John Cowsill | The Magnificent Others with Billy Corgan

Summary

Podcast Summary: The Magnificent Others with Billy Corgan

Episode: John Cowsill | The Magnificent Others with Billy Corgan

Date: September 3, 2025

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Episode Overview

In this episode, Billy Corgan sits down with musician John Cowsill, whose remarkable career began as a child in the Cowsills, one of America's most unique family bands. The conversation spans John’s early days navigating music, the family dynamic that defined (and complicated) their journey, wild stories from the road, creative challenges, and how his musical life evolved all the way to the present. Through humor, candor, and nostalgia, John and Billy explore both the highs and lows of a life forever shaped by music and family.

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Key Discussion Points & Insights

1. Childhood and The Formation of the Cowsills

• Music chose John:
  • “Yeah, my career picked me. I didn't pick it. I just did it." (00:00, 03:41)
• Early exposure: Grew up in Canton, Ohio; oldest brother Bill was the "Brian Wilson" of the family—an early spark for their sound and ambition (03:41–04:14).
• Singing around the table: Their first musical experiences were informal, singing folk songs and experimenting with harmony from a young age (04:14–05:16).
• Self-taught musicianship: John recounts learning drums on a blue sparkle Slingerland kit, no lessons—“Everybody's self-taught. No lessons at all.” (08:29–08:30)
• Playing gigs as kids: By age eight, John was playing four sets a night in local bars; the band was a novelty—four minors gigging in wine bars and sneaking around age restrictions (11:03–12:29).

2. First Record Deals and Industry Realities

• From Chota with Johnny Nash to Mercury:
  • Recorded 20 R&B songs with Nash (“I have them all. It'll be a box set someday.” 15:31–15:43).
  • Transition to Mercury Records led to frustration: they weren't allowed to play on their own records, which John says “pissed me off” (20:17–20:20).
• Being steered into novelty songs:
  • “We just left Johnny Nash playing some serious stuff. And now we're here: ‘I love my Siamese cat because she's not very fat’ with a toy piano.” (21:03–21:59)
• Learning about studio musicians:
  • The family wanted to be taken seriously as a real band, not just a novelty or children’s act (22:44–22:52).
• Vocal talent stood out:
  • Billy notes, “The pitch on the family is crazy good. Like you guys just all have good pitch singing. Yeah, it's wild...” (18:15–18:33)

3. Family Dynamics and the Role of Parents

• The Cowsills' unique family structure: The band included six siblings—and their mother, Barbara, at management’s suggestion.
• Mother's reluctant participation:
  • “She was not into this. She was a housewife. She was a Navy housewife ... she just was there and she was a good camper ... we got famous because of that probably.” (34:10–36:20)
• Father as authoritarian:
  • “He was a tough Navy guy, man … He just wanted a duck. He was a jerk. You know, I wouldn't want him for a father, but he was a nice guy with his friends, and everybody loved him.” (19:27–19:40)

4. Breakthrough Moments and the Challenges of Fame

• “The Rain, The Park and Other Things” and Ed Sullivan
  • John describes the magic of being on national TV as a child—“We can't get the grins off our face because we're on the same stage where the Beatles were.” (29:38–29:43)
• Sudden fame:
  • “We went from nothing from 0 to 100.” (43:22–44:23)
• Living with, and reacting to, sudden wealth and attention: Moving from poverty to a California mansion, then being ostracized in a wealthy neighborhood (44:23–46:42).
• Negative side of celebrity: Neighborhood kids vandalize the house and throw their instruments into the pool (46:12–46:35).

5. Navigating the Music Business and Creative Struggles

• Not playing on their early studio records:
  • “I remember being at those sessions and they said, well, you go. You go down and sit behind the drummer.” (24:00–24:09)
• Recording “Hair”:
  • John corrects the historical record about how and where the song was recorded (“It took 58 takes because I kept slowing the goddamn bridge down.” 53:12–53:29)
  • “We count the holds. And like, everybody who tries to play that song, they always play the beginning wrong.” (54:02–54:05)
• Changing music landscape:
  • Cowsills seen as square or “not cool”; John reflects, “We weren't cool growing up, man. It hurt. It hurt my older brothers.” (31:59–32:22)

6. Family Tensions and Collapse

• The firing of Bill Cowsill:
  • “All I see is my dad get out of the car, and Bill gets out of the car, and my dad pulls his guitar out of the back thing and throws it on the driveway, and we take off to go do the tour.” (59:51–59:57)
• On the decline:
  • “We're on our way down. You can just feel it. We lost Bill. We're still doing cover songs at the shows, you know, and losing members here.” (62:07–62:16)
• Asking to end the band:
  • Bob, Barry and John decide to end the family band, despite their father’s pleas and new song ideas (“Oo Weep Chirpy chirpy cheep cheep... God, I gotta sing soon. I can’t believe I’m having this crap. It was just—you’re kidding. Indian Lake was bad enough.” 65:00–66:02)

7. Reflections and Legacy

• Lack of regret:
  • “I don't feel any pain whatsoever from any of it. I only have nice memories. I only remember the good. Anyway. That's just my personality. So the bad stuff just...I don't waste my time with it.” (68:38–68:51)
• Billy on legacy:
  • “When I really look at what your family accomplished, it's like, no, there's a much more interesting [story] … there's a lot of musical depth there.” (37:36–37:57)
• On the family blend:
  • “Your family blend is very unique ... You could take two of us and it would still sound like us.” (67:17–67:28)

8. Later Years and New Beginnings

• Ongoing music career:
  • John plays with the Beach Boys, now tours and records music with his wife Vicki Peterson (of the Bangles).
  • “I've never been a lead singer of any band in my whole life, and I'm standing there, not even playing drums, singing with the Smithereens. And that's my new thing right now.” (79:54–80:25)
• New album with Vicki Peterson:
  • “The album is called ‘Long After the Fire,’ on Label 51.” (79:52–79:54)

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Notable Quotes & Memorable Moments

• On family music roots:

  • “We always sang around the table, you know, folk songs ... And twisting up my shorts because my uncle Bob had a tape recorder. I was probably five then.” – John Cowsill, 04:14–04:45

• On being a novelty act:

  • “We're here. I love my Siamese cat because she's not very fat with a toy piano.” – John Cowsill, 21:03–21:59

• On child stardom:

  • “That was tough going through puberty in public.” – John Cowsill, 38:26–38:29

• On parental management:

  • “He was a tough Navy guy, man. ... He was a jerk. You know, I wouldn't want him for a father, but he was a nice guy with his friends, and everybody loved him.” – John Cowsill, 19:27–19:40

• On outrageous studio pressure:

  • “It took 58 takes because I kept slowing the goddamn bridge down.” – John Cowsill (on “Hair”), 53:12–53:29

• On creative breakthroughs:

  • “We wanted to be the Beatles, we wanted to be the Stones, we wanted to be taken serious.” – John Cowsill, 22:44–22:51

• On legacy:

  • “I only have nice memories. I only remember the good. Anyway. That's just my personality.” – John Cowsill, 68:38–68:51

• On family vocal blend:

  • “You could take two of us and it would still sound like us ... in our separate projects, it's just there.” – John Cowsill, 67:17–67:28

• On musical kinship:

  • Billy Corgan: “The level of talent in the family is kind of shocking.” (76:21–76:30)

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Timestamps for Key Segments

• Childhood and Early Family Band Formation: 00:00–12:29
• First Record Deals & Industry Realities: 15:07–22:52
• Family Dynamics & Adding Mom to the Band: 33:28–36:57
• Breakthrough Hits, Ed Sullivan Appearances: 27:05–31:24
• Living in California, Fame Fallout: 43:22–47:25
• Recording, “Hair” and Song Process: 49:40–54:17
• Firing of Bill, Band Breakdown: 55:47–61:42
• Winding Down, Personal Reflections: 62:05–68:51
• Later Years, Ongoing Musical Journey: 72:59–80:27

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Concluding Thoughts

This episode offers an intimate voyage through the highs and lows of life in an iconic family band. John’s memories—alternately funny, poignant, and clear-eyed—highlight both the magic and the strain of such a unique upbringing. The episode stands as a testament to the indelible mark the Cowsills left on American music, and the resilience of its members, who continue to create and perform decades after their first harmonies rang out around a kitchen table.

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Transcript

[John Cowsill]

Yeah, My career picked me. I didn't pick it. I just did it.

[Interviewer]

Nine years old is nine years old.

[John Cowsill]

Yeah. He sees us and he sees two little kids and, you know, just. Hmm. So he's handing us songs like don't put your feet in the lemonade. You go, we just left Johnny Nash playing some serious stuff. And now we're. We're here. I love my Siamese cat because she's not very fat, with a toy piano.

[Interviewer]

And I can't think of any other in the 70, 80 years of her. I think your family stands alone in this dynamic. I can't think of anything that even comes close.

[John Cowsill]

They were telling us, you're going to be living in California. We're going, no way. And we went from. We went from nothing from 0 to 100.

[Interviewer]

Don't jump ahead.

[John Cowsill]

I can do what I want.

[Interviewer]

Thank you so much for being here, John. I'm so excited. So let me explain to you how. How this whole thing came to be, because you did ask when we never met before today. So I saw you playing with the Beach Boys a few years back. My wife. I love the Beach Boys, but my wife, who's a lot younger than I am, wanted to go see the Beach Boys play. And we live close to Ravinia, outside of Chicago. And so you were playing with the Beach Boys then, And I thought, who's the handsome young drummer? Obviously not part of the original band. That would be you and Swagger and some Charmin and a full head of hair and as you do these days. I started like, who's playing drums for the band? And I saw your name and I thought, from the Cowsills, like, family band. And so I found myself after that gig thinking I really should know more about this band. I love 60s music. I'm. I consider myself a bit of a snobby aficionado. And I thought, you know, I really don't know much about your family band. Like, I know the basics, but I'm a guy likes to think I know the depth of things, like who signed who and who played on what records I'm one of. I'm one of those guys I don't know. And I thought, wow, it's really weird because I do like the band. Why have I never kind of done the deep dive on the band? So then I jumped into the catalog for the first time, and I thought, wow, this. There's a lot of talent in this, you know, because you get the thing where it's like, well, there's a couple hits and it's like, no, there's a lot of depth of talent there. And then the whole story of the band, obviously the TV show that followed and all this, the mythological stuff, but the nuts and bolts I'm very interested in. And then, you know, watching you play on Ed Sullivan when you're 12 years old or something, I mean, that's a pretty rare.

[John Cowsill]

That was fun.

[Interviewer]

Yeah. But I'm saying it's a pretty rare thing. You know, very few people touched the zeitgeist in the way that your family did. And then obviously, the family dynamics, I think, make it even more fascinating because as we know through rock history, when you put family and music together, it can yield incredible results. But oftentimes there's like these other kind of sparks because it has more to do with the family relationships than. So I don't know if that presage is what you were after, but that's why we're here. So I'm a fan to start with. So much appreciated. I've done. I've done the deep dive. So here's a place to start. Playing in a band with six siblings. Obviously, you're one of the six. And your mother. Yeah, that's pretty unique setup. Is that anything you could have envisioned or. Because you're just a kid and you're kind of in a circumstance. Is that. Is that a fair way?

[John Cowsill]

Yeah, my career picked me. I didn't pick it. I just did it. I mean, I was four when I first heard my brother singing in Ohio. We lived in Canton, Ohio, and my brother Bill is the oldest one, so he's. Everybody thinks my mom or my dad started singing. This is my brother Bill. I refer to him as our Brian Wilson of the family. And he's the. If you ever did a deep dive on Bill Cowsl, you would see.

[Interviewer]

Oh, I have.

[John Cowsill]

Okay. Because he was like, he's amazing.

[Interviewer]

He's got super talented in a unique way that very few people are.

[John Cowsill]

He's like the real deal Elvis, you know, and he just means it every time. But, yeah, it picked me. So we always sang around the table, you know, folk songs. Boil that cabbage down, boy and time Hang down your head. Tom Dooley Stubaugh was a racehorse.

[Interviewer]

And are we singing harmony that early.

[John Cowsill]

Or is it just naturally just everybody singing in the living room? I think the first song I ever sang was my Hillbilly Baby.

[Interviewer]

Okay.

[John Cowsill]

And twisting up my shorts because my uncle Bob had a tape recorder. I was probably five then. I wasn't in school yet. And singing Running Bear.

[Interviewer]

Didn'T Johnny Cash do Running Bear or something?

[John Cowsill]

No, it was Bobby. I can't remember.

[Interviewer]

Right.

[John Cowsill]

I'm not an aficionado on anything. I just know the songs growing up and just stuff like that.

[Interviewer]

Oh, it was, Was it Bobby Bear.

[John Cowsill]

Bobby Bear. Thank you. Yeah. Running Bear. Love. Little. What, Dove.

[Interviewer]

Right.

[John Cowsill]

Yeah, it was cool. And then, I don't know, it just evolved and we kept doing that and. And I remember. I just remember the Beatles coming on Ed Sullivan. Well, before that, I mean, I lived in a house of music and it's always my two brothers and they tried to be in other bands. Bill and Bob. It started with Bill and Bob and there were seven playing, you know, tea parties for my mom's. Whatever it was. I mean, these are the stories I was told. I was too young to remember that. But so quiet in here.

[Interviewer]

It's just the sound of your own mind working.

[John Cowsill]

Yeah. Thank God I don't have tinnitus at all, so I'm really happy about that. And I, you know, I'm the youngest of six boys, so I get the music dripping down to me, you know, whatever they're listening to, this is what I'm listening to. And before the Beatles, it was the Beach Boys because.

[Interviewer]

Oh, wow.

[John Cowsill]

I remember all those albums on the floor. But I mean, like, like lightning, everything happens so fast. The shadows last forever, but the actual moments of what's happening go real quick. And. And I remember listening to the. To the Beach Boys. But then like right away the Beatles showed up and just took it over and the British Invasion and everything. And so we, we were watching that on, on the TV and Ed Sullivan came on. Like the rest of people my age, we just like sitting in front of the TV set, just most unbelievable thing in the world. And don't hit your chest cowsil. And we went into the back room where we used to set up the bedroom for, you know, cowboy fights. We'd watch bananas and all the westerns and so we'd imitate those things. But now we were going to IM the Beatles and, you know, so we're lip sync, you know, pretending we're the Beatles there in our bedroom. And everything happened so quick. Now Dave Clark 5 is here. The Kinks. Everybody's coming over from British Peter Nunes, Herman's Hermits. So I figured, I just. I had this little electric Emini organ that you would turn on and it would make this sound and then you.

[Interviewer]

Was it like with air. With air powered thing?

[John Cowsill]

Yeah. And. And I'd put that on a desk and put the plug in the Drawer and pretend I was Mike Smith.

[Interviewer]

Okay.

[John Cowsill]

So we were kind of being the Beatles, but there were too many of us, so we had to be somebody else. And then, and then I remember my dad who was moonlighting, he was in the navy, so he was moonlighting as a carpenter. And he had a friend named Neil, Sylvia. And I don't know how it happened, but this blue sparkle Slingerland drum kit came. Came into the living room and put it right there in the middle in front of the fireplace and just set it up. And my brother Barry was the first drummer and he sat there and he. We could just sit down and play. We don't know how we did this, but I. First song I ever played was you can't do that. And I just sat down because it's a boom boom, boom, boom.

[Interviewer]

So there's no instruction.

[John Cowsill]

You're just self teaching, just winging it, man. Everybody's self taught. No lessons at all. But that was really fun. And then I remember, excuse me. They went out as a trio, Bill, Bob and Barry. And I remember waking up, must have been midnight or one or two in the morning, and they're counting like $300 out. And I think that was a light bulb. And my dad said that we could make money doing this, okay? And so I would tag along to them. We lived in Newport, Rhode island, and we would go to New York to. I don't know how we got this gig, but it was at North Bergen High School. And we'd play all the dances there and we'd go across the George Washington Bridge. It was so exciting. But I was just a tag along and I would sit in and I would play. You can't do that.

[Interviewer]

It's kind of like a special attraction.

[John Cowsill]

I'm a special attraction. I'm always a special attraction somehow. And that's how that started. And then I remember we started evolving. We. We wanted a bass guitar and my brother Bill was pitching to my dad, we need a bass guitar. So my dad says, well, what can he do? So. And I remember they were in my mom's bedroom and sitting on her vanity seat. And my brother Bill goes, listen to this. And he did. I like it. I like it. Jerry and the Pacemakers and that boom. And he had to play it on the guitar in order for my dad to go to Moss Music center and buy an old K. A new K bass at the time. Sure. And so they came home and at nighttime I would be in that room playing that drum set. And we, you know, we were the family who had no money. So we'd take light bulbs out of one room to put it in another socket in the next room. And when that didn't work, I just turned all the amplifiers on because we had some Fender amps, dual Shulmans and stuff, some silver tones and the lights on that would. Your eyes would adjust so I could play drums in the room there. And parents never said, don't make that noise.

[Interviewer]

Amazing.

[John Cowsill]

Yeah. So that was in my bedroom, and I started playing drums. And then once they got the bass guitar by default, I became the drummer. Now, I remember not having great time in the beginning and having people keep their hand moving while I was playing. But within six months, we were playing four sets a night at the local wine bar.

[Interviewer]

And you're like, what, at this? Like, 10, 11. How many?

[John Cowsill]

Eight.

[Interviewer]

Eight.

[John Cowsill]

Yeah. And I remember.

[Interviewer]

So how do you get past the fact that they got a minor up on stage?

[John Cowsill]

They had four minors. I'm eight. My brother Barry's nine.

[Interviewer]

Right.

[John Cowsill]

My brother Bill's a young teenager. I mean, nobody's over 18.

[Interviewer]

Was there some sort of exemption given or.

[John Cowsill]

Well, I'm going to get to that. So the cops came, and they said, you can't play here. And so. And I remember that. That was funny. I call it. The cops raided the place. What were we doing in a wine cellar? It was no food served there. It was just wine and beer and alcohol. So I guess my dad went down to Town hall, cut a deal with the mayor, and the mayor says, well, as long as they don't sit at the bar or the tables and there's a separate room for them. It was a hot. It was a wine, it was a bar. We called it the Discote Bar. Discotheque. MK Discotheque. Mew Ching or King Hotel. Beautiful hotel. And in fact, a couple of nights, Barry and I set up in one of the rooms, and they sent the mics down so we could be part of the show until we figured out that the mayor said it was okay for us to be there. And it was funny because the room that we sat in was where they stored all the liquor. So I'm sitting on a box of Cutty Sark while we're building a set list. But, man, those were the best times for me.

[Interviewer]

Mostly covers or any originals.

[John Cowsill]

All covers.

[Interviewer]

Yeah.

[John Cowsill]

All coverage. We played every Stones, every Beach Boy, every Motown, every. Every new Beatles song that came out. I remember, you know, I had calfskin heads. So living in Rhode island, my memory just goes right, too. I'd have to get down there early on my bicycle and get the heads off and heat them up with my mom's hair dryer so they would get shrunk again, so.

[Interviewer]

Oh, wow.

[John Cowsill]

Well, because calfskins, just when there's humidity, they just turn to mush, so.

[Interviewer]

I didn't know that.

[John Cowsill]

Yeah. I didn't know about plastic heads. I'm sure they made them, but we didn't know about them yet. But that's how it started. And then somebody from the Today show, because Newport, Rhode island, is very. In the summertime, all the rich people come there. We lived in the Fifth Ward. We weren't rich. And they said, would you like to be on television? They were, like, stunned that we were doing this music. And so. Wow. And do you remember.

[Interviewer]

Do you remember going to play on TV then?

[John Cowsill]

Yeah, man. We got in our old Ford station wagon. My dad had a sock in the radiator because it was during the wintertime and it would overheat. But we got there and all of us went there. And it was Hugh Downs, Barbara Walters, very young at the time. And I can't remember, Chris. Somebody was there. But we were on national tv, and that was pretty cool.

[Interviewer]

No one's ever found that tape, right? Is it.

[John Cowsill]

No, I don't think so. It'd be a kinescope of some kind they used to erase. They'd go over the videotape all the time and reuse it constantly.

[Interviewer]

It's so cool to see that footage, though.

[John Cowsill]

Oh, my God. That would be awesome. Spotlight on talent. Our local talent show would have been great to have, too. So many things. And nobody really documented anything. The Cowsils did back then. You see, Beatles got videos, all these people. We had nothing, you know, a couple of Polaroids. But we were on that. And then somebody watched that show and Contact us, and that was Johnny Nash, the singer.

[Interviewer]

Johnny Nash?

[John Cowsill]

Yeah. Wow. Now, my family didn't know who Johnny Nash was, but I did, because he saw you clearly.

[Interviewer]

Not bad, right?

[John Cowsill]

No. It was a song called Hercules. Only the evil fear him. Hercules. It was a TV show.

[Interviewer]

Okay.

[John Cowsill]

It was a cartoon I watched every morning. And at the end of the.

[Interviewer]

Oh, he sang that.

[John Cowsill]

The credits was big, bold letters. The biggest thing on the credit, Johnny Nash and I could read. So when they said we were going to his house, I was like, what? This is the guy Hercules. I was just amazed by that. And we. And we signed with Joe to record.

[Interviewer]

So was it that record? Was it sort of like a singles deal? Because you guys put out three singles through Mercury at that point?

[John Cowsill]

No, this is Chota Records, Johnny Nash. It was his own label, and it was a brief stint. We recorded probably 20 songs with him.

[Interviewer]

Oh, I've never heard those songs.

[John Cowsill]

No, you haven't. Nobody has.

[Interviewer]

Are they disappeared or.

[John Cowsill]

I have them all.

[Interviewer]

Because.

[John Cowsill]

Because I have a friend who went to Liberty and they were emptying out everything, and he went in the trash and got all the master. The three tracks.

[Interviewer]

You want to release those?

[John Cowsill]

It'll be a box set someday.

[Interviewer]

Yeah.

[John Cowsill]

Yeah. But it's like all R and B stuff. I mean, we'd be in Johnny Nash's apartment building on the 30th floor and playing this stuff, and I'd be sitting there on the drums and, you know, doing. You can't go halfway. You got to go all the way to have my love Digga digga, digga, digga diga I mean, he would say that word, digga, digga, digga digga do this, do this, man. And we've got a drum set set up at three in the morning in his apartment.

[Interviewer]

Is there a reason they wanted you guys to play R B or.

[John Cowsill]

It's what we did. He heard us. He came to the club. My brother Bill was singing. We did Jimmy Reeves. We did. We did a lot of R B stuff. And my brother Bill, kind of like Steve Winwood at the time. Like, he had that adult voice already.

[Interviewer]

Yeah, he did. Yeah.

[John Cowsill]

And just. Yeah. God, he's so great. He was just.

[Interviewer]

It'd be cool to hear that stuff, though.

[John Cowsill]

I got it. I got it all. It's so fun to own it, man.

[Interviewer]

Yeah, that's awesome.

[John Cowsill]

Yeah, it's awesome. So from there, after our one single went out, all I really want to be is me. And the flip side was a song my brother Bill and Bob wrote called and the Next Day Too.

[Interviewer]

Okay.

[John Cowsill]

And it was very poppy, British kind of song. But after that, that fizzled. I don't think they ever released it. And it was so funny because the pressing. And I'll never forget, it's ingrained in my head that. So I don't know, it just kind of boom, boom, boom. Where it was. It was just off center for some reason. So it made this funny sound. But after that, I don't know how we ended up at Mercury, but I.

[Interviewer]

Think I have that.

[John Cowsill]

Okay.

[Interviewer]

Because you were there before. Because. Thank you for taking me through that, because a lot of questions I had. But I want to ask a couple things because it helps contextualize it, because I think if it was just a classic 60s story of we played and we got Discovered, but the family element, not just the fact that you're playing together, but your mother getting involved and your father managing the band and all that. That we'll get to that. So we're walking back a little bit. But. So did your dad see the talent in the band and see it as an excitement because it's his children, or he saw it as a business opportunity or all of the above?

[John Cowsill]

I think all of the above. I mean, we were talented. I mean, it's undeniable.

[Interviewer]

Yeah. What's really crazy is I found some clips of you guys playing in the day and the pitch on the family is crazy good. Like you guys just all have good pitch singing. Yeah, it's wild. Especially with all the monitoring they had back then.

[John Cowsill]

We didn't have monitors, we just worked off the house.

[Interviewer]

That's kind of what I meant.

[John Cowsill]

I still work off the house.

[Interviewer]

Yeah, but that's what I'm saying. I can't believe how good your guys pitch is. Especially you got six, seven people singing. Right. It's like. It's pretty wild all we did. Yeah. No, but I'm saying it's impressive because not a lot of stuff holds up posthumously. You know, you can even see. And I love the Mamas and the Papas. I mean, it's one of my flattest pancakes live would be like. There would be a little bit even their records.

[John Cowsill]

But it was a cool sound, so we like it, you know.

[Interviewer]

So you got good pitch. I don't hear him flapping now. I gotta go back and listen. Okay, so now you're in the business, right? You know, you got a little bit of a deal and you're doing stuff like. What's your father's perspective on all that at the time?

[John Cowsill]

Boy, I don't know. I was just trying to stay out of trouble.

[Interviewer]

Was it just above your head because you were a kid?

[John Cowsill]

Yeah, absolutely.

[Interviewer]

So who in the who in the who of the kids was the one who interfaced with your father on business?

[John Cowsill]

I'm sure that business. It was him and only him and you just. Yeah, yeah. He was a authoritarian, so. He was a tough Navy guy, man.

[Interviewer]

Yeah.

[John Cowsill]

You know, so if you've seen the documentary, you know, I haven't seen the documentary. Oh, okay.

[Interviewer]

Anyway, I kind of didn't want to watch it because I wanted to hear it from you.

[John Cowsill]

Well, I'm glad because that's cool. Yeah. I mean, he was a tough nut, man. He just wanted a duck. He was a jerk. You know, I wouldn't want him for a father, but he was a nice guy with his friends, and everybody loved him. I have some great attributes about him. Anyway, so we end up at Mercury Records.

[Interviewer]

See, that's where I'm at. That's kind of. So you did three singles at Mercury. This much I know, because the other stuff I kind of knew, but now it helps me understand. Okay, so you didn't play on that stuff. Is that correct?

[John Cowsill]

We did not. And it pissed me off.

[Interviewer]

I bet that's kind of what I was going to ask.

[John Cowsill]

Yeah. Because with. With Johnny Nash, we played our own.

[Interviewer]

Yeah.

[John Cowsill]

And that was fun. And you can hear it. It sounds like it, but I didn't care, you know, it's like I had a chip on my shoulder.

[Interviewer]

Sure.

[John Cowsill]

Quietly. About, you know, we're not playing our stuff. Well, we went there, and what you don't know is what they tried to make us do.

[Interviewer]

Okay, tell me.

[John Cowsill]

And because I love.

[Interviewer]

Because I grew up in a different era of recording, I love hearing about what it was like to make records then.

[John Cowsill]

Yeah.

[Interviewer]

Well, as primitive as it was, it was really a different process.

[John Cowsill]

It definitely was. So we get to Mercury and we meet a guy named Shelby Singleton.

[Interviewer]

Okay.

[John Cowsill]

Shelby Singleton did novelty songs, Harper Valley, pta.

[Interviewer]

That's how I know the name.

[John Cowsill]

Yeah. Okay. And you know, when you said it.

[Interviewer]

I pinged in my brain.

[John Cowsill]

We're stickball kind of kids in the street. And we get there and we're sized. We size up people. All the kids we stuck together. Look, what's this guy wearing? You know, he had nail polish, hairspray, going, oh, gee, what is this guy? You know, we're very judgmental as children, but we didn't care. And then the material started pouring out. He sees us and he sees two little kids and, you know, just. Hmm. So he's handing us songs like, don't put your feet in the lemonade. You're going. We just left Johnny Nash playing some serious stuff. And now we're. We're here. I love my Siamese cat because she's not very fat with a toy piano. Having me and Barry sing this, it's the flip side of most of all, the first local regional single we had that my brother Bill and Bob wrote. That was a beautiful song.

[Interviewer]

What was the name of the song?

[John Cowsill]

Huh?

[Interviewer]

What was the name of that song?

[John Cowsill]

Most of all. Most of all. Yeah. Yeah, it was pretty. It's sentimental to me.

[Interviewer]

Have to look that one up.

[John Cowsill]

But that the. This guy put on is. And my dad saying, you'll do it. You'll do. You know, it was that kind of thing. And then when they said, we're not going to play on our stuff, we're like looking at each other, who's going to play this stuff? You know, that's when we first learned about studio musicians, which is fine, you know, and that continued for a while, but with that it was just. It was horrible. And dance your last dance, party girl. Just dribble songs. My brother Bill was. I'm sure the older guys were just like, you're kidding. This is not okay.

[Interviewer]

Fortunately, especially if you've been playing Beatles.

[John Cowsill]

And we wanted to be the Beatles. Yeah, we were forcing. We wanted to be the Beatles, we wanted to be the Stones, we wanted to be taken serious.

[Interviewer]

Yeah.

[John Cowsill]

And I was along for the ride, but I felt that too, even at a young age. And so this stuff's just dribble. But we did A Most Peculiar man by Simon and Garfunkel as one of the singles.

[Interviewer]

I did listen to that.

[John Cowsill]

What the hell.

[Interviewer]

Yeah, it was a bit odd.

[John Cowsill]

Funny stuff that we did. There was a man there and his name was Artie Kornfeld, and he was a staff producer, probably 20 years old, an older man. And he got in either my dad's ear or Bill's or somebody's and he said, we need to get out of here. And he. Artie took us with his own money into. Was it Liberty or Bellsound? It was Liberty. Liberty Recorders in New York. And we recorded Rain the Park and Other Things and the rest of that first album there.

[Interviewer]

Right. And he wrote that or he co.

[John Cowsill]

Wrote that, him and Steve Duboff. Yeah.

[Interviewer]

So are you still. Is this still studio musicians when you're at that point?

[John Cowsill]

Yeah, yeah, I remember. I remember being at those sessions and they said, well, you go. You go down and sit behind the drummer.

[Interviewer]

Are you singing in the harmony stacks?

[John Cowsill]

Oh, yeah, we sing. We sang everything.

[Interviewer]

So you're still on the recording, but you're not?

[John Cowsill]

Oh, very much so, yeah. Yeah. And we get there and there's like a 30 piece orchestra of the day, you know, strings, horns, horn, woodwinds. Met Vinnie Bell, who I just love so much. He was just a wonderful guy. He invented the electric sitar. Excuse me. And. But I'm sitting there behind this drummer and his name is Buddy Salzman. And I was pissed. He could probably see it on me. And I was friends with Buddy years later, that's another story.

[Interviewer]

Again, at this point you're like what, 10 years old or something?

[John Cowsill]

I'm nine. It's all happening fast.

[Interviewer]

Yeah, but again, nine years old is nine years old.

[John Cowsill]

Yeah, nine and 10 years old, for sure. Right in that frack. And so I'm watching him and I see the beanbag cigar ashtray on his snare. He's got newspaper in the kick drum and he's playing the stuff, and he's pretty cool. And he turns around me and tries to shock me with a. This is my daughter. He says something mildly inappropriate and I'm turning beet red. You know, it's like when this guy's messing with my head. I didn't know it. That what's. Excuse me. What it was, but that's what it was. And so the sessions went on. I learned what I had to learn from the studio guys.

[Interviewer]

What did you. Right. The plague.

[John Cowsill]

Allergies.

[Interviewer]

Obviously. Now, you know that it turned into this classic song. And it's quite a beautiful recording.

[John Cowsill]

Yeah, I love it.

[Interviewer]

Do you have any. It must have been hard because I realized you were sort of in your feelings at the moment by being somewhat ostracized in this process. And I can imagine it was very difficult. But at the same time, are you thinking, wow, this is kind of interesting.

[John Cowsill]

I was over it. I mean, I was not upset. I was born a happy guy. And so, I mean.

[Interviewer]

Did you like the song, for example?

[John Cowsill]

Oh, my God, yes. It's so sentimental to me. And I remember the session so well. And singing around the mic. We always sang around one mic.

[Interviewer]

How many people would sing around the one mic then? How many people would sing around the mic when you would do vocal stacks?

[John Cowsill]

Well, in the. In, on the first album, it was really just still the four guys. And it wasn't until after we finished the recordings of the songs that we went. Artie went to get a deal for as Ari Kornfeld. And so we went to a management company and it was Lenny Stobel who was the manager for Tommy. Not Tommy James, but go ahead.

[Interviewer]

Sam the Sham.

[John Cowsill]

Yeah, Sam the Sham.

[Interviewer]

It says he was the manager of Tommy James. I don't know if that's true.

[John Cowsill]

No, it's not true.

[Interviewer]

Boyce and Hart.

[John Cowsill]

Yeah, for sure. And also Royal Guardsman. Yes, Royal Guardsman. I was gonna say that.

[Interviewer]

You gotta go real deep to know who the Royal Guardsman.

[John Cowsill]

Wait, one more is Keith. The Wild Kingdom.

[Interviewer]

98.6.

[John Cowsill]

98.6.

[Interviewer]

Great song.

[John Cowsill]

Yeah. He lived there. He lived. We all lived in this one building. 888 8th Avenue, between 52nd and 3rd on 8th Avenue, across from the old Madison Square Garden. And everybody lived in that building. And we were friends with Sam Linda Eastman and I would get up for school, and she'd pat me on the head because she was Keith's girlfriend at the time.

[Interviewer]

Wow.

[John Cowsill]

Yeah, I remember that.

[Interviewer]

That's pretty cool.

[John Cowsill]

It was really cool. It was a magical time.

[Interviewer]

That's why. I think that's partially why I'm obsessed by old recording process. Because the recording process was set up to capture magic. And when you did, you get these incredible. Like, everybody's just on their game that day.

[John Cowsill]

Yeah. It's just because you've played, you know.

[Interviewer]

The drumming on that song, you know, was a big hit song for your family. You know, you go from can't get arrested playing songs that some guy thinks you're like a kiddie band. Now you have the number two song in America.

[John Cowsill]

Yeah.

[Interviewer]

And you're on Ed Sullivan.

[John Cowsill]

Yeah, that was. Ed Sullivan was like. That blew us away. Because I remember the day going to the Ed Sullivan Theater. It wasn't called that yet. I just. I forget what it was called then, but hadn't been renamed yet. And we went there a few days before because they also filmed To Tell the Truth there.

[Interviewer]

Okay, okay. And so did you get to go watch or something?

[John Cowsill]

Better than that. They wanted to put my mom on there because who is the real Barbara Cauzill?

[Interviewer]

Okay.

[John Cowsill]

So we get there now. Again, I'm a child. So I see Bud Collier now. I know his name as well, because he is the voice of Superman in the cartoon.

[Interviewer]

Ah.

[John Cowsill]

And he went from this looks like a job for Superman. And he would change his voice when he turned into Superman. And, like, there he was just looking at us. You know, it's in Kitty Carlisle, Peggy Cass. Orson Bean. I don't think so.

[Interviewer]

Orson Bean.

[John Cowsill]

Wow.

[Interviewer]

That's taken me.

[John Cowsill]

They were the. They were the panel, and my mom was on that.

[Interviewer]

And there's a video I bet you wish you had.

[John Cowsill]

Oh, man. Yeah. Yeah. I have a lot of stuff now, but not. Not as much as I probably should have. But that was really cool. And would the real Barbara Carsell please stand up? And we boys went behind her to stand there. But that was the same stage. But then the next couple of days, we went there to do the Ed Solomon Show. And if you watch us on there, we can't get the grins off our face because we're on the same stage where the Beatles were.

[Interviewer]

It's cool because if you look on YouTube, there's a rehearsal take of you guys doing it.

[John Cowsill]

Yeah.

[Interviewer]

And then there's like, the live.

[John Cowsill]

And the live one. The sound goes out.

[Interviewer]

Yeah. It's weird.

[John Cowsill]

Yeah. And I think that's why we were scheduled to do. But my dad had a drinking problem, and so he went into the audio booth where nobody's supposed to go, and I think he wreaked havoc. I wasn't there to witness that. But that didn't sit well with Bob Preck, Ed's son in law, who was one of the producers of the show. And we did one more Christmas show after that. I think we did two more after that because I did Weekend Fly, because I remember Carmine had taught me how to twirl my sticks.

[Interviewer]

Yeah, the. The Internet has different. It says. One says you played on Ed Sullivan twice, and one says you planted out Sullivan three times. Yeah, you played. I know. You played twice in 1967. Yeah, the Christmas song. And then I think maybe Indian Lake.

[John Cowsill]

No, because Indian Lake wasn't out yet, so it was rain. The park was the first one. And then we did the medley of, like, here's our live show.

[Interviewer]

Wait, are you saying.

[John Cowsill]

Oh.

[Interviewer]

Oh, Lonesome Me?

[John Cowsill]

I did indeed.

[Interviewer]

It's in there.

[John Cowsill]

Very good.

[Interviewer]

Very good. Billy, there's this cool thing where, like, your brother Bill introduced to everybody and you tangled.

[John Cowsill]

Yeah. We were introducing ourselves to America.

[Interviewer]

You did Mamas and the Papas.

[John Cowsill]

We did it. We were a cover band, man. And that was our live show. Even after we recorded all those songs. We never did those live, really. Now we just did Paperback Writer Monday. Always opened the show with Monday. Monday. And ended it with Reach Out. We do the Cruel War.

[Interviewer]

You never played your album recordings, generally speaking. That's crazy.

[John Cowsill]

I know.

[Interviewer]

Because there was good stuff in there.

[John Cowsill]

I thought so. I mean, gotta get away from it all. Come on. We did Grace Sunny Day. We did. You may not know that one, but that was a cool song. Really good vocals. And we did, like, Poor Baby. We did the hits. We did Indian Lake. Of course we did We Can Fly. We did Hair.

[Interviewer]

There's that. There's that. I don't know if it's like you guys are at a military base and your one brother comes up and he's wearing military garb.

[John Cowsill]

Yeah, that was Operation Entertainment.

[Interviewer]

Yeah, but, like, the vocals are so good.

[John Cowsill]

Dude, I didn't know that existed. And Steve Lukather sends me a thing. He says, hey, man, I've been deep diving. I go and I'm looking at my phone. What? You know? And he says, and I think people yanking my chain. But as I'm older now, I realize these. We're all the same age. So they were cool. Now councils are cool. We weren't cool growing up, man. It hurt. It hurt my older brothers.

[Interviewer]

Okay, we'll get to that because so you've got this manager, Leonard Stoegel. So how influential is he in this process? You got Arnie Kornfeld, right?

[John Cowsill]

Yeah, Artie. Artie Kornfeld.

[Interviewer]

So these are the two people kind of. They propel you onto the world stage, so to speak. Well, yeah, because, sorry, in that time, you literally could go from total obscurity to like, you're huge overnight.

[John Cowsill]

Yeah.

[Interviewer]

Did you. How did that feel? I mean, you're a little kid. Do you really understand what was happening? You know what I mean? From an adult perspective, now that you look back.

[John Cowsill]

But I was always a kind of like a shy, embarrassed kind of kid. So I want.

[Interviewer]

You don't play the drums that way, though.

[John Cowsill]

I want you to like me.

[Interviewer]

Okay.

[John Cowsill]

And I want to entertain you because there's some psychological of. With. With performing. But when Artie took us to Lenny Stoegel, that's where they did. Somebody in that room decided they were going to put my mom in the band. That's when we found out my mom was going to be in the band.

[Interviewer]

So when. Take me into the room, when somebody sits you guys down and says, hey, by the way, your mom's joining the band.

[John Cowsill]

I was probably sitting in the hallway because we sat in this long hallway, a waiting room hallway, while people are cutting the deal. The management production deal.

[Interviewer]

Yeah.

[John Cowsill]

And then they got the MGM contract.

[Interviewer]

Right.

[John Cowsill]

Okay. I don't remember the exact moment, but all I knew is that our mom was in this band now. So we had to go in and added my mom's vocal to rain the park. And she was not into this. She was a housewife. She was a Navy housewife.

[Interviewer]

So if she wasn't into it, how did she get kind of wrangled in? Your father.

[John Cowsill]

Okay, my dad.

[Interviewer]

I'm just saying. Whose idea was.

[John Cowsill]

He ran the ship. Well, whosever idea it was, my dad went, okay, then we're doing that. Your mom's gonna be in the band.

[Interviewer]

Okay. Do you think somebody said, we think this would be a good idea? And your dad said, absolutely, sure, absolutely. So then he goes to your mother and says, you're in the band.

[John Cowsill]

You're in the band. And I mean, she had the shaking legs, you know, she had a beautiful voice. She would sing in the house. We all sang in the house.

[Interviewer]

Yeah, there's in that medley that you guys do on Ed Sullivan here. She has a really good voice.

[John Cowsill]

Yeah. And. But that she wasn't made for that. But she.

[Interviewer]

Okay, did anyone ever explain the psychology of putting her in the group?

[John Cowsill]

No.

[Interviewer]

All the kids singing makes total sense, right?

[John Cowsill]

Yeah.

[Interviewer]

Like check out these talented kids. And they can play whatever. They can play Paperback Writer and then oh, by the way, the mom's in the band. That's where, that's where it gets. So in wrestling we say kabuki.

[John Cowsill]

Yeah.

[Interviewer]

You know, it's almost, it's beyond the pale of reality. Like why does the mom have.

[John Cowsill]

I'm sure that, that, that. And I know that affected Bill and Bob because they were the older guys. Bill especially Bill.

[Interviewer]

Listen, you're young and you want to get chicks and suddenly it's like, oh, and my mom's in the band.

[John Cowsill]

Well, and you wanna, you're, you're, you. It's not even about the chicks. It's like we're a serious band like now anyway.

[Interviewer]

Sounds very 60s, right?

[John Cowsill]

It's like, yeah, we wanted to be the Beatles in stone still.

[Interviewer]

Yeah.

[John Cowsill]

Yeah. Okay. That wasn't going to happen with the mom in the band. But I will say hindsight is that we probably wouldn't have gotten famous if we didn't have that.

[Interviewer]

You think it was like a cool gimmick or.

[John Cowsill]

I guess so.

[Interviewer]

I guess was something that people remembered or. Cuz it, it looks nothing against your mother. Got me. But I'm saying. But I. It looks very mystifying to me from, from a distance.

[John Cowsill]

It's odd and.

[Interviewer]

But because normally the normal assumption would be it was a stage mom thing, you know, like. Cause I dealt in a situation once where the mother insisted on being involved with a band that was younger and you kept saying, why does your mom have to be involved? So I just assumed it was a similar dynamic. She was like, oh, I'm gonna get in on this.

[John Cowsill]

No, she just, she just was there and she was a good camper, you know, and she sang great and she sounded great in the stack. And we made a career doing that and we got famous because of that probably. And then they added my sister who was very talented. Great sing singer. My sister Susan. And Paul came in later when Bill had to go to school. So he started filling in for Bill. Yeah. And it just, it went from four to six to seven, right? Yeah, to seven.

[Interviewer]

Something like that.

[John Cowsill]

Something like that.

[Interviewer]

It's confusing.

[John Cowsill]

I'm confused. I don't even like to think about it. I'm so like, don't fill my head with too much stuff. But you're about to.

[Interviewer]

Sorry. Well, I mean my real interest is I Want to talk to you because I'm very interested in this period of time in music. But also your experience is so unique. And I think your family band is oftentimes overlooked. And I would know because I was one of those people that was overlooking. You know what I'm saying?

[John Cowsill]

Sure.

[Interviewer]

And I guess maybe it's my own thing, but I get offended when people overlook what I do because they just think, like, joke I always make is, oh, you're the rat in the cage guy, right?

[John Cowsill]

Oh, I don't get it.

[Interviewer]

You know, it's like, oh, you're the. You're the Partridge Family Band. You know, it's like when people reduce you to kind of the one sentence. And when I really look at what your family accomplished, it's like, no, there's a much more interesting. And there's a lot of musical depth there. Yeah, that's the part that surprised me when I. When I really dove into the cat. The catalog of your family, especially the.

[John Cowsill]

Later stuff after the hits were done. You know, we were experimental band.

[Interviewer]

Don't jump ahead.

[John Cowsill]

I can do what I want. I'm the youngest brother. Nobody tells me what to do. I had five older brothers and two ex wives.

[Interviewer]

Okay, so take. We'll get there too, if you want. Again, it's almost like a kind of a running gag, but, you know, you're 11 years old. You know what I mean? You're on national tv. You're entering puberty.

[John Cowsill]

That was tough going through puberty in public.

[Interviewer]

Right. Okay, so you got all that. You've got a brother who's a musical savant by all estimations. I'm sure there are other siblings that were very headstrong. I've seen some interviews with your sister. She doesn't exactly seem like a wilting flower.

[John Cowsill]

No, everybody's got a strong personality.

[Interviewer]

So that's what makes it interesting, though, right? You know, I mean, it's just really interesting dynamic. And I can't think of any other in. In the. In the 70, 80 years of rock history. I think your family stands alone in this dynamic. I can't think of anything that even comes close. Can you?

[John Cowsill]

I don't know.

[Interviewer]

Beach Boys, maybe? I mean, you know.

[John Cowsill]

Oh, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.

[Interviewer]

You know what I'm saying?

[John Cowsill]

Yeah, yeah, definitely. Yeah. Any. I think any family band is going to have that certain.

[Interviewer]

Right, so. So what I'm asking you to do here is maybe pause for a second. So. And you could pick any point in this heightened. Because I read somewhere you guys were doing about 200 shows a year. I don't know if that's accurate, but.

[John Cowsill]

With who?

[Interviewer]

With you guys at this point?

[John Cowsill]

The cows Hills? Yeah. Oh, yeah. We never were off the road.

[Interviewer]

Okay, so you're doing. You're constantly playing. You're a young kid. And, oh, by the way, these are your siblings. You still have all the typical thing, like, you stole my toothbrush. You know what I mean? But, I mean, did the public notoriety affect the family relationships or did the family relationships supersede whatever was happening?

[John Cowsill]

We lived in our own little bubble. We all got along so well. The kids, you know, we all got along, you know. Yeah. I don't know. It just was. They're my family, and there was no falling out of any kind of thing with us. But we also didn't share more than we needed to with each other because we were always avoiding getting in trouble because my dad.

[Interviewer]

Is this the authoritarian type?

[John Cowsill]

Oh, yeah, yeah. That was always behind your head. You know, you're always thinking about that. You know, he's the type of guy wore a Ray Ban, so you never know where he was looking.

[Interviewer]

Yeah, but that's gotta be tough if you guys are generating all this income. And were you conscious of that? Cause, like, when I interviewed Corey Feldman, for example, he had to emancipate from his parents because they were siphoning off his money. And he was. So. He was conscious of, like, that he was providing for his family. So on one hand there was pride, and the other hand, it was kind of like, I don't have control of where this ship is going.

[John Cowsill]

Oh, yeah. None at all. You know, we had. I think they set up trust funds for us. I mean, if that's what you're kind of talking about.

[Interviewer]

No, no, I don't know anything about it, but I'm.

[John Cowsill]

No, no, but I never thought about that. You know, it's always provided for, but. And I remember when we first got allowances, so like. Like Barry got $15, something. I don't remember getting anything, but. Interesting. I hadn't thought about that for so long.

[Interviewer]

I just wonder if.

[John Cowsill]

But I. I do remember that we did make the money. And we were the ones making the money. Not my dad, per se. Although, you know, we're. We're a unit, of course. So. Yeah, he's. My dad was really smart and. And that he got it as far as it did. Cause he did. I mean, it started. I mean, he would do. Like, when we were starting out, we'd just drive to Brown University, and my dad knocked on the door of the commons Room there and said, hey, Joe Blow sent us here. Where do we set up? And these are young kids, you know, and they don't want to be. Well, just come on in here. And he would open all the windows, and by the end of the afternoon, we had played all afternoon in this place. And we played every frat party in Brown University.

[Interviewer]

Yeah. Wow.

[John Cowsill]

From that.

[Interviewer]

And just so we had the moxie to kind of.

[John Cowsill]

Yeah. Had he gone to school, he would have been smart. Yeah, he would have been.

[Interviewer]

Did your father have any musical talent?

[John Cowsill]

Nah. They'd throw him off Times Square at New Year's singing. He did not have any. I think it came from my mom's dad. A strange father. I've learned, like, really recently, within the last two years, that he was a vaudevillian hoofer.

[Interviewer]

There had to be something. Yeah.

[John Cowsill]

Yeah. I didn't know that. And I just. I really want to have family in my life because I'm older and I never paid attention to. We had a core cousin group. But, like, I'm reaching out, even out to these, because, like, I want to know something about our history because we got nothing from my dad's side. I don't know anything about his side other than he had a sister and she had a son named Ronnie. I don't know my dad's history. You know, parents didn't talk about stuff back then anyway, you know.

[Interviewer]

Yeah. It was a different world.

[John Cowsill]

So.

[Interviewer]

So about 68, you guys moved to California.

[John Cowsill]

Yeah. That was a trip, man. We came off a promotional tour, and they were telling us, you're going to be living in California. We're going. No. And we went from. We went from nothing from 0 to 100. We. They dropped us in this house in Santa Monica on San Vicente. 19th street, corner house, tennis court, Olympic swimming pool. And, like, just. I mean, it's just, like, amazing. My God, it was just amazing. And lasted a short while, but it was so fun to have that. But. And then we recorded. We were still recording, but now. And the reason we moved to California is because all the record companies left New York.

[Interviewer]

Yeah.

[John Cowsill]

During that period. So we migrated here as well. And it was great. It was a great thing to have happen. So I couldn't wait to say, I live in California.

[Interviewer]

Yeah.

[John Cowsill]

And we lived in this neighborhood. And like I said, we're stickball guys. So. And we always, you know, if you moved, we were Navy brats. So when you moved, you wanted to find out who the kids were in the neighborhoods. So I'm walking down La Mesa Drive you know, all these mansions and stuff, knocking on doors, saying, any kids here? You know, and no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no. We're like the Beverly Hillbillies in this neighborhood.

[Interviewer]

Ah, I see.

[John Cowsill]

Because we're playing stickball in the street, cars are trying to get by, and who are these people? You know? And then they found out who we were. So some of the local kids would come and hang in our tree and scrawl things, but really didn't want to interact. And then they wanted you to interact. And we'd be rehearsing and we had a pool house. So we made that the rehearsal room. We rehearsed and there we'd see kids in the back windows. And that was okay, you know, we didn't care about that. But then they started like jumping over our wall, jumping on the trampoline and just kind of being mischievous. I mean, this is how I remember it. And I don't know, it just kind of got dark and I'm fan fear kind of guy. I've always been that way. You know, I was never good at being a celebrity person, you know, because I just grew up doing it. So I didn't ever think of myself as anything other than this kid, you know, who happened to play music. And I think my. My family members felt that way too. We never had big egos about anything like that. So I just remember one day our house was TP'd, toilet papered in the trees. And we came in and all our instruments from the pool house were in the swimming pool. I mean, organs, drums, guitars floating in this stuff. And the cops came out and.

[Interviewer]

Oh, my gosh.

[John Cowsill]

Yeah, it was the neighborhood kids and you couldn't touch the. Because they lived behind doors and they tried to. It was a big. It was a big deal. But that. That was kind of mean, I thought, you know, steal this stuff, don't ruin it.

[Interviewer]

Yeah.

[John Cowsill]

If you're going to be a. Just. That was a weird thing to have happen, wasn't it?

[Interviewer]

That's a very strange symbolic.

[John Cowsill]

Never forget it.

[Interviewer]

Yeah.

[John Cowsill]

And living in California then had that big earthquake. Must have been 69 or 70, and we didn't know what that was either. Never heard of an earthquake. I mean, like, for real.

[Interviewer]

Yeah, the real one.

[John Cowsill]

Yeah.

[Interviewer]

When you're first out here and you have the real one, you're like, I mean, I want to go back home.

[John Cowsill]

Some of my brothers stayed asleep through it and didn't care. And then, like, some of us were like, I mean, just what the heck is this? And I remember looking out one of the windows, trying to hold on. And, like, the pool was just being emptied. And I remember my dad, because he was a boiler tender in the Navy, he thought the furnace was blowing up downstairs. So he's trying to get downstairs and he's falling on his butt. You know, Couldn't get down there. That was a major thing, too, living in California.

[Interviewer]

Are you. Are you in school at this point, or is it.

[John Cowsill]

Oh, school, yeah. Yeah, I went to school a little bit. I went to a. When I was in New York, I think I went to school for a couple of months, and that was in.

[Interviewer]

But how did you guys sort of skirt the laws about being in school?

[John Cowsill]

There were no laws.

[Interviewer]

So you're just.

[John Cowsill]

There were no laws.

[Interviewer]

Yeah.

[John Cowsill]

The. What do they call it, correspondence schools really hadn't set in yet.

[Interviewer]

So you're just touring and working.

[John Cowsill]

And we had a suitcase with, like, a Sharpie. I guess it was a Sharpie, Magic Marker saying, castill's Instant School. So we took schools. I went to a Catholic school briefly, and I was going into sixth grade, and we were just starting touring, and I remember seeing that we took our school books, but I don't think we ever opened them but once or twice on the tour. And my dad said, well, traveling is good education for you kids, you know, and it was. And I'm a reader, so as long as you can read, you'll be fine. I didn't like school. I didn't like the. Especially when I. When I went to. We moved to New York and I was starting sixth grade. Well, starting. I was there for two months, like I said, and I. And I was fearful of that report card. I got an F, two Ds and a C. And growing up with bad report cards, you got beat up for that by my dad. So that wasn't. Yeah, that's when I'd pray to Jesus, you know, whether I believed him or not. I promise I will believe you this time if you just get me out of this hot water, you know?

[Interviewer]

So one other interesting thing there's the basic story, and if you want to get into it, of you guys doing hair. But I'm more interested in the recording because it's such a unique recording for its time. It kind of presages a lot of things that come later. Even in Queen, I was listening to it. It's almost like hearing Queen before Queen. All that crazy vocal stacking you guys are doing. I'll never forget you played on that record. Aren't I crazy? Because I read something about how Hard it was to. Because it has a lot of crazy time changes. But I don't know if that's true. You know. You tell me over there.

[John Cowsill]

Okay, so we're approached by Carl Reiner.

[Interviewer]

Who was doing A Thousand Year Old Man.

[John Cowsill]

Yes, exactly. And he's doing this special TV show.

[Interviewer]

Called the Wonderful World of Pizzazz.

[John Cowsill]

And you fill my blanks in for me. So he says he wanted us to lip sync the song from the Broadway musical. And my brother Bill said, no, we'll record a version of it and we'll lip sync that, but we're not gonna, you know, because Carl wanted us to have leathers and chains and long hair and stuff because it would be the antithesis of the Castle's image.

[Interviewer]

The red. You guys had the red sweater vest. That was one of your looks.

[John Cowsill]

Yeah, yeah. No tuxedos right now, boys. So we had a blast, man. I owned that wig. I felt like Jack Bruce for, like, a whole day. And we got to keep the wigs and stuff. And I just. I put it on when I'm alone. I want long hair like this, you know? But I remember the recording very well. And, in fact, Mix magazine had called my brother Bob and wanted to do an article on the recording of Hair. And this is a funny thing. And Bob calls me up. He says, well, you and I are the only ones alive who were there for that. So you want to do this with me? I said, yeah, man. Because I remember TG&G and angel, the engineer, Angel. And Bob goes, what are you talking about? We did it at United. I said, no, we didn't. We did it at this studio. And the guy's name was Angel. I thought that was a unique name for a man. Johnny. We didn't do that. And so, you know, Bob and I have this little dynamic sometimes, you know, because I'm a sibling. I'm the younger sibling. So still. Yeah, that never really goes away, of course. And I said. And I just. I shut it down. I said, then you do the interview. I'm not. I'm not going to join you on that. So you just go do whatever you want. No, he's telling me, well, look it on Wikipedia. You know, I gave Ben Jordan a gold record. I said, okay, fine. So I was out of that interview.

[Interviewer]

Yeah.

[John Cowsill]

So two days later, the guy from Mix magazine calls me up, hey, you want to do this interview? I said, no, I'm not doing it. My brother Bob's going to do it with you.

[Interviewer]

Why?

[John Cowsill]

I said, because we disagree on where it was recorded. He Says, I said, so I don't. I'm not going to. I. It's not worth my energy. He says, well, this is easy. Just tell me what you know and I'll. I'll check it out for you. I went, okay. He's a journalist. This is great. I said, okay, here's what I think. It was either TTNG or tgg, I said, and the building was a. A white stucco building, and it had a black stripe with this blue writing, TG&G and going up the stair outside up to the room. And I think it was on, like, Highland or something. I said, and there was. The engineer. Guy's name was Angel. So he called me back two hours later. He says, yeah, yeah, I just talked to Angel Ballister.

[Interviewer]

Oh, my God.

[John Cowsill]

And your brother Bill gave him a gold record where he tore out the Raff sign and wrote to Angel Ballister, thanks so much. Because my brother Bill got that studio for us now. We always recorded at United, but this was for a TV show, and we were just going to do this ourselves. And I. I just felt so vindicated after that.

[Interviewer]

Basically, you guys produced the record.

[John Cowsill]

Oh, yeah. Bill and Bob produced that. And. And it took 58 tastes because I kept slowing the goddamn bridge down. And I'll never forget that. And where everybody was sitting in the room and it was Angel Ballister, man, that was so cool. I was so glad to be right.

[Interviewer]

Because there's got all those weird stops in it. There's no. But I'm saying there's no click track. So how do you manage to record like that?

[John Cowsill]

That's how everybody recorded without a click track.

[Interviewer]

No, what I'm saying is. What I'm trying to say is there's all those weird stops and there's like vocal breaks. Is somebody singing live, and that's sort of like the guide and then.

[John Cowsill]

Yeah, usually. Okay, yeah, just simple. We knew the song. I knew how it went.

[Interviewer]

Yeah. I'm just saying I don't know how people recorded back then.

[John Cowsill]

We count the holds. And like, everybody who tries to play that song, they always play the beginning wrong. So I think it's funny when they try to bring the drums in.

[Interviewer]

So would you air count the hold or would somebody. Yeah, okay.

[John Cowsill]

I'd count it out.

[Interviewer]

Okay.

[John Cowsill]

Yeah, yeah.

[Interviewer]

See, that's what I'm saying. I'm just trying to understand.

[John Cowsill]

Give me a head with. You know. So it was always like that. Yeah, yeah.

[Interviewer]

Such a cool record, man. It holds up so well.

[John Cowsill]

They go on the vocals so cool sounding. And. And we didn't know it was going to be a single. We just recorded it for the TV show.

[Interviewer]

The story goes that somebody took it to the label, and the label said, we don't want to release it.

[John Cowsill]

Exactly.

[Interviewer]

And one of your brothers played it at WLS in Chicago, and we were there, got a strong reaction, and they still didn't want to release it.

[John Cowsill]

No. And that guy got fired. But that song went on fire just from that.

[Interviewer]

How is that just from that one time?

[John Cowsill]

Just from that one time.

[Interviewer]

And that song also went to number two. I do have a trivia question. I think I wrote it down. Okay. You didn't get to number one. Who. What was the number one song that kept you from the number one spot?

[John Cowsill]

If it was Hare, it was Aquarius, Fifth Dimension. But I think. But on Billboard, Hare did go to number one. It was Rain the Park that went to number two, too.

[Interviewer]

Well, I. You know, the Internet, they're wrong. As soon as we get out of this interview, I got to go.

[John Cowsill]

You go right ahead. I'll take you.

[Interviewer]

You were there.

[John Cowsill]

I was there.

[Interviewer]

Okay. I don't want to do the thing where they cut to the end of the movie and it gets dark. But there's. Well, there's. There's. Because. Because I've been there in this sense of the word. We can sit there and slow down the time and say, this happened, this happened. But I know. And you know that when you're in those compressed times, it just flies by. It's like a blur.

[John Cowsill]

Lightning.

[Interviewer]

Right. I mean, it goes so fast. So you can. Somebody could say, oh, you're on this show and you're like, yeah, I kind of remember that. But the. The aggregate is a blur. But the first time of any kind of real weirdness in the whole thing. And you can talk about. About the. Let's call it the record company side of it, but is where your father fires your brother. Flamingo, 1970. Wow.

[John Cowsill]

Yeah. I mean, that's where it started.

[Interviewer]

Is that the building up of a lot of tension over time, or is it just an incident?

[John Cowsill]

You know, when we moved to California, there's so much that pre. That pre. States this conversation.

[Interviewer]

You tell it however you want, because I'm interested.

[John Cowsill]

So when we're in Rhode island and we're playing those clubs four sets a night, there's another band in that town, and they're called the Orphans, and that's Wadi Wachtel's band.

[Interviewer]

Oh, I didn't know that.

[John Cowsill]

Yeah. So we're all playing in Newport, Rhode island, at the same time. 1965, 1966. And somebody says, you gotta go check these guys out. So he comes into the Mewinger King, and you'll hear Wadi say, what the is this? Who are these kids who can sing this? Beatles and Stone and all this stuff?

[Interviewer]

Well, and for people who don't know, Wadi Wachtel is a legendary session guitar player in town, played on a ton of famous records. Most. Most people would know him from his years of playing with Stevie Nicks.

[John Cowsill]

Yeah. Yeah.

[Interviewer]

So Wadi's a very successful person.

[John Cowsill]

He's very successful. So him and Bill, we've just became friends forever. I mean, every Thanksgiving, Christmas dinner, he'd come with the band, all the guys from the band. We just. We just. And I would go watch him, you know, and Waddy'd be playing this, Gretchen. Instead of getting a new machine for his guitar, he'd just use pliers to tune it, you know, so those are the early days. And then I just met so many people who are famous now. Like, the pigeons would play a club there, and that was Carmine and Tim Bogart.

[Interviewer]

Wow.

[John Cowsill]

It would be pre Vanilla Fudge and cactus. And cactus. And they'd come over and use our gear to rehearse. And, you know, and Carmine taught me how to do the phony twirl. But then I learned to actually dog and pony the regular sticks, which I never do, but I can do it. So now we're in California, and Bill is still friends with Wadi and, you know, and they're smoking pot and doing all sorts of stuff now. And I remember one afternoon, coming out into the driveway, we had like nine cars in this circle thing, you know, because we're doing good and leasing every kind of car. And my dad calls us out to show us Bill's car. And on the floor there's all these things, roaches, you know, know, look what your brother's doing. You know, it's like, okay, what does this all mean? I'm just backing up. I don't want to be part of this thing. And all I remember is he must have been stewing about that. My dad must have been stewing because literally, Billy, we are in two state. Well, now we're down to the station wagon tours. It just went down so quick.

[Interviewer]

Is that because stopped having hits or just.

[John Cowsill]

I don't know why, man, but we're not spending money on flights now. Now we're in these cars. And it was during the days you could tour. And we got a. We have a suburban truck with a rack on it, and we're Carrying three sets of shure vocal masters. So that's our sound system for everything, which was cool. And literally, we're going out that driveway, and the car stops. And I wasn't in the car that this happened. And all I see is my dad get out of the car, and Bill gets out of the car, and my dad pulls his guitar out of the back thing and throws it on the driveway, and we take off to go do the tour.

[Interviewer]

So that's when he fired him. Okay.

[John Cowsill]

That's the actual. You're out.

[Interviewer]

Wow.

[John Cowsill]

And the Flamingo thing you're talking about started it.

[Interviewer]

Oh, okay, okay, okay.

[John Cowsill]

When he grabbed his hands. And I remember this whole thing, but I remember the energy around that day. And, yeah, that's. Glad somebody did that to my dad, but. And the cops did come and take him away, so. Yeah, that was cool.

[Interviewer]

That's tough. I mean, it is tough because it's such a beautiful story, you know, It's a very American story.

[John Cowsill]

Yeah.

[Interviewer]

The family band.

[John Cowsill]

Yes, of course. I mean, we were. We. And I get it from fans. Oh, you got us through our hard times. We wanted to be like you guys. You don't know the half of it, kids, but, you know, you're always somebody else's angel.

[Interviewer]

Yeah.

[John Cowsill]

You know.

[Interviewer]

Yeah.

[John Cowsill]

But that was the day. And I mean, that pressure on my brother Bob, who is Bill's partner, that's how I look at those two. Really controlled the band. Bill more than Bob, but Bob was right there next to him the whole time. All of a sudden, no rehearsals, nothing. We're just on tour. We have to rearrange everything.

[Interviewer]

Oh, my God.

[John Cowsill]

And you're.

[Interviewer]

And your brother's a really good singer. It's not like you just can.

[John Cowsill]

Oh, he was our best singer. Oh, God.

[Interviewer]

So now Bob's suddenly having to sing all the leads, and then obviously, it changes who's singing harmony. And.

[John Cowsill]

Yeah, on the fly. We can do that because we. I mean, we can sing with anybody. And if I hear you're not going to the right place, I'll hit that. Right. I'll fill in that void if you don't stay on your part. We're all vocal arrangers, naturally.

[Interviewer]

That's cool.

[John Cowsill]

Yeah.

[Interviewer]

So in a kind of summary way. But if you want to go into depth, please do. There's this sense that it all starts to kind of dissipate. Is it because it's the businesses leaving you or the cohesion that kept you guys together?

[John Cowsill]

Things are changing, and when you're doing something for so long, you don't know how to get out of it.

[Interviewer]

But the funny thing is, it wasn't that long.

[John Cowsill]

No. And that's another point. But for me, 7 to 16 is a long time.

[Interviewer]

Oh, yeah.

[John Cowsill]

And that's the start of my career. Not the famous start.

[Interviewer]

Yes, sure.

[John Cowsill]

So to us, it's like a long time. And everything seems like a long time. When you tell a story to someone, you'll go, oh, I used to always do that. Well, you didn't always used to do that. You probably did that two or three times. But the shadow of the memory lasts. Yeah, yeah, but. But we're. We're on our way down. You can just feel it. We lost Bill. We're still doing cover songs at the shows, you know, and losing members here. Paul went into the Navy, so he split. Then it was Bob, Barry, me, my mom, and Susan. And somehow mom left Susan. I don't know how that all happened. It just happened so quick. And I don't remember the details of it, but it ended up being three of us, Bob, Barry and me. And we're playing who songs, you know, Pinball Wizard.

[Interviewer]

It's like, what the.

[John Cowsill]

Oh, my God. And still the same stuff.

[Interviewer]

Is it true that you guys got fired from a gig because you wouldn't play the hits or something?

[John Cowsill]

No, I never got fired from a gig for doing that.

[Interviewer]

I read that somewhere.

[John Cowsill]

Well, there's only one time where we didn't do the hits, and that was like the later incarnations of.

[Interviewer]

Yeah, I'm just talking about in this period where it's.

[John Cowsill]

No, never got fired for not doing hits. Never. We always did the hits, no matter what, so. But it was just waning and we didn't want to do it anymore. Still wearing tuxedos, for crying out loud, Billy. It just went. And so.

[Interviewer]

And Vegas on top of it all.

[John Cowsill]

And we're just afraid of my dad. So we finally. We were in Texas somewhere, Don't remember the year exactly, but it had to been early 70s and. And Bob Berry and I said, let's end this thing. And I remember kind of scared to do that. And we went in and into the hotel room and we called our dad in and we're sitting there and we said. And we said, we want this to end. We don't want to be in the Councils anymore.

[Interviewer]

Wow.

[John Cowsill]

And he. He was really quiet and he didn't do. What we all expected was like, get mad and try to control the situation. Guys, if you just give me a chance, we can get right back up on top. Well, you know, the reality of actually doing that.

[Interviewer]

Yeah, it's tough. It's far tougher because once you've done it and it's gone down, then people lose faith. Of course, something that's never happened, it doesn't happen often.

[John Cowsill]

A refam. It doesn't happen often. You'll get a career if you want to have it.

[Interviewer]

Yeah.

[John Cowsill]

Like, the Castles are out there right now, and they just put a new album out not that long ago. Chances of Fire hitting twice. Not great. Especially in the music business that we live in now. It's one I can't maneuver very easily.

[Interviewer]

It's complicated.

[John Cowsill]

It's interesting. I'm trying to do it right now with a new project with my wife, but that's another story. We're gonna get to that, too. Yeah. So we tell him that. And then he tried to coax us. I got this song that's going to be a hit, and it's going to. It'll get us back on. On the map. And I don't. I think somebody recorded it finally. It was called Oo Weep Chirpy chirpy cheep cheep what do you get when you da da da Oo weep chirpy chirpy cheep cheep God, I gotta sing soon. I can't believe I'm having this crap. It was just. You're kidding. Indian Lake was bad enough.

[Interviewer]

You didn't like Indian Lake?

[John Cowsill]

Me, personally, I was okay with it. Yeah, it was a good arrangement. But if you hear my brother Bill talk about it, because he got the demo, he said. They handed me this piece of. He said that I had to whip into some kind of pop possibility. And we had changed producers by this time. This was. With the producer was Wes Farrell, and who did Hang On Sloopy. So we thought that was kind of cool. But he came in and we're in A R Studios in New York, and. And we're doing this thing, and we. We went out to do the vocals. He says, okay, that's great, guys. And we looked at him. I was like, we're not done. You know, he didn't know about double tracking vocals. Interesting. I thought that was an interesting thing.

[Interviewer]

Now, a lot of the family groups, or even, like, Crosby, they do triple track. Would you guys double or triple track?

[John Cowsill]

Okay. What we would do, we would double track, and then we'd try a third, because sometimes a third could mute the whole two. It would make it seem thinner for some reason.

[Interviewer]

So we'd change the parts around. That's something it would do with phasing.

[John Cowsill]

Yeah. I Don't know.

[Interviewer]

So you change who would sing what.

[John Cowsill]

On the third one.

[Interviewer]

Ah, that's interesting.

[John Cowsill]

Yeah.

[Interviewer]

Because your family blend is very unique.

[John Cowsill]

Yeah. And you could take two of us and it would still sound like us. It's so funny. And in our separate projects, it's just there. Yeah.

[Interviewer]

That's a cool thing. I'm jealous as a singer of the family. One time I was in a car with my brother, and he started singing. My brother doesn't sing at all. And he forgot I was in the car, and he started singing. It was my voice coming out of another human being. And I begged him to. To do something with me. Sing on record or something.

[John Cowsill]

Yeah, yeah, yeah. Did he?

[Interviewer]

No. He has zero musical interest, but he's got the same voice, and it was like that.

[John Cowsill]

Interesting.

[Interviewer]

And when you have a distinct voice, it's bizarre to hear that sound coming out of another human being. I'd never heard it. I'd never heard him sing in my life. And here we are in our 40s, and it was this sort of epiphany moment of like, wow, you can do that. And he was like, no, I don't want to do it.

[John Cowsill]

I understand. Thousands of people wouldn't.

[Interviewer]

So thank you so much for being so generous about these stories, because I think it's such a beautiful story, and it's in. In a way, it's sad that ends up kind of the way it does. How do you. Okay, so start here. How do you view it in. In hindsight? Do you see as. As if we. If we. If we hit the brakes in 1972 or something, is it a positive in your mind? Is what it did to your family? Is that the positive. Do the positives outweigh the negatives?

[John Cowsill]

I don't feel any pain whatsoever from any of it. I only have nice memories. I only remember the good. Anyway. That's just my personality. So the bad stuff just. I don't waste my time with it.

[Interviewer]

Did it have a lingering effect on the family relationships, even just, like, between the siblings?

[John Cowsill]

It did on Barry and Bill because they really. It really messed with Bill and Barry.

[Interviewer]

So as somebody as talented as your brother Bill, why didn't he kind of carry on, or.

[John Cowsill]

He did.

[Interviewer]

It didn't seem like it never went.

[John Cowsill]

Anywhere, so it doesn't matter if it went anywhere. He didn't care about where it goes. He just kept doing it.

[Interviewer]

Okay.

[John Cowsill]

Just. He just was a real guy, man. And we just like to sing, and we like to play.

[Interviewer]

Yeah.

[John Cowsill]

And he was revered by his people up in Canada. Bill. Bill had a tough time. He was an alcoholic schizophrenic. Okay, so 72's over now 74 comes in and you know, my brother Paul's got a deal with Capital. We're calling ourselves Bridey Murphy. We're asking Lindsey Bunkingham to be in it. Waddy's in the band, Barry's in the band. I get called from Rhode Island. I'm playing in a band called Grease the Cat. Just a cover band playing. Cool. Ah, I had a great time doing that. And I came to California and we're in the studio and Bill's there and you know, he says, oh, I see you got Ringo drums. You're like being really weird and stuff. And I say, yeah, and you know, we're doing drugs and drinking. Everybody's doing all sorts of. And so we go into the studio and he's just, he's impossible to work with, Bill. So he kind of gets.

[Interviewer]

Is that just the way he was?

[John Cowsill]

He was schizophrenic and an alcoholic. So he's drinking blue Smirnoff in his back pocket all day long. He's sitting on the floor tuning his guitar like John Sebastian for two days, you know, and, and not getting anywhere. We've got John Carter at Capital. He says, so how's it going over there? Oh, everything's fine, you know. So literally Waddy had to fire him. And Waddy took over production of this project called Bridey Murphy. And so we're doing vocals out at Sound City with Keith Olson. And we're doing the Time Has Come. And so we're out on the mic and we see this figure come in the booth and it's my brother Bill. And I see the cowboy hat and the long coat he's got on and all we see is like slow motion. He goes to the 2 inch MCI tape recorder and pulls the tape off and sits on the floor and he's shoving in his mouth and he's doing all this. Paul leaves the main studio and runs in there and there is a brawl in the studio. And Keith Olson is like, God bless him, man. He was afraid of us for years after that. He's no cowsils around here. You guys are crazy, you know, and that happened. And I think Jackson and Warren wrote a song the Night Billy Ate the Tape. Interesting. And then, okay, so there's that moment that fizzled. And so then I'm playing with Jan and Dean and I told Bob and Paul and Susan, I said, you know, we could get some gigs, you know, if you want to. I said, I know these booking people now. I've been playing with Jan and Dean five years. Years. Yeah. We said, okay, well, we'll talk about that. So we went to see Dick Clark in his office, and he had the Cavalcade of Stars kind of thing still. And then we said, oh, we'll think about that. And so we went outside, we said, no, we're not going to do that. Let's go do a new album. And so we went in to the studio and tried to do some things and made some demos, and then we played them for Jackson Brown. And he knew a guy named Chuck Plotkin who produced Bruce Springsteen's stuff. You know, he was mixing Darkness on the Edge of the Town. Edge of Town at the time. And we met him and he heard this stuff and we started this relationship with him. We ended up at Clover Studios and we recorded an album called Cocaine Drain.

[Interviewer]

I listened to some.

[John Cowsill]

That. Yeah.

[Interviewer]

Very interesting.

[John Cowsill]

That's some good stuff.

[Interviewer]

Yeah.

[John Cowsill]

Yeah. It really showcased Susan's vocal.

[Interviewer]

Yeah.

[John Cowsill]

Prowess. And. And us as musicians, you know, we played with Buzzy Featon, Ernie Watts, Billy Payne, they all came in and it felt. That made me feel good. I don't care if we ever got famous, that we were being appreciated now on. On that level with other musicians and stuff, you know, don't care about the famous part. Just want to be a cool guy for a second. And. And. But that ended up going nowhere because there was nobody to say, okay, you're done, you're done. Creativity kept getting in the way. It was like five years of recording.

[Interviewer]

Wow.

[John Cowsill]

Becoming better songwriters, trying.

[Interviewer]

That's crazy.

[John Cowsill]

It's crazy. But through that, you know, I got. I hung out there. I lived at Clover. I loved hanging out. How. Got to know Bruce and Steve Van Sant and these guys there. And. And Chuck had other projects. He had the Bob Dylan project there. Came in the Shot of Love album. He had Tommy Two tones. I got to sing and play percussion on that.

[Interviewer]

Yeah. 8, 6, 7, 5, 3.

[John Cowsill]

Yeah, yeah. Sing on a Bette Midler thing. No frills. So Chuck was really nice to me. He really. He made me. Cause I was thinking, I'm sucking my whole life because, you know, I just felt like I sucked. And Chuck said, actually, you don't. He says, you're really good or you wouldn't be in here. I said, you know. So that really helped me out a lot. And that's why he gave me some sessions and stuff. Nothing major.

[Interviewer]

Yeah.

[John Cowsill]

But made me feel good. And now when people say, you Know I'm this and that. And I tell people I may not be the best drummer, but I have the best time being. And I don't care anymore. I'm just there to lay into it. And I sing and play and people.

[Interviewer]

I see, that's the beautiful thing, because I was watching you play with the Beach Boys, and I thought, who is this person? You know, something about the way you played made me.

[John Cowsill]

I mean it.

[Interviewer]

Ask the question.

[John Cowsill]

I just love that, and I love to play those songs. And, you know, I'm not a shredder, but I care about what I'm doing, you know, and I just love doing it and.

[Interviewer]

Okay, so last question.

[John Cowsill]

Okay.

[Interviewer]

For people that would watch this interview and. And see us talking about this. This band that. I mean, yes, they're still out playing, but in terms of the. The spiritual essence of what started, you know, you know, kind of dissipated in early 70s. Like, what would you want people to know about that time or about the family of the band? Is that. Is that too strange a question?

[John Cowsill]

I don't. I don't know how to answer it. We'd had a lot of fun and made some music. It gave me a career. It was my university of becoming who I am today.

[Interviewer]

There's a sort of. I hate to use the word because it's not a better word for me at the moment, but, like, there's a certain innocence in it because you are a family and you're just making good music.

[John Cowsill]

Yeah.

[Interviewer]

And there was a time in American culture with that was enough.

[John Cowsill]

Yeah.

[Interviewer]

And it rose to these beautiful heights because. Because of what it was.

[John Cowsill]

Oh, you're sweet.

[Interviewer]

That's how I feel.

[John Cowsill]

Yeah. Yeah. I mean, it's endearing to me, especially as I get older and look back. It's amazing what they did. And I say they. I mean, I'm a total different person.

[Interviewer]

But I really recommend that people go watch some of the YouTube clips of you guys playing live. But, I mean, the level of talent in the family is kind of shocking.

[John Cowsill]

Yeah, yeah.

[Interviewer]

Cause I want to touch on this. So you're married to Vicki of the Bangles?

[John Cowsill]

Yes, I am.

[Interviewer]

Beautiful woman.

[John Cowsill]

She is awesome.

[Interviewer]

So you guys are playing under your own names?

[John Cowsill]

Yeah.

[Interviewer]

So is it just your full names or is there.

[John Cowsill]

Yeah, it's Vicki Peterson and John Castle. And we put her name first because we realized that on all documents from the bank and loans and everything, they always want the guy's name first. Taxes. Even if I'm not making any money. And she's making. It's like, so We. That's a little funny thing that we decided, but we'd been married almost 23 years, and we never would do anything with each other.

[Interviewer]

That's so good.

[John Cowsill]

You know, we're very domestic. It seems very natural you would think so, but we're kind of like a couple of gunslingers. Well, you go first. You go first. Because we're both insecure.

[Interviewer]

Right.

[John Cowsill]

Musicians and singing. I don't really write, but I'd sit and play guitar and, like, think I've got a cool chord progression coming up. And I just want her to say, hey, that's nice. What's that? Yeah, let's. Let's work. And, you know. But didn't. And she'd be making olive oil, garlic and onions. You know, what are we having for dinner? And I'd be fixing a leak in the. In the yard. You know, I'd be building cabinets for the new kitchen. You know, we were very domestic because we were both still touring. She was going out in the Bangles in the early part of the marriage.

[Interviewer]

And you tour with the Beach Boys for, like, almost 20 years.

[John Cowsill]

20, 23 years. Yeah. That was a great gig, man. I didn't think I'd ever have a gig. I thought. I thought I'd just be somebody's carpenter. I'm working on their house because I didn't know how to get a G. Have always had one. And I was always too shy to call somebody up to ask for a gig. So I've just been lucky by flying by the seat of my pants. Just been so lucky, you know, I rise to the occasion. So singing with my wife is really a fun thing. We just get along and the songs are so great. By two of my brothers, Bill and Barry, who had the most hard time traversing the Earth because they wanted to be the Beatles and the Stones. And they are. So that's. Cut it off, John.

[Interviewer]

No, no, thank you. Thank you for being so open. That's kind of why I want. That's why I'm obsessed. Because there's the contrivance of the 60s and the time and the way people were signed and what people expected of you. But if you actually watch and you listen and you know music, you see the level of talent in your family. Yeah. And it's shocking because it's right there. You know, when you see six people singing, you could hear if somebody was out of tune. You can hear. So there's a beautiful story in there, and there's a sad story, but there's also the beautiful story. So to Me. What you're touching on is the beauty of, like, absolutely. We. We really did have a dream and it didn't quite work out the way we wanted to. But there's. But there's enough evidence there, if you're interested.

[John Cowsill]

Yeah.

[Interviewer]

You know, not every story sort of ends. Not every gymnast lands on their feet.

[John Cowsill]

Yeah. But. Yeah. So the project with Vicki, I just have to say, has been therapeutic, emotional, and you feel that in these recordings. And our producer, Paul Allen, produced the most beautiful, sonically gorgeous album and got the best out of it.

[Interviewer]

What's the name of the album?

[John Cowsill]

It's called Long after the Fire.

[Interviewer]

Okay.

[John Cowsill]

It's on label 51 and out there trying to. Trying to tour and. Yeah. Oh, and I. And all of a sudden, oh, my God, I'm singing with the Smithereens. I've never been a lead singer of any band in my whole life, and I'm standing there, not even playing drums, singing with the smithereens. And that's my new thing right now. And I've done seven shows and I got 14 on the books. I didn't think I'd have a career after the Beach Boys. I was going to go work at Home Depot. Happily.

[Interviewer]

Well, music seems to want to keep you around.

[John Cowsill]

I love it. And I'm blown away. You know, before we had this interview, I was saying, what is Billy Corgan, Smashing Pumpkin? We don't even live in this. Seems zoned.

[Interviewer]

I'm the cow Houses.

[John Cowsill]

I'm so funny. And I just didn't know what you were going to ask me.

[Interviewer]

Did it work out all right?

[John Cowsill]

I appreciate. I appreciate the interview.

[Interviewer]

You're so.

[John Cowsill]

Thank you, John. Wonderful. Thank you so much.

[Interviewer]

Thank you.

[John Cowsill]

God, blowing my mind.