Lindsey Buckingham: It Keeps Evolving
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That's right. Discover automatically doubles the cash back earned on your credit card at the end of your first year with Cash Back Match. Now that's a real crowd pleaser. Everyone knows how it ends. Double the cash back. See terms at discover.com slash credit card. I got Lindsey Buckingham in the studio, peeps. Like, let's lay down some tracks, man. I'm ready. I'm ready. I'm a little rusty, but you know. You're not rusty. No, no, no.

Hey, everybody. Welcome to Literally. So from the minute I started making my dream guest list, this man was on it. I am a huge Lindsey Buckingham fan. I'm a huge Fleetwood Mac fan. I love music. This guy is been there, done that.

You know, he's on the Mount Rushmore of 70s and 80s and forever. Pop music geniuses. So let's find out where the bodies are buried with Lindsey Buckingham.

You're on tour now. I am, as a matter of fact. An album that I finished literally three years ago and was trying to get out for a number of years. Events kept sort of conspiring against it. We finally got it out. I'd say. Yes. Any number of things. Take your pick. And, you know, we finally got it out and we've done one leg of the tour. We're going back out in December and then April and then over to June.

The UK and Europe in, I guess, May. It's great. The second single is particularly awesome. Oh, thank you. What is the name of it? Probably On the Wrong Side. Yeah, yeah. So, Go Your Own Way-esque. Yeah, yeah, yeah. It's... I mean, like, when you have tremendous success doing something, like you do with Fleetwood Mac, and you have a sound. Like, there's not only is it successful, it's a sound. Right. So, what do you...

Do you go, I don't want to do that? Or how much do you fight against it? And then you kind of go, it's sort of what I do best. Do you know what I mean? Yeah. It's a tightrope. It's a push-pull that you've got to walk. And, you know, after Rumors, which at some point became...

Always about the music, but because the success was so great of that album, the success became about the success after a while. Right. You know what I'm talking about? Yeah, yeah, yeah. And so...

I was very much opposed to trying to make, quote, rumors to, you know, where you start to paint yourself into a corner and start to think in a formulaic way. Let me ask you this. I'm trying to get rid of this. I'm a huge Fleetwood Mac fan. Right. Bordering on Fleetwood Mac nerd. So Fleetwood Mac, your first album with you and Stevie and Rumors are not...

totally dissimilar. No, they are not. So how would the third one have been rumors

two. Do you know what I'm saying? If the first two weren't... Well, only because the first one did very well, but probably sold three or four million albums, and the second one became a sort of Michael Jackson land phenomenon. Yeah, totally. And at that point, you've got these corporate sort of mentalities that start to nudge you in a certain direction. And I think what you've got to say about that first album and Rumors was that they were both...

created from the inside out. They were created from our gut and from our instincts and there was no one there was nothing external trying to

come into play at all in terms of influencing what we're going to do. Give me a glimpse into how that happens. It's the phone call from the A&R guy who goes, hey, man, like, how does the subtle corporate pressure manifest itself? I'm not sure that it ever actually manifests itself. It's just that it gets, everyone knows that it's the elephant in the room. Right. And so, you know, it's not only the, the,

the record company it is the expectation from the fans to a certain degree it is also in my case it was it became sort of the mindset of other people in the band and me being the troublemaker that i always have been you know i just said well let's let's you know undermine any sort of possibility of painting ourselves into a corner or beginning to do that and and uh

really confound people's expectations. And I was also quite interested in exploring some new processes as well at that time. So the two things kind of coincided. Which you, I mean, and you did. I did. We made Tusk, which was, you know, a completely different kind of thing. And in a way, that was my line in the sand that

And I still am so proud of that album, not for necessarily the outcome of it artistically, although that too, but more the reason. The choice, exactly. Yeah. Well, before we started recording, we were talking about choices and even little things.

add up in the totality of a career. That's right. I mean, they really do. And sometimes you don't know what the sum total and effect of those choices is going to be until years later. That's right. And you also don't know what stands the test of time. People have revisionist history with

songs and albums and... That's right. More so now that everything is streamable. I mean, my impression of you from...

Without ever knowing you and reading the media and, you know, you're part of one of the great rock and roll soap operas of all time. Oh, yeah. Of all time. Continuing to this day, apparently. It is like you suffer no fools and that you, given your druthers, would not rather play the hits all night, every single time, all night. And maybe not so well about touring.

Well, you know, there is something about touring which is not only repetitive, obviously, inherent in what you need to do, but there's also sort of shifting onto being on automatic. Because, I mean, not 100%, because there are variables from night to night, certainly, and that's what makes a performance. But at the same time, you know, you're sticking to the script. Listen, I've...

I have...

when I did A Few Good Men with Aaron Sorkin on stage at the Royal Haymarket, it was great. I did 160 performances every night, but there were nights during the performance when I could check my shopping list in my head. Well, it does happen, yeah. It happens. What am I going to have to eat after the show? You're actually playing and singing. Yeah, exactly. And there's nothing wrong with that either. It's natural. Yeah, exactly, because you're on automatic, and that's fine. But, you know, it's not that I didn't enjoy touring, because in some ways touring was

an expansion of my energy. And over time, it got to be better and better for me. You got to understand that in the early days in Fleetwood Mac, we didn't have a lot of our own material. So I was the one who had to sort of cover the Peter Green or the Danny Kerwin or the Bob Welch. And so it took a while for it not to feel...

you know, quite so clubby. And probably after Tusk really was when we kind of came into our own and were able to pretty much do just a body of work, which we could call our own. And that, that meant that was a great transition for me. So Bob Welsh, he leaves the band, but then goes on a run of his own. He had so many hits off that, that solo album, right? That's right. Left. Yeah. Why didn't he just stay in Fleetwood Mac and have those massive hits with them?

I really couldn't tell you. I didn't know Bob very well. I did, you know, I was involved with some of the production on that particular album that you're referring to. Yeah, Sentimental Lady. Yeah, it's a great album. But, you know, I would have to assume that, you know, at the time that Bob left...

You got to look at where the group was right before Stevie and I joined. And it was really Mick, Mick Fleetwood, who had been so, so motivated to keep the group together at any cost. And because of that, it had gone from what it had originally been, which was, you know, a four-piece, then a five-piece kind of progressive blues band into more of a pop kind of

riff band with Christine. And then it sort of went through this period of a series of albums in which it was a different group of people every time. And the albums stylistically were arguably non sequiturs from one to the other. 100%. I think I would argue some of the songs are non sequiturs. Yes, exactly. And so you had...

A situation where they're living up in Laurel Canyon and they're wondering how much longer Mo Austin is going to keep them on the label. And, you know, I've always said this. I've said this a million times. I give Mo – it's such a comment on not just Mo Austin's intuitiveness.

to keep them on the label when they weren't really making the label any money at that time. But also, it's a comment on the business in general and the autonomy he had to do that compared to today where I think it's a lot more sort of boardroom kind of thing. And so, you know,

He just waited around and thought, well, you know, there's something good here. Maybe something will happen. And then Stevie and I come along. But right before that, I can see where Bob Welch might have been.

He thought it maybe was the end. Yeah, he'd been in the band for a long time and it didn't seem to be going anywhere. So who knew? I had forgotten Mo Austin. One of the great gentlemen of the business. Amazing. And if you're interested in music out there and you're listening and you don't know Mo Austin, you should Google it. He needs a documentary about him. I'm sure there probably is one. He definitely deserves one. I mean, he started off...

running Reprise because Frank Sinatra, who started Reprise Records, put him in charge of the label. I mean, it goes back to the early 60s, you know. Stevie tells a great story about

I think Stevie tells a lot of great stories. She does. She does. She tells... She tells... I'll get straight about it. The first time she saw you, she actually heard your voice at a party. Right. That's right. Right? And followed the voice and it was you playing. I picture you like the guy in Animal House singing on the stairs with the guitar. Well... I gave my love a cherry. Is that what was going on? Something like that. I don't remember what it was. I think it was a little hipper than that. Okay, good. But not much. Yeah.

And it was interesting because Stevie, you know, I grew up, you know, in the same house with the same friends from like kindergarten through high school. She got uprooted almost every year because of her father's business and had to make new friends and learn how to make a splash, which obviously served her well later. But...

Yes, I was very aware of her. She was a year older and she came in, she transferred into Menlo Atherton as a senior. She was like a little beatnik, you know, it was very cute. Something to behold. Did you know she sang? I did. Did you guys sing Harmony that very first time you met? I actually don't remember, but if I had to guess, I would say yes. But then she went off to college and I didn't see her for another year. And then she ended up joining a band that I was in after that.

The Buckingham Knicks album cover is one of the great album covers in the history of album covers. Oh, that's nice. And if you guys haven't seen it out there, Google it. Yes. And I think it was totally ripped off for Stars Born. Could have been. I never thought of that. If you look at the Chris Christopherson, Barbra Streisand, somebody looked at Buckingham Knicks.

Okay, I'll take it. Yeah, and was like, we're going to just steal this. Do you ever get tired of talking about the soap opera that is your relationship with Stevie? Or is it just such a part of your muse? Well, I mean, it keeps evolving, obviously, you know, or devolving, perhaps, at this point. I'm not really sure. No, I mean, as you say, it's part and parcel with the...

The whole story and it contextualizes things often. So I'm completely happy to talk about anything you want to talk about. So when you were singing with Stevie every night, by the way, I've only seen you guys once. And I finally, and it took forever, for whatever reason, I saw you at the O2.

But when you guys are, and the audience loves the soap opera of it all. It's almost, it's just baked into the DNA of all of it now. It is, it is. And it's part of the reason for the appeal, for sure. So when you guys are singing, you know,

You know, one of the hate songs, whichever one. And you're looking at each other. And does it ever feel performative to you? Do you know that like, oh, this is the time where I've got to look at Stevie or she's got to look at me. And we got to act like it's all... Do you know what I mean? Well, I think it does get that way. It does become...

sort of an exercise in mechanics to some degree. But then there are other times, considering what may or may not be going on offstage, where it may take on a different layer. Because the night I saw you guys, a big piece had come out in one of the London papers. And Stevie was very upset at you because you were upset about the long-winded stories between the songs. And...

And so I was like, I wonder what they're going to... But this is what the audience loves. They love coming to see, you know, it's like, are they going to be getting along? Are they not going to be getting along?

Mick and Christine would start dancing behind her. It's amazing. You know, it's just like, just to make a little punchline out of it, you know. But that's part of what she likes to do. And that's fine. You know, I have heard that she talks quite a bit more on her solo shows. And that's her right. You know, it's... People, I mean, you know, it's like she told the story of...

So I'm back to the Velvet Underground, behind that, the lyrics of Gypsy. I never knew that. Right. I never knew it was a thrift shop store and she went there. I mean, I know you know the story a billion trillion times, but I was like, oh. Right. Why would you, right? Well, I always thought to the floor I loved, I always thought it was her with a mattress on the floor and some apartment. No. It was a design on the floor that she liked in a shop that she couldn't afford. Now she's a rock star and she can afford it. Right. And I love that.

Yeah, and what's so great about her lyrics is that they are poetic in the way that make it a Rorschach for whatever you want it to be about. How much of you...

When you get that, how much of it, like, it's like people write books. Some people write books, they don't need an editor, really. It's almost fully formed. Others, they're just sort of, I don't mean it vomiting out like in a pejorative, like it's a bad thing, but they're just sort of putting it all up against the wall. What is that process like? My sense is with her, it's more like a lot goes out and then there's some shaping that's involved. Well, I mean, her stuff was always completely raw. You take a song like Dreams, which, you know,

or Gypsy or something. I mean, it comes to me basically like she's playing something with two fingers on the piano. What's great about what she's doing is not only just her voice, but she's also got this superb sense of placement with her rhythms and obviously her lyrics. And those things are fully formed. But say a song like Dreams, it was the same two chords and there was nothing

You know, it completely needed, you couldn't even really tell where the chorus was. It needed framing from one section to the other. And the framing needed to be very well differentiated. So, you know, you get into a verse and then a passing section and a chorus. And that's all generally what I did for Stevie was add chorus.

I mean, you could call it production, but in a way it went sort of beyond that, some level of composition as well, instrumentally. Right. Not enough to say, hey, you know, it's not about getting writing credit, but it's about taking the full potential, taking the potential of what's there and fulfilling it. Yeah, because a lot of times people only have as a riff. That's right. Or whatever. Well, she has her center always. Yeah.

And it's just everything around it. Gypsy is another example. I mean, if you take away all of the thematic work that I added to that, the song becomes sort of vaguely conversational, but not necessarily very engaging in the same way musically. ♪

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Qualifying plan required. Wi-Fi were available on select U.S. airlines. Deposit and Hilton honors membership required for 15% discount terms and conditions apply. How did you feel about dreams becoming a TikTok phenomenon? Well, I mean, this is the world we live in. Right? It's a dude on a skateboard drinking orange juice to dreams. That's what it is. That's what it is, yeah. And now an entire generation of...

11-year-old, 12-year-old, 13-year-old people are obsessed with that song again. Yes. But you know what that also underscores, which is something we began to see more and more as a band, as our time together grew, it started to become so obvious that what we'd done was that we'd done something right. Because...

you know, when you, when a song comes out and it's a hit, you know, you don't really like it. You were mentioning what stands the test of time and what does it? Well, it takes the equation of time in order to know whether you've done your job properly. And at some point, many tours ago, we started to realize that we were seeing maybe three generations of people at our shows. And so reaching that broad, a set of demographics, I think,

implies that you you've done something which is universally meaningful and and so in a way that's that's a reason for something like the tiktok uh moment to to have blown up as much as it did because there was there there was a substance to it you know oh yeah well listen my um

My favorite, I think my favorite guitar solo in the world, in the world. In the world. Come at me, people, is yours in You Make Lovin' Fun. Oh, nice. Okay. That's my, it's melodic, it's simple, it's got enough complexity that it's like right in the, for me, that's like, and I'll never forget being at the O2 and it was like ringing, ringing off the back of my head.

Oh, good. I mean, it was like, ba-wing. But that tone that you have, that's the one guitar that you designed, right? Yes. I mean, when I first joined the band, I was playing a Stratogaster, which is sort of thinner sounding, but also very percussive. Because I don't use a pick, that was a great... Which I had no idea until I saw you. Crazy. Amazing. That sound on a guitar was very much...

appropriate for no pick and just a finger style. Unfortunately, the Stratocaster as a sound did not fit in with the pre-existing sound of Fleetwood Mac, which was they had a fatter sound on the drums, on the bass, on the keyboards, and so I had to switch over to a Les Paul, which wasn't as well-suited because it wasn't as clean, wasn't as percussive. It's a huge guitar, right? Yes, and it was great for solos, but not necessarily great for everything else. So...

After, I think it was while we were making Rumors, I asked Rick Turner, who was a guy who worked at a company called Alembek, which was making kind of custom basses for John at that time, and was based in Northern California. I said, can you design me a guitar, which is a cross between a Les Paul and a Stratocaster? And that's what he came up with, and I've used them ever since. Ever since? Ever since. Ever since.

So, okay. Another great story I've heard is that on Go Your Own Way, you wanted Mick Fleetwood to play like a street fighting man type. Yes. And he couldn't do it or didn't know what it was. Well, he did know what it was. Tell that story because I love it. Because, I mean, he did play his version of it. It's his version of it. Yes. But, you know, I mean, Charlie Watts was playing like a kick with a push, like boom, boom.

Boom, boom. And then he was going, boom, on the snare and then Tom's. So it was like, boom, boom, boom.

boom, boom, boom, with a different kick pattern. And Mick, I mean, one of the things I truly love and admire about Mick is that he has no idea what he's doing. Amazing. And the beauty of that, you know, that it's all just coming right from his center. He's never, I mean, I've never had a lesson either, but still, he's a true primitive in the best sense of the word.

And he can only do what he can do. Yeah. And he has to feel it the way he feels it. So he paraphrased that and made it a 4-4 kick and opened up the Tom pattern, but basically got the same idea in. So in your mind, it was a street fighting man and it became this legendary hybrid. Yeah. No, I mean, that was just my way of articulating what I wanted to start with. And knowing full well he might, you know, do something else and that was absolutely fine, you know.

Because Mick is Mick. Somebody I read, one of those big Rolling Stone type things, and they were saying that if you want to know what Fleetwood Mac is, and if you want to figure out if you like them or don't like them or whatever, on Say You Love Me with the Fallen, Fallen, Fallen riff at the end, that's the quintessential Fleetwood Mac moment, somebody said. Which I thought was kind of interesting because it's featuring three people.

amazing singers who would all be lead singers in their own bands. Right. And it's, it's, and it's introducing something which hasn't happened in the rest of the song as a tag. And it's got just this sort of whole orchestral, uh, uh, kind of guitar work, which, you know, is like sort of the big payoff for everything else in the song. It's a really well constructed song. It is. And I, I give Keith Olson who, who engineered that album, uh,

a lot of credit for the job he did on that album. It was great. Who were your favorite bands of that era? Were you a Steely Dan fan? Were you an Eagles fan? Were you competitive with any of those other folks who were also selling records? Well, you know, I mean, of course I love Steely Dan. Who can't be enamored of their skill and their musicianship?

I loved some of the Eagles. I tended to gravitate towards Don's stuff more. Favorite Eagles track? Oh, boy. I don't want to put you on the spot, but I love, because I think it's very illuminative, if that's even a word, of like, if you have a canon like the Eagles do, like the song that somebody picks. Same with Fleetwood Mac, by the way.

I like, I mean, I like where they evolved to, Hotel California. You know, that kind of thing. So, Life in the Fast Lane. Iconic. Yes. I've been told that Don wrote that about Stevie and me too, so who knows? Wow. I'm not sure if that's true or not. I love that. I thought I'd heard every... Well, we'll see. You are brutally handsome. Brutally handsome and... You're brutally handsome. And a cruel dude.

I loved Cat Stevens when I was younger. I mean, just the way those records were put together is transcendent to me. You know, then what happened later on, again, this sort of coincided with the Rumors' success, was that the whole new wave thing started to come over from, I mean, it was in the States too, but, you know, certainly from the UK. And a lot of that...

reinforced what I was already feeling, which is I don't want to become an establishment thing. So suddenly you've got the police or you've got Elvis Costello or you've got even talking heads. I mean, brilliant stuff. And it just sort of reinforced my belief that something like Tusk needed to be where we went.

So why do you think the bass riff on the chain has become such a big deal? Well, I think because it... You're talking about... Boom, boom, boom, boom, boom, boom, boom, boom. It's just the tag bass riff. And the chain were how many different songs? It was multiple ideas that you stitched together? Kind of. I mean, I had the verse. I think Stevie came up with the chorus. Yes.

And Christine, I forget what she threw in there, but something. And then John got credit for the bass line. And I think what it is about that bass line is it is very thematic and very magnetic, but it's also the timing of it. You've already gotten through the body of the song and now...

The end is coming and the solo is coming at the end. And so everything comes down and suddenly it... And the little ticking on the cymbals leading up is like a fuse going. Yeah, so the tension that it builds and the attention that it therefore garners, you know, because of that, I think is a lot of the appeal of that bass riff.

It's so good. Spinal Tap is one of my favorite movies. I have heard that Derek Smalls, the bassist in Spinal Tap, played by Harry Shearer, is a combination of Entwistle and McVie. That sounds about right. Does that make sense? It does. I mean, not that I could take that apart and say there's John, but yes. Right? Sure, yeah. It's a...

God, that movie is a great movie. So, oh, so that comedy, we're talking about comedies, Holiday Road. Right. Love it. That little riff stuck with me. That's the earworm of earworms. Yes. It's the sort of the hook that almost the afterthought, but, you know, it got in there. Yeah. I mean, Harold Ramis-

You know, I didn't know him. You saw the movie, right? Did you see the movie? It's for vacation, by the way, if you guys don't remember. He showed... I think he had the rough cut at the time. And then I went back and wrote the song and recorded it at my house. And then we... You know, he came down and we played it for him. And I just think he was so, so pleased with it. And I mean, I just got lucky, you know? I mean, it wasn't just that. It was the song that they...

that somehow I put together, which was almost like a 40s Mills Brothers kind of thing, Dancing Across the USA, which I had already written but hadn't recorded yet. And it was just one of those things that fit so well in the movie because that's what they were doing, Dancing Across the USA. And to have that for the credits at the end, I mean, it was just a one-two punch and it was great. ♪

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All set for your flight? Yep. I've got everything I need. Eye mask, neck pillow, T-Mobile, headphones. Wait, T-Mobile? You bet. Free in-flight Wi-Fi. 15% off all Hilton brands. I never go anywhere without T-Mobile. Same goes for my water bottle, chewing gum, nail clippers. Okay, I'm going to leave you to it. Find out how you can experience travel better at T-Mobile.com slash travel. ♪

Qualifying plan required. Wi-Fi were available on select U.S. airlines. Deposit and Hilton honors membership required for 15% discount terms and conditions apply. Were you involved in We Are the World? I was. I was up there. I was out at A&M Records, which is what it was before it was Hanson. That's right. Right on La Brea? Yes. It was the old Charlie Chaplin Studios. I mean, huge fan of Charlie Chaplin, so it was a thrill to be there at all. Yeah.

But yeah, I mean, I was just in the back somewhere. I'm obsessed with that night. I mean, that video is... There are a lot of people in that...

A lot of people. And there are, it's, by the way, it's no different for an actor when we go to do like a telethon. Right. It's like, you might get relegated to the phone bank. Right. Or you might get to have a five minute monologue where you get cheery eyed and.

ask the people for money. Like you just don't know. You don't know. You don't, you show up. No, it was, it was, uh, there were so many people there. I mean, I walked into the bathroom and scared Michael Jackson who was standing in front of the mirror by himself, no one else in there. And I walked in and he kind of started and turned around and I didn't want to bother him. I just kind of waved and did my business and left. It's an amazing group. I mean, yeah. Like I say, I was just relegated to the back and,

part of the chorus. There was never any chance that I was going to be singing even one word by myself, but that was fine with it. I was just happy to be there. But, you know, listen, it's part of the great thing. It's part to be of it, but I just, that was a real moment in time that you can't ever recreate. Exactly.

You're playing L.A. in December. December, the very beginning of December, yeah. How do you choose your set lists? How do you go through that? Well, it's pretty willy-nilly, you know. This time we actually thought about making little subsets almost. So basically we were coming out and doing like five or six songs that are all...

from solo work. And then the band goes off and I do four songs just with the acoustic guitar. And then the band comes back on and we do four songs from the new album in a row. And then we end with four Fleetwood Mac songs. Amazing. That's great. Yeah. So it's just like kind of sections it out and it seems to be working very well. How often do you practice and or play music

at this point in your life? You mean just sitting around? Not hardly at all. I mean, I do, you know, I'm very self-sufficient. It's like the new album. You know, I engineered it and mixed it and played everything and performed everything.

So, I mean, I am sort of going through the paces in a way, but I don't sit around and do scales or just sit around and try to practice. It just doesn't come that way for me now. It's more about if I'm in the mode of wanting to be creative, you know, like a writer or a painter, you know, because it's a one-on-one with my work. I'm not making a movie with a bunch of people where it has to be verbalized and it has their politics involved and everything.

conscious things to get from point A to point B. I mean, it's all intuitive. You just have to say, now I'm going to do this for a while. When you write, do you have a routine or is it purely, do you have a desk? Do you sit somewhere? Do you hold a guitar? Well, you know, I usually, it's sort of, I think the idea of having an idea is

It's my belief stuff is sort of passing over your head all the time. It's whether you've got your antenna up or not. And so if you're in that mode, you know, then you're going to, these days anyway, you're going to hum something into your voice memo. Or you're going to hum and play something, depending on what it is. And then everything else having to do with the evolvement of the writing actually comes during the recording. Right.

Because, you know, again, like a painter, he may start off with a certain preconception about what he's going to do. But if he's

attuned to his own subconscious, the canvas is going to start to lead him in directions he may not have expected to go. And it's the same thing with working in the studio behind a console. And maybe you start with a little idea and then that evolves into something else. And that suddenly leads you off in a different direction. And

And it's just about paying attention and being open, you know. That's what music is for, to be the soundtrack to people's lives in a way, you know. And to have it, you know, enhance the other aspects of their experiences, I think. 100%. Well, this has been a total thrill. Oh, my pleasure. Wow, that was so fun. I'm like buzzing like a little schoolboy.

I'm a little school boy because I was such a fan. Oh, my God. I felt I was just literally I was just like fanning out. I hope it wasn't too much for you guys. But this is why one of the reasons I do this. People always say, why do you do it? What are you doing a podcast for? That's why. Because I'm not ever going to ask him that if I meet him at the Grammy after party. You know what I mean? I'm not going to go, hey, man, how'd you get that guitar tone on dreams? It's not going to happen.

Happens here, though, and it just did. And you were listening. All right, I'm going to listen to some of these lowdown lines. Hello, you've reached literally in our lowdown line where you can get the lowdown on all things about me, Rob Lowe. 323-570-4551. So have at it. Here's the beep. Beep.

Yo, Rob Lowe. My name is Dan. I'm from Seattle. I'm calling you from Asuncion, Paraguay, where I am a teacher, a really great teacher, an award-winning teacher. I gave myself the awards. But anyway, I have a question for you, Rob Lowe. What was Rob Lowe's favorite actor to work with and why?

Thank you, Rob.

I think it's Allison Janney. She's got technique. She's got charisma. She can be funny. She can be dramatic. She is not showy. You know, when you watch her work, it doesn't look like she's working super hard at it. It all seems supernatural and easy. She's got kind of got ticks all of the things that I like stylistically in an actor.

And, um, and, and also a great person. Um, and listen, let's face it. Um, as I hear myself talk, it's not that bold of a choice. I mean, she's got an Academy Award and she's got 75 Emmys. So I'm not, you know, I'm not alone. I think I'm going with the great Allison Janney. Thanks for, for, for calling in. Appreciate it. Hello to Paraguay. Thank you. Um, by the way, don't forget to subscribe to our podcast.

Hit subscribe, would you? And throw down us with a little Apple five-star review. I want five stars. And I'll see you next week because we have a really fantastic guest. I'm not going to say who it is yet, but you will find out soon. Thanks for listening. This was literally with me, Rob Lowe.

You've been listening to Literally with Rob Lowe, produced and engineered by me, Rob Schulte. Our coordinating producer is Lisa Berm. The podcast is executive produced by Rob Lowe for Low Profile, Jeff Ross, Adam Sanks, and Joanna Solitaroff at Team Coco, and Colin Anderson at Stitcher. Our talent bookers are Gina Batista, Paula Davis, and Britt Kahn, and the music is by Devin Tory Bryant. Make sure to leave us a rating and review on Apple Podcasts, and we'll see you next week.

I'm literally with Rob Lowe. This has been a Team Coco production in association with Stitcher.

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