Hired Gun Page #2

I was a hired gun,

for $500 a week.

"Okay."

I mean, I would have done it for a sandwich.

I mean, it wouldn't have mattered then.

I would have paid you guys five

bucks to let me go. Sh*t, you know!

So that was it. Five hundred dollars a week

until April the next year,

when I joined Metallica...

And I was a full member for 14, 15 years.

I was not gonna pass this up or take this for granted

that I was given this opportunity by these guys.

"Now you're in it, dude.

You signed to be in this thing.

You can't take that lightly.

This is big responsibility now."

Everybody's got their role in this band

and nobody wants to be the weak link.

That's why that band is still around.

Finding the right person for

your band is almost impossible

because you're looking for, to me, three things.

You got to find somebody who...

is an excellent musician

which, that's the easiest thing to find.

There's a million excellent musicians.

Then you gotta find somebody who's really cool...

who can stand on stage

in front of you know 15... a 100,000 people,

and be amazing.

Then, it whittles it down to a smaller group,

and then you gotta find somebody

you can stand to be around 24/7.

Because, you know, you live

with them, day in and day out.

Then it shrinks down to about...

Here's the three people,

in the music industry I can

actually stand to be around.

So, know, that is the trick.

You're gonna be traveling with

these guys for the next year.

So, you're gonna really have to like these guys,

because there are certain people, you just don't...

It rubs you the wrong way... You know.

[Newsted] It all comes down to the

chemistry between people and bang!

And how you get along with each other.

And what kind of person you present yourself as

in the group.

I've been lucky enough to not have to be on a tour

with any douchy people.

I've talked to so many friends of mine

who just were, you know, living hell on a tour,

because of who they had

to deal with on a daily basis.

There's been times where, you know, you've...

had someone in the band who maybe

isn't the greatest musician,

and they leave and you replace

them with somebody better,

technically a better musician,

but the chemistry is gone.

There's just something about it, you know,

because sometimes its just that wacky personalities,

the glue that keeps the other three

people from killing each other.

There's a...

A bond with musicians

when the chemistry is right,

and it's an alchemic thing.

It's like people playing together,

and when some take happens that is just magic...

it's undeniable. There it is.

Right in front of you.

[Russell] When we got into the studio with Billy,

we had this interesting chemistry,

that you know, just kinda clicked.

You know, it was kinda cool.

We were a very easy band to play with.

Nobody ever went in there with

a "I'll show you" attitude.

It was always about framing the song,

framing Billy...

We were very open minded as to how we would do it.

So, George Martin that comes to one of the gigs,

and we're all excited,

"George Martin's here, Oh my,

God! The Beatles producer!

He's going to come and hear us play,

and he's going to love it, it's gonna be great.

I mean, this is fantastic, he's like

the greatest producer in the world!"

He watches the show... After the show he says,

"I love you, Billy. I want to produce

you, but I want to use studio guys."

Billy was so loyal to the band

that he turned down George Martin.

I just went off on my own and said,

"Look, I'm going to use my own guys.

I don't care, politically,

what the ramifications are,

I gotta use my own band."

And, we went in with Phil to do The Stranger.

He saw the guys and he went, "Wow, they're great!"

He loved them, and the band went, "He likes us?"

[Russell] Certainly, Lib and Doug's contribution,

is what stood out in those records,

because, frequently, Billy would

record in a stripped down way,

and we'd even do a lot of the basic

tracks with just basic drums.

Phil came in and he said to Liberty,

"Why don't you play this backwards samba?"

And Liberty is a real Rock n Roll drummer, and he...

it's against every grain in his body to play these...

samba type line of beats.

And he turned it around. It was like, boom...

[imitating drums]

[playing piano] And he gave it more of a flow.

[singing] Don't go changin'

To try and please me

And it just...

It flowed along a lot better.

[Russell] Lib was right at the core of those songs.

And his mindset was just really

perfect for those records,

because he had that tough Rock n Roll

attitude about those songs.

Yet, he knew when to put

it out there and when not to.

So, these were really parts that really

brought the song out of the grooves.

Liberty DeVitto, some people may not know,

but this guy has got 30 plus

years with the same artist.

Now, in the hired gun business,

three years is a lot.

Thirty, is unheard of.

He, definitely is, one of those guys that made

the band he was in.

Billy Joel sounded like Billy

Joel because of Liberty DeVitto.

The Keith Richards of that band.

There's no question.

Ow, right here,

Topo Gigio, the Italian drummer...

[Liberty] When you see a Billy Joel

album, if you look at the back

of The Stranger, it will say,

"Words and music by Billy Joel."

It won't say,

"Music arranged by..."

anywhere.

Because we all arranged the songs.

Only The Good Die Young,

he wrote it as a Reggae tune.

And then, I'm like, "This is terrible.

It's really bad."

I looked at Billy and I said,

"You know, the closest you've

ever been to Jamaica is,

Jamaica, Long Island, where you change

trains on Long Island railroad."

Only the good die young

[Liberty] My drum part, the intro,

was I always loved the song called Up From The Skies,

that is on the Jimi Hendrix,

Axis:
Bold as Love album,

And Up From The Skies starts like that...

[imitating drums]

And has that quick...

Sol kind of like thought about that song when I said,

"Let's do it this way."

And it turned out to be good.

Come out, Virginia, don't Let me wait

[Hook] I had spent my entire younger years

trying to develop some kind of skill

Playing guitar.

That's the only thing I cared about.

I practiced hours and hours and hours a clay.

Not because I wanted to make sure I was good,

I played because I really loved it.

It was fun.

You could hear yourself getting better.

You could pick up things that

you couldn't do a week ago.

By the time I was moving to LA

I knew I had a certain skill level.

So, any opportunity I had to

mingle with other musicians,

and get up and play, be in it...

I was like three bands, four bands at a time.

I had played Tuesday nights with this band,

I had played three nights

with this band... local stuff.

Well, eventually, what happened was,

one of the musicians in one of these

bands said, "Hey, you know, um,

Mandy Moore is looking for an acoustic guitar player.

And I think that'd you'd be perfect for the gig."

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