Larkin Grimm is a well-traveled, eclectic singer-songwriter in the “freak folk” genre. The Swans’ Michael Gira has described her as “the sound of the eternal mother and the wrath of all women”, and also said “her voice is like the passionate cry of a beast heard echoing across the mountains just after a tremendous thunder storm, when the air is alive with electricity.” Grimm’s fourth album Soul Retrieval, which was recorded with the help of famed T. Rex and David Bowie record producer Tony Visconti, will be released in February 2012.

This interview was done for a preview article for her 1/27/12 concert in Isla Vista, and was conducted by email, with answers received on 1/24/12.

Jeff Moehlis: What can we look forward to at your upcoming concert at Biko Garage?

Larkin Grimm: I will be playing solo electric 12-string Stratocaster and singing my songs.

JM: How would you compare the experiences of performing live and recording in the studio?

LG: To me, live performance is all about energy, and recording is more of a fine art. They are very different, and I love them both. I think my live performances are usually better than my recordings, which is frustrating. I’ve been trying to bridge that divide for a while. For this new album, we recorded the band all together at the same time, trying to achieve that live feel. The song “The Road is Paved with Leaves” comes closest to replicating a live sound.

JM: Your soon-to-be-released album Soul Retrieval was recorded with help from Tony Visconti. How did this come about, and what did he bring to your music?

LG: I recorded a song called “She Was Born to Be My Unicorn,” and Tony Visconti is the guy who produced the original track, so somebody who knew him heard my cover and forwarded it to him, and he was just so surprised that anyone still listens to Tyrannosaurs Rex. He was like, “Who is this person?” He lived in the West Village and I lived in the East Village, so we met through a friend, through a photographer who knew us both, and it was basically her idea that we work together musically. I don’t think I would have ever had the nerve to ask him. We ended up producing the record, and he played some shows in my band.

It was so awesome to have this production genius standing behind my work and legitimizing my vision in a way. It helped my confidence. I absolutely totally admire Mr. Visconti. He is amazing.

JM: Do you feel any special kinship with any other Tony Visconti-affiliated artists, say the Tyrannosaurus Rex-era Marc Bolan?

LG: I recorded a cover of “She Was Born To Be My Unicorn”. I love those albums! They contain such sincere experimentation.

JM: Can you explain where the phrase “Soul Retrieval” comes from?

LG: A shamanic healing ceremony. I had this experience studying with a guy, his name is John Perkins. He’s the author of this book called Confessions of an Economic Hitman, which ended up being a New York Times best-seller. But he was a Wall Street guy, who went down to Ecuador and got really, really sick. A shaman there saved his life. As a result, the shaman said, “Now I own you. [Laughs] Now that I’ve saved your life, you’re my apprentice. I’m going to train you to be a shaman.”

So I met this guy, who’s now a white shaman, who was going around doing these shamanic ceremonies with CEOs of companies, trying to prepare the world for 2012. And 2012 is supposed to be this time when the heart and the mind, or logic and institution come into balance. Some people call it the masculine energies and feminine energies. And part of the thing to get people to achieve this balance is you do these ceremonies called “soul retrievals.” It’s a ceremony where you search for pieces of your soul that have been lost, and you try and make yourself stronger and better and more uniquely you.

JM: How would you characterize your time playing with the Dirty Projectors?

LG: Oppressive.

JM: Your 2008 album Parplar was co-produced by Michael Gira and released on his label. What was it like working with him?

LG: Totally magical and wonderful. I love that guy. We parted ways for good reasons but it was an experience that changed my life for the better. Mr. Gira is a very inspiring man. He is also a truly good, kindhearted person. Not everybody realizes that about him because his music is so intense. I think I could work in the studio with that guy forever and be happy. But our lives outside the studio really clash.

JM: How do you think your upbringing in the hippie spiritual cult/commune called The Holy Order of MANS has affected your outlook on the world?

LG: Enlightened by the age of 5, a spiritual outsider, nothing left to do but long endarkening experiments with human life force.

JM: Do you have any formal musical training?

LG: Not in the classical sense, but my whole family plays Appalachian folk music. Blood harmonies.

JM: Could you give a quick rundown on the different instruments that you play, and their relative merits?

LG: Lap dulcimer – mesmerizing drones and wonderfully limited modal scales. Only four strings to deal with. Simplicity is beautiful.

Banjo – ethereal, starry, otherworldly and dark. The fifth string provides the rhythm. It is really a drum with strings.

Classical guitar – 6 nylon and silver strings, so buttery smooth, rich and warm.

Electric 12-string – psychedelic and impossible to tune, always surprising me with its chiming charms.

Harp – it is nearly impossible to play an ugly sound on a well-tuned harp. And playing it is s primal and simple.

JM: I read that you are a descendant of the creators of the Grimm Fairy Tales. Do you have a favorite Grimm Fairy Tale, and why that one?

LG: I am a super great grand-niece, I think. The Grimms have a very strong intellectual tradition. There are not very many of us around. My favorite story is probably Thumbelina or The White Snake.

JM: What advice would you give to an aspiring musician?

LG: Don’t do it. It is a hard life. We do it because we aren’t suited for anything else. If you can hold onto another job, stick with that! But if you get fired from every job you have ever had and you are a high-strung orchid living on the edge of sanity, GO FOR IT! and try to be kind to the show promoters. They tend to be generous, sensitive, kind people and they deserve respect for what they do.

JM: Where are you responding from?

LG: An ice covered house in Olympia, Washington with no heat or electricity, in the middle of an ice storm.

Richie Furay is best known for co-founding two notable bands: Buffalo Springfield, which is in the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame and for which Furay was one of the primary songwriters along with Neil Young and Stephen Stills, and Poco, which is regarded as one of the pioneering bands of the country-rock genre. After leaving Poco in the early 1970′s, Furay was in the short-lived supergroup Souther-Hillman-Furay, and has since released several solo records. His song credits include “Kind Woman”, “A Child’s Claim To Fame”, “Hurry Up”, “Keep On Believin’”, “You Are The One”, and “Let’s Dance Tonight”. Furay answered these questions by email on 1/5/12, and this interview formed the basis of a preview article for his 2/1/12 performance at the Maverick Saloon in Santa Ynez, California.

The photo (by L. Paul Mann, all rights reserved) is from when Furay passed through Santa Barbara last summer as part of the Buffalo Springfield reunion tour, as reviewed here.

Jeff Moehlis: What can we look forward to at your upcoming concert at the Maverick Saloon?

Richie Furay: I will be playing songs that span 40+ years of my career – something old, something new. We include songs from each phase of my career – Buffalo Springfield, Poco, Souther-Hillman-Furay and my more recent solo musical projects that include “Heartbeat Of Love” with many of my friends guest appearing (Neil Young and Stephen Stills, Timothy B. Schmit and Jeff Hanna, Rusty Young and Paul Cotton, Mark Volman and Kenny Loggins and many more); The Richie Furay Band Alive – and two devotional CD’s In My Father’s House and I Am Sure. Sometimes it’s hard to decide what to play and what not to play because we’re always writing new songs to keep us inspired as well. Also featured in my set are several songs my daughter Jesse sings.

JM: Can you tell me about the band which will be joining you for this show?

RF: I like to describe my band as a multi-generational, family band. It includes Scott Sellen (guitar, banjo, lap steel, piano and vocals), his son Aaron (bass), Alan Lemke (drums) and my daughter Jesse Lynch (vocals). I am very proud of my band, obviously the “kids” keep us “old folks” young and it so awesome to hear them play the music with such a fresh approach.

JM: We’re very happy that the Buffalo Springfield reunion tour stopped in Santa Barbara in 2011. Great show! How did it feel to be playing with Stephen and Neil again after all these years?

RF: It was a lot of fun for all of us. I believe the fact that there was no “agenda” made it all the more enjoyable – we just got together and played the music. Of course it came as a surprise to me that it would ever happen – but I’ve learned – “never say never”. When the phone call came to do the Bridge School benefit it was the furthest thing from my mind that we would ever perform together again. It was nowhere on my radar, not even a “blip” on the screen. It was from those two nights that prompted the seven shows last summer. It was so nice to renew our friendship after all these years.

JM: One of your songs played at the 2011 Santa Barbara concert was “My Kind Of Love”, which wasn’t on any of Buffalo Springfield’s three albums. Can you tell me about the history of this song?

RF: Obviously that song is very old – I think you will find it on Buffalo Springfield’s Box Set and on Poco’s Forgotten Trail – both unreleased on any other recording. As I look over the lyrics it’s obviously about a relationship struggling.

JM: Sorry, but I have to ask – what is the status of the Buffalo Springfield tour plans for 2012?

RF: There are no current plans.

JM: Going way back, Buffalo Springfield played many shows at the Whisky A Go Go in 1966, along with acts like The Doors and Love. What are some of your memories of that scene?

RF: It was sure a fun time to be a part of the music scene of the 60’s which had such an impact on American music and culture. If it would have been something we tried to plan – it would have never happened. We were just five young guys (well except for Dewey – just kidding) excited to have the opportunity to play music and have people pay to come hear us.

JM: A curiosity on the third Buffalo Springfield album is the song “In The Hour of Not Quite Rain”, with music by you but lyrics by Micki Callen. What’s the story behind this song?

RF: A radio station in Los Angeles, KHJ had a contest – some listener would provide the lyrics and someone in Buffalo Springfield would write the music. As it turned out when the lyrics were submitted we were going through one of our more difficult times and there wasn’t a lot of time and effort put into the lyrical content (I’m not passing judgment on Micki’s lyrics). I’m only saying everyone in the band was pretty much off and into their own thing and there wasn’t a lot of interest on our part to evaluate the submitted lyrics. The decision came down to Bruce (Palmer) – he picked the song and I was elected to write the music. I think KHJ was expecting something more along the line of “For What It’s Worth” or “Rock And Roll Woman” – something geared more to the AM radio format; but that’s what I came up with.

JM: After Buffalo Springfield broke up, you and Jim Messina formed Poco. What were your goals for this band?

RF: We were interested in exploring how to bridge the gap between country and pop – rock and roll. We both had country influences and along with The Byrds and The Flying Burrito Brothers we pioneered a sound that would be significant for many years to come. Certainly the Eagles (Glenn Frey sat in my living room for many Poco rehearsals) perfected it from the R&R side and today, you can still hear the influence we had in the current country music. Poco, along with the above mentioned, was certainly the pioneer of the “country-rock” sound.

JM: At the time, Poco was sometimes called “too country for rock, too rock for country”. What is your take on that description?

RF: When you’re a pioneer, you’re breaking the ground for those who’ll follow. Because of that many times you go unnoticed and find that others are not yet ready to come along on the journey. We were doing what was natural to us – it wasn’t that we were ahead of our time as far as we were concerned, but to many we were and so we were told we were “too country for rock and too rock for country”. I guess that’s our legacy for the time.

JM: The third Poco album, From the Inside, was produced by Steve Cropper. What was it like working with him?

RF: Steve Cropper is one awesome musician and a wonderful person. I’m not sure our “marriage” was the right one for us at that time, but I’m probably not the best one to evaluate our time together. My life was a mess at that time and it’s very difficult for me to reflect, objectively, upon the project we did together. If I remember right it was the record label’s decision for us to work with Steve. As far as “working” with him – there was no problem; Steve is a class act!

JM: Besides you, one of the pioneers of country rock was your friend Gram Parsons. Could you describe the Gram Parsons that you knew?

RF: Gram was a self-destructive guy. He was very talented but could not control his destructive passions and it led to his death. He introduced me to the music of George Jones for which I am forever grateful. My country influences were more of the rock-a-billy type – Carl Perkins, Buddy Holly, Gene Vincent etc. and to hear George Jones sing, well it just added another dimension to what I was doing.

JM: What advice would you give to an aspiring musician?

RF: Enjoy the gift; be serious about it but don’t take yourself too seriously.

JM: Do you want to set the record straight on anything about your music or career?

RF: I believe Poco has been slighted in regard to their contribution to popular music. Their influence goes without question yet, for whatever reason (there’s not enough dirt to dig up on ‘em; they weren’t controversial enough or they didn’t have the hit records – what ever excuse) they have not been given their proper recognition as far as the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame is concerned. I know there are a lot of bands worthy of this honor for their contributions (i.e. the Turtles, the Moody Blues) but Poco influenced popular music for decades through those who perfected and carried out what they pioneered – the country-rock sound.

JM: Where are you responding from?

RF: Boulder, Colorado – hope to see you up in Santa Ynez. Visit me at www.richiefuray.com

Murray’s story is captured in the documentary film Music Man Murray, which premieres at this year’s Santa Barbara International Film Festival. This film was produced and directed by Richard Parks, with music by his father Van Dyke Parks, who has had his hand in many notable music releases over the last five decades. Richard and Van Dyke responded to the following questions by email on January 20 and 21, 2012.

For an earlier interview with Van Dyke Parks, click here.

Jeff Moehlis: Could you give a quick overview of your film Music Man Murray?

Richard Parks: It’s a short documentary portrait of a lovable-slash-prickly elderly man named Murray Gershenz, now 89, as he struggles to sell the hundreds of thousands of records in his Los Angeles store. Murray’s records represent one of the largest collections of vinyl, anywhere. But the records are more of a setting for a biographical sketch of a man nearing the end of his life, taking stock of what he’ll leave behind. It also looks at Murray’s relationship with his son, Irv, who has worked in the store his whole life.

JM: Why did you choose this particular subject for your first documentary?

RP: If you want to hear a story, it’s always a good idea to talk to the oldest guy in the room. I had read that Murray was considering dumping the records in the trash if he couldn’t find a buyer soon, and decided somebody should take a camera inside his store before that happened. I grew up in L.A. and started collecting records as a teenager, and going to Murray’s was always like going to the temple — all hand-made shelves and esoteric cataloging and a gruff old man sequestered, listening to Jussi Bjorling. Of course the opportunities for picture and sound are so rich. It’s a real-life museum of Jurassic technology, and a piece of the L.A. I grew up in that will soon disappear forever.

JM: What is the status of Murray Gershenz’ attempt to sell his music collection?

RP: He’s still courting potential buyers, and as I understand entertaining all offers.

JM: What is the coolest record that you have found at his shop?

RP: There’s a sequence in the film of some hip-hop kids digging in the stacks. By chance, an old purple-sleeved compilation, “50 Guitars Go South of the Border,” appears in the frame on a long shot. That happens to be a record I bought from Murray’s probably 15 years ago. Only recently did I dig it out of my parents’ garage with some of my abandoned collection, and now here it is in my house with the white “Music Man Murray” sticker on the back. It’s not exactly the vinyl equivalent of a madeleine — and I’m still unclear why I bought this particular recording of Latin favorites — but there’s something there for me, personally, that this record made it into the film that was made about Murray’s life.

Van Dyke Parks: “La Bohéme” conducted by Sir Thomas Beecham, (wherein I sang in a group of street urchins). This vinyl LP excites memories of a life filled with titanic musical talent, that ran into a floe of rock and roll, with mixed blessings.

JM: I expect that this film will have an “end of an era” feeling to it. What do you think the future holds for record stores, and for music consumption in general?

RP: I avoid addressing this question in the film because I don’t have anything interesting to add to the conversation about what’s happened to the music industry. For my part, I’ll keep going to record stores and paying for music.

VDP: Rumours of the Death of the Music biz (with apologies to Mark Twain) — are greatly exaggerated!

It’s yet within our powers of invention to sell music locally that has a tactile component, sleeved with great art, and available as long as mom and pop hold up a shop on Main Street, Anywhere, USA.

JM: Do you mostly listen to vinyl, CDs, or MP3s, and why?

RP: There’s no real interesting reason, but I listen on all of those formats — and to internet radio quite a bit. I stream Jim Svejda from KUSC in L.A. (another L.A. institution) in my Oakland bungalow most nights while cooking dinner. His nasal mannerisms, and the whiff of browning onions, transport me back to the kitchen of my youth. After answering your last question, I put “50 Guitars Go South of the Border” on my turntable.

VDP: I don’t listen to anything beyond the car radio. Life’s too short.

JM: Could you describe the music that you composed for the film?

VDP: It’s a series of cues, skewed thematically (through the power of misquotation) from the song “Brother Can You Spare a Dime?” Subliminal reference of that sort, (i.e.: thematically driven) in underscore, can tighten the focal depth of field occupied by the main character.

Said song (“Brother Can You Spare a Dime?”) not only wraps that man in his own social origins in the Depression-era, and yet heightens the irony of his dilemma.

It wasn’t a creative idea of mine to use these thematic variations — it was already embedded in the documentary — a wise call on the director’s part.

The result? A study in the triumph of the human spirit, and a unique archive, with a value that exceeds its individual parts.

JM: What can we look forward to at your concert on January 31 at SOhO?

VDP: Getting out alive, with indelible pleasures held in the heart! This, through a harsh lite on piano/vocal, abetted by maestro David P. Jackson on upright bass. What a coup!

JM: Your album Arrangements Volume 1 came out recently. With such a vast body of work, how did you choose what to include on this?

VDP: Taking the advice of Lewis Carroll, I just began at the beginning! I felt it was time to wrest my early efforts from the ignominy of record company vaults, where they’ve been hidden. My work may not outlive me, yet its durability should be celebrated while I’m alive. It all reflects on the superior talents I’ve associated with for the past 45 years. I owe it to those that still live, and those who’ve stepped off the planet to feature their gifts.

JM: When can we look forward to Volume 2, and what will it contain?

VDP: Later this year. What it holds and the release date is basically a legal process. (I don’t bootleg. I am so legit!)

JM: Which of the Santa Barbara International Film Festival screenings will you be attending?

RP: I’m thrilled because this is my first all-access festival experience. I hope to see them all!

VDP: I’ll be led by the advice of my favorite documentary film director since Robert J. Flaherty, whose pioneering efforts introduced me to the potential of the genre — and ignited the passion I continued through adult life (with scores for the National Geographic Society). It’s an honor to have played a minor role in “Music Man Murray”, so richly relevant to my own wide-ranging musical obsessions.

JM: Do you have any other film projects in the works?

RP: Sure! I think this piece could set up a short series about technologies on the verge of obsolescence — I’d love to make a film about small community newspapers that never made it online, mixing visuals and text with an unfolding story. I was editor of two such papers and know there’s plenty of potential in that setting. Maybe there’s a trilogy in there, and the last one is set in a barbershop — though I suppose people are getting as many haircuts as ever. I’m also developing a couple of radio projects that should start coming out soon, and considering launching my acting career at 29, for the health insurance.

Music Man Murray

Paul Cotton was a songwriter, guitarist, and singer for the country rock band Poco from 1970, when he replaced Poco co-founder Jim Messina, until 2010. His compositions for Poco include “The Heart of the Night”, “Bad Weather”, “Indian Summer”, and “Ride The Country”. He has also released three solo albums, and is currently working on his fourth.

This interview was done for a preview article for Cotton’s show at SOhO in Santa Barbara on 1/14/12. He emailed his answers on 1/10/12.

Jeff Moehlis: Can you tell me about the band which will be joining you at your upcoming show in Santa Barbara?

Paul Cotton: This band is based in San Diego. They are all named Tom! Consisting of my good friend Thom Landt on guitars, vocals and pedal steel guitar. Tom on bass guitar. Tommy Neel in on drums. My son Chris Cotton from L.A. is sitting in drumming on a few songs. This is a special treat for me as we have not shared the stage or played together in over 10 years.

JM: Way back when, you were in the band Illinois Speed Press, which is (undeservedly) not very well known these days. Could you give a brief quick overview of this band?

PC: This band was from the Rovin’ Kind. The history can be found on my web site www.paulcotton.com under the ‘Archives’ link. Kal David, Michael Anthony and I were the three lead singers in this 5 piece band. Actually I still have fans in line after shows to autograph their Speed Press albums. There were two released on Columbia – the major airplays were “Get In the Wind”, and “P.N.S.” which I wrote. Kal and I reunited and had a Dueling Guitars Caribbean Cruise which was very successful. We hope to work together again soon.

JM: Are there any plans to make the Illinois Speed Press albums available again in some format?

PC: The CD’s are available at CD Baby, and I am not aware of any re-print of the vinyl. We never rule out new projects to come in the future.

JM: Illinois Speed Press was on the bill for gigs with an amazing set of bands, including Led Zeppelin, The MC5, Sly & The Family Stone, Tim Buckley, Spirit, and Ike & Tina Turner. Were there any performances by other bands that were particularly memorable?

PC: The Doors, Chicago of course, Blood Sweat & Tears (whom I will be playing with in the Keys March 24), Simon & Garfunkel. We played with Poco, which is where the initial introduction was made for me.

JM: How did you come to join Poco?

PC: Richie Furay called me when he heard of the Speed Press disbanding. I went over to this house and played an acoustic version of my “Bad Weather” I had written while in ISP. He was sold – as he tells it.

JM: Your first album with Poco was From The Inside, which was produced by Steve Cropper. What was it like working with him?

PC: Steve really liked my tune “Bad Weather” and introduced it to Yvonne Elliman who recorded it on her first solo album. He also liked my “Railroad Days” which was played on Saturday Night Live. I’d like to get one re-recorded. I’d like to touch base with Steve again — great guy.

JM: What was the feeling like in Poco when co-founder Richie Furay left a few years after you joined?

PC: Tim Schmit was still in the band, and that left Rusty [Young] and the two of us to write songs to fulfill an agreement with the label at the time. I think that helped each one of us become stronger writers.

JM: In the early years, Poco was sometimes described as “too country for rock, too rock for country”. What is your take on that description?

PC: I guess that is true to some extent. Over the years our wonderful fans have described us as the innovators of “Country Rock” and we are still referred to that way.

JM: The album Legend is generally regarded to be one of Poco’s best. To what do you attribute that album’s success?

PC: Timing really. The album contains two of our biggest hits – “Crazy Love” written by Young, and “Heart of The Night” which I wrote. So I would say that in itself made it successful.

JM: Poco took part in the No Nukes concerts. What was that experience like?

PC: It was a lot of fun! We played Madison Square Garden with Springsteen, James Taylor and many more. My song “Heart of the Night” was included in the album which attained Gold, and maybe Platinum status by now. I am very honored to be part of it.

JM: I’ve read that your song “Every Time I Hear That Train” is a tribute to Santa Barbara. What’s the story behind this?

PC: It is about Santa Barbara. The sound of the train whistle in the night that I heard while visiting there inspired the images for the song. It kind of wrote itself, reminding me of a familiar, beautiful place. I spent more time in Santa Barbara and really like it.

JM: You were with Poco for several decades. When you joined, what were your expectations/goals, and were they fulfilled?

PC: Well that was in 1970 and a young man’s expectations in that era were endless. My goal and main job was to write songs for a Rock and Roll band which was achieved. The rest I would have to say is “couda – woulda – shoulda”

JM: What are your plans, musical or otherwise, for the near future?

PC: I am very busy right now and have commitments for the next year. I have an awesome band in my home island of Key West, Florida. This band is based in Southern California. I have had a band for four years in Oregon, and now one in the North East and Midwest. That covers me spending the winters in the tropics, and touring on my own schedule. I am recording the fourth solo album in Key West. I am learning and applying all aspects of the recording process which I have never done. This has been more time consuming, but we are making diamonds and I’m very happy with the outcome.

We have scheduled and sold out our annual weekend Caribbean Cruise Feb. 24-27 out of Miami — which is being dubbed the “Nitty Gritty Cotton Cruise”. Jimmie Fadden – the 1966 founder and still current drummer for the Nitty Gritty Dirt Band will be drumming with me so we have fans from both bands and a big bunch of fun Keys Conchs. See the www.paulcotton.com Birthday Cruise link for bookings – they added four more cabins.

I am looking forward to meeting all of you at SOhO and thank you in advance for coming out. Happy Trails, Paul Cotton

Chuck D is one of the most important figures in the history of hip-hop music. He is the founder and lead rapper for the hugely influential (and controversial) band Public Enemy, which created a powerful mix of politically-charged lyrics and layered, aggressive sounds. Their second album, 1988′s It Takes a Nation of Millions to Hold Us Back, is widely regarded as one of the greatest hip-hop albums of all time, and is considered to be hugely important for making rap music popular with white audiences. Other notable Public Enemy albums include Yo! Bum Rush the Show (1987), Fear of a Black Planet (1990), Apocalypse 91… The Enemy Strikes Black (1991), and How You Sell Soul to a Soulless People Who Sold Their Soul??? (2007).

Chuck D answered the following questions by email on 1/6/12 for a preview article for Public Enemy’s 1/14/12 concert at the Majestic Ventura Theater.  (L. Paul Mann photo)

Jeff Moehlis: What can we look forward to at the upcoming Public Enemy concert in Ventura?

Chuck D: We’re like the Rolling Stones of the RAP game. We present an experience in sight and sound – an event that takes people’s limited understanding of HipHop into the realm of MUSIC. Our 80th tour will be realized this year.

JM: I always enjoy reading your perspectives on hip-hop, both of today and of yesteryear. A few weeks ago in the New York Times, the cultural critic Toure said that “Hip-hop is primarily a celebration of black masculinity.” How would you respond to that description?

CD: Well, it was a penetration of black masculinity under its own terms in the early 1980s when that image was constantly repressed by america. HipHop and rap shouted back and bragged about self like few other forms did vocally.

JM: Public Enemy is/was more political than most of today’s hip-hop, using confrontational lyrics to highlight social and political injustices. Is confrontation the best way to elicit change?

CD: You should always support your stance and beliefs as strong as possible. The defense of a people and culture is more necessary than ever.

JM: In addition to great lyrics, Public Enemy developed an innovative sound. Could you reflect on the contributions to the early Public Enemy recordings by Hank Shocklee and Eric Sadler?

CD: Hank, Eric, Keith, Bill Stephney, Terminator X, Johnny Juice, Flavor [Flav], [Professor] Griff and myself were raised through the existence of MUSIC in the 60s and 70s. It all came out while creating. Hank was a master of records. Within those recordings were the sounds and musicians that we also had to recognize.

JM: An early supporter of Public Enemy was Rick Rubin. How did he influence or contribute to the band’s music and career?

CD: Rick was always BOLD and daring and adventurous. He knew that we were the one act he could leave alone to take it further than even he imagined. That’s bold in itself to create the sphere for bold endless creativity.

JM: You did a few “crossovers” – “Kool Thing” with Sonic Youth, and “Bring Tha Noize” with Anthrax. How did these come about?

CD: All upon the insistence of the the other act. SY we shared studios with in lower Manhattan and it came about over ordering food and conversation. Anthrax came because Scott Ian wearing our TSHIRT in a giant rock fest in front of 50,000. Photo in MelodyMaker made me name check them in BRING THE NOISE. Which in turn Scott Ian and Charlie Benante spearheaded the thrash cover 4 years later. I just followed through.

JM: Flavor Flav has taken a different road in life from you. How has this affected Public Enemy?

CD: Flav has always been different. PE is NOT a duo, it is a group. We have various individuals on different paths. Our original commonality is that we all came from Black Long Island. Flavor has always been different. As with PE it reflected how us black men were varied as opposed to the stereotype.

JM: Your SLAMjamz record label is described as “the 21st century record label”. How so? And how does SLAMjamz compare to, say, Def Jam in its heyday?

CD: Its digital releases set to deliver on tech devices rather than a physical form. DEF JAM is in the same ranks of SUN, MOTOWN, ROUGH TRADE, SUB POP, ATLANTIC. Lovers of music that had to fight for the right to record and release. There is no comparison although I would like SLAMjamz to follow what hiphop labels Stones Throw, Rhymesayers, DuckDown are doing. We also dig DAPTONEs direction.

JM: Public Enemy will be eligible for the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame next year. What is your perspective on this (likely) honor?

CD: I grew up as a sports fan. I believe in the preservation of historical archiving. Worked with the museum for years. I’m not thinking about it now but our last 12 years have been as groundbreaking and exciting as the first 13.

JM: If you had the ear of the U.S. population for two minutes, what would you say?

CD: The Cheapest price to pay right here right now IS attention. Fight for your world rights to be a citizen of the planet. And culture can bring humans truly together when at its best, something GOVT should take notice to. Be on top of technology don’t have it be on top of you…

JM: Since your wife is a professor at UCSB, do you spend much time in Santa Barbara?

CD: Yes.

JM: Do you want to set the record straight about anything from your career, music, or life?

CD: Simply our music travels, opinions in our genre are as compelling as with Dylan, Beatles, Stones, etc. Black music is usually treated less. Life is to be sipped like fine wine not guzzled down like a 40 oz.

JM: What are your plans, musical or otherwise, for the near future?

CD: We build our sites to provide infrastructure to our genre of HipHop and RAP music

www.hiphopgods.com for classic rap acts

www.SHEmovement.com for women in hip hop

www.RAPstation.com an audio visual internetwork that hosts worldwide shows

You get the idea all spawning from our first built in 1998, www.publicenemy.com the longest running site in HIPHOP

JM: What advice would you give to an aspiring musician?

CD:

1. Truly do what you do from your training and belief.

2. TRY NOT TO ASK other people opinions of your art.

3. Give music away like an advertisement for your performance as an act.

4. Make a video for 33% of your music, we live in a visual audio age, not audio visual.

give all my email: chuckD@publicenemy.com

MRCHUCKD

Jack Casady played bass guitar for the Sixties band Jefferson Airplane, which is best known for the hits “Somebody To Love” and “White Rabbit”. Their albums Surrealistic Pillow, After Bathing At Baxter’s, Crown of Creation, and Volunteers are amongst the best of the psychedelic rock genre. Casady also played on “Voodoo Chile” with Jimi Hendrix, and “Song With No Words (Tree With No Leaves)” from David Crosby’s first solo album. As the Sixties wound down, Casady and Jefferson Airplane lead guitarist Jorma Kaukonen’s attention shifted to their new band Hot Tuna, which focused on acoustic and electric folk- and blues-based music. (L. Paul Mann photo)

This interview was conducted by phone on 12/29/11.

Jeff Moehlis: What can we look forward to at your upcoming concert in Santa Barbara?

Jack Casady: Jorma and I have been doing a lot of playing this year. As you know, we released a new album Steady As She Goes, and we’ve been touring that album and playing all the material off that album, either in our electric format or our acoustic format. So in this acoustic format with David Bromberg, a long, long time friend of ours, we look forward to featuring a lot of the new material, and having a good full night with Barry Mitterhoff at our side playing mandolin and many other musical instruments of acoustic picking for the fans and the audience to enjoy.

JM: Am I correct that David Bromberg has guested with Hot Tuna before?

JC: Yeah, we’ve done quite a few shows together, aside from really being longtime friends. Both Jorma and David have done a bunch of tours together, and Hot Tuna – Jorma and myself- and David have done some together as well. David just joined us in New York City for two nights at the Beacon Theatre, on the 9th and 10th of this year. And we had a ball. We had a ball. He’s really just an amazing performer and player, and we can’t wait to get in the same room together and do some more. And who knows, there may be some surprises during the evening.

JM: Hot Tuna has played with a huge number of guest musicians over the years. Are there any favorites for you to play with?

JC: Well, I think whenever you change the mix a little bit with a different performer, your music takes you in a slightly different direction. So I think when we do that, we always look forward to the new personality to see where it’s going to lead us. It’s kind of like an artful stew, and you listen to each other and see where it’s going to take you.

Barry has been playing with us now for quite a few years, and Barry brings so much to the table. His knowledge of music, his classical background, but also his knowledge of many forms of ethnic music, bring such a uniqueness to the format, that we really just can’t wait to play with him all the time.

So there will be Jorma on acoustic guitar, myself Jack on bass, and Barry on mandolin and sometimes ukulele, sometimes tenor guitar, sometimes banjo, all kinds of things like that.

JM: Going way back, I was interested to read that before Jefferson Airplane you played in the backing band for Ray Charles.

JC: I think what happened is there is a lot of incorrect information out there. I don’t know how that one worked out, but I did back up Little Anthony and the Imperials for a two-week stint when I was about 16 years old, or 17. It was pretty much early in my bass playing career, and I got that job through a drummer that had played with James Brown in the D.C. area. Of course, James Brown went through quite a few drummers. But that drummer got me a lot of R&B gigs in the Washington D.C. area. But no, I never played with Ray Charles.

JM: Of course, nowadays with the internet these things propagate.

JC: I’m glad to set the record straight.

JM: Excellent, I’m glad to as well.

JC: I’ve seen Ray Charles many times, and I saw him at the Howard Theater in the late Fifties, when I was 15 or 16 years old. I’d go down to the Howard Theatre and see Ray Charles and many other artists of that genre.

JM: Moving forward a little bit, how did you get involved with Jefferson Airplane?

JC: Actually, my involvement was a direct result of a conversation with Jorma. Jorma’s three and a half years older than I am, and we had a high school band together in 1958. When high school finished, he went to college. We kept in touch, and I continued in the various R&B and sometimes country circuits in the D.C. area.

We kept in touch all through the early Sixties. When he moved out to California from the East Coast, in the early Sixties, from time to time we’d talk about stuff. But one of the conversations we had over at a mutual friend’s house, he said he’d just joined a folk-rock band. And I said, “You, the purist? I didn’t think you’d be playing anything electric,” you know? And he said he’d just been approached a month earlier, this was was late summer of 1965, to join this group of people. And he asked me what I’m doing, and I said I’m playing guitar, and going to school, and playing a lot of bass. And he said, “Bass? I didn’t know you were playing bass,” and I said, “Yeah, I’m playing bass.” So he said, “Let me call you back. I’m gonna talk to these people.” So he went and made his pitch for me, and then I flew out to San Francisco and, essentially, I guess I auditioned for the Jefferson Airplane. In any case, he always told me he wanted an ally in the band, and I said “You’re on!”

So we played a gig. I think we rehearsed a couple of days, and we played a gig. The first gig was I think at Harmon Gymnasium on the 16th of October. And I was in the band. I replaced the first bass player, who was a stand-up bass player in the band. I had a Fender Jazz Bass, that’s what I played.

JM: I understand that you were the one who essentially recruited Grace Slick to join the band. Is that correct?

JC: Yeah. Well that was much later. Much, much later. We made our first album, Jefferson Airplane Takes Off, in early 1966. That following summer Signe Anderson, our singer on the first album, wanted to leave the band. She was pregnant, and she wanted to leave the band and raise the child. So Grace was one of the other female singers in the local music scene of San Francisco, and I approached her and asked her if she’d join the band, and she said yes. So there you go.

JM: And she brought some songs to the band as well. I was listening yesterday to The Great Society’s version of “White Rabbit”, and the Jefferson Airplane version is certainly different. Of course your bass is quite prominent at the beginning. Do you remember how the Jefferson Airplane arrangement came together?

JC: It came together like most of our arrangements. I mean, we fleshed them out – get the material, start rehearsing, and move things around. Working with those changes that were reminiscent of Bolero, the kind of rhythm that snare would play in that, I just transferred it over to the bass and started playing it. So then we decided to start the song out with that, kind of a low atmospheric feeling. That’s how the arrangement came together.

You know, everybody has their own personality, and the great thing about the Airplane and what we were doing at the time was – compared to what I’d been doing in the Washington D.C. area, which was a lot of cover songs – the atmosphere in San Francisco was to create your own music, write your own lyrics, write your own songs, play your own parts, you know, write your own parts. And so it was a very healthy atmosphere for a musician to break away from mimicking songs that had been put out to being responsible for creating and writing your own material.

JM: On the album Crown of Creation, it seems that your bass playing is particularly inspired. Somehow there’s an openness to the songs on that album that allows the bass to really come through. Could you reflect on that album specifically?

JC: That album was an interesting album. I think we had done a fair amount of moving our style forward to a much more aggressive and open feeling onstage, and we wanted to get some of that on the album. The interesting thing about those years is that each album really reflects a different stage in the development of not only the musicians, but also the songwriting and the way you play. So I thought that album, for a studio album, represented where we were headed at the time, for a more aggressive sound, and a much more open sound. Both for the singers, and rhythmically and melodically for me as a bass player.

JM: On that album your bass is credited as “Yggdrasil bass”. What does that mean?

JC: [laughs] I haven’t the slightest idea of what it means. We had a lot of friends at the time who were clever with words, and so I had a friend, Owsley Stanley, who would join the sessions from time to time, and I think he came up with that phrase as some sort of a description of the growling nature of what I was doing. So that sort of stuck.

A lot of things back in those days didn’t necessarily make sense. They were often done to not make sense.

JM: You mentioned the live experience [with Jefferson Airplane]. How would you compare the studio recordings versus the live experience?

JC: I think the progress that you can hear through the albums, from 1965 to, say, when the band stopped recording in ’72, was to capture more of that fire and energy that we were experiencing and developing as a live band. But at the same time, we were able to use the studio as a means to multitrack, and as a means to experiment with sound and tone, and the quality of the sound.

Don’t forget, it isn’t like today where everybody has their own studio in their MacBook Pro. The only way you could get into a studio was to get a record contract, basically, unless you had the money to pull together for a session independently. But that was pretty much it. You didn’t get a chance unless you were a signed act and you were able to get in the studio in that atmosphere. So that’s what the unique thing was. That was what was also so exciting.

I really always have enjoyed the studio atmosphere. For some it’s a very frustrating thing, if they don’t get exactly what they were getting live. And I certainly had moments like that. But at the same time, I would have a lot of fun with multitracking, and sometimes putting a song together and putting the bass on last, you know, in order to pull the song together. Things like that, that you just couldn’t do when you presented music as a full ensemble.

JM: I’m a huge fan of Jefferson Airplane, but it’s also cool that you played with Jimi Hendrix on “Voodoo Chile”. How did that come about, and what was it like?

JC: The second question first – it was great. It was a lot of fun. Jimi Hendrix, Mitch Mitchell, and I had become friends. Particularly Mitch and I. I really enjoyed his drumming style.

Bill Graham was our manager for about a year and a half in the early years of Jefferson Airplane. We had a rehearsal hall next to the Fillmore Auditorium, and sometimes we used the Fillmore to rehearse in. In any case, when various acts would come through, quite often when we were in town we got a chance to meet the musicians, and that was always really exciting. Cream was a very exciting band to listen to, and Jimi Hendrix was an exciting band, and I struck up a friendship with Jimi and with Mitch.

So a year or so later, when he was recording in New York City, and we were doing a TV show – I think it might’ve been the Dick Cavett show – when we finished our work we went to hear Traffic, and Steve Winwood was in the band along with all of the other guys. Jimi had taken a break from recording what was to become a double album [Electric Ladyland], and we hooked up in the club, Steve Paul’s The Scene, and he had invited us and a whole gaggle of other people over to the studio to watch him do some work, listen to him do some playing. After most of the night being spent in various ways, at daybreak he said, “Let’s play a version of this song, in kind of a slow blues format”. We fleshed out the chord changes, and did it in about a take and a half. I say a take and a half because we started to play it and I think he broke a string, and we noodled around a while, then put the song together and basically did it as a one take song.

It was very fun. He was a very generous musician, just what another musician likes when they’re playing together. It’s exciting, you get down to business, there was nothing else but the music to deal with. So it was a great time.

We played the song, and we all got into our station wagons and drove down to D.C. for the gig the next night. So I didn’t really think much about it, and then I got a call from Jimi about a month or so later, and he said, “Would you mind if we put this track on the album?” And I said, “Oh great!”

It was quite different, because nobody put a fifteen minute track on an album. I think, except on a jazz album. So that was one of the progressions of bands getting more artistic control as their records sold, and they’d renegotiate their contract. Part of the renegotiation was that they’d start to produce themselves, and have more control in the studio, you know. And for better or worse, that allowed us to spend much more time in the studio in our following albums, and do more of that experimentation in the studio.

JM: A bit later you produced Jorma’s first solo album Quah, an album that really resonates with me. Could you reflect on that album?

JC: That album, I thought, was really essential for Jorma to do at the time, and present his acoustic guitar work, which was always the beginning of any songs we started out with Hot Tuna. We would work on material, and he would be playing the acoustic guitar, and he’d play it in the [fingerpicking] style with his thumb and two fingers. And I was always amazed by that approach, because it’s complete music. You know, the thumb is keeping the rhythm and doing bass lines and a pulse, and a melody comes off of the first two fingers and/or combinations thereof. I always likened it to two hands on the piano. It was complete music.

When we started putting together some of this music drawn from folk and blues and Piedmont-style blues players, like Reverend Gary Davis, Blind Blake, people like that, we would work together to try to find out how to marry the sound of the bass guitar and the guitar. What was interesting, because that pulse was going on with the thumb, it allowed me to also extend the range of the bass without necessarily the pulse and the bottom end falling out of the song. So that style of guitar playing really freed me up as a bass player. We were able to take some of the elements that had come out of jazz and ragtime and other music, and kind of merge them together into where we were as young players, and see where it would take us.

When we added drums later on, Jorma would use that style on some of the music, for the fingerpicking stuff – he was using Fender Stratocasters at the time. Of course, then, he would play a regular electric guitar style with a flat pick. Later on, he would move those styles around, and pretty soon he was playing electric guitar with finger picks, as well. So he really changed a little bit of the traditional approach of the way we entered into the songs, and it made for, what I thought, was a fascinating approach which we still work on today.

JM: You’ve been playing with Jorma off and on since the late 1950′s. How would be describe what Jorma brings to your musical collaboration?”

JC: In the earlier years, it was that uniqueness of having the fingerstyle approach, as well as that really interesting stabbing, melodic approach on the electric guitar. But really, what has slowly developed throughout this whole process is his songwriting ability. The chord structures, and the lyric content of the songs that we write, really get us into different musical areas, as well. For me, that was great. I always had something new to work on, some new atmosphere to create with the songs. To me, I think it’s really important in each song to create that world. And that’s what he brings to it. He brings that opportunity for me to do a lot of things on the bass, but also to try to create interesting atmospheres.

JM: I had the pleasure of talking to Jorma before the last Hot Tuna visit earlier this year, and I asked him about you, and he marveled that when you do bass solos you never play the same thing twice. How do you keep it fresh after all these years?

JC: You know, I had my period of time listening to really great jazz players. I got to hear Roland Kirk, and I got to hear Charlie Mingus, Yusef Lateef, and Eric Dolphy. I think Eric Dolphy really had a large impression on me for a period of time. But as well, a lot of the Twenties and Thirties players – Jelly Roll Morton, people like that. Those players, they always seemed to draw something new every night, and I think my philosophy is I try to really put myself into the particular night I’m in.

When I teach at the Fur Peace Ranch in Pomeroy, Ohio – the Jorma Kaukonen Fur Peace Ranch guitar camp – I’m asked how do you improvise. And I think the nature of improvisation is to pay attention to what you just played, to tell you where you’re going to go. It’s almost like looking in the rearview mirror as you drive down the road, looking forward at the same time. You listen to those combinations of notes you’ve put together, and the melodies, and you let it bring you to the next stage. And when it’s successful, hopefully you concluded in an artful manner, so that it completes a thought. It’s not always successful, and sometimes you’re left hanging out over the edge. But I think the nature of it is you have to be prepared to fail at the same time. That’s not your aim at all, but you have to enter into a bit of that world of danger.

JM: What advice would you give to an aspiring musician?

JC: Well, I think nowadays there’s so much opportunity to investigate music. When I was a kid, I would get on a bus in Washington D.C., and go down to the Library of Congress. You’d get signed in, and you’d get to pull out records and take them into booths, and listen to world music – that it’s called now. Music from all over the world. Later on, in the early Sixties they started to be put out in collections on albums. But nowadays you have the Internet, you can do so much exploration of music from all over the world, and I think that’s really fascinating for any young musician, and to hear music from all different time periods. I mean, you’ve got recorded music for a hundred years now, so I think that offers a tremendous opportunity to expand your horizons, and hear different approaches, and to be intrigued and inspired to work on the music yourself.

There’s that aspect, and then there’s the good old know your instrument, know the theory. It always pays to take lessons and explore the harmonic aspect of your instrument as well as music in general. I tell my bass players, you should play another instrument that has chords. You should at least play a guitar, and learn piano. It would expand your horizons terrifically. Particularly in songwriting, and writing music in general.

JM: Thanks for taking the time to chat. One last question, where am I reaching you at?

JC: I’m at home. I live in Los Angeles, so I’m just down the road from you.

Wanda Jackson is often referred to as the “Queen of Rockabilly”, and for good reason. After some success as a country singer, Elvis Presley himself encouraged her to try singing rockabilly, resulting in a string of hot tracks including “Hot Dog! That Made Him Mad”, “Mean, Mean Man”, “Fujiyama Mama” (which hit No. 1 in Japan), “Funnel of Love”, and “Let’s Have a Party” (which was a Top 40 hit in the U.S.) She blazed the trail for women in rock ‘n’ roll, and was inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame in 2009. Not content to rest on her laurels, earlier this year she released an album of smoking covers called The Party Ain’t Over, which was produced by and featured the guitar of Jack White.

The following interview was conducted by phone on 12/9/11, and was the basis for a preview article for her concert on 12/30/11 in Santa Barbara.
(L. Paul Mann photo)

Jeff Moehlis: What can we look forward to at your upcoming show in Santa Barbara?

Wanda Jackson: You can look forward to having a real good time if you like rockabilly, country, and Gospel music. I do my rockabilly standards, such as “Fujiyama Mama”, and “Mean, Mean Man”. I do several songs from my new album that Jack White produced, called The Party Ain’t Over. We do a lot from that. Then I go back and do a few more of my standards: “Right or Wrong”, some of those. I do a Gospel song, and then we close out with a song which is more or less my signature for rockabilly, or early rock, and that was “Let’s Have A Party”. I will have a great band with me. It’s Billy Joe Huels and the Dusty 45′s. They’re out of Seattle, Washington.

JM: Sounds great.

WJ: We do our best. We put on a good, high energy show. So people can be sure they’re rested and come on in, or if you’re not rested, we’ll get you jived up and rockin’.

JM: You mentioned the new album that Jack White produced, and that really gave a nice boost to your profile.

WJ: It certainly did. By doing that he has really helped me.

JM: How did that album come about?

WJ: Well, in calling him to see if he’d be interested in doing a duet with me on an album of duets with other people, which is what I kind of had in mind for my next project. In doing so he said no, that he wouldn’t be interested in doing a duet. So, you know, we were disappointed, but he went on to say, “But, I am interested in recording you on my Third Man record label, and I would like to do a single. And if it turns out well, we work together good, we’ll do an album.” So we got pretty excited with the prospect of that. We began, of course, first of all, taking care of the business part. And then Jack and I began exchanging songs and ideas for the album.

JM: Well it turned out really nice. Great job!

WJ: Thank you. I’m very proud of it.

JM: I know this has been documented elsewhere, but I have to ask. In the mid-50′s, what happened when you played at the Grand Ole Opry?

WJ: Well, you know, that’s an old story. It goes back to probably 1954, something like that. Of course, I’d been recording two years at that point for Decca, before I went with Capitol. They invited me to come and do a song on Ernest Tubb’s portion. So I was very excited, and by that time I was already designing my clothes, and my mother made them. She was a professional seamstress, she just was wonderful, and had sewn for me all my life, so my clothes looked really good. I was already wearing the softer fringe, and had taken off the cowboy clothes, things like that. So I designed the new one, which was very pretty, with little spaghetti straps and kind of a sweetheart neck with long fringe across the bodice. It was very pretty.

I was standing backstage and Ernest Tubb came around, and he said, “Are you Wanda Jackson?” I said, “Yes.” And he said, “Well, you’re on next. Are you ready?” And I said, “Yes.” I was standing there with my guitar on. He said, “Well, honey, you can’t go on the stage of the Grand Ole Opry like that.” He kind of looked my over, you know, “like that.” And I said, “Well, what do you mean?” He said, “Oh, you can’t show your bare shoulders on the stage of the Opry.” And I said, “What am I gonna… This is the only dress I brought here tonight. What can I do?” And he said, “Well, I don’t know, since the song is over you’re on.” So he said, “Do you have a coat, or a jacket or something?” So I said, “Yeah, I wore a jacket”, kind of one of those white leather jackets with the white fringe on the sleeves. So all I could do is go back and get that jacket and put it on over my pretty dress. My heart was broken, and I was nearly in tears [laughs].

I went out there on the stage and, of course, the Opry band at that time, they had no drums. They didn’t have drums onstage. Coming from the west, you know I’ve always lived in the Midwest, and I’d been playing with Hank Thompson’s band that had ten pieces, you know, horns and drums and everything, and that really threw me. So I was unhappy about that. But I got through my song. But I didn’t like being on there at all. And my Dad traveled with me. Of course I wasn’t out of school yet, and he went there with me. I found him and I said, “Daddy, put my guitar up. Let’s get out of here. I’m never coming back.” And, you know, I didn’t go back to the Opry.

I think it was the Friday night Opry, because Saturday night Opry’s now are all of the new, contemporary young artists, you know, so they have a Friday night Opry where the older ones perform. But anyway, it was the original stage of the original Opry, and I was with Jack White and his fantastic band. Three horns, drums, it was a ten piece band, and back up singers and the whole works. So I felt pretty proud.

JM: Was that the first time you’d played there since…

WJ: Uh huh. Yep. I didn’t ever go back there. And I didn’t need to join the Opry and be a member. I said “No thank you”, wasn’t interested. I chose the Red Foley Show, which was the first country music television show. It was on national television, ABC, every Saturday night. So, of course, that did me a lot more good as far as people seeing me.

JM: Could you comment on your evolution from singing country music to rockabilly?

WJ: That began in 1955. My first tour that I worked after I was out of school, so that I could tour, was with Elvis Presley. And he was just getting started. He was very popular already in certain parts of the country. His manager wanted a girl on the show, so that’s how I happened to get that spot. Just seeing him perform and all… I worked with him almost two years. And he talked me into trying it. I didn’t think that I could sing that kind of music, but he seemed to think that I could, and convinced me, at least, to try. Once I tried a little song like that, I really thought, boy, I like this. I think I can sing this stuff. So that’s how I became the first girl to record rock ‘n’ roll. But it was thanks to Elvis. I may never have tried.

JM: It was a good suggestion.

WJ: Yes, I thought so. He made me promise that I would try it. I couldn’t break my promise.

JM: Could you describe the Elvis that you knew?

WJ: He was just a happy-go-lucky young man. Things were going his way, and he knew what he wanted to do. He wanted to be a performer, and it was happening for him. It was the same with me. My only dream was to be a singer, to make records, and perform, and travel, and so we were both pretty happy young people, having a good time. And it was exciting to be on his shows, and see the crowds and the girls that were screaming and ran to the front of the stage. And watching his records going up in the Billboard charts. And yet, it wasn’t changing him. He was enjoying it of course.

JM: Did you stay in touch with Elvis after those early tours?

WJ: No, we didn’t. Our careers went totally different ways. I wish that I had tried, but it would’ve been very hard, because when he quit touring and went to California to start his movie career. I did one of those last tours with him, and I knew that his career was changing, and he had his hands full [laughs], you know, trying something new. So we just didn’t stay in touch.

I did see him, one last time. In 1964 we accidentally met up in Las Vegas, and we had a visit. I was married by then, and he met my husband. So we had a nice visit with him.

JM: Your first big rock ‘n’ roll hit was “Fujiyama Mama”, but that was a hit in Japan, not the U.S.

WJ: [laughs] Yes, you’re right.

JM: I know you toured Japan at that time. What was that like?

WJ: Well, it was a dream come true for me, because I had always wanted to go to Japan, and thought, well, I probably won’t ever be able to. But I wanted to. I loved Oriental things, and I had my bedroom decorated in Oriental style. So, yeah, I was very excited when I found out I had a tour coming up.

We didn’t have the media and things that we do today, so I had no way of knowing how popular my song was. I don’t think that I knew it was No. 1, had been all summer of 1959 in that country. So I was really quite a star there, and that was quite a shock to me. A nice shock. To see the crowds that I could draw, and my picture in the papers, the press conferences.

When I got there the red carpet was laid out for me. I don’t know, it was the governor, or someone was there to welcome me. Then a press conference, and the whole airport… It had a flat roof, and there was hundreds of people up there with signs that, I guess, had my name on them. They were written in Japanese, you know, welcoming me.

My dad and I, of course we’d flown. And when we got there, my daddy looked out and he said, “My goodness. All these people.” And he said, “Look there. They’ve got a red carpet, and photographers.” He said, “There must be somebody really important on this plane” [laughs]. And he said, “It’s probably some dignitary.” I said, “Well, maybe it’s a movie star”, so boy, we both start looking, trying to see who we might recognize [laughs]. And then when we got on the steps going down, we had no jetways then of course, and he was behind me, but he tapped me on the shoulder and he said, “Baby, I think you’d better start smiling. This is all for you!” I said, “Well, it can’t be!” And he said, “Yes, this is for you.” He knew it.

JM: You mentioned the song “Let’s Have A Party”, which I think was your biggest U.S. rock ‘n’ roll hit. But it didn’t become a hit when it first came out. How did it finally become a hit?

WJ: The story behind that was after I went with Capitol Records in ’56, that’s when I kind of started recording these rock things, and on my first album… Of course, they had signed me as a country singer. We didn’t know rock ‘n’ roll was going to be so popular, and sweep the nation like it did. And I did my album, it was all country songs. And they needed one more. We used twelve songs. I couldn’t think of a good country song that I wanted to do. My band was there, and I said, “Guys, let’s just throw on that thing I’ve been opening with, that ‘Let’s Have A Party’”. So we played it, and Ken Nelson, my producer, liked it. He said, “Yeah, that’ll be fine. That’s a cute song.” So it was number twelve on my album, and it sat there for a couple of years.

And then rock ‘n’ roll was so big, and a disc jockey in Des Moines began playing it, and he was getting so many requests for it. The switchboards were lighting up every time he played it. And then he used it for a theme song, also. So he took it upon himself, such a nice guy, to call my producer and tell him that it’s very popular around here. I think he said, pull it out of the album and make it a single. So they took his advice, and the rest is history. You know, it turned out to be my biggest song. It wasn’t No. 1, but it was in the Billboard Charts in the Top 40.

It was quite popular in America. I did the Dick Clark show, things like that, because of it. And worked with some of the Teenybopper groups that were singing. And they went international, and then that gave me the opportunity to start going to Europe, and places like that. It opened the door for that.

JM: One of the early songs you wrote was “Cool Love”, which I guess was viewed as a bit racy at the time because of the lyrics coming from a woman. What was the reaction you got to that song?

WJ: Well, apparently not very much [laughs]. It wasn’t a hit, and I’m sure it got a little airplay. But like you say, it may have been a little too much for the times. They were very different. So it was just kind of buried in my discography there.

I wrote quite a few of my rock songs because I couldn’t find any material, and I began recording them. Nobody wrote new songs and songs for girls in that vein, so I had to do a lot of cover songs. And then for my records, I did write quite a few.

JM: How was it decided which cover songs to do? Were those mostly your choices, or the record company’s?

WJ: Yeah, it was my choices. Because my producer, he didn’t really know that much about [laughs] rock ‘n’ roll, I don’t think. So I did a lot of Little Richard, and Chuck Berry, and some Elvis songs. I did some blues. I always liked singing a variety of things, and he was very good to let me venture out and do things like that. So that’s why there’s such a big body of rock ‘n’ roll songs that I did.

I was trying so hard to get a hit. But they turned out to be album songs. But now, I’m glad that I have them, and that I did record them, because the new generation of rock ‘n’ roll and rockabilly bands, they have the opportunity to hear that early work when I was really in my prime. And they know all those songs, and it just thrills me. Well, hey, they really were good songs. I was on the right track. I was just in the wrong generation. I was before my time [laughs].

JM: What was a typical recording session like. Did you do a bunch of songs in one day, were there rehearsals? Or you just sort of went for it?

WJ: We just rehearsed them right there at the session, and we did, it was called “head arrangements”. You just work out your arrangement right there. And they were simple songs, of course. So we didn’t have to have arrangements and things. Most of the pickers, country and rock ‘n’ roll, none of them could read music. That was out of the question. So we just did them on the spot. They turned out darn good because they were very good musicians. Most of my band was on, but we also would pad it, you know, with the other players. They’d also come in.

JM: I’m impressed looking at some of the guitarists that recorded with you – Joe Maphis, Buck Owens, Roy Clark. It’s pretty amazing.

WJ: Yeah, I had some good musicians by me, for sure.

JM: What advice would you give to an aspiring musician?

WJ: Well, things have changed so much in the industry. So I really don’t know much about the workings of it. Even country music is big business these days. It’s a big thing. So everything’s different.

But I would say I think it’s a good time. People are loving music, and they’re accepting people who are different, and want to do it their own way.

So, golly, I would say, you have to get a record contract, that’s your first step. And I don’t know how to tell anybody how to do that. They’d have to ask someone… People come to me now to record, so I really don’t know how to go about going out.

But you just knock on doors and talk to people, and sing everywhere that you have the opportunity. And hold on to your dream, and don’t be swayed. You might get detoured, but that’s OK. If something happens in your life, that you can’t sing or something for a while, it’s OK. Go ahead and do what you have to do. But hang onto that dream, and continue to be determined.

JM: Am I reaching you at home?

WJ: Yes, in Oklahoma City.

JM: Thank you for talking to me – it’s a thrill. I’m looking forward to your show here in Santa Barbara.

WJ: Thank you very much. It’s one of my favorite cities. I really love it. I think everybody that lives there loves it. I would like to have a second home there. Maybe it’ll happen one day [laughs].

Leo Kottke is an extraordinary acoustic guitar player, with a style that draws on folk, blues, and jazz, but comes together in a way all his own. His musical career took off with his 1969 album 6 and 12 String Guitar, and since then he has released dozens of albums and entertained countless audiences with his guitar prowess, singing, and hilarious stories between songs.

This interview was conducted by phone on 11/18/11, and was the basis for a preview article on his 12/2/11 concert at the Lobero Theatre in Santa Barbara.

Jeff Moehlis: What can we look forward to at your upcoming concert in Santa Barbara?

Leo Kottke: I never really know. It’s two guitars, and whatever comes next. I’ve learned that it’s best not to plan. If you get a solo act up there and he’s following a setlist, you can smell it from a mile away. I just wing it.

JM: How do you decide what to play? Is it what you’re in the mood for, or what you perceive that the audience wants?

LK: No, it’s neither one. I know what tune I’m going to play when I walk on, and after that you just kind of, I don’t know how to put it, you just sort of look for it. The reason that I talk to the crowd is… in the beginning I didn’t speak at all. As a matter of fact, I never even looked up. I just played and ran away. One night I wound up talking without having time to think about it, and I discovered that it’s a great way to find out what to play next. And why it works, I don’t know. But it’s important what follows what. All you can do by figuring it out is to screw it up. Just saying a few words seems to open the way to the next tune.

JM: I certainly enjoy the words you say between the songs as much as the music.

LK: Sometimes it works, you know, but sometimes it’s just some clown opening his mouth. I don’t what that’s going to be either. It can be a grocery list or something else.

JM: I’ve seen you at various venues. I’m curious, what are some of the strangest venues that you’ve played at?

LK: You know, if I were a responsible performer in the world of show business here, I probably would keep track of that. But everytime I get the question I have to stop and think. Part of the reason that it’s hard to pluck them out of the past like that is that if you’re aware of the room when you’re playing, it screws everything up. So you try to forget them. A good room is one that can be forgotten, I mean, when you’re there. As a result, you don’t really see any difference between them. None of them are any stranger than the last one, because you’re just not tracking that. If there is a strange place to play, it’s something that you notice ten years later, or twenty, or thirty. You know, I’ve been doing this longer than I ever thought I would. I’m really grateful for that. It’s a privilege to play. And it does open up a perspective that you don’t have without putting in a lot of time.

JM: I remember when I saw you at a show, I think it was at a fair, between songs you mentioned that you had played a show where you looked over and an emu was looking at you.

LK: [laughs] It was actually not an emu, it was a gnu. G-n-u. But I have stood eye to eye with an emu, and you don’t want to do that. They’re taller than you are. I’m six feet, and they’re nasty. Well, you know they have the potential, for one thing, they could disembowel you with a flick of their wrist.

But the gnu, yeah, that was the first zoo I ever played, and it was one of the first zoos to do this. They all do it now, to put on concerts. I was in Oklahoma City, and, like I was saying, I pretty much forgot where I was, and fell into the music, and find myself eye to eye… well, I was a little higher up than the gnu. To be looking at one in the middle of going to the next tune, it was a shock. I thought we had an understanding, too. I thought maybe there was a little communication going on, but I think that’s delusional.

That actually happened to me in a restaurant on Ventura, just over the hill there from Hollywood. I guess it was a Thai restaurant, and I was sitting at the long end of a rectangular, very large aquarium. And there was a peculiar kind of fish in that thing. The way it works is it scoots along, it looks sort of like an eel and it’s big, and it scoots along just under the surface. And it has a couple of protuberances that stick straight up and grab stuff that falls on the surface. I guess it’s kind of a river fish. So the aquarium was about seven to eight feet long, and I was at one end waiting for this food, or I had the food, who knows. And I looked on my right, and at the far end of that aquarium one of these fish was coming my way. Now it moved very slowly. I suppose they’ve seen it all before [laughs]. And again, I thought maybe I had eye contact with this creature, and I sat there and sort of watched the fish. By the time it reached my end of the aquarium, I think maybe months had passed – it took forever – but I wasn’t aware of it until I kind of came to at my end of the aquarium. It was a really peculiar experience, and a little embarrassing, because I think if there was any kind of a contest, the fish won. It did something to me. I had to kind of tear myself away and re-enter the restaurant.

And the gnu had a little bit of that quality. Anytime you see an animal out of context…

Now, this sounds like it sounds. I was in Auckland one year, and I’d brought Leon Redbone over to open the shows there and in Australia. We were sitting in a hotel room at some kind of jet-lag hour, and it was dark out. We hear this scream, and it was a horrible scream. It was up in what I would call a feminine register as far as screams go. It was sustained, and it repeated. I jumped up and ran to the window, and Leon, as he would, just stayed where he was. It takes a lot to get him moving. I stuck my head out the window – now this is downtown Auckland, you know, a big international city, and we were maybe six to ten floors up, in a really solid urban environment – and there was a thing down there that could not have been, it’s not possible that it was a panther, but that was exactly what it looked like. A black panther, that tail sticking straight up in the air, and kind of swimming along the ground the way they move. It didn’t scream anymore, and I’m assuming that’s what screamed, there’s no way of knowing. And I yelled at Leon to come look at this thing, because it made no sense and it still doesn’t. And the memorable part of that night for me is that Leon looked at it and just went over and sat down again. He didn’t give a shit.

But as far as strange places to play. There are a few I can’t mention actually, because it doesn’t ring right. There is one… maybe it will come to me as we go along.

JM: Can I ask you reflect on the album that I guess launched your career, the 6 and 12 String Guitar album which was released over 40 years ago?

LK: Well, it took, you know. And that was a real surprise. I had an idea in my head at the time. That came out in ’69, and I’d been performing sporadically since about ’65. My first job was in ’64. I had sent a tape to John [Fahey], and very slowly we got to the point where I made the recording. I wasn’t interested in going on the road, I thought I was going to get an ordinary day job. I was, and I still am, happy with a guitar without having a job behind it. It just clicked. There was kind of a process to it that, step by step, came into play. It was just interesting how it happened.

The record still sells, and I still play some of that material. But the thing that’s important to me about it is mostly that that’s how John and I got together. I went out to meet John, and we played three jobs together, and I spent a lot of time with him back then. We got to be friends. He was a very interesting guy, very highly educated. He was one of those self starters, and went his own way all the time. So anything about that record is wrapped up with what I know about John and the stuff that we did. We played jobs off and on over time after that, but it gave me my whole adult life really. And that’s due to John putting the thing out. Nobody else would have bothered. And it did so well that I had to do another one, and everything just sort of brought me to talking to you on the phone today.

JM: [laughs] Could you describe the John Fahey that you knew?

LK: [laughs] Some of these are hard questions, and that’s a very hard question. It’s hard to capsulize John. There were two or three of him that came and went, and, you know, the last one went for good.

I met him at a point where there was a lot of change going on for him, and the best way I have of describing anybody is just to try to find what Truman Capote called “frames”. He would walk into a given room or a situation, or whatever it was, and in order to orient himself and in order to have a handle, he’d find some small feature within the whole picture that he could frame, that embodied at that point everything that he knew about it, or could imagine about it. He’d narrow his focus, in other words, in order to expand his possibilities, I guess. And I think that’s the best way to describe John.

The one that I like to mention is that he was the official turtle catcher for the Swami Satchidananda Society at that time. As I understand it the Swami kind of faded into some ill-repute. It was part of John’s witness, he claimed to have found the Swami under his desk with one of his acolytes, which apparently was forbidden within the society. There is one thing about John that I don’t know if anybody could quite figure it out or not, and that was whether he was taking you on a trip, or recounting something that had happened. And most of what I heard from John, and most of what I knew about him, that was verifiable, and from my own experience, it turns out that it really is that way. So I suspect that happened.

But at any rate, he was their turtle catcher, and he said, “do you want to come see the place?” So we went somewhere in L.A. and they had this big park with a pond in it. I had asked him why they needed a turtle catcher, and he said that at their meditation pool there’s a crowd of snapping turtles, and they’re harassing the monks. They can’t get into their groove with these snappers there. I think it’s actually the opposite, that you should be able to get into your groove no matter what’s there. But they were worried about it. So we went to the pond and John showed me the places where he would find them, and he said, “Over there”, and he pointed to the other side of the pond, “there’s a big one”. So we walked around the pond and stopped, and right where we stopped he said, “See there”, and I looked for a while, and there was a huge turtle. He grabbed it. He got it out of there, and showed it to me. Boy, ugliest things I’ve ever seen. And he said, “I leave this one here, so that I can keep coming back. But I think that it’s good for the monks.” That was John. I wouldn’t have that experience, any part of it, with anyone else.

He recorded a bridge. I think that was in Tennessee.

JM: Yeah, I have that album [The Yellow Princess, the song is called "The Singing Bridge of Memphis, Tennessee"]

LK: He was a little upset because his wife had signed a guy named Charlie Nothing to the label, who played what he called a psychedelic saxophone.

I was always really happy to see John. There’s a pile of stories. If you want know about John, though, the guy to talk to is Peter Lang. Peter spent a lot of time on the road with John, and he knew really well.

JM: This morning I was listening to your next album after 6 and 12 String Guitar, Mudlark. I couldn’t help but think that this must’ve been a much different experience to record than the first album. It has the vocals…

LK: Oh, it was a nightmare.

Jesus, you’re asking some broad questions, and I’m talking too much.

It was very different. The Takoma record [6 and 12 String Guitar] was made in a warehouse. It was all live. I don’t think I re-took anything. And there was no time spent setting up the microphones. It was two mikes. I just sat down and played everything I knew, and we sent John the tape. There was no mixing, since it was live to two-track. And there was no sequencing. The order they are in on the record is the order that I recorded them in, except that John lifted two or three because there was too much time for one vinyl record. And he put those on a compilation record later.

But the first Capitol record [Mudlark] was in an actual studio, and it had a producer on it, and a label on it, both of which had been signed into me by one of the producers Denny Bruce and John, who was the other guy. John wanted to have a production company, and Denny was part of that. They had to sign the company to get me. I was their act. But the first day in the studio John quit and walked out [laughs] with a look of pure horror on his face, and it went from there.

We wound up finishing the record in Nashville. Had a lot of fun down there, because I met a bunch of guys that I had heard of, and got to play with them. We recorded there in Wayne Moss’ garage, and that was a lot of fun. And there are things on that record that I like, but it was the first time that I’d recorded other than live vocals, I’d never used cans, I’d never dubbed a vocal on, which nobody should ever do, etc. But I got away with it, and Capitol was a great label.

JM: This is a question about your songwriting approach in the context of a specific song. My favorite album by you is Guitar Music, and there is “Side One Suite” on that is a multi-part song. How did that come together?

LK: The record was recorded by the same guy that recorded the Takoma record, [catalog number] C1024, and he’s an engineer that I wish I had done a lot more work with. I don’t know why, I really don’t know why, because he was very fast, and is very good. Still working, I’m sure. And that may be part of what appeals to you, because he has my kind of understanding of how the guitar works. There’s a whole sympathy thing that you will have, if you’re lucky. It’s easy to have that with Scott, his name’s Scott Rivard.

Most of the guitar was a [Gibson] J-45 six string. It was a deliberate attempt to get some of the sound of the guitar that was on the Takoma record, that was stolen the first night that John and I played together. It was a unique sound. Guitars aren’t built that way. They’re built toward a different point than that guitar was built. More to do with flat-picking. Bluegrass had a huge influence on the development of the flat-top, and I tend to be drawn to the parlor guitar that preceded that. So that record had that kind of…

I mean, it wasn’t thought out at all like that. None of this is thought out, they just all fall together and take a shape that you seem to have invented, but you didn’t have anything to do with it. It’s kind of like arguing backwards to do a proof of intelligent design. Just because I’m here doesn’t mean that somebody put it there. It could be anything else, whether somebody designed it or not. It’s an assumption that can’t be made, is all.

So it was pure chaos like all of them, but it did have some natural coherence that I like about it as well. The trouble with that record is it’s hard to broadcast. It’s hard to get it out on radio because of the way it’s recorded. It sounds much better in phones or with bookends in the right place.

How I wrote the “Suite”, I couldn’t even tell you. All the tunes just sort of come and get me. If it doesn’t take, I don’t force it.

JM: Another of my favorites is the album after that, Time Step, which was again a bit of a change in direction. That album has a song that has personal significance to me, “Rings”. I put that on a mix tape for my girlfriend at the time, who became my wife and we played it at our wedding.

LK: That’s nice.

JM: I’m curious, was the change in direction for that album a deliberate attempt at anything, or just following your muse.

LK: This sounds kind of cold, but it’s following the contract. You sign a contract, you owe them X amount of records, and they decide when you’re going to record. If you say, “I’d like to record now, because I’m ready and I have the situation I want” and it’s not on their release schedule, they will tell you not to do it. It always seems to come up that you have to do albums in the least propitious sort of location on your timeline, you know, personally. You like to feel like it when you’re going to do this, but almost always you don’t. It’s a lot like performance on a night when everything has collapsed for you, and you’d rather just hide your head and get depressed and think about ropes, and jumping off of buildings and stuff. But you have to go out and play. And what happens is that the guitar will take over, and you forget all of that other stuff, and you have a fine time most of the time.

That record I made with T-Bone Burnett. Once I had been forced into it by the market, which was the market interpreted by the record label, what was demanded was that I sing and that I use a rhythm section. So all of those early records are part of a learning curve, except for the Takoma record, and the learning curve is really around how to deal with the sound problems and, musically, the challenges of playing with a rhythm section. I’m a solo player, so I’m not really playing the right way to be in a section. And it’s a challenge, mainly for them. But I’m aware of the same thing, because it can be really difficult to sort it out sonically.

We were into that, and I really liked playing with the two Daves, Dave Minor and Dave Kemper the drummer. Later, on a record called My Father’s Face, which T-Bone also produced, we tried voicing the bass so that it was always below the guitar, so that we never met. That works, but it doesn’t leave a whole lot of room for the bass, the guy doesn’t have much to work with. So we were doing that kind of thing. And the drummer was a ball.

Also, I remember the coffee. I didn’t drink coffee, but I thought I’d have some coffee. We were mixing, and I remember yelling that this shit was legal. I was amazed. I was totally fucked up on two cups of coffee. Studio coffee, but still. I had six cups, and by that time I couldn’t listen to these drums that I loved. They hurt. Everything hurt. And I ran, I left. I don’t drink coffee anymore. Stuff like that that doesn’t mean anything is what sticks out.

Emmylou [Harris] came in and did some harmonies with me, and that was wonderful. On one of them she said, “This is my favorite song.” It was a Lefty Frizzell tune “Saginaw, Michigan”. She went in and did these harmonies. She did two voices. It really needed something, and she was it, as it turned out. Everybody was very happy with it, and I was too effusive and probably embarrassed her, but I said, “How did you do that? It really changed everything.” And she said, “Well, when you go flat I go with you, just not as far.” It was a great lesson, and one of this first that I got in what singing was really about.

The other thing she said was that she did that Everly Brothers thing, and I thought I knew what that was, which of course I didn’t, but that doesn’t stop me from thinking that I do know. But she knew I didn’t know, and she said, “You know, where they trade their parts.” So the parts stay the same, the harmony stays the same, the upper and lower voice are still doing the same thing, but different guys will be singing them. And it gave me goosebumps because I realized what that means, it’s so super-musical that it just gives you chills. And I never knew it. It’s absolutely why they’re the Everly Brothers, why that sound happens. I mean, of course it’s everything else as well. It was great.

I met her when she was an opening act at D.C. for the Seldom Scene, and we hung out over at her house a little bit. So it was nice. Every now and then I bump into Emmy and we kind of catch up a little. Nice to see some continuity in a job that doesn’t have any.

JM: Here’s something I found interesting… Shortly after the reunification of Germany, I visited a very distant relative I’d never met before, who had grown up in East Germany. We were talking about music, and I said that I play guitar – not nearly as well as you do – and he said there’s this phenomenal guitarist you have to check out, his name is Leo Kottke. And it amazed me first of all with him being from East Germany that he knew about you, and also that we’ve never met but we share some small amount of DNA and we have similar musical taste. At any rate, I’m curious, where is your international following strong these days?

LK: If you drew a map of the music business in Europe, Germany would occupy most of the map. And around the corners you’d have the U.K., Scandinavia, Italy, and so forth. Germany is where you need to have an audience, or you’re likely not to have one elsewhere. It kind of translates that way.

My records were being pressed in the East. I didn’t know that. When the Soviet was still in place, I did play East Berlin, and found out that I had had an awful lot of airplay in Poland, through a guy in East Berlin. And then when the Wall went down some years later, I went back and got further in, I played Magdeburg and some other places, I started to see some of the records that had been released there. Or bootlegged, I’d have to say.

I’m going way off your question.

JM: That’s fine.

LK: There was a television show called Der Jugendclub, which was out of East Berlin. I did it once, and it had a huge reach. It reached everywhere in the Eastern Bloc. And it was OK to watch it, to listen to it. On that show the Eastern Bloc got exposed to the same stuff we were being exposed to. But they didn’t see the acts. The acts didn’t get through very often – it was hard to do that. And radio had a big reach and was very important. So I got to the whole country, and it was fun to find out that I was there without knowing it. I was in Poland without knowing it.

I’ve had wonderful times in Germany. I still do. I love playing there. I love the language, and I’ll never be able to speak it. So it’s nice that that’s where the bulk of it is for me.

JM: What advice would you give to an aspiring musician?

LK: By aspiring do you mean someone who’s trying to learn how to play their instrument?

JM: It could be someone trying to play their instrument, or someone who is trying to make it as a musician. Either way is fine.

LK: So it’s really two questions, because they really aren’t the same thing. I don’t know what to tell somebody who wants to play. All you have to have is the desire.

But as far as people who want to make a living, I think they’re asking the wrong question and taking the wrong approach. It’s more that you… Well, before I turn into the Grand Poobah, I only have my experience to go on. If you like to play, you just play. It’s as simple as that. But in the last ten years, I’ve started asking people who want to know “how do I get into the business”, what jobs they might have turned down in the last few years. And there will be one or two things they’ve turned down. And I’ll point out that that’s how you do it – you never turn anything down. You play everything you can, and you just keep doing that. If it’s going to happen, it’ll start there.

The rest of it is just dumb luck. It really is. In a sense talent won’t get you anywhere. It’s nice once you’re somewhere if you’ve got a couple chops to bring to it, but they aren’t required. They are if you want to stay there and keep growing. But to get into the business, the best you can do is to just play anywhere. Funerals, weddings, library openings, burials, burn wards, volunteer at schools, prisons, and hospitals. Actually, I’m not so sure about prisons but those last three are all the same. Well you can play federal prisons, but you might want to wait to play a state prison.

JM: What are your plans, musical or otherwise, for the near future?

LK: I don’t really ever plan. It’s about time I’ve recorded something. I’ve been talking to Mike [Gordon]. I love playing with Mike. The two records we made almost happened on their own. The first one certainly did, and the second one we actually rehearsed. That would be a lot of fun, but I don’t think either one of us would say, “OK, let’s meet on this date, let’s deal with some material and we’ll record this.” It doesn’t work that way. But I notice that we’re kind of inching in that direction.

I’m really interested in making some vinyl, because I like independents, and the only thing they’re selling is vinyl. They have their own labels now, independent record stores. Toward that end I left my label owing them two records and they’re very kind letting me go, and so I’m wide open. I can do just about anything I want. I’m aware that I have to do something. You really need to put stuff out fairly often. That’s part of the deal about getting into the business. Still trying.

JM: Do you want to set the record straight on anything about your music or your career?

LK: No, it’s funny you’d ask that, because YouTube is a big challenge in that direction. There is an urge to overcome misunderstandings, to go back and fix something you did. That happens just in mixing, it happens in playing itself, it happens in the press. But YouTube is a great capsule version of what you have to do, which is ignore all of it and don’t fix anything. If it can’t work with all of the cracks showing, it’s not going to work for long anyhow. So I don’t have anything that I would want to address.

There is at least one thing that I’ve noticed, and that is that some people have a second life. Some acts. That is really facilitated by this whole digital revolution, which in general I don’t like, but there are some features to it that are remarkable. I can go on and find Jimmy Raney, for example, who would be lost to me otherwise. And John Fahey, there’s just been a big box set, have you seen it?

JM: I heard it was out, but I haven’t bought it yet.

LK: A friend of mine mailed me one. John is in better shape than maybe any point in his career. And he’s dead. But he deserves it. That box set handles him properly. Because the thing about John is that he was always difficult, you couldn’t pin him down. And he was always noticing things that nobody else noticed. The setting in that box set gets that exactly. I’m looking forward to it. It’s nice to see so much of John these days.

JM: I know that you were born in Georgia and moved around a lot, and typically you’re described as being from Minnesota. I’m from Iowa originally. I’m wondering, can we claim you as a Midwesterner?

LK: That comes the closest because most, but not all, of the places I grew up in were the Midwest. I spent very little time in Minnesota. I didn’t really move there until I got out of the Navy and I got married to a Minnesota woman. And that was it. So I’ve been there ever since.

I probably actually feel more like I’m from Oklahoma or Wyoming, because Oklahoma’s where I started the guitar, and Wyoming’s where I abandoned the violin and started the trombone. And my time with the trombone is really central to the way that I play the guitar now. I owe it a lot. And the teachers I had on the trombone, I didn’t have any for the guitar, so I used what I learned on the trombone.

JM: I guess that’s not obvious to me. How did that affect your guitar playing?

LK: The trombone, as all the instruments are in a band or an orchestra, they’re all subordinate to the whole. You learn in that sense, and in the sense of sensing it, you learn of hearing it, or sense memory and sense recall. You learn from the inside out. That’s inspirational and invaluable. And the music I play now is really a part of something else, but I don’t know what the something else is anymore. But I still play the same way.

Also, you learn that Western music is written in sections, and not really movements or anything like that, but that it has structures, and they’re invisible if the music is good. If you know the structures, it’s like having a really good guide. It’s not why you write the way you write, but it gives you a way to… You know, the snake can’t swallow whatever it’s swallowing all at once. So it gives you a way to do that. That’s a horrible comparison, but I can’t think of anything else.

JM: Fair enough.

LK: If you do it wrong, you’ve got this big bump in the middle. It’ll be really obvious and you can change things, unlike the snake.

JM: We’re very happy that you pass through the Santa Barbara area quite often, it seems. I hope you continue to do that.

LK: I do too. I’ve been allowed into the sound stream. It’s the first thing you notice when it takes off. You’re walking on stages that people you love have walked on, too. It’s a great, great feeling to be part of all this.

The Lobero is one of my favorite theaters, by the way. It’s not one of the strangest, but it’s definitely one of the finest.

Alan Parsons has had a truly amazing career in music. His start was as an assistant engineer on the Abbey Road and Let It Be albums by The Beatles. He went on to engineer Pink Floyd’s Atom Heart Mother and their sonic masterpiece Dark Side of the Moon. He also engineered and/or produced works by Paul McCartney (Red Rose Speedway, Wildlife), The Hollies (“The Air That I Breathe”), Pilot (“Magic”), Al Stewart (“The Year of the Cat”), and Ambrosia. He then focused his attention on The Alan Parsons Project, with classic albums including Tales of Mystery and Imagination, I Robot, Pyramid, Eve, The Turn of a Friendly Card, and Eye in the Sky, and songs including “Eye in the Sky”, “Games People Play”, “I Wouldn’t Want To Be Like You”, and “Sirius”, the latter of which is particularly beloved by fans of the Chicago Bulls.

The following interview, conducted by phone on 11/1/11, was done for a preview article for a benefit concert by the Alan Parsons Live Project at the Lobero Theatre in Santa Barbara on 11/12/11 for the United Boys & Girls Clubs of Santa Barbara County.

Jeff Moehlis: What can we look forward to at your upcoming concert at the Lobero Theatre?

Alan Parsons: Well, we’re very excited to be playing, particularly because it’s a local show. Santa Barbara is my hometown, and has been for eleven years. This is actually only the second show we’ve done in Santa Barbara.

When you say ‘What can we expect’, you mean, will we have flying pigs and fireworks and stuff like that? The answer to that is no [laughs]. But we have a seven piece band. It’s going to be a big sound.

I think the Lobero is a great venue. I saw Steve Miller there a few months back, and he sounded amazing as well as putting on an amazing show. So I’m excited about it.

JM: Can you tell me about the band which will be joining you?

AP: You’ll get all that on the website. But I’ll mention that there’s another local guy, Alastair Greene from the Alastair Greene Blues Band has been with us now for a year playing guitar. And the bass player Guy Erez is from L.A., so he’s reasonably local. Todd [Cooper] the sax player comes from Nashville. P. J. [Olsson], the singer who I’ve been working with for six or seven years now on various things, is from Michigan but now lives in Colorado.

JM: Will the opener David Pack from Ambrosia be joining you for any songs, or vice versa?

AP: Actually we’re going to rehearse one of the songs that he performed on one of my albums [1993's Try Anything Once], called “Oh Life (There Must Be More)”. We’re going to do that.

JM: I do have to ask, were you involved with the recent Pink Floyd reissues?

AP: No, I wasn’t.

JM: Not at all?

AP: Not at all, no.

JM: Have you listened to the complete Dark Side of the Moon package?

AP: Yes, when I asked for a copy from the record company they kindly sent it to me. It’s very frustrating that I had nothing to do with it. You know, that’s just the way this business operates.

JM: At least they sent you one [laugh]…

AP: They sent me three actually. But it’s very frustrating, particularly as an engineer that I didn’t get the opportunity to give my blessing to the way it was mastered.

JM: Do you feel they represented the album well?

AP: You know what, I’ve actually only listened to one of the CDs in the car so far [laughs]. But I’m hopeful that it’ll sound good. I’m going to hear the quad mix, hopefully, in the next few days. Did you hear the quad mix?

JM: I haven’t yet, no.

AP: Do you have a quad set-up?

JM: No I don’t, that’s why I haven’t heard it.

AP: You know, the surround/quad version is exciting, like what stereo was to mono in it’s day.

JM: How would you characterize your contributions to Dark Side of the Moon?

AP: I think I was an engineer with production expertise. I certainly wasn’t paid as a producer, that’s for sure. Engineers, for the most part even to this day, are paid salary, not royalties. So Dark Side of the Moon did not make me rich.

JM: Do you have any thoughts on why that album resonated so much with people, and why it became so successful?

AP: It was just well executed. The timing was good. Albums were the rage at the time.

JM: It seems to be somewhat forgotten that you also worked Atom Heart Mother, right?

AP: Yes.

JM: What are your reflections on that album, and how things evolved from that album to Dark Side of the Moon?

AP: Atom Heart Mother was the first time I worked with Pink Floyd, as an engineer. I got a good enough result for them to ask me to engineer Dark Side of the Moon, and I came back to do that.

JM: Moving on to your albums, my favorite of the Alan Parsons Project albums is the first one, Tales of Mystery and Imagination.

AP: Mine, too.

JM: Great! Could you give your reflections on that album and how that came together, and why it worked so well?

AP: I think it was just a good piece of timing. It was kind of the first of a new breed of albums, really, a producer putting his name to something as artist, which arguably had not been done until that time. And there was a combination of great talents. I mean, Eric [Woolfson] was a very good songwriter, we worked well together as composers and he was a good businessman as well. He pulled off a great initial deal with the label, and we got some really good musicians and singers.

So good musicians, good songs, good concept – all the ingredients came together at the right time, and we did well with it. It wasn’t the biggest album, of course, but it paved the way for a series of albums which did a whole lot better. But it still is my favorite.

JM: You had a string of classic albums through the rest of the 1970′s and into the 1980′s. What are some of the high points of that time for you, musically or otherwise?

AP: It was just very exciting to be doing so well. Most people come and go overnight. We had basically ten years of success, which was almost unheard of for a lot of people.

Progressive rock or classic rock, whatever you want to call it, it did tend have people that stuck around longer than the people who just made pop songs that came and went. We were very lucky. I’ve always been grateful for the fact that we seemed to have staying power.

Interestingly, right up to a couple of years after the last Alan Parsons Project album, we never played live. The first time we played live was in 1995, I think it was. That was something I just brought about through my own volition, through the people that I made, for want of a better word, my first solo album. It was not really a solo album, it was just an album made with a different team of people, excluding Eric who had gotten involved in a nasty court action and was unable to participate in anything that I was doing. We made an album called Try Anything Once, which was, I think, released in 1994, and we wanted to give it the best possible chance of exposure. So that’s when we started playing live. That was a difficult decision for me, being an engineer/producer, I didn’t necessary have a role in a band, you know? Thankfully I did have some musical experience, and dusted off my guitar and played my three chords.

JM: Do you find it challenging to pull off your music live, because there’s a certain sophistication to it?

AP: I think it would’ve been difficult to do it before 1995, because the music tends to be heavily orchestrated, and it was really only in the mid-90′s that the technology was good enough to give a true impression of the orchestral sound. I mean, it really wasn’t possible up until that time. The only way to have done it would have been to have a real orchestra, and that would’ve made everybody go broke.

JM: When The Alan Parsons Project’s albums were coming out in the late-70′s, in some ways they were out of step with what was going on with punk rock music and so on. And yet it was very successful.

AP: I know that we did hit at the same time as punk. It’s interesting, but I just don’t feel that any of the punk fans would’ve been buying our music. There just was a division between the punk fans and the prog rock fans. But we were right there with the Sex Pistols and The Stranglers, all happening at the same time. We certainly weren’t being played on the same radio stations, that’s for sure.

JM: What do you think about the current climate for progressive rock? Is it viable?

AP: It’s still alive and well, but only on sort of classic rock stations or 70′s and 80′s stations. It’s just a function of how it reaches people. I think the internet has also helped to make a delineation between categories of music.

In the U.K. it’s a little bit different. I know that things have developed a bit, but when I was growing up career-wise in the U.K. there was essentially one radio station. That was Radio One, and they had to appeal to a very, very wide range of pop and rock tastes. They did that by playing rock late at night and pop during the day. It was tough in the U.K.

It’s interesting to note that my popularity in the U.K. was nothing like what it became in America, or actually anywhere else outside of the U.K. We did very well in other countries in Europe, particularly Germany, Spain, Italy, France. In the U.K. we had one small hit at the bottom of the Top 30.

JM: Do you have any perspective on why your music didn’t become so successful in the U.K?

AP: I think it was largely down to radio exposure. We just couldn’t get on the radio. We certainly couldn’t get on TV. You know, it was pre- the video age then. The video fashion came in ’78 or ’79, and MTV came in ’82. In the MTV heyday we did have one video that got a lot of play, it’s a song called “Don’t Answer Me”, which had an animated video which I think won some kind of award for a video in a certain category. I’m not sure. We did get some exposure on MTV, but it was difficult not having an act.

JM: How do you feel that your music and production has evolved over time?

AP: I’ve tried to evolve with the times. The last album I did under my name was an electronica album called A Valid Path. I had the opportunity to work with a number of well-known names in the electronica market, and David Gilmour was gracious enough to appear on it as well. But it wasn’t very well received. I tried to be modern and people didn’t want it. So I think the next thing I do will be a little more in the Parsons tradition.

JM: Recently you pointed out publicly that your song “Eye in the Sky” is quite similar to Lady Antebellum’s “Need You Now”. Whatever happened with that?

AP: I’m sorry to say that I have no comment on that.

JM: Is that for legal reasons or you’ve said what you’ve wanted to say?

AP: No comment. Read into that what you will. All I’m saying is “no comment”.

JM: I asked you a question after the Steve Miller show, and was curious if you had any further thoughts on it. What advice would you give to an aspiring musician?

AP: And what did I say?

JM: You basically said “don’t give up”.

AP: I think the basis of successful rock music is collaboration. I think too many people try to do it on their own, and sit in front of their laptop and try to be creative, and think that they can do the whole thing themselves. All the best records have come from successful collaborations, co-writing, co-performing. I would encourage musicians to work with others.

This show is for the Boys and Girls Club, and their spin-off, which is Notes For Notes, has a great program of kids working in a studio together downtown. I’m all for that.

JM: It sounds like you have another album either in the works or in the planning stages.

AP: Kind of. We actually have two tracks already done for it, one of which has been released on the internet, called “All Our Yesterdays”. That was recorded as part of a DVD series called The Art And Science Of Sound Recording that has been out a year now. The previous three years I spent making this DVD series. It’s an educational documentary, equivalent to a full TV series. The intention is that it covers every aspect of sound recording, from the eyes and ears of not just me but also other luminaries in the business. [More information on this project is available here].

JM: I did an interview with Todd Rundgren a while back, and he’s quite interested in technology, and of course he’s a producer like you. Part of the discussion was that it has almost become too easy for people to produce music. The thinking is, back when it was more challenging, more thought went into it, and only the truly talented people were trying to do it. Do you have any thoughts on that?

AP: I would agree with that. It is pretty easy. You can just click a mouse at random on some of these applications that are out there right now. You can even make a song on an iPad or an iPhone. I think you’d have to have a lot of good fortune to have a hit with something like that. In the end, good music comes from talent, not from having the right piece of hardware. So I would agree with Todd on that.

JM: Do you want to set the record straight on anything about your music or career?

AP: What an interesting question. I don’t think that I’ve ever been severely misrepresented on anything. There are some websites that say I was born in 1949. I was born in 1948. That’s one small thing.

OK, here’s one often misquoted thing: “I produced Dark Side of the Moon.” People have a habit of thinking that because I’m a producer, I produced that. But I was coming up through the ranks then, so I was very definitely an engineer not a producer. And I have the paychecks to show it. I was paid about a pound an hour at the time.

JM: But it did give you some great exposure, no doubt.

AP: Oh certainly. I’m very grateful for having done it. But it’s forty years ago now.

Andy Shernoff was the primary songwriter for The Dictators, a seminal New York City proto-punk rock band whose huge influence was sadly never matched by huge record sales. Shernoff also played bass, keyboards, and sang many of the songs. The band’s first album The Dictators Go Girl Crazy!, released in 1975, is a brilliant mix of irreverent lyrics and youthful energy. Two more albums followed – 1977′s Manifest Destiny and 1978′s Bloodbrothers. Their last studio album was 2001′s D.F.F.D. (“Dictators Forever Forever Dictators”), which is arguably their strongest album after their debut. Shernoff also played bass on Joey Ramone’s 2002 solo album Don’t Worry About Me, and has produced and/or played with various other bands/artists. He currently is playing solo shows at Manhattan’s Lakeside Lounge, and just released this video.

Andy Shernoff was the primary songwriter for The Dictators, a seminal New York City proto-punk rock band whose huge influence was sadly never matched by huge record sales. Shernoff also played bass, keyboards, and sang many of the songs. The band’s first album The Dictators Go Girl Crazy!, released in 1975, is a brilliant mix of irreverent lyrics and youthful energy. Two more albums followed – 1977′s Manifest Destiny and 1978′s Bloodbrothers. Their last studio album was 2001′s D.F.F.D. (“Dictators Forever Forever Dictators”), which is arguably their strongest album after their debut. Shernoff also played bass on Joey Ramone’s 2002 solo album Don’t Worry About Me, and has produced and/or played with various other bands/artists. He currently is playing solo shows at Manhattan’s Lakeside Lounge

Jeff Moehlis: How is your residency at Manhattan’s Lakeside Lounge going so far?

Andy Shernoff: It’s really been a liberating experience. After years of rehearsing for the gig, I had the genius idea of making the gig the rehearsal. I meet up with my backing musicians about ten minutes before the show. We quickly run overthe harmonies and rhythms then we get on stage and wing it. It’s a great way to try out new tunes and the spontaneity keeps everybody on their toes.

JM: I understand that there will be special guests joining you for some shows. Who is coming?

AS: It’s rarely planned out. If a musician buddy is in the audience, I invite them up to do a song. Scott Kempner from The Dictators and The Del Lords is in town this week so I asked him in advance to do a few tunes. In the past, I’ve had Kevn Kinney from Drivin N Cryin, Albert Bouchard from The Blue Oyster Cult as well as lesser known friends like Tom Clark and Carla Rhodes.

JM: You’re best known as a founding member and the primary songwriter for The Dictators. When this band formed, what was the New York music scene like and what were your goals?

AS: We formed in 1973 before there was a Ramones, a CBGB’s, Nirvana or MTV. There was only one club in New York that booked original bands, The Coventry in Queens. The NY Dolls ruled the roost so every band mimicked their look and sound; very poorly I might add. We knew we looked ridiculous in satin and platforms so we wore the same leather jackets, jeans and T-shirts on stage that we wore off stage. A glam rock Joey Ramone was a regular in our audience and that was a sight indeed.

Our goals?…We were teenagers so we were looking to have a good time and make music we liked. The idea that I would still be performing 35 years later is quite astounding.

JM: How did your record deal with Epic come about?

AS: The same guys who managed the Blue Oyster Cult managed us and they had the relationships at Epic. I think they had some compromising photos of a record company executive because The Dictators were my first ever band, had existed for less than a year and had never done a proper gig yet they still managed to swing a deal for us.

JM: Could you give me your reflections on the first Dictators album?

AS: Personally, I prefer the demo versions of the songs available on the album “Everyday is Saturday” released by Norton Records. The drummer on the demo was at least able to play a groove but I understand the attraction the record has had through the years. On its release in 1975, it was totally unique in its packaging and approach. If the Ramones defined the sound of punk rock, the first Dictators album helped establish the attitude and lyrical stance.

JM: I’ve always been curious – what does “Two Tub” refer to in “Two Tub Man”? This is probably my favorite Dictators song, by the way.

AS: Two Tub Man was the very first song I ever wrote. I wanted to write a song about a kid with a punk rock attitude. I had the title and I went with it because it sounded good to my ears just like Wop Bop a Lu Bop la Or Rama Lama Ding Dong did to an earlier generation of songwriters. I was much more impulsive in my songwriting in those days.

JM: The cover songs “I Got You Babe” and “California Sun” are great, both in choice and in execution. Why these songs?

AS: California Sun was a song I always loved so it was an obvious choice. We recorded that a year before the Ramones incidentally. I Got You Babe was suggested by one of our producers. I’m still not sure what the joke was but it was a pretty wacky cover and certainly set us apart from other bands.

JM: Like many people, I think that the first Dictators record is brilliant, but it never really took off and the band got dropped by Epic. What went wrong?

AS: We had been going through the Spinal Tap exploding drummer situation and settled on a guy with a cool looking drum kit. Big mistake as we learned he was incapable of keeping time or a groove. Then there was the production of the albumwhich was not up to the standards of the day. This was long before the idea of DIY existed. Add on a confusing package with a wrestler on the cover and you have all the ingredients of a cult band.

Thankfully, It’s been re-released a dozen times in different formats and has found its audience over time.

JM: How did the experience with the first album affect the way the band approached the second and third albums?

AS: It was major. When the first album was released there wasn’t a punk rock scene so there was literally no audience for what we were doing. It was a flop and Epic records dropped us quickly. When we got a second chance with Elektra we were anxious not to miss our second opportunity at rock stardom so we made a record that was very mainstream in a futile attempt to get on the radio. So in the historic year of 1977 when the world was shifting towards what we were doing on our first album, we were blindly swimming against the movement we helped start. After we toured the UK in 1977 with The Stranglers it became clear we were heading in the wrong direction, away from our potential fan base, so we stripped it down for our third album Bloodbrothers but by that time the train had left the station.

JM: The first three Dictators albums were produced by Murray Krugman and Sandy Pearlman. What did they bring to the music and recordings?

AS: They understood where we were coming from, our sense of humor and our musical influences but they weren’t musicians so they couldn’t guide us when it came to important things like grooves, keys or song structure. I don’t feel that my musical vision for the band was realized until our final studio album ‘D.F.F.D.’

JM: Of course, in addition to making albums, The Dictators performed lots of shows in New York City. Did you have a preference for playing The Coventry, Max’s, CBGB’s, or elsewhere?

AS: We never played Max’s due to the Wayne County incident. The Coventry was our training ground but CBGB’s was our home base. The audience, the sound and the vibe was incredible. I probably played on that stage two hundred times and I’m proud that we headlined the final Friday and Saturday night of the clubs existence.

JM: What is your take on the incident with Wayne County that got The Dictators banned from Max’s?

AS: That was an incident fueled by alcohol, drugs and miscommunication. It is water that has long passed under the bridge. Everybody is friendly now, having made amends many years ago.

JM: The Dictators also toured England and Europe in 1977. What was that like, and how was it different from the New York scene?

AS: In the US punk rock was an underground scene. In the UK it was more than just a musical phenomenon incorporating culture, fashion, politics, and art. The bands were hugely popular selling out theaters and enjoying hit singles and number one albums.

At CBGB’s people sat at tables and chairs and politely applauded the act as if it were an REO Speedwagon concert. In England they were spitting on the bands and getting rowdy. There was no slam dancing at a Television show.

JM: How were The Dictators received at U.S. concerts outside of New York City? And did you dread sharing the bill with non-punk bands?

AS: Every show before our first album was pretty disastrous. We were kicked off tours with Rush and Nazareth and had unfortunate experiences opening up for Olatunji and Billy Preston. By the time our second record was released people were getting hipper so when we opened for Kiss, the Blue Oyster Cult or AC/DC there were always pockets of fans there to see us.

JM: Looking back, how would you describe The Dictators’ place in and legacy for the 1970′s New York City punk rock scene?

AS: We’ve been called “the missing link” as the bridge between glam and punk. I suppose we were part of the ‘fuck art, let’s rock’ contingent along with The Ramones, Dead Boys and Heartbreakers but I’ll let somebody else analyze my legacy.

JM: In 2001, The Dictators released the brilliant comeback album D.F.F.D. Did you ever get your answer to the question asked in the first song, “Who Will Save Rock and Roll?”

AS: As I say in the song… “My generation is not the salvation”, so don’t look to anybody over 30. When I started out, rock and roll was maybe 20 years old so it was possible to be innovative and push the limits. It’s only 3 chords and a backbeat so every permutation has been explored now that the genre has reached middle age, I suspect like jazz, its best days are in the past.

JM: This album came out when people were still in a bit of shock about the events of 9/11. How did those events affect you and the band?

AS: It was impossible to live in New York and not be affected by 9/11. I know people who died, people who just missed dying and heroic first responders. The event was pretty horrible but I believe the wars it inspired where hundred of thousands more have died is equally as horrible.

JM: What is the status of The Dictators right now?

AS: I reached the limits of my creativity with The Dictators a long time ago. I get my kicks from creating new music so my ducks are lined up in a different direction now. So the short answer is, there no plans for shows or recording.

JM: You played on Joey Ramone’s great solo album Don’t Worry About Me. What was the mood like while that was being recorded?

AS: We had to record around Joey’s chemotherapy, which was successful at the time. I remember it as a fun, positive, creative experience. Joey was in a good mood and his vocal on What a Wonderful World might be the best of his career.

JM: You knew Joey Ramone for over two decades. How would you describe the Joey Ramone that you knew?

AS: Most musicians like myself are craftsmen but Joey had a true artistic soul. He was funny, kind and a very generous musical partner. I don’t think there ever was a bad word between us. He had his problems with OCD but half the people I knew in those days were weird so it didn’t really faze me. Of course I miss him and can only dream about the great music he could’ve made.

JM: What are your plans, musical or otherwise, for the near future?

AS: I just released a new animated video for my song Are You Ready To Rapture? Animation is very labor intensive so it took almost a year to finish. It is also available as a vinyl 45 with an unreleased Joey Ramone song on the B-side.

I’m playing every Wednesday at The Lakeside Lounge in the gentrified East Village and on November 12 and 13 at the Norton Records 25th Anniversary All Star Spectacular.

Then I’m gearing up to record an EP of four new songs in January.

My band Master Plan is also planning shows in 2012 to promote our latest CD Maximum Respect.

JM: What advice would you give to an aspiring songwriter/musician?

AS: It takes 10,000 hours to excel in your craft so enjoy the journey.

JM: Where are you responding from?

AS: I’m in Greenpoint Brooklyn.