Joey Stuckey 0:00

Welcome once again to Stuck on Sound. And so today is a special day for me. It's not all about me, it really isn't. But in this instance, I have the man the myth, the legend, Richard Blade, with us today. And I'm such a fan of Richard. Welcome to the program. Thank you for making time, my friend.

SPEAKER_00 0:16

Hey, Joey, thank you so much for having me on. I appreciate it. I really do.

Joey Stuckey 0:20

Well, you are a real renaissance man. And I gotta tell you, I mean, I've been a fan of yours. Um you know, to be honest, like I I lived in uh a small southern town when I was uh the child of the 80s, so they didn't have Richard Blade on their stations. But uh with Sirius XM, I I I started uh you know following you and enjoying you and just having such a a respect for for your your your talent and your knowledge of music. And you know, then I read the audiobook, World in My Eyes, and what a book. I mean it's I don't you probably will not remember this, but I reached out at you on Twitter and said, hey man, is it gonna be an audiobook? Because I'm a blind dude that wants to read it. And and you said, uh, yeah, I'm absolutely recording it right now. And uh so I I you know started following you from that moment on on Twitter and stuff like that. And you know, we've we've chatted a few times via the old Twitter verse there. Um I refuse to call it X. Uh so so uh but the uh the thing is your your life has been so fascinating, and I I want to give people a chance to appreciate your journey. So I always like to start with the origin story of the guests, and so you know you you were raised in in England, you went to Oxford, uh, you know, you you uh and then you started DJing. I mean, how does that sort of happen? I know, I know I remember reading in the book that you were obsessed with your transistor radio and uh you know that you that you you love music, of course, at an early age, but you know, how do you go from studying at like Oxford and then you you become this DJing phenomenon? You basically pack up your car and just go across Europe for two years DJing. Like tell tell me how that thought process occurred to you.

SPEAKER_00 2:10

Well, when I went to college, I didn't really know what I wanted to do. Um I knew I loved music, but there was very I wasn't musically talented. I'm I can't play an instrument, for example. I wish I could. That's why I play the records on the radio. But uh on the side, I always loved DJs and uh the outlets in England at the time when I was a kid, well, there was only one, and that was BBC Radio One, and they had like seven DJs and 50 million people living in the country, so the odds of you ever becoming a DJ on BBC Radio One was uh almost impossible. So I used to go to clubs a lot, and DJs in there, okay, that was fine. And then when I went to college, they had uh dormitories, and in my dorm there were 13 bedrooms, and in one of the gu one of the dorms was Norm Holmes, who was the college DJ, and he was in his final year and just kind of did it for fun, and I started helping him out and I was saying, Hey Norm, you know you want me to set up the gear, you want me to learn to play the music for you for the first hours, and you yeah, yeah, I don't want to come in early. And so uh I started off as his warm-up DJ, and then you know, on some of the Saturday nights, he'd be like, uh, can you just play the night for me? And I was like, sure, no problem. And so I took over from Norm, and then when he left, I became the college DJ and the head of the social club, and I figured, you know, we're doing these nights twice a month, and this gear is just sitting here doing nothing. Why don't I put up flyers around uh Oxford because there's 27 university colleges in Oxford, it wasn't just mine. Um, you know, there's Christchurch, there's Exeter, there's a uh Lady Spencer Churchill, there's so many, it's crazy. And so I put flyers in all of their social clubs saying, Hey, you want to uh DJ for the night? We've got the gear, we've got the lights, we've got the music, uh, call this number. And the number was for the payphone in our dormitory, because there was no cell phones or anything then, you know, it'd ring and people, hey Richard, you know, or Dick, as well as now and then, hey Dick, there's a call for you. And so uh suddenly I got booked to all the colleges around Oxford, and it was crazy. I was turning gigs down, and I'd be driving there, and I just had a little unex inexpensive sports car I'd bought. It was very used, but very good. It was an MG midget, and somehow I had to get all this gear and speakers into it. It was crazy. Um, you know, they were on the front passenger seat. I could never take anyone with me to a gig, and I had my records in stuck into the trunk. It was just ridiculous. But I started DJing at all the uh colleges, and it became something I loved doing. And I came from a seaside town, a holiday town in England called Torquay. If ever you speak to an English person, say, Have you heard of Torque? And they'll give you one of two answers. They'll either say, Oh, my mum and dad went there on their own e moon, or they'll say, That's faulty towers. That's where I've said, yeah. So but poor Basil. Yeah, never mind, he's from Barcelona. Exactly. But it was great. But there was a lot of clubs there in the summer, and very quickly I got into the uh club circuit in Torquay and DJed there, and then started working for a mobile company because they were paying a lot more money than the clubs, and uh DJing parties at the holiday camps there, and um I went up to Exeter to DJ a graduation from military school, you know, it looked like something out of top gun, but with uniform you know, with old-fashioned uniforms. And so I was really got into the DJing side of it, and my studies at Oxford really started to suffer, and I would have to cram and cram and cram before the uh exams in my third and fourth year. But when I left college, I had all this uh kind of DJing uh skills that I'd learned, and I thought, God, I I think I'd want to do this for a living, rather than go to uh become a teacher or try and become an actor because I did uh drama and um drama and psychology.

Joey Stuckey 6:43

Uh well, I mean they go together because people are crazy.

SPEAKER_00 6:45

That's exactly right. I love it. The one of the things about Torquay at the time, it was really big for Scandinavian students to come over in the summer. And so I was DJing for all these Swedish and Norwegian and Danish girls.

Joey Stuckey 7:03

I mean, that's a good gig if you can get it, my friend.

SPEAKER_00 7:05

Oh my god. Well, in my third and fourth year, my father, who was a teacher, he uh spoke to the people at SIS, Scandinavian International Summer Schools, and said, uh, do you need English teachers for the uh Swedish students? And they said, Yeah, well, absolutely. And the Swedish students and the Danish and Norwegians they all spoke good English, but they were over there to become immersed and learn conversational English. So it got to the point, it was just ridiculous, Joey. In the mornings, from nine until eleven, I would teach Swedish girls conversational English, and then from one until five, I was a lifeguard at one of the beaches they took over, a private beach called Elbury Cove. And then from eight until midnight, I was their DJ in a private club. No one out, no, no other outsiders could get in. You had to be either Scandinavian or me, and that was it. And it was just ridiculous. It was like shooting ducks in a water barrel, you know.

Joey Stuckey 8:14

Your book, your book indicates that you had some uh a lot of female companions.

SPEAKER_00 8:21

It was a good time for a I'm I'm jealous.

Joey Stuckey 8:24

I mean I I can't see them, but I I I understand that the the uh the Swedish girls are pretty attractive. So I I you know.

SPEAKER_00 8:33

Well all all the Scandinavians are. I mean it's it's crazy. And then and then and they speak great English. And I I learned um you can tell a uh bitosvensk, but it was very hard for me to speak Swedish because when I went over to Scandinavia, which I'll get to in just a second, uh you go into uh I would go in to ask for some you know loaf of bread and uh can you have umbrud? And they would look at me and go, sure, would you like white? Would you like wheat? Would you like salad? I'm like, God, my Scandinavian is so bad. But um so at the when I left college, I thought, what am I gonna do? You know, I I don't really want to work, and I was immediately the day after I graduated from college, I was DJing in uh Torquay back back in the West Country, and as the season began to wind down, which in England is at the end of August, beginning of September, I thought maybe I should go and visit some of these girls in Scandinavia, because they were all asking me to come over and see them. So I went over first to uh Juteburg in uh Sweden, uh Gothenburg, and then stayed with a girl there, and then uh went up to uh Oslo in Norway, and that was where everything my life changed in Oslo because this lovely girl that I was staying with, Tova, took me to uh the key club, and I walked into the key club and you know, ready to go dancing and everything, and the music's playing, Barry White is cranking and Barry White's fading down, and suddenly I hear the DJ come on and say, Hey, I hope you're all having a great time tonight. Right now, let's get into uh a terrific song that's I think been written for disco dancing. It's called The Hustle from Van McCoy. And he puts it on. I looked at Tovin and went, Was he English? Oh yeah, all the good DJs in uh Oslo are English. And I was like, Oh my god, I could work in Oslo, that would be great. So I lined up an audition, and uh at the audition there was uh an agent, not just for the club, but an agent for a DJ agency and uh called Europa Booking. And he came up to me and he goes, Don't sign with the club. Don't do it. He said, I will sign you. He said the club's not gonna give you a work permit, you're gonna DJ there for a while, and then when they get tired of you, they're not gonna pay you, and you want me to do anything because you're working illegally. He said, I have clubs all over Europe, and I will book you and I get you work permits ahead of time, and it's all gonna be taken care of. You'll get your accommodation, you'll get your food, you'll get your money, and it's gonna be great. So I said, All right, sign me up, Tor. His name was Tor Tendon, and um first club he stuck me into was a crap club in Norway. He wanted to test me out and make sure I could, you know, pull it off for a month. And I under Yeah, I understand that. It was in Tunsburg. And then he sent me uh and so this what that was November, and then in December he sent me up to Bardefoss, and I said, Is that far? And he goes, Yeah, you won't be in a drive, you're gonna have to fly. And like, wow, I'm like a fucking rock star. And uh I got on this uh plane, and I remember that people carry chickens on the plane and all that kind of stuff back in the 70s. And we flew from Oslo up to uh um Tromsa and then took a a bus down to Artaf uh to um Barterfoss, which was about sixty miles north, but all of this was not explained to me by Tor. When he said it was a little north, he didn't mention it was five hundred miles north of the Arctic Circle, and this was December. So for the entire month of December, and then for the next two months, because I stayed up there uh up north, I didn't see the sun because it doesn't come up. It sets it sets at the beginning of November and doesn't rise again until February the 24th, and then it only comes up for about 30 seconds. So it's pitch black. You can wake up at two o'clock and you don't know if it's two in the afternoon or two in the morning because it's that dark. But I spent uh a month in uh Bardifos or Anself because two towns at once, uh little towns, and it was great, and then I went to Tromse, which is a much bigger town, and that was fantastic. The club was great, the women were great, the music was great, and uh they had me stay on for a second month because it was so popular, and so I did two months in Tromso, and then I went down to Bergen on the um west coast of Norway, and that was south, and that was lovely, fantastic town. If put it on a bucket, let's visit Bergen, it's gorgeous, and that so are the women and making notes. Yeah, and uh they they loved what I was doing there, and they had me stay on for a second month, and then Tor called me up and he said, uh, okay, you're gonna go back to uh Tunsburg next, and they're gonna pay you more money. And I went, No, I'm not going back there, Tor. It was a crap place, and I know it was a test. And he goes, But gonna pay you more money, I said, No, no, no. Uh why can't I stay on in um Bergen? And he said, No, we got another DJ already signed to go in, so that's that's it. But you you've got to go back to Tunisburg. And I said, Well, let me think about it. And that night I had uh dinner with the manager of the uh club at Hotel Norga, and I said, uh, you know, I'm gonna miss you. And he goes, Yeah, I know, we wanted you to stay on for the summer. Oh and I went you you what? And he said, Yeah, we wanted you to stay all the way through the summer, right through till uh September. And I thought, God, being in this fantastic place right on the water, and a great apartment they got me. And there was it's so much history there. I was big into Vikings, and that's where uh the Vikings would sail out from. If you ever watched or listened to the TV show Vikings, um it was set um right there in Bergen. That's where Interesting. Yeah, and so I was like, So you told Tor that you wanted me to stay on? And he said, Yeah, we want you to stay right through summer. So I called up Tor and I go, Dude, you're not being straight with me. They want me to stay on. He goes, Yeah, but I I own the contract with the owners, not the manager. And so I put in who I want, and I promise these other people they're coming in. So uh I said, So you're gonna screw the manager over and screw me over, and he said, Yep. And I said, Okay, I quit, done. And I went back to England and was really bummed. By the way, I'm I'm great friends with Tor now, great friends, and he did his own audio part in the book. I remember I do remember that you had a lot of people do that, which was very Yeah, that was John Taylor's idea from Duran Duran. But yeah, but he um but anyway, I went back to England and it was pissing with rain. It was May, and by the 7th or 8th of May, I was like, I'm done. I'm I'm what what am I gonna do now? I'm I can't stay here. I don't have a gig in Torquay yet for the summer, and I don't want to stay in this British weather. And so I went I went to the travel agent and I said uh I need to go somewhere sunny. And they said, Okay, uh when? And I said, Tomorrow. And she looked at me like I was an idiot and she goes, where? And I said, Somewhere sunny. She goes, I don't have time for this. And I said, Well, here's 400 pounds, where can I go? She goes, Oh, okay, now I have time for this. And um she actually got me a deal for about £110 for a flight for a week down to Spain to Lorette de Maa. And so uh next day I was I said, Mum, bye mum, bye Dan, love ya, and uh flew down to Lorette de Ma and that night, uh May 10th, uh I was walking around looking for a disco and I saw one right by the hotel called Moby Dick. And I went to the door at Moby Dick and I said, Hey, uh, can I get in? Uh did you do discounts for DJs? And I gave him my little business card, Dick Shepherd, International DJ. And um the guy goes, Oh, you're here for the job. Hang on. And he went inside and brought out the manager who was English from Yorkshire.

Joey Stuckey 17:05

Nice.

SPEAKER_00 17:06

And uh he said, Um, so uh you come for the job? And I said, And I should just came for a drink and a dance. And he I but if there's a job, and he said, Well, I'll tell you what, why don't you DJ tonight? We got all the records and everything, and uh you can drink for free. And I'm not a big drinker, so he didn't know most big DJs drink until they fall over. I one or two beers is my limit.

Joey Stuckey 17:29

So yeah, blind and drunk or bad combos, I believe that as well.

SPEAKER_00 17:32

Yeah, I know the segues are cramped, yeah. You know, you walk into a wall, right?

Joey Stuckey 17:37

But I I have enough problems. There you go.

SPEAKER_00 17:40

You're not like Daredevil, right? No, no, I wish that'd be great. Matt Murdoch, one of my heroes. So I DJ'd that night, and at the end of the night, uh Tony said to me, Um, all right, well, you got the job then. I was like, okay. And so uh I one one of the bartenders had uh a couple of spare rooms at his place, and so I I rented from him, and I I stayed in Spain for the summer, and that was fantastic. And uh loved, loved that, you know, sunshine, blue skies and holidaymakers. It was a great club. And then at the end of that, I went back to England to see Mum and Dad, and then I got a call from a rival agency to Europa Booking saying that they wanted me to come over, Alan Laurie, with IDA, uh International Disc Jockey and Entertainment Agency. It's actually IDEA, but we would always just call it IDA because people would go, What's your idea? And I'm like, Oh, anyway. Yeah, that's all uh I spent two years with him uh touring Europe and did uh Norway, Denmark, uh uh Sweden, Austria, Switzerland, Italy. It was fantastic. So uh but all the time I started thinking, I can't keep doing this. I I should get onto the radio. And while I was in Austria, uh I was approached uh at the gig and by uh the people that run um a national broadcast there called Utrei, Usterreich 3. Uh and they said on Friday nights we do a rock show, we'd like you to DJ it for us, um, which would be kind of fun for you. And so I was a novelty act, you know, some English speaking in a German language. Gotcha. And I knew I'd never really be to take off unless I spoke fluent German and and that was not going to happen. And so but I got hooked on the idea of doing radio, and so I sat down with my girlfriend at the time, a girl called Taxi, who was a model there, lovely lady, and I wrote a list on a uh scrap of paper and it said um United States, Canada, Australia, New Zealand, South Africa.

Joey Stuckey 19:55

She said I noticed all these are sunny places.

SPEAKER_00 19:57

Yeah, yeah, sunny and and and English speaking, because that's what Taxi said. Uh I I she said she didn't put England on there. I said, No, I um no, definitely not. I'm not going back there. I'm gonna go somewhere they speak English and they have good radio. And so uh I I I thought, okay, has to be the state, so start at the top, biggest, and they got 5,000 radio stations. If I can't get a gig a radio station there, I suck. And so uh I liked it. Yeah, and then I looked, where am I gonna go? And so I looked at the sunny places like Miami, but Miami wasn't developed. This was 76, it was still kind of, you know, it wasn't what South Beach is today. Otherwise, maybe I'd be I've gone to Miami. And I looked at New York, of course, but New York I'd just seen Death Wish with Charles Bronson. And I I did not want to get, you know, it was a I love New York now, but it was it was a shithole then. It was not a place you wanted to go to. Not a place. All the spammings, yeah. Yeah, terrible, terrible. And so uh I thought, well, LA, let's go there, you know, Hollywood, let's do it. And so uh in November of 76, I flew over to LA with uh a suitcase and again $400. That's what I had. I didn't have that much money at the time, so I spent a lot of it and $400 with me. And uh that was my decision. I was gonna try and make it in LA. And so I love that. Yeah, I went to all the radio stations, I had cassettes, and everyone turned me down. They said you'll never work in this town with an English accent. It was all, you know, all American. Hey, if you don't speak like this, you're not gonna get on the radio, baby. And uh so I thought I either go back to England or I do what I do, which is work in a club, and I got a gig at the Plank House in San Pedro and uh worked there for a year. Lovely people, they got me my green card, and then yeah, then I went to the Red Onion and became uh in charge of all five Red Onion clubs in LA.

Joey Stuckey 22:05

But people said Were you doing more paperwork then or DJing for all that?

SPEAKER_00 22:09

I was doing both. Okay. I was I was DJing uh four nights a week, but I was also getting the music and sending it out to them. And I didn't like telling the DJs what to play. I did not like that. You know, it's like you gotta do this, you gotta do that, and it's like a little corporate for me. And then I started getting approached by people asking if I would do private parties for them. And the Red Onion had just done a big remodel and were getting rid of a load of gear, and they had these old Sir Win Vegas speakers that worked, and they had a meteor mixer, and I was like, okay. And so I bought myself a little skill saw and some plywood and some fabric covering, and I built my own DJ console, and I built got two turntables and set them in there. They weren't technics, I couldn't afford technics turntables with variable speed. They were uh BSR turntables, and I cut out for them and they set them in, and I built my own mobile console. And so I did a couple of parties and they really took off, and the caterer at one of them was called um Movable Feast, and she approached me and she said, I've got a client whose son has a bar mitzvah coming up. Would you DJ the bar mitzvah? I grew up in a small town. I did not have many Jewish friends, I did not know what a bar mitzvah was. I but I'd worked in so many bars that I figured I could work it out.

SPEAKER_03 23:40

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 23:41

So I said, Yeah, I could do that. And she goes, Well, the client wants to meet you. Um just we'll we'll you and I will uh not carpool, but you can follow me up to her place, and then I'm gonna stay on and do some design, and if she likes you, then uh you you go home and we'll do the booking and everything. So uh we went up to a place and it was out by Malibu, across from this lovely beach I used to go to all the time, Paradise Cove. There was a private driveway going up into the hills. So we went up this private driveway and went, ooh, this is nice. And then we get to a gate, and the we go through the gate, and there were three homes there. And apparently uh the client had bought a home there, and then she bought the other two as well for privacy when they went on the market. So she had this massive area complex. Yeah, complex, and right in between the three, where it would have been like a cul-de-sac, she was gonna uh have it covered with a three-ring circus tent, three-pole circus tent. And uh that's where they were gonna have the the bar mints first. So I get out and the the uh lady from Moveable Feast gets out, and the client comes down and she goes, uh I'd like you to meet my client, this Barbara. This is uh Dick Shepard, and I go, Hi, and um she goes, nice to meet you, and I go, Great to meet you as well. I was not overimpressed because I was big into disco at the time. If I'd been meeting Anita Ward, uh I would have been you know, like you can ring my bell, I would have been fantastic. But yeah, I I only played slow songs from Barbara Streisand. Right to me, she was just yeah, you know, I know she's super famous and everything, but uh so I wasn't like swanning over her, but I was really nice. And I I mean I knew how big she was, let's face it, you know, one of the biggest singers on the planet. Yeah, and she booked me and she said um uh how you she didn't even ask the money. Um that's always nice. Yeah, she didn't ask about money or something.

Joey Stuckey 25:38

But the clients don't ask well they don't ask for how much it is, that's a good day.

SPEAKER_00 25:41

Yeah, well she's Barbara Streisand, you know. That's that's why she has the people from Movable Feast coordinating everything. But she and we we hit it off and we talked about everything, and uh she said about having the ghila and a chair being lifted and her son being on the chair, and I'm like, what the hell? I'm gonna have to read about this. And so uh after she she gave me kind of her seal of approval, I walked back to the car and the girl from the movable feast came up and she goes, uh so how much you uh do you want for this? And I said, Uh how many people are gonna be here? And she said, 500. And I thought, I think Barbara Streisand can afford a dollar per person. So I said, I would think so. Five hundred dollars? She goes, Done, right, good each, fantastic. Like that. I was like, shit, I should have gone higher. You should have.

Joey Stuckey 26:28

You might have been there, my friend.

SPEAKER_00 26:29

Yeah, but uh I I did that party and it was fabulous. I mean, everyone, everyone was there. Uh Larry Hagman was there. Uh wow. Uh, because you know, Dallas was the massive thing. Uh Donna Donna Summer was there, Neil Diamond was there because he'd just done a song with her, You Don't Bring Me Flowers. Wow. I mean, just it was like a who's who. And literally, two days later, because the next day was a Sunday, on the Monday, my phone in my apartment rang non-stop. And it was every kid's mother from the school that uh Elliot Gould and Barbara Streisand's son, Jason Gould, went to. Every kid's, and they he was one of the oldest in the school, uh, in the class, but every other mother said, My kid's got a bar mitzvah coming up. Will you DJ it for us? Because, you know, if Barbara, if it's good enough for Barbara Streisand, they wanted me. And then I had these calls. My daughter has a bat mitzvah coming up. I'm like, no, God, my head's gonna blow up. Well, I don't even know what a bar mitzvah is. I mean, I'm running around with bats, and so um it was it was uh but I I bought all the, you know, I obviously bought all the music for and ha have a negila, sunrise, sunset, and I did all of that, lots of horrors, and so I was very attuned to it. So suddenly I was doing all these uh bar mitzvahs and bat mitzvahs up in Calabasas and up in Bel Air and all these uh fancy wet fancy places that I could never afford anything, and then I get the phone call from para uh from uh Lorimar that they're doing a rap party for Dallas and that Larry Hagman wants me to DJ that. And I was like, wow, and I did that at his place, and then suddenly I was doing all these celebrity parties, so quit the red onion because I was having to turn down gigs at you know everywhere. Robinson's May Company was doing a fashion show. They wanted me to MC the fashion show, so it was all going fantastic, and I was making a shitload of money as a mobile DJ, and I was realized I wasn't doing what I'd promised myself and then getting on the radio, and I wanted to get on the radio, so I started making tapes again and sending the tapes out and getting turned down every single time. No one wanted to meet with me, not even give me a I said, you know, I'd work for free, I'd do an overnight shift Sunday night, Monday morning, two till four, whatever they wanted. Yeah, just to just try me out. No, nope, no, don't want you for free. You don't even want you to come in the door. And so I was like, oh my god. And then K-West, which was a rock station, it became Power, a rap station later, but it was K-West. Uh, they were having the best unknown DJ contest. So they were a full-on rock station. So I put together a 10-minute tape, and then I put together a 10-minute remix. I thought I'm gonna go out on a limb here and just screw with them. A 10-minute remix, Pink Floyd, another brick in the wall. I thought they're either gonna throw this out because I'm messing with one of the biggest bands in the history of rock, or they're gonna listen to it and go, Wow, that was different. You know, because this was way before digital. Everything was it was just two-track.

Joey Stuckey 30:01

What year was this? Around 80?

SPEAKER_00 30:02

This is 1980, yeah. Uh this is just two-track uh TAC reel-to-reel recorder, wax crayon, and a razor blade to cut it and edit. It was no overdubs. But I did that, and then I so I'm listening with my girlfriend to the results one night when they're reading out the winners, and they read, you know, the third place, not me. Second place, not me. And then they come on and we got a first place winner, but and I'm like, oh, we have two. Oh wow. I'm like, whoa, two first place winners, and so they read out one, and then that wasn't me, and then they read my name out, and I was like, wow, I made it. I won, I won, I won. And they uh I I got uh five thousand dollars, which was a huge amount of money, but that's but that didn't matter to me. Yeah, sure. What mattered was I got an hour on the air, and I was on with JJ Jackson, who went later went on to MTV, big teddy bear of a guy, lovely guy. And uh we're sitting down and he goes, you know, uh I helped pick the winners, and I said, Yeah, I said, Does you had two winners? And he goes, Yeah, he goes, We all wanted you to be the winner. He said, But we couldn't have an English person beaten an American, so we had two winners. I know this was 1980, you know, because Brits weren't big on the radio back then. And so I did my hour on uh K West and my girlfriend taped it, but JJ, God bless him, you know, he's we lost him 15 years ago, but JJ he uh taped it for me and he also put together what they call a scoped tape, which is just me talking and then the first two seconds of the song, and then it cuts, and then the last two seconds of the song and me talking again because program directors don't want to listen to the song, they know the song, they're playing it anyway. So it's like uh uh here we go with Led Zeppelin Stairway to Heaven. Doo-doo, cut, and then so uh I got this, I got he gave me a bunch of these tapes. He said, Yeah, we d we could got dubs here, you know, I'll give you twelve of them. So that was great. And uh the next day I sent out ten of the tapes, and two days later I got a job offer from Bakersfield. And so I I drove out to Bakersfield and sat down with uh Dave Lawrence, the program director, and he said, Yep, uh, we want you to do evenings and be the music director.

Joey Stuckey 32:33

Oh, nice!

SPEAKER_00 32:34

And I looked at him, yeah, I'm like, Okay. Didn't say it, but in my mind, I'm like, he's talking to Disco Dick Shepherd, and here we are at a rock station. I said, What's the criteria for adding music, Dave? And he pulled out Double Live, Wang Dang, uh, Double Live uh Double Live Gonzo by Ted Nugent, and he pulls out one of the records and he puts the needle on a track called Wang Dang Sweet Poontang, and he goes, That's as mellow as we get. And I was like, we it was honestly, I I just mentioned this song, but at night we couldn't play Stairway to Heaven because it was too mellow. We'd have to day what's called day party. We play it during the day, and at night it was all black Sabbath, Crazy Train came out while I was there, and that was fantastic from Aussie, you know, all aboard. Yeah, so that's what we were doing there on Magic 98, and I said to Dave and uh to the owners, I'll stay with stay here for a year and uh take you through a couple of ratings books and stuff, but I I I'm only gonna stay for a year because I have to go back to LA. I want to make it in big radio. And I everyone told me with Bakersfield, it's you can tell the DJs in Bakersfield because they all have a U-Haul trailer behind their car because they're either heading down or heading up. No, it's one of the two. And I have a I have a question for you.

Joey Stuckey 34:05

I don't want to interrupt your flow, but I no, no, no. I'm I'm I'm I I'll go all day.

SPEAKER_00 34:09

But so you please.

Joey Stuckey 34:10

Well, I'm glad to know it. So so here's the thing, Richard. So I I really I'm curious about two things in this in this story. Actually, I I want to say this. Uh, I am a brain tumor survivor. Wow, I'm well, I I have been uh chronically ill for 40 something years, and uh I just keep on trucking. And the thing that I believe is that if you want to live a successful life of intention, in other words, a life that means something to you, you have to have the courage to follow your dream, whether anybody else gets it, whether anybody else understands, uh you have to be able to handle rejection. Uh I I just I want to commend you on that courage because a lot of people I know are very talented in my small town, uh, but don't have the courage to step out and follow their heart and be completely happy in who they are. And, you know, it it's it, I mean, it's a risk, you know. But I love the fact that you said, This is my goal, I'm doing well, I'm making a lot of money doing bar mitzvahs, but this is not what I want to do. Uh I'm gonna have to move on. I I love that you said, okay, I've made it to the radio, I've been rejected, I've been rejected, I've been rejected, I'm gonna stay with you guys a year, but at some point I've got to go to LA. I mean, this this is to me, this is a real testament of your story is the courage to go out and do what you said you were gonna do. And I love that. I I just I think that's so exciting. And and I I think your story is so powerful, and that's why I think everybody should read the book. I cannot recommend it enough. Um, but I just wanted to say that that is to me, that's one of the main things that I was so excited about when I read your book because I recognized something in you that I also have, which is like I have two, I have two speeds, full speed ahead and off. So I'm either I'm either knocking doors down or asleep. And honestly, I resent having to sleep. But but but tell me, like, you know, it sounds like I know you for the the 80s like mega stuff that you you know kind of got famous for in LA and and you know, breaking Tears for Fears and Depeche mode and stuff like that. But you have you went through several different genres there as a DJ. I mean, so how how much did you like the music you were playing, you know, when you were doing the rock station? How much did you like the music you were playing when you were DJing the clubs? I mean, what was it hard to find like the music? Because to me, I remember as a kid in the 80s, you know, I was just a young kid and sick, you know, but I listened to the radio obsessively. And the DJs mattered then. They their their personalities were important. They're they were also not, I mean, they had some control over what they played as well. Um, and I mean, I know there were program directors and stuff too, but you know, how did you how did you navigate those waters of like, okay, I've got to, you know, I gotta play the disco records, that's what the clubs want, but I don't do how much did you love that? How much did you not love it? Like genre-wise, what was your home? Like what what made you tick?

SPEAKER_00 37:23

Well, before I answer that, I just want to commend you on what you said about you know being full on or turned off, one of the two, you know, you you're your mode, you're either straight ahead or crashed out, one of the two. Because uh I agree with that. And you also said about people kind of being frightened of failure, and you've got to have a dream to make that dream come true, which sounds like a line from a Disney song. But if you don't have a dream, then you can't make anything happen. And dream as big as you can, and don't be frightened to go for it, because the worst that can happen is they say no and you continue where you were. Damn straight. If you want to guarantee failure, if you want to guarantee it, don't do anything.

Joey Stuckey 38:12

That's exactly right. If you don't ask, the answer is always no.

SPEAKER_00 38:15

Yeah, that's that's my number one phrase in life. The the answer to any question you don't ask is always no. So ask that question. I learned that when I was a young kid, you know, dating girls. Hey, you know, you want to come back for a cup of coffee? You know, no, okay. Well, you weren't gonna come back anyway, then thanks. I understand, no problem. You don't get mad about it. But if someone says yes, can I get this job? Yes, you know, and I I've never really been money motivated. I I when I was doing the mobiles before I went to Bakersfield, I was you know, charging about 500 for uh a mobile, which was a lot back then, and doing maybe three or four sometimes a week. So I was making great money. I all that stopped when I went to Bakersfield and I made a thousand dollars a month. Oh wow, that was that's a big change. Huge change, but I had to do it because I knew I had to learn. Because, you know, in life you're in competition, but yeah, there's only one person you're in competition with, and that's yourself. Yeah, because it's a race that you're running. You're not running anyone else's race, you're running your own race. And it's kind of I look back at at Dick, Dick Shepherd, and go, thanks, buddy, for what you did, you know, because you you kept it up, and I hope he would be proud of me, because I'm proud of him, you know, for doing and absolutely and it all came from my parents. Uh if if I hadn't had good parents, um, and they they didn't have a lot of money or anything, they're both teachers and very underpaid in uh America, I mean in England, just about everywhere, teachers, but they gave me a a great upbringing and a great view on life, and that was you know, you go around once, make the most of it. And so there you go. That that was uh that was what uh my philosophy. But you asked me about the music. I really liked disco at the time. I I tend to like the genre that I'm into. I don't think I could get into country. I apologize if you're a you know Luke Bryant fan or anything like that, but I'm I'm not really into country. But I did enjoy disco and uh at sometimes at a live event, I'll I'll do a little disco set, you know, bust out some Dancing Queen and Earth Wind and Fire. Oh yeah and uh you know, um by the way, Earth Wind and Fire, not just disco, fantastic. No, those are you listen to like double live gratitude and stuff like that.

Joey Stuckey 40:46

Oh, it's it's it's so good. Yes, so good.

SPEAKER_00 40:49

But um uh when I get into the music, I try not to cheat the audience. If I'm gonna say something, there used to be an old an old saying that I I saw on the wall at the BBC, which I never worked at, but I saw it on the wall, and it said, Engage brain before putting mouth into gear. And I like it. Yeah, so it I I tried to learn about the groups, the artists, the bands that I was playing. And so it wasn't just you know reading off a liner card. It was sincere. I I knew a little about them, and what I didn't know, I didn't try and make up. I I was honest about and certain things happened while I was on the air, like uh on December the 8th, I was on the air and it came over the the wire. We had a you know teletype UPS, uh U UP, United Press. Yeah and it came over it and it said uh John Lennon has been killed. And it was like, oh my god, and we just I just stopped all the heavy metal, everything. And it just came on and I said I can I can't believe it, you know, that one of the greatest musical talents ever. And we played, you know, Beatles, we played Imagine, which doesn't sound very innovative, but what if you're used to just Ted Nugent and uh Crazy Train and stuff like that, then hearing that when you're tuning in, and people called all night and all the next day and they were crying, and it's like you just have to you just have to be honest. I couldn't have done a show that night and not referred to John Lennon because I think that that that's absolutely right.

Joey Stuckey 42:36

And I mean your your spirit is what I mean you know the music's great, obviously, but it's the spirit of the person presenting it that that makes it cohesive, that makes it entertaining. You know, that that's a real important thing. And you've got such a great presence and spirit when you communicate. I mean, that's that's what that's what makes it special. Um, but it's boy, it's it's hard to translate that sometimes into work, you know. And I I wonder, did you what do you I mean I know you wanted to be on the radio and I know that was your goal, uh, but uh what what what did you love about the live DJing and what did you not love about it? Because I for me, I have I've done radio and stuff my whole life in my little hometown and done TV and all this stuff, and and you've you've done that at a you know huge level compared to what I've done. But I mean, but but I I I never did want to DJ live. I just didn't I just didn't want to do it. Uh it didn't speak to me, but but it all part of part of that is a blind man carrying a bunch of stuff, can't see where you go. It's not not really a fun night. So I didn't want to haul the speakers. I didn't want to, you know, I didn't want to also blind people and vinyl, not as good a combo. No, so so what but what what did you like about it? What did you not like about the the live as and I mean you still do these shows, I know.

SPEAKER_00 43:53

So yeah, you know what's uh what I like about working live, and there's two different ways of working. Live. There's one when I'm DJing and then one when I'm now like uh on the road with like Howard Jones or Lost Eddie's Live. Uh I don't I don't DJ. I get out there and tell stories, and I I have a little console where I drop in some audio bites, boom, boom, boom, or if they've got video screens, some video uh drop-ins to uh back up what I'm saying, and I love doing that because that's uh communicating with the audience and you can you can feel when you've got them, and it's fabulous. Yeah, the the uh the DJing live, what I like about it is when everyone's having a good time. It sounds cliche, but for example, if you're DJing a wedding and people go, Oh god, wedding DJ, uh I always think, even though it's very naive, you know, that this is the only time they're gonna get married, they might get married in reality three or four times, but you know, I've but it's a very special day for them. They book me because they've heard me on the radio and they maybe grow up with me. Their parents have no clue who I am, not a clue. And you want to make it about them, not about you. You know, I'll I'll say my name once when I walk out, usually right before the first dance, and I welcome everyone, and then I'll say, you know, if you're from Southern California and anyone listen to K-Rock, I'll let's say probably then K-Rock. And uh that's right, and uh and then for the rest of the night, now I just focus on making it fantastic for the bride and groom and for their family and making sure you know the father-daughter dance is great, and uh the mother-son dance brings a tear to everyone's eye. So that makes me feel good that you've made everyone else feel good. When I'm working uh well, when I worked in clubs, because I don't do the club gigs uh as much anymore, uh or at all, really, um, that was different. People are there just for a drink and to get laid. And so you want to just keep the energy high, keep people going on the floor, keep the girls happy, because when the girls are dancing, then the guys will come out on the floor. And so that's really my direction. Okay, keep the energy pumping, keep the bar going, and make sure that at the end of the night people go, I want to come back next Friday as well, because it was it was really, really good. What I don't like is people that come up and go, Hey, uh, do you know what you should play next?

Joey Stuckey 46:30

Oh my god.

SPEAKER_00 46:31

Because the answer is, yeah, I do actually, thank you. Yeah, yeah, but I but I don't do that. I go what, you know, if people oh uh could you play something I could dance to? And then it's like, well, they always say that at the moment the dance floor is completely full. There's no room for anyone. Play something I could dance to, and you just want to go, oh, because you've got no sense of rhythm and you can't match, you know. But I don't I don't do it. And the uh the third the third one uh that uh every DJ hates is uh, do you have anything with a beat? Oh god. Oh my god.

Joey Stuckey 47:10

Well listen, and I I you know I never DJed like live, but I am a musician and I've I've played a lot of gigs and and and I we get the same thing. Somebody comes up and says, Can you play Taylor Swift? Nope.

SPEAKER_00 47:24

Yeah.

Joey Stuckey 47:25

I am not a new box. Yeah, no, I mean I mean it's not that I don't like Taylor Swift. I'm actually a very big fan.

SPEAKER_00 47:31

Me too.

Joey Stuckey 47:36

I I but I just you know, I I can't know every song known to man. I just you know, and if you're at a if you're at a rock show and then somebody comes up and wants, you know, electronica or something, that just you know, that's just aggravating.

SPEAKER_00 47:50

But I agree with them.

Joey Stuckey 47:53

I never let them know I just smile and go, gosh, I'm really sorry I can't play that for you. We don't know it, I'm sorry, you know. But but inside, uh I'm I'm not real thrilled. And then the guys in my band think it's funny uh to leave me on stage while they pack up the van, uh and and have the drunks accost me. And uh and so I'm standing there, and you know, all of a sudden there's somebody in my personal space, I didn't know they were coming, and all of a sudden there's all these hands on me, and you know, people slurring their words and sort of drooling on my shoulder. And uh the band thinks that's hilarious. Um but but I I never react. Like I always like, oh thanks for coming out, appreciate it. But inside I'm not happy. But it's just you know, it's it's a weird thing because you can't see it coming.

SPEAKER_00 48:35

No, I I I can I can only imagine that. And I'll tell you I'll tell you another thing that you get asked that I just hey, and it's so obvious that you it that is so wrong what they're asking. They'll come up and go, hey, there's this great song that you should play that nobody knows. Oh my god, it's really good. And it's like, do you realize if I put on a song that nobody knows what's gonna happen to the dance floor, it's gone. And then I gotta try and build it all. And they usually say it if the gigs go until midnight, they'll say it like at about 11 10. Of course. And you know if you lose the dance floor, then you've lost the rest of the night because you don't everyone's like, oh well, it's late, let's go home. So that's when you have to really kick into gigs.

Joey Stuckey 49:17

That that would I that would that would push all my buttons. I yeah, I I'm listening, joy is a choice, and I I make that choice on a regular basis. But as a producer and someone that owns a recording studio, that's that's what pays for me being an artist, by the way, is the is the is working for other people as a producer. But you know, I'm the same way you are. I mean, I love whatever music I'm doing. Uh if somebody comes in and it's it's hip-hop, I mean, I'm I'm into it. If if it's if it's you know jazz, I'm into it. I I'm with you. I'm not a huge country fan. And of course, country is a lot different than it used to be. My my dad raised me on the classics like Hank Waves and stuff like that. And that was a little bit of a different sound. Uh, but what I what I love um is, you know, when you made the decision to go back to LA and and and say, look, this is where I'm gonna make it or break it here. I mean, did you have a goal of what station you wanted to be on? Did you did you I mean, what you know, what was your plan at that point? Because you, you know, obviously the money wasn't a consideration, and I'm I'm the same way, the work is what I care about. I mean, I gotta eat, but other than that, I mean, you know, but what what was your plan to to at that point? I mean, did you have a strategy or were you just gonna go winging a prayer? Or what was the you know, how did it work?

SPEAKER_00 50:25

Well, I wanted to try and get on one of the big stations. I wanted to try either for KMET, uh, which was a rock station, or for KLOS, which was a rock station, because that seemed good after getting decent ratings in Bakersfield and San Los Obispo. And uh the other one was KISS FM, the top 40. And I was I wanted that. But then when I got back to LA, my dad had been sending me music from England because uh having been a DJ in Britain and Europe for a while, I was on a lot of mailing lists from the record companies. Oh, I bet so they continued to send all of the uh records to my my parents' house where I'd lived for a long time, but you know, then uh as I moved around, they that's that was kind of like my mailbox. And so they continued to send all this music, and the music was changing. Suddenly there was, you know, Depeche Mode, and suddenly there was the Buzzcocks and Boomtown Rats, bands that had never been heard of before. And these records would come, you know, two months before they were being released to my house, and my dad would listen to them. He would this this teacher, this math and geography teacher, would listen to all these 12 inches that were being sent, these promotional releases. And he would write to me and he'd go, D you should listen to these, he said if you can get them. And I couldn't get them in the States. So once I got uh I said, when I get to LA, maybe we can uh work out something where you can send me the best of the best, because it was so expensive to mail back then, uh to you know, first class mail to uh from England to America, you can send me the ones that you think are really, really good, and uh I'll play them on the radio, but I've got to get a gig on the radio first in LA. And so when I got back to LA, I noticed that at the Roxy and the Whiskey that a lot of the music being played was what was being called post-punk. It was punk, but it was going in a direction where they're mixing punk and synthesizers, and I was like, this is the music my dad's been telling me about. This is fantastic, and there was only one station in town playing it, and that was K Rock. And so K Rock approached me because I was working, I got an overnight shift uh for even less money than Bakersfield uh on KNAC, a small station on the coast uh in Long Beach, and uh I was working there doing overnights and sending out tapes, and K-Rock got a hold of one of my tapes, and they had K-Rock had no money at the time, and they were doing a vacation for all of the DJs, and they'd said to the DJs, look, we can't afford to pay you for a vacation, but what we could do is we've got together with a travel agent, and for every 20 trips that you can sell on the air, you can go. So all the DJs like, Wow, trip to Hawaii for two weeks, all I have to do is pump the shit out of me. And so they did, and they actually sold out one and a half DC tens to go over to Hawaii, and so all the DJs were leaving, all of them, gone. And so it's crazy. Yeah, Rick Carroll was like, Well, let's get some people to fill in and let's get local celebrities. So uh Elvira, Mistress of the Dark, was uh I'm a big fan.

Joey Stuckey 53:53

She's she's great.

SPEAKER_00 53:54

Yeah, she's lovely. Cassandra Peterson, lovely, and uh Danny Elfman was picked, he came on as Moscow Eddie, uh, Mike Ness from Social D was there, uh Henry Rollins from Black Flag. They were all picked, yeah, to DJ, do DJ shifts, and there was one shift left open, and that was the nine until noon shift. They couldn't get anyone for that that would fit. And so Rick, someone at the station listened to my cassette and said, Hey, this guy's English, he might fit in well. Why don't we try him? So Rick had me come in. I met with Rick and he said, Okay, look, here's the deal. Uh, we'd like you to come on the air for two weeks and uh fill in. I said, Great! You know, I've been hearing a buzz about K-Rock, you know, and I work at a little station called K and EC, and he says, I know, I heard it on the tape, and he goes, That is something I have to talk to you about. And he goes, but first, we can't pay you for filling in. This is like a volunteer thing. You just go on, no one's being paid. And I said, That's all right, don't worry about it. The money's not important. He goes, and secondly, I can't have you on KNEC and KROC. He said, So you're gonna have to quit KNEC. And I said, Okay, so you want me to work for free and not have a job when all the DJs get back? And he goes, that's correct. And I said, Are you going to Hawaii? And he goes, No, I'm here. And I said, So you'll get to hear me on the air. And I remember him looking at me and he goes, Richard, or Dick, Dick, you could sound like Casey Kasem and there wouldn't be a job for you. He said it's taken me two years to pick this staff. He said, We're the Saturday night live of radio. He said, Everyone's got their position. And he said, when they come back, there won't be a job for you. So you think about what you're doing, and I said, Okay, I'll do it, I'll quit. Wow. And he said, You understand what you're saying, and I said, Yeah, because you'll hire me. And he I love it. Yeah. And uh so I went on the air that first day on the Monday, and I didn't want to go on as Dick Shepherd because I just left KNAC and they were great people, lovely, lovely, lovely people, with a very small signal. The FCC ruled that they couldn't get more than 500 watts, whereas most radio stations are 50,000 watts. And so uh I didn't I didn't want to steal listeners, so I thought I'm gonna change my name from Dick Shepherd, and I'll go back to Richard. I always wanted to go back to Richard, and then I didn't know what last name to pick, and I was flipping through the LA Times looking for inspiration. Um Richard Hilbert, no, Richard London, that makes no sense. Richard Scott, no, I'm not Scottish, what are we talking about? And then I opened the uh entertainment section called the calendar section, and there was an ad for a movie. No one had ever heard of this movie, it was nothing because it hadn't opened yet. It said opening in two weeks, and it was a double page ad on these back when newspapers were huge things, big, big things. And it was a double page ad. It said opening in two weeks, blade runner. And I went, oh Richard Runner. That's what I'll call myself because I can steal- Alliteration. Yeah, I can yeah, yeah, alliteration, I can steal the Rolls-Royce logo for Richard Runner, it'll be that's fantastic. And the song was finishing, telecommunication from a flock of seagulls was finishing, and I dropped the paper down, I back announced the song, I said, I'm Richard, and I'd completely forgotten Runner. I was so nervous about being on a station that could be heard all over Southern California, and I looked down and the paper had folded on itself, and Runner was out of the sight, and it just said blade, and no one had heard of Blade Runner, so I just I couldn't even think of the second word. So I said, I'm Richard Blade, and and that and I got stuck with it, and then so uh uh I carried on and I did the three hours on the air, and I signed off and waited for Danny and then waited for Danny and started the next song and started the next song, and then the hotline rings, and yo, Danny Elfman here, and I'm like, Hey Danny, uh what time are you coming in? And he goes, I'm not. He said, Johnny Batos has us in a recording session and we're at rehearsal session for the upcoming tour. And he said, I can't get out today, I'll be there tomorrow, I promise. And I went, Okay. He goes, Can you get someone to fill in? I said, I'll stay. So I did the next three hours. So I've been on for six hours, and I'm about 40 minutes towards the end of the six hours, and the receptionist comes in. She goes, I've got a note from Elvira, and I said, Oh, that's nice. What's it say? It says the TV taping's going long for Mistress of the Dark, and she can't make it in today.

SPEAKER_03 58:44

Oh my god.

SPEAKER_00 58:45

I was like, Okay, I'll tell you that we're not living right, yeah. Yeah, so uh so I start at nine in the morning and now it's 5.25 in the afternoon. You know, I've had lots of water, no tea. I didn't bring any tea with me, and I went don't drink coffee. And I was like, oh god, I'm getting tired, uh, but uh it's fine, it's fine. This is what I wanted to do. And I'm reading, I'm in a commercial set, 525. I've done all the pre-recorded commercials for movies and Budweiser and concerts, and now I've got a live read to do, which is you do last, the live read, because it's flat, it's got no music behind it, and you can you know the listeners are most likely to tune out at that point, but they probably won't because if they've suffered through the whole commercial set, they know the songs are coming back, so you pace it out that way to the live read last. So I I the McCalls at the Parrot Place and Van Eyes are on sale this weekend if you go in and say K-Rock, and there's this voice as his guide barges into the studio with white hair, an older guy, and he goes, Where's Freddie? I said, uh, hit the mic off. I go, I'm on the air right now, I'm doing a commercial, okay? Turn it back on. I said the um if the McCall's are on sale, 44 44.95, just threw it and he goes, I need to speak to Freddie. I turned it off again. I go, Freddy's not here, I'm doing the commercials, I'm filling in for him, and I punch back on. But make sure you mention K R I gotta speak to Freddie, and I went, turn the thing off, and I went, If you don't get the fuck out of the studio right now, I will throw you out. I got up and he looked at me, and for a moment I thought we're gonna have a little fisticuffs going on here, and then he walked, he walked out of the studio and left, and I went back to the uh thing and I said, Sorry about the interruption, a little problem there. But anyway, we've got these McCalls on sale and did the whole thing. And then 35 minutes later, I'm I finish the show and I walk out of the uh radio studio, and Rick Carroll, the program director, is waiting in the hallway and he goes, Good show, thank you for filling in, appreciate that. And I said, Yeah, well, better than six hours of dead air, and he goes, Yeah, he said it was it was a lot better than that. And he goes, I got someone who wants to meet you. I said, Okay, cool. So I follow Rick to his little office, tiny little office, tiny, uh, just a desk, big speakers back in the day, and records everywhere, and sitting behind the desk, acting like he owns the place, is the white-haired guy I told to get the fuck out of the studio. And Rick goes, I want you to meet Ken Roberts. He owns K-Rock. I love it. Oh my god. Oh, my life is over. Oh my god. And then Ken won't look at me. He does not look at me. He looks at Rick and he goes, Ask him why he told me to fuck off. And Rick looks at me and goes, Um, why did you tell Mr. Roberts to fuck off? And I thought, I've only got one thing I can do, and I step right up to the desk, which was not far, I was on the one step at Tiny Office, put my hands on the desk and leaned right into his face. And I said, From what I've learned in radio, the only way a station makes money is by selling commercials. I was on the air reading a live commercial when someone I didn't know barged into the studio without any invitation and starts talking over the commercial. I asked them nicely, two times, if they could let me finish the commercial, and both times they interrupted me again. So the third time I said, Get the fuck out of the studio. It was either that or I could have just started the music, had a nice little chat, and the radio station wouldn't have made any money from that commercial, and I said, And that's never gonna happen when I'm on the air. The radio station is never gonna lose money when you've got me behind the microphone. And he sat there and he looked at me, and he didn't say anything, and it was like five hours it seemed before he spoke. It was probably three seconds, but seemed like that, and he looked at Rick and he goes, I like the kid, hire him. And so I got hired on my first day for telling the owner to fuck off.

Joey Stuckey 1:03:02

I love it. And and and now let may I say uh for for for listeners of the podcast who uh uh Richard had his video on earlier. Um and we record audio, only of course I can't see it one way or the other, but my wife uh was was telling me about the room you're in with all the golden platinum records on the wall, and uh you also have a a star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame. So you you uh you did the right thing, I think.

SPEAKER_00 1:03:28

It works out great because the thing was about K-Rock, you had the freedom to play a lot of your own music. Rick Carroll did a music log every day, you're for your three-hour shift, and it had two openings, you could play anything. But he he also said, if you got something better than the on the log, you can play it. But it better be better.

unknown 1:03:54

Right.

SPEAKER_00 1:03:54

And so I was like, wow, and I had all this music that my dad was sending me every week. White labels of Depeche Mode, of Talk Talk, of Tears for Fears, of Duran Duran, of Spandour Ballet, of Culture Club before they happened. Um all these groups, bow wow, wow. And I would play them, and the other DJs would come in and go, God that's what song is that? What song is that? I said it's it's UltraVox, it's dancing with tears in your eyes. Can you leave it? I want to play it. Jed would say, God bless him. Jed would say, Leave it in the studio, I want to play it. And I'd say, I'll put it onto a cart, I'll put it on tape, because I'm gonna play it tonight in the club, because I was still doing club gigs at the time, because K-Rock was not playing a lot paying a lot of money. But I was able to bring all this new music into K-Rock and people like Freddie Snakeskin and Jed the Fish and Dusty Street, who have incredible ears and incredible talent, they were so supportive about it and and loved, and they brought their own music in. You know, Dusty was big into the goth scene, for example. Freddie would throw in the most uh wild um 60s stuff like James Brown's would suddenly come blaring out of Devo.

Joey Stuckey 1:05:04

I opened for James Brown, that was quite an adventure.

SPEAKER_00 1:05:06

I can I can only imagine, and then uh uh Jed was huge into uh bands like Devo and Oingo Boingo. Yeah, yeah. It was we all had our own particular style on the air, and it was uh overnight K Rock. Yeah, I was I was not the one who made K-Rock, I was the missing piece of the jigsaw. Once I like that once because you cannot knock the talent of Romondo and of Jed and Freddie and Dusty, they were so incredible. And they just made you want to be better. But I was that English voice in a station playing ninety percent English music, and suddenly it seemed okay, it's real. That's why the station's playing the music, you know, and the people our our ratings just went through the roof and within Three months I was asked to do a TV show, broadcast TV show every day, called MV3, which then uh turned into video one. And so from uh January of uh January 10th of 1983 through till the end of 1989, I was on the air every day at uh five in the afternoon playing uh music videos on Channel 9, you know, and had a huge audience because it's broadcast, you know, you just turned on TV, and it was it was great.

Joey Stuckey 1:06:27

So and you and you also have done some some film appearances, so you got other guys to do some of the drama stuff. And and and I I want to say, like, I'm I'm a crappy actor though, honestly.

SPEAKER_00 1:06:36

I I'm not I'm not being modest, I really am a crappy actor. Well you're just a handsome man, I guess that's what it is. I'm crap at being somebody else. So uh I'm I'm always honored when that someone asks me to do it, and I'll do my very, very best. But you know, when I've worked with people like um Sarah Jessica Parker or Helen Hunt or Gabrielle Annois or Chase Crawford, I'm like, oh, if only I could be a teacher.

Joey Stuckey 1:07:03

That's a high ball then.

SPEAKER_00 1:07:04

Yeah, you know.

Joey Stuckey 1:07:05

Yeah. But I I think that it's so cool. Well, I mean, people just like like your your spirit. I mean, that's that's the thing. And and it's real, you know, as you know, as you have actually eloquently said already, is that there's a transmission uh in a live situation between the audience and the performer, whether it's a DJ or a band or whatever. And and so, you know, you've got that that transmission, that change, that exchange of energy, whatever you want to call it, uh, but but you know, you have you have that thing, and it and it's it's amazing. And I I want to ask you um as we as we start to to wind our conversation down, I'm not gonna let you go just yet, uh, but I want to ask you about what happened to radio, what happened to music, like your thoughts on how the industry has has changed, and uh, you know, any criticisms or any praise that you have. Because I I you know the days of the DJs, you know, having any kind of pull uh seem to be somewhat uh in the past. I mean, maybe it's different on Sirius XM, I don't know, but you know, it it just seems like there's not those big personalities anymore. There's you know, things are a bit homogenized. And uh so I I I wonder what you think about that, and then and then you know what's the difference between the days of vinyl and and and now everything's digital. I mean, how do you feel about that? So just wax philosophical. I'll do that first.

SPEAKER_00 1:08:27

I'll do that first. Yeah, I'm uh as pretty as vinyl is, and I have some vinyl up here, signed vinyl, uh ABC one, a wham signed vinyl, uh police signed vinyl. Uh save save them. But uh, if you want to see someone with a bad back, look for a DJ who does live gigs with vinyl. There is nothing heavier on this planet than a milk crate full of vinyl. It is crazy. And also, if you're de DJing outside in the summertime, oh my gosh, I I've watched the vinyl warp just go up. Wow. So I'm a big fan of digital, and I honestly people go, oh, difference in quality of the sound. Uh I don't have magic ears like you, Joey. Uh I I can't hear the difference in the quality of the sound. Uh so to me, and I'm also digital is great when I'm editing and putting things together because uh I can go back 30 30 times, bum, bum, bum, bum, bum, undo. You can't do that when you're editing on tape. That's impossible. Oh god, no.

Joey Stuckey 1:09:30

So I do not miss tape. I'm I'm I'll just I'll tell you.

SPEAKER_00 1:09:33

Yeah, so digital. But radio, when it comes to radio, uh I'll tell you, I'm gonna do it in reverse order. Let's do it. Sirius is philosophy, Sirius XM. The philosophy is everything we do is done for our subscribers. That's it. It's gotta be you've got to think about the listener and do it for them because they are paying money for the service.

Joey Stuckey 1:10:01

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 1:10:01

So they are subscribers. What do they want? And that's what we try and deliver just for the subscribers. Radio used to be like that. K Rock used to be like that. It used to be like I I remember in the early days uh of the two thousand uh of the nine uh 1990s when Kevin Weatherly came aboard K-Rock. We were uh top of our game still. We had the the buzz of the 80s still, we were number one or number two in the market consistently out of 60 radio stations, and we were sold out with commercials, sold out, 16 minutes an hour, and then Paramount would have a huge release for a movie that had blown everyone away the week before, and they didn't know it was going to be a big opening, and they wanted to let everyone know how well it had done, and they'd come into K Rock and say, you know, we want to buy um a a spot on Richard's show, a spot on Dusty's, a spot on Freddy's, and a spot with Jed. And Kevin would say, Nope, can't do it. It's sold out. And the sales, general sale, the general manager, the sales manager would go, Look, man, they're offering us $10,000 for 60 seconds. And Kevin would say, Nope, 16 minutes is it. He goes, That's too many, too many minutes. He goes, We're doing it for the listeners. That is incredibly, incredibly rare, particularly these days in broadcast radio. In broadcast radio, most of the programmers came from sales, they didn't come from being on air. They consider the music to be the interruption between the commercials. All they care about is the bottom line and making money. And that's why broadcast radio is virtually dead. You know, they they had to change the way the Arbitron samples the ratings just to have numbers still, because virtually nobody no kids. You kids in the 80s, what's the number one way you get your new music? Oh, radio. Number two way from my best friend. Number three, oh, there's this music store I go into and they play me songs. Great. Now you ask a kid, uh, how important is radio to you? And they'll look at you and go, What what what do you mean? How important is radio? For what? For music. Oh, radio plays music? Kids don't listen to radio. You know, they they'll listen to Spotify, they'll listen to satellite because they've got that in the car, and they'll listen to uh and watch YouTube. A lot of it comes on YouTube. Radio is like ninth if you ask kids where you get your music from. And that's shows how it's destroyed. And the way that these programmers, and I use that word with air quotes, yeah, do it, is because they come from sales. They got they don't care about the artists. There was one programmer that I worked with, and uh one of the biggest bands, it was when I was at Star 98.7, the only time I've I worked for money and I prostituted myself. Biggest band we had at the time was Coldplay. And I remember she would listen, we would listen to it in the music meetings, and she'd go, Oh, Coldplay have a new song, kill me now. It was like, fuck you. Yeah, it's a huge band that people love, and they put on a great show. Listen to oh it uh it it was awful, awful, awful. And that's what that's what's happened to radio. It's it's destroyed radio, and it all goes back. Um don't want to be political, goes back to Ronald Reagan and uh deregulation. It used to be you could only own nine radio stations in America. You couldn't own more than that because they're a monopoly commission and they didn't want uh it was an old 50s thing, you know, communists could take over and influence us. We know what happens with people when they influence these days, you know. There's we do there's certain um certain stations, TV and radio that just talk one way and it's influenced so many people. And so it has come true. But the mom and pop radio stations have gone because they've been bought by the big corporations, and the big corporations they'll have the same DJ on 30 radio stations, and they they never say the call letters, the call letters are pre-recorded, so they go, That was, this is, and uh, I'll be back right after this on and then whatever the call letters are. Yeah, yeah. So it's put so many DJs out of business, and those kids that I used to be a kid, uh they came up through the farm system. We all learned the hard way, what worked and what didn't work. Now you just sit there and you just have my my breaking point at Star 98.7 was in a meeting, and they said, Hey, we've uh just had some research done and uh we've got a great idea what we want from now on. Uh when you hit the mic, you know, there's a timer's gonna start, and you've got seven seconds. And in that seven seconds, we want you to back announce the name of the song, give the call letters of the radio station, say what's coming up, and then if you've got something funny you want to say, say it. I said, Oh, in seven seconds.

Joey Stuckey 1:15:15

That sounds crazy.

SPEAKER_00 1:15:16

I know. And they said, Yeah, I said, how about if I say I quit? Nice. You know, it was like just ridiculous, ridiculous. It wasn't about the music, it wasn't like you play a song. Uh in 1984, late 84, Frankie Goes to Hollywood, Relax was one of the biggest songs on the planet, and Frankie was huge. Yeah, and then they came out with two tribes, and I got the uh my dad uh the the record company had sent me the Armageddon mix nine minutes long. Oh my god, and I played the nine-minute mix of two tribes. I said, It's a new one from Frankie. This is the follow-up to Relax. Let's listen to it together. I haven't heard it yet. Let's listen to it. And I played it at all nine minutes of it, and at the end of it, I went, That's one of the best mixes I've ever heard. I said, I hope you will listen on good speakers, it sounded great in the studio. I'm gonna play it again. And I put it on, played it through again, and the phone lines are in update this fantastic. I just got my cassette going. Can you play it again? I played it nonstop for an hour. Whoa. One the one song. And at the end of the hour, I played top of the hour, I D, Kara QFM, Pasadena, Los Angeles, Rock of the 80s, and went into the next song. Brick Carroll, the program director, opens the door and he's standing in the door with his arms folded. Any other program director would have said, uh, unplug your headphones and get the hell out of here.

SPEAKER_03 1:16:37

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 1:16:37

He looked at me and he said, That was one of the best hours of radio I've ever heard. Because I was amazing. In between the songs, I'd punch the listeners up and they were like, Oh, this is fantastic. I love it, I love it. No one else would do this. So that was how it used to be. And now broadcast isn't, thank goodness for satellite radio. I'm I'm here in my home studio, and I put together all the features, all of the features on my show, which uh also rerun later at night at uh like midnight my time on Eagle Show, uh, whether it's Magnificent Seven, uh, Tuesday's New Sensation, Where Are They Now, Wednesday, Theme Thursday, or uh Forget Me Not Friday, and also the This Is the Days. I don't tell them who it is or what what it is. I just send that in, bam. Because that goes in ahead of time, so they can put it into the log. Everything else I do live here in the studio. And I don't tell them, and not once have they questioned it. Not one time. And I just made a change two days ago. I realized that uh theme Thursday I'd sent in the week of June 15th, and June 18th is a Thursday, and the theme was going to be Songs with King in the title. And it was inspired by the fact that King was the first single from UB40, and I just interviewed them. And then I thought, oh my god, June 18th is the anniversary of DePesh Mode at the Rose Bowl, concert number 101. So the theme Thursday I changed, and I got uh a live song from the band Wire, that was the first band, a live song from Thomas Dalby, who was second, live one from OMD, who was third, and then two live ones from 101 from DePesh Mode, and then I got an audience stadium sound effect, put it behind the other ones just to lift it up because the wire one was in a a you know, a small club like the Roxy, so the applause was like rather than Yeah, yeah. And so I mixed it all together and I said, We're playing this instead. You want Sirius Ed? Great. And the other one would be like, well, we should research this first and make sure, you know, it's like bullshit. But Sirius XM is it is about the listener. They want the content to be great for the listener. And I I'm that's one thing I I'm I try and always do when I'm like when I go out live on tour, uh, when I go out with the uh Things Can Only Get Better tour in July with Howard and Wang Chung and English speaking modern English. For my set, it's going to be a completely different set from what I've done three times before, because I went out twice with Howard last year and once with Lost 80s Live. And uh with Howard the first time around, I did um how New Wave was developed, how it started with craft work and went all the way through. And then on the second time around, I did brackets where I matched bands against each other and had the audience decide which would be the the most popular, and it was such a huge hit. This time I and I want I always want it to be different because I always figure that some of the audience will have gone to you know the previous show that I did or Howard did. And and so I spent a lot of time on it, and I've got a video version of it and an audio version of it if there's no screens in the venues, and we're gonna go through the entire decade, starting in 1980 and finishing in 1990, with the top five songs from each year. Wow. So I'm gonna tease the audience, you know. I'll be out there on stage, okay. 1984. What were the biggest songs? And then people will be yelling out. Oh, did you been peeking at my list? You know, that kind of thing. And then uh I'll say, All right, let's find out if you're right or wrong, and then I have it all pre-edited. Well, I hit the button and you hear this time machine go do do do do do do 1984, number five, and then that song will come on for like 20 seconds, then it goes number four, and it goes up, and then it goes to number one, and there's a pause, and then I stop it, or I will stop it, I haven't done it yet, stop it and go, All right, you heard the top five, but there's one missing, and that's the number one. What is it? And then you know you've got 7,000 people all yelling out different songs, and you go, Let's see who's right, and then you hit it, and then people just they just love that kind of stuff because you're involving them, you're reaching out, you're playing their music for them and letting them have feedback to you, which is what it's all about, you know, that energy on stage, you know. So if if you are gonna come to the things can only get better too, I promise you, I'm gonna make it as good for you as possible.

Joey Stuckey 1:21:40

I I wanna I want to come. It's it's it's really great. I mean that that is a fun, that sounds like a fun experience.

SPEAKER_00 1:21:46

Yeah, and one thing I do at the uh all the shows is a free meet and greet. On the first tour, uh I was approached by the promoters and they said, Would you do a meet and greet before the before the shows? And I said, Yeah, I love I love meeting the people, it's great. And then um they sent me the parameters of the meet and greet and I went, What what's the hundred and fifty dollars? And they said, That's the the cost. I said, The cost for what? And they said, for the people to meet you. And I went, no, sorry, not doing it. Done. And they they get to meet me and they get a free lanyard and 150 bucks. It costs them 150 bucks. I said, I'm doing it for free at all the shows. And so at I'm at six o'clock when the door is open, if it's a seven o'clock start for me, at six o'clock I'm in the lobby. And I got a table there, and uh just so I can sign on it, I don't hide behind the table. And it's been such a joy meeting so many people because I talk about it on the radio that hey, if you come in, come early. If you've got anything of mine you want signed, an old CD or the flashback favorites, one of my books, just bring it, I'll sign it, we'll take selfies, you can ask me questions, whatever you want to do. And it it's been such a joy meeting these families that come in early. And uh, you know, I I I don't want a penny from them. I because I'm I'm getting more than money from them. I'm getting their smiles and I'm getting a hug, and it's just nice.

Joey Stuckey 1:23:13

That is so cool. And and you know, we we're the same way. We we uh I jokingly say we shake babies and kiss hands, but we uh but we you know I'll I'll stay as long as you want at the merch table. I I will come and and take pictures, I'll sign stuff. My autograph's not that attractive as a blind man, it's just a cursive J as good as it gets. Uh, but but I mean I believe in that, and and I really and I and I love it, and I love hearing their stories and you know, trading stories. I think that's such a big deal. I I want to close on two things. The first one is uh I you and I are are Twitter buddies, and uh and and uh you you know already how I feel about certain things from what I'm saying.

SPEAKER_00 1:23:56

Oh, by the way, before you say this, I just want to jump in. Yeah, if you listen to my show on Sirius XM and I ask for suggestions, I always say you can reach me on Facebook, Richard Blade page, or threads blue sky on Instagram at Richard Blade. I never give out Twitter or X because I am open with my politics there and I don't want I don't I don't want the politics to drift into the radio show. So when you don't want to cross-contaminate yeah, so when people post I'm gonna write to Sirius XM and complain about you, I'm gonna feel free and tell tell them when you heard me mention X or Twitter last.

Joey Stuckey 1:24:29

I love it, I love it so much. Well, I I was gonna say, you know, I you know, I uh I get a little grief um about the thing that I've been sort of talking about uh a lot lately, and that is I think I feel like you would agree with this. This is not really uber political, so we're not gonna let it contaminate too much. But it is related to music, and that is uh I want to get your thoughts on artificial intelligence, and I want to warn you, I ask all my guests this, and I have pretty strong views about it, but uh, you know, from my perspective, I like the fact that there's a possibility to use the technology to enhance my interface with the world as as AI uh helping to replace the fact that I don't have eyes. That seems like a wonderful use of the tech. If you use it to help be organized, I can get behind that. I'm not real keen on it in the creative spaces, and uh and there's a reason for that. My reason is pretty simple. The machine has nothing of value to tell you because it's not alive, it has no lived experience to draw from. So music created solely by a machine, not interested. What does Richard Blade think?

SPEAKER_00 1:25:38

I agree, and I'll add to that. I think AI could be very, very dangerous if we allow it to be used in a war situation.

SPEAKER_03 1:25:49

I agree.

SPEAKER_00 1:25:50

If we allow AI to decide when to fire and what to fire at, that could be a terminator situation.

Joey Stuckey 1:25:59

Well, what scares me is that the people that make Claude stood up to our Defense Department and said, We're not taking the human out of the firing equation. And uh, you know, when we would know better than them. I mean, that's what I'm saying. I mean and when but when when the big tech companies who lobby our government very aggressively not to be regulated are the ones with a moral center, that's scary.

SPEAKER_00 1:26:26

No, I I agree with you, and and musically I agree as well, because maybe there'll be the occasional song or piece of artwork that AI could come up with that would be very, very special, maybe, but it doesn't have AI has probably not had its heart broken and so it can't express it. But the the thing that another thing that bothers me a lot about AI is how brilliant it is at imaging. Now you could have a picture of of me blowing your brains out.

SPEAKER_03 1:27:07

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 1:27:08

And or being promiscuous with a sheep. Oh yeah, exactly. And well, don't talk about that one.

Joey Stuckey 1:27:17

You know, I heard I saw that on a bathroom wall that you like the sheep, but I'm not sure.

SPEAKER_00 1:27:20

But that that's a scary thing because how would you know that it's fake?

Joey Stuckey 1:27:26

Well, my parents are in their 80s and and they you know use Facebook, kinda. Um, but what I have been talking about a lot is that there is a false veneer of professionalism and truth that is really hard to pierce now. And uh things appear real, they they seem real, they look real, they sound real. And you know, the only thing I can do when I tell my parents, they'll say, Oh, I saw this on Facebook. Say, Mom, that's you know, it's not a real thing. Uh, but the reason that I know. Know that is because when I see something and it seems not rational, I immediately check three or four sources to see if I'm seeing it somewhere else that has some sort of legitimate news uh you know credentials, which is getting harder and harder to do. I mean, you know, you look at CBS and you know, I I don't trust that source anymore. So, you know, it it it's really easy to have. I mean, any any you'll pardon my French, but any jackass can put something on the internet and make it look good, and you don't know. You know, they can claim to be a doctor, they can claim to be a lawyer, they you know, you don't know.

SPEAKER_00 1:28:35

Yeah, well, that's the amazing thing. Um when we had the pandemic, suddenly all these people that spent 12 minutes watching YouTube videos were more qualified than doctors, nurses, and researchers. It was it was like, wait a minute, uh I understand your viewpoint that you're coming from it this way, but don't say that these other people know nothing about it because they've just they spent seven years in medical school and you spent seven minutes on YouTube.

Joey Stuckey 1:29:05

Yeah, those are not non-equivalents. That's exactly what I actually said. My wife's an advanced practice nurse, so uh she's she spent six years in nursing school, has a master's degree, and you know, it's like and and I and you know, I'm a professional producer, and and I, you know, your 30-second Google search does not equate my 30 years of knowledge. Right, you know, and and it's it's really it's just real dangerous. And I mean, I have people coming to me all the time with misinformation about music, and that is not even you know, taking that's not risking people's lives. Uh the medical stuff, I mean, oh god, it's just it's so scary because you know that that can destroy somebody, and uh it's just a real scary thing. So I I I thought you would probably feel that way about AI.

SPEAKER_00 1:29:47

Um if it if it does get used to help find a universal vaccine, uh a cure for blindness, sure. Uh you know, a a way to get rid of gout, or you know, you name it. Uh it would it would be fantastic, but it's good there's an old Chinese proverb that is a curse and a blessing, and that is may you live in interesting times.

Joey Stuckey 1:30:12

Absolutely.

SPEAKER_00 1:30:14

I'm I would be quite happy to go back to some boring times right now.

Joey Stuckey 1:30:18

I sympathize with that profession. I really do. I'd like things to be a lot simpler. Yeah, well, the other thing I want to say what before I let you go, and this has been such a joy and a privilege, I want to talk about your other books because World of My Eyes is absolutely I've read it uh twice, uh, and I will read it again. Uh, you know, it's it's it's on my one of my favorite experiences. And um, it really is. And you and you did as a man who only can read audiobooks, let me just say that you did a fantastic job with the audiobook. Uh and and I did it all myself, right here in this code. I know you did, yeah. And and just absolutely, and I generally speaking, um, I like for the authors to read their books. Uh, I I think they bring something to the table, even if they're not a trained, I mean you're a trained voice, but you know, even even Stephen King back back in the 80s, uh, when I was a you know little kid, he was reading some of his books like the Gunsligger books, like, you know, he's not a good his voice is kind of weird, but it was cool because he he was able to put a lot of subtext as the author, you know, in the way he expressed things. So you but you've got besides music books, I think there's like what three or four music books, um, but you have some uh some other books, and I want to just touch on that real quick and and and have you tell us about how you moved into into that uh sphere.

SPEAKER_00 1:31:36

Well I written five novels and uh they're based on screenplays I'd written and not had made, but I thought they were all pretty good stories, and I've had a couple of screenplays made. I I wrote for uh a sci-fi show on UPN called uh Seven Days, and back in the day, remember UPN before it was a CW? Yeah, yeah, yeah. And I had a movie made um for Lifetime, which uh I actually got a co-star in. They they cast me in it, which was cool, and with Gabriel Lamoir, Craig Schaefer, and uh Chase Crawford, who went on he's become a huge star on the boys and everything like that was his first role, and that was called Long Lost Son. But some of these screenplays just sitting around after the success of World in My Eyes, which blew me away, I thought I'm gonna take a shot at writing a novel. And so the first one I did was one that uh called SPQR, uh the Senate and Populist Key Romanus, the Senate and People of Rome. And it's uh an alternate history one about what would have happened if a group, a small group of Romans, highly trained uh soldiers, the were part of an invasion force of Britain when the Romans tried to invade in forty-four BC. What would have happened if they ran into a storm and instead of ending up in Britain, they were blown across the Atlantic and ended up in a strange country, which was America. But it w it left me with a lot of problems because you can't use the word America, can't use the words North Carolina, can't use the word Native Americans, you can't use the word Indians, uh because none of those were invented over two thousand years ago. So uh a a really good friend of mine is a uh an American a Native American chief. And I worked together and I said, Look, I how do I get around this? And he said, Oh, call them call them savages, and as they get to know them, call them natives. And I was like, I like it. Yeah, that's great, you know. That's brilliant. Then he told me a lot about the tribal customs and the the uh the the way that the uh medicine man worked and the chief worked, the hierarchy in the villages, and it's but it's a huge action piece, huge action piece. The last third of it is like the biggest battle you've ever, ever read. And the book uh blew out Amazon number one for months, it was fantastic, and so I thought, ooh, that's good, and uh um, and so I wrote the second one, which was based on a true story that I've been trying to make into a movie forever and ever. Uh, true story of uh someone I worked with at K Rock, Mike Evans, and uh it was a story of what he got up to in the late 60s, and it's called Imposters, and it's fantastic. He was he was 4F, he couldn't go to Vietnam because of asthma, but because he was an agitator on the street, they pulled him off the street and said, Uh, we're overturning your medical records, and you've got to go to Vietnam. So he had to flee. And he he did it by impersonating a duo from the 50s and uh touring as them with his best friend, the two of them, like like a righteous brothers kind of thing. And they were on their way to Canada, there was a gig waiting for them and 600 bucks, and they figured they could live off that for a year, and by then the war would be over because everyone was naive about Vietnam at the at the 66. And uh, but the gig went so well that he went, let's stay on the road, and tour America and was speak out at all the concerts against Vietnam, and they toured for three years with the FBI chasing them, but the FBI was chasing Mike Evans, he they weren't chasing Johnny and Joe, the impostors, and it's it's a great story, fantastic story.

Joey Stuckey 1:35:35

Now, now are these audiobooks too, Richard?

SPEAKER_00 1:35:37

Or not uh SPQR is audio, imposters isn't, because Mike wanted to read it, uh, but he never got round to doing it and he still hasn't. I might end up doing it.

Joey Stuckey 1:35:49

Uh when you tell him there's a blind man that really wants to read it now.

SPEAKER_00 1:35:52

Uh but there's another one called Birthright that you would love, and that is uh an action one um that starts with Jack the Ripper but then comes up to date. And if you imagine evil James Bond versus uh Indiana Jones.

Joey Stuckey 1:36:10

Oh my god, I love it already.

SPEAKER_00 1:36:12

It's uh a chase across uh two continents um as uh the the uh the fate of the Western world rests in in the hands of this discovery that this professor has made. And the evil James Bond wants to stop coming out. No, but talking about reading authors reading books, I gotta tell you one that pissed me off. Okay, really bad. Morrissey wrote a novel and he released it, and he released it as an audio book as well, read by Morrissey. It wasn't him that read it. It was not. It was an actor called David Morrissey.

Joey Stuckey 1:36:55

I read that book and I was highly disappointed.

SPEAKER_00 1:36:57

Yeah, David Morrissey's fantastic actor, the best governor ever on Walking Dead. He was fantastic, but for Morrissey to do that, that's like a that's a bit of a cheat to me. I don't I didn't like he's gotten kind of weird his old age. Yeah, sad. You know, why why wouldn't he just take the time and read it?

Joey Stuckey 1:37:16

You know I don't know. I that's because when it said read by Morris, I was like, oh boy. And I was like, uh okay, are they related or what's the deal?

SPEAKER_00 1:37:24

Yeah, you know, I it again to me uh that's taking away from the enjoyment of the listener, and that's what my life's always been about, trying to make people happy, you know.

Joey Stuckey 1:37:33

It's well I I was I was highly disappointed in that as well, I have to tell you. I I I'm I'm glad to hear somebody else say it. I didn't want to be moaning and bitching, but it was disappointing. What when when you are you influenced by specific uh authors or genres? Or I mean sounds like you're a sci-fi fan, maybe.

SPEAKER_00 1:37:51

Oh, a big sci-fi fan. Um right now I'm reading all the Reacher books.

Joey Stuckey 1:37:55

Oh, they're wonderful, yeah.

SPEAKER_00 1:37:56

Yeah, uh, and I'm very yeah, impressed with Lee Child. A he's British and he writes about America better than any American I've ever read. I know there's uh my wife uh downloaded for me on my Kindle a six-pack of his books. Um it was, you know, you buy it as a six-pack, and it had a 45-page introduction by Lee Child about how he got into it. And I had no idea he was British. I he could have knocked me down with a feather when I read it.

Joey Stuckey 1:38:26

It does not read that way. You're right.

SPEAKER_00 1:38:28

And he decided to make uh Reacher American because Britain wasn't big enough, and he wanted him to be able to roam a massive country to get into all these different exploits and adventures.

Joey Stuckey 1:38:40

And well, they they say the TV show's good, but I hadn't seen it yet.

SPEAKER_00 1:38:43

So it is good, it is very good. Um season one and three are the best. I didn't like two too much because there was too much team in it and not enough reacher by himself.

Joey Stuckey 1:38:53

I gotcha. That's what it's all about, yeah.

SPEAKER_00 1:38:55

Yeah, but uh he's he's great. As a kid, I read uh Ian Fleming. Of course, but um the books don't hold up as much today. Um and some of the language certainly doesn't.

Joey Stuckey 1:39:07

Oh my gosh. When I read it now, I'm like, oh, I can't believe he said that.

SPEAKER_00 1:39:11

I know, but you know, persons of color are not referred to by that word. They are not, but but back back in 50 it was uh considered uh okay.

Joey Stuckey 1:39:20

You know, well and women women were certainly more objects in the books than uh yeah. I mean they they didn't have tons of personality, really. Uh uh, but but I I do love this. I just what well I just had to I had to ask about the books because I thought that was really cool. And and again, Renaissance man, that's what you are. I mean, you you've got all these different self-makes. I'd love to read it.

SPEAKER_00 1:39:41

I'm I'm trying to think about my next novel before the sequel to World in My Eyes. I'm gonna put the sequel out to World World in My Eyes. I'm trying the next novel, I'm torn between a comedy. Okay, uh a alternate history sci-fi and the book version of Long Lost Son, the one that was made into a movie for a lifetime. I'm I'm torn between the three. So one of these days.

Joey Stuckey 1:40:07

Well, that's so I have a minor scoop here. So that's I appreciate that. So that's well, I I've got to tell you, um, you know, uh don't forget that sci-fi and comedy can go together as well. So you could uh you could hitchhiker's guide it if you wanted to. You could you could but I I think that so so these days, you know, you spend your time on Sirius XM, you're writing uh books, uh, you're still doing public appearances. Uh is there anything you want to share before I let you go that we haven't talked about?

SPEAKER_00 1:40:36

Not really, just be kind to animals. That's one of my big things. My wife and I uh we we love animals. That's our our big charity to you know try and save dogs and cats. Yeah. And uh, you know, to do that kind of thing because you know, we we if you can leave the world a little bit better when I when we're walking, our dog, if I see other poop on the ground, I pick it up. And I've been asked a couple of times, your dog didn't do that. And I'm like, yeah, but why not leave the street a little bit better than you found it? And that's why I think life should be. Try and I you know, I don't have the capacity of a like a uh Bill Gates or something like that to uh uh you know help thousands and thousands, but if you you can make the world just a fraction better, then why not do it? You know, it's it's it's silly just to live just for yourself and and walk past someone who's in need or an animal in need or something like that.

Joey Stuckey 1:41:36

Try and try and I agree, and you know, small small things can be profound. And uh I have a song we're getting ready to record. I'm I'm gonna be in LA uh in a couple weeks and we're gonna record. I have I have uh convinced the Les Paul Studio, which is part of United, uh, to let me be the first artist to record there. Well uh because I'm I'm a persistent person, and uh you don't you don't threaten me with an opportunity because I will come and call it. And uh uh I I just tell people's like, don't offer me something you don't mean because I'm good, I'm gonna I'm gonna remember. Um so we're gonna do that. And and I've just written a song and it's called Tiny Redemptions, and and the song is all about uh the fact that when I was in LA, I by the way, I hate LAX with a passion. If you have not been a well, if you've ever been a blind man trying to get through LAX with a guitar, that is hell. And uh I was uh working with Alan Parsons uh at the time, uh headed towards a session, uh, and uh we were going had to fly into LAX, then drive down. And I was uh my wife and I were there, and this woman, for reasons unknown, uh decided to ram her luggage cart into me because I didn't move out of her way fast enough. And so the problem with that is that she knocked me into the street and the luggage cart started falling on me, and there were cars coming. And and of course I can't see, so I'm just completely bewildered, and I'm falling. And I I have a metal shoulder to metal hip too, which is a latent issue for the brain tumor. And uh uh I was really upset, and these two like most people just kept on walking. Uh there were literally like you know, a lot of people there, and nobody just, you know, oh well, I guess he's gonna die, you know. I mean, just but these two people ran from out of the crowd, grabbed me out of the road, grabbed, helped my wife pick up all the luggage, and would not leave us until we got into our rental car. And and they didn't even tell me their names. And I I didn't ask, be honest, I just hugged them. And and it was that moment where I realized that like, you know, small acts of kindness by complete strangers, you know, is real important. And uh and they made a big difference in my life that day. And in the rest of that week and month, I was very concerned because I was like, well, maybe I'm not maybe I'm not able to function. Like, maybe can I is this gonna happen a lot? Like, you know, it's like, you know, I am is it too hard for me to travel? Is it too dangerous? I mean, but anyway, it was just that moment of uh, and I I think that I thought it was a really profound moment for me. It was a moment of crisis of doubting the my ability to to function without some crazy person knocking me around. And then, you know, but then these people come out of nowhere and like they they helped. They they just and I mean they I mean they rode with us to the rental car lot in the bus. I mean, they totally abandoned everything they were gonna do and stayed with us. And that was a profound moment of kindness. And so I believe in those, and I I think I think that's more people like that, please. Yeah, me too. So I I appreciate what you're saying. And and we uh we love dogs and cats, and uh uh currently I have a cat because we're gone a little a little bit. Uh and I I feel like I need to walk a dog, and I feel like I need to make sure that they get exercise. And my cat is a little more independent, but uh yeah, we we love we love animals too. So listen, thank you for your work, thank you for your talent, thank you for your time, my friend. It has been a pleasure.

SPEAKER_00 1:45:04

Chloe, it's my pleasure talking with you, really.

Joey Stuckey 1:45:06

Well, it's it's I appreciate you very much. And listen, friends, if you're listening to this podcast now, uh there are so many incredible people with incredible stories. I invite you to explore them all with me by going to www.stuckonsound.com.