Hired Gun Page #5

One night a man in the audience

comes up to me and he goes,

"Man, I'm sorry Ted's throat

wasn't feeling good tonight,

but, you did a really good job singing the songs."

So, the next time you hear this song

you're gonna know it was my voice.

And not somebody else's.

I jammed everyday I jammed every night

I practiced till I knew all The licks

Now I'm on the verge Of a nervous breakdown

I don't know The meaning of quit

But I like it

Oh, Baby

Yes you know But I like it?

Yeah, baby, yes I do

I've found a cure for my Body and soul

But this is what the doctor Ordered

But this is what the doctor Ordered

But this is what the doctor Ordered

Oh! That's what the doctor Ordered

Kenny, man...

I love Kenny. He's got an energy, man.

One of the most working dudes, right?

Oh, that guy is so energetic!

Kenny Aronoff, uh...

He loud.

I worked with him one time. He's loud.

F***ing loud!

He's a really well schooled musician.

To the point where he writes out all of his parts.

He's kind of like the Godfather

of the hired gun of drums.

I mean, he was doing this sh*t

when I was in junior high.

[Kenny] Now, I grew up in a small town of 3000.

How the f*** do you get out of a town of 3000

into The Beatles, and on stage,

and touring and making records?

I didn't know.

I was gardening at 50 cents an hour.

Gardening!

And I saved up for the snare drum,

and the cymbal.

All I knew was I wanted to be in The Beatles.

So the only thing I do is I started a band.

I did five years at university.

I was practicing nine hours a day,

and playing five nights a week in a Jazz trio.

One day I'm sitting eating dinner,

I'm about to walk out and I go,

"You know, I should just chill for a second."

Had I not chilled for a second

I wouldn't have run into this

singer/songwriter who said,

"You know this guy johnny Cougar?

He's looking for a drummer."

So they said, "Do you know any

of the songs on the record?"

I said, "I'm familiar

with the album."

They picked a song, I tore it up.

Broke a cymbal, sticks flying...

Looking at me smiling,

shakes my hand and goes,

"Welcome to hell!"

I'm like, "Well, what does he mean by that?"

Well, I found out.

And five weeks later we were going

to go to L.A to make a record.

In one day I was off the record.

Life changing moment for me.

Huge life changing moment!

John tells me,

"Well, you know,

Kroppa wants to get this song, this album done fast.

You haven't had quite enough

experience in the studio."

And I'm thinking, "No,

no, no, no, no, no. This is not

going to go down this way."

"And, you know, you go home, and..." And I just went,

"Am I your drummer!"

I'm going, "Did I just say that?"

"I'm not going home."

"Am I your drummer?"

And he goes, "Uh, uh, uh, uh...

Yeah, it's just..."

"Well, find me a drummer.

I'm gonna go to the studio. I'm gonna

watch these guys play my parts

and I'm gonna benefit from that.

And you're gonna benefit because I'm your drummer.

Because I'm gonna get better.

And that's good for you.

You don't have to pay me, I'll sleep on the floor.

But I ain't going home."

He didn't know what to say,

he went, "Uh... All right."

I did stay and I did watch, and I took notes.

And that was the beginning of a 45 degree angle

of my career which is still going

at 45 degrees.

He's just a creative drummer.

You know, the thing in jack And Diane that he does...

I don't care if it was like pulling

teeth to get it out of him.

He made it up. It's brilliant.

That's Kenny Aronoff.

And, that drum fill right there

is that guy's personality.

"Aronoff, get in here.

We need a drum solo."

I'm like, "What!"

On a ballad?" I'm thinking,

"How do you do a drum solo on a song that's like...

A little diddy,

about jack and Diane...

You can't go..." [imitating drums]

Because nobody had done that.

Yeah, except for Phil Collins.

You know, I'm walking towards the drums, I'm going,

"You got 25 feet to save your career.

You got 20,

fifteen,

ten.

What are you going to do, Kenny?

What are you going to do?"

I'm at the drum stool facing that way...

"Five." Now I'm like,

"What am I gonna do?"

Ding! Something pops into my head.

[drums playing]

That was it. This short little concise thing.

John's like,

"Groove, stop playing the beats."

So, you know... [imitating drums]

That song goes to number one.

Instead of getting excited,

I sh*t my pants.

Because down I'm going, like,

"Now you have to be, number one,

and you have to do it again."

And I don't know if I'm that...

Am I good enough to do that again?

[Liberty] I think out of all the drummers,

when you people used to say,

"if there was somebody to take your

place with Billy who would it be?

And Kenny was the only one I could think of.

Because I think me and him play a lot alike.

Very aggressive and to the song.

The great thing about it...

About Kenny is...

He is never satisfied with himself.

So he will always give you that extra bit.

He'll bother you to do it.

[Billy] I traveled around with guys in my band.

It's like a New York street gang.

But we kind of keep each other down to Earth.

We're always putting each other down,

and smacking each other around.

And we keep ourselves in line like that.

[Russell] We took a band attitude.

We took a family attitude to what we did.

Those tracks and those tours,

and that whole trajectory

of what happened with Billy...

That was part of our legacy too.

We all had a lot of laughs and a lot of fun,

but, uh, I'd heard

a little scuttlebutt. You know,

that on the business side,

there was a lot of weird,

vibes going around.

That's when he found out that his

manager screwed him out of money.

I mean, there was millions lost.

Millions!

That will make you paranoid.

Make you not trust anybody.

Charges in the lawsuit are that they paid kickbacks

to Billy Joel's manager,

but never reported this to Mr. Joel.

As a result of this Mr. Joel did not fire the manager

until after he purported to defraud Mr. Joel

out of tens of millions of dollars.

When I got the phone call from Billy,

he was... so... such a wreck. He was broke.

He had no money.

He was, like,

broke!

The thing he said to me

was "I want everything back.

You're not gonna get that

payment anymore on the records.

You're not gonna get a percentage of the gross."

And then he got this accounting firm

that was watching out for his money.

And they decided that,

"Well, you're name's on the marquee.

Why are you paying these guys so much money?

You can get anybody you want."

And that's really when it started to get weird.

I was tired of being pegged, I

was tired of being stereotyped.

Tired of being pigeon holed.

Tired of being bagged.

[woman] As what?

As Billy Joel and his band and his producer.

And, no matter how much

of a different album we put out

from the album before,

um,

it wasn't enough.

[Russell] On The Bridge album,

I could kind of feel that,

it was coming to an end.

There was an undercurrent there that I kinda,

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