An Interview with Bermuda Schwartz

3:11 Luke F. Walton What's up everybody? This is Scoobert Doobert. Welcome back to Love Music More. I am joined with Bermuda Schwartz who is going to talk to us all about his life as a drummer working with amazing artists including Weird Al Yankovic.

3:23 Luke F. Walton We're going to have a great conversation just talking about your life on the road, your career, and kind of your perspective as a musician and just trying to bring the people out so they can they love music a little bit more at the end of this program. so welcome Bermuda how are you doing

3:39 Bermuda Schwartz Well, I'm doing great. Thank you for having me and that all sounds good and you know You you start

3:46 Luke F. Walton cool right on I'm glad to hear it so one of my favorite ways to start off a conversation like this is just ask how did you get acquainted with music what where'd you get the bug how did it kind of take your life and and say okay this is what I want to do

4:01 Bermuda Schwartz Well, there was always music in our house as Mm a -hmm. child. My brother played guitar. My father, not a lot, but he owned an accordion and he played accordion

4:10 Bermuda Schwartz Yes. and my mother played piano and sang and not professionally. My brother played, you know, would become a pro soon, but there was always music in the house. There were Latin orchestra albums, there were Gene Krupa albums, there were comedy albums, Alan Sherman and the like. So there was, it was always around me. And my brother at some point, actually, I started taking accordion lessons before I took drum lessons.

4:36 Bermuda Schwartz Really? Did you? Yeah, That's I perfect. had, and I was probably eight, maybe I was nine, I don't know. And that didn't last too long. I mean, I played well enough. I think I advanced to the second book of the accordion method, the Palmer Hughes accordion method. And in the meantime, my brother had... He originally played drums, so there were drums in the house. He switched to guitar while we were living in Phoenix, and

5:00 Bermuda Schwartz Mm-hmm. I inherited his drums and started taking drum lessons. And this was not immediately when the Beatles were on Ed Sullivan's show,

5:08 Bermuda Schwartz Okay. but about a year, year and a half later, and after I'd been listening to the Beatles a bit and other pop radio and still listening to Gene Krupa albums, I started taking drum lessons, and this was around September of 1965. And so I've been at it for... a while and

5:22 Bermuda Schwartz Yes. almost almost coming up on 60 years next year and Wow, so amazing. That's awesome.

5:28 Bermuda Schwartz so it was it was there and and my parents encouraged me and you know we lived in a house and I practiced during the day and and I'm sure made a lot of noise but they never told me to be quiet and always you know made sure I had lessons and you know we moved to Los Angeles and a short time later and I joined school band the orchestra and

5:50 Bermuda Schwartz Okay. you know was playing like orchestral stuff I didn't really play drums set in there in

5:54 Bermuda Schwartz Okay. high school I did however I was in marching bands I was in youth orchestras and basically sort of developed that and had a chance to play with people but as far as when I decided this is something I want to do I was 12 years old and I don't know what prompted me but I thought being a professional drummer would be a lot of fun you know maybe I might even make some money so I was age 12 when I decided

6:17 Bermuda Schwartz it that's what I really like to do and Cool. uh and and I guess that began it that began a life of making decisions that pointed me in that direction and you know some of them deliberate and some of them uh you know right place right time you know stroke of luck and such as meeting Weird Al was completely right place at the right time you can't create that I didn't know he was going to be where I met him and that's

6:41 Bermuda Schwartz So was where that that on began that Dr. Demento's radio show? Is that how it was

6:45 Bermuda Schwartz all? on his his live show here in LA and actually at that point I'd already been playing around LA a bit and doing a bunch of demos and stuff and i had sent stuff with some school friends of mine we were in high school had

6:57 Bermuda Schwartz Okay. sent some songs into dr demento uh to see if he would play them and he did he

7:02 Bermuda Schwartz Awesome. played played this homemade music i was among the first people to ever send in homemade music and get it played now they weren't they weren't original songs they were just covers of songs that he had been playing and uh at some point later on and this and i i can't overemphasize the role that my brother played

7:18 Bermuda Schwartz played in a lot of things one you know having a set of drums in the house when I decided I want to take drum lessons but

7:24 Bermuda Schwartz Yeah, he he went on to play among recording with a ton of people went on to play with Neil Diamond and

7:31 Bermuda Schwartz no way played guitar with Neil Diamond and wrote some songs you know for and with Neil spent many many years doing that at any rate the keyboard player one of the keyboard players in Neil's band Tom Hensley who still had been working with Neil right up to the end, right up to this last

7:48 Bermuda Schwartz tour, Mm-hmm. was friends with Dr. Demento. And I think had produced an album of one of the artists that Dr. Demento played, the Roto-Rooter Good Time Christmas Band or something like that.

7:59 Bermuda Schwartz Uh-huh. And he invited my brother and I, through Dr. Demento, to go. sit in on the show to go see the show live to go sit in the studio with him so

8:12 Bermuda Schwartz Awesome. that was the first time this was 1980 summer of 1980 it was the first time i actually met dr demento after having sent him three recordings in the past and at this point i should add that dr demento was playing a lot of homemade music some years later he started to cater to a lot of home artists that was really the only outlet they had they couldn't get on regular radio

8:33 Bermuda Schwartz No, no way. So I was there and of course, you know, Dr. Demento remembered the songs I did. He says, Oh, would you like to come and do an interview and talk about the stuff you sent in, you know, five, six, seven years ago now and, you know, and what you're doing now? I said, Oh, that that'd be great. So we set a date, September 14th, 1980. and I went down there on that day and Weird Al was there now

8:57 Bermuda Schwartz Mm-hmm. he had already been sending in a lot of stuff to the show and and he was one of the regulars on there there were like a series like cast members and they would do funny bits and answer take requests and stuff like that and he was there and was they wanted to debut a song he had just written that weekend which was another one rides the bus or Queen's another one bites the dust and he asked if I would beat on his accordion it was very organic

9:21 Bermuda Schwartz organic it was him in the accordion people Yeah. Yeah. standing around with noise makers and stuff and

9:25 Bermuda Schwartz Yes. asked if i would beat on his accordion case which i did you Well, know i knew yes. who he was and i thought that was pretty cool and dr demento recorded that you

9:33 Bermuda Schwartz Okay? know just a two-track stereo but he rolled tape when we did the song so there's an official recording of that very the night i met him the night i started recording with him is and it got released on as singles and on the first album

9:46 Bermuda Schwartz Fantastic. uh so that was that was the beginning of that and and legend has it and it probably is correct i must have said to him that night i said you know you you should have a band i'll be your drummer and uh and uh you know and again i i didn't go there to meet him it just a stroke of luck right place right time i said the right thing i guess and uh and here i am you know coming up on 43 years later and uh 43 it's over 43

10:14 Bermuda Schwartz And a lot of albums, a lot of tours, Cool. a bunch of TV, some movie stuff. I've put out two photo books on Al. I always had a camera with me. He graciously allowed me to use a ton of photos of him. And

10:30 Bermuda Schwartz You know, it's been and continues and should be, you know, God willing and barring any unforeseen circumstances, a continuing career. I mean, we have a plan for the next tour. I already have a set list.

10:41 Bermuda Schwartz Great. I had a year Awesome. and a half in advance of what we're supposed to play on this next tour in 2025. And, you know, no end in sight. I mean, there's a lot of artists working well into their 70s and even 80s. And I, you know, Al's younger than all of us, so he'll probably make it longer than we all do. do

10:57 Bermuda Schwartz Ha, ha, but i i think he'll do this as long as he can and as long as people continue to come see him and they are they they have not said it's not slowed down a bit

11:05 Bermuda Schwartz i love that and i also love that um just kind of hope the glimmer of hope that it can give other home recorders and other people that are trying to break into music scenes and stuff just seeing like oh other people have done this you have to find a broadcast partner is usually like a part of the trick is like somebody that could help amplify the music and the message you have to find community like yourself and weird al coming together to be able to create that synergy do do stuff together

11:31 Bermuda Schwartz and then you also have to position yourself like you you were willing to say i'll play the accordion case i don't need a whole drum kit i don't need my writer i don't need my green m&ms like i'm i'm i'm here i'm down for the adventure and uh put yourself in that place and it turned into a career it's

11:49 Bermuda Schwartz it wonderful yeah it sure did and and for which we're all very grateful you know we you know everyone's asks him and all of us you know at what point did you realize this was going to be a career

12:00 Bermuda Schwartz Yeah. and it's just it's hard to say because every every year or two every new album every new video and mtv hit video that we had you know it was like a the next level it was like well this is good for a couple more two or three or four more years and then we'd have another one out and it just it kept going and going and going and we don't know you know when it might stop or slow down or anything it's it's done neither you know as far as musicians making music at home and getting it out there i mean thankfully there's the internet

12:27 Bermuda Schwartz Internet and Yeah. and with social media, you know, assuming you have a good networking skill and can get it out there and get it out to the right. people you know who will share it uh

12:36 Bermuda Schwartz Mm and that's free and on demand and you know and we didn't have that you know really in the in the you know 60s or 70s or 80s you know and it was a little while in the 90s before that became a reality you know now everyone can do it and and there's all sorts of uh channels and outlets that cater to that and uh you know it's just a matter of getting some eyes and ears on it but you don't have to go through radio i mean i don't know that you even could anymore

13:01 Bermuda Schwartz anymore uh you could you can still do it through dr demento he still does his show it's online only now uh and people submit stuff to him all the time and there's there's quite a bit of great

13:10 Bermuda Schwartz I want comedy to do that. out I'd there love and that. great minds creating stuff at home you know or with their bands and sending it in and dr demento plays and it's like well that's exactly how al came up you know

13:21 Bermuda Schwartz Amazing. I'd love to do that. That's a great idea. So I'd love to talk about kind of that early stage. So I know Weird Al, he was doing home recording and then also did you ever, did you bond on the accordion kind of background or how did that kind of initial spark?

13:39 Bermuda Schwartz I'm sure I must have mentioned it to him at some point, but I do recall specifically we were on the road in 1984 or 5 or something like that. We were in St. Louis. We were at Six Flags over mid-America just outside of St. Louis. And during soundcheck, I went and picked up his accordion. I probably hadn't. they hadn't picked up an accordion since I put it down when I was, you know, a kid.

14:00 Bermuda Schwartz Uh And-huh. I remembered a couple of little things and I sort of played it and he was probably horrified that I was able to make a sound at all out of that because I'm not, you know, I otherwise didn't really have any melodic background.

14:14 Bermuda Schwartz I couldn't sing, you know, and I rarely was am asked to sing for that reason, you know, so he must have thought that I had no concept of notes or anything like that. And I sort of halfway got through one of these old songs. old songs that i knew as a kid and

14:26 Bermuda Schwartz Yeah. he was he was really surprised he was very very surprised uh that it had that that had happened and i'd mentioned that my uh father had played accordion and i have his his old accordion it's a big full-size accordion and i hadn't touched it in years and years and a year or two ago during covid you know nothing to do so i'm sitting around the house

14:44 Bermuda Schwartz Yeah, cool. Yeah. and i and i took it out and and you know very carefully opened it up because the bellows are made of like calf skin or something

14:51 Bermuda Schwartz Wow. it's you Yeah. know it's organic and you know so they're like sort of a little bit stuck together but I opened it up carefully and I picked it up put my fingers in the right place and I played that song again and I still remembered only the one song and I don't think I could hear something and duplicate it I just remember all the finger positions on that and that was pretty cool so I still have his accordion here and I must have asked Al if he wanted it for some reason he's he's got enough accordions so he doesn't

15:20 Luke F. Walton I'm sure he's got quite the collection.

15:21 Bermuda Schwartz but he's he's certainly aware that i can pick up his accordion and make some sounds with it Yes, and

15:26 Luke F. Walton just dangerous enough.

15:28 Bermuda Schwartz yeah and therefore that has never been done in concert or you know and now bermuda would like to play the accordion for you i mean he's never pulled that because he knows what a train wreck that would be

15:39 Luke F. Walton I love that, though. There was a, on a tour that I did, the sound guy was the absolute worst violinist, but he would always play violin for the soundcheck. And even if it was at a festival where there's, you know, people are able to hear the monitors, he would go out and just rip the worst version of Twinkle Twinkle Little Star and everyone in front of us clutching their head. Pretty

16:01 Bermuda Schwartz Well,

16:02 Luke F. Walton fun.

16:02 Bermuda Schwartz that way the band sounds really good.

16:03 Luke F. Walton Exactly. No, yeah, it's the best possible opener. opener um so in terms of kind of so you start you start working together

16:12 Luke F. Walton um you've you've developed your career you developed your chops you're in la um how do you kind of take it to the next uh level and and start playing live and growing into a touring act like kind of flipping from like original act to a national act like how how does that how does that start to progress and kind of what did you see what kind of lessons would you be able to pass on from that kind

16:33 Bermuda Schwartz Well,

16:33 Luke F. Walton of

16:33 Bermuda Schwartz this was at a time MTV was brand new, you know, Al got on a proper record label with proper distribution. for distribution with worldwide distribution and

16:43 Luke F. Walton Awesome.

16:43 Bermuda Schwartz actually we we well the way the first album came about and

16:48 Luke F. Walton Sure.

16:48 Bermuda Schwartz then the record contract first album came about we were we were sort of alan i and a couple of people actually my brother came in and played on some of these very early pre-album things i did play on the first album too a little bit but we we were uh gonna do a parody we uh we did a parody of i love rock and roll called i love rocky road by ice cream so the joan jett song right and in in getting al got to a point where he would seek permission from

17:14 Bermuda Schwartz At least one of the writers of the song and

17:16 Luke F. Walton Mm

17:16 Bermuda Schwartz Joan

17:16 Luke F. Walton -hmm.

17:16 Bermuda Schwartz Jett didn't write the song so he had to go to a guy named God I can't think of his name

17:24 Luke F. Walton Okay.

17:24 Bermuda Schwartz It's on the credits. I know that it was Liza Minnelli's husband

17:27 Luke F. Walton No way.

17:29 Bermuda Schwartz I'm sorry, I can't think of his name. I'm sorry. But he,

17:32 Luke F. Walton No, it's

17:32 Bermuda Schwartz in

17:32 Luke F. Walton all cool.

17:32 Bermuda Schwartz seeking permission, and we had made a recording of it. We had just done like a living room type recording, actually, with a bunch of his friends and me on the accordion case again.

17:42 Luke F. Walton Cool.

17:42 Bermuda Schwartz And in seeking permission, the guy said, yeah, that'd be great. I also happen to manage Rick Derringer.

17:51 Luke F. Walton Oh.

17:51 Bermuda Schwartz And let me see about... getting you a proper way to record this so

17:57 Luke F. Walton Cool. Yes.

17:58 Bermuda Schwartz he that evolved into getting some spec time at Cherokee Studios famous studio in LA and

18:05 Luke F. Walton Awesome.

18:05 Bermuda Schwartz Rick Derringer came in and we didn't really have a band I mean it was just me and Al so we got a bass player who then Steve who is still with us Steve J who

18:16 Luke F. Walton Amazing.

18:16 Bermuda Schwartz had come out from Florida and one of his bandmates at the time was a guy named Jim West And Jim wasn't officially the guitar player yet. Steve had kind of joined the band, played

18:27 Luke F. Walton Mm

18:28 Bermuda Schwartz on the first album with me, Al, Rick Derringer on guitar. And then we read and so here's this album's worth of songs that

18:36 Luke F. Walton Cool.

18:36 Bermuda Schwartz Al's manager is now shopping to different labels and and all the labels of the story goes, you know, all the labels said, you know, someone's going to make a million bucks with you guys, just not us. Anyway, finally somebody said, you know, somebody's going to make a million bucks. It's going to be us.

18:54 Luke F. Walton Yes.

18:54 Bermuda Schwartz And that was the Scottie Brothers. Well, this happened literally seven, eight, nine months after we recorded the album to begin with.

19:02 Luke F. Walton Mm-hmm.

19:02 Bermuda Schwartz So the songs that were on there, they were saying, well, you know, we understand you're doing parody songs, so kind of current songs,

19:09 Luke F. Walton Mm

19:09 Bermuda Schwartz you know,

19:09 Luke F. Walton -hmm.

19:09 Bermuda Schwartz that's a good thing, but nothing on here is terribly current. Can we get something new and then we'll go ahead and release the album, you know, as is. So we came in and recorded a few more songs. And I think Jim West at that point came in and recorded with us. And that was. Ricky became, and that became the single, the

19:29 Luke F. Walton Sure.

19:29 Bermuda Schwartz first single and first video.

19:30 Luke F. Walton Cool.

19:30 Bermuda Schwartz And then he also came in and we recorded the Buckingham Blues, which actually I think was a B-side of Ricky, as it turns

19:37 Luke F. Walton Okay.

19:37 Bermuda Schwartz out. I think.

19:39 Luke F. Walton Uh-huh.

19:40 Bermuda Schwartz Anyway, that became the first video. That was May of 1983, maybe. Now, April, May. Again, MTV was pretty new. It was just a couple of years old. They were still playing videos. That was they were all about the music videos.

19:58 Luke F. Walton Right,

19:58 Bermuda Schwartz And not

19:58 Luke F. Walton right.

19:58 Bermuda Schwartz everybody had videos. There were a lot of repeat stuff. They were very hungry for fresh content.

20:02 Luke F. Walton Yes.

20:02 Bermuda Schwartz They were hungry for unique content. Well, here's a guy doing a parody, you know, playing accordion.

20:08 Luke F. Walton Uh-huh.

20:08 Bermuda Schwartz And we didn't really parody the Mickey video, Tony Bessel's Mickey video. We just, you know, of course we did the music. music uh

20:17 Bermuda Schwartz Mm. there was a reference to tony basil in there we had a cheerleader come in and dance around at the end but the whole thing was shot in uh it was produced in black and white like an i love lucy episode and al got uh the woman that sang the ricky part the sorry the the lucy part on the song was uh tress mcneil and tress went on to do a lot of voiceovers for cartoons she's a regular on the simpsons

20:40 Bermuda Schwartz Cool. and She came in and got done up as Lucy for the video. She looked like Lucy, like Lucy Ricardo from the 50s. She really had that vibe. It was great.

20:51 Luke F. Walton Uh-huh.

20:51 Bermuda Schwartz Al shaved off his mustache. They pulled his hair back and put a kind of a pompadour, black pompadour shiny wig on him. Took the glasses off and he was Ricky to her Lucy. Anyway. hit video but

21:07 Luke F. Walton Yeah.

21:08 Bermuda Schwartz a lot of a lot of airplay on that and it's like we got to make another video so

21:11 Luke F. Walton Yes, right.

21:11 Bermuda Schwartz now we go back to i love rocky road which is a year and a half or two maybe old at this point did a video for that A lot of airplay. And that sells albums, that

21:20 Luke F. Walton Yes.

21:21 Bermuda Schwartz sells concert tickets. Now, the very first tour we went on was not really even our tour. I think it was May, maybe into June of 1983. And we went out, Dr. Demento used to go around and tour around and do a live version in front of an audience of his show where he could show videos, which he couldn't do on the radio, of course.

21:39 Luke F. Walton Cool.

21:39 Bermuda Schwartz And

21:39 Luke F. Walton Yeah.

21:39 Bermuda Schwartz he played some stuff that was a little racy, you know, that wouldn't fly on the radio. you

21:44 Luke F. Walton Uh

21:44 Bermuda Schwartz and

21:44 Luke F. Walton -huh nice.

21:45 Bermuda Schwartz and we went out as this live musical act and we did a little three-week tour and

21:48 Luke F. Walton Yeah, mm

21:49 Bermuda Schwartz it was great we had a great time we we drove ourselves we had a station wagon and a u-haul we humped all the gear we didn't even have someone doing sound or lights it's just whoever was in the club we trusted them uh and and we couldn't really we couldn't play ricky because we just we didn't have the female uh vocal to do and

22:09 Luke F. Walton Yeah

22:09 Bermuda Schwartz i think we did we did try it a couple of times where i I tried to sing it Uh and just kind

22:13 Bermuda Schwartz -huh. of squeaked out a, you know, hey, hey, Ricky. And it wasn't really, it wasn't really. So we showed a film. We showed a 16 millimeter film of the video while we did a costume change to come out and finish with some other song.

22:25 Bermuda Schwartz Cool. Anyway, we did that for three weeks. It did well, you know, album sold pretty well. Started to make a new one later on. Next album would have eat it on it.

22:35 Luke F. Walton Mm-hmm.

22:35 Bermuda Schwartz and eat it.

22:37 Luke F. Walton Yes.

22:37 Bermuda Schwartz A much bigger hit than, you know, and of course Michael was huge. Well, Michael's always been huge. And got Michael's approval on that

22:47 Luke F. Walton Oh,

22:47 Bermuda Schwartz and did the video used the same white gang leader Vince Patterson was in was actually Michael's and Madonna's and some other people did choreography for all of them and appeared in some videos a very well-known choreographer and he came down and was in the video sort of to to just lend a little authenticity and and you know and that did very very well on MTV while that was coming out

23:11 Bermuda Schwartz We went on another tour with Dr.

23:12 Luke F. Walton Yep.

23:12 Bermuda Schwartz Demento in February and into March. And during that time, Eat It is going up in the charts. I think it was like number 12 on Billboard, a

23:22 Luke F. Walton Oh my god.

23:23 Bermuda Schwartz hit video on MTV.

23:25 Luke F. Walton Yeah,

23:25 Bermuda Schwartz And

23:25 Luke F. Walton yeah.

23:25 Bermuda Schwartz in the meantime now, Dr. Demento's show with the special musical guests became Weird Al's show with kind of Demento being

23:32 Luke F. Walton Okay.

23:32 Bermuda Schwartz the guy, and then you wait for Weird Al at the end.

23:35 Luke F. Walton Yeah.

23:35 Bermuda Schwartz We went out again a few months later in the summer, and now we're on our own. Now we have a bus and a driver. We've got a sound guy and a light guy. And that's kind of summer of 84 is when it really began to take off and

23:48 Luke F. Walton Yes.

23:48 Bermuda Schwartz we were on our own and really doing it. Came back, worked on another album.

23:54 Luke F. Walton Nice.

23:55 Bermuda Schwartz Madonna's Like a Surgeon, like a virgin.

23:57 Luke F. Walton Perfect. Perfect.

23:58 Bermuda Schwartz Again, big

23:59 Luke F. Walton Yeah.

23:59 Bermuda Schwartz hit video. Big hit video.

24:00 Luke F. Walton Yes.

24:01 Bermuda Schwartz 1985 tour, the album was Dare to be Stupid, which was named after one of the songs on the album, which also had its own video. That came out. We had a tour planned.

24:14 Luke F. Walton Mm-hmm.

24:15 Bermuda Schwartz I forget if it was CBS or who it was, wanted to do a video, wanted to do like a Showtime special.

24:23 Luke F. Walton Okay.

24:24 Bermuda Schwartz And they actually funded some of the videos in shooting this whole thing. They paid for a couple of the videos. There was a book that came out that was sort of a companion to that, The Authorized Al, which is a very expensive book now, very popular among

24:37 Luke F. Walton Yes.

24:38 Bermuda Schwartz the fans. Mm-hmm. But this came out, it's called the Complete L, and C-O-M-P-L-E-A-T L.

24:45 Bermuda Schwartz Mm-hmm. And so that aired on Showtime, but also came out in video, came out VHS and beta at the time, later on DVD, later, and I think, I have.

24:57 Bermuda Schwartz You have one? I have one right in front of me.

25:01 Luke F. Walton Yes, perfect.

25:02 Bermuda Schwartz The complete

25:03 Luke F. Walton Yes.

25:03 Bermuda Schwartz album, this is a DVD. Anyway, so 85 was a great year. 86, another album. You know, we had like four albums in four years, 83, 84, 85, 86. 86, the lead single was Living with a Hernia for James Brown's Living with America. Didn't do terribly well. The album did not sell. It's still.

25:28 Bermuda Schwartz The million years later still has not gone gold and this is over many many years of albums actually selling Whereas some albums went gold in a month or two many of them went platinum that album still that album hasn't gone gold that was a polka party Not that the song wasn't well done. Not that the video wasn't funny. It's just Not sure what happened. Not sure what happened.

25:51 Bermuda Schwartz And we decided that there was sort of no point in touring on that album. I'm not sure exactly what happened, but it was like, you know, I don't you know, and we would have probably toured the following year and we didn't. But in the meantime, Al is beginning to write a movie based on, you know, three hit albums. He and his manager co-wrote a movie and called UHF.

26:15 Bermuda Schwartz Hmm. And that was shot during 1988. A Okay. lot of it was shot on location in different locations in Tulsa, Oklahoma. But in the meantime, we're already beginning. The next album,

26:26 Bermuda Schwartz Cool. which would be called Even Worse, and we had, again, Michael Jackson, we did Take Off on Bad called Fat, and that was, not only was that really a funny song and really well done, and by the way, I should add that starting with the second album, first album was very kind of rock band based, like with an accordion lead.

26:46 Bermuda Schwartz Right. There wasn't a big effort to try and sound like the original song, I mean sonically, you know, we played the parts, we just played them on. accordion and and you know guitar bass and drums uh

26:56 Luke F. Walton Interesting. Yeah, now actually real quick before you continue, how are you approaching that just from kind of drum tones and kind of your take on those parts, but kind of breathing life into it in your own way and dealing with the other musicians? How are you kind of like digesting those parts and then determining what you were going to be playing?

27:15 Bermuda Schwartz well on the first album because we weren't trying to do that because we aren't trying to copy the original song

27:21 Luke F. Walton Yes.

27:22 Bermuda Schwartz Uh, uh, I, I did have a certain amount of freedom.

27:25 Luke F. Walton Yeah.

27:25 Bermuda Schwartz Uh, I mean, I guess I did. I mean, I should add that when we did My Bologna for My Sharona,

27:29 Luke F. Walton Mm-hmm.

27:29 Bermuda Schwartz we did it in a, in a way that, that we had been playing it live for a little bit already,

27:35 Luke F. Walton Oh,

27:35 Bermuda Schwartz which

27:35 Luke F. Walton cool.

27:36 Bermuda Schwartz was not really what the knack was doing. It was like a complete, because, you know, here the guy's playing accordion, so why, why would I play the real drum part,

27:43 Luke F. Walton Right,

27:43 Bermuda Schwartz right?

27:43 Luke F. Walton right.

27:44 Bermuda Schwartz Anyway, so we recorded that and it sounds nothing like the knack.

27:48 Luke F. Walton Mm

27:48 Bermuda Schwartz now.

27:48 Luke F. Walton hmm. Mm hmm.

27:49 Bermuda Schwartz In later years when we would come out and we would do that in a medley, I would do the proper Bruce Gary parts,

27:53 Luke F. Walton Okay.

27:54 Bermuda Schwartz you know, and we

27:54 Luke F. Walton Yeah.

27:54 Bermuda Schwartz would really sound like we started to sound, but with an accordion up front, but it really had more of a vibe.

28:00 Luke F. Walton Sorry to interrupt this very important broadcast, but it's time for one more advertisement for myself for this podcast. What I what I'm asking for is for you to rate it five stars, share it with your friends. This is like the most important thing for this podcast to grow. So if you want to do this.

28:14 Luke F. Walton this you go into the podcast screen right you click on the dot dot dot on spotify under there it says rate show and you go and you click it five stars if you could do that for me that's the best way for the algorithms all that stuff to share it out with the world i know that it's a lot to ask but if you could please please please just please just hit those three dots and a five star would really help us out and helps us you know get the get the word out and spread the love of music so thank you if you're listening on youtube you know what to do

28:40 Luke F. Walton you like subscribe all that good stuff thank you so much and here's the rest of the episode yeah

28:44 Bermuda Schwartz Well, it was Rick Derringer, I think, that suggested after that first album, as we started to record the second album, he says, you know, we should probably really go after the sounds and

28:54 Luke F. Walton right

28:54 Bermuda Schwartz the parts, the exact parts and the feel of the original, which will lend, make it even funnier with these different lyrics against it. So when there's a musical, you know, somebody hears your song come on the radio, they'll think it's. michael jackson and all of a sudden it's al singing you

29:09 Luke F. Walton Yes.

29:10 Bermuda Schwartz know so with the second album we did start to pay much closer attention to to parts and sounds and parts aren't really a problem uh sounds you know uh that doesn't all happen in the studio i mean i i had to get different drums you know different snares to use uh i i explored different cymbal sounds you know i was very cautious about tuning uh there there were a lot of

29:33 Bermuda Schwartz of considerations in going to the studio and also at this point this was 19 late 83 and it's an early 84 you're starting to hear a lot of synthesized stuff on

29:42 Luke F. Walton Yes,

29:42 Bermuda Schwartz the radio a

29:42 Luke F. Walton definitely.

29:43 Bermuda Schwartz lot of program stuff in it and it was to get more and more prevalent over the years later and that was That was still a little bit of a mystery to me. I didn't get my first drum machine. I actually got electronic. I got a Simmons kit in 84 because I knew I would need it at some point. But that's really not. That's a specific kind of a sounding thing.

30:01 Luke F. Walton Mm

30:02 Bermuda Schwartz It

30:02 Luke F. Walton -hmm.

30:02 Bermuda Schwartz was until 1985 that I actually got a drum machine and And it was probably 89 or 90 that I got my first sampler and I already had computers at that point. and I began working on actual file sound files and

30:22 Luke F. Walton Yes.

30:22 Bermuda Schwartz over the next several years I got into sound design which

30:25 Luke F. Walton Yes.

30:26 Bermuda Schwartz I really learned when I would hear something because all those songs we were copying all those producers out there doing some pretty cutting edge stuff you

30:33 Luke F. Walton Totally.

30:33 Bermuda Schwartz know they're making drum sounds with anything but drums so I couldn't just I'd have to listen to something and I got to a point where I couldn't I couldn't determine what they had done I couldn't determine what where they got a sound. It certainly hadn't come from a machine, no machines I knew of.

30:50 Bermuda Schwartz And, you know, my goal then was to listen to the, you know, to decipher, to pick out, you know, I'm trying to listen to that snare sound, to that kick sound, to those toms and figure out what I need to do to make that sound.

31:03 Luke F. Walton Yes.

31:03 Bermuda Schwartz And oftentimes what I needed to do was combine sounds, was to layer sounds. And now you're talking sound design.

31:10 Luke F. Walton Right.

31:10 Bermuda Schwartz Now you're talking what synth guys do.

31:12 Luke F. Walton Totally.

31:12 Bermuda Schwartz Except I'm the drummer,

31:13 Luke F. Walton Uh

31:13 Bermuda Schwartz but

31:13 Luke F. Walton -huh.

31:13 Bermuda Schwartz I'm doing all that. I'm, you know, and the parts weren't hard. A lot of the songs we were doing that were programmed, that were all sequenced, were all, you know, for the drums, for bass and guitar and keys or whatever, were basically sometimes usually a four bar section and

31:30 Luke F. Walton Yes.

31:30 Bermuda Schwartz that was looped. And

31:31 Luke F. Walton Mm

31:31 Bermuda Schwartz within

31:31 Luke F. Walton hmm.

31:31 Bermuda Schwartz that four bars, you know, you had a little variation or no variation or whatever, but, you know, they would almost always be in four bar sections. So I only had to figure out what those four bars were, line them up all together, figure out if maybe there was a part where they stopped or cut out or whatever. And that, you know, I didn't, I don't try not to leave that up to the engineer. They have enough to do.

31:49 Bermuda Schwartz I try and provide files stems of everything as it should appear in the song. So I would lay up these samples that I had made.

31:58 Luke F. Walton Mm hmm.

31:58 Bermuda Schwartz and i lay them up and i'm very old school i originally actually did midi programming and pro tools which is

32:03 Luke F. Walton Yeah.

32:03 Bermuda Schwartz the last thing you want to do in pro tools uh

32:05 Luke F. Walton Totally.

32:05 Bermuda Schwartz but i didn't use pro tools to record i just made the midi files uh imported the files into my sampler and let it play the samples well

32:13 Luke F. Walton Okay.

32:13 Bermuda Schwartz later i learned to actually make full-on wave files and uh i did that uh in in acid in like uh sony

32:21 Luke F. Walton Yeah, I remember Acid.

32:22 Bermuda Schwartz made it for a while i don't know who makes it now but now but uh which you know acid garage band you know and basically lay it out as it will look in pro tools later and of course i know the format that that uh you know the engineer needs and you know i i know the tempo we're going to do and if there's any arrangement changes but i'm able to go in and create those songs and most of the parodies we were doing after a certain point were all sequenced and there's not a almost a live drum on any of it and uh i would go ahead and get all that together so i mean my development is

32:53 Bermuda Schwartz as a player grew with Al's you

32:55 Luke F. Walton I

32:55 Bermuda Schwartz know agenda

32:56 Luke F. Walton see.

32:56 Bermuda Schwartz for doing popular songs and he just expected us to do it you know it's like oh you guys can play you know that's great he would just throw stuff at us and not understand that we had to work hard to to get

33:09 Luke F. Walton Yeah,

33:09 Bermuda Schwartz these songs to I mean

33:10 Luke F. Walton get this out.

33:10 Bermuda Schwartz me me above anybody uh because

33:12 Luke F. Walton Oh, yeah, of course.

33:13 Bermuda Schwartz it was really hard to figure out what you know some of these guys were doing you know a keyboard and we didn't really have a keyboard player we did for a couple of years and then we We kind of went without one for a while and we just hired guys.

33:25 Luke F. Walton Mm-hmm.

33:25 Bermuda Schwartz And the keyboard players, though, weren't always up on the sounds. Now, Jim West plays a mean keyboard. He's very good at sound design. He's a guitar player, but he can play keyboards, but he knows sounds. So he could do a lot of that stuff. And Steve Jay also, you know, knows sounds. So on this last album, well, on the last album so far in our careers, it was 2014. It was Mandatory Fun.

33:47 Bermuda Schwartz They debuted at number one on the billboard charts.

33:50 Luke F. Walton Amazing.

33:50 Bermuda Schwartz Not comedy,

33:51 Luke F. Walton Yeah.

33:52 Bermuda Schwartz the chart,

33:53 Luke F. Walton The chart.

33:53 Bermuda Schwartz the 200 album chart. That's pretty big deal.

33:56 Luke F. Walton That's pretty big deal.

33:57 Bermuda Schwartz All of the, all of the parodies on there were all done by either me and Jim or me and Steve.

34:05 Luke F. Walton Yes.

34:05 Bermuda Schwartz And then Al sang.

34:06 Luke F. Walton Cool.

34:07 Bermuda Schwartz And that was it. That was, we did, just two of us did all of the music for all the parodies. And in fact, so no keyboard player on those. and

34:15 Bermuda Schwartz Yeah. our regular keyboard player who Ruben Valtiera had been with us since 1991 he didn't end up on that album there were some live piano parts and key parts on the originals not the albums are all half originals half parodies Al did all of those he became there was a point where you know his right hand could play a piano

34:33 Bermuda Schwartz Right, and that makes sense. play the keyboard Yeah, exactly. but left left hand is buttons it's a weird thing so he had to develop his left hand to play chords and and you know stuff like that And he was able to do that. He played very well. We did one song that was kind of a Cat Stevens sounding thing, obviously very heavy piano thing. And Al did great on that. He did really, really well on that. And it was very, very cool to have a number one album. That album,

34:57 Luke F. Walton Oh,

34:57 Bermuda Schwartz Mandatory Fun, also signaled the end of his contract, finally.

35:03 Luke F. Walton my

35:03 Bermuda Schwartz Now Sony

35:04 Luke F. Walton gosh.

35:04 Bermuda Schwartz or Volcano, I guess, had bought. the Scotty Brothers music catalog.

35:11 Luke F. Walton Okay.

35:11 Bermuda Schwartz And they actually cut all of the artists, they canceled all their contracts. And they had an interesting roster. Actually, I think James Brown was living in America was on Scotty Brothers. David Cassidy had ended up on Scotty Brothers or something. I think Petula Clark had ended up on Scotty Brothers. They did a number of soundtrack compilations, things like that.

35:29 Bermuda Schwartz Anyway, Volcano basically released all of it and only kept Al. And then eventually we went through the

35:36 Bermuda Schwartz you know process of of working our way up or over across the hall to Sony and we were eventually on on Sony well the contract even when it was bought and it's been renewed a few times but basically this signified the last album of the current contract and Al had already decided he says you know the internet's in place you know Al knows how to promote things Al is friendly with Apple and can certainly get stuff on iTunes when he wants it artists couldn't do that before you had to be with a label you

36:04 Bermuda Schwartz label well now artists can do that and

36:06 Luke F. Walton Yeah.

36:06 Bermuda Schwartz al said uh you know we're we're not going to renew we don't need a record label one albums aren't selling you

36:13 Luke F. Walton Mm-hmm.

36:14 Bermuda Schwartz know two uh i can get my stuff all over the internet and on spotify and wherever i need it without the help of a label you know i can do that as an artist that has a proven track record and that's exactly what happened uh left the label uh that freed up al to to do whatever he wants we don't have to do 12 songs in order to have an album we can

36:35 Luke F. Walton Yeah,

36:35 Bermuda Schwartz record a song and have it out in three or four or five exactly. days you

36:38 Luke F. Walton Yep.

36:38 Bermuda Schwartz know and where he wants it you know you want you want and you want itunes to promote it or apple music to promote it on a specific date they will do that you know they wouldn't do that 20 years ago you know you had to have somebody at a label make a phone call well that's that's all changed of course now nobody's actually buying that music anyway that's just become promotion

36:57 Bermuda Schwartz but you go on the road people still have to pay to walk through the front door and that's that's where the money used to be the albums sold a ton

37:05 Luke F. Walton Yeah, right.

37:06 Bermuda Schwartz and and you know the the tour helped promote album sales now

37:10 Luke F. Walton Exactly.

37:11 Bermuda Schwartz you put free songs out there and that promotes the tour and

37:14 Luke F. Walton Totally.

37:15 Bermuda Schwartz the tour is where you make like t-shirts you know merch is a big thing for any artist really and our fans are very very loyal we've got a lot of the same fans we had We had 40 years

37:24 Luke F. Walton I

37:24 Bermuda Schwartz ago and

37:24 Luke F. Walton love that.

37:24 Bermuda Schwartz they're bringing their kids now, you

37:26 Luke F. Walton That's so cool.

37:26 Bermuda Schwartz know, and there's there's little kids There's there's old men. There's everything in between and it's it's great a very wide demo in our audience It's very cool. Very sad very satisfying and it keeps growing just it keeps growing There's no sign of it slowing down

37:41 Luke F. Walton I love that. I think you touched on a lot of really great things in there. I'd love to dig a little bit deeper on. The one that I really perked my ears up was knowing the sounds.

37:50 Bermuda Schwartz And I think that that's something that people, especially, you know, going to music school or people that are really diving deep onto an instrument sometimes miss the idea of learning to sound in general or being flexible to develop skills like sound design or going, who's the kit player? But like, let's learn how to do programming and even going down that rabbit hole.

38:10 Bermuda Schwartz But now it's pretty much mandatory if you want to work in this business, you have to really understand sound. um we'd love to just hear more about kind of how you keep keep up to date how you keep pushing yourself um and how you're able to pull off records with you know two core band members that's that's really cool yeah

38:26 Bermuda Schwartz I, I, uh, well, I mean, I, it began really with my not wanting to not be the drummer on the records.

38:34 Bermuda Schwartz yeah So i love it's like that it, these, these are, we're doing songs that need, you know, sequences and I'm going to get a machine, you know, uh, you know, our drum machine's putting drummers out of work. Not me. I went and got a machine. ping so

38:44 Bermuda Schwartz Exactly. so Exactly. that's There's a lot that's what to learn began there. it and

38:47 Bermuda Schwartz Yep. and then and then it just it evolved you know we're always chasing uh you know cutting edge production stuff and

38:53 Bermuda Schwartz Yes. as sound design became a thing you know probably probably in the 90s i guess uh you know we had to follow suit there was no either that or or he hires somebody else and i just you know i didn't i never wanted that to happen you know and i suppose deep down you know i really wanted to learn as well you know it like oh this is this

39:11 Bermuda Schwartz This is probably something I, you know, might come in handy someday, if not for someone else, you know, for Al's next record, you know,

39:16 Bermuda Schwartz Yes. I need to I need to know this stuff. Yep. And and it really and it was an evolution for me and it started with a machine, you know, which just meant programming, you know, a limited whatever the sounds were in the machine, and I got different machines. And then later it became buying like CDs, CD-ROMs of samples, you

39:35 Bermuda Schwartz Uh-huh. know, of sample libraries. that I would put into the sampler and then trigger those via MIDI.

39:41 Bermuda Schwartz Mm So -hmm. I had a, you know, and I've still got all those CDs, although I dare say most of those sounds are obsolete. Later I learned to... seek out remixes of records and I was able to pull samples off of those

39:53 Bermuda Schwartz Cool. so a lot Yep. of the stuff I've got are samples some of them from the original recordings where where possible now not always possible and and I had to I'm a good listener if nothing else I I listen well and I would you know I and I guess I developed that By listening to drum parts and

40:13 Bermuda Schwartz Mm-hmm. having, and I would write out entire note for note, an entire song's worth of every little stupid part was

40:20 Bermuda Schwartz Love it. written out. Yep. And if I wasn't sure, I would listen again and again and again and again. And So the parts are one thing, and getting to the sounds, I would just listen to it, and again, not knowing what they did didn't become an issue because it's like, well,

40:35 Bermuda Schwartz Mm what -hmm. do I hear? What sounds do I hear in there? There's a snare on there, like the snare on the song Word Crimes, which is a parody of Blurred Lines, which I thought should have been a single. It's just we had recorded it and the album didn't come out until much later with a newer lead single on it and Word Crimes became, although there was a video for it.

40:54 Bermuda Schwartz that became a secondary deal i thought it was a great song all about grammar and stuff and grammar misuse anyway there's a four bar loop in there there's all sorts of little percussion things there's a breaking glass sample there's all this stuff going on and and i'm listening and listening and uh and the snare and it's always the snare and i'll tell you another Imagine Dragons story

41:16 Bermuda Schwartz Yes, please. in a second uh you know the snare had a certain sound it wasn't really just a snare snare there wasn't a hand clap on it so I knew it wasn't that it was a very specific

41:27 Bermuda Schwartz tight sound but it wasn't just a snare or maybe it wasn't a snare at all and I'm listening I thought you know if I put

41:35 Bermuda Schwartz if i put a rim click like a dark you know rim click on there that'll give me that knock that i'm sort of hearing in there that'll give it that attack that i'm hearing that i don't i know it's not a drum but i'll bet if i put it over a snare it's the best of both and all of a sudden it started to take shape and i think i might have put and and might have and i also i manipulate the samples as well so i think i put a single hand clap over it as well that had a little bit of snap to it and a little bit of a

42:03 Bermuda Schwartz of a clock to it and Yep. between that and whatever snare i used and and whatever rim click i used the knock on there that was the snare and i've got all of this stuff written down exactly the samples i used so i could go back and you know i don't remember it but i wrote it all down anyway turned out great and really and i love doing that song we've done that live for well since the 2015 tour since that album came out there's one other

42:29 Bermuda Schwartz sound Mm-hmm. again a snare sound that really befuddled me this Okay. was we were doing a parody of the Imagine Dragons radioactive and ours was called inactive about a guy that just sits on a couch and just plays video games and watch TV watches TV and I couldn't quite figure out the snare in there. I mean, I could hear what it was, but there was something going on. And in the context of the music, I couldn't really do it.

42:58 Bermuda Schwartz And there was none of this AI stuff where you can upload a track and it'll send you back just the drum track and it's clean enough to hear what's going on.

43:06 Bermuda Schwartz Definitely. That would have been great to have 30 years ago or 20 years or 10 years. No, I just, and I put something together and we're getting closer and closer to the recording date. date and I put something together that would have been suitable I wasn't real happy with it I probably would have passed by Al and everyone else but I just I knew it wasn't right and so I decided I reached out to the drummer and Imagine Dragons

43:27 Bermuda Schwartz Very and I know cool. he you know I know it wasn't played but that he'd be able to give me some direction on and I sent him an email and explained the situation and I said you know I never do this I don't ever you know get need to ask for help help health but i need your health i just i can't quite there's something going on with that snare and

43:45 Bermuda Schwartz Mm-hmm. i'm waiting and you know 10 days or a couple of weeks go by and we're going in to record it like in a couple of days it's like i just i'm i'm going to go back one more time and try and and work on that sound but it's just like and i'd already given up on on him anyway i go back to open up the computer and i've got an email from him and he sent me the stem of the snares from the song and and uh and i'm listening to it it's like oh i never there's like a sweep

44:09 Bermuda Schwartz sweep that there's a thing Oh, that leads up to it but there's a little gap before the hit and then there's a filter going on and there's all this stuff going on that's buried in the music but

44:17 Bermuda Schwartz Yeah, yeah. contributes to it in Definitely. a way that my snare didn't and Yes.

44:21 Bermuda Schwartz and i'm listening this i never would have figured that and i thanked him profusely anyway i lined that all up and i made i made the stems of that and when i send it in i mean we at this point we're just like emailing you know or doing a drop box or whatever of our parts and i said you know to to the engineer i said do not do not compress this do not eq it this is really

44:44 Bermuda Schwartz This is the snare from the record that we are doing and Yes. just leave it as is. And that made the song and I was forever grateful to him. But that's the only time I've had to reach out and ask for some help. Everything else has been...

45:03 Bermuda Schwartz that we always did that very well because you go back and listen when we first got this concept of copying the original sounds we go back and listen to eat it and it's like you know that doesn't really sound that close to beat it i mean it's kind of sort of but it's not really now if we did that now if we were to copy that song now it would sound exactly like it was intended to sound and i and i dare say and we got

45:25 Bermuda Schwartz We got we all got much much better on

45:27 Luke F. Walton Mm-hmm.

45:28 Bermuda Schwartz each album and I dare say that that last album We really really sounded like the original songs that we were parodying very

45:34 Luke F. Walton I

45:35 Bermuda Schwartz very

45:35 Luke F. Walton agree.

45:35 Bermuda Schwartz happy and when we do the original songs and a lot of those are in the the style and sound and production value of certain bands certain artists without being You know, you can listen to it and go that sounds kind of like this guy's song, although obviously not legally but it sounds you

45:52 Luke F. Walton Uh-huh.

45:52 Bermuda Schwartz know al's not going to get sued but we know where he got this idea and it sounds you know that sounds like that group playing al's song without singing it and that's always been the intention you know we did a doors uh pastiche actually we had uh we had a little authenticity on that we had ray manzarek play keyboards on that and and but the idea you know it's for me to be the john densmore it would be like well

46:18 Bermuda Schwartz Well, if Al called

46:18 Luke F. Walton Uh

46:18 Bermuda Schwartz in,

46:19 Luke F. Walton -huh.

46:19 Bermuda Schwartz Al's doing a Doors song, suppose he called in John Densmore to be a really authentic, you know, Doors drummer doing a Doors sound alike, you know, what would he play? What would I play if I was John Densmore coming in to play this Doors sounding song without playing necessarily specific licks, but what would he do? What would be his approach? So I have to get inside his head.

46:42 Luke F. Walton Cool.

46:42 Bermuda Schwartz I have to do that with a ton of drummers,

46:44 Luke F. Walton Ton

46:44 Bermuda Schwartz you know,

46:44 Luke F. Walton of drummers.

46:44 Bermuda Schwartz whatever. And most of our originals are in. are in the style of some other group

46:48 Bermuda Schwartz Mm or-hmm, mm-hmm. artist and you know i i have to have to get inside their heads and

46:54 Luke F. Walton Mm-hmm.

46:55 Bermuda Schwartz try and figure out you know what would they do if they were doing this you know what what should the drums sound like but al would give us some direction he says well we're doing a song and it's it should have kind of the production value of this song this is the production we're going after so i would know coming in you know it wasn't just about parts again there's sounds on that too even the originals but that was always those in in some ways those were actually harder uh to work on than just going in and copying a song because it was like we never rehearsed

47:20 Bermuda Schwartz rehearsed the

47:21 Luke F. Walton Okay,

47:21 Bermuda Schwartz songs we parodied back in

47:23 Luke F. Walton yeah,

47:23 Bermuda Schwartz the day that

47:23 Luke F. Walton right.

47:23 Bermuda Schwartz we actually had to perform them we never rehearsed them because we didn't need to we knew what we were supposed to play i

47:28 Luke F. Walton Exactly, exactly.

47:28 Bermuda Schwartz mean we'd run through it in the studio just to get a sound just to make sure we could still play together but we never sat down and rehearsed them the original songs we had to do because we were actually we were all working on parts and uh but you know and then eventually you know on a lot of the parodies you know which were just programmed

47:46 Bermuda Schwartz We never ever played those live until we were going on the road and if we were going to play it live, when we rehearsed that would be the first time we'd ever actually play the song.

47:53 Luke F. Walton Yes.

47:54 Bermuda Schwartz And in a lot of those songs we have to have some backing track assistance,

47:57 Luke F. Walton Yes, of course.

47:58 Bermuda Schwartz some percussion and certain sounds. I mean there's only so many of us on stage, there's only one guitar player,

48:03 Luke F. Walton Yep.

48:03 Bermuda Schwartz so we're already at a deficit for bands

48:05 Luke F. Walton I

48:05 Bermuda Schwartz that

48:05 Luke F. Walton know.

48:05 Bermuda Schwartz had a

48:05 Luke F. Walton For

48:06 Bermuda Schwartz rhythm sure. guitar and a lead guitar, we're already not complete. So there's a certain amount of stuff, and we're not faking very much, but we're adding so that we don't sound like a bad bar band, you know, trying to play stuff with a lot of this production. It's got to be in there. We got to have some backing tracks.

48:22 Bermuda Schwartz And sometimes it means, you know, putting some strings or horns on something. Sometimes it means putting a second guitar part. Usually it involves putting percussion on there because there's really nobody with any free hands to shake tambourines or play cowbells or doing that stuff. I mean, I only have so many arms. arms and feet you

48:37 Luke F. Walton Yep.

48:37 Bermuda Schwartz know uh so

48:38 Luke F. Walton Those

48:38 Bermuda Schwartz so

48:38 Luke F. Walton things are

48:39 Bermuda Schwartz that's

48:39 Luke F. Walton so

48:39 Bermuda Schwartz the kind

48:39 Luke F. Walton important.

48:39 Bermuda Schwartz of stuff that would wind up on our backing tracks yet we went ahead and did a couple of tours recently where it was there are no tracks we usually run video uh no video we usually do costumes no costumes just us sitting there playing it was sort of unplugged i mean we were rocking out but we're strictly just us just live al got a midi accordion had to learn to play a lot of parts on songs that he'd never played before because we did all of that

49:02 Bermuda Schwartz that and

49:02 Luke F. Walton Yeah.

49:02 Bermuda Schwartz and so now he's like playing stuff

49:05 Luke F. Walton Cool.

49:05 Bermuda Schwartz in the band that he never had to think about before

49:07 Luke F. Walton Great.

49:08 Bermuda Schwartz and

49:08 Luke F. Walton Right.

49:08 Bermuda Schwartz we did mostly original songs there was a short medley at the end and then we did something also unique which was a lot of fun and a lot of work at the end in the encore of these tours and we went out in 2018 and then again did it in 2022 and 23 we would at the end of the we'd come back for an encore and we would play like a straight cover song Just

49:29 Luke F. Walton Yeah.

49:29 Bermuda Schwartz like a straight

49:30 Luke F. Walton Straight

49:30 Bermuda Schwartz up Glad all over by the Dave Clark Five or Smoke on the Water by Deep Purple or Last Train to Clarksville by the Monkees. Just songs that people kind of would know, stone songs, Beatles songs, just all sorts of different stuff. And some things that we liked, we did You Can Call Me Al, we

49:49 Luke F. Walton Yes.

49:50 Bermuda Schwartz did, you know, just all sorts. And in the 2018 tour, we learned. 77 cover

49:56 Luke F. Walton Oh,

49:56 Bermuda Schwartz songs so

49:57 Luke F. Walton yes.

49:57 Bermuda Schwartz that we could play them each one time

49:59 Luke F. Walton Yes.

49:59 Bermuda Schwartz and

50:00 Luke F. Walton I love that.

50:01 Bermuda Schwartz that was that

50:01 Luke F. Walton I

50:01 Bermuda Schwartz was

50:01 Luke F. Walton love

50:02 Bermuda Schwartz a lot of

50:02 Luke F. Walton that.

50:02 Bermuda Schwartz fun that was a lot of work

50:03 Luke F. Walton Oh,

50:03 Bermuda Schwartz I mean we didn't

50:03 Luke F. Walton it's

50:03 Bermuda Schwartz learn

50:04 Luke F. Walton hard.

50:04 Bermuda Schwartz them all before the tour we we learned a couple before we hit the road so that we would have you know one or two in place and then every day we would rehearse the song we were going to do that night and then the song we were going to do at the next show and

50:15 Luke F. Walton Perfect.

50:15 Bermuda Schwartz so every song got two rehearsals but they only got played one time well we went out and we did basically the same thing

50:21 Bermuda Schwartz thing in 2022 that was we weren't about to learn a whole bunch of new songs so we we pulled out a bunch of the songs that we had done already added a few new ones you know learned worked up a few new ones and and we did that again and i think on our next tour uh we're probably going to do the same thing and i think we're going to just have like a smaller selection of of covers that we're going to do but that was sort of a unique thing and that's part of what you do when

50:48 Bermuda Schwartz When you don't have a new album that

50:50 Luke F. Walton Right.

50:50 Bermuda Schwartz you're that you're

50:51 Luke F. Walton Mix

50:51 Bermuda Schwartz doing

50:51 Luke F. Walton it

50:51 Bermuda Schwartz a up tour

50:51 Luke F. Walton some other

50:51 Bermuda Schwartz on is

50:51 Luke F. Walton way. Yeah.

50:52 Bermuda Schwartz you change up the tour and

50:53 Luke F. Walton Right.

50:54 Bermuda Schwartz that that unplugged thing was one way to change up the tour adding a cover song was a way to change up the tour every every I should add that every night was a different set

51:03 Luke F. Walton I

51:03 Bermuda Schwartz we

51:03 Luke F. Walton love

51:03 Bermuda Schwartz rotated

51:03 Luke F. Walton it.

51:03 Bermuda Schwartz about 40 songs or something 40 originals and

51:07 Luke F. Walton Yeah.

51:07 Bermuda Schwartz would do 16 17 18 of them a night and that was it and if we did two shows in the same city if we did two nights in a row we would make sure that the next night that there were no repeats but

51:18 Luke F. Walton No repeats. Wow.

51:19 Bermuda Schwartz in all of the shows we did we did 77 shows they were 77 unique set lists which

51:23 Luke F. Walton Amazing.

51:24 Bermuda Schwartz I'll put together and which we had in advance I mean we knew in advance what we were doing anyway we did and we did that again in 2022 we did a tour in During 2019, again,

51:32 Luke F. Walton Mm

51:32 Bermuda Schwartz I'm talking

51:33 Luke F. Walton -hmm.

51:33 Bermuda Schwartz about changing things up and keeping

51:34 Luke F. Walton Yeah,

51:35 Bermuda Schwartz them

51:35 Luke F. Walton change

51:35 Bermuda Schwartz fresh

51:35 Luke F. Walton it up.

51:35 Bermuda Schwartz and keeping Yep. exciting, we

51:36 Luke F. Walton Yep.

51:37 Bermuda Schwartz had done an orchestral tour. every city we did we had an orchestra now we carried a conductor because the conductor had to be familiar with the show and you know and and know who's doing what cues and things like that so we had a conductor actually it was a father and son team I don't know that was an odd thing but we always had one or the other and they both learned the show pretty quickly and they would rehearse you know that day's orchestra you know without us so that we didn't have to go through a whole show twice in a day

52:06 Bermuda Schwartz they would rehearse with the tape of our live show from early in the tour and they would you know of course the orchestra had you know music and you know to work on and there were some good orchestras we played with the national symphony and in wolf trap and colorado symphony in colorado a bunch of really good you know proper orchestras and al got that and certainly not the first rock band to go out and have an orchestra behind them i mean a bunch of bands have done that but that came about because

52:35 Bermuda Schwartz In 2015 or 2016, I think, we were playing the Hollywood Bowl. We did two nights at the Hollywood Bowl. For two nights.

52:42 Luke F. Walton Amazing.

52:42 Bermuda Schwartz Pretty good for a guy with an accordion and a suitcase, right? So

52:46 Luke F. Walton Yeah.

52:46 Bermuda Schwartz this was during the summer, and the Hollywood Bowl's deal was Because they have their house orchestra.

52:53 Luke F. Walton Mm

52:54 Bermuda Schwartz You

52:54 Luke F. Walton hmm.

52:54 Bermuda Schwartz know, if you come in and you play their venue, you know, you're basically putting all those guys out of work. You're putting

52:59 Luke F. Walton Totally.

52:59 Bermuda Schwartz 70 people out.

53:00 Luke F. Walton Right.

53:01 Bermuda Schwartz So you have to hire the orchestra and they will, they'll write arrangements for the show you're going to do, you know, you send them the songs you're going to do and it's a set order and they'll make arrangements, you know, they're pros and they send you sort of a recording, you know, guy plays sort of keyboard parts so you get an idea what you're going to hear, you know, when you come in and play it. And

53:19 Luke F. Walton Yeah.

53:19 Bermuda Schwartz we came in on the first of those days and had to go through the whole show. This was the first time we'd

53:24 Luke F. Walton Oh,

53:24 Bermuda Schwartz ever done

53:24 Luke F. Walton yeah.

53:24 Bermuda Schwartz that and

53:24 Luke F. Walton Of course.

53:25 Bermuda Schwartz went through it and Al was just blown away.

53:27 Luke F. Walton Yeah.

53:28 Bermuda Schwartz And he's already now got it in his head. This is great. You know, we could just like show up and orchestra has music and it works. It's just what a world.

53:36 Luke F. Walton Totally.

53:36 Bermuda Schwartz You know, they must be like a bunch of pros or something. And they were.

53:39 Luke F. Walton Yeah.

53:39 Bermuda Schwartz I mean, it was really,

53:39 Luke F. Walton Yeah.

53:40 Bermuda Schwartz it was very, very cool.

53:41 Luke F. Walton I never knew that that was part of the reason why bands would do those orchestra. like nice is it makes total sense you're putting them out of work it's a great way to keep them fed

53:49 Bermuda Schwartz Well,

53:50 Luke F. Walton that's

53:50 Bermuda Schwartz I think that and that would happen I think during orchestra season

53:52 Luke F. Walton yeah right right naturally

53:54 Bermuda Schwartz So which

53:54 Luke F. Walton naturally

53:54 Bermuda Schwartz would be summer spring and summer probably in a lot of places Although some bands would go out and they would tour with an orchestra because it's a novel thing,

54:01 Luke F. Walton yeah

54:01 Bermuda Schwartz you know

54:01 Luke F. Walton totally

54:02 Bermuda Schwartz for and

54:02 Luke F. Walton sure for

54:02 Bermuda Schwartz that's

54:02 Luke F. Walton sure exactly

54:03 Bermuda Schwartz that's one deal Or you know or they may target, you know one show and do a special thing and they'll record it You

54:08 Luke F. Walton special

54:08 Bermuda Schwartz know

54:08 Luke F. Walton thing

54:08 Bermuda Schwartz and then that becomes something that becomes a new album of old material in a new in a fresh way and

54:13 Luke F. Walton For sure.

54:14 Bermuda Schwartz and that's kind of what happened with us and the reason we didn't go out and just immediately do that on the very next tour was he already had you know we're already doing the the 2015 and 16 tour and he already knows what we're going to do in 2018 you know he knows we're doing this other thing because he knows we don't have a contract he knows there's not going to be a new album so it's like well we're going to play stuff we know you know we'll change up some songs obviously we have 12 albums worth of songs and 12 i'm sorry 14 albums worth of songs and some extras and uh

54:44 Bermuda Schwartz And he says, you know, well, we'll do that the next tour. So

54:49 Luke F. Walton Yes.

54:49 Bermuda Schwartz 2018 was the self-indulgent vanity tour, the unplugged tour, or the no frills tour, as we called it. And 2019 would become the orchestral tour called No Strings Attached, as opposed to, no, I'm sorry, it was called Strings Attached,

55:06 Luke F. Walton Strings attached.

55:06 Bermuda Schwartz instead of No Strings Attached. Sorry.

55:09 Luke F. Walton No, it's...

55:10 Bermuda Schwartz And then 2020 was to be a year off, and then COVID hit.

55:14 Luke F. Walton Hmm.

55:14 Bermuda Schwartz And we were William Morris at the booking agency. They were starting to put together a tour for 2021, you know, not knowing really what the immediate future held.

55:23 Luke F. Walton Yeah.

55:24 Bermuda Schwartz And we had big plans for 21. And as that got closer, I think maybe at the end of 2020 or early 21, they said, you know what, it's probably... the things just aren't back yet you're probably not going to fill places with people who you know are not going to sit next to each other

55:41 Luke F. Walton inside Right.

55:41 Bermuda Schwartz indoors and stuff like that because we're playing you know larger theaters and stuff like that mostly and uh so they they postponed it and instead uh we went out in 2022 and we went out for six months actually 27 weeks with no breaks not no breaks none zero zip except when Al caught COVID he

56:02 Luke F. Walton Oh,

56:02 Bermuda Schwartz was the first to catch covid about three weeks in and

56:04 Luke F. Walton yeah.

56:05 Bermuda Schwartz we and he's the one guy for which you don't get a sub and it's it's hard enough for any of us to have subs because it's very particular kind of a show that we do yeah

56:15 Bermuda Schwartz Of course. it's a lot of stuff to learn and uh however we all had subs lined up just in case you know but you can't do that for him so we actually sat for i think five days while he till he tested negative positive again till negative again sorry and then we moved on and and And so we missed, I think, four dates, which

56:32 Luke F. Walton Yeah,

56:32 Bermuda Schwartz is not

56:33 Luke F. Walton yeah.

56:33 Bermuda Schwartz bad.

56:34 Luke F. Walton Considerable, but yeah.

56:35 Bermuda Schwartz Yeah. And again, this is, you know, and everyone's vaccinated and all of that, but it's still a big deal.

56:41 Luke F. Walton Still around.

56:41 Bermuda Schwartz Uh Jim catches COVID next. Now, Jim, the original plan was, unless you're just deathly ill, in which case you get your sub to come in, unless you're deathly ill, they separate you from the rest of us, from the rest of the band, so we don't. we're not exposed

56:57 Luke F. Walton Yeah,

56:57 Bermuda Schwartz and

56:58 Luke F. Walton right.

56:58 Bermuda Schwartz you play the show from another room closed off you

57:02 Luke F. Walton Oh my

57:02 Bermuda Schwartz know you

57:02 Luke F. Walton gosh.

57:03 Bermuda Schwartz eat dinner in another room you

57:04 Luke F. Walton Yeah,

57:04 Bermuda Schwartz you don't

57:04 Luke F. Walton yeah, yeah.

57:05 Bermuda Schwartz travel you

57:05 Luke F. Walton You travel play

57:05 Bermuda Schwartz in

57:05 Luke F. Walton the show

57:06 Bermuda Schwartz a separate

57:06 Luke F. Walton from

57:06 Bermuda Schwartz car you

57:06 Luke F. Walton another room.

57:06 Bermuda Schwartz don't travel with us you know

57:07 Luke F. Walton Right,

57:07 Bermuda Schwartz uh

57:08 Luke F. Walton right.

57:08 Bermuda Schwartz and so that worked that worked

57:10 Luke F. Walton Yeah.

57:10 Bermuda Schwartz for a handful of shows and then the the tour manager and the crew realized you know separating you know one of the band members from the rest of the band is fine you know you keep them away from alan the guys but we still have to deal with them now we're exposed exposed you

57:24 Luke F. Walton Mm

57:24 Bermuda Schwartz know

57:24 Luke F. Walton hmm.

57:24 Bermuda Schwartz and then that becomes an issue when one of us you know you don't get subs for us you know you don't get a sub for the sound man there's a lot of hands-on and the monitor guy and the lighting a lot of hands-on in that uh you know they can't afford to have you know any problems and they'd really there's no way they can get a sub together so the protocol changed if you test positive at all no matter no matter how great you feel you do not play you you do not travel with the band you stay where you're at

57:50 Bermuda Schwartz rap until

57:50 Luke F. Walton Hmm.

57:50 Bermuda Schwartz you test negative again uh you know whatever and we test it every night whether we played or not we tested seven nights a week and wherever you test positive after for the band it was after the show you stay there you go back to the hotel and you stay there until you test positive and you and you get your sub lined up and hopefully in time for the next show well keyboard player was the next to to uh get covid and we were in regina canada

58:16 Luke F. Walton I've

58:16 Bermuda Schwartz And

58:16 Luke F. Walton been to Regina.

58:16 Bermuda Schwartz yeah, we, yeah,

58:18 Luke F. Walton It's a random place.

58:19 Bermuda Schwartz yeah.

58:20 Luke F. Walton It's beautiful though. It's small, it's small. Yeah, it's nice.

58:23 Bermuda Schwartz And we, we. he had two subs lined up and

58:29 Luke F. Walton Nice.

58:29 Bermuda Schwartz one of them had gone off and had taken another gig which is you know nobody sitting around waiting for us to get sick but you know you got to you got to cover your butts and then the guy who was available for there was something up with his passport and he couldn't get into couldn't get into Canada

58:42 Luke F. Walton It's Canada is so strict with all that, all

58:45 Bermuda Schwartz well really anywhere

58:45 Luke F. Walton that stuff.

58:46 Bermuda Schwartz I mean these days you almost can't get on a plane you know without a passport if you don't have well they haven't done the the real ID like

58:54 Luke F. Walton Uh

58:54 Bermuda Schwartz they

58:55 Luke F. Walton -huh.

58:55 Bermuda Schwartz have but

58:55 Luke F. Walton Yeah.

58:55 Bermuda Schwartz you know if you have a passport you're okay which is interesting and I'm not going to say why on a public place why my passport is interesting but it's my regular driver's license is more legit than my passport but that's I'm going to leave it at that anyway I mean the passport has some of my names on it anyway so so there was no way to get a sub out and Alan I sat down now says

59:20 Bermuda Schwartz what what can we do without Reben I said most of the songs would

59:24 Luke F. Walton Yeah. Right.

59:25 Bermuda Schwartz be fine without there's a couple

59:27 Luke F. Walton of Yeah.

59:27 Bermuda Schwartz very keyboard centric songs and and you know we just well we just won't do those we had enough songs to choose from and we put together of course we did the next four shows without him which I've sure irked him and we and we we moved we're already back in the States at this point he flies out and meets us at the next show and then you know we resume that well But six weeks later, I get COVID.

59:49 Luke F. Walton Hmm.

59:50 Bermuda Schwartz Now, I had five guys lined up, including some, you know, some great players, some experienced touring, you know, they had to be the right temperament, they obviously they have to play. And I took a lot of things into consideration, they need to be right handed so they can sit down in my But kit,

60:07 Luke F. Walton playing,

60:07 Bermuda Schwartz you know, without

60:07 Luke F. Walton yeah.

60:07 Bermuda Schwartz without changing

60:08 Luke F. Walton Right,

60:08 Bermuda Schwartz their

60:08 Luke F. Walton right.

60:08 Bermuda Schwartz life. There's just all sorts of things. They they got to be roughly my size. I mean, I really said, you know, so they

60:12 Bermuda Schwartz I mean, I really,

60:12 Luke F. Walton Yeah,

60:12 Bermuda Schwartz you know, so they don't have to make a whole lot of changes. So it's a comfortable transition for them. I had the one anomaly, I guess would be I had john Hernandez Vatos from Oingo Boingo.

60:23 Luke F. Walton Mm hmm.

60:23 Bermuda Schwartz was on my list and of course i already i already talked to everyone i said if if this happens if and i don't hopefully not would you be able to come out on essentially no notice you know i'll send you charts i'll send you recordings but could you if you get the call can you just You know, are you available to just walk away from your life?

60:41 Bermuda Schwartz You know, is there someone to take care of the cat, you know, stuff like that. And I chose people like that for that reason that could do that.

60:48 Luke F. Walton They could do it.

60:49 Bermuda Schwartz Christopher Alice, who was Mike Nesmith's drummer, was on the list. Mario Caleri from Ozo Motley and the Wallflowers was on the list.

60:57 Bermuda Schwartz There are a few people. I asked Buddy Carlos from Cheap Trick because I knew he hadn't been touring with them for quite a while.

61:03 Luke F. Walton Yeah,

61:03 Bermuda Schwartz And he wrote

61:03 Luke F. Walton yeah.

61:03 Bermuda Schwartz back. He kindly wrote back. He says, you know, my. my touring days are over but that and and it's interesting because bunny had seen us play a couple of times and one time after after the show he says you know i i couldn't do what you do up

61:15 Luke F. Walton no

61:15 Bermuda Schwartz there because

61:15 Luke F. Walton yeah yeah yeah of

61:16 Bermuda Schwartz he knows i'm tied into the video and all that stuff

61:18 Luke F. Walton course everyone

61:19 Bermuda Schwartz or maybe he might he might have said i wouldn't i wouldn't do what you do you know he might have a better sense of shame than i do i don't know you know the costumes and all the stuff anyway i had i had five guys lined up well my number one guy was an old and of course i've Of course, I've heard them all play. I know all the guys.

61:33 Luke F. Walton Yes.

61:34 Bermuda Schwartz And there was one guy who was kind of always at the top of my list, and I knew wasn't out touring with other bands, and I knew could play the stuff, and I'd known him for like 30 years, and I'd seen him play and knew he would play the parts and not start to evolve them and try to make it his gig,

61:50 Luke F. Walton Right?

61:51 Bermuda Schwartz you know, while he was sitting up there.

61:52 Luke F. Walton Yep.

61:52 Bermuda Schwartz So we're in Ashland, Kentucky playing a theater, and... Uh, it's funny that, that afternoon, that day,

62:01 Luke F. Walton Yeah.

62:01 Bermuda Schwartz I'm not feeling, I sort of felt okay, but my nose was just running all day, like I had an allergy and I don't really have allergies. It was just a very interesting, I knew something just wasn't right. And, and I called him that day. I said, you know are you still you still hanging around you

62:18 Luke F. Walton Mm

62:18 Bermuda Schwartz know because i i don't know for sure but just in case you know there's i you know something's up and i don't know what and if it's covid can you come out like and you know tomorrow he says yeah let me i hope you're okay but let me know so we did the show tested after the show and I tested positive twice and

62:35 Luke F. Walton Oh, yeah.

62:36 Bermuda Schwartz so it's like okay you gotta you know uh is your can your guy come out and I called him it was like 10 30 at night but we're in the same time zone at that time and I called him I said

62:47 Bermuda Schwartz can you come out like there's a show tomorrow can Oh, you come out and he'd been working on the parts i know

62:51 Luke F. Walton he'd yeah.

62:51 Bermuda Schwartz been working on the parts and he says yeah you know and i basically i put him onto the tour manager who got him a plane he was on a so 10 30 at night he was on a plane at 6 in the morning and

63:00 Luke F. Walton Awesome.

63:01 Bermuda Schwartz flew out and

63:02 Luke F. Walton Yeah.

63:03 Bermuda Schwartz and did the show they didn't have to make any changes they didn't have to drop any songs or anything for him uh and he did the next four shows and did a great job and i know he did because i got recordings of those shows

63:12 Luke F. Walton Yes, right.

63:13 Bermuda Schwartz Right. He didn't take even That don't work. things which I don't I don't do and or I try not to Al tries not to make me say and I think he probably sang some stuff you know anyway he he did great so But in the meantime, I'm in Ashland, Kentucky in a hotel room,

63:29 Luke F. Walton Right.

63:29 Bermuda Schwartz just kind of waiting. The next day, the tour manager hooks me up with a rock doc, you know, a rock and roll doctor who was able to get me a prescription for Paxlovin, which there was a drugstore not too far away. And I went out and took a walk down there and got it there and started taking that, you know, the next day, which is what you're supposed to do.

63:49 Luke F. Walton Yep.

63:50 Bermuda Schwartz And basically, I just I stayed in the hotel. The Mm, whole time.

63:53 Luke F. Walton mm-hmm.

63:55 Bermuda Schwartz Anyway, I met up with them in St. Louis. You know, I got to a day where it was like, you know what, I'm almost, I mean, I'm going to be negative tomorrow, you

64:04 Luke F. Walton Yeah.

64:05 Bermuda Schwartz know, and they said, okay, fly out, we'll get you a flight, fly out. let us know how you test that

64:11 Luke F. Walton Mm hmm.

64:12 Bermuda Schwartz morning and

64:12 Luke F. Walton Mm hmm.

64:13 Bermuda Schwartz if you if you're completely negative you

64:15 Luke F. Walton Yep.

64:15 Bermuda Schwartz do the show that night st louis will send nick home and so you i was there tested completely negative let them know so they went ahead and booked nick on a flight but in the meantime i got to sit down with him for about an hour at the hotel and just sort of catch up with him he had moved to nashville from la years ago and i hadn't really spent much time with him in a while so we got to just sit and chat and catch up a little bit i thanked him profusely for

64:37 Bermuda Schwartz you know working on the parts so the guys Al was was really really appreciative that I had done my homework and had somebody like they didn't miss any time at all I mean they just went on did the next show which you know would not have happened with the other guys and he was he really thought I had done a great job I said you know I just I picked the right guy who did a great job he did his homework you know I just I made the choice but he he's the one that pulled it off so in the meantime I've I talked to him recently I said you know

65:08 Bermuda Schwartz You know, again, I don't know what the protocols are going to be next time, but just for any reason, I mean, if I break my arm or fall out of a plane or something, you know, would you be willing to

65:18 Bermuda Schwartz Yeah. come back out and sit in or resume the tour? I mean, if that happens, he says, oh, absolutely, I would love to do that. So I've got one guy lined up next time and I'll line up, you know, one or two more just in case, but that's not something we've ever had to do before. That's not something we thought of. And in the end. Everyone on the band bus in

65:37 Luke F. Walton mm the-hmm

65:37 Bermuda Schwartz end

65:37 Luke F. Walton wow

65:37 Bermuda Schwartz had caught COVID at some point. With Steve J,

65:41 Luke F. Walton right

65:41 Bermuda Schwartz it happened after the tour. He caught it later. And nobody on the crew bus did, which is very interesting because they interacted with local crew people five times a week. And we only interacted with ourselves and the crew. But somehow everyone in the band bus, and nobody got released. Actually, Steve got it. Sick,

66:03 Bermuda Schwartz Okay. but nobody got really, Yeah. really sick. So that's, you know, that's thanks to the vaccines, I'm sure, that help. When we went back out, this is, we wrapped up at Carnegie Hall, actually, at the end of October in 2022. Pretty cool gig. We played the Kennedy Center that year.

66:18 Luke F. Walton I

66:18 Bermuda Schwartz did

66:18 Luke F. Walton understand.

66:18 Bermuda Schwartz some really prestigious places it was Yes. very cool and

66:21 Luke F. Walton Yes.

66:22 Bermuda Schwartz again this was the unplugged tour this was not with the orchestra

66:24 Luke F. Walton Yes,

66:25 Bermuda Schwartz with the orchestra we played some very cool venues for that we had to we had to play big stages

66:29 Luke F. Walton exactly.

66:29 Bermuda Schwartz we

66:30 Luke F. Walton Otherwise,

66:30 Bermuda Schwartz played Red Rocks outside of Denver sold out Red Rocks you know pretty cool so we went back out and we did the European and Australia tour in February and March of 23 and then we also made up But for the four dates that Al missed,

66:47 Luke F. Walton Yeah.

66:47 Bermuda Schwartz we made, which were sort of in the upper Midwest, kind of like Michigan, I think one in Illinois, maybe one in Indiana, something like that. We did those and we added a date as well while we were at it.

66:58 Bermuda Schwartz So we did five dates in the States at the beginning of February of that year and then went on to I think we started in Dublin, Ireland, was our beginning of almost four weeks in Europe, which is played a bunch of places we never played there before. played the london palladium while we were

67:13 Bermuda Schwartz Oh, there uh awesome. just very cool very fun tour and had some days off in some cool places had

67:18 Bermuda Schwartz I a got love to get that. a day off in dusseldorf which actually was pretty cool

67:21 Bermuda Schwartz Awesome. uh it was just it was they played Yeah. vienna for the first time i played in germany for the first time berlin dusseldorf hamburg hamburg was great enjoyed hamburg a lot And then went to Australia. Anyway, so for this, we were out for almost eight weeks. And on that tour was a 180 from the one before.

67:40 Bermuda Schwartz There were really no COVID protocols. In other words, it's not, you know, stay out of restaurants and wear a mask when you're near anybody and stuff like that. It was like, you know, do what you want to do, but we're not going to enforce any protocols.

67:52 Bermuda Schwartz You know, I brought tests along just to see where I was at the whole time. At any rate, and I brought, I always wear masks on planes. range still

67:58 Luke F. Walton Mm-hmm. Yep.

67:59 Bermuda Schwartz do and but I brought some tests along and I just tested throughout the entire tour I was like No problem. Whatever

68:08 Luke F. Walton we Yeah.

68:08 Bermuda Schwartz were doing, we were doing it right.

68:09 Luke F. Walton Yeah.

68:09 Bermuda Schwartz Nobody got sick. We did fine.

68:14 Luke F. Walton Yeah.

68:14 Bermuda Schwartz Not sure how that's going to play out on future tours.

68:17 Luke F. Walton For sure.

68:17 Bermuda Schwartz I think

68:18 Luke F. Walton You never know.

68:19 Bermuda Schwartz I'm always going to wear a mask on a plane from now on.

68:21 Luke F. Walton I get it. It can be pretty gross.

68:23 Bermuda Schwartz But I'm going to stay vaxxed up and stay current with all of that stuff and do my best to... to not catch COVID again and again I didn't have a tough time with it I just would rather have not had

68:33 Luke F. Walton Yes,

68:33 Bermuda Schwartz it I

68:34 Luke F. Walton of course.

68:34 Bermuda Schwartz would rather have done those shows

68:36 Luke F. Walton Yeah,

68:36 Bermuda Schwartz and

68:36 Luke F. Walton of course.

68:37 Bermuda Schwartz uh but I did get sick pay I did get paid for that week so

68:40 Luke F. Walton That's

68:40 Bermuda Schwartz it's not good. it's

68:40 Luke F. Walton That's

68:41 Bermuda Schwartz not like it

68:41 Luke F. Walton good.

68:41 Bermuda Schwartz cost me anything in

68:42 Luke F. Walton Right.

68:42 Bermuda Schwartz fact it cost Al because he had to pay he

68:44 Luke F. Walton Yeah.

68:44 Bermuda Schwartz had to fly the other guy back and forth he had to fly me because I was going to be on the bus otherwise uh it cost him you know he paid a fair bit out of his pocket he had to sing a few songs to afford that That

68:55 Luke F. Walton Yeah, right.

68:56 Bermuda Schwartz was

68:56 Luke F. Walton Well, but anyway,

68:57 Bermuda Schwartz our

68:57 Luke F. Walton that's a really

68:58 Bermuda Schwartz COVID experience.

68:59 Luke F. Walton great just kind of general lesson for what life on the road looks like, you know, having contingencies, maintaining your health, you know, minimizing risk, and also, you know, trying to build a community because it's always a little dangerous to call in somebody to sub because like you're saying, if they have the wrong personality, they might try to sow division or gonna take the gig or devolve

69:24 Bermuda Schwartz Well,

69:24 Luke F. Walton parts into certain

69:24 Bermuda Schwartz yeah.

69:24 Luke F. Walton you know there's people exist it's

69:27 Bermuda Schwartz yeah

69:27 Luke F. Walton it's all good

69:27 Bermuda Schwartz I mean, the personality issue was more a case of I just wanted them to be able to get along with the guys.

69:31 Luke F. Walton perfect

69:32 Bermuda Schwartz And

69:32 Luke F. Walton yep

69:32 Bermuda Schwartz we're all pretty easygoing. I mean, there's not any, you know, any real jerks in the organization, you know, we because everyone has to everyone's together like 24 seven, you can't have people that are ruffling feathers.

69:43 Luke F. Walton and that's why you had longevity that's why you've been

69:45 Bermuda Schwartz Well,

69:46 Luke F. Walton working together

69:46 Bermuda Schwartz so

69:46 Luke F. Walton so

69:46 Bermuda Schwartz we've had, well, longevity in the band. This has been yep the same band since the first album since 1982.

69:51 Bermuda Schwartz that's beautiful And with the exception of sort of keyboard players coming and going, so we don't really count them. We count this guy that's been with us coming up on 33 years. He's our touring keyboardist. But the core band has been the same this whole time. And there's only one other band that's been together with the same guys and still working longer than us, and that's U2.

70:13 Luke F. Walton no way That's a great anecdote.

70:16 Bermuda Schwartz And I think their last album was a number one album also.

70:19 Luke F. Walton Hmm.

70:19 Bermuda Schwartz So although

70:20 Luke F. Walton There's something there.

70:20 Bermuda Schwartz they're still, I think they're still making albums. That's

70:23 Luke F. Walton Uh

70:23 Bermuda Schwartz the only

70:23 Luke F. Walton -huh.

70:23 Bermuda Schwartz difference between them and us. But

70:24 Luke F. Walton Yeah.

70:24 Bermuda Schwartz as far as still out there working and

70:26 Luke F. Walton Yeah.

70:26 Bermuda Schwartz the same guys from day one,

70:28 Luke F. Walton Cool.

70:28 Bermuda Schwartz it's us and them.

70:30 Luke F. Walton Yeah. I love that.

70:31 Bermuda Schwartz So not bad, not

70:33 Luke F. Walton Not

70:34 Bermuda Schwartz bad.

70:34 Luke F. Walton bad. On that note, Bermuda, I want to ask you one final question. This is one of my favorite little parts of the episode. So the show is called Love Music More, and we call this segment Love Music Why. And really, this is just an opportunity to talk about why do you love music after all these years? Why do you wake up excited to work, to play, to collaborate?

70:56 Luke F. Walton What is it about music that keeps you going, keeps you excited? Why do you love it?

71:03 Bermuda Schwartz Uh, I guess I just love music.

71:08 Luke F. Walton Mm-hmm.

71:08 Bermuda Schwartz I mean, that's, that's it. I mean, it makes me feel good. It makes me feel good to hear music. It makes me feel good to play music. I mean, that's why I can play and I'm in a number of bands here in LA. I always have been.

71:20 Bermuda Schwartz And, you know, of course, when I'm on the road, I they defer to al they have to you know they uh and they all go get subs and you know and i come back to town and i come back in to these bands uh so i've yet to be replaced in any of these bands uh and some of them i've been with for many many years there's one guy i've been playing with for since 1981 and still work with him uh you know i i enjoy playing i just enjoy playing drums and and i am happy i'm fine playing in front of 5 000 people

71:50 Bermuda Schwartz or or 50 people you know or five people well not five 50 you know no I mean I it doesn't matter you know I can play a bar or I can play Red Rocks and it's really you know it's it's the behind the kit it's the same to me I mean I enjoy it the same and that's just because I enjoy playing drums and I play all sorts of different music that I might not listen to otherwise and I enjoy it because I'm playing drums you know and I just I enjoy it I think and that's why I love music

72:20 Bermuda Schwartz I love that. No, I think that's special just that you It makes makes me feel good, you know.

72:25 Bermuda Schwartz you feel good and it makes other people feel good to experience it and the community that you're in to play it with other people. I mean, all that's really powerful and I love the perspective of, you know, it's all music, be it in punk rock or otherwise, it's all music and keeping that joy and keeping that perspective, which can be really difficult, I think, especially from an artist's perspective.

72:45 Bermuda Schwartz You know, it's one last thing about it's all music, you know, a lot of people, a lot of musicians, a lot of. artists you

72:51 Bermuda Schwartz Mm. know who play a real instrument you know are just down on all of this sequence program stuff you know and a lot of the rap and hip-hop and stuff and I have

73:02 Bermuda Schwartz I have a different perspective on it because I've listened to a lot of this stuff because we've gone in and parodied a lot of this stuff.

73:08 Bermuda Schwartz Right, yeah. Now, that's, you know, Al may make up funny words, but I mean, my business is serious and I have to go in and I have to dissect and I have to listen and I have to study and I know what goes into these productions. I know very, very well what it takes to do that. It's not somebody just slapping together a bunch of sounds. There's a lot.

73:27 Bermuda Schwartz a lot of work that goes into it uh you know maybe not as much work as i put in trying to figure out what they did but there's there's a lot that goes into it so i have i have a real appreciation for for a lot of stuff uh the super bowl the usher and and all of that stuff i have a real appreciation for what it takes to make those songs for what it takes to put on a production like that you know it's it's a show it's entertainment i mean it

73:55 Bermuda Schwartz You know, that's what the Super Bowl has become, and that's okay. You know, it's just you got to be at that level, and that's what these Super Bowl shows are. That's what these halftime shows are. They're at another level, and I appreciate what they do to do that, and so I can watch it, and I can enjoy it, and it may or may not be music I listen to.

74:14 Bermuda Schwartz You know, but I enjoy it and I listen to it. Maybe I'm sitting there dissecting it. I don't know what it is, but I'm in it and I'm engrossed in it and I know what it takes to do that stuff. And it's not just throw away, slap together simple stuff. And a lot of these musicians who create, you know, serious stuff don't understand that someone else pushing buttons and manipulating files is also creating.

74:41 Bermuda Schwartz it's it's not as easy as they think you Yeah. know and and it's uh and i know that i know that very very well so i have i have an appreciation for both sides do i have a preference no because i like playing drums or making drum sounds whatever it takes to make drum sounds i like doing that and so that's i'm good with with either way thank

75:03 Bermuda Schwartz That's great perspective. Well, thank you so much for me to really appreciate the conversation.

75:07 Bermuda Schwartz you so much Okay.

75:08 Luke F. Walton Oh.