Part One: The Phil Spector Episodes

Summary

Behind the Bastards

Part One: The Phil Spector Episodes

Date: March 31, 2026
Host: Robert Evans
Guest: Greasy Will
Producer: Sophie

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Episode Overview

This episode marks a role reversal as Grammy-winning musician and producer Greasy Will takes over storytelling duties to unpack the life and legacy of Phil Spector—a groundbreaking musical visionary and an infamously troubled, controlling, and at times monstrous figure. The discussion traces Spector's origins, family trauma, rise to music industry dominance, and the troubling patterns that began to emerge in his early years.

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Key Discussion Points & Insights

1. Setting the Stage: Why Phil Spector?

• Greasy Will, a self-professed Spector fan for his sonic innovations, opens by asking when bad personal actions outweigh artistic legacy:

  “We so often in the music industry, we will give people weird passes just because they're good at something... That’s kind of ridiculous to me.” (05:26, Greasy Will)

2. Debate: Mount Rushmore of Music Bastards

• The hosts discuss who’s the “George Washington” of bad music industry figures, referencing Michael Jackson, R. Kelly, and others, before settling on Spector as the focus.

3. Early Life and Family Trauma

• Birth and Upbringing

  • Born Harvey Phillip Spector in the Bronx, 1939. Mother claimed Christmas Day birth, possible delusions of grandeur.
  • Family believed to be trauma-impacted Jewish immigrants, likely from Belarus or Ukraine.

    “There are unconfirmed theories regarding Spector's extended family… Some biographical accounts suggest his parents may have been... first cousins...He’d be like, my parents were cousins.” (12:53, Greasy Will)

• Childhood Issues

  • Frail, overweight, physically fragile, intensely protected by his mother Bertha and older sister Shirley.
  • Avoided outdoor play, deep insecurities about masculinity.

• Father's Suicide

  • At age 9, Spector’s father dies by suicide, which his mother blames on Phil.

    “Your dad killed himself because of you. Before you, he was happy, and then you came along, and then he killed himself.” (17:37, Greasy Will)

  • Mother hides suicide, deepening family shame and emotional abuse.

• Move to Los Angeles

  • Phil changes name from Harvey to Phil, attends Fairfax High (nicknamed “Fairyfax”), continues to struggle socially, deeply reliant on his mother.

4. Phil and Women: Patterns Emerge

• Early relationships marked by neediness, possessive behavior, mirroring his mother and sister’s control.
  • Girlfriend Donna Cass:

    “He would call to places he believed she was and question the people there about her whereabouts...” (20:26, Greasy Will)

  • Biographer Nick Brown/Donna Cass Quote:

    “I always felt [his family] were in love with him...They treated him like he was a God. They protected him, and they wanted to protect him from me.” (21:26, Greasy Will)

• This possessiveness soon extended into professional relationships, especially with women.

5. Beginnings of a Music Mogul

• Spector’s early musical gifts noted (could replicate anything heard on the radio).
• Forms the Teddy Bears in high school; writes and produces “To Know Him Is To Love Him” (title lifted from his father’s gravestone).
  • Notable, dark trivia:

    “Phil wrote a song ... and he talks later. He says, this song is about death.” (26:55, Greasy Will)

• Teddy Bears hit #1, but following Annette Kleinbard's accident, Spector simply abandons the group—signaling a propensity to move on when people cease being useful.

6. Transactional Relationships

• Close with Lester Sill, who acts as a surrogate father and music industry mentor.
• Pattern Emerges:
  • Moves on from people when he no longer benefits:

    “Anytime somebody stops serving their usefulness to him, Phil is done with him.” (37:07, Greasy Will)

• Attempts at mentoring and collaboration (Lee Hazelwood, female collaborators) mostly end with Spector alienating others via controlling or manipulative behavior.

7. The Brill Building, Opportunism, & Ruthlessness

• Navigates the ruthless world of 1960s New York pop songwriting.
• Quickly earns a reputation for inserting himself into credits, stealing recognition and royalties:

  “Spector immediately gets a reputation for being opportunistic in a cutthroat building.” (43:33, Greasy Will)

• Female songwriter Beverly Ross turns down Brill Building job to avoid him:

  “Phil practically killed me emotionally. I figured I wasn’t smart enough to handle the part of his personality that I understand. It was like Phil was born without a conscience and I was his victim. He could be so ruthless.” (46:20, Beverly Ross [quoting], Greasy Will)

• Likely reflecting learned lessons from his mother—controlling or be controlled.

8. The Rise of the Producer Model & 'Wall of Sound'

• Joins forces with production legends Lieber & Stoller; quickly recognized as both brilliant and deeply abrasive.
• Surfs the early 1960s wave of music as a product, not just an art, redefining the producer as architect and band members as replaceable.

  “Rather than treating musicians as equal collaborators, Spector increasingly saw them as interchangeable components in a larger sonic structure…” (62:30, Greasy Will)

• ‘Wall of Sound’:
  • Pioneered dense, layered, orchestral pop productions (e.g., “Be My Baby,” “You’ve Lost That Lovin’ Feeling”).
  • “The recording was not meant to be dissected. It was meant to overwhelm you… That’s the big principle of the Wall of Sound.” (65:17, Greasy Will)
• Spector’s attitude:

  “I can make this… I want 10 pianos, so bring in 10 pianos.” (65:52, Greasy Will)

9. Women as Expendable, Men as Partners

• Spector replaces female singers, using group names as brands and substituting singers without telling original members (notably The Crystals).

  “He never does this to a man, not in his entire career. But to women, he does this.” (69:53, Greasy Will)

• After such an incident, a member of The Crystals reportedly had a mobster rough Spector up.
• Spector becomes known as “The Tycoon of Teen”—a pointedly uncomfortable nickname—dominating charts with girl groups.

10. End of Part One: Foreshadowing Worse to Come

• As the episode closes, the team reflects:

  “He just sounds like an asshole who's really good at his job… and a huge misogynist who screws over female artists.” (72:35, Robert Evans) “Again, it's like if this was the end, right, you'd be like, yeah. I mean, not really bastard worthy.” (72:51, Greasy Will)

• Tease that deeper, darker elements will emerge in part two.

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Notable Quotes & Memorable Moments

• On Spector’s mother’s mental state:

  “His mom claimed that he was born on Christmas Day because she honestly and truly, I think, maybe believed that he was the second coming of Christ.” (11:58, Greasy Will)

• On the music industry’s attitude toward “bad men”:

  “People really love your noises so you’re allowed to molest 15-year-olds?” (05:56, Robert Evans)

• On music’s new economic model:

  “This is the first time in all of recorded history basically that teenagers become a market.” (50:14, Greasy Will)

• On industry ruthlessness:

  “Being cutthroat isn’t weird in the music industry … but to be in a cutthroat environment and be the cuttiest, throatiest person of that environment is like, okay.” (48:23, Greasy Will)

• On Spector’s recording innovation:

  “If one player failed to achieve the desired result, another could replace them… He could manipulate arrangement, echo, orchestration. The recording was not meant to be dissected. It was meant to overwhelm you.” (62:30, Greasy Will)

• On misogyny:

  “He never does this to a man, not in his entire career. But to women, he does this.” (69:53, Greasy Will)

• On being a music industry legend:

  “For every awful person I meet in the music industry, I meet a legend that I'm like, you’re the nicest person I’ve ever met. And like, how are you this good and this cool and this person not that good and way shitty. Like, I don't understand it. I'll never get it.” (73:01, Greasy Will)

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Important Timestamps

• 00:05 – 03:53: Podcast format discussion, Netflix move logistics.
• 05:56 – 06:01: Music industry “bad man” passes.
• 11:58 – 18:12: Phil Spector’s childhood, family trauma.
• 20:05 – 22:05: Early relationships, controlling behavior with women.
• 24:34 – 29:00: The Teddy Bears and “To Know Him Is to Love Him”
• 37:07 – 38:41: Pattern: Spector cuts people out when not needed.
• 43:33 – 46:41: Brill Building, reputation for ruthlessness.
• 62:30 – 65:52: Explaining the “Wall of Sound,” rise of the producer model.
• 68:17 – 69:53: The Crystals, swapping out women in recording sessions.
• 72:35 – 73:01: End of Part One reflection—“not really bastard worthy… yet.”

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Tone & Language

The episode features the series’ signature irreverent, candid tone, with hosts openly debating uncomfortable truths, punctuated by biting asides, dark humor, industry gossip, and the occasional old-timey impression. Filthy and affectionate, the language pulls no punches (“cuttiest, throatiest,” “I would have punched him in the wiener”)—all while maintaining a pace that balances historical context, music nerdery, and human drama.

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Takeaways

• Phil Spector’s legacy is inextricably tied to both his musical genius and personal monstrosity. His early childhood set the stage for deep emotional problems that later fueled controlling, manipulative, and often misogynistic behaviors throughout his rise in the industry.
• Musicianship is not morality. Spector was able to get away with egregious actions for much of his career because of his musical innovation and success.
• Pattern recognition: The show methodically builds a profile of Spector’s behavior—transactional relationships, objectification of women, hunger for control—and signals that these foundational patterns will escalate as his story continues.

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Stay tuned for Part Two, where the darkness beneath the “Wall of Sound” will come further into focus.

Transcript

[Announcer]

Media.

[Robert Evans]

Welcome back to behind the Bastards. Ladies, gentlemen, gentlemen. And all points in between. This is a podcast about the very worst people in all of history. And normally it's a podcast where I, the host, Robert Evans, read a story about the very worst people in all of history to a guest who generally comes in cold, not always, yada yada. We've been doing this eight years. You know, you know the drill, folks.

[Greasy Will]

You've figured it out by now. Now even I know the drill by now.

[Robert Evans]

And regular listeners will recognize the voice of my dear friend, Greasy Will. The Grammy Award winning Greasy Will.

[Sophie]

Hey, buddy, what's up?

[Greasy Will]

How's it going? I'm very excited to be here.

[Robert Evans]

I'm so excited to have you because

[Greasy Will]

we are going to flip the roles here.

[Robert Evans]

That's right.

[Greasy Will]

And I'm gonna tell you about, about somebody who's very near and dear to my heart, a bastard of the music industry. And I'm very excited about this.

[Sophie]

But I have a question first. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Greasy Will, who I love my buddy. Do you know where this is being streamed right now?

[Greasy Will]

Oh, are we on Netflix?

[Ad Voice]

We're on Netflix.

[Sophie]

Yeah. Our good buddy, Greasy Will here. The second we announced that we were going to be streaming video episodes on Netflix, we commented sellouts. So what does that make you?

[Robert Evans]

That's what I, my friend of 15 years.

[Greasy Will]

When I was a kid, being a sellout was an insult. But now as an adult, the world that we're in, being a sellout just means you're successful, you know, like, it's exciting for me.

[Sophie]

Yeah, just means you get to buy the good produce.

[Robert Evans]

Are there other ways I made money in the past that I might have preferred more? Are there different ways to, you know, this is the future we've been given.

[Greasy Will]

Look, look, you're talking to a guy who. All right, so I have a course, a recording course that I made. And recently I posted this ad that I had made with a high quality camera like the one you're viewing me on right now. If you are in fact viewing me with a high quality camera. And all the comments where people like greasy and high def is weird. I don't like it.

[Sophie]

Welcome to our lives. Welcome to our lives.

[Greasy Will]

Specifically, like, I do not do high quality in anything I do in music, in anything.

[Robert Evans]

It's perfect, Will, because I reached the peak of my success as a professional in an audio medium. And you also reached the peak of your success as a professional in an audio medium.

[Greasy Will]

Yes.

[Robert Evans]

And the powers that be in their wisdom decided we gotta put these guys on TV people need to see their faces. For some reason. I don't know. When we moved to Netflix, a surprising number of people were just based on confusion or based on the fact that it changed from YouTube, were like. I was like. I didn't realize that many people were watching the podcast.

[Greasy Will]

Right, right.

[Robert Evans]

We have. We've been working on it. We have gotten it to where audio episodes of the show are back on YouTube music. So if you listen to the show that way, I know there was. There was confusion. Things got disrupted there for a while, but from now on, that should be normal. And initially, a lot of our international viewers were cut out because it was. Netflix wasn't letting. It wasn't. Our show wasn't available internationally.

[Greasy Will]

Dim region specific broadcasts.

[Robert Evans]

Yeah. Now our show is available on most of the places that Netflix serves worldwide, baby.

[Sophie]

Minus Vietnam and Korea, for reasons I don't know.

[Robert Evans]

So the Aussies out there, you can. You can watch now if you've got Netflix. I don't know. Again, 90% of the audience listens because it's a fucking podcast. So hopefully none of this should be changing for most of you.

[Greasy Will]

Yeah.

[Robert Evans]

Who are we hearing about today, Will? What piece of shit are you gonna tell me about? I know, but.

[Greasy Will]

All right, so let me ask you this. Let me ask you this first. If you had a Mount Rushmore of horrible music people, right? Like whoever you could think of, who's your George Washington?

[Robert Evans]

It's gotta be Michael Jackson, because Michael's the perfect mix of that man's music. You simply can't cut his music out of popular culture and have it make sense. There's too big a gap. Like the impact he made is there. And a bunch of his music is immortal. And also definitely raped a bunch of kids. Ton of kids. Just like My Pink Bastard, maybe.

[Sophie]

Yeah, I can give my four.

[Greasy Will]

Yeah, go ahead, Sophie.

[Sophie]

My four. Michael Jackson, R. Kelly P. Diddy, and the subject of this episode.

[Greasy Will]

All right, so I'm gonna tell y', all, I don't think the subject of my episode makes it on the Bastards. Mount Rushmore. And here's why. Here's why you want to hear, because number one is Ian Watkins. Do you guys know who Ian Watkins is?

[Sophie]

No.

[Robert Evans]

No.

[Greasy Will]

Ian Watkins was recently just. Actually, I was gonna bring this up even before, but Ian Watkins was recently murdered in prison because they don't like those types of people who do those things to infants.

[Robert Evans]

Infants. Oh.

[Greasy Will]

Oh, he was the singer.

[Robert Evans]

That tells me a lot.

[Greasy Will]

Yeah, he was the singer of Lost Prophets. And it's interesting that you can Ask for this guy.

[Robert Evans]

Yes.

[Greasy Will]

So it was interesting that you brought it because I do have a question and my overall thesis in discussing this person is when is it bad enough to cut somebody out? And when does their music overshadow the big. The big picture? Right. Because we so often in the music industry, we will give people weird passes. Weird people get weird passes just because they're good at something. You know, they're good at making noise. That's kind of ridiculous to me. I do not think that makes a lot of sense.

[Robert Evans]

But people really love your noises. So you're allowed to molest 15 year olds?

[Greasy Will]

Yes. Yes.

[Robert Evans]

Or younger.

[Greasy Will]

So our subject today is somebody who I think is horrible and you will hear a lot of evidence to that effect. Back that up. Yes. But our subject today is Phil Spector. Phil Spector. Do you know about Phil Spector at all? Like, what do you know, Robert?

[Robert Evans]

Here's how much I know about Phil Spector. In order to even listen to this podcast, I had to make sure I had a gun on me.

[Greasy Will]

Like Jesus Christ, Rob.

[Robert Evans]

Because I know Phil's bringing one.

[Greasy Will]

Yes. Yeah, Phil is definitely bringing a gun to the party for sure.

[Sophie]

Okay.

[Greasy Will]

All right, so let's do it. This will be our episode today. We are gonna talk about Phil Spector. Boom.

[Ad Voice 2]

Cold.

[Greasy Will]

Open. Done. We did it.

[Robert Evans]

We're done. We're opened. Coldly.

[Sophie]

Look at you. Prettiest girl at the party. I love it.

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[Greasy Will]

All right, are you guys ready to hear about Phil Spector?

[Robert Evans]

I was born ready. Well actually I was born bloody with a cord wrapped around my neck, but also ready.

[Greasy Will]

Were you in fact a cord baby? That explains a lot. I think.

[Robert Evans]

I don't remember. My mom was in labor for like 70 hours. Something was wrong with me.

[Greasy Will]

My God, I think I was.

[Robert Evans]

Yeah, she had a chip on her shoulder about that. It might have just been 48 hours. It was like a long time.

[Sophie]

And in perfect comparison of our relationship, my mom was in labor with me for Less than an hour.

[Greasy Will]

I think my mom had me inside of the back of a pickup truck. But I don't know, like a camper maybe. I think I was born in a camper.

[Robert Evans]

You are one of my friends most likely to be born inside of a pickup truck.

[Greasy Will]

Oh, my God.

[Robert Evans]

Yes, I say is an honor.

[Greasy Will]

So first off, I want to say this is why I picked Phil Spector. Because I am personally a very big fan of his work. It has informed a lot of my work as a musician, as a producer, as an engineer. I love Phil Spector's work. To me, it was so groundbreaking for the time for many reasons. And there's a lot of, like, future of music that came from where he was at, you know? And I like to do that game of, like, oh, well, I like the Beatles. And the Beatles were really influenced by, like, what Brian Wilson and the Beach Boys were doing. And Brian Wilson loved Phil Spector. Right. And so it's like, if you are a Beatles fan, you not only have heard Phil Spector's work, you've also been influenced by him indirectly through them. Loving the chain of command that it worked. Right.

[Robert Evans]

Or chain of custody.

[Greasy Will]

Yes, yes. So Harvey Phillips Spector, his name was not Phil originally. Harvey. Harvey was his name. Harvey Phillip Specter was born on December 26, 1939, in the Bronx, New York. That's at least what the birth records say. His mom claimed that he was born on Christmas Day because she honestly and truly, I think, maybe believed that he was the second coming of Christ. That was actually, like, she was start. Really, really, like, into. So he had an older sister, Shirley, and an older brother who died just days after being born, who was just before him. Which is a bit why he got the ultimate Jewish mother protection system going on over him for his whole childhood.

[Robert Evans]

Yeah. So he is wrapped up. There's a wall between him and the real world.

[Greasy Will]

Yes, absolutely. Absolutely. There are unconfirmed theories regarding Spector's extended family structure. Some biographical accounts suggest his parents may have been closely related to possibly even first cousins, though this has never been definitively proven. But he said it all the time. He would tell people this. He'd be like, my parents were cousins. I was like, all right. I guess randomly at lunch on a Tuesday or something, he's bringing this stuff up.

[Sophie]

Cool story, brother.

[Greasy Will]

Yeah, yeah. What is well documented is that both sides of his family were Jewish immigrants whose families fled. Let's take a break real quick. Robert, you wanna play Guess the Country his Jewish relatives had to escape in the late 1800s. To early 1900s.

[Robert Evans]

I'm gonna go with Poland.

[Greasy Will]

Oh, so close. Very close. Very close. Probably, we don't know exactly, but probably Belarus or.

[Robert Evans]

Or Belarus.

[Greasy Will]

Yeah, yeah, yeah. Or Ukraine too. Ukraine too is possible. So you're in the right area.

[Robert Evans]

A lot of people who are like, I don't know exactly what country they were in, in part because it was several countries over the period of time they lived there.

[Greasy Will]

That's literally the description that's most often given is Eastern Europe. They fled Eastern Europe. Eastern Europe, yeah.

[Robert Evans]

They lived under three or four governments.

[Greasy Will]

Yeah, yeah, absolutely. So, you know, this is a very classic early 1900s American tale of, you know, Jewish immigrant families leaving their country because of the anti Semitic pogroms going on and then coming to America, settling in New York in a very Jewish neighborhood, or being surrounded by other Jews who had escaped these same situations. So obviously some generational trauma going on for sure to start off. And also family trauma and also some questionable things going on with his mother already, you know, as far as her mental stability is. So. As a child, Spector was described as overweight and physically fragile. He struggled with recurring health problems and was often encouraged to stay indoors rather than participate in sports or outdoor activities. He developed a strong dislike for beaches, athletics, and physical competition, and any environment where he felt exposed and inadequate. Over time, his body changed. Yeah, yeah, he hates beaches.

[Robert Evans]

Yeah, he hates beaches.

[Sophie]

That's my favorite tidbit of that whole thing. He's like, yeah, you know what I hate? I hate beach. You are not Ken Phil Spector. Your job is not beach.

[Greasy Will]

Okay, no, no joke. Like, multiple times throughout any of the biographies that you read about him. It's brought up that he doesn't like beaches, Specifically beaches. He's like, oh, yeah, Phil wouldn't go to Venice because there was a beach close by. Like, he was, like, mad about it.

[Sophie]

All right, bro.

[Greasy Will]

As he entered adolescent, he lost weight dramatically, and he became notably small and slight in stature. Instead of solving his insecurities, this transformation reinforced them. He remained physically unimposing, ill suited for sports and deeply self conscious about his appearance and masculinity as an adult. He would always joke that, like, when they were picking sports teams that he was. He wanted to be the manager. I'm the manager of the team today. You know, like, right from. Because he's like, I'm not going to. I'm not play sports is ridiculous.

[Sophie]

What a weird little guy.

[Greasy Will]

When Phil was nine years old, his father, Benjamin Spector, died by suicide.

[Robert Evans]

Ooh,

[Greasy Will]

yeah, we are gonna have Some classic bastard style empathy to start off our show today. That's tough.

[Robert Evans]

That's tough. He's having a difficult start of things, you know?

[Greasy Will]

Yes. He's had it. He's had it rough.

[Robert Evans]

I'm sure this won't make him a monster.

[Greasy Will]

Spoiler alert. His dad killed himself. So basically, the story is his dad left. Left the factory. He was like a metal worker, and he left the factory and started driving home and just parked a couple blocks away, put a hose in his tailpipe, and started sucking on some carbon monoxide fumes in his car. And they don't really even know why he did it. Like, he had financial stress, but he

[Robert Evans]

decided he was done.

[Greasy Will]

Yeah, yeah. It was the right time for that to be a normal thing, you know?

[Robert Evans]

Yeah.

[Greasy Will]

Financial stress, business failures, depression, they've all been cited. Possible mental illness as well. Like, there seems to be a very strong prevalence of that in Phil's life. Whatever the cause, the event shattered the whole family, right? So Bertha Spector becomes the central force in Phil's life, tightening a grip on her son's emotional and developmental trajectory. Alongside her was Phil's older sister, Shirley, who would exhibit as much control issues over Phil as his mother did. Both of them would emotionally abuse Phil often. His mother would often disparage his father and blame young Phil for his death. So she's, like, over there, great. Like, your dad killed himself because of you. Before you, he was happy, and then you came along, and then he killed himself.

[Robert Evans]

And that's the best thing for kids, right? Giving them that sense of agency and control. No, you killed your dad, and you can do anything you put your mind to, including kill your parents, which you already did, right?

[Greasy Will]

Yeah. Very impressive, bro. I couldn't kill my parents. All right, so she treated his father's death as a source of family shame as well, too. So it was like she never told the truth about it to anybody. Like, if she met somebody and they're like, oh, oh, he's off in Europe on business, or he died in the war. Like, she's always, like, just making up other things and not saying, oh, yeah, he, you know, killed himself or whatever, which, I mean, I guess I kind of understand, you know, it's not like I'm like, yeah, dude, my stepmom killed herself, which is facts, you know? I guess I just did announce it to the world. Never mind. So, yeah, obviously not a great start to life. He's small, he's frail. His dad kills himself. His mom and his sister are both super possessive and controlling over Him. Pretty bastardsy start to the story. Oh, boy. Not long after Benjamin's death, Bertha relocated the family across the country to Los Angeles. This is where Phil decides he absolutely hates being called Harvey. And he starts going by his middle name, Phil Cool.

[Robert Evans]

All right.

[Greasy Will]

The move placed them in the predominantly Jewish neighborhood of Fairfax, which this is just a stupid little aside, but all the kids called it, like, in the neighborhoods, called it Fairyfax because it was like. Like the weakest school around. They were like. So he's like the. He's like the weakest kid at the weakest school, right? You know?

[Robert Evans]

Yeah. They're calling his school. They're basically calling his school gay and, like, the parlance of the times, which

[Sophie]

was absolutely not true when I was in high school because Fairfax beat our ass at basketball.

[Robert Evans]

Well, it's good to hear that. They. They. I don't know. I don't know if it's.

[Greasy Will]

Turns out money does something long term.

[Robert Evans]

Shocking.

[Greasy Will]

So Phil struggled to make friends outside a small circle of family and school acquaintances. And he remains socially awkward and intensely sensitive and deeply dependent on maternal approval, obviously on account of his mom and the way she is.

[Sophie]

Yeah, the mommy issues.

[Greasy Will]

His only advancement into social normalcy came as a result of his musicianship. He was said to be able to play any song that you heard on the. He'd hear it on the radio and could play it immediately. Like, he could just drew start, like, playing along before the song even finished. Right. During this time, Phil found himself his first real girlfriend, a girl named Donna Cass. Donna believed Donna recalled Phil being very intelligent but intensely possessive. He would call to places he believed she was and question the people there about her whereabouts. And when he found her, he would grill her about what she'd been doing. Right. She said she believes this was his nature because it was what Bertha and Shirley did to him whenever he was at home. Right. She said, this is from Breaking down the Wall of Sound, by the way. This will be my primary source for almost everything. Nick Brown wrote an amazing book, Breaking down the Wall of Sound. It's really, really good. We'll touch on some stuff about it later. But that and Ronnie Spector's book, which was Be My Baby, which is amazing. I highly recommend reading the audio or hearing the audiobook of that because it's narrated by Rosie Perez, which is.

[Sophie]

Oh, my gosh.

[Greasy Will]

Yeah. It's amazing to listen to Rosie Perez narrate this whole story because she's like, you know, she's like.

[Sophie]

She's Rosie. Fuck, man.

[Greasy Will]

It's hard you know, she's got that whole thing. It's amazing. It's really good.

[Sophie]

Yeah.

[Greasy Will]

From breaking down the wall of sound quote to Donna, it was as if Bertha and Shirley saw her as a rival for Phil's affections who was trying to steal him away from them. She says, I always felt they were in love with him or something. They treated him like he was a God. They protected him, and they wanted to protect him from me.

[Sophie]

Weird.

[Greasy Will]

So this is like 15, 16 years old. He's already intense. Like, they barely even had phones. And this dude is calling around, checking on his girlfriend everywhere she goes and making sure his story matches. At 15, right.

[Sophie]

Unhinged.

[Greasy Will]

I think it's. Yeah. Well, and here's the thing is this is something that I think is A lot of musicians are weirdos, right? It's like there's a certain thing that goes along with being a weirdo and being like, that kind of musical genius that people can like that you can hear a song and, you know, and play it the first time you hear it, right? There's something that's like, kind of hand in hand with the two personalities that kind of seem to go together a lot of times. So it's not weird to be weird, right? It's not weird to be small. It's not weird to be skinny. It's like, I know a lot of those people in the music industry, but it is weird to be possessive and shitty, you know, and like. And treat, you know, and have a pattern against women, which we'll see in this whole thing, so. During his teenage years in Los Angeles, Spector became obsessed with guitarist Barney Kessel, one of the most respected and accomplished session musicians working in the recording industry. Kessel was a jazz guitarist, but would often go on to play pop hits of the day and eventually became part of the legendary Wrecking Crew. If you know about Hollywood music in this time, the Wrecking Crew is everything they wrote. They played on every single song. In the late 50s and early 60s, all the way to the 70s, pretty much, they were the band you heard in the back of it. So Phil respected him both for his mastery of jazz and his seamless transition to other genres. At one point, Spector was given the opportunity to meet his idol. The meeting did not unfold as he had imagined. Bertha, his mother, insisted on accompanying him during the conversation with his idol. Yeah, Bertha. She does it, man. During the conversation, she begins questioning Kessel about career prospects, financial stability, practical viability, like a career in music. All this stuff. It's like. Like, yeah, he's like. He's there. He's like, yeah, dude, I get to meet this guitarist, this legend. And she's like, well, what's the money like, in the job? You know? Like, yeah, she's just taking over control of this whole conversation. And Phil's just so embarrassed. Like, this goes from being like, oh, I get to meet my hero in music, to like, I'm just really embarrassed. I'm really embarrassed that I'm sitting here having this conversation. And this is just. This is his mom. His mom is in control of his life at all times. He's always stuck with that.

[Robert Evans]

That's. Yeah. Okay. I did not realize, like, knowing about, like, the later stage of Phil Spector's life somewhat, I did not realize he started out dominated by his mom to such an extent that. Yes, that does kind of scan.

[Greasy Will]

It does kind of scan. Yeah. You know, I mean, there. It's not always true, right? It's like, a lot of times. A lot of times people are just shitty people, right? But a lot of times, if you look into it, it is kind of like when your dad, when you're little, like, oh, he's just beating you up because he's got a shitty home life. And he's trying to. Sometimes that is true. Sometimes they're just bullies, you know, but sometimes they just. They got a shitty home life and they're dealing with something that you can't possibly understand. So. By the mid-1950s, Spector began forming musical groups with classmates and neighborhood friends. Eventually, he helped create a vocal trio called the Teddy Bears, consisting of Phil, Annette Kleinbard and Marshall Lieb.

[Robert Evans]

Teddy bears.

[Greasy Will]

The group formed the Teddy Bears. Yeah, that's such a 1950s name too, you know?

[Robert Evans]

Yeah, it is.

[Greasy Will]

So the group formed through teenage friendships. They all went to the same school or whatever, and, like, they knew each other. And so it was like just a very high school organic situation. Right? But then Phil's sister Shirley forced her way into the band as a manager, right? She, like, immediately is like, as soon as they start having any success whatsoever, she forces her way into the whole situation as the manager. And then when Phil's like, no, I don't want you to be in a manager. Mom's like, let her be the manager, Phil, you know, like, let him die. Immediate. Yeah. Immediately, like, takes his sister's side, so. And she has no idea what she's doing, of course. So, like, she makes horrible decisions all over the place. She's doing dumb stuff. But Phil is still. He's the architect of this whole thing. And he writes this amazing song. Right. In 1958, while still in high school, Spector wrote and produced a song titled To Know him is To Love Him. This is where I'll make my first entry and do evidence of. Phil was seriously fucked up. Like, I had some fuck. He was fucked up. Right. But this is where we're gonna get into. Phil was seriously fucked up. Sophie, can you show Robert the image of the gravestone there?

[Robert Evans]

Yep. Okay, I'm seeing it. Yeah. Ben Spector, April 20th, 1949. Father, husband 424 20, baby.

[Greasy Will]

Yeah, yeah.

[Robert Evans]

420. Hell, yeah, brother. To know him was to love him.

[Greasy Will]

What was that? The name of Phil's song there was to know him is To Love Him. Phil wrote.

[Robert Evans]

He doesn't have daddy issues. He's doing good. He's fine. Yeah.

[Greasy Will]

Phil wrote a song and he talks later. He says, this song is about death. You know, this is a song about death and nobody noticed. Cause it's framed in the 1950s kind of, you know, to know.

[Robert Evans]

No.

[Greasy Will]

Is it love? Yeah, it's very silly. But he had, you know, nobody else gets it, but if you listen to it, it's like, oh, okay. Yeah, you were kind of.

[Sophie]

It was like a huge fucking hit.

[Greasy Will]

Yeah, it was a huge hit. It was a huge hit. It was a very big deal. It became a massive national hit, reaching number one on Billboard charts. Part of its success came from side Bastards appearance. Dick Clark, American Bandstand.

[Robert Evans]

Side Basterd.

[Greasy Will]

Yes, that's right. Dick Clark is a side bastard. Today. I'm not going to get deep into him, but he basically invented payola. People would pay him to put bands on American Bandstand. And it. Because of him, like, literally, like the. That's what got out of control eventually and caused, like, the biggest. You know, one of the biggest scandals in the music industry for the longest time is like, you have to pay in order to become successful. Yeah, thanks, dude.

[Robert Evans]

Yeah, the Pay to Play deal.

[Greasy Will]

Thanks for creating that.

[Robert Evans]

Yeah.

[Greasy Will]

So the success was astonishing, right? Given the band's youth. Phil is only 17 at this time. He's a baby, right? So it's massive. Like Sophie said, it was a number one hit across the country. It was a huge song to. Even today, it's still like kind of a big song like that. I looked it up. It had like a couple hundred million streams or something. It was insane. This experience kind of cemented because he was the architect of this whole thing. He was the boss of this whole situation. So this kind of cemented, like, his like dominance in the studio. This is what made him want to. He was the producer on it. At 17 years old, you have a number one hit in the country. Your ego's probably gonna go a little, you know, it's certainly not so, but this is where I'm gonna hit. Item number two of Phil Spector was seriously fucked up.

[Sophie]

But before you do that, as the boss and the producer of this podcast, you know what time it is.

[Greasy Will]

Oh shit, it is advertisers for some advertising.

[Robert Evans]

You know what none of our sponsors did is raise Phil Spector. I feel confident saying that none of our advertisers helped raise Phil Spector. Fairly certain I believe it.

[Sophie]

I was really curious where you were going with that.

[Robert Evans]

Yeah,

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[Robert Evans]

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[Robert Evans]

And we're back. Ah boy I sure love those ads from I don't know, probably the Portland Police Bureau and then some AI company.

[Greasy Will]

No, I wish you'd get sponsored by a whiskey company. That would be nice.

[Robert Evans]

I know I wish. I'll take your whiskey. I'll tell people to drink it. I have no problem telling people, you know, to drink. There's no health consequences to that. You know, it's a lot healthier than gambling.

[Greasy Will]

I actually tried like I was doing social media for a little while where I was doing cocktails with greasy like as like a thing hoping like some company would be like hey this guy's doing alcohol content you some liquor. Yeah. Didn't work though. That was the only reason to do it. I literally just was like oh some free booze. You know, like let's subsidize this control.

[Robert Evans]

You're just throwing out like a fishing line and hoping a brand picks up so you can drink for free.

[Greasy Will]

That's all I've ever wanted.

[Robert Evans]

That's how the Internet works now. All right, where are we?

[Greasy Will]

All right, so while on tour, Spectre was allegedly cornered by hostile individuals who mocked and humiliated him.

[Robert Evans]

What are they talking about?

[Greasy Will]

Okay, being short. Being a nerd. Being. Being short and nerdy. I mean, I'm assuming old enough that

[Robert Evans]

just being short and having glasses will cause you some serious shit. Yeah.

[Greasy Will]

So keep in mind, too, like, this is important. He, at adulthood was probably only like, five foot three. Like, he did not. When I say he was little. Geez, he was real little. Right. So, like, we don't know if this story is true. It's very mythological bullshit type stuff, but we don't know if this story is true. But it absolutely. If it is true, it makes a lot of sense about who he would later become. He was physically restrained and urinated on during the encounter. The precise details vary depending on the source, and it's like kind of multiple biographies reference it. He said it. He told this story later on as well.

[Robert Evans]

He gets ganged up on by a bunch of guys outside of a show who are making fun of him because he's a short little nerd, and they hold him down and piss on him. It sounds like.

[Greasy Will]

I think he's in the bathroom when it happens. Like, he goes in to go to the bathroom after a show and they attack him in the bathroom whatever whatever. It's very 90s teen high school movie type situation.

[Robert Evans]

It's almost like Harry type deal. If Heather's or something like, that's intense bullying when they're pissing on you.

[Greasy Will]

Yeah. If the story is accurate, it appears to have deeply scarred him.

[Robert Evans]

Yeah, that would. Yeah, that's pretty bad.

[Greasy Will]

Yeah. Especially when you think, like, imagine where he's at in this whole situation. Like, he thinks he's, like, made it. Like he's on top of the world. He's got a number one hit in the. He's got money. He's got success. People all over the country are seeing him, come to see him play shows, and he just goes to the bathroom, like, walking off stage probably one night, and he gets jumped in the bathroom and pissed on. Like, that's. Yikes.

[Robert Evans]

Yeah, that'll do a number on you. I don't think it's gonna make him a better guy.

[Greasy Will]

Yeah, definitely. Definitely not gonna make him a nice person. All right. So. Despite the group's success, fractures quickly appeared within the teddy bears. Annette Kleinbard used her earnings from the hit record to purchase a car and not long afterwards, she was involved in a serious accident that left her hospitalized for an extended period. So she gets a bunch of money, she gets a nice car, she drives a car.

[Robert Evans]

She's one of those 50s, 60s cars that. It's steel. There's no seat belts. All of the force of the impact is transferred to you.

[Greasy Will]

Yeah, we're probably predating, like, the National Traffic Safety Board, like, requiring seatbelts by, like, 20 years at this point.

[Robert Evans]

I feel like, Yeah, I don't know when, but.

[Greasy Will]

So she gets in this horrible accident, and this is kind of the nail in the coffin for the group. But, you know, Annette says that, well, she's in the hospital, she gets in this horrible accident, and Phil doesn't call her or come by or anything. He just. That's it. That's just the end. He just leaves. He just goes away, and that's it. There's no band anymore, you know? Okay, so they're like high school friends. This is very strange, you know, to like to get this, you know, this far successful with your high school friends, and there's no incident. It's not like they didn't get along or anything like that. They were all friends. And then he was just like, deuces, I'm out of here.

[Sophie]

Do you think it caused, like, she could no longer provide use to him? Do you think it was something like that, or. We really can't even speculate.

[Greasy Will]

I think you're right on the path, Sophie. I think you will find, as we continue on, anytime somebody stops serving their usefulness to him, Phil is done with him. He just wipes him from his life. No problem.

[Robert Evans]

Very transactional.

[Greasy Will]

Which, spoiler alert, is the next person we're gonna talk about? Lester Sill. Lester Sill. This is right after this time or during this time. This is when he made friends and a partnership with Lester Sill. Lester Sill was a decorated World War II veteran who fought in the Battle of the Bulge. He made his way into the music industry after that. And despite what you'd think, actually the nicest guy, everybody's like, oh, dude, as soon as he walks in the room, he's the best, man. I love this guy. You know, like, this is like. This is like.

[Robert Evans]

If you lived through the Battle of the Bulge, it's hard to get, like, bent out of shape about the little

[Greasy Will]

things, one would assume. But also, I've met a lot of very disgruntled war veterans in my time, and I've been like, God, why are you guys so mad, bro? Just like, I don't know, get an addiction that helps out or something. I don't know.

[Robert Evans]

Right. Get an addiction. That's always my advice to people.

[Greasy Will]

So Lester took a liking to Phil and assumed a fatherly role in his life. So he like really does step into Phil's life. Him and Bertha and Phil start having problems at home. He lets Phil move in with him. You know, he gives them connections, he introduces them to people. He tells everybody this is this, this killer producer Phil. Like he's just like helping him out anywhere. And he even sends him to Phoenix, I believe it was to meet Lee Hazelwood. Lee Hazelwood at this time is a really successful writer. He would later go on to write these Boots are Made for Walking, which is my girl's my girl. Nancy Sinatra. Oh, she's so beautiful.

[Robert Evans]

That's one of the finest achievements of our species.

[Sophie]

Yeah, love that song.

[Greasy Will]

So he sends him to hang out with Lee Hazelwood and Lee Hazelwood hates him. Hazelwood is like this motherfucker won't stop asking questions. He's always like doing stuff. He's like, he's weird and he's just always around me and I don't like him. And he tells him, never bring him back to my studio. I never wanna see that guy again. Wow. Okay, so this is kind of. Seems like a pattern as we'll start to emerge here. Is that either you love philosopher or you are like that guy? Yeah, yeah, yeah. Like, yeah, that guy's the worst. So after this, he moves onto a relationship with another girl. So he breaks up with Donna Cass or whatever. He moves on to a relationship with another girl, Lynne Castle. But it was short lived as she couldn't stand his incessant interrogations. This quote, his behavior got too frigging crazy too. Absolutely crazy. Where are you? What are you doing? Where are you going? Controlling.

[Robert Evans]

Yeah, that sounds right.

[Greasy Will]

So this is clearly a pattern. He is absolutely controlling. He's like definitely trying to like.

[Robert Evans]

That's basically what I knew about Phil Spector going into this is that he was like super controlling in his professional and personal relationships. Yeah, that's kind of all I knew.

[Greasy Will]

And that is exactly it. And we'll get more into this professional side of this too. But it is, it is alarming early, you know, and like Sophie, we brought this up earlier is like letting people get away with stuff and how long can they get away with it? You know, and it seems like, I mean it's the 50s, so let's be fair, like this is still the time where. Or like early 60s. This is definitely the time where, like, jokes on TV where, like, your wife is talking too much. Give her the old one. Four in the eye, you know.

[Robert Evans]

Right, right.

[Greasy Will]

You know, like the honeymooners are like actively, like, like to the moon. I'm gonna punch.

[Robert Evans]

Yeah, yeah, yeah. Bang, zoom, straight to. It's. It's like an aspect of like.

[Greasy Will]

Yeah.

[Robert Evans]

Because it's just like so common and universal at the time. Right.

[Sophie]

So nice to hear somebody else do an old timey voice besides Robert, because Roberts is so good.

[Greasy Will]

Straight to the moon.

[Robert Evans]

Alice. That's not even a good accent. I love it. Archie Bunker's shit. It's great.

[Greasy Will]

Well, you were doing your best.

[Ad Voice]

It is.

[Robert Evans]

There's two different. It's interesting, the two different kinds of reactions to, oh, I keep, like, doing things I'm not supposed to be doing and I haven't gotten in trouble yet because, like, the two reactions are the one one I have had about things that I won't talk about on air, where at a certain point, more than whatever the statute of limitations is ago, I was like, I'm going to stop doing this. Done this too many times. I'm not going to keep taking this risk anymore. Like, I've gotten lucky, but I feel like I'm going to stop rolling the dice on this dude.

[Greasy Will]

I feel the exact same way every time my registration on my car goes more than eight months out of date. When I'm like, all right, eight months, That's a long time to be getting away with that.

[Robert Evans]

Three years, I didn't register my car. Right. Yeah, stuff like that. Where it's like that probably now we're shoplifting, where it's like, I've got enough money now. I'm not gonna keep taking the risk. And then other people who are like, no one's called me on my shit. Guess I'm gonna get even crazier. And then they become the president.

[Greasy Will]

No reason to stop now. All right, so spoiler alert on Phil. He doesn't get any better. This is his pattern. He keeps going. But they do break up. Him and Lynn break up and he starts expressing desire to relocate back to New York City. New York offered something that he really wanted, which was proximity to a legitimacy in New York at the time. There is a. There is a building called the Brill Building. And we're going to talk. I'll just read. Because it's better to read than summarize. I think. Spector quickly embedded himself in the Brill Building ecosystem, the highly competitive songwriting and production factory that produced some of the most influential pop music of the era. The environment was famously ruthless. Young writers churned out songs daily, competing for placement with artists and labels. Success required speed, instinct, and relentless self promotion. Spectre thrived creatively, but developed a reputation almost immediately for opportunism. So I just read this thing where it's like, hey, everybody's cutthroat up in this shit. And then it's like, spectre immediately gets a reputation for being opportunistic in a cutthroat building. To be opportunistic, to be like that, in a cutthroat building, you definitely in

[Robert Evans]

the music industry to be a cutthroat for people to be like, that guy's fucking ruthless is something, yeah.

[Greasy Will]

Multiple collaborators from this period later accused him of aggressively positioning himself for credit and financial participation in projects that were often collaborative efforts right there. There were recurring stories of Spector inserting himself into songwriting or production roles and minimizing the contributions of others once success became likely. In some cases, he was accused of leaving collaborators off credits entirely, A move that not only deprived them of recognition, but also cut them out of long term royalty income. So he's already just ruthless. So there's something that I wanna bring up here which is about the way that writing works or writing a song works, right? Which is like the deal is if there is no prior agreement, all right? If two people just walk into a

[Robert Evans]

room and write a song together, it is 50, right? And not as part of a pre existing business arrangement or whatever where there's

[Greasy Will]

already a no one spoke specified.

[Robert Evans]

Like, hey, spontaneous art. Yeah.

[Greasy Will]

Yes. If nothing is specified, it is a 50, 50 split. Doesn't matter if one person wrote one word and the other wrote the entire song and all. He was like, if you come into that, if it's three people, it's 33 and a third. If it's four, it's 25%. Unless you have already agreed to something. That's what the like legal split is for this whole situation. So for him to come into like sessions and be like jumping right on, it's like, it's like, I've seen this before. Like somebody walks in the room and starts suggesting things and you're just like, you just took a portion of my, my cut of this song and your suggestions were things I was going to do anyways, that's kind of annoying. You know, it's like, it's really easy to finagle in this time period, especially so. A fellow writer named Beverly Ross, who helped Phil, recalled his promises to Bring her with him if he were to ever get into the right rooms. But he reneged immediately upon being granted opportunities. She saw Phil as a user, and she was eventually offered a staff job, but she declined it because she would have to see Phil every day. So this woman literally turns down a successful money paying job writing at the Brill Building because she was like, oh, I'd have to see Phil every day. And he is cold. I don't want to be around him. He's the worst, right?

[Robert Evans]

Yeah. He's sketchy as hell.

[Sophie]

I respect it. A man could be that annoying that you're like, absolutely not.

[Robert Evans]

I want. This is not worth the job.

[Sophie]

The job is not worth my peace of mind. Please stay away from me.

[Robert Evans]

We should all have that much self respect.

[Ad Voice]

Yes.

[Greasy Will]

Yeah, really. But, you know, 20, 26, man, it's hard, man.

[Robert Evans]

It's hard to live. You gotta get my steals searching right now. It's nuts.

[Greasy Will]

All right, so this is from her quote, I was so gun shy of ever becoming vulnerable to someone who'd betrayed me like that. Because Phil practically killed me emotionally. I figured I wasn't smart enough to handle the part of his personality that I understand. It was like Phil was born without a conscience and I was his victim. He could be so ruthless.

[Robert Evans]

Wow.

[Greasy Will]

So seemingly we have heard only from women that this is an issue. Right. It's like, this does not seem to be very much a male issue.

[Sophie]

This is consistent. Yeah.

[Greasy Will]

Women around him have to feel the bra. And, you know, I mean. Yeah. Again, not to, like, give anybody an out or any empathy for somebody who's a shitty person, because, like, shitty acts are shitty acts and it doesn't matter. But you can see, like, this is kind of like an emotional reaction to his mother and his sister pushing him, controlling him.

[Robert Evans]

And also, too, an explanation isn't absolution.

[Greasy Will]

Yeah, I think I'm gonna talk about this later. But so Phil, whenever he went to work at the Brill Building after he got his. His money from the teddy bears, right. He made a lot of money. He had to actually take his mother to court. I know, it's so funny. He had to take his mother to court to get his money. Because even as like a teenager, his mom was like, no, he can't. You can't. You can't be trusted. You'll leave us. You won't let us have any money. You won't take care of us. And so he's basically even, like, going into adulthood. He's having to fight his mom in court over his own Money. Because of the way things. You know, because the way that she is, the controlling nature of her and everything. So, you know, it's like he's. He's doing that while also controlling other people and. And, you know, doing shitty things to other women.

[Robert Evans]

Yeah, yeah. I mean, that. Yeah. So it's in part just kind of his revenge based on his. His shitty mom.

[Greasy Will]

Yeah, yeah. He's just taking it out on other people.

[Robert Evans]

Well, also, just. He grew up learning that, like, that's what you do to people. Like, you can either be controlled or controlling.

[Greasy Will]

Yes.

[Robert Evans]

I'll pick controlling. Yeah, sure.

[Greasy Will]

So, yeah, so being cutthroat, like we said, being cutthroat isn't weird in the music industry. There's a lot of people that are famous for their ruthless activities inside the music industry, especially in the old days or whatever. But to be in a cutthroat environment and be the cuttiest, throatiest person of that environment is like, okay. Like, everybody is like, no, Phil is the worst of all of them. Like, you know, everybody. Everybody in the building hates him. Nobody trusts him. He gets a reputation for just being, like, the dude that would show up all the time and just, like, jump in on things and take control and all this stuff. People don't like him. So. One of the most important relationships Spectre formed during this New York period was with legendary songwriting production doer Jerry Lieber and Mike Stoller. Lieber and Stoller were already giants of the early rock and rhythm and blues era and were responsible for shaping hits for artists like Elvis Presley, the Coasters. Like numerous other artists, they were architects of the modern producer model, combining songwriting and arrangement and studio direction into a single creative authority at this point, like, music is changing really fast at this point, you know, because the technology's changing. The way that people operate is changing. It went from being like, oh, this is a band that plays this music, to now, like, we got a creative team. All these people are writing this stuff. And, like, also, too, this is really important. This is the first time in musical history that music goes from being marketed to adults to being marketed to teenagers. Oh, right.

[Robert Evans]

Oh, yeah.

[Greasy Will]

Because prior to this, there has never been teenagers with money. Like, teenagers. Just.

[Robert Evans]

They weren't an economic force.

[Greasy Will]

Yeah. Yes.

[Robert Evans]

They weren't an economic force. As a teenager, you're like, you were just working in the mines and handing money to your parents so that they could buy starvation with it. Yeah. So you can afford to starve to death.

[Greasy Will]

So this is the first time in all of recorded history Basically that teenagers become a market, right? And this is really important to this whole overview of, like, where the, the money comes from and how they market to things and how they even write a song. Like, so it went from being like, okay, a band does all this to like a group of guys would get together in a room and start being like, okay, cool, like, I wrote this song, I was going to give it to this person, but, you know, we should give it to this person. And that's why in this time you'll see a lot of like, you know, like Aretha Franklin songs that are also Otis Redding songs later or whatever. You know, like, people would just write a song and give it to an artist, and then anybody who liked that song would also cover it because the money went back to the publishing. Like, the performance is a minimal amount of the money. The publishing is the money. So these guys would keep giving these songs to other people, other artists, and be like, you should do this song. And it just became normalized to do that. So the, the strength of the, of the music industry went from being bands to being producers, right? And this is where Phil kind of slams hard into the industry. All right? So he falls in, like, he, he falls in with these guys, Lieber and Stoller, who are like the guys of the time. They are the Max Martins or whatever famous producer, the Kenny beats or the Dr. Dre's or the whatever you love. They are that of this time. And Spector admired them intensely. He studied their recording techniques, their business strategies, and their ability to shape artist identities from behind the glass. In many ways, Lieber and Stoller provided Spector with a blueprint for the career he wanted to build. Despite recognizing his talent, however, Lieber and Stoller never fully trusted him. Accounts from associates and later biographies described him as simultaneously impressed by Spector's musical talents and wary of his personality. He was ambitious, obsessive, and socially abrasive. He pushed himself into rooms he had not been invited into. He demanded opportunities he had not yet earned. He hovered around sessions, absorbing information and inserting suggestions, persistently trying to attach himself to projects. But they kept giving him chances, Right? Part of this was practical because he was good. He was very good. He was musically talented. Yes. And so it's like, man, you ever worked with somebody who's good at their job but a horrible person? We've all been there, right?

[Robert Evans]

Yes, many a time.

[Sophie]

Many a times, right?

[Robert Evans]

Yeah.

[Greasy Will]

And you're like, oh, Spectre's coming to the studio today.

[Robert Evans]

Yeah, we're going to Write a. I'm going to make sure I'm not there.

[Greasy Will]

But yeah, we're going to write a banger. But.

[Robert Evans]

But he's in the room with that dick. Yeah, yeah.

[Greasy Will]

Their willingness to tolerate him also reflected that, you know, he represents the next step. Like what I was just talking about. He's the next step in the evolutionary ladder of working in the music industry. You know, it's like he is the producer model that will become the tour de force in the industry.

[Robert Evans]

Yeah, that's a good note. I do want to say, you know what? I'm willing to settle for will

[Greasy Will]

billions of dollars. I only want to become a billionaire for the record. And I'm sure. I know, I actually know that you do get. You get billions of dollars from these ads, right?

[Robert Evans]

I do. I do billions of every. Every single ad.

[Greasy Will]

And there's no health care given to any of your employees. You are just like you are Jeff Bezos, man. This is.

[Robert Evans]

I actually bought Bezos's yacht just to sink so that my yacht will avoid sinking the same way. You know, I've heard about that yacht we're doing.

[Greasy Will]

I would not. Yeah, don't sleep on that couch. But as well. I'm saying.

[Sophie]

Anyways, it's time for an ad.

[Robert Evans]

Let's all think about what diseases you'd get from Jeff Bezos yacht couch. And here's some ads.

[Sophie]

Yeah. Jesus Christ.

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[Robert Evans]

We're back. The answer was gonorrhea. All right, Will, let's continue.

[Greasy Will]

All right, so this is where Phil starts really developing his understanding of how records are made. How? I mean this is a learning environment. This is the professional like environment of writers in New York. This is his like high school or college or whatever. This is his moment. He absorbs all that and he starts really understanding like the recording studio. And the process of recording is like the music itself. The music comes from the environment that this stuff is made in as much as anything else. And this is kind of like a new concept because, you know, music is. We're in the 60s right now, right? We're in the 60s. We only really started having, like, reasonable sounding recording, recorded music like 10 years prior to this. Before anything like that. Before 10 years, like, we only got everybody say thank you to Adolf Hitler right now. Thank you, Adolf. Without.

[Sophie]

No.

[Robert Evans]

One of his many contributions.

[Greasy Will]

One of his many contributions to the world was we got post World War II. Do you know this about Hitler? This is actually a really funny little

[Robert Evans]

situation because it was huge to him. He famously believed and wrote about this in Mein Kampf, that the best way to convince people of anything was the human voice. That the pure human voice was the best tool for influencing people.

[Greasy Will]

And at the time, though confused at the time. Exactly. Literally, he was ahead of the curve on that shit. He would have been.

[Robert Evans]

He would have been a podcaster.

[Greasy Will]

Oh, my God. Adolf Hitler, the world's first podcaster. Amazing.

[Robert Evans]

That's right. That's right.

[Greasy Will]

You know, it's like the British were all baffled at the time too, because, like, prior to this, like, basically they had magnetic wire recording and they had wax cylinders that they could record to, right? And it was basically one shot, one kill. If you like, if you messed up, it was over, right? But magnetic recording, actually. And it was cleaner. It sounded way better, like, in comparison to, like the old vinyls that they had, like, it was way cleaner. It sounded more pure. And the Brits were like, how is this guy broadcasting from like eight different cities in absolute clarity? Like, they're so confused at the time. They have no idea what's going on. All because Hitler's over there with the only magnetic recorder that's in the entire world. Because just turns out, basf, they're in Germany, which is still a company. Congratulations, you guys made it through the entire Nazi regime and all the backlash, you know, hats off. So without Hitler and his magnetic recording, we would not have the music industry. They brought the GIS. The GIS brought it back in the 40s to America. We started tinkering with it by late 50s. We have Les Paul and Bill Putnam. Basically like the gods of recording, folks.

[Robert Evans]

If it hadn't been for Hitler, none of us would have been able to hear the Mighty Mighty Boss Tones album about George Floyd. And what kind of America would that be?

[Greasy Will]

I so desperately want to take the time. 5 second story. I once went to a concert and you know the guy that dances on stage and that's his only job, Somebody threw a Shoe. And it hit him right in the fucking face. And it took him completely out. And they stopped the concert and they were like, we're not gonna play. And somebody goes, who cares?

[Sophie]

Wow.

[Greasy Will]

Wow. That's my favorite mighty, mighty Bosswood story. All right, so sorry, I was on a little tangent there. Hitler gave us recording, but it's very new. Recording is very new, right? So the. The way that they record is changing by. By the day, right? It's like people are discovering new things. We go from a single track on. On to record to. To now we have two tracks and you can bounce back and forth. And now we have four tracks. And then the next thing you know, they've got a whole console that they've made that, you know, and these guys are literally building them themselves. Like Bill Putnam was like, building, hand building his own consoles and everything.

[Sophie]

Everything.

[Greasy Will]

And. And so they now have some technology. It opens up the world of recording. Prior to this, if you were a band, that was the only way to record music, right? You had to stand all around this horn and everybody, like, make their noise and whoever was like the loudest in the horn is the loudest. So you put the vocalist the closest and you put the drummer way the hell back. And like, you know, you have to. It's. It's complicated. It's.

[Ad Voice 5]

It's.

[Greasy Will]

You're so concerned with just getting a recording that you don't have really time to think about the artistic direction of the recording. And so this moment in history, the late 50s, early 1960s, this is the moment that changes all of recorded music. And why, obviously I'm such a big fan of this. As someone who considers himself to be a stereophil spectre, you know, I. I absorb a lot of his music and I think that this is like how I try and portray myself in a lot of this stuff without all the, you know. Well, actually, the same number of ex wives. That's great. We have the same number of ex wives at three. We're crushing it. Woo.

[Robert Evans]

But without the other crimes.

[Greasy Will]

Without the other crimes, yeah. All right. So. Rather than treating musicians as equal collaborators, Spector increasingly saw them as interchangeable components in a larger sonic structure. If one player failed to achieve the desired result, another could replace them. If a vocalist lacked the emotional texture he wanted, he could manipulate arrangement, echo, orchestration, reverb all these things to compensate, and it would later evolve. Sorry, go ahead.

[Robert Evans]

No, this is like. And it seems like this is in a lot of ways the birth of the end of music. Transitioning away, popular music, transitioning away from these are people who, like, make something like art that they want to share with people, too. This is a product, and we can cut out pieces and slide in pieces wherever we need to.

[Greasy Will]

100%. This is absolutely the birth of that. This is the birth of, like, I am pitching this song to Ariana Grande because she might sing it great, but I don't care if Beyonce takes it.

[Robert Evans]

Yeah. Let's get bidding on this music. Yeah.

[Greasy Will]

Yes.

[Robert Evans]

Yeah. Yeah, yeah, yeah.

[Greasy Will]

It's no longer as much. I mean, I still think people put as much love and passion into their music as always, but it's.

[Robert Evans]

We're not saying it's nothing but bad or whatever, but it's a big change.

[Greasy Will]

Yes, it is a very big change.

[Robert Evans]

Yeah.

[Greasy Will]

So Spector closely studied records that were experimenting with dense layering and orchestral pop arrangements, particularly productions that emphasized emotional saturation through instrumental doubling and echo chamber effects. Songs like under the Boardwalk. You know that song under the Boardwalk? If you listen to something, if you listen to that, you will absolutely hear what are the early, you know, phrases that. That Spector would draw from. It sounds basically like a Phil Spector song. It's got, you know, like, the orchestration is buried in there. It's like, you know, the vocal is very up front and everything, but everything else is kind of a mesh behind it and. And it's not nearly. There's a lot of reverb and everything. It's not nearly as clean and clear as some of, like. Cause that was the. The goal, right? It was like, for so long, they're like, we just want to make something that sounds good. And then all of a sudden they're like, oh, actually, we can make it anything. So let's just make it sound crazy. Let's make it sound reverby. Let's do, like, experimentation with this stuff. So he starts to get into that. What distinguished Spector was not necessarily that he invented these techniques, but that he became obsessed with expanding them to their absolute extreme. Where earlier producers used layering to enhance song, Spector began envisioning arrangements where individual instruments disappeared into a unified emotional mass. Precision gave way to density. Clarity gave way to atmosphere. The recording was not meant to be dissected. It was meant to overwhelm you, right? And this is like the big principle of the Wall of Sound. Anybody who knows about Phil Spector seriously knows about the Wall of Sound. The Wall of Sound was Phil Spector's creation in sorts. It's a way of recording that makes the music, like, very Wagnerian, right? It's very. It's like a Wagner opera. It's a bunch of noise coming at you, right. And it is meant to overwhelm you. There's often layers of percussion. It was all like, layers of instrumentation. There'd be drummer on drummer on drummer, three piano players, like six guitarists. And this is such a big change because like I said prior to this, it was like, well, you just put a band in a room and then you record the band, right? And so now it's all of a sudden like, I don't have to reproduce this on stage. It doesn't have to sound like this. I'm gonna make this. I'm gonna put 10 pianos on here. I'm gonna go crazy with this shit, you know? Yeah. Like, I can do anything. Okay, I want 10 pianos. Then bring in 10 pianos. Yeah, fuck it. It's also like kind of that, like, era of like, that starts there where it's like the money is actually in music, where they're like, I need 10 pianos tonight. And like someone goes out and picks up 10 pianos, you know? It's really amazing.

[Robert Evans]

Yeah, yeah, yeah. So like, this is also, yeah, kind of the birth of the insane expenditures for like crazy artistical wins aspect.

[Greasy Will]

It later transforms into a cocaine budget, but it's a little early. It's early for the cocaine budget, but it will eventually become a cocaine budget. Exciting. So despite being signed to Lieber and Stoller, those two mentors that he had, he eventually becomes enamored with the co founder of Atlantic Records, Amit Erdogan. And when given the opportunity to jump ship, he wasted no time. Right. Lieber and Stoller are pissed. They're like, bro, what are you doing? Like, we gave you this opportunity, rated

[Sophie]

your bitch ass, and you're just going to dip.

[Greasy Will]

Yes. We tolerated you.

[Robert Evans]

We let you come in, put up with your ass.

[Greasy Will]

And he's like, actually, I was underage when I signed your contract, so it doesn't matter. You guys can't do shit. And he just walks out, right? And. And they're like, fair. That was true. You did in fact sign an underage person to a contract without having the proper legal authority. So. Whoops. Sweet up. So. So he becomes friends with Ahmet Erdogan. Erdogan recognizes his talent and he starts learning from him. It's. He's just an old school record guy, right? And now. So Phil's now learning the business, right? This is. He was in the music thing and now he's like, I'm going to learn the business, Phil would find some reasonable successes during this time, remaining under the tutelage of his friend Lester, still the old World War II veteran. But he would eventually desire more freedom to work as he pleased. And so he and Lester formed Phil S Records, a portmanteau of their two names. I think that's the word. Portmanteau. Right.

[Ad Voice 5]

Whenever.

[Robert Evans]

Portmanteau. That's it. Yep. Thanks.

[Greasy Will]

Nailed it. Look at me with that baby. Look at. I just guessed on that one. Thanks. He was slowly becoming the king of girl groups. It was actually around this time that he was dubbed the Tycoon of teen, which sounds very questionable.

[Sophie]

I don't like that. Don't like that. Nope.

[Greasy Will]

Nope.

[Sophie]

Visceral reaction.

[Greasy Will]

Yeah. So by the age of 21, he had become an undeniable force in the industry. He had produced a string of hits. Like, I think he had, like, 21 top 10 singles in, like, three years or something. Yeah, it was, like, an insane amount. His first major success was Spanish Harlem, after his own Spanish Harlem by Benny King. And then there's no One Other Like My Baby by the Crystals. He's A Rebel by the Crystals. Bobby Socks and the Blue Jeans had us on Zippity Doo Dah. Lots of crazy hits, right? Yeah, Crazy, crazy hits, right?

[Sophie]

Yeah.

[Greasy Will]

Here's a little piece, though. The Crystals are sitting there. They had recorded there's no One Other Like My Baby. It did well in the charts. And then a few months later, they're sitting there listening to the radio one afternoon, and they hear a song come on. They're like, oh, this is cool. This is an interesting song. And they get done, and the radio announces all. And that was He's a Rebel by the Crystals. And they're like, wait, what? Phil had begun recording songs and then releasing them as band songs without any of them having been on the song. He didn't care. He was just like, they're all replaceable. To me, you're all just. You're all just singers. I don't care about you at all. Especially, you're all female singers. You're all female singers. I will just replace you. He never does this to a man, not in his entire career.

[Robert Evans]

Oh, my God.

[Greasy Will]

But to women, he does this.

[Robert Evans]

Be slightly less obvious.

[Greasy Will]

Oh.

[Robert Evans]

But just like 2% less obvious, man. Jesus Christ.

[Greasy Will]

I would have punched 1962.

[Sophie]

I would have punched. I don't care what day. I would have punched him in this face. I would. I would have looked him at eye

[Greasy Will]

level and punched himself. I'm glad you bring that up.

[Ad Voice]

Yes.

[Greasy Will]

I'm glad you bring that up, because another tick in the. Phil is seriously uncomfortable without his gun. Comes from the lead singer of the Crystals. And I forget her name. I'm sorry. I hack and a fraud just like you. So I forgot her name. But she tells a story in this documentary I watch where she's like, yeah, I saw that. And I was like, okay. So she goes. And she talks to this mobster that she knows, and this mobster goes out and just beats the dog piss out of Phil. And it's like, hey, like, if you ever do that again. Yeah. Hey, man. Sometimes organized crime has purpose. Let's be fair, you know?

[Robert Evans]

So it's often more reliable than the government.

[Sophie]

Wait, what was the name of the documentary you were just talking about?

[Greasy Will]

This is from the Agony and the Ecstasy of Phil Spector.

[Robert Evans]

Okay, cool.

[Greasy Will]

So he has a bunch of successes. Zippity Doo Dah. Be My Baby with the Ronettes. You've lost that love and feeling with the Righteous Brothers. He is on top of the world.

[Robert Evans]

Yeah. Jesus, that's.

[Sophie]

Yeah. Be My Baby, that one in an

[Robert Evans]

Uber last night, actually.

[Sophie]

Yeah. Be My Baby is on the. My. I have a vinyl from the Dirty Dancing soundtrack, and it's on there. It's so good.

[Greasy Will]

Very funny story. Years later, Phil Spector, he was asked by Martin Scorsese to use Be My Baby for the opening of Cocaine Cowboy. I think it was the one. Anyway, it's the opening of. It is Be My Baby. They do a whole thing, and he's asked and he's like, no. And then they do it anyway. And he sees it. It comes out. John Lennon shows it to him and he sees it and he comes out and he's like, what the hell? I didn't tell him they could do that, you know? And so he gets all mad and then he sues him, of course. Which, you know, is fair or whatever. That's fair. That's fair. You used song without permission. That's fair. You sued him. But then he goes on for the rest of his life and tells everybody, I made Scorsese. Without me. He didn't. Yeah, okay.

[Robert Evans]

All right. That was a bit of a dick.

[Greasy Will]

So everybody for the rest of his life.

[Robert Evans]

I think that's why.

[Greasy Will]

And that at the pinnacle of Phil's success, is where we will leave this episode. Robert, how do you feel about Phil so far? I mean, he's a little bit of a dick, but, you know, he's hit some bangers.

[Robert Evans]

He's hit some bangers so far. He just sounds like an asshole. Who's really good at his job.

[Sophie]

I didn't know all that shit about his mom.

[Robert Evans]

Oh, wait, no. And a huge misogynist who screws over female.

[Greasy Will]

Yeah.

[Sophie]

Yeah. I would have punched him in the wiener is what I'm saying.

[Greasy Will]

Again. It's like if this was the end, right, you'd be like, yeah. I mean, not really bastard worthy. Like he's.

[Robert Evans]

Yeah, yeah. He's kind of a dick.

[Sophie]

That guy.

[Greasy Will]

Sucks.

[Sophie]

Suck.

[Greasy Will]

But like, there's no shortage of those people in the music industry, right? It's like there really is. Yeah. There's no shortage of horrible people in the music industry. I like, I meet them all the time and then I'm like, cool. This is why I stopped working with labels. I'm going back to my studio. I'll see y' all later. Yeah, but it is. It. There's a lot of them, right? And you know, it's, you know, it's tough too. Is for every awful person I meet in the music industry, I meet a legend that I'm like, you're the nicest person I've ever met. And like, how are you this good and this cool and this person not that good and way shitty. Like, I don't understand it. I'll never get it. There's a weird proportion in that stuff.

[Sophie]

Wild.

[Greasy Will]

Robert, you can be found at I writeokay.

[Robert Evans]

Which I can. Thank you for leading me in.

[Greasy Will]

Yeah. I like to think of it more as like you telling your parents back in the early 2000s why you can't move back home and why you're having success in Los Angeles. And you're like, I write. Okay.

[Robert Evans]

You know, it's just. Yeah. That's kind of how I might have met. Was being exhaustive explaining what I do for a living to people.

[Ad Voice 5]

Right.

[Sophie]

Okay.

[Robert Evans]

Yeah. It's just that. Go away.

[Greasy Will]

I can be found at Greasywill. Eezywillmusic. You can just Google me. I'm like on the Internet all over it. I have a recording course if you want to learn about how to record from a Grammy Award winning engineer, I have one. It can be [e-mail] or you can just Google me. Or you can go to my. I'm on the Internet, man. I'm on the Internet. Like, it can't be that hard there.

[Robert Evans]

It's easy to find people.

[Greasy Will]

I feel like you guys will be fine tracking it. It's a Z. It's not with an S. I get a lot of greasy wills and that kind of does make me mad. Different. Guy. Different guy. Don't want to meet him.

[Sophie]

I mean, if you told this on the podcast, who gave you the name Greasy Will?

[Greasy Will]

Pharrell. It came from Pharrell. Came from a Pharrell session.

[Sophie]

Exactly.

[Greasy Will]

Yeah.

[Robert Evans]

It's very cool.

[Sophie]

It's fucking cool.

[Greasy Will]

Very cool. It was very cool. It's super cool. You know? Yeah, you know.

[Sophie]

This is the end of the episode, friends. We'll be back. We'll be back. Behind the Bastards is a production of Cool Zone Media. For more from Cool Zone Media, Visit our website coolzone media.com or check us out on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcast. Full video episodes of behind the Bastards are now streaming on Netflix, dropping every Tuesday and Thursday. Hit remind me on Netflix so you don't miss an episode. For clips in our older episode catalog, continue to subscribe to our YouTube channel, YouTube.com behindthebastards we love about 40% of you. Statistically speaking,

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[Greasy Will]

Hear that?

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[Robert Evans]

All types.

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