Speaker Identification
Speaker 1 - Announcer
Speaker 2 - Catherine Nadal, Host
Speaker 3 - Phil Soussan, Guest
Speaker 4 - Song/Recorded Music Segment

Speaker 1 - Announcer:
This is Bringing the Darkness to the Light with Catherine Nadal, professional psychic medium. Today's guest is Phil Soussan, an English bassist, songwriter, and producer. He has released solo albums and is also widely known for his work with Billy Idol, Ozzy Osbourne, Vince Neil, Toto, and many others.

Speaker 2 - Catherine Nadal:
Phil, it is a pleasure to have you on.

Speaker 3 - Phil Soussan:
Thank you, Catherine. It is a pleasure to be here.

Speaker 2 - Catherine Nadal:
This is very exciting because I have followed a lot of the work you did when you were with Ozzy Osbourne. Obviously, The Ultimate Sin is, to me, one of the best albums associated with Ozzy. The song "Shot in the Dark" is one of those songs where, every time it comes on, I can literally see where I was when I first heard it. I am sure many fans tell you that. They can see where they were, who they were hanging out with, and what that whole time felt like. I am a chick from the '80s, and that was really my time.

Speaker 3 - Phil Soussan:
Yes, it was very much a bookmark-type moment. It was a milestone song for me as well. Any time people hear that song, they are taken back to that moment in time. More importantly, it is not just the song. It is what they were doing at the time, the concerts they were going to, how they were dressing, the company they were keeping, and the events they were living through.

I think that is a real test of what I consider a successful song, because it represents something to people beyond the song itself. It represents an era. It represents a time. For those reasons, I think it is very special, and I will always take that as a compliment.

Just over ten years ago, I was approached by David Lynch. I knew him through his daughter, Jennifer Lynch, because I had done work on one of her movies as a music editor. David introduced me to the TM Foundation he had put together, and they were looking for artists to participate. They had great people involved, including Donovan and many other big names. He asked if I wanted to be included, and I said absolutely.

I thought of doing my own cover version of "Shot in the Dark" and donating it. It came out on an album called Download for Good with about thirty other artists. We raised a lot of money. We helped troubled teens, people with PTSD, soldiers, people who had found themselves on the wrong side of the law, and students who were having a hard time studying. The project helped them learn TM, and it was remarkably successful. It did incredible good.

I recorded my own version of "Shot in the Dark." I played everything on it, and I remember using the drum part that Randy Castillo used to play on the road after we recorded it. Another cool thing was the guitar solo. It was going to match what Jake's solo was, but my friend Luis Maldonado said, "I want to play a solo on this," and he wanted to do it slightly differently. I said, "Okay, let's see how it comes out." He played it slightly differently, and it was fantastic. Luis is, of course, now the singer in Foreigner. We are all friends. We have worked together. He is an amazing guitar player, singer, and performer. He plays everything.

That is my long-winded story about how I came up with my own version of "Shot in the Dark."

Speaker 4 - Song/Recorded Music Segment:
A recorded performance of "Shot in the Dark" plays. The raw transcript included partial lyrics and repeated performance lines; the music segment is preserved here as a program-content marker.

Speaker 2 - Catherine Nadal:
It is interesting because I have listened to other interviews you have done, and I have read a lot about you. I have a lot of respect for you because you have often described how you had to step away when you did not get the agreement you wanted. I respect that because you seem to know exactly who you are as a person and what your value is, including all the hard work and creativity wrapped around you being Phil. I have heard you say that in multiple interviews. It is powerful when someone can tell the world, in their own way, "I know who I am."

Speaker 3 - Phil Soussan:
It is partly that, and it is also a very difficult question for people to ask themselves in all walks of life. We get into the pattern of doing something, whether it is working, making money, or whatever it happens to be. But people very seldom stop and ask themselves, "What is the end game here? What am I trying to do?"

If you are getting up, going to work, and doing it again the next day, that might be great. Maybe you love your work, and that is fine. But if you are doing it only to get to the next day or only to make money, maybe you are just kicking the can down the road. If there is something fundamentally that you want to do, you have to be honest with yourself.

In my case, it was great playing with people. But I had two motivations. First, I always wanted to be part of a band, not just a player in someone else's band. I was part of Ozzy Osbourne's band, of course, and I was very grateful for that. It was a special time in my life. But it was still Ozzy Osbourne's band, with whoever happened to be playing in it at the time.

The other thing was that I have always written a lot of songs. I write a ton of songs, and I have always wanted to perform those songs for people. If I could do that within a band, that would be great too. When I was working with Ozzy, I had a great deal of success and a wonderful time doing it. I was very grateful to Ozzy for the opportunity. That goes without saying.

But it got to a point where I wanted to stay in the band, keep contributing, and keep writing songs, but I also had to have a deal that I was happy with. I do not think that is unreasonable. Everyone has to have that kind of deal. I was not expecting anything crazy. I just wanted to feel good about it, and I was not able to make that deal.

At the same time, Billy Idol was asking if I wanted to do something and put something together. I thought, maybe it is time to do something different. I had done that, and if I was going to do the same thing all over again, maybe it was time to move on. No disrespect to Ozzy at all. I simply went on and did my thing, and he certainly did not need me. He had his own reputation and continues to have his own reputation. It was a timing thing, and I went on to work with many, many artists after that.

Speaker 2 - Catherine Nadal:
I looked at the list, and my mind was blown. Let us talk about Billy Idol first because he is another one of my favorites. I had heard that when you left Ozzy, you had worked on so much material that you were planning to do a second album with Ozzy. Did you bring that material to Billy, or where did those songs fit in?

Speaker 3 - Phil Soussan:
Not really. It is true that after we finished The Ultimate Sin and went home, I spent a lot of time writing. I set up a small recording studio in Sharon's office in London, and I would go in there every day and work on material. I had gathered a lot of ideas. It was not that I had written a whole album, but I had some really great ideas that, in my view, we would have developed together.

In the music business, there is something called publishing, which is the rights to your music. You get royalties from those things. It can be small amounts of money, but over many years that becomes, for want of a better word, your pension. I wanted to retain some of my rights. It was presented to me that this would probably not be possible, that I would have to relinquish all of it. I wanted to hang on to at least part of it. That was my red line.

Once I realized I was going to have to relinquish all my publishing, I said, "Maybe it is time to move on." I did take those songs with me, but I did not play them for Billy. I do not think they were really what we were doing. We started working straight away on new material. Some of those ideas came up much later on Vince Neil's first solo album. A lot of those songs were ideas originally developed during that Ozzy period.

Speaker 2 - Catherine Nadal:
I find the concept of songwriting so interesting. How does it come to you? When you were very young, did you realize you were into poetry or writing? Did you always feel lyrics rolling around in your head? Or was it more of a music thing, where you heard the notes first?

Speaker 3 - Phil Soussan:
You are bringing up the spirituality of writing and what goes through your mind and your psyche. It is not one or the other. Sometimes it is both.

From a very young age, I loved music. I heard music at home. The radio was on all the time. In the '60s, it was all British music, everything from the Beatles to many other artists. As soon as I started having my own musical preferences, it tended to be David Bowie, early glam rock, Mott the Hoople, and bands like that. On the other hand, it was also classic rock and blues-rock artists and bands, like Free, which later became Bad Company.

All of those things were going around in my head. I was thinking about it today while doing yard work because I was mentally humming a piece of music. It was a famous song, not my song, and I could not get it out of my head. I remember that happening all the time when I was a kid. I would hear a hook going around and around in my head, almost as if there were no volume control.

That is where I developed the idea of what a hook is. A hook is something so memorable and accessible that anyone can whistle it. A bus driver can whistle it. No disrespect to bus drivers, because there are excellent whistlers, but the point is that it relates to people.

I also played instruments from a very young age. I played childhood instruments until I was about ten. Then I started playing classical violin, and I played that for a long time. My background was in classical music. When I was eleven or twelve, I started messing around with guitars, and the rest is history.

Lyrically, it is interesting. As a kid growing up in England, we had comic books like The Beano, Cor!!, and other famous ones. One day I gave up my subscriptions to all of them for a magazine called Words. It came out once a month, and when you opened it, it had the top thirty songs on the charts with all the lyrics. I would read those lyrics, memorize them, and become fascinated with them.

Back then there was no Walkman, no iPhone, and no Spotify. You had a little AM radio, and you would sit there for hours waiting for a particular song to come on. I wanted to know all the lyrics to all the songs. That is how I spent a lot of time. So I think it was both music and lyrics.

Sometimes I write music first, and sometimes lyrics first. Sometimes lyric ideas come to you and you write them down. Then, when you are writing music, you realize those lyrics fit really well. Then you begin working them together. That is how it happens.

Speaker 2 - Catherine Nadal:
I love that because you are consciously aware of how it still happens for you. You have been at this a long time, but the process has not really changed. You had it as a young boy, and the same process stuck with you.

Speaker 3 - Phil Soussan:
It sounds good, but it can also be frustrating. Sometimes you are not inspired, and that can be very frustrating. Then, when inspiration comes, it comes on and will not go away. When you finish a song, the feeling is indescribable. It is elation. It is cathartic. You feel on top of the world. That makes it all worthwhile.

Speaker 2 - Catherine Nadal:
That brings us to the conversation we were having earlier. I wanted to talk about your first solo album, the first album you did by yourself. When did that come out, and what inspired you to put out your own work?

Speaker 3 - Phil Soussan:
When I had been working with different bands, there were always songs I was writing that were not necessarily going to be used by those bands. Maybe they were not appropriate or were not in the style of the project. I would put them aside and say, "One day I will put these on a record."

That first album was called Vibrate. It was an aggregation of songs written over a long period of time. It was a cool album for me because I got some of my favorite people to guest on it. There were fantastic players on it. Simon Phillips and Gregg Bissonette played drums. Steve Lukather and Shane Fontayne played guitars. Steve Porcaro played keyboards. It was an opportunity to cast songs the way you cast a movie or TV show, except I was casting them with my favorite musicians. I had a blast making that record.

Speaker 2 - Catherine Nadal:
Another song I wanted to bring up is "No Protection." Tell me more about that.

Speaker 3 - Phil Soussan:
"No Protection" came from my second solo album. The difference between the second album and the first was that the first was a collection of songs written over a long period of time, while the second album was written all in one go. It was a moment in time for me.

I had gone through the sobering experience of losing a parent. The record was not directly about that, but it was like a snapshot. You stop and say, "Hang on a second. Where am I? Where do I live? What have I done? What is in the past? What is in the future?"

The title "No Protection" has nothing to do with anything salacious. It has to do with the fact that none of us have protection from the movement of time. As John Lennon said, life is what happens while you are making other plans. Time goes on. We do not have protection against that. We have to go along with it.

So that record was about looking at different aspects of what was around me and putting them into thoughts and songs. The opening track is about that moment when you realize we are all mortal.

Speaker 2 - Catherine Nadal:
When you reflect on losing a parent, that is your first experience of having protection. A parent can be a representation of protection, so losing that can feel like losing the protection you were born into.

Speaker 3 - Phil Soussan:
Yes. That first track was also inspired somewhat by my friendship with Randy Castillo, who passed away. Randy was the drummer in Ozzy, and he was probably my closest lifelong friend. He had a terrible battle with cancer. That inspired the song too - the thought of, "Hold on, we are all going to live forever, right?" Then one day you realize that is not how it works. Losing my dad also forced me to stop, look around, and evaluate everything. Not criticize it, but take a snapshot and put a marker down.

Speaker 2 - Catherine Nadal:
I am glad you mentioned Randy because I have heard you speak about him before. One thing I remember you saying was that you and Randy would sit outside venues together. It was just being in his company, and that is where the friendship grew.

Speaker 3 - Phil Soussan:
We became friends long before we played together in Ozzy. I was good friends with Lita Ford. They were living in London, and that is how I met Randy. We hit it off and became friends back then. It was maybe three years later that we ended up playing together in Ozzy, which was amazing.

It is great to be in any band with your best friend. We were inseparable. Sharon called us the Righteous Brothers. On days off we hung out together; on work days we hung out together. After I left the band, he was upset. I do not know whether he did not get it or whether he got it, but I had my reasons. I wanted to investigate something more. He took it personally, like I was leaving the band and should have stayed because we were friends. I appreciated that, but we stayed friends for years afterward. We worked on projects together. We had a production company at one time.

He was a great guy. His stuff is all over the place. One of his paintings is here, and there is an executive order from the city of Albuquerque, New Mexico, where they have Randy Castillo Day. I do not think a day goes by that I do not have some kind of mental conversation with him.

Speaker 2 - Catherine Nadal:
That is a beautiful memory. We are going to play "No Protection" now.

Speaker 4 - Song/Recorded Music Segment:
A recorded performance of "No Protection" plays. The raw transcript included partial lyrics; the music segment is preserved here as a program-content marker.

Speaker 2 - Catherine Nadal:
Earlier, you and I spoke about so many collaborations you have done over the years - Vinnie Appice, Joe Lynn Turner, George Lynch, and so many others. Out of all the people listed in your bios, which one surprised you or gave you something in your music that you were not expecting? Did anyone change your outlook on life or your way of making music?

I found that in the military. I had a preconceived idea of someone, and then when I actually worked with them, I realized they were a pleasant surprise and a really cool person. In my mind, I had made them into something else.

Speaker 3 - Phil Soussan:
I have been very blessed and fortunate to play with remarkable people. Every single person I have played with has brought something remarkable. Sometimes I had to pinch myself, whether it was Ozzy, Billy Idol, or the people around them. The first time I played with Jimmy Page was incredible.

Every person has brought something to my private banquet of inspiration. Playing with Steve Lukather was remarkable because Steve is an incredible musician. It was an education. We had a band with Brett Tuggle, who sadly is no longer with us, Gregg Bissonette, Steve, and me. Gregg and I would go out for lunch and talk about technical drumming things, polyrhythms, and musical ideas, and that night we would try some of that stuff out in the concert. I learned so much about my craft playing with Steve and Gregg.

I learned a lot about connecting to an audience from playing with John Waite. John is an amazing front man and singer. Through his phrasing, you watch an audience become magnetized and drawn in. It is not done with theatrics or stage effects. It is done by communicating through phrasing, through the music, and through what you are singing.

I would spend time watching everyone I played with and learning from them. Everyone has brought something incredible to the experience table. I am very much in awe of all these people, and I feel honored to have worked with them.

Speaker 2 - Catherine Nadal:
I am sure they feel the same about you because you are also a tremendous musician. When you mentioned John Waite, I have seen him live many times. There is something about him. He will start talking about a cafe and how he started to write a song. All of a sudden he is telling the story, and then he just goes into playing it. There is something unique in that vibration.

Speaker 3 - Phil Soussan:
That, to me, is the thing about music. It connects with people. Whatever style it is, it connects, and that connection is what I find most exciting. I love playing a crazy show and all of that, but at the heart of it you have to connect with your audience. It is all about the audience.

If there were no audience, there would be no artist experience. There is the artist, there is the audience, and there is a song that connects the two. That is how it works. We do this for our audience. When an audience loves what we do and connects to it, and then you add pyrotechnics, stage antics, lighting, and everything else, that is what creates the magic. I might be wrong, but I really believe that.

Speaker 2 - Catherine Nadal:
So many musicians have said the same thing. If it were not for the audience, there would not be a stage to stand on. It is the support of the audience that keeps the music going, album after album.

Speaker 3 - Phil Soussan:
Exactly. We should never lose sight of that. I am very grateful to the fans. We have some of the best fans in the world. It is great seeing the same faces again. There is a familiarity, like, "Great to see you again."

Speaker 2 - Catherine Nadal:
You definitely have a following. I wanted to mention another song, "Fly Again."

Speaker 3 - Phil Soussan:
"Fly Again" is a song that will be on my upcoming album. It was written about two years ago, and it has a beautiful message. It is a message of encouragement for someone who needs encouragement and then succeeds. They needed help, and it worked. They managed to move on.

Anyone can relate to it, because anytime you try to help a friend and it works out, it brings more meaning and feeling to your own life. To me, the meaning of life is making a difference in someone else's life. You can do lots of cool things for yourself, but when you do something meaningful for someone else, you walk away feeling better than ever because you helped somebody.

The song is about helping. Without being too specific, it is about having a friend who needs help, taking time out of your day, and helping them. They will be grateful, and you will be incredibly happy.

Speaker 2 - Catherine Nadal:
I understand that. Something you tucked in there is that doing something for someone else can make you feel better. In friendships, people often say, "I am really glad you hung in there with me." When times are tough, that is the proof that someone is a true friend. It is easy to walk away or say, "Call me when things are better." The true friend walks the path with someone.

Speaker 3 - Phil Soussan:
Yes. There is no greater spiritual reward, no better feeling, no greater catharsis than helping somebody else. If you help someone else, it helps them, but it also comes back to you in a huge way. You feel like you have done something spectacular. I wish more people would think that way.

Speaker 2 - Catherine Nadal:
I agree. We are going to play "Fly Again" now.

Speaker 4 - Song/Recorded Music Segment:
A recorded performance of "Fly Again" plays. The raw transcript included partial lyrics; the music segment is preserved here as a program-content marker.

Speaker 2 - Catherine Nadal:
Before we play the last song, I wanted you to mention your upcoming album that is planned for release. Give us the goodies, because your fans will be looking for it.

Speaker 3 - Phil Soussan:
I started writing this album about a year ago. Last in Line was taking a hiatus, as everyone knows, so we took some time off. During that time, I was not sure what I was going to do. I considered going out with a band short term, but nothing was really out there that I wanted to do. Then I thought, let me take some time and write for myself.

The last few years playing with Last in Line had been about creating albums as a band, which has been fantastic. But it meant that I had not done much songwriting on my own for a while. After the first or second song came together, I got on a roll and wrote fifteen or sixteen songs.

I recorded them as I wrote them. I would record a part to see if it worked, put guitar down, try a bass part against it, and then change the guitar part if I needed to. In that process, once I had the song how I wanted it to sound, it was already recorded, so I did not need to rerecord it.

I sent the songs around like I normally do, and two labels were interested. I was very pleasantly surprised. One of the labels said they really wanted to work with me on it, and that was BraveWords Records. We signed a deal together. We are going to release it not as one album, but as three EPs, like a trilogy.

The first one comes out in September. I just finished a video for the first single, and we have been working on artwork and all the other things that have to be done when releasing an album. There is a lot of material that has to be prepared so all the assets are in place. Today, I am doing final mastering on the first four songs, making sure they sound exactly how I want them to sound. It is very exciting.

Speaker 2 - Catherine Nadal:
That sounds exciting. How does it differ from your first two albums? Does it have its own identity and sound?

Speaker 3 - Phil Soussan:
Yes. My first albums were really recorded for myself. I wanted to put the songs out there. I did not publicize them much, although the second one was signed to Favored Nations, which was Steve Vai's label. I just wanted to put them out.

This is more of a legitimate band. I have put together a fantastic band. There is a modern hard edge that goes through these songs. They still have a lot of commerciality, but they are much tougher. I think people who know my work with Ozzy or Last in Line will relate to these songs because of that harder edge. It was fun doing something like this.

Speaker 2 - Catherine Nadal:
Tell us about your social media, websites, and how people can reach out and stay in touch so they can see this upcoming album.

Speaker 3 - Phil Soussan:
Instagram is PhilSoussan, all one word. Bandsintown is important for me as well; find me there by looking for my name. I do have a website, though I do not think I have maintained it in a while. No one maintains their websites anymore, do they?

Speaker 2 - Catherine Nadal:
I do. I put all the radio shows on mine.

Speaker 3 - Phil Soussan:
My website is philsoussan.com. If you go there, some of the historical stuff is pretty cool. It has the records I have played on, although I need to update it. There have been a bunch of projects. We talked about Carmine Appice, as opposed to Vinnie Appice, because they are brothers. I have done a lot of stuff with Carmine over the last two years, at least five projects together. I love playing with both of those guys. They are very different, and I love playing with them.

I am sure we will be doing a lot with BraveWords. They have a fantastic media team, so there will be a lot of material coming out. Those are probably the easiest ways to find me.

Speaker 2 - Catherine Nadal:
Thank you to Michael Brandvold, who set up this interview and introduced us. We are going to roll out the interview with the last song, "Water's Edge." Tell us about it.

Speaker 3 - Phil Soussan:
"Water's Edge" is a song about someone going through a really hard time. It could be anybody going through a hard time. It is about realizing that it is all in the way they feel and the way they think. You can turn a bad time around. You can rise above it.

Speaker 2 - Catherine Nadal:
Absolutely. I am very inspired after meeting you because you are a very soulful person. I look forward to your upcoming album. Thank you again.

Speaker 3 - Phil Soussan:
Thank you very much, Catherine. Thank you.

Speaker 2 - Catherine Nadal:
Thank you again for doing the interview. We are going to roll out with "Water's Edge."

Speaker 4 - Song/Recorded Music Segment:
A recorded performance of "Water's Edge" plays. The raw transcript included partial lyrics; the music segment is preserved here as a program-content marker.

Speaker 1 - Announcer:
You have been listening to Bringing the Darkness to the Light with Catherine Nadal, professional psychic medium. Dream Central Station, LLC. Audio editor: Al Hemberger at The Loft Recording Studios in Bronxville, New York. This is WNEW 102.7 FM Radio.