Chuck (3:01)

Can I tell you that when I finally made contact with him, it was because I was trying to gather letters of recommendation for Gary Sinise to be awarded the Medal of Freedom and he, he called me and we spoke for like 25 minutes. He couldn't do it fast enough. He wrote me a letter like we got off the phone and that letter was in my email box within like 15 minutes. He was so excited to do it. He's a sweet, sweet guy.

Mike (3:29)

He's very smart, he's very artistic, he is a patriot. He would never describe himself as a cons. I don't even think he sees of him himself as right of center. He's a centrist who just feels like he's living in bizarro world and just didn't feel like apologizing for it. So he basically walked away. He could have bent the knee.

Chuck (3:53)

Yeah, right.

Mike (3:54)

He had plenty of occasions to walk some things back and resume his career, but he didn't. In fact, I was gonna call this James Woods Didn't Bend the Knee, because he didn't. But we're calling it James Wood's Act 2 instead because he's embarked on a musical career that is shocking. He doesn't play the guitar anymore since an injury that he'll discuss and he doesn't really sing, although he can carry a tune, but as it turns out, he can write. And in a strange collaboration with Waylon Jennings son, Shooter Jennings, they've released an album and now he's just finished another album and the guy's basically writing his autobiography to music. The music is excellent and I'm delighted to see this guy at 78 years of age come out as a recording artist after all this time. After El Salvador or Salvador.

Chuck (4:52)

Salvador, yeah.

Mike (4:53)

After, you know, Ghosts of Mississippi. Yeah, After. I mean, just down the list it goes after all those great movies and then a very tragic fallow period. Here he is, a recording artist and as it turns out, a super interesting guy who's a refugee at the moment with his lovely wife Sarah, who you'll sort of meet as well. They're living in a motel.

Chuck (5:18)

Yeah, One bedroom thing.

Mike (5:20)

Because. Because of the fires.

Chuck (5:21)

Yeah. Now, their house wasn't destroyed, but it's just hideous up there. And they can't move back in.

Mike (5:26)

Yeah, they can't move back in there. He's very upset with Gavin Newsom and I'm very sympathetic and he doesn't hold back in that regard. But again, I don't think you're going to hear much that's political. You're going to hear a lot that's passionate and you're going to hear a lot that's artistic. Strap in. Because this is not what you call an homage to chronology.

Chuck (5:47)

It's a garden hose on the lawn at full bore, just going in every direction.

Mike (5:51)

But the water is sweet and cool and drink from the hose, my friends, and you shall be refreshed right after this. Dumb. Nobody's got a crystal ball with regard to the future of work, but a few things seem pretty clear. AI is going to impact everything, that's for sure. And it's going to be very, very competitive out there. So if you want to give your kids a head start, maybe consider K12's career and college prep program. There's no better way to give K12 students the tools they need to figure out what's next while they're working toward their high school diploma than K12's career and college pre program. This is a program that allows students to explore real world careers starting as early as middle school. I'm talking about careers in business and healthcare, IT and of course in the skilled trades where business is booming and AI is not likely to be disruptive. They'll get hands on experience and the opportunity to earn industry certifications to give them a leg up before they graduate. And if college is the right fit for your student, K12 also provides dual enrollment programs for the opportunity to earn college credit while still in high school and career coaches who can guide your students through the application process and scholarships and financial aid and all that stuff. See what's possible with K12's career and college prep@k12.com roe that's the letter K the number 12.com roe the letter K the number 12. Isn't it crazy how you can walk in to a studio with guys who know what they're doing and go from like a blank slate to a song in lightspeed?

James Woods (7:54)

I am so glad you brought this up because I think that, you know, aside from thanking my unbelievable wife and shooter who just made this all possible, and I'll tell you about the evolution of that.

Mike (8:07)

By the way, the aforementioned wonderful wife is called Sarah without an H, I believe.

James Woods (8:11)

Sarah without an H. Is it?

Chuck (8:13)

Because I believe it's no H. Oh.

Mike (8:15)

No H, no H. Sarah with no H. Sarah Noe.

James Woods (8:17)

Well, the way that came about. By the way, time out on this story, she was at Starbucks or one of the coffee places and a nice young barista lady said, and what's your name? She said, sarah, no H. Okay, she gets the cup back. And S a R a N O H, Sarah no H. Of course.

Mike (8:36)

I mean, see, that's how true monikers are born. Yeah, I mean, I mean, who knows? I don't want to intrude into your personal life, but if she doesn't become no H in shorthand at some point down the road, then Starbucks doesn't have a real purpose.

James Woods (8:52)

She is just the smartest, brightest, most wonderful person. You know, Right now we've been evacuated because of the Palisades fire. We had a beautiful home in the Palisades and of course, Gavin Newsom, Karen Bass managed to find a way through their criminal negligence. Yes, I mean that. And he's coming in hot, folks. Coming in hot, folks.

Mike (9:09)

James woods, just for the record.

James Woods (9:11)

And I'm not going to land. I'm going to keep flat. I'm going to stay right over the battlefield and I'm going to have the gunner on this door and the gunner on this door and away we go. Metaphor. Metaphor.

Mike (9:19)

Well, if you're not taking flak, you're not over the.

James Woods (9:21)

Yeah, yeah, they give me a little slack back. That's okay. But you know, before they, with their egregious negligence, destroyed our neighborhood and the homes of people who grew up there and took 29 lives. Between that and the Eaton fires, before all that, we had this magnificent, beautiful home overlooking the water and so on. And now we're, you know, we've been evacuated a little bit and is evacuation a partial thing?

Mike (9:48)

I mean, it strikes me as a bit like a just the tip reference. You're either in or you're out. You're either evacuated or you aren't.

James Woods (9:55)

We've been living in a one bedroom hotel room, which is fantastic. The people have been great to us, not our home. The fires were January 7th of this year. On February 5th, we were negotiating with the California Fair Plan, whom we have just retained a lawyer to sue. And the lady who was helping us said, well, you know, we can't give you a relocation fee after February 5th because you should have been back in your home. Then said, there was no water in the Palisades anywhere. Then big sign, Water if running is not potable. There was no electricity, no gas. And she literally said, well, you know, you can drink bottled water. I said, the hillside is still smoldering. Literally. We went down there with some firefighters and I said, oh my God. The wood on our hillside, you know, the beams holding up the fire resistant beams holding up the hillside were still smoldering. Literally. We pulled them up. Oh, look at that. Burst into fire.

Mike (10:58)

I gotta ask you, man, I can't. I mean, we'll circle back to the music thing in a minute and the speed with which a song can come out of the ether, but in a very similar way. I was here January 7th last year. In fact, I was standing on the roof of this building, probably watching your place burn. And how in the world has it been a year? I mean, for me it felt like. It feels like two months ago.

James Woods (11:22)

Wrong question. How on earth has it been almost a year since January 7th and they've done nothing. And that sanctimonious two faced jazz hand slickster, Gavin Newsom, you know, so we've put everything back together and Sarah literally went, we drove out there and she took pictures of every single, the very few framed houses. He would go out and say, look, we're rebuilding everything. And he'd stand in front of one house and There were like 10 houses out of the 16,000 that burned between the two, between the Palisades and Eaton. And it turned out that those 10 houses out of, in our neighborhood, almost 8,000 all had permits before the fire. They've done nothing. They've absolutely done nothing. And there's a reason why, and I'm just going to say it because I hope, in fact, that people will look into it. Is it possible? And this is conspiracy theory, but the great news about living in America these days is if you've believed in almost any conspiracy theory in the past 10 years, Lo and behold, you've been right. What a shock. It turns out that they want to build low income housing, which sounds great and noble. We've given them billions of dollars to build low income housing around Los Angeles. Nothing has been done. Virtually nothing. I mean, they may point to one structure where each little tiny room costs $560,000. I'm not sure of that exact number, but they don't do anything. It's like the fire aid money that magically disappeared. Except the two and a half million he gave to his first partner, Harvey's old girlfriend. Where did that money all go? The bottom line, we're just basically stuck with a guy who wants to do this noble thing. Low income housing which gets built never used for low income People, then the cronies and so on. This is a conspiracy theory. I don't know if this is true, but it's been postulated that then they say, well, you know, we built all this, we might as well start leasing it out to other people instead of the low income people. And they charge exorbitant prices. And anytime you have the government involved with contractors building stuff, you can just watch that money fly away like it has wings.

Mike (13:45)

It's not conspiratorial to look at that and then look at the high speed rail and the way it was presented. It's not conspiratorial to look at that and then look at the billions that were pushed toward the homeless situation.

James Woods (13:59)

Billions.

Mike (14:00)

And so, yeah, obviously there's graft. Obviously it's a failure. But the thing that interests me most of all is the presentation of the possibility. Here's what we're going to do. And that's where acting and politics and graft and pretense and guile collide, in my view. And so do you know Elaine Kotti?

James Woods (14:22)

No. No.

Mike (14:23)

She's sat where you've sat. She lives in your neighborhood. She's. I don't want to speak out of turn, but I believe she's been very successful in the real estate world and she's getting involved in this. Adam Carolla, you must.

James Woods (14:38)

He's been great. He's been great.

Mike (14:40)

He's been. I don't know that anybody who's written heard on this better or more consistently.

James Woods (14:45)

Of all people, the last person you would expect. You know, you always hear these guys tell stories. My father was in two wars. He was in a lot of combat. And the guy that I even wrote a new song about it. It's not for this album. It's for two albums from now. Cause we're doing the third album in February. But in the fourth album, there's a song called Rodney and Carl about these two kind of doofy guys. And you always. The last guy you expect to be the hero and to give his life is the one they all made fun of. A hero will rise and a hero will rise. And I have to. Spencer Pratt. Spencer Pratt has been like one of the lyrics from my first album. Like a diamond bullet to the brain. This guy has put that message out.

Mike (15:27)

There was Spencer the reality show guy?

James Woods (15:29)

Yeah, yeah, yeah. He was a reality show guy. Also our President of the United States, one of the greatest we've ever had, currently our current president was also a reality show guy who finally stepped into the breach and managed to Close a border that everybody said was, oh, our border is fine. Don't worry about the 20 million people came in unvetted, you know, unvaccinated criminal records for the fifth time. Don't worry about that. It's fine. They're not going to cause any trouble.

Mike (15:54)

Do you mind if I just freelance and totally free associate talk. Because clearly, that's. By the way, I'm walking over here today and I'm just like, okay, James Woods, I've wanted to talk to you for.

James Woods (16:04)

Oh, thank you.

Mike (16:05)

I wanted to talk to you too, a long time. But you're challenging because every couple of weeks something new happens that kind of maybe eclipses the thing that I thought I wanted to talk to you about before. And coming up the elevator, I'm like, oh, God, he's got these albums now. He's doing this whole second act. He's got this beautiful bride with no H and her first name, which is amazing. He's lost his home in the Palisades. He's living in the town that made him famous, but also turned his back on him. You have been a prodigal in so many ways. And yet, like, here you sit with all this humor, all this ennui and a lot of perspective and not a hint of, obviously, you got no governor, you got no editor. You're gonna say whatever you say the minute it occurs to you to say it. That's extraordinarily freeing, I think. But My question is, ChatGPT says your IQ is between 180 and 184.

James Woods (17:02)

That's 184. Get out on the Stanford Binet IQ test that I took when I was actually getting my scholarship to mit. For some reason, I was. At the same time I had been nominated to the Air Force Academy by Senator John Pastore. And for some reason, one of them along the way, I had wanted to be. We got to go back a little bit. I'd wanted to be an eye surgeon. I thought that's what I'd like to be in life now. So why did I ask to be nominated to the Air Force Academy?

Mike (17:30)

No, no. Why did you want to be an eye surgeon? How does that happen?

James Woods (17:32)

Because I think that the gift of sight is the most extraordina. And I can't imagine what it's like to be infirm or blind in that area. For some reason, that's what I wanted to do. And I happened to have gotten also eight year scholarships to Brown University, Johns Hopkins and Tufts, all of which had great medical schools. And they gave me Undergraduate all the way through graduate school. This is great. Then I ran through a glass door and severed every tendon, the median nerve and the radial artery. I have no pulse if you hold your hand there. And that was the end of my surgery days. Also the end of my classical guitar days. I have a hard time playing.

Mike (18:10)

Why'd you run through a glass door?

James Woods (18:12)

Because I was, you know, 17 years old.

Mike (18:15)

Did you not see it?

James Woods (18:16)

No. Here's the deal. I'll tell you exactly what it was. I was one of 30 people, young kids, we're all juniors in high school, who, for the summer between junior and senior year, got a National Science foundation grant to study linear algebra, which is kind of higher form of math at ucla. And they put us up and paid for our trip and everything. It was great. We're studying, you know, kind of nerds, you know, nerd summer school. And we were at Dykstra hall, and, you know, like the sophisticated students that we were, you know, embracing mathematics and science, Arthur D. Davis and I, Arthur D. Davis from Kentucky, were running down the hallway throwing water balloons at each other. Because that's what you do when you're studying higher math.

Mike (18:56)

And when you're just dealing with 184 IQ points, there's nothing really left to do but fill up the rubber device.

James Woods (19:02)

I turned, go through a glass door to push the glass door. And this is before they had tempered glass, and I pushed through. And a big short of glass is when it sliced my radial artery. And if you've ever had arterial bleeding, it literally squirts to the wall with your heartbeat. And I was wearing a white sweatshirt. We got down. We're on the third floor. We got down to the lobby, believe it or not, we made the potentially death decision to go down in the elevator. But luckily, the doors open. We got in, went right down, the doors open again. I walk out, and there were two students, probably my age, 17, 18, whatever, a little older because it was, you know, the college students there for the summer. And they saw me covered in blood in a white sweatshirt, which now soaked in blood, and they literally both fainted to the floor.

Mike (19:51)

Wrong vocation for you.

James Woods (19:53)

Yeah. And then, luckily, next thing I know, I'm getting a little dizzy and I'm on the floor, and I just hear a guy say, I'm a medical student. This is going to be a little tight. He pulls out my belt, puts on a tourniquet, put me in the back of a police car because they didn't have time to wait for the ambulance. And I swear to you. When we got to ucla, they were waiting. I'll never forgot this. Waiting in the driveway. There was a nurse and a resident and he literally had a pair of clamps in his hand. He reaches in, pulls out the artery and clamps it. And at that moment, I knew I was gonna make it. But my life changed.

Mike (20:28)

Well, your life was saved.

James Woods (20:30)

My life was saved, yes.

Mike (20:32)

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James Woods (22:10)

No, I'll tell you because she's the genius. What? It's like, it's fabulous. No, no, I gotta answer this one. I gotta answer. So we're in our evacuated, you know, in our one bedroom hotel room. It was lovely. Has a little kitchen. She can make anything on a hot plate in an air fryer. I mean, honestly, we're like a little nation or two. I swear to God, people say, oh, she's, you know, I know why you're with her and you know why she's with her. We just spend all our time together. She's just remarkable. Yeah, I get it. But she's so smart, she's so funny, she's so talented. Great photographer.

Mike (22:39)

Like, do you do crosswords together or cross sticks?

James Woods (22:41)

No, because she's smarter than I am. But you know, don't tell anybody out there. So I'm sitting there and I go, hey, what are you doing? You know, because it's like she's a room away. I want to make sure, you know, I haven't lost her. She goes, I said, what? She said, you know, I said, sarah, you know, you're doing this. I'm coming in, I'm going to come in there, I'm going to get an answer. I said, what are you doing? I said, I'm writing. You're writing? What are you writing? Says, writing a novel. I said, do you have like any pages? She goes, yeah, I've got like nine chapters done. I got the outline. I said, I said, hold on.

Mike (23:23)

You live in a one bedroom motel room. Where'd you get the time to write nine pages?

James Woods (23:27)

Well, what kind of stand up comedian would you be? You're the straight man. What happened next?

Mike (23:31)

What happened next? Genius.

James Woods (23:33)

Well done. I said, wait a minute, I'm sitting on the couch in there playing poker online illegally, like a genius. Go ahead. Like a genius. You know, getting my ass handed to me. That's okay, I can afford it. No. And I go, I'm sorry. And you're writing a novel. She said, I'm writing my fifth novel. I said, hold on a second. When were you writing the other four? She goes, you know, you were busy being you, thinking about you and, you know, not the world around you most of the time. I said, okay. No, but seriously, she goes, yeah. I said, well, can I read this one? She goes, you can read the nine chapters. So I said, okay, but first of all, Sarah, you know, like I'm a producer. The executive producer of Oppenheimer, for crying out loud. I'm big, you know, All I did.

Mike (24:24)

Was I recommend American Prometheus.

James Woods (24:26)

American Prometheus? Yeah, we had the book. Actually, my partner had the book, David Wargo. But we knew each other from mit. From not at mit, but from mit. And he said, look, I'm not in the business. Long story story short, he just said, can you help me get this movie made? And it took us five years, but I finally got it to my friend Chuck Roven in the middle of COVID And through a miracle, he got it to Chris. To Chris Nolan Cross and Emma Thomas. And by the way, for the record, when the fires happened, some of the first people I heard from were Chuck and Emma Thomas and Chris Nolan. Emma texted me right away and said, we have a room in our house, come stay and so on. I mean, you know, a lot of people think they're aloof and he's very focused because he doesn't like anybody telling him he just wants to focus on making the movies his choice. But man, when the chips are down, you know, they turned out to be real friends for people who don't. But anyway, so let me just close.

Mike (25:18)

I just want to make sure people understand that Chris Nolan is, I mean, I guess he's widely acknowledged now as maybe being the premier auteur, but if he's not, he will be in time.

James Woods (25:30)

If not of all times, maybe, right? An unbelievable genius.

Mike (25:34)

He's like, he's a Shohei Ohtani kinda, exactly. Force. Exactly in that space.

James Woods (25:40)

He literally is saving film. Film, literally film. He shoots only on film on imax. He's, you know, he called me up and he said, look, the film's done. There are famous stories about him, Michael. The studio said, hey, you know, we'd like to read the scripts. He said, why? Yeah, okay, well, you know, can you show us, you know, dailies? No. Well, when will we see the film? You know, at the premiere. So I was kind of surprised when he called me, the film's done. I said, oh great, Chris, great. He said, I'd like you to come see it, you know, 9 o' clock in the morning, 9:30 in the morning, you know, at the Universal CityWalk, you know, and Dolby sound, you know, just huge, big. And I'm just sitting there alone watching the movie. I think there are a couple of other people who have been actors in the movie that maybe hadn't seen it yet, but basically I felt like I was in this big empty room and my father was on Okinawa. We're just jumping from things like Lily pads.

Mike (26:36)

No, no, look, our listeners understand.

James Woods (26:38)

I'll finish these stories next week anyway, when I come back tomorrow. Anyway, my dad was on Okinawa and I had a big. I had a real issue that I wanted to make sure that people understood that when they talk about the atomic bomb and the number of lives that were lost, the number of lives had we had a land invasion, not just American lives, but Japanese lives would have been way more and more. I mean, and in terrible ways. They had 10 year old children fighting with sticks against, you know, marines and.

Mike (27:11)

Every model of a Japanese invasion showed a million dead.

James Woods (27:15)

So when he did the movie and actually gleaned from American Prometheus and the trial, the hearings that Oppenheimer went through for his security clearance. And he took a completely different tack on the movie. Now, you have to understand that everybody wanted Chris Nolan to make a movie at the time. And Chuck said, look, I don't produce with Chris anymore because Emma does it. His wife. I mean, she's great producer. They kind of don't need me. We're friends. And at one point when everybody was pulling at Chris, Chris said to Chuck, hey, can, you know, Emma and the kids and I would just. Would like to go to your ranch if you're going to be down there in Texas. He said, yeah, I'm going next week. Yeah, let's come down. So Chuck has this ranch. He and Steph, his wife, they ride horses and, you know, very good. She does cutting horses. She's like a champion. So there. And he said, I don't want to talk about showbiz. Chuck says, great. Chuck calls me up, he goes, so I'm going to go have, you know, Chris is going to come, but he doesn't want to talk about show business. So, you know, not going to happen. And that's it. The third or fourth day. This is how it's told to me by Chuck. So maybe it happened this way, maybe not, but it's hella. So. Chuck said, like the third day, the maid got the housekeeper. Their cook. You shouldn't use the word maid. Their house manager, I believe it's a chef now. Their house manager, their executive chef, whatever. Got Covid. So he said, long story short, Chris Nolan and I are doing the dishes together. I'm walking to Chris Nolan, drying the dishes. I hope this is true. I really do. And at that point, Chris said, so what are you working on? Dun dun dun dun angel starts singing. And he says, well, I'm doing this thing called Barbarians. He goes, no, no. He said, and this other thing he said, you know James woods, the actor? He goes, yeah, I like him as an actor and so on. He's not part of the. The cabal that decided to blacklist me because I voted differently than they did. So that was nice. And he's not political at all. He just said, yeah, I just like his work. What a concept, right? How about that? Meritocracy. Yeah, what a thing. That's your job. So I like you. He said, well, he has this project called American Prometheus about J. Robert Oppenheimer. He said, I was talking to Robert Pattinson on our last movie about Oppenheimer. He said, I've been Thinking about it. He said, send me the book. He said, you got to stay here. He does something that nobody in our business does, Chris. He makes a decision about what he's going to do, and he does it. That's it. He doesn't develop 20 projects.

Mike (29:49)

No focus groups.

James Woods (29:52)

He couldn't care about it. Yeah, but by the way, he's never gone a penny over budget or day or.

Mike (29:57)

Which is why the studio's live.

James Woods (29:58)

Yeah, he's fantastic. And he said. And Chuck said, you know, I was away in Germany. I haven't spent time with Steph. I want to. He said, yeah, she'll understand, Chuck. Just. I'm gonna read the book. This is Thursday. I'll give you an answer on Tuesday, you know, or it was Friday. Whatever it was, I knew it was three days. I said, chuck, the book's 700 pages long. It's like, you know, single, and it's all science. He said, he read it in three days. He calls him on Monday morning. This is my next movie.

Mike (30:27)

Jeez.

James Woods (30:28)

And he wrote the screenplay in less than four months.

Mike (30:33)

That's not even that screenplay.

James Woods (30:36)

And when I saw him.

Mike (30:36)

What's his IQ?

James Woods (30:37)

I don't know. A billion. A billion plus. Plus 84. But. And when I. When he screened it for me, I went up to him afterwards. I don't know why, because he's very. I said, chris, I work with my friend. You know. You know how it is. All the dead ends in the business. I never. The movie's so great. But what's so great is the screenplay. The idea. Just that one little slight. Because you don't know. You know, Strauss doesn't know what Oppenheimer is talking to Einstein about. And because of that, a whole life is ruined of a man who could have brought peace to the world, even though he invented the atomic bomb, he wanted to stop the proliferation of nuclear weapons. You know, the whole story. And all of a sudden, I never. I started. Tears started coming down my eyes. It was so brilliantly done. And Chris Nolan, who's not the kind of guy you'd expect this from, put his arms around me and said, I can't thank you enough for bringing the book to shock and making this possible. He might have found it anyway. And, you know, it's possible that he knew about it all, but for him to say that, to me was just one of the sort of great rewards in life.

Mike (31:48)

Did it feel redeeming?

James Woods (31:49)

And, yes, it was redemption.

Mike (31:51)

Okay, I'm super interested in that, because at this point, I mean, you're Older than you've ever been, I reckon. What, 77?

James Woods (31:58)

I'm 78 years old.

Mike (31:59)

78 years old. It's just that your career is so interesting and in spite of.

James Woods (32:06)

Thank you.

Mike (32:06)

Like, what you just alluded to was really a sliding door, right? A moment of doing dishes leads to a comment, leads to a book, and suddenly you're an EP on arguably one of the greatest movies made the century. Right? Speaking of sliding doors, you're 17. That one's made of glass. You run through it and damn near kill yourself.

James Woods (32:30)

And look what happened in my life.

Mike (32:31)

And here you are, like, we're not sitting here if you don't run through that door. We're not sitting here if some guy whose name you may or may not remember doesn't put a clamp on your radial. I mean, we can make ourselves nuts looking at the little moments in our life that actually weren't so little. But when you take that same model and apply it to something as consequential as splitting the atom. Now. Now you've got an opera.

James Woods (32:55)

Well, it's interesting because I know you were an opera singer. Now, this is the second album. We did Tombstone Opera. There it is. Thank you.

Mike (33:03)

Love it. Love the COVID design. Who did that?

James Woods (33:05)

Oh, who did that? Who did the COVID Ohio? Sarah No h. Sarah Noh.

Mike (33:10)

Sarah Noh did it. Very nice.

James Woods (33:12)

Yeah, she did it. She did that. By the way, the graphic design. The graphic designer who does the placement of all the writing and so on, is also an incredibly talented woman named Alice Maul. M A U L E. So Sarah did all the art directions. You did all the photography as well. The COVID photograph. There's a line where the silent. My own dialogue on a silent star. High in the sky a spirit sits shaking his head Knows the carnage is nigh and the killing begins. It's a whole opera about revenge and comedy. Comedy, yeah. A lot of laughs in this one.

Mike (33:53)

But so well, I direct you to cut number two on site. A coyote hanging on a barbed wire fence. That old chestnut.

James Woods (34:00)

Yeah. I tell you, it's a great song, man. They love that song. And I'm going to say something I truly do not ever. I don't like to brag about anything I do, but I am so proud of these two albums, I'll never be able to tell you what joy it gives me. So you'll notice that we have a star. If I may point this out right there in Tombstone Opera. That's the star. And this beautiful, very simple, kind of alluring, mysterious, ethereal cover that was actually a daylight photograph that Sarah took that she massaged with express and turn it into that. And that was a picture of Bob Wayne, who I do this interesting thing. I write all the lyrics. And on the first album, Shooter Jennings, three time Grammy winner. Remarkable guy. I love him so much. Wayland Sohn as well, but who is now really made. He's really one of the top country music producers. He just did. He's done so many Melissa Etheridge's album. He did. I think he got two Grammys with producing Brandy Carlisle. He's fantastic. So when you talk about going through the sliding door, I've got to tell the story. This is how it all came about.

Mike (35:09)

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James Woods (36:34)

On the first album. I do a little spoken intro. When I was young, there were two things that stuck out because I love to read. One was Thomas Wolfe's you can't go home again. And I always that concept just bewildered and left a bitter taste in my mouth. I thought you can find your way back if you need to. I believe in fact the first song on that first album is called the Road Back. And the other Thing that always stuck with me is F. Scott Fitzgerald famously said, there are no second acts in American lives. But I'm here to prove that indeed there are. I mean, I found. One of my lyrics is I found a good woman. I don't know how, you know, I did find a good woman in my life when I least expected it on April Fool's Day 10 years ago. So I'm still not sure if it's the real deal. It could be a really long, very elaborate prank. A really elaborate prank.

Mike (37:31)

No H is playing the long game.

James Woods (37:32)

Yeah, no H is doing the long game. You know, I gotta check again. Anyway, so we're sitting in Dantana's. My beloved friend Dantana, who passed away this year, God rest his soul, but we go there all the time. I'm the only actor, musician, whose picture is on the wall at Dantana's after 60 years.

Mike (37:54)

By the way, one of the great places in the country to get a steak.

James Woods (37:58)

One of the. The best steak you'll ever have anywhere in the world.

Mike (38:01)

I, you know, Musso and Frank.

James Woods (38:03)

Great.

Mike (38:03)

Dennis.

James Woods (38:04)

Yeah.

Mike (38:04)

Those two are going to sit at the bar and sip a decent cold gin and have a rare to medium rare.

James Woods (38:11)

The best, certainly at that very bar. Glenn Frey and Don Henley were sitting, looking at this girl in the barn. And Glenn Frey said, don Henley, look at this girl. Look at those lion eyes.

Mike (38:23)

Can't hide him.

James Woods (38:25)

And Don Henley went, song. But anyway.

Mike (38:31)

But have you seen the Eagles in the sphere yet?

James Woods (38:34)

Have we. We haven't seen them in the sphere, but we, we saw. We saw them in Vegas and it was with Vince Gill. Yeah, you know, we had the greatest. So much fun. They're so. They're so great. So anyway, we're sitting in tennis at 5 o'. Clock and. You know who eats dinner at 5 o'? Clock? Well, we do. Cause I don't mind. You know, people always come. Hey, Mr. Woods, good to talk to you. How you doing? Shake hands. I always shake hands with everybody. Chat with everybody, but when they're standing over your food. One thing we learned during COVID is don't chat with people while they're standing over your food. I won't get more graphic than that. So we're sitting there, there's nobody in the place except this guy's all tattered up and he's got shades on and his blond Anna Nicole Smith kind of looking gorgeous wife. And she's. And you know, we're always like, everybody does. People watching. Look at these two, man. There's a. And all of A sudden she goes. He goes, oh. They get up and they go, hey, man, sorry to bother you. You know, I'm just such a fan. I go, thank you so much. We're sorry to stare, but, you know, you're a really cool looking couple. So the question is music, Movies. But he goes, music. He said, I'm Shooter Jennings and this is my wife Misty. And I said, oh, how did. I said jennings? I said, well, you know, that's. You know, there was a country. He said, he was my dad. I said, of course he will.

Mike (39:53)

How about that?

James Woods (39:53)

So we start, we sit talking, talking, talking, talking. We're hanging out, hanging out. And now it's during COVID so it's really difficult. Sarah and Misty keep trying to make Sarah no H and Misty, M I, S, T Y. I don't know why I bothered to spell her name. Are trying to find out a way to get us together to have dinner. And we finally have dinner. For some reason, we're chatting. Shooter and I are talking about music, the music we love and his music and stuff. And I said, ah, damn. I said, I have this sweater, cashmere, nice little cashmere sweater that Sarah got for me. And I snagged it, you know. He said, how'd you do that? I said, oh, you know, the callus from my. From my guitar. He said, you play guitar? I said, no, sh. No, I don't believe. No, I do not play guitar. I stink. I can't do it. I had an injury. I can strum campfire chords. I gave it all up. No, I don't play guitar. Because you never tell a musician no. That you play an instrument because you.

Mike (40:50)

Know what's coming next. He has one probably under the table.

James Woods (40:53)

It's not even that. It's like you think you can play an instrument until a guy who's practiced 17 hours a day, you know, gets on.

Mike (41:02)

You think you can direct a movie, and then Chris Nolan walks in the.

James Woods (41:04)

Room and you go, oh. Oh, my God. Anyway, he said, oh. He said, did you ever. And talk about at the sliding door you walked through? He said, well, you know, you always make me laugh, man. You're so bright. Did you ever think of writing lyrics? No. He said, you should think about that. So I go home, because it's in my mind. I write a song and I sit down and I write it as fast as I can. Actually, I wrote on my. On my notes app, on my phone. When the sun in early morning dies in sorrow and quietly fades when the.

Mike (41:44)

184 days.

James Woods (41:45)

What is it? When they want what?

Mike (41:48)

Before.

James Woods (41:49)

Before they once more onus. Before the world invades. Before what the. This would happen.

Mike (41:55)

What's the song called?

James Woods (41:56)

It's called Misty Morning.

Mike (41:58)

M I.

James Woods (42:04)

I gotta get to my phone back. Honest with you.

Mike (42:12)

There it is. From the horse's mouth.

Song Vocals (42:15)

When the sun in early morning dies in sorrow and quietly fades before they once more on us before the world invades before we are born again and the sun burns where our stands Misty morning Misty morning don't let the cold world come back.

Mike (42:53)

Nice. Nice.

James Woods (42:56)

So Shooters are fantastic composer and a great singer.

Mike (43:00)

So how long did it take him to write that compared to how long it took you to.

James Woods (43:05)

Well, it took me about 40 minutes.

Mike (43:08)

Or 78 years, depending on how you live.

Chuck (43:10)

About as long as it took us to find it.

James Woods (43:12)

But you got to understand what it's like. So you send these lyrics to this guy. It's got three Grammys.

Mike (43:16)

Yeah.

James Woods (43:18)

And you don't hear anything for weeks. I said to Sarah, I am such a douchebag. What am I sending lyrics to Shooter Jennings? I'm some actor, you know. It's like. You know, and then out of nowhere. No, nothing out of nowhere, I get a text and it's like, oh, MP400. I touch it and I hear. He just. He'd. Then he smoked cigarettes. Doesn't smoke cigarettes anymore. All right. I've been smoking all day and my voice is shit. You know? But I gotta tell you, I'm just doing a little kind of, you know. I like the stream of conscience. I love these lyrics, James. I really hope. Anyway, I hope you like this. It's just something I think. I hope you like it. Here it is.

Mike (44:06)

Boom.

James Woods (44:07)

And he plays this song. And if you hear the whole song, it's just. It's just beautiful.

Mike (44:16)

On a personal level, though, what's it do? What's it do to your dopamine? What's it do to your mindset?

James Woods (44:21)

It's impossible.

Mike (44:22)

We talked about redemption before with the Nolan moment. How does that moment compare?

James Woods (44:29)

Well, you got to know that while I was waiting those three weeks, I wrote 35 more songs. I just thought, I'm just going to keep writing. I love this.

Chuck (44:38)

35?

James Woods (44:39)

Yeah, 35.

Mike (44:40)

And you are such a weirdo, man.

James Woods (44:41)

And I just wrote these songs, and when I heard it, I said, sarah, is it me? She goes, it's fantastic. So I called David Foster, who's a friend of mine, said, david, can I send something to you? He said, yeah. He said, you know, I'm retired. I said, I don't want you to do anything. I just want to know if I'm kidding myself. He listens to it. He goes, who's on the piano and singing? I said, it's Shooter Jennings, who also did the music. I wrote the lyrics. He did the music. He said, I would buy this song in one second for Josh Groman, right? I said, well, I'm never doing anything except with Shooter. He said, yeah, I'm at work now. He said, but this is. Anything you need my help on, just do. Now. I'm with ASCAP and all that stuff. But the good news is something interesting happened that kind of works for everything that you do here about the work ethic. And I really want to talk about this seriously because it's important. So here I am. I had a day job, and I did pretty well.

Mike (45:49)

And I had Ghost of Mississippi. Kidding me.

James Woods (45:52)

Yeah, yeah.

Mike (45:55)

Pretty well.

James Woods (45:56)

Yeah, yeah. I had that. And I had Salvador. I had a couple Oscar nominations. I had. You know, I got five Emmys. I got all that stuff. And I made some money. But I did one really smart thing when I was young, right after, like, 1984. 1985, whatever. I had some money in the bank and I had a stockbroker, and I said, you know, I'd like to buy Apple Computer. And he goes, are you joking? Apple Computer, it's like a trash can on the screen. I said, yeah, you know why there's a trash can on the screen? He said, so you're going to throw away your stuff? I said, yeah. And you know why that's interesting to a shitload of people in America and in the world. They don't know what Control, Alt, Delete does. They don't know all that geek stuff. But they can look at a desktop and go, oh, I can put this thing in the trash can. I said, it appeals to the other 99% of the world who would love to use a computer. I said, just tell me one thing. He said, look, if you buy Apple Computer, I really don't kind of want to represent you. I get fired all the time, everybody, because I have other ideas. And I said, okay, but before you go, would you put in the sale for me? He goes, yeah. I said, with the money? I was like, at 12 or something. I said, I've worked hard. I just didn't. If I took every penny I have and put it into Apple Computer. He said, oh, man, you're so stupid. I said, okay, but we know that. And you're going to leave me and you'll be able to say, I told you so someday. How many shares could I buy? He said, 13,000. I said, good, buy 13,000 shares of Apple in 1985. And you did and never sold one.

Mike (47:42)

Are you kidding me?

James Woods (47:44)

No, dude, I'm here as a favor because I'm a rich monster. I'm kidding.

Mike (47:49)

I'm kidding, man. I was on the verge of feeling sorry for you.

James Woods (47:53)

I gotta take that back. I actually did sell at one point when they split seven ways or something because you don't want to ever be top heavy, no matter how great you're thinking. But I just loved the product and I loved what it was. The point about this, it's important to get back to this other thing. I can afford to make these albums and it costs quite a bit. You want to pay the musicians. And I have a whole thing that we have to talk about how musicians are just have been destroyed by the way the music business is run now. It's cruel and awful. And I'm trying to do something a little different here. So I worked with this wonderful woman named Missy Query at selectohits, which is Johnny Phillips, Sam Phillips, great nephew, Selecto Hits. Oh, don't laugh, man. They do 50 to 100 albums a month. And you know what they do? All the guys want to have their own little labels, okay? And they want to get their stuff distributed and they help you do it, and he guides you through it all. And honestly, it's fantastic because nobody cares. Oh, you know, I'm going to buy that because it's on, you know, electro whatever. You know, nobody does that.

Mike (48:58)

It's like, oh, I'm going to go see a Universal film tonight. I feel like some Warner Brothers entertainment. It doesn't.

James Woods (49:04)

Thank you. Exactly.

Mike (49:05)

I get it. Hey, if your mom or dad was in the Marine Corps, you should know about the Marine Corps Scholarship Fund. These guys give away $10 million in scholarships every year to sons and daughters of Marines. And this month is National CTE Month. That's career and technical education. So the Marine Corps Scholarship foundation asked me if I would make sure that you guys knew that a big pile of money had been set aside for children of Marines who are pursuing careers in the skilled trades. Health, science, mechanics, information technology, cnc, manufacturing, welders, electricians, all of it. CTE professionals are in demand like never before. And if you qualify, this money is waiting for you. And it's easy to qualify if you've got a 2.0 or better GPA and can demonstrate financial need. Congratulations, you're in. Apply@mcsf.org apply. And it's not limited to the skilled trades. It's just that the trades are in demand right now and the money is there. If you're the son or daughter of a marine, the money is waiting. Check your eligibility and apply@mcsf.org apply.

James Woods (50:31)

So I said to Shooter, I said, you know, then he started writing songs for me and I was like. He said, man, you know, you've got a really beautiful album here. I said, thank you. I said, what do you think we should call the album? He said, well, you know, it's like it's your autobiography. This is the first album Hear this under crack. I said, what? He goes, dude, you're not aware that you, like wrote your autobiography? I said, oh, I guess I kind of did because there's a song I think we're going to play at the end called hello Friend. I Forgot to say goodbye. And I said, yeah. He said, well then, you know. I said, but we don't have a song that kind of celebrates that. I said, I should write one tonight. He said, okay, what would you call it? I said, well, the Road Back, because I love road stories. And I wrote the song about driving back home, can't go home again when I call home to see my widowed mother after my beloved brother died unexpectedly and getting caught in a tornado with my little carrier who looked just like Toto. It's too hard to believe, but it's a true story. And we got caught in this tornado. Anyways, this about. It's called the Roadback. And he said, you know, I said, you know, should we do this with like, you know, like Sony or. He said, look, the big labels are great. For us, it would be James Wood. Nobody associates you with music. You know, I have a small but devoted following, but they come out promoted. Gone. He said, you should go with Johnny Phillips. You should make your own label, Breakheart Films. Based after a brook that my dad and I used to fish in. And he said, you know, in the beginning you'll have to fund it yourself. I'll do it with you. I said, no, I'll do it. Pay the musicians, pay the engineers and all that. And then hopefully make enough money back that you can do another one. And so I'm going to do it as if I am a broke ass guy with a guitar, but, you know, a guitar and a dream and a pencil or a notes app.

Mike (52:38)

13,000 shares of Macintosh.

James Woods (52:40)

Yeah, but I'm not bringing that in. Right, you see. So we ended up doing the album that way and Missy guided us through It And Sarah, you know, with her. We didn't have her photography. It ended up being Shooter and me and Sarah with the photography. That was a way that we could promote it. At least we have some pictures and some videos and all this stuff, and we did it, and people loved it. And we ended up number seven for a brief moment, but we were on the Apple country music chart. I mean, to hit number seven.

Mike (53:12)

Yeah, yeah.

James Woods (53:12)

You know, and.

Mike (53:14)

But to do it on your own terms, James.

James Woods (53:15)

Right?

Mike (53:16)

I mean, it's like this little band of, you know, I don't know, jagged little pills who are going to do something outside of the behemoth of the industry.

James Woods (53:26)

There you go.

Mike (53:27)

How satisfying or important, how important is it to fight city hall even as you try?

James Woods (53:34)

But I don't want to look at it negatively. I understand that the big albums, you know, provide a great service. I mean, you get to. Whether it's 50 Cent or, you know, Taylor Swift, whatever. I mean, those fans want to hear these artists, and they're great artists in their own way. This is different. This is authentic music. There's no AI. There's no, you know, no Auto Tune. No Auto Tune, none of that stuff. These are musicians playing there, and great musicians. John Schreffler, Jamie Douglas, Aubrey Richmond, Ted Russell Campbell, you know. You know, Shooter, of course. So when this album did well, I called Shooter, and I, you know, now that Covid was over, Shooter was, you know, back into producing. So I said, shooter, it takes you too long to get songs back. To me, sometimes it can take as much as. Because you just don't have the time. He said, yeah, I know. I said, is there a young artist who could do what you do that we would produce together, that, you know, that I could take the profit from this first album, make a second album? He says, he's not young, but there's a guy named Bob Wayne who's got like 12 albums out. He does them in his living room with really good musicians in the South. And it's all, you know, trucker, a trucker, you know, mother trucker, and, you know, all this stuff. But. But really. But he also does other music, and he's a genius. He's amazing. And he said, we were talking about doing a neo noir western. I said, whatever that means. I said, and what would I do? He said, well, you know, why don't you write the lyrics and have him do the music? I said, because, yeah, that's me, a country western guy. He goes, jimmy, just see what you think. So I talk to him on the phone a little bit. And I really like him. And I send him the lyrics to a song called Casa de Mor that I had written. And he sends back, we laugh about it now. Literally the worst song I think I've ever heard. And I said. And I learned something from Shooter. Shooter, with your musician, say, let's try that again. Clint Eastwood's like that. Yeah. Shooter said. And Bob said, I hate this thing I sent you. I'm sorry. I was literally in tears. I told Candace, my girlfriend, I said, I just screwed it up with James Oz. I said, this thing is crap. I hate it. I said, bob, just try it again. He said, okay. You know, sent back. I said, you're getting there. And then finally I said, think about this. Think that it's like this 1870s kind of hacienda Cantina with these ladies of questionable virtue and, you know, ill repute. Ill repute. But he falls in love with one. So now he comes back and the first half of this song, I think you're going to play it at some point, was talking to your guy about it, Chuck about it. And it's real, you know, almost mariachi band, kind of self conscious, but it's setting you up. I said, now, when he wakes up to the empty room and she's gone, Go to a minor key and let's get into that fever dream loss that Shooter's famous for that kind of. And then we have, you know, John Schreffler on that lap steel guitar. It's like, oh, my God, these musicians. I'm glad I mentioned them all, because they make the song and Shooter's ability to arrange it all. And the next thing you know, Casa de Amor is, like, beautiful. And, man, we're off and running.

Mike (57:12)

Is that the one where there's a. There's a heat wave?

James Woods (57:14)

Yeah, there's a heat wave in Casa Casa.

Mike (57:17)

So it actually. I mean, you got around to it. You just answered. Well, not quite yet. You haven't quite answered my very first question, which was an attempt to explain the alchemy between musicians who have never heard a song before. So they're not privy to your process of coming up with the lyrics. They're not privy to Shooter's process or to Bob Wayne's pain of getting it wrong and then wrong again and then less wrong and then not really wrong and then right and then great.

James Woods (57:48)

Correct.

Mike (57:49)

They're not a part of any of that. They show up one day, Saturday afternoon. They're in some studio and they look at some charts.

James Woods (57:56)

Snake Mountain at Sunset Sound it was bound to be. They don't look at the chart. They don't even look at the charts right. It is the most miraculous thing I've ever experienced in my life. And I've seen a shuttle launch.

Mike (58:07)

That's what I want. I want you to talk about that, because that's the stuff of.

James Woods (58:12)

Here's what we do. I'm going to do something that. Man, I can't believe I'm doing this, but I'm going to do it.

Mike (58:16)

Are you accessing your photo?

James Woods (58:18)

I'm going to do something this could. I'm going to do a portfolio. Okay. Huh?

Mike (58:23)

It's a stock portfolio.

Chuck (58:23)

Your stock portfolio. You're going to check your stocks right now?

James Woods (58:26)

No. No. How's it doing? I said to Shooter, I wrote this song called I Am the Blazing Sun. And we. I said, what happened is Dwayne from the Oak Ridge Boys said, I love your album and I love your writing. Would you write a song for us? Well, we started writing, and then it turned out that it worked beautifully for Tombstone Opera. But then I didn't want to use it in Tombstone Opera. But I have a new album we're going to go and cut in February. And I'm just going to say it now. It's called the Lonesome. It's about Lonesome people.

Mike (58:59)

Is this breaking news? Has this been really.

James Woods (59:01)

It actually is, and I shouldn't have said it, but yes. Let's go.

Mike (59:03)

Lonesome people. Make a note. It's gonna be the title of this episode. Lonesome People, folks.

James Woods (59:08)

No, it's called the Lonesome.

Mike (59:10)

Oh, it's just the Lonesome.

Chuck (59:11)

The lonesome.

Mike (59:12)

Well, you know what you did there? You forgot the noun, man.

James Woods (59:15)

So here.

Mike (59:16)

The lonesome. What? You left me hanging. Just the lonesome.

James Woods (59:20)

That's right. I kept you hanging, didn't I? What comes next? What do you mean, the lonesome?

Mike (59:24)

Well, if nothing comes after lonesome, I think you've turned, what, an adjective into the noun. The lonesome.

James Woods (59:30)

Well done, huh? You're good at that.

Mike (59:32)

You're very clever.

James Woods (59:33)

So here's a little vibe the shooter sent. He said, maybe you could use this. This is what I was thinking. It's just like. Here's like. Here's how it works. It goes from this. You know what I should do? No, I'm going to do that. I'm going to do it.

Mike (59:44)

Play it. If you're like, no, I'm hanging again.

James Woods (59:47)

I'm going to do it from a song you already have. So here's a little bit of. Is There a. Beyond the door. Rough in here. See if there's a rough.

Mike (60:00)

I got a rough road to heaven here.

James Woods (60:02)

No, but that's okay. Let me just see. Okay, so my ear. Okay, here it is. Okay, so this is just nothing. Okay, let me go back. I'm gonna show you this.

Mike (60:14)

Coyote sounds like nothing Hanging on a barbed wire fence.

James Woods (60:32)

All this silly stuff. That's not in the final. He was just doing it for me. This is just a rough. You have. Yeah. Okay.

Mike (60:39)

Scratch scrap.

Song Vocals (60:41)

It flutters in the breeze like ragged debris Wants a killer on desert crime.

James Woods (60:46)

Spree okay, now I'll give you the. I'll give you the master of this. Okay? And now if you ever heard the difference when the final one with the band, it's fantastic. He comes in, he plays this. It's like, okay, that's it. They play it once. These guys are sitting there going, you know, 1, 4, you know, in music, instead of saying C, you know, G, classic G, C, E, D. It's like the first chord, the fourth chord, the fifth chord, whatever. They do that once and they take a pass at it, sit there and go, what? What? How did you guys do this? Now? I did something. I did two things, Sarah and I. Sarah, of course, did it for me. She made sure that we had all the lyrics printed up, and I gave them to each of the band members. First of all, I said, nobody ever does this. And then I give a little speech about what the song means to me. And it's very important because I know you're going to play this song. When I was seven years old, I was an army brat. I'd lived on Guam. I lived in three different states. In the first year of school, it was really hard on me. I was traveling, and then in the second grade, I was living in Warwick, Rhode Island, And I used to go to the library at night in Connimicut, Rhode Island. The librarian's daughter was a girl named Gerald Davies, and Jarrell and I became best friends. She was a little skinny Minnie, and she just aggravated the living shit out of me forever. And went to school all through school, through junior high, but I was like eight. I said to my mom, I said, you know, Jerry's always, like, picking on me. I said, why is she so mean to me? He said, you don't understand girls yet. This is. And by the way, it gets more complicated and never gets easier.

Mike (62:33)

Like, you understand them now.

James Woods (62:35)

Yeah, I got this old. Figure it out. And so we get through school and, you know, like, she goes away to, like, a Christian summer camp or something. Comes back when she's 16. It's like Olive oil leaves. And Jessica Rabbit comes back and I literally go, hi. What's that? She says, don't even say it. Don't think. Look. You know, so we were friends, but now you go through that awkward period where you're like teenagers, and you're going, oh, gee, you know, you're just, like, dumbfounded. How miraculous. Women.

Mike (63:10)

It's another magic trick.

James Woods (63:11)

But everything about good women and all women are good women unless they've been deluded by, you know, bad men and bad other women. But she was just, you know, a lovely person. But we were meant to be friends, not to ever get involved. And we didn't ever get involved. And, you know, like, my mom would say, oh, I always. You know, like, we'd be talking with her and her mom, you know, at the library. I always thought you and Jimmy'd get married. And, you know. Yeah, people think that. But she had met Michael, her husband, and they had a wonderful marriage and children and so on, and I was really glad. And we stayed friends forever. They'd always call up and said, what are you doing? She goes, I'm pregnant again. I said, yeah, that's a good thing. She goes, no, it's a great thing. And she called me once, and I didn't get a chance to answer. She called me again. I go, I gotta call Jerry back. Calls a third time. Hey, I'm so sorry I didn't get back. Mr. Woods, this is Jerry's daughter. I said, oh, hi. I said, you know, your mom called me. She said, my mom passed away this morning. She was trying to call you to say goodbye. She had cystic fibrosis. And it's like. So I wrote this song. Hello, friend hello, friend I forgot to say goodbye Slipped my mind I don't know why I thought you'd always be there I never feared death But I called one day and you were gone in a breath. And Shooter put that to music, and Aubrey plays the violin on it. And I'm telling you, the good news is I don't care whether anybody likes it or not. It's one of the most beautiful songs to me you could ever hear. I just love that song so much because it's personal. And I write every word of every album. Nobody gets to write any of the words. The only word that was ever added at the end, Shooter added old buddy instead of my friend or my girl or whatever. Old buddy. And I said, gee, you know, Shooter, it's kind of Odd. He goes, she was your buddy. I said, you get that? He goes, yeah, I get it. Those little things are so magical. But if you had ever heard. I explained that story to the musicians and the musicians got it. And, you know, a couple of them came up to me and said, you know, it makes such a difference because now we know what the heart of the song is. I mean, they can do anything. But, you know, which way do you want it to go? Oh, let's make it sound like Joy Division or let's do something as Johnny Cash. You'll make an illusion allusion to how you like it done. You didn't have to do that. When I explained this is what touched my heart in this song when I wrote it. In this case, Shooter wrote the music and Tombstone Opera, Bob wrote the music. Shooter and I produced both albums. You give them the key to it now. We actually give them a name now because I won't work with anybody else. But, you know, I mean, we'll add other people, but these are my core people. If I can't have them, I'm not going to record an album. I'll plan months in advance to make sure that they're available, but these guys, they'll be doing something, including Aubrey. Well, you know, I gotta get on a plane because I'm doing a single show. And, you know, Bob was literally just in Argentina, in Europe, literally in a little Volkswagen bus driving across Spain. Yeah, we're going there and then we're going to Portugal and we got a fly to Finland and playing in 300 seat houses.

Mike (66:33)

This is Bob Wayne.

James Woods (66:34)

Bob Wayne. But I swear, this album, Tombstone Opera, is going to make a difference because Rafa Gomez, who wrote the review of it in Europe for Popular One, which is like the Rolling Stone of America, thinks it's a masterpiece. So I'm not saying it is, but Bob wrote the music and does the singing on this. And he is absolutely a blessed human being. He's just this sweet guy. And I said, bob, where did you come up with this music? He tries to give me the credit. He goes, well, the words really spoke to me. And I said, bob, this is. I said, shooter, I'm not wrong. He says, no, Bob's a genius. He's like an unheralded genius. But these guys have to be on the road and in between sets, they sit in the lobby and they sign vinyl while, you know, Apple and Spotify make, you know, billions of dollars. And, you know, and I'm not putting them down, but.

Mike (67:26)

No, no, but this is the Stuff of poetry. Is it a masterpiece? Will it be a masterpiece?

James Woods (67:32)

Oh, I don't know. I don't like to say that. Somebody else said that, right?

Mike (67:36)

But I mean, look, it doesn't. You have to. You can't. Time. Okay. Bob Ross's painting just sold for a million dollars. Bob Ross was the brunt of every joke that every artiste ever made for 20 years. But the joy of painting on PBS was a magic trick. And every episode starts with a blank canvas. And then in his weird whispery little way, he does some things here. Kind of like a bunch of musicians come together and then poof. In watercolor you have something that means. That makes so much sense to your brain where there was not only. Not that thing there earlier, but there was nothing. It was a blank canvas. And that's the magic of an empty studio. And now five cats are in it and now they're talking in code. And now you have a song and the song in question is informed by a word that you didn't write. The word buddy. Which frankly to me destroys me when I hear Willie Nelson singing. Now this is really going to blow your mind. My buddy, my pal, my friend, right? That old song. Some genius at Subaru buys it and puts it in a commercial featuring a guy and his old dog. He's not gonna be around for much longer. And now my buddy, my pal. And I'm sitting home, I'm a grown ass man and I'm not that sentimental. And I'm crying like a ten pound baby girl. Cause that's probably the last walk on the beach for that dog. And there's the guy I know. And if you distill all of it. Jim. Can I call you Jim?

James Woods (69:21)

Yes, please.

Mike (69:22)

If you did Jim, like if you called me Michael, it would freak me out.

James Woods (69:25)

Yeah. No, my brother's name was Mike, so.

Mike (69:27)

Oh geez. I'm gonna circle back to him in a minute too. So prepare to cry. You're gonna cry like a baby in a minute. But I'm weeping because of the word buddy.

James Woods (69:37)

Yeah.

Mike (69:38)

And so we don't really, I don't think, get to choose what the watercolor does on the canvas or what that musician might do on that day with that instrument or what a genius like Shuter might decide to do with your words and all of it. Sometimes you're the potter, sometimes you're the clay. And if what comes out the other end is a tombstone opera, Amen. Then you're living a pretty interesting life.

James Woods (70:02)

Amen. I don't give credit to everybody, just to be. Oh, what a great guy. Jamie. He always gives credit. It couldn't be done without them. On this last album, we always kind of joke that we're the Three Musketeers shooter. And Bob and I. And d' Artagnan is Sarah with no.

Mike (70:18)

H, you know, no Porthos. No Athos.

James Woods (70:21)

But now, speaking of which, it's so funny.

Mike (70:22)

No, Aramis.

James Woods (70:23)

Darius Rucker, who used to be with Hootie and the Blowfish, wrote a beautiful song called Sarah with. We've done this joke enough, but with no H. With an H. Sarah. But no, it's with no h. Oh, no H.2. Correct.

Mike (70:35)

Correct.

James Woods (70:35)

Yeah.

Mike (70:36)

So Hootie and the Blowfish.

James Woods (70:37)

Actually, no, not Hootie and Blobby. He went single, he went solo.

Mike (70:40)

Oh, he wants.

James Woods (70:40)

Okay. And Darius Rucker, he's a wonderful. And his whole song is about, I want you back again as my friend. I want to talk to you again. I don't want to be your lover I don't want you to be my wife I just want to talk to you again like we did. Like we were 13 again, you know? And it's just so great because it's really hard for people to understand that, yes, a man and a woman can be a friend. And one of the million great things I love about my wife is that if there is a woman that I've known who is not up to something and is just a really good friend, and a perfect example is my first wife is a costume designer, a great human being, a lovely person, never intrudes or anything, but once in a while, I'll chat, and I'll always make sure if she calls, I'll call back when Sarah's there. I just have kind of a rule about that. I just think. And, you know, she's just a genuinely good person, and Sarah knows that, and they're very friendly with each other.

Mike (71:40)

Can we not gloss over that quite so, like, you prefer to call your friend back when your wife is in the house.

James Woods (71:49)

Just a matter of respect to both of them, but certainly to my wife.

Mike (71:53)

Certainly. But, you know, look, again, it's a parenthetical. Certainly that is obvious. Ergo, Kate Capshaw.

James Woods (72:01)

I'm going to clear it. I'm going to give you the perfect. I'm going to give you a little moment in time that explains it better than anybody. Steven Spielberg and Kate Capshaw have been married for years. I worked with Kate. She's fabulous. And Steven loves her, and she loves Steven. Oh, it's easy to love Steven Spielberg. It's not what it's about. They really love each other. They're a great little. They're a great couple. And I said, so? She said, you know, I have male friends and so on. And I said, how does Stephen feel about that? She said, I was going to meet my friend John one day and said, hey, I'm going to meet John for lunch. And Stephen said, great. And as she was coming down the driveway, he was walking over to the car. She said, what's going on? He said, I'm going with you. Now. Many times he hadn't, you know, in telling of this story, but there was never a moment in his mind where he thought, I better go and check on. That's not what it was about. It never dawned on him it would be an issue either way. And I said, for you. She said, no, it's never an issue either way. And like, I never asked, hey, I'm going to bring Sarah. I don't have to ask him any permission. She's my wife. She's the most important person in the world to me. And I am going to make sure if we're going to go somewhere, hey, we'd like to have you come, but, you know, I'll have to be solo. I said, then you'll have to get, you know, somebody else, because she either comes or I don't. That's it. Now, it may be a situation where, you know, the one time I asked Sarah about it was when Chris screened. When he screened Oppenheimer, he said, look, everybody wants to see it, the studio heads and so on. He said, you were instrumental in this, and I. I really want you to participate. We're making sure that nobody comes because I don't want to leak out. And I said, I know that everybody would want to. So I said to Sarah, either I won't go. If for any reason she says, don't be rude, you go. Because she was crucial in making the decision. Here's a little thing I don't talk about much. As you know, if you produce a movie, you win the Academy Award. If you're the executive producer, you don't. Now, there was a period when there were 20 executive producers on movie and stuff. Chris Nolan doesn't do that. He gives it to his production manager, and he gets the executive producer credit. And he just doesn't give executive producer credit, but he gave it to us because we had the book. I said to Chuck, chuck, if we do this, I've worked all my life. I'm blacklisted in this business for my politics. Purely. I said, I really want to get the Oscar. He said, well, I'm going to ask Chris. And he said, you know, and he said, he's not going to let you produce. He said, but I'm going to produce. So now you brought me the movie and I'm going to produce because I used to produce with them. And he said, are you going to be able to take us up there getting the Oscar if that happens and you notice? And I said. He said, because I'm your friend. I've been your friend forever. He always gives me credit. He never doesn't. He said, I want you to think it over, and if you decide, no, we won't do it with Chris, I'll give you my word. He said, but if you decide it's okay and you can handle it, we'll do it with Chris. And if we get the Oscar, you will be the first person I thank, I promise you. And he did.

Mike (75:30)

No kidding.

James Woods (75:31)

And the reason I made that decision, I was going to go the other way. I said, sir, what do you think? She said, caviar on the balcony or tacos in the parking lot? Caviar on the balcony.

Mike (75:47)

So not to put too fine a point on it, but that's a moment where you're thinking, if the best thing for the project is for you to step away from it.

James Woods (75:54)

That's correct.

Mike (75:55)

Then you would do that.

James Woods (75:57)

And also, Chuck is a great friend. You know, way back when we were in our 20s, he was in the music business and he said, you know, I'd like to get into show business. Can you help me? And I introduced him to a writer, and they didn't do the project, but the writer helped him write another idea he had called Heart Like a Wheel. And he never looked back. He's a great, best producer alive today. He's fantastic. We've stayed friends forever. And, you know, he really. I don't think if it had been anybody else would have wanted to do a movie about the making of the atomic bomb. There had already been two TV movies about it. You know, he didn't think he could get Chris to do it, but he, I think, felt that given our history and our friendship and knowing how cruel it has been, that I had an agent who called me on 4th of July. I don't know if he was 10 Bears deep or not. I don't even know if he said, you know, I'm feeling patriotic today, so I'm going to drop you as a client. I said, that's odd. I always thought patriotism was about a country where people could disagree and still like each other and work together. But you know what? It's probably more of a gift than you think. And indeed it was. Because I'd rather have written Tombstone opera than just about anything else or make any of the movies they make now, which I can always tell you who the villain is because he's the old white guy.

Mike (77:19)

Sliding doors. Did this prick. Pardon me, this agent of yours, I.

James Woods (77:24)

Mean, they fired him.

Mike (77:25)

Was he just another sliding door you ran through that ultimately brought you to where you got.

James Woods (77:30)

You know, I never thought of it that way and I.

Mike (77:34)

Which agency was it?

James Woods (77:36)

The Gersch Agency.

Mike (77:38)

And you'll name names?

James Woods (77:39)

I don't usually name names, but they. That's what they did and they stood by it. And that's that. That's their choice.

Mike (77:44)

What year was this?

James Woods (77:45)

This is about 12 or 14 years ago.

Mike (77:49)

People need to understand the vagaries of this business are such that if you're a guy like James woods and you have a certain standing and you have a certain resume, then you're going to be represented by one of the big agencies, as you were. And your path forward in this town is it's not a single lane, but it's a lane. And you will. You will play ball. You will comport. There are certain things you will do and there are certain things you won't. And if you fall outside of that mechanism, you're going to get the kind of call that you got. You got the call.

James Woods (78:26)

So it was an email, actually.

Mike (78:28)

Oh, so classy. Well, look, we don't. We don't need to make a meal out of this. I'm sure you're sick of talking about it, but I do want people to understand how burned. How burned are you today in this business? And the reason I'm asking is I wouldn't ask if I felt like you had a shred of self pity.

James Woods (78:50)

I don't have any self pity.

Mike (78:51)

But you don't.

James Woods (78:52)

No.

Mike (78:54)

And you're real smart and you're older than you've ever been and you're actually living a second act.

James Woods (79:00)

I really am.

Mike (79:01)

Like, you're probably going to write a song on the way home with Sarah without an H, and you're probably gonna run it by her and she's probably gonna say, let me think about it. She's gonna go off to her little room in your one bedroom motel where you're squatting and probably write a. Draw up a beautiful album cover in between chapters of yet another novel. Whatever it's Such an. I don't feel sorry for you at all. At all.

James Woods (79:23)

I don't either.

Mike (79:24)

But I don't know of anybody who took it in the neck harder, for speaking candidly, than you. So. What a weird mix to not feel bad in spite of what I think was an awful lot of injustice.

James Woods (79:41)

Also, an interesting thing happened to our business during this time period. You know, Chadwick Boseman had, I thought, an incredibly dignified death. He knew he was sick. He was a young man, never told anybody. He was really incredibly talented.

Mike (79:59)

I'm not sure I know who he is.

James Woods (80:00)

He was the star of Black Panther. Oh, okay. And I hadn't seen all his work after he passed away. And I said to Sarah, you don't want to see some of Chadwick Boseman's films. And there was one he did called 21 bridges. I said, oh, great. It's on one of the streaming services. And I look and I go, there it is. And Sarah looks, and she said, yeah, I know who the villain is. I said, we haven't watched the movie yet. She goes, I know who the villain is from the casting. I said, it was Chadwick Boseman. I think his love interest was Rosaria Dawson, I think. And then the chief of police, he was a policeman, was J.K. simmons. She was J.K. simmons. I'm starting to watch it. And there's this murder. Two cops get murdered, and J.K. simmons. Simmons comes in. He's the chief of police. And I went, oh, yeah, the old white guy, of course. And of course he's corrupt. And it turns out. And here's the problem. In order to qualify for an Oscar, now, one of the two leads has to be a minority of some kind. Person of color, gay, whatever. And, you know, and if. If it's not that, then at least a certain percentage. I think it's 50% of the crew has to be a minority. Well, when you start doing that, no studio or other producer is ever going to make a movie that can't qualify for an Oscar. So those are the rules now. And all of a sudden, where does the old white guy fit in? He's the head of the evil corporation. Always, okay? When you can predict a movie from the cast list, they've kind of shot themselves in the foot. And it's the same with music. You know, one thing I love about our music, like, I really sorry. I said the guy said it was a master. He did say it, but, you know, it's not a matter of being a masterpiece. It's a matter of I love this music. Because Shooter said, look, we're not going to have a publicist. We're not going to do advertising. I'm not going to go on the road on the first album. You know, same with Bob. I said, so how are we gonna promote this? I sat down with Missy and we started working. We had service photography, and we have my following on X, which I have 5 million followers. So that's nice.

Mike (82:21)

But I just thought at a finely curated page, it is.

James Woods (82:26)

Yeah, I'll take it.

Mike (82:26)

You really. I mean, it's almost as though you weren't looking for redemption there for a while. Like maybe 14 years.

James Woods (82:34)

No, man, no, not at all.

Mike (82:35)

It's like you never bent the knee, man.

James Woods (82:38)

Never bend the knee. Because I have a. Lyric. I write too many songs. But there's a great song about man without courage lives on his knees, you know, and I taking the hits for speaking as I please. And that's in Tombstone opera song called Time for the Gun. And, you know, if you yield, you end up in prison for 500 days because you won't use the right pronoun. Like this. Teacher Burke in London right now, he literally, because of his religion, has refused to call a boy she or they. Or whatever that stupid thing they want to do. And so the magistrate says, you're going to be in prison until you take. Bend the knee. And he said, I'm never going to bend the knee. He said, then you're going to be in there for life. For life if you don't bend the knee.

Mike (83:36)

This is happening now.

James Woods (83:37)

This is happening now, right now, today. Okay? And, you know, there are certain things that I. Somebody. This guy wrote a nice review of the first album, said if he heard one song, and he said, if the rest of the album is like this, it'll be the album of the year. And, you know, we're just waiting for people to get. Get to it. This will be tremendous help being on the show with you, Mike, and I really appreciate it.

Mike (84:02)

I hope I don't make trouble over the whole.

James Woods (84:04)

I hope you do. Well, you do nothing but cause trouble.

Mike (84:07)

My real. My real worry for you, honestly, is what are you gonna do with the Grammy? Who's gonna get it? How are you gonna.

James Woods (84:13)

I'm not gonna get. We're not gonna get a Grammy.

Mike (84:15)

Yeah, you're not gonna get an Oscar either. Except.

James Woods (84:16)

Oh, well, I would love to have. I'm not gonna listen, you know, every. I don't care about the. And I go, then why do you do your acceptance speech every day in the Mirror when you're shaving. It's like everybody wants an Oscar. And I would love to have a Grammy. I'd love to have an Oscar. I'm not going to get him because of politics. It's fine. I don't care. But I'll tell you that.

Mike (84:37)

Look, I'm sorry, but I don't feel like I made the point right about the masterpiece thing. I can't think of a single thing that's widely regarded as a masterpiece that wasn't first either dismissed or ridiculed or ignored. That's what I mean to say. Whether it's Bob Ross or Fill in the Blank with. I mean, you can probably think of actors who weren't appreciated at their peak, but only through time. People look back and go, oh, oh, he was doing that.

James Woods (85:08)

John Cazale, you know, great example. I was on the executive committee of the actors branch. You're not supposed to talk about this stuff. And. But it was years ago.

Mike (85:18)

What is it again?

James Woods (85:19)

The executive committee of the actors branch of the Academy.

Mike (85:21)

Okay.

James Woods (85:22)

I was on for nine years. You have to take a year off, then on for three or four more years. Then I moved back to New York. So I said to them, look, I don't want to be here because I can't make the two meetings. There are three ways to be a member of the Academy. If you're nominated for an Academy Award as an actor, it has been a tradition that they will always welcome you in. That's how I. No, I got in the third way. Another way is if two actors come up to a member and say, hey, could you recommend me? And of course, you always say, well, of course I will. You know, then you have to recommend them. And everybody applies that way. And almost nobody gets in that way. The third way is the people who are on the Academy staff will point out to you certain actors who are not at the time members of the Academy. And the year I was invited, they mentioned, you know, James woods isn't a member of the Academy. You should be a member of the Academy. And they invited me in, which I was incredibly grateful for. And then I got nominated for best actor that year anyway for Salvador, a movie called Salvador.

Mike (86:21)

It's a good one.

James Woods (86:22)

Oliver Stone's movie. And I thought, I'm gonna help people get in the way. I did. And one of the actors that I just thought was great was a guy I knew from New York who was just. He gave Academy level performances on stage and on screen. You might not even know him now. His name was Jose Perez. And back then the Academy was really. There weren't a lot of guys named Perez in the Academy then. But I didn't think. I wasn't trying to be diversity or all that. I just naturally am that way. See, that's the irony. People say, oh, you're a right wing learner. So anyway, so there's this guy, Jose Perez, and I said, I'd like to invite Jose Perez to be a member of the Academy. And we did, because I said, even though he's not a big star. But then there was the Rodney Dangerfield moment. Not just going to tell this story now, and I don't care. So somebody came up with the idea of Rodney Dangerfield being a member of the Academy. And at the time, Roddy McDowell was the, the head of the actors branch. And he said, rodney Dangerfield, Rodney Dangerfield is like a comedian. I said, you're aware that that's like an act, right? I mean, he's, yes, a comedian, but he had just done Natural Born Killers and he was fantastic in it, in a dramatic role. And I said, you know, he doesn't go around fixing his tie and talking about his wife, you know, whatever, all that stuff. I said, that's a character. The same as, I mean, would you invite, you know, the Little Tramp into be a member of the Academy? Hello. Yeah, you know, Charlie, Charlie Chaplin, you know, of course, of course you would. I said, well, it's the same thing. No. And so we vote on it and Rodney loses by one vote. So it comes up that the people ran the Academy, you know, the staff said, you know, there was a discussion about this that you really should reconsider. And I gave a really passionate. I gave that speech about like, here's who he really is, and Roddy, to his credit. And I knew Roddy socially, very well, said, you know what, you've convinced me I was wrong and you were right and that was very gracious of him. And we invite him to be a member of the Academy.

Mike (88:48)

Me.

James Woods (88:49)

And he said, do you remember the Academy? And in particular, Mr. McDowell, he said, I now realize that you have invited me to be a member of the Academy. And it takes a lot of courage to admit maybe that you were wrong and there's another way to look at this. And I've thought it over and I just want to say, go yourselves. I don't want to be in your Academy. And thank you very much. Yours, Rodney Dangerfield. And that's a true story. Yeah.

Mike (89:17)

So did he say that or write it?

James Woods (89:18)

He wrote it in A letter?

Mike (89:20)

Did somebody read the letter aloud? I hope there was a gathering somewhere where this was read.

James Woods (89:23)

Roddy McDowell read it aloud.

Mike (89:25)

Roddy read Rodney's letter.

James Woods (89:27)

Yeah. To his credit. To his credit. Yep. And, you know, it was like. And I've always thought of that, about the difference between how people really behave and what the real difference is between peasants and kings.

Mike (89:42)

Jim, this is.

James Woods (89:43)

And I'm gonna do something. May I do something?

Mike (89:47)

Have I ever said no to you?

James Woods (89:48)

I'm gonna actually read you the entire lyrics of a song I'm doing not for the next album, but for the album after that called Odd People. I'm gonna just announce everything here.

Mike (89:56)

Well, go ahead. As you search for that.

James Woods (89:58)

Oh, no, it's right here. Oh, I got you.

Mike (90:00)

You gotta be kidding.

James Woods (90:00)

Because I remember it because I was inspired by Rodney.

Mike (90:03)

All right.

James Woods (90:04)

Okay.

Mike (90:04)

All right.

James Woods (90:05)

This song, it goes on. I always. It's a little long sometimes. And Bob or Shooter will rearrange it. All my words. But they'll arrange it. It's just a little. Kind of Johnny Cash, sort of like, you know, the Chicken in Black. Just a little story. But I always love to have a little twist. May I?

Mike (90:20)

May, please.

James Woods (90:22)

Rodney and Carl. When I was a kid, I had these two friends. We all had some thoughts we felt about each. And I realized then, some things you can learn and then there are some things you just can't teach. How we joked about him, well, you'd never know we were friends. In the words of Janice, I must make amends. Rodney was young Carl, his big brother. Daddy said one was dumb but smarter than the other. And then mom said she thought that was mean. So I'll just say one was a fatty and the other a string bean. Carl once shot his self in the foot, never even said ouch. Rodney got a girl pregnant on a pullout couch. I guess ol Rodney, irony wasn't his forte. And Carl was a fellow with not much to say. So here's a few things about these two dingalings and a lesson I learned about peasants and kings. Carl went to the war, fought to the death, Died saving some others. With his very last breath, old Rodney stood up, did the right thing. Went down to the mall, bought that sweet girl the ring. I see him sometimes coaching down at the rink with his son, little Carl. And here's what I think. It's not about money, about being so smart. It's courage that counts. It's about a man's heart. And now with a smile, I think of these two dingalings and I Know you can't ever be sure what the future may bring but the one thing they taught me and this I know to be true There's a difference, my friend Between a peasant and a king.

Mike (92:02)

And that album's going to be called what Odd People. I love it.

James Woods (92:06)

Yeah, it's kind of like Paul McCartney once talked about how they wrote Eleanor Rigby. And he said, you know, we wrote the song, but we didn't have a name for the woman. And he said, you know, it's a sad song, but I wanted it to have. I wanted us to care about her. And he said, I took a walk, I guess, through Liverpool that night. Just walked through the neighborhood and just kind of looked for some inspiration. And I went by a place where they sell sausage meats. It was like a butcher shop called the Rigby's Rigby Brothers. And he said, rigby is a perfect name. And then I turned, walk in some more, and there was a lane. It was Eleanor Lane. And he said, eleanor Rigby. And somehow I was just talking about Rodney and you were talking about how I don't have a pity party for myself over the fact that I was blacklisted. Look, I would love to be acting again. I'd love to be an actor. I loved being an actor. And I loved the contribution I gave to people who love film. And I have a lot of fans who say, man, we would love to see you back, but that's not going to happen. But I'm now making music, and I'm going to keep making music. And whether it's a masterpiece or junk, whatever it is, whatever you think of it, your opinion, I'm going to keep making it because I can afford to do it. Put these musicians to work, give them an opportunity. And the thing that I'm most proud of, I am building a business model where a guy with a guitar, a woman with a fiddle, maybe they get to know my good buddy's got a drum. They can go on YouTube, whatever. They can present what they've got. They can have their own label, sign up to BMI or ascap, and they can tour around, play in some bars, and they can make just enough money to make an album.

Mike (93:53)

The most extraordinary thing that's happened so far to me today is the fact that you would bring up Eleanor Rigby. I had a long conversation two days ago with a buddy of mine about the greatest Beatles song ever written. He gave me his, I gave him mine. We were really just kind of working on the Rushmore of the Question. Mine's Ellen Rigby and, and I think it's because of what we were just talking about, the magic, like the magic of that song is actually George Martin going, what if we just use strings, right? Like, what if it's a quartet? The lyrics, it's among the greatest pieces of poetry that I've ever encountered.

James Woods (94:39)

I can't get through it. If I had to read it, I couldn't get through it. I couldn't either.

Mike (94:42)

But I would quote it. But copyright. God, I hate getting sued. But the other thing is, people would kill to write a melody like that. But the song has two, two melodies. Two perfect melodies, right? And then look at all the lonely people. And then just for grins, let's sing them together at the same time.

James Woods (95:11)

It's unbelievable.

Mike (95:13)

And they fit like magic. And then let's put in the string quartet and then tell me about Rigby's Meats and Eleanor Lane.

James Woods (95:19)

It's unbelievable.

Mike (95:20)

And that's impossible. Except.

James Woods (95:23)

But you know what's so interesting? Good musicians. Want some water? I know some people. I know some people. I have people here. I'm not sick.

Mike (95:33)

No, neither am I.

James Woods (95:37)

Well, the good news is, you know, like Shooter Jennings is an extraordinary musician and Bob is an extraordinary musician. Now you notice when I say we produce together, you go, oh, yeah, you're a producer, you're a big. Well, of course Shooter does most of the music stuff and I do a lot of the promotion. All of it. Put that together. But in the studio I'll have ideas and I'll say, do you mind if I said jimmy? He said, you always say, do I mind? He said, every single idea you've ever had I've ended up using. I very rarely say something, but there's a moment here where twice in two songs, I make a reference to diamonds falling from the sky. And I always like to have little tributes. And of course it's Lucy in the sky with Diamonds. But it's not really that. It's that there are two moments in this opera and this name came up. Somebody said, what are we going to call this album? Out of nowhere? I said, Tombstone Opera. Not about Tombstone, Arizona. And it's not an opera, but it's an opera in the sense that it has a big, large reach, a true three act structure. And yet while there is a small and simple story, there is an overlay, an ethereal overlay. Is our lead character alive or dead? Does she die in the fire or not? And there was a song I wrote, beyond the Door, which was again like the Road Back where you know, I said to Bob and Shooter, we need a big song. We need a big crescendo where they're burning the place to the ground and so on. Of course, there's fire imagery all through this. And I realized, oh, my God, yeah, they burned our neighborhood down. And I wonder why I'm writing an opera about a guy who finds a good woman. And I started to write a whole backstory. I mean, honestly, this thing could be a Broadway musical. I mean, in a sense. But you have these. When you talk about Eleanor Rigby. I said to Shooter, I want to peg the Diamonds in two songs. It's in Time for the Gun, and it's in beyond the Door.

Mike (97:38)

Time for the Gun is the one where it hits your brain like a diamond bullet.

James Woods (97:41)

No, no, that's in Roadback.

Mike (97:42)

Okay, okay.

James Woods (97:43)

But both times I mentioned Diamonds Falling from the sky, and I said to Shooter, I said, could you get on the piano? And, I mean, here I am telling Shooter, and I'm at the board, they said, yeah, yeah, go ahead. And I said, I want to hear. I want to hear the tingling of the diamonds falling from the sky. And he gets on the piano, which is the piano. The Prince wrote and performed and recorded Purple Rayna Good grief. In Studio 3 at Sunset Sound. And he did it all. And what it really is, of course, and I never mentioned it in the song, but I'm now telling you it's the Pleiades meteor shower. Because that pegged a moment when they see this. You know, there's one line where, you know, music changes into this big, powerful orchestral moment, you know, in the distance, a vision. The sky's on fire. Diamonds are falling from the sky. Hoofbeats, thunder across the plain, all this stuff. And then he reaches for her beyond the door, beyond the veil. So is she alive or dead? And then there's a song after called Nowhere Hill, where he's literally in Nowhere Town, Nowhere Hill, standing in her grave and sings a song to her, to her memory and feels a breeze. And is it her breath on his or is it a breeze from the sea? It's just. I mean, I love this album, and I just love it. It's the proudest thing I've ever done artistically in my life.

Mike (99:08)

How important is it to have pain? I suppose. I mean, you told the story of hello, friend. And I am going to play that from start to finish. What happened to your brother?

James Woods (99:28)

So my brother went to a hospital, and I have to be careful because there was a huge lawsuit that, of course, we won. And I'm proud to say that part of the settlement from the hospital and from Cara New England was to rebuild the emergency room at this hospital. So things were done right. And the new president of the hospital continued it beyond what we asked for at the hospital. At any rate, he went in with symptoms of a heart attack that are not familiar to people. He felt like he had a pain in his jaw, but at one point there was an electrocardiogram that was not read because the person was texting whether boyfriend, and it ended up costing him his life.

Mike (100:22)

When did you lose him?

James Woods (100:25)

July 26, 7:41pm Eastern Time, 2006.

Mike (100:33)

And to this day, Jim, Huh? I mean, to this day that obviously.

James Woods (100:39)

Let me tell you something. When somebody dies. I remember when my brother died and someone said, oh, I lost my brother a few years ago. I said, well, you know, it's like, oh, it must be easier for you now. And they said, I have bad news for you. And here's the bad news. You never get over it. It's the same today as the second I heard it.

Mike (101:01)

Is he in here?

James Woods (101:03)

I have a song of his that I haven't. Shooter loves it. It's not perfect yet for me, so I'm waiting. There's in this album. There's. He's not in this album. He's gonna be in an album for sure. My father's in an album and a song called Wallam Lake.

Mike (101:24)

That's interesting.

James Woods (101:25)

And my mother's. My mother. Oh, isn't it Wallam Lake?

Mike (101:27)

I've listened to Wallam Lake. I don't mean literally. I know Wallam Lake is about your dad. Maybe the question Is he in all your albums? Is he in all your songs?

James Woods (101:41)

He's with me every moment of my day. Every moment of my day. I loved him so much. You have to understand. My brother was born 9 and a half years after I was. My mom lost a child, free birth and a miscarriage when we were on Guam. And our dad died when I was 12 from a transfusion reaction. Went through two wars, had two purple hearts, and they gave him the wrong blood. Anyway, my brother was two and a half years old and just didn't understand where his father went. And there's actually the song. I wrote a song called Widow's Wrath for the next album. And one of the lines is, where has Daddy gone? The children say, where has Daddy gone? The widow looks at the ceiling and she stares at the ceiling. She faces the dawn. Anyway, I used to carry him. I used to deliver newspapers and I Would carry him in my bag with the newspaper, little face looking out. So he was, you know, of course, my brother, but he was almost like a. I was like a surrogate dad because his dad was gone and I was older.

Mike (103:01)

Yeah.

James Woods (103:02)

And so on. And he loved music. Well, you know, there's gifts you like to give to someone. My brother loved the Rolling Stones. There's an inscription on his gravestone. I thought I heard an angel cry I saw. Thought I saw a teardrop falling from his eye which is from a Rolling Stone song. He loved the Rolling Stones. And When I was a movie star. Yeah, one of the great perks is you get tickets to the concerts. So we get a ticket to one of the concerts in New York. And I happen to know that the Stones were staying at. I think it was the Ritz Carlton on stage, whichever that was on Central Park South. And so there's a mob of people there because word had gotten out afterwards. But, you know, the guys let us in because I'm me and I'm fabulous. He used to call me, you know, my brother, the fabulous Mr. Showbiz. He used to make fun of me. He was so great, so funny. And so we get in, and everybody's there, and it's all jammed. And this blonde woman goes by. She goes, oh, my God, James Woods. You're my husband's favorite actor. You gotta come say hello. I said, I'd like to, but my brother goes, jimmy. And of course, it was Patty Hanson, Keith's wife. Keith Richards wife. And I said, I'm just kidding. I said, I'd love to. So we go back, and Keith is there with Ronnie Wood, Keith's dad, Patty, and my brother, you know, my brother has a video store, you know, it's, like, so sweet, you know. And he had a music store that he did mom and Dad's mom and pop stuff. But he loved music. He always had just great taste and so on. So we sit with them all night long, and Mike and Keith just hit it off. So Keith invites Mike to come to their place in Connecticut at the time and have dinner, you know, barbecue. And they become friends.

Mike (104:53)

Your brother and Keith Richards are having barbecue.

James Woods (104:56)

His wife, you know, and when Keith. And Keith is drawing a thing on their tablecloth. Ronnie Wood by Keith Richards. And he signs, and he's just screwing around. We pick up that table, go stuff it in Carrie's purse. Still have it framed in the house. And they put it in there, you know, they had a weekly newsletter, Beggars Banquet. It was on the COVID of you know, Jimmy woods and Mike woods, the coolest guy. So now, a couple years later, the Stones are playing Atlantic City. So you go there and it's a smaller event. It's like 10,000 people. Not a big stadium. It's indoors. And they're doing, you know, Honky Tonk Woman, all this stuff. It's fantastic. They don't allow anybody backstage before a show. They prepare, they really focus musicians. I mean, they're incredible. We're sitting, you know, waiting. This big, security comes up. He goes, Mr. Woods? I go, yes. He says, michael Woods? I said, yeah, my brother. He said, Mr. Richards would like to invite you backstage. And he said. He goes, Fabulous, Mr. Showbiz.

Mike (106:08)

Yeah, wait for me.

James Woods (106:10)

Fabulous Mr. Music Business. He goes, yeah. He said, yes. He said, could you ask Mr. Richards if I could bring my brother?

Mike (106:18)

My kid brother.

James Woods (106:18)

My kid brother. They bring us backstage. I'm not making this up. We get in this trailer, Ronnie's there, Keith, Mick is. I can't remember if Mick was Mick. Yeah, Mick was there, but he was kind of just. He gets ready. He's just kind of sitting there and they said, we're warming up, you know, and they got. They're both sitting there with acoustic guitars because the guitars have to really warm up. You know, Charlie doesn't have to warm up. You know, Bill Wyman's, you know, he's very. So it's just. The guy said, what would you like to. I'm not kidding. What would you like to hear? And now we, like, are giving, like. It's like karaoke night with. How about Wild Horse? Yeah, sure, Wild Horse. And they did like a little five song concert for us acoustic in that trailer. And so when I think of my brother, as much as my heart is broken, I think of those moments. I looked at some pictures of him and a thing that his children have that I kind of. Now I'm very close to them, of course. And, you know, there's all the grandchildren that he never got to meet. And I think of all the happy times and that night, you know.

Mike (107:33)

What a night.

James Woods (107:33)

Keith was so great. And Ron, Ronnie, they were just so great. They're just such great people. And I've always just loved them, man, because they gave that little gift. And I myself have never refused an autograph. I'm very proud to say I try to, you know, I try to be as nice as I can to every fan I meet, because I know for that person, it's a very important moment in his or her life. Of course, you know, with that in.

Mike (108:00)

Mind, if it's not too much of a bother, could you just get down? Just write me a quick song. We gotta start to land the plane. But I gotta tell you, man, there's a very weird synchronicity. I'm not one to look to the universe for.

James Woods (108:15)

Start looking, buddy.

Mike (108:16)

Maybe I will. Because last night over at the Huntley, I'm falling asleep. It's about midnight, and I'm flicking around and Spin magazine is counting down the 100 greatest rock stars. Okay, Now, I can't turn it off because I come in around number eight, and I'm like, all right, who's number one? I'm watching. It's going through. So number two, you mentioned 20 minutes ago is Prince. And they do a deep dive on Prince and why?

James Woods (108:40)

Genius.

Mike (108:41)

An absolute genius. And they show him at the piano, and they show that incredible concert where he just plays.

James Woods (108:50)

That was a Super bowl in the.

Mike (108:51)

Rain, no guitar gently weeps.

James Woods (108:53)

Oh, that was at the. At the. The Rock and Roll hall of Fame.

Mike (108:58)

Yes.

James Woods (108:58)

And you know why? Do you know the story behind that?

Mike (109:00)

I do.

James Woods (109:01)

Yeah.

Mike (109:01)

Because.

James Woods (109:01)

Because Rolling Stone didn't have him in the top 100 guitarists.

Mike (109:05)

That's right.

James Woods (109:05)

So he does the single greatest riff. I mean, there's Jimmy Page. And of course, you know, I mean, there are other great ones, but that. That five minutes of music is some of. I've watched it a thousand times.

Mike (109:20)

Me too, by the way, number three.

James Woods (109:22)

And he throws the guitar into the.

Mike (109:24)

Audience, and they throw. And then walks off. Didn't even rehearse with him. No, didn't even rehearse. Just goes up and just hijacks the whole thing and puts on a clinic at the Rock and Roll hall of Fame.

James Woods (109:34)

One of the great losses.

Mike (109:36)

So number three was Jimmy Page. Number one, Keith Richards.

James Woods (109:42)

Yeah. People don't realize.

Mike (109:43)

The greatest rock star of all time and without a doubt. And I. I mean, it seems so obvious, but it's like all. All of a sudden, it's like, it's not Mick, it's Keith.

James Woods (109:55)

Yeah.

Mike (109:56)

Like.

James Woods (109:57)

Well, again, well, Monty said something interesting to me. He said, you notice tonight that I missed a note at that time? I said, this is another time. I said, at that concert. And I said, what? He goes, I missed a note. And Keith looks over at me. You know, everything's Keith. Ah, Keith. He's this perfectionist professional. And he said. He went like this. Huh? I said, what did that mean? He said, he fined me $10,000 from this in the note.

Mike (110:26)

I love that.

James Woods (110:27)

It was like, wow, okay. Yeah, yeah.

Mike (110:32)

Okay. I gotta land the plane. So here's what's gonna happen. We're gonna play this song. I'm gonna say goodbye to you now, and the song is just gonna play. Okay, But I gotta tell you one other thing, and I don't think you're gonna believe this. Chuck, I haven't told you this. I don't know if you're gonna believe it either.

Chuck (110:48)

Try.

Mike (110:49)

But I swear to God, this is true. In a weird day of synchronicity, Taylor, do you remember the hotel in North Carolina?

James Woods (110:58)

The New Ray.

Mike (110:59)

The New Ray. That's it. I'm in the New Ray Hotel not three months ago, and Chuck calls me to say, hey, I think James woods would be great on the podcast. I'm like, of course he would be great. He doesn't do a lot of press, but, you know, he's got this album. He's done this thing with Shooter. So I'm sitting there with Mary in the New Ray having dinner, and I Google or search, get to Spotify, and I get to the first song on the list. Now, as you know, it's hello, Friend. Yeah, the song we're about to play.

James Woods (111:32)

Yes.

Mike (111:32)

Here's what you don't know, and here's. I swear to God, I'm not making this up. I get up to go to the can, right? And I got the phone with me, and I'm listening to hello, Friend, and I stop by an old telephone booth. This is a very old hotel.

James Woods (111:47)

Hotel.

Mike (111:48)

And they're very old photos all around. And on the phone booth is a photo of Thomas Wolfe.

James Woods (111:56)

Oh, my God. And can't go home again. Oh, my God.

Mike (111:59)

It's the whole story of how you can never go home again happened. And that's the phone that he set it on.

James Woods (112:08)

Oh, my God.

Mike (112:09)

I'm in the New Ray Hotel three months ago, listening to the song we're about to play. As I'm f. As I'm contemplating what kind of fallout is going to happen if I get Jim woods on this podcast. He's a lunatic, right? What's going to happen?

James Woods (112:24)

That's me.

Mike (112:25)

And that's the song. So now I'm peeing listening to this song.

James Woods (112:29)

And my music does that to people. They have to go, you know?

Mike (112:32)

And it just kept going and going and going. Not five feet from where James Wolf said the very thing that inspired Thomas Wolf. Don't ever correct me on my own.

James Woods (112:40)

Show.

Mike (112:42)

But you get the idea.

James Woods (112:43)

Thomas Wolfe, douchebag Thomas Wolf.

Mike (112:45)

And the fact that your brother, God rest his soul, Is named Mike.

James Woods (112:49)

Yeah.

Mike (112:50)

I don't know how much weirder it gets, but I'll just leave people with this. The most recent album is called Tombstone Opera. The first one is called Crack of Thunder.

James Woods (112:59)

Hear the thundercrack.

Mike (113:01)

Didn't we discuss not correcting me on my own show?

James Woods (113:03)

Well, you were asking for correction, so I'm helping you out. Think of this as me helping you out. I'm not gonna. I'm not gonna follow you to the men's room and hold anything.

Mike (113:11)

We'll see.

James Woods (113:11)

I gone that far.

Mike (113:12)

You've been fascinating. Your music is terrific.

James Woods (113:16)

Thank you.

Mike (113:16)

Your resume speaks for itself.

James Woods (113:18)

Thank you.

Mike (113:19)

What should people do to get their hands on these things?

James Woods (113:22)

If you want. If you want vinyl, which I really recommend. Yes. It's so much fun. You go to a website called. It's really Easy. James woods.com.

Mike (113:31)

Clever, clever.

James Woods (113:33)

No spaces. Because there's a guy, poor fella, who has the same name with a space in between. And one of the southern states sells cars. But if it's just jameswoods.com, you go there and you can just order it. We ship it right out and there it is. Or you go on your favorite streaming service and buy it. And if you do, that puts us up on the charts. And I can afford. Aside from my little day job that I used to have and the apple thing that I have, of course I can afford to do another album.

Mike (114:02)

James woods is gonna be okay. It's true, he took it in the neck for speaking his mind 13, 14 years ago. But in the end, I certainly wouldn't bet against the idea that a lot of what you've done is gonna be looked back at as a masterpiece.

James Woods (114:18)

Oh, thank you.

Mike (114:19)

I mean it.

James Woods (114:20)

I really.

Mike (114:20)

I mean it. You're an American original. You're a jagged little pill. You broke a few eggs. But, hey, who doesn't love it all?

James Woods (114:25)

Thank you, Mike. That really means a lot.

Mike (114:27)

Please come back sometime.

James Woods (114:28)

And I. I want to say one thing that's really important. I know you got to go. This thing that you do about making sure that those people. You know, when I was in school, we used to have, you know, there were the Collegiates who were going to go on and study, you know, lesbian interpretive dance in some liberal arts college. And then there were the guys in shop who are actually going to make a living and be able to put food on the table for their wife and their kids, fixing cars and building buildings and doing all that stuff. And I'm telling you, in the long run, they're going to Be the ones who win. Because we're seeing it now. It's all crumbling forever. Like, hey, yeah, I can. You know, I'm a basket weaving genius. And, you know, I've got $400,000 in debt. No, thanks.

Mike (115:07)

It's a hell of a thing when the headlines are good. Smack. So thank you very much, and you're welcome back here, truly, anytime.

James Woods (115:14)

I'll see you next Tuesday. We'll be back Tuesday, Chuck.

Mike (115:17)

Perfect.

Chuck (115:17)

Got it.

Mike (115:18)

Sarah, you should have. You know. Maybe I will.

James Woods (115:22)

Yeah.

Mike (115:22)

All right. Well, there's no H in Sarah. Chuck. Make a note.

James Woods (115:25)

Mike, I can't thank you enough.

Mike (115:27)

Sure.

James Woods (115:27)

Thank you so much.

Mike (115:27)

You already have, really.

James Woods (115:28)

Thank you.

Mike (115:28)

James woods, everybody.

James Woods (115:29)

Thank you. Thank you.

Song Vocals (115:47)

Hello, friend, I forgot to say goodbye. Slipped my mind and I don't know why. I thought you'd always be there. And I never feared death.

James Woods (116:11)

And one.

Song Vocals (116:12)

Day I called, you were gone. In a breath. There's never a fanfare, violins or bright lines. No trips with the mentor, no angels flights. Hello, friend, I forgot to say goodbye. Slipping my mind and I don't know why. Poet asked, does it end with a bang? With the whisper is the answer. With the sting of a fang.

Mike (117:07)

The.

Song Vocals (117:07)

Serpent'S kiss so quiet and shrewd. With a hiss, a faint, but you just can't elude. Hello, friend, I forgot to say goodbye. Slipping my mind and I don't know why. It isn't ordained, it ain't no twist to fate. You can run, you can dodge, but you never skate. Dark to the left, swing to the right. Hide in the shadows of evening's twilight. The page is now turning, the ink is now burning. Your names in the ledger. We all know so well. The choices of many they were all that we do. Only two now are left. It's heaven or hell and then you. For as much as we dance.

Mike (118:46)

On.

Song Vocals (118:46)

This big ball of dust we play and we fight. The exit we must. The red glow of sun's there.

James Woods (119:02)

Fill.

Song Vocals (119:02)

The child with light. But for you, my friend. For you it's good night. For you, oh, buddy. For you, oh, buddy. For you, my friend. For you, oh, buddy. For you it's good.

James Woods (119:25)

19, Sam.