Take 2 with Abie Rotenberg

[Music] welcome back to mitch mcconnell magazine's take two where you got a personal glimpse a close-up with the names and the faces familiar to you from the pages of the magazine the legend the og the goat whatever term you're going to use a.b rothenberg occupies a very special place in jewish music a man who's enduring relevance and impact has been felt not for a decade now for two decades but plea and her for much longer than that and hashem for many years to come thank you for the bracha i'm not so sure i like the uh the reference to you know the seer la zazelle but uh i thought i could make a sports reference with you absolutely well i know what it means so uh i don't think it applies to me there's certainly greater and and and more significant composers than myself and for hashem i i have my hat in the ring and you know i'm able to contribute a little bit but the the degree of platitude is a little too much i would go to greatest of all time maybe they're better composers maybe they're better nurses but people who are able to do what you've been able to do in jewish music i don't think i don't think anybody has even tried to be a lyricist and a composer and to complete completely i understand but the reference the goat greatest of all time is really not not a jewish concept at all i mean nobody could ever be a strive what can i say you're great at what you thought it's been a great career so far the bunch of items people seem to enjoy what i've put out and they seem to connect to it and that's that's that's a wonderful thing i didn't mean to make this conversation so awkward so quickly but we're running into something here which is very interesting about you okay there's a price to celebrity as they say there's an exposure and a certain expectation that you're just going to connect with the people around you and you've always been more uh private i don't know if it's introverted or you're not withdrawn but you're not a person you're not out there as uh backslapping and i've watched you enough times backstage at ask and other concerts and i've seen you you know you come from the airport with your backpack and you sit down and you do your thing and um you're not doing that star thing or you're just uh slapping it up with everybody hashem i have to thank my wife she keeps me uh rooted in this world and my feet are on the ground and and uh you know there's not i know my own faults better than anybody else so that you know they they pull me down as well and they they root me into into the earth and you know hashem i i think i think one of the the the advantages i've had in my career is that i never had to um perform or write music or or record anything for a living i didn't have to do it as my as my parnosa so somebody who's out there and has to be this persona who attracts business and attracts people and and and maybe you have to mingle in a certain way and it it's more difficult for them so they have a greater science if you think if you were starting out now on 2021 if you were a boy of 1819 just getting started now do you think you would even be oh my gosh i never thought of that what would i how would i respond to today the pressure and the and the image that people have of of of musicians and the exposure i i i'm fortunate that i grew up in a time when the music was really very i know you're saying me it was folk music it was very much you felt like you were part of expression and you today it's so much more of a business it's it's a real industry and and the star culture surrounding the performers themselves there was nothing really wasn't star culture when we were growing up i mean was famous and everybody knew him but even was such a simple and and and forthright person and you could go over to him and talk to him and there was no separation that's just what helps you to live out of town where you're able to just do your thing it's not like you're living in the it's not such a public arena well some people say i grew up out of town because i was born in queens no so some people would say that's out of town discussed once the title i'm sure where you grew up was a springboard of so many future leaders and so many in such a different variety of ways so many great classical figures amazing came out of that out of that little school something in the air you yourself was inspired you told me about it well haley was amazing and haley was was was iconic even to us children growing up we knew he was iconic he made the records he was a photographer he knew judo he started he was a camp counselor and a head counselor and pesachron was amazing a pierce leader and just such a outgoing and uplifting person and and colin krohn and oliver shaw has tremendous tremendous uh leaders that we had for for the kids growing up was it a musically inclined school was there something musical about that show or it was a steeple so that you know there was there was always a buzz in the air when certain people were dying for the helmet because they they were the ones who would would who would you know get to get the islam excited but it was very much european sure i remember so he and he would talk about that a lot he was a wonderful baltimore and when he got up there there was a little buzz and then uh above ambition from truville told me once again the atmosphere just fostered maybe you want to go do great things you know what maybe i you know i only went to that tool i can't comment on other schools i'm sure you know other schools have were you about as a bachelor my father would dumb for the um occasionally and my father when he would hear a negan you know he would try to learn it and incorporate it into his davening and when they first came out with the cassette recorder i remember he bought a little cassette machine and some cover came over my father could play piano and they were singing into the cassette and you could hear it back immediately it was such a hiddish for them to to be able to get instant feedback without having to get those big reel to real tape recorders and microphones and you know so music was in your life but it was never thought of as a career it was just something you did to no i've said as far as you know producing or writing or or getting involved in the world of jewish music that happened to me in camp stegemed in 1969. so i was a counselor ailee uh asked me to be a counselor he gave me the youngest bunk i was the youngest counselor and all of the other counselors in camp were just fantastic musicians barack chae was the head counselor ellie kranzler was a counselor ellie birnbaum benny berman they all played guitar they would sing folk songs they would sing jewish music barry was the rabbi sons i mean my sons was like you know they were like the beatles to me you know they were they were lahavdo you know but uh so i was so jealous i was i was the only counselor i was in amma or it's gomorrah can i say something can i and i determined that that year i was gonna learn how to play guitar play piano and i started you know uh started working at it and when i when i come up with a tune and sing it to people they seem to like it and they seem to think it was no it was it had some some substance you had gone through some pain in your personal life at that time you had lost your mother yes and your music was maybe then you knew that or maybe you didn't but it was sort of probably either an escape or an expression of something it was a catharsis did i turn to music because of that i i don't know i i'm not not a psychologist or say that your music has consistently touched places in ammuna it's given people tools to deal with things where other people's music hasn't been able to reach that deep probably because it came from such a deep source in those years another thing you told me maybe i'm even guilty of it is that people sometimes tell you that you meant this or you were referencing that that's great i love that i love that these lyrics meant that and you were like i love it maybe they do you know i don't know sometimes there are multi multiple layers to to an idea sometimes it might be subconscious look we we you know we we are the jewish people are the people of the book we we we we we learn things and we analyze them and then we analyze it again and we do a rashi shot and then we do a tyson shot then we got the other reshoing them and they are everybody's splitting you're comfortable with the fact that your music is being learned up and studied and analyzed like totally comfortable with that i want to read you something because that's okay there was a there's a huda gabba is a superstar historian for the magazine he does a column called for the record which him and w zafira take on different concepts and jewish history so he put this out on social media it was almost like a poll i want to i want to read you some of the answers can you vote what is the most meaningful line from any english jewish song that was the question he asked so the reason he asked is because in the magazine there's a new upper common singer his name is they had done an interview with him and he had answered that the words he finds most compelling the jewish music are can the mercy of mere flesh and blood run deeper than yours our creator and he put this out on twitter and people are answering um i'm going to just read you some of the random answers that came in the legendary eastside bombs were gone forevermore somebody found that powerful mm-hmm because we're dealing with a crowd that is also very proud of how we keep the laws of modesty which is brilliant in its own way in in but they're malachal no i don't want to are you are you seeing that sadashiva common denominator and all these lyrics are red oh yeah i could keep going if you want uh come on there's gotta be something else in there there are yeah you know my dad was deaf he said last night he passed away but that's okay but you know i don't know if those are original as yours are luxaido i'm giving his car to you wow um i like the first one best by the way can the mercy of your flesh in terms of in terms of a lot more line with not the more they come from you you know but i would think that's one of the deeper lines or more but you can argue that something like we're dealing with a crowd that is so very proud the cynicism that is a line that's a line that's restricted to the jewish community in our world and the mercy of your flesh and blood run deeper than yours our creator is a universal theme and it's not just limited to us and to to jewish music per se it's right it's something to think about you know just the fact that a human being could even have that thought or that that uh that idea or that impression and people do have it obviously it's erroneous the heavens had told her that it's all right to cry which again is way ahead of its time even in psychology in the validation against people and there are so many like that so there has to be a lot of you can't just say yeah i don't know i was sitting and it rhymed it doesn't work it's more than just a rhyme it's more than just a rhyme these are thoughts and and ideas and things that that have percolated you know and somehow they find their way into a song and you wrote the lyrics first and then created the tune or the other way around how did you do it both ways both ways you had an idea in your head of a message well take the safer torah song right the savator song the i didn't write so it's a that's been around for a long long time but that negan was in the back of my head swimming around while i was writing those words so so i would say then that the tune preceded the negan so i knew where i wanted to go in terms of the meter or the timing of the song and the the the rhyme structure but other times i'll sit down and simply write a a theme or a song and then later i'll figure out how to fit the song in the atheist convention i had no idea how i was going to fit the song in but i had the words i wasn't going to change the words so i had to fit the music there's a very halogen message in that song i heard this from arabia actually he said that at the end one becomes a sheik and becomes a priest right but how it's still a dentist and would be and what you're saying is i think that you don't have to be a rav you can have a relationship with everybody you could still be a dentist and be holy that's right which again was a message almost ahead of its time in terms of what what people needed to hear you were empowering a new generation of i worked in i it was in my early years when i was in my 20s i was very involved in a in a high school in california in the san fernando valley we had wonderful wonderful kids in the school from all kinds of backgrounds our mission wasn't just to teach a line of gemara or pasakomish our mission was to get these kids excited about yiddish guy and it was happening already in the world that was shemaya's role there was a chatra there was our samaya who was happening on a collegiate level like a bass madris level there was this key of movement but there wasn't that much going on at the high school level on a younger level today it's much more common but we were you know scrambling and and working and trying to change these kids lives and i eventually it didn't happen right away but after doing that for several years and being exposed to moshe yes and shalom levine's music and magama on that level on the higher level i said i i've got to do so i got to start writing songs that'll that in in in the language of of of of our youth can talk about hashem talk about that for you you had been i had done today because i had done you know viewers the color over here and you hear the line itself it's uh it's impressive it's one of the more impressive yeah from hairlines i've ever seen uh for the ashkenazi male you know you're pulling a good one but you've been doing this for a lot easier i'm gonna i'm not gonna respond to that even though i have what to say i was i was given a good line a few minutes ago i'm not gonna say it no no you're welcome to share anything you know i'll i'll take it donny donny gross how you doing he's over there he's he's thinking right now he's he's the producer in him is percolating and saying how come you don't have a coveted abria song on on marvelous meetings let's get let's get covered let's get one done that's a good question maybe joey will do it you know have joey write it we have to talk about donnie until we have so many questions to you but i wanted to talk about that so you know her over 50 years leonhard that you've been it's hard to believe that 72 i was born in i was born at 52. so yeah over 15 years of producing right so i was about twenty years i was twenty one when we did so almost fifty now you jumped from uh like you were saying uh hebrew lyrics the english lyrics one day so that was i was 34 years old when i wrote my first when i wrote my first song in english which was it's time to say good job that was the first song on journeys and it was and you felt like you were reaching the kids with that song in a different way i felt like i could sing it anywhere i felt i could go to any venue an ncsy shabbaton a yu seminar uh any any venue any a public school and take a guitar and sing that song and it'll they'll they understand the words they'll understand what i'm talking about yeah a few a few concise hebrew words here and there are going to work of songs you've written over the years and you regret the use of one word over another sure i have regret like what in conversation in the womb i have a regret and and when i sing it today i change it and and our existence is empty and cold the womb is not a cold place it may be empty and it may be confined and it may be dark but it's not cold it's warm it's it's it's uh you know so i have better lines that i would have and should have used but ask you something bear with me a minute do you write can i play you something sure what are your thoughts to this yeah i know that song look conversation in the room from an album called jelly with some pasty uh bluegrass a bluegrass album yeah so this marks clearly you're everywhere you don't have to come on to other sources yeah plenty inspired i think this is the only account i know of none of the secular world stealing something from our world well he's not exactly like a household name in the secular world you know i wish he was because i'd probably be getting something in the mail every once in a while or today it's direct deposit what's the strike you as noteworthy this is 30 uh 30 years ago somebody called you up and said in those days i i think it was a phone call or a letter because it was before email so we we were contacted by by him and and he wanted to he heard the song i'm not sure how jewish fellow and the the the theme of the of the song and the words resonated with him and but he wanted to do it in his style of music and that just goes to show you how music is so personal for every every individual in the world you know he took a theme a very serious theme of the afterlife and what goes on after the move and then from the womb to the next world and i believe in a world to come but he did it on a blueprint totally comfortable with sharing it beyond he could he could have done it in a rap song if he wanted he could or somebody else wants to do it in any style they want if it's meaningful to them did you enjoy this at all and they asked permission as long as they ask permission well i guess today you don't have to ask permission you just do your cover and and then you know did you enjoy listening to this or i like my version better i think it's more meaningful but were you surprised uh over the recent years donnie you went to noni girls gets a lot of credit for the resurgence but the were you surprised by the popularity of the albums that are really seeing songs of 30 or 40 years ago and the way a new generation is taking to them you talk about like the off the record songs and it's it's interesting i'm not sure how to react you know i've listened to them and and in a way it's a revival of songs and and certainly young people who aren't going to run out and buy 20 year old albums or 30 year old albums because you know we don't advertise them they're not new they're old um are getting a glimpse into those songs at the same time you don't get the whole song you don't get it's chopped up so you really get a little piece of this so for the people who knew the song it's nostalgic and maybe you don't need to play them the whole song because it reminds them of the whole song but for you know for the kids today hopefully it'll stir some interest and they'll want to hear the original i could say that that happened i hope that happens i think my kids and most kids like their their circles know george the major's code every word no because they once was released and they came back and they you want to hear the story you want to hear the story so if that happens then i then i'd say yes it's a very wonderful thing it's a good thing but if it's just that you know they hear a little a line or two and and and that's all they know of the song and then they they get a truncated version of it i'm not so sure how valuable that is but you know but uh for us for the older people who know that stuff it's a wonderful nostalgia so let's talk let's talk about something else you're you're coming out with a new album now we have some journeys five now i once had an interview with a secular artist and he talked about why so many reunion tours or when famous artists come back on a they do a comeback tour it fails very often he said more often than not that oh really yeah the reason is because the people just want nostalgia and the musician that wants to be creative they want to innovate they want to develop themselves that they're not looking for your nostalgia i'm not here to bring you back to the best days of your life and then go have a nice night and then go home and make you remember when you were young and skinny that's not what i'm doing he said i'm trying to connect with you like i once did and you're not there for that you know the people who are coming to it weren't really down for what he was trying to do which was find new strengths in themselves right what are your thoughts on that and why doesn't why do you so so you're saying that reunion tours where they where they do this nostalgia simon called uh they tried it and they tried new music it was ill-fated they tried something and it was i don't know which one of them before simon again was saying to the interviewer that he felt that the people weren't meeting them they wanted it to be no i hear what he said i understood well we did some things we built something together right and you you didn't want that you're a bunch of aging people who want me to bring you there that's not what i'm here for right right so i understand that completely but the the the the reunion tours of the revival tours where they play their old music are very popular he wanted probably to do a mix of both so the new didn't resonate i hear that that's what he was saying they said could you again play whatever that song scarborough right exactly so uh what's going to stop people from saying everybody yeah but could you really just play nishama like what what would you well i'm not doing it on stage i'm doing it on the album so hopefully ten years from now it'll be part of that i'm saying where do you how do you draw that line between you understand that there's a lot of the relationship that the zebra that the public has with you is nostalgia based and because they grew up with your music you know that and at the same time you're an artist who wants to deliver how do you know how to mix the old and the new and in what proportion it's been 18 years 18 years ago was journeys four it's been 18 years weeks was in 2000 2003 2004 it's a long time ago 25 years ago was james three and on three the opening song was yes we've got the music so on this album we do an update yeah 20 the last 25 years of jewish music are going to be i i don't remember the lines off the top of my head um but it's there there is no reference on this new song that was on the other one like anyone there is not repeated here you're saying names that's hard i'm telling you all about your names you know we've got all the all the all the current artists and and 20 year ago artists and and all not i can't say i have every artist i mean obviously we're leaving out people who i'm sure contributed and i apologize to them here but in public you know it's impossible everybody's name we'll use this forum to for my public apology but you know people who i've heard of and and other people suggested people who are do you listen to a lot of music from other people is that something you do are you a jewish music officiando in any way is that so i really don't listen to too much but i hear at weddings i i i attend a chupa and if i hear something that's nice i'll try to find out you know whose song it is and and and and obviously at simchas you hear the children the young the youth singing songs or even in the family my grandchildren i say whose song is that then i learn a song or two but i don't i don't listen to my own musical the the children or the grandchildren of our hashtag do they collaborate on this new album if not for my children i don't think that'd be a journey's five journeys five got started i have two songs from my youngest daughter i have two songs from my middle son that um got me going songs are the tunes of the songs lyrics the whole kitten caboodle and they they really i saw that i have some material with them and it really motivated me to try and i don't know if you're gonna be able to answer this question but we'll try okay sometimes parents especially parents who are out there performers feel like they have to they're compelled to let their children in because it's just the right thing to do to give them their chance and other times they say my kids are great they need to share this are your kids good ah the people will decide you know they're gonna answer the question for for for us i think i think they're fun they're good but for them it's also not a career thing they don't do music for a living um there are two songs about the holocaust one written by my daughter one written by my son um they both grew up with uh in toronto with grandparents who went through the camps who were who wore their survivorship if if you if you want to use that term on their sleeves you know they did they didn't hide it they spoke about their experiences they spoke about their their home towns they spoke about life before the war life during the war and life after the war two songs with the holocaust in 2021 you think that's three songs actually really well two songs one song is about the holocaust one song is about the rebirth after the holocaust and one song is a story of of holocaust survivors so it's it's it's three songs and i feel an obligation i feel that you know the holocaust is fading into who will containing it to fading into the past and our children aren't i i very much felt a mission to to write some songs look at what what what ruth lichtenstein is doing with project witness and trying to keep it alive in the schools and talking right but she's not selling an album that means a musical album is usually one experience and you're saying there's going to be something else here there's an element over here of depth and of awareness of your history wow i think all the journeys albums have some depth i'm very happy to write write a song that's happy i'm asking if you shifted anything for the generation of 2021 you're saying you didn't you you're treating this audience like you always treated your audience that they're capable of hearing things i'm writing songs that resonate with me if it resonates with the audience comes uletova you know i really don't care if the audience doesn't find it resonating and they i fall flat on my face i'll still be happy with my album because i'm putting it out and doing as best i can and it's a beautiful answer i have a question for you you you dealt with people you started at your career in the world of robert and label sheriff and others and then you mentioned donnie gross and joey the these are very today's people how does someone like yourself who's been around and dealt with all kinds of people adapt to the sounds and the the values and the and the instincts of a new generation many of them are half your age the the the music that's coming out today is is just so what the singers of today are so wonderful there's so much beautiful beautiful music being on this album i reach out you know the old albums i did it my old style was myself with a couple of you know guys i knew and here and they're wonderful and they did a great job and they represented journeys better than i could have ever hoped for but but on this album like i said 18 years later i i went out and i said i want i want to have that voice because that voice fits the song and that voice is unique and this song is uniquely uh uh perfect for that person's voice so so we have shulam lemmers singing a song avraham freed is singing a song mordechai shapiro singing a song joey nukem sings a song barack levine schlemmer myself we do there's just a lot of different voices on this album and it's all because i really appreciate what's happening in the jewish music world there's so much they must have been honored to be part of to be associated with journeys it must be an honor for them so i hope so i think so i think they enjoyed it very what's it been like working with donnie who literally grew up at a time you know he's not much older than 18 right you just he said it's 18 years since right so so what i like about donny is is even though he's you know half my age probably less than half my age he's not a pushover he's not a wallflower you know he doesn't look at me okay whatever you say bought he said nope i don't like that and he'll stand up for himself and he'll say you could do it better and he's uh he's got a very sharp toe and uh i love it you know you love what he brought out the musically from your collaboration i don't always agree and i still have veto power but uh he brings uh you know he challenges me and he i think he brings out a lot of uh maybe something that i would couldn't bring out on myself by myself so you know that's a good thing the lyrics other than that from your children and this you and your children all the lyrics so the children wrote for the two two songs from my middle son two songs from my youngest daughter for each of those songs they wrote both the music and the lyrics and then i have two songs are adaptations one is an adaptation of emotion yes song one is an adaptation of a of a um david song wow so so i i felt that those songs needed to be uh out there a little more and and there was more to say than the original artist did so i took it i adapted it and we like so it's like a remake but with new words and new lyrics and you know so those are fun [Music] there do you write songs based on the world has changed many many times in the last few years alone we've been through is that reflected in the songs you've been writing and the lyrics you've been writing i don't know i i have to think about that because people will be studying these everybody everybody who writes a song anybody anywhere in the world writes a song certainly somebody who writes lyrics it's based on experiences and things that have happened in the world to them in their lives but nobody nobody is studying your lyrics are being studied like i showed you people are sitting on the right and they'll say who could convey the survivor experience that you just mentioned better than when the very last survivor fades away who will you know who'll stand before you said things that defined an error for people and helped them process it so it's not like anybody else's lyrics so my daughter wrote how did they lift themselves up from the dust and build this world they created for us just that line how did they lift themselves from the dust and build this world that created it for us it's all very short very simple very so that reflects our experience as a grandchild she has a grandchild she she saw and she knew that her grandfather helped to contribute to the shul and the grandmother would go to the base yaakov and and and and and go to haknowskala and donate her clothing and and and she's seeing these people who crawled out she originally had the line with but ten fingers well we ended up taking that line out because my my mother-in-law always used to say no saying we only had 10 fingers when we came out that's all we had we just had the fingers on our hands that's all we had so she grew up seeing that and then she translated it into into a lyric and the music is even nicer than the lyrics so in my humble opinion so there is a lot coming together yes so is that that's not more that's not your question was this more of the contemporary events that i don't know i would have to think about but they're telling the story you know somebody sent me a joke recently i'm not a big lyricist i've done a couple of favors for the things i tried so he wrote back to me you know oh it's really you're a genius whoever thought of right rhyming love and above that you're probably the first person in history i thought he's right that's like everything like it's not a thing i really do i took it it was okay you don't do that you're you're telling the story first and you're hoping that it'll sometimes i look in a rhyming dictionary i'm not i'm not gonna lie and say i don't i know i need a rhyme for this because i love the first half of it if only i could find a word for the second half but usually something's there compelling you to to to say something in a certain way but look over over the years i've also you know done my my share of you know i have some tears and fears and you know those kind of rhymes too i have a few of those if you were the first it's okay not the first every camp song every every color war song since they invented color war has tears and fears in it you know that's it's standard it's do you see like performing these songs live again the new journeys are you ready to take this out to the stage to not not not ready to think about that yet you know how it translates to the stage you reach a conference if it's to reach it if there are songs that work well on stage and i can sing it out of kumzids and you know what when i go to okumsits and people start singing joe dimaggio's card and they ask me to sing along that's the best kind of comes in i'd rather they sing and i'll help them out rather than the other way around because that's the that's the biggest honor they love the song they want to sing the song and you're there to help them along and that's that's a real concept [Music] [Applause] [Music] is [Music] it is [Music] you're sometimes able to say things with english songs that you can't say with the hebrew songs because everybody understands and connects with the words in a different way right unfortunately unfortunately we are so myself included so so lacking in our understanding of what david melech meant when he said those words i mean we try to translate them in our head and if you don't have an art school sitter which properly translates it with the you know oh zion there's so much there and there's so much poetry and and we miss it we just floats over our head during darkening unfortunately you know but the hebrew i think some of the some of the israeli singers today who are writing beautiful wonderful lyrics with depth and you like what they're doing i love it with that open informal yes direct it's it's important we talked about this i wrote the book of number trunk a couple years ago his favorite song was and he loved the idea of because i am therapy is that the word or since i am there he thought that that was a composite of everything abby is that means if this was what it takes for me to do whatever take off my jacket and take a bath tonight i'll meet them i'm their robbie i'm gonna do it and he'll do carpool every morning around like would you pick up the kids he'd wake them up also go into the house go to their bedrooms and wake up every kid bring them out to the van and he'd play that song every morning that's not poetry since i am their happy [Music] his [Music] is [Music] i don't think that i have any song that doesn't have some kind of a message i don't think the closest song i have to to a song that was really just whimsical and is the second version of the ninth man right where it rains and the you know the rebbe praised for rain because they were getting blown out in the game you know excited having a little bit of fun but even there you know there's a little bit of of a message but it's very very little very small but but i don't think i have a song even on the new record i have some crazy stuff and it's it's a little bit maybe a little bit out of the box some of the music and some of the some of the uh the genres that we use but there's a message and you have to sometimes dig a little bit to get to it you feel like it's faithful to your training and background these songs but you're still still teaching the fact that the music changes a little bit is is is normal and natural music always changes realize how unusual it is for you at this plan how this age and this stage of your career releasing news i didn't say like i said if milk is like such a hairline you know you look amazing um to be able to release hi there how are you doing release new music with he's going on again you know he's just running release new music with these guys it's a big deal and i'm energized by it i you know the clever i'm challenged it's a challenge and my children challenge me you know abba you have to put out another album you have to do it i said okay i did a book i did i did a safer i did a safer with art scroll i did i did i did a book pepsi so bar hashem over the years i've been able to have my outlets my creative outlets and and and push those things but they said you know the journey's brand and the journey's uh name is is is important and it's impacted a lot of people and you should keep on doing it and they push me and then when they came to me with not just complaints or or or tightness go do something they brought me material that that was good and that was worthy of of that brand and that really motivated pushed me i'm very much looking forward to hearing it i'm going to close with the most cliched question i don't think i've ever asked it to anybody before because i always thought it was beneath me a good interviewer shouldn't have to ask what's your favorite song what's uh but we did an article on you a couple of years ago i asked a lot of your close friends levine and others what's and nobody agreed normally there's a legacy song what's abe's legacy song we had 12 people and they gave 12 different answers exactly that's so nice that's the nicest right but what do you consider the legacy huh if i lowered myself to ask it please answer me i don't have i don't know i really don't know you i o i only see your great great great child and someone's going to say do you know who avery ratner was what song are they playing to explain what they brew attenborough means their generation the generations i don't think they're playing one song i don't think so you have to play but they can't do halfway levine's gonna bark levine's gonna do it he's got to do that he may have asked him for me he'll still be a young man and who's gonna put out a song with with you know he'll pick the 10 or 12 songs that encapsulate and encapsulate everything i i can't tell you you are just getting started there'll be there's lots more to come the best is yet to come i use i i've told people that you know people said what's your favorite i said i hope i haven't written it yet my favorite song so you don't still talk a lot about what you're doing you're just doing it you're just playing her quietly doing your thing and here we go again so asia now with journeys any more dreams what's next what other albums do you still have in you after this i am working on another safer that i can tell you are you i am so that's a dream of mine to be able to come out with it and to do it well and uh i think i'm going to take a little time off for music after uh journeys comes out because it's been i've been working with donnie now on this project for two years it's it's it's interesting it's not like i'm sitting there working every day you know hammering uh hammering away for two years but but we've been talking about it and songs have evolved and a lot of actual physical travel going on there has been that too more more lately in the last the nice thing is that we both live in canada it's so easy and pleasant to get in and out now they make it so nicely and so so comfortable so that's a breeze that's right i got to get my covert test uh this afternoon hey thank you for coming in i'm very very much looking forward me and my family to your new albums too many more times always a pleasure thank you yeah thank you thank you and uh to you and nobody does an interview like you you're the best thank you very much [Music] you