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John Tesh speaks to Everything Nash about his new album, 'SPORTS,' his time in Nashville, his legendary career and more.
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0:00
Hey guys, it's Gail with Everything Nash
0:02
here with John Tesh. I'm so excited
0:04
about this.
0:05
I am too because I just love being in
0:07
Nashville and uh and I just came from my
0:10
old television station where I worked in
0:12
when you were two.
0:13
I was too. Um just what I want to start
0:16
with. You are in Nashville. You got your
0:18
start in Nashville. Talk about that.
0:19
Yeah, I mean I had worked at two other
0:22
TV stations uh before coming to WSM and
0:25
now it's at WSMV. I worked in Raleigh in
0:28
Orlando, but uh things really didn't
0:31
start until until WSN because it was a
0:34
it was a very serious news organization.
0:37
And uh and I learned pretty much
0:40
everything that I learned as a as as a
0:42
journalist there in that place. And it
0:44
was really one of the Channel 4 and
0:46
Channel 5 were really the only hourlong
0:48
broadcast in the country, lo local
0:50
broadcasts, right? Uh, and just to be
0:53
honest, there really wasn't an hour of
0:54
news in Nashville in 1974. Now there is.
0:58
Uh, but it was uh there was the really
1:00
the houseian days of my youth. I was 23
1:02
years old. There was I was 21 years old
1:04
and I was at Channel 4 and Oprah at 19
1:07
was at Channel 5 and it's Yeah, it was
1:09
it was it was a great time.
1:11
Could you ever have imagined then the
1:13
extraordinary career you would have?
1:16
Um, no. I mean, my my career has been
1:20
ridiculously supernaturally blessed. Uh,
1:22
I think part of it is that I I'm
1:25
interested in everything. And I think
1:27
that my dad was right when he said
1:29
angrily he my dad was a World War II
1:32
veteran. Um, you're going to be uh a uh
1:35
jack of all trades and a master of none
1:38
because I'm interested in many different
1:39
things. But if you look at the stuff
1:41
that I've done or I'm doing, I I really
1:44
it's sort of different forms of
1:45
communication. But also, I think with
1:47
the ADD that I've had, it may have
1:49
settled down a little bit, but uh
1:52
actually I'm not going to make sense
1:53
now. Um is is that uh it's the great
1:59
thing about being a back in the day
2:00
being a broadcaster was that you can
2:02
work all day and you can turn something
2:03
in,
2:03
right? I'm not really I'm not your
2:05
documentary guy. I'm not like you guys,
2:07
right? Yeah. Yeah. Uh and so I know
2:12
things I mean when you look at the the
2:14
time period from when I got my first
2:15
job, people have talked about this
2:17
before in in Raleigh. Uh I was thrown
2:21
out of school for for for uh forging a
2:23
professor's name and a drop ad card,
2:25
right? So let's start there. And I was
2:27
homeless for like three or four months
2:29
in Raleigh. And from that moment, 36
2:31
months later, I was a correspondent at
2:33
CBS News in New York City. And I still
2:35
don't know how that happened. One of the
2:37
reasons it did happen was because not
2:39
everybody wanted to be a content creator
2:42
like like you know like now like we're
2:43
all broadcasters now. Right.
2:44
Right.
2:45
Uh you also are a super successful
2:47
musician and we're going to talk about
2:48
your album Sports which is out.
2:50
It is
2:52
you recorded it here. I would love to
2:54
know why.
2:57
Well um I not to be mean to anybody else
3:01
in the in the United States but the the
3:03
players in Nashville are it's no lie.
3:05
The players in Nashville are amazing.
3:06
you know, and I think part of the reason
3:08
is is um you know, great players attract
3:10
more great players. And so Nashville,
3:13
when I was here in 74, I think Franklin
3:17
was was cows, you know, and now it's
3:20
like uh I mean it's like the music
3:22
capital of the world. Well, obviously it
3:24
is music city, but uh but there is so
3:27
many more musicians and composers here
3:30
now. So uh we started here. We started
3:32
here with with sketches that I had of
3:34
the songs and then, you know, and had
3:37
the orchestra play to that. Then I went
3:39
back with a rock band and and played
3:42
played the rest of it. And then back in
3:43
my studio and I pulled out all these old
3:46
1980s synthesizers like the Moog and the
3:48
Oberheim and the Profit Prophet 5 um all
3:51
that stuff that makes all those 80s
3:52
sounds that are back now and sweetened
3:54
it with that. So, it took me it took me
3:56
a year, but I I love uh I I I can't
3:59
write anything other than sports music
4:01
for some reason. I think it's because I
4:04
just have seen so much of it, you know?
4:06
Um I was hired to be an anthology sports
4:09
reporter, which is basically everything
4:12
but the NFL, the NBA, and and and Major
4:15
League Baseball. So, downhill skiing and
4:17
figure skating, all that. And that
4:18
movement is just so perfect with music.
4:20
Um, this was your first album of new
4:22
material in 20 years.
4:25
Yeah. I mean, I've done stuff like big
4:26
band music and some other things, but my
4:28
son reminded me, he said, you know, I'm
4:30
I'm Popup because I'm a grandfather.
4:33
Popup, you have a this is your first
4:34
album like you just said in 20 years.
4:37
And I said I said, yeah. I said, but I
4:39
think the thing that really triggered
4:40
it, in fact, I know the thing that
4:41
triggered it was that that this little
4:43
song that I wrote for for basketball,
4:46
Round Ball Rock, is coming back in the
4:48
fall on NBC. And when NBC made that
4:51
decision, I just said, um, and they want
4:53
me to do all these interviews and
4:54
everything, I said, "Well, maybe I
4:56
should do that some more, you know, and
4:58
so, um, so yeah, that that's how that
5:00
that's that's at least was it was a kick
5:02
in the pants, you know.
5:03
I saw some of the footage of you making
5:05
it. You were you had like an orchestra
5:07
basically. You had all these musicians.
5:09
How stunning.
5:10
Yeah, it's great. I mean, uh, and and
5:13
you know that it's also a lesson in how
5:15
to do any of that stuff, which is and
5:16
you learn by by mistakes where
5:19
if you don't hire the best, you're going
5:21
to end up spending most of your time
5:22
fixing it, you know, and so the the
5:24
musicians here in Nashville, there's
5:26
just so they're sight reading. I mean,
5:28
and and and the music that I brought
5:30
them, not for nothing, as we say in New
5:32
York, it's it's odd time signature. So
5:35
it's it's rock and roll 44, then it's
5:37
wall 68, then it's 128, and then it's
5:39
78, then it's 54 again. And so it's not
5:43
you you would want to have that the
5:44
night before to practice that. I would,
5:48
but but no, they're sight reading and
5:49
it's just boom, you just you just get
5:51
you go right through it. And so there
5:53
was uh it cost us money to bring
5:55
everybody here, you know, and do it from
5:58
Los Angeles, but it was the right move.
6:00
Oh, you said it was a little bit of a
6:01
homecoming. Why? Well, I mean, my my
6:04
aunt Amigene is just turned 100 years
6:07
old. She's really the only living uh
6:10
last living member of of our family. Um
6:13
uh she's And by the way, folks, she's
6:16
the only one who did not uh smoke, did
6:18
not drink, and she loves to dance. So,
6:20
there it is.
6:21
There you go.
6:22
Yeah, I like to dance. That's about it.
6:23
I'm just kidding. Um, but so I wanted to
6:26
see her and and also just being able to
6:29
come back to to Channel 4,
6:31
you know, and uh and say hi to her. I I
6:33
used I I was living a life, man. I was
6:36
20 20 years 21 years old. I had a
6:39
skiboat on Percy Priest Lake. I used to
6:41
ski by by uh uh what's his name? Um
6:46
Johnny Cash's house. What's his name in
6:48
Nashville? I just said what's his name?
6:51
What's her name? Dolly Pardon. I know at
6:53
Johnny Cash's house and um and it was
6:56
great. I mean there it was there was a
6:58
digital streaming there was newspapers
7:01
and there was uh channel 4 and channel 4
7:05
ratings were monstrously huge you know
7:08
and um I used to get a free meal or two.
7:10
It was a great time.
7:11
Uh you're on NBA on NBC. Okay, that
7:15
commercial is phenomenal. Talk about
7:17
being part of NBA back on NBC.
7:20
Well, it's I mean it's ridiculous
7:22
because uh I wrote the song in 1989 when
7:26
I found out that that NBC had gotten the
7:28
coverage for the NBA from CBS. You know,
7:31
it's always moves around, right? And and
7:33
I was actually working on a sporting
7:35
event at the time. I was working on the
7:36
tour to France and I was writing music
7:39
for that and I heard that NBC was was
7:41
looking for a new theme. And so it's a
7:43
it's the story is on the internet, but
7:45
it's a true story. I mean, I actually
7:47
called my answering machine in the
7:48
middle of the night with an idea. And
7:50
musicians will tell you they do this and
7:52
I just sang
7:57
into my answering machine in New York
7:59
via phone. And uh when I got back to New
8:02
York, I went to sleep that night and I
8:04
forgot what I had done. Got back to New
8:06
York and um and it was there. And so I
8:10
figured it out on the piano, got my band
8:11
together, but knowing knowing how the
8:15
sports world works, right? Having been
8:17
in a production truck or two, I knew
8:19
what the structure needed to be. And
8:21
that's really the key to that to why
8:22
that song works where it's it's a theme.
8:25
It's and John Williams does sleep, but
8:28
um it's a theme. It's a variation on a
8:30
theme, right? And then you have to have
8:32
a bed in there, the part that goes.
8:36
And that's when Marv Albert comes by and
8:37
says and says, "Hey, you're looking
8:39
live. It's, you know, whatever." And
8:41
then and then and then another theme and
8:42
he comes back and it's brought to you by
8:44
Geico, Macy's, and whatever. So I knew
8:47
that structure. So I put that together
8:49
and sent it to them fully formed. And so
8:51
the guys at uh at NBC were just able to
8:53
say, "Well, this works, you know, that
8:55
kind of thing." But then it went then it
8:57
was dormant, you know, when when ABC
9:00
took the coverage away from just back
9:01
and forth from from NBC. Then it was
9:05
just it was it wasn't anywhere. It was
9:06
just another another theme. But then uh
9:09
Saturday Night Live did a spoof on it.
9:11
And when they did that, that's when
9:13
people started uh noticing it on
9:15
YouTube. So now that NBC has the
9:18
coverage back, uh they want to play it
9:20
again in the fall.
9:21
So why the gap?
9:24
Um, I I think there it's a great
9:27
question. I think it's because there's
9:29
and there's not like an answer that
9:30
makes a lot of sense, but I went to ABC
9:33
and said and said, "Hey, I know the
9:34
coverage just flipped over to you, but
9:37
uh you can you can use the theme, you
9:39
know, for the 10 years that you have
9:40
it." And they're like, "No, we're going
9:42
to do something different." And I think
9:44
the reason was that when that theme
9:47
happened, it was Michael Jordan, it was
9:50
Magic Johnson, it was uh Larry Bird,
9:53
Scottie Pippen, you know, it was the
9:55
known as the houseian days of basketball
9:57
really. It was known as Showtime. And
9:59
you got Marv Albert doing that and all
10:00
that. And so it was really an uh it was
10:04
heavy duty. It is heavy duty nostalgia
10:06
now. But I think ABC realized and
10:08
probably rightly so that uh that when
10:11
that theme came on, people were going to
10:12
say NBA and NBC and they didn't want the
10:15
ratings to they didn't want to be
10:16
playing all this basketball uh coverage
10:19
that they played so much money for and
10:20
people writing down in the Neielson
10:22
diaries NBC.
10:24
So I think that's what happened. But uh
10:26
but it is so I mean it's been
10:29
30 plus year 35 years or something like
10:31
that since this since the song was
10:33
written.
10:34
But the the wild thing is is that I when
10:36
I went to Nashville, I said, "Hey, let's
10:39
re-record the NBA thing." So, we did and
10:41
I finished and plus a whole bunch of
10:43
other songs and and when I presented it
10:45
to NBC, they were like, "Let us test it
10:48
out." And it turns out that the the fans
10:50
want the original,
10:52
you know. So,
10:52
go figure.
10:53
Yeah. So, you can have that theme now.
10:54
You can play it at your house.
10:56
I'll play.
10:56
Nobody else wants to listen to it.
10:58
I want to switch gears a little bit. The
10:59
John Tesh radio show.
11:00
Yeah.
11:01
Why do you want to do that?
11:03
We um I left television in 1986. I left
11:08
uh I left uh uh Entertainment No, 1996,
11:11
sorry. I left Entertainment Tonight
11:14
because I had an album, a song, a TV
11:18
special blowout called Live at Red
11:19
Rocks. And that's what I wanted to do my
11:22
whole life was to to be a full-time
11:24
musician. And so I there's that I can't
11:27
remember who the explorer was who was
11:29
having a hard time with his marauders
11:32
and somebody will correct me on this but
11:34
uh Bosco Dama or somebody like that who
11:36
who in order to get them to to to stay
11:39
on the island he burned the boats. Tony
11:42
Robbins uses that a lot. You burn the
11:43
boats. And so I wanted to leave
11:45
television to prove that I could be a
11:47
full-time musician. And uh and that's
11:50
really where where that came from was
11:53
and I started touring then then my wife
11:55
and I had a baby Prima. Uh and so she
11:58
was like I don't know two years old and
12:01
Connie raised that Italian eyebrow and
12:03
said are you going to be doing 50 shows
12:05
in a row every year and so I thought you
12:08
know why not come back into the media
12:09
world again but not in television. So,
12:12
we started a family syndicated radio
12:15
show that's on here in Nashville late
12:16
tonight um called Intelligence for Real
12:18
Life. Yeah. I I I just like that. I like
12:21
the idea of of of staying staying
12:23
relevant. I like the idea of uh forced
12:26
learning, you know, that kind of thing.
12:28
You also are so positive. I love this so
12:31
much on social media about your faith,
12:33
about how people can improve their
12:35
lives, benefit their lives. Why is that
12:37
important to you? I in in
12:40
10 years ago in 2015
12:43
I walked into a doctor's office with for
12:46
a routine exam and walked out with 18
12:49
months to live and it was a rare form of
12:51
cancer and uh it didn't make any blood
12:54
markers originally and it was one of
12:57
those things where everything just it
12:58
was a brick to the head and everything
13:00
stopped and um my my wife Connie Connie
13:04
Celica she quit everything and just said
13:07
Hey, listen. We're going to fight back.
13:09
You know, the doctor told us,
13:12
"You should get your affairs in order."
13:13
And so, I started doing that. I called
13:15
him. You know, I was 63 years old at the
13:17
time. I've done some stuff. I got a
13:18
couple of grandkids, you know. And so, I
13:21
I became a cancer patient. And she just
13:23
sort of rose up like, uh, I feel like
13:25
you might have some Italian jeans in you
13:27
as well. She sort of rose up and said,
13:29
"We're not doing this." Uh, and so we
13:32
landed on the right scriptures, right
13:35
biblical scriptures. We learned that on
13:36
the right doctors and surgeons and we
13:38
combined them together and and we used
13:41
some of the visualization that I had
13:43
learned from high level athletes. Uh so
13:46
we combined our faith with with that
13:48
visualization and also with the with the
13:51
heavy duty medical help and uh we fought
13:54
back. I I can't say that it it always
13:56
went well. I mean I I was in so much
13:58
pain I started drinking. I started
14:00
taking Vicodin uh for for all the pain,
14:02
but at the same time, which I don't
14:04
recommend at the time, I would have
14:05
recommended it, but not now. Uh but it
14:09
uh and I I was I was my wife and I ended
14:12
up having a
14:14
pretty famous family fight where she
14:17
just said, "I'm not fighting for you if
14:18
you won't fight for yourself." And so
14:20
when you get on the other side of
14:21
something like that, to answer your
14:23
question with a very long answer, it you
14:25
you you realize that positivity and
14:27
optimism is is really what other people
14:30
want from you.
14:31
I love that. Okay, last question. I'm
14:32
going to let you go. What's next for
14:33
you? I mean, you've done so much. What
14:35
is next?
14:37
I I really feel like I I uh I I really
14:42
feel like I want to finish strong. M you
14:44
know uh there I could give you you know
14:46
many places in the Bible where it says
14:48
that you really you you want to run run
14:51
the race to win you know and so I wasn't
14:54
supposed to live to be 73 my current age
14:57
and uh I realized that I'm I love music.
15:03
I love writing music. I miss it. I was
15:05
trying to do too many things and um if
15:08
so music my wife and my family and my
15:11
grandkids I mean and that's I think I
15:13
think if I give anybody you know the
15:15
same advice that Lyn Manuel Miranda gave
15:18
me when I interviewed him about Hamilton
15:21
he said I just John I just stayed in my
15:23
lane you know and I think so my lane is
15:26
as we sit here at Nashville right I said
15:29
you you guys you and your husband picked
15:30
a lane in in your in your video business
15:32
you know you stay in that lane and And
15:35
the shiny things go by. This is advice
15:38
that that I'm finally learning at 73.
15:41
And you and and you figure out what what
15:42
is it? I mean, the basically the glory
15:46
of God is men and women fully alive.
15:49
And I'm fully alive when I'm when I'm
15:51
making music and when I'm playing it.
15:53
And so when you ask what's next for me,
15:55
it's it's going to just be lots lots
15:57
more music.
15:58
Well, I hope we get to talk to you again
15:59
then.
15:59
Thanks. My pleasure. But next time you
16:01
go to a restaurant to do a restaurant,
16:02
don't forget your friend.
16:04
John Tash everyone.
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