Speaker 1: The Quest Loft Show is a production of iHeartRadio. So
Speaker 1: in twenty twenty two, Questlove Supreme started doing one on
Speaker 1: one interviews and we wanted to get everybody's voices out there,
Speaker 1: and I jumped at the chance to interview my absolute hero,
Speaker 1: my personal god, Steve Feroni, of the average white man,
Speaker 1: who also is drummed for countless people from Tom Petty
Speaker 1: and the Heartbreakers to Duran Duran to Shaka Khan so
Speaker 1: many others. In Part one, Steve speaks about his upbringing
Speaker 1: and Italy, experience of racism, tap dancing also and the
Speaker 1: journeys of being one of the best drummers on the planet.
Speaker 1: This meant the entire world to me. Ladies and Joe,
Speaker 1: Welcome to another episode of Quest Love Supreme. I'm giving
Speaker 1: you full warning right now the center is going to
Speaker 1: be very awkward. I will try not to make our
Speaker 1: guest today feel uncomfortable and straight away from fan worship
Speaker 1: and just try to be as professional as I can.
Speaker 2: I will say though, that you know, every journey.
Speaker 1: Has to start with a spark, every journey, so me personally,
Speaker 1: I will say that, you know, before directing and producing
Speaker 1: and developing TV shows and podcast hosting and movie and
Speaker 1: TV scoring and late night house band leading and producing
Speaker 1: and songwriting for artists and when they djaying, music education, designing, flatwear,
Speaker 1: my own sneaker line, clothes merch, my own drum line,
Speaker 1: teaching college, whatever it is, I will say that there
Speaker 1: still has to be a spark, and that spark starts
Speaker 1: with a love of music and more specifically playing music
Speaker 1: and specifically the drums.
Speaker 2: Everyone knows my passion is drumming.
Speaker 1: In nineteen seventy five, while on the road with my
Speaker 1: musician parents in Toronto, Canada, on a Saturday, I caught
Speaker 1: an episode of my all time favorite television show, Soul Train,
Speaker 1: and it absolutely peaked my curiosity. You know, I was
Speaker 1: already a fan of the average white band and they're
Speaker 1: scary ass logo, but my four year old self was
Speaker 1: transfixed on the one figure on stage who was neither
Speaker 1: white nor average, sitting behind a white forty seven wit
Speaker 1: and gretch drum kit. I kind of made a declaration,
Speaker 1: mostly to myself, that what that guy's doing, that's what
Speaker 1: I want to do for the rest of my life.
Speaker 1: And pretty much from that point, for any album that
Speaker 1: adorned that weird logo of a white Woman's ass in
Speaker 1: the place of the w We copped those records, and
Speaker 1: I studied it and kind of molded myself in our
Speaker 1: guest image. And what really makes that sentence weird is
Speaker 1: I think the only time I really allowed myself to
Speaker 1: morph into the style of our guests was probably seven
Speaker 1: years into my career. I Want had a side project
Speaker 1: called The Philadelphia Experiment on a song called Ain't It
Speaker 1: the Truth, which I kind of immersed myself kind.
Speaker 2: Of a what would Perny do? Moment?
Speaker 1: And Look, if I'm talking too much advanced math, I'm
Speaker 1: gonna slow down. Look, even on a hip hop level,
Speaker 1: his drums are everywhere, nas Is Halftime, Eric Ban Rock
Speaker 1: Him's microphone Fiend, TLC's Ain't Too Proud to Big track
Speaker 1: called Quest check the rhyme in ways that they ain't
Speaker 1: rough any right, Gang Stars Gotta.
Speaker 2: Get over.
Speaker 1: Brand, Nubian word is Bond, Jungle Brothers the promo, Jill
Speaker 1: rob Gs Dope Rhyme's.
Speaker 2: Start Us Music Sounds Better with You, Kanye West Through
Speaker 2: the Wire, Mary J.
Speaker 1: Blige, Love Is All We Need and Love without a Limit,
Speaker 1: pe Rock and Seale Smooth Take You There. B I
Speaker 1: G Is Notorious but not even just the samples, just
Speaker 1: the iconic songs. I'm every woman, Clouds, what You're gonna
Speaker 1: do for me? All Night, Thing, on the Wings of Love,
Speaker 1: Tears in Heaven, love a Girl, Earth Song, keep Rising
Speaker 1: to the top, Glow and name the all the iconic artists,
Speaker 1: They're not official until he's the timekeeper.
Speaker 2: Name him.
Speaker 1: Freddie King, Brian Auger, Bloodstone, Bette Miller, of Retha Franklin, Sherlyn,
Speaker 1: Paul Simon, Melissa Manchester, I told she's gonna get awkward,
Speaker 1: Stephen Christy mcviee Scurti, Politti, Mick Jagger, Patty Austin, George Benson, People,
Speaker 1: Bryce and Jennifer Holliday, Duran Duran, Algerrue, Howard Jones, Cindy Lauper,
Speaker 1: Anita Baker, George Harrison, Eda, James, Marcus, Miller, Brian Ferry,
Speaker 1: Tracy Chapman, Johnny Cash, Zickie Marley Slash, Stevie Nicks, LeAnn Rimes,
Speaker 1: Steve Perry, and of course Tom Petty and the Heartbreakers.
Speaker 1: I will say that pretty much. You know this guy
Speaker 1: is my hero. Even before Prince, before Michael Jackson, I've
Speaker 1: been dying to have a conversation with a person that
Speaker 1: gave me the spark to fall in love with music.
Speaker 1: Thank you very much for talking to me. Steve Farhon,
Speaker 1: all Right, that wasn't too awkward, right, it was just
Speaker 1: a five minute No, that.
Speaker 3: Was that was pretty That was pretty cool. There's a
Speaker 3: lot of people. I didn't even know that.
Speaker 1: No, when we did the Elvis Costello episode, Uh, my engineer, Steve,
Speaker 1: his intro was about twenty four minutes, so my my
Speaker 1: initial intro was like seventeen, but I cut it down
Speaker 1: to a good five.
Speaker 4: But I was one of my favorite rap groups.
Speaker 2: So which one was it?
Speaker 4: AMG?
Speaker 2: Really AMG? That's aw Yeah, Okay, I didn't I didn't
Speaker 2: even there's that.
Speaker 3: It's like a Janine they used the they used them
Speaker 3: a schoolboy crush, okay for Jeanne Janine the reprise.
Speaker 1: All right, Wow, you're you're you're you're highly aware of
Speaker 1: how you get utilized. Now, what I'll say that's weird
Speaker 1: about this moment is the first time that you and
Speaker 1: I were supposed to talk for Quest Loft Supreme was
Speaker 1: on March fifteenth, twenty twenty, which is kind officially the
Speaker 1: day the world shut down because of COVID.
Speaker 4: Yeah, yeah, you were.
Speaker 1: You were doing you were doing a residency at A
Speaker 1: at A thirty rock sitting in on the SETH Meyers Show,
Speaker 1: and the day that we were supposed to speak, that's
Speaker 1: when we realized that we were in a pandemic.
Speaker 4: So we were in trouble.
Speaker 2: Yeah, we have to put that on ice. Now.
Speaker 1: What's even weirder is you know I had been begging
Speaker 1: and begging and begging and begging John Mayer and his
Speaker 1: people like when you come to New York, I gotta
Speaker 1: go to the show, so.
Speaker 2: You know, to really enjoy the experience.
Speaker 1: So to speak, our listeners know that in the pandemic,
Speaker 1: I started micro redosing, So.
Speaker 2: You know, I was, I was in my zone. I was.
Speaker 1: I arrived at Madison Square Garden. I was ready to
Speaker 1: really take in the music and enjoy the show. And
Speaker 1: the first thing I do when I see Pino Palladino,
Speaker 1: he tells me do And of course you know, I
Speaker 1: was microdocent.
Speaker 5: So it sounds like a mirror for Roon tested positive
Speaker 5: Can you sit in? And I was like huh what like?
Speaker 5: And literally I was like, well, let me see the
Speaker 5: set list?
Speaker 1: And I was like, wait a minute, I had to
Speaker 1: learn fifteen songs and how many minutes and they're like
Speaker 1: forty seven minutes.
Speaker 2: So literally I was like, oh no, m boy.
Speaker 1: So you know it's it's like I didn't get to
Speaker 1: talk to you, but I got to play on your
Speaker 1: drum set. And what's even weirder is that after two
Speaker 1: and a half years of avoiding this dodgeball of a virus,
Speaker 1: today I finally tested positive.
Speaker 4: So welcome to the club.
Speaker 2: Right, Yeah, we're connected, man, we are connected.
Speaker 4: Oh my god?
Speaker 1: How you so you know what it's It's like having
Speaker 1: the sniffles, like I was expecting my taste to go
Speaker 1: away and all that stuff. I'm I'm having a Paul man.
Speaker 1: I'm stay in bed all week. I'm watching movies. I'm
Speaker 1: gonna work. You know, I'm working on the Sliding Family
Speaker 1: Stone documentary now, so you know, I'm in fine health.
Speaker 1: I couldn't be happier.
Speaker 4: Before I forget congratulations on the OSCO All.
Speaker 2: Right, my man, thank you, thank you.
Speaker 4: You are God. You are way too hard for me.
Speaker 2: We don't work hard, but I work I work fun.
Speaker 2: Were are you right?
Speaker 3: Now? As we speak, I'm at a friend of mine's
Speaker 3: house in Burbank because my house is being torn apart
Speaker 3: by contractors.
Speaker 2: Okay, we have a lot in common.
Speaker 1: I also purchased a farm about a year and a
Speaker 1: half ago, and I'm still it's almost it's almost in
Speaker 1: money pit territory.
Speaker 2: So contractors, you know, are working on.
Speaker 4: These to fire my contact. Yes, it's going.
Speaker 1: Same same you too, same guys. I got I got
Speaker 1: downs two years ago and now you know we're still
Speaker 1: we're still waiting for it. I didn't I just had
Speaker 1: to free so I'll work. There's just way too much
Speaker 1: money to invest in it, so I gotta wait until
Speaker 1: maybe October, so it'll probably be three years before I
Speaker 1: get inside my home.
Speaker 4: It'll get done when it's supposed to get done. That's
Speaker 4: what I can.
Speaker 2: Say, absolutely absolutely right.
Speaker 1: So you know, I start off with every episode with
Speaker 1: the first five basic questions. Number one for our listening artists,
Speaker 1: could you tell us where you were born?
Speaker 4: Yeah?
Speaker 3: I was born in Brighton in England, in the south
Speaker 3: coast of England, bat now south of London.
Speaker 1: I will say that probably Brighton, England ninety four is
Speaker 1: probably the second best Root show.
Speaker 2: Of all time. What did you play?
Speaker 1: I don't know. We did a gig with Roy Ayers,
Speaker 1: and that's where we discovered that the engineer of our
Speaker 1: show is just as important as the musicians on stage.
Speaker 1: And we kind of learned, you know, because the thing is,
Speaker 1: it's like, unlike America, Brighton at least has an understanding.
Speaker 1: I don't know if it's that a lot of reggae
Speaker 1: concerts over there, but they have a deeper understanding of bass.
Speaker 1: And you know, we realized, like we would just push
Speaker 1: the sound limit like the average show.
Speaker 2: You know, if you trust the sound.
Speaker 1: Company, maybe you're allowed to do like one hundred and
Speaker 1: two dbs, maybe one hundred and eight dbs like we
Speaker 1: were one hundred and forty DB's.
Speaker 2: We weren't loud, but we just had a lot of bass.
Speaker 1: And so at the point where the audience was holding
Speaker 1: their stomach, like you know, they were getting a colonic,
Speaker 1: they still dance, yeah, but still dancing, we realized, like, oh,
Speaker 1: we have to be the most offensively loudest band in music.
Speaker 1: And so, you know, we maybe the first three years
Speaker 1: we were like everyone's nightmare, but nothing compares to that
Speaker 1: one night with roy Aers in nineteen ninety four in Brighton, Like,
Speaker 1: I know, you just celebrated.
Speaker 2: A birthday yeah, seventy two.
Speaker 1: Yes, happy belated, thank you. So I know that you
Speaker 1: were born in nineteen fifty. Now you weren't born in
Speaker 1: the States, you know, dealing with Jim cro Deep South racism.
Speaker 1: But you know, I'm certain that it was alive and
Speaker 1: well across the world. But what does it mean to
Speaker 1: grow up at least for the first ten years of
Speaker 1: your life in Brighton, Like, what experiences did you have?
Speaker 3: You know, Well, there's a there's a photographs not around here.
Speaker 3: I wish I had it with me in my house.
Speaker 3: There's a photograph of me at school. I was like
Speaker 3: the only black kid in school and we're watching a
Speaker 3: Punch and Judy show and guess what, we were just
Speaker 3: having fun. It didn't come into the question that I
Speaker 3: was a different color ever. I mean when I was
Speaker 3: when I was little kay until one day that I
Speaker 3: was out with my friends and.
Speaker 4: We were playing. I lived in a row of houses.
Speaker 3: On a street, and then there was there was this
Speaker 3: alleyway that led up to this little cottage, and then
Speaker 3: there was this crescent with big houses. And in this
Speaker 3: cottage at the top of this little alleyway, there was
Speaker 3: a guy that was a retired Harley Harley Street surgeon.
Speaker 3: And so we used to play up. There was a
Speaker 3: couple of trees and we'd play cowboys and Indians and stuff.
Speaker 3: And we got a bit too close to this guy's
Speaker 3: house and he came out with the swordstick and and
Speaker 3: he pulled his swordstick and he said, get out of here,
Speaker 3: making all that noise made, And he looked right at
Speaker 3: me with this point. I said, you two black bastard.
Speaker 3: And I had no idea what it was that he said, right.
Speaker 3: I didn't know. I didn't know well what that meant,
Speaker 3: you know, but I felt it. I burst in the
Speaker 3: tears and I ran home and I told my grandmother.
Speaker 2: Who are you living with your grandparents?
Speaker 3: Living in my grandparents and my mom yeah, And my.
Speaker 4: Father was in West Africa serially O wow, okay, okay,
Speaker 4: but he was never around. I mean he showed up
Speaker 4: when I was nine for a couple of days. I
Speaker 4: was about it.
Speaker 3: But my grandmother then told got my grandfather and did
Speaker 3: one of those defend my honor?
Speaker 2: Oh you went to the house.
Speaker 3: He went to the house, and my grandfather went up
Speaker 3: there and grabbed this guy and him up against the
Speaker 3: wall and said, don't you ever talk to.
Speaker 4: My grandson like d again.
Speaker 2: But uh uh oh wow.
Speaker 3: The way that it got explained to me at that
Speaker 3: point in time, I think probably I was maybe five
Speaker 3: or six years old, as a little kid. My mother
Speaker 3: said to me that, she said, you know what, there's
Speaker 3: people out there that think that way, and uh and
Speaker 3: there to be pitied, which was something that wasn't desirable
Speaker 3: as far as I didn't want.
Speaker 4: I didn't want to ever be pitied. And so anyway, so.
Speaker 3: That's that's what that's that's the way I kind of
Speaker 3: looked at it. But yes, you're absolutely right, there's there's
Speaker 3: there was a big difference, the big difference. I believe
Speaker 3: those social problems that bruised Black America and and and
Speaker 3: I see that, I see it and I and and
Speaker 3: it's different for me because slavery never came into it.
Speaker 2: Wow, that's amazing. I can't even imagine a life there.
Speaker 3: Is racist ray. Yes, slavery didn't know. I think there's
Speaker 3: a difference in the in the in the way that things.
Speaker 2: You know, it's weird.
Speaker 1: So in the States, I'm I'm part of a one
Speaker 1: percent that's there's one percent of African Americans that can
Speaker 1: trace their family name, their slave ship and where they
Speaker 1: came from.
Speaker 2: I'm in that lucky few. I also found out that
Speaker 2: Elo cool j.
Speaker 1: Is there was two percent of African Americans that had
Speaker 1: nothing to do with slavery. I guess his family settled
Speaker 1: in a place in Ohio that just didn't have slavery,
Speaker 1: and like somehow he was able to his family was
Speaker 1: able to avoid any of that strife, which is, you know,
Speaker 1: kind of a rare thing.
Speaker 2: Can you tell me what your first musical memory was?
Speaker 3: Oh?
Speaker 4: Well, you know what I was told.
Speaker 3: Was was that I used to sit in the high
Speaker 3: chair and we didn't have TV back then.
Speaker 4: We had radio, okay, And I'd.
Speaker 3: Sit in the high chair with my spoon eating and
Speaker 3: then some music would come on and I'd start banging
Speaker 3: my spoon on the on the on the high chair
Speaker 3: table there to just keeping time with whatever music was
Speaker 3: on the radio. And that's was when they they decided that.
Speaker 4: My grand my grandma, my grandmother, and my.
Speaker 3: Mother decided that I needed to channel that that ability somewhere.
Speaker 3: So my grandmother was a big fan of of of
Speaker 3: tap dancing. She she loved Fred Astaire and Jim Kelly
Speaker 3: and Tic Tac Toe and those guys. Was. She was
Speaker 3: aware of them, and so she sent me to tap
Speaker 3: dancing school when I was better, as soon as I
Speaker 3: could walk, at about three years old.
Speaker 1: Yeah, I was going to say, I just discovered that
Speaker 1: about you maybe a week ago when I was doing
Speaker 1: my research, and that's kind of my entry and too.
Speaker 2: Drums.
Speaker 1: I went to perform an arts school in the grade,
Speaker 1: and it was one of those situations where you go to.
Speaker 2: Your drum lesson and the drums are right.
Speaker 1: There and you're sort of like, let me at them,
Speaker 1: let me at him, and they're like nope, and they
Speaker 1: point to a practice pad on the corner and you
Speaker 1: got to learn, like your roommate's like, it's almost like
Speaker 1: I had to practice to work my way up to
Speaker 1: the drum set. But even before I got to the
Speaker 1: practice pad, Yeah.
Speaker 2: I had to take tap dance.
Speaker 1: So yeah, yeah, all that bow jangles me and my
Speaker 1: shadow like like I was, I was a hoofer, Like.
Speaker 4: Good, were you good at it?
Speaker 3: I was pretty good at it. I was pretty good
Speaker 3: at it. I want medals and stuff?
Speaker 2: Really, can you can you still hoof now? Or is that.
Speaker 4: Replacement?
Speaker 2: Okay?
Speaker 4: I got that light on my feet anymore?
Speaker 3: But I could probably I can probably I can do
Speaker 3: a timestep still, okay.
Speaker 2: Yeah, Like around around maybe nine, age nine or age ten,
Speaker 2: I kind of eased out of that and just became
Speaker 2: strictly like music.
Speaker 4: Well, you know, I.
Speaker 3: Have to say my first, like my moment that you had,
Speaker 3: that you said that you had with Average White Band,
Speaker 3: I had when I was about five years old. My
Speaker 3: parents used to take me. They used to take me.
Speaker 3: We had this I guess you call it Vaudeville or
Speaker 3: something like that.
Speaker 4: Vaudeville.
Speaker 3: There was a theater called the Hippodrome in and the
Speaker 3: Beatles played there actually, so it's kind of bingo hall
Speaker 3: now I think it is. But this is one of
Speaker 3: those theaters that got sort of neglected and sort of
Speaker 3: let go little theater. And they used to take me
Speaker 3: there to see these shows. And you know, usually it
Speaker 3: was comedians and pantomime at Christmas and stuff. And they
Speaker 3: took me there to see this show. And there was
Speaker 3: a band. There was a band, a close harmony group
Speaker 3: called the Deep River Boys Deep River Boys from Brooklyn,
Speaker 3: oh really, and they were very very big on radio.
Speaker 4: Luxembourg was was where you would where.
Speaker 3: People would go to to listen to something other than
Speaker 3: the BBC, because the BBC used to just play classical
Speaker 3: music and it wasn't they didn't play anything at all,
Speaker 3: you know. So you go to Radio Luxembourg and you
Speaker 3: tune into Radio Luxembourg and they had a show on
Speaker 3: there and and I guess they also it was also
Speaker 3: a show that was that was that was good for
Speaker 3: like uh, the the American Forces were all over Europe
Speaker 3: at that point. They had the basis in France and
Speaker 3: Germany and and uh and and so they used to
Speaker 3: be on that on on the American Forces broadcasting. But
Speaker 3: they had a regular show on this on this and
Speaker 3: they they on Radio Luxembourg and they appeared at the Hippodrome.
Speaker 3: So my parents took me down there and they did
Speaker 3: maybe it was kind of like gospel music, but I'd
Speaker 3: never heard anything like that, and I got really excited
Speaker 3: and started dancing around in the in the.
Speaker 4: Audience listening to this music is like what's this? You know?
Speaker 4: Oh wow? Where it is that?
Speaker 3: Even you find vanilla ice cream, you give a vanilla
Speaker 3: I skream to a baby first time they have it,
Speaker 3: They're like, why didn't you give me this before? You know,
Speaker 3: you got to build this baby food? Why where was
Speaker 3: this vanilla ice cream. Well that was what what what
Speaker 3: what I got with from their music, and they sent
Speaker 3: them manager. They took me and they brought me backstage
Speaker 3: and befriended, befriended me.
Speaker 4: They made me Deep River Boys number six. And that
Speaker 4: was the time. That was when I found out that
Speaker 4: I was black.
Speaker 2: Oh word, okay, Yeah, I.
Speaker 4: Had no idea.
Speaker 3: I had no idea that I was black until I
Speaker 3: went and saw these guys and they took me back
Speaker 3: back to my parents, my grandma, my mom, and my
Speaker 3: grandmother took me backstage to meet them, you know, with
Speaker 3: the they've been invited back. And I looked at these
Speaker 3: guys and they were six foot tall, which was then
Speaker 3: back then was gigantic, was a giant, and I said,
Speaker 3: I wish I could be black black.
Speaker 4: You guys, we.
Speaker 3: Used the word back then. We never said black was
Speaker 3: colored because it was respectful. It was disrespectful to say
Speaker 3: black black. So I wish I was colored like you.
Speaker 3: And this guy Harry Douglas, who I stayed in touch
Speaker 3: with for years, he passed away sometimes sometime ago.
Speaker 2: You matained a friendship with him, Yes, all.
Speaker 4: Through the years.
Speaker 3: Yes, it was just amazing and uh, and it.
Speaker 1: Was the first Americans that you interacted with. Yes, well, yes,
Speaker 1: how weird was it to hear? Did they have an
Speaker 1: accent to you?
Speaker 4: I didn't even know. I was just like, I was
Speaker 4: just so sweet.
Speaker 3: I mean, they that's how they sang, and they sang,
Speaker 3: they sang like they were Yeah.
Speaker 4: We heard. It seemed like we sort of heard about America.
Speaker 3: And I think we had TV by then, so there'd
Speaker 3: be a couple of TV series that we've seen. Not
Speaker 3: much of a TV little thing like this black White thing, right.
Speaker 3: But but Harry Douglas looked at me and he and
Speaker 3: he said to me, he says, you know, tonight, I'm
Speaker 3: going to cause a spell. And when you wake up
Speaker 3: tomorrow morning, you go look in the mirror and you
Speaker 3: and you'll be you'll be colored like we are.
Speaker 4: I want to sleep. I went to sleep, and then
Speaker 4: I got up and I went to the mirror and wanted, yes,
Speaker 4: it whatked? I haven't got anything more about it?
Speaker 2: Oh God, that's a great story.
Speaker 4: Yeah.
Speaker 1: Do you know what the first LP or single that
Speaker 1: you gravitated towards?
Speaker 3: Well, you know, I remember I used to I used
Speaker 3: to listen a lot to Motown m hm.
Speaker 2: So northern soil was a thing then that more than sixties.
Speaker 4: It was, Yeah, it was.
Speaker 3: It was more of a MUDs and rockers. You know,
Speaker 3: we had these two factions for warring factions. And the
Speaker 3: rockers used to listen to sort of Elvis Presley, sort
Speaker 3: of the rock and roll and skiffle music, and the
Speaker 3: mods used to listen to to The Who and Motown
Speaker 3: and Motown and that.
Speaker 4: And that was funny because we all everybody started to
Speaker 4: play air base. You know.
Speaker 3: It went from playing like air guitar or just air drums.
Speaker 3: When Motown came out, everybody was.
Speaker 2: So that's what you grab it to it, Okay, digging.
Speaker 4: On James Jamison.
Speaker 3: Yeah, But when it came to like playing an instrument,
Speaker 3: the drums was I'd learned. I figured out the mechanics
Speaker 3: are doing that. But playing in a I got it.
Speaker 3: I actually got a job when I was twelve and
Speaker 3: in a in a real show. And while I was
Speaker 3: on the show, in the kids chorus of this summer show,
Speaker 3: tap dancing and singing with this a guy named Max
Speaker 3: Bygraves who was a big star in England. I looked
Speaker 3: down into the orchestra pit and we did this. We
Speaker 3: there this thing where it all up yet there doing
Speaker 3: the twist. You know, let's twist again. We'd all have
Speaker 3: to be out there twisted little kids with this guy.
Speaker 3: And I looked down and I saw the how she
Speaker 3: doesn't have these hands like that, you know, And so
Speaker 3: I went upstairs and practiced that, and then I thought, well,
Speaker 3: then I had listened a bit more when I was
Speaker 3: up there twisted.
Speaker 4: And said what's he doing with his feet?
Speaker 2: Wow?
Speaker 4: Yeah?
Speaker 2: So what what? Uh?
Speaker 1: Well, I'll re asked the question, do you know what
Speaker 1: the first single or album that you purchased with your
Speaker 1: own money?
Speaker 2: Because I think it's a little different than.
Speaker 4: Sadly, what is it the first single?
Speaker 3: I'll it was my mother's birthday and I asked her
Speaker 3: what she wanted for a birthday, and she said she
Speaker 3: wanted Green Green Grass of Home.
Speaker 2: Who sings that?
Speaker 4: Frank? I think it was Frank Gifield.
Speaker 2: Oh wow, I look and there it comes Mary Lives.
Speaker 2: That's what.
Speaker 4: Went into the record. So can I get a company
Speaker 4: of that?
Speaker 2: Yeah?
Speaker 1: A lot of people and say like Jackson five or
Speaker 1: some of the but the real answer is, uh, I
Speaker 1: think the forty five ever purchased was Bad Blood by
Speaker 1: Nil saidaka and only only because really I judged I
Speaker 1: lived in a house with like over three thousand records
Speaker 1: because my parents were musicians, and the Rocket Company, which
Speaker 1: was Elton John's label, Nil Saidaka's label. I judge records
Speaker 1: on how good the logo looked rotating on the forty five.
Speaker 1: So I liked the green and blue hue of MCA
Speaker 1: Rocket Records, and so I chose Bad Blood. So the
Speaker 1: first time that you actually sat on a drum set,
Speaker 1: like who taught you how to play the drums? Like,
Speaker 1: what's your what's your entry into sitting on a drum set?
Speaker 3: Well, I just what happened was was that when I
Speaker 3: went to when I was after we've done this, TV
Speaker 3: is run this this show, the summer show. There was
Speaker 3: a place called the Regent Ballroom in Brighton and that
Speaker 3: is not there anymore.
Speaker 4: It's Boots Chemists now. But on Saturday mornings they would
Speaker 4: have they'd have it open.
Speaker 3: There would be a disc jockey and or people would
Speaker 3: take their kids there and drop their kids off there
Speaker 3: and then they go shopping. They go and do their shopping,
Speaker 3: they leave their kids. There were safe places on the
Speaker 3: b and the kids would dance.
Speaker 1: And so DJ culture was a thing in the sixties
Speaker 1: where yeah, yeah, you put a record or on you
Speaker 1: hear it over a PA system.
Speaker 3: Yeah yeah, yeah, we had they had two things that
Speaker 3: they had a live band and then the stage would
Speaker 3: revolve and there would be a disc jockey, and so
Speaker 3: they would they would the band would take a break,
Speaker 3: and then the dis jockey would be out there and
Speaker 3: play the records.
Speaker 4: And we used to like them the records.
Speaker 3: A lot more than the band, yeah, because the band
Speaker 3: played the old stuff. Really there was sort of like
Speaker 3: a ballroom band, you know. The disc jockey used to
Speaker 3: play the motown and we used to love that, loved it.
Speaker 2: Yeah wow, okay, yeah.
Speaker 4: And and so we were we were there.
Speaker 3: We used to go there on a Saturday morning and
Speaker 3: me and my me and you know, a young boys
Speaker 3: with the raging hormones who go up to these young
Speaker 3: girls and and they dance with us.
Speaker 4: You know, we might get a kiss on the cheek
Speaker 4: and that was it. It was finished.
Speaker 3: You know.
Speaker 4: That was a lot. Well, one day, Manfred Man's band
Speaker 4: they were playing that night.
Speaker 3: At the in the in the in the in the ballroom, right,
Speaker 3: and they set up early when we were all in there,
Speaker 3: and they played I think, I guess they did their
Speaker 3: sound check and they played for us little kids and
Speaker 3: every and every every little, every little twelve year old
Speaker 3: girl and there went completely crazy about this band, like
Speaker 3: like they were the Beatles, screaming. And so I said
Speaker 3: to my friends, we're doing we're doing it all wrong.
Speaker 3: We need we need to be that, we need to
Speaker 3: be a man. Yeah, so we put we started playing.
Speaker 3: We got we just I got a toy. I had
Speaker 3: a toy drum kit, and I had those motor skills.
Speaker 4: I knew where to do it.
Speaker 3: And the only song there was a guy that he
Speaker 3: had a real guitar, but he had an old record
Speaker 3: player that his dad had changed into being an amplifier
Speaker 3: and there okay, yeah, and he played and we played
Speaker 3: saw standing there at the t chests with the string
Speaker 3: and the tech that was a that's that was the
Speaker 3: bass in that's and that's all we could play with
Speaker 3: saws standing there and we did that.
Speaker 1: Let me make sure I'm clear on this. You mean
Speaker 1: Manford Man, the actual blinded by the Light guys. Yeah, okay,
Speaker 1: see I know him from their seventy six I didn't
Speaker 1: realize yeah yeah history.
Speaker 4: Yeah yeah, yeah for then yeah yeah, yeah.
Speaker 3: Oh, and so we were we would we would go
Speaker 3: and play in the afternoons at friend's house.
Speaker 4: He couldn't do it. My grandfather, Yeah, he was.
Speaker 3: He was a meltman, and he would go out and
Speaker 3: start work at three o'clock in the morning, and he
Speaker 3: didn't want to.
Speaker 4: He hated music all kinds.
Speaker 3: The only thing you like was classical music, and anything
Speaker 3: young was just he didn't like anything about young.
Speaker 2: Kids noise, right, okay.
Speaker 3: Yeah, so we go up to another friend's house and
Speaker 3: we'd set up and we'd play with this little toy
Speaker 3: drum kid thing that I had. My grandmother bought me
Speaker 3: a snare drum for Christmas, a real one. And the
Speaker 3: guy with the guitar because he had a real instrument,
Speaker 3: his father, his father on the gas station.
Speaker 2: Okay.
Speaker 4: He used to go and hang out in the music.
Speaker 3: Stores, which is where all the older kids that had
Speaker 3: bands used to hang out.
Speaker 4: Okay, right, so yeah, there's these there's these big kids
Speaker 4: what they we.
Speaker 3: Call them big kids because here we are twelve year
Speaker 3: olds and there's his like eighteen year old kids, sixteen, seventeen,
Speaker 3: eighteen year old kids that had started playing bands, playing
Speaker 3: making bands and could play but we had money, had
Speaker 3: jobs because someone would leave score at fifteen and they
Speaker 3: would they would buy and save up and buy an
Speaker 3: instrument and make a band. So this kid was there
Speaker 3: trying to be in a little twelve year old I
Speaker 3: got a real guitar, trying to hang out with these
Speaker 3: older kids.
Speaker 4: And there was a bunch of guys in there.
Speaker 3: The way gigs used to be got, there would be
Speaker 3: a bulletin board, right, they put a bulletin board in
Speaker 3: the music shop. And if you if you wanted a geek,
Speaker 3: you go and look at the bulletin and see who
Speaker 3: was who was looking for a drummer, who was looking
Speaker 3: for a guitarists or.
Speaker 4: You know, and and and and.
Speaker 3: They put up this thing and they were talking to
Speaker 3: the propriety of the store and they were saying, to
Speaker 3: our drummer's got to go and get his appendix out,
Speaker 3: and we need we got a gig at a youth
Speaker 3: club on Saturday night, and we need to get if.
Speaker 4: I hear any drummers coming in here.
Speaker 3: My friend took his life into his hands, talking to
Speaker 3: like older kids like that and said, I know a drummer.
Speaker 3: And they said, well, who's that? And they said, well,
Speaker 3: you know, good thing. He said, you're a blues band, right,
Speaker 3: the Flames they called them.
Speaker 4: Yeah, where this guy? He's black?
Speaker 3: So that was that was the first. That was the first.
Speaker 3: They said that as old as he's he's twelve years old.
Speaker 3: They said, well is he any good? And get yeah,
Speaker 3: you can play it. He said, okay, hav him come
Speaker 3: over and meet us at this at this house. And
Speaker 3: so this kid and we no telephone, you know, you
Speaker 3: had to come over to my house.
Speaker 4: He said. There's these big kids and they got a
Speaker 4: band and they're looking for a drummer. And I'm like, well, big.
Speaker 3: Kids, because big kids used to beat up kids like
Speaker 3: my sights, you know.
Speaker 4: And he said yeah.
Speaker 3: So so I went over there and I took my
Speaker 3: life in my hands and I walked in there, and
Speaker 3: I sat down and I played a few songs with them,
Speaker 3: and and and they said, okay, well you can come
Speaker 3: play the youth.
Speaker 4: Club with us and pass the test. Passed the test, yeah,
Speaker 4: because I knew. I knew songs.
Speaker 3: You know, it was for the tap dancing you feel
Speaker 3: you were, you know, I knew introduction versus chorus bridge,
Speaker 3: you know, and and and and and how the dynamic
Speaker 3: the dynamic of a song, so I could kind of
Speaker 3: follow that. I didn't even have to know the song
Speaker 3: follow it.
Speaker 1: There's one time I went to not an all white school,
Speaker 1: but there's one time I went to. I was playing
Speaker 1: a pick up a game of basketball, so naturally, you know,
Speaker 1: the white kids thought like, well, we'll take a mirror
Speaker 1: because he's black.
Speaker 2: And yeah, I was in a sports game. I found out.
Speaker 3: They made be captain of the football team. Dude, really,
Speaker 3: I said, yeah, that's useless.
Speaker 4: I was useless.
Speaker 1: That means you're a room musician. I always say that
Speaker 1: room musicians don't know sports.
Speaker 2: I'm sorry, man.
Speaker 1: Well, one, you're saying you were twelve, which basically means
Speaker 1: that this is sixty two.
Speaker 2: Yeah.
Speaker 1: You know, for the United States, the what we call
Speaker 1: the British invasion will happen in a year, a year
Speaker 1: and a half. What is the Well, you lived in
Speaker 1: the British invasion, so I guess it wasn't a big
Speaker 1: deal to you. So what is the effect of white
Speaker 1: based blues these teams that are listening to these blues
Speaker 1: records and starting rock bands, Like, how how influential was
Speaker 1: it was?
Speaker 3: It was extremely you know, because this is what happened.
Speaker 3: You know, these older kids, they knew somehow, I don't
Speaker 3: know how, but they knew about Muddy Waters, Sonny Terry
Speaker 3: and Brownie McGee lad and Hopkins. Oh, they knew all
Speaker 3: about that stuff, and that those guys.
Speaker 4: Had a tour and they would come and play the
Speaker 4: Dome in Brighton.
Speaker 2: Yeah.
Speaker 4: And so Bill Doggett, he was my least favorite.
Speaker 2: You ain't Bill Doggett. He is my least favorite.
Speaker 3: But now and listening to him, I got to wonder why, right,
Speaker 3: But when at that time I loved John Lee Hooker.
Speaker 3: John Lee Hooker was just and Sonny Terry and Brownie McGhee.
Speaker 4: I loved it.
Speaker 3: And they and so these guys they come around every
Speaker 3: year and the band that I was, this band that
Speaker 3: I was playing.
Speaker 4: With, they take me, these eighteen year old kids would
Speaker 4: take me right to see it.
Speaker 3: I mean, I would have paid more attention had I
Speaker 3: had I known what I was watching, right, you know,
Speaker 3: But I got to see those guys. It was incredible,
Speaker 3: and that was that was the start of it for me.
Speaker 1: I'm currently trying to shop there's someone that's written a
Speaker 1: series based on a lot of those Chicago blues legends
Speaker 1: coming over to Germany, coming over to the UK, finding
Speaker 1: a new audience over there.
Speaker 2: We're trying to shop that series.
Speaker 3: Right, they knew who they were, right, I mean, we
Speaker 3: didn't have computers and stuff to look at these pod
Speaker 3: Who the hell is that?
Speaker 4: Yeah?
Speaker 2: What's good?
Speaker 1: Because you know they couldn't get arrested in the United States?
Speaker 3: You know, well, yeah, if they could get arrested in
Speaker 3: the United States. So I remember seeing that that that
Speaker 3: movie about Standing in the Shadows of Motor Down, when
Speaker 3: they were absolutely shocked when they arrived in England that
Speaker 3: people would say, come up and say, who's James Jamison?
Speaker 4: Which one I used? James Jamison? They were like, how
Speaker 4: do you know about James Jamison? Which one of us? Benny?
Speaker 4: Which one he used? Benny Benjamin. We knew that all
Speaker 4: those people were were you.
Speaker 1: Were you developing any heroes? Like who would you say,
Speaker 1: is the first drumming hero that you had? Okay, up, yeah,
Speaker 1: I was gonna say, I know, I knew you guys
Speaker 1: covered what his Soul on the seventy seven Benny and
Speaker 1: Us record?
Speaker 2: Was that your idea to cover that song?
Speaker 3: Yes, because that was the first time that I ever
Speaker 3: heard jrumps pay with syncopation like that I was were
Speaker 3: I was working, I said, when I was about fourteen
Speaker 3: years old, I started to go like in summer. I
Speaker 3: left school at fifteen, but we started to go over
Speaker 3: and work American bases in France. And I remember it,
Speaker 3: it was yesterday. I was in the in the There
Speaker 3: was a place called the Casern and it was in
Speaker 3: ta in the middle of France. And we were there
Speaker 3: playing at the Enlisted Man's Club, and and we could
Speaker 3: eat on the base. So we go to the we'd
Speaker 3: stay off the base, but we could go to the
Speaker 3: base and eat on the base and go to the
Speaker 3: can and there was a we we sort of went
Speaker 3: and sat down near the juke box so we could
Speaker 3: hear the music that was on there. Couldn't afford to
Speaker 3: buy anything, but right, and this, uh, this black gi
Speaker 3: in these fatigues, the green fatigues that they used to wear.
Speaker 3: He sort of sauntered over there, sort of skinny that
Speaker 3: I remember seeing him do it, and he popped in
Speaker 3: whatever it was called a dime, whatever they put in there,
Speaker 3: and he hit some numbers and walked away, and I
Speaker 3: heard shout.
Speaker 1: It out, Dug, dug, and what what what was that?
Speaker 4: I heard, I heard, I heard Charlie Watts. I never
Speaker 4: heard drums played like that. Where did that come from?
Speaker 3: Wow?
Speaker 4: So I went over and I had to look what
Speaker 4: records that? Oh? Then eat King? What is so?
Speaker 1: So how do you know who's playing drums? Because I
Speaker 1: don't know if album credits are even a thing like
Speaker 1: when I was You know, Purdy did a session for
Speaker 1: my dad in like seventy four, so that's how I
Speaker 1: got to meet him.
Speaker 2: But how do you know who is what?
Speaker 4: And well, I don't know.
Speaker 3: I found out that it was Putty, but maybe it
Speaker 3: got the album or something or us around and somebody
Speaker 3: somebody else knew I.
Speaker 4: Got to know. We couldn't look it up on the computer.
Speaker 3: I don't remember having an album with that with any
Speaker 3: information on it.
Speaker 4: But somebody told me, oh, that's been Puddy.
Speaker 1: Okay, well you mentioned sort of dropping out at fifteen.
Speaker 1: When you do that in your mind, is it like okay,
Speaker 1: do or die? I have to be a musician? And
Speaker 1: how does your family feel about this decision?
Speaker 4: It was it was revenge. You know, it's class system
Speaker 4: in England.
Speaker 3: I wasn't supposed to be anything more than maybe a
Speaker 3: bus driver or plumber.
Speaker 4: I wasn't. I wasn't gonna.
Speaker 3: I wasn't going to stay an extra year at school
Speaker 3: and become a banker or like a working a bank
Speaker 3: clerk or civil servant or something like that.
Speaker 4: I was.
Speaker 3: It kind of started. I mean I sort of stayed in.
Speaker 3: We had forms A, B, C, D forms. I was
Speaker 3: in the A form. I was kind of in. I
Speaker 3: could hover in the middle of the A form. I
Speaker 3: wasn't done, okay. I decided that I wanted to play drums,
Speaker 3: and especially you know since now at Ringo Star have
Speaker 3: become a huge star, right Charlie Watts. These were like
Speaker 3: normal guys. They weren't upper upper upper class, upper cross
Speaker 3: or anything here like they were like us Keith Moon
Speaker 3: I used to play my band used to open for
Speaker 3: the Hoop and they played him with Bright in a
Speaker 3: little little club. Yeah.
Speaker 2: Was he destroying his kit back then or well.
Speaker 3: Not in the beginning, but then he started to once
Speaker 3: they started, once they started to give him equipment and
Speaker 3: the whole story behind that.
Speaker 4: But I used to go I take pieces of it
Speaker 4: for spares for Mike.
Speaker 3: I had an Olympic drum kit, a little Olympic which
Speaker 3: is at wasn't it wasn't a gigster. Gigster was was
Speaker 3: the was the was It was the really cheap, horrible thing, right,
Speaker 3: and then he had Olympic, which was intermediate, and then premiere. Right,
Speaker 3: but I had this Olympic thing, and but and the
Speaker 3: premiere stuff would like different lugs and stuff would fit
Speaker 3: on there.
Speaker 4: You So if I had stuff that broke, I could
Speaker 4: take that.
Speaker 3: And Keith Moon would take a sledgehammer to his drum
Speaker 3: kit and just smash it into matchwood, and I'd say,
Speaker 3: to the road, can I have yeah, sure to take it.
Speaker 2: Really.
Speaker 1: Pete Townsend destroyed the guitar on the Tonight Show and
Speaker 1: the let me have it, so okay, well it was
Speaker 1: like it was like a ukulelele.
Speaker 2: But still you know, it's like a guitar.
Speaker 3: But like I'm saying though that this was pears that
Speaker 3: were that were that we're doing it. So when they
Speaker 3: started to ask me when I was like fourteen year olds,
Speaker 3: you know, what what do you want to do when
Speaker 3: you leave school? And I said, oh, I want to
Speaker 3: be a drummer. I want to I want to play drums.
Speaker 3: And they said you can't do that. I said why not?
Speaker 3: And they said, well because it's not a real job.
Speaker 3: So I said, well, ringo star, does it? Charlie wats
Speaker 3: does it? Yeah, but you know you're a ringo star.
Speaker 3: And then they started to call me ringo and I
Speaker 3: used to I used to. I used to play football.
Speaker 3: I was not They may be captain, but I wasn't
Speaker 3: any good at the captain. I used to box at school.
Speaker 3: I was pretty good boxing.
Speaker 1: Okay, wait you were there was boxing curriculum and hid yeah.
Speaker 4: Oh yeah yeah, until one kid got killed and then
Speaker 4: they stopped it. There was a couple of years.
Speaker 3: But but but they they we boxing at school and
Speaker 3: I was always all right, had that And I used
Speaker 3: to do that for the school. And I used to
Speaker 3: run track at school. But when they started to mock
Speaker 3: me about what I wanted to do about music, then
Speaker 3: I went on strike and I said, right, that's it.
Speaker 3: I'm going to play music. I'm not going to do
Speaker 3: this anymore. And I rebelled, complete rebellion. I'd go into
Speaker 3: go into exams and I'd sit there and they'd say
Speaker 3: you got five minutes to just read the stuff through.
Speaker 3: I'd sit there and then they ring the bell say okay,
Speaker 3: start start working. I put up my hand and say
Speaker 3: can't do it. Wow, I said, can't do it. It's
Speaker 3: too difficult, can't do it.
Speaker 4: We'll try.
Speaker 3: I don't honor, and they wouldn't want to argue with me,
Speaker 3: so I just say, okay, get out, and I'd leave.
Speaker 4: I go play drums.
Speaker 2: What was what was considered making a good living as
Speaker 2: a musician, at least at that point in your life.
Speaker 3: Within nine pounds a week with a bit of a fortune.
Speaker 3: You know when I when I left and Let's school
Speaker 3: and got a job, I was earning like four pounds
Speaker 3: a week. You know, four pounds went a lot further than.
Speaker 4: It does now.
Speaker 2: But but oh because of place, yes.
Speaker 4: But it was still very little, very little money.
Speaker 3: Give it about one pound fifty to my mom for
Speaker 3: rent and.
Speaker 4: Really, yeah, okay, That's how I was brought.
Speaker 1: Up eventually, I know, in your mind, is it is
Speaker 1: the goal to make it in America? Is the goal
Speaker 1: to get on the radio? Is the goal to play
Speaker 1: a large theater? Like what's the first step? And you
Speaker 1: making it?
Speaker 3: Never really had any particular ambition at all and any
Speaker 3: anything except to play, to play music.
Speaker 4: And make a living at it.
Speaker 3: I mean, I mean, I mean I did the starving
Speaker 3: musician bit in London, you know, and with a couple
Speaker 3: of guys we lived in a one bedroom one bedroom
Speaker 3: apart wasn't even an apartment room, right, and we're starving
Speaker 3: musicians and there's some people would would live. Was a
Speaker 3: charity of people go and hang out and get picked
Speaker 3: up for the old gig here and there. Okay, the
Speaker 3: object I think the object really was just just to
Speaker 3: get to a place where you could afford to pay
Speaker 3: your rent and get a place to live and not
Speaker 3: even what I didn't have any any ambition as far
Speaker 3: as like private jets.
Speaker 1: Or right here we have now yeah that's yeah what
Speaker 1: what I what is rent a month in Okay, let's
Speaker 1: say like you're now eighteen in nineteen sixty eight, what is.
Speaker 2: Rent a month in the UK?
Speaker 4: Oh? Maybe two three pounds a week maybe something?
Speaker 2: Yeah, so you make that on a gig?
Speaker 4: Yeah?
Speaker 2: Yeah.
Speaker 1: So when the sort of psychedelic movement eases in, or
Speaker 1: at least like by post nineteen sixty six, like when
Speaker 1: the Beatles start experimenting, when Hendricks is starting to come
Speaker 1: over to make a mark, is this affecting you at
Speaker 1: all and your musicianship?
Speaker 4: Absolutely? I mean yeah, I mean it was wonderful. It
Speaker 4: was one of the sixties. Was a wonderful time, you know,
Speaker 4: as far as like music fashion.
Speaker 2: You know. So, were you a hippie?
Speaker 4: No, I was, I was.
Speaker 6: I was, well, I you know, I started off when when,
Speaker 6: like I said, the boring US MUDs and rockers, right,
Speaker 6: I thought, well, you know this still started like an
Speaker 6: Easter Sunday down at the beach, and I thought, well
Speaker 6: it was gonna win.
Speaker 4: Yeah, the rockers they count, you know.
Speaker 3: So I sort of put on some rocker garb as
Speaker 3: close as I could get to rocker GB and I
Speaker 3: went down to the beach and there were thousands and
Speaker 3: thousands of MUDs. So I went back home and I
Speaker 3: put on some Levi's and a white T shirt chase it,
Speaker 3: and then went down there and became a modern rioted
Speaker 3: with everybody through throwing stones and running up and down
Speaker 3: the beach and beating up people when we could find
Speaker 3: him with them.
Speaker 2: Oh God.
Speaker 1: So you know, from what I know it is was
Speaker 1: the American group Bloodstone your first experience in the United
Speaker 1: States or was that was there a group.
Speaker 4: Or in the United States?
Speaker 3: I mean, I'd done the Freddy King album, I've worked
Speaker 3: on the Freddy King.
Speaker 2: Album okay, and there was that like playing with him.
Speaker 3: It's incredible he was And the producer was a guy
Speaker 3: named Mike Vernon, a hush guy named Mike Vernon, and
Speaker 3: Mike had come down to see this I'd started. I
Speaker 3: come back to England from from being living in Europe
Speaker 3: and went to music school.
Speaker 2: What school U is?
Speaker 4: The Nice Conservatory of Music?
Speaker 2: You went to Nice?
Speaker 4: Yeah? Yeah, There's a.
Speaker 3: Guy named Jack car who was the percussion the percussion teacher.
Speaker 3: And I was too old actually to get into the
Speaker 3: school as a student. So he got me in as
Speaker 3: a teacher because I could play, so.
Speaker 4: He had me teach the kids.
Speaker 3: And because I was teaching the kids how to play
Speaker 3: modern drums, because all they talk was classical music.
Speaker 4: That was about it.
Speaker 2: So you could read music.
Speaker 3: By the time I left, I could, yeah, minimally. Not
Speaker 3: not like the guys. I mean, there was guys that
Speaker 3: have been since they were tiny. I had learned to
Speaker 3: play their instrument to reading music, you know, and that.
Speaker 3: But these guys they couldn't play modern drums. I could,
Speaker 3: so I have to teach them. So when I'm teaching them,
Speaker 3: I'm writing them out exercises and They're like, oh no, no, no,
Speaker 3: mister Feroni, this is this is how you write that out.
Speaker 3: And so I was learning. I was as I was teaching.
Speaker 3: I did three years of that and it was wonderful,
Speaker 3: It was really wonderful. But when I came when I
Speaker 3: came back, I started to play with this band, Gonzales.
Speaker 3: They were a bunch of studio musicians that would that
Speaker 3: would play in the clubs at night. And the way
Speaker 3: you got into that band was you wait for whoever
Speaker 3: was playing your instrument to go out of town or
Speaker 3: have a gig that he couldn't a session that he
Speaker 3: couldn't make the gig, and then you would come in
Speaker 3: there and then you would play.
Speaker 4: You would play that gig until you couldn't make it anymore.
Speaker 4: Then you leave.
Speaker 3: And then guys like Richard Bailey, so I'd switch up
Speaker 3: with like Richard Bailey and that was that was how
Speaker 3: that band. And we opened for Average White Band once.
Speaker 1: Really yeah, okay, yeah, I was going to say, at
Speaker 1: this point, were you running into Allen or Hamish or
Speaker 1: the Glasgow guys.
Speaker 3: I was really good friends with Robbie McIntosh when I
Speaker 3: was when I went to Italy, when I was like
Speaker 3: seventeen years old. I went to Italy and I met
Speaker 3: Robbie down there and Alex did it, would you know?
Speaker 4: You know Alex is.
Speaker 3: He sang with Santana. He sang that song I'm Winning
Speaker 3: with Santana, really okay? And Alex and Robbie used to
Speaker 3: play a band called the Senate and they were there
Speaker 3: in Italy and I was there. I was there working
Speaker 3: with an American guy named Ronnie Jones. He's still alive,
Speaker 3: God bless him these eighty three years old, eighty three
Speaker 3: years old now, and he lives he lives in Milan.
Speaker 1: Did McIntosh have what you would say a pocket then
Speaker 1: or was he just.
Speaker 2: Well, really he came.
Speaker 4: Up with listening to the same stuff as I did.
Speaker 3: You know, It's funny, you know, we all came up
Speaker 3: listening to the same music, even Tom Penny and went.
Speaker 3: After spending some time with the Heartbreak, as we start
Speaker 3: talking to oh you know this song or that song,
Speaker 3: and I came to find out that Tom and Mike
Speaker 3: were listening to the same stuff as I was listening
Speaker 3: to as the English Invasion.
Speaker 4: We were all listening to the same.
Speaker 2: Music, the same thing, okay, Yeah, And.
Speaker 4: So there was a connection made through the through the music,
Speaker 4: you know.
Speaker 3: And there was a connection made with with with the
Speaker 3: guys from Average white Man because they grew up in
Speaker 3: scott and I was down at the way up there
Speaker 3: in Scotland with Dundee and Run. I'm down here in
Speaker 3: the south of England and we're all listening to motown
Speaker 3: and listening to stacks.
Speaker 4: Yeah. And so when we sat down and started.
Speaker 3: To play that music, we had a way of playing
Speaker 3: it that was it would give a note to it,
Speaker 3: but we didn't copy.
Speaker 4: We didn't.
Speaker 2: It wasn't a it wasn't derivative of it.
Speaker 4: No, No, you could tell what it.
Speaker 1: Was, you know, because you were sort of the drummer
Speaker 1: whose DNA I studied the most. Always wanted to know
Speaker 1: this the the sort of trick or at least your
Speaker 1: signature feel, which I kind of believe maybe Pretty did
Speaker 1: it first, the infamous.
Speaker 4: Oh yeah, yeah, that's pretty is okay.
Speaker 1: I was gonna say, you you heard Pretty do that?
Speaker 1: And then Matt just instantly became part of your DNA.
Speaker 3: Absolutely yeah, and then and then and then the other
Speaker 3: high hat stuff that I got that from Stevie Wonder.
Speaker 2: It's so funny, Okay, I'm glad I'm talking to you.
Speaker 1: Well, An, I might be, I was gonna say, quote unquote,
Speaker 1: I might be quote unquote working on a Stevie Wonder
Speaker 1: project as well.
Speaker 2: And you know Stevie.
Speaker 1: To me, I don't know any besides James Gatson and
Speaker 1: maybe Bonzo. I don't know another drummer who I define
Speaker 1: more with his symbol work, you know, like all music
Speaker 1: of my mind, just the sloppiness of like love having
Speaker 1: you around and just.
Speaker 3: I miss that when he started programming drums so much.
Speaker 1: I know, like I love when he stopped him just
Speaker 1: all over. I think it's also the fact that he
Speaker 1: would sort of Motown style overdubbed those Tom Thomson overdubbed
Speaker 1: those high hat feels that it sounds super intense because
Speaker 1: you know, it just sounds like he's playing it within
Speaker 1: an ench of his life.
Speaker 4: Oh, it's wonderful. This is that's wonderful.
Speaker 1: Suff What was the first American city that you arrived
Speaker 1: in in New York and what was your first impression
Speaker 1: of America?
Speaker 4: Wow, I remember I remember landing.
Speaker 3: I remember landing at the airport and I had my drums,
Speaker 3: my drum kit on.
Speaker 4: On a on a car right and I don't think.
Speaker 4: I don't think I had to work for it. What
Speaker 4: And and I came through and this.
Speaker 3: This guy, this customs guy, looked in and he says,
Speaker 3: what are you doing? I said, oh, we just hear
Speaker 3: like a vacation. And he said, oh okay. He says,
Speaker 3: your first time here visiting. I don't know is because
Speaker 3: I had an English act because back then he was
Speaker 3: kind of unique for a black guy to speak with
Speaker 3: an English accent, you know. And he said he and
Speaker 3: he said, and he said to me, he said does
Speaker 3: He said, have you got any drugs? And I said, no,
Speaker 3: I'm good, I'm got any drugs. It's not He said,
Speaker 3: there's plenty through that door. Welcome to New York.
Speaker 2: And that was that.
Speaker 4: And that was that.
Speaker 3: Sixth Avenue we wrote, were writing up six Sevenue and
Speaker 3: I remember, wow, just.
Speaker 2: Looking out and amazing. Yeah. Yeah, when was when is
Speaker 2: the era of back line?
Speaker 3: Like?
Speaker 1: Were you expected to provide your own gear, your own drums?
Speaker 2: Are you setting up your own gear?
Speaker 1: Was there a roadie back in the day or were
Speaker 1: you setting up your own stuff?
Speaker 3: Well, there were a couple of roadies, but they would
Speaker 3: they would help, but you know, we will have to
Speaker 3: really sort of take care of her own stuff.
Speaker 1: Okay, I've heard many accounts of how Robbie passed away
Speaker 1: and how you got into the group, but I've never
Speaker 1: heard an official version from official band member. How did
Speaker 1: Robbie pass away? And how did you get the gig?
Speaker 1: For the average white man?
Speaker 4: Well, you know where were you know, we're friends. I
Speaker 4: was supposed to go to that party.
Speaker 3: I was supposed to medium with that party, but I was,
Speaker 3: I was, I was. I was doing the film, doing
Speaker 3: the film with no I played, well, I might be
Speaker 3: in them, but I did the move music for it.
Speaker 2: So did it ever come out?
Speaker 4: Yes, yes, I I think I have it. I think
Speaker 4: I could have found it.
Speaker 2: Oh my god. Okay, yeah, they're train. Yes. When they
Speaker 2: when they.
Speaker 1: Were promoting that album on Soul Train, uh, Don Cornelis
Speaker 1: showed like a minute of the clip where they're riding
Speaker 1: in the train and they're in the bunkers and yeah,
Speaker 1: doing show tunes and whatnot.
Speaker 3: And so it's funny. I mean I had to go
Speaker 3: there and be on set with them and then and
Speaker 3: then we go we do it called music and yeah.
Speaker 1: So you're all over that record. Yeah, Wow, that's not you.
Speaker 1: On Natural high money.
Speaker 4: Money is but no, it's not a master, but but
Speaker 4: money is money. Badass. Something actually said it to me.
Speaker 4: That's why I started looking for it. I forgot all
Speaker 4: about it.
Speaker 2: Wow, we did that. All the best things in life
Speaker 2: for you, right, get So.
Speaker 3: So I was doing I was doing that, and and
Speaker 3: they were playing that. They were doing a run at
Speaker 3: the Troubador. And Robbie caughed me out and he said,
Speaker 3: come on, man, come and go and be a party
Speaker 3: on It was Sunday night or something.
Speaker 4: So I got to work. If I can, I'll be
Speaker 4: there and and and as fate would have it, I didn't.
Speaker 3: I didn't go. Okay, and and and the next morning
Speaker 3: I woke up and my my my drum tech. Then
Speaker 3: the guy that was working for me, guy named Terry Merchant.
Speaker 2: Mm hmm.
Speaker 4: He said, Steve Robbie is dead. Yeah, And I said
Speaker 4: what dead? Drunk?
Speaker 3: Because Robbie, Robbie and I used to go out drinking together.
Speaker 3: Robbie was the hell of a drinker. And he said, no, no, no,
Speaker 3: he's dead.
Speaker 4: You know, he died. He died an overdose. Robbie. It
Speaker 4: wasn't so much of a drug taker.
Speaker 3: I could say. There wasn't so much of a drug.
Speaker 3: He's more of a drinker, right. But Robbie, this is
Speaker 3: this was the thing was Robbie. Robbie could drink. I'd
Speaker 3: seen Robbie drink Butler vodka and then he just switched
Speaker 3: to Scotch, right, and I get sick. But I never
Speaker 3: saw Robbie throw up. Never saw him he would pass out, right,
Speaker 3: you know. And and from from my understanding, because I
Speaker 3: wasn't there for a lot of what when when the
Speaker 3: whole was just there for the aftermath was that he
Speaker 3: was at this party and everybody did did this. Something
Speaker 3: was saying his some he's some cocaine, right, And so
Speaker 3: Robbie wouldn't do anything small.
Speaker 4: He was not that sort of a person either.
Speaker 2: He went bigger.
Speaker 3: Yeah, when he went and he went, he went bigger,
Speaker 3: and and everybody everybody else that did it got sick.
Speaker 3: And Robbie went home, went to sleep and stayed in
Speaker 3: his system. It was it was heroine and it was
Speaker 3: cut with strychnine, and it killed him.
Speaker 4: Jesus Christy, is that simple? You know?
Speaker 3: You know, I mean we talk a lot about you know,
Speaker 3: accidental drug overdoses. You know, sometimes the house I'm saying
Speaker 3: at the moment, there was three guys that died of
Speaker 3: fentanyl overdoses, and one of those one of those guys
Speaker 3: was his was his nephew, right, and uh and accidental.
Speaker 3: I don't think anybody goes does any of that stuff
Speaker 3: to die, you know. I mean, if they want to
Speaker 3: do that, they say, I'm I'll write a suicide note,
Speaker 3: right exactly, you did this to me, and then they're
Speaker 3: just do an enormous art and they're dying. And I
Speaker 3: think the recreation, I don't think that this guy even
Speaker 3: had a problem. And I think there was just three
Speaker 3: buddies that decided to go and mess around, get let's
Speaker 3: let's try that stuff and see what it does.
Speaker 2: And unfortunately, yeah, he's a killer.
Speaker 4: It wasn't like that in the sixties. I can tell
Speaker 4: you that right now.
Speaker 3: But I don't think anything any of the drugs nowadays
Speaker 3: like they were in the sixties and seventies, and it
Speaker 3: was it's a it's a different animal. So you know, Robbie,
Speaker 3: it was a tragic, a tragic accident.
Speaker 4: It did. It was a lot of pain, probably still
Speaker 4: being felt felt today.
Speaker 3: You know. I hadn't spoken to his widow in over
Speaker 3: twenty years. And she called me last week from from
Speaker 3: real England. Yeah, he did, and and and and she
Speaker 3: she was telling me that she she just just now
Speaker 3: has come to terms with the fact to be able
Speaker 3: to just say, you know, this is what it was.
Speaker 3: And not much point running around feeling resentment. In years
Speaker 3: of running around feeling resentment, you just make yourself that broke.
Speaker 2: Her heart for all those years, forty five years. It
Speaker 2: just wow.
Speaker 4: She remarried, but yeah, still painful.
Speaker 3: Yeah, you know, Robbie was a great guy, a great
Speaker 3: drummer and a great guy.
Speaker 1: How how long does time go by before you're getting
Speaker 1: the phone call to join the average white band and
Speaker 1: before they call you, are they trying to at least
Speaker 1: maintain the status of the name of the group and
Speaker 1: find a white guy that's funky?
Speaker 3: No, Well, I tell you what happened was was this
Speaker 3: was that was that when when I found out about
Speaker 3: Robbie being being dead, I went and I called, I
Speaker 3: got hold of Hamish, and I went over to the
Speaker 3: hotel and sat over the hotel with everybody and we
Speaker 3: were all drinking, because that's what we did with the Scots,
Speaker 3: and and and I said to them, listen, you know,
Speaker 3: Robbie wouldn't want you guys to stop.
Speaker 4: Now.
Speaker 3: You know you just gotten to get this airplay with
Speaker 3: pick up the pieces that's happening for you. I don't
Speaker 3: know how this is all gonna en, but you guys,
Speaker 3: you know you shouldn't shouldn't stop.
Speaker 2: There was talk of maybe we should stop the group.
Speaker 3: Well it was it was everybody was sitting around sort
Speaker 3: of like it was all over. You know, it's like
Speaker 3: it's not over, it's you know. And so I said,
Speaker 3: if there's anything I can do, let me know, and
Speaker 3: and and and I was under contract to Bloodstone, right,
Speaker 3: So what what I would do is Stick super and myself.
Speaker 3: What would happen if I couldn't do it, if I
Speaker 3: was working with a Bludstone, Sticks would go and play
Speaker 3: with them?
Speaker 4: Yeah, And then.
Speaker 2: Sticks briefly joined the Average White band.
Speaker 3: They played No average White Man, So he go and
Speaker 3: play the gig and then and then if he could,
Speaker 3: if he couldn't do it, I do it. And and
Speaker 3: and you know, I go and play with them.
Speaker 4: They were auditioning people. S I R. There's drummers all
Speaker 4: black white And it didn't really matter.
Speaker 3: They were just looking for a drummer, Yeah, okay with
Speaker 3: sticks and sticks and I would go we'd go to
Speaker 3: the auditions and we'd sit there in the SI and
Speaker 3: the drummer would come in. They start playing with them,
Speaker 3: and they say, okay, no, that ain't working, and they
Speaker 3: would get more and more depressed, you know, and so
Speaker 3: either sticks on myself would go up and we jam
Speaker 3: with them and they come back to life again, and
Speaker 3: then they wheel in another drummer, and.
Speaker 4: Then we'd sit there and we'd watch them and they
Speaker 4: would go there.
Speaker 1: Any any drummer of note that tried to audition for
Speaker 1: the band that didn't.
Speaker 3: Make nobody, nobody that I knew, but there was a
Speaker 3: lot of kids wanted to play. They would, you know.
Speaker 3: It was it was a big audition to go to.
Speaker 3: And so and so I had to play this gig
Speaker 3: with them down at Long Beach at Long Beach Arena,
Speaker 3: at the old Long Beach Arena, and.
Speaker 4: Were down there. We sit there and come out, we
Speaker 4: start to play. I remember this gig there was.
Speaker 3: They were also like kind of state static audience. They
Speaker 3: weren't really doing too much. And then there was this
Speaker 3: one I saw this one guy sort of started to rock,
Speaker 3: you know, so I sort of hold him owned in
Speaker 3: on him, and it kind of spread out from him
Speaker 3: and by the end of the show, everybody was like
Speaker 3: dancing and going crazy and it was It was a
Speaker 3: great show. And I came off the stage and this
Speaker 3: little fella came walking up to me, dapper. You know,
Speaker 3: it's really well dressed, and I said, you know, a
Speaker 3: little bid. He walked up to me and he said,
Speaker 3: you got to be in the band. And I said,
Speaker 3: I'd love to be in the band, but I'm under
Speaker 3: contract to another band.
Speaker 4: I can't. I can't do it, you know.
Speaker 3: And he said, you're out of that band, and you're
Speaker 3: in the band, and then he walked and he walked
Speaker 3: off and Bruce mccaskell was the manager at the time
Speaker 3: of the banner.
Speaker 4: I said, Bruce, who the hell is that? And he said, oh,
Speaker 4: that's how I did.
Speaker 3: And I was out of that contract and I was
Speaker 3: in average white Man just like that.
Speaker 1: All Right, ladies and gentlemen, I know you dread when
Speaker 1: you hear this, but you got to come back next
Speaker 1: week for the next QLs episode of our special one
Speaker 1: on one Question of Preme with my idol Steve Faron.
Speaker 1: He's going to talk about his time with the average
Speaker 1: white bend Duran Duran, Tom Petty, playing with Prince all
Speaker 1: this other stuff. Man, I hope you come back and
Speaker 1: enjoy this episode. And this is one of the probably
Speaker 1: the most special episodes I've ever done, where I get
Speaker 1: to talk to the person that showed me the joys
Speaker 1: of music and drumming, especially all right, see y'all then
Speaker 1: thank you. Quest Love Supreme is a production of iHeartRadio.