BrieSearch Subject : Tom Toomey

My guest today is an amazing guitarist in a legendary rock band who let me play and by play I mean hold very gingerly some of the most beautiful guitars that I've ever seen in my whole life and in my favorite color so very happy to welcome Tom toomey to the podcast this morning wow thank you very much brie good morning good morning good afternoon or good evening to the worldright yeah I usually start out by asking people what we're drinking but I assume it’s coffee for you because it's very early where you are and very late where I am     yeah no I have to have my regular coffee I love Seattle Coffee so If anybody  in Seattle who's listening to this please send me some cuz I've run out oh no coffee shortages  yeahhow's the UK oh the UK is great thank you we are cool over here  at the moment it's very beautiful weather and I can get French coffee in my local supermarket so I'm okay you're not slumming it yet you're not in the dregs so far slumming it um no no Talking about dregs all the coffee grinds go on the rhododendrons so we're doing good yeah exactly they're perfect for that Hahahaso my first question always and the most important one is who are you well As people know I play with a zombies I'm a guitarist a composer and a producer and I've been working I've been playing since I was about 14 years old  I joined a band while I formed a band called The epidemic when I was that age and I have been playing ever since basically I can go on should I go onYeah please walk me through your music career Yeah sure my first-ever taste of getting up onstage was in a little youth club wear a mate of mine took me along when I was about 13 or 14 and there was a three piece band practicing and my mate said the guitarist could my friend get up and play would that be okay and the rest of the band said no no we've got to practice on the guitar I said hey come on give him a go so I got up on stage and I played House of the Rising Sun which I practice studiously for many many hours and I was smitten totally and utterly smitten and then that was 40 50 50 something years ago and then while I was a pain in the zombies I've met the original guitarist from the animals called a lovely man called Hilson Valentine and it was Full Circle for me  and he's been to see us three times on the first time I was just in all and here I am speaking to this man who wrote the iconic lick riff or whatever you want to call it to House of the Rising Sun in the studios at 3 in the morning when they recorded it in London all those years ago where is Chas Chandler on base and Hilton signed I asked him to sign my guitar Maestro at the time and the little monkey put all the chords of House of the Rising Sun on it just in case you forgot Tom it was just so cool of him it was so lovely just a closeout on that story I mean Chas Chandler we were signed to a record label in London when I was in a new wave punk band and Chaz produced one of our tracks it was so funny oh yeah it's funny how life comes full circleYeah so where did you grow up and how did you get into music you started playing guitar at 14 so it had to be pretty pretty early onYeah it did I mean my dad gave me a I think it was a ukulele or something when I was probably about 9 or 10 and I thought what's this it's quite good and I didn't get on to actually playing a guitar my friend of mine taught me when I was a kid and taught me a few chords and that was it I was off I was born in London in a place called East Dullage Margaret Thatcher used to live in West Dullage so we never saw her she was one of our prime ministers we were in the slum slumish part of dullage but now now you can't buy a house for under a million now that's how times change I mean the house that I was born in I was born actually in the house in Crystal Palace Road dulwich when I was a kid I would go out and play on these bomb sites  Wow right yeah and I didn't realize what a bomb site was but in the war it was only a few years after the war that I was born you know and my wife comes from Cuba and one of the funniest things which is actually quite tragic as well as the description of why were there lots of houses and then there was nothing well in Cuba the houses just fall down because they haven't got the money to restore them and keep them going because the lack of materials but in where I was where I was born it was because there were bombed in the war and me and my mates would merely go play on bomb sites so that was a recollection so I lived there In London for about 30 years 33 years something like that yeah nice so what is the most interesting thing to me about your career is the variety of genres and types of music and bands and solos and you know the kind of music that you’ve been Playing how has your musical identity developed over time and and while working with with such different people 623 well that's that's a great question brie I've never been I've never been asked that question before I mean oh see?Yeah! It's a good question. Oh wow where do I begin what a smorgasbord of things to choose from here I mean House of the Rising Sun an iconic track that that most people just start to learn then you get inspired by Hendrix I mean oh electric ladyland All Along the Watchtower. I mean just sends me to another planet now when I hear that it's just all those wonderful bands of the 60s and 70s that made all that iconic music  I mean the Beatles you know. We could go on forever um horse with no name oh my God so I was blessed to be brought all this incredible music you know 7:282 years of my life I can’t remember they used to say that if you could remember the Sixties then you weren't there  well take that statement for what you want Do you think that was the Golden Age of music like in your career and we'll finish your story but like you think the 60s was the Golden Age of creation for musicians in Generalyeah I do I think the late 60s I think with the coming of  rock and roll Blues Gospel spiritual New Orleans it all came from there The Rolling Stones  we had albums coming over here  Bob Dylan Simon and Garfunkel coming over Bringing us all this amazing stuff  albums that we had never heard before.  and the bands of the time picked up on it all skiffle just unbelievable music but I'd say going into the seventies of course there's been fantastic music in the 80s and 90s and all the rest of Queen and All the rest of it but around that time I was totally influenced by all that music and of course you've got the folk scene wonderful players in the folk scene and I became influenced by that as well and I've been on tour with The Drifters you know there were 40 Drifters that drifted Through The Drifters and I went out with one of themWow forty! yeah and I went out with one of them not in a emotion relationship level but I gigged with him it was really good fun we went to Ireland and I discovered GuinnessOh niceBut and then I was in a punk band for many years and Chas Chandler produce one of the tracks the bass player then went on to join  Adam and yant Chris Constantino he had a huge success and then I got into Santana and Santana was a huge influence on me I had a tribute band for 10 years there's some clips up on YouTube if you want to look at them and then I got into I started veering towards acoustic music a hell of a lot I don't know why I started to work in the pub scene for many years here I was on the Irish circuit I came over to Boston for six weeks into the iris circuit for a little while and then I got to know some Irish musicians and then after the Santana band I started  during all that time I was writing  and for some reason us composers and musicians we get music from The Ether Miles Davis I  thiink said it's all up there you just have to tap into it and if you're lucky enough to tap into any type of creative arts you're blessed person and I've been blessed I've been completely blessed I've got a whole stockpile of ideas on my phone and my iPads all over the place of musical ideas that I haven't put into proper recording yet which I've got to do but a lot of the stuff that I've done has gone on to a couple of albums and three albums and I'm not a prolific writer but I'd like to think that some of the stuff that I've done one or two of the tracks are pretty great so you're always going to get some who think when my first album came out I said to people if you just like one track off this album I'll be happy so that but that mumfie cat album is just rock blues jazz funk you name it yeah so I've been very influenced by many things1100Yes there are some specific tracks that I want to talk about from turquoise but we'll get to that shortly yeah sure and here I am now with the zombies yeah we haven't even gotten there yet no no so you had this amazing timeline in this amazing career that you have gotten to work with so many of your influences you've been compatriots with the people that you also were influenced by and came up emulating. Whose style do you enjoy emulating and what of your musical influences have you gotten to then work with and collaborate withHow can I put this I mean I've been a session player for many many years and had the opportunity to work with some very very famous people John Anderson from yes and I have to say I've not met half of these people but when you're a session player you don't sometimes yeah cuz the guys I think Don MacLean recorded the vocal track in the hotel in London  and I'd already done the music down here in Somerset but I think it's very difficult to pinpoint  what that answer.  I've done so much that I love  there is so much music I love all kinds of music and if if I was asked to do  a funk album I could do it quite easily if I was asked to do a jazz album I would find that quite challenging because I'm not a jazz guitarist but I could do it and I've done a lot of jazz stuff if I was asked to do a folk album I would be there just like a shot if I'm asked to do some stuff for the band I'll do my best to come up with as much stuff original as I possibly can anything really interests me as I say I suppose I could say this without being blase or big-headed anything because I'm not like that I've been told on many occasions that I have my own style and I haven't got a clue what they're talking aboutBut it's yours yeah it's great in fact a friend of mine just said to me the other day they listen to still got that hunger which was the last album we did with the zombies and they said to me and it was really lovely of them they said you know your guitar playing just meshes everything in with what the tracks are and I thought wow that's so nice of you to say that thank you so much that's very trueWe’ll get into the zombies how did you make Colin and rod1339When I first moved down to Somerset I was introduced to a producer here called John sweet who is a Good made of mine lovely guy  and basically I lived in his studio for years I can always remember coming out of there at 2 in the morning doing sessions for him and when I first got to know him we were doing various radio stations and things like that and then John sent a couple tracks to Colin blunstone  I think John was trying to looking for some work well to get away from all the radio stuff he was doing and Colin listen to the tracks and was blown away by the production and came down to John and I got involved with Colin then this is 30 years ago and Colin had had a long time of contractual problems that didn't allow him to get out and work anymore and I had come to an end and so we made an album and it took us three years in between everything else that John was doing and whatever and so that was called Echo Bridge and Colin to this day says it's one of the best albums that he's ever made and it was lovely I really really enjoyed making that album it was such a joy and of course what happens when the album came out the record company went broke which was such a shame and you hear that all the time anyway that's how I got to know Colin and Through the Years working in Johns Studio I made another two albums with Colin to solo albums I did three solo albums with him and then Collins career took off he got to do a couple kids with Rod Argent which were really successful and they said to each other we'll come on let's just try a few more gigs and the rest is history of course but unfortunately for me at the time another guitarist wonderful guitarist Keith Airy got the job I did do an audition for a solo band for calling but I never got it see Glen Aries brother got it Keith which was great and then 10 years ago Keith decided to leave the band and pursue a solo career and I was asked to go and do an audition up to that point I had been playing all the pubs and clubs and a few festivals here and there with my tribute band and there's a beautiful National Trust house Elizabethan house which is a mile where from where I live up the road Called Montague house and I promoted for 8 years my charity there we had about 1,500 people coming every year and so we put on bands there by Santana tribute band played there and eventually my solo band played there but up until that point I was hardly doing much really I was not doing a hell of a lot I made my own album called  Monficat but I got the audition and I went up to London and I got the audition and the rest is history for me Brie that's how that happened and Rod and the boys Steve and Jim and it was a real real amazing time for me to go up there my wife at the time was a classically trained pianist she helped me go through all the songs I think I had about five days to learn all the songs all their set which I'm quite used to doing quite frankly cuz I've been doing that for many years as a session player you know what other bands going out but I learned everything she helped me get my act together on that and I went and did some gigs in Holland and I remember we did about five gigs in Holland and after those five gigs we came out on the last gig out of the club and Jim rodford came up to me and said nice one Tom well done and I think I passed the second audition you passed the test I did yeah Jim was lovely well to your Point earlier with you having such a unique style but one that meshes and contributes to the whole of the song and the Music so seamlessly how do you make zombies music or do you just try to emulate what people are expecting to hearNeveryeahnever I would never do that I know no I am my own man when it comes to playing stuff Like that I've done sessions I've done albums many albums having to emulate the kind of Pop charts and we nearly got sued by Madonna wants because she thought that we had just taken her track you played it too well we did but no there's so many bands which fabulously are earning a living doing tribute music right which is amazing but when it comes down to Art and doing art you have to be creative you have to you can't think how I'd like to do that because it sounds like so and so that is rubbish everyone not everyone but a lot of music is done to a formula now when we when I got together with Rod and the band Rod is very particular about certain things he'll write a track Yes he'll write a track and he'll say do you think you can just do this melody and you play it like that so I'm still got that hunger there was a few things which I think we did I can't remember how many albums has some now I think it's three this is the third one or fourth one but there was a time when Rod would want exactly what he wanted which is fair enough you know it's his song it's his band and Collins band on still got that hunger everything I did pretty much was my own my own thing and we got to a point where Rod would just say we got into Jim Rohn his living room and we would just go through all the tracks acoustically and it was brilliant because I just had free rein to do what I wanted so I came up with loads and loads of ideas Rod had a few bits and pieces he wanted me to do here or there but it was just a real joy to work on that album because I owned everything that I did so which one you get onstage you own it where is all the other tracks I've done when you're doing the Odyssey and Oracle saying it's got to be played pretty much exactly as the guys the original guys had done which is lovely but when it comes to getting out there with a new band and just doing our own thing you need to have some balls Behind the Music behind what you're playing you need to have some kind of commitment and that's what I always love if I've got stuff that I'm playing that I've created that's my own and I own it and it's also part of the band of course2049 To that point you spent so much of your life in bands or touring or playing with different people tell me about the experience of being in a band this long with the same people or different groups of people coming in and out and how the group mentality has changed moving from the 60s until now the experience obviously of being in a band has changed.Yeah well let's start with the zombies being with the zombies when I first joined the band I was like in awe of Rod you know oh my God it’s argent, you know, hold your head up and all that and he had a shop in London and I said oh my God Well anyway it takes a little bit of time to adjust to someone who's had such huge success where I'm coming from the level where I've never had a hit song or anything like that and I think when you're in the 60s you could have a hit song like that now it would be so hard to have a hit song worldwide so people were very blessed to have huge success and financial success around the sixties so there's a certain kind of status that people get but actually when you get to know people Everyone is the same and rods a lovely lovely guy 2219So I had to get I personally had to get over that hurdle of getting to the point where you're just mates you see what I mean which we are we're all mates so when I first joined the band I was kind of like a bit oh my God I'm in this band oh and it takes a while to sort of come down to earth and get to the same kind of level it did for me anyway which is lovely now the band we're all good mates when we go on tour it's like a marriage you know it's really you live in each other's pockets and 1/2 the criteria sometimes for being in a band is not how good you are as a musician it's everything else it's can you get on with people can you when you have a tiff can you say oh I'm sorry about that can you ride for 8 hours in a van can you go to a foreign country without getting culture shock stuff like that and when you can do all that you get a bit more experience it get somewhat easier and of course when the boys started out 20 years ago they weren't doing well they were going to rough hotels in the states with freeways opposite them and long long JourneysIn horrible bands now we've got it so much nicer we have lovely hotels and we get flown everywhere so things are a lot better now so to keep a balance and there's lots of other things just besides the music the music comes first but there's lots of other things that you need to have a balance with so Coming Back Down to say my Santana band for instance all good mates in the area that you try to get on with and you do but not a awful lot of money because you're going out because you love to do it most people have day jobs Etc and some people have certain depths to do certain music and someone's got a gig and they can't do it down to when I was in my punk band we were a very tight unit we are practicing for a year and the same rehearsal studios as ABC in Forest Hill and they went on and had huge success which is absolutely brilliant but we went out there and did a few tours a couple of tours with Slade and then they chucked me out of the band because the singer couldn't sing well he couldn't sing but that was great for the punk band I was making up tunes and Melodies that he couldn't sing so he chucked me out it was so funny it's so funny at the time I was devastated I was devastated but coming back one of the tunes that I wrote I remember we were recording an album at the time and one of the tunes that I wrote when I was in my bedroom in the cottage we were staying in and I put that on my very first album I no wonder he couldn't sing it it's called The Wedding guests jeez man I love the I love talking about the fact that I got chucked out of a band because the singer couldn't sing the melody anyway the band split up about three months later and then I was in another band I got chucked out of that as well we were number one in Germany for 8 weeks and it was a guy called I forgot his get name now it doesn't matter and they chucked me out because they're old guitarist unfortunately was very ill he had arthritic hips and stuff like that so they wanted to give him a chance of the big-time so they said to the guy whose band it was a week before we were doing another tour over in Germany with Smokey, no the Bellamy Brothers actually In quiver,  they said if our guitarist doesn't come you got a Chuck Tom out otherwise we don't come over so that was another little oh dear that's funny no it's been a topsy-turvy world we live in in the music business Indeedso you you've been in obviously lots of bands but you also sing you also write you're also a producer You also do all of your solo stuff how has each  of these things contributed to each other and made you a better musicianwell over the last 10 years I've been producing stuff in my bedroom and then I move my bedroom Studio into my garage and I fitted all of that out and I've been producing now for the past three years a couple of people les Clements and David Gordon and done a wonderful album for Les Clements which  is absolutely brilliant that's been played at the moment around the UK Purdue saying I learned a lot of the ways you produce when I was a session musician and in fact Chris Potter who produced the last zombies album it was really funny because I was told that we got so I couldn't remember his name so I was told this is amazing producer who's had this amazing hit all over the world and I was thinking. Oh my God  that's going to be great and we had the zombies  for that still got that hunger album we had a studio booked for two weeks in London  anyway I got into the studio the first day and this guy came up to me and it was Chris and he said hello Tom we know each other and we had done about three tracks about 30 - 35 years before in this New Wave band that I was in with Chris Constantine too and it's like oh my God here we go this is just so cool that was absolutely fantastic so it's a whole I was always very very shy of my singing I always just a thing I couldn't sing at all and I got some singing lessons once  and this lady said to me Tom you got a beautiful voice and that did me a lot a bit of good she was lovely and I never had any vocal training at all and I used to thrust my vocals upon the unsuspecting public and pubs all across the southeast and Southwest when I was oh man anyway so during all that stuff you know over the years really sort of helped me cut my teeth with all that kind of playing live it's really wonderful because sings move on I know you wanted to talk about the turquoise album but two tracks have just been picked up by an amazing producer just outside New York one off the turquoise album and one off of momfiikat album which is fantastic and I have to say going back to the zombies who would have thought that 50 years later we would have been in the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame yeah I wanted to ask about that the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame 2019 I mean who would have thought 50 years later and then you've been with them 10 or 11 years now Yeah it's 10 years this monthwow3024 yeah I mean one of the things in this music business is that the kids and the boys were just kids you know when they went over to the Philippines and they were on a plane they got out off the plane the before they got off the plane they were into the airport there and call and turns around to rod and said have you seen all those people out there there were thousands of people and they haven't got a clue what was going on in Rod said  it must be some kind of dignitary on the plane or something that we don't know about and it was for them yeah they're like looking behind them to see who's coming off the plane yeah they were as big as the Beatles over there and they were playing to 20000 cedars in the Araneta Stadium where in fact I've played a couple of times with them and they were playing there for 80 lb of night to 20,000 people for 10 nights but when they got back it was all mafia run at the time  but when they got back they were totally ripped off 2 today’s money about 20 million dollars by their manager and what I'm trying to say is that a lot of people  I've spoken to in the business are big big names have got similar stories so the kids at the time they completely ripped off and not now they're making up for it now that the original guys which I think is fabulous story for them coming full circle but they went through the mill Collins got some stories about one day he's got some funny stories he was working as an insurance agent and they've got the number one in America with she's not there and what do you do about that for crying out loud so coming up to now the music business is a very strange business here either feast or famine3230 and what you've got to take a grip of is even though we're in times where Spotify kids of today Sync iTunes they sink I can sell them they can put all their music out for nothing and the creators don't get a penny that's fine  well Lyle Mays Pat Metheny keyboard player was recently interviewed God bless him he died a few months ago and in this interview Lyle Mays was asked Lyle you seem to have left the business for some years and Lyle said excuse me the music business left me when people can go out and get my music for free what incentive is there for me to create now my point is this that creators like myself even though we are living now in a situation where we're never going to make any money out of our music unless we are very lucky and very adept at working the social media stream we still have to create like I was saying earlier on in the interview times have changed Colin has got a lovely story about standing at the bus stop when the zombies were rehearsing and he was standing at the bus stop and he saw a rod Argent driving along past him Rod never saw him in a Rolls-Royce of course and Colin said I think I better start writing some songs you know my point is this 50 years later odessey and Oracle gets all of the acknowledgement that it should have gotten 50 years ago and didn't just by chance and now for me this amazing producer just outside New York has picked up on feather bone and Ash and love and we've re-recorded featherbone and Ash and we're in the phase of recording love at the moment which is has done an amazing job so I'm feeling really lucky and of course the zombies are in the process of recording an album at the moment but that's been put on hold and that's where we are now Which is amazing and I do want to talk about turquoise that's I didn't know that two of the tracks had gotten picked  for your tracks have gotten picked up well one from turquoise From turquoise yeah featherbone on dash I wrote the music 10 years ago and had it in my back pocket for quite a while and Melissa Kaplan who is an incredible singer in the states she sang on the Monfikcat album she sang the title track monfiCAT which is fantastic I used to live in Spain and that influenced at track and I asked Melissa if she'd like to write the words and she wrote These wonderful Melodies and these words to this track that I put the music to called featherbone and Ash and that's been picked up by this guy in the states yeah that's awesome yeah there's one track that I want to talk about on turquoise specifically called Sanctus oh sanctus yeahOh no you said it the French way yeah I speak French so that would make senseSanctusIt's sacred lacquered choral music with this ripping guitar riff which is right up my alley as an acapella singer like that's how I came up singing choral music first  FabulousI toured Europe with a 28 person acapella choir and we sang  sacred music during the day in all these Cathedrals we sang  at-st Mark's we sang at the domplatz oh wow and at night  we would sing jazz and so it was an amazing time but when I heard this song I was like this is exactly the joining of my two types of Interests with this song Tell me about the concept and why it works cuz it does work so well I listened to it like multiple timesI was like that is so radaw thanks ever so much for that is so sweet of you to say that it's one of my favorite tracks on the album I've got a friend of mine  called Martin  Elmsley who is a fellow of the London College of Music  who wrote an oratorio which was premiered at Wells cathedral Here in the south west about eight or nine years ago and Martin and I have been good friends  he used to teach at yover College where I used to teach guitar And he has gotten me involved in his choir I've done a few concerts with when his choir performed I've done a few solo acoustic things for him in churches and he said to me I am writing a rock Mass and it's an up yours to the stigma that rock music has with classical musicians in past centuries so to speak I mean I know there wasn't rock music but the fact that you couldn't put a major 7th in music in olden days gone by because I thought it was the devil's music it's a bit like rock and roll and the zombies really so he asked me to do all the guitars on it and one of these tracks was called Sanctus  and he said can I swear on this program yeah sure well I don't if any children are listening please close your ears now because I've got kids and I wouldn't want you to hear this okay okay right you've closed your ears he said I want you to do a f*** off solo in this rock Mass so I recorded he recorded all the choir and everything like that and I had to put all the music drums bass guitar keyboards everything strings to the other all these tracks and I recorded I said to him after I recorded I done it all for him he was really pleased with it I said I'm making your album Martin do you mind if I can I put Sanctus on my album he said of course you can I said but I want to  completely record it he said yeah that's fine so I completely recorded it the drums in my living room the bass upright bass and everything like that and guitars but I didn't record the guitar solo for probably about nine months because I was on tour I was working up to it because I knew that that track needed something very very very special and I remember coming off tour with the jet lag and everything just getting into the studio cuz I was all good. My fingers were working not like they are now at the moment and I did it in a day now I asked William Purifoy who is I think they call it a counter tender where his voice can sing anything  tenor or countertenor  William Purefoy is a really famous singer over here at St Paul's Cathedral Wells Cathedral and everywhere and I asked Melissa Kaplan to do the vocals and what you're hearing on Sanctus is just those two singers  wow with a little bit of the castle Carey choir put in for good measure and I did it and it was a real challenge to mix that track well everyone else thinks it's great so I can only go on that but sometimes one can be very critical of One's Own work perhaps if a better producer than I could get hold of it they would make it Monumental but I'm really happy with the track and it's I'm really happy with the solo and everyone else that has heard it loves it it's awesome and I think that should be out there and Making Waves yeah making the rounds it's great do you find it hard to listen to your own stuff or to other people's music without kind of nitpicking do you hear the guitars more than you hear everything else first when you listen to a track before I used to 4144Before I used to yeah as a guitar player I'd always be listening to the guitar and what's going on and yes I'm extremely critical you know even all the albums I've ever done I won't listen to them when I'm working on the album I'm listening to it 24/7 probably for about three or four months and so as a player and as a producer the last thing you want to do is to listen to something you just listen to everyday for three or four months silent listen to still got that hunger for a couple years I haven't listened to Monfikat in years I haven't listened to turquoise while I listen to the couple of tracks for but I've not played the whole album It's like a strange kind of thing because you want to move on you did that you did a snapshot of that in your life and that's your snapshot of your musical life and then when you listen to it like a year later or a couple years later cuz everything I've ever done I've always thought well that was a load of crap I could have done a lot better I wish I had done that I wish I'd done that so you get that there's a name for it you have to put all that to the side and just move forward and do the best you can at the time something syndrome people always think that artists like myself it's a known fact that we all think the Imposter syndrome is called we all think that we're going to get found out at some point honestly we do somebody's going to catch on yeah and they're going to realize that I am actually crap it's too late I'm already in the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame you can't take me out now yeah and this is why we don't look at reviews because when somebody says some certain things about being good or bad it kind of rocks the boat a bit so you have to kind of not listen to reviews and so yeah it's brilliant to know that okay I did that my children one of the tracks I did on turquoise is dedicated to my beautiful girl Alyssa when she was born another beautiful story that I've got to tell you is when my wife was having Alyssia who's nine now she's 10 in June there was a screen between us cuz she was having a cesarean and Lily is a Cuban pianist which I said before classically trained but she's a beautiful singer as well and I was standing by the  anesthetist I couldn't see her tummy or anything I couldn't see her tummy or anything Cuz there is a screen there and all of the sudden Lily started to sing this beautiful song in Portuguese and then he status said oh my God is she okay is she okay I said yeah she's singing a love song Aw it was just anyway I don't know why I went there but but saying that a couple weeks later I wrote this song about my beautiful daughter but there you go that's turquoisewhat's the most important piece of advice you have for someone wanting to learn guitar or like a skill that's necessary to improve on the basics4520okay well if you’ve got talent Ill tell you two stories one is I gave up playing for a while and I had been playing all the pubs around here and one of the guys Brian one of the publican's he rang me up because he heard I wasn't playing again and he rang me up  and he said what are you doing these days Tom and I said oh I'm doing nothing In fact I was going through a really hard time I was signing on I think with the doll here and this is 30 years ago and it was a very difficult time for me and anyway he said to me you're doing nothing a man of your talent you're kidding me and that really hit home to me and after that I thought God he's right what am I doing when you've got a talent if you don't use it it's a waste when you've got a talent or you think you've got the talent and anything you do in life when I was a guitar teacher I had kids coming to me sometimes with her lessons when they were about 16-15 whatever and they didn't know what they were going to do and they were under a lot of pressure to work out what they could say to their parents or their teacher of what they wanted to do and I don't see you kids come to me and they could talk to me and I said to them what do you love doing what gives you what turns you on what gives you a check what are you best at I said because if you can do that no matter what it is and be the best at what you can be you'll never work again that is the thing the second thing I would say is well my stepfather said to me many years ago I said is there Derek is there a bit of advice you can give me about this music business about my playing he said never give up and I've never ever ever have given up the other thing is if you want to find the directions to Carnegie Hall haha what are the way how do you get to Carnegie Hall hahaha practice if you haven't done 10,000 hours of practice and your profession then you're not going to get there I'm still getting there Yep I think you're pretty far ahead of the Curveoh man Do you know what to be honest the last six weeks that we've been locked down here  I've not picked while I picked up the guitar a few times and I've got a 1/2 in that I'm working on but you know it's really nice  to actually take a break a restock And re reboot and rethink and think about what means what means more to you in life than rushing around In airplanes and gigging which I am blessed to do but don't get me wrong but sometimes things can take over and this is  given a lot of people the time to connect especially with NatureYeah I think that's very very true and and also I mean I know it's been a hard time in a lot of ways For a lot of people and it's been awful but I also think that  it's provided everyone a reset like you were saying like a big  pause button and you kind of get to see how people are prioritizing things in their life how they're using their time how they're reacting to you know anxiety or stress or or productivity in a different way you know like how they're releasing their  creativity during this it's it's kind of like a new thing and I hope I kind of hope it doesn't go back to normal I think there's a chance to kind of develop something New from this that takes care of people more and takes care of your own mental health of and your own needs and desires and create a fulfillment  yes yeah yesterday was VE day here In England Victorious over Europe and  I was going in fact I went to buy some potatoes from my local Farm you know I can get  like a massive great big like almost as tall as me sack of potatoes for five quid and you go to a supermarket and you pay five quid for just sort of a bag but we were going through this particular Street in a  place called Stokes of Hampden and  and I went off the main street into another little back alley where it was quicker to get and I was driving slow and all the people I couldn't believe it it was only about 11:00 in the morning and all the people were out talking to each other over there fences in their front Gardens and all the decorations and Bunting and all the flags it was like oh wow the other day I was doing my gardening and this guy just came along on a horse and there's people riding bikes and there's hardly any cars and the government are now saying they designated 25 miles of some down here they're making it you can't walk on it it's going to be for cyclists now Holland has done this ever since time began I've almost got knocked out down by a cyclist once and wherever it was but the thing is like you say if we can start use this as a starting point for renewing better solutions to the way that we connect with nature the way we connect with people the way we connect the way we get to work the way we do our work I think it will be really good and I really hope we don't go back to the way we were because it's been such a frenetic it is a very frenetic world we live in we're always in too much of a hurry myself included and this has really brought me down to earth and it's lovely to even have a conversation like this where I'm just looking out in my garden now and there's no airplanes hardly any cars it's lovely I can hear the birds singing I can too it's amazing it's making me miss England oh have you been here before I have yeah I lived a couple years ago I kind of had a really rough Year or two and finished a bunch of shows back-to-back and was really stressed and ran away to Europe  for three months by myself. Alone oh wow and was like a goodbye America  I'll see you and I left and I lived I lived in London for about a month-and-a-half and then I traveled all over Europe  I went to Iceland  and then I lived in the North east of Manchester in a bunch of tiny little towns in like traveled to France And went through Spain yeah I just I just left America  because I was exhausted. gosh oh oh wow Lovey that's that's amazing  and did that charge your batteriesoh my gosh it travel for me is the thing that I find myself you know if I if I feel like I'm sinking or losing Grip on you know my priorities I find that traveling kind of sets me back and  the way this quarantine is doing I feel like a lot of people but it sets me back on the right path of saying the world is bigger place than you all of your tiny you know minutiae worries and concerns and drama and you know things that you're dealing with in your daily life it kind of zooms out for me and gives me perspective to say like the world is a big place there's all these people there's a lot more to see and explore and experience and so that's always kind of like the reset button  for me is to go to a different place absolutely yeah oh that's so cool and I've been lucky enough to travel a lot of  Europe on my own and also with the band and I coming home from  the states every time I come home  I'm one of these guys that really suffers from jet lag it takes me two weeks to get over it but I always come back thinking exactly along those lines it's such a big world out there that people don't realize we live in such a small small island here compared to I mean I remember  Rod went on the last tour we were out in Arizona somewhere I can't remember and he said Tom do you realize that there is a farm here that you could put England into just one Farm and I was saying that to my little daughter the other day and how can you explain to someone how big  a country is and when you go a way to i travel South Africa  a lot with my charity having started a charitydo you want to talk about music for Africa5430just just a little bit We have taught hundreds of children out there how to play guitar through Trinity College music exams and we've got three guys that eventually went through University with their degrees of music  Matthew mantovani still teaches albeit only about 30 kids  and I've done a couple of concerts I did a concert with the help of Ted gear who's got the love Halle Foundation we did  a concert at Steve  adobos studio in New York and raised over $1,000 which enabled us to pay for Mathews two cataracts  because he was going blind the children  we used 2 take out guitars we've built three classrooms out there and I have met people who got married  you know who did these concerts at Montague house and it was a great success and when I joined the band and got married just before that I had to stop the concert because they were costing too much money but we still kept the charity going on a shoestring so but we had a huge success we're putting through hundreds of children through their music exams and getting people even without doing exams giving people the chance to play a musical instrument  we took drum kits out there keyboards and how is wonderful  it's been a real joy for me to have done that there you goawesome I love it well is there anything else we missed anything I mean I could talk to you for forever but I don't want to take over your dayoh well oh well obviously I think somebody's going to do an interview with you brie because you've got, We did that wonderful All Saints video  in New York yeah we didn't even talk about how our paths crossed It was all down to my turquoise Bare handmade guitar  wasn't it it really was oh my God I fell in love with that guitar before I even met you I was like What is thisI know  yeah that's good friend of mine down here in dorset he makes these awesome guitars and it's a tele cabriole neck a Cabriole body and it's just fantastic and the PRS of course I'm endorsed by PRS which is lovely very blessed but no you should definitely have someone interview you What are you looking forward to when quarantine is over and where can we find your workwell the first thing I'm looking forward to My children around to my 91 next month  your old mom so they can hug her yeah  we all need hugs right now Yeah we do all need hugs I feel like we're very starved for human connection right now so that's the first thing I'm going to do the second thing I'm going do if I'm going to ring up Rod Argent and say what the  bloodyhell is going on with this album have you guys talked through this are they all okay I haven't talked to anybodyYeah I know know we've all been sort of aaahhhgoing Slowly crazy yeah we've emailed a few times but I think we're just taking a break I  spoke to call in the other week  I spoke to our manager Chris Tuthill from rocks management and he's putting backup plans in place and backing up the backup plans he does all our gigs for us and everything wonderful guy Chris and Cindy absolutely amazing if it wasn't for them I don't think the zombies would be where they are to be honest with youApart from everything else that everyone done has done as well so we've got to mention them yes they're both lovely they're both amazing two of the nicest people you could wish to meet and then I would like to say thank you to the fans  they have supported me and my charity and come to  Ultazombies concert  and come to my solo concerts and here in the states  I'm bought my albums  and I just like to say if you want to buy my album just go on to my website my name is a strange name at the county court name from Ireland its to me and it could be spelled many ways t w o m e it's nothing like that it's Toomey Tom tumi.com I'd love for you to buy my music there you go thanks so much thanks ever so much for this interview Brie