Billy Idol | Club Random with Bill Maher

Rock royalty is in the house. Billy Idol sits down with Bill Maher and nothing is off-limits. From snorting heroin backstage to smoking crack to kick the heroin habit (“it worked!”), Idol tells stories that would make most publicists quit on the spot. They swap sharp takes on Frank Sinatra being a drunk bully to his son, debate whether John Lennon could really hold his own without Paul McCartney and trace the Beatles’ takeover of America. Idol reveals how a near-fatal overdose left him turning blue in a hotel room, how a brutal motorcycle accident became his real turning point, and why he now calls himself “California sober.” His new documentary is called Billy Idol Should Be Dead and after this conversation, you’ll understand why he isn’t. Support our Advertisers: -Connect with quality therapists and mental health experts who specialize in you at https://www.rula.com/RANDOM #rulapod -Try Lucy today! Get 20% off your first order at https://www.lucy.co with code CLUBRANDOM -Protect your car with CarShield. Get 20% off at http://www.carshield.com with code RANDOM Subscribe to the Club Random YouTube channel: ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠https://www.youtube.com/c/clubrandompodcast?sub_confirmation=1⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠ Watch episodes ad-free – subscribe to Bill Maher’s Substack: ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠https://billmaher.substack.com⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠ Subscribe to the podcast for free wherever you listen: ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠https://bit.ly/ClubRandom⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠ Buy Club Random Merch: ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠https://clubrandom.com⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠ Learn more about your ad choices. Visit https://podcastchoices.com/adchoices ABOUT CLUB RANDOM Bill Maher rewrites the rules of podcasting the way he did in television in this series of one on one, hour long conversations with a wide variety of unexpected guests in the undisclosed location called Club Random. There’s a whole big world out there that isn’t about politics and Bill and his guests—from Bill Burr and Jerry Seinfeld to Jordan Peterson, Quentin Tarantino and Neil DeGrasse Tyson—talk about all of it. For advertising opportunities please email: [email protected] ABOUT BILL MAHER Bill Maher was the host of “Politically Incorrect” (Comedy Central, ABC) from 1993-2002, and for the last fourteen years on HBO’s “Real Time,” Maher’s combination of unflinching honesty and big laughs have garnered him 40 Emmy nominations. Maher won his first Emmy in 2014 as executive producer for the HBO series, “VICE.” In October of 2008, this same combination was on display in Maher’s uproarious and unprecedented swipe at organized religion, “Religulous.” Maher has written five bestsellers: “True Story,” “Does Anybody Have a Problem with That? Politically Incorrect’s Greatest Hits,” “When You Ride Alone, You Ride with Bin Laden,” “New Rules: Polite Musings from a Timid Observer,” and most recently, “The New New Rules: A Funny Look at How Everybody But Me Has Their Head Up Their Ass.” FOLLOW CLUB RANDOM https://www.clubrandom.com https://www.facebook.com/Club-Random-101776489118185 https://twitter.com/clubrandom_ https://www.instagram.com/clubrandompodcast https://www.tiktok.com/@clubrandompodcast FOLLOW BILL MAHER https://www.billmaher.com https://twitter.com/billmaher https://www.instagram.com/billmaher Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Speaker names marked ? are inferred from speaking time and the show’s known hosts — they are not voice-verified.

• 0:00Speaker 00

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• 1:26Bill Maher?

  Why are you remodeling your backyard to make it more, you know, zen-y? We were remodeling our merch store to make it more random. We slapped our new logo on t-shirts, tie-dyes, hoodies, and hats, and all with premium-printed labels. Look, I wasn't kidding. We have it, because tags are like the junk mail of clothing. All merch is available exclusively at clubrandom.com. Once again, that's clubrandom.com. When you should be dead.

• 1:59Speaker 05

  Well, the 70s, 80s, 90s, I suppose.

• 2:02Bill Maher?

  All those decades.

• 2:03Speaker 05

  Yeah.

• 2:09Bill Maher?

  Do you know a guy? I hear you know.

• 2:12Speaker 05

  Wouldn't start now.

• 2:13Bill Maher?

  Oh, I wouldn't.

• 2:18Bill Maher?

  Billy.

• 2:18Speaker 05

  Hi.

• 2:19Bill Maher?

  Rock royalty in the house. Rock and roll royalty.

• 2:26Bill Maher?

  You look the same. You look like a...

• 2:29Speaker 05

  Just about.

• 2:32Bill Maher?

  An East London badass. You look like you're ready to kick some ass.

• 2:37Speaker 05

  You do.

• 2:39Bill Maher?

  And I'm sure you could. Yeah?

• 2:42Speaker 05

  These boots.

• 2:43Bill Maher?

  You and your droogies.

• 2:44Speaker 05

  Yeah.

• 2:45Bill Maher?

  Remember that?

• 2:46Speaker 05

  Yeah, of course.

• 2:47Bill Maher?

  That movie? That must have affected you.

• 2:50Speaker 05

  Yeah, Clock Orange, yeah.

• 2:53Bill Maher?

  Because it was like... Something you could... Could relate to, no?

• 2:58Speaker 05

  Yeah, but it's kind of fantastic.

• 3:01Bill Maher?

  Yeah? What year was that?

• 3:03Speaker 05

  69, I think.

• 3:05Bill Maher?

  No, I think early 70s.

• 3:06Speaker 05

  Oh.

• 3:08Bill Maher?

  I think more like 72.

• 3:11Bill Maher?

  I mean, are you a fan of all Kubrick's movies?

• 3:13Speaker 05

  A lot of them, yes, yeah.

• 3:15Bill Maher?

  You know...

• 3:16Speaker 05

  I wish he'd done that Napoleon movie. I've got the script.

• 3:20Bill Maher?

  He was supposed to?

• 3:21Speaker 05

  Yeah. He was gonna do that, uh... I think after 2001, and then... They did this film Waterloo, and it... It did terrible business. It was great, though. Rod Steiger as Napoleon and...

• 3:35Bill Maher?

  I saw it.

• 3:36Speaker 05

  Christopher... Yeah, it's a great movie, but it did terrible business.

• 3:38Bill Maher?

  That was a TV movie.

• 3:40Speaker 05

  It was worse, uh...

• 3:41Bill Maher?

  It was like a...

• 3:42Speaker 05

  It was Russian.

• 3:43Bill Maher?

  What they used to call a mini-series.

• 3:44Speaker 05

  Oh, was it?

• 3:45Bill Maher?

  Yeah, and, um... I forget who the, uh...

• 3:49Speaker 05

  Sergej Bonderjuk was the director.

• 3:53Bill Maher?

  Oh, I didn't know that, but the... The other star was not Maximilian Schell, some... I forget. He was a... He was kind of a big actor at the time, I think British. And, uh... He had a... Went over time, you know, like the movie went over. And they had...

• 4:13Bill Maher?

  They didn't have him. And they had to shoot like parts of it. You could see it if you watch it, like, long shots. It's just his voice. He's not on camera. Just, you know, you shoot a long shot, him in the shadows, you know? But it's amazing, they could actually... Not the whole movie, but enough of it where... The guy isn't even in the scene.

• 4:34Speaker 05

  Wow.

• 4:36Bill Maher?

  Actors have done it when they like hate the other actor they're working with. You know, like, I can't stand to be in the same room with this guy.

• 4:43Speaker 05

  So I'll just act without anybody. Be like Brando and Rod Steiger in the back of the cab. Where Brando left before Rod Steiger did his.

• 4:54Bill Maher?

  Is that right?

• 4:55Speaker 05

  Yeah, he went to his psychiatrist or something, so. So Rod Steiger had to act his bits without Brando being there.

• 5:02Bill Maher?

  On the waterfront.

• 5:03Speaker 05

  Yeah, Charlie was you, Charlie, you know.

• 5:06Bill Maher?

  But you see them together in a two-shot, don't you?

• 5:08Speaker 05

  Yeah, but you know, when he did his lines, Rod Steiger did his lines, Brando wasn't there.

• 5:14Bill Maher?

  Oh, I see. Who else was close up is just.

• 5:16Speaker 05

  Yeah, it's his close up.

• 5:17Bill Maher?

  Talking to a piece of cardboard. Well, Brando famously used to, you know, write the lines, his lines, on the other actor's head.

• 5:28Speaker 05

  Yeah.

• 5:32Bill Maher?

  I mean, can you imagine?

• 5:34Speaker 05

  I should do that with Steve Stevens, but I don't know the lyrics. Steve, can I just put them on your forehead?

• 5:39Bill Maher?

  I never, I never understand.

• 5:42Speaker 05

  I've got a teleprompter.

• 5:44Bill Maher?

  Yeah, you have to, but like, you didn't always.

• 5:46Speaker 05

  No, no, only more than, only recently.

• 5:50Bill Maher?

  But, I mean, I never understand how you musicians could remember so many. I mean, if you're doing a show that has 25 songs in it, how do you remember all those lyrics?

• 6:00Speaker 05

  Yeah, it's just from doing them a lot, really. And then, it's really handy having the teleprompter if we want to do a song we haven't done for ages. It means I can, I can read the lyrics if I, if I don't know it so well anymore, you know. But in the majority of things, I can remember them, you know.

• 6:21Bill Maher?

  I remember seeing Sinatra at the end, and.

• 6:25Speaker 05

  Yeah, I was lucky. I saw him in the 80s, yeah. Actually, we went to.

• 6:29Bill Maher?

  That was near the end.

• 6:30Speaker 05

  Yeah, we went to, I was friends with Sam Kinison.

• 6:33Bill Maher?

  Whoa.

• 6:34Speaker 05

  And we went. Went to do a show with him where, you know, cause he always did, uh, Wild Thing. You know, he, you know, he had his, had his rock band. So, um.

• 6:44Bill Maher?

  Oh, he fancied himself a rock star.

• 6:46Speaker 05

  Yeah. Oh, yeah. Well, he played louder than anybody else's guitar.

• 6:49Bill Maher?

  He was, he was one of the few comedians who, uh, did sort of get into that rock star vibe. I mean, Eddie Murphy did it for a minute, Andrew Dice Clay.

• 7:00Speaker 05

  Yeah.

• 7:01Bill Maher?

  There've been a few who like, almost, almost like a rock star, you know, like there's a, there's a, the kind of excitement that music.

• 7:09Speaker 05

  Yeah, we kind of came to do this show with him and then, uh, I got, he had his, he had these two twi- twins. He was, he ended up marrying one of them. So, and we, he was doing Wild Thing and I got in between these two girls that he always had dressed up as Las Vegas showgirls and I was just kind of playing around cause it's not my song, you know? But he got upset and he punched my guitarist. My guitarist was on the stage and he punched. So I, we said, that's it. Fuck, we're not going for the second. This was the early show. We were gonna do the second one. So we said, we're not, yeah, fuck it. Let's, we even tried to leave Vegas and, and then we couldn't leave cause it wasn't a plane.

• 7:48Speaker 05

  So on the way back, we were staying at the Sands, you know? So on the way back, I saw, whoa, Frank Sinatra's playing. Oh, we've got us. So we saw Frank Sinatra instead, instead of doing the show with Sam. But it was fantastic cause I wouldn't have seen Frank Sinatra otherwise. He was, and he was fantastic. I mean, you didn't notice his voice was a bit ragged or anything when he was, you know? Uh, it was kind of fantastic. He, he had this, uh, his son was, you know, directing the.

• 8:18Bill Maher?

  That's what I saw. The son was the director of the orchestra and Frank would humiliate him.

• 8:25Speaker 05

  At one point, he was getting sweaty and he went to take his own handkerchief out of his pocket and then thought better of it. Took his son's and mopped his brow and put it back. He was always doing, he was like.

• 8:36Speaker 05

  Stuff like that all the way through. It was fantastic. It was really funny. It was great.

• 8:40Bill Maher?

  I, okay, I saw him in 1995 at Ready You Sit A Musical. I took my mother. My parents were from New Jersey and saw Frank Sinatra perform when he was starting out.

• 8:51Speaker 05

  Wow.

• 8:52Bill Maher?

  Yeah, like in a little, late 30s, like 1939. And a place called The Rustic Cabin is the first place he sang at. So it was very sentimental for my mother, and my father had just died. So it was just like, you know, there was a lot of emotion in that room. And Frank took it all away. No, I'm kidding. I mean, well, I mean, he just was such a dick. He was a dick to his son. He was drunk. He had seven large Prince teleprompters all around him. I mean, you couldn't miss it. Everyone that's, I mean, I could have sang those songs. And yet, when he was singing a song that he hadn't sung for 50 fucking years,

• 9:33Bill Maher?

  he still couldn't get through it. He tried to do Mac the Knife. You know Mac the Knife? Okay, which is Bobby Darin's song.

• 9:40Speaker 05

  Yeah, ton of lyrics.

• 9:41Bill Maher?

  And he had done it on one of his later albums. I have it. I liked it. I like, I'm a huge Frank Sinatra fan, you know, for the music. Not the early music, but the, not the early crooner shit, but like, when he get 50s, it's gotta be swing, that whole, you know, "Fly me to the moon", that, that record is great. Because Frank was either like super depressed, he was polar, I, maybe not officially, but like, he was either super depressed, "Caught at a three",

• 10:13Speaker 05

  Yeah, true.

• 10:14Bill Maher?

  "Now in the place, save a gardener left me. I'm gonna kill myself right now, 'cause without love who gives a shit? And what are you looking at, you fucking punk?" Or "Fly me to the moon, everything's groovy up here in space", you know? "Everything's cool in 1958, if you're white", you know, that was, there was, there was no middle ground, but it's all great. But he, he did, I mean, I just could not forget how he was mean to his kid.

• 10:55Bill Maher?

  So, all the artistry, you know, and like, I forgive him for, he couldn't get through Mac the Knife. It wasn't his song. He like started it three times, you know. "Oh, the shark bites," and then he would blame the kid for it. "This fucking kid, he must..." It's not, it's the kid, Frank. You know, you're drunk and 80.

• 11:19Bill Maher?

  So, you know, you musicians, you just live in a completely different universe than normal people. You do. Even among show business. There's an excitement that music gets to in people.

• 11:34Speaker 05

  Yeah, that's true.

• 11:35Bill Maher?

  That just is, nothing else is quite like it in the arts. And its effect on people, which allows the musicians themselves to live in a bubble, very often an information bubble. They very often don't know what's going on and don't need to.

• 11:53Speaker 05

  That's true.

• 11:54Bill Maher?

  They have all sorts of people. I mean, you must have lived a life that is, I mean, you're obviously survived it, but you know.

• 12:01Speaker 05

  Somehow, yes.

• 12:02Bill Maher?

  You know, come on. When you were King Shit on the charts, I mean, you must have, you know, had that certainly thrown at you.

• 12:14Speaker 05

  Yeah, it was very wild. I mean, I was sort of watching Young Blood. You know, it reminds me of me.

• 12:20Bill Maher?

  He was here.

• 12:21Speaker 05

  When, yeah, I know.

• 12:22Bill Maher?

  Loved him.

• 12:23Speaker 05

  When he was breaking, he's breaking through. I just, I remember what that was like.

• 12:26Bill Maher?

  Yes.

• 12:27Speaker 05

  You know, it was pretty incredible.

• 12:28Bill Maher?

  You could have been named Young Blood. He could have been Billy Idol. No, really.

• 12:34Speaker 05

  I remember that was like, it was really incredible. It was an incredible time and so watching him a little bit, I remember.

• 12:40Bill Maher?

  Do you know him? Have you talked to him?

• 12:41Speaker 05

  I sang with him. I did White Wedding with him on his, in his Young Blood. He's got that festival he puts on, the Young Blood Festival. Blood Fest. So I sang with him, we did White Wedding together.

• 12:55Bill Maher?

  Eight minutes. Right? The song?

• 12:59Speaker 05

  Well.

• 13:00Bill Maher?

  My version is.

• 13:01Speaker 05

  Yeah, the dance version, so it's the long version.

• 13:04Bill Maher?

  And, and, and it's still too short.

• 13:08Speaker 05

  Great.

• 13:08Bill Maher?

  It's such a great record.

• 13:11Speaker 05

  Great.

• 13:11Bill Maher?

  Oh, so many of yours are. I always wanted to ask you, you did "Moni Moni", which was like, even a little before my time. Like, I started listening to music in 1968. I was 12. I think "Moni Moni" was 66 or something.

• 13:29Speaker 05

  Yeah, it's kind of.

• 13:30Bill Maher?

  So it was like, a song I would occasionally hear because they would, you know, on the radio I listened to in the late 60s, it was the top 20, they kept playing. They played the number one song every hour on the hour. Like, once an hour you heard that if you were number one, which is pretty amazing. And then the rest of it was the other songs in the top 20. But every once in a while, they'd be like, "Here's a golden oldie", and it would be like from last year. You know, to kids, that's like, thousand years ago. Way back. And that was one of the songs. "Here she come down to moni moni", and you killed it. I mean, you, you, I mean, the original was good, but it was,

• 14:13Bill Maher?

  I mean, Tommy James has done better. But it was, it was a good pop record, but it was a little bubblegum. And your version was...

• 14:24Speaker 05

  Vamped it up a bit, yeah.

• 14:26Bill Maher?

  Yeah. And what do we imagine the song means? "Moni Moni", Billy Idol. What does "Moni Moni" mean to you?

• 14:33Speaker 05

  Well, I know how the song was written, so I know it's that building in, in New York that has M-O-N-Y on. They were looking at that.

• 14:41Bill Maher?

  What building?

• 14:42Speaker 05

  There's a building in New York, the "Moni" building. It has M-O-N-Y, money building, or "Moni". They were looking at that when they were writing the song, so they, they were looking for a title. They kind of, they were trying to think, sort of a girl's name, or then they kind of looked at that, the top of the building, and said, "What about 'Moni Moni'?" And then that's...

• 15:03Bill Maher?

  Yeah, I mean, I had, you know, I interviewed, interviewed, not like this is an interview, but I got high, as I'm doing with you, with Billy Joel in Boca last year. And we were, I was complimenting on his great lyrics and stuff, but also mentioning that lyrics in pop music, they don't have to be good. It's better if they are, but you can get away with "Moni Moni." You can just do it, you know? And if, and if it doesn't make sense to people, "Well, are you dancing?" Then shut the fuck up.

• 15:44Speaker 05

  Yeah, that's what that song is really all about. It's about that. It's actually a drum loop. The original song was a drum loop. Because I was, I was always thinking, how, why is it so, why is it so, what is it about it that makes you, you know, want to move or something?

• 16:00Bill Maher?

  Well, because she's coming down.

• 16:02Speaker 05

  When we did our version.

• 16:03Bill Maher?

  Here she come down, "Moni Moni."

• 16:04Speaker 05

  Yeah. When you did our version.

• 16:07Bill Maher?

  Shotgun turnaround.

• 16:08Speaker 05

  Yeah.

• 16:09Bill Maher?

  I mean, that doesn't say it all.

• 16:12Speaker 05

  Yeah. But, yeah, it's a drum loop. So, we did it with a real drummer, though. We didn't, because they just took a four-bar loop. And that's, that's why it doesn't stop. The original record doesn't stop.

• 16:24Bill Maher?

  But Tommy James is, to me, a very unheralded pop star.

• 16:29Speaker 05

  Yeah, really. He had massive hits.

• 16:31Bill Maher?

  Massive hits and good ones.

• 16:33Speaker 05

  Yeah, really good.

• 16:34Bill Maher?

  I mean, some of them that are not as well-known to the public. I mean, people know, I Think We're Alone Now.

• 16:39Speaker 05

  Yeah.

• 16:40Bill Maher?

  Which is a great record. Just a great pop record. And Redone in the 80s, a massive hit for Debbie Gibson? Somebody.

• 16:49Speaker 05

  Yeah, it was What's-her-name.

• 16:51Bill Maher?

  Somebody, What's-her-name. What's-her-name was good.

• 16:54Speaker 05

  She did all those, she was, kind of did all those malls. She opened up all those malls.

• 17:01Bill Maher?

  Well.

• 17:01Speaker 05

  That's how she.

• 17:02Bill Maher?

  I'm not sure that's what you want to be remembered as, you know.

• 17:07Speaker 05

  I think she had a number one with, yeah, one of, one of Tommy James' songs. But then, same time, Joan Jett did Crimson and Clover and I did Mooney Mooney. So there's this kind of Tommy James.

• 17:17Bill Maher?

  Crimson and Clover.

• 17:19Speaker 05

  It's fantastic.

• 17:20Bill Maher?

  But again, what does it mean?

• 17:25Bill Maher?

  What does, have you ever thought about it? Crimson and Clover?

• 17:29Speaker 05

  Really, I think it's a psychedelic.

• 17:33Speaker 05

  A bit of a psychedelic kind of.

• 17:34Bill Maher?

  To me, to this day.

• 17:36Speaker 05

  Rolling in Clover, I suppose.

• 17:38Bill Maher?

  To this day, I would say, I mean, I have some sexy music in my iPod. I use the old iPod. I feel like it's suited to my needs. I have some sexy time music. But if you really want to get panties wet, and I know you do,

• 17:59Bill Maher?

  just the opening note of Crimson and Clover. Just put the.

• 18:04Speaker 05

  That's true, that, that would do it.

• 18:07Bill Maher?

  Just, I mean, it's.

• 18:09Speaker 05

  That's true.

• 18:10Bill Maher?

  It's, it's the sexiest, it's the sexiest thing on record, I think. I mean.

• 18:16Speaker 05

  The ah.

• 18:18Bill Maher?

  Just that. Ah, and then.

• 18:22Bill Maher?

  Oh, you come walking over. But again, I'm a waiting to show her Crimson and Clover. And you know, you're, you're anticipating, what are you going to show her? This is awesome. We're going to get to really know you. Crimson and Clover. But, you know, it's, it's, it's just, it's just a sound collage.

• 18:46Speaker 05

  Yeah.

• 18:47Bill Maher?

  You know.

• 18:48Speaker 05

  It sounds good. That's a big factor in writing lyrics, they sing good.

• 18:52Bill Maher?

  Also, one of the first records with that shaky reverb.

• 18:57Speaker 05

  That's right, yeah.

• 18:58Bill Maher?

  Right?

• 18:58Speaker 05

  Yeah.

• 18:59Bill Maher?

  I mean, and then the end, which just goes in.

• 19:03Bill Maher?

  He was great with just an electric guitar. He's one of the few guys who like, he just sounded like a kid in the neighborhood, who you could hear from your bedroom window, who got a little amp and a little fucking electric guitar, and was just doing it. And no frills. And he just had a way. That song, all of his songs, just, um, just, he understood sound, you know? It's just, it's a sound medium.

• 19:33Speaker 05

  Yeah.

• 19:34Bill Maher?

  I mean, some of the Beatles songs are, to me, just same thing, like, very forgettable lyrics. But it just sounds great.

• 19:45Speaker 05

  Yeah.

• 19:46Bill Maher?

  You know, I mean, "Paperback Writer" just sounds great. It's like a good, like a bass lead, almost, you know?

• 19:53Speaker 05

  Yeah.

• 19:53Bill Maher?

  I mean, "Hello, Goodbye," it just sounds great.

• 19:56Speaker 05

  Yeah, John Lennon always said, "It's Day Tripper again," or something, or "Ticket to Ride." He said, you know, he's always, he said, "Paul's just ripped me off again," you know?

• 20:07Bill Maher?

  He said what?

• 20:08Speaker 05

  Well, because the

• 20:12Speaker 05

  the riff in "Paperback Writer," it's very similar to something like "Ticket to Ride," you know?

• 20:19Speaker 05

  He said, "It's Paul's just taking my ticket to ride," and, and so.

• 20:24Bill Maher?

  I gotta listen, I never heard that story.

• 20:27Speaker 05

  He doesn't mean it like, he just means, he's replying to my song with a similar thing. Because they're always replying to each other's songs.

• 20:35Bill Maher?

  You think?

• 20:36Speaker 05

  Well, John Lennon does "Money" on one album, and then next minute, Paul McCartney does "Can't Buy My Love," you know? So he's kind of answering, they're always answering each other.

• 20:44Bill Maher?

  Of course, "Money" was a cover.

• 20:46Speaker 05

  Yeah. But still, you know, he's saying, "Money's what I want," and then Paul McCartney does, "But it can't buy my love," sort of thing.

• 20:54Bill Maher?

  Yeah, that's a, that's a really interesting thesis, I never heard that.

• 21:25Speaker 01

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• 21:54Bill Maher?

  But now I'm gonna re-listen.

• 21:57Speaker 05

  It kind of goes on into even John Lennon solo stuff where in one of those songs on the last album, that Double Fantasy, sings about things are getting better and better. And you can't tell us that he's not thinking about

• 22:10Bill Maher?

  The song.

• 22:11Speaker 05

  Getting better, you know, on Sergeant Pepper's and stuff like that, you know.

• 22:18Bill Maher?

  What song is that on Double Fantasy?

• 22:21Speaker 05

  I don't know if it's Beautiful Boy.

• 22:23Bill Maher?

  Beautiful Boy.

• 22:24Speaker 05

  It's one of those songs where he says, "And it's getting better and better." And you kind of go, there has to be a retort.

• 22:30Bill Maher?

  One of my all-time favorite just single records is "Starting Over."

• 22:36Speaker 05

  Yeah, it's great.

• 22:37Bill Maher?

  The one that was on the charts when he was killed. The lead single off that album that he made. Hadn't made an album in five years. I mean, it's got the Phil Spector, full Phil Spector genius on it. I mean, okay, you shouldn't shoot your dates in the head. We know that, okay? We're not forgiving that. But that doesn't take away from the sound of that record. That record never shot anybody, okay? That record is just a great record. Our life together is so special. The way it just builds, you know? And the backing vocals, it's almost like a 50s.

• 23:22Speaker 05

  It's like Elvis, a bit of an Elvis touch to it.

• 23:25Bill Maher?

  But it showed that John Lennon still could do it on his own. I mean, he certainly did not do it as much as McCartney by far. First of all, he was just very, first of all, he died, okay? He only had 10 years. But even that 10 years, from 70 to 80, when they were, their first decade, when the group was split up, right? I mean, McCartney probably had, you know...

• 23:49Bill Maher?

  Ten hits on the charts. Or more, you know. My Love, Does It Good. You know, like, not always like genius, but like reliable pop hits.

• 24:01Speaker 05

  Yeah.

• 24:02Bill Maher?

  Listen to What the Man Said, Silly Love Songs, never one of my favorites, but giant hit. You know what I'm saying?

• 24:08Speaker 05

  Yeah.

• 24:09Bill Maher?

  I mean, he just did a lot of stuff.

• 24:10Speaker 05

  Yeah.

• 24:11Bill Maher?

  And kept doing it in the eighties and the nineties. I mean, he's banned on the run. I mean, that was the same, just that one album. Just that one album.

• 24:19Speaker 05

  Yeah, that's what brought everybody's faith in Paul McCartney back again when he did Banned on the Run.

• 24:24Bill Maher?

  Oh, you think?

• 24:25Speaker 05

  Yeah, a lot of people slagging him off and everything with Ram and all the first McCartney. I like that a lot.

• 24:31Bill Maher?

  First McCartney had, maybe I'm amazed on it.

• 24:34Speaker 05

  It's fantastic.

• 24:35Bill Maher?

  I mean, that's, even if it was just that song.

• 24:38Speaker 05

  Yeah, it's huge.

• 24:39Bill Maher?

  I mean, yeah, I mean, was there other stuff? You know, it's funny, there's a song on that first one, Every Night.

• 24:45Speaker 05

  Yeah, I like that.

• 24:46Bill Maher?

  Every Night, I Just Wanna Wake. And then, but the, so the chorus.

• 24:53Bill Maher?

  Every time I hear it, I think, wow, that's You Never Give Me Your Money.

• 24:55Speaker 05

  Yeah, You Never Give Me Your Money.

• 24:57Bill Maher?

  It does sound very, that one part of it is almost a direct.

• 25:00Speaker 05

  Yeah.

• 25:01Bill Maher?

  Because my ear goes right to.

• 25:04Bill Maher?

  Your money.

• 25:07Bill Maher?

  Okay, so we busted him on that. Other than that, he's the Mozart of our day, but you know, other than that. Yeah, but John Lennon, he was obviously doing other things and taking care of issues bigger than music.

• 25:21Speaker 05

  Yeah.

• 25:22Bill Maher?

  But it was nice to see that right before he went, he still had the capacity on his own, without Paul McCartney, because I think that was an issue that did hang over his head. Can I do it without the guy who we all kind of know is just even more gifted as far as like being prolific and being, he's just a musical prodigy on a level that I think even John Lennon is not on. But John Lennon could still, I mean, he certainly was the spirit of the Beatles when they started. And, and he still on his own wrote so many great records. But I do think he worried when they split up, like, oh, wow, if I don't have this guy, because this guy.

• 26:06Bill Maher?

  I can go in there with like, because he wasn't, you know, even by his own admission, he could be quite lazy. Yeah. So he could go in there with something that was good, but not great. It's like, this guy I picked up when I was 15, he is some sort of fucking player. And he's gonna, he's gonna bring this one up to band standards. You know what I mean? Yeah. And I think he did worry, and by the way, sometimes the stuff John Lennon did put out in the 70s, "Mind Games," not a great album. Yeah. Not really up to band standards. And I'm wondering if, I'm sure the collaboration would always been better on both ends. But it was just great to see that at that final moment,

• 26:51Bill Maher?

  he could make a record like "Starting Over," which is as much as a favorite of mine as any Beatles record. It's just a great record. Yeah. So. Yeah, and "Woman" and stuff, those. "Woman," yes, another classic. It's a great, great song. But I wouldn't have wanted to see him saying in Vegas when he was. No. You know, I mean, there's some good things about dying young and leaving a pretty corpse, you know. You sort of have the best of both worlds. Like, you're a guy who should have died. Isn't that the name of your documentary? Yes, "Should Be Dead," yes. What is it called? "Billy Idol Should Be Dead." "Billy Idol Should Be Dead."

• 27:35Bill Maher?

  So when you were bouncing titles around, was there ever a moment where, Phil, you had an idea, something about Billy Idol, big star. No, we're gonna go with the dead, okay. Tom, run that by me again, that thing you thought of a couple of days ago. No, so what is the closest that you ever came to being dead? Look at me, acting like a real host. A few times, yeah. Like what? Well.

• 28:07Speaker 05

  We kind of went, I went back in England in triumph with the album Rebel Yell.

• 28:11Bill Maher?

  Rebel Yell?

• 28:13Speaker 05

  And.

• 28:13Bill Maher?

  The biggest, I would think that was the biggest of that year.

• 28:17Speaker 05

  I was going to do it on top of the pops in England, you know, kind of returning to England. I've had this big record in America.

• 28:22Bill Maher?

  Conquering Hero.

• 28:23Speaker 05

  Kind of coming back to.

• 28:24Bill Maher?

  Yes.

• 28:25Speaker 05

  So a load of friends of us met us at the airport and they had a bunch of heroin on them. So of course, somehow everybody else in the room passed out except for me and the other guy, you know, who's chopping the lines out. So we kept doing lines and then.

• 28:43Bill Maher?

  Doing lines of heroin, snorting it.

• 28:44Speaker 05

  Yeah, I don't know how everyone else had passed out, but me and him didn't.

• 28:48Bill Maher?

  So you were not shooting it?

• 28:49Speaker 05

  No, just snorting.

• 28:51Bill Maher?

  You never shot it?

• 28:52Speaker 05

  A few times, but I just, I didn't like that idea of it. My mother was a nurse, I think something about that.

• 28:59Bill Maher?

  Oh, so there we learned something. You did not shoot heroin, you snorted it.

• 29:03Speaker 05

  Yeah.

• 29:03Bill Maher?

  Pussy, go ahead.

• 29:05Speaker 05

  Yeah, no, because I'm glad I did that because, yeah. But yeah, anyway, I kind of, eventually we did pass out and then when people, other people in the room came too, I was going blue, you know? So.

• 29:19Bill Maher?

  I don't know.

• 29:20Speaker 05

  They put me in a bath and they walked me about on the.

• 29:24Bill Maher?

  Wait, go back to blue. Why do you go, you would go blue on heroin?

• 29:28Speaker 05

  Well, if you're dying, yeah, you go, dying, you're going to start turning blue.

• 29:32Bill Maher?

  Why, but why would it kill you? Oh, I guess I shouldn't ask that question. I know it does. I just don't know how.

• 29:37Speaker 05

  Yeah, no, nor do I realize. I suppose it just overwhelms your system.

• 29:40Bill Maher?

  Right.

• 29:41Speaker 05

  And I suppose it stops you breathing or something, yeah?

• 29:46Bill Maher?

  Yeah, you know, look, I'm not an advocate for heroin by any means, but.

• 29:50Speaker 05

  I survived.

• 29:51Bill Maher?

  It is important to note that there are very rare, very rare, but there are people who like, actually did it in a managed way. William S. Burroughs, I believe, was doing it at 80.

• 30:05Speaker 05

  Wow.

• 30:06Bill Maher?

  Like, you know, some people just have a, I mean, I wouldn't recommend it. Don't try it at home, kids. Because I've also heard that somebody once described doing heroin the first time as the best orgasm you ever had times a thousand.

• 30:22Speaker 05

  Well, it is really great. It's just the worst thing is uh it's getting off it.

• 30:27Bill Maher?

  We'll be right back.

• 30:29Speaker 05

  It's just getting off it is terrible. And that's what stops me going back to doing it is the thought of getting off it.

• 30:36Bill Maher?

  Okay.

• 30:36Speaker 05

  So terrible.

• 30:38Bill Maher?

  Help a pot smoker who has done every drug but heroin. Like when I was in college, I was a dealer. I mean, there's no other word for it. Like I sold drugs to other people. You know, and we were at the lowest level, me and my partner. I did have, we have a partner, we're like Abbott and Costello. Except Abbott and Costello had no specific business and yet they described each other as my partner. Whatever. In my case, I had a partner and we would sell on the lowest level, like, you know, the ounce of pot.

• 31:18Bill Maher?

  Whatever our dealer had, like our, the guy above us, like the guy who bought like five pounds of pot. And then he would sell it to his low level of dealers, but, you know, one pound and we would sell ounces. So whatever he had, speed was very big at the time and very good. Cocaine, opium, LSD, or whatever, it probably wasn't really LSD, but whatever he had, we would sell to other college kids, allegedly.

• 31:53Bill Maher?

  Heroin, I never did it. So every drug I ever have done or would talk about, I relate to as good or bad pot. That's like my benchmark. Like, ask me about any drug and I say, oh yeah, I did that drug. And it was just like, it was like pot, but I was more low key. Or, you know, it was like pot, but much sloppier, or it was like pot, but whatever, hornier, whatever. Heroin, I don't know. So.

• 32:19Speaker 05

  It's not like pot.

• 32:22Bill Maher?

  It's not. It's not like pot at all. No? So what is it then? What is it, why is it so good? And where can I get some?

• 32:34Bill Maher?

  No, why is it so good? I don't get it. What kind of feeling?

• 32:39Speaker 05

  Well, in my case, well, it knocks me out, you know. I kind of like that because I'm quite sort of active or I'm quite sort of, so I quite like something putting me to sleep, you know.

• 32:51Bill Maher?

  Well, that's a really expensive, dangerous sleeping pill. I mean, if that's all, it must do something more than that.

• 32:57Speaker 05

  Well, yeah, I mean, but.

• 33:00Bill Maher?

  But people do nod out, right?

• 33:02Speaker 05

  Oh, yeah, yeah.

• 33:03Bill Maher?

  Why? Why, what is that? That's because, because you're

• 33:09Bill Maher?

  you're so relaxed or you're just, you want to be, when you're not, noted out, are you like still in your head, having a good time?

• 33:17Speaker 05

  Yeah, you're having some sort of like, some sort of like, almost like a dream, dreams. But, you know, I actually dream, I don't know if you feel like you're dreaming something, you know.

• 33:28Bill Maher?

  I remember buying, buying something. I think it was here in LA, but it might not have been. I've been on the road a lot my whole life, so it could have been somewhere. And it was like a thrift store, I feel like some sort of like, no, it was definitely not Macy's. And the, I was at the cash register making this transaction. And the person, the cash register just, you know, it was just like power off and just right there in the middle of a cash transaction.

• 34:02Speaker 05

  Yeah, people usually nodded out, it'd be about to scratch themselves. And then they, you know, their hand would be in the air because they'd passed out.

• 34:11Bill Maher?

  Are you fucking with me?

• 34:13Speaker 05

  No, no, that's because they'd be like that because they're going to itch themselves and then they've.

• 34:17Bill Maher?

  Because it makes you itch?

• 34:19Speaker 05

  Yeah, it makes you itchy, you know.

• 34:21Bill Maher?

  That's really funny. It makes you itch, but then you're too fucked up to scratch.

• 34:25Speaker 05

  So you scratch, you go into scratch, and then you pass out as you go.

• 34:29Bill Maher?

  That should be.

• 34:30Speaker 05

  But it's awful getting off it. And that boy George actually said.

• 34:33Bill Maher?

  He was here, I love him. He's so funny.

• 34:36Speaker 05

  Yeah, he said, it's like your skeleton is trying to get out of your body. That's how he described coming off heroin. I've got to say, that's what it feels like.

• 34:43Bill Maher?

  A skeleton?

• 34:43Speaker 05

  Like your skeleton's trying to get out of your body.

• 34:46Bill Maher?

  Wow.

• 34:47Speaker 05

  So you've, you know, that's how uncomfortable it is, it's horrible.

• 34:51Bill Maher?

  Right. And John Lennon, speaking of him, Cold Turkey.

• 34:57Speaker 05

  Yeah.

• 34:58Bill Maher?

  Remember the record?

• 34:59Speaker 05

  I bought that record, yeah.

• 35:00Bill Maher?

  What?

• 35:00Speaker 05

  I bought Cold Turkey.

• 35:01Bill Maher?

  You bought it? You can remember that?

• 35:03Speaker 05

  Oh, yeah, I bought, yes, of course, I bought the Plastic Owner Band record.

• 35:07Bill Maher?

  What'd you think of the song?

• 35:08Speaker 05

  Oh, I liked it, I thought it was great. I thought, I thought it was great.

• 35:11Bill Maher?

  I didn't.

• 35:12Speaker 05

  He was going in that direction, I thought it was interesting.

• 35:14Bill Maher?

  It's not a good song. It's just not a good song.

• 35:18Speaker 05

  I kind of liked, I kind of liked the moaning and. I just liked, you know, I suppose I liked the fact he was branching out a bit. I liked that his first solo album, I thought was incredible.

• 35:27Bill Maher?

  Plastic Owner Band, yeah. Oh, with God.

• 35:29Speaker 05

  It was kind of incredible.

• 35:31Bill Maher?

  God is a concept by which we measure our pain.

• 35:34Speaker 05

  Yeah, I was trying to understand that.

• 35:36Bill Maher?

  Well, that's a pretty awesome, deep pop lyric.

• 35:41Speaker 05

  Yeah.

• 35:42Bill Maher?

  Right? God is a concept by which we measure our pain. I wish he wrote more like that.

• 35:48Speaker 05

  Yeah.

• 35:48Bill Maher?

  He was kind of lazy. Because like, you know the song, I'm sure you do, of course, Across the Universe?

• 35:58Speaker 05

  Yeah, of course.

• 35:59Bill Maher?

  I mean, the poetry in that song is sublime.

• 36:03Speaker 05

  Yeah.

• 36:05Bill Maher?

  You know, shining on me like a million suns, they shine across the, whatever it is, I'm not remembering it right now, but. All the way through, it's so poetic, the wind inside a letterbox. You know, and he just didn't write like that enough. I mean, there's stuff that's like not certainly typical, like I am the walrus. But he's just gobbledygook. What the fuck?

• 36:31Speaker 05

  Well, he deliberately wrote that as gobbled.

• 36:34Bill Maher?

  I know, but it's.

• 36:35Speaker 05

  He said Bob Dylan was getting away with doing that and people were taking him. So he said, I'm gonna, I'm gonna do, I wanna confuse the critics as well. I wanna confuse the fans to make them, make them, what do you make of this? It's kind of what he was, so he said, said to his mate Pete Shotten or something.

• 36:52Bill Maher?

  No, that.

• 36:53Speaker 05

  Let's write the most ridiculous song. And then he remembered that nursery rhyme that they learnt at school. The dead dog's eye nursery rhyme.

• 37:01Bill Maher?

  I didn't know, but is that where yelling at a custard dripping from a dead dog's eye?

• 37:05Speaker 05

  But then they also, the ambulance, the ambulance or the police in those days. Na na na na na na na na, na na, I am here as you are here. Cause I think he heard an ambulance and he got the idea for the beginning.

• 37:19Bill Maher?

  Yeah, it does sound like an ambulance.

• 37:21Speaker 05

  Na na na, yeah.

• 37:22Bill Maher?

  I mean, okay, bad example, cause that's one of his awesomest songs. I mean, it's just amazing. And you're right, and that does come through that he is having you on. Especially when he says, the walrus was Paul.

• 37:35Speaker 05

  Yeah, yeah.

• 37:36Bill Maher?

  Okay, there, we, we get it, you know, that you're, you're, here's another clue. Oh, no, that's a, that's a glass onion, yeah. The, here's it, okay. So he's referring to walrus on another song. I mean, it's same idea, very cheeky and, but yes, he, he's deliberately doing that. But I wish he had written more songs like Across the Universe that were like, cause he had that gift. He could, he could do it.

• 38:04Speaker 05

  Yeah.

• 38:04Bill Maher?

  And he settled for a lot of pop lyrics and, you know, sort of easy stuff, I thought. I mean, instant karma, I liked it, but.

• 38:15Bill Maher?

  You know, somebody accused him once of writing three blind mice over and over again. Three blind mice.

• 38:24Speaker 05

  All you need is love is a bit, the same chords. Things the same chords is.

• 38:29Bill Maher?

  And we all shine on. But like, again, you musicians, you songwriters, how can you, there can't be anything new. There's been a zillion gazillion songs. There's only so many notes, so many chords.

• 38:43Speaker 05

  It's amazing people have got, you know, all these, that you can get more songs out of. As you say, just there's only a few notes, there's only, and you know, you add some sharps and flats, but really, there's only a few notes. It's the inflection you put on the notes that makes the tune or the song. So it's your personality working the note is makes, makes the.

• 39:09Bill Maher?

  What is your process?

• 39:11Speaker 05

  Well.

• 39:11Bill Maher?

  Are you a craftsman? Or are you a let the muse strike me?

• 39:16Speaker 05

  Yeah, I suppose so, I'm a bit. Yes, I suppose I have to, I do sort of let the muse strike a little bit. I look for song titles, that helps a lot. To have a really good title helps. And, but, or, and then sometimes you just sit with the guitar and over, you know, just by playing, you know, playing around, eventually something, something makes you get an ooh feeling, you know, as you're trying something, you get a kind of.

• 39:43Bill Maher?

  I love the guitar.

• 39:44Speaker 05

  You get a kind of, you know. And you kind of know, oh, this is a good idea, you know. Or this, this, this is making me react in a good way, you know, to my own ideas.

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• 41:21Bill Maher?

  Answer me honestly. Did you ever write a song or just even be playing an instrument while getting blown?

• 41:30Speaker 05

  I don't think so.

• 41:31Bill Maher?

  I bet you you did.

• 41:34Speaker 05

  That'd be a new... I should have done that.

• 41:38Bill Maher?

  I'm very disappointed you haven't.

• 41:42Speaker 05

  Yeah, no, I don't think I've done that. Wow, I can still do that, though.

• 41:47Bill Maher?

  I only bring it up because there was this book by this lady. I forget the name. It was like 25 years ago, 20, I don't know, something like that. And, you know, it was one of those tell-all books about rock stars and stuff and movie stars and famous people she'd fucked, you know. Needless to say, a bestseller. The title escapes me. But among the rock stars she talks about was George Harrison. Now, maybe this is not true. This is her version. I'm not endorsing it. I'm just saying her version was he played the ukulele while she was blowing him.

• 42:29Speaker 05

  He probably did do that, because he did play the ukulele.

• 42:32Bill Maher?

  I hope he did.

• 42:36Bill Maher?

  It's bad enough you haven't. Don't take that away from me too.

• 42:40Speaker 05

  Still got things to achieve.

• 42:43Bill Maher?

  I mean,

• 42:46Bill Maher?

  it could yield creativity.

• 42:48Speaker 05

  It could.

• 42:49Bill Maher?

  It could. I think it needs exploring.

• 42:54Speaker 05

  Let's explore it.

• 42:55Bill Maher?

  Let's put our best man on it.

• 42:57Speaker 05

  Gonna be writing more songs, so.

• 42:59Bill Maher?

  No, you're, so you've never been married, right?

• 43:02Speaker 05

  No, avoided it.

• 43:03Bill Maher?

  Me too.

• 43:04Speaker 05

  Somehow.

• 43:05Bill Maher?

  Somehow.

• 43:06Speaker 05

  And just as well, because I'll only be divorced a million times.

• 43:08Bill Maher?

  We, we are in a very exclusive club.

• 43:11Speaker 05

  Wow.

• 43:12Bill Maher?

  Right? People, guys who have not gotten married, and I mean, I'm 70, I'm guessing you're.

• 43:19Speaker 05

  Yeah, I'm 70.

• 43:20Bill Maher?

  Oh, really?

• 43:21Speaker 05

  Yes.

• 43:21Bill Maher?

  You're 56? 1956?

• 43:23Speaker 05

  Yeah, 55, November.

• 43:26Bill Maher?

  No, I'm January 56, wow.

• 43:28Speaker 05

  Oh, John, John Lyden, John Rotten, same.

• 43:30Bill Maher?

  Oh, really?

• 43:31Speaker 05

  He's January 56.

• 43:32Bill Maher?

  Our mothers were pregnant at the same time.

• 43:35Speaker 05

  Yes, yes.

• 43:36Bill Maher?

  What if we had got switched at birth? What if I sang White Wedding? And you were like doing the, and talking to the governor?

• 43:46Bill Maher?

  It would be terrible. You'd be terrible at my job, I'd be terrible at yours.

• 43:51Speaker 05

  Yeah, no, yes, I think.

• 43:52Bill Maher?

  I'm so glad our, I'm so glad our mothers. My mother was in England during the war. She was a nurse in World War II.

• 43:59Speaker 05

  Yeah, my mom was a nurse, that's why she came to England. She's Irish, and she came to England.

• 44:04Bill Maher?

  Oh.

• 44:04Speaker 05

  Become a nurse.

• 44:07Bill Maher?

  You feel like that Irish heritage helps you with your poetic side because the Irish, I'm Irish also.

• 44:14Speaker 05

  I would think so, yeah. Um, you know, my, my grandmother could play 14 instruments, not that I can, I'm not that musical.

• 44:22Bill Maher?

  14 instruments?

• 44:23Speaker 05

  She could write music, and she could play, yeah, I mean, a lot of it was the piano, the accordion, the viola, the, you know, she'd play a number of instruments, and she could write music, I think. And although she wasn't doing much of that when I.

• 44:36Bill Maher?

  Did you grow up, were you poor when you grew up?

• 44:38Speaker 05

  Um, we were, we were okay. I mean, dad, dad worked really hard, so.

• 44:43Bill Maher?

  What did he do?

• 44:43Speaker 05

  He was a salesman, really. He sold different, he started off selling typewriters, then he sold medical equipment.

• 44:49Bill Maher?

  In what town is this?

• 44:50Speaker 05

  Well, we actually came to America. I lived in America when I was a, on Long Island when I was a child. I got, we came to America, you know, I was about two and a half and we stayed for about three years.

• 45:02Bill Maher?

  But you kept the accent.

• 45:04Speaker 05

  Well, my first accent was American.

• 45:06Bill Maher?

  Because you're around the father who talked like that, the parents.

• 45:08Speaker 05

  Well, my first accent was American. I, my first memories are of Long Island and of having an American accent and, you know, it was sneakers, not plimsolls and.

• 45:19Bill Maher?

  But you don't sound American.

• 45:21Speaker 05

  No, no, well, we went back to England.

• 45:23Bill Maher?

  Ice?

• 45:30Bill Maher?

  No, you have a great accent because it's, it's like a Cary Grant accent. It's not quite a British accent, but it has hints of it. And so it just strikes us all. It's just charming and, and.

• 45:42Speaker 05

  I've tried to hold on to it because I do.

• 45:44Bill Maher?

  Oh, you should.

• 45:45Speaker 05

  I do think it has a certain effect.

• 45:47Bill Maher?

  I bet you it's great with the ladies.

• 45:51Bill Maher?

  Chicks love an accent.

• 45:52Speaker 05

  Yeah.

• 45:53Bill Maher?

  That's how dumb they are, am I right? No, cut that out.

• 45:59Speaker 05

  Yeah, it's worth holding on to. I've deliberately held on to, tried to hold on to an element of my British accent.

• 46:06Bill Maher?

  It's all, it's also good for the music. I mean, we here in America of a certain age like me, really, I came of age right with the British invasion.

• 46:17Speaker 05

  Right.

• 46:17Bill Maher?

  A little, I mean, some of it happened before I was interested. I mean, in nineteen sixty-four, when the Beatles came here, that's really the beginning of it. I mean, I was eight. I was not interested in music. I was interested in baseball. But they were still together and, I mean, the first album I really listened to was Sergeant Pepper. Even though it had been out a year, but it was still current and we had it in the house and, I mean, so.

• 46:46Bill Maher?

  But, you know.

• 46:49Bill Maher?

  Oh fuck, I forgot what I was gonna say.

• 46:51Speaker 05

  Well, I fell in love with the bill. I went back to around, you know, sixty, late sixty-two. I went back to England, you see, so I was right there when the Beatles kicked off. And so I wanted to buy-

• 47:02Bill Maher?

  Oh, right, the British Invasion.

• 47:03Speaker 05

  I wanted to buy From Me To You, but it was going down the charts and I didn't have quite enough pocket money. So I've already believed in John and Paul already. I really believed in them already. I don't know why. I just, I just, just believed in them and just knew the next record would be great. It was She Loves You. I bought that, six shillings and thruppence apenny. That's what it cost.

• 47:23Bill Maher?

  Wait, so you were in England?

• 47:25Speaker 05

  Well, we went back in like late sixty-two, you know.

• 47:27Bill Maher?

  You went back?

• 47:28Speaker 05

  Yeah, we went back. My dad wanted to go back to England.

• 47:31Bill Maher?

  And then how long were you in England for?

• 47:33Speaker 05

  About twenty-five years, I suppose, till, till eighty-one.

• 47:36Bill Maher?

  Twenty-five years? Oh, that may explain the accent.

• 47:39Speaker 05

  Yes, of course.

• 47:40Bill Maher?

  Oh, okay, I see.

• 47:41Speaker 05

  By the way, I was American kid.

• 47:42Bill Maher?

  Oh, I see. Because I was gonna say, for me to you-

• 47:46Speaker 05

  Give the ball to the American kid so we can cut him down. That's what they were shouting. Give the soccer ball to that American kid.

• 47:53Bill Maher?

  For Me To You is the third single.

• 47:56Speaker 05

  Yeah, it was, yeah.

• 47:57Bill Maher?

  The first single was Love Me Do.

• 47:59Speaker 05

  Love Me Do.

• 47:59Bill Maher?

  Which I've never liked. Didn't like it then, didn't like it now. It has the unmistakable, I mean, joy of the Beatles and how much joy they took in making their music.

• 48:13Speaker 05

  I think the harmonica thing is great.

• 48:15Bill Maher?

  I don't, never been a big fan of the harmonica.

• 48:17Speaker 05

  Ah, it's, it's just-

• 48:18Bill Maher?

  I never, you know-

• 48:19Speaker 05

  That harmonica thing is- Da, da, da, da. It's, it's great.

• 48:26Bill Maher?

  It's called a mouth organ bill.

• 48:29Speaker 05

  Anyway, yeah.

• 48:30Bill Maher?

  Always makes me wanna put an organ in my mouth. No, it's, it's just, I've just never been a fan of that particular instrument. And also, they wrote it when they were like fifteen. It's, it's, it's, talk about childish lyrics. You know, love, love me do, I know I love you, please be true. And that's okay as a, as a historical artifact. I like it as that. Do I wanna hear it? No. Okay, the next single was Please Please Me, which is still a great record.

• 48:57Speaker 05

  It's fantastic.

• 48:57Bill Maher?

  So even between the first and the second, they made a record that I wanna hear forever. Okay, so they were moving quickly. Third single is From Me To You, I think.

• 49:06Speaker 05

  Yes.

• 49:07Bill Maher?

  Fourth single is She Loves You. Fifth one that broke America was I Wanna Hold Your Hand. So we're talking about From Me To You, which is like, you know, again- A very respectable record of the early period. Not, again, a profound lyric.

• 49:26Bill Maher?

  But, you know, we're talking about teenagers playing for teenagers.

• 49:30Speaker 05

  Yeah.

• 49:31Bill Maher?

  You know, on that level. And it's still got their unmistakable joie de vivre.

• 49:36Speaker 05

  Yeah.

• 49:36Bill Maher?

  You know, but, yeah, I mean, if you had the choice of playing either From Me To You or A Day In The Life.

• 49:46Speaker 05

  Yeah.

• 49:46Bill Maher?

  Wouldn't.

• 49:47Speaker 05

  I mean, that's what's so fantastic.

• 49:48Bill Maher?

  Wouldn't you play A Day In The Life three times in a row?

• 49:51Speaker 05

  How they were able to morph into such, you know, change their music up so drastically and still take the audience with them, unlike The Beach Boys, where they kind of lost their audience.

• 50:02Bill Maher?

  Well, Albert Goldman, who wrote the John Lennon biography, took a lot of shit for it, but I happen to think he's an amazing writer. But he made the point that The Beatles always kept ahead of their audience.

• 50:15Speaker 05

  Yeah, they did.

• 50:16Bill Maher?

  Which is kind of what you're getting at.

• 50:18Speaker 05

  Yeah.

• 50:18Bill Maher?

  And the example he gave was the lead song on Revolver was Taxman. And he said, "Can you imagine a subject less interesting to teenagers than taxes?" Which is such an awesome observation.

• 50:34Speaker 05

  Yeah, I never think of that.

• 50:36Bill Maher?

  You know what, kids? We're talking about taxes now. From Me To You, that was two years ago.

• 50:41Speaker 05

  Yeah.

• 50:42Bill Maher?

  We're just different. And you know what? You want to enjoy us? Get on. You catch up.

• 50:48Speaker 05

  Yeah. And we did.

• 50:51Bill Maher?

  And we did. Yeah.

• 50:53Speaker 05

  That's what was great. They kept, you just believe, I believed in them. And they kept on sort of proving you're right. That's what was fantastic.

• 51:02Bill Maher?

  So you were in what city in 1963? No, 1963, when From Me To You came out?

• 51:08Speaker 05

  Well, I was living in southern England, you know. Dorking, I suppose, for a year. We lived in.

• 51:14Bill Maher?

  So you were very, you know, you were in the country where it was happening.

• 51:18Speaker 05

  Yeah.

• 51:18Bill Maher?

  I mean, obviously, they were in the north, because that's Liverpool.

• 51:21Speaker 05

  Yeah, but they would come, they'd come down to London.

• 51:23Bill Maher?

  They play everywhere.

• 51:24Speaker 05

  They were living in London.

• 51:25Bill Maher?

  You look at that, you mean, they've, you know.

• 51:27Speaker 05

  The London scene was taken off because The Stones were in London. There was Dave Clark Five.

• 51:33Speaker 05

  And then there's all those bands.

• 51:34Bill Maher?

  Well, nineteen sixty-three is the year the Beatles went cra- you know, went crazy big, but only in England.

• 51:41Speaker 05

  In England, yeah.

• 51:42Bill Maher?

  We didn't know who the fuck they were.

• 51:43Speaker 05

  No.

• 51:44Bill Maher?

  I mean, they said Ed Sullivan like saw them.

• 51:47Speaker 05

  Yeah, they were coming back from Sweden or something.

• 51:49Bill Maher?

  Yes, he saw the crowd at the airport.

• 51:51Speaker 05

  And said, who's this for? And they said, it's for this group, The Beatles, yeah.

• 51:54Bill Maher?

  Right.

• 51:55Speaker 05

  And then he said, well, they're this popular, why don't we have them on, on my program? Well, I always wondered, how the hell did, you know, the other three songs do nothing? You know?

• 52:08Bill Maher?

  In America.

• 52:08Speaker 05

  Me to You did nothing.

• 52:09Bill Maher?

  In America.

• 52:10Speaker 05

  Yeah. She Loves You did nothing.

• 52:12Bill Maher?

  Correct.

• 52:12Speaker 05

  And then Suddenly, I Wanna Hold Your Hand goes to number one. Well, she loves you was.

• 52:18Bill Maher?

  They didn't have a record label, that's part of the reason. She Loves You was issued on.

• 52:22Speaker 05

  PJ or something.

• 52:23Bill Maher?

  Swan.

• 52:23Speaker 05

  Swan, that's right, yeah.

• 52:25Bill Maher?

  Swan Records, which was, you know, like a guy with a fax machine in his mother's basement. It was, you know, nothing.

• 52:33Speaker 05

  Yeah.

• 52:33Bill Maher?

  So, you know, it, there was no press behind it.

• 52:37Speaker 05

  No.

• 52:37Bill Maher?

  No, very often what happened in America was a disc jockey would love a song and start playing it. And then the crowd would, you know, the people in the audience would write in and say, oh, we love that. I mean, many singles like that have been broken that way. I think.

• 52:52Speaker 05

  Maybe it was Murray the K then. Murray the K in New York side playing I Wanna Hold Your Hand, I suppose.

• 52:58Bill Maher?

  I don't know if that's how it happened, or it was just the noise from overseas was getting deafening.

• 53:06Speaker 05

  Suppose they put money behind it.

• 53:07Bill Maher?

  Right.

• 53:08Speaker 05

  Finally.

• 53:08Bill Maher?

  Capital Records, which EMI owned, you know, at that point they were with EMI.

• 53:13Speaker 05

  They must have told them, you've got to do it. That the EMI who owned Capital must have told them, you've got to put money into this band.

• 53:21Bill Maher?

  But they always said they didn't want to go to America until they had a number one.

• 53:25Speaker 05

  Yeah, that's right.

• 53:26Bill Maher?

  And then they did.

• 53:27Speaker 05

  Yeah.

• 53:28Bill Maher?

  You know? It's funny, they were in, I think, Paris when they heard.

• 53:36Speaker 05

  Yeah.

• 53:37Bill Maher?

  They came here, oh, this is February, so they came here.

• 53:40Speaker 05

  Yeah, they're playing the Olympia or something in Paris.

• 53:43Bill Maher?

  And not enjoying it. The only place in the world, it's so, it's so indicative of the French. The only place in the world that stuck their nose up at Beatlemania was France. Like, they were like, we don't know what this phenomenon is all about. They are talented, I suppose, but are they Charles Haussner, I do not think so. They, I mean, they had like a long engagement there. And it was, not that it was like a disaster, and I'm sure they got laid, it was France and they were the Beatles. But, I mean, for fuck's sake, like, they were just not like the crowds everywhere else in the world that went nuts.

• 54:23Bill Maher?

  They just did not, and, but I think that's where they got the telegram, which we barely remember as a child. That, you know, you have a number one in America. They were like, oh, well, this is very handy, since we're going to do Ed Sullivan. Must have been so much, it must be so much fun, like, that upward climb when you're, you know, when your rocket gets shot to the moon.

• 54:52Speaker 05

  Yeah, and it was just, it was really exciting for us in England, seeing that happening, because it really meant, oh, man.

• 54:58Bill Maher?

  No, I mean, for you.

• 54:59Speaker 05

  If you can get into a band and it'll take you around the world.

• 55:03Bill Maher?

  But you had that experience, you know, when the world is at your feet.

• 55:08Speaker 05

  Yeah, I did, I did.

• 55:09Bill Maher?

  And once you get that high, you know, you're good, you're stamped for life. I mean, there'll always be people who want to keep up with you, you know? Because you, you meant a lot to that, especially, it's usually that formative part of your life that you remember so fondly. I mean, you know, everybody remembers the song they first got laid to.

• 55:34Speaker 05

  Yes, I suppose, yeah.

• 55:36Bill Maher?

  And for most people, it is White Wedding. And that's the, the interesting statistical part of that, that it's just, it's just good. It says wedding in it, chicks are gonna get, they're gonna cream about that, just, just hearing the word wedding is, you know. But.

• 55:57Bill Maher?

  So what do you think about like the next decade? How old are you now?

• 56:02Speaker 05

  Well, I'm 70.

• 56:03Bill Maher?

  70, right. So we're 70.

• 56:09Bill Maher?

  We, you know, we hung on.

• 56:10Speaker 05

  Gotta make the most of the next 10 years.

• 56:13Bill Maher?

  We hung on pretty good. I think we both, I mean, you are, some people are like almost unrecognizable. Like really, you know what I mean?

• 56:22Speaker 05

  I know, it's shocking.

• 56:23Bill Maher?

  You're eminently recognizable.

• 56:26Speaker 05

  It's a little scary when you see it.

• 56:27Bill Maher?

  You look exactly like Billy Idol. There's no, the hair, the, just everything, isn't it? Like, it's like instantly easy to able to say, oh, that's Billy Idol. You know, oh, is he a little older? Oh, hey, looks great. You know, that's it. Me, I feel like I basically look like who I did. I mean, yeah, I mean, probably a little worse, but we're all worth for the wear. But 70 to 80?

• 56:57Bill Maher?

  You know?

• 57:00Bill Maher?

  All I'm saying is AI.

• 57:05Bill Maher?

  Get on it.

• 57:08Speaker 05

  Yeah, it's a little, little while getting to this stage in life, isn't it? Because, yeah, you really, it's getting, we're getting near, I don't know.

• 57:17Bill Maher?

  Especially when you do fun childish things like we do.

• 57:22Speaker 05

  Yeah, still daft.

• 57:24Bill Maher?

  It just becomes kind of weird then to not be young. You know what I mean? It's like, wait, we never, we're not, we're the people that didn't grow up anyway. You know?

• 57:35Speaker 05

  Can't ride a motorcycle.

• 57:36Bill Maher?

  Yeah, it's not like we worked in an office all our lives. You're like, we did weird, you know, fun, you know, not job-like things. And, and so we're supposed to be young, always, you know? And then you're like, no, but you're not.

• 57:55Speaker 05

  Yeah.

• 57:56Bill Maher?

  It's, that's a, you know, how long can you like act young? I guess forever. I guess, I guess it's in your mind, right?

• 58:05Speaker 05

  Well, I hope so, yeah, I hope that.

• 58:11Speaker 05

  I mean, I'm sort of lucky, I'm doing something I really like, so that

• 58:15Bill Maher?

  Yeah.

• 58:15Speaker 05

  keeps you young, because, you know, yeah, I'm doing something that I enjoy and so

• 58:21Bill Maher?

  And your penis, is that healthy?

• 58:23Speaker 05

  It seems to be alright, yeah.

• 58:26Bill Maher?

  I hope that wasn't too personal a question.

• 58:31Speaker 05

  It does seem to be alright.

• 58:32Bill Maher?

  Well, only because Sigmund Freud said, you know, there's only two things in life that determine whether you're happy or not, your career and your love life.

• 58:41Speaker 05

  I see.

• 58:43Bill Maher?

  What? You never heard that?

• 58:44Speaker 05

  No.

• 58:47Bill Maher?

  That or Freud?

• 58:50Bill Maher?

  Well, you know what, I think, don't sue me if he didn't say that. You know, I don't know, maybe, maybe it was Rocky who said that, I don't know. But I think it was Freud who said that, even if he didn't, I think it's true. Like, aren't they the two things that, I mean, it's either your career or your love life that determine whether you're happy? There's not, I mean, do I feel better when I have something great to watch at night? Like, you know, like, on TV? Yeah, but that's not what like actually determines my happiness. My happiness is determined by my career and my love life. I'm pretty sure Freud did say that.

• 59:29Speaker 05

  Yeah.

• 59:30Bill Maher?

  So, anyway, that's why I ask about your penis.

• 59:34Speaker 05

  Well, it seems to be in good nick.

• 59:36Bill Maher?

  Well, that's awesome.

• 59:37Speaker 05

  So, I've always been rather proud of it, so. And it seems to have gone through whatever I've put it through and come out the other side, so.

• 59:47Bill Maher?

  Right. How does heroin affect your dick?

• 59:51Speaker 05

  Yeah, it doesn't really make it work. Although you can fuck forever, if it is working, you can fuck forever, that's the thing about it.

• 59:58Bill Maher?

  What is it?

• 59:59Speaker 05

  If it is working, you can fuck forever on it, that's the thing.

• 1:00:02Bill Maher?

  Is that right?

• 1:00:07Bill Maher?

  Heroin, you say. And what brand would you recommend? No.

• 1:00:15Bill Maher?

  Well. I mean, I don't know. I. I can't look away because, you know, the next landmark is 80. And 80 just seems like a crazy number.

• 1:00:30Speaker 05

  Yeah.

• 1:00:30Bill Maher?

  But I thought 60 was crazy.

• 1:00:32Speaker 05

  Yeah, exactly. I would thought 70 would be, but it seemed somehow sliding, sliding through. Yeah, but I don't, I just wonder. Some point it's gonna get us when.

• 1:00:41Bill Maher?

  At some point it's gotta get us.

• 1:00:42Speaker 05

  I just don't like that idea, though.

• 1:00:44Bill Maher?

  Exactly. I don't, I don't, I, I, let's put it this way. I think I hear the footsteps. I don't feel the breath on my, my neck yet.

• 1:00:52Speaker 05

  Okay.

• 1:00:53Bill Maher?

  But I know that's, but I know that's next. I know that's next because you don't really avoid any, you know, in life. Life is a series of phases and, you know, passages. You don't avoid any of them.

• 1:01:06Speaker 05

  I suppose not, no. It's gonna happen, but yeah, I just gotta try and put that day off.

• 1:01:12Bill Maher?

  Exactly. You just try to put that day off. So I assume you, you must, I can tell by looking at you, you must live healthy.

• 1:01:21Speaker 05

  Yeah, I do.

• 1:01:21Bill Maher?

  People, you, you, you're gonna see in people's faces.

• 1:01:25Speaker 05

  Yeah, you can. You can see what they're eating.

• 1:01:26Bill Maher?

  Absolutely.

• 1:01:27Speaker 05

  I, I can see.

• 1:01:28Bill Maher?

  Yeah, at our age, you just, you're on a very short leash of what you can get away with to, to that fucks with your health.

• 1:01:35Speaker 05

  Yeah.

• 1:01:35Bill Maher?

  Sleep, drugs, liquor, whatever it is. You don't drink?

• 1:01:39Speaker 05

  Not anymore, not really. I mean, I used to just have a glass of wine. If I was at a restaurant, I would have a couple of glass wine. But they kind of stopped me doing that, you know, a couple of years ago. The doctor, you know?

• 1:01:51Bill Maher?

  Oh, the doctor.

• 1:01:52Speaker 05

  Sort of said, can you not do that even? So I'm like, oh, blimey, you know, like, come off it, sort of thing, but. But I still, you know, I take, you know, pot pills and stuff like that, so I'm not.

• 1:02:04Bill Maher?

  You pop pills?

• 1:02:06Speaker 05

  Pill, yeah, pot.

• 1:02:07Bill Maher?

  Oh, pot?

• 1:02:08Speaker 05

  Yeah, pot pills, you know, instead of vaping. I stopped vaping a couple of years ago. I used to vape all the time. And then, uh, then I sort of realized, I don't know why I'm vaping all the time. I could just take these. Well, a little bit, yeah, but it was more, uh, I realized I could take the pills and I didn't. Once I was taking the pills, I sort of noticed that I didn't feel like vaping, so, uh, I carried on doing that. And so, yeah, it's a couple of years now. I haven't really vaped, so. But just take the, take some summer night and stuff like that, you know.

• 1:02:42Bill Maher?

  I took one today.

• 1:02:44Speaker 05

  Yeah, or in the daytime, yes.

• 1:02:46Bill Maher?

  And yet I still smoke, you know? It's just.

• 1:02:49Speaker 05

  Yeah.

• 1:02:50Bill Maher?

  I mean, I don't wanna be the skunk at the garden party, but I think I need to go up to heroin. Do you know a guy? I hear you, no.

• 1:03:00Speaker 05

  I wouldn't start now.

• 1:03:01Bill Maher?

  Oh, I wouldn't.

• 1:03:03Speaker 05

  No, we've done, you're doing really well. Don't ruin it.

• 1:03:07Bill Maher?

  Well, actually, you know.

• 1:03:10Speaker 05

  That's the most scary thing, I think, when people start taking drugs and they're old, you know, that's the really, I don't know, I think that's really like, whoa, man. So I'm glad I did it when I was in my twenties or when I was a teenager in my twenties. I'm glad I did it back then, not now, you know.

• 1:03:24Bill Maher?

  There was somebody.

• 1:03:25Speaker 05

  You need energy to be a drug addict and I don't have that kind of energy.

• 1:03:28Bill Maher?

  That's a great, you ought to write a song around that. No, really, that's a great idea and it's so true, because it's such a truism.

• 1:03:36Speaker 05

  Yeah, to be a junkie, you need energy.

• 1:03:37Bill Maher?

  To be a drug addict. You really do.

• 1:03:40Speaker 05

  To stand on a corner and possibly get beat.

• 1:03:43Bill Maher?

  Sometimes to score, yes, to get the drugs, to keep doing the drugs, you know? It's amazing what a great product drugs are, because they have this diminishing set of returns. And mostly what they do is make you wanna do more of the product, even though it's working less.

• 1:04:03Speaker 05

  Yeah.

• 1:04:03Bill Maher?

  I mean, the classic one of this is cocaine.

• 1:04:05Speaker 05

  Yeah, oh, yeah.

• 1:04:09Bill Maher?

  He said knowingly.

• 1:04:12Bill Maher?

  Why, you had a brief cocaine period?

• 1:04:15Speaker 05

  Yeah.

• 1:04:15Bill Maher?

  Did you?

• 1:04:16Speaker 05

  Well, once you're trying to get off heroin, what do you go to? You go to something else that... I started smoking crack to get off heroin, you know.

• 1:04:24Bill Maher?

  Did you really?

• 1:04:24Speaker 05

  It worked. It worked.

• 1:04:26Bill Maher?

  There you have it, kids.

• 1:04:27Speaker 05

  And I did.

• 1:04:29Bill Maher?

  Want to get off heroin?

• 1:04:30Speaker 05

  It's probably the worst advert for...

• 1:04:32Bill Maher?

  Step up to crack.

• 1:04:34Speaker 05

  But it worked. I got off the heroin.

• 1:04:36Bill Maher?

  I'm about to spell it out for you, little prick.

• 1:04:39Speaker 05

  It worked. It was years ago, but...

• 1:04:42Bill Maher?

  Don't do drugs, kids. If I've told you once, I've told you a thousand times.

• 1:04:47Speaker 05

  I'm glad I got away.

• 1:04:48Bill Maher?

  That's actually the worst drug there is. The liquor.

• 1:04:51Speaker 05

  In a way, yeah, because it's kind of nasty.

• 1:04:53Bill Maher?

  The legal... The legal one. But it does make things so much fun.

• 1:04:58Speaker 05

  It was. It was a lot. I liked taking drugs back then. I'd really... I enjoyed it. It took me a long time to put them in the rearview mirror, but at some point I realized you had to do that, or...

• 1:05:11Bill Maher?

  I feel what people who are not rock stars like us don't quite understand is that it's the combination of the drugs.

• 1:05:21Speaker 05

  Well, that's what I liked. I liked the...

• 1:05:24Bill Maher?

  Yeah, the synergy.

• 1:05:25Speaker 05

  Yeah, the combination of a number of things. And you can't get that on with one thing on its own. It was really the combination.

• 1:05:33Bill Maher?

  No, you gotta be a rock star.

• 1:05:33Speaker 05

  The cocktail.

• 1:05:34Bill Maher?

  And that's the point. You gotta be a rock star.

• 1:05:36Speaker 05

  That's what I liked. I can't tell others on.

• 1:05:39Bill Maher?

  Rock stars get this.

• 1:05:40Speaker 05

  And you're just tippling.

• 1:05:41Bill Maher?

  Yes.

• 1:05:44Bill Maher?

  Yes. Yes.

• 1:05:48Bill Maher?

  I used to always wonder, you know, like, why? You know, do so many rock stars who, you know, you'd think they have everything, and they do. You know, like, all the women want them, and the money, and the adulation, and the creativity, and the outlet, and blah, blah, blah. Why are they destroying themselves on drugs? Because the drugs they get access to are so good. That's what it is. When you're a rock star, everyone wants to court favor with you.

• 1:06:16Speaker 05

  Yeah. It was like that. I still like that.

• 1:06:21Bill Maher?

  I love your... Yeah. I'm gonna put together a reel, just of you going...

• 1:06:27Speaker 05

  Yeah.

• 1:06:28Bill Maher?

  To show how right I am about shit, okay? Billy Idol, he goes, yeah.

• 1:06:34Speaker 05

  Every time.

• 1:06:36Bill Maher?

  But that's what it is. It's like, yes, this'll fuck up your life and your career and your erection and everything else, but these drugs are just so good. You just, you know, you just gave me the, you know, the creme de la creme. Because, listen, drugs are just what, it's a, it's a, you know, it's a crapshoot, you know? There's no standards. Whoever your dealer is, when I was a pot dealer, did anybody ever get a full ounce? No. I would get a pound, which is 16 ounces, and then split it evenly 17 ways.

• 1:07:16Bill Maher?

  You know, there's no control here. So we don't know what's in the drugs.

• 1:07:20Speaker 05

  No, no.

• 1:07:21Bill Maher?

  They're gonna cut it with fuck whatever they want to make more. You know, if you're given, I don't know, an ounce of coke, okay? Now you're gonna sell it to hundreds of people, right? So you're gonna split it into grams. It's sold by the grams, right?

• 1:07:37Speaker 05

  Yes, yes.

• 1:07:37Bill Maher?

  Okay. So, you know, are you gonna give them a pure gram if there's nobody to say, hey, what are you doing? No, you're gonna cut it with baby laxative and whatever the fuck else anybody put in. How I managed to survive my brief two-year cocaine period, I don't know. It's such a bad drug. How long were you on it?

• 1:07:56Speaker 05

  I don't know, a few years in a way, because, you know, on and off, you know? Like, I was, I was trying to get off drugs and then I, then I would have a sort of a, you know...

• 1:08:09Bill Maher?

  A memory of how good they are?

• 1:08:10Speaker 05

  Yes, and then, you know, but I would never, I never went back to heroin after a certain point.

• 1:08:16Bill Maher?

  Good for you.

• 1:08:17Speaker 05

  Definitely. I had a motorcycle accident and I was in, I was in hospital where I had one of those pain boxes, you know? And it was like, had a 12-minute lockout, because otherwise I would have...

• 1:08:31Speaker 05

  So I thought about that. I thought, when will you ever be on something? I was as high as a kite in that, you know, with my leg all fucked up. But I was as high as a kite in that hu- hu- hospital room, you know? And I just thought, well, when are you ever really gonna have stuff like that? It's never that pure as that again, you know?

• 1:08:49Bill Maher?

  Right.

• 1:08:49Speaker 05

  I really said to myself, that's it, man, you know? You've also, look, you'd fucked your leg up, you know?

• 1:08:55Bill Maher?

  Well.

• 1:08:55Speaker 05

  This is, you know, this is time to start. So I did start sort of trying to ease off. It took me a long time, though, to really get control of myself. And and of course, the AA people say there's no control, and there probably isn't. But I think you have to sort of tell yourself.

• 1:09:12Bill Maher?

  How long would you say you've been really sober?

• 1:09:14Speaker 05

  Well, not really. I mean, I'm California sober, aren't I?

• 1:09:17Bill Maher?

  Yeah.

• 1:09:18Speaker 05

  Because I I did use to drink a little bit. And I do take, you know, pot and stuff, pot pills and stuff. So.

• 1:09:27Bill Maher?

  But how long that?

• 1:09:29Speaker 05

  Well, uh, well, I don't know. When did I? It's probably twenty years ago or something, I last did a line of blow or something.

• 1:09:40Bill Maher?

  So what period are we talking about? What years are we talking about? That the documentary refers to when you should be dead?

• 1:09:47Speaker 05

  Well, the seventies, eighties, nineties, I suppose.

• 1:09:50Bill Maher?

  All those decades?

• 1:09:51Speaker 05

  Yeah.

• 1:09:51Bill Maher?

  Oh.

• 1:09:55Bill Maher?

  Well, oh, my. That is a lot of dying. Um, well, I'll say this.

• 1:10:01Speaker 05

  Time to live, yeah.

• 1:10:03Bill Maher?

  If, not that we need to give anybody any more reason not to do drugs. You just should not do drugs, kids. Take it from me.

• 1:10:12Bill Maher?

  But one reason, a good reason not to do drugs is people who do a lot of drugs, when they then need a lot of drugs, like when they're in the hospital in pain from an accident.

• 1:10:26Speaker 05

  Yes.

• 1:10:28Bill Maher?

  You can't pump up the volume enough because they have built such a tolerance, having fun with the drugs.

• 1:10:37Speaker 05

  That's what the doctor said to me. He said, um, Mr. Broad, um.

• 1:10:43Speaker 05

  I've got to ask you something. I mean, the pain medication, you're drinking it in, that's what you said. I said, it's okay. I was a heroin addict. We're just worried that you won't get off it when we need you to get it. I said, I will, and I did, you know.

• 1:10:57Bill Maher?

  Oh, you did?

• 1:10:58Speaker 05

  Well, that's the perfect place to come off it, is in hospital, because, I mean, there's a nurse changing the sheets every hour. So if you're gonna do it, that's the place to get off it. And

• 1:11:08Bill Maher?

  John Lennon quit cold turkey in the back of a limousine. You know that story?

• 1:11:13Speaker 05

  No, I didn't know that.

• 1:11:14Bill Maher?

  No, they, yeah, they, he, they got a limousine, and I think they drove across the country.

• 1:11:21Speaker 05

  Oh, I have read, I read about that, but I didn't know that's what they were doing.

• 1:11:24Bill Maher?

  Where he was getting off heroin.

• 1:11:25Speaker 05

  Oh, so that's what they were doing when they did that

• 1:11:27Bill Maher?

  Yeah.

• 1:11:27Speaker 05

  3,000 mile journey, they ended up?

• 1:11:29Bill Maher?

  It was like, where can we, where can we do this where no one will know we're doing it except the limo driver? Because I'm assuming there was a lot of, pull over, I have to throw up. Right?

• 1:11:40Speaker 05

  You just feel terrible.

• 1:11:42Bill Maher?

  But don't you just throw up a lot when you're getting off heroin?

• 1:11:44Speaker 05

  Well, I don't know about that. It's more like you're just, you're just, you know, whatever, you can't get comfortable. Because you're just sweating. It's more that, you're sweating and you just feel

• 1:11:53Bill Maher?

  It's like nausea.

• 1:11:54Speaker 05

  Your, your, your bones are hurt, you know, your whole body, everything's hurting.

• 1:11:57Bill Maher?

  Like the flu.

• 1:11:58Speaker 05

  But like a terrible version of it, and it goes on forever.

• 1:12:02Bill Maher?

  Like COVID.

• 1:12:04Speaker 05

  Yeah.

• 1:12:07Bill Maher?

  It goes on forever. I get it.

• 1:12:10Speaker 05

  Just, yeah, it doesn't end, you know. Even when it ends, it doesn't end. It's like, you know, you're still feeling, you're still jonesing somewhere. Somewhere you're jonesing for it, you know, even, even right now, some jonesing.

• 1:12:21Bill Maher?

  You know what Charlie Parker said about it? They can, he said, they can take it out of your body, they can't take it out of your mind.

• 1:12:28Speaker 05

  Right, that's, that's the point, yeah. But it doesn't make me want to do it, though, that's the thing. Then the next thing I think about is getting off it, and then you, that's so terrible, though. It keeps me from doing it.

• 1:12:39Bill Maher?

  As much as we lament, and we certainly should, and have every right to lament being 70, there is also the great part of it, which is You're just smarter. So you don't do these stupid things you did when you were younger. And there's almost nothing as good as that.

• 1:13:03Speaker 05

  Yeah, just doing all that stupid stuff was fun, yeah.

• 1:13:06Bill Maher?

  It was fun, but like when you think about the pain it put you through.

• 1:13:10Speaker 05

  Well, exactly, yeah.

• 1:13:11Bill Maher?

  And then you're like, now, I mean, I don't, you know, we have so little respect for the elderly in this country. It's just not our culture when it's like the culture of most of the rest of the world. Venerate the elders for obvious reasons. They've been here longer, they learned more. Like, shut the fuck up for a second and learn somebody, learn something from somebody who's been down the path before you. That eludes the geniuses that are Americans, but okay. In my personal life, it's just always a joy. It's just always a joy to come upon something where I go, oh, you know what? I've seen that before. And I saw how it fucked me before. And I'm just gonna sidestep it like Dick Van Dyke,

• 1:13:55Bill Maher?

  the year he didn't trip over the ottoma, you know?

• 1:14:00Bill Maher?

  I'm just gonna miss that one. And it's not as good as being thirty-five, perhaps. But in some ways, it's better.

• 1:14:10Speaker 05

  Yeah, I've got to say, I'm in, well, I'm obviously in the same boat.

• 1:14:13Bill Maher?

  Would you, would you go back to thirty-five if you could?

• 1:14:17Speaker 05

  Well, a part of me would like to, of course. A big part of me would like to.

• 1:14:22Bill Maher?

  Who's fucking who?

• 1:14:23Speaker 05

  But, but there again, yeah, you know, I'm glad, I'm glad I've got here and I'm in a fairly good state. I'm enjoying what I do and.

• 1:14:32Bill Maher?

  Yeah.

• 1:14:33Speaker 05

  You know, all that kind of stuff. I like the records I'm making and enjoy the band I'm playing with. It's fantastically good fun, still. The songs don't get old. I don't know what it is. I would have thought by now, but they don't.

• 1:14:47Bill Maher?

  No.

• 1:14:47Speaker 05

  They don't seem to get old.

• 1:14:48Bill Maher?

  Good songs don't. I, I mentioned before I use the iPod. One reason I use the iPod as opposed to, like, I, I mean, I have, you know, the Spotify and the, it's like their philosophy is sort of.

• 1:15:06Bill Maher?

  Here's music you like, here's some other stuff you might like. And it's like, okay, I can, I want to be suggested to things, but basically, I've been listening since 1968. I have thousands of songs already. I know what I like. And what I like, the songs I like are songs that would have been a hit in any decade. You know? I mean, this stuff by The Weeknd, it's only a couple of years old, that definitely would have been a hit in the 80s, the 70s. I mean, it sounds just like Michael Jackson, the 90s, whatever. I mean, your stuff, like, it stands the test of time.

• 1:15:49Bill Maher?

  It's like, it's not an 80s song, it's just a good song.

• 1:15:53Speaker 05

  Yeah.

• 1:15:54Bill Maher?

  You know?

• 1:15:55Speaker 05

  That's what we were trying to do.

• 1:15:56Bill Maher?

  Yeah.

• 1:15:57Speaker 05

  Weren't trying to do something for that decade. We were thinking, obviously, we were thinking of the moment, but we were hoping that what we were doing was gonna have, you know, it's gonna resonate into the future, especially so you have a long career or something.

• 1:16:11Bill Maher?

  See, what Spotify can't do, or what's the other one?

• 1:16:19Speaker 05

  Yeah, I'm 70 as well.

• 1:16:23Bill Maher?

  I know you know this. It's so embarrassing to get stoned and not remember, like, basic words. It's like, you know, it's like forgetting the word for a hospital. You know that place you go when you're sick? But they can, you can suggest a playlist to them, and all they can do is, like, put it together by picking songs that kind of sound alike to the algorithm, that are kind of from the same period. Whereas I can put a song from the 60s, the 70s, the 80s, the 90s, and today. Put them all in a row on a playlist, and they're from totally different decades, but you understand why they all fit together. It's a certain sound.

• 1:17:03Speaker 05

  Right.

• 1:17:04Bill Maher?

  Spotify can't do that.

• 1:17:06Speaker 05

  No, I suppose not.

• 1:17:10Bill Maher?

  Pandora. That's who I was thinking. Pandora can't do it either. And that's why I'm firing them tomorrow.

• 1:17:19Bill Maher?

  Well, I'm glad you're still at it. And your fans are. Do we have anything to plug before I set you back into the wild?

• 1:17:28Speaker 05

  Well, apart from...

• 1:17:28Bill Maher?

  Yeah, we're here to plug.

• 1:17:30Speaker 05

  So I do have a documentary coming out.

• 1:17:33Bill Maher?

  Well, I have a list. I keep a list of things I want to see. This I want to see. You participated in it?

• 1:17:39Speaker 05

  Yeah, yeah, yeah.

• 1:17:41Bill Maher?

  And you were happy to do that?

• 1:17:42Speaker 05

  Yes, yeah.

• 1:17:43Bill Maher?

  You were like, let me tell my own story. As opposed to somebody else, right?

• 1:17:49Speaker 05

  Well, yeah, although it was kind of good. We got different people. Like Tony James, my sort of Generation X. Partner kind of thing. He did a lot of the punk sign of years and then. You know, it wasn't just me telling my story, which was kind of quite good in a way. You sort of got other people's...

• 1:18:08Bill Maher?

  That's how they all are.

• 1:18:10Speaker 05

  Well, yeah, exactly. It's difficult for me to tell my own story, exactly.

• 1:18:14Bill Maher?

  Well, you need both.

• 1:18:15Speaker 05

  But it really helps.

• 1:18:16Bill Maher?

  Didn't you see the Beatles' anthology?

• 1:18:18Speaker 05

  Yeah, exactly. It's not just them.

• 1:18:19Bill Maher?

  Okay, it's them.

• 1:18:22Bill Maher?

  John was not alive for it, but you know, they use archival tapes and stuff. But it's them on camera. But then it's also, you know, Neil and Mal and the people around them and the publicist and the record company.

• 1:18:34Speaker 05

  You need that sort of out of viewpoint in. That's kind of, that's what's kind of good about it, I think, is that you do get that. And at the same time, it's, yeah, it's my crazy story.

• 1:18:47Bill Maher?

  It's something they only do for icons. And you are.

• 1:18:54Bill Maher?

  Thank you.

• 1:18:55Speaker 05

  Cheers. Cheers, Bill.

• 1:19:01Speaker 05

  Sitting in the wrong thing and sort of signaling the wrong thing. I didn't want to...

• 1:19:05Bill Maher?

  Are you kidding? You're paranoid?

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