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I have to be inspired to play them and love them. You mentioned the Grammys. You know what,
I played this Grammy event one year? They called me to play. It was a women's event and I
realised when I was there playing that all the money was going to help kids with, you know,
giving them music education because in the US they took music out of the schools a number of

years ago.
BiTS: Oh, really? I didn't know that.

MA: Oh, yeah, no, it's awful. So here I was playing this awesome Grammy event I knew nothing
about, but learned that the Grammy Organisation, the Recording Academy was a huge supporter
of education for kids and the coming generations and I said, hey, I want to be a part of it. How
do I get more involved? And I joined the Grammy Organisation and in a couple of
years, someone said you should run for being a governor, you know, on the Board
of Governors. And I just thought, wow, maybe I could do more and get more
involved with education and help people and give back. And so I did and I just
kept going. I was really inspired by the infrastructure of this huge
organisation, and so I went on to be the President of the Los Angeles chapter
and a trustee on the board of trustees for the National Board, and it was
just a beautiful way to have this group of powerful musicians and creators
of music that wanted to do good. So we further music education in our

GRAMMY schools and we lobbied in Washington, DC, for the rights of
songwriters and the rights of people who create music, and it was just
something that was a passion. I never got paid for it. It wasn't some job
that I had. It was something that I volunteered for and was elected for and just had the time of
my life doing it, I love helping our next generation and giving back to the music community as
a whole and being there for them.

BiTS: Tell me, Mindi, about Randy Jacobs. I take it that his band was already formed by the

time you started playing with them. Is that right? Because it's not clear to me where The
Boneshakers came from. Whether it was you that joined him or that they joined you or what.

MA: No, actually I got hired for a rock and roll band in the early 1990s, and it was led by Oliver
Leiber, and you probably don't know who that is, but you know who his dad is? Leiber and
Stoller, Jerry Leiber.

BiTS: Okay, I’ve got you [chuckling].

MA: So here was the son of this immense songwriter, and the son Oliver has done amazing
things too. But he started this rock band that played every week in Hollywood, and he hired
me for it and I didn't know anyone in it. So I showed up and there was Randy Jacobs and he
was just bigger than life. You know, he was doing backflips off the front of the stage mid-guitar
solo? I mean, the guy is a force of nature.

BiTS: Absolutely.

MA: So right after I started in that band, probably in the next couple of years, he started The
Boneshakers. It's his band.

BiTS: Right.

MA: And he started it with Sweet Pea Atkinson and it went through a number of, you know,
different drummers or different bass players, whatever. But I was such a fan of that band and
I just thought what he had created was just awesome. And you know what? We've played on
each other's records for a lot of years back and forth and toured with each other, but at a certain