Tyley Ross

Tyley Ross, an award-winning performer and in-demand voice coach has starred on Broadway and major Canadian stages. He joins us to chat about the ups and downs of his artistic journey and the happy accidents along the way.  TyleyRossVoice

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Tyley is an actor, singer, recording artist and voice coach.  He got his first break in his native Canada when he was cast by Pete Townshend to play the title role in The Who’s Tommy (Dora Award for Outstanding Performance in a Musical).  He’s been active on stage ever since: Chris in Miss Saigon (Broadway), Lord Cannan in Finding Neverland (A.R.T. and Broadway), Tony in West Side Story (The Stratford Festival), Franklin in Merrily We Roll Along (The Shaw Festival), Simon in The Wedding Banquet (US and Asia),  Jamie in the Last 5 Years (Dora Nomination - CanStage).

He has been a guest soloist with a number of leading orchestras in Canada and the United States, and has released six albums: Treading Water and the self-titled Tyley Ross; La Donna, East Village Opera Company, and Olde School (Grammy nominated for Best Classical Crossover Album) all as the lead singer and co-founder of Universal Records’ The East Village Opera Company.  Tyley toured worldwide with EVOC and appeared on many national and international television broadcasts including the Miss USA Pageant (NBC) and two PBS specials: EVOC live in Saint Louis and the multi-disciplinary Remember Me -his collaboration with AnnMarie Milazzo and Parsons Dance Company which also toured worldwide.  His most recent album with with Aria Electronica ReDux - yet another collaboration with AnnMarie Milazzo.

Tyley has a Masters in Voice Studies from London’s Royal Central School of Speech and Drama, an Advanced Certificate in Vocal Pedagogy from NYU and a Certificate in Vocology from the University of Iowa.  He has worked at NYU’s Tisch School of the Arts since 2010 as an adjunct singing instructor, and has taught voice across the US as well as in Mexico, Canada, South Korea and the UK as well as being voice coach on multiple Broadway shows. 

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Produced and Edited by Arts and Craft.
Theme Music: Sound Gallery by Dmitry Taras.

Transcript

We are who we are because of the sound we make and if we are not in tune internally inside then we can't expect what comes out to be in tune he was Tommy in Canada's Tommy he was in Miss Saigon on Broadway he is also a phenomenal voice teacher and a super special human being who are we talking to today Nancy today we're talking to Tyley Ross my name is Nancy Magarill I'm a singer songwriter composer performer graphic and web designer and Peter Michael Marino and I'm a writer producer Creator performer and educator we are new york-based artists you may or may not have heard of and we are here to introduce you to other artists you may or may not have heard of so I want to start first by you telling everybody who you are and what you do I'm going to steal from Pete because he's always like what's your elevator pitch when people ask you who you are what you do I don't have an elevator pitch I uh my concept has always been that if people want to know anything about me either I failed by not uh having something out there that made them know me in the first place or they can just go find me as an artist I'd rather have my art be found so I don't I I don't have an elevator pitch wait however my podcast pitch is uh I'm a uh kind of a retired Music Theater performer a retired a recording artist song stylist I don't know I've never called myself that before but uh maybe it describes a certain time in my life I'm a voice coach now and I uh specialize in working with people who have uh dysfunctional voices and that I shouldn't say dysfunctional but people whose voices have needed some kind of rehab I took that very personally by the way yeah and uh uh but I also have a large clientele of you Elite singers people on Broadway people with recording careers uh so I I have a whole spectrum of uh clients but I you know I grew up doing theater for many years and had a band for many years so are you really retired yeah I don't I I I don't audition for anything anymore so uh which means that if I get something it's accidental and you know a retired person might still uh take something on a contract gig basis kind of thing um partly it's also for me psychologically I just I think it's it's easier for me just to uh take a couple things off my plate by saying I don't do that anymore and if somebody comes knocking on my door and says yes you do and they have a stack of money in their hand then um uh I might answer the door I just want to back up I do not do the elevator speech that is not what I ask people Nancy I'm sorry it's party that is what I ask when I'm coaching people on marketing and press what's your elevator speech and it's always terrible what I say on this podcast is Tye you're at a party tonight A Stranger comes up to you and says what do you do how do you get out of the conversation or what do you say to make them happy Oh no you're not going to like this any better than my elevator pitch oh boy yeah I usually tell people I'm a I'm a a voice coach and then people usually don't know what to do with that and then it uh it okay so now what I'm getting is you really don't like going to parties I mean I can agree I don't like them either I I don't like going to parties where I have to give uh elevator speeches yeah and you probably go to a lot of parties where you actually don't have to give that speech because a lot of people that you probably see probably know what you do already uh yes some I mean my wife is an attorney and usually if I go to parties it's with my uh it's with my wife for some um opening event or something like that where I'm just the very beautiful trophy husband uh you know and I just play my my part of uh silently um fetching Beverages and she's not just an attorney she's an attorney for a lot of big artists and Broadway artists a lot of recording artists correct yes she's got the blue chip artists in the uh in the Broadway World particularly ERS and performers directors she's got a lot of shows on Broadway right now right would you say she's a famous attorney I would think so would you say that you're famous no no why I tell um I tell my son and he rolls his eyes he's he's 11 I say I was once what did that mean I'm Canadian I've been in the states for 20 years but the notoriety that I had in Canada doesn't doesn't translate across the border so uh you know I had kind of a fancy couple years when I was in in my uh mid-20s what did that mean I was hired when I was 24 Pete Townsen hired me to play Tommy in the Canadian production of Tommy which is having a Revival this year on Broadway it's mostly the same creative team I worked with uh there that's doing it doing it here um I mean the same conductor the same director um same lyrics the same always the same had to be the same lyrics um so that was you know I won the equivalent of the the Canadian Tony Award or the Canadian equivalent of Tony Award and for you know 10 years I didn't have to audition for anything people would just it was I would just get work it just lined up easily and nicely and conveniently for me and and maybe I just never liked auditioning so I've an artist right well actually there's some people who get a kick out of it and I think uh some people who like the affirmation of walking into a room unknown and uh and leaving with a with a gig you know that was never my never my thing I always felt the a certain level of resentment having to audition I felt like if people knew who you were to call you in then they should know who you are to give you the gig but that is unrealistic so yeah in Canada I I had a a career when I was uh when I was younger and uh if I'm famous for anything it's for not knowing the famous people that I'm talking to and I'm speaking to a famous person and asking really stupid questions of them um I mean Ralph machio I ended up sitting with him you know in the mid 90s when he was a huge star and uh uh we were introduced by a a common friend at a restaurant so we're sitting together our common friend leaves and I start asking questions like so what do you do I'm an actor oh yeah stage or film TV yeah I do mostly film I'm like oh cool any films that I might know uh well I did The Karate Kid movies and I'm like oh were you the Karate Kid he's like yeah I was the Karate Kid I'm like oh okay so this explains why you do not offer this information when people ask you at a party okay we got it there you go we have we have we have found the source of this uh awkward feeling I was backstage at uh at an MTV thing and uh was sharing a dressing room with nyn and I had no idea who they were and I was asking questions of Justin Timberlake like so are you guys like a band or something you know I was I once bowled with salmon rushy and I had no idea who he was until somebody explained it to me afterwards I I just I'm I'm clueless let's back up sure Tyle how'd you wind up in this hellscape called entertainment how did it how did it start what what what sparked you did you have an inspiration did somebody go do something and you went I have to do that what how did you get here uh actually I had an interesting first experience on stage or nearly first experience on stage I had done some Community Theater in my very small town population 900 so the competition was not Fierce for those parts that I was before back then and I did two small community theater things and then um and I really enjoyed them and and my dad took me to see Ian McKellen the famous actor yeah he was doing a one-man show called playing Shakespeare and it was a you know a large theater I think it was like a 2,000 seat theater or something and at the end of the show he came back for an encore then another Encore and then when he came back for a third Encore he didn't have anything that he could easily do so he said I'm going I'm going to need some help from the audience so I need a few volunteers and I had no impulse to get up from my seat but my dad sort of lifted me up and shoved me down the aisle and he said you will will never regret this a and he was right I walked up onto the stage and there was maybe a a dozen of us and he gave us instructions on sort of how to be a part of this little skit that he was going to play and he said everybody spread out around the stage and when I say A Certain word I want everybody to die a gruesome death and then uh and then when you hear the following you know he gives another q word then everybody stand up and and take a b but he said but you and he grabbed my hand CU I was all of 12 years old and a very short 12 years old too I probably was like 3 foot 4 or something and he said you come you die right next to me so I did and I died next to him and then he did some routine about checking my pulse and checking my breath and uh the audience was laughing I didn't know what was going on cuz my eyes were closed I died a gruesome death and then when he gave his q line for us all to stand up he grabbed my hand and he pulled me forward for a special bow with him so I I've always felt a kinship with uh Gandalf and suran McKellen suran McKellen um but I just remember at that moment looking out at the at the theater is a it's the National Art Center theater in Canada so the Canadian version of the Kennedy Center and just seeing you know this dark black void ringed with with lights and I think about that almost every time I walk on stage and I see that the Blackness it just I have the sense memory of the thrill of the first time that I uh I saw that and it wasn't so much that I I thought I want to be on stage I just I really enjoyed acting and Performing and in Canada when I was coming up there were no opportunities there wasn't really such thing as a a famous Canadian person who didn't leave Canada to come to the States to become famous in in the states and then return to Canada and usually return to Canada via American Media channels so in Canada you didn't do your craft or practice it for any reason other than love and I've encountered the opposite here in New York where a lot of people practice it because they're looking for fame they're looking for an opportunity and they're looking for a quick introduction to the industry but uh for me and for so many of the people I came up with there wasn't even a chance I mean you didn't even it didn't even occur to you that you could have a career let alone have any kind of notoriety or make your living or um or have fame or anything come from it so where's the part where like so I was in a play and I liked it or I started singing and I liked it I went to a High School of the Arts and I studied I studied acting there but I spent most of my free time in the piano practice rooms not practicing piano just practicing singing as loud and as hard as I could I just I loved singing and again I didn't consider myself a singer I was kind of embarrassed but if I developed any skill there it was just because I I'm I guess I have a lucky throat you know I'm able to sing hard and get away with it or I could anyway back then so I just I loved that and gradually over time the uh the voice program that didn't have enough uh tenor or male singers started pulling me out of drama class to sing duets with some of the girls uh join their choir and so I started becoming kind of a hesitant member of the uh The Voice Community there and hesitant just because I I didn't feel like I had any technique or I didn't feel like I was a good singer compared to the other uh the other singers there um I had a crack in my voice a mile wide you know I didn't sing very high but then somewhere along the way somebody mentioned that there was a band that was looking for a singer so I auditioned for this band and got in and we're initially a cover band that then started writing originals and we became finalists a couple years later in sort of the um contest called share sh they had a history of sort of launching successful bands and uh so I was quite excited to be a part of their that thing and then the band sort of petered out I did a couple other kind of contests I was a part of a couple other bands I had a a development deal with Warner Records with a a duet that I had that was a not so welld disguised version wannabe version of Wham but then that deal didn't didn't turn into anything so I was sort of between being a um a wannabe recording artist and a wannabe TV film guy I was getting dayplayer uh roles on um some small TV shows that were uh that were recorded I actually had a a lead in a in a series when I was 17 kind of a a 90210 deg grassy High kind of show it also had the uh if it was famous for anything and it wasn't really famous at all but it was uh Sandra O's um first first uh TV show so we work together on on that is she Canadian she is oh I didn't know that yep yeah she grew up in Ottawa again small community people who just did it because they loved it never with any uh uh with any thought about hitting it out of the park at all so at some point you're you're doing you're you're acting uh and I'm assuming you studied acting at this performing arts high school that was a thing and then you're kind of finding your voice you're auditioning for band um so we're kind of like out of high school were you were you thinking like were you thinking this is what I want to be when I grow up and that thing is blah or did you just go with the wind I in my high school graduation yearbook you get like a little summarize where you're going everybody's like I'm going to this school and I'm going to study this I said I don't know what I'm going to do but I'm probably going to be doing something in the Arts which is the answer you can now give had a party see see there you go yeah I've made exactly of myself what my 17-year-old yeah yeah somewhere in the Arts I mean i' I've managed to be kind of in a lot of places in the Arts but uh I I didn't know what that was going to be and I didn't think I would make money I didn't think that there was any any real future in it for me but I mean I thought that I would do it as my you know what made me happy while I worked at a bookstore or you know at the time I worked at a paper store it was so you had no dreams of being famous or anything like that oh I did I just didn't think that there was any chance of of that actually happening so when I moved from Ottawa to Toronto I moved with literally enough money just for my first and last month's rent and everybody said what are you going to do when you're when you go there and I said I'm going to be in Miss Saigon which I knew was going to be coming to uh to Toronto uh I didn't know when you had listened to cast album yeah i' I'd been to England and I'd seen the show there and fell in love with it but I really it was my way getting people to leave me alone and stop asking I was I was answering with this ridiculous answer I'm going to be in Miss Saigon leave me alone and people would say no really what is you and I said no really I'm going to be in misson they said how are you going to do that I said I don't know but I'm just going to be in misson stop asking me I don't know how I'm going to make that happen but and how long did it take it was two years later I was in misson yeah and that was in Canada or on Broadway that was in Canada and then two years later I was doing it on Broadway well talk about manifesting that is right yeah be careful what be careful what we say well you're a pretty good manifestor I've been manifesting a job for 2 weeks now and I had to self tape for it and like I I'm sort of like you I luckily haven't had to audition for anything in like the past five or six years and man I have literally every single day I wake up like picturing myself doing that job oh that's nice but then I have to talk to my therapist about like so am I manifesting or am I setting myself up for failure I'm already getting depressed about getting bad news who do I think I am you know but I deserve this at this point and I mean like this CRA I don't I talk to these other artists who do these self tapes like three times a week oh God it's oh my God like it's crazy how can you be like living like I am right now for 20 projects that you're wondering about I'm worried about one maybe they don't worry about them maybe they just do so many that they don't they let them go and they don't think about it when you got cast did you tell anybody I told you so I mean did that ever did that ever oh yeah there was a lot of that oh good going on good I'm glad you had a little bit of yeah were you a bit cocky oh I was really cocky oh yeah I couldn't share space like me at 53 couldn't share space with me at 25 I think that would have been a hard a hard fit I just would have been oh God this kid yeah so how did you end up getting into the us there was a wonderful uh casting agent in the 80s and 90s his name was Vinnie Liff oh the Bad Johnson Johnson Lift casting so great he passed uh I don't know maybe 15 years ago and he his ashes were strewn in Schubert alley he was that uh Germain to the work of Broadway for for decades actually here's an interesting story let me back up when I was 22 I'd done a little bit of TV couple commercials I was managing to almost pay my way just with sort of dayplayer TV stuff in order to make that believable you have to imagine a beautiful head of curly hair and you know strong jaw and all the things that were stolen from me along with my youth there was a commercial that had a rap party I mean I've never heard of such a thing a rap party for a commercial and I didn't want to go but my roommate who couldn't get an agent and couldn't get a a leg up in the industry insisted that I go and take her so we went and they were doing karaoke and uh she signed me up for karaoke and I went up and sang and the casting director came right up afterwards and he said who are you and how come I haven't heard of you and I'm like no you've auditioned me before and you cast me in this commercial so you should know him and he goes okay I have to see you tomorrow you have to audition for forever plaid we have to do an emergency replacement right away and I said actually I'd audition for that it went really badly so I'm not I'm not going to come in again and this is really the beginning of my when I stopped auditioning happily and started to see that it works really well not to do that for me anyway he said come in and sing for me tomorrow I really think you'd be you'd be great in this Ro I said I'm not going to come and he said you have to come and I said I'm not going to learn anything appropriate to sing I'm going to sit at the piano and sing my own songs and that's all I'm willing to do and he goes I don't care you come in and sing your own songs and so I went in these are back in the days when you know nowadays if you're auditioning for Broadway you do a 16 32 Bar cut of a song I sat down and I played the piano poorly and sang a song of my own devising and I did a probably a 64 bar kazoo Solo in the middle no joke I pulled a kazoo out of my pocket and I played the kazoo it's a big part of the show big yeah there was no kazoo or piano playing in that part it's all about blending and they hired me that afternoon and I started this is forever plaid and so I I started rehearsing the next day and I was in that show for nine months and then out of that I auditioned for Miss Saigon and Vinnie Liff called me up personally said listen I want to hire you to to understudy the lead role and he said I think you should be playing the Le lead role but nobody knows who you are and and I said but I've got a lead rooll right now and he goes yeah but this is a better lead rooll that's going to be as far as you ever get and he said come join Miss Saigon understudy the rule and I think you're going to knock it out of the park and then I think I'm going to bring you down to Broadway to play it down on Broadway wow and it was a lot more money so I I took that I didn't think I thought he was blowing smoke but I thought I'll just take the money and maybe I'll get on one time but I got on maybe a dozen times and then while I was doing that Tommy came to town and uh started auditioning and I went through that audition process and was hired for that and then that kind of made a name for me in in theater in Canada and then Vinnie lift came back to see Tommy and he came backstage and he said that was the most thrilling performance I've ever seen and again I thought I thought I think you're blowing smoke I'm sure you say that backstage everywhere and he goes as soon as the show is done I'm bringing you down to Broadway and I said thanks finny and didn't think for a second that he was telling the truth but after that show closed a year later I was lying in my bed which I did for about a week after the closing of that show cuz I was so tired and my phone rang and I literally remember the color of the telephone I rolled off the side of my bed and I picked up the phone hello he goes Ty it's Vinnie Liff Vinnie how you doing good I'm calling from New York City where I want you to come down and play Chris and Miss saon on Broadway what do you think so anyway that was how I came down to New York uh with uh Vinnie bringing me down and I played Chris on misson for for nine months did you think that okay this is it this is the one I I don't have to worry after this I'm I'm playing this great part in New York City on a Broadway stage literally at the Broadway Theater I think that's it was yeah good my friend Roger sire was in that I oh Roger we worked together yeah yeah I think he went on for you like I remember it was like what the old days like Roger's going on and all of us getting our pennies together to try to I stood you know yeah yeah yeah he he was my Charlie Brown to my Snoopy so were you were you like okay this is it I'm I'm going to be a New Yorker I'm going to work on Broadway I'm going to be famous everyone loves me here we go yeah I was uh oh it really it did feel at that point no at that point no it was I I uh I I probably said out loud like I'm not coming home until I get a Tony Award oh you know I want a Tony Award and then I'll then I'll come home and uh but miss sagon was not a happy time for me my voice did not behave while I was there and it really my voice hit the wall which is the Catalyst for why I now work with um you know people who are have struggling voices it's a really hard role and it's notorious for destroying singers so I mean over the I I kind of felt Unstoppable I just when I when I came to New York I just felt like I could do anything I was young still you know I didn't I didn't know my limits and they had never been shown to me and uh living in New York I had a you know it was um I had an apartment that was very loud I'd never lived in a place where I couldn't sleep before and sleep is you know one of the most important pieces to um to being a singer if you're not sleeping when I was doing Tom I was sleeping 13 hours a night to regenerate for that and that wasn't my regular habit I was just exhausted and needed to but then when I was doing misson I was lucky if I was getting 6 hours of cobbled together sleep you know it couldn't really function very well so by the end of that I kind of fled New York with my tail between my legs hating New York never wanting to come back but really the the the kernel like the The Thorn that took a long time to get out that was the the source of of that was just that my voice became unpredictable to me and it wasn't you know a voice that had been very reliable to me my voice had always been always been a real a real friend to me and was kind of my that was my my golden egg my golden golden Goose it was the goose that laid my golden egg terrible metaphor for what I'm trying to talk bad sense um and suddenly it was it wasn't working for me so so you go back to Canada yep and you H how are you going to make a living what are you going to do for the rest of your life so I didn't really know I didn't think that I was going to do anymore yeah yeah I I was I was terrified of getting back on stage again like even just as an actor in a play yeah I've never really been all that uh I I don't enjoy doing plays really um fair enough I love I love singing and I love singing in a um in an over-the-top dramatic way that Music Theater allows you know but it's so interesting to me because you also I think just from working with you think you have really great acting in instincts so it's fascinating to me that you that's not something you ever wanted to do oh no I did and I I mean I did you know TV and film um he worked with the in McKellen I mean you know there you go yeah I should put that on my resume you definitely should yeah yeah um God you know there's people out there who would find a way to Horn shoehorn that under the resume yeah I've lost my train of thought there now I'm just thinking about my resume I just let me just update that right now hold on a second what you were doing when you went back to Canada what you thought you were going to be doing this is another great manifesting moment there was a wonderful one person performer her name was Sandra Sheamus and she's a a huge name in Canada sitting in her audience you would SOB crying and SOB laughing she was so great and I remember seeing her and I thought that's what I'd like to do that speaks to me I'd like to do that with music so I took her out it was the opening night of Beauty and the Beast in Toronto and I had an extra ticket so I asked Sandra Sheamus if she wanted to come otherwise didn't know her but I thought maybe she will come for an opening so we saw the show and then she uh we went out to the party afterwards and and I said just tell me about like how do you do a one person show how do you do it she goes you just do it and I said but how do you do it she goes you just stop whining and do it and if you whine about it you're not going to do it and she said a couple things that I thought were amazing she said even if it's terrible everyone's just going to be amazed that you did it so just dare to do something terrible and people will be astonished it's true and we were talking maybe for about half an hour and then a producer came up who I maybe had met once before but didn't really remember and he came up and he said Ty and I said yes and he said I didn't know you were back in town I thought you were still on Broadway I said no I'm I'm just back and he said have you ever thought of doing a oneperson show oh my God and I was like yeah that's actually what we're just talking about now he said here's my card you call me tomorrow I want to talk to you about doing a oneperson show and so I called him up and he said please come to my office for lunch so we got together for lunch and he slid a contract over to me and it was a lucrative contract it was basically enough money to uh record an album of my original material and produce a week-long run of a oneperson show that wait he was commissioning you to create a show yeah yeah and so he you know six months later I did a a a one a oneperson show uh it was more a concert than than a oneperson show it was you know some highlights from my theater career which at that point I think there was four shows on my resume uh and one of those shows was twice uh or two of those shows was the same show and I'd been a songwriter you know and which was from my the days playing with my band I'd always thought that I was a songwriter and uh and sort of with a that I'd been frustrated along the way by accidentally ending up in Music Theater so I was able to make make my first record with that and uh so from there I just I've always sort of juggled making music um as a recording artist and being a performer uh since then so I'd done a lot of theater after that but you know was able to sell my records in the uh the gift store out front so you haven't written a musical yet for other I have I have okay cuz if you haven't I was going to say we have to hang up because it's clearly time it's it's so bad that nobody will ever hear it but it was it was fun it was a pleasure to [Music]

write you've had such a successful career as a performer you've gotten to perform on Broadway in Canadian stages around the world you've done the band thing where you've toured around the world which I know you I I believe you either told me or I read that you don't really love touring but it's still a dream that a lot of artists would kill to have so it's really um and I think it's also part of maybe what makes you such a great teacher because you share all of that experience you care so much about actually getting to the source of the problem so I also think that your stories of what happens in the business and the negotiations and and you know the good and the bad is really important for people that know nothing about it whether they're wanting to perform or they're just people who don't have an understanding of what artists really go through you know in their careers because it all sounds so great well I'll tell you that it's very hard to plan a career and there was a line from a a sting song he said the universe will suck you into place I'm sure he stole that from n or somebody else it's hardly original but I like the phrasing and I've always felt that in your career it's kind of like you you go out with 20 different Kites and you throw them all up in the air and you see if any if the wind will pick up any of them at all and those people that only go out with one kite with an insistence that it fly in a particular direction regardless of the direction of the wind are highly unlikely to meet with success although it could happen it can totally happen and you know so here here's a a chunk of my life I was doing a uh a show I was hired to play a show called anything that moves it was a new musical written by anarie McDonald who is an amazing novelist she wrote an extraordinary book called Fall on Your Knees that everybody should read and she wrote this musical original show that was happening in Toronto and I was hired to play one of the leads and uh my girlfriend was living in Los Angeles at the time so I was back and forth visiting her in LA and uh getting ready for the show in uh in Toronto and then while I was in in La at my girlfriend's pool in her little complex there I met this older dude who was uh he'd written some golden oldies hits and he' started a publishing company and he was interested in what I was doing and nice enough guy and uh he wanted to hear some my songs and he just believed in me and so he said listen I'd like you to sign with my publishing company and I thought well the only thing is is I have to go back to Canada I've got like 6 months he goes you know what I think this is your time I think you should sign with me I'll pay you more than than what that uh show is going to pay for you and then you're writing your own thing instead of doing something you've already done a lot of so I went back to Canada we sorted out a contract rather quickly and I quit that show kind of right before it started rehearsal which everyone was F with you know they were forgiving and understanding but I went down to LA and from the moment I got there I realized that my relationship with my girlfriend had soured we'd been together for years it turned out that on the sly she'd started dating Brian Gosling but I didn't find out about that till later this is pre Ryan Gosling being hunky and cool this is him and his uh notebook maybe pre- notebook I think uh Walt Disney Mickey Mouse Club maybe post Mickey Mouse Club anyway uh he doesn't factor in too much into this but uh I can't believe I know so much about his career it's terrifying there you go um but the day I arrive something has gone funky with my girlfriend my publisher calls me up and says I need to get together with you for breakfast so on the day that my girlfriend and I break up I get together with my publisher who has yet to cut me a check for the uh for signing the contract and I get together with him and he said listen I've gone bankrupt um my publishing company is is I'm I'm sorry I I'll pick up I'll pick up breakfast oh that's so nice you know here I was I'd moved to Los Angeles I guess I had a little bit of money but not very much uh certainly not enough just to live down in La I'd moved I'd left my apartment in Canada I'd come down to LA to be with my girlfriend and to do this publishing deal and live that big life there and you left a show behind and I left a show behind which ended up winning all the awards in in in Canada but that was an interesting thing cuz I made my way back to Toronto after that uh and I was bouncing back and forth between Canada and the states quite a bit to say that I lived in Canada was really more that I had a storage space in Canada and a lot of sublets but I went to the award show where that show anything that moves uh was one and and uh the guy who played the role that I played won the best actor award for for that and it wasn't so much to me that I felt like uh I should have won that award but I just thought oh this is in comparison to what I've just walked away from and sort of all of this promise that went sour I just feel like I I pulled the rug out from my own under my own feet you know and I I said so to an Marie McDonald I said listen I I really want to apologize for for messing up your show and she said you didn't mess up my show look we just won all the awards tonight and I was like yeah well you know things didn't work out very well for me and she said oh I'm so sorry for that I said yeah I don't I don't live anywhere I'm I'm single now I don't have any work I basically canned all my work for the next year and she said that sounds amazing I said what are you talking about she said you can do anything right now so what are you talking about she said I would give anything to be where you are you could travel anywhere you could move anywhere you could do anything you're not held down by anything seize this opportunity in your life wow that's so cool and did you it's really cool yeah I can't remember what I did immediately after that but not long after that I got hired to be in a film and the director knew that I was a singer songwriter and he said well why don't you do the soundtrack to the film just do like an opera soundtrack cuz it was like it sort of a spoof on The Godfather films and I was playing the opera singer guy in the in the movie and uh and I said well I don't I don't feel like making a I don't I'm not a classical singer I don't have any interest in making a classical record I think it would be bad and and he said well listen I'll pay you whatever it is you need to to make this i' really think it'd be great and I said well I don't think I can do it on my own he goes well let me introduce you to somebody so he introduced me to a a really brilliant arranger Peter Keys Walter who was living in in the states and so we made a dozen tracks that was then used for this film that was a film that really just went straight to digital and two years later after the film we thought we really love this recording let's let's play one show so we we booked Joe's Pub we printed 500 copies of this CD and prepared for the one and done concert but for some reason at Joe's Pub that night everybody showed up all four major record companies at the time all showed up with their full signing teams they all saw each other there um which is better see you there cuz they think oh my God there's blood in the water Let's uh let's get them now it was a great show again we thought it was only going to be a one-time thing timeout New York billboard Wall Street Journal they all were there and reported on it and declared us to be the the new thing so we found ourselves in a bidding war and again this is just you know you can't make something like that happen it was just allowing you know I took a film cuz it was the only thing up when nothing was going on I begrudgingly accepted this offer to do the soundtrack to the film which didn't really interest me but I thought well I could use the money and maybe it'll be fun and then just sort of kept on following it it was fun and so we just thought well let's play one show and then and then let's uh consider it a a cocktail party gag properly revealed to New York City and then lo and behold we got signed to Universal records and spent the next 10 years writing recording touring well not so much writing arranging recording and touring with that project it was called the East Village Opera Company I remember when you you guys started I remember hearing so much about you yeah know there was a lot of Buzz at the time and I guess it was uh you know Andrea belli had just come out with his uh his first record and Josh groin had come out and so record companies were looking for classical crossover acts and they were creating them because they didn't know how to make them and they didn't know what people were looking for and then lo and behold here's this band that's already doing it that already has a record that was as far as they were concerned kind of kind of proven so what was it like touring with a project like that did you enjoy it um somewhat I would say that most things that appear successful in my career I enjoyed in retrospect more than I did at the time so there were a lot of people in our band uh we weren't small but the band was as a legal entity was me and Peter and his role as we sort of uh we evolved into our our different roles he was primarily arranging in musical directing and mine was tour management and business coordinations and we had managers we we had business managers we had agents we had tour managers at one point too but what we just found is that if you want something done in a way that is going to leave some money for you to spend at the end of the day then you have to do it yourself and so I became the tour manager for for our band um and we were at one point there was 17 of us out on the road so that was me booking tickets flights hiring the tour bus the bus driver getting Carnes for international travel for our gear so that it wasn't held in custom you know dealing with paying people petty cash I mean pre- internet was it pre- internet it was at the beginning of the internet so it was all phone calls phone calls phone calls yeah it was it was a real full-time job I mean I would spend before a tour I would be spending weeks before you know 13-hour days coordinating learning things like what height is our trailer and what height you know I had to find out what the height of every venue's loading dock was and uh you know coordinating catering for our crew and um you know it was it was it was it wasn't artistic I was also in charge of all our merch so I was kind of the business guy and Peter was the The Artsy guy so and then I didn't turn off being the business guy until 5 minutes before I walked on stage and then I could be an artist for you know two hours and then I had to turn right back into business guy which was never my I didn't have any experience in that um but what I learned doing that was something that I had no appreciation for as an artist was I even hesitate to say Artist as a as a a theatrical performer uh that sounds like a real disparagement to theater artists I was a theater artist there we go but I think of theater artists I think of people creating it you know I was a I was an actor in musicals you know I was really well taken care of by my agent and uh it didn't concern me you know what the producer had to do to make the money to make it happen um how hard it was to sell tickets night after night and that my job was connected in any way to the financial welfare of the project and that you know how agreeable I was as a performer in their in their team played any role in How likely they might want to work with me again or what kind of reputation I had I I do think that it's important for artists to be a simultaneously artist and producer and I think you're you're bound to be a difficult artist if you don't know what's on the other side and simultaneously I think you're bound to produce lousy stuff if you also aren't walking on on stage to uh to face the music for for whatever it is you've produced you [Music]

know have you seen the new Tommy I have really great and funny when I went in I uh my seats were just two seats away from Dez mcen the director and I was looking down on the same conductor who you know 25 years before had been waving his baton at me you might want to know if I thought it was great I'm the wrong guy to ask it was it was um but um it just it brought back just a flood lot of sense memory of how ironic sense me feel me touch me yeah yeah just every moment on stage there was a story into it for me now so it was just a memory lane for me to sit through that show yeah yeah I can't yeah I hadn't even realized of course that's what you're going to be doing uh I I I saw it a few weeks ago I I renamed it Tron I had the same it looked uh visually kind of like the dawn of of computer screens yeah it did it looked trny yeah there's you know there's a Daft Punk kind of thing going on in there right um I I think even the orchestrations they felt a little more like tinkly like yeah woooo CU I saw that original more times than I should have we so I used to work at a restaurant on like when it was yeah 1988 a restaurant on 43rd street called Century Cafe which was like a very popular hangout for all the all the theater people like they offer dis 50% off if you're in a show and you're coming during your during you in between shows and that's when I learned well people drink Martinis in between playing The Phantom of the Opera who knew God and so we often got offered free tickets to stuff I mean back in the day right everybody free tickets to stuff yeah so you know I saw Tommy and it was you know so visually exciting to me and uh then I started just going and hanging out in front of the theater hoping somebody would have a spare ticket and I always got one I mean I was adorable and approachable and skinny I looked like I needed help so so my friends were amazed at this and then I would bring them along i' go come on come on let watch we'll get two tickets you watch and we always did so I called I wound up calling it The Tommy game even though there's no game involved it's like you want Tommy game tonight yeah let Tommy game so two weeks ago I was riding my bike it was Mata day I was riding my bike around there and I was like oh it's a Wednesday mat maybe I could play the Tommy game maybe it still works 25 years 30 years later it does oh I'm gonna do it get out of here yeah well I mean I paid 50 I paid 50 Tommy the rates have changed but I paid 50 bucks I was second row front mezzanine and the guy who sold me the ticket didn't even show up with so I had a seat next to me so that was I won the game yeah but yeah it's not as easy to play the Tommy game when you're old older I'll tell you a Dez maof story I think nany's already heard this this doesn't have to be on the podcast and if it is I don't care I wrote the musical version of the movie Desperately Seeking Susan and you can say I never heard of it no you have not because it only lasted on the west end for two months uh it was a huge flop oh but check it out you actually were on the West End that's incredible it's pretty cool it used it used all of Blondie's music ooh so I got to work with blondie they I asked I commissioned them to write a new song for the show it was a big deal it was allegedly a big deal I always wish it was a bigger flop you know but you know what I mean like not be a flop could it be something be why didn't we cast pink pink should have been in it and then it would have been you know what I mean um but anyway um so the story has it that the character of Dez played by Aiden Quinn is based on Dez mof who was dating Leora beish the writer of that movie at that time and Dez the character of Dez is what we'd call the reluctant hero right he's kind of a Harrison Ford he doesn't want he's just a he a bit of a bummer so I get called in for the final round of auditions for Jersey Boys and there's Dez at the desk and I do my thing and he says all right I don't know go out in the hall and find something else to read okay thanks Mr de so I go uh so I go out in the hall I pick up Joe peshy sides totally up my alley right able to do voices I finish goes I don't know why you would have picked that we're done right thank you it's like wow Dez mof's mean so then a year later he's or a couple of years later he's working on this Frank Sinatra show at Radio City Music Hall and they to lay down all of Frank's tracks for rehearsals I don't know why they can't use the real ones like the vocal the the speaking stuff so somehow I get hired so I spend the whole day in a recording studio with Dez on the other side completely treating me like [ __ ] it was the worst I'm like he can't possibly know that I'm the same guy that he that audition for Joe pesy so my musical has a little workshop in New York directed by Joe mantello Joe mantell drops out because they're not paying him more money we have to find a new director word gets out everyone suddenly Dez maof wants to direct my show oh God producers Peter Dez maof wants to direct your show no what do you mean no it's Dez maof Tommy but you know I go no I know how long these musicals take to work on I'm not getting into bed with Des mov for the next two years three years I'm not doing it Peter no I have final say on casting directing and design no so I cost Des Mackin off a job and I have to say if he do did direct it I think the direction would have been better than the Brit that we hired but I still think it would have been chilly and I was writing a musical comedy which is why it did not work in London it was a huge hit in

Tokyo I was big in Tokyo Ty nice so there's myov there's my de mov story I hardly ever get to share and I can share it with someone who actually got to work with him and I'm sure was probably treated much better than I was he was good to me Nancy you got a Dez maof no but I'm on the hunt for one now so I'm going to work towards having one an experience with Dez yes of course I need to have I need to buffer I need to be the balance between you two go see trony I am going to see trony actually Christina seu is was one of my students at NYU and I just love her she gave me a belt actually that says bad ass at the end of the year that we work together and I just I wear it still I wear it in my shows and I love her so I have to see her in this role who is she she she plays the um Acid Queen oh she's great yeah she's a phenomenal phenomenal she's great in like 12 Parts like it's amazing that she didn't just say I'm only playing the Acid Queen I'm not playing all these Ensemble parts and then she shows up in all these other numbers and she's so great she's so great yeah I'm looking forward to seeing her and I I just love seeing her on stage I think she's phenomenal Ty we loved having you on our little podcast I have thank you so much you're like a new person that I can now like geek over uh I told you I knew you would love him yeah I mean I'm sorry that you've had such bad luck through your entire career and you've had to really crawl and Claw your way to get what you didn't want but this is good for people listening that like sometimes things just work out so thank you Ty for giving us all a glimmer of hope

and and and then I feel like I've completely misrepresented myself because it all just seems like a bunch of mistakes all the way along so that's all right I mean I think people should artists should learn that like sometimes mistakes are the best things that can happen when you're writing a show and or you're performing and sometimes you you mess up sometimes that's better than that winds up staying in the show it's almost always better oh yeah yeah because it's it's authentic yeah yeah it's inspiration unintended inspiration oo I like that happy accidents [Music]

side note you know what's weird what I haven't talked to Roger in 10 years tomorrow night I'm going out with Roger oh my God I love it I was like hey I'm doing this podcast thing and I just talked to Ty and he's like oh my God I love him and I was like we love each other why are we not seeing each other he's like let's get together and his wife too who I love too hey thanks for checking us out links to today's guest can be found in the show notes don't forget to subscribe like us rate US and tell all your friends about arts and craft