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- [00:00]
Bill Maher
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- [01:09]
Paul Anka
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- [01:36]
Bill Maher
Well, folks, if you're going to spend money on something, it might as well be something you actually like. That's what I always say. That's where the Club Random merch store comes in. That's right. Get yourself a cozy hoodie. Look at this. This is really well designed. That's right. Get yourself a cozy hoodie to snuggle away your sorrows. Or some new Club Random shirts. Look at all this shit. I have to attract a partner with similar interests and live happily ever after. I've seen crazier rom coms. So head over to clubrandom.com and bring
- [02:11]
Paul Anka
home some Random I'll never forget a conversation I had with people that were close to government and they said something really interest. He said Club Random. Now, the Kessler twins were six feet tall.
- [02:26]
Bill Maher
Okay, well, this is a very rock star thing if you wanted to use it for the answer to that question.
- [02:30]
Paul Anka
Club Random I hear footsteps.
- [02:34]
Bill Maher
Be still my beating heart.
- [02:36]
Paul Anka
I feel the aura. Hey. Hey. You got all dressed up for me, buddy.
- [02:43]
Bill Maher
Not just for you. As you.
- [02:45]
Paul Anka
Oh yeah, exactly. This vegan as you.
- [02:49]
Bill Maher
This is my best listen it looks good.
- [02:53]
Paul Anka
Your lady saw me like that in Florida.
- [02:55]
Bill Maher
Look at this gold watch.
- [02:56]
Paul Anka
Oh boy.
- [02:57]
Bill Maher
Diamond and onyx cufflinks.
- [03:00]
Paul Anka
Well, you see, I don't wear cufflinks anymore.
- [03:02]
Bill Maher
What?
- [03:02]
Paul Anka
I don't wear cufflinks anymore.
- [03:05]
Bill Maher
I don't either. I don't like do it to Garden. But you're here. I can't believe the classiest guy in the world is here in my rat. Skeller.
- [03:15]
Paul Anka
Listen, this is sub cellar. I gotta tell you, I look at the memories on this wall. 450 for the Beatles ticket. And I was responsible for getting them over here.
- [03:24]
Bill Maher
Did you know that of that Beatles poster?
- [03:26]
Paul Anka
Right.
- [03:26]
Bill Maher
Chase Stadium, August 23, 1965. I was nine.
- [03:32]
Paul Anka
Well, I was in. I was 18, 17, something like that.
- [03:37]
Bill Maher
You were a teeny bopper star.
- [03:39]
Paul Anka
I was a teeny everything.
- [03:40]
Bill Maher
Oh, I know.
- [03:41]
Paul Anka
I've remained a teeny.
- [03:42]
Bill Maher
Other than just amazing. The chapters in your life, the documentary, hbo, we talked about it in real time. But you know, if anybody was begging for a documentary because like you just forget so many different compartments in your life and then you put it all together and there's just not a dull moment in the thing because it goes from, you know, teeny bopper. That's kind of interesting. And then, you know, to down for a while because the 60s and you know, the Beatles, those assholes came in.
- [04:16]
Paul Anka
They were good assholes. I was happy. No, I was happy. It happened frankly, you know, because I'd met him in Europe and kept hounding my agents to bring him over and trying to educate them who they were not in a media driven society. He had no idea. But you know what happened when they came, Bill? It was really good for me because up until then, you know, even though we had shifted the culture, all the teenagers, the pop music was not accepted, you know, it was our fans. And then no one liked us.
- [04:48]
Bill Maher
That's true of everybody. You got your fans and you had
- [04:52]
Paul Anka
our fans and the adults hated us, clergy hated us, etc.
- [04:55]
Bill Maher
Well, that's why the kids like you.
- [04:57]
Paul Anka
Yeah, exactly.
- [04:58]
Bill Maher
That's what you want.
- [04:59]
Paul Anka
Yeah, yeah. But then when they hit Madison Avenue opened up, there's a lot of attention.
- [05:05]
Bill Maher
Oh, I see.
- [05:06]
Paul Anka
And then I said, wow, this is cool. And I was writing and I was living in Europe. It was cool for me. A lot of my buddies got hurt. But, you know, it's the way the
- [05:15]
Bill Maher
business goes, you know, the superpower, I guess everything they call a superpower these days. But some people do have it, is writing in music. You know, it's like in basketball, we say creating your own shot, you know, you don't need a guy to pass it to you.
- [05:33]
Paul Anka
That's right.
- [05:34]
Bill Maher
That's rare. But some can do it. And same thing in music. I mean, that's really. To me, that's what they. And Dylan. That was the biggest revolution, was that the artists were writing their own material. Before that, artists did not.
- [05:48]
Paul Anka
No, right. No. Very rare.
- [05:50]
Bill Maher
Sinatra never wrote a song.
- [05:52]
Paul Anka
Never wrote a song. Presley didn't write, put his name on a few, as we discussed on the show. That's a whole other thing.
- [05:57]
Bill Maher
No, that's true.
- [05:58]
Paul Anka
Most of them did not write their own music. But as I stated on the show to you, you know, I realized that early that without the writers, whether it's tv, movies, songs, what have you, there are no success stories. There's no record companies. There's no lawyers. There's no. There's nothing the writer or the written. The play is. The thing is everything. Everything.
- [06:22]
Bill Maher
You know, what I never understand about songwriting is how could it possibly be? There's only like 12 notes. Right. Or something.
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Paul Anka
That's right.
- [06:34]
Bill Maher
How could it possibly mathematically be that there's any song that hasn't been written? It just seems like it's the hardest thing in the world. I don't write songs. But to. Like, how can those. How can there be so many combination of notes that are different? If it is a finite number, 12, which I'm sure does have a, you know, multiplication factor, of course. And yet they keep doing it.
- [07:01]
Paul Anka
Yeah. And it has to be simple. You want to write a hit song, you got to do it with one finger. When you look at those notes, if you can play it on one finger, you got a chance of having a hit when you get too fancy. It's all these great composers that have done these films, et cetera. They've never written hit songs. It's so complicated. If you just keep it simple on that finger, that important finger, that active finger.
- [07:30]
Bill Maher
I mean, look, as I always say, I'm just the young man in the 22nd row. I'm just a fan, which is very liberating not to have any musical talent, but to my ear. And I am a big music fan, you know, I mean, I cultivate my collection very carefully.
- [07:44]
Paul Anka
Yeah.
- [07:45]
Bill Maher
And I'm so glad we having this time. As opposed on the show, when you were plugging, like, nine things. Now I can talk to you about the music, which I'm a big fan of, but it just seems to me from my ear that it's a little more Complicated than bing, bing, bing. Because there's a certain sort of crying quality in certain songs that just gets to me, you know, Like Hold Me Till the Morning Comes. Perfect example. I mean, to me, that's, you know. Who is it with you on that?
- [08:19]
Paul Anka
David Foster.
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Bill Maher
No.
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Paul Anka
Peter Cetera.
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Bill Maher
Peter Cetera.
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Paul Anka
Peter Cetera. Yeah. He did a great job. Great singer. But, you know, when you construct those songs, we're very aware of the kind of buttons that we have to push. And going back to good being the enemy of great, you can't just sit down and write it. Everybody can write a song. Most people do. But to hit the real magic and to get the money notes, it takes a little crafting and awareness. And when you look at the success of Cole Porter, he wrote in a lot of minor keys. And in a minor key, you can really evoke a lot of emotion. Irving Berlin had a piano that was put in one key, the key of F. He never played any other key.
- [09:05]
Bill Maher
I've heard that. And I think intuitively, I think even the casual listener gets it, that it is the minor keys. You can hear them.
- [09:12]
Paul Anka
You can hear it, absolutely.
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Bill Maher
But still, like, since Scott, Secret's out of the bag any. It's not like anybody could just sit down and go, oh, well, I know the Secret minor keys. It has to be some further. And it doesn't have to play off of major keys because it's the change that evokes the emotion.
- [09:33]
Paul Anka
Yeah, yeah, exactly. No, it's a craft. And everybody's given a craft. Everybody's given something, but that gave you eternal life. It totally was the gravitas. And it gave you the longevity factor.
- [09:47]
Bill Maher
You could reinvent yourself as many times as you needed to. And, you know, for me, again, in that I was way too young for your early teeny bopper thing. Okay? I was in the crib, okay?
- [10:02]
Paul Anka
Right.
- [10:02]
Bill Maher
So. But by the time I was listening to music, like in the late 60s,
- [10:08]
Paul Anka
right, like folk, Dylan, all that stuff.
- [10:12]
Bill Maher
Well, Beatles and, you know, I feel like I got onto you in the 70s. Like, you were, you know, I was like a young man, and you were like the kind of guy I wanted to be, you know, tan. I always wanted to be tan and of Irish. You know, it's very easy.
- [10:27]
Paul Anka
Just get out in the sun. Everybody label. I love the sun.
- [10:31]
Bill Maher
That's because you are a heritage. My Irish people.
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Paul Anka
That doesn't work for us.
- [10:36]
Bill Maher
You know, just go in the sun. Yeah, you just look better the more you're in the sun.
- [10:40]
Paul Anka
In case of a tie, I get a Tan. Because I hate makeup. You know who taught me? Cary Grant. He said, don't wear makeup. And this goes way back to Vegas. And he never wore makeup. And even Dean, you know, a whole bunch of us were kind of taught to get a tan. And don't put that stuff on your face.
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Bill Maher
Yeah, you fucking guineas don't need makeup.
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Paul Anka
Exactly.
- [11:01]
Bill Maher
Yeah, no kidding, right? Your skin is olive. That's what I always wanted. So I like you. In the 70s, you were like, you know, if. If you weren't in the Rat Pack, you were on the waiting list. You, you know, you were like the.
- [11:13]
Paul Anka
Oh, I was in there.
- [11:14]
Bill Maher
You were in there.
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Paul Anka
Oh, I was a junior member, without a doubt. Oh, absolutely. I saw it all.
- [11:19]
Bill Maher
No, no, I did it all. I mean, I felt like you were. Anyway, so as a young man of that age, I was like, that is. This is what I want. Guy in Vegas. The songs were all, like, about sex as much as you could do. But, you know, she's a one man woman and I'm a two. And not apologize.
- [11:40]
Paul Anka
And I can myself. I'll do it again. Yeah, listen, the women. First thing I got into was the women, you know, I wasn't a great guy with chicks when I was a kid. I got a hit record, it flooded open, and then I made up for it, you know, all of a sudden I was getting action I never dreamed of getting in every country, every flavor. So I stayed with it as opposed to other naughty things. And that was it for me.
- [12:08]
Bill Maher
Yeah, because music just really gets to women. My theory always is, I mean, besides that, we all love music on a very visceral level. But for women, what they crave is men being more open, more communicative, saying the things they want to hear, as opposed to grunting, guy, sure, I love you. Or whatever. Me too, you know, so that's what a lot of music is. It's a man. If it's a man can be a woman. But certainly, you know, two women, heterosexual women. And of course, that could be anything. You have to apologize for everything before you even say it. Start the point. It's just they're hearing the things, you know, you're two times, three times a lady. And they're just.
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Paul Anka
It's a door opener. It's the door opener. Music.
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Bill Maher
Yes, exactly.
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Paul Anka
And the other goes to the brain, right? Yeah.
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Bill Maher
That's comedians, comedians. I know. That's why we all want to be singers.
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Paul Anka
That's why I want to be a Canadian. I'm sick of the other. I don't want it so easy.
- [13:10]
Bill Maher
The ones have to go through the brain. Jesus Christ. It's like that straight of her moose. I got to go through there to get.
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Paul Anka
When you get to sex, it's all the brain. But no, no, no, no, no. It came. It all came up. You know, you can't write songs. I left my brain and it doesn't sing. Somebody came up with, we're going to use heart. The heart does nothing in sex. It's all up here. You know that. The heart's meeting.
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Bill Maher
Remember Dr. Ruth?
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Paul Anka
Sure. Hello. Hello, Bill. How are you? I'd like to be on your show. Listen, if you do it three times a day, you will glee for 20 years.
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Bill Maher
Exactly. Very good impression.
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Paul Anka
Thank you, sir.
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Bill Maher
The kids don't know, but she has. She's on TV all the time for a while as this sex therapist. This little homunculus German lady.
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Paul Anka
She was a fire. What do you call fire? Fire. She was a fire hydrant. I was taller than her. Her and Sammy Davis, I towered over dubious distinction.
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Bill Maher
But she would always say the most important sexual organ is the brain. You know, And I guess it's true. I mean, certain.
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Paul Anka
It's very true.
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Bill Maher
Well, it's certainly true as you get older, as I'm just speaking. I won't speak for all men, but for this man. And I think this is all men. You know, you're so. You have so many hormones racing through your body when you're 15, 20 years old that, you know, the brain, yeah, it's involved, but like, your dick gets hard when the wind blows, you know, so you're. But the older you get. Which is why people also go to perverted things, because they just get jaded.
- [14:45]
Paul Anka
That's right. But whoever it is gave us a dick and a brain and not enough blood for both. And that still prevails at you later age. And not enough blood for both.
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Bill Maher
What's the most rock star thing you ever did?
- [15:00]
Paul Anka
Oh, God. Do we have the time? Oh, my God. You know, it's so eclectic. In many years, I think it all. I think I have to go back to Vegas, you know, because we had, you know, working for those guys and working with the Red. The mob. It was such an experience for me. I learned so much from them. Believe it or not, these were gentlemen. I mean, these guys, they were the coolest guys ever. But I think the craziest thing I did out of the box was always showgirls. We had everything that we wanted. I think I wound up with, you know, I wound up in a steam room with about 12 of them with Jimmy Webb, you know, the composer, of course.
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Bill Maher
Jimmy, MacArthur park is melting in the dark.
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Paul Anka
That's right. We took.
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Bill Maher
Please.
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Paul Anka
I think there must have been, I don't know, 812 of them into the steam room at the Sands Hotel. And of course, at that point in time, we knew what to do or tried our best.
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Bill Maher
Was it. Was the steam on?
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Paul Anka
I couldn't tell. I was so affected because, like.
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Bill Maher
I mean, the idea of, like, having vigorous sex while you're in the.
- [16:10]
Paul Anka
Oh, you gotta get out of the steam. Oh, you gotta get on the massage tables. Oh, yeah. We were out. When I'd stay too long in there, I'd have a hose put in there with cold water and I used to dose myself with cold water. That's how I'd stay long in a steam room. But when we were in action. No, no, no. We'd go in, play around, go out and.
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Bill Maher
But that's a very cool thing to do, right, to go to the steam room.
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Paul Anka
Yeah. We always. Everybody met there after work. We all went together.
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Bill Maher
Then you got naked and went in there together?
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Paul Anka
Well, anyone who had clothes on, he was not allowed to.
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Bill Maher
I'm not implying anything that you want.
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Paul Anka
You can apply anything you want. You get an honest ass.
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Bill Maher
Spend a great deal of time naked with other men, and that's perfectly fine.
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Paul Anka
And you'd sit there and poor Dean was in the corner singing, oh, little things mean a lot. Because Frank was hung like a horse. Oh, God bless him. It's the old joke that was the rumor when they. It's not a rumor. Ava Gardner. Somebody asked her many years ago. Because I never talk out of school about him because I adored him. She said. Somebody said, is it true about Mr. Sinatra that he's. It's. She said, let me tell you this. He weighs 120 pounds and 20 pounds is his cock. That's the famous Eva Gardner lied, and she was right.
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Bill Maher
Did you read the biography by his valet, George Alber? No, George J. Oh, George.
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Paul Anka
Yes, I did.
- [17:30]
Bill Maher
It's one of the greatest books I've ever read. It's the best couple of them.
- [17:34]
Paul Anka
And I hear someone's doing a movie about it.
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Bill Maher
It's brilliant. First of all, it's brilliantly written. It's funny as all the way through. And it's so insightful. And it's a guy. And it. I. I believe it word for word because he's not. He doesn't spare Frank mentioning his flaws, including he could be very cruel and was cruel to George. But George, he was Generally so great to him that he doesn't have any bitterness about it. Even though, like, he did, like, just mean practical jokes sometimes, like. And in this case he left him in Israel, like, with no money. And they thought that was hysterical.
- [18:14]
Paul Anka
Yeah.
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Bill Maher
But he was a true pioneer in breaking down racial barriers.
- [18:19]
Paul Anka
Absolutely.
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Bill Maher
And he treated like, on a one to one level, him and Sammy Davis Jr. I mean, he treated them in an era where white men did not always do that. Black men treat them with equal, you know.
- [18:32]
Paul Anka
And I was there in Vegas when Sammy could not come into our hotel. And Frank put his foot down and moved them all out of the black hotels and said, they work in this hotel or I'm not here. He changed it. Sinatra and everyone came over and lived at the Sands when they weren't allowed to.
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Bill Maher
I love when you do his songs.
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Paul Anka
I'm Not Anyone. What? The song, I'm Not Anyone. You mean Sammy's or Franks?
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Bill Maher
Franks.
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Paul Anka
Oh, no.
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Bill Maher
Like, you've covered a lot. You did September of My Year. No.
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Paul Anka
Oh, yeah, I did.
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Bill Maher
When I was 17.
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Paul Anka
17.
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Bill Maher
You should do September of My Years.
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Paul Anka
I was thinking about it. I'm looking at it right there. I've got an arrangement on my piano, but lyrically it's. You know, I look at my whole gig when I do it and I try to not repeat lyrics. I don't want to get into it.
- [19:20]
Bill Maher
Yeah, it's very similar to when I was 17.
- [19:22]
Paul Anka
And when I was 17. I remember doing 17. But the song I wrote, pivoting for Sammy Davis. I thought you saw it in the doc. That's one of the most important songs to me that I've written. And one that I cherish called I'm Not Anyone. And he and I do it together on stage. But that was a real moment for me writing that for Sammy because he was the most talented guy of all of us. And even Frank would agree that man was something. When you look at Prince or you look at Mars, all these kids today, even Michael, they're all copying the moves. Sammy Davis and James Brown and Jackie Wilson, but Sammy was the guy. I'd sit off stage, Bill, and watch him. It was remarkable what he did. He was a terrible guy.
- [20:12]
Bill Maher
Yeah, I mean, that's in the George Jacobs book that even Frank thought that that's correct. And. And that Ava, he was so talented. Ava. He kind of had a crush on him, Sammy. Yeah,
- [20:28]
Paul Anka
a lot of women did.
- [20:29]
Bill Maher
Yeah, he.
- [20:30]
Paul Anka
He scored big time, Sammy.
- [20:32]
Bill Maher
But that's the one.
- [20:33]
Paul Anka
Frank didn't want to hear that, though.
- [20:36]
Bill Maher
I mean, that's what this book. I feel like it really captures both sides accurately. Because he was kind of bipolar. I mean, you see it in the music. I forget who I was talking to about this here, but he, like, the music is either, like, very up out of the tree of life, I pick me up plumber. You know, all this fly me to the very up, you know, optimistic people were in those days. You know, like, I got the world on rainbow. A lot of plum picking and rainbow. Good times for white people.
- [21:14]
Paul Anka
Oh, yeah.
- [21:15]
Bill Maher
Great for white people. White people. Or it's. It's quarter to three.
- [21:20]
Paul Anka
No one
- [21:22]
Bill Maher
shoot myself with me.
- [21:25]
Paul Anka
Well, you know, when he sit in the bar, we used to sit with him. He never forgot that chick. When he listened to a piano. He truly loved this woman.
- [21:34]
Bill Maher
It is the theme of the book.
- [21:36]
Paul Anka
Yeah.
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Bill Maher
Because George was with him from, like, the early 50s when he got with Ava, I think he had already been with her when George. Frank poached him from some Swifty Lazar.
- [21:48]
Paul Anka
That's right. The agent.
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Bill Maher
Right. So. And through. And his downfall was when Frank was married to Mia Farrow, he was at the Peppermint Lounge, like, with her, I think it was that club, some club here in la, and, you know, kind of like bodyguarding her. But they were friends and was photographed looking like he was dancing with her. Okay, well, then, you know. And when Frank cut you off, it was like it was complete.
- [22:20]
Paul Anka
That's right.
- [22:21]
Bill Maher
You know, there was. There was no.
- [22:23]
Paul Anka
No smiley faces being texted, let's go lose my number.
- [22:29]
Bill Maher
But, yes, the theme really is Ava. Like, he has. At one point, he said something like, every love song he sang was about Ava, and every woman he was with was an attempt to forget her. So he did have that side to him.
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Paul Anka
Oh, he did. There's no question about it. No, you saw the many moods, you know, but for me, I adored this guy. You know, what I learned from him and being around him, and I understood. You know, people have this misconception of who we are as artists, because I don't know that all artists, when they start Bill, know who the hell they are. They're trying to pretend to be somebody that they think they are. And I've seen that for so many years. You know, first thing, most of us came from modest backgrounds. You get on this. This kind of journey of success, and all you're saying to yourself is, will I ever get smart enough to deal with it, find out who I am? You know, and. And I've seen that in so many.
- [23:38]
Bill Maher
Really?
- [23:38]
Paul Anka
Oh, absolutely.
- [23:40]
Bill Maher
Yourself?
- [23:41]
Paul Anka
Well, I was Trying to find out
- [23:42]
Bill Maher
who I was, to what age.
- [23:45]
Paul Anka
I think it started breaking through. I was around 22. I started believing and getting a grasp on who and what I was about. Yeah. Wow.
- [23:53]
Bill Maher
That was way before I got a clue.
- [23:55]
Paul Anka
20. You were in comedy? I was in music, and I started at 13.
- [23:59]
Bill Maher
No, you. Right.
- [24:01]
Paul Anka
No.
- [24:02]
Bill Maher
Yeah. I mean, I can't imagine what it's like to have worldwide fame when you're
- [24:05]
Paul Anka
that age, because, well, it's a huge obligation and challenge. I was all over the world right down to. Was the first one to ever go to a communist country. I was getting on a plane in Switzerland, and these militia were coming with dogs and, you know, the guns. And they were putting this guy on the plane, and he sat right in front of me. Big, big guy, bald head. He sat down. They all sat around me. And I was flying from Geneva to Paris. And he said, what do you do? I said, I'm a singer. What do you sing? I said, I sing my own song. Blah, blah, blah. He says, what's your name? I said, paink. He said, polanka. Polanca. I'm the president of Poland. I mean, what are the odds on it, right? I said, well, nice to meet you. He said, would you ever come to my country? I'm gonna say, no. I'm at 30,000ft with guys with. I said, yeah, whatever, you know? So I get home, fade out, fade in. I get a call from the State Department, like, two months later. They said, did you meet the president of Poland on a public. I said, yeah. Hold this. $15,000 in the bank of America, and we would like you to go. I said, really?
- [25:21]
Bill Maher
Go To Poland.
- [25:22]
Paul Anka
To Poland?
- [25:23]
Bill Maher
Why?
- [25:24]
Paul Anka
To sing for his people. You know, I was a. Oh, here.
- [25:28]
Bill Maher
He deposited 15.
- [25:29]
Paul Anka
Oh, yeah. He did, yeah. Yeah. Well, whoever.
- [25:32]
Bill Maher
Before you even said yes to the gig, before.
- [25:35]
Paul Anka
They had to go through the State Department. He went through the State Department.
- [25:37]
Bill Maher
What did you do?
- [25:39]
Paul Anka
I went.
- [25:40]
Bill Maher
You did? I said, why if you didn't want to?
- [25:42]
Paul Anka
I didn't say I didn't want to. I couldn't give him a quick answer. It wasn't like going to Vegas or fountain, bro. It's Poland we're talking about. So now. So I'm. And I'm curious. You know, I've lived my life.
- [25:54]
Bill Maher
What year was this?
- [25:55]
Paul Anka
1960.
- [25:57]
Bill Maher
Oh, so they were still behind the iron curtain?
- [25:59]
Paul Anka
Oh, yes. Was it 63? Yeah. I'll tell you when it was, because I'm spacing it. I go over. First of all, we check in a hotel, one bathroom for the whole floor. No room service. And dark and bleak. I go to the Canadian embassy and I say, can I have some ham and some food and some bread? I mean, it was a Troy. The only thing I had was vodka, the Polish vodka with the straw in it. I mean, we blasted out everywhere.
- [26:27]
Bill Maher
What did you eat?
- [26:29]
Paul Anka
Ham crackers.
- [26:30]
Bill Maher
Oh, they did have that.
- [26:31]
Paul Anka
Oh, yeah. Well, the embassy gave it to me.
- [26:33]
Bill Maher
Oh, I see.
- [26:33]
Paul Anka
So now they started bringing these people to these shows on these streetcars and the tracks went right into the stadiums. And every night when I'd go to work, I'd see, like, old factories in the distance and one light. It was depressing, right? But the people were amazing. They were unbelievable. They knew the music because they were manufacturing postcards and putting my music on the postcard and selling it to the people behind the Iron Curtain. So now, the point of all this, I'm sitting with this guy from United Press like this around six at night. And there was an old radio in the corner and they were pumping in Radio Free Europe. And they have a limited vocabulary. It's like talking to Arnold schwarzenegger. There's like 60 words. So like, 60 words. And I'm sitting with this guy and I hear the guy goes, and President Kennedy landed in Dallas at 1 and he was shot. And it's just. And do you know when you're so
- [27:43]
Bill Maher
removed, that's where you heard it.
- [27:45]
Paul Anka
Sitting in a dressing room in Poland with this guy. I said to this guy, said, I think Kennedy's just killed. He said, what do you mean? We go over to the radio. Sure enough, I start crying. I go on stage a few minutes later and place was packed and all government people. I said, ladies and gentlemen, I'm going home. My president's just been killed. But I will come back one day. I just have to go home, right? The police, they loved him. They went nuts. The next day at the airport, people were coming up on Matchbox covers writing, we loved him. The Russians did. I'll never forget that day.
- [28:26]
Bill Maher
Well, I mean, it's especially poignant for the kids who may not know that in 1963, when this was going on, Poland, being behind the Iron Curtain was supposedly part of the Warsaw Pact, of course, led by the Soviet Union. And we were the enemy. We were NATO and the west and America. And they were Communists and, you know, in the Soviet orbit. And we were supposed to just totally fucking hate each other.
- [28:56]
Paul Anka
That's right.
- [28:56]
Bill Maher
So the fact that they reacted this way shows you it was all a facade.
- [29:02]
Paul Anka
And I had the same a Total. Because when I went to Czechoslovakia, they heard about Poland. I went back a couple of years later to Czechoslovakia, and they assigned a Communist member, this woman, Natalie Lasheva, and she was a Communist member. And she said to me, you know, they're not all Communists. There's only a million of us. And she'd show me her card, and every night at dinner, we'd debate about my country, the us what we stand for and what she thought about us. And we would go back and forth after every show, but the people were amazing. They'd show up. I'd go down to a show in the bar, there'd be a few hundreds would show up. And the last dinner, when we said goodbye, I said, you know, hopefully one day you'll understand where I'm coming from. Fade out. Fade in. I get a letter from this woman about a year ago, a year after the date, remember when the Russians moved in with the tanks and took over Czechoslovakia?
- [29:59]
Bill Maher
68.
- [30:00]
Paul Anka
Yeah. They move in, she writes me a letter. She said, Dear Mr. Ankar, you were so right.
- [30:07]
Bill Maher
Wow.
- [30:07]
Paul Anka
About what we have to live through. You were so right about your country. Can you help me? My daughter, who you met, and I met this kid of hers, I've smuggled her out of Czechoslovakia to Belgium, and I don't have any money to pay. I said, this is from the U.S. i answered her. I sent her the money, put the kid through school.
- [30:29]
Bill Maher
Good for you. It makes me so frustrated when I see so much sympathy for communism among kids today because they just are not taught history. And just because we lived through it doesn't really reach them because they're entitled and they think they know everything. And that's a lot of youth of every generation. You think you know everything. Yeah, okay, but we did try this. It is an evil, evil system that just doesn't work. I don't know what debates you were having around the bratwurst barrel there at 12:30 at night when you were 22 years old, arguing for America. But, you know, my argument would be, you're fucking standing in line for a potato. And have you seen our supermarkets? I mean, you have to harness human nature to make any institution successful. Human nature is selfish.
- [31:31]
Paul Anka
That's right.
- [31:32]
Bill Maher
Communism pretends it is not.
- [31:34]
Paul Anka
That's right.
- [31:35]
Bill Maher
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- [34:48]
Paul Anka
That's it.
- [34:49]
Bill Maher
That's it.
- [34:49]
Paul Anka
Thin book.
- [34:50]
Bill Maher
Thin Bill Maher's thin book.
- [34:53]
Paul Anka
I'd come home in both countries. You'd see lines around the block in these little stores for toothpaste, for food, for a T shirt. Everyone in my band and myself, we left everything we brought. I left my clothes, everything. My suitcases were empty in both countries. I just gave them away. Gave them away.
- [35:15]
Bill Maher
I saw in the documentary, somebody comes up to you in some foreign country, and it was very similar to what you just said. Like, oh, you're so modest and humble, unlike so many people in this business. You're so gracious about. If somebody doesn't know you right away, you have none of that. Really. You don't know who I am. And, like, in two seconds, they do. Oh, that guy.
- [35:41]
Paul Anka
Oh, you mean the two. The three kids from Chicago.
- [35:43]
Bill Maher
Yes.
- [35:44]
Paul Anka
With the ice cream in Japan.
- [35:45]
Bill Maher
They were, like, from somewhere.
- [35:47]
Paul Anka
They're from Chicago.
- [35:48]
Bill Maher
Yeah. Okay. But they were not American. They were not American or.
- [35:51]
Paul Anka
Yeah, American. The kid was from Chicago. His father had all my albums. One kid was from Australia.
- [35:56]
Bill Maher
But as soon as you said your name, they were like. It clicked.
- [35:59]
Paul Anka
Yeah.
- [36:00]
Bill Maher
You know, and that's a great quality, you know, because people, you know, you do your career with great joy at reeds. You know, when you sing, you know, you do it more joyfully, you know, you were such a. You're such a worthy successor to Sinatra. Like, you're the only one still kind of hitting that beat for a lot
- [36:25]
Paul Anka
of us who love that.
- [36:26]
Bill Maher
Oh, yeah.
- [36:27]
Paul Anka
You. No one can be Sinatra. And I appreciate.
- [36:30]
Bill Maher
But you do great covers. That's why I'm suggesting, you know, what else you could do. You're so right for what's wrong.
- [36:39]
Paul Anka
Oh, my God. You got a good one there. Yeah.
- [36:43]
Bill Maher
Not my version. You know what I'm talking about?
- [36:45]
Paul Anka
Yeah.
- [36:45]
Bill Maher
You're so right for what's wrong in my life. It's very romantic. Yeah, yeah, yeah.
- [36:50]
Paul Anka
Well, he. Listen, if you heard. The thing about Sinatra was, no matter what you listen to, as soon as it came on, within five seconds, he puts you in the mood. Five seconds. And he's ruined it for every other singer for years for trying to stand in front of a big swing orchestra because nobody like him.
- [37:10]
Bill Maher
Big swing orchestra. Oh, I'm so glad you're reminding me of that, because you know this part. You don't.
- [37:16]
Paul Anka
Well, I do, but I'm driving.
- [37:18]
Bill Maher
Okay.
- [37:19]
Paul Anka
Yeah, but I'll take a hit.
- [37:20]
Bill Maher
Okay. Awesome.
- [37:22]
Paul Anka
This is a. Let me See if you're as good as mine. No, usually when I get home, I
- [37:26]
Bill Maher
get red letter D. For me.
- [37:27]
Paul Anka
It's all right. Everybody in the room.
- [37:30]
Bill Maher
Oh. So what were we just talking about?
- [37:33]
Paul Anka
Oh, big orchestra.
- [37:34]
Bill Maher
Oh, yes, yes.
- [37:35]
Paul Anka
And you bumped.
- [37:36]
Bill Maher
Yes. Thank you so much. You know, my favorite record of yours is Rock Swings.
- [37:41]
Paul Anka
Oh, man, I had fun making that.
- [37:43]
Bill Maher
I mean, you have so many great singles. I love the 70s singles.
- [37:46]
Paul Anka
Yeah.
- [37:47]
Bill Maher
And Peter Cetera. Celine Dion. That song.
- [37:50]
Paul Anka
Yeah.
- [37:50]
Bill Maher
I mean, so many great songs. And of course, you know, I love. I always played on my birthday. I have a little birthday.
- [37:56]
Paul Anka
Time's your life.
- [37:57]
Bill Maher
Yes.
- [37:58]
Paul Anka
Yeah. That's from the Having My Baby album. Yeah.
- [38:00]
Bill Maher
Yes. Having my baby. More 70s, you know. Yeah, well, you know, she's my best friend's wife.
- [38:09]
Paul Anka
Wow, you're really hitting them.
- [38:10]
Bill Maher
Oh, wow.
- [38:11]
Paul Anka
Best friend's wife is the love of my life. You. Wow.
- [38:14]
Bill Maher
There's a song you had out that was. It was like almost exactly Barry White. It had like the complete.
- [38:21]
Paul Anka
Oh, the disco with Odia Coates.
- [38:22]
Bill Maher
Oh, Odia Coates is on.
- [38:24]
Paul Anka
Never gonna fall in love Again. Like I fell in love with you. Is that the one? Never. The Disco, I think it's called.
- [38:31]
Bill Maher
You can Pay me Back in Love.
- [38:33]
Paul Anka
You can pay me back in Love, boy. No, I don't want to. I don't want to remember that. That I don't know.
- [38:43]
Bill Maher
No, it's actually not bad. But it does sound like you're channeling Barry White, you know?
- [38:48]
Paul Anka
I love Barry White.
- [38:49]
Bill Maher
I love Barry White.
- [38:50]
Paul Anka
Oh, he.
- [38:52]
Bill Maher
His like top 10 are awesome.
- [38:53]
Paul Anka
He is so authentic. He's so honest. The groove and the vibe. When he gets it, he puts you in.
- [38:59]
Bill Maher
When he gets it, it's nothing like. I agree.
- [39:01]
Paul Anka
I would sit in Paris, you know. When he first came out, my friend was Regine. Did you ever hear of Regine?
- [39:07]
Bill Maher
No.
- [39:07]
Paul Anka
She started all this discotheque stuff. And when I knew she was a hat check girl at this great restaurant, she started. Everything that you see today in Discotheque started with this woman, Regine. She had the place in Paris. She opened in New York. Everyone copied this woman. And when she first started, and I would meet with her, I said, you gotta put Barry White. And the people went nuts for him. This is back in the 60s. Barry White was absolutely the most unique, vibed, disco, R and B master at that stuff.
- [39:44]
Bill Maher
And proves, as we were saying before, that music gets to the ladies. Because he was a big ladies man. And he was a. He was just a big man.
- [39:53]
Paul Anka
He was a big man.
- [39:54]
Bill Maher
I was Gonna say, like, it doesn't even matter. What. You can be a bad. You could be bad at music. You'll still get, like. You could be playing in a bar. You could be a church fucking organist, you know, you. Barbershop quartet, fat guy, the guy on
- [40:07]
Paul Anka
the corner, right, the saxophone.
- [40:10]
Bill Maher
I'm telling you, as long as it's music, you're gonna. It's amazing.
- [40:14]
Paul Anka
I can't argue with you. Listen, when I got to Paris, you know, when I first met the Beatles, right? And I kind of got there on a pivot ricochet because I was living with two twins from Germany called the Kessler Twins. Now, the Kessler twins were 6ft tall, and believe it or not, I might have been 2 inches shorter because I started so young.
- [40:35]
Bill Maher
Okay, well, this is a very rock star thing, if you wanted to use it for the answer to that question, right?
- [40:39]
Paul Anka
So now I see them at Moulin Rouge, these two chicks, these two women, and I hit it off, right? And I'm living with them. I was like a human pretzel between the two of them. I had never in my life, you know, you learn from experience. These two women became my best buddies and everything else, really. Yeah. And then one night, I needed to come up for air, so I said, I gotta go see these guys. My friend is opening at the Olympia Theater in Paris, and there's some act on there. Anyway, I go, and my friend is on, and then the announcers. Vous plais met. No, c' est un angleter le peple la Beatles. These guys walk on, and I see the Beatles for the first time now as a musician. And somebody was totally in the Beatles before they hit. Oh, yeah. This is like they were just fringing. They hadn't written Was it Love Me Do? That was the first one. So I can't believe what I'm looking at. I never see anything like it. We hit off, they come to my show. I buddy up with them in England. Now it's starting to percolate. And that's when I tipped up Normie Weiss, my agent in New York, said, you got to go see these guys. He said, what do you mean, Beatles? What are you crazy? Beatles? I said, normie, you know, because when you looked at an American band, it was Ants and Animals and Bull, you know, I mean, English bands, we were Supremes and Royals, but the English, they were all this names, right?
- [42:13]
Bill Maher
Yeah.
- [42:13]
Paul Anka
So he said, were you crazy? I said, normie, they're unbelievable. I'm so excited. Anyway, they went over and signed the Beatles with Epstein and Brought them over in, what, 64. Yeah, 64.
- [42:25]
Bill Maher
February of 64. But they already had Beatlemania. Had already been before that, 63. All over England.
- [42:32]
Paul Anka
And I knew them before that.
- [42:33]
Bill Maher
And then it was.
- [42:34]
Paul Anka
Yeah, amazing.
- [42:35]
Bill Maher
Wow.
- [42:36]
Paul Anka
And when you follow the career of those two writers and the impact of McCartney, different than Lennon, it's. You lose in all of that translation how important a guy like George Martin was. He's an unsung hero in there.
- [42:53]
Bill Maher
I don't think he's that unsung.
- [42:55]
Paul Anka
Well, to some people. To the layman, most people.
- [43:00]
Bill Maher
Don't get me started on some people. Because if you want to go down that road.
- [43:04]
Paul Anka
Okay.
- [43:05]
Bill Maher
Yeah, most people. Other than industry, I think if you know the name.
- [43:10]
Paul Anka
Yeah.
- [43:11]
Bill Maher
You know what he did. And if you don't know the name, then you're just the casual. Many, especially younger people. You can't expect people who are born in 1998 or something to, like, know everything about the. Like we do. So. But if you know the name George Martin, I think people know he was.
- [43:27]
Paul Anka
It's like Quincy Jones.
- [43:28]
Bill Maher
Exactly.
- [43:29]
Paul Anka
Yeah, it is. But the point I was making that I never lost sight of, we're just the cherry on the cake. You know, artists get so full of themselves. The team effort, in most cases, that's put around them. When you see Quincy's contribution, Martin, there's always a producer, engineer that's sitting there helping you. And these artists, they take all the credit for it, and they're not usually the full participants.
- [43:57]
Bill Maher
Well, that's one reason why Rock Swings is such a great record, because it's a great primer in the idea that songs are written and then how they become the record. It could have gone in a million different directions. It was all about certain choices. But as the fan, you don't think that. You just hear the record and you go, oh, great, here she come down. Mony, Mony. Of course that's how it sounds. But they could have done it with an organ, and. You know what I mean? They could have started with the chorus. These are all choices. So, like, some of those choices you made, I don't know if those are your favorite rock songs or some of them, but, I mean, it's just genius because, like, I never was a great big fan of Jump, Right. It sounds like it should be done this way from the jump.
- [44:52]
Paul Anka
Right.
- [44:53]
Bill Maher
Same thing with Eye of the Tiger was never like, a great big fan of the original. It was okay, but it was very sort of not. It sounded like a movie song. Yeah.
- [45:03]
Paul Anka
Which it was. I understand.
- [45:06]
Bill Maher
That. But I'm just saying it did not rise above a movie song.
- [45:10]
Paul Anka
You weren't invested.
- [45:11]
Bill Maher
It wasn't Moon river, you know, like, that was a movie song. Okay.
- [45:15]
Paul Anka
But Bill, you know, what it was could have ended my career, I think. You know, people were telling me, were you crazy? Pat Boone tried it. He got. I said, and it was after the Buble. You know, I helped with the Buble first album. And he. It was a swing album. And the record company said, why don't you do a swing album? He said, I've been swinging all my life. I don't want to just do a swing album. I said, but I've got an idea. I want to take some of the rock songs that I hear. You know, as a musician, you hear songs that can be done in different ways. Every song can be put in a different vibe. And all I did was go through 150 songs that I liked. And I said, how would I do this? And I sat with the arrangers and I said, let's try this vibe. Let's try this vibe. I tried one. You two. Didn't work. I got a lot of stuff I threw out, but the ones that landed, that were authentic, it's awesome.
- [46:05]
Bill Maher
I mean, Smells Like Teen Spirit.
- [46:07]
Paul Anka
Oh, that was the challenge. I left a little.
- [46:10]
Bill Maher
That one and Black Hole Son are the ones that, you know, when I listened to that record, the first thing that came into my mind was, wow, this is so awesome. But if you missed, you'd be Bill Murray. You know what I mean? Doing that character.
- [46:30]
Paul Anka
Yeah, sure.
- [46:31]
Bill Maher
In the lounge.
- [46:32]
Paul Anka
Totally.
- [46:32]
Bill Maher
If you miss by this much and you didn't.
- [46:34]
Paul Anka
Yeah. You're dead.
- [46:36]
Bill Maher
You didn't.
- [46:36]
Paul Anka
Yeah. Wonder was another one. I loved it. Wonderwall.
- [46:39]
Bill Maher
Wonderwall, right. I don't remember that. Was that Oasis gonna be the one?
- [46:44]
Paul Anka
Who's Jamie? Yeah, Oasis. Yeah, sure.
- [46:46]
Bill Maher
Yeah.
- [46:47]
Paul Anka
After all, you're my Wonder Wall.
- [46:51]
Bill Maher
No, I didn't love that in the original. And even you couldn't revive it. I didn't.
- [46:56]
Paul Anka
It was a challenge.
- [46:57]
Bill Maher
It's a song. You have to love the song.
- [46:59]
Paul Anka
Yeah, I. I liked it.
- [47:00]
Bill Maher
Usually your taste in what you like as a song is my taste.
- [47:04]
Paul Anka
Yeah, okay.
- [47:05]
Bill Maher
But that one, Oasis. I never got into Oasis.
- [47:08]
Paul Anka
Yeah, Well, I wasn't a big fan of Oasis, but I liked that song a lot. That got my attention.
- [47:14]
Bill Maher
You did an REM song?
- [47:16]
Paul Anka
Yes. Everybody heard.
- [47:18]
Bill Maher
Everybody heard.
- [47:19]
Paul Anka
I love that song.
- [47:20]
Bill Maher
Me, too.
- [47:21]
Paul Anka
Really a cool song, and it really worked with the brass band. Oh, are you ever gonna like that?
- [47:27]
Bill Maher
Yeah. I'm so sorry. That's the problem. I'm watching you waiting for me to
- [47:31]
Paul Anka
suck on one interval.
- [47:33]
Bill Maher
I don't know what it is that makes me forget things. I keep trying to. I keep hearing. I'll let it. But yeah, I mean, you sound on those songs. I mean it. To me, it sounds exactly like the Count Basie band.
- [47:49]
Paul Anka
Yeah. Purposely.
- [47:52]
Bill Maher
Oh, yeah.
- [47:53]
Paul Anka
We went into Capitol and we said Count Basie swing. We used old microphones. The Sonata.
- [47:58]
Bill Maher
Oh, is that right?
- [47:59]
Paul Anka
Oh, we went into Capitol. We approached it like it was being cut years ago. Yeah, absolutely. I wanted to be as authentic as possible and have it appeal to the critics. To the critics first, you know, now you put up music. It's a different business today, Bill. Ain't like it used to be, you know.
- [48:19]
Bill Maher
Did the critics get it?
- [48:21]
Paul Anka
Oh, we had rave reviews. We went gold in a lot of countries. Sure.
- [48:24]
Bill Maher
Yeah, I'm sure. What year Was that, like 15 years ago or something?
- [48:29]
Paul Anka
05.
- [48:30]
Bill Maher
05.
- [48:32]
Paul Anka
Yeah. I just finished the Buble album and yeah, it was 05. I went right in and cut it. Yeah.
- [48:41]
Bill Maher
It's amazing.
- [48:42]
Paul Anka
Yeah.
- [48:42]
Bill Maher
I mean,
- [48:45]
Paul Anka
here we are today. What in this wacky. Different world and different business. AI, it's reproducing everything. Music, whatever you want. And I'm not afraid of it. I'm for a lot of it. Well, I understand what the back end could be, but I. I'm not afraid.
- [49:02]
Bill Maher
I'm afraid of it in general. Not just, you know, music will be the least of it if it. If they send off nuclear weapons, you know, I mean, it's very dangerous.
- [49:11]
Paul Anka
Yeah.
- [49:12]
Bill Maher
It's, you know, have a disaster. I'm sure it'll do great things.
- [49:15]
Paul Anka
Yeah.
- [49:15]
Bill Maher
But it also has to be managed.
- [49:17]
Paul Anka
Has to be managed.
- [49:18]
Bill Maher
Well, it's not being. That's the. That's the scary thing is because it's about a prophet.
- [49:23]
Paul Anka
Yeah.
- [49:23]
Bill Maher
And when a human being smells a dollar, they tend to go for it. That's why capitalism works, because it harnesses that motivation. But it is true, when it goes wrong, it goes very wrong. And, you know, people, you know, money makes people do horrible things.
- [49:39]
Paul Anka
Well, it's all about the money, always has been. But, you know, I think that when it evolves to a certain level with it and they can get their arms around it, if they do, I think it's going to be a different and better place because there are jobs that you're forgetting. I don't think a robot can do plumbing. I think people like that.
- [49:59]
Bill Maher
They absolutely could.
- [50:01]
Paul Anka
They will. No, no, I think plumbers and tradespeople for A long time will have an incredible income flow. I think between government and corporate who run the world. They'll sit down and take care of the majority of the people. They'll give them a three day work week. They'll give. They'll find a formula like they always have historically, where there's a balance. Now in that balance, will we be number one in this corridor of Canada. Da da. South America? I don't know. You know, you got China and Russia. There's a lot of moving parts out there that this whole scenario can change. But you'll never replace what this country represents in terms of a democracy.
- [50:40]
Bill Maher
I think this is why you look so good at your age, because you're basically optimistic. Because I don't think. I don't see it at all the same way. I totally think a robot will be doing plumbing on your house.
- [50:56]
Paul Anka
Not for a while. I think they'll construct it, but I don't think they'll drive car.
- [51:01]
Bill Maher
They drive cars.
- [51:02]
Paul Anka
I know, I know.
- [51:02]
Bill Maher
So you think plumbing? Plumbing is more last on the list.
- [51:07]
Paul Anka
I don't think a goddamn robot's gonna dig it up and go up in the ceiling and say, hey Hank, what's the measurement on the two?
- [51:13]
Bill Maher
I think that's exactly what they'll do.
- [51:16]
Paul Anka
We'll talk in two years. How's that?
- [51:18]
Bill Maher
Let's have a bet.
- [51:19]
Paul Anka
You got it. How much you want to bet? I'll give you a gold record and you're going to give me that sign over there with the Beatles.
- [51:26]
Bill Maher
I will bet you 10 Trump coins.
- [51:30]
Paul Anka
Wait a minute.
- [51:31]
Bill Maher
He's got his. No, he's got.
- [51:32]
Paul Anka
I want some value. Oh boy. Next couple of weeks are going to be interesting, pal.
- [51:40]
Bill Maher
What do you mean?
- [51:41]
Paul Anka
Well, you mentioned our president.
- [51:43]
Bill Maher
Yeah, about what?
- [51:44]
Paul Anka
Well, I just think Warrens have to calm down. I think we got to get an off ramp here. And I think there has to be some changes because, well, you're dealing with 100 million people that are very stubborn and smart and etc. Etc. I'm. You know, I think this ain't an easy one Palace.
- [52:02]
Bill Maher
It's not an easy one. But all great endeavors and it could turn out to be a great endeavor because if they do get rid of that horrible. It's a fascist theocracy like the worst of all worlds as a government for years.
- [52:19]
Paul Anka
Okay.
- [52:20]
Bill Maher
And fucked up the Middle east constantly like just the biggest troublemakers. It turned out it wasn't the Arabs. You know what it's like in the Godfather with the Arabs and the Persians. Tartaglia is a pimp It's Barzini. All along, it was always Iran.
- [52:39]
Paul Anka
Absolutely.
- [52:40]
Bill Maher
So, like, it brings. It's fine with me if this is where it stays. As far as damage done, nothing. I think it's unrealistic to ever expect anything, any great endeavor not to cost lives. The Civil War was a great endeavor and it cost 600,000 lives at a time when that was a hefty percentage of the population.
- [53:03]
Paul Anka
And the French in Asia, millions.
- [53:05]
Bill Maher
Yeah. I'm not saying this is on that level, but I'm saying if it could transform the Middle east, which has been one of our biggest problems in my entire life.
- [53:14]
Paul Anka
Mine too.
- [53:14]
Bill Maher
Yes. And recognize that Israel is our most natural ally, not just in the Middle east, in the whole world, quite frankly.
- [53:22]
Paul Anka
Correct.
- [53:24]
Bill Maher
It could be a great thing. It may not. It may turn out to be a bad thing. And I just hope that I can count on Donald Trump to be the abandoner that he always has been. I just think the reason the stock market hasn't completely tanked is cuz they know, you know, at the end of the day, this motherfucker will abandon you in a heartbeat and get out and leave you holding the bill. And three casinos in Atlantic City that are bankrupt. And whatever, you know, he got out of that one when, you know, he just owed the banks too much. It was one of those.
- [53:59]
Paul Anka
I worked for him.
- [54:00]
Bill Maher
Too big to fail.
- [54:00]
Paul Anka
Yeah.
- [54:01]
Bill Maher
Yeah. So I just think at the end of the day, he's not. He's not the kind of guy who's going to get boggy down. But I could be wrong. I mean, I could be wrong because they're flirting with it.
- [54:13]
Paul Anka
Yeah. You know, you got to think of the two guys right now, especially the Wynn Hotel. They've got a $5 billion investment outside Dubai that all of a sudden they're going, what, they're putting up a $5 billion casino in the middle of all that?
- [54:31]
Bill Maher
Yes.
- [54:32]
Paul Anka
And you know, I go to Israel a lot. I love singing in Israel and they're such great fans. I'll never forget a conversation I had with people that were close to government. And I'd met Netanyahu and we got on the topic of the nuclear and they said something really interesting. He said, we don't think there's ever going to be a nuclear bomb dropped here for one simple reason. It led me to believe that they're all talking to each other. You know, smart as everybody, as we think we may be. Or you're at dinner, there's a backroom story going on all the time. You're like a fucking idiot.
- [55:08]
Bill Maher
Especially in that part of the world.
- [55:09]
Paul Anka
Absolutely. And you know what they said, the wind blows from west to east. And if we drop everything over here, it's like Burbank and Beverly. They've already caught Muhammad. Don't be schmuck. Fucking idiot. Don't drop the fucking bomb. You're going to wipe out Russia, China. They know the collateral effect. They all know it.
- [55:34]
Bill Maher
But. Exactly. The problem is. And this is the part of it that people get squeamish about because it's very politically incorrect these days. But the truth of it is that you're talking on the assumption that we always had with nuclear weapons, that it is a deterrent, that we're all going to die. But if you fervently believe in martyrdom, as is in the doctrine of fundamental Islam, which is more popular than fundamental Christianity, we have crazy in both religions, but they have much more fundamentalism. If you really think that the way to paradise is through this kind of martyrdom, then that is not a factor. Then that is not something that. No, I think when people get hold of power like the Ayatollah, they don't really want to die.
- [56:32]
Paul Anka
Yeah, they don't.
- [56:33]
Bill Maher
They don't. The people, they're not. Not shy about putting them as cannon fodder.
- [56:39]
Paul Anka
Absolutely.
- [56:40]
Bill Maher
And human shields.
- [56:41]
Paul Anka
Nobody escapes that, though, you know, I mean, they better be out of town when that hits.
- [56:45]
Bill Maher
Which Israel would never do. And if you don't understand that sort of moral geometry.
- [56:51]
Paul Anka
Yeah.
- [56:52]
Bill Maher
Then that's where. Why there's so much anti Semitism now.
- [56:56]
Paul Anka
Yeah. It's opened up all that. But you know, when you go back to the effect when we dropped those two bombs on Japan, it was over.
- [57:06]
Bill Maher
Yeah.
- [57:07]
Paul Anka
Those guys had meetings. There was no way. There was no comeback out of it. And you know, when Oppenheimer and all this could put that together and, you know, it was Roosevelt when they decided to drop those.
- [57:18]
Bill Maher
No, Truman.
- [57:19]
Paul Anka
Oh, Truman. I'm sorry. That's right. It goes back to. Didn't the Japanese. Didn't they. Wasn't it Roosevelt that they handed the. They came in and said that there was going to be a declaration of war and they were late. Do you remember? They failed that. And then Truman came in. Well, I think Truman came in after, didn't he?
- [57:43]
Bill Maher
Yeah. FDR gets reelected in November of 1944, dies, I think, in February. So like a month after he was inaugurated for his Right.
- [57:54]
Paul Anka
And Pearl harbor came.
- [57:56]
Bill Maher
Well, Pearl harbor was 1941.
- [57:58]
Paul Anka
Right. So he was in office.
- [57:59]
Bill Maher
Oh, yeah, totally.
- [58:00]
Paul Anka
Well, that's my point.
- [58:01]
Bill Maher
He died in early 45. So it's Truman who inherited the end of World War II.
- [58:06]
Paul Anka
Exactly.
- [58:07]
Bill Maher
And made the decision to drop the bomb.
- [58:09]
Paul Anka
But, you know, it's amazing. Today I'm getting the kick of it because I've been going to Japan since 57. When I went, there were still bombs in the ground and I was going to these hospitals with all these people with no arms, no legs. And I've been going back ever since. I love that culture. When you look at that region, when you think about the end of the war when they started divvying everything up, they have been so true to their people in keeping that country together. But point being, it's no longer. Let's go to Cabo and Dubai. Everyone wants to go now to Japan. That's the hot new place. They want to take their kids. People are rushing to Japan.
- [58:49]
Bill Maher
Yeah. I just saw somebody on social media. I can't remember who it was like some big. Yeah, you're right. Well, you know, it's cherry blossom season.
- [58:58]
Paul Anka
Yeah. But they go all year round. You can't get a hotel.
- [59:00]
Bill Maher
Right. But that's a good excuse for, like, you know, there's always a crowd who thinks, you know, there's people who, like, see each other frequently, and yet it's always somewhere else. Around the world, literally. They call them the jet set.
- [59:15]
Paul Anka
That's right.
- [59:16]
Bill Maher
People who just jet from one cool place. Influencers.
- [59:20]
Paul Anka
I mean, you know, the masses are now involved. They're going. The masses save up and they make those kind of trips. They save up and go broke.
- [59:29]
Bill Maher
The rest of the masses.
- [59:30]
Paul Anka
Yeah, get those.
- [59:32]
Bill Maher
Bring my piss boy and my scribe. I have something about the masses. I don't think that's cricket, that they're impinging on our privileges.
- [59:44]
Paul Anka
Yeah, yeah, yeah.
- [59:45]
Bill Maher
Lord Anka.
- [59:46]
Paul Anka
Yes. S. Princeville.
- [59:51]
Bill Maher
What's your favorite country that you were.
- [59:53]
Paul Anka
Oh, tough. Tough Bill. Listen, I spent a lot of time.
- [59:57]
Bill Maher
You said Israel in Paris. You like Israel?
- [60:00]
Paul Anka
I love performing in Israel. That's performance wise.
- [60:02]
Bill Maher
I hated Paris.
- [60:04]
Paul Anka
Well, I've been going. I speak the language. I've been going.
- [60:06]
Bill Maher
I spent Canadian. Right.
- [60:09]
Paul Anka
Well, I learned it with the two twins in bed, the Kessler girls.
- [60:12]
Bill Maher
Right.
- [60:13]
Paul Anka
You know, you hang with a couple of chicks over there for a year, you're going to speak French.
- [60:16]
Bill Maher
You must have it times 100. What? Most guys, but even regular guys, I mean, I think we're alike, maybe in that way, but, like, with sex, I can live without sex. I've had that challenge many times. I just can't live without good sex, you know, if it's bad sex, it should always be like, you just got out of prison.
- [60:36]
Paul Anka
Yeah, yeah, yeah. But you know what? Sometimes it's like breaking back into prison when they're wrong. I want back in prison. Right. I'm not waking up in the morning with a 4 when the night before was at 12. But, Bill, you know what it is? I learned later in life that when they say to you, I love you, you know what it really is? I love you for now. Because everyone's got an agenda. I hate to sound like that, but you gotta be totally on top of everything to understand the reality of shit that you get into. And then you bear the consequences if so, because it's scary.
- [61:25]
Bill Maher
That is the title of my autobiography, shit you get into.
- [61:28]
Paul Anka
I don't know.
- [61:29]
Bill Maher
It's perfect.
- [61:31]
Paul Anka
You can't avoid it. There's shit out every day. Somebody gets up and there's something. I don't care who you are, what you got.
- [61:36]
Bill Maher
Life, I feel, is. Thank you, Ed.
- [61:40]
Paul Anka
Yes.
- [61:42]
Bill Maher
And I try to tell this to young people. You know, I like to be a mentor. Yeah, of course, it is somewhat about what you get. That's true. And I just. I don't mean just mean money, but, you know, achievement. But it's also happiness a lot about what you avoid. Yeah, just what you avoid. You know, a drug habit, gambling, a feud, drinking, debt.
- [62:08]
Paul Anka
Right.
- [62:08]
Bill Maher
Just like beefs that are unnecessary.
- [62:14]
Paul Anka
But you gotta be real clever. You know, the mob guys used to say to me, if you're. If you're. If you become a gambler and you've got the wrong women in your life and you do drugs, you'll never be a success. And these guys, they had the great. And these weren't great looking guys. These were like tough guys who dressed in shirts and ties. And they were on that casino. I never saw a group of guys like that unilaterally in my life. And the way they ran their life and the code and all that, learned a lot from them. But they had more women. A couple of them at the Sands, they had the greatest women. Were carried out in a stretcher. They died fucking. The women are screaming.
- [63:00]
Bill Maher
I think that's a bit of an exaggeration. Of course it is.
- [63:03]
Paul Anka
But I'm just giving you the full venue of what it was. When you say, hey, that's to be great. Wow. Study and play. Come together on a Windows 11 PC and for a limited time, college students get the best of both worlds. Get the unreal college deal. Everything you need to study and play with select Windows 11 PCs. Eligible students get a year of Microsoft 365 Premium and a year of Xbox game. Pass ultimate with a custom color Xbox wireless controller. Learn more at Windows Law supplies last ends June 30th. Terms at aka Ms. CollegePC. The road to the NBA Finals ends here, with star guard setting the tone. The Cavs eye another upset while the Knicks carry the dreams of all of New York. The Eastern Conference finals continue on ESPN and abc. Tomorrow morning is knocking. Stock your fridge now. How about a creamy mocha Frappuccino drink? Or a sweet vanilla smooth caramel, maybe? Or white chocolate mocha? Whichever you choose, delicious coffee awaits. Find Starbucks Frappuccino drinks wherever you buy your groceries. Oh, it was wild when we heard those stories.
- [64:28]
Bill Maher
Oh, you know, I always think when I'm, you know, romantic singers like you, you know, that get the panties wet during the concert.
- [64:39]
Paul Anka
Yeah. You know, well, now I get support stockings. There's no wonder we're coming up. There's about three walkers in the lobby.
- [64:49]
Bill Maher
So, like, you'd have to figure people play the records of, you know, romantic singers while they're funking.
- [64:59]
Paul Anka
Yeah, of course.
- [65:01]
Bill Maher
Right. So, I mean, you must have been played many times.
- [65:05]
Paul Anka
You know, in many ways, sadly admit. De Niro plays Godfather scenes while he's. He's listening to Johnny Mathis. That's for. Those guys don't cut it.
- [65:20]
Bill Maher
Chances are.
- [65:21]
Paul Anka
Exactly. Great artist, great stylist. Yeah. Johnny Matthews, stylist. Good guy. You know, stay true to what he did. I really. Oh, yeah. He just retired.
- [65:33]
Bill Maher
So what was I saying there?
- [65:34]
Paul Anka
Back to something we haven't touched on in 20 seconds since I've met you.
- [65:39]
Bill Maher
Damn. Anyway, it was an important question. Oh, I know.
- [65:43]
Paul Anka
Yeah. Go ahead.
- [65:44]
Bill Maher
I know. So. Yes. So people listen to you and Frank Sinatra and other romantic people.
- [65:52]
Paul Anka
Yeah.
- [65:53]
Bill Maher
Who does the person. Who does that person listen to? Who does Frank Sinatra listen to when he's fucking? Who does Paul Ankle listen to?
- [66:01]
Paul Anka
Interesting.
- [66:02]
Bill Maher
Well, sometimes you can't listen to yourself. Or maybe you can.
- [66:05]
Paul Anka
It's like, maybe it's better. I never listen to myself. Ever.
- [66:10]
Bill Maher
So while you were fucking, you never.
- [66:13]
Paul Anka
Oh, my God.
- [66:14]
Bill Maher
Some chick must have asked for it.
- [66:16]
Paul Anka
I think it'll bend in the middle. I think there's not a chance I would listen to myself.
- [66:20]
Bill Maher
So no woman, in all those years of. All this ocean of.
- [66:24]
Paul Anka
I guess, you know, but it's not. Am I gonna. I'm gonna accommodate them with something substantial? I'm gonna play what I'm sick of hearing. No, no, no, I've got a lot of.
- [66:34]
Bill Maher
As long as you play the hits.
- [66:35]
Paul Anka
Paul, he will. He wants to fuck the lonely boy. Nobody likes puppy love.
- [66:41]
Bill Maher
They called it puppy. Nobody likes to be fucking you and hearing deep cuts. Okay, they want to hear that.
- [66:53]
Paul Anka
Well, I'm going to hit you with the bat between my legs. That's it. There's no way.
- [66:57]
Bill Maher
Too much to ask. What is this?
- [67:00]
Paul Anka
No, no, no. I sit at a piano beforehand.
- [67:02]
Bill Maher
Well, you have a repertoire that, you know, you're not unique, but it is one of a big, to me level of people who. You go to their concert, it's all
- [67:14]
Paul Anka
hits for the most part.
- [67:16]
Bill Maher
Yeah, yeah, except what they want to, you know, but they can. You could. Yeah, sure, Eagles can do it. I mean, obviously McCartney, but Billy Joel, but, you know, Streisand, if she chooses to sing. But, you know, it's not a lot of people on that list who can do the whole concert. And it's hit Elton John.
- [67:37]
Paul Anka
Well, all the acts.
- [67:38]
Bill Maher
There's a lot of people.
- [67:39]
Paul Anka
Yeah, there's a lot of people. All very talented.
- [67:41]
Bill Maher
It's not a lot, but it is.
- [67:43]
Paul Anka
But it's a lot when you think about the ratio. Because all the older acts, the vintage acts, they're the ones selling out. And there's a couple on the younger
- [67:53]
Bill Maher
level, you know, Madonna, she can do it.
- [67:55]
Paul Anka
Yeah, she's in her 60s.
- [67:56]
Bill Maher
No, I'm saying, yeah, yeah, 60s, 60s.
- [68:00]
Paul Anka
When was that?
- [68:01]
Bill Maher
Oh, my God. See her in the paper. She looks 27 now. She had work. She must have had. I mean, I never thought Madonna would be that person who went in for that much because she was always such a tough chick. I thought she'd be like, yeah, this is what I look like at 65. What are you gonna do about it?
- [68:19]
Paul Anka
Bitch, not her.
- [68:21]
Bill Maher
Not.
- [68:21]
Paul Anka
But no, baby, listen. The United States, what we've introduced to the world and I've traveled it is the visual and the aesthetic and the sexuality of how we look and what we present. You go to these other countries, they didn't do that years ago. We started all that.
- [68:41]
Bill Maher
Really?
- [68:41]
Paul Anka
How? Oh, God, yes. How you look, the aesthetic of your face and your body.
- [68:47]
Bill Maher
And other countries didn't care about it.
- [68:49]
Paul Anka
When I go to Israel early in time, they'd say, what are you people sending us? All this sex stuff and all these stuff. All these countries would bitch at me. No, you go to Japan. When I saw this film with the ping pong player, the kid.
- [69:02]
Bill Maher
Yeah, Party Supreme.
- [69:04]
Paul Anka
And I saw the scene with the Japanese at the end and they were in that time period. And they're standing up and freaking out.
- [69:10]
Bill Maher
Right.
- [69:10]
Paul Anka
So one part of the film. It was a great film. They did a good job. Then I said, wait a minute. They didn't do that for years. You didn't see that enthusiasm or sexual or aesthetic in Japan. All the years I went there, from 57 on. No way. They're an amazing culture. The way they educate their people, the way they look at life, all of that stuff. And sex was like, no way. This isn't like France and Italy. You know, you go to France, the wife is the other woman. You know, it's a whole different culture. Always has been. Not down there. You don't even meet the wives in Japan. So what I'm saying was, when I saw the film, that wasn't it. And they weren't sexually like the other countries. Like when I went to Brazil, I mean, my back. You'd think a tiger run its claw. They're maniacs. I mean, if anyone wants to go to the most swinging this country, go to Brazil.
- [70:08]
Bill Maher
Okay. But even I, who am not a world traveler, could have guessed both those things. I would get Japan versus Brazil.
- [70:18]
Paul Anka
Oh, okay.
- [70:18]
Bill Maher
I mean, Brazil is a country of 190 million people, all with a great ass.
- [70:25]
Paul Anka
And that's just the men.
- [70:27]
Bill Maher
And they have Rio. Yes. To me, Brazil just, you know, they might as well have a hot chick on the flag.
- [70:35]
Paul Anka
Oh, yeah, absolutely.
- [70:36]
Bill Maher
But Japan, you know, I think traumatized from the war and also a lot of ancient culture. Shinto or whatever, the Buddhist, whatever. Culture, religion, I should know better. But it's a mixture, I think. I don't know. But very religious. Because before the war was over, they had an emperor who was a God. You know, he was a God on earth. In fact, one of the stipulations of the surrender was keep him there. No, he had to go on the radio. Yeah, he had to go on the radio and tell the people that he wasn't God.
- [71:07]
Paul Anka
Correct. Well, the advisors around him, when they sat down and made the decision that we're going to end the war, they said, you need to end this because your position and what you represent to our people will be gone. Dissipated. That was part of the decision making.
- [71:25]
Bill Maher
After the bombing, all the people would be gone.
- [71:28]
Paul Anka
Well, whoever's left.
- [71:30]
Bill Maher
I mean, this was a lot closer to genocide than anything Israel has ever done.
- [71:36]
Paul Anka
Yeah, we've just never done anything like that.
- [71:37]
Bill Maher
Nothing close.
- [71:38]
Paul Anka
Nobody's coming close.
- [71:39]
Bill Maher
No, but. But when you wipe out 60 to 90%, this is what genocide means anyway. Yeah, sure, we won't get off. We could just say people back then did not take any shit.
- [71:54]
Paul Anka
You owe me a trip to Japan and we'll go to Brazil together. We'll see how you feel. I'll take you to Japan first.
- [72:02]
Bill Maher
My days of traveling overseas are over.
- [72:04]
Paul Anka
How about Japan?
- [72:05]
Bill Maher
Even in the country, I don't really travel anymore. You're made of sterner stuff than I am. Because. Still traveling a lot?
- [72:12]
Paul Anka
Oh yeah, a lot. I choice I go to certain countries and that's it for me. But I agree with you. I won't go to a wedding. Somebody's getting married in some stupid place over a record. Nothing.
- [72:25]
Bill Maher
Not even a but.
- [72:26]
Paul Anka
You must go to Japan, bill. It's a 10 hour flight. You have your own bedroom. And you will see a culture and you'll come back so impressed. I'll take you. I'll buy the ticket.
- [72:36]
Bill Maher
Paul.
- [72:37]
Paul Anka
What? Come on, Bill. Bill.
- [72:40]
Bill Maher
I'm 70. I know what I like.
- [72:42]
Paul Anka
I'm 84.
- [72:43]
Bill Maher
I know.
- [72:44]
Paul Anka
You don't know what you like yet.
- [72:45]
Bill Maher
I do.
- [72:46]
Paul Anka
You have know what you like. Your mind can be swayed, I promise.
- [72:51]
Bill Maher
You got to give me that much at 70. If you don't know what you like by then, wow.
- [72:57]
Paul Anka
Oh, there's no question.
- [72:58]
Bill Maher
You have not had your eyes open. I'm just not a good traveler.
- [73:01]
Paul Anka
You never. Well, that's a whole other issue.
- [73:03]
Bill Maher
Yeah, well, that's my issue.
- [73:05]
Paul Anka
That's why I got it. But in life, you never know. A little curiosity.
- [73:08]
Bill Maher
I do know.
- [73:08]
Paul Anka
A little trying. You would be amazed.
- [73:11]
Bill Maher
I'm dried. I've been on the road my whole life. I always love it when people argue with you about you.
- [73:17]
Paul Anka
Oh, right. You know, I'm debating, I'm debating.
- [73:20]
Bill Maher
You know, it also bugs me when people say you're gonna love this song. Like, okay, there's no way you could possibly know that I'm gonna love this song. It's like it either hits you or it doesn't.
- [73:31]
Paul Anka
Yeah.
- [73:31]
Bill Maher
That's why record reviews are so stupid. Like you can't put it in words. I have to hear it, you know? So they basically review the lyrics, which 9 out of 10 times. I don't care.
- [73:44]
Paul Anka
Yeah.
- [73:45]
Bill Maher
If the lyrics aren't great and the song is great, I love it. The lyrics are an extra love your lyrics. Very moving.
- [73:52]
Paul Anka
Never corny. Yeah. You know, lyrics today are important.
- [73:56]
Bill Maher
You're old, but you're never corny.
- [73:58]
Paul Anka
That's great.
- [73:58]
Bill Maher
But single, you know, I'm sure many chicks.
- [74:03]
Paul Anka
When you say single, you said.
- [74:04]
Bill Maher
You said you're single.
- [74:05]
Paul Anka
I understand. I'm Single. But why single? I'm just not married. Well, I'm not involved. You know what I'm saying? Yeah, singles do.
- [74:16]
Bill Maher
I know. I know, bro.
- [74:19]
Paul Anka
I just love it. I love the peace of mind.
- [74:21]
Bill Maher
I do.
- [74:22]
Paul Anka
I love it. Well, you know what I'm saying? I'm not single. Oh, I'm single in this chair. But beyond that,
- [74:31]
Bill Maher
no single jest, you know what I mean? As opposed to, you know, the fighting for a remote.
- [74:37]
Paul Anka
Well, I want to watch that.
- [74:41]
Bill Maher
The journey we've all been on. You know what song? I love the one you did with Gloria Estefan. I think. I think I'm in love again where in that scene.
- [74:52]
Paul Anka
Look what a fool I've been.
- [74:54]
Bill Maher
Yeah, I love songs like that because they're like adult songs. I think I'm in love again because, let's be honest, I mean, the music industry is mostly for the very young. And it should be today, you know, every day.
- [75:05]
Paul Anka
Always has been. Every day.
- [75:06]
Bill Maher
It always has been. Rock and roll is a young thing.
- [75:10]
Paul Anka
That's right.
- [75:10]
Bill Maher
Like, but, you know, we keep living and then the music isn't really made for us.
- [75:17]
Paul Anka
Right.
- [75:18]
Bill Maher
So, you know, us fans have a special appreciation for people who keep making music that tickles our ears, you know, without selling out or just being an oldies actor, you know, doing interesting, good music. And again, the lyrics that I can relate to, you know, I think I'm in love again. Yes. You know, you get to a certain age, you've legitimately been in love more than once.
- [75:43]
Paul Anka
That's right.
- [75:44]
Bill Maher
And you could say that there's an inflation in that. That isn't healthy. I don't agree, but I know that argument like, well, if you thought you were completely in love once and it didn't work, everybody else is going to be like, sort of, yeah, this could fail, too.
- [76:02]
Paul Anka
Yeah. Well, think of the other side. How'd you like to be laying in bed with something for a few years wishing you were single? How would you like to be laying with someone? I would rather be single than laying in a bed with something wishing you were singing you're miserable.
- [76:17]
Bill Maher
I could not agree more.
- [76:19]
Paul Anka
I just. A bell went off one day with me. I don't want to be miserable laying to somebody I don't want to be in bed with. And, you know, and who cares? It's just my little personal thing. And I'm not trying to tell the world how to live with it, but I just don't see a way out of it. Cause it only gets worse.
- [76:34]
Bill Maher
Every wife who is a friend of mine who's married, you know, of course she's married. She's a wife. Like, I guess I know her through whatever. Maybe I know her. Maybe I know the husband has said to me at some point when I was asking about a marriage, if it's somebody who you can, you know, be honest with. And I have lots of friends like that. Some version of, you know, we have great times. But then there are some times I wake up and look over and go, who is that? Like, who is this person? I don't even know this person, really. And they're in my bed and I don't particularly like them. Yeah, that's a terrible way to start the day.
- [77:14]
Paul Anka
Would you ever go out to dinner? Go out and you see a husband and wife or a couple, and you see the look on a woman's face sometimes looking at the guy she's with. Do you know what she's saying to herself? This is not my first choice. I promise you. This is not my first fucking choice. And you can just see it. Uh, I don't want to be one of those.
- [77:39]
Bill Maher
This is not my first choice. I see it as a song title. This is not my first choice.
- [77:47]
Paul Anka
If my heart had a voice.
- [77:49]
Bill Maher
So Richard Belzer. You know Richard Belzer?
- [77:51]
Paul Anka
Of course.
- [77:52]
Bill Maher
Okay. He used to kill me. He. He had a bit. You know, he would. He would never wrote a thing down. Only got stoned when on stage.
- [77:59]
Paul Anka
Yeah.
- [77:59]
Bill Maher
And one of his things he would just go into was, hey, why do all singers give you this move? Everything's going to be okay as soon as I get my neck straightened out.
- [78:11]
Paul Anka
That's Sinatra. He started all that. It's the same with. The same with Brock bands. Why do they break guitars and they jump up and down like they're on.
- [78:19]
Bill Maher
You do it. It's all doing it is.
- [78:23]
Paul Anka
That's the one spot.
- [78:24]
Bill Maher
It's like when the gangster holds the gun like that. Any asshole can shoot you like that. But if you do that, it's a.
- [78:31]
Paul Anka
It's like the football players, they all have certain moves out and replicate, you know.
- [78:36]
Bill Maher
Now you sing with such joy. Jump.
- [78:42]
Paul Anka
And I might put that back in the show.
- [78:44]
Bill Maher
And eye of the tiger.
- [78:45]
Paul Anka
What now that you mentioned I may put jump in.
- [78:48]
Bill Maher
Oh, you should.
- [78:49]
Paul Anka
And it's my lights. Yeah. I'm so nuts on the new gig. I'm going to put a lot of that in.
- [78:54]
Bill Maher
It's great. You have the whole. Of course. That band with you.
- [78:57]
Paul Anka
Yeah. And I might do it on the California tour.
- [78:59]
Bill Maher
That band is so spot on. I mean, they just Sound exactly like the Basie Band on the. You know, my favorite Sinatra of the happy period. It might as well be. It might as well be swinging. That's Frank in a great mood. I don't know what happened that day, but, you know, it was a lot of more than the greatest love of the world.
- [79:26]
Paul Anka
Bill, I gotta hip you to one. My guy was Don Costa. He was responsible for my success. He found me at 50.
- [79:33]
Bill Maher
He's a ranger.
- [79:34]
Paul Anka
Yeah. Arranger, producer. I introduced him to sinatra in the 60s. Have you heard the Sinatra album? Sinatra and Strings?
- [79:43]
Bill Maher
Probably.
- [79:45]
Paul Anka
You want a fucking bed and you want to really get turned on to that mood of Frank. That's one of the best albums he's ever done, Sinatra and Strings. And the best live album he ever made was at the Sands. The best live album anyone has made,
- [80:01]
Bill Maher
technically I have is something from the Live at the Sands album. And, man, you. Oh, the Lady Is a Tramp. And the energy that you feel in the crowd. I think this is when they were making Ocean at 11.
- [80:16]
Paul Anka
Yeah, yeah.
- [80:17]
Bill Maher
But it could have been any of those years.
- [80:19]
Paul Anka
No, no, it was back then.
- [80:19]
Bill Maher
Okay, back then. I don't know exactly then, but you feel this, you know, when he comes out, you hear it. It just. But you could tell it's when he arrives. And then, like, all through the song, the crowd is, like, buzzing. Yeah, it's. Yeah. Those guys in that era, man, if you could go back in time and be anybody, anywhere, that's nothing like it.
- [80:45]
Paul Anka
Back then. It was magical. You walked in that room of 800 people, you knew what it was going to be. Everyone was dressed.
- [80:54]
Bill Maher
Yeah.
- [80:54]
Paul Anka
Oh, shirt and tie. You couldn't get in a place in a T shirt. Everyone was in a shirt and tie. Even when we started as kids, when you look at American Bandstand, every kid would go in with a shirt and tie and a jacket. That was the culture. Now you're lucky if you can get a guy to patch up a pair of jeans. But back then, Bill. But when you walked in that 800 seater and Basie band and you knew what you were getting and that music started, it was magic. It was magic. Listen, I cherish those days. And I would have given back the money. It was just something what.
- [81:31]
Bill Maher
What I learned from now, some of those songs really are so much better done that way. The two I mentioned, you also did one. I don't think it's on there, but it's Time After Time.
- [81:45]
Paul Anka
Time after Time.
- [81:48]
Bill Maher
No, no, no. Cyndi Lauper.
- [81:50]
Paul Anka
Oh, that's on my second swing album. That's correct. That's correct. It's the first track.
- [81:56]
Bill Maher
That's a very bassy sound and that's a great song. I mean, her version is great. No disrespect for her version. I love it. But it fits very naturally in that swing thing.
- [82:09]
Paul Anka
But as I said earlier, you can take a large percentage of music and you can change it and put it in a vibe if it's well constructed. It's not any Herculean effort, but if you're a musician and you hear it, you can take a well structured, structured song from here, whether it's country or whatever. Country swing.
- [82:29]
Bill Maher
You should do country. Country swings. Have you ever thought of that?
- [82:34]
Paul Anka
Yeah.
- [82:35]
Bill Maher
Really?
- [82:35]
Paul Anka
You know, I was talking to about was Michael Buble.
- [82:37]
Bill Maher
Because country.
- [82:38]
Paul Anka
Because he just did it. 1.
- [82:39]
Bill Maher
Country music is not my father's country music.
- [82:42]
Paul Anka
Right.
- [82:43]
Bill Maher
It was when I was a kid. I hated it. It was twangy and corny and Hank Williams.
- [82:47]
Paul Anka
It was.
- [82:47]
Bill Maher
It was fucking Hee Hawk.
- [82:48]
Paul Anka
Yeah, yeah.
- [82:49]
Bill Maher
It was a picking and a grinning.
- [82:50]
Paul Anka
That's right. That's right.
- [82:52]
Bill Maher
And it was like, let's just say ambivalent about racism.
- [82:56]
Paul Anka
Right?
- [82:59]
Bill Maher
Let's just say proud of their heritage. Proud of their heritage.
- [83:03]
Paul Anka
That's all they could do. And they can't do what I do. And they don't know anything.
- [83:09]
Bill Maher
Elvis, who I love.
- [83:10]
Paul Anka
Oh, man, I love Elvis.
- [83:12]
Bill Maher
He has a version. I'm sure you know it. He did it in concert for years of Glory, Glory, Hallelujah combined with Dixie, you know, as a showstopper. You know what I'm talking about?
- [83:23]
Paul Anka
Oh, absolutely.
- [83:23]
Bill Maher
I saw the mix, you know.
- [83:24]
Paul Anka
Yeah.
- [83:25]
Bill Maher
Wish I was in the land of Cotton. Yes, because you weren't picking it.
- [83:30]
Paul Anka
That's correct. But he was there. I know he was around all that culture.
- [83:34]
Bill Maher
Well, he was born in Tupelo, Mississippi, in 1935. I mean, that's Jim Crow South.
- [83:41]
Paul Anka
He was at all the black clubs. Little Richard was his buddy. You knew that, right?
- [83:48]
Bill Maher
I know. They were rivals.
- [83:49]
Paul Anka
No, Bill, they were buddies. Little Richard taught him a lot of shit. He was around Little Richard. But all that whole black music scene.
- [83:57]
Bill Maher
Well, yeah, but there was. Come on. There had to be a lot of resentment because these great black artists like Chuck Berry and Little Richard, Elvis became the star. Not that Elvis wasn't magnificent. I mean, I'm the biggest Elvis fan there is. But, you know, it was like, oh, the white guy takes the sound or has the sound, you know, and he wasn't doing it on purpose. It just was all the influences that were through him. But you know, a lot of people. In fact, in the George Jacobs book, he says Frank Sinatra hated Elvis.
- [84:35]
Paul Anka
He hated pop music, all of it.
- [84:38]
Bill Maher
Yeah.
- [84:39]
Paul Anka
Elvis was just one. No, no, you should have heard him sometime when you're at dinner. Elvis? Yes. But I mean, I could give you a list. No, no, he didn't like any of that stuff.
- [84:47]
Bill Maher
His quote was. Frank's quote on Elvis was. And I can't repeat it. Yeah, completely. But he said if I wanted to hear
- [84:56]
Paul Anka
right, I gotta.
- [84:57]
Bill Maher
I'd listen to a real one, right or wrong.
- [85:00]
Paul Anka
Oh, God. And yet they wound up at the Fontainebleau Hotel on the first special when he came out of the army, he sang with Frank on television.
- [85:09]
Bill Maher
Yeah. And Stalin made a pact with. Not with Hitler in 1939. And two years later he threw a tax dollar.
- [85:19]
Paul Anka
I get you people, you try your best, but going back to what you said, it was not only Elvis, the black artists. And if you look way back in our history, they dictated. It was always the black music that dictated in every 10 year period, whatever that was the influence. They dictated the music into the culture.
- [85:42]
Bill Maher
Right.
- [85:43]
Paul Anka
Even in the 50s with Elvis Bill, they. A lot of artists white. Ified it. They were a clergyman of cancer. And they were ripping them off left and right. But we were. I loved. That's all I was listening to. My buddy was Fats Domino. I met him and Chuck Berry when they came to my town in Ottawa. I broke in through a back door because I had some songs and I broke into a dressing room and I ran into Chuck Berry in his dressing room and I went in. I had this new white jacket, but I wanted them to sign. I was a big fan of all that stuff.
- [86:13]
Bill Maher
And he peed on it.
- [86:14]
Paul Anka
Not. No, no. I ran before I pulled it out. I'm sure he could have thrown it at me. I'd give you a Chuck Berry story. But I walk in and he sitting, put his guitar away, say, hey, Mr. Ram, I'm a fan. And you know, I sing. He's looking at me and I start singing Diana to him. This before I recorded it. Wow, I'm so young. And he looked at me, says, go back to school, kid. It's terrible. And it's in his book. The year later, I was working with him at the New York paramount. I said, Mr. Barry, here I am again.
- [86:47]
Bill Maher
And what did he say?
- [86:49]
Paul Anka
Yeah, Paul, you do it. But he was. Listen.
- [86:51]
Bill Maher
Well, did he own his bad prediction?
- [86:53]
Paul Anka
Oh, yeah, he was. He was a cool guy. He did. He was cool. He was cool. He was on tour with us. And we would travel. This wonderful family that became my partners, the Feld family. He owned drug stores out of Washington. They would book 15 of us, if you remember those. Caravan of stars.
- [87:09]
Bill Maher
Yeah, sure.
- [87:10]
Paul Anka
We'd all do two songs. We travel throughout the country. When Chuck was with us, if we were leaving the state of New York and we had to go over into Illinois or go south down into Tennessee or what have you, we would have to fly him from New York over to three more states, further, because the police were after him. He was knocking up chicks left and right. And he did the whole tour like that. They finally arrested him in Canada. Oh, he was. He was a stick holder, this guy.
- [87:45]
Bill Maher
Oh, boy, he's a stud.
- [87:47]
Paul Anka
If you held a snake, you'd be fucking it. I'm telling you. God bless him, he was it.
- [87:51]
Bill Maher
I'm not saying he had perfect morals, but, wow, what a baller. I mean, just the balls, you know, it was like that as a black man who, in an era when they just, you know, white people didn't act this bad and get away with it just because of sheer guts. And I'm gonna be. There was Jack Johnson. Oh, the boxer.
- [88:12]
Paul Anka
Totally.
- [88:12]
Bill Maher
You know, at like 19:10.
- [88:14]
Paul Anka
Yeah.
- [88:14]
Bill Maher
And. Or 20. Whatever. But, like, openly going out with white women, things you just, in many places would get you immediately lynched. Lynched.
- [88:24]
Paul Anka
Yeah. But you talk about balls, Bill, we live today, right now, in this modern society where all men in this country have balls, but very few know how to use them. Yeah, it's terrible what I see. It's sad.
- [88:39]
Bill Maher
Did you know that I'm getting the Mark Twain Award?
- [88:42]
Paul Anka
Yeah, I read that. It's Trump showing up.
- [88:44]
Bill Maher
See, I'm using my balls. Hey, that's what they give it to
- [88:49]
Paul Anka
you for what you went through the last couple. You were the only one with balls.
- [88:53]
Bill Maher
There you go.
- [88:53]
Paul Anka
You took a whole fucking bevy of stuff. And I must commend you for that. You know that. And look how right you turned out with everything you stood up for.
- [89:02]
Bill Maher
I'm always right, Paul. It gets boring.
- [89:04]
Paul Anka
You know why you and I will always get along?
- [89:07]
Bill Maher
Because you're right, too.
- [89:08]
Paul Anka
No, because you're very, very smart. And I'm always right.
- [89:16]
Bill Maher
Well, I. I so appreciate you being so open and candid and, you know, it's so hard to get a guest to completely be like, you know what? I'm playing with the house, money. You can't fuck with me on anything. And that's you. You know, like, you talk about your romances and you don't Couch it. I've had so many pussies who are like. They know their wife is watching. So if you ask him about the old days, he's like, you know, let's get off that subject. No, it's your life.
- [89:50]
Paul Anka
Not realistic.
- [89:51]
Bill Maher
That's another great one on there. It's my life.
- [89:52]
Paul Anka
It's my life. Bon Jovi.
- [89:54]
Bill Maher
That's. No, no. It's my life. That's. No doubt.
- [89:59]
Paul Anka
Wait a minute. It's my life. No, no. Isn't that Bon Jovi?
- [90:03]
Bill Maher
No, it's not. I. I think. Well, I don't know.
- [90:07]
Paul Anka
It's my life. Now or never. I ain't gonna live forever. Ain't gonna live. I'm alive. Bon Jovi.
- [90:16]
Bill Maher
You think?
- [90:18]
Paul Anka
Which one were you thinking?
- [90:19]
Bill Maher
No, I think it's a sin. It's my life.
- [90:22]
Paul Anka
That's Bon Jovi, babe. I can promise you it's Bon Jovi. You want to tack it onto the other bet?
- [90:26]
Bill Maher
I will bet you 20 gold.
- [90:28]
Paul Anka
Okay. I want you to shake on that right now. Look at me in the eyes, honey. You're gonna fucking pay up. Bon Jovi. It's my life. What do you think of that?
- [90:40]
Bill Maher
I think I'm gonna win this bet.
- [90:42]
Paul Anka
Okay.
- [90:43]
Bill Maher
I think I'm gonna win this bet. I absolutely do. It's my life. I think is. No doubt. I think that is Gwen Stefani.
- [90:50]
Paul Anka
I think Gwen Stefan. Funny.
- [90:51]
Bill Maher
Yeah.
- [90:52]
Paul Anka
It's my life now. I never. Ain't gonna live until.
- [90:57]
Bill Maher
And then you go into a lyrica. Frank. You.
- [91:00]
Paul Anka
Frank said it. My friend does it. Said. He did it my way.
- [91:03]
Bill Maher
Which is a great.
- [91:04]
Paul Anka
That's their line. I didn't write that.
- [91:06]
Bill Maher
Oh, really?
- [91:07]
Paul Anka
They put it in the original lyric. Bon Jovi.
- [91:09]
Bill Maher
You mean Gwen Stefani?
- [91:11]
Paul Anka
Yeah. Well, her sister, who's related to Bon Jovi, who plagiarized.
- [91:15]
Bill Maher
Well, one of us is going to look like a stoned idiot.
- [91:18]
Paul Anka
I'm walking out of here with some major money, baby. Really? Absolutely. Bon Jo.
- [91:25]
Bill Maher
We'll see.
- [91:26]
Paul Anka
We're going to know because I know you got a very hip, cool girlfriend, and she probably knows all about that. She's going to tell us when we see her.
- [91:33]
Bill Maher
She never.
- [91:34]
Paul Anka
She never want these people.
- [91:37]
Bill Maher
No, I can almost promise you.
- [91:39]
Paul Anka
Really?
- [91:40]
Bill Maher
Yes.
- [91:42]
Paul Anka
What you have to listen to.
- [91:43]
Bill Maher
She would definitely. I love her dearly, but she would definitely be the last person you'd want to arbitrate this.
- [91:49]
Paul Anka
But I bet she knows Bon Jovi.
- [91:52]
Bill Maher
You know, the name would ring a bell. I wouldn't be surprised if she thought it was how Italians say, good morning you just can't expect.
- [92:02]
Paul Anka
That's Buongiorno.
- [92:03]
Bill Maher
You can't expect people to know things before they know them. I always say I'm going to write a book someday called Gazpacho Soup Is Cold. Because I remember when I did not know this and made a bit of a fool of myself in a restaurant. Right. And the point is.
- [92:23]
Paul Anka
And it was a Chinese restaurant.
- [92:25]
Bill Maher
Point is, you're not born knowing that this pachazup is.
- [92:29]
Paul Anka
Of course not.
- [92:29]
Bill Maher
There was a moment. Everything you know, you learned at a single moment.
- [92:33]
Paul Anka
Correct.
- [92:33]
Bill Maher
You just didn't memorialize it. But every. So, like, at some moment, she will hear about Bon Jovi, but I don't think that moment has arrived. And why should it get it. It's not one of the more important things.
- [92:49]
Paul Anka
But you never know. Some people. Some people have done homework and.
- [92:53]
Bill Maher
Oh, I gotta ask you this. So, I mean, Michael Jackson, amazing singer, amazing dancer, songwriter, unconventional babysitter, we would acknowledge.
- [93:06]
Paul Anka
No comment.
- [93:09]
Bill Maher
And you. The weirdest thing about him to me, after even everything else weird, is he didn't release the song you wrote with him.
- [93:24]
Paul Anka
This is it.
- [93:25]
Bill Maher
No, no, the other one.
- [93:27]
Paul Anka
Love Never Felt so Good.
- [93:28]
Bill Maher
Love Never Felt so Good. Which I was like, maybe my favorite Michael Jackson song of all time. And I was like, why didn't they release that when they cut it? Why did I have to wait till after he died? I mean, why put that one in the vault?
- [93:44]
Paul Anka
So let me give you the background. I think you do know we started that project in the 80s. I was doing a duets album for Sony major artist Michael McDonald. Yeah.
- [93:55]
Bill Maher
Oh, I know.
- [93:56]
Paul Anka
And Michael wanted to be on the album. And we started in my studio in Carmel and I laid down these three songs that ultimately came out, and he was living in my guest house. You wrote them with him?
- [94:07]
Bill Maher
Yeah, with him.
- [94:08]
Paul Anka
Oh, yeah.
- [94:09]
Bill Maher
Well, that's what. I know. The process.
- [94:10]
Paul Anka
Yeah. So we sit in a room and I give him some different chords because he's not. Not a musician. And a lot of them are. Today, they work off computers.
- [94:18]
Bill Maher
But. So it was a true collaboration.
- [94:20]
Paul Anka
Oh, absolutely. Absolute collaboration.
- [94:22]
Bill Maher
McCartney always said that he and Lennon wrote nose to nose because they would be on the bed.
- [94:26]
Paul Anka
Little bed in there.
- [94:27]
Bill Maher
Not that Michael had a nose, but if he did. No, I'm sorry.
- [94:31]
Paul Anka
I knew the old notes, but, you know.
- [94:33]
Bill Maher
But it was.
- [94:33]
Paul Anka
I knew the old notes. I go back to him, the family sees it.
- [94:36]
Bill Maher
But was it like that? Like you were. It was truly a collaboration.
- [94:39]
Paul Anka
Yeah, yeah. Listen. Okay, he's dead. I'm not going to sit Here going, oh, I wrote 90%. That's. We sat in a room together, and when the juices are flowing, we collaborated great. It comes out. I don't care about. I wanted to know, okay, so we're sitting there and we finished these basic tracks. Me at the piano, his vocals. Thriller comes out and goes through the roof. And Michael was so absorbed, and every minute of the day was about show business, what he could, but he was totally involved, this guy. And I'd sit at dinner and I'd talk and talk. He was a sponge. We finish the first stage of these, and I had to go to LA to finish them because I'd finished everybody else. Loggins, McDonald and Sony wanted the album. He leaves my home. Thriller comes out, goes through the roof. Whatever changed him in terms of where he felt his gravitas and who he was. He stole the tapes out of the studio. And I say that affectionately. He took the tapes out of the studio. And the studio called and said, Mr. Anker, Michael Jackson came and took the tapes. I said, what do you mean? They belong to me, can't they? No, he took them.
- [95:50]
Bill Maher
Who let that happen?
- [95:51]
Paul Anka
The studio. Because he was on the box with me. Hello, I'm Michael Jackson. I'm right here with Paul Ankin. He went to the studio, Sunset Sound, and they gave him the tapes. No big deal. Michael Jackson walked in and said, bill, I need this buckle when I sold you the house. So they gave him the tapes. I go to his lawyers, I sit down with them. I'll try listening. As Mark Twain said, give me a little more time and make it shorter. But here we are. So I get his lawyers, we get. I say, guys, we have a contract. We go around. Finally, he gives me back. There's no litigation. Gives me back the tapes. And they sit. Because I can't finish the project. They sit there. I can't get him. He won't come in the studio. Years later, where he passes, they go into his drawer and they find he copied the tapes. They find them thinking they were his. They now bring in other producers and they start sweetening all those songs, which means they add rhythm sections, violins, everything that you heard. And they called me, they said, you know, thank you for settling this. Because when it got into an issue, say, just give me 50 of everything. Okay? That's all. I'm not gonna hold you up. Not gonna hold you up. They would call me each time they find a song after this. Is that the guy that ran his. His music and all that? The guy's name? Malone. Nice Guy, he said, oh, I've got this other song that, you know, we found. He starts playing it over the phone. I said, I wrote that too. He says, what? I said, don't worry about it, just do what you want to do. And they conversed and they were very amiable doing things. But they sweetened that and then released everything the way they saw it. They hadn't found love. Never felt so good. They just found a box of tapes.
- [97:46]
Bill Maher
But it wasn't the tape that they returned to you. It wasn't?
- [97:49]
Paul Anka
No. He copied. He took out of the studio. Copied them.
- [97:53]
Bill Maher
And so you had your own copies?
- [97:54]
Paul Anka
I had my own copies and he had his own company.
- [97:56]
Bill Maher
So you could have put it out?
- [97:58]
Paul Anka
No, not without his participation.
- [98:00]
Bill Maher
Really?
- [98:00]
Paul Anka
He wouldn't come in and finish?
- [98:01]
Bill Maher
No, he doesn't have a. I mean, Paul McCartney, I don't think, talks a lot about it. Cause he's a classy guy who doesn't want to talk a lot of shit. But publishing companies, I feel like there's a lot of bad blood there.
- [98:12]
Paul Anka
Yes, there was.
- [98:12]
Bill Maher
Yeah. And that Michael Jackson was sort of a ruthless shark in business. I mean, you know, that's.
- [98:22]
Paul Anka
It's hard for me. I liked him as a talent and working with him, I guess if you call it ruthless taking the tapes. It's business. Okay, Is it the right business? Maybe not. But he was on top of his business and he ran everything. He was very hands on. And that was it. That was his reputation. But how can you blame a young guy, a kid, that's got all those issues in his life, trying to protect his life? Can't blame them. You know, most of these young talent, all of us, you wind up in the wrong hands. Like a lot of them. You're in trouble because you're coming out last. The record company's making the money, the agents are making the money. The artists don't wind up with all that money until down the road. If, if, if, if. Doesn't work that way. Never has worked. Look at today, writers don't get royalties. All this streaming. They need a totally new format so that everybody gets paid properly. Because right now the record companies are getting paid but the artists and the writer. There has to be a whole new menu implemented with all of this streaming and everything.
- [99:20]
Bill Maher
I thought nobody was getting paid because of streaming.
- [99:23]
Paul Anka
Record companies get paid. They make the deals.
- [99:25]
Bill Maher
Yeah,
- [99:28]
Paul Anka
I think the streaming companies will make money and go in and use AI and create their own artists and put that up. Watch that. That'd be the next stroke.
- [99:39]
Bill Maher
I do Feel. Not that it's a competition between us. I do feel that your business is more susceptible to being fucked by AI than mine. I have yet to see them really be funny. Like, funny what?
- [99:52]
Paul Anka
Correct.
- [99:53]
Bill Maher
Okay.
- [99:54]
Paul Anka
Correct. Hello.
- [99:55]
Bill Maher
But they can write. But they can make a song. I think there's already been a song still.
- [99:59]
Paul Anka
The number one country record in the country is AI.
- [100:02]
Bill Maher
Is that right?
- [100:02]
Paul Anka
And there's another one out. There's some guy, he's making a fortune. That's it. No, you think there's gonna be a Bill Maher? They're gonna sit in the room. Like, people see you up there, you're cool, you're doing your shit. I know like as a creator, you're up till four in the fucking morning writing and preparing. They don't see what goes on in the background. I'm up till three in the morning getting arrangements together, doing just like I'm sure you do. You're hands on with what you do.
- [100:26]
Bill Maher
No, I'm telling you, you're. I work a very full week and I do work very hard, but I feel like you are definitely made of Turner stuff. And I say that I'm not jealous at all. I don't want to work that hard. I got off. I was toured as a standup for 42 years. I stopped last year. I'm glad I stopped. I miss doing it. I miss being on stage. There's nothing like that. A theater of people who bought a ticket to see you. So they're pre fans. They want me to do the thing I do and I want to do it for them. I miss that love that's very prevalent in your concerts. I know. I've seen and I got the report. But, you know, I just. I don't want to push myself, you know. At 84, I cannot imagine traveling even domestically, let alone, you know, wherever the you're going. A world tour where, you know, you don't speak the language. Always. And like new bathroom and new hotel and always unpacking. Having to like cut open an orange with a can opener because there's no knife in the room.
- [101:32]
Paul Anka
That ain't me, baby. There's a knife in a room and there's everything. No, no, no.
- [101:37]
Bill Maher
Always.
- [101:37]
Paul Anka
I mean, I don't have a retinue, 50 people kissing my ass. I got a couple and we've got it all blueprinted. And I travel easy and I love it. And you should go out and do a few dates because I've seen you and I've seen all this stuff. There's no Rush like it.
- [101:52]
Bill Maher
Bill, you can.
- [101:53]
Paul Anka
There's no rush like it.
- [101:55]
Bill Maher
I know.
- [101:56]
Paul Anka
For an hour and a half, we've been there. I get it, I get it. I know, I know. But never say no.
- [102:04]
Bill Maher
Well, first of all, stand up is. It's not the kind of thing where you can just suddenly pick it up. It's like playing the cello. You have to, like, stay in practice. You have to have an act mileage. Well, you gotta work, you know, I mean, I always had three. Not always, but I always had two jobs. My TV show and then standup, and then I edited the podcast. So for a while, I did three jobs. Two's plenty. And travel is not healthy. You know, just travel itself is not that healthy. And. But some people, you know, you're obviously very adoptable. I bet you, you sleep well on the road.
- [102:43]
Paul Anka
I sleep when I sleep. I don't say I gotta get eight hours. I don't. Yeah, I'm up and I'm doing. But I get what I need to
- [102:50]
Bill Maher
protect my throat and not to feel like shit, right?
- [102:54]
Paul Anka
Well, I never feel like shit. I'll never go on a stage feeling like shit.
- [102:56]
Bill Maher
No, no, no. But, like, if you don't get enough sleep, don't you.
- [102:58]
Paul Anka
Oh, I'm sleeping. I'm gonna get six hours minimum.
- [103:02]
Bill Maher
So you never feel like shit from lack of sleep? Because I do.
- [103:06]
Paul Anka
On the road, anywhere. Oh, anywhere, yeah. Oh, no. When I'm not on stage or committed there. Oh, fuck. Yeah.
- [103:12]
Bill Maher
No, I'm not saying you can't. I mean, we work. Look, we're from a generation that we work even when we don't feel good. That's when they smile, when they are low, you know? Come on. That's not how the kids are today.
- [103:26]
Paul Anka
No, they're weak. I mean, I told you. We're raising a bunch of weak entitled kids.
- [103:31]
Bill Maher
Chapel Roan has a hangnail. That show has canceled. Because, I mean, they just don't even give an excuse, some of them, or just like, it's basically, I feel shitty. I don't feel like it tonight. I don't feel like. I know you all got babysitters and fucking arrange your life around this for three months, but. Sorry, you know, I'll do it when I feel better. And the fans put up with it. That's the power of music. That's how powerful music is. The fans do put up with a lot of shit from these brats these days. And they don't, you know, canceling an hour out tickets.
- [104:08]
Paul Anka
$14,000.
- [104:09]
Bill Maher
12,000.
- [104:11]
Paul Anka
Where's this money Coming from Daddy. And who is this Daddy?
- [104:14]
Bill Maher
Yes.
- [104:15]
Paul Anka
Are you. Look at that on the wall. $4.50 to see the Beatles.
- [104:22]
Bill Maher
A ticket to My Fair lady was $6 for four years. How many years in 1956, how many
- [104:31]
Paul Anka
years was it on? Four years, six years. Long run.
- [104:34]
Bill Maher
Oh, My Fair Lady.
- [104:36]
Paul Anka
Yeah.
- [104:37]
Bill Maher
One of the greatest forever, isn't it? One of the greatest.
- [104:39]
Paul Anka
I'm in the middle of my Broadway thing. I'm working with a writer now.
- [104:41]
Bill Maher
Oh, yeah, you plugged that on real time. What is the tell me about it?
- [104:44]
Paul Anka
Well, I'm working with a very talented guy, Rupert Holmes, very successful.
- [104:51]
Bill Maher
What was his hit?
- [104:52]
Paul Anka
He did a few things on Broadway I don't want to misrepresent. But the point was I went through a few writers, I finally got a guy that gets it. The point I'm making is that process now of working with him. And the selection and the songs is not a jukebox show. We gotta find two actors, gotta get the director that gets it. And now we're in that think tank. Hopefully to be done in a year and a half.
- [105:15]
Bill Maher
So what is the one liner to sell the show? Like what, we're not even there yet? No, no, but if somebody said, what's the show about?
- [105:23]
Paul Anka
It's about a young kid from Canada who, blah, blah, blah, wrote a bunch of songs and.
- [105:27]
Bill Maher
Right. Sold.
- [105:36]
Paul Anka
Yeah.
- [105:36]
Bill Maher
You had me in Canada because I love the Canadians.
- [105:40]
Paul Anka
Oh, I love Canada. Those are my people.
- [105:42]
Bill Maher
I have a lot of history in Canada. Yeah. And it's, it is different. I mean, no question. I remember not that long, maybe 10 years ago. I was there a lot. I was seeing somebody there and I was in a bar in Toronto with a bunch of her friends and there's a lot of drinks and I, I think I tipped the bartender like twice. And the third time I went to do it, he pushed it back and he said, no, you give me enough. I was like, you know, in America you could be arrested.
- [106:20]
Paul Anka
That's right.
- [106:22]
Bill Maher
Trump would take a very dim view of someone turning down money.
- [106:25]
Paul Anka
I see.
- [106:26]
Bill Maher
And that's Canada. I mean, I always think of that as Canada as opposed to America, you
- [106:32]
Paul Anka
know, just different, homogenous, nicer. We're not a homogenous nation here. You look at homogenous nations, Asian, wherever, different cultures, we're not homogenous. That's been part of what we have to deal with. But that's the greatness of America. But Canada is homogenous. Only now are they feeling it. A city like Toronto, there's over 400,000 immigrants and their crime rate has gone through the roof. Yeah.
- [106:57]
Bill Maher
No, Canada and England.
- [106:59]
Paul Anka
Oh, that's a whole other story.
- [107:01]
Bill Maher
8 million in my lifetime. And again, this is not a complaint. Haters for the better became way more. I was in London for the first time in 1984. So I'm not saying it was better that it was an all white city. I'm glad. Historically, I got to see this thing back when, like, it looked like World War II Britain. The food was horrible. Everything was Brussels sprouts and some spoiled original English cuisine. Right. The television had two channels.
- [107:33]
Paul Anka
That's right.
- [107:34]
Bill Maher
You know, there was an England.
- [107:36]
Paul Anka
That's right.
- [107:36]
Bill Maher
And I'm not saying it was all better. And I think London now is like. I mean, it's like, I think 70% minority or something.
- [107:47]
Paul Anka
It's over $9 million.
- [107:49]
Bill Maher
You know, this is called progress.
- [107:50]
Paul Anka
That's right.
- [107:51]
Bill Maher
I just.
- [107:52]
Paul Anka
And they're leaving England just like France.
- [107:54]
Bill Maher
But I'm always having to beg progressives to, like, enjoy the product. You're selling Progress. They really hate progress. You know, there's something about their psyche that has to say, no, we haven't done enough. Yeah, of course we haven't done enough, but we did this. Could you just take the W once in a while? Do we always have to bitch?
- [108:15]
Paul Anka
Yeah.
- [108:16]
Bill Maher
I mean, if I wanted bitching, I'd get married.
- [108:18]
Paul Anka
Yeah. It's a different landscape out there today, big time. Certainly on this part of the world. I mean, you look at Sweden the other day, they're sending. Now they're vetting out those that they let in. If they don't have jobs, they're going back again. I've spent a lot of time in Scandinavia and they're a whole other different culture over there.
- [108:39]
Bill Maher
What was the name of the sisters over there?
- [108:42]
Paul Anka
There was only one. The only sisters were the Kessler girls.
- [108:45]
Bill Maher
Oh, really?
- [108:45]
Paul Anka
No, they were little blonde beauties with blue eyes. And I was up there singing my little heart out, sending my roadie out. That one, that one, that one. We were stopping from city to city. I've taken them in the woods, up against a tree. I couldn't wait another two hours. I was a naughty boy.
- [109:04]
Bill Maher
I'm so glad you can enjoy your past. Like I'm telling you, this is a rare at 84.
- [109:10]
Paul Anka
But I'm so. What am I hiding?
- [109:12]
Bill Maher
Why, sweetheart, this is the right attitude. I'm just trying to tell you it's rare. People just don't have the confidence, the assurance, the made manness that you possess to just do that because they're afraid. And you know, there's nothing more attractive than actually not being afraid. Right. Especially since you're not saying anything that controversial.
- [109:37]
Paul Anka
Listen, doesn't anybody dream about jumping out of a car with a beauty and running in the woods up against an oak tree?
- [109:43]
Bill Maher
Of course. What?
- [109:45]
Paul Anka
Why? Are you gonna spend money on a room in in Rochmoburg? No, I had some great times over there. It was a cool country.
- [109:53]
Bill Maher
You seem like you were always having a great time.
- [109:56]
Paul Anka
You gotta have fun, Bill. I realize somewhere along the way. You gotta have fun, man. Humor is the final refuge of sanity. If I meet someone with no humor. Bye bye. Right, Bye. Bye. And I've sat at many tables. Gotta have fun, buddy.
- [110:14]
Bill Maher
I mean, that is one of the good things about being single is like you decide who you get to be with.
- [110:19]
Paul Anka
Yeah.
- [110:20]
Bill Maher
I mean, when you're in a couple, I mean, I'm not knocking it, I've done it. And you know, there are things about it that are amazing, but everything is a negotiation sometimes.
- [110:31]
Paul Anka
It's a business. It is a business right from the get go. They don't understand business. It's a business. You get involved. They don't understand what they're getting into today. Marriage is a business. I'm sorry, It's a business. You can give me all the love you want, but then you don't meet your wife. You don't know your wife till you meet her in court.
- [110:51]
Bill Maher
Let me call Hallmark before I forget this awesome idea. Well, it is literally a business in the sense that you enter into legal. A legal relationship that involves the federal and state government. Which is to me was always enough reason to say, why didn't you get married? Because I don't want to put my love life in the hands of the federal and state government. Now if something happens and life is unpredictable, I have to involve the federal. You know that to me is insane.
- [111:29]
Paul Anka
Yes.
- [111:31]
Bill Maher
What a stupid sucker bet.
- [111:33]
Paul Anka
Total sucker bet.
- [111:35]
Bill Maher
So you wouldn't get married again?
- [111:37]
Paul Anka
No, no, no.
- [111:39]
Bill Maher
But you're open to a relationship?
- [111:41]
Paul Anka
If I'm open to a relationship and I'm with somebody and I'm with them and I don't go out at night till 10 in the morning without calling. Right. You're married. What are you talking about? You're married.
- [111:56]
Bill Maher
There's nothing like freedom.
- [111:58]
Paul Anka
It's nothing like freedom and grace to be graceful and peace of mind and non toxic in your world.
- [112:05]
Bill Maher
Right. And people in serious beautiful relationships can have freedom. I mean, not complete freedom in every way, perhaps, and that's appropriate. But like Much more freedom than most relationships allow for. I mean. And once you make someone feel like they are in a prison, they're going to shiv you.
- [112:27]
Paul Anka
We're breaking out, baby.
- [112:28]
Bill Maher
You're gonna buy. Get a shiv. You're gonna make it out of something with the soap. And I'm not gonna f. No, not always, but it is. It is. You know, it is. It. It's a world where you're taking on your problems and somebody else's problems, and they're doing that for you. And that's the deal, hopefully. And sometimes it's not the same, but I mean. And sometimes it works out. Really.
- [112:59]
Paul Anka
Absolutely. There's no question. But a lot of the young people gonna get it. They don't wanna get married if they're not gonna have kids.
- [113:06]
Bill Maher
Oh, right.
- [113:06]
Paul Anka
Why get married, Right?
- [113:07]
Bill Maher
Oh, no.
- [113:08]
Paul Anka
Why? I don't. I don't. And they. Kids are very smart today.
- [113:13]
Bill Maher
Well, they're savvy about certain things like that.
- [113:16]
Paul Anka
Yeah. And I must tell you, they're not educated. No. Don't wanna talk about our educational system. No, they're not educated. They're teaching the wrong thing.
- [113:23]
Bill Maher
No, but you're right. They're savvy in a world. Worldly kind of way. And about social media, which gives them a great advantage over us.
- [113:33]
Paul Anka
Totally.
- [113:34]
Bill Maher
Totally apes, you know.
- [113:37]
Paul Anka
Yeah. You know what I'm gonna sell on a kid. I'm getting a lot of flack for this, but by and large, kids are overrated.
- [113:46]
Bill Maher
You're talking to the right guy, bro.
- [113:49]
Paul Anka
I mean, I see the stories and I hear the stories. It's frightening what's going on in some of these families.
- [113:57]
Bill Maher
Well, it's.
- [113:58]
Paul Anka
And the commitment that you put into them. These women that work so hard. The only real person you'll ever meet in your life is your mother in most cases. I must tell you.
- [114:08]
Bill Maher
The New York Post sent some reporters down to spring break that's going on in Florida now and asked them, the kids on the beach, about the war in Iran. Didn't ring a bell.
- [114:21]
Paul Anka
Nothing. I know.
- [114:22]
Bill Maher
Straight or Hormuz. What's that?
- [114:25]
Paul Anka
Sounds like a dish at a Lebanese restaurant. Give me last night with pita bread.
- [114:30]
Bill Maher
I mean, ayatollah, what's an ayatollah? You know.
- [114:34]
Paul Anka
Very true.
- [114:35]
Bill Maher
I mean, I don't. My parents. Generation who fought World War II, I asked my mother this and, you know, they're called the greatest generation. And I said, you know, wow, you're the greatest generation. And she said, yeah, we weren't until the war came and we had to be, but I'm not really sure. If the war came, these kids would like my mother's and father's generation. I'm not sure they could get their shit together. But you have kids that age that are. How old is your.
- [115:04]
Paul Anka
Well, I've got six kids. I got five girls in their 50s. I've got a son who's 20 and I have 20 and I have nine
- [115:11]
Bill Maher
and I have nine children. So. Do you and the 20 year old have a. A locked.
- [115:16]
Paul Anka
You're close. Real close.
- [115:18]
Bill Maher
Awesome. So. So he's not like. Makes you crazy with woke.
- [115:24]
Paul Anka
No, he's cool. I talk to him all the time. He's cool. Listen, it's. It's. He's got a good head. He's got. He's figuring it out. It's poker, some chicks, weed. Has an opinion about what's going on. No, no, no. I sit and I vet his friends. I'm very proud of my son. I got a great son.
- [115:45]
Bill Maher
Yeah, that's good.
- [115:46]
Paul Anka
Yeah.
- [115:47]
Bill Maher
Because 20, you know, your sister.
- [115:50]
Paul Anka
You don't know the 20. Fine.
- [115:52]
Bill Maher
A male brain at 20 is maybe the worst thing of your whole life. Yeah, anybody's life, really. You're old enough to be able to do damage in some way, and you do. And yeah, you don't have. You know, you just.
- [116:10]
Paul Anka
Hey, everybody's been there, Bill. It's what it is, part of the process. You come in alone, you're going out alone, you make your choices. You know, I learned. Listen, I got real lucky at a young age. Started figuring shit out. Had my lumps. But I just tried to make fewer mistakes because it was tough, man. 15 years old in that world, and then. No. No.
- [116:32]
Bill Maher
So when the grim reaper comes, how do you want to go out?
- [116:36]
Paul Anka
I don't want to be there.
- [116:39]
Bill Maher
I don't know. You don't look like you're anywhere near it.
- [116:42]
Paul Anka
No, you know. You know, it is right now. I look at everything and I go, it's not mine. It's all rented. I can't get attached to any of this shit because everything's temporary in life. You just get ready and know that one day you're gone, you're over. Nobody will remember you. Now, your music. But when I look at it all, you just have to be ready and know that if you live the moment properly, you don't live in the past. You don't worry about tomorrow. When it's time, it's time. I take care of myself. I have a very strict diet. I all the that you hear. I Do it. But I'm ready. You know, I look at my home, it's. I'm not a big stuff guy. I got one car, but it's not mine. Wretched.
- [117:28]
Bill Maher
Well, you have you ready, but your body and your mind are ready because you don't, like. We can't hide that we're 70 and 84. We can't hide that we're technically old people. Okay. But there is an energy you give off that's old person energy. And neither one of us, at least finally, I mean, at the end of the day, is doing that yet. And as long as you have that going.
- [117:55]
Paul Anka
Yeah.
- [117:56]
Bill Maher
You know, people just, you know, there is ageism in this country, a lot of it.
- [118:01]
Paul Anka
Oh, a lot of ageism.
- [118:02]
Bill Maher
Well, you can overcome it rather quickly in person anyway, because people just. It's instinctive. It's below the intellectual level. They just feel a certain energy. It has to do with the way you move, like how you. There's just, you know, a doddering sense if you're not that.
- [118:20]
Paul Anka
Yeah.
- [118:21]
Bill Maher
You know, Biden esque, shall we say. But, you know.
- [118:26]
Paul Anka
Yeah.
- [118:27]
Bill Maher
You just don't read old.
- [118:28]
Paul Anka
Yeah.
- [118:29]
Bill Maher
And that's my goal, too.
- [118:30]
Paul Anka
Yeah. And you can do it.
- [118:32]
Bill Maher
You can. And you can do it.
- [118:33]
Paul Anka
If you're your own detective and you really are on top of it, you can do it. I pr. And when I read about what's coming down the pipeline in terms of longevity, it's going to be magical because we don't know half the shit that's happened. We don't see it coming. But I can promise you they are now on the cusp. Within the next two, three years, every child born after the year 2000 will live over 100. They know that. But for us, one day, we wake up. Oop. New York Times, whatever. There is shit coming down the pipeline that we will take, that we will live a healthy, coherent life over 100. And we'll talk about that, you and I, when we go to Japan in four years and they're waiting at the airport.
- [119:14]
Bill Maher
We are going to get there. The question is when? My point of view is I don't mind dying. I just don't want to be the last guy before they figured it out. You know what I mean? I don't want to miss him by a week.
- [119:31]
Paul Anka
You won't. You won't.
- [119:32]
Bill Maher
You don't think I will?
- [119:33]
Paul Anka
No, you'll be cool.
- [119:35]
Bill Maher
Do you think we'll be here in,
- [119:36]
Paul Anka
oh, next two years? Absolutely. I think.
- [119:38]
Bill Maher
No, do. So you're like 200.
- [119:42]
Paul Anka
No, no. I'm talking about medically. They're going to be coming out with stuff that's going to give us a lot of longevity. That's what I'm saying. I think within two, three years we'll know that.
- [119:52]
Bill Maher
But longevity. But it does end at some point
- [119:55]
Paul Anka
or, of course, 100, 110, 20. Hey.
- [119:57]
Bill Maher
Well, I mean, the goal would be to actually cure all day, you know,
- [120:03]
Paul Anka
I mean, I wouldn't go that far right now.
- [120:07]
Bill Maher
No.
- [120:07]
Paul Anka
It's like, I want some proof about UFOs. I want some proof about God, you know, I'm a guy that. I want to look at proof. I need to look at the facts on the table to make a decision. Otherwise, you know, you're not going to get a fight out of me. You're not going to get this. But I'll give my opinion.
- [120:23]
Bill Maher
No, you always conducted your career with class, you know, you never didn't do stupid things. You never did anything that we had to read in the paper and go, oh, Jesus Christ, you know, not over yet.
- [120:37]
Paul Anka
Not over yet.
- [120:38]
Bill Maher
No, it's true, you know, you didn't get robbed by your managers. Cause you're a fucking idiot. I never once saw you get out of a limousine and there was your crotch exposed, you know, I mean, it's just you always were like, classy. I think. Again, that's like when I was a young beau in the 70s. Looking at other men as role models, I just feel like, oh, yeah, that's guy in Vegas with the, you know, doo doo with the Rat Pack shit.
- [121:04]
Paul Anka
And it's all surface shit for most of them. All the guys, some of them you look at. Even when I look at people. You know, a long time ago, I got scared to death. I was going to sing for the Queen of England Command Performance. And I came with a tool that triggered me for a lot of people. I picture people nude. It calms me down.
- [121:25]
Bill Maher
I do, too. It's called masturbating.
- [121:27]
Paul Anka
You're just hammering that rubber. No, no. I look at people nude. And the reality to read a room and know who's. And it's not all. A lot of it's for show, Bill. Everybody's gonna wind up at home in a bathrobe eating a sandwich and farting for two minutes. There's no. None of those guys are cool all the time. I can promise you.
- [121:48]
Bill Maher
Singers are cool all the time.
- [121:50]
Paul Anka
No.
- [121:50]
Bill Maher
Yes, because they sing like this and
- [121:54]
Paul Anka
then they go home and that goes to the other side.
- [121:56]
Bill Maher
I'll tell you, if I could. If I could make A bargain with the devil. And if he would give me the power to be able to sing, I would accept having my neck permanently stuck. As long as I could sound like you when I say I'd be okay with it, I'd be on my show. Boy, that Trump did some weird shit again this week, huh, folks? But as long as I could say I'd be cool.
- [122:24]
Paul Anka
Forefoot my neck, it's like, what? Peter Stellar's in. Kubrick.
- [122:29]
Bill Maher
Yes. Dr. Strangelove. Remember? With the. The hand.
- [122:33]
Paul Anka
Brilliant.
- [122:34]
Bill Maher
Genius.
- [122:36]
Paul Anka
All right.
- [122:36]
Bill Maher
I could talk to you all night, but. Yeah, I probably should let you go. I've had you here for two hours. It's been two hours. Ten minutes.
- [122:43]
Paul Anka
Two hours. Listen, that's what we're having fun at. Flies. That's what they say. Well, we're going to do it again.
- [122:48]
Bill Maher
Well, Harvey Levin, our mutual friend.
- [122:51]
Paul Anka
Oh, I love Harvey.
- [122:52]
Bill Maher
I love him, too.
- [122:53]
Paul Anka
He's a.
- [122:54]
Bill Maher
Okay.
- [122:54]
Paul Anka
Can we all have dinner? Yeah, we'll throw it together. Are you going to Zazlov's dinner Monday night? Do you go to dinner with David?
- [123:02]
Bill Maher
What an awkward question.
- [123:03]
Paul Anka
Isn't he. Your way pivoted? Is that your bus?
- [123:05]
Bill Maher
He absolutely is. Yeah, but.
- [123:07]
Paul Anka
Well, why don't you come be my date Monday night? I'm going along.
- [123:10]
Bill Maher
No, no, I think I. I think,
- [123:12]
Paul Anka
if I may, until I get there.
- [123:14]
Bill Maher
Look, he knows a lot of people. You can't be at every party.
- [123:17]
Paul Anka
This is my first.
- [123:19]
Bill Maher
Oh, yeah, I've been. No, I don't think. You just show up at your boss's party, Paul.
- [123:27]
Paul Anka
But you're not just anybody, Bill.
- [123:29]
Bill Maher
I guess this is your gazpacho soup moment, where you learn.
- [123:35]
Paul Anka
But he's such a. He's a nice guy. He's a cool guy. I'm really happy for him.
- [123:39]
Bill Maher
Oh, he's. Oh.
- [123:40]
Paul Anka
Oh, he's a sweetheart. Let me see.
- [123:41]
Bill Maher
Well, especially because everybody was, like, on him and saying, like, your boy, you're failing in taking over this company. And then he comes up with a year where he has, like, unprecedented number of six or seven hits in a row.
- [123:55]
Paul Anka
That's right.
- [123:56]
Bill Maher
From one studio that. You know, so.
- [123:58]
Paul Anka
Yeah. Yeah, he's in the right place, the right guy. Got it.
- [124:02]
Bill Maher
He will not be having to drive an Uber. Let's put it that way.
- [124:07]
Paul Anka
Yep. And no, shooty.
- [124:08]
Bill Maher
All right.
- [124:08]
Paul Anka
Shooty, man. Okay, Bill.
- [124:10]
Bill Maher
Well. Oh, you know what? Wait, wait. I got. Did you see what this is? Yeah, this is all the best.
- [124:20]
Paul Anka
The what?
- [124:20]
Bill Maher
Stan Cornyn.
- [124:22]
Paul Anka
Oh. He wrote all the liner notes. Wow. He was brilliant. Yeah.
- [124:29]
Bill Maher
So.
- [124:29]
Paul Anka
Oh, is he alive still?
- [124:30]
Bill Maher
No, I don't. Well, I shouldn't say that I have not been touch with Mrs. Cornyn. I don't think so.
- [124:37]
Paul Anka
Stop saying those things. Club Random.
- [124:42]
Bill Maher
You'll laugh at it though.
- [124:43]
Paul Anka
Okay?
- [124:44]
Bill Maher
It's like, why do you make me
- [124:45]
Paul Anka
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