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Here he is, ladies and gentlemen.
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Put your hands together for the icon, the go Oh my god, your music changed my life, but I don't even know what to tell you. But let's >> Let's go. >> Let's go. >> What is up, man?
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Thanks for joining us live on Apple Music Radio and in the morning, too, and uh and giving us some time.
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And it's real It's a real honor to sit sit opposite you.
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We've We've met online during the COVID thing, but this is different for me. >> Great. Yes. Uh yes, that's right. We did.
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Yes, it's nice to be here.
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>> Um so much going on right now.
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The documentary, uh the album that came out last year, you know, the touring that continues to happen. Man, you do not stop.
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How happy you is your spirit right now with all of this going on?
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Looking back and looking forward.
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>> Yeah, it's it's uh it's been a lot of fun.
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It's a lot of work, but it's worth it.
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I think uh I've got to kind of do things while I still can, you know, because you just don't know quite what's going to happen >> Yeah. Yeah. >> in the future.
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So, uh we're doing it while we can. That's it. That's what we're doing.
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>> Hasn't always been the way.
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I mean, there were considerable times, obviously, post post uh the accident or whatnot, but also where you just seemed to take time for yourself to go and live some life and figure some things out.
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And you look back on those times now, and I think with artists, a lot of musicians listening right now who feel they have to work all the time, how was important How important were those two gaps you took, which seemed were more considerable than most?
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>> Well, I had I had experiences in that time that um like with my My son was very young at one point in the uh '90s, and uh we'd me and his mother had broken up, so I think he really needed me. >> Yeah, love that.
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>> So, actually, uh I had a great time.
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I really enjoyed the time.
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I've got that in my heart, so to speak. >> Yeah. Yeah.
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>> That time I spent with him, and then one day I had to say to him, "Sorry.
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Sorry, well, I've got to go back to work, and or the audience is going to completely disappear." But uh but it was great.
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And I So, I've got memories like that.
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There's things that I think maybe that that feeds you in a way that you can't really quantify, but it's it's I'm glad I I'm glad I had those experiences. And and then it's great.
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I have to, know, I'm I can work now, you know, that's what I'm really lucky.
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I can work now and I'm enjoying it.
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I'm enjoying putting all the effort in at the moment.
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It's worth it, you know, it's been uh it's been a lot of fun.
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>> Did you have a good time um working on the documentary uh with Yonas Åkerlund and and you know, a very deep reflective experience going through your life on Sally Lloyd, you know?
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>> Yeah, well yeah, we did actually, you know, yeah, we we we making it during the coronavirus.
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So uh We started in 19 and then you know, the coronavirus hit in 20 and then we just got my mother in the documentary. She died in 20.
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So it's a kind of a That that was pretty fantastic and um That made me realize I'm really glad we were making the documentary because look, not everybody was People starting to drop off, so to speak.
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Yeah, we gradually made it through the coronavirus, you know, and the it kept getting stopped cuz of the coronavirus.
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So it actually helped it because then we were all to live with it sort of marinate in it and really realize what we hadn't got, what we needed and then you know, oh, how we going to fit uh what we don't have cinematically well with with anim- animation and stuff, you know.
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So we just gradually improved it and I think it really paid off, you know. >> For sure.
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You know, I saw you in 1987 in Auckland at Mount Smart Supertop. >> Yes, that's right. I grew a big tent.
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>> That was a big That's right, you remember? It was a big tent.
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It was It was our first foray into arenas and it was a literally a circus tent with a couple of bleachers around the front of the back that literally if you blew on them, they'd fall over.
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And you guys came out to Dancing With Myself and you absolutely demolished that.
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I'll never forget that show.
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>> It was a fantastic night.
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I mean, there's yeah, the tents actually sound really good.
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If funnily enough, they actually is a good sound.
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So it was a great I enjoyed those couple of shows we did.
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I think two shows, two nights.
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>> Well, we were good to you, I think and can remain so.
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We were one of the first countries that you know, would put your album at sort of one, two, or three in the charts.
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And I remember New Zealand really loved you and loves you still.
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At at a time when you were trying to establish your voice as a solo artist.
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>> Yeah, well, no, you really came on board in some of those areas cuz of the connection to England, really.
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Um Canada and and Australia got into it first.
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It was fantastic, you know. >> Yeah, man.
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If it's with your blessing because >> And New Zealand, of course. >> Thank you.
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Isn't it amazing how music changes shape?
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It it really is a It's physical.
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It's not just in the ether. It's physical.
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But when you made it with your friends in Generation X, that may have been the ambition, but everybody wanted you to to be in the act scene, in the punk scene. You know what I mean?
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Must have been an interesting time.
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>> We just streamlined it, you know.
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So we kind of do we took punk and streamlined it.
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So we tried to instead of it being energy being thrown out into the tried to streamline like it so it's going in inwards and then going out.
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So it's That's the idea of the music sort of being coming like that, you know.
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>> Your first album produced by Martin Rushent is just like it is one of the most it's one of the leanest, tightest, amazing debut albums I think of that time.
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>> Well, we really did make it in a converted garage, so it really is garage rock.
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>> It's unbelievable how good the drums and the bassline sound on that record and everything.
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The guitars obviously it sounds incredible as well, but I mean Martin just made >> He was great.
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I mean, yeah, cuz Martin went on then did stuff with The Human League and everything in a whole different sort of field, but he was he was really he's brilliant, I mean.
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And he worked with the Buzzcocks, too, I think, wasn't it? You think so? >> Yeah, yeah.
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>> Yeah, he's really great.
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It was great great experience working with him.
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I really enjoyed it, you know.
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>> Gen X come to an end really ultimately?
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Why did Tony go off and do his Zig Zig Sputnik and you and Steve went off and started your own thing?
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Because I listen back to these records now and I I feel like you were just getting started as a band in some respect.
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>> I think uh the press were looking for a bit of a whipping boy uh with when people started to put out the second albums and uh The Selecter Clash got away with it and but they just came down on us really hard cuz I suppose we we kind of slightly morphed our style a little bit.
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We I think we were kind of think Tony James in particular thinking about America. >> Yeah.
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>> So it was >> That's why you work with Keith Forsey on the record.
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Give it a bit more of a >> like value of the dolls, you know, so I think we we just got really slagged off and something about that.
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Also we had a manager who was kind of machinating between us all telling each one of us something different, you know, so we started to be at loggerheads and once a group's not going in the same direction it's it's murder and that's what started to happen.
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So it was better to Well, the other two left and Mark and Derwood left really. That's what happened.
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So me and Tony soldiered on for a bit longer and then uh I decided to go to America and start a solo career, you know.
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>> Yeah, and the rest is history.
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We're going to dive into into some beautiful moments of that, but before we say goodbye to Tony James in this conversation right now, um you know, when you hear Zig Zags Sputnik for the first time, you know, like love missile.
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First time I heard that I thought the world was ending.
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I was like what even is going on right now?
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He took those Gen X riffs, put them through an analog synthesizer and just you must have been sitting there listening to your mate going, man, what planet are you on right now? This is wild music.
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>> Yeah, it was the whole thing where they had transsexual roadies and everything.
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So the whole image was really wild.
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It was It's kind of fantastic.
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>> Fantastic, you know, when you look back on it now.
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Um the first time you ever met Steve Stevens, can you tell us what that felt like and what your first impression of each other was?
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>> Well, we we met in Coines office.
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I was being managed by Bill Aucoin.
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He managed Kiss and stuff and he'd managed Generation X in '79.
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And I'd gone to America New York.
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He'd said, come to New York, it's bankrupt, anything goes.
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You you've got to come there.
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So I was like, great, I'm coming, you know.
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Cuz I just got I thought, well, if I go somewhere else if I stay in England, slightly nothing will happen because you know, the English have seen you.
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They feel like it's over. >> Yeah.
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>> You know, so in a way if you stay there is but I thought if I go somewhere else and start something else and then come back to England and go now what you think? >> Yeah.
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So that's kind of what I was doing.
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I love the fact that he described it as bankrupt because it it covers so much of what was going on in New York at the time.
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It was literally bankrupt.
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But also, you know, there was they were looking for fresh and exciting sounds.
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Yeah, it was like a post apocalyptic scene it felt like and anyway meeting Steve was fantastic because um I don't know somehow immediately that we met there was a connection.
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I don't know why or because we're both kind of coming from slightly different worlds but something about it was >> perfect cuz I was looking for a I knew you had to have a killer guitarist.
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I'd had a killer guitarist in Generation X Derwood, Bob Andrews. He was fantastic. He's really great.
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So I you just knew you had to have a killer guitarist.
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It's just and I'm as soon as I met Steve and soon as I saw what he could do with the guitar and I knew with this triumvirate we could we could do we could conquer the world kind of thing.
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I think about the guitar work in particular on songs like Flesh for Fantasy where I to this day I'm not quite sure how he's doing that. Yeah, nor am I.
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I don't know yeah, he's he sometimes is playing three parts at once at the beginning of Rebel Yell he's playing three we had to have if a Steve isn't there we have to have two guitarists playing it cuz Steve's somehow doing three things at once.
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He's plucking the strings, he's playing the lead and he's playing the rhythm all at the same time.
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But he's like laying on Messi.
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It's like if Messi ain't on the field we put a three strikers on there because So So once I saw all that once I saw all that wow, he's really good and and then Steve's really up team player.
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And then Steve's really UP TEAM PLAYER.
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>> THAT WOW, he's really good.
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And and then Steve's really a team player, so he he plays the song, you know, so whatever the song is, he plays what's right for it.
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So, I just knew whatever I wanted to do, he can he can do it cuz he'll he'll yeah, he'll mix in with whatever it is whatever the idea is.
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>> With the benefit of some experience now, some altitude away from that what all of the chaos that's going on around you when it really starts to happen.
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As someone who has come out the other side of being on the rocket ship.
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I mean, there really wasn't a rocket ship going faster than you for those years in the '80s when Rebel Yell took off and it didn't stop.
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Looking back on it now, can you can you put some words around that and and help people understand what it's like when it really starts to go?
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>> We were partying however we were playing really hard, so somehow we were managing to do both things at the same time.
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But yeah, we were just searching always searching for the next song, the next idea, the next It was fun cuz you know, and there was this kind of there was a kind of a rocket ship feeling going on cuz things were speeding up and everything was happening at once, you know, cuz we we at one point Rebel Yell tour, we went from clubs to theaters to by the end of the year arenas, so it was you felt that. You saw it happening.
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You saw the audience expanding.
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You saw as MTV expanded, you saw people more and more people getting into it, getting into the new music and it was so exciting.
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It was really exciting and yeah, it was yeah, everything was happening all at once.
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I mean, yeah, the Rebel and the Rebel Yell tour '84, if we had a day off, we did a video, you know, so you didn't really have any time off.
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It was constant cuz you know, the where there was time off, we did we did something else, you know, so >> Yeah, yeah, yeah.
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>> So, it was really like that chock-a-block, but you know, we were up for it.
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We were we kind of prepared in a way that that time in England where Generation X had taught me a lot that I could implement in America, you know, I was kind of ready.
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I was used to doing interviews and dealing with the press and and it became fun, you know.
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>> Did the Did the UK embrace you when Rebel Yell came out or were they still saying >> Yeah, well, when I came back with with those couple of first solo album and the Rebel Yell album, yeah, I mean, it all took off in England with Eyes Without a Face and Rebel Yell was a hit, White Wedding was then a hit and it carried on and from there, you know.
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>> So good when you can go back and you can just rub it in their face in a good way.
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>> Yeah, it was fantastic for me because of my plan had worked.
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It wasn't so much I could go back and go, "Now what you think?"
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And it it worked and that's what I was looking for.
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I wanted I wanted to disappear for a bit from England so that so that, you know, people forgot about you.
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They had they Frankie Goes to Hollywood, they were going crazy.
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And you could come back and go, "Hey, you know, I've got this new sound that uh that we've been developing out of your sort of sight, really, and it worked.
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So that it was that felt great, you know, that my my plan worked, you know.
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>> Well, and let's talk about the idea of you as a planner because I think it's not very rock and roll in the height of all of this chaos and success, you're not going to show up to interviews at MTV and be like, "I'm a very canny planner."
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Uh you know, it's just more like give them what they want, right?
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Which was the Billy Idol charisma and the and the rock and roll attitude.
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But it feels to me like that, you know, in nobody leaves college and tells their parents they want to be a a punk rocker or a rock star unless they at least have some fire or some true belief that they know what they're doing.
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Is that safe to say or were you truly making it up as you were going along?
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>> Well, I sort of dreamt about being in a group um since I was 7 years old.
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I fell fell in love with the Beatles and stuff uh or that the Stones, the whole scene, the Who and everything that was going on and I started to follow from then onwards.
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I followed the sort of progressive rock scene and then later on I got into the Velvet Underground and Iggy and Bowie and punk and cuz it was just showing us that we were looking for the our way, you know, we could see what the other young people had done before us.
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And that's what was kind of coming along, it was coming around where it was our time.
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And I think we just we were being told actually in England we were such a an economic Everything was falling apart economically that we were really being told there's no future for you.
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So it really meant then well why not do the thing we love, you know, why not?
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And it's like even if it only lasts 6 months, a year, 2 years, at least we'll have done it.
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And then then the Pistols you know finding out the Pistols were out there and there was other people like us.
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And what watching that scene in CBGB's and Max's Kansas City's and CBGB's.
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We wanted a scene like that of our own in England.
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So it's kind of what we were doing and we were doing it for the few the few other people who loved it, you know, that's that's all we were thinking about and then it it all exploded when the Pistols went on this TV show in Sweden and it just every kid in England then wanted to be in a punk rock group or and every record company wanted their own punk it just exploded.
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They all wanted their own punk band.
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So out of the blue we went from thinking this is never going to last to like blind me.
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We're making records, you know, so uh And we're bootlegging ourselves and selling bootlegs so that the record companies think we're selling records and then cuz that's what we first did we bootlegged ourselves and sent Steve Strange a friend of mine round with a bicycle with a load of white labels to gave them to Rough Trade and a number of record stores around England and then the record company heard we sold that sold out in a day.
15:04
Whatever it was this these four demos. Somebody's got them.
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And um yeah, we were doing things like that, you know, we'd read all the books and we were sort of like enjoying having fun with it, you know. >> This is marketing.
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This is >> Bootlegging your own gear >> marketing.
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>> Like this whole idea is so it's that is the great con of all time.
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You came out and just like, "Yeah, we'll just We'll just go throw everything against authority and the system."
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But, you guys were just like low-key marketing geniuses. This is This is amazing. >> Well, we were. >> It's so good. >> It's too much, B.
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I tell you, I can't handle this right now. I'm tripping out. I'm tripping out.
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>> Um I'm so happy that both of you are getting inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame. >> Oh, yeah. That's the best thing.
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I think that Steve's getting inducted along with me is just fantastic.
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>> Yeah, I mean, you know, these records, you know, your voice, your words, you know, your passion, undeniable.
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But, as we established before and to talk a little more about it, the combination of the two of you is just something magical.
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And I I think when when an honor like that happens to recognize that you're driving each other to greatness.
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It's not one leading the other, right? >> Yeah, that's right.
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We're driving each other. I think most definitely. Yeah. That's what I wanted.
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I was looking for a songwriting partner in Steve as well cuz I'd had that with Tony James.
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And that that happened as well.
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So, you know, it was really fantastic to find out we could write songs together and everything.
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And um yeah, like I say, the the plan was working, you know, like >> What does it mean to you and subsequently to Steve, um and in particular to you as somebody who like you said, only wanted to just just get out there and see if you could do it for as long as you're allowed to do it.
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>> Yeah, cuz you don't really know if you can. >> You don't know. You've no idea.
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You just You just sort of wishing, you know, as as my Skynyrd friends used to say, "Wishing on a dog and you >> Yeah.
16:56
>> just wishing that, you know, you can do it.
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You know, you just don't really know.
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So, you have to find out.
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But, then you just got to do it to find out. That's the thing.
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So, at some point you have to commit to it.
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And I think Well, we we wanted to commit to it. That's the thing.
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We wanted it to make our lives.
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That's what we thought was important.
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We thought Something about it is important, but But know quite what. But, we just did.
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We just thought for the youth of our time, for for the to be a voice piece for the people of our age or whatever. >> Mhm.
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>> And it give different opinions, too.
17:27
Give different Give people a choice, really.
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That was the other thing.
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Give people a choice in music.
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That's what we were kind of thinking.
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A little bit, you know, that's what punk was all about as well.
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It was like we're going to give people a choice.
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They maybe not They not necessarily been given out on the radio, you know.
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>> So, what does the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame induction in 2026 mean to you?
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>> Well, it's very It's really incredible because Yeah, I mean, I grew up dreaming about rock rock and roll or you know, at one point you could only in the '60s you could only go back to the '50s. >> Mhm.
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>> So, of course, I did all that.
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I went back and listened to Bo Diddley and Little Richard and you know, listened to who the the other Stones and the Beatles were talking about or whatever, you know, or later on Lou Reed or whoever, you know.
18:10
So, So, yeah, so you were kind of like marinating in it and then uh following along and just really like waiting for your the time to come around when it was going to be >> to put freshness into it and to do your take. Yeah.
18:24
>> Yeah, and then I started to see groups like you know, like the MC5.
18:25
I saw them in '69 and at a little festival outside of Worthing called Fun the City and it was a night >> saw the MC5 outside of Worthing? >> I was really lucky.
18:37
Yeah, they were once a bunch of hippie bands, too.
18:39
The only other The only other cool band was the Pink Fairies.
18:43
Every Everybody else was really hippie.
18:45
So, suddenly this R&B punk band appears out of nowhere >> Pick out the jams.
18:51
>> And they've got a like an act, you know, like where it's like whoa, you know, it was It was incredible.
18:54
It just like It just woke you up to, you know, >> Yeah.
18:59
>> what the future could be like, you know.
19:01
This is the future of rock, really, that you were seeing it.
19:03
And And then later on I saw like a Marc Bolan performance where he was at a festival as well and the whole audience had been booing him all day long, you know, every time they mentioned his name, they booed Marc Bolan and T-Rex.
19:17
And then when he came on stage, they get they booed they were the whole audience.
19:21
This is like I'm not kidding.
19:21
This is the whole probably 150,000 people booing Marc Bolan.
19:25
He walked up to the microphone and he said, "Fuck off."
19:27
They all sat down and shut up.
19:29
They played for I don't know how long, you know, and he did it right away.
19:33
It's one where even I thought it was 10 minutes too long where he ends up smashing the guitar with the tambourine.
19:41
And at the end they gave him a 15-minute standing ovation.
19:42
I'd never seen anything like that.
19:44
And it was like that was another thing where you went, "Oh, man, you just got to come on with some attitude."
19:50
And look what look what can happen.
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He turned the whole audience around from booing from to with 15 minutes.
19:56
So, there's things like that he saw and you just thought that's kind of what you had to do.
20:00
You had to somehow own it and live it and yeah, face it face them down a little bit, you know, you're going to it's going to happen, you know.
20:09
>> I totally I mean, I feel like going back just for a second like talking about this idea of like realizing, you know, you have a finite one-shot chance, right?
20:15
Like 6 months, 2 years, whatever it is.
20:17
I feel like when you start off as a solo artist and that pivot happened in the '80s, I feel like you were again speaking to your marketing savvy, you like embraced the rocket ship of MTV at that such a perfect time, right?
20:27
You look at the visuals of Rebel Yell and I feel like you and your music at that time was on constant rotation for me as a kid and like having my brain rewired and seeing this on TV for the first time and not knowing what I'm doing and not knowing what I'm seeing and trying to make sense of it and being like, I don't know what it is, but I like it.
20:44
Were you Were you hip to like what this was as an instrument because of what MTV was so early?
20:49
Like this this new this new medium, this new format.
20:52
>> Well, my manager Bill Aucoin, he'd been in TV in the late '60s and then he started managing Kiss and everything.
20:59
So, he kind of still had his toe in the water.
21:01
He knew and on cable TV there was going to be this 24-hour music channel and he knew I'd be perfect for it. It's another thing.
21:08
I mean, I when I was, you know, when I decided to go to America, that's what he was saying to me.
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He was saying, you know, there's this 24-hour music channel coming.
21:15
You'll be You're going to be perfect for it.
21:19
>> Cuz you know, you're not You're not You're not You're not You're not smacked in the face by the ugly boat brush, Billy. To be fair.
21:26
>> Yeah, I mean, you know, I had to use everything I had to survive.
21:29
>> There's nature and there's nurture, and you just got a bit of both, didn't you?
21:32
You had to get a bit of both.
21:33
>> MTV asked for the shirt on the way on the set. Give it here. Give it here. Come on, take it off. >> That's it.
21:37
We kind of knew the new music would need a new platform cuz cuz there was a bit of a stranglehold from the the radio, the '60s and '70s.
21:44
Those people had been there, and and really that they'd owned that decade.
21:48
So, they couldn't imagine there was going to be anything good about the '80s. >> Yeah.
21:54
>> And I think we knew that we were going to show them there was going to be something good.
21:57
But, that was the great thing.
21:59
MTV did give us a platform which then once, you know, the radio at first didn't want to play my records cuz I had a punk rock image in America.
22:06
They thought punk it didn't sell advertising dollars, you know.
22:10
They just They didn't, you know, punk rock image.
22:11
Well, once they saw what was happening on MTV, they soon it all fell away.
22:16
Any any sort of any sort of barrier that we had gradually fell away because of the power of MTV.
22:23
As the MTV grew and and then the radio stations could see the new music was working, you know, that the new stars, Prince, Madonna, Billy Idol.
22:31
It was all It was all happening. >> Come on, man.
22:34
I mean, just to be in a room at that time when they were giving out like shiny gongs and you're sitting in the same row as those people.
22:39
I mean, talk about a a wild journey across the Atlantic to get into that kind of space.
22:46
And from there, incredible success, man.
22:48
And um but, you know, let's let's just let's just acknowledge the charisma and the success that you were born with and have achieved.
22:56
And it's also acknowledged that you're a survive that this is a story of survival.
23:01
Like, you know, your documentary and the name says it all.
23:02
Um You know, I I we don't need to go through the the the darkest times, but but but what do you really attribute your survival to?
23:12
You know, when so many don't make it through you know, the distraction of self-destruction.
23:17
How did you come through the other side to be sitting here in front of us today just so connected to your art in a real way?
23:24
>> The only thing I can really think is that well, we did it for the right reasons to start with.
23:27
We were doing it for the love to begin with.
23:29
So, we started off on the right foot, you know, and I think that enabled me to there was a bit of cred that came along with, you know, starting off in punk and everything that you know, it just gave you a large profile really that uh I think that didn't you know, you you didn't disappear and then then I was constantly reinventing myself a little bit.
23:56
And that had worked and um so, I think over the time it just gave you people I just yeah, I just think uh for some reason or other you you know people just accepted what I was about and um and I suppose I did keep coming up with good things eventually.
24:13
I mean, that kept it going, you know.
24:17
>> What was the hardest part for you on on your identity on your on your just on your nature through all of the success and everything else?
24:24
What was the toughest thing to overcome through all of the all of the pressure and and the fast pace of the life?
24:30
>> Well, yeah, you are sort of like really trying to come up with ideas and and write songs and stuff and and also yeah, there was other things that didn't quite happen, you know, like there was a couple of movies that nearly happened and didn't quite happen and stuff.
24:45
So, you know, there was there was some things that worked and some things that didn't, you know, but uh in general, you know, the music worked and that that's really where I was most interested in really was like, you know, my my music cuz that's what I can come up with the songs, you know.
25:00
>> You find yourself, you know, um being spoken about uh in in the modern day not not you know, when you achieve so much, I think people will often refer to the greats as the what they've already done and yet here you are on stage with Sampa, you know, with Steve, which is amazing.
25:17
Getting doing Eyes Without a Face and you know, with Avril on your new record which came out last year and you know, there's this new generation of artists, multi-generational artists who continue to acknowledge what you mean to them today.
25:29
Not covering your songs for some tribute, but being on your new music.
25:33
How do you sort of feel when you get the call like that?
25:36
May not even be that familiar with their music, but you're like, all right, cool, let me check this out.
25:40
Let me figure out if this speaks to me because if if it gets me where it matters.
25:44
>> Yeah, well, it was fantastic that uh it was about that Eyes Without a Face had a kind of a moment on TikTok last year and um so that audience on this audience knows that song, you know, so it was a perfect song to do.
25:59
And um it's just great that the songs have uh have lasted.
26:03
I mean, for me personally singing them, they haven't got old.
26:05
You know, I don't do Rebel Yell and go, "Oh god, I'm sick of do No, I don't do Hot in the City and go, "I'm sick of do No, I I don't feel like that way.
26:15
Wedding No, they don't get old.
26:17
Eyes Without a Face doesn't get I don't know what it is.
26:19
Something about them inbuilt into the songs.
26:24
It's they've got so much originality.
26:26
>> Like even in the last sort of third of Rebel Yell when that little and it starts getting very strange and and the '80s really starts to show itself.
26:36
Which was a surreal decade for pop music cuz no one knew what these synthesizers did.
26:40
So they'd just press a button and then record it and go for it.
26:43
It was the weirdest sounding ever. Flock of Seagulls, what? Like what even is that?
26:47
And it's like a number one song, like a massive hit. You listen to it now.
26:50
Spandau Ballet were a weird band. >> Oh, yeah.
26:55
>> Simple Minds asked were a very New Gold Dream is a weird album. >> Yeah, great album. >> Great album. >> not obvious.
27:01
Yeah, that was part of it.
27:04
I think we were a little bit Yeah, mix I was mixing starting to mix synthesizers in with rock guitars and stuff and cuz you know, we liked Kraftwerk just as much as we liked the Sex Pistols.
27:16
>> I even hear a little bit of Simple Minds in things like Flesh for Fantasy.
27:17
Like I hear some of the transitions in the way the synths really guide and >> Well, I was listening to them a lot, you know, I liked I thought they were great and uh and um so yeah, I was listening to all those sort of groups uh you know, Joy Division and >> Yeah, yeah, Simple Minds and all that.
27:33
>> and everybody and uh you know, sort of you know, doing my own version of it if you see what I mean, you know, just that's what we kind of replying with my version of it.
27:41
>> What an amazing opportunity if I've had the today to spend time with you.
27:44
Um we're going to finish the conversation in a second with a song taken from your latest album called Dream into It.
27:49
And uh obviously you got the Vegas thing coming up which is going to be off the charts.
27:53
I mean, you know, good luck getting out of that town.
27:55
They're going to hold on to you as long as they possibly can cuz that's the kind of dream show for Vegas to have people come out there.
28:01
Especially, you know, people our age and and a little bit older or younger who are fascinated by that to go and have a punk What is effectively a punk inspired show land on the strip is a sign of the times. >> Yeah, that's right.
28:13
We've We've We have We play there.
28:15
We don't play all the time now.
28:17
There was a couple of years ago where we were playing there a lot, but I think it's just five dates this year.
28:23
>> You know, obviously the documentary does a great job of telling the story up to this point.
28:27
Um the Rock & Roll Hall of Fame will honor the story up to this point.
28:30
Uh Dream into It suggests that you know, there's fire in there and songs that you want to continue to make.
28:37
You said when we started talking that you know, it's move it or lose it, man.
28:41
You know, you want to keep going and keep creating things.
28:44
So, what are you working on now and what do you want to achieve in the near future?
28:47
>> Yeah, well I haven't really made that many albums.
28:48
I mean I think I've made about 10 solo albums.
28:49
Like I went to Elton John's Yellow Brick Road goodbye tour sort of thing and you walked backstage over his albums and it you didn't it didn't stop.
29:00
I don't know how many records he's made.
29:02
Millions you know, I think David Bowie's made 25.
29:04
So I I've got a little bit I've I've got some things to catch up on and um so I still think we have there's things we want to do with still excited.
29:13
We're going to be working on some new music and in June. >> Amazing.
29:19
>> And we're going to see where that goes and we never do quite what we did last time.
29:23
You know, we never quite repeat ourselves exactly.
29:25
So even I don't know exactly where we're going. It's going to be fun. >> I do.
29:30
Surely Andrew Watt's got to be like lining up around the block right now.
29:34
I mean where is the Andrew Watt record? That's what I'm saying.
29:35
I mean this guy this guy he loves it.
29:37
I mean he knows how to really breathe fire in there man and I'm telling you there was fire in there.
29:43
That would be a dream for me as a fan.
29:45
I'm not to try to parent trap you too. Um >> It'd be great. It'd be great.
29:49
>> I've had a really really great time meeting you in person for the first time.
29:52
I hope we get to do it again.
29:52
You know, I I I often just wrap these things up and play the song but it would be it would be a missed opportunity for me to not um keep it together.
29:59
To not uh really genuinely look you in the eyes and thank you.
30:04
Your music came along man and it it really united me and my mom in a very real way and it gave me also a private place to disappear and to be able to really establish my life's mission which is to be as close to music as possible.
30:19
In a roundabout way Billy I'm saying I wouldn't be sitting here getting to do this having lived this life without you.
30:24
So thank you so much man for everything you've done and continue to do man.
30:27
Nothing but love for you so. >> Nothing. Thank you Zach. Thank you everybody.