Transcript of #2388 - Lionel Richie

Joe Rogan podcast.

Check it out. The Joe Rogan experience. Train by day, Joe Rogan podcast by night, all day. How are we doing? Good. We're rolling. Pleasure to meet you, sir. It's about time. Yes.

Thank you very much for being here. This is an honor.

It's the same here, man. Same here.

How does a person like you fit your life into a book? Because your career is so wide and so long. You've had so many experiences from the Commodores in the '70s.

The '70s still rocking. '70s. Joe, let me tell you something. It really accounts for, I'll tell you the joke of the book first. I'm probably the only guy in the world that had a book with probably a thousand pages in it. Turned a thousand pages in. They said, What the hell is this? War and peace. War and peace. And I said, And I've got some more stories. I got some more stories. And so for the first time in the history of Harpers, probably they said, Mr. Richie, no more stories. We don't need any more stories. In fact, can we take some of the stories out? Oh, no. So to answer your question, we can't fit all of my life story in a book, but we just had to find the ones that were actually humorous in certain cases, educational in certain cases, because it's wide, it's big, but I enjoyed the process of looking back, because if you understand me, I have the Italian race car driver's theory. What's behind me doesn't count. What's in front of me.

That's a very good way of looking at life.

So what this book made me do was actually turn around and look behind me. And I tell you what I discovered. I discovered Lionel Richie. Because up to this point, I had never really gone into the depths of how I got here. I just remember, because you want to forget.

You just kept going.

Just kept going. Keep going straight. You tripped over that. I don't remember. You tripped over that. I don't remember. What's next? It's like playing football. You got hit really badly on that last play, but you go back to the huddle. You know what I'm saying? Are you hurt? You won't know until tonight after you get off the field, and they'll tell you you broke your arm. You know what I'm saying? But it's really, don't stop moving forward. And that's really what this whole thing was. This exercise in this book was really for me to actually go, I can't believe I did that.

Did you learn anything about yourself from going back and just recalling all these stories and putting them to paper?

Did I learn? Did I learn? Absolutely. If you had said to me when I first started my life, My dad used to always have this line over and over again. A great fighter is not determined by how many punches he can throw. It's how many punches he can take. And I realized that I could take punches. I'm the most unlikely person to take a punch because I'm not that guy. If I can talk my way out of it, I will. But if you understand life itself, number one, that's difficult. And then if you start thinking about the music business, the entertainment business, it's an impossibility. You're going to get punched every day of your life. And what's that punch? No, no, no, no. That's the punch. Now, can you get up off the floor and come back? Can you get a bad review and come back? Can they not like you and you come back? Can you find that that's a humorous thing instead of a tragic thing? Can you come back? Can you lose friends along the way? Can you come back? So you don't really realize this is a business. If you look at it, think about how many people we've lost.

When I started writing this book, I started thinking to myself, Where's Luther? Where's Michael? I want to tell you more stories about Prince, but it's not fair because in certain cases, I want him to be here to laugh with a joke, too. You follow me? And so then you start realizing, damn, this is lucky. This is really blessed time now because I'm in rare survival air, if you will. I'm still here at 200 years old talking about my career, but I'm telling the story. Someone else is not telling it for me.

That's important. That's important. Because so many times when someone passes and then you get this cobbled together version of their life without their own unique personal perspective, you miss a lot.

You miss a lot. And especially things that people thought were terrifying or tragic. If you talk to the person themselves, that was a learning experience. So you keep thinking, oh, my God, what did you do when that happened? And you go, no, I needed that because I wouldn't have been to the next person if I had not experienced that. Because it's like trying to go to scrimage before a big game. You're with your team. Well, they hit harder from the other team. So you got to practice hard. Well, the only way to get into the music business, you got to be on the field. Practice is not in the equation. You got to get out on the field, and it's nasty, and it's not designed for you to survive. And I try to say this to the kids on American Idol. I said, Listen, I love you. You got a great personality, but you better hope like hell you have a sense of humor, because if you don't, it's going to eat you for life.

Did you develop this mentality along the way, or was this something that you just uniquely had?

This is my character. If you understand something, and I tell this joke all the time, I was too small to play football, too short to play basketball. Base was a projectile coming at me at 300 miles an hour. I'm not standing in front of that thing. And the only thing I could play was tennis. So you understand walking around on a tennis court in the middle of the civil rights movement, You have to develop a sense of humor, otherwise you're going to die. So I found also, again, it's funny what your father will say to you back in, you wonder, how did he get through all of his life? Because they went through the struggle of life. And he said, If you lose your sense of humor, they got you. And I always remembered the fact that if you can find something funny out of this experience, take that Ha-Ha to the next day. And so I use that as my mantra, basically, that, okay, where am I? I'm at the Grammys. Okay, what am I complaining about? I'm complaining about I don't like my seat. What did they just say? I won. Who cares?

You know what I'm saying? Or you're just at the Grammys. You know how many people don't get to come to the Grammys? Just on the invitation And so you have to go back and look at this as far as is it really that serious? Or you have to put things in perspective. And so the first half of my career was just a matter of How do I get there? The second half of my career is, can I please try to enjoy a little bit of it? And that's where I am right now because the song stuck around. More importantly, I'm still here, which is the blessing because- You're still here and you look great. I'll take that as a compliment.

You really do. You look very healthy. Well, considering- A lot of energy.

Looking at you across the table from me, I think I left my muscles back in the hotel room. But It's all about two and a half hour show a night for the last 50 years. That's my golf game.

Training.

Training. Because you got to be ready for two and a half hours. I don't care what you think. You're the greatest guy in the world. I'll put you on that stage and give you 50,000 people. And you, after running with a night or all night long, sing a slow song. I dare you.

Yeah. And do it since 1970. What was the Commodore '72? Did you guys start?

Well, let me tell you, we started in '68 on the university campus. We were students. It started out as a group called the Mystics. And we were the talent show. We didn't realize that we were the joke of the seniors, of the juniors. But they have a freshman talent show every year, and we wanted to be the band, to be the freshman talent show. We came out on stage and killed it. And it was a guy, another group there called the Jays, which was the seniors. They had been there for the last four years, and they were the biggest group on campus. They were about to break up. And a guy named Michael Gilbert gave us a phone call and said, I want to put a group together. I was looking at you four guys. Would you like to come and join this band over here? The answer is, that was the beginning of the Commodores.

And how old were you at the time?

19 years old. Wow. Thank you very much. 19 years old and we're going to take over the world, Joe. You know what I mean? In other words, there's James Brown, there's Marvin, and there's the Commodores. When We know how that works? Yeah. And what I love about that period of time, we could be all right, all wrong, but we were all together. It didn't make any difference. So we experienced every possible imaginable part of growing up together. I didn't grow up with brothers. I had one sister. So these became, forget the band. These were five brothers. And we were in every disaster you could probably think about. And we laughed our way in and out of every... Today, we'd all be in jail. I can make that statement. But back then, it was the best.

And at 19 years of age, you're just starting to become a man, and then you're thrust into superstardum in a crazy time in human history.

Well, first of all, we didn't really get into recording until '71, '72. We were just the biggest, largest, most dynamic band in our heads across the South. And until we were the opening act for the Jackson 2005, their first tour they went out on, we were the opening act for them. That was our first look at, holy crap, this is huge. And then I'm an economics major, an accounting minor, and all of a sudden I kept thinking, I don't know what this business is, but I think I want to be in it because you have to understand something. When you play tennis, what's the number one thing you will never hear ever? A girl screaming. That's not going to happen. Football, basketball, you hear them all day long. I was going to be an Episcopal priest thinking that's my avenue. And I'm on stage one night at the Jackson show, and all of a sudden, some girl said, Sing it, baby. And I said, call the minister back on the phone. I said, I don't think I'm going to be priest material. I just want you to understand. You have to know at that point.

You have to identify your lane. I had never heard that, Joe, in my life. Of course. Who gets to? You know what I'm saying?

How many people ever get to hear Sing it, Baby?

21 years old. Right? I got an emotion. Thank you very much. And from that point on, it was just a matter of riding this wave of we finished that Jackson tour. We ended up in Motown, Hollywood Bowl. Motown saw us there. Suzanne De Pass was, of course, the one who put the Jacksons together and all that. She knew us from our manager, Cape Cod and Martha's Vineyard Island. Next thing we know, we were recording Wow. Hallelujah.

And then you're off to the races.

We're off to the races. Off to the races, Joe. I tell you, Looking at this book, it's a question, I survived, or how I survived. But the question to me was, I survived?

Because I can tell you stories, and they're in the book, but I'm just saying there are moments when you just look around and go, thank God for just being naive, young, stupid, didn't have any idea of what the heck you were doing But what a great adventure.

I'm in a subway, four o'clock in the morning, my saxophone, and I had this little secret thing that no one knew. I had this sheath, sheath, sheath. Sheath? Sheath. Sheath. Sheath. Sheath. Around my neck. Didn't know it had a secret compartment. Of course, everybody in Harlem knew it was a secret compartment. I had all my money in that. I'm walking around going, no one knows I have my money in there. Right. Which is everybody knew I had my money in there. I would walk up and down the subway. No one would touch us. No one. I don't know. It has to be a sense of divine guidance or Big Frank Lucas just told everybody, Don't touch us. One or the other. But I mean, it was just one of those moments in time where I've had some people say to me, You were in Harlem at four o'clock in the morning in the subway alone? I said, Yeah. With a saxophone? With a saxophone. God bless you, kid. God bless you.

It must seem almost surreal looking back because you've had such an incredible life, such an incredible career. I mean, I can't imagine what it feels like just reminiscing and going through the stories and just looking at the actual facts of what you did.

I'm glad I'm doing the book now because otherwise I would be, let's say, when I got to about '98, '99, because I'm planning on a full life. There's an old man at the barbershop still telling lies about his life when he was growing up because it has to lie. There was one title I was joking around with, which is, You're not going to believe this shit.

That would be a great title.

That would be the title. And I was thinking, That might be the way to go. And then, of course, I kept thinking, No, but from a philosophical point of view, that's not going to fly right. Okay, we'll pull that back. But the point is, it's almost not believable. When you start calling off names, it's almost like name dropping. And you Start thinking about who mentored you, who gave you the advice, who was there for you exactly the right time, who came in, who left right on time. You know what I'm saying? There are moments that happen that if I tried to script this thing, if I tried to put it down as a complete play, chapter by chapter, act by act, you couldn't make this up. It reads like a book.

Or like a crazy movie. If your life was a movie, I'd be like, That seems a little unrealistic. Too many good things happen. Yeah.

To the point where somebody says... I remember a couple of my friends Why am I drawing a blank? Rick James. Rick James had a great line for me. Every time he saw me, I say, Rick, how are you doing? I hate you. And that means I love you. I hate you. I hate you, man. And of course, I get it because things along the way become almost charmed. You know what Like, okay, did I go out and call Dick Clark and say I wanted to host the American Music Awards? No, no. He called us and said, Lionel, forget that guy in New York. Look at that guy in New York. You're doing it. You're doing it. I mean, forget that guy. Now, whoever that guy was, the gift was handed to me. And now I spent the next two or three weeks trying to convince Mr. Clark that I don't have any training in how to be a host. And that's when he would come to me and say, You school boys are all the same. You think you need a diploma before you think you know something? These lines that come out of this whole story, that's not orchestrated.

That's not scripted. It came from the other side back this way.

Yeah. Do you feel charmed?

Yes. Do you feel like for whatever reason- The word I'll use is blessed. It's one of those things where my grandmother said something to me a while back. I just finished Endless Love. And I went back to Tuskegee, and I'm walking around in the house pacing back and forth. She said, What on Earth are you doing? And I said, I'm trying to figure out my next move. And she said, Did you come to school to join the Commodores. She said, No, I met them on the campus. She said, Did you plan on being a writer? No, I found out I was a writer. She said, Did you plan on being a lead singer? No, I found out when I joined the group She said, Why don't you just get a good night's sleep and wait for God to give you the next.

Wow.

And that's how I started my career.

That's an incredible woman. That's incredible perspective.

Quit trying to figure this out. Did you figure it out before? No. Then just relax. Chill out. Can you read or write music? No. Okay. Just chill out.

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I try to tell the kids on American Idol. Sometimes you have to look at failure as a great sign. If they had told the Commodores on the first time we audition, You got it. Ready to go. The answer is we weren't ready to go. It took no and no and no. And we're signing at Atlantic, no. Signing at Philly International, no. But we're the greatest band ever. You're Right. What did they say to us? You sound just like the Temptations. You sound just like Sly and the family Stone. What do you sound like? Wow. What do we sound like? I don't know. So the only way we have to find out is we have to start not imitating somebody else. Now comes the thing of, well, what do we sound like? And I didn't know. I didn't know how to write. So how do you write? You follow me? And then you get to Motown. I'm signed to Motown. I don't know how to read or write music. What the hell am I doing here with this band? I'm not the lead singer. I sing some cover songs. And then you walk down the hall and there's Marvin.

So I decided I'm going to interview Marvin. Excuse me, Marvin. What music conservatory did you graduate from? And he said, What the hell is that? I said, How do you write your music? He said, No, no, little brother. Can you hum? Yeah. He says, All that you can't play with three fingers, hum it into a tape recorder. And then you go down the hall again. That's Smoky. And there's Barry Gordy who built Motown. Excuse me, Mr. Gordy, what university did you graduate from? He said, I was at a car plant. What are you talking about? Everything that I grew up with on the campus of Tuskegee as a kid, I grew up on the university campus. That's academia. Did not apply in the world of hustle. You understand? Yeah. So I'm now meeting the guys and ladies who found their hustle.

They had a PhD in hustle.

They had a PhD in hustle. And I am telling you, Joe, from that moment on, I was let out of the box. Somebody let me out of the cage because In academia, there's a logical reason why you know what you know because you studied it. But I was that kid that was sitting in the class going, Mr. Mr. Richie, Mr. Richie, would you like to join the rest of the class? I was daydreaming. I found at Motown, the whole damn company was tapping on the table. I found out in New York City, the whole town is tapping on the table and dancing. And so from that point on, I joined this creative, source, force, fraternity, sorority of crazy out of troll people that gave me permission to dare to listen to myself.

That must have been so exciting to learn that, that the structure that you learned in academia. No, these Wizards. No, no. These Wizards of music, these masters of giving people emotion and power and energy.

I get chill sitting and talking to you, watching Marvin record. And you keep thinking he walked in with a paper and he had written these lyrics. No, man. He is scatting at the microphone. Really? Oh, save the baby. You know. I'm thinking to myself, what am I watching? And then he said, bring the microphone over to the couch. He's on the couch singing in the couch in the control room. When am I watching? What's happening? In other words, it was just so organic and so... Because she I think about the orchestra and they're there and... No, man, this is inside of a wonderful dream of watching creativity just explode with no doors, no windows, no walls. And he was making this up in real-time. Wow. You're talking about freestyle. My man was free-styling, coming up with some of the greatest lyrics ever on life's planet. And I kept thinking, okay, so let me go back and put that in my little hamper.

So did he have an idea of where he was going with these songs?

I think he had a feeling about the idea. But did he know the exact words? It's like when you close your eyes and you're in it. But see, I didn't understand how to be in it. I kept thinking, well, let me put it this way. I was trying to think.

Because of the academic background.

You're trying to, logically, there's a logical reason why you're about to say what you're going to say. Instead of just saying, okay, just turn on the mic. You know what I'm saying? Just turn on the mic, man. I got it. To this day, I have a thing that I do that still wears out my management. I have to do a speech or something, and they say, okay, can you give me this speech so we can put it on the teleprompter? And I I don't have a speech to give you. Lionel, we need the speech to put on the teleprompter so you'll know what to say. I don't know what I'm going to say. What do you mean you don't know what to say? I said, No, I I don't know what I'm going to say until I get there. And I walk out on stage. I said, now, how long do you want the speech? They said, we have five minutes. I'll give you five minutes worth of speech.

They just have to trust you.

Wow.

That's how I do it And you learn from watching the Greats.

The Greats.

And there must have been such a unique shift in perspective and how you view the world and how you approach things. To see people, to know that your daydreaming was actually just talent trying to burst free.

Exactly.

And they knew how to just take that talent and just be unharnessed.

It was to the point where I was actually This is Grandma Foster, AM Foster. She courted my grandfather in Booker T. Washington's house. That's where she came from, Tuskegee. My grandfather, they knew Booker T. She knew George Washington Carver. In my home in Tuskegee, Alabama, there's a crocheted piece from Mr. Carver, Dr. Carver. My Mrs Foster, congratulations on your wedding. Wow. That's a crocheted piece. The D to my house has the Washington family's name on the D to my house. It was given to me, not to me, to my grandmother and grandfather by the Washington family Booker T. So now when you have all that background, it's one of those things, where where do you go with this thing? My upbringing was pretty Pretty amazing where it had structure. Now here I am over in this other side where, wait a minute, you mean I don't have to remember anything. I can make up something.

And allow the universe to just give you.

I can just make up something. But what do you want to make up? I don't know. Then it's a word that we learn I call receiving. I'm just receiving. So now where does receiving come from? Receiving comes from the silence. It's not the noise. It's in the silence. So here I am between 1: 00 and 6: 00 in the morning, and everyone thinks, what's Lionel doing? He's just sitting there. What's he doing? Nothing. But let me let you in on a little sound that's terrifying to most people. You ready for this? You hear that, Joe? Silence. Right? Now, if you can hear, Out of the silence comes the receiving that from the other side.

It is a receiving, isn't it?

Yeah. When you Sometimes you just have to just blank it out. Some people call it meditation. Some people have all kinds of names for it. I just love to listen to silence. By the way, there's only twelve notes, Joe. It's not 145 notes. It's only twelve notes. So everything that has ever happened that you've ever heard on any radio, it's only twelve notes. So how do you turn twelve notes into something that sounds new, different, That's amazing to me. Yeah, it is amazing. And so in the silence, and all you have to do is learn how to figure out what are the four chords? Because if you got four or five cords, you can write a whole album. But It's the melody that goes on top that you have to be able to hear. And so once I learned that Marvin and Smoky and Michael Quincy, these are Hendrix. I just saw the poster coming in. They all made careers. Not only careers, they had their unique sound out of twelve notes. Think about that. Now, if you think it's hard enough to get a hit record, how do you become unique unto yourself with those twelve notes?

That is one of the geniuses of Hendrix, is that you could tell Hendrix in three seconds.

He didn't have to come in singing.

No. No. You just heard a little bit of guitar.

Done. You can hum it. You can hum it. Yeah, right.

The six was nine. That's Hendrix. There's a sound that he was able to make. There's very few people that figure out how to do that.

I did not understand that. The blessing was not in having a hit record. The blessing was in having unique sound. Okay? Stevie sounds like Stevie. Smoky sounds like Smoky. You know what I'm saying? And so when you start thinking about, okay... Now, by the way, you can't rehearse that. That's either your gift or you can't say, Well, I'm going to work on my sound. No, it's a real thing. That's why when we do American Idol, I tell them over and over again, I'm not looking for singers. I'm looking for stylists. What's going to make me close my eyes and remember you? I don't want to see you. Can I identify you by your That's a career.

Do you have conversations with people that don't know how to receive? When you're talking to a young artist and maybe they're a little bit too technical or maybe they're a little bit too constrained, do you have conversations with them about... What do you say to them?

Yeah, I do. And I could see their frustration. Lionel, I can't believe it. It's amazing how you went to that augmented seventh with a diminished nine with a raised 18th with a 45. And I'm sitting there going, I can't read music. And he goes, And the way you did that modulation from body And I said, I can't read music. And he kept saying, And the way you turned that vocal around, it came back down to that augmented seventh over a raised ninth. And I kept saying, I can't read music. So I tried to tell them, Listen, Forget the notes. Can the crowd sing your song? If they can't sing your song, dazzling them with notes is not going to get it. That's the first thing. That's for the guys who can read and write and do the full Juilliard and Berklee and killer. That's for them. Now, for the kids who are just brilliant, by the way, and they know their music, but they don't know how to receive. My answer now is, now that you know the technical, forget it. Now, tell me what you're feeling. Now, play that. And instead of playing 15 cords, play one and hum as much as you can holding that one chord.

And then when you get tired of putting everything in that one chord, that's the second chord coming up. You You follow me? Because what happens as musicians, they want to go, We are the. Stop playing. Bang, we are the world. Bang, we are. Just keep holding that. Bang, we are the ones that make it brighter. There's a bang. Now you change. You follow me? Because if you confuse me and you dazzle the world with all of your musicianship, you just miss the melody that The whole world can sing.

You miss the purity.

You miss the purity.

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See dkng. Co/audio. Wow. Did they get it when you tried to tell it to you? Or is it one of those things like, you're going to have to live more?

You're going to have to live more. Because remember now, when Marvin said to me, he was giving me the words of wisdom, when Norman Whitfield, who wrote Cloud 9 and all this, just amazing Temptation songs. Cloud Nine, be what you want to be. You don't need no responsibility. Everybody come in now, dinner He's playing one note. Wow. Okay. They hadn't changed yet. He wrote the whole first verse. Okay. Ball of Confusion. He's still on one note. Wow. Okay. It takes time to understand what that master just told you. Right. You follow me? Yeah. And then once you understand the simplicity is the secret. The simplicity is the secret.

It's like when you go to a restaurant and they put too much sauce on the steak.

I could have given you a better answer.

You didn't have to do that.

Just give me some chicken. Yeah. Give me fried chicken. Give me baked chicken. Give me smothered chicken. Don't get smothered. Don't get to it. You don't have to get crazy. And at the end, just give me an apple pie. Just give me a Keylock pie. You know what I'm saying? Give me a lemon maroon. Give me pumpkin pie. You don't have to get crazy. We have a deconstructed. And I go, just put it together. Put the whole thing together and give it to me.

Sometimes with some music, that's one of the things you can't connect to. It's like it's over complicated. And you hear some music and it's like, God, there's so much going on. And then you hear some acoustic version of a song. You're like, oh, my God. That's it. Oh, my God. Yeah. You just hear the the pick scratching across the strings. Like, oh, my God.

Mr. Gordy, I've known him enough now where I can say Barry, but he's Clearly, Mr. Gordie. Clearly. He taught me the greatest line ever. I went to him and I met him in the hallway. And he would never, ever say, Oh, congratulations. You got a hit record. That's not what he would say. He'd always say, Oh, Marvin's got a hit. Marvin's got a smash coming out. I go, Mr. Gordie, I just want to let you know I have a number one record. Marvin's got one coming out. It's going to be a smash. And And what do you have next? What do you have next? And then I said, okay, well, I got a hit record. I said, let me go out to the car and get a tape. I want you to hear it. No, no, no. You got a hit record, hum it to me.

Wow.

Hum it to me. If you need to play music, you got a nice tune. There's your tempo. Now hum it to me.

Wow.

Now, that means the crowd is going to sing along every note with you. You don't have to wait till the hook. They'll sing the verse with you.

What is that pressure like?

I would love to tell you it was a pressure. No? No. I would tell you that there's an old expression that a jazz musician said to me years ago, you either understand or you don't. You can either hear it or you don't. That's all it is. In other words, and my line is, if you can hear me tapping on the table and all you hear is me tapping on the table, you're not a songwriter. But if you hear me tapping on the table- And you start... And you hear a song, you're a songwriter. Class dismissed. We don't have to waste any more time.

It is a bizarre thing to creativity, which is one of the most important things in our society, cannot be taught. No, no.

I mean, you meet brand new person every day. I meet crowds of people. You meet one-on-one people every day. That's difficult. That's difficult. And to know something about them and wanting to find out more. And how does your personality work with that other person? That's a skill. But that's not even a skill. That's not something you practice. That's something you had from way down deep. It's just the more you do it, you got better and better at being that person. That's exactly right. You follow me? Yeah. So if I said to you right now, How did you study that, Joe? You go, Just turn on the mic.

I just got very fortunate that a job existed that didn't exist before, which is podcasting, where you get to talk to interesting people. There you go. And luckily for me, I don't have anybody telling me who to have on. So I just go through. I have a line of emails every day, and I'm like, oh, Lionel Richie. Fuck, yeah. I said, fuck, yeah.

I put down, Fuck, yeah. Lionel Richie.

But there's a bunch like that. I'd like to talk to him. There's Some guy who's an astronomer. Oh, yeah. Bring him on. Let me see some of his stuff. Then I'll go watch some videos, listen to him give lectures. I'm like, all right. But to me, I'm just very fortunate that this is just how my personality is. I'm just curious about how people think.

Again, it's one of those things Because out of your natural curiosity, that's you. Yeah. Follow me? Well, out of my natural ADD, ADHD, hypersensitive, whatever they used when I was growing up, I found it all serves me well because it all came out in songwriting.

It does serve you well, which is so important for people to hear. Everybody wants to diagnose everybody and medicate them. I had for sure ADHD when I was a kid. Oh, please. I think everybody that I know that's talented and creative has ADHD, whatever that means.

I tell all the parents, Leave them alone. Leave them alone. No, there's two types of kids, and I keep trying to tell them. There's academics. They're great. You want them to remember. They can remember They can recite, they do numbers. And then there's the creatives. Okay, the last thing you want to do is put a creative kid in a room full of academics. The grades are not going to be great, and you're going to worry them to death. Put them in a creative school where they're nurtured into their... Yes, they're going to work on math, and yes, they'll work on their science, but don't make that the priority. No one to this day has ever asked to see my college degree. No one to this day has ever asked me to see my high school diploma. You understand me? So was I an A student, B student, C student? C student, babes. I mean, I was right there on the borderline of disaster, but I was just happy to be there. But the point was, it's not important. What did you end up being? Who did you end up discovering? How comfortable are you with yourself?

By the time you get out of elementary school, going into high school, you're so inundated. And let me tell you what's wrong with Lionel. Lionel has a problem with... And if you listen to that crap, by the time you're going to college, it's not happening. Now, here's the joke. They told my family, my mom and dad, truthfully, Lionel is not college material. I mean, in other words, he's to be creative. You know who they forgot to tell? Me. The best thing they ever did. They didn't tell me about that conversation, which means it was okay. I didn't use that as my crutch. Don't tell somebody they have a handicap. Just leave them alone.

Just let them To figure out what they actually like to do.

Because it's not a handicap. In other words, I learned years ago, a race car driver, he sees 200 miles an hour as, Can I get this to go any faster? Magic Johnson, the basketball goal looks like the size of the inside of a building. That's how big it is in his head. To me and you, it's a little tiny thing at the other end of the court. You're following me? Yeah. Okay, so my point is, everybody has a unique brain and how they see things. Quit trying to put everybody in this one little box. If we can set up education where let those see it in freestyle has a freestyle moment. We'll get more out of kids. We'll get more out of people if you just quit trying to condemn them and let them flourish in their lane, if you will. And that's the special part. Yes. Okay. Reading and writing, you got it. That's important. And now with AI coming and all this stuff. You don't have to do that anymore. But I'm just saying there's some basics you have to have. But then after that, I think we're crippling our kids because we're giving them too many got us in a world that's constantly changing.

Yes, especially now.

Especially now.

But if your child is a creative, the problem is that is such a gamble. Say if your child wants to be a lawyer, you go, okay, you go to law school, get your degree, pass the bar, get to work for a firm, you're a lawyer. There's a path. You want to be a singer like, oh, Christ.

My recommendation, get the law degree and then try to be a singer. Have a backup plan? I mean, all the words, in my case, I didn't have a backup plan. Luckily, my freshman year, I found that thing. And I mean, how did it work? That's why I said to you, Is it divine guidance? It's divine guidance. I didn't have a plan B, but I'm sure that would have been one if it was time for that to come into play. If I told you how many lawyers now, excuse me, how many lawyers started out as singers. They wanted to be in a band. If I told you how many people that are now on Wall Street, what do they do on the weekends? They have a band. You follow me? Oh, yeah. There's a lot of that. And so as time goes on, okay, so you're not the lead singer, but you're the lawyer in the record company, or you're the manager, or you're the agent. You follow You know what I'm saying? That 99 million jobs under the word entertainment. It's just that maybe you weren't going to be the star of the show, but you're in the show.

That's easy for Lionel Richie to say, though. If you're that lawyer that wishes he was a star, it's a real problem.

I know. And trust me, I run into those guys who hate me. They are. Oh, yeah. Lionel Richie. Oh, yeah. Right. No, I get it. Of course. I get it. And I understand it's And by the way, what I like about the book is everyone, just to let you know, it sounds like I won. No, it was a struggle. I'm the shyest guy in the world. It was painful. Joe, walking down that stage. I said it was a freshman talent show. The curtains open. I went off with the curtains. The only reason that I was on that stage, I didn't grow up with the guys in the Mystics. They didn't know that Lionel Richie from Tuskegee, Alabama, was the shyest kid in town. They didn't know that. These are guys that I didn't grow up with. So they said, Hey, man, you brought your horn? Yeah. You want to be in a band? Now you're talking to a kid who goes, Okay, we're going to do a baseball team. What was the answer? Okay, we'll take Lionel. Okay, let's do a basketball game. Okay, all right, we'll take Lionel. Let's play football. Okay, we'll take Lionel.

These guys came along and said, Hey, you got your horn? Yeah. You want to be in our band? Yeah. Right? Bingo. You mean you don't know about me?

You don't have to be defined by other people's ideas of you.

That's exactly right. So they said, okay, here's the part. Can you play the sax? Yeah, man, I played the sax. I didn't tell them I brought the horn to to learn how to play it. But I could play by ear. I could play by ear. So unless we're reading music, I sound like I know what I'm talking about. So it became one of those things. And by the time I got in the Commodores, I didn't tell anybody. I'm the greatest horn holder that ever lived. Are you kidding me? So just keep that secret and keep on going. But what I'm saying to you, just think this for a moment. I mean, it didn't start out with confidence. It came out with, sooner or later, they're going to know I'm an imposter. And slowly but surely, who worked the hardest? Me. Because sooner or later, they're going to find out- You got to catch up. That I got to catch up. So every time we had some time off, I'm interviewing Marvin, I'm interviewing you name it, anybody. Tell me what you did to get to where you're going. Then I found out nobody went to school to know what they know.

Holy crap. Now we're on to something really serious because then I had some aha moments. And so if I can't play it, I can hum it. But most of the time I could just play it. Okay, I can play this. And as you learn, you grow quickly. You have to learn quickly now because we just signed the contract to say we're now on Motown records. I got to do a fast track here. But It happened in real-time. At any moment, they could have called up and said, We're going to cut the group down to the most significant people in the group. Rich, you're out. Oh, shit. So I got to make sure. Let me make sure I get this. I'm working harder than anybody have you ever seen before in your life. And so that's how it's a whole life of insecurity. It wasn't secure. And then you get your first song and you go, Okay, okay. That was lucky. Okay. Then the guy said, Hey, kid, you got any more of those songs? Yeah, I got another one. You go home and look at the guy in the mirror and go, You got any more songs?

Because I'm talking to myself. And that's when you realize, okay, out of fear, I got to come up with another song. So everyone keeps thinking this, this confident guy walking in, I got another song for you. I got to tell you how many times I walked on stage, Joe, and had a panic attack. Right in the middle of the show, I'm having a massive panic attack. Really? Because I'm supposed to look like I got this. When actually I don't.

But eventually you did.

Well, that's what happened to Barbra Streisand. And that's what happened to... I mean, once you realize as you start interviewing people, the people who are scared to death on stage And then they realized as time went on, they got used to it. But I realized the thing that scares you to death is the thing you have to keep going forward on. That's my dad's line again. What's the similarity between a hero and a coward? One step forward and one step back. No matter how much it scares me, step forward. And so each time, I was not going to say I'm not I'm going on stage. I go on stage and I'm on a sweat for two hours and try to fake my ass off. And now it's like second nature now. But at the time, give me a break.

That's so important for young people to hear that a guy like you would panic.

Are you kidding me? Oh, my God, man. Have you ever met the President before in life? No. Have you ever been on stage in front of 100,000 people? No. Have you ever been in a club with four people in the room looking at you going, what you got to do? No. I mean, listen, that's why when I see these kids on American Idol, I don't know how they do that. I came in with five other guys going, yeah, yeah, yeah. They're singing a cappella to me and Kerry and Luke. And 20 million people watching and a billion, 200 million live impressions. Get the freak out of here. So I'm just saying for me to be this authority, if you will, I can relate to every one of their heartbeats on that stage. I know what they're fearing. That's why when I get around artists, you don't try to blow them away with your importance. First of all, do you need a hug first? What do you need? Let me talk to you for a minute. Let me talk you down because you're expecting too much out of us. You follow me? Yes. Because we're all students of scared to death.

Yeah. If you're not, you're in the wrong business.

That's exactly right. And by the way, the book is not about how I won. It's how I got, not to the peaks, how I survived the valleys. The valleys of insecurity is it, man. How do you get up and go, You're going to host the American Music Awards. Dick wants you to do that.

Okay. Was that a big, scary one for you? Because you brought that up a couple of times. That one bothered you a lot?

Everything scared me. I know you're not expecting this interview, but I'm pleased. Everything scared me. You have to understand. Lionel, we're going to do an instrumental for a movie. It It's called In This Love. I'm only doing Kenny's album. I'm only doing the Commodore's album. But because it's Franco Zeferelli and John Peters and everybody, I'm thinking, okay, I can do an instrumental, right? Then halfway through the thing, they said, Well, we're going to shoot a scene where we just need the lady to sing a first verse to the person in the scene. Can you write a first verse? Yeah, my love, there's only you in my life. The only thing that's right, my first love, your every breath that I take, your every step I make. Thank you. Okay, got it. Is that it? Yeah, right. No. Lionel, we've decided now to make this a duet, and we're going to get Diana Ross to sing the lady's part. Who do you recommend to sing the guy's part? Are you out of your mind? It's me. What are you talking about? I'm not going to recommend somebody else. Were they beating around the Bush? I think they were.

They have to be. I think they were backing me in because I told them I don't have time. So they baited me by saying, it's going to be an instrumental. But by the time I got there, I'm thinking, okay, now here's the problem. Diane is in New York. I'm in LA. I'm doing two albums, Commodores and Kenny Rogers. I'm not going to New York, and she can't come to LA. Where are we going to meet? Tahoe.

Tahoe?

We go to Tahoe, but it wasn't even Tahoe. Reno. She's playing Reno. So at the end of my Commodore night, 10: 00 to 6: 00, Kenny Rogers, 6: 00 to 10: 00, Lionel Richie. And then 10: 00 to 4: 00 in the morning, I got to get on a plane, fly to Tahoe, and put Diana Ross on Endless Love.

Wow.

Now, what you don't know when you're that part of your life, that you could die from having creativity. Too much creative. It was so exciting, but at the same time, I'd never written a duet, ever. So my first you had in life was with Diana Ross. Do you think I was nervous? Do you think I was nervous? Do you think I was nervous? I just kept praying for God's sake, Don't let me pass out in front of Ms. Ross. Oh, my God. So what I'm just saying to you, the title of the book could be Scared to Death. I got titles, man, because it's the first time of everything. I've never done this before. Just imagine being put into a situation throughout my entire career.

Wow.

Where, step forward, Lionel. Step forward, step forward, step forward, step forward. Can you all hear my heart beating? No. Okay, good. Step forward, step forward. That's what it's been.

Wow. Like I said, that's so important for young people to hear because I think they see someone with such a career and so much success. They go, Well, that guy's just probably crazy, confident, always has been and just talented, kissed by God.

No, I tell people every day, What this book did for me. I discovered Richie. I'm the Italian race car driver. I never looked behind me. I never paid attention. And then all of a sudden this book made me turn around and look behind me.

It's interesting because if you want to get things done in life, you have to be the Italian race car driver. But if you want to get this thing done in life, write a book about your life, that requires that introspective thinking and that recollection and that recognition of like, oh, my God, What did I go through?

What was that? I mean, you think about it. You think, yes, I got the hit record at the same time my mother was dying. Now, those two don't go together. You follow me? I'm in the world tour of my life. It's the dancing on the ceiling tour. I'm going to establish me around the world. It's the all night long dancing on the ceiling tour. My father's dying.

Oh, God.

You follow what I'm saying? Okay, so now, how's dad doing? Well, he's doing okay. How's mom doing? Okay, mom, mom. Okay, Can I come home? She's okay. She's okay. But I can cancel the tour and come home. Okay, but how's she doing? My sister's there. Mom's doing fine. She's doing great. But you don't realize she's in the decline. But you keep trying to balance this, what do I do? And so it's all happening while it's happening. And so it's How do you compartmentalize the show, the writing, and real-life family? Is it the reunion? We're having the reunion. Okay. It's the class reunion. It's the family reunion. Have you ever been to the family reunion? No. Didn't make the family reunion. Why? Because when you're in the Commodores, when you really have your shows, it's Christmas, New Year's, all the holidays, all summer. So if you happen to have any reunion during those times, you're not going to make it. So it's the sacrifices. How many barn fires did I make during college? None. Pep rallies? No. Basketball tournaments? None. But I'm the Commodores. We're the Commodores. You follow me? Yeah. So I always tell people, what comes with success are the sacrifices.

And even after you make the sacrifices, it's not guaranteed that you're going to win.

And your highest of highs, like the all night long days, you're dealing with your father dying. Exactly. So people would just see. All they're seeing is you and thousands of people screaming and cheering when you're on stage all over the world, sold out shows. But you're dealing with your father dying.

Yeah. You're dealing with moments. You're trying to pretend like you're not seeing it. There's a moment when you go home and your parents age right in front of you. You never noticed it before. He wasn't dying yet, but you could see the decline until dancing on the ceiling. You see a little bit more of the decline. You follow what I'm saying? And then finally you realize, holy shit, this is not going to be good at all. But you keep pretending like it's not happening, if you know what I mean. You put that in that little compartment. He's getting older, but he's okay. He's okay. He's okay. The answer is, he's not. And then from that, you think that everything else in your life is okay. Is the marriage okay? No, it's not okay. Nothing's okay. Why? Because all priorities are going towards this new thing you've never experienced before called freaking hit record. Going solo. I'm leaving the Commodores. I'm leaving the Commodores. These are the only five guys I've ever trusted in my life. So everyone keeps thinking, Yeah, you went solo. No, no, no, guys. What was that word that comes with that?

Scared. Fear. So everyone keeps thinking, And then I decided to go solo. Oh, shit. Who are you talking to?

I don't Leaving the Commodores, too. It's crazy.

Come on, man.

The Commodores is a once in a lifetime opportunity. And for you to say, I'm going to do it on my own.

No, no, that's not the way it was. You're I'm not leaving you guys. What are you talking about?

Leaving the Commodores is crazy.

I mean, first- You can't. You can't do it. But what was happening behind the scenes? That's the story. What was happening behind the scenes was, and I understood, I understood. But still, I didn't want to accept it. It's the guys. Yeah. Okay. The article read, And then Lionel Richie sat down to the piano and started playing his classic hits. Review. What's a guy like the Commodore? What's a guy like Lionel Richie doing in a funk band like the Commodores? Joe So try to go back to rehearsal after that review.

Oh, God.

You got it? Yeah. Or now we've done Endless Love. Now we've done Lady with Kenny Rogers. Tell us, Lionel, how you started the group. Oh, no. I didn't start the group. Oh, no. And now you walk into a group interview and they knock Clyde over and they knock Wack over the Tommy. Lionel, tell us about the band. Oh, no. So what I tried to do was come later. But by coming later, well, you think you're big enough now where you don't have to be in the group? Well, if I'm on time, they'll disrespect you. Right. I got the feeling. I got their angst. You follow me?

And this is a different time in the world. See, today, you could elevate those folks through social media and bring them up with you.

Of course.

Yeah, that's the beauty of today. If you're working with talented people, they're not getting to shine. You go, Hey, this guy's great. Everybody go see him. Check it out. And then all of a sudden, boom. And now they get the love and the recognition. But back then, everybody was on their own. It was a dog eat, dog world, and it was controlled by gangsters.

I rest my case. The answer was, I realized one very important thing. Throw the word degree out of your vocabulary, the music business. A degree, a degree in music, a degree in business, a degree in what? No, no, no, man. This was street degree.

Street psychology, too.

What did the guy tell me? He said, I'll tell you the best course I ever took in life, and this is a true story. He said, You're a school boys are funny, man. He says, You all learn how to account for the money. He says, We count the money. And I said, Okay, so what does that mean? He says, Somebody's got to teach you how to steal. Oh, God. No, no, no, no. Best lesson I ever took in my whole life. Because once you learn how to steal the money, you know how to stop people from stealing.

Yeah. There's so many stories of bad deals. I mean, I was I'm reading an excerpt from this book, and I don't know if it's true. It's a guy that thinks that Hendrix was killed rather than he died. And he thinks that what was going on was that Hendrix was leaving his management, and his management had him locked up in some crazy contract. They were stealing money from him, and they thought that he'd be more valuable dead since they owned the records. And this is like you coming from the '70s in the professional business from the '70s on dealing with... That was the business back then. Yeah. I mean, look at Phil Specter, the guy's in jail now for shooting a woman in the mouth in his house. These were gangsters.

Yeah. The answer is there is a one moment when I looked into my mom and dad's face and I said, Hey, they just stole 363,000 dollars from me. And my mother said, You leave those people alone and come home. And I go, No, no, no, no, Mom, mommy, mom. It only cost me 362,000 $1,000 to learn that lesson. It's never going to happen again. And I was so excited about it. She looked at me and said, My son's crazy.

That is a crazy response.

But the answer is- But it's very logical. You can lose millions. You can lose billions. Sure. Okay? So if it only took me 362,000, I got off light, man. You understand me? For sure. And not only that, can you keep your life? I mean, just think about it. When you go to the box office, everybody had a gun. Now, here's the beautiful part about it, because I knew that later. Nobody's going to shoot anybody. It's just how naive were you? If you were naive and a little schoolboy, you could get shot and killed. But as you started learning who the gangsters are, that was just an intimidating factor. But you had to be... Once you knew them, then they go, Come on, Lyle, just cover us a little bit.

That's even more disconcerning. They become normal.

They become normal.

That's what gets weird.

That's what gets weird.

When you're around normalized gangsters.

That's exactly right. And then your mother starts meeting them on their way to Miami. They would drive, and they stop by Tuskegee to see the school boys. And here's a guy dead of homecoming season in a full head to toe mink hat, mink coat, pink El Dorado. Pink El Dorado. Driving across the campus and you go to your instructors. Yeah, this is my friend, Tall Paul. I got all kinds of names. I got names for him. Oh, my God. We had names. You can't You can't make this up. How do you introduce them to the President of the University? The answer is, you don't. You don't do it.

You don't. You don't. God. What was it like navigating that world?

It was, Joe, one of the most exciting things ever. Why? I never experienced anything like this before. I mean, listen. Who does? Listen, you mean... Wait, see, we played gangster. They weren't playing gangster. You follow me? So we are with the gangsters. And it just became so another world where what the guys say in our world, it's not how long you live, it's how well you live while you're living. Now, that's a profound statement from him. I don't want to know anything big about that, but you have to listen, right? They don't plan on living a long life, but they plan on living well while they're here. So it's nothing to say when you go back to New York for the next summer, whatever happened to so-and-so. Oh, yeah, he got shot in December. Normal. That's normal. He's leaving town or they are leaving town. And so as time went on, it became a short term view of a very long long term problem that has always been normalized because a part of legal is illegal or desirables and undesirables. That's just a part of the city. And here's what you find out the most important thing.

The desirables know the undesirables. You go back, say, and you go, Wait, you two know each other? What? But that's what happens in this world of cities, in this world of culture. Everybody has that. What's that line I used to use all the time? Who are you really? And until it is revealed later, in the music business, we see all. Backstage is all. Front row is all. You're following me? So you just have to understand. It's probably one of the greatest educations in the world because Everybody backstage is who they are, not who they say they are.

That's got to be bizarre seeing captains of industry mingling with gangsters. Heads of enormous record companies.

Hi, Phil. Hi, Bill. Hi, John. Hi, David. And by the way, it's okay. But remember now, we're a street business. We're a street business.

And is it a street business because gangsters always controlled a certain percentage of what's going on in the streets and cities? Or is it a street business because you don't really need an education to do it? You do it on instinct and everyone needs it because it's really like what you produce is like a drug. I can listen to one of your old songs. It just puts me in a state of mind like, oh.

Bingo.

Man, it does something to you physically. So they're in the drug business, too.

Bingo.

They're in the cash business. They're in the live entertainment nightclub business. Let's talk Vegas.

Founded. Was a Harvard grad, the founder of Vegas? No. Okay. So what I'm saying to you, the problem that happened with all of these businesses we now have, they legitimized it. They messed the whole thing up. Did the movie business start out with wonderful PhD guys? No. No. It started from the street. You're following me? Yeah. And so what we are trying to do now is we've tried to legitimize all of this. Humogenize. Pasturize. We want to do the whole thing. The answer is no, no, man. We messed the whole thing up. Because what it was is the fascination of, hey, Lionald, Can I put my name on your album? Why? I got to move some stuff around. But the answer is I couldn't do it because I don't want to get in trouble from you. You're trying to dodge these guys. But the point is it's real. So I care what? I won't I won't put a business like that together. What I'll do is start the business. Hey, what a great way to do that. But the only thing wrong with that is, as time goes on, someone asks a very difficult question.

I like to see the books. That's a tough one. Go deal with that one. So you follow where we're coming from. For us, for me, as they used to call us in Harlem, the school boys. For the School Boys, this was fantasy land. Are you kidding me? We didn't think we were going to die. This was like the best course we ever took in the world from the originals. This is not some hearsay. And they adopted us as the school boys.

That's so wild. That must have been just an insane experience as a young man going through that. Just surreal.

You have no idea. You have Joe. You have no idea. I can't even imagine. And then, I mean, the days of Smalls Paradise. I mean, this is the club of clubs in Harlem. The days of Studio 54, Michael Jackson's 21st birthday. Give me a break. I mean, and back then, what I loved about private clubs was the reason it was private is because If you can't keep a secret, if you weren't in the building, you can't find out what's happening in the building. Now everybody's got a phone, and everybody can't wait to take a picture or rat on somebody. So you can't have a private club anymore because everybody's going to tell what they saw inside. Exactly. But back then, once they let you in those doors, first of all, it was a privilege that they thought that much about you to let you in. And then once you got in, you were in the club, man.

Wow. God, it must have been so exciting. And to be surrounded by so many extraordinary people at that time. What was it like watching Michael Jackson explode? I talk about him and I talk about Elvis a lot in that if you look at it as a study of Fame, that there's a certain level of Fame that you achieve that's completely and wholly unmanageable. It's like the Elvis level, and I think he was the first guy to really reach that level. Then it was Michael Jackson who went to a completely different place. Michael Jackson, he even surpassed that, which seems more insane. There it is.

Look at that photograph. That's at Studio 54 on Michael's 21st birthday. The mustache was thicker than ever, man.

It dripped down a little.

I had the hook on Come on, man.

Because he never had a normal moment. No. He was famous when he was a little boy. I remember when... What show did ABC... What did they broadcast?

Was it Ed Sullivan? When they first hit? Yes. It was either Ed Solomon or Dick Clark. I think it was Ed Solomon when they blew up, blew up.

But I remember him singing ABCs when he was just a boy. Boy. And I was like, my God, he is so talented, like exploding in talent, exploding in charisma in charisma. Like, I'd never seen before. You'd seen so many artists and so many people that were maybe it was because of the youth, too. It's like he's so free. He was so free. It's so much charisma and talent. It was just insane. Look at this. Give me some of this.

I mean, come on. Listen, you can't play any of it? No, but watch him jump out front if he does. When you see the scene where he comes out front, this guy didn't even know the clip. But if he ever spins around one time and you'll see something that looks so simple to do. He got that from Jackie Wilson. I said, Where did you get that from? He said, INL, that's Jackie Wilson. But if you see him spin and come back to dead center. Now, this is when he was just getting his wings to flap. Wow.

How old is he?

He's got to be 12, 11, 12. And of course, at this time, it was just ridiculous because he knew what he was doing. He knew exactly. I mean, this is the oldest soul you've ever met in your life. Really? I couldn't tell you. And then they walk off stage and turn into 12-year-olds. This kid turned into itching powder in your Afro. See how you stand up front and say how he points to you? Now, I know what he's singing right now. Wow. Right? Okay. God. Beat. Crazy. He was so good. Crazy. If you see him with that, I'll be honest with you, we forgot sometimes that this is going to happen because when you're backstage or in the hotel room, that's a kid. Then as time went on, things happened where you could see it getting weird. For example, I'd go down the hall and I'd say, Where's Mike? And they said, He's in the room. Okay. And meanwhile, what became normal was, Watch out, be careful. The girls are coming. Watch out, be careful. Stay in the room. The girls are coming. Now, if you understand the Commodores, Jamaine was a bass player. He hooked up with the bass player of the Commodores, Ronald.

The drummer, Clyde. Follow me? The lead singer, me. So Michael and I bonded at 12: 13 because of the lead singer. So I went down to check him out and I'd say, Where's Michael? He's in the room. I go in the room. Hey, Mike, where are you? Okay, where is he? He's hiding in the bathroom. The girls are out there. I said, Girls, wait a minute, there's no girls out there. They're sealed off the floor. Come go with me. Now, they got mad at me because I'd walk out in the hall and go, Come go with me. I said, You've seen the girls out there? I thought they were in the hall lying Wow. Okay, so in other words, watch out, be careful. But they're protecting the golden goose, ladies and gentlemen. Oh, no. You follow me? Yeah. But the golden goose needs play period time. He needs play time. Right. He's still a kid. He's a kid.

And so- You're freaking them out.

Jermaine, Tito. Listen, they go on dates, guys. They hang. Michael can't hang downstairs. Wow. Right? And so as time went on, you could see the slow shutdown of trying to protect an incredibly talented person. But at the same time, he got special treatment. And so what I tried to do every chance I could was, Hey, man, I'm going to get you in the car. Come over here. Let's get it together. Hang, hang, hang. And so we went through that period of time where we don't stay together long because once the Commodores took off, we didn't have that everyday time anymore. You're following me? But every once in a while, we get together. There's a little rumor that's out right now that I want to clean up right quick. They said in Lionel's book, Lionel called Michael Smelly. Didn't like the way he smelt. I said, No, that's not what it. So let me clean this up. Okay. Imagine sending your clothes out anywhere and you get half of your clothes back. The other half of your clothes are souvenirs. You follow me? So what he would do is if he had a pair of jeans, he'd wear the jeans until they tried to run away from it.

People were stealing his clothes? They were stealing his clothes, right? Oh, my God. Or he'd walk in the house some days and I'm looking down at his feet and I go, Michael, your shoes are flopping on your feet. They're two sizes too large for you. I know, Lionel. The guy we were in someplace, he gave me a pair of shoes and I told him, Thank you very much. I said, But, Michael, you could have gotten the shoes in the right size. I know, but I didn't want to embarrass him. So he's walking around with two sizes too large. You understand me? So he'll come by the house. We wore the same size by the time he became that teenager. So I said, go in the closet, get a pair of jeans. So literally, he changed clothes. And by the way, he left the clothes on the floor in the room and walked away from him. In other words, he'd wear them until he got another pair. And so we call him, Quincy called him, Okay, here comes Smelly. And so his nickname for the insiders was Smelly. You follow me? So when I said it in the book, everybody goes, Oh, my God.

Lionel called Michael Jackson Smelly. And I go, No, that's not it. That's his name. I revealed that.

That's hilarious. But it's so hilarious that people were just stealing his clothes.

Oh, man, please. The What a guy. The kid, when he was 12, 13, 14, sent underwear out, it doesn't come back. T-shirt out, no T-shirt back. Socks out, no socks back. So what he basically had was a new pair of underwear. Every time he put a pair of underwear on, it was new. Wow. Yeah, because it's just not going to happen. It's coming back from a Washington.

I wonder how many Michael Jackson's underwear is out there on eBay or something.

Can I tell you? I stole it in the '70s. That's an admission. I stole it. That's number one. But by the way, very valuable. Probably crazy. You know what? I would love to put that out there and say no prosecution needed. It was not going to happen. Could you reveal yourself? Because that's got to be... I would have that frame right away.

It's just so bananas that that was just ubiquitous. They would just steal his clothes. But it just makes sense. Totally. What I was saying about the Elvis thing applies to him plus, is that there's no roadmap for that. There's no roadmap for navigating that level of Fame. Even you as an adult, as a grown man, when your peak of Fame had to have been so surreal that it's hard to not lose who you are. Most people lose who they are. If you say, Oh, she went crazy. Bitch, you would go crazy, too. God damn right. You know what the fuck you're talking about? You've never been a superstar in front of the whole world or judging everything you do.

And then that thing came along, called the phone. At least if they did see you, they caught you in that place. But they only saw you. But now they're looking at you everywhere. So the press is everybody. Just imagine that. In my case, I got used to it. I got to admit. I mean, of course, you think something happened.

Did I do it?

No, of course. Did I... Oh, no worries.

Somebody was probably messing with it before. They pop out all the time.

I live with that sound all the time. No, but what happens with me was we went from, you could actually be You could actually sneak. I like that word. Sneak around. Sneak means you could look out. Do you see anybody you know? If you don't see anybody you know, you can sneak. And then something happens one day. You walk in a room, you came in through the back door, you sat at a table in the back door. The band starts playing three times a lady. Oh, my God. And then everybody turns around and says, Hi, Lionel.

Oh, no. Okay.

All right. And you thought you were just sneak your ass off. You ain't sneak nothing.

You're trying to sneak around and get some dinner.

That ain't not happening. And then the next thing that happens, which is you want to have a nice anniversary dinner Right? Anniversary dinner is the best dinner ever. Romantic place. And three ladies walk over to you and say, Hi, Lionel. How are you? We want to tell you we love you. And we want to tell you... But great. That's great. And then your wife says, Who are those ladies? I don't know. I've never met them before. I know, but they seem so familiar. What? Okay, wait. This is not good because now the romantic session just turned into... But now I've never experienced this before. Remember, now this is new. I know now not to go to the romantic place. You go someplace where you can have a great time. But the point was back then, this is first time happening. And you're trying to be like all your other friends. You take your wife out or you take your girlfriend out or you go to dinner and you have a... No, no, no, man. It becomes now everybody's watching you and they can't wait to come over and say, Can I have an autograph? And now they come up and say, Can we have a picture?

Right.

And so it becomes very weird. This is very weird.

Yeah. You have to plan where you go.

Plan where you go. And more importantly, be fully dressed before you leave. Don't Something I'm doing is something stupid, right? I love it. No, it's not a complaint.

It's just you're just detailing a unique aspect of your life being a famous person.

I tell people all the time, and this is the truth, I hope you like people. I hope you like people, because if you don't, you're not going to like fame.

Right.

Okay? They keep thinking they're going to be famous and rich. No, no, no. Do you like people? Because they're going to be in your face and in your business with an opinion all the time.

Yeah.

Now, you want to go to recital with your kid, and it's your kid's piano recital. I hope you like being famous. Because while your kid is playing the recital, the parents are going to be asking you for your autograph. Not the kids, the parents. I made the mistake and decided, I'll go to SeaWorld with my kid, and I'll go by myself on the parents' bus You know who protected me on the whole trip? The kids. My kid Miles said, Okay, we got to protect my dad because the parents are coming. And everybody at SeaWorld showed up, and there's Lionel Richie at SeaWorld with his kid. So I had four little kids surround me and go, I said, Guys, I'm with them. We're with the school. But I mean, it becomes, holy crap, what the hell is going on?

It's annoying for them, too.

Of course it is. But you can't have that moment with your kids. And it's a big deal because at that time, ABC, NBC, CBS, and a news station just came out called CNN. Other than that, to see you, to have a sighting was like, come on, man.

Yeah. I couldn't imagine what it was like being famous when there's only four channels in the radio.

The Olympics, 2. 5, 2. 6 billion people watching live, live. Wow. So I went from Lionel Richie to Lionel Richie All Night Long. The end of my name became All Night Long. Lionel Richie All Night Long. Hey, that's Lionel Richie All Night Long. Every country in the world, I became Lionel Richie All Night Long.

Wow. What was that like performing- There it is. In front of that many humans? What was that feeling like? Was it different than a regular performance?

Joe, it felt like a regular performance, but I had never in my life had the world watching. So I rehearsed it. We did it not realizing it was the world, literally the world, watching. And go back and look at that little podium. What was supposed to happen at the beginning of this was Ronald Reagan was supposed to come out and greet, had his speech I know I speak on behalf of everyone in America and the entire world, how proud we are of these fine athletes. That was his speech, right? Because that night, there were death threats, they decided it's too risky to have him on the field. Lionel, would you give the speech on behalf of all of America and the entire world? Stop me where I am.

Oh, my God.

So before Before I started singing, I had to make my speech. I know how proud we are here in America and around the world, of these fine athletes. And now we're going to sing all night long. But I had to give this thing. And I told them, I said... That was the proud moment after I came off stage. Before I went on stage was, well, Mr. Reagan's worried about his life. What about mine? What's going to happen here? But it was so overwhelmingly... You're talking about energy and adrenaline, and you can't beat 2. 6 billion people live. You think Super Bowl was something special? I'll tell you what this was. There was not another channel covering anything. The whole world was watching this.

That's hard for people to imagine in this day of content.

Exactly right.

That will never happen again unless it's the aliens are landing Monday at 08: 00 AM.

Exactly correct.

That's the one where the aliens landed. Oh, that fake URL?

I And by the way, that's what happened. That was the opening. But what you don't see there, that was the... That's very good, man. I hadn't seen this clip. What was happening with that was, just before it started, they sealed the airspace. I remember looking out. There were four helicopters facing out. And the problem was you couldn't hear them, Joe. I kept thinking, I'm looking at helicopters, and I said, What's that right there? And they said, They sealed off the airspace. Nothing's coming in to this place. One, two, three, four.

You couldn't hear the helicopters that were holding up the flying saucer?

I couldn't hear a thing. How's that possible? I don't know.

That's what's scary.

That's what I'm saying.

That's what I'm saying.

You understand what I'm saying? And the answer to me was, Okay. I mean, you understand me at this point?

This is 1984.

Yeah. And Howard K Smith. Remember the sports announcement? I think was it Howard K Smith? Howard Coselle? No, Howard. Howard K Smith. No, he was with a wide world of sports.

Okay.

And he kept saying, This is going to be an amazing night for you. And I said, Yeah. Okay. Not knowing what this was going to be. And there was a kid that was back Stage, and he said, Oh, my God, this is going to be the biggest night ever. You know who that kid was? Cuba Gooding Jr. Wow. He was one of the dancers. Wow. And from that moment on, I kept thinking, What's going to happen? I said, Here's what I want you to do. They're not looking at me. Your parents are looking for you. So get a signal. Give them something where you wave your hand so they'll know that that's you. But the truth of that was that was one of those interesting moments in time where the world was watching and it was no other way to happen. I woke up the next morning, drove down the street. I could be five cars back from the traffic light, and somebody passed and we go, Hey, Lionel Richie, all night long. Lionel Richie, all night long. Hey, it's Lionel Richie, all night long. Oh, God, what just happened?

Did you get your windows tented?

I got everything tented, babe. I was wearing tints. What you I'm not talking about.

That might be the biggest audience anyone has ever performed for ever, if you think about it.

Without dying, of course. I mean, yeah. I don't know what that was, but it freaked me out because I went from slightly invisible to fully visible. Anywhere. My friend got married. I kept saying to him, You don't want me at your wedding. He said, No, you have to come to the wedding. I said, You don't want me at your wedding. Here's what happened. I decided to go. There he is walking down the aisle. There he is saying, I do. And there he is walking out with his lovely bride. Every other picture after that is his mother-in-law with me, his family with me. He's no longer in the wedding. Every picture was me in his wedding book. And I said, You don't want me at your funeral. Nobody's going to ever know you're left. It's not going to happen.

What was that like for you? Like, psychologically, that giant shift, was that hard to manage?

Pain in the ass. For the first couple of 10 years, you got to get used to this. And also, you have to understand it becomes an annoyance to your friends. Hey, Lionel, let's go down to the bar and get a drink. Very simple. You've been doing that for the whole life. You go down to the bar, the bar turns around. So now your friends become security officers. You're following me? Okay, this is not cool. And so So it becomes a little bit of a hassle. So if you want to have your friends, you either have to bring them up to your hotel thing or you bring them over to the house. There's no hanging out. It's not going to happen that way. Again, you get used to it over time.

They fuck with you psychologically?

Hell, yeah. Are you kidding me, man?

Because a person relies on the perspective that they get from interacting with people. If the majority of your interactions are bizarre, And then finally, one day you say, okay, you walk into the room, prepare to talk to the room. Right. Just accept that this is what it is.

Muhammad Ali said it correctly. We had lunch one afternoon in New York, and it's time for it to be over. And as we were having lunch, there are people coming up to the glass looking in. Oh, that's Muhammad. That's Muhammad. That's Lionel. That's Muhammad. That's Lionel. That's Okay, it's time for us to go. And my security had me and I'm ready to go. I said, Where's your security? Muhammad. He said, I don't need any security. I said, What do you mean you don't need security? I said, There's tons of people out there. He said, No, no, no, no, no, Yeah. That's what Michael, God bless him, he couldn't get that in his head, but he couldn't. Even if he tried to do that, his whole persona was the frenzy. Yes. He has to have the frenzy. Otherwise, that's not Michael. Right. So I just got to the point where you go into that Zen mode and how do I get across the airport? It's only one way. You got to walk across the airport.

The difference between you and Michael, though, was like you had a normal life for a long time and then became an artist. I knew how to navigate it. You got a slow drip in the initial days.

He had the explosion.

The explosion that he got was, like I said, unlike anything anybody had ever seen before. I can't imagine how he could diffuse a crowd. It's not even possible. No, no.

They would just sworn him. Never. Was going to happen. No.

The thing about Muhammad Ali, too, he was one of the rare people that was loved by almost all humans. Absolutely. Especially after everyone realized he was right about the Vietnam War. Of course. And then he returns three years later, and then he makes his way to the title again. Again. And then he was so loved. He was so loved.

And a beautiful person. I mean, what I... And again, Trauma. When you see him out in public, he was Mr. Showbiz, but he was carrying a lot. He was carrying his belief. He was carrying his growth. With losing the family, gaining another family, still being the icon. I mean, think about that. Is he going to win? Is he going to lose? With me, I just got to sing All Night Long again. But him, he's got to win again.

And he knows he's starting to get brain damage.

There we go. There we go.

There's no way of answering but to out it. No. By the time he gets past, Frazier in the first fight, and then Foreman, just the Foreman fight alone, Ernie Shavers.

Every hit. Every hit. Every hit.

And And later in his career, it gets sad. It's just like there's very few people that transcend whatever sport they are and become one of the key features of culture.

Yeah, he was magical. But for me, he was the hero because this is a guy who found his freedom. When you can walk out and go, I'm going to speak my truth, and I don't care. Now, this is back in the days when Hoover was Hoover and the investigations were the investigations. That's heavy, man. I mean, this is not... This is life and death situations. And for him to accept his role as the educator and Also the beacon of hope. When I got that in my book, when that man came up to me and said, You must survive because you're our beacon of hope. Wow. There's a moment in time when you realize there is a responsibility here. And whether you wanted to be the teacher or not, there are folks looking at you besides the folks in Tuskegee.

Yeah. And you've got something to share, and that something is very valuable. When someone can hear wise words from someone they love and respect, it'll shift your perspective in life. And that's such a gift that you could give people.

But it doesn't come... I keep trying to tell people every day, it doesn't come with the the word flawless. Of course. It comes with flaws. How did you learn that? You put your foot in the shit. I mean, you understand, how do you know that? And the only way to know it, the only way to understand it, what you don't want to do is have someone describe to you life because they read it. I want to know about life that you lived it. Now, that's the person I'm taking my advice from.

Oh, 100 %. Yeah. Like someone teaching you music that's never written a song.

That's crazy.

Exactly. Unless they're Rick Rubin.

Unless they're Rick Rubin. By the way, you said, That's a strange brother boy. I got chills when you called his name. Know, man, and can hear.

He's the real deal.

That's the real deal. I so love him. He's the real deal.

That's a real excentry. That's a real excentry.

I went to Rick's house one day and I said, Oh, man, this is going to be great. He's out by the beach. He walked in and I said, he said, sit right over there. Rick is only one bean bag chair on the floor. That's it. That's the whole living room. Where's the living room? Or there's the terrace, all of his bedroom. Great. He has the doors. The doors open off onto his terrace. They forgot to put the terrace out there. So So open windows. There's no terrace.

I think that's what he wants.

That's exactly what he wants.

He wants things off.

But I love him. You're right. He's such a genius. I love him.

I love him to death. Oh, God. He sends me the Wackiest text, too.

When he ain't going to change.

He goes down rabbit holes. He's awesome. But there's people like him, right? They just have some special gift of... They just hear things.

But that's the point. That's the point. In life, if you have a chance to be around someone that's authentic unto themselves, at the same time, they're receiving. It's not just songwriting. And there are people who are receiving messages and you go, Do me a favor. Just sit down and tell me the story.

Well, authors all talk about that.

I love, I love. I mean, for example, every time I go to Atlanta, Georgia, who's backstage? Greatest fan, greatest mentor ever. Andy Young.

Okay.

Did he see it? He saw it all. Did he miss anything? Nothing. And he sits back there. I've sometimes been 15, 20 minutes late to go on stage. Why? Keep talking. Keep talking, Andy. You follow me? Yeah. He's just spewing the message. And again, the answer becomes, How do you feel about where we are now? I'm optimistic. Wow. That's really heavy. You know what I'm saying? So I just sit as a student, and that's what happens in life. If you have a chance, who comes backstage to my shows? Everybody. And they sit there and I have a chance to find out, Hmm. Now, they say you're this person, and the answer is, No, they're not. Everybody has a front and a back.

Especially a public narrative.

You understand. If you don't know them personally. If you don't know them personally. And so with me, I have found the greatest parts in the world of this whole story is that they come as fans, everybody. And that's the part that really makes me feel really great about traveling around the world because it gives... Remember, I know the world of the world. A lot of people know Detroit or They know America, but they don't know Europe or they don't know Asia. Joe, I'm 200 years old. I scratched on everything. But the point is, when I come home to write a song, I don't write a song based on is it going to be a song that can identify to America only? I write a song that the world will understand.

Because you've been to the world.

I've been to the world. So when I came home to write all night long, everybody looked at me like, Are you out of your freaking mind? It's freaking Calypso. Ain't no Calypso music on the radio. I said, There's a thing called World Beat. That's why every gangster, every politician, every school teacher, everybody, when you go on vacation, what do you hear? It's called the World Beat. So when I play the World Beat on anything, you automatically feel familiar. But now try to play that in the middle of funk. Try to play that, Yo, what is Lyle doing? But the point is, when you travel the world and you come back home and you put a song out, it's going to resonate to the world. And as time goes on, it will resonate to America. But I do from the world back in certain cases.

Oh, yeah. Just based on your life experiences? Yeah. No, that's amazing. But it's a lot of great artists have done that. Of course. Broke out and where people are like, What are you doing? Exactly. Why are you doing something that's different than something that's been insanely successful? Why would you mess with the formula?

Lionel Richard story. Lionel Richard crossed over and can't get black. You got me? In other words, wait a minute. Three times a lady. Yo, that's a waltz. A little brother? What's what happened? What's what you doing, man? You copping out? And the answer is, no, no, no, I'm not copping out. But my answer was very clear. If Mozart were black, would it be Mozart? No. Because he wouldn't be funky enough. And you wouldn't have played him.

Also, why would anybody challenge authenticity? If someone has an authentic idea, it's who they are at this moment. This idea that you're supposed to stay in this box.

Well, know what that's called now? What? An algorithm.

Okay.

Yeah. You're following me? Yeah. It's basically the same thing. Everyone keeps thinking, Oh, man, it's going to take over. No, it won't. And hopefully, if you're smart enough and get out of the way of this regurgitating over and over again the same goddamn song and go over here. It's got to be somebody that goes, I want to say this. And no AI can tell you that. It's going to, what's that word? Touch people. You got to have something that touches someone. It can rhyme all day long, but does it touch you? That's coming from something else that's going to be the new thing. And we've got to allow a place where the new thing can come through, because otherwise it gets to be a hum. And that's when you hear, we only play 98 beats a minute. Well, You know what happens on the fifth song? You turn the channel. First song, second song, third song, fourth song. Turn the channel.

It's formula.

Because you want to hear something that goes... That's the trick. Change up the ear. But someone said, let's just keep it all the same So now I have to ask the question.

This is the business people, right? Yes.

These are the people who don't write songs. Right. Of course. I mean, that's like going to a concert. And the first song is, and the second song is, and the third song, you go, Where are we going to eat? Right. Okay. If something's got to switch up. The lights have to change. Something has to happen. Otherwise it becomes monotonous. Thank you.

Yeah. That struggle between the creatives and the money people always exists.

I'm telling you, it used to be wonderful because the creative people were the guys who owned the labels.

When did it switch?

When they started consolidating all the... In other words, they started buying up Motown, and then they bought up A&M, and then they bought up Mercury, and then they bought up Polygram. Now you've got this big, giant. Okay, so it's Warner Brothers, Sony, Universal. We got them all. And then the independence, and then the da, da, da. And then it became one big Just a machine. One big indigestion.

Yeah. A bunch of people just want to make money and they don't make music.

And then the guy says, I know how to sell records, Lyle. I sold 18 billion hamburgers before I came here. What the fuck are you talking about? I'm a businessman, Lyle. I'm a businessman, Lyle.

You think it's complicated?

Now, can you give me your album in the third quarter? Oh, God. I'm I normally give my album when I finish it. Now, what are you talking about? Third quarter means what? Oh, no. Can we have it in the first quarter? If we can have it in the first quarter, it'll be fine.

Was this a slow thing or did it just become overwhelming at a certain point? When did they get to consolidate?

The most irritating part of it was you start an album, and by the time you finish the album, they sold the company. Oh, God. And the people who started the album with you are no longer there. So it's a new group of people that's receiving the album that has no idea that you've been working on the album in the first place. And then what label did they put that on? Okay, they put Motown over on Mercury, and then they put Motown Mercury over on Pollador. Now you're sitting there going, Okay, guys, who do I belong to? Who do I belong to? Oh, no. Oh, no, no, no. It went so sideways that And then as we slowly get further, further down the road of lack of communication, half the time you go to another company, they didn't know what the hell have you done. They go, okay, now I've got a hip hop group that I love. I got a writer that can write with you, Lionel. Who are you talking to? I mean, you know what I'm saying? We got a writer that can write with you. I don't need a writer to write with me.

What are you talking about? I got my own stuff. It's like having somebody say, I got a guy that can help Stevie.

It's just imagine at that stage of your career, someone coming along and telling you how to do it. Yeah.

Because they are A&R people from the last label. And so you get up there and you go, and by the way, whatever person they tell you they want you to write with, that's the single. Oh, God. So you go, okay, just hold on for a minute. Everybody take a step back. The worst thing I ever heard in life one time was that the guy said, I've got a surprise for Stevie. He turned in his album and I got, I've forgotten the artist's name. I can't think of it. I got them to remix his album.

Oh, Jesus Christ.

Joe, you never heard from Stevie again for 10 years. Wow. I mean, come on. First of all, if you know Stevie, every... Okay. He knows where that is. Yeah. And you remixed it before you put out the original?

Just imagine the gall to think you could do it better than Stevie Wonder.

But that's what I'm saying. When you bring in not on creative people-Who are doing cocaine. I didn't want to say that, but the answer is a lot of it, a lot of blow.

They're doing cocaine, so they have some really unnecessary confidence.

Right. And again, you have to understand something. They know. They know because why do they know? Because they said so. And what I've learned is there are two types of artist, creative artist and created artist. And these people are specialized in creating artists. But if you happen to be talking to a creative artist, shut the fuck up.

Yeah, shut the fuck up. Shut the fuck up. Leave him alone. Shut the fuck up. Could you imagine a group of those people and Prince brings them head and says, This is my song. They were like, Are you out of your fucking mind?

And by the way, they did. They did. And you know what he said? Fuck you.

But you know what I'm saying? That's one of those songs. It's so great and so authentic and so insane, and nobody had heard anything like that before.

That's what I'm saying. Madonna. Madonna for the Pepsi commercial. You know what she gave him for the Pepsi commercial? Like a prayer. Black Man on the Cross with Madonna. That's the commercial she gave him. And they said, This is disastrous. I said, It's Madonna. What were you thinking you were going to get? What did you think? What did you think you were going to get? Just give it a real name. But you see what I'm saying? But yet, was the record successful? Hell, yeah. Huge. That's what I'm saying. Massive. Get out of the way. Yeah, get out of the way. Bob Dylan, get out of the way.

But people can't figure that out if they're not creative people. They really genuinely think that they know better.

But they want control. And the answer to it is, I would rather have a company full of out-of-control artists than a bunch of control pencil pushers and accountants, they know nothing about people and what they like or what could titulate their sensibilities. Yes. Okay? It's got to be somebody that knows how Well, are they going to be in clubs all night? No. But we are. Are they going to travel around the world to festivals and everything? No, they're not going to be there. But we are. So wouldn't you trust us when we come back home and say, Okay, I got the shit?

It's just they think they know better, and they have the money, and they have the power, and they want to keep control. And one of the things that they really do enjoy controlling is controlling people that could do things that they can't do.

Very true. And by the way, they know.

Yeah.

And they'll come up to you. And what they call is giving you advice. You know what it's called to me? Insulting. Right.

Yeah.

It's insulting.

Giving you advice is just so crazy. Someone who doesn't do it, giving you advice on how to do it.

You want to hear how that sounds? Lionel, if I were you, and you know what I say back, quieter to myself, but you're not. But you're not. But you're not.

If I were you, if you were me, you would be listening to you going, what is this fucking idiot If I came back to you, Mr..

And I'd say, Hey, if I were you, I would do this with the company. And you look at me and go, Kids, you don't know what you're talking about. And that's the right answer. But if you're talking to an artist, by the way, we could run the company if you let us. But the point is, it's too late. Everybody knows everything now. And so that's the point. It's called the Peter principle. Everyone elevates themselves to their level of incompetence. And now that you are who you are, you've now null and bored yourself and the industry, whatever it is we're into, you've done it. It's done. Cooked. So my point now is we've got a world now of specialists that knows nothing about the actual doing it. It's a world.

That is crazy. And they have so much power and control over artists. And they have been successful in creating an artist before.

But not I have an artist, everybody. I mean, in other words, they have people who have never been in a successful marriage longer than 12 weeks, giving you advice on marriage. It's true. I'm thinking about this. If I were you, I'd do this. My answer is, if you ever want to find out about anything, don't ask anybody young. Ask old people. They've been through the blitz of World War II. They've been through the Depression. They've been through the crisis. Don't ask anybody young. Why? Because if it comes on the phone, you don't know anything. If you want some real good advice, when I got to Motown, who did I ask first? Marvin. Right. You think he knows? He knows. Crazy as he can be, but it doesn't matter. He was the creative killer. Who did I ask about record business? Barry. Ahmed Erdigan. Yeah. Come on, guys. These guys were the most incredible people on the planet. And so what I'm saying to you is right now we're taking advice from people who just graduated from nothing. What are you coming from? I just find it very interesting that before I ask the question of anything, I go, How did you do it first?

And you said, Well, this is my first time doing it. Thank you. I'll talk to you later.

It's just bizarre that the industry needs people like that. It's just a bad setup. It's like it doesn't maximize creative output. It gets in the way.

Well, let me tell you, we're so far down the road now because what happens now is it all became legitimate when I say that. Not that I was a nice I'm not a nice fan of gangsters, but it's something rewarding about giving someone a chance to play. Here's some money. Go play. Now, what's going to happen is, it's either going to win or you're going to lose. But if you win, you might get a group called the Beatles. If you win, you might get a group out of San Francisco called Sly & the Stones. If you win, you might get a group called the Temptations. If you win, you might get Diana Ross. If you win, you might get a Taylor Swift. You know what I'm saying? In other words, just let the artist go.

Let them go.

And that goes with everything. There's people who, like I said, in school, they're incredible academically. They can recite to you everything that has ever happened and will give you every Back up to that. Now that we have ChatGPT, it's not so much the same. But the point is, and then there are those that go, I wrote a poem. I'd like you to hear it. Or I read a book. I want you to hear about it. I have an idea about going to Mars. What? The first thing is before you become a genius, you have to take the responsibility Responsibility of being an absolute idiot to everybody around you. An idiot is when you came up with your first idea. Lionel, where do you hear all your songs from? I hear them from the other side. Lionel's an idiot. Where did I say that? On a university campus. Now, when the world finally becomes attuned to your frequency, oh, my God, you hear the word genius. The answer is, no, I'm still the idiot. I suggested it from the I'm getting.

I think if you said that today, though, don't you think more people would be inclined to listen to you sing the songs? The ideas come from the other side?

But now, yes. But now, yes. Because I can explain to them. Because why? They trust me now.

But even if they didn't know you now, I think that idea is more acceptable.

Well, yes. Now, yes. You're right. Because now we've opened that channel up now to where people can talk like that. Yeah, definitely. But back then, 1970, '69, '68, talking like that means Lionel is on either LSD or some tab. He's on some tab, yeah. But he's definitely not in his right mind.

Yeah, or he's mentally unwell. And that just aids in his brilliance. But he's crazy.

He's crazy about it.

He's a genius maniac.

Absolutely. But he won't be here long.

Right. That's like Kanye West.

Yeah.

We'll get-Genius maniac.

We'll get him to rehab as soon possible. Right.

I mean, that's what they were doing a lot of Kanye's career, just trying to manage his insanity that also led to this insane creative output.

Yeah. I mean, I'll be honest with you. Richard Pry, I use this as my perfect example. I mean, I would just wait for his next what's coming out of his mouth. And then one day, he sobered up and couldn't get funny. And I kept thinking, what just happened? Well, he went to rehab. Well, yeah, I know, but where's your edge? There's a word for it. There's a phrase for it where you learn your craft under the influence of. And if you happen to not know how you got there off of the influence, then when you finally get off of it, you don't know how to get back to it unless you go back on it.

Even if you do, it's a different place. One of my favorite examples of this is Stephen King. I love early Stephen King. If you read rather The Shining, Tommy Knockers, Misery, Kujo, Pet Cemetery. But this was cocaine, snorting, beer drinking out of his fucking mind. He wrote entire books and doesn't remember anything about writing them.

To be in their presence is one of the most incredible things you'll ever see and hear and experience in your life. Again, I got to the point where if I was just allowed in the room, remember now. I mean, I was allowed in the room when Marvin and Stevie's and... God, I can't even believe it.

Did you grasp that historically at the time? What that meant?

I couldn't breathe. Did I grasp it? I couldn't breathe. Wow. I mean, do you know what this was? This was the gift of life. I mean, that's Barry Gordy. You know what Barry Gordy was back in the day? God, he existed on the moon somewhere. Hollandosia and Holland. They're in the moon. Aretha Franklin and Armin Erdigan and King Curtis. This is the moon people, man. Sammie Davis Jr. Sydney Poitier. These are moon people. And to have them sit in a room, not in a seminar, in their living room saying, You know what? Let me tell you a story about... Now there's one part of me going, Mm-hmm. And then there's another part of me going, Holy shit, I'm sitting here listening to a freaking Barry Gordia, Cindy Portee. You follow me?

Yeah.

How did I get in that room? So another title was going to be was Fly on the Wall, but I just didn't want to be a fly. But the point is, I had the opportunity one-on-one, not in a TED talk, but one-on-one with some of the greatest people of our time.

How well did you know Richard Pryer?

Oh, my God, man. Richard This was wonderful. I mean, well, I mean, Paul Mooney, Richard Pryer. I knew Mooney real well. I mean, this was, again, totally out of his mind. Totally funny. But more importantly, totally in charge. I mean, he knew his... I saw his frustration because they were trying to deal with him commercially. They discovered that maybe he might be able to be on network television. Wrong answer. But he was so gifted in presenting the street struggle, and you laughed about it. Ms. Rudolf was Ms. Rudolf, man. When he said Ms. Rudolf, everybody knew what you're talking about. Or they put me in jail for shooting my car. I mean, But to know him off camera, to know him off the stage, what I found a lot about my comedian friends is to make things funny, you have to take dark things and make them funny. But they stay most of the time, in darkness. And Richard was in darkness a lot of time, a lot of time of his life.

Yeah, that That was surprising to people. When you see a guy that's so funny and so loved, you assume his life must be amazing. But he was struggling all the time.

All the time.

He later revealed that the story from a jojo dancer, Life is Calling, which is loosely based around his life, he accidentally caught on fire. But in real life, he set himself on fire.

Of course he did. The book that I just finished, it's the struggle. Everyone keeps saying, Well, did you start off in the rural south? Forget the rural south. I was struggling with myself, which is what everybody struggles with. So the answer is, It's not that I made it. It's this, who was I struggling with?

You were struggling with yourself.

And all of us are struggling with ourselves. That's what made the book, to me, so meaningful, because people will walk back to me and go, Lionel, I felt the same way. Now, you know what that's called in my business? A hit record. When you write a song and everybody comes back to you and says, Man, I was feeling the same way, you got to hit record. Well, when you can write in a book, Vulnerability, where you can write in a book, Fear, where you can write in a book, I'm not sure, I wasn't sure, I was scared, they go, How could you be scared and do all that? And the answer is, Step forward.

Step forward.

Scared to death. We're all scared to death. Are you kidding me? We don't know what we're doing from day to day. It's just we work it out. But it's not where all this confidence and crap. No, no, no, no. And as time goes on, you develop a little, okay. And it's called filling out your skin as time goes on. You get a little bit more confident in the fact that I know what I'm doing.

Becoming a professional.

There you go. But for the beginning stages of your life, what the hell are you doing? Yeah. Come on.

Yeah, you can't. Yeah, but it's just very valuable for people to hear that from someone that's very successful. People just look at a guy like you and go, he's just Lana Richie. I mean, it's just it is what it is. You know what I mean? Must be nice. I know. That's how they look at it. I know. They don't think of, oh, that's a bizarre path that a human being took to superstard. It's a strange run of life.

At any one point in the life, I could have turned around and said, I quit.

Yeah. And that's very valuable for people to hear as well. People will, in the fact that you're so honest and you're so open about things, it helps so much because when people read that, they'll think of themselves and the moments where they've struggled, the moments where they've been unsure of themselves or not sure what to do or wanted to quit and didn't. It's like this is universal. It's universal. And the difference between a Lionel Richie and Sandy Smith out there who's listening to this is that Sandy Smith hasn't started taking her first steps. And that if she keeps going down that line, she could be her. It's just keep going. There's talent, there's gifts of God, there's all sorts of things. But one of those things that they all have in common, if you know of them, they kept going. Jimi Hendrix, clearly, obviously, was a godly gift. Absolutely. Just gifted. Something special. Also worked like a motherfucker.

The work ethic was insane. Has to be. Yeah.

Think about how many records Nas wrote. They were releasing records for years after his death. Years after his death. Because he never left the studio. It just worked. That's how you get that good.

That's how you get there.

When you see Biggie on the streets in Brooklyn when he was 17 years old, you're like, Oh, okay. With sheets of paper, wrapping with perfect flow at 17. You're like, okay. I get it. You just go.

Or you get around major corporate leaders and you say to myself, oh, my God, you built this company. I say, I was bankrupt twelve times. You know what I'm saying? You were. All you remember was the smash. But you don't remember, what are you talking about? In other words, how many times can you take no? How many times can you take rejection? How many times can you go, I quit? And then you wake up the next morning and go, I got another idea. Because The world is designed to make you go away. It's very simple. Don't get psyched out. I tell the kids on American Island, Don't get psyched out. Just because this person can hit every note perfectly and you have this cracky voice, but I can't remember this perfect voice, but I can remember your cracky voice. That means you've got a personality. This is a great karaoke singer over here. Perfect notes don't work.

Versus something authentic that resonates with you.

There we go. I want to know what your little quip is. What's that thing? Cardi B is Cardi B for a reason. Do you follow what I'm saying? There's a lot of folks that came along. Cardi B is... I mean, I'm just using her as one example. But the wonderful thing about it is she came with a personality. She came with a thing. To me, That's the quality I'm looking for, not only in the music business, but in life. Okay, so you're rich. But who are you? What's your thing? Who are you?

Do I like being around you?

Do I like being around you? Are you? Tell me, what is it? Otherwise, you're just rich. Okay. And you got stuff. Okay. But who are you?

You have a shitty foundation in your house. Exactly, right. You have a beautiful house on a shitty foundation.

Oh, you got no taste at all. There's a lot of no taste.

Well, listen, Lionel, it's been a real honor having you on here, man, and a real pleasure. And I really enjoy talking to you, man. It's a fascinating conversation. And I really applaud your honesty and your insight into your life. It's amazing. It's really awesome.

Well, I got to be honest with you. There's an old expression that goes, Sometimes you don't want to meet the person because they may not be what you thought they were. You're exactly who I thought you were going to be. Oh, thank you. Yeah. No, I mean, because you've mastered this personality where you can sit down and talk to just about everybody. And on the days when you struggle with trying to make a communication with somebody and

it was. If you know Lionel Richie... Okay, let me tell you something. For the time it didn't work out because sometimes you have a block right in front of you. You go, okay, I just have to deal with the block. But I've enjoyed this, man. I really have as well. This is a lot of fun. Thank you. And best of luck with everything. So let me be honest with you. You don't want me to read this book because I'd go, I don't want to put that in, guys. Can I change that one line? You're following me? So I keep creating. I keep creating. And so it's just one of those things.

The dude who read it at least sound a little like you. Oh, no.

Wait, I'm drawing a blank. Why am I drawing a blank? Blaire Underwood. Jesus. Blair Underwood. Okay. Blair Underwood. First of all, we had kids in common. Our kids were in the same school. So when I say we had kids in common, no, we didn't have the same thing. No, but we had kids at the same time. And so we met back then. But what I love about him is he understands the, I the middle class approach to my life. In other words, he understood the fact that did we grow up in the rural south? Did we struggle? No, it's not that struggle. We had a struggle of understanding our identity and how to take that forward as artist. And he understood the humor. I love his voice because it's not so identifiable that if it was a Morgan Friedmann, I'm just giving that as a perfect example. And I love Morgan, but it's too identifiable. I want somebody who can tell a joke and it sound like Lionel. He had that quality. And so when I said, No, I want you, we hit it off. Well, his voice, you'll hear it. Understandable. You'll understand.

Well, thank you, Lionel. Thank you again. And best of luck again with everything. Really appreciate it.

It was awesome.

Bye, everybody.