About this conversation
Franklin Vanderbilt started on drums at five in Chicago, toured the world with Lenny Kravitz, and has played with Stevie Wonder, Chaka Khan, and Robby Krieger of The Doors. Then one night in Europe he walked off stage frustrated, because he wanted to say more than the drums could. In this hour he tells how a drummer picked up a 12-string guitar as a songwriter and "turned into a guitar player," how he found his voice by focusing on inner space instead of outer space, and about the night Alan Parsons apologized for not calling him up to the drums at a jam session: "In my head, you're a singer." He plays Everybody's Talking About Love live, guitar and voice, and explains Royal Cadence, the cultural and luxury house he founded. Asked what reinvention is, he answered in one word: power.
In this conversation
- 00:00Chicago, the drums, and audacity
- 05:21The stage taught him where he belongs
- 10:23The Lenny Kravitz years, and the songs he was already writing
- 12:23Why a drummer picked up a guitar
- 15:09The night he walked off stage frustrated
- 16:46Inner space: how he found his own voice
- 20:36He plays Everybody's Talking About Love, live
- 29:04Inside My Silence, and the day Alan Parsons forgot he was a drummer
- 34:33Good things take time: why he held the album
- 39:46Royal Cadence, what success means now, and "reinvention is power"
