A global pandemic is not how Leland Sklar imagined his decades-long music career would come to a screeching halt.
“It is a dark, dark time,” the famed musician told iHeartRadio.ca. “It’s a profoundly different world we’re in right now.”
Sklar has played on stage and on more than 2,000 albums for some of the most iconic names in music – artists like Jackson Browne, James Taylor, Toto and Phil Collins (that's him in the video for Collins' smash "Sussudio.") The renowned bass player has also performed on soundtracks for a long list of films and TV shows.
But the COVID-19 crisis means normally busy Sklar, who turns 73 next month, is in limbo. “I’m a side man. I’m not one of those frontmen that’s got millions of dollars tucked away,” he said. “I can survive this but it’s definitely going to take a readjustment of the way I live.”
Currently he is part of The Immediate Family, a rock band that also counts fellow session players Danny Korthmar, Waddy Wachtel, Russ Kunkel and Steve Postell as members.
"We just had a conference with our group and management,” said Sklar. "Here we are – just finished making a great album, there’s a documentary film being made about us, and now we’re all sitting here going ‘what the f**k are we going to do with any of this?’ Other than post some stuff online and release the stuff but will we ever be able to go out and gig? I just don’t know.”
(The documentary Sklar mentioned comes from director Denny Tedesco, whose 2008 film The Wrecking Crew spotlighted session musicians of the ‘60s.)
At least one expert has suggested big gatherings like concerts and music festivals are not likely to happen again until fall 2021 – a prediction that worries a lot of people who rely on music to make money.
“When you look at touring you’re looking at players but you’re looking at the bus companies, all the venues and the people who work there, the caterers, security…,” Sklar noted. “Even B-level touring involves a pretty massive amount of people.”
Sklar is optimistic that live music and other social events will come back in a big way. “People are going to be so hungry to go out to a concert, to go to a restaurant, to go to a ballgame, to do anything,” he said.
What people will need to feel safe, said Sklar, is good information – something he feels they are not getting from the Trump administration. “It’s hard to get the truth. We’ve got a psychotic lunatic running things – his lips have never met the truth when he speaks – so we don’t know what’s going on,” he said. “I’m not counting on the government for anything.”
Sklar is also frustrated with the ignorance of so many Americans, including those who are flocking to churches in spite of social distancing guidelines. “You see all these lunatics saying that not being able to go to church is ‘against my rights.’ Well, man, let ‘em all pack the building but then lock the doors and don’t open the doors for a month,” he said, “and let the culling run its course.”
Yes, Sklar is unapologetically outspoken. It’s a trait that recently landed him in Facebook purgatory. His account is currently suspended for allegedly violating the social media platform’s community standards.
It’s not the first time Facebook’s algorithms have determined Sklar needed to take a time-out.
“I’ve been blocked for hundreds and hundreds of days since I joined Facebook,” he lamented. “I’ve got a pretty massive target on my back. All it takes is somebody sitting around that’s got it out for you.”
Sklar believes he keeps getting banned because he keeps getting reported by right-wing trolls who don’t like his views on Donald Trump.
Facebook does not comment on individual cases but explains online that, for content about public figures, “we remove attacks that are severe as well as certain attacks where the public figure is directly tagged in the post or comment.”
But, Sklar insisted he’s careful about what he posts. "I’ve never once said Trump’s name. All I use is ’t’ – I’ve never said that means Trump,” he explained. “I’ve never designated it. I’ve never said ‘kill this guy, hang him,’ anything like that. I’ve just called out policy.”
Sklar said he was suspended this time because he opined that “Washington is infested with vermin that need to be eliminated for the sake of the future of America.”
He said there does not seem to be a legitimate way to complain about or appeal a suspension. “You can’t contest anything that happens to you on there,” he said. Earlier this month, Sklar vented his frustration in a YouTube video, where he said the “a**holes at Facebook don’t care.”
So, why does Sklar want to stay on Facebook? He doesn’t like Twitter (“when I post things I tend to really want to explain them and be long-winded”) or Instagram (“you really can’t put anything on there that’s of any substance”) and Facebook gives him the ability to connect with old friends and people from all over the world. “That element of it is great,” he admitted. “There’s real positive stuff.”
Sklar currently has about 86,000 followers on Facebook and figures he has blocked more than 3,000 people – many of whom had a photo of red MAGA cap somewhere on their page.
"I’ve had people come on my page and go, ‘We know your touring schedule, we’re going to get you.’ Which I look at as a death threat,” he said.
When his latest Facebook ban is lifted, Sklar is unlikely to make Trump’s followers any less irate. “There’s no place to edit myself anymore than I do because I’m not calling for death, I’m not calling him by name,” he explained. “If I posted what I really feel I would have the FBI on my front door taking me out in cuffs."
“I find him to be the most vile, reprehensible, disgusting piece of s**t that ever sucked air. He’s the greatest danger to America. He’s cancer from within. And he’s going crazier by the day.”
Besides, Sklar said, it’s not all about Trump. “I really try to post 80 percent really positive stuff about music and the world and try to be uplifting as possible,” he said.
“I don’t give a s**t so I say what I feel – but I do it within the parameters of a reasonable discussion.”