0:15

Pushkin. This

0:23

is broken record liner notes for the digital

0:26

age. I'm justin Richmondton. Pioneering

0:33

rock journalist Lisa Robinson will

0:35

never run out of stories. Over

0:38

the past forty years, she's interviewed everyone from

0:40

John Lennon to Lady Gaga, to

0:42

Jay Z and Emineh. She even sat

0:44

down with an eleven year old Michael Jackson years

0:47

before he became the King of Pop. Lisa's

0:50

career started in the nineteen seventies

0:53

when she embedded on massive world tours

0:55

with led Zeppelin and The Rolling Stones.

0:58

In the decades since, she's partied

1:00

with Bowie, dined with Beyonce, and

1:02

talked Through the Night with Joni Mitchell.

1:04

And today's interview, Rick Rubin reminisces

1:07

with Lisa, an old friend about

1:09

her storied career. She has a lot

1:11

to say about everything, including

1:13

how she and her husband, music producer Richard Robinson,

1:16

practically lived at CBGB's in the

1:18

mid seventies, and why she felt compelled

1:21

to write her latest book, called Nobody

1:23

Ever Asked Me About the Girls, which

1:25

features excerpts from interviews she's done over the

1:27

years with Bette Midler, Rihanna Adele,

1:30

Janelle Mooney, Stevie Nicks,

1:32

and so many more. Here's Rick

1:35

Rubin and Lisa Robinson. How

1:37

are you Rick? I miss you? I miss

1:39

you too. How are you feeling? Do you see where

1:42

I'm sitting in front of what do we

1:44

sit? What is it? That is a portion

1:47

of my original cassettes and

1:49

my CDs? The Richard made backup

1:52

copies of five thousand

1:54

hours of digitized interviews. That

1:57

is only a portion, that's not a virtual background,

1:59

that's real in there are the John

2:02

Lennon, Michael Jackson, Led

2:04

Zeppelin, Adele, Rihanna

2:06

Beyonce, I mean,

2:09

Rommi, Madley, Croft, King, Princess,

2:11

everybody from nineteen seventy

2:13

two to the present

2:16

day. And that is only a portion

2:18

of them. And Richard

2:21

also put it on a computer. We backed

2:23

it up on another computer. I backed

2:25

it up on three external hard drives

2:27

that are in three separate secure locations.

2:31

And I just want to get rid of

2:33

all of it. Richard swear to god, I have

2:35

four storage spaces that I

2:37

have been storing all of this shit.

2:40

Not my tapes, but posters

2:42

and memorabilion t

2:44

shirts and Annie's pictures

2:47

and Bob Bruin's pictures and original

2:49

photos from cream rock

2:51

scene, hit Parador four

2:53

storage spaces fifty thousand dollars

2:55

a year for over twenty years. So that's

2:58

over a million point three

3:00

that I've invested into holding on

3:02

to all this crap. And then I have

3:04

more in my house, more in

3:07

my office across the street,

3:09

and every rock book that ever

3:11

has been published about popular music,

3:14

the blues hip hop that I'm

3:16

still holding on to all this, I mean, eight

3:18

thousand vinyl LPs. It's

3:20

ridiculous. This is my life. What's

3:23

your first memory of music? Growing up? Sneaking

3:25

out of my house at the age of twelve to go Stee

3:27

Colonious Monk at the five Spot. Literally

3:30

growing up in Manhattan, how did you

3:32

know to go? Because my parents

3:35

were left wing Jewish intellectuals,

3:38

so we grew up listening to like What

3:40

He Got three and Lead Bailly and Pete Seeger

3:43

and sort of left wing music.

3:46

And I started listening

3:48

to jazz under the covers,

3:50

and I would here Mars

3:52

Davis, Dilonious Monk, John Coltrane,

3:55

and it just sounded like another sexy

3:57

world down there, and so I

3:59

knew they were performing in New

4:02

York in the Village Van Garden five Spot

4:04

and I just snuck out of my house to twelve, probably

4:07

looking like a fool maker up

4:09

black dresses, high heels, hair

4:11

on the top of my head. I don't know how I got into

4:13

these places, but I did. And I remember

4:16

seeing Monk at the five Spot. I'm just

4:19

seeing Miles Davis

4:21

and John Caltrane, all these people. And

4:23

then I became a huge Rolling Stones fan. I

4:26

just loved them. I didn't like the

4:28

Beatles that much. I thought they

4:30

were too white or I don't

4:32

know, too cute, whereas the Stones

4:34

to me, were sexier. And

4:37

I write about this. They're one

4:39

of the few things that I mentioned about men

4:42

in my new book, which is called Nobody Ever

4:44

Asked Me about the Girls, because

4:47

nobody ever asked me about the girls. You

4:49

know, over the past forty years, everyone

4:52

would say to me, what's John Lennon

4:54

really like, what's Michael Jackson really

4:56

like? What's David Bowie

4:59

really like? What's m and M like, what's Jay

5:01

Z like? And you know, people

5:03

ask you about the people that you've worked with.

5:05

In my case, it was people I interviewed,

5:08

and no he ever asked me about the girls.

5:11

And at some point I heard Tina Turner

5:13

on Richard's radio show on

5:16

wn WFM, and

5:18

it just drove I

5:21

heard Navid Staples, Tina Turner,

5:23

all this black music, irma Franklin

5:26

doing Piece of My Heart, which I thought

5:28

and he thought was better than Jonas Joplin,

5:30

and that just changed my life

5:33

because I met him three months

5:35

later, we got married, and

5:38

it kind of opened a door to a career

5:40

that he sort of invented. And

5:42

I barged through my whole

5:45

first personal experience

5:48

with popular music

5:50

or interviewing people as a job.

5:53

Richard sent me to interview Tommy James,

5:56

of Tommy James and the Chantels of

5:58

Crimson and Clover and all that. He

6:02

was so coaked up and sweating

6:04

and he had a shag short

6:07

truce rug. I'll never forget. You

6:09

could barely open the door to get into the apartment.

6:11

And this was my first interview ever

6:14

that I did. I probably still have to tape

6:16

somewhere here. And I was lucky

6:18

and that he was one of the very few

6:21

evolved men who mentored

6:24

me and encouraged my whole career.

6:26

And I just barged through that door.

6:29

He opened it. I barged through it. What

6:31

do you remember about Tommy James. Just

6:33

what I told you, he was coked up. He made

6:36

very little sense. I mean, actually

6:39

he was allegedly coked up.

6:41

I don't want to get sued. He

6:43

just seemed weird. I don't think i'd ever

6:45

seen anybody on cocaine.

6:48

I mean since then, of course I am,

6:51

but I wasn't used to be

6:53

babbling in the sweating and

6:55

that was probably one of the main reasons

6:57

that I never did it once in my whole life,

7:00

because I've been around so many bands

7:02

who indulged in cocaine,

7:05

and I talk enough as it is, so

7:08

I didn't need to have any further encouragement.

7:11

I just thought it was always very sleazy, and

7:13

probably it dates to that initial occasion.

7:16

Did you listen to his music before you interviewed

7:19

him? No, I mean I knew

7:21

about Crimson and Clover, But

7:24

this is the other thing, you know. I mean, you

7:26

know, you can create a

7:28

vibe with someone without

7:30

ever losting to their music. I

7:33

mean, my whole thing about interviewing

7:35

people is I do like to know everything

7:37

about them, and I have researched

7:39

everybody, and I listened to every

7:41

single thing they've ever done. Now I

7:44

read every interview they've ever done, and

7:46

then I throw it all away and I just like

7:48

have it in my head and I go in

7:51

and it takes a completely different term. The

7:53

conversation just goes

7:55

elsewhere, because if you're just talking

7:58

to people like people, and

8:00

I've always been interested in people's stories,

8:03

So I managed to get them to say

8:05

things to me. Like everybody who

8:07

I've been talking to for the book keep

8:10

saying, how did you get these women to tell you

8:12

all these things that they never told anyone

8:14

else. The reason I got these

8:16

women to open up to me, I think

8:19

was number one. I walked into the room

8:22

with a certain history, just like

8:24

you have. You know, they know your work, they

8:26

know what you've done. When I met Gaga for

8:28

the first time, she carried on like,

8:30

you knew Freddie Mercury, you know David

8:33

Bowie, you knew John Lennon, And so

8:35

that was an icebreaker right there. And

8:38

also we had a bottle of wine waiting,

8:40

and she worked in the room in full

8:43

Gaga apparition, black

8:45

lace katsuit, veil covering

8:47

her face, and she said, are we going to drink? And

8:50

I said, yeah, but you've got to lift the veil.

8:52

I mean literally and figuratively,

8:55

so that was just an unbelievable

8:57

connection. We were true New York City girls

9:00

born in the same hospital many

9:02

years apart. And I just always

9:06

like to know a lot about the person,

9:08

but not ask him about that stuff.

9:11

I just see where the conversation goes.

9:13

What was the first writing job you

9:16

had, like an assignment? Was

9:18

Tommy James the first one? No, I

9:20

didn't write that up. I don't know what we did

9:22

with that. I think Richard used whatever coherent

9:25

quotes he could find. Maybe he used for his

9:27

syndicated radio show. And he had a little

9:29

column in a tiny English paper

9:32

called Disk and Music Echo, and

9:34

he didn't want to write that column anymore, and

9:36

he said you write it. And I said, I don't know how

9:38

to write, and he said, yes, you do. You know how

9:40

to talk, you know how to write. So I

9:43

started to write this little column about

9:45

stuff that was happening in New

9:47

York. Actually, prior to that,

9:50

I had written an anonymous

9:53

gossip sheet which would be equivalent

9:56

to a blog today, and I called

9:58

it The Pop Wire Service, and

10:01

I typed it out on an actual typewriter.

10:04

I mimiographed it on colored paper.

10:06

I didn't put a ballline on it. And I sent

10:08

it to everyone in the music business. Richard

10:11

knew all of him because he had been working in this

10:13

business for a few years, and so

10:15

people started to buzz about it, like who is writing

10:17

this thing? And how do they know what's going

10:19

on? And who's going out with you and what's happening

10:22

In retrospect, it was literally like maybe

10:25

not as sleazy, but it was a little tmzsh

10:27

kind of access Hollywood for the day.

10:30

But anyway, he gave me this column and disco music

10:32

Deco. I took it over and

10:35

led Zeppelin, who was considered

10:37

a heavy metal cheesy

10:39

heavy metal band in America,

10:42

saw this column and they were

10:44

getting terrible, terrible press in America.

10:46

John Mendelssohn and Rolling Stone. I remember it

10:48

to this day, and so does Robert

10:50

Plant. I'd assure you. He wrote

10:53

about the lemon song that Robert Plants sings,

10:55

not it's only a dog can hear, And

10:57

boy, I'm blessed my memory.

11:00

And so led Zeppelin saw this kind

11:02

of puff piecy, kind of pleasant,

11:05

non judgmental, non reviewing,

11:08

non critical column

11:11

in disk in Music Echo, and

11:13

they want a good press in England so their

11:15

parents would see it because they were getting

11:17

terrible press in America, so

11:19

I was asked to go see them.

11:21

I went to see them in Jacksonville, Florida

11:24

at a stadium. I mean, they were selling

11:26

at stadiums, but they were critically

11:29

getting panned. And the

11:32

minute I saw them perform,

11:34

I just thought they were majistic. I

11:37

just thought they were amazing. I thought

11:39

they combined hard rock, blues, you

11:42

know, Eastern music, everything. And

11:44

so then they invited me to go interview

11:47

them in New Orleans, and I'd

11:49

never been there, and so I went and

11:51

I interviewed them on the roof

11:54

of the Royal Orleans Hotel, and

11:56

I talked to Jimmy Page about Money Waters

11:58

and Hallam Wolfen, Elmore

12:01

James and Willie Dixon, who they ripped off.

12:03

And I talked to Robert Plant about

12:06

incredible spring band in Kaleidoscope

12:08

and Fairpool Convention in Joni Mitchell,

12:10

and they were they couldn't believe

12:13

that a young woman knew

12:16

about any of these people. And

12:18

as a result, I went on five doors with

12:21

them and I thought

12:23

they were amazing and fantastic. And

12:25

now here we are, however, many

12:27

years later, at forty eight whatever, and

12:30

they're considered one of the greatest bands of all

12:32

time, but I promised you that when

12:34

I did my first column on

12:36

them, they were not. And

12:39

then I started writing about them for Cream Magazine,

12:41

and I wrote about Bowie for Cream Magazine,

12:44

and I became the American editor of the New

12:46

Music Express in England. I moved

12:49

up from Disk and Music Echo to that,

12:51

and then Jagger saw that I was writing

12:53

all this stuff about Zeppelin that was still favorable,

12:57

and it was around nineteen seventy

12:59

four, and he

13:01

thought he was a dinosaur then

13:03

because CBGBs was happening

13:06

and the sex pistols in the Clash and buzz

13:08

cut, that was all happening in

13:10

England. And I had one foot in

13:13

this private plane all

13:15

access passed backstage Zeppelin in

13:17

the Stones world, and the other foot

13:20

every night I was in New York and CBGVS

13:23

standing in two inches of

13:25

beer or urine, oh god knows

13:27

what. And Richard and I just

13:30

made Roxcene Magazine, which

13:33

was the house organ along with Pump

13:35

Magazine of that world. And

13:37

that was when I first saw the Ramones

13:40

and Patty Smiths and television and talking

13:42

ads in Bondi and that just

13:44

blew me away. And so Jagger

13:47

thought, well, she knows what's happening

13:49

in this world, and he invited me

13:51

on the seventy five Stones tour, and

13:54

I had an amazing gig because they

13:56

paid me to be a consultant to

13:58

tell him who to talk to in the press. But I

14:00

also could write about them. There was no such

14:03

thing that a conflict of interest, you

14:05

know, So I did both. And

14:09

being on that kind of tour, being

14:11

in those kind of hotels with the

14:13

room service and everything

14:16

you'd want available to you,

14:19

and then going with Patti Smith in a van

14:22

for seventeen hours or whatever

14:25

it took to get somewhere, I understood

14:27

this world for women, and I understood

14:30

what it's like for women that's different

14:32

than men, because women did

14:34

not pick up boys on the road the way guys

14:36

did. Women did not do drugs

14:39

the same way. I mean, yes they

14:41

did drugs, but they didn't have a whole chapter

14:44

about drugs and sex, and another one on sex

14:46

in my book. But it's like Debbie

14:48

Harry told me she could not ask

14:51

her tour manager to go

14:53

into the audience and pick out the ten cutest

14:55

boys, like David Lee Roth would

14:57

have his tour manager go

14:59

in and pick out the ten cutest girls

15:01

to meet him, and I use

15:04

that word advisably

15:06

meet quotes around that. But

15:09

having gone on the Zeppelin and the Stones tour,

15:12

I then got a syndicate, a column, I

15:14

got a syndicated radio show, I

15:17

went on cable television, and

15:20

I don't know, it's just that my reputation

15:24

for being trustworthy because if

15:26

something was off the record, it was off the record,

15:28

and I was not a critic, and

15:31

people like that, and so

15:33

then of course I was accused of writing puff pieces.

15:36

But basically I didn't really care

15:39

because I was a fan. I was a music

15:41

fan, and that

15:44

continues to this day. Talk about CBGB's

15:46

a little bit. So you saw the Ramunds

15:48

Patti Smith television

15:51

talking heads. Did it feel

15:54

like the music was

15:56

of a collection or

15:59

was it more like these are just a bunch of different

16:01

interesting artists playing in the same place.

16:04

Yeah, it was a bunch of different interesting artists

16:06

playing in the same place, and unfortunately

16:09

they got labeled as all being part of a New York

16:11

punk scene and they all

16:14

hated that. Frankly, Ramones

16:16

didn't mind it so much because they

16:18

had more of that image or being punks.

16:21

I thought television was the best band of all

16:23

of them, and as a result,

16:25

of course, they were the least commercially successful.

16:29

Just like you know, Tomderlane

16:31

thought he was John Caldrane or Pink

16:33

Floor. I mean, he didn't think he was

16:35

a punk. Blondie

16:38

started out as a pop art

16:40

project. They thought it would be funny

16:43

to sort of emulate a pop band

16:45

with a cute girls singer,

16:48

and that was Chris Stein and Debbie Harry's

16:51

whole vision for that band.

16:53

And then they had some hits and then

16:55

they turned into like a big pop

16:58

band, but they did some very cool

17:00

things because Debbie brought fab

17:02

five Freddie into it and then Raptures.

17:04

She brought rap sort of to the mainstream

17:06

a little bit at that point in the seven

17:09

and these, even though it really

17:11

wasn't happening in a larger

17:13

way, I mean cool Hirk

17:16

started in I don't know what year, it was

17:18

maybe a little later seventy eight, but

17:20

in CBGB's Patty

17:23

was the first woman that like looked

17:25

like Keith Richards or Bob Dylan, two guys

17:27

she idolized. But she would punch

17:29

the air and kind of combine poetry

17:32

with music, and it

17:35

was just incredibly liberating and exciting

17:37

to see a woman do this. And of

17:40

course the New York Dolls and Mercer Street

17:42

was even before that. And I

17:44

thought David Johansson at that time

17:47

was probably the best rock and

17:50

roll performer I ever saw, and I still

17:52

hope that. I think he's much better than Jagger.

17:54

He was incredibly witty, he was

17:57

really really funny and smart,

18:00

and Johnny Thunders

18:02

was a great sloppy blues

18:05

rock guitarist, and so CBS

18:07

was just kind of our home. We

18:10

went there every single night. Honestly,

18:12

I think I spent the entire winter of

18:14

nineteen seventy four there. Every single night

18:17

we'd stayed till the end of

18:20

every performance. New York

18:22

was so different than I mean, it

18:24

was a dump, but as

18:27

I've written, it was our dump. And

18:30

you know, they served hamburgers on paper

18:32

plates with potato chips. I now cannot

18:34

believe I ate anything in there. The

18:37

bathroom downstairs was grotesque.

18:40

I mean, Helly's dog was at the front

18:42

desk all the time, slobbery. It

18:45

was just kind of a crazy

18:48

place, never to be replicated,

18:50

never. And the thing is, every

18:53

city has some place like this. I'm sure,

18:56

I'm sure, Seattle did London, you

18:58

know, the cavern in Liverpool whatever.

19:01

In retrospect, it's taken on this mythic

19:04

quality, but when you're living

19:06

it, it doesn't feel like that. It's just

19:08

someplace you go and you enjoy the

19:10

music and your friends with all the people.

19:13

And I would dread Bob growing around

19:15

by the nape of the neck to take pictures,

19:18

and then we put them in Rock Scene, and

19:21

then some people would start

19:23

showing up, like Paul Simon slumming,

19:25

or Clive Davis looking to sign someone,

19:28

or seymour Stein looking to sign someone,

19:31

and I would always be posing

19:33

with anybody, and then when the mud Club happened,

19:35

Bowie would show up there. So it

19:39

was always the rock scene, frankly was

19:41

a shameless self promotional vehicle

19:43

for me, and so they had always Richard

19:46

would like these very snarky captions,

19:48

like a rare smiling photo of

19:50

Lisa with David Bowie, because it'd

19:52

be like thirty rare smiling photos

19:54

of me in every issue. We

19:56

were going to CBGB's every night. When

19:59

I first heard the Ramones Rick, I

20:01

couldn't believe their songs were all under three

20:03

minutes. I thought everybody

20:06

else proll them some crazy pump I

20:08

thought sounded like the Beach Boys on speed.

20:11

We'll be back with more from Lisa Robinson In

20:13

just a moment, We're

20:18

back with Rick Rubin and Lisa Robinson,

20:21

who tells the story of a funny run in with Eminem

20:23

and his manager Paul Rosenberg backstage

20:26

at S ANDL. Of all

20:28

the bands you ever saw, the first

20:30

time you saw the Ramons having never heard them

20:32

before, was that the most

20:34

stunning first impression

20:37

of any band? Now the New

20:39

York Dolls, I think was Actually, I

20:41

mean, you also have to understand anything

20:44

I would tell you, Like everybody always

20:46

asked me, Okay, who are the five

20:48

best female performers you ever saw?

20:51

And I would start with Bette Midler. Then

20:54

I'd go to Adele maybe, or

20:56

Tina Turner or Steven

20:59

Anything would be an incomplete list, and

21:02

anything could change on a day to day

21:04

basis, because I've interviewed hundreds

21:06

and hundreds of women and probably

21:09

zens of men, and I can't say

21:11

that there was one seminal moment,

21:14

because every time something

21:16

it turned me on or got me excited,

21:19

that time was the best time

21:22

for that thing. You know, It's a series of

21:24

steps like it took me a

21:26

long time to get into hip hop, and

21:29

Jimmy, I having kept pushing and pushing

21:31

Eminem, You've got to do a story

21:33

in Vanity Fair on Eminem, and I kept

21:35

saying, no, I don't know. Slim as Tady

21:38

seems a little jokey to me. I don't

21:40

know. I just I like that to drain

21:42

Tupac better. And I just California.

21:45

And then finally I saw

21:47

Eminem perform and it was like

21:50

he took my breath away. And then, of course

21:52

it took me two years to get to interview him,

21:54

and then I did an unbelievable

21:56

interview with him, three and a

21:58

half hours, crazy, lucid,

22:01

brilliant. Anyway, when I saw him

22:03

again that stage of SNL

22:06

and my book was almost

22:08

coming out, there goes Gravity, and

22:11

Paul said Marshall, Lisa

22:14

wrote a book and there's a whole chapter about

22:16

you. And he looked at me and he went,

22:18

who else are there chapters on? And I

22:20

said, Rolling Stones, let's Steppelin,

22:23

John Lennon, Michael Jackson,

22:25

David And he goes, oh, that's

22:28

great company. And Paul

22:30

said, Lisa, tell Marshall

22:32

the title of the book and I

22:34

said, there goes Gravity, and for one

22:37

minute it was like he wasn't sure that

22:39

that was his line, and then there was recognition

22:42

that it was from Lose Yourself and he went,

22:44

oh, thank you. When I went, no, thank

22:46

you, I mean you saved my ass

22:48

with that title. I couldn't come up with one,

22:50

and that was perfect. And then

22:52

I said, you don't remember talking to

22:54

me in two thousand and six, do you?

22:57

You were stoned then, right, and he said

23:00

probably. And I said I was

23:02

driven to Detroit because I'd

23:05

rather be in a car for eleven hours than on a

23:07

plane for eleven minutes. And

23:09

I went to his studio in Detroit and

23:11

I told him, I said, and we did a three and a half

23:13

hour interview. You don't remember it. I

23:16

said, you were mad because they put

23:18

cheese on your hamburger and you didn't

23:20

want sprite, you wanted mountain dew and

23:22

blah blah blah with the food order and I remembered

23:24

all this stuff about it, and he went, wow,

23:27

you have a good memory. I don't. And

23:30

you know that was another AHA

23:32

kind of moment listening

23:35

to him, same with jay Z. Absolutely

23:38

blown away by jay Z. And

23:40

then when I did him for the cover

23:42

of Vanity Fair. I mean, Moolly spent

23:45

days together and every single

23:47

time I saw him perform, I

23:50

just couldn't take my eyes off of him. And

23:52

then like I went on one

23:54

tour with him where Justin Timberlake

23:56

opened one show and Jay opened

23:58

another and they alternated.

24:01

And I can always tell when something

24:04

really is getting to me because I never

24:06

go backstage to refill the glass

24:08

of wine, so I waited it was our

24:10

bathroom break, and I would do that

24:13

during Justin Timberlake, never Jay. So

24:16

you know, there are just people that leave me cold,

24:19

mostly pop stars, and then

24:21

there are people that just to this day, when

24:23

I see Stevie Nixon Lance Light, I cried.

24:26

Jeremy Mitchell I was always terrified

24:29

of because I heard she was nuts

24:32

and I heard she was difficult

24:34

and hated journalists. And

24:36

when we did a cover of Vanity Fair, Annie

24:39

used to do them in panels, like

24:41

one panel at a time, and one

24:44

year, I think it was two thousand and one, I

24:46

was determined to get everyone in the room at the same

24:49

time, and I worked eight

24:51

months with the help of Jimmy Ivan

24:54

who would send some people there. And

24:56

so that year I got

24:58

everyone in the room at the same time. And

25:01

I think that cover was Beyonce Bowie,

25:03

Jule Beck, Stevie

25:05

Wonder, Johnny Mitchell, Matt

25:08

Swell, Wins to Find Annie, jay Z, Missy

25:11

Elliott, and Chris Cornell another

25:14

one who's a sad loss.

25:17

So they were all lined up. But

25:19

I had never met every other person

25:22

on that cover I knew, except

25:24

I've never met Johnnie, and I wanted

25:26

to go into Annie's studio knowing everyone,

25:29

or at least not having to say hello to them for

25:31

the first time. So I

25:34

told her makeup artist who was a mutual

25:36

friend. He's also deceased now, Paul

25:39

Starr, I really want to meet

25:41

Johnny. Can I go to the Carlisle and just have one

25:43

drink with her? She was staying at

25:45

the Carlisle. You could smoke in the

25:48

lobby of the Carlisle at that time, and

25:50

Joanie, of course was a chain smoker.

25:53

Is not anymore, I don't think, But so

25:56

he said, well, she'll see you for like fifteen minutes.

25:58

It was like getting an audience, and

26:00

within the first five minutes.

26:03

I don't know how I managed to get this in,

26:06

but I thought this is either gonna

26:08

be some thing she like, or

26:10

she'll get up and walk away. And I

26:13

just said that I thought my Donna

26:15

ruined the culture. And she

26:17

got up and she hugged me and

26:20

we sat there for about four hours,

26:22

went through two bottles of wine, she

26:24

smoked god knows how many packs of cigarettes,

26:27

and that went on until whatever

26:30

four in the morning. But you know,

26:32

there's people that still kind of

26:34

turned me on, and I get interested and excited

26:37

about I love

26:39

a lot of the stuff Beyonce is doing. I

26:41

think she's kind of exceeded.

26:44

You know. You and I have talked about her in the past,

26:46

and when she was in Destiny's Chop,

26:49

she was a pop star and I wasn't

26:51

that interested in her or them,

26:54

And then I interviewed her, and then

26:56

I've been at parties with her, and

26:58

I've seen sides of her that

27:00

have absolutely impressed

27:03

me with her discipline. Like I

27:05

write in the book that the first time I ever

27:07

interviewed her, we ordered a pizza and she

27:09

had one slice. I

27:12

can't imagine ever having one slice

27:14

of a pizza. And I would say to her, you're only

27:16

gonna have one slice, I'm gonna eat the whole

27:18

rest of it, And she say it's part of

27:20

my job. And then I was at a party

27:22

with her once where they brought us

27:24

a brownie to the table and she cut

27:26

it into four small pieces, and she had

27:28

one piece, and I just thought, I cannot

27:31

believe the discipline of this woman. But

27:33

then as I got to know her a little bit more, and

27:36

I saw her a little more with Jay,

27:39

and she took a lot of vacations and

27:41

she started living her life more and

27:43

then also evolving more

27:46

as an artist. But when

27:48

I scare her sing love on Top, to

27:51

me, that's like an R and

27:53

B Gospel of Motown

27:56

kind of vibe. And then I've been

27:58

in parties with her where she can just sing along to any

28:00

OJ song or any Michael Jackson

28:02

song. And as Jay

28:04

said, she's a student of the game. She knows

28:07

every song has ever been done. So

28:09

you're asking me, was seeing

28:11

the Romans like the greatest experience

28:14

in my life? There have been about

28:16

fifty two one hundred greatest experiences

28:18

of my life. Considering all

28:21

of the artists you've talked

28:23

to over the years, could you say that there's

28:25

any commonality between them

28:28

versus the other people you come in contact

28:30

with in your life. Well,

28:33

there's a lot of differences between the male

28:35

and the female artists. First of all,

28:38

musicians are always worried they're not going to be able to

28:40

write the next song or the right album.

28:42

But the difference with musicians is

28:44

every single one of them has said the same thing

28:47

to me in that the songs

28:49

just get plucked out of the air. We

28:51

don't know where they come from. I

28:54

mean everyone from Keith Richards

28:56

to Lady Gaga, who

28:58

told me that she was watching

29:00

the hurt Locker, the movie in

29:03

Australia, and all of a sudden,

29:05

Born this Way came to her and she ran

29:08

out and she wrote it in three minutes. Keith

29:10

Richards told me he woke up one morning and

29:12

he had recorded Satisfaction on

29:15

his tape recorder the night before. I

29:17

mean, they all say that

29:20

some people probably labor more

29:22

than others, but musicians

29:24

have a lot of things in common.

29:27

They fight with a record company more than

29:29

writers fight with publishers. The

29:32

women have had more problems with

29:34

male record executives than the men in

29:37

terms of occasional sexual

29:39

harassment. Cheryl Kroges told

29:41

me the other day that she thinks

29:43

there's a lot she had a lot

29:45

of sexual harassment when she was touring

29:48

with Michael Jackson and Frank de Leo,

29:50

who's since deceased. But in

29:52

my book, I have a whole chapter on abuse, everything

29:55

from Fiona Apple and Torreamo's talking

29:57

about rape to

30:00

Lady Gaga other women

30:03

talking about more subtle forms

30:05

of abuse. Women have the

30:07

big problem of juggling home

30:10

versus career, and that

30:13

ideal with in a chapter called motherhood

30:16

because I never wanted to have children. But

30:19

the only woman that I've talked to who

30:21

said she never wanted children

30:23

and didn't regret it was Dolly Parton.

30:26

Stevie Nick said that she

30:29

kind of regrets never having a child, but

30:31

she knew she couldn't do it or would have broken

30:33

a fleet with Mac because Lindsey Buckingham,

30:36

even after they broke up as a couple, she

30:39

could never bring boyfriends around Fleetwood Mac,

30:41

and she could never have a child. Men,

30:44

now, I suppose are

30:46

more engaged with their children. You

30:48

know, the Home Meet Too movement has brought a

30:50

lot of this to like. But I promised

30:53

to led Zeppelin in

30:55

the seventies traveling with

30:57

their wives at home with their children

31:00

and their farms in England or Wales.

31:03

It was a completely different story. But

31:06

commonality with women is

31:09

very, very obvious, and

31:11

that's what I wrote a whole book about it, because

31:14

all these rich, famous women have

31:16

the same problems that all women have.

31:19

If you want a career, it's really

31:21

hard. And even if you have a lot of help, if

31:24

you're not with that child, you're

31:26

worrying what's going on with the child, because the women

31:28

are the caretakers. If a child

31:30

falls and a concrete

31:33

street, he yells for his mother.

31:35

It's just biological, you know. So

31:39

Gwen Stefani couldn't keep her marriage

31:41

going. She had a more successful

31:43

career than her husband at the time, so

31:46

that fell apart. Bonnie Ray told

31:48

me she couldn't stay married because

31:50

everybody called her husband mister Bonnie

31:52

Ray. I mean, Realna has

31:54

always said in length to

31:57

me in this book, I'm always suspicious

31:59

of people who want to be with me or want to sleep

32:01

with me. What are their motives? You know? And

32:04

I can't just pick up a guy and have

32:06

a fun night and you

32:08

know, great ride and he

32:10

wakes up the next day with a great

32:13

story and I wake up feeling my ship,

32:15

you know. Adele told me at the

32:17

time she was very happily married.

32:20

Her husband was older than she was. He

32:23

understood her career, he wasn't threatened by

32:25

it. And I don't really know the reasons

32:27

why that wasn't

32:30

able to last. But it's

32:32

just tough. It's tough for women musicians.

32:36

We'll be right back with Lisa Robinson. After

32:39

this quick break, We're

32:44

back with the rest of Rick's conversation with Lisa

32:47

Robinson. Tell the story of

32:49

seeing the Ramans and getting Sire involved.

32:53

I don't really know if I got Seymour

32:55

involved, or the fact that we wrote

32:57

about them very early on and put pictures of

33:00

them in Rocksone. But when

33:02

I saw them, I just was blown

33:04

away. And so I don't really remember

33:06

the steps to which

33:08

Seymour sign them. I don't know that

33:10

it was that easy for the Ramones to get a record

33:12

deal. I'm not sure everybody got

33:14

it. I mean, I know how much they meant to you and

33:17

mean to you, and I

33:19

know you think that they were the greatest

33:21

band the bull time if you had to pick one, but

33:24

I can't believe you would really do that. Top

33:27

three, Top three really, Okay,

33:29

So the Beatles, Remans and who has the clash no,

33:32

maybe like Simon and Garfunkel. Oh,

33:35

for God's sakes, really, yeah, I

33:37

really like the doors too. I like the doors too.

33:39

I see I didn't like their doors. I just thought

33:41

the doors were like kind of a college

33:44

band, you know. I just thought it

33:46

was a bit much. I just thought, Jim, that

33:49

was that hull stick, you

33:51

know, I'm going on. And Glorius

33:54

Davers, who was the editor of sixteen magazine,

33:56

had an affair with Jim, and she said

33:59

he used to call her and say, come over

34:01

to the Chelsea Hotel. I'm about to

34:03

kill myself for some crazy thing like that. They're

34:05

both dead now, so I don't know if this is

34:07

exactly what happened, but this is how

34:10

I remember it, so I'll stick to this story.

34:12

And she said one night, Jim Calder And

34:14

said I'm having a really bad trip. You

34:16

have to come over. You have to come over. And she

34:19

said, oh, Jim, really, And she said,

34:21

yes, You've got to come over right now.

34:23

And Gloria was the most glamorous woman.

34:26

She was a model in the fifties. She went

34:28

out with Lenny Bruce and she

34:31

went over to Chelsea. The door to

34:33

his room is open. She walked

34:35

in the room. She goes Jim. Jim.

34:38

She goes in the bathroom. She doesn't see

34:41

him. She thinks he

34:43

just left, so she leaves. She

34:45

goes home. She's home ten minutes.

34:48

Phone rings, She picks it up. It's

34:50

Jim on the other line. You didn't look under

34:52

the bed. That's

34:56

one Jim Morrison. Sorry, what

34:58

did you say? The Beatles, the Ramones,

35:00

Simon and Garfuncle, and the Doors.

35:04

You've worked with so many more fabulous

35:07

people than that. I mean, Johnny Cash,

35:09

Leonard Come, Trent Resner,

35:12

Adele Eminem jay

35:14

Z. I mean, I could go on and on and

35:16

on. Surely you're more sophisticated

35:19

than both Simon and Garfunnel and

35:21

the Doors. Really, I don't

35:23

know. I couldn't pick three top bands. I wouldn't

35:25

know where to begin. Anyway, anything is incomplete

35:28

list right, and it always it's

35:30

always changing. If it would change depending

35:33

on what I listened to, you know,

35:36

it changes to me depending

35:38

on who I'm talking to, depending

35:41

on the day, depending on my mode, and depending

35:43

it's almost hourly. I could tell

35:46

you top ten performances I've

35:48

seen over forty eight years, which would

35:50

include Bob Marley at the Roxy. What

35:52

were you doing in California for the Roxy show

35:55

with the Stones in nineteen seventy five, and

35:58

they closed down the balcony for us. So

36:00

Annie went with her cameras, the

36:02

whole band went. I went and

36:05

we I'm also Bob Morley at the Academy

36:07

Music and I will or I went with Richard

36:10

and he jumped up standing ovation at the

36:12

end, and I never saw him that outward

36:15

about something. He was very Blaise

36:17

Richard and jaded in a way and sort

36:20

of calm, but he was so

36:22

excited he jumped up. But I was shocked, but

36:24

at any rate, So we

36:26

were at the Rock Season nineteen seventy five in the

36:28

summer, must have been July or August. I take

36:31

the whobod more Lisa, and we

36:33

laid out these shots of tequila along

36:36

under the banister of the balcony, and

36:39

Annie and I must have each had about

36:41

ten shots of tequila. And

36:44

I never drank tequila before, and

36:46

I was sick. It's like mescal, and I mean

36:48

I was violently ill to

36:51

the entire next twenty four hours. When

36:53

I got back to the hotel and Annie

36:55

lost her cameras. She left them there. She

36:58

didn't get her cameras back, but I had the tape

37:00

of the performance, so it was worth

37:03

it. But that was one of the greatest performances

37:05

I've ever seen. Now as an interview,

37:08

I cannot say brow Molly was a great interview

37:10

because we did a phoner and I could barely

37:12

understand half of what he said. Talk

37:15

about the last book a little bit in

37:17

There goes Gravity. I only had one

37:19

chapter about a woman, and that was Lady Gerger.

37:22

For some reason, I had just been

37:24

interviewing her for Vanity Fair Cover Stories,

37:27

and I was so taken with her

37:29

because she was a phenomenon at

37:31

the time, and yet I

37:34

just thought she was adorable and grounded.

37:36

And I met her parents and I had dinner

37:39

there, and she kept

37:41

telling me about her parents in their house, and she

37:44

said, oh, I'll have to take you there sometime. And I kept

37:46

thinking, though, she'll wait and take Oprah

37:48

there, you know, we'll never do it.

37:51

But she came through and we did it. And we also

37:53

walked around the Lower East Side and anybody

37:55

that came up to her on the street she signed an autograph

37:58

and she was just told me the doorway

38:00

she wasn't just to sit in and

38:03

take drugs with and she was just incredibly

38:05

open with me. So in a book

38:07

that was full of a chapter led

38:09

Zeppelin, in my five Doors with Them chapter

38:12

about the Stones, and mostly my

38:14

nineteen seventy five forty with Them.

38:17

Michael Jackson, who I knew

38:19

from when he was eleven years old and

38:22

so he stopped speaking at the press. But

38:24

when I met him when he was eleven, he

38:27

was the most adorable, outgoing, cute

38:29

child, and I looked so cute. In the

38:31

picture of me and him in

38:34

that book, I'm holding my unlock

38:36

tape recorder up. We're both looking at the camera. He's

38:39

eleven, I look like fourteen. And

38:43

in my new book about the Girls, I

38:45

have a picture of a five year old Janet Jackson

38:48

with her back to the camera with braids

38:50

because she didn't want to be photographed. But when

38:52

I met Michael, he was so adorable

38:55

that day and talented and running around

38:57

the house showing me the animals sort

39:00

of dancing at the pool. And I

39:02

remember calling Fran and saying, this

39:05

kid is going to be the greatest live entertainer

39:07

ever, And she said, how could you possibly

39:10

know that he's a loved And I said,

39:12

just trust me. He's going to be amazing.

39:14

I just know it. And so there was

39:16

a chapter on Michael Jackson in

39:19

which I included the questionnaire

39:21

he filled out when we had a magazine called

39:24

Rock and Soul, and it

39:26

was what is your nickname?

39:28

He felt this out in his own handwriting. I

39:31

think he was twelve at the time, Amy, And

39:33

what is your nickname? And he wrote Niger

39:38

and he crossed that out, and then he

39:40

wrote the nose, and then

39:42

I think there's a question what are

39:45

your interesting? He wrote, children, all kinds,

39:47

all times. And I have

39:50

kept that questionnaire in the safety deposit

39:52

box for years

39:55

until I finally thought enough, already, I don't

39:57

want to pay for the safety deposita

40:00

box as well as the four storage spaces, so

40:02

I have that hidden in a secure location

40:05

as well. But then there's a chapter

40:07

on the whole CBGB's and David

40:09

Bowie and mcclash and Lou

40:12

and Chrissy Hynd and Patti Smith, and

40:15

chapter on John Lennon because I did

40:17

so many hours of tape with him and

40:20

Yoko. I mean, the way I got

40:22

to John, to be honest, was

40:25

through Yoko. I heard

40:28

Yoko's music, and unlike

40:30

everybody else, at

40:32

that time. I heard

40:35

the B fifty twos, I heard

40:37

punk rock, I heard weird

40:40

shit. But I had also grown up going

40:43

to the Living Theater and you

40:45

know La Mama and all that

40:47

kind of weird performance are. I knew

40:50

Yoko a little bit, but not

40:53

much, and I wrote something nice about

40:55

her in my column at the time in the

40:57

New York Post. And then she decreed

41:00

that okay, I could be John. So

41:03

I went to meet them both do

41:05

an interview with her about her album

41:09

in her Bank Street apartment, which was just totally

41:12

unassuming apartment

41:15

on like one floor

41:17

below the main street to

41:20

just go down a few steps. There was no security

41:22

there, nothing. This was

41:25

I when they first moved to New York, before

41:27

he got into the whole immigration ship. And

41:31

I sat in the interviewed Yoko for a long time,

41:33

and then when we were finished, she brought John out,

41:35

As I wrote in one of the books, like

41:37

Dessert, So she brought him out, and

41:40

he was so excited, like

41:43

he was so thrilled that someone was a paying

41:45

attention to Yoko and that it

41:47

was a woman. And then we both agreed

41:49

that she had been the victim of racist, misogynistic

41:53

stuff. They know It's interesting because,

41:55

like with Adell, when I first talked

41:57

to Adele, she was already huge star. But

42:00

we were in the car five minutes

42:03

she driving. Within five

42:05

minutes, she started talking to me about postpartum depression

42:08

after the birth of her son. And

42:11

I know that she had wanted

42:13

to talk about this, but I also knew

42:16

that she was holding off talking about

42:18

it until she talked to a woman, because

42:21

every interviewer she had done a fire It was

42:23

with these men and fashion magazines

42:25

and about clothes. And so that's why when people

42:27

ask me, the women relate to you differently,

42:30

Yeah, of course they do, because I've gone

42:32

through some of the same misogynistic

42:35

shit at any rate, not racist as

42:37

in Yoko's instance, but and

42:39

jealousy and Beatles fans making

42:41

her this villain and all that nonsense.

42:44

Anyway, John was just so happy that

42:47

I was talking to Yoko,

42:50

understanding Yoko, writing about Yoko,

42:52

and then he just talked, talked, and

42:54

we got along so great, and he was so funny

42:57

and so witty and just so sarcastic

43:00

and so clever. And then as

43:02

the years went on and I would interview him more,

43:05

and I was one of the few that she would

43:07

let into the house Jako, and

43:09

when he went back home, as he put it, between

43:12

seventy five and eighty, I was

43:14

there. I would interview him. I also

43:17

interviewed him during his lost weekend,

43:19

not in California when he was nuts, but

43:21

when he was living with May Peing over on forty

43:24

nine Street, when he did Walls and Bridges.

43:27

In fact, he signed an ascetate to me, which

43:30

I have somewhere in the midst of my eight thousand vinyl

43:33

albums, which I gotta sell

43:35

them to someone. Q Tip came here

43:37

to look at them, and he said he was

43:39

sending somebody back the following

43:42

week to appraise all of them. And

43:44

I think it's great. He'll find John Lennon

43:47

signed Assitate because Richard and I don't remember

43:49

where we put it. That was

43:51

two and a half years ago on so many

43:54

and on a mere quest. Love

43:56

told me, I want to buy your albums. I want to buy

43:58

them for my storage in Philadelphia, blah

44:00

blah blah, and I

44:03

said, okay, amir, come whenever you want. Four

44:05

years ago it was still waiting anyway,

44:08

So I'm signed an ascitate to Wilson

44:10

Bridges and called me the next day after

44:13

we did the interview, and he said, you

44:15

know, we were talking about the Beatles convention.

44:17

He would always call me to go, it's me John

44:19

Beatles, and I don't you

44:22

have to say Beatles, even though I know it's

44:24

a joke. But I don't

44:26

know anyone else named John who has a Liverpool

44:29

accent at any rate. He

44:31

said, remember we were talking about the Beatles

44:33

Convention. I said, yeah, So

44:35

you remember you told me you have four Beatles trays

44:38

and a lunchbox and a thermis

44:40

And I said yeah. He goes, well,

44:43

you know I don't have a lunchbox or a thermis

44:45

or a tray. And I thought,

44:48

really, okay,

44:51

I meant I messenger a tray over

44:53

to him. And then

44:55

I thought, oh, you idiot, you should

44:57

have kept the set of four. I still have the three.

45:00

So I did that chapter on John Lennon because

45:03

I just I mean, there were a lot of off the record

45:06

things about John Lennon that I

45:08

won't talk about because they

45:10

were off the record. But one

45:13

thing that I cannot believe happened

45:16

is when I went to the record plant when they were recording

45:18

Double Fantasy. He said

45:20

to me, and that was about three weeks,

45:22

maybe before he was murdered, and

45:25

he said, you know, I don't want to be a martyr.

45:27

I don't want to be Mahatma Gandhi. I don't

45:29

want to be Martin Luther King. Because

45:31

I was talking about how he walked around New York and

45:34

how free he was and he didn't have security.

45:37

And I said how Bowie and Jagger had both always

45:39

told me you can walk down the street one way

45:42

and not get recognized, and you can walk

45:44

down the street another way and get recognized.

45:46

And John Savon, I don't give a fuck if I get recognized

45:49

or now. I like being in New York.

45:51

I don't care about security. And

45:53

when I wrote up that interview, I

45:56

didn't include that quarte in it because

45:58

I thought, this is looking for trouble

46:01

and I'll write that in the New York

46:04

Post and some fucking nut will

46:06

know that he walks around without security. So

46:09

you know, that was an

46:12

off the record thing that I

46:14

mean. I'm glad I didn't write it, but it

46:17

was kind of creepy. And then after

46:20

he died, Yogo invited

46:22

me over. She said, it's not an

46:25

interview, I just want to talk to you. It was about a month

46:27

after he was killed, I think, so

46:29

I went over there. I didn't have a tape recorder. She

46:32

was in the bed with the pillows behind her, and she

46:34

was playing recordings

46:37

of her new album, Thing was

46:39

walking on and I said, I don't remember, and

46:42

she was playing you

46:44

know, things that she incorporated into the

46:46

songs, like the fans singing outside the

46:49

Dakota the night he was murdered. She

46:51

showed me his sunglasses broken.

46:53

There was going to be I think, on the cover. And

46:56

she kept saying, this is not an interview, this is not an

46:58

interview. And then about three weeks later, I read

47:00

the exact verbatim stuff

47:03

in Newsweek by Barbara grass

47:05

Stark, another journalist, and

47:08

I thought, did she want me to write

47:10

about this or was she like audishiming

47:13

people for who she was going

47:15

to have this story, have it run in the

47:17

biggest place. I mean, I would

47:20

not have blamed her for not wanting it in the

47:22

New York Post, clearly. But

47:24

I do remember when I was at Vanity Fair,

47:27

I took a lot of my Lenen tapes and

47:29

I print We printed it in Vanity

47:32

Fair, like the lost John Lennon tapes.

47:34

And I remember Jan had put out his

47:37

own lost John Lennon tapes and a book

47:40

called that, and I remember him coming

47:42

up to me somewhere and saying the

47:45

lost Germ Lennon tapes and I

47:47

went, uh, huh, mine my lost

47:49

Germ Lennon tapes. But I never

47:52

had a good relationship with Drawing start. I didn't

47:54

like the way they treated women, and

47:56

I didn't like especially that they had a chart

47:59

of every and I wrote about that in This Girl's

48:01

book. They had a chart of everyone Journey

48:03

Mitchell slept with and they

48:06

never did anything like that. Fanil young about Dylan

48:09

and also how did he know? And that's

48:12

fucked up anyway. That

48:14

last book was called

48:16

a memoir, but it wasn't really a memoir.

48:20

I mean, I don't know how I could ever write

48:22

a memoir would be an encyclopedia. I

48:24

mean, this book I wrote about women is

48:26

only forty women. Sort

48:28

of the best stories that fit in these themes

48:31

of abuse, fame, motherhood of sex, drugs,

48:34

age, hair and makeup which is

48:36

a bad image, which

48:38

is my favorite chapter because it

48:40

talks about how MTV changed everything.

48:43

You know, all of a sudden you were seeing what

48:45

the music was supposed to sound. Like and

48:48

for those of us who just grew up with our eyes closed

48:51

listening to the music imagining what it

48:53

sounds like, that was

48:55

not my thing anyway. Cool.

48:58

Thank you for telling me stories. Well,

49:01

we have talked for a very long time, and I'm sure

49:03

this will be wildly edited down, but

49:05

Rick, you know, between you and me,

49:08

we could talk for three

49:11

times if we had enough

49:13

breath and our bodies could hold

49:15

up. Thank you, Thank you getting

49:17

them out of me. I appreciate it. Thanks

49:23

to Lisa Robinson for chatting with Rick about

49:26

her incredible career. Be sure to check

49:28

out her new book, Nobody Ever Asked Me

49:30

About the Grass. To hear

49:32

more from Broken Record, you can subscribe to

49:34

our YouTube channel at YouTube dot com slash

49:37

Broken Record Podcast, where you can find

49:39

extended cuts of new and old episodes.

49:42

Broken Record is produced with helpful Lea Rose,

49:44

Jason Gambrel, Martin Gonzalez,

49:47

Eric Sandler, and our new intern Jennifer

49:49

Sanchez. Our executive

49:52

producer is mil Lovell. Broken Record

49:54

is a production of Pushkin Industries, and

49:56

if you like Broken Record, please remember to share,

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50:01

theme musics by Kenny Beats. I'm Justin Richmond

50:04

bass,