"Paul Anka"

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Speaker 1 So Jason's got a pee. I got to take a nap, Will.
Yeah.

Speaker 2 But maybe we can get the show done and then I can pee shape just pee in my seat here.

Speaker 1 How does that work?

Speaker 1 You should do that. You should get one of those.

Speaker 2 I should get one of those microphones that, like, uh, uh, singers use. I can just take it to the bathroom, right, on a long chord.

Speaker 1 And then, do you guys mind if I take a nap? Well, you do that. Oh, wait, you're awake?

Speaker 1 Welcome to SmartList. Smart

Speaker 1 list.

Speaker 1 Smart

Speaker 1 list.

Speaker 1 Smart

Speaker 1 less.

Speaker 2 All right. So hi, Will.
Hi, Sean.

Speaker 1 Hi, Jason. Hi, Jason.

Speaker 1 Hi. How are you?

Speaker 2 Will, you look like you're doing a hostage video. Where are you? Yeah.

Speaker 1 Somebody picks you up real soon. I'm safe.
I'm fine. I'm holding up today's newspaper.

Speaker 1 Uh-huh.

Speaker 2 Are you in Atlanta?

Speaker 1 I am. I'm in Atlanta.

Speaker 2 Are you in a dressing room?

Speaker 1 I'm in an office. I'm in a production office.

Speaker 2 Oh, really? So what you have is like a little break. You have a little lunch hour?

Speaker 1 They built it around our record today. That's what they do down here.
That's nice. Everybody's real healthy.

Speaker 2 Look how handsome you are. Sean, let's just drink him in for a second.
I'm even on a hostage video lighting setup. He looks

Speaker 2 just what's going on down there.

Speaker 1 I have free refills with Looking At Will. I just fill up every time.

Speaker 1 Right?

Speaker 2 Just pour them over you. Will, are you sick?

Speaker 1 No, thank you for asking.

Speaker 1 No, no, no. I think we're gonna.

Speaker 2 You got a sharp jawline.

Speaker 1 I know.

Speaker 1 Yeah.

Speaker 1 Cut yourself. I'm just down here, and I kind of say again, everybody's super nice.
Remember, last time I was here, I was dealing with a lot of issues at a certain department store with the Glory Hole.

Speaker 1 Yes, I

Speaker 1 killed you. Well, you guys remember that.

Speaker 1 You do remember that. Certainly.
I'll never forget.

Speaker 2 Why would I not remember a Glory Hole story?

Speaker 1 This year, we're dealing with the same guy who told us about that is telling us about this

Speaker 1 app, which is that

Speaker 1 he's on to um meet people sure and and now it's not even it's not even like a tinder thing where like it's just like face comes up and it's or grinder but it's just other guys it's just um action shots um so he showed us a photo he got from

Speaker 1 a guy and it's just his rear hand rear end naked rear end and and his um and his garbage hanging and all from behind and then he's bulldogging him yeah and then he just said howdy

Speaker 2 This is an app he pays for?

Speaker 1 Yes, I don't know.

Speaker 1 I couldn't believe it.

Speaker 2 Which one's for the fellas? Is that the Tinder or the Grinder?

Speaker 1 Grinder. And so this is, but this is a much more aggressive.
This is just down to business. This is just like, here's what you're looking at.

Speaker 1 So

Speaker 2 it's a step above Grinder. It's a different name.

Speaker 1 Yeah, I don't even know what it is. And it's just a, oh, I do it.
You know,

Speaker 1 look,

Speaker 1 I think that is, look, I get it. It's like, cut to the chase.
Why the small talk? Are we going to do it or we're not? Yeah, it's just like, this is what I got going on right now. Where are you at?

Speaker 2 This is what you're going to be dealing with. Are you in or are you out?

Speaker 1 Because I got to move on. And that's the girls, like, the girls don't get that.
The girls need to be talked to and like emotional, and then that turns them on.

Speaker 1 But the guy on guy thing is just like, look, I know what I want. I know what I like.
Let's just do it or not do it. Sure.
Right? Sure. Boy.
Right.

Speaker 2 And he says, Howdy, right?

Speaker 1 But by the way, just that's super revealing howdy

Speaker 1 now will did he tell you about this or did you ask for visual no he was excited he this is this is my buddy um and and uh he's like wait till you see what i got going on this year you're gonna can't you're not gonna be able to believe it i'm like okay this year and then and then he shows me that and i'm like oh my god it was so yeah yeah

Speaker 1 you know but uh just there it is so funny though so funny sean are is your life as exciting

Speaker 1 any toppers yes i do i think we all have something interesting to talk about which is our docu series on max yes yes right coming out smartless on the road yeah smartless on the road it's a six-part documentary series on max i mean what's the date if uh the 23rd

Speaker 1 may may 23rd yes yeah

Speaker 2 and it's called smartless on the road and it's just basically us three idiots yeah we're traveling around because we took this show on the road uh to a bunch of different uh theaters around the country and

Speaker 2 it's us traveling and living in the same hotel room and eating and I mean, if you thought you were bored with us before, this will put you right out.

Speaker 1 Yeah, this is guaranteed when you see us flying. Some people use white noise to sleep.

Speaker 1 There is actual, I think we have some shots, Jay, of you eating, which I think fans will be fascinated. Those are fine.

Speaker 1 Yeah. Well, it's rare.

Speaker 2 It's like

Speaker 2 citing Yeti, you know.

Speaker 1 Yep. And there's a lot of talking about eating.

Speaker 2 Yeah, we've got plenty of shots of you guys eating.

Speaker 1 I mean, good Lord. I mean, and then cold.
It was all cold. Jason, you order.
You used to like Jason ended up being the default ordering room service guy. Yeah.

Speaker 1 And I noticed one thing I didn't want to bring it up, but often I would notice when

Speaker 1 you were placing the order,

Speaker 1 you had full bone

Speaker 1 just ordering food.

Speaker 1 The forbidden fruit. Yeah.
Yeah.

Speaker 1 It's his body responding, getting so excited about getting food inside of it.

Speaker 2 Yeah. So it is, uh, it is, we, we like the show, but, you know, we're, uh, we're, we're biased.
Um, but we hope you do too.

Speaker 1 Um, yeah, yeah, May 23rd on Max. It's, it's, it's, it's, I don't know.
It's, it, it's, it's us. It's just this, right?

Speaker 1 You get to see what we talk. Well, you get to see us instead of just hear us.

Speaker 2 Yeah. So we do these interviews on stage, great guests, um, but then it's also all the travel in between the spots.
So check it out. That's on Max.
It's called Smartless on the Road.

Speaker 1 Yes. And

Speaker 1 Sean, speaking of

Speaker 1 doing the show and being on the road, didn't somebody recently just call you?

Speaker 1 Didn't somebody mistake you for Jason? Oh, that's true. I just texted you guys an hour ago.
Yeah. That's right.
I was walking on Broadway and some guy goes, hey, it's Jason from Smartless.

Speaker 1 And I just smiled and I said, super guy. I go, hi.

Speaker 2 And then you pushed your stomach out.

Speaker 1 And you told me? I unzipped my zipper and I stuck my fat stomach out.

Speaker 1 I said,

Speaker 1 Ozark, Ozark. I just, that's all I did.
Right down Broadway.

Speaker 1 But isn't that funny? Like, what? I don't look anything like you. Watch Ozark, girl.
Hey, I'm just going to go. I just did.

Speaker 2 You know what I was doing this morning? I was talking to a New York Times journalist about you, Sean.

Speaker 2 He's doing some sort of a profile on you. And so, listener, you know, when a journalist says profile on a famous friend, you know, they'll usually call you to get a little background.

Speaker 2 oh wait is that way is that why they called you yeah yeah so he was asking me to kind of fill in some of the blanks and uh no it's cool i was really well compensated for it um

Speaker 2 no uh and uh and it was you know what i you know what i discovered sean i had nothing planned to say i found that it was very easy to say nice things about oh that's really nice

Speaker 1 i like to kind of dig for for some flowery verse about a about a friend and uh it just all fell out they they called and they said would you be willing to say something for this thing this piece about Sean?

Speaker 1 And I said, no, thank you. Yeah.
Yeah. Because what did mom tell you?

Speaker 2 If you don't have something nice.

Speaker 1 It'd be nice to say. Just say that.

Speaker 1 Wait, do you know that Betty Davis thing from David Letterman? Did I tell you guys that? No. No.
So I'm not going to get this right, but it's something like this.

Speaker 1 Betty Davis, like a year before she died, was on David Letterman.

Speaker 1 And David goes, So what was it like working with Joan Crawford? And she, and the audience laughed because

Speaker 1 they knew he was kind of prying her, poking at her. And she goes,

Speaker 1 David, my mother always said to say something good about the dead. Joan Crawford's dead?

Speaker 1 Good.

Speaker 1 Wow.

Speaker 2 That's very well done.

Speaker 1 That's pretty rare funny because they knew everything.

Speaker 1 I'll take that.

Speaker 2 Well, guys, can we segue while we're talking about legends?

Speaker 1 Sure, sure. Oh, my God.
Yeah.

Speaker 1 Good segue.

Speaker 2 Let's segue now.

Speaker 2 You know, we've got a fella today

Speaker 2 that we could learn a thing or two from.

Speaker 2 Hopefully he'll give us some pointers on career longevity, creative relevance, reinvention, and overall swagger.

Speaker 2 He's in the music side of Show Biz and has been one of the more recognized names around the world for as long as our parents have been alive.

Speaker 2 He has over 900 songs to his credit, recorded over 130 albums worldwide.

Speaker 2 His LP and single sales collectively number more than 90 million, and he is the only artist in history to have a song in the Billboard Top 100 during seven consecutive decades. He's a legend.

Speaker 2 Wait a minute. He's a friend.
And most importantly, be cool, because he's my father-in-law.

Speaker 1 Yes, I am. Oh, my God.
No way.

Speaker 1 Oh, my God.

Speaker 1 Damn. No way.
Hello. Can I talk and get rid of the cardboard?

Speaker 2 You can talk and get rid of the cardboard.

Speaker 1 Okay, all right.

Speaker 1 I'll look at Mr. Eric.
Perlenka.

Speaker 1 Wow. Hi, pops.

Speaker 3 Hello, guys. I guess this is the end of the Canadian quota, right?

Speaker 1 Yeah. You know, speaking of which, during my incredible research,

Speaker 1 do you know Will?

Speaker 2 He's got a day named after him in Canada. There's Paul Anca Day in Canada.
I'm not sure.

Speaker 1 What do you have? I'm not. Tell me what you have an album.

Speaker 1 There are a few tiers. Paul is like a few tiers above me in the sort of the Canadian hierarchy when it comes to legends.

Speaker 1 I have a long way to go. I have nothing named.
I'm not surprised.

Speaker 1 Paul, I can't believe, first of all, I can't believe that Jason and I have been friends for so long and this is the first time we've met. Is that true? I know.
I've never met you anyway.

Speaker 1 Well, we can say that about a lot of people. I know.

Speaker 2 Paul, listen, Paul's a hard guy to nail down. He's always moving.
He's always on the road. Where are you now? I'll bet you're not in L.A.

Speaker 3 I'm in Florida. I'm doing a tour.
I just finished the Hard Rock Casino. See? Finished Palm Beach, and I'm on my way to Naples on the completion of this wonderful event for me.

Speaker 2 What do you do about that?

Speaker 2 You still do about 30 weeks a year, something like that?

Speaker 3 I do about 70 days, 70 days.

Speaker 1 That's all I want to do.

Speaker 2 And you've welcomed the 80s now, right? I mean, and you still, Will, you're not going to be moving.

Speaker 1 I know at all. I know.
It's so impressive.

Speaker 1 And again, Paul, it should be noted that I like your son-in-law. I love your daughter, Amanda.

Speaker 3 Shouldn't even acquire Will singing his children.

Speaker 1 Yeah, I know. And I talk to her probably more than I talk to JB, thankfully.

Speaker 2 It's not probably. That's a definite.

Speaker 1 That's a definite. And

Speaker 1 she talks so glowingly about how much, first of all, through her life,

Speaker 1 when she was little, but even now,

Speaker 1 how insanely busy you are and how,

Speaker 1 I'm going to say industrious, but you just, you never stop moving.

Speaker 1 What is the secret to doing it for so long, to being able to have that kind of motor?

Speaker 3 I guess. Well,

Speaker 3 if you stop moving, will they throw dirt on you?

Speaker 3 That's number one, right?

Speaker 1 Good one.

Speaker 1 That's going to be our new logo.

Speaker 3 I learned that from the age of 16.

Speaker 3 And as long as you've got a passion for what you're doing, and when you started the way that I did out of Canada, hey, as long as the dream's alive, the passion and the energy, you keep doing it.

Speaker 3 You know, unfortunately, you stop like I've seen many of my buddies do, and you see a lot of TV, read a lot of books, and die. So I love what I'm doing.
I'm constantly changing.

Speaker 3 I'm in the middle now of doing my documentary. We've got a Broadway show that we're doing, some with writers.
And it's just something that I love to do, man.

Speaker 3 You know, when you leave Canada and you make it, you're really grateful because nothing was happening up there other than Moose Jerky when I left.

Speaker 1 Moose jerky.

Speaker 3 Hey, is that a thing? You guys don't know it. You know, you guys, I respect all of you, obviously, but when I did start, there was no opportunity.

Speaker 3 You know, when I get lucky as a kid, I leave Ottawa, you know, what? 150,000 people at that time. And I hit.
And the luck's been continuing since then. And I said, I'm not going to lose this.

Speaker 3 And then you go through the rat pack and Vegas and the mafia and you learn what to do, what not to do. And then you say to yourself, you'd be an ass to really give this up.

Speaker 3 So that's pretty much been the motivation.

Speaker 1 Yeah. Well, I mean, first of all, you came, so I want to get into this.
You come out of Ottawa, or as I used to refer to it, the town that Fun forgot.

Speaker 1 And it's never seen since.

Speaker 1 To all our fans in Ottawa, I only say that as a Toronto Maple Belize fan, it's a joke, so relax, you know, hold back your comments.

Speaker 1 But you come out of Ottawa, as we know,

Speaker 1 these guys don't know, the nation's capital in Canada, but a small town. And you were, but you didn't do this, Paul, when you were 25.

Speaker 2 No, he had before, before the age of 18, he had five top 20 hits. Before what?

Speaker 1 Before 18.

Speaker 1 Before 18. Before 18, this is what blows me away, Paul.
Talk to us about how, as a young guy, you had all this success. It blows my mind.
When I first read that years ago, I couldn't believe it.

Speaker 3 Well, you're 14, you're 15, you're in school, you're in grade 10 for two years, so you get the hint.

Speaker 1 Wait a second, you repeat in 10th grade? Yeah, twice.

Speaker 1 So

Speaker 3 I'm in a class with a bunch of girls with my friend

Speaker 3 Tommy, who his family were the big ski champs. And we wanted the quickest way out.
So we took typing and shorthand. I got thrown out of a shorthand class and took music.

Speaker 3 So now I get interested in music. And one day I start writing poetry and I win awards for my writing.
I get thrown into a music class. I take piano lessons.

Speaker 3 And I start becoming this real big fan of, you know, all the rhythm and blue stuff. The black music experience as it is now drove everything back then, as it did back to the 30s.

Speaker 3 So I get hooked on music and I just start writing away. Now I'm playing hockey like all of us attempted to do.
I got tired of ducking because I was very short.

Speaker 1 I played gold.

Speaker 3 So I said, it's not in my future. And in my day, you know, those guys didn't wear helmets.
They didn't wear masks and there was no glass around the rink. So you can imagine how dangerous it was.

Speaker 3 So I said, it won't be hockey. So I'm going to just write songs.
So I start writing songs. So I'm hooked.
I'm loving the music.

Speaker 3 I had a paper out and then I got a job at IGA food stores because I heard if you won the contest you'd get to go to New York where all the music was because the music business was in its infancy stage back there.

Speaker 3 There were not a lot of ways.

Speaker 1 What yearish?

Speaker 3 This is 1955. Okay.
So

Speaker 3 I win the award for collecting soup wrappers for Campbell's soup. And me and 40 kids from across Canada put on a train with soggy sandwiches.
And 15 hours later, I'm at the YMCA

Speaker 1 in New York.

Speaker 3 I said, man,

Speaker 3 this is it. I'm coming back.
So I go back home. And I said to my dad, look, give me some money.
I had some saved up from my paper route. I'm going back to New York.

Speaker 3 I've got a connection to see a record company. And I go down, I walk into ABC Paramount Records, which had ABC TV network just starting out.
I sing for Don Costa. He was the A ⁇ R guy.

Speaker 3 And like all of us guys, you know, success has a lot of fathers. And he was the guy that made it happen.
He said, he said, where are you from? Blah, blah, blah, blah.

Speaker 3 I told him, he said, bring your parents down here. We want to sign you.
You're too young. So I found my parents down.
They signed a contract. And

Speaker 3 May of that year, I'm in a record studio doing Diana, two other songs.

Speaker 2 That was a song you wrote for the gal that didn't want to hear it, right? Yeah.

Speaker 3 Yeah, that was it. And then two, three months later, American Bandstands started.
I'm on there in the Ed Sullivan show, and that was it. It took off from there, and my life changed.

Speaker 2 Wait, wait, you did the Ed Sullivan show?

Speaker 1 I mean,

Speaker 2 yeah, what was that like?

Speaker 3 How was that? Scared to death. Scared to death.

Speaker 1 Yeah, because that was like the biggest show then.

Speaker 3 Well, that was it. You know, television back then was three channels.

Speaker 3 Color TV, my dad would bring out a piece of plastic with a blue sky, sky, red in the middle, and green on the bottom, and he'd tape it to the TV, and that was color television.

Speaker 1 Come on.

Speaker 3 And in Ottawa, it didn't start till five o'clock in the afternoon, and there was like news, a cooking show, and maybe wrestling once a week. I mean, it was non-existent.

Speaker 2 And millions and millions and millions of people watching because they're with no other choices.

Speaker 3 Well, it was all radio before that. I used to sit in Ottawa next to a radio and listen to everything until television came.
God, am I aging myself?

Speaker 2 Could you imagine asking our kids to sit in front of a big box that has sound coming out of it and entertain yourself for a few hours just listening to it?

Speaker 1 I mean, they'd look at us like we're not. No, obviously not now.
But, you know, that's all that there was, right? I mean, at the time. So, like, it felt like

Speaker 1 I got to be honest with you. I mean, obviously, I grew up, I was born in the 70s, so it's not, but I do remember as a kid on my clock radio, I was just talking about with my buddy Eli.

Speaker 1 I used to be able to get the W,

Speaker 1 what was the station out of Buffalo, and I could get Saber's games.

Speaker 3 The Hound Dog, yes. I know the station out there.

Speaker 1 Yeah, and I could, and I could get them on my, so I could, when I was told to go to bed, I could still hear the Buffalo singing. And I could, as a Canadian, Paul, you know this.

Speaker 1 When you get that, you get that radio signal out of the States, it feels like a whole other world. You can't believe it, right?

Speaker 3 Everything came at you. There was nothing to watch.
I mean, it was just so boring. There was nothing going on.

Speaker 1 I was listening to Fats Domino and everybody else. All right.

Speaker 2 So, you, so, so, Diana, so Diana gets you signed. That takes off a bit.
And then, how, uh, how

Speaker 2 so that was your first number one hit and your 14

Speaker 3 first number one hit yeah okay and then uh and then and then what what were the what were the other four that that were the five uh uh top 20s before you were 18 so at 15 you got diana then my dad wanted me home and then a promoter called up and my second was you are my destiny but my dad wanted me to finish school and i talked the promoter and they let me live with him he had a bunch of drugstores izzy izzy and irving fell so with you are are my destiny i move in with them down in washington then i had uh there was lonely boy puppy love i love you baby there was a string of hits uh really quick uh really quick paul uh the guy i'm doing a play here in new york and the guy who wrote it doug wright and my other actress friend deb monk yes wrote a song called puppy love doggy style

Speaker 1 yes wow yeah i love that

Speaker 3 i offered it to frank sinatra when i started working for the mob in vegas he wanted me to write for him And I said, well, I can give you puppy love. We'll change it to love is a bitch.

Speaker 3 You know, I was thrown into that world because I worked for the guys. I mean, a lot of people, you know, they fantasize of what it was about, but it was real.
They controlled everything.

Speaker 1 Talk a little bit about how that happened. How did you end up? Well, first of all, you wrote, talk about, you know, you wrote a big, a very popular song, one of the great songs of all time

Speaker 1 for Frank Sinatra, right? My Way, yes.

Speaker 3 Well, that came later. You know what happened?

Speaker 1 Oh, wait, you wrote My Way? Yeah. Yeah, yeah.
I think so. That's crazy.

Speaker 3 Wait, you have me thinking about that.

Speaker 1 Yeah, okay. So I didn't know that.
Well, so let's go back before we get into My Way, then let's go back into how you start working with those guys and working with the mob. Well,

Speaker 3 I'm making lots of money and I've got lots of hits. And everywhere that I had to play, the mob ran everything.
They ran all the clubs, all the distributors, labels, all the rest.

Speaker 2 You were the youngest to play Coca Cabana?

Speaker 3 Well, I became, with those hits, I became the youngest to work this mob place called the Copa, which was huge. Yeah.
And I started working it as the youngest kid, and I must have done weeks there.

Speaker 3 And there were kids around the block, blah, blah, blah.

Speaker 2 What are you 17, 18, 19?

Speaker 3 I was about 19 years old. Well, I was in Vegas first.
I played Vegas at 18 with Sophie Tucker. And then America's Favorite Group.
And

Speaker 3 from there, I went to the Copa Cabana in New New York, and I started there very, very young. And I had a bunch of hits going into that.

Speaker 3 And then the bosses said, would you like to go work Vegas with the RAT PACK?

Speaker 2 Now, you know that these guys are in the mob.

Speaker 3 You totally know who you're working for. You're told to behave yourself.

Speaker 3 These are the guys. And when you see them, blah, blah, blah.
There's a real strict education as to behavior, what to wear, how to act. Me, Bobby Darren, Frankie Avalon.

Speaker 3 So we knew who we were working for.

Speaker 3 When the word came out, go to Vegas. I'd fly out there, spent a lot of time there, you know, saw Sinatra, Marilyn Monroe, that whole thing.

Speaker 3 And I start working for the boys and with the Rat Pack at the Sands Hotel.

Speaker 1 What year is this?

Speaker 3 That's 1961, 62, somewhere in there.

Speaker 2 You're too young to gamble.

Speaker 3 Couldn't go in the building. I had to look through the windows until I was old enough at 21.
Could not go in there.

Speaker 2 You didn't have a fake ID or something like that to get in there?

Speaker 1 He's famous. He's Paul Enk at this point.

Speaker 3 Those guys knew everything. They knew everything of who was in there,

Speaker 3 who was allowed in, who wasn't.

Speaker 1 I would have died so quickly if I was part of the mob because I always thought it'd be so cool to be like, oh, these guys are like, I don't know, there's something glamorous about that life

Speaker 2 that I think everybody would have. You would have been like that annoying dog in the cartoons.
It just runs circles around the big dog.

Speaker 1 Where are we going? This is a big dog. And it would have seen you.
Yeah, no,

Speaker 1 no, no. What are you guys talking about now?

Speaker 1 You meeting the mob would immediately be, like, the scene would be you meeting them and immediately like all those guys doing one of those funny scenes about how they're going to bury you, where they're going to bury you.

Speaker 1 You know what I mean? Who's going to get rid of my stupid body?

Speaker 3 And we knew, listen, you know, it was such a small community. You knew when somebody got smoked.
Wow. You know, you know, when a game was.

Speaker 1 Were you ever scared about that?

Speaker 3 No. Ever.
I'm scared going there now.

Speaker 1 I'm scared going to Vegas now with Busters.

Speaker 3 I mean, believe me, you can't trust anything that's going on there now from the streets to your room.

Speaker 1 Really?

Speaker 2 And we will be right back.

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Speaker 1 And now back to the show.

Speaker 2 What would be the main thing that you would have to watch out to not do when you're conversing with the mob?

Speaker 2 Like, what would be, what would get you in trouble?

Speaker 3 Well, respect was everything. Okay.
What you said was everything. Respect was everything.

Speaker 3 You never wanted to get out of line or do anything in destroying a room, trying to do something that was out of line. You got to remember, all these guys were older than I was.

Speaker 3 The Rat Pack were older. Carl Cohen was my rabbi.
And Carol Cohen was the guy out of Cleveland. He was the sweetest guy ever.
And he watched over me. You know, know, those were the guys.

Speaker 1 And were they like father figures and brothers types? Totally, totally.

Speaker 3 I mean, Carl Cohen, he was the guy, I'm going to jump ahead, that knocked the teeth out of Frank Sinatra.

Speaker 1 Oh, I was there that day. This is the rabbi.

Speaker 2 Rabbi lit up Sinatra.

Speaker 3 This was Carl Cohen.

Speaker 3 And he was the nicest salt of the earth type of guy. And every time I needed something or I had a problem, I would go to Carl Cohen and he would watch over me because I was this kid.

Speaker 3 But I was making money for them. It was very freaky for them because they were used to Sinatra, Dean Martin, and Sammy Davis.

Speaker 3 And all of a sudden this kid is wandering around doing business, singing these cock and mammy songs. You know, they're doing cold porter and I'm going, I'm so young and you're so old.

Speaker 1 Right. So then, so then the rap pack,

Speaker 2 they're what? They're in their mid-30s, 40s?

Speaker 1 Well, you're...

Speaker 2 you're you're you're hitting 20 i would say close to 40s yeah and and were were they were they welcoming to you did they how long did it take for them to kind of bring you under their wing and kind of show you the ropes a little bit Right away.

Speaker 3 You see, they all had a vested interest in whatever sense. And anybody that made money for them, you know, they had the swagger.
Those were the guys. Sinatra made Las Vegas, all those guys.

Speaker 3 Everybody showed up only because of him and then the gambling. So when I hit the scene and I'm making money for the mob, the word is out, be nice to the kid.
That was my nickname, the kid.

Speaker 3 And we'd all hang out in the steam room, this little steam room in the back of the hotel.

Speaker 3 On the back of our robes, we had our nicknames you know sammy was smokey the bear uh dean was dino my name was it was the bear in the steam and they embraced me right away right away right away very nice and i just watched and learnt watched and learned they were amazing that education that i got in those early years you couldn't get today there was no technology no tricks it was all real stuff And those guys were the real deal.

Speaker 3 It was fun, fun, fun, and professionalism. I learned so much from those guys.

Speaker 2 Then how did not to jump too far ahead, but then how did how did how did MyWay come around for you to deliver to Sinatra?

Speaker 3 Well, you know, for years in there, he'd always tease me about writing for him. Now, I'm still young.
I'm scared to death. I'm intimidated.

Speaker 3 And I figure if I'm ever going to write something, it better be good because that'll be my one shot. But I'm in my early 20s.

Speaker 3 And I moved to Italy and I'm living over there because the Beatles hit, which I'll tell you that later, how I got them over here.

Speaker 3 And I come back and I'm still working. And in the late 60s, we're down in Florida at the Fountain Blue Hotel.

Speaker 3 And that was a hang place for all of us and all the mob guys, the Fountain Blue, which was the model for Vegas, by the way.

Speaker 3 Caesars Palace, Steve Wynn, all those guys learnt from the aesthetics of the Fountain Blue Hotel in Miami.

Speaker 1 That's where that preacher guy, his wife got that pool boy from there. I just watched that documentary about it.
It was the Fountain Blue. Unrelated.
Unrelated. All right, so,

Speaker 3 oh, yeah, good friend. So the preacher boy, he was also

Speaker 1 covering everybody here today. So I met the foundation.
Wait, what was, wait, go back. What was the foundation of Vegas?

Speaker 3 Well, Steve Wynn, who's responsible for the, let's call it the second chapter of Las Vegas, genius of Steve Wynn.

Speaker 3 He and the guy at Circus Circus

Speaker 3 and the mob who lent all the money.

Speaker 3 the Teamsters Union, they were going to build Caesars Palace.

Speaker 3 And I had 5% of Caesars because my friend Nate Jacobson out of Baltimore came to me who I'd invested with and he said, blah, blah, blah, we're going to build this hotel.

Speaker 3 We want you to be a part of it. Well, my people said, you don't want to own anything because the governor will be all over you.
So they all wanted to build this amazing hotel, Caesar's Palace.

Speaker 3 How are we going to build it? What's it going to look like?

Speaker 3 The model, the aesthetic model, and everything in it was taken from the Fountain Blue Hotel, the inspiration for that aesthetic look of Caesars, which was the cheapest investment in real estate and the biggest bang of real estate in the country.

Speaker 3 It only cost him about $18 million, if you can believe it. Caesars? To build it.
Yeah. So anyway, so there I am in Florida.
Sinatra's having dinner. He invites me to dinner.

Speaker 3 I think he's running with Mia Farrell at the time.

Speaker 1 And

Speaker 3 he told me, he said, you know, I'm quitting show business. I'm tired.
Rat pack's over. I've had enough of this and I'm going to rest.
I'm doing one more album with Don Costa.

Speaker 3 Don Costa, as I mentioned earlier, was my producer. And I introduced him to Sinatra in the 60s.
And he did that amazing album, Sinatra and Strings.

Speaker 3 And he said, I'm quitting, but I'm doing one more album. You never wrote me a song.

Speaker 3 So I can't believe it. Sinatra quitting.
So I go back to New York where I'm living at the time. I'm sitting up at my piano, 12 midnight, thunderstorm outside.
I'm saying, Sinatra, retiring.

Speaker 3 I can't believe it. I sit at my typewriter, paid off from sitting in grade 10 for two years, and I'm typing away metaphorically and now the end is near

Speaker 3 in five hours I finished the song that's crazy so now I call him up at Caesar's and I said sir I said I've got the song blah blah blah he said bring it out I fly out to Caesar's palace go to his dressing room I sing him the song he says kid I love it I'm gonna do it two months later he calls me from a record studio in LA Listen to this kid and he takes the phone and he puts it up to a speaker and I hear my way for the first time how old old are you?

Speaker 3 25 years old.

Speaker 1 25 years old. I'm not kidding.
I'm getting chills.

Speaker 3 I know. That's amazing.

Speaker 1 So the lyrics were quite literal that you just took. It's like, you know, for me, the end is near, and I did it my way.
So that came from his telling you what he's done. Exactly.

Speaker 3 Metaphoric. I wrote it as if he were writing it.
In other words, he would never use ate it up and spit it out and stuff like that. But that's very indigenous to Sinatra style.

Speaker 1 Right.

Speaker 1 That blows my mind in a way that, and that gave, like I said, it quite literally gave me chills. And then the chills were gone when Sid Vicious recorded it years later.

Speaker 1 I felt more than chills when I first heard it. Astro Casey called and they said, we're using this Sid Vicious.

Speaker 3 I'd never heard the record. I said, is this a prank? He says, no, this is a real guy.
So I heard it. I did some investigating.
I said, you know, the guy was sincere. He went to Paris.

Speaker 3 He was ripping up amps and trying to get the sound. I said, who am I to stand in the way of someone's expression of a song? And I granted the license.

Speaker 1 That was so crazy. Jason, you know about that, right? That Sid Vicious from the Sex Pistols recorded my way.
Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. That's so crazy.

Speaker 2 And speaking of Scorsese, I don't know if you guys know this, but I wonder if our listener does.

Speaker 1 That classic

Speaker 2 opening shot in Goodfellas, that long tracking,

Speaker 2 not tracking, steady cam shot, through the kitchen and all this other stuff.

Speaker 2 That was a shot Scorsese came up with as a result of watching a documentary about Paul, where a handheld camera followed him all the way through a kitchen, right, and then up onto stage.

Speaker 1 Paul, is that right?

Speaker 3 I produced a film with the National Film Board. You guys know how important their work is.

Speaker 3 And they came to me in the early 60s, want to do this documentary, first time ever on a pop artist, blah, blah, blah. I said, let's do it.

Speaker 3 So we did it, and we won a lot of awards, the Venice Award, New York Critic Awards, and it became this really acclaimed piece of Verite on a pop artist.

Speaker 3 And Scorsese used it, the Beatles used it in terms of the application and how it was directed, etc. And that shot was taken from the Coca Cabana.

Speaker 1 I used to do scene study with this guy, Vito Anaformo, the former boxer, and he's in that shot at the very end when Ray Leoti comes in. And Rayleota says hey to him, and he says, Hey, hey, Vito.

Speaker 1 Anyway, he used to be my scene study partner years ago.

Speaker 3 I want to know something.

Speaker 1 I want to know, like, Jason and Paul, like at what point, Jason,

Speaker 1 after you met your gorgeous, amazing, wonderful, incredible wife, Amanda,

Speaker 1 did you go, oh my God, your dad is Paul Anka. And then you're thinking, oh my God, my

Speaker 1 father-in-law is Paul Anka. And I'll never live up to, oh, sorry.

Speaker 1 And then, and then at what point did it go away where you're just like, okay, I can't stay in this frame of mind anymore. And I'm just like, that's my dad.

Speaker 2 That's well, I knew because I knew her name when I met her, when she introduced herself.

Speaker 2 You know, I was like, oh, I don't remember if I even asked if she was related. I think I just assumed.

Speaker 2 And so I was, I thought, well, if this goes a couple of more dates, I might get to meet this guy. And I'll be nervous about that.

Speaker 2 And then I think, Paul, was the first time we met at the Plaza Athenae in New York?

Speaker 1 I feel like.

Speaker 3 And then you hung at the house up in Maltolland.

Speaker 1 Yeah, yeah, yeah. Jason remembers that, but no vacation with his friend Sean.
Go Go ahead, Jay. No.

Speaker 1 His friend, what?

Speaker 1 He doesn't remember the glory holes either for me.

Speaker 2 He put me to ease very, very quickly. He's obviously very used to being famous and

Speaker 2 having people be intimidated when they meet him. And so he's got that down where he just disarms any kind of arm situation you might create.

Speaker 2 He's just,

Speaker 2 as you can tell, Paul, I mean,

Speaker 1 the way that you talk about these incredible, iconic, not just people, but moments in time and eras that you inhabited. You were just an observer you were part of.

Speaker 1 You alluded to the fact that you were in Europe

Speaker 1 because of the Beatles, or they were big at the time. Talk a little bit about that.

Speaker 3 Well, I'm writing away, but I'm realizing while I'm in the business, all I kept hearing is, this may not last.

Speaker 3 They come and they go. They come and they go.
And I'm saying, yeah, they may not last. Okay.
I might be back sucking on that moose jerky and can't win two years.

Speaker 1 So now

Speaker 3 I said, well, I got to start writing songs for other people. Because I was a writer.
I wasn't sold as a, you know, they groomed me up to look cute, but I was not a good looking guy.

Speaker 1 But your voice is undeniable.

Speaker 3 Well, at least we had the voice going for us.

Speaker 3 So I'm singing away and I started writing for other people. I wrote Buddy Hawley's last hit, It Doesn't Matter Anymore.
And, you know, we lost him on one of our tours in the plane crash.

Speaker 3 And it started there. And then I'm writing for Connie Francis.
Then I go to Europe, and I'm asked to be in a movie called The Longest Day for Daryl F. Zanik, a classic war film.
I'm in the film.

Speaker 3 And look, I'm not an actor, but I'm in the film. And I say to Zanik, hey, I'm a writer.
I'm a writer. I'm telling everybody.
I'm a writer. You need a song.
I mean, open the fridge. The light went on.

Speaker 3 I'll write for you. So now with Zanik, I go home.
I'm inspired. I write The Longest Day for the film.

Speaker 3 Then I meet a guy called Johnny Carson. He's starting this TV show for a year.
I said, He said, but I want a new song. I write the tonight show them.

Speaker 1 You're joking me.

Speaker 1 You did not know.

Speaker 1 Wait a minute. You're joking me.

Speaker 3 Yeah, that is. I wish I were.
I put Amanda through school until Jason took over.

Speaker 1 It's the most recognized TV theme song in history. It's been performed a million 400,000 times.
You wrote that song.

Speaker 3 Well, let me tell you, writing it's one thing, but getting it out there, I got thrown off from Mitch

Speaker 3 Skitch Henderson, who was a part of the show. And when Johnny came in, who was new, and I'd given him a job on my TV show, Johnny.
Wow. Skitch Henderson said, I don't want some kid taken over here.

Speaker 3 We're not using the song.

Speaker 3 And when Johnny called me and said, you know, I'm sorry, I love it, but I can't use it because Skitch has been here, blah, blah, blah. Goddamn Skitch.
He said, yeah,

Speaker 3 Skitch the Switch artist.

Speaker 3 So I said to Johnny, I said, look, I'll give you half the song, half the publishing, half the writing, and if anything happens, you're going to earn half of everything with me.

Speaker 3 So a day goes by and he calls up with his manager, says, you got it. Now they don't know it's going to be on what, 30 years?

Speaker 1 Either did I.

Speaker 3 So he says, the song is back on.

Speaker 3 And every night we listened to it for what, 30 years?

Speaker 3 And I gave half the song away, but I had nothing anyway.

Speaker 2 Well, you had half of half of something instead of 100% of meat.

Speaker 1 The skitch went on to be Sean's haircutter, right? Charlie's not there.

Speaker 1 What's his sketcho? Skivo. Skitcho.
Sko Skipo. Sorry.

Speaker 1 So then I go to Europe.

Speaker 3 I go to Europe, and

Speaker 3 I had a whole career in Europe. I went to Japan when I was.

Speaker 2 Yeah, what's this? You lived in Italy. You just said.

Speaker 1 Yeah, I lived in Italy.

Speaker 2 I didn't know that.

Speaker 3 Well, when the Beatles hit, you know, let me go to that. I'm working.

Speaker 3 the Olympia theater, and I'm really loving the culture, and I'm loving Europe, and I'm touring all over the place from Japan to Europe and I go to see a friend of mine at the Olympia and on the underbill from my friend it says the Beatles.

Speaker 2 Watch your mic, Paul, you're hitting the mic with your hand.

Speaker 3 I says the Beatles, the Beatles.

Speaker 3 So I'm sitting there watching a show and the guy, ladies and gentlemen, here's the Beatles. And these guys come on and they're doing these cover songs.

Speaker 3 And I'm looking at these guys, shirts, ties, long hair, and they're singing away. And as a musician, I'm going, God, there's something here.

Speaker 3 So I go backstage and I meet meet them and they're talking to me and, oh, we love what you're doing.

Speaker 3 So they're saying, we want to do what you're doing. We want to publish and write and produce the music, blah, blah, blah.
And I strike it up with these Beatles.

Speaker 3 And then I go to London and I think they started with a hit. And

Speaker 3 I'm having drinks with them over there. And we're talking and rapping.
And I come home to New York where I'm living. And I go to Normie Weiss.
and Sid Bernstein, who are my agents.

Speaker 3 I said, there's these guys in England called the Beatles. You got to sign them.
Now, you have to remember, we're not in a media-driven society. Pop music is still in its infancy stage.

Speaker 3 Nobody had any idea what was going on in Europe. And I'm pounding these guys to go get them.

Speaker 2 Like rock and roll just started, right?

Speaker 3 Just started, infancy stage.

Speaker 3 So long and short, they go over and they sign the Beatles and bring them over in what, 64 on Ed Sullivan? And that was the start of it all. So they bring them over.

Speaker 3 You know the story there.

Speaker 3 I leave and I go to RCA Victor Records, who built his huge soundstage in Rome, and they introduced me to one of the most amazing genius musicians I've ever met called ingo Morricone. Oh, yeah.

Speaker 3 You guys must know that name.

Speaker 1 So, of course.

Speaker 3 He knew films better than the directors. And he was unbelievable.
He starts my career in Italy. And I'm singing.
and living in Italy. On ye volta,'ni volta, que torno, no vo reino volta.

Speaker 3 And I'm outselling the Italians just in Italian. So I'm living there and I'm having a career in Italy with Ino Morricone.

Speaker 1 Who are you? And

Speaker 1 that's just

Speaker 3 the answer is probably yes.

Speaker 1 Throw it at me. I was going to say, did you ever write a song for the Beatles? No,

Speaker 3 they did their own thing. I wish I had.

Speaker 2 Do you know Italian? Yeah, sure.

Speaker 2 You can speak Italian. What else can you do?

Speaker 3 What are the languages speaking? I recorded in Spanish, recorded in Japanese. I lived in Germany and vice versa,

Speaker 3 had a career in German and Germany.

Speaker 3 I get up in the morning at nine with this strict German woman,

Speaker 3 Siegfried Folkman. Now, Paul, you will put it in your tongue, in the front.
We're not in the tongue. I hadn't even had breakfast yet.
I'm worried about my tongue.

Speaker 3 And I sat with her five days a week learning German. And I loved it over there.
It's a great country.

Speaker 1 Very good country. Beautiful.

Speaker 1 That's how I met Scotty, by the way. Anyway, so

Speaker 1 I want to know about

Speaker 1 Embracing the Bear in the Steam Room. I want to stick with the tongue.

Speaker 1 Wait,

Speaker 1 Love Never Felt So Good, that song.

Speaker 1 I don't know if you're going to be able to do it. Michael Jackson.
Yeah, Michael Jackson. And then Justin Timberlake.
Yes. We recorded Drake.

Speaker 2 And yeah, talk to us about

Speaker 2 the collaborations, the duets with

Speaker 2 some of these folks. Is that something that you'd love to do?

Speaker 3 I started somewhere in there, I said, you know, I got to meet some other people and write with them because I love the experience.

Speaker 3 Anyway, I start with, you know, Michael McDonald, Bert Backer, a bunch of talented people, good friends. You know, may Bert rest in peace.

Speaker 3 And this guy, a publicist, kept bringing Michael Jackson around. I knew the family from Caesars.
Joe would bring him in. They watched Sinatra, me, Dean Martin, and I saw this family grow up.

Speaker 3 So he said, Michael's starting over at Sony, and he wants to write and be on your Sony album. And I'd already had everybody slotted in the album and I had two slots open.

Speaker 3 And I'm living in Carmel at the time. And

Speaker 3 Michael flies up with this guy and we start writing together. And you knew right away with a guy like Michael how talented he was.
Now, unlike everyone else, he didn't play an instrument.

Speaker 3 He was all in the head.

Speaker 3 All these noises was like working with a bird. And I knew from the way that this guy had it down, he knew what he wanted and he knew what he was about.
So we sit down.

Speaker 1 Oh, you sound just like him.

Speaker 3 Yeah, thank you very much. I mean, I do 20 minutes of that in my act every night.

Speaker 3 So we start writing. In the middle of the process, which is interesting,

Speaker 3 his record, thriller or whatever the first one was, starts to take off. Off the wall.
And Michael goes into second gear of Michael.

Speaker 3 You know, really into his career, really into being very professional.

Speaker 3 But he steals the tapes out of the studio in Los Angeles, and I couldn't complete the songs with him because he had taken the tapes. Something happened to your face, Jason.

Speaker 3 I think you're growing an appendage.

Speaker 1 I grew a second face. Oh my God.

Speaker 2 You're a second elder.

Speaker 1 There's your daughter, Amanda.

Speaker 4 Oh my God, daddy, you're tanner than Will.

Speaker 1 Oh, my God.

Speaker 1 Amanda.

Speaker 2 There she comes.

Speaker 1 Here she comes with the health night.

Speaker 4 I'm just saying, I love you all. You're very tan.
You look very cute.

Speaker 1 Amanda, can you, wait, Amanda, don't go anywhere yet. I can't believe this is the first time meeting your dad i love your dad i can't i i now know why you've been keeping me away keeping us away

Speaker 1 from him we love your dad

Speaker 1 show

Speaker 4 he came to a father-daughter dinner up at our sundays and it took the house down yeah so we need to invite him back

Speaker 1 yes he's a big hit everywhere he goes by the way i love you all willie and sean i'm crushed that you're away i know i know we love you we're gonna see you i can't wait we're gonna see you very soon but we i miss you so excited daddy i miss you.

Speaker 4 I love you.

Speaker 3 I'll see you at the party, remember, next week. Yes, at your party.
Coming to dinner. That's right.

Speaker 5 I can't wait. I'm so excited.

Speaker 4 I love you guys.

Speaker 1 Bye. I love you too.
Bye, Amanda.

Speaker 1 Paul, will you be my dad? Okay, so wait, I want to get back to Michael Jackson. The tapes.

Speaker 1 So Michael Jackson took the tapes or something?

Speaker 3 He stole the tapes from the studio, and they called me. I mean, I hate being negative because he's a talented guy.

Speaker 3 In the 80s, Sunset Sound, they called me up and said, Mr. Anke, Michael came and took your tapes.
Now, I've got the tapes are gone. I can't finish.

Speaker 1 But the tapes of what, of songs that you're working on with him, or songs that you're talking about?

Speaker 3 Three songs, three songs that we wrote together. Okay, gotcha.
Here's the to give you the payoff in a second. So I've got all of these songs, the three songs.

Speaker 3 My tapes are gone, and now I'm in Lawyerville. And I'm not litigious.
I think the worst thing you can do in life takes the eye off the ball is get into litigation if you can avoid it. Anyway,

Speaker 3 tapes are gone. I'll leave a hunk out.
The lawyers decide to convince him, give him back the tapes. So he gives me back the tapes, but he's gone.
I can't finish the project. Now, this is the 80s.

Speaker 3 The years go by.

Speaker 3 And what happens when he comes back on the This Is It tour? I get a call from Harvey over at TMZ.

Speaker 3 He said, Paul, there's a Michael Jackson record out called This Is It, and we think you wrote it. And it's his tour.
It's the name of the show, blah, blah, blah, blah.

Speaker 1 Yeah, the documentary that they're shooting when he passed away.

Speaker 3 I said, well, Harvey, let me do some homework so i get a hold of the record and what happened was the original title was called i never heard

Speaker 3 this was called this is it when i hear the record the first line is this is it

Speaker 3 here i stand

Speaker 3 they took the first lyric turned it into the tour title and indeed it was the song that we wrote together. Well, now the shit hits the fans.

Speaker 1 This is only like in the

Speaker 1 if this is in 2000, this wasn't that long ago.

Speaker 3 Yeah, exactly.

Speaker 1 Exactly.

Speaker 3 So now

Speaker 3 we get the same lawyers on the phone again, and there's a big conference call.

Speaker 3 What are you doing? It's our song. Did you? Oh, you know, lawyers, oh, we didn't know, Baba.
I said, Look, let's make it real simple. You're stuck.
Your tour is named.

Speaker 3 You got a record coming out in a week. We'll make this very sweet.
I want half of everything, or you're not going to put it out. Well, we got everything.
So

Speaker 3 then, after this is it came out, I got a call from the guy that was running Epic Records, L.A. Reed.
He said, did you write a song called Love Never Felt So Good with Michael? I said, yes.

Speaker 3 He says, well, it's coming out with Timberlake and Michael. I said, well, what did you do? He says, we found these tapes in his drawer.
We thought they were his, and we've made a record out of it.

Speaker 3 I said, well,

Speaker 1 it's going to be half of. Let me give you an address.

Speaker 1 Thanks for doing the heavy lifting. Let me

Speaker 1 see.

Speaker 1 That song is fantastic. Thank you.
It's such a good song.

Speaker 3 So it comes out. There's that.
And then I get a call. Drake.

Speaker 1 Did you write it?

Speaker 1 Yes.

Speaker 3 So he comes over to the house. Nice guy, talented Toronto boy, as you know.

Speaker 1 Yeah, Toronto guy.

Speaker 3 And he said, look, what do we do with this? I said, look, I don't know anything about your world. Culturally, I can't write what you do.

Speaker 3 But if you want to take this and break the code and put your magic on it and let me hear it, you can put it out.

Speaker 3 He takes it, what I'd written and what was there with Michael, and he turned it into it don't matter to me. And that was the third record.

Speaker 1 Wow. That's unbelievable.

Speaker 3 So crazy stories, huh? Yeah.

Speaker 1 Incredible.

Speaker 1 We'll be right back.

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Speaker 2 So, you know,

Speaker 2 put your head on my shoulder. I mean, poppy love, you're having my baby, my way, all this stuff.
Every time I think about all the really recognizable songs that you have, that you have done,

Speaker 2 I keep thinking about, I'm going to ask you about this again, and I would like your take on it, guys. I want him to remember the three tenors?

Speaker 1 Remember that?

Speaker 2 I want him to do the three crooners because each, you can, you got to,

Speaker 2 let's workshop it and find the other two folks, but you've got enough, you've got enough to fill your section of it

Speaker 2 in spades.

Speaker 1 I mean,

Speaker 1 just playing your hits.

Speaker 1 You could tour it. You could do Vegas, as you know, you could do them Broadway.
It would be an absolute smash.

Speaker 2 Yeah, who are the other two that would do it with you?

Speaker 1 Yeah, that's a big question.

Speaker 3 Who are the other twos that leave their ego at the door?

Speaker 1 You tell us.

Speaker 2 You know these guys. You know these players.

Speaker 1 Well, you know what, Paul, you just said something really important before you answered that, which is check your ego. And I love hearing you talk because you have been around and seen it all.

Speaker 1 And I can tell that you don't have time for the bullshit. You don't have that ego in that way.
I love that. There's an authenticity to it that is so refreshing because we don't have enough.

Speaker 1 And by the way, I was thinking, you were talking about the mob before. I mean, you're in the talent.
mafia.

Speaker 1 You have been doing it and you have been working with and collaborating with people for so freaking long. There's no reason you can't do this now.
It would be a crime crime if you didn't do it.

Speaker 2 Well, if you've got time. I mean, you're doing your Broadway show, you're working on the documentary, probably writing another book, and you're touring.

Speaker 3 Well, I'm touring, and I leave for Asia in May. We're booked right up until next January.
You know, the problem is this. You have to have a business mind and an artistic mind in this business.

Speaker 3 You really do. You've got to watch your stuff.

Speaker 3 And every time I've addressed it, you've got managers in the way, you've got agents in the way, and you've got some artists who are very talented, but that's it.

Speaker 3 There's no business acumen and there's threats they don't want to get on stage with certain performers they don't want to go through it they don't get it and it's a it's a shame you know who gets it the country acts get it the rap artists get it but there's not many in my milieu

Speaker 3 that i could really say to you look i'd love to bring julio iglesias out of retirement or whatever he's doing, okay, because the Hispanic base in our country politically and everything is huge.

Speaker 3 If you could get Tom Jones, Tom has been, you know, had some health issues recently. Great voice.
There's a few people that I think would work, but you can't get past the agents, the managers.

Speaker 1 Yeah.

Speaker 3 Well, somebody would have to do it.

Speaker 3 I just don't have any time to press it.

Speaker 2 It's a smart list tour. Yeah.
And we're going to get it done.

Speaker 1 Guys, why don't the three of us sing all the songs?

Speaker 3 I'm open. Oh, shit.
Songs are not responsible for any of the.

Speaker 1 Sean, you do the singing and then Jason and I, what do we do while these two talented guys are doing? Yeah, move the furniture around. We'll make funny faces on the sides.

Speaker 1 You put me on your shoulders.

Speaker 2 Oh, my God. I mean, just.
Well, we're going to work on it. We're going to come back to you with a proposal on that.

Speaker 1 Okay. It's a great idea.

Speaker 2 Now, talk to us about this.

Speaker 2 You know, the stamina, the endurance, the longevity, you still touring like crazy.

Speaker 2 Literally, how do you do that?

Speaker 2 Yeah, but what

Speaker 2 how are you able to stay so healthy and have so much?

Speaker 2 What's the ritual? Yeah. I mean, walk us through your day.

Speaker 3 It's so basic. Look, you know, I know what you do.
You run, you watch what you eat. You know, Amanda's always been like that.

Speaker 3 I literally, from hanging around those guys in Vegas with the smoking, with the drinking and all the bullshit. Hey, if that's your thing, do it.
I couldn't sing if I drank drank too much.

Speaker 3 I couldn't function if I did what too much. If I tried a little of this and that, you're goddamn right.
Made up my mind and made choices.

Speaker 3 But when I get up in the morning, you know, I have my lemon juice, I eat blueberries, I have my olive oil with a squeeze of lemon. I don't have a big breakfast.
I don't eat white bread.

Speaker 3 I mean, I can give you a boring list. This body is not a fluke, okay?

Speaker 1 This is it.

Speaker 1 Even Paul Enka's quoting Richard Erling. Is that Richard Erling? Yeah.
Was that where I heard it? His buddy. The great Richard.

Speaker 1 The great Richard.

Speaker 3 How's Richard doing?

Speaker 1 Tricky Dick.

Speaker 3 He's married, isn't he?

Speaker 1 Oh, yeah.

Speaker 1 Tell Tracy who Richard is.

Speaker 2 Richard is one of my best friends and a friend of,

Speaker 2 what, all four of us? No.

Speaker 1 Yeah. Yeah.

Speaker 2 Yeah. Yeah, Richard.

Speaker 2 And anyway,

Speaker 1 Richard is. I love him.
By the way, it should be noticed. Yeah, hi, Digg.

Speaker 1 It should be mentioned that Richard is one of the first Smartless Super fans when we first heard. He was like the first guy to keep texting us and really being encouraging.
He's such a sweetheart guy.

Speaker 2 You want to buy a house? Fine.

Speaker 1 Yeah, by the way, you want to buy a house now. I get Richard Ehrlich.

Speaker 3 Yeah, he's a guy.

Speaker 3 See these blueberries, guys? I eat them every day.

Speaker 2 These guys, he's eating blueberries right now.

Speaker 2 That's how he's getting through this interview.

Speaker 1 This is a superfood, okay? I love it. The olive oil, I'm going to do it now, Paul.
I'm doing it every day. I'm going to do it.

Speaker 3 Put it in a shot glass and you squeeze a lemon on top of it and drink it. Done.
Drinking the water. Before you go to bed, you make sure you have ginger.

Speaker 1 I'd rather drink a soda and die early.

Speaker 2 Yeah, listen, Sean, you're not going to make it to Paul's age. You keep having the cornflakes on the tuna fish and the, I mean,

Speaker 3 listen, they're coming up with some stuff from Israel. I'm reading, you know, I read a lot.
They've got some stuff now. They're going to turn it a lot back.
You're going to live to over 100 years old.

Speaker 3 Yeah. You guys.
Especially kids that were born after 2000. They'll be living to 125.

Speaker 2 Now, what about playing music

Speaker 2 day to day?

Speaker 2 Not physically playing music because you're doing that on the stage. But

Speaker 2 what are you listening to that's keeping you inspired? Do you keep up

Speaker 2 on new music?

Speaker 2 Do you have a staple

Speaker 2 that you listen to that keeps you going?

Speaker 2 What gets you going?

Speaker 3 Yeah, I'm listening to everything eclectically. You know, there's some stuff I'm not interested in.
Leave it at that. But I'm listening to stuff from Bruno Mars.
I mean, I'm listening to Adele.

Speaker 3 There's some rap stuff, Jay-Z. I mean, there's some talented people out there.

Speaker 1 Is there anybody that you've always dreamed of writing for or with that you haven't?

Speaker 3 Elton, John, and Sting.

Speaker 1 Wow. Yeah.

Speaker 3 I think Elton's very talented. Yeah.
I think Sting is very talented. Of course.
I think Billy Joel is amazing.

Speaker 3 You know, you're never going to discount.

Speaker 3 You know, when you look at the foundation of those doing the business out there, it's all the guys that are close to 80.

Speaker 3 The Stones are still doing it. I mean, there's a ton of them.
There's some good stuff out there that, you know, I listen as, you know, I listen to opera music when I want to calm down.

Speaker 3 I listen to a lot of Sinatra. I listen to everything as long as it's good.
If it's good, I'm on. I'm down for it.

Speaker 1 Paul, for many, many reasons, I want to be you when I grow up. I know.

Speaker 3 We never grow up, my boy.

Speaker 1 Yeah. We never really grow up.
Trust me.

Speaker 1 I get that sense. Paul, it's unbelievable.
Again, I don't know what Jason, I think that, I think he's jealous of you.

Speaker 1 You've got too much charisma for us.

Speaker 1 And he knows he knows that we're like sean and i are going to be like we got to get rid of jason we got paul's going to do the podcast with us yeah we'll keep it in the family if you guys want to recast that's fine you just got to keep it in the family you know slip it in slip him in i got to tell you i'm so proud of that guy i don't know

Speaker 3 all of you we all of you representing what you do i'm a fan okay and this guy in front of me and he's been a hell of a father and with those kids, but beyond that, I'm not even going to get into it because it speaks for itself and I'm not going to embarrass him.

Speaker 3 But as proud as he may be of me, that's how proud is Jason, is he? Is that your son-in-law? Everywhere I go, they don't even know who the fuck I am. But they can guess, right?

Speaker 1 But they,

Speaker 3 no, I'm, I'm, listen, whatever you're throwing at me, I'm throwing it back to all of you.

Speaker 1 Well, I was going to say this, and I was going to bring that up, which was

Speaker 1 I wanted to mention this earlier.

Speaker 1 When Amanda started dating, when he said that he didn't know, that he figured that you were Amanda's dad when he first heard her last name.

Speaker 1 When Jason and Amanda got started dating and then got married, and I don't want to embarrass Jason either, because Sean and I both love him. I give him a lot of shit, but I love him and he's

Speaker 1 just, he's a brother and more than a friend. And

Speaker 1 how lucky did you feel that you got to have this guy as your son-in-law and in your life? He's a thoughtful, smart, sweet, great dad. All this shit that you said, times a million, as you know.

Speaker 3 No, no doubt. He's a brother from another mother

Speaker 3 to all of you guys, because it's, you know, the great thing is, as you guys know, it's all real. You're never going to hear anybody say anything, and I never have.
And Jason's been through it, man.

Speaker 3 He's pulled his life together.

Speaker 3 You'll never hear anybody say anything derogatory about Jason.

Speaker 2 You had a nice little

Speaker 2 bit.

Speaker 1 I'll find it. I'll find it.

Speaker 2 Paul had a nice window into my old life, though. Right when I got married married to his daughter, he took me and two buddies, Ehrlich was one of them, Vicki, to Vegas.

Speaker 2 And he gave me and Richard and Danny Comden and

Speaker 2 one.

Speaker 1 The whole Soul Good crew. Yeah.

Speaker 2 And

Speaker 2 he showed us his version of Vegas and it was just incredible.

Speaker 2 And so you got to see

Speaker 2 me

Speaker 2 lubricated, you know?

Speaker 1 And Ehrlich was making deals right down.

Speaker 3 What do you mean, $30 for a lap dance?

Speaker 1 Who's in kick over here? I'm going back to the hotel. I'm not paying that.
So would you agree?

Speaker 1 Jenny's listening to this right now, going, Richard said he's never been to his strip bar before. This is crazy.

Speaker 2 Paul,

Speaker 2 we've taken a lot of your time, too much of it.

Speaker 2 You're very, very nice to have come on and done this. Thank you for saying that.

Speaker 1 Paul, next time I'm in Los Angeles, I want to have a dinner and keep talking about everything. the money.
Let's do a dinner. Let's do a dinner.
Paul, please. What a thrill.
I'm down. We're doing that.

Speaker 1 As soon as you get back. My mom and dad, my dad, who grew up in Winnipeg, Manitoba, has been a fan of yours.
You know, he was born in 38 just outside of Winnipeg. And for him,

Speaker 1 I'm not kidding. As soon as I'm done, I'm going to get off this thing.
I'm going to call my dad and say that we had you on. And he's going to be absolutely blown away.
He's going to be a good one.

Speaker 1 That's cool, man.

Speaker 3 You've got a pretty decent hockey team out there, you know?

Speaker 1 Yeah, we do. Decent

Speaker 1 That's what we should do.

Speaker 2 We should go to a hockey game together. Should introduce him to Shanny, too.

Speaker 1 Yeah. Yep.

Speaker 3 We should.

Speaker 3 Do you know which team in the NHL makes more money than any other team? You guys are hockey savvy. Toronto.

Speaker 1 Let me see. Toronto?

Speaker 1 Toronto Maple Leafs. Yeah, Toronto Maple Leafs.
Scottish Beach.

Speaker 3 Everybody is way behind. Do you know why Wayne Gretzky never had a curved stick?

Speaker 1 Why is that?

Speaker 3 Because he always scored on his backhand. He never wanted the stick curved.

Speaker 1 Yeah. Hard.

Speaker 3 And I knew Wayne when he was a young little fellow. I used to fly him around on the jet.
He was scared to death of private planes. So I knew him when.
Wow.

Speaker 2 So, you know, Paul, I don't know if you heard the episode that we did with

Speaker 2 President Biden, but what he wanted to do and did do, he was so excited because I guess he did some research, found out that you and I were related.

Speaker 2 He came in playing one of your songs on his phone as

Speaker 2 one of his go-to songs that he's got on his phone all the time.

Speaker 1 It played it.

Speaker 1 On his own

Speaker 1 that was funny i thought you were putting me on yeah nobody handed it to him he got it on his own phone he walks in playing that jason bless

Speaker 2 yeah and then and then and then i feel like didn't we call you yeah we got

Speaker 1 me he went

Speaker 3 and said i'm only doing this with your son-in-law because i said i wanted to talk to you well you know i was getting ready from the world i come from to say you jason don't put me on

Speaker 3 and then i heard the sound of his voice that's saying this is real, yeah, right. And then he carried on as you heard him.
He was very complimentary and very nice.

Speaker 1 I was very touched, and it was very it's cool for us to experience all of that happening in front of our faces

Speaker 2 very, very cool. Well, Paul, you've been killing it for a long, long time, many, many years to come.

Speaker 2 Uh, we can only hope to have the kind of uh longevity and relevance that you've had in this business and your success in your personal life, too.

Speaker 2 I mean, uh, I'm a huge benefit of your offspring as well.

Speaker 2 And we got a couple of great grandkids of yours to prove it.

Speaker 1 And so I just love you.

Speaker 2 And thanks for chatting with us.

Speaker 3 Hey, guys. It's been my pleasure.
You know, my pleasure. Thank you.

Speaker 1 Thank you, Polly Polly. Great to be here.
Paul, thank you, the great Paul.

Speaker 3 I look forward to the dinner, guys.

Speaker 1 That's a done deal. That's a good one.
Just let me know when you're back. We'll get it done.
All right. All right.
Bye, Paul.

Speaker 3 Bye, guys. Thank you, bye.
Bye.

Speaker 2 Bye. Bye bye-bye.

Speaker 1 What a legend. What a legend.
That's cool. By the way, I mean,

Speaker 2 I can't believe you guys haven't met him before.

Speaker 1 I've never met him.

Speaker 1 I'm not kidding. I'm not kidding either.

Speaker 1 We haven't met him yet. Well, I'm so excited.

Speaker 1 Yeah, he's great. You're like, oh, yeah, he's great.
I love him. He's great.
He's great.

Speaker 1 And I'm like, I would be, I can't believe that you haven't paraded him and been like, Sean and Will, you guys are going to love this guy.

Speaker 2 I wasn't even sure that you guys were going to be cool with me bringing him on.

Speaker 1 I don't think I'm talking about it.

Speaker 2 Well, I don't think he's just so self-serving you know he's my he's my father-in-law and like i want to bring him on and chat with him but you did

Speaker 1 you ever call him do you ever call him panka think about us panka

Speaker 1 no but you that can be your little pet name for him yeah panka no you guys were very very sweet to him thank you i i i'm dead serious i want to have i want to i want to sit down with him i i'm not even kidding oh he'll talk to you every day like looking if he's i want to i was going to ask him i want to know if he's ever whacked anybody oh that's a great question i know that sean has I know that Sean has, but that's different.

Speaker 1 But that's different. That's different.
That was mutual. That was mutual.

Speaker 2 Oh, my God.

Speaker 1 Well, that was a very good thing.

Speaker 1 Sean got led into the mob because they asked him, the first thing he said, he says, I love whacking people.

Speaker 1 Well, you're in.

Speaker 1 Just sign here. Okay.

Speaker 1 It's that same app that your friend uses.

Speaker 1 Howdy.

Speaker 1 Can you?

Speaker 1 That's amazing. By the way.
Oh, go ahead. Well, what were you going to say? No, I was just going to say, I'm really blown away, Jay.
I really am. I just love him.

Speaker 1 And I, and I, and I, God, and loving Amanda as much as we do as well, certainly as much as I do, just seeing her dad and starting to understand, putting the pieces together.

Speaker 1 Yes, that's what I was doing. I met one of Amanda's sisters.
I remember I played golf with Amanda's mom. You and I played golf with her mom years ago before she passed, which was such a treat.

Speaker 1 And

Speaker 1 then just meeting her dad now, it just brought it all full circle. and it just makes me love Amanda even more.
Yeah, likewise.

Speaker 2 With that name that she came on and said, hi, I was first on the show.

Speaker 1 She's never done that. It was so cute.

Speaker 1 We should have her on. Yeah.

Speaker 2 We should have her on. You know, I mean, but now that starts to get really self-indulgent.

Speaker 1 No, because we want to hear the real stuff. Yeah.

Speaker 2 I don't think I can be on that episode.

Speaker 1 No, because she'll get too real. She'll be like, I told Jason.
I told him. Yeah.

Speaker 2 I want to start fighting. It'll be a one-hour fight.

Speaker 1 I want to echo. I didn't want to stay silent during that.
I want to echo what Paul and Will were saying too, about what an incredible father you are, what an incredible person you are. I truly.

Speaker 1 And this is the episode to say that, and this is the time to say that. So I just think you're amazing.
And hearing him love on you was just, you know, really cool. It was really cool.
Very nice.

Speaker 2 I feel like you're working into a bi here.

Speaker 1 I am. I wanted to quote some of the lyrics from the song My Way that I didn't know he wrote until today.

Speaker 1 I did it by way. Why not?

Speaker 1 Why not?

Speaker 1 Because that's not a fucking thing.

Speaker 1 Yes, it is. I think it's

Speaker 1 blew it. You fucking blew it.

Speaker 1 Anybody who heard you say that knew it was a good time.

Speaker 2 So he's going to talk about sleeping with a man and a woman. And watch, he's going to do this whole, all these lyrics, right?

Speaker 1 Go ahead, John. He's going to do just the one lyric about I planned each charted course, each careful step along the

Speaker 1 byway.

Speaker 1 There you go.

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