Daryl Hall

[0] Welcome, welcome, welcome to armchair expert.

[1] Experts on expert.

[2] I'm Dan Rather.

[3] I'm joined by Monica Mouse.

[4] This reminds me of something I have to shout out.

[5] Spotify, our partner.

[6] Yeah.

[7] Which, by the way, I'm so fucking happy.

[8] Fucking best thing we ever did.

[9] Yeah.

[10] I'm so pleased.

[11] Me too.

[12] So armcheries were nervous.

[13] I was truthfully a little nervous.

[14] Like, how's this going to go?

[15] How's this transition going to go?

[16] And they've been so amazing.

[17] I love them.

[18] And I love them even more now because they got me some shoes.

[19] I know you sent me a picture.

[20] But I've learned from Kristen today.

[21] They also got you like a jumper.

[22] They got me a sweatsuit.

[23] I want to know why I didn't get anything.

[24] They sent me a record player.

[25] See, I think, no, no, it wasn't Spotify, the team.

[26] It was just the people that we are talking to all the time.

[27] That's fair.

[28] It was a launch gift, they said.

[29] Oh, man. Think about how thoughtful this is.

[30] I really, I want to take the time.

[31] for a same.

[32] Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.

[33] Rob a record player.

[34] No, it's, it's a bolzai.

[35] With a sono speaker.

[36] With a sono speaker.

[37] Because they know he's a music guy.

[38] Audio file.

[39] And he's an audio file.

[40] And they got me, Jordy's custom.

[41] On the back, they say Monica Mouse.

[42] I mean, guys.

[43] And they're fucking gorgeous and perfect.

[44] Yeah, they had Kristen sweating.

[45] She came home and she started looking up shoes online.

[46] Yeah, and she was upset that she didn't get me that, she said.

[47] Oh, okay.

[48] She took a turn.

[49] She was upset.

[50] She was upset about that.

[51] But the cashmere, not a jumper, cashmere sweatsuit.

[52] Okay.

[53] Is a perfect color, perfect fit.

[54] I mean, it was a bullseye.

[55] And I just want to say thank you.

[56] Yeah, that's very nice.

[57] No one should feel bad for me. I'm a spoiled boy.

[58] But imagine you were the only person in the room that didn't get a present.

[59] And everyone was so excited about their present.

[60] Like, Rob's like, this is maybe the best, most thoughtful present anyone's ever got me. And you're like, they got you an outfit that got Kristen on the run.

[61] She got her online shopping and stuff.

[62] I mean, guys, you guys got great presents.

[63] I was sorry, but they probably felt like they couldn't get you anything better than the calendar.

[64] Well, they would have been right, so I'm glad they made the decision they made.

[65] Okay, today's expert is a friend of mine and someone I've been obsessed with since I was probably eight years old, Daryl Hall of Hull and Oates.

[66] My God, you guys.

[67] Daryl Hall, he's a rock and roll hall of famer, a Grammy Award nominated singer, musician, and lead vocalists of Hall and notes.

[68] 18 studio albums.

[69] They are the number one selling duo in music history.

[70] It's unreal.

[71] Now, everyone should do this.

[72] I've done it multiple times.

[73] It's so fun.

[74] Go see Holo Notes in concert.

[75] They are going out on a 2021 tour launching August 5th in Mansfield, Massachusetts.

[76] So if you want to check out Hollenotes, make sure you go online and find a venue to go see them.

[77] They're phenomenal.

[78] Please enjoy Daryl Hall.

[79] Wondry Plus subscribers can listen to Armchair Expert early and ad free right now.

[80] Join Wondry Plus in the Wondry app or on Apple Podcasts.

[81] Or you can listen for free wherever you get your podcasts.

[82] He's an armchair expert.

[83] Hi.

[84] How you doing, brother?

[85] Look at all these fun organs and shit behind you.

[86] Are those whorlitzers?

[87] What are those?

[88] It's my keyboard world, man. It's like I got, I have more 80s keyboards in this room.

[89] I decided last year to buy all.

[90] All these instruments I used to use, they're low -tech, relatively low -tech, and they have all those good sounds.

[91] Yeah, isn't it wild that in an era where a computer can make any single sound on planet Earth, these things have had like a revival, that even they have some signature flare, like certain guitars and stuff?

[92] I've always been a favor of hunt and peck.

[93] I don't necessarily want to look for a sound.

[94] I want the sound to come to me. Yeah, sure.

[95] And these kind of instruments are perfect for that because you just hit a button.

[96] Oh, I like that sound.

[97] How about this one?

[98] That's the shit, man, in my opinion.

[99] Is that your primary instrument, would you say?

[100] Piano, keyboard.

[101] I started playing keyboards when I was about five.

[102] Yeah, so I guess the answer is yes.

[103] But you're a really good guitar player, so where would you rank those things?

[104] I'm not a great guitar player, but I can express myself on it.

[105] That's how I look at it.

[106] I am a good keyboard player.

[107] Okay, I guess I'd rather be able to express myself on a guitar than be a virtuoso who can't really translate anything.

[108] Yeah, in some ways that is preferable.

[109] Now, I think it would be fun for people to know why we know each other before we even start.

[110] Or I think it would be fun for me to regale everyone with how we know each other.

[111] So I'm obsessed with Hall & Oates.

[112] I have been for probably my whole life.

[113] There's these certain songs that represented for me when my mom was in a good mood, I guess.

[114] Fleetwood Max in that category.

[115] And I had saved, I think I might even told you this, Darrell.

[116] I saved like three parties, one in particular, Fourth of July party.

[117] Everything was there.

[118] Beautiful outside.

[119] Lots of fun guests.

[120] Music sucked.

[121] It wasn't going well.

[122] I said to the house, just trust me, try hollow notes.

[123] And by God to this day, Tom Hanson will say, remember that Fourth of July party you saved?

[124] So I'm now having children and I'm getting them obsessed with hollow notes.

[125] And at some point, I thought to myself, there has to be something for me to do with this passion I have in my world of acting and writing.

[126] So I had came up with this idea of doing an entirely false history of your life, of Daryl Hall's life.

[127] Yes.

[128] The premise was you guys wrote, I don't know, 38 top 10 songs or 42, something, a record.

[129] And I thought we could go through and find out what those songs are really about.

[130] Like, Sarah smiles so beautiful.

[131] Clearly, you think it's about falling in love with Sarah and how special she is.

[132] But come to find out in my story, there was a little bit of blackmail happening and probably some relationships.

[133] Or one -on -one, beautiful song.

[134] One -on -one, I want to play that game tonight.

[135] That was going to ultimately be about after you had been jumped by five guys, seeing one of the guys by himself later in the show, and then that song, one -on -one starts.

[136] And it's just a one -on -one fight.

[137] So at any rate, I come up with this crazy idea, false history of Daryl Hall, and then I'm like, now what do I do?

[138] And so...

[139] Yeah, there's the hard part.

[140] Yes.

[141] So I get to know your manager, Jonathan Wolfson, who we both, I assume, I adore him.

[142] I imagine you do too.

[143] Oh, yeah.

[144] Oh, yeah.

[145] I pitch him the idea and he goes, that's insane.

[146] He's not going to want to do that.

[147] And I said, okay, is there any way I could tell him over the phone and make a passionate plea?

[148] And he's like, all right, I'll see if I get you on the phone with him.

[149] So sure enough, you and I had a phone call.

[150] And I told you this ridiculous idea.

[151] They went to lunch together.

[152] Yes, that grew into a lunch.

[153] I try to imagine being you.

[154] Like, at some point, someone calls me and says, I want to do a false history of Jack Shepherd.

[155] it's got to be a very weird phone call.

[156] It was totally weird.

[157] And that's why we had the lunch.

[158] I said, you got to explain this a little more depth, buddy.

[159] But I tell you, I was intrigued right away because it's so off the wall.

[160] And right away, my brain goes, okay, off the wall, I like that kind of stuff.

[161] Right.

[162] Yeah, I'm with you, Darrell.

[163] Like, off the wall, I'm going to give you 10 minutes.

[164] Yeah, yeah, yeah.

[165] Like, you're going to get 10 minutes of my attention if I think I've not ever heard something like this before.

[166] Absolutely.

[167] So at any rate, we go have breakfast at a hotel in Hollywood, and I get to know you a little bit, and then I start coming to your shows, which is so fun, and then I get to go backstage and see you.

[168] So it's been really, really lovely.

[169] The show didn't end up getting made for numerous reasons, but it's still one of my favorite ideas I ever had.

[170] And it was really, first of all, nerve -wracking just to call you the first time and try to tell you this stupid idea.

[171] Like, so here's the thing.

[172] You've been really carefully constructing your life for 68 years at that point, and being mindful to not create.

[173] any crazy headlines, and I would basically like to do the opposite to your life.

[174] Well, that's kind of like what the intriguing part was.

[175] What I found intriguing was, as I started researching you a ton, and I told you this, I'm like, you know, for someone as successful as you, the biggest duet in music history, very little exists about you out there.

[176] I got to say, of anyone I've researched, you're kind of an enigma.

[177] And I wonder, was that intentional or...

[178] Yes.

[179] It was.

[180] You can go two ways in this world, especially now.

[181] You can either be everybody's Instagram friend and go completely social media.

[182] Or you can do what I do, and that is stay away from it all.

[183] Did you get burned early on, or just that's your nature to want to not get a lot of attention?

[184] It is my nature.

[185] I'm a bit reclusive by nature, although I'm not a hermit or anything, but I like people to know me through the music.

[186] Not necessarily all that other nonsense.

[187] I'm very circumspect about what I let out into the world.

[188] Is your music, like, a better part of you?

[189] My music is me. If you read my lyrics, that's me. That's the shit that I go through in life.

[190] That's as much as you need to know about me. It's more than most people know about other people.

[191] The inner sanctum of one's soul.

[192] I mean, that's what I lay out there.

[193] I just don't like to engage in the bullshit of entertainment land.

[194] I don't like it.

[195] I'm not a celebrity.

[196] I don't want to be a celebrity.

[197] I hate that word.

[198] Yeah.

[199] I'm a musician.

[200] I just want to be that, and I want to be perceived as that.

[201] You know, you pointed out, or maybe it was your manager, Jonathan pointed out to me, because I started getting worried I was getting too old to play you when I wanted to play you.

[202] And he pointed out, he goes, you know, in truth, Daryl was older than his peers in the popular music of the 80s.

[203] You were kind of 10 years older than all your peers.

[204] Is that safe to say?

[205] The 80s, I was in my early 30s.

[206] Right.

[207] Not your early 20s.

[208] Exactly.

[209] And do you think that gave you some kind of foundation that allowed you to have those kind of boundaries?

[210] Because I think if you're 20 and it's all happening, of course you kind of run at every opportunity to be on this show and be on that magazine and do all this stuff.

[211] But maybe that little 10 -year advantage you had on people maybe helped you have more boundaries.

[212] The way I musically grew up in Philadelphia, right?

[213] The people that I hung out with, who I was close friends with, are people like Chubby Checker, Len Barry of the Dovels.

[214] I watched their shit happen.

[215] I was around Shubby when he was like, oh, man, the twist isn't happening anymore.

[216] What am I going to do?

[217] I want to be Jimmy Hendricks.

[218] I said, you can't be Jimmy Hendricks unless you take guitar lessons, pal, you know?

[219] And even then you probably can't be Jimmy Hendricks.

[220] Well, that too.

[221] But it was his insecurity and transition.

[222] Rightly so.

[223] I mean, that guy was at the top of the world.

[224] People don't realize how big Chubby Checker was.

[225] I'm just using him as an example.

[226] Yeah.

[227] I was around all that.

[228] I was around people who in the Philadelphia scene were at the top of their game, but yet that part of the Philadelphia scene was starting to lose its thing and new people from Philadelphia were coming up, like Gamble and Huff and all the R &B bands, and that was my generation.

[229] And so I saw it all that way from that perspective.

[230] I've never been comfortable with that pop star thing.

[231] I come from a different neighborhood.

[232] Yeah.

[233] Are your parents from Germany?

[234] Like, did they move to?

[235] No, no, no, no. No, no. been in America since the early 1700s.

[236] Okay, were they there in, is it Pots Town?

[237] Where did you grow up?

[238] Yeah, outside of that, in Chester County and Montgomery County, Pennsylvania.

[239] And both of them were musically inclined, right?

[240] Mom was a vocal coach?

[241] Yeah, she was a singer in a band.

[242] She had this band.

[243] She didn't have it.

[244] She was in the band as a singer in the Glee Club, and she was a featured singer.

[245] It was that real 40s, 50s kind of style.

[246] Yeah.

[247] They did a little of everything.

[248] But what it was is I, as the.

[249] my earliest, earliest age was watching her do that, go to different towns and watch her do it, get into the drummer and get into the band leader and the whole thing.

[250] And she used to drag me up on stage.

[251] She was also the choir director at church, so we'd do all that church singing and all that kind of thing.

[252] And she was classically trained, so she taught me how to sing the right way.

[253] And did you drive that, or did she drive that, or was that a combination?

[254] I think she drove it more than anything.

[255] She was a toughie, or is.

[256] She's 98 now, but she's just toughy.

[257] Good for you.

[258] You got someone at 98.

[259] I don't have any relatives that live past 70.

[260] I'm a little pessimistic.

[261] Yeah.

[262] And my father was in a vocal group with his brothers, and he used to sing gospel music.

[263] So that's where I got all the harmony stuff from and whatnot.

[264] Okay, so I took Kristen to one of your shows, I think in Irvine.

[265] And say, I just like stuff.

[266] I don't know if it's good or bad.

[267] Like, I can like something.

[268] And Kristen can go like, oh, yeah, they're not on that note.

[269] They're under this.

[270] They're under this.

[271] They're over that.

[272] But I can't tell, right?

[273] I take her to Irvine and in about, I don't know, a minute and a half, she leans over and she goes, oh, Darrell has perfect pitch.

[274] I've heard her say that like three times in 15 years of knowing her.

[275] And first of all, I was like, oh, that's so wild you guys, you musicians can pick that up and you know what that means and you can hear it.

[276] And so what does it mean to have perfect pitch?

[277] It means that you know what a note's going to be, and you sing it on the note.

[278] I have a problem because sometimes I transpose my songs, and that kind of screws me up because I'm used to singing them in the key that I wrote them in.

[279] It's something that's innate in certain people, that you know a note.

[280] And you can play your, yeah, you can play your voice like a piano.

[281] You hit that key, it's always that key.

[282] Yeah, yeah.

[283] That's fucking nuts.

[284] That is so nuts.

[285] Okay, so I think what would be interesting to folks, it certainly was to me is that the kind of music that you got swept up in, You were into music.

[286] You go to Temple in Philadelphia, and you majored in music.

[287] Mm -hmm.

[288] And you were in a singing group, like an acapella group, and you guys would compete.

[289] There were competitions.

[290] Philadelphia, the soul scene, it was predominantly black.

[291] And you were white.

[292] And the guys you sang with, was it mixed, or was your group mostly white?

[293] It was mostly white.

[294] We were mixed over time.

[295] But that's not uncommon at that period of time of Philadelphia.

[296] It was a pretty musically integrated scene.

[297] Huh.

[298] I guess what I'm curious at is your age, this is like 1965.

[299] Isn't the British invasion is happening, right?

[300] Is that like the peak of the British invasion?

[301] It was, and it didn't really make it to Philadelphia.

[302] I remember somebody saying, those Beatles, man, they sound like a southern bar band.

[303] You know, it didn't really work.

[304] Because Philadelphia was the center of the universe.

[305] We had American bandstand, we had all that Philadelphia music.

[306] They didn't want to let that shit go, man. They didn't want some British people coming in and taking their title away.

[307] So Philadelphia was very resistant to the Beatles.

[308] And also because of the nature of Philadelphia, it was also very R &B -oriented.

[309] That was a major thing.

[310] So it wasn't until relatively late.

[311] I think I started listening to the Beatles.

[312] And I went, oh, these guys are great.

[313] But it wasn't like...

[314] They're kind of talented.

[315] Yeah, it wasn't from the get.

[316] go.

[317] I'm with you.

[318] Like, I always love the Rolling Stones.

[319] I always love Led Zeppelin.

[320] I couldn't get into the Beatles.

[321] And then there was just one song.

[322] I'll never forget.

[323] It's that song that's like, I woke up, got out of bed, and I come across my did -de -de -de -de -de -de -d -d -d -d -d -d -d.

[324] And I was listening to that song one day, and I go, man, this fucking song goes everywhere, huh?

[325] Like, it's in that little playful thing.

[326] And then there's this orchestra -type thing.

[327] And I was like, oh, I can recognize the insane talent that that group had.

[328] And that kind of led to me liking them.

[329] Yeah, and that was because of the difference between John Lennon and Paul McCartney.

[330] Instead of going on opposite directions, they decided to put it together.

[331] And that woke up out of bed is the Paul part.

[332] And then I heard the news today, oh, boy, that's John Lennon.

[333] And so they stuck both guys together, and they wrote two different songs and put them together in one.

[334] And then, of course, George Bart was involved.

[335] Wow.

[336] That's cool.

[337] That is cool.

[338] And doesn't it, man, that really gets to the heart of something you've lived through for now 50 years, which is like, that kind of partnership to me sounds like great potential for brilliance and probably untenable.

[339] Like that kind of like, whatever your aptitude is or your willingness to compromise and work together and try to weave this thing together, I imagine it's exhausting and it can only go on for so long.

[340] It can only go on in a dynamic way for so long.

[341] I do believe that.

[342] Yeah.

[343] Thank God they made it work for so long.

[344] Well, yeah, it's hard to do.

[345] I promise you.

[346] Yeah, I'm going to get to that because, like, literally your partnership is less and longer than 90 % of marriages.

[347] I don't know.

[348] We need tips.

[349] Like, you and I need tips.

[350] Yeah, we really do.

[351] Like, when I was rereading about you this morning, I was like, man, you guys have been together for 50 years, you and John Oates.

[352] And Monica and I have been together for three and a half years, and we have some success.

[353] Work -wise.

[354] Yeah, work -wise.

[355] Work -husband and wife.

[356] Yeah, and it comes with just a whole tray of things you cannot foresee.

[357] And even two, like, nice people who like each other a lot, it gets complicated.

[358] You never know what's going to happen.

[359] I mean, something can come out of the blue that completely throws it into another dimension.

[360] Right?

[361] You can't prepare for it or anything.

[362] It just happens.

[363] You're right.

[364] And if I, like, you asked me a year ago, like, what do you think you in Monaco fight about in the upcoming year?

[365] I wouldn't be able to guess it correctly at all.

[366] Yeah.

[367] And then a reflection of it, really, that's what we spun out about that thing?

[368] Well, which is never about that thing.

[369] Well, that's true.

[370] That's important.

[371] about what it is.

[372] It's always about all these other things.

[373] That's just the tip of what it is.

[374] It's all this down there.

[375] That's what it's all about.

[376] But isn't it maddening?

[377] Because when you're looking at the tip, you're damn certain is that.

[378] Like it's objectively no. I disagree with this objective thing and I'm going to die right here.

[379] So did you guys just have great communication?

[380] It goes both ways.

[381] Sometimes I think we exist because we have non -communication.

[382] Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.

[383] That's interesting.

[384] You know what it is?

[385] It's like, it's people who are married and they have kids and their kids are fantastic and that's their life.

[386] And you go like, you know what?

[387] This thing is great and we got to preserve this.

[388] So whatever technique we got to come up with so that we can support these kids will do it.

[389] And it's kind of like, yeah, you guys have this insanely successful, most successful of all time partnership.

[390] And you guys are probably both smart enough to go like, well, we should probably keep this thing going.

[391] Yeah.

[392] I mean, I look at it.

[393] It's not like a marriage.

[394] just more like being brothers.

[395] You know, your brother, you might not see your brother.

[396] He lives in Budapest or something.

[397] But when you get together at Christmas time, you go, hey, man, what's going on?

[398] And it's all just kind of like that.

[399] I just foresaw, though, some moment, like 30 years from now on either of your deathbeds where you guys look at each other and you go, God damn, we've been there for each other for 70 years.

[400] And then some whole big scene breaks out with crying and hugging.

[401] Oh, that's nice.

[402] Yeah, I hope that out.

[403] Let's talk about, so you're in college and you're performing a cappella and you're crushing.

[404] And I was really excited to know that while you were at the Uptown Theater, you like met Smokey Robinson and the temptations and...

[405] Yeah, well, what happened was we won that talent show.

[406] And then the prize was you got to make a single with Gamble and Huff.

[407] They were just rising stars at the time.

[408] So we did a couple of records with them.

[409] And they actually made the first one, especially made the charts in Philadelphia, did pretty well in the R &B charts in Philadelphia.

[410] And through doing that, we became sort of fixtures at the Uptown.

[411] We were like there all the time.

[412] We were backstage.

[413] We were in the audience.

[414] We were everywhere.

[415] And because it was such a family, people used to eat at neighbor's houses.

[416] It was all these stars would come into town.

[417] And they would eat across the street.

[418] It's a grandma's house over there.

[419] And I used to go over there with them.

[420] I'd be sitting there with the smoky and one or two of the temptations and, man, I can't even tell you.

[421] And we'd all be sitting around just eating.

[422] That was the world that it was.

[423] What did you have your sights set on at that time?

[424] Because one thing I think is really cool about your story is both all these like peaks and valleys.

[425] Oh my God, this is happening.

[426] No, it's not.

[427] Oh, this is happening.

[428] No, it's not.

[429] The perseverance is really, I think, a great story of yours.

[430] And then also, I think, flexibility is a neat story.

[431] story of yours, too.

[432] So I'm kind of curious, like, in that moment when you were at Uptown all the time, who did you want to be?

[433] Who was the person?

[434] Well, it was either Smokey or any one of the temptations.

[435] That was my goal, because they were the best.

[436] They were the greatest ones.

[437] And that's what I aspired to.

[438] I've got the opportunity to talk to a few different white rappers and ask them, I'm like, because there wasn't an example of the white smoky Robinson, did you think that was going to stand in your way or like, oh, I need to readjust because that doesn't exist?

[439] Or did you think, oh, no, I'll just do what they do and then that'll happen to me or how did that figure into it?

[440] There was a little bit of naivete, I think, and small townism.

[441] In Philadelphia was a very insular city, and it could work there.

[442] It was no big deal.

[443] Right.

[444] People actually used to call me white smoky.

[445] Yeah, I think, in fact, when I had breakfast with you, I said, what do you think about this turn?

[446] Another thing people always called you was blue -eyed soul.

[447] You don't like that, right?

[448] I don't like it because there's something underlying racist about it.

[449] People don't call people brown -eyed opera singers.

[450] You know what I mean?

[451] Yeah.

[452] You're either an opera singer or you're a soul singer, you know what I mean?

[453] I like that response.

[454] I think that's right.

[455] I think it is right.

[456] I think it is right.

[457] But I guess you know why I couldn't relate.

[458] Well, a couple of things.

[459] At that breakfast, I'm going to go back to the breakfast.

[460] I was praying you had been an addict of some kind, just because I'm such a fucking addict.

[461] I thought, oh, if he was an addict, like, that's how I'll, like, link into this thing.

[462] And you just weren't, disappointingly, you weren't.

[463] But an answer like that is so you, because for me, I want to be accepted by everybody, right?

[464] So if you're saying I'm blue -eyed, so, like, I would love that, because I just want to be, you know.

[465] Liked by everyone, accepted by everyone.

[466] Yes, liked by everyone.

[467] everyone.

[468] I want to be cool.

[469] Yeah, see, I could not relate to that at all.

[470] Yeah.

[471] You're very healthy.

[472] I know.

[473] That's why it was going to be a false history of Daryl Hall.

[474] Stay tuned for more armchair expert, if you dare.

[475] What's up, guys?

[476] It's your girl Kiki, and my podcast is back with a new season.

[477] And let me tell you, it's too good.

[478] And I'm diving into the brains of entertainment's best and brightest.

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[484] So follow, watch, and listen to Baby.

[485] This is Kiki Palmer on the Wondery app or wherever you get your podcast.

[486] We've all been there.

[487] Turning to the internet to self -diagnose our inexplicable pains, debilitating body aches, sudden fevers, and strange rashes.

[488] Though our minds tend to spiral to worst -case scenarios, it's usually nothing.

[489] but for an unlucky few, these unsuspecting symptoms can start the clock ticking on a terrifying medical mystery.

[490] Like the unexplainable death of a retired firefighter, whose body was found at home by his son, except it looked like he had been cremated, or the time when an entire town started jumping from buildings and seeing tigers on their ceilings.

[491] Hey listeners, it's Mr. Ballin here, and I'm here to tell you about my podcast.

[492] It's called Mr. Ballin's Medical Mysteries.

[493] Each terrifying true story will be sure to keep you up at night.

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[495] Prime members can listen early and ad -free on Amazon Music.

[496] Okay, so in college, Monica, they're at a dance.

[497] Carfuffle breaks out.

[498] Oh, you love that.

[499] Darrell wants to get the fuck out of there.

[500] He gets into an elevator, and here's this cute gentleman, John Oates, is in the elevator.

[501] Oh, my God.

[502] Is that an apocryphal, or is that how you met?

[503] That really is how we met.

[504] He had his band, and he was promoting his record, his single.

[505] I was promoting that Gammon Huff single I was talking about.

[506] Howard Tate was there.

[507] I remember that.

[508] He was in the dressing room with us.

[509] And all this shit was going down.

[510] The five stair steps were there.

[511] And suddenly, like, in the middle of something, somebody whips somebody with a chain or, fuck, I don't even know.

[512] Some bullshit happened, and then the whole place broke out in total chaos.

[513] And I said, okay, show's over.

[514] And I got into the elevator, and Oates got in the elevator.

[515] And I said, we didn't get to play.

[516] And he goes, yeah.

[517] And then we began talking, and he was a freshman in Temple.

[518] I was a freshman at Temple.

[519] I said, okay, well, we like the same kind of music.

[520] Let's hang out together.

[521] And you know how kids are.

[522] We were 18 years old.

[523] And our parents lived in the suburbs.

[524] So we started sharing apartments together in Philadelphia.

[525] What was the beginning of that friendship?

[526] Well, first of all, was the connective tissue of all your relationships and music at that point?

[527] Yes and no. I mean, it's hard to say, man. It was a long time ago.

[528] It sounds like you were pretty single -minded, though, about me. music.

[529] From the outside, it seems like that was your fucking life.

[530] You're majoring in it.

[531] You're in every band.

[532] That consumed my life, yes.

[533] And John and I weren't always doing the same thing at the same time.

[534] He had a band with Frank Stallone.

[535] Really?

[536] Oh, my God.

[537] Made famous in Barfly, the movie.

[538] What did Frank play?

[539] Frank was the singer and a guitar player.

[540] No shit.

[541] Yeah, it was the band's called Valentine.

[542] Oh, wow.

[543] So anyway, John was doing that.

[544] I was so busy that we shared an apartment, but we hardly even saw each other.

[545] And then it kind of went on like that all through school.

[546] And then John went to Europe and I wound up moving in with a girl that became my wife, temporarily.

[547] And that was in Philadelphia as well.

[548] And then he moved, then he moved in with us.

[549] And the three of us lived together.

[550] And that's sort of how Holland started.

[551] Yeah.

[552] So I think for me, maybe the most fascinating stretch of your life is between 68 and 72.

[553] So if I understand it correctly, like you've made enough of a name for yourself in Philadelphia that you're doing session work, you're recording, you're doing all the things and you're out of college now.

[554] Yeah.

[555] And I wonder what level of like anxiety.

[556] Like to me, that's the period where you commit to either being you or not.

[557] I could see where that period would have broke you.

[558] As you said, you got married really young, then you got divorced.

[559] Like you could have found yourself with a job at this point.

[560] Absolutely.

[561] But except that I jumped right in with both feet.

[562] I got involved with the sound world and people that don't know what that is.

[563] That was the main recording studio where everything got made back in those days.

[564] And I was hanging out with those people.

[565] I was playing keyboards.

[566] I was soaking things up like a sponge.

[567] I was writing songs doing all that kind of thing and getting a pittance of money of doing it.

[568] And I worked at a discount drugstore on Skid Row in Philly.

[569] And one of my jobs was throwing bums out on the street on Christmas Eve.

[570] Wow.

[571] Wow.

[572] That's Dax's dream retirement.

[573] He wants to work at a 7 -Eleven and do that.

[574] And just be a balance.

[575] I promise you, you don't want to do that.

[576] Yeah, thanks for reiterating now.

[577] I spend all my free time, Daryl, at this one 7 -Eleven in Hollywood, because it is hot.

[578] There is shit going on 24 -7.

[579] I love this 7 -Eleven.

[580] There's always activity.

[581] But you get signed in 73, you and John, to Atlanta.

[582] Yeah.

[583] Here's one of the stories I'm talking about.

[584] Like, so everyone knows she's gone.

[585] She's gone.

[586] She's gone.

[587] Oh, yeah.

[588] And what a song.

[589] You first released that in 73.

[590] And it's like it does okay, right?

[591] Yeah, it did okay.

[592] That's the best way I could use.

[593] But then I'll probably finish your thought.

[594] Then this R &B group called Tavares cut it.

[595] And it became a, I think, number one, R &B song.

[596] And that was kind of frustrating.

[597] Yeah.

[598] I can't really imagine.

[599] Like, I mean, To put it in my own vernacular, it's like, I make a movie, it does okay, and someone does shot for fucking shot the same movie in dialogue, and it's a huge hit.

[600] It would kind of crush me. Like, what was I the element that kept that from being great?

[601] It was a little disconcerting.

[602] So, yeah, but we kicked around for a couple of years.

[603] The road has always saved us.

[604] In that period of time, we just went on the road.

[605] We opened for so many people, I can't even tell you.

[606] We opened for everybody.

[607] You open for David Bowie, right?

[608] We opened for David Bowie.

[609] We opened for Steve Yon.

[610] We opened for Billy Paul, and we opened for the Bee Gees.

[611] We opened more out.

[612] Hey, did you watch that documentary that just was out?

[613] No, no, but I lived that documentary.

[614] I know the Bee Gees, or knew the Beegis very well.

[615] We did a long tour with the Beegis.

[616] Oh, wow.

[617] Yeah.

[618] And still didn't become an addict.

[619] That's impossible.

[620] Yeah.

[621] And I'll tell you, that was really our time.

[622] That's what it saved us or supported us.

[623] And then Sarah Smile came along.

[624] That's a whole different world.

[625] Yeah, so in 73, you do, she's gone.

[626] It does okay.

[627] And then you end up doing three albums at Atlantic, and then they drop you.

[628] And then you're really quickly, I think, signed to RCA.

[629] But when they dropped you, again, to me, this is a moment like 68 to 72.

[630] Like, where's your head at when you're like, oh, fuck, I had my big shot.

[631] That song almost got there.

[632] Fuck.

[633] It didn't really work like that because Atlantic, it's like they reluctantly let us go.

[634] My manager at the time, Tommy Motola, he kind of orchestrated it.

[635] out what he thought was going to be a better deal for us at RCA.

[636] So he pulled us out of Atlantic and we went to RCA.

[637] It wasn't we got dropped.

[638] Oh, okay.

[639] We did get dropped, but they didn't get the fuck out of here, you know?

[640] Yeah, yeah, yeah.

[641] Emotionally, it wasn't the same.

[642] It wasn't.

[643] And I'm still friends with some of those people from Atlantic.

[644] No kidding.

[645] Really quick, just because Tommy Motola, I don't know much about him other than, like, Mariah Carey.

[646] Like, what was his signature recipe?

[647] Why was he such a titan in that period?

[648] He was relentless.

[649] He was connected.

[650] He knew the New York music business.

[651] He hooked us up with good lawyers and befriended record executives.

[652] What can I say?

[653] The music business is organized crime.

[654] He was kind of gangstery back then, huh?

[655] Never make a mistake that it's not.

[656] It was organized crime.

[657] The victims are the musicians.

[658] And I'm not saying Tommy Mottola was involved in, quote, organized crime.

[659] I'm not saying that.

[660] But the business is organized crime.

[661] Yeah.

[662] Why does it have that history?

[663] Like, what was it about that industry that allowed that to run that way?

[664] It's an industry that's always been founded on exploitation.

[665] Exploitation.

[666] You take some dumb guy playing a guitar on the street corner, and you get him to play into a recording machine or a tape recorder, and then you sell it, and you give him a penny, and you keep a dollar.

[667] Right, right.

[668] Yeah, I guess you know the sad part about it.

[669] You're praying on people's hunger.

[670] You're getting people in this very vulnerable position where it's like, God, am I going to be able to do this for a living?

[671] And I'll pretty much do anything to be able to do this for a living.

[672] It doesn't work that way for accountants.

[673] It's not like they can just go interview somewhere else.

[674] In the musicians case, I think it's more of just we want to get heard.

[675] And there's a lot of naivete and a lot of say, okay, yeah, man, you want to give me some money?

[676] Okay, that kind of thing.

[677] Like your first contract, your first contract, you've never negotiated a record deal before this.

[678] So it's like, you have no life skills that are really set you.

[679] up to do good in that situation.

[680] I made all the mistakes that you can possibly make, and I'm still paying for it.

[681] I will always pay for it, because if you don't pay attention to your publishing, where are you in trouble?

[682] Uh -huh.

[683] Okay, so from 70, I don't know, I guess 76 on, then it's really kind of this incredible run.

[684] Just to mention, she's gone, they re -release in 76.

[685] Yeah, I was going to say.

[686] And then it goes to number seven.

[687] Yeah.

[688] Well, what happened was Sarah Smile became an R &B hit in all the soul stations, and then it crossed over to pop and became a giant hit in all stations.

[689] It was a third single that we had released.

[690] We were in Germany working.

[691] We were playing a tour, a European tour.

[692] And somebody said, you know, some R &B station in Akron, Ohio, or somewhere like that, is playing the shit out of your song and now it's getting picked up by all the R &B stations.

[693] And we're like, what?

[694] Okay, all good, all good.

[695] So that happened, and then suddenly everything changed.

[696] And then Atlantic, in their wisdom, said, why don't we really, she's gone?

[697] Because nobody ever really heard it.

[698] And that became a hit as well.

[699] So in my mind, I don't know that you'll like this or not, but here it comes.

[700] I would put you in this category for me in my head with Steely Dan, which is, what the fuck was Steely Dan?

[701] Like, it was a jazz band, but it was rock, but it was rhythm and blues a little bit.

[702] Like there was all this wonderful stuff going on.

[703] the musicianship was like you couldn't question it it was just fucking top notch but it became its own kind of genre and i would say similarly hollow notes was its own genre i wonder if some of the reason like she's gone didn't take off but then it did is like you just were like maybe five years too early and people needed to be primed a little bit for this new thing you guys were doing yeah i think that i've been out of time a lot in my life usually ahead of time luckily i like to say i've been ahead of my time but it's funny if you're We were called by a lot of people at East Coast Steely Dan.

[704] Oh, really?

[705] Even though they're East Coast people, but they made their bones in the West Coast.

[706] And I agree with you that we like them, who I totally respect, we're hard.

[707] Holland's is hard to categorize.

[708] It really is.

[709] Yeah.

[710] I mean, I know what I do.

[711] I'm a soul singer.

[712] That's a little easier to figure out.

[713] But the body of work is hard to categorize.

[714] Yeah, man. It's interesting that you could be being true to the voice in your own head, Daryl, and it could find itself into all these different songs.

[715] But you could see the very consistent throughline to all that.

[716] Yeah.

[717] I think one of the things that I finally landed on and the success of it was live from Daryl's House, which is that because I have such a large language skills in so many different genres that I can do that and participate in an authentic and proper way in anybody's music, which I've proven over the years with Life from Daryl's House.

[718] To me, that's the ultimate thing I ever did because it's the real manifestation what I consider to be my talents of being able to do all these different kinds of things.

[719] Yeah, yeah, yeah.

[720] Yeah, you're like a painter who can do an impressionist thing.

[721] Then you do a cubist thing.

[722] Yeah, it's really, really fascinating.

[723] I can own it all.

[724] I'm not just visiting those things.

[725] Yes.

[726] So I'm a huge fan of live from Daryl's house in Monica.

[727] So I don't know if you ever seen it, but Daryl has this awesome, I guess it's in a barn, right?

[728] You have a barn in your place in New York?

[729] I have a club now, but I made the club look like the barn, so he can't believe that.

[730] Okay, but he had a barn.

[731] and he invites all these different musicians.

[732] And I'm talking from the whole gamut.

[733] It's a show.

[734] And you watch it.

[735] But the one that got me, and I want to know about this connection you guys have, is Chromeo, which I didn't even know Chromeo before watching that.

[736] And there's such a different group.

[737] They're an electronic group.

[738] Oh.

[739] And I want to say is the history that they used to do one of your songs and you kind of got hip to that?

[740] Yeah, they used to do no can do.

[741] No can do.

[742] Yeah.

[743] So I think they were like, oh, here's our spin on home.

[744] And then Darrell got hip to that.

[745] And then they come on live at Darrell's house.

[746] And he plays their music.

[747] They play his music.

[748] Oh, my God.

[749] How cool.

[750] It's so outside of the envelope of Hall and Oats.

[751] Oh, completely.

[752] That's Darrell.

[753] It's not Hall and Oates.

[754] It's something.

[755] Right, right, right, right.

[756] It's incredible.

[757] It's like the synthesization of these dramatically different mediums and it all working in this way.

[758] And yes, the only thing that could connect it is the math of music.

[759] Like you guys both know the math of music and somehow that's where you meet.

[760] Yeah, that's about right.

[761] You got it.

[762] Okay, so now I want to go through this ride in the 80s because it's fucking bonkers.

[763] And I'm going to sing every one of these songs.

[764] You ready?

[765] Oh, boy.

[766] This is in order.

[767] Every time we have a musician on, Dex has to sing.

[768] Yeah, and I'm a terrible singer, as you already heard.

[769] But just so people know, because maybe some people wouldn't know by the titles.

[770] Okay, you ready?

[771] Kisses on my list.

[772] Your kiss is on my list because your kisses on my list.

[773] Private eyes.

[774] I'm watching you.

[775] I can't go for that.

[776] Oh, no. No can do.

[777] I can go.

[778] Then man eater.

[779] Oh, here she comes.

[780] I know.

[781] Watch how Monica.

[782] She'll chew you up.

[783] Man eater.

[784] Out of touch.

[785] Six number ones.

[786] Is it interesting you that Sarah's smile wasn't ever a number one?

[787] Like, isn't that your pulp fiction, would you say?

[788] No. I love how disagreeable you are.

[789] These are my favorite interviews when you're like, no, that's not right.

[790] No, you don't have that correct.

[791] The biggest songs I had were not necessarily number one.

[792] I don't look at chart positions as anything.

[793] Chart positions is how much money you want to give the fucking program director.

[794] That's got nothing to do with anything.

[795] Sarah Smile is one of the most important songs.

[796] Sarah Smiles' My Yesterday, that's the best way I can put it.

[797] Yeah.

[798] A wait for me was never even a hit.

[799] And Wait for Me is one of the biggest songs that I, the audiences, like.

[800] Yeah.

[801] You Make My Dreams was never released in Europe or UK, ever.

[802] Wow.

[803] Oh, wow.

[804] Yeah.

[805] You know, I got to hate you with two of my favorite songs, and I feel like they were the most you ever bent, which is method of modern love.

[806] Is a method of modern love?

[807] I feel like that's the closest you got to New Wave, which I loved in that period.

[808] Like New Wave was my shit.

[809] I don't think of that song as New Wave, but wow, okay.

[810] I want to say, like, because maybe there's something about the synths in it are a little, like...

[811] Oh, oh.

[812] Well, the production, I see what you're saying.

[813] Yeah, production -wise, I can have...

[814] understand what you mean.

[815] Like, M -E -O -D -A - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - -.

[816] I get it.

[817] It just had, it had like a bit of an 80s New Wave thing that, I mean, I don't know, I think it crushed.

[818] You're making me think.

[819] Okay, cool.

[820] And then Family Man. I didn't write that song.

[821] That was written by, of all people, Mike Oldfield, of the tubular Bell's fame, you know, Mike Oldfield?

[822] No, no. He was known as an instrumentalist, and he wrote that song, and it was a really, anomaly on his record, and nobody even knew about it.

[823] It was totally obscure.

[824] Someone who was working with me at the time told me about the song and played it for me, and I said, well, why don't we cut it?

[825] So that's how that happened.

[826] It's one of the few covers I've ever done.

[827] Yeah.

[828] Did you have like some kind of guiding principle about what, like the songs that were written, you wrote almost all of them, and then in some cases like this, Family Man, that comes about.

[829] And then And sometimes you co -wrote, I know you wrote, like, Sarah's about Sarah Allen, and you wrote with her and her sister at times.

[830] Were you just open?

[831] Like, where was your ego and all that?

[832] Or what did you decide would be, like, the method by which you guys would write songs?

[833] Well, with Sarah and with John to some degree, it was a sounding board situation where I'd say, do you like this?

[834] And they go, yeah, and I'd say, okay, and they, why don't you say this?

[835] It was that kind of thing where I would use them a lot of sounding boards, especially Sarah, because she's a great lyricist.

[836] But she was there.

[837] She was my girlfriend, so she was there.

[838] Jana, her sister, was more of a musician, and we did write songs together musically as well.

[839] The first song that we ever wrote together, she was only 20 years old, and we wrote Kiss on My List together.

[840] We just sat down and wrote it.

[841] And she came up with a good part of that song.

[842] What you hear, the finished product, was just a demo.

[843] It was a four -track demo.

[844] No kidding.

[845] Yeah.

[846] That's kind of wild.

[847] What I find amazing, I mean, I'm 33, and I know all of these songs very well.

[848] Like this music has transcended all the generations.

[849] And maybe that's because it becomes so personal to people that they pass it down.

[850] And then that becomes personal and they pass it down.

[851] But it's one of the only, I think, bands that that has done that for me. Yeah, someone who's not like a music historian.

[852] Exactly.

[853] That wasn't your jam, but somehow this broke through.

[854] Yeah.

[855] Some songs can nail something in a way.

[856] it's like, well, that's the feeling, that they captured that feeling.

[857] And it probably won't be said more eloquently than Sarah Smile.

[858] That's an amazing thing to say.

[859] And I see why you pick Sarah Smile, because that is about as direct as a song can be.

[860] Every word in that song is real.

[861] And in its simplicity and directness, you couldn't say it any better than what it, I think.

[862] The whole thing is all distilled.

[863] And that's a song I should be sick of, by the way.

[864] Well, you, I should be sick of it.

[865] Well, I'm sure you are.

[866] I'm still not.

[867] Actually, I'm not sick of it.

[868] That's the crazy part.

[869] You're not.

[870] No, I'm not sick of it.

[871] I still mean it when I sing that song.

[872] God damn.

[873] Yeah, there's something about that fucking song, Daryl, that you can't hear it too many times.

[874] Yeah, it's really, it's not enough to say it's an amazing song.

[875] It's just really something else.

[876] What I'm curious about is what it appears to me from the outside was, I remember in the 80s at the apex of Hall of Notes, John started racing cars, which, by the way, he was a fucking good race car driver.

[877] Like, he actually drove in the Trans Am.

[878] I remember going as a kid to the Detroit Grand Prix and fucking John Oates was racing in it.

[879] And they don't just let you because you're John Oates, right.

[880] He was a good driver.

[881] No, he was the real thing.

[882] Yeah.

[883] And when you have a partnership with somebody, what becomes obvious is like he had a bunch of other interests, I'm sure.

[884] And you were just, I don't think you ever left the bubble of music.

[885] I think that's what you are interested in.

[886] I know you restore houses and stuff, you do have other interests, but I think, like, what seems obvious to me is you wanted to do it probably 10 hours a day, and your partner probably had other interests.

[887] And I just think that's an interesting dynamic.

[888] If you're both getting the same rewards and you're both going out on stage and all that's happening, that to me, seems like something I would end up getting resentful about.

[889] But maybe you were peaceful because I'm wrong about everything.

[890] So maybe you were like, I'm glad he's distracted with that.

[891] I can go do this thing and we can get together and perform.

[892] Are you saying, was I resentful?

[893] Yeah, did you feel like, wait, you're not doing this as seriously as I am?

[894] Oh, no, it's sort of the opposite.

[895] Oh, okay, great.

[896] I think if there's any resentment, unfortunately, it's probably from John.

[897] Right.

[898] Similarly, I was reading the Keith Richards biography, and I love the public animosity they have towards each other.

[899] I find it so entertaining, like somehow they bullshit on each other nonstop, but then they've been in the Rolling Stones for 60 years.

[900] I don't know.

[901] It's great.

[902] But Keith really takes a chapter to talk about what an amazing, harmonica player Mc Jagger is, which I don't think comes easy to him.

[903] So what I walked away with was like, he must be a really fucking good harmonica player for Keith Richards to go on that long about how good he is.

[904] Well, those guys, again, to come back to me and John, I think there's a lot of similarity in their relationship.

[905] I really do.

[906] They've known each other about the same length of time.

[907] Yeah.

[908] I think they can get nasty with each other or have problems, but they see things in each other that other people might not see because they know each other so well.

[909] And that allows them, by the way, to fight and do all those things that they do.

[910] Let me make an analogy.

[911] You don't have the best sex necessarily with the person you get along with the best.

[912] Sometimes two people who cannot get along for more than two hours.

[913] When they fuck, there's a symphony that happens.

[914] And then maybe they shouldn't go have lunch afterwards.

[915] You're uneasy with this analogy.

[916] It always has to go there.

[917] It's so true that I don't even what to say.

[918] You're exactly right.

[919] Some people make beautiful love and they just can't hang.

[920] Well, I do want to say something real quick about the resentment.

[921] I think the reason that question doesn't apply is because you don't have the thing where you care about what people perceive of you.

[922] So if you did, maybe that would come into play where you're like, well, I'm not getting the credit, whatever.

[923] But you don't seem to care what people think.

[924] I want to be respected.

[925] That's what I care about.

[926] That's all I care about.

[927] I don't want people to fall over themselves over me or anything, that kind of thing.

[928] I just want to be able to do my job.

[929] That's the extent of it.

[930] Can I ask, in that vein, what are, like, two compliments you've gotten where you're just heads spun?

[931] Well, one sticks in my mind, because I don't usually retain these things.

[932] I was backstage with Paul McCartney one time, and he said to me, I wish I had written a song as good as every time you go away.

[933] Yes.

[934] See, that's, yeah.

[935] I didn't even know what to say.

[936] I was so gobsmacked.

[937] That's Paul McCartney's saying that to me. Yeah, that's bonkers.

[938] Yeah.

[939] Stay tuned for more armchair expert, if you dare.

[940] Okay, so I want people to check out live from Daryl's house.

[941] It's so, so fun to watch because it's almost like you call together a basketball player, a baseball player, and a football player, and you're like, and we're going to play rugby today.

[942] Like, here's these people that maybe wouldn't.

[943] fit in your mind immediately and then we're going to and you get to see you guys iron it out which is really awesome you get to see how that comes together how you guys meet on this middle ground of whatever shared knowledge you have right and it's just a really fascinating real -time evolution you get to witness it's really fun i get so exhausted after one of those shows it takes me two days to get over it because you cannot for one second stop thinking about what's going on in the moment and we do minimum editing i mean we obviously obviously you have to hit it, but you just don't know what's going to happen.

[944] Anything can happen.

[945] Yeah.

[946] I don't want their name, but I do want to know, have you invited someone there who you're like, oh, yeah, they're down, they can hang, and they got there and you're like, ooh, okay, they've been really well produced or something is as a skew.

[947] Or do those people know not to even come?

[948] You mean they're not as good as you think they're going to be?

[949] Yes, they ran out of talent like midway through.

[950] You're like, oh, okay, I had seen the best of them.

[951] and I don't want to name.

[952] I just want to know if that's happened.

[953] I'm seriously thinking about it.

[954] I can't think of any artist that I could say that about it that came on the show.

[955] They all step up.

[956] Nobody disappoints me because my mind is flexible about it anyway.

[957] A lot of them are nervous as shit, man. Even veterans.

[958] In fact, I find the veterans to be the most difficult because they're so set in their ways and used to playing their song, then I go like, well, no, no. I did this one time with one artist.

[959] I said, no, this isn't your show.

[960] This is my show.

[961] this is they're all this is you know it's got to be that way because that's the way we want to play it that's one of the many interesting parts i find that that weird thing that happens when you have somebody who just is coming up and had their first record or whatever or is just trying to have their first record because i have had a lot of people on that are really unknown and they're like really so eager to go man and like try on their best and it's a great feeling it really is a great feeling but you do you point out something i don't think i've ever thought about which is when you're a really successful band and you're touring and you're playing your same 20 songs in some different order, in some weird way you could kind of get worse as your musician just because you're not breaking out of it at all.

[962] The worst thing you can do, and there are so many bands to do this, they just play the songs by rote.

[963] They're used to playing them that way.

[964] Again, I've had people on who are veterans that just really have a hard time playing the songs differently.

[965] Then they've played it for 40 years or whatever.

[966] Yeah, there's so much muscle memory they've got to kind of break out of it.

[967] They can't relate to it because they all, you know, you have the, arrangements and all that.

[968] And we try and change things up on stage.

[969] I do with John and the band.

[970] We try and evolve.

[971] We evolve as tours go on and the songs morph.

[972] And they do different things and they keep us interested and they keep the audience interested.

[973] But if you fall into ruts, man, it's like anything in life.

[974] If you fall in a rut, you're fucked.

[975] Yeah.

[976] Okay.

[977] I need you to tell people really quick if there's a really quick version of it.

[978] I did not know the severity of Lyme disease before I talk to you, how completely disruptive this can be to your entire life.

[979] Like, you got Lyme disease, right?

[980] It's a tick on a deer, right?

[981] It's a deer tick, gets it from the deer and gives it to you.

[982] It is a deer tick, and that tick can have, and usually does have a lot of different diseases within its saliva or whatever.

[983] Yeah.

[984] And so it's amazing that it isn't a bigger deal than it is.

[985] There's still people that say it's an easy thing to get rid of and, you know, all that kind of nonsense.

[986] But it's a really, really a bad, debilitating disease that will affect you for life.

[987] There's no cure.

[988] Right.

[989] And it has this never -ending power of not dissipating, which in itself is its own mental struggle, right?

[990] It comes on in the most insidious and strange ways.

[991] Three days ago, if I was sitting here right now, I would be going, I don't really feel very good.

[992] because I had a fever.

[993] And every time it happens to me, I think I was bit again because I was bit again.

[994] I actually was bit again last year.

[995] But you have this ongoing, you never know when it's going to come.

[996] It can be anything from stiffness.

[997] Two days ago, my skin felt like there was like itching underneath my skin.

[998] I had a fever.

[999] My heart beats funny, it skips beats and things like that.

[1000] I mean, everybody has different.

[1001] Some people get really bad headaches.

[1002] They get mental fog, arthritic feelings.

[1003] I sometimes get twitches.

[1004] That's how I first found it.

[1005] My hand started going like that.

[1006] Oh, my God.

[1007] How it was scary for you?

[1008] Well, I was tested for Parkinson's because of it.

[1009] But all this is fucking Lyme disease.

[1010] And when I say Lyme disease, that's the entire gamut of diseases.

[1011] Lyme disease is Borrelia.

[1012] It's only one disease.

[1013] There's Ehrlichia and Rocky Mountain Spotted Fever.

[1014] And there's so many of them.

[1015] There's like, God, about 10 of them now, at least.

[1016] And one of them that's around here in the Northeast, where I am, is called Pohasset.

[1017] It can kill you.

[1018] People die from it.

[1019] It's a really, really serious thing.

[1020] And it needs funding and research and a cure.

[1021] It really does.

[1022] Well, what's funny is that's the other big thing I remember about our breakfast together because you and I ordered in a specific way.

[1023] And then I said, oh, yeah, I have psoriotic arthritis, which is an autoimmune disease.

[1024] And Lyme's disease, it virtually turns into an autoimmune disease, right?

[1025] Yeah.

[1026] Different things to different people, but yes.

[1027] Yeah, so you and I are both eating a very specific way at this breakfast.

[1028] And I'm like, why are you eating?

[1029] so specifically, and you're like, oh, I found out that, you know, if I eat this way, it generally will downsize the effects of the Lyme's disease.

[1030] Yeah, yeah.

[1031] And so I wonder if you get into this circus.

[1032] So because I have this psoriotic arthritis, there's the diet portion, right?

[1033] So I can be, like, religious about that.

[1034] And of course, they fuck up all the time because I'm a human and it's, I need convenience, and I'm tired and I'm angry, and I don't care if my joints hurt, so I do it.

[1035] But then there are times I'm doing it perfectly.

[1036] And then I have a fucking flare -up, right?

[1037] and then this racket in my head starts up.

[1038] Like, what did I do wrong?

[1039] What have I done wrong?

[1040] Is it that I got too stressed?

[1041] I found that that also will trigger it.

[1042] Am I not managing my stress?

[1043] So what it sets you on is this path, I don't know about for you, but for me, it's like this never -ending evaluation of how I have fucked up, and now I deserve this.

[1044] You hit it on the head, man. You're constantly aware of what you have to do to make sure that everything is cool.

[1045] And if you're a road musician, so much depends on you feel on the top of your game every day every time you're on stage it's a constant terror like I said two days ago I'm going oh fuck did I just get bit again I got to go out on the road on Saturday I got to start rehearsals am I going to be fucked up again here I am but then it went away thank God the flare went away and I'm like okay but it's a constant battle like that yeah and you kind of live in like there's just a vague threat at all times like for me like is my whole face going to peel off which happens for no reason.

[1046] I just start flaking everywhere.

[1047] And I'm like, oh, I got a film in two days.

[1048] I hope this is over.

[1049] There's nothing I can do.

[1050] I have to be patient.

[1051] And then just beat myself up that I maybe had too much nicotine.

[1052] Maybe that's the reason.

[1053] I don't fucking know.

[1054] But it's kind of exhausting.

[1055] It is exhausting.

[1056] But hey, it's life.

[1057] Other people have problems, their own versions of these things.

[1058] It is exhausting.

[1059] I agree, though.

[1060] But have you had this thought?

[1061] Like, one part that's nice about it, potentially, is because you have to live this certain way to prevent it from flaring up, it might ultimately all those things might be great for your longevity.

[1062] Possibly.

[1063] I have good genes.

[1064] Like I said, my mother's 98 years old.

[1065] But yeah, what it does, for whatever reasons, I don't know if I always was a regulated person, but it made me more regulated.

[1066] Yeah.

[1067] Now, you're going out on the road.

[1068] You guys are going on tour.

[1069] You start in August, right?

[1070] You're going to play Philly.

[1071] Is that where you kick it off?

[1072] No. Philly's a I think the third gig.

[1073] We're doing Boston first.

[1074] Okay, Boston first.

[1075] And then I know you're going to be at the bowl in October.

[1076] Yeah.

[1077] I want to go.

[1078] And so will you invite Monica right now?

[1079] I'm assuming you're both going to come, right?

[1080] Yes.

[1081] Yes, you're invited, of course.

[1082] We're going to come through decades of touring, playing virtually every single place.

[1083] Do you have a handful that, like, you love to, like, I'm assuming it's just because I live here, but the bowl is a special place.

[1084] I've been to shows all over the country.

[1085] The Bulls are.

[1086] is pretty special, right?

[1087] The Hollywood Bowl?

[1088] Yeah, the bowl is really good.

[1089] It's a beautiful room, first of all.

[1090] And it's always great when we play there.

[1091] What are a couple others around the country you love?

[1092] Have you ever played Red Rock?

[1093] Yes, Red Rock is beautiful.

[1094] It's really nice.

[1095] What do you do on the road?

[1096] Have you over the years, have you figured out how to make the time on the road worthwhile and not just about the show?

[1097] Yeah.

[1098] It's sort of like the Army, hurry up and wait.

[1099] Yeah.

[1100] I have a routine on show days.

[1101] I am so in my hibernating stage.

[1102] I'm a reader, and I just sit in bed and read all day.

[1103] Oh, wow.

[1104] And that's really what I do.

[1105] And then in a certain point, I start gearing my brain up a little bit more and more and more.

[1106] So it's sort of this crescendo.

[1107] So when I hit the stage, I'm 100 % there.

[1108] I go from nothing to that, to that.

[1109] That's every show day.

[1110] Have you gotten better over the years at shutting it down at night?

[1111] Yeah.

[1112] It is a really strange feeling to go from that to that.

[1113] And I figured it out.

[1114] I don't know how to tell you, but I figured out how to quickly wind myself down.

[1115] I got to have a couple of bourbons and then I'm, then I'm in my room, just like you're saying.

[1116] Yeah, yeah.

[1117] No wonder addiction is so prevalent with musicians because it's like 100 % love intake, validation, doing the thing you're great at, then in a hotel by yourself, a little bit bored, confused, all these things like, drugs can prolong that feeling from the stage.

[1118] Well, yeah.

[1119] They're good at that, if nothing else.

[1120] Yeah, I know.

[1121] Age is a benefit in this case, because I couldn't do it if I wanted to do it, man. Do you ever sit around and imagine yourself trying to launch the career you had in 2021?

[1122] Like how insanely different the landscape is and the business and all these things.

[1123] And back to the earlier part of the conversation, like you would have to be on Instagram.

[1124] That is a component I don't think you could not do at this point.

[1125] Do you kind of have like gratitude that you had your career in the phase you had it?

[1126] It's so different.

[1127] It's got good and bad.

[1128] What I went through was having to please a very small group of people and kiss their asses and do anything that I could do to let them allow me to progress in my career.

[1129] And I'm talking about everything from half -ass rock writers to program directors to no talent record executives and crooked lawyers.

[1130] I mean, you name it.

[1131] But there aren't that many of them, right?

[1132] Now there are thousands and thousands of people, them and also good people.

[1133] So in some ways you have more alternatives to getting through things than you did back in those days where you had to follow a very proscribed set of rules in order to do anything.

[1134] And that even included your music, the kind of music you would make.

[1135] That's true.

[1136] They only allowed you to make certain kind of music.

[1137] I don't miss those days.

[1138] I really don't.

[1139] I think that I would have prevailed now.

[1140] I would have had to think about it more.

[1141] and I would have found my little places to do it and my little paths, when I hit one wall, you go to another wall and all that.

[1142] But out of all that, I'm a live musician, and you've got to be a live musician.

[1143] If you're a live musician, you're good.

[1144] Something's going to happen for you if you keep your brains together and make the right decisions.

[1145] Yeah, you're right.

[1146] I guess in some ways there's like increased freedom, but the business model, and even more to your point about you have to be a live musician.

[1147] If you want to make a living, you certainly have to be a live musician.

[1148] It also depends on what kind of musician you want to be.

[1149] To me, pop music is just another form of music today.

[1150] If you want to be Taylor Swift, you have to do something completely different than if you want to be, say, my stepson who has a band in London.

[1151] It's different.

[1152] But you have different expectations.

[1153] But that doesn't mean you can't make a lot of money and have a successful career in all these different ways.

[1154] Is there anyone right now that's out right now that has your interest, that you're kind of enamored with?

[1155] I don't know, man. I don't like the name names.

[1156] I hear people all the time.

[1157] I hear new people.

[1158] I like with Anderson Pack and Bruno Martin just did.

[1159] I love that shit.

[1160] I mean, that's me, man. That's Philadelphia all the way.

[1161] They might as well be doing it.

[1162] Well, they do do steps.

[1163] What am I saying?

[1164] That's late 60s, early 70s, R &B music.

[1165] And I love that.

[1166] I just throw one out.

[1167] If you don't like him, I'll just cut it out.

[1168] But Leon Bridges?

[1169] Love him.

[1170] He's great.

[1171] Yeah.

[1172] Love him.

[1173] Absolutely love him.

[1174] Anderson Pack and Leon Bridges, to me, have a throwback level of soul.

[1175] Like they got transported here or something.

[1176] Yeah.

[1177] I mean, that's my music.

[1178] That's what I grew up with.

[1179] That's my baby food.

[1180] And when I see somebody doing it in a new generation and doing it so well, but taking it into another little place, that's got my vote all the way.

[1181] Yeah, yeah.

[1182] Well, Darrell, it's been just an honor to get to know you a little bit personally.

[1183] And I never made that show, but the best thing that came out of is you and I had breakfast.

[1184] So it was kind of the whole endeavor was worth it to me. And I've got to come see you, I don't know, a handful of times now and get to shake your hand after the show.

[1185] and it's always a great pleasure, and Monica and I will come most certainly to the ball.

[1186] Absolutely, I can't wait.

[1187] Yeah, definitely be there, man. I'll see you.

[1188] What is going to be the backstage protocol by then?

[1189] I don't know.

[1190] But we'll figure something out.

[1191] I'll be nude but in a hazmat suit.

[1192] So it's kind of a mix of both things.

[1193] There you go.

[1194] There you go, man. I hope there's no stumbling blocks getting back out on the road for you guys.

[1195] It's a worry, I promise you.

[1196] Anything can happen.

[1197] Yeah.

[1198] Did you almost lose your mind not playing live for a year and a half?

[1199] I went into some weird hibernation mode.

[1200] I didn't write any songs.

[1201] I hardly even played the guitar.

[1202] I hardly played the piano.

[1203] I just went dark.

[1204] I went dark.

[1205] It was a wild ride.

[1206] It was a wild ride.

[1207] Yeah, yeah.

[1208] Just when you think you have some playbook how to deal with anything at a certain age, and you're like, oh, yeah, no fucking playbook.

[1209] I don't know.

[1210] Sit in this house for a year and a half?

[1211] I don't know.

[1212] No idea how to play that playbook.

[1213] Oh, such a pleasure, man. Can't wait to see you out in L .A. And great luck on the tour.

[1214] And for anyone who's not seen Hollenotes Live, man, and you got to go, just the musicianship is unparalleled.

[1215] That's so great.

[1216] Oh, thanks, man. Well, we'll be out there.

[1217] All right.

[1218] Bye.

[1219] Bye.

[1220] And now my favorite part of the show, the fact check with my soulmate, Monica Padman.

[1221] Hello.

[1222] Hey, delicious salad that you got us just now.

[1223] I was stressed out because they were make your owns.

[1224] So I made my own.

[1225] and then I made yours.

[1226] But that is a risky thing, making someone a salad.

[1227] I agree with you.

[1228] Like, is that nearly as risky in a sandwich for whatever reason?

[1229] You can satisfy someone with something basic and simple.

[1230] True.

[1231] You've got to take some big swings on a salad for it to be good.

[1232] Yeah, exactly.

[1233] And there's so many dressing options.

[1234] And can I...

[1235] Uh -oh.

[1236] I got you your dressing, and then later I felt nervous, because you know what the dressing was?

[1237] Garlic?

[1238] Champagne vinaigret.

[1239] Oh.

[1240] But I know there's no alcohol in it.

[1241] I can have a ton of champagne vinegar.

[1242] But I got scared.

[1243] What if there are traces?

[1244] And then he goes off the rails tonight.

[1245] I took one bite of the sale and stood up like a werewolf.

[1246] Exactly.

[1247] But yeah, it was scary.

[1248] You know, for you, I thought about you.

[1249] I thought about your needs.

[1250] Uh -huh.

[1251] I got you steak in there.

[1252] Oh, man. Yeah, you did.

[1253] That was a great call.

[1254] I don't even know that I would have done that for myself.

[1255] And boy, did I like, that was a great part.

[1256] Crispy shallot.

[1257] Oh, I love a shallot.

[1258] Tomato, which I actually was like, does he?

[1259] I love tomatoes.

[1260] Okay.

[1261] Well, I know you love them, but on a salad, I was thinking about salads is, some people don't like them raw.

[1262] Some people don't like them on salad.

[1263] Yeah, yeah.

[1264] People do, they do complain about the tomato.

[1265] Yeah, but I love a tomato.

[1266] Yeah, me too.

[1267] In the old days when I'd make a salad in my apartment, it would be iceberg lettuce in a whole red house or hot house tomato smothering the iceberg and then blue cheese dressing and that's what I would I love tomatoes on a salad I got you blue cheese that just reminded me blue cheese crumbles boom yeah you bolzied it mine was much different what was yours build it as Jess would say okay mixed greens red pepper I mean, red bell pepper, crispy shallot, chicken.

[1268] Mmm.

[1269] Cheddar cheese.

[1270] Cucumber.

[1271] Tomato, obviously.

[1272] And a saracha ranch.

[1273] Oh, wow.

[1274] So why did you not think I would want the saracha ranch?

[1275] Well, I thought you were trying to be healthy or something, and ranch is not the healthiest.

[1276] Oh, I paid no price.

[1277] to get less calories because that dressing was phenomenal.

[1278] Good.

[1279] All right.

[1280] Well, that was our lunch talk.

[1281] I was afraid to say calories, like it's a trigger word.

[1282] Like, I just blew through the word calories.

[1283] And I literally thought, is that a trigger for people?

[1284] Hmm.

[1285] Probably not.

[1286] I mean, it's a real thing, calories.

[1287] Yeah, it's a measure, yeah.

[1288] Ranch is not healthy.

[1289] It's more, yeah, there's more sugar.

[1290] Exactly.

[1291] There's more calories.

[1292] There's more, probably more fat.

[1293] I think I would say.

[1294] It's more unhealthy because of the fat and the sugar, the dairy element, as opposed to the vinaigrettes.

[1295] Yeah, I agree.

[1296] Not even having anything to do with calories.

[1297] You're right.

[1298] Thank you.

[1299] But anyways, it didn't.

[1300] No sacrifice.

[1301] No sacrifice.

[1302] Not even 4%.

[1303] That was a beautiful dressing.

[1304] Yeah.

[1305] I'm going to get that next time.

[1306] So I got some rough news today.

[1307] Oh, my God.

[1308] I, it's the kind of news I don't know that.

[1309] I could accept, to be honest.

[1310] So I had a meeting with my architect.

[1311] Which is awesome.

[1312] Which is my second architect, by the way.

[1313] I had other architects.

[1314] And, uh, this is so fancy that you have an architect.

[1315] I just want to say.

[1316] What do you mean?

[1317] You have an architect?

[1318] I know.

[1319] It's so fancy, isn't it?

[1320] I guess.

[1321] Now I feel self -conscious.

[1322] Oh, no. Oh, no. Do you have an architect, Rob?

[1323] I have an awful architect.

[1324] Okay.

[1325] But see, okay.

[1326] I never had one, though, until this house, this right here.

[1327] Like, I never had one at the old house.

[1328] You don't need one until your house requires one.

[1329] Well, that's true.

[1330] Well, somebody, yeah, yeah.

[1331] If I moved into a house that was turnkey, I don't need an architect.

[1332] It's because I'm doing a, I bought a shitty house that needs a ton of renovation.

[1333] Yeah.

[1334] So I had two architects, and they were very old school.

[1335] The first ones.

[1336] Yeah.

[1337] Yeah.

[1338] And they were, I'll just be, because I won't say their name.

[1339] so it's fine they were really arrogant men and were very mean to my design team now that makes me a little bit fancy that I have a design team not even a designer no no designer a designer but there's you know I'm getting credit to all the people there it's not just one person and she is phenomenal she is so good I will shout her out Amy Kehoe right right of Nikki Kehoe if you If anyone wants to have like an orgasm over design, if you go to the Nikki Kiho Instagram, you did.

[1340] She's truly one of the best.

[1341] I can't believe I get to have her eyes on my project.

[1342] I feel so lucky.

[1343] And they were treating her.

[1344] Like dismissively, condescendingly?

[1345] All of it.

[1346] Oh, wow.

[1347] The whole buffet of.

[1348] I was like, how that fuck do you think you can talk to her like that?

[1349] I was so upset.

[1350] This could be a double whammy, though.

[1351] Okay.

[1352] Just to give these old timers.

[1353] I'm picturing the guys in the Muppets that's sad in the upper section that were your architects, by the way, truly.

[1354] But I do think there's an additional element, which is I think architects hate designers.

[1355] They do.

[1356] Yeah.

[1357] Just like they're cats and dogs, I think, because the architect's like, hey, you should have gone to school and fucking became an architect.

[1358] And instead of telling me what you want done architecturally, I think that's the riff.

[1359] Yeah, it's their ego.

[1360] It's the architect's ego.

[1361] Absolutely.

[1362] But I think they're coming from a place of they know structurally, they went and studied and designed and earned the right to say what could go where and how.

[1363] They do have that right.

[1364] But they don't have the right to tell me that looks good.

[1365] The designer tells me that looks good.

[1366] And the architect tells me, yes, we can do that.

[1367] No, we can't.

[1368] Right, right, right, right.

[1369] But this idea that the architect can come in and design it for me. No, thank you.

[1370] You're two old men.

[1371] I don't have the same aesthetic as you.

[1372] Right, right.

[1373] Anywho, I had to fire them, okay?

[1374] The guy, the old -timers from the balcony?

[1375] Yes.

[1376] Then I got a new architect and I did it the right way.

[1377] I asked my designer, who do you like working with?

[1378] Who do you recommend?

[1379] And then she's working on another project with this one architect and his name is Bill.

[1380] and Bill is incredible.

[1381] I love Bill.

[1382] Yeah, we love it.

[1383] This is going great with Bill.

[1384] But Bill drops some news on me today that I'm not crazy about.

[1385] Truth bombs.

[1386] That I'm not going to be in that house for another two years.

[1387] Oh.

[1388] I mean, here's the thing.

[1389] I have to say it out loud.

[1390] Two years means three years.

[1391] No, no, I really don't.

[1392] I know what you are saying, but I think the reason.

[1393] that number is what it is because he really is being realistic with me because he's saying he's including so many months for even the time before we even get it to the permit stage right which another architect would be like i can get that done in in um four weeks and then they wouldn't right he's great he's going over the top and it's wonderful but i have to sit with two years two years But it's just a lot more time in my apartment that I didn't foresee.

[1394] But you, I could be wrong.

[1395] It doesn't seem like you dislike your apartment.

[1396] I love it.

[1397] Yeah.

[1398] You seem happy in there.

[1399] I am totally happy.

[1400] But I am paying rent for an apartment.

[1401] I've been paying rent for an apartment since January of 2020 and a mortgage.

[1402] You know what?

[1403] Listen to this solution.

[1404] Holy shit.

[1405] Oh, I'm scared.

[1406] I'm going to park Big Brown on your property.

[1407] Oh, shit.

[1408] I'm going to let you live in it for $700 a month.

[1409] Oh, my God, how generous.

[1410] Pretty nice.

[1411] Okay.

[1412] And you're not getting anything out of it, right?

[1413] You're not getting this.

[1414] Well, I'm losing something, which is my favorite thing to look at out the window of my house.

[1415] Oh, okay.

[1416] So you're losing, but I wonder if Kristen will actually pay me to park.

[1417] Hey, whatever deal you guys broker behind the scenes, I don't care.

[1418] as long as I'm getting $750 minimum to not be able to see big.

[1419] This literally happened to me. Can I just say really quickly?

[1420] I was in the backyard.

[1421] I looked to my right and I saw the back of Big Brown and the fucking semi wheels, you know, two sets of them.

[1422] And I stared at it like longingly.

[1423] Wow.

[1424] And I was like, I know exactly what this is.

[1425] This is if our neighbors had a house I was obsessed with like an architectural masterpiece.

[1426] You will, soon.

[1427] Oh, right, across the street from me. In two years, you will.

[1428] And to, God, I hope I'm still alive.

[1429] It just got scary.

[1430] No, no, let's fly by that.

[1431] Let's fly by that.

[1432] I was like, I feel so lucky to have this thing that I regard as an architectural masterpiece that I get to see it every day.

[1433] Oh, I love it.

[1434] Okay, I'm sorry.

[1435] So you look at it as an architectural masterpiece or a mechanical masterpiece.

[1436] An engineering, but you know, artistic design.

[1437] You know, these things all meld.

[1438] Macintosh, you know, iPhone.

[1439] Do you follow me?

[1440] Industrial design.

[1441] Okay.

[1442] Art, architecture, humanities.

[1443] Oh, boy.

[1444] Liberal arts degree.

[1445] So, yes, I look at it as a masterpiece.

[1446] In that, like, when you look for me, not you, When I look at the Frank Lloyd Wright houses in Chicago, they're like built into the sides of these hills and there's a river running through it, I honestly think, look at humankind.

[1447] They figured out how to do that.

[1448] Yeah, that's amazing.

[1449] It blows my mind.

[1450] And not on the same degree, but when I look at that bus, I do go, you figured out how to give me 700 square feet, tow a fucking stacker trailer.

[1451] families taking naps, cooking food, doing God knows what, and it all stays together.

[1452] And you can put a million miles on it?

[1453] That's not possible.

[1454] You can't put a million miles on it.

[1455] Oh, yeah, yeah.

[1456] A million?

[1457] That Cummins motor that's in there on that chassis is designed to go a million miles.

[1458] It's a semi -truck engine and chassis, and those are designed to go a million miles.

[1459] Oh, my goodness.

[1460] Wow.

[1461] I'm happy that you have that experience.

[1462] Yeah.

[1463] So it's going to be, I'll be sad without it.

[1464] $750 sad.

[1465] All right.

[1466] I'll get back to you on this because.

[1467] This is a really good offer.

[1468] All right, Daryl Hall.

[1469] How fun.

[1470] He was so, so normal.

[1471] And I love how unaffected by fame he is.

[1472] He just like could not care less.

[1473] It's, you know, it's one of those things like when we have Quentin on where you forget when you're talking that this person in front of you has had an unbelievable.

[1474] impactful impact on the zeitgeist.

[1475] Yes.

[1476] For generations.

[1477] Yeah.

[1478] I mean, his impact rivals like, you know, the top three we've had on this podcast.

[1479] And I would say with Quentin as well, like, you know, they're artists, so you don't think much about it.

[1480] But then when you think about the songs and the movies.

[1481] Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.

[1482] It's profound.

[1483] Yes, yes, it is.

[1484] Yeah, multiple generations.

[1485] And the thing I felt like when I met him, the first time, but maybe even more so in this interview was just that it is clear, and I'm not saying you can't be both, but he is a musician.

[1486] Very much.

[1487] He is not a rock star.

[1488] He would have gotten so bored being a rock star.

[1489] That's what was obvious, is he is a musician.

[1490] It was awesome.

[1491] How many top ten songs did Holland Oates have?

[1492] They're overall 16 U .S. top tens.

[1493] Wow, 16 top tens.

[1494] In the U .S. Wowsers.

[1495] Well, we went on a little tear after we talked to him.

[1496] Oh, shit.

[1497] What?

[1498] Yeah, we did.

[1499] Oh, I thought you just read something now.

[1500] I was going to unravel everything we just said.

[1501] Oh, no, it says here they only have 1 .6 hits.

[1502] Yeah, we listened.

[1503] Two.

[1504] So we went on a tear.

[1505] Oh, we listened to...

[1506] Three's company.

[1507] We have so many three's companies these days.

[1508] So there are a dime a dozen these three companies.

[1509] But we went on a little tear.

[1510] And again, I think he even came out of your memory.

[1511] We were playing cards.

[1512] And you go, you just forget.

[1513] You forget how many?

[1514] That's what's really something.

[1515] Unless you do it, like do their essentials or something, you can't really imagine the volume of songs.

[1516] They've made that you know well.

[1517] Yeah, that you know in your brain and that you connect to somehow.

[1518] It's just, it's so rare.

[1519] It is.

[1520] It is.

[1521] Okay.

[1522] Taking a turn, sad turn.

[1523] Uh -oh.

[1524] How many people in the U .S. have Lyme's disease?

[1525] More than 200 ,000 U .S. cases per year.

[1526] Per year?

[1527] Yeah.

[1528] Aye, aye.

[1529] And then the next question, in fact, is, has anyone died from it?

[1530] CDC research finds between 99 and 2003, there were 114 recorded deaths attributed to Lyme disease.

[1531] Okay, Lyme.

[1532] Lime, singular.

[1533] But apostrophe, right?

[1534] Because it's a name.

[1535] Lyme's disease.

[1536] L -Y -M -E apostrophe?

[1537] I think it's just Lyme disease.

[1538] Oh.

[1539] I just made up that whole story.

[1540] I don't think it is a man. I guess because I heard one story about, you know, Hodgkins or...

[1541] Well, yes, some of them are.

[1542] I know, but really, I've only heard a few, like Parkinson's.

[1543] Lyme disease is also known as Lyme borliosis.

[1544] It's like a bacteria.

[1545] It's not a man named Lyme, it's a bacteria.

[1546] Oh, but why they spell it, L -Y -M -E?

[1547] Yeah, because it's like a, you know, bacteria name.

[1548] They have weird spelling.

[1549] I'm sorry.

[1550] And they don't want to get confused with L -I -M -E.

[1551] There's apparently a small coastal town in Connecticut called Lyme.

[1552] Where it was discovered?

[1553] Yes.

[1554] Oh, wow.

[1555] Well, what about Lyme Borreliosis?

[1556] Well, that's Lyme Borreliallis.

[1557] I probably named the disease after that.

[1558] I don't know.

[1559] Okay.

[1560] What are you looking at, Monique?

[1561] I just started looking at.

[1562] Oh, my God, clothes?

[1563] It's true.

[1564] I started shopping.

[1565] No, I'm kidding.

[1566] I'm kidding.

[1567] I'm kidding.

[1568] I'm on the Lyme disease thing still.

[1569] I'm a Lyme disease thing.

[1570] I totally believed you.

[1571] I'm just, I'm not, I'm not getting corroboration on the Connecticut thing, but that's okay.

[1572] Oh, I see.

[1573] I see.

[1574] These things that are like gnawing and never ending.

[1575] Chronic.

[1576] Thank you.

[1577] Yeah, chronic stuff, I think it takes such a toll mentally on people.

[1578] Yes, yes.

[1579] Like, even in my, you know, small case of it, just to feel like you have to surrender to something is rough.

[1580] Yeah, I know.

[1581] Ugh.

[1582] Like, it won't go away.

[1583] Fuck.

[1584] Yeah.

[1585] But, yes, so many autoimmune diseases.

[1586] I wonder if they're getting more prevalent.

[1587] The yes.

[1588] They are, right?

[1589] Yeah, yeah.

[1590] I mean, there's so many theories, but one of them being that, you know, that's the premise of Paleolithic diet.

[1591] is that for millennia or whatever, for 150 ,000 years, people did not have autoimmune diseases.

[1592] They didn't have arthritis.

[1593] They didn't have psoriasis.

[1594] They didn't have any of this stuff in that we're eating stuff that we've just never, ever been designed to eat for, and we are paying a long -term price for it.

[1595] And it can manifest itself in so many ways, Crohn's, arthritis.

[1596] But you know what else?

[1597] I think part of it is when we think back to like, yeah, we didn't have this.

[1598] disease or that disease or inflammation or whatever for so long we also weren't living very long at that time so once we pass a certain age at some point things do start happening deterioration and things and then maybe we are passing some genes down that have developed because we've passed our limit you know what I mean sure I hear you I think that's relevant yeah I just think we're just we're just eating so many things well Well, ding -ding -ding salads.

[1599] But I guess, yeah, Lyme's has nothing to do with eating.

[1600] No. It's just that bacteria.

[1601] Maybe in it's trying to kill the bacteria, it starts attacking parts of your body or something.

[1602] I just started thinking about gymnastics.

[1603] Oh, my God.

[1604] Okay, I knew, like, I had the same moment I had a second ago where I thought for sure you were looking at pictures on your phone.

[1605] But that one was not.

[1606] That one was, no, I was wrong about that one.

[1607] But this one I was right about it.

[1608] I was like, oh, she's gone.

[1609] Well, one thing happened where I did this with my nose.

[1610] Yeah, you smelled something.

[1611] And then I was like, dare I ask her what she just smelled on her finger?

[1612] Is this something she'll just cut out anyways?

[1613] Does it smell like butt?

[1614] No. I sniffled and like, you know, touched my nose.

[1615] What would you say?

[1616] How would you describe this?

[1617] Yeah, like you're making a fake mustache with your finger.

[1618] Right?

[1619] Yeah.

[1620] Like I'm wiggling under my nose.

[1621] Yeah.

[1622] And, but when I did that, I said, I got to.

[1623] like a big whiff.

[1624] Strong smell of salad.

[1625] Oh, oh, And then I wondered, oh, what just happened?

[1626] That's not on my finger.

[1627] Did, like, I just released some salad from my nose or is there salad in my throat?

[1628] Like, you know, I started thinking about the salad.

[1629] And then I started thinking about gymnastics.

[1630] A lot happens.

[1631] Oh, God, you're going for a while.

[1632] So great to have you back.

[1633] Because, you know, I love your nasty.

[1634] Sure.

[1635] I've been really bad about...

[1636] Can I just point out what you get away with?

[1637] Can you imagine if you're in the middle of talking?

[1638] And I literally just go, I was just watching skateboarding in my head.

[1639] Your feelings would be so worried.

[1640] I know.

[1641] I'm sorry.

[1642] I really am sorry.

[1643] I don't mind, so don't change your behavior.

[1644] It's just because...

[1645] But I just wanted you to imagine it.

[1646] I know that.

[1647] But part of it is because, you know, and I do this too, but you talk a lot.

[1648] So sometimes I start thinking about gymnastics.

[1649] Sure.

[1650] Tell me about gymnastics.

[1651] Last night I was watching because I had been delinquent on watching.

[1652] Yeah.

[1653] And I have to assume carrying around some guilt about it.

[1654] A lot.

[1655] Yeah, because you and I looked so forward to the Olympics.

[1656] Yeah.

[1657] Yeah.

[1658] As part of my identity.

[1659] Right.

[1660] Being interested in the Summer Olympics.

[1661] I know mine do.

[1662] And by the way, I watched a lot of it that I really wasn't that interested in to uphold this thing I think about myself.

[1663] And then in, but then it caught on.

[1664] Yeah, but then it gets fun.

[1665] Like, yeah, I'm really into it now.

[1666] I feel like I've watched a good amount, but the fact that I hadn't watched the gymnastics was bad.

[1667] That's a, that's whatever's redder than a red flag.

[1668] Exactly.

[1669] So I watch the women's all around final.

[1670] Then I watched some individual events.

[1671] And I got so into it again.

[1672] Yeah.

[1673] And I felt like an eight year old, like the eight year old that was watching it in 96 when I would like kind of in the middle.

[1674] I would like, I need to stand up and like kind of stretch my arms as if I were them.

[1675] Yes.

[1676] So that felt nice.

[1677] So you got to like time travel a little bit.

[1678] Yeah, it was fun.

[1679] A little TT.

[1680] Which one did you?

[1681] Oh, tell about.

[1682] Oh, my gosh.

[1683] Okay, great.

[1684] Thank you.

[1685] So I think people already know this, but we have a long tradition.

[1686] There's a group of us who, one of the things we like most about the Summer Olympics is how often you see penises flopping around.

[1687] Within their pants.

[1688] In hopefully performing their sport.

[1689] Yeah.

[1690] But even, we've had some in a metal ceremony, like someone was a wrecked in a metal ceremony, which was great.

[1691] And so when we catch these moments, this little group of us, Monica's included, we take a picture on our phone and then we send it around.

[1692] Yes.

[1693] And there's been some fucking great gets over the years.

[1694] Really, really strong stuff.

[1695] I caught something last night that I got to say is the cootty gras.

[1696] I mean, I can't imagine anything.

[1697] It was, I don't want to, certainly don't want to embarrass anyone, but a long jumper.

[1698] landed in the pit.

[1699] And I think they got gold, by the way, on it, which is great.

[1700] Oh, good.

[1701] They deserve it.

[1702] So he lands in the sand, and he spins immediately to stand up.

[1703] And now he's looking away from camera.

[1704] And as he's spinning and rising, you see that he has blown the ass out of his running gear.

[1705] And it's about a five -inch slice.

[1706] And it's probably three inches wide of gap.

[1707] But it's changing a lot as he moves.

[1708] Sure, sure.

[1709] And I, of course, had to meticulously go through frame by frame, and I isolated what I thought were the four best images.

[1710] What clearly happened is after the spandex gave way, he landed in the sand, and it scooped a bunch of the sand up into his spandex.

[1711] So there are...

[1712] Well, into his butthole.

[1713] Well, into his butthole.

[1714] Yeah.

[1715] And some collecting certainly around the spandex.

[1716] So as he's moving in the later frames of the spandex.

[1717] clip.

[1718] Sand is coming out in plops.

[1719] And so I'm only sending close -ups of this whole thing to everyone.

[1720] And people are not even knowing what fucking sport this happened in.

[1721] And so they're concluding, of course, that there are little turds also falling out.

[1722] But it was just sand, and I had to clarify that.

[1723] And you can really see his butthole.

[1724] You can see his anus at one point.

[1725] There is one frame where you see anus and my elation.

[1726] I mean, I mean, I I felt like what these asshole big game hunters must feel like when they go head to head with a fucking rhino or something.

[1727] Like, I just felt like I can't believe I called that.

[1728] I mean, I feel really bad for him, but I also hope it was worth.

[1729] You know, I think it was worth it to him.

[1730] Oh, if you, yeah, here's the proposition.

[1731] You show your anus and somehow you set a world record.

[1732] Not just we give you a gold medal, but somehow by showing your anus you had this ability to win a gold, I'd do in a second.

[1733] Yeah.

[1734] Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.

[1735] Well, there's also a great image of two wrestlers, and one guy's wearing a red Unitard, and as he makes this move, the guy's face drags across the penis and then sets the penis free.

[1736] It, like, shoots to the other side of his Unitard, and that was very thrilling to watch.

[1737] I'm excited to keep watching for the rest of the week.

[1738] Do we have an email?

[1739] Hello at armchairexpertpod .com.

[1740] If you gather any photos on your own, in your own detective work, and you want to send them to this email, I would love to look at them.

[1741] This is opening up a can.

[1742] Let me be very specific.

[1743] I'm saying this current Olympics, if you're watching it and you see any penises flopping about.

[1744] All your dick picks to help them.

[1745] Oh, me, what if a bunch of dudes dress up in their own Olympic gear?

[1746] I want it from the Olympics.

[1747] So, yeah, send it away.

[1748] Listen, I know you're discouraged right now.

[1749] You're being pessimistic, but we might find.

[1750] If I caught what I caught last night, who the fuck knows what's out there?

[1751] Okay, you're right.

[1752] What if the guy's like, oh, my God, these dudes were fucking in the air.

[1753] Well, all right, okay.

[1754] Just in case that exists.

[1755] Yeah, you just don't know.

[1756] All right.

[1757] All right.

[1758] Love you.

[1759] Love you.

[1760] Follow armchair expert on the Wondry app, Amazon music, or wherever you get your podcasts.

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[1762] app or on Apple Podcasts.

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