Even Stevens Interview
Doug Burke:
Welcome to Back Story Song. I'm your host, Doug Burke and today we're here with Even Stevens. Nashville Hall of Fame songwriter Even Stevens discovered his love of songwriting after exploring a wide range of odd jobs in the '60s and '70s. A devout pacifist and raised by a pastor in Ohio, rather than get drafted into the Army during the Vietnam War era, he enlisted in the Coast Guard and was stationed in San Francisco when it was the epicenter of anti-war protests and at the height of the hippie revolution.
After that, his songwriting muse drew him to Nashville in the '70s where he wrote songs living out of his Jeep. In a stroke of magical alchemy, he met his writing partner Eddie Rabbitt and together, their songs reached the tops of the charts. Even went on to co-write with many legends and Hall of Famers of the Nashville songwriting scene and his songs have been recorded by over 70 legendary performers ranging from George Jones and Glen Campbell to Tim McGraw and Blake Shelton and my personal favorite, The Chipmunks.
Your first song's Fine as Wine by Billy Walker in 1974.
Even Stevens:
Yeah, that was a hoot getting that one. That song was one of me and Eddie Rabbitt's first songs we wrote, one of the very first and we really liked that song. We played it a lot, just for the fun of it in the house and just when we were writing it and afterwards, we liked that song a lot. If I remember correctly, Stonewall Jackson also cut it. There's a funny story about him recording it. He asked us to come to the studio when he recorded it, which was pretty common then in those days, it's not now but it was pretty common then and you have to have a certain attitude to be able to pull that off 'cause having people in the studio can be annoying to somebody so you kinda get the thing that you don't say anything or give any suggestions unless you're asked if you're in a studio with an artist about your song. So Stonewall, he was country-er than water, that guy. When he first went to the Opry, they gave him... He kinda had a BO problem I guess and they gave him a can of Right Guard and he sprayed it on the outside of his clothes.
That's country. He didn't know that you're supposed to put it on first, which was really funny, I thought but anyway and he was a very nice fellow, just down to earth and very nice and he cut that song and he invited us to come to the Opry, he was gonna debut it on the Opry and my mentor Jim Malloy, he actually was the sound consultant for the Opry at that time so I went out to the Opry a lot with him and sat in the booth and he would consult as they recorded it and listened to it and sent it out over the airways with the engineers. Stonewall walked out to do a song and we went "That's not Stonewall, he's got long bushy hair like a Beatle cut." And he had his hair real creamed back, he was a very country guy and then we realized he was trying to be hip 'cause he had hung out with me and Eddie and we had real long hair at the time.
Doug Burke:
He was copying your haircut?
Even Stevens:
Yeah, he was trying to get hip and he came out on the Opry that way and the engineers were like "Oh gosh!" That was wonderful to them, they were just cracking up and just going "Oh my gosh!" And he did that and I guess that's the last time he did it. He greased it back down and he had just washed it and put it in a Beatle cut, a Beatle look. So we were cracking up in the thing, we were going "Oh come on Stonewall. That's crazy." So anyway but anyway, he cut the song and a guy named... Let's see, there was a rodeo guy that cut that oh, a big one, the guy that Garth wrote a whole album about, I think it was. It was a rodeo guy that cut that song too so it got cut quite a few times.
Doug Burke:
Didn't you have Bobby Bare do one of your songs?
Even Stevens:
Yeah, Bobby did a few of my songs. He did Crazy in Love. And he also did... He had a single on a song called Too Many Nights Alone that Shel Silverstein and I wrote together. I knew Bobby through Shel. That's one of the great guys in the music business, Bobby Bare.
Doug Burke:
Let's talk about both of them.
Even Stevens:
Okay, alright.
Doug Burke:
And your relationship with Bobby Bare and...
Even Stevens:
Well, I don't know if you know this but I met Shel 'cause he was hitchhiking on Music Row. I was driving my... I had a big Blazer at the time and I was driving down Music Row and I recognized him from photos I'd seen of him and I stopped and I said "Shel." He says "Yeah?" He looked at me suspiciously. I said "You want a ride?" 'Cause he never drove and that's a long story in itself but "Do you want a ride?" And he looked me over for a few seconds, he goes "Yeah." And he got in and we wrote five songs that day, three of them got recorded by major artists and we just became friends and just...
Doug Burke:
What are the other two songs and should we get those recorded?
Even Stevens:
Well Danger of the Stranger was a one of them.
Doug Burke:
That was the fourth one?
Even Stevens:
Yeah, it was one of them.
Doug Burke:
That was recorded.
Even Stevens:
I don't remember. California Christmas I think was one of them, which was a Hillary Kanter Christmas song that we and other people have recorded that but Shel and I just hit it off right away.
Doug Burke:
So the first day you meet Shel Silverstein, you're writing a Christmas song with him later in the day.
Even Stevens:
Yeah. We wrote five songs that day.
Doug Burke:
And one of them is a Christmas song.
Even Stevens:
Yeah.
Doug Burke:
That's amazing.
Even Stevens:
Yeah, it's one of my favorite songs too, actually. California Christmas it's called but he's the most creative person I ever met in my life. He lived and breathed it. He didn't watch TV, he didn't go to movies. His only other hobby was women. You know? And that was off and on because he was very creative. He was always writing something. There are so many things about his life that people don't even know about. He wrote plays with David Mamet, he did all kinds of things and besides his children's books that were... He's the third largest children book...
Doug Burke:
And Playboy cartoonist was...
Even Stevens:
Yeah.
Doug Burke:
At this time period when you met him, that's what he was known for was... That was the first thing in his bio: Shel Silverstein, Playboy cartoonist.
Even Stevens:
Yeah and he lived the perfect songwriter's life. He had a funky apartment in Greenwich Village, he had a house in Martha's Vineyard, a little cottage. He had two houses down in Key West next to each other and he had his own suite of rooms at the Playboy Mansion 'cause he started with Playboy and he was friends with...
Doug Burke:
He was welcome with Heff and the mansion.
Even Stevens:
Yeah so where the weather went, he went and he just locked up the other ones and... So he just roamed around and came to Nashville a lot. So he was really a vagabond songwriter and just a sweet guy. He kinda looked like the devil with the bald head and all that and the beard and everything, he had that kind of look but he was the sweetest person you'd ever meet in your life.
Too Many Nights Alone is one of my favorite songs we ever wrote. It was my mother's favorite song that I ever wrote.
Doug Burke:
With Shel?
Even Stevens:
Yeah yeah.
Doug Burke:
Tell me about that song. Where does that come from?
Even Stevens:
If I remember correctly, we were sitting around... There was a house next door to the Glaser Brothers and a woman lived there and she was... Back in those days there were ladies in Nashville that were friends of songwriters and they'd feed us and welcome us in and we'd do in the round in their living rooms long before it was done at the Blue Bird. That's what you did as a songwriter, you met up in somewhere and did song...
Doug Burke:
Do you remember the women some or...
Even Stevens:
Yeah.
Doug Burke:
You recorded and...
Even Stevens:
Well actually, the lady that lived next door to Glaser Brothers was the person that fed me most of the time 'cause I didn't have anything to eat. If I didn't... I used to go by Hazel Smith's office at Peer Southern to just have breakfast 'cause they had donuts in the morning, and I'd just hang out there just so I'd have something to eat 'cause I was sleeping in my Jeep. I got to know the lady next door to the Glaser's and she later married John Hartford and they were married until they both passed away very shortly from each other's death. She passed away shortly after John did from a broken heart, I think. That's where I met John Hartford and I met Johnny Darrell and all these great songwriters, Peck Chandler, all these people at that house and Shel and I would go there all the time and write.
Doug Burke:
And that's where you wrote Too Many Nights Alone?
Even Stevens:
I think that's where we started it. Yeah, I believe so and we were talking about the life of a singer and a songwriter and traveling around and not really having a real long-term relationship with people, with women especially and we just tried to put that in a song.
Doug Burke:
It's been compared to Bob Seger's Turn The Page, I believe.
Even Stevens:
Oh, it's in that vein, isn't it? Yeah, yeah. We didn't think of that but...
Doug Burke:
Oh, he didn't... You did this first.
Even Stevens:
Yeah actually.
Doug Burke:
Maybe you inspired him.
Even Stevens:
I doubt that.
Doug Burke:
I mean you tried that life and decided you didn't like it, going out there and performing as an artist...
Even Stevens:
Oh yeah. I did.
Doug Burke:
In your career. A lot of the songwriters I've interviewed, that's their story, is they tried it and it wasn't for them.
Even Stevens:
Yeah. Well, I turned down some people that wanted to work with me when I first came to town 'cause that was my dream, was to be a writer and an artist and I came to town to do that, to pursue that and Ray Stevens, I got a chance to work with him and did some demos and stuff with him and he was a genius and a wonderful person to work with and just sitting on the piano bench with him was a highlight of my life, with him playing my songs at a session, getting it together. It was just a highlight and a half but he had had "Everything is Beautiful", which was a monster hit. After we were together for I guess a month or two, he goes "Even." he says "I'd like you to write for me but I can't produce you. I'm trying to get another hit myself." He says "And I really need to concentrate on that so I really don't have time to produce you but if you wanna be a writer... " The first songwriter I met in town was Layng Martine and he worked with Ray. He was with Ray the whole time, he has been a songwriter and so that's how I kinda got to know Ray, was through Layng. He says "So if you wanna do that... " And I said "No, I wanna be an artist too so I'm gonna keep looking for somebody that's interested on both ends of it, a producer and a publisher." That's what I wanted when I first came and then when I finally got a deal on Elektra/Asylum and did an album, Shel Silverstein helped me with the album and Jim Malloy and Dave Malloy co-produced it. We did it at Quad and it was really a hoot doing it, it was really fun making it but then I went on the road and you have to go out and promote it and I was with radio guys for the districts I was in and doing some shows at colleges and stuff, trying to get known and after about three weeks of it, I just got tired of it. I was going "I'm not writing any songs. I'm living in a hotel all the time." and I was sitting in a room in New York, I said "I don't think I'm gonna do this." So I called the head of the record label, Steve Wax at the time, out in LA and I said "Steve, you don't have that much money in me and I don't really like this life. I'd like to be released." He goes "I have never had this phone call before."
Doug Burke:
Everybody else wants to get to this place you're at.
Even Stevens:
I said "Well... " Yeah probably. I'm sure. I was dying for it and I said "I like the life of a songwriter. I just wanna be released and quit." He goes "Okay." And the next day I flew home and that was it and I felt so good. When I hung up that phone, I've never felt so good in my life.
Doug Burke:
Do you remember the single you were promoting?
Even Stevens:
It may have been "Let The Little Boy Dream". Yeah. It could have been that.
Doug Burke:
Yup. It went to 38 on the charts in 1975.
Even Stevens:
Yeah. It was number one in Texas at couple of places and stuff too. It did hit pretty good in a couple of places but that was a true song about my first son, Seth and he's on the record. He's the youngest recording artist ever, he's six months old. I got him down on the floor and tickled him and got his laugh and then the record starts with his laugh and in the turnaround his laugh and at the end he's laughing, giggling as a baby and it's all about him.
Doug Burke:
You meet Eddie Rabbitt and had an incredible lifelong collaboration with him.
Even Stevens:
Yeah, yeah. A good 15 years we...
Doug Burke:
His life.
Even Stevens:
Yeah.
Doug Burke:
For most of his life.
Even Stevens:
Yeah.
Doug Burke:
Professional life.
Even Stevens:
Yes.
Doug Burke:
Tell us about that.
Even Stevens:
Well, I was at a party one night and it was down where Tin Angel is, that restaurant, Tin Angel. Across the street from it, there's an apartment building there and for some reason, I don't know even what party it was or why I was even there, 'cause I was just starting, I'd had maybe a couple recordings and I met Eddie. There was this guy there and we started talking, we were up on the third floor or second or third floor. So we were talking, we kinda hit it off and we were talking about music and everything. He was a struggling songwriter too and he had just gotten Kentucky Rain cut by Elvis Presley, I found out while we were talking. Anyway, he was just starting to really hit with something big and we started talking and he looked down out the window and he says "Is that your Jeep down there?" I said "Yeah." He goes "Will you help me move tomorrow?" And it's the last thing you want anybody to ask you, even a friend, right?
Doug Burke:
Well, you just met the guy.
Even Stevens:
Yeah and I went...
Doug Burke:
This guy must be from New York, right?
Even Stevens:
I went "Oh... " Well, he was from New Jersey.
Doug Burke:
Yeah, I know.
Even Stevens:
And I was going "Oh gosh, I don't wanna help somebody move that I don't know." but I said okay. So the next day I went to his apartment where he was and it was on the third floor, I think. I walk in and there's a monkey cage there, about a 5-foot tall cage, about a 5-foot square and it was kind of funky and this monkey, this little organ grinder monkey named JoJo was in it and I said "You got a monkey?" He goes "Yeah." He says "I acquired him a few years ago and so what we can do is just bust this cage down and put it in the back of your Jeep." And I went "No, I don't know you that well. I sleep back there, you ain't putting that funky monkey cage in the back of my Jeep." So we did what you should do when you're a redneck, broke it down and we put it on top and as we drove down the road, we each had our hand out on top of it like a mattress, that kind of thing. So I'm sure we were a sight going down the road.
Doug Burke:
And the monkey left you alone?
Even Stevens:
Well, the monkey was in a carrier in the back but that monkey, it pulled my hair out and I bet that monkey was almost everything we ever wrote, it was in the room with us. JoJo, I really got to know JoJo well over the years.
Doug Burke:
What did JoJo eat?
Even Stevens:
He ate... Oh, this was funny. He had a Big Boy doll, those plastic dolls that looked like Frisch's Big Boy or Shoney's Big Boy and he had torn the top of the head out and Eddie stuffed fruits down in there and handed it to him and he would eat out of that doll.
Doug Burke:
But he had to have fresh fruit every day.
Even Stevens:
And he had his own TV too. It was right outside his cage and he went crazy when certain things came on. He knew when the Hee Haw was gonna be on.
Doug Burke:
He liked Hee Haw.
Even Stevens:
Yeah. He loved Hee Haw and he loved the girls that were on it and he knew when it was gonna come on and what day it was and everything. He would get it ready with his food and he also would love Johnny Carson, when he came out from behind the curtain. He would go nuts and also any blonde girl, he went crazy over and I don't know if we wanna get into that.
Doug Burke:
Well, it sounds like he had good taste.
Even Stevens:
Yeah, yeah. He was...
Doug Burke:
Of sorts.
Even Stevens:
Was a bad... So anyway, that's how I met Eddie.
Doug Burke:
So after you move him, does he say "We should write together?"
Even Stevens:
No, no. We actually just became friends and...
Doug Burke:
Hang out buddies.
Even Stevens:
Yeah, we'd go down to Skull's Rainbows Club down in Printers Alley and just hang out. We didn't really write for months and months and then one day we said "Let's try to write something." It just floated out.
Doug Burke:
Do you remember the first thing you guys wrote together?
Even Stevens:
I don't remember what song it was but I remember how magic it was. It was just so easy and so good and our guitars... The main thing we had together at first and all through our career was that we both played a certain kind of rhythmic guitar that really worked out together, counter rhythms and stuff and it was really a magical musical thing and it was good because we could write for hours and hours and it would be magic even if we didn't have the words, we had the music.
Doug Burke:
It's when Eddie starts recording the songs themselves that you get to Drinkin' My Baby Off My Mind.
Even Stevens:
Yeah.
Doug Burke:
Which is really the break out, right?
Even Stevens:
Yeah, that was the first number one.
Doug Burke:
First number one.
Even Stevens:
Yeah, we had some songs before that that climbed the charts, kinda like the way you want it to happen. In the '20s and then in the teens and then...
Doug Burke:
I Should Have Married You got to 11.
Even Stevens:
Yeah.
Doug Burke:
Let's start with Drinkin' My Baby Off My Mind, 'cause you'd sort of built an audience with the other songs up to this hit.
Even Stevens:
Yeah. Well Eddie and I had a little cubbyhole in his apartment and I had one in my place. We had a sound-on-sound Sony recorders, which is like a two-track and you can bounce back and forth from the tracks. That was the first stuff that you could do that with. We would make our demos with a slap-back sound, it has a slap-back sound from switching it back and forth and they actually became kind of famous in town for the way they sounded 'cause it was like a rockabilly kind of demos usually, no matter... That song Drinkin' My Baby Off My Mind, especially had a rockabilly feel to it.
We wrote that song and we had the Pop A Top thing sound on the front of our demo before that song became a hit. Pop A Top, remember that song?
Doug Burke:
Yeah.
Even Stevens:
And they started with that. So we took it off his record, even though we thought about using it but it all, you know, I think he had a hit before we cut that song so we didn't do it but we, I think, we came up with that first originally and we just were rocking. We were just channeling Buddy Holly and Elvis and everything when we wrote that song. It was a little bit more rockabilly than the record ended up, it was a little more countrified, you know 'cause we were going for country hits. So we...
Doug Burke:
So the original was more rockabilly?
Even Stevens:
Just a little bit more.
Doug Burke:
And they countrified it in the studio?
Even Stevens:
Yeah, David Malloy produced it. I think it's a little more traditional country in the instrumentation on the record than the demo was but in those days, it was great 'cause you just... You'd call up a producer who were the A&R guys at the time, which to me is the way it should be. The A&R guy should be producers. I mean, that's perfect. They're getting the songs for the artists. That's the perfect thing. It's not so much anymore. I think it's lost something because of that. Even though other people find great songs and everything but we pitched that to Ray Pennington at RCA. You could call him and say "Hey, Ray, we just wrote something we think you'd love." And he'd go "Well, come on over and play it." That's how it was and that was wonderful. That was a great way it was for songwriters in those days and it just really... It made everything happen faster in those days because you could just... You'd be in the session two days later... They'd say "Why won't you come over to the session. You hear anything you wanna change or anything you can repair it or whatever."
Doug Burke:
So this was from Rocky Mountain Music, which was his second album?
Even Stevens:
Second. Yeah.
Doug Burke:
So you'd had the Eddie Rabbitt album which built a base.
Even Stevens:
Yeah.
Doug Burke:
And then this is the first single off the second album.
Even Stevens:
I think it was. I think it was.
Doug Burke:
And then...
Even Stevens:
Not sure you can could probably tell there but I think we had three or four singles before that but we had the perfect kind of thing that happened, you get a song in the 20s and the next release goes up higher and then higher and higher until you get to number one and that's ideal, if you can do it.
Doug Burke:
Right. Right.
Even Stevens:
'Cause you build a base of radio stations and if you have a hit right off the bat, a number one, that's good too but not everybody goes on them sometimes and you have to rebuild after that, I think... So it was kinda ideal.
Doug Burke:
But this song Drinkin' My Baby Off My Mind, this isn't about anything personal for you and Eddie?
Even Stevens:
No.
Doug Burke:
This is just a songwriter's song...
Even Stevens:
Yeah.
Doug Burke:
About...
Even Stevens:
It was.
Doug Burke:
A breakup and...
Even Stevens:
Yeah.
Doug Burke:
Drinking to solve the breakup.
Even Stevens:
I could see the movie in my mind while we were writing that song, in the bar, like you know "Hey Bartender, pop the top on another can. Give me 10 dimes for that dollar in my hand." I could see him standing there doing it that, you know? People were interested in that song, we pitched it quite a bit and people would hold it and stuff but I know Ray cut it... I don't know if anybody else did but I know that Johnny Bush did it first and he had a good one on it but it was really Texas... It was really Texas sounding. It turned out a little different with Eddie. It was.
Doug Burke:
So at this point, you've got your muse, who's number one in the charts. You don't have to tour and all you have to do is...
Even Stevens:
Right?
Doug Burke:
Stay here in Nashville and...
Even Stevens:
Oh, it was wonderful.
Doug Burke:
And write and go hang out in Sausalito, on Shel Silverstein's houseboat or something, right?
Even Stevens:
That's right, that's right...
Doug Burke:
Boy life is great and...
Even Stevens:
I'm not stupid.
Doug Burke:
Did you guys write about any of your love interests?
Even Stevens:
Oh yes.
Doug Burke:
I mean, is Janine, Eddie's wife, in any of the songs?
Even Stevens:
Oh yeah.
Doug Burke:
Which ones in particular?
Even Stevens:
Well, there's a couple of songs "It's Always Like The First Time." I didn't write that song he wrote it but it's really a great song, that was about her and there's another song of his that I think is a monster hit and we never got it out because... We tried to do all singles on an album, which is a good goal but it doesn't always happen because you can't get that many off an album usually. During our heyday, there was three or four with the most you could get off an album, before you had to have another album out basically, one a year usually, was what we did but there was a song on one of the albums called I Don't Wanna Make Love With Anyone Else But You. That is one of Eddie's songs too, which is a fabulous song, if I ever get back into producing, I'm gonna try and get somebody to do that song 'cause it's fantastic.
Doug Burke:
So let's talk about the work you did with Dr. Hook.
Even Stevens:
That was a stroke of luck, that was because of Shel Silverstein really. He had written all their stuff for two or three albums, I think.
Doug Burke:
Cover of The Rolling Stone...
Even Stevens:
Yeah "I Got Stoned And I Missed It"... Oh gosh. So many songs, great ones, funny songs too and he was part of the person that started that group with Ron Haffkine, their producer in New York, they were doing a... Ron Haffkine got a soundtrack for, I think it was a Dustin Hoffman movie and he got the gig of putting the soundtrack together, I think it was... And he had these guys, Dennis Locorriere and Ray Sawyer who was the nucleus of Dr. Hook, the guy with the patched eye, who just passed away and Dennis Locorriere and Dennis was the guy who sang my song, my big hit with him and Shel was involved with those guys. He knew those guys up in New York.
Doug Burke:
And they recorded your All The Time In The World. Which you co-wrote with Shel.
Even Stevens:
Yes, I did. It was... That was a pretty big hit across the country and other countries too, in London and...
Doug Burke:
They released that in, it looks like February of '79 and then April "When You're In Love With A Beautiful Woman."
Even Stevens:
Yeah and that one went nuts, that one went platinum or gold in 13 countries.
Doug Burke:
And that was just written by you. You didn't co-write with Eddie.
Even Stevens:
Yeah I wrote that song in about 15 minutes, in the car.
Doug Burke:
You were in the car? Were you in love with a beautiful woman?
Even Stevens:
I was...
Doug Burke:
Do you remember her name?
Even Stevens:
And she was a singer. Her name was Sherry and we'd been going together for about three or four months I guess and she was actually singing in a band down at the Holiday Inn down near Vanderbilt and so I went down to see her play one night. I was waiting for her to get off on her break so I could talk with her and she never made it over to me 'cause all the guys were hitting on her, on the way through the crowd and I got irked about that and I went out and got my car or my truck and I was heading back to my apartment and I wrote that song in my head and every word of it and I didn't change anything and I got in my apartment, I picked up the guitar, I knew how to play it and I went from irked to elated. 'Cause I knew it was a good one. Well, I went in and put a demo down on it at Steve Singleton's studio with two guys, Jimmy Capps, a great guitar player, acoustic player and upright bass player named Billy Linneman, who's gone now and it was all on the demo. First, I went out to pitch it to Engelbert Humperdinck.
Doug Burke:
Okay. Yeah.
Even Stevens:
Which is another story, I don't know if you wanna get into it.
Doug Burke:
Yeah that's in your book, I think we have to cover it 'cause it is part of the story.
Even Stevens:
Well yeah, it was... My mother's brother, Jack, my uncle Jack, lived down in Utah in Salt Lake City and he was quite a character and he was a really good golfer and the first time Engelbert Humperdinck came to the United States, he met my uncle Jack on the golf course and they became good friends.
Doug Burke:
What a coincidence.
Even Stevens:
Yeah, it really did and so through the years, three or four years, he had... He'd call me and said "Why don't you send me out some songs for Engelbert I'll play them for him." And I always thought it was cheesy to do that and so I never did it. I never send him one song for years and then when I wrote this song and he was working on it and I said "Oh man he... " He had that song "After The Lovin'." I said "This probably fit in with that." And that was huge hit, Engelbert's. I didn't know Engelbert at all and I thought "May this song... This is one I should send to him, finally." So I called uncle Jack and I said "I'll send this out to you. I think I got something." He goes "No, no, no, you get on a airplane tonight and come out here to LA and I'll introduce you to Engelbert, you can play it for him." So I came up that night with my reel-to-reel demo of the song and I met Engelbert he met us at the Beverly Wilshire or Beverly Hills Hotel and we had some drinks and then we went to some pubs and he played darts and we played darts.
Doug Burke:
The Polo Lounge, I believe.
Even Stevens:
Yeah, yeah.
Doug Burke:
Is the name of the bar...
Even Stevens:
That's right, that's where we were.
Doug Burke:
At the Beverly Hills Hotel.
Even Stevens:
Yeah, yeah.
Doug Burke:
Very hoity-toity.
Even Stevens:
Yeah.
Doug Burke:
A lot of celebrities running around.
Even Stevens:
And Engelbert had a Rolls-Royce. Yeah, a very nice man, very nice man. So we finally go to his house on Sunset Boulevard and he's pulling into the Drive and it was Jane Mansfield's old mansion. On the other drive, next to it was Rod Stewart's place and Cher's was on the other side and I lived in a single wide trailer in Mount Juliet so this was something to me. So we go down to his house and it had 13 bathrooms, this house, it was unreal and it had a swimming pool, a heart shaped swimming pool, Jane Mansfield had built and everything, it was unbelievable. After we hung out there for a while he says "I hear you got a song for me." And I said "Yeah, I have it on, this reel-to-reel tape." He goes "Well, let's go down to my rec-room and you can play it for me. I just put in a new system and it's fantastic." So we go down there and he puts it on the tape, hits the button and it goes about two bars and it ate my tape. I went "Engelbert, you just ruined my tape." He goes "You just ruined my sound system." And we got a little testy there. So I hadn't taken a guitar with me and he didn't have a guitar so I couldn't play him the song. So that night I flew home, depressed that I'd blown it. That it got blown I didn't ever get to play it for him. So I told him before I left, I said "I'll send you a copy or something." He goes "Okay." And it's funny 'cause that song in England broke his record for number one, the longest in London. With the...
Doug Burke:
The Dr. Hook?
Even Stevens:
Yeah, with Release Me that... But anyway so I get back and I go back in the studio and I'm putting... Actually, the girl I wrote it about she's doing harmony.
Doug Burke:
What's her name again?
Even Stevens:
Sherry.
Doug Burke:
Sherry.
Even Stevens:
Yeah. Shel Silverstein came by and he said "You know Even... " He says "Dr. Hook's doing a third or fourth album and I've written a bunch of songs for it but they don't... They wanna do something different and they don't wanna do the songs I've written for this project." And he said "I think you might have the kind of material they need, can I bring them by the studio?" And he brought their producer by while I was working on Beautiful Woman and he wanted it and about... I guess three or four days later, I was down in Muscle Shoals with the Swampers, cutting this song with Dr. Hook and I drove home just elated, 'cause I knew it was a great cut.
Doug Burke:
And they invited you into the Muscle Shoals studio...
Even Stevens:
Yeah, I was there for the recording of it.
Doug Burke:
So you write this song and then Sherry... It's about Sherry. You played for her like that night, the next day, how did she react when you...
Even Stevens:
I don't remember if I did or not. I don't know, I don't know if I did or not but it was a true song.
Doug Burke:
Yeah, yeah.
Even Stevens:
It's all about... I call those two years right there, my paranoid years, 'cause I also wrote... Co-wrote Suspicions with Eddie and David and Randy McCormick in the same period and they're both about jealousy and paranoia and love.
Doug Burke:
Yeah, yeah. A lot of women don't like that so what happened? And how did she react? Did you end up breaking up or did you go out longer...
Even Stevens:
We did end up break... No we had quite a long relationship, actually but we did end up breaking up.
Doug Burke:
But not over this song?
Even Stevens:
No, no, no. No, she was a singer, she understood.
Doug Burke:
And then Suspicions was right on the heels of that.
Even Stevens:
It was.
Doug Burke:
You wanna talk about that?
Even Stevens:
Yeah, that was one of the most magic things ever being created. This was a unique situation. We were at the Wally Heider studio out in LA. David and I both... We weren't recording in Nashville much once we started having some hits because we felt that the studios were a bit dated compared to what was out there and so we'd go work in Muscle Shoals first...
Doug Burke:
Dated on electronics?
Even Stevens:
Yeah.
Doug Burke:
Where the electronics had evolved to?
Even Stevens:
Yeah and the studios themselves...
Doug Burke:
The attitudes?
Even Stevens:
No, mostly the equipment and stuff and we just... We'd go other places to see what they had and they were better. We thought it was better at the time. That's quickly changed but during that time... So we would go to Caribou Ranch out in Colorado and stay there and that was where Jimmy Garcia, who started Chicago and used to do Blood Sweat and Tears, it was his place and he had a wonderful studio, Elton John cut Rock of the Westies. Yeah, two or three albums, I think he cut there and Steve Martin did his Comedy albums there and John Denver cut Rocky Mountain High there, it was a wonderful place, 3000 acres with a studio on it, it was incredible, above Boulder and we did a couple of albums on Eddie out there and in this instance, we had the Muscle Shoals rhythm section who had played on some other stuff come to Los Angeles to Wally Heider studio out there, which was a very famous studio. And we were recording it and I think we were just wrapping it up pretty much all the cuts, tracking and the band went to lunch next door, at an Italian restaurant and David Malloy and Eddie and I and Randy McCormick the keyboard player, stayed back and the recording engineer didn't go either. There was a Rhodes piano out in the studio and he started playing a groove and Eddie and I and David started writing this song and in about 20 minutes we had Suspicions written, pretty much and we were excited about it, we said... David actually said to the engineer, he said "Hey, turn on a cassette or something and get this idea down for us so we don't forget it." So we started playing it and Roger Hawkins, the great drummer, he came in, right then and he sat down at the drums without the earphones or anything and just started jamming with us and when we got done, we went "Man, that really sounded good. Did you get it?" To the engineer. He goes "I put the drums and the piano and the vocal on a 24-track tape." And that is the record. That is the record, we just added...
Doug Burke:
You just... One take?
Even Stevens:
Bass. Added the bass and changed some lyrics and Eddie redid the vocal on a better mic and he left for the road that night and David, I went into another studio and fooled with it and the flute player that's a solo on that. David Hungate Toto put the bass on it, that was it. That is the record from us writing it.
Doug Burke:
So that's a co-write with David Malloy and Randy McCormick as well as Eddie Rabbit.
Even Stevens:
Yeah.
Doug Burke:
All sharing that and that goes to number one?
Even Stevens:
Yeah, it was huge.
Doug Burke:
I'm gonna turn this...
Even Stevens:
It was song of the year, it was country song of the year, even though it was a R&B song, actually.
Doug Burke:
And it's not about the same Sherry girl who is the most...
Even Stevens:
No.
Doug Burke:
She's the most beautiful girl in the world, woman in the... This is just that feeling of jealousy.
Even Stevens:
Yeah, there's no worse feeling than jealousy to me and suspicion about in a love affair. It just eats you alive. It's just a horrible feeling but I think everybody feels it. When I'm talking with writers that are kinda fresh and new and the thing I say "Songwriters always avoid human frailties and it's really what people relate to." I think it's because somebody records it that's famous, okay and I think the ordinary listener that's not in the music business goes "Wow, if he can feel that way, it's okay for me to feel that way, jealousy and... "
Doug Burke:
It's one of the seven deadly sins, right?
Even Stevens:
Yeah and I think writers avoid that in songs sometimes because it's uncomfortable but it's really, I think the public likes it because it connects them with the person that's supposedly a star. How could they feel that way? You know what I mean? They kinda look at it that way I think and go "Gosh, if he feels that way, if Tim McGraw feels that way, I can feel that way without feeling bad about it."
Doug Burke:
Yeah. So Even, I mean, we have this year is beyond breakout for you guys, for you and Eddie. Gone Too Far, Drivin' My Life Away, I Love a Rainy Night, Step By Step in '81. Nonstop number ones. Just a string of them.
Even Stevens:
Yeah and across the board too sometimes. Some of them were number one. It was just unreal. I mean, it really was unreal but you know what? We'd always go "Now, let's not get stupid here. Let's dive right back in and write something again, write something else." We just really humped it. I mean really...
Doug Burke:
Well, the one I love is, I Love a Rainy Night because my dad and I commuted together. You remember where you hear certain songs, right? They have a setting.
Even Stevens:
Yeah.
Doug Burke:
For you sometimes.
Even Stevens:
That's good to hear.
Doug Burke:
And that one has a setting for me. So let's talk about the back story on this. This was a lyric that Eddie had been banding about for awhile, right?
Even Stevens:
Yeah, he had a little, I would say it was about 10 seconds long, piece on a cassette and he would bring it to writing sessions when I get together with him and also, when Eddie and I and David got together. For about three years, he'd bring that and bring it up and we just couldn't figure out what to do with it. We didn't know what to do to make it and then one day he came in with it and brought it up again and I don't think it started this way but it might have. I'm not sure. We started writing on it and David started doing that hand claps and finger snaps and I swear he should have had carpal tunnel after that 'cause he did it for hours while we were writing that song. We wrote along on that song quite a while, down on music row in our kitchen and finally and we knew we had something good that day when we went "Oh, that's good." And we went in and did a little demo when I played on that show, The Originals. It's real loose, it's got words in it, on the demo, that were thrown away later at the session. We rewrote it at the session. It was a real creative process over years of getting to that song and writing it and forming it the way it should be done right up to the last minute in the studio.
Doug Burke:
I like it 'cause it's a bright key talking about a rainy song and I like it because rain is usually a negative thing in Country Western music and you flipped it. The whole thing.
Even Stevens:
Yes yes. Yeah, we knew we were doing that. I mean, we thought it was a novel way to do it. I have to say, the hand claps and the finger snaps are very cool in that song.
Doug Burke:
They made David's original, made the final cut.
Even Stevens:
Yes. Well, well, no, we recorded it without that and then we tried to put it on and we all went out in the studio trying to do that. David did it for... And he couldn't get it all the way through the song to sound right. It's hard to keep the same sound going like that, the finger snaps especially.
Doug Burke:
Yeah, today you just loop it, right?
Even Stevens:
Yeah, yeah. Finger snaps especially. I mean, it changes every time you do it and I discovered something during that time. It really shouldn't be called finger snaps because you're really hearing the sound of the thumb.
Doug Burke:
Like the base of the thumb.
Even Stevens:
Yeah.
Doug Burke:
It's not even the thumb.
Even Stevens:
Yeah and I discovered that trying to do it during that time and I went out for about 30 minutes, tried to put it on the cut and couldn't get it. Eddie tried it. Finally, David called Farrell Morris, a percussionist in Nashville, who was very famous at the time. I think he's still around, I'm not sure but anyway, he went out there and did it in about 10 minutes and that's... 'Cause we didn't cut it to a click which was... And so it kinda drifts a little bit, the song does and that's death to try and overdub something specific like that.
Doug Burke:
I mean at this point, you guys have this group of session musicians that are on most of your cuts and why don't you talk about them, 'cause these guys are the unheralded heroes of the sound that you guys created, which I think arguably is the Nashville sound of this '78-'80 period.
Even Stevens:
Yeah.
Doug Burke:
When they talk about the Nashville sound, it was you guys crossed over in a big way into other charts.
Even Stevens:
Yeah yeah, people have asked me over the years "What you guys were trying to do?" And we said "We weren't really trying to change anything or do anything other than just make music. That's all we were doing and we didn't have any constraints 'cause we weren't famous." You know what I mean? It wasn't like we were trying to fit into anything, we started out raw and just doing it, whatever felt good, that's what we did and we just continued that thing. Just whatever the song should be into our minds, we put on there and not say "Oh is that gonna go over okay, on country radio or is it gonna be a pop record or anything." We never thought in those terms we just thought "This is what we should do on this."
Doug Burke:
So Love Will Turn You Around by Kenny Rogers is a record where your session guys made a difference. Before we talk about Love Will Turn You Around, tell us about your book?
Even Stevens:
Well, I've got a book out called Someday I'm Gonna Rent This Town and it's a play and people ask me well how I got that name and there's an old joke this rube from the country and decides to go to New York city and he goes and he's got his bags right and he goes and he gets off the train from the airport and he's in Times Square and he sets his two bags down and he looks up at New York, shakes his fists and say "Someday I'm gonna own this town." and he looks down and his bags are gone. And I always thought that was a funny joke. So instead of the ego of it's "I'm gonna own this town." I think it's funnier to say "Someday I'm gonna rent this town." and it makes it a little more iffy so that's how I got the name of it.
Doug Burke:
So Love Will Turn You Around is your first song for Kenny Rogers? He's big at this point super huge. Right?
Even Stevens:
Oh he's the biggest at the time.
Doug Burke:
Yeah.
Even Stevens:
Yeah yeah.
Doug Burke:
How does this come about?
Even Stevens:
David Malloy and I were sitting in this demo studio actually one afternoon I guess it wasn't. David picks up the phone and said there's a call for you and we're sitting there and he goes it's Kenny Rogers. He says, I got this movie coming out in about a week called, it's About racing and it's called Six-Pack and there's this girl that's gonna be in it, that's gonna be a big star, her name's Diane Lane. He says and she co-stars in it with me and I really think it's gonna be a good thing for her and for me. He says but I've got an album cut but I don't think I have a hit that'll goes with the movie, he says, I'm calling around and see if you guys can write one for me or have one. We said "Yeah." we always say yeah. We'd always say that. "Yeah, we can do that." and he says "Well, look, I'm gonna be up in Lexington this weekend, doing a concert at the coliseum" or were wherever a big place and he said "Why don't you come up there and before the show and come back stage and we'll talk about and maybe have something started, something to show me when you get there." And this was like a Wednesday, I think or something. I said, okay so we got get off the phone and David says well, we'll drive up there that night and you know at that day and go up. I said "No no David this is freaking Kenny Rogers man the biggest thing in the world right now and we should get a silver Eagle bus and put our gear on there and get a driver and go up there and write a song on the way up about racing, that's what he wants, let's do that." And he goes "Yeah, okay, let's do that." So on the way up the guy took a little detour he shouldn't have taken and we ended up getting there late. So we come in there and I take my guitar in which I had been playing the song as we were writing it about racing. He says, man, he says, you got anything you wanna show me? And I said, yeah and I take the guitar and I start playing it for Kenny and after the first line, I'm getting sweaty and I'm going this thing sucks. This song sucks. I'm thinking to myself and I'm just sweating.
Doug Burke:
How do you know that feeling?
Even Stevens:
I just knew.
Doug Burke:
You just knew.
Even Stevens:
It's just like this is not magic and I'd never play anybody a start of a song anyhow, what? I mean it's murder to do that, why even try but the situation was that. So luckily he said, no no, that's too much about racing. I'd said a couple of lines and it was distinctly about racing. He goes, no it's gotta be a hit without if it wasn't about racing but it will work for the movie and I gotta have it in about a week 'cause this movie's coming out. He says look, I've got a seat for you right up front here tonight enjoy the show and get back to me when you get back the next day or two and see what you can come up with. He says "I got one little thing on the guitar that I like and he went start dud don, dud don, dud don, this feeling dud don dud don D-D-D-D-D-D-D-D-D-D-D-D and something like that, he goes "Take that and maybe do something with it."
Doug Burke:
That's what you get?
Even Stevens:
Yeah but we didn't record it. So during his show, I'm singing that melody in David's ear between songs and he sang thousands of them that night, it seemed like and I'd sing it to David and then he'd sing it to me the next time 'cause we didn't record it when you we had to remember it. So we get back on the bus and we start a song and about halfway back, I said... We had just signed Thom Schuyler to our company. He was building our studio. He was a construction... Doing construction on our studio and I found out he was a songwriter and we ended up signing him as a writer and I said "I think Thom Schuyler would add something good to this song, let's call him." So I called him from a truck stop at about 2:00 AM two in the morning. I said "Thom, if you are any kind of songwriter come down the studio and meet us, we gotta get this song written for Kenny Rogers." He did about 5:00 AM five in the morning, he came down and we wrote the song and went in and demoed it with Spady Brannan on bass and Billy Joe Walker and Randy McCormick and sent it out to Kenny, overnighted it, next day he called, he said "I love it. Come on out and we'll make a record." So David and I went out to LA that afternoon and spent three or four days out there and we made a record with Kenny Rogers and you know what's funny, on that record, if you listen to it, there's one note goes... On the piano, all through the whole record it's very dominant. Kenny liked that one note. He goes "Put that in there more, all through the song." And then he left the studio, I remember and there the keyboard player had gone home. So I went out and did that e-note, it was an e-note on the Rhodes piano and I just hit it... And it's on there about 40 times, if you'd hear it now you'll... It dominates.
Doug Burke:
You're a very soulful piano player.
Even Stevens:
Well, I got paid by the union for playing that note 'cause I was on the session supposedly. So after I got back to Nashville months later, I'd get calls "Hey, this is such and such producer, I want you to play piano on and something." I said "What note, is it?" And they went "What do you mean what note?" I said "I only do an e-note. That's all I do on piano." 'Cause I can't play a piano.
Doug Burke:
Specialized on e-note.
Even Stevens:
But I got two or three calls over the... Over that period.
Doug Burke:
'cause you're on the liner notes...
Even Stevens:
Yeah and also in the this musicians union book 'cause I got paid for that session. But anyway, that song went crazy.
Doug Burke:
So Love Will Turn You Around goes to number one.
Even Stevens:
It was ASCAP song of the year.
Doug Burke:
And ASCAP song of the year.
Even Stevens:
Yeah, yeah, it went nuts. Kenny was so great. That guy is so good. When he gets on the microphone it's just magic. Some singers are like that and they have a quality... It's just so incredible.
Doug Burke:
So the only song I'd wanted to talk about... Well, not the only but then I skipped over is Driving My Life Away?
Even Stevens:
Yeah.
Doug Burke:
This is was the same era when I was commuting with my dad and I remember the CB radios were a big rage and that's today called Google Waze on your smart phone. 'Cause you used the CB radio to tell you where the cops were, where the accidents were or where the traffic routes in New York... In and around New York were, where that you could get to or wherever you were.
Even Stevens:
My wife's Dad was a truck driver and she used CBs all the time. When he was on the road he'd call in home. They'd talk on the CB all the time.
Doug Burke:
So where did Driving My Life Away come from?
Even Stevens:
Well, Steve Wax the that same fellow I called and asked to be released from the label, when it was Elektra/Asylum, he had changed jobs, he'd become the Head of Music for Warner Brothers Pictures and he said "There's a movie coming out called 'Roadie' and it's got Meat Loaf in it and the guy that was in the Honeymooners... Norton?
Doug Burke:
Art Carney.
Even Stevens:
Art Carney. He says "And the soundtrack is gonna be a really good sound track, got Teddy Pendergrass, Emmylou and Roy Orbison." Really good. More people on that, they were good, maybe Alice Cooper, a real eclectic bunch of people. He says "I need a song for it." So David and I and Eddie would get up in our... We had a task at the time up in the attic on Music Row, we went up there and started writing this song, called Driving My Life Away. I don't know or how why it came, it just 'cause it was about roadies, they said it was about roadies. So we started writing this song and about an hour into it, we go "Man this song is great, we love this song." And so we called Steve Wax and said "Steve, we got something we think is good but is it... We want it as probably a single on Eddy too, not just on this thing. We need permission that that's gonna happen. We need your assurance that that's it's gonna happen, we're trying to be...subtle about it, 'cause we knew we had something really good and we didn't want it just to be on a Meat Loaf album. I mean, nothing against Meat Loaf but that's not what was our goal at the time. We wanted to have another number one, right?
Doug Burke:
Right.
Even Stevens:
So he says "Oh yeah, that'd be great." So we really dove in then to see if we could make it perfect for Eddie too and so it took us about, I guess, a couple of weeks, we worked on that song up in that attic. Sounded pretty good actually on an eight track. It was just us playing guitars.
Doug Burke:
So Driving my Life Away and I Love a Rainy Night are both on Horizon album. How did you decide which would be the first single? Driving my Life Away was the first single. I could see the argument over both those great songs.
Even Stevens:
Yeah, I'll tell you...
Doug Burke:
Or was there no argument? It was kinda...
Even Stevens:
No, we were very fortunate. Elektra/Asylum Records at the time was experimenting with country music when they just opened an office here and there was no staff. There was a guy named Mike Suttle who was the independent promotion man, actually... Was made the head of it and actually a girl named... And I know it like the back of my hand and I can't think of it. I'll think of it. Anyway, this lady was the receptionist and his helper, his assistant and she ended up being Roger Cook's... The great Roger Cook's wife actually and she's wonderful, she's a nurse now but anyway, that's the only people that was in the office and they were experimenting and we hit with the a number one early and songs that climbed the charts quickly so they left us alone, which is very unusual. And if David and I and Eddie thought we had a hit, they put it out and Mike, if he thought it too, the head of it and he was the promotion man too. So we were left alone, they weren't running anything by committees, they didn't have anybody that had to have any opinions that meant anything, you know? There was nobody there so we were lucky. So when we thought it was a hit, they put it out. The only time that they didn't, it didn't go number one. After we had... We had Suspicions and it was song of the year and they said "You have to come out with something real country off the album." and we went and they said "You'll lose your audience if you don't." We said "We got song of the year with Suspicions. Country song of the year."
Doug Burke:
Is that country enough?
Even Stevens:
What else can we do? I mean, how are we gonna lose them with that? With whatever we put out and they're gonna play it probably somewhat. So they convinced us in Los Angeles that we should put out Pour Me Another Tequila, which we didn't... We didn't think it was the hit on the album. It was on the album but we didn't... That was never our single in our mind, a single on on mind and it went to three so then they left us alone and we did it and we got to pick them again. Whatever the three of us agreed that was should be the single. So we didn't really have a formula of why we picked it other than we just thought this would be a great one.
Doug Burke:
Yeah.
