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Joe Rogan Experience #2550 - Rick Springfield

Rick Springfield is a Grammy Award-winning musician, actor, and author. In addition to his work as a solo artist, Springfield fronts the rock supergroup The Locustz. Their most recent album, “Buzzkill,” is available now. https://www.youtube.com/@RickSpringfieldOfficial locustzbuzzkill.bandcamp.com/album/buzzkill https://linktr.ee/rickspringfield https://www.rickspringfield.com Perplexity: Download the app or ask Perplexity anything at https://pplx.ai/rogan. Don’t miss out on all the action this week at DraftKings! Download the DraftKings app today! Sign-up using https://dkng.co/rogan or through my promo code ROGAN. This video is sponsored by BetterHelp. Visit https://BetterHelp.com/JRE

Joe RoganhostRick Springfieldguest
Sep 8, 20262h 19mWatch on YouTube ↗

EVERY SPOKEN WORD

  1. 0:00 – 0:02

    Intro

    1. JR

      [upbeat music]

  2. 0:02 – 2:05

    Aliens, wormholes, and the Fermi Paradox: how could visitors get here?

    1. JR

      Joe Rogan podcast, check it out.

    2. JR

      The Joe Rogan Experience.

    3. JR

      Train by day, Joe Rogan podcast by night. All day. [upbeat music] You believe?

    4. RS

      Mm-hmm.

    5. JR

      I think something's going on. I don't know what that something is.

    6. RS

      Yeah, I know. It's, uh, the, the whole argument of, um, [clears throat] you know, a species living long enough to... Surviving long enough to actually have faster than light or f- at faster than light travel is, it's a tough one.

    7. JR

      It is a tough one. Uh, are we rolling? I think, um, they probably have some unique propulsion system that has nothing to do with moving in one direction to another.

    8. RS

      Right.

    9. JR

      I think they fold space and time.

    10. RS

      Yeah.

    11. JR

      This is what... Yeah.

    12. RS

      The, the what is it? The, the, um, the wormhole that brings the two things together so you skip all this.

    13. JR

      Yeah. I think that's the theory, but I mean, obviously in practice-

    14. RS

      But then that's, that's them living... That's, that's that species existing long enough, 'cause we're like, we're getting close to-

    15. JR

      Yeah

    16. RS

      ... you know, and we're nowhere near that. So the species living long enough to achieve that and then come here is the, you know, that's, that's the w- the st- the stumbling block I have.

    17. JR

      Yeah. Well, a lot of people have this, a lot of people have that stumbling block. I think it's also the possibility that they didn't evolve in the same violent world-

    18. RS

      Mm-hmm

    19. JR

      ... that we did. But then there's the question, well then what gave them the motivation to innovate and move forward? 'Cause for us, a lot of it is survival and competition, and that's the reason why people innovate in the first place.

    20. RS

      Yes.

    21. JR

      Well, it's-

    22. RS

      Wars create great innovation.

    23. JR

      Yeah. I mean, the real f- the, the more interesting theory is that they're monitoring us to make sure that we can successfully pass this sort of adolescent phase of evolution that we're currently in.

    24. RS

      Yeah. That we won't blow up.

    25. JR

      That's why they hover over nuclear bases and shit.

    26. RS

      [sighs] Yeah.

    27. JR

      Yeah.

    28. RS

      We hope, we hope we to get there. It's, uh, very debatable.

  3. 2:05 – 4:25

    Still loving the stage at 77: passion, audience energy, and longevity

    1. JR

      Yeah. Well, listen, man, um, thank you for being here.

    2. RS

      Yeah.

    3. JR

      It's kind of cool to meet you. It's f- fascinating. I mean, I, I listened to your music when I was in high school, which is crazy, and to see you look as good as you look now, I mean, we played a video. I don't know if you ever saw.

    4. RS

      Yes. [laughs]

    5. JR

      We played a vi- We were freaking out. We're like, "This guy's like..." How old are you?

    6. RS

      77.

    7. JR

      77.

    8. RS

      Yeah.

    9. JR

      That's fucking incredible, dude, because a lot of your contemporaries, when they've, uh, you know, even guys younger than you, they're falling apart. And you were out there singing Jesse's Girl like you wrote it a week ago. It was crazy.

    10. RS

      That was, that was actually a great comment. I really appreciate that, 'cause it's, uh, uh, I'm s- I'm still very passionate about playing music, and, you know, and they, they say, "How do, why do you, how can you deliver a song that you've played a million times?" It's 'cause the, [clears throat] the energy of the audience, you know? I mean, I wrote the song, and to see an audience react like that to it, it's pretty difficult to just sit back and go, you know. So it, it charges me up, too.

    11. JR

      Well, it's nice that you still enjoy it and appreciate it because I think even though it's the dream for everyone to become a rock star-

    12. RS

      Yeah. [laughs] It used to be

    13. JR

      ... for some, I mean, for some people s- something happens along the way and they just get so accustomed to it and they get, you know, worn out by it, and then they don't love it anymore.

    14. RS

      Mm-hmm.

    15. JR

      Which is crazy.

    16. RS

      I know. Well, um, I... Uh, obviously it depends on the person, you know?

    17. JR

      Yeah.

    18. RS

      Um, and it depends on what- uh, whatever experiences they have. Um, I've had pretty good experiences. Um, and I just, I'd al- I've always wanted to do it, you know? I mean, I, uh, since I was 11 years old when I first saw and held my first guitar, I, that was what I wanted to do. And really, it's kind of centered around playing guitar, although that's not what I'm necessarily known for, but that's what I enjoy the most, you know? And, um, and when I started to write, that, that, that kind of changed everything for me, too. You know, it gave me a, a great fo- a forward focus rather than just playing, but going somewhere with the writing.

  4. 4:25 – 5:43

    Early life, depression, and getting kicked out of school: guitar as an education

    1. JR

      How old were you when you first started performing in front of people?

    2. RS

      Uh, about 15. 15 I started playing. I, you know, I had a school band together and, um, and then I, I got kicked out of school. Actually, I got kicked out of 11th grade. And, um-

    3. JR

      For what? What happened?

    4. RS

      I didn't show up anymore.

    5. JR

      [laughs]

    6. RS

      I just, you know, I, I show... [laughs] I discovered the guitar and, um, and, and I was having, I was... I had serious depression when I was a kid. I still, still deal with it, but, but, um, [clears throat] it, I was failing in the only arena that was available to me at the time, which was school, you know? With friends and school and work and all that, uh, school work, and I just wasn't doing well, and it was really dragging me down and I started, just discovered the guitar, started staying away from school 'cause I couldn't face going to school. Um, but, you know, instead of playing video games and getting stoned, which wasn't available to me at that point, um, I was reading, um, Robert Bloch and August Derleth and great writers, 'cause I loved horror, and, uh, playing the guitar, and that was my education, really. After, once I learned to read and write, you know, that was what I w- took out of school.

  5. 5:43 – 6:30

    A moving childhood: Australia to England, accents, and discovering girls and guitars

    1. JR

      Where were you living?

    2. RS

      Uh, I lived in Australia till I was 10, then we moved to England till I was about 13, and that was a big, that was a game changer for me was moving-

    3. JR

      Yeah, because your accent is weird.

    4. RS

      Yeah.

    5. JR

      It's like it's all over the place.

    6. RS

      It is, yeah. [laughs]

    7. JR

      It's like try- [laughs] trying to, I'm trying to lock it in and figure out-

    8. RS

      I know

    9. JR

      ... what the hell's going on.

    10. RS

      I know. There's some words I can't say with an American accent. I can't say Australia without, with an American accent. It's just not possible. Um- Yeah, we moved to England, and that's when I discovered girls and guitars, and that was like this, the beginning for me. It was a band called Cliff and the Shadows, Cliff Richard and the Shadows. That was before the Beatles. And, um, yeah, it was, uh... And then I moved back to Australia, and then I went to Vietnam for a couple of months, and then I was, uh, came over here.

  6. 6:30 – 11:04

    Touring Vietnam as a teen musician: gigs for GIs in a war zone

    1. JR

      What were you doing in Vietnam?

    2. RS

      Uh, '68, '69. I was, um, uh, there was, uh, uh, promoters in Saigon and Da Nang, and they were looking for the closest Occidental country was Australia. So the GIs wanted to see, you know, girls that reminded them of home. So as long as we had a couple of girls in the band, they would hire you, and you could tour Vietnam [laughs] during the war zone.

    3. JR

      Wow.

    4. RS

      It was, it was pretty insane. We were there for about four months.

    5. JR

      What was that like?

    6. RS

      Uh, it was insane. Uh, I, I thought, "Oh, great. We'll make money," you know? And of course we didn't make any money. We spent it all, uh, at the PX, and, uh, and we weren't making much money anyway. But we based out of Saigon and Da Nang, and we toured from Cam Ranh Bay up to, uh, the DMZ. We were at the DMZ the Tet after the Tet, where they'd crossed over the Vietcong crossed into the cities and everything, and, like, done the big, uh, um, assault. You know, the Tet assault. We were there, uh, we were two miles from the DMZ [laughs] on that next Tet, and I remember New Year's Eve and the flares start, the, you know, the parachute flares start going off like this, and we're w- And there's, like, a line of guys heading towards us, and it was fricking freaky. They, you know, they kept them at bay, but we w- got shot at and rocketed, and we'd be playing.

    7. JR

      Holy-

    8. RS

      There'd be mortars landing

    9. JR

      ... shit.

    10. RS

      And stayed over, and we, we befriended some, uh, uh, Navy guys at, uh, Marble Mountain, which is outside Da Nang, and we went back there for, [coughs] for, uh, to give them a free show, you know, 'cause they were s- so appreciative. You know? I mean, they, they loved seeing the girls, but they, they wanted connection with home, you know?

    11. JR

      Yeah.

    12. RS

      So they'd tell, take you into the tents, and we'd play Hendrix and, and get stoned and, and you know. I mean, even though we're Australian, there still was, there was a connection there. And, uh, so we met these guys, and we really got along well, and we stayed overnight at the, uh, with them at the on... And we went out, all got in the bunkers, in the perimeter bunkers, and I stayed in the radio shack. And we got attacked, and I'm throwing mortars down the [laughs] fricking tube of, of the radio shack, and it was-

    13. JR

      You were throwing mortars?

    14. RS

      It was freaky. Yeah, this was before... You couldn't do any of this now. This is 1968, '69, and it was, uh, the g- You know, and you'd see tracers going off. The, the guys, the rest of the band were in perimeter bunkers, and it was, uh, it was pretty insane.

    15. JR

      Holy shit, yeah.

    16. RS

      We actually went up on a mission in an Apache helicopter too, um, 'cause they said, "Do you guys wanna come?" And we're all like, "Yeah." [laughs] But it was, you know, we, uh, it was, uh, pretty hairy.

    17. JR

      Holy shit, man. That's gotta be insane. Were you, when we, you, when you were over there-

    18. RS

      [laughs]

    19. JR

      ... were you like, "What the fuck have I done?"

    20. RS

      [coughs] It was fe- [coughs] It was fear. [coughs]

    21. JR

      [laughs]

    22. RS

      Sorry. [coughs] Went down the wrong way. [coughs] It was pretty much fear factor the whole time.

    23. JR

      Holy fuck, man.

    24. RS

      You know, we, we'd be... You know, we slept [coughs] with, um... [coughs] Hang on. [coughs] As you get older, you get a dry throat. [laughs]

    25. JR

      Yeah.

    26. RS

      We slept wi- uh, a lot of the times where the GIs slept in their, you know, their hooches, and wake up with, with dust all over.

    27. JR

      Is that you over there?

    28. RS

      Oh, yeah. There we are.

    29. JR

      Holy shit, man.

    30. RS

      That's what we slept in, uh, the hooches a lot of the time.

  7. 11:04 – 19:47

    Fear, drugs, and trauma: stoned in danger and the psychological cost

    1. RS

      Um, and there was nothing much to do but smoke, you know? I smoked dope, started smoking dope there.

    2. JR

      That was the first time?

    3. RS

      Yeah. But I haven't, I didn't, I have not really been a doper, you know? But I did there, and it was kind of considered just a thing to do. Everybody was stoned. All the soldiers were stoned.

    4. JR

      All the time?

    5. RS

      Yeah, yeah.

    6. JR

      Wow.

    7. RS

      You know, they-

    8. JR

      The last thing I would wanna do is be high in a war zone.

    9. RS

      Uh, dude, I [laughs] we were in a [laughs] we were in Nha Trang, right?

    10. JR

      [laughs]

    11. RS

      Uh, which is this beautiful, uh, beach town, and the, and they go there for R&R 'cause they could surf, right? But it was still dangerous. And, and we were in a, uh, we stay in these... Sometimes if we weren't with, uh, staying on an Army base, we'd stay in these old villas that were old French villas that were once beautiful and now were rat infested, you know? I mean, we'd be sleeping on cots, and rats would be going underneath. And we'd [coughs] we got stoned. I remember one night we got stoned, and the next thing you hear a machine gun right outside the house. [laughs] And you hear the guy goes, "Hit the lights! Hit the floor!" So the lights go out, and we all hit the floor. And you d- didn't know what was going on, but when you're stoned, it's like, "Oh, my God." It could've been anything, you know?

    12. JR

      Holy shit, man.

    13. RS

      But it, it was, it was freaky. But the, but s- being stoned helped you deal with it, you know, not have the constant fear. Although, when the fear hit, if you're stoned, it's like you go over the, over the top, you know? But it was just the way we deal with it. I me- I remember, um, we'd be playing for the troops, you know. We'd play on the back of a truck, and the... We played in, in, um, uh, uh, fire bases. We didn't... You know, I th- we all thought it was gonna be like a Bob Hope tour. You know, you come in a fleet of helicopters, you play. They... You know, they were sitting in bleachers, they applaud. You get in a helicopter, fly away. It was nothing like that. It was just a, a guy out of Saigon that hired, uh, hired us. And, um, uh... What was I, what was I talking about? I get lost very easily. I got, I have AD- ADHD, and there's so much awesome shit around here to look at [laughs] that I'm kind of a...

    14. JR

      Um, we were talking about getting stoned and, uh-

    15. RS

      Oh, yeah

    16. JR

      ... yeah

    17. RS

      Um, we were sitting on a, playing on a, on a, on a back of a truck, and there's the guys sitting there on their helmets with their M16s, right? Just watching the show. And if... And we finish, and this guy comes up to me, and he's stoned out of his head. He goes, "I'm gonna go out and see what I can kill now, man." [laughs] And he put his helmet on and walks out into the jungle with a bu- with a company. But it was just bizarre experiences like that, that now I look back and go, "What the fuck was I thinking?" You know? It was, uh, i- it was unreal. A- and, and it's so weird, 'cause I've, uh, I remember Arthur C. Clarke telling the story about how he's sitting with a guy on a plane, he said, "What do you do?" He said, "Oh, oh, during the war..." And he went on for two hours about what happens during the war. And he says, "What do you do now?" He says, "Oh, I'm an insurance salesman." And that was it [laughs] , you know? Like, what he does now was a-

    18. JR

      Yeah

    19. RS

      ... but the whole, the war experience, you know, it, it, it's, it's... You could go on forever, because it's... So much happens, and it's such a... In a space, so much is lived, you know? And it, the fear is, uh, kinda one of... Y- having that much, that much fear constantly is, is, is pretty taxing. And I wasn't e- we, we weren't even going out and shooting. Although, we did, uh, we'd shoot everything from .45s to tanks, and we... And, um, you know, we'd be driving along and get shot at. And, um, like I said, we'd be playing and the rockets or the mortars would start landing, and they'd hustle us into a, into a bunker. But it was, uh... You know, we weren't actually going out like those guys were and walking point, you know?

    20. JR

      Well, that was also one of the strangest wars ever, 'cause it didn't make any sense-

    21. RS

      No

    22. JR

      ... that, why we were over there. And then when the soldiers came home, instead of being greeted like heroes like they were in World War II-

    23. RS

      They were spat on, yeah

    24. JR

      ... yeah. I mean, it was, uh-

    25. RS

      It was really, uh, terrible for them, 'cause I... No i- s- meeting them per- over there, they go... You know, they... You think, "Oh, when they get over there, probably, yeah, we're, we're here. We'll do a job," you know? All the ones I met were go, "Dude, I don't know why we're here. I don't know what I'm doing here," all of them while they were, you know, fighting. So it's, uh... It wa- it was a, it was a bad war, for sure.

    26. JR

      No, one of the worst wars ever. And these guys coming back from that, it wa- it just... That, that experience just must've been so different. Because you're over there, you're killing people. You don't know why you killed people. And then, then you're in the grocery store, like that scene from, uh... What's that movie? You know the movie I'm talking about?

    27. RS

      Apocalypse Now?

    28. JR

      No.

    29. RS

      Apocalypse? Apocalypse Now.

    30. JR

      No, no, no, no, no.

  8. 19:47 – 23:44

    The mortar incident: moral injury and carrying a kill for life

    1. JR

      What was the decompression like when you got back home?

    2. RS

      I don't really remember because, um, it's just one of those... I, I mean, I... The hardest thing for me was that, um, I'd thrown a mortar down and it had hit somebody. And, uh, they came in the next day and said, "Hey, you got one. You got one." And, um, that was, still has a place, hard place to land in me, you know?

    3. JR

      Yeah.

    4. RS

      Um, that's really the, kind of the one thing I brought back with me that I couldn't really find a place for that to land. And still, it still seems like, you know, years ago, another, another guy, another place.

    5. JR

      So e- explain to me how this is happening. Like, where are you? Where you're throwing these mortars down?

    6. RS

      I was in a place called Marble Moun- Marble Mountain. It's outside Da Nang, and it was a Navy encampment on the beach. And, uh, and I was in the radio shack. And, um, and, uh, the guy, uh, the band members were in the perimeter, the perimeter boxes, you know? [clears throat] And they s- radio... You know, it was like the movies. Radio came in, uh, "Act- uh, we've seen movement over here. Check for friendlies." Uh, and they said, "No, no friendlies there." So, uh, they said, "Hey, you wanna throw some mortars [laughs] down the tube?" And it was John Wayne time, you know? I mean, I, as a young kid, I didn't really understand what I was doing. I said, "Oh, yeah, let's fire a gun," you know? So I threw the mortars down, about five or six mortars, which I could have easily lost a hand, you know? [laughs] I mean, you, you kind of, that kind of thing. And, [clears throat] and um, and they came in the next morning and said one of them had hit a VC.

    7. JR

      Wow. How long did that sit with you for?

    8. RS

      What's that?

    9. JR

      How long did that sit with you for? Like, how long-

    10. RS

      Oh, I think it's still there.

    11. JR

      Yeah.

    12. RS

      You know? I mean, it doesn't, I... It's, i- it, it's hard for me to, you know, kind of face that I was responsible for the end of a h- you know, a, a life, even though it's distant and it's war and I didn't really have anything to do with it and didn't really know what I was doing. But, uh, you know, I was a kid and playing, like I said, John Wayne. But it was, um, it's, it's pretty heavy when I, you know, when I think about the reality of it.

    13. JR

      Did you write any songs about that experience?

    14. RS

      Um, no. I wrote about it in my autobiography, but, uh, it's not really s- well, not yet, hasn't been song material. [laughs]

    15. JR

      Yeah. 'Cause it seems like there's probably something there.

    16. RS

      Oh, yeah. There's definitely some- something there, for sure. Um, uh, [clears throat] I have, uh, I mean, not to, to commercialize it, but I have a, a record, a new record coming out that deals with, which probably could be elements from that. It deals with getting older and, you know, like my first album, Working Class Dog, was when I was 29, 30. It was all about getting laid, you know, 'cause that's all a guy thinks of and that's what you write about and... But as you get older, there's other things to think about. Um, so there's, you know, uh, getting older, you know, the thinking of, uh, death as in somewhere out there. And so you write ab- I write about stuff that I think about, and that's what I've been thinking about. Um, you know, sex is still in there, but not as much as it was [laughs] when I was 29 or 30.

  9. 23:44 – 42:23

    Aging rock stars and the ‘church’ of concerts: Stones, McCartney, and live communion

    1. JR

      Of course not. Yeah. Well, it's, uh, kind of amazing because when you were young and when you first started on this musical journey, there were no 76-year-old rock stars. It didn't exist.

    2. RS

      No.

    3. JR

      And it was thought to be a young man's game, period. And when people got to be a certain age, they just stopped playing.

    4. RS

      Mm-hmm.

    5. JR

      And, you know, The Rolling Stones were, like, sort of the first to defy that.

    6. RS

      Yeah.

    7. JR

      And I remember in, uh, '88 they put out an album and it was a big deal, that, "God, The Rolling Stones put out a new album? This is crazy. These guys are gonna go on tour? This is crazy."

    8. RS

      I know, and they just recently said, "Well, I don't know if I can do it anymore." Keith did, right?

    9. JR

      I know. Recently, now.

    10. RS

      Yeah. Now.

    11. JR

      I saw them

    12. RS

      Yeah

    13. JR

      ... at, uh, Circuit of the Americas, the racetrack out here. It was like 100,000 people four years ago, three years ago, whatever it was-

    14. RS

      Mm-hmm

    15. JR

      ... when they, they played in Austin. It was fucking incredible, man.

    16. RS

      Yeah, yeah.

    17. JR

      Mick has two trailers that are just gym equipment. He has two huge tractor trailers-

    18. RS

      Yeah

    19. JR

      ... and the inside of it is just a gym.

    20. RS

      That's awesome.

    21. JR

      And that guy works out every day-

    22. RS

      Yeah

    23. JR

      ... just so he can keep doing it.

    24. RS

      Yeah, he, you... I mean, he's, uh, an, the inspiration as far as how far you can push it, 'cause he-

    25. JR

      He's the canary in the coal mine

    26. RS

      ... yeah.

    27. JR

      Yeah.

    28. RS

      The last... I mean, their last album, he sounds incredible.

    29. JR

      Incredible.

    30. RS

      Like, kind of like he's 18, you know?

  10. 42:23 – 57:45

    Health and anti-aging toolkit: workouts, scans, stem cells, hyperbaric, sauna, cold plunge

    1. JR

      Keep on trucking, dog. [laughs] What do you do to stay healthy?

    2. RS

      Um, I work out every day, or six days a week. I eat well. My dad died early. My dad died when he was, uh, well, he died twice, actually. He died when he was 51 f- and they brought him back. And, um- He, he, he had an ulcer on his, uh, uh, major artery in his stomach, and, uh, he was worried about it, and he didn't... He thought it was cancer, and so he wouldn't, didn't wanna go to the doctor. He didn't wanna hear the bad news. You know, he thought, uh, what you don't know, you know?

    3. JR

      Right.

    4. RS

      So, and, and, and he eventually pa- I was at home actually when he passed out, and they took him into the hospital, and he's in bed, and he's... But the ulcer burst, and he started bleeding, uh, coming, blood coming out everywhere. Luckily, there was a doctor just down, couple of beds down. They rushed him into emergency. But he did die. His heart, uh, and his heart stopped, and they took 15 minutes to get it going again.

    5. JR

      Oh my God.

    6. RS

      And he came back, uh... You know, he was a real in charge guy, just really loving, really amazing person. He came back as basically a five-year-old.

    7. JR

      Oh, wow.

    8. RS

      And, uh, I, I remember sitting in the backyard trying to help him remember who was who in his life, and he'd, he'd go, um, "So Michelle is married to Jo- no, Jo- no, George i- Michelle is George's daughter. She- he's married to Nan." And he'd go, "Okay, so Nan is the daughter. No." And it was just, it was heartbreaking trying to get him to remember his old friends.

    9. JR

      Oh.

    10. RS

      And, um, so I, I... That stuck with me, because he hadn't paid attention to it, and so I'm kind of the opposite now. I do Prenuvo. I do blood draws.

    11. JR

      What's Prenuvo?

    12. RS

      Prenuvo is a body scan.

    13. JR

      Oh, okay.

    14. RS

      Uh, MRI body scan. I mean, you were asking about, you know, just how I stay in shape.

    15. JR

      Yeah.

    16. RS

      But this is all part of it, is knowing what is going on inside you, you know, and not ignoring anything. Which is not to say, you know, I won't skip off a curb and get [laughs] hit by a bus one day.

    17. JR

      [laughs]

    18. RS

      But you, you know, you do what you can-

    19. JR

      Right

    20. RS

      ... as you know.

    21. JR

      Yes.

    22. RS

      You know?

    23. JR

      Yeah.

    24. RS

      Um, I have a blood draw as soon as I get home actually, just to keep an eye on things. And anyway, so he, so he didn't pay attention, and, uh, and that's, that kind of stayed with me, and so I started focusing on what I ate. I started, um, being aware that earlier maybe than normal that, you know, there, there is a use by date, [laughs] you know?

    25. JR

      Yeah.

    26. RS

      Um, so I guess I started, uh, I started running. Running just happened to be a new thing, uh, in the early '70s, so I started that, and, uh, and I'd always loved running. I... It was the only thing I was good at, at school, was actually was running and English. And, um, so I started running, and that kind of got me into the whole, well, if you're running, then you maybe, might as well eat well and, and you wanna get some upper body strength and work out. So I just started doing... And I've run all my life, um, until about 15 years ago when my knees suddenly said, "Nah, we're not gonna do that anymore." [laughs]

    27. JR

      That's pretty good, though.

    28. RS

      "Find something else." [laughs]

    29. JR

      For, to, to get that long running is pretty incredible.

    30. RS

      Yeah. It was, it was great. I did love running. I'd get, like, on the tour bus, I'd... We'd, I'd get up to the tour bus, and wherever we were, I'd just put on clo- running clothes and start running. I'd run 20 minutes one way and 20 minutes back. Sometimes I'd go [laughs] into some pretty weird areas, you know, of, of a city, and, uh, so you'd start worrying [laughs] about who was around. But it was, uh, was, you know, a great way to stay in shape. And we actually went on, came off the road in more sh- better shape than we went on. We'd go to gyms and, and work out, and I wasn't a big druggie or, or alcohol guy back then. And, uh, so it was, that was what I did with my time off, was, uh, was stay in shape and, and watch what I eat. And my wife's an amazing chef, and we always eat real clean, organic. And, uh, and I have... You know, she turned me on to, to, to skin routine back when, uh, I was kind of too embarrassed to tell my band members that I took care of my skin [laughs]

  11. 57:45 – 1:02:44

    Diet, supplements, and hunting talk: creatine, meat-heavy eating, and animal stories

    1. JR

      Are you a supplement guy? Do you take supplements?

    2. RS

      Y- yeah, I do, actually. Um, I've been through a lot of different, uh, ones, but, uh, right now I'm, um, I'm doing, uh, I, IM8 is it? IM8? It's the one in the, one all-in-one.

    3. JR

      Oh, okay.

    4. RS

      Um, and I do, you know, creatine before a workout and a protein after.

    5. JR

      Uh-huh. Creatine is actually good just for, um, mental benefits.

    6. RS

      Mm.

    7. JR

      Creatine increases cognitive performance, and it's really good if you're tired. One of the studies that they've shown is that, uh, people that have sleep deficit, like if you're sleep deprived, um, the, one of the very best things for performance, mental performance-

    8. RS

      Mm

    9. JR

      ... is creatine.

    10. RS

      Oh.

    11. JR

      Yeah. It does, so it's-

    12. RS

      So you take it before you work out-

    13. JR

      Uh-huh

    14. RS

      ... too anyway, right? That's what I do.

    15. JR

      It's good for o- just overall metabolic health, but, uh, taking it just as a regular part of your day, pre or post-workout, doesn't matter-

    16. RS

      Mm-hmm

    17. JR

      ... just taking it as a regular part of your day will increase your mental performance. But, like, if I'm flying, and if I have to go somewhere and I'm on the road and I might be tired, I bring cr- I take it every day anyway, but I bring it with me everywhere, and I, I, like, routinely, if I'm tired and I know I'm gonna be tired, I take creatine. I can soar through.

    18. RS

      Really?

    19. JR

      Like, yes.

    20. RS

      It has an instant, uh, uh, you feel it right away?

    21. JR

      It completely mitigates any of the sleep deficit brain fog.

    22. RS

      How much? How much do you take?

    23. JR

      I take 10 milligrams twice a day-

    24. RS

      Wow

    25. JR

      ... or 10 grams, rather, twice a day. So I take 10 grams in the morning, and I take 10 grams at night.

    26. RS

      And how much protein do you do?

    27. JR

      That's how I usually do it. Me?

    28. RS

      Mm.

    29. JR

      I eat mostly protein. My, my diet is m- mu- like 90% meat. That's mostly what I eat.

    30. RS

      Wow.

  12. 1:02:44 – 1:13:21

    Australia’s invasive species and dangerous wildlife: cane toads, rabbits, and kangaroos

    1. RS

      Have you had kangaroo?

    2. JR

      I have had kangaroo, I think. I think I had it when I was in Australia. Let me make sure I did. No, I had, I've, I've had ostrich a bunch of times.

    3. RS

      E- emu?

    4. JR

      I haven't had emu.

    5. RS

      No, I don't think they've, I don't think emus are-

    6. JR

      God, I don't know if I've had kangaroo. It was so long ago, the last time I was in Australia. Maybe I did.

    7. RS

      It's gamey.

    8. JR

      But, uh, I have some friends that live over there, and they've had it a bunch of times.

    9. RS

      Oh, yeah?

    10. JR

      There's an infestation. Australia is-

    11. RS

      Dude, it's-

    12. JR

      ... crazy how many kangaroos.

    13. RS

      Camels. They've got more camels in Australia now than there are in, in, like, you know, any of the Arab states.

    14. JR

      That's nuts.

    15. RS

      But, but kangaroos for sure, and they have rabbit, that infestations that-

    16. JR

      Yeah

    17. RS

      ... they bring, except for the, the, the kangaroos, everything's imported, you know?

    18. JR

      Mm-hmm.

    19. RS

      But the kangaroos are, like, you know, you've seen the videos of them on the golf course. [laughs]

    20. JR

      Yeah.

    21. RS

      They come up and stare at, stare at you while you're about to whack a ball. It's freaking hilarious.

    22. JR

      Well, I've seen these videos of these fields where you have, like, thousands-

    23. RS

      Yeah

    24. JR

      ... of kangaroos bouncing down these fields.

    25. RS

      It's a wild look. It's a wild-

    26. JR

      Yeah

    27. RS

      ... they have so many wild animals in Australia. I didn't appreciate it when I lived there, but it's, it's pretty freaky. They brought, uh, when Captain Cook, uh, who, you know, supposedly discovered Australia, brought back a platypus to England. They thought it was, uh, they thought it's stitched together from three different animals 'cause had a duck bill, a body like a beaver. No, a body like a, like a, um, you know, a, yeah, I guess like a beaver.

    28. JR

      Like, like a beaver.

    29. RS

      And webbed feet.

    30. JR

      Yeah.

  13. 1:13:21 – 1:23:58

    Elvis encounters and industry manipulation: visas, the Colonel, and a stolen autograph

    1. JR

      people.

    2. RS

      Yeah. No, I get that totally.

    3. JR

      Yeah.

    4. RS

      Um, uh, and it does hurt when, when things don't go your way But, um, uh, it, it still drives me, you know? It's still, I mean, there's still things I wanna do, and I think that's, you know, I mean, I love playing, but I do that. That's kinda my day job, you know? But the outside extracurricular stuff is, is stuff-

    5. JR

      What do you do extracurricularly?

    6. RS

      Um, I write. I have had a couple of novels out. I wrote my own autobiography.

    7. JR

      Really?

    8. RS

      I'm writing a book on, on just, you know, what I've done with my life to, you know, be where I am, you know, health-wise and everything. Um, yeah, I do. And, um, I just, you know, there's all kinds of things, uh, on the side that you can do that... And I just, I just love to write. I mean, I consider myself a writer really, before anything.

    9. JR

      Really?

    10. RS

      I only started performing 'cause no one would do my songs [laughs] if I could I'll do 'em.

    11. JR

      For real?

    12. RS

      Yeah. [laughs]

    13. JR

      That's crazy.

    14. RS

      I used to be in a band. If you ever, if you go on YouTube, and you look up Zoot, Z-O-O-T, and look up Eleanor Rigby, I was the guitar player in this band. It was like a three or four piece band, and I arranged this version of Eleanor Rigby that was, it's, to me now, it sounds like Black Sabbath, although I'd never heard Black Sabbath back then. But it's, um, uh, a lot of, uh, like I did Billy Corgan's thing, and he was, like, focused on this, on this band because we were kind of, like, psychedelic before as that was just starting, you know? Oh, there it is. Yeah.

    15. JR

      Wow.

    16. RS

      And that Beeb, he became, uh, part of, uh, formed Little River Band, actually-

    17. JR

      Oh

    18. RS

      ... the bass player. Uh-

    19. JR

      What year is this?

    20. RS

      And that was our singer. He passed away a few years ago. But, uh, it was a great band. It was, um... That's me.

    21. JR

      Look at you, dude. What year is this?

    22. RS

      '69, '70.

    23. JR

      Wow.

    24. RS

      Yeah, it was, uh, it was kind of ve- very heavy s- it was much heavier stuff than I'm doing now. Well, maybe not now, but it was for... They'd, they'd been a pop band, and they dressed in pink, and, and I'd been in a band, and, and my band split up 'cause I got to sing the single, and the bass player was so pissed off they didn't pick him that he broke the band up. [laughs] So I was a free agent, and they said, "Well, you wanna join us? 'Cause our guitar player's leaving." So I said, "Okay." So I wore the pink thing for a while, and I said, "This has gotta go."

    25. JR

      [laughs] You couldn't deal with pink?

    26. RS

      Yeah. Uh, there's photos. It was horrible. But, um, uh, so I, I said, "I got this great idea. We'll, we'll get rid of the pink, and we'll do a photo of us, like, looking over our shoulder totally naked, like, in our original pink suits, and we dump the pink thing. So but we'll have a, um, a high contrast so they won't really see anything." But they printed the photo, like, full on. Oh, there we are.

    27. JR

      So what was up with the pink thing? Why-

    28. RS

      Uh, they had a theme called Think Pink, Think Zoot.

    29. JR

      [laughs]

    30. RS

      And it was good for the little girls. It was like, you know... Yeah. Oh, I'm, I am so pissed at that album. That was the first album, the only album we did, and they cut out our heads to stick [laughs] that was before Photoshop, and they miscut my hair, and it-

  14. 1:23:58 – 1:34:35

    From teen-magazine ‘heartthrob’ branding to finding his lane: early hits and identity

    1. RS

      but the little island that had all these amazing bands.

    2. JR

      Incredible

    3. RS

      And I think it's because everyone wanted to conquer Britain. The Romans, the, the, uh, they all, uh, uh, uh, the, the Vikings, they all came in. The G- you know, the Germans, they all came in and spread their seed. First thing they did was, you know, have sex [laughs] when they came. And I think all that, all that came together, and I think that's a lot of reason there are so many great bands, is it's a, a, a collection of all this genetic material from, you know, from Europe and all around. And the Romans, I mean, fuck, look what they did.

    4. JR

      Yeah. But it is interesting how Europe, if you look at it, the UK uniquely contributed to music-

    5. RS

      Totally

    6. JR

      ... as opposed to all those other countries. Obviously, they're English-speaking, which helps-

    7. RS

      Mm-hmm

    8. JR

      ... how it spreads the word. But it's kind of amazing how much of an impact they had on America. I mean-

    9. RS

      And how much, how long it didn't have an impact, you know? I mean, it was, it was, and it was 'cause it was bottled up for so long, I think, that it exploded so much with The Beatles. It was never, it never crossed the Atlantic. It was always Ameri- the same with Australia. It was always America to, to England. It was as, as America to Australia. The, there was one Australian guy that had a hit when I was a kid in England in school, named Rolf Harris, called, uh, Tie Me Kangaroo Down, Sport. "Tie me kangaroo down sport, tie me kangaroo down." It was a horrible song, but it was a huge [laughs] hit in England, and it was the only one that ever came over from Australia. And the same with England. There was really nothing that crossed over, and then suddenly Kennedy, Kennedy was killed, and America was looking away from America. They didn't wanna look, I think, was a big part of the, with The Beatles. They d- didn't wanna look at America right then, at that point. Suddenly, here were these four mop tops, and they came and smiled and sang great music and [gasps] took, uh, attention away from, you know, darkness.

    10. JR

      Well, they were the, probably the first real superband, right?

    11. RS

      The Beatles?

    12. JR

      Yeah.

    13. RS

      [laughs]

    14. JR

      That was just so huge that people would faint when they saw them and just scream when they saw them.

    15. RS

      Well, they used to faint for Frank Sinatra. [laughs]

    16. JR

      That's true. Right.

    17. RS

      They used to faint for, for Mozart. I mean, they, they were, you know, they were, they had groupies that would pass out that were so... That they thought they were so hot.

    18. JR

      Really?

    19. RS

      Yeah. Yeah, yeah, yeah. And, um, they were pop stars, you know? They were pop stars back then. And, um-

    20. JR

      But it wasn't on television. It wasn't all over the radio.

    21. RS

      Exactly. I mean, well, that's what the internet's done now.

    22. JR

      Yeah. Oh, yeah.

    23. RS

      You have a frigging opinion-

    24. JR

      Yeah

    25. RS

      ... and now you can put it out there and-

    26. JR

      Welcome to this show.

    27. RS

      Yeah. [laughs]

    28. JR

      [laughs] That's what it is.

    29. RS

      Exactly.

    30. JR

      Yeah. It's just, um, it must have been very strange to be the first global supergroup like that, because-

  15. 1:34:35 – 1:53:08

    ‘Jessie’s Girl’ and the General Hospital era: DJs as tastemakers and sudden fame

    1. RS

      ... Jessie's Girl was a, was a product of the DJs. It wasn't released as a single. Um-

    2. JR

      Really?

    3. RS

      Yeah. It was, uh, back when the DJs, if they liked a song, they'd, they'd play it. They'd say, "Oh, I like this song. Let's put this on." And they started doing that with Jessie's Girl, and they started getting a lot of phones, and they called up the record s- the record company and said, "You probably should put this out as a single. It's getting a lot of phones." And the record company goes, "Uh, okay." [laughs] So they put it out. But it wasn't their choice. I mean, it was, it was actually on them. Back then, it was RCA was me and Elvis. That was pretty much it.

    4. JR

      Wow.

    5. RS

      It was old, old Elvis and, you know.

    6. JR

      What year was Jessie's Girl?

    7. RS

      Uh, '81. '80? '80? '81?

    8. JR

      '81.

    9. JR

      '81.

    10. RS

      I, I throw it over to our, uh-

    11. JR

      Yeah

    12. RS

      ... um, maestro at the, uh, controls over there.

    13. JR

      Yeah. I was a freshman in high school. Yeah.

    14. RS

      Wow.

    15. JR

      I was 14 years old when that song came out.

    16. RS

      Oh my God, really?

    17. JR

      Yep.

    18. RS

      That's wild.

    19. JR

      Yeah. What was that like for you? That, that had to be insane, 'cause that song was so giant. Every girl in my high school was in love with you. It must've been nuts.

    20. RS

      Um, yeah. It was, it was, um ... I mean, I'd, uh, I, I was 29, 30 by the time that happened. 31. And I, and I was ... I'd imagined it for so long, 'cause I'm very, uh ... One of the things I really believe in is, you know, which I'm sure you do, too, manifestation, believing, you know, visualization, seeing, seeing what you want and, and committing to it. And, um, and I'd seen it so much, so many times in my head [laughs] that when it happened, I went, "Yeah, that's how it, that's how it is. Okay." [laughs]

    21. JR

      Really? So you expected it.

    22. RS

      Yeah.

    23. JR

      Wow.

    24. RS

      I always expected something. I knew something would happen, and I had faith. You know, I would- there was, there was times when I was, uh, because of the teen magazines, I'd get letters sometimes, "I can't wait to come over and meet you and v- and visit you in your mansion." And at the time, I was living in a-

    25. JR

      [laughs]

    26. RS

      ... uh, a $180 a month apartment-

    27. JR

      [laughs]

    28. RS

      ... in a seedy area of Hollywood, feeding TV Man dinners and fishing, you know, quarters out of my Goofy piggy bank so I could go down and, you know, buy milk. Um, s- so, uh, yeah. It was, um, quite a dichotomy, you might say. [laughs]

    29. JR

      So when it first started happening, it ha- started happening because of DJs, and now, like, how long was that before it became, like, a massive hit?

    30. RS

      It wa- it was quite a, uh, quite a haul. It was actually a long time on the charts crawling up, and it was, uh, I thought, "Oh, it's never gonna make it," you know? "It's going so slow." Usually they go boom, boom, boom.

  16. 1:53:08 – 2:02:35

    General Hospital’s cultural anomaly: Luke & Laura, 30 million viewers, and soap opera realities

    1. JR

      Wow. The, the, the, people don't understand today the General Hospital thing. General Hospital was a soap opera, but it was a soap opera that transcended regular television shows somehow.

    2. RS

      Yeah, it was the-

    3. JR

      And it was-

    4. RS

      ... most popular show in the summer that year

    5. JR

      ... very strange. It was very strange, and it was a completely v- it was a organic viral moment.

    6. RS

      Mm-hmm.

    7. JR

      For whatever reason-

    8. RS

      Yeah, I, no idea still

    9. JR

      ... never happened again.

    10. RS

      No. Never happened again.

    11. JR

      Only happened once

    12. RS

      The most popular soap now has about a third of the viewership that General Hospital had at the time. And it was, you know, like I, I was on it, I'm this one en- you're talking about, you know, new fame and all that kind of stuff, and I was, um, I was wa- uh, l- had a little house that I'd bought on BMI advances 'cause I had a record [laughs] deal, and which they don't do anymore. But, um, in Montrose, in, uh, in La Crescenta, and I'm walking down the street one day, and, you know, nobody's looking at me. I'm going, "Yeah." I was walking down, and then two weeks later, after being on the show for two weeks, I'm walking down the same street, and people are going, "Isn't that...?" You know, and it was, like, so sudden that that was, like, you know, befo- it was before MTV, so you had to have at least three albums out before a musician was recognized. So to get it that fast wa- was, that, that was kinda odd, and I wasn't ready for that, for that amount of recognition.

    13. JR

      Well, it was just so strange. Uh, my whole family was watching General Hospital. I was watching it. My sister was watching it. It was like, it was a television show, but it was a soap opera, and soap operas were like, housewives would watch it.

    14. RS

      Yeah, it was, it was, you know, your-

    15. JR

      Yeah

    16. RS

      ... your cousin and the m-

    17. JR

      Yeah

    18. RS

      ... lady that invented the toothpaste.

    19. JR

      It was, like, low production value-

    20. RS

      Very low

    21. JR

      ... shitty writing-

    22. RS

      Bad writing

    23. JR

      ... bad acting.

    24. RS

      Horrible, horrible writing. Terrible acting

    25. JR

      But something about that Luke and Laura storyline-

    26. RS

      Uh-huh

    27. JR

      ... for whatever reason, caught the nation-

    28. RS

      Yep

    29. JR

      ... and held it captive.

    30. RS

      Uh, and I believe he raped her, and then they became boyfriend and girlfriend [laughs] as the story-

  17. 2:02:35 – 2:10:08

    Writing beyond music: novels, autobiography, and collecting creative artifacts

    1. JR

      Wow. Well, that's nuts, man. Tell me about your writing, like, like the novels. Like, what have you written novels about?

    2. RS

      Um, they're very bizarre. Uh, one, uh, they're... The one's, uh, uh, they're both about, um, a plague that comes to the world and takes out, uh, like two-thirds of the people. Um-

    3. JR

      Both of them are about that?

    4. RS

      Yeah. They're, one, the other's a continuation of it. One's called, uh, Magnificent Vibration. The other one's called World on Fire, and it, uh, um, uh, it's, uh, it's dark humor, very dark humor. [laughs]

    5. JR

      Had you written before that, like short stories?

    6. RS

      Uh, well, I wrote my autobiography by myself. I-

    7. JR

      But you, had you written any fiction?

    8. RS

      Um, yeah, I, as a kid, that was the only thing I was any good at at school was, was I got great marks on my essays. Nothing else was any... I was terrible at everything else, math, geography, history, all that shit. And, um, so, you know, I was already doing what I was planning on doing anyways. So, um, y- yeah, I started writing poems and, and, you know, and I... Songwriting, to me, the lyrics are, are, are something I really take ti-... You know, music just comes through. It either is there or it isn't there. But the lyrics, you have time to sit back and go, "Does that work, or does that not work?" Whereas the music, it's kind of instantaneous or it doesn't happen. Um, so yeah, I've always kind of written.

    9. JR

      And when did you write these novels?

    10. RS

      Um, I don't know. Can you tell me that, my friend?

    11. JR

      [laughs] You don't remember?

    12. RS

      I don't know. It could've been the '90s. Could've been the 2000s. It was, um, probably 2000-

    13. JR

      2014 and 2021.

    14. RS

      What is it?

    15. JR

      2014 was the first one. Follow-up, 2021. Oh, so 2021. It's recent.

    16. RS

      Yeah. Yeah. It was, yeah, fairly recent.

    17. JR

      Yeah.

    18. RS

      Um, the first one was on the New York Times bestseller. Um-

    19. JR

      Wow

    20. RS

      ... I sign them all the time. You know, fans bring them and that. But, uh, um, yeah, I like writing. I like... I'm writing something now, but it's, uh, just something that I do when I'm not writing songs, you know? I kinda gravitate towards that. I've gotta be doing something, and it, and it was... Like, I take a guitar to the beach. We go to, to Bora Bora, and I take a little guitar when I sit on the beach 'cause I can't just sit on the beach. It feels like, uh, kinda wasted time. [laughs]

    21. JR

      That's wild. So you just-

    22. RS

      I do relax, but I gotta have a guitar, or I gotta be doing something, either writing or, you know, whatever.

    23. JR

      And when you write, do you write longhand? Do you write with a key-

    24. RS

      No, I write on computer

    25. JR

      ... type-

    26. RS

      Yeah.

    27. JR

      You write on a computer? Yeah.

    28. RS

      Yeah, yeah. And, and that's the thing. Like, I have, uh, I have a bunch of Beatle lyrics, handwritten Beatle lyrics, right? And, um, they don't exist anymore 'cause everyone writes on the computer.

    29. JR

      Mm-hmm.

    30. RS

      I d- I wr- I, like, I have Jesse's Girl. The wr- I have the original paper that I wrote Jesse's Girl on. And, and, and-

  18. 2:10:08 – 2:16:10

    Fame, craft, and origin stories: Beatles mastery, 10,000 hours, and Rick’s own ‘meant to be’ path

    1. JR

      It was the talent, and it was also the volume. Have you ever read Malcolm Gladwell's Outliers?

    2. RS

      No.

    3. JR

      Well, one of the things it talks about is, it, it just talks about-

    4. RS

      I'll have to get it

    5. JR

      ... it's a great book. And um, one of the things in the book, it talks about why something became extraordinary. And they talk, he talks about The Beatles.

    6. RS

      Oh, wow.

    7. JR

      And what The Beatles did, um, they were in Hamburg, and um, they got a gig, I think it was at a strip club.

    8. RS

      Hmm.

    9. JR

      And so they were, like, playing every night, like five, six hours a night, six days a week, and they were constantly playing. And so they did this for a couple years, and then they went back to Liverpool, and everyone was like-

    10. RS

      Whoa

    11. JR

      ... "What the fuck happened to you guys?" They were just tight. They were just so locked in and so good that that's when they really became The Beatles.

    12. RS

      Yeah.

    13. JR

      And it's just volume. It's where he came up with the concept of 10,000 hours to achieve-

    14. RS

      Right, right

    15. JR

      ... mastery in something.

    16. RS

      Right.

    17. JR

      You know? But-

    18. RS

      I've heard that, yeah

    19. JR

      ... and I mean, they're a great example of that, is just an incredible amount of volume of work.

    20. RS

      It's like Robert Johnson, too. He was an okay guitar player, and uh, he went away, like, for a year or something, and came back, and suddenly he was this amazing slide player. You know, crossroads.

    21. JR

      Yeah.

    22. RS

      You know, crossroads.

    23. JR

      So that's why everybody thought he sold his soul to the devil.

    24. RS

      Yeah, yeah.

    25. JR

      Yeah.

    26. RS

      And uh, it, it, it just happened, you know? But, but they, I don't reali- I don't know if they realized they were woodshedding for the great moment, but that's absolutely what they were doing.

    27. JR

      I think they were just doing it to stay alive.

    28. RS

      Yeah.

    29. JR

      It was just-

    30. RS

      Yeah

  19. 2:16:10 – 2:19:31

    The real ‘Jessie’s Girl’ inspiration and closing reflections

    1. JR

      Listen, man, you've had a hell of a life. And it's just awesome to see you out there kicking ass, it really is. Like, uh, that video of you that went viral with your shirt off

    2. RS

      Mm-hmm

    3. JR

      ... singing Jessie's Girl, like, uh, that pumped me up

    4. RS

      Great

    5. JR

      I w- I watched that, I was like, "Fuck yeah! Good for him. Look how good he looks." Like, just kinda crazy. I just love... I love, first of all, that the passion that you had for singing that song was r- really like it was a new song, and the fact that you've been... I mean, you've been singing that song for how many fucking years, man? 40, what, 46 years?

    6. RS

      Yeah, that's closer to the... The, when that was released, it was, or written, it was closer to the end of World War II than it is now [laughs]

    7. JR

      That's crazy. That's crazy

    8. RS

      And, and She is probably in her s- early s- late 60s now

    9. JR

      Wow

    10. RS

      The girl I wrote it about

    11. JR

      Who is the girl that you wrote it about?

    12. RS

      Well, I never learned her name. She was at a, a stained glass class. It was one of those moments where I was between record deals, and, uh, I, uh, w- always wanted to do things with my hand. I would make things out of clay. I was making mirrors out of clay, like sci-fi things, and, and selling 'em at the local m- you know, swap meet. And, and I started thinking about stained glass, and I thought, "I could support my family doing stained glass," which was bullshit, but

    13. JR

      [laughs]

    14. RS

      So I went to this, I went to this class, and there was this girl, and she was hot. You know, it was just another girl that I found hot, and she had a boyfriend there, and I would try and chat with her. I never really had chat with girls. That's one, one of the reasons that the guitar really helped there. I was... Never could go up and go, "Hey, babe." You know?

    15. JR

      [laughs]

    16. RS

      I was not that, I'm never that guy. So, um, and I tried to talk to her, and she had nothing, didn't want anything to do with me 'cause she had a boyfriend. And so I went home and wrote about her in this song. His name is Gary. But, uh, and I tried Gary, and didn't sing. So I tried Randy, and that didn't sing right either. So I ended up with Jessie, and then that seemed to work, so

    17. JR

      Wow

    18. RS

      But yeah, she, um, Oprah went looking for her, actually. They, she was looking for the, the women behind the songs, and they found this, the stained glass guy, and he died two years before, and they'd thrown all the paperwork out a year after that, so

    19. JR

      Wow

    20. RS

      They, but they could've found her. They missed her. But, but I'd be, it'd be wild to me. I'd pro- I don't know if I'd recognize her now. I remember her, her, what she looked like. But, um-

    21. JR

      I wonder if she loved that song and

    22. RS

      No, uh, yeah

    23. JR

      ... know I did

    24. RS

      I mean, she had no idea what it... She has no idea it was about her

    25. JR

      That's so-

    26. RS

      No one's ever come up and said, "That was me, right?"

    27. JR

      That's crazy

    28. RS

      Yeah

    29. JR

      Wow. Well, listen, man, it has been awesome meeting you

    30. RS

      Yeah, I've really enjoyed that.

Episode duration: 2:19:33

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