Speaker 1: Welcome, Welcome, Welcome to the Bob Left Sets podcast, recorded
Speaker 1: live here at the tune In Studios in Venice, California.
Speaker 1: My guest this week is really your treat. I mean,
Speaker 1: hard time acting normal in the presence of vocalist extraordinary
Speaker 1: Paul Rogers. Paul, good to have you here. It's good
Speaker 1: to be here. Bub. For those people who don't know,
Speaker 1: I distinctly remember hearing All Right Now on the Merritt
Speaker 1: Parkway with that riff. It just blasted out of the stereo.
Speaker 1: And then, of course I was a huge Bad Company fan.
Speaker 1: But the first album when it came out in the
Speaker 1: summer seventy four, just after I graduated from college, I
Speaker 1: saw you at the Arms show with Jimmy Page. I
Speaker 1: have a big history. So this is great, thank you, Okay,
Speaker 1: so great to be here. So now this summer you're
Speaker 1: on tour with Jeff Beck and Ann Wilson. That's right.
Speaker 1: How did that come together? Well, it's actually came together. Um.
Speaker 1: I did a tour in the UK reliving Free that
Speaker 1: the band had played All Right Now originally, and I
Speaker 1: called it Free Spirit because I was playing with this band. Um,
Speaker 1: I should back up a little bit. We did um
Speaker 1: some charity shows myself and Pete Bull Expand and they
Speaker 1: played the free materials so very well that I said
Speaker 1: to them, like, what, one day we should take this
Speaker 1: on tour. It was it's such a great feeling, and
Speaker 1: so we did. Every year we did for about three years.
Speaker 1: We did a charity show there for Willows, which is
Speaker 1: um an animal sanctuary, and all the proceeds went up
Speaker 1: to Willows and Cynthia, my dear wife, Cynthia will tell
Speaker 1: you all about Willows if if she's sitting in the
Speaker 1: control room right now, you know. And um, so we
Speaker 1: did that and then the club closed down. The club
Speaker 1: we're playing closed down, so everybody was a bit side,
Speaker 1: and I said, well, we'll tour it, wonder, We'll take
Speaker 1: this whole thing out. We'll do it entirely free material
Speaker 1: And we did that last year in the UK and
Speaker 1: it was so warmly received that, um, I said to
Speaker 1: to Pete, you know and the guys, let's take it
Speaker 1: to America. Let's let's going to America with it. We
Speaker 1: were initially just going to do a small clubs, small
Speaker 1: theaters actually, and uh, it's kind of the way we
Speaker 1: did in the UK. It's but it's kind of grown
Speaker 1: a little bit since Jeff Beck and Ann Wilson were
Speaker 1: you know, came on board. And I've worked with Jeff before,
Speaker 1: I've worked with and before, and uh, it's going to
Speaker 1: be great. Okay. Howard Lee's originally from Hard He's in
Speaker 1: your band, correct, He's in my solo band and he
Speaker 1: also depths for Mick Rals when we do when we
Speaker 1: go out as Bad Company. Is that how you know
Speaker 1: Ann Wilson or is that just serendipitous? Well, I know
Speaker 1: we sort of cross paths over the years. I met
Speaker 1: her when I first I can't remember when I first
Speaker 1: met her, but I know that she really touched my heart.
Speaker 1: One day I was doing a recording in Seattle and
Speaker 1: she was next door. I was recording the Beatles. I
Speaker 1: once said a girl, Oh, should I say one of
Speaker 1: the amazing things? You know? I went to see you
Speaker 1: at the Yell County Fear almost two summers ago, and
Speaker 1: the legend about you is, unlike everybody else, you still
Speaker 1: have your voice, you can still sin is there? You're
Speaker 1: also known as being an incredible health Is there a
Speaker 1: reason for that? Is there something or is this just genetics? Well?
Speaker 1: I think part of it I mean a huge part
Speaker 1: of it is my wife, Cynthia. She's she had a
Speaker 1: fitness show and she's very, very fit person. And when
Speaker 1: I met her, I had to get my act together
Speaker 1: a little bit, you know, But I do, I mean,
Speaker 1: I I do value. I mean a lot of people
Speaker 1: do and value as being as fit as you can.
Speaker 1: I think it's it's uh, it's a big plus for
Speaker 1: whatever you do. And in my case for singing, it
Speaker 1: really does help, you know, because it's it's grueling on
Speaker 1: the road. And so anyway to finish that story, no,
Speaker 1: we're getting back. I'm big. We're in the studio in
Speaker 1: Seattle and Ann Wilson his next door. I did not
Speaker 1: forget that she did. I mean, she popped her head
Speaker 1: and she said, oh, that sounds nice. And I said, oh,
Speaker 1: come in, and she said, do you want me to
Speaker 1: put a harmony on that? And I said yes, and
Speaker 1: she she went walked straight into the mic and did
Speaker 1: a beautiful harmony on it. And she came back she said,
Speaker 1: was that okay? I said it was absolutely fantastic, and
Speaker 1: and she said okay, and she waved, she walked out.
Speaker 1: She was gone, just like that, and it was so
Speaker 1: nice of her just to give her something. How long
Speaker 1: ago was this, Oh man, this was probably fifteen years ago,
Speaker 1: a long time back. And I just love her. I
Speaker 1: think she's great. I think she's a great artist, and
Speaker 1: she's a lovely person. Yeah, and you know Jeffrey, I
Speaker 1: mean we all, But how do you have a personal
Speaker 1: relationship with them? Well, Jeff Beck, I mean Jeff Beck
Speaker 1: first touched me actually when I heard the Truth album
Speaker 1: what it's called the Truth Album and the Star first
Speaker 1: solo album. Yes, and it's ships, yeah, shame yes, ship
Speaker 1: I know. And and there is a song and I
Speaker 1: don't like the title, but they called it rock my
Speaker 1: plim Soul. I think it's actually rock me baby. But
Speaker 1: it's the best version of that I ever heard. You
Speaker 1: can't rock Me. I mean, they really rip it up.
Speaker 1: And this was before Zeppelin, before Cream, before Hendricks Broke
Speaker 1: in England and any of those fantastic acts. Um, and
Speaker 1: they really set the bar I think for the next
Speaker 1: fifty years of rock and roll. They don't even know it.
Speaker 1: I mean they probably go, uh huh, we did, but
Speaker 1: I don't. But they really did. I mean they certainly
Speaker 1: did for me, because that's Rod Stewart singing and Jeff's guitar,
Speaker 1: and I think it was Mickey Waller on the drums,
Speaker 1: and I do believe it is the guitarist with Robby
Speaker 1: wood Play on bass and the bassis do Do Do
Speaker 1: Do Do Do? Do? You know they're like right in sync?
Speaker 1: Do Do Do? And Uh, it was just so great
Speaker 1: And I always wanted to sing. That's been such an
Speaker 1: inspiration for me for years. And we've done things together,
Speaker 1: Jeff and I. He was I did a tribute to
Speaker 1: Muddy Waters and give him a call and and he
Speaker 1: he played three tracks and he was absolutely fantastic. So yeah,
Speaker 1: we go way back. Okay, So best guitarist of all time,
Speaker 1: best rock guitarist, Well, you know my favorite that my
Speaker 1: soul mate really was Paul Kossof with Free. That's when
Speaker 1: I first met him. I was playing at a little
Speaker 1: blues club in Finsbury Park and he came up and said,
Speaker 1: I've got a guitar in the in the car. Can
Speaker 1: I get up on stage and jam? And I said,
Speaker 1: I absolutely bring it in, let's go. And uh. He
Speaker 1: was this long HAIRD had hair down to like past
Speaker 1: his you know, past his butt really and he had
Speaker 1: the most amazing levies on for the day. Levi's didn't
Speaker 1: make flares, but he bought two pairs and had a
Speaker 1: tailor put a little V and each side, each leg,
Speaker 1: and he looked it was and handmade boots. It was
Speaker 1: just so cool, and and he got up and we
Speaker 1: played bb King. We played every day I have the blues.
Speaker 1: I think we played Stormy Monday, and he just at
Speaker 1: times stood still for everybody in the place. And I
Speaker 1: said to him afterwards, we must form a band. We
Speaker 1: got to get something together. And that's how Free was born. Okay,
Speaker 1: let's let's go sideways, then go back to the beginning.
Speaker 1: So Paul dies on a flight back to the UK,
Speaker 1: I mean not Paul podcast of yes, and uh, you know,
Speaker 1: I hear varying things. I hear that he odd Al
Speaker 1: Cooper is a big friend of his, says, you didn't
Speaker 1: really odd g his heart gave out, which I would
Speaker 1: think of drugs. Can you gu any insight on that?
Speaker 1: You know? I understood him to have aldi. That's that's
Speaker 1: actually all I know. But I might be wrong. But
Speaker 1: for me, um, he was always a very together guy.
Speaker 1: He was never into heavy drugs. And one gets the
Speaker 1: impression from a distance that oh, you know, there goes
Speaker 1: another one. He was just typical of the you know,
Speaker 1: the genre, but not really. When we first got together,
Speaker 1: he did all the driving. He drove the band up
Speaker 1: and down the country, you know, eight hours here, I
Speaker 1: was there to the shore. On top of that, our
Speaker 1: three shows actually, and he was really really together. We
Speaker 1: we didn't dabble in drugs. We smoked a bit of weed,
Speaker 1: quite a bit of weed, I must admit, and um,
Speaker 1: that's as far as we went. We didn't do the
Speaker 1: chemical thing. I was very much against putting anything of
Speaker 1: of of that nature into my body, you know, but
Speaker 1: I didn't mind a little weed, as it were, because
Speaker 1: I thought that was kind of you know, banding your mind, right,
Speaker 1: That's what we all thought in those days. And that's
Speaker 1: that's I think that's how come the the drugs, the
Speaker 1: the chemical drugs got consumed because because it was like
Speaker 1: it was like, oh, if that expands your mind, then
Speaker 1: you know, heroin and cocaine must really expand your mind. Well,
Speaker 1: you know, it doesn't really. And he got into all
Speaker 1: that stuff after Free had split up, which was a
Speaker 1: very very sad thing. We did a couple of sessions
Speaker 1: together and he put the track he should listen to. Really,
Speaker 1: if you want to hear the heart and soul of podcast,
Speaker 1: offer a song we did called come Together in the Morning.
Speaker 1: Um and do did a little. I mean, he plays
Speaker 1: his heart and soul. It's just amazing. It is so good.
Speaker 1: I'm a huge fan. I was always a fan. I
Speaker 1: bought fire and Water. But about twenty years ago in
Speaker 1: Him put out a anthology two c ds of molten gold,
Speaker 1: old whatever. And you listen to the work, I'm them
Speaker 1: and I I'll be creeping. I always love but the
Speaker 1: sound on the steeler, just the way the guitar sounds unbelievable.
Speaker 1: But let's go back. So you're from where in the UK?
Speaker 1: I'm from Middlesbrough, which is a town in the northeast,
Speaker 1: an industrial, heavy industrial town, steel mills and shipbuilding. Uh.
Speaker 1: And I came down before you. What did your father do?
Speaker 1: What did your father do? Father worked in the steel mills.
Speaker 1: And you have siblings? I s I'm of one of seven,
Speaker 1: one of seven. Where are you in the hierarchy? I'm
Speaker 1: I'm right in the middle. Actually have three older sisters, uh,
Speaker 1: two younger brothers and a younger sister. So I'm right
Speaker 1: in the middle. Of seven. Now. Ray Davis always talks
Speaker 1: about being turned on to music by his older sisters.
Speaker 1: Was that the case with you? Yeah, I mean they
Speaker 1: were teenages when I was still a toddler as you were,
Speaker 1: So I mean, you know, they loved Elvis Presley and
Speaker 1: I used to like, wonder what it is about this guy?
Speaker 1: And I'm still wonder ring, although at a good time
Speaker 1: it gracely, and I'm still wondering on the music. Yeah,
Speaker 1: well he did, you know. I mean guys like that,
Speaker 1: they have something special. I think they do. The Beetle
Speaker 1: had something special to and there are very many people
Speaker 1: that give to the world themselves through their music. I
Speaker 1: don't know, you know, it comes from it comes from
Speaker 1: like I don't know, the universe or something, and they
Speaker 1: are conduit. They are a conduit for change in many ways.
Speaker 1: And I think Elvis was one of those people. You know.
Speaker 1: I never saw a bad photograph of Elvis. He always
Speaker 1: looked amazing, although that in Vegas the bloated Elvis. But
Speaker 1: before that, I agree with you. Yeah, I mean, yeah, yeah, definitely.
Speaker 1: And I'm sure you've been to Memphis and you go
Speaker 1: to like the tailor that he used. It was like
Speaker 1: you know, we live in the modern era. We figure
Speaker 1: everyone's using the best people. It was kind of backwoodsie
Speaker 1: and they all surprisingly so yes, yeah, yeah, And he
Speaker 1: was influenced by a lot of the soul music and
Speaker 1: the blues that was going on, although the kernel I
Speaker 1: think kept that separate, you know. I mean, he's the
Speaker 1: white guy and they they, and he was like they.
Speaker 1: He was one of a kind, one of just one
Speaker 1: of a kind. But I think he was definitely I've
Speaker 1: got a photograph of him with BB King, and I
Speaker 1: never saw that throughout his years, never saw that connection.
Speaker 1: That's an interesting point. Never thought. We never saw him
Speaker 1: mixing with the African Americans and he was really it
Speaker 1: was really right in the center of it, and it
Speaker 1: couldn't help but be influenced by it, I think. And
Speaker 1: so there it is, and it's a beautiful thing. Okay,
Speaker 1: so you're in the northeast of UK. How do you
Speaker 1: get interested in music? Well, um, I I the radio
Speaker 1: was on an awful lot of the time. When I
Speaker 1: was growing up. We had something called Ready Fusion. You
Speaker 1: get TV and you get free radio. So the radio,
Speaker 1: because it was free, it was on all the time
Speaker 1: and I listened to Frank Sinatra growing up, because it
Speaker 1: was just there on the radio. Then marriage, you know,
Speaker 1: and I was I was always amazed at the quality
Speaker 1: of the vocals in those days, Andy Williams, you know
Speaker 1: Frank of course. And and although it's only looking back
Speaker 1: that I was amazed, I just accepted it at the time.
Speaker 1: But one day, when I was about thirteen, my father
Speaker 1: bought me a guitar. Became only But what was the inspiration?
Speaker 1: Had you asked for a good time right out of
Speaker 1: the blue. And I didn't quite know what to do
Speaker 1: with this thing. I mean, I thought, well, it's got
Speaker 1: it's going to be easy to play. Well it wasn't.
Speaker 1: And um so I switched to the bass because bass
Speaker 1: has four strings and therefore is easy to play. And
Speaker 1: did you play four Did you get a base or
Speaker 1: was it four strings on the guitar he brought I
Speaker 1: got a base? Yeah. Well, actually what happened was because
Speaker 1: I had the guitar, that made me eligible to join
Speaker 1: the class band. There was a band in the in
Speaker 1: the class and this was something that was organized by
Speaker 1: the school or just the people who were the school
Speaker 1: was not interested in rock and roll at all, you know,
Speaker 1: in those it's very strict. I mean, so no, this
Speaker 1: was entirely outside of the school curriculum. And so we
Speaker 1: all got together in in Mick Moody his kitchen and
Speaker 1: banged pots and pants if I had a hammer and
Speaker 1: hammer in the morning, you know, and all that we
Speaker 1: thought we did good, you know, And and so but
Speaker 1: I switched to base and we got we kept at it,
Speaker 1: we got more and more professional, and and one, you know,
Speaker 1: in our mind, we didn't. Mike had an A C
Speaker 1: thirty which we all plugged into. Explained to my audience
Speaker 1: that is, oh, it's a it's an Vox. A C
Speaker 1: thirty is an amplifier. The Beatles used them, actually, Vox's
Speaker 1: AC thirties, and it had a lot of inputs. So
Speaker 1: in theory you could plug everybody into it, but of
Speaker 1: course you are overloading it quite a bit. But anyway,
Speaker 1: we didn't worry about that. We just plugged in and
Speaker 1: away we went. And we did this kind of privately,
Speaker 1: apart from driving his parents up the wall. Actually, imagine
Speaker 1: until one day at a very nosy neighbors said, oh, oh,
Speaker 1: you've got a bandon, have you go, and then plays
Speaker 1: a song and we looked at each other. We never
Speaker 1: played to anybody before, and this was our big chance,
Speaker 1: I think in a way. And so we played whatever
Speaker 1: it was and she clapped at the end of it,
Speaker 1: and we thought, oh, this is good, and so that
Speaker 1: broke the ice a little bit. Then we started to
Speaker 1: do shows, and you know, you just stay with it
Speaker 1: and you're playing shows, playing what material. Well, we played
Speaker 1: a mixture of what was in the charts at the
Speaker 1: time until we discovered soul music and blues music. Actually,
Speaker 1: um I remember we we played at one place which
Speaker 1: was right next to it was a youth club, was
Speaker 1: right next door to the pub. And the pub closed
Speaker 1: and there's only a few kids and a little younger
Speaker 1: kids and a great The doors at the back burst open,
Speaker 1: and all these drunken youngsters from the pub came in
Speaker 1: looking for a fight, looking for trouble, just as we
Speaker 1: were going to I know you want to leave me
Speaker 1: to let you, and they all like stopped at the
Speaker 1: door just the music actually stopped them in their tracks,
Speaker 1: and they also and then they all started dancing, and
Speaker 1: we looked at each of them. We thought, Wow, the
Speaker 1: power of music, because you know, they looked like trouble
Speaker 1: and and uh, it was great and there was a
Speaker 1: great night. You learn things like that, you know. Okay,
Speaker 1: So at what point did you realize you could sing? Actually? Uh,
Speaker 1: I'm still learning, to be honest, but I mean I
Speaker 1: love to listen to Hollan Wolf. I was a very
Speaker 1: When I think back, it's very unusual to think of
Speaker 1: a thirteen year old boy sitting up in his room
Speaker 1: listening to listening to I Have had my fun, you know,
Speaker 1: Helen Wolf. If I don't get well no more, you know,
Speaker 1: talking about he's dying. All those lyrics we listened to
Speaker 1: a kid, I understand them. I just saying them that
Speaker 1: I didn't understand. Well, no I didn't. I mean, you know,
Speaker 1: she must be tired of living. I'll put us sick
Speaker 1: feed in her grave. I mean, this is tough stuff. Man.
Speaker 1: You know, those guys lived a heck of a life,
Speaker 1: and yeah, you do you just kind of like, oh,
Speaker 1: that's the lyrics, right, you know, But that was the
Speaker 1: reflection of their life and how life was for them,
Speaker 1: and it just no matter what they were singing about though,
Speaker 1: there was a real deep spirit to the music, a
Speaker 1: real passion, and they didn't they didn't take any prisoners musically.
Speaker 1: They just would do in this because they wanted to
Speaker 1: do it UM and I guess they they had their
Speaker 1: own scene going down there in Memphis and around there,
Speaker 1: and the bars and the chicks and the booze and
Speaker 1: just everything. The whole life style. It to me. It
Speaker 1: it opened my eyes to another world, you know. But
Speaker 1: the music itself was something that I really wanted to do.
Speaker 1: I wanted to do that for some reason, I thought.
Speaker 1: I so it as a career at that young age. Well,
Speaker 1: I wasn't thinking about careers, but I just wanted to
Speaker 1: do that. I want to do that, you know, somehow
Speaker 1: wherever it takes me. And I think that's kind of
Speaker 1: the story of my life in there. Okay, but you
Speaker 1: but you relate those guys you leave and go to
Speaker 1: London at age fifteen, you said, age seventeen. I was
Speaker 1: an old guy by the time. Okay, so it's seventeen.
Speaker 1: You finished, you finished what we call high school. Yeah,
Speaker 1: I finished school. I graduated at sixteen actually in those days.
Speaker 1: And then I worked at a paint store in the
Speaker 1: in the in the back of the planet, and we
Speaker 1: do did gigs around town. But it was always UM
Speaker 1: the music that was number one for me. I only
Speaker 1: worked there because to have a job, I had to
Speaker 1: put food on it to oh, I mean I had
Speaker 1: to pay my mom and stuff. So I but music
Speaker 1: was the thing and we were all but by this point,
Speaker 1: before you left home, the Beatles it hit right. Yeah,
Speaker 1: the Beatles were everything in the world, because they certainly
Speaker 1: were in America. Yeah, and okay, so how do you
Speaker 1: decide to go to London? We just did, Actually we
Speaker 1: just said it was we at this point, well it
Speaker 1: was me. It was me, Mick Moody, Bruce Thomas, and
Speaker 1: Dave Usher. Davosher was the drummer Thomas who ultimately played
Speaker 1: with the Carstello. Yes, actually, yes he did. He went
Speaker 1: on to play with him, I understand. And uh, Dave
Speaker 1: Asha was wild and crazy guy, big head of ginger hair.
Speaker 1: It gave me a lot of blues records. He gave
Speaker 1: me some of the Howling Wolf I had as well. Uh,
Speaker 1: singles very hard to find nowadays. Um, and we just
Speaker 1: already said, well let's go to I I remember actually
Speaker 1: said to my mom I'm thinking of going We're thinking
Speaker 1: of going down to London and like making the big time.
Speaker 1: And I was surprised because I thought she'd say, you're
Speaker 1: not going, not going down to London, and that would
Speaker 1: have been the end of it. To be honest with you,
Speaker 1: I wouldn't have gone. If she just said no, I
Speaker 1: would not have gone. But she said, okay, well my
Speaker 1: now you go. I'm like, huh, that's permission? Oh my god.
Speaker 1: So I went back to the to the rest of
Speaker 1: the guy said well, I'm on, are you on? And
Speaker 1: so it was like if we did, dare we did? We?
Speaker 1: And we went down and promptly were very, very hungry
Speaker 1: for a long time. What was the first break or
Speaker 1: with the first change that put you on the right
Speaker 1: path in London. Well, what happened for me was that,
Speaker 1: you know, the rest of the guys, they they didn't
Speaker 1: like being hungry, they didn't want to continue, and they
Speaker 1: went back home. Actually, and I stayed down there and
Speaker 1: I met Paul us Off at the Blues club I
Speaker 1: mentioned earlier, and really we put that bend together in
Speaker 1: the space of a few months. And then Andy Fraser
Speaker 1: came along. He knew um Alexis Corner. Alexis Corner put
Speaker 1: us in touch with a couple of it. We tried
Speaker 1: a couple of people actually, but we eventually found Island
Speaker 1: Records and Chris Blackwell, and they were along with Chrysalis.
Speaker 1: They were in Oxford Street that they were sharing offices
Speaker 1: at the same time. I mean they became very Chrystalis,
Speaker 1: jethro Tell and Joe Cocker and all these people that
Speaker 1: later became stars. So everybody was becoming a star of
Speaker 1: and I everybody who were bumping into in the street.
Speaker 1: It was, you know, one day you were at the
Speaker 1: Marquee and the next day they were in the charts,
Speaker 1: and it was it was just that was the time,
Speaker 1: that was the period of that was what it was
Speaker 1: like in those days. And everywhere you went there was
Speaker 1: music it seemed coming out of the windows. Uh and
Speaker 1: and there was suddenly there was Hendrix and there was
Speaker 1: Cream and all this music was really happening. So we
Speaker 1: were in the midst of all that. We'll take a
Speaker 1: quick break and come back with more of my conversation
Speaker 1: with legendary vocalist Paul Rogers, recorded live at the tune
Speaker 1: In Studios in Venice, California. This podcast is brought to
Speaker 1: you by tune In, which brings together all the live sports, music,
Speaker 1: news and podcast you learn, original, live and on demand audio,
Speaker 1: all in one place. Go to tune in dot com
Speaker 1: slash left sets to download and listen. Okay, let's get
Speaker 1: back to my conversation with Paul Rogers. So you get
Speaker 1: a record deal now. In the US, Free flew under
Speaker 1: the radar until all right, Now, what was the level
Speaker 1: of success in the UK? Well, we were what they
Speaker 1: call an underground by and we we weren't commercially successful,
Speaker 1: but word of mouth was enough. We would fill out
Speaker 1: all the clubs in the in the UK wherever we played,
Speaker 1: and we played everywhere. We went over to Germany too,
Speaker 1: and we played in France sometimes, and we played in
Speaker 1: countries in Europe. Um wherever we went. We it was
Speaker 1: kind of we were bubbling under. And uh yeah, so
Speaker 1: now at this point you're singing but you're also writing.
Speaker 1: When did you become a writer? Yes, well, just about
Speaker 1: the time I met Paul Klassof, I had written. I
Speaker 1: thought about songwriting and I thought, well, now, how do
Speaker 1: you write a song? And we would would. I've been
Speaker 1: playing a lot of blues and there's a thing called
Speaker 1: the twelve bar blues, which is a great structure and
Speaker 1: there are so many variations of it, and it's a
Speaker 1: it's a brilliant structure. Whoever wherever that evolved from it.
Speaker 1: I think it came from God himself, because it's a
Speaker 1: structure upon which you can hang your soul. You can
Speaker 1: put any kind of lyric that anything you want to say.
Speaker 1: The first line, then the second line repeats that. Then
Speaker 1: it's the killer line. My throat is dry, my knee
Speaker 1: is a week it's so damn hard I can't even speak.
Speaker 1: Welcome my shadow. And we I wrote a song. I thought, well,
Speaker 1: if you write a rift do dink dink do the
Speaker 1: link do in the twelve hour structure and then you
Speaker 1: put your own lyrics on it, you've written the song,
Speaker 1: haven't you. And so that was my first song. And
Speaker 1: then uh m, Paul kastof, give me some music, piece
Speaker 1: of music. Do Do Do Do Down Do Doom doo doo,
Speaker 1: and I wrote, He said, can you write lyrics to
Speaker 1: that for me? An ideas? And that became Moonshine. So
Speaker 1: we were now we were songwriters, and it was it
Speaker 1: was a natural step. I was going to say that
Speaker 1: we we had about three or four of our own
Speaker 1: songs freed in initially, and uh why was it named free?
Speaker 1: And it was named free because during the when about
Speaker 1: the first time. We got together at the Nag's Head,
Speaker 1: which is a pub in Bartrassy, and there was a
Speaker 1: room above it the bands rehearsed and were We had
Speaker 1: our first rehearsal there and we were playing Moonshine, the
Speaker 1: song that Cost had given me to write the lyrics
Speaker 1: to when Sit Here Alone in Crime and it was
Speaker 1: a big climax thing and um yeah, and then Alexis
Speaker 1: Corner came in. We walked in at that moment with
Speaker 1: his family, his wife and kids, and sat down and
Speaker 1: we all took a break and we sat down and
Speaker 1: he said, well, I've been listening outside the door, and
Speaker 1: you are a band. And we looked at each other
Speaker 1: because when we when we walked into that room, we
Speaker 1: were four separate people. But because we could say, well,
Speaker 1: do you know spoonfuls? You know every day have the
Speaker 1: blues And we all played a lot of blues songs
Speaker 1: because they're very good to jam on. That's the beauty
Speaker 1: of it, actually, uh, And we were a band by
Speaker 1: the time we'd finished rehearsing, and he said, okay, you
Speaker 1: sound like a band. All you need now is a name,
Speaker 1: and where everybody sat pensively thinking my name, yeah, and
Speaker 1: he said, well, if it helps you. I used to
Speaker 1: have a band with Cyril Davis harmonica Player when we
Speaker 1: called it Free at Last, and everybody sat from it
Speaker 1: and it seemed to be like a group decision and said,
Speaker 1: well it's got to be free, hasn't it free? And
Speaker 1: that was that was it, without a word. It was
Speaker 1: like a cosmic decision, you know. And how do you write?
Speaker 1: All right? Now? Well, Andy and I Andy Fraser and
Speaker 1: I started to get into seriously writing when I moved
Speaker 1: into his house actually because I had no where to stay,
Speaker 1: and his mom said, well, you can sleep on the couch,
Speaker 1: so I'll sleep on the couch. And and of course
Speaker 1: we was music, right, we get the base out and
Speaker 1: and he wrote music, and I wrote lyrics, and I
Speaker 1: lyrics and at our music and Hero lyrics. So we
Speaker 1: we just wrote songs and that's all we did. And
Speaker 1: it was amazing discovery actually to find that, you know,
Speaker 1: you could go and enter a room with nothing really
Speaker 1: and come out with a song or two or three.
Speaker 1: And this was going on, and we were just we
Speaker 1: were Lennon and McCartney all of a sudden, and it
Speaker 1: was it was a very creative time. So all right,
Speaker 1: now was. We got to a point where we were
Speaker 1: playing about half and half half of our own songs
Speaker 1: and half the blues that we had originally set out playing.
Speaker 1: And uh, I just thought, like, you know, if we
Speaker 1: want to be different and unique and have our own voice,
Speaker 1: we need to write when all the songs our set
Speaker 1: need to be our own songs. So we said about
Speaker 1: doing that and dropping the blues out of our set. Um.
Speaker 1: We could never drop a song called The Hunter, which
Speaker 1: is an Albert King's song, which is just so great.
Speaker 1: I think the definitive version, thank you, you know, it's
Speaker 1: It's interesting actually when we played that song, we thought
Speaker 1: we were very close to the record. And years after
Speaker 1: a year went by us something, we've been playing The
Speaker 1: Hunter and I put the original back on. It were
Speaker 1: so different from it. I couldn't believe it. Because you
Speaker 1: just play at night after night, it becomes your own song,
Speaker 1: you know, And you played that slightly differently. So anyway,
Speaker 1: we had a full set of all our own material,
Speaker 1: but we could not drop The Hunter with we could
Speaker 1: not get off the stage in Sunderland, and I did
Speaker 1: you not you could not leave the stage until you've
Speaker 1: done the Hunter. They would have torn the place apart,
Speaker 1: and so I said, man, we've got to come up
Speaker 1: with a song that's at least as good as the Hunter.
Speaker 1: We still haven't dropped it actually, to be honest, um,
Speaker 1: and so I said, it could be something very simple,
Speaker 1: very something that the audience can sing like like like
Speaker 1: oh right now. And I said, actually, give me a talk.
Speaker 1: That's it, and did the cause and that was that
Speaker 1: was the chorus. Okay, so you came up with it.
Speaker 1: You said, it's gonna be something like all right now.
Speaker 1: And it was started right there, right there, right there.
Speaker 1: And then Andy took that home and and worked out
Speaker 1: the verse chords, which was which of course our dad dodact.
Speaker 1: So he gave that to me and I he said,
Speaker 1: So I worked backwards from the chorus. Whatever the verse
Speaker 1: was going to be, it had to climax with it's
Speaker 1: all right now? So what was going to happen? And
Speaker 1: I thought of a scenario, and I actually Ringle Star
Speaker 1: had said, I'd read an interview basically the Beatles. Well,
Speaker 1: you know, whenever a boy meets a girl, it's a
Speaker 1: it's a brand new story. You know, every love affair,
Speaker 1: he's a brand new story because two people come together
Speaker 1: and they have their own story and you know, and
Speaker 1: it means something to everybody. I thought, well, that's a
Speaker 1: good theme for a song. Boy meets girl, what happens? Okay?
Speaker 1: And that's the song just flowed out there she stood
Speaker 1: in the street. What was she doing? And well she
Speaker 1: was smiling from her head to her feet. Oh that's good.
Speaker 1: I said, Hey, what's this? Maybe she needs season, needs
Speaker 1: a kiss and all that, and it just like flowed out.
Speaker 1: And I was writing this. When I had finished. I
Speaker 1: was in my my little flat in London and I
Speaker 1: was finishing up when the when I hit a beep outside,
Speaker 1: b baby, come on, let's go, and they picked me
Speaker 1: up to go over the show and I had the lyrics.
Speaker 1: So we did it that night and we used to
Speaker 1: do uh to forty five minutes sets. In those that
Speaker 1: we'd played forty five minutes, take a break, and then
Speaker 1: do another forty five minutes. Well, when we first started,
Speaker 1: when we kicked off that evening, um we played we
Speaker 1: opened with all right now and it went down to storm.
Speaker 1: There was only like about fifteen people in the crowd,
Speaker 1: but they all went nuts for it right. So three
Speaker 1: hours later, by the time we come to the second
Speaker 1: set of forty five, I said, and it was full
Speaker 1: by that time. I said, it's request time, and anybody
Speaker 1: got new requests. And these fifteen people play that first
Speaker 1: song you started with. So I knew we had something
Speaker 1: special right then. Okay, But cost Off was not one
Speaker 1: of the writers from the beginning. Did he have that
Speaker 1: definitive guitar part? Oh, well, it's his sound, definitely his sound,
Speaker 1: the les Paul through the marshal, the fifty eight les
Speaker 1: Paul through the start. When you and Andy were writing it,
Speaker 1: did you envision that? Well, that's that's what we were doing.
Speaker 1: That was um, Andy and I how can I put
Speaker 1: it after? Think back? Actually? But costs a cost as
Speaker 1: a way of playing the A code, and he had
Speaker 1: such strong, long fingers. He could hit the um on
Speaker 1: the fifth threat they could get an extra double A
Speaker 1: out of it. He could hit the eastring on the
Speaker 1: fifth threat and give himself an extra A. That's what
Speaker 1: gives a lot of low end and plus the the
Speaker 1: his guitar. You know it had the sound. Okay, So
Speaker 1: how long after you write it do you re ord it? Oh?
Speaker 1: I don't think it would have been very long. I
Speaker 1: don't know. Okay, you finished recording it. Do you know
Speaker 1: it's a monster hit or we don't know it's a
Speaker 1: monster hit. We feel it's a good live song and
Speaker 1: it's what I was looking for. In terms of The Hunter,
Speaker 1: it was. It matched the Hunter still not I mean
Speaker 1: still the Hunter is still a great, great song, but
Speaker 1: it was up there and it had the big plus
Speaker 1: of being having the audience participation aspect of it, which
Speaker 1: was good. Um, when when do we recorded? We recorded
Speaker 1: it downstairs in Basing Street. Chris Blackwell Alan Records had
Speaker 1: bought a church by then and downstairs there was what
Speaker 1: we called the crypt. The cat crept into the crypt,
Speaker 1: crapped and crept out again what we used to say.
Speaker 1: We were down there and we recorded. Uh and um.
Speaker 1: We recorded in the small, small studio downstairs as we
Speaker 1: were doing a lot of shows then, so we were
Speaker 1: very much alive band and everything we wanted to play,
Speaker 1: even recording wise, we had to be able to reproduce
Speaker 1: on stage. So everything was very very simple. Wasn't a
Speaker 1: lot of production, was no big strings on it or
Speaker 1: extra piano or anything like that. It was gonna be
Speaker 1: the four guys playing it. So it had to be
Speaker 1: something that we could but you could listen to on
Speaker 1: the record and we could walk out on stage and
Speaker 1: play it just like that. Although we did we did
Speaker 1: actually double track the the guitar part. I'm sure we
Speaker 1: probably did underneath the soul particularly, but we used to
Speaker 1: just wing that on stage. Okay, But you recorded, you say, oh,
Speaker 1: this is a great live track. You don't see it
Speaker 1: as a big radio track, you don't see it as
Speaker 1: a big hit. Well, we didn't think in those terms. Uh,
Speaker 1: I mean no, we didn't really think in those terms.
Speaker 1: Actually no, and then it becomes a big hit. So
Speaker 1: what do you think? Because through your mind when it
Speaker 1: becomes the biggest track of the summer nineteen seventy, it
Speaker 1: was incredible. It really was incredible. Actually, you you sort
Speaker 1: of walked on air, you know, we'd actually done it
Speaker 1: without even um knowing what we were doing. Actually, yeah,
Speaker 1: how do you follow that? I don't know. We we
Speaker 1: we wanted to release The Steeler. Actually mentioned The Steeler earlier.
Speaker 1: That was our follow up tour right now in our minds,
Speaker 1: because all of the band partook in the songwriting of
Speaker 1: that and we just felt strongly about it. But Chris
Speaker 1: Blackwell wanted to release right on Pony which is still
Speaker 1: a good track, I think, um. But we wanted to
Speaker 1: release the Steeler, and the Steeler was released, but it
Speaker 1: did not do as well. It didn't it didn't rock
Speaker 1: the streets the way. All right, now, let's go back
Speaker 1: to all right. Now, you're a co writer. It's an
Speaker 1: iconic song almost fifty years old. Did you get paid
Speaker 1: on it? Oh? Yes, yes we did. I mean we were.
Speaker 1: We actually signed away our publishing rights, a lot of
Speaker 1: them to Island Records. We were very, very green. I
Speaker 1: was so green. I remember when I signed a contract.
Speaker 1: I said it said one it said something or other
Speaker 1: than it said one thousand ninety eight, And I went,
Speaker 1: is that how much I owe you? Guys? They went, no,
Speaker 1: that's the date. That's that's how I contracts, you know.
Speaker 1: So we we did sign it pretty much away. But
Speaker 1: we're not complaining. No, but if it's late deep, do
Speaker 1: you still get paid on all right? Now? We still
Speaker 1: get paid, Yeah, but it's not it's not it's not
Speaker 1: what you would call um industry industry level, that's what
Speaker 1: it is. Okay. Now, shortly after the hit, the BM
Speaker 1: breaks up. Yes, yes, sadly. What was going on there? Well,
Speaker 1: we were so I've thought about it a lot. And
Speaker 1: we were so tight was we We were We lived together,
Speaker 1: we ate, slept in and drank. Really the band and
Speaker 1: everything was to do with the band, and well, I
Speaker 1: just think it got very very intense. I think we
Speaker 1: felt we owned each other to some extent, and I
Speaker 1: I kind of needed to get away from the band
Speaker 1: and find out who I was and defined myself because
Speaker 1: I was such a member of the band. I wanted
Speaker 1: to find out where the band stopped and I began,
Speaker 1: or I began in the band stopped. If like, we
Speaker 1: were just so like this one thing, and we had
Speaker 1: our we had Andy and I had our differences about commerciality.
Speaker 1: That that was one of the things that I I
Speaker 1: I'm still I still shy away from um flat out commerciality.
Speaker 1: You know. I think if it happens to be commercial,
Speaker 1: all all to the good, but only incidentally. The thing
Speaker 1: about it is is that it has to have sort
Speaker 1: of I don't know it's under how to define what
Speaker 1: credibility is, but it needs to have that feeling of credibility.
Speaker 1: And we got a lot of the that, really that
Speaker 1: feeling from the blues. Fun enough, because the blues were
Speaker 1: the blues people are playing. The early blues guys were
Speaker 1: people that lived the life and they expressed their life
Speaker 1: through their music, and I think it has to For me,
Speaker 1: it had to have that element, and we were perhaps
Speaker 1: I felt that we were getting away from that at
Speaker 1: this late date. How do you feel about credibility the
Speaker 1: same way? Actually, So if someone wants to use the
Speaker 1: song you've written for a commercial, you say, what, well,
Speaker 1: it depends. I mean I know that all right now
Speaker 1: was used on a foot order advertisement. So that and
Speaker 1: what what it was was that now you use this
Speaker 1: foot part of your foot don't smell, and it's there's
Speaker 1: the song. I phoned Black all up and I said,
Speaker 1: you've got to take that off right now because that
Speaker 1: has no credibility whatsoever. Did he Yeah, he did, in
Speaker 1: fairness to him, they did. It came right off there.
Speaker 1: And so that's the sort of thing. You know, you
Speaker 1: you have to protect it to some extent. So it's
Speaker 1: not just doing everything as much as you can it, sir.
Speaker 1: It's not always easy to get things that you don't
Speaker 1: like your music being used in stopped if you don't
Speaker 1: have full control, right, Okay, So then the band gets
Speaker 1: back together. What's thinking is going on there. Well, you know,
Speaker 1: we were all doing our different things to minimal success actually,
Speaker 1: to be honest, and Costs was getting into a state
Speaker 1: we felt. I mean we've heard that. You know. He'd
Speaker 1: moved apartments and he was living in a place in
Speaker 1: in Portobello Road, which was at the time notorious for
Speaker 1: the drug scene that there was there, you know, a
Speaker 1: lot of it. And there's people knocking on his door,
Speaker 1: you know, and I said, hey, man, try this, try
Speaker 1: why don't you try this? And he was experimenting with
Speaker 1: a lot of stuff and that was his downfall, I think,
Speaker 1: and with the fact that the band had split up,
Speaker 1: it became a crutch. This is what you know, amateur psychology.
Speaker 1: And he got into a bad state with it. You know.
Speaker 1: He did an album with cost of Kirk, Tetsu and Rabbit,
Speaker 1: which they are great musicians, all of them, and they
Speaker 1: did some good stuff, but he got into bad shape.
Speaker 1: When I went down there, I visited them in the
Speaker 1: studio and he fell asleep during during a solo. I'm like, God,
Speaker 1: what's going on? Man? And so really and Andy actually
Speaker 1: came to my session I was doing. I had a
Speaker 1: band called Peace during this time, because that's what I
Speaker 1: wanted a bit of peace, I think, and he said, look,
Speaker 1: you know, courses in such a bad way. Shall we
Speaker 1: put the band together and get around him? And I
Speaker 1: went straight away, I said let's do it. So we
Speaker 1: got back together and we tried, but you know, he
Speaker 1: was gripped with with the stuff that he was taking. You.
Speaker 1: We'd we'd we'd go to somewhere where like Newcastle City Hall.
Speaker 1: We always had gone down there. I mean, it's just
Speaker 1: amazing crowd and you'd look around. We'd go and we'd
Speaker 1: walk on stage. I'd look around and I'd see him
Speaker 1: like looking for the switch on his amp and not
Speaker 1: being able to focus where it was, and I thought,
Speaker 1: oh dear, we're in for a night here. And then
Speaker 1: he finally found it and it was just an audience
Speaker 1: was but very sympathetic. They were beautiful, the crowd. They
Speaker 1: were like, come on course, you can do it, but really, um,
Speaker 1: he'd taken something I don't know, some kind of down here,
Speaker 1: and it was, you know, it was sad. It was
Speaker 1: very sad. We were all very sad, and so eventually
Speaker 1: we we had to move on. It's unfortunate too that
Speaker 1: in those days there was not the psychological help that
Speaker 1: there is now for people with addictions, and we didn't
Speaker 1: know what to do. We didn't know what to do.
Speaker 1: I think Andy kidnapped him out of his house one day,
Speaker 1: and he was completely ir because he tried to get
Speaker 1: him off this stuff and away from the crowd he
Speaker 1: was running with at the time. Um, but I could
Speaker 1: have got arrested for that, I suppose, of course, was
Speaker 1: not very pleased she kidnapped me out of my house.
Speaker 1: Um but uh yeah, So eventually we had to leave
Speaker 1: it and move on, you know. And how did free ended?
Speaker 1: Free end just by itself? Or you already had bad
Speaker 1: company cooking in the back? Oh no, I didn't. I
Speaker 1: didn't have a bad company cooking in the background. I
Speaker 1: um no, I would. I was. I wanted to see
Speaker 1: costs right, But I didn't know what to do about him,
Speaker 1: or with him or for him. We tried, we put
Speaker 1: the band back together around him, and we did a
Speaker 1: we sort of limped through a tour and it just
Speaker 1: wasn't it wasn't working, you know, we couldn't get him
Speaker 1: off this stuff. Um. I had met mc ralph's when
Speaker 1: I was touring together with Matt the Hoople. I had
Speaker 1: a band called peace. This is the piece I was
Speaker 1: telling you about just now. It was just a three,
Speaker 1: three man outfit. And that's when I hooked up with Mick.
Speaker 1: We sat in the band room and he played me
Speaker 1: Can't Get Enough of Your Love and I said, wow, man,
Speaker 1: that is a hit, you know, he said, I said,
Speaker 1: are you going to do that with Mott? The hoople
Speaker 1: goes no, they're not really interested and he and don't
Speaker 1: want to sing that. I said, well, you know, aucing it,
Speaker 1: give it to me. And so that was the start
Speaker 1: of our sort of interest in each other. I guess
Speaker 1: for songwriting and I played him I don't know, rock
Speaker 1: steady or something, and and we we found a very
Speaker 1: common We had a lot in common musically, you know,
Speaker 1: songwriting wise, and influence wise and what we wanted to do.
Speaker 1: And yeah, so that's we hooked up. Okay, so you
Speaker 1: hook up? How do you hook up with Peter Grant? Well? Um,
Speaker 1: I we I looked around and we had this great
Speaker 1: band and okay, so how do you flesh out the
Speaker 1: rest of the band? Oh? Well, I called Kirky up
Speaker 1: and I knew that he would love to play with
Speaker 1: making myself because he's he's always said said you know,
Speaker 1: let me know what you're doing. And then we auditioned
Speaker 1: a lot of bass players and a lot of base players.
Speaker 1: I mean we must have auditioned about twelve until we
Speaker 1: found Bosh. And when I loved bars because when um
Speaker 1: who's no longer with us, no, no, no, when he
Speaker 1: played when I played bad the song Bad Company on
Speaker 1: the piano, he was very very lyrical on the base
Speaker 1: he did. It wasn't a dump the dump. It was
Speaker 1: very he sang on the base, you know. And he
Speaker 1: had been a singer, so he understood melody and but
Speaker 1: he was based player and he brought that melody melodic
Speaker 1: field to the base and it was really good at
Speaker 1: Doo Doo Doo doo Doobe you know a company and
Speaker 1: it was just very moody, and it was the song
Speaker 1: is very much a mood song. It's a very few
Speaker 1: cars in it, but it's a it's a mood song
Speaker 1: that sets the mood and then has impact that grabs
Speaker 1: you you know. Uh yeah, he's good based on them
Speaker 1: and that's that was the band. How you hook up
Speaker 1: with Peter Graham? Right? Well, I had I knew a
Speaker 1: guy called Peter Grant, he sorry called Clive Coolson, who
Speaker 1: had worked with Zeppelin led Zeppelin and with Peter Grant,
Speaker 1: and he came around to my cottage and and he said,
Speaker 1: you know, you should call Peter up. And I said, oh, yeah, yeah,
Speaker 1: And now I said, no, really you should, because he's
Speaker 1: told me he's interested, so you should call him up.
Speaker 1: And he said, I want a job too, so call
Speaker 1: him up. So I called. I called Peter up, and uh,
Speaker 1: it was great. Actually, he said. I said, you know,
Speaker 1: Clive asked me to call you and you said you
Speaker 1: were interested in He said, yeah, I'm interested in you.
Speaker 1: And I said, well, I come with a band, Peter,
Speaker 1: and we're going to call it bad Company. He goes,
Speaker 1: bad Company. You're gonna call it that? Well, I said, yeah,
Speaker 1: we are, because Mick and I had already you know,
Speaker 1: led out down as in Stone. It was set that
Speaker 1: down in Stone because we were looking for names. We
Speaker 1: we we'd call each other up and say, how about
Speaker 1: the four millionaire bubbles? No I don't think so, and
Speaker 1: all the silly names. And then I called him up
Speaker 1: one day and I said, I said, he said, well,
Speaker 1: I'll make it. I went bad Company and he went that.
Speaker 1: The legend was it came from the movie the same
Speaker 1: I did. Well, I saw the I saw an advertisement
Speaker 1: for the movie and I thought, oh, that just I
Speaker 1: love that. I'm going to write a song right now,
Speaker 1: and it's got one into it. And actually Simon came with.
Speaker 1: Simon came around a little bit later and helped me
Speaker 1: with a few of the lyrics and uh, and it
Speaker 1: was just such a mood. So I called me and
Speaker 1: we were in this period of like, what we're going
Speaker 1: to call the man? I said, and there was a
Speaker 1: scrabbling noise on the end of the line. He said,
Speaker 1: that's cool. Man. I dropped the phone and uh, you know,
Speaker 1: he was so excited to drop the phone. So yeah,
Speaker 1: and that was that was set in stone for But
Speaker 1: we did. We did come up against I mean, this
Speaker 1: is this has happened before, record companies and managers and
Speaker 1: people wanting to change the name. I mean, with Free
Speaker 1: they wanted to call us the heavy metal kids, and
Speaker 1: you just hated that. Of course, talk about like credibility. No, no,
Speaker 1: it's just not there. But anyway, we did have a
Speaker 1: similar problem with with the name Bad Company because Peter
Speaker 1: thought it was uh, just too heavy, you know, but
Speaker 1: I said, no, it's not man. People will love it.
Speaker 1: It's good and it gives an identity and stuff, and
Speaker 1: so we uh, we stuck with They actually their record
Speaker 1: company wanted to release that as the first single, but
Speaker 1: I really loved Cantor Enough mixed songs. My favorite track
Speaker 1: and that was a you Chip my favorite track us
Speaker 1: Bad Company. The sound the way you described it, it's
Speaker 1: exactly the way it starts quietly that it built. It
Speaker 1: gets you in your soul in a way that music doesn't.
Speaker 1: Today you're listening to my conversation with legendary rock musician
Speaker 1: Wall Rock, recorded live to the tune In studios in Venice, California.
Speaker 1: I hope you're enjoying listening to this episode of the
Speaker 1: Bob left Sex Podcast. If you want to see my
Speaker 1: guests as they joined me, visit at tune in on Twitter, Facebook,
Speaker 1: and Instagram. Now more of my conversation with Paul Rodgers
Speaker 1: on The Bob left Sex Podcast. So you make a deal.
Speaker 1: How do you end up on Swan Song Records? Well
Speaker 1: that was because which was led up. Yeah. Led Zeppelin
Speaker 1: had come to a point in their career where they
Speaker 1: wanted to have their own record company, their own company, Yeah,
Speaker 1: and to nurture talent, which was really great of them,
Speaker 1: I thought, and um, we we were just in the
Speaker 1: right place at the right time because Peter wanted to
Speaker 1: manage us when he came around. When he came to
Speaker 1: the first rehearsal, we thought he hadn't turned up. Actually
Speaker 1: we were playing away and stuff. This is before we
Speaker 1: had bos. We had a bass player from from Wales.
Speaker 1: It was a really good bass player. I actually offered
Speaker 1: him the job, but he didn't want to do it.
Speaker 1: I said, well, what he's turned up for, you know,
Speaker 1: audition for but anyway, you know, but he was a
Speaker 1: good base player. But anyway, but he was the guy
Speaker 1: that was there outside the rehearsal room. We rehearsed in
Speaker 1: a little village hall in Albrey and in Surrey, and Peter,
Speaker 1: Peter had sat outside and listened through the doors. A
Speaker 1: lot of that goes on, doesn't it, come to think
Speaker 1: of it, because that's certainly an unmissable guy in person, right.
Speaker 1: So he so he sat outside and then he came
Speaker 1: in at the end of the rehearsal and we're like, well,
Speaker 1: you're a bit late. We've you've you've missed us, mate, Well,
Speaker 1: he said, no, I've hearned you. I listened and listened
Speaker 1: outside the nom and then it's good. I like it.
Speaker 1: You all that? You know? So um, he said to me,
Speaker 1: He said, look, I don't know about contracts and all that.
Speaker 1: I don't really want to do a contract first. Initially,
Speaker 1: you don't know me, I don't know you guys. So
Speaker 1: we're going to just work together on a handshake. And
Speaker 1: I thought about that for a second, and I just went,
Speaker 1: let's do it, you know. And so there wasn't a
Speaker 1: contract until a little bit. I don't even know how
Speaker 1: long later, maybe a year. Um. And he took how much? Oh?
Speaker 1: Now he was he came from wrestling. Did he know
Speaker 1: anything about music? Uh, I don't know that he did really.
Speaker 1: Actually no, maybe he didn't, but he sure know how
Speaker 1: to take care of the musicians. Well that's a question
Speaker 1: I had next. So he was known as an artist advocate. Yes,
Speaker 1: Ultimately financially was he Was it beneficial for you or
Speaker 1: did he take too much money? It was fantastic for us.
Speaker 1: I mean it was unbelievable because we went from a
Speaker 1: small rehearsal room to doing stadiums in America overnight. Almost
Speaker 1: it seemed. It was absolutely be fantastic and the organization
Speaker 1: behind that was superb. Because we flew in a Vickers
Speaker 1: Viscount four les Royce engine. All the seats have been
Speaker 1: taken out and been refurbished. This was what Zeppelin used,
Speaker 1: so we got what they used very much, you know.
Speaker 1: And there was limousines and the time whipp us to
Speaker 1: the gig, whip us back to the from the gig,
Speaker 1: and we were taking off going to the next show
Speaker 1: before the audience had left was Elvis has left the building,
Speaker 1: you know. But when it's all said and done, how
Speaker 1: did it work out financially? Oh? Pretty good. The only
Speaker 1: reason you ask is one the time and two if
Speaker 1: you put on your business hat. If it's on their
Speaker 1: own label and it's distributed by Atlantic, they would take
Speaker 1: an extra cut. That wouldn't have happened that you were
Speaker 1: signed directly to Atlantic. That's true, but then again we
Speaker 1: would not have had that personal touch. But he would
Speaker 1: not have had that success. Okay, so he says, i'll
Speaker 1: do it, I'll do it on a handshake. What's the
Speaker 1: next step, Uh, huge success. We've got not a little
Speaker 1: it slow. You're making that first album, so you have
Speaker 1: Well what happened was Peter called me. We were in
Speaker 1: rehearsal and he said, you know, um U led Zeppelin
Speaker 1: have got a house set up in Headley Grange and
Speaker 1: that's where they record that they're set to do their
Speaker 1: next album, and there's a mobile studio outside. It was
Speaker 1: Ronnie Lane's mobile studio. It's the twenty phone track and
Speaker 1: they're delayed and the whole thing is set up there,
Speaker 1: just sitting there doing nothing. If you guys want to
Speaker 1: go in now, you can put a couple of tracks down.
Speaker 1: You've got like ten days. We were like yeah, because
Speaker 1: we were just bursting at the seams to put all
Speaker 1: this music down. And so it's out in the country,
Speaker 1: no distractions, lockout as only as there. You drive up,
Speaker 1: you get out of your car. There's no problem parking.
Speaker 1: You know. It's in the country. And everybody had their
Speaker 1: own room, and we all cooked for each other, our
Speaker 1: wives at the time, and somebody got up. We made
Speaker 1: we made the wood fire us in the place and
Speaker 1: all that and it was very organic, very very you know,
Speaker 1: hippie heaven if you like. So we're all in there
Speaker 1: in a bunch and we just put everything we had down.
Speaker 1: How did you decide who to work with they. Ron
Speaker 1: Nevison was brought forward by Zepp by Zapp. They recommended
Speaker 1: him and he was very good. And then okay, how
Speaker 1: many of the songs were written when you went to
Speaker 1: Headley Grenge Oh h most of them. I hadn't quite
Speaker 1: finished rock Steady. We actually I actually taught them, uh,
Speaker 1: rock steady while we were recording it, because I had
Speaker 1: the guitar. Turn on your lights there with me and
Speaker 1: rock steady bomb actually because Simon didn't even get that.
Speaker 1: You know is you'll hear a mistake on that, but
Speaker 1: we we let it run because um sometimes mistakes have
Speaker 1: a kind of charm to them, you know about That's
Speaker 1: one of the problems with today's music, but they can
Speaker 1: make it so perfectly used the soul. What's the back
Speaker 1: what's the backstory on Seagull? Well, Seagull I went to
Speaker 1: I drove out with my family, my wife at the time,
Speaker 1: and was it my kids, I don't think I had
Speaker 1: kids by then. No, and some friends with an acoustic
Speaker 1: guitar and we were going to Portsmouth and we pulled
Speaker 1: off at Hailing Island as an island, and we sat
Speaker 1: on the beach. I had the guitar and went to
Speaker 1: get fish and chips, and I watched the seagulls and
Speaker 1: you could just look at the horizon and the song
Speaker 1: just came to me like that, and I played. I
Speaker 1: didn't finish it. Then I played it to make played
Speaker 1: what I had of it to make and he uh,
Speaker 1: he came up with now you Fly through the Guy
Speaker 1: Reever asking why Yeah, the middle eight, which really made
Speaker 1: the song, and it it nearly didn't make it on
Speaker 1: the album because it us it's an acoustic song and
Speaker 1: we weren't really going to be known for for acoustic things.
Speaker 1: But I thought, well, you know, it's different, and you know,
Speaker 1: I actually led Zeppelin did a lot of a bunch
Speaker 1: of acoustic songs. They did an acoustic set in the middle,
Speaker 1: which I was always impressed with because it gave you
Speaker 1: light and shade, and it gave you, uh, it wasn't
Speaker 1: wall to wall dad, dad dadad. It was you know,
Speaker 1: some something different which when you would which made the
Speaker 1: heaviest stuff sound heavier when you went back to it.
Speaker 1: So I thought it was a nice contrast. And I
Speaker 1: played all the instruments on that song instant. They played
Speaker 1: the bass and the tambourine and whatever else. Is on
Speaker 1: there and just captured again. It's a mood song. You know,
Speaker 1: you have to be sitting on a beach watching the
Speaker 1: misty horizon. The great thing is, you know, is when
Speaker 1: you hear it, it takes you to the beach. It
Speaker 1: takes you to that environment. That's what's great. That's why
Speaker 1: it's such a great song. Wow wow, Okay, so the
Speaker 1: album comes out from the perspective of being in America.
Speaker 1: It's an instant hit. Yeah, yeah, I mean it took
Speaker 1: us by surprise, it really. It was a complete whirlwind
Speaker 1: and all of a sudden with the with the led
Speaker 1: Zeppelin machinery, if you like, behind us, the airplanes and
Speaker 1: the limos, and the security and and everything, and all
Speaker 1: the places to stay there houses and Malibu Beach and
Speaker 1: all those kinds of um. We it was a whirlwind.
Speaker 1: And at the end of it, when we got back,
Speaker 1: we all sat down. I looked at me, What just happened? Man?
Speaker 1: What did we do? How did we do that? You know,
Speaker 1: because it was it was just a thing that evolved
Speaker 1: for us. It was just natural. But the second album
Speaker 1: was bigger straight shooter than the first album. Yeah. Well,
Speaker 1: to some extent, we tried to recreate. We looked at
Speaker 1: it said, well, we were were in a lockout situation.
Speaker 1: We're in the country, there was no distractions, so let's
Speaker 1: find a castle or something. So we found a castle
Speaker 1: or something, right, and that's what we did. And this
Speaker 1: castle was clear world cast. It was interesting in that
Speaker 1: they also had um they had medieval dinners there in
Speaker 1: another part of the castle because the big place and
Speaker 1: they're the studio in one second, and I used to
Speaker 1: have to go into and all these there's big parties
Speaker 1: and all these people got dressed up in the old
Speaker 1: English costumes and armor suits of armorslf and and it
Speaker 1: roast pig and it chuck sided down them and I
Speaker 1: used to have to go in and find bos boss,
Speaker 1: where are you? And if you're under a table somewhere
Speaker 1: knocking back the the booze and the roast big or
Speaker 1: dancing on it. It depended really, And I suppose we
Speaker 1: need you in the studio, come on now. And that
Speaker 1: was one aspect of it wasn't exactly as private as
Speaker 1: the Headly Grange one. Now, but the second the second album,
Speaker 1: did you write those songs on the road or when
Speaker 1: you got back? Some of them are on the road
Speaker 1: Shooting Star. I feel like making um actually feel like
Speaker 1: making love was a song that I had started in
Speaker 1: nineteen sixty eight, which is way before that when we
Speaker 1: first came out with with Free Uh, and I hooked
Speaker 1: up with a bunch of a bunch of beautiful people
Speaker 1: that were called we like to call ourselves hippies in
Speaker 1: those days, and we hitch hiked out to Rheon Needle,
Speaker 1: which is north of San Francisco, I believe, and we
Speaker 1: went out there and slept in the woods and stuff,
Speaker 1: and I I had written that song. I started that
Speaker 1: song that baby when I Think About You, and we
Speaker 1: there was a lot of peyalty about thoses, which was
Speaker 1: which is not the chemical one, and it was really
Speaker 1: it was a really quiet thing and not that I'm
Speaker 1: recommending it, but that's what we were doing. And I
Speaker 1: when we came to the the album there I makes it.
Speaker 1: What have you got And I said, well, I've got
Speaker 1: this idea of baby when I think about you, I
Speaker 1: think about and I said, oh yeah, I like that,
Speaker 1: yeah going, Yeah, you're going. He said, oh, what you
Speaker 1: need is this, baba, and I went, when I feel
Speaker 1: like making It's okay, that's good, we'll do that. And
Speaker 1: then we missed moved on, you know, and it became
Speaker 1: one of our biggest songs, but you don't know at
Speaker 1: the time, it just was like, Okay, that's good, Yeah,
Speaker 1: we'll do that. Last spring, I was on a cruise
Speaker 1: to Alaska and we went to the karaoke room and
Speaker 1: I pulled off this midnight I feel Like making Love
Speaker 1: and me and the two forty something girls were singing
Speaker 1: at the top of our lungs. It's funny how that resonated.
Speaker 1: I think that was think the interesting thing about bad companies.
Speaker 1: It was both men and women. It wasn't like Rush,
Speaker 1: which was been only women were certainly in the amor too. Yes,
Speaker 1: good good, well, I mean we like to please, okay,
Speaker 1: And then what's the backstory? I'm shooting star? Well, shooting
Speaker 1: star um was. I was at my cottage in England
Speaker 1: and I was walking down the garden and actually I've
Speaker 1: been thinking that. I went, well, HENDRICKX has died and
Speaker 1: we lost cost and me as many people and Jim
Speaker 1: Morrison and um uh help me, um what's her name again?
Speaker 1: Janis Josh Janis Joplin. You know, I know those people
Speaker 1: are like, wow, it's not a war zone. This is entertainment.
Speaker 1: Why are we? Why are so many people? So that
Speaker 1: was what my thoughts had been. And I was walking
Speaker 1: down my own garden, pat and I thought, don't you know?
Speaker 1: And I thought, oh, where have I heard that before?
Speaker 1: That you are is shooting Star? And I thought, wow,
Speaker 1: I must have heard that on the radio. And then
Speaker 1: I thought, well, I don't remember where. And I ran
Speaker 1: in the college and got the guitar and started to
Speaker 1: work the cords out. And I actually finished it on
Speaker 1: an airplane in with the boys when we were somewhere
Speaker 1: or that in America. Yeah, So it started life thinking
Speaker 1: about all the casualties of rock. Well, it's interesting because
Speaker 1: that's a gargantuan album, but there and a couple of
Speaker 1: albums after. There's some songs that I sing to myself
Speaker 1: all the time. Some people say I'm no good late
Speaker 1: in my bed all day. Yeah, it's a mixed song.
Speaker 1: I love that, you know, But the nighttime comes, I'm
Speaker 1: ready to rock and roll my toes away. I mean
Speaker 1: that's how I feel, you know. I feel like, uh,
Speaker 1: kind of like Yogi beer. I may sleep till noon,
Speaker 1: but before it starts, I'll get a you picnic basket
Speaker 1: and that's in Jellystone Park, and then another mixed song,
Speaker 1: simple Man, which is just one of my absolute favorites.
Speaker 1: You know, I think about that because music is about
Speaker 1: freedom and I want to be free. But then you
Speaker 1: do Rough Diamonds and it's kind of going in the
Speaker 1: wrong direction. It's kind of getting defleated. Okay, Yeah, yeah,
Speaker 1: yeah I did. We did run out of steam a
Speaker 1: little bit. Uh who are you gonna blame? I don't know.
Speaker 1: I could point fingers, but I'm not going to. Really.
Speaker 1: We we had been hammering it for a number of
Speaker 1: years and I think we did. It was just it
Speaker 1: all got a little bit tired and a little bit
Speaker 1: we lost focus. I do think now, did you actually
Speaker 1: break up before Desolation Angels? Or the the album was
Speaker 1: so on together. I just felt, wow, you know, I
Speaker 1: wanted to leave throughout the album actually, but Rough Yeah,
Speaker 1: I was committed. We were doing it. We were there,
Speaker 1: let's do what we can, and um, I think in
Speaker 1: my mind I had left already. Actually, yeah, And how
Speaker 1: do you come to do Desolation Angels, which is just
Speaker 1: an unbelievable comeback with a different sound but with actually
Speaker 1: songs of stick in your head from start to finish. Um,
Speaker 1: you've got me now, I don't remember. Well, you know,
Speaker 1: so in anything, that's a completely different sound from what
Speaker 1: came before. How did that happen? I'd have to get
Speaker 1: you know what, I've lost track of the sequence of
Speaker 1: the album. Well, you know there's there's electric Land, no no,
Speaker 1: if there's Lonely for Your Love. Uh, there's yeah on
Speaker 1: one of them. Um, Um, Cindy this can I talk
Speaker 1: to Cindy? We can take a break? Yes, let's everybody. Yeah,
Speaker 1: that's a good idea. Well pause here for a brief
Speaker 1: moment and get right back to Paul Rock. Most of
Speaker 1: you know that I'm also a writer, but for those
Speaker 1: who think I'm just the host of this podcast, you
Speaker 1: can check out my archive at left sets dot com
Speaker 1: in addition of reading my commentary on music tech in
Speaker 1: the world at large. You'll be the first to find
Speaker 1: out when we've published a new conversation now More with
Speaker 1: legendary rock musician Paul Rodgers, recorded at the tune In
Speaker 1: Studios in Venice, California. Okay, you're coming back to us
Speaker 1: after a break where we had to go to the discography.
Speaker 1: You know, at first I thought that Paul was a
Speaker 1: little lost, which is always funny that fans are more
Speaker 1: accurate than the act. But I was also at fault
Speaker 1: here and that I had the order wrong. I'm playing.
Speaker 1: I'm such a bad Bad Company fan that, for some
Speaker 1: reason doing research last night, stuck in my head that
Speaker 1: Rough Diamonds was before Desolation Angels. But let's just recap.
Speaker 1: So after Burning Sky, which certainly has some great tracks
Speaker 1: on it, but doesn't get as good reviews or have
Speaker 1: as much success as Run with the Pack and Straight Shooter,
Speaker 1: you do Desolation Angels. But Desolation Angels two years later,
Speaker 1: as opposed to an album every year, has a completely
Speaker 1: different sound from what came before. Yeah, yeah, you know, actually, Bob,
Speaker 1: you know, it is true that some of the fans
Speaker 1: know more about me than I don't. You know. Um
Speaker 1: Lucy Pillar, for instance, knows more. She goes further back
Speaker 1: than I do. It's incredible. Um so, but but a
Speaker 1: Desolation Angel, actually, let's go to a Burning Sky, Burning Sky.
Speaker 1: We were a little burned around the edges on that one, actually,
Speaker 1: but we did pull it out of the bag. But
Speaker 1: I remember saying to make that, sending to make that
Speaker 1: you know, if we if we make this album and
Speaker 1: we don't like it, We're not going to put it out,
Speaker 1: and he said, yes, yes, yes, but the wheels were
Speaker 1: rolling and it went out, and you know, it's not
Speaker 1: it's a good album. I think the track Burning Sky
Speaker 1: is pretty strong, absolutely. I wrote that the night before
Speaker 1: we recorded it, and we were scrabbling for me for
Speaker 1: songs actually, you know, and I had the chorus and
Speaker 1: I had the verse chords, and I showed the the
Speaker 1: the the guys the the guy is burning and I
Speaker 1: showed him the verse cause and we went. We pushed
Speaker 1: the red button and I made the whole thing up
Speaker 1: right there on the spot, pretty much waiting for the
Speaker 1: events here and the prisoners and all that the story
Speaker 1: right there, so you know, we were it was sort
Speaker 1: of a jam, but it was. It was pretty strong,
Speaker 1: I thought, But well, but there's one other track on
Speaker 1: that though. It was also the guitar sound in your delivery.
Speaker 1: Leaving You was a great track, deadly, wasn't it. Yeah? Okay,
Speaker 1: So how did you decide? Why were there two years
Speaker 1: between Burning Sky and Desolation Angels? We were we did
Speaker 1: need a rake, but I did think that we would.
Speaker 1: We were energized again for Desolation Angels at Rock and
Speaker 1: roll Fantasy, Gone Gone Gone was Boz's first attempt at songwriting.
Speaker 1: But it was actually good. It was great. I mean
Speaker 1: I I like to include it in a set now.
Speaker 1: And Crazy Circles was was Well who wrote the guitar
Speaker 1: part on that, which makes it that the guitar part
Speaker 1: like the acoustic guitar and the solo that was Mick.
Speaker 1: It was lovely, wasn't it right? Well, you were talking
Speaker 1: about acoustic on Seagull I wondered if you wrote that. Well,
Speaker 1: I played acoustic on Crazy Circles. The acoustic rhythm you know,
Speaker 1: don't don't don't, but the the Spanish type of solo
Speaker 1: thing that goes on there, that was Mick and it
Speaker 1: was just beautiful. I remember he just went out to
Speaker 1: the into the studio and got his sound and just
Speaker 1: went into that and I just was, yes, that is
Speaker 1: so beautiful. Nice one man. But the other thing is,
Speaker 1: even though you did not write it, one of your
Speaker 1: best vocals of all time is the opening track on
Speaker 1: the second side, Lonely for Your Love. Oh let's Mike, Yeah. Yeah.
Speaker 1: But the way you have a way of digging down
Speaker 1: deep in your soul and pushing right up the limit
Speaker 1: without going over and we live in an era of
Speaker 1: vocal history onics. That's what all these TV shows are about,
Speaker 1: the malise of the Mariah Carey. But you have a
Speaker 1: way of emoting where there's still emotion, which the same
Speaker 1: as emoting underneath and just pushing it, which is the
Speaker 1: essence of rock and roll. That's why I'm talking about
Speaker 1: simple Man earlier. You want to feel free, you know,
Speaker 1: and the lyrics on Lonely for Your Love, the way
Speaker 1: you're saying it just blows my mind. Well, that's very
Speaker 1: interesting that you should notice that, because that's a really
Speaker 1: good point. Sam Moura has a way of doing that
Speaker 1: same thing. He puts a little gravel there, but not
Speaker 1: too much exactly, Samuel, Sam and Dave Yes, and it
Speaker 1: just takes you to where the emotion is just rasping,
Speaker 1: you know, it just it just exactly exactly gives you
Speaker 1: that edge. I love that, right, Okay, So but then
Speaker 1: you do make not getting the order correct, I was wrong.
Speaker 1: You do make rough diamonds, which is seen by disappointment
Speaker 1: as there by everyone. Yeah, well, you know it's funny
Speaker 1: the title for that I I wanted to band, I
Speaker 1: wanted us to get back to our roots, and I
Speaker 1: organized a gig, a show at a village hall near
Speaker 1: where I lived, and we were just going to play
Speaker 1: what we wanted to a local crowd and that's it.
Speaker 1: And I just wanted to do that. And I called
Speaker 1: it Rough Diamonds because I didn't want to say this
Speaker 1: as a bad company planning in the local village hall.
Speaker 1: It would have been insane, you know, So I just
Speaker 1: pretended we were a local band called Rough Diamonds, but
Speaker 1: they lifted We lifted that and used it for the
Speaker 1: album title. But but really they're not Rough Diamonds. They're
Speaker 1: they're kind of like it's a it is a little
Speaker 1: tired of some good good things. That is the album
Speaker 1: with electrically which was but electric Land. Yes, I think, yeah, okay,
Speaker 1: So then how does the BM break up or go
Speaker 1: on hiatus? Well, you know, I think that, as I
Speaker 1: said earlier, I think I was driven. This is the
Speaker 1: album I was referring to when I we'd all got
Speaker 1: a little tired of each other, I think, and it
Speaker 1: was time to move on, and it was felt very strongly,
Speaker 1: but we did. We did all these tracks, and you know,
Speaker 1: we were committed to make an album. And I think
Speaker 1: what that's what we did. Now after a short period
Speaker 1: of time, the band reforms with another lead singer, Brian Howe.
Speaker 1: What's your view point on that? I actually don't have one.
Speaker 1: You don't have a view? Well, that sounds like someone
Speaker 1: who's been through a lot of litigation. Yeah, would that
Speaker 1: be an act and I'm not gonna pull something out
Speaker 1: of it. Yes, you can certainly say no comment. Of course.
Speaker 1: You know, it turned into the manager they had is
Speaker 1: no longer with us himself. He turned it into he
Speaker 1: managed a band called Giant and it actually had a
Speaker 1: completely different sound, but they did have a couple of hits,
Speaker 1: and then all to it. Ly, you reform, but much
Speaker 1: longer down the line, but next you end up working
Speaker 1: with Jimmy Page in the firm. Can I just say
Speaker 1: this before we go on? Absolutely? Um, I do have
Speaker 1: something to say, and that is that I felt after
Speaker 1: I left it, the band's reputation for musical reputation went
Speaker 1: down the toilely and and and there the respect was gone,
Speaker 1: and I didn't like it. That's when I came back.
Speaker 1: I came back to re establish what we were and
Speaker 1: I think that's what we're doing now is re establishing
Speaker 1: the credibility again. You know, let's stay on this topic
Speaker 1: for one second. I saw you perform with Bad Company
Speaker 1: almost two summers ago. You go out with Free Spirit,
Speaker 1: You're going out solo with Beck. When do you do
Speaker 1: bad Company gigs? And what is the thinking there? Um?
Speaker 1: I do? I sort of do about twenty or thirty
Speaker 1: shows a year because I try to keep I want
Speaker 1: to keep the energy, the enthusiasm and the the interest
Speaker 1: really for me and for for the band and the listeners.
Speaker 1: So I do different, different things whatever comes to me.
Speaker 1: The Free Spirit thing, if you like, has evolved and
Speaker 1: we've evolved from doing it in England and then wanting
Speaker 1: to bring it here, so we made space for it
Speaker 1: in the itinerary to do the tour here with Jeff Beck,
Speaker 1: with Ann Wilson and Deborah Bonham. I should mention as well,
Speaker 1: she's opening and she's a beautiful singer. Um So what
Speaker 1: we I do bad do Bad Company shows? In between?
Speaker 1: When the offers come in, we we look at them
Speaker 1: and we now mcgralph's health. What is the status of that, Uh,
Speaker 1: Mick is you know as well as can be expected
Speaker 1: for a guy who's had a stroke and he can't
Speaker 1: you know it's not really. He's still got his sense
Speaker 1: of humor, but he's having trouble with his right hand.
Speaker 1: I do believe it is uh. And we took him
Speaker 1: a small guitar so he could make some noise, some
Speaker 1: musical noise. It's it's not great though, it's not great
Speaker 1: where Okay, But let's go back to the narratives. You
Speaker 1: end up working with Jimmy Page. How does that come together?
Speaker 1: Oh right, let's see how did that come together? I
Speaker 1: had a student when I left Bad Company. I had
Speaker 1: I put a studio together in my house in the
Speaker 1: attic in Kingston, not Kingston, Jamaica, Kingston and the UK,
Speaker 1: excuse me. And I was making I was recording and
Speaker 1: doing a solo album, etcetera, etcetera, and Jimmy Page popped
Speaker 1: over and I kept popping over. Actually come over a
Speaker 1: couple of times just to check me out and see
Speaker 1: what you're doing. Hey, And were you friends with him
Speaker 1: since you had the same manager here. Absolutely, we'd all
Speaker 1: see each other in their office, and we Bad Company
Speaker 1: and led Zeppelin would go to each other's shows and
Speaker 1: stand backstage, you know, cat calling each other and rubbish,
Speaker 1: you know, and stuff like that. But we're it's all
Speaker 1: friendly and uh we so Jimmy, Yeah, Jimmy came around
Speaker 1: and he brought this cassette because cassette in those days
Speaker 1: of music, and it was a beautiful piece of music
Speaker 1: and he said, can you write some lyrics to this?
Speaker 1: And I give it a go and it was. It
Speaker 1: turned out to be Midnight Moonlight Lady, which is a
Speaker 1: beautiful piece of music that that he created and added
Speaker 1: the lyrics on um And that was the start of
Speaker 1: us working together and writing together. And then we got
Speaker 1: a call from the people that were running the Arms
Speaker 1: tour and they said, we need another act, if you like,
Speaker 1: for the American leg of the touring we're doing. And
Speaker 1: we heard that you and Jimmy were in the studio.
Speaker 1: Would you like to do a half hour spot? And
Speaker 1: I looked at Jimmy and and he I said, well
Speaker 1: we we what was it? Oh? No, They said, would
Speaker 1: you like to do a spot? And I said, well,
Speaker 1: we only have a like about twenty minutes half an
Speaker 1: hour of music, that's all we need. And so we
Speaker 1: didn't have any excuses, so we went out. I said
Speaker 1: we didn't have a rhythm section either. Then we got
Speaker 1: your rhythm section, and so we went and we did
Speaker 1: that and that became the firm because Jimmy was m
Speaker 1: M mattel loos, and I do think he wouldn't mind
Speaker 1: me saying after after John had died, you know, they
Speaker 1: were all everybody was just so upset, and he hadn't
Speaker 1: touched a guitar in a couple of years. When he
Speaker 1: came around to see me and um everybody around him
Speaker 1: and said, well, whatever you do, don't ask him to
Speaker 1: play the guitar, because that's a no, no, no, He's
Speaker 1: not going to touch the guitar. And I thought, oh,
Speaker 1: how am I gonna So he walked into the studio
Speaker 1: and said, hey, Jimmy, how are you doing? Did you
Speaker 1: bring your guitar? And everybody like digged under the table,
Speaker 1: but you said it to taboo thing. But by the
Speaker 1: end of the evening he had restrung his guitar and
Speaker 1: was playing and we would and stuff, and it was
Speaker 1: wonderful to see him because I thought, you know, if
Speaker 1: guys depressed, what you need to do is play music,
Speaker 1: any music at all. And so we were just we
Speaker 1: were jamming by the end of the evening, and that's
Speaker 1: when afterwards he brought me that piece of music, and
Speaker 1: we did. We composed together Midnight Moonlight Lady, and went
Speaker 1: on from there and the end up the first album
Speaker 1: comes out, there a couple of successful tracks. There's a
Speaker 1: radioactive and satisfaction guaranteed. And does it live up to
Speaker 1: your expectations and Jimmy's I don't think it did, really.
Speaker 1: I think I think no. I think we did what
Speaker 1: we could under the circumstances um were there. Music is No,
Speaker 1: I don't think it did, to be honest, But there
Speaker 1: was a second album. I think Jimmy played great though. Yeah,
Speaker 1: we tried. Yeah, we had Chris Laid on the drums,
Speaker 1: he's a great drummer, and Tony Franklin on bass, great
Speaker 1: bass player. We were going to have Pino Palladino, but
Speaker 1: he he didn't. He didn't make it, He didn't do
Speaker 1: the tour in the end, so we settled on Tony
Speaker 1: Franklin because he'd done all the rehearsals with us and
Speaker 1: he knew all the songs. Um. So yeah, but and
Speaker 1: he and he thought why it didn't work? Um, I
Speaker 1: you know, I was a little burned at that point myself.
Speaker 1: I did not want to go on the road and
Speaker 1: that's why, that's why we met an agreement between us.
Speaker 1: Jimmy said, let's go on tour. And I said, well,
Speaker 1: I don't know if I really want to have just
Speaker 1: come out of Bad Company, because I'm just burned and
Speaker 1: I just want to stay home and make music in
Speaker 1: my little studio here and regroup myself. But he said, well,
Speaker 1: but he really wanted to go, and I really wanted
Speaker 1: him to be happy, so I said, well, let's go.
Speaker 1: And he said, I'll tell you what we'll do. We'll
Speaker 1: do two albums and two tours supporting those albums, and
Speaker 1: that will be it. And there was again it was
Speaker 1: a handshake, and that's what we did. That's that's as
Speaker 1: far as we took it. That's as far as it went.
Speaker 1: And had you end up working with Kenny Jones and
Speaker 1: the Law, Well, I was looking around for for the
Speaker 1: next thing, you know, and I met I met. I
Speaker 1: met him in a club and we talked about music,
Speaker 1: and I said, you know, I never I never really
Speaker 1: know which which which direction I want to go into,
Speaker 1: whether I want to go into soul or blues or
Speaker 1: flat out rock, you know, because I do all of
Speaker 1: those things, and I'm interested in doing all of those things.
Speaker 1: But he said, he said, why don't you just the
Speaker 1: two of us get together and we'll we'll do a
Speaker 1: rock album, we'll do a blues album, we'll do a
Speaker 1: soul album, and we'll do and all we'll do. You
Speaker 1: and I will be the center of it, and we'll
Speaker 1: just change other musicians around us, you know, we'll put
Speaker 1: a brass section in or this of that. And I thought,
Speaker 1: I want it's a good idea. I was trying to.
Speaker 1: So that's what that was the initial thing with with
Speaker 1: The Law. Now that had a title track which was
Speaker 1: the Hint, which of course for those were fans they
Speaker 1: think of Bad Company in the title track, and then
Speaker 1: Laying down the Law and the band was called The Law. Yeah,
Speaker 1: I think to some extent I was trying to recreate
Speaker 1: what I've done with Bad Company, because um um Kenny
Speaker 1: said to me, how about a title for a song
Speaker 1: laying down the Law? And I went, I'll have it
Speaker 1: ready by Thursday, And I actually did because I give
Speaker 1: myself and Dad Da Dad Dan Da Da on the piano,
Speaker 1: and I thought, well, you know it were you know
Speaker 1: it worked before. We maybe to have a theme tune
Speaker 1: around the name is good you know, so those of
Speaker 1: us at home saw it that way, that was the
Speaker 1: real way. It sort of was okay. So that that
Speaker 1: plays out, and then you go out with the remain
Speaker 1: remnants of Queen Queen and Paul Rogers. Were you a
Speaker 1: Queen fan? I loved the music. I can't say that
Speaker 1: I ever bought went out and bought their singles, their records,
Speaker 1: but I loved it when I heard it on the radio.
Speaker 1: I want to Break Free, you know. I mean, I
Speaker 1: thought that the guitar plane was great. I thought Freddie
Speaker 1: was fantastic. I went in with a lot of respect
Speaker 1: for Freddy and I came out from that with a
Speaker 1: ton of respect. He was such a great guy, such
Speaker 1: a great musician, and so many great songs he had written,
Speaker 1: and so many influences, and I think, you know, he
Speaker 1: was influenced by the right people in many ways, like
Speaker 1: a wreath of Franklin, you know, even says that on
Speaker 1: one of his life I think when you got the
Speaker 1: audience singing, you guys sound like a wreatha, you know.
Speaker 1: Um So that started out with let's see I was
Speaker 1: asked by Chris Blackwell. Actually they were doing a TV
Speaker 1: show and they said, would you come on and we're
Speaker 1: gonna honor Chris Blackwell and would you finish the show
Speaker 1: with all right now? And the Queen or the rennents
Speaker 1: of Queen will be on there. So Brian called me
Speaker 1: and said, look, Brian may Uh, if you will be
Speaker 1: our singer for we will rock you and we are
Speaker 1: the champions, we will be your backing band for all
Speaker 1: right now. And I went, oh, Queen, my man, that
Speaker 1: sounds good. So we actually we did that and it
Speaker 1: was it was great, and I didn't think we had
Speaker 1: much in common, but when we put those three songs together,
Speaker 1: they were in the same ballpark somehow. You know, we
Speaker 1: will rock you, we are the champions and all right now.
Speaker 1: It's just sort of out there in that arena space,
Speaker 1: you know. And I thought, well, you know maybe, And
Speaker 1: then he called me up and asked me would I
Speaker 1: like to do just two or three shows for fun?
Speaker 1: And I said, well, yeah, well let's do that. We
Speaker 1: can do that. But it turned into like two world
Speaker 1: tours and the studio album. It's just the way things are,
Speaker 1: you know, you you you get involved, and it's you
Speaker 1: can't just walk away. So uh, it turned into I
Speaker 1: think four years and at the end of that four years,
Speaker 1: I was like, well, I this is not the rest
Speaker 1: of my life here with Queen blessed them. I love
Speaker 1: them to pieces, but I have to do my own things.
Speaker 1: So it was your decision to move on. Oh totally. Yeah. Yeah.
Speaker 1: And they're still working now with the American idols. Well
Speaker 1: you've got to remember that before after Freddie, they didn't tour.
Speaker 1: They did an odd gig, they did Wembley. They did
Speaker 1: some great gigs, but not touring. They had David Boy
Speaker 1: with them, they had Michael Um Michael help me, Michael
Speaker 1: from One Band, Um, George Michael, George Michael, George Michael,
Speaker 1: thank you. And they had some great singative boy and
Speaker 1: all these great singers. I thought George Michael was great
Speaker 1: on that as well, but they didn't and that Elton
Speaker 1: John too. There are a lot of things. But they
Speaker 1: and I got together with them and I showed them, look, hey,
Speaker 1: you've got all these these great songs, you've got this
Speaker 1: great organization behind you, a lot of fans. All you
Speaker 1: need is the right singer up front. I will do
Speaker 1: that and hopefully we can make it work. And we toured.
Speaker 1: So I told her I've taught them they could tour,
Speaker 1: and they are now touring, So that's good. Okay, So
Speaker 1: what do you think of today's music scene? Uh? I
Speaker 1: think technology has gone on in leaps and bounds, but
Speaker 1: we're kind of in danger of overdoing it. And one
Speaker 1: thing that does not change is that it has to
Speaker 1: come from here, no matter what the technology is, that
Speaker 1: the technology is a bit of cat got on a
Speaker 1: on a broom, they've still got to come from here.
Speaker 1: Or if it's a fantastic, you know, gizmo, a technological wonderment,
Speaker 1: you have to it has to come from here, whatever
Speaker 1: the instrument is. And we might be missing that a bit.
Speaker 1: We we might be getting into. We used to say
Speaker 1: that you can mix the balls right out of a
Speaker 1: track if you're not careful. You've got to keep that essence.
Speaker 1: You know, it's so perfect that it loses its essence.
Speaker 1: You've got to stop before you get that. I think
Speaker 1: you've got to keep You've got to keep the essence.
Speaker 1: And you get that playing live. I think you get
Speaker 1: that imagining you playing live. But it's frustrating if you
Speaker 1: talk to superstars from your era, if you make new music,
Speaker 1: it's not like it used to be used to be
Speaker 1: everybody was aware it came out. Everybody was listening to
Speaker 1: the same radio stations, and you could make or break
Speaker 1: depending on the quality of the song. Whereas you can
Speaker 1: make a great song today and almost no one hears it.
Speaker 1: What's it like being on the creative end of that. Well,
Speaker 1: you look around and and people. People have impact when
Speaker 1: they when they break and they Hendrix, for instance, when
Speaker 1: I saw Hendrix, I remember the DJ said, oh, we've
Speaker 1: got to young man for young band from America. It
Speaker 1: was Pete Murray. He was a DJ, young band here
Speaker 1: from America, and here they are Jimmy Hendrix. And he
Speaker 1: put his arm up like this, and then Jimmy Hendrix
Speaker 1: comes on with the hair with the hey Joe, where
Speaker 1: are you going with that gun in your hand? And
Speaker 1: then he picks his guitar up and plays it with
Speaker 1: his teeth and it was just so wild. He put
Speaker 1: the guitar on, and when the camera cut back to
Speaker 1: Pete Murray, he still got his arm out announcing them
Speaker 1: like he hadn't stopped going like that. It was it
Speaker 1: was amazed and horrified, I think at the same time.
Speaker 1: But I mean the rest of us, just like we
Speaker 1: woke up the next day I went to school and
Speaker 1: Jimmy Hendricks was like it, um, but they there are
Speaker 1: certain people that have that sort of impact when it's real.
Speaker 1: I think, you know, I don't know what what that
Speaker 1: what that means, exactly what that real is, but it's
Speaker 1: something that touches a nerve and it catches fire throughout
Speaker 1: the Have you heard that young band grettavan Fleet? Yes,
Speaker 1: I have. For those of who don't know, uh, certainly
Speaker 1: the tracks have been released so far are very Zeppelin like.
Speaker 1: What do you think of Greta van Fleet? I think
Speaker 1: they're great, Actually I do. I do hear a lot
Speaker 1: of the influences from Zeppelin and perhaps even as you know,
Speaker 1: but it's also the good Well, it's interesting because people
Speaker 1: from our era were influenced by blues tracks from the
Speaker 1: thirties forties, which was only thirty or forty years after
Speaker 1: the renaissance of rock in the UK late sixties early seventies,
Speaker 1: where it's already been almost fifty years since that sound,
Speaker 1: so it's ready for that sound to come back. Yeah. Well,
Speaker 1: I mean I still I can put Holland Wolf on
Speaker 1: playing Backdoor Man and still get a real kick out
Speaker 1: of it. I still get you try. I don't know
Speaker 1: who's drumming on that, but it's just the laziest, coolest
Speaker 1: drums you ever heard. Do you still play music at home? Yes,
Speaker 1: I do. I play blues, I play some classical. I
Speaker 1: like Holtz Planet Sweet I love of that. Actually I play.
Speaker 1: I like to collect a bit of vinyl nowadays. I
Speaker 1: still listened to oldest reading Um and I still listened
Speaker 1: to Junior Wells. So the stuff you're collecting is not is,
Speaker 1: you know, the old blue stuff, not the big hit
Speaker 1: stuff on vinyl. No, actually it's not. Very very few
Speaker 1: of very little actually hits me hard like it did
Speaker 1: in the past, like when I first heard by With
Speaker 1: Help from my Friends by Joe Cocker, you know, back
Speaker 1: in the day. I mean those songs, the songs that
Speaker 1: hit me then Midnight Hour by Will They still they
Speaker 1: give you a tingle in the back of your neck.
Speaker 1: Well they still do that for me, and it's very
Speaker 1: hard for me to find that with new stuff. I'm sorry,
Speaker 1: but it is. No. I mean I feel the same way.
Speaker 1: You know, there's a lot of people who want to
Speaker 1: appear young, so they say today's music as good as
Speaker 1: it was. I mean, the people don't understand it was
Speaker 1: music was all we had. We were addicted to the radio,
Speaker 1: and growing up in the UK grow up in the
Speaker 1: United States, it's not exactly identical, but we were addicted
Speaker 1: to the radio, especially after the Beatles came out. Before that,
Speaker 1: we were listening to sports in the four seasons, and
Speaker 1: it was everything. And when the band made a statement,
Speaker 1: whether it be musical or sociological, you really paid attention.
Speaker 1: Whereas now you talk about credibility. So many acts today
Speaker 1: are seeing the end goal of fame and riches as
Speaker 1: opposed to the music itself. I think that's true. I
Speaker 1: think that's possibly quite true. Yeah. To me, like the
Speaker 1: fame and fortune, the show based aspect of it was
Speaker 1: never really it at all. And I think I probably
Speaker 1: got that from listening to those black guys because they
Speaker 1: were just telling their story. They weren't seeking fame, seeking
Speaker 1: fortune or any of it. Um the guitar ships, swinging
Speaker 1: pools or any of that. They were. They were just
Speaker 1: doing their thing and and as it happened, people like
Speaker 1: me I loved it, you know, And so also back
Speaker 1: in the rock here are sixty four to eighty or
Speaker 1: so or certainly empty. Vira, you mentioned Joe Cocker. You
Speaker 1: mentioned notice reading anybody else? Any other records to stand out?
Speaker 1: Oh yeah, there'll be so many. Have to think of
Speaker 1: for a minute, though, Um there are let's see, well,
Speaker 1: the Temptations, the Four Tops, you know, I mentioned that one.
Speaker 1: What you ever? What do you ever think of the Stones?
Speaker 1: Cover of being too proud to beg It's all right,
Speaker 1: I mean they were good. One of the great things
Speaker 1: about the Stones is they Yeah, they did these Arms
Speaker 1: of Mine as well, but uh, well they're going to
Speaker 1: They introduced me to a lot of music that you know,
Speaker 1: Soloman Burke, I'm so glad to be here tonight. Now,
Speaker 1: so I'm glad to be home, and I believe that
Speaker 1: I've got a message for every man and every woman
Speaker 1: here tonight that seven needed someone to love, someone to
Speaker 1: stay with all the time when you help, but when
Speaker 1: you're down. I love all that, you know. So they
Speaker 1: introduced me to a lot of uh, a lot of
Speaker 1: quite obscure blues. Actually, you know, Um, it might be
Speaker 1: one o'clock and it might be three time, don't mean
Speaker 1: that much to me. I've got my plans. I don't
Speaker 1: know about you. I'll tell you exactly what I'm gonna do,
Speaker 1: get in the group and let the good time rule.
Speaker 1: I mean, that's a great, great sound, great lyrics, your
Speaker 1: rendition right there. We should print that on Spotify right now.
Speaker 1: I thank you. They they well, you're saying it in
Speaker 1: such a soulful way. But it was sort of votes.
Speaker 1: I mean, it wasn't full belting, but but it's an
Speaker 1: example of lyrics that just flow. You know, they're not forced.
Speaker 1: You know, what should I do next day? Just somebody
Speaker 1: is there and it just like it came out. That's
Speaker 1: Those are the kind of lyrics. Do you have any
Speaker 1: tricks you used to make sure that you get what
Speaker 1: you want down? Oh? True? As far as song right now,
Speaker 1: you've got to You've got to listen to If somebody
Speaker 1: gives me a piece of music to write songs on,
Speaker 1: I say, I go, uh, what is this music saying?
Speaker 1: What can I What do I hear it saying to me?
Speaker 1: And I try to get in tune with the music,
Speaker 1: but lyrically, you know, so that you can express what
Speaker 1: the music seems to be saying to you. I might
Speaker 1: be wrong and I might be right. Might be one
Speaker 1: o'clock and it might be three, you know, but you
Speaker 1: kind of get in tune with what do you think
Speaker 1: it's what it's saying to you. Okay, So at this
Speaker 1: late date, you're still standing, you can still sing, You've
Speaker 1: had gargantuan success with multiple acts. What's left for you
Speaker 1: to accomplish? Well, the next two is the uppermost in
Speaker 1: my mind. I've done some I've just done some some
Speaker 1: bad company shows with Leonard Skinner and it were just amazing.
Speaker 1: Leonard Skinner's last to Yes, Yes, theoretically. I mean, I
Speaker 1: don't know if one can ever really retire, you know,
Speaker 1: I think you never get too far away from I've
Speaker 1: tried to, you know, sit back at least, but I
Speaker 1: just couldn't. I mean, things happen, you know, things evolved.
Speaker 1: How much of it is the energy from the crowd
Speaker 1: that you miss? Well, the energy from the crowd was
Speaker 1: just fantastic. It's a crackling electricity. You know. It's just
Speaker 1: one thing to listen to, like sift with with Leonard
Speaker 1: skin It is one thing to listen to simple Man.
Speaker 1: They're simple man. They have a simple man, of course,
Speaker 1: and it's a good thing to listen to the record.
Speaker 1: But it's quite another to sit under the stars with
Speaker 1: thirty thousand other people and hear those opening cards and
Speaker 1: know that it's coming, you know, under the moonlight, it
Speaker 1: is just magical, and the actual air there just crackles.
Speaker 1: There's a lot of soul in the atmosphere, and I
Speaker 1: think that's what people love about live concerts. It's a
Speaker 1: coming together at a meeting of the tribe, and uh
Speaker 1: a focal point instead of a campfire, it's the lights
Speaker 1: of the stage. So this point his live superseded recording
Speaker 1: for you. Oh, it's a good question. Recording is still
Speaker 1: important to me though. I mean, I do like to
Speaker 1: make a good record, but I I love playing live. Yeah.
Speaker 1: Probably probably it has, Maybe it has. So what have
Speaker 1: you not accomplished that you still want to accomplish? If anything,
Speaker 1: I'm still learning, I really am. And I love to
Speaker 1: put you know, a set of music. I love what
Speaker 1: I'm doing, taking Bad Company, looking at all the catalog
Speaker 1: and making a show that works cohesively and starts and
Speaker 1: moves through and keeps your attention right the way through,
Speaker 1: so that at the end of it you've been on
Speaker 1: a magic carpet ride and you're happy. And I want
Speaker 1: us to do the same thing with Free Spirit, you know,
Speaker 1: which we were doing in the States in the UK,
Speaker 1: and we do here. But I also will add some
Speaker 1: bad Company material in with the Free Spirit, because I
Speaker 1: think people expect me to do that. They'll be disappointed.
Speaker 1: They don't get feel like making love and conciden for that. Unfortunately,
Speaker 1: that's true. You don't want it to be that way.
Speaker 1: But people don't get the memo. Well, you know, they
Speaker 1: they paid their money. That takes the choice. I mean,
Speaker 1: I think they have a right to expect. You know,
Speaker 1: if you go see a shore, you have a right
Speaker 1: to expect a certain amount. You know. I don't think
Speaker 1: you can stand too much on your your musical inteket
Speaker 1: or whatever it might be that you I'm not going
Speaker 1: to play this because because everybody wants it, you know.
Speaker 1: I like to see a happy crowd. I'd love to
Speaker 1: see that. So when you're singing those hits which you
Speaker 1: sung so many times before, are you thinking about doing
Speaker 1: your laundry and where you get to the hotel on
Speaker 1: the right time or are you still present? Yeah? I'm
Speaker 1: very much present. You know, you have to be present. Uh.
Speaker 1: And that's one of the things about live it is
Speaker 1: it's it's live and you are there. You get one
Speaker 1: shot at it. You know, you get the one shot.
Speaker 1: So you I and I'm listening to the guitar player
Speaker 1: and listening to the drums. We all are aware of
Speaker 1: each other. We're speaking to each other musically and then
Speaker 1: to the crowd. So we're all in this together. It's
Speaker 1: like a great unity. It's a great sense of unity
Speaker 1: unity playing music, and so you you're leaning on each
Speaker 1: other and you're depending on each other, and you don't
Speaker 1: want to let each other down by by not being focused.
Speaker 1: Now with this late deep if you were walking, ironically
Speaker 1: without the internet, if you were walking through an airport,
Speaker 1: or you in town at the height of the success
Speaker 1: of Bad Company, you were recognized by everybody. And what's
Speaker 1: it like walking the street today? Uh, it's pretty good,
Speaker 1: you know. I don't get bothered too much at all. Really,
Speaker 1: I don't think people are people know me in the
Speaker 1: supermarket or anything like that. I mean they know me
Speaker 1: in my hometown. Oh you've been you know. But is
Speaker 1: that a good thing or a bad thing for you? Well,
Speaker 1: a bit of it's nice. It's lovely to be recognized
Speaker 1: and just people to be excited. Yeah, it's it's it's
Speaker 1: a nice thing. But I can understand, you know, I
Speaker 1: mean I when I it with with with Queen, the
Speaker 1: other fans were absolutely nuts. Really, I've got to tell
Speaker 1: you you were nuts. And but they were lovely. But
Speaker 1: I mean, I I finished, I did my last show
Speaker 1: in Rio de Janeiro, and I said to Cynthia, were really,
Speaker 1: did janiro, Let's go and walk along the beach and
Speaker 1: we've done, We're finished, We're out of here. We'll go
Speaker 1: home tomorrow. So we thought we're a nice peaceful book.
Speaker 1: And we walked outside and all these people just mobbed us,
Speaker 1: and I thought, what's happened? And they were like crazy,
Speaker 1: They just wanted oh, sign us, sign us, and that
Speaker 1: It was like a It was essentially any time that
Speaker 1: you're looking for that recognition, you can get it by
Speaker 1: going back to work with Queen or something like that. Oh,
Speaker 1: I don't know, I suppose so maybe I don't know.
Speaker 1: It's not what it's about though to me. I mean,
Speaker 1: I like to meet people and be and be gracious
Speaker 1: if they if they love the music, that's what it's
Speaker 1: all about for me. It's not it's not of show
Speaker 1: biz fame. I'm not into that. And are your kids
Speaker 1: into music? They are actually I didn't really encourage them,
Speaker 1: but they were surrounded by it, and so they was
Speaker 1: writing songs on the piano when they were four years old.
Speaker 1: You know, so uh and you know, you get Bill
Speaker 1: Wyman would pop around for a cup of tea, and
Speaker 1: they were incredibly unimpressed, you know, they they Yeah, they're great.
Speaker 1: I love my kids. I've got grandkids now, and I
Speaker 1: love them to pieces to you know. Okay, Well, we've
Speaker 1: been here with Paul Rodgers, vocalists extraordinaire from all the
Speaker 1: bands we just talked about, from Queen to Free and
Speaker 1: Bad Company and Jimmy Page in between. We have to
Speaker 1: do a whole nother session where we don't talk about you.
Speaker 1: We just talked about music because there's a lot of
Speaker 1: insight here which is so fascinating to me. You know,
Speaker 1: the way the way you talked about the mood, etcetera.
Speaker 1: A lot of people don't talk about because the creative
Speaker 1: process as opposed to you know, because specially when it
Speaker 1: comes to music, it's not something you can really learn
Speaker 1: what I'm trying to say, it's not you you can
Speaker 1: open a book and say A B. C. D. You
Speaker 1: have to go on your own journey, stumble on your
Speaker 1: own feelings, and you've obviously done that, and thanks so
Speaker 1: much for sharing your thoughts today. It's my pleasure both.
Speaker 1: Thanks for having me. Don't turn off your podcast player.
Speaker 1: Stop really hold your fingers back at this moment, because
Speaker 1: after the podcast ended, Paul and I engage in a
Speaker 1: conversation about music and politics. I know you'd love to
Speaker 1: hear it here it is, but you know, on that,
Speaker 1: on that line, on what you were saying, that the
Speaker 1: the idea of mood. You know, if you want to
Speaker 1: write about missed in the trees in the full moon,
Speaker 1: you got to go and sit out in that and
Speaker 1: then you will get the feeling of it, and you'll
Speaker 1: get the feeling into the music. And something that you
Speaker 1: would not occur to you technically like will occur to
Speaker 1: you emotionally. That will expo There's a couple of things there.
Speaker 1: In order to be creative, you have to live a life,
Speaker 1: which is hard when you're working so hard. Yeah, and
Speaker 1: the other things I find my best ideas come in
Speaker 1: the shower. It's like, when I'm doing nothing else, I
Speaker 1: will remember that and then I'll have to run to
Speaker 1: the computer whatever to write about it. But it's also
Speaker 1: frustrating me. What I always found fascinating with bands from
Speaker 1: the seventies is, you know, okay, we did an album,
Speaker 1: we're going on the road, throught it. Now we have
Speaker 1: to write another album. Okay, we have to actually turn
Speaker 1: it on. I know. Well, you know, I said to
Speaker 1: him and earth again, I said, you know, you get
Speaker 1: your whole life to write the first album, and then
Speaker 1: you've got like a year between it. And he looked
Speaker 1: at me and said, what are you saying? I said, well,
Speaker 1: that's what it is. You know, you're working towards your
Speaker 1: first album, your whole life, you know, and then all
Speaker 1: of a sudden it's successful, and you've got to think
Speaker 1: what did I do? And can I do it again?
Speaker 1: Naturally gets complicated. Well, the other thing is, you know,
Speaker 1: it's one thing to right on to me, and it's
Speaker 1: another thing that when you're writing that first album, you
Speaker 1: have the inspiration and you say, oh, yeah, you know
Speaker 1: you have all these times. Next time, I said, we
Speaker 1: have two weeks I have to write ten songs. Yeah,
Speaker 1: It's like, how does one do that well with difficulty?
Speaker 1: I don't know, you know, I wish I had a
Speaker 1: pat answer, but there probably isn't one. Really okay. But
Speaker 1: one other things, You've written some iconic songs, and we
Speaker 1: covered this, but did you know they were iconic when
Speaker 1: you wrote any of them? You know, you feel that
Speaker 1: this has got something. You do feel that little whisper
Speaker 1: that you know this has got something, and that that
Speaker 1: that isn't a lot of words saying this has got something,
Speaker 1: but you mean, I mean that special something. You kind
Speaker 1: of do know that on some level. I think I
Speaker 1: think you do. I remember, you know, we're talking about
Speaker 1: Al Cooper recently in the podcast, but you know he
Speaker 1: produced the first couple of Leonard Skinner albums, and after
Speaker 1: the first one came out before Freebird was even a hit.
Speaker 1: This is summer seventy three. He's living in Atlanta and
Speaker 1: they call him and say, we got a new song
Speaker 1: we want to record. Can we come in on Monday.
Speaker 1: They come up and they record Sweet Home Alabama, which
Speaker 1: doesn't come out for a year. Okay, So I say, al,
Speaker 1: did you know it was hitting? Goes it was sweet
Speaker 1: Old Alabama. It's like there's some stuffs in I guess
Speaker 1: to me when on some level there's the old Hollywood outage,
Speaker 1: no one knows anything, but sometimes you know when you
Speaker 1: hit in the leven you know, Yeah, you hit the
Speaker 1: sweet spot. There's a feeling right, goes right up your
Speaker 1: arms exactly, and you wish you could do that all
Speaker 1: the time, exactly, that sweet about it, right, exactly if
Speaker 1: you could do it every time. Of course, the old
Speaker 1: cliche is after you do it, you think you'll never
Speaker 1: do it again, it will never happen. And then what
Speaker 1: it does, go, Oh, that fights in between. There's some
Speaker 1: kind of alignment of the stars happens as well, you know,
Speaker 1: there is. There's something cosmic, and we are we're all
Speaker 1: in touch with that all the time. I think it's
Speaker 1: it's just we we block it out. I don't know
Speaker 1: what it is. I don't know if I've been described
Speaker 1: in some way. You have to get you have to live.
Speaker 1: Something has to happen. I say, you cannot sit down
Speaker 1: and do it. Yeah, you know. The interesting thing that
Speaker 1: I find is that you you have to be shooting
Speaker 1: for the moon to hit the moon. But you you see,
Speaker 1: if you're not shooting for the moon, you'll never hit it, right.
Speaker 1: But if you're shooting for it and you you you
Speaker 1: hit all the time, there will come a day when
Speaker 1: you hit it. But if you're not even trying, well,
Speaker 1: then you definitely won't. Well that goes to another thing.
Speaker 1: I mean you talk about you know, you moved to
Speaker 1: London and the guys went back home. Yeah. People don't understand.
Speaker 1: It is so hard to make it, and when you're hungry, man,
Speaker 1: it gets really hard. And being all. The other thing
Speaker 1: is the longer you get down that path, you see
Speaker 1: other people going down a different path, And are you
Speaker 1: getting married, have houses and stuff like that and you're
Speaker 1: still hungry. I think you had success relatively soon. Yeah,
Speaker 1: I mean I did. It didn't seem soon. It seemed
Speaker 1: like an eternity force. But looking back, it was a
Speaker 1: matter of months, you know, from from there to the
Speaker 1: the from meeting costs. It was a matter of months
Speaker 1: before boom, we were making records and zooming up. Uh.
Speaker 1: She was behind it. She she was oh you know
Speaker 1: what she did say? She said to me, you shouldn't
Speaker 1: let it get into your blood. Son. I said, Mom,
Speaker 1: it's too late for that now. And then, of course, okay,
Speaker 1: I don't know if you know, remember this old manager
Speaker 1: David Krebs, Yeah, okay, he says that the music from
Speaker 1: that era we couldn't even make today. Like he managed
Speaker 1: Errol Smith. He said, he knows one of my favorite
Speaker 1: Errol Smith songs called Lord of the Thighs. Say, you
Speaker 1: couldn't put that out to that, so it's interesting. And
Speaker 1: the other thing is, I'm sure you went on the
Speaker 1: road and had a good time, okay, whereas today with
Speaker 1: cell phone can it's not even the same experience life, isn't.
Speaker 1: I mean it changed the whole life experience. Uh. People
Speaker 1: can't can't get away from their pace. I don't have one.
Speaker 1: I'm think I'm the only person in the world without one.
Speaker 1: So you don't have a you have a you don't
Speaker 1: have a smart phone, or you don't have a phone
Speaker 1: at all. Well I have one of these, right, You
Speaker 1: don't have a mobile phone? No, I don't. And you
Speaker 1: had one and gave it up, or you don't want
Speaker 1: to have it. Well I've had them for for the
Speaker 1: length of a tour, and then when they run out
Speaker 1: of money, I haven't renewed them, and so they've got
Speaker 1: become defunct something. At this point, I never talked on
Speaker 1: the phone. I mean, if somebody's calling me for a
Speaker 1: doctor's appointment, whatever, other than I won't talk on the phone.
Speaker 1: And I have reasons for that, because usually people want
Speaker 1: something and it takes them a long time to get
Speaker 1: to what they want. Yes, oh, is it a beautiful day?
Speaker 1: What you mean, what is it you want? But I
Speaker 1: do find it good to have information at my fingertips,
Speaker 1: and I do like having songs. You know. You know
Speaker 1: your wife said, you're heavily into the political thing. I'm
Speaker 1: concerned for the world just as everybody else is, you know.
Speaker 1: I mean I I one minute we're at each other's
Speaker 1: throats and it's almost a nuclear war, and next minute
Speaker 1: we're all pals. I mean it is literally next minute,
Speaker 1: the North Korean guy what's his name? I mean, just
Speaker 1: what a month ago they were talking about nuclear war
Speaker 1: like it was like, yeah, nuk war. Yeah. I mean
Speaker 1: even to discuss that a year ago was not not cool.
Speaker 1: But there's two, it's two. It's not a light subject
Speaker 1: at all at all. I mean, I worry for my grandkids,
Speaker 1: actually mostly not for me. But well, do you feel
Speaker 1: that there's anything musicians can do. I think we can
Speaker 1: deliver a message of love, and that's what we can
Speaker 1: do strongly, and that's what we should be doing. Yeahs.
Speaker 1: Generally speaking, musicians are promoting a message of commerciality. Oh yeah,
Speaker 1: it isn't that sickening? Now? Is that amazing? Or what?
Speaker 1: Like I said on the podcast, I can remember specifically
Speaker 1: on the Merritt Parkway hearing all right now. I remember
Speaker 1: skiing at Snowbird singing simple Man to myself, dancing around
Speaker 1: in my underwear, long before Risky Business with Live for
Speaker 1: the Music, Paul had amazing stories. I can't believe we
Speaker 1: talked to him. I hope you enjoyed it. Until next time,
Speaker 1: I'm bob left us make any reason. I don't know
Speaker 1: exactly why must be its out of the season filling