Saturday, August 10, 2013

EXCLUSIVE INTERVIEW: Brad Maule Is Staying Busy with Many Projects Including a New Western Swing Album (Part 3 of 3)

With GENERAL HOSPITAL celebrating its 50th anniversary this year, We Love Soaps has been catching up with some of our favorite actors from over the years including Kin Shriner, Lynn Herring and Robin Mattson. The latest is three-part conversation with actor and singer Brad Maule, who played Dr. Tony Jones on the show from 1984 to 2006.

Read Part 1 here and Part 2 here.

In Part 3 of our exclusive interview, Maule talks about the many projects that keep him busy these days including a brand new album. Check it out below:

WE LOVE SOAPS: You have so many different projects happening now. For one, you are teaching at Stephen F. Austin. Are you enjoying that?
BRAD MAULE: Yes. It's off the charts. On Friday's we film short films with all the students. And we hosted our second annual film festival.

WE LOVE SOAPS: And you're hosting a radio show too?
BRAD MAULE: It's MAULE IN THE MORNING and you can hear it anywhere if you get up early enough at ksfa860.com. It's a local radio show here but it goes all over the world thanks to the internet. It's a drive-time show but I based it on PRAIRIE HOME COMPANION.  I used to listen to Phil Hendrie out in Los Angeles. We have people calling in all the time and you never know if they are real or fake. There's no politics and no religion. If you get serious on the show, I usually hang up on you. It's country people with a country life. We have a donkey that brays every morning on the radio. We wait for him; some days he brays and some days he doesn't. [Laughs] It's like SEINFELD because every day I walk into work I don't know what's going to happen.

WE LOVE SOAPS: I understand you've also been working on a new album and it has some Bob Wills music on it. How did you pick which songs to do?
BRAD MAULE: It's a Western Swing album. I was raised on that kind of music. When I was a kid my dad was a team roper so I went to lots of rodeos. The minute I heard the bass drum from the rodeo dance I would sneak down there and hang on the chicken wire fence (the one that kept the beer bottles from flying) and watch the band play. That's the music they played. So I did was pick the music I heard as a little kid. There are a couple of them that are more contemporary.

WE LOVE SOAPS: Growing up around Nashville, I heard a lot of country music and the Grand Ole Opry but didn't really appreciate it at the time. So I understand about getting nostalgic hearing music from your childhood. I even watch HEE HAW reruns now.
BRAD MAULE: This year I went to a pedal steel convention in Texas and it had all the great players from around the country. Russ Hicks was here. He was the pedal steel player on HEE HAW for all those years.

WE LOVE SOAPS: Wow. I've read you were once a background singer for both Jim Nabors and Don Ho. Is that true?
BRAD MAULE: It's true. I just saw Jim two years ago. I went over to Hawaii and he heard I was in town so he called me up. I had lunch with him and it was great seeing him. He's in his 80s now.

WE LOVE SOAPS: He pretty much looks the same.
BRAD MAULE: [Laughs] He does. He's quite misunderstood if you think "Gomer Pyle" with him. He's one of the most successful and wealthy people in Hawaii. He's a secretly sophisticated guy.

WE LOVE SOAPS: You've done so many different things in the entertainment industry. Is there anything left you haven't tried that you would like to do?
BRAD MAULE: I've been spectacularly unsuccessful at selling records. [Laughs] Let's see... I've never tried to make money, and I've been very good at that. I do have a book that's two-thirds done. Everybody's got a book and I've got one too. That's almost finished. And I'm going to write a one-man show about Sam Houston because I play him all the time here in local shows. That's my next thing. I just want to make a living and have a good time.

WE LOVE SOAPS: MAULE IN THE MORNING is such a good name. Your book is going to need a great title to beat that.
BRAD MAULE: We don't know what it will be yet. It's not going to be a book of tell-all secrets, but something different and, hopefully, funny. Everybody wants to do a reality series and I've patiently tried to explain you just need to turn the camera on to become a reality series. We have ideas about that but we're nowhere near that place.

WE LOVE SOAPS: If you could go back to the beginning of your professional career and give yourself one piece of advice, knowing what you know now, what would you tell your younger self?
BRAD MAULE: That it won't last forever, and that your instincts were correct in the very beginning. It's like that old line "to think own self be true". You have to do that no matter how seductive the place is or how much money you make. Hollywood, or the show business world, truly loves it when you know who you are and that's what you give them. When you try to be what they want you to be, you're never successful.

The loneliest periods of my life were in private jets and limousines. It was because I wasn't being who I really was. I don't regret much but I wish I had been a little more honest about things. It wasn't until I gave up that I became successful.

EDITOR'S NOTE: Since we spoke with Brad Maule, his fantastic new album, "Miles and Miles of Texas," has been released. Buy it now at cdbaby.com/cd/bradmaule and iTunes.com/BradMaule.

Roger Newcomb is a producer and writer in New York City. Aside from co-hosting WE LOVE SOAPS TV, he has written and produced a full-length indie film, Manhattanites, and two radio soap operas, SCRIPTS & SCRUPLES and ROCKLAND COUNTY. He has also made acting appearances in indie web series IMAGINARY BITCHES and EMPIRE. He has consulted on numerous indie soaps, worked as a producer on the first two seasons of Emmy-nominated THE BAY, and is executive producer on the indie short May Mercy Lie, which is currently making the rounds at film festivals. He appeared in FRANCOPRHENIA in 2012 and the documentary SOAP LIFE, out on DVD in 2013.

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