Putting a new band together
and I'd like you to be a part of it.
So I said, okay.
I went down to rehearsal, and Frank,
I thought we were going to be playing
this kind of advanced music, you know,
this kind of advanced orchestral music,
and the first thing we did, Mark, Howard,
Jeff Simmons and Aynsley Dunbar were there,
and Ian Underwood, and we were doing (plays piano),
and I said, Frank, I can't, I,
he says, what's wrong?
I said, I can't do this.
And he says, why, is something
wrong with your hand?
I said, no, no, I, uh, I just can't play that.
And he says, all you got to do is (plays piano).
I said, but I can't do that, Frank (chuckles).
And he said, oh, you mean it's beneath you.
I said, well, uh, I didn't study all these years
at the conservatory to start playing (plays piano).
So, anyway, the greatest thing that happened
in my life was that Frank broke down these
ridiculous barriers that I had about music.
(Transition)
He was a workaholic.
So we would be doing things
and it's like we would rehearse forever.
We would play shows that
just went on and on and on and on.
It was almost like Frank knew that he didn't
have a lot of time and he had a lot to say,
it's really amazing to me,
and he packed a lot into a short life.
It's really unfortunate, you know, I can't
imagine what he would be doing now, you know.
I miss him a lot, you know.
I just want to say that.
(Peaches En Regalia plays in background)
Frank was wide open musically.
He loved everything, and he loved music
that didn't quite go together.
He would force it to go together.
I mean, he would take the most beautiful melody,
you know, with an orchestra or something and
just, and throw a (low-end stinger), a wrench in it,
you know, that was who Frank was.
And sometimes it used to drive me crazy.
I said, Frank, this is too beautiful,
you can't mess it up, and (scoffs), you know,
it needs to be messed up,
and that was his whole thing.
And I learned something from that.
(Transition)
You know, I played a Bach chorale and, you know,
(plays piano), I want to play Mozart, you know,
or some jazz, you know, (plays piano).
I wanted to be heavy, you know.
And as I said before, he detested the word heavy.
So, but anyway, he would put, he says,
I tell you what I'm going to do.
I'm just going to buy you a synthesizer and
I'm going to put it on your keyboard and
whenever you feel like messing with it,
you know, he says,
you may bump it every now and then,
it'll make a sound, and then, you know,
I'll just leave it there.
And so he left it there
and occasionally I would start,
you know, I would (chuckles)
come in before rehearsal
and I would, it would make a noise,
and then I would push it,
oh, I don't want to play that thing.
(Transition)
I said, I can't do this, Frank.
So he put it there one day and then he had
Ian set up a little sound for me, and I started
playing, I was like, wow, this is pretty cool.
And you could bend notes. You could bend notes.
I'm a piano player, you can't bend notes.
I can bend a note.
I mean, I can be like Johnny "Guitar" Watson
or I can be, play the blues on a synthesizer.
I said, that's--
(Transition)
I was sitting down at the keyboards,
and he says, well, I need you to sing this note.
And I said, I don't sing.
And he says, George, we need you to
sing this note. Can you sing, (sings)?
I said, yes, I can do that.
He said, all you got to do is (sings),
hit that note.
You know, when I cue it, you (sings), I said,
okay, I can do that, and that's how it started.
It became more and more and more and eventually
I was doing (sings a line from song),
it ran into that.
(Transition)
Man, I was totally in it, and this band
that I was in, I think his best band.
Man, that band could play anything.
And I go back nowadays and listen to that music
and I don't know how in the world we did it.
It's just amazing to me.
We instinctively knew what Frank wanted.
He would just, he would go like,
(mimicking Frank),
and we knew exactly what to do,
and Frank just loved it.
And not only that,
I got to tell you one other thing.
He was totally underrated
as a guitarist, totally.
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