Rhythms of Redemption: A Life in Tune with Hootie's Jim 'Soni' Sonefeld

Transcript

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Coming up on Better Place Project.

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The words and the music come sort of simultaneously this day, as I'm sitting on the edge of my bed and I'm singing Hold my Hand, basically as the chorus part.

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It's real simple, like the music I was listening to at the time, and it's probably another few months before I get an audition for this band called Hooting the Blowfish and they ask after the audition now mainly they're a cover band before I get an audition for this band called Hootie and the Blowfish and they asked after the audition now mainly they're a cover band but I know they want to write music.

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So that's the reason I'm auditioning is because I'd heard they're gonna write original music and that's what I'm doing.

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And after the session and we play a bunch of REM covers and all this late 80s and classic rock music and they're like well, do you have any original music?

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And I honestly like the only song I was proud of in that moment was the song I'd written recently called Hold my Hand.

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I said, well, I've got this thing and strummed it out and sang the lyrics and I think Darius sort of looks at me like, oh yeah, you're in the band.

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Hey, hey, I'm Steve Norris.

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Welcome to Better Place Project where each week we shine a light on amazing humans from every corner of the planet who are doing extraordinary things to help make the world a better place, including sharing their knowledge with us on how we can be living healthier, happier, more purposeful lives.

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Hey everybody, welcome to episode 191.

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And wow, does this one have it all?

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This week I've got none other than Hootie and the Blowfish drummer, jim Sonnefeld, on.

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And man, did we have a blast?

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And he's got.

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I'm telling you he has got some stories, but not just Hootie and the Blowfish rock and roll, you know, rock star stories, but life stories, stories that will inspire you.

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Life stories, stories that will inspire you.

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Jim Sony Sonnefeld has had a prolific career spanning from touring musician in one of the top selling rock bands of all time to award-winning songwriter, to solo artist.

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His memoir Swimming with the Blowfish, hootie Healing and One Hell of a Ride, published by Diversion Books, is out now.

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The Hootie and the Blowfish drummer grew up dreaming more of sporting victories than becoming a successful musician.

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But after that dream came to a close, he immediately began writing songs, performing and chasing a music dream, with the unsuspected success of Hootie and the Blowfish's 1994 debut release, cracked Rear View, he and his bandmates found themselves traveling the world to support what would become the ninth best-selling album of all time in the United States.

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The first single, hold my Hand, a tune Sonnefeld brought to the band early on, helped thrust Hootie and the Blowfish into its great success and likewise showcases his songwriting ability.

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In the years to follow, the band would record six more studio albums and receive numerous awards, among them two Grammys.

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In the early 2000s, sonnefeld began relying on drugs and alcohol to feed an emptiness growing inside of him and would struggle to control his substance abuse.

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It wasn't until late 2004 that he finally accepted he was powerless over drugs and alcohol.

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It was there he made a turn that would save his life and eventually alter his spiritual path.

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And eventually alter his spiritual path.

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With a sober mind and new clarity, he began writing about his transcendent experience and the journey into healthier, happier living.

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Since his first full-length solo album, snowman Melting in 2008, was released under the name James Sonnefeld, he has delivered a trilogy of EPs coined Found in Love.

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Now.

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I got to know Jim 10 or 12 years back in my music industry days, when my company distributed some of his solo material, and we will talk about that today.

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But this conversation is about way more than music.

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It's about way more than what it's like playing in one of the biggest bands in the world.

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It's about life, relationships, addiction, love and lessons learned along the way.

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Let's get to it my conversation with Jim Soni Sonnefeld.

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Welcome to the show.

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Sona, how are you?

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Having a good day today.

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Maybe a few more going forward.

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Awesome.

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Well, that's all I think any of us can ask for, huh.

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Yeah, yeah, one day at a time for me, and it's been working for a while.

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Well, hey, we've got just a ton to talk about today.

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I want to talk about really your entire journey, definitely want to talk about the book that I've just read over this last week, or I should say, listen to it on audiobook.

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The book is called Swimming with the Blowfish Hootie Healing and One Hell of a Ride A Story of Redemption.

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Hootie Healing and One Hell of a Ride A Story of Redemption.

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Now I first have to pause to compliment you on that, sony.

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It is just so chock full of humanity, of life's curveballs and just life's lessons.

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So I just really want to compliment you on that that.

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It's just so much more than a behind the music, behind the scenes, and it has tons of great little backstage stories, which are awesome that you read in books like that.

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But I just really want to applaud you for showing your vulnerability, holding yourself accountable for things that happen in your life, and we're going to talk about some of those things as well.

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But just great job on the book, man.

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Oh, thank you, it was a pleasure to write.

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You know, I uh never envisioned myself as a book writer, uh, but I had been down a path, probably, for you know, 14, 15 years, a spiritual journey and even a musical journey and, uh, uh, in my family, a lot of changes that it probably took that long to get some grip or perspective on a story.

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You know, where have I been, what does it meant?

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Where do my thoughts come from and how do they manifest into actions and what are those consequences or results?

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And so it took me a long time to get confident to say I've got a story, now I can put it together.

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A few people were in my corner telling me, yeah, to say I've got a story, now I can put it together.

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A few people were in my corner telling me, yeah, you've got like a story, you've got the pieces and parts, and that was encouraging.

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But then it was also almost a four-year period of sitting down and really writing, making sure it was a clear story, that it had value, not just to tell but hopefully for other people, and then getting a good editor to help, you know, sort of chop off the stuff that he didn't feel was important, and I had a couple editors I got to work with and they really could see from the outside.

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I also had my wife, laura, next to me for a lot of the writing and she had lived through some of the things as well, so it really felt like it was a good time to start writing it and I took my time with it, and I'd like to thank the internet as well for clarifying where I was in the 90s or 2000.

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Oh, you had to go back and research yourself for the dates, I guess.

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Honestly, it was a huge help because you know as much as we were getting our pictures taken during periods you know a lot of the time that preceded that in my life, even growing up, we had, you know, minimal pictures of things we did.

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Everything wasn't captured.

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So, going back to getting dates of sporting events or a variety of international events, it was important to go and the internet provided a lot of it.

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Honestly, it was really great research and the internet provided a lot of it.

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Honestly, it was really great research.

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Yeah, even in your last night I finished or I finished the book on Friday, but last night I went and I listened to the acknowledgements as well that you have at the end and I noticed that you threw out a couple of because, yeah, throughout the book you throw out exact dates from, you know, 25, 30 years ago, and it began to make sense that you had A people feeding you and also the internet that, yeah, like you said, thank God that it's all archived out there.

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So, yes, a lot to talk about there and, of course, want to talk about the music you've been up to your solo projects and all that good stuff.

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But before we even dive too much into the book, can you talk just a little bit?

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In fact, this is all throughout the book as well.

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So I guess we are kind of starting with the book.

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Your childhood, growing up in Naperville.

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A Catholic boy which, by the way, as you know, I'm an Illinois boy grew up or was born in Springfield, illinois, but grew up in Southern Illinois.

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We both grew up soccer players.

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But what I didn't know until I just read this book is that in your family three of your four boys are Jim, mike and Steve, and I have an older brother, jim, an older brother Mike, and I'm Steve, and my family as well, and I also found out that I'm 11 days older than you as well.

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My birthday is October 9th and we're born in the same year.

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And.

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I won't throw out the year because we both know how old we are, but yeah, Wow.

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So it was interesting, just the similarities growing up.

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The only difference is my album was with a tiny little solo independent record label and it didn't sell quite as many copies as Cracked Rearview.

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But yes, lots of similarities in our childhood.

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So let's start with tell us a little bit about the early years of Sony.

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Yeah, well, it probably looked a lot like yours.

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You're in the Midwest, it's a short summer, it's cornfields all around you, bean fields, and it's not horrible.

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I was loved, I was cared for, we were all fed.

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We never had the biggest problems in the world with having two parents that loved us and were showing us the way and a, you know, a church and Christian school upbringing that tried their best to show me the way, though I wasn't that interested in it for the most part.

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I had to find my own way, which you know lasted 25 years of searching.

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So but yeah, we had sports, we had love, we had music in our house playing an instrument.

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My mom and dad had a variety of records that they had brought in and I thought my mom had some very cool stuff, maybe for her age or someone you look at as your mom.

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She had beatles records, she had led zeppelin, the who, she had some of that classic rock you had a a cool mom for sure, yeah.

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Yeah, we're going to talk more about her a little bit later too.

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It influenced me musically and she sang a lot too.

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I always thought it's so weird that my mom sings and she would sing high harmonies, which I thought was even weirder Stop it, mom.

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And she would dance and she played tennis.

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She wanted us to live life and our, our dad was similar and, you know, a little more quieter, reserved and a little older, but she had some life that she brought to it.

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They, they both together, just did so wonderfully with us.

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But you know, everybody's got their free will and all of us kids exerted it in different ways.

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And get me to a very far away spot called Columbia, south Carolina, at age 18 to seek out one of those dreams soccer but find the other one, music about six years later.

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Yeah, I want to pause on something you just mentioned a moment ago, because you reference it in the book as well that your mom would sing high harmonies and that a lot of times when you're doing a song, or maybe at a charity gig or what have you, that you'll sing an extra high harmony and think of your mom.

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That's, james, why I think part of what makes this book so powerful, that it's just such a different book than it would be had you written it 20 years ago, or one or two years removed from your biggest years with Hootie, and because there's so much perspective that you have in this book.

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And so can we pause for a moment to talk specifically about your mom, because you lost your mom.

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I think it's been what a little over 10 years now, or is it Coming up on 20.

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That's right, I just realized 20 years now.

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Yeah, just a remarkable character in your life.

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Can you tell us about her a little bit?

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Yeah, she was a real spirit.

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She came up in a period she was raised in the Midwest as well Michigan and you know she grew up in a period where women in sports and women in entertainment and women in business was you were still sort of a second class citizen, I think, in a lot of ways.

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So by the time she reaches an age where she's raising her kids and a daughter, I think she wants something different.

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She wants something more.

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She wants inclusivity in things.

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She wants to be part of sports and her kids' sporting lives and also maybe music and usher in that.

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She sang in a little vocal group when she was younger, so that's what I took from her.

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You know, and sometimes you have to be far down the road to see what your parents have given you in different ways, but when you lose someone, I think you reflect more seriously back at the short life that you had with them.

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And she passed at 64.

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I'll be 60 later this year and so as will I.

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It's the year.

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Yeah, you reflect.

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So while my dad is alive, you can spend live time with them.

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So it's a little bit of a different look back.

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So I started.

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You know we had a great relationship.

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She ended up down here in South Carolina with some of my siblings and I as she grew older and then she got sick.

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And as she got sick it was around a similar time where I was diving into trying to numb myself with alcohol as a result of not being able to deal with some of the things that were happening in my life my career's going downward with the band and some difficult things.

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I just couldn't reckon and so I missed out.

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And part of the story in the book with her, to fast forward, is that as she's passing, I'm not doing a good job using these last moments on Earth with someone who's very important to me and I suffer from that regret and carry it.

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So part of the lessons I want to teach in the book are just open up, to show sometimes we don't do the right thing, sometimes we're not a shining light for other people and we have to suffer those consequences.

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And I wanted to show those that you know what it's better to address them and deal with them than it is to shove them under a rug and pretend that we're perfect.

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So I try and bring that forward.

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And you do that a lot through the book.

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And this is what I'm talking about, where I've, you know, where I've mentioned that, the accountability that you show, the vulnerability that you show throughout the book, when you're not only with the alcohol where you really address the problem, where you finally came to the realization when your daughter asked you in the back guest house one night after you had been on a drunken binge, what are you doing, dad?

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And that was a really powerful part of the book that we can circle back to.

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But just all the way in.

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And then even in some of your relationships you talk.

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Obviously your bandmates and everyone knows you as Sony and you would have a girlfriend.

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You know that that you, you, you were always looking for a phone and so they called you phony and you circle back to how that phony obviously they were referencing P-H-O-N-E-Y as a phone, but you said it made you feel like a phony because you were lying to yourself about so many things in your life Can you kind of share that memory of what you were feeling at the time and why?

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Well, yeah, certainly I was wanting from some point in my childhood to show you a shiny version of myself that I wanted you to see, while simultaneously covering up the real me.

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We all have a real us right, and so I spent a lot of time doing that, not knowing I was suffering from that and not knowing that there are consequences to that.

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The lie became very convenient for me from a young age, and it has its own consequences.

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So I was lying to let you think I was a certain person and I had a lot of sufferings underneath, and part of it was in relationships.

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I couldn't keep a steady girlfriend because I couldn't stay monogamous, and because of that, you know, you end up with secrets and hiding things and talking out the side of your mouth, and it's no good.

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We all everyone suffers in that, and so I would spend all this time trying to patch things up on the phone and it was, it was phony, it was me trying to patch work, uh, the stories that I'm trying to convince you of in my life.

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And she, the girl the book, uh, is not the only person.

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I would do it with friends too, because we want people to believe the best version of ourselves.

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We see ourselves in a certain way, but it's not always accurate, it's not always true.

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And I had a guy later on I think maybe this is in the book too who told me after I'd told him about this personal story, trying to convince him again of what I wanted him to believe of me, and he said he says, sony, don't believe everything that comes out of your mouth.

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Yeah, you do say that it's the nicest way of saying you're still full of it, buddy, so let's get real.

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Yeah, I think it's a wonderful expression for us all not to take ourselves too sneak and seriously.

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And you know what Sony, every single one of us has.

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Like you said, that we're playing roles out there and we all have these thoughts on our head about wow, I could have handled that differently, or I just put up a front, or maybe I was braggadocious in this situation and I over-exaggerated to prop myself up.

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We all have these little things that we do.

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So I think it's healthy for us to read a story that you've shared with us and it kind of gives the rest of us permission to do that more, and that's part of our personal growth.

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Now, the fancy word for it is shadow work, do the work to reflect.

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And look at, you know, and I applaud you because you were actually doing this in real time as well you felt guilty, you know, on some of these things, all the alcohol you denied, admittedly, for a long time, I don't have a problem and uh, and, and everybody else, you know, just thinks I do.

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I, you know, but, um, but but for, like, the relationship things you were in real time realizing, wow, I kind of do feel like a phony, and you were a young man at the time.

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So I applaud you for being observant and reflective even at that age.

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Yeah Well, I wish I had the courage to do something about it, because self-knowledge is not the end game you may have knowledge about who you are.

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And, thankfully, that thing that works on us, called guilt, where you feel a little guilty about doing a wrong thing.

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Thank goodness we have that and I always had that, but I never wanted to face it.

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I would work around it.

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Like I said, the convenience of a lie is one way I would work around it.

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And deflecting there's all these techniques that we have that we use, and until I was willing to face it and that was only when I was desperate was I able to work through and see what it all means and I had to write it out.

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Honestly.

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That was one of the gifts I received later in life, at around age 40 was that I was desperate, trying to use alcohol and drugs to numb the pain of why nothing seemed right.

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The guilt, years of guilt or shame these are compounded and unable to face our downward spiral in our career.

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Until I was desperate, I wasn't going to do anything.

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I was, you know, content or felt it was efficient to use lies and use stories.

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And it's not.

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And then you go through a lot of pain and you stuff it all in you and you think why is life so heavy?

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Why does it feel like such a drudgery in life?

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It's because we carry and I had carried all these secrets and lies and shame and guilt around with me because I hadn't resolved any of them.

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People were mad at me, I had regrets, I had resentments, I had all these things that tangled me up and when I got desperate and wanted to get clean, I had some suggestions that said you got to work this out, and the best way is not to work it out in your thoughts, between your ears.

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There's a lot of easy stories there.

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Let's write it out where you can see it, and it becomes real.

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And that was the game changer for me and I'm so thankful that I was able to do that and take someone's guidance in that.

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Awesome.

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So, like you said, you, you, you go to South Carolina to pursue both your dreams to your walk on playing division one soccer, which is freaking amazing in and of itself and uh, and you have some ups and downs, obviously.

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Through that even walked off the team and ended up coming back to the team.

00:22:43.411 --> 00:22:48.059
Uh, you know, there later, through a kind of a cool series of circumstances, and concurrently to that, even walked off the team and ended up coming back to the team there later, through a cool series of circumstances.

00:22:48.059 --> 00:22:56.065
Concurrently to that, you're feeling your parents had gotten you a drum set as a kid but you had never really even been.

00:22:56.065 --> 00:23:02.651
And this was a surprise to me that I did not know that you hadn't really even been in a band at that point while you're in college, correct?

00:23:03.440 --> 00:23:06.061
Yeah, I was a late bloomer in that respect.

00:23:06.061 --> 00:23:11.732
So, yeah, I had music in my heart, I had a drum set, I knew how to play songs.

00:23:11.732 --> 00:23:23.269
But that different part of being in a band, where you interact with people, you come up and conjure ideas musically, that's something I'd never done.

00:23:23.269 --> 00:23:35.441
And by the time soccer is uh, it's being revealed that my career will end after I play my last college game yeah I'm thinking, well, what am I to do?

00:23:35.961 --> 00:23:41.532
and the music part was intersecting, going upwards, saying let's develop this music.

00:23:41.532 --> 00:23:49.229
So I picked up a guitar and a piano and started learning some rudimentary stuff there because I knew I needed to write.

00:23:49.229 --> 00:23:51.140
I wanted to write and express myself.

00:23:51.140 --> 00:23:59.709
So I got the basics of piano and guitar enough to start putting some songs together and decided I need to be in a band.

00:23:59.709 --> 00:24:14.753
So I joined a couple bands before I end up in Hootie and the Blowfish, and those are the grounds where I learned how to play, learned how to interact and learned how to be a performer, if you will.

00:24:15.075 --> 00:24:23.834
Sure, and one of the stories that I'd also never heard that I would be remiss if I didn't bring it up.

00:24:23.834 --> 00:24:29.424
Never heard that I would be remiss if I didn't bring it up.

00:24:29.424 --> 00:24:32.755
And that is like you had mentioned, that you were just really kind of learning guitar, dabbling with songwriting a little bit.

00:24:32.755 --> 00:24:51.127
And for those out there that maybe perhaps don't know that you're actually the co-writer of some of the biggest hits of Hootie and the Blowfish and so often people think, oh, it's the singer that wrote the song or what have you.

00:24:51.127 --> 00:24:55.884
But can you share with us, because I think it's a great story?

00:24:55.884 --> 00:24:58.771
How Hold my Hand came about?

00:24:59.900 --> 00:25:06.156
Well, yeah, it was one of those ones where I was in my, you know, experimenting with making good noises.

00:25:06.156 --> 00:25:07.160
Yeah sure.

00:25:07.560 --> 00:25:22.211
I think at the time I was probably listening to a variety of music that was influencing me All the classic rock, some newer rock that was coming out in the mid to late 80s and a lot of prime country I guess is the era that would have been for country music.

00:25:22.211 --> 00:25:28.048
So you know, a pretty poppy country and so I liked those melodies.

00:25:28.048 --> 00:25:42.119
I like the simple stories and chord progressions and I was putting together some ideas but honestly none of them were very good and I give some of those bad examples in the book of some old lyrics I found, and frighteningly, bad.

00:25:42.200 --> 00:25:44.808
Hey, you've got to write the bad songs to get to the good ones.

00:25:44.808 --> 00:25:45.109
Man.

00:25:46.483 --> 00:25:48.651
It's just a road you've got to take.

00:25:48.651 --> 00:25:56.051
I end up briefly meeting Mark Bryan.

00:25:56.051 --> 00:26:03.410
The guitarist for who's the Blowfish is in a class with me and it's my last semester of school and so I know him.

00:26:03.410 --> 00:26:19.942
And there's a bunch of local bands I'm playing in another one and I'm just writing songs, trying to do my best, and I'm having a feeling, uh, by the spring or summer of 89, that I'm wanting to talk about people supporting each other, lifting each other up.

00:26:20.001 --> 00:26:33.202
I see a lot of difficulty in our nation and world with oppression and depression and people that are down and out I guess would be the old term and I feel like saying something simple.

00:26:33.303 --> 00:26:42.931
And the words and the music come sort of simultaneously this day, as I'm sitting on the edge of my bed and I'm singing, Hold my Hand, basically is the chorus part.

00:26:42.931 --> 00:26:46.089
It's real simple, like the music I was listening to at the time.

00:26:46.089 --> 00:26:58.307
And it's probably another few months before I get an audition for this band called Hooting the Blowfish and they ask after the audition.

00:26:58.307 --> 00:27:19.113
Now, mainly they're a cover band, but I know they want to write music, so that's the reason I'm auditioning is because I'd heard they're going to write original music and that's what I'm doing and after the session and we play a bunch of REM covers and all this late eighties and classic rock music and they're like, well, do you have any original music?

00:27:19.113 --> 00:27:26.625
And I honestly like, the only song I was proud of in that moment was the song I'd written recently called Hold my Hand.

00:27:26.625 --> 00:27:35.829
I said, well, I've got this thing and strummed it out and sang the lyrics and I think Darius sort of looks at me like, oh yeah, you're in the band.

00:27:36.570 --> 00:27:37.573
That's awesome.

00:27:37.573 --> 00:27:50.276
What I also love you even went deeper in the book in that you talked about how you're trying to play a B chord, but you couldn't quite get there, because that's one of the tougher bar chords to play playing a guitar.

00:27:50.276 --> 00:27:56.367
And what was it again that your finger quite so you accidentally kind of hit a B nine chord.

00:27:56.367 --> 00:27:57.411
Is that how it occurred?

00:27:58.232 --> 00:27:58.913
Yeah, I couldn't.

00:27:58.913 --> 00:28:00.545
You know anybody that has played guitar.

00:28:00.545 --> 00:28:03.926
Out there there's open chords which are pretty rudimentary.

00:28:03.926 --> 00:28:11.651
The bar chords really stress your your digit muscles and they're hard to form, it takes a long time.

00:28:11.651 --> 00:28:20.587
So I wanted to do this thing in B, but I could not form the b because of my ring finger and, uh, it wouldn't bend the right way.

00:28:20.587 --> 00:28:27.631
So I did the other version of it, where I just use a couple different fingers and it's easier to form it.

00:28:27.631 --> 00:28:31.061
But it sounds a little different and I fell in love with the different sound.

00:28:31.061 --> 00:28:34.907
It was only a one note difference, but it just felt a little nice.

00:28:34.907 --> 00:28:41.126
And so I was going back on that, I think a B9 and a regular E chord and it just felt right.

00:28:41.660 --> 00:28:46.411
And next thing, you know, lyrics are sort of coming out of my mouth and some melodies.

00:28:46.411 --> 00:28:47.353
So I start writing.

00:28:47.353 --> 00:28:49.205
And it doesn't always work that way.

00:28:49.205 --> 00:28:56.527
I guess the story of songwriting is sometimes you work hours, days, weeks, months, years to put together a song.

00:28:56.527 --> 00:29:00.211
Other times it literally flows out in minutes.

00:29:00.211 --> 00:29:04.530
Most big artists will tell you that same story, right.

00:29:05.561 --> 00:29:12.789
You felt it didn't you when you went back and forth on those two chords, and then you started singing the Hold my Hand.

00:29:12.789 --> 00:29:16.055
You knew immediately you had something special, didn't you?

00:29:16.160 --> 00:29:18.486
Well, I knew it was the best thing I'd done.

00:29:18.486 --> 00:29:20.951
Yet and I still didn't have a home for it.

00:29:20.951 --> 00:29:27.874
I was still playing another band who was doing covers, and so I just kept playing it to myself.

00:29:27.874 --> 00:29:36.942
And then, of course, got the audition with Hootie and the Blowfish and said, all right, I feel more confident when your bandmates accept something too.

00:29:36.942 --> 00:29:49.300
It gives you the confidence to maybe move forward and write, just with a little more confidence to say, oh, I know how to do this, or I could write something smart and uh, so that was a good point.

00:29:49.300 --> 00:29:58.375
From there, we did as, as I joined, and we all started collaborating on music, naively sharing lyrics or chords or vocal ideas.

00:29:58.375 --> 00:30:03.689
It gave us all a chance to learn how to song write together.

00:30:03.910 --> 00:30:19.913
So we did and that was you talk a lot about as well, that in the book, that that was kind of an exercise in, uh, humility and patience and how and I've been there how, how it, how it feels when you, when you play like a new song, and there's silence from your mates, from your buddies.

00:30:19.913 --> 00:30:28.006
You know that, yeah, we're not really digging that song, and especially like a song that you felt was really good, but maybe it didn't make it onto a particular record.

00:30:28.006 --> 00:30:31.941
And now let's talk about Time for a minute.

00:30:31.941 --> 00:30:35.349
Did was that on the first record as well yeah, that was.

00:30:35.390 --> 00:31:14.231
And that was, and did that one come out as easily as uh, as, hold my hand uh, almost, I mean, I had, uh, I remember I think mark and I were subletting apartment, uh, one summer here in town and, uh, again, the confidence from the reception of hold my Hand helped me, and so I started focusing more on playing guitar and coming up with stuff and I had the little arpeggiated D chord that is the intro to Time, and I like that and I would always go through and try and formulate sections of a song with chords.

00:31:14.231 --> 00:31:23.193
And again in this moment, some of the lyrics and melodies are coming and I've got the whole repeated section of time, time time.

00:31:23.193 --> 00:31:37.371
I've got the a couple verse ideas that are basically uh, uh coming out too, and but at that time, instead of finishing it, I'd learned that darius likes to have ideas given to him.

00:31:37.371 --> 00:31:38.853
But you don't have to write the whole song.

00:31:38.993 --> 00:31:46.987
Oh yeah, yeah, he kind of added in through in his colors and wrote a bridge in some of the songs or added the chorus yeah, true collaboration.

00:31:47.980 --> 00:32:03.099
He writes a couple extraordinary second or third verses that are more based on his experience and it really makes the song more just, different place to go than I'd even thought about.

00:32:03.401 --> 00:32:06.069
That's so cool about collaborations Exactly.

00:32:06.380 --> 00:32:07.625
Yeah, so it ends up working.

00:32:07.625 --> 00:32:12.866
And that's part of the story of those early songs that later become hits is that we didn't know what we were doing.

00:32:12.866 --> 00:32:19.769
We were sort of trusting each other and letting each other take the leads at times and other times sit back and take direction.

00:32:19.769 --> 00:32:31.451
But songs like Time that I brought in and mostly finished but allowed the other guys or rather needed them to make it better, I didn't allow them.

00:32:31.451 --> 00:32:34.169
Like you need your bandmates to up it.

00:32:35.141 --> 00:33:01.446
And so we have a bunch of those songs that eventually, in 1994, by the time we're getting our first chance to record for atlantic records, those songs that we had written, you know, in the early days, end up being the ones that have proven themselves through all the bar years, all the parties that we played, time, letter Cry, which Darius wrote, only One For you, which Mark and Darius collaborated on.

00:33:01.446 --> 00:33:10.980
There's different ways to write it, but those become the foundation because we played them for five years in front of crowds and you look at what's happening to the crowd.

00:33:10.980 --> 00:33:12.443
That tells you if you're someone.

00:33:12.443 --> 00:33:15.689
It's not good or bad.

00:33:15.689 --> 00:33:17.092
It's the true litmus test, isn't it?

00:33:18.013 --> 00:33:18.694
Yeah, yeah.

00:33:18.694 --> 00:33:31.773
So we go in to record our first big record, Crack Rearview, and we know at least five songs that are going to be on that record because they've been proven and tested by the audiences for five years.

00:33:31.773 --> 00:33:35.971
So it was easy in that sense, but no guarantee for success.

00:33:35.990 --> 00:33:38.076
And there's some great stories during that era in the book as well.

00:33:38.076 --> 00:33:39.660
Five years, so it was easy in that sense, but no guarantee for success.

00:33:39.660 --> 00:33:42.183
And there's some great stories during that era in the book as well.

00:33:42.183 --> 00:33:48.887
You hear you're living in Santa Monica, you're renting a place with the band, you know apartment that you could walk to the studio every day and and yeah.

00:33:48.887 --> 00:33:51.961
So some great backup stories that we don't have time to go into all those.

00:33:51.961 --> 00:33:58.646
But I just love some of those stories, especially early on, how nervous you guys were, how intimidated you were those first couple of days.

00:33:58.747 --> 00:34:03.685
And you started the very first song, which I would agree with.

00:34:03.685 --> 00:34:10.751
What you said was kind of peculiar and I don't think you ever circled back in the book or you ever got an explanation from the producer of why.

00:34:10.751 --> 00:34:21.110
But the first song you started working on was like a brand new song that you guys had just learned, so you weren't really tied on it like you were on all these other songs.

00:34:21.110 --> 00:34:22.498
So your first day was kind of a bit of a disaster, was it not?

00:34:22.498 --> 00:34:22.820
In the studio?

00:34:23.960 --> 00:34:31.925
In my memory yes, I'm sure there's four or five different memories of that but yeah, I felt like I want to trust these.

00:34:31.925 --> 00:34:37.994
A big name producer, don Gaiman, who had produced all the biggest Mellencamp hits of the eighties.

00:34:37.994 --> 00:34:46.148
And then Tim Summer, our A&R guy from Atlantic, who's a musician himself and he's he's the one who signed us to Atlantic.

00:34:46.148 --> 00:34:48.119
So you want to trust the process.

00:34:48.119 --> 00:34:53.333
So that means you give a little and we we they wanted to work on some newer music.

00:34:53.333 --> 00:34:55.503
So again, I guess they know what they're doing.

00:34:55.503 --> 00:34:56.869
Well, we'll do that.

00:34:56.869 --> 00:35:02.092
But it was a little frustrating because I wanted to go right to the meat of the stuff that I knew worked.

00:35:02.092 --> 00:35:06.110
I think in their strategy it was building.

00:35:06.110 --> 00:35:20.893
They wanted to get us comfortable, maybe for a few days in the studio working on new stuff, and then, when we got to songs like hold my hand or let her cry to record, we'd already be warm, we'd already be comfortable in this big studio.

00:35:20.893 --> 00:35:21.697
That makes sense.

00:35:21.737 --> 00:35:37.074
Yeah, biggest problem for us was we've been playing in clubs face to face, sweating on that immediate reaction the energy and and then you're in a studio in la and it's a little freaky, so maybe they knew exactly what they were doing.

00:35:37.675 --> 00:35:48.152
Well, yeah, and you even mentioned in the book that when it came time to do Hold my Hand, you guys struggled with getting a good take because you know you're playing it.

00:35:48.152 --> 00:35:51.168
Darius is in another room, in the isolation booth.

00:35:51.168 --> 00:35:52.184
You can't even see him.

00:35:52.184 --> 00:35:59.030
You guys are, all you know, kind of scattered with, you know, isolation and and trying to capture the feel and the energy.

00:35:59.030 --> 00:35:59.672
It took.

00:35:59.672 --> 00:36:01.318
I, you know a lot of takes.

00:36:01.318 --> 00:36:06.731
You said you were going like well into the night and finally, I don't remember what it was 30 something takes.

00:36:06.731 --> 00:36:11.641
You finally captured the energy that you can capture just by going out and, you know, being in front of a crowd.

00:36:11.780 --> 00:36:28.043
So yeah, it ends up uh, that's the chore of a great producer, at least back in in those days when we didn't have a vocal pitch correction and we didn't have necessarily uh, uh, the drums were not all lined up in time.

00:36:28.043 --> 00:36:30.427
We didn't use metronomes or anything like that.

00:36:30.427 --> 00:36:36.271
You had to pull out the personality and and you really had to do a good job to create that.

00:36:36.271 --> 00:36:42.606
And that was a producer's greatest probably struggle was how do you do that with a band and uh, some.

00:36:42.606 --> 00:36:44.311
So that was the way we did it.

00:36:44.311 --> 00:36:45.362
Back in that it's all different.

00:36:45.362 --> 00:36:45.583
Now.

00:36:45.583 --> 00:36:46.547
That's a whole nother book.

00:36:46.940 --> 00:36:49.047
Yeah, yeah, exactly, and you're right.

00:36:49.047 --> 00:36:54.447
That was back in the day I was recording on one inch and two inch tape back then and there's no click tracks.

00:36:54.447 --> 00:37:08.208
But when I listen back to some of my stuff from back then, some of the songs that actually have a slight you know increase in tempo on that last chorus, on the buildup, it's special.

00:37:08.208 --> 00:37:12.106
You can tell it, you can feel it, you know that it's faster.

00:37:12.106 --> 00:37:18.625
And had we had a you know, a click track on there holding us to that tempo, I would argue it wouldn't have been as good.

00:37:18.625 --> 00:37:38.681
So I think you know and that's what I love about you know, his production is that he is not necessarily about getting perfection, is getting the energy and the feel, and sometimes the mistakes are cool and you talk about that in the book as well a little feedback from a guitar you didn't shoot for, but it's there and it gives it a little sparkle, if you will, you know.

00:37:38.681 --> 00:37:40.244
So, yeah, that's all the.

00:37:40.244 --> 00:37:41.288
You know it's.

00:37:41.288 --> 00:37:42.592
You're creating art.

00:37:42.592 --> 00:37:46.210
You're not trying to create math, you know you're creating art.

00:37:47.059 --> 00:37:49.528
So yeah, love it.

00:37:49.528 --> 00:37:52.248
So you finished this record.

00:37:52.248 --> 00:37:54.425
What were your expectations?

00:37:54.425 --> 00:37:59.733
Did you have any idea that it would or could blow up like it did?

00:38:01.000 --> 00:38:06.873
No, I don't know, not that I guess we were a little modest in those days.

00:38:06.873 --> 00:38:10.601
We'd worked hard, we'd.

00:38:10.601 --> 00:38:25.652
What made us modest is that we had seen bands that were our peers or even maybe well advanced in front of us, with bigger crowds or traveling further, or more music that they had created.

00:38:25.652 --> 00:38:48.411
We'd seen bands get signed and we'd seen bands hurrah about we're signed to Capricorn or were signed to Capital Records, whatever it was, and they create an album, but then the album doesn't translate into radio or the record company doesn't see it as something they want to put a lot of money and energy into promoting.

00:38:48.411 --> 00:38:51.789
So the big dream isn't just getting signed.

00:38:51.809 --> 00:38:52.351
We knew that.

00:38:52.351 --> 00:38:55.427
We knew that we have a chance to make a great record.

00:38:55.427 --> 00:39:02.681
But you know, let's hold our breath and our celebration until the record label decides that they actually want to work this thing.

00:39:02.681 --> 00:39:12.327
Sure, promote it, which costs more money of theirs to influence radio stations to play it, and then you could get in front of some more fans.

00:39:12.327 --> 00:39:18.001
So we were a little bit hesitant in our celebration, which is good, yeah, yeah.

00:39:18.001 --> 00:39:19.427
I mean, I think, that was a safety.

00:39:19.699 --> 00:39:27.068
We'd already signed a bad record deal a year earlier and it totally flopped and we never even got in the studio with that one.

00:39:27.068 --> 00:39:49.992
So we were a little suspicious anyway of the big business of music and there's a little story in there of the best advice I remember receiving, uh, when we're in the studio, from, you know, david crosby love this story yeah, nash, and, and you know we he comes in because he's a friend of our producer and we're excited that he's there, but he's pretty low-key.

00:39:50.139 --> 00:39:52.365
He had had a troubled life ups and downs.

00:39:52.365 --> 00:39:57.463
And he comes in to sing this part for this band from south carolina called hooting the blowfish.

00:39:57.463 --> 00:40:10.788
He, it's not a big deal, we're a baby band who's unknown, virtually sings his part, gives a good, uh, quick relation or uh conversation with the producer, but he's kind of going to zip out and we don't want david crosby to leave us.

00:40:10.827 --> 00:40:19.074
He's a fake of course, yeah and so we're like, hey, you know, tell us something, tell us something we can chew on here.

00:40:19.074 --> 00:40:38.114
And so he gave a brief sort of warning about separating the music in your heart, the reason you're in a studio in LA after being in a band for years, separating that from the business of music which you're about to, you know, walk into, because they're both necessary.

00:40:38.114 --> 00:40:41.909
One got you here and one's going to take you somewhere else, probably.

00:40:41.909 --> 00:40:47.393
But if you can't separate the two of them, there could be frustration and trouble.

00:40:47.393 --> 00:40:54.807
And he sort of said just look at my life, you know, and he'd been to jail and rehab and through a bunch of stuff.

00:40:54.807 --> 00:41:03.317
So I remember writing down in my journal which some of the book and the recording of Cracked Review is based on a journal I kept.

00:41:03.317 --> 00:41:09.092
I remember writing it down and remembering, oh yeah, that was so cool what he said.

00:41:09.280 --> 00:41:22.588
I'll leave it to the reader to go listen to it as a great vivid uh uh startling description of uh no holds barred of, of uh.

00:41:22.588 --> 00:41:24.947
What to look out for in the music business.

00:41:25.708 --> 00:41:29.329
Yeah, and, and speaking of which, you, you know so.

00:41:29.329 --> 00:41:31.306
So it blows up before you know it.

00:41:31.306 --> 00:41:34.463
Gosh, you're, you know you're, you go from playing large clubs.

00:41:34.463 --> 00:41:36.409
All of a sudden, you're, you're, you're playing.

00:41:36.409 --> 00:41:39.496
Or you know you're, you're a backup band doing a couple of tours.

00:41:39.496 --> 00:41:52.063
All of a sudden you're doing some shows with dave matthews, which which, by the way, that was cool for me to read kind of how you guys I never really put that together, I didn't know that you guys kind of came up through the ranks and kept crossing paths with them.

00:41:52.344 --> 00:41:56.273
They kind of came up right as you did so cool little stories there.

00:41:56.273 --> 00:42:22.090
But you share in the story kind of the nastiness that David Crosby warned you about, not only with record labels, but just kind of how artists and big stars and you met some really cool stars, like obviously David Crosby, and Neil Young, I know, was one of them that always treated you guys kindly and you've done events with him over the years.

00:42:22.090 --> 00:42:44.427
But I love how you weren't afraid to speak openly about some of the other issues, or not issues, but artists that you came across that maybe were not so nice and, with my, as you know, have a background in the music industry as well and had a music distribution company, which is where you and I first met.

00:42:44.427 --> 00:42:46.454
10 plus years ago.

00:42:46.574 --> 00:42:59.074
That one story when you brought up Journey dude completely coincides with my experience as well, and and and, yeah, um, but yeah it, you know, you don't.

00:42:59.074 --> 00:43:33.969
You don't specifically talk about, I don't think that you mentioned anybody in particular in in in journey, but, but not only myself personally, but other friends in the music business that dealt with some of the members of of journey and, and specifically the guitar player I won't mention any names, but it rhymes with Meal Stone but was not a very pleasant human being, just kind of arrogant, which broke my heart because they were like Journey, was like God to me.

00:43:33.969 --> 00:43:45.733
Yeah, when I moved out to California, and as a 22-year-old in 1986, I just turned 22 in October and I moved out here that New Year's Eve.

00:43:45.733 --> 00:44:02.407
I saw Journey play at the Long Beach Convention Center on New Year's Eve and I saw them countless times in high school and just love their music and then to find out, gosh, they're not very nice human beings and not only just not nice to each other.

00:44:04.161 --> 00:44:05.668
Well, we knew.

00:44:05.668 --> 00:44:10.043
I mean, part of it is we had seen through the years that are even in the clubs.

00:44:10.043 --> 00:44:15.809
When you deal with people and deal with other bands that are trying to do the same thing you're doing, get to the next level.

00:44:15.809 --> 00:44:47.260
There were certain bands that uh were uh, maybe as leisurely as us with hey, we're all just making music, right, we're trying to do the best we can, and then that ranges from that up to bands that were kind of competitive and like, yeah, we're gonna rock these band, this other band off the stage and we're gonna you know, we're better like it's some sort of athletic competition, and we never got that and we were all athletes, you know, we're all like competitive in our own natures, but when it came to music, we always felt the opposite.

00:44:47.260 --> 00:44:52.702
There's room for everybody to make all sorts of noise and it doesn't have to be a competition necessarily.

00:44:52.702 --> 00:45:13.047
And um, so I think probably what I've a couple of the stories that I'd heard and experienced with somebody like Journey that might be leaning towards just a little more competitive and feeling like there's someone who's better or less than, and that just isn't the way any of us were raised to look at music.

00:45:13.108 --> 00:45:16.054
I think we always, and that's why we've were raised to look at music.

00:45:16.054 --> 00:45:24.722
I think we always, and that's why we've, as we've, continued, you know, up the climb, up the mountain of success and down it and then back up, is that you know you don't need to burn bridges, you don't need to talk trash.

00:45:24.722 --> 00:45:38.875
It's not to say I didn't because I'm not perfect, but you know, when I talk to other musicians, I always find time to find something to encourage them with something to say keep going, or man, I hope you make it.

00:45:38.875 --> 00:45:45.699
I just find that to be not only better for my soul, but you know that's what a few people did for hooting the blowfish along the way.

00:45:45.699 --> 00:45:46.402
That didn't have to.

00:45:46.402 --> 00:45:51.496
Hey, man, keep going, write a good song and then write a better song, you'll get there.

00:45:51.496 --> 00:45:52.119
You know.

00:45:52.260 --> 00:46:16.168
I think that just works better as a globe, uh, to helping us all, uh, than looking at as a some sort of competition well, in one of the the stories that you shared also, which had kind of a follow-up story, and that was billy joe armstrong armstrong from uh green day and and he threw some smackdown just uh about.

00:46:16.168 --> 00:46:20.295
Oh, maybe my next record will be well, you, you tell the story if you remember it.

00:46:20.960 --> 00:46:30.494
Yeah, I mean for again, there's another band that I see, Green Day as another band who knows it does a slightly different thing than we do.

00:46:30.494 --> 00:46:38.989
They play in clubs, they play music naively and authentically and they just try and make it up.

00:46:38.989 --> 00:46:43.195
Yeah, they're a little different sound but they're awesome too.

00:46:43.474 --> 00:46:44.115
They're awesome too.

00:46:46.181 --> 00:46:47.985
They're different but they're awesome too.

00:46:47.985 --> 00:47:02.505
So I read a comment in a couple magazines that I took as a little snide and maybe I was sensitive sensitive too to some of the comments that were overwhelming us at that time, some of the backlash of our popularity, so I took them as God.

00:47:02.505 --> 00:47:05.088
It just doesn't sound like he's complimenting us.

00:47:05.088 --> 00:47:09.639
And then I over time realized not everybody has to be a fan of your music.

00:47:09.639 --> 00:47:14.626
So I need to accept that Not everyone needs to like us or has to like us.

00:47:14.626 --> 00:47:33.867
But I feel like some of our peers were goaded into, uh, commenting us on us by media people to say, hey, what do you think of this band that's selling all these records with the goofy name, almost goading them into saying something negative which will make a better headline I knock you off the pedestal yeah yeah.

00:47:33.947 --> 00:47:40.726
So with with green day and and billy joe, you know I'm okay with it today.

00:47:40.726 --> 00:47:42.070
I'm a huge fan of their band.

00:47:42.070 --> 00:47:50.152
But I just think at the time it was somehow acceptable and cool to say screw hooting the blowfish, who wants to be like them?

00:47:50.152 --> 00:47:53.105
They're kind of lame, they don't have cool hair or they're.

00:47:53.105 --> 00:47:57.853
You know, their songs are too soft and I never thought that was necessary.

00:47:57.853 --> 00:47:58.360
That's.

00:47:58.360 --> 00:47:59.623
This is so funny to.

00:47:59.623 --> 00:48:13.146
The irony of us sitting here talking today is that last night at our band's foundation fundraiser, where we play some of our music on stage and then have also guests, we covered a Green Day song.

00:48:13.288 --> 00:48:13.969
Nice.

00:48:16.101 --> 00:48:21.501
Because we don't care we just love music and so I'm not, obviously.

00:48:21.501 --> 00:48:25.739
I guess I say that, say I'm not still mad, but you know, it's unfortunate.

00:48:25.739 --> 00:48:27.063
I've probably said stupider things.

00:48:27.063 --> 00:48:28.248
Well but.

00:48:28.429 --> 00:48:33.570
But what's so cool about that story is he was basically throwing smack down about he made some comment about.

00:48:33.570 --> 00:48:42.382
You know, yeah, our next record is going to be acoustic, you know, like hootie and the blowfish, and uh, and sure enough, like a year later, he cut his biggest hit ever.

00:48:42.382 --> 00:48:51.327
It's an acoustic song that just blows up to one of the biggest hits ever and played at every stinking prom around around the united states.

00:48:51.367 --> 00:48:52.831
You know yeah, it's a.

00:48:52.831 --> 00:49:04.061

Rhythms of Redemption: A Life in Tune with Hootie's Jim 'Soni' Sonefeld

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