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RT: During our last tour, we had only five days that we were going to be home for that whole year. I made a promise to Marisol that no matter what, I wouldn't do anything on that week: "If Jesus calls, I'm not going to do anything." So Mick called that week. I said, "This is the most depressing thing I've ever had to say, but I fucking can't." A month and a half later, we wound up being home again -- something else got canceled or we moved a video shoot -- and Mick happened to be in New York that same week. It seemed real serendipitous. We got together for two days in a studio. It was pretty amazing just to sit and watch him work...to see what surrounds him. There's so much to being Mick that's more than Mick. It's so great to see that at the heart of it all is a guy who runs in the room with his guitar when he gets excited and just starts "tanging" out an idea for 30 minutes, trying to chase a melody around.
PB: You wrote three songs for Willie Nelson's The Great Divide album. Any wild Willie stories?
RT: I met with Willie on his bus. He was doing A&E's Live By Request in New York. I was trying to sell him on the idea of writing with Rhett Miller from Old 97's. He said, "I think me and you need to do something together." Then he called me a couple months after that and we got together for a couple of days. It's so amazing to sit in a tiny little room and get high with Willie Nelson. And he'll play you whatever you want him to. If you go, "Man, I love 'Angel Flying Too Close to the Ground,'" he just starts going.
PB: Did you get high with Mick, too?
RT: I'm not going to comment on Mick Jagger. Willie has an open door policy to his lifestyle.
PB: With all of your writing for other artists, Us magazine dubbed you the next Burt Bacharach. How does that comparison make you feel?
RT: I love Burt Bacharach, but I think it would be cooler to be the next Tom Petty. He's a guy that's done everything right. There wasn't ever the hoopla of the Tom Petty Era where it was him on every magazine cover and him taking over this and that. He was just a career artist who has consistently made great record after great record after great record. He's maintained his integrity. He's a good role model as a man and a musician.
PB: What music do you listen to for fun?
RT: I'm a big "old" fan. I love anything like Miles Davis -- Sorcerer or Sketches of Spain. I like Coltrane's Impressions. I like a lot of jazz. But I love R.E.M and Indigo Girls, and I love Justin Timberlake. I'm the same way about music as I am with movies. If it makes me feel something and takes me somewhere, then I want to listen to it and I want to get into it. Like, I think Justin Timberlake's record is genius. It does exactly what it says it's going to: It rocks your body. [Laughs]
PB: What music to you put on for sex?
RT: I'm a big fan of putting on Al Green's Greatest Hits. It sounds really cliché, but Barry White is always real. And actually that last Paula Cole record is really sexy.
PB: Legend has it you were quite the player before you married. Any good war stories?
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