Wild T: OK. First of all, Sly and the Family Stone. There's A Riot Going On. Funky Jimi Hendrix, Electric Ladyland. Led Zeppelin - I don't know which one - any one with Since I've Been In Love With You - I love that song. Yeah, one Zepp, one Zepp. Let me see, something, oh man, Bob Marley On the Islands, you got to be on the Islands, eh, Bob Marley, any Bob Marley… Otis Redding. Otis Redding, Live at Monterey Pop Festival. Yeah.

Paul: There will be a picture in the paper of a group called Now and Then. So, tell me, what music did you play, what year it was, and did you have any sex with any of the players in the group?

Wild T: First of all, when I first came to Canada I lived in London, Ontario, for a while and this picture was in 1980. Look at me with the short small afro there. The bass player's name is Marty, he's on the right there. He's gay. He was the first gay guy I ever ran into. The drummer was Carl, on the left there, and the girl is Debbie. They had a little thing going. The band wasn't supposed to find out, but I found out. So that was our little secret. We played stuff like Cold as Ice, Foreigner, and all that schmaltzy - We used to play Walkerton, Hanover, Minden all these places, North Bay, Thunder Bay.

After this Now and Then kind of split up, this band came to London auditioning guitar players - oh this is funny. The drummer I knew him from Toronto and he says, man, come down to Ramada Inn and audition. So I auditioned for this band. The first song we had to audition was - what was the name of that Neil Diamond song - Baby She Loves Me? - I never heard the song before, but they played it and I went OK, bro, so here's me standing up and (makes noises of playing). The leader of the band came and told me "Can you please play 'white'?" So I had to go (ping ping etc.) I got the gig. This band was so cool - a big showband. We used to go to the States for like three months in a row. Come back to Toronto for a week and then go back to the States - play, like, Playboy Clubs, went to Memphis, Nashville - A-1 clubs. We played all week, and we played two weeks at a place. At the time it was like $300 U.S. a week, which to me was great. This was 1980, 1982 - this was amazing - no overhead, we'd like buy food, have a cooler, share rooms, the first day we'd get there we'd go buy groceries and cook and stuff in the room. It was a good thing.

The band would do like Michael Jackson or whatever the new pop thing was around at the time. Then Alex Glover would come out and do his show. We did a couple of different shows. One big show was a Muppett Show. We used to do a Muppett show - we'd have Kermit and Miss Piggy - talking, cussing, and being nasty and farting and all kinds of bad stupid stuff. And then there was really nice musical stuff we did, like a tribute to Three Dog Night, Sly and the Family Stone, Neil Diamond and Kenny Rogers. It was really musical stuff. I ended up leaving the band. People started wanting me to stay in the States. People would come see me and go, "Man, you should leave this stupid band." So I ended up leaving the band and coming back to Toronto. When I left the band they were all going mad: "That's the worst thing. You can't have your own band." I'm going: "I wanna have my own band." And they're going. "No you can't - that's the hardest thing." I love a challenge.

I came to Toronto and the next thing I got hooked up with some people and here I am now. The first CD was released by - I had a record deal with Warner Canada, and they were connected with Frozen Ghost - I don't know if you remember them. And Frozen Ghost was Arnold Lanni. He also produced Our Lady Peace and did all that stuff with them. His brother was Rob Lanni. He was like a manager looking for new bands to sign. I was the first band. They came and saw me play and told me they were going to get me a record deal and got me hooked up with Warner. It was a whole business thing. Rob was the manager and Arnold was the producer. He had a studio so when I signed with Warner I signed a management deal with Rob and recorded with Arnold. And that was good. I decided to really not pursue the five CD deal with Warner because they weren't doing anything. These guys would come and tell me, "You know, we sent your CD to the States and they really like it, but they say that you're black." So what I am to do - shall I be like Michael Jackson and lose my tan? And stupid stuff like that, you know, they weren't helping. So I ended up getting out of the management deal, the record deal. And here I am with my new CD we signed with Bullseye Records. It's doing really well.

Paul: Whats with this picture of you and Bowie?

Wild T: Oh Bowie, yeah. That a whole thing, my first CD - the second single on the first CD was called Midnight Blues. David Bowie was touring Canada with a band called Tin Machine and playing in Montreal one night, coming to Toronto the following night. When he was in his hotel room in Montreal just vegging out after a sound check or something, he saw my video on Music Plus, the equivalent to MuchMusic in French. And he saw this video called Midnight Blues and he flipped out. He asked his people to go buy my CD and wanted to find out where this guy's from and they said, oh, he's from Toronto. So he got his people to call my managers in Toronto and said that he was coming to Toronto tomorrow and he would like me to come down to the show - two tickets and backstage passes and everything was fine and he gave me his card and told me to keep in touch. I gave it straight to my manager.

A week later, I call my manager and go, man, "Let's fax David Bowie a little letter saying thank you." And my manager's advice was: "T, that's a bad career move. These people are important, they're busy and they don't have time for you. Let's wait until our next CD five months later and we'll send them a copy and blah blah blah…" So, they being adamant about this, I'm going no, he told me to keep in touch, I just took the damn card off them and faxed David Bowie a little note saying thank you, it was nice to meet you. I find that the more I live life, if you want to get things done, you have to do them yourself. "Dear David," this is how it started - just a nice, short letter and I faxed it to him. A week later I got up a 3 o'clock, 3:30 in the afternoon - you know, I'm a musician - and there was a message on my machine from David Bowie saying that he loved the letter I sent him and was going to call me in four hours. So of course he called me and asked me if I wanted to play on his CD. And that's what happened.

I went to New York City to the Hit Factory and played on his CD called Black Tie White Noise. I played on one song called I Know It's Going Happen Someday. Actually, that was a Morrissey song - it was the only cover song he did on that CD.

David Bowie called me about a month later and he wasn't touring the world but he was doing the talk show circuit - David Letterman, Arsenio Hall and Jay Leno. So I went and did that with him and the realy cool thing that's going to be on my CD, the DVD I just brought you, after we finished up the Jay Leno show, his managers wanted to do a video of the eight songs on the Black Tie White Noise. He came to the band and said, guys: "Here's a contract and a release and if you sign this it means David Bowie is going to write the music for his videos that we want to do tomorrow." And the band - all New York session musicians - were bitching: "The hell with him, he's going to use me blah blah blah." And here's me from Toronto saying: "Can I borrow your pen?" I was the only one who signed the contract. It was a blessing in disguise. The first video we did was the whole band. The next seven videos on this Black Tie White Noise were all just me and David Bowie. And you know Bowie wouldn't do anything half-assed. It's done really well. I've had people call me from Japan and England going: "Is that you I see with David Bowie?" And I say, "Yeah, baby." That was the whole Bowie thing. And we kept in touch. He sends me Christmas cards once in a while.

Paul: What's New??

Wild T: Right now my new CD is called True Bliss - and, as I say, it's with the Bullseye label - We went to Europe last year, German, Amsterdam, and Belgium. We went out West a couple of times. Some readio stations are playing it in the States. So far it's going really well. We just signed a record deal in Germany with this record label and they're gung ho about the CD and are about the band. So that's what we're doing. We're going over there next March or April. More info at the website, wildt.ca.

Paul: What's your advice to young rockers?

Wild T: Don't do it man. No, no, no. You know what, man, follow your heart, really - with music, endurance is one of the main things and persistence pays off. Bug people if you've got to. Don't be too sensitive. And people give you shit and you just put your tail between your legs. Bug people. I used to bug people and bug them until they just answered my phone calls because they didn't want me to bug them any more. I used to tell them: "I'm sure that when you started out you were hungry and you'd bug people, so this is what I'm doing." Follow your heart. Do it for the music. Today I find everybody's into trying to - they aren't even putting in time to get the music part together - they just want to be rich quickly. It's all about the media and the fast cash and bling bling. Just do it for the music. Music speaks in the end. If I wasn't in the music business? What would be my favourite job? I'd probably be a big old gigolo or something. Ha ha ha… I'd be a hootchie-kootchie man. I don't know… Ha ha ha…