Do you ever wonder certain people simply create their own path to success? In this episode, Jimmy hosts Greg Renoff, author of Amazon Best Seller Van Halen Rising: How a Southern California Backyard Party Band Saved Heavy Metal and Ted Templeman: A Platinum Producer’s Life in Music as they explore all things Van Halen and history.
Episode Keys
- The key to lasting success is discovering and cultivating your deepest passions.
- Why it is critical to design and function in a routine that uses your time in the most productive manner.
- How to create an entrepreneurial venture that rewards your strengths and allows you the most flexibility to enjoy your life.
- When you should seek a mentor and embrace the role the person plays in your life.
- What you do in life impacts the world around you. Our guest, a lover of history and rock and roll, combined these two passions to live his life boldy.
Podcast Transcription
JW:
Man, what an honor today we’re gonna have on the podcast. Hey, good morning. This is Jimmy Williams with Live a Life By Design, your Monday morning moments of motivation to help you live a bigger, better and bold life. One of the things that intrigued me about our guest today is I’ve been a fan of rock and roll since the first Elvis record spun. When I was just a baby boy and my parents were playing outside rock and roll stuff from that giant Zenith, all in one TV, stereo console, you know that one in your living room, your parents took up the entire wall and waited about two tons. I get gotta tell you, we played the needle off that thing, burning up Elvis Presley records when I was a kid. And then on Sunday morning, you know, you’d think, well, that’s a little different getting ready for church and stuff is just a typical Midwest family. Nope. Dad spun the old Elvis Presley with the stamps gospel albums, blared them real early at 7:00 AM. You know, so there was no rest in our house. Why am I telling you all this is to give a little background of what we’re gonna be sharing today with you through our guests on Live a Life By Design. Many of you’ve heard on our podcast, we’re up to 154 episodes. You’ve heard me say many times, I’m an old guitar player. You know, there’s a lot of us out there in the world that just play for enjoyment. Well, a visit with the gentleman today that has been up close and personal with one of my heroes of the day. I took guitar lessons for just a brief moment. I loved to play mainly by ear. And so what I did is I took guitar lessons. My mother take me over to the guitar teacher and I’d spend an hour with her every week and was thinking I was making some good progress. I was about age 12 and I’d been playing for almost a year, just about a year. And something happened in 1978. That just changed my world forever. And no, it wasn’t a catastrophic event. No car accident didn’t lose a loved one. Didn’t lose a parent or anything of that nature. What happened was in February on the 10th of February, 1978, something hit my am, FM radio. I didn’t have an eight track. Then I didn’t have cassettes obviously back then. And folks that little CD thing, you know, or Bluetooth not even thought about that tells you my age, but something came on and I’m like, I gotta wait for the DJ to tell me what this, this sounded like world war three, going off on my radio. And he got through and he said, that was the initial cut from the album, Van Halen, the self-titled album album of the band didn’t know who this Van Halen was never heard of Van Halen being in Oklahoma there in the California band. We’re gonna get some detail of some of that a little bit later. So I’m listening to this and the hair on my arms folks. I’m not exaggerating the back of my neck started standing up when the second track was played. So the first track called running with the devil opens up with this car horn. It’s just really cool sounding car horn. And then the second track, it sounds like, oh my gosh, this guy is killing things on the, on the fretboard. I had no idea he did how to do it. Didn’t know how he was getting those sounds out of that. My amp didn’t sound anything close to that. My guitar was not nearly as good. And so the song that that started out running with the devil kept my ear, but eruption blew my ear drum. So I’m gonna join you today with my guest, a, a great man, a PhD. I’m gonna give you a little background about him. This gentleman was born in the Bronx, New York, not too far from me. I, I sound like one of those Bronx natives I’m sure. And he grew up in New Jersey, earned his PhD in American history from Brandeis University and is the author of Van Halen rising? How a Southern California backyard party band saved heavy metal. His writing has appeared in Medium, RQ Point, Guitar World, LA Weekly, and Vulture. And he has his works been profiled in Spin, Salon, Maxim, Rolling Stone, Los Angeles Gagazine, Oklahoma Magazine… Folks, this guy never sleeps. That’s what I’m trying to tell you. And now he lives in one of the greatest states in the continent. He lives in Oklahoma and enjoys connecting with readers. Does a lot of work on Twitter and is now gonna bring in some information to you. An author of three books. The first book out was at 2008, the big tent, the traveling circus of Georgia. I’m sorry. That prints a little small for me. My apologies are. And then the second book that came out was the Van Halen rising book, which was the first one I read of his outstanding reading, historical informational and Van Halen. And then most recently I’ve had the pleasure of reading Ted Templeman, which we’ll get into that. He’s the producer of the Van Halen, original albums. So man, welcome to the show, Greg. I can’t tell you how honored I am to have you here.
GR:
Well, after an introduction like that, I mean, I come back every week. That was a, that was a true pleasure. Thank you for having me on Jimmy and thanks for your kind words.
JW:
You’re surely welcome. And Hey, so let’s just cut to the chase here. I’ve gotta ask you, man. You don’t sound like most of my friends that live in the Bronx, what what’d they do to your accent when you were in California?
GR:
Well, I lived in in Queens for most of my childhood and we moved to New Jersey and then you know, I lived I’ve lived in Massachusetts. I lived in Mississippi for a couple of years, a little in Missouri. And so like I tell people it sort of all washed out somehow and it became sort of defunct us American accent. But yeah, I’m an east coaster originally. Yeah.
JW:
I gotta tell you a funny story. So when I was on a board, I was on a national board in New York on sixth avenue, avenue of America is where the Fox news building is. We had about three floors of that building for called the a I CPA American Institute of certified public accountants. So one of my first board meetings, you gotta, you gotta understand that a lot of people there in the New York, I call it the tri-state area. They’ve never left Connecticut Jersey or New York. They’ve never been anywhere else. Right? Right. Well, lady came up to me, honest to goodness, I’m not lying, Greg. This lady comes up to me, a board member suit tie, got the cuff links on, I’m doing my gig, trying to look as professional as possible. Right. She comes up to me and she says Mr. Williams, may I ask you a question?
JW:
I said, certainly. And I said, don’t call me Mr. That’s my dad, that’s my whole take on. I’m a young guy. You know, she says, well, Jimmy, she says I just love the way you talk. And I said, well, I’m speaking English. Is there some other dialect you’d like me to use? She said, no, your, your dialect is fine. It says that your, your sound of your voice, it just sounds so Southern. And she says, how do you talk like that? And I looked at her really funny and I’m like, you know, says, well, I’m trying to figure out what she’s getting at. And I thought she was teasing me, Greg. And then she says, aren’t you from Oklahoma like that? And I said, yes, ma’am. And, and she said, well, now they have Indians out there. Don’t they?
GR:
They sure do.
JW:
And I’m like, and I, and I’m actually part of one I’m part of the member part of Indian. And I said, yes, ma’am we, we just got the internet and I believe running waters on its way. And I just walked off laughing. It was so funny. So talk a little bit about me. How, how in the world did you get from the Bronx to Queens, to Jersey, to Mississippi? What was going on in the world for Greg to have that kind of a transportation in life?
GR:
Yeah, I my parents lived lived in Queens. My mom grew up in in Queens and so we spent about 10 years of my life there. Then my family moved to Northern New Jersey. So about an hour from New York city, imagine kind of north and west, the very, very Northwestern corner of New Jersey is where I grew up. And I went to Rutgers university in New Jersey, got my bachelor’s there in history. And you know, I really was a, had to been a history B since I was a little kid and kind of was left at the end of college with a history major. I wasn’t sure what I wanted to do. And I decided that I was gonna see about maybe being a teacher or something. And so I went off and did my master’s degree at university of Mississippi and Oxford.
GR:
And so you can imagine coming from New Jersey I was very interested in Southern history, but you can imagine I’d never been to Mississippi before, but I, you know, I did the whole gamut of school tours. I saw Alabama, I saw the university of South Carolina, I saw Vanderbilt. And so it was really a a great experience for me that summer when I was looking at school, but I ended up going to Ole miss and doing my two years there. And then after I finished my master’s there, I decided I wanted to keep going with my education. And I went to Brandis university, which is in Boston. And I, I spent some years there and I finished and got a PhD in American history. So I started studied American culture, American society. So that was really my, my focus.
GR:
And as you mentioned, did a book on traveling surfaces and that was actually my dissertation. So I was interested in kinda how popular culture affect people and when big entertainments appear in a town, how that might make the local population a little bit uneasy or excited. And there was all these different pieces of that, that I worked on for that book. And then I got my first job, my first history teaching job at a university at ju university in Springfield, Missouri. And I ended up teaching there for about a decade plus until my family and I relocated to Tulsa. But yeah, so that was my journey from a kid grow up in New York, New Jersey and, you know, kept, just kept like tell people, I just stayed in school longer than you. And ended up, you know, getting the PhD and then teaching, you know, teaching. I just took more credits than you. Yeah. And ended up getting the teaching professorship and, and did that for a while. But then we relocated here and I’ve, I’ve left the college teaching, but I am yeah, I’m here in Tulsa loving it.
JW:
Oh, that is just awesome, man. What a story? I gotta be honest with you though. Did you leave when you left the, the Northeast and you came south, you said you went through Vanderbilt, that’s over in Tennessee and yeah. You came through Tennessee and you went down to Mississippi. Did you think that maybe you were gonna fall off the edge of the earth? Cuz a lot of those folks in Northeast think we don’t really exist over here?
GR:
You know I, I, you know, I had gotten interested in Southern history as a undergrad. I had read some books, I had a great mentor. I can talk about who who suggested some books for me. And I got really interested in the civil war, but more, you know, more about just how the how Southern culture developed distinctly in some ways from the rest of the country. And you know, I loved it. It was, I got there and you know, I got to eat, you know grits and I got to eat barbecue and basically things that, you know, you weren’t, you know, were accessible to me in New Jersey. And I got to meet people obviously that I never would’ve met before. And just see a whole different landscape and a whole different worldview, you know, from a lot of people.
GR:
And so it, you know, Oxford, Mississippi folks, haven’t been, it’s a great, great place to visit. I mean, old miss is there obviously, but the town itself is really, really, really just an incredibly historic place. And it really, you feel sort of like you stepped into a different, a different realm in some sort of ways coming from the Northeast. But you know, I took to it, you know, I really enjoyed the, the people and the, and the the, the music and the, just the food and the, the, the art. I loved it all. And it was a wonderful experience for me.
JW:
I gotta tell you friend, that’s another reason I wanted you on the podcast is I am a history nut. I’m a UN unlike you, you’re, you’re formally trained and all that good stuff. I am very informally trained, but I take they’re called the great courses. I’ve probably taken 150 hours of courses on there that they offer by various PhDs across the world. And I have two or three of them on the civil war. I’m just same as you. I’m a civil war nut that period of time, 1861 to 1865. To me just fascinates me on how our country right now could have a north and south that we do a Dakotas, for example, or Carolinas. We could have a north, you know, north United States and a, a Confederacy, if you will. So that’s interesting. So, Hey, tell me, you mentioned mentor I’m, I’m a big believer in mentors. I’ve got two or three myself who who’s your mentor. And tell me why.
GR:
So my mentor is a gentleman by the name of Jim Livingston. He’s a professor at Rutgers he’s just about to retire this year. And you know, I when I got to Rutgers, I was as I said, kind of looking for you know, the final direction, what I wanna do with my career. I really wasn’t sure. And I took a class with him on American history my junior year. And you know, he really took a, took an interest in me. And I gotta say that, you know, for all of the talk today that people like, you know, zoom teaching and remote teaching and all this stuff that there’s this sort of move towards this, you know, just being in the same room and talking to him. And I used to, actually, what I used to do is, you know, class would be over and I’d have questions for him about at school or about what the books you were reading.
GR:
And I would wa he would walk across campus and I would just sort of tag along with him. And he never, you know, he never said anything but a kind word and was like, yeah, come on. We just would walk. And we would take that 10 minute walk. And he really was the one who kind of sold me on going to grad school. I mean, he didn’t sort of push me on it, but he was like, oh, you’re interested in history. Why don’t you go get a master’s in history and go on and do some more studies. And he really supported me and helped me with my applications. And I really owe him in, in a lot of ways this whole, you know, where I am today, because if, you know, if he hadn’t really taken the interest, I’m not sure I would’ve kept after it the way I did.
GR:
And sort of really, wouldn’t willing to sort of think about doing something like that. My father had was a professor he’s passed on now, but he was a college professor. So I had that, you know, idea, but sort of, for me, I wasn’t sure if that was the right thing for me to do. And I think having, and having somebody outside your own family kind of, you know, suggesting and saying, Hey, you can, you can do it, come on. Let’s, you know, I’ll help you. And you know, that was so Jim living. Yeah. I own him a lot
JW:
That, you know, that’s the key to me. Those mentors play such a powerful role. Like you said, you may or may not have had the fortitude to wanna stick it out. I mean, getting it a PhD’s tough folks, I’m gonna be honest with you. The dissertation committee by itself is tough, but the classroom work you have to do prior to that is not a cake walk. A lot of analytical work, a lot of creative work has to be done. Like you said, you wrote a book out of your thesis. So talk little bit about how you took that transition saying, okay, America’s slice of entertainment came first from circus. If you remember, they traveled back by wagons, right? I mean, they came through towns and wagons and just made the circuit to me, that was kinda the precursor to be very honest with you, Greg, about rock and roll concerts coming to town, you know,
GR:
You were you and I, I think alike that’s kind of the way I ended up with the van Helen book in some sort of way, it wasn’t immediately apparent to me when I started thinking about doing the book on van Hain, but lemme tell you, yeah. You know, I was really, really interested in trying to think about how the south was affected by national popular culture. And so, you know, we kind of all have an idea of what Southern culture is, you know, it’s, you know, it’s blues or it’s country music in terms of music or certain types of food, certain types of art. But I, I got this idea when I was working for a looking for a subject matter to write my dissertation on about this idea of circuses. And it turned out that a lot of the surfaces in the late 19th century had come out of the Midwest, a lot of, a lot of big big shows.
GR:
So the ringing brothers barman Bailey is the one that people know best. And you know, these shows would come down from Wisconsin or Ohio and they would basically and as you mentioned, initially, they traveled by wagon, but after the civil war, when the railroad lines were laid. And so it, it was really a fun thing to study because what would happen is that in these communities I, I said in the state of Georgia, but it happened all over the south is that evangelicals particularly would get, you know, quite IPT by this idea of a circus is coming to town because it, it was, it was inspiring sort of a, a worldly worldview, right. To look away from godliness. And, and there was also the sense that the circus men were corrupt and that there were things that go on in the circus that weren’t appropriate for Christians, but on, it was really interesting too, was like, I learned a lot about how marketing and took place.
GR:
And I think one thing that’s worth remarking about here is that the circus men were, you know, they were very, very savvy and very, very aware of the prejudices against them and how to connect with people and reach across that. So anyone who’s trying to sell a product or something, sometimes you realize there’s a gap, you have to bridge to convince someone to engage with your product. And they, they really realized that for a lot of evangelicals, the attraction to coming to the circus was the menagerie, the animals, right? So, and so they actually overtly began to market that in the south about come see God’s animal creation at the circus, and they actually would set up separate tents. So these shows were huge. There was a big, big three ring circus under a giant canvas, big top, but there also was a menagerie time.
GR:
And so they would actually say, you can buy a ticket. You don’t have to go to see the show. You don’t wanna have to see the girls in the tights or the, whatever that you might find to be not appropriate for your religious outlook, but going the tent with the animals. And they made it into this sort of a educational, like a zoo, basically a traveling zoo. And they, they BA but, you know, they would talk about Noah on the marketing. You know, Noah brought the animals two by two into the arc and come see Noah’s, you know, Noah’s, you know animals basically. And they were, you know, that was in so in terms of the economic aspects, the cultural aspects, but then as you mentioned with rock and roll, there definitely was this similar type of thing. I mean, for, for folks who who haven’t been to Tulsa, there’s a place in Tulsa called Kane’s ballroom.
GR:
And you know, when the sex pistols came to Kane’s ballroom in 1978 you know, people came out and protested and that’s, you know, not, you know, localized to Tulsa that happens all over the country. So, you know, for the late 20th century, particularly where they’d be, you know outrage about certain acts or groups, but this was, you know, this was a similar type of thing where people would put up a revival, you know, pray, try to get people to come, pray, pray the revival don’t go across the street to the circumstance. Let
JW:
Me tell you, man, it was a Fri, it was a fringe, wasn’t it? I mean, it was a, it was out there pushing the limits of what they thought was decency back in the day, you know, to me, those circus promoters were the precursor to what we see as Contra promoters. These guys would go out six months ahead a year ahead and go, Hey, guess who I’ve got coming to town? Yes. You know, guarantee the artist, a certain cut, and then they gotta go hustle and get tickets here. Right. you know, let me say, you mentioned the word canes. I’m gonna tell you folks, if you ever get an opportunity on side of Tulsa, downtown Tulsa on the north side, it’s now developed. It’s very nice, great restaurants and all that. But back in the day in the seventies, man, that was the hangout. Bob wills, the Texas Playboys played at canes and an awful lot, you know, Johnny wills had to play there. These guys came from everywhere. Didn’t Stevie rayon play there once in his, early in his career. Somebody had rumored that, but I can’t prove that,
GR:
You know, I’m not sure about that. I know he had played over at the Boston market. There you go know the Boston market in 1982, Stevie rayon played, you know, walking distance to where I live, where you live before he sort of hit it big with Texas flood and all that stuff. But yeah, you could have seen him in like basically a, like a small bar Tulsa.
JW:
I don’t have a lot of regrets, Greg and I tell people don’t live life with regrets. I try to get everything in. I can, but I did never, I never got to see him live. That’s one of my regrets. I saw his brother Jimmy, so I saw him over and there’s a great venue, small intimate venue called tower theater over in Oklahoma city. That’s just a refurbished theater and old, like a video theater. And they have some great acts. I encourage everyone listening to go to that. So let me ask you, let’s, let’s transition a little bit. So you’ve authored some books you, you enjoyed writing. But tell me, how did you get involved in that transition of molding, your idea of history, your love of history and writing to, to going to van Hain and writing a book about the band’s history. Talk to us about that.
GR:
Sure. well, you know, I was I was a professor and I had just gotten tenure actually. And I, it was sort of a, you know, it’s a long climb up the mountain, as you mentioned. So you go to grad school, you get the, you do a master’s degree, and then you do the, the PhD. You do your courses, you do your dissertation, you get the job, you go on the job market, then you gotta try to get tenure. And I, I had put the six or seven years into that and I put a tenure portfolio and I got tenure. So I had a little bit of breathing room after that. And I was gonna write a small little article on Van Halen. Now, again, you know, I, I do all sorts of, I’ve done all sorts of academic writing. I’ve been writing journal articles and published the, the book.
GR:
But this was just meant to be something for just to have fun, you know, and I, I was actually gonna write an article for a website that’s called van hail and news desk. And it’s probably the place that most van Haen fans will go to find information about the band and there’s concert reviews. And they have historical articles sometimes, and I was gonna write one just for fun. And I was just poking around and I started talking to a couple of people on Facebook who were from Pasadena, where the van Haen band originated. And these were kind of old timers older than me. And, and I ended up getting to talk to a couple people who had grown up in the same era as the van Helens and knew them and knew the band members. And they started telling me about these parties and about van Helen before they were famous playing on blacktops in parks when they were very like, were teenagers basically. And then, you know, playing at little nightclubs. And then so when people’s parents would go out of town these, these entrepreneurial young people in the early seventies would print flyers. And it would basically say, you know, how, you know, you know, $2 van hail and all the beer you can drink and go, go figure that was a very, very successful way to
JW:
Come to your house. The lead, the lead singer, one of the founding members, daily Ross, an outstanding marketer. I don’t know who’s behind him, man, but he knows how to get people there.
GR:
And so, you know, it just, you know, it ended up the whole idea of writing a book about van hill and was never something. If you had asked me in 2010, or when I really started like 20 10, 20 11, I started just, it just started building momentum on this thing. And it was never something where I had this master plan to write a book. It just, it was one of these things where I felt impasioned about the subject. And I was particularly interested as a historian about how bands form and how thing that seems like it comes outta nowhere. Where does it come from? And so you know, a lot of times we see this with superstars, so they’ll sort of, you know, appear on your phone or on your television or something. And there’s a, usually there’s a backstory there and, and it turned out that Van Halen’s backstory was a little, probably a little longer than some bands they had.
GR:
They had, those guys had really slogged it out for a lot of years playing biker bars and just all over Los Angeles is huge. And they had just would play 30, 40 minutes away from passing, even just drive all over the city. And it really was a, I thought a great story, not again, not only just about the band forming, but also I really got in interested in the brothers as immigrants. So for those who, people who don’t know the van hail and family, he came from Holland Netherlands in 19 62, 4 members of the family. And two, two brothers who ended up forming Van Halen. And they came from a musical family. And I was really interested in that too, that they, you know, that the, the the parents really sacrificed to give these kids a good life and a better life leaving Europe to come to America.
GR:
And these, you know, they weren’t wealthy, they weren’t privileged. They, you know, they had to like basically, you know, payment plans on their instruments, but they just practiced and practiced and worked at it, you know, at that 10,000 hour rule, whatever it is. And, you know they just, they really, really put in the effort to get good and to stick with it. And I think that’s the other thing I always sort of reflect on is that there’s this feeling that a lot of us have when you’re pursuing something like this, you know, I was trying to write this book about Van Halen and here I am a history professor, and that’s not exactly, doesn’t really, you know, as you mentioned, not very congruent with like publishing a book about a rock band. I mean, you know, you know, it’s not very, it’s not very sensible in some ways, and there’s this sense, like when you quit on stuff, like, you know, there’s a sort of a belief I can do this, but there’s a, also this sort of sense that, you know, you should know, like, okay, this is, you’re basically, you’re throwing good money after bad, or it’s, you know, it’s, it’s, you, you know, it’s some cost you just, you know, move on whatever the, how we wanna say it.
GR:
And, you know, I just I saw that in the Van Halen band, actually, those guys never gave up and always thought they had the, they had something special that people were eventually gonna appreciate and sort of, you know, for me, it was just, you know, I just kept kept at this thing. And eventually I got to the point where I said, you know what, it’s, I’m too far into this thing and I will not be able to live with myself if I don’t finish the book.
JW:
That is awesome. So I guess maybe on your syllabus, you have is required reading Van Halen, rising the success story of an immigrant family in the world of promise. Anyway,
GR:
I never assign it to my students. That’s so funny. Yeah, I never did. I never did.
JW:
Come on. You’re supposed to Greg, this is, don’t take this wrong. Take a David Lee Roth message. Right? Self-promotion the best kind. I’m just taking brother. One of the things too I wanna visit with you about is, is, is you’ve written, you’ve written book of Ted Templeman and Ted Templeman is one of the greatest ears. I’m gonna say it that way. One of the greatest ears in minds of rock and roll from, gosh Duby brothers, man, Michael McDonald, the van Haen this, guy’s got his thumbprint on so many great bands that I’m 57 next, next few days here in this few days. And I’ve listened to these great groups growing up as a kid in Midwestern United States, man here in small town, America, Oklahoma, and this guy, this book you’ve written is outstanding. I know this is Ted’s book, but you did all the work on this book. Right?
GR:
I did. I did the typing in a little bit more, but yeah, Ted told the stories. I mean, Ted, we talked Ted and I talked, so yeah, I’ll talk about Ted Templeman. You know, Ted Templeman was a gentleman who I met through doing the Van Halen book. I was fortunate enough to be able to interview him from my van Hain book. And as you mentioned, Ted is won Grammy awards and it was you know, in the 1970s and 1980s was one of the most in demand and, and best known producers record producers when there was really a record industry where you, you would have these big record companies and a big budgets to do these albums. And you know, I got to know him and I, you know, I really was interested in Ted story as well after we started to talk about it.
GR:
When I’ll tell you a little bit about Ted Ted grew up in Santa Cruz, California. He was actually named after his uncle who was on a ship called the USS Houston for world war II B the USS Houston was sunk in the Pacific in early 1942. And there was basically no contact with the Navy when the ship went down. And for the longest time Ted’s family didn’t know if his uncle had been killed, captured was, was, you know, lost on an island or whatever. And you know, and that was sort of, you know, when Ted sort of telling these stories about growing up in Santa Cruz or war two, and his uncle comes back from a P O w camp. And there’s sort of that, that whole thing where Ted has this, this relationship with his uncle, and it really encouraged up a mentor for him as well, who had been through this horrific experience of being a person of the Japanese and, and Ted as a musician ends up forming a little pop group and they ended up getting signed to Warner brothers records.
GR:
And Warner brothers is the, is the company that Ted have a work for, for decades. But they were called Harper’s bizarre. And you know, Tets telling me these stories and, you know, the Harper’s bizarre band was kind of like a, the association light light, like sunny and share kind of a light soft pop sound. And they did really, really well. They were on the, you know Mike Douglas show, they were on with Bob hope. They did skits with George Burns. They did a skit with Muhammad Ali Lee. I mean, they were on television quite quite a bit. And so Ted had this whole chapter of his life as a pop star before he became a a producer. And I, I, you know, that was me. That was a real intriguing thing is it’s easy to put people into a box to be like, oh, well, this guy’s a record producer.
GR:
What, you know, okay, that’s great. You can talk about albums. But when I talk to him about his whole life journey, his childhood, and about this transition from being a guy who was on television all the time, your band kind of gets played out and suddenly you’re kind of like, oh, your old hat in terms of your, as a performer and Ted had to reinvent and how that he had to basically, you know, start at the very bottom of Warner brothers, you know, very, very bottom. He was started as a, you know, so this is a guy who ended up selling millions, probably close to a hundred million records as a producer. He started out with the first job he got at Warner brothers was, was called. It was a tape listener, which is basically like entry level, like mail rooms, everything it’s like, here’s, you know, what, $40 a week or whatever it was.
GR:
Here’s a box of tapes that people have sent in, listen to it and see what you think. And he ended up hearing a tape sent down from San, San Jose by a Dan called the duke brothers. Ted heard that. And again, Ted had been a musician, you know, obviously, and Ted had been involved in making records before. So Ted had a awareness of what might sound like. And he heard the dubbi brothers early songs on a demo tape. And he, he told us, you know, basically told his bosses. I think there’s something here and ended, ended up signing the do brothers. And that was what kind of launched Ted’s career through dubbi brothers that went on to do course Michael McDonald, and then Ted would sign van hill. And he worked with Carly Simon, little feet be and mid, I mean, there’s a whole host of things.
GR:
So Ted had, you know, a great inspirational story too, of sort of like, you know, saying like, I, you know, to me, like he said, I thought I was gonna quit at one point and go work at a bookstore. Cause I was like, this is I’m serious. He, you know, he was he was a, his, he was a history major and said like, you know what, it’s not gonna happen for me. I did my thing in music. That’s great, but I’m just gonna go, he has family. And he’s like, I’m just gonna go worked at the bookstore, but he stuck with it. And you lo and behold, you heard that, that tape by the juvie brothers and was able to get those guys auditioned and the rest is history.
JW:
So he was the precursor to the, what came out of the seventies, I guess, and maybe eighties of the a and R man, you know, you got, got, listen, all he’s trying to do is seek out talent, you know, C sounds right. Who’s unique. Let, let’s talk a little bit about, so his first album recorded with van Haen was the self-titled album, van Haer. Correct. And some of the stuff I noticed even back then, so I’m a young guy, keep in mind. I was almost 13 Greg. And so I listened with headphones on, cause I’m trying to figure out what is this guy doing on the guitar? You know, I, I had a pretty good ear to pick up stuff, but he’s doing some stuff. That’s just what at a whack. First of all, I said, he sounds flat like his, well, then I find out as later, get older and study, well, they tune down a half step, use a lot of open chords for Dave to hit those notes.
JW:
Right, right. And you know, so at the end of the day, I wanted to let you know I’m listing and all of a sudden in those songs, he’s, Ted’s moving it from the right to left ear of Ed’s guitar. Be on one side rhythm section, know a and Michael be on one side, vocals will be coming through the midstream. And I’m like, man, that’s cool. Who would’ve thought of that? He’s a guy was so smart. He was innovative in my opinion. So, so tell me a little bit about what’s what Ted gave you the most. Intriguer what, what was one story you can share with our listeners about, Hey, this, this really epitomizes Ted?
GR:
Well, I dunno if this one epitomizes Ted, but this is probably the most remarkable story he told me. He told me a lot of amazing stories. So in 1969 Ted’s band play the gig in Los Angeles and they were gonna fly back. They were gonna fly to San Francisco and then drive to Santa Cruz. So it was, this was sort of the very tail end of his career as a pop star. The band is really kind of winding down. And so it wasn’t like they were on a big tour. They just had some weekend dates. They would play. And they got on a plane in Los Angeles. And when the plane got up in the air, a gentleman in an army to jacket in the back of the plane, stood up and pulled a rifle out of a, a fishing case, like a fishing pole case and said, I’m hijacking the plane.
GR:
Basically I have a grenade and I wanna fly the plane. I wanna fly the plane to New York. And so Ted, you know, this guy’s just like a red eye and they’re like barely awake and they look up and this guy’s, you know, he’s got the, he’s got this rifle and horrifying for those guys. And so Ted said that the, the pilot, you know, eventually they got the, the guy went to the book cockpit with the flight attendant with a woman flight attendant, walked her all the way to the front of the plane, with the gun in her back. And the guy went the cockpit and, you know, Ted said, they heard the plane, the engine of the plane change, like kind of powering down. And Ted was like, is it man, we, you know, he’s killed the play. Maybe he’s killed the pilot or whatever.
GR:
We didn’t know what had happened. And the, the pilot said, well, drinks are on the house. He wants us to, you know, our, our friend here or whatever. He said, you know, Mr. Whatever wants to fly house us to fly to. I don’t remember New York city, I think, but we don’t have enough fuel. So I’m gonna try to convince some that we shouldn’t do that. But here we go, drinks are around the house. And Ted said, you know, this was, this was a real, a real like life changing thing for Ted Templeman. And luckily you know, nobody ended up getting killed on this whole, this whole H you, no one got killed in the plane. Ended up landing in Denver to get fuel and they let the, the gentleman let the passengers off. I think he kept a few of the crew on the plane, the pilot, the co-pilot, maybe the navigator, but, and left you know, one of the, one of the flight attendants.
GR:
Wow. But yeah, when Ted told me that story, man, I faced for him like white, I’m sure he was done the story. And so that, you know, this was the era of hijackings and sure, sure. Ted Ted said that this was the, you know, this was the, the thing that sort of like was his posttraumatic, you know, a lot of guys from Vietnam and stuff like that. Ted did had a medical thing. He didn’t go to Vietnam, but he said like, this was the thing that he’s lived with the rest of his life. Was that sort of horror of that experience because you, he said when the plane turned and the engine powered down, the pilot was basically getting ready to re to basically change course. But Ted thought like, this is it. Like the guy is like, wow, whatever the pilot’s dead and the Penny’s gonna go nose down into the ground.
GR:
And so yeah, I mean, that was just, you know, that was just one of the, the, the stories Ted met. Frank Frank Sinatra is another great story. I mean, he got to tell me that he got to meet Frank Sinatra, watch Frank Sinatra sing, saw Elvis sing in the studio. You mentioned that he saw Elvis sing in Hollywood in the studio and got to talk to him and meet Elvis. And so that was before Ted was a, a, a big producer. This was sort of at that end of his pop career to the beginning of that. But real quick story about the Sinatra story, which was that Ted was standing in the lobby of a studio in Hollywood. One of the big studios called Western recorders. And he was, he was, had been singing for his album and then a car pulled up and a gentleman came in and it was Frank Sinatra. So this was about 19 66, 67. So Ted was just, Ted had wasn’t even hadn’t even made a record date. It was his first recording as a recording through, he was like 23 years old. And so Ted said, he was just like scar and Frank Sinatra. And so like, Frank Sinatra were like lights, a cigarette or whatever. He’s standing there. And he is like wearing a suit and his, you know, has his hat in his hand. He’s like, Hey kid, Hey kid, how, how you like my shoes? I just bought him.
GR:
And Ted said, they look great. Miss Mr. Sinatra, they look great. He goes, thanks, kid. You know, like that, like, that was his, like, you know, but he said, it was like amazing, like to be like, you know, they were the only two in this. Basically his driver was parked in the car or whatever. And like, you know, he was like gonna come in right after him or whatever, like, you know, and the guy then the driver came in and they walked in together. But like, like that two minutes alone with Sinatra. Amazing
JW:
There another awesome story,
GR:
Man. Right? So not, you like probably saw the guy, what they saying, like, just try, do, like, you know, make him relax a kid. What do you think about my shoes? You
JW:
Know, so
GR:
Up
JW:
Looked great. Yeah. You bring up something for Ted. You, you just don’t know where you’re gonna be when you run across people, man. Yeah. You know, things happen. And that story, I mean, I imagine back then keep in mind that was at the top probably of Frank’s career. I mean, he’s at the height of it. He’s got Vegas under his thumb, the rat packs going big. He’s doing movies. I mean, he’s, he’s a superstar and he meets him and I got new shoes kid. Oh, wow.
GR:
And this is, so this is the this is the that’s life recording sessions. And Ted actually got to watch. So Ted was Ted like basically followed down the hallway and went one of the engineers and said, Hey, can I watch? And the, the guy was like, sit in the back, don’t talk, you know, don’t say anything, just sit in the back corner and basically say, got sit in the control room. And he got to watch Sinatra sing at the orchestra. You know, one take the whole nine yards where the back of the day, where there was no computer cut and pasting, it was like, Frank’s in the middle of the room. The orchestra’s all around him in the big studio room. And it’s like 1, 2, 3, 4, you know, that’s life. Yeah. Was the way it was done
JW:
Back back then there was no overdubs. I mean, man, all they did is they did eight track or they did back then that 24 that thinner, I’m trying to think of what it is, but they did that big, big magnetic tape and tried to get it all on there. That was the only way they could do it. Was cut. Physically cut. Yep. It’s crazy times. Well, well let ask you this Fran. So if, if you had any other career in the world besides a PhD in American history, besides being an author, what would that job be for Greg runoff?
GR:
Well it’s, it all comes full circle. There’s a couple of things. I, I would say probably I, you know, I really loved playing guitar like you and I could talk about that all day. I was a, as a teenager, but I was one of these unfortunate people who really, you know, my musical talent age just sort of just ran up against the wall at practice and practiced. And I kind of became like the best intermediate player in the world, you know? And I just sort like never, and I could never play like, like the guy, you know, the guys I could, you know, could, could do a little bit of blue stuff and kind of, you know fake it a little bit. But you know, probably I wish I’d been like sort of blessed with that musical gift to be able to stand up there and, and solo that probably would’ve been the you know, what I would’ve wanted to do.
GR:
I, you know, hence my obsession with music, that’s really sort of where I went. I became a historian of music or, or rock music and because I, yeah, I just, I loved it. You know, I played a couple bands in high school. We just kind of messed around, but I was never, I never good enough to really, and I knew that I was never good enough to kind of take it beyond that. But I’m always just amazed at anybody who can, you know, sit down in a piano and play a song by ear or just can pick up an instrument and just do things that sort of make your, you know, like you said, the hair stand up on your neck, whether it’s a saxophone or guitar or drums, whatever it is, it’s just, I’m always in awe of those people who can do that. Remember, although they remember all the sudden, like I can’t,
JW:
Well, I’m gonna mention something to you now. You can’t judge on this cuz live life by design. We have no judgment here, brother, everybody digs their own thing. Dudes are own thing, whatever, but here it goes, I am a big, big fan of our artistry. So I put ed, I put ed in that artist column, I’d put Dave and I’m just talking here. It’s just Jimmy. I’d put Dave in the entertainment column. I don’t, I don’t know that his skills rise to what I’m gonna call as an artist, but he is a great singer, great songwriter. And he plays good guitar. People don’t realize that maybe, but he does plays some heart does a little harmonica, but, but what I really like about Dave, he’s a show, right? But ed, nothing happened in Van Halen that ed didn’t plant the seed for the riff, the, the tune, the timing, you know, he and Al were really the backbone of the songs that came outta that band.
JW:
And so here’s my thing. I don’t want you to judge me on here. It goes, I’m a big, big fan. I probably have every recording. This guy has ever made. Kenny G you cannot tell me this guy, his talent on the sack is just to me. Incredible. So I go li John Cole, train’s a big, I’m a big fan of John Cole. Train’s early stuff. If you listen to the phrasings of some of the best guitarists in the world, especially jazz guitarists even B blues guitars, those guys emulate the phrasing of some of those great S players, man.
GR:
Yeah. Yeah. I think, I think I have a, I have, I have a friend here who’s, you know, much younger than a guitar player who is who was a very, a big van guy and is like, he loves Kenny G he’s. Mom loves Kenny G. And so he to do a lot growing up, but you’re right. I remember actually for those folks who know Eric Clapton, the guitarist with cream, and then of course the, all the great solo hits he had that he talked about saxophone players being an inspiration to him for his solo links. Sometimes he would listen to sax players and that would be something to help, help feed his, his creativity to hear something different. But yeah, I mean, I think that’s the thing. The, you know, there’s a lot of computerized music, obviously that’s being done more and more today, you know, it’s something, but there is something to be said for someone who just pick up an instrument and I don’t care what it is, a trumpet or, you know, a saxophone or a flute or a guitar or a bass, and just be able to play and just be able to have that interaction with the instrument and be able to enjoy that just for, in that moment, that performance, which is special.
JW:
You’re gonna laugh. I’ve listened to buddy guy, John Lee. I’m an old blue, I love blue stuff. Sure. anyone ever hears about me saying it? I, I love to go down and listen to blues on bill street. Memphis. We like to go down and do that stuff, but my point I’m making about this. I was listening to an album by John Lee. I mean, and keep in mind, this is an old guy old when I was a kid. I, you know, that guy could play four notes or maybe three notes of some you know, of something. And, and this sound is so sweet, man. It’s just the fingers. And the tone of that day, keep in mind, he didn’t have all the effects. It was great stuff. So, so let me ask you this a couple more questions real quick. What’s your daily routine look like for Greg runoff? I mean, man, you write books, you’re you do a lot of history study. You got a family what’s a day look like for you.
GR:
Well, first step is to get the kids up and out to school. And when they have school, we haven’t had a lot of school in case people have noticed it, you know, I’ve had a lot of homeschool, so there’s been a lot of, a lot of homeschooling over the last 18 months. But you know, what I, I, I took, we try to do is you know, is to, when I can just get to the computer as soon as I can, after eight 30 or nine o’clock and, and just start working if I’m gonna start writing something, working on the research for what I’m gonna write next. I mean, you know, obviously different types of writing requires different types of of work for, for me, you know the, the amount of time I put into the research is probably twice or three times what I would put into typing of chapter up, you know, and that’s the thing it’s like, you know, people would say, how do you put the books together?
GR:
You know? And it, it, to really be able to write the way I wanna write, which is to really try to have a very rich and dense descriptions and accounts and, and facts of what I’m trying to write about. It takes a lot of digging and a lot of thinking about how, how things line up. If you’re writing about a historical event, I mean, I try to work on building out my timeline, but then, you know, it’s just, it’s trying to get up and take a walk if you, if you sit and you work for a while to get up, and because I’ve really have fallen into that track where you just sort of sit law with computer and you sort of realize after about 30 minutes of that, when you go overtime, you’re like, I’m just sitting my wheels, you know?
GR:
And so that’s for me those are the things I really, really tried to do and then find the, the best times to work too. If I if you’d asked me 20 years ago, I would’ve been, I’m a night, you know, night WL. I used to stay up and you know, that, that that doesn’t really work for my lifestyle anymore. Cause cause unfortunately the the, the younger members of my household don’t exactly agree with that. That’s you know, they’re not gonna, they’re not gonna just decide to sleep in, unfortunately for for dad. So that’s yeah. That’s my basic yeah. For approach, but yeah. Try to keep after it and keep work
JW:
Done. So, so you’re always writing, always working. Tell me what the next book’s about. Not maybe the title, if you don’t have one, but what’s the next book about,
GR:
You know, I’m not really prepared to announce the next okay. Book, but I will tell you that you know, the having done the, the, the two books and the three book, but the two, particularly about rock music, it’s been really inspiring how, how much people have enjoyed them. And so, you know, what I’m trying to think about trying to do is maybe take a, take a little bit of a left turn with what I’m gonna do next. So, you know, when the time comes, I’m a historian, right? I’m gonna write something about history. And I’m definitely most interested in, in, in 20th century music. You know, I’m not sure I do another band bio per se, but I, I have some ideas about different events and different things that have happened around music and I’m I’m once I can kind of get this rolling a little bit more, as I said, things kind of got put on pause because of our pandemic lifestyle and but you know, get back after it and get something out for people. I really am appreciative people enjoy the book so much.
JW:
Well, let me ask you a quick question, then what’s been the most fulfilling event, Greg, in your life to this point, most fulfilling for you?
GR:
Well, probably fatherhood, I think in a lot of ways, that’s probably it, but professionally. You know, I would just say that having the ability to meet people like you, I mean, I think the thing that’s really surprising to me that I hadn’t thought about when I said out to write this book, cuz I had, as I said, I didn’t really have a big grand agenda when I started it, is that, you know, you can make a ton of friends from just doing something creative. I don’t care if you’re a painter or a poet or you, you cook whatever it is. I mean, you can make, you know, the human connections to me. I, you know, I I’m spending amazing. I’ve got to meet people that I never ever would’ve dreamed. I would’ve been able to meet. I don’t just meet famous people, but I mean, people like across the world who I can, you know, who have like read my book and like that I will talk to on Facebook or something like that, or you know, that ability to, to affect people in that way and to have that sort of wonderful experience to someone writing to you and say, I really liked your book and then getting to know them.
GR:
And I’ve, I’ve had, I have now very close friends that I I’ve I’ve made through writing this, the book that I never never would’ve met and then the other there’s no other way I would’ve ever met them. And so that’s really been the most satisfying aspect of this. It’s just the, the personal relationships. And again, you know, obviously it’s, it’s fun to be able to, to talk about the band I love or talk to people about music, but you know, that’s the, the end of the day, that’s really the, the thing I’ve made. You know, I’ve made a ton of great friendships and built these great relationships with people, just from them reading and, and having that ability to want to reach out to me through the book. You know, basically they’re not gonna write to you randomly on Facebook, but they’re like, Hey, read your book. I liked your book and you get to know them.
JW:
That is inspiring. And, and that’s one of the things I love about your story, Greg, is that you’re in my backyard literally with your address and I’d never met you until just a few weeks or months or ago. And it’s because of the like likelihood that we have something in common and this is what we have called community. Right. We find things we have in common with others, go out and just shake a hand and definitely have a cup of coffee. And, and so let me ask you a couple more questions. I’m gonna let you get on with your busy day. What’s the next phase of your career look like?
GR:
Oh yeah, we all have a, we have ambitions and ideas. I, I tell you, I, I just would really like to as I mentioned, get that next book going and out and you know, I, I, I have I’ve really, really enjoyed writing a lot more than I actually think. I probably thought I would when I started being a historian. I mean, I think for me initially I loved to teach. I really enjoy teaching, but I think when I first got into the, the idea of being a, a teach, you know, going to a grad school, I thought of it as being a teacher and then sort of the ability to, to write and research sort of grew and grew and grew and grew. And so, you know and again, just to roll back to what we just, we just talked about.
GR:
I mean, to think for me, it’s the, the satisfaction of, of people telling me, I didn’t know that, or I had no idea about this and you not necessarily that all my interpretations are right. Or they agree with everything I write about, but basically they’re like, I, you know, this got me really excited. I’m gonna go listen to this music. Or I didn’t really know about this, this concert that happened or this, this event that happened. And for people to get excited about learning about history, you know, that for is, is super inspiring. And so you know, I, I just wanna be able to write another great book that people can really, you know, again, whether it’s about you know, something that really isn’t locked in with history music, or it is very locked in. It doesn’t matter in some sort of ways, you know, it’s, for me, it’s just the excitement of people saying that, that I learned something and I enjoyed re about something that I had no idea about.
JW:
Is there maybe a biography in your background that says the young boy from the Bronx to Oxford, Mississippi, I mean a traveling boy,
GR:
That would be easier. I be an easier and easier book to write than some of the other ones sit down.
JW:
Well, I know the man that has all the research right up here right up in his head. So, so last thing like to ask for our audience here real quick if you could give, and we always like to do this when we have wonderful guests, like yourself has such a very robust background, and it’s got a lot of details in there in your head. What one piece of advice would you give our listeners on 57 countries? What, what’s one statement of advice you’d give ’em about in full following your dream leadership legacy, whatever you would give them, what would that be?
GR:
If you have a passion to do something creative you know, a lot of people and may, may have a profession that may not lend itself to creativity. If you have something that is burning inside, you just find the time to do it. I, I would say that especially even today with like, I’ll give an example just self-publishing it is, you know, you don’t need to have a press to be able to get your book out. You know, if you have a novel you’ve always wanted to write, there’s really no reason not to write the novel. You know, again, maybe, maybe you don’t sell a million copies of your novel. Maybe you do sell a million copies of your novel, but you can sell published to Amazon. It’d be available to everyone in all 57 countries of the world. People could click on that, pay their 99 cents or 5 99 and read your book.
GR:
And you know, the, basically the, the barriers to entrance are, you know, I I’ve dropped in a lot of ways, music, you know, if you want to write songs, get your music up on YouTube. You wanna do poetry, you know, your post, you know, post your poems. I just think that for me, there were a lot of things that I could have told myself that, oh, I shouldn’t do this book about Van Halen. I know it’s not really fit with what I do as a teacher. And this is, this is something that’s gonna just distract me away from my academic career, so to speak, but it ended up taking me in a whole different life direction. And as I said, it’s just, it was something that I eventually got to the place where I realized I had to write this book. I just had to you know, it was almost like my, my Moby Dick thing. It’s like your white whale. You have to pursue this thing cuz it’s making you driven to do it. So, and that’s what I would say to people is that we, for all the problems that we have on our world today, the barriers to entry to getting your creative expression out there are very, very low now and you can do it and just it it’ll, I promise that it’ll it’ll benefit you in the long run if you do that.
JW:
Oh man. That is great advice, Greg. It has been an honor. Her to have you here. I could sit here and talk to you for two or three hours, my friend, but I want you to know, I appreciate and respect your time. Great stuff. I, I just appreciate all you’ve done would like to, if you would allow us gonna put in our show notes, you can contact Greg on his social media. We’ll have that in the show notes for you as well as how you can purchase his books. The, they are on Amazon as well as directly through Greg. We will get all of that there for you and you will get, if you order ’em direct from Greg, you will get an autographed copy. And he was so kind to me in my autograph copy to repeat one of the lyrics of one of my favorite favorite songs it’s kind of a little outtake Ted and Dave had a little play of slogans. If you will, during the middle of everybody wants some, one of the greatest songs they’ve written, in my opinion, it was a good one. Thank you for that, Ted. You you’ve been pleasure, Mike, listen love to have you back on the future. Let’s get the next book done. We’d love to have you back on.
GR:
Hey, my pleasure. Anytime. It was a real, real fun time. Thank you Jimmy, for having me on.
JW:
Thank you, sir. What a great opportunity to learn from one of the most prolific writers that I have come across in a long time when it comes to biographical writing, historical writing Greg is an outstanding, outstanding author, just a, a wonderful human being. The show notes are gonna contain all the information you need to order one of Greg’s books. It it’d be an honor and a privilege. He will autograph those, as I said earlier, and make those personalized for you, encourage you to do that. So my challenge to you this week is you heard Greg say, what’s the one P piece of advice he would give you my challenge this week is identify what it is that you’ve been postponing, what it is that you’ve just been putting off. That is your passion for life. If it’s something you’re passionate about, I agree with Greg a hundred percent dive in with both feet, go out, enjoy life on your terms. That’s what we’re all all about here at Live a Life By Design. And if you’ll join us again next week, I’m certain we’ll be here to help you live a bigger, better, and bolder life.
