Interview of Randy Waldman

“How did you get started in music?” I ask tentatively, thinking that this might be a question Randy Waldman’s been asked a million times before. “At a very, very young age,” he starts, “my uncle actually bought me a little toy organ… and my parents seemed to think I had some kind of talent.” Randy was six years old when he first started picking out songs and playing them by ear on his toy organ. Years later, a successful musician sits facing me in a recording studio, a pensive and nonchalant look in his eyes.

The first thing you’ll notice when you enter the property through the big automatic gate is a bunch of metal zebras grazing on the front lawn. And enough parking space for the president and all of his men. The zebras give a strange ambiance to the scene, and keep me company as I make my way to Randy’s front door. The door is large and the wood is gnarled, and I worry that the house may be too big for anybody to even hear me knocking. As soon as I knock, I hear skittish barking coming from the other side, which will later be revealed to be a small dog that loves strangers as much as he loves barking at them.

I try the bell, and after a few seconds I’m greeted by Angela, Randy’s wife, and two dogs, jumping at me excitedly. Randy welcomes me into his home, and leads me through a spacious living room and kitchen to an unusually open-floored recording studio, which is well-organized and well-maintained.

I’m nervous, as Randy is the most high-profile person I’ve ever interviewed. But he seems perpetually at ease, not on the defense at all, which is encouraging.

He speaks readily about his experiences with academic music; “I wasn’t taking any [classes]. I couldn’t reach the pedals, so nobody would teach me. Finally, I found someone…and I played something… and they said ‘okay, I’ll teach you’. I had a teacher for about 5 or 6 years, and they tried to teach me classical music…and I basically didn’t practice anything I was supposed to practice, because I loved playing by ear, so I dreaded going to classes. Thursdays still have a bad connotation.”

In fact, Randy tells me, he even “stopped going to gym” in high school because he saw it as a waste of time. All he wanted to do was music, and eventually his parents worked out an arrangement with the school administration to let him do his own thing, music-wise, since he was already booking gigs by then.

“If I knew what I know now, I would pay attention,” he notes. “Back then I was so laser- focused, [classes] were just getting in the way of what I wanted to do. I couldn’t do anything the other kids did. Just sitting at the piano… that was my thing….everything else is just in the way.” Randy seems like the kind of guy who learns by doing; not by studying or reading or memorizing. For him, I imagine, engaging in something requires active participation. This extends beyond music, and into his later-developed passion for aircraft. “One day I went for a bike ride around Van Nuys…they have a radio control airfield for toy planes. I went up to one of the guys operating the plane, and asked him where I could learn how to fly one. He doesn’t know anybody that can teach me… but he knows who can teach me how to fly the real thing. So I started taking airplane lessons, and once I did that I was completely hooked. I got my license, bought a plane, got a private license, a multi-engine license, etc.”

Randy goes in detail about his experience flying a blimp. “When you take off, you’re flying at a forty-five degree angle, and you’re holding yourself up by your feet. You’ve gotta move the helium from one side of the balloon to the other.”

When I noted how interesting it was that both of his major passions developed as a direct result of toys, he chuckled and told me I was a “toy therapist.” Toys are the common thread between these two wildly different passions.

I found it peculiar that he seemingly picked up these two interests at random. Spurred on by his claims of me being a therapist, I asked him if there was a moment in his childhood that influenced his love for the divergently tactile–”It was just an accident…we were flying upside down and I thought ‘this is the coolest thing in the world.’”

He does draw a parallel between the doohickeys on a synthesizer board and the button-filled cockpit. “It interested me–all the buttons and switches. That part I thought was cool too. I wanted to know how the whole thing worked.”

“Nowadays,” he says, “almost everybody has a home studio and a computer that can record. They have to be part-engineer and part-musician.” Randy tells me he doesn’t particularly like engineering, aside from his own projects.

“Back then,” he adds, “the only way you could make music is with other people. Everything that needed music…needed a band, an orchestra, etc. You fit in with them, you worked with them, and you fit, musically. Now, nobody ever needs to see each other ever.” Randy doesn’t say this with bitterness, or nostalgia, he sounds like he’s merely stating a fact. However, he does prefer being in the same room with a bunch of other musicians. “There’s nothing that compares.” We compared experiences working as musicians in different generations. For Randy, music is a collaborative process, one that he took great joy in participating in. For me, music is more of a lonely road, one governed by the whims of social media. Despite being completely different
types of musicians, I identified with him on an artistic level.

“If you could give one piece of advice to anybody listening, what would it be?” I ask him.

“Whatever you wanna do, be the best at it that you can be. Because there’s a lot of competition out there for everything.”

Wise words, Randy Waldman.