A Conversation with Mark Rivera – HuffPost 4.11.14

Mike Ragogna: Mark, let’s jump right into this. So your new album is Common Ground–oh God, excuse me, I meant Common Bond…what the hell!

Mark Rivera: [laughs] It’s funny, Ringo said, “Common Bound.” He shot a whole video to promote the record and he goes, “Common Bound,” and I go, “It’s Bond…Bond!”

Ragogna: It’s just our little Emily Litella moment. “Never mind.”

Rivera: “Never mind,” exactly!

Ragogna: So Common Bond…ahem…showcases Mark Rivera as your own artist. You’ve become a bit of a legend backing up Billy Joel and many, many artists over the years. Where did the need come from for you to finally step out from the pack?

Rivera: It’s always been in me. In fact, you and I have a bit of history together I don’t think you’re even aware of.

Ragogna: It has to be during the Cashman & West days.

Rivera: Yeah, Cashman & West. I played with Dean Friedman back in those days. But even back then I was always in bands writing songs, so it’s not something that’s like, “Now that I’m sixty years old, let me try to do something new,” it’s, “I’m going to try to do something that’s been in me for a long time and finally bring it to fruition. Jimmy Bralower my producer/co-writer said, “Buddy, it’s time.” When I did “Sledgehammer” for Peter Gabriel’s So, I had written a song called “Hard To Let Go” maybe about a year after, in 1987 or ’88. So that song’s been around for twenty-five years plus. I wanted to write a song like “In Your Eyes” or “Red Rain” or something, but it came out more like a Memphis-y kind of feel to it because of the players I ended up using, Charley Draton in particular. The short answer is it’s something that’s been in me for decades. It took a while to get the personnel together and then the chioce of material, but it’s funny, Mike, it’s always been in me and it will always be in you. I know you’re a songwriter as well. I can’t say I’m “no longer a songwriter” just like I can’t say “I’m no longer a Catholic.” I’m always guilty, “I’m sorry, I’m sorry.” That’s just the way it is.

Ragogna: With the hard Billy Joel connection, it must have been at least a little frustrating for you and the other songwriters in the band. No one expects to co-write with Bruce Springsteen, Elton John or Billy Joel. So how did you deal with that?

Rivera: It’s a double-edged sword, Mike. I don’t know who to site as an example, but if I performed with a much lesser songwriter for thirty-two years… But I have to be a foil or band member with the greatest American songwriter in our time. As Tony Bennett quoted, “The Walking American Songbook.” You can say what you want about Springsteen and Dylan and Paul Simon and McCartney, but to me, without any tripping on this whole thing, Billy is the greatest songsmith and a great lyricist of my time. Again, everybody has an opinion, it doesn’t make mine right or wrong. But I really feel that it was no frustration on my part to perform songs like “Leave A Tender Moment Alone” or “All About Soul” or “Vienna” or any one of those songs. All the songs are like three minute snapshots. Unfortunately, Mike, I was never that good, and I may never be that good, but it didn’t frustrate me to be on stage. In fact, I was always flattered that he kept me around. I was thrilled to be a part of it. And it genuinely raised the bar. I was writing some lyric and Jimmy Bralower is on one of the songs that said, “Her name is Gina or did she say it was Joan?” and he says, “Mick Jagger would never say ‘Joan,’ what the hell is wrong with you?” So I had to say, “Okay, would he say Simone?” and Billy would never rhyme “moon” with “spoon”; he would go somewhere else that would captivate your imagination. That’s the great songwriter. That’s the Jimmy Webb of our time.

Ragogna: You guys had a mentor in Phil Ramone, didn’t you.

Rivera: Oh, absolutely. Phil is great, but from my personal mentoring, the time that I spent with my favorite producer had to be Mutt Lange. Lange and I go back to a band called Tycoon back in the seventies. I first met Mutt because Clive Davis insisted that we use Mutt Lange on the recording of Tycoon. We were hellbent on using Jack Douglas because he sounded great, but Clive said, “No, no, no, you have to use this new producer Mutt Lange,” and we looked at each other and said, “What the hell is a ‘Mutt’ and who would want to be in a room with him?” We joked around about that and then Mutt and I became incredibly close. We became like soulmates, and to this day, I get emails from him three times a day with little jokes and things. But at the time in ’77, he was the first person who actually thought I could sing a lead vocal, and he had me sing two lead vocals on the album, which I was not even prepared to do. Then in 1980, he called me to play some saxophone and sing some backgrounds onForeigner 4. So as much as I loved Phil Ramone, I owe a great deal of my knowledge of what goes on and what’s become my career to Mutt Lange.

Ragogna: What got you into this musical madness? What’s your superhero origin story?

Rivera: Four guys from Liverpool, simply. February 9th, 1964. When I was seven or eight, there was a guitar in the house. So I picked up the guitar and I would be able to figure out melodies and my parents said, “This guy’s actually got something.” My Uncle Vinny, my godfather, played saxophone, so there was a saxophone in Brooklyn that happened to fall off the back of a truck if you know what I mean. So my Uncle Vinny taught me to play saxophone for about a month and then he told my parents, “He’s got to find another teacher because he’s already better than I am.” I just took right to it, like a fish in water. That was when I was eight or nine, but by the time February ninth came my Aunt Iris, my godmother, bought me Meet The Beatles. She was up in Spanish Harlem and she played it for me and I was like, “Whoa,” and that night was the night that changed our culture, that changed our universe.

Ragogna: And that was the night you decided to play saxophone.

Rivera: That was the night I decided not to play saxophone, because there wasn’t a saxophone player in The Beatles. But I thought, “Maybe I could play that one,” and I pointed to Paul McCartney’s bass. I thought, “Maybe I could play that, it’s only four strings, it’s easier.” LIttle did I know how involved it was. So I ended up buying a bass unbeknownst to my parents and I became the bass player in one of my earliest bands. I continued to play saxophone, but they made all the difference. I’ve got to tell you, I do my due diligence and I just happened to read about a week or four days ago the interview you did with Al Kooper regarding Mike Bloomfield.

Ragogna: Ah, someone read that. Thanks for reading it!

Rivera: Thanks for writing it! First of all, the first band that I actually ever saw was The Blues Project. Al Kooper, I remember I was blown away because I saw him at Manny’s with Denny Kalb. I remember being enamored looking at Al Kooper, but I couldn’t stop staring down at his green suede boots. It was the coolest thing. “I want those!” But Al Kooper and The Blues Project, all that stuff… I don’t mean to get off track, but the article about Super Session… that was my favorite record. “Stop,” “Season Of The Witch,” great stuff. Al Kooper played an arrangement on my producer’s record with this gentleman Ryan Shaw. Al Kooper played an arrangment of strings on “Yesterday,” which was a Grammy-nominated record. I still love the first Blood, Sweat & Tears record with Randy Brecker. It’s just a great record.

Ragogna: That first Blood, Sweat & Teras album, what a classic.

Rivera: The picture of everybody holding a picture of themself as a child, and the title Child Is Father To The Man, what ends up happening in our lives is eventually we wind up being the parents to our parents, hopefully. It’s a great record.

Ragogna: You talked before about doing the teen band thing.

Rivera: Of course…Battle Of The Bands and church dances and everything.

Ragogna: At what point did you decide, “Yeah, I’m going to do this for life.”

Rivera: I always played and barely made enough money, we played Battle Of The Bands and pizza parties and all this crap. But there was a band called Eclipse, and Peppy Castro of the Blues Magoos was the lead singer. He left to do something, I don’t know if it was with the Blues Magoos or what, but my friend Kenny Papa who was a great guitar player in Brooklyn said, “Hey man, we’re looking for a lead singer.” So two weeks before I graduated high school, I left and went to Minneapolis to play with the band. We were actually managed by Larry Goldblatt who was the manager of Blood, Sweat & Tears. We were given seventy five thousand dollars to put a budget together to record a record. The side story is that my mother did go get my diploma so I actually graduated. But we landed in Minneappolis and played a club called George’s In The Park and the following Monday when the check was supposed to clear, Larry Goldblatt was thrown in jail for embezzlement. Lo and behold, that all went away, but that was the beginning of my career. I thought I was going to “make it” somehow.

But the following September or so, I got a call to go tour with Sam & Dave. That was the first real tour that I did. I got asked to play saxophone for Sam & Dave and I brought my alto. Another quick story, the bandleader Ben Little said, “You blow bari, right?” and I’d never touched a baritone sax in my life, but the words out of a Brooklyn kid is, “‘Of course I do! What are you, kidding me? Me and bari are likethis!” I instantly leave that rehearsal, run down to Ponti’s Music and rent a baritone sax. Now, you’ve got to realize, I’m about eighteen, I weigh about a hundred and thirty five pounds, so the sax weighs about two thirds of my body weight, and I’m blowing the saxophone, which I’ve never done, the next day we rehearse one more time and now I’m not only learning the sax part, but I’m in over my head, I’m like, “Holy s**t, I’ve never played this instrument!” The following day, we opened up for Ray Charles at the park for the Schaefer Festival. That was kind of a trial by fire. But that was my first real gig, and then after that, you just play gigs in the city. I played in probably ten or twelve bands. It was the same core band, but different lead singers would front the band, and invariably, the lead singer was the worst musician in the band. That’s how it was back in the day. But at the same time, you really cut your teeth, you had to learn twelve songs at a rehearsal and you just kept your ears wide open.

So that was it. I always wanted to play and I always wanted to be in a band. I’ve had two jobs in my life… One of them was delivering art supplies and the other was delivering music supplies. That was it. When I was about twelve, I worked with my friends who had a private sanitation route. But just think about how many kids whose parents want the kids to do well, buy them a computer, and now a kid has a computer and thinks he’s a producer. The kid’s got autotune and he thinks he’s a singer. One of my favorite things that I’ve heard in the past two or three years is Bruce Springsteen’s keynote speech at South By Southwest…do you remember that? How major was that speech? He said, “We will never be good enough to shine the shoes of these guys. We never thought for a second we could be that good and kids today, they think all they’ve got to do is just want to do it and put it out there.” Again, that’s my beef with the digital world; everybody’s got a record but not a lot of people put their hearts and souls into it like back in the day. I really wanted to make a record.

Ragogna: Sadly, a lot of kids have been American Idol-ized into thinking that if they just want to do become a big singer, someone will do it for them.

Rivera: You know what the most popular answer was in the last decade to, “What do you want to be when you grow up?” “Famous.” Not “a musician,” not “a songwriter,” not “a painter,” not “a sculptor”…just “famous.” Or “I don’t know, I just want to be famous. I just want to be on the cover of whatever magazine.” They want to be Kardashians. I hate to sound like a callous old fart, but I cut my teeth until two in the morning and then one time, I got home from Tracks at about 1:30, walked up a six-floor walkup with two saxophones on my back, and the owner called me and said, “Dude, you’ve got to get back to Tracks,” I said, “Man, why?” The No Nukes concert had just let out and James Taylor, Joni Mitchell, Bonnie Raitt, Russ Kunkel, Bob Glaub, this whole massive contingent of musicians that I’d never met was coming back to JP’s and I was going to get to sit in and play with them. I sang four part harmony that included me, Joni Mitchell and James Taylor. And you know what? Being famous never came to mind. In my mind, it was, excuse my French, being really f**king good. I never thought that I’d ever be a Beatle. I never thought in my wildest dreams that I’d be on that level, but someday I wanted to be really good. That really resonates for me.

Ragogna: Let’s jump from those days forward to to Common Bond. There’s deep connection to what you just talked about. Did you feel that connection as you were making this album?

Rivera: Every day. Every day. In fact, the connection, oddly enough, the song “Tell Me All The Things You Do” by Fleetwood Mac, I played that song when I was fifteen. Kenny Papa pointed that song out. Nobody new that song, but I knew that because it meant a lot to me. I remember seeing Hendrix when I was about fourteen or fifteen, about 1968 I think it was, at the garden. I remember him doing “Spanish Castle Magic” because his amps blew out and he started playing right handed, flip the guitar and grabbed it left handed and went [sings guitar riff] That moment crystalized it. That’s my favorite Jimi Hendrix song of all time. Lyrically it would be “Castles Made Of Sand” and “If Six Was Nine,” because philosophically he’s just a beautiful lyricist, but all this stuff brings me back to my influences, soul music, Wilson Pickett, Sly And The Family Stone, those are who I tried to sing like but as far as Rock ‘N’ Rollers, Paul Rodgers from Free, Lou Gramm from Foreigner, Stevie Winwood from Traffic, these are the singers. Those were all very soulful, R&B slanted rock bands, so that’s what I found myself doing. A song like “Turn Me Loose,” everyone who hears “Turn Me Loose” says it’s a cross between Jimi Hendrix and Sly and I’m like, “Well thank you,” and then they hear me sing something on another song like, “Money Money Money,” where I’m really bleeding it out and they say, “That sounds like Wilson PIckett,” and all I can say is, “Thank you,” because that’s who I go to, or I try to go to. All the influences in my entire life came through on this record, I believe, because there’s rock ‘n’ roll, there’s R&B, there’s certain levels of connectivity, the song “Rise” with Karen Manno, what a beautiful song, where it’s a prayer. It’s the most eclectic record you may ever hear, which is a quadruple source, because Triple A likes this, but they won’t play that and rock stations won’t play that and for that matter most radio can’t play my record anyway, so I have to go to Sirius radio where I’m getting a lot of love.

Ragogna: It seems like in some ways, success prevented you from doing this record until this point.

Rivera: You’re exactly right, Mike. For the past ten years Jimmy and I had been trying to put a record together and unfortunately or by the grace of God there’ dalways be a tour that was going on. Look at the last ten years. I went back and forth from Billy to Ringo, I toured with Foreigner in the eighties, Simon & Garfunkel, I’m very blessed to have done what I’ve done. At the same time it prevented me from being able to say, “Hey man, it’s my time, I’m going to do this.” Finally, about two years ago, Jimmy said, “Hey, buddy, this is it. You want to do this?” and he played me some great tracks that Johnny Gale, the guitar player, and he had put together and I just blurted out “Turn Me Loose.” I just blurted out “Sticky Situation.” Those are two of the stinkiest songs on that record. Those were just great guitar grooves and drum grooves that Jimmy had programmed, and then we went into the studio and gathered the troops. To say the least it really is a collection of all of it. There’s stuff all the way back from Traffic in the sixties. There’s not a lot of eighties because that was a lot of power pop, but everything from R&B and psychadelia–I’m an old hippie and I’m proud of it so it’s go that element. Fortunately there are people who dig the record. I’m very blessed that I’m getting a lot of love at Sirius radio. Am I allowed to name names?

Ragogna: Absolutely, go ahead, name everyone you want to do a shout out to!

Rivera: Do you know Mike Marrone from The Loft?

Ragogna: Of course!

Rivera: Mike Marrone has been incredibly generous. He’s playing six songs form the record, I’m going down to spin records with him on Thursday in DC, and I’m doing an in-studio broadcast with a whole band in June. Next week Steve Van Zandt is going to have my song on Underground Garage. It’s going to be the coolest song in the world next week, on April sixth. I’m really getting a lot of love. Ken Dashow from Q104.3, who loves the record but can’t play the record, that’s just the nature of the beast, quite frankly. I did a gig last week and three hundred people came to The Cutting Room. I’m very, very close to saying, “You know what? I’m going to get past the gatekeeper somehow.” If the music is that good it should be heard. That’s my understanding.

Ragogna: And after all this time and success you have the liberty to do what you want to do.

Rivera: I have the liberty to do this, but unfortunately the DJs on the real big stations, the Qs out on the West coast–I’m in Cleveland right now, I should be doing a radio appearance on Rock ‘N’ Roll City but they can’t play my song. I have the liberty to do it, I’m spending my own money to put this record out there, but the gatekeepers are standing there with their arms crossed saying, “Hey, this is who pays the rent here. We can’t have this song on.” Where did you grow up? You grew up in New York?

Ragogna: Yeah, on second avenue. Name a twenties and I lived there.

Rivera: We went to the Filmore back then. I’m a little older than you, b0ut back in the day there was Rosko On The Radio on WNEW.

Ragogna: Yeah, I used to listen all of those guys while growing up.

Rivera: WNEW had Scott Muni, Pete Fornatale, Alison Steele “The Nightbird,” Dennis Elsas, but Rosko was the first voice that I remember hearing. He was a black DJ, and it was like, “This is Rosko on the radio, I do love you so.” That was the voice that I heard introducing Jimi Hendrix, introducing Cream, that I heard introducing Santana, Country Joe & The Fish, Richie Havens. The point is, they played everything. They didn’t play what was the genre of music that they were buying into, they had the stones to play any song that they thought was good, and that’s where you learned. It’s like feeding a child. If you don’t feed a child a green vegetable, when he’s twenty he’ll say, “I don’t eat it because it’s green.” Not knowing is a sin, espeically with all the great music. They used to play stuff that was way out there. I found out something from your article, Mike Bloomfield played piano on Moby Grape’s Wow/Grape Jam. Moby Grape is one of my favorite bands of all times. I saw them three times. In fact, one of the times that I wanted to see Moby Grape at the Filmore Skip Spence, the guitarist from Moby Grape had a very bad acid trip, so he had to cancel. Lo and Behold, Rosko was supposed to introduce Moby Grape that night, so who do you think it is that took their place at the Filmore that night? “Ladies and gentlemen, the total sound, Cream.” Cream played their first big show and I was there, and Richie Havens I think opened up with Soul Survivors. It was a great time. I think I paid three dollars.

Ragogna: We take it for granted. That was history in the making but we treated it as such a casual part of our youth. Did you know it was important when you were watching it?

Rivera: Oh, a hundred percent. I knew the moment they came out, because I had just gotten Fresh Cream, I didn’t know all the songs, but I knew “I Feel Free” immediately. The sound of the guitars, Clapton at the time was turning his back to the audience because he didn’t want them to see his hand positions or some bullshit, I don’t know what it was, but it was insane. I’ll show you how impressionable I was, I was about fourteen and I was so impressionable that Eric Clapton wore a buckskin jacket with the long fringe, remember those? I went into a store called Limbo’s, which turned into Trash And Vaudeville on St. Marks Place, they had one buckskin jacket left, it was a size forty six, and I’m telling you: If I was a size thirty four it was a lot, but you know I bought the jacket because it was that cool. It was like a hundred and twenty bucks, more money than I’d ever spent on any piece of clothing in my life but I had a buckskin jacket and I was the coolest thing in town. That’s how the music made impressions on the young people. You had people like Rosko and all those great DJs and they were willing to say, “Hey, this is a great band.” You know the guitar player from Moby Grape, Jerry Miller?

Ragogna: Yeah?

Rivera: You know whose brother he was? Steve Miller. You know what’s really crazy? This will go back to my record… Jimmy Bralower, my producer insisted that we have credits. I have credits on my record, and the first thing anyone does when they get my CD is the open it up and they check out the credits. Steve Leeds, the senior Vice President at Sirius radio and the top dogs at Sony Red, they read the credits. And you know what they all said? “Jesus Christ, it’s a shame we couldn’t get anybody good on your record.” The credits read “Ringo Starr, Billy Joel, Nils Lofgren, Steve Lukather, Will Lee…” and it just goes on. To me, when I was a kid I could tell you who recorded, what room they recorded it in, who was the engineer because I looked at the songs. That’s why I knew about Jerry Miller, that’s why I knew about Moby Grape. It was a great, great time. You’d hear about Jimi Hendrix first meeting up with Buddy Miles and getting connected. I was so plugged into that, and liner notes and credits are almost completely omitted because people just get a digital package or they buy the MP3.

Ragogna: Yup. I left right at the end of when the masses stopped caring about such things. When Rhino collapsed. I feel like the love that went into packages has gone away.

Rivera: I do interviews with radio stations and I say, “What’s your favorite song?” and they say, “We only got downloads for these three.” You’ve got to be kidding me. The package is amazing. It looks like something out of the late sixties.

Ragogna: The cover’s beautiful.

Rivera: Thank you.

Ragogna: And for full disclosure, I am a fan of your playing. Or is that of yours? However you’re supposed to say that.

Rivera: [laughs] I appreciate that, Mike, I really do. That’s very kind.

Ragogna: And I love Billy Joel’s music, I love those records and everybody gives me this ridiculous smirk when I say, “Billy Joel’s one of the best ever.” I think it’s because his records weren’t just records; they became modern standards.

Rivera: Why do you think they call it “popular music?” It’s not called “popular music” because it’s unpopular. People love Billy Joel’s songs. I always say this: When you hear a Billy Joel record, a particular song, for me, it’s like The Beatles. I can tell you, when “We Can Work It Out” came on, I was cutting school with John Grado smoking cigarettes in the back of a bus with my father’s transistor listening to “We Can Work It Out.” He was going out with Karen Shaughnessy, I was trying to get under the bra of Karen Rita. I know what was going on. You know what I’m saying? Billy’s music is a three-minute snapshot. It’s like a Polaroid. You can go “Boom” and remember the first time you heard it, who you were with–I can almost remember smells when I hear a record. I can always smell her, but that’s something else. It’s like double albums. And when you hear a record that resonates with you that way, and Billy’s music resonates with hundreds of millions of people, we’ve been across the globe three, five, ten times and people who could barely phonetically understand what we’re saying, their eyes are bugged out that he’s there. “Billy Joel, Billy Joel!” everywhere you go, they love Billy.

Ragogna: I do wish he did more.

Rivera: We all do. You said something before that was very interesting, that his personal life got in the way? His personal life sometimes when it’s most shattered he writes some of his most prolific music. When he went through all the stuff with his ex-manager he went out and wrote The Bridge. The man pours his heart out. I don’t know if you should write this, but I really think he’s tired of having his heart splattered all over newspapers and whether or not they accept his music. “You know what? I’ve done enough, fuck what everybody thinks.” He so loves the music, Mike. He so loves the music. If you see him sit down at the piano before a sound check and just play it’s beautiful. It is nothing less than beautiful. He’s the man. I’ll put him up against anybody. Everybody says, “Oh, what about the Beatles?” They were great, but John had Paul, because since then Paul hasn’t written anything in my opinion that’s worthy of a Billy Joel song. That’s my opinion. Bruce is a great lyricist, he really is. As far as tunesmithing and writing an amazing melody and writing chords–listen to “Leave A Tender Moment Alone,” or listen to “The Bridge” or any one of a hundred songs and they take you on trip. He’s a tunesmith. He is the American songbook and I’m very proud–I’m going on thirty three years with the guy, more than half my life spent with him. In fact, I make jokes, “You know what? You’ve known me longer than all three of your wives, so there.” He pours a lot of his being into his music.

Ragogna: He’s an interview that I would love someday, but you know what? I’ve got you, so screw it! [laughs]

Rivera: “I’ve got you babe!” Everything comes back to song, Mike. I can’t help myself. “I Can’t Help Myself!” See? It just does it all the time.

Ragogna: Dude, you just “Sugar Pie Honey Bunch”‘d me! I feel so Rick Rolled! Okay mister, so you knew I was going to ask so let’s just get this over with. What…yes, what is your advice for new artists?

Rivera: Go online and find Bruce Springsteen’s South By Southwest keynote speech and listen to it, and don’t assume that you’re listening to an old man, assume that you’re listening to a person who’s still thinking about finding your way through this whole maze. Never accept mediocrity. Think about the greatest bands that you love, I’ll cite The Beatles but any young person could cite any performer that they really think is great, and then go back do a little due diligence and find out how many thousands of hours they played, how many thousands of miles they drove to get there. People don’t get discovered on American Idol. They find their way on their own. What you said before, that we’ve been American Idolized–I hope I don’t offend anyone–but quite frankly, that, to me, is a race to the bottom. The race to the lowest point of mediocrity. I’ve never accepted that. I don’t accept that in a relationship with a person. I talk to people I just met as if I care for them because I do. If someone says, “How are you?” I say, “Very well, thank you, and how are you?” because that’s part of the communication of life. If you want to get somewhere in life, be present. Stay present. The greatest musicians, the most present person I know right now is Ringo Starr. Ringo is the most amazingly present person I’ve ever met. He is right in the moment and when he’s on stage he’s right there. The greatest musicians I’ve ever played with are the most present because they’re aware of everybody on stage. They’re not so hung up on “Me, me, me, me.” They keep their monitor level so they can hear the bass player, anything he might play, andything a rhythm guitarist might play, that’s called complimenting. That’s where your chops really lie. On the firing line. Not in some closet and not when you can autotune something. Perfect ain’t right. Stop making music to a computer, make music to how it feels. That’s my advice. I know that was a longwinded answer, I’m sorry.

Ragogna: No, that was beautiful! You’re a man of integrity, Mark Rivera!

Rivera: Thank you…I think I have a future in this thing, Michael. [laughs] It’s really funny, I really feel very strongly about everything. I’m very proud. The greatest gift in my life, my wife gave us two sons. One of them is about to be thirty, one of them is about to be twenty-seven. I speak to them like I’d speak to anybody, I’m very honest with them. When you bulls**t a lot, that ain’t good, because that always comes back to bite you in the ass. If you’re sincere, man, you’ll always do well.

Transcribed By Galen Hawthorne