Intro: "Do NOT go in there! Woooo" "You have just entered Live From The Half-Bath on WeAreRadio.com"
Song: The Rain, The Park and Other Things
Host: That was "The Rain, The Park, and Other Things" by The Cowsills which reached #2 on the Billboard charts in 1967 and soon to be singing with them was a 9-year-old Susan Cowsill. She holds the record for the youngest person ever associated with a top-ten hit. And sitting with us today in the half-bath is Miss Susan Cowsill herself. Susan, how are you?
Susan: Very well. I'm very enjoying the ambience in the half-bath here today. You guys it's really a half bath. Do they know this?
Host: We don't lie. We don't lie. It really is a half-bath. It was suppose to be my wife's half-bath, but it found a higher calling. It's a radio station. So let's jump into this Susan. Despite your young age, you had hits on the record books as early as 1967. Tell our listeners about your first musical endeavor.
Susan: Well I think my very first musical endeavor was dancing and singing with The Mickey Mouse Club. That was behind the camera. My first actual musical recording was in 1967. It was actually The Cowsills 2nd album. I was only on, I came into the band on the second. I came in the band while "The Rain, The Park and Other Things" was becoming a hit, but I hadn't recorded on that album. So, I guess my first musical endeavor was the recording of the album We Can Fly in New York City in 1967 with my brothers.
Host: On into the '80s you worked with bands like The Smithereens. What music did you collaborate on with them?
Susan: We were on ... boy now I'm not going to remember the name of the record ... (some Susan language???) ... I can't remember the name of it but I remember that we were back together again in Los Angeles around 19..-I'm going to say 78-79 and The Smithereens were pretty popular and they came to a Cowsill show. And we thought that was pretty cool. And .. oh the song was called "Now and Then" - there I remembered that. They came out to our show and told us they were big, big fans and would we come sing on their records, and were were like "Well, yeah." That was really cool. They are very nice guys, very nice guys. I haven't seen them in a long time. They need to give me a call.
Host: Let's listen to Susan strut her stuff on The Smithereens album Blowup. This is "Now and Then"
Song: Now and Then
Host: And on into the late '80s, early '90s, you were in a group called The Continental Drifters. The Drifters helped further your singing and songwriting talents into three albums. Tell us about your time with this group.
Susan: I met up - well actually we, my girlfriend, Vicki Peterson, who also plays guitar in The Bangles, who just recently - three years ago actually - became my actal sister-in-law by marrying my brother John. Anyway, she and I were hanging out doing nothing, up to no good, and we had gone into a club in Los Angeles called Raji's, stumbled on a group of nomadic gentlemen called The Continental Drifters. Now, the main guy who started the band and the guitar player, they had come from New Orleans, Louisiana. But they had moved to LA and had hooked up with a couple of LA musicians, Mark Walton, Gary Eaton, and Peter Holsapple, who subsequently became my husband. But, Vic and I just met up with the guys and we liked them and they were cute and they played really good music so we kind of made ourselves available at all times to be watching them. And then kind of nudged our way somehow into singing with them and the next thing you know, we're in the band and I guess was the master plan ultimately, because she was going out with Gary and I was going out with Peter. It was very Betty and Veronica. I don't think we really thought very much was going to come of it except for THAT. But low and behold, Peter and I got married, Gary and Vicki broke up, and we make our first record with The Continental Drifters. Then we all loaded up the truck and moved back to New Orleans. I got pregnant and the two guys from New Orleans wanted to go home, and we were all like game for adventure so we literally all moved, a bunch of Los Angelites, moved to New Orleans, Louisiana.
Host: Cool Worst things than that have gotten people to New Orleans. Glad you're there.
Susan: Yeah
Song: Someday
Host: You are listening to WeAreRadio's interview with Susan Cowsill. That was "Someday" by The Continental Drifters with Susan singing lead. Let's get back to the interview now. Some of your earlier work has been covered by band such as The Bangles and Hootie and The Blowfish. What did each of these bands cover of yours?
Susan: Well funny enough they covered the same song. Yeah, it's "The Rain Song." It was on the first Continental Drifters record, I think. And, I think, did the Hooties do it first? Yeah, the Hooties did it first. Did a wonderful job and then Vicki, who was in the Drifters, she wanted to do it too. So, the girls did it was well. Two very different versions.
Host: Let's listen to Hootie and The Blowfish do thier take on Susan's "The Rain Song"
Song: The Rain Song
Host: Who are the lucky members of your current group?
Susan: My husband, Russ Broussard, also co-writer, partner, is the best drummer EVER, anywhere and the combination of Aaron Stoup, Tad Armstrong and Russ is pretty powerful. It's literally the best band I've ever had and everybody says it.
Host: Let's listen to Susan and her bandmates perform "Gazebo" off of Just Believe It
Song: Gazebo
Host: Your latest and many say your most stunning musical feat is the album called Just Believe It. When did this body of work start to become a reality?
Susan: It started to become a reality during the Drifter days. At least two of the songs were started back then. But I wasn't ready to make a solo record yet. People been asking me when I was going to do that since I was 18, you know. And it's like "Don't you kind of have to live a whole life before you can write about it?" I mean I actually had, I suppose, but I didn't think that was a very interesting topic at the time. After The Continental Drifters broke up, I took a couple years off. And Russ and I actually, we went to work down on Bourboun Street in New Orleans, which is equalivant of a musicians day job. OK, it's like mind-less music, six sets a day, four days a week, incredibly crazy good pay, and it kind of enabled us to be at home with the kids, because we were starting a new life, and the kids were all kind of re-adjusting to our new lives and we just thought it was best to stop traveling for awhile. And we did that for about two years. And after about two years, it will start to zap your soul. That kind of day job. So, I guess it really just got to that place where it was like, "Well I guess it's now time." And we made a decision that January and we were in the studio by March and just all these songs ... it's funny because I'm not a prolific writer. I'm don't, I'm not all the time writing. But when I know I have a job ... when I know it's now, now, now is the time, boy everybody just gets all together and sits up straight in their desk and away we go. So that's when it happen. I'm VERY proud of that record. The bummer of it is that it came out two/three weeks after Katrina, so all the plans we had for it were not to be 'cuz we were driving around in a van evacuated from home, sending for our very souls. It's still a beautiful record, I think.
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You are listening to WeAreRadio's interview with Susan Cowsill. Let's get back to it now. On your new album, Just Believe It, Lucinda Williams lent a hand to the cut "Nanny's Song" How did you two come to work together?
Susan: Well I have known Lucinda for many years. We met - I think Peter actually introduced us somewhere down the line - and we kind of became buddies and then I didn't see her for a really long time. And then Nanci Griffith - she was doing Other Voices, Other Rooms II and had called me and ask me to come sing on that with The United States of America, who was also in the studio that day. And Lu was there so we kind of re-kindled our relationship. She's a very funny girl, very interesting woman. When I wrote "Nanny's Song" I could ... it's a very mournful, moanful. Acutally the chorus is literally Russ's grandmother moaning those words in her bed at the elderly person's home. That's what that is. And I just head Lucinda "moaning" and I called her and I ask her and I had to go to L.A. because she doesn't like to fly. So, we went out to L.A. and went to Jackson Browne's studio because he's a buddy of mine too and he gave me a freebie. Everybody was really like that when I was putting this record together 'cuz I've known a lot of really talented people through the years and all of them saying, "Why aren't you doing this?" and I was like, "Well I'm doing it so everybody - want to help out?" And it was great. Everybody "Yeah man, come on" Jackson was suppose to play piano on "Who Knows Where The Time Goes" but he had to go do a little political ralley against a President, so I didn't stop him.
Song: Nanny's Song
Host: Somebody else that jumped on the bandwagon was Adam Durtz front man of The Counting Crows. Tell us about what he did with you.
Susan: Let's see. Adam sang the harmony on "Palm Of My Hand" and Adam was a Continental Drifter fan and that's how we met him. He had came to a Jazzfest many years ago, more than I care to think right now and we were closing out the Bell South stage, as we used to do, and it was, we had a torrentual downpour. I mean three hours of frogs. But there were some diehards out there all in paperbags. There was probably eleven people standing in this rain and they let us play like four songs before they pulled it out. And one of them happen to be Adam. I didn't start out thinking, "I'm going to ask .." I mean I have a lot more people I could have ask, but these two songs, I heard their voices. So I thought, I mean it can't hurt to ask that's for sure, or I'd have Darius, I have a million, you wouldn't even hear me on that record if I ask all my friends to join me. It was really about hearing specific voices on specific songs.
Song: Palm Of My Hand
Host: That was "Palm Of My Hand" by Susan Cowsill off her album Just Believe It. Helping her with that cut was Adam Durtz of Counting Crows. Before that you heard "Nanny's Song" with a little help from Lucinda Williams.
Any albums of Cowsill originals in the works?
Susan: You know it's funny because I just talked to my brother Bob the other day about that possibility. It's possible. Right now we're just touring together. We started doing an oldies tour and then that kind of morfed into getting our own booking agent and we're doing our own shows now which is really fun. Russ and our bass player are the bass player and drummer for The Cowsills so we can kind of tag team out here on the road, which saves money and enables me to keep doing what I'm doing and then fill in Cowsill stuff. But we just talked about that about four days ago, so maybe.
Host: I understand you are planning a good will tour to Rwanda, Uganda, and Tanzania. What was your inspiration for such a journey?
Susan: Right before the storm we were founding actually a foundation, Just Believe It Foundation. I wanted it to be geared towards abused children and families because I'm familiar with that particular situation. And that never came to flourision because, like I said, we got derailed pretty heavily and it's taken almost all these years to really get back on track. We're just getting ready to make another record. But, what did occur, because I think you put something out there and the universe hears you and will provide what it is that you need, and we were contacted, first by a gentleman who worked for an organization called Brick by Brick in Tanzania. He was building pre-schools for kids in Rawanda and I can't remember how he found us but he did and Russ and I were like, "Oh God this .." He was like, "Would you, could you?" I was like "Oh yes" And Russ has always had a connection to Africa. He's a drummer. He would tell you, it's not a joke, he used to lie in bed and cry himself to sleep at night because he wasn't a little black boy in a band. It's what he will tell you. I'm telling you the truth. So, and then on the very heels of that, we just did a concert and raised $7200 so that's almost 2 little schools, which is great. And then on the heels of that, we ran into a wonderful woman, Georgianne Nienaber, who was in town doing articles on musicians. She had just come from Africa and needed a very big break. She does a lot of work with the genocide children. That kind of got the ball rolling and between Brick by Brick and Georgianne, we are looking to ... Our biggest problem is not once we get there, it's just getting ourselves there. We just have to figure out a way financially because we can't fly ourselves over obviously. We're musicians. But we are looking at different, creative ways. Trying to get a grant. John Kentworthy is starting a campaign for maybe miles, people donate miles. So we can go over there and play for the kids and possibly - in dream of dreams - cuz there is a lot of great little choirs and drums. These kids are amazing, I mean. When my friend Georgianne - those kids don't even have instruments. They don't have drums. That's not right, you know, and we were thinking it would be cool if we could put together like a little group and bring them over here. All in the name of bringing faces and real people. It's like Katrina. And a lot of times people will say to us like, "Why 'Africa? Why not your own backyard?"
Host: I feel exactly the same way. In addition to WeAreRadio, the reason we started WeAreRadio was to be able to promote WeAreCharities.com and inbetween the music, such as your music and everyone elses, we're going to tell the world about what we're doing. We are WeAreMusic.com and what we'd like to do with that, one of the ideas that we have on the horizen is music for the people, music for charities, where you would go to Africa. You would teach the children. You would get them instruments. Mark Bryan is involved with Carolina Studios here in town. Gets the children off the streets and into the recording studio. So if WeAreMusic.com can become a big umbrella for that, that's a dream of dreams for us.
Susan: I hear ya.
Host: That is one thing that we are working hard toward. WeAreCharities is growing every week. If you, or someone you know, is involved in a registered charity and would like that charity to benift from our Shop To Give program, email us at info@wearecharities.com. Let's change gears here a little bit. Girl when you want to, you can rock. "I Know You Know" of Just Believe It spells that out in black and white. This seems a departure from your norm, or what people have come to expect from you. Give us the back story on this song.
Susan: Umm OK yes I agree with you. And the funniest thing about "You Know I know," I don't, my songs take time. They don't just come out in one big bundle of joy, but that one did. It came out in a very odd way. I was reading emails one day and a woman had written to me about a song of mine called "Snow" and written me this beautiful email that her grandmother had an affinity towards this song and her grandmother had just passed and she'd spent the last two days with her grandmother singing her this song because it gave her great comfort. So, I was very overwhelmed by that. I was trying to answer the email and I couldn't do it. And so I thought I'll try and write. It's taken me and I'm going to try and sit down and write. And I was trying to write this other song and I couldn't do that either. It was all very up--- it blows my mind sometimes when I hear things like that. So I'm just sitting there and I'm going to watch All My Children instead. So I pop on the tube and there's Erin Kane. I'm like, "OK this is good." Nothing. Then like that, I just started raoomommomm, you know, the whole beginning of the song and the words, this perfect ____. I mean the drum ahtatata. I'm telling him (Russ) what to play on the drum. The whole thing just came in this huge thing. And the song is about, it's about everybody just get... we're all here together to be together and, you know, let's just be nice to each other. Let's get out of each others way. HE**, let's even help each other over. And that was pretty exciting because I was running behind. I felt like I just -- I went out and played. I'm like "I'm done, I'm done, I'm done" I get the thing down, I wrote the chords down and had this whole - I think I took myself to a movie I was so excited. And it was, I really need more songs like that because they are not my cerebral songs, but they live in there. My inter Joan Jett. So, that's the story behind that one.
Host: That's good
Song: You Know I Know
Host: Mark Bryan of Hootie and the Blowfish was our very first interview at WeAreRadio. He has great admiration for your work. What have you two done together?
Susan: Well first I'm going to tell you about how I met Mark. Back in 1993, I think it was '93, Miranda was just born, yeah. I was married to Peter Holsapple. We were living in New Orleans, Louisiana, and I got a phone call at my house one day and it was this guy, this kid, and he was asking for Peter. And he was like, I'm like "Hello" and he goes, "Um yes, is this uh, yes, uh I'm sorry. My name is Mark Bryan and uh I'm in a band, umm, by the name of Hootie and The Blowfish. Is this the Holsapple residence?" And I'm like, "Yes, and your what? I mean Hootie what?" They weren't, right? He was like, "Yes ma'am ah thank you very much yes umm is Peter there?" and I'm like "No, he's not." "Oh alright well um am I speaking with" and then he goes "Dang, I'm talking to Peter Holsapple's wife I'm sorry I'm sorry I'm sorry ma'am" (laughs) He was like, he was, "I'm sorry I'm a big fan of Peter's. Anyway, I have a band Hootie and The Blowfish and we'd really like for him to be in our band, so could you have him call me." I'm like "Sure, give me your number." It was hysterical. He was like trying to be so offical and then he just broke into this teen-aged "Oh Wow"-ness for a minute. Anyway that's how I met Markie. And then, as we all know, Peter joined the band not much later than that. I guess it was about six months and met the guys out on the road and Mark and I hit it off right away. Our first conversation, we were beginning to know each other, I'm like, "Well how old are you and when were your born?" He goes, "I was born in 1967." I said, "Wow that's the year I had my first hit." "NO WAY !!! God, you believe that. Somebody get in here." He was just like "That is unbelieveable man. That is unbelieveable." I was like, "You're so funny." Which it was now that I was sitting there thinking about it. I was feeling quite old. So, we've been buddies throughout all the Hootie years. We just kind of hit it off, Mark and I. Mark produced a couple of sides for what was going to be Just Believe It. One of them I can't say on the radio, he did the basic track for. And also the song on there "Christmastime" we had done a version of the "Christmastime" song. (background talk) OK my song "Talkin' S***" and we went to Allendall and recorded both of those. It was almost like demoing. And he was, you know, thinking of maybe producing it and he got busy and couldn't do it and so we went on to do it ourselves, but we have those tracks and we use alot of the basics for "Just Believe It." And, you know, I would not be suprised that someday, I mean I've sang on a lot of the Hootie stuff too. Mark is one of my sweetest brothers. He's my brother with the red hair.
Host: Another one of your brothers, Paul Sanchez, the former lead singer of New Orleans own Cowboy Mouth has a few projects with you under his belt. Tell us what you've done with Paul in the past and are there any projects on the horizen?
Susan: Weeellll, I've done many things with Paul. I've sang on a lot of his songs. He's a home boy from New Orleans. We have a Marti Gras crew along with 47 of our closest friends. Bikas. Did Markie tell you? Bikas Rules! We are the crew of Bikas. You should come down sometime. It's quite an experience. But Paul used to be in Cowboy Mouth as you know and he has done a lot of solo stuff and has ask me to sing on many of his songs. And I love to do it. He has a beautiful voice. But recently we've been doing this thing called 'The Paul Sanchez Rolling Road Show Review' or something 'Circus' something. And where is myself and Paul and another home boy friend of ours John Boute. And we all just get together and Paul kind of ring leads us through - and Russ, he plays too. He's the drummer for the show. It's pretty hysterical cuz it's all of our music combined. I'll do a couple of my things. John does a few of his. Paul does his. We do stuff together. We cut up. We laugh. We drink beer. We have fun.
Song: I Might As Well Go To Mexico
Host: So at this point in your life, who is Susan Cowsill?
Susan: Oh goodness. A mother first. A very appreciative human being to be on the planet. I love it here. I wouldn't trade anything that ever happen to me, ever, to not get a chance to be here. And I want to stay here as long as is humanly possible. And I want to share as much of my person and bring as much goodness that I can leave behind as possible. That's who I am.
Host: That my frinds was Susan Cowsill. What a pleasure to have here at Half-Bath Studios. She and the band stayed for another couple of hours enjoying the swimming pool and a couple of beers as they relaxed and got ready for thier show that night. We thank Susan Cowsill and the band for stopping by Half-Bath Studios.
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