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Q: How did you end up on Shelter, which was run by the famous British producer Denny Cordell?

A: We left a tape there with a girl named Andrea Starr. She thought we were cute. By the time we got back [to Gainesville], Denny called and said, "I'd really like to sign the band." I said, "We've already kind of given our word to London." He said, "If you're going to drive from Florida to L.A., it wouldn't be far out of your way to stop in Tulsa, Okla. I have a studio there, and let's meet each other and see how it feels." We really fell in love with him. We played for a little while, and he said, "That's it, I want the band." And then he threw down some cash: "Here, here's a couple thousand bucks, you're going to need a place to stay."

So we were like, "OK, we're in." We drove the rest of the way to L.A. and drove right up to Shelter Records, right off the freeway, covered in dust, and it's really kind of fairy tale stuff. They really nurtured us along for a good year or so before he even let us make a record.

Q: But it was an extremely one-sided deal in Shelter's favor. A few years later, you had to fight to get out of it.

A: We didn't think it was bad, because we all got new amplifiers and we had a house with a pool and somebody paying the bills. It wasn't a bad deal until we started to sell a lot of records. So it was really kind of the price of an education. You know, some days it really pisses me off, but it's probably fair in the long run. Because he really did save our lives in a lot of respects. Had we made a record the minute we hit town, it probably would have come and gone, and we would have been back playing clubs in Gainesville.

Q: After one single for Shelter, you left Mudcrutch and started a solo album. But ultimately, the Heartbreakers formed. How did that happen?

A: Benmont was trying to get a record deal, and he had gotten some studio time. He really handpicked the Heartbreakers. They were all Gainesville guys who had moved out to L.A., so I was invited to play the harmonica. I went by the Village Recorder in Santa Monica, and I was like, "What a band!" And being the cunning businessman that I am, I said, "You know, backing up Benmont's fine, but there's no reason you couldn't have me in the band and I have a record deal, so you could circumvent the whole try-to-make-it thing and go in with me," and we were off.

Q: The band's self-titled debut comes out in 1976 on Shelter and does nothing in the United States, but album track "Anything That's Rock 'n' Roll" takes off in the United Kingdom, so you headed over there.

A: We went as a support act for Nils Lofgren. We got on the covers of the music weeklies and NME, and we did "Top of the Pops" on the TV. We were beyond thrilled. By the time we left England, we were a headlining band, and then we flew home and we got off the plane, and you're nothing again.

Q: You came back to the States and were playing for sometimes tiny crowds, as few as four or five people in Boston. Was that disheartening?

A: We thought it was wonderful that we were getting to go around America and play. We had enough buzz to play the Whisky a Go Go, and we started playing [there] as an opening band for Blondie, who were also unknown, and, really, by the end of that week it just exploded. There were lines around the block.

Q: Early singles, like "Breakdown" and "I Need to Know," set the tone for your career. Why didn't you put more of your really beautiful love songs and ballads out as singles?

A: Something that irritated me later on was that [my labels] always went with something that was uptempo and had an electric guitar on [it]. In the last days of FM before it just died, it used to drive me nuts; if there wasn't a guitar solo, they didn't want it. So something like "Angel Dream," which has got to be one of my 10 best songs ever, was completely overlooked. But, you know, this is life in the big city, what can you do?

I don't think we had a hit ballad ever until "Free Fallin'." And I remember with that, there was some question. I went on "Saturday Night Live," and the single at the time was "I Won't Back Down," and I played "Free Fallin'," and MCA was just furious at me. But my thinking was, " 'I Won't Back Down' is already a hit, let's play something they don't expect." I'm sure it helped the record later. Sometimes you just gotta do what you think is right.

Q: While you were making your third album, "Damn the Torpedoes," you were fighting to get off Shelter and its distributor ABC. Was the studio your refuge where you could get out all your anger?

A: Probably. It certainly had an impact on what we were doing. This record started in 1978 and didn't come out until late in '79, so we got into this protracted legal battle to the point where we were almost stopped from performing. We had to go into court and plead that we needed to perform to live. We declared bankruptcy . . . it was really a farce. The thinking was if you declared bankruptcy, all contracts would be void, and we saw this as a way out. [We said], "We're unrecouped this much money, and [with] this royalty rate, it would take us 10 years to pay back the money, so in essence, we're bankrupt." But we played it for all it was worth . . . I don't think I would do something like that today. I was just stubborn and worked up, and I did see that we're going to do all this work and we're going to have all this success and we're not going to get paid for it.

Q: The Heartbreakers made "Damn the Torpedoes," your first album for Backstreet/MCA, with Jimmy Iovine. What do you look for in a producer?

A: I really look for people I get along with. The best ones know [that] without the great song, all this is a waste of time. You can chrome a turd, you can do every little trick you've got, but if I can't play [the song] to you on the piano or the guitar alone, it's not going to work.

Q: Do you see your songwriting ability as a gift?

A: Yes, absolutely. It has to be a gift, because why would I be able to write a song instead of someone else? After a while, you come to realize, "I've really been blessed. I can write these things and it makes me happy, and it makes millions of people happy." It's an obligation, it's bigger than you. It's the only true magic I know. It's not pulling a rabbit out of a hat; it's real. It's your soul floating out to theirs.

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