Singer-songwriter, musician, inventor, dad, reader, and writer David Baerwald joins the show to talk about the ups and downs of his career in the music biz, his crazy family history, the perils of grafting personalities onto up-and-coming musicians, and why he doesn't trust happiness. We also talk about the Watchmen-like trail of destruction that followed Sheryl Crow's breakthrough album, why the drug business is notoriously filled with short-tempered people, how being a script analyst for a movie studio taught him how to write a song, and why he's a firm believer in the notion that to tell a big story, you have to tell a small one.
The Virtual Memories Show
Season 4, Episode 26 - Fail Better
"Artistically, LA's a disaster. It's full of amazing stories. But as a city, it's not a city. Nobody but bus-drivers see the whole place."
(upbeat music) ♪ Handsome killing got a little off track ♪ ♪ Took a year off and called his and he never went back ♪ ♪ Now he smokes, smokes, you mugs got a permanent hat ♪ ♪ He's dope at a daddy to keep the table in bed ♪ - Welcome to the Virtual Memories Show. I'm your host, Gil Roth, and you're listening to a weekly podcast about books and life and sex, drugs, and rock and roll, not necessarily in that order. You can subscribe to the show and find all our past episodes at the iTunes store. You can also find those episodes, get on our email list, and make a donation to the show at either of our websites, vmspod.com, or chimeraabscura.com/vm. You can find us on Twitter at vmspod at facebook.com/virtualmemoriesshow and at virtualmemoriespodcast.tumbler.com. Now, before we get started with this week's episode, I wanna take care of some business from the last one. My guess that episode was Meryl Marco, the great comedy writer, and while I credited her as the co-creator of Late Night, I kind of avoided mentioning the host of that show, David Letterman. See, Meryl and Letterman were a couple all those years, which she talks about, but again, doesn't explicitly say it. And I sort of maneuvered around saying that in the intro and in the conversation, too. A few listeners found that confusing and had to look up Meryl to find out exactly what we were talking about. And I apologize for being unclear about that relationship between them, but here's my rationale. Meryl Marco is more than David Letterman's ex-girlfriend. And I was afraid of the conversation kind of just leading into or focusing in that area if we talked directly about their relationship. And I didn't think it was fair to her and everything she's done, she's had plenty of interviews over the years where she's talked about that relationship. I didn't want this to be another rehashing and that sort of thing. Honestly, I think her achievements in comedy, they're such that it just isn't right and not fair, really, to talk about her in relation to her one-time boyfriend from almost 30 years ago. I probably didn't handle it well enough or I should have framed it a little bit better if it actually led to people writing me to complain that they didn't know what was going on. So I'm sorry about that. The other thing that people have asked me about is what it actually sounded like when Meryl's dogs burst into the house and knocked everything over. Since he asked for it, here's a clip of the audio from that including my instantaneous shift from podcast host to dog-rubby host. - So even within Mimi's book, you could see early stuff is very finished and around 200 pages in it's, she's working in a quicker style though the washes aren't, who's a big dog face? - Oh, who's a cute dog? - Oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, there goes your podcast. - Oh, I'm still here. - And now on to this week's show. This is the other podcast I recorded during my 36 hours in L.A. last month. My guest is David Beyerwald, a singer, songwriter, musician, inventor, dad, writer, reader, and more. I've been enjoying David's music since, God, since 1988, when a pal of mine gave me a cassette of the first David and David record. He wasn't easy to find, but I tracked him down a while back and pitched him on recording a podcast. He didn't think he had much to talk about and he told me he never comes out to the East Coast. And, well, that's the reason I rented a car and drove up from San Diego after the bio show in June. I don't know if you guys appreciate the lengths I go to record some of these. I mean, it was great getting up there and seeing L.A., but I really went out pretty much to see David and then to get Meryl once she committed too. And, of course, go to a Dodgers game. David sort of rebuffed all of my efforts to get him to send me a bio outside of, quote, "make sure to mention my general charm, good looks, and wonderfulness." He doesn't have a website of his own, so I'm gonna tell you some things about him. If he gripes about it, yeah, I'll clean that up next week. David Bairwald and David Ricketts formed David and David, a band whose one album, Boomtown, scored a gold record in 1986, '87. And I'm kicking myself for not taking a picture of the Boomtown gold record, which is hanging on the wall in David's living room. And David and David split up after that album and Bairwald put out several solo records, bedtime stories, triage, and here comes the new folk underground between 1990 and 2002. Over the years, he's written songs for plenty of acts, you know, and he wrote many of the songs on Cheryl Crowe's Breakthrough album, which is a story he gets into in our conversation, so I'm not gonna tell you anything else about that now. David's done a lot of work in movies and TV, both scoring music and writing songs. His IMDB page lists a ton of songwriting credits, including Come What May, The Love Song from Moulin Rouge, which was nominated for a Golden Globe Award, which isn't quite as good as my goal of getting all the Pulitzer Prize winner categories on the show at some point, but it's something. He also wrote Supermodel for the movie Clueless, which goes to show that he's not all grim and gloomy. He really is a champion of what I like to call damaged love songs. In a sense, even if you didn't know that he had written a bunch of Cheryl Crowe songs on that first album, you would have guessed once you listened to the words. You wouldn't have been surprised at least. Anyway, I gotta say, I was thrilled to sit down and talk with David for someone whose music I've loved for more than half my life, and I came away feeling like this guy was a survivor, I guess. He's had some good luck and he's had some bad breaks, but he's managed to carve out a career for himself, making music, and he's also managed to bring up a child with a level of devotion. I gotta say, I wouldn't have expected from the person who wrote some of my favorite damaged love songs. Anyway, that is just an inkling of who David Beyerwald is. I think you're gonna get a much better take on that as this conversation unfolds. So now, you get the virtual memories talk with David Beyerwald. (upbeat music) ♪ There's a wall up between us, I'm climbing it ♪ ♪ I don't care about the thing, but the way your lift ♪ ♪ Try to resist and respond when we kick ♪ ♪ I'm coming in, hold up your head ♪ ♪ Lookin' behind the night, every word you say ♪ ♪ Come in, come back to bed ♪ ♪ Remember that we are in love ♪ - So I guess as an opening question, I can ask where you've been. - My last experience with you was, in 2002, I was in the Shamsalise in Paris and came across, I walked into a record store and saw here comes a new folk underground. And that was my last Beyerwald sighting out in the wild. It was a wonderful record. What are the last, I guess, 12 years? - What have I been doing? - Been, yeah. - Oh, you know, I did quite a bit of film scoring and television scoring, things like that. Some network television and child rearing. Yeah, that's pretty much what I've been doing. I mean, that's not terribly interesting, but. - No, no, but that's, again, you're talking to a guy who just spent four days as biopharmaceutical association executive, you know, and I even tell people in the arts, I'm like, don't act interested. You don't have to, really, it's just that it's a business that needs a guy like me. Let's talk about the sort of songwriting versus recording your own work versus film scoring. Where do you, how do you balance the interest, I guess is the commercial versus your own artistic- - Well, basically, I've never stopped doing what I always have done. It's just, I don't put it out anymore. You know, in fact, most of the time I don't even record it. But, you know, I write songs all the time. It's just, I don't feel any pressing need to put it into the marketplace. I don't know why that is. I mean, it's, you know, it's a lot of work, you know, you have to sort of, and you have to take yourself seriously to a certain extent, which I find myself increasingly incapable of doing. (laughing) - Did you take yourself too seriously in the past? - I have in the past, absolutely. I mean, I think, you know, you have to, to give yourself the, you know, the false courage that it takes to get into that mess in the first place. - How did you get started in music to begin with? - Well, I was, that's when I was a kid, you know. - You know, not the musical career, but the interest in music. Where did that date from? - You know, I just always had a knack for it. - Well, when we moved to L.A. from Japan, my family, and I was really sort of traumatized by a variety of events, you know, that had happened there and-- - Happened to Japan or in L.A.? - In Japan, yeah. And I was in a state of shock at Los Angeles. And for a brief period, I sort of lost the ability to, I don't know, ability or inclination to speak, you know. I lost, you know, it became just incredibly communicative and my mother thought it might be a good idea if I learned an instrument, you know, so. - She got me some guitar lessons with the guy who's down by manager, believe it or not. - Really? - Yeah. - A fellow named Tony Berg. - Work with Michael Penn? - Yeah. - Yeah. - If you haven't in with him, I thought I'd always, another one of the guys I've listened to for like 25 years now. - You're talking about Michael or Tony? - Yeah, Michael. - Yeah, I'd call him today. - I'll be around for another day, although I'm going to the Dodgers tonight, allegedly, but, you know, I'd be forever in your debt, that's-- - Sure, I'd be happy to set you up. - But you started at about 10, 12 years old then? - Yeah, yeah. - And, you know, I just sort of had an act for it and was in bands, you know, I mean I started actually out as a bass player because guitar players are, you know, a little more dime a dozen, you know, bass players are more useful, really, in some ways. And then, you know, it was kind of an OG punk rocker, actually, I had a band called The Spastix. We played the mask and rehearsed the mask and got in all kinds of trouble. And then, but I never thought it was a job. I never thought it was any kind of a thing that one could actually do for a living, you know? I still don't. - Yeah, I didn't want to say that. But then, you know, it was about 24 and I'd been working at a film company doing a script analysis. And so, basically, in script analysis, you take a, you know, a long story, sometimes really long, and you get it into three very, very digestible paragraphs. And I did that for about a year and a half. I was like, God, you know, 'cause the problem I'd had up to that point was I was never able to finish the song. You know, I was never able to really finish the song. You know, I could write the first verse and the chorus. And then I'm like, well, I've already said everything. I really want to say about this. You know, you can't have a song with one verse, really. I suppose I could have, but I didn't think that was, I thought that was cheating. And I just didn't have a discipline or the mechanisms or the skill level to actually do it. And I found that that whole process of doing that just six, seven scripts a week, you know, that it was just like writing a song, three verses, the name of the movies, the chorus, you know. And you know, I think I was getting like 40 or 50 bucks a script, which is pretty good, 'cause especially 'cause they don't even pay readers anymore. - Right, it's an honor, you know. - But, you know, you don't own any of your writing and the only people that ever read it are, you know, Pee-vish movie executives whose main inclination is to say no to everything anyway. So, and I met this fellow, David Ricketts, you know, who was this really skilled musician and engineer. And, you know, I just said, let's just-- - Noodle around. - Let's write some tunes, you know, and see what happens. And, you know, and we ended up getting sort of thrust into this kind of world and then immediately freaked out about that and sort of went back to our respective hidey holes. - After having a successful album, you mean, or is this-- - Yeah, yeah, yeah. - Pee-vish, which is a wonderful record, but I'm sure you've heard that from a lot of people. - That's the thing, you know, it's, if you just wanna do something, you know, you just wanna do something decent and, but then it becomes, you know, the whole thing. You know, it becomes an industry and, you know, you're always on display and people are tearing you apart, psychologically, you know, and also you just feel like a buffoon, you know. - That's so. - I just always felt like a buffoon. - Performing monkeys, sort of thing. - Performing monkeys, sort of thing. - Yeah, kinda, yeah, yeah, yeah. - How much of that, I mean, LA is integral to that album, welcome to the boomtown, but also to a lot of your music, but on a meta level, how important is the interaction with LA that you have and the whole entertainment, well, the entertainment complex that exists here and that sense of sort of everything being tied into this ecosystem? - Well, listen, I'm found a strong believer in the notion that to tell a big story, you have to tell a small one, you know, you know, that it's much, you know, that taking an eagle eye, you know, some kind of overview of society or whatever is always gonna fail artistically, unless you're writing a textbook. And so, you know, I tend to look for small stories to tell a bigger picture, you know, you tell a story about a janitor, you know, and you really understand, you get a handle on who that guy is and what his life is like. You've actually told the story of his whole community, you know, in a way. And to me, that's more doable. And it's just that this, you know, listen, if I was in Detroit, I would probably write about Detroit. - Yeah, how important is LA to you? I mean, you've tried living elsewhere. - Oh, yeah, yeah, you know, well, for the scoring thing, you pretty much have to be here. There's no way around it. - But for artistic, artistically in disaster. - Okay. - That's the city of-- - Everyone's beautiful, or everyone's trying to be beautiful. - Yeah, I mean, there's a lot of that. I mean, I don't know. I mean, the thing about it, you know, like any large conglomeration of people is full of amazing stories. But, I mean, as a city, it's not a city. I mean, you know, it's this, it's like a collection of little principalities, you know, nobody, except for, you know, bus drivers really see the whole place. I mean, there's no reason to. - Just trying to find my way up here from San Diego yesterday and trying to find my way from the hotel to here to find you it was one of those going from microcosm to microcosm. - Yeah, exactly, right. - Well, you haven't even seen-- - Oh, there's a ton of-- - La Puente, or San Bernardino, or, you know. - But it's not, again, not fulfilling in that respect, just in terms of, you know, material for the art. - You know, I think, listen, I think my life as a writer would be a hell of a lot easier if I lived in New York or Paris, where you actually walk around and see people. - Yeah. - I hear everybody's, you know, armored in these cars. - Well, let me tell you, that was my experience this morning. I went out for, I get up early. I was up like 5.30, 6 a.m. I figure I'll go out and find some coffee somewhere. Yeah, I'm walking down the street realizing their idea of a breakfast cafe is something that opens at 8 a.m. That's, you know, right, everything is a drive. - Yeah, this really isn't a city like I'm used to, so, you know. - It's, you know, yeah, Paris, you get up at five o'clock in the morning, you know, hell, you know. - There's a baguette, there's somebody out there. - Yeah, get yourself a croissant, you know? Were your parents supportive of music? Of your direction? - My mother was. - My mother was. My father, you found it difficult to be supportive of anything really, except for-- - It wouldn't have mattered what you picked. - No. - Okay. - No, I was an unforgivable insult, my birth to him, I think. - Do you have a reconcile over that, or is he pretty much? - You know. - That's what it was. - He, very grudgingly, a few years before his death, said, well, I'll say one thing for you, David, you know, you get more publicity than most of the bare walls. I was just like, thanks, dad, that's really nice. But, you know, like, when boomtown came out, or when we got signed to A&M, and I finally had a job. You know, it'd always been a bit of a fuck up, really. - Yeah, and I said, so I got this record deal, dad. You know, it was a job, they're giving us a quarter of a million bucks here, you know. And he said, well, music is the highest of all human callings, David, but what you do is not music, so I was just like God. - That's the guy I know, thank you, Pop. - Yeah, well, at least, you know, it's consistency with that stuff, you know what you're in for, when it's, you know, an asshole over there. - Stow with German. - Yeah, when did they come over? When did he come over? - You mean to America? Well, he was actually born in Japan. - Oh, okay. - When did he come over? He came over, it's a crazy story. - Well, yeah, time. If you're okay with it. - Yeah, well, I mean, it's an epic story, really. It's his father had moved to Japan, I think in like 1902 or something like that, and had spent his life really living as a jet. - Well, he was a German chemical executive in Tokyo. And in the early 30s, the Gestapo showed up in Japan to start screwing around with the lives of the German community in Japan. And so my grandfather, well, my grandmother did several things. One of these became an American agent, an American intelligence asset, and also worked with this Japanese diplomat who I think was based in Estonia, and they got a whole bunch of-- - Epic is right, go on. - They got a whole, they helped 28,000 Jews escape from Eastern Europe. - Your family, Jewish? - Yeah. - Well, my father, my grandfather was Jewish. His wife was not Jewish. - Apparently wouldn't help when the Gestapo show up. - No, no, no, well, also, you know, he was a prominent guy and, you know. So my father and his sister ended up dual enemy aliens, German Japanese citizens. In San Francisco, my grandfather was working at the Presidio, who's a naval facility there. So of course, you know, he ended up in the service as well, which set all kinds of other things in just-- - As you did in an album, the one album of years that I don't have a lot of experience with was "Triage", her second solo record, which I got in grad school for maybe late college. - It was just too unlistenable for you? - Yeah, and I only heard it once or twice, and that was before we would just rip everything and put it in an MP3 library, at which point I would have rediscovered it, and I haven't had the opportunity to rediscover it. - I mean, you know, I think it might have been a little bit ahead of its time. - I was also just not a taste. The whole, I was into the conspiratorial aspect of things that permeated, but just the techno, not techno, the technology part, the layering of noise and sound effects. - Yeah, it just wasn't, you know, where I was at that point. - Yeah, I was, that was kind of an iron whim at the time. You know, I remember waking up in the morning and my coffee machine was making this really horrible sound, and I realized, you know, that the world that I was living in, you know, was not very bucolic, really. Wasn't very rural, wasn't very strummy. - Yeah. - Full of very grating, violent sounds, all the time helicopter overhead. Where are you, where are you, there's irons and stuff like that. And I wanted to make an album about being sort of, you know, one of the things that, one of the images that I always had when I was making that record was Charlie Chaplin in modern times. - In modern times, yeah, where everything's, you know, he's just like, he's just this poor guy, he's just getting munched by everything and stuff. And... - I need to give you an idea who I was, just so, you know, it's not you, but me. My discovery of Bob Mould and that whole thing was workbook, but I didn't know Husker Doo 'cause I was still high school living in New Jersey, we didn't really have an alt scene. And so my whole impression of Bob Mould was like this quiet guy recording in a barn somewhere and then I, you know, he puts out another album, that's the exact opposite, I start finding the early stuff. I'm like, oh, not my taste just now. I know over the years, of course, I learned to understand and get into much more of his stuff, but yeah, I came at it from this quiet acoustic world. - Right. - Well, you know, listen, I mean, I like quiet acoustic music, too, I... - And now we're listening to Underworld, so, you know, it's all over the place, that's what I'm saying. - Yeah, yeah. - No, but that record was not to most people's taste, I mean, which was hardly surprising. (laughing) - It would take a while for the next album to come out. - Well, I mean, shit, you know, well, after that, you know, we did all the Cheryl Crow stuff. And that also turned into just an incredible mess. - Do you have a three paragraph description of that, just so, like, listeners can get an idea of what the Cheryl Crow thing is without happy to... - Oh, well, okay, well, we had started this ensemble, a recording group called "The Tooth and Music Club." And our keyboard player was Kevin Gilbert, and his girlfriend, I was on A&M at the time records, his girlfriend had been signed to A&M, and she was about to get dropped because she'd made this really expensive and really horrible record with the huge pageant, I mean, really bad. And so, A&M was getting ready to drop her, and Kevin was like, "Hey, can you help her out? "Can we help her out?" And it was Cheryl Crow. - So, we did that record and... - A lot of the music and lyrics. - Yeah, it was a very controversial approach, because normally what one would do in its case, like, somebody likes Cheryl, and this is another somebody who's a pretty girl, who's a good singer. Not necessarily much of a writer yet, you know? - There's no embarrassment in that, you know? - You know, right. I mean, usually what one would do would be to do is like a Kylie Minogue kind of a thing. You know, like, in the old days, there were songwriter types, you had your Joni Mitchells, and then you had your, you know, I know-- - Nancy Sinatra. - Yeah, Nancy Sinatra, exactly, right. And there wasn't-- - There were all of us, yeah. Sorry, go on. - And the singer-songwriters were supposed to be honest, and sincere, and searching, and introspective, and all this, you know, none of which was the case, in this particular instance. - She won't hear it, it's okay. (laughing) - I mean, but anyway, so we kind of did, what I consider to be a very morally questionable thing, which was we-- - Crafted an identity around those songs. - Precisely, we sort of made somebody up, you know? And what I've learned is that you can be successful at it, but if you succeed, it's still a disaster. You can't, you just can't mess with-- - The person has to be the person. - You know, I think ultimately, yeah. - If they're not, they're gonna come after you, you know? - For knowing the-- - Yeah, exactly, and make your life really freakin' difficult. - Which happened to you for a number of years? - Yeah, absolutely, I mean, you know, blackbald. - How did it feel, I mean, given that she was one of the most successful female acts, one of the most successful acts of the last 20 years, did you not, do you feel good about any aspect of it, but was there a certain sense of, yeah, we built that, you know? - Yeah, listen, I think, to this day, I think it's a really good record, you know? I remember the night that it became clear to me what we were about to do, you know, because we'd been this kind of experimental sort of Captain B part, kind of a band, very experimental, you know? And then we started, you know, then Cheryl came in, and I was like, wow, we're Fleetwood Mac now. It's no more of the raucous experimental experimentation. And I was like, you know, I was fine with it. You know, you know, there was something about that group of people, and something about the situation or something that just was a magnet to just absolute tragedy. I mean, tragedy, two deaths, three deaths. I mean, our drush, Kevin, of course, hanging himself, John O'Brien, who was a good buddy of mine who had written the book "Leaving Las Vegas," and that's where I got the character. That's where I got the persona for that record. I borrowed it from his book. John shot himself in a rage. Bill Batrell's son died horrifically, it's the age of seven. Our drummer's parents both committed suicide within six months of each other. Our bass player got cancer and heart attack at the age of like 30. - This is starting to sound like the watchman. Like, you know, you're the one guy who relatively untouched. - Yeah, I was. - Except you were blackball by your industry, so. - I was blackball by the industry, you know? That was kind of painful, but maybe that was my, you know, that's, I've been waiting for that piano to fall. - Yeah, see, now you realize that in a collage you were under it the whole time. You didn't understand. - You did, that's right. - And that drove you into songwriting for other artists and scoring. - Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. Yeah, scoring, you know, I did a whole, like, yeah. And writing songs for films. - And, you know, I mean, I continue to do all this. I mean, it's not as though I retired, it's just, I mean, I have retired, sort of, but. - I interviewed Lori Carson last year, the Golden Palomino songwriter. She had her first novel coming out and her last album had come out which she contended was her last album 'cause the market, the industry, yeah. - It's very, you know, for, she's in her early 50s, you know, singer-songwriter and I have adored her work. Since the first Palomino's record, I listened to back when I was in college. - God, Anton's name just came up recently. - It's the greatest name in the world, Anton Fier. I mean, how awesome is that? - Yeah. - It's like when I started my magazine we got a guy in the editorial advisory board, James Skull, Ph.D., and I said, "I've just added Dr. Skull to my board." - Oh, that's so good. - I've got a rogues gallery set up. I've got supervillains on my team. But yeah, she had the same sort of, I would like to keep making music, but I'll just make music myself 'cause this is not a market that's conducive to. - Well, absolutely not. I mean, you know, especially if you don't want it. I mean, I work with a lot of young people. - Yeah. - I've actually started developing talent for Warner and Chapel. And the first thing we did was make the mistake of making up a person and it came back and bit us in the ass almost immediately. - Name you can share or should we not? Okay, no problem. I mean, another one of my favorite 80s things, and it's so far from your area was a musician named Gary Clark. He was in a band called Danny Wilson, Scottish Synth Pop Band. They had a song called Mary's Prayer, that was the one big single. He did a couple solo records in the early '90s, et cetera. And I follow him and of course now he's a songwriter and producer because as wonderful as his voice is and as gorgeous the melodies he could do, no one wants a bald Scottish 50 year old guy on camera and being the big appearance. So he writes for Demi Lovato instead. - Right, exactly. - Yeah. - Don't even get me started on that world. - Yeah. - Would you find something besides financially fulfilling in that, do you see any sort of interaction that, you know, artistically do you feel? - Yeah, absolutely. I mean, I get a lot from you know, there's one group that I've been working with right now, these two kids from Texas who are just magnificent. I couldn't ask for a more pleasant couple of guys to work with. I mean, they're both brilliant musicians. One of the guys, one of the best male singers I've ever worked with, if not the best. I mean, they're incredible, you know, and they're great guys and, you know, you know, helping people that are helping themselves, I'm fine with, you know. When somebody needs... - My reality TV show is collapsing. I need a recording career. - Or, you know, when they, yeah, exactly. - Right, well, you know, when somebody, even that is something you can sort of work with. But if somebody actually needs a personality invented. - Oh, okay. - I'm out, I can't do it anymore. It's just, it's just these single most thankless. And I think it's against the laws of nature anyway. And I think, you know. - The whole Frankenstein thing. - Yeah, I just think it's just bad karma, you know. - Is there anyone you would wanna write for that you've wanted to, you know, I'd love to do a song for this artist or perform with, which leads to my, usually it's a literary question. You had a freak out moment around any musician like, "Oh, my God, I can't believe I'm meeting or playing with." - Well, yeah, Joni Mitchell, who became a very good friend for many years, but the first few times I met her, I was just like, "Oh, my God." - Yeah. - I'm glad you have that freak out ability. - Oh, yeah. - I always contrast the Chris Farley, Paul McCartney's skid on SNL, where it's just him, "Oh, my God, why are you so awesome?" Like, just, he can't even bring himself to ask anything. It's, yeah, so, but anyone you'd wanna record with or wanna play for or write for? And does anyone cover David and David's song? So you just wanna smack in the face for, you know, bastardizing your work. - No, I don't really care. - Jesus, who would I like to write with or for? I don't know, just about anybody, really. - Okay. - As long as it's worked, that's cool. I just don't know if there was any sort of, you know, this one guy I'd always love to sit down and record with or, you know, collaborate with. - I don't, you know, I mean, listen, there's people I love working with, you know, and I would love to work with, as a musician, you know. You know, I'd love to work with Tom Waits. I'd love to work with Randy Newman. You know, I mean, as a musician, I mean, there's a million people I'd like to work with, you know. As a writer, you know-- - It's really not that sort of relationship. - Yeah, you know, it's, I mean, in terms of like, a personal desire to sit down and write something, you know, it's not something you want to give to anybody else anyway, you know? - I understand. - Yeah, I wasn't sure, 'cause I know it's, that part of it is a job, job, and a bit of a mess. - It's kind of a, yeah, it's a profession, you know, it's a craft and a profession. You know, sometimes, you know, listen, I have my, I have my needs, too, you know. If I feel the need to write a song, because that's the only way I can process a certain emotion or something like that, that's for me, you know, ultimately, which of your songs do you feel were most successful? - I guess, not commercially, but just in terms of, given that there's usually, well, you get sort of, do the split between the love and the political, for your subject matter in songs. Do you feel, you know, one side or the other is, you know, a greater strength for you and are there particular songs that really, you know, I nailed that one, really got across what I needed to, musically and lyrically? - No, I don't think I've ever satisfied either when it was, that's good, Nancy, I'll keep it going, so. - No, I've never, I don't think I've, you know, I don't think I've ever written anything any good, and I don't think I've ever, you know, it. - See, you are Jewish, deep down, that's good. You have that neurotic self-deprecation. - You know, I just, you know, I think it was Beckett, he just said, fail better, that's all I can do, you know? That's what I continue to do is just keep on failing, hopefully a little bit better every time I try it. - Who do you read? - And who were your literary influences 'cause I have no musical background, so if I really ask music stuff, I'm not gonna get the intricacies. - I mean, as a, you know, the guy who really sort of, well, the two people that really kind of gave me my style, well, three, really, it was Joan Didion, Raymond Chandler, and, oh, fuck. I can't remember his name. - What's the book? - Things we talk about when we talk about love. - Raymond Carver. - Raymond Carver, that's the fella. - The other Raymond. - The other Raymond, yeah. So, Carver, Chandler, and Didion were hugely influential on my personal writing style. You know, I started out and continued being really suspicious of adjectives of any kind. Um, I tried to keep them to a minimum, and, um-- - There's not a lot of Faulkner in your, your-- - No, okay. Well, Faulkner doesn't really learn himself to songwriting. - No, no, unless the song is, you know, 'cause it's Gilean Welch, 15 minutes. - Exactly, right, yeah. No, the terse, you know, report, like, boomtown, like, the songs on boomtown, I wanted, you know, Rick has thought I was kidding, but I wanted the songs to read, like, a police report. You know, just, you know, just absolutely-- - I was listening on the drive over. I had the river's gonna rise, which is completely-- - Well, that, yeah, not that song. - Yeah, that's dead on, but-- - Not that song, but, um, actually the song boomtown. I wanted, you know, I really wanted it just to be just completely dry, reportage of a situation. You know, that was my concept for that. And coming from that sort of sparse, carver school of-- - Freshly, yeah. - Minimalist, you know, which lends itself to songwriting, you know, 'cause songs tend to be pretty short, and, you know, you want the way to beach word to be, to, you know, stand on its own, pretty much. - Yeah, it was only a year or so ago that I realized almost every song that I can remember doesn't have a word over two or three syllables in it. Yeah, you start to realize just what the meter of it is when you're trying to work, especially for something it's gonna be catchy, so. - Yeah, if you're dealing with rhythm, you know, multi-syllific words, you know, 'cause once you put one in, you're obligated to find another one that'll, you know, that'll work with it rhythmically, you know. - Who are you reading now? - Right now I'm reading John Le Corre's new book, actually. - And what sort of, what sort of reading do you like to do in mainly fiction, non-fiction? What do you, uh, if you went downstairs to your library, what would you, you know, well, these are the books that I really, you know. - Well, you would find, you know, you would find everything that you could possibly imagine from 16th century German poetry to, you know, everything Tom Pinchen wrote to, you know, it's-- - I was gonna say with your grandfather's German chemical company background and your whole conspiratorial thing with some of your writing, you kind of fall right into the Pinchen Gravity's Rainbow. - Oh, yeah, I mean, Pinchen, yeah. I think Pinchen understood things about the world that only now are people starting to really come to grips with. - Yeah, so. How would you characterize it? Malevolent, interconnectedness of-- - Yeah, yeah, you know, I don't want to sound like too much of a lunatic. - Oh, it's okay, that's, you know. We'll play some of your music in the background so people will get the idea. - Yeah, they'll all know already. - Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. - Yeah, I honestly, I had some trepidation coming here. I just had that moment of, I hope this isn't some, like, Hunter S. Thompson-esque place where he's just gonna, like, start shooting overhead as I drive out. I don't think that's gonna be an issue, but, you know, just not knowing anything about you personally and having the relatively conspiratorial-minded tree out. - Ah, people think crazy things about me. I found that out. - Yeah. - Now, you know, some schlub from New Jersey thought you might be some, you know, - Some kind of homicidal maniac. - Some kind of homicidal maniac. - No, I'm not a homicidal maniac. I managed to get through life without killing anybody, I think. - Not without wanting to, but still. - Well, yeah, I mean, there's been temptations, though. I mean, obviously, like that. - But, yeah, Pinchon's a big... - The person loves temptations, but yeah. - Just literally. - There's nothing you can get out for a songwriter out of this stuff, really. But as a person, yeah, you know, you know. You know, songwriters need, you know, simplicity. You know, one thing I found is that trying to write about interconnected malevolence is, in a song, it's just, it's kind of a violation of form. You know, it doesn't really accomplish any real purpose. - And Dylan already did subterranean homesick blues. - That's true. - Which, Dylan did a lot. You know, Dylan did a shit load. And also, Dylan, you can't, you know, people get influenced by Dylan, you can spot it immediately. And, you know, you're never gonna be as good at that as he is. You know, he's really good at being Bob Dylan, you know. So it's, you know, you can't take inspiration there. You really have to, you know, you really have to figure out... - How difficult is that? The understanding your influences, but synthesizing something new. I'm asking for a friend, of course. You know, because I can't bring myself to write. But, you know, if you were, because I'm too overly influenced by wonderful, wonderful writers who I can never match up to, therefore, why should I start? - Well, exactly. - Yeah, so how do you get over that? - You know... - Before you know better? - Yeah, and it helps when there's other people around that make you do it. I mean, you know, you gotta come up with something. You know what I mean? It's like we're in a business here, too, you know, it's like... - So you do it, because you're there, and you know, you know... - The guy who can put together a couple of verses and then... - Exactly, right. You know, people are bashing some stuff around this thing and you need something to sing, you know. - And what is the working life like? Like, what's your work routine? Or is there a routine aspect to it? - I don't really have a routine for save. I mean, I get it pretty early. I study for about an hour, I'm gonna have to maybe... - Study. - Music, usually? - Okay. - What's that in the tail? - It depends, you know, sometimes it's learning jazz harmony. You know, that's kind of what I'm doing right now. And just, you know, you're training. A lot of times I'm just practicing, you know, like... I'm trying to get to four fingers on my finger picking hand. Which sounds easy, but it's really difficult, and especially to do it with any fluidity. So yeah, usually, you know, it's involved some form of practice around the guitar. And you know, with this co-writing thing that I'm doing for Warner, I find myself in this garage in Beverly Hills with any number of different people. And this kind of, he's a wonderful guy in many ways, but he's a bit of a sort of a Captain Quig of songwriting. And he's my publisher. And often, my other half in that sitting is this fellow named Dylan O'Brien. Somebody will be sitting with us on the couch. And I'll say, so what's bugging you? Or what makes your heart race or? - You just try to figure out something good right around. - What excites you? And we just have a conversation and, you know, and he'll say something like, like the last one was they'll say something like, you know, oh, but, you know, everybody's crazy. And I said, okay, well, that's what we're gonna write about. Everybody's crazy, but it's okay because, you know, that's because everybody's crazy. It's okay that you're crazy, it's okay that I'm crazy. And then, just a little machinery of Dylan and Steve starts grinding and, you know, and we start just line by line by line, getting the damn thing written. And it can be really tiring. It usually takes about six hours. I mean, well, and not, you know, yesterday, A.J. Croci came by, you know, the... He's Jim Croci's son and is a great musician in Sonoran himself. And we wrote a song for him. He's making an album that took about three hours. It was really easy. - Has it reached that point in some respects where it's just the practice of it all? Not that it becomes routine, but that, you know, you've got those muscles sort of trained or is it a learning process? - There's an element of this, you know, I mean, lyrics are one thing, but, you know, there's an element of this thing that's sort of like finished carpentry, you know, you know, it's really a pain in the ass. It's very time consuming. I mean, it's very finicky. - Yeah, and there's no quick. - There's no quick way to do it really, but, you know, you know that, you know, if you're playing an A, that there's... And there's so many play places you can go. There's a relative minor for the bridge. You know, you're minor too, you're minor, you're... So, you know, you're like, "Okay, well, "we're chugging all the way here in this sort of a shuffle, "and then it's like, well, where can we go?" And it's like, well, let's cycle through the circle of fifths until we find someplace where we're happy, you know, or not, you know, or let's just play one chord for, you know, and do it all with the groove, you know? I mean, by now, I've been in hundreds and hundreds of recording sessions, and it's always interesting, and it's always surprising what happens, but... - The separating the routine from that Gestalt moment when, "Holy shit, this all just hit," and we... - Yeah, exactly, right. - That's something good. - Exactly, right, you know. You take a step back and you go, "Holy shit, "we just built that," you know? - That's the job. - That's the job, yeah. I mean, it's, particularly in the music side of things, there's a bit of math involved, you know? There's a lot of stuff that I mean, you know, I never had any real formal training, so musically, you know? I mean, it's beyond the guitar lessons, which I promptly forgot, you know. So I've had to kind of construct a musical understanding for myself piecemeal, you know? - Supposedly McCartney couldn't read music, so... - Yeah, well, yeah, reading, you know, I mean, reading music is imperative if you're gonna be a session player. If you're Paul McCartney, you don't need to read music. - Right. - I'm Paul McCartney, you know? - Well, when you're writing this stuff, you know, you don't need to... - Play it like this, and yeah. - Yeah, you know, I mean, most of the songwriting, I know, don't read music, you know? And I don't really read music very well myself, but, you know, it helps, you know, listen, it really helps to have, you know, a pretty good understanding of rhythm, as a, you know, people say, what's the difference between writing poems and writing songs, you know? And, you know, the short answer is rhythm. You know, the rhythms of the songwriter are much more declarative than for a poet, you know? They're much more, they're much more overt. - Emphatic. - Yeah, emphatic, that's the word. - See, I'm the editor, although now I'm the executive, but I was the editor, so, you know, I'm pretty good with this whole word. - Yeah, emphatic is the word. Yeah. You know, Chuck Berry to me is one of the great living lyricists, or the greatest liver lyricist I ever just, because he writes like a great drummer, you know, and that's kind of, I mean, to me, the main thing is that, you know, it's, as a songwriter, you know, as a writer, you know, listen, there's, you know, it's got nothing to do with Chuck Berry, but, for songwriting, that rhythmic ability, I mean, that's the first thing I try to impart to my charges, you know, my young artist friends that I'm working with is, you know, think about the rhythm, the rhythm, the rhythm, the rhythm. That's gonna get you to the end of the song, you know. It provides the, you know, that's the highway that you're, that you're planning on. - I should ask about your non-music stuff, also. First, you sent me a link to a video with no explanation whatsoever. - Sentemery and the-- - And The Wild Boys, yes. What is it, what are you doing with it? - That's a TV show. - Okay. - That I'm, that's a teaser for a TV series. - Gotcha. - I wrote a script, and I'm working with Stacy Shear and Michael Shambard, who produced Django Unchained and-- - I knew their names from something. - Pulp Fiction, all kinds of amazing stuff. And so I've been working with them, and got the script finally written. We're now taking it out to people. So I should know something within the next month or so about what's gonna happen with it. - Do you have a HBO-ish sopranos like, except in this California surfing coke dealing? - Yeah, the '70s, yeah, exactly. - Not to give away too much about it. - Right, well, yeah, it's a meditation on art and corruption, and money and violence. - Which, given their Tarantino connection, makes a lot of sense. - Yeah, I mean, there's a lot, you know, obviously the drug business is notoriously filled with sort-tempered people, and-- - You find that, don't you? (both laughing) - You're talking to one of the most straight-edge guys in the world, badly, it's embarrassing, but-- - That's okay. - But that's the sort of thing they can, or would you get the idea, or how the idea originated? - When I was a youth, I did work for a mural painter, and we got involved in probation, working with probation and community service kids as a workforce, and of course most of the kids were drug offenders, and I just thought, you know, I just thought, wouldn't it be ironic if-- - They built a little drug empire. - If we built a drug empire. I just thought it was amusing, you know, because we were working with the city, and it was the '70s, and people were, I mean, I was a teenager myself, I was 16. Cocaine was just so prevalent. It's hard for people to imagine now, you know. - One of my past guests mentioned when he realized he needed to quit in the early '80s, living in New York. Was when he and friends were waiting on a line outside a restaurant, and just started outside on the sidewalk, and then he had the, yeah, maybe this is going a little too far, and I need to stop this before it really starts degenerating when we're willing to just break it out right in the public. - Well, that's what everybody was doing. - Yeah, yeah. - You know, you'd go to a restaurant and people were doing cocaine on the deal. There were whole bars, you know. - He realized being outside on the sidewalk, doing it might be a little dodgy, given, well, what's Giuliani's New York at that point? - I think nobody wanted to care that. The mayor was, the mayor was a co-head. - Yeah. You know? - Yeah. - And Washington was, or DC was willing to realize one. - That's right. - Well, he moved up to Crack, which is, you know. - Crack is, you know, it seems to, that really does seem to, to affect people. - Show a level of seriousness. - Affect people. (laughing) - I think you're really pursuing this with careerist determination when you go up to that. (laughing) But yeah, good luck with the project. And, you know, if it comes through before we put the episode up, I'll have something to, you know, really plug. You also, apparently we're writing a book, at what point, an outrageous pack of lies? - That's right. That's the stories that this-- - Oh, okay, this is tied into-- - Yeah, this is a result of those stories, in a sense. I mean, I've been refining this, this is, you know, it's, you can call it the outrageous pack of lies, or you can call it the saloon tales of David Berrawelder. But just, you know, that world, to me, it's really interesting for a lot of, I mean, that time, you know, in place, because it was a hugely transitional moment. And for me, you know, I started out doing, like, doing classic rock parties band, you know, like, Aerosmith and things like that. As a 14-year-old, and then in '76, punk hit, and it was that, you know, that was, you know, it was like, and there was this wildly exciting punk rock period that ended tragically, but also politically, you know, the idealism and the sense of community of the '60s, it sort of degenerated into this kind of Manson-- - Vietnam Watergate, just the-- - Well, I mean, that hippie thing was really on its way out. Nixon was on his way out, Nixon was toast, but-- - But we still have her patting to mugs. - The '60s, I mean, the '60s were dying, and the '80s were being built, you know, that, you know, the kind of new ruthlessness of business and, you know, the new, the new-- - The Reagan revolution. - Yeah, the Reagan revolution. - Exactly, the Reagan revolution was coming, you know, and which to me was always seemed, you know, I saw that as a CIA operation from, you know, that was, you know, Bill Casey and-- - Not that you want to come off as a coupe, remember? - No, I don't think there's any doubt about it. I don't think there's even any question. I don't think anybody-- - You know, I laughed, I was on a PR junk at last year in Washington, and they were taking us out to Rockville to go to a site, and they had a sign for the George Bush Intelligence Center, which luckily was about his father and not W, but it was no, the irony of the fighting. It's like, which I had the camera out quick, and I was getting shot at that. But yeah, the CIA center they named after-- - Right. - Bush senior. - Yeah, another charming guy. Anyway. - Yeah, there's a certain Jeremiah quality to a lot of the, at least the political songs or the non-love story songs of a certain death and destruction aspect to them, too. But particularly the-- - Well, the love songs, I mean, the only reason that they have a kind of devastated thing is just because they're taking place in a devastated landscape. I mean, it's still love. It's just, you know, love among the ruins. (laughing) - Thank you. Even less helpful now than those days. - I think we've crossed a line that there may not be an answer to. I think, you know, the rushing of capital to the very top is showing no signs of diminishing. The corruption of our news operation, our news media is pretty well complete. - Well, calling for Glenn Greenwald to be tried as a traitor for releasing the Snowden stuff. That's not treasonous activity, but, you know, you wanna keep the paymasters happy. - Exactly, right. Well, you know, and just the fact that there's only basically three companies that put out everything in media, you know, you know, environmentally, I don't see us really handling what we're facing. So, you know, listen, - But you got a kid. - I do have a kid. - Yes, triage ends with, you know, fine redemption and love between man and a woman, but now that you're a father and you've got a kid in high school. - Mm-hmm, 16 year. Is there a redemption in that, in the process of being that? - Absolutely, you know, listen, you know, that's one of the main things that I've been doing, you know, is that, you know, what do you find in yourself in being a dad? - Right now, a lot of pride. I'm very proud of my boy. Oh, listen, you know, when they're babies, you know, there's this, I don't, do you have kids? - No, no, two dogs. I'm avoided having children 'cause I'm too apocalyptic. Go on. - There's this heart wrenching, overwhelming, impossible love that you never, you know, I mean, it's just, you know, it's chemical, obviously, it's some kind of a disease or a drug, but. - It's like the way cats infect people with that thing that makes them have affection for cats. - Yeah, I don't know what, but yeah, no, it's just, it's just crazy how much you love this thing. And also the tremendous responsibility that you feel for having committed this relatively unpardonable sin of bringing them into this goddamn world. And so you need to be very careful with how you raise them. - But finding yourself in that process. - You know, I've kind of lost the interest in myself. I've never found myself and I don't expect to ever do so and I'm just not that interesting, you know? Yeah, I just, I'm really not prone to rumination on my, you know, I'm a, you know, I'm a provider. I'm a father and a. - And a good songwriter and a mentor. - Yeah, you know, it depends who you talk to. I think actually most people think I'm a decent songwriter, but, you know, I mean, people that know me, but yeah, I see, you know, listen, it's just, you know, I've tried to make sense historically of things. So I suppose on that level, there is a bit of rumination in self-seeking, you know, I've tried to understand how my father got to be the way he was. Which I think I have come to grips with and understanding on that. - And ways of keeping you from repeating that behavior? - Well, certainly as a parent, I mean, as a human being, I, he is, I'm very much affected by him. You're better or worse. As a parent, he was certainly an example of how I wanted not to do it. And, you know, my kid has turned out really, you know, my only fear with him is that he's going to be too straight, you know, you know. - But Republican and, you know, just hang yourself. - Well, I don't know, I don't see that. But he's just very, you know, he's just, he's a star athlete and a straight A student, you know, I mean, he's, - I mean, he sure is your kid. - But there's a certain physical resemblance that's inescapable. - So you're happy? - Am I happy? - I don't know. I mean, I don't, I don't, I don't think that's an adjective that is even possible to, I'm happy. - I don't know that I trust happiness. - You did mention you're trying to pare down the adjectives all the time, so. - True, yeah. - You know, if you don't have an answer, chances are no, but, you know, that's, that's, again, if happiness is something that's important, I guess. - Well, you know, days are long, you know, and some minutes you're happy and others, you know, there's that damn pimple on your back that you can't reach. I mean, you know, probably not, I don't know. I'm really, you know, it's really, this is a difficult time to be a sentient being. You know, it's just, - Can't trust happiness. Feel your, your bliving yourself to something. Not that this should come off like therapy. - I don't, I don't, it's not that I distrust happiness. I distrust the concept of it as a part of human life. You know, there are moments of happiness and moments of unhappiness. So, you know, I suppose it's the balance between the two. I mean, on balance, I'd say, yeah, I guess I am pretty happy. I have a lot of wonderful friends and, you know, some degree of respect, but you don't trust because it's recording industry executives, but some degree of respect. - Some, you know, a lot of distrust. Yeah, that's, that's a question I don't think that I could even comprehend. - We'll leave it at that. David Bairwell, thank you so much for coming on "The Virtual Memory Show." - Well, sure, thanks for inviting me. ♪ I never was the judgmental time ♪ ♪ And if I ever thought about why I knew all of this crazy things ♪ ♪ That I do when I'm not in the dream ♪ ♪ That I'm in the mind ♪ ♪ If I ever thought about why I knew all of this crazy things ♪ ♪ That I do when I'm not in the dream ♪ ♪ In the mind ♪ ♪ And then what would I do ♪ ♪ So I'm in the mind ♪ - And that was David Bairwell, whom I've been listening to since 1988 or so. If you don't own them already, you should pick up "Boom Town," the album by David and David, as well as Bairwell's solo records, bedtime stories, and here comes a new folk underground. Like we talked about in the episode, I don't really have much to say about triage. I listened to it once or twice in college, didn't dig it, probably me. I will give it another shot and let you guys know. This is one other thing I wanna tell you about, David. In addition to his music career, Bairwell's also an inventor with several patents pending it. After we recorded, he told me about some of the stuff he's working on and it's some really impressive shit. I tell you about it, but I'm afraid the CIA will come after me if I do, kidding, kidding. So that is it for this week's virtual memories show. I'll be back next Tuesday with a conversation with someone named Ron. It'll either be Ron Rosenbaum about the new edition of his book, "Explaining Hitler," or it'll be the poet and book critic Ron Slate. Come back next week and you'll find out. In the meantime, please hit up our websites, vmspod.com or chimeraabscura.com/vm. So you can make a donation to this ad-free podcast. That trip up to LA actually caused me some decent money. And I've still gone without a paycheck since the end of February because of this new job thing. So if you'd like to kick in a little, that would be much appreciated. You can also find past episodes of the podcast there and you can get on our weekly email list, which is just an announcement about the show, new books and projects from past guests and things of that oak. No real sales pitching or anything. If you've got ideas for guests, drop me a line at growth@chymeraabscura.com or hit me up on vmspod on Twitter or visit our Facebook page, Facebook.com/virtualmemoriesshow. And do me a favor, go to the iTunes store, look up the virtual memories show and leave a review and a rating. More people do that, better the chances it will get featured when somebody searches for damaged love songs and the hopelessness of Los Angeles. Until next time, I am Gil Roth and you are awesome. Keep it that way. (upbeat music) ♪ One more with you ♪ ♪ And we've done things that we know we have to do ♪ ♪ Ever hopeful that it ever blew ♪ ♪ We do the things that we know we have to do ♪ ♪ And know we've got no deep down in our heart ♪ ♪ There's some day this will all fall apart ♪ ♪ All right now ♪ ♪ They let you be yours ♪ (upbeat music) (gentle music) [BLANK_AUDIO]