What do you think Jim understood about you and the band that made that partnership work so well?

Well, he saw in me that I was addicted to radio when I was a young kid.

I just loved all those great choruses that lifted up.

A lot of people, you know, Southern rock bands are kind of blues oriented.

Everything's linear and it's more blues, minor key and that kind of thing.

But I always liked great songs that just fell out of the sky.

Back in the late 60s, I thought, I want to learn to do that.

And then how's you writing with Pat Monahan and Randy Bachman? Was there anything those guys did in a writing session that surprised you or sent a song somewhere that you didn't expect?

What do you think Jim understood about you and the band that made that partnership work so well?

Well he, he saw in me that I was a, I, I was addicted to radio when I was a young kid.

I just loved all those great choruses that lifted up.

Uh, a lot of people, you know, southern rock bands are kind of blues oriented.

Everything's linear and it's more blues minor key and that kind of thing but I always liked great songs that just fell out of the sky.

They were just, you just back in the s- late '60s I thought, "I wanna learn to do that.

How do they make these songs that" I even c- we just toured with Kansas and, uh, I told him, I said, "You know, I woke up to a lar-" uh, they've been around so long I said, "I used to drive a truck," [laughs] you know, but the alarm clock would go off the radio clock and it, I said one morning just, ♪ Carry on my wayward ♪ It's like how do they do that? How that song just fell out of the sky you know? So I told him, I said it was just, you know, it's inspiration like that.

Okay.

Oh, yeah

... competitive.

We were constantly trying to follow up the last one and beat the last song that you had for the previous record.

Caught Up in You, uh, we had just gotten off of a tour of about nine months.

We used to marathon these tours and, and not write on the road, 'cause you can't.

So after nine months we were, we were done, and, uh, you have contracts and your contractual obligation to have something out six months from there, a new record, and you have not one idea of one note.

Uh, after the divorce from Hold On Loosely, I was dating this, this woman, and I said, uh, I said, "I just, I can't get any work done.

Last question I wanna ask you, you know, Don, looking back on, on your life, on your career, your personal life, both together, like what are you most grateful for?

Yeah.

Vehicle.

Ides of March.

Ides of March.

I said, "Number one at 17?" I said, "Dude, I was putting bulk oil in a Ford Fairlane at 17 years old." [laughs] This guy's brilliant, though.

Anyway, so they did, they had left off Rock Into...

We had, of course, written within, in, in-house.

Yeah

burlington vermont area outside of burlington you know it's a little gentrified rent's too expensive for me in burlington but

close range illinois that's right yeah a little modest little house you know and uh he hadn't he had written uh heavy metal with sammy hagar had done a few few you know had some success and uh so uh we've, he said, you want to write with this guy? We, Jeff Carlisi, myself, we went up there and first met him, went to his kitchen table.

And he, you know, back in the boom box days, you know, you got the cassette player and you're singing black, blasting a guitar and a little boom box singing, you know, scratch track.

And I said, he said, so how you guys been doing? I said, so, you know, I was going through a relationship that was going South and, And I said, what is it about people just can't seem to, you know, tolerate their differences.

They try to change the other person and relationships go sour.

And you're trying to keep the other under the thumb control and all that.

I said, and I had my notebook, notebook of titles.

So a good, trustworthy co-writer It is is God's gift to someone like you or myself.

but

he actually, you know, to not get graphic here, but he had a little blood coming out of his ears and it was on the road.

And, uh, they, he, they told him you got to leave now because he said, well, let me finish this weekend.

They said, you're going to damage them a little bit more, but you need to stop.

And I told, I wrote him a long letter.

I've known him since 14.

Like I said, it was pretty emotional for both of us.

Was that strength in numbers, time

Yeah.

Yeah.

I'm trying to figure out all the streaming stuff anyway.

But, yeah, it's a great lot to have almost three million streams so far.

Yeah.

You know, you need about 50 million.

But so far, it's been rolling along.

I don't even know if that's going to happen much anymore with the most popular bands in the world, you know?