Mark Winchester has left the band. He's decided that he's tired of the road and just wants to concentrate on his career in Nashville. I don't blame him at all. He'll certainly be missed.
If you take any populated place - any major city in America - and drive 45 minutes from that spot directly out of town you'll be in about as country a place as you'll ever find.
I think the hip hop world and the rock world still have a lot in common, but it certainly seems like things happen and break at a much faster pace in the hip hop world.
I'm not an overly skilled piano player or organ player at all, but I think I'm the right piano and organ player for the Heartbreakers. And I've been the right piano and organ player for a lot of sessions that I've been called on.
I learned to play piano in a rock n' roll context or band context from country records - you know, Floyd Cramer - and from the Beatles and the Rolling Stones and Stax. And none of those are keyboard records.
I did have a big following in the upper New York area. I was at the New York State Fair a few times over the years. I have areas that I say are my areas.
I must tell you, to get started today must be very difficult 'cause whatever it takes today is very tough. They have to invest a million dollars in a video just to see if you have a hit record.
I would sell 2 million records, a million went to teenagers and a million went to the adults. So, when The Beatles became so popular, I lost a million to the teenagers, but I was still selling a million to the adults.
Hey, we've all been to high school We've seen the in-crowds. Most of us have been in the outer crowds, the people who weren't in. Although I was never in, I was selling records and was very happy.
When I owned the theater, I had the Glen Miller Orchestra. I had 20 girls singing and dancing. I had a cast of characters. It was a big group production, as well as ushers, ticket takers.
Today, you're either very big or you're playing stadiums or you're not playing anymore. You're either popular where everybody will go to a 20,000 seat arena to see you or they won't go to see you at all.
You really have to be careful with the clues you lay into the film - if they're too heavy-handed, or you've pandered to a slightly stupider audience, then you've spoiled it for the people who are even slightly smart.
As far as arrangements after the basic track is cut, if I'm writing a horn arrangement or playing strings, I might arrange that, plan that out. Other times, I'll just sit and roll tape.
I feel like there's no subject that can't be sung about. I wrote a song dedicated to people with inflammatory bowel disease, and then I wrote about shoes. And mangoes. Every rock should be turned.
Years from now, after I'm gone, someone will listen to what I've done and know I was here. They may not know or care who I was, but they'll hear my guitars speaking for me.
I could never do a show, or be a personality like Howard Stern, where you take all that heat from critics. What he does, he does, but the critical heat would crucify me.
Country radio certainly widens the boundaries of what I can do. Other artists may do something more edgy that gets on radio and that opens the door for me to be more edgy, I think.
I wanted to be the perfect artist. I'd do three hours of media interviews a day, going to every radio station I could squeeze in. I'd sign autographs after the show until everybody left.
Disco B still rolls with me now. He's still doing his thing. He does clubs in different places. He was very instrumental in helping me perfect my craft.
I had to go into a studio and compose and write and press up 12 songs in 14 hours. When you're recording a song from scratch it takes you 14 hours to do just one song.
So what I'm trying to say is from a musical aspect for anybody to say that whatever they're doing in Florida is not Hip Hop or whatever they're doing in LA is not Hip Hop, who are these people to say that?
