[laughs]

And, and keyboard players will know the chord change we're talking about.

But, um, no, I mean, it was huge.

I mean, he, he, he was fascinating because, I mean, he's obviously a brilliant technical pianist and singer, and yet he was this English dude that was singing these sort of Southern American ... themed songs, you know? And, and that was really interesting, and I, and I guess Bernie Taupin had, had always been into that sort of southern culture.

Um, and he could have gone a bunch of different ways.

It wasn't what people were doing in the UK at the time.

It was the time of, like, glitter beat, you know, and stuff like that.

I'd hate to, I'd hate to ki- well, and we'll do it at the beginning and at the end as well, but, you know, tell us everything that's going on so where everybody can find you and, you know.

Describe how the bass guitar played such a prominent role on that record.

Yeah, I mean, that's a good question.

A lot of my songs are very bass-driven.

They sort of start off with a groove, with a memorable bass line.

And when I formed Lost Toy People in the late 80s, I'd just arrived in Los Angeles, and I was only planning to stay for a year or so, but I ended up staying for quite a few years.

And I formed a local band to go out and play clubs.

I was really in a mood to play some live music.

but it can also be very abstract.

How do you approach creating a setlist that appeals to both audiences?

In my case, my goal was to play the Aliens Ate My Buick album in full as sort of an outlier in many ways in my, you know, canon of sort of only four or five solo albums over the course of all these decades, because it's a very outgoing album.

A lot of my stuff is actually quite introspective, believe it or not.

You know, I'm known for songs like She Blamed Me With Science and Hyperactive that are definitely sort of screaming exhibitionism.

But the deep cuts on my albums, things like I Love You Goodbye.

Some words are sad to say Some leave me tongue-tied But the hardest thing to tell you The hardest words I know I love you goodbye

Your screen kiss.

Looking at today's tools that are available, such as AI, software, instruments, and home studios, what excites you the most? And what do you think we've lost along the way?

... or whatever it is that, that pulls you back to those moments.

Yeah, I mean, you know, I'm generally very attracted to the new and different.

You know, if you look at my career, whether it was, you know, synthesizers and drum machines, whether it was samplers, whether it was MTV videos, whether it was video games, whether it was the web, you know.

You know, I've always kept eyes on the horizon because the creative possibilities of new technologies and new developments is a very thrilling place for me to be.

I like to explore.

I like to, I like to be the first to dive in there, you know, throw away the user manual, just figure out new ways to use these tools.

Um, I'm not generally very backward-looking.

Sure

Have you fully embraced the digital aesthetics? What do you feel we might have lost, if anything? And how have you personally evolved with the shift to digital music that we're doing today?

I mean, really, I, I think that the difference with analog and, and digital as a recording medium has had less effect on the evolution of music than distribution and the reality of the fact you can go in your back room and record the stuff now.

You know, before you ha- before we had that, the only place to record music was in an expensive recording studio.

That took a budget.

That took somebody stupid enough to loan a lot of music, a lot of money to a musician, which is not banks.

They were called the record labels, you know? [laughs] So there was this whole sort of obstacle course you had to get through before the public would ever get to hear you.

Well, now that barrier is completely gone, and the, and it's in...

I'm curious, what was you seeing that others weren't?