David Foster | Club Random with Bill Maher

Legendary hitmaker David Foster joins Bill Maher on Club Random with the stories behind some of music’s biggest hits—and a few well-kept secrets. Foster explains why even the greatest artists only bat “50 out of 1,000,” reveals how a fake rough mix helped turn Whitney Houston’s “I Will Always Love You” into an iconic recording, and recounts the terrifying night he accidentally struck actor Ben Vereen while driving home from a session with Michael Bolton. Foster weighs in on Barbra Streisand’s Guilty, puts The Beatles in a league of their own, and shares a hilarious story about trying hash as a teenager in Canada. He and Maher also tackle AI’s growing influence on music, age-gap relationships, education, dream dinner guests, and whether Bill changed—or the Democratic Party did. During a lively round of rapid-fire questions about the Beatles versus the Stones and dream dinner guests, Foster and Maher tackle AI’s growing influence on music, age-gap relationships, education, and whether Bill changed—or the Democratic Party did. 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 Support our Advertisers: Find your next fall favorites at Quince. Download the Quince app for app-exclusive offers or go to Quince dot com slash RANDOM. Go to One Two Zero L-I-F-E dot com and use the code RANDOM to save twenty percent. Ready to have an AI that can tackle real work? Try Claude Cowork today on any paid plan at Claude.ai slash random. Dose: New customers can save 35% on your first month of subscription by going to dosedaily.co/RANDOM or entering RANDOM at checkout. Buy Club Random Merch: https://clubrandom.com Learn more about your ad choices. Visit https://podcastchoices.com/adchoices ABOUT CLUB RANDOM In Club Random, Bill Maher unleashes his comedic wit on an unpredictable lineup – from Bill Burr and Jerry Seinfeld to Quentin Tarantino and Neil deGrasse Tyson – digging into everything but politics. It’s Maher in his familiar element: one-on-one vibes, unfiltered laughs, and the kind of freewheeling banter only he can deliver. ABOUT BILL MAHER Bill Maher was the host of “Politically Incorrect” (Comedy Central, ABC) from 1993-2002, and for the last 23 years on HBO’s “Real Time,” Maher’s combination of unflinching honesty and big laughs have garnered him 41 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 six 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,” “The New New Rules: A Funny Look at How Everybody But Me Has Their Head Up Their Ass", and most recently "What This Comedian Said Will Shock You". 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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• 0:54Speaker 02

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• 1:24Bill Maher?

  Our workflow used to be a chaotic dance across emails, docs, research notes in the 20 open browser tabs or producer somehow keeps running at all times. But now that's changed with Claude from Anthropic. Claude is the AI for problem solvers. It's the collaborator that understands your entire workflow and thinks with you, not for you. Whether you're debugging code at midnight, building a financial model or strategizing your next business move, Claude extends your thinking to tackle the problems that matter. For problems worth solving, get started with Claude at claude.ai/random. That's claude.ai/random.

• 2:06Bill Maher?

  And check out Claude Pro, which includes access to all the features mentioned in today's episode. Claude.ai/random. Well, folks, if you're gonna spend money on something and might as well be something you actually like. That's what I always say. That's where the Club Random merch store comes in. That's right, get yourself a cozy hoodie. Look at this, this is really well designed. That's right, get yourself a cozy hoodie to snuggle away your sorrows or some new Club Random shirts. Look at all this shit I have. To attract a partner with similar interests and live happily ever after.

• 2:46Bill Maher?

  I've seen crazier rom-coms, so head over to clubrandom.com and bring home some random.

• 2:53Speaker 04

  I worked with Whitney a lot. The song, "I Will Always Love You." She said, "I love it, I love it, I love it, don't change a thing." I said, "Well, actually..."

• 3:03Speaker 04

  It was called Flowers in the Dirt.

• 3:04Bill Maher?

  What?

• 3:06Speaker 04

  No, it's not good.

• 3:08Bill Maher?

  Oh, you're so wrong.

• 3:12Bill Maher?

  Okay. David?

• 3:16Speaker 04

  Young Bill.

• 3:19Bill Maher?

  I had a girlfriend who called me that.

• 3:21Speaker 04

  Oh, really?

• 3:21Bill Maher?

  Late in life, too.

• 3:23Speaker 04

  Nice to see you, man.

• 3:24Bill Maher?

  Ironically, I assume. Uh, yeah, well.

• 3:28Speaker 04

  This is it, eh? That's what I watch all the time.

• 3:30Bill Maher?

  You do? I'm so glad. Well, I'm a big fan.

• 3:33Speaker 04

  Well, likewise.

• 3:34Bill Maher?

  And, you know, I know you don't do this a lot. Your daughter, I think, is the one who, because I ran into her.

• 3:39Speaker 04

  Sarah.

• 3:40Bill Maher?

  Yes.

• 3:40Speaker 04

  Yes.

• 3:41Bill Maher?

  And, uh, and she was so nice and I said, "Well, you know what? Have you ever want to pass along?" Because I, you know, I'm sure people, everybody wants to get you on. And it's just, why would you? You don't need it. What's it gonna do for you?

• 3:56Speaker 04

  Yeah, I mean, at this point in my life, just telling the same stories seems a little bit redundant, you know? And I think I've sort of told everything at least once. So I have friends that have podcasts and I've just sort of said no because, like you said.

• 4:10Bill Maher?

  Well.

• 4:11Speaker 04

  There's nothing more to say, really. So I won't say much to you.

• 4:14Bill Maher?

  You, oh, yes, you will. You don't even know you will.

• 4:17Speaker 04

  I don't even know.

• 4:18Bill Maher?

  And I'll do it all without smoke. I know you don't.

• 4:21Speaker 04

  I'm sorry about that.

• 4:21Bill Maher?

  No, no, no.

• 4:22Speaker 04

  I have a story about it.

• 4:23Bill Maher?

  No, about having a bad experience with pot?

• 4:26Speaker 04

  Yeah.

• 4:27Bill Maher?

  Really? Hmm. Well, you know what? I have never been a proselytizer for pot. I am not Johnny Apple Pot.

• 4:32Speaker 04

  No.

• 4:32Bill Maher?

  I'm not trying to get people.

• 4:34Speaker 04

  It just works for you.

• 4:35Bill Maher?

  It works for me.

• 4:36Speaker 04

  Yeah.

• 4:36Bill Maher?

  It works for some people, works for other people in different ways. It gets me high, other people it puts to sleep. And some people it doesn't work at all. What happened to you?

• 4:45Speaker 04

  I was in a band when I was, uh, 18 in Edmonton, Alberta. I'm Canadian. And, um, we had this incredible saxophone player in the band. He was still to this day, he's world class. People love him. And he was a druggie. And he said, "Can I live with you for a couple of months? I want..." I don't remember if he was getting divorced or whatever. And I said, "Sure." You know, very innocently, because I knew nothing at 18 about that world.

• 5:13Speaker 04

  And we had a party with some people over and he convinced me to smoke a little hash, which I'd never done before and have not done since.

• 5:20Bill Maher?

  Well, starting on hash is a little like, you know, that's not the bunny slope.

• 5:24Speaker 04

  No.

• 5:24Bill Maher?

  You know, you're going right.

• 5:26Speaker 04

  I went black. I went to the black run, right? And we made too much noise. It was in a condo and the police came. Now, instead of him saying, uh, handling it at the front door, he went to the door and then he said, "I'll get the owner." And I was pretty out of it. And I had to go to the door.

• 5:48Bill Maher?

  And that was you, the owner?

• 5:49Speaker 04

  That was me, the owner, yeah. And the cops were so great. They were like, "What's that smell?" I was like, "Ah," you know, "I don't know." And they said, "Just try and be a little quieter." And it freaked me out so much, that plus not wanting to.

• 6:00Bill Maher?

  It's so Canadian, this story.

• 6:01Speaker 04

  Yeah. Yeah, it is.

• 6:03Bill Maher?

  And then some nice people showed up.

• 6:06Speaker 04

  The cops.

• 6:06Bill Maher?

  And nothing bad happened.

• 6:08Speaker 04

  Nothing bad happened. And I also never wanted to disappoint my parents. I know that sounds corny.

• 6:12Bill Maher?

  Tales from Canada.

• 6:15Speaker 04

  Tom Green. Yeah.

• 6:17Bill Maher?

  What else didn't happen to you, David Foster?

• 6:20Speaker 04

  Well.

• 6:21Bill Maher?

  Tell me about the time you didn't go to prison and.

• 6:23Speaker 04

  Yeah.

• 6:25Bill Maher?

  Now, what is like, what would you say is the worst thing that ever happened to you? Because I think about that a lot because I feel like I've had a charmed life and I know the perspective of the things that could happen to people. You could go to war. Never did that.

• 6:38Speaker 04

  No.

• 6:38Bill Maher?

  Your, your, your parents could die young or they could have been shitty or, you know, I feel like I'm a lucky person because a lot of these.

• 6:45Speaker 04

  Were your parents great?

• 6:46Bill Maher?

  Yes.

• 6:47Speaker 04

  Still alive?

• 6:48Bill Maher?

  No.

• 6:48Speaker 04

  No?

• 6:49Bill Maher?

  Come on.

• 6:51Speaker 04

  You're a lot younger than I am.

• 6:52Bill Maher?

  Yeah, they could be 100.

• 6:53Speaker 04

  Yeah.

• 6:54Bill Maher?

  Well, not a lot younger, but yeah. Um, but you know, what's, so what's the worst thing?

• 6:59Speaker 04

  The worst thing that happened to me, I say it was the, excuse me, the worst night of my life. I was producing Michael Bolton and.

• 7:10Bill Maher?

  Already I'm not sad for you.

• 7:13Speaker 04

  Already I hate the story.

• 7:15Bill Maher?

  No, no, but I'm just not sad. Michael Bolton, I loved him.

• 7:18Speaker 04

  Live in Malibu. I live in Malibu. I was in, at the record plant and it was like 1 o'clock and I was like, "Michael, I really gotta go home." "No, come on, just one more take." And he kept egging me on, right? Finally, at about quarter to two, I roll out of there. I'm driving on PCH. It's dark. I'm looking at the ocean. I'm doing about 50 miles an hour in my SUV.

• 7:41Speaker 04

  And I look and all of a sudden I see a figure in the middle of the road. And it takes about one second, as you probably well know, for you to go, "That's a person."

• 7:53Bill Maher?

  Right.

• 7:53Speaker 04

  The second second, you hit the brakes.

• 7:55Bill Maher?

  Right.

• 7:56Speaker 04

  And the third second, you hit him. And I hit this guy going probably 48 miles an hour.

• 8:02Bill Maher?

  Right.

• 8:02Speaker 04

  Um, it was a mad scene. The helicopters came. He bit his tongue off. He broke both his legs. He, they got the body bag out and, and in the midst of all this, I thought I had hit a homeless person because he had no shoes, no shirt, just shorts. In the midst of all this, one of the policemen said, "You know who you hit, right?" I said, "No, it's..." I'm spinning. And he goes, "You hit Ben Vereen, the actor."

• 8:28Bill Maher?

  Oh, I know Ben Vereen. I remember the story.

• 8:30Speaker 04

  Yeah.

• 8:30Bill Maher?

  I had forgotten that you, yeah. And that is horrendous. I mean, no jokes there. That's just gotta be one of the, you can't, I mean, and it's not your fault. I mean, people.

• 8:41Speaker 04

  It wasn't my fault, but still. And they talk about flashbacks and I never thought flashbacks were real. But I swear to you, for about two weeks, every 30 seconds, I went like that. Like I just couldn't get the hit.

• 8:56Bill Maher?

  And he didn't die from it.

• 8:58Speaker 04

  He did not. In fact, he recovered pretty much 100%.

• 9:01Bill Maher?

  Right.

• 9:02Speaker 04

  Yeah, but it was, it was tragic.

• 9:03Bill Maher?

  I remember there was a joke. I may have done it myself.

• 9:06Speaker 04

  I know. How do you get to Malibu?

• 9:07Bill Maher?

  Right. Go 20 miles in PCH till you hit Ben Vereen.

• 9:12Speaker 04

  And turn right.

• 9:14Bill Maher?

  Because we have to laugh.

• 9:15Speaker 04

  Yeah.

• 9:16Bill Maher?

  You know, but I can see why that is.

• 9:18Speaker 04

  You probably haven't even hit an animal before, let alone a person.

• 9:21Bill Maher?

  No.

• 9:21Speaker 04

  Right?

• 9:22Bill Maher?

  That's right.

• 9:22Speaker 04

  Yeah.

• 9:24Bill Maher?

  And that would probably bother me more.

• 9:26Speaker 04

  But on an up note.

• 9:27Bill Maher?

  On a, as a PETA board member. No, I would be horrified. But yeah, that, that is a horrifying thing.

• 9:35Speaker 04

  Yeah. On the way here, my wife and I, Kat and Kim, were listening to the Nikki Glaser one that you did.

• 9:43Bill Maher?

  Oh.

• 9:44Speaker 04

  And then a little bit of the Charlie Kirk one.

• 9:47Bill Maher?

  Oh, my.

• 9:48Speaker 04

  Just so I could refresh myself and get a taste of.

• 9:50Bill Maher?

  Well, yeah. I mean, it's, uh, it's, I feel it's more intimate than anything I see. I see, I, I mean, I keep saying this and I hope people don't think I'm just, you know, trying to put other people down. I'm not. I'm just saying, the other ones just look like talk shows to me. They, they just changed, it's not on TV, it's on podcasting.

• 10:11Speaker 04

  Yeah.

• 10:11Bill Maher?

  But it's still microphones and cards and producers and questions.

• 10:16Speaker 04

  And now we gotta take a break and then this.

• 10:17Bill Maher?

  That's, I mean, I have never, I've one single thought about one thing I'm gonna say before I get you.

• 10:24Speaker 04

  Do you prepare at all?

• 10:25Bill Maher?

  Of course not. This is the, this is the anti-real time. This is the.

• 10:30Speaker 04

  Which I love that show.

• 10:31Bill Maher?

  Oh, thank you. Yeah, but I already have that kind of show. This is just like, what would it be like if I had a drink and usually a smoke with someone? You know, sometimes it's somebody I know and sometimes it's somebody like you who are like, I don't know, but I want to know. It's fantastic because we probably would not do this unless there was podcasting involved.

• 10:49Speaker 04

  Yeah.

• 10:49Bill Maher?

  But also, why not? Why not let the people have the treat of seeing these two old war horses compare notes? Oh, by the way, speaking of that, I thought of you like in the last year because, uh, this is again, you know, kind of a downer, but. I felt like, you know, within a year, I think we lost two of the lion, two of what I would say three lions of your generation who created so much of the music we listened to. And I would put you in that category, Quincy Jones.

• 11:21Speaker 04

  Of course.

• 11:22Bill Maher?

  And Clive Davis.

• 11:23Speaker 04

  Oh, Clive just recently, yeah.

• 11:25Bill Maher?

  I mean, between Quincy Jones, Clive Davis and you.

• 11:28Speaker 04

  Yeah.

• 11:28Bill Maher?

  That's, that's a lot of the music, be what they call the soundtrack of our lives.

• 11:33Speaker 04

  Yeah.

• 11:33Bill Maher?

  And, uh, you know, I'm glad they don't come in threes because, uh, that's a big chunk.

• 11:40Speaker 04

  Well, they do come in threes, by the way, I think. Good night.

• 11:45Bill Maher?

  Well, you know, folks, sixty tabs, a wall of sticky notes, pure panic. That's how most people run projects. Ask our producers. Or hand Claude the heavy lifting in the cloud. And go do literally anything else. Claude is the AI for problem solvers. It's the collaborator that understands your entire workflow and thinks with you, not for you. Whether you're debugging code at midnight, building a financial model, or strategizing your next business move. Claude extends your thinking to tackle the problems that matter. Claude's made by Anthropic, a public benefit corporation dealing with AI's hard questions in the open,

• 12:28Bill Maher?

  which is refreshingly un-Silicon Valley of them. Its deep research tool digs through dozens of sources at once and delivers real analysis with real citations in minutes. Not a search, an education. The Club Random team used it to build internal tools just by describing them. Makes you wonder where the last ten years of your life went. For problems worth solving, get started with Claude at claude.ai/random. That's claude.ai/random. And check out Claude Pro, which includes access to all of the features mentioned in today's episode. claude.ai/random.

• 13:11Speaker 04

  No, that's two giants right there.

• 13:12Bill Maher?

  Yeah.

• 13:13Speaker 04

  When I think about, um, especially Clive, although to, to my credit, he didn't have to produce all those records. But when I think about who he discovered, the amount of people he discovered, it makes me wanna just burn my catalog and go home.

• 13:27Bill Maher?

  Yeah, it is amazing.

• 13:28Speaker 04

  Yeah.

• 13:29Bill Maher?

  And the ones he didn't, he will take credit for. I mean, I kid.

• 13:33Speaker 04

  Yeah.

• 13:34Bill Maher?

  Now that he's not here to yell at me, but no, I mean, he, look, Clive was what I always called a delightful egomaniac, like the nicest kind.

• 13:42Speaker 04

  Yeah.

• 13:42Bill Maher?

  You know, and it's okay. He deserved it. Like, he did, as you say, like, things that no mortal has done. The man with the golden ears and just, and, and really, just the number of people. He was either discovered directly or was involved in or shaped their careers. Sometimes it was just about the argument of, I wanna write my own material. That's very nice. Do this song. And he was always right.

• 14:08Speaker 04

  He was usually right.

• 14:09Bill Maher?

  Like I say, usually right. Where was he wrong?

• 14:13Speaker 04

  Well, I mean, if you, you, we all know his successes.

• 14:17Bill Maher?

  Yeah.

• 14:17Speaker 04

  But like the rest of us, I mean, I'd bat, in the hit record department, in the hit song department, I'd bat, uh, well, fifty out of a thousand. What is that?

• 14:26Bill Maher?

  That's still great.

• 14:26Speaker 04

  That's fif- that's point five oh.

• 14:28Bill Maher?

  That's.

• 14:29Speaker 04

  If I was a player, I would not get a job.

• 14:31Bill Maher?

  Uh, but this is not baseball. This is music. And it, even the artists who I adore in my collection, and I, I am a very anal, retentive, meticulous gatherer of music. I don't keep anything in my playlist that I don't really, I, I'm not on that page, the new page of like, you might like. I might, and I probably won't. I don't mind listening to it once, but I want what I want. And even among the greats, yeah, I, it's, if forty songs, fifty songs, sixty songs, and they probably put out six hundred.

• 15:11Speaker 04

  Yeah.

• 15:12Bill Maher?

  You know, over decades. And that's still, I think, fantastic. And that's on the high end. You know, the Beatles, I would say more. They, they were.

• 15:21Speaker 04

  They were a freak show.

• 15:22Bill Maher?

  They were a freak show.

• 15:25Bill Maher?

  Right. But even them, like, not everything.

• 15:28Speaker 04

  Not everything, but they barely, their batting average was way higher than more.

• 15:32Bill Maher?

  Exactly. No, that's utterly true.

• 15:34Speaker 04

  Um, I have some questions for you. Do you mind?

• 15:36Bill Maher?

  Yeah, no.

• 15:37Speaker 04

  Can I flip it just for a minute?

• 15:38Bill Maher?

  At least you did, at least one of us did some preparation.

• 15:40Speaker 04

  No, I didn't, I didn't need any prep for this. I have five questions for you.

• 15:44Bill Maher?

  Wow, five questions.

• 15:45Speaker 04

  But they're rapid fire.

• 15:46Bill Maher?

  Oh, gee.

• 15:47Speaker 04

  Meaning, um, I know you know what that means, but don't give me an explanation. Your answer may be different tomorrow.

• 15:54Bill Maher?

  Well, you have the wrong guy for this game.

• 15:56Speaker 04

  Really?

• 15:57Bill Maher?

  No, I just got, no, I'll play along. Go ahead.

• 15:59Speaker 04

  First question, um, Beatles or Stones?

• 16:02Bill Maher?

  Cat. Uh, sorry, I just, it's like Jeopardy. I wanted to be, um, Beatles.

• 16:08Speaker 04

  Okay. Second question, Desert Island CD. It can be a greatest hits, and I know there's no CDs anymore, but if there were, for the rest of your life, one CD, it can be a greatest hits, it can be a double album, but it can't be a playlist.

• 16:23Bill Maher?

  Streisand and Barry Gibb, guilty. What? Whoa, whoa.

• 16:27Speaker 04

  Do you know how much I've just learned about you? Just with those two questions?

• 16:31Bill Maher?

  Bad or good?

• 16:32Speaker 04

  You could've said Stones and Gordon Lightfoot, or whatever, but.

• 16:37Bill Maher?

  If you could read my mind, David. You would know.

• 16:41Speaker 04

  Quick, okay. This is good.

• 16:43Bill Maher?

  I gotta.

• 16:44Speaker 04

  You don't have to, go ahead. It's your show.

• 16:45Bill Maher?

  Would you love this? No, no, I wanna know about guilty.

• 16:49Speaker 04

  I love that, Al.

• 16:50Bill Maher?

  Okay, well, so we agree. So it's not bad?

• 16:52Speaker 04

  No.

• 16:53Bill Maher?

  Oh, okay.

• 16:53Speaker 04

  Just, I didn't think of you as a Streisand person, but.

• 16:56Bill Maher?

  Oh, are you kidding?

• 16:57Speaker 04

  Barry Gibb.

• 16:58Bill Maher?

  We're a good friend.

• 16:58Speaker 04

  That's why I'm here, probably, right? That kinda music, my, my little pussy music that I make?

• 17:02Bill Maher?

  Pussy music?

• 17:03Speaker 04

  I make pussy music.

• 17:04Bill Maher?

  Okay, you got the wrong guy for that, too. I have never been someone who gives a fuck what people think about the music, whether it's too popular, oh my God, a lot of people like it, it must be terrible, or it's corny, or the, if it's good, it's good.

• 17:17Speaker 04

  Yeah.

• 17:17Bill Maher?

  You know, a lot of your records are good.

• 17:19Speaker 04

  In any genre.

• 17:21Bill Maher?

  In any genre, in any decade.

• 17:23Speaker 04

  Yeah.

• 17:24Bill Maher?

  You know?

• 17:24Speaker 04

  You know what the miracle of, uh, the guilty record is? Barry Gibb made Barbra Streisand sound like Olivia Newton-John. You think about it, go listen to it again with those ears. He made her sound like Olivia Newton-John, like a pops, like a pop singer. She's not a pop singer.

• 17:39Bill Maher?

  I, I, I'm sure Olivia Newton-John is very talented. That's a, that's an insane thing to say about Barbra Streisand. And I don't just say that because we are.

• 17:48Speaker 04

  I've said it to her.

• 17:48Bill Maher?

  We are close. And you're still here to report it? I'm shocked.

• 17:54Speaker 04

  Well, yeah, the day's not over yet.

• 17:55Bill Maher?

  I mean, she has a voice and an interpretive ability of a song that I think is, you know, there's a reason why she is in a class by herself. But in fact, they did a promotion once for, they did a follow-up album called Guilty Two.

• 18:12Speaker 04

  Yeah.

• 18:12Bill Maher?

  You're aware, two thousand and five, I think. Also has some very good songs on it. Now, there, some, I said. It's not like the first one, which is just.

• 18:21Speaker 04

  Everyone, just every song.

• 18:23Bill Maher?

  Note to the last.

• 18:24Speaker 04

  Yeah.

• 18:24Bill Maher?

  That's why I would take it, because I don't get tired of it. Um, I haven't heard it as much because it was nineteen eighty. I've heard the Beatles since nineteen seventy. Um.

• 18:34Speaker 04

  No, listen to it again with those ears. He took some of the personality out of her voice. Listen to it again.

• 18:42Bill Maher?

  Took the per- out?

• 18:43Speaker 04

  He took some of the personality out to make her more of a pop singer.

• 18:47Bill Maher?

  I don't know what that means, took the person out. You, first of all, try taking the personality out of Barbra Streisand. Have you read her book?

• 18:54Speaker 04

  Yes, I have.

• 18:55Bill Maher?

  It's awesome.

• 18:56Speaker 04

  Well, I might read the parts with me in it.

• 18:57Bill Maher?

  No. Did you read, you didn't read the whole thing?

• 18:59Speaker 04

  No.

• 19:00Bill Maher?

  It is long, but it is worth it. It's, it's a fun, and you could tell it's her. You could tell there was no ghostwriter. This is her.

• 19:08Speaker 04

  As with everything she does.

• 19:09Bill Maher?

  Yes.

• 19:09Speaker 04

  Yeah.

• 19:10Bill Maher?

  So, I mean, and her, I mean, talk about a strong personality that is in, I mean, almost every part she played in her movies, you think about it, like, she sort of insisted on, you know, in this country that is still a little anti-Semitic, you know, we're not hiding that this character is Jewish.

• 19:29Speaker 04

  No.

• 19:29Bill Maher?

  You know, and the nose, you know, no, my nose is fine, which it was, you know. I mean, so I, I just don't think you could take the personality out of anything she does.

• 19:42Speaker 04

  And get back to me.

• 19:45Speaker 04

  Okay, wait, you really didn't play the game that well. Question three. Did you?

• 19:50Bill Maher?

  Well, I didn't because you leaped forward and went, I found so much about you now, so couldn't, so what?

• 19:56Speaker 04

  So dramatic.

• 19:56Bill Maher?

  What do we have, a clock here? What do we have to go to commercials? So we paused there. Now, one to question three.

• 20:01Speaker 04

  Question three.

• 20:04Speaker 04

  Dead dinner date, and there's some rules.

• 20:06Bill Maher?

  Dead dinner date?

• 20:06Speaker 04

  Cannot be a family member. You can pick any time of his or her life. Language is no barrier, and they have to tell the truth. They're dead and you're gonna have dinner with them.

• 20:15Bill Maher?

  Oh, I see, they're dead.

• 20:16Speaker 04

  Yeah. Can't be a family member.

• 20:19Bill Maher?

  Oh, I should've thought about this before in my life. I mean.

• 20:23Speaker 04

  Well, maybe in your life, but.

• 20:25Bill Maher?

  I mean, I, I, just off the top of my head, I'm gonna go with Genghis Khan.

• 20:29Speaker 04

  Yeah, okay, that's a good one.

• 20:30Bill Maher?

  I mean, and the reason for, for this is, uh, he apparently.

• 20:34Speaker 04

  There you go, explain it again. It's all right.

• 20:36Bill Maher?

  Murdered eleven percent of the population of the earth. But he may also be, uh, be, uh, related back to DNA-wise, eleven percent. So he did a lot of killing and a lot of raping. I'd like.

• 20:48Speaker 04

  Of his own kin.

• 20:48Bill Maher?

  Yeah.

• 20:51Bill Maher?

  That seems like the whole world.

• 20:52Speaker 04

  Yeah.

• 20:52Bill Maher?

  I'm sorry, you're right. Go ahead.

• 20:54Speaker 04

  Fourth question, and of course, this one is, for people like us, we have so much access, it's kind of an easy question, but live dinner date.

• 21:01Bill Maher?

  Live dinner date?

• 21:02Speaker 04

  Live dinner date. Do you haven't had dinner? Do you'd like to spend some time with?

• 21:05Bill Maher?

  What are you doing Friday?

• 21:08Bill Maher?

  Look, in any guy's closet, it's eighty percent regret, ten percent clothes that fit a man who no longer exists. And these things he wears until they disintegrate. We spend thousands on a mountain of fabric we hate and then wear the same sweater four days straight because it's the only thing in there that feels good. That's where Quince comes in. They skip the overpriced fashion experiments and make the staples you actually want to live in. My producer got one of their Mongolian cashmere crewnecks and won't shut up about it. The fit, the softness, the fact that it feels five times the price. Quince does timeless staples in premium materials.

• 21:52Bill Maher?

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• 22:36Bill Maher?

  now available in Canada and the UK. That's Q-U-I-N-C-E dot com slash random.

• 22:46Speaker 04

  Quick. He's quick, this boy.

• 22:51Bill Maher?

  Again, I should have thought about this.

• 22:54Speaker 04

  By the way, Friday I'm doing a concert in Seattle with a symphony and my wife. So can't make dinner. A concert in Seattle with my wife, with a symphony. So can't make dinner, but go ahead.

• 23:03Bill Maher?

  Boy, can she sing. I was at a Seth MacFarlane party once and he, you know, he'd bring, I sang with him at that party. That's how open this party is.

• 23:13Speaker 04

  Yeah, I got it.

• 23:14Bill Maher?

  Because I turned him on to this Sinatra album that he was not aware of.

• 23:17Speaker 04

  Really?

• 23:18Bill Maher?

  Yeah, yeah. And we sang the song and then she came up and it was like, oh, wow, that's what singing is. And Seth's a great singer.

• 23:25Speaker 04

  He's done really well. He's really spread the word, you know?

• 23:30Bill Maher?

  Anyway.

• 23:31Speaker 04

  Live dinner date.

• 23:33Bill Maher?

  Live dinner date.

• 23:37Bill Maher?

  Let's see. Is Nelson Mandela still alive?

• 23:41Speaker 04

  I don't believe so.

• 23:42Bill Maher?

  Oh, damn. I should have been my dead.

• 23:44Speaker 04

  It could have been your dead dinner date, though.

• 23:45Bill Maher?

  It should have been my dead one because that, that name always works. Uh, Mother Teresa, she's gone? Oh, fuck.

• 23:55Bill Maher?

  Greta Thunberg. She's a professional useless idiot. And I would like to talk some sense into her.

• 24:03Speaker 04

  I like that.

• 24:03Bill Maher?

  And, and I know the Swedes have a very good command of English.

• 24:07Speaker 04

  They do.

• 24:07Bill Maher?

  Yes. That's, uh, some people could take an easy course there and pick someone they like and would agree with them. But I choose Greta be, not because it's easy, but because it's hard.

• 24:20Speaker 04

  Nineteen sixty-two, um, or whatever. How did she get to be so Greta?

• 24:26Bill Maher?

  Is that your fifth question?

• 24:27Speaker 04

  No.

• 24:29Bill Maher?

  Now you're doing it to yourself.

• 24:31Speaker 04

  No, I'm just so curious. I mean, I just, I can't believe it.

• 24:33Bill Maher?

  How did, how did that whole generation get there? My short answer, lack of education. We stopped teaching kids things. They don't know anything. They're not stupid. Stupid, you know, ignorant is different than stupid.

• 24:48Speaker 04

  Right.

• 24:48Bill Maher?

  If you're stupid, it just means you can't learn because you're fucking stupid. If you're ignorant, it just means you don't know things. And it's not their fault that the schools stopped teaching them things. History, economics, anything. And so they just pull anything out of their ass and because the parenting was so indulgent, they just thought every brain fart that a kid came up with was genius. They didn't challenge it. And, you know, the upshot is you have people running for president or elected office now who want to like get rid of the police and get rid of prisons and get rid of borders and make shoplifting legal. I mean, there's a lady in the news this week from New York who wants to, says, uh, just, you know what? Toothpaste, diapers, just stuff people need.

• 25:31Bill Maher?

  Oh, that, you know, you can't arrest someone for shopping. Shoplifting is certain items. I mean, some of this stuff is just so.

• 25:39Speaker 04

  Did you see Mamdammy has said you need to have an ID now to go into his grocery store?

• 25:43Bill Maher?

  Well, his groceries.

• 25:44Speaker 04

  His gro, well, the, the, yeah, the state, I guess.

• 25:46Bill Maher?

  Well, that's, that's not the part of that that I object to. It's the fact that I don't think we should have government-run grocery stores. I remember what they looked like in Cuba and the Soviet Union. It wasn't great. You know, kids, we tried this shit. You know?

• 26:01Speaker 04

  Name a place where it works. I dare you.

• 26:03Bill Maher?

  It doesn't.

• 26:04Speaker 04

  No, it doesn't.

• 26:04Bill Maher?

  You know, I mean, look, I saw you take shit because you did a, a.

• 26:09Speaker 04

  Spencer.

• 26:10Bill Maher?

  Yeah, Spencer, who was here.

• 26:11Speaker 04

  I was, I heard it. It was great. It was fantastic.

• 26:13Bill Maher?

  You know, I, I mean, you know, I, I don't hate anybody because of where they're, what they're, especially a guy like that.

• 26:20Speaker 04

  Right.

• 26:21Bill Maher?

  Who, I told him front, upfront, you know?

• 26:24Speaker 04

  Wants to do the right thing.

• 26:24Bill Maher?

  You don't know a lot that you really need to know before you take elected office. I've never been on the page that someone can just waltz into elected office. It is actually something people study about, you know? Obama was a constitutional lawyer. I mean, a constitutional professor of constitutional law. You don't have to be that far, but you have to know some. And he doesn't, which is okay, but he had instincts and we do have a failed system here. And it just shows that in this state, I guess everywhere, we're so bipartisan now, that we will accept failure, which we plainly have here in California, over voting for the party of Trump, which I understand

• 27:07Bill Maher?

  because he does a lot of things that are, I mean, plus, Jesus, I, I mean, I get a lot of shit from him for the things I criticize. Just off the top of my head, vulgar, corrupt, uh, doesn't concede elections, you know, inept at things that sometimes were a good idea to begin with. Close the border, you know, get rid of nuclear weapons in Iran, but fucked up the execution.

• 27:38Bill Maher?

  As long as he's there, this state will never vote for a Republican. No matter how bad the Democrat gets, and that is a bad place to be.

• 27:46Speaker 04

  Do you realize the journey that you've taken? Because I've watched you over the years politically and on your other show, the CNN show. You've really kind of morphed.

• 27:57Bill Maher?

  I didn't. They did.

• 27:58Speaker 04

  Are you sure you didn't?

• 27:59Bill Maher?

  I am positive.

• 28:00Speaker 04

  Were you not a staunch Democrat ten years ago?

• 28:03Bill Maher?

  I wrote a whole book about it, which was, it said in the introduction, the reason of writing this book is to examine this very question. Did they change or did I change?

• 28:12Speaker 04

  Right.

• 28:12Bill Maher?

  The thought that ten years ago, which was the Obama era, was I mostly making fun of the Republicans? Yes. Reason, Democrats weren't funny. Nobody in the Obama era was suggesting we cancel Thanksgiving. People say, why do you make fun of the left more? Because I'm a comedian.

• 28:30Speaker 04

  Right.

• 28:30Bill Maher?

  And they're giving me a fucking barn full of gold with their nonsense. I haven't stopped making fun of the Republicans. These people just joined the party. And their insanity is just as funny, certainly as funny. As dangerous, that's debatable, but as funny? Oh, yes. I mean.

• 28:50Speaker 04

  Do you remember the first, the first time you heard the word woke? Because I remember the first time I heard it. Must have been maybe eight years ago.

• 28:55Bill Maher?

  Yeah, and it used to have a noble meaning. It used to mean alert to injustice. And then it, that's something that morphed because people just took it so far it became an eye roll.

• 29:05Speaker 04

  Now it strangles us.

• 29:05Bill Maher?

  It's an eye roll.

• 29:06Speaker 04

  Yeah.

• 29:07Bill Maher?

  You know, for most people.

• 29:08Speaker 04

  Yeah.

• 29:09Bill Maher?

  I mean, if you still think woke means only good things, you haven't really been paying attention for the last six, seven years.

• 29:16Speaker 04

  Yeah.

• 29:18Bill Maher?

  But I'm sure you got shit from this town, which is a one-true-opinion town, uh, for doing that.

• 29:27Speaker 04

  Yeah.

• 29:28Bill Maher?

  And that's, that's, I mean.

• 29:29Speaker 04

  I don't even think of him as a Trumper, quote unquote.

• 29:32Bill Maher?

  Right.

• 29:32Speaker 04

  He ran as an independent and, uh, you know, got upset when Trump endorsed him.

• 29:38Bill Maher?

  But you're not allowed to have a different opinion?

• 29:40Speaker 04

  Do you remember the Reagan years? I mean, you're a little young for that.

• 29:43Bill Maher?

  No, I'm not.

• 29:44Speaker 04

  How old are you?

• 29:45Bill Maher?

  What? I'm seventy.

• 29:46Speaker 04

  Oh, well, you're younger than me, but you, you, you remember it. Yeah. It was so great. I mean, you could talk about it, you could, there was none of this. There was none of this, you know, you could have dinner with the other side and you could.

• 29:59Bill Maher?

  You're saying, you're saying pre.

• 30:00Speaker 04

  I don't mean have dinner with him. I mean, just dinner with a Republican.

• 30:02Bill Maher?

  That's who I want to have dinner with.

• 30:04Speaker 04

  That would be good.

• 30:05Bill Maher?

  No, he'd be boring.

• 30:06Speaker 04

  Yeah.

• 30:07Bill Maher?

  Boring.

• 30:08Speaker 04

  But, um.

• 30:09Bill Maher?

  He was a boring guy.

• 30:10Speaker 04

  It had, you think so?

• 30:12Bill Maher?

  Reagan?

• 30:12Speaker 04

  Yeah.

• 30:13Bill Maher?

  Certainly by the time he was president, he was just, he was a well-meaning old fuddy-duddy. He had his set ideas. Some of them were, some of them were great. Like, you know, I love what he said about the Cold War. My strategy, we win, they lose.

• 30:27Speaker 04

  Yeah.

• 30:28Bill Maher?

  You know, that was pretty awesome. And he was right.

• 30:32Speaker 04

  Yeah.

• 30:34Bill Maher?

  Interesting.

• 30:34Speaker 04

  He also said you don't help the poor by taxing the rich. Just saw that today, actually. Or something, am I paraphrasing?

• 30:41Bill Maher?

  No, that's probably what he said. Of course, it's not 100% true. You do help the poor. I mean, my complaint is, stop saying the rich don't pay a lot of taxes. Because we actually do. And that's okay. I guess not on the super corporate level, that's true. If you're Amazon, and you have an army of a thousand lawyers. And also, some of it is just, they're plowing the money back into the business.

• 31:07Speaker 04

  Yeah.

• 31:08Bill Maher?

  That was always Bezos's thing. But I'm sure a lot of shenanigans go on there.

• 31:12Speaker 04

  He actually said, you don't help the poor by trying to take down the rich. That's what he said. And that is true.

• 31:18Bill Maher?

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• 32:03Bill Maher?

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• 32:44Bill Maher?

  For more information, see kalshi.com/regulatory. I mean, our money does help the poor. We pay over half of what we make.

• 32:55Speaker 04

  Yeah.

• 32:56Bill Maher?

  Right?

• 32:56Speaker 04

  That's right.

• 32:56Bill Maher?

  We pay over half.

• 32:57Speaker 04

  53%.

• 32:58Bill Maher?

  Okay. Now, it goes to the government, which then, you know.

• 33:01Speaker 04

  Pisses it away.

• 33:03Bill Maher?

  Pisses a lot of it away. Some of it, it doesn't. And instead of, if there was an alternative universe where there was no government, it was direct. Instead of us giving the money to the state of California. We could stand outside the free clinic every day. And when someone came out after a checkup, and, I'll take that bill. And that is actually what's going on with just the state of California in the middle of it. And I'm not against it. I'm happy to pay because I'm lucky. And I do make a great salary. I'm happy to pay for people who can't afford medical care. But if that bucket you're transferring my money to them in is so leaky, that like.

• 33:44Speaker 04

  Good point.

• 33:44Bill Maher?

  You know, 10% of it is getting through, then I'm gonna get pissed off about that.

• 33:48Speaker 04

  Yeah. Question five.

• 33:53Bill Maher?

  Yes, sir.

• 33:54Speaker 04

  Event in history.

• 33:56Bill Maher?

  Oh.

• 33:57Speaker 04

  That you would like to change, not taking into account the domino effect.

• 34:00Bill Maher?

  The cancellation of McCall's Navy. You know, they.

• 34:03Speaker 04

  God, yes.

• 34:04Bill Maher?

  The last year, they went to Italy.

• 34:05Speaker 04

  Ernest Borgnine.

• 34:06Bill Maher?

  Oh. And Tim Conway is Mr. Parker. The last year, they moved, you know, the show's dying, as shows do, and they moved it to Italy from the South Pacific. I thought it was a great move because you have new characters, the crazy Italian mayor in the town.

• 34:22Speaker 04

  I don't know what that is, but I must have liked it a little bit.

• 34:24Bill Maher?

  It's tequila, yeah, go ahead.

• 34:25Speaker 04

  Good.

• 34:26Bill Maher?

  Okay. And I just thought it deserved one more year. So, maybe that isn't the most important thing, but you asked me, and that's me.

• 34:35Speaker 04

  And that's your answer?

• 34:36Bill Maher?

  That's my answer.

• 34:36Speaker 04

  And you're sticking with it? It's your final answer?

• 34:38Bill Maher?

  Wait, what was the question? If I could change one event in history?

• 34:45Bill Maher?

  Maybe Lincoln's assassination? That really had terrible repercussions.

• 34:52Speaker 04

  Yeah. Not many people say that. Most people of our age say the Holocaust. Some say Ferdinand, the people that are a little older.

• 35:00Bill Maher?

  Oh, yeah.

• 35:00Speaker 04

  The assassination of Ferdinand.

• 35:01Bill Maher?

  The Holocaust, but I didn't know.

• 35:03Speaker 04

  And then younger people say 9/11. That is their Holocaust. So they say.

• 35:08Bill Maher?

  Nothing compares to the Holocaust.

• 35:09Speaker 04

  No.

• 35:09Bill Maher?

  And it's, I mean, there are things in history that absolutely do compare to the Holocaust. But lots of people just love to throw that term around. I mean, this country is so anti-Semitic now.

• 35:20Speaker 04

  Yeah.

• 35:20Bill Maher?

  That people, you hear sort of mainstreamy people say, oh, stop whining about, whining?

• 35:26Speaker 04

  What turned the Democratic Party against Israel?

• 35:29Bill Maher?

  It's what?

• 35:30Speaker 04

  What turned them?

• 35:31Bill Maher?

  It's a question I explore a lot on my show.

• 35:33Speaker 04

  I don't know the answer. And you don't either?

• 35:36Bill Maher?

  I do. Again, it's lack of education. It's lack of education. They don't know anything about the Middle East or the history. They just know one thing that has been, that they've been indoctrinated in, which is that the world is divided between oppressors and oppressives. People who are oppressed, and it has everything and only to do with race, which is ridiculous. It has sometimes some things to do with race, certainly in America it did. But slavery wasn't invented in 1619. And as far as this connection somehow between the brown people who are Palestinians, they must be right.

• 36:18Bill Maher?

  Because they're brown, and they're poor, and the Israelis are rich and white, which is not even true. Israelis are brown too.

• 36:26Speaker 04

  And they're not all rich.

• 36:28Bill Maher?

  There's Ashkenazi, which are white from Europe, and there's lots of Sephardic who are from the Mediterranean. And it's very complicated, but they just got it into their heads. That one side, and somehow it's always the Jews at every point in history. It just seems to always land back at the Jews. I mean, it's so bad now that the right wing is doing it, Tucker Carlson is doing it, and Candace Owens is doing it. And so is everybody in the democratic socialist. You have to get on the page that Israel is the monster country of all time. I'm all for criticizing Israel where it deserves to be. There is lots of stuff going on in the West Bank that really does need to stop.

• 37:09Bill Maher?

  But it's a much more complicated situation, and especially Gaza, which they got into their head as a genocide. I mean, I won't bore you with why that's just a ridiculous thing to say. There's an actual meaning to that word, and it didn't happen there, and they were attacked, and blah, blah, blah. But they just, the problem with white liberals is that it's so much more important to them to feel like they're the good people who are doing the good things. And they know who the bad people are. That's how they know they're good. They're so bad, they're bad. And so it all comes down.

• 37:45Speaker 04

  Bad.

• 37:46Bill Maher?

  Bad. Bad, I'm bad, that's how I know I'm good.

• 37:51Speaker 04

  Yeah.

• 37:51Bill Maher?

  And so it all comes down to this kind of very simplistic thinking. They don't really think it through. And that's how you wind up with people with T-shirts that say, Queers for Palestine. A place that would throw you off the roof for just being queer.

• 38:08Speaker 04

  Yeah.

• 38:08Bill Maher?

  I mean, the fact that they can't see a discrepancy like that makes me really worry about people like that. That's why, you know, I can't guarantee I'm going to turn over the country to you, to answer your question of a while ago. I didn't change.

• 38:26Speaker 04

  I've heard you say that before.

• 38:27Bill Maher?

  I haven't. If they, if the Democrats had been all about wondering which side should have won the Cold War, as a lot of these democratic socialists do, and flirting with communism, and all this Jew-hating, I mean, I could call it anti-Semitic, it's Jew-hating. I wouldn't have been for them in 2010. But they weren't that, they weren't close to that back then. People change, parties change.

• 38:57Speaker 04

  Yeah.

• 38:57Bill Maher?

  You know, the Republican Party was the liberal party at the time of the Civil War. Lincoln freed the slaves. It was the Democrats who were the racist party.

• 39:05Speaker 04

  That's right.

• 39:05Bill Maher?

  For like, the next 100 years. Things change. And then Kennedy came in, he switched it up.

• 39:11Speaker 04

  I have a good, when you were talking about Clive, let's go light now for a while, shall we? Want to lighten up?

• 39:16Bill Maher?

  I don't plan anything. Like, when you meet somebody at a bar, do you have an agenda what you're gonna talk about?

• 39:23Speaker 04

  Well, I don't go to bars, but.

• 39:24Bill Maher?

  Well, anywhere. When you go to dinner.

• 39:27Speaker 04

  Right.

• 39:27Bill Maher?

  This is that.

• 39:28Speaker 04

  Yeah.

• 39:29Bill Maher?

  I don't go like, oh, let's go light now.

• 39:32Speaker 04

  Yeah.

• 39:32Bill Maher?

  After this break, and a word from Del Monte.

• 39:34Speaker 04

  Yeah, yeah, yeah.

• 39:35Bill Maher?

  But I love to talk about Clive. I have great.

• 39:39Speaker 04

  I think I saw you, I think that's the place where I met you, was at a Clive event?

• 39:42Bill Maher?

  I was at every one of those. I worked at once.

• 39:45Speaker 04

  The dinner, the party?

• 39:47Bill Maher?

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• 40:32Bill Maher?

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• 41:07Speaker 04

  So you may or may not know that I worked with Whitney a lot.

• 41:10Bill Maher?

  I do know that.

• 41:11Speaker 04

  Did Bodyguard.

• 41:12Bill Maher?

  Yeah.

• 41:12Speaker 04

  So, Clive notoriously.

• 41:16Speaker 04

  When you turn in a record to him, he notoriously has comments. Even when there shouldn't be comments, he has to have his thumbprint on it, for better or for worse. Sometimes he makes the records better, sometimes he makes them worse. So he always has something to say about it, which makes you have to redo the mix, or the drums, or the whatever, right? So I thought, okay, the song "I Will Always Love You", it sounded pretty good to me. And I said to myself, "I'm gonna trick Clive this time. I'm going to do a rough mix that takes twenty minutes."

• 41:54Bill Maher?

  I love this.

• 41:55Speaker 04

  And normally mixes back then, before there was computers, a mix would take ten to twelve hours. So I'm gonna do a ten-minute rough mix, just shove all the instrument up on the faders and send it to him. He's gonna have comments, and it'll save me all that worry and time of twelve hours worth, just to do another twelve hours. I'll do ten minutes on this, he'll give me all his notes, and then I can do the mix for real. So we yard-sticked the mix, right, which is basically put all the faders up like that, sent it to you on a DAT, digital audio tape. And then I waited for the phone call to say, "God, then the drums are this. You can't have her sing without music in the front," whatever the fuck he was gonna say.

• 42:34Bill Maher?

  He loved it.

• 42:36Speaker 04

  He loved it. He loved it, he loved it, and when I say he loved it-

• 42:39Bill Maher?

  Is that the record that went out?

• 42:41Speaker 04

  Yes, but don't kill my story. Because there's more to the story. Belle?

• 42:47Speaker 04

  It never has happened to me, in all the times I worked with him, with Kenny G and all, Tony Baxter and all these people that I'd worked with him on, always comments. He said, "I love it, I love it, I love it, don't change a thing." I said, "Well, actually, I have a few things I wanna do. I wanna tune the saxophone, I wanna add a guitar." He said, "Well, you can do whatever you want, but I'm telling you, this mix you've delivered is the one." And this was at the beginning of the summer. So as the summer went on, I sent him other versions, right? With the fixed sax and tune, and this thing fixed, and more guitars, and all that. He said, "No, no, I love the original, I love the..." We finally got into this huge argument on the phone. And he said a great, I started yelling at him, I said, "Fuck you, Clive," I mean, I was really-

• 43:28Bill Maher?

  So wait, you're, now you're defending the thing that you thought-

• 43:31Speaker 04

  Yes.

• 43:32Bill Maher?

  -was a piece of shit?

• 43:33Speaker 04

  Yes.

• 43:34Bill Maher?

  I love this.

• 43:34Speaker 04

  Yes, good, good observation.

• 43:37Bill Maher?

  How dare you say, "My piece of shit is a piece of shit."

• 43:41Speaker 04

  He gave me the, he said the greatest line. He said, "David, I think we should hang up now before one of us says something that we don't mean, or that we're gonna regret," which was a great line. I calmed down. By the end of the summer, I said, "Well, Clive, I have a confession to make," and then I told him what I'd done. I said, "That mix doesn't even exist anywhere. It's only on that little digital audio tape, like a cassette that you have." I said, "You probably don't even have that anymore." He said, "I've carried that around in my pocket all summer, I played it for everybody, and that's the record." So we took that digital audio tape, little thing, took it to mastering, and that became the record, just as you said.

• 44:16Bill Maher?

  Well,

• 44:19Bill Maher?

  not that I've ever had Paul McCartney in ear, but I would love to.

• 44:22Speaker 04

  Yes.

• 44:22Bill Maher?

  But I would probably tempt his wrath by telling him apropos of this. "I like 'The Long and Winding Road' with the strings that Phil Spector put on it. And I know it's cool." Apropos of our discussion about what's cool. It's cooler to like the naked version. No, I don't give a shit.

• 44:44Speaker 04

  You like the strings?

• 44:44Bill Maher?

  He did the right thing, I think.

• 44:47Speaker 04

  Phil.

• 44:48Bill Maher?

  Phil Spector, it's a song that demands a choir-

• 44:51Speaker 04

  The Murderer.

• 44:52Bill Maher?

  What?

• 44:52Speaker 04

  The Murderer.

• 44:53Bill Maher?

  Yeah, okay, well, let's not, let's leave the unpleasantness out of this. We're just talking about a record producer. "The Long and Winding Road" by The Beatles.

• 45:01Speaker 04

  Yeah, love it.

• 45:02Bill Maher?

  I love it. I love it, and I love it with the strings and the choir. It's that kind of song. Give me what I want.

• 45:10Speaker 04

  Yeah, okay.

• 45:10Bill Maher?

  I'm just the young man in the twenty-second row.

• 45:13Speaker 04

  No, you're right. So when I produced Paul McCartney in the eighties, apropos of that-

• 45:17Bill Maher?

  Which record?

• 45:18Speaker 04

  Uh, nothing that was any great. It was called Flowers in the Dirt. It was, uh-

• 45:22Bill Maher?

  What?

• 45:23Speaker 04

  Not so good.

• 45:24Bill Maher?

  What?

• 45:25Speaker 04

  It's not good.

• 45:26Bill Maher?

  Oh, you're so wrong.

• 45:28Speaker 04

  Well, I didn't, I only did three songs on that record.

• 45:30Bill Maher?

  It's so, it's, you're so wrong.

• 45:32Speaker 04

  Well, I'm not wrong.

• 45:34Bill Maher?

  No, no, because they re-released it.

• 45:36Speaker 04

  I know.

• 45:36Bill Maher?

  They don't re-release everything.

• 45:38Speaker 04

  I know.

• 45:38Bill Maher?

  First of all, he did it with Elvis Costello. So he finally had the John Lennon replacement. Not that he didn't do great things on his own, with Denny Lane and other people, or just by himself. But he finally had another Liver Puddlin, who was just, I mean, "My Brave Face", "This One," I mean, there are some-

• 45:56Speaker 04

  Well, I should back up. I did three songs on that record, not the whole record.

• 45:59Bill Maher?

  Which ones?

• 46:00Speaker 04

  Oh, I don't even remember, like-

• 46:01Bill Maher?

  It's a great record.

• 46:02Speaker 04

  "Lindiana," um-

• 46:03Bill Maher?

  There's no "Indiana" on it.

• 46:05Speaker 04

  "Lindiana."

• 46:06Bill Maher?

  No.

• 46:06Speaker 04

  After his wife, yes, it was a bonus track.

• 46:08Bill Maher?

  No, it wasn't.

• 46:09Speaker 04

  Yes, it-

• 46:09Bill Maher?

  I have the-

• 46:10Speaker 04

  Jesus, who, what do you mean?

• 46:11Bill Maher?

  It's not even a bonus track.

• 46:12Speaker 04

  It's a bonus track.

• 46:13Bill Maher?

  No, it isn't, because I got the remastered re-

• 46:16Speaker 04

  Google it.

• 46:17Bill Maher?

  I, I don't have to. I have-

• 46:19Speaker 04

  Well, I was there.

• 46:21Bill Maher?

  Google it. There is no, what is it, "Lindiana"?

• 46:25Speaker 04

  "Lindiana."

• 46:26Bill Maher?

  No.

• 46:26Speaker 04

  But there's two other songs I did.

• 46:27Bill Maher?

  That was never released.

• 46:28Speaker 04

  I did the song "Flowers in the Dirt," I think. Is there a song called "Flowers in the Dirt"?

• 46:31Bill Maher?

  No, that's a line in a song.

• 46:35Speaker 04

  I did three songs.

• 46:36Bill Maher?

  It's a great record, from top to bottom. It really is.

• 46:38Speaker 04

  Okay.

• 46:39Bill Maher?

  It absolutely is.

• 46:40Speaker 04

  I love him, but-

• 46:40Bill Maher?

  There's three songs on there that would have been giant hits if they were Beatles songs in the day. "My Brave Face," "This One," and "Circle of a," uh, something.

• 46:52Speaker 04

  "Talk Amongst Yourself."

• 46:54Bill Maher?

  Circle, something, I don't know. But it's a great record, and you should be proud of any songs you put on it.

• 47:01Speaker 04

  Okay, here we go.

• 47:03Bill Maher?

  There's one song that they didn't include.

• 47:06Speaker 04

  No, they're saying "Indiana," I said "Lindiana."

• 47:08Bill Maher?

  Yeah, it doesn't exist. That's why you can't get it on Google. There's one song that they didn't put out called "Tommy's Coming Home" or something. It was like about a soldier, and you can hear the-

• 47:20Speaker 04

  But I do get producer credit, along with a bunch of other people.

• 47:22Bill Maher?

  But, but that song isn't on there.

• 47:25Speaker 04

  Fuck.

• 47:26Bill Maher?

  What?

• 47:27Speaker 04

  That's a bonus track?

• 47:28Bill Maher?

  Hey, bro. Happens to me too. You get older, your mind moves the furniture, you don't remember everything exactly.

• 47:35Speaker 04

  I can't think of the other two songs, though.

• 47:36Bill Maher?

  Maybe this was even a different artist.

• 47:38Speaker 04

  No, it was Paul McCartney.

• 47:40Bill Maher?

  Well, it didn't even make it on the outtakes.

• 47:42Speaker 04

  No, but that's one song I did, two other songs-

• 47:44Bill Maher?

  What's are the other ones?

• 47:45Speaker 04

  Well, let me find them.

• 47:46Bill Maher?

  You don't even remember? Come on, man.

• 47:49Speaker 04

  How come I'm not supposed to remember that?

• 47:50Bill Maher?

  "We Got Married"?

• 47:51Speaker 04

  Yes. Yes, I did that song.

• 47:54Bill Maher?

  Okay.

• 47:54Speaker 04

  Yes.

• 47:54Bill Maher?

  All right. I'm glad you had an orgasm. It's a good song.

• 47:57Speaker 04

  "We Got Married," yeah.

• 47:58Bill Maher?

  "We Got Married."

• 47:59Speaker 04

  It's funny, when we walked into that session, he said, "I asked a mate to come over to play guitar, I hope you don't mind." I walked in the room, and it was Dave Gilmour, which was kinda heady. But, my point was,

• 48:11Speaker 04

  what was my point?

• 48:12Bill Maher?

  Paul McCartney.

• 48:13Speaker 04

  Yes. When I got together with Paul, I thought that I was gonna write "The Long and Winding Road Part Two." And I started playing all this stuff that, you know, everything that I could conjure up from that vibe. And he was like, "I don't wanna do that shit. I already did that. I don't wanna do any of that."

• 48:31Bill Maher?

  That's why he's a great artist.

• 48:32Speaker 04

  Yeah.

• 48:33Bill Maher?

  Because you don't wanna repeat yourself.

• 48:34Speaker 04

  Yeah.

• 48:35Bill Maher?

  But doing another great ballad would not be repeating yourself, if it's great.

• 48:41Speaker 04

  No.

• 48:42Bill Maher?

  You know?

• 48:43Speaker 04

  "We Got Married."

• 48:46Bill Maher?

  You got married.

• 48:46Speaker 04

  No, well, many times.

• 48:48Bill Maher?

  You got married a lot.

• 48:49Speaker 04

  So did you.

• 48:50Bill Maher?

  I've never been married. Have you ever met me?

• 48:55Speaker 04

  We did meet once, but- You never, you just talk about your girlfriends all the time.

• 48:59Bill Maher?

  I don't talk about, I avoid talking about it. But what I would say we have in common is, we are age gap guys. We are guys who, who defend the concept of the age gap, which, you know, for some reason, not any reasonable reason, is somehow immoral. It's not. You know what? Age gaps work.

• 49:21Speaker 04

  Oh, you're talking about man and woman?

• 49:23Bill Maher?

  No, man and, uh, Jimothy. Yes, of course, man and woman. What do you mean?

• 49:27Speaker 04

  Well, you gotta be more specific.

• 49:28Bill Maher?

  Age, what, what could it be? Age gap? You know, I've always gotten shit about it, you've gotten shit about it, and it's not for everybody, but nobody complains when a woman does it. It's okay when Cher and Madonna do it.

• 49:41Speaker 04

  Right. Well, it's not really, people still complain about it, but-

• 49:44Bill Maher?

  They complain? How, how do you have the right to complain about another person's-

• 49:48Speaker 04

  See, I always thought with Kat and I-

• 49:52Speaker 04

  I started with Celine when she was nineteen, right?

• 49:54Bill Maher?

  Celine Dion.

• 49:55Speaker 04

  Celine Dion. And at that time, there was a little spark, but nobody really knew what was going on. By the second album, they were together. And it was odd.

• 50:04Bill Maher?

  Who was together?

• 50:04Speaker 04

  Her and Renee, her husband.

• 50:06Bill Maher?

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• 50:52Bill Maher?

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• 51:37Speaker 04

  Right? Did you know about him at all?

• 51:38Bill Maher?

  I've heard the name, yes.

• 51:39Speaker 04

  Right, and he's twenty-five, thirty years older than her.

• 51:42Bill Maher?

  She's French Canadian. Oh, yes, right, he's older than her.

• 51:45Speaker 04

  Right, twenty-five or thirty years. And we all thought it was weird, but eventually, after many years, it just became, oh, yeah, that's Celine and Renee. And it just looked right. And I'm waiting and hoping that Kat, I mean Kat and I are going on ten years now. I'm hoping that eventually, if not now, that it just looks right to people, that they don't think about it.

• 52:04Bill Maher?

  People are, David, people are looking for reasons to hate. They have shitty, empty lives, a lot of them. The ones who are like actually writing shit on the internet, I'm not characterizing all of America this way, but if you have the time and the inclination to do that and write about your personal life, you're a fucking loser who should be spending your time doing something about your life. So they're just looking for things to hate, and this is an easy target. And, you know, the answer is, you're having a great life.

• 52:37Speaker 04

  Yeah.

• 52:37Bill Maher?

  And by the way, I just think a lot of even younger people realize these days that, as opposed to the days of yore, when we expected to live our whole life with one person, maybe that isn't really reasonable anymore or even desirable. We go through very different phases of our own lives.

• 53:02Speaker 04

  So do women.

• 53:03Bill Maher?

  No, I, I, I don't mean just you and I.

• 53:06Speaker 04

  You and Nikki talked about that.

• 53:07Bill Maher?

  I mean, you and Nikki talked about that. We did.

• 53:08Speaker 04

  Nikki Glaser, yeah.

• 53:09Bill Maher?

  Ah, she was Robbie Stone. Humans, we all do. We go through phases. We're not the same person at twenty as we are at fifty. So the idea that we have different partners isn't necessarily a moral failing. Now, can you find the, some people find the person who they go through the whole journey with? They can, and they do, and that's great for you. Other people, I think, understand, oh, no, you know, for this era of my life, eras. We just had a big eras tour, didn't we?

• 53:43Speaker 04

  E R A S, not E R R O S.

• 53:45Bill Maher?

  Taylor Swift, right? Wasn't it?

• 53:47Speaker 04

  Yeah, yeah.

• 53:47Bill Maher?

  Okay. We have eras in our life. Maybe it's, you know, it's gonna be painful when you have to transition from one era to the other if it involves another human, but in the end, that's what we do. And it seems right at the time. You feel right now, don't you?

• 54:06Speaker 04

  I do.

• 54:06Bill Maher?

  You do?

• 54:07Speaker 04

  I mean, the invention, I mean, the concept of one person was invented by probably people that were eaten by dinosaurs by the age twenty-five.

• 54:15Bill Maher?

  Well, I'm not gonna invite them to dinner.

• 54:17Speaker 04

  But a big.

• 54:20Bill Maher?

  They can get their own fucking dinner.

• 54:22Speaker 04

  So do you currently have a girlfriend?

• 54:24Bill Maher?

  Well, see, these are the questions I avoid.

• 54:26Speaker 04

  Really? Why?

• 54:27Bill Maher?

  Because, first of all.

• 54:29Speaker 04

  To make you uncomfortable?

• 54:30Bill Maher?

  I don't want to, I don't think people treat personal information respectfully enough to give it to them, is the main reason.

• 54:41Speaker 04

  Got it.

• 54:41Bill Maher?

  And if I did have a person in this world who I love so very, very fucking much, I wouldn't wanna subject her to the scrutiny that that might bring her. You know what I'm saying, Dave?

• 54:57Speaker 04

  Yeah, I got you. It's David, by the way.

• 55:00Bill Maher?

  You hate Dave?

• 55:01Speaker 04

  No, I don't hate him.

• 55:02Bill Maher?

  Cause I call everybody like, by the way, personal first.

• 55:05Speaker 04

  Can we talk about your childhood? A little bit?

• 55:08Bill Maher?

  Yes, Doctor.

• 55:09Speaker 04

  No, I'm curious.

• 55:10Bill Maher?

  No, let's do it.

• 55:11Speaker 04

  Do you have brothers and sisters?

• 55:12Bill Maher?

  Uh, that's a little personal.

• 55:14Speaker 04

  Is it really?

• 55:14Bill Maher?

  No, fucking with you. I'm drunk and I.

• 55:17Speaker 04

  Okay.

• 55:19Bill Maher?

  Yes, I have an older sister. She just finished a lovely visit here. She was here for ten days, so she does every summer.

• 55:26Speaker 04

  Did you have her on your show? No.

• 55:27Bill Maher?

  No.

• 55:28Speaker 04

  No.

• 55:28Bill Maher?

  No. But she was in the box when I got the Mark Twain Award last month at the Kennedy's.

• 55:33Speaker 04

  That must have been something, huh?

• 55:34Bill Maher?

  Yes, and it was wonderful for her. I think, I'm sure she had a very good time, and I know she's proud of her brother and I'm proud of her. And it was great that we could share that moment. You know, I'm sure she remembered me as a child who was trying to be funny. So to see your brother after all these years at the, you know, the award you should win if you're a comedian.

• 55:57Speaker 04

  Yeah.

• 55:58Bill Maher?

  I'm sure was, you know, among the reasons why I liked that night was what I could and did do for her.

• 56:04Speaker 04

  Right. I actually have the same exact feeling. I have six sisters, five of whom are alive. And I just did a big event last weekend in my hometown of Victoria. A three night event. We raised fourteen, fifteen million dollars for my foundation. And one of the three nights was a concert to the city of Victoria, an outdoor concert for seventy thousand people. All my sisters were there. And one of the great things, as you say, about doing that stuff is to show your sisters a good time.

• 56:35Bill Maher?

  How many sisters did you have?

• 56:37Speaker 04

  Six, but five are still alive.

• 56:38Bill Maher?

  Six?

• 56:39Speaker 04

  Yeah. And no boys.

• 56:40Bill Maher?

  On purpose?

• 56:41Speaker 04

  Well, I had nothing to do with it, eh?

• 56:42Bill Maher?

  I'm kidding. Six sisters. Well, that, that.

• 56:47Speaker 04

  Does that explain a lot?

• 56:49Bill Maher?

  It kinda, I was gonna say, it, it, you know, you seem like a guy who gets and attracts women.

• 57:00Bill Maher?

  You know? I mean, you've had, talk about phases and eras in your life, right?

• 57:05Speaker 04

  Yeah, it's true.

• 57:06Bill Maher?

  You had the, who was your first wife? Was somebody famous?

• 57:09Speaker 04

  No.

• 57:09Bill Maher?

  No?

• 57:10Speaker 04

  No. A good singer named BJ.

• 57:12Bill Maher?

  BJ, BJ Thomas? Let's talk about that song.

• 57:16Speaker 04

  Okay, I thought you wanted to talk about my ex-wife.

• 57:18Bill Maher?

  I do, but let's talk about Boe Theophski Fall on My Head.

• 57:21Speaker 04

  Let's talk about Burt Bacharach.

• 57:23Bill Maher?

  Loved him. He loved me. He used to always come to my show.

• 57:26Speaker 04

  Really?

• 57:26Bill Maher?

  Yes. Don't say it like it's so hard to believe.

• 57:29Speaker 04

  Well, he's kind of an icon.

• 57:31Bill Maher?

  Such an icon. And why is that hard to believe? A lot of icons loved me. He used to always come to my show when I played San Diego. I guess he lived down there.

• 57:39Speaker 04

  He had the racetrack, or he lived near the racetrack, Del Mar.

• 57:42Bill Maher?

  I don't know. I mean, I drank with him after the show many times at that theater. It was an outdoor theater, which I don't like for comedy, but I played it a million times. Humphreys, was that what it was called?

• 57:51Speaker 04

  Oh, yeah?

• 57:52Bill Maher?

  Maybe. And I loved him and.

• 57:55Speaker 04

  I loved him too.

• 57:56Bill Maher?

  You know, I remember when, a year ago, I went to Boca Raton and did Billy Joel, which, if you haven't heard that one.

• 58:03Speaker 04

  You did Billy Joel? What do you mean?

• 58:05Bill Maher?

  Did this, but when I had to go to Boca to do it, where he lives.

• 58:08Speaker 04

  I bet you it was amazing.

• 58:09Bill Maher?

  Please listen to it. You'll love it as a musician. And they had just aired the documentary about him and I.

• 58:18Speaker 04

  They had just, or they?

• 58:19Bill Maher?

  They just, HBO had a doc, which I did too. And what I didn't know was he's German, you know, Billy Joel. And it's, I think the original name, I forget, was something closer to, I mean, Burt Bacharach has Bach right in the name. German composers kind of own it.

• 58:41Speaker 04

  Can't beat him.

• 58:41Bill Maher?

  Kinda own it.

• 58:43Speaker 04

  Yeah.

• 58:43Bill Maher?

  They kinda set the standard a long time.

• 58:45Speaker 04

  The big three, all German or Austrian.

• 58:47Bill Maher?

  And one of Billy Joel's biggest hits, you know, he credits to, I think, is it Beethoven or Bach? It's, you know, um, oh, I can't remember it now cause I'm stoned, but.

• 58:57Speaker 04

  Are you stoned or drunk?

• 58:59Bill Maher?

  I'm both.

• 59:00Speaker 04

  You smoked before you got in here?

• 59:01Bill Maher?

  I ate it, cause I knew you didn't want me to smoke.

• 59:03Speaker 04

  Got it.

• 59:06Speaker 04

  How do you think it's going so far? I mean, you can't tell, right?

• 59:08Bill Maher?

  I, that's why I love this show. This is exact, all my career, I've tried to like get on camera exactly who I am.

• 59:16Speaker 04

  Yeah.

• 59:16Bill Maher?

  It can't get more real than this.

• 59:18Speaker 04

  No.

• 59:18Bill Maher?

  It just can't.

• 59:19Speaker 04

  Okay, stay on track, you're Burt Bacharach.

• 59:21Bill Maher?

  Germans.

• 59:22Speaker 04

  Yes.

• 59:23Bill Maher?

  Germans, Bach, Bacharach. When I was in Munich, I saw like a lot of the names Bacharach this, Bach that, oh, okay. I bought a pair of shoes that were like Johann Sebastian Bach's, oh, no, Mozart's, the kind of boots he wore, two-tone gray.

• 59:40Speaker 04

  Really?

• 59:40Bill Maher?

  Oh, beautiful. And you have to do them with a button hook up.

• 59:45Speaker 04

  Let's talk about catalogs, okay?

• 59:47Bill Maher?

  Yeah.

• 59:48Speaker 04

  That's another guy that makes me wanna burn my catalog, Burt Bacharach. Go ahead, name a song.

• 59:53Bill Maher?

  You know what? The one I talked to him about because it was so unsung, Any Day Now.

• 59:58Speaker 04

  Right, Jackie DeShannon?

• 59:59Bill Maher?

  Elvis did it.

• 1:00:01Speaker 04

  Uh, close to you.

• 1:00:02Bill Maher?

  Oh.

• 1:00:02Speaker 04

  Go.

• 1:00:03Bill Maher?

  Carpenters?

• 1:00:03Speaker 04

  Go.

• 1:00:04Bill Maher?

  What, what do you mean?

• 1:00:05Speaker 04

  Another Bacharach song.

• 1:00:07Bill Maher?

  Oh, I mean Alfie.

• 1:00:11Bill Maher?

  You ever hear the dry sand version?

• 1:00:13Speaker 04

  Of course.

• 1:00:13Bill Maher?

  No personality.

• 1:00:17Bill Maher?

  Boom.

• 1:00:18Speaker 04

  Okay, that catalog is just insane. And he had a partner, you know.

• 1:00:24Bill Maher?

  Hal David.

• 1:00:25Speaker 04

  Hal David.

• 1:00:25Bill Maher?

  Oh.

• 1:00:26Speaker 04

  The unsung hero.

• 1:00:27Bill Maher?

  Let me tell you something. I had a birthday party.

• 1:00:29Speaker 04

  Should I lean in for this?

• 1:00:30Bill Maher?

  Yeah, you should. I had a birthday party here in my sephinity, big one. I don't usually go in for parties.

• 1:00:35Speaker 04

  Mm-hmm.

• 1:00:36Bill Maher?

  But for this one, I actually sang six songs that were meaningful to me.

• 1:00:40Speaker 04

  Can you sing?

• 1:00:40Bill Maher?

  No, that's not the point.

• 1:00:42Speaker 04

  Really not at all?

• 1:00:43Bill Maher?

  Not really.

• 1:00:44Speaker 04

  Okay.

• 1:00:44Bill Maher?

  That's not the point. The point is that they were meaningful to me and it was a very special kind of party. The only people here were like the closest people in my life.

• 1:00:52Speaker 04

  Right.

• 1:00:53Bill Maher?

  And I kind of shouted out all of them as opposed to usually what they do at a birthday party was they make it about you. I was like the opposite. These are the people who've taken care of me in my life, gave them all the... And I did songs that were meaningful to me along the way. I mean, I opened with Sammy Davis, I Gotta Be Me. You know what I closed with? I did six songs and I had a funny song at the end. I had one prop, a hand mirror. And I sang the Fifth Dimension's Wedding Bell Blues.

• 1:01:21Speaker 04

  Oh, so good.

• 1:01:23Bill Maher?

  Funny, right?

• 1:01:23Speaker 04

  That's awesome.

• 1:01:24Bill Maher?

  It was awesome.

• 1:01:25Speaker 04

  You should have them on your show. They're still out there touring, Billy and Marilyn.

• 1:01:29Bill Maher?

  What?

• 1:01:30Speaker 04

  Yes, they're great.

• 1:01:31Bill Maher?

  I want to...

• 1:01:32Speaker 04

  Billy, Billy, Marilyn Mccoo and Billy Davis. Yes.

• 1:01:36Bill Maher?

  That's who she's singing to.

• 1:01:38Speaker 04

  Yeah, they're still touring. Get them on the show.

• 1:01:41Bill Maher?

  I love that.

• 1:01:41Speaker 04

  Let's call them. Should we call them now?

• 1:01:43Bill Maher?

  And that's a Burt Bacharach Hal David song.

• 1:01:44Speaker 04

  Yes, should we call them now?

• 1:01:46Bill Maher?

  One less bell to answer. One less egg to...

• 1:01:49Speaker 04

  Fifth Dimension.

• 1:01:50Bill Maher?

  One less egg to fry.

• 1:01:51Speaker 04

  That's Bacharach's song, too?

• 1:01:52Bill Maher?

  Totally.

• 1:01:53Speaker 04

  You sure it's not a Jimmy Webb? Yeah, you're sure.

• 1:01:55Bill Maher?

  Uh, no.

• 1:01:56Speaker 04

  You're sure.

• 1:01:57Bill Maher?

  I'm actually not.

• 1:01:57Speaker 04

  No, I think it's Bacharach.

• 1:01:58Bill Maher?

  I think it is. One less ba...

• 1:02:03Bill Maher?

  One less bell to answer, one less egg to fry.

• 1:02:06Speaker 04

  That doesn't sound like a Hal David lyric.

• 1:02:08Bill Maher?

  One less man to look up after.

• 1:02:10Speaker 04

  Oh, that sounds like a Hal David.

• 1:02:11Bill Maher?

  You know what? I think we can all relate to that. Am I right, ladies?

• 1:02:18Speaker 04

  Wouldn't you love to have them on your show? Or not?

• 1:02:22Bill Maher?

  Um...

• 1:02:23Speaker 04

  I guess not.

• 1:02:25Bill Maher?

  I mean, I don't, I don't know, but, I mean, I love the records. Remember Stone Soul Picnic?

• 1:02:33Speaker 04

  Of course. You know who wrote that? Laura Nero, I think.

• 1:02:38Bill Maher?

  That's probably, yes, I think you're right.

• 1:02:40Speaker 04

  So, yeah.

• 1:02:41Bill Maher?

  Also wrote Streisand's Stony End.

• 1:02:43Speaker 04

  Yep. Produced by Richard Perry.

• 1:02:45Bill Maher?

  Were you ever a session guy?

• 1:02:47Speaker 04

  I was.

• 1:02:48Bill Maher?

  So, I was watching some documentary. You know who was the session band at Shirley Bassey's recording of Goldfinger?

• 1:02:57Speaker 04

  It's English guys, I presume, right?

• 1:02:59Bill Maher?

  You're, yes, you're, you're getting warmer.

• 1:03:03Speaker 04

  English, Scottish?

• 1:03:05Bill Maher?

  Oh, I, I don't know.

• 1:03:05Speaker 04

  No, they're English, right? Um, I don't know.

• 1:03:09Bill Maher?

  Led Zeppelin.

• 1:03:11Speaker 04

  You know, I kind of read that. Not all of them, though, right?

• 1:03:13Bill Maher?

  No, but the, the...

• 1:03:15Speaker 04

  The main two guys.

• 1:03:16Bill Maher?

  Yeah.

• 1:03:17Speaker 04

  Yeah, Rob, Robert and the...

• 1:03:18Bill Maher?

  Paige and...

• 1:03:19Speaker 04

  And the bass player.

• 1:03:19Bill Maher?

  Yeah. Paige and John Bottom.

• 1:03:21Speaker 04

  Yeah. Were the back... That's the drummer, but...

• 1:03:23Bill Maher?

  They were the session... Yeah.

• 1:03:26Speaker 04

  So, I did, I did sessions for about three or four years. When I first came to LA, I had a, um, a hit record, a band called Skylark. And we had a hit record called Wild Flower. We were a one-hit wonder.

• 1:03:39Bill Maher?

  Skylark.

• 1:03:40Speaker 04

  Skylark. One-hit wonder, it was a big, big top ten hit.

• 1:03:42Bill Maher?

  It was also a Buick.

• 1:03:44Speaker 04

  It was also a song.

• 1:03:45Bill Maher?

  But was it?

• 1:03:46Speaker 04

  Yeah, it was a Buick, yeah.

• 1:03:47Bill Maher?

  There was a Buick's...

• 1:03:48Speaker 04

  Yeah.

• 1:03:48Bill Maher?

  I'm not, I'm not putting you down. I'm just saying your name, the band is the name of a Buick.

• 1:03:56Speaker 04

  So, the band broke up and I started doing, I played piano in the Rocky Horror Show when it was here in nineteen seventy-five.

• 1:04:03Bill Maher?

  Wow.

• 1:04:03Speaker 04

  Do you remember the Rocky Horror Show?

• 1:04:04Bill Maher?

  Of course.

• 1:04:05Speaker 04

  Yeah.

• 1:04:05Bill Maher?

  I've seen it.

• 1:04:05Speaker 04

  And for a year and two weeks, I was in the pit, eventually becoming the musical director. Then I met a great drummer named Jim Keltner.

• 1:04:12Bill Maher?

  Oh, yes.

• 1:04:13Speaker 04

  Who took me under his wing.

• 1:04:14Bill Maher?

  George Harrison.

• 1:04:15Speaker 04

  Yeah, introduced me to George Harrison. I did George's records, I did, um, I, I just, he just introduced me to everybody. And I did sessions for about three or four years, me and the guys from Toto and all these guys. I, I wanted to be a producer and I looked at the other side of the glass and I was like, God dang, I'm sure I can do that. I know I can do that. And so one morning I woke up, I said, I'm gonna do it. I'm gonna stop doing sessions. Now, at that time, I was making over a hundred thou a year as a studio player, like all day, all night. Jingles in the morning, Fifth Dimension in the afternoon, Rod Stewart at night, whatever it was, making over a hundred grand in the seventies. I stopped it all. I produced three records and all of them failed.

• 1:04:59Speaker 04

  I was like, God dang, this is harder than it looks. I might as well go back to playing sessions because that's, I had a baby and, you know, I needed the bread. And just when I was gonna go back to sessions, I met Earth, Wind & Fire. And they took me in, started writing songs for them, with them. And then Alice Cooper, and then Chicago, and then Chakka Khan, and it just like was a fucking plethora of things that happened to me.

• 1:05:25Bill Maher?

  Where do you meet an entity like Earth, Wind & Fire?

• 1:05:29Speaker 04

  Well, specifically, specifically, I wrote...

• 1:05:31Bill Maher?

  You meet either one of them.

• 1:05:32Speaker 04

  Yeah, Earth or Wind. Um, specifically, I had written a song called After The Love Is Gone, which ended up being a big hit.

• 1:05:39Bill Maher?

  Oh, yeah. After The Love Is Gone.

• 1:05:42Speaker 04

  Right, with Jay Graydon and Bill Champlin.

• 1:05:43Bill Maher?

  You wrote that?

• 1:05:44Speaker 04

  Yeah, my co-host. With Bill and Jay. And that, we had a, I had a really good girlfriend, girlfriend, named Carol Childs, who said, that song belongs with Earth, Wind & Fire. I said, do you know them? She said, yes, I do. I think she was dating Dylan at the time. She took the song to him. He, Maurice White, who I loved, was my mentor. I met with him at Sunset Sound. He said, I like that song, I wanna record it. I said, when? He said, tonight. And we did, and then that ended up, I ended up writing the whole album with him and the next album became a real great thing for me.

• 1:06:19Bill Maher?

  Did you ever see that documentary on the making of the, uh, We Are The World?

• 1:06:23Speaker 04

  Yes, I loved it.

• 1:06:25Bill Maher?

  Were you involved?

• 1:06:26Speaker 04

  No, not at all.

• 1:06:27Bill Maher?

  Not at all?

• 1:06:28Speaker 04

  No, not at all.

• 1:06:28Bill Maher?

  Because it was Quincy's show.

• 1:06:29Speaker 04

  Yeah.

• 1:06:30Bill Maher?

  You didn't need two of you.

• 1:06:31Speaker 04

  He didn't need me, no.

• 1:06:32Bill Maher?

  Right.

• 1:06:32Speaker 04

  No, but it was great, though, huh?

• 1:06:35Speaker 04

  I love, uh, who was it, the left, the country singer?

• 1:06:38Bill Maher?

  Yes.

• 1:06:38Speaker 04

  Waylon Jennings.

• 1:06:39Bill Maher?

  Well, well, to put it into context about why he was racist, uh, yes, Stevie Wonder suggested we maybe singing the chorus in Swahili.

• 1:06:51Speaker 04

  Right.

• 1:06:51Bill Maher?

  And Waylon Jennings was, check.

• 1:06:53Speaker 04

  Check, please.

• 1:06:56Speaker 04

  It's true.

• 1:06:57Bill Maher?

  But, you know, think about how far we've come. Like, yeah, I bet you in nineteen eighty-five, when that record was made, most country artists were kind of racist. They're not now. They work, and they work together.

• 1:07:10Speaker 04

  But they get slagged as though they are.

• 1:07:12Bill Maher?

  They get slagged as though they are.

• 1:07:13Speaker 04

  Yeah.

• 1:07:14Bill Maher?

  And, and, you know, the country just has changed a lot.

• 1:07:17Speaker 04

  It has, it's more rock.

• 1:07:18Bill Maher?

  Um, it's, uh, country is totally pop music.

• 1:07:21Speaker 04

  Yeah.

• 1:07:22Bill Maher?

  And sometimes somebody like Brad Paisley, he actually addresses racial issues.

• 1:07:27Speaker 04

  In his songs?

• 1:07:27Bill Maher?

  In his songs.

• 1:07:28Speaker 04

  Yeah.

• 1:07:28Bill Maher?

  I mean, it's, it's, it's very impressive and, and also they just work together. You know, there, there's collabs.

• 1:07:35Speaker 04

  Yeah.

• 1:07:35Bill Maher?

  Or isn't Shaboozie, isn't he?

• 1:07:37Speaker 04

  Love him.

• 1:07:38Bill Maher?

  Country?

• 1:07:39Speaker 04

  Yeah, he is, yeah.

• 1:07:40Bill Maher?

  You keep up with like the latest?

• 1:07:42Speaker 04

  Yeah, pretty much.

• 1:07:42Bill Maher?

  Stars?

• 1:07:43Speaker 04

  I have a, um, Sarah, who you know, my daughter Sarah.

• 1:07:46Bill Maher?

  Yeah.

• 1:07:46Speaker 04

  She has a sister, many sisters. One of her sisters' names is Erin.

• 1:07:51Bill Maher?

  Yeah.

• 1:07:51Speaker 04

  Uh, and Erin, uh, who wrote the show Nobody Wants This, uh, for Netflix, which is really good, big hit. Um, Erin is married to a guy named Simon Tickman. And Simon Tickman, along with his partner Chief, managed Bailey Zimmerman, Florida Georgia Line, Dan and Shay, um, Josh Ross, they got tons of... So, I'm sort of half forced to keep up with the country music and I love it.

• 1:08:17Bill Maher?

  I do, too. I mean, I didn't, when I was younger, but when I was younger, it was all picking and grinning and...

• 1:08:22Speaker 04

  Right.

• 1:08:23Bill Maher?

  You know, there was an occasional country tinged song that got onto the radio on WABC in New York, my station.

• 1:08:31Speaker 04

  Well, like the Eagles, the Eagles would get, you know, they were country tinged.

• 1:08:34Bill Maher?

  Eagles were, yes, Eagles at the beginning were, were country tinged.

• 1:08:37Speaker 04

  You're quite a conundrum, you musically.

• 1:08:39Bill Maher?

  Oh, I, I still, I kept the great stuff from every decade, that's what I kept. And Harper Valley BDA is still an amusing record, and it's a great record. I mean, there's nothing wrong with the music. There's something, I, I mean, when I was with Billy Joel, I mentioned MacArthur Park. We were talking about that and immediately he just played it.

• 1:08:57Speaker 04

  Yeah.

• 1:08:57Bill Maher?

  Like, and I know you could do the same thing, like you could just...

• 1:08:59Speaker 04

  You should have a piano here, by the way.

• 1:09:01Bill Maher?

  Uh, I have one in my house, but...

• 1:09:02Speaker 04

  But I mean, for the broadcast. I could have backed you while you sang your Sinatra stuff.

• 1:09:08Bill Maher?

  Well, maybe it's good we don't. Um, but, uh, like he just started to play MacArthur Park, which, uh, I told him, I said, you know, if you Google it, it says, this may be the worst song ever, and I think it might be the best song ever.

• 1:09:22Speaker 04

  You know the story, right?

• 1:09:23Bill Maher?

  See, we have very similar taste.

• 1:09:24Speaker 04

  Richard Harris?

• 1:09:25Bill Maher?

  Yes.

• 1:09:26Speaker 04

  Who, who had the hit with it right before Donna Summer.

• 1:09:28Bill Maher?

  Of course.

• 1:09:29Speaker 04

  Uh, he said to Jimmy, Jimmy, apparently...

• 1:09:32Bill Maher?

  Jimmy Webb.

• 1:09:32Speaker 04

  To Jimmy Webb.

• 1:09:33Bill Maher?

  Who wrote it.

• 1:09:34Speaker 04

  He said, if you write me a number one hit, I'll buy you a Rolls Royce. The song, you know where it got to? It got to two.

• 1:09:40Bill Maher?

  Really?

• 1:09:41Speaker 04

  No Rolls Royce. That's the wives tale, I don't know if it's true or not, but...

• 1:09:44Bill Maher?

  I could check because that's the era where I kept the survey, at least in New York, I could tell you what it was. What?

• 1:09:51Speaker 04

  Well, I was just gonna look up Billboard.

• 1:09:53Bill Maher?

  I don't know.

• 1:09:54Speaker 04

  Do we care?

• 1:09:55Bill Maher?

  No, we don't.

• 1:09:55Speaker 04

  We don't care, no.

• 1:09:57Bill Maher?

  We care that it's a great song.

• 1:09:58Speaker 04

  Yeah.

• 1:09:58Bill Maher?

  We care that we like the same kind of music.

• 1:10:01Speaker 04

  Yeah.

• 1:10:02Bill Maher?

  And, uh, I don't put anybody down who doesn't like the kind of music. I, I, I, because I certainly remember my father thinking that...

• 1:10:12Speaker 04

  Who art in heaven?

• 1:10:13Bill Maher?

  Who art in heaven. Who, uh, you know, thought that the kind of music I liked was kind of whack because he grew up with Big Band, Big Band music. I, I still love Sinatra.

• 1:10:23Speaker 04

  Of course.

• 1:10:24Bill Maher?

  I mean, but I liked the later Sinatra. I don't like the, the thirties, forties.

• 1:10:29Speaker 04

  You like the, uh, Live at the Sands, Sinatra.

• 1:10:31Bill Maher?

  Sands, and also in the sixties.

• 1:10:33Speaker 04

  Yeah.

• 1:10:33Bill Maher?

  He had lots of hits in the...

• 1:10:35Speaker 04

  He had pop hits.

• 1:10:36Bill Maher?

  Pop hits.

• 1:10:36Speaker 04

  Yeah. Um, Bill, when you think about music since, let's just say, since the forties, so when Sinatra came out, he was considered by parents to be horrible. Teenagers loved him, parents hated him. Then the fifties come along, Elvis comes out shaking his hips, Sinatra's good, Elvis is the devil, right?

• 1:10:59Bill Maher?

  Right.

• 1:11:00Speaker 04

  Then in the sixties, the Beatles come out. Elvis is good, the Beatles are the devil with their dropping ass and all that shit. Then the seventies, punk music comes out, Beatles are good, I mean, it's just this, really, it's just like clockwork, like you could just, you know? It's the evolution of music and it's every generation, the parents hated it until the next thing came along.

• 1:11:20Bill Maher?

  It's all true. The other thing is true too. Both things are true at the same time. One, yes, generations do reflexively feel threatened by the next generation. And some of that is irrational. And also, sometimes what we feel threatened by is actually stupid. Like retrying communism. That's not just us being old. No, it's actually stupid. But it's so hard to convince anybody of that if they're 22 years old. You're just old. You're old white men. Yeah, but is it impossible that we also could be right? About that? Because we lived through it and we saw it and we know?

• 1:12:05Speaker 04

  Well, I have a question for you. Yes, we know about Venezuela. Yes, we know about Cuba. Yes, we know about North Korea. You know, all these places where it doesn't really work. Does communism or any part of it work in China?

• 1:12:18Bill Maher?

  China has an interesting system. I mean,

• 1:12:20Speaker 04

  Are they more socialist or they?

• 1:12:21Bill Maher?

  They, well, Chen Zao Ping was the ruler who took over after Mao. And in 19, not directly, but in 1979, he was the ruler. And he said, his famous quote was, whether a mice, whether a mouse is white or black, it does not matter as long as it catches vermin. Or no, whether a cat is black or white, does not matter if it catches a mouse. What he was saying was, I don't care if you call us capitalists. I don't care if you call us communists. We're gonna keep the communist dictatorship apart. We're gonna definitely keep the dictatorship apart. We keep a lid on the people. But they're definitely a capitalist society. I mean, they have billionaires.

• 1:13:06Speaker 04

  Yeah.

• 1:13:06Bill Maher?

  And they have a very successful economy.

• 1:13:09Speaker 04

  Yeah.

• 1:13:09Bill Maher?

  They just have one where the government, at the snap of a finger, will step in and tell you what to do or put you in jail. Yeah, I mean, they are not a free country like this country. We are way freer than China. We do not want to become China.

• 1:13:25Speaker 04

  No, I know this for a fact because when I did China, I did China's Got Talent for a couple of years. I did Asia's Got Talent for five years. China's Got Talent for a couple of years. Like America's Got Talent only, obviously, in China. And in the audience was college kids. It was all college kids. And the people running the show, the people like in their 40s and 50s, they were all just like status quo. Everything is great. But in the audience, you could feel that these, this was just like three or four years ago. You could feel the college kids going like, we're not taking it. You could, you could, it was palpable.

• 1:14:00Bill Maher?

  This was, what, was it Shanghai?

• 1:14:03Speaker 04

  It was not in Shanghai. It was in a, actually in, what's the province where the COVID came from?

• 1:14:09Bill Maher?

  Wuhan?

• 1:14:10Speaker 04

  Yeah, Wuhan.

• 1:14:11Bill Maher?

  Wuhan.

• 1:14:13Speaker 04

  Wuhan province. Cut that out, will you?

• 1:14:16Bill Maher?

  No, that's too perfect. I gotta do something with that. The Wuhan virus.

• 1:14:21Speaker 04

  Wuhan clang.

• 1:14:22Bill Maher?

  Yeah. No, Wuhan. You were in Wuhan?

• 1:14:25Speaker 04

  I think so, yeah. It was not, I love Shanghai. Shanghai is great.

• 1:14:29Bill Maher?

  So you've been to China a lot?

• 1:14:30Speaker 04

  Many times. I've been to Asia probably 30 times.

• 1:14:33Bill Maher?

  Wow.

• 1:14:34Speaker 04

  Because in Asia, I've been going there for 40 years. They like, they think that the people that make the music are as important as the people that sing it. So when I go to Singapore or Malaysia or Thailand or any of these countries, Jakarta, they think I'm as important as Celine or Whitney or Natalie Cole.

• 1:14:53Bill Maher?

  And they don't here?

• 1:14:54Speaker 04

  No.

• 1:14:55Bill Maher?

  I feel like now the producer is the one who, I feel like the people who took the brunt of the change in the music industry were the writers. And now it's the producer.

• 1:15:06Speaker 04

  But the average person, you could say that, but the average person doesn't know any names of any writers.

• 1:15:09Bill Maher?

  No, they don't.

• 1:15:10Speaker 04

  Right?

• 1:15:11Bill Maher?

  I mean, look, I was having a discussion the other day with Canadian star Angeli, very dearest friend of mine. And, you know, she's one that you know.

• 1:15:20Speaker 04

  Angeli?

• 1:15:21Bill Maher?

  Angeli. She had worldwide hits. She's won the Juno in Canada. And now she tells me AI is just taking over this industry. And people will put out a thousand versions of a song, AI, to see which one catches on.

• 1:15:39Speaker 04

  Yeah.

• 1:15:39Bill Maher?

  And people don't care. People don't care.

• 1:15:42Speaker 04

  People don't know.

• 1:15:43Bill Maher?

  You must be, you must be concerned about this.

• 1:15:45Speaker 04

  Well, I'm done. I retired 10 years ago.

• 1:15:48Bill Maher?

  You're not.

• 1:15:49Speaker 04

  I retired.

• 1:15:49Bill Maher?

  Really?

• 1:15:50Speaker 04

  Yeah. I tour with my wife. That's it. I haven't written. I haven't made a record in 10 years.

• 1:15:54Bill Maher?

  And you don't care?

• 1:15:55Speaker 04

  More, 12, I don't care.

• 1:15:56Bill Maher?

  Well, you got out at the right time.

• 1:15:57Speaker 04

  Well, I did.

• 1:15:58Bill Maher?

  The right time.

• 1:15:59Speaker 04

  And, uh, sideboring, I felt like I wanted to be like a good athlete. You know, I don't want to say great because I don't want to call myself great. But great athletes know when it's time to leave. They may, they maybe stick around just for one step too long.

• 1:16:17Bill Maher?

  You're right.

• 1:16:17Speaker 04

  But they don't stick around to the end.

• 1:16:18Bill Maher?

  You're right.

• 1:16:19Speaker 04

  They get the fuck out.

• 1:16:19Bill Maher?

  You're right.

• 1:16:20Speaker 04

  And I got out. I didn't want to be sitting by the phone going.

• 1:16:22Bill Maher?

  That's what Billy Joel did.

• 1:16:23Speaker 04

  Did he get out?

• 1:16:24Bill Maher?

  Billy Joel?

• 1:16:25Speaker 04

  He just tours. He doesn't write.

• 1:16:26Bill Maher?

  He didn't even tour. He goes to.

• 1:16:28Speaker 04

  Nobody, nobody wants to hear a Billy Joel song.

• 1:16:30Bill Maher?

  I do.

• 1:16:30Speaker 04

  No, you don't. Not a new one.

• 1:16:32Bill Maher?

  Yeah, he put out a new one a couple of years ago. It was fantastic. He put, okay, well, I think it fits very well with his catalog.

• 1:16:42Speaker 04

  Yeah, it does. But it wasn't a hit because he's not gonna have a hit.

• 1:16:45Bill Maher?

  Nobody's gonna have a hit at 75.

• 1:16:47Speaker 04

  Right. Well,

• 1:16:48Bill Maher?

  It's just not.

• 1:16:48Speaker 04

  One person did.

• 1:16:49Bill Maher?

  Who?

• 1:16:50Speaker 04

  Hilton John. He's the only one.

• 1:16:52Bill Maher?

  What was the hit?

• 1:16:53Speaker 04

  With Dua Lipa.

• 1:16:54Bill Maher?

  Yes, because it was with Dua Lipa.

• 1:16:56Speaker 04

  I don't care. Everybody else is welcome to do that too, but they didn't.

• 1:16:59Bill Maher?

  Okay.

• 1:17:00Speaker 04

  He's the only one.

• 1:17:01Bill Maher?

  Yes. And if I do a buddy cop movie with Timothy Chalamet, it'll be a hit too. But it won't be because I'm in it. It won't be because I'm the other cop.

• 1:17:11Speaker 04

  I'm just saying.

• 1:17:11Bill Maher?

  I'm too old for this shit, Timothy.

• 1:17:15Speaker 04

  Anyway, I got out, I think, and maybe at the right time.

• 1:17:18Bill Maher?

  Yeah, smart move.

• 1:17:19Speaker 04

  The reason why I like the sound of AI on records, on songs, you know, all the country writers use AI for their demos. You just, it's just madness how great they sound. The reason why is because in my record making, I always wanted, I always tried to be perfect. And I never achieved that. But in my mind, I was always trying to be absolutely perfect. Fix every bass note, fix every drum beat, fix every snare drum, fix every guitar. If there's a mistake, I'm gonna fix it. Because my theory was that you could let any one thing go and it'd still have a good record. But if you let everything go, you're gonna have a shitty record. You're gonna sound like the Stones. And I didn't want to sound like the Stones, you know?

• 1:17:58Bill Maher?

  Stones are great.

• 1:17:59Speaker 04

  Well, they're great for, they're a party band. You know, it's not the kind of music that I want to make. I want perfection.

• 1:18:05Bill Maher?

  That is such a snobby thing to say.

• 1:18:07Speaker 04

  You think so?

• 1:18:08Bill Maher?

  And not even true. There's such great production on so many of their records. For example, you know, You Can't Always Get What You Want?

• 1:18:17Speaker 04

  Yeah.

• 1:18:19Bill Maher?

  They do this.

• 1:18:19Speaker 04

  It's guitar, bass and drums. There's no production.

• 1:18:24Bill Maher?

  You're ridiculous. Like, at the very end of that record, they changed the tempo.

• 1:18:30Speaker 04

  Great.

• 1:18:30Bill Maher?

  Like, the way that, the way Charlie Watts kicks in with this whole different kind of, it just, it just, the way it just, and it's a great record.

• 1:18:38Speaker 04

  Can I rephrase?

• 1:18:39Bill Maher?

  Who cares how many instruments are on it?

• 1:18:41Speaker 04

  Can I rephrase?

• 1:18:42Bill Maher?

  Sorry, it doesn't have a harp?

• 1:18:43Speaker 04

  Can I rephrase?

• 1:18:45Bill Maher?

  Yes, counselor.

• 1:18:46Speaker 04

  I, I want perfection. I always struggled for perfection. The Stones did not. They were a party band. They got into the studio, made great records, but they didn't give a shit if there was mistakes on them.

• 1:18:57Bill Maher?

  And I don't give a shit. Because again, I'm a young man in the 22nd row. I'm not you.

• 1:19:01Speaker 04

  I got it.

• 1:19:02Bill Maher?

  That's where you have to, the Beatles used to like to listen to things on a shitty transistor radio because that's how the people were gonna hear it. Okay, the Stones, yes, they are more raw, which I also like sometimes. I like raw. But also, they're well-produced when they want to be. When they want to be well-produced, they are very well-produced. I mean, those, they had so many 60s hits.

• 1:19:25Speaker 04

  Yeah.

• 1:19:26Bill Maher?

  Like Under My Thumb and Paint It Black. Well, Satisfaction, of course.

• 1:19:30Speaker 04

  Iconic.

• 1:19:31Bill Maher?

  Iconic. But lots of, and some ballads.

• 1:19:35Speaker 04

  But not too many layers of music, right?

• 1:19:36Bill Maher?

  Goodbye Ruby Tuesday, remember that?

• 1:19:38Speaker 04

  Yeah, of course.

• 1:19:39Bill Maher?

  No, actually, Brian Jones, he used to be the one who put those like sounds on a record that we hadn't heard before.

• 1:19:46Speaker 04

  Really?

• 1:19:47Bill Maher?

  Yeah. He was great at that. That's, I mean, listen to some of those records.

• 1:19:50Speaker 04

  But it was no Beach Boys.

• 1:19:51Bill Maher?

  Dandelion. Well, Beach Boys, Beach Boys were a harmony group and they were great too.

• 1:19:56Speaker 04

  Yeah.

• 1:19:57Bill Maher?

  But who do I have more of? Probably the Stones.

• 1:20:01Speaker 04

  And yet you answered Beatles when I said Beatles or Stones.

• 1:20:04Bill Maher?

  Yes, because the Beatles, first of all, they're much more varied. And their catalog is much more complete.

• 1:20:11Speaker 04

  Yeah, immense.

• 1:20:12Bill Maher?

  Immense.

• 1:20:13Speaker 04

  And they did it all in nine years. Nine years from start to finish.

• 1:20:16Bill Maher?

  I mean, do I have everything from their early years? No, some of them are just too basic. Love Me Do, which was the first one that charted, I don't need to hear that ever again.

• 1:20:26Speaker 04

  It's a pretty good song.

• 1:20:27Bill Maher?

  It's not. They wrote it when they were 16. The lyrics are childish. I mean, it has their energy, which you can never replace. It's, you know. But is it a good song? Love, Love Me Do, I Know I Love You. I mean, please.

• 1:20:42Speaker 04

  But not for me to remember it.

• 1:20:43Bill Maher?

  What am I, 10? They have so many better ones. Why would I listen to that? Why would I listen to that when I can listen to I Am The Walrus?

• 1:20:51Speaker 04

  The evolution of the Beatles over nine years is just staggering. See, the Stones didn't progress. The Stones are a party band. They're, the Stones are for a good time. The Beatles are for a long time. I'm sticking to my story.

• 1:21:04Bill Maher?

  I know what you mean, but I think you're shortchanging the Rolling Stones. I mean, I think they had some amazing records.

• 1:21:11Speaker 04

  They did.

• 1:21:11Bill Maher?

  That are not just party records. And again, some Angie is a great ballad. I mean, Dandelion is a great ballad.

• 1:21:20Speaker 04

  Let me try to rephrase one more time, okay? They would have hated me as a record producer. Cause I would have been trying to make them too perfect.

• 1:21:28Bill Maher?

  Well, you would have tried to sober them up.

• 1:21:29Speaker 04

  Yes, well.

• 1:21:30Bill Maher?

  They would, of course, they would have hated you.

• 1:21:32Speaker 04

  Yeah.

• 1:21:33Bill Maher?

  Because first of all, you asked them to show up on time.

• 1:21:37Speaker 04

  Who do you think is the greatest record producer of the last ten years?

• 1:21:41Bill Maher?

  Not sitting here?

• 1:21:42Speaker 04

  Not sit, definitely not me.

• 1:21:43Bill Maher?

  Cause you weren't.

• 1:21:44Speaker 04

  I wasn't making records.

• 1:21:45Bill Maher?

  I mean, I don't know, because I don't follow music that closely in the last ten years.

• 1:21:50Speaker 04

  I'm gonna give you the name, okay?

• 1:21:51Bill Maher?

  Okay.

• 1:21:51Speaker 04

  Undisputed king. Max Martin, ever heard of him?

• 1:21:54Bill Maher?

  Never.

• 1:21:55Speaker 04

  What?

• 1:21:57Bill Maher?

  What has he, what has he done?

• 1:22:00Speaker 04

  All the Backstreet Boys.

• 1:22:02Bill Maher?

  I never, don't know any of their, don't, welcome, don't know any of that stuff.

• 1:22:05Speaker 04

  Katy Perry, Rihanna, uh, Taylor Swift, he, he.

• 1:22:11Bill Maher?

  None of the, none of these artists would I claim I know well. But what I've heard never made me wanna listen to more.

• 1:22:22Speaker 04

  Wow.

• 1:22:23Bill Maher?

  I mean, am I missing something with the Backstreet Boys and NSYNC?

• 1:22:27Speaker 04

  Pretty great records.

• 1:22:28Bill Maher?

  Really?

• 1:22:28Speaker 04

  I think so.

• 1:22:29Bill Maher?

  If you say so, I'll try it.

• 1:22:30Speaker 04

  No, I think so.

• 1:22:31Bill Maher?

  I will, I will try it.

• 1:22:32Speaker 04

  You should look up Max Martin, he's, he's incredible.

• 1:22:36Bill Maher?

  I mean, when I think of record producers, I think of, of course, Phil Spector.

• 1:22:40Speaker 04

  Richard Perry.

• 1:22:41Bill Maher?

  Quincy Jones, Richard Perry.

• 1:22:42Speaker 04

  Right.

• 1:22:43Bill Maher?

  My old friend, Richard Perry.

• 1:22:44Speaker 04

  Yeah, and maybe me.

• 1:22:46Bill Maher?

  And you, and, um.

• 1:22:49Speaker 04

  Who else?

• 1:22:50Bill Maher?

  Also, Georgia Maroder in the eighties.

• 1:22:52Speaker 04

  Yeah.

• 1:22:53Bill Maher?

  Um, I'm sure there are.

• 1:22:55Speaker 04

  Who was the great rock producer?

• 1:22:56Bill Maher?

  Uh, what do you mean, the, the great?

• 1:22:58Speaker 04

  There was a great rock producer that, can't think of his name, well, Rick Rubin. For rock.

• 1:23:07Bill Maher?

  Rick.

• 1:23:07Speaker 04

  Easy boy.

• 1:23:08Bill Maher?

  What?

• 1:23:10Speaker 04

  Have a drink.

• 1:23:12Bill Maher?

  Yeah, I never, never really got on with him, but.

• 1:23:15Speaker 04

  Well, you didn't, you didn't get on with him?

• 1:23:16Bill Maher?

  Well, I mean, who cares? I mean, he's a weird guy. Um, I don't really know him, but.

• 1:23:22Speaker 04

  You can, you can arrive at greatness a bunch of different ways. You can do it my way, where I play everything and I'm in there like with my shirt sleeves up.

• 1:23:28Bill Maher?

  Rick, Rick Rubin is in the category with Clive Davis. Because there are two guys who have no knowledge of music. They just know what they like.

• 1:23:37Speaker 04

  Well, Rick has a knowledge of music.

• 1:23:38Bill Maher?

  No, he doesn't. He actually just, I, I, sorry, unless Sixty Minutes is lying, cause they did the story on him. And he said, he doesn't play an instrument, he doesn't know instruments. He just sits there and knows what he's like, what he likes. You know, he hears it and he's just the young man in the twenty second row. I, that would be me. And that's Clive Davis, he's also not a musician, but sometimes that's an advantage. To be just the fan.

• 1:24:02Speaker 04

  To have those ears.

• 1:24:02Bill Maher?

  Yes, just the fan.

• 1:24:04Speaker 04

  I can't hear music that way.

• 1:24:05Bill Maher?

  No, of course you can't, because you were born with the talent.

• 1:24:08Speaker 04

  Yeah.

• 1:24:09Bill Maher?

  Right.

• 1:24:09Speaker 04

  Yeah.

• 1:24:10Bill Maher?

  And that can be great, and it also can be, um, divorcing you from the regular person.

• 1:24:17Speaker 04

  Yeah. I've always said that the only thing you need to be a great record producer is a great love of music. That's the only thing you need. Yeah, it just so happens that I can get in, I can write for the orchestra, I can play the piano, I can play the bass, I can program the drums, I can do all that shit. You don't need all that, you can hire people to do that, if you have the, the brain to pull it all together.

• 1:24:37Bill Maher?

  So, let me just ask again about AI, because again, I mean, like, I know. Angel Lee has put out like so many amazing records in the last few years. And it's like, if you don't have a record label and you're not AI. How does, it just seems like these AI records are lacking the kind of human connection that we used to look for in music.

• 1:25:04Bill Maher?

  For the whole reason why we were loving music is because it made us feel something as human.

• 1:25:11Speaker 04

  I thought Spotify banned AI music. No?

• 1:25:14Bill Maher?

  What, that, that's not, of course, I could ever answer. Um, no, I, I think, I think it's out there and people don't care. People don't care. Look, I have an AI record, Elvis. They made an AI record of Elvis called Poor Man's Gold.

• 1:25:31Speaker 04

  Yeah, how was it?

• 1:25:32Bill Maher?

  Good.

• 1:25:32Speaker 04

  Yeah, enjoyable. I like Elvis, I'm a huge Elvis fan. Yeah.

• 1:25:37Bill Maher?

  Like, uh, and very much like Sinatra, not the early stuff. But the later stuff, when he was a mature guy and like from, you know, the Suspicious Minds, that era on.

• 1:25:49Speaker 04

  Yeah.

• 1:25:50Bill Maher?

  He did great stuff.

• 1:25:51Speaker 04

  Seventies.

• 1:25:51Bill Maher?

  Yeah, that's when he did Any Day Now.

• 1:25:53Speaker 04

  Yeah.

• 1:25:54Bill Maher?

  Um, and it sounds like a record he would have made. And didn't, or maybe he recorded, maybe it's using a demo, I'm not sure, but it's definitely not him.

• 1:26:05Speaker 04

  Well, I'll tell you something that might surprise you. You ready? You need to sit up for this. No. Um, nine, uh, not nine, eight tenths of all the records that I made.

• 1:26:19Speaker 04

  I made by myself, with no humans. Just me playing the bass, me programming the drums, me playing the string, or somebody else programming for me. Me playing the strings, synth strings, all synthesizer.

• 1:26:30Bill Maher?

  That's how Prince did it.

• 1:26:31Speaker 04

  I mean, that's the precursor to AI.

• 1:26:32Bill Maher?

  That's how Prince did it.

• 1:26:34Speaker 04

  Yeah, well, do, but would you argue that, um, like Unbreak My Heart that I did for Toni Braxton? Does that sound like it had no heart?

• 1:26:42Bill Maher?

  No.

• 1:26:42Speaker 04

  No?

• 1:26:43Bill Maher?

  No.

• 1:26:43Speaker 04

  All confused.

• 1:26:44Bill Maher?

  But it's still you, it's still one human.

• 1:26:46Speaker 04

  It's still one person, you're right.

• 1:26:47Bill Maher?

  It's a human.

• 1:26:47Speaker 04

  Yeah, you're right.

• 1:26:48Bill Maher?

  I'm not saying you have to have a whole bunch of humans.

• 1:26:50Speaker 04

  Yeah, good point.

• 1:26:51Bill Maher?

  McCartney one, nobody else on that record. Nineteen seventy.

• 1:26:55Speaker 04

  Yeah?

• 1:26:55Bill Maher?

  Maybe I'm.

• 1:26:56Speaker 04

  Is that after Wings?

• 1:26:57Bill Maher?

  No, it's the first record after The Beatles.

• 1:27:00Speaker 04

  Okay.

• 1:27:00Bill Maher?

  That was the one.

• 1:27:01Speaker 04

  You mean Ram, Ram was the first record?

• 1:27:03Bill Maher?

  No, no, no, that's the second one. The first one was McCartney.

• 1:27:05Speaker 04

  Got it. What was the hit on it, or was there one?

• 1:27:08Bill Maher?

  Maybe I'm amazed.

• 1:27:08Speaker 04

  Oh, wow. He played the piano, yeah?

• 1:27:11Bill Maher?

  Every, he played everything. He was living in a farm in Scotland and drinking too much.

• 1:27:16Speaker 04

  But he was playing real instruments versus synth.

• 1:27:17Bill Maher?

  Yes. McCartney two, nineteen eighty, nobody else on it.

• 1:27:22Speaker 04

  Ram?

• 1:27:23Bill Maher?

  The Ram, you're obsessed with Ram. Ram is, is the, is the second McCartney solo album.

• 1:27:30Speaker 04

  Well, you said McCartney one and McCartney two.

• 1:27:32Bill Maher?

  McCartney one is, is nineteen seventy, first album after The Beatles. Uh, that's Maybe I'm Amazed. At part McCartney two is when he did it in nineteen eighty, and that has nobody else on it but him either.

• 1:27:44Speaker 04

  Was there a hit on that record?

• 1:27:46Bill Maher?

  Um, press?

• 1:27:48Speaker 04

  Don't know that.

• 1:27:50Speaker 04

  By the way, do you think anybody gives a shit about anything we've talked about today?

• 1:27:53Bill Maher?

  Do I give a shit?

• 1:27:54Speaker 04

  No, do you think anybody else does?

• 1:27:56Bill Maher?

  I, you know what? This show has its own fan base. Like, was it dull? No. It's, if it's, if, if it's people who only have to hear about things they already know about. I've already lost them. That's not who I'm working toward, you know? Um, I thought it was fascinating.

• 1:28:16Speaker 04

  Me too, I loved it.

• 1:28:17Bill Maher?

  Oh, good.

• 1:28:18Speaker 04

  How many drinks did you have?

• 1:28:19Bill Maher?

  Just one.

• 1:28:19Speaker 04

  No, that's not true.

• 1:28:21Bill Maher?

  Okay, two.

• 1:28:21Speaker 04

  No, that's not true either.

• 1:28:23Bill Maher?

  Okay, two and a half.

• 1:28:23Speaker 04

  No, that's not true either.

• 1:28:24Bill Maher?

  It was two and a half, it was.

• 1:28:25Speaker 04

  Was it really?

• 1:28:26Bill Maher?

  Yeah, really.

• 1:28:26Speaker 04

  But they're a lot. I mean, I'm still, you gave me this, I feel this.

• 1:28:30Bill Maher?

  That's why I use this, because I don't wanna have more than, I, I, I've learned that. Cause we're not young.

• 1:28:37Speaker 04

  No, we're not.

• 1:28:37Bill Maher?

  And, and we can't drink like we used to. I mean, you're a young father, right?

• 1:28:43Speaker 04

  Five year old, yeah.

• 1:28:44Bill Maher?

  Five year old.

• 1:28:44Speaker 04

  Five year old, and it's the greatest. I have kids in my forties.

• 1:28:48Bill Maher?

  I say that every day. If I only could have kids, I'd be so happy.

• 1:28:52Speaker 04

  Is that, no, you don't say that.

• 1:28:53Bill Maher?

  I don't say that. But you must think of them when these kind of issues we're talking about coming up, come up.

• 1:29:01Speaker 04

  Of course.

• 1:29:01Bill Maher?

  Like, what is the world going to be like with AI in twenty years? Is it, are you on the page of like, well, people have always said it's gonna be ridiculous in the future, and then it wasn't because things just change? Or are you on the page of, no, this is really dangerous?

• 1:29:18Speaker 04

  Well, I, I can only go by my musical bubble. And just in the music industry, every ten or fifteen years ago, every ten or fifteen years, we hear the trouble's coming. And it's the end of the music business now, from, you know, the thirty-three and a third to the cassette, oh, cassettes are gonna fucking ruin the business. And then it was the CD, and then it was the DAT.

• 1:29:39Bill Maher?

  A track.

• 1:29:40Speaker 04

  Yeah, A track, and, you know, and then it was television, it was MTV.

• 1:29:44Bill Maher?

  Same thing with, same thing with movies.

• 1:29:46Speaker 04

  None of it ruined it, right?

• 1:29:47Bill Maher?

  No.

• 1:29:48Speaker 04

  None of it ruined it, I can't imagine AI will.

• 1:29:50Bill Maher?

  Especially, well, but I'm, I'm, I'm more, more worried about it ruining our lives in, in more fundamental ways, you know? But am I gonna let it upset my life now? No, I don't have any sympathy, or I should I say patience, for people who are so desperate about, oh my God, Bill, what are we gonna do? Trump is president, yeah, I agree, he's, he's not the kind of president I voted for.

• 1:30:18Speaker 04

  Right.

• 1:30:18Bill Maher?

  But you know, how's your life? Let's not pretend your life is terrible either. Let's find a middle ground between reality, and yes, we should be alarmed about a lot of the things that are happening. But somehow, a lot of them didn't. And man, we have good lives in America. I mean, yes, there are problems, there are, we're very lucky in the kind of lives we live.

• 1:30:42Speaker 04

  Yeah.

• 1:30:42Bill Maher?

  But, um.

• 1:30:44Speaker 04

  We have a champagne life, let's be honest.

• 1:30:45Bill Maher?

  We do.

• 1:30:46Speaker 04

  Yeah. You know what I've found about you in the last hour, whatever it is? You're not nearly as cynical as I thought you would be.

• 1:30:53Bill Maher?

  I'm not cynical at all.

• 1:30:54Speaker 04

  No.

• 1:30:55Bill Maher?

  No.

• 1:30:56Speaker 04

  I don't even know where I got that impression from, cause you're not.

• 1:31:00Bill Maher?

  Well, it's what I said about Mchale's Navy.

• 1:31:04Speaker 04

  Who was the other guy? Ernest and Tim, who was the third guy with the?

• 1:31:08Bill Maher?

  Oh.

• 1:31:09Speaker 04

  The blonde.

• 1:31:10Bill Maher?

  Oh, that was, uh.

• 1:31:13Speaker 04

  Darren McGavin? No.

• 1:31:14Bill Maher?

  No.

• 1:31:15Speaker 04

  No.

• 1:31:15Bill Maher?

  That was the Love Boat.

• 1:31:18Speaker 04

  No, that's Gavin MacLeod.

• 1:31:19Bill Maher?

  Gavin MacLeod. No, you're thinking of Gruber.

• 1:31:23Speaker 04

  No, not Gruber, that's Mayberry.

• 1:31:26Bill Maher?

  No, no, no, Gruber was like the, uh, shyster in the.

• 1:31:29Speaker 04

  The Ensign?

• 1:31:30Bill Maher?

  Crew, but he wasn't the main part. The other guy, the guy who was brilliant was, uh, Joe Flynn as Captain.

• 1:31:36Speaker 04

  Joe Flynn as the captain?

• 1:31:37Bill Maher?

  Captain Mingham.

• 1:31:37Speaker 04

  With the glasses?

• 1:31:38Bill Maher?

  Yes.

• 1:31:39Speaker 04

  Yeah.

• 1:31:39Bill Maher?

  And Carpenter, the askisser.

• 1:31:41Speaker 04

  Yeah, oh, yeah.

• 1:31:42Bill Maher?

  It was just, uh. I don't take back.

• 1:31:45Speaker 04

  Do you ever, do you ever watch, uh, Me Too TV?

• 1:31:48Bill Maher?

  Me Too TV?

• 1:31:49Speaker 04

  I think it's called Me Too TV, yeah. It reruns all those shows.

• 1:31:53Bill Maher?

  What a name.

• 1:31:54Speaker 04

  Love Boat and Gilligan's Island.

• 1:31:55Bill Maher?

  Me Too, like the name?

• 1:31:58Speaker 04

  Or MeTV.

• 1:31:59Bill Maher?

  Me.

• 1:32:02Speaker 04

  It's called MeTV.

• 1:32:03Bill Maher?

  Anyway, I've kept you long enough.

• 1:32:05Speaker 04

  I love this.

• 1:32:06Bill Maher?

  I couldn't tell you how much I enjoyed this. Yeah, yeah. I hope this is not the last time I see you.

• 1:32:12Speaker 04

  Either night, I, I meant to talk about my wife and my kids more, but no, but we'll do it. No, next time. I mean, Kat, as you know, is amazing.

• 1:32:19Bill Maher?

  Amazing.

• 1:32:20Speaker 04

  All my daughters are, are amazing. Um, um, uh, Allison, Amy, Sarah, Erin, and Jordan. And the thing that I would say, you're not a father, so, um, forgive me for pulling you into this conversation, but I've talked to so many parents about this. The goal is to get your kids off the payroll. That's the goal, and all mine are.

• 1:32:45Bill Maher?

  Off the pole?

• 1:32:45Speaker 04

  Off the payroll.

• 1:32:46Bill Maher?

  Off the payroll? I thought, I thought you said off the pole.

• 1:32:50Speaker 04

  Well, that's.

• 1:32:50Bill Maher?

  I mean, that is definitely what you want to do.

• 1:32:53Speaker 04

  Yeah, no, I mean, and you've, you've touched on, uh, some of my kids and what they're doing. And they're all off the payroll, and it's really a great feeling, but you have.

• 1:33:00Bill Maher?

  You have famous kids, right? Aren't your kids?

• 1:33:02Speaker 04

  They're doing pretty well.

• 1:33:03Bill Maher?

  The model, the.

• 1:33:04Speaker 04

  Oh, well, that's stepkids, yes. Gigi and Bella.

• 1:33:06Bill Maher?

  It'd be.

• 1:33:07Speaker 04

  They did well. And Brandon and Brody Jenner.

• 1:33:10Bill Maher?

  And Brandy, I mean, yes, it's amazing the way you, you sort of transverse so many different cultures. You know, there's the serious music culture, and then there's the pop culture.

• 1:33:20Speaker 04

  Yeah.

• 1:33:20Bill Maher?

  And, you know, uh, I, I think you were married to Carrie Fisher. I'm sure that's not right, but some, somebody.

• 1:33:29Speaker 04

  You're thinking of the Elvis girl, Linda Thompson.

• 1:33:30Bill Maher?

  Elvis girl. Oh, look at that.

• 1:33:32Speaker 04

  That's a whole show.

• 1:33:33Bill Maher?

  Oh.

• 1:33:34Speaker 04

  Sometime.

• 1:33:35Bill Maher?

  Ah.

• 1:33:35Speaker 04

  Later.

• 1:33:36Bill Maher?

  She was hot.

• 1:33:37Speaker 04

  Hmm.

• 1:33:38Bill Maher?

  Miss Tennessee, was she not? When Elvis met her?

• 1:33:41Speaker 04

  Well.

• 1:33:42Bill Maher?

  It was so perfect. Elvis and Miss Tennessee.

• 1:33:45Speaker 04

  Perfect.

• 1:33:46Bill Maher?

  Yeah.

• 1:33:46Speaker 04

  I had to hear about it, the whole marriage. Every, every, you know, come January 10th or 11th, I'd come downstairs and there'd be a whole fucking TV crew in my living room, it was like.

• 1:33:57Bill Maher?

  Okay.

• 1:33:57Speaker 04

  There she be.

• 1:33:58Bill Maher?

  The date is January 8th.

• 1:33:59Speaker 04

  Or whatever. January.

• 1:34:01Bill Maher?

  January 8th is Elvis's birthday.

• 1:34:03Speaker 04

  Get these people out of my house.

• 1:34:04Bill Maher?

  January 8th, 1935, to August 16th, 1977. That's Elvis's life. Get it right. Okay, don't let your bitterness get in the way of my, cause Elvis, I mean, people wonder why I love Elvis so much.

• 1:34:20Speaker 04

  Yeah, I wonder too.

• 1:34:21Bill Maher?

  It's just, seriously?

• 1:34:23Speaker 04

  Yeah. I mean, I kind of get it now that he's, was pretty great, but.

• 1:34:28Bill Maher?

  Really?

• 1:34:29Speaker 04

  Yeah.

• 1:34:30Bill Maher?

  Well, first of all, just the voice. The, I mean, I love the voice as much as any voice ever. I love Streisand, I mean, I love, um, Linda Ronstadt. I love Natalie Maines. I mean, there's some amazing, Celine Dion. Some amazing voices. I just love the John Lennon, when he's like, you know, Twist and Shout.

• 1:34:49Speaker 04

  Did you love Whitney?

• 1:34:51Bill Maher?

  Yes, but the records, not as much as others. I like them, but, you know, I mean, you're a big one, you know, I will always love you.

• 1:34:58Speaker 04

  How about Natalie Cole?

• 1:35:00Bill Maher?

  Yeah.

• 1:35:00Speaker 04

  Yeah.

• 1:35:01Bill Maher?

  Yeah, Natalie Cole, you did Hearst, you did.

• 1:35:04Speaker 04

  Well, I did The Unforgettable.

• 1:35:05Bill Maher?

  Unforgettable, huge hit.

• 1:35:06Speaker 04

  Which is a great turnaround in your career.

• 1:35:09Bill Maher?

  But Elvis, I mean, that period from when he returned from the movies, and he did Suspicious Minds, and he did From Memphis to Vegas, and all the songs on, on there. And one of the songs I sang at my birthday party, people don't know it, called How the Web Was Woven. You should look it up, it's a great song. A lot of great songs on that album. He's, he's svelte, he's in the jumpsuit now, but he's not fat yet. And he's singing songs like Suspicious Minds.

• 1:35:36Speaker 04

  Daddy's Girl, did it, was that song in there?

• 1:35:38Bill Maher?

  Uh, Don't Cry Daddy.

• 1:35:40Speaker 04

  Which I did with him and his daughter.

• 1:35:43Bill Maher?

  Yes, great, great singles, Don't Cry Daddy, uh, In the Ghetto.

• 1:35:47Speaker 04

  The Ghetto is a great song. Written by?

• 1:35:50Bill Maher?

  Mac David?

• 1:35:51Speaker 04

  Yes, sir. Good, man, I'm impressed. Wow.

• 1:35:56Bill Maher?

  But Elvis, I mean, the, the, the hits that came out of that era, The Wonder of You, is that a terrible song?

• 1:36:02Speaker 04

  Who's that? Him?

• 1:36:03Bill Maher?

  Him.

• 1:36:04Speaker 04

  Is that Elvis? I don't know that song.

• 1:36:06Bill Maher?

  You Don't Have To Say You Love Me?

• 1:36:08Speaker 04

  He did My Way Too, right? Cover.

• 1:36:10Bill Maher?

  Yeah, but that's, that was later.

• 1:36:13Speaker 04

  That was fat Elvis.

• 1:36:13Bill Maher?

  That wasn't.

• 1:36:15Speaker 04

  Right?

• 1:36:15Bill Maher?

  Yeah, but, I mean, he, he put out so many great records in that era. Uh, I could turn you on to some of them, and I'd love to.

• 1:36:24Speaker 04

  Okay, great.

• 1:36:25Bill Maher?

  How about that?

• 1:36:26Speaker 04

  That would be awesome.

• 1:36:26Bill Maher?

  Okay.

• 1:36:27Speaker 04

  And I'll finish up by saying, uh, thanks to my wife, Kat. She is a great singer, who came here to support me.

• 1:36:33Bill Maher?

  Oh.

• 1:36:33Speaker 04

  Along with Kim, and, uh, it was really nice, cause it's a long fucking way away from my house.

• 1:36:37Bill Maher?

  All right, it is, I'm sorry, all right.

• 1:36:39Speaker 04

  Thanks, Bill.

• 1:36:40Bill Maher?

  I'll come, I'll meet you halfway next time.

• 1:36:41Speaker 04

  Okay.

• 1:36:42Bill Maher?

  All right.

• 1:36:43Speaker 04

  Um, do I sit, I'm gonna sit here and you walk out like the king.

• 1:36:45Bill Maher?

  No, no, no, we're gonna take a picture.

• 1:36:46Speaker 04

  Oh, we are?

• 1:36:47Bill Maher?

  This, this is podcasting, there's no rules.

• 1:36:55Speaker 04

  How are you gonna take a picture? There's nobody in this room.

• 1:36:57Bill Maher?

  Nah, somebody will come out.

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