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[pause] alexandra wilder: now let me turn things overto our partner at the toronto star and bring up bob hepburn, director of community relationsand communications. [applause] bob hepburn: my role here tonight is to formallyintroduce peter howell and randy bachman. the notes are for peter howell. [laughter] bh: peter's been a published journalist since1976 and has covered the canadian music scene for well over 30 years. he's worked with thestar for some two decades and currently is

our acclaimed film critic. and yes, he lovesthe oscars. but before he switched to reviewing films, peter was our acclaimed music criticfor years. he knows the history of the canadian music scene. he has interviewed stars of the'60s, '70s, '80s, '90s, right up to today. as a music critic, one of peter's most interestingaccomplishments was that he was one of the first journalists ever to write a regularonline column, which he created the online blog cyber pop years ahead of the curve whenit came to what is today known as social media. today, peter is followed by thousands of peoplearound the world on twitter. bh: randy bachman. a quote i like about randybachman, the best is one i read just a few weeks ago. and it was randy talking abouthimself. "i don't want to be 'whatever happened

to?' i want to be, 'look at what this guyis doing now.'" well just look at what randy bachman is doing these days. previous weekend,he was inducted for the second time into the canadian musician's hall of fame and bachmanturner overdrive was honoured at the juno awards. guess who were inducted in 2001. heperforms more than 100 times a year. this friday, he's in tacoma, washington. his awardwining radio program vinyl tap is heard by millions of people around the world everyweek and he's on tour right now and here tonight talking about his second book, tales frombeyond the tap, which is a follow up to his first book which was a top 10 bestseller.not bad i'd say. bh: as you all know, randy started his fabulous40 plus year career as a guitarist, songwriter,

performer and producer in winnipeg. he hasearned over 120 gold and platinum albums and singles around the world and has sold morethan 40 million records worldwide. he produced his first album with burton cummings and theguess who in 1966. i actually remember that one. together they wrote such hits as, theseeyes, no sugar tonight, laughing, i'm done, no time, american woman. i know the wordsto all of them. bh: in 1973 he performed bachman turner overdrivewith fred turner. the band had such huge success with hits, takin' care of business, let itride. unfortunately, i know all those words too. 0:04:22 bh: his awards over the years arephenomenal. he's received an honorary doctorate

of music, he's received the governor general'sperforming arts award, he's an officer of the order of canada. so whatever happenedto randy bachman? a lot, i'd say. please welcome peter howell and randy bachman. peter howell: it's my word. randy bachman: nice to meet you. thanks everybodyfor coming. we've been here... thank you everyone. ph: last time randy and i talked was about20 years ago. i was telling him he was kind enough to come to down to toronto star, whichrock stars normally don't do; usually you have to go to them. he's a very approachableguy. and this book is a great read. i really enjoyed it.

rb: thank you. ph: and you sort of, like i said, outtakes.these are a hell of a... great stories. rb: well, they're the stories that i tellwhen i'm doing my radio show, but if they only put those in, it would be a talk showand i have to play music, so the producer kind of cuts off the story and then we playthe song. so this says it's beyond the tap, it's the stories that kind of keep on going.like you're telling your kids a bedtime story, kinda keep on going and going and going. sothese are a little bit beyond the other endings. ph: yeah, i thought we'd begin by... it'sfunny, i've always called you randy bachman, but that's not necessarily your preferredpronunciation of your last name, is it?

rb: all i care about is that they say it. rb: in canada it's bachman. in the states,if i say bachman they have no idea who i am. i have to say bachman. and in england it'sbachman and in germany it's bachman. so you kind of learn that all over the world. infact, when i'm doing an american pr for radio say, "hi, this is randy bachman of bachmanturner overdrive" then it's both in the same... it's all done. ph: so it's good that he's also ambidextrous,right? which is handy because his thumb is broken, right, from what happened? you wannatell people what happened? rb: i was shaking hands with a biker at sturgis,the big bike fest, the harley-davidson guy,

and he just squeezed and squeezed and my handkind of crunched. i thought nothing of it and then four or five months later it hurtsand you shake it out and then you can't hold a guitar pick and then you can't open a bottlelike that and you start to worry and you start to ice it and then you find out you have gotbroken bones in your thumbs and twisted tendons. i had it worked on in winnipeg about, lastweekend, by a hand doctor. there's actual foot doctors and hand doctors. so he workson it for three hours and he starts up here and he does all the bones and all the ligaments,'cause there's something there it's all connected. so he gets my thumb absolutely perfect. andthen i walked on stage at the juno's and i shake hands...

rb: with chris hadfield. rb: the astronaut, who's like one of the worldsstrongest guys. our conversation before that was, "how do you work out is space?" you liftup a weight, hit yourself in the head, there's no weight, you gotta do it with elastic bandsin space. then when you get back to earth, it's very hard to work out 'cause you're useto having no resistance. like when you're in a swimming pool and you get out suddenlyyou go, "am i this heavy?" cause you're getting out of the pool and suddenly the pressuresthere. so i walk on stage with him and the first thing i did... you'll see it if youwatch the rerun of the juno's, there's this, "huuh! i shouldn't be doing this." here heis grabbing my hand and he's got a really

incredible handshake. so, it kind of hurtsagain. ph: sidelined by a biker and an astronaut.top that. one of the neat things about this, you find a lot of time with rock stars andmovie stars and i talk to them all the time, is that they're often not willing to reallyshare, literately. they're afraid to talk about their influences, they're afraid totalk about where they get their ideas, as if somebody will steal it from them or youmight accuse them of stealing it from you. but randy you just tell these stories andi wanted to ask you one about, the one song you seem to reference most in the book isamerican woman the big guess who hit, right? i was really surprised. i hadn't heard thisstory before, that you said american woman

was inspired by a whole lotta love led zeppelin.that's where you got the hook for the song? rb: i don't know what came first, it's justa riff in e. american woman i kind of wrote that in late '68, we recorded it in '69, andthen it was out in 1970. so i don't know if that beat a whole lotta love or not, but icould just sit here with a guitar and play my sharona, da-da-da, it's the same thing,or i'm a man, do-do-do-dot, it's the same notes, it's just different timing on the notesand american woman is just a variation of that. ph: so you go from da-da-na-na-na to the americanwoman? rb: yeah. i've got a couple of live soundchecks of led zeppelin actually at madison

square garden, where in the middle where they'replaying whole lotta love, they sing american woman. so i don't know what came first, buti don't care. rb: they're getting paid, i got paid, andtheirs was kind of borrowed by i think willie dixon and that's a great story. ph: yes. rb: willie dixon's walking through his house,his grandson comes in with a big ghetto blaster, and whole lotta love is playing and somebody'srapping over it, do-do-do-don, and they're doing a rap part and he says to his grandson,"i wrote that song." the kids says, "no, you didn't, it's led zeppelin." so a couple oflawyer phone calls later, led zeppelin writes

him a check for a couple of million dollarsand now the new zeppelin things say, "plant page and willie dixon". ph: so it should too. rb: yeah. ph: well further to american woman, what'sthis i about you, you say in the book that you would like to do a bossa nova versionof it? like the american woman from ipanema? rb: exactly. i am prepping now, this is quiteexciting. i got a call from the winnipeg symphony. many years ago, i played with a symphony whenbeethoven had his birthday, 150 or 200th year, it was called "from bachman to beethoven".so they wanted me to play... classical gas

was a big hit then, it was like late '60s.so with the winnipeg symphony i did classical gas and then i did some... beethoven did odeto joy and stuff like that. i stumbled through it and the symphony covered for me and itwas great. since then, they've asked if i would play with them again and as it comesup, they offered me some concerts in early december, which i said yes to. i just spokewith the arranger today, his name is charles cousins, and we're gonna do a show in octoberhere in kitchener, where they have a nice little symphony, maybe koerner hall wherethey have the young kids symphony, royal conservatory, and one in london, ontario, where they havea nice symphony. so we're rewriting the songs that our introducer... sorry, i forgot hisname.

ph: bob hepburn? rb: yes. american woman in that bossa novastyle, she's come undone in a led zeppelin style. we're taking all my songs and totallyflipping them over as if somebody brought me in sheet music, which i can't read, broughtin sheet music and the lyrics saying, "do this as a song." so i'm thinking let's useas a template for this while my guitar gently weeps. let's use this template for this wholelot of shaking going on. let's use this template for this my sharona, or something and takingthat song and adapting it to that and then he's writing an 89 piece symphonic arrangementsto go around and behind that. so that'll be a fun project. so american woman is beingdone in a bossa nova style for that.

ph: i'm there. you probably heard the linefrom keith richards that he says, "there's only one big song up in the sky, and you justreach up and pull down the parts you need." rb: little bits, yeah. ph: yeah, yeah. you actually have one of keith'sguitars that you mention in the book, right? you bought a guitar and it turned to be oneof his. rb: i did, i bought two of them and i gaveone... stupid. i gave one to blair thornton the other guitar player in the guess who.we walked into a music store in the mid '70s. it was in west chester, pennsylvania, outsideof philadelphia. and two black les pauls on the wall. one had p90s and one had humbuckersand those are pickups, for those of you who

don't know. and i said, "wow, those guitarsare amazing, can we play them? what are they in here for, are they for sale?" he said "no,they were in for fret jobs". and when they were first made they were called fretlesswonders 'cause les paul did all this fancy stuff so the frets were very low. but if youwant to play blues or rock on them, you need a higher fret so your string will have a sustainto it or else it just kind of flops against the neck. and he said, "no, they're in forfret jobs." and i said, "how long they been here?" and he said, "a couple years." rb: and i said, "well, who didn't pick themup?" he said, "well, keith richards' roadie brought them in. they were on a tour and sowe needed to get them done." i said, "well,

can you find out if they're for sale?" hesaid, "well... " i said, "you know that you can do a thing called... how much is eachfret job on a guitar?" he said, "$120." i said, "you know you can do a mechanic's lien."which a mechanic will do to any of your cars. if you take the car in and suddenly he putsin new brakes and everything, you don't pay that, he can sell that car for the amountthat's on there and the rest of the money is gone. but if he's put $200 into a brakejob he can sell it for that, as the bank can do with your house. so i said to the ownerof the store, "would you do me a favour?" rb: stones had just started their label then,you know the tongue when the rolling stone record's atlantic. "could you send a registeredletter to tongue records, whatever it's called,

rolling stone records at atlantic plaza innew york city, with the mechanic's lien? say if they don't pay you for these things within60 days, you're gonna enact this lien and you're gonna sell the guitar for what thefret jobs are." and he said, "okay." so i then proceeded on the road with bto, we wereon a big tour, and i call him every couple of months, "have you done it?" "yeah i didit." "was it a registered letter?" "yes it was." "did they reply to it?" "no they didn't."and now we're waiting for the required 90 day period, and i call him after that andhe says, "they didn't reply, so i guess i can sell them." and i said, "so what do youwant for both black '59 les pauls?" he said "$750."

rb: so i didn't say, "each." i said "okay,so if i send you $750 you'll send both of those to my address in the states?" "sure,no problem." so i got them. i said to blair, "do you want one? pay me $375." and we stillhave those guitar. we started to play them on four wheel drive, you notice the bto soundchanged? ph: yep, yep. rb: four wheel drive we got heavier and thickersounding. so i went from playing a strat to playing this heavy black les paul, which isso heavy i only can play it sitting down. and so i still have that to this day. ph: i think keith took that lien and rolledit up very finely.

ph: you mentioned bto which is the other greatband you're in, and then i want to ask you about the song most identified with bto whichis takin' care of business. ph: i had always though that, maybe i wasn'tpaying attention, i always thought that you got it from elvis. the story i heard, letme tell you the story first, is that you saw it on his belt buckle or something, tcb andthat you got the idea for the song. but apparently i got that totally wrong, he got the ideafrom you. rb: you're totally wrong. ph: it's not the first time. rb: or the last.

ph: yeah, tell us. rb: in the late '60s... this is a long storydo we have time for a long story? ph: yeah, tell us. it's about elvis. rb: okay, this is the late '60s. one of myfavourite songs growing up was johnny b. goode, the chuck berry song. the story of a kid whoplays guitar, lives in a cabin made of earth and wood, and it's the day in the life storyof this kid who learnt to play guitar. ph: just like ringing a bell. rb: yeah, like ringing a bell. and then thebeatles copied that with papephack writer. they told the day in the life of a story ofa guy who wrote papephack novels like this.

and in the middle as we all know it went,"papephack writer, papephack writer." ph: i think they also stole it from the harrybelafonte riff, but yeah, go ahead. rb: yes. and so i wanted to write a song likepapephack writer or johnny b. goode. i was in new york in the middle and late '60s inthe recording studio. shakin' all over which was the guess who's first hit in canada andin the states, was out on scepter records in the states. ph: chad allan. rb: chad allan. and we went to scepter records,it was owned by a lady by the name of florence greenberg, she owns scepter records. she alsowrote soldier boy for the shirelles and managed

the shirelles. and they had their own littlerecording studio. their songwriters, who they had on staff, were burt bacharach and haldavid, nick ashford and valerie simpson, and these people would pitch us songs to do. andthey were just like us, they were our age and they like teenager 19, 20 years of age,writing songs and pitching us songs. rb: and her son, stanley greenberg, was ourengineer. and we recorded an album. there was ashford and simpson writing some of thesongs and singing on them with us. and the thing about stanley greenberg is he was blind.i would sit there in amazement and he would be there and he would be turning the knobs.somebody else would set up the mics for him but he had the ears and he would mix us. andso every night, he had to leave the studio

at about 10 o'clock. and as a musician, you'rejust getting going at 10 o'clock, that was when we start work. eight or nine. ph: just waking up. rb: when you guys are done dinner you go out,we're there entertaining you at dinner or dancing whatever and our work day is prettymuch eight at night 'till one or two in the morning. and so, just as we're getting rollingin the studio, he'd leave every night. i said, "stanley why do you leave?" "well i gottago home." so let me back up a little bit. everyday at the studio, stanley would weara white button down shirt, a tweed tie, a tweed jacket with leather patches here, pleatedpants and those british shoes with little

leather doilies on, like brogs or whateverthey call it. rb: and it's like 80 above, it's august and90 above in new york and everyone's in tank tops and this guy comes in everyday in a tweedjacket and a white collar. and so i said, "stanley why do you dress that way?" and hesaid "because i wanna look like george martin, the producer of the beatles, he's the bestproducer in the world," and i goes, "stanley, you really do look like george martin, that'sreally great." and i said, "i wanna write a song about you, because you wear this whitecollar. i'm gonna write a song called white collar worker, and i want this to be likepapephack writer." so i say that... when he's leaving that night i say, "you know, how doyou get... where do you? where do you live?"

and he says, "i go to the train station, itake the train home." rb: "you take the train home. where's that?""grand central station." "how do you get there?" "i walk." so i said, "can i go with you?"i wanna see this blind guy walk. to train, grand central station... the scepter studioson west 54th street, so he's got quite a ways to walk to get to grand central station. isay, "how do you get there?" he said, "well, you count steps." and i was intrigued by thiswhole thing. so i go with him and it doesn't matter to him if it's light or dark. you knowwhat i mean? it's dark, it's 10 o'clock at night. rb: and he counts the steps. and he says,"one thing if you're coming with me, don't

touch me." he doesn't like me to take hisarm. he's on his own. he's got his white tie and everything. and i appreciate that. soi'm walking beside him and he's counting, "785, 786, time to turn right." and we endup at grand central station. i wanna write a song about this guy and there's nothingto write about, the streets are empty. i mean madison square garden isn't out yet, whateveris going on that night, so it's pretty much deserted, then when that gets out and allthe theatres get out, blam, new york is full, from maybe 10:30 till one o'clock in the morning.so i say to him, "there's nothing here to write a song about. i'm trying to write asong the day and a life of this guy, the white collar worker. so when do you come in in themorning?" and he said, "i take the 8:15 into

the city." and i said, "oh, when you takethe 8:15, when does it get here?" he said, "it gets about quarter to nine and i get towork by 9:00 and start work." ph: yeah. rb: so the story starts. so i go the nextmorning. i meet the 8:15, it's about quarter to nine. he's getting off the train, all thegirls are getting off the train. their doing their hair and their make-up. their goingto look pretty and i write you get up in the morning from alarm clock's warning, take the8:15 to the city. there's the whistle up above and the girls trying to look pretty and ifthe trains on time you get to work by nine. then, work started at 9:00, now it startsat 10:00. [laughter] the evolution of the

work day. and so i wrote the song. but inthe middle it stopped and it went, "white collar worker." just like "papephack writer."and so i played it for burton cummings and he goes, "gag me with a drumstick." rb: "we can't do this song because we'll besued by lennon and mccarthy." and i said, "yeah, but we'll get to meet them." rb: "i get to meet the beatles in court faceto face." rb: and so that didn't happen. so that songnever got on any of the guess who albums because after that we did the wheatfield soul album,i kept pitching the song and burton kept saying, "great verses, incredible verses, those areyour johnny b. goode verses."

rb: "they tell the story in the day of thelife of a guy but you need a better hook, get rid of the white collar worker." so fastforward many years, i pitched that, after the guess who, i started a band called bravebelt, it's a country band. and i pitched it for brave belt i and ii and it goes nowhere.i pitched it for brave belt iii, it goes nowhere. brave belt iii becomes bachman-turner overdrivei, we just changed the name we got a different record label and i'm still pitching the songand nobody's wanting to do the song. now, as i'm going to work one night over the bridgein vancouver to north vancouver, my old friend darryl burlingham, darryl b who is on airhere, you might know him, he's on air here in toronto a lot.

ph: yup. rb: he's on the air there in vancouver andhe said "this is darryl b on seapoint radio, and we're taking care of business." and iwent, "wow, what a great song title. what a great song title." so i have a song writingkit in my car, which some of you might have, it's a smashed crayon on a mcdonald's napkin. rb: so you write down all the ideas, so i'mdriving over the bridge the lionsgate bridge and i'm getting a napkin and i'm writing down"takin' care of business," because if you don't write it down, you'll forget it. justlike the great dream, "hey, guess what, i had a great dream last night," "what was it?""uh... i forget, it's gone." so you gotta

write all these ideas down and you learn,if you're a journalist or a writer, a little collection of words is a ka-ching headlineor a song title. so i write that down and i'm going to the gig and this is saturdaynight now, we're playing in north vancouver in a club. we were playing six nights a week,monday through saturday. five 50 minute sets a night. ph: wow. rb: with 10 minutes off each hour. so by thetime it gets to saturday night, the last set, fred turner comes to me and he says, "i can'tsing anymore. you gotta sing the last set." so i had to sing the last set and not reallybeing a singer or called upon to sing, having

been in a band with burton cummings, one ofthe greatest voices in music and then fred turner was this harley-davidson, hugh channic,john fogerty kind of voice, i had to sing the last set. so i went up on stage and i'mtrying to wing this last set, and i didn't really have a whole lot of songs and i'm onstage and we're doing oye como va, the santana song, and none of us know any spanish butit doesn't matter, because i figured nobody in vancouver knows any spanish either. rb: so we bluff our way through that songand while i'm playing the "da da da da da da dit da da" the big solo, part of me isthinking, "what are you gonna do next?" and the thing about a club, rock and roll clubsdo not exist for you to dance, they exist

for one thing. ph: drinking. rb: drinking, just like radio stations don'texist to play your music they exist to play commercials. if your music's good enough,they'll play them between the commercials, that's how they get their money. not by playingour music, they gotta play commercials. so while the night's going on, the club owner'sgoing like this, and it's the last night of the set and he's going like this. he's goinglike, "nobody's drinking." and when we start oye como va, they're all up dancing 'causethat was a big song on the radio. so he's going, "great, great, great, great." right?they're drinking now. he's giving me motions

from the bar. rb: the trick is you can't let them sit down.you've gotta keep them up dancing, 'cause the minute we end oye como va, they're gonnasit down. and i'm gonna go, "duh, what am i gonna do next?" so i'm on stage just likethis, and we're a three piece band, me and fred turner, my brother robby on drums. andthe light comes on in my head being ambidextrous, this side's working, this side's thinking,"this is your big chance for white collar worker. the band is your hostage. they'reon stage, they've already passed on the song." rb: "they pass on the song like six timesfor six albums. this is your big moment." rb: so i'm thinking, i'll take the lyricsto white collar worker, i'll take what daryl

b said on the radio, "takin' care of business.instead of doing that break down, 'white collar worker,' i'll just go right into 'takin' careof business,' see how that fits. i have no chance to try this ahead of time in the dressingroom. it's just right on stage, an instant kind of thing. and similar to tuning my guitarand putting a string on, in kitchener-waterloo coming up with that riff to american womanwhich i played on stage the audience felt the arrow coming from the angel who... ph: the gods. rb: shoots an arrow, he once write a songon it. that happened on stage. i turned around, i said, "follow me, it's three chords," andi started to play the chords. i got to the

hook, i didn't stop and do white collar worker,i sang takin' care of business. the next time around i did my second verse exactly to whitecollar worker. the next time around the band sang takin' care of business, and i didn'tknow how, i answered them "takin' care of business every day, taking care of businessevery way, taking care of business, it's all mine. taking care of business and workingovertime." and... ph: boom. rb: i had that feeling like, "wow." the audiencehad that feeling. it was electric. we got to a great jazz or blues concert and the bandgets into it, they go somewhere. if you can go with them on that journey, it's wonderful.you leave behind all your worries and woes

and cares, and you're on this journey forone or two or 20, or three or four or five minutes, or whatever. so we're all on thislittle journey together, and everyone is dancing and going crazy. we try to stop the song,they're all clapping, singing, "takin' care of business." my brother keeps it going. weplay the song for 20 minutes. rb: it ends the set. so we go to record acouple of weeks later, and i write out the lyrics for fred turner who basically was thelead singer. and he says, "why are you writing out the lyrics for me. i don't want to singthis song." i go, "oh, fred, you don't want to do the song? the audience loves it." hesaid, "i'd like you to sing this song, and give me a real rest 'cause i just can't goout there screaming and singing all night

long. so you really sing a song that's ona real bto album, and you've done it twice and the audience loves it." rb: so, we go into the studio and we recordthe song, and i sing it once 'cause it's no big deal. and the song speeds up and slowsdown, and falls apart in the middle, and it's no big deal. it's only an album cut. and whilewe're in the studio, it's like one o'clock in the morning, i've done this as an afterthought,done this song. and there's a knock at the door, i open the door to the studio. thisis a great big studio complex a lot like this. there's studio a, we're in studio a. studiob is steve miller doing his fly like an eagle album. in studio c is war doing their whycan't we be friends album. so we're all there

in this brand new studio in seattle. rb: and so there's a knock at my studio door,and i open the door. there's a guy about six foot four, frizzy black hair, frizzy big blackbeard wearing army fatigues. he's standing there with three pizzas, and he said, "didyou guys order pizza?" i said, "no, we're going home. we've been here since 10 in themorning. it's now like one o'clock in the morning. try down the hall, steve's in thatdoor and steve's in that one." he's like, "steve miller and steve goldstein who's producingwar." no, jerry, jerry goldstein. and we're playing this song, too putting on our coats,and there's a knock on the door again. i open the door, the same guy's there without thepizza. i said, "so you got rid of the pizza?"

he said, "yeah, but i'm listening to thissong. it's really a great song." and i said, "thanks very much. i kind of put it togetheron stage. i co-wrote it with myself." rb: i wrote part of it in 1967, and i wrotethe other part like last month. there's no better co-writer to have than yourself. yousplit the money two ways in your... this pocket and that pocket. so he said, "that song soundslike it could really use a piano." and i said, "yeah, i'd like to get elton john or littlerichard, but they're both going crazy in la tonight." and he said, "i'm a piano player,will you give me a break?" "what do you mean?" he said, "i really don't just deliver pizza,at the end of the month i gotta pay my rent. i'm a piano player. i can nail this song."

rb: so i said, "you know we're really tootired and i don't have time." he said, "please give me a break." and i thought, "who am inot to give a guy a break?" so i said, "okay, we'll give you a break." normally you tunea piano when you're gonna record. there's no piano tuner at one o'clock in the morning.so i said, "okay." we lifted the lid up, threw on a mic and covered up and said, "okay, playyour take, and play a little bit of little richard, a little bit of elton john, a littlebit of dr. john, a little bit of jerry lee lewis, everything." and so he did this potpourriof piano tracks, he never sticks to one style. so if you listen to it closely, and you'rea piano player, you see this guy's really switching piano styles. and then i'm supposedto listen to it and pick a style and say,

"okay, do the whole song that way." when hewas done, "i said, thanks a lot, goodnight." we were so tired we were falling asleep. rb: so he left and went on delivering morepizza. we went and slept. we came the next day back to the studio, and we were gonnahear it for the first time. the head of our record label came, his name was charlie fash,and he came to the recording studio a day ahead of time. he was supposed to come thenext day. he came a day ahead of time and said, "i wanna hear the album." we said, "thealbum is not done yet. we need another day here to sort things out, listen to tracks."he said, "i'm only here for a day. i'm on my way to la, let me play it." so i say tothe engineer, "will you play takin' care of

business? don't play the piano track, justplay it the way it is." rb: so we played charlie fash the whole album,he said, "pretty good, let it ride's a pretty good song." i think i can get that on theradio. and, halfway through takin' care of business, the engineer pushes up the volumeon the piano track and in comes this piano. and charlie jumps out of his chair and hegoes, "that is amazing. that's what you guys need to do, elton john is all over the radio.and all you guitar guys are the same, you're two guitars, bass and drums, you and zz top..." rb: "and aerosmith and peter frampton, thedoobie brothers, you're all guitars and bass and drums. the keyboard is the key to gettingon the radio now. it's the early '70s and

elton john has like eight songs in rotation.so let's hear this whole song." because he'd only heard the back end, we'd backed the songup. we play him the whole song takin' care of business, he said, "that is incredible,i want to put it on the album the way it is. it's a really great feel-good party track.i know it speeds up and slows down, i know it's out of time, i know it's imperfect, butin a way it is perfect because it's a bunch of people... it's like a party. who's playingthe piano?" rb: and i said, "a pizza guy." rb: and he said, "no, all kidding aside, who'splaying the piano?" rb: and i said, "all kidding aside, a guycame here last night delivering pizza. he

asked to play piano, i let him play piano.he's gone, i don't know who he is." rb: he said, "that's an incredible rock 'n'roll story." ph: and it gets better. rb: we need an ending. rb: "well you've gotta find out who he isor we can't release this record. and this is gonna get you on the radio, this is thesong." so i go down the hall to steve miller and knock on the door and say, "stevo, where'dyou guys get pizza from last night?" "it wasn't us, it was war." so i go down to war's studio,knock on the door. i open the door, it's like, foggy in there.

rb: i part my way through the haze, the smoke,and i get to them, and i say, "where'd you get pizza from last night?" and they go, "what,man?" rb: they're like, "did we get pizza last night?" rb: anyways, they couldn't remember wherethey had got the pizza. rb: when you're all done in the studio, amaid comes in and cleans it up, 'cause you don't have time to clean up and most guysdon't. it's like having tinkephell as a maid. you mess up your apartment, you go to work,come back, it's clean. so when you're in the studio basically for three or four weeks,you ordered chinese and pizza and chinese and pizza, back and forth all night long.you never really leave the studio. so they

say to me, "we don't know where we got thepizza from." so i go and get the yellow pages, i go to the lady at the front of the recordingstudio and i say, "would you do me a favour? here's the yellow pages, you're gonna startat antonio's, i'm gonna go half way through it, mario's. we're gonna phone all the italianplaces within three blocks of the studio who deliver pizza and ask if they have a pizzadelivery guy that looks like fidel castro." rb: "with the big beard and the army fatigues."and she goes, "you're kidding." and i say, "i have no other way to describe this guy.this is what he looked like, i don't know where he is. we've gotta find out who thisguy is." so on about the fourth or fifth phone call, i've got lucky, i got a guy, said, "yeah,we have a guy that looks like that." i said,

"can you tell me his name?" "no, we can'tgive employees names over the phone. would you like to order a pizza?" i said... rb: "yes! i'll take yesterday's pizza! ifyou have a leftover pizza, just send this guy that looks like fidel, okay?" he startswork at six, i said, "great, send him." and five after six, he comes in with a pizza andwe find out his name, it's norman durkee. that's the piano you hear on takin' care ofbusiness. ph: yes, we haven't even got to where elvisfits into this, you wanna hear elvis fits into this? rb: okay, elvis is coming.

ph: okay. rb: elvis is coming. ph: yep. rb: then... rb: do you have time? ph: do you have time? rb: this is why this book is the stories thatended, this is the rest of the stories. ph: let me pour you some water. rb: i got some, i'm good. then he went onto become bette midler's musical director

on her first north american tour. and thenwhen i toured the world with ringo starr's all star band in '95, the whole tour endedin hollywood bowl in la and the pianist for the la philharmonic was norman durkee. soi met him again there. now, a few years ago, maybe 10, after elvis had passed away, priscillapresley was on tv on hbo special and they've asked her, "where did elvis get the tcb from?"and she said, "we were driving to the airport in la to fly back to memphis and a song cameon the radio by a canadian band." she didn't name the band, "by a canadian band." and elvissaid, "turn that up, that is great rock 'n' roll. i love that song, i want tcb to be thename of my band. i want a lightning bolt, i want something tcb right away." that's whatthe lightning bolts were. that became the

name of his band. rb: the reason i switched from violin to playingguitar is when i saw elvis on television that first night he was on, doing don't be crueland tutti frutti and hound dog and stuff. that changed my life and then elvis takestcb as his logo. it's now on his tombstone at his grave site. and if you go to graceland,you get a t-shirt or a mug that says tcb on it. they have it so trademarked and copyrighted,nobody can use that except me, because i wrote the song. ph: are you to blame for the white jumpsuitas well? rb: no.

ph: my fat elvis days are over. ph: but there's more to the story becausethe line "i love to work at nothing all day" comes from your dad. you wrote that in thebook. rb: yes. rb: my dad kept saying, "you gotta get a realjob." ph: you work at nothing all day. rb: good line. ph: i said, "musicians look like they're notworking, but you're thinking of songs and things you hear and you're planning your tour.and then when you'd go away it's full tilt

on, like 24 hours a day for three solid monthsat a time like for 90 days at a time. so we are working all the time as most writers orpainters, whether if it's a paintbrush in your hand, you had a typewriter or a computer.you are thinking of stories to formulate, then you go and write it down. same with themusician. so i said in there, "we love to work at nothing all day." ph: just to finish this anecdote off, great,i love this story. apparently elvis actually performed it once when he was rehearsing,right? what you said in your book that you've never heard his version of it. rb: no, somewhere in... there was a big popfest in the maritimes about four or five years

ago. i played it with cummings, we flew inthere, bon jovi was on the show as well. and for some reason elvis's band was there, ithink they played at a big casino. or they had some sort of elvis anniversary and theguys in the band who i knew came up to me and they said, "we're pleased to meet you.you're the tcb guy, we're the tcb band." and i said, "did elvis ever record that song?"and they said, "yes, we have it recorded, we did it in las vegas." and it's somewherein the elvis archives that they're going through right now, but they didn't want to go throughit until the family took a position with rca records who said they owned everything... ph: mm-hmm.

rb: just like the hendrix people had to dowith hendrix. they had some tapes of his that they didn't want to throw in under the oldshafted record deal where we get 99 cents a dollar and, by the way, elvis you get acent. ph: right. rb: or hendrix should get a penny. so theywaited until the position got better. so apparently there is a version of takin' care of businessdone by elvis and the tcb band that i would love to hear sometime. ph: me too. ph: i guess that says another question.

rb: why? ph: you have a great quote in your book whichi'm gonna quibble you about because i wanna ask you about it. you say a band is not ademocracy, no band is. it's a benevolent dictatorship. now i want you to explain it, but also, howdoes that explain rem and the tragically hip? those two bands are sort of known for beinglike to split all song writing royalties and they would be pretty much a democracy andmaybe even russ as well. how do you square that with your philosophy? rb: i had an experience where i... i had theexperience of being a leader, being an older brother, i have three younger brothers andyou can waste your time having a committee

meeting and get nothing done or you can makewhat you hope is a considerate, loving kind decision. just like if you got five or sixkids, you all can't go... you can't take your girl to ballet or dance, you can't take thekids to little league, you got to decide as a family, "we're gonna go to little leaguethis time or we're gonna go to ballet next time." you have to make those decisions. ilook at governments around the world and nothing much gets done except these guys lie and takeyour money. that's a whole other issue. you can't disagree with that. rb: but here's the thing, i fly a few yearsago to denmark and sweden and i had been there five or six years before. and i think youfly into denmark and you have to take a highway

and a bus and everything to get to sweden.to get to stockholm. and then when i go next time, it takes 15 minutes. i said, "what happened?how did this happen?" "oh, we built a bridge." "you built a bridge? i was here three yearsago, how do you build a bridge?" "the king said we're building a bridge." rb: the king of denmark, we're building abridge with the king of sweden. they got together, they built a bridge. everybody pays $20 dollars,they built a bridge." "wonderful." so that is to me a nice benevolent dictator who looksat what is needed and the tax are shared equally by everyone and they build a bridge so kindof that's what it's like. i know there's other bands that do a communal kind of thing likethat. i had financed bto with my own money

from the guess who, which wasn't a lot ofmoney at the time. because we had one of those bad record contracts where they get 99 centsand we got a cent to split five ways, that kinda thing. and that's still enforced, thatcontract lives forever even with all the itunes and all that stuff. that's why every bandis now into a revolt. because they're selling everything now, they're not even selling anythingit's in the sky. you download it from itunes, they're still taking 95, 98 cents per dollar.you're just getting one or two or three cents and that's totally inadequate. ph: you know how you start a small businessin canada? you open a big one and wait. rb: that's pretty good. that's a song.

rb: going out of business, there's our newsong. rb: so anyways, because i was risking my ownmoney with several inexperienced guys being my younger brothers. and i had been out inthe jungle, so to speak, in new york and all over the world and got shafted by everybody,i couldn't sit there and say, "what do you guys wanna do?" it's like you're taking four12-year-olds on a wilderness trip. "you guys wanna camp here or camp there?" they don'tknow, but you've been in the wilderness before, you're a survivor man or something, you knowwhere to go and what to do. you say "here's what we gotta do and here's what we gottado to get through the night and the week and this trip." and so you gotta lay it out andthat's it. if they don't want to come with

you, you go without them. and so that's kindof was my philosophy. ph: like monty python, you're a cruel personbut fair. rb: and you will find in everyone of thosebands that is a so called democracy, there is a spokesman, a leader who makes the decisions.it's a natural thing. it's geddy lee, it's scored down. you know what i mean? ph: oh yeah. rb: okay, so whether they say it or not, it'sthere. there's people who are leaders who make the right decision six out of ten times,they're the leader. the one who makes four to ten times is the follower. that's how yousurvive. you find somebody successful who

knows what to do and you follow them. thebiggest bands have really great strong leaders. and if you're the drummer of that band likeforeigner or whatever... led zeppelin, you let plant and page go along, you go alongfor the ride you make millions of dollars, you bang the drums, life is good. ph: yeah, we were talking about politics... rb: it's not easy being a leader making decisionsfor all these people, 'cause like i said, four out of ten might be wrong, five out often might be wrong. you just hope that the average is in your... and you're not a failure,or you're a success. i learnt that in school long ago. to graduate you only need 51%.

rb: and then you're out of school. ph: you just gave me a great segue into mynext question. there's not too many rockers, well not too many people, that can say theyhad dinner at 24 sussex with stephen harper, right? you had dinner with him? rb: i did. ph: you pitched him your idea of an improvedtax system for canadian musicians. rb: i did, which he totally ignored. ph: which he totally ignored, yeah. what happened? rb: and i tried to pitch chretien on thatwhen he was in winnipeg for the pan am games.

i had it all written out. ph: on a t-shirt? rb: no, i had it in my inner pocket. a beautifulletter, "dear jean chretien." it basically was my critique, which i still feel stronglyabout, how wonderful it is to be a canadian songwriter and musician, how the crtc regulatesthat three or three and a half songs out of ten are canadian origin or fall under thecancon thing. and they will help you if you provide... you fill out an entry form, basicallya lottery form ticket, and you send in some demos. they'll give you money to do an album.then they legislate that radio has to consider that for play and they play maybe six or sevenout of 20 songs are canadian. that has helped

the canadian music industry. rb: they then, if you have a good song forvideo, you'll get a video in fact, then they'll give you 25 grand to shoot a video. whichthen much music has to play or cmt 'cause they also have to follow the content regulations.and the minute the band makes millions of dollars, they leave canada and pay tax somewhereelse and live somewhere else 'cause the taxes in canada are so unusually cruel, to justjoe canada and musicians, in general. so i was trying to say to chretien and harper andi'll probably say it to trudeau who'll be the next prime minister, whatever. rb: maybe. we need somebody in there that'syoung and fresh 'cause the other guys, it

ain't happening. to change the canadian taxlaws... so the musicians, who are canadian, who still keep a residence here, in case theyget really sick, they come back for medicare. rb: or in case they're gonna get a juno orthe order of canada, they come home but they go right back to southern france or lichtensteinor the isle of man where they have this offshore thing in the cayman islands or something,and they pay relatively no tax there. but i'm not just talking about the superstars,because every superstar that's canadian has around them a small village of roadies andtechs and managers and assistants and their families. so wherever celine dion or bryanadams or whoever that is, dan aykroyd or wayne gretzky whoever, wherever they are, if they'reathletes or actors or musicians or comedians,

making billions of dollars, if you add upthe list, i have 38 people on the list, billions of dollars where taxes are being paid somewhereelse and not in canada. rb: joe canada, the taxes the average guywould have to pay would be like 20% and our country would be overflowing with money. it'sjust it all leaves the country. so i met justin trudeau about six or seven months ago andwe were joking in the dressing room and i said to him, "when you're the king of canada,could i have a meeting with you?" and he said, "certainly, by all means." because i get emailsfrom people all the time. on my radio show i get thousands of emails every week and they'reall sorted out and i read a few on the air. some of them i can't read, they're a littlebit too political or some of them don't like

me and i don't read those at all. rb: i do read some 'cause i don't mind beingcriticized or somebody pointing out a mistake i made on the air, but to find a leader who'swilling to look at that and reach and change canada's tax structure would be amazing. 'causecanada could be the leading country in the world. right now i think we're, with all ournatural resources and all our money on the green list, if you want to call it that, we'resomething like 32. so we are a very polluting country. the rules and regulations here arehorrific and archaic and all in favour of big business. i think neil young had a lotof balls and a lot of heart and a lot of brains to put his career on the line with that frackingthing in alberta.

rb: i have a daughter and her family livein lethbridge and the whole city petitioned to not have fracking down there in lethbridge,and they won. what we see on the news is nothing. when you go up there and you actually seeit, you see we really don't need this. because while they're spending hundreds of millionsof dollars exploring this and trying to get it going, they're also spending hundreds ofmillions for guys to fly around the world to find markets for canadian oil. why arewe paying $4 a drop for gas for our gas tanks when we have all this surplus of oil and everything,and try to market it to the world. why don't we keep our gas here and if everybody drivinghere to fill their tanks from buffalo. and why are we giving... i mean for pete's sake,60 something aboriginal people last winter

walked on snowshoes from somewhere to ottawato meet harper and he flew here to meet two pandas. this makes no sense. rb: it makes no sense. there's like weirdpriorities there. ph: this is great the... rb: so i'm changing my show, it's gonna becalled politics tap. ph: i'll still listen. if anybody knows thecountry, it's you, you've been in every nook and cranny. rb: i've been everywhere. ph: you've been everywhere.

rb: most people don't travel. thing aboutmusicians, you see canada and you see other countries, you see how fortunate we are. ph: tell us a story from the road that mostpeople would be surprised to hear. do you have anything like that? rock and roll musicianon the road, what's a story that would surprise people? 'cause we all have in our own mindswhat it's like to be on the road as a rock musician. rb: well, a musician on the road... and ijust came last friday, i saw buddy guy at the massey hall and before that i saw patmetheny. so, i love music and i love going to see it and toronto's a great place to see.you've got koerner hall and massey hall and

all kind of theatres and everything. it'sreally a great city. rb: if you can imagine a vacation, i don'tknow how many kids you've got, but when you go on vacation, everything goes wrong. flattire, losing your cell phone, losing your wallet. it rains. it snows. it blizzards.someone gets sick. you're in a new environment. you've got a bad bed. you hurt your back.that happens every single day on the road with every band and we show up having paidour hundred bucks or 50 bucks. we wanna see mick jagger go up there and strut around onstage, but all day long, he's got aches and pains. and, dealing with... how many wivesdoes mick jagger deal with? rb: you're dealing with your domestic affairsat home. so, you can take your vacation and

what happens on your vacation, that happensevery single day to every band that's on the road. with the tour buses, and the band andtrying to get along, and deal with your wives and kids that are at home. you're only ona phone call. in the old days, i had to wait every two days to phone home to my wife. icouldn't afford to phone home. now, with skype and text and everything, it's a lot differentto be in touch and to see each other face-to-face. you could literally have a time with yourwife every night where you're having tea together and you kind of say good night to each otherand go to bed. i had to wait every three days to phone home and only phone home for threeminutes 'cause it cost $20 and that's all i had saved up. i didn't eat for days. so,i had to use that eating money to pay for

my phone bill when i checked out of the hotel.so, you go through all that stuff. rb: on the road is not a picnic, but we showup wanting buddy guy or whoever you're gonna see that night, edith piaf or nana mouskouri'scoming, we want them to do a perfect show and hit every note. we go saying, "man, theysang sharp or flat in that song. they didn't look too happy." are you kidding? they'regone for 90 and 100 days at a time and this just goes on and on and on. there's no endto it. you get your mind into a thing where you're a robot. it's like you're running arace. you're running a marathon and you're about to fall down and you're only at the12 mile and you say, "i've gotta keep going. i've gotta keep going." and you keep going,you keep going, and when you get to the end,

you fall down. rb: and when most people are done on tour,be it a month or two or three months, you pretty much go home and you lay in bed andall these things that you've been pushing away, they all come 'cause you have a greatcapacity in your mind to push off the sore throat, the aching back, the aching wrist,the broken thumb, whatever. you go on stage and play. i've played with dislocated hips.my discs have been out my back. i've had a broken arm, a dislocated rotator cuff. putme on a stool. put me in front of a mic and the show must go on. that's the same withburton cummings, or fred turner, or neil young, or whoever you like, prince, or whoever. theygo on stage and sing with a sore throat, or

a bad back, or whatever is hurting you, hurtsus. rb: your legs, your knees, your back, youraffliction with your... your parents are bothering you or they're ill. you gotta look after themor your kids are ill, you gotta look after... that happens to all of us. people just thinkentertainers have this perfect life. it's so imperfect. it's hard to believe. not onlythat, we have the heartache of being away from our home and everybody we love. you'dbe amazed how much you miss your own dog, or cat when you go away, or goldfish. youjust... you miss being home. you can't even go into a restaurant and get a peanut butterand jelly sandwich. you can't get cookies and milk, stuff that everybody takes for granted.you gotta order room service where cookies

and milk is like $55, like crazy. ph: your book describes that the best i'veever seen it. i've read a lot of rock books, but you also say in your book that you havea lot of ideas. you said you get up to three crazy ideas a day that you bounce off yourmanager, gilles pã©pin, right? what's the craziest idea you ever had? rb: you might think it's crazy, but it's agreat idea. rb: a while ago, i met some song writers innashville and they were very upset. somebody had covered one of their songs or stolen oneof their songs. so, to prove that somebody stole your song, you need to go and find yourprior usage. so, the library of congress which

exists for trademark and copyright, had abig flood. the roof leaked and they didn't tell the people about it. so, this guy wentto recover the cassette tape he had sent in and the sheet music. it didn't exist. it'dbeen destroyed by water. in other words, he had no copyright. he couldn't prove that.so, i thought, "gee, this being the digital age... " so, this is maybe 15 years ago. therewasn't hard drives. the computer and internet was just starting, but there were cds. rb: but i thought, why don't i start a thingcalled the ark. the ark, the boat that sails and would be the... where people store theirintellectual property, song ideas, book ideas if you're gonna write a book, game ideas,any idea you've got, send it to me on a cd.

send me two copies. i'll store it in thisfacility and then, when you want to recall it later, i've got it on a cd. you pay meto store it and you pay me for a recall. i get a notary public that notarizes that becausethe way, a lot of times, i protect my songs, i put them all on a cd. i go to the post office.i send it to myself registered mail. so, they stamp it. they put a big seal on it with theseal. i sign for it and get it. i get it right then. it costs you about $16. you can put40 songs on a cd and then, you never open that. you write on the outside what the songtitles are and later, that gets opened by a judge when you're challenging, "i have prior...i wrote this song five years ago and this guy copied it 'cause i sent out a demo tohim or his manager five years ago."

rb: so, having all that in mind, i went tosocan, ascap, bmi. they said, "brilliant idea. can you handle this?" i said, "what do youmean?" they said, "you're gonna get 10 or 20 thousand or maybe a couple hundred thousanda day. people from all over the world are gonna be sending you cds. and even if you'recharging them $20 a cd, you're gonna have hundreds of thousands of dollars. that's okay,but where are you gonna put this? you need a mountain, to hollow out a mountain insideto put this. where are you gonna protect this?" since then, that has changed. there's nowhard drives, that you can do back ups on hard drives. but this was in the era of cds. thatwas an idea i had that i took around. people said, "this is brilliant. you'll be a multi-billionairein like a couple of years."

ph: i don't think that's so crazy an idea.i think that's a good idea. rb: and so i had this beautiful logo. rb: the ark, a-r-k intellectual property.and i have a little... a boat floating on water, with a rainbow, saying there is hope."i will copyright and trademark your songs, your books, your ideas, your video games,anything." because everything out there now can get stolen and moved around so much onthe internet, you can't find a way to protect it. so that was an idea that i had that everyonethought was great. it was so impractical to do for me to find a building that... or amountain, hollow out a mountain, this is like the american...

rb: i have to buy some old silo that theyused to have rockets in, in alaska or something, to put these cds in. so i have ideas likethat all the time. ph: i wanna ask you a couple of legacy questions.we're gonna take questions from you guys pretty soon. but you talked in your book about how,and i think it's unfair too, that neither the guess who nor bto have been in the rockhall of fame, cleveland's rock hall of fame. it took rush forever to get in there, right?they're just in this year, right? who do you think's gonna get in first? guess who or bto? rb: neither. ph: neither? no?

rb: the rock hall of fame is not the one incleveland. that's the rock 'n' roll museum. rb: my american woman guitar is in there ondisplay. the name rock 'n' roll hall of fame is owned by jann wenner, who owns rollingstone magazine. that's in new york city. the two are not connected. ph: i thought they were connected. rb: they've been trying to connect them foryears. jann wenner doesn't want, apparently, to do that. so, he has his own party in newyork city and has his own inductees. ph: but the hall of fame that the bands areinducted into, how do you think that's gonna go with your two groups?

rb: i don't think i'll be in there if i'mnot in now. are there younger bands that bypassed us? i know when i was together with the guesswho, we got together for 2000, 2001, up to maybe '04, '05. there's a petition going aroundthe internet with several hundred thousand signatures that went into rolling stone andthey just ignore it. and i love leonard cohen, but i don't think he's rocked out in his life,and he's in the rock 'n roll hall of fame. rb: and i love him and i respect him. he'sa great canadian icon, and basically our rock 'n roll poet laureate, as bob dylan is inthe states, and i don't begrudge him being in there, but you kinda have to be on someone'sfavourite list, i think, to be in there. ph: i think fans helped get rush in. i thinkit was sort of a fan effort that helped turn

the tide there. maybe that could happen foryou. rb: i don't know, i don't think about it anymore.i'd stay awake all night worrying about why didn't this happen. excuse me. i just wakeup with new ideas and do them. like i'm doing this thing with the symphony. i'm doing anew blues album in a couple of months. it's gonna blow me away and then hopefully blow51% of the people away. rb: 6 out of 10. rb: i just keep going forward. living eachday and looking forward to what can i do tomorrow. ph: another project you mention in the bookis you'd love to have what you called the ultimate guess who reunion of everybody who'sever been in the band and still... could that

ever happen? rb: it's possible. i, a while ago, trademarkedthe name canadian invasion, that i envision both bands. i would play the first half ofthe set with the guess who. i would run off and take a shower. put on a clean shirt. rb: play the last half with bto, and the encorewe do american woman, and takin' care of business. over. canadian invasion and take that aroundthe world. that would be incredible. rb: everyone is still alive and playing and... ph: can we make it happen? rb: they all have their own agendas, and theyhave their own issues to deal with. and i

certainly did try that with the guess who.that didn't work. i tried it with cummings. that didn't work. i'm going up to play withturner this weekend. it was amazing to be at the juno's two weeks ago, and to be onstage with my brother rob and blaire. i hadn't been on stage with them for, i don't know,30 or 40 years. that was real fun to go out there. luckily we had the comfort zone ofthe sheep dogs and the sadies playing with us because i don't even know how we can...if we could play together. my brother rob has a health issue with his heart, and i don'tknow how much he can play drums, or pound away on the drums, and all that stuff. rb: but we certainly could do a tour togetherfor canada day, or for world peace, or war

child, or something and give the money away.but we need somebody to do that. i can't do it. they would be looking for ulterior motives.so somebody like the prime minister, or bono from u2 has to say, "i'm getting togetherthe doobie brothers, and led zeppelin, and the canadian invasion of the guess who andbto. and will you play this concert to benefit the victims of the flood and disaster reliefs,and the wars all over the world?" i'm sure we would do that. ph: sounds hopeful. ph: i think we're getting ready to take questionspretty soon. are we ready? yep, okay. if people just go up to the mics right there. readyfor a few questions?

rb: sure. it's testimony time. s?: i've just got a couple of trivia questionsto ask of you. american woman was basically... rb: alex trebek, right? s?: close. rb: go ahead. s?: american woman was basically a jam fromstage, correct? rb: yep. s?: now i heard the last part of it that notmany people know about is, it wouldn't have been anything, it was just a jam on stage,it wouldn't have come into a song, except

that, i don't know, you and burton recognizedsomebody in the crowd with a tape recorder and after the show they brought the tape recorderback stage and made a copy of the song, and that helped you remember that the song wassomething that you wanted to record. is that true or no? rb: can you take that to myth busters? rb: i've heard that too. that's an uphan myth.i've never seen a tape recorder. i don't know if cassette recorders existed when we wrotethat. s?: i've heard that it just... it just cameout, i heard, just at that time. rb: i don't know, i've never... i've heardthat myth. i've never seen the tape. i recreated

that song the next night on stage. i rememberburton cummings saying, "i wrote a few more lyrics," and all he was saying the first nightwas, "american woman stay away from me." sang that eight times and song was over. rb: and i did the solo and he sang it again,and then he said, "how about if i make this into a song and put in war machines and ghettoscenes and it's great, keep putting it." so we got the rhymes. we just decided to leaveat one cord. it was just one cord, kind of riff, kind of thing, and that's how the songdeveloped. and when we went into the studio to record it, i couldn't remember it. andso jack richardson, who's our producer said, "okay, you leave the studio. randy, you goin there alone just like you did on stage,

and tune up your guitar and see if you couldrecall the riff." i had no recollection of that riff. so if this tape exists, it wouldbe worth millions of dollars, but it's... it's one of those myths. i don't know. s?: oh, okay. that's good. that's clearedup. rb: so i got in the studio and tuned up andstarted to play, and i didn't even know it was the same riff that i played on stage.i don't know, but i did tan-tan-ta-da-da-da-da, and then burton sang it, we did it. s?: that's amazing. and i'm wondering howdid you get the song shaking all over? was it just a fluke that you found it somewhereor...

rb: what happened was, i was in the band calledallan and the silvertones. we were very big fans of cliff richard and the shadows. wedidn't wanna be like any american band, we wanted to be like british bands. and so wechose the name chad allan and the reflections which were just like cliff richards and theshadows. rb: to cliff richard... chad allan, two firstnames and "reflections" was like "shadows". so we did all cliff richard and the shadowsmusic all over winnipeg, acid neil young and hank marvin who was the lead guitar playerwas a big influence on us. being 14, 15, 16 in winnipeg, i had to save my allowance ornewspaper money for weeks to buy a single 45 record. so chad allan and somebody in hiscircle of friends had a cousin in england,

who for christmas, they were also very poor,for christmas, this cousin was a girl, would get all of her friends' singles from englandand put them into a 7.5 inch reel and a tape recorder, and send over this as a christmaspresent to chad allan. rb: this tape, as we'd get this tape and listento it, and there's all these songs that had been top ten in england that we'd never hearin winnipeg or they wouldn't even play it in canada. so we'd get this music and it allowedus to be different. we played this... and they were all proven hit records because theywere top ten in england, the kids had bought them as singles. one of the songs on therewas called "shaken all over" by jonny kid and the pirates.

rb: when i heard that guitar riff i went,"wow, this is an incredible riff. it's not like the other bubble gum pop that's comingout. this is like a really great blues riff and it's a really tough song. and it didn'thave the standard progression in it either." so we started to play that around winnipegand everybody would dance and we would stretch it out and make it four-five minutes long.and i said, "why don't we record this song?" because we were writing really bad bubblegum pop right at the time. so we recored shaken all over. and in the meantime we got a letterfrom a lawyer who represented a band called the reflections who had a song called justlike romeo and juliet, you might remember that song, they were from baltimore, witha cease and desist that we couldn't use the

name "reflections" anymore. so we chose thename expressions because it sounded like reflections, same amount of syllables, and about a monthlater got a letter from the lawyer... rb: who represented a band who had just signedwith motown, called the expressions. so we couldn't use that name, so when we sent inshaken all over to our record label here in toronto, to george struth at quality records,he sent... this will show us how old this is, he sent a telegram saying "this is a hit.what's the name of the band?" we phoned him and said, "we don't have a name. every timewe get a name we're told that we can't use it." so he said, "i'm gonna put it to whitelabel. this is shaken all over, and put guess who under it, find a name."

ph: let's get another question there... rb: so that came out was a hit, that becameour name. we were called the guess who because of that. s?: dear, randy, my wife and i listen to yourshow almost every saturday. earlier this year, you were talking about you cannot copyrighta guitar riff, and i couldn't quite figure it out, but i would go to work and i wouldtell the guys at work, "you know what? you can't copyright a guitar riff. you could copyrightthe tune, but not the guitar riff." and they're like, "well, what do you mean?" and i'm, "well,randy bachman says that." "what's he talking about?" and then i'd just start making upsome stupid stuff, and no one had a clue what

i was talking about so i thought... rb: you can't copyright a song title. s?: i thought you said... rb: if you think so, google the word "love",or "jump", or "rock", or "dance". there's thousands of songs with those titles. s?: did you not say guitar riff? maybe i... rb: so you can take a great title of a songand write your own song to it, or else there'd only be a few songs or a few books or a fewmovies. you can take a title and change it by adding a "the", or making it a plural orwhatever. guitar riffs are unwritten... you

don't steal them. you can't still shaken allover, you can't steal day tripper, you can't still that hard day's night cord. it's anunwritten law that people just won't buy it. it's not... you're sucky... you're a suck,you suck and you're stealing a riff that, "da da dah, da da daa," or "da da da da,"you know those "pretty woman" you know even though john lennon got the day tripper rifffrom roy ophison who was touring with the beatles, they were his opening act, and royophison was doing pretty woman. rb: john lennon didn't know how to play, that'sthe best way i can get guitar riffs. try to play something on a record and make mistakes,and suddenly it's my own riff. i don't do it note-for-note. so it's an unwritten lawthat you don't take a thing like day tripper

or a hard day's night or even takin' careof business, that beginning, that's kind of like my own beginning. so even these eyesis the most simple thing that "bom-bom da da dah" nothing else has ever started likethat, it's an unwritten law. the minute you hear that, you start to sing, "these eyescry every night." s?: okay, thank you. so when i listen to therap songs, you hear a little snippets of all these, like your song, other's songs, alllittle, little tiny bits and they get away with it, right? rb: that's called an honour. rb: it's paying tribute to you, they're notusing that much of the song. i've heard a

lot of songs that use that "bom-bom da dadah " thing in there, or they use my middle parts of takin' care of business, that "dada da da dah dah da da da," that little part they'll use that. sometimes they call youfor permission. if it's a great big thing and you got a big estate and big lawyers,like the james brown, that "i feel good," that woman is doing that commercial, you seeit all the time, it's about sandwich or something, she's dancing in her kitchen, they calledjames brown's estate, or they called hendrix's, and they like it's called licensing and youpay a certain fee to the estate. s?: so if it's a big usage like that, it'sreally blatant, you could go sue them or go after it, or they usually come to you. thereare companies now that specifically deal with

usage of... because hip hop music is basicallytaking all that stuff in little bits of its snippets and putting it together, and thenrapping and doing their own rhymes over it. so it's a whole genre of music that you haveto respect as it exists, and hopefully people are honourable and they pay you for it. ifnot it's called they're honouring you and they're using four seconds of your song. s?: alright, thank you very much. rb: my daughter called me and said, "i sawthis guy in victoria, and he plays three bits of your songs isn't that great, dad?" rb: and i'm getting nothing for it, but i'mon this guy's album and it's a cool tribute

to me or something. something. s?: all right, thank you. thanks for answeringmy question. rb: okay. s?: hey, randy, how're you doing? big fanfor the years got all your albums. s?: question i have is, you talk a lot aboutthe guess who and bto, would you ever play anything from your other albums like survivoror when you and fred went out and did the group with union or steel... rb: well, when you have an unsuccessful album,you don't tend to want to go play that on stage.

s?: but there are some great songs on thosealbums. rb: i'm not neil young. he does that a lot. rb: i love him for it, he's brave, he is areal brave guy. i go to a concert to hear hit songs and i believe my fans come to hearhit songs. i have a lot of guys like you who've come backstage and saying, "we drove 800 milesto hear four wheel drive, you didn't play it." i'll say, "stay right there," i get aguitar, i sing four wheel drive, "just for you, your own concert." rb: but i'm in a fortunate position that ihave maybe 15 to 18 songs that people want to hear, and that takes two hours, and soto play what those people want to hear, it

doesn't make any sense to take out you ain'tseen nothing yet or laughing or she is coming out, and put in a song that i feel is reallycool for my survivor album. nobody knows it except you. rb: so just come backstage and i'll give youyour own little concert. s?: okay. s?: the other question i have is you're ontwitter under your own name in with bachman turner but you don't tweet that much? rb: i found it kind of annoying after a while,to try to tell people what i had for breakfast? rb: and where i am? and these guys show up,you can't go anywhere, these guys show up.

i mean the reason the paparazzi follow thesepeople is they tell them where they are. justin bieber tells you where he is, you show upwith a camera and you get a picture. that has its ups and downs, i mean justin bieberhas 20 million people following him, and he could put anything out on record and they'llall buy it and he gets 20 million dollars... 99 cents a download. i just found it somewhatinvasive and it takes a lot of time. and i know a lot of people who you think are twitteringare not. they have professional tweeters or twitters who do it for them. rb: you can't do that. you can't spend allyour day telling everybody where you're going or you won't get anything done. so i thinki have somebody who might do that for me.

s?: tweet wrangler. rb: yeah. there's actually guys who are very,very well paid who are in their 20s who deal with three of the top twitter accounts inthe world who have 16, 18, 20 million people on their accounts who actually get paid todo it. it's anonymously, i won't tell you who they are, but i know who they are, butyou know who they are they got the biggest twitter followings there are. s?: yeah, yeah. thank you very much. rb: it's a business after all. it's free advertising.before, you had to buy pages in the toronto sun or whatever. now you just go on twitterand everybody knows you got a new record out

or you're appearing at the toronto libraryor whatever it is and it's a really great means for that. so i would use it to advertiserecords and events, or the first 20 people here will get in free or have dinner withme or something for fun, give 20 bucks to charity. but to tell everybody where you'regoing all the time and what you're doing, these guys show up with truckloads of albumsand t-shirts for me to sign, and if i don't sign it, i'm a jerk. you know what i mean?and i've got other agenda and things to do, so i just find what i'm doing now works bestfor me. s?: thanks so much. rb: he's reading a twitter, a tweet.

s?: just want to record this. what kind ofadvise would you give to a band that's just released their independent album? rb: i hope you have a benevolent dictatorin your band. rb: if you have a democracy, i hope you allcan get along, 'cause that does work for a while. you'll find that if you get successful,make more money, the democracy changes. money changes everybody, whatever your good or badtraits are they get amplified to the nth degree. the best advice i can give to anyone if they'rein a band or in any field whatsoever, you're accountant or a dancer or an actor, do notdestroy your life and your career with drugs and alcohol. that will end it, sooner or later,it will end it.

rb: whether it's a big fun party or not, it'sgonna get someone in your band. someone will go down, and it will break up the band. you'llfind the most successful best bands are the ones who were straight or have gone straightor go to rehab together. honestly, or make that pledge ahead of time to not do that,because the odds against you of making it are so great, why would you make them anygreater against you by being stoned or drunk all the time. get up and do your best, honourthe gift you've been given of singing, or playing drums or guitar, and writing songs.honor that everyday. get to be 51% better than the next guy, and he'll buy your record.because it's better then him and he'll learn something from it.

s?: appreciate it, thank you. s?: hi, randy. like everyone else in thisroom, i enjoy your stories on the radio programs so much. i've been listening for years andi know everybody else has here too. s?: i'm almost at the point where the storiesare so interesting, with all the little known facts and the sheer volume of the facts, isi'm almost starting to listen now to hear the stories rather than the music. s?: the commentary is found nowhere else inliterature. so the question i have for you is this. having written two excellent bookson the radio show, would you be able, legally, to put out on cd or some audio medium, partsof your show? i know you've done hundreds

of shows on hundreds of topics, it would beimpossible to capture anything close to all of them. but i know you have theme nights,for example, where you'll pick a certain aspect of a song or songs. like the recent one iheard were spoken word only. i mean there's dozens of themes you've picked. with everytv show that's on today, no sooner is it run, you can go down to the record store and buythe season on dvd. i mean it appears immediately. so with the fantastic technological mediawe have available to us today, would you be able, would you want to, could you legally,release some of vinyl tap on a cd? rb: they're in the sky. cbc has them in thesky. you go to vinyltap/cbc. there's about 300 shows up there.

rb: that you can play in real time. s?: forever. okay. rb: if you want to record them, i'm not supposedto tell you this. s?: no, don't. rb: plug a mic into the headphone of yourcomputer, 'cause that's where you'd get it, on a computer. rb: cbc.ca. and record it. s?: that's what i was wondering. rb: put it on an old tape recorder. i'm sureyou have an old cassette player.

s?: lots. cassettes. rb: legally, i asked cbc that, it's so muchto try to clear that we'd have to sell those records... s?: hundreds of songs. rb: for 20 or 40 dollars a cd. 'cause to clearevery one of those songs it's two hours of music and story. but it's all up there inthe sky, you can listen to it at any time. if you really like one, you can record iton your own. there's several ways to record it. you can even get an app for your laptopor pc, that'll actually record what you're listening to.

rb: i'm not familiar with them so. ph: another question? s?: yeah, another quick question. my secondfavourite guitar hero, after you of course, is hank marvin. you mentioned the shadows,in your literature, that they had a terrific resurgence in the 2000s. they're till recording,bruce welch has his own band. you may have said this already, but have you met and/orplayed with hank marvin and/or any of the shadows, either early in their career or lateron in their career? rb: hank marvin was my greatest influencealong with lenny breau, who had grown up with in winnipeg.

s1: yeah, i know that. rb: he was neil young's greatest influenceas well. every neil young solo sounds like hank marvin but with a bit of distortion.of course, hank, his guitar sound was very clean sounding. the shadows had a 50th reunionabout four or five years ago in london. i had met bruce welch earlier at a song writingfair in london, an ascap award thing, and got to know him and told him he was the greatestrhythm guitar player of all time. and he was, and still is. and so i got invited to theshadows reunion at the hammersmith odeon. it was amazing, bruce welch told me to comedown at four in the afternoon. i went there with my wife and daughter. my daughter hadno idea who the shadows were.

rb: sat down in the hammersmith odeon, itwas empty, it was their sound check, sat in the front row. they played four songs. walkedto the front of the stage. hank handed me the salmon red strap and said, "do you wantto play this?" and i went, "what?" i played it. he said, "do you wanna play it in theamp?" i went and played it in the amp. i sat through the show that night. then the followingyear, they had a reunion with cliff, cliff from the shadows. i went to that at o2, whichwas a much bigger venue. i went to see the shadows again, i took neil young with me 'causewe went there and he met bruce welch. so i am in touch with him. rb: we've earned, turned out to be reallycool good friends and it's really something

to meet your guitar idols and see that they'rejust guys like you who love to play guitar, who got lucky because there's a lot of guyswho can play much better than me or hank who didn't get lucky or who didn't have perseveranceto stay there when everybody said, "no, no, no, no, you can't do it, you can't do it,"and you said, "yes, yes, yes i can do it, i can do it," you found a way to do it. sohe's like really an idol of mine. s?: thank you very much. s?: hi there, randy, it's your good friendkayvan here. rb: hi. s?: how are you doing? i just actually gotback from the uk and the funny thing is as

you know i'm a massive bachman turner overdrivefan and now a bachman turner fan. and about two and a half weeks ago i went to see thisband called the move, very famous birmingham band from about the time you guys were startingout, and when i went to this venue to see them in the jazz cafe in camden, it seemedthey were playing two or three bto songs back to back to back, the takin' care of businessand four wheel drive, and i just thought maybe they were fans of yours, so i approached themafter the show and i talked to trevor burton and bev bevan, the original guys still inthe lineup and they happen to say they really love the music of bachman turner overdrive,which kind of you know i for a fan like myself i kind of got a kick out of that.

s?: i was standing around in the audiencesaying well you know these guys are back from back home in canada, you know they were amassive band. and everybody seems to know who they are in the uk. so you guys obviouslyhave such a... it doesn't matter where you go really, it just seems that your music'scarried over such a legacy. and since the revival of the band obviously back when youwere with performing with burton and bachman cummings, obviously, there was a thing goingon where the guess who had toured at the same time with kale and you know peterson therecarrying on you know. rb: do you have a question? s?: yes, the question is there a... it's actuallya two parter. is there a lot of confusion

when you know there's a band like bachmanturner overdrive, with your sibling robin obviously the rest of the guys carrying ondoing dates in obviously other parts where i don't know what it is. is there some sortof a thing where you couldn't get the name back and call yourselves bto even though it'sjust you and fred really and you're obviously the guys? rb: the answer is yes. s?: but... rb: yes, there is a resurgent and the guesswho and bto, i appreciate it. there are bands all over the world who go to that what theycall garage canadian rock. and yes there is

a problem with the names. the wrong peopleown the rights to the names and that's something that i got to learn to live with. but i...like i said to get every morning and rock on so... s?: the other question that... rb: buyer beware. i mean if you're gonna goto a concert to see anybody, thin lizzy or any band, check who is in the band 'causeit could be five guys who are 20 years old. ph: like war for example. i think war justgot one original member yeah. s?: and the other question i had when youand fred had just got back, you'd obvious... i don't know how this came about but can youtell me the story of how you got approached

to do this spot in the movie for the candidatewith will ferrell? how did that come about? rb: somebody called my manager and said willferrell loves bto. he had... when he does that thing with the organ, remember on saturdaynight with that girl with the hairdo? s?: yup. rb: they did the thing at saturday night.he did you ain't seen nothing yet or takin' care and one of those little organ skits,and heard he really liked and loved bto. would takin' care of business be in the movie? hewas doing this thing he wanted as his presidential campaign song. it was gonna be in the moviefor three or four minutes, we flew to new orleans. it was the first time new orleanswas below zero, it was february the 1st of

like last year. we went into a theatre thathad been reclaimed from hurricane katrina with no heat, we froze to death. we shot fromsix in the morning 'till midnight. they used 30 seconds in the movie. we loved it, it wasgood. we're in a will ferrell movie. the new one anchorman 2 he put let it ride in. sohis dad used to play keyboard in the righteous brothers but i knew his dad really well. andi said, "oh, so you got your piano chops from your dad." he said, "i can't play an instrument.i can just fake really well." rb: so that was... ph: yeah, we've got one more question, thegentleman behind you i think... i think we could do one more in?

s?: thank you randy. cheers. thank you. s?: hi randy. how are you? rb: good. s?: i just want to say one of my good friendsname is randy so that's a coincidence. rb: no, it's not. s?: yes, it is. i swear to god. rb: his named after me. s?: his name is randy stanley thompson. heused to be my good friend for 18 years so... s?: it's a two part question i wanna to askyou.

rb: closer to the mic i can't hear you. s?: okay. it's a two part question. the firstquestion is what any past, present or future musicians that you'd like to work with? andthe second question is you mentioned earlier during your interview that some crazy thingshappened on stage. what are one of those really crazy things? and what was the worst injuryyou had to suck up to perform on stage? rb: there's just so many. one of the weirdestthings that happened to me on stage was... i used to need glasses, since then i've hadthe lasik thing, right? s?: the lasik thing. rb: but you go on stage and you can't seebut when you're wearing glasses and you're

sweating they fall down your nose. s?: right. rb: so you have to play and then push up yourglasses and play and push up your glasses kind of thing or else you take them off. andwe were playing outside once, so you have no idea sometimes how high the stage is especiallyat a pop festival. some of them are 12, 15, 20 feet high, so you have people way in theback can see you. and i used to use a transmitter on guitar but it broke so i had a guitar cablethat was too short. and sometimes in takin' care of business i wanted to go to the frontof the stage and get the people riled up to clap their hands.

rb: so i try to get to the front of the stageand i can't get there, my guitar chord is too short. and so i pulled it to the end ofthe cord and i pulled it and i do what i do, and then i go to my roadie and i say, "getme a longer guitar cord." and then when the crowd goes home and the lights come on, ifi had a longer cord, i would've walked off the front of the stage. rb: fallen onto these steel barriers thatthese things that are holding the crowd back as fence, which are like carjacks hammeredinto asphalt, and i would've really, really, really injured myself and you go, "oh my god,thank you that this thing broke and i had to have a cord that was six feet long insteadof twelve feet long. i would've walked out

the front of the stage." because in your faceare these spotlights and they're so bright, it's like you're trying to do something tothe headlights of a car. you're the deer in the headlights, you're like, "what is that?"that's why people like steven tyler and ozzy osbourne fall off the stage, you can't see,you're trying to get to your audience, you're blinded by the light like a flashbulb goingoff in your face and you're trying to go through a door, you bang into the door. so that's...a lot of things like that have happened on s?: wow. and any past, present or future musiciansyou'd like to work with? paul mccartney, you wanna to meet, right? rb: i'd like to meet and have a conversation,maybe play with eric clapton.

s?: wow, he's a great guitarist. rb: i've been compared to him, i've been calledthe canadian eric clapton. i'd like the canadian eric clapton to meet the british eric claptonand have an evening together. nobody there, just playing guitar, sitting around a fireor something, or doing a concert with him, whatever he would choose to do with me, idon't care. s?: you're better looking than him. [chuckle] ph: let's hope that happens. i think we'vedone enough. randy, it was great talking to you.