John Beaudin - Hi Dan, thanks for taking the time to talk to me. I appreciate it.

Dan Peek - No problem John. I'm glad we're connecting.

John - I enjoyed reading your on-line book on your website www.danpeek.com . It's a great way to find out what was in your head as this huge rock band was taking off. Do you ever feel like it was just a big dream?

Dan - You know when I do look back I think of how much of an amazing ride it's been. It has spanned several decades from the late until now. I was a witness if not part of one kind of musical Cultural Revolution.

John - Yeah, that singer songwriter acoustic feel was so huge and still very relevant.

Dan - Yeah and the Vietnam thing and all that stuff was going on. We were kids and could have been drafted and it came close. We could have fought and could have died and now it's dejavu all over again in some ways. (laughing) It amazes me sometimes as to how long this ride has been. I'm forever grateful that people remember America and championed the band and people like yourself who have supported us forever. So God bless you and thank you sir.

John - Well, it's been easy to support the music. It's still strong today. It's interesting that it was your brother Tom who contacted me after I posted the interview with Gerry Beckley on this site. I notice that your musical career started with Tom and now everything's come full circle and now he's doing your website. He designed it, right?

Dan - Yes he did in fact, he's been in the computer field forever and he's been on the cutting edge of the website revolution. It's been really gratifying working with him because he's got a lot of sensibilities that I've forgotten about. We just grew up as kids together and started playing guitar. I guess I was ten or eleven and he was a couple of years older and we learned together kind of like a Lennon/McCartney kind of thing the way we learned as musicians and dabbled with songwriting. At this real pivotal time in my life he went his way which was the military and I got very, very lucky and fell into the music business. I was trying as hard as I could to get into it. It's just one of those things that's like Alice in Wonderland if you happen to find the right rabbit hole you're there but it's tough to do. So for years Tom and I had lost touch and now as you said it's kind of come full circle and he and I have written and recorded some stuff together. On my next project which is still a ways off to be polished, finished and released, we did one called "South of the Border" and we recorded an old Rolling Stones tune so it's really been a breath of fresh air working with him again.

John - Being your older brother he must have influenced you a lot musically?

Dan - Yeah. Tom was probably the world's greatest Beach Boys fan and if there was a band that really influenced me it was the Beach Boys. I was still a little bit young to "Catch the Wave" so to speak but with Tom it was a non stop Beach Boys-athon around our place. Their harmonies and their grasp of the power of the human voice when combined and their great lyrical sensibilities and their commercial touch and how they could just grab you with a hook. Today their music is still powerful and crossed so many generational barriers. My wife came back the other days with "Summer" I think it was called The Beach Boys greatest hits and I was weeping (laughing) half way through with the great memories of that music. So, I'll be eternally forever grateful to him for turning me into a beach Boys fan.

John - I don't know if we're talking the same compilation but I just spotted a new one here in Canada but it didn't have my favorite Beach Boys tune "Sail on Sailor."

Dan - Great, great song. You know that incarnation of the band with Ricky Fataar and his brother so again there was that brother thing and of course the Beach Boys were brothers. So, there was that amazing thing that happens sometimes with siblings and the music really resonated to that. I love that album. (Holland released in 1973)

John - You know the first time I heard it I didn't know it was the Beach Boys.

Dan - Yeah, no kidding.

John - I've heard some musicians talk about a past where they moved a lot as children and how it helped them get used to touring. You moved a lot at a very young age. How was it for you?

Dan - You know John, it was hard in some ways and then again it was a double-edged sword. We would see some of the most fascinating things in Pakistan, Japan and Greenland. We would be exposed to these very diverse cultures.

John - But Dan were you aware of that at that age. Were you noting that maybe you should pay attention to all of it?

Dan - I think I really was John. I was cataloging it as best I could and fascinated by it all. Of course, it wasn't always pleasant but I think it all went into the mix. The nomadic life I think in some ways prepared us for touring but touring to me began to be grating because I think we did it a bit too much at one point. I think you have to find that balance. I know acts should be wanting to go out and play.

John - America got pretty big, pretty fast. How could you slow down touring?

Dan - Yeah, you have to and you want to as well. It's a conundrum and travel in general can feed a creative part of you but what you used to get me is sometimes I wanted an instant payback so every time we went on the road I wanted to write a great road song. I wanted to get that out in spite of all the other great things you do as a touring musician which is keep yourself in the public eye and you make contact with the people who like your music. That's the most special part. That's really where it gets real but the wear and tear on your body, mind and soul because of the mileage. It's not anything else it's just the mileage but later on I've learned to turn it into something positive kind of like Judo where you take what could be a negative experience and turn it into a positive. So, maybe I didn't write that great road song but you write something with a depth of emotion that maybe you never would have felt without having gone those miles.

John - You know when I was listening to your album "Driftin' and Tales from the Lost Islands" I found myself literally drifting a little, it really has a vacation feel. That's a real travel album so I guess your still working on that road song.

Dan - Totally. I'm glad you got that and in a way that's what I meant. There's a song on there called "Going to Hawaii" which is maybe my favorite song on the album for many reasons. First off, I was fortunate enough to spend my honeymoon in Hawaii and we recorded our last album as America in Hawaii.

John - Oh yeah, "Harbor."

Dan - It was recorded on the island of Kauai. It's such a special place and a blessing to even go there. Having been there many, many years ago I haven't been back for a long time but that whole thing was so imprinted on me. I was just daydreaming and thinking on how much I'd love to go to Hawaii. So I wrote that song thinking of things that happened to me maybe twenty years ago. In fact I just celebrated my thirty year anniversary so it was 30 years ago. I guess in some ways I wanted to be a Thoreau of the musical world on that album and document the miles, the trials, the tribulations, the happy times and it is. It's a sun, sand and surf album. It's a vacation and holiday and sailing album.

John - And you did Christopher Cross's "Sailing." I enjoyed your version. It's certainly not as polished as the original but I like the rawness of it.

Dan - Thank you. Christopher Cross of course has written some tremendous songs and "Sailing" is certainly one of them. I'm a person who loves the water. I'm a water baby and I'm looking at one of the great lakes as we speak. I'm just totally enchanted by the water.

John - Where are you tonight?

Dan - The upper Peninsula of Michigan. Some great lakes are coming together at this particular spot. It's a spectacular thing to be looking at. I like watching the boats out there sailing and they're all going out to someplace exciting and it's all fresh, great and romantic and I wanted to put all of that into that record. "Driftin'" is probably my favorite album I've ever done. It has a lot of personal meaning to it and it sounds like you got the vibe.

John - Tell me about the tune "Coconut Tree?"

Dan - Well, it's not as simple as being about a coconut tree. In a sense I was using the tree as a metaphor for something strong and natural and healthy. The coconut tree gives food to people it gives shade and shelter to people. It's a strong tree and doesn't need to be fertilized or need chemicals it's just there. One of God's great creations is the coconut tree. I would kind of look at these things on a daily basis and say, "What a marvel, what an amazing thing, I'd like to be strong and tall like a coconut tree and withstand the storms of life." I'd like to offer shade and support in life and be a good person. So the coconut tree sort of symbolizes that.

John - And there found in a place where a lot of people want to be. (laughing)

Dan - (laughing) Amen to that.

John - Do you know if Gerry (Beckley) or Dewey (Bunnell) ever listen to your solo stuff? Do you guys communicate at all?

Dan - You know it's really been few and far between the last few years and of course they are very busy touring and they have their own complex lives I'm sure. (laughing) My life gets more complicated on a daily basis. I know for a fact we think about each other a lot.

John - Dan, you guys are okay with each other, right?

Dan - Oh yeah, absolutely. In some ways I may have stirred up a hornets nest with my online autobiography but it was all meant with love and forgiveness. We all get into situations sometimes where we're all not doing the best we can and maybe not being the best we can be with each other. We were kids back then and we loved each other but at the same time we tormented, hurt and harassed each other.

John - When I read about the friction you had with Gerry, specifically for instance, I took it as you telling us that's how you felt at the time.

Dan - Exactly, not today but back then. In a way it was terribly painful and in some ways I wish I hadn't written any of the more painful episodes but at the same time I thought geez if I'm going to do this I have to take the lid entirely off this box of whatever it is that happened. It goes from the beginning of the band, before the band and up to and including the band disintegrating or my leaving the band. It's still America now though. Even without me.

John - I'm sure you had to leave a lot out.

Dan - Believe me there's lots I left out and I could write a whole other book.(laughing) In the same sense I wish I hadn't said some things, I also wish that some of those things hadn't happened. Everything was so intense at the time it was just a great wonderful mixture of love but there's a friction that happens with anyone that's 24/7 together. Everyone is creative but everyone has an ego and everybody wants to be number one in a sense and I'm chief sinner among everybody. I'm an egomaniac you have to be in this business.

John - I noticed in your writing that you said that a lot. I could almost hear you think I felt when you gave a juicy tidbit about Gerry or Dewey you would try to balance it out by saying, "They were only human" and you also were guilty of the same thing.

Dan - Exactly. I hope that people like it in the sense of what formed the band, the crucible that really created us. The things that made us strong and the things that made us weak. The things that made us laugh and cry. The music lives on, the three fold quart will never be broken and the two of them are going on and I admire them. They're tough. I got out really because I couldn't take it anymore. I'm a wimp compared to them so I admire and respect both of them so greatly and it was such an amazing honor and privilege to be with them. To see them work and see what they would write and how we would take it and shape it together as a team. The whole experience was amazing and barely a day goes by that I don't think of some aspect of my life with Dewey and Gerry and being in America. (voice cracking)

John - When I talked to Gerry I asked him if he was sick of talking about you and he said not at all. Do you think you three will ever get back together?

Dan - Well, you know I would like to think it could, I really would. I guess I'm a dreamer but maybe unrealistic in some senses. You know some people wrote in and said that you have to be careful in burning bridges concerning the online book. One guy wrote in and said, "You didn't just burn the bridge you nuked the bridge." (laughing) In a sense I want to say there is no bridge, wait a minute, there's no bridge to burn here. When I left, the bridge disappeared in a sense. Yet I'm a believer in the power of music as a healer, as a unifier, as a tonic, as a panacea. There's still a romantic part of me deep inside that would love to see and here the three of us get back together at least once and make music.

John - Since you left America hasn't there ever been a time when a reunion at least came close to happening? Did you guys at least talk about it?

Dan - You know there was a time where I got some calls from people who said that it was happening which was really kind of jarring because in the final analyses when it didn't happen I think it left a bad taste in everybody's mouth. It was a situation where one day I got a call right out of the clear blue sky and the person who I won't name said, "Hey, a deals been put together where you, Dewey and Gerry make an album together. We we're going to use a very well known producer, not George (Martin) but an American producer guy of very high caliber." The whole thing was laid out but at the last minute some people pulled out. (laughing) It wasn't me so it didn't happen. In some ways maybe it was the thing that prodded me to write the book. I just wanted to clear the air once and for all. I thought if we are going to get back together then let's just do it. I don't think it would have hurt. If we can't make this thing happen with the resources put forward to try to get us back together than I just don't know. There were people jumping through hoops and making the phone calls and got favors done so on and so fourth. When it didn't materialize I thought it's time to pull the band aid off this thing clear it up and get fixed.

John - Well, I'm not here to pick sides and I really enjoyed talking with Gerry. I thought he was a good guy. I do know some people just love reunions. On some subconscious level I think fans like it when bands get back together. It's a reflection of where we are at and our relationships in love and marriage. I think it makes us feel good whether it helps the guys in the band. Well, that another thing.

Dan - Absolutely. You know I've not been through a divorce but it has to be tremendously painful. In my marriage we have survived some tremendous storms. It's a painful situation when you lose loved ones for whatever reason but yes that thought of wanting it to be whole again is really a universal thing.

John - We all know you left after the "Harbor" album that was released in 1977 but at what point did you really want to leave?

Dan - Probably a year to six months before.

John - It was still in the "Harbor" stage though, right?

Dan - Yeah. You know it's funny because the name harbor has so many levels of meaning. It's the place you go to as you arrive and it's also the end of a journey or the beginning of new journeys. So, it was significant since at that stage it felt like the end in a lot of ways. I think there were extremely personal and delicate things that broke the camels back but it all came to a head right around the time of the "Harbor" album.

John - Did you find your spiritual base while you were with America or did that come after you left?

Dan - It was at the end of the America thing. You know I'm a malcontent guy sometimes, the grass is always greener.

John - (laughing) Welcome to the club.

Dan - (laughing) Yeah. You know I was at a stage where I was asking, "What else can there be here?" I was in this gigantic group we had all this success. I've garnered all these things and done all this stuff but inside I was really empty and miserable. It was one of those things where you can't explain why and I don't want to sound ungrateful I wasn't ungrateful and I'm still not. Well, I guess maybe I was a little and God showed me later on how ungrateful I had been because at one point he took everything away.

John - Really?

Dan - Honestly, there was a day in my life where I looked out of my window in a sense and it was all gone, everything, the whole shooting match, the career, the houses and the cars. Our house burnt down in a horrible forest fire.

John - Your house burnt down?

Dan - Yeah and all this stuff happened at the same time. It was like a divorce at the same time that I left the band everything was tied up in the breakup of the marriage essentially. We put our house up for sale, I was leaving California and my insurance agent called me up and said, "We've had a lot of fire around here lately, you may want to up your insurance." I thought well we're getting out of here so there's nothing to worry about. A month later they had the worst forest fire they ever had in the State wiped us out. There were actually eighteen separate fires. They called it Black Monday because it burnt so much. (laughing) Suddenly, I don't have a house and I'm out of the band.

John - Were you covered for the value of your house though?

Dan - We were insured but in that kind of catastrophe your insurance is only as good as the company that rights it. Frankly, we went with a fly by night company and it took me over a year of daily phone calls with me saying, "Hey I need the money here, I like to eat." So be careful who you sign on the dotted line with. When you're part of something that's so catastrophic things get destroyed I think a dozen insurance companies went under.

John - I've had those situations where I've gone through relationship break ups and then my car breaks down and I'm broke and someone gets sick and you just want to do one of those talking to God movies scenes like Lieutenant Dan in Forest Gump and say, "Is that the best you can do" or just yell "What do you want from me!"

Dan - You know John in a strange way it was like a release. I had reached a point where I had pushed every button and filled every hole you can possibly fill as a human being and I realized the vanity of the whole thing and the frustration of the whole thing. So no amount of anything is going to fill that void that I had. So I got down on my knees and prayed to God for him to make me whole I don't need all this stuff. Obviously, it wasn't helping me. It's not doing what it's supposed to do. So as I was praying I was saying, "I'm going to put my faith in you and you can make me whole." So, a month later it was all gone and I realized God has essentially answered me. He was saying do you need me or do you need that. So I guess I didn't need any of it. I felt more free than I'd ever felt. It was really God's way of not only testing but proving to me that if you put your faith in him you can walk through the valley

John - Yeah, well when it's happened to me I've always though when a snake shed it's skin it's all going baby. (laughing) A whole new life!

Dan - There you go, you don't put new wine in old wine skins. When a snake sheds its skin it's a brand new beginning. You're absolutely right.

Part Two - Posted September 25, 2003

John - So this went down before your first solo album "All Things Are Possible," right?

Dan - Yeah, it was before and in fact it's probably what inspired it. I was writing "All Things Are Possible" before the fire and I remember sitting at the piano looking out at the clear blue sea. The America breakup had happened and I had a lot of problems with other things that were happening in my life and so I was just desperate and crying out for help. So I sat down on the piano and it came out "When you turn misty blue I have my eyes on you. Good things will come true just believe in your heart. There's nothing there too much for you just keep me in your heart." It was melded in the crucible of pain, suffering and weirdness and questioning what we all go through on a daily basis yet trusting in this almighty God that he can make these things work.

John - When I talked to Gerry I really wanted to let him know about which songs of his really made a difference in my life and now that I have you here, I have to tell you I loved that first record. My first thought when I listened to it was there he is!

Dan - I made it through, it's a miracle. (laughing)

John - I think a lot of America fans were curious as to how you were doing. I think they were looking for you and that debut album was a great chance to get reacquainted.

Dan - I was looking for you too. (laughing)

John - Looking back at "All Things Are Possible" are you still happy with it?

Dan - Very much so. It was a labor of love. I think I took the making of it more seriously then anything I had done up until then. You know Dewey and Gerry are very, very good at what they do. Gerry especially is a fanatic about getting things done right so I think he drove us to do things as well as we could do. He had this amazing work ethic and hopefully we inherited it and shared it. "All Things are Possible" was not a departure from that but it was produced by someone else even though I wanted to do the whole thing myself. It was just such an undertaking to go from this America genre to an entirely new genre, to write things with a completely different focus. I really wanted to bring Pop sensibilities to gospel music and at that time it was beginning to be called Christian music.

John - It's a long time ago but I seem to remember you getting pretty good reviews for that album.

Dan - It was very gratifying. The response from the radio community on a very personal level was so overwhelming, in fact, that's what kept me going. That's why it's important to hear you tell me that my music was important to you. That means so much to me. That means more to me than reading a review because when you connect on that personal level that's what it's all about because we all share these same experiences. I think we feed off each other's work. You know, I'm one of the biggest music fans out there. Music is such a huge part of my life I think sometimes other music fans forget that we who make it are also big fans.

John - The fans I think can forget that when you meet a musician that you really admire you feel the same way we do.

Dan - Yeah, you went to school with them. They are the people that you imitated to get the sound that you ultimately come up with yourself and that really is just an amalgamation of all the people you admire. It's people whose chops you copy and licks that you steal. (laughing)

John - Are there some meetings that stand out for you?

Dan - I had the pleasure of meeting Bob Hope, John Wayne and Paul McCartney. They are probably the top three people that I can think of that I admired and they were the nicest people. They made you feel so at ease and that's a gift and I think that's what makes them great. It's easy to snub people and put them down and try to make yourself better at someone else's expense but I think the people who really shine and survive are people like Bob Hope, Paul McCartney and John Wayne. They were people people.

John - I love that picture of Gerry, Dewey and you with Bob Hope and John Wayne from the special that you did.

Dan - It was such a thrill!

John - How did you feel when you found out that Bob Hope just passed away?

Dan - You know when I was a young kind growing up we lived on Bob Hope movies. I lived in upstate New York and got snowed in quite a bit so we had our black and white TV and thank God one of the old local stations there aired a lot of the old road movies. This was a guy who came on every week and did all these things and he had all his specials and he went to war zones. When we lived overseas in Japan he visited the airbase that we were on and my father got to go out and greet him. My father was in the military and part of the official greeting party. Bob Hope personified America in a way. He was certainly the grand daddy of comedy of all time and just a brilliant human being.

John - You did the special with him around the "Hearts" era, right?

Dan - Yeah, it sure was. We had just finished the "Hearts" album and "Sister Golden Hair" was the first release and we had secured this spot on the Bob Hope Special and I think in some ways it was the pinnacle. How much higher can we get than this? Flip Wilson was on the show and Aretha Franklin, all the greats in their field and here we are all on stage working together, goofing around and doing skits. We were backstage and people are powdering your face, handing you coffee and it's, "Yes sir and no sir." So yes, it was like this can't get any better than this.

John - Speaking of that era, I'm a drummer and I remember trying to drum to "Woman Tonight" and I was humbled as a young drummer. (laughing) That crazy off beat.

Dan - It was Gerry that came up with that. He dropped the first beat of the measure and it created a real herky-jerky feel and it was my first attempt at Reggae. Dewey played what I think is called the bag; it's an electrical thing that gets attached to the guitar. It takes your voice and morphs it into a screaming wa-wa kind of a thing and it worked so well. We did that song in one take. We went in and bang it was over.

John - Another one of your tunes on that album that I liked was "Half a Man" It's kind of a rocker for America.

Dan - Yeah, it's a rocker. (laughing)

John - My first impression of that song was is this a new direction?

Dan - You know the acoustic thing was such a big part of it and it's hard to escape that. It's like you have to make a decision, are we ZZ Top or the Eagles. If you try to go too far one way maybe people won't go with you. I gave the rock thing a shot and "Half a Man" was my shot at it. (laughing)

John - How did you guys decide whose songs got on albums?

Dan - It was a lot of weeding, pleading, cajoling (laughing) and humoring. It was tough because we each wanted to participate equally. If you have a handful of songs that you think are very strong and you want the whole world to hear them it's hard to hear, "Sure that's a great song, let's save it for the next record." The three of us were trying to weddle it down to what was the best of everybody's stuff so it was a challenge. Gerry at one point was writing a song a day and everybody goes through their wet and their dry spells. So I could be going through some horrible spell and Dewey is ready to lose his touch and then next thing you know it all comes back. America had an interesting dynamic in some ways we fed on each other musically, lyrically and just look at what we sang about. There was a lot of interpersonal material that was aired in some ways in code. We were not only commenting on the human condition but the condition of the band.

John - I remember Lindsay Buckingham in the seventies was commenting on Rumors and whoever was talking to him was mentioning the fact that almost the whole damn album is about the interpersonal relationships within the band and he said something like, "Hello, like this is the first time this has happened?"

Dan - (laughing) Exactly. I think the Beatles did it, everybody did it. You write by what inspires you and the things that inspire you are the things that make you really happy or really sad. It's about those extreme emotions. So, who do you love and sometimes hate more than your loved ones? It's the ones that are really near you. They are the ones that pull at your heartstrings the most.

John - Yeah, they pull out the worst and the best out of you.

Dan - Exactly.

John - I know with America you had worked with Cat Stevens. It's interesting that both of you had left the old rock world behind and found your own separate form of spirituality. Have you talked to him since he became Josef Islam?

Dan - I haven't seen him in maybe twenty-five years. Back then we had done this long tour with him all over Europe so we got to know him fairly well. I loved his music, again there's that fan thing. We would go out in the audience and listen to him every single night. We loved everybody in the band and we loved what he did. When we got back to the U.S. everything got busy and you didn't want to look back. I don't think it's because we wanted to forget anything or anybody but there just was no time to look back. I was big Cat Stevens fan though.

John - You lost all your America memorabilia in the fire, right?

Dan - Exactly.

John - All those gold album awards?

Dan - Yeah, memorabilia, pictures, albums you name it. I only lost two guitars I had a real nice little collection. It was the old albums that hurt. The years of collecting those favorite vinyl albums. Years later I'll hear the Average White Band and think I used to have that album. (laughing) I'll be thinking should I buy another vinyl one or a CD (laughing) what do you do? You know for a long time I didn't have any recorded music of any kind I think part of it is you get so involved in making your own you almost don't have time to look anywhere else. Before the fire though I had thousands of records.

John - I'm sure some of the stuff you had was never released on CD and what about America demo stuff?

Dan - Let me tell you I had a great tape of Phil Hartman from Saturday Night Live Fame who was also a very talented graphic artist and painter in addition to being a great writer, actor and comedian. Anyway, Phil was John Hartman's brother who managed us for a number of years and one night Phil came over and we did this amazing recording of him singing "Lonely People." He did it as Johnny Cash and he gave this funny story at the beginning that actually happened to him while he was in west Texas. The story was about him driving down the highway in a middle of a blizzard (laughing) it was funny and it was priceless.

John - He was such a talented man.

Dan - Yeah, he was.

John - Other than sitting in on a live TV taping of John Bradshaw, the only other live taping I've ever been to was an episode of News Radio with Phil. He had the audience in stitches between takes.

Dan - You know his brother John had hired him to do graphics for us before Saturday Night Live and I think he did covers for the "History" and "Harbor" album. He did a painting for the "Harbor" album of a mermaid on a rock. It's hard to find I think it's in the "Harbor" songbook and maybe on some promotional material or the first pressing of "Harbor". Before I had ever met him he left me a message on my answering machine of Jimmy Carter and it was so spot on I was totally losing it thinking it's actually the president. (laughing) He was spooky he could imitate so many people.

John - Let's talk about your spirituality. After you found your footing as a Christian was there a time when you wondered if it was all a fable? Where you wondered if he was really there?

Dan - I think we're only human and God knows that and everybody has their moments of doubt I think sometimes. I think I had sorted out the existence of God earlier in my life and believed implicitly that he was there. I think sometimes it's a lack of trust in him, sometimes that he's going to do something that you don't want him to do. We want to mold God to do things that we want him to do so sometimes it's hard to let go and as they say, "Let God. The biggest doubts I have are am I doing the right thing, am I going in the right direction and am I living up to his standard. It's not a cake walk ever I don't think. It's a day by day, step by step process.

Part three - Posted October 24th, 2003

John - I appreciate that and I appreciate your honesty. We are human, we have these doubts, we have the good and the bad and our spiritual foundation helps us deal with whatever that is.

Dan - To me it is truth. Jesus said, "I am the way, I am the truth." Let's face it in life there are a million things you can look at. I mean one day they say that cholesterol is bad for you and then the next it is good for you and all those things are shifting sand, they change constantly. I want something that never changes. The North Star could get knocked out of alignment tomorrow and I want the guy who made it all and keeps it spinning just like a good clock maker keeps a clock in fine working order. I want that bedrock truth. Look around the world and everything just changes constantly. God described it to the sea, we are human beings and our emotions change, styles come and styles go and thoughts come and thoughts go but I want bedrock truth. It is the thing that people can latch onto and that is my story and I am sticking to it.

John - During the last five years of America you seemed like you were living way faster than your body and soul wanted you to and looking around you must have seen a lot of people in rock and roll deteriorating.

Dan - Sadly there was so many people that have died and followed the trail of the garden path so to speak and burned out very early and burned out very young.

John - And some very brilliant people.

Dan - Yeah and maybe that is what it is. It is the star that shines the brightest and the hottest that burns out the quickest. I have been there so I suppose I can relate to that in a great way and yet I saw people who didn't make it to the other side and you wonder what happened there through the grace of God divine.

John - The fact that you emotionally lived it and were physically there and you got it out of your system. I know on some levels if you ever waiver there is maybe a small part of you that thinks you have lived it and you don't have to go back and there is not that curiosity about that excess life. Don't you think that has helped you since you have already been there?

Dan - Yeah because when you burn your hand on the stove once you begin to learn that you shouldn't put your hand there. Sometimes we have to burn it a bunch of times and usually, hopefully we get the message. We are like sheep and we are easily led astray and we easily go astray. Again, you look for the good shepherd and you look for the rock, the basic total bedrock of truth to keep you going. You should at least be trying.

John - You know I truly believe in that and I find that spiritually with my foundation if I don't try my life has a tendency to unconsciously whirl out of control. My life is pretty balanced and I don't have a lot of chaos in my life and I meditate often. Like I said, I think I am communicating with the same thing that most people are trying to communicate with. I try and when I don't try things seem to have a way of unraveling.

Dan - Again, it is that seeking something that is eternal. Just get me on the straight and narrow and that is fine with moderation in all things.

John - It is interesting after all these years in hearing what had happened to you and the faith that you had found and that I am here talking to you about this. I find it refreshing and I really appreciate your honesty. Dan, could you tell me what your first impression was when you met Gerry and Dewey? When you were that young do you remember what you first thought of these guys?

Dan - Oh yeah, Dewey looked like a surfer with his hair all over one side of his face. He was real good looking and he always had his clothes perfect and his jeans perfect. Gerry was just the guy who was cute as a pixie with blonde hair and coke bottled glasses which made him look even more endearing. They were just two great, fun, kind of chums to have and hang out with and they were school buddies. Dewey was running track and we would go to work out together and stuff and he'd be jumping through hoops and I was pushing a shot or throwing a javelin. Gerry was in the print shop in the art class making all of our diplomas up for the end of the year. We would hang out in art class together and talk about music and thinking wouldn't it be great if we could make a record and go on the road and do all of those great things.

John - Hey, I like that story you told about walking into Gerry's bedroom and seeing that concert, that make believe concert poster that his parents had given him. I was thinking wow I wish that my parents would have done that for me!

Dan - Absolutely and talk about positive feedback and positive motivation that was a good one!

John - I remember a girlfriend in high school once told me that she looked at the "Hearts" album and she looked at Gerry and she said, "That guy makes women look bad."

Dan - laughing.

John - (laughing) I mean he just had one of those looks and obviously the three of you were good looking guys but he just had that long blonde hair. I remember you writing that you and Dewey didn't really talk much about music in the beginning.

Dan - That's right, Gerry and I really bonded musically way before I even knew Dewey cared about music which is weird because we were just pals. We would sit on the back of the bus and goof around and we had an hour and a half ride together every single day to and from school. We spent more time together than I did with my own family for the years that we were in London Central high school. Oddly enough he never expressed an interest in music nor did he play anything but he just had an ear for these major seventh chords and dreamy word imagery and stuff and a couple of years later to my total surprise he said he wrote a song. I really wanted to hear it and when he played it, it was awesome and I wanted him to do it again. From then on, Dewey would just pick up a guitar and he would tell you himself that he knew a handful of chords but he knew what he liked and he knew what sounded good. In some ways Gerry and I who had been for years wood shedding and working and perfecting the craft of music and I say this in all humility that he and I were just protégées basically by the time we were in our late teens. Dewey's lack of all that sort of wood shedding freed him up in the beginning to be more creative and have more of an adventuresome outlook on the musical thing. At the same time Gerry and I were called on to make the things work. We took the first few snip-its of Dewey's tune and he had about fifteen little bits and pieces. We would take part one and put it with part seven and take part seven and put it with part nine and we would repeat that and then we had a song. We had "Children" we had "Three Roses" and in a sense really a lot of the first album was just interplay between us and in a lot of bands there would just have been co-writes, the three of us. In Nashville a lot of times you walk in and say a couple of words and you are here in town as a writer. (laughing)

John - (laughing) That's right and the album is recorded in fifteen minutes!

Dan - From the beginning it was sort of a little bit more aggressive on hanging onto those writer credits for the three of us and I think it was in some ways bad. I mean the Lennon, McCartney thing in some ways I don't know how they lived with that and yet it seemed to work for them where they split everything. If Paul was in the other room sleeping and another guy wrote the whole song and came in and wrote it down on paper, it was a Lennon McCartney song. In some ways that is a bit extreme but there has to be a balance in there somehow. Anyway, that first album was probably in a lot of ways the most collaborative effort we ever made.

John - So, let me see if I got this straight. At one point Gerry and Dewey weren't talking and you kind of brought them back together when America was forming, right?

Dan - Yeah, because we were part of a band with Gerry, a couple of other guys and myself. They got me on board after a long series of events but anyways Gerry and I are playing together in a band. I end up going back to the States for schooling and Dewey ended up taking my place in the band and they apparently had a falling out and booted Dewey. So, he and Gerry were like sixteen and seventeen now at this stage and there was some bad blood between the two of them. Dewey and I because we were such great pals and again no musical thing at this point got back together after I came back from the U.K. and after a year of schooling in the U.S. and that was when we started playing each other these songs. He was playing me his major seventh snip-its and I would say that's great and asked what Gerry was doing. He told me that he and Gerry were not talking but I wanted to know where Gerry was anyway. I later found him working as a tape Op. at Morgan Studios in London and he had some free time. He had asked me to come down and play on a song that he had written and so we did that and it was great. I had asked him if he had heard from Dewey and he said that they weren't speaking. I told him that we have got to get together the three of us. You're writing, I'm writing, he's writing and it all sounds good to me. We got to make this happen so we had a little conclave the three of us and we got together and kissed and hugged and made up. It was all good!

John - Did you play more of the electric stuff because I always had that impression that you were more the lead electric guitarist if there was going to be one of the three.

Dan - Yeah, I think I had more of a Blues sensibility and Rock sensibility. I think both me and Gerry liked certain forms of the Rock and the Blues and the electric kind of stuff. We were acoustically centered and a lot of the leads were acoustic but I yearned at some point to get the nice wild sounds that you can get from a good electric guitar rig and kind of blend it in a little bit with what we were doing. So, when we had the opportunity and the chance to plug in, I was the first one in the pool.

John - I never actually saw America as a trio. When you guys were touring for instance in 1975-76 with an America album, did you guys rock? When you were playing "Half a Man" or "A Woman Tonight" did the show get up there? I remember someone telling me once that they went to an Air Supply show and they were really surprised because the band actually rocked a little bit!

Dan - In the early days when we first started we did club tours and it was just the three of us sitting on stools. We would play three acoustics usually two six's and a twelve or Gerry or I would play a bass and the other two guys would play acoustic. It was a really nice, raw, natural, wooden sound and once we started in hooking up in electric we were starting to headline and we needed to fill it in an hour and a half. To be quite honest, the easiest way to fill it would be to stretch out on a couple of tunes and we would do "Moon Song" or "Cornwall Blank" or some of the other tunes and just get into a jam basically.

John - Especially after "Hearts" that is probably my favorite album although other America fans would say it is the earlier stuff. That album really grabbed me and I really enjoyed it. That was the biggest album, right?

Dan - Yes, it was definitely up there. I hear conflicting reports and you never know who or what to believe on the numbers but it could easily be the biggest seller of all.