Greg Staffa 0:28

I guess this episode is objective many trades performed for the craft ground. Thank you. Thank you, Valley, and the fourth student. Speaker, author, man of count. I have Zoro with me today. Thank you for joining us.

Zoro 0:42

Yes, great to be with you, Greg. Thanks so much for having me on as a guest.

Greg Staffa 0:46

So the first thing I'm going to do is ask my usual last question first. And I usually ask that everyone I talk to. And that question is when you look in the mirror, who do you see? Like you get up in the morning, you go into the bathroom, you look in the mirror. Who is that you see? Because so much of your PR stuff is, you know, attaching it to Lenny Kravitz or Bobby Brown because that gets the clicks and stuff like that. But you've done so much more than that. So who is it that you see when you look in the mirror?

Zoro 1:14

That's a very good question, uh, Greg. I think that's the first time anybody's asked me anything that deep. I love it. Um, what I see when I look in the mirror is I see a man of intention. I see a man who uh has lived his life very intentionally and very purposefully, and with a vision and a goal. And that vision and a goal is to be a difference maker wherever I go. And all of those things, playing with Lenny Kravitz, Bobby Brown, Frankie Valley, whoever, the books, the speaking, the teaching, the writing, they all have one main goal, and that is to impact people in a positive way, inspire them to pursue their dream, help them to make it through life. So when I look in the mirror, I see somebody who has um he has a vision for his life, and he knows that his lifespan is only going to be so long, uh, because life is not really that long in general. And so I go, I see a guy who wants to touch as many hearts and souls as possible with the lifespan that he is given. And so that's what I see. And I see a guy with a big heart. Uh, I have a big heart, I have a tender heart, but I live a very purposeful life. I don't waste time. Uh, I see everything as an opportunity uh to impact people, and all those art forms are just ways of connecting with different people.

Greg Staffa 2:38

Wow, that's great. So tell us a little bit about your upbringing. You came from a large family. Seven kids, is it?

Zoro 2:45

Yeah, my mother, uh I was a single mother, raised seven children alone. She was an immigrant uh to Mexico City, and she had the enormous task of raising all seven of us without the aid of a father. So um we became a very tight-knit uh family because we had nobody else to rely on. And you know, most families that I know, all the people I know, they grow up, they have uncles and aunts and cousins and and all kinds of relatives and grandparents, and I had none of those. I literally grew up with no one except my mother and my siblings, because all her relatives lived in Mexico City, and I had never been there, and so I didn't grow up with any of those people. My father was Irish but left me when I was an infant of six months. Uh ironically, the only thing he left me when he left was uh a set of bongos, which he left by accident, and there's a picture of me and my stroller at about 18 months, and the only thing beneath me is my destiny. It's a set of his bongos. So I thought that's very poetic justice of God to turn me into a drummer, but uh, and I didn't know those people because they lived in Chicago. So it was very bizarre growing up with people who had, you know, four grandparents and uncles and cousins, and I didn't have any of that. I just had my beautiful six brothers and sisters, and we fought uh for each other's survival. We fought with each other a lot as families do when you when you're in that kind of a situation, but we fought for each other's survival and we became very close, uh, very tight bond because we needed each other to survive. And uh by the I grew up in South Central Los Angeles. I grew up in the area known as Compton, the hood. And so uh it was very unstable childhood, and we moved around a lot from apartment to apartment. Sometimes we would move from one place to the next using my red radio flyer wagon uh because we couldn't afford a U-Haul or had a truck or a car. So that was the kind of a lifestyle, and uh and and and so then we moved from this urban concrete jungle of Los Angeles. When I was about 10, we moved to a uh rural Oregon in an area called Grants Pass, where it was like the opposite. It was like a mountain town, and uh then we experienced a whole nother different level of hardship up there, um extreme racism because they didn't like that my mother was Mexican. This is 1972, uh 71, and there weren't a lot of ethnic people up there. And at one point we were reduced to living in our 1962 Chevy Nova on a little piece of land, and then we got a tent, and then we got an 11-foot camper. So that's a little bit of my background.

Greg Staffa 5:37

And how long were we living in the car?

Zoro 5:39

Like a good summer, and then we got a little tent, and then we spread out between the tent, the car, and then we got like an 11-foot camper, like the kind you tow in the back of a car. We didn't have an outhouse, we didn't have electricity, we didn't have running water, uh, and we just built like the American dream, you know. When I look back on my story of making it as a musician, and the re reason I wrote my memoir, Maria's Scarf, is it is really like the American dream story. It is really like yeah, against all odds, like a David and Goliath type of story. It's like the spirit of like Rudy, Rocky, the blind side meets Forrest Gump, because all these amazing things happened in my life that were never supposed to happen. And that's kind of how I equate it to like Forrest Gump. Like Forrest found himself you know at the White House and in the movie, and then he was with Elvis. And that's been my life. I've had these incredible experiences of these things that are unbelievable, from traveling with Paul Allen, the fourth richest guy in the world, the co-founder of Microsoft, to being honored at the White House, to being with the biggest rock stars and supermodels and um, you know, princes and just you know, but but coming from the background that I came from, where I dug my clothes out of the goodwill drop-off box, that's why I equated to like Forrest Gump. It was all these amazing things where you're going, man, this is you know, and I've shared these stories about my life, most of my life, you know, on tour buses with famous people, and they would always tell me back then, they would say, Man, you got an incredible story. This would be a great movie or a book one day. And so that encouragement over years and years and years led me to uh to write my story because I thought this would be a story that would inspire people with hope to never give up. And back to the man in the mirror, that was always my goal. Use and I am a man of gratitude. I'm thankful for everything that's happened to me because of what I came from. When you grow up rough like I did, uh it births inside of you a spirit of empathy and compassion. Because when you go through things like that, that's when you care. I find people don't really care if they've never been through anything hard. But when you've been through hard things, you develop empathy and compassion for other people, which is what made me become like a motivational speaker and a teacher and a rallier, because I know what people need. It's the same thing I need, but didn't get very much of, which is encouragement, which is motivation. And and uh but I mean I got it from my mother and a few different people in my life, but I didn't get it from a father figure per se. But I decided as a young boy that one day when I became a father, that I would be a great one and that I would be for my kids what I wished I had. But then that extended well past my own children. I've mentored countless people in the world. Uh I taught drums at Belmont University in Nashville, Tennessee for nine years. I've I've had hundreds, no, probably thousands of students in the last 45 years, and uh and I've taught, I've I've been a spiritual mentor and a friend and uh and a fatherly figure to all of them. Those that are younger than me, those that are older than me. It's just the nature that I took on from my experience, you know.

Greg Staffa 8:55

Well, that's great. Now you were you're very young back then, and and now looking back in as an adult, you can appreciate all the hardships that your mother went through. For you as a child, did you get a sense of that? Or was it kind of, you know, we're living out in a tent? This is, you know, I'm I'm kind of free, it's kind of fun. I mean, was it a different perspective for you back then that it took adulthood to realize what she went through, or did you kind of appreciate it or understand what was going through at the time?

Zoro 9:22

Yeah, that's a good question, Greg. Uh yeah, certainly when you get older, uh, I wish she were still alive because there's so many things. I had always we had always had this unbreakable uh bond between mother and son, and I loved her immensely, and she loved me immensely. But as you get older, you just you you become a more you have more sage wisdom and you can see things from a different perspective. And I go, wow. Now when I look back, I go, man, you were a hero to my mother. Like if I could tell her the things I could express now, because having raised two children of my own uh with my wife, and just just you know, when you when you get older and mature, you really realize what things really were. As a kid, you don't, I mean, uh it was a very trying, difficult childhood because in school, you know, I was ridiculed for being skinny, for being half Mexican, uh, for being poor. Uh it was very tough, you know, and so I knew that we had it tough. And I knew when I see other kids have a home and running water, it doesn't take a lot to figure out, hey, we're not living like them. But my mother did have this ability in my family to make everything like an adventure, you know. Um, we weren't whiners, we we worked really hard uh to make the American dream our own. And we took every little opportunity and to turn it into something more. And so uh at that age, yes, I knew a lot that we were different than other people, but I still didn't understand uh what she was able to endure and how she kept hope alive. Uh, my mother was a woman of faith, she had a deep and abiding faith in God. She was a Christian woman, and I think that's what kept her together, or otherwise she would have just quit. She had this incredible, indomitable faith that God would somehow see us through these impossible situations, and somehow through her prayers and faith, he always did see us through, and we always made it through the storm. Um, but I admire that now more than ever, because as you live longer, you face your own trials and tribulations as an adult. And you go, I'm I'm married, I've got a great wife for 29 years, we've raised two kids and 22 and 24, and that's been a challenge. And this is with two parents, with somebody who's made a good living myself, who's made a name for myself, and I found that to be difficult. I'm going, how in the heck did she not quit with with seven, you know, and no help, and and and just you know, where do you find but my mother had this incredible hope, and she also used music a lot to inspire me. She loved music more than anything, and she would put on the lyrics of certain songs. You know, I can remember her putting on like Frank Sinatra's High Hopes or Young at Heart, and she would always use the lyric to teach me how to dream and how to believe and how to imagine great things. And so I think the greatest gift she ever gave me, besides her love, was this ability to look past circumstance. I wrote something in the book, uh, in the introduction, I said something like, you know, despite the grim, dark circumstances of my childhood, I learned to follow a voice. And the voice, it was the sound of my mother's voice, is what navigated me through the dark and into the light. And it's totally true because you could be stuck in a cave with people, and if you're with somebody who's positive and has faith that you're gonna make it out, you can believe that you're gonna make it out and make it out. But if you're stuck with somebody who says, We're gonna all gonna die here, you know. If you see that movie about Louis Zamporini, Unbroken, uh, which is a f famous story, you know, uh a book by Lee Hildegard, I think's her name, and she wrote his story. And three guys are on a dinghy, and they get shot down in World War II, you know, and they're on a dinghy, like you know in the middle of nowhere, and they have no food, and but one of them uh said, you know, we're gonna die, we're not gonna make it, or whatever. And but Lewis was of a positive mindset. He lived and the other guy didn't, you know, in the same set of circumstances. So I think there's something to say for the attitude uh of life, and they they even say this with medical people, you know, like if you if you if you are positive, you're more likely to overcome an ailment or a sickness than if you're not positive, right? I mean, there's the the mind is such a powerful thing. Um But I think the greatest the the greatest gift she imparted to me was that she taught me to look past circumstances, and and a part of it was, and you'll learn that when you read the memoir, Maria Scarf, is that she didn't grow up the way I grew up. She was grew up in Mexico City, she was the daughter of a Supreme Court justice. She lived in an aristocratic family that had presidents over for dinner, and the biggest Mexican movie stars and the most powerful people in Mexico were her people related to her, and so she grew up in a completely different world. So even though I grew up poor, broken, you know, broken down and tumbled down, she didn't carry herself that way because she was educated and came from an educated family and a well-to-do family, she thought bigger and dreamed bigger, but I didn't I couldn't appreciate that as a kid because I couldn't even relate to it. You know, she would tell me these stories, but you didn't live them and you didn't see them, so they didn't really mean anything to you as a kid. Now, as an adult, I realized, wow, she always carried herself with that dignity of who she once was. And and and that is how she taught me to go to the library and read books and to imagine a great future and that you can have something great if you work hard for it. You know, pretty pretty amazing.

Greg Staffa 15:21

Yeah, and I I I fully agree with what you said earlier about you know, going through that kind of life experience changes how you view and treat other people. And I think you can really tell some people that have gone through that how they treat others, uh it changes them. I mean, you have a lot more empathy, you have a lot more caring, and just realizing how you see people change because, like you said, your mother was you know whining and dining with presidents, and now you know how does she carry herself? And if she carries herself the same way, it sends a message of you know, helping ways to get through it. So you had the bongos, and the bongos turned into a drum set. Uh, what started all that?

Zoro 16:02

Well, that's very interesting. Um, people ask me that. I kind of think the gifts that we have in our life that we've been given, you know, they're all they've been there since birth, right? Like it's just we discover them at certain times. Some people are fortunate and they discover their gift and talent very young. Some people discover it much later, but they've always been there. In other words, we don't we don't give ourselves an ability. We're born with an ability that we develop. And so I think the drumming was just in me from birth. I was always hitting things and making noises with rhythms. And even before I had a drum set when I lived in Compton, I made like a little ghetto drum set with some empty folders, coffee cans, and almond roca cans and salad spoons and a Tupperware. You know, I was I was banging on things. Like that rhythm was wanting to come out. So it was just sort of God ordained that it was in me. But music is what sparked it. It's when I my uh I got taken to a concert when I was about seven, seven or eight, and I got to go see the Temptations and the Supremes when they were very popular in the 60s in Long Beach, California. And it changed me because I saw the drummer play and those rhythms, and I just wanted, I'd always wanted to play and beat on the drums. And every time I tried to get in the school band program, they uh would always turn me down and say there's too many drummers, so you can't play the drums. So I was turned down year after year. Um, but one year in the fourth grade, I uh I wanted to play so bad that I entered a talent show and I played, I pretended I was a drummer that had a drum set. I basically lied to the band that needed a drummer and said, I'm a drummer. And then when the night of the thing came, I didn't have a drum set, so I made up some story about how it was in the shop getting fixed, but I could play on this big cardboard box and pound out rhythms so you could feel the beat. And so my first talent show was me playing on an empty appliance uh uh box. Like imagine an empty like washer and dryer box put on its side, and then my brothers and sisters helped me draw a drum set on the front of it, and I played on it with my hands and pounded out rhythms for them. But I I conned myself into that talent show because I wanted to be on stage. And uh, but even though I didn't have real drums, that's what uh that's what kind of sparked the whole thing. And I actually didn't start the drumming journey until I was 16. I was an after I had an after-school job as a janitor at my own high school. I was in the 10th grade, and part of that job after cleaning the toilets and the library and vacuuming was to clean the band room. But everyone was gone by then. It was like a two-hour after-school job, and I'd have to catch the activity bus. In the last 10 minutes, I was after I cleaned the band room, I would sneak out the drums and just play. I never took a lesson, I didn't own any drums, but there were always sticks there, and I just played. But I guess I could play from day one. I mean, I had an ability, uh I wasn't great, but I had rhythm. Enough so that the band director caught me playing on the drums one day, and that's when he discovered my talent, and he said, Hey kid, you've got an amazing gift. Where have you been hiding? Like, we need you in the jazz band, the marching band, the swing choir. So that day he discovered me, uh, changed my destiny because I got in all the school band program when I couldn't get in there the regular way because he heard my talent, and then from that point, there was no turning back. I was on fire. And I am and I imagined from that day one that I was gonna do drums for a living. And in fact, if you when you get a copy of it, if you look on the cover very closely, the whole cover, there's a picture of me at seven and my mother, we're both wearing scarves. There's a story behind the scarf, but you'll see like this little writing uh behind our pictures. And what it is, it's a piece of paper when I was 15 where I wrote out my dreams and visions for myself. And I still have that piece of paper all these years later. And so I scanned it, and my publisher Blackstone came up with a brilliant idea of making that the background of the cover of the book. Oh, wow. And then the font and the font of the book that says Maria's scarf and my you know by Zorro, it's my own writing from that note that they just used to create the lettering. And so, but on that note, I wrote shortly after I started playing, it might have been even a couple weeks, but I wrote, one day I'm gonna make it as a drummer and showbiz. And the other thing I wrote is you in later years in your life will change your own life completely. So I made all these decrees and declarations that all came to pass. And I thought, I thought, but once I once I got those drums and started playing, I just believed that I was gonna do this. I mean, it's one of those things like Paul Allen told me when I used to travel with him, the Microsoft Mobile. He said, you know, Bill Gates and I were just ignorant enough when we were young to believe that we could do what we did. We in other words, you like uh there's a quote from Mark Twain that says, um, with ignorance and confidence, success is assured. You know, you just have to be just ignorant enough to believe you could do it.

Greg Staffa 21:18

Yeah.

Zoro 21:19

And just and confident enough to believe you can do it. You know, it's like you gotta, if you if you're too old and too smart, you'll realize what I'm trying to do is impossible, so you'll quit. But you're just naive enough to entertain the idea that you can do something that could change the world, but you have just enough confidence to go for it, you know, not arrogance, but like, and so I was right in that fine sweet spot, like believing in yourself. Yeah, you're you're believing in yourself and you're just deluding yourself to thinking you could do it because you don't really realize how hard it really is going to be. So you fool yourself into thinking you can do it. And then somewhere along the line, because you've thought that way and you're young enough to be resilient, you do it. And you might not succeed the first time around. Like I remember Paul Allen telling me that him and Bill Gates started a different company before Microsoft that nobody knew about. I think it was called Trafto Data. And they were doing something to like with a ticker-taker thing to kind of read traffic. And it was a great idea, but it never took off and it basically failed. But people only know Microsoft. People all in once I was talking to Denzel Washington, and he told me, he goes, you know, he goes, you know, Zoro, everybody knows all the movies I got. No one knows the movies I didn't get. Yeah. And that's true. That's true of anybody. Everybody knows the jobs that I got as a drummer. They don't know the auditions that I went to where I didn't get the job, right? And so sometimes people look at your life and they'll go, oh man, you know, like, for instance, my memoir that's coming out, Maria Scarf, April 30th, it is almost 400 pages. It has come out to be an incredibly beautiful, poignant book that is going to touch a lot of hearts. I spent 15 years learning how to write it. I read over 300 books to study the craft of writing memoir. Even though I had written I had written six other books before it, none of them were a memoir. Writing a memoir is like being a neurosurgeon in the in the medical field. Writing a regular book is like being a pediatrician. Writing a memoir is like a neurosurgery. It's a much higher level of skill. And I didn't have that when I first started. But I I read over 300 books, I studied, I've worked on writing it over the last 15. But in all honesty, I I started a diary when I was 10 that I kept writing into and through my 20s. So I've really been writing it for 50 years. And when it comes out, people that don't know the backstory will go, well, of course he has a memoir. He's Zorro. Everybody, he's a world-renowned drummer. He's played with all these people. That's easy for him. What they don't know is that my book Well, what they don't know what got me there, the the the amount of years of writing and studying the craft of writing, just even that. But then they don't know that I've been pitching it for 15 years and it was turned down over a hundred times in that 15 years. And so they will only know that I have this stellar, beautiful, touching memoir. It's going to be a movie and a Netflix series, and they're going to go, wow, everything just happens for him because you know he's Zorro, whatever they think. You know, I'm not I'm not a household name, but I have a name as a drummer in the music world. And they're going to think it's because of that, when in reality, nobody gave me a book deal because I was Zorro. It's because Blackstone ended up loving the story so much that they thought this is a compelling, moving, universal story. It's not about drumming, it's about dreaming. So it applies to everyone. And they won't know how many iterations, how many times I've rewritten it, how much I've studied, how much rejection I had to overcome. And what's fascinating to me is like my whole story in the book is this overcoming story of this kid with a dream against all odds. But the story of the overcoming story come to life is a continuation of the overcoming theme because it's 15 years of a hundred rejections.

Greg Staffa 25:12

Sure.

Zoro 25:13

And I don't know many people that would have kept going.

Greg Staffa 25:16

No, I the memoir part is hard because it's personal. You know, it's easy to write about something else, or it's easy to write something fictional. But the memoir part, you know, when you're breaking down your own life and telling about that, that's I've been asked to do my own, and I haven't had the courage to do it yet. And for me, I figure there's too much of my story left to to come out before I do something like that. But I've explored it. Not for the faint of heart.

Zoro 25:45

No, and it's it it's it's it's it's two it's a two-pronged thing. Once, one, you have to really I think you have to have enough distance from your life. I think memoirs are better if you're older when you write them because you have to have enough distance to see the truth. You have to have enough distance to be vulnerable. Uh, 15 years ago, I wouldn't have been as vulnerable. So I think it's God's timing that it didn't come out then. Because in these 15 years, I really learned to write and I really learned to go back into my past and see what is this story really about? What really happened, and and how honest can I be with all of it so that it could be powerful? Because when you're younger, you're hiding and protecting things because you're still trying to make your career and you're and you're hiding things for your reputation. So you're not as free. You always know people get older, they don't care anymore. Yeah, they don't care to the they bring out all the hard stuff. So, one, it's very cathartic. Two, to write one well, you really have to understand a lot of things about writing, which is very complex. You have to understand character development and dialogue and scenes and settings, and it is so complex and and uh through lines and themes and all of this stuff, and just the right amount of each. I know from the many, many people who've read the advanced readers' copies, some of the hard most hardened readers I know, everyone has told me this book has moved them and has slayed them and has inspired them. But that's the 15 years of the work, and then also I have my mother's heart. She was a very uh soft and tender-hearted woman. So I write in a way that really touches people's hearts, and that's just because of the life I live. You can't you can't make that as a writer, you can only write who you are, you know, uh, and you can only be who you are, right? I can't, I can't. The memoir will be great. People will think it's great when they read it, but I can't write like five other memoirs and have a different voice in each. I can only write the way that I know how to write in my style and my voice.

Speaker 1 27:47

Sure.

Zoro 27:47

But that's all that matters because all I'm writing is my memoir. I'm not a writer trying to write a bunch of other people's memoirs. Um you can write mine. But yeah, it's it's it's been an it's been an incredible journey, but but the the book is really what I feel is the best thing I have to offer the world at this age, because uh there's only so much lifespan when you're 61, you know. There's only so much lifespan I'll have left, right? So there's only so many gigs I'll do, only so many speaking engagements, only so many encounters with people one-on-one. But a book can go around the world and touch hearts of people I'll never get to meet, places I'll never be. And it will live past me. And then I also did the audiobook with Blackstone, and they're the best in the business at audiobooks, and it's like a 14-hour audiobook. So the audiobook and the physical book will be able to go and touch and permeate hearts all over the globe, and we'll be able to do it long past my lifespan because we're all still reading books from hundreds of years ago, if not thousands of years ago, and those words still inspire us to this day. Um, so there's something very, very powerful about putting a story on paper uh and or in a digital format in today's world because those words can live on and inspire future generations. And so I thought I'd been blessed to live this incredible life. You know, Jacques Cousteau had a saying that something, if a man, something along the line, a man has been blessed with a beautiful life, he owes it to share it with the world, you know, and uh in a way I feel that way. Like I've been blessed with this incredible life, but it's not what people thought when they know the backstory, then it really means something to them. Then it causes them not to give up. And it causes them to see themselves because the story is a very universal story. It is it is not uh related to just music, it's it's not a music memoir, it's a life memoir with music in it.

Greg Staffa 29:45

No, I I fully agree that I see a lot of similarities even just with my own life, the uh stuff that you went through. One of the things I was questioning is you you change your name to Zoro. That's your professional name. Looking back now, because that's who you're known as, writing this story about your mother. Is there any I don't want to say regret, but would it be more heartfelt if Danny Donnelly had written this? Versus Zoro? I mean, is there any is there any kind of you know this is about you and your mom, but you're using your stage name. Is there any was there any debate in in doing it Danny Donnelly, even though Zorro is more recognizable and will sell more, or how that's a very good question, Greg.

Zoro 30:30

Another good question. Kudos to you. Oh well, here's the thing on the front of the book it says Zorro, because Zorro is who I am now and who I've been since the early 80s. So I've been Zorro longer, and just for the listener to know, my birth name is Danny Donnelly, the name you're referring to, so they understand that. So that is who I was born. It was my father, I'm a junior, my father was Daniel Donnelly. So that's who I was up until a certain age. So the memoir start the memoir is mostly about Danny Donnelly, and then towards the very end, the last chapters, the last few, there's 46 chapters. So it's Danny Donnelly's journey from about seven till the arrival of his dream when he gets the gig with Philip Bailey from Earth Wind and Fire, and then new edition. And so I am Danny Donnelly throughout the book, but then you see how Danny Donnelly became Zorro, and then then I'm Zorro for the last few chapters through the career highlights and stuff. So I thought that was the best way to do it. Now, interesting question you asked because had I done it 15 years ago, I was ashamed of Danny Donnelly. I was ashamed of the name, I wouldn't have been ready, I would have just acted like I was always Zorro, but that wouldn't have been pure, and that wouldn't have been a great story. The great story, and I saw a movie about the great soccer player Pele, the Brazilian legend, and uh and his movie was really cool because in his it was about his childhood, and he had another name. Pele was his nickname, like Zorro is mine, right? And I can't remember what his real name was, but something like Milton Nascimento or something. So in the whole movie is the journey of Milton Nascimento to Pele. And at the very end, then you see you already know that he becomes Pele because the movie is about Pele, just like my book is about Zorro, because the people who know me, well, actually, they don't even have to know me. When a mother walks into the bookstore and sees Maria's scarf, what she's gonna be drawn to, she's gonna see the title, which is very poetic. Who's Maria? What's the scarf? She's gonna see a picture of a beautiful Maria in her scarf, and she's gonna see a picture of a boy wearing a scarf who's about seven. So she's gonna be very intrigued. Who's Maria? Who's the scarf? What's the story between these two? And then the subtitle tells you a memoir of a mother's love, um uh uh, what is it? A memoir of a of a mother's love, uh a son's perseverance, and dreaming big. So the subtitle tells you, okay, this is about a mother's love, this is about a dream that comes true and about something big. And but they're gonna see the name Zorro, and most most of the people are not gonna know who I am. Only musicians will know who I am, or people in certain communities, right? But the general public is not gonna know my name. So it wouldn't matter whether it said Danny Donnelly or Zorro, but there's gonna be more people who know who Zorro is, and Zorro is who I am now. So Zorro is the one who wrote the book, but he went back into his life and wrote it as Danny Donnelly.

Speaker 1 33:41

Gotcha.

Zoro 33:42

Because all the chapters that lead up to me becoming Zorro or me becoming the original me. And uh, so it's really kind of a fun thing, and the freedom came to write it truthfully as it was, uh, only with more time. Like I said, 15 years ago it would have been like 45, 46. And then I was I wasn't comfortable with, I didn't want the world to know who Danny Donnelly was. I I was just gonna just say I was always oral, but I wasn't. And uh and that would have been easily found out, but it was just I wasn't, I was I had more shame about certain things. But as I got older, I realized the things that I had shame about are things that millions of people have gone through, um, you know, and that it made me more relatable to be more real and authentic, and because it's all true. Uh and so it was very cathartic, but I feel very good about uh how I did it. And I didn't know how to do it in the beginning, but as I got older, I'm like, yes, this is the story of how Danny becomes Zoro. And uh just like many celebrities who you know have a stage name, whatever Sting or Madonna or whatever, people want to know who were you and how did you become Sting? How did you become Madonna? How did you become Prince? If that's not your you know birth name, because for most of them it's not, you know. And uh, and so people want to know they want to know the kid who became that person. Sure. And I think that's the more interesting story. I think one of the reasons why it took so long to get published was that I was turned down by a lot of agents who wanted the book to be more like uh a rock tell all. They wanted me to be like expose Bobby Brown or Lenny Kravitz or Frankie Valley or all the stories I know, all the sex drugs, rock and roll stuff. And I had told them, I said, that's not what this story is. I said, this is a much better story. This is a story for everyone.

Greg Staffa 35:36

It's more universal.

Zoro 35:38

Totally, totally. The other stories are a dime a dozen, they don't affect anybody, they don't impact anybody, they're just gossipy trash, and nobody remembers the stories six months later. But my story, I've been sharing it live for years at when I speak it at churches and prisons and schools and wherever I speak. People remember my stories 30 years later. And I go, no, this is a story of love, this is a story of dreaming, of perseverance. This is a uh a much more beautiful story and one that people will not forget. So I stuck to my guns and I I didn't go down that other road. I could I could write a whole memoir of just all the road experiences and all the crazy things that happened, but who's that gonna help? Who's that's not the guy in the mirror that you asked me about? The guy in the mirror is going, how can I help people? How can my life make a difference? And I can't do that by talking trash about a bunch of people just to try to make a buck. I never wrote Maria's scarf to try to make money. I've spent more money on learning how to write it and the time I spent doing it and hiring editors and graphic artists than the money I'm gonna probably see. But it wasn't about that. It was I was compelled to write the story to help people, to honor my mother's legacy, and to uh and to create a legacy of my own life that could continuously impact people after I'm gone. And so that's what kept me going past the doubt and past the naysayers. But the agents that were trying to get me to make it a different book, you know, I was like, no, you're not getting it, you're not understanding what it is.

Greg Staffa 37:14

Oh go ahead.

Zoro 37:15

You go, you go ahead.

Greg Staffa 37:16

Well, there does seem to be a disconnect because I mean, like you said, I I've told people my own personal story and they're like, holy shit, you know, that's amazing that you've done all this stuff. And then you get the people that want to create the book, and they I mean, people are inspired and they they're like they hear like your own story, and it's like, wow, that's a great story. It's like, well, that's not the one we want, and there's a there's a disconnect of what the the booksellers and all those want to grab people to make money versus what the people want. The people don't need all that gossipy. I mean, some of them do, but there I think there's a longing. I mean, you see like the blind side movie doing so well because there isn't a villain in there. There isn't explosions there. People are drawn to authentic stories of overcoming hardships, and so it's unfortunate that it took so long, but even though it's a blessing because it got to be the story that became now versus had you found it when you first so there is a little blessing in there, but it's just unfortunate that so many people want the dirty stuff, you know, all the insights and stuff versus what the real story is, and to be inspired by death.

Zoro 38:29

And really, people are longing in this life, people are longing for hope, people are longing for depth, people are longing for substance. We live in such a phony false world today, just the values of people and and and and and the shallow TV shows and the shallow everything, and you're going, people are longing for something real, something evocative, something heartfelt, something deep, because all that other stuff is just empty vanity and it fulfills nobody, it helps nobody, it it just dumbs down the public, you know. But I think deep inside people's souls are they're hungry for something real. And and I I wrote a very evocative, very emotional book. Uh, Maria's Scarf is is heartwarming, heartbreaking, absolutely hilarious, but ultimately hopeful. Sure. So all those will be the feelings you get when you read it. And uh and I and I'm glad, you know, that it took this long. I didn't like it at the time when I was rejected by different people, and and it seemed like it was never going to happen, but I had to exercise the same faith my mother did and believe that the thing that I wrote down, the dreams that I wrote, is going to come to pass. And some things are God's timing that you can't push faster. I have I have had to learn that in my life. There are certain things that you're trying to push the hand of God faster, and it is never going to move because it is not the divine time. And I'm so glad God didn't allow me to push his hand because it would not be what it is if it were one year earlier. Every moment until the book comes out was a moment that I learned how to make it better, and now I feel incredibly great about what's on that page. And yes, maybe in 20 years I'll go, oh, I could have probably written a little bit better, but that was the honest best I could do then. You know? Any artist feels the same way. You know, you make an album and you go, Oh man, gosh. I even heard Frank Sinatra say that, like, you know, some of his later interviews, and they asked him, Larry King asked him about some of his albums. He goes, Oh man, I go back and listen to some of those and I cringe. I go, man, I was too cocky. I should have taken another couple of takes. But I was just like, Yeah, let's do it, nail it right now, done. You know, and he goes, I just I hear all the imperfections, and that's any good artist. I think they always look back and go, I could have done that better. But you can only do what you can do in the present moment, you know. Um you don't you don't have the 20 years you're gonna have 20 years from now. You don't have that experience yet, and so you can only be the best, and that's the same thing too. Like when people try to compare athletes or writers or musicians or actors, I go, you know, you can't compare people because every generation has a different set of knowledge, uh knowledge base, uh a different revelation, a different athletes today have far superior knowledge than they did 50 years ago. They have science of the body and nutrition that those people didn't have access to. They have better equipment, they have better training. So you can't compare an athlete today to an athlete 50 years ago. It's it's not an equal playing field. And so as knowledge increases, you know, things change. So you can only be the same thing with fashion. You know, people look at something 20 years ago and they'll crack up, but you weren't cracking up 20 years ago because that was the in look of the moment. You were in, you were cool, you were a hip. Yeah, and you can only be in the present, right? So you can only be as an artist as good as you are that day, that year. And then later, of course, you will have improved and you can look back and go, mash, I I could do that better now, but that's okay. That's that's part of evolving. Um and then you you grow and you become better. Um, but I'm I'm very happy with what came out, and I've had, like I said, a lot of high-level wr writers read it that are very picky and very snooty, and they have loved it. So if I've gotten past those guys, then that means I've done something right because the average reader already loves it. Um but you know, like man, I was doing word searches at the very end of the book where I would literally spend hours looking up to see how many times that I use this adjective and where can I where can I change it? And then how many times did I use the word dream? Where can I lose it and the sentence still makes sense? And where do I have to have it or it won't make sense? Where is it the best word to use? And then if I've used a certain word, how long ago was the last time I used it? Because if I used it three chapters ago, it's okay, but if I used it three paragraphs, it might annoy the reader three paragraphs ago. So I did so many extensive word searches to try to find the best and most unique way to say something without it being redundant, you know, and no one will know that but me. How much work went into that? But because when you read it, it just flies off the page. But it flies off the page because of all that work, and it doesn't annoy you because I didn't get redundant and stupid. Uh, you know, but that's that's all just invisible work that no one will see. I kind of equate it to like, you know, it took three years to make Lord of the Rings, but you can watch it in three hours. It takes all day, sometimes a couple of days or even a week, to prepare for Thanksgiving dinner, all the food you gotta buy, all the prepping you do a couple days before, the pies, the this, the that. And then people gobble it down at 15 minutes. Yeah. You know, you can read Lord of the Rings, the book. The whole book, you can read it in, you know, depending on the speed of your reading, you could read it in a few days or a week, right? But it took them 12 to 20 years, they say, to write it. So to produce something takes an enormous amount of time to produce something of quality. To consume it takes seconds, minutes. But when it's really good, you can consume it fast because it's that good that you you can't stop watching it or you can't stop reading it, or it flies off the page, or the mill is so tasty that you just gobble it down, you know, and so that's one thing people have to remember. It and it and it's easy to be a critic, it's hard to be a creator of something.

Speaker 1 44:40

Yeah.

Zoro 44:41

Uh it's you know, anybody can criticize something. That doesn't take anything, you know. Uh but being a creator of something, that's a whole nother ball game, man.

Greg Staffa 44:50

You're talking about my job here, buddy.

Zoro 44:51

So yeah.

Greg Staffa 44:53

All right, final question. John Bon Jovi has a new documentary coming out on Hulu. It's a four-part thing on the story. And one of the big things that he talks about was looking forward at his legacy. You're, you know, you're getting up there in age, you know, age you said. You've had a long history of all kinds of stuff that you've done. How does your legacy look to you where you're standing right now, where versus where you want your legacy to take you, and how do you see your legacy?

Zoro 45:22

Well, uh, I I see that this book is a very important part of my legacy. What I'd like to see happen next is that the book opens up the world to me on a broader scale where I can touch and speak in more places and touch more lives in a speaking live environment. And also the next vision is to turn it into a movie and like a Netflix series and possibly a documentary, because those will just be outlets and tools in which to reach and inspire more people. Um, but I am very happy with what I've how I've spent my life. I've spent most of my life building up other people. Um when I leave this world, there will be many, many people that will have stories about me and how they met me here, there, and everywhere, and how I imparted light, uh, hope, uh, help to them in some way, whether it was 30 seconds at an airport or whether it was a 30-year relationship or a three-year relationship or a three-hour relationship. There will be people that will come out of the woodworks and say, I knew I knew Zorro, and I knew him to be an encourager, a kind man, a man who was trying to help other people. And that's all I could do. That that will be my legacy, that I I made a difference, that I was a good father, that I was a good husband, and I was a good friend. Um I still hope to do more, more of the same stuff, but on a bigger scale. Uh kind of like my my commandments of RB drumming books. What they did was uh I was already an RB drummer playing with all these people Bobby Brown, Jody Watley, Philip Bailey, um, new edition. But when I wrote the books, the series of books called The Commandments of RB Drumming, which I worked on for many, many years, they became standards and they won all these book awards around the world, best educational drum book, top 25 drum books of all time. And what that did was it opened up the whole world to me as an educator. I was already a player, I was already an RB drummer, but writing sort of the definitive book on the subject made me an authority worldwide, and that opened the world to me as an educator, in which I got to influence tons of drummers around the world with those products. That is what I'm hoping and believing Maria Scarf will do for me, but on a more global humanitarian way, as something that's applicable to all people, not a drum book, right? Is that the book would open up a platform for me to speak to more people and more forums and more avenues and venues, and that the movie and the documentary and Netflix series would do the same. Just more of the same, but bigger numbers. Sure.

Greg Staffa 48:08

I'll close things up and say Maria Scarf does come out uh April 30th, and they can find it at bookstores. There's an audio book, ebook. Uh so I'm assuming it's anywhere you can buy books, Amazon, whatnot. Zorro, thank you for coming on.

Zoro 48:22

Yes, thank you, uh, Greg. Thank you so much for your great questions. And if people are looking for more information about me, my website is just Zorel with one R, ZorroTrummer.com. And Maria's Scarf is available wherever books are sold. Uh, Amazon, Barnes and Noble, Books a Million. Uh, I have a website for the book as well. It's just called MariaScarf.com, and that's two S's, Maria's Scarf.com. And uh, and then I'm just Zorro with one R, Zoro the Drummer on Instagram and Zorro the Drummer on Facebook.

Greg Staffa 48:56

And I'll include links on this episode uh to all those things. Uh so again, thank you, sir.

Zoro 49:03

Thank you, Greg. Appreciate the chance to do the interview.

Greg Staffa 49:06

That does it for this episode. Thank you for listening to the staff at corner.