Mark Kendall, Great White’s frontman, traces his band’s rise—from playing free shows to touring with legends like Van Halen and Black Sabbath—thanks to persistence and early industry connections like manager Alan Niven. He contrasts 80s-era music culture, where fans physically engaged with albums, with today’s digital landscape, noting lost human connection but greater artist control. Despite past struggles with alcohol addiction and physical injuries from guitar and pool, Kendall embraces fitness routines and dismisses criticism as irrelevant, valuing authenticity over recycled acts. His journey underscores how raw talent, relentless work ethic, and adapting to industry shifts define success in music and performance. [Automatically generated summary]
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All right.
Mark Kendall from Great White is here and we're fixing to get busy.
For folks who don't know, ten ball or nine ball, either one of them, they're rotation games, which means you play the one ball first, and then you go to the two, to the three, and then to win, you get the ten ball in.
But to win with a handicap, you could give a guy another game.
If some guy is breaking like God and getting shape on the one and all this stuff, you know, and another guy is a dry breaker, but he plays like God too.
the key Guarantee the guy that's, the breaker is going to destroy the guy.
Well, one of the things that I wanted to talk to you about, because you're such a really good pool player, is there's something involved in trying to get really good at pool or really good at anything that requires an incredible amount of time where it's like the level of commitment that you have to have To get really good at that.
I guess it's got to be kind of similar to guitar playing in a way, like the amount of practice that you have to put in, the level, and that there's just levels and levels and levels to this stuff.
I mean, I've always gone back to the guitar because my family was, there's just so much music in my family.
My grandpa was a touring piano player.
My Dad is a jazz trumpet player.
My mom sang music in the house all the time.
But at the same time, I still played baseball from the time I was 8 until I was 18. And my dad's dream for me was to not be the big star musician because he just thought there was no chance at that.
I mean, you know, I was a really good pitcher probably when I was like in Pony League.
I was kind of known as one of the top pitchers.
My arm started hurting when I was around 17, like after three innings.
I would call...
Have my dad come out and take me out.
You know, usually the guy comes out and says, oh, how are you feeling?
And all that kind of stuff.
No, I didn't wait for all that.
I told him, you know, put me on first, my arm's hurting again.
I threw curveballs when I was like 11 years old and everybody said, oh God, he's going to throw his elbow out.
That never happened.
What happened was from fastballs, my arm got kind of jacked, you know?
So after three innings, it was hurting.
Not to mention, you have to be such a standout player to get scouted by some, you know, by pro, you know, scouts.
Yeah.
I had two guys on my own team when I was, you know, this is 16, 17, 18 year olds.
Two guys on my own team hit more home runs than me, ran faster, threw harder.
You know what I mean?
So my chances, and I even told my dad this when I made the decision, I'm going full time music and, you know, kind of say la vida baseball is I have zero chance to make it in baseball.
I could have played maybe a different position, but I really wasn't...
I didn't have enough power to, I think, who's going to skip over the two guys that are better than me on my team to go to man number three and let's sign him because he's just cool or something.
Well, I'm fascinated by strength and conditioning programs now.
I mean, it's one of the things, being a mixed martial arts commentator and getting to see the improvement that some fighters have had by incorporating strength and conditioning programs and getting to see, like, how scientific they've become and how...
I mean, the different things that they work on.
Like, I watched a video last night with Phil Davis, who's one of the top UFC light heavyweights.
It was this balance exercise where he's balancing on one foot that's on a roller and they're throwing a ball at him and he's catching it with one hand and throwing it back while he's balancing.
You would think, what is this?
What are they doing?
They're working on foot strength and stability and balance and movement.
There's so much science involved in strength and conditioning and getting better at athletics now.
There's a Maybe, you know, when I hear you speak, maybe there would be a chance for me to improve if I really got into, you know, working out and stuff.
You know, the singer that's been in my band for like four years now, his name's Terry Alouse and...
He's been in martial arts for like 27 years or something.
I hear your commercials about the different supplements and Well, I don't know if we have anything that would really help nerves, but I definitely think that exercise does.
Yeah, it's easy to be addicted to bad things, but being addicted to something good is something that's really difficult to force your discipline, force your body to go.
I'm going to be addicted to drinking fresh squeezed juices, vegetable juices every morning, and then taking a yoga class every day.
And I was able to get away from that and, you know, kind of do other things and, you know, help people that are struggling and just, you In more positive areas, but...
Do you find that, like, I've met a lot of people that are really great at things and really impulsive and really, you know, just the type of people that throw themselves in it the way that you describe.
I'm sure you must have had to do that to get so good at guitar, and I'm sure you did that to get really good at pool, but do you find that that's sort of like a part of your mind that can kind of get...
Sidetracked and fucked with a drug.
And then that becomes the thing that you become impulsive about.
Well, that's why they say, they call it, somebody that gets really addicted to a drug, wasted talent.
Because they're so good at something and they're letting this drug of choice or whatever ruin this blessing that they've received That makes them great at something.
And I was lucky to be able to get away from it.
But as far as the guitar goes, I've played since I was nine years old.
It's just I did other things too.
But when I was about 15...
I was pretty obsessed with it.
I would go to the liquor store literally with it strapped around me.
I've learned from a lot of people, just friends of mine, hey man, show me that, you know, or whatever.
But as far as a true sit down, pay the guy, you know, okay, show me how to play or whatever.
It was this guy who was in this like surf band when I was like probably 10 or 11. And he was teaching me like Tom Dooley and, you know, the stuff I didn't want to really be.
You know, kind of like Jimmy Crackorn and I Don't Care type of stuff, you know what I mean?
But I guess, you know, you have to learn that kind of stuff.
But I just, I was just uninterested.
I want, I... Probably, you know, when I tell kids that are coming up now, I say, you know, it's great if you've got a good ear because you're like halfway there.
If you learn how to read and you know all the theory and everything, plus you have the great ear, you're going to have it up on just about everybody, you know.
Those are the guys.
But to have that natural...
I don't know, I have a natural feel for music.
And those are the people that inspired me to play are...
You know, guitar players that just play from the heart, they play notes because it's how they breathe.
It's how they feel.
It's coming out of the pores of their skin.
It's from the heart, the soul, whatever you want to call it.
But those are the guys that made me want to play.
I mean, Billy Gibbons doesn't bend notes the way he does because it's said it on a piece of paper somewhere.
You know what I mean?
So it's something you feel, and I've...
Been fairly good at that feeling, you know, notes and stuff.
And people have, you know, made comments about the way I play and stuff.
But it's just, you know, it's kind of the gifts from the, like I said, from my parents and my grandpa and everybody.
I think there's definitely some just born talent that some people have.
It's just a matter of whether or not they pursue it.
And there's also that thing that we were saying, the negative aspect of it, is that same sort of personality trait that gets you to be able to sit down and really explore music for hours and hours at a time, which is what it takes to be a great guitarist, Manifests itself in addiction and manifests that same sort of just throwing yourself at something and being completely engulfed in it for whatever reason a lot of times manifests itself
in either alcoholism or drug addiction or what have you.
I really don't think the music has that much to do with it, but I think a trigger for, you know, like say a recovering addict or whatever, he's out on the road, he's in this band, he has all this pressure from...
Everybody telling him how great he is and everything because that can become pressure.
When people are telling you you're the greatest band on earth and you're the best guitar player in the world and all this stuff, you kind of just don't want to take it serious and it can drive you crazy and I think that causes some people to numb themselves to reality.
You know, it's mind-blowing that somebody fights their whole life to get somewhere and they get there and die out of a heroin overdose.
Yeah.
I don't know what the analogy would be, but that was just one of my thoughts, is that it could be that the pressure of just being in the music world and stuff and having all this going on, because it seems as if it happened like that.
Even though you've been grinding in the clubs for years and years, It's like all of a sudden you're in an arena setting.
You've got cameras all around, microphones, people coming up to you.
I'm just making a guess at this.
I don't know what you think.
Why people kill themselves with drugs.
Maybe it has nothing at all to do with that.
Maybe they're just addicts.
You could strip away all the music and they're going to die of a heroin overdose anyways.
I personally think that the environment of celebrity on that level, to be in a band like Great White, fucking gigantic, huge arena band, and you're fucking on every magazine, and you're on the radio every day, that pressure, the kind of pressure and recognition is totally alien for a human being.
I mean, the only people that ever got that kind of attention in the past were kings.
I mean, even the leaders of tribes.
They just never got that kind of attention.
I just think it's completely alien to the human race and didn't exist until mass media was invented.
Until the beginning of the 20th century when they figured out how to broadcast things in movies and in songs and records and then music videos and what have you.
That is not a part of human history.
It's not normal.
It may be normal to be the center of attention in a small group or even a large group.
But those people know you and you're talking in front of them.
If you're speaking in front of a group of people that want to hear your opinion on things or if you're a leader, those are all normal things.
But to be on a fucking stage playing guitar and 20,000 people are going, wah!
A very shy person, I've kind of worked on that over the years, but, you know, actually to go out in front of 300,000, which has happened a few times...
I mean, I've never done anything with 300,000 people, but one of the things that will make you nervous more than anything is going on stage in front of two folks.
The thing about negative people, and this is a really important point, is sometimes they have a point and you can learn from them.
Sometimes negative people say things that you don't want to hear, you don't like it, but then you read it and you go, ooh, there's something there, there's something there, this is a point there.
You could use them, but for them, God.
Being that person is so damaging to you, to them, to the person who's being negative.
Like, you could talk shit about a person, me, or talk shit about you all day long, but it doesn't change the fact that you're still Mark Kendall.
I know.
You're still who you are.
You're still this badass fucking guitarist.
They can't change who you are by saying something mean.
But what they do do is they change their very essence, their very energy that they're spreading out to the universe.
What they're putting out to all the people around them, to the people that come in contact with what they're projecting.
They're just putting out shit.
And that's a good percentage of people.
If you read their blogs, if you go to their Twitter pages, if you listen to their, you know, if someone has a negative radio show or a podcast or whatever, what you're hearing is just all this fucking horrible stuff.
Look, I have read things that are very negative about me that may be totally unjust, but I could say, is it possible that someone else could think like this, and could it be like, does it make sense that they could think like this?
And if that's the case, if it's defensible, then I should probably work on whatever aspect of my own personality that's causing this opening to be there.
Sort of like in a martial arts standpoint.
If you're a bad motherfucker in jiu-jitsu, like say if you're really good at jiu-jitsu and you've got a great arm drag and you're great at taking people's back and you choke people on a regular basis, but if someone gets your back, you've got no defense and you tap out really quick, you need to work on that.
That's something that you need to figure out.
Why do I tap when someone gets my back?
That's real.
That's a real thing.
That analogy, I think, presents itself in the martial arts analogy, presents itself when you're dealing with a lot of different people that are critiquing your work or a lot of different people that are putting things out there.
And they can fuck with you.
I have a friend.
I'm not going to name names, but he's a fighter.
And he and his wife, they had a huge problem because he was, like, there was negative, someone saying negative things about him and her on Twitter or on Facebook or I forget where it was.
But they were just, you know, just being an asshole, just saying really mean, nasty stuff about him and his wife.
The way they look and the way she looks.
It was devastating to them, to the both of them.
And you would think, here's a guy who's a fucking cage fighter.
He's fighting professionally.
He's really a bad motherfucker.
But the words of some 13-year-old kid, waking him up in the middle of the night, you fucking shithead!
I've been down this road with haters, not people that are just slightly negative or whatever, but Just people that just, all they do is go say, you suck, or whatever.
That's what they do.
Those people, and I've even, as a band, we've talked about it, don't give them any energy whatsoever.
And the Comedy Store, the problem with the Comedy Store is the benefit of the Comedy Store.
And that's that the insane people are running the asylum.
It's all patience.
It's all the comedians run the place.
The doormen are all comedians.
The guy working the cover booth is a comedian.
I'm not bullshitting.
Everybody, the guys that seat people, they're comedians, and then the comics also go on stage.
The only thing that's not a comedian is the guy that books the room.
So, I mean, it's...
There's no crowd control, like none.
So when you would go on stage there, and you're also dealing with Sunset, Hollywood, you're dealing with a lot of people also that they have aspirations that are unrealized.
They want to be famous, they want to be an actor, they want to be a musician, they want to be something.
And here they are sitting in the audience looking for something wrong with you.
Or needing attention that they're not getting.
Like a lot of those people are fucking black holes of attention.
You could stuff them full of trash and meteors and everything.
They're never going to fill that fucking hole.
It's impossible.
And so they sit in the audience and the guys on stage, they don't even know why.
They're just compelled to interrupt.
They're compelled to yell out.
Most clubs, like say if you work at a real nice club like...
Say like the Improv on Melrose, which is a very nice comedy club.
They fucking kick people out right away when you do that.
If you're in one of those black holes that just sucks and you just want attention, they'll touch you on the shoulder.
It was actually in his bio, and it was someone else talking about the show, where he was going out, he was a cockroach, and he's trying to climb under the piano, and...
Doing this crazy, you know, like body contortion stuff, you know, and just kind of winging it because that's where he kind of felt comfortable.
He didn't want to become like the rich little guy that was just going to go out and do these.
When I meet my heroes, I... You know, five years ago we did a show with ZZ Toppin and their tour manager used to be our tour manager and he'd go, you better hook me up with Billy Gibbons.
And that's what I was trying to explain to Billy Gibbons.
I go, you know, you've got to understand the memories you have created for me are like so incredibly important.
When I hear some of their songs, I go, the apartment's 15 years old, playing, waiting for the bus.
I have visuals from music.
A picture comes in my mind from hearing a song.
When a guy has that much influence on me, to meet him in person and have him be soulful down to earth and You know, he emailed me that night, and I didn't even get home.
I didn't get the email for two more days.
He was like, nice meeting you, you know.
And...
Then when ZZ Top played in Palm Desert, that's where I was living at the time, he goes, hey, come on down, Mark, bring your crew, and all this stuff.
Like, the guy knows me?
He remembered me?
I'm just, like, shocked.
But I get fans, you know, sometimes I don't feel, you know, worthy of some of the attention and stuff.
Do you find that that's something that some guys lose as they become professionals and as they become better in music and become a big-time music guy that they kind of stop being a fan of music?
You know, I can only kind of speak for myself on that.
I'm still friends with a lot of guitar players that didn't make it.
I was just one of the lucky ones.
I think part of the reason I was lucky is I tried to put myself in a position to get lucky, which is by playing more.
And believe it or not, it's Van Halen that influenced that on me.
They were playing more than everybody.
They played three blocks from my house in a backyard in El Monte.
I paid one dollar to get in.
The singer, Roth, was blowing a tube inside of this guy's drums.
I'm going, whoa, man, these guys are...
I thought they were great and everything.
They were playing cover songs, and they played a couple originals, I think.
But what I was more impressed by, at least at that time, was how often they played.
They played every single night.
And I go, we got to do that if we're going to have any chance, you know, because my thinking was if we play more than everybody, we might have to play free a lot, but if our name, you know, we might be able to brainwash people in thinking they're supposed to like us, you know what I mean?
And that's what happened, though.
It was that persistence.
It was that playing free, getting our name out.
We just happened to be at the Whiskey one night playing during the week, not even a big night or anything, and the right guy was in the crowd.
And he came up, gave us his card, and before you know it, we're recording.
We got airplay.
We don't even have a record deal.
I mean, our record deal was literally borrowing $15,000 from some guy named Fred.
Hey, Fred, you got $15,000?
Yeah, okay.
But we had a distribution deal.
So...
But this manager we had called Alan Niven, he was from England, he used to work for Virgin Records, he had signed Berlin, he signed Motley Crue, and a year before this, and then they would sell these bands off to big labels.
Well, he got us on KMET when we had no deal, and no local bands were on KMET and Kaila West with no deal.
It was just unheard of.
But that, I don't know what kind of connection he had to do.
But it's not really normal to have working cabinets all over the stage.
You have monitors and stuff like that.
Right.
What I was going to get to, it gave me chills almost, because I'm like you, Stranglehold, and being a teenager, and when that album came out and everything.
But the whole band went back to the hotel, and I'm on the side of the stage, and he goes, he's going, how about that Grey Wyatt?
How about that Grey Wyatt?
He's going, could you feel that rock and roll spirit?
He goes, they got that rock and roll spirit.
unidentified
And he goes, and I can feel that rock and roll spirit in the air, they're not here.
Well, I'm very fortunate, you know, that I can talk to all these different peoples.
It would be incredibly rare to be able to sit down and just have long-term, you know, long-form conversations, two, three-hour conversations with just a bunch of random people like that, you know?
Whether it's Steve Rinella or I've had David Lee Roth on or all these different characters and It's interesting to have a bunch of different people with various ideas.
Actually, you know, the past few years when I get a riff in my head, usually when I'm in writing mode like we're going to do a record soon or something, I used to not really be able to get that close to what was in there, but I've been able to kind of get closer these days.
And one thing that I've learned over the years, and that is when you have this energy and this thought and this Mm-hmm.
Mm-hmm.
The following day, you might not forget the riff, but it won't have the same energy.
The delivery will be way different.
It might not be the same rhythmical thing.
So it's best just to don't be lazy if you have this huge idea like at midnight or something.
Just grab your phone or grab something and put it on tape so you don't lose it.
When he became the one-liner master, literally all these jokes are constructed perfect.
He doesn't go one word off, but he does have to write the stuff.
But it's just an amazing story that the guy makes this huge comeback at 40 and literally has this monster career in movies and Supposedly, the story goes, when he was asked to do Caddyshack, they said action, and he didn't even know what the action meant.
And so he gave them that idea, and then they incorporated the two ideas, and, you know, back to school was brilliant, obviously, once he was a rich guy, you know what I mean?
You know, that's a perfect metaphor or whatever for wasted talent.
Because if somebody's really strong and kicking ass, I don't think it's a coincidence that the guy's doing a lot of blow now and his show is kind of going downhill.
Your attitude, like that attitude about performing, it's so important.
And it's so important because that attitude of gratitude, of respecting what you're doing and loving what you're doing and really being enthusiastic about the performance and wanting people to have a great time is everything.
Well, you're the only guy that can provide the Mark Kendall experience.
I mean, you are Mark Kendall.
If they want to go see you, you're the only guy that can do it.
I said that to my friend Ari once, and it stuck with me after I said it.
I'm like, wow, it's so true.
We were talking about...
comedy and performing, and he was just starting to build a following, and I said, dude, I go, if you're an Ari Shafir fan, and I'm an Ari Shafir fan, you're the only guy that can provide Ari Shafir.
Another guy might be able to steal your jokes, another guy might be able to try to mimic your delivery, but if I want to go see this crazy motherfucker named Ari Shafir, you're the only guy that can give that to people.
You're the only one out there that's Ari Shafir.
And he was like, wow, that's totally true.
I'm like, it's totally true.
It's your responsibility.
I have no responsibility as the keeper of the Ari Shaffir act, of the Ari Shaffir material, and you as a human.
You've got to go out there and you're the only one that can do it.
And people out there are fans and they want to go see it and you're the only one that can provide that.
And Ari does, but there's some comedians who don't.
Like, I've seen comedians go on stage and just completely phone it in and half-ass it, trying out new material, because they didn't care if the audience got a good show, because the audience should just be happy that they're there.
I can feel that with just about any entertain, you know, whether it be a comedian, a band.
I can tell when someone's going through the motions, and I know the fans can read that, too.
I never...
The way...
That we've, as a band, have eliminated going through the motions is allowing ourselves the freedom to make new music.
If I was just some oldies band, we would have probably been over 20 years ago, because I'm not going to go out and just play once a bit and twice shy once a year.
What is it, though, about it, what I was going to get to is because it's so completely different than a comedian.
Comedians have to have new material all the time.
The last thing anybody wants to hear, usually, for the most part, is an old bit.
Like, sometimes people will request, they, like, want to hear something again, you know, that's a classic, but they want...
At least 70% of it to be new.
They want almost as much new stuff.
A few classics thrown in is great, but the last thing you want to hear when you go see a comedian is the same act in the same order that you saw five years ago.
Well, yeah, if it was the same, I mean, even like majorly pro bands, I'm talking like, you know, well, you know, I mean, just any band, they go do a similar show every night on a certain tour.
Now, maybe they're not going to come back and give you that same look again next year, but...
But I've even, like, we did a tour with Kiss, and every night they were saying the same thing to the audience.
It was like, you know, cookie-cutter reaction, you know?
It's like, oh, and now he's going to say this, you know?
Really powerful in the sense that their live album, the one they did years and years and years ago, was the most...
Sought-after, best-selling, you know, and some of those things that he said in between the songs became very famous, you know, like the cool gen thing.
I'm happy to hear that because one thing, and I'm not going to take sides or do any kind of stuff, but I really feel bad You know, that they're not being given any credit from their former bandmates, you know, to just write them off as hired guns when they were part of...
I mean, that drummer, Peter Criss, wrote their biggest-selling, biggest hit of the band's career, on paper, at least.
You know, that's...
So to just call them hired grunts that were in our band a long time ago, I understand that they're bitter because of addiction problems and stuff like that, but you shouldn't throw your brothers under the bus.
I'm not going to sit here and speak for them, but I'm just saying I feel bad because when I was a young teenager...
Just about every one of my friends were playing air guitar to Ace Frehley.
Well, they were getting inducted into the Hall of Fame, and they were just basically saying that...
I'm not quoting anybody.
anybody i'm just saying that you know they were they wanted to just have their new guys you know the guys that have been in the band for a long time um be there or you know they in other words they didn't want the original guys up there playing with makeup on when these other guys in their band had makeup on right it was just gonna be a circus you know yeah oh we got two you know we got a two drummers with the same cat thing and you know
Ladies and gentlemen, this is the problem with having a podcast like this.
A lot of people don't have the kind of bladder control that I've developed over years and years of podcasting and working the UFC. I make a joke out of it because at the UFC, Mike Goldberg, my co-host, he hates when I talk about this, but tough shit.
The dude has to pee like six times every broadcast.
So I've developed the ability to maintain and to hold my bladder because I'm a big boy.
Because I know how to handle my coffee and my stimulants.
That's the problem, really, is when you start drinking shit like Red Bull.
That stuff fucks with your bladder.
I just announced today that I'm going to be in Philadelphia on October 17th.
October 17th, I'm at the Tower Theater.
And as of today, today is April 10th.
The pre-sale is going on right now, if you go to my Twitter page.
That's at Joe Rogan.
And also, this Friday night, I'm going to be at the Ice House in Pasadena, and it's one of the shows that Brian has put together, and I know there's some funny people that are going to be on it.
Christina Pazitsky is going to be on it.
Dave Taylor is going to be on it.
I don't know the full lineup, but I'm sure it'll be awesome.
That Ice House is one of the greatest places in the world to do stand-up.
And it's also the small room, too, which the small room is really a special room.
It's only about 80 seats total, so it sells out every time, pretty much.
And just one of the coolest places to perform and do stand-up.
Somebody sent me this on Twitter the other day, and I wanted to show it to you, Mark, as you've gotten back.
It's a picture of Jimi Hendrix when he was really young.
I had a lot of tapes in the Hoist Gracie days and stuff.
And one thing that blew my mind, because I've always been a boxing fan, And, you know, then I started watching this UFC stuff and I was like, whoa, man, these guys, it's so intense.
And it seemed like, well, at least back then, that the grapplers had...
I mean, that was the nuts.
If it went to the ground, you were done with Hoyce Gracie.
Bruce Lee was a real innovator and Bruce Lee is responsible for the idea behind his Jeet Kune Do, which was that you could take all the best aspects of all the different martial arts and combine them together.
So in a lot of senses, Bruce Lee was the original mixed martial arts fighter.
But he had very little competition experience and very little real fighting experience amongst elite fighters, like at the UFC level.
He was more of an actor, and he was a great martial artist.
It's not to diminish him in any way.
I mean, who knows?
If the UFC had been around when he was...
I mean, if he was born in this era, and the UFC was around while he was at the age that he would want to compete at, who knows?
He might have been in there, and he might have been a champion.
But the reality of the situation is, what he was was just a guy who was a great martial artist who was ahead of his time, and a true, true innovator.
But to say that a guy like Hennon Barrow, who's the UFC bantamweight champion, who would be the guy that he would compete against, to say that he wouldn't be able to catch Bruce Lee's...
If you took the Bruce Lee from the movies and the Hennenborough from the UFC, pulled him out of a time machine and stuck him into the octagon, Hennenborough would have his way with him.
I mean, he's just a completely...
Evolved, fully trained mixed martial arts fighter at the very highest level of every single aspect of the game.
It doesn't mean that Bruce Lee couldn't have reached that level as well.
I mean, he was amazing.
He watched some of the fight scenes.
There was no one in that time that was throwing kicks the way Bruce Lee was.
I'm a huge Chuck Norris fan, but if Chuck Norris had to fight the elite of the elite in mixed martial arts as well, I mean, he would have to be in that game and train in that game to get to that level, and then you would see.
But...
You can't know.
It's like saying, man, if Tom Cruise played professionally, God, he would beat everybody.
I really don't know why he wouldn't go pro, but he even said, I guess back then when he was like, I don't know, 17 or 18, that Tiger Woods was the best golfer, but he said that he could probably never compete on the PGA level.
And he said that he was saying that I'd not make a good touchdown.
Well, Tiger Woods is another perfect example of a guy who just completely driven, threw himself into this one discipline and just had a dad who was also completely obsessed by it.
I kind of have to agree with that because that's why I was so kind of happy that a guy like you, that's really busy in the business or whatever, knows about Poole.
You know, just like somebody away from Poole knows about it.
He knows what these guys go through and stuff, you know?
In fact, when I heard that he was kind of experiencing a little bit of a problem with the pills, I was going to reach out to him and he died before.
But I thought about it because...
He was doing an interview, and I watched it.
I watched an interview with Jose Perica on just some random site.
I was just not even looking for anything.
I just happened to see it.
I go, oh man, I want to see this.
And I saw his interview.
And he'd been sober.
He had some back stuff and he was taking narcotics for it and stuff like that.
You know, got kind of caught up in it.
But he said he hadn't been doing it for a long time.
He was doing well.
And I reach out to struggling addicts.
That's what I kind of do.
I just every once in a while just say, hey man, if anybody out there is struggling and wants to try to get sober, I'm available to be your sober friend.
That's very cool.
That's what I offer.
I just offer my friendship, support.
I have my own support group and stuff like that.
Anyways, I was going to do that to him.
Especially because I knew him anyways.
We weren't close friends or anything, but I steered him around when he was out here.
We kind of hung out a little bit.
I was really bummed that I was a little late on that.
But I didn't know, because he said he was not using and not taking the...
Well, having a person who's really good at deep tissue massage and sports massage and someone who really understands the connective tissue, you could relieve a lot of tension in your back.
It's such an important thing.
Yeah.
Huge amongst athletes.
Athletes go for deep tissue massage on a regular basis for that very reason, just because it offers relief.
It allows the muscles to heal more properly.
It allows more circulation in the area.
A lot of things they're doing now that are just incredible are One of them, there's this cryo thing they're doing where athletes will work out really hard and they step in this thing that uses liquid nitrogen to bring the temperature down like 150 below zero.
And they stand in it for like two minutes and then they get out and the incredible cold causes all your vessels to constrict And then, when you get out of it, everything dilates.
It's one of the number one things that people ignore when it comes to their diet is fresh, healthy vegetables.
Clean vegetables.
Eating cooked and uncooked, raw, you know, blended juices.
Just eating salads.
Just green leafy vegetables are so important for your body.
And it's something that we just don't get enough.
When you're talking about phytonutrients, you're talking about minerals, all the different things that you get from vegetables, they're one of the most important things that people are deficient from in their diet.
Being minerally deficient, being nutritionally deficient, a lot of it is because of a lack of green leafy vegetables, healthy vegetables, organic vegetables, and healthy proteins on top of that.
The best way also is to go to someone who can monitor your blood work.
Get your blood work done and find out.
You might say, the doctor might look at you like, hey, you're low in vitamin D. You're low in vitamin B12. You could use some C. Yeah, go to someone who's a real doctor, an expert in nutrition, an expert in vitamins, and someone who can actually do some blood work on you.
And then from there, go to a nutritionist.
There's a bunch of different...
There's a company that we use.
I forget the name of it because we just started using it.
They deliver healthy meals to your house pre-packaged.
They do it two or three times a week.
And you put them in the refrigerator and it's like super healthy organic foods and pre-made.
And then, you know, the thing is, though, if I do do it and I'll go off and I'll have like some Krispy Kreme donuts, I I feel like such shit physically.
I've done that before where I'll have McDonald's and just swear it off like I'll have a Big Mac or something and it's like I feel so bad and disgusting and I just want to throw up.
I feel so horrible like somebody kicked me in the stomach or something.
And then it's like I make myself forget about it and like, you know, four months later I'll have a Big Mac again.
One thing I've noticed, and I think it's because they do some kind of a different oil or something, but french fries from like McDonald's, Burger King, all these type places, has this taste, and I call it...
Kerosene mixed with dirt or something.
This aftertaste is so nasty.
And I don't know why more people aren't speaking about it.
Like, do you just eat these fries like they're good or something?
If you want to go off the diet, In-N-Out's the best way to do it because you could also get it protein style where you get a burger that's just on a lettuce, like the lettuce on the top.
I mean, most fast food is cooked in the unhealthiest oil.
Here's an article that was on ABC.com, and they're talking about most french fries served in U.S. restaurants are immersed in corn-based oil, usually considered the worst oil for human health, before they're fried.
Corn oil contains copious amounts of saturated fat known to contribute to heart disease.
This type of oil is also low in monosaturated fat, which most Americans need more of, and high in polyunsaturated fat, which is in two large quantities, can lower HDL, which is your good cholesterol, along with LDL, your bad cholesterol.
Yeah, and he was talking about all these ingredients in McDonald's that were really bad and not safe for human consumption, and so they changed a bunch of stuff.
I mean, I think that, look, there's a lot of things that people eat that they should be allowed to eat things that are unhealthy.
I mean, you should be allowed to go to Krispy Kreme Donuts.
When you're going to Krispy Kreme Donuts, if you think that it's healthy, you're a fucking idiot, right?
You know, I mean, if you think you're getting one of those cream-filled, delicious, sugar-coated monstrosities, if you think somehow or another that's good for you, you're a moron.
That's on you.
You're going there and not going to Whole Foods and getting fresh vegetables, but it should be able to exist because you should be able to go and get a donut if you want one.
There's nothing wrong with it.
It's just a matter of managing your health, a matter of managing the input.
What's coming in?
What's going out?
What are you doing for exercise?
What are you doing for health?
And then if you want on Sunday to throw a fucking ice cream sundae in the mix, Whatever.
I have so many good memories from that time because the music and the scene was so electric.
I played Guzzaris once and the guy painted a picture of me playing my guitar on the side of the building next to Huey Lewis and the News and Jim Morrison and Eddie Van Halen.
I have so many memories of not even playing there, just going to Hollywood.
That's sort of half the fun of the Rainbow is just being there and seeing all the freaks and all the cool people and all the people like, oh, there's that guy.
There's Lemmy from Motorhead.
There's all these strange characters and rockers and all these people that have been around Hollywood forever.
When I was a kid, it would literally be this much of an event.
It would last all day.
I'd go buy, like, Robin Trower's record, go to my friends, you know, we'd set up everything, man, get the speakers outside the window, and listen to this album over and over and over.
Now, kids download 300 songs in 20 minutes before they go to school or in their iPod or whatever.
And he makes so much sense to me because I went through all these things that he's talking about, which is playing with guys that don't really play that good and we're jamming in the garage and, you know, pissing off my parents and...
You know, and just going through that and improving from there and just getting better, you know, or whatever, instead of people just thrown together with their songs written by somebody else and all that, you know.
It's just the...
Some of the human element has been...
That's my only complaint.
And it's not really a complaint.
It's just...
I just prefer...
That people play music and not machines, you know what I mean?
There's still a lot of fucking morons out there when it comes to that kind of stuff.
But I think it's definitely a better time as far as putting the power in the hands of the artists and These people that are the normal cabal that were controlling the music industry, they've lost a lot of their power, right?
And being the artist, when you don't have your own representation and you just want to do anything to break out of this club scene, you want to be a big band on big tours.
And so they take bad deals.
A lot of bands have done that.
They've done...
They're successful with their album sales, but their business side of it is really horrid.
Well, it always starts off, nobody ever says, oh, we got an awesome deal right out of the gate, and we're very fortunate to be with an ethical record company.
No, it's just, you talk about the fucking scoundrels that signed you.
I mean, that's also, you think about a music company, how many people do they sign?
I mean, they might sign a hundred, and one of them might become Great White.
You know, there's a lot of failure involved on their end, too.
Yeah, but for a band that's successful, the reality behind it.
Did you ever read that piece that Courtney Love wrote on the music business?
She wrote a pretty incredible piece about explaining the expenses and how much it actually costs and what an artist actually gets paid and how much the studio gets paid and how they go about saying how much things are worth.
Were you bummed out when the whole Napster thing came along and people started downloading MP3s and it just almost immediately sort of took the wind out of the sails of records?
You know, I was bummed out even before that a little bit, but You know, I know me, like I talked about earlier, that I'm a fan of music, and I like to support the artists.
I go out and buy their albums, you know.
I want the artwork.
I want to know who wrote the songs.
I want to know where they recorded this album.
You know, I just think that's part of it, and it's what makes the world go round in music, is to support the artists.
So I go out and buy a ZZ Top CD, and, you know...
But when somebody comes up and goes, hey man, I just got you a new album.
I copied it from my friend.
It's like, well, thanks.
At least he's going to maybe give me some feedback.
And, you know, in the days when we were, you know, playing arenas every night, it's very difficult.
You know, the constructed meet and greets, we can only meet a few.
And you really can't go out and say, hey, you know, invite 20,000 people backstage for the party, you know.
But we've really taken advantage of being able to hear their stories, man.
I mean, I'm talking like stories that I don't remember.
I mean, you know, people doing my laundry and they gave me a ride here or, you know, they were in this certain place or this guy got married to this song or, you know, got laid because, you know, your song, this one or, you know what I mean?
I mean, if our music is involved in people's life like that, because I have, again, I can relate, because like I was saying earlier, I literally have visuals when I hear certain songs.
you know like I remember where I was how old I was what I was doing you know almost like the smell that was in the air practically you know and so when people come up and have a similar story about music that that my band was involved in it's like you have to feel like that's a pretty tall compliment you know to you know just be involved with that Absolutely.