 Jimmy K here, Metal Voice. Look at this. The Metal Voice shirts are now on sale. Just go to the video description to find out on how you can purchase one. Metal! Welcome to the Metal Voice. Perrin, we've got a great guest here. We're on the only Brian Wheat from Tesla. He's got a new book, Son of a Milkman. On Post Hill Press, it was already released on December 1st. Vanna White, please show the book. Yeah, I got it right up there. All right, there you go. This is a paid for copy. I enjoy the book so much. I wanted to buy a copy and if Brian gets back to touring and I see him, maybe he'll sign it for me. There you go. Absolutely. All right, first things first. Why did you decide to write this book, Brian? Like, what was it? When did you woke up and go on to write this book or you just had to come out? Well, no. I mean, I talked about it in the book early when I was in therapy with Dr. Hirschkoff. He had talked to me about 1990. So one day, you should consider writing the book. I think it'd be helpful with you and your anxiety and stress, you know, letting shit go. And I went, yeah, great. You know, sure. I'm going to write a book in 1990, right? No one gives a fuck. You know, but I mean, it was part of his therapy, right? He said, well, if you just write it down, you let it go. So I said, yeah, cool, whatever. But I didn't do that. I didn't write nothing down. I just kept barreling through my life. But when I hit 50 about eight years ago, I went, you know, I'm 50 years old. I've been doing this Tesla thing for at the time. I think it was 25 years or something. Maybe it's time to write a book about my life. Maybe someone would be interested, right? And, you know, then now the book comes out, I'm 58. Tesla's been a band 35 years. It's like, okay, so that's when I decided to write a book. I'm, you know, when I turned 50. So, so Brian, you know, I guess picking up on the book, you've written a very honest book and perhaps the therapy aspect is why. And as I was reading it, what I was curious was about is you weren't just very honest about your own existence, you know, within Tesla and outside of Tesla, but you were very honest about your bandmates existence, about Troy, about Jeff, about Frank, you know, demons, they might have relationships, even Tommy who's no longer in the band. Do you kind of talk to them before this comes out and say, Hey guys, you know, I'm writing this biography and it's going to be pretty honest or they know that's just you and they accept it. You know, so well, it's funny you say that because I spoke with Jeff about it and I said, Hey, look, I'm right. He said, Brian, right, whatever you want, it's all true. Right. Yeah. Frank actually interviewed for the book and, and the first draft. So he kind of knew what was in there. And they both know that I'm going to, I'm honest and I'm going to tell it like it is. Yeah, I don't speak to so I didn't ask him anything. So I actually probably could have said a lot more about him, but was bound not to by legal things. Make sense. Yeah. Troy didn't really say, I mean, Troy knew I was going to tell it, you know, like it was, but the thing is, and Troy got a little bit bummed out because he thought maybe I was still mad at him over those things. I said, Troy, I talked about those things because they happened at the time. I also go on to say, you know, in regards to me and Troy, like, look, we had a lot of, we butted a lot of heads more so than me and the other guys, but today we're fine. You know, we've been fine for many years now. But at the time, as I was writing this book and doing it in kind of a timeline fashion, saying, well, look, this is what happened during psychotic supper or great radio controversy, you know, Troy came to recording sessions and then we didn't see him. He took off with some family. You know, that happened. And Troy's been in recovery for 27 years. So I'm sure he would tell people this. You know, he does. He talks to kids in school. So I guess to answer your question, yeah, I did speak to them, but there was one thing I left in the book that I thought maybe Frank wouldn't want me talking about maybe because it's kids or something. That was the thing where he left that big boulder cocaine in the toilet and called me over and said, hey, look, I quit. And I was like, fuck, why'd you quit? I could have did it, you know. And I called him. I said, hey, do you want me to take that out? He goes, no, man, my kids knew I did drugs. They know. I mean, I don't lie to my kids. So that, you know, they were pretty cool about it. You know, it's not like, and it's like, I talk about the drugs we did, you know, some fistfights and stuff, but I didn't really, you know, I didn't talk about anyone's, you know, personal, really personal life, you know, about, you know, sex or any of that stuff. So, and there was nothing really to say, you know, and, and that certain things are meant to be left fried, but they weren't. Well, well, Brian, I think you've done a really good job. I'll show the book again, you know, again, we, we read a lot of these biographies here. And, you know, the knock I have on some biographies is that they come across as a VH1 behind the music. They tell you what you kind of already knew. And there's really not much there for someone who's an avid fan and wants like a peek behind the curtain. And one thing I appreciated, I've been a fan of the band since, you know, the beginnings since 86. And there were things I didn't know. There were a lot of things that I learned. And it was all out there. So if people want to understand band relationships, if people want to understand the business, if people want to kind of understand what goes on good and bad in recording sessions, like this was not behind the music. This was really warps and all a very interesting peek behind the Tesla curtain. And I think you guys, you know, you allude to it a little in the book, right? Like bands like Poison and other bands you might have toured with kind of have reputations. You guys didn't necessarily have this bad boy reputation. But here you are describing how your management team who worked with a lot of other high profile bands, like almost didn't want to have anything to do with you guys anymore, because you guys were maybe a lot better than it seems, you know, well, we were paying the ass, you know, their problem was, you know, obviously, it's pretty well documented that, you know, towards the end of our first part of career that Tommy Schiele had problems. So that, you know, that they didn't dig that. And then, you know, we had a hard time after a certain point, I think I talked about it in the book where we wouldn't really listen to anybody. You know, once we had a good amount of success, by the time we got the psychotic supper, you know, and especially after they didn't want to put Love Song on the album, the record company, and the management, you know, that was all their thing. Well, if we played them something, they said we didn't like it. We'd say, well, you didn't like Love Song either. You know, that was all their comeback. And I think Cliff and Peter just got tired of that shit. You know, and at a certain point, we weren't worth the trouble we probably gave them, you know, because look, in any business, it's all about the dollars and cents, right? Yeah. And, you know, they had Death Leopard and Metallica who were making millions and millions and millions, and Tesla never achieved that level of success. You know, maybe if we did, they would have tried keeping us from breaking up or, you know, who knows. But I also said in the book that I think I'm more proud of the second half of our career than the first half. And then Steve Thompson got upset because he's like, you should be proud of your first three albums. It's not the records I'm talking about. I'm talking about the band persevering. And, you know, the second half of our career has been us all on our own, doing it ourselves. And that's what I'm really proud of. I mean, look, the first half, we had the big giant machine. We had Q Prime. We had Geffen Records. You know what I mean? We had MTV. We had all these things that, you know, helped make bands big. But the second half, after we got back together, it was all up to us to carve out a niche for ourselves. And we did. And I'm really proud of that. Brian, do you think if you throw enough money at any band, enough money, they will be successful? No. No, I don't. I think if you throw enough money at any good band? Yes. I remember Jeff Tate said, you know, you just throw enough money. Yeah, and he meant a good band with good songs, right? Because if you throw enough, you get that big machine behind you, things will happen. Well, yeah, because at that point, it's all about position. You know, it's positioning. It's positioning. And, you know, at the time it was in magazines, it was positioning in the record stores. It was being, you know, at the top of the playlist on MTV and stuff. But it had to be good bands. It couldn't be shit bands. So in some degree, yes, but in another degree. Then you had a turntable hit. That's what they used to call it. When you throw enough money at it, you get a hit, but no one's buying the album. Yeah, it wasn't reactive. Yeah. All right, let's get to this. I want to know what it's like to be on tour with David Lee Roth. You know, you talk about in your book, David was more of a, is he the guy that you see that we all see as fans? I mean, I've seen David Lee Roth in concerts, so his parent, is he that guy that you see and you see on TV? Is it the same personality? Well, he's always in David mode. Yeah. Right. So, but to be quite honest with you, I only spoke to him one time the whole tour. You kind of see his motions and the way he is. And I was reading a book. But you know, when he walked in the room, it was all David mode and it was all, you know, that whole, hey, it's Dave TV. Yeah, he was like that. I mean, that's what I, that was my take on him. But like I said, I only got to speak to him the one time and he wanted to manage the band. Talk about coming out of the fucking left field, you know, he's just like, Hey, I really like you guys. I want to manage you. And we're like, whoa, okay, well, we got this management company Q prime, Cliff Bernstein, Peter Mitch, perhaps you've heard of him. So that was it. But yeah, he was that way. I mean, you know, any, he had, you know, it was funny because they used to, they used to say, look, if David comes down the hall, go into the nearest available room and get out of his way. You know, and he had this big bodyguard, Eddie Anderson, and he would say, okay, Dave's got to get out of the way and we'd all run like scared little chickens into the next room and shit. And then I talk, I think I talked about it in the book where poison tried doing that shit to us the next year when we were on tour with him. And I just said, fuck you, I ain't going nowhere. You know, I did that shit when we were in rookie ball, that's when we were David Lee Ross, he was rookie ball. But the time we got to the Tesla tour, we were all starting already, we were on the whole start team. And they were trying that crap. And I laugh about it today and me and Brett laugh about it and stuff. But at the time, I ain't going anywhere. So Brian, a relationship that probably straddles, the early part of your career and the late part of your career is a relationship with Def Leppard, which, you know, I don't know if I've ever seen a camaraderie between two bands like you guys have. So, I mean, you guys toured of them, you know, in the early days when you were both, they were big and you were breaking. Now it feels like every other year you guys go out on tour and I generally get the feeling it's because you guys like being around each other. And then again, for the people who don't know, book plug one more time, you know, forward by Joe Elliott and Joe Elliott really kind of speaks fondly of you in the forward and you refer to him a couple of times in the book. So describe this relationship between you guys and Def Leppard and how that all works and why it's worked. Well, they're kind of like our big brother mentors, you know, we started out with them when we were just starting to develop, you know, after David Lee Roth, we went on the hysteria tour and they took us under their wing and we did a lot of that hysteria tour. And even before that, we kind of modeled ourselves after them, used to play their songs when we did covers, you know, and me and Joe, we just bonded one night in New York in rehearsals for the American tour over Paul McCartney came to me in Frank's room and we both had this love of Paul McCartney and wings and we just connected me and him and we've always been really good friends ever since then and he's the same guy now that he was then, he's never changed. So all the success, the ups and the downs, you know, the hysteria success, the rebirth success in the last five, 10 years with those guys, Joe has always stayed the same Joe and they're just solid guys. We like playing with them. The show is a good show together that both bands together makes for a good show. I think that's why we've been with them. You know, I think it's been three out of the last six years, right? So yeah, that's all I can remember. It's just, it's just a good match, you know, if you, you take Death Leopard and Tesla and you put another big band in the middle, you got a nice summer package. But Brian, it goes way back. We're talking about high and dry. When did you first meet him? Like it was on hysteria? Well, I met Rick Allen and Pete Willis when I was a kid, a fan. Yeah, that's what I'm saying. Like, I mean, it goes way back. Yeah, I met him at high and dry and I went back to their hotel and smoked weed with Pete Willis and Rick Allen. Pete Willis, Pete Willis, man. And then four years later, I'm on tour with him. They're my peers. What was Pete Willis like? He talked about like a Cinderella kind of story thing, you know. Yeah. Well, what was Pete Willis? I mean, I mean, I don't know, to me, I was always a big Pete Willis fan. You know, the first two albums and part of it. Well, he was really short. Yeah. Yeah, he was really short and he had these little elf boots on, but he was really cool. And then some one of my friends that was with me said something to him and kind of pissed them off. And Rick Allen is exactly the same Rick Allen from that night, that holiday in after high and dry tour that he's the same guy. That's the thing. All those guys, Joe, Sav, Phil, Rick, they're all the same guys. They're all the same guys they ever were. And you know, I was really close to Steve Clark, you know, too. So obviously, he's not around anymore. And I'm not that close with Vivian, but we are friendly, you know, but those four guys, there's a strong bond between them and Tesla. I think they look at us like we remind them of themselves when they were younger. They're not that much older than us though. That's the thing. You know, I think Jeff and Joe are the same age. Yeah, I guess this career wise, they started so young and kind of broke at such a young age that just that's true. The couple albums ahead of you just in that sense is because they started, I mean, they were 18. And I think I was 18 when their first record came out. Because I was 23 when I made Mechanical Resonance. So, you know, we're pretty much the same age. So on another thing that I didn't know, and I learned from this book, is I guess apparently you and Jimmy Page are like pretty good friends. And I was pretty cool reading about your relationship of Jimmy Page and having jammed with him and just, you know, that's like surreal. Yeah, that's like, right. So all the guitar guitar players out there, their jaws are going to dropping saying, wait, like, how does the guitar, the bass player and Tesla, you know, have this longstanding relationship of Jimmy Page. So like, probably because I'm not a guitar player. Yeah, the one. And, you know, I met Jimmy backstage at Hammersmith Odeon in London with my good friend Ross Halfen, who is like Jimmy's brother. They're like brothers, those two. And, you know, when I met Jimmy, Ross said, look, don't fanboy out on him, dude. He'll fucking, he'll. Right. So I just when I met him, I was just like, you know, hi. He said, hi, how are you? You know, everyone flocked around him like they do when he walks in a room, you know, poor guy. When all that settled down, I said, hey, I'm going to go, it came back over, you know, to me and Ross. And I said, hey, I'm going to go get something to drink. Do you want something? He said, yes, I went and got him something to drink. And, and I came back and he said, hey, I said, there you go, Jimmy. So thank you. He said, hey, I really like Five Man Acoustic Jam. I think it's great. And I said, excuse me. He goes, Five Man Acoustic Jam, your record. I said, man, I didn't even think you knew who I was. Well, of course I know who you are. You're Brian and Tesla. We're, we're on the same label. He said, I love your record. You know, it's the first, you're the first band to do an all live acoustic album. And I went, whoa, you know, wow, great, man. Thank you. You know, what a compliment, right? And just from that, we just became friends. And when he'd come into town with him and plant, I went to the show and hung out with him a couple, you know, a couple of shows. And then I would go to England a lot to see Ross and, you know, and me and Jimmy would see each other with Ross and we just developed this friendship, you know, over the years. And, you know, now we're, we're really pretty good, but we're real good buddies. He's the one that got you like text each other records. Do you guys like text each other? Like, I texted him the other day. We, you know, he's the one that got me into collecting vinyl records again. Because I would go, I would go out with him and Ross and they would go to these record fairs. And I would, I'm like, guys, I don't, you know, I'm in the CDs and Jimmy say, Brian, they just don't sound as good. I went, ah, you're nuts. You know, yeah. They're the, you know, how could a vinyl record sound better than a CD? And I would just go to a coffee shop and then we'd meet up for lunch, you know, after they went or a bookstore or something, and they'd go do their record thing. So one night I was at Jimmy's house, me, him and my wife are going to go to generate this little place where they read poetry called the troubadour there in London. And so he said, come round and we'll go from there. And he, as I was there, he put on the original Johnny Burnett trio version of Train Kept Rowland, right? The Aerosmith song, right? On vinyl in his living room. And I went, holy shit, he's right. This does sound better. And from that day on, we just, you know, I started collecting vinyl when I'd go to London. We'd go to all these record, you know, fair things together and stuff. And yeah, so it's, it's turned into a, you know, I mean, over the years, he just, he's my buddy. And, you know, he said, I had his pictures on my wall when I was a kid. He was my hero next to Paul McCartney. He was my, you know, it was Paul McCartney, him and then Freddie Mercury. And I was lucky enough to, to meet Paul a couple of times. And when you think about, if you would have told me when I was 15, hey, one day, you'll be really good friends with Jimmy Page. You'll go over his house. You'll, you know, honestly, maybe you're fucking crazy. You'll be texting him. You'll be texting Jimmy Page. Back then, you didn't know there would be a thing called texting, nor did you know. And pal. Alice Cooper. Okay, you toured with Alice for a while. What was he like to tour with? He was cool. He was really cool to us. Again, he was more of a kind of recluse. Like, you would only, he would only come out of his bus and go on stage. Then he'd go back to his bus and he'd leave. You know, like he didn't travel with his band. He had his bus. He did his thing. And again, we saw him, you know, the last night we all got together and he thanked us for being on the tour. And, you know, he was really kind of normal in the sense that, you know, he's mellow. Whereas Dave is like this persona, this David Lee Roth, larger than life rock star. You know, the whole thing with Alice is it's an act on stage. You know, the whole Alice Vincent thing. And he's great. We see him from time to time. We do benefits with him for his Christmas shows and stuff. But he was super cool. He was really accommodating. He keeps it locked down, though. I mean, because he doesn't want to be influenced by drugs or alcohol or anything. Yeah, that was the whole thing. You know, so he didn't, you know, he didn't, you know, I think that's why he kind of sticks to himself and stuff. Yeah. And I also heard that some artists will get thrown or I don't know how true this is. Artists will get even thrown off tours with him. If they do drugs around him, et cetera, et cetera, and or alcohol and I don't know. Yeah, I mean, you know, we, like we certainly didn't have any restrictions put on us. But like I said, again, we were never really around them. Yeah. You know what I mean? Yeah. It wouldn't be like you would see him in catering in the daytime. Yeah. He came into the venue right before he went on stage and he left right after he got done playing. Before all this COVID stuff happened, weren't you supposed to tour with Alice? I don't know if it was summer. Yeah. Last year, the summer that got shut down, that was going to be Alice, Tesla, and leader Ford. We had like 25 shows we were going to do. Yeah. How great was that? I know. Yeah. We were really looking forward to doing that with Alice. Are you going to be doing any live streams? What do you think? I don't think so. No. I don't. I just, Tesla is the kind of band that feeds off a crowd. You know, it's a live experience. When you say live, it's live. You know, the pantomime, you know, it's hard for us to do that. You know, that's why we're never really that good at probably making videos. You know what I mean? Because we weren't, you know, we weren't like white snake or poison or, you know, when you look at those videos in the 80s, I mean, those guys were fucking good at that shit. They used to lick their bases. Yeah. Yeah. Brian, we don't see you licking a bass. Yeah, we don't see you licking a bass. We don't have a crowd to play off of. So having said that, you know, I don't, I, you know, we got kind of approached earlier and just went, ah, you know, I mean, look, if we don't get to play this year and then maybe we'll consider doing one and do it purely for the fans because, you know, they're probably Jones in the CIS and maybe it'd be more of a kind of round table thing where, you know, we play in people kind of like we set up in rehearsal and just let everyone stream in and talk to us and play songs for them instead of like, here's our concert, you know, any, you know, interactive thing. So Brian, you know, it's well documented that you're, you know, part of the business side of Tesla as well. What's your best guess? What are your thoughts on getting back to touring? Getting, you know, is touring going to be what it was before? Is it just going to be weekend fly-in dates? Is that even feasible economically? Well, I think, look, I mean, you guys are aware of the election troubles. Oh, yeah, it's like, yeah, we got to get through inauguration day first. We're in Canada and we're having here problems. If Trump's going to be president or Biden, you know, because it really, I mean, I don't know what they tell you guys up there on the news, but you can't really trust the news. It really is up in the air. And, you know, there's some crazy shit down here. Half the country's one way and half the country's the other way. And it's pretty scary to be quite honest with you. If the powers to be say, it's okay for people to get back together and go back and watch concerts, then, yeah, we're ready to go. We'll go. We'll go play. There'll be no difference in doing a tour or doing weekend shows. It's all about letting the peoples in the building and the people wanting to come in the building to see the show. So that's what the whole thing is. So I don't know. I mean, who knows, you know, I think once this political thing has settled down here, I think it's going to have a lot of impact on the COVID thing. And we only ask because, you know, we're fans too and everybody wants to see you and so many other bands back out there. That's what everyone's hoping. We want to play. I don't think, you know, some people realize that this is what we do for our job. You know, this is how Tesla earn a living. Tesla aren't, you know, we never achieved that really height of success where we became millionaires, you know, where we could afford to not work for two years. It's our job. This is how we, this is our, you know, it's our day job. Look, we need to get back to work and we want to, you know what I mean? So it's kind of, it comes at us in a lot of different ways. You know, the effect of COVID on Tesla, it's not just, oh, we miss playing and we miss playing for fans. That's a given. We always do that. But the other thing too is it's hurt us financially, you know what I mean? Like, you know, and because we make more money than the average Joe, you don't get any subsidy that all the other people get. So it's really been kind of a weird thing, you know. All right. Here we go. Last question. We're ready for this. All right. Tesla, what's, since you've had all this time in confinement, or I guess some of us have, have you written material? Are you, you know, you're working on an album? I mean, that's one thing you can do, right? Well, yeah, but we, again, we have to be in a room together. Okay. Okay. So I'm in New York, Troy's in Nashville, Frank and Jeff were in Sacramento, Dave's in San Francisco, where all of the age where some of our parents are alive, some of our parents are still dead, are dead. So people don't want to get around each other because they don't want to get their parents sick, right? Because old people are at high risk. An autoimmune, autoimmune disorder, right? I mean, I'm not that high skin. And I gotta tell you, man, I've been traveling all over the goddamn world. I mean, I, I, I'm on a, I, I, you know, I mean, I go back and forth to Sacramento from New York or Texas every other couple of weeks to work in my studio, because that's the one thing I can do. So I have been working on Soul Motor. I've got like 25 Soul Motor songs done because, because that's me and the singer. It's a little bit easier than have trying to put five guys in a room. But Tesla has it. But what I will tell you is that when we do get back and we start playing again, then yes, we will make another record because we have a lot to say. So, you know, like my buddies in Def Leppard, they're making a record and they're all over different places in the world. They just send files to a central place in Ireland. We can't make a record like that. That's not how we, we do things. And God bless them for being able to do it, but we just can't. Okay. Yeah, there's organic and there's manufactured. And you describe it also in the book that your method of songwriting and creating is kind of maybe more organic or old fashioned than some other bands. Yeah, it is. We are very much kind of in the old school kind of way, you know, and when we did the record with Phil Collins, that was the newest approach to making a record we had ever taken. So, but again, we were all in the same room. Are you going to be working with Phil again? I'd like to. I don't know that we will. Okay. Only in the sense that we never really try to do the same thing twice. So that, that record was a real attempt at making a very produced record and you know, trying things make basically like making a record the mudway, Langway of making records. So we did it. I think the record was great. Unfortunately, a lot of hardcore chess offense didn't like it. They said it sounded too much like Death Leopard, which I find kind of odd because I think when Jeff sings, it doesn't sound like Death Leopard at all. You know, but yeah, I mean, I'll personally work with Phil again, absolutely. And who knows, you know, it wasn't a bad experience at all. It was great. I enjoyed it. I was a big advocate of doing that record with Phil. But you know, Tesla has five individuals in it with different opinions. So I think the next record will go a different way, maybe a bit more organic, you know, instead of so produced. And maybe we'll try doing this one on our own, which we've never really been able to do. And I've always said, look, we always have to have somebody because we'll, you know, we'll argue too much over. And maybe I need to like take a different mindset and say, okay, let's try at least, right? I see if we can do it. And then if we get into a bind, let's recognize that we're in a bind because it's how we work and we need that mediator like we always do. So I think in all fairness, we should try it on our own. And then if we're able to do it, great. But if we're not, we've got to recognize it and not let it get so far out of hand. We actually start fighting. On that note, I gotta go. But on that note, thank you so much, Brian, for being on the show. And thanks for having me. So there you go. Son of a milkman. Go pick it up. There it is. Amazon. I'm sure it could find it everywhere.