My Tribute To Andy Paley

I first met Andy Paley at the just recently refurbished Regent Theater in Downtown Los Angeles. At the time I had recently started playing with a 60s style girl group called The Damselles, whom I've written about here and will probably write about some more, but that's for another time. That night, the full band wasn't available but I was, so instead of doing a full band setup, the idea was to do it a bit more “acoustic” with one guitar and a snare, kind of a busking style thing. Andy was available, and in fact he was the one who, like the Svengali he was, came up with the name of The Damselles as well as helped the girls curate a set of covers for them to sing. 

He didn't know me from a hole in the wall, but he told me I looked like Keith Moon and from then on we got along swimmingly, talking about the first three The Who records, all pre-Tommy of course, all night. He regaled me with old stories about Brian Wilson, The Ramones and hipped me to the Buddy Rich Tapes and the recording of Paul Anka yelling at his band “The guys get shirts!” These are stories I heard time and time again over the last 15 years, but they never got old because he had a way of telling stories that was magnetic and never boring, even if you have heard them 100 times. We played the show pretty well and he was receptive to my feel and told me so and that meant a lot. That night began a friendship that has since been filled with music, impressions, laughter and more importantly, the pleasure of watching his family grow before my eyes. 

(photo by Sterling Andrews)

Andy is one of those people who has had their hand in seemingly every single piece of pop music in the last 40 years, but you wouldn't know it right away. He wrote songs for Brian Wilson, Madonna and most recently, SpongeBob SquarePants and had a song in Rock and Roll High School! However, I'm not going to use piece as a way to show off his bona-fides, because the internet can do that for you. I just want to share my personal experience with this extremely funny, sometimes bitter, but endlessly enthusiastic human being who I am proud to have known. He, like me, was passionate about music, comedy and the thrill of performance and of creation.

After that first gig, I was called upon to work with him on a pretty regular basis, starting with playing drums or percussion for the SpongeBob band, which later became Tom Kenny & The Hi-Seas, which again, Mr. Svengali, brainchild of the group, Andy had helped build and curate. I then played regular, but sporadic comedy and music gigs with the likes of David Koechner, Kumail Nanjiani and Jonah Ray, Dave “Gruber” Allen, and so many more funny one-off shows that even as I write this, I can feel the cobwebs parting. He and I even played members of a fake “American Idol” band for Bobcat Goldthwait's film “God Bless America” who get murdered by Joel Murray…Life is weird sometimes, isn’t it?

But it was a live radio show podcast called the Thrilling Adventure Hour that was Andy and I got our most intimate playing in. Andy was a co-writer of most of the music as well as the band leader. NOTE: He met his wife Heather through this show.  I did that show with him for about 4 or 5 years, once a month with occasional one off holiday shows and double features. For a minute, the show was a huge success and every show was a who’s who of stars. I had some of the most insane musical experiences of my life during this time, including being directed by Rian Johnson and doing a bit with Keegan-Michael Key where he was Gene Krupa the voice and I was Gene Krupa the drummer (theater of the mind ok?) and the bit was he would air drum while I played the actual drums and in that moment, he and I riffed on a wacky drum solo, which was a hell of a lot longer than the script needed. It was one of those in the moment, live and electric moments where one lets the whims of the moment take over and Andy was encouraging and embraced those moments. Our performance relationship got very tight then and it became instinctive because we both understood that power of “the moment” and those Thrilling Adventure Shows, at least for a while, were ripe with them.

Another performance from Thrilling Adventure Hour that will live rent free in my brain forever is the opportunity that I got to perform with Weird Al Yankovic. Playing drums with him was obviously a mind-blowing, top five musical moment. Now that I think about it, at least two or three of my top five moments have been playing with Andy because to me, he was the gatekeeper to all things fun, so any gig that he called me to do, I would do it without hesitation. I knew the company would be good and I knew I would be on my toes. Playing with him was the closest thing I've had to playing jazz since I was in an actual jazz trio 20 years ago. By jazz, I mean the spontaneity and the aforementioned being fully in the moment and listening to each other and becoming one, or symbiotic.

Andy was always complimentary of my ability to be quick and on my toes, but his innate sense of timing both musically and comically was like nothing I had ever seen. Playing with him pushed me to be better, quicker not just as a player, but with wit. Seeing him shoot the shit and cut it up and riff with other comedians or quick other wit’eds was always a treat. The boundless energy they all had together, one upping with jokes, was a serious master class in keeping a brain active. It was infectious, and I think about that often.

It wasn't always roses of course. Sound checks could be pretty intense, as I've spoken about last week, sound checks can bring out certain moods in people and Andy was susceptible to the triggers because it brought out his perfectionism and his detail to attention and he would make it clear he could play all the instruments. It could, at times, be hard to bear, but come show time it was all smiles, compliments, hugs and really good times. All was forgiven and forgotten once the lights went down and if you played to the best of your ability, he would let you know and make you feel great for doing so, like a real Svengali should. He's told me time and time again he respects my drumming and me as a person and that always meant a lot to me. He didn’t just see me as an “energetic” player, but he saw someone who understands the nuances of music, and the importance of spontaneity. That really makes my heart flutter quite a bit. 

I was told he was getting increasingly sick a few weeks back because a few of our close friends went to visit him and told and since then, his lovely wife Heather had been updating everyone via this SubStack, in which she gave a day-to-day rundown, unfortunately, preparing us for the worst. I had a text conversation briefly with Andy a couple weeks ago, but the other day I decided a phone call would make more sense and I'm so thankful that I got him on the phone this past Sunday. He said he loved me and I said I loved him back. We then made fun of each other, because no matter what the situation, jokes and ball busting have to be on the menu. It’s unspoken with Andy. Whether he gives you a nickname you don’t want, or remembers what can trigger you, he’ll pull it out for the sake of comedy and good ol’ fashioned ribbing. Anyway, he fell asleep while on the phone and left me with his sister, whom I had a short lovely conversation with and that was it. 

It's inevitable that time will have its way with us and we all do leave this earth at some point. This was Andy's time, but perhaps it was a bit too early because he still had a lot more music in him and he still had more life in him. I’ll say if there is any silver line, it’s that everything he did up to this point has been rich and I mean super rich, thick, gooey, chewy, peanut buttery legacy of music that will outlive any of us and then some. However, beyond the external validation of hit records, his attitude as a person, as a band leader, and the things he taught me I will carry on to others and those lessons, like the songs, will outlive us all. While we're here for this short time, we have to realize it's not what you do, it's how you do it and dammit, Andy did it pretty well. I'm hoping wherever he is, whatever he's doing, he's resting easy and listening to Ronnie Spector… Or hell, maybe she's even singing to HIM right now. 

Love to The Paleys

(photo by Sterling Andrews)

Thanks for reading. Hug your friends, hug your family. Be safe, happy and healthy.