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Kevin is Trey's brother-in-law and also the founder of the amazing rock club, Higher Ground in Burlington, Vermont. Kevin is a guy whose life is built around music, appreciation and knowledge. And he's built a vast network of amazing music industry personalities. And yet, he would never say that in a business way. He'd just say he's got a lot of friends. He will admit though that his life is full of amazing musical moments, some of which we've captured here. But also knowing Kevin and being in the music industry, I continually am surprised. Actually, I'm not really surprised anymore. It happens so much. When I meet someone and learn that they got their start in the music business with Kevin. Just here in Asbury Park, New Jersey, where we conducted this interview, the head of live nation in this area is my good friend, Sean Conner. Sean got his start working at Higher Ground with Kevin. Also, and peripherally featured in this interview is Ed Meyer, who also worked with Kevin in Vermont. Ed now books the large musical acts that play in this part of the New Jersey Shore. I was recently in the relics offices with my pals there and met their advertising guy Mitchell. I looked at him and said, "We know each other." And he said, "Of course, I'm Kevin's friend." And I instantly knew. But the most recent one was when my wife and I were tooling around in Mexico, seeing fish at the Barcelo Maya Resort. We kept bumping into this nice couple, Dave and Carolyn. And the first time we met, it was like, "Hey, how are you?" And they lived near us in Philly. Then two hours later, we sit right next to them at dinner. Then later, they're ordering drinks at the bar where we hung out. Then the next day, we're in the ocean of all places. And I realized the guy next to me, swimming, is David. Finally, we were like, "Okay, the universe wants us to be friends." So we just hung out with them from then on. And now we're pals. And we even went to a Mike Gordon show together, the day of this interview. But when I asked Dave what he did, he said that he got started in the music business in Vermont, working for Kevin Stacer. I was like, "Of course you did." And I said, "By the way." And I pointed across the pool. There's Kevin right there. Dave almost fell over because he hadn't seen Kevin in 15 years. It was a great reunion. Anyway, stay tuned to learn more about Kevin's involvement with early fish and the fish festivals. And also, of course, with Trey's family on a personal level. And of course, some of the coincidences I mentioned earlier. One incredibly, including a major John Lennon encounter. And one, an intimate moment he shared with Keith Richards. I'm not kidding about this one. Does that sound incredible? Stay tuned. This episode of "Under the Skills" is brought to you by Skillshare. Skillshare is an online learning platform with over 20,000 classes in business, design, technology, and more. You can take classes in music production and composition. Video editing, photography, creative writing. You name it, they've got it. So I'm a user of Skillshare. I've now taken 11 full courses. It's what I do, mainly on the web these days. I told you about the myriad of guitar lessons on Skillshare that I dabble in. But today, I want to quickly mention another way I use it. I've been involved in several startup companies. I'm in three right now. They all require you to solve the same problems initially. How to get money is probably the biggest one. Skillshare teaches you how to write a convincing pitch deck that will guide you in this otherwise daunting process. Also, take a WordPress tutorial so you can build your own website and not pay someone else to do it. Skillshare has hundreds of WordPress classes. 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And then lastly, did you know that under the scales is a proud member of the Osiris family of music and culture podcasts? If you like under the scales, check out other podcasts at OsirisPod.com. - Hello and welcome to under the scales, the under the scales mobile studio has moved to Asbury Park, New Jersey. Not that far from my home in Princeton, but it's notable because we're in a music mecca and everywhere in this entire community, I see music posters. I saw a dandy-clinged picture of tray on the side of a building. We are in convention hall thanks to our good friend, Ed Meyer, who if you do any music in Asbury Park, you know him. He's kind of like the mayor of music in Asbury Park. So thank you, Ed, who's sitting here right now. We have another friend, Beau, who's sitting here. Hi Beau. And then our guest today is Kevin Stacer. Hi Kevin. - Hi there. - So tray married Susan Stacer and her brother, Kevin, is involved with fish's history, my musical history, and also as we were sort of alluding to the musical history of this place and his history's tied in with all these places as well. So Kevin, you and I have long been talking about you're getting on under the scales and the day has arrived. Every place you walk here reminds you of another story because this is kind of your childhood, right? - Absolutely, I moved here. I got a summer job here in 1971. Much of the chagrin of my parents who expected me to spend that summer at our beach house in Madison, New Jersey. I chose instead to get a $10 a week rooming house room and get involved with the scene that was going on at that point in Asbury Park. The boardwalk was filled with people every night, all kinds of people, anti-war people, hippies, lots of things going on of all kinds of nature. And at the, on both ends of the boardwalk there was the convention hall and there was a place called the casino. Both of them had some of the biggest bands of the day. I saw almost all of my first concerts here, whether it was Jeopardy or Tall. (upbeat music) (upbeat music) With the opening band Yes, they were unknown at the time. (upbeat music) Elton John did "Mad Men Across the Water" and then of course in those couple of years after that there was a local musician who started breaking out and that was Bruce Springsteen. (upbeat music) The, a lot of the clubs here started really packing a lot of people in and a lot of musicians started coming and playing with all of these people. And that was sort of, in its own way, the genesis of me wanting to do higher ground and eventually to have a place where people could be, have a sense of community and people could come and play with different musicians and have some top performing artists play there. - You had just told me a story that, that probably bears repeating because this is, after all a fish related podcast, where you went to see with Trey, Bruce Springsteen on Broadway. And subsequently you went backstage and who should walk in, but you can take it from here. - Yeah, so we got asked to come along with one of the ushers. I thought we might've been being thrown out but I couldn't figure out why. So we were taken into a back hallway and then suddenly we were in a room where Bruce Springsteen and his wife Patty came walking in and Trey and Bruce, it seemed, hadn't seen each other since Bonnaroo. I'd been there kind of watching that show from the side back in 2010 and fish had just gotten back together. So Bruce asked Trey, "Hey, how's the band going? How's everything going?" And didn't you play Madison Square Garden recently? And Trey said, "Yeah, we just did 13 nights." And Springsteen was like, "What, 13 nights?" And he goes, "How did you figure out what songs you were gonna play twice?" And Trey said, "We didn't, we didn't play anything twice." There were no repeats. And Springsteen said, "Well, how did you do that? How many songs were there?" And Trey said, "Kevin, how many were there?" And I said, "Something like 237." And Trey said, "No, Kevin, it was 273. Both of us may be wrong, but they're in that area." But anyway, Springsteen said, "What are you talking about? 237, 273, that's a lot of songs. How did you do that?" So it was rather exciting to me and he, you know, being somebody that plays a lot has a very large set list and it has a lot of songs in his catalog. He found that pretty amazing. - Yeah, that's really cool to get acknowledgement from, you know, Springsteen in that case. And the other one that I'll just repeat is Metallica. I think a lot of the fish community saw, I guess a GoPro camera was capturing a Metallica rehearsal. And after a particular song, one of them said to the other, "Hey, we were jamming, we kind of sounded like fish." And then one of the other guys said, "Did you hear what fish just did?" And they talked about the 13 shows and the fact that there were no repeats and they kind of acknowledged like, oh my God, that's, you know, like bowing down to the accomplishment and how very, very few bands could do that kind of thing. So that's cool. So Metallica and Springsteen both recognize how cool it is. - And Metallica even said during their jam, hey, we sound like fish, that says a lot. - Yeah. - They thought they had nailed it, I guess. - So around here in the old days, it was the stone pony that everyone knew about. I mean, you're saying convention hall, which is where we are right now. - Right. - But so both places were like, the stone pony was kind of like a small club and this was like the big venue. - This was the big concert venue. It was south of New York and like everybody, the Stones. Jefferson Airplane, all of the bands I mentioned before, all had all played here. Garcia played here twice with his man, not with the Grateful Dead. Pink Floyd played the other, did metal before "Dark Side of the Moon" came out on the other end of the boardwalk. (upbeat music) I found out today, I thought I was in this building, but I didn't quite know where I was at my, anyway, it was an awesome show but that was really good. But yes, these are the places, but then it started, the convention hall stopped having as many shows and then this place opened, everybody used to hang at these boardwalk and Ocean Avenue bars and one of them, Mrs. J's had an empty restaurant next door and I think it was either the spring or summer of '74 or '75 that opened up as the stone pony. And from that, the house band was the Blackberry Booze Band which became Southside Johnny and the Asbury Jukes. (upbeat music) And Springsteen was having a little bit of contractual trouble at that time. I believe he was trying to record "Born around" but he couldn't play out with his band, so he would just show up like every Tuesday and Thursday night and play with Southside Johnny. Steve Van Zant was in Johnny's band at the time and it was music like I had never seen. Plus, people were playing, I saw Elvis Costello's first show in the United States at the stone pony. (upbeat music) I'm kind of by accident one night, we were on the way, we were late for a movie and we're like, oh, some guy Elvis is playing at the pony, let's go check that out. And ended up being, seeing Elvis Costello sounding and looking like the earlier who. So it was, the pony became like an epicenter and like I said before, he gave me the, sort of the spark to wanna really do something fun like that. So now you're living, let's fast forward a little bit, so fish has formed in Burlington there, a Vermont band and you're living in Vermont and you created an incredible concert venue there. - That, well thanks, that I'd like to think that it was something that was missing in the Vermont fabric at that time. There were some small clubs and there were a couple of bigger places but there wasn't a big enough club. So we got together with a couple of people and we opened a higher band in Wannuski which was basically just a bar, kind of like a corner bar with a good stage and good sound and you could see well, very good sight lines. And during the first, then we were there for six years and during that time, much like Mr. Stonepony had been in Asbury in the 70s, a place for local musicians of people like Springsteen or Van Zant or Southside to come and play with others. The higher band became a place where the guys from Fish knew somebody coming in and Jimmy Herring was in town or many number of people. Susan Tadeshi or Derek Trucks. - Or a weird New Jersey band. - Yeah. - Call that Phibia. - Oh well then also Van Vivian, yes ween became, ween became like friends of the club, they started playing there, they played for Brad Sands birthday on Halloween. ♪ When you lead a lips give a kiss ♪ ♪ On the wrist of the worm like tips of tentacles ♪ ♪ Expanding in my mind I'm fine ♪ ♪ Accepting only fresh pride ♪ ♪ You can get another drop of this, yeah you are ♪ - And it was just a place where the band felt comfortable, the band, the Fish and other bands would come and there was a lot of jamming, a lot of playing with others. It was everything I ever could have wanted it to be. So I only know being a New Jersey guy and having a New Jersey band and starting to think that Phibia was gonna be comaturing thing for me and that was gonna be what I did. Higher ground was probably a little bit out of our league 'cause we were just getting started and you were very kind to let us in, treated us so well, like fed us amazing meals. But right away the first one was sold out because Trey played with us. (crowd cheering) We went to a very special guest up here. (crowd cheering) It's a New Jersey native. (crowd cheering) It was a Vermont. (crowd cheering) It's a rare pigment problem. I was just having my red hair. (crowd cheering) (upbeat music) (crowd cheering) (crowd cheering) (upbeat music) (upbeat music) (crowd cheering) (upbeat music) (crowd cheering) (upbeat music) (upbeat music) (upbeat music) (upbeat music) (upbeat music) We've been on the surface. I'm sorry, but it's been a while. (upbeat music) (upbeat music) (upbeat music) (upbeat music) (upbeat music) (upbeat music) (upbeat music) (upbeat music) (upbeat music) (upbeat music) (upbeat music) (upbeat music) (upbeat music) (upbeat music) (upbeat music) (upbeat music) (upbeat music) (upbeat music) (upbeat music) (upbeat music) (upbeat music) (upbeat music) (upbeat music) (upbeat music) (upbeat music) (upbeat music) (upbeat music) (upbeat music) (upbeat music) (upbeat music) (upbeat music) (upbeat music) (upbeat music) (upbeat music) (upbeat music) - Right, that would be very helpful in that terms. I mean, the third night we were open, he had a project, he had asked me, I'll help you open up, but only if you'd let me write my whole new set of music and songs, and I thought, well, of course, why wouldn't I do that? I don't think he really had to request that, but he did the A-foot fluorescent tubes, and it really, it put us on the map right away. (upbeat music) (upbeat music) (upbeat music) ♪ Still a whole ferry ♪ ♪ Does it seem so scary ♪ ♪ It's getting pretty hairy ♪ ♪ Two went on a jerry ♪ ♪ And all the back of the lake ♪ ♪ And all the back of the lake ♪ ♪ And a father of the king ♪ ♪ Went all the neighbors on the edge ♪ ♪ With the silver company ♪ ♪ Still a tall ferry ♪ ♪ Still a tall ferry ♪ ♪ Still a tall ferry ♪ ♪ ♪ ♪ Well, I can't let us in ♪ ♪ I can't but I don't know what to do ♪ ♪ I don't know what to do ♪ ♪ Then if somebody like you ♪ ♪ The person that writes lyrics with them ♪ ♪ People that write the music with them ♪ ♪ Somebody coming in a band ♪ ♪ Coming up he would sit in and that with him ♪ ♪ Or Mike Page played with Tenacious D ♪ ♪ Mike played with just about everybody ♪ ♪ As Dave Trey Fishman would play with all kinds of people ♪ ♪ It really helped build them up ♪ ♪ The amphibian shows were especially fun ♪ ♪ Because we knew everybody ♪ ♪ We knew you, Trey ♪ ♪ Like all the people from Jersey that we knew ♪ ♪ Who were in your band would come up ♪ ♪ And it was we even opened up a little special place ♪ ♪ At the end of higher ground ♪ ♪ It was kind of like a warehouse room for ♪ ♪ Oh my God ♪ ♪ To make so we had a big enough room to party ♪ ♪ Like yeah, the people that we brought with us ♪ ♪ That were like on amphibian torso to speak ♪ ♪ Didn't even leave that party room to see us play ♪ ♪ 'Cause the party was so good ♪ ♪ The party was really good down there ♪ ♪ That happened on Halloween with Wien ♪ ♪ They're like, "Wait, where is everybody?" ♪ ♪ They're like, "Oh, they're down in that other room." ♪ ♪ So we probably shouldn't go there. ♪ ♪ But on anyway, it was a good room. ♪ It was fun and I will say that every single member of Fish was either at the amphibian shows or even sat in. I had Mike sit in for We Learn Couch Lady, which was from his almighty. And then Trey sat in and we even took over and did an acoustic set for like five Tom and Trey songs. And he changed design stuff that wasn't like heavily in rotation. - In rotation yet, right. - Yeah, that was really a special moment. [Crowd cheering] ♪ Let's restraint before ♪ [Crowd cheering] ♪ I needed ♪ [Crowd cheering] ♪ To hit the lights and close the door ♪ ♪ I'm fine, I'm fine ♪ ♪ 'Cause I ♪ ♪ Tripping in this strange design ♪ ♪ You're near it's yours and far less mine ♪ ♪ On the wheel we'll read the sign ♪ ♪ Keep the tires off the line ♪ ♪ Just relax, you're doing fine ♪ ♪ Swimming in this ring ♪ ♪ I call life ♪ ♪ But can I breathe ♪ ♪ With you companions ♪ ♪ On this one ♪ [Crowd cheering] - Then John Fishman would come and when he would come, we would try to play some fun. Fishman-y songs like "Gumbo" and we had horns and did a really good version of "Gumbo" with him playing drums and his names. ♪ The stacks of gumbo are rather round and aged ♪ ♪ Sacrificed, I'll just play bubbles ♪ ♪ Chill as everywhere we rage ♪ ♪ In the hot sand, I ran out my feet ♪ ♪ And mystery cake with debris ♪ ♪ Shins for ladies, guys ♪ ♪ It's all for the rain to be ♪ ♪ ♪ ♪ ♪ ♪ ♪ ♪ It was kind of like if you're a band and you're touring the east coast, now you have to go to Burlington and it was kind of, it really did put it on the map. - No, and I felt it was good for you guys because you gave you a place outside of New Jersey where you had a really good response. And there were a lot of people there and people would talk it up and everybody knew about it and everybody knew it. It was an event when you guys were coming up. - That was a lot of fun. - And so, yeah, like you said, Trey played there. Did Trey ever play the rest tab? I believe he did, right? - Yes, actually, for a while, we were really fortunate he would be before going on the tab tours. He did eight foot for us in tubes and then we did a very special arts benefit the following February, February of '99, where it was just Russ, Tony, and Trey, the trio. And then after that, I'm thinking the next summer, he decided to take tab out, which had Gripo and Andy on Horns with Jen, Hartzwick, and Russ and Tony. [MUSIC PLAYING] [MUSIC PLAYING] [MUSIC PLAYING] [MUSIC PLAYING] [MUSIC PLAYING] [MUSIC PLAYING] - Right, a couple days before they were ready to go out of the tour, he said, "Wow, we should really do a warm update." And so we would get a call literally the day before sometimes and worked out really well, though. We would have the local radio station announce it. WNCS, the point would announce at like noon that day, like tonight. Tranestazio is a new band that's going to play it high around, so what we were trying to do was prevent people from flying in. So they would want to announce it late enough. And I remember people, they would say, "Tickets are going to go on sale at two o'clock or twelve o'clock or whatever." And people would be there, they'd line up, they would just be driving. People would say, "I just got pulled over pulling into a new ski." And the guy said, "If you're not going for a trade ticket, you're getting a ticket from me." So the cops were even pretty happy that we were bringing that kind of business to the town. But yes, the first couple of tours that Tab did, we would do kind of a surprise rehearsal show before the tour, which was really great for us. So Kevin, Burlington, that's Fish's origin city, University of Vermont, even though they eventually went to Goddard. But the city itself also had nectar, which is sort of like a fish mecca. And some other interesting things were happening in Vermont, Ben and Jerry's. Well, at first of all, when I had moved back to Vermont in '96, I worked on the clever ball. I did food and beverage for that. And the band at that time was adamant that people that they knew, and it supported them since they began in Burlington. Would be able to be a part of the festival. So almost anybody who had a restaurant or a food truck that wanted to sell food and help feed people at the Clifford ball, I was able to get as vendors. And that started forming a community of people who were, and then those people started going to other festivals and started doing as other festivals developed. And by the time Higher Ground opened in '98, there had been a really strong group of people who had either moved to town or living in town. And there were always people that had come to see nectar and because that had been the place where fish started. But what Higher Ground seemed to become in the late '90s and the early 2000s was the place where the community that grew up around fish started hanging out. And developing and doing all kinds of music. The other thing that happened was Higher Ground started hosting a lot of the bands that came up after fish. In town itself, it was strange folk. I'm Fries McGee, Mo. [Music] The disco biscuits, all of those bands came through Higher Ground in those first couple of years, long before they became major touring acts, national touring acts. And all of those people got to know people who were in Burlington. Burlington became a second home for almost all of them. And I would see people on the road. I'd see people in New Orleans. And they would say, "Well, we really love coming to Higher Ground. We know all the people there and we get treated really well." And that was a great compliment for me and for the staff that we had and the people who worked because it was definitely, the Higher Ground was a labor of love. And even when we had to move to the new location in 2004, we were able to do bigger shows. And a lot of those bands who had been playing in a smaller room at our old place were now playing the big room. And they even went beyond that. So I always knew you at festivals as, you know, there's Kevin, my friend from, you know, the Higher Ground and the family friend. But it always seemed like you were also connected to everyone and working in a sense. Even if you weren't like on the, you know, on the clock, you were connected to those festivals in more than one way. You said food and beverage for Clifford Ball? Did food and beverage for Clifford Ball? And then the next two after that, they hired me on pretty much as a consultant to work with. Because my friend Bo and I were the two people that organized the food and beverage for Clifford Ball. The next year, they said, "Listen, for the great went," they were like, "Well, we think we may have to bring in a company that does air shows." And I was like, "But we would really like for you to keep all the local people in there." And I said, "If you need to have a company to come in to do what me and one other person did last year, that's just fine." Because it was a lot of work. But we were able to keep all of those local people involved, which was really good. And that became my job for the next two festivals. And you were tied into, I mean, the art at Clifford Ball in Great Went, it was probably expanded in subsequent festivals. But the art was definitely, to me, it was like Burlington local artists were involved heavily in the creation of those beautiful cities and stuff. And not just food and beverage people, but the entire, I mean, everybody was involved. There were the art people there, the Ben & Jerry's people. I mean, there was just everybody from the community really got involved in the festivals. And that, I think that helped create even more of the community that was going on in Burlington or, you know, a grader. It just put everybody together and with a goal. And the festivals, especially the first three, were really exciting. And we're very home spun. I have a fanboy question that you probably get asked a lot. You know, like, what's it like being Trey's brother-in-law kind of thing? But I want to ask it in a different way. Okay. You have a background of food and beverage, you say, or hotel management, or something along those levels. Couple of those, yeah. And you were involved with getting Trey and Sue and family to a particular island. Right. Do you want to talk a little bit about that? Sure. Before I'd moved back to Burlington, I lived in the island of Tortola. I kind of got down there for a vacation and met some people. And suddenly they were asking me to come back and work there. And it was a really nice island. It was very quiet, not a lot of, not built up, not a lot of big hotels. A very old-style Caribbean. So about the second year I was there, I asked Sue and Trey if they wanted to come down. Trey had just played, I believe, the Old Boston Garden for New Years, or some plays like that in Boston. Might have been '91 or '92, New Year's Eve, one of their first New Year's shows. They came down with Sue. They were going to stay a week. They slept on my floor. They were definitely not, you know, like doing hotels or anything at that time. They camped in a local campground for a while, but they were supposed to stay a week, but they loved it so much. They stayed there for a couple of weeks. And they really, really enjoyed it. And as a matter of fact, I went back just about every year since then. They had my nieces and they started bringing my nieces there. Tortola became, for all of us, a place to just get away in the winter. Trey wrote a really lot of songs there. It was a really beautiful place. It was almost, it had almost a magical air to it. And unfortunately, it had been really, really damaged by two hurricanes last year. And Trey started a Tortola Relief Fund, which I've tried to help with a bit. And they've raised a significant amount of money to help rebuild some places there, including a medical clinic that can help people in case there's ever a future disaster. Like that, but it can help the people now too. And they're also helping rebuild a school. So they become very, even though they lived in Vermont for a long time, and they became very committed to Tortola and to helping that out. But I do think that that island itself brought a lot of us together in another way too. Yeah, and you told me that in terms of well-kept secrets, Tortola is a well-kept secret of certain celebrities. Yes. And who were some others? I mean, of course, Trey became... Well, Trey was actually, I was a little nervous the first time that Trey was coming. And I went to the place I worked. We had found these really nice houses on a peninsula that was near the place I worked. And they never rented them out. But the kids who owned the place wanted to go to a fish show. I got them some tickets, and about a year later they called and said, "Hey, would you want to rent the houses?" So I told Sue and Trey, and they said, "Yeah, we would love to have one." And I got the other house and bought some people down. And the night before Sue and Trey arrived, I went to the place I used to work in the harbor right nearby those houses. And the cross room there had been an island that the man who owned the houses had for a long time. And he just wanted his houses to look at an undisturbed island. He sold it, and they built another couple of buildings on there, and that became a resort in itself for very, very wealthy people. Well, I went to the place I worked one night, and I saw somebody I knew, and they were talking to none other than Keith Richards. And I didn't realize it was Keith Richards, because I was so happy to see my friend. And my friend said, "Kevin, you know Keith, right?" And I went, "Well, sort of." I looked at him and I'm like, "What do you say? It's Keith Richards." So we started talking, and I said, "My brother-in-law is coming tomorrow, and sometimes people might want to talk to him or get an autograph. How do you deal with that when people are on the island?" And he said, "Oh, I just tell people that I'm out on a boat." Then they ride around all day looking for me on a boat. And I said, "Oh, that's cool." He goes, "Yeah, tell them to do that." He said, "Well, I'm actually staying right there." And he pointed to the island across from the houses that I was staying at. And I said, "Oh, we're staying on that peninsula." And he said, "Oh, it's you, mate." And I go, "What do you mean?" He goes, "Oh, my wife and I, we were checking you out today. We have a telescope in our living room." And I go, "Well, what were you checking out?" He goes, "Oh, we were checking out your bum. You were taking a shower and a glass shower." And I went, "Oh, my God." He goes, "Not too exciting, right?" He goes, "Oh, my wife liked it." So that was probably one of the strangest conversations I've had. We keep the entrance, or anybody else. He looked at your naked house. Yes, him and his wife were checking me out while I was taking a shower. So you never know what's going to happen. I also heard Ian Anderson, possibly. Did Jetho tell how to house them? Yeah, they had a house there. I never saw him on the island. They used to come there and record. They had a really nice house in King Garden Bay. There was a fair amount of people. Kenny Chesney, some country people, helping John spend some time on the island. [Music] [Music] Are you tired of being tired? 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Sunset Lake CBD is offering our listeners 20% off all orders. Visit sunsetlakecbd.com and use the code "undermine" at checkout. Sleep sound knowing that they stand behind their products. Sunset Lake CBD, farmer-owned, Vermont, grown. Hi, this is Henry K. Host to the #1 Music History Podcast, Rootsland. Come with me on a journey to Kingston Jamaica, where we explore the world of reggae music, and the untold stories of some of the genre's greatest legends, from the ghettos and tenement yards where the music was born to the island's iconic recording studios. We are so excited to team up with Osiris Media, the leading storyteller in music, because as you'll hear, sometimes the story is the best song. It was, it's a very quiet place. Walter Cronkite, a lot of news people for some reason, maybe because there's no news there, because Walter Cronkite and Tom Brokaw all of them were sailors and they would come and eat at the place of Jolly Roger and they would do anything but talk about the news, so I had a feeling they were enjoying their time. That's great. So what about your past drove you to being a hotel, a hotelier, so to speak? Well, it had been... Like, what did you do, you know, to work your way to that title? I had no wonder Rutgers. I graduated from Rutgers in the '80s, and I was actually getting ready to go to law school. We're both co-ruckers, graduates, that means. Oh, yes, that's we found this out recently with the Rutgers graduates. Go Scarlet Knights. Go Scarlet Knights, exactly. So I had been to Rutgers and my parents had moved to Stowe while in my last two years at Rutgers, and I went up for the holidays. I had been in New Brunswick, New Jersey for a long time, trying to get my degree, and I'd taken a couple of side paths that had taken a little while, so I went up to Vermont, and I had worked as a bartender before I left Rutgers. If I were any kind of news journalist, I would explore those side paths. You would, you would. They're the status story in themselves. Having gone to Vermont, I took a look around the first couple days I was there, and I'm like, why am I moving back to New Jersey to a city when I'm up here in these beautiful mountains? Got a job, and I had done a fair amount of work in the restaurant business before, you know, while I was in school, and just decided to kind of switch over to that with, actually, the hope, and something I started looking at right away of, I felt that there was no way I would ever be able to open a club like the Stowe and Pony in New Jersey because there's so many clubs and so many people. But Vermont was the kind of place where you could still do things for the first time. I think fish kind of proved that, and certainly higher ground became proof of that to me. Like, I really wanted to do it. I had been trying to do it since 1988. There was a place called Hunt's that closed, and I came back and I called my sister. I had been in the islands, and I said, hey, let's go to Hunt's tonight, and she said, oh, Hunt's closed. And it's kind of interesting because on that night, it was in May of 1988, she said, but when you go to Nectar's, and I saw, I went with her to Nectar's at night, and I got the idea, hey, if Hunt's closed, this town needs a Hunt's. And that night at Nectar's, there was this band playing, and it was fish. And I don't remember much of it because I was partying and drinking a little bit more in bed. And your sister was not involved with Trey yet? No, she had maybe just met him. They knew each other, and I do remember them doing, I believe it was whipping post. Oh, I remember that. They did a lot of covers back. Yeah, they did some covers. [MUSIC PLAYING] But that night, I had said, this town really needs another Hunt's. And that was in 1988, and it took me 10 years to get people to think that maybe that was a good idea and get some support in Burlington. Nice. So I'll confess, the reason I asked that, it was trying to get you to go down the rabbit hole to sort of explain why you became a driver. Right, right, right. Well, yes, I think so. Yeah, I had a little, during my time at Rutgers, I had a little legal trouble, and I had to go to upstate New York for a little while and work off that trouble. So I had, and I had, I had been seeing somebody in New York, and a friend, her name was Julian, she, while I was away, ended up working for Gloria Gaynor, who was an unknown singer at the time. But by the time I got back, had the number one hit in the world, I will survive, which was kind of a good theme song for me at that moment. And she had a lot of, they did a lot of work with a limo company and the limo company was a limo company that was dealing with Saturday Night Live. So they had a lot of people, and I, I was able to, I became their dispatcher at night. The limo company never knew that during the day, I was returning to a little facility on Central Park on 110th Street, where I had to stay for the day, but I could go work at night. So I was, it was a work release situation. And one of those nights, I drove down to, I drove down to Madison Square Garden, actually to Penn Station to pick up a friend who was visiting me. I didn't want to tell him what I was doing. He knew I was on doing some kind of work release, but didn't know it was for a limo company. So I had a limo driver take me down, and I, he was at a bar in Penn Station. I was supposed to pick him up, and as I was entering Penn Station, I noticed Yoko Ono. And I had seen Yoko, and I knew that her and John Lennon were living in the city, obviously, didn't like to get bothered. My friends while I was away had sent me a letter that they had written and published in the New York Times and the LA Times and the London Times, saying that they had, you know, they were raising their son, they still believed in peace and the magic and people being together, but they were not around a lot. And so I knew not to bother them. My friend had had a couple drinks downstairs in the bar, and as I was taking him to the limo, I said, "You're not going to believe who you're going to see." And when he saw who it was, he went running up to them and started talking to them, and, "Hi, John, I love you." And I was like, "Oh, my God, I've got to get him out of here." So as we were leaving... Wait, so it was Yoko, John and... And their son, Sean... Sean Lennon. Yes. So as we were leaving... We were leaving the driver, who had driven me down there to pick up my friend, said, "Who was that?" And I said, "Oh, it's John Lennon." And as we turned to look at him, and we were pulling out of our parking space, somebody came by and grabbed Lennon's hat of his head. The driver immediately threw the car into park and started chasing the guy who stole the hat. My friend Rich seeing another opportunity to talk to John and Yoko, ran over and talked to them. And I moved the car. And by the time I got back, John Lennon was trying to get a cab on 8th Avenue, waving down cabs, and nobody was picking him up. I couldn't believe it. So I went up and I said, "John, I'm from a limousine company. Can I help you? Let me get you out of here." And he said, "Okay, this place is really daft." I'll never forget that he used that term and the very British term. And so I started walking him across the street when my friend started walking him, and I was walking with Yoko and Sean. And I went to grab Sean to maybe lift him because the cars were coming. And I got nervous that that might appear the next day in the paper that a work release inmate had grabbed the Lennon's son. So I decided to just say, "Come on, come on." And I didn't really grab him. But we got him across the street, put him in the car. People started coming out and banging on the windows and John was very funny. He was saying, "It's an American car. I don't know how it works." I don't know how to open the windows. He was very, very, very humorous. And we started driving up to the Dakota where they lived and everybody who worked in that industry knew the Lennon's lived in the Dakota. And he tried to talk to him. They weren't very talkative. But I turned around at one point and said that my friends had sent the letter that they wrote to The New York Times to me while I was away that winter. And he said that him and Yoko had written. And he said, "Your friends sent you the letter." And I go, "Yeah, well, they knew I kind of follow you." And I agree with a lot of your politics. And he said, "Oh," he goes, "This is great." He goes, "Well, I'll never forget this night." And I thought, "Oh my God, I'm in a car with John Lennon." And he's telling me he'll never forget this night. And it turned out that he said his hat had been stolen only one other time when the Beatles were getting off the plane of the second tour of America. And somebody had grabbed it, never saw it. And a couple years later, he was in a restaurant and somebody said, "I saw your hat the other day, John." And he gave him an address and Lennon said he went there and he was going to go get his hat back. And he went and it happened to be an art gallery. And inside there was a bust of sculpture of John Lennon's head with the hat on it. And he said, "Well, it'd become a piece of art. I couldn't really take it." So he found the first hat. He found the hat, but he couldn't give it, but I don't ever know what happened to the second. And unfortunately, it was about a year before he was killed outside of Dakota. But I felt that it was a pretty amazing set of coincidence and circumstances that I got him in the car. Did he say anything else to you? Any other passing phrases? When we were dropping him off, my friend had been very excited. My friend had said, "Let's smoke a joint." And I said, "I don't think John wants to smoke our shitty pot." And that's a quote. I'm not trying not to curse. And I said, "I really don't think he wants to do that." So, but my friend was kind of very amped up. So we got out of the car and John pulled out his wallet and he tried to take out a bill. And I said, "Oh, John, I don't want your money." And he said, "Wow, that's a switch." So I thought that was pretty funny. But he looked at Rich and he gave me a $10 bill and he said, "Well, then do me a favor, buy him a drink." He needs one. And as he walked away from the car, he said, "By the way, what's the name of the limo company?" And I said, "Oh, it's East Wind." And he said, "Oh, East Wind, like curved air." And he walked up the stairs and that was my... That was my brief interlude with John Allen. East Wind, like curved air. Like curved air. And that's the last thing John Lennon said to you. Yes. And that's an unusual thing to say. Yes. It's kind of amazing. The wind might not have a shape. Or a direction. What's the only thing I could take? Okay. I like it, though. It's really great. It's very lovely. So, Kevin, you said that John never found that hat, which is unfortunate. He found his first hat, but he didn't ever find the second one. Was there any other follow-up to that story that you recall? Actually, amazingly enough, many, many years later, it was 1979 that that occurred with the hat incident. And a higher ground hosted Sean Lennon. He had a band and a friend of mine from Burlington was his tour manager. And I mentioned to the tour manager that I told him the story. And he said, "Oh, you should tell Sean that. I don't want to bother him. He's in his dressing room." He goes, "Oh, he would definitely want to hear that." So, I went into the dressing room. And I said, "Oh, I'm really nice to have you here." And he was like, "Oh, we love it. This higher ground is great." Which was also very nice to hear from a Lennon. And he said, "I started telling him the story. And I got to the part about..." I don't even think I got to the hat part. I was like, "I come from a limo company. And we were outside mass in square garden. And at Penn Station, he goes, "Wait a minute." He goes, "I know this story. My mom told me about this. About she was discussing the kindness of strangers and how we were stuck one time out of mass in square garden. And somebody showed up with a limo. And I thought, "Oh, my God. Who would think that they would remember that?" But I could see being in the situation they were in that that could have been a little bit of trauma. I like being feeling their stuff on the street and that they got helped out. But yes, it made that whole story go full circle. I'm like, "Here it is. It had to be 20, almost 30 years later." That's amazing. He had even heard about that incident, amazed me. That's awesome. So you drove Jumlin and you started Higher Ground. You got Trey and Sue into Tortola. You hosted me in the amazing Higher Ground when I had a brief fling as a band leader. I showed my butt to... You showed your butt to Keith Richards and you've been involved in fish's festivals? Well, you know, it's kind of an interesting thing to be a part of that. I feel what's really great about Trey and fish is we keep the family separate a lot. Yeah. You know, all of us are living our own lives and doing our own things, Mom. His children, my nieces are actively involved in that. I mean, we all love the music. We love the tours. We love just about everything about it. But everybody, my sister included, really have their own lives and are... You know, sometimes those... Everything intersects and where all of us are together and doing some very fun things. Tortola is a perfect example of that and we're all out of our element. And it goes back to a question that you asked before it and that other people have asked, like, "What's it like being Trey's brother-in-law?" Right. And Trey... It's almost like dealing with two different people for me. I am constantly in amazement of his talent and his... He's an incredible musician. I'm at a loss for words to even describe it. But on a personal day-to-day level, he's just like talking to any one of our really good friends. Super down-to-earth. Yeah. And just you kind of forget all the star sheens sort of falls away and he's like a normal, nice, amazing person. Yeah, I... You know, we always... At holidays, we always play a lot of games and, you know, sometimes if my sister and him, when I beat him, it's like, "Oh, at least we did something." We couldn't write, "You know, you enjoy myself." We won that game or something. I don't know. You know, it's... It's kind of a gracious, monopoly player. Yes. Yeah. He's good. I think every once in a while, we have a competitive family. So, you know, people like to win. But that being said, he's... And just when everything happened in Tortola, he immediately spun into action and really wanted to help the people that he had met down there. And I'd like to think that all of us carry that a little bit. And, you know, he's just a regular guy. And it's very difficult. I understand where a lot of people are very taken with him and everything. But to know him as to love him and to meet him is to, like, meet somebody that you... It's just like having a regular friend. Absolutely. One thing that, like, I sort of lose track of... You know, he and I kind of have to do appointments now to get together and have a songwriting. So I don't know necessarily when he's not on tour where he is. And... But I can tell when he's on Tortola because there's this extreme relaxed version of Trey that sometimes calls me with a songwriting thing. And sometimes, yeah, we'll go back and forth many times and a lot of songs were written that way. And I believe "Life Boy" was one of them. But God never listens. To what I say, God never listens. To what I say, so very. So very hard. And you'll get a refund if you approve. Right. I remember he was walking around with a guitar. That was, I think, the first time they came. Because that was on Hoist, right? So "Life Boy", I remember when he had a little guitar and he had it around his neck. The entire time he was on the island. And every time he called, he had it around his neck too because he was playing it and then he would say... Was he probably calling you from a payphone at that point? That's that long ago, I think. Quite possibly. And yeah, there were no cell phones. I think it was before cell phones. And I remember, you know, coming up with the little break in there, a little bridge, like a thunder strings. I could tell he was kind of like looking out at the ocean and the sky, you know, when we were writing those lyrics together. He always says it's a great motivator for him to just write and a great inspiration. Yeah. I'm glad that for all of us that we found the place. And I'm just hoping that it gets back to its old self. Yeah, man. So back stage, from back stage, although you, like me, like watching from the audience, fish shows. But, you know, what's it been like? What have you noticed? What cool back stage stories do you have? Or can we sort of even put a bigger question mark on it and say, have you noticed a lot of change from 1.0 to 2.0 to 3.0? Like... Oh, sure. I mean, well, you know, back in the beginning, they, I mean, when they would play like the front or nectar or something like that, I mean, we were all hanging out in like these just basically beer stock rooms, you know? Yeah. And then in, yeah, there was nothing glamorous about being in a band at that level. No, no, but, but fun. But everybody was really there to have a good time. So that was great. In the second phase, when, like, I think maybe the Betty Ford Clinic would have epitomized that, which started out, I, I always felt it was, I was really happy that that started. Even though I had stopped drinking by that time, I, it was still a place where everybody could at least gather and get together. And for a long time, it was that. And then it got to be just more and more people. It became a thing. People wanted to get in there. And that was, that, that was sort of the, almost to me and a lot of my friends, the quintessential difference between 2.0 and 3.0. Is that fish's backstage went from an extremely desirable place that you would, you know, you had to know someone and you had to get in there. Right. And it was the place to go, sometimes to the detriment of seeing fish. Right, right, right. Kind of like we were talking before. Sometimes the Betty Ford Clinic was like, and that's, that was another thing too. People started missing the shows. Correct. They were hanging in Betty Ford Clinic so much. And the parties there were, they were phenomenal. Yes. That's unbelievable. And the, populated by the band too, which was pretty cool. Yeah, the band would pop in. Yeah. All kinds of people you'd have, you know, Danny DeVita. Yeah, Danny DeVita was there. I mean, all, you know, Bill Walton, you know, he was kind of tall. I remember him walking around. Stephen Wright, the comedian. Yes, Stephen Wright. Yeah. No, there was some very fun times. However, the story with 3.0, it became very family oriented. Yeah. It's sort of like the, the, the other 3 members, um, not Trey, started young families again. Right. They all, they all, you know, they all got married and had, you know, younger, they were younger kids rather. You became a lot more. It was almost like daycare. Daycare. Yeah, because there would be, you know, they're like, you were looking for a sandbox. But, but the kids were all great and they were all having really fun. And I remember, you know, there'll be, there's been times where they were all in the tub for brother. Yeah. It's back. I mean, literally just putting. No, no, there's things you have to do. Like, I mean, we all as fans are extremely grateful that fish is still around 34 years later. Right. And there's things you have to do. And there was no question that something had to change. But what I, I guess my point was backstage is no longer a destination for partiers. Right. Right. Right. Yeah. Actually, the band leaves the bands out of there before anybody now. They vanished immediately with the police escorts. Yeah. But the lights come up in the band, the buses are gone already. When you think about it for all of us though, it's, you know, and the people who have been, the band itself and then the people who have been around that have been there. We've done all that. Yes. And we did it all for a very long time. Yes. And we're all in a position now, like a lot of us are like, oh, like we're happy to get out, go get something to eat and drink away from all the craziness. Right. And the shows, the shows I feel have just gotten stronger. The bands got tighter, it's become, it's, it's everything I think they may have wanted to be. Well, I hope the under the scales audience gets a taste and a flavor for, for Kevin sort of behind the scenes guy. Well, that's true. And I'm doing a new thing now. I think we may have talked about that. I'd left high around after 20 years, last year. And my intention right now is there's a whole set of people out there who did, I did shows for when they were in college in their 20s and 30s. And I've started a concert hall that's also a movie theater to do an occasional kind of a, I don't want to call it an old person show, but a nice seated comfortable shows once in a while out in Essex, Vermont. And kind of the shows that we couldn't really do at higher ground trying to do stuff that's where a little bit of an older audience, people who used to come, some of those people that came to those early shows are now in their 60s, and I've one of them. And so it's kind of fun to be able to do something a little bit different and always the name of that program. It's called the double E, the double E in Essex, Vermont. Yeah, in Essex, Vermont. And we're doing some pretty good people in the next couple of months and people should keep an eye out for a nice theater experience. That sounds great, Kevin. Well, thanks for having me today, Tom. Well, thank you very much for being on. And again, a thanks to Ed Meyer for hosting us here at the beautiful convention hall in Hasbury Park. Where Led Zeppelin spent their time when they were, when everybody else was at Woodstock in 1969. It's insignificant spot. And I had to say also, Tom, thanks. It's an honor, an honor to have you ask me to do this, and you know, the fish, the people who have loved fish for so long and been around them certainly have helped higher round and helped me try to do the things I want to do. I couldn't do it without all of them coming and being so supportive over the years. Absolutely. I mean, the people you're talking about, we call fish family, but you actually happen to be actual family. Well, thank you so much for a little glimpse inside that, Kevin. And see you soon and see you tonight at Mike Gordon's show. Yeah. In Hasbury Park at Asbury Lane. Asbury Lane's. This podcast is in the loop, the Legion of Osiris podcasts. Osiris is creating a community that connects people like you with live experiences and podcasts about artists and topics you love. Get in the loop at OsirisPod.com. Hey, everyone. This is Tuck from Fit for a King in Offroad minivan. Every week, I bring you fun interviews alongside your favorite metal core entertainers with my new podcast, Get Tucked. Join me every Monday with bands like counterparts, Crystal Lake, like Mazda Flames and many more. This will provide the greatest breakdowns in current metal core. Tune in to Get Tucked every Monday, out now, through Sound Talent Media. Hey, this is Steve Choi, host of the Musicians Guild Podcast, part of the Sound Talent Media Podcast Network. Within the four walls of the Musicians Guild, we'll be discussing the habits, idiosyncrasies, experiences, and general psychology of my friends and peers all involved with music in various capacities. Listen and subscribe at soundtalentmedia.com. [MUSIC PLAYING]
