00:58 J. Robert:

Everybody's listening right now. You have to share that gift because if it stays inside of you, then it's just going to be wasted.

01:13 Tony:

Hello, it's Tony Howell and welcome to Conversations with Changemakers.

In this month's episode, we speak with J. Robert Spencer, best known for his original Broadway roles as Nick Massi in the Tony and Grammy Award-winning hit Jersey Boys, as well as Dan Goodman in the Pulitzer Prize and Tony Award-winning hit Next to Normal, where he received his first Tony nomination. Since 2011, Bobby has performed in over a thousand concerts all over the world with his singing group, The Midtown Men. But beyond his work on stage, he's also a writer, producer, director, filmmaker, singer, songwriter, father, and more.

In this episode, you're going to hear his story of how his Broadway debut came about, how he's currently handling the pandemic, the why’s, and the how of moving into filmmaking, concerts, songwriting, and more. You'll also get the backstory of his latest single ”Live It High”. Enjoy!

J. Robert Spencer, thank you so much for being on the podcast. Welcome!

02:30 J. Robert:

Oh, thank you. Can you hear me alright?

02:32 Tony:

We got you. We are so delighted that you're here. I want to start by saying I was delighted to find out you did Side Show. So that was your Broadway debut in 1997. Tell me what you think are the pivotal moments that led to that happening for you?

02:55 J. Robert:

I was going to every audition in the Backstage newspaper. I lived on 47th, between 10th and 11th. I came to New York in ‘93 and I immediately got Charlotte's Web in the tour of a children's show. It was a wonderful experience for three years with TheatreWorks and that got me my union card. And then I came back and I auditioned for everything, and I was broke come April. I had $200 in my bank account and I got a phone call because I had just auditioned for Tugger in Cats on the road. I went on the road, came back to New York City after 14 months, saved a lot of money, so I didn't have to wait tables. And I went to every audition, and I was in cabarets, and I was in a cabaret show that someone cast me in, and I went to this audition, and I got that callback, and this callback…

And then I did this casting director class. And then I did a vocal directing class. I went to classes, I went to every audition just to get my headshot, picture and résumé out there. Even if I wasn't right for the role, I was out the door every morning at 5:00 AM so I could go wait outside of the equity building on 46th Street, along with hundreds of other actors that were like me getting up early, pulling their tongue, doing their vocal exercises as they ran down to grab their bagel, grab their coffee and stand in line.

So it was busting my butt, not waiting for the phone to ring, making it ring, thinking that the thing I need to do is spread my name around. And the only way to do that is try to saturate it by going to every class, every audition. Then in 1996, they were doing the workshop presentation of Side Show at the Richard Rodgers Theatre and my friend, Jodie Moore plays piano. I bumped into her on the street, she's Southern. “Oh my gosh, you gotta come see this show that I'm playing right now. I'm assistant music directing this thing with this guy named David Chase. He's amazing.” And she walked me into the Richard Rodgers.

I sat and watched the workshop and I said, “Oh man,” I was like, “This is my show.” And a couple months later, on Backstage: “Side Show Auditions.” I went in the hallway, and I'm standing in the hallway and there are all these guys ahead of me. And this is a true story. Every guy in front of me had in his hand either a song from Chess or it was a song from Miss Saigon. And I was holding a song by The Beatles. I was going to sing “Golden Slumbers” by The Beatles for several reasons. One, I had seen the show. I'd seen the workshop. I knew musically what I needed in going in. I didn't necessarily need Broadway. They needed pop/rock. And David Chase, music director comes out after several guys have gone in and well, about a half-hour has gone by, he comes out and he says, “Listen to me, if one other guy comes in here and sings something from Saigon or Les Miz, I'm going to kill him.”

And I laughed inside. I laughed because I'm holding The Beatles and he goes, “I want pop. I want rock.” And he goes in and shuts the door. Then every guy in front of me is scrambling through his music, trying to find the pop/rock song they had. I went in, I sang and it went great. And it got me to the callback. And then at the callback, I was in the room with everybody: Henry Krieger, Bill Russell, Bobby Longbottom, the beautiful Darlene Wilson, who was the assistant dance captain to Bobby Longbottom. And then the next day, I waited by the phone from 8:00 AM until 5:00 PM because I knew they were going to call and I waited by that phone, and sure enough at 5 o'clock it rang. And they said, “Well, they want to offer you the swing position.” I was like, “I'll take it. Yes. I'll take it. Yes.” It was incredible. So that's, a long-winded answer to your question, but that's what I did. I busted. I went to every single thing.

07:16 Tony:

Preparation, hard work. I want to rewind just a little bit further and ask you, what was the moment that you said, I'm going to be a professional actor?

07:26 J. Robert:

I was in fourth grade because I was moving around a lot as a kid. I was moved around a lot because my father's business was in retail and he was one of the head guys at Target at the time. We had just relocated. We were in Delaware, New Jersey, Minnesota. So now we were going to Texas and I was a new kid on the block. I was in fourth grade, had no friends. I didn't know anybody. One day into maybe the second week of school, the choir director calls all the children into the auditorium. It's filled, 400 kids probably. And they were like, “We're doing the musical Really Rosie by Carole King. Is there anyone that wants to audition?” And people were like, I remember man, everybody's looking at each other. “There's a role called Alligator?” And I raised my hand. I don't know why, I just raised my hand.

“Okay. You want to come up?” In fourth grade I did a cold read, my first cold read and I remember the scene and I'm trying to convince Rosie not to go or something. And I got on my knee on one of the lines. I said, “Oh please, Rosie!” And when I did that, every person in the auditorium, kids and teachers busted up laughing, they fell out of their seats. I looked at one of my teachers when I did the line, I actually fell to my knees and I grabbed like I was praying and I could see one of my teachers just holding her stomach, belly laughing. And I just loved that sound and that feeling that I got and they started the Bobby Spencer fan club after that… they did, they did.

09:08 Tony:

You got the bug early. So we're going to stick shift. We're going to fast forward. And before we move on to the big blockbuster shows, the leading roles, the Tony nomination, I want to zoom in on Side Show one more time and highlight one of the things that I found so interesting, was that you had your future show wife, Alice Ripley in the cast and then your real wife, Jenny Lynn is also in the company! Such a fun world. What was your experience as a swing and what should audiences and artists know about the ensemble?

09:45 J. Robert:

I loved being a swing and I’d do it again in a heartbeat. The Tony nomination is the greatest, you know, humbling honor there is, but nothing is more humbling or honorable than the role of a swing. I looked at it like a chess player. I could see it. I looked at it from up in the balcony, from back behind the scenes and on the sides and in front, I was really, really good with that kind of staging. And my brain clicked with it really well. I was such a good swing that they actually made me- I was moved up the ranks sometimes as an assistant stage manager. So there were days I had on the headset. Literally I loved that show and I poured my heart into it.

So yeah, everyone in the audience should know that it's one of the hardest jobs on Broadway, the most demanding and probably stressful, if you're not up to par with it. I'll never forget the first time I had to go on was because one of our actors was stuck underground in the subway. We didn't find this out, because there were no cell phones then, we didn't find out until after he came out of the subway. But I was up in the swing room and the flu season had just begun, man. Everyone was starting to drop like flies, but I hadn't gone on yet. Everyone of the other swings had. And so they were calling this guy's name, David, David, David, and I was like, crap, I'm going to go on. And they were like, “Bobby Spencer, get ready to go!” It was like 5 minutes, so I'm all cool.

I go down in the wardrobe room and Bobby Longbottom, the director is in the doorway and Darlene Wilson, my dance captain who's been working with me this whole time is pacing back and forth kind of nervous, asking, “Do you know your stuff?” So I went through as they're dressing me and as they're putting on makeup real quick, because I was called so quickly. I went through the first song, I'm here, I go off stage right. I'm upstage right for the next one, I'm doing a costume change. I went through my entire show in the first act in five minutes and Bobby Longbottom goes, “Okay.” He leaves. And then I did the show. And then from that point on, honestly everybody in the show knew that if they needed to get sick, that I'd be the guy that could handle it.

And everybody at that point, Tony, was dropping out. I was on almost every night. And then when we closed on January 2nd, I got horribly ill and sick. So I probably was sick the whole time, but my body wouldn't allow me to get sick or get the flu like everyone else because I had a job to do. But the moment I knew my job was over, my body collapsed. So that's one thing. The other thing you asked was about the future wife, Alice Ripley. I used to watch Alice and Emily, obviously like everyone, off the side. And while I was as an actor who had graduated college, who was here to do musical theatre, this was a totally beautiful new style of theatre, a new approach of it, musically, dramatically, lyrically in so many levels emotionally and to watch Alice and Emily and everyone performed in that show was a huge learning experience and a value.

Also watching Alice and Emily was very inspirational, but also quintessential to how musical theatre acting can be and how people outside of the world of Broadway have this assumption, I think, and maybe they have this assumption because of the wonderful technicolor, joyous musicals of yesterday, but it's changed in so many ways over the years. And Side Show was one of those moments of ah, oh, musical theatre or theatre in general doesn't have to be everybody in bright colors and costumes, singing and dancing. It could be deep, heartfelt, emotional tribulations of people that consider themselves outsiders or outcasts or freaks, as we said in Side Show.

So watching them hone in on that aspect and learning from the simplicity of them, yet the deepness of them was something I really took with me and still take with me. And then Jenny Lynn, my wife, this was her second show on Broadway. Her first was Chicago and she was swinging that show, and she was doing it at the time we were doing Side Show. We were rehearsing Side Show in the day and then she'd go do Chicago at night, and then rehearsing day and night until finally we were opening Side Show. And then she left Chicago.

So then after Side Show, she did Annie Get Your Gun, Fosse, The Producers, Dance of the Vampires, and All Shook Up was her last Broadway show. She did so many other shows regionally. Lastly, I actually had a great day of watching Henry Krieger on piano and Bill Russell on lyrics out in the lobby of the Brooks Atkinson. And they were making changes to the show. And that was another thing I took when I started doing more and more readings and more and more workshops. If you were dealing with a writer that didn't have what Henry Krieger and Bill did, as far as they were cool with making changes, they were loving the material, but they knew what was best for the project, which was if they were told to make changes, then by gum, they were going to do it.

And even though it was their baby, they were egoless in their pursuit to do the right thing. And when I would work on different workshops in plays and I'd work with some writers and they wouldn't change anything, I'd sit in the back and in my head I'd go, “Well, this ain't going anywhere.”

15:40 Tony:

Now we get to hit another highlight. You're the original Nick Massi in the Tony and Grammy Award-winning Jersey Boys. Yay Jersey Boys! What is your biggest lesson from that entire experience?

15:58 J. Robert:

Well, I learned a lot, all good. It all benefited me. Everyone involved, you're with them for a short or long period of time, but you're all together all the time. So, it's always kind of like, you're always finding and discovering each other out day by day by day. You become family, you become friends. And it also comes time where the kettle gets too hot in the creative process. And so when I look back on it, I'm a very passionate person when I work. Sometimes over the years, my passion has come off that I'm angry. And I hear that from a lot of artists, like when they're talking, they're like, “Come on, whatever, you do this, come on!” And sometimes you maybe being a cheerleader comes off like, geez, someone cut off his caffeine please.

But I always come from this passionate point of view when I create. What I've learned is that, over the years I've learned that I just need to reach out on my passion and not make it sound so loud and angry. Because my passion can be that way. So that's the one thing I've learned, which is balance and contain your passion.

17:23 Tony:

So interesting, that is a through line in some of the conversations that we've had. So now one of my favorite moments: you create Dan in the Pulitzer Prize winning musical, perhaps my favorite show of all time Next to Normal, getting your first Tony nomination for your incredible performance. And I want to be selfish and ask you, what was that experience like for you inside that hit show?

17:55 J. Robert:

Well, Tony, I can't tell the story without telling how I got the part, because that's really a killer story. I was in Jersey Boys and I'd been in it for a long time and all the original guys were leaving for their own various reasons. And being that I was the Ringo of the group, I just knew that my days were numbered there. And while I was there, I did a workshop of a show called Feeling Electric. I was cast as the therapist and Brian d’Arcy James was the husband. And it was Aaron Tveit, it was Adam Chanler-Berat and it was Alice [Ripley]. That was my first experience with that show. I immediately knew, I was like, well, this is the next RENT meet Les Miz. I totally thought, “This is going to be huge.” And so when they did it at Second Stage, they wouldn't let me outta my Jersey Boys contract for a little bit of time.

They wouldn't just let me take off for a little bit to go do this show. So I wasn't able to do the Second Stage. But when it came time for them to move on with the future of the show and kind of size down, like several people, I wasn't asked to renew my contract. So now I've got four months before I'm out of a show and I've got a second baby on the way. And of course I'm thinking, doggonit. And I run into Brian d’Arcy James on the street the next day that I get this news, that I have to move on and he says, “Hey, I'm doing Shrek. And I know Michael Greif and they're all taking Next to Normal to DC. So I would call him up, man.” Jenn Colella and I had been friends for a long time. In fact, she was a swing in the workshop of Next to Normal at Second Stage. So Brian said, I would call Michael Greif. So I called Jenn Colella to get Tom Kitt's phone number. Then I called Tom and I said, “I understand you're going to DC. Well, I would like to come and audition for you for the role of Dan.” He said, “Well, I'd love that.” He said,”Call Michael Greif.” And he gave me his number. I called Michael. Michael said, “Well we're still seeing people for the therapist.” And I said, “No, Michael, I want to be seen for the husband, Dan.” And he said, “Well, alright.” He said, “Call Bernie, (Bernie Telsey) and get it set up.” And I got it set up. And I went in and I had to sing. "I am the one who knows you." And then I had to sing. "He's not here. He's not here. Love. I know, you know." And I was crying through the whole song at my audition.

“Do you feel he's still real, love? It's just not so." I was crying. I was crying and I got up and Michael came up to me, talk about passion. I love him. And he was like, “Yes!” And then he gave me something and then he walked away and then I did something else. And I left that room. And I knew I got it. And I met my pregnant wife and I don't know how old our son Geddy was at the time, at a Greek restaurant on the Upper West Side. And my phone rang and it said, Nyle Brenner, my manager. And I looked at my wife. I said, “I got it.” And I opened my flip phone and Nyle said,”Well, you got it.” And I said, “Oh, that's awesome.”

So we started rehearsals and four days into rehearsal, our daughter Raine was born. And then I went off to Washington, DC. And all of us just were together all the time after rehearsal, we were in someone's apartment painting or listening to music or playing acoustic guitar, laughing, drinking wine. And our chemistry was so tight, all of us. And we just had beautiful feelings. And luckily the world and the theatre community was just jonesing for this kind of show. And then I'm doing it, and then I get nominated. When I got nominated, Tony, I honestly had won. I didn't need to win that actual award. Let's be honest. I mean, yeah, that would've been so wonderful, but I just love it.

I won, in that moment, I won as an artist. I won with my dreams. What I thought it was going to be and how I wanted it to be. And I wanted to be in a show where I didn't have to dance a lot. I could just sing and just act and just be like that with other actors and a director and producers and creators, like that was. And then my dear friend, Rob McCaskill calls me up one morning and goes, “Well, Bobby, congratulations Next to Normal won the Pulitzer Prize.” And I'm like, what? And I was like, what, whoa, what? It's just one thing you don't even like, why would you even fathom that? Or even like, consider that. And then that phone call was beautifully mind boggling. So yeah, that experience still…

I still run into people like you, Tony, that still say how Next to Normal just changed their everything. When I was promoting “Waiting on Christmas” I met a disc jockey because he crashed my radio interview because he found out that I was in the building. And he left his radio interview and crashed mine to tell me what an impact Next to Normal had on him because his wife had died of cancer. He was depressed and he didn't want to do anything. And he had tickets months before for some show called Next to Normal because he loves Broadway and he had to get himself out of bed and go see it.

He said, “Bobby, I came back 40 times,” he said “That show healed me, that show healed me. It was therapy for me.” And I was like, wow. But that was the story I heard outside of that stage door more and more and more and more every night. And I miss that the most about that show, going outside that door, not signing autographs as much as hearing the stories of how that show helped people.

25:12 Tony:

Yeah. That's what I was going to say. The impact that you had, it still resonates. Well, what's your take on the digital age now and what it means for the future of our industry?

25:27 J. Robert:

Right now is proof that if you're not caught up with technical aspects of our world, you're going to be left behind. And right now, since we're in the middle of this coronavirus, and we're all hunkered down, I've had to learn a lot in the last couple of weeks. But it hasn't been as hard as I thought, learning more about this and that. But nevertheless, I do feel like a dinosaur. But I also found out that people don't want to download albums anymore. No one has the patience. They want one tune. They want a tune they like, if they don't like it, they're going to move on. So if I've learned anything digitally, I just feel like with anything, I think there's a balance between promotion and a balance between looking narcissistic.

And I fight with that all the time because I'm like, well, I have to promote myself, but I don't want to be annoying. I have to talk about my song, but I don't want to be a bother. Well, I have to talk about my film, but I don't want to. But you have to, so I feel that with the digital age, there is such a strong necessity to advertise yourself, but there's a fine balance in making sure you don't bother the consumer.

26:52 Tony:

We're going to get to the new single and all of the new music that's coming down the pipeline. I want to ask. You got an honorary doctorate from Shenandoah University. So Dr. Spencer, what is your advice for the young student of the day that is graduating and heading into the industry?

27:16 J. Robert:

I was reflecting. The thing I can recall the most about what I said during that speech was very much what I said earlier on with you, which was, I told them very much what I did with you. You have to create your path, do not wait for the phone to ring, go to every audition possible, get yourself seen, expose yourself, as much exposure as possible. That's really still the key. It's more of a digital aspect now, rather than waiting outside of a door for four hours at a time, but you still have to have that drive. You still have to have the mentality of go, go, go. And it's important to meet people face to face. It's important to get into the room. And I think that's the important thing, the most is, you’ve got to generate the interest to get into the room.

But before you even get in the room, you’ve got to make sure that you're ready when the room is open to you. You’ve got to make sure that all the talk you've been talking and all the stuff you've been posting, that you're going to be able to live up to it. Especially now in this world of digital age because if you're posting stuff all the time on Facebook, everybody's seeing that. So people are going to be like, “Hey, you remember such and such, let's call them in.” If you don't deliver on that day, then they're not going to give you another chance to deliver. You have one time to do it sometimes, that's why you have to do it right.

And here's the thing Tony, I've done a lot, I've had a lot of auditions over the last 10 years that I've been writing music and performing on the road, doing a thousand concerts. I've still been auditioning and I've still been doing a workshop here and a workshop there. And I've actually had job offers that I've had to turn down or because of life circumstances, I wasn't able to do those particular projects. But even if I didn't get the job, I had to do awesome in the room. Because if you don't, they won't call you. So that's always my thing as an actor, I'm like, hey, I might not get this job, but I'm not going to suck when I walk in that room because I can't afford to suck.

I wish I could say that every time I've gone into a room, I've knocked the cover off the ball. Sure, there's been times I haven't. Hell, there was one time I went into a room and for the first time in my life, I couldn't hear the pitch. And I have perfect pitch. And I couldn't, for the life of me, hear this melody of some song. I couldn't hear it. I'll never get over that one. But I remember everyone being on the table was like, “Thank you?” So I don't even think I answered your question.

30:05 Tony:

You did. And it's something that I've been ruminating on being in the world of marketing and branding. It's like the product has to be good as well. Because you could be really great at auditioning, but if you can't deliver in the room or that eight shows a week then we've got a real issue.

So fast forward. And I want to ask you, what's your advice for your colleagues that you've worked with in film, TV, Broadway, concerts, what would you tell the celebrity artists?

30:39 J. Robert:

What I found over time is that everyone's got each other's back, first of all. This is a pretty special Broadway group, whether you're in a Broadway show now or in a Broadway show 10 years ago or 20 years ago or 30 years ago. Just in the last days of just watching Nick Cordero and the fantastic uprise from the community makes me feel loved knowing that if any one of us is in a situation like this, we're all going to have each other's back. So that's one thing. So to my colleagues, I say, continue to just do what you do, which is love. I mean celebrity colleagues. There are so many of them, I spoke with one of them earlier. We spoke of them, Brian d’Arcy James, Alice Ripley, all these celebrity colleagues, Emily Skinner, my wife, all of these celebrity colleagues. I think we all are doing the right thing always because we always have love. There's nothing but love. So I don't know. I guess the thing I can say to everybody is continue to love.

32:04 Tony:

Well, we love you. Speaking of love, I want to highlight one of your films, Heterosexuals with Rob McCaskill.

32:14 J. Robert:

Rob McCaskill is my acting coach, but also my friend, and his wife, Celia and I were in that Charlotte's Web for TheatreWorks back in ‘92 that I talked about, or ‘93. That's how I met Rob. And Rob started being my teacher. And the reason I love Rob is because I really think Rob is just brilliant. He's a philosopher. He reaches different depths of acting and he's read every book, I think ever printed on the planet. And he's studied under [32:50]. He studies under some tremendous teachers. And I think he's a beautiful writer. And he wrote a script called Heterosexuals and at the time, I was towards the end of Jersey Boys and I was reading a great book about John Cassavetes, who of course is famous for A Woman Under the Influence, which is him and his wife, Gena Rowlands

John Cassavetes has transformed independent filmmaking. He's the reason that there is a Francis Ford Coppola and Martin Scorsese. He really inspired these guys. And at the time his book, Tony, I think it's called, I haven't read it in 10 years, but I think it's called Accidental Genius. And it's about John Cassavetes. It's one of the greatest books and it inspired me so much. And when I would read his stories, I would be like, that's me. I did that in an audition once. I crashed an audition like John Cassavetes. I've done that so I could really relate to him. And I also related to him as an artist and a filmmaker wannabe.

And of course, Alice used Gena Rowlands in that film. And so do Michael Greif as kind of like, we talked about that film while we were doing Next to Normal, we didn't sit down and say, we're going to talk about this film. It was just one of those things in our own conversations with each other, that I was like, I used that film. I didn't know you were using that film, too! No way!

I think even somewhere in the liner notes, Michael Greif had wrote something somewhere in the liner notes about this John Cassavetes film. So when I read Rob's script Heterosexuals, it felt like a John Cassavetes film, it felt like a European film and I wanted to shoot it and I wanted it to be done his way with his vision because I trust Rob and I still do.

And I trusted him and we made an art house film, and I had to raise a good chunk of change for it. But Natasha Lyonne is in it and she’s marvelous in it. Ashley Williams is in it. She's marvelous in it. And Michael Izquierdo in it. He's marvelous. Todd Weeks is marvelous in it. And we got a couple Broadway actors throughout it and these wonderful TV and film actresses as well. There's nothing like making a film, but when you make it independently, there's a different vibe altogether. And when you're the captain of the ship, you want to be able to give everybody the freedom. But also there came a couple times that I had to go, “Hey, Rob, I gotta go in the room and re-edit those scenes, I'm sorry, I gave you three times, those scenes aren't working, dude.”

And he was just like, okay, no big deal. But I wanted to do a great film and a lot of people saw it and I understand why they don't get it or why it doesn't resonate for them, but that was 10 years ago. And I have to tell you something, I watched it a little bit ago, because I hadn't in a while. And what Rob did visually and what everyone did with their choices as actors and characterization, I'm really proud of it. I'm so proud of it. I think everybody did a tremendous job. I know how we shot it. We shot it in New York and we shot it with love and we shot it downtown, New York, we shot it in our apartments in New York, we shot it outside the Lincoln Center in New York. We shot it with Natasha Lyonne. And she was- let me tell you something real quick.

We met with her for lunch. And she said to Rob, how much she loved the script and how much it reminded her of a European French film, which is why she wanted to do it. She was also coming out of a hard time of being very, very busy in Hollywood and then having trouble with addiction. So she had to leave for a bit. She was just coming out of it and here she was doing this low, low budget indie film. And I remember her coming to set the first day and I can remember her aura being a little, like, “What am I doing? Who are these guys?” And I remember going and saying, Ms. Lyonne, I met you at lunch a week or so ago. I just wanted to let you know, you need anything, please we're here for you, let us know.”

And I can honestly say that hour after hour, day after day, she just kept lighting up more and more. Whenever you see her now, that's how she was more and more and more and more. She started trusting us and seeing what was happening and she was feeling good and she was feeling great. And she came to see me. She brought her aunt to Jersey Boys, because she'd never seen it. And she ended up really having a great time at the end of it. And that was good for all of us to know that it wasn't just her, everybody had that feeling by the end of it. But for having someone like that to trust us, it meant a lot.

38:05 Tony:

We have to go see the film now. And I just had to throw some bromance love to Rob McCaskill.

So talk to me about The Midtown Men. How did that come about?

38:17 J. Robert:

I was going to leave Next to Normal. I'd been nominated and I was thinking about leaving. The Midtown Men is the four original Jersey Boys. So Christian and Michael Longoria and Daniel Reichard had already been out there doing concerts from time to time. They wanted to go full-time, so they called me up and they said, we wanted to know, it made sense, great sense. We need a fourth original guy, you, to kind of bring this full circle and we're doing Mamas and the Papas, The Turtles, The Zombies, The Rascals, The Monkeys, The Beatles, Buffalo Springfield, Love and Spoonful, Tina Turner, Motown and yeah, some Four Seasons. I grew up loving Steve Martin and Johnny Carson and rock and roll.

So for me, performing The Midtown Men, we've done over a thousand shows. We've done PAC’s, symphonies, private events. It's been a whirlwind, a life-learning business experience, and we've entertained audiences all over the globe. I love the show. It's our own choreography. We have nice suits on, great arrangements, a great band, and we tell great funny, wonderful anecdotes and stories and the audiences love it. And they've been loving it and they stand up at the end and I'm proud to say, it's not a wedding band in any way. It's a real rock and roll vibe. This allows me to be the rock and roll Johnny Carson, because I love talking. I love telling stories and singing rock and roll and that's it.

40:03 Tony:

I think it's serendipity. I think that's so wonderful. And I want to peel back just a little bit more because back to tangible advice for the young performer, the person that was in Wicked or whatever that is now currently postponed, this idea of springboarding into concerts is definitely a viable path for the artist and creating their own lane. So one of the things that I want to applaud you for is not only the work that you've done in every area, from swinging to then leading a company that won the Pulitzer. When did you decide to expand into songwriting?

40:51 J. Robert:

When I was doing Side Show. I was writing songs with bands before. I had always been writing lyrics, but someone else was always holding the guitar and I was a drummer my whole life. Yeah I knew G C D E A, I knew those chords, but I wasn't really playing it. But when I got into Side Show, again, those melodies, I thought, I have to write, I have to write. So I bought this guitar, this one right here. I bought it. Look at the picks, look at the scratchy, look at the scratch. Look at the scratch man. That's Willie Nelson. On Lafayette Street downtown. So I call it Lafayette. I was downtown Lafayette where my wife, at the time we were dating, she was living on Spring, right off the N train.

And I bought that guitar. And I started playing and I couldn't stop. I was writing songs, good or bad. I didn't care. I was just writing songs. I was writing, sitting in bed at night while we were going to sleep and in the morning. So yeah, that's when it started again, Side Show really got my juices flowing again. But I don't really think I'd be, to be honest with you, I feel that I love every song because every person loves their poetry for some reason. They love their own stuff because it's their baby. But I know that some of my songs are stronger than others, obviously, and I have my favorites as opposed to my other non-favorites.

But I felt like the songs I've written in the last five years are my best songs. When I wrote “Waiting on Christmas”, that came out of air and it was completed in two days and I'm really proud of that song lyrically and story-wise. And it has that beautiful Christmas vibe. And then again, with all the newer stuff I'm writing with “Live it High” being out now. I just feel like I'm a better songwriter and storyteller now than when I was five years ago or 10 years ago.

43:10 Tony:

Let's take a listen. [“Live it High” playing]

43:48 J. Robert:

With the time of our world. I figured, I should put it out because it's just sitting on a shelf and it shouldn't. And also I didn't go crazy on the PR, there's nothing going on. I'm just going to Facebook LIVE. And I'm just going to be simple with it. If people want it, they can grab onto it and they will be able to now until forever more, way until I'm gone. So it was a success. I've been wanting to get it out. People do love it. I actually got a great writeup. I’ve got to find it, on Taxi.com. I'll find it. This guy wrote back a review, which was in my opinion, I have no ego. I'd like to think I don't. I really like to think I'm grounded.

So when I hear stuff, I'm very humbled by what I hear and by what I get, here it is, I'll find it, I'll punch it up. But it's hard, I think right now in this time for anyone to find any focus on anything else other than themselves, and they should be, and we already exist in a very, me, me, me driven world of entertainment because that's our livelihood. So when there is no actual livelihood and we have to come up with it on our own. And let's face it we always come up with artistic needs and creativity all the time. But now everybody is really like, holy crap, what are we going to do?

We're going to create, and that's what we're going to do. And we're going to share everything we've been doing all of our lives, like I'm sharing with you. I'm so blessed. You called me Tony, thanks. And you accepted my invitation to just, would I be worth talking to. I mean, literally let's face it I wrote to you, you didn't say that but I was like, is it worth talking to me right now in this time when there's so much uncertainty and fear and we're all just hunkered down. So I'm getting off your question. The song is called “Live it High”. It's available on every digital download.

It's true, when I sought out to write it five years ago, I was hunkered down. Actually I was in Los Angeles, I was doing concerts and we had four days of nothing and we didn't want to travel back home and then get back on the road and hit it again for 20 shows. So we all decided at this time, hey, we're going to chill out in LA for four days. So I was at this really wonderful hotel with a great balcony view. For me, it was great. It was way, way, way downtown LA and palm trees and pollution. And I was jonesing to write songs. I had been performing concerts on the road with my group, The Midtown Men. I had so much music in me and I was so inspired and so jammed and so generated by all of the love we were getting on the road from all the audiences.

And we were really just having a great time and a huge success with our show. But I was, as the writer in me, really needed my guitar and I did not have my guitar. And I drove down to Guitar Center and I bought a little Mini Taylor, a little, little, little baby guitar. And I was surprised how much sound came out of that little thing. I wrote five songs. I went back to that hotel and I wrote five songs in probably three hours. They were in me and I had the melodies already in my head. I didn't have any lyrics in my head, but I had melodies. I always had melodies. “Live it High” was the first song I wrote and I wrote the chorus and I had no intention of writing the lyrics the way they came out. I never do. I just let it come out of me through my usual, ah’s, ooh’s, ee’s, whatever as I'm humming and mmm’s, lala’s and then all of a sudden the melody just came out. It just came out how I was feeling at that age. At the time I was 48. I'm 51 now.

Not that I have any wisdom beyond anyone else below or above me in age or in living factor on this planet, but from what I've gathered, from my massive amount of good and bad and ugly. And I still got a lot of living to do and a lot of learning to do. My heart was speaking what I wanted everyone to hear at that moment, which was “Live it High”. You live it right, live it wrong, live it free, live it strong, live it high. And yes, it's what I was hoping one day could be an anthem for cannabis, like “Margaritaville” is for Jimmy Buffett. You're not talking to professor on it. I just have read on it [marijuana] and know that it's coming and has been really, really proactive in coming back into our world, into our economics, into the legislation.

And it's been held at bay for way too long with all of the positives it can provide to our economy and to everyone's health and their wellbeing. That's the aspect of it that I promote so much: the wellbeing of it. Also when I speak “Live it High”, I speak God and I speak spiritually. And I speak in a lot of ways, you have to take the high road with each other, and there's going to be times that you are not going to be able to. So when I got to that chorus, it really was, live it right, live it wrong, live it free, live it strong, live it hard, live it loose, live it easy, but live it soon because it could be gone in a moment. Live it happy, sad, live it broken as we tend to from time to time. And not even financially, I just mean spiritually.

I mean your heart. I mean a loved one is passing, whatever it is. Then when I get to the end, when I say live it peace, live it love, live it all of the above. That's my logo. That's my tagline. And I don't live it every day the best that I can, even though I try and I'm not a hypocrite in any means. I really do try to live it, but there's time we all slip up on it. But now's the time that I feel that this song has the right vibe and message to speak to someone or some people that might want to jam to it and kick back to it and listen to it. You can take the song and the lyrics and the message for what it is. But all I wanted was to just do what I do, which is to put something out there that isn't there. And if people dig it and love it and want to share it and want to play it all day long, awesome.

51:17 Tony:

Bobby, I know when we were arranging this interview that you had told me that this pandemic had really affected you, that you're now homeschooling, you've had four months of gigs canceled, and then you had these things happening in New York or recording in a lab that are now on hold. So how are you personally coping? And what do you think is the best thing for the artist to do right now?

51:46 J. Robert:

I think everyone is needing art now more than ever. They need to watch artists do their thing from their homes. I mean, that's what it’s turning into. The artist is going to have to just turn their livelihood probably for the time being, sitting by the fireplace with their piano or with their guitar. And I think the thing that people should be doing in this time is they shouldn't be on their phones as much, to be honest with you, get on it when you need to promote, whatever you need to promote and check up on your friends and check up on your emails, but get off it and pick up the guitar or start writing your book right now.

And you of all people know that. This is what you do. You help people build their brands, their individual brands. So right now I'm preaching to the choir. We're saying to everybody right now, you should be trying to create. Let me tell you something though. Yesterday, I didn't want to do anything. I had no mojo yesterday. I had nothing. I didn't want to do anything. I didn't want to think about anything. I was so down. And then by the end of the day, I picked up my guitar and then something happened.

And then I brought my son out and I said, Geddy. I said, you come out here, please. He's like, yeah. I was like, I need you to sing this song for me. He kind of rolled his eyes and I go, I don't need you to perform it. Even though our kids are both so very, very talented with their instruments and their voices. But I said, no, I have a harmony and I need you to sing the melody so I can see if it works. So I told him the melody and sang the harmony with it, with some new song. I started strumming. It was beautiful and again, I was just singing ahh’s and oohh’s and eee’s and humming. And then before you knew it, it came out of me. And what came out was “Holding On To Life”. Have I finished the song yet? No, but the hook is “Holding On To Life”.

54:04 Tony:

It's coming down the pipeline.

54:07 J. Robert:

And that's all I think anyone can be doing right now is holding on to life. And life is created by creating.

54:18 Tony:

Bobby. You're a treasure. I can't wait for everyone to tweet you and Instagram you to tell you how awesome this interview was. One of the things I like to ask is how do you, as the accomplished man and the accomplished artist that you are, and the incredible human that you are, how do you measure success?

54:41 J. Robert:

I don't think anyone should be measured for success. I think then that puts everyone in their own box. And it separates us. I think that everyone has their own talents. And there are so many guys out there that are better songwriters than me. I know that. And better singers and better actors and better humans than me. I know that. I think that if you measure success, then that's when you become unhappy. That's when you can start picking away at yourself by saying, well, look what they're doing. Look what that person's doing. And believe me, everyone has gone through that of, look what they're doing and I'm not. And you cannot be in that ‘woe is me’ world.

You're allowed to go there every now and then, we're human, but you can't and stay in there. You can't let anyone else pick away at what you are and what you bring. And I bring a different thing than the next guy. I don't bring in any better or any worse. I just bring something different. I think we all bring something different.

56:00 Tony:

I love your answer. I love that you are on the show. Thank you for being here. I want to know what's ahead? I know that we've got “Waiting on Christmas”. We've got “Live it High”.

56:14 J. Robert:

I have been working, and a lot of people know this. I did a show where I was Abraham Lincoln. It was called Uncivil. It's a bluegrass musical comedy. And we did it at the NYMF about four years ago. I was asked to play Abraham Lincoln. I thought it was a very funny script, great bluegrass music. And I love bluegrass anyway. And it's very much like South Park meets The Civil War in a lot of ways. And our writers, Rick Kunzi and everyone involved have been so great. And so we have, over time, kept building this thing and what we were going to do this year, we're still going to do it, is, I should be in New York now doing a recording of our new demo of Uncivil, but we can't right now because of the virus.

But we are definitely going to be doing a full on lab workshop, four weeks prep in New York. That is definitely on the horizon. When? Right now we don't know. It was supposed to be September of this year. And this is my first time telling everybody. I wasn't telling everybody because it wasn't September. But if you're asking what's down the pipeline, once we're through this time, we're going to get back up in the saddle and we're going to get Uncivil back up and running. It is a really funny show and it's very relevant right now for what's going on in our world politically. And the thing I loved about it is that I was born on February 12th. I was born on Abraham Lincoln's birthday. And so I hold that day and that presidency very, very dear to my heart. And so when I was asked to play him, when I first was asked, I didn't expect it to be a comedy.

And I was expecting I was going to be reading this drama. And the first scene I read, I fell off the couch laughing. And I said, oh my gosh, because, Tony, I've been cast in dramas. Everybody's seen me as a drama, in Next to Normal or in Jersey Boys or even Side Show. But they don't know that I was at the Groundlings in LA taking class for three years. They don't know I was doing standup in LA. They don't know that I was doing comedy on the other side of my whole life. I might not be funny enough for the standup world, but I have been doing comedy nonstop my whole life.

And so I'm finally able to be a goofball in this amazingly funny show. And so that's on the horizon. What's on the horizon is I have plenty of other songs I've already recorded and I'll just be popping them out every two or three months because why the hell not? I guess right now, it's just trying to figure out the best way to really just hope for the best. And we can keep this roof over our heads and that everybody can keep their roof over their heads and that the world will be able to reopen again. And that we can get people back into the theaters and back into the arenas to get people standing and dancing and cheering on their feet again.

59:12 Tony:

One final question and the whole intent of this podcast, as well as my business perhaps, is to say, what can we as artists do with our special gift to change the world? So percolate on that. What is your last piece of advice for the listener of one thing that they can do to make change?

59:38 J. Robert:

Share it. Share their heart and share their thoughts because everybody's listening right now. Everybody's listening to everybody because there are a lot of people right now that are just at their laptop or on their phone right now. And they're watching someone or they're listening to a podcast and they're getting inspiration hopefully. They're getting a break from this world. So all I can say to everyone is just, you have to share that gift and now's your time to find it.

If you've been wanting to do it for a long time and your excuse has been not having that time. Well, there's no excuse right now. You have time. You may not have the money. And I understand that in creating something, but you still got your recorder on your phone. You still got a pencil and a pad. You can still write it down. You can still get it out there. You can still generate it somehow because if it stays inside of you then it's just going to be wasted.

And it doesn't matter if it's a book or a painting or a story or a speech or a song or even a phone call to someone or just a post or a Bible quote that you thought was like, hey, I'm going to post this because I think we need this right now or a quote from Abraham Lincoln, which is whatever you are, be a good one. That's what we need to be right now.

1:01:14 Tony:

Thank you Bobby. And thank you for listening. I want to reiterate something that Bobby just said: Artists, right now is the time to create. Stories, your stories can create huge change. Hence the Pulitzer Prize awarded to Next to Normal, Rent and most recently A Strange Loop. However, you have to create and share. You cannot only create and you cannot only share. Furthermore. I would encourage you to share something more than once. If you think about doing a show eight times a week or a thousand concerts. So if you actually add up all of the time it takes to create the work you are doing yourself a disservice if you don't share it, or if you only share it one time.

What was your biggest takeaway or favorite moment? Take a screenshot and tag J. Robert Spencer and myself. I know that we would both love to hear from you. I've created a special page to share some of Bobby's biggest moments. So you'll find some fun and rare production photos, be able to watch videos, listen to music, and even coach with Bobby or his wife through their new business.

While you're there, please join our Changemaker Community. You'll get my free brand boot camp alongside the latest and greatest free stuff like this that I create just for you.

Thank you so much for listening to Conversations with Changemakers. Now, please use your work to change the world. Maybe we can have a conversation about it very soon.