Joe Rogan pulled up a video of Rick Springfield performing 'Jesse's Girl' at 76 with no shirt, ripped physique, and raw passion. The contrast with the stereotype of aging rock stars is staggering. Tommy Lee's reaction: that's going to be me in 10 years.
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At 13:40 · chapter starts 10:41
Tommy Lee opens with a story that instantly becomes the episode's most memorable rock-history moment: Mötley Crüe got to open for the Rolling Stones at a Halloween stadium show, and afterward Tommy was invited backstage. What he found was Keith Richards and Ronnie Wood 'walking on their lips' — so drunk they could barely speak — with a personal bartender still slinging drinks just 20 minutes before showtime. Tommy was convinced there was no way they could play. Then the lights went out, 'Start Me Up' kicked in, and it was like a switch flipped: 100% money, full power, completely professional. 'They're masters of the controls,' Tommy concludes. Joe and Tommy then expand into a broader conversation about rock legends who never stopped performing, marveling at Mick Jagger's physicality at 80.
Tommy Lee was invited backstage before a Rolling Stones show and found Keith Richards and Ronnie Wood so drunk they could barely walk. Twenty minutes later, lights out, Start Me Up, and they were 100% on. Masters of the controls.
Rick Springfield, age 76, performs shirtless with the same passion and energy as when he first wrote 'Jesse's Girl', stunning both Joe and Tommy.
Reggae didn't emerge from thin air — it was built layer by layer from mento in the 1940s, ska in the late 1950s, and rocksteady in the mid-1960s. Each stage absorbed new influences, from transistor radios picking up Miami R&B to the distinctive 2-and-4 rhythmic accent that defines the genre.
Before hip-hop existed, Jamaican DJs were already doing it. Electricity spreading across Jamaica enabled mobile 'sound systems,' and DJs developed toasting — speaking and singing over recorded music — a tradition that DJ Kool Herc brought from Kingston to the Bronx at age 12.
Joe Higgs is reggae's great unsung hero. This Kingston musician took teenage Bob Marley, Peter Tosh, and Bunny Wailer under his wing and taught them how to sing, write songs, and make music — at a time when most artists would have focused on their own careers. Without him, the Wailers probably just would have sucked.
Reggae archivist Roger Steffens' analogy says it all: Bob Marley was reggae's Martin Luther King Jr., making the music universally palatable; Peter Tosh was its Malcolm X, inserting fierce militant political energy. Together, they gave the Wailers a depth no single voice could achieve alone.
King Tubby built his own hardware from cast-off recording gear to strip vocals and create dubbed-out instrumental reggae — essentially inventing electronic music in Kingston before Kraftwerk did it in Germany. The dubplate he created became the raw material for DJs to toast over, seeding hip-hop.
Two days before the 1976 Smile Jamaica anti-violence concert, gunmen shot Bob Marley in the chest and shoulder, shot Rita Marley, and wounded two others. He showed up and played anyway. The concert had already drawn accusations that Marley was a tool of the PNP government — a charge that frustrated him deeply.
Peter Tosh's killer was a man Tosh had taken in after prison, giving him shelter and food. The man repaid that generosity by holding Tosh hostage, torturing him for money, and shooting him in the head. It is one of the most brutal betrayals in music history.
The Windrush Generation brought Caribbean music to London after World War II, and reggae's 2-and-4 rhythm lodged itself deep in British culture — giving birth to ska bands like The Specials, pop acts like UB40, and even punk. Johnny Rotten was a reggae fan, and Public Image Limited has the dub influence to prove it.
Reggaetón didn't come from nowhere. It emerged from underground Spanish-language reggae-rap scenes in Panama and Puerto Rico, drawing directly on Jamaican reggae's rhythms and attitude. The line from Kingston to Bad Bunny's Super Bowl performance is a straight one.
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