Spin Doctors

0:03and that i do it i'm good at you on the better at all awesome what where are you where were you callin from i'm going for my apartment in that actually on the island i i am the on the island is a small island off the coast of america yes yes it is a little known one to not many people heard of this man hat and you speak of the and that strange name did you did you grow up there were you are you from the area i uh... i was born in uh... whole high and i went to elementary school in australia all-round uh... that one in uh... and political in new jersey and uh... and i moved here and with your uh... when i was twenty how did how did that influence you musically hawaii in austria because that's very different culture uh... i don't know how much influence uh...

0:51you know why he had on me except i do have something of a predilection for uh... for ukulele's uh... now uh... but uh... you know well-looking australia you know a cdc were just starting to not just are to go off but a cdc report dominant uh... we think whether and it's a lot of great you know who is not bad you know uh... it's uh... you know i i had a friend in australia and he turned me on to the deal so i think mostly in australia was i was basically in the same stuff american kids were into musically and i'm not sure how you know i took some guitar lessons when i was a kid in australia but i was really sort of i got into music more when i got back you know when i was like twelve

1:38at the middle school or started taking some guitar lessons here in the united states and you know i've always i've always the like music but i'm not really sure how much of an influence you know my years in australia and i think living in australia had more of an effect on me as a songwriter um... because you know i was eight years old when i moved there so that i'm the american kid so i was a bit of a an outsider in some ways and then i moved back and i'm the kid who just got back from australia and had been living in australia you know for four years which you know kind of made me a bit of a a bit of a freak you know so um... and i i think that's kind of uh... where

2:23the beginnings of an artistic remember begin to form you know because our artists i think a lot of times are sort of weirdos you know they sort of live on a little bit on the outside of a bit of an outside perspective and that's why preoccupied with picnic stuff rather than just participating you're still you're still participating in music go to this day you just put a solo disc oh yeah yeah no i mean i i i i i i i i i i said participating i sort of mean in the commonplace like every day um... flow of of life i think songwriters look at uh... the average person sister let's you know christmas is coming right in the average person sit there and is opening presence on christmas day and that they might be feeling one emotion or another but the sort of inside of it

3:12whereas uh... songwriter is looking at that go on up you know looking for a song in there others a song in there somewhere you know they're feeling it sort of what can i you have like cannibalizing your own life you know whereas you know most of the slow along to the lies i think songwriters are trying to like poach something from every experience do you do that bother you though does that get annoying after a while i say you're you know on the subway you like all you know i'm just hanging out over the song here wait a second uh... you know i had to have for me it's a great consolation of life you know because you know you know a fundamental level that any kick in the teeth you know that you're going to get

3:57out of this world could result in and a song you know most people suffer misfortunes with with no consolation at all they're just sort of being cost one uh... experience to another one i when when you're a songwriter you're a he might be getting dumped by you know your wife and go into some kind of a horrible divorce and stuff like that but there's part of you that's going to be you know i'm going to get something out of this program you know we've got some songs out of it yes there are people who are going to be oh yeah but i mean to to uh... more than a degree it's absolutely a life saver on the topic of um... things going bad in your life that that turn you to some of the other you almost lost your voice ten years ago idea that i i had a fifty fifty chance of ever

4:43uh... even talking normally again a little on singing on a professional level i i had a parallel i spoke of court which is you know this it's kind of like uh... you know some of your listeners might have heard of the of a condition called bells palsy where we're like half of a person's face can get uh... paralyzed and uh... that happened to my right vocal cord and it's the rare weird condition that occurs you know and like every couple of you know several million people and uh... i was unlucky and and you know someone who's but it was a pretty dark minute there you know i like i said you know i have to get the chance of getting a voice back and spend a couple weeks of thinking about the wrong fifty percent

5:30and then i had this kind of moment you know where luckily all the back i did about nine months of no voices like that you know people talk about saying that the gift you know i never really really thought of it as a

6:27can you see is good as before like is it completely come back or are you a better singer now maybe because now you were able to train the voice of a better singer and i would say you know at least on the technical level and because as i was getting the voice back at the training you know like it just like when you come back from physical therapy i got vocal therapy the same actually

7:14also yet that the that and a bit better center what are you up to nowadays i mentioned the solar record before but i think people obviously will snow you from the spin doctors but but tell people you're up to these days well you know i can from the summer of sangria and it's you know it's kind of

8:09to princess a little escape you all in the songs you know that will really most known for kind of doing uh... some gigs here in there in the record in two thousand five that never really saw the light of day because the business which is not a fly by night

9:14for no no no no there's going there's talk of doing like uh... you know putting the record out but also doing like a live birdie like we've all kind of grown up and matured and which is really so we're gonna put a little tour together and put some bonus features on this record you know we've got a lot of home movies that we're going through so we're going

9:59to put out like a rich of us like you know twenty years old and wouldn't be fun and then i i also like also i've been getting these uh... people to go to but they would do the united states where some rich guy like

10:50Donald trump would buy the turn into a hotel or some other rich guy you know we're buying a ceramics and for a songwriting program with these gigantic grounds and they're like swans in the lake and that i've been like the nation where i hang out with young people and talk to them about something writing it feels like and then they pay me so i mean it feels like i'm ripping them off

11:38it's the perks of having it songs though i guess uh... it's a i wouldn't call a curse but it you know it's uh... perks oh actually yeah yeah no perk absolutely uh it's been really nice and i actually um have really been enjoying um teaching songwriting because you know you hit a certain i'm 42 and i'm sort of starting to feel like fine you know i really would like to get you know songwriting is one of those things it's like it's a mixture i heard a friend of mine in the other day said it's a mixture of craft and inspiration and it really is you know part of it is part of it is is just kind of waiting for the for the rock gods to bestow the inspiration upon you you know but part of it is part of it

12:24is really to kind of know and how to do it and how to get from a to b and sort of like building a building a cabinet you know to a certain extent so there are things that little pointers that you can stand up in front of like people and talk to them about so like half an hour and uh and then send them off to like to work on it it's almost like being an english teacher it's funny to say that it sounds like respectable right it sounds like the craft would get would get would get better with time like as you age get more experience and do it more but it's funny that most people write their hit songs when they're young um yeah yeah but give it most most of the hits you hear um it's true that a lot of artists write their hit songs when they're young but well for example yourself yeah oh yeah absolutely but most of the

13:09hits that you hear um are written by like grown-ups you know they're not like britain experience didn't write any of that right you know and um lady Gaga is you know writing with people who are like grown-ups you know there's um there are um a lot of people a lot of the etchongs are written by people who are you know like in their 40s right yeah the country world's very much like that too I think oh absolutely but I don't know so much about rock and roll it's always been a young man you know I think I think you'd be surprised you know like um like uh a lot of the the aero smith hits of you know of the last like you know decade or so were written with like Diane Warren right who you know people quietly bring professional

13:55uh adults songwriters too like um you know um like the bongyova early hits were written with um god who some some like totally it might have been Diane Warren but some totally established yeah I want to say Linda Perry but I think that's wrong I'm not sure I think what to do though okay but like you give love a bad name and and um and and all that stuff like slippery when wet wet a lot of that stuff was written with but you'd be surprised man people would be surprised you know people have this you love this sense that that um you know the people who are singing these songs the people who wrote them but um but it's really it's really not the case and you know up until up until like until like the 50s you know nobody was writing their own songs Alvis never wrote any of the songs that's

14:43true that he did you know you guys like buddy Holly who came along and at least in the rock and roll world country a lot of country guys were were writing it was a little bit more accepted for guys like Hank Williams and stuff to be writing their own songs in the country world but the majority of country songs were were being written by professional songwriters and it was the same thing in rock and roll you know guys like Libra and Stoller who were writing the Alvis stuff but guys came along like um buddy Holly comes along and then like the Beatles and the Rolling Stones are checking out by Holly and and are like oh my god that guy's writing his own stuff and the Beatles in particular were like inspired by that to go on and write their own but you know you'd be surprised at how much

15:30how much of that stuff you hear on the radio is well maybe you wouldn't do but maybe you lose most people yeah how did you guys write your big songs was it just you guys did you guys have other people come in I wrote most to it you know I wrote we wrote together and and you know I wrote Little Miss Can't Be Wrong and Two Princess and then you know I brought them in and then we the band definitely you know they have credit on those songs I mean I brought them in to the band but they each guy in the spin doctors put their signature on it and I'm and there's no doubt in my mind that their contributions to their parts you know and the way we arranged it their contribution to the way we arranged it and played it was instrumental in those songs becoming uh you know as successful as they were but initially like I you know I sat on the edge of my

16:17dad with a notebook and um and an acoustic and and it's funny I'm sure you didn't think of it at the time but I mean we're still playing on the radio 20 years later I you know I I dreamt big as a young guy you know I definitely I definitely hoped to write a song that would be as uh you know boring as much hopefully happiness into the world as as those songs have I've actually recently got an award from BMI two princes has been played on the radio three million times a little miss camp your arms been played two million times that's insane as a songwriter though does it like I always wonder about the relationship when you have those massive songs and you know it was 20 years ago does it does it pain you to try and recreate that or are you happy with

17:03with the way it's been just because you know a lot of people have written songs and never hit that plateau when when you shit like yeah I'm not really trying to repeat anything you know like I I did for a while afterwards you know I lived in the shadow of those tunes and and you know one of the young guys and in that trying to follow that up and stopping you falling to this rat race and every time you write something you think oh it's just gonna be as big a hit as you know the biggest hits I've had and you know after a while I just stopped doing that it's not fun you know I got into this whole thing cap on I didn't get into this thing to you know I didn't sit down to write two princes and think oh there's gonna be a huge hit I to write two princes because that's what I do is I sit around and I write

17:48tunes you know I just want to write stuff that's good I want to write the best stuff that I can write and I will sit down and I want to like you know look at you know my aunt opening up a Christmas present for example you know like we were talking about before and and if that's something that I need to turn into a song that I just want to like I just want to wrestle with that with the problem of that song you know and and I want to win you know I want to win that little wrestling match of that song and figure out what that song needs to be to be a cool song you know and and so I don't know you know like I I've got like you know a couple hundred thousand miles on on Delta so I get to fly like business class a lot and you know what I mean I

18:35go to I go and stay in a castle right and mark and like you know what I get and I got these young people like like listening to me about songwriting and then coming up to me at the end of the week and and shaking my hand saying well I really learned something about songwriting from you you know and I've got a you know I've had a couple of my tunes been on the reading five million times and I got I still got the spin doctors and I love those guys you know I love them but I love them but I do this band that we get on stage and and I feel really good about the music that we play live you know everybody in the band is a is an accomplished powerful musician and we have all this terrific material to play and it's coming up on the 20th anniversary and

19:23and you know I own 25 guitars and I own my own apartment and on in Manhattan and you know what I mean I I got it I got a I drive around in a cop car that's you know in a cop car yeah I got my I bought a cop car you know I'm like you know what I'm saying is like and that's just my professional life you know I I have a wonderful daughter and a a terrific wonderful girlfriend and two cats and you know and my my family is really cool and I've got some really really wonderful friends and I took up golf last year you know what I mean I it's like I'm an ambitious person but I I don't sit around like you know think about how

20:10I'm gonna write like another huge hit song I just like I have these great working associations with people all over the world you know I've got some great friends in Spain that I that I hang out with and work with I got some great people in Scandinavia that hang out with them work with them I'm just parlaid you know what I've done into this into this lifestyle that I really enjoy it involves a lot of travel and it involves a lot of great friendships and you know I get to drink you know great bottle of wine here and there and eat a fantastic meal and you know so I don't know I mean like I said I'm very ambitious person but I don't think that I have these like sort of conventional

20:55ambitions that that are like I just want to mix much money as possible or I just want to my songs to charts super high every time you know I write one and I at those to me are sort of like numbers you know my ambitions are have more to do with um I'm going to cool places hanging out with great people and and laughing my guts out now do you think that's because you already had the success though do you or do you think you'd still be striving for it I hate to dwell on the topic but but what you're saying is interesting it's a very interesting topic I mean it's really one of the central um uh preoccupations of modern life is success and and the definition the definition of success and happiness in this modern world you know and my dad my dad's not a motor journalist my

21:43dad's my dad's name is Ken Gross and I grew up my dad always did what he wanted to do with him when when I was a kid he had two jobs he worked for um Avon cosmetics and he was um at night he would you know be up until all hours writing car stories about um he was trying to make it as an automotive journalist and then when he was like 40 he quit working for Avon and just went full-time into automotive journalism and I saw how much happier he was and he always told me you know that if you can make if you can make your job the thing that you love to do in life you know that's a real recipe for happiness so when I was actually a young guy I I wanted to be a

22:30one of you musician but I also wanted to be a potter so it was another scenario where I would just lived in Vermont you know and um wrote tunes and threw pots and maybe lived in a funky you know funky vermonty kind of house that's what I mean so I don't know I that's a really good question I I I'm glad that I've never had to answer is like how satisfy would I be if I had never had a couple hits on the radio because you know by the time I was 25 I'd had a couple of really big hits yeah I never really had to like struggle with that and I've never really felt like I had anything to prove to anybody I don't know I I I'd like to be able to honestly tell you that if I hadn't had those hits I'd still be a pretty happy guy but I I

23:18I'm not sure no there's no way of knowing there's no way I know and and and and luckily I did have them and I am exactly you said potter and that got me thinking of John Popper and I did not know he was in the band at one point he wasn't I was I was in blues traveler when you were okay so it was the other way around yeah I was in blue straw like I've thrown out um I was too much of a pain in the neck I didn't want they wore uniform back then I didn't want to wear the uniform and really like you think about it we're you know John and I were 16 years old and this wasn't room in that band for two front men you know we both have these really large personalities and now I think John and I could be in a band together we we'd be a lot more mature about it but it was John's band and I just there wasn't really a place so I got I got to keep that but John did um what what you might

24:06have heard is that John John Popper and Eric Shankman the guitar player of the spin doctors who lives in Toronto by the way oh okay um the two of them had banded together John already had the blues traveler so he wanted to free up his time so that he could you know concentrate on the blues traveler but Eric wanted him to commit more time because he's John Popper and he's just so such a talented harmonica player and everything so I was trying to get John to do another project with me so John you know basically was like these two guys want to make these demands on my time I'll introduce them to each other and maybe they'll start a band so John really was in part you know the catalyst of the spin doctors forming because he introduced Eric Shankman and I well there's there's the that myth cleared up then there you go so we do something on the show called five questions

24:53before I let you go five quick questions one word answers sure road or studio both oh come on oh but by a nose get Leonard McCartney McCartney most important thing in a song lyrics melody or rhythm lyrics song you've written you're most proud of probably two princes because it's the it's the you know founding of my empire and one word spin doctors uh jerks