Episode 423: Music is Like Skiing – There Are Laws and Rules

Welcome to this episode of the Million Dollar Mastermind.

I'm Larry Weddell. And before we get started, if you.

Want to know exactly how to win again and Again, go to wydellonwinning.comwebinar now to watch something I've put together for you. Now let's get going into this episode.

Of Million Dollar Mastermind. Let's have some fun talking with Stephen Ferrone. Hey, Steve. How are you doing?

Doing very well. Thank. Well, as well as could be expected in my hotel. Luxurious hotel room.

Yeah. The Four Seasons. Four Seasons. Where is that?

Downtown Manhattan.

Downtown Manhattan. And two days ago, you got Covid. Oh, nice view. Beautiful. Yeah. And you said you got knocked out of a concert at Madison Square Garden by Covid. You got all your momentum ready to go. I'm sure even as many events that you have done, you still, you know, look forward to it. You got to psych yourself up here.

You know, I love to play in Madison Square Garden. It's one of my favorite venues on the planet to play. You know, there's probably five. Five and five favorite places for me to play, and Madison Square Garden is definitely one of them. I've never had a bad gig in there. It's always been a great. A great atmosphere, and it's just the sound has always been great in there. It's always great to see Ron Dalzner, who's the promoter. It's always great to see him. He's, like, 85 now. I've known him since I was, like, in my 20s, you know.

Well, who was the show.

Who were the John Mayer playing with? John Mayer.

Oh, okay.

Yeah. So, I mean, I just felt like. I felt like I caught a chill because it was very cold here. And. And we live. We're in a bubble, you know, We've been very, very careful. And. And. And I. I just thought that I caught a chill.

Yeah.

Because it was.

And.

And I. I went in. We played a concert the night before. It was fine. It was really good. And I was looking forward to really looking forward the next one. I went downstairs to the lobby to meet everybody, and I said, you know, I feel a little bit. I had my mask on.

Yeah.

95. And I said, maybe we should keep this on in the van, because you usually take them off in the van. I've got a bit of a cold. And they said, okay. And we have a lady, Jillian, that's with us, that's a Covid. Covid person that she's in charge of us. And she said, I'll test you when we get up to Madison Square Garden. So when we got up there, she separated me from everybody. Immediately after, we went through security and put me in another room. And then a nurse who's on the tour with us came in, gave me a test, and she watched me test myself. And I'm pretty good at shoving that thing right up my nose, you know, getting a good look around. My doctor showed me how to do that back in. Back in Los Angeles, Alex taught me how to do that. Alex Foxman. But. And then I sat there for a half hour waiting for this PCR test. And I had tested in the morning. It said. And they came in, they said, you just tested positive. I said, what? I said, what do I do? I feel okay. If you want me to play the show, I'll play it with the mask on. He said, we can't let you up there, drop in virus like that. We can't do that. You just got to go home. So they went and got the van and they put me in the van and they did the walk of shame. Walk of shame. It was like everybody was looking at me and going, oh, poor Steve. You know, it was more the walk of pity than the walk of shame. I don't know which one's worse. They're both bad, you know, oh, poor Steve. And I'm like, I don't want to do that. I'd like to go. I'd like to just get up there and play, do my job and then go back.

Well, let me. Steve, let me tell people who, you know, give you a little background. Steve is. If you haven't picked it up so yet. He is English and he's an English drummer, even though, you know, he's.

I'm an American too now. I got an American.

Oh, are you American citizen now, too? He'd been here forever and I was surprised to see. Well, I guess I knew the English part, but, you know, he was. How I know Steve is my brother was the right hand man for Tom Petty.

Crew bus. He was the Crew bus.

For 40 years. Bugs Alan, Bugs Weidel. And he does an occasional show on the Tom Petty Channel. But Steve joined the Heartbreakers in. When was it? 94.

I started playing with them. Well, I started on the Wildflowers album in October of 1990. 92.

Okay.

And we finished. Finished it. Finished with my part of the recording in 93. In the summer of 93. And. And then I started on the road. I think it was 95. I started on the road with the Heartbreaking.

Yeah.

And I Know, it was. Stan lynch was the original drummer and a great guy, great drummer, decided he wanted to go do other things. And they probably tried out a zillion drummers. But then when Steve came in, it was just like Tom relaxed, he felt good, and he said, this is my drummer and I don't have to worry about the beat. You know, we could play the same thing a thousand times and Steve's going to be just solid. And that, that really made a difference for Tom. I don't know how much if he ever complimented you guys, but I, I would hear about it through Alan.

He was always very complimentary to me and, and very appreciative. Appreciative of. Of what I brought to the band, you know, and, and, and, you know, I, I loved the way that the Heartbreakers worked on music. And I remember after I finished all my recording, actually the day before Tom asked me to join the band on the road, I'd stopped working. I was working with Brian Ferry and I'd stopped doing that. And my girlfriend asked me, what do you want to do? And I said, well, I just go back and start, you know, studio stuff again. I didn't, I didn't really. I wasn't really enjoying myself that well. And Brian's a great, great artist and everything, but the way that things were run, he would have these people that weren't musicians sort of come and talk to the musicians instead of communicating with us directly. And, and, and Tom would. It was a band feeling, you know, he would. It wasn't like somebody talking down through the ranks to the musicians. It was somebody that was in this, in the orbit, in this thing. We're in this thing together. And I love that and I love the way that we approached music, Tom's music, and Tom really just sort of let us make our parts to find the music that he wanted to go underneath his songs and these lyrics. He was, he was a. He was amazing, amazing way of working for me. I loved it.

Yeah. And, and, and you have, you know, you've been doing this for a long time. You had another band in the 70s, average white band. How many years were you there?

I think average white man was about 10, 10, 11 years, maybe.

Yeah. And so, you know, you recorded just so people know a little bit of your background. Recorded with probably just about everybody, but highlights. Eric Clapton, George Harrison, Duran Duran, Stevie Nicks.

Good old Stevie and I recorded with Christine.

Yeah. Christine McMay and all Fleetwood Ladies, by the way. Fleetwood Mac and Rick James, Slash. And Slash is quite a character.

Steve Winwood.

Steve Winwood. Yep. Steve.

Not Prince. Michael Jackson.

Michael Jackson. Oh, you. So you've, you've covered, covered the battlefield and you know how the industry works. You've. Sir, you're a survivor. I mean the world's full of drummers but there's very few Steve Ferronis.

And you have to manage to crawl through the ups and downs of the music business.

Yeah, Steve, how did you. And by the way, you can find Steve, I need to mention this on, he kiddingly calls his show on Sirius 31, the Tom Petty radio. He's got a show and he calls it the New Guy show.

Say I was the new guy in the band, you know, I was the new guy for 25 years.

So he runs the New Guy show. So you can hear Steve and you know, and please check in there. Steve. You know, Steve's a fun guy, got a great insight on the music industry and gives you some behind the scenes insights along the way and it's always fun to listen and so thank you for doing that by the way.

Yeah, I enjoy doing it. I love doing it.

Yeah. And so how did you get. So we're talking about a professional musician, big time surviving, playing all the venues around the world. What are your top five, you said your top five venues, what would you say those are? What, Madison Square Garden.

One Madison Square Garden. Red rocks.

Okay, Red rocks.

Hollywood Bowl.

What's that one?

Hollywood Bowl. Oh, okay, the Hollywood bowl and a place called the Gorge.

Oh yeah, the Gorge. That's Washington, right?

Yes. And the Royal Albert Hall.

Ah, the Royal Albert Hall.

And so those are my top favorite, five favorite venues on the planet. I mean if I had to go to Tokyo then I would say Tokyo Dome was a great place to play when I played there with George Harrison. Okay, that was fantastic. That was really fun too.

Great choices. And of course you do have, you know, in this kind of life, it is an action packed life, lot of great experiences, got to be a blur. Keeping up with it in kind of surreal at times. But Steve learned early on to think on his feet, to keep himself mentally prepared, to take advantage of opportunities, how to get along with people, get along in a topsy turvy environment. Basically a traveling circus version of traveling circus. And Steve talk about when you, you started out or you know, how did this, how did you get going in this, you know, get, get out of England as a drummer going in music business?

I, I don't think that, that it, you know, it was just really, I don't know if I really worked Very hard to do it. I, I, it was something that I wanted to do when I was at school and I said, they asked me if I wanted to be, what I wanted to do when I left school. I said I want to be, I want to be a drummer. I don't want to be, I want to be a musician. And they told me at school that I couldn't do that.

Yeah.

And I said, well, Ringo Starr does it. And they said, well, you know, star that I knew. And I said, well, I could hang with Ringo, I think I could play that good, you know. And they said no. And then they started to call me Ringo. So they started to mock me at school. So I decided that I wasn't going to study anymore and I was going to just play the drums and that's what I did.

How old were you at this stage?

12.

12.

It was about the age when they started asking you what you wanted to do. School leaving age was 15. So they started to ask you about 12 years old what you wanted to do when you left school. If I'd have said that I wanted to be a garbage man, they would have taken me more seriously.

And where in England was this, was.

This London in England? In Brighton, Yes.

So were there groups that you could play with and Yeah, I mean being.

A 12 year old, there were the kids that were playing that were playing, that had instruments, were all teenagers. Right. They had more money and they, they buy instruments and, and one of these bands I used to play with, this other little kid and he had a real, his parents bought him a real guitar. Yeah, he's, yeah, and he had a real guitar but he had a fake amp. He had a, he had a record player. Father Jerry rigged to have a jack in it so that he could plug into this old record player and get this, play the guitar. And then I played it like toy drum kit and, and we play songs and, and, and I'd learned how to play songs that when I was tap dancing I, I used to, I, I used to tap dance when I was a kid and I got into a summer show and, and, and, and in the summer show there was a pit orchestra and when we were up there doing our songs, I'd look down into the pit and I'd see this drummer and I saw how he, how he was playing with his hands and I went and practiced it to get these motor skills and so I learned how to do that and then I listened to his, when I was up there on the stage, I'd listen to what he was Doing with his feet. And then I worked out how to do it with my feet and I could play. I ruined a lot of countertops, furniture, playing with knives and forks and banging around. And my parents bought me a little toy drum kit to play on. And then this kid who had a real guitar used to hang out in the music stores with the older kids and, and they, in those days when they needed somebody, they put a thing up in the music store, you know, put a note up, drummer, no drummer needed or you know, bass player needed, right? And this band, their drummer was having his, his, his appendix out or something. And, and, and they had a gig, it was a youth club, right, and they needed a drummer and it was a blues band. And, and my friend was hanging out in the store while they were discussing with the store owner, the music store owner, putting this notice up in there looking for a drummer. And you know, I mean, kids my age, we didn't talk too much to kids that were 18 because they just beat us up, right? Beat up 12 year olds in a heartbeat. In my town, we get clipped in the air from them. They didn't like us, we were too little. And this kid took his life in his hands and he said, I know a kid that can play the drums. And they said, who's that? And they said, well, this black kid, I mean I was the only black kid in town. And seeing as they were a blues band, they said, bring him over and we'll try him out. So his friend came running around in my house. We didn't have telephones then we had to go around and find someone. And he said, man, there's this band full of big kids and they need a drummer. And I told them about you and they want you to show up at this place. And I said, you know, and I was looking forward to playing. So I went over to this house with these, these kids and I sat down and I played with these kids and they, they said, okay, well you can do this gig with us on Saturday. So I went and did this gig with them, you know, and this youth club and, and when the guy got out of hospital, they, they told him that I was their new drummer. Which put there was this 18 year old that I'd done out of his gig playing the drums with the band. And I felt sure that he would ambush me somewhere and beat me up, you know, but that didn't happen either.

Yeah, I was kind of thinking, thinking ahead as you were telling that story, like there's got to be a beating coming down the Road for Steve for doing this.

You know we, we actually, you know, I mean they used to play pubs as well and you had to be 18 to play in the pub. And here this 12 year old kid playing with these kids, these 18 year old kids in pubs, you know and, and, and one night there was this huge fight broke out in this pub and, and, and they, they, they threw me out and then they, they got in front pushing all this massive melee that was bar fight that was going on away from all the equipment and I did across the street behind this in the stairway and then the police rolled up and went in there and know stopped everything. The next, the next week we went there and we were sitting up there and we were playing and the police came in and, and, and the, this, this sergeant grabbed the microphone said listen, if we have any more of that, what went on last week, you're not going to have any music in here anymore and we won't have, you know, I'll shut this place down. And, and, and, and it was, it was pretty rough area of town, place called Whitehawk. And, and everybody was like ah, screw you copper. Yeah. And the cop just turned around and looked right at me and he said how old are you? And I said 18. And he went how old? And I said 12. So he took my name and address and he came around and he saw my mom and terrified my mom and said but you know, I knew, I knew this other kid whose dad was, was a very high ranking police officer who also played in a band. Oh playing pubs. And, and, and, and he came around and he was like telling my mom, you know, if you, your kids go he's good, you're going to go to jail if your kid gets caught again in you know, playing drums in the pub. And, and, and I said, and I said to him, I said listen, I, I didn't, I didn't know that you couldn't, I knew you couldn't drink and I don't drink and I just went there to play music like Detective Superintendent. So and son who I know very well and his dad doesn't seem to say anything about it.

Yeah.

And he said well just, just don't do it again, you know. And he, and then, and then I was up there playing again in the pub and he walked in and he looked at me, you know, and he looked at me and he just sort of made like he didn't recognize me because I wasn't doing any harm. I was just playing music. Yeah, that's kind of, that's Kind of been the story of everything. I just. I don't know if I've lucked into it or I've been blessed with it. I'd say I've been blessed with this. With this path of when did you.

When did you get the idea that you need, you know, get the idea that you had to do something and, you know, get tired of that and say, I want to move up, you know, I want to, you know, I want to be with bigger bands. I want to get in the Royal Albert hall, you know. You know, where was that breakthrough?

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Well, you know, I mean, I never did one. I mean, I just never did. Ambition never came into it. You see, what happened was, was that.

That explains a lot, Steve.

Well, I played with bands I was playing with. I left school at 15. I got a couple of jobs, and then I used to look in the music. We used to have a paper that came out every week called the New Musical Express, and there was ads in the back of the New Musical Express. Drummer needed, guitarist needed, bass player, you know, And I'd look at these ads and then I'd answer a couple of them. And finally one answer. I got an answer from this band up in London. And I was working a job, and I was working with a guy who was an ex Special Services guy who'd been seen a lot in World War II. And I said, you know, I've been offered this gig up in London, and I was making good money as a paint sprayer, you know. And he said, look, he said, you can paint spray anytime, you know. He said, if you want to try your hand at being, go try and be a drummer. You can come back here and paint spray anytime you feel like it, you know?

Yeah.

And so I went up to London and did the starving musician bit and then met this band who was going to Italy. And they said, do you want to come with us to Italy? And we got into an accident on the way down to Italy in Belgium, in the snowstorm and got on the train and went down to Italy. And then I started playing in this club in Italy. And this American guy came up to me and said he had a band, a guy named Ronnie Jones. He said, I have a band. He said, you want to stay here and work with me and work with my band and you can come live at my house with me and my wife and my kid? And I did that and. And started working with this guy, Ronnie Jones, and then went to another band and another band and. And ended up like. It got to the point when I was. I was just like, having a ball, right? Yeah, originally girls, you know, girls. Tourists would come in or American girls, Swedish girls, Italian girls, playing clubs and just having a ball, you know, being a teenager. And then all of a sudden I was 20 and it was like, well, I gotta settle down, figure out I'm doing something. I was working with this band that had guys that were like, professional level musicians, guys that could read music. And I had to memorize stuff, and I wasn't very good at that. It took me a while to do that, but these guys could read, sit down and read music. And. And they went to school in Nice. They went to Nice Conservatory. And I was at this point of saying, well, maybe I should do something else. And I ran into some Americans that were computer engineers that were in Rome. And they started talking to me about computers. And I was like, well, that sounds interesting. Maybe I could go back home, go back to school and start working in computers. That would be a fun thing to do. Either that or I'd have to learn how to read music. If I wanted to do this, play music professionally, I'd have to learn how to read music and figure out what I was doing instead of just playing. And at that point, these guys, they got the offer of a residency in Nice, and they said, do you want to come to Nice for a year and play a residency in the casino in Nice? And I said, could I get into that, to that school, that music school? And they said, yeah, we could do something, get you in there. And so I agreed to it. On my 21st birthday, I was in the back of a van going to. Going to Nice. They, the casino got me an apartment, and I went and started playing in the casino. And the director of percussion, the professor, the main professor of percussion, a guy named Jacques Carre, came down and saw me play and said to me, listen, I understand you want to go to school. And I said, yeah. He said, well, you know, you're too old and I said.

No, you're too old.

I'm 21. He said, well, the eldest you could be because it was a state run school, right to the school for percussion was 15. And I was like, oh, well, what am I going to do? And he said well, I'll get you in as a teacher. And I'm like, what, what, what, what am I going to teach? I don't know. He said well, we teach classical music. They strictly classical music. And you know how to play the drums, you know how to play modern stuff. You play, you can play Bernard Purdy, you can play Ringo Starr, you can play Charlie Watts, you could, you could, you can play Billy Cobham. You got all that stuff that you, that you're into. And we want to keep you young kids interested. So we're going to start a class and we want you to teach it right? And in return for that, we'll put you in the solfege class and you can, you will teach you how to read music and follow charts and, and, and, and I said, and I said what? I said when I got to do my class, well, you can teach private lessons too. And, and, and, and so I got, I got this bunch of kids that, that I would sit down with and teach them how to play modern drums. And I got paid for it and I went to school and I got Soulfish lessons. First thing I had to do was a radio show.

Really? Back then.

They have a radio show to show what the school is doing because it's like a. So, so, so I put together a jazz thing and we played this jazz thing on the radio show. And that was the first thing I did for the school. And so as a result of that, I got to go for three, for three years they kept extending the, the license. A few years before that I jammed with a guy named Brian Auger in a club in Italy. And I was in the casino one day and they came looking for me and they said, there's a telephone call for you. But I thought that it might be my mother who got sick or something. And so I ran over to the telephone and it was Brian Auger. And he said, I haven't seen you in a while, Steve. He said, how you doing? I said, fine. He said, so I got hold of your number through, through Robbie McIntosh, who was then the drummer with Average White Band. He said, I found out where you were. We tracked you down. Would you like to go to the United States with me? And I was ready to go. And I said yes. I said, I'd love To. He said, right. He said, you got like, you got four days. You get here to England. Yeah. So I had to get somebody to replace me in my job. So sell my car, sell the stuff that I had that was around my lease, pack up all my stuff, get on a plane and go. Go to. Go to England. And then. And then. And then a couple of days. So five days later, I found myself here in New York city, riding up 6th Avenue, going, wow. And that was the start of me working here in the States. And then people started to take notice of what I was doing. I did some recording, recorded a live album with Brian. People started to notice. Who's this guy playing drums?

Steve, the thing is, number one, it seems like you've had divine intervention leading you along the way and preparing places for you to go. It seems like it was intended for you to be a drummer.

Yeah.

When you look back, when you look back, it was like there was not another off ramp you could take. Yeah, Steve, you're going to be a drummer. But now, while these, you know, the way I look, you know, and I talk to people all the time about, they look back in their story, and people who are successful know themselves. And I find that most successful people don't really think of themselves as being that special because they know all the stupid things they did along the way. And I kind of look at what they do and say, well, anybody could have done it, but not when you look at your life. It sounds like everything just opened up for you, but you had to be consistent, you had to be dependable. Every night is different. It's kind of like being out here and we talk about the snow on the ski slopes being different every day, every night in a band, every performance is different, every personality. You know, you got members, you know, they don't all show up in a great mood at night, and, you know, you gotta hold it together with that rhythm and. And it's a challenge just to take advantage. So I see you as somebody who took advantage of your opportunities to do what you want to do, and then you maxed out. I mean, because for whatever reason, because you loved it, you thought you were lucky to be doing it at 12 years old and then being in Italy with all the girls. But when it came down to doing your business, you did it. You performed consistently in a way that got people's attention. What did you tell yourself? What were you telling yourself that helped mold you into that kind of person where people would want you in their group and really want to do things for you like, get you into the school. What do you think you carried with you, the vibe you carried with, with you, you know, where you made up your mind to, you know, be a part of things, not be disruptive, you know, to add value. Where you went through this thing, you had to be doing some things. Right, Steve, and I understand what you're.

Saying, but you know, as, as, as, as with skiing, there's law, right? I mean, you're still on it. You're still on a pair of, pair of two pieces of wood and gravity has control. You don't.

Right, exactly. Yeah.

And kind of like that's, that's, that's what happened to me was I, I enjoyed making music, right. And I enjoyed chasing girls. And those two things sort of came together.

Right.

And, and there was the com. I enjoyed the camaraderie because I was raised an only child. And it was great to have the brotherhood of other musicians and to be able to go through things with other people. I mean, I used to have to. When I was a little kid, I'd have to go through everything on my own. Now I had other musicians, brothers.

Yeah.

Loved the same thing that I did. We loved making music. We loved chasing girls. That was it.

Yeah. And how did that. And so as you grew up, where do you feel like you was, were transforming experiences for you during that stage of your life that kind of prepared you to handle things that got the United States professional?

Definitely. Definitely the fact that there was that opportunity. I'd realized what, what it took to be a professional. And if I wanted to be a professional, there was certainly something that I had to learn. I could play, but I couldn't just sort of walk into a studio and be given a chart and be able to follow that down, follow the song down and figure out how to play this song. I had good instincts, but that was transformative, period for me.

Yeah. And as you look at that, talk about that being a professional, what did you. First of all, there was the skills, you know, you were willing, you wanted to do it at a high level enough to go back for three years and get those skills, because you don't really learn how to instinctively learn how to read music with a, you know, a 90 day course or something.

Most guys who learn how to read. Most guys who learn how to read music start learning music from a very small age.

Yeah.

So they read from being very young. I started to learn music when I was 21, which was kind of old for a guy. So my reading skills are limited. I can work out A lot of stuff. I can figure out how to handle a lot of stuff. I got good instincts, but some guys, I see some guys like Vinny Cayudo, they sit down and they read stuff. First time that I would never be able to get my head around. It would take me a minute. I'd have to work it, I'd have to woodshed it, you know. Yeah, but. But I think that it found me a niche that I could do. I could. I was a good instinct player, a good field player, and I could follow a chart.

Yeah. And you were smart enough to realize that instincts were only going to take you so far, you know, at some point. At some point, you can't go past your fundamentals. Wouldn't you say that's true?

And I think the other thing, the other thing that came up, I wasn't afraid to turn around somebody and say, hey, what is that there? What is that? I wasn't afraid. I wasn't afraid to say, I don't know what that is. What am I supposed to do with that? You know? And, and, and, and I got. I got taught, you know. The other thing that was transformed was like, I started doing sessions in, In England, and then I came here and I was doing sessions here. And then I joined Average White Band. And when I joined Average White Man, I came to New York and started to work on Cut the Cake album. And when a groove would come up that they liked, I'd write it out so I could remember what it was that I was playing and then I could show the arrangements. So this was the basic thing. I just write it out. And our producer, Arif Mardin, noticed that. So when we finished recording Cut the Cake, he said to me, listen, I got a couple of sessions coming up. Would you like to do a couple of sessions for me? I noticed that you read music, and I said, yeah, I'd love to. And he said, okay, great. So I did. The first one that I did was a Bette Midler album. A Bette Midler song. I forget what that was called now. And then the next song that I did was a song with Shaka Khan called I'm Every Woman.

That's kind of an important song.

Yeah, and I got to do that. I got to work. I started to work with the people that I credit as being the greatest school of them all was Local 802, which is the musicians union here in New York City, had some musicians in it that were just incredible. Roy Lee, Anthony Jackson, Marcus Miller, Nile Roberts.

That's local. What was that number.

Local 802.

802. I'm going to remember that.

Cornell Dupree, Richard T. Oh, God. David Spinoza.

What did you learn from these people that were elite in their arena?

They weren't people. They were giants. They were mints. And some of them still are around, so I can't say one of them, but some of them have passed on and they were giants. Record companies would look at these guys, go into the studio and start making this music and they would say, how do they do that?

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