#404 - Richard Marx on The Two Versions Of His Career + Offering Kenny Rogers A Song When He Sang Backup For Him + His Hit Song He Was Told Would Never Work + Writing Songs for NSYNC, Keith Urban & More!

00:00:06
Speaker 1: David Foster, the producer who was a hero of mine when I met him. I'm incredibly talented guy, but he told me I shouldn't sing because he's just you don't have it, like you don't oh like you got it.

00:00:17
Speaker 2: You should just write songs.

00:00:20
Speaker 3: Welcome to episode four oh four. It's a Bobby cast with Richard Marx. Been a big star for a long time. For example, a number one song from nineteen eighty nine, right here Waiting Wherever you Go, also hold On to the Nights, hold On Endless Summer Nights.

00:00:42
Speaker 4: Tells Ollie had.

00:00:47
Speaker 5: Satisfied.

00:00:50
Speaker 3: And then he's written a bunch of songs too, like this, I promise you that he wrote for in Sync Better Live, Keith Urban, Colmont's Summer Keith Urban. We could keep going on. He got fourteen number one songs, so listen. He's awesome, super funny, super nice. Met him on the phone a long time ago. And then and we're gonna feature some of this on the radio show. But the great thing about this podcast is we can do an hour I want. If they call him Richards, his friends, I think I'm.

00:01:18
Speaker 5: Rich Richard, Dick Oby, Richard. Do you think Richard Hey Richard. Isn't he super nice?

00:01:22
Speaker 2: Yeah, he's awesome, like.

00:01:23
Speaker 3: Funny and like dry but not so dry. You're confused if he doesn't like you or.

00:01:28
Speaker 2: Not casually funny ynh.

00:01:30
Speaker 5: Yeah, so really enjoyed. It.

00:01:31
Speaker 3: Talks about his parents, how he got into songwriting, moving to la It's just really cool. We're super pumped that this happened because kind of accidentally, Abby just messaging and was like, will he call it to the studio.

00:01:44
Speaker 5: The lunchboxs had to go pick him up. Is all weird. That's the deal.

00:01:48
Speaker 3: Here he is episode four oh four follow him at the Richard Marx m A r X and he's doing a whole show Richard Marx dot com. He was here in Nashville. He's doing all the hits, full band, thank you, and away we go. I'm a massive fan, so just I'll geek out and say thank you. I was telling the show that if either one of the versions of your career it would just be isolated, you'd be a Hall of Famer, either the artist part or even just the song.

00:02:14
Speaker 2: Because there's two, there's no chance.

00:02:15
Speaker 5: It's you know, it's like I would say, You're like, it's like splitting the vote.

00:02:20
Speaker 3: So so yes, No, I don't think so. I think it's like Tom Brady, Okay, there you go.

00:02:25
Speaker 2: I'm gonna go with that.

00:02:26
Speaker 3: Because if you take the first half of his career, he's still in the Hall of Fame. True, take the back half his career, he's still in the Hall of Fame.

00:02:32
Speaker 2: I've been really lucky, actually, but.

00:02:36
Speaker 5: Luck? Do you even believe in luck?

00:02:38
Speaker 2: Yeah? I think you make your own.

00:02:39
Speaker 5: Okay, fair, what's the luckiest thing to ever happened to you then in your career.

00:02:46
Speaker 1: The luckiest thing that ever happened in my career would be being born to the parents I was born to who were not only super supportive, but musically talented. So I think I got some genetics, So that was luck.

00:02:58
Speaker 5: Did they play or they just have a lot of music in the house.

00:03:00
Speaker 1: My dad was just a badass musician, but like best piano player I ever heard, jazz piano player, classical jazz, and then he became a jingle composer, producer, and orchestrator, conductor. He was like the most talented musician I ever knew. And my mom was a great singer. Outwardly publicly, she sang on all the commercials that my dad did.

00:03:22
Speaker 3: Do you think that you kind of acquired that through being around it as a child, or were you drawn to it because you wanted to impress or have that closeness with your parents.

00:03:33
Speaker 2: I don't.

00:03:34
Speaker 1: I started singing before I could talk, I think, so it was something I always did. It wasn't like a conscious decision. And then when I was probably like five or six, I was singing monkey songs around the house enough that my dad said, you know, we're doing a candy bar commercial. I wonder and he put me behind the microphone in the studio and that was it, and I just went to it, you know, I just it was like the most natural thing. And then the songwriting thing was natural in high school in that I was just trying to pick up girls, you know, like I didn't have game.

00:04:08
Speaker 3: So you were like super I mean, because you've been super good looking as long as I've known you.

00:04:14
Speaker 5: No, but I mean I used to like know't know me. You know you were.

00:04:19
Speaker 3: You Were you the awkward kid or were you the guy that says you were the awkward kid?

00:04:22
Speaker 6: Now?

00:04:22
Speaker 5: But you're always the.

00:04:23
Speaker 1: Oh fact, I know you know no if you asked, In fact, tomorrow night, my first crush is coming to the show. Her name is Lynn, and she would if she were here, she would probably tell the truth, which was that I was I just didn't have girls wanted to be my friend, you know what I mean, Like that's the last thing you want to hear when you're a sophomore in high school. But I I just thought, you know, well, I got to do something that sets me apart in order to create game. And so I started writing songs and playing.

00:04:58
Speaker 3: And you know, when parents have a career, especially an art, A lot of the folks that I know are like my parents did not want me to do this because they saw exactly how hard it was.

00:05:08
Speaker 5: What was your relationship like with.

00:05:09
Speaker 3: Your parents whenever you say, thank you, thanks for exposing me to this, but now I want to go do it for real?

00:05:15
Speaker 2: There was no There was no pushback.

00:05:18
Speaker 1: The fact that I went to my parents in my senior year of high school and said, you know what, I'm actually not going to go to college next year. I'm going to go out to LA and try to make it out there. The first thing they said was, go, do you know you can always go back to school.

00:05:32
Speaker 2: Wow?

00:05:33
Speaker 1: And they said, you know, even my dad was like, don't have a backup plan. This is your only plan. Just go make it happen. And so to have parents who were both so supportive was key. And again it goes back to luck because you know, you don't pick your parents.

00:05:49
Speaker 5: Did you do the band thing in high school? Did you go with a group of buds?

00:05:52
Speaker 7: Oh?

00:05:52
Speaker 2: Man, I tried.

00:05:53
Speaker 1: I tried to put bands together left and right, and nobody took it here. I came from a suburb of Chicago where the idea of being in the arts, the idea of being a rock star or any of that was such a pipe dream. You were going to be an accountant, you were going to be a lawyer. Where I grew up that there was nobody from there really that had done that. So nobody really took it seriously. So I just dove into songwriting, which was actually great because a few years later when I did go out to LA that's kind of how I started to get going as a writer for other people.

00:06:28
Speaker 5: But were there songwriters where you were a nobody?

00:06:33
Speaker 2: So I was the only kid in school?

00:06:34
Speaker 3: How did you learn to write songs by yourself at a place where no one else is really writing songs like you were writing songs.

00:06:42
Speaker 1: I went to the school of Elton John and Billy Joel and the Eagles, and that's all I did. When I wasn't doing math homework, when I wasn't doing the school work that I was forced to do, I was just listening to music and memorizing every nuance of every record. I was paying attention to production and arranging, and I went.

00:07:03
Speaker 2: To like I just studied it like out of love.

00:07:07
Speaker 1: So when I ended up in LA at eighteen, I got my first job was singing background vocals on a Lionel Richie record.

00:07:15
Speaker 2: He was really the catalyst.

00:07:16
Speaker 1: He was the guy he heard my demo tape of my first couple of songs and actually called my parents' house. This is when he was like leaving the Commodorees and maybe next to Michael Jackson, arguably the biggest star in the music business. This guy took the time to call some kid in Chicagi didn't know, and he just encouraged me. He said, you know, I really like your voice and these are your first songs. Man should have heard my first songs. So I when I moved out to LA he had me sing some background vocals and then he recommended me as a singer to Kenny Rodgers, his buddy, and that's how I started writing songs.

00:07:52
Speaker 2: I wrote songs for Kenny Rogers. That's how my songwriting career started.

00:07:55
Speaker 3: It's funny that Lionel, because I know Lionel pretty well from working with him. I went through some stuff and he pulled me aside and like give me advice. He's awesome.

00:08:02
Speaker 5: But it's funny. He's always been that way.

00:08:04
Speaker 1: He's always been that way. He's a class act, and he's so generous with his time.

00:08:09
Speaker 2: He's a little bit. I really don't know anybody else.

00:08:13
Speaker 1: I've never known anybody else who has that level of grace about themselves and who go out of their way to be encouraging of people where there's going to be nothing paid back.

00:08:24
Speaker 2: He's just that good a guy.

00:08:26
Speaker 3: And so I recommend you to Kenny Rodgers and you go to sing background vocals for Kenny.

00:08:32
Speaker 5: So are you the guy?

00:08:33
Speaker 2: Yeah?

00:08:33
Speaker 5: Are there three behind? And you're doing the dances at the same that.

00:08:37
Speaker 1: No, I'm only in the studio, just work, Yeah, got it. I get hired to work for two days on this Kenny Rodgers album and it was in them like towards the end of the making of that album, and so I go in and I've sang some bat some harmonies and stuff on this one track or two tracks, and then I knew I was coming back the next day. And during the session I overheard Kenny say, was producer that they still needed one more song, and he even described it.

00:09:03
Speaker 2: He says, man, we still need one more ballad. We need that like sort of lion ash ballad. We got to find it.

00:09:08
Speaker 5: You hear this conversation happening.

00:09:10
Speaker 1: I overhear this conversation. I go home to my apartment in La I write a song. I come back the next day and I do exactly what the background singer should never do, which is go up to the.

00:09:25
Speaker 2: Artist and say, I'm a songwriter. I've got a song.

00:09:29
Speaker 1: And again Grace, Kenny Rodgers could have immediately called security and had me escort it to my car, and instead said, well, let me hear it. And we sat down at the piano and I played it. My hands are shaking, and he liked it.

00:09:44
Speaker 5: And you knew it. You can remember it. Did you memorize it from that?

00:09:46
Speaker 2: No? Yeah? Really?

00:09:47
Speaker 1: Oh yeah, yeah yeah. And it was a number one country song and the.

00:09:51
Speaker 5: Song was craze.

00:09:56
Speaker 2: Crazy for you kids. You see that's.

00:10:00
Speaker 1: My Kenny Rodger's like eighty five or so eighty crazy eighty four maybe, Yes, I was nineteen when I wrote it.

00:10:07
Speaker 3: Did that song fall out of you that night? Did you feel like do you feel like they just come from special places or were you just.

00:10:12
Speaker 5: So get it?

00:10:12
Speaker 1: Most of them do, Yeah, especially when you're inspired by opportunity. Like to me, that was I thought, Okay, I'm going to be able to hand a song. Well, you know, I'd made a little cassette tape of it. He didn't want to hear that. He just wanted me to play it on the piano. I wouldn't have had that opportunity had I not been in there as a background singer.

00:10:31
Speaker 2: So I looked at all of I look at all of these.

00:10:34
Speaker 1: Things historically as being you know, writing to an opportunity.

00:10:39
Speaker 2: Do you know what I mean?

00:10:39
Speaker 5: I do?

00:10:40
Speaker 3: And so you found the opportunity, you shot your shot. Yeah, that one happened to work. Yeah, but you went from being a background singer to now you're a writer that has a song, a song went number one?

00:10:50
Speaker 5: So then what do you do?

00:10:52
Speaker 3: You do you then focus on songwriting more or do you still want to sing instant it because you have got two paths now you can choose from.

00:10:59
Speaker 1: Yeah, well, I mean all along, I'm writing pop rock songs, so you got to get a deal. I'm getting rejected by every.

00:11:04
Speaker 5: Right, but now you have you have door that's been opened, right.

00:11:07
Speaker 1: Yeah, And then I started getting a lot of work as a background singer and then writing songs for different people. But you know, along the way, I like David Foster, the producer who was a hero of mine when I when I met him, and incredibly talented guy. But he told me I shouldn't sing because he's just you don't have it, like you don't, oh.

00:11:27
Speaker 5: Like you got it.

00:11:28
Speaker 2: You shouldn't. You should just write songs. You're not you're not an artist. You're not.

00:11:32
Speaker 1: You shouldn't make records. You shouldn't even try for a record deal. And luckily I didn't listen to him.

00:11:39
Speaker 5: Did you? Did you think for a while maybe you should listen to.

00:11:42
Speaker 1: Him only because we had at the time, we had a pretty close friendship. And it kind of killed me. It's like your dad saying, you know, you're kind of unattractive. But I then it sort of just turned a little bit into fire in my belly like to prove him wrong, which was in a sort of big brother kind of way.

00:12:04
Speaker 2: We joke about it.

00:12:05
Speaker 5: Now, so you guys are cool now.

00:12:06
Speaker 2: Yeah, we hardly see each other, but when we do, you.

00:12:09
Speaker 5: Don't want to, you don't we joke about it.

00:12:10
Speaker 2: When you see him, No, I punched him a long time ago.

00:12:13
Speaker 3: So from eighty four or eighty five, when that song comes out and before eighty nine is right Here Waiting?

00:12:20
Speaker 5: When that fian when that hits number one?

00:12:21
Speaker 2: Right, some of my years are yeah, well the first album was eighty seven.

00:12:25
Speaker 3: So when does right Here Waiting become a massive hit? When I would see you on TV?

00:12:31
Speaker 1: Well that was like my fifth top five single or so what really? Because we had don't mean nothing? Should have known better and the summer nights.

00:12:39
Speaker 5: I'm a massive Cubs fan, so my first memory of you.

00:12:41
Speaker 1: Oh was the Cubs video That was like a couple of years after Right Here Waiting.

00:12:46
Speaker 3: Because I knew right Here Waiting for hearing on the radio. But you didn't always know what people look like.

00:12:51
Speaker 2: Right.

00:12:51
Speaker 3: It's way different than now where you just easily get on Instagram see people's faces.

00:12:55
Speaker 5: Right, But what I kind of put it all together was me.

00:12:58
Speaker 3: I mean, listen, I was a massive Cubs fan, you know, Mark Gray, Samberg, Vance Laws, Sean Dunstan mad All.

00:13:04
Speaker 5: I mean it was diehard.

00:13:05
Speaker 2: Yeah. And I had Greg Maddox in my video that that video.

00:13:09
Speaker 3: Yeah, well I don't remember that, but I just remember thinking, that's my guy.

00:13:12
Speaker 5: I don't know what that's him. He's a coup.

00:13:13
Speaker 2: That guy with that big fluffy mullet. That's my guy.

00:13:16
Speaker 5: Yeah, that that's my guy right there.

00:13:18
Speaker 3: So your first as an artist who gave you the first shot there to go, Hey, we'd like for you to make a record as an artist as you.

00:13:25
Speaker 1: Oh, there was a guy we just lost him a few years ago, but he was sort of a kind of a Clive Davis esque executive named Bruce Lundball and man, he heard the same songs that every other label had rejected for years and he just loved them and he he's like, I love what you do. Go let's go make a record. And I got signed to a one album deal with this little subsidiary em I, and the first single just blew up and that was it. We were off to the races for you know me, nothing day Joe Walls should played guitar on it, like so many things fell into place so quickly and easily that it was a little like is this really happening? And I had Timothy Schmidt and Randy Meisner singing back, So I had three Eagles on my first single. You think that helped get on rock radio?

00:14:14
Speaker 5: Little bit Schmidt he's a soprano.

00:14:17
Speaker 1: Yeah, he's the guy that sang I can't tell you what yeah, yeah, yeah dang.

00:14:23
Speaker 3: So you're like baptized into greatness right there with your yeah.

00:14:27
Speaker 5: And do you think, like you just said, man, is this all going to be so easy? And does it get easier?

00:14:32
Speaker 6: Like?

00:14:32
Speaker 3: When was the first When was the first adversity you had as an artist? Because you come out and you got a big song? When does that first?

00:14:38
Speaker 2: Better?

00:14:38
Speaker 4: Way?

00:14:39
Speaker 1: I had adversity in that I never had success because or because of or with the support of my record company. After the guy that signed me, I did one album and then he got booted, So then I had to deal with guys who didn't who hadn't signed me, and it was just everything was a battle. The song choices, the single choices. I was told by the label that right here Waiting would never be a hit. Because it had no drums like stuff like that, and we would just sort of you have to bet on yourself and you have to have a level of non compromise in order to see your Like, I'm fine to fail on my own, like if it's my fault, it's my fault. But I don't want to fail because you screwed.

00:15:25
Speaker 3: Up, you know what I mean, because I'll never forget that I screw up a lot and you'd want to punch me. Yeah, yeah, it's my fault.

00:15:30
Speaker 5: Yeah yeah.

00:15:31
Speaker 6: Let's take a quick pause for a message from our sponsor and we're back on the Bobby Cast right.

00:15:44
Speaker 5: Here, waiting. Song you're known for most, would you say? Is that the one?

00:15:47
Speaker 2: It's probably?

00:15:48
Speaker 4: Yeah.

00:15:48
Speaker 5: Do you play it last?

00:15:50
Speaker 2: Yes?

00:15:51
Speaker 1: Because you can't follow it because it's one of those songs where, like you know, you can't like once you play that. I mean, I've done that before and it has worked, But there's just something about that song around the world, you know. I remember, you know, not that long ago, I took a while I was in Australia and touring, and I had the morning off to myself and I was walking through this little off the beaten path of this little town and it was early in the morning, and this woman that she owned a flower shop and she was setting up the display, so the door was opened to the store and she was she had her back to the street, and as I passed, she was singing right Your Waiting. As I walked by. Of course, I was tempted to go, hey, that's me, but I just stood there and got the biggest smile on my face because it's the other side of the world, you know, And I'll go to Sri Lanka and I'll start playing that song on the audience, start singing it. You know, it doesn't matter where in the world. So I even though I've had other number one songs, there's nothing that sort of compares to that's almost like, right Your Waiting has sort of become like yah, you know, like the kids know it.

00:17:02
Speaker 5: Did you ever have a phase where you're like, I don't want to play that anymore?

00:17:05
Speaker 4: No?

00:17:05
Speaker 5: Ever, No, of course not. I could feel a lot of obviously, you know.

00:17:11
Speaker 1: I know I don't get that like and maybe it's I think it's less with the people who wrote their hits, because if you if we're lucky enough to have written and created these songs, that people really love? Why would you not want to play it? I mean I don't. I haven't lost any love for I mean some I like more than others. But there's none in the setlist that I ever go, oh God, not that one again, because I wouldn't have recorded it if I didn't think it was a good song.

00:17:36
Speaker 3: Do you play that one on guitar? You have a guitar with Did you play right here wedding on guitar or just piano?

00:17:39
Speaker 2: I can I play it on the piano and my show?

00:17:41
Speaker 5: Can you give us a little bit on guitar?

00:17:43
Speaker 3: Sure?

00:17:45
Speaker 1: Oceans apart, day after the day?

00:17:52
Speaker 2: Investingly see he you lo.

00:18:00
Speaker 4: On the life, but it just stop the pain?

00:18:09
Speaker 2: Fascytever. How can we say.

00:18:17
Speaker 4: Forever, wherever you go, whatever you do, boun, We'll be right here wait for you, whatever it changes, for how my heart breaks, bown will be right here waiting.

00:18:44
Speaker 5: For you.

00:18:47
Speaker 3: Reginald Key thinks, so yeah, yeah, awesome, it gets still singing original Key?

00:18:52
Speaker 2: No thanks, yeah, dang.

00:18:54
Speaker 5: You know sometimes it's like, well.

00:18:58
Speaker 1: I'm almost sixty's talk to me in ten years and maybe, well that's awesome.

00:19:02
Speaker 2: Maybe I'll be.

00:19:02
Speaker 3: Like, so you ever do one of the bad one of the bad deals that we see like TLC or Backstreet Boys. You ever signed one of those crazy deals and you're like, now I owed seventy two records and.

00:19:12
Speaker 1: Oh no, no, no, no, no. I luckily, you know. The other thing to talk about luck and my parents. My father was a not only a really brilliant musician and you know, creatively brilliant, but he was a really good businessman. So he kind of taught me that it was the music business. So I always I don't think I've ever really made a bad deal. You know, kept my stuff, and I think I'm pretty I've been pretty smart with the business of music.

00:19:42
Speaker 3: Yeah, did you ever get to a stage creatively where you thought, you know, I really love the music I've been writing, but I think now I want to do like a metal record or put a hip hop I just just wanted to change something.

00:19:52
Speaker 5: Did you ever have that feeling?

00:19:56
Speaker 1: Not to that degree, but you know, I actually, during the pandemic, I did a you know, the band Trivium. Matt Heathy, the guy, the guitar player, singer, the screamer really from that group reached out to me and said, I got this idea for a metal version of radio waiting, and we did it and it's it's actually pretty cool.

00:20:15
Speaker 5: What did you do on it?

00:20:17
Speaker 1: I sang it and then he screamed, yeah he did that, but I sang it really differently. I sang it in a way that it kind of didn't sound like, well, you know, it wasn't.

00:20:27
Speaker 2: I was like with a lot of edge to it.

00:20:29
Speaker 1: Yeah, it was pretty cool. And I'm you know, as a songwriter. You know, I've been able to write for all these different artists, from country artists and R and B artists and rock bands and stuff like that. So I feel pretty comfortable jumping genre to genre, but like to do a to do a hip hop record or something, it would just be inauthentic.

00:20:52
Speaker 5: Did you ever want to put a rapper on any of your songs in the nineties.

00:20:56
Speaker 1: No, that wasn't the music that I was making. I loved it, but it wasn't what I was doing.

00:21:01
Speaker 3: Pop music is really wild because it's it's so global. I would imagine you've had your hits in countries where you have no idea what the language is being.

00:21:11
Speaker 1: Yeah, and they sing it in yeah, broken English, they just like right here waiting, And then it's not just that one. They're a handful of songs that were no matter where I go. You know, I wrote this song years ago called Hazard that's like this murder mystery set to music. That was a big hit for me in like early nineties, and I've played in It's a story song with characters and a plot, and I'll have people in Germany and like, the song was a hit in all these kind like it was. It was number one in like fourteen different countries, and most of them were non English speaking countries, and it just baffles me that people could be into it like that, you know what I mean, Like I understand a really catchy, poppy song, but this is like this minor key dark. I never thought it would be a hit. I just wrote it as a sort of like as an exercise because I'd never written a story song before. And the song just blew up around the world. And to this day, I have people ask me about it, and I play it and people sing it, and it still blows my mind.

00:22:11
Speaker 3: You have all these number one songs as a performer, as a songwriter, did you ever get to a stage where, like I'm tired of touring, Like you're just literally physically tired, And did you ever focus in on songwriting, like I need to get this creative out of me. I'm going to do it this way, or did you just have all these songs that's what you did anyway?

00:22:29
Speaker 1: No, I definitely like at the end of about ten years where everything just fired on all cylinders, nothing but hits, nothing but big tours and all that. I finally, after like ten years, I put out a record that went double plywood instead of double Plattin and it was sort of like it was the end of the nineties. It wasn't just me, it was all the guys sort of lumped in with me, Brian Adams and Michael Bolton and Billy Joel and like all of us, all the white male singerswriters kind of stopped getting played on pop radio. And I thought, Okay, do I contort myself into something to try to or do I just write songs? And I thought, you know what, if this is it, this is it. I've had a great ten years, but I've got a lot of music in me. And so I really then stopped touring, stopped making records for a while for years, and just focused on writing and producing. And luckily that career immediately sort of blossomed, and so then I got to write. I wrote songs in Sync and Josh Grobin and a bunch of country artists and like all over the map.

00:23:38
Speaker 3: The in sync song this, I promise you we were talking about it before you came in.

00:23:42
Speaker 2: When you wrote that.

00:23:43
Speaker 3: Did you write that for you or was it for in Sync or was it for I'm writing this and we'll see who fits.

00:23:50
Speaker 1: I got the call to see if I had a song for Instinct right after I had written it, and I had written it for this girl trio, this all sister trio that I had seen at a friend's wedding, and I was going to help try to get them a record. They were amazing, and I tried to get them a record deal, but their father was a real sort of he had to be involved in everything and he wanted to be part of the group, and it was just it got kind of funky. So I kind of backed out of the whole thing. But I had written they didn't write songs, so I thought, I need a really great three part harmony song for this girl group, and I swear to God man, once I bailed out of that deal, I think it was like within a week, I get a call do you have a song for in Sync? I was like, why, yes, I do, And luckily they loved it, and then I went and produced it and worked with those guys and it was a big hit.

00:24:39
Speaker 3: In the early two thousands when CDs are being bought and that's a massive hit. Is that real money?

00:24:45
Speaker 2: Oh man? Because it was no compare.

00:24:48
Speaker 1: You know, I have three sons and they're all musicians, songwriters and singers. My middle son, Lucas has had somewhat of a he's getting there, you know. He had a Katie Perry cut like a year and a half ago, and works his ass off and really talented. But we were all sitting around, a bunch of us were sitting around, Lucas was there, and we're talking about just this how the music business has changed, especially in terms of like when a big hit, what does a really big hit mean for you? And he said to his friends in front of me. So, you know, back in the day, if dad wrote a number one song, he could buy a house. And if I'm part of a number one song now I might be able to buy a case of nut rageous bars. It's kind of not that big an exaggeration.

00:25:38
Speaker 3: Right. So the Keith urban stuff I think is always interesting to people that know country music because too Keith's most famous long lasting songs. Yeah, you know, there were hits and last because there are hits that don't last.

00:25:52
Speaker 5: There are songs that aren't hits to do last, right, But these are two that were hits and he still plays and people still love like Long Hot Summer. Yeah, when you wrote that song again, who were you writing it for?

00:26:05
Speaker 2: Oh? No, The songs that I've had hits with Keith we wrote together.

00:26:09
Speaker 3: So okay, so those were Keith specifically written songs. Does Keith come to you and go, hey, Richel, I want to write with How does that even come together?

00:26:15
Speaker 2: Yeah?

00:26:15
Speaker 1: We were put together right after his first album. There was a guy here in Nashville, a publisher who knew how to reach me. Somehow knew I was coming to town more and more. I had written with a couple of people here, and they sent me Keith's first record, which I thought was great, And then we got together and we tried writing. We wrote together for maybe a year or two and never finished anything, like it didn't really click. And then I was living in Chicago at the time. And he he came to my house and stayed with me for a few days. And it wasn't it was just through sort of to hang out.

00:26:53
Speaker 2: He wasn't.

00:26:53
Speaker 1: He was just sort of like trying to take a break from the pace of his career, and he kind of came and hit out at my house. It was over a Super Bowl Sunday, I remember, and during I think it was during halftime, we just went down to my studio and we picked up guitars and within like ten minutes, Sunday You and I gonna be the ones that was better life. It was like, that's how it happened. It wasn't like, hey, let's get together and write a song. But because that song became so big, you know, he would then every couple of years he'd say, hey, let's try it again.

00:27:31
Speaker 7: The Bobby Cast will be right back. This is the Bobby Cast.

00:27:44
Speaker 5: Do you play the Keith and you your songs? When you play your shows?

00:27:48
Speaker 2: I do long hot Summer, sometimes you do.

00:27:50
Speaker 5: Yeah, you play a little bit of that you care.

00:27:51
Speaker 1: Yeah, it's gonna be a long hot summer.

00:27:58
Speaker 2: We should be.

00:27:59
Speaker 4: Together with feet upon the gesh board now singing.

00:28:03
Speaker 2: Along with the radio. It's such a beautiful person.

00:28:10
Speaker 4: Sweet you see my name is mele Love, dear, swear, I see the stars come.

00:28:18
Speaker 1: Old man head and oh my swear it looks black. You're waiting on the sound of gold. Damn the sunder God.

00:28:29
Speaker 5: Dam that's awesome.

00:28:40
Speaker 2: That's a fun one.

00:28:41
Speaker 5: Luther Vandre song danceing my father. I remember hearing it not knowing who wrote it because I was just listening to it. That's that's like, that's the that's a song. Yeah, that's a song that I really proud to be. Yeah, that one that even writing it.

00:28:53
Speaker 3: Like this, that's gotta come from something, right, There's gotta be some emotion there.

00:28:57
Speaker 2: Yeah.

00:28:57
Speaker 1: Well, Luther and I were really like he was one of my best friends, and we'd written a handful of songs together over the years. He'd sung back on vocals on some of my records, and I'd written a couple of songs with him that he'd recorded up before then. And I lost my dad in nineteen ninety seven, like really tragically and suddenly, and Luther Vandross was one of the only people who sort of knew what to say to me.

00:29:25
Speaker 2: Who look.

00:29:26
Speaker 1: I remember we had this two hour phone call and he really helped me. I was spiraling, I was with my dad. We were really really close. And then like six years later he called me and he said, I got an idea for a song. I just have a title, and I have to write it with you, and it's danced with my father. And that's all we had was just the title, and so as we had done before, I went off and wrote some music and then sent it to him and he came up with this whole story that was just I mean, that's really the meat of the song. I mean, And he wrote that song about his own father, So I knew why he wanted to write it with me, because he knew the connection I had to my dad. But that song, you know, like it was ten days after he mixed that song that he had a stroke. It was the last thing he ever did. But he lived long enough for us, you know, to see us win the Song of the Year and see the success of the song. He was so proud of it. But I remember him saying like, this is going to be the biggest song in my career, and I was like, don't say things like that, don't jinx it.

00:30:28
Speaker 3: But if he only knew every NCAA tournament at the end of it one shining moment. Yeah, you know right, it's got two that it made me feel completely different, but both made me feel.

00:30:37
Speaker 1: I mean, sometimes it's like I've never written a song that I thought was a hit. I have never had that experience. I know, other song like Diane Warren, every interview she goes, I knew that was a hit the minute. I good for you because I have. I just write songs that I like, but I've never been able to determine what is a hit and what's not. So they all been surprises to me, but some more than others. And I really was shocked that dance with my father has become so beloved, you know.

00:31:09
Speaker 2: But that's the there's just just magic in it, you know.

00:31:13
Speaker 1: It's all like writing a song to this day is still a piece of magic to me. If I finish another song, and I've written thousands of songs, and every time I finish another song, I go.

00:31:25
Speaker 2: I can't believe that. I can't believe we just did that, or I just did that.

00:31:30
Speaker 5: Do you like to write by yourself?

00:31:32
Speaker 1: Yeah, I do collaborate quite a bit, but my favorite thing is to write by myself, and most of my hits I've written by myself most of them.

00:31:41
Speaker 3: That's awesome for other reasons, you know, that's awesome.

00:31:46
Speaker 5: Okay, So a couple things here.

00:31:47
Speaker 1: One by the way, I really love the I don't know if you guys know, but there was a real dance this morning with the transportation, which was hilarious, which was because when you guys asked me to come in, okay, my wife and I get in last night. Yeah, and they said, somebody said it's ten ten am. Yeah, as long as it's not too early. And they said, and they want to know, is it okay if they send like an uber ax or I was like, yeah, no problem. So then early this morning I get a text from my guy in La saying Bobby was like, I'm not sending an uber for him, so Abby is going to pick him up in a Lexus and I was like, oh, that's so nice. That's okay, great, thanks. Then like ten minutes later, nope, dance coming in a black Porsche, and I swear to god, I texted back, Okay, now I want a bent Link and you know what.

00:32:31
Speaker 2: Do I hear it roles?

00:32:32
Speaker 5: Next time you will get just that. Okay.

00:32:35
Speaker 3: So you and a lot of the markets that our show is in. You're doing shows all over the country, so I definitely want to let all of our listeners know all through October and we could roll through some of them. Chicago, Saint Louis, Memphis, We're huge in Osaka, Japan. So you're doing this what is this tour? What are you doing at these shows? It is like a full well, like what's the what's the show?

00:32:58
Speaker 1: Most of the shows that you just listened will be full band shows. I do a lot of solo acoustic shows. I played three or four nights at the Franklin Theater last year. That was such a blast.

00:33:07
Speaker 2: It's just me.

00:33:08
Speaker 1: It's a storyteller show, and I tell jokes and if somebody yells out a song, if I can remember it, I'll do it. But for these for this next uh next couple of years, I've decided I'm only gonna do songs live that were songs that were not good enough to make the actual albums. So the whole set list, I'm kidding.

00:33:28
Speaker 3: I'd about to say, I'm not I'm not coming anymore. It's all B sides that we've been Wow. Okay, all right, first of all, all demos, all all show along.

00:33:37
Speaker 1: Can I tell you a really funny story. I'm gonna name drop, but it's but I don't know him. I just met him in an elevator.

00:33:44
Speaker 4: Uh.

00:33:44
Speaker 1: The one and only time I ever met Bono. And it was a few years ago and I was my son and I were leaving this restaurant and we're getting in the elevator and these guys went, okay, can you hold the elevator, And so we held the elevator and one of the guys they walk in and it's.

00:33:56
Speaker 2: One of them's Bono. I was like, oh man, he goes, Richard, Hey, it' nice to me.

00:34:00
Speaker 1: I couldn't believe he knew who I was. And so we had this little chat and as the elevator was about to open, he said, so are you on tour? And I said, nah, I just do shows. And he cracked it. He goes, oh my god, we need to start doing that. And I said, well, you guys have a different situation. But what I mean by that is for years and years it would be like I'm touring. I'm on tour to promote this thing. No, when you get to a certain point, if you're lucky enough to have had a catalog of songs. It's just I go out and play the songs people want to hear, and I pepper it with two or three new songs here and there, but it's hits because that's what I would want to go see. If I go see a band play, I don't want to hear a bunch of songs from the new album.

00:34:48
Speaker 3: I saw rim once. They only played their new album and not a single hit.

00:34:51
Speaker 2: Well that's a dick move.

00:34:52
Speaker 5: That was tough. That's tough.

00:34:54
Speaker 2: That's a dick move to the audience.

00:34:55
Speaker 5: It is tough. Yeah, and I was really upset.

00:34:59
Speaker 3: Yeah, I was like, maybe they'll play what's the frequency, Kenneth anything, Just give me one hit the very end and they finished the final track of this new album and good night. Yeah.

00:35:08
Speaker 5: I thought Richard Marks would never do that.

00:35:09
Speaker 3: I would never do that, Like he may play a night full of demos, but he will never do that.

00:35:13
Speaker 2: But that's fun.

00:35:14
Speaker 5: That sounds like something I signed up for.

00:35:17
Speaker 3: So yeah, all the shows go to Richard Mars dot com and what we had you on the songwriter album?

00:35:22
Speaker 5: Yeah, a songwriter was called right yeah, and it.

00:35:25
Speaker 3: Was different elements like it was five element.

00:35:29
Speaker 2: It was twenty songs.

00:35:30
Speaker 1: It was five pop songs, five rock songs, five country songs, five ballads.

00:35:34
Speaker 5: How do people react to that? They like it?

00:35:36
Speaker 2: Yeah, it did really well.

00:35:37
Speaker 5: I was really showing that kind of project.

00:35:39
Speaker 2: It was really fun for me.

00:35:40
Speaker 1: And you know, I just said that I like to write by myself, but that was the most collaborative album I ever did as a songwriter in that there were songs. There were handful of songs I wrote by myself. But I wrote a song with Keith, that old song that he didn't want to do anymore that I always loved. There was a song that I co wrote with Darius. There was a song I co wrote with Chris Daughtry. There was a song I co wrote with Burt Backrock like just a couple of years before he passed.

00:36:13
Speaker 2: It's just like.

00:36:13
Speaker 1: A crazy array of collaborators and different genres.

00:36:18
Speaker 2: It was a blast.

00:36:19
Speaker 5: I hope you guys go see Richard massive fan all seriousness. Thank you.

00:36:23
Speaker 3: You're very generous with your time and to come up here. And which car would you like to go back in? We've got a few options for you here.

00:36:28
Speaker 2: Well I was sot a helicopter was available.

00:36:31
Speaker 3: But Richard, thank you. You guys Richard marks dot com go to the shows.

00:36:37
Speaker 2: Thanks for listening to a Bobby Cast production