Speaker 1: 0:00

You're listening to the Staffa Corner Podcast, a Staffatarian look at entertainment and life with your host, Greg Staffa.

Speaker 2: 0:14

My guest this episode is Rock and Roll Hall of Fame inductee, david St Just. He's the original Bruce Springsteen E Street band member and toured and recorded with people like Peter Gabriel, sting, eric Clapton, jeff Beck, santana Steele and many more. He recently announced the release of his tracks for his upcoming album, the Ghost of Jim Crow. David, thanks for joining us today.

Speaker 1: 0:37

Thank you very much for having me. It's a pleasure.

Speaker 2: 0:39

One of the things I have to ask because I've always wondered when I'm talking to people like you, is when I was a young kid, I was a paper boy, and I was a paper boy about 40 years ago, and the last thing I would want when I'm growing up is to be remembered for something I did so many years ago is the E Street Band. I mean, I'm sure you're proud of that, but is that kind of a weird thing to be known for despite all the things that you've done since then? Is that kind of a burden for you or is that an honor badge for you? How do you view that?

Speaker 1: 1:13

when you're oh God. No, first of all, it's not a burden at all, absolutely not. Yeah, it's an honor. And if, in the minds of some people, my connection with the E Street band sort of supersedes everything else I've done, there's no problem in that. And because, frankly, you know the E Street band and what Bruce has done with it has been incredibly successful.

Speaker 1: 1:37

You know it's one of the most successful bands that have ever, you know, done anything. I mean, it's an incredible amount of, you know, record sales. He's still, to this day, he's one of the best-selling record artists of all time. So no, to answer your question, it is absolutely not a burden, it is absolutely an honor. And again, you have to remember who you're sort of, you know, thinking about. In some people's minds, that's not what they hold as the first sort of recognition of me as an artist. They're more aware of other things that I've done. You know they don't happen to be personally fans of Bruce Springsteen or the Street Band, but they may be more fans of, you know, other music that I've done. So no, it's not a burden at all. No, I don't. That would be a very egoic thing to sort of walk around feeling like that that that's a burden because some people don't recognize some of the many other things that I've done. So, no, it's a great honor, it's great.

Speaker 2: 2:42

That's good to hear. I was just curious because it's I mean because you've done so much for the music industry that to be plucked from something that was so long ago. I was just wondering how that carries with you. Tell us a little bit about your growing up and your beginnings in music.

Speaker 1: 2:59

Oh, my growing up, let's see. I started playing the piano when I was about six years old. Growing up, let's see. I started playing the piano when I was about six years old, very much inspired by my mom, who was a schoolteacher by profession. But when she was younger she had learned how to play piano and she had music lessons and could play classical piano and that was my first sort of inspiration. So just watching her and listening to her play was fascinating, and that was really my way into it.

Speaker 1: 3:28

And I'm the youngest of three boys. We each have our own sort of musical pace, we sort of overlap a little bit. So, being the youngest member of a family of five people, I had a lot of influences. I was sort of subjected to a lot of what they were interested in and what they liked. So a lot of that, some of that really resonated with me and I sort of took on, you know, what they were interested in musically and in terms of even, you know, literature and films and stuff, and that, along with my own taste and my own, the things that I was attracted to that I heard, you know, a combination of all that sort of made up my whole, you know musical makeup at the time.

Speaker 2: 4:09

Who are some of your influences that you would listen to?

Speaker 1: 4:13

Oh, there's so many. Well, let's see. On the classical side, to this day, probably my favorite classical composer would be Chopin, but also let's see Chopin, debussy, god, I like piano-wise and at the same time, what was really different for me, or what I think was helpful to me, was so I'm being influenced by the classical composers like Debussy and Chopin and Beethoven and that kind of thing. But I'm also listening to, at the same time, jazz music of the day, because my father was a huge jazz fan. So I'm listening also to music like Miles Davis and singers like Ella Fitzgerald and Billie Holiday. And again, here's a bit of overlap, because my mother, even though she was into classical, she also liked popular music. You know, she also liked the popular singers of the day. You know Nat King Cole. I'm going back to the 50s now. I don't know how old you are, but I might be talking about artists that you're not familiar with. No, I recognize them.

Speaker 1: 5:29

My two older brothers were very much into. My middle brother, edward, was very much into rock and roll and Eastern music. That was the sort of era where Ravi Shankar and the whole Indian classical music became on the scene. And my oldest brother was into really like avant-garde jazz and really different things. Oldest brother was into really like avant-garde jazz and really different things. So I I was just on the receiving end of a lot of um, really interesting music, you know, and and literature.

Speaker 2: 5:53

I I benefited from it greatly, I think so you grew up with the love of music. You had a strong family. What made you go from appreciating and and learning music to actually performing in front of people At the same time.

Speaker 1: 6:08

There wasn't one feeling followed by another feeling. It wasn't like I like it and then suddenly I want to do it. That's an interesting question actually. I've never been asked that, but I didn't feel it like two feelings. I guess maybe I must have at some point Because, yeah, you like it, you like it, and when you first start playing an instrument you don't really know what you're doing until you sort of make a little progress with it.

Speaker 1: 6:40

But I've got to say it was pretty quick.

Speaker 1: 6:43

If they were ever two separate feelings, we were pretty close together, because as soon as I started making any progress on the piano, I started playing piano first and then I started playing guitar when I was about, I think, eight or nine.

Speaker 1: 6:58

But no, as soon as you start making progress and you're able to do something on it and you're just enjoying it so much what it feels like even there's a great deal of joy in music, even when you're not like proficient. Yet you know you don't have to be like a a brilliant guitarist to really just enjoy the sound of the instrument and enjoy what you can do on it, you. So for me the whole thing has been a kind of an energy-based, a sort of joy-based experience, because I love it so much, I enjoy doing it so much. You know, there's nothing in life that I've ever done or attempted to do that has ever given me as much joy as the word sheer bliss of being involved in music, you know, and any level, whether I'm playing the guitar or piano, or singing or composing or arranging or whatever you know.

Speaker 2: 7:52

Is there a particular? Like you said, you've composed, you've arranged, you've performed. Where do you find the greatest source of your creativity or enjoyment? Is it, you know, creating the music? Is it creating the music? Is it performing in front of the audience? Where does your most joy come from?

Speaker 1: 8:10

I'm going to say again, I don't feel it to be compartmentalized like that in terms of joy and where it's coming from and how much I'm feeling it, because they each are their own thing. It's like I don't know it, like, uh, what people say about kids. I don't have kids, but I have nieces and nephews, but you appreciate each child for for the energy that that it is. So the joy you get from playing live in a great musical ensemble or by yourself, that's its own joy. It's a different kind of joy that you get when they're in the recording studio and you're putting it together and it all comes together. That is its own kind of joy. It's equally joyous in its own way. It's like colors. It's like one color is blue and one color has a different kind of hue to it, but they're equally beautiful in their own way.

Speaker 2: 9:06

Well said, so tell us a little bit about what led up to joining the E Street Band.

Speaker 1: 9:11

I ended up joining the E Street Band because I was in a jam session one night at the Upstage Club in Asbury Park, which is where Bruce and all the local musicians used to come together, and it was a place to play.

Speaker 1: 9:26

None of us were professional then, but we all wanted to do it. And I met him at a jam session one night along with Gary Talent, the bass player for the E Street Band, and at the end of this jam session he had mentioned to me that he was beginning to start a new project. He was already the leader of a very successful band locally called Steel Mill and it was a kind of like a actually kind of like a heavy metal kind of band back in those days. And then he said well, I'm getting ready to stop that project and I'm going to start this new one. He didn't even have a name for it yet. He just wanted to put a new band together. It wasn't called the E Street Band until down the road, but he asked me if I wanted to be involved in it and I said yes right away, and that's how that got started.

Speaker 2: 10:17

That's how my involvement ended up. Most of us have our own perception of Bruce Springsteen, and it's through his music and seeing him on interviews without. I don't want to get into disclosing personal stuff, but if you were to describe Bruce in your own way, a more intimate way, what would you describe him as?

Speaker 1: 10:36

Well, you know, bruce is unique. In a way he's as human as anyone else. He shares that with us. He just happens to be extremely sensitive and thoughtful and able to express himself musically and verbally in a way that is unique. I've known him we've been friends since I'm 15 years old. He's like four years older than me, but he's just a sweetheart of a human being. He really is and we've traveled a lot together, done a whole lot of music together.

Speaker 1: 11:06

We continue to make music together to this day, well beyond my involvement in the E Street Band as a regular touring member. But he's invited me to be part of his solo project, like his albums Human Touch and Lucky Town, western Stars and actually two other completely recorded projects that aren't released yet that we did well, one of them we did last year and one we did a year before, but they're going to be released at some point in the not-too-distant future. I think it's great stuff. We love each other and we work really well together. I think it's great stuff we love each other and we work really well together. There's only a handful of people, musicians and personal relationships that I can go back that far, that we still know each other and enjoy working with each other and being with each other to this day. Yeah, he's great.

Speaker 2: 12:03

Now, this might not apply to you. This is kind of a casual connection that I'll be making here, so I apologize if it might not apply to you. This is kind of a casual connection I'll be making here, so I apologize, it doesn't apply to you at all. But I recently I was watching there's a bon jovi documentary that came out, a four-part documentary and and bruce is a little bit part of that. But in talking to bon jovi as a musician, um, as a fan, you look at him and you say, oh well, look at all he's accomplished and look at all the records and albums that he's sold.

Speaker 2: 12:29

But there still seems to be a drive with Bon Jovi that seems unfinished, that he still has more to create. Are you speaking about Bruce or Bon Jovi? Bon Jovi, but Bruce came up also and there's a lot of similarities when they were talking about Bruce, about how there's always this drive to create more that you've never as a musician. There isn't the end note of where you're like I've done all I can. What drives people like yourself, or even Bruce or Bon Jovi, to kind of have that drive to where there's always something more in the tank, and do you think you'll ever be kind of satisfied with what you've accomplished.

Speaker 1: 13:14

No, because, in one word, what drives you is love. It's the fact, like I said, what happens to you when you first get into it. From the first time you pick up a guitar, the first time you touch a piano, you fall in love with it. You really do. And it's the love for it, the love, how much you feel. You're literally in love with it. You're in love with music, you're in love with the idea of doing it, you're in love with the whole situation. So it's the energy of love that carries you through the times that you have to go through to actually get good at something right, and otherwise you wouldn't keep coming back at it.

Speaker 1: 13:52

That's why some people give up, because they're not in love with it. You know, it hasn't made that kind of connection in their mind and in their heart that they're going to keep going with this. And there's nothing wrong with that, because it's not for everybody. You know the artistic life like to say I'm going to be a musician all the time and this is how I'm going to live and make my contribution and end of my life. You know, but that's what gets you through is the fact that you love it and in terms of feeling like, no, you don't feel, like, oh, I've done enough, I'm done.

Speaker 1: 14:24

You know, I think the greater majority of artists, I don't feel like that. I personally feel like, um, I want to be productive and creative, um, until the very day that I, that I pass away in this world, you know, I hope I'm physically able, I have enough mobility to either sit at a piano or pick up a guitar or sing into a microphone or write some lyrics down or some prose to actually produce something on my last day, but not in a way like, ah, I got to do it, I got to do it. It's not ego-driven, because it's not driven by you know, I've won a bunch of awards, but I haven't won that award and I got to do this and that it's not driven by a sense of egoic accomplishment or achievement. It's really about loving it, you know, and and and staying in love with it, you know, and real love doesn't ever really die.

Speaker 2: 15:23

Well, that makes sense. Now, doing research on you, you've performed with many great artists of all kinds of different calibers and types of music. You're almost like that ingredient that just makes everything a little bit better that you mesh with these talented artists like Eric Clapton and Santana and Peter Gabriel and Seal, and Santana and Peter Gabriel and Seal. What is it like when you go into these collaborations? Is it more of a joint thing? Do you approach it as? How do you approach it? Because these are some very different artists, very different talents, very different people, how do you kind of incorporate into that in this kind of driven industry that you're in?

Speaker 1: 16:11

Well, that's a huge compliment. Everything you just said about me, that's all. I've never been described that way. That's the ingredient that works for me, but in fact that's what you want to. Let me say it rightly now, that's what you hope. You end up being okay.

Speaker 1: 16:29

So, all those different artists you mentioned, you know Jeff Beck, sting, peter Gabriel, santana, all those different things. I approach it. I'm really open. So here's the thing when you get a call from someone like that, when you get a phone call from an artist like that, they already have some degree of familiarity with you as an artist. They do Either they've heard your music or they've heard a record that you were on or somebody turned them on. So they already are familiar with you as an artist.

Speaker 1: 17:00

And luckily, when the person calls, I treat each project of music as its own thing. I don't walk into it with an idea of I'm going to steer it one way or the other or anything like that, but I have two kind of rules that are not hard rules, but I just try and live by them when you're working with an artist. So one thing is whoever wrote the song gets to hear it the way that they would like to hear it. So, in other words, if I show up at a Santana session or something and he shows me the song and for some reason my idea or my interpretation of it isn't exactly what he was feeling, I listen to him like a film director giving notes to an actor. So he'll say, well, well, it should be a little more like this or a little more tinge of that. Then I interpret that and go, oh great, I totally get it. And then you do that and then boom, it works like that. So I don't arrive with any agenda, I really don't. And uh, it's very different working with peter, gab, say, from it is with Santana.

Speaker 1: 18:08

But here's the thing that's in common with Peter and Santana is, again, when you get the phone call, the artist is familiar with you and they have some sense of what you can do and how you might be beneficial to their project.

Speaker 1: 18:25

But what they have in common is that for me, they give you a huge range of freedom in terms of interpretation. So within a definite structure, there's also room for you to sort of you know, I wouldn't call it collaboration, but it's room for you to express their music, to express, you know, the chord changes that are in front of you or the melody that you're hearing. You still, as the performer, have a pretty broad, uh way of um, of expressing that pretty broad range of what you can do, and everyone has been, um, you know, really appreciative of that. Of all the different artists that I've worked with, I think that's the thing that runs through. They've all seen fit to give me the kind of artistic freedom that I have to come up with. They appreciate my spontaneity, my ability to improvise, and they also appreciate the fact that I am familiar with different.

Speaker 2: 19:30

They appreciate my spontaneity, my ability to improvise, and they also appreciate the fact that I am familiar with different genres of music. Is there a particular artist?

Speaker 1: 19:42

that you haven't worked with that. You would love to that question again. Yeah, someone asked me that the other day. Well, the people I would name are most of them have passed away. First on that list would be Jimi Hendrix. I wish that Jimi Hendrix had not passed away and was still very much alive. I would have begged him to let me be in his band or to do a project with him. Literally, I would have camped out on his doorstep. What I did get to work with, briefly, was Jeff Beck In 2009,. I got to do part of a tour with him. I sat in for his regular keyboard player for a tour of Australia and Japan. There's a lot of talent out there.

Speaker 1: 20:25

Today, I have to say, mother Nature seems to continue to raise up people, whatever the generation is that really come forward. But, um, you know I should think more about an answer to that question. But, um, there are a few people in the hard pressed to name off the top of my my head right now who is living that I would like to work with. But there, yeah, yeah, sure there must be. I've got to tell you one thing I've gotten to work with Will Calhoun, the drummer for the band Living Color.

Speaker 1: 20:59

We have a project, we have a duo project called Open Seek and we put it together in, I think, 2019. And we were able to do some touring on the east coast of New Jersey and we're about to go back out on tour starting on the 1st of May this year for about two weeks and it seems to be mostly east coast oriented, but we're going to play. We'll be in New York City, we'll be in Pennsylvania upstate, new York and Vermont, but if people go to my website, wwwtherealdavidsanxiouscom, all the information about the tour dates and where to get tickets can be found up there. So really looking forward to that. You know Will is very much alive. We've been friends for many years and we don't get to do this project as often as we would both like because of, you know, schedules and stuff, but we're really looking forward to that.

Speaker 2: 21:57

It's going to start on May, the 1st and I'll include a link on that on the page here. Is there anyone that you've performed with that felt like peanut butter to your jelly or chocolate to your peanut butter, those little commercials. Is there anyone that just felt more natural than others? Where it's a collaboration, great. But is there anyone that just felt this is like the?

Speaker 1: 22:26

connection is there that just felt. This is like the connection is there, there's. There's people I can't name it down to one person because that quality, if you're talking about, you know, peanut butter to my jelly or chocolate to my peanut butter, that that happens, uh, a lot. I can't name it down to one, it wouldn't be fair. It would not be fair, I'd be leaving out too many people. But I mean I've gotten to work with some of the some of the best musicians on the planet. I mean Vinnie Colaiuta is like a genius, he's like the god of drum and percussion. I got to work with him for years. We're on many albums with Sting and other people. There are many drummers, so many people like that, that we just, yes, we gelled and it was not an issue.

Speaker 1: 23:09

I really enjoyed working with Seal as well. But again, I can't. It wouldn't be fair to name out one person to say, yeah, we just get each other. And again I'm going to go back to the project that's coming up Will Calhoun and I, we definitely. That's a musical example of us just getting each other musically and gelling, because what we do musically is some of the songs in the set are composed in real time. They're improvised compositions and they end up sounding like film music. Some of it is amazing and again there's examples of the music on the website. On my website, and you'll see the section that says Open Secret there's audio examples of two of the songs in our set. But yeah, I have to say, yeah, you know very much alive and very much. We're about to dive into it again. I'd say Will Calhoun is like that person that just gets me musically.

Speaker 2: 24:04

Now you've been performing many years, have created many songs, many albums. Is there a song, an album, that someone that may or may not be a fan of yours might say that this is quintessential? You at your best. This is where it just works on all levels. It may not be the best album, but this is music-wise. This is who David is.

Speaker 1: 24:32

I'm going to go back and say because, yeah, there's been so many records and I've gone through different styles of composing myself. I started out composing music that was just instrumental and then I branched into adding vocals and different things. But I'm going to say that my previous, the album before this, ghost of Jim Crow, is called Eyes Wide Open. It came out in 2020.

Speaker 1: 24:58

I think there's songs on that album that really say okay and I think because, again, it encompasses everything Stylistically, it's all the things that I have come up to be. So it's a combination of, like, classical and jazz, harmonic rock and roll rhythms, funk rhythms, jazz rhythms. So it's that as a pie. And there are vocals because, again, if you really want to get me quotation marks, I think the songs have what I want to say about society Songs. There are four vocal songs on Eyes Wide Open songs. The four vocal songs on Eyes Wide Open, the title track, urban Song in the middle of the night, and I think all of those four songs would qualify as saying okay, if you had to say this is David at his best, I'd have to say those four songs are it.

Speaker 2: 25:59

And then, on the same kind of level of approach or mindset, is there one out there, a song or something that I mean? I think music is subject to what's going on in the world, that an album can be made or break depending on the mindset of the culture or the mindset of the times or what's going on in the world, uh, it can influence how well an album does. Is there an album or a song that came out at a particular time that the audience just didn't get or didn't understand, that you wish, years later, that they could go back re-listen to and see if they can, if it, the mindsets changed, not that it did bad or a bad album or a bad song, but just it didn't click with the audience.

Speaker 1: 26:42

Do you mean an album of mine, something that I wrote?

Speaker 2: 26:44

Something that you performed in, or even a song that you performed in that just didn't register with the audience, then that you wish people would go back and listen to. Maybe it's a different time, different culture, whatnot. Like I said, it wasn't a bad song, but it just didn't click.

Speaker 1: 27:00

No, I'm going to say no and I wouldn't break it down to like an individual song. If anything from myself, I would think of trying to find an entire album, like a collection of music that I was involved in that didn't somehow didn't click on people. As you go back now, they would get it, or get it more than they did I. Okay, I just came up with one. I did. I did, okay, fielded an album. I worked with him for about three years in the late 90s and he did an album called Human Beings and it was a great. He put a great band together with Phil myself, tony Levin from Peter Gabriel's band and his own stuff, vinnie Colaiuto on drums, who I'd been playing for years with staying in other people, holly Uta on drums, who I'd been playing for years with staying in other people, and this guitar, hector Palluta on guitar. Anyway, we did this album in Vancouver and it came out and what happened was a strange combination of so the record company company his record company uh, I think it was warner brothers decided that they didn't hear a hit single like kiss from a rose, okay, so what happened was a tour was booked, a tour of the tour of the states, starting on the west coast and then moving east, and then I think we were going to go to Europe. But somewhere in the early days of rehearsing for the tour, it became clear that the record company was going to bail on the project. They weren't going to support it and the music was fantastic and it's called it's still, you could hear it now but what they did was they just kind of decided to to not support it. So by the time we finished tour rehearsals, they decided to, uh, not support it. So what happened was all the promoters, all the concert promoters, had suddenly decided to. They wanted to renegotiate the terms of his contract. So he had certain guarantees, certain tour guarantees, like we guarantee you this much because you show up and you perform, whether it's a sold-out concert or not. Boom, boom, boom. So, one by one, all these promoters started to renegotiate, wanted to renegotiate their guarantees, and that, along with some other elements. The record company didn't like the album cover and they thought it was.

Speaker 1: 29:38

He used this artist. It was like remember this, the artist HR Giger, who did science fiction images. What was that? It's a very famous film, but it's very. You've seen his work in a lot of science fiction stuff, but it's very alien looking, you know, and attract. Maybe alien is a good example. He didn't look like the attractive rock star they maybe wanted him to look like, but it should have looked like anyway. That was a whole controversy and then they wanted to renegotiate the tour.

Speaker 1: 30:15

So by the time we got to New Jersey did, I think, three shows on the west coast Las Vegas, hollywood Bowl in LA and one other I can't think of and then we went to the East Coast. We did one show in the East Coast at the Meadowlands, and then we all got a phone. We had a break and we were going to carry on. We got a phone call saying that the whole project had been canceled. Oh, wow, yeah, wow. It was a drag man, because, I'm telling you, the band was fantastic and the music was fantastic and it was all live. We figured out ways to play all of that music live, without any pre-recorded elements. We had two guys, Mike Harvey and Paul Maven, two backing singers who sang beautifully with Seal. Anyway, we'll go on about that. That's a project that I wish it would have come out and been better presented and been better received by the public. It came out and it did what it did, but there's some great songs on it.

Speaker 2: 31:20

What is some of the advice that you would have for a younger person? Just looking at your career and looking at what you've done, the talent is undeniable, but you've worked with so many different groups that it sounds like work ethic, personality are almost just as important as a music talent. What has been some of the keys to your success, and what do you think others need to incorporate to be the next, david the?

Speaker 1: 31:49

first thing that I've heard, and I've heard this same question asked by other actors. I was watching a documentary about certain actors, or whatever, the other day, and the first thing that I've always done is, when you get a call for work, when you get the gig, show up on time, don't be late. Show up on time and in fact, show up early. You know on time to me means half an hour early. You know, physically on the scene and ready for action. Don't be late. Early On time to me means half an hour early, physically on the scene and ready for action. Don't be late. And when you show up, know your stuff, rehearse, figure it out.

Speaker 1: 32:24

If you've been presented music for a project that you've never done before you arrive, like, for instance, when I got the gig to play with Sting in 1990, he sent me a bunch of uh, some of the music he wanted me to work on. Well, man, forget it. I stayed up for like about three days, you know, making sure that I knew, you know my part of what he wanted me to do. So when I showed up, I was, you know, we all. We all fell in love with each other instantly. It was great. So, number one I'd say don't be late, be on time, respect the work, respect everyone else who's there working and know your stuff. If you have the ability to reverse it, look at it, and if you're in a situation where you just got to show up cold and be brilliant, then trust yourself.

Speaker 2: 33:17

Same thing, trust yourself and be the best you can be Well said so, we talked about your upcoming tour with Wilka Hoon. You also just released the tracks from your upcoming album, the Ghost of Jim Crow.

Speaker 1: 33:32

Tell us a little bit about that Well, the first track was released in November of last year.

Speaker 2: 33:39

And that's why Must it Be so?

Speaker 1: 33:41

Why Must it Be so right? And we're about to release this week the next track. It's called Now we Dream and it's again. It's another song and a combination about the times we're living in, what's going on politically, socially and naturally. You know there's been a whole, you know the whole episode that went on a few months ago, where everyone's seeing like UFOs in the sky all over the world.

Speaker 2: 34:13

You know, remember that.

Speaker 1: 34:15

Okay, so our attention has been taken away from that because of all the political chaos that we in this country are going through. There's a mention about that as well, about what that might all be about and the outcome of it. It's almost like a message of hope as well. So like look, things may look really quite distorted and challenging, but don't be defeated by the appearance of it. You know, things are not what they appear to be, Not always what they appear to be. There's a deeper reality, there's a deeper essence under the surface of what appears to be a situation in our lives.

Speaker 2: 35:01

Final question and again I appreciate you for coming on. So much of your work is tied to what you've done. Even when your PR people reach out they say you know David, original Bruce Springsteen Street band member. Everything is kind of linked to the people that you've performed with David, who's recorded with Jeff Beck and Santana. When you get up in the morning and you go into the bathroom and splash a little water on your face and look in the mirror, who do you see?

Speaker 1: 35:33

Yeah, I see the guy who's uh, who's just continuing. I see, I see a new day. Every day is a brand new day. Every day is like its own movie. It really is. Um. So yeah, when I look in the mirror, splash water on my face. I also put a lot of hot water on my neck and my head. That feels fantastic actually. I splash cold water on my face and I just see me. I don't see achievement, if I can answer it that way. I don't see achievement. I don't see accolades, I don't see the Hall of Fame and all that. I just see me ready for another day. That's it. I just see me ready for another day.

Speaker 2: 36:17

That's it. I think that attitude and mindset is why you have all the accolades in the Hall of Fame. We covered the upcoming album, we covered the upcoming tour and I'll link both of those to the page. Anything else that you want to plug or promote.

Speaker 1: 36:34

There is going to be a presentation to me on the 3rd of may in belmar, new jersey uh, my hometown. That's where I grew up. It's eight miles down the road from asbury park, where bruce and I met. My hometown is honoring me and my family with a presentation in the town square.

Speaker 1: 36:53

They've purchased a all weatherproof digital piano that's been permanently installed in the town square oh, wow and uh, yeah, and they're going to give me a whole citation and a whole sort of honoring my mom as well, like my mom, myself, my, my, uh, my whole family, my two brothers and and my dad, because we were very early me because of what I've achieved, my whole thing, but also because we were very early supporters of the e street band. My mom used to let us rehearse in our garage in the early days when we were just trying to get it together again, way before it was actually called the e street band and it's actually. I don't know if you know that, but one reason it's called the E Street Band is because that's the street I grew up on. Yep, yeah, 1105 E Street was the house I lived in and the place that we used to occasionally rehearse. There you go.

Speaker 2: 37:50

Very nice, so that's happening.

Speaker 1: 37:52

Yeah, that's going to happen on the 3rd of May. It's going to be a two-hour presentation at 2 o'clock, from 2 o'clock to 4 o'clock in Belmar, new Jersey, on the 3rd of May. Wow, congratulations. Thank you so much.

Speaker 2: 38:07

David, thank you so much for coming on. I look forward to following where your career takes you next. It sounds like it's amazing the collaborations that you've done. Like I said before, you're almost like that ingredient that just works great and everything and makes everything taste a little bit better. It's amazing who you might see next as collaborations with.

Speaker 1: 38:32

That is such a kind thing to say. I'm going to tell my wife she said it like that. She'll get a great kick out of that. She'll enjoy that. It's an ingredient that works for everyone.

Speaker 2: 38:43

And it makes you wonder what else you can be paired with. I mean, you never know who you're going to be paired with next. That's it, man. I appreciate you coming on and wish you success and I'll link to your various things and wish you success. And I'll link to your various things and wish you luck.

Speaker 1: 38:58

Thank you so much. It's been a pleasure to talk to you. Thank you, sir.