By Paul Freeman [1994 Interview]

His golden voice and talents as a tunesmith enabled Bread to rise to the top of the pop charts. But David Gates also made a musical impact before and after that hit-filled stint.

Gates was raised in Tulsa, Oklahoma, the son of a band director and a piano teacher. By high school, he could play piano, bass and guitar. His song “Jo-Baby” penned for Jo Rita, a girl he had a crush on, became a local hit. The two married while both attended the University of Oklahoma.

Gates became a busy Los Angeles session musician, arranger and producer. He arranged the 1965 Glenn Yarbrough smash “Baby The Rain Must Fall.” As a songwriter, he enjoyed his first hit with The Murmaids’ record “Popsicles and Icicles.” The Monkees recorded his “Saturday’s Child.”

In 1968, Gates founded Bread with James Griffin and Robb Royer, later to be joined by drummer Michael Botts. Keyboardist Larry Knechtel eventually replaced Royer. Between 1969 and 1973, the group created such beautiful pop-rock classics as “It Don’t Matter To Me,” “Make It With You,” “If,” “Guitar Man” and “Aubrey.” The haunting Gates number, “Everything I Own,” was a tribute to his father. After three years apart, the band reunited for 1976’s “Lost Without Your Love.” The title tune, written by Gates, reached the Top 10.

With his gentle voice and lovely melodies, Gates enjoyed success as a solo artist, as well. His enduring songs include “Goodbye Girl” (theme to the 1977 Neil Simon romantic-comedy film), “Clouds,” “Never Let Her Go” and “Take Me Now.”

When we spoke with Gates, he had just returned to music, after a lengthy hiatus, to release his 1994 “Love Is Always 17” album. At the time, he was living on his Northern California cattle ranch.

POP CULTURE CLASSICS:
At what point did you step away from the business and concentrate on your ranch?

DAVID GATES:
That was in the mid-80s. Things had sort of dwindled off, where I was living in Los Angeles. I bought this ranch almost 20 years ago and I’d come up here in the summertime, bring my kids, when school was out, and then go back in the fall. And I began to pull away from the business a little bit in the mid-80s and then decided, when my kids were pretty much grown and gone, I moved up here full-time in 1987. So I’ve been up here seven years, living year-round. And I like the seasons - they’re kind of nice.

PCC:
But was it basically a matter of the business having changed? Or you had changed?

GATES:
I think it was mostly the fact that, at the time, I had accomplished about everything I had set out to. And I’d been doing it a long time, a lot of touring, a lot of writing. And all the pressure that goes with it. And all that whole busy, rushed situation. And I was kind of anxious to get away and slow down a little bit. It had been a childhood and lifelong ambition of mine to own and operate a cattle ranch. So I just put the two together - a little fatigue with the music business and interest in getting out in the country, because I really prefer the outdoors. And after all those years of being stuck in studios and concert halls and Holiday Inns and stuff, it was nice to get up here and get away from it.

PCC:
Had there been anything in your family background, in terms of ranching?

GATES:
Yes, and that had a big influence. Both my parents grew up on ranches - although I did not - in Wyoming and Utah. And then I had relatives that we’d go visit in Illinois and Wyoming and various places. So I had some ancestry involved in the ranching business and it intrigued me as a kid.

PCC:
Once you got immersed in the ranching, were you totally satisfied? Or was it not long before you started to miss the music?

GATES:
It was about four years that it took me to get the ranch around to the point where I wanted it to be and the improvements and the changes and so forth, to where I could get it more on a maintenance schedule, rather than an improvement schedule. And that was about 1990. And then I did start missing, actually, the songwriting, which has always been my favorite part of it.

And so I started writing again, little things here and there. I had no way to record them, so I built a studio here at the ranch. I’d had a studio at my home in Los Angeles and, when I moved from there, I put all the equipment into storage, in case I ever wanted to do it again. So I built a studio here, which also functions as a den. I put the pool table and the grand piano in there and things like that. And then I had all the equipment brought up here and rewired and hooked up. So I was online in 1991, to begin doing demos of the songs I was writing again. So the process just kind of started up all over again.

PCC:
And when you started, did you detect any rust? Or did you just flow right into it, as if you had never stopped?

GATES:
I kind of kept right on going. The only rust I noticed was the typical songwriting rust, when you finish an album or a project and you’re away for a few months, the first song that you write, when you come back, sometimes is a little awkward. You’re kind of getting the wheels straight. So the first thing that I tried to write again, it took me a while to get it. But it didn’t feel as though I’d been gone way from it very long. Because I’d stored up a lot of ideas and thoughts. I talked to a lot of people and had a whole bunch of ideas for songs in my head. So it was kind of nice to sit down and get them done.

PCC:
So there was a tremendous feeling of release to get them down on paper?

GATES:
Oh, yeah, because, for example, particularly, “Love Is Only 17,” it’s an idea I’d been carrying around for two or three years, hoping to get that one. I got it finished last fall. But yeah, it was a release to get some of these things done. And it was so nice to get back to it, because I really did miss the writing.

PCC:
That release you get from writing, was there anything else you found that could substitute for that, when you weren’t doing it?

GATES:
No [chuckles].

PCC:
So it left a void.

GATES:
Yeah, it did. The thing, it’s kind of like putting a steak down in front of a hungry man. And you kind of ignore it for a long time and then you’ve just got to dig in. I really felt like I had to have some time away from music, in order to come back with great enthusiasm. And the three or four years that I actually didn’t write a thing, was very helpful. After writing for 25 years, it was time to recharge the batteries, I guess is a good way to put it.

PCC:
Is it different writing and recording in that ranch environment?

GATES:
I don’t think so. The only thing is, everything up here is ranch, cowboys, horses, cattle, loggers, and you’re surrounded with this type of stimulus. But all of the people’s personal lives are not that much different than they are in the city. So the ideas for songs are pretty much the same. So I would probably shift a little bit towards country, unknowingly, just because of my environment. But it’s still a good environment and if you listen to this new album, it’s quite a mixture of songs. And they were all written while I was here, so it’ll give you a pretty good idea of what that stimulus was like.

PCC:
Was there any conscious thought about what’s happening in the marketplace, where you might fit in, while you were creating the music?

GATES:
No, I decided just to do what I do best and then record it the way I thought it should be recorded and then stand back and look at it and find if some market niche is where it would fit, but I wasn’t certain when I started. I’m still not certain [laughs].

PCC:
It seems like a lot of what was rock or pop or folk in the 70s is now country. Why do you think that has happened?

GATES:
I think several things. You know, I can’t really tell you what came first - the chicken or the egg - but the fact that the number of country stations has doubled in the last few years, with so many new listeners, then all of these people listening today want wider horizons for country music than just the old traditional sound that was around like 20 years ago. So I think country music has expanded its horizons to fit this larger audience that they have out there. And then it feeds on itself. You know, a lot of the folks that are in country today have pop backgrounds. And that creeps out in their music. And it’s not just Merle Haggard and Buck Owens’ approach anymore. It’s gotten quite a bit wider.

PCC:
Do you think that’s a healthy thing?

GATES:
Absolutely.

PCC:
What was the array of music that influenced you, growing up?

GATES:
Well, in Tulsa, Oklahoma, it’s kind of a melting pot there, between country, rhythm & blues and rock ’n’ roll. So I had all of these styles to be listening to. And also, I grew up on classical music. My parents were classical musicians. They taught a lot of music in our home. I was the youngest of four children, so I had older brothers and sister, all playing instruments and records. And my Dad teaching wind instruments in one room, my Mom piano in another. So I was bombarded with a lot of different music. And to this day, I really love all kinds of music that’s well done. The only thing I don’t follow a whole lot is probably opera. But I know a little bit about it. If you have a good background in music, it really helps you in the style that you do best.

PCC:
Your parents, were they pretty open to rock music? Or were they disappointed, when you turned in that direction?

GATES:
No, they didn’t quite understand it. But they came around. But some of the early rock ’n’ roll stuff was pretty simple. “Tutti Fruitti” is certainly nothing to shout about - the lyric quality. And so I’m sure they raised their eyebrows, like everyone else in that generation. But I started writing some things in there that had some good melodies and a little more musical and I think they began to understand there was a future in it.

PCC:
Is it true that one of the first songs you wrote was inspired by your then future wife?

GATES:
Yeah. Back when I was in high school, I was going out with her. She went to a rival high school. And she was going with this guy pretty steady. And I tried to get her away from him. And as part of the process, I wrote a song and went down and got it recorded. I paid for 500 records to be pressed and went around, got them in some stores and got the radio station to play it, got my friends to call in and request it. We got that record up to number one in Tulsa. It never did anything anywhere else.

But she was obviously impressed with the record. And the boyfriend didn’t like it at all. It came to a culmination one night, they were dancing at some big dance and somebody took a record off, right in the middle of it, and put my record, the song for her, on, while they were dancing. And he just stormed out and that was the end of that. And I married her. And I’m still married to her.

PCC:
What a great, romantic story.

GATES:
It is kind of interesting. I didn’t think that much about it at the time, but now I look back and realize that it’s kind of unusual.

PCC:
Was that the first song you had written?

GATES:
It was the second. I had written one maybe a month or so before it and I was looking for a second one to go with it, when the idea of writing one for her hit me. I needed a back side. And it ended up being the front side [laughs].

PCC:
So you’ve been married how long now?

GATES:
Thirty-five years.

PCC:
That’s a rarity for any couple, especially in the rock world.

GATES:
To hang in there that long, yeah, I know.

PCC:
How do you make it work?

GATES:
Well, I think we’re just real, real compatible, to being with, a lot of common beliefs and hobbies. And we’re willing to compromise a little bit to make a team. It’s pretty hard to be a 100 percent individual and be married. You have to give up a little bit of ground and, like I say, compromise a bit. But that’s fine. I don’t have a problem with it.

PCC:
Being a rock musician on the road can get kind of crazy. How did you avoid falling into the pitfalls?

GATES:
I never toured more than two weeks at a time, then I’d take a break. I was always home Christmas and New Year’s and Thanksgjving and the kids’ birthdays and graduations and important events. I was able to book these things three and four months out and work maybe 90 or 100 days a year. And that’s enough. You can get around to everybody in two years, if you do it that way. You just have to plan it. So I tred to keep a very normal, low-profile household, so they didn’t think that I was different than anybody else.

Best story on that - my daughter was 12, I remember one day we were in the kitchen. I was getting ready to do an interview. And she and my wife and I were standing there and I’m getting ready to leave and she said to my wife, “Where’s Dad going?” And my wife said, “He’s going to an interview.” And she said, “Well, why would anyone want to talk to Dad?” So it was that kind of a deal.

PCC:
How old are the kids now?

GATES:
They’re all in their late twenties and early thirties.

PCC:
Do any of them have kids yet?

GATES:
My oldest boy has got three children. And my youngest boy has got one. But they’re doing fine. Mostly in Southern California at a moment.

PCC:
What’s your reaction to being a grandparent?

GATES:
It’s inevitable. We all face it. It kind of comes with the territory [chuckles], as the years go on. They’re nice kids.

PCC:
Your success in the music industry, did that start more with arranging and sessions, before you got into recording your own stuff?

GATES:
Yes. See, I started as a songwriter. I still like that best. But when I got to Los Angeles from Tulsa, I wrote, but I didn’t have any successful songs for quite a long time, two or three years, before I had the first chart record. And during that time, I did session work, playing bass and rhythm guitar and did some arranging. And I even carried that on after that “Popsicles and Icicles” hit that I wrote in 1963. I thought, after that was a hit, “Well, I’ll have two or three a year from now on.” But it was a number of years until I had the next chart record. So that shows you how it can be in this business. So I did a lot of arranging and producing, just to pay the bills.

PCC:
Any sessions particularly memorable for you?

GATES:
Well, I went through a whole lot of people on RCA and Columbia and I did a couple of songs for Elvis Presley for a movie. I can’t even remember the movie or the song titles. But I arranged them. They were done on a soundstage. I had about a 30-piece orchestra. And people like Bobby Darin and Ann-Margret and even Lorne Greene and Michael Landon, they were recording at the time, Shelley Fabares and Sally Field used to do some records, Davy Jones, out of The Monkees. It was that mid to late-60s era. I did as many as 50 sessions one year as an arranger. That works out to about 200 arrangements. It was a busy year for me.

And then the writing, I was getting more interested in writing for long-term. And I was getting some records. But I didn’t feel that they were doing them the way that they should be. And that’s when I decided to try to record them myself. I remember I went up to Columbia Records, Jack Gold was the head of A&R there, I told him I wanted to be an artist, would he sign me? I’d written some songs. And he used me to arrange a lot. And he said, “No, you don’t want to do that. You don’t want to go on the road. That’s a rotten life. Stay behind the scenes and be an arranger.” He wouldn’t sign me. And then I met up with the other two guys and we formed Bread and got on Elektra.

PCC:
Had you met them through sessions?

GATES:
Yeah, I had arranged a group called Pleasure Fair, on Uni Records. And their record was a good record, but they didn’t have any hit singles from it, so the group dissolved. And one of the guys in the band [Robb Royer], in Pleasure Fair, was writing with James Griffin. And so he called me up one day and said, “You oughta come over and listen to some of our stuff. And bring what you’ve got, maybe we can put it together and form this little group,” which we did, based on the fact we’d have two sources of songs, two lead singers. It’d make the albums more interesting and varied.

PCC:
Was there also the thought that maybe a group was maybe more marketable than a solo artist at that time?

GATES:
I think they might have been. I can’t remember exactly plotting in that much detail. We just felt that, with two sources of songs and two singers, maybe our odds were a little better to crack through. And groups were certainly very popular at the time.

PCC:
How did that chemistry work over the years?

PCC:
It worked pretty good. And we tried to do harmony on each other’s songs and each bring the equal number of songs to an album, so each writing team had a chance. And, at that time, pretty much 12 songs per album was the standard. So each of us would write six. And then, whatever the record company liked as a single, they would select. And that worked good for a while.

The last album we were working on, in ’73, I didn’t feel was quite up to the standards. And I can’t tell you whether it was just fatigue with writing or the well was dry or the fact that we had to keep coming up with songs so quickly. They really wanted an album a year. And it’s pretty tough to crank out that many good songs, when you’re also touring and you get all caught up in that and you just want to like stop and write and record for a while. But the pressure was on to try to keep the product flowing, one a year. And the album we were doing in ’73 just wasn’t up to standards. So I felt it would be better to kind of retire undefeated than to put out a poor quality album, under the time standards.

Then, a few years later, it became fashionable to wait two or three years between albums and we probably would have survived, if that had been the standard at the time.

PCC:
Did you stay in touch with the two guys?

GATES:
Yeah, I still talk to them. And Larry Knechtel came into the band later to play keyboards and I had known him for quite a while. So I talk to him probably more than anybody else. He’s in Nashville doing some record sessions.

PCC:
Are the other two still in the business?

GATES:
James Griffin is in Nashville, writing. And Mike Botts is in Los Angeles. And I’m not exactly sure what Mike’s doing. I think he’s doing some record work. I’ve kind of lost touch with him. But I hear from mutual friends kind of what he’s up to. [Griffin (2005), Botts (2005) and Knetchel (2009) are all now deceased, Royer remained musically active in Nashville].

PCC:
With so many band reunions happening, is there ever any talk of Bread getting back together?

GATES:
Oh, yeah. That comes up every two or three years, I’ll get a call from somebody. But I never took it too serious. I felt that we did it, it’s past history and, to me, it would just kind of be rehashing old territory, going backwards. And I’d just as soon do stuff on my own now. And a group was a fun experience, but I would never do it again. Once was enough [chuckles].

PCC:
Why would you say that?

GATES:
Well, because of the compromise. There’s a lot of compromise. And no matter how compatible you might be, there’s differences of opinion. And it just got to the point where I’d rather do it myself and take my chances with that. And if I can’t make it as a solo artist, then I can’t make it. I just don’t want to be part of that group compromise again.

PCC:
You’ve certainly had a lot of success as a solo artist. The new album is terrific. I could imagine each of the songs being a single.

GATES:
Thanks. I think that’s the best collection of songs I’ve ever had. That goes back now for three years of writing, so I hope they give me a little time before the next one, so I have an opportunity to come up with as much stuff. This time I’ll probably have more like a year, year-and-a-half, no going back to three years.

PCC:
While you’re writing, are you comparing to past work? Do you put that pressure on yourself?

GATES:
No. Well, in one way I do. The only way I do is to try to make sure that people who liked the old stuff and the reputation that I established as a songwriter, that I don’t tarnish that by writing something today that’s not up to good enough standards. And that’s the only thing I do, as kind of a policeman, to make sure that it’s good enough. Normally, when I start a song, if it’s not good enough, I just trash it. And then if you’re making the record, if the recording is not coming out too well, I usually don’t give up. I usually just go back a few days later and try it a different way. So there’s not too much pressure, other than just trying to maintain the same standards of quality as a songwriter. And that’s just a little built-in thing.

PCC:
These new songs certainly remind listeners of the big hits and the Bread era, yet they sound fresh.

GATES:
Well, I was hoping they would. It’s been 13 years since I’ve done an album. And my voice has changed a little bit, but not a lot. And my ideas for writing, maybe there’s a little more maturity in the lyric, I’ve been told, although it seems like I’m still kind of approaching it the same way.

But there’s a kind of stuff that I like to write, a kind of music that I like to make, and I know there’s people out there that like that kind of thing - a little more melody, harmony, maybe a little bit more serious, emotional, heart music, whatever you want to call it. But that’s the kind of thing I like to do best and I know there’s lot of people out there that are receptive and appreciate that kind of thing, from what I learned in the past. So that’s the little niche I try to fill and reach those people again.

PCC:
Doesn’t it seem like, actually, that area of music dissolved for a while and now is coming back?

GATES:
Yeah, I agree with you 100 percent. And I think there’s a return to more of the musical side of music. I think this unplugged phenomenon has something to do with it - strip it down to basics and acoustic guitars and things like that. So I do think it’s come back to the kind of songs that I like to write best.

PCC:
It’s nice to have songs you can actually remember.

GATES:
Yeah, you get something to hum, when it’s over, right?

PCC:
Billy Dean co-wrote a few with you, was he just a compatible soul to work with?

GATES:
Yeah, it’s very interesting. His producer, Jimmy Bowen, is an old friend of mine. And I’d shown a few of my songs to Jimmy and he said, “You know, you really ought to try to write with Billy. I think you guys would hit it off.” And so we did. And it was for his album, which is a little bit more country. And so we started writing together for songs for him and during the writing process, I got my record deal with Discovery and so I was telling him, “Hey, if you don’t use these things, maybe I can. Or we can write something for me.” And we ended up doing three songs together and he did one of them and I did all three of them. One or two might have been a little pop for him. I think they were a little concerned about that. But I didn’t have a problem with it [laughs]. And I think we’ll do some more things in the future. Very nice man.

PCC:
There’s a nostalgia for pretty much all old hits, but your classic songs, in particular seem so heartfelt, they resonate on a more profound level. I can’t think of a more beautiful song than “Everything I Own.” You must hear a lot of strong, sentimental reactions from people who cherish the songs.

GATES:
Oh, yeah. I was on a radio show in Los Angeles, Mark & Brian, it’s a morning show. It goes out to about 10 cities, syndicated, plus there’s quite a following there. And we got calls, just unbelievable calls from people who had lost family members or had married someone based on a song or children named Aubrey. You do, you get these incredible reactions.

The same thing happened, I went to New York and played live, did an interview for an hour-and-a-half on a radio station there with Scott Shannon. He has quite a morning following. The same thing happened - faxes and letters and calls. Those kinds of songs, you get quite a strong reaction. But that’s what it’s all about. I don’t really want to deal with fluff or dance music.

PCC:
So that’s the big reward for you, that sort of reaction?

GATES:
Yes, to make that connection with the listener. Like one man called in and he had some movie footage of his Dad. And his Dad passed away and he transferred all that footage onto a video and put “Everything I Own” to it. Things like that - it’s pretty touching stuff.

PCC:
Having that sort of reaction now, does it make you want to fully immerse yourself in the music again? Or do you want to keep it as a smaller portion of your life at this point?

GATES:
I think that actually the public will probably decide. I’m ready and willing to record for a length of time. The deal is a five-album deal, if we choose to pursue it. And as long as I can get the music heard and the people are interested in what I’m doing still, then I’m certainly willing to do my creative part. So I just have to see how the reaction is. Everybody I’ve talked to has really liked the album. But it needs to translate into enough activity out there to make it worthwhile to go back and not get discouraged. I’m sure I’ll do at least another one or two. And if folks like it, get behind it, I’m going to go out on tour next spring. So this could go on for however long I can crank them out and people want to hear them. We’ll keep the thing going [laughs].