Eddie Money Talks Golden Nugget Show, Trump, Hillary, Paradise and Jersey Food

WHAT: EDDIE MONEY
WHERE: GOLDEN NUGGET ATLANTIC CITY
WHEN: SATURDAY MAY 21 9:00p

WHITNEY ULLMAN: Welcome back to Atlantic City. I know you have some great memories, can you share some with us?

EDDIE MONEY: I’ve been going to Atlantic City since I was a little kid, with the Miss America Pageants and Bert Parks. Atlantic City’s really great, and the people at The Golden Nugget take very good care of their entertainers. They make me feel like Frankie Valli back in the 60s…I’ve always loved the boardwalk and was hoping the water was going to warm up because I’m actually bringing my wet suit with me…I love the Atlantic Ocean. I really do. The Pacific Ocean stays cold all year long, but in the Atlantic Ocean, you get in there in the middle of the summer, it’s 70, 75 degrees. I spent a lot of time swimming in the ocean in Atlantic City. Atlantic City brings back a lot of memories.

What can fans expect?

EDDIE MONEY: I’m going to have my son out, Desmond. Check out dezmoney.com, he’s a very talented kid. I had no idea he was as talented as he is. and he’s going to have a record out really soon. Jessica’s going to be singing all the high harmonies with me on stage and she’s really fantastic. Of course my son Julian will be playing drums. It’s going to be like a family affair.

That is so cool. So, when did you realize that your son had this talent?

EDDIE MONEY:   When I was on the road a lot, he ran into my old bass player from the 70s and the 80s, and they got together. He has a studio, so Desmond started playing guitar and writing a bunch of material…Desmond’s got some great songs, so anybody who wants to hear them go to dezmoney.com. Of course, Jessica steals the show out there. My son Julian is 20 years old, and he’s actually a pretty good drummer. I’ve got to give it to him.

I know that you were a cop in the early days, did that inspire your singing or songwriting?

EDDIE MONEY: No, actually. To tell you the truth, being on the police department, I used to look at my father. We used to work around the clock and I used to wake him up playing my rock and roll on the phonograph. He worked around the clock. I just couldn’t see myself being in uniform for 20, 25 years. It drove me nuts. So, I quit the police department. I’ve got to tell you the truth, there’s a lot of great cops out there, a lot of great firemen out there, a lot of great emergency service workers, a lot of people that are blue collar. I’ve always been very thoughtful to Americans that work for a living.

During our convo you talked about how much you love Jersey, what do you want the fans to know?

EDDIE MONEY:  A lot of people living in Jersey are really very, very hard-working people. They really are. The food back east, it’s amazing. You can’t get a good crumb cake out here or a good pecan pie or a nice hamburger in a diner. California’s horrible when it comes to food.  Nothing like a greasy hamburger in a diner in New Jersey.

You’ve played in all different venues over the years, big and small. Do you have a preference?

EDDIE MONEY:  We played the Us Festival in front of 650,000 people. I don’t think there’s ever been a show quite as big as that show. We played Gimme Some Water and it was like 100 degrees out. Bill Graham had me turn the hoses, like a sprinkler effect, on the crown out there. What a great day. I played Madison Square Garden and playing Trumpville out there, which is what I call Atlantic City, it’s a lot of fun. The Golden Nugget, it’s a great place. It’s a family owned casino. I’ve got Baby Hold On, Two Tickets to Paradise, I Think I’m in Love, Shakin’, Take Me Home Tonight and I Wanna Go Back. We’ve got that song we do for the troops, One More Soldier Coming Home. It’s really a great show. Desmond has a couple of really wonderful songs as well. I’ve got to tell you, I really am looking forward to doing the show. It’s one of my favorite shows of the year.

I’m sure it is, you have so many fans, everyone’s going to be excited to see you. When you talk about paradise, what does paradise mean to you?

EDDIE MONEY: To tell you the truth, it’s not the state. It’s the state of mind. When I was coming up, I was really broke, and I had a girlfriend in college…Every weekend, her mother would try to take her to meet lawyers and doctors and CPAs.  Two Tickets to Paradise is actually written about a bus ride that I took with her. I took her off to the Redwoods, to the big Redwood trees up in northern California. Two tickets to paradise could be two tickets to the Eddie Money show at the Nugget, who knows! Or Hawaii or Rhode Island, anywhere you can take somebody that you love on vacation is two tickets to paradise.

How many times have people said to you, “Take me home tonight, Eddie”?

EDDIE MONEY:  That’s actually one of the most popular songs in America. In all the clubs at night, they play that song when everybody’s leaving. I’ve heard it in a million clubs.  I’ve got to tell you, the video is great because Ronnie Spector, who’s just a sweetheart of a gal, she sang the ‘be my little baby’. I think the song was very popular because it had two choruses. It had the ‘take me home tonight’ and it had the ‘be my little baby’, which was great. It was a big hit for me and the video was great. If you think about it, all the songs that we had on MTV were great, we did a lot of great videos back in the day.

What are your thoughts about the presidential race or Donald Trump running for president?

EDDIE MONEY:   I’ll tell you the truth. I think that both the candidates are actually good people. Hillary gets a bad rap, but she would be the first woman president. She’s great on foreign policy. I like Donald Trump because, as a business man, I think he’s going to pull this whole country together. I really do feel like a lot of people have been taken advantage of in the United States for a long, long time. I like a lot of ideas of both candidates, so we’ll see what happens. Who am I voting for? I don’t really know yet. It’s all up in the air.

What about you? Do you have any fun hidden talents or something fun that people don’t really know?

EDDIE MONEY:  I’m a saxophone player and I really like to play sax. I also like playing a lot of keyboards. So I’ve been writing songs and am thinking about putting out a new record. But once they buy your greatest hits, once they buy a record with Two Tickets on it, Baby Hold On, Take Me Home Tonight, Shakin’, nobody wants to hear new Eddie Money. I do have a great new record in the works. I’m thinking of maybe going with Sony RED, which is my old label because I used to work with Columbia Records. Plus, some proceeds from the album will go to my new charity, which is Pets for Vets. They take these homeless dogs and teach them how to take care of these wounded veterans. I did a benefit for the Pets for Vets the other day at the Reagan Library and met the most fantastic disabled veterans, and all these dogs that the veterans were teaching them what they have to do. It’s amazing that I had a dog actually go to a drawer, open up the drawer, take out a cell phone and bring it back to this guy in a wheel chair. It was a hit! It was so cool! So, we’re doing the Pets for Vets and when I put a new record out, I’m going to call it Shake That Thing. A lot of the proceeds will be going to these wounded warriors and dogs.

Anything else you want to tell your fans?

EDDIE MONEY: The show’s going to be my son Julian on drums, Tommy Girvin playing lead guitar for me again. He’s a fantastic guitar player who has been playing for me for 30 years. The bass player and the drummer are really fantastic. It’s going to be a really fun show. Oh and  I love one thing about the Golden Nugget, don’t tell my wife because unless I play the slots there she doesn’t like me gambling, but I actually won like $3,000. They’ve got really good slots. Every time I go to Atlantic City, when I wind up going to the Golden Nugget, for some reason, I always win money. It’s kind of embarrassing though, too, because I play the penny slots.

Well those penny slots are like three dollars a pull, so it’s not embarrassing.

EDDIE MONEY:  The penny slots do add up…But I love it. I’ve got a record called Gamblin’ Man on the first album. I loved that my father used to play a lot of Keno. My mother was always at Bingo…Gambling, to me, if you keep everything in line, it’s fun and it’s really great to win. When you win money, it’s amazing. I played this slot machine one time and I got a triple seven and the keno on top. I was playing two games at once and won $11,000. After they took out the taxes, I left with $8,800. In fact, the casino was so pissed off that I won, they didn’t have me back for three years.

No, come on! Was that an Atlantic City casino?

EDDIE MONEY: No, of course it wasn’t. It wasn’t an Atlantic City casino at all…  I’ve been gambling at the Golden Nugget for the longest time. You have no idea. The boardwalk’s fun and the beach in Atlantic City is fantastic, too.