back from you that had a lot of very cool links oh yeah some of the cool stuff that you that you do and have done um needs to be updated there's a lot of new stuff since then well let's talk about some of the new stuff like uh you talk about this benefit that you're that that you help with if folks want to come and see you or connect with you and anything that you're doing right now what are some of the ways to do that what are some of the projects you have going on um I like to put out little uh I like to put a little original songs and make and try to make some kind of video representation of them so a lot of stuff can be found on YouTube these days yep um as far as as live stuff I'm preparing this this big show that Paul Shaffer is actually going to be one of my keyword players and he has been in the past for my little house band my little house man of six horns six singers um great two drummers you know Steve gadd and Sean Felton I mean just the greatest you know the spoiler of all time for house bands and they make my job so easy because I you know I prepare all the stuff we're dealing with like many many artists many attitudes coming from many different worlds and you know they're able to cover anything all that stuff and Paul's one of those perfect guys to to have in the band and he doesn't really he doesn't like it as much as I would like him to like it because it's a lot of work you know and it works really hard for me to get there but anything I'd anything I know about musical directing came from that one guy anything on you know that enables me to have a band like fabfo I got all that information from him on how to do it and what I mean by that is you know the specialty area of bringing the records to the stage because you know by hooker by crook when we were just a four-piece band we still tried to make it sound like it had a lot more instruments going on it than it than we than the number of people in the band yeah you know so anything I could learn trick wise about how to make that happen and just how to organize it all came from Paul because he's the best there is and and he's an amazingly good friend and a great patient human being you know he's like the perfect guy to have done that gig obviously I mean because because first of all in the first few years I watched how he let's let's say the first year because he got it pretty fast how he navigated Dave yeah you know and found out how to make all of his comedic timing brilliance and uh diplomatic skills and awareness of what's happening in any particular room how to make that you know turn us into a great uh part of the show an accessory to not not something that's separate from the show but an accessory to the show and a part of the show an appendage really um I don't know yeah I love watching the evolution of all of that um well imagine uh Dave got to depend on him so much that when Paul had to sub out say to go do spinal tap or something yep you know Dave didn't know where to look when he would look toward the band he didn't know where to look you'd see his eyes like wander all over the place and there was no Paul there so there was no Central Focus for him to you know he was a little bit lost yeah you know without Paul after you know you know once Paul had established himself as being sort of the go-to -part you know yeah so Paul was just Priceless for that oh my favorite Paul Schaffer Moment by the way was the with Julia Roberts he getting laid lately um I just that was uh that was the context of that you don't remember okay so uh uh uh Julia had gone through a breakup uh I forget who with and it doesn't matter anyway she had gone through something but she was making an appearance on the show and but it was very public that that was what was happening and so she and Dave were going back and forth and they had they had their usual uh chemistry but it was a little bit strained and different because he was dancing around the subject and they knew that they were dancing around the subject and and everyone was kind of in on it and and I think I think the context was he went back to Paul he goes Paul anything to ask Julia and he goes are you getting laid lately and you know Dave you know Paul what are you doing he gets up and they have this it was one of the greatest models yeah oh it was so good and and and to me you talk about the evolution to you figure all those things out and where it culminates it culminates in a moment like that um well I can't thank you enough for this um is there anything that before you know our our hour chapter one kind of closes here that you want to throw out there uh before I uh close us out here everybody wear your rubbers you know there you go Winter's coming it's gonna be slushy out there Timeless advice um I'm gonna do a quick outro and then we'll say our goodbye privately if that's okay with you all right yes all right thank you very very much um holy crap ah yeah this is why I do this show oh what a what a phenomenal conversation that was um so so grateful I I uh as preparing for this I mean there was no other word I could use I'm gonna use it while he's there but we're not seeing it right now uh Willie is an icon they use an icon and and I I'm so uh fortunate to have had this amazing conversation I hope uh that this community that we're building really enjoyed this episode of the Letterman podcast I certainly know that I did um please like please share Please Subscribe again I'm gonna say that until I don't have to say that anymore uh we have one sponsor of the Lettermen podcast one sponsor only and that is Rupert G of the hello Deli if you're in the New York area go visit Rupert in may get yourself some soup get yourself a sandwich get yourself a beverage get yourself a piece of Late Show with David Letterman merchandise it's the only place that you can get it officially boom go see them uh if you live far away that's okay too go to hellodationally.com get yourself a late show mug get yourself a late show t-shirt I think he even has Scott's book there a Rupert t-shirt and if you ask really really nicely Rupert does by the way pack these orders himself if you ask him really nicely he might add onions to that order um this has been another episode of the Letterman podcast with Mike Chisholm coincidentally I am Mike Chisholm thank you and good night