Steve Cuden: On today’s Story Beat.

Jimmy Ryan: I, wasn’t trying to be Buddy Holly or Elvis Presley or anything like that, but I felt that I needed to learn exactly what they were doing as at least a platform to start to have the dexterity to create within those things. And in those days we were all cover bands. Even the Beatles were cover bands. The only reason they started writing, Paul tells this story, says the only reason they started writing is because they would play at gigs where other bands were playing and the other bands would be doing the same songs they were doing. And the only way to get out of that was to write their own songs. Other otherwise they never would have started either.

Announcer: This is Story Beat with Steve Cuden, a podcast for the creative mind. Storybeat explores how masters of creativity develop and produce brilliant works that people everywhere love and admire. So join us as we discover how talented creators find success in the worlds of imagination and entertainment. Here now is your host, Steve Cuden

Steve Cuden: Thanks for joining us on Story Beat. We’re coming to you from the Steel City Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania. My guest today, Jimmy Ryan, is back for his second visit to this podcast. Jimmy’s best known as a guitarist, composer, producer, arranger and author with a career spanning almost six decades and continuing to this day. He recently performed with triple Grammy winner Olivia Rodrigo at the Rock and Roll hall of Fame induction ceremony celebrating his longtime friend and former bandmate Carly Simon as she was made a member of the hall of fame. Jimmy was Carly’s guitarist for 21 years. He was a soloist on, the theme song from Working Girl, Let the River Run, which won a Golden Globes Award, a Grammy and an Oscar. He was the bassist and a vocalist on Anticipation, as well as the guitarist and soloist on the hit you’re so Vain, which holds a place in The Billboard top 100 songs, of all time. As well as working alongside Carly Simon, Jimmy has recorded with Cat Stevens, Jim Croce, Elton John, James Taylor, the Doors, Tommy James, Jimmy Webb, Andy Williams, Rod Stewart, Kennedy and many others. In fact, he’s recorded with seven Rock and Roll hall of Fame inductees. Jimmy’s written two critically acclaimed five star rated books. The Superstar Chronicles tales of life among rock royalty and California Dreaming and primal gurus and psychics and shrinks. Oh my. I’ve read both of Jimmy’s excellent books. We chatted about the Superstar Chronicles during his first time on Story Beat. Today we will delve a bit into California Dreaming and Primal Screaming, which deals more with Jimmy’s approach to life psychologically and spiritually than it does with his great music career. In 2023, Jimmy received the lifetime achievement award from the Iowa Rock and Roll Music association as he was inducted into their hall of fame. Please be sure to stick around at the end of the show because Jimmy has generously lent us an excellent unreleased song that he wrote, produced, and on which he played all the instruments, called why Can’t We Just Be Friends? Featuring the vocals of Dana Colitri. So for all those reasons and many more, I’m truly delighted to have the extraordinarily talented guitarist, writer, and producer Jimmy Ryan join me today for his second time on the show. Jimmy, welcome back to Story Beat

Jimmy Ryan: My head’s twice the size it was when I sat down. Thank you for all of that.

Steve Cuden: Will you be able to get through the door? That’s the question.

Jimmy Ryan: Oh, God, I don’t know. I don’t know. It’s a wide door. I think I’m okay.

Steve Cuden: Well, since we last spoke a couple of years ago, you published California Dreaming and Primal Screaming, which we’ll get into in much more depth shortly. But first, I’m wondering if you’ve continued to work in the world of music. And if so, doing what. What have you been up to?

Jimmy Ryan: Well, I’m right in the middle of scoring, a film that, although it’s not a dramatic film, it’s more of a documentary. It’s an important film and the thrill of my life. It is the story of the Vera C. Rubin Observatory and telescope, the largest telescope on the planet in Chile. And PBS picked me to write the music for it. I had worked with them before. I wrote for nova, that is, I worked with Neil Degrasse Tyson on, the Pluto Files, which was the story of Pluto that, when I believe it was Neil who decided Pluto was not a planet, it was kind of just a dirt ball on the outer. There, among the other rocks in the outer solar system. Anyway, so this was kind of a callback, and I was thrilled to do it. I’m just having a blast. You just cannot imagine how many galaxies and stars there are out there. When you see one of the photographs this thing takes, they said it would take 1500 high def TVs to display in full color in full size. One photo. Wow, 1500 TVs. That’s. It’s something like, I think, 3.6 billion pixels.

Steve Cuden: And it shows a huge amount of the universe, doesn’t it? Compared to old photographs, Every night they.

Jimmy Ryan: Photo, you know, every 10 days, they photograph the entire visible universe.

Steve Cuden: That’s wild.

Jimmy Ryan: And, I take a look at These pictures, and you just see them in a kind of average size, and then you start zooming in, and you can’t zoom enough far enough in to make them start blurring. And you see more and more, and you’re just like, oh, my God, there’s no space there. There’s just nothing but planets and stars. In fact, I saw two galaxies side by side and the comment, aren’t they going to collide? And they said, no. The one on the right is 15 light years behind the one in the foreground. But they look like they’re right next to each other because you don’. You don’t really get the depth. But anyway, so you asked if I was doing that, and I’m touring with my band Commotion.

Steve Cuden: Nice.

Jimmy Ryan: I had a jam band here just to keep playing guitar, because I love playing guitar with some really fantastic musicians. And one night, our lead singer, Steve McLean, just started singing like John Fogarty. And we were all like, what the. Where did that come from? And he’s unbelievably good at it. So good that people see our. Our demo.

Steve Cuden: We.

Jimmy Ryan: We have a, you know, shot with five cameras, a real publicity, and then. Oh, my God, he sounds just like Fody. No, he doesn’t. He doesn’t sound anything like Fody. What he sounds is really good. And when you hear this song sung by a really, really good singer, you just go there. So we get standing ovations. Every concert we’re selling out, every place we play, we’re playing big theaters, and it’s a blast. So scoring a film and touring at the same time.

Steve Cuden: So you’re very busy musically then?

Jimmy Ryan: Absolutely. Haven’t rested a minute.

Steve Cuden: So I have to ask you. You bring up Neil DeGrasse Tyson. I’m a giant fan of his. did you get to actually work with him?

Jimmy Ryan: Not with him, but I went to the after party and hung out with him.

Steve Cuden: Oh, that’s neat.

Jimmy Ryan: Composers get the film when it’s kind of done. I’ve heard that Hans Zimmer. People like that often sit down with a film producer and ask them what the film’s about, and then they’ll go back and just compose something even without seeing any film. this one, I got the finished product.

Steve Cuden: So let me ask you, then, when you get that footage, what is the first thing that you do? What do you think about panic?

Jimmy Ryan: I panic. The greatest fear that I certainly have, and I imagine a lot of composers have, is the blank screen.

Steve Cuden: Sure. It’s just like the blank screen when you’re A writer. What are you going to do?

Jimmy Ryan: Absolutely. So I just sit there and I look at it. I go, oh my God, what is. And I always have the fear that I’m going to come up with an idea that they’re going to hate, that it’s not going to work. And then they send me temporary music stuff that they put on there. I go, what is that?

Steve Cuden: That’s awful.

Jimmy Ryan: That doesn’t work at all. And then some things that do work, but even. They even put pieces of min that I did for the plutophiles against it. And I didn’t think it worked at all. I just took a shot and started writing what I thought worked. I’m, just past the halfway point now, and not a single cue has been turned down. So they’re, they’re really enjoying it and they’re really just giving me free rein, which is great.

Steve Cuden: So just so you know, and so the listeners know, it’s not uncommon for editors to put temp music in just to give them a rhythm.

Jimmy Ryan: Yeah, well, they like to edit to something they don’t. Yeah, they like to feel beats and stuff like that. So I’ll sometimes match the tempo of the tent temporary piece, but I never, like, copy the temporary piece because it’s usually stock music. It’s not usually real high quality stuff. I mean, they’re not grabbing a piece from Gladiator and throwing it against the thing.

Steve Cuden: All right, so I need to ask, as you have aged and, you’re no longer 20, neither am I for that matter. does music, playing music ever become more challenging for you because of your age?

Jimmy Ryan: No, what becomes challenging is finding time to practice. I found with this, this Credence Band Commotion that I’m working on. If you stray even a little bit away from the way John Fogarty plays or how the songs are constructed, they don’t sound right. So I have to constantly practice them to stay in, in that. In that wheelhouse, if you want to call it that. So, you know, when I’m. When I’m scoring a film, generally speaking, there’s no guitar on this. This is like John Williams. It’s big orchestral, heavy duty stuff. So there’ll be a few days I’ll go and I won’t even touch a guitar. And then when I pick it up, when you have to play at the level that I’m expected to play, I mean, I can always pick up a guitar and play, of course. But when you’re expected to play solos that really sing, like Eric Clapton, you gotta practice. You Know, kind of every day. So I get backed up a little bit with that.

Steve Cuden: You, you said in the last show that we did that you were not playing as much as you had been and that, in fact, your calluses were getting soft.

Jimmy Ryan: That does happen, especially when you bend strings. You push the string up, and especially on the high strings, which are just single wires, they’re not wrapped. So you push them up and they dig right into your fingers. So if your calluses aren’t good and hard after about a half hour of doing that, yeah, they’re pretty sore.

Steve Cuden: Wow. So you have to actually get back in that groove then.

Jimmy Ryan: Yeah. So now that I’m cruising a little bit with the film, they’re liking what I’m doing. I’m managing to get a half hour, 45 minutes of practice in, you know, as well as doing the film, so that it’s okay.

Steve Cuden: So as a player, you have to keep playing. You can’t stop. It’s something that you have to do in order to keep up your chops, right?

Jimmy Ryan: Oh, absolutely. Sure, sure, sure, sure.

Steve Cuden: So is there anything that you have done over time, that’s continued to be something that you use to improve your playing? Is. I’m just curious because you’ve been, you know, you’ve been at this for a long time. Is there something you do to continue to improve?

Jimmy Ryan: Yeah, I take lessons.

Steve Cuden: You take lessons?

Jimmy Ryan: Yeah, absolutely. There’s this absolutely brilliant guitar player named Tom Hess. He’s in Chicago, and I just stumbled on an ad, Facebook ad from him, and I went on his website and I get this guy sounds really good. So I talked to him a little bit and I told him what I wanted to do and I listened to him doing it and, he was as good as it gets. So I haven’t started yet because I couldn’t with this film. But I got the first lesson I looked at, and it’s very methodical. He’s a great teacher. He’s showing me how to do, you know, things like you would hear Eddie Van Halen doing, not just Dan da da da da, not simple solos, but that kind of stuff, which I’ve never been good at. I’ve always. I. I’ve been the melodic guy, like the solo, and you’d’re so vain. There’s nothing particularly speedy about that, nor the solo on Let the river run, because 99% of the sessions I get called for. That’s not what they want. They’re not that kind of song. I mean, nobody’s going to call me for A speed metal Metallica is not going to call me to play on their record. So I haven’t really had use for that kind of playing. But I just. Just for me, I’d like to learn how to do it just for fun.

Steve Cuden: Did he ask you why you needed lessons?

Jimmy Ryan: Yeah.

Steve Cuden: I would have asked you that.

Jimmy Ryan: Well, he.

Steve Cuden: What?

Steve Cuden: He.

Jimmy Ryan: He was very tactful about it because I said. He said, send me some examples of your playing. And I sent him, you know, Lucille, he says, wow, congratulations on your very successful career. What exactly is it that you’d like to learn?

Steve Cuden: Yeah, no kidding.

Jimmy Ryan: And he got it right away because I was asking him to teach me something that was not represented at all in what I sent him. And he said, I can absolutely teach you that.

Steve Cuden: So I’m curious. What is it about music that continues to draw you to it? What fascinates you continually about music?

Jimmy Ryan: I don’t know. I think it is genetically implanted in my brain that I feel it, I hear it. And the older I get, the more I hear just the most minute details I can pick out. This is going to sound like I’m bragging, but I can listen to a symphony orchestra and tell you exactly what instruments are playing, in which point, and at which point they switch over to a similar instrument where they’re located in the sound thing. Doing it so long, I’ve just become more and more in tune to it. And what that’s done is it’s made me appreciate it more and more. So I just love listening to great music. I’m a huge Rachmaninoff fan, believe it or not. I listen to Ozzy Osbourne, too. I don’t have any boundaries on my taste. For me, I don’t listen to an awful lot of jazz. That’s a genre that just doesn’t. It doesn’t move me that much. I recognize that it’s probably the highest level of playing there is. Just doesn’t move me that much. But I listen to a lot of classical.

Steve Cuden: So I was going to say that, jazz is a lot of improvisation, and. And you’ve done a lot of work that’s, I think, probably less improvisational.

Jimmy Ryan: Exactly. the solo for you’re so Vain, I wrote, you know, she gave Carly, and the producer gave me the track, and I went back to the apartment I was staying in in London and sat there and played with it and played with it. And I came in with this solo done, and I said, what do you think of this? And they said, that’s it. You’re Done. But it wasn’t such a big deal because I had rehearsed it. It wasn’t like it came off the top of my head. And there was this great solo. I. I had written it. The Let the River Run one was more like, you know, seat of my pants. I had no idea what to do. And I was there with Carly and Rob Mounsey, and they said, yeah, just play something wild. Just make the thing scream. And, you know, it took some time. It took about an hour.

Steve Cuden: It would take most people days, but you. An hour. Yeah.

Jimmy Ryan: the BBC did a retrospective of the no Secrets album, which had your surveying on, was called classic Carly Simon’s no Secrets. And they sent a film crew here to my studio because they wanted to include me on the thing. And I told the story. I just told you. You know, I had worked it out in the apartment and went in and I said, so something like that. You want to try and again? And Richard Perry, the producer, said, yeah, I think we’re good. I love it. And I said, wow. Okay. That was easy. They interview Richard Perry. He says, one take. Yeah, maybe one weekend. I’m like, what are you talking about? Richard is no longer with us. And I think he was in sort of advanced stages of Parkinson’s, when he did this. So his memory was certainly challenged because.

Steve Cuden: Well, how many years had it been since you’d done it?

Jimmy Ryan: 50 years? Oh, well, no, by then it was 45 years.

Steve Cuden: So he very well might have conflated you with someone else.

Jimmy Ryan: I think you’re absolutely right. And here’s the reason it’s nonsense. If it takes you a weekend to do a solo, you aren’t doing that solo, right?

Steve Cuden: That’s right.

Jimmy Ryan: I mean, we had sax players in for, one of the songs on that, and a couple of them just didn’t cut it. And they weren’t there more than an hour. They were there an hour, hour and a half late. And then they finally got Bobby Keyes in there, the Stones thing, and he nailed it on the first take. And Richard kept making him do it over and over again. We ended up keeping the first take. Nobody will keep you there for a weekend. You’re lucky if you get an hour. If you’re not cutting it in an hour, it’s. Thank you so much. We have just what we need. Leave your W4 in the wastebasket on the way out.

Steve Cuden: There’s a. I’m trying to remember the title of it. There’s a relatively new documentary about, ah, studio musicians in Hollywood. And those folks, they’re talking to the. The composers are saying. The question is, well, how long did you have to rehearse with this orchestra? And they laugh. They go rehearse. They come in. They do it in one take. Site. Site. Reading it.

Jimmy Ryan: Yeah, you can, but. But then, you know, is it the vibe that they want? And that’s when the time comes in, you know. Yeah, you read the chart, but it’s not exactly how I wanted it. I mean, I was just reading today. Oh, God, Maxwell Silverhammer, the Beatles song. The Beatles almost killed each other during that because McCartney wanted so much detail and so exact and minute and change this and change that. And Leno is like, oh, my God, I never want to hear this song again. You know? And then it still came out absolutely brilliant, but only because he was willing to put that much effort into it.

Steve Cuden: Sometimes genius goes that way.

Jimmy Ryan: Yeah, yeah.

Steve Cuden: And he’s truly a genius. so let’s talk about. Let’s talk about writing for a moment, both writing music as well as prose. how old were you when you first started to think about words, books, writing?

Jimmy Ryan: Oh, I’m very clear on that. When my first band, the Critters, we had a couple of top 10 hits or top 40 hits, you know, one was top 10, the other two were top 40. A new member came into the band, and he was really good singer, and he wrote songs. And I noticed that the girls really liked his songs. And I said, I’m gonna write some songs. This isn’t fair. So the impetus was, you know, wanting to impress the high school girls. I wouldn’t say that. I’m a brilliant lyricist. I can write a melody as good as the next guy. Lyrics I have to work on pretty hard. And, there are people who do it so well, like Paul Simon and, oh, gosh, Carly does it very well.

Steve Cuden: Billy Joel.

Jimmy Ryan: Billy Joel’s a genius. Oh, my God, he’s so good at that. I prefer to work with lyricists and write music. I have problem writing music.

Steve Cuden: So where did this notion of I’m going to write a book came from? Your first book is well written. Your second book is well written. This is a different discipline and skill set than writing music. Obviously it is.

Jimmy Ryan: And it came from COVID Yeah, well, my. My. My other band that I played with for about 10 years, a band called the Hitman. We were all studio musicians who had. Had played on a bunch of records, and we had actually three of, Frankie Valli’s four seasons in the band. The new ones did who loves you and oh, what a Night and all that. So initially we were doing mostly four season songs and, and songs that we had played out. I did a Jim Croce song because I played with him. A couple of the guys played with Tommy James and Shondell. So we did. Covid came along and everything we had in the entire future got canceled. Not a single gig. All the places pulled out, pulled the plugs, turned the lights off, and went home. And in what would have been just a fantastic gig, Carnegie hall was going to honor Carly Simon. You know it would. It was like the Kennedy Honors or something like that. I bet at Carnegie hall. It was all set to go. Rehearsals were planned, I got my plane fare. Covet came along, boom, gone. So I had a lot of time on my hands. And I just. I was sitting with, this is a story I tell people. And this is, this is the true story. On one of my last gigs, I was in New York, and my son Gavin lives there. He works for Atlantic Records. And we always get together, have a beer, and we’re sitting there, and he loves the stories. He’s a real music lover. And he stopped me in the middle of his door, he asked me to tell him a story about like, the Doors or whatever, you know. He said, dad, you gotta write a book. Write a book. I was an engineering student, not an English student. I don’t, I wouldn’t know where to start. He says, start with what you’re doing right here in this bar. Just tell the damn stories. So I did that and I. I got an app called Prov Writing something around a couple of things. And I started writing and I would run it through this thing and said, this is. It would never say, this is dumb. They said, this is lagging on. You need to trim it down. Your grammar’s a little awkward. Do this. And it really helped me. It was like taking a high level English course. And I kept a really good calendar. And I just went through the calendar and I said, oh, that day. Yeah, I remember that when I was dead. And it all started coming up. But, the impetus for doing it was there was nothing to do. It was Covid. And what better thing to do than the solitary art of writing a book?

Steve Cuden: So your research essentially was to go back to the calendars.

Jimmy Ryan: Yes.

Steve Cuden: And that then triggered the memories.

Jimmy Ryan: Exactly. Now, if I wanted exact details, times, dates, things like that, I would go to Wikipedia. Anything that I couldn’t remember, since we’re talking about big stars, is certainly in Wikipedia. So if I didn’t remember when they were born. Not a dumb thing like that. But the name of a particular song or the name of a particular album or something, the exact name, because, you know, you want to get it right. like when I worked with John Entwistle of the who, we started off as Rigor Mortis, but I think the album ended up being called Ox, so my memory was Rigor Mortis. And then I looked it up and went, oh, he changed the name when he released it. I forgot about that. So it was little details. That Wikipedia was very helpful.

Steve Cuden: Just a little guy like John Entwistle.

Jimmy Ryan: Yeah, just. He was a big guy.

Steve Cuden: Both playing music, or I should say playing music and writing music and writing books, prose, all require a certain degree of discipline. And so I’m going to guess, but you tell me, is the fact that you had spent many years as a musician in that discipline, did that help you to discipline yourself as a writer of books?

Jimmy Ryan: Yes. Because in order to be a studio musician, there are a number of disciplines you have to have. You have to have your craft together, or nobody’s going to call you. If you’re a big star, they don’t care. You know, there’s plenty of big stars who aren’t particularly talented musicians, but they have charm and they have a thing that people like. But with a book, it just takes sitting down and doing it a quarter of the way through. And I got a call from a writer in London who said, I’m writing a book on Carly Simon. I know this is a big ask, but would you be interested in writing a foreword for it? You certainly know her. And I said, wow, that’d be really cool. So I wrote it forward. And I. I looked at. I said, geez, this is kind of good. Anyway, I said, he says, oh, it’s great. And by the way, my publisher really liked it. Would you like me to put in a good word for you? Are you writing anything right now? And I said, as a matter of fact, I am. So he contacted his publisher, and she got back to me, and she said, I would sign you in a heartbeat. And I went, oh, we’re done. Send the paperwork. Before this happened, I wrote to probably 10 agents, and I went, I did all the right stuff. I did research on how. How to write a letter to an agent to, to prospect a book. Not one person even returned my email. Not one.

Steve Cuden: Not. Not surprising.

Jimmy Ryan: It seems that if you don’t come in with somebody holding your hand, you’re not getting in. And you can add the. The Big publishers, Simon and Schuster, you know, whatever they are, Doubleday, those things like that. You can’t get in there without an agent. They only talk to agents. They will not talk to talent. So that’s why I was calling agents. So when this came in, I said, I’ve struck out on 10 points here. Let’s just take this deal and it’s a very decent deal. She doesn’t do any publicity. You’re on your own for that. But the royalty is fantastic. If I were to do a book in a traditional sense, I’d be lucky If I got 10%. And an agent takes a point and a half of that. So Now I’m at 8 and a half percent. This deal is 30%.

Steve Cuden: Nice.

Jimmy Ryan: So. So yeah, that’s a no brainer.

Steve Cuden: Is that, is that New Haven?

Jimmy Ryan: Yes, it is.

Steve Cuden: Teddy Dahleen. And Teddy has been a guest on this show.

Jimmy Ryan: Well, Teddy turned me on to you.

Steve Cuden: That’s right.

Jimmy Ryan: So that’s how, that’s how you and I are talking.

Steve Cuden: That’s correct. That’s how we’re talking. Is correct. So sorry. Let’s talk about your book, California Dreaming and Primal Screaming. Tell the listeners what it’s really all about. I didn’t give very much away in the bio. So tell us what.

Jimmy Ryan: When I was a teenager, I was very, very unhappy. I had a very, very strict. I call myself a captive Catholic. There was no choice in the matter. I had been going to Catholic school since kindergarten. The Catholic dogma was hammered into me, hammered into me. And part of me in my mind said, well, if the Catholicism’s so great, why do I feel like crap? And I just, I was miserable. I was insecure, I was shy. I had very thick glasses, same as I have now. But you know, for somebody 12 years old, and I wear contacts now, usually for a 12, 13 year old, 14 year old, it’s kind of a burden. I was not popular. We continued to move and I just started questioning what is up with this? So about, gosh, I guess I was 18, 19, maybe 20. I started falling away from it. I started seeing this doesn’t seem real. It doesn’t seem we’re being asked to believe all this stuff with no proof whatsoever. None. you know, people, people laughing, oh, you believe in UFOs. And I said, oh, you believe in hell? You know, don’t talk to me about UFOs. Yeah, yeah. You believe that if you’re bad you’ll go and burn for all eternity? Yeah, I don’t think so. You know, this wasn’t life was not a setup. I stumbled upon a book, the Primal Scream, the Ultimate cure for Neurosis. And I said, what the heck is this? I got the book and I read it and I went, I’ve got to do this. Then I found out it was in California and Beverly Hills, and I’m in New York. And long story short, I found not a subdivision, but not a copycat either, but something similar to that in New York. And I started doing it. And it just opened up this whole world to me.

Steve Cuden: How?

Jimmy Ryan: Well, I can describe what you do. You go in there and you sit with a group. And this. In my particular case, we didn’t do one on one. In this one, it was a group. And somebody will say, I’d like to work. And you find a phrase that expresses what’s going on. I talk about this in the book. A woman came in and her husband had just died of cancer. And she said, I just have to work on this. I’m just miserable. I’m in such grief. So Barbara Sher, this wonderful woman who, did this, this therapy with us, who’s been on Oprah and all this stuff, she’s passed away now. She’s written like 100 books. And anyway, she was. She was our, I don’t know what you would call it, the group leader, I guess. So she said, what are the words that really expresses. She says, I miss you. And I’ll make up a name. Tom. Let’s say his name is Tom. I miss you, Tom. She says, okay, just go with that. Just say it again, I miss you, Tom. And she starts crying and the tears are falling down. She says, that’s it. Go with that. Express that feeling. Don’t hold it in. And she’s, oh, God, I miss it, Tom.

Steve Cuden: I can’t. I’m so.

Jimmy Ryan: I don’t know what to do. And she. And people go, that’s it. That’s the feeling. Go with it. And you express it. And then she stopped dead in her tracks. Now, I’m going to say this, and you may need to cut it out of the thing. And she goes, you. And we all went, whoa, what? What just happened? And then she started cursing and screaming and pounding her chair and calling him every name in the book. And the end of the sentence was, you left me alone to manage everything, you fucker. How could you do this to me? You should have had a better diet. You should have done this. And now here I am, I have to manage everything. You love it. And she’s screaming at the top of her Lungs. And we’re all going, this is the Twilight Zone. I have entered the Twilight Zone. We started off with grief, and I don’t know where I am right now, but it was really working. Her face was transformed. She was kind of hunched over and all like an old lady. And now she looked like King Kong. She’s sitting up in her chair. Her face was flushed and bright. Her eyes were as clear as glass. And at the end, she finally said, that’s it. And she said, now I can wish him well on his journey. And it was so beautiful. God, I’m getting choked up even talking about it.

Steve Cuden: Is it that it’s a purge? You’re getting it out. You’re having a cathartic moment?

Jimmy Ryan: Absolutely. And you wouldn’t believe how much of this stuff we carry around from childhood, from events in our lives and all these things, and we store them up and in that storage. That is blockage. And that blockage causes diseases. I mean, everyone will tell you that stress is the killer. And this is what stress is. It’s just storing these horrible moments that warp your personality into an angry person or a sad person or a weak person. It’s all from experience. Now, that’s not the only thing he did. And that’s not the whole book. That’s just the first chapter.

Steve Cuden: You go into all kinds of different therapies and psychological things and spiritual things and so on, all throughout it. You also, write early on about your parents and that they were prejudiced people and that it had to have affected you growing up. There’s no way it couldn’t.

Jimmy Ryan: Oh, absolutely. But it’s another thing that made no sense to me. People are people. Why are people inherently bad? And I remember my sister being asked out to a prom or a dance or something by the captain of the football team, who happened to be black. And my dad, when he let, she said, no, I really. I don’t think I’m going to be going to that. But thanks. It’s really nice of you to ask. And he did this in front of my dad. And so he left. And my dad, he blew a gasket. Better not show his face around this house again. How dare he ask you. and I went. All of a sudden, oh, that’s where we are, are we?

Steve Cuden: Huh?

Jimmy Ryan: Okay.

Steve Cuden: All right. So I’m cure. I’m curious. As a person that winds up in the music business, how do you think that growing up in that environment affects or affected the way that you played? Did you come at it from, an angry and Attacking mode as a player, that that was. Do you think that that impacted you in any way, or do you think that that was irrelevant to your being in the music business?

Jimmy Ryan: Of course it affected, but I’m not sure how. In high school, I was just sad. I was just miserable. And the first songs I wrote, like on the first Careers album, were all sad songs about rejection and all that stuff like that. I have since, thank God, graduated from that stage. Mostly I just wanted to be good and I wanted to be a star. Whether I approached. I didn’t approach it with anger. I approached it like it was a solution. I felt that if I could get good enough, then I could do what the big stars were doing. Now, I never became a star, but I did become star adjacent.

Steve Cuden: Yes, definitely. You know, you’ve played on some of the biggest stages in the world and some of the biggest records in the world.

Jimmy Ryan: Absolutely, absolutely. And it was just a determination that if I did that, if I put in the time and I put in the effort and. And the effort was wonderful. I mean, I was learning to move my fingers and make the same sounds that I was hearing on the radio. And, the more I was able to do that, the more enthusiastic I became about it. So I would come home from school and just pick up my guitar. And it didn’t help my homework any. It didn’t help my studies. I was a solid C student. I was never, an A student at all.

Steve Cuden: But part of that process was that you were, I don’t want to use the word imitating or at least emulating what you were hearing and trying to then recreate it. And that was putting your fingers through those motions.

Jimmy Ryan: That’s exactly it. And I wasn’t trying to be Buddy Holly or Elvis Presley or anything like that, but I felt that I needed to learn exactly what they were doing as at least a platform to start to have the dexterity to create within those things. And in those days, we were all cover bands. Even the Beatles were cover bands. The only reason they started writing, Paul tells this story, says the only reason they started writing is because they would play at gigs where other bands were playing and the other bands would be doing the same songs they were doing. And the only way to get out of that was to write their own songs. Otherwise they never would have started either. and it wasn’t that way with. With me particularly. But, I mean, the Critters, when they first started out, were absolutely a cover band. So, you know, learning the songs was part of the job.

Steve Cuden: Well, I Think most, most bands have to start by doing other people’s work to figure out what, what their thing is in order to go off and write other stuff. So back to California, dreaming and primal screaming. you, definitely discuss, and we’ve already alluded to religion and Catholicism. you discuss how religion has caused more problems from your point of view than it’s solved. Can you elaborate a little bit on that? And how do you think that that has affected music, creativity, art and so on over time?

Jimmy Ryan: I mean, certainly there’s some beautiful art in cathedrals, in their, you know, there’s stained glass windows and in devotion to. I have no problem with devotion to God at all. I’m not religious, but I am certainly not an atheist on any level. But I mean, look, the Crusades, the Spanish Inquisition. I will say I really, really like the last two popes. I think their hearts are in the right place where I don’t agree with the whole heaven and hell and judgment and all that stuff. I don’t think God would set us up like that. you know, the all loving God isn’t going to put you down here. Let’s see if you can do this. If you can. I’m really going to mess with you.

Steve Cuden: But you do believe in higher entities? You do believe in.

Jimmy Ryan: Oh, absolutely. Well, I’m a teacher of transcendental meditation. I mentioned that in the book. And when you meditate, when you get to a certain place of silence, that silence, expands into something that’s really not very describable, but it is huge. And I will tell you that. That, you know, people sometimes call it the one force, the one source. I think that’s God. And the argument that I make is the, the. This is a funny one. This got my guy from Frontiers and whatever, Anderson Salgado, that’s the guy’s name. This, this got his hackles up a little bit. So I said, all right. So you believe in all that, right? He said, oh, yeah, yeah, I’m a good Christian. I said, okay, is God everywhere? Is he omnipresent? He says, yeah, absolutely. So he’s in every cell of your body, right? Yeah. And I said in the spaces in between. He goes, yeah, of course. I said, okay, then you are God. He says, no, no, no, no, no, no, no. God is, no, he’s not over there. If he’s omnipresent, he is in you. I said, I’m going to take this one step further. Is he everywhere? Every, every, every, everywhere. And he says, yeah. I said, then God is Satan. And there was silence. He says, no, that’s impossible. I said, well, then he’s not omnipresent.

Steve Cuden: So what we’re discussing at the moment is, the essence of what people call faith. That is to say that, there’s no proof of what you’re talking about. You have to believe in it. And you actually talk about belief in the book, and that, you were. You were seeking because you didn’t believe and that you’ve continued to seek over your life.

Jimmy Ryan: Yeah. Much less so now. A few years ago, I kind of hit the. You know, I got to there we are. All right, good.

Steve Cuden: Where is there we are? What does that mean?

Jimmy Ryan: There we are means that you’ve reached a point where you’re not seeking anymore. You know that what you’re seeking is already inside of you. It’s kind of a Buddhist thing, and it’s definitely Eastern, much more than Western. And you stop because God is omnipresent. And all the religions teach that he is in you. And when you silence all the noise, he’s right there. And he’s not a he, and he’s not a body, and he’s not an old gray man with a beard. He is simply presence. He is simply presence. And if you spend enough time sitting in that presence, that silent presence, you actually feel it expand out and out and out into eternity. And at first, it’s just an experience. At first you say, oh, this is a cool experience. Then you realize, but where is this experience? It’s me that is who I am. I’m not this body. I am that consciousness, that huge, broad consciousness. And you hit that enough times, then all of a sudden you start relaxing. There’s nothing to look for. It’s all right here.

Steve Cuden: Is that what you identify as true identity?

Jimmy Ryan: Yeah, absolutely.

Steve Cuden: And that comes in. In through silence?

Jimmy Ryan: Through silence. Well, the best way to get to it’s through meditation. Some people stumble and fall into it. Like Eckhart Tolle. Lucky guy. I mean, he just sat down on a park bench for three years or something like that. It hit him like. Like a.

Steve Cuden: Like a.

Jimmy Ryan: Like an 18 wheeler. And he just fell into it. And he teaches about the exact same thing that I’m talking about. You know, for. For most of us plebs, you know, you guys start medicine. I’ve been doing it for 52 years now, and it. And it took 45 of them to hit this point. Now, I’m not telling you. I would not pretend to tell you. It’s there all the time. It’s not. But it’s there every time I stop and say, all right, where am I? And I close my eyes and there it is. When you realize that it’s infinite, There can’t be two infinities. So it’s the self, it’s the undefined consciousness that looks out through your eyes. It looks through your ego. Your ego is what presents you to the people. Okay, you’re up there, your personality and all that stuff. But behind that ego is a self. The you that’s watching all of this, that’s just the observer, that’s just the witness. And if you sit with that witness without all the layers of ego and personality on it, you get back to that point and all that other stuff is silent. You realize that that has no boundaries. That’s not locked in your body. It expands out beyond your body and it will wait. And it’s the same self for everybody. That’s why people say we are all one. It’s utterly meaningless if you don’t have this experience. Oh yeah, we’re all one, you know, Kumbaya. But without the experience, it doesn’t mean anything. We’re all one. no, you’re you, I’m me. This is a problem. But when you have this experience enough times, you start to realize that you are that person over there. That’s just a personality and a body working.

Steve Cuden: And so what. So what you call true identity is everyone, all, all beings is one. True identity.

Steve Cuden: Yeah.

Jimmy Ryan: And to reduce it to an identity would be mistaken because it has no parameters, no boundaries. It’s pure consciousness. It doesn’t see, it doesn’t hear, it doesn’t smell. The body does all that. It simply witnesses. But it is the source of, everything you see here.

Steve Cuden: So then who are you or me or anyone else as then the person who creates music, creates words on paper, etc. most, I would say M. I’ve had many, many guests on this show who will say. And I say the same thing, which is that I am not the creator of what I’m doing. I’m a conduit for something that’s coming from elsewhere.

Jimmy Ryan: Yes, yes, yes, yes, yes, yes. John Lennon said the same thing. He says, I don’t write songs, I just write them down.

Jimmy Ryan: And exactly the same way. I feel that everything I do, I give thanks. If I write a good cue for this movie, I’m working. I said, thank you guys, that was really great. You know, where does the idea come from? I sat with a teacher once and, she. She was talking about free will. And. And to a certain extent, free will is real. You know, you make choices every single day. But I said, so it’s real, right? She said, well, yes and no. And I says, what’s the no part? And she says, well, give me an example of where you make a choice. And I said, well, I decided to get up this morning. She said, did you. Where did that idea come from? And I said, well, I just got up. Yeah, And where did that come from? Well, you know, I went and made my coffee. And where did that idea to make your coffee come from? I said, I just came up with it. You just came up with it? How. Tell me how that happened. And I can’t come up with it. And she keeps pulling me farther back, farther back into consciousness. And she said, what happened is it simply arose in your consciousness? And I said, yeah. And she says, and where did it arise from? I don’t know. She says, now we’re getting somewhere. That’s it. Things, ideas, all that stuff arise from this vast, unbounded field of consciousness that we all share. We all have it.

Steve Cuden: So why do you think it is that, you have an idea come through you, that you can express, but it’s not going through someone else at the same time or the day before or the day after? Why is it coming through you at that time? Why?

Jimmy Ryan: Well, there’s a vast Internet, but the stuff that comes up on your computer isn’t the stuff that comes up on mine.

Steve Cuden: No, but there are people that on. There are people on Facebook that are getting the same ads that I am.

Jimmy Ryan: I know, I know, I know, I know. And there are people on Earth that are getting the same ideas, too. You call them political parties.

Steve Cuden: That’s. There is. There is some truth, too. If you look back in history, a huge number of breakthroughs, scientifically, medically, artistically, creatively, etc. A huge number of breakthroughs will happen on different parts of the earth with different people right at the same time in history. And they don’t talk, they don’t know each other, and they haven’t exchanged, notes, and they’re just coming up with the same concept at the same time.

Jimmy Ryan: Yeah, we could do an hour on that. Just that alone. But it’s coming through our receivers. Okay? We’re like radios. And your radio is different from my radio. And our radios are shaped by the experiences, our genders, our preferences, anger that we’ve experienced, grief that we’ve experienced. All these things. It comes up, but it filters through all that and comes out in a unique form that’s unique to you. and like you just said, sometimes it’s not unique to you. Sometimes it’s unique to about 30 people.

Steve Cuden: Right. So you’ve experienced many different facets of spirituality and, religions and so on. You, you were introduced early on to a book about Hinduism, I think it was called Hinduism, correct?

Jimmy Ryan: Yeah, it was.

Steve Cuden: And, and you have ultimately through. You went through primal screaming and so on, and ultimately you came to transcendental meditation. Is that what you still practice daily?

Jimmy Ryan: It is. Well, I, I do that for the most part, but I’ve had several spiritual teachers who. They took some exception to the, the. The transcendental meditation technique. I don’t necessarily agree with them, but I sometimes use their techniques too, which are fine. They work, you know, they work very well and they’re coming from a pretty high place. These are good teachers. I’m really careful that I don’t sit down with teachers that, that, that aren’t so good.

Steve Cuden: How do you think that meditating has impacted or helped you, as a, Both a writer and a player?

Jimmy Ryan: I think it’s sensitivity. I think it, it’s being. It’s. It develops the heart. It develops the heart so that you play in a heartfelt way that, that moves people. I, I feel that my playing and my music is more real now. For a while it was just my fingers worked really well and I was doing stuff that I’d learned and stuff like that. Now it comes from a deeper place and I think it connects better. And I feel it. I, actually feel it in my body when I’m playing, when I’m connected and when I’m not connected. And it’s helped me tremendously with them.

Steve Cuden: And that’s because of meditation?

Jimmy Ryan: Oh, yeah, yeah, yeah. And it’s, it’s helped me immensely. Well, I mean, all the things that I did that you read in the book and I mean, I did EST, LifeSpring, one on one therapy. Freudian, Jungian. Gosh, the occult, psychics. TM. Ah. Oh, God. Just so many things. They were all helpful, every single one of them. I would not, I would not write off well, M. The occult thing, I’d probably not go near again. That was pretty scary. But all of those have helped me being so hard on myself, stop being so negative, stop being so sad. They’ve turned me into a pretty darn happy person.

Steve Cuden: Because you were a high anxiety person as a young person, correct?

Jimmy Ryan: Very much so. Very much so.

Steve Cuden: And you were even high anxiety well into your adulthood.

Jimmy Ryan: Yes, yes.

Steve Cuden: But now you’ve become a more relaxed and calm human.

Steve Cuden: Yeah.

Steve Cuden: Mainly because of what you’ve gone through.

Jimmy Ryan: Exactly. And I’m a warmer person. I’m much, much less judgmental. You know, I really tend to take people exactly where they are, how they are without trying to come up with all the reasons why they’re idiots and stuff like that. I’ve come to understand stress and I’ve come to understand programming and I’m much more tolerant. I think that, that’s, that’s something that my father was really, really good at teaching me because he was completely intolerant. So he gave me a good example of what intolerance can create and that started it. And my mom was a little bit better. She wasn’t, she wasn’t shrieking about it.

Steve Cuden: Ah.

Steve Cuden: And Therefore, what not to be or who to be.

Jimmy Ryan: Exactly, exactly. Seeing the damage that sort of thing does. I got back at my mom really good. My mom was very anti Jewish and very prejudiced. My dad didn’t like black people, my mom didn’t like Jews. So I married a Jew. That’s not my current wife. She’s the mother of my children. And we lasted about 20 years and that didn’t work out for. It’s in the book. Just read it.

Steve Cuden: How is what you call cosmic consciousness. How is that related to transcendental meditation? Have we already covered that in some way?

Jimmy Ryan: What cosmic consciousness is? There’s three basic states of consciousness that normal people waking, sleeping and dreaming. When you meditate, you have a thing called transcendental consciousness. When the transcendental consciousness, which is things, calm down and quiets down a little bit and you start to feel that true self. Cosmic consciousness is when you integrate that, you ground it and you have it all the time. And, and that’s the first stage of enlightenment m where you are the witness of all activity. You’re living in that space that I was talking about, not up front here in the ego. So you’re kind of watching your own ego performing its stuff while you’re sitting back in this blissful, absolutely unbounded, untethered by anger or stress or anything like that. I mean, it’s not like you lose your personality. Sure. Somebody does something horrid to horrible to you, you’re going to get mad. But you’re not going to carry it around. It’s going to be done the second it’s done. And then you’re back into this wonderful sense of man, this freedom of just hugeness that’s cosmic consciousness. But then there’s two more above that, and then a refined version of the next one. There’s, God consciousness. The name of it is kind of it’s deceiving because, it’s not God consciousness per se, but it’s when perception is refined to the point where you can perceive atoms, you perceive the energy in things. And there are people who describe. There’s a person in my community here who wrote a book on it, and he talks about what he sees. And I’m like, oh my God, what kind of eyeballs do you have? You know, he sees spirits, he sees angels, he sees molecular structures, he literally sees them. He sees the energy coming off of animals, whether it’s dark energy, whether it’s light energy, depending on how healthy they are. it’s a fantastic book. It’s by a man named Harry Alto A A L, T O. And if you stumble on it, you’ll read it and you go, what is this guy drinking? Oh my God. But that’s his experience and he’s a very normal human being and he’s meditated for many, many years. And then the final one is unity consciousness. When you actually perceive, it’s not a concept, it’s not a. It’s not an idea that you have. I would be looking at you and know that you are me. You would be me. I wouldn’t be talking to Steve, I would be talking to me. And when you’re at that level, you’re really, really good to be around because that’s a person that treats you like yourself. That’s a person that perceives you as themselves, so no harm will come off of you. You immediately feel just so comfortable around people like this.

Steve Cuden: So that’s not the same as self love.

Jimmy Ryan: Self love kind of implies two things, the lover and the loved. This is one thing. Whenever you get into this area, it’s really hard to describe because it has no boundaries or parameters. You have to m. The only thing it has is the experience of experiencing it. So when you’re experiencing that, it’s not. You’re all love. Everything is just great. And the person across from you is you. So why be mean to them? Why be harmful? I’d be doing it to myself. So you’re not self loving, you are the self, so you don’t harm the self. Doesn’t even occur to you.

Steve Cuden: One of the things as a writer that I find, and you may find it too, is that, there’s a frailty of fragility to Language and being able to express it in words. Sometimes it’s not only difficult, it’s almost impossible. And it requires the experience rather than the expression in a verbal way.

Jimmy Ryan: What’s the taste of an orange to know somebody who’s never had an orange? Well, it’s sort of acidic. What, like hydrochloric acid? How do you describe it? You know? But yeah, with prose, it really, really. The meditation helped me with the book because I was able to find my sense of humor. I was able to. To write it in a way that would entertain because I understood entertainment after all these years of doing. Doing it. And,

Steve Cuden: Oh, I think you’re very clear in the book. I think the book is very clearly and well written. So it’s not like I, read it and. And couldn’t understand what you were talking about. I absolutely could. so I think that that’s a. That’s a big, big thing. What is the life between lives?

Jimmy Ryan: That’s a tough one. I. I don’t like to say I believe in anything, but reincarnation makes good sense to me. I won’t say I believe in it because unless I’m there and I know who I was before, which. Which in these hypnotic regression sessions, I did. But when you’re out of that, you go back and say, was that real? Did I really do that? Gosh, it sure sounds like I did. Because my life today really seems like it would have evolved out of that kind of a background. Life between lives is vacation. That’s the heaven realm. There’s, you know, there’s.

Steve Cuden: That’s the soul world.

Jimmy Ryan: Yeah, the soul world. And from. From what I understand from talking to very, very talented psychics, it’s just like this. Only it’s really happy. There’s no egos involved. It’s. It’s heaven. It is literally the heaven realm. And you can hang out there as long as you like. But most people want to evolve. You don’t evolve there. You just. Whatever level you got there, that’s the level you’re at. So people come back to Earth or somewhere. I mean, after doing this telescope thing, there’s plenty of choices out there.

Steve Cuden: I was going to say coming back full circle to the beginning of this with, looking out into the space, into the cosmos. there are now. We now know there are trillions and trillions and trillions of planets and galaxies and so on. And so my question then, from what used to be very limited understanding of the cosmos is now a. Still limited, but much grander than it Was is that, you know, how many of those planets out there have sentient beings walking on them or somehow on them.

Jimmy Ryan: The odds against us being alone are being alone are absurdly low. Or the odds against them are absurdly high. I should say.

Steve Cuden: Not to coin a phrase on that, but they would be astronomical.

Jimmy Ryan: Astronomical, exactly. I mean there’s so many options, opportunities and so these places are so far away. I’m not sure under normal circumstances. Now I also am a firm believer in extraterrestrials.

Steve Cuden: Well, if you understand quantum theory at all, which I only understand barely the surface of, what’s happening here between you and me and those of us on Earth. Quantum physics says it’s every day bit of what’s happening here energy wise is also happening everywhere else throughout the universe. And that you can have something happen energetically here on Earth that’s also being sensed, felt, dealt with, looked at, somewhere else. And that’s quantum mechanics basically.

Jimmy Ryan: Yeah, you get into quantum mechanics, it gets really bizarre.

Steve Cuden: What do is it is your thinking for artists and creatives that figuring out how to silence the mind to get to this, to these other higher planes, that that’s a useful tool for becoming more efficient or proficient or at ah, your art.

Jimmy Ryan: Well, let’s put it this way. The Beatles sat down with Amarishi Mahesh Yogi, the one who founded Transcendental Meditation and the next thing they did was sergeant Pepper, you know. And then believe me, there was a transition that they went through once that album hit that was really, really strong. And Paul meditates to this day. And George did as well. George did a lot of, a lot of other eastern explorations. I don’t know about John, I’ve no idea. Ringo I also don’t know. But Paul certainly did and he certainly has had the longest career of any of them.

Steve Cuden: Well, and, and the most prolific career. You say he was a really nice guy. Have you worked with him?

Jimmy Ryan: Oh that was in the first book. Yeah, we were doing a vocal.

Steve Cuden: Oh that’s right. now I’m recalling. Yes, for sure. Yeah, yeah, yeah.

Jimmy Ryan: Ah, he just popped into the studio and he helped us out with some vocals. Yeah. And then sat down and played us live and let die the night before he recorded it.

Steve Cuden: Oh my goodness.

Jimmy Ryan: I was sitting there just pinching myself. This isn’t real. I’m dreaming. I’m going to wake up, up any minute now.

Steve Cuden: Did you know that was going to be a hit when you heard it?

Jimmy Ryan: I don’t think I thought about it. I think I was so overwhelmed because I was such a huge Beatle fan. The idea that I’m standing here around the Steinway piano in the studio and one of my favorite beats, I think between John and Paul, it’s a toss up that, you know, he’s sitting there singing me a song that he wrote that nobody’s heard except George Martin and maybe Linda, you know, and. And maybe they re. Yeah, I guess the guys in Wings rehearsed it because that was a Wings record. So, you know, the three or four guys in his band, George Martin, Linda and me. Well, me and Carly Simon and whoever was in the studio at the time. But the honor of doing that was just nuts. And then I got. I wrote about this too. Then I got invited to his first performance of Wing Wings due to the connections that had been made through all of that. And. And he set up the Hard Rock Cafe in London and did a concert with Wings. The first. That was the funny story where Henry McCullough, his guitar player, got so drunk he couldn’t play. And he. Henry and I were friends at the time. Henry walks over. He was playing in the middle of the room. It was kind of in a circular thing. We’re all around. Henry walks over and puts his guitar. Mother. He’s doing it. I can’t play. You gotta take over, mate. And they were playing a blues song. They just picked the guitar up, start playing. Paul turned around, looked at me like, what the. And then he saw I was playing the song and he goes.

Jimmy Ryan: I think. I think he knew what was going on. I think he knew Henry could barely stand up.

Steve Cuden: wow.

Jimmy Ryan: And I think he was happy to have somebody who knew this song and was playing it fine. And. And then eventually Henry kind of. Somebody got him some coffee, and I gave him the guitar back and.

Steve Cuden: Wow.

Jimmy Ryan: Yeah, so. So I actually played with McCartney. I actually played one song with.

Steve Cuden: With Wings. That’s wild. Well, for the second time, I’ve been having just an absolutely fabulous conversation with Jimmy Ryan. I’m just wondering, last show you gave us some great examples of, stories that are weird, quirky, offbeat, strange, or just plain funny. Do you have anything else you could share with us today?

Jimmy Ryan: Sure. I mean, the one you just heard, that was pretty good.

Steve Cuden: That was pretty good.

Jimmy Ryan: The faux pas that May, May, May may have been the inspiration for your Sylvain. Okay. We’re at the Troubadour in la. Very famous club that launched a lot of careers.

Steve Cuden: And.

Jimmy Ryan: Yeah, and it was. It was launching Carly’s Career. I think we were either this one. I think we were playing with Harry Chapin. I think we were the headliners. And. And, we were in the dressing room. We share one dressing room. And, you know, we all came from the hotel dressed. Nobody had to get dressed there. So it wasn’t like, well, everybody gotta leave while I get dressed everywhere. Set to go. So, we’re sitting around and there’s a knock on the door. And Carly said, can you get that? I just want to finish my makeup. And I said, yeah, sure, open the door. This guy’s standing there and he’s got big, thick, gigantic glasses. And he’s wearing one of those rayon shirts, you know, that are flammable and a big high collar, real kind of 60s, 70s look. He said, I’d like to see Carly. And I said, well, we’re just about to go on, you know, maybe come back afterwards. He says, I said, I’d like to see Carly now. And he got really heavy with me. I said, let me think about that. Wham. And I just slammed the door in his face. Because, you know, I was pretty cocky in those days. I was doing good and I don’t take that kind of from anybody. And I. I start to walk back and Carly, her jaw is wide open and her eyes are like, wide open. I said, what? She said, do you know who that was? I said, no, it’s some asshole who. What? She goes, no, that was Warren Beatty. Oh, no. Oh my God. Let me go get him. I’m so sorry. She said, no, stop, stop. And I go, no, no, no. I want to make it right. That was horrible. She says, no. She says, I don’t think anybody in his adult life has ever put him in his place like that. You did a really cool thing. Let it go. I went, okay, you’re the boss.

Steve Cuden: Oh my goodness.

Jimmy Ryan: And that was it. And, I think he approached her. He didn’t come back up to the dressing room. I think he approached her down on the floor or at the bar or something, something like that. But I don’t think it ever got mentioned. But I bet you, at least the elements in that whole thing were part of your so vain. And I asked her about it because when she wrote her first book, she contacted me. She says, please, please, please send me the longest email you need to do and write about everything you remember about those times. I said, oh, okay, what’s up? She says, well, I have to write a book and I don’t remember anything. She said, I remember some stuff but you have a good memory and you were there, and it’ll give me another angle on the whole. So I put that story in there and I said, so was that something. That was the inspiration. She gave me a very cryptic, she says, I’ll never tell. And that was it. She wouldn’t even tell us. You know, she finally, she finally has. I mean, in her book, she said it. Warren Beatty was, you know, one of the people. She said, there are three people in your surveying that she was talking about. But I, I maintain that the Warren Beatty element in that thing came from that interaction stuff.

Steve Cuden: Wow, that’s, that’s kind of remarkable.

Jimmy Ryan: Yeah. Now I, I have another one and I actually, for. For your readers who want to be studio musicians or, or, or whatever, this is how weird getting a call can be. So I’ll just, I’ll just read this. It’s from my first book. So I get a call, I’m in.

Steve Cuden: In.

Jimmy Ryan: I’m in London, and I answer the phone. Someone with a very thick British accent said, is this Jim Ryan? I said, yes. I replied. He says, I’d like to hire you. He said cryptically, he wanted to hire me. Okay. Since he didn’t identify himself, I couldn’t be sure he had the right number. Did he want me to clean his gutters? I asked, hire me for what? He paused before answering. to play bass, of course. I went, oh, oh, okay. Well, might I know who’s calling? He says, matthew Fisher. The name seemed familiar, but I couldn’t quite place it. He said, I’m finally getting around to my solo album and you were recommended by a colleague. I go, okay, well, I inquired about the finally getting round part. Were you busy with other projects? Asked the memory challenged ignoramus on my end of the phone. He said, well, yes, actually. Thick British eggs? Well, yes, actually. I’ve been on tour with my band Prokoil Harem for years and talking and taking some time off to do my own album, Roll Call Harem. Oh my God. Slapping my palm to my face. This was the gentleman who wrote and performed the famous organ part that opened and defined Whiter Shade of Pale. And he wanted to hire me. And I answered the phone acting like he was looking for a plumber. I let. I let out a nervous laugh and told him, of course, I. Of course, now I remember you. So sorry for not recognizing your name. He seemed distant, formal. The apology went right over his head. Yes, well, we’d like to start fairly soon. Are you available for rehearsals? I said, I am. Where? And when he gave me the dates for the following week in a, rehearsal studio address, then abruptly ended the conversation with, we’ll be recording in Rome. Make sure your passport is current. This was fabulous news. Delivered like a traffic ticket. That was him. That was his personality. He was just flat as a pancake.

Steve Cuden: So that song’s one of the two or three most glorious songs ever written, in my opinion.

Jimmy Ryan: You bet.

Steve Cuden: And performed. Yeah, it’s just absolutely glorious.

Jimmy Ryan: And of course, we made him play it for us.

Steve Cuden: Of course you did.

Jimmy Ryan: It’s not particularly complicated, but when it’s played by the master, it’s exactly like the record. Just like, you heard us go, oh, man, this is so cool.

Steve Cuden: All right, so last question for you today, Jimmy. you’ve shared a huge amount of, helpful, useful tools throughout this whole show, but I’m wondering if you have a piece, ah, of advice that you like to share with those who are, more than what you told us in the last episode, but that for someone who’s starting out in the business, or maybe they’re in a little bit, what kind of advice can you lend?

Jimmy Ryan: Park your ego out in the backyard. What can happen is you could get a call to be part of something and feel a little cocky. Wow. You know, Metallica called me up to be a second guitar player on tour. And you could have a tendency to walk and go, aren’t I cool? And start cracking jokes, not knowing what people’s personalities are and stuff like that. Everyone hates that. What recording sessions want is they want a family. They want to feel like you’re a brother, a sister, somebody that is really cool to hang out with. And that’s where less is more where you want to go in. Be quiet, listen, use your ears. Get the feel for the. Read the room. That’s the advice I get. Read the room. Don’t be cocky. Don’t be pushing your personality on anyone. Do as you’re told, at least initially. When you get to know everybody much better, you can loosen up a little bit. But initially you stick out like a sore thrum. You’re the new guy, and everyone’s going to be watching you and they’re going to be looking for quirks or something because they don’t know you and they’re not sure is this going to work out or something like that. And you just want to be neutral and pleasant and really, really good to be around. Don’t come in thinking you’re a hotshot. don’t think you’re better than anyone else. Calm down, calm down. Just park the ego outside. As a matter of fact, that’s what Quincy Jones said when they did that We Are the World thing. Yeah, he said that to people like Diana Ross and Huey Lewis and, you know, all the huge stars that were there. He said he put a sign up, park, leave your ego in the car. This isn’t the place for it. And people walked in like, whoa, wait a minute, Bob Dylan was there. I mean, you know, the biggest stars in the business were on that thing. Lionel Richie.

Steve Cuden: Michael. Michael Jackson.

Jimmy Ryan: Michael Jackson. Right, right.

Steve Cuden: Park.

Jimmy Ryan: You park your ego out in the parking lot. Don’t bring it in here.

Steve Cuden: That’s outstanding advice that works in all forms of business and life, is that until you’re on the spot and where people are asking you for your opinion, keep your opinion to yourself until it’s wanted. And, it’s sometimes difficult for people. I know I’m guilty of it, occasionally offering an opinion that nobody’s asked for. I think we all do it. and it’s a very good piece of advice because it means that you are a team player, not, in it just for yourself.

Jimmy Ryan: Yeah. And I mean, I’ve been in sessions where somebody comes up with an idea that’s just awful. And the sessions where I said something, I didn’t get called back and I was right. It was awful, but it wasn’t my place to say something. And I’ve been in sessions where something awful was happening. I don’t mean nobody was throwing guitars at breaking it. I just mean a bad musical idea. And I just kept my mouth shut until somebody said, what do you think? And I said, well, I think it’s a great idea. As an alternative, maybe we could try this. If you’re looking for some variety, possibly, and if you present it like that, it’s really different. They say, no, that sucks. Let’s do this. You don’t want to say that. The producer can say that.

Steve Cuden: The key in there was they asked you.

Jimmy Ryan: Yes, exactly. In the new situation, wait to be asked. Wait to be asked. And present your idea politely.

Steve Cuden: I think that that’s, absolutely solid sound advice, and I. I thank you for saying it because I think it’s important for people to understand that, yes, you should bring your ego to the game, but you shouldn’t offer it to anyone.

Jimmy Ryan: Your ego is part of your personality, and it’s not. Ego isn’t necessarily a bad word.

Steve Cuden: You need it in order to play well, to, to perform well. You need that ego. You need that to buff it up. It’s just that you don’t need to impose it on people.

Jimmy Ryan: Exactly, exactly. You don’t need to bring the negative side of it up.

Steve Cuden: That’s true. Jimmy Ryan, this has been an absolutely spectacular story beat, and I can’t thank you enough for your time, your energy, and all this great wisdom.

Jimmy Ryan: Wow. Thank you, sir. I really appreciate the opportunity to talk. You’re great. You ask great questions. You make it so easy.

Steve Cuden: Thank you. It’s my great pleasure. And now, as promised, please sit back and enjoy Jimmy’s excellent song that he wrote, produced, and on which he plays all the instruments called why Can’t We Just Be Friends? Featuring the vocals of Dana Calitri.

“Why Can’t We Just Be Friends”: Tomorrow. Where? I don’t know. It’s a mystery why all this has to be. I’m going to let you have some time Cuz I know you’re not mine but it kills me when I hear you say why can’t we just Just be friends? Cause I’m still in love with you I wish that I could change what you’re going through. Baby I need your loving Every day I may be going away now, now, now, now. Your P. Has felt enough tears huh? From all those lonely years when you had no one there to hold you Hell baby, that’s no way to live When I got so much love to give and it kills me when I hear you ask me it. I need your loving Every m day I make believer now But I’m not going away if I could hold back the sun Then I could keep this night forever I want to be the only one in your dreams so if you ever get down make a fool of me. Baby I’m still in love with you I wish that I could change what you’re going through But I tell you I need your nothing else every day I may believe it now but I’m not going away. Never know I’m still in love with you I wish that I could change what you’re going through. Tell you I need your loving every day I may believe right now M But I’m not going away. Baby.

Steve Cuden: And so we’ve come to the end of today’s Story Beat. If you like this episode, won’t you please take a moment to give us a comment, rating or review on whatever app or platform you’re listening to. Your support helps us bring more great Story Beat episodes to you. Story Beat is available on all major podcast apps and platforms, including Apple Podcasts, YouTube, Spotify, iHeartRadio, TuneIn, and many others. Until next time, I’m Steve Cuden and may all your stories be unforgettable.