Speaker He was he was gaining quite a reputation at that time, especially in the singer songwriter community in Los Angeles. And I’d never heard of him, really. I was just a country kid from a small town in Texas. So I’d never heard of him. I mean, I certainly knew who Crosby, Stills and Nash were and I knew who Laura Nyro was and Joni Mitchell and all the people that he was involved with.

Speaker But I didn’t know that. I didn’t know who he was. But. I guess I first heard about him through Glen Frye when Glen and I went on the road with Linda Ronstadt in the spring of 1971. I’d I’d signed on as a drummer and Glen had signed on as a guitar player. So he started Glenn started talking about the fact that he wanted to put a band together and that there was this guy named David Geffen who was responsible for all these very successful artists and that he had signed Jackson Browne and he had signed. I believe, Jay DSR at the time and Joni Mitchell. And then he was the guy behind the Crosby, Stills, Nash and Young and on and on and on.

Speaker And the list went on and on. You know, and Glenn said, we, you know, I need to put a band together.

Speaker And I think that this guy might sign us, you know, and he’s he’s going to start a record company of his own. And I said, okay, sounds good to me. And then I met Jackson Browne, and I think Jackson had talked about David to some degree. I don’t remember when I met him exactly. It was sometime during. The summer. Maybe a late summer of nineteen seventy one. We eventually did put together a band. You know, Glenn recruited me first and then we went and got Bernie leadin and then we got Randy Meisner. And I remember going to David’s office. I think it was maybe in September. Of 1971, and we sort of marched into his office. Bernie Leadon being the.

Speaker Sort of the most experienced and most hardened and experienced of us all in the music business went when we all sat down and Bernie put his feet up on the table and in front of David’s desk and said, well, here we are. Do you want us or don’t you?

Speaker And David said. Well, yes, as a matter of fact. I’ll give you a record deal. So. You know, I saw him on and off after that.

Speaker Yeah, I’d heard I’d heard the stories, I heard the legends about his his spiel about the record company he was going to start called asylum records and how it was going to be. The name was because it was going to be a sanctuary for artists where they would would not be mistreated and they would be nurtured and taken care of so that they could develop their art and their craft. And, of course, the famous story about the SONA.

Speaker Tell me about this. Well, I wasn’t there. Nobody seems I wasn’t there. I’m not.

Speaker It could be. And which is fine. But a few stories. Well, he he gathered several the guys were up at his house for a meeting or a chit chat or something to talk about the future and and talk about various careers in any way to tell them about this label he was starting. So his his.

Speaker Metaphore or his. His example of how he was going to keep the record company small and personal. He said, I’ll never sign more artists than I can fit into my SONA. Which, of course, didn’t quite turn out to be the case. But it was a legendary story, especially after the label grew and grew and grew and more and more people became signed to the label. Quite a few more than would actually fit in to this sonna told you that? I really know how big the Sona was. I never saw the Sona.

Speaker Oh, terrible. But.

Speaker But. But the guys all used to joke about it, you know, it was it was a joke. Every time we get mad at David, we would bring that up. You know, where somebody would say, oh, I’m never going to sign more people and I can finish the sauna. So that was sister. A joke that went around for years.

Speaker My sense is that David really meant that when he said, do you think?

Speaker Yeah. I would probably agree with it here. I think he meant a lot of things when he said them. You know, we all say things that don’t quite well make promises we can’t keep.

Speaker Let’s put it that way. You think he was naive about his his dreams, about how hard it is going to have a very different kind of difficulty? Well, I would like to think so.

Speaker I would I would wouldn’t want to think that it was all calculated and manipulative. I think we were all naive. You know, he was just starting out and we were just starting out. So, yeah, I would I would tend to give him the benefit of the doubt on that and say that he meant what he said at the time, but it just didn’t quite turn out that way.

Speaker Did he do a good job running this record company?

Speaker Well, that’s all relative, isn’t it? I mean, according to what perspective?

Speaker In terms of how it went for him, yeah. He did a great job. You know, he he that was a springboard for him. To catapult himself to the very pinnacle of the music business crap.

Speaker Because we did it anyway.

Speaker My mouth is dry. Yes, it is. I’ve been talking all day.

Speaker I’m so sorry I’ve missed Alex. I really thought I was getting on time.

Speaker Oh, you barely you just barely missed him.

Speaker I just talked to. Okay.

Speaker Where they shut off now. OK, let’s just back up slightly and re ask that question. Well, I mean.

Speaker My. Everybody on the label did pretty well. So he was right there. Let’s talk about what what David’s qualities as a record executive and as a manager were. Okay.

Speaker Well, yeah, I mean, he.

Speaker First of all, I think that Ahmed Ertegun was a mentor to him. He had the whole Warner Atlantic Electra machine behind him. And I think that. Mel Loston was probably a mentor, but no, David did a very good job, our first album was a raging success. We had three hit singles on the album. Of course, the success of any record is not due to any one person. You know, there are dozens and dozens of people involved in the success of a record. But in terms of what he did, he did something right because it was a very successful album here.

Speaker I mean, there’s an interview with him back in the day where he says the way it should be, it is a success of your label. He said, my artists are all great talents. Right. They said, oh, is that it? He said, Don’t you think that’s enough? I mean, it’s yeah, it’s a very interesting interview. I mean, he really I get the sense from all of this talking to him that he really believed in all of a great deal. He was he believed in new talent. Yeah. Wanted to do something that was different than the other.

Speaker Yeah, I think that’s true. Yeah. No, he was very, very astute when it came to two. Seeing and hearing talent, particularly in terms of songwriters and people who work for lack of a better term, the singer songwriter, Category eight, eight boxes and categories. But that’s what that’s what rean. So he gravitated toward that. And he was good at talking to people and giving maybe making people feel important and making them feel comfortable. You could also be very frank in David. David is a walking contradiction. You know, there’s part of him that’s very generous and very loving and very nurturing. And then there’s a part that’s sort of antithetical to that. And I we we also both those those sides of him with the antithetical. He could be he can be vindictive. He can be very critical, mean. I mean, we all have those qualities, you know.

Speaker How do they manifest themselves in terms of your interaction with him? I’m not trying to get anything nasty. I’m just, you know, just how how did it manifest?

Speaker Well, I mean, some of the things are too picky to talk about, you know, in the larger picture.

Speaker Well, let’s put it this way.

Speaker On the one hand, he gave us a big break, you know, by signing us to that label and and it helped certainly played a huge role in launching our career at the same time. We felt eventually we came to feel that we were had been taken advantage of for reasons that I’m sure Glenn enumerated to you, having to do with some conflicts of interest that arose, having to do with management and and record companies and publishing and things of that nature and all those things eventually got sorted out. But.

Speaker Was that unusual? Well, that goes back to the question of what what are industry standards, you know, industry standards or whatever anybody says they are at a given moment. You know that there aren’t really you know, David lives in his own moral universe where he is the sole arbiter of right and wrong in what’s fair and what’s not fair. And you can’t argue with him.

Speaker You just can’t. So.

Speaker Given the fact that some of what he did was against the California labor law because it was unethical and I’m not sure, again, going back to what you said earlier, I’m not sure that he would. He even knew that, you know, I’m not sure he got the proper legal advice that anybody told him that he couldn’t be our manager and our record company president at the same time. And we couldn’t have the same business managers and accountants that he had.

Speaker You know, I mean, you just can’t do that. And, you know, and he took half the publishing publisher’s share of our music. And Glenn and I have always been of the belief that an artist should own his own publishing. But David was hedging his bets. I think, you know, he wanted something. Of course, if we had failed, our publishing would have been worth anything anyway. And then he eventually sold that to Warner, has his share to Warner, and we had to.

Speaker Threatened litigation to get it back because that wasn’t kosher, so there were those kinds of things. And.

Speaker You know, it’s all water under the bridge now. And we were naive. We were stupid. You know, we didn’t. We didn’t. We’d put a contract in France and say, here, take this to a lawyer. So I think we had some bad lawyering back then. I don’t think we had the best representation.

Speaker So part of the part of the problem was our own fault because we were naive and and stupid. But we got smart pretty fast. We wised up pretty quickly, learned a lot of lessons the hard way and. You know, then as things went along, the first down was a success and everybody was happy. And then the company started to expand. You know, he started signing more artists and more and more. You know, new people and we we felt that we got shoved to the back burner. You know, we weren’t in the top tier of artists at that asylum or at the management company, you know. Well, Crosby, Stills Nash and Neil Young and Joni Mitchell and Jackson Browne, of course, who. Who was David’s favorite fact? He. Well, I’ll get to this in a little while. And so and then America came along and he signed them and they were getting a lot of attention. And we we sort of felt like the. The red headed stepchild, you know, at the company. And then we went in and made our big concept album called Desperado, which was not a commercial success. And thank you. The song Desperado, interestingly enough, was not a hit for us. Linda Ronstadt helped to popularize it. And now it’s one of the biggest songs in our set. But back when the album came out, it was it was nothing in the album didn’t yield any any of the critical hit singles that are necessary.

Speaker The record companies make their bread and butter on, you know. So I think that was another reason we got. They said, OK, these wackos are gonna make it a bunch of cowboy songs. And, you know, and, you know, still, you know, we had some support.

Speaker How did they feel?

Speaker Yeah, I don’t remember. With his. I don’t remember. I really don’t.

Speaker I do remember that we had fewer and fewer talks with David. I mean, there was a time when Glenn, he would call up Glenn and I and we would go and have breakfast with them and do parties in the valley and we would discuss the future. But as time went on, he would sort of shuffle us off more, too, if he didn’t want to talk to us. We became a pain in the ass. Right. So if he did want to talk to us, you either send us to Elliot, who would just tell us whatever we want to hear and go smoke a joint, you know, or we would go and John Hartman would be our our caretaker. So we had less and less contact with David. I mean, he was getting fed up with the whole thing, I think. I mean, he would complain about all the artist, you know, about how he hated dealing with with all of us. And so eventually. Yeah. Yeah, he was. Oh, just the usual. You know, this is his favorite word was ungrateful, you know, ingrate. You know, we were all ingrates and maybe we were. I don’t know.

Speaker But he did say this with a laugh.

Speaker No, he didn’t. So I think he was you know, managing artists is a painful job because most of us are crazy.

Speaker You know, we’re we’re difficult. We’re temperamental. Not me, of course. But I think it became very difficult for him and, you know, the Joni Mitchell famous song Free Man in Paris when those lines about I was a free man in Paris. I felt unfettered and alive. There was nobody calling me up for favors. No one’s future to decide. That’s about David. And I think he got tired of the responsibility and the burden of all the complaining that was going on and trying to make everybody happy. And I understand that more now than I did then. You know, there’s a lot of water under the bridge. But when we raise the conflict of interest issue, everything changed.

Speaker A short time before that, he had hired some other people to come and work for him. He’d hired Irving Azoff to handle the touring part of the business, and he’d brought in John Hartmann and a couple other people. And he was he was stepping back, you know, taking playing a lesser role in the everyday operation of dealing with all this. And so when we raised the conflict of interest issue.

Speaker Things started changing. The next day, we had a business meeting with Jerry Rubenstein, who was David’s business manager. And unfortunately, our business manager as well. And we had a list of questions that we had compiled. We’d been talking to some veterans of the music industry and we compiled a list of questions about our deal and how things worked. And we sat down to Jerry Rubenstein’s office and we asked those questions, Jerry Rubinstein. And he sort of, you know.

Speaker Glossed his way through it as best he could, and as soon as we left his office, he picked up the phone and called David and he said, you’ve got some problems here. These guys have just been in my office and they’re asking very pointed questions. You got some problems. So the next day at the management company, suddenly the management company was being dissolved. You know, people were being thrown out the window. And, you know, Neil and Joni were going with Elliott. And John Hartman was taking this artist and that artist since certain people were going here and there. And we were sort of left in limbo. And we had some talks with John Hartman and he wanted us to go with him. And we were about to do that. And we were out on the road on tour.

Speaker And we got a call from Irving Azoff saying, Joe Walsh and I are coming to see you in Springfield, Missouri. So they came out and actually we met with him. We drove from Springfield to Kansas City and we sat in a hotel room with Irving who convinced us why we should let him be our manager. And we ended up going with him, which was the best thing we ever did.

Speaker So David supported.

Speaker I think so. I don’t really recall. I don’t I don’t remember what he what he had to say about that, if anything. We didn’t have much contact with him after that.

Speaker But we sort of blew up the company. You know, I think you were right.

Speaker I mean, it does seem. Well, yeah. Yeah, it’s a monopoly situation.

Speaker Well, yeah, I would you there were just too many conflicts of interest there.

Speaker I do think when that was pointed out, they kind of saw that. And he said, yeah, well, yeah, he did.

Speaker I mean, like I said, the next day they started dissolving the company and breaking up the management company and room and separating it from the rest. His involvement with it, you know.

Speaker And then not too long after that asylum was melded into the Elektra label. So did that affect.

Speaker I’m just curious from watching it. His relationship with Elliott, because, again, all of a sudden, he and Elliott weren’t like managers together and they were on opposite sides. Yes.

Speaker Did that change anything in terms of their relationship with one another? Yeah. I don’t really know. I think I think they were loyal, too. I mean, they grew up together. They knew each other since they were kids. And, you know, I just Elliot Elliot at that point assumed more of a managerial role. And David just got completely out of that. I think, you know, somewhat some of this is hazy for me. I don’t remember a lot of the details from from that time.

Speaker Mean memories of just hanging around the asylum offices.

Speaker Oh, yeah. Because the secretaries were all beautiful. We hung around there a lot. The girls who worked there.

Speaker We were bad boys. Describe the atmosphere.

Speaker It was great. You know, it gave you a sense of belonging. You know, we go and sit in. Neal would be in there sometimes. A Neal, of course, was our hero. And, you know, we’d we’d go in and they’d be playing some new songs that Neil wrote and we’d sit there and listen to those songs and, you know, we’d see Graham Nash and people down there. It was a great place to hang out and flirt with secretaries and try to get them to go out with us.

Speaker Did you play any lessons? Did you play your stuff them?

Speaker We probably did sometimes. I mean, we probably played songs for other people. David Blue, who is another artist signed to to that organization, used it really as his office. There was a piano. They had a room with an old upright piano in it. And Blue would just go in there and stay, you know, hit. He would sort of live there and write. He wrote it. He wrote songs in the office. You know, it felt like a very safe, nurturing place, you know? And Elliott was always hilarious. You know, Elliot’s a very funny guy. And so it was a fun place to hang out. And he was right there on Sunset Boulevard, sort of right in the heart of everything that was going on.

Speaker And it was a beautiful old building that was built, I guess, in the 1920s, you know, a very, very architecturally beautiful building. So, you know, back then. Well, I think David owned it. Oh, you got other rights. I hope he was upstairs. I think David bought it eventually. But yeah, bless his heart, hogy was upstairs and we were there were big stereo systems, stereophonic Hi-Fi systems in the offices.

Speaker And we’d play music really loud, you know, and he would bang on them on the floor. We drove him crazy and we’d go, who sat up there?

Speaker And and David and Elliott, he Carmichael is some grumpy old songwriter guy. And I think in light of this, the guy that wrote Stardust for Christ sake, you know, I listened to him in my childhood, buddy.

Speaker He did bless his heart. He was he was a cranky old man in his later years. And who can blame me? Music was changing. His style of music was was gone. I regret one of my big regrets is that I never went out and tried to visit with him and talk to him, you know, but I was just a punk. I didn’t I mean, I knew who he was and I knew what he’d written, but somehow I didn’t. I was I guess I was afraid to I was afraid that he was so cranky and he hated Alice Longhair’s so much that you might have thrown me out of my ear, you know, but I wish now that that I had at least attempted to go up and talk to him.

Speaker We don’t. We the ignorance of you.

Speaker Yeah. Oh, yeah. And we we had it. We were we were full of it. So despite all the conflict, those were great days. You know, there were heady days and, you know, hanging out the office was fun again. There were all these beautiful girls that worked there.

Speaker And I’m sure you’ve heard the famous Jackson Browne story about his tape getting thrown in the wastebasket and Leslie Morris picking it up and handing it to Dave and saying thank you. But listen to this again. So while David had good taste, you know, sometimes he had a little help from other other quarters, you know, I think I think he relied.

Speaker A lot of his artists, I know that he after once he signed Jackson, I know that he valued Jackson’s opinion greatly. And Jackson, I think, is one of the reasons we got signed, know Jackson paved the way for for a lot of us.

Speaker He’s an unofficial guy. Yeah.

Speaker Yeah. Because he was he wasn’t the first person signed, but he was the first person of our generation of our particular group, you know, and then Jay DSF got signed and then, you know, and then Doheny and then we got signed maybe Dr. Nedd for this film. Now will he talk to you? Yeah.

Speaker You’re gonna talk to him? I don’t know. Oh. I’m pretty far along at this point. Okay. You want some colorful comments?

Speaker You know what we can say? I think he would like to do it. Is that okay with David? I don’t know. Okay. All right.

Speaker Yeah. You should talk to Ned. You really should talk to Ned.

Speaker I mean, I let him know who we’re dealing. And sometimes he says, I don’t think you get anything out of that. He has never said, I don’t want you to talk to someone. Right. Okay.

Speaker Yeah. Anyway, so we went we marched into his office that day and he he gave us a deal. And he said he and Eliot said, we’re gonna give you living expenses.

Speaker I think they gave us 200 bucks a week. And we somehow we lived on that lillie’s easier back then. And then they said, you know, you’re not ready yet as a band to record, you need to go in and woodshed somewhere.

Speaker So they packed us off to various clubs, mostly in Colorado. We played in Boulder. We played in Aspen at a place called the gallery. You know, all this. And, you know, we were still. Trying to find our way as songwriters, we didn’t really have a lot of original material at the time. And they I think he Baoshan period was an incubation period. Yeah. And to his credit, you know, they they supported us through that time and tried to make sure we were ready. You know that. I don’t know. I’m not really that involved in the business these days, but I don’t know where companies do that anymore for artists. I don’t think they do. But he did that. You know, he he he supported us. And they they made sure that we were red. And he was also very instrumental in getting our superstar producer, Glyn Johns, to produce, who produced our first album and two songs on the third album before we bailed. And they packed us off to England for several reasons.

Speaker A Glyn Johns didn’t want a record in the States. He went to do it in the studio there, the famous studio that he was used to working in, and it was cheaper to record over there. And I think they went to get us away from all the girls in the recreational activities here in Los Angeles. So we were very isolated over there. We did everything else to do except write and record. So he he did that, you know, and I give him a lot of credit for that. He and Elliott also championed me as a singer once they came to rehearsals and and heard me sing, because on the first album, I only had one song that I was singing, and they they phoned up Glyn Johns and said, you know, this guy’s got to sing more than one song. You’ve got to find another song. So we ended up recording a Jackson Browne song called Nightingale. And either Elliot or David is probably Elliott because it sounds like something Elliott would do. Gave me the nickname Golden Throat, you know, which I hated. But they they recognized that I could sing and started to champion it. So, you know, I’m grateful for that, too.

Speaker You know, I never ask anybody this question because it just occurred to me just this moment. So when David started, his silence was completely paid for by Warner. Right. Yeah.

Speaker None of these other guys. David was really. David was very good at not spending his own money.

Speaker Playing did the same thing. They ran record companies. They weren’t also managers.

Speaker And also, you know. Oh, well, I don’t that publicity.

Speaker But because I think record companies, they they did that. Didn’t think there was anything odd about this. I mean, I, I was for something occurred to me. Well, you know, I would say I’ve never asked David point blank whether he thought there was anything odd about it or not. I mean, I would like to think that he just didn’t know any better, you know?

Speaker But I don’t know. I still don’t know to this day. The other thing that that was wrong about it and that turned into a legal issue was he made the record deal was contingent upon him getting half of our publisher’s share of the music. You know, this deal with you.

Speaker I’m sorry to deal with, you know, the Eagles. Yeah, yeah, yeah. And, you know, he started out with Laura. Yeah, that was right. But my understanding is that that was not unusual.

Speaker It may not have been and it probably wasn’t.

Speaker But we in our in our moral universe, we considered that wrong, especially if he was the manager and the record company, too. That was enough of the pie, you know. And he ended up getting Jackson when he sold the publishing company to Warners. He ended up getting Jackson’s publishing back for him.

Speaker Why do you think he did that again? Well, Jackson was his favorite son. You know, there was a there was a partiality there. Pity that he had. But he didn’t make any attempt to get ours back for us. And that was a real thorn in our side. And that was part of the lawsuit that ensued.

Speaker Well, I think you guys really led the way to a very new way of business being done in the music business. I mean, you know, artists copyrights.

Speaker I believe that, too. I mean, Irving Azoff was a big part of that. Yeah. I mean, what what the average person on the street doesn’t understand is that we create the music and we pay. You know, they think, well, the record company pays for making the album. Well, yeah, they front the money, but we pay them back. You know, they take every penny back out of your royalties before you see a dime usually. Now, of course, if you’re a flop than the record company loses. I mean, it’s a gamble on their part. And I understand that. And I know. But they are always hedging their bets. You know, they’ve they’ve got a lot of safety nets built in. And, you know, they can write these things off. They they do what I call creative accounting in the record business. And it is very creative, which is why we have to audit. You know, you have to audit all the time to get what’s coming to you, record contracts. At least in the 70s were these arcane documents with all these clauses that were leftover from early days about breakage and free goods and all these all these ways that record companies could hold money in the pipeline and keep from paying the artist.

Speaker He was very creative and very clever. And some of those clauses stayed in contracts up into probably the 80s, maybe even into the 90s about breakage. And if you’ve ever tried to break a C.D. but, you know, the breakage clause was a holdover, was a vestigial thing from the days that 17h would shatter if you dropped him on the floor. And a lot of them were broken in the process of of shipping and marketing and everything like that. And those kind of things stayed in record contracts long after they were relevant as a way for record companies to hold more money back and keep it, you know, instead of paying it to the artist.

Speaker So it’s an interesting business.

Speaker The record business, I guess there was the other side of of somebody is paying people for maybe not very much money, but supporting their development, you know, nurturing them, having let them have this incubation period, you know, develop their skills so that they can eventually make a hit record.

Speaker Yeah. And it’s it’s all speculative. You know, they they didn’t know whether we were going to be a success or not, especially if the Desperado album, you know, I’ll grant you that, you know. But at the same time, you know, we just had very different viewpoints about what fair was, you know, and and and still do probably.

Speaker Were you. Were you blindsided by the sale?

Speaker Yeah, that was another big disappointment that alienated us even more. We just woke up one morning and read about it in the paper. There was no phone call. There was no warning. There was no you know, after all this talk about how much he cared about artists and how he was nurturing their careers and this and the other to be sold like a commodity like like pork bellies and soybeans. You know, didn’t sit well with us. You know, suddenly we’re working for somebody else and we’re a completely different company with different people. And it was a big shock for us. It it it really raised our cynicism level a great deal.

Speaker How did it affect you actually as a BAMS with the way you’ve been handled differently or not handled well at that point?

Speaker I see. When was that? That was in seventy seventy one.

Speaker Yeah. Right. Right. Right. That was just shocking to me. Yeah. Yeah.

Speaker It was shocking to us. We went wow. So it’s just business after all, you know, just that’s all it is. You know, it’s about getting up the ladder. It’s not about art or music or caring about artists. It’s just it’s just a stepping stone in this guy’s climb up the ladder.

Speaker I don’t think that it was. I actually don’t think it was that calculated. I think, David, I think David’s always had a good heart. Great.

Speaker Well, yeah, he’s obviously make money. Yeah. All right. He says, in my view, one of my many interviews with him, he said, you know, was there a hundred and fifty 24/7 doing everything I could for these artists? And then when I was looking out for me.

Speaker Well, never. When I began to think about me, you know, I realized it was something I didn’t want doing. I mean, I think it was my sense of there was a certain disillusion. You thought it would be more for me. So we all thought it was going to be more fun. You know, I think it’s something to be more of a gap. It was it was said to be the daddy.

Speaker Yeah, well, yeah, that’s that’s what the business. That’s what it is, you know. But again, he he passed that off to a lot of other people. He delegated those responsibilities to people under him. But yeah, we all thought it was gonna be more fun. But let’s be honest, David was always looking out for David, you know, always.

Speaker And, you know, I mean, that’s fine. You know, the selling, it was okay. But but the fact that there was no warning, no phone call. No, no. Dinner or lunch and said, you guys, you know, I’m tired. I’ve had enough. I just can’t do this anymore. You know, that would that would have really helped to ease the blow a great deal. But there was none of that. Why do you think that was that?

Speaker I don’t know. Maybe you just couldn’t bring himself to do it. He didn’t want to face the wrath or the disappointment or. Or whatever. But it would certainly have gone a long way to to easing the disappointment, disillusionment, disillusionment that we felt about. About that happening. You know, I know I can I can certainly understand his point of view that of being tired of it all, you know? I get tired of it every day at some point. But I just think it could have been done in a much more graceful, gracious manner. And, you know.

Speaker We could have all moved on, but then we cut to tonight is always forgiving.

Speaker In 2012 with more than forgive me for that, but I want to talk to you about the just.

Speaker Do you think about it?

Speaker Yeah. You’re just really just going to just when you just tear right away. Yeah, this is great. By the way, you look fantastic. I mean, you look good. You got it. Right.

Speaker Right. Yeah.

Speaker I do want to talk to you about the greatest hits thing. Damn good.

Speaker That was and that was an it was unusual pair of Greatest Hits album at that time career. Yeah.

Speaker With that, who’s laughing. Was that David’s idea.

Speaker I don’t know where we stole this idea. He’s waiting for you for another record. Yeah, yeah.

Speaker You just met it, would you? Yeah. We weren’t with we weren’t with David at that point.

Speaker Confusing. It is of great work in movies.

Speaker You tell me the Eagles greatest hits are my my great. Yeah. Now it was February seventy six. That was long after. After him.

Speaker Yes. Oh yeah. Joe Smith. Joe Smith is waiting for their next director.

Speaker Yeah. You know how many years it was gonna take. Yeah. It was unusual, but it was. It was in the contract and there was nothing we could do that it was one after one of these life. But that’s got nothing to do with David.

Speaker No, nothing says it had a lot to do with David. David? Yeah. Really? Yeah. David was. This was February 76, David. I mean, he was still advisee, but he said that he was I was so scared and didn’t have anything.

Speaker I was just what he needed product.

Speaker Yeah. That’s when we were. That’s when Elektra and Asylum were the same company. Right. Yeah. Yeah. We’d already seen just doing that.

Speaker He was running elections. No, no, no.

Speaker Not then. I mean he left. Well he left in the late 70s. We went to war with the Paramount Pictures.

Speaker Right. This is a film, right? I mean, he was one of you. No, no. No one got.

Speaker He left. Desperado was when Desperado was. It was it was. It was right. It was the end of David Geffen. You with the. Yeah. Seventy three for the losses. But we’re just we’d released one of these nights which was the smet, the biggest thing we’ve done to date. But it took us, you know, a long time to make that album. So they were worried, as you said, about their quarterly earnings. I mean, that’s what a lot of this comes down to. And so they thought, well, gosh, you know, they’re working on this big concept album now called Hotel California. God knows when we’ll get that album. It could be years from now. So we need to release something. And so even though we didn’t have enough greatest hits to to release it, legitimate greatest hits album, they released it.

Speaker And I can understand why a lot of people would want to take credit for it, because it’s the biggest selling album in the history of the music industry. And it doesn’t even have Hotel California on it. So, you know, who’s ever idea was. I wasn’t aware of David being anywhere in the picture at that point. You know, we were dealing with Joe Smith, who’s ever idea was it was it turned out to be a good idea.

Speaker And then, you know, that that kicked the momentum up another notch, you know, and then. And then Hotel California came out and now, you know, through the roof. So but that’s interesting.

Speaker Well, it’s more than I just have this time to re edit 776 greatest hits take 76.

Speaker And yeah, I try to get me drunk. Have you talked to Joe Smith? No, I haven’t. He won’t do it has become. He won’t.

Speaker Joe. Really? Yeah. And Jack. He wrote that one too.

Speaker I’ve never known Joe because they have anything good to say to you. Well, we have about eight hour interview with my last covers. A lot of territory ages.

Speaker I mean, this is an amazing baby.

Speaker David was saying he gets it because he gets royalties from it. Did it?

Speaker Is Irving. Is Irving doing this? All right. I’m good. Did you get into that it? No, I. Do you think you should go back in and do that again and talk to him about it? He’ll let you.

Speaker Obviously, we’re not gonna be major cut in the same way, however.

Speaker I can’t I just can’t believe I hadn’t asked that question. This was a state of the film. Yeah. Well, I don’t started with them.

Speaker There were 76, right. When Grace, which came out and I worked it for a year or two. Never. We never got David at all.

Speaker Right.

Speaker It’s possible that David made a suggestion that he said this is what you should do, because it’s very possible that it’s possible that Joe Smith was was consulting with him and he was behind the scenes pulling the strings and saying, why don’t you do this? But my people in these kinds of things. Yeah.

Speaker Who’s at fault decision, David?

Speaker No, I don’t think so either. But, you know, we certainly were scratching our heads at the time. But like I said, we couldn’t stop it because it was in the contract that they could do that. We didn’t think it was time yet. You know, it was a good decision. In 20/20 hindsight, yeah. I don’t think anybody knew at the time whether it would be a good decision or not.

Speaker So I’m curious, given kind of the sort of fractured history with David, why did you say.

Speaker That’s a good question.

Speaker Well, he’s a very persuasive guy, you know. And he came to me and said, you know, you know me, you’ve worked with me. You know, I know we’ve had our differences, but I took good care, you guys back and I launched your career. You know, I’m the only person in the business right now who appreciates your work as a singer songwriter. And I understand you. And I’ll I’ll do a good job for you. And I bought it.

Speaker Did you live up to yes or no?

Speaker You know, as usual, it was a mixed bag.

Speaker And, you know, I think started out OK. And then things went sour again. You know, the same old demons raised their head disagreements about, you know, what the record company should pay for and what I should pay for. I mean, again, petty, picky and things like there were too many lyrics to fit into a standard. The insert that goes into a cassette where we were still working on cassettes back then and they were required one extra flap and they didn’t want to pay for it. I said, you’re gonna have to pay for that and we’re not going to pay for this. We’re not going to pay for that. And, you know, we’re not going to spend this money on promotion.

Speaker You know?

Speaker So I became once again very disillusioned. And things went back to be an adversarial.

Speaker Well, you’re dealing directly with David and you’re dealing with one of his three guys.

Speaker Is that right?

Speaker Yeah. I wasn’t dealing directly with him. My managers at that time were. That’s when Howard Kaufman was managing me, right, Larry. It was at Kaufman and Slater. Yep. Yeah. That was my solo career. Irving. Irving had taken a leave of absence to that point to go and run Universal. And so I was I was being represented probably not very well by Howard Kaufman and Andy Slater. And so I didn’t have much communication with David. I talked to Eric Eisner sometimes, who was a friend of mine, but he had his marching orders as well. So things continued to deteriorate. And, you know, I was putting my heart and soul into these albums and really trying to do a good job and launch a solo career. I’d never expected to have a solo career and that the Eagles breakup was had sort of put me adrift. And I was trying to find my feet. Although I mean, by the time David signed me, I was much more confident as a solo artist that my first solo album was there was the Wild Card and those that was on Elektra. So I made what I thought were two really good albums for David. One, a couple of Grammys. But I still thought that there were songs that should have been hits that weren’t the heart of the matter. For example, you know, which is still one of the biggest songs in my show, People. I get letters from all over the world still this many years later about that song, and they simply didn’t promote it. And so it did. It was it was a flop. And same for not enough love in the world. Sunset Grill, things like that.

Speaker The ethos of death was very different than that of asylum. And David, I think, was far less to me that this sort of gestalt of the company. Right. The topic. Yeah. How would you describe it?

Speaker I’m not sure.

Speaker The thing is sort of asylum, and that gets a very different kind of record.

Speaker Yeah, well, it was a Giffin record compared to asylum was was, you know, much more of a business like operation. And David was much more distant in in terms of running that company. There were there were many, many more firewalls, so to speak. I didn’t have a lot of day to day dealings with him. Again, my managers and my lawyers were that were the guys who were dealing with with the company. As I said before, once in a while I would talk to Erik Eisner and say things like, I don’t believe you guys are doing this. And you say, well, it’s in the contract. So finally, I just got fed up and I said, not going to make any more records for you. I quit. We said, well, you’re gonna get sued. And I said, OK. So he did. He sued me for 30 million dollars. And what happened?