An Interview with Jay Jay French

3:51 Luke F. Walton What's good, everybody? I am Scoobert Doobert, and welcome back to Love Music More. I am joined with Jay Jay French from the band Twisted Sister. I'm so excited to talk to you about your love of music. Welcome to the show.

4:05 Jay Jay French Thank you. Thank you for having me.

4:06 Luke F. Walton Yeah, it's my pleasure. So first hard hitting question that I wanted to ask. What do you really think about disco? Like really, heart of hearts.

4:14 Jay Jay French First, let me just say I'd like to thank Melissa for hooking us up.

4:17 Luke F. Walton Yes.

4:18 Jay Jay French Okay.

4:18 Luke F. Walton Yes.

4:19 Jay Jay French I, you know, I've known Melissa for many, many years, incredibly talented musician. I've known her since she was like 15 years old. I've mentored her and I'd like to thank her for making this connection. Okay. What do I think of disco? You know, the problem with disco had nothing to do with the music per se. It had to do with the impact it was having on the clubs.

4:38 Jay Jay French clubs were playing in at the time it was an economic situation that we were faced with a calamity as a matter of fact because if you were playing in the bars in the new york area especially back in those days and it's probably impossible for people outside of new york to fathom how big the bars were and how successful you could be playing quote cover material but the bars held up to 5 000 people these are bars these are not clubs these are not professional places

5:06 Jay Jay French These are bars that people would go and drink, you know, and off nights, maybe there'd be three or 400 people on weekends, maybe up to 5,000. It's a massive market in the tri-state area. What was happening was when disco hit the club owners.

5:20 Jay Jay French who didn't like rock to begin with and were forced to take us as the decade switched from the 60s to the 70s. And a lot of these were old school guys who owned the bars back when they had doo-wop bands and, you know, like 50s bands. I mean, the first shows we ever opened was for Little Anthony and the Imperials and the Coasters, to give you an idea.

5:42 Jay Jay French Anyway, you know, they were grudgingly dragged into the rock world, grudgingly dragged into the glam world. But, you know, they were making money, right? So they didn't care. They were making money. They didn't like the way our fans dressed, ripped jeans, sneakers. So when disco came with the three-piece suit and nice cars, a lot of them went, hey, let's get rid of these rock bands, you know, put disco in.

6:07 Jay Jay French So they started closing a lot of the rooms off to the rock acts. And that's where we got annoyed because it was a class issue for us. It was purely a class issue, had nothing to do with a racial issue because everybody, frankly.

6:18 Jay Jay French i mean it was long island it was like the audience was 90 white on both sides it didn't matter 95 probably but people were coming in with nice suits and stuff you know and all talking like john travolta and they didn't like rock and roll and our fans didn't like disco because it represented a cultural thing they didn't like you know so i personally didn't bother me you know you have to remember it ruled the radio yeah i mean you couldn't hit top 40 radio without hearing disco after disco hit after

6:45 Jay Jay French hit after disco hit after disco hit studio 54 became a symbol of everything and so we targeted the disco and the era and all that just because of the way that we were being treated as rock musicians i'll give you an idea of

6:59 Luke F. Walton Yep.

6:59 Jay Jay French how bad it got there was a club called uncle sam's which was a disco in long island

7:07 Jay Jay French and they prided themselves on being a disco but when new wave came in they grudgingly had to start having new wave nights so instead of changing the name of the room which a lot of these rooms did they went back and forth and changed the name they had a back door to the parking lot and

7:27 Luke F. Walton Okay.

7:27 Jay Jay French it was and they named the back door spit and the disco kids come on the front door which is a pretty entrance and the

7:36 Jay Jay French Yeah, rock musicians had to walk through a back door called spit does that kind of give you an idea

7:41 Jay Jay French yeah. of how bad it was and the club owners had a but but except for that room the club owners had a binary choice rock

7:50 Jay Jay French or disco rock they wouldn't mix the two they really didn't want to mix the two i guess they didn't want to confuse the issue i guess if they were hiring djs they they had to pay the dj so they couldn't afford to go back and forth so we saw rooms go from disco to rock to disco to rock and every time they shut down a rock room for disco it hurt us financially that's what the issue was the music itself was look disco's pop music it's i'm a pop music guy

8:18 Jay Jay French You know, I don't hate the Bee Gees. I interviewed the producer of the Bee Gees documentary on my podcast, the Jay Jay French Connection. You want to hear how I really feel? You should listen to that podcast, actually, because Frank Marshall, one of the most famous producers in the history of Hollywood, produced the Bee Gees documentary.

8:37 Jay Jay French I was blown away by the Bee Gees documentary. I was blown away by the fact that they were as overwhelmed by the disco thing like they got pigeonholed. hold you know they're

8:45 Luke F. Walton Yes.

8:45 Jay Jay French a pop group right they're

8:47 Luke F. Walton Right.

8:47 Jay Jay French they're a great pop group not just a good pop group one of the greatest pop groups of all time they make this record says trillion copies and all of a sudden It's like a typecast actor. You can't get out of it. So they weren't happy about that either, you know. So it made me much more empathetic to the dilemma they were in, you know, as musician to musician. Let's

9:08 Luke F. Walton Totally.

9:09 Jay Jay French just be fair.

9:09 Luke F. Walton Yep.

9:10 Jay Jay French Musician to musician. Most of the pure musicians that I knew at the time had no grudge against it. A job is a job. A gig is a gig.

9:19 Luke F. Walton Yeah.

9:19 Jay Jay French But this was the cultural issue. I hope that kind of helps you. To understand what was going on

9:24 Luke F. Walton That does. That does. And that segues to what I really want to talk about and kind of the core that I want to have come across to the listeners because I was just watching your documentary last night, We're Twisted Fucking Sister. I was struck by the professional musician at the core of all of this, where there is an outside perspective, maybe a surface level perspective.

9:45 Luke F. Walton of the music that you've made and the image that you've cultivated that is very well known thanks in part to all of your time on MTV and then there's the backstory how many shows have you played at this point yeah

9:59 Jay Jay French Before the record deal was signed, we went through several personnel changes, but the name Twisted Sister, with me in it, beginning... March of 73. I had played over 7,500 shows before the record deal. He came in and Eddie came in three years after. And when I say 7,500, people say, how do you arrive at that figure?

10:22 Jay Jay French Mm Well, -hmm. it's very simple. The math is very simple. We averaged three shows a night for 250 nights a year. Add that up. It's like thousands and thousands of shows. And people say, well, it's like sets. No, it's not. We were a show band. Every set was.

10:36 Jay Jay French was a performance every set was a change of clothing every set was a different approach to the set and and frankly if you read the history of led zeppelin or the who they talk about their how many shows they played if they played one television show and played one song that was a show

10:53 Luke F. Walton Mm-hmm. Mm

10:54 Jay Jay French Who

10:54 Luke F. Walton -hmm.

10:54 Jay Jay French played the Murray the K Easter show in 1967, which you can't possibly fathom what that was like because it was rock reviews. This is before bands headlined theaters. They were part of 10 band reviews. So the Who and Cream were part of a 10 band review in which they were the opening artists in 1967 when no one knew who they were and each band played two songs and each.

11:20 Jay Jay French show went on every 90 minutes seven shows a day for nine days 63 shows changing the audience each time i was reading the the diary of the who they go we played 63 shows in seven days well in fact they played

11:37 Jay Jay French two songs every 90 minutes you know like seven times a day so you can make and say well it's only 14 songs well whatever you know guess what they made they had to go on stage and do a show even if the show was two songs i saw them they smashed up their gear that means they smashed up their gear

11:53 Luke F. Walton Oh, every my God.

11:54 Jay Jay French every and

11:55 Luke F. Walton Oh

11:55 Jay Jay French then i met

11:55 Luke F. Walton my

11:55 Jay Jay French i

11:55 Luke F. Walton god.

11:56 Jay Jay French met roger daltrey years later and i asked him i

11:58 Luke F. Walton Yeah.

11:59 Jay Jay French said i was at the money the case show i saw pete townsend destroying amplifier and he said to me how old were you i said i was 14 he goes ah you're so naive and i said what do you mean he said well we couldn't possibly afford to destroy all the equipment so we had a special amplifier cabinet made with no speaker in that corner but with a grill so we just kept going so pete would go through a hole

12:20 Jay Jay French oh and he wasn't destroying anything i'm

12:22 Luke F. Walton Oh, that's awesome.

12:23 Jay Jay French like me i'm like whoa man he just went through an amplifier grill right there you go so they played 63 shows so yes we played thousands and and d came in in 76 with eddie i say probably d was well i can tell you someone asked me a kid with a new band said you know basically would i come and see his band and i said how long you've been together and he said two years and i said how many shows have you played he goes a lot

12:47 Jay Jay French a lot man 50 shows he says 50 and i went whoa okay this is recently how long are your shows like 40 minutes i have 40 minutes okay so you play 50 in two two yeah that's a lot right he goes yeah i said well when you get to 500 call me and i'll come and see you and he goes what do you mean man i said well you're gonna suck until you hit about 500 and i don't have time to watch you suck so

13:07 Luke F. Walton Yeah.

13:07 Jay Jay French when he goes we'll never do 500 then he says to me how many shows you do I said, well, pal, I hate to tell you, but in the first 30 months of the band's career, which went from March 73 to September 75, I played 3,245 45-minute shows. So if the question is, how do you get good at what you do, you got to do it. a lot.

13:36 Luke F. Walton Beautiful. I've got some big news, everybody. My vinyl record is out. We didn't make a ton of these. These guys are going to sell out and I'd love for you to get your hands on one of them because they're so dope. They're so dope. And it comes with a whole bunch of like liner notes and pictures and special stuff, the things that really went into making this record.

13:55 Luke F. Walton And I want you to get your hands on it. So go to scoobertdoobert.pizza or check out my Instagram for a link or click the link in the.

14:04 Luke F. Walton the show notes or the bio or wherever you're watching this to pick up your copy you know they're gonna sell out we really did not make very many of these and I want you to have it it's it's like a collector's item so thank you thank you for supporting my music and I can't wait for you to hear it actually on physical vinyl enjoy the rest of the episode

14:22 Luke F. Walton then that that's what i that's what i'm looking for right there because i think that's such a tangible thing regardless if you make music whatever you do actually hitting rubber hits the road getting out there and it's also kind of fun for me as you know musician in 2024 trying to break it almost feels like hearing about pitchers in the mlb that would like yeah it's 15 we went in extra innings i just i pitched no hitter and played the whole game you know it's like that that energy that is uh almost mythical mythical

14:50 Luke F. Walton Oh, and

14:51 Jay Jay French Yeah,

14:51 Luke F. Walton I, I'm

14:51 Jay Jay French but what they didn't tell you was how many innings they pitched prior to that no-hitter. How many, you know, since they were 10 years old, you know, the father had them out on the t-ball range, right? Look, I don't care if it's rock and roll or an Olympic gold medal for skiing or a violent first chair at Carnegie Hall. You only get there after you've done it.

15:14 Jay Jay French thousands and thousands and thousands of times now can you have a hit record out of nowhere yes that's the weirdness of my industry can you win american idol and have a hit record maybe yeah You can, but you know, when you do that, it's almost a disservice to yourself because

15:34 Luke F. Walton Hmm.

15:34 Jay Jay French you're being told you're great before you're really great. And then you start believing your own hype and then you don't work hard enough. You know, when I watch a winner of American Idol, thank.

15:47 Jay Jay French the fans for sticking with them for 15 weeks i almost have to fall off my chair because when we thank our fans in a festival i say thanks for sticking with us for 50 years you know it's like it's a whole different thing and we've gone up and down and up and down and you know it's kind of like it's a tough business it's really really hard but to be great at anything you got to do it a lot and and i will tell you this i wrote a book called twisted business and and i talk about

16:14 Jay Jay French out the boredom of excellence and someone said what is the boredom of excellence i said the guy that wins the gold medal for skiing downhill has been doing it or the woman since they were probably eight or nine they're up at five o'clock in the morning almost every day practicing and now they're 28 and they win a gold medal because they've done the downhill eight billion times in solitary

16:39 Jay Jay French with nobody watching you know just like doing it the person who's the first chair violinist at Carnegie Hall you can bet has been playing since they were seven or eight years old practicing four hours a day learning their craft to be great over and over again where most people just go hey man like that's not me you know I want to sit on my couch with a remote control and watch a football game I'm not going to sit there and do that well guess what that's fine

17:04 Jay Jay French The world needs people to buy tickets for it,

17:06 Luke F. Walton Mm

17:06 Jay Jay French but

17:07 Luke F. Walton -hmm.

17:07 Jay Jay French the world needs people to be those people. And those people tend to be the winners. But, you know, you can do all that and still not win. And there's plenty of those. So I get it. I get it. It's all risk. But it just depends on how bad you want it.

17:25 Luke F. Walton The perseverance that you showed through all of those gigs, and there's a lot that I want to unpack in it, but maybe we touch on that first. I was taking the note about when you had these different moments where it's like, here's the big break, here's the big show, we are booking out, we're not going to play for two months in the surrounding tri-state area and we're going to finally play Manhattan.

17:47 Luke F. Walton That's going to be the big show, only to be stymied by a grand mal seizure. Beyond how that rippled out, but how did it feel? What was that like being in that moment on the precipice of what you've been grinding for, for, you know, 7,500 gigs and it's postponed?

18:08 Jay Jay French Awful.

18:09 Luke F. Walton Yeah.

18:10 Jay Jay French I mean, we had already overcome a whole lot of rejections at that point. And the rejection has gotten more dramatic as, you know, it's kind of like when you go to the Super Bowl, you have to keep winning those playoff games and you get and then finally you get to the big game and then you lose the big game. It's like the pain of getting to that point is excruciating and then you lose.

18:30 Luke F. Walton Right.

18:31 Jay Jay French So that night was the pinnacle of a particular era of the band's bar career that was culminating in that particular night we famously. When people said to me, why don't you play CBGBs? I said, we're too big for all those places. We don't need to go to those places. We're selling out 5,000 seat bars. Why am I coming in Manhattan to play? You know, nothing against CBs or anything, but that's not us.

18:55 Jay Jay French We're better than that. We sell out the Palladium. No one ever did that before. Biggest night of our career and bingo, epileptic seizure in the dressing room after the soundcheck, cancel the show. It was hard. I mean, it was painful. And because I don't drink and I don't do drugs, you deal with the pain head on. I learned some lessons from that.

19:19 Jay Jay French I'd learned lessons from the other setbacks, but I did learn a lesson. You know, I managed an artist who wrote a gospel song.

19:25 Jay Jay French And in this gospel song, there's a line in the song, and I happen to think it's one of the best lines I ever heard in the song, because it echoes the whole thing of when the going gets tough, the tough get going. It's not how many times you get knocked down, it's how many times you get back up. It's all these cliches, and they're all wonderful, and they're written for a reason.

19:43 Jay Jay French And his line was, when the roof caves in, it lets the sunshine in. That was his line. So the question you have to say to yourself, what gives you the strength of character to go on? after that and

19:54 Luke F. Walton Mm-hmm.

19:54 Jay Jay French I developed this teaching method which I talk about when I do my motivational speaking which you can hire me as your speaker because of my book The Twisted Method of Reinvention in which I said, here's what we did.

20:09 Jay Jay French We didn't know we were doing this. We didn't know what I'm about to explain to you is I didn't know that we did this, but in looking and keeping diaries, this was the process by which we overcame every single setback. First, we acknowledged and mourned the setback because you can't deny it. It happened. You get over that.

20:27 Jay Jay French Then you retool. In other words, you think about what happened, why it happened, and what you could do to improve the next opportunity that comes up. First you mourn it, then you reflect on it. That's really the key. You reflect first and then you have to do a lot of soul searching. You have to be honest with yourself.

20:44 Jay Jay French Then you have to retool your product and then you have to reapply the new retooling. And that's really what we did over and over and over again. In this particular case, the only retooling was we had to come up with another date and then we described exactly what happened with that setback. But the point is that almost all the time that we took the hit, we mourned it, we reflected on it.

21:04 Jay Jay French and then we retooled ourselves better songs better demos better this better that better show and then we reapplied those tools that we had at our disposal and we did this over and over again and i can't tell you we did it because we were geniuses in knowing that this was the process but i will say that me and d and mark and eddie especially because we went through a lot of drummers We kept saying to ourselves,

21:31 Jay Jay French how can we be so popular and suck at the same time? How can we not get a deal if we're this popular? I can understand no one showing up at the clubs, but if we're playing 250 nights a year within a 50-mile radius of Manhattan, selling out almost every single night, year after year after year after year, playing to 1,000 people, 1,200 people, 1,500 people, 2,000 people, 2,500, I mean the clubs were gigantic.

21:53 Jay Jay French Well, that means you're doing something right, and we believed in ourselves, so you have to believe in yourself, but you also have to be really...

21:58 Jay Jay French really clear-eyed about it you know no band you know how you go see a band go they suck you know they suck well no band says to themselves we suck everyone thinks you're good everyone you have to believe in yourself but you also have to be realistic maybe you do suck you know like just because someone says you suck doesn't mean you don't suck you could suck and then figure out why you sucked

22:19 Jay Jay French So in many of the cases, because we had such success on the local level, it was hard to figure out why we sucked.

22:25 Luke F. Walton Yeah.

22:26 Jay Jay French Because if we sucked, why would these people keep coming back night after night after night? Remember, this is a fishbowl we're in, 50 mile radius of Manhattan, hundreds of bars, drinking age was 18.

22:36 Jay Jay French 15 year old kids are getting into the fake proof we did retool reapply we did the show again and of course that led to another calamity which is described in the movie we are twisted fucking sister which is available on thunderflix which is an online heavy metal video service

22:50 Luke F. Walton It's a really good video service too.

22:53 Jay Jay French great service basically

22:54 Luke F. Walton Yeah.

22:54 Jay Jay French you know based on the cable worldwide go on thunderflix you have a million artists million bands and you watch our story and you'll see how that story goes but that story takes you To a certain point, my book, Twisted Business, takes you to a more fuller picture of

23:09 Luke F. Walton Yes.

23:09 Jay Jay French the whole story because it gets much crazier. I mean, you can almost pick any story in the book and go, could it get any crazier than that? And the answer is, it does. And it doesn't stop. And people always say to me, how do you consistently come back? And a couple of times we didn't. Or a couple of times we really took a long time. You know, after the band dissolved in 87, it took 12 years to reassemble that.

23:38 Luke F. Walton Mm-hmm.

23:39 Jay Jay French I had taken it to its absolute end.

23:42 Luke F. Walton Yeah.

23:42 Jay Jay French You know, if you look at any business, I don't care what the business is. And you look at the challenges that businesses have, apart from the success a business may have, a business is faced with four states of mind. Challenges.

23:55 Jay Jay French crises catastrophes and the nuclear option so what is that a challenge is this crap that happens every day truck shows up late you know band members sick whatever a crisis is someone's really ill maybe and or there's an accident your stuff gets stolen that's crisis catastrophe well think of it like a plane that's flying you

24:19 Luke F. Walton Yeah.

24:19 Jay Jay French know you've got turbulence right you have so a little turbulence is mild and they got more and you got more and the catastrophic turbulence is basically you know you're going down hopefully the pilot can get out of it before you're dead and then there's the nuclear option which is you have to destroy everything to rebuild and i was taken to that point in the book i describe it i was taken to the nuclear option where everything had to be destroyed to be rebuilt

24:41 Luke F. Walton Mm

24:41 Jay Jay French and

24:42 Luke F. Walton -hmm.

24:42 Jay Jay French it came back and much to our satisfaction and history it came back bigger than it ever was but you go through hell with that you know and again why the character me d mark mendoza we don't do drugs and drink like we had a very straight band which means it was all business you know it was business business business any any aj they a couple beers here and there but but they were all focused we're all focused in

25:09 Jay Jay French the image was that we're crazy right

25:11 Luke F. Walton But

25:11 Jay Jay French the image

25:12 Luke F. Walton yeah

25:12 Jay Jay French is which was the fucking system we must be on every drug on the planet in fact we were not only not on any drug but we couldn't hang out with artists who were not for any reason that has to do with legality or morality we just didn't it just wasn't my thing man my and it wasn't these thing it wasn't Mark's thing and when it's not your thing to party

25:36 Jay Jay French Why are you partying? Why are you hanging out with these guys? Everybody wants to get drunk and party. I take nothing away from all the bands that succeeded doing that because they obviously figured it out.

25:45 Luke F. Walton Yes.

25:45 Jay Jay French The Mottlies, the Van Halen's, the Sabbath's, they all did, you know, during more or less degrees. I don't pass judgment on any of them. That's just not how we functioned. We functioned with a business model. That was how we functioned. And again, I'm not telling you that business model was predetermined. it evolved and

26:04 Luke F. Walton Yes.

26:04 Jay Jay French it evolved if you watch the documentary because the first version of the band was full of alcohol raging

26:10 Luke F. Walton Yes.

26:11 Jay Jay French alcoholics and i was not a drinker never have been a drinker so i didn't know anything about alcoholism i would i here's what i thought when i was 20 years old okay I'm joining a band called Twisted Sister. Me and Kenny, the bass player, were the last two guys hired on the same day, right? December 20th, 1972. The singer, the guitar player, the drummer, they like to drink.

26:34 Jay Jay French But I was never surrounded by drinkers in New York City because all my friends were druggies. They were drug addicts, heroin addicts, and nobody drank. Believe it or not, no one drank. They would do every drug in the world, but nobody drank. So I didn't know what alcoholism was like. But if you read all the stories on the Rolling Stones and all these bands, everyone's like drunk.

26:51 Jay Jay French I figured, okay, that's rock and roll. Looks cool. Keith Richards is cool, you know, stumbling around. And I'm buying it 100% buying into the whole myth. So I'm figuring they drink, big deal.

27:00 Jay Jay French I don't care they drink as long as they can perform I don't care but lo and behold alcohol use led to the demise of the band and a drunken bar fight which is described in the movie and confronted with that two years into the band's career

27:21 Jay Jay French I was faced with a dilemma, which was get out of the business or find people that didn't drink and do drugs. Try

27:25 Luke F. Walton Mm-hmm.

27:26 Jay Jay French to find people that don't drink and do drugs in this business.

27:28 Luke F. Walton The music business,

27:29 Jay Jay French I

27:29 Luke F. Walton right.

27:29 Jay Jay French mean, try to find that. It's like trying to find a Jehovah Witness in Las Vegas,

27:33 Luke F. Walton Mm.

27:33 Jay Jay French you know, it ain't happening. I mean, it calls for people like that because it's the myth of who that is.

27:42 Luke F. Walton Yeah, it's not a normal career. It's not a nine to five. It's somebody that wants to live. an alternative lifestyle.

27:48 Jay Jay French Like an outlaw biker in a way.

27:50 Luke F. Walton Right.

27:50 Jay Jay French You're living outside the margins, you know? I get it. i get that you live outside the margins you're like living an outlaw lifestyle you

27:59 Luke F. Walton Mm

27:59 Jay Jay French know you're an entrepreneur because musicians are entrepreneurs you're living in an out an outlaw lifestyle but that's not how we conducted our business we didn't conduct our business like an outlaw lifestyle and we made the appearance that we did because that's what you sell but that wasn't us and therein lies the The story, really.

28:20 Luke F. Walton And a key part of that is the story of doing it the hard way, of going through the industry rather than the elevator ride of auditioning for a label and then getting placed or something like that. You did all of these things on your own. And it's interesting, too, that you were kind of the calm in that storm all around you, that as the band evolves, and this is what I wanted to talk to you next.

28:45 Luke F. Walton Knowing two things. When is it time to move on from a band member and how do you know like

28:53 Luke F. Walton who's next up how do you know okay that person will work from the scene or this person's added to the rolodex how did you navigate that because yeah you had a lot of lineup changes and you were the sole you know you were the rock in the storm that weathered through them all and pushed the band forward and made it so that hey losing a bass player doesn't mean that we're losing the band in the process

29:14 Jay Jay French Well, let me give you credit as the first person to ever ask me that question. And I've done hundreds of these and no one ever asked me. How did you know or how do you and how did you and all that? Well, it's instinctual.

29:27 Luke F. Walton Yeah.

29:27 Jay Jay French Because I never read a book on success, but I do know this, the band's level of professionalism in the bars and our success of the bars dictated an excellence among the musicians of an approach in order to stay together and continue to play because we became bigger and bigger and bigger and bigger and had to deliver a bigger and bigger show,

29:46 Luke F. Walton Hmm.

29:46 Jay Jay French which meant that the responsibility of staying great was foisted on us on a daily, weekly, monthly, yearly. really basis and if you can't keep up with that you're out okay so

29:57 Luke F. Walton Yes

29:57 Jay Jay French so therein lies the answer that you got to find guys that can put up with that oh by the way when it comes time to get rid of someone you know it's time to get rid of someone you just know i mean everyone looks at each other and goes this is it you know like we can't deal with this crap anymore but we already had a protective shell of success so we knew that we dictated the terms nobody could dictate the terms to us we dictated so i say to a guy at rehearsal by the way just want you to know

30:21 Jay Jay French oh you're a good drummer you're good this but you know we don't drink don't do drugs we really frown on it and um you know i'm not going to tell you you can't drink a beer here and there we're not running a christian youth group but understand we're working five or six nights a week and rehearsing on the off days which means we're working working working working working which means that you leave for a gig at two o'clock in the afternoon for wherever it is you get there by three or four or five you do the sound check you wait in the dressing room until nine you do your show at 10 11 12 whatever you finish at two o'clock in the morning you get in the car

30:50 Jay Jay French in the car you drive home you get you maybe go to a diner get something to eat get home it's six o'clock in the morning go to sleep wake up and do it again every

30:56 Luke F. Walton Yeah.

30:56 Jay Jay French day day

30:57 Luke F. Walton Every day.

30:58 Jay Jay French in day out and on the off days we're rehearsing and maybe we won't rehearse one day but other than that you have to expect we are rehearsing because the show has to be kept fresh well

31:08 Luke F. Walton Yeah.

31:08 Jay Jay French you know what that's a lot to take on so if somebody's joining the band they have two responses to my question

31:16 Jay Jay French about your indulgence you either are honest with me and say well man i thought like you know i thought you guys like a regular like party band and we're gonna party and if that's the way it is no which i respect thank

31:28 Luke F. Walton Mm-hmm.

31:28 Jay Jay French you thank you very much and then i hope you succeed with another band or hey man i'm totally fine i'm totally i could do that and then they collapse after two months three months six months a year they can't keep it up so the question is how come me eddie d and mark kept it up

31:45 Luke F. Walton Mm hmm.

31:46 Jay Jay French we just did i mean i look back at the scheduling you know and in my book i have a diary of all the 9 000 shows if you buy my book you'll see them in the back all the performances anyway it's like it's a crazy list but when people say how did you do it i didn't think anything extraordinary about it it was what we did you know just what we did like you know to stay on top is what you did and did it involve personal sacrifice sacrifice

32:14 Jay Jay French Yes. Did it hurt our relationship with our family and our girlfriends? probably because like the mafia or bikers the family comes first you know twisted comes first and everything else comes after i mean to use like a i don't know a crazy but that's what they they demand of you that dedication

32:33 Luke F. Walton Yeah, right.

32:34 Jay Jay French well and by the way that's not unusual to anyone that becomes great at anything they do their sacrifice how many stories do you read this is a i didn't take care of my family i watched marriages go down the tubes i didn't take care of my children you religion these are the regrets that they all have and i'm not telling you to live a lifestyle that's contrary to a healthy mental attitude about life not

32:55 Luke F. Walton Mm-hmm.

32:56 Jay Jay French at all i'm just saying that there's a common reason why people who are super successful tend to have those regrets because we tend to put all of that first and we always put it first and that's that's why as you get older wiser

33:14 Jay Jay French more successful richer then you have control then you go like now all these bands that are 70 and 80 years old that are touring they bring their families out with them you know because they can it's

33:24 Luke F. Walton or they hire someone else to go do it and they stay

33:27 Jay Jay French not well they hire another writer placement player right because you can oh yeah sure yeah okay so you know yeah let's go and let's only play three nights a week or two nights a week i want to spend three nights on the amalfi coast and i want to go you you know whatever

33:42 Luke F. Walton Play a cruise ship gig, yeah.

33:44 Jay Jay French everything is like you know you get older and you can do these things you know and that's a nice that that's the perk of doing it that's the interesting thing about all these bands that are like 60 you know in their late 60s early 70s now they do it on their own schedule they don't have to meet the band schedule anymore what they're saying is or the fan schedule they're saying this is us we obviously know we're big enough to

34:07 Jay Jay French accommodate a comfortable schedule for our families and and also accommodate your need as a fantasist and it's good for both worlds

34:15 Luke F. Walton Yeah

34:15 Jay Jay French and that's what happens but in the beginnings No luck. You're

34:20 Luke F. Walton no

34:20 Jay Jay French out

34:20 Luke F. Walton at

34:21 Jay Jay French there and you're pushing your band first.

34:24 Luke F. Walton what point do you start to go okay we need help i don't want to be trying to shake down the promoter for money at 2 a.m after i played the gig like when and because this is a question that a lot of young musicians have is like where is the point at which you start to need a team that you want to start giving some of your money to in order to relieve yourself of some responsibility

34:42 Jay Jay French again great question there are very few artist managers in the business very Yeah.

34:48 Jay Jay French few in general i don't care what part of the business the only two that i know and i'm sure there are more the only two i know are steve miller and mick fleetwood for that after reading jenny boyd mick fleetwood's wife's book i interviewed her And I said to her, the amount of coke that guy did made

35:07 Luke F. Walton Yeah.

35:07 Jay Jay French Scarface look like a kindergarten teacher. How did he keep the business going? Because that's what got me. And I'm straightened doing the business. This dude was, and the book tells it. There's no, I'm not telling anything that's not in the book. And she had permission to write the whole story and she did. And I said, how the hell could he function that fucked up?

35:27 Jay Jay French And she said he had a lot of people around him that were able to cover his. situations which of course is the answer but rather than turn it all over to one person he maintains control over it but he had put enough people in place you know it's

35:42 Luke F. Walton To pick

35:42 Jay Jay French like you have

35:42 Luke F. Walton up a the

35:42 Jay Jay French cab it's like a cabinet a presidential cabinet

35:44 Luke F. Walton Yes, that's a good way to put it. Yeah

35:45 Jay Jay French so um so for me we signed with a guy who had no idea what he was doing in 1973 and we stayed with him for a couple years and then the band broke up right um when the band rather reassembled for its first changeover The drummer who called me to audition for the band was also a business head.

36:05 Jay Jay French He was the one who taught me about the bar business, told me how the business ran, and explained to me terms that I completely understood and understood why the band could be successful early because of the unique.

36:17 Jay Jay French situation that we were in and how the bar scene worked and you can easily get a gig which you can't do anymore but in those days you could work six nights a week get paid 150 a night minimum remember in 1973 gasoline was 28 cents a gallon house rentals were 300 a month you know everything

36:34 Luke F. Walton Yeah,

36:34 Jay Jay French was proportionally correct the band can make 900 a thousand a week everybody can make a salary and you can cover your expenses right and your demo tapes if

36:42 Luke F. Walton the

36:42 Jay Jay French you were playing anyway

36:43 Luke F. Walton payouts have stayed flat and the expenses have gone up.

36:46 Jay Jay French A hundred percent. That 150 has not changed and everything else in the world has screwed you, screwed the pooch. Okay. So Mel took over and that band lasted eight months and Mel conspired with the new guitar player to steal the gear for me. And it's in the book, the stories in the book.

37:01 Jay Jay French When I then put the band together again, I took over management and vowed to never bring another manager in. I said, I'm going to do this now. Higher D, Eddie.

37:12 Jay Jay French and then set the band on a trajectory for a business and again in my book i describe the decisions that were made you know we were looking around going how come that band's making 400 a night we're making 200 a night immediately i started to question the club owners reporting to the agents about how busy the clubs were so one day i said to my agent well what did he tell you last night he said oh there was only 75 people in the room i said that wasn't room was packed he goes you don't know that for a fact so i had a friend of mine sit at a bar remember we were playing every night you

37:42 Jay Jay French all the times it was easy and

37:43 Luke F. Walton Right.

37:43 Jay Jay French the clubs were repetitive I had them click at a bar and click people and I was able to call my agent go I can tell you right now it's 175 people last night I know for a fact then I would hang out with the bartenders and I'd pretend to have a drink with them late at night and then they would tell me their bar averages so now I know how much they're making right so now I really know how much we're worth so I remember the first time I called my agent I said listen you

38:07 Jay Jay French I want $300,000 and $950,000. He's not going to pay you. I said, well, then here's what you tell him. Say to him, hey, man, the band wants to thank you for the opportunity to play. And good luck with hiring another band, but thank you. And he says, why? I said, because he knows exactly how much money we make. He's lying to you and he's going to immediately tell you a second thought, I'll pay him. And it's exactly.

38:30 Jay Jay French what he did, because I knew. There's a statement in law, don't ask a question in trial that you don't know the answer to.

38:38 Luke F. Walton Mm-hmm.

38:39 Jay Jay French Okay?

38:40 Luke F. Walton Yes.

38:40 Jay Jay French Now, this is basic business law. This is basic business technique. I'm a New York guy. My father was a jewelry salesman on 47th Street. I grew up in the rough and tumble era of New York City hustle. Plus, if you read my book, you'll know I was a drug dealer and I learned all those techniques from dealing with street stuff. It's just street stuff. I'm dealing with street guys.

38:57 Jay Jay French I'm dealing with mob guys, you know? We all understand our situation, you know, but I didn't threaten anybody. Just said, hey man, cool, you know? If we're not worth it, you know, fine, thanks, you know, but I knew. Of course I knew. And as we kept getting more popular, I kept clicking the door and then everybody knew that we were clicking the door and then they had to stop lying.

39:15 Luke F. Walton Right?

39:16 Jay Jay French We knew exactly what we were doing. Now, the other side of that is not only were we drawing people, but we also want to know what these other bands could be doing that we weren't doing that maybe were better than us that we had to bring our game up.

39:27 Luke F. Walton Yes.

39:28 Jay Jay French This band had a better PA, that band had a better light show.

39:31 Luke F. Walton Yes.

39:31 Jay Jay French We started investing. We always took the money. put it back put it back never took it ourselves expenses expenses expenses kept small salaries relative to what we earned band

39:41 Luke F. Walton Yes.

39:41 Jay Jay French was on board with that i didn't have a guy going no man i'm sorry i don't want i need more no not dean and he's the singer a lot of guys think oh the singer is the most no you weren't okay that's what you're making that's what i'm making that's that's fine you know So that's kind of like how that happened, you know. So now instinctively that's it. When it became overwhelming, in

40:01 Luke F. Walton Yes.

40:01 Jay Jay French 1979 the band was now right before the Palladium gig where we fell apart, where the guy had the thing. That summer I wasn't sleeping much because the band had become massively popular and I'd get home at six o'clock in the morning.

40:21 Jay Jay French And I needed eight hours sleep and the phone would ring two hours later because the truck broke down.

40:26 Jay Jay French Mm This -hmm. happened. This road crew guy's fighting with this road crew guy. The band member's upset with this band member. I'm not sleeping. I start going through days and days and days of no sleep, which you can't do, and play three hours of music every single night, right? It's playing on me and I'm getting more exhausted and more exhausted and more exhausted. And finally...

40:47 Jay Jay French A really good friend of mine wanted to get in the music industry, and he was a very smart guy, and he said, if you ever need help or want to bring a manager in or whatever, call me. I called him. I said, I need your help. I said, I need you to relieve me. for a while until I'm prepared because I can't handle this lack of sleep on the verge of a nervous breakdown sleep deprivation can kill you you know and

41:13 Luke F. Walton Totally.

41:14 Jay Jay French uh and he came over to the house and I sat him down I showed him how the business ran how the books were done who the agent was, and I said, barring a catastrophe, don't tell me anything about business for the next three months until I tell you to. Just continue on.

41:29 Luke F. Walton Sorry to interrupt this very important broadcast, but it's time for one more advertisement for myself for this podcast.

41:36 Luke F. Walton 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, you go onto 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.

41:52 Luke F. Walton If you could do that for me, that's the best way for the algorithms and 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. It would really help us out and it helps us, you know, get the word out and spread the love of music. So thank you.

42:07 Luke F. Walton If you're listening on YouTube, you know what to do. Like, subscribe, all that good stuff. Thank you so much. And here's the rest of the episode.

42:14 Jay Jay French Now, to give you an idea of the kind of crap that can happen, one night we played a very big club in Long Island called Speaks in Island Park, and it was a typical Thursday night, and we were drawing, you know, a typical 1,500 people, somewhere between 1,500 to a typical night, right? Great night, get home, 5 o'clock, 6 o'clock in the morning, get a phone call, it's my truck driver.

42:38 Jay Jay French tells me that remember we had a 24 foot truck with all the gear as we were driving home he heard a noise he looked out the rearview mirror he's on the long island expressway

42:47 Luke F. Walton The

42:48 Jay Jay French the biggest highway in long island and he looks out the the side view mirror and he notices our mixing console has fallen out and it's just got run over and he had to pull over now

43:00 Jay Jay French he's calling me which means this whole thing happened an hour before whatever because you know there's no there's no cell phones you had to get to a whatever he did you know immediately my heart is

43:11 Jay Jay French can't sleep what do you mean the mixing console i said where exactly in the truck was the mixing console packed because we carried all of our own pa all of our gear he goes in the middle of the truck i saw if the mixing console fell out what happened to everything in front of it he goes all gone And I said, what do you mean all gone? He goes, yeah, man. He goes, I said, what's all gone?

43:34 Jay Jay French He goes, seven drum cases, three amplifiers, but he's going through a whole list. And I went, you have to be kidding me.

43:41 Luke F. Walton Yeah.

43:42 Jay Jay French You have to be fucking kidding me. So I call up the state police, Nassau County police, Suffolk County police, and the local radio station that we advertised on and said Twisted Sisters Gear is falling out in the LIE. Please call if you know. We were not properly insured yet. This is a disaster, right? This is just an example of a disaster.

44:04 Jay Jay French Exactly. I'm really pissed. Upset. I can't sleep, of course. I'm not going to wake up anybody else in the band. They need to sleep. And for the hell of it, I just called the nightclub to see if they know anything that could have happened. And remember, the club now was about...

44:18 Jay Jay French 25 to 30 miles away from where this truck incident occurred the chances that these guys would know any gear came out would be next to nothing so but i took a shot like this sicilian custodian guy like 80 years old he picks up the phone i said hey it's Jay Jay from twister sister he goes twister sister what's the matter with you people huh why don't you have a pack of your truck you got equipment all over here i said what are you talking about he goes yeah you didn't pack up the child i was gears everywhere i said what what's there

44:46 Jay Jay French and he goes and he does a list he comes back goes 18 mic stands seven cases blah blah blah now i'm mystified right now i'm truly mystified i

44:55 Luke F. Walton Yeah, yeah.

44:56 Jay Jay French call my driver up i go how fucked up were you in the whole crew last night that you group hallucinated that you packed the truck He goes, we pack us. No, you didn't. It's all it speaks. He goes, how could that be? I said, some 80 year old dude just gave me a list and he's not lying. So you better get down and speaks and you better get this gear. I want to know what the hell happened. So now. I'm relieved, but

45:19 Luke F. Walton Hmm.

45:19 Jay Jay French I still don't understand because if this is the case, my whole road crew is on LSD, they're all hallucinating that they just packed a whole truck worth of gear, which is probably not what happened. And I get a phone call from the manager of the club, Uncle Ralph Greco, who did talk like a guy in The Sopranos, Uncle Ralphie, and this is how the conversation went. He goes, hey Jay Jay, it's Uncle Ralph.

45:42 Jay Jay French he goes what's with your fucking road crew i go what a man he goes you know last night after the gig i'm across the street at the east bay diner having breakfast with my crew and fat scotty the door guy fat men you know these are all like mob like you know jimmy the chair freddie the shoe whatever that guy comes in he goes hey ralphie there's mic stands all over long beach road i go what the fuck i get in my car i drive down long beach road which is the road that links

46:08 Jay Jay French The club to the highway. Shit is strange. It's all over the street. Mike stands, cases, guitars. He goes, and I get to the end of the line and some dude's got a truck and he's putting it in his truck and I walk out and I look at the guy and go, hey, this ain't your shit. Belongs to me. you're gonna pack it all and bring it back to me now the guy's intimidated because

46:29 Luke F. Walton Yeah.

46:29 Jay Jay French now he's you know some guy's talking to him like this the guy packs all the gear in the van and drives it back to speaks now we get all the shit back now i'm wondering what the fuck happened and

46:41 Luke F. Walton Whoa.

46:41 Jay Jay French here's what happened and this is only one night do you understand what i'm telling you i'm trying to explain i'm telling you the sort of a night like this by hundreds of occasions so apparently what happened was it was really cold it was in the middle of winter the crew packed the whole truck up brought the door down locked it or thought they did but didn't

47:05 Jay Jay French The truck pulls out of the parking lot because the parking lots are all like potholes and

47:09 Luke F. Walton Yeah,

47:09 Jay Jay French shit.

47:10 Luke F. Walton yeah.

47:10 Jay Jay French It's a bump. The lock pops off. The door opens and over the next two miles, our stuff starts falling out of the back of the truck. Anyway, welcome to my world.

47:20 Luke F. Walton Yeah.

47:20 Jay Jay French So that's what happened that night. So my friend Joe comes in and he takes over and for three months I didn't have to deal with anything.

47:27 Jay Jay French I finally, you know, got my brains back and then I realized. I finally, I have to make a choice. Am I either going to be a band member or be a manager? She's being both is really, really hard. And I said to the band, I don't know what I should do. If I should quit and just manage. They said to me, you make that choice. We don't want to make that choice for you.

47:46 Luke F. Walton Mm

47:46 Jay Jay French Do

47:46 Luke F. Walton -hmm.

47:46 Jay Jay French what you feel is right. You want to stay in the band? Hire another manager. So we brought a guy in and that guy we brought in is the guy who said, let's do the Palladium date and then brought us through the whole. MTV period and then when the band ended at that point that was going to be the end of the band when

48:04 Luke F. Walton Mm-hmm.

48:04 Jay Jay French we decided to reform i took over at that point and also all during the dormant period of time from 1988 any records that were produced were produced by me and mendoza like in other words we took over the active creative but we didn't have to play so it didn't matter and we all had jobs anyway if you read my book i tell the whole story i went from running a gym to selling stereo equipment anything i could do to make money because i wasn't in the band and i thought the band was never going to get back

48:30 Jay Jay French together again so that's all part of this but i can tell you this had

48:34 Luke F. Walton Yeah.

48:34 Jay Jay French i done have i been a drug addict or an alcoholic facing all these crises including divorces and all that shit i never would have been able to make those decisions correctly i would have been too high and all that stuff does is insulate you from your feelings and confronting your issues i'm not a therapist and i'm not telling you how to run your life and i'm not telling you guys who have succeeded have not had these crises and have drunk

48:57 Jay Jay French drunk themselves into stupors.

48:59 Luke F. Walton Yeah.

48:59 Jay Jay French It's not me.

49:00 Luke F. Walton Yeah. That is that backbone of the band that is what helps allow you to pitch those no hitters, go out there night after night after night and take those blows.

49:11 Luke F. Walton and be in it for long enough in this war of attrition and I wanted to talk to you about the predatory fish metaphor because I think that it's really cool to think of a band that's iterative that's always out there always getting feedback from an audience always watching other bands in the scene and taking on the coolest parts

49:31 Luke F. Walton of what anybody else is doing and trying to meet those challenges and trying to be competitive if you could talk a little bit

49:36 Jay Jay French yeah

49:36 Luke F. Walton about that more so cool

49:37 Jay Jay French back in the early days i said to the agent how do you get more money he says well you got to make sure that you play put a better show on you blow the band away you gotta blow them away just make sure you go over better than the other band and i said really because yeah because you can stay friends with these guys when you're on the stage that's your that's your baseballs that's your football field he goes i don't know if you're into this hippie lovey dovey you know but no

50:00 Jay Jay French blow the bands away and the top bands in long island blew all these other bands away i mean there was hundreds of bands hundreds of them your job was to if you were playing against the band blow the other band away so you could take their following you know so it became very predatory for us every night became a contest how well could we demoralize you how much of a show could we put on even if we were not technically better than you we would put on a show that would be so dazzling that you would believe we were

50:27 Jay Jay French we were better than you i mean let's be honest i'm not a good i'm an okay guitar player i mean you know i'm like a 250 baseball hitter you know professional show up on time you know get my one hits every you know four times at bat whatever you know but uh d happens to be an extraordinary front man

50:41 Jay Jay French i mean d is the secret weapon of course he's an extraordinary front man but the band showed up and delivered every night night after night after night after night after night you can't be that successful and suck you really can't i mean that's how you do it so we became predatory and it follows us to this day when we're playing on a festival stage i just want to annihilate the other bands i don't really give a shit and by the way to be you know for all these people out there go hey man but i love uh all these other bands

51:07 Jay Jay French but i said yeah i'm not telling you shouldn't love him and you should love him go ahead and if they blow us on the stage go ahead because they should be thinking that we're thinking which is fuck twisted we'll

51:17 Luke F. Walton Yeah, exactly.

51:18 Jay Jay French fucking show them who the fuck is but i don't i'm not offended by that blow me away you know who wins the fans win you do it for the fans you put on the best show you can if someone bests you at it How about it, man? Never cared. Never restricted a band's PA. Never restricted a light. We went on Cold Bill or had to take it all, man. Take every weapon you got.

51:42 Jay Jay French Yeah. i'll deal with it that's Yeah. that's the pride we have so yeah the pride of of demoralizing bands or you know coming over better whatever whether they felt demoralized whether they didn't whether you want to take my words like in blabbermouth and reword them to make me sound like a fucking asshole because you know that's what blabbermouth tends to do i am not saying we're better than anybody i'm saying is we worked harder and we presented ourselves so that

52:10 Jay Jay French The perception would be that we are, which is why we always are listed as the greatest bands playing in any particular festival.

52:17 Luke F. Walton Yeah.

52:17 Jay Jay French It's as simple as that. The greatest example I can give was the Arrow Festival in Nijmegen, Holland. It was an amazing one-day festival with REO Speedwagon, Kansas, Journey, Def Leppard, Twisted Sister and Kiss in one day, in one afternoon.

52:32 Luke F. Walton Wow.

52:32 Jay Jay French okay one afternoon which is amazing for any fan right 80 euros every band played every hour on the hour you got nothing but the hits all day long imagine being a fan of all these groups and just knowing i got journey i got deaf leopard i got motorhead i got oh my god great and we almost didn't do that show because dee's plane took off late coming from europe and we had to fly him in by helicopter which landed behind the stage five minutes

52:58 Jay Jay French minutes before the band went on stage

53:00 Luke F. Walton Oh,

53:00 Jay Jay French and we

53:00 Luke F. Walton my had God.

53:00 Jay Jay French our stage without stage clothes because we thought we were never going to play so we're sitting around t-shirts and jeans so we go out and we're playing in t with t-shirts and jeans and of course kiss is the headline they're closing the night we were sandwiched between journey and death leopard i think somewhere in there anyway we do our show in t-shirts and jeans first time ever

53:19 Luke F. Walton Yeah.

53:19 Jay Jay French ever ever ever and we thought it was going to be like this great you know we couldn't wait to put on our whole stage show but we had no stage show to put on because we were just we were just teachers and jeans so it was kind of like we were back in the bars even

53:30 Luke F. Walton Yeah,

53:31 Jay Jay French before

53:31 Luke F. Walton right.

53:31 Jay Jay French like rehearsing for the bars all the tricks that we know how to excite the audience we pulled out every trick in the book the next day in the national newspaper in holland did a whole centerfold story and there were very complimentary to all the bands great lineup one photo us in our stage clothes.

53:55 Jay Jay French And it said the only band that gave a quasi-religious experience was Twisted Sister.

54:01 Jay Jay French Yep. And I said, that is the whole point. That's why we do what we do. There's a perfect example of why we do what we do.

54:10 Luke F. Walton What's good guys Scoobert Doobert here for the love music more podcast and I want to let you in on a little secret one of my favorite new things mini window lossless earplugs so these are really really really cool I've got two of them here it comes in this awesome sweet box but it comes with a bunch of little goodies like carrying case tether cleaning tools but the real tech

54:34 Luke F. Walton is in these little tiny lossless earplugs. My favorite thing about it is one, you can swap out any of the included tips. So depending on the size of your ear canal, we're all built different. You can get a nice comfortable fit. But there's also this little lever on these adjustable versions that can go from seven to 25 decibels of cutting.

54:53 Luke F. Walton So depending on if you're listening to new metal or jazz, you can just hit the little lever and adjust in real time. And I think that's really, really cool. You know, for the longest time, I was listening in those awful foam earplugs and it makes the music sound like that. It just cuts off all of those high frequencies.

55:08 Luke F. Walton And so I was always tempted to sneak them out a little bit. Oh, it's my favorite song. No earplugs. And you get hearing damage. You have tinnitus after the show and then you come back, you want to work in the studio. And guess what? Your ears aren't right. And that's why I love Minuendo because you can just pop these in and have full, full, full fidelity. With these lawless earplugs. They're two different versions.

55:29 Luke F. Walton One is adjustable with the little lever, and then this one is fixed at 17 decibels. So check out Minuendo, M-I-N-U-E-N-D-O dot com, where you can search them on Amazon and find Minuendo earplugs today.

55:43 Jay Jay French And

55:43 Luke F. Walton Get

55:43 Jay Jay French by

55:43 Luke F. Walton cracking.

55:44 Jay Jay French the way, all the bands that day could say they had a great day. I'm sure they did.

55:46 Luke F. Walton Yeah, for

55:47 Jay Jay French They were fine.

55:47 Luke F. Walton sure.

55:47 Jay Jay French They were fine. But that's out of the. And we took pride in that stuff, you know, and again.

55:53 Jay Jay French You better than us be better than us. I don't I really don't care because all we can do is be us But let me tell you we get really excited when it comes on stage and we have to prove a point and

56:02 Luke F. Walton Yeah, exactly.

56:03 Jay Jay French That only comes from the years of playing The hundreds and thousands of shows it's built into your performance technique And it shows. I've gone on record saying there's only three times I thought a band took us. I've made this statement and I've given my compliments to the three bands that have done it in the three occasions that I believe I sat there and went. I don't know what happened tonight. Were we off?

56:30 Jay Jay French I don't know if Dee and I had the same three shows, but I do.

56:34 Luke F. Walton Right.

56:34 Jay Jay French I know who it was. And I've told every one of those bands, I said, boy, by the way, you know, on that night, you were amazing and you definitely blew us away. And I admit it because what that does is it makes you go, why did they blow us away? Exactly why? I'm going to make sure that doesn't happen again.

56:55 Luke F. Walton Yeah.

56:56 Jay Jay French You know, and if you run a business, isn't that part of what you do in business? You know, you look around you and you're doing better than me there. I got to clean that out. I got to make sure that doesn't happen again. And when you're playing as many shows as we played, you pretty much learn what not to do on the days that you screw up, you know, again.

57:14 Jay Jay French So, you know, the difference between baseball and any other sport is how many games they play during the course of a year. So football is like 16 games, right? and hockey

57:23 Luke F. Walton Man.

57:24 Jay Jay French and basketball is like 81 but baseball is 162 and you know even the team that wins the world series loses a third of their games if you look at real statistics in baseball it's three parts every team is going to win at least a third of the games every team is going to lose at least a third of the games it's what happens in the middle third that denotes whether or not you're going to go to the world series right

57:51 Jay Jay French so i often wonder when a pitcher has a bad outing or a player goes 0 for 4 what are they thinking that night like when they go to sleep baseball is the only sport i believe that is like us because we play so much that they don't let it get they go okay i'm going to make sure i don't do that tomorrow you know i'm going to make sure i don't because they can do it right away because they got something coming up the next day when you're playing once a month you're playing once a month

58:20 Jay Jay French or twice a month you don't

58:21 Luke F. Walton Hmm.

58:21 Jay Jay French have that luxury of

58:23 Luke F. Walton Yeah.

58:23 Jay Jay French getting right back out there like if you say to yourself man that was the wrong set list tomorrow we're redoing the set list okay

58:30 Luke F. Walton Yeah. Yeah.

58:30 Jay Jay French it's kind of like a baseball match with a lineup card well that lineup didn't work today right let's change the lineup

58:36 Luke F. Walton Price

58:36 Jay Jay French the

58:37 Luke F. Walton and stuff.

58:37 Jay Jay French batter's up let's move the cleanup hitter down or whatever same shit the luxury of playing all the time is the ability to constantly tweak everything

58:47 Luke F. Walton Yes.

58:47 Jay Jay French which bands don't have i mean people listen to this stuff and they're going to go oh Jay Jay but he just i'm just giving you our roadmap man i'm not telling you your roadmap your roadmap is different obviously there's no bars to play right now so your roadmap is social media probably

59:02 Luke F. Walton My roadmap is song production.

59:06 Jay Jay French It's good

59:06 Luke F. Walton I'm doing the exact same thing with making songs. I make a song pretty much every week. So I'm averaging around 52 songs a year actually finished mix mastered out the door. That's my version.

59:19 Jay Jay French You learn something new every time

59:20 Luke F. Walton Absolutely.

59:21 Jay Jay French There you go.

59:22 Luke F. Walton Every record is like I'm a different person. Like a much

59:25 Jay Jay French There you go

59:25 Luke F. Walton better. It's like a master's degree every single time.

59:27 Jay Jay French There you go, man

59:29 Luke F. Walton Yeah,

59:29 Jay Jay French Right?

59:29 Luke F. Walton yeah,

59:30 Jay Jay French Like I say, it's the boredom of excellence.

59:33 Luke F. Walton yeah,

59:33 Jay Jay French You go out there, you do it, middle of the night, you're working, your wife or girlfriend, whatever. What are you doing?

59:38 Luke F. Walton exactly.

59:38 Jay Jay French I got this record done.

59:39 Luke F. Walton Yep.

59:40 Jay Jay French Same thing.

59:41 Luke F. Walton Yep.

59:41 Jay Jay French It's a dedication to your craft.

59:43 Luke F. Walton Yep

59:44 Jay Jay French And, you know, how many times does a picture say it's all in the preparation? it's

59:52 Luke F. Walton Yeah,

59:52 Jay Jay French all in the preparation man you have to prepare yourself

59:56 Luke F. Walton I

59:56 Jay Jay French this is a

59:56 Luke F. Walton like

59:56 Jay Jay French real

59:57 Luke F. Walton distance

59:57 Jay Jay French world issue

59:57 Luke F. Walton athletes too, like the marathon and stuff in the Olympics.

60:00 Jay Jay French i ran two of them oh yeah i know exactly what it took to run those marathons life is not it's not a hundred yard dash it is a marathon it's not a sprint and all the cliches that go with it they're all written for a reason there's a reason why people have said these things and you should pay attention to them joe lewis the great

60:18 Jay Jay French Great boxer has a great quote about overcoming severe setback. What was it? Mike Tyson said, a fight plan is great until you get punched in the mouth, right? That's his line. Joe Louis' line is just as effective to me.

60:30 Luke F. Walton Cool.

60:31 Jay Jay French He says, when you get knocked down in the ring, you can't get up so fast that nobody didn't know you got knocked down. So take the 10 count. they're giving you the 10 count for a reason to

60:43 Luke F. Walton Hmm.

60:44 Jay Jay French get your shit together before you go back out there don't be so macho no when you gotta sit back in business like i said reflect on what happened think about what happened retool and reapply take that time don't be embarrassed by it same thing music business shoe business steel business But the entertainment business is a tough ass business, man. It is because it's a what have you done for me lately business.

61:12 Jay Jay French What I noticed about our success was, I know we had to say I'm going platinum. The first question was, hey man, that's great. So when's your next record coming? I'm going, can I just enjoy this for like two months?

61:23 Luke F. Walton I'm on the top of the mountain let me take in the

61:25 Jay Jay French How

61:26 Luke F. Walton view

61:26 Jay Jay French many times did an actor win an Academy Award? That's great. So when's your next movie coming? Can I just, can you just ask me how I'm feeling today?

61:35 Jay Jay French And let me just enjoy this, you know, entertainment business is the toughest business of all. We have to constantly regenerate and

61:40 Luke F. Walton Yeah.

61:41 Jay Jay French in the entertainment business in general, whatever, you know.

61:45 Luke F. Walton Well, I think it's interesting too from the fans perspective, particularly the people that just know your greatest hits, like the biggest of the big songs or have seen some of the performances on TV or whatever, for them to understand the background of how your identity, your presence, your costumes, everything was forged in fire, was forged through constant audience feedback, and that's what helped,

62:08 Luke F. Walton in addition to your artistic sensibilities, but that's what ended up helping. to turn the band into what the national stage and the international stage ended up experiencing.

62:18 Jay Jay French True, but you can't explain that to everybody, which is why I say success is like an iceberg.

62:23 Luke F. Walton Okay.

62:23 Jay Jay French What the public sees is a shiny tip sticking out of the ocean and underneath the surface is this gigantic block of ice. That's what successful businesses are. It's what's underneath the surface is what makes you great. You can't tell it to everybody on every story, but what is the tangible proof of it is the end product, the end shiny.

62:44 Jay Jay French product that sticks above the ocean line is only as good as the surface underneath, and

62:51 Jay Jay French Hmm. that is the gravitas. for any business i don't care what it is you go to the best restaurants in the world you don't want to sit there and know how the chef is cooking it you just want the best damn dish on your plate don't you i

63:03 Luke F. Walton Exactly.

63:04 Jay Jay French mean that's really the truth so while this voracious desire to get behind the scenes of

63:09 Luke F. Walton Yes.

63:09 Jay Jay French absolutely everything that exists because social media is just destroying and ripping apart and everybody wants another secret i don't know if the secret is too much of a secret it's called work hard motherfucker i mean that's really that's the whole secret you don't want to work

63:19 Jay Jay French It's called work hard, motherfucker. I mean, that's really, that's the whole secret. If you don't want to work hard, then fuck it. But if you think, hey, I'm going to be a social influencer and I have a million followers, it'd be great. Yeah, you may.

63:28 Jay Jay French ain't gonna last too long you know um this is another reason why all artists regardless of their genre that have lasted many years in the business i have ultimate respect for whether it's a genre i like or don't like doesn't matter it's a hard business to be in business country rap hip-hop

63:46 Jay Jay French you know female pop artists i don't care if you're a poker if you play poker music i mean if you last 20 30 40 years people don't know what it takes to do that it's enormous and and for that i give all you know people go do you think so-and-so sucks no they're hard working and just because i don't like it doesn't mean a damn thing everyone has a right to like something plenty of people think we suck you know the beatles are considered like the best of the best and i'm a huge beatle fan

64:13 Jay Jay French man but

64:13 Luke F. Walton Mm

64:14 Jay Jay French you

64:14 Luke F. Walton hmm.

64:14 Jay Jay French know my wife doesn't like the beatles i don't sit there and get an argument i don't defend general motors to her they're like general motors what are you defending for i

64:22 Luke F. Walton Yeah.

64:22 Jay Jay French don't need to play them in the house i can play whenever i want and and you know and big deal and people go you suck yeah okay good i don't care you like that i really don't i don't sit there and defend anything it's not worth my time and effort you like it you like it you don't you don't and when people say well i think the beatles are you know

64:40 Jay Jay French Yeah. what the hell they don't care i certainly don't care they just are who they are and they and obviously people do but that doesn't matter the bottom line is you can't be everything everybody i've seen jimmy hendrix great and i've seen him shitty people don't want to know about it he was horrible and i walked out going that sucked like and then i saw him six months later and he was the best i'd ever seen he had a bad night no zeppelin i've seen him phenomenal i've seen him horrible

65:07 Luke F. Walton Hmm.

65:07 Jay Jay French like horrible what are you thinking and

65:09 Luke F. Walton Yeah.

65:09 Jay Jay French i've seen it's one of the greatest bands in the world i've seen the rolling stones great and i've seen them horrible i walked out on them three times but i also will tell you that in my top five all time they're in there in the top five all time when they were great they were great i mean that's you know and i won't defend it to whatever they delivered to me when i needed it hendrix delivered to me when i needed it i grew up in an era where you could see all these bands on a weekly basis

65:35 Jay Jay French basis so it was no big deal all

65:37 Luke F. Walton Yeah.

65:37 Jay Jay French playing every weekend for three dollars or two dollars or eight dollar no shit in 1969 alone i saw zeppelin four times i don't think i paid more than four dollars for any of their shows i saw hendrix twice i don't think i paid more than five dollars for those tickets i saw the stones three times i don't think i spent more than six dollars for those tickets i saw the grateful dead five times i don't think i paid more than three dollars for those tickets

66:02 Jay Jay French And so 10 years after Johnny Winter, Muddy Waters, Jeff Beck twice with Rod Stewart, I don't think I paid more than $4 to see them. This was what 1969 was like. But don't hate me. This is what New York City was like if you're a rock fan.

66:17 Jay Jay French Yes. It was like we all did the same shit. We all went to the Fillmore. We all went to this. We all went to that. We saw this. We did this en masse because we could. Now.

66:28 Jay Jay French Yeah. It's a luxury to have that much greatness on a weekly basis reinforce your love of the music that you love does not exist today.

66:39 Jay Jay French Yes. That's a tragedy. that's the sad part is that you can't do that the

66:46 Luke F. Walton Yeah.

66:46 Jay Jay French way we did that and we are an example of what happens when you have that i don't know what you do today you know do i go to shows i go once in a while not that i can't afford it but although the ticket prices are complete stupid but i'm not that excited by it anymore because i've played thousands of shows and seen thousands of shows i'm a little burnt out

67:04 Luke F. Walton Yeah,

67:04 Jay Jay French about it

67:05 Luke F. Walton yeah.

67:06 Jay Jay French You ever wonder why they ask retired football players sometimes they go wow man two Super Bowl rings Wow is great. How often you watch a team I Don't what do you mean how many games you go to you? I don't you don't watch your team no well why not well since i was 10 i

67:24 Luke F. Walton Right.

67:25 Jay Jay French played football and i killed myself and then i was in the main and then finally goes i'm done man i'm you know now that doesn't mean that they all do that but i never understood the guys who said that until i became that now

67:37 Luke F. Walton Yes. Yeah.

67:38 Jay Jay French people go well don't you admit and now the answer is no if i never see another live show for the rest of my life wife i'm totally fine by it but my wife wants to go we'll go she

67:49 Luke F. Walton Yeah,

67:50 Jay Jay French wants to see the eagles at the sphere we'll go to the eagles of the sphere she loves it i'm all there for her but me i've seen it all

67:59 Jay Jay French Mm and -hmm. there's nothing you're going to do anymore except the sphere i have to tell you

68:03 Jay Jay French Yeah, that sounds cool, right? mind-boggling anybody playing the sphere would take advantage of that unbelievable presentation it's mind-blowing you probably should see it at least once just to know how technology is taking you but is it any more revolutionary than the light shows of the film maurice were in 1969 no nobody did that in 1969 all of a sudden there's like shit blood in and out everyone's on acid and shit there was a

68:27 Jay Jay French And now it's this unbelievable technical creation that is impossible to describe unless you see it. And I saw the dead there recently only because my wife wanted to go see them there.

68:40 Jay Jay French Yes. And I have to tell you, the dead are lucky enough to have lasted long enough to have been the recipients of a breakthrough technology in the 60s with the light show, you know, Joshua light show, whatever.

68:51 Jay Jay French Yeah. And now in the sphere. Cool. That's a hell of a, that's That's a hell a hell

68:55 Jay Jay French of a, yeah, of a run. hell Yeah. of a run. Got to give him that. Even if he didn't like them, the show was mind blowing, a

69:01 Jay Jay French Love that. mind blowing show. So again, those circumstances may excite me, but for the most part. If you say to me, Jay Jay, what's the best show you ever saw? This is going to be my response. Having seen Sinatra, Elvis, Zeppelin as an opening band, you know, as the t-shirt says, I'm so old, I saw the Grateful Dead on stage. I'm so old, I saw the dead as an opening band.

69:25 Jay Jay French Yeah. Okay, that's how old I am. Okay, having seen what I consider the greatest artist in the world, the show that I singularly consider the greatest night of rock and roll I ever witnessed. was not based on any preconceived notion of what I was about to see nor by a band that I anticipated would have been as great as they were.

69:46 Jay Jay French But in hindsight, in retrospect, it doesn't surprise me because the level of the musicians were so ridiculously good at the fact that they delivered.

69:57 Jay Jay French an absolutely transcended performance is really not surprising and I have met a couple of people who saw those shows back at the Fillmore in 1969 and they said you know that was one of the greatest shows so I I know that what I saw so Leon Russell and

70:10 Jay Jay French Yes. Mad Dogs and Englishmen were touring with Joe Cocker and then Joe Cocker came off the road and Leon took the band with him for a while and he went to the Fillmore one night and I walked into the Fillmore that night and I saw Leon Russell Carl Radel on bass and Jim Kellner on drums and Rita Coolidge on vocals and

70:24 Jay Jay French and Don Preston on guitar and I can just tell you that whatever exhilaration rock and roll is supposed to give you whatever vibe you're supposed to get whatever phantasmagorical emotional connection you're supposed to make that makes you want to sacrifice everything you've ever owned in the world to be that That was it.

70:41 Jay Jay French That lies on the top of Hendricks at the Fillmore during Band of Gypsies. That lies on the top of the Rolling Stones in 1969 at the Garden. I was at all three shows. They're right up there. Best I've ever seen. Beck right after his motorcycle accident song at Carnegie Hall. Bowie Spider Samar's song twice.

70:59 Jay Jay French That's awesome. I mean, these are amazing shows and they're all great. They all deliver transcendental experiences, you know, in correct 10 years after. After, right

71:06 Jay Jay French cool yeah after Woodstock, Leslie West in a little bar, in a tiny little bar in an Italian restaurant uptown. Mountains show just before Woodstock, their third show, their second show ever. Then they went to Woodstock the next day. Walked into a private party at a little club called Onganos, which is this Italian restaurant on the Upper West Side, which.

71:24 Jay Jay French these places exist back then but don't exist now i walked into a private party in which free was playing there was no stage they were on the floor there was about 20 people in the room i stood right in front of paul kossoff my friend stood right in front of paul rogers like two feet away from them and then a private jam session took place with about 20 people in the room and the jam session was delaney bonnie eric clapton stevie winwood dr john rick gretch from blind faith and jim keltner

71:51 Jay Jay French from somebody and they played for three hours to me and my friend david and about 20 people at a private party yeah you have those nights right and you go oh this

71:59 Jay Jay French Yeah, this is music. Yep, yep. is it right so i'm telling you these stories you're sitting there going i can't believe you just or i walked into anganos again this little tiny restaurant there was two of these places in new york in the 60s buddy waters was playing the club was sold out there was no seats available the club owner said go go on the stage and sit on muddy waters app For example, I sat on his twin reverb,

72:20 Jay Jay French Wow. the home guy. Wow. And I'm sitting there going, I'm fucking sitting on Muddy Waters amplifier. Holy shit, it's hot.

72:25 Jay Jay French Yeah, But I'm not letting it. now I'm getting up. Yeah, it's hot, but I'm not getting up,

72:28 Jay Jay French not lit. you Exactly. know? So yeah, so they're great. But Leon Russell, Mad Dogs that night. delivered it for me who

72:35 Jay Jay French yeah and i recommend is anybody god that hasn't seen that there's the concert dvd uh with mad dogs and joe cocker with leon russell that was like one of the coolest if not the coolest concert dvds i've ever seen that changed my mind about a lot of things because it was leon like absolutely

72:50 Jay Jay French russell is a giant okay fucking giant and elton john made an album with him before he died and toured with him i saw that tour by the way leon russell was a motherfucker not to mention the fact that he ran the whole all Phil Spector crew

73:03 Jay Jay French Yeah. down, you Yeah. know, in LA during the 60s and then the Christmas album, the Phil Spector, I mean, Russell's just amazing musician, great singer, great songwriter. I get really emotional thinking about these shows because they'll never happen again for me. Oh, but by the way, as great a show as that is, I can also say this. If you get the DVD, ladies and gentlemen, the Rolling Stones, that was recorded in Dallas in 19...

73:28 Jay Jay French 70 it was a week after they played the garden it was like december of 79 ladies and gentlemen the rolling stones you watch that and now you'll see why they were considered the greatest rock and roll band on earth unbelievable

73:38 Luke F. Walton Cool. I will. I will. This leads me perfectly to my last question.

73:44 Luke F. Walton So the show is called Love Music More and the segment is called Love Music Why.

73:47 Luke F. Walton You're already talking about it, but this is just a moment to talk about why you love music itself. Why it pushed you through all of these trials and tribulations. You're still doing it, still loving it.

73:56 Jay Jay French So it fell in love with a record called Hey Paula, which was an insignificant pop single in 1963. That was number one on the radio. I didn't understand why it was number one, but it was number one for six weeks and I didn't understand what the chart was, what the survey was.

74:08 Jay Jay French as i was 10 years old listening to the radio i was home sick from school i became obsessed with charts like why does the chart change but this song is still number one i didn't know i asked my mom she didn't know she looked at me like i had two heads you know like the addiction to that song changed my life and that was in february 63 and then of course the beatles hit one year later and that you know as we all say guys my age who saw the beatles on ed sullivan it's the cliche of cliches isn't it i saw the beatles on ed sullivan i wanted to be in a rock

74:36 Jay Jay French rockman that's what happened but it was my love of pop music so i'm much more of a pop guy than i am anything else i mean i like you know i'm a blues guitar player in heart and a blues fan and a pop fan and metal then comes third of that line that's what addicted me to it and look i don't care if it's me being addicted to pop music or a 10 year old kid watching a olympic gold medal skier and going i want to do that i can't tell you how many actresses i went to see annie when i was eight

75:03 Jay Jay French ate and went to Broadway and said to my mom that's what I want to do and then they kill themselves to become Broadway stars you know one

75:09 Jay Jay French Yeah. real short story I was doing a motivational speaking weekend with many professionals and there was only one other performer

75:17 Jay Jay French who had a story to tell and she was the longest running christine in phantom of the opera on broadway and so i did my whole thing on a friday and she closed it on saturday and she's telling her whole story that she was eight years old and went to see annie oh my mom and then she took dance and dance and dance and singing and singing she finally got in you know she killed herself and then finally got onto the road show of phantom always wanting the big break

75:41 Jay Jay French always wanted when is that big break coming it was very much like a twisted sister story setback setback setback finally gets a big break gets the audition fails the audition crushed

75:50 Jay Jay French Hmm. crushed goes back on the road can't believe it this is probably the end of my life because if if i'm not good enough for this it's not going to happen gets another shot at it blows it at this point it's the end she gets one more shot And she nails it. She gets the gig. For 10 years, she's the longest running Christine on Broadway. Okay. Now she's telling the story. She's playing videos. She's showing her photos.

76:24 Jay Jay French Incredible story, right? At the end of it, I walk up to her and I say to her, wow. I said, I haven't really heard another story kind of like mine. It's amazing. When you're doing your next show and she says, if I never sing another song on Broadway, you couldn't pay me enough to do it. And I realized that's how sometimes it finally happens, you know? So when people say to me, is Twisted getting back together again?

76:51 Jay Jay French I say, we've done it thousands. I've done it thousands. If it happens, it happens, but I'm not sitting there playing air guitar in front of a mirror anymore. I'm too busy promoting my website, promoting my podcast, which is the Jay Jay French Connection on Spotify.

77:04 Jay Jay French too busy promoting my book which is called twisted business which is really a great business book you can get it on amazon and i do motivational speaking and if you want to hire me you know you go to jj french.com and you can fill out a form and hire me and i do motivational and keynote speeches for for corporations now in which i tell the story because

77:22 Jay Jay French Yes. the story is a universal story of business success it's not just and i really appreciate you having me on thank you so much

77:29 Jay Jay French Really appreciate you coming on, Jay Jay. you ask great questions by the way you You really did ask really good questions.

77:33 Jay Jay French I really appreciate that. I really do care. And I, you know. I have this podcast just for me. I'm trying to make it as a producer, engineer, musician myself.

77:42 Jay Jay French And hearing these stories direct from the source and being able to interface with that, I can't tell you the amount of motivation and excitement that that cultivates in myself that I'm going to bring into my weekend where I'm going to work too hard and I'm going to lose sleep because I'm going to be having dreams of recording. This is what validates that.

78:00 Jay Jay French That's what pours the fuel back on that fire and keeps it going. So I really appreciate it. Really appreciate you.

78:04 Jay Jay French To that point, the Yep. fact that I was able to go to the Fillmore East every weekend to see my heroes,

78:09 Jay Jay French Yes. whether it was Jimmy Page or Jimi Hendrix or Jeff Beck or Jerry Garcia or Muddy Waters or Johnny Winter or B.B. King or Alvin Lee, you go to them every night. You come home at three in the morning, put a guitar and stand in front of a mirror and go, today I'm Jerry.

78:24 Jay Jay French Yes. Today I'm Alvin Lee. Today I'm Dwayne Allman. Today I'm Muddy Waters. That's what I had.

78:30 Jay Jay French yeah You don't have that aim. I don't. You can't do that musician, but you can do this by having these podcasts, right? It's this reaffirmation that the road you're on is the right road to be on. And it's the passion, remember, passion is the fuel when you don't have money. It really is. You have to be so passionate and you have to believe so much and apparently you do. So good luck to you.

78:52 Jay Jay French really appreciate it have a great rest of your day thank you for joining Take care.