Beyond Saint Podcast

Dion DiMucci’s Rock Journey: Hits, Faith & Near Miss with Buddy Holly

• Ira DeWitt • Season 2 • Episode 2

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Join us for an inspiring conversation with Dion DiMucci, a rock star with 39 top 40 hits, a philosopher, and a devoted Catholic. Dion shares his early life in the Bronx, his love for music influenced by Hank Williams and Jimmy Reed, and the story behind his timeless hit 'Run Around Sue.' He opens up about his lifelong passion for songwriting, his 62-year marriage to Susan, and a fateful decision that saved his life — giving up his seat on the ill-fated plane with Buddy Holly. Dive into the blend of music, faith, and personal stories that shaped a remarkable career and a life well-lived.

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SPEAKER_01:

We're here today with Dion DiMucci, rock star, philosopher, Catholic, life coach. I am so excited to interview you because, wow, what a career you've had.

SPEAKER_00:

Yeah, it's a joy to be with you here this morning. Yeah, I feel kind of privileged. I feel like I found a privileged way to live. I've been blessed. I always said, I have this gift for music, and if you have a gift, there's a gift giver. So that was my, that's what I, my thoughts, that's what I was thinking about at 14 years old, reading St. Thomas Aquinas and listening to Jimmy Reed and Hank Williams.

SPEAKER_01:

Wow, you were reading Thomas Aquinas at 14? I was trying. Well, tell me a little bit, first of all, 39 top 40 hits in music business. That's not an easy job. That's not an easy accomplishment to do. Tell me a little bit about your childhood and your rise to fame.

SPEAKER_00:

Well, you know, you talk about getting all those hits on the charts. It's like stepping up on a bowling alley and hitting a strike. And then you keep hitting strikes. Now that I look back on it, I say, this is miraculous. I couldn't plan it if I tried. I know. But I was just having a good time putting songs together. And when I was a kid, my parents, my father, he was somewhere on the spectrum. He had wonderful qualities. He could swim all day long from one jetty to another, dive off the City Island Bridge in the Bronx. He could... walk on his hands on the edge of the tenement buildings and entertain the neighborhood and sculpt but he never had a real job he just yeah he was like me and work uh i have a nodding acquaintance with it's like hello goodbye you know my mother my mother was totally responsible and he was totally irresponsible you know so she had two jobs so there was always a lot of arguing in the house and when I heard as a kid I must have been 11 years old I heard a country star his name was Hank Williams they call him the the hillbilly Shakespeare so I hear him on radio and I thought It just blew my mind. I found a record store up on Fordham Road which is near Fordham University in the Bronx. Became very good friends with this guy who owned it and he used to call me every time a Hank Williams song came out. Then I heard Jimmy Reed, this blues artist, And man, I just wanted to communicate like Hank Williams because he told these stories. And Jimmy Reed had this groove so I wanted a groove like him. He was like a rhythm singer. So I got enthralled with this stuff at a very early age and I was collecting these records and my uncle got me a guitar and I was trying to, because it hurled me into a place of enchantment. And, you know, it was a war in the kitchen every day with my mother and father, you know, fighting, like he has to get a job. Pat, get a job. And he just couldn't work. So I just, the more they argued, the better guitar player I became. I kind of went into the bedroom in the corner and listened to these records, and I became good at it. And I think... I've never really changed. What happened to me is this sense of enchantment, this pleasure, this delight that these records kind of took me to, this place of transcendence above the arguments and the chaos. All my life I've been trying to write a song like that and transmit it to you and others. That's been my whole life. I'm still like that. I still wake up in the morning wanting to write a great song.

SPEAKER_01:

That's awesome. Did you ever have co-writers or did you write your songs yourself?

SPEAKER_00:

I just feel like I'm under the spout where the glory comes out. It's just if you're open, you could download this stuff.

SPEAKER_01:

That's awesome. That's awesome. Was there a religion in your household growing up?

SPEAKER_00:

um not really not my parents no interesting being from

SPEAKER_01:

italian american

SPEAKER_00:

yeah not my parents not my grandparents some of my aunts but very little i just remember one thing when i went to religious instructions oddly enough i must have been 13 and they were talking about the trinity

SPEAKER_02:

yes

SPEAKER_00:

you know i come from a a Catholic section in the Bronx. It was like Little Italy. And Mont Carmel Catholic Church was the hub of the neighborhood. And the nuns were teaching me about the Trinity. And I said, what's that? And of course, they were talking about three persons, one God. They said, well, it's like water, ice, and vapor. It's the same substance, but different forms. And I thought, that's the only thing I know.

SPEAKER_01:

That's kind of a cool way of looking at it, water, ice, and vapor. I love that. You married the love of your life, Susan. I

SPEAKER_00:

did, yeah.

SPEAKER_01:

And you guys have been married for?

SPEAKER_00:

I've been married 62 years. Oh,

SPEAKER_01:

my goodness. That's a long time. What's the secret?

SPEAKER_00:

I don't, well I don't take her for granted. Maybe that is the secret. There's a lot of love there. You know when I first, she moved into the Bronx from Vermont. Now, Ira, if you know anything about the Bronx, nobody moves to the Bronx.

SPEAKER_01:

Voluntarily anyway.

SPEAKER_00:

You're born there or you move out. You don't move into the Bronx.

SPEAKER_01:

That's really funny.

SPEAKER_00:

So she moved into the Bronx and she was exotic to me. You know, she was a farm girl from Vermont. You know, she... She had red hair and a few freckles. And once I saw her, I couldn't think of anything else. I was in middle school. That's so cute. I'd be sitting there in class. I know the teacher was saying, you know, wah, wah, wah. So

SPEAKER_01:

you met her, how old were you?

SPEAKER_00:

I was 15, she was like 14, you know.

SPEAKER_01:

Wow, that's like a true love story. You never hear of that anymore, ever. So is your song, Run Around Sue, about?

SPEAKER_00:

Oh, it is a funny story. Actually, it is. Actually, it is. It's a funny thing. So

SPEAKER_01:

sweet. I feel like

SPEAKER_00:

I'm going to cry. But I got to tell you the story. Okay. In my neighborhood, the church has a feast.

SPEAKER_01:

Okay.

SPEAKER_00:

Twice a year. Most

SPEAKER_01:

churches.

SPEAKER_00:

Okay. So they have St. Gennaro feast. St.

SPEAKER_01:

Gennaro is the saint of Naples, Italy. St. Gennaro.

SPEAKER_00:

There you go. Okay. Well, it's, you know, they set up the stands and they have all the food and the rides and the music and the pastries. And it's a glorious time. They shut down the neighborhood, the streets. And in my neighborhood, it's kind of like a throwback to the Middle Ages. You know, when you see a girl and you talk to her first and you tell your friends, hey, I like her. Like you have like a brand on her. Like she's mine. Yeah,

SPEAKER_01:

she's mine.

SPEAKER_00:

Like stay away. Yeah. So anyway, I go to the feast and she's talking to some guy. So all my friends come over, like there's 10 guys in my ear. They're going, you see that girl Susan you like? She's talking to that guy. And one guy goes, he's good looking. And the other guy goes, why is she talking to him? And I'm looking at her and I'm wondering, why is she talking to him? So they really got into my head. And I didn't know how to process these emotions or feelings. Who knew how to do this at 15? in this neighborhood, you know. So she comes over. I said, why were you talking to that guy? Oh,

SPEAKER_01:

already jealous, huh?

SPEAKER_00:

Absolutely. She says, well, he asked for directions to the Bronx Zoo. And I told him, just follow Fordham University down to Southern Boulevard. I said, yeah, but why were you talking to him? So I went home and wrote Run Around Sue.

SPEAKER_01:

Oh, I love that song.

SPEAKER_00:

Love. So, you know, I was never going to release it. And then one day, up the line a little, I sang it with the guys in the neighborhood. We were fooling with it. And she said, that's a great song. You should release it. I said, ah. And I told her, you know, I was telling her, you know, why I wrote it. And I couldn't handle this. And we were friends again. Or going steady. And she said, you have to release that song. It's a great song. She said, release it. So when I had a contract, I released it.

SPEAKER_01:

What's your favorite favorite song that you've written? Or you released? Or unreleased? But released would be better because then people would know it.

SPEAKER_00:

I have a lot of them. Recently I wrote one called Crying Shame. I love it, you know? why do you why do i wait when you won't come back i'm on the wrong side of the zodiac you know it's a crying shame i just love the words sometimes i love the way the words feel coming out of my mouth the vowels you know you have to this there's a certain way you're right where it's it sounds right coming out of your mouth you know the words roll off you just roll out so you know i'm always like into the new songs you know but i had a lot of good ones like abraham martin and john the wanderer and ruby baby when i was a kid and uh when i put dion and the belmonts together when i was like 16 we had some interesting songs because we didn't know how to write lyrics we just uh we started with all this rhythmic percussive stuff because i i mean you know we just made sounds You know, just anything, because we didn't know how to write words. Right,

SPEAKER_01:

right.

SPEAKER_00:

So we just made sounds, and we had hit records with these sounds.

SPEAKER_01:

That's awesome. I read, talking about your musical journey, I read that you were supposed to be on the airplane with... Buddy Holly and Richie Valens that went down?

SPEAKER_00:

Yeah, I was on that tour. It was called the Winter Dance Party Tour. And it went out in 1959, early 1959. And I was on a tour for two months with Buddy Holly before this tour that the fatal plane crash took place. But so Buddy and I were friends. We went out into the Midwest on this, you know, we didn't have these buses that a Willie Nelson has today or these country stars. It was just a yellow school bus, you know. And it kept, we were crisscrossing the Midwest in like 20 below zero weather. in february january and february of 59 and and the the belts and the the fan and the heater and the bus kept breaking down in between towns which were 30 miles apart you could die you know we had some uh all the guys on the bus who played trumpet and horn and piano and they were screaming because they knew the danger we were in. Guys like me from the Bronx, you know to me I was on a field trip. But Buddy Holly got so fed up with the bus breaking down, that two weeks into the tour he decided to charter a plane in Clear Lake, Iowa. He said, you know, I'm going to fly to Fargo, North Dakota just to get there a little early and get some sleep and shave and get some rest and do some wash and I'm sick and tired of being on the bus and breaking down and all. So he got us in a room because he chartered this plane It was a Beechcraft Bonanza. It had one engine, four seats. And so the pilot, Buddy Holly, and then there was Richie Valance, the big bopper and myself. We were like the CEOs of the tour. So he was trying to recruit us to lower the cost. And so we flipped a coin in the dressing room and I won the coin toss. And then he said, you know it's going to cost,$36, you know, that's the amount you have to put into the total. And when he said$36, my head just almost exploded because my parents were arguing about this$36 a month rent all my life. You know, it just... That was the rent. And my head hadn't stretched out to spend$36 for an hour and a half plane flight. So I said, I'm going to take the bus. So I gave my seat to Richie. And they took off that night. February 3rd. I think, you know, the plane crashed maybe five minutes after they took off. The pilot was young and he didn't know how to read like the instruments. They had changed that instrument in the plane that shows you your level. And he ran into this snowstorm, this blizzard. And, you know, in small planes like that, they call it, from what I understand, they call it scud running. You fly under the clouds and you look at the lights on the farmhouses and the street lights and the cars and just different light and you could make your way to where you're going if you just fly right under the clouds. But it was such blinding snow, he couldn't see, he couldn't determine the lights from the snow. It's kind of what

SPEAKER_01:

happened to John F. Kennedy Jr. It's like you get disoriented, you don't know if it's up or down.

SPEAKER_00:

If you're just like this, if you're not... If you're not level and you're like this, you'll drive the plane eventually right into the ground. That's what both of them did. Same thing. I

SPEAKER_01:

mean, you survived a plane crash. Where were you on your spiritual journey when that happened?

SPEAKER_00:

Well, I tell you, this definitely put me on... ushered me into the front door of the spiritual journey. I mean, if

SPEAKER_01:

that doesn't, I don't know what will.

SPEAKER_00:

Yeah, you know, I got on the bus and their clothes were hanging, you know, and I was thinking, who am I? Where am I? Why am I here? What am I doing? What's this all about? All these questions. And when I got home, I ran to the church and got Monsignor Pettinacone and I said, uh, monsignor what you know what's the you know because there was no grief counseling in the bronx in 1959 so i asked him and and you know he told me something that mesmerized me or he said dion in our faith relationships never end in fact they don't stay stagnant your friends are closer to the beatific vision They're more open to grace and they're growing. So you ask them to pray for you and you pray for them because they're growing and they will be changed. And by the time you see them again, your relationship will have moved forward. And I never heard anything like that. I was like, I kept wanting to talk to Monsignor Perniconi because I thought that was brilliant. And he cooled me out, you know?

SPEAKER_01:

Yeah, I really get a lot of comfort. I have a lot of priest friends from what I do. And I get a lot of comfort from speaking to them. And growing up, I went to Catholic school, I always thought, well, they're not married, they haven't had life experiences like we have. What kind of... advice could they give me that would satisfy me but oddly enough i feel like they're the most wise in a way

SPEAKER_00:

well you know a lot of people like to talk and think they're smarter than the church and smarter than god But they're not, and I wasn't. I was a defiant kid. I'm from the Bronx. I'm like, what would you say, cynical, critical, argumentative. I thought I knew everything. But when you meet a guy who just talks to you and is on a sound foundation of love and peace, humility and forgiveness and mercy and grace and wisdom, and you know it, you feel it all the time every time you talk to them, you start listening. And the thing that, the most simple thing that I was told that I couldn't grab a hold of it because I don't know, maybe kids from the Bronx, I don't hear right, but I thought God judged you or he disciplined you or punished you. And the priest said to me, no, you don't understand. God is love. That's who God is. You're punished by your sins, not for them. You're punished by your actions. You remove

SPEAKER_01:

yourself

SPEAKER_00:

from that love. And no, God doesn't damn anybody. Otherwise that George Colin joke would fly, but it doesn't. It was, George Colin was brilliant, but he was like an inch deep and a mile wide when he, you know, he told these stories about religion, but they were funny but he was he wasn't close because you damn yourself you know god doesn't do it you know you remove yourself from his light his love his wisdom his peace his security you know and i know that's a simple statement but it took me years for it to get through my head i are you kidding you mean god doesn't punish you one time i went to the priest because i was trying to get him you know i was trying to say you know you're wrong god punishes you you know so i said you know this guy i know this guy he ran up his wife's credit cards and he's He left her, and he's in the next town. He's got three kids, and she's still paying off the credit cards. And how does a guy like that get punished? And he said, a guy like that gets punished by being a guy like that.

SPEAKER_01:

Exactly. Could you imagine juggling all that? No thanks. So you were born and raised Catholic.

SPEAKER_00:

I had a very mild Catholic upbringing.

SPEAKER_01:

Okay.

SPEAKER_00:

You know, very mild.

UNKNOWN:

I...

SPEAKER_00:

Didn't go to church. A couple of things happened to me when I was a kid. You know like I mean I would walk past Mont Carmel Catholic Church and Monsignor Pettinacone used to walk in the front of the church doing his prayers and talking to people in the neighborhood. So one time he said to me, this is my religious instructions, by the way, because I didn't go. I didn't go to Catholic school or anything like that. I was a gangbuster. I was in a gang, the Fordham Baldies, and all the guys that were across the street like Ralphie Moche and Joe Bebe Eyes and all these guys with the gang jacket on. But this guy interested me. He used to engage me in these conversations as a kid. I must have been 15 years old. I'm walking past the church and he says, Yo, Dion, come over here. What's this movie, Rebel Without a Cause, this James Dean movie? I said, Monsignor. That's a cool movie. That's James Dean. He was a big star. In fact, I was talking to Jimmy on the way up here about James Dean. He was a big star in the 50s. So I'm trying to tell the Monsignor, this movie's great, Monsignor. He says, Dion, why rebel without a cause? Rebel without a cause. Dion, you've got to rebel for the truth. True story. So I'm like, okay, thanks, Monsignor. And I walk away and I'm thinking... What the hell is truth? I had no idea what it was. And then I'd come back and he'd say, Dion, what makes a man happy? I said, Monsignor, I tell you what, if I could get a, a Ford Thunderbird with black leather bucket seats and wire chrome wheels and get me a J-200 Gibson guitar like Elvis Presley and get a date with Susan, this righteous fox that moved down from Vermont, Monsignor. If I could get a hit record, I'd be a happy guy. No, Dion, the virtuous man is a happy man. Oh, thanks Monsignor." And I walk away and I think, what the hell is virtue? I didn't know what it was. So I'd go back and say, you know, Monsignor what's virtue? I thought he had a cold. Virtue. So he said, and he drilled it into me. It was a habitual and firm disposition to do the good. And I was up to no good. I was with the gang, you know, I was like, You know, I didn't know what he was talking about but little by little those things started resonating Exactly, they started, you know making sense and getting into my heart as I got older.

SPEAKER_01:

Okay, so We had the plane crash you get closer to God you slowly start finding your way back to church

SPEAKER_00:

my journey I hope this isn't too long of an explanation, but I started drinking and drugging in the mid-60s. First of all, I get like 12 hit records, gold records. They're on the wall. I mean, it's like bowling, like I said, like a strike every time you stand up. So I have like 12 hit records, 12 gold records. I'm like... starting to use drugs, drink, because I did not know how to handle my emotions. I didn't even know what they were. And my family, it was like, don't feel that way. It's stupid to feel that way. It's wrong to feel that way. You're crazy to feel that way. But nobody explained anything about how you handle these things. So when I took that first drug, it was like... What

SPEAKER_01:

was your drug of choice?

SPEAKER_00:

Oh, heroin. yeah it came you

SPEAKER_01:

didn't you didn't start light huh

SPEAKER_00:

i i snorted some of the stuff you know just somebody and man i was cooled out i was like what do you want to know wow the kid is here i didn't have to second guess anything nothing i just felt so you know what happens is you feel so good The next day you're looking for it again and again and again. And you think you found heaven, you found hell. Of course your teeth will fall out of your mouth, you'll lose your life, your hair, your wife, your kids, your money, everything. It's just crazy. But now I'm like into drugs. I'm drugging and drinking and I'm trying to control it because I am still recording. I tell you, the music never suffered. For some reason, I was honest in that area and I kept it honest. I don't know how I did it. When I go back and listen to what I was doing back then, I think, man, I don't know how I did that. Did the

SPEAKER_01:

addiction come after the crash?

SPEAKER_00:

Yeah. Okay. Oh, yeah. Yeah. So basically, that was part of it too. And I was running the streets with another... Just another teenage star. In fact, he was the lead singer of the teenagers. His name was Frankie Lyman.

SPEAKER_02:

Oh, I

SPEAKER_00:

know him. Why do fools fall in love? Why do

SPEAKER_02:

birds sing?

SPEAKER_00:

Yeah, he was a beautiful guy. And come 1968, we were running the streets together. February of 1968, he died of an OD, of an overdose. And it scared me. It just... Just, he was gone. And I thought, this isn't, something's wrong. Something's wrong. And I ran into this guy. He told me, he said, listen, a sick mind can't cure a sick mind. You better get on your knees and ask God to help you. I didn't know God from a hole in the wall. But I got on my knees, I said a prayer, and when I got up... What

SPEAKER_01:

prayer did you say?

SPEAKER_00:

I said, help me. I said, Lord, I said, I don't know what I'm doing. I said, I said, I need help. Can you help me? If you're real, help me. And I got, I stood up. And I haven't had a drug or a drink since April 1st, 1968. It's been 57 years.

SPEAKER_01:

Wait a second. So you, after that prayer, you did not put any drugs or alcohol in your body?

SPEAKER_00:

No. The fellow that I was talking to took me to a 12-step spiritually-based recovery program. Those 12 steps are... are designed to lead you into union with God. They're gleaned from the disciplines of St. Ignatius of Loyola, this group in England called the Oxford Group. They picked up on it and brought it to America, and that's how it started. So when you work in these steps, it's like one, two, three, four, five, and they clean out the clutter. And by the time you get to the 12th step, you're under the spout where the glue Glory comes out. You're under the wellspring of beauty and truth and goodness. And it's a free gift. You're open to receive it now. That the clutter is cleaned out. And this happens to me. I have this spiritual awakening. I'm 11 years into this program and I go jogging one day because I felt something was missing. I believed in God. But I was aware of his power before I became aware of his reality. So I went out jogging one day and I was a little frustrated. I had three young daughters and I'm thinking, yeah I have a program but what do they have? How do I explain? I'm explaining principles to them and this way of life. But while I'm jogging, I utter the words, God, it would be nice to be closer to you. And bam, this white light goes off in the pit of my chest and it comes out of every pore of my being and Christ is standing in front of me. It's like this ethereal figure. It's like the transfiguration. And I just get lifted off the ground. His arms are out and I run right to him and into him. And it seemed like the whole world became technicolor or something. The sky became blue and cars became red and the grass is green. It was that way a minute ago, but I didn't see it like this. It became very vivid. And I run home and I... run through the front door of my house, I said, Susan. I said, Jesus is alive. She looked at me like I ran too far or I was overheated or something. She said, who doesn't know that? said why didn't you tell me she said your

SPEAKER_01:

poor wife she's been through a lot

SPEAKER_00:

she said yeah like like you're gonna believe me you know like yeah i'm gonna tell you you're gonna believe me so the thing is that when that happened to me i i i jumped in the car i ran i went down to 125th street in north miami and i found the bible book so i wanted to read everything that christ said i thought I get it. He's the son of God. And if he's the son of God, I want to know everything he said because I've been listening to a lot of people all my life, but I want to know what he said. So I go into this Bible bookstore. I said, I want a New Testament. I want a Bible. I didn't say New Testament. I just wanted a Bible. She said, let me get it. And I said, I want to know everything Jesus said. She gave me a New Testament, an NIV. And she said, this is in four parts. It was this old woman. And I was like 38 years old. And the Bible bookstore was, there was nobody there, just me and her. And she said, it's in four parts. I said, what do you mean four parts? She said, it's Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John. It's the gospels. Then the book of Acts, how the apostles started the church. Then there's these letters, the Ephesians, the Thessalonians, the Galatians, you know, the Philippians and the Colossians and the Floridians and the Texans. She started like goofing with me. She said, and then there's Revelation. So I don't think, I'm so happy she told me that because to open a Bible, it's like static. You know, people, even priests can't open it. You know what I'm saying?

SPEAKER_01:

It's overwhelming a little

SPEAKER_00:

bit. You know what I'm saying? So I started reading it, and there it was. Just, it's everything I really longed for, that high that I was looking for and all this junk. It just, I can't tell you. I felt I was home. I've never been the same. It's like over 45 years. I would never go to church. to go to church. What is it, like a kumbaya session where people get together and go kumbaya?

SPEAKER_01:

All of us reverts, I feel like, feel the same way. Like, I kind of have a similar story. Like, once you feel it, you look at things differently.

SPEAKER_00:

Once you have a relationship with this God, you have a personal relationship with Him, you want to go see Him. You want to be with Him. And

SPEAKER_01:

not disappoint Him.

UNKNOWN:

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00:

absolutely it's absolutely

SPEAKER_01:

if you had to describe your relationship with god in one word what would it be

SPEAKER_00:

wow i don't know a lot of words come to mind but it's it's it's so around grace and mercy and forgiveness and love it's love you know

SPEAKER_01:

love what the priest said to you when you were a child

SPEAKER_00:

It's love, and love is willing the good of the other. Love is encouraging somebody to reach their potential physically, mentally, spiritually, emotionally. Love is lifting somebody up, is wanting them to be fully alive. God is not in competition with us. He created us. He wants us to be fully alive. A lot of people fight this. I'm from the Bronx, so take my word for it.

SPEAKER_01:

You mentor men in prison.

SPEAKER_00:

I've been there and spoke to men, and they're quite open when you're in that situation. They're quite vulnerable, no matter how many tattoos and how big they are. They open up.

SPEAKER_01:

That's really cool because maybe they don't feel threatened.

SPEAKER_00:

I feel threatened, you know, going in there. But once you, if you're real and you have the language of the heart and you're not trying to impress anybody or push anything on anybody, if you're just real, people get it.

SPEAKER_01:

You've done a lot of good things, I feel like, with your life. You've had your ups and downs, you were an addict, but you're like here as an example of how you can be successful, have your ups and downs, turn your life around, and just be a good person.

SPEAKER_00:

You know, listen, I've been in this business a long time, and I noticed one thing, and this comes right out of the same... thomas aquinas book if you don't have god in your life you will try to fill your life up with the four great substitutes Wealth, pleasure, power, and honor. Now you look at all the movies and all the politicians, you see it all over the place. I love

SPEAKER_02:

that.

SPEAKER_00:

You just watch the New York Housewives. Wealth, pleasure, power, and honor. And the honor is like, you gotta be right, you gotta win, you gotta be better. I'm always honest. You're never, you know, and you're always trying to virtue signaling and all that stuff. But once you have God in your life, these things aren't bad. We're not Puritans, you know, but once you have God in your life or you're scented or however you say it, he shapes your desire for these things. And that enables you to, you're able to achieve like a freedom. You're able to, it makes achieving freedom possible. And it makes serenity and peace and being home and being right with God, it makes it possible when He's shaping your desire. To me that's true freedom. Freedom used to be doing anything you want, especially if you didn't get caught. That was my freedom. And then when I started talking to my mentor, and a lot of this stuff is in the book too, the kind of wisdom that I found through being mentored. I call the book the rock and roll philosopher.

SPEAKER_01:

I love it.

SPEAKER_00:

You

SPEAKER_01:

have a lot of wisdom. Matches my outfit too.

SPEAKER_00:

A philosopher is a lover of wisdom. And the art of philosophy is making good distinctions. If you make bad distinctions, it's bad philosophy. This is what the book is about. Your philosophy is perfectly designed to get the result you're getting. in life. It's perfectly designed for that. But where you see your belief system, where any of us, where we see our belief system is in relationships. That's where you actually see it. with your girlfriend, with your wife, with your kids, with your friends, with your coworkers. You actually see how it plays out, and that's what those stories are about.

SPEAKER_01:

Is the book out?

SPEAKER_00:

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01:

Okay, I'm definitely, and we could find it on Amazon, or where do we find it?

SPEAKER_00:

You go to Amazon, you put in the rock and roll philosopher, Dion, and it comes up, the hardcover, you could get the Audible. The Audible's a trip.

SPEAKER_01:

I love Audible books.

SPEAKER_00:

It has 60 songs. Oh,

SPEAKER_01:

I love it.

SPEAKER_00:

It has inductions. I was really passionate about the audible. I got like on a, really like a wave of creativity doing

SPEAKER_01:

that. What's your favorite prayer?

SPEAKER_00:

My favorite prayer?

SPEAKER_01:

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00:

Could I recite it?

SPEAKER_01:

Of course.

SPEAKER_00:

It goes like this. lord i offer myself to you to build with me and do with me as you will relieve me of the bondage of self that i may better do thy will take away all my difficulties that victory over them may bear witness to your love your power and your way of life may i do your will always amen

SPEAKER_01:

amen okay who's your favorite saint

SPEAKER_00:

you know It used to be St. Francis growing up. In fact, my middle name is Francis, right?

SPEAKER_01:

Which Francis of Assisi?

SPEAKER_00:

Of Assisi, yeah, you know. But then, oh, I got a story. It's too long. No, it's not

SPEAKER_01:

to say it.

SPEAKER_00:

Well, so I'm in Rome.

SPEAKER_01:

My favorite place.

SPEAKER_00:

The Jubilee year, walking through the holy doors. And there's a statue of Saint Jerome. And there was a plaque in the back of Mount Carmel Church in my neighborhood. It said, ignorance of scripture is ignorance of Christ. So there's this guy standing next to me. His name is Mike Aquilina. I didn't know it at the time, but he's a patristic writer. He wrote 50 books on the the early church, the 300 years after Christ ascended, and on the apostolic fathers, the founding fathers of the church, who all got martyred. But anyway, I didn't know him at the time. So I look at this guy and I said, ignorance of scripture is ignorance of Christ, Saint Jerome. And he says to me, the thunderer. And I said, the thunderer? I know who the wanderer is, but who's the thunderer? You know, he said, Saint Jerome, they used to call him the thunderer. I said, why? He said, oh, he would curse at people. He was a uppity guy. He was brilliant, and he came, he was He was born in what we now know as Croatia. And in those days, in I guess the fourth century, they sent all the brightest of the bright to Rome to learn. And he was there, and the Pope at that time, I think it was Damius, he commissioned him to translate the Bible from Greek to Latin. So single-handedly, this guy translates the Bible from Greek to Latin. It's called the Vulgate.

SPEAKER_01:

Wow.

SPEAKER_00:

So he's living in Rome. He doesn't like Romans. He don't like Greeks. He thinks everybody's dressing. He's a very uppity guy. He's so bright, you know, people get on his nerves. So he moves to Israel, moves to Bethlehem, makes friends with a rabbi, learns Hebrew and translates the Bible again from Hebrew to Latin. So I'm thinking, this guy deserves a song.

SPEAKER_01:

Oh, the Thunder.

SPEAKER_00:

So I write a song called god's angry man his crotchety scholar was saint jerome the great name caller who cared not a dime for the laws of libel and in his spare time translated the bible saint jerome the thunderer so anyway i write this blues song And Mike Aquilina and I become fast friends and we've written 40 songs in the last five years, blues songs that went to the top of the charts. All three albums that I did with Eric Clapton and Peter Frampton and all these great blues guitarists. But so the reason why I tell that story is I said to him, how could he be a saint cursing at people? And Mike said, it takes all kinds to make it to heaven. A saint is someone who has a heroic virtue in an area. They're not perfect people. They're flawed. They're all flawed. You know, even Saint Augustine. But I have so many favorite saints. For some reason, I like St. Jerome. I figure if he made it to heaven, maybe I have a chance.

SPEAKER_01:

We all do. We are all saints in our different ways.

SPEAKER_00:

Yeah. I'm saying I don't like to, you know, listen, I feel saved. I feel like I'm being saved. I feel like I will be saved, but I don't want to be presumptuous about it, you know.

SPEAKER_01:

But I feel like we all have our special way of how we spread the message.

SPEAKER_00:

Absolutely.

SPEAKER_01:

And yours was through music and you are life coaching addicts and prisoners. And I think you're a saint in that way. And I think it's super cool.

SPEAKER_00:

Oh, thank you.

SPEAKER_01:

One last question. What are you most proud of?

SPEAKER_00:

What am I most proud of? What am I most proud of? That's a funny... Because proud is like, it could be very negative, you know? No, in a positive way. Yeah, in a positive... Well... I got to say, you know, I think my family, you know, I'm most proud of, like, my children, my three daughters, who turned out to be beautiful women and just giving people. And my granddaughters, and now my great-grandfather.

SPEAKER_01:

Wow, what a

SPEAKER_00:

blessing. I have a little one called Beatrice, who is just a ball of butter. She's a joy. So I would say I'm proud of my family.

SPEAKER_01:

That's awesome. Good answer. Okay, I have one other last question. What's your favorite song that you didn't write?

SPEAKER_00:

I had a hand in everything. Even if I didn't write it, I was probably... But I would say... I would say Abraham, Martin, and John. My friend Dick Holla. That came out of him first, out of frustration. And I put it together in a... I think in a beautiful way. And it's become kind of a classic in a way.

SPEAKER_01:

I love it. Okay, great. Well, thank you so much for speaking with us and really speaking your wisdom. I feel like I learned a lot. And thank you for your book. I can't wait to read it.

SPEAKER_00:

Well, yeah, I think you'll enjoy it. It's... The

SPEAKER_01:

Rock and Roll Philosopher.

SPEAKER_00:

yeah what a full

SPEAKER_01:

life you've had

SPEAKER_00:

i tell you i i think i think the gift of music opened up my whole life because i traveled and i i meet all these wonderful people and i i've been around for so long i feel like forest gump you know i knew buddy holly and sam cook and jackie wilson from wow from the early days and I started with Ray Charles and Aretha Franklin. the stories about Bob Dylan and Paul Simon in the book. There's a lot of like- Super cool. Just street music that got me started and it just opened up my whole life. So I just feel so blessed and I feel like I, especially God pouring his love into my life, I feel like I found a privileged way to live.

SPEAKER_01:

Thank you so much for coming in and speaking with us today, Dion, and make sure you all go on Amazon and purchase the

SPEAKER_00:

it's been a pleasure being with you today Ira thank you

SPEAKER_01:

thank you