So he was opening night... I was out of a job, and I'd been to every producer in Hollywood trying to get a job singing. But nobody wanted to know me.

So gradually, and then I had an Italian roadster that I built, it took me five years to build it, it was stolen from me and stripped. I said, well maybe we should have another where we shouldn't steal from each other.

And there was a real shedding of the old dogma, like boundaries of morality were being broken down and everybody was into the new party mode of just loving on each other. Which destroyed thousands of us. I lost 16 of my personal friends through that lifestyle.

But times changed, and I changed, and I didn't feel that way anymore. The Beatles were happening. I think that was probably the main thing. The Beatles just changed the whole world of music.

I remember we woke up one morning at Denny's house and John Phillips called. He said, you guys okay? We said, yeah, what's wrong, what's going on? He said, well, everybody's dead over at Sharon's house at Terry Melcher's place.

You tell me over and over and over again, my friend, you don't believe we're on the eve of destruction.

I know great songwriters. Fred Neil would come up when he was in L.A., we all used to hang out. He would sit there and sing, and we would just melt. I mean, we would go to his recording sessions.