Speaker 1: Welcome, Welcome, Welcome back to the Bob Left Search podcast.
Speaker 1: My guest today is that one and only Simon Kirk,
Speaker 1: drummer of Bad Company and Free. Simon, how do you
Speaker 1: feel about Bad Company not being in the Rock and
Speaker 1: Roll Hall of Fame?
Speaker 2: You don't hang around, Bob, do you know. I think
Speaker 2: it's such travesty. Quite honestly, I mean not just that,
Speaker 2: but Free Free certainly should be because you know, I mean,
Speaker 2: Free has been around since nineteen sixty eight and we've
Speaker 2: the two bands have been responsible for influencing a lot
Speaker 2: of a lot of bands who are already in the Hall.
Speaker 2: So it's you know, I feel pretty bad about it,
Speaker 2: but I'm not going to go on too much about it.
Speaker 2: It's just I think we should be in, certainly, Free,
Speaker 2: and I think Paul Paul Rodgers should be in on
Speaker 2: his own merits. I mean, as one of the great
Speaker 2: rock vocalists of all time. You know, if Eric Captain
Speaker 2: and Rodge Stewart and Jeff Jeff Beck and be inducted
Speaker 2: as solo artists, and certainly Paul Rodgers should be in there.
Speaker 2: So that's my two cents.
Speaker 1: I completely agree with you, certainly in both bands. I think,
Speaker 1: you know, the focus has become the Music Hall of
Speaker 1: Fame because you can't have a rock I've been back
Speaker 1: and forth with the members. I'm not a voting member
Speaker 1: or anything, but it's a travesty, as you put it.
Speaker 1: So what's the status of Bad Company today? Are they
Speaker 1: going to ever be any more live dates?
Speaker 2: I honestly I doubt it, and I'll tell you why.
Speaker 2: I think a lot of people now already know that
Speaker 2: Paul Rodgers has had health problems. He went public with
Speaker 2: it a couple of weeks ago on CBS. They flew
Speaker 2: him out to New York and he came out with
Speaker 2: the fact that he has had some severe health problems
Speaker 2: in the last couple of years, a couple of strokes,
Speaker 2: quite a few mini strokes and heart troubles. And I
Speaker 2: honestly think that our Bad Company's days are pretty much over.
Speaker 1: Okay, Just on this same point, there have been conversations
Speaker 1: or talking about Mick Ralf's health. How is his health?
Speaker 2: Oh, Mick, we'll mix uffered a stroke about six or
Speaker 2: seven years ago and it's paralyzed his left side, as
Speaker 2: most strokes do, so he's really out of commission. He's
Speaker 2: in a home in a nursing home in England. Several
Speaker 2: people have seen him recently. I'm going to go over
Speaker 2: next year, so he's really health is not good and
Speaker 2: it's certainly his playing days are over. So you know,
Speaker 2: we had a good run and I think we're going
Speaker 2: to lay the old bad company to rest pretty soon.
Speaker 1: Okay, this begs a question, how's your health? Well?
Speaker 2: Touch would? I'm great? I am cleaning sober quite a
Speaker 2: few years now at last, and I don't smoke, I
Speaker 2: don't drink, I eat well, I do yoga and I
Speaker 2: have smoothies and my wife make sure that I'm living
Speaker 2: another twenty four hours. So thanks for asking. I'm in
Speaker 2: pretty good shape.
Speaker 1: So tell me about getting sober well.
Speaker 2: I think it's common knowledge that you know, I had
Speaker 2: troubles with substance abuse for many years, and back in
Speaker 2: the day, you know, in the seventies and eighties, it
Speaker 2: was something that was kept. Yeah, you didn't really broadcast
Speaker 2: in whereas nowadays you know it's part of one cv
Speaker 2: as it were, that you know you're in the program
Speaker 2: or you're clean and sober. It's something that is something
Speaker 2: that is to be congratulated rather than hidden under a rock.
Speaker 2: So I've been I hadn't done blow for twenty seven years.
Speaker 2: I gave up drinking about eight years ago. Finally I
Speaker 2: had a little sip down again, La la la. But really,
Speaker 2: to be totally clean and sober, you've got to give
Speaker 2: everything up. And it's the best thing I did. I mean,
Speaker 2: I you know, back in those days, the seventies and
Speaker 2: eighties were really crazy days, but I was a lot younger.
Speaker 2: I could get away with it and it didn't never
Speaker 2: really impeded my drumming. You could just sort of get
Speaker 2: away with that shit, you know. But now, Nah, I
Speaker 2: don't miss at all, Bob. Quite honestly, I wish I'd
Speaker 2: done it sooner, but you know, better late than never.
Speaker 1: Well, let's talk about the drugs. How did you finally
Speaker 1: decide to stop? Oh?
Speaker 2: I nearly died, to put it in a nutshell, I mean,
Speaker 2: I was on a tour bus and we pulled into Nashville,
Speaker 2: and I've been taking ativan with swigging it with Jack
Speaker 2: Daniels and doing blow and all sorts of stuff. And
Speaker 2: I was passed out in the bunk, one of the bunks,
Speaker 2: and they left me there. I mean, everyone was out
Speaker 2: of it. We sort of staggering into They staggered into
Speaker 2: the hotel to get their rooms, and I was left
Speaker 2: with this girlfriend of mine, who God bless her. I mean,
Speaker 2: she saved my life. And she dragged me out of
Speaker 2: the bunk and walked me around, slapping me, and I
Speaker 2: nearly died that night, and that's when I thought, Okay,
Speaker 2: now you know this has got to stop. So it
Speaker 2: really took a near death experience to give the hard
Speaker 2: stuff up. And I say this only as a personal thing,
Speaker 2: but coke exacerbates drinking and drug taking because if you
Speaker 2: do a line, you want to drink five times as
Speaker 2: much as you normally would. If you want to sleep,
Speaker 2: you've got to take valume or you've got to take
Speaker 2: something to come down. In the morning, you're sort of groggy,
Speaker 2: so you do another line and the whole thing starts again.
Speaker 2: But I was at that stage. This is in nineteen
Speaker 2: ninety six. I was forty seven, and I was a lunatic,
Speaker 2: a functioning lunatic, because I went to the gym every
Speaker 2: day and I jogged, you know, and then I'd come
Speaker 2: back and do a line. It's stupid, really.
Speaker 1: So you have this near death experience, did you stop
Speaker 1: cold Turkey. Did you go to rehab?
Speaker 2: Nose. I went to rehab. I couldn't have done it
Speaker 2: without rehab. I've been to several and now I'm on
Speaker 2: the board of you know, I help kids with addiction.
Speaker 2: I'm on the board of a foundation called Road Recovery,
Speaker 2: which helps teenagers and adolescents with drug addiction. And I'm
Speaker 2: on the board of Right Turn, which is based in Boston,
Speaker 2: and we help musicians people in the theatrical business with addiction.
Speaker 2: So I'm just passing it on, you know, I'm helping it.
Speaker 2: And I see kids, Bob. I mean, there's kids in
Speaker 2: seventeen or eighteen, They've got three years sober. You know,
Speaker 2: they are sidestepping all that ridiculous black hole that waits
Speaker 2: for people who get hooked, and they're getting sober in
Speaker 2: their late teens. And I thank people. I have to
Speaker 2: thank people like Eric Clapton. Elton Alice Cooper was one
Speaker 2: of the first people in my business that got sober.
Speaker 2: You know, he's been sober like forty five years. Because
Speaker 2: you know, we were all lunatics. Everyone dragged it la
Speaker 2: la la la. And then suddenly someone puts a hand
Speaker 2: up and says, you know, I'm Vince, Vince Fernier with
Speaker 2: Alice's real name, and I'm an addict. Eric puts his
Speaker 2: hand ups. I'm an addict, and without people like that
Speaker 2: to help people like myself, I probably would have been dead,
Speaker 2: quite honestly. So I'm just passing it on to the youngsters.
Speaker 2: Saying don't go down the road is a waste of time,
Speaker 2: complete waste of time.
Speaker 1: Well, let's go back to the beginning in the sixties
Speaker 1: and then seventies, when did mean, yeah, everybody was smoking
Speaker 1: marijuana or whatever, But when did your drug increase intake increase?
Speaker 2: Oh, when I started doing coke, no question, because yeah,
Speaker 2: the sixties, you know, we didn't have grass in England.
Speaker 2: We had hash. It would come over from Amsterdam and Germany,
Speaker 2: so grass was very very rare. But we did hash.
Speaker 2: So we all smoked, we dragged beer. You know, we
Speaker 2: were teenagers. That's what teenagers did. But when I met
Speaker 2: some people from Brazil in nineteen seventy two, there was
Speaker 2: a little enclave of Brazilians living in London, and I
Speaker 2: got very friendly with one of the ladies. She became
Speaker 2: nearly became my wife, and they turned me on to
Speaker 2: blow and it was fuck me. It was pure. It
Speaker 2: was amazing. I mean it really was amazing. But once again,
Speaker 2: once I did a line instead of you know, a
Speaker 2: bottle of beer would last one minute, whereas before it
Speaker 2: would last maybe a couple of hours. So suddenly I'm woh, wow,
Speaker 2: where is the stuff? Well drumming, Yeah, come on, let's go.
Speaker 2: Boom boom boom. Everything was ramped up. It was like
Speaker 2: a Keystone Cops movie. Everything's sped up, and pretty soon
Speaker 2: I was I was doing a lot of it. And
Speaker 2: then I went to Brazil and I got really really
Speaker 2: screwed up, but I still managed to function. You know,
Speaker 2: there was still there was still a part of me
Speaker 2: that was like, this is ridiculous. You know, you've got
Speaker 2: to stop this, or at least put it on a
Speaker 2: back burner. You got a career ahead of you, and
Speaker 2: no one wants to hang out with druggies except other druggies.
Speaker 2: And I started getting isolated from the general the sober
Speaker 2: population I would have. I would avoid people who were sober.
Speaker 2: I got to meet Derek Clapton at the Alba Hall
Speaker 2: backstage right, and I was so nervous because I had
Speaker 2: a glass of wine in my head and I opted
Speaker 2: out not to meet one of the great musicians of
Speaker 2: all time, you know, because I is embarrassed because I
Speaker 2: was drunk, you know, just stupid things like huh so, yeah,
Speaker 2: that's what That was the turning point doing the blow,
Speaker 2: and I did blow for twenty years. You know.
Speaker 1: The average person has no idea of what it's like
Speaker 1: being on the road. You have the same group of
Speaker 1: people you've known for years in the band, you're kind
Speaker 1: of tired of them. You go on on the stage
Speaker 1: to vast applause and it's a high that people who
Speaker 1: haven't done it have no idea. Then you go back
Speaker 1: with the same people in the bus. You can't fall asleep,
Speaker 1: and then the sun comes up. To what degree did
Speaker 1: drugs help you cope with that?
Speaker 2: Well? What it was, Bob, That's a very good question.
Speaker 2: It was pouring gasoline on a flame because you come
Speaker 2: off and most of Bad Company shows were great. I
Speaker 2: mean we came off to being bay in this applause encores.
Speaker 2: I mean the group is the whole adulation la la lah,
Speaker 2: and we didn't want it to stop. We're in the
Speaker 2: dressing room like brah whoh man. That was great enough.
Speaker 2: Get the lines out and suddenly you know, we're like,
Speaker 2: we've gone to another level of euphoria. You get back,
Speaker 2: get on the bush. It's a four hour bus, like,
Speaker 2: oh god, all right, come on, get the guitars out.
Speaker 2: Another line, la lah lah. You know, just stupid, stupid
Speaker 2: stuff really but a bit nothing really, nothing compared with that.
Speaker 2: A good show. And it should have stopped right there.
Speaker 2: You know, that should have been enough. That should have
Speaker 2: been the reward in itself, going down so well in
Speaker 2: ten thousand people applauding you. But as we know that
Speaker 2: it wasn't enough.
Speaker 1: Okay, So how did you decide give up drinking?
Speaker 2: Well, when I stopped doing blow, everything else tape it off,
Speaker 2: and I still I always loved drinking wine. I love wine,
Speaker 2: but I have an addicted personality. And even though I
Speaker 2: managed to stop blowing, it was the best thing I
Speaker 2: ever did. I still like drinking wine. And one glass
Speaker 2: was never enough. Two was never enough. And when I
Speaker 2: when I remarried, I had been sober for a couple
Speaker 2: of years, and I remarried and I thought, well, he's
Speaker 2: a lovely lady, and maybe I can And I told
Speaker 2: her up front, you know, look, I've been in several
Speaker 2: rehabs La la Lah. So well, I experimented and thought, well,
Speaker 2: you know what, and you know what, for a couple
Speaker 2: of couple of months it was okay. And then I
Speaker 2: went to two glasses and then three and it just
Speaker 2: started going as we say in England, it start going
Speaker 2: pair shaped and it was really affecting my life and
Speaker 2: my relationship. And I had a new wife and I
Speaker 2: didn't really want that to impinge and effect this lovely
Speaker 2: lady and my relationship with this lovely lady Maria. So
Speaker 2: I said, that's it. And I've been going to meetings
Speaker 2: for many, many years. They ow meetings. I don't mind
Speaker 2: telling people about my drug use and drinking if it
Speaker 2: helps other people, you know, because the landscape has changed.
Speaker 2: As I said, you know, fifty years ago to say
Speaker 2: you were an addict or an alcoholic was like whoa,
Speaker 2: But you know nowadays, yeah, it's no big deal. We're
Speaker 2: just helping each other.
Speaker 1: To what degree did drug use and other substance abuse
Speaker 1: affect the ending of your previous marriage?
Speaker 2: Oh? I mean it was a sledgehammer, because well it was.
Speaker 2: It was cyclical. I would get out of it, and
Speaker 2: I was not the faithful husband. It was a terrible husband.
Speaker 2: Then I get found out because drunks are not very
Speaker 2: good at hiding their you know, their trail, so I
Speaker 2: get found out. So then I'd leave the house and
Speaker 2: go on some binge and it would all start again.
Speaker 2: So it ruined my marriage, no question. And it's something
Speaker 2: that I regret to this day. And I've been trying
Speaker 2: to make amends to my daughters. I have three girls, Domino,
Speaker 2: Jamiah and Lola, and you know, I've apologized to them
Speaker 2: and it's just an ongoing thing. But no question of it,
Speaker 2: it dealt a body blow to my marriage throughout throughout
Speaker 2: the marriage thirty three years.
Speaker 1: Okay, I have three daughters. All of them were successful
Speaker 1: the arts of the role. Right, how did that happen?
Speaker 2: I don't know of I'm very proud of them, I
Speaker 2: have to say. I mean, we've got Jemima who's film actress.
Speaker 2: She was in Girls and she's been in quite a
Speaker 2: few movies. Lola who's done several quite a few movies,
Speaker 2: but she's now a country and Western artist and very successful.
Speaker 2: And Domino, who is she had a career, a singing career,
Speaker 2: but she became a mum very at a young age
Speaker 2: and that kind of sidelined her career. But she's a duela.
Speaker 2: She delivers babies, and I'm so proud of her because,
Speaker 2: you know, to bring children into the world man that is.
Speaker 2: I think she's delivered about two hundred kids. So yeah,
Speaker 2: I'm just knocked out with all of them. I love
Speaker 2: them to bits.
Speaker 1: How did you come up with the names with them?
Speaker 1: They're sort of unique names or names that hadn't been
Speaker 1: in use for a while.
Speaker 2: Ah. It was obviously a two way street with me
Speaker 2: and my previous wife, Lorraine Domino. There was a movie
Speaker 2: called Shark's Machine with Burt Reynolds back in nineteen eighty
Speaker 2: and Domino was born in eighty two, and I think
Speaker 2: my ex had a little crush on Burt Reynolds and
Speaker 2: the star of that film her name was Domino, so
Speaker 2: she said, oh, that would be a lovely name. I
Speaker 2: wanted to call her Emily. I don't know why. It
Speaker 2: was a very English name, but no, Domino came out
Speaker 2: of a hat, and that's what we settled with. Jemima.
Speaker 2: There was an English series of books called mi'ma Puddle Duck,
Speaker 2: and there was something that me and Lorain agreed on.
Speaker 2: No Jemimah. But it's a lovely name. And of course
Speaker 2: we didn't know about the big fat black lady over here,
Speaker 2: Aunt Jemima so and when we moved over here in
Speaker 2: ninety seven, permanently everyone was like, oh, you don't look
Speaker 2: anything like Aunt Jemilah is Who the fuck's aren't Jamala
Speaker 2: and Lola? I don't know. I think maybe the Kinks
Speaker 2: song Lo Lo Lo Lo Lola. So, yeah, they're cool names.
Speaker 1: Okay, how'd you meet your new wife?
Speaker 2: Okay, good story. I'm a good friend of Ronnie Wood
Speaker 2: and I was over in England and he said, look,
Speaker 2: I'm coming to New York. We're doing a tribute to
Speaker 2: Jimmy Reid the Cutting Room, which is a great club
Speaker 2: in New York City, and I lived in New York.
Speaker 2: I was just visiting. The said you want to play drums?
Speaker 2: I said, well, I'd love to run it. You know,
Speaker 2: she's our cooper on Hammond. We got a great bass
Speaker 2: player and a couple of guests. Mick Taylor's on guitar. Yeah,
Speaker 2: I'm in. So I went down to the Cutting Room
Speaker 2: for a sound check and as I walked in, there
Speaker 2: was a lady, a greeter, you know, taking the names
Speaker 2: on the door, and this was Maria, Maria Figuretta, and
Speaker 2: my jaw just dropped because she was so beautiful, and I,
Speaker 2: you know, I mean, I didn't say anything. I was
Speaker 2: so tongue tied, and I just went down into the
Speaker 2: dressing room, got ready, and I couldn't get her out
Speaker 2: of my brain. And then blur and behold she walks
Speaker 2: in the dressing room was the manager's office. She needed
Speaker 2: to get something from the office, and my first words
Speaker 2: to her were hallo, hello, Hello. That was the first
Speaker 2: words to my future wife. And she got all flustered
Speaker 2: and said, oh, I've just got to get some and
Speaker 2: kind of fled the office because she said later, I've
Speaker 2: kind of embarrassed him. We were kind of mutually smitten,
Speaker 2: and at the end of the show, you know, I
Speaker 2: got a number and I was still married. I mean
Speaker 2: I was, but it was on the rocks. So we
Speaker 2: started this love affair. Really that lasted for a couple
Speaker 2: of years until we finally got married and the divorce
Speaker 2: came through and we married six years ago.
Speaker 1: Okay, now, with Nick indisposed, Paul having his health problems,
Speaker 1: what does that leave you?
Speaker 2: Aha, Well, I'm like a dog without a tail at
Speaker 2: the moment. I'm but what I am doing is I'm
Speaker 2: co writing a rock opera, a rock musical about addiction
Speaker 2: called rock Bottom, and we're putting it together and yeah, thanks,
Speaker 2: So everyone I say is that's a great name, and
Speaker 2: it's about addiction, and it's I'm writing it with an
Speaker 2: interventionist drug counselor and he's a drummer with the Delf
Speaker 2: Fegos up in Boston. His name's Woody Geeseman and a
Speaker 2: comedian called Tony Viveros. And we've done the script. We've
Speaker 2: written about fifteen songs and we're honing it as we
Speaker 2: speak with We have bi weekly writing sessions. The songs
Speaker 2: are pretty much recorded and it's really shaping up nicely.
Speaker 2: It's taking up a lot of my time. But that
Speaker 2: being said, you know, I do miss playing. I love playing,
Speaker 2: and you know, plays some shows with g Smith, great
Speaker 2: guitar player who lives in Long Island, and we do
Speaker 2: the occasional show together. I would never start a group again.
Speaker 2: I'm too old. I don't want to go through all
Speaker 2: that rigmarole. But I would happily do shows with other
Speaker 2: people if they want me around. You know, I'm seventy four.
Speaker 2: I don't know how much time I've got left actual playing.
Speaker 2: But you look people like Ringo who still plays well.
Speaker 2: I mean, he's another example. I should have mentioned him
Speaker 2: back in the sobriety section. Ringo is a huge example
Speaker 2: of getting me sober and he still plays well. So
Speaker 2: he still plays great. Actually, So I'm around and I'm
Speaker 2: getting into film scoring. I really love I've scored a
Speaker 2: couple of independent movies. I really love doing that. I've
Speaker 2: got a studio here, I've got all the you know,
Speaker 2: all the toys, and I'm a big, big fan of
Speaker 2: movie scoring, So that's what I want to do. And songwriting.
Speaker 2: I love writing song.
Speaker 1: Okay, you talk about all this drug use and that
Speaker 1: eats up a lot of cash. So where does that
Speaker 1: leave you financially?
Speaker 2: Well, not just that, but also the rehabs and I
Speaker 2: you know, I've written a lot of songs about about
Speaker 2: getting sober and the most expensive songs out of the road.
Speaker 2: Where does that leave me? Well, rehabs about fifty grand
Speaker 2: a pop. Now, you know, so I've been to seven.
Speaker 2: So do the math. Where does it leave me financially?
Speaker 2: I'm okay, uncomfortable. I'm not rich by any stretch. I'm
Speaker 2: square over the irs, that's the main thing. I mean,
Speaker 2: a lot of my contemporaries and Beata Grant, my old manager,
Speaker 2: I mean he and I found out that. I mean,
Speaker 2: he was well in hock to the the Vatman the
Speaker 2: VAT in England, which is pretty pretty much allied with
Speaker 2: the irs. He was in hock for millions. He had
Speaker 2: to sell his houselah la lah. So I always remember,
Speaker 2: keep square with the irs, because they are piranas. They
Speaker 2: will come after you. So I'm okay. I mean it's
Speaker 2: you know, money is like sleep and sex. You can
Speaker 2: always do with a little bit more. But I'm quite
Speaker 2: happy with what I got.
Speaker 1: Okay, in the seventies, you're recognizably famous now years later,
Speaker 1: anybody ever recognize you when you say who you are?
Speaker 1: Do they realize who you are? What's it like being
Speaker 1: a rock star at this point in time.
Speaker 2: Well, I'm not a rock star anymore. I'm well known
Speaker 2: in the industry. I've had a good run. And oddly enough,
Speaker 2: here's the weird thing. I got recognized in two places.
Speaker 2: You would not believe. I was walking in the jungle
Speaker 2: in Brazil, right on a hike while I was staying
Speaker 2: with one of my daughters at a camp, some adventure camp,
Speaker 2: and we're doing a hike through the jungle and there's
Speaker 2: another four or five people coming the other way towards us,
Speaker 2: and as we drew abreast, the guy says, you'll signing, Kirk.
Speaker 2: You've got to be kidding. I swear to God. He said,
Speaker 2: I love you playing man, Thanks God bless and off
Speaker 2: he went the other direction. And then I was in
Speaker 2: Cuba with my wife, whose father is Cuban, and with him,
Speaker 2: and we were in this little village and we were
Speaker 2: having a couple of coffee somewhere. It's about one in
Speaker 2: the afternoon. They sitting around a table, and these guys
Speaker 2: were walking carrying a guitar case and a little drum
Speaker 2: case and they started. I said wow, and they said,
Speaker 2: look with rehearsing, you want to come and play with us.
Speaker 2: I couldn't say no. So it does happen very occasionally,
Speaker 2: and it's nice. But you know, being in the drama, Bob,
Speaker 2: you're always hidden by behind the symbols and the rat Tom.
Speaker 2: No one really knows. Yeah, it's not like I'm Paul
Speaker 2: Rodgers or Mick Row. It's okay.
Speaker 1: So at this point, do you only play drums when
Speaker 1: someone calls you, like gee, whatever? Or do you ever
Speaker 1: play for your own fun? Oh?
Speaker 2: Yeah, I mean I I still have a kit next
Speaker 2: door in my my, my basement. I'm speaking to you
Speaker 2: from a little room next to the basement where I
Speaker 2: have all my keyboards and guitar. But I'll put on
Speaker 2: some Motis reading or Wilson Pickett or Bonnie Rait. I
Speaker 2: love Bonnie raight, and I'll play along to her, or
Speaker 2: then just to I just love playing drums. It's just
Speaker 2: when you're playing drum by yourself, it doesn't really achieve
Speaker 2: that much. It's not like playing piano where you can
Speaker 2: really get lost. But I was never one for practicing.
Speaker 2: I'm a field drummer. I'm not a progressive rock drummer
Speaker 2: who needs to do paradidls and double flams and all
Speaker 2: that stuff. I lead that to people like Simon Phillips
Speaker 2: or Dave Weckel or Vinicolo Uto who plays with Sting.
Speaker 2: I mean, those guys are like whoa. But you know,
Speaker 2: I'm a musician just happens to play a few instruments.
Speaker 1: So let's go back to the beginning. So where did
Speaker 1: you grow up.
Speaker 2: I grew up. I was born in London, and then
Speaker 2: when I was about nine, we moved to the border
Speaker 2: of Wales on the English side, about one hundred and
Speaker 2: fifty miles northwest of London, and I was there for
Speaker 2: ten years.
Speaker 1: What was that like? Was it like being in the
Speaker 1: boonies or was it sophistically? No, it was not.
Speaker 2: We had no electricity or running water for seven years.
Speaker 1: You grew up in London. Why did your parents move
Speaker 1: out there?
Speaker 2: Well, I think my dad owed some money, I'll be honest.
Speaker 2: We suddenly almost overnight. I was about seven or eight
Speaker 2: nineteen fifty seven. I was eight years old. We moved
Speaker 2: in nineteen fifty seven and it was a big adventure
Speaker 2: for me and my brothers. I mean, we didn't give
Speaker 2: a shit. It's great, but I'll never forget this. Bob.
Speaker 2: And I was only eight and our dad had gone ahead,
Speaker 2: maybe a few weeks prior, and he telegrammed, Mum, so
Speaker 2: I had a house, la la lah, come on up
Speaker 2: and we met us at the station. We had a
Speaker 2: couple of suitcases who were a bit like the Beverly
Speaker 2: Hill Billies, and he had the shitty old Austin seven
Speaker 2: car and we drove and drove and drove hours to
Speaker 2: this little cottage on a hill. It sounds very romantic,
Speaker 2: but I'll never forget. It was dusk was falling, maybe
Speaker 2: six o'clock in the evening, and mom he opened the
Speaker 2: door and she scraped the wall with her hand for
Speaker 2: a light switch, and there was no light switch. And
Speaker 2: Dad said, well, I didn't tell you this, but we
Speaker 2: have no electricity, and she said, well, you mean the
Speaker 2: bill hasn't been paid, So no, this house does not
Speaker 2: have electricity. And by the way, there's no run in
Speaker 2: water either. We have to get water from the well.
Speaker 2: And that was my home for about six years. So
Speaker 2: for a kid who actually wasn't that bad. We read
Speaker 2: by a candlelight, we had a little gas lamp, and
Speaker 2: we walked to school. I mean, it was quite a
Speaker 2: spartan existence, but it really taught me a lot about
Speaker 2: self sufficiency and just being thankful for today's luxuries, you know.
Speaker 2: But it was tough on my mom. She was only
Speaker 2: about thirty six, beautiful woman, and she'd been dragged from London,
Speaker 2: leaving her friends behind. I think he owed money, quite honestly.
Speaker 2: He was a bit of than they're do well. My
Speaker 2: dad but there it is. How many kids were in
Speaker 2: the family, three brothers.
Speaker 1: And where are you in the hierarchy?
Speaker 2: I was in the middle, middle child.
Speaker 1: Okay, I'm a middle kid too. Usually you're kind of
Speaker 1: caught lost of the shovel. But I know, man hoten
Speaker 1: dreams are in the oldest one. The other one's a baby.
Speaker 1: So what kind of kid were you? A good school,
Speaker 1: bad school athlete? Friend that was good.
Speaker 2: I you know, they say I'm the people pleaser. I
Speaker 2: don't like that. I'm a people respector. And I always
Speaker 2: wanted to do well. Number one. I wanted to get
Speaker 2: the hell out of that. It was not our you know,
Speaker 2: we were city folk, and it became pretty apparent to
Speaker 2: me quite quickly that we didn't really fit in there.
Speaker 2: You know, this was way out in this like Idaho.
Speaker 2: We were way out in the boonies, and we had
Speaker 2: this plumbing accent. This we stuck out like sore thumbs.
Speaker 2: And even though it was a beautiful part of the world,
Speaker 2: it just wasn't for me. And by the time I
Speaker 2: was about thirteen and the Beatles came along in sixty
Speaker 2: two sixty three and music kind of grabbed me. I
Speaker 2: knew that I needed to get out of that area
Speaker 2: in Shropshire and go back down to London and try
Speaker 2: and make a go of being a musician.
Speaker 1: Okay, you know English radio market's completely different. You didn't
Speaker 1: have any electricity, so you can't play the records.
Speaker 3: Yeah.
Speaker 1: How many radio stations? I mean, how did you hear
Speaker 1: the music?
Speaker 2: Well, a great question. We had little transistor radios which
Speaker 2: ran on a batteries and there was this one, thank
Speaker 2: god for it, there was this one radio station called
Speaker 2: Radio Luxembourg on the AM dial two to eight to.
Speaker 2: And Luxembourg is a tiny country sandwich between France and Belgium.
Speaker 2: And for some reason, I think it catered to the
Speaker 2: the American forces who were stationed after the Second World
Speaker 2: War were stationed all over Europe, so they played they
Speaker 2: played black music. They pretty much played black music. I mean,
Speaker 2: if you remember Good Morning Vietnam, right, remember when yeah
Speaker 2: Robin comes on, they're playing Lawrence Welk and they're playing
Speaker 2: in these little waltzits and shit, and then Robin Williams
Speaker 2: comes on and the whole place. Well that's what Radio
Speaker 2: Luxembourg was, and you could hear it on your little
Speaker 2: transistor radio. And then and I keep forgetting to mention this.
Speaker 2: The pirate radio stations took up residents just off the
Speaker 2: three mile limit around England and they could play whatever
Speaker 2: they want because they were outside, they were in international waters.
Speaker 2: So Radio Caroline Radio Veronica were the two big pirate
Speaker 2: stations and they started playing real albums, not just single
Speaker 2: So you had this perfect storm of the pirate radio stations,
Speaker 2: Radio Luxembourg and then the Beatles in sixty three. And
Speaker 2: in sixty three I was fourteen, and my interest in
Speaker 2: drumming took off because having played on little pots and
Speaker 2: pans and books on my bed with my transistor radio earpiece.
Speaker 2: We moved to a house that actually had electricity after
Speaker 2: six years of living in this cottage, and we got
Speaker 2: in a a dem I got a very first TV
Speaker 2: and one of the first programs I ever saw was
Speaker 2: it was a black and white set and it was
Speaker 2: this program called All That Jazz and it featured big bands.
Speaker 2: And I'll never ever forget this. Seeing the curtains drew
Speaker 2: back and there was this huge band, maybe twenty piece band,
Speaker 2: and the drums, I was like, Wow, what is this
Speaker 2: guy playing? And I'll never forget it. And I think
Speaker 2: that was the lightning bolt which zap me. And that's
Speaker 2: when I really that's what I wanted to do, be
Speaker 2: a drummer.
Speaker 1: Okay, then there are a couple of steps A getting
Speaker 1: a drum kit, b forming a band. So what was
Speaker 1: happening out there in Shropshire.
Speaker 2: Well, I should write a book about this. I got
Speaker 2: in a band, a high school band. I got a
Speaker 2: little snare drum my parents bought me for Christmas and
Speaker 2: I started just bashing on this little snare drum and
Speaker 2: every like most high schools throughout the world, we'd have
Speaker 2: an annual concert at the end of every year, every
Speaker 2: and every school year. And I did, I don't know,
Speaker 2: wipe out the Safaris Doom Doom Doom, Doom, Doom Doom do.
Speaker 2: And that became a party piece. And there was a
Speaker 2: little drum kit that they had in the school. Anyway,
Speaker 2: So I'm coming back on the school bus, which you know,
Speaker 2: back from from the school to my house about a
Speaker 2: six mile drive, and I'm getting off the bus and
Speaker 2: the bus driver says, oh, Simon, I hear you play drums.
Speaker 2: I said, well, yeah, I do. Yeah. He said, well,
Speaker 2: look do you want to come and play with me?
Speaker 2: What what the fuck. He said, well, I have a
Speaker 2: little This was before disco, so the word didn't come up.
Speaker 2: He said, I have a stack of records which I
Speaker 2: go around the village halls and I play on my turntable.
Speaker 2: And I think it would be a good idea, novelty
Speaker 2: if you brought your little drum kit and sat next
Speaker 2: to me and played along with it. I said, wow,
Speaker 2: And you know, Bob, that's what I did. For two years.
Speaker 2: They got permission for my parents, and I played my
Speaker 2: little drum kit, playing along to Can't Buy Me Love,
Speaker 2: or the Supremes, or Jim Clark Country and Western, the
Speaker 2: occasional waltz, and I played for about two two hours
Speaker 2: every night, and I had to keep in time otherwise
Speaker 2: it would be a train wreck. And that's where I
Speaker 2: think I had developed this. I got a pretty good
Speaker 2: sense of time. But those two years of playing along
Speaker 2: to those records were an invaluable education for me. And
Speaker 2: that really and people applauded. I mean, they weren't just
Speaker 2: doing it out of kindness, because country folk can be
Speaker 2: pretty tough, especially when they played it hard earned money.
Speaker 2: They don't want some little wet behind the ears idiot
Speaker 2: ruining their dance. So you know, wherever I went, they said,
Speaker 2: oh this new kids are really good and that's what
Speaker 2: gave me the idea. I really wanted to be a drummer,
Speaker 2: at least given my give it a shot. So a
Speaker 2: quick sideline. In England, there's two tiers of education. There's
Speaker 2: O level Ordinary level, these are like exams, or there's
Speaker 2: A level Advanced level and with A levels you can
Speaker 2: get into pretty good colleges or university. O level you
Speaker 2: finish at sixteen and you go off and you get
Speaker 2: so and so I wanted to leave school at sixteen
Speaker 2: because I wanted to go down to London. My mum
Speaker 2: and dad said no, because if you fail at what
Speaker 2: you're doing and you come back to Shwropshire with only
Speaker 2: two or three O levels, you can't get you get
Speaker 2: into community college, you can't do anything. Stay another two years,
Speaker 2: get A levels and then we'll give you two years.
Speaker 2: You leave school at eighteen, we'll give you two years
Speaker 2: to do what you want, try and be a success,
Speaker 2: and then you come back at the age of twenty
Speaker 2: with I got three A levels, you can go to
Speaker 2: a decent college. So that's what I did. I had
Speaker 2: to put my plans on the shelf for two years
Speaker 2: and I stayed the extra sixteen seventeen eighteen and I
Speaker 2: got a levels and that's when I left home and
Speaker 2: fingers crossed, I went down to London to give it
Speaker 2: a go.
Speaker 1: Wait wait, wait, before you go to London, you're playing
Speaker 1: with the bus driver or on to records. Oh yeah,
Speaker 1: did you ever form any beer?
Speaker 3: Yeah?
Speaker 1: Yeah.
Speaker 2: I was in two bands. One was called the Maniacs,
Speaker 2: which I still think is one of the greatest band
Speaker 2: names ever. They have seen me at doing my little
Speaker 2: disco drumming and this guy came up and he said, yeah,
Speaker 2: he played really good mate for a kid. You want
Speaker 2: to be in our band? And I said yes please.
Speaker 2: And this band had one amp. There was four of us,
Speaker 2: now five of us. This amp had twelve inputs, the
Speaker 2: only the only amp ever made with twelve inputs. We
Speaker 2: all went through this one app can you believe it?
Speaker 2: Until it burst into flames on one show. So after
Speaker 2: the Maniacs, I joined a band called the heat Wave
Speaker 2: after Martha and the Van Della's song. And it was
Speaker 2: a trio me singing Tony Lansit on guitar and Stuart
Speaker 2: McDonald on bass and we got pretty good. We went
Speaker 2: all over the little tri state area and that lasted
Speaker 2: about eighteen months and then I got ready to go
Speaker 2: down to the big city and give myself a shot.
Speaker 1: Okay, the problem with the drummer is the equipment. Usually
Speaker 1: they have a station wagon. You got a show, so
Speaker 1: you're going to leave Shropshire. How do you get to
Speaker 1: get your drum kit to London? And where are you
Speaker 1: going to stay?
Speaker 2: Well, this is where serendipity kicks in. Because my one
Speaker 2: of my distatblatives, Lovely Lady, she's no longer with us.
Speaker 2: Her family offered to put me up down in Twickenham,
Speaker 2: which was a suburb of London, and her son was
Speaker 2: a drummer. Can you believe that he had a kit?
Speaker 2: So I could, you know, practice or whatever. And when
Speaker 2: I went to auditions there were drums there, so no,
Speaker 2: I didn't have to schlep you know my kit down.
Speaker 2: I didn't really have it. I had a tiny little
Speaker 2: kit in the country. So I left all that behind
Speaker 2: and you know, I answered auditions, I answered ads in
Speaker 2: the Melody Maker, disc New Musical Express, all trades and
Speaker 2: nothing really for two years, you know, I just slogged
Speaker 2: around doing menial jobs, construction, demolition, car washing, all the time,
Speaker 2: answering ads, and nothing really came of it until the
Speaker 2: twenty third month of the twenty four months that my
Speaker 2: parents had given me, and I saw an ad for
Speaker 2: a band called the Black pat Bones, and I thought,
Speaker 2: what a great name. That's a great name. And you've
Speaker 2: got to remember, back in sixty eight, the blues scene
Speaker 2: in London was huge. It was all Carric Clapton, John Mail,
Speaker 2: Peter Green. It was blues, blues, blues. Everywhere you went
Speaker 2: it was blues club. So now this club was way
Speaker 2: across London, like twenty miles on a subway, a long
Speaker 2: way away. But I thought, wow, I really want to
Speaker 2: go and see this band. So I tossed a coin, literally,
Speaker 2: I touched a coin. If it comes downtails, I'll stay
Speaker 2: and write some letters home.
Speaker 1: You know.
Speaker 2: I got to get up early in the morning. It
Speaker 2: came down heads. I thought, screw it, and I went
Speaker 2: to see this band. And I walked in. They were okay,
Speaker 2: they weren't great. They were doing covers. But the guitarist, wo,
Speaker 2: he was wonderful and he's a little fella, and I
Speaker 2: collared him during the break. I say you know what,
Speaker 2: you You're really good, mate, really good, but your drummers shit.
Speaker 2: I was desperate, and he said, well, it's funny shud
Speaker 2: say that, because tonight is his last night. He's leaving
Speaker 2: us and we're holding auditions here in this pub tomorrow
Speaker 2: if you want to come along. And that was Paul Kossof.
Speaker 2: So I came back the next day, another twenty miles
Speaker 2: on the subway, and I auditioned. There was another guy,
Speaker 2: another drummer there, and we played a of blues numbers
Speaker 2: and I got the job. So I was with Paul
Speaker 2: coss Off and Black Cat Bones for about six months,
Speaker 2: and then he took me aside one day and said, listen,
Speaker 2: I've just met this singer who is so good, and
Speaker 2: I fed up with playing these same old standards. I
Speaker 2: want to form a band with this guy. And this
Speaker 2: was Paul Rogers and that was the beginnings of Free.
Speaker 1: Okay. So everybody was very young.
Speaker 2: Very young. I was the oldest and I was nineteen,
Speaker 2: you know, and we had to get andy. Well, here's
Speaker 2: the thing. Alexis Corner was the sort of godfather of
Speaker 2: the blues of the English, the London blues scene, and
Speaker 2: he had Paul coss Off. He knew Paul, and he said, look,
Speaker 2: I know this. He's a kid, by the way, He's
Speaker 2: just he's just played with John mail Wow. They just
Speaker 2: he got the sack from John Mayle. I said, well,
Speaker 2: if he got the sack, he couldn't have been that good.
Speaker 2: But John was always changing personnel. It was no big deal.
Speaker 2: The fact that this kid had played with John Mayle
Speaker 2: meant that he was good. And I said, yeah, all right,
Speaker 2: and Alexis said, but he's fifteen. I said, what, he's
Speaker 2: fifteen years old. Wow, But you got to see him.
Speaker 2: So me and Paul cross Off and Paul Rodgers went
Speaker 2: down to see Andy, who was playing at a show
Speaker 2: in London, and he was amazing. He was incredible. So
Speaker 2: we called him backstage after the gig and we said, look,
Speaker 2: we're forming a band. You want to come in and
Speaker 2: he said, well, let me think about it. You know,
Speaker 2: it's very cagey. He didn't know any of us. And
Speaker 2: we had a rehearsal the next day at that same
Speaker 2: pub where I met Paul kross Off a few weeks prior,
Speaker 2: and we got on so well. And during that first rehearsal,
Speaker 2: Alexis corner came in and he was knocked out. He said,
Speaker 2: you guys are amazing. You've been it's like you've been
Speaker 2: playing together months and this was our first ever jam session.
Speaker 2: And he said, well, what are you going to call yourself?
Speaker 2: He said, well, hang on, are we a band? We
Speaker 2: kind of looked at each other and he said, yeah,
Speaker 2: why not, and he Alexis used to have a band
Speaker 2: called Free at Last with Ginger Baker and Graham Bond,
Speaker 2: and he said, well, you can't call yourself Free at Last,
Speaker 2: how about three?
Speaker 1: So we Alexis came up with a name.
Speaker 2: Yeah, oh yeah, yeah, yeah, he came up with it,
Speaker 2: and we thought, okay, why not. But the only trouble was,
Speaker 2: you see, back in those days, Bob, you had these
Speaker 2: nebulous names like Yes and Clouds and Taste and you know,
Speaker 2: it's like, you know, the Grateful Dead, these weird names.
Speaker 2: So Free wasn't that too far removed from reality. But
Speaker 2: promoters and club owners were not happy because they put
Speaker 2: free and people were thinking, oh, we don't have to pay,
Speaker 2: so we were getting this feedback, so they've got to
Speaker 2: call themselves the free oh God, which we had to
Speaker 2: do occasionally. But we stuck it out and Free became
Speaker 2: a well loved band in England in the United Kingdom. Yeah,
Speaker 2: I love Free.
Speaker 1: So how long until you start playing original tunes? And
Speaker 1: how long until you hook up with Chris Blackwell?
Speaker 2: No, not long at all. We started, I mean, Paul
Speaker 2: and Andy were the main songwriters. They Paul had in
Speaker 2: my shadow from the get go. I mean, that was
Speaker 2: one of the first songs we practiced, boom boom, bump
Speaker 2: bum bum bump, barb boom, and that was one of
Speaker 2: the first songs we played at the rehearsal. Was so
Speaker 2: from the very first rehearsal we were doing original stuff.
Speaker 2: Then we got a residency at the Marquee, which was
Speaker 2: this hallowed club in London where all the big names played,
Speaker 2: and we got a residency on Monday Night, which was
Speaker 2: the sort of wasteland of the seven nights of the week,
Speaker 2: but it was still the Marquee. And word have gotten
Speaker 2: out I think through Alexis, because Alexis was known and
Speaker 2: loved in the industry and he put the word out
Speaker 2: You've got to see this band Free, they really are good.
Speaker 2: And Muff Windward, Steve's brother was the an r head
Speaker 2: of Island Records. He came down to see us. We
Speaker 2: didn't know he came to see us one Monday night
Speaker 2: and went back to Chris Black and said, you got
Speaker 2: to see this band because they are the next big thing.
Speaker 2: So Andy, who was the sort of business manager in
Speaker 2: the band, got a call from Chris and said, would
Speaker 2: you like to come and we discuss. I mean, I've
Speaker 2: heard about you and like to have a chat and
Speaker 2: see if we can go to the next level. Wow,
Speaker 2: Chris blackwell, ah, you know you had traffic, Joe Cocker.
Speaker 2: They were a big label. Island were a really big
Speaker 2: label back in the day. So the four of us
Speaker 2: went to the Island Records in Oxford Street and here's
Speaker 2: the weird thing. We had to climb the stairs past
Speaker 2: an organization called rack r Ak, owned by Peter Grant
Speaker 2: and Mickey Mose who knew that five years later we'd
Speaker 2: be inca hoots with Peter Grant anyway, and that's where
Speaker 2: who work with rat Now those people don't know I
Speaker 2: know you who were exactly.
Speaker 1: So you go to Chris and how does that meeting
Speaker 1: turn out?
Speaker 2: Well, he said that he said, I've heard a lot
Speaker 2: about you. You know, I trust Muff Winwards judgment and
Speaker 2: he says, he says, you're great, la la lah, but
Speaker 2: we've got a problem with the name. And we thought,
Speaker 2: oh oh. He said, the name doesn't fly. How about
Speaker 2: the heavy metal kids were what you're fucking killing? And
Speaker 2: we kind of looked at each other and said, nah, nah,
Speaker 2: it's got to be free or nothing. And he leaned
Speaker 2: in and said, then there's nothing more to discuss ship
Speaker 2: and now just reliving that, my stomach sort of goes
Speaker 2: a little cold, and we will, all right. So we
Speaker 2: stood up and we sort of turned on our heel
Speaker 2: and left the office, and we as soon as the
Speaker 2: door closed, we looked at it and said, what the
Speaker 2: fuck have we done? We just turned down Island Records
Speaker 2: because of the name. But deep in our hearts, Bob,
Speaker 2: we knew that we'd done the right thing. We'd we'd
Speaker 2: acted as a group, as a unified band, and we said, no,
Speaker 2: it's going to be free or nothing. That same evening
Speaker 2: and you've got a call from Chris. He said, we'll
Speaker 2: give you a six month contract. You go out as free,
Speaker 2: see how it goes, and we'll take it from there
Speaker 2: and the rest is history. We you know, we stayed
Speaker 2: as free.
Speaker 1: Okay, so you get a record deal, you have a band,
Speaker 1: how are you supporting yourself as the band playing live
Speaker 1: or people working d jobs? What's going on?
Speaker 2: No, we were fully professional and we we slogged around
Speaker 2: the country. We had a little van, we had a costs.
Speaker 2: Pul coss Off did all the driving. We played seven
Speaker 2: pretty much seven nights a week, and we gathered this
Speaker 2: fan base. We went all over England, Scotland and Wales.
Speaker 2: Never went to Ireland and not until late anyway, a
Speaker 2: little foray into France or Germany, but mainly we just
Speaker 2: slogged around England, United Kingdom and we built up this
Speaker 2: great fan base. I mean especially in the north, Middlesburn, Newcastle,
Speaker 2: Durham where Paul was from Middlesbrough, so Paul Rodgers, so
Speaker 2: we had a special connection to the Northeast. And we
Speaker 2: released a couple of albums. They didn't do a lot,
Speaker 2: they didn't do great.
Speaker 1: Well that's a little bit slower. Yeah, first album. What
Speaker 1: was the experience there comes out meant nothing in America?
Speaker 2: What was the experience in tons of subs, tons of subs? Well,
Speaker 2: basically it was just our it was our set, It
Speaker 2: was our fifty minute set. You know, Chris black Will said, look,
Speaker 2: I got this producer, Guy Stevens, who was a genius
Speaker 2: but a little looney, and he said, I've seen your set.
Speaker 2: Just play the set. And that's basically what we did.
Speaker 2: It was a live set and we did a few
Speaker 2: overdubs and it was great, I mean, but it really
Speaker 2: didn't do It didn't make a dent. It was like
Speaker 2: a musical calling card. People were aware that there was
Speaker 2: a bankle Free, but it really didn't do anything. And
Speaker 2: so that was a bit of a disappointment. So after
Speaker 2: about six or seven months, we released another album just
Speaker 2: called Free, which had ninety percent I believe maybe one
Speaker 2: hundred percent original material.
Speaker 1: Okay, that album you saw on the bins in the
Speaker 1: US had no impact, But you know, there's this, there's this.
Speaker 1: About thirty years ago, they put out a compilation in
Speaker 1: A and M Free Molten Gold, which is anybody just
Speaker 1: got to get this. It was a double CD set, unbelievable. Now,
Speaker 1: on that album, the Free album, I know I'd heard
Speaker 1: I'll be Creeping on an A and M stampler in
Speaker 1: nineteen seventy called Friends Never Forgotten It. But also on
Speaker 1: that album's songs of Yesterday Woman in broad Daylight, I mean,
Speaker 1: oh wow, great stuff on that record.
Speaker 2: Yeah, yeah, you know your stuff, boll but yeah, that's great. Yeah.
Speaker 2: Well I'll be creeping songs of Yesterday. I mean that's
Speaker 2: when Paul and Andy really started yelling as songwrites. Is
Speaker 2: Woman broad Daylight? Well, that's that's another thing. I'm just
Speaker 2: never crazy about that song. That was when singles ruled
Speaker 2: the roost and you had to have a single, and
Speaker 2: I to this, I will go to my grade saying
Speaker 2: that was the worst possible choice for a single. But
Speaker 2: never mind. It kind of established us as not a
Speaker 2: flash in the pan. I mean, Paul and Andy were
Speaker 2: writing really really good stuff. We were getting better and
Speaker 2: better as we went around the country and Europe, and
Speaker 2: we started getting really really good. We just needed a
Speaker 2: hit single.
Speaker 1: Okay. Before we get to the hit single, the credits
Speaker 1: say Chris Blackwell produced the second record? Did he really
Speaker 1: produce it?
Speaker 2: Look? For me, when it comes to producing, a producer
Speaker 2: is someone, especially if you were wet behind the ears,
Speaker 2: newbie in the studio. He you know, he controls everything.
Speaker 2: He's the full crumb or the hinge around which everything revolves.
Speaker 2: When you've written all the songs are rain all the songs,
Speaker 2: and you're performing all the songs. You produced the album
Speaker 2: as far as I'm concerned. Now, Chris became a producer.
Speaker 2: You'd have to ask him about that, but he owned
Speaker 2: the company. He was very musically astute, and he could
Speaker 2: tell the hit from a non hit, and he was
Speaker 2: like a dad father figure to us. So I don't
Speaker 2: give him producer credit. But when it comes to actually,
Speaker 2: all the albums in my career we produced, as far
Speaker 2: as I'm concerned.
Speaker 1: So the only thing I'll say is I spoke with Chris,
Speaker 1: and I forget how we put it. How I put
Speaker 1: the question. I asked him about the one band on
Speaker 1: Island that he was most excited about, and he said
Speaker 1: it was Free.
Speaker 2: Blessing.
Speaker 1: So the second album comes out, as I say, very
Speaker 1: little penetration in the US. I can't speak to the UK.
Speaker 1: But is Chrys still excited? How do you get the
Speaker 1: right to produce the next record in how does Fire
Speaker 1: and Water come together?
Speaker 2: Well, by the end of I have to look in
Speaker 2: my notes, but after two years of slogging, we had
Speaker 2: this huge fan base. I mean, they weren't just huge, Bob,
Speaker 2: but they were vociferous. They were passionate. I mean a
Speaker 2: free fan.
Speaker 1: Was like whoa.
Speaker 2: And we could do no wrong, particularly in the North.
Speaker 2: But we did one show and ironically enough, it was
Speaker 2: in Durham, which is in the North, and we came
Speaker 2: off to the sound of our own footsteps of the stage.
Speaker 2: It was like desultory applause, which was and we had
Speaker 2: to walk through the It was unusual because we had
Speaker 2: to walk through the crowd to get to the dressing
Speaker 2: room at the back of the hall, a different configuration.
Speaker 2: So by the time we got even halfway through the crowd,
Speaker 2: there was no applause. So we died of death basically.
Speaker 2: And we got into the dressing room and we kind
Speaker 2: of threw ourselves on the benches and said, you know,
Speaker 2: we need a song, a song that they can dance to.
Speaker 2: We need to we need something. We we had this
Speaker 2: sort of mid tempo to go back. Bat got nothing
Speaker 2: that you could really you could nod your head to,
Speaker 2: but you could really dance to it. So and I
Speaker 2: truly believe it all right now is born in that
Speaker 2: dressing room there and then because Andy said, oh now, baby,
Speaker 2: and he's bopping around the showers and the dressing room
Speaker 2: of the hooks and more, and he's becomes this possessed
Speaker 2: a little lad. He's only seventeen, drumming on his body
Speaker 2: all right now. And he said that's it. And him
Speaker 2: and Paul they took that seed and they honed it
Speaker 2: and it became all right now and we rehearsed it
Speaker 2: in sound checks and it became this monster literally monster hit.
Speaker 1: And did you know, I mean one of the stories
Speaker 1: on this, I remember talking to Al Cooper and got
Speaker 1: a call saying, we want to come up to the
Speaker 1: studio Atlanta. We got a new song first, Leonard Skinnered
Speaker 1: album had just come out, and the new song was
Speaker 1: sweet Home Alabama didn't come out for a year. And
Speaker 1: I said, did you know it was a hit? And
Speaker 1: he go, Al says it was sweet Home Alabama. So
Speaker 1: I asked the same thing with all right now. I mean,
Speaker 1: you talk about a one listed hit. You didn't even
Speaker 1: have to get all the way through the song to
Speaker 1: get it. Did you guys know what you had?
Speaker 2: I knew it. I knew it pretty much. I'll tell
Speaker 2: you how I knew because every time he played it,
Speaker 2: it kind of re recharge yourself. We did that although
Speaker 2: we were a lot younger back then, but we did
Speaker 2: all right. Now it was about twenty seven takes and
Speaker 2: I just don't but but you know, it's a physical
Speaker 2: song to play, and we'd be a bright down or
Speaker 2: something that would go wrong with someone with a wrong note.
Speaker 2: We'd started all over again. We never got tired of it,
Speaker 2: never on playbacks. So I think we used track five
Speaker 2: or six, take five or six, and we we came
Speaker 2: in and the engineer he looked at us and said,
Speaker 2: fucking hell guys. So we said it hit that play
Speaker 2: and we listened to it and I thought, wow, man,
Speaker 2: this is great because it was unlike anything we'd done before. Bob,
Speaker 2: you know, it was us, but in a different genre,
Speaker 2: of different whatever you want to call it. It had life.
Speaker 2: It had so much life. So now here's a lot
Speaker 2: of people don't know this, but this was in Basing
Speaker 2: Street and Island Island Records was in Basing Street, an
Speaker 2: old converted church, and Chris Blackwell had an apartment above
Speaker 2: studio number one. And that's just about two in the
Speaker 2: morning and the engineer says, we've got to get Crystal
Speaker 2: listening to this. Are you kidding? It's two o'clock in
Speaker 2: the morning. The matter, get him out of bed. So
Speaker 2: I said, all right, what the hell? So he the engineer,
Speaker 2: called him and he said the band wanted to hear something, Chris,
Speaker 2: and something like, you know what fucking time it is?
Speaker 2: They really, really you got to come and hear this. Now,
Speaker 2: luckily he's only a staircase away. So he comes down
Speaker 2: and he says something like it's better be good. So
Speaker 2: he's sitting there and we hit the plane and now
Speaker 2: it's five minutes nearly nearly six minutes long. So the
Speaker 2: whole six minutes, I don't want to look at him,
Speaker 2: you know, we're trying not to look him and see
Speaker 2: his reaction. So the end of the six minutes end
Speaker 2: of the song, he said, guys, it's a hit. Wow,
Speaker 2: it's a hit, but it's too long boom, And he's right,
Speaker 2: I mean, as you know, it's six minutes. At our
Speaker 2: top of the pops was ruled the roost nothing under
Speaker 2: three minutes would be allowed. We had to cut a
Speaker 2: huge section out of the song. Now, I'd never done
Speaker 2: an edit in my life. I didn't know what it
Speaker 2: consisted of, how to do it, and we were like, no, no,
Speaker 2: you can't do it. Kind of Chris said, I want
Speaker 2: you to leave the studio. Come back. I'll call you.
Speaker 2: You know, I'll send a guy. There's an all night
Speaker 2: cafe around a corner. Come back in half an hour.
Speaker 2: I'll let you know when to come back. It'll be
Speaker 2: about half an hour. So he's cutting up our baby.
Speaker 2: And most people who are pretty you know, pretty good
Speaker 2: at engineering will know that the edit on All Right
Speaker 2: Now is not very good. But it did the trick.
Speaker 2: It snipped out about two and a half minutes, and
Speaker 2: we came back and we listened to it. It was
Speaker 2: a bit clunky, but wow, it's still sounded good. And
Speaker 2: he said, there it is, and I believe they released
Speaker 2: it the next week. Now, we had trouble with the BBC.
Speaker 2: You know, the BBC at this very strict, stern people
Speaker 2: and everyone thought Paul had said let's raise the fucking rent,
Speaker 2: when actually he said it was let's raise the parking rate.
Speaker 2: So we had to get one of their guys come down.
Speaker 2: We had to isolate the vocal track. We were all there,
Speaker 2: little guy with a notebook and pen, No, I just
Speaker 2: want to hit the vocal track. So we did and
Speaker 2: said and Paul kind of fluffed the p it's like
Speaker 2: parking bar, parking parking rate. But anyway, the guy said,
Speaker 2: all right, I'm satisfied, la lah lah, we can put
Speaker 2: this on top of the pops And the next thing,
Speaker 2: you know, it was this huge hit.
Speaker 1: Okay, there was a version of the radio in the States,
Speaker 1: and then there was the version on the album with
Speaker 1: little Paul cast Off solo. The version on the album.
Speaker 1: Is that the complete song? Or is that correct?
Speaker 2: No? Correct? Okay, that's the full one. And I'm glad
Speaker 2: you mentioned cos because I really think he should have
Speaker 2: got a credit on that song because his guitar solo
Speaker 2: was one of the best ever guitar solos ever recorded.
Speaker 2: And I'll never forget seeing him, you know, And I
Speaker 2: think we spliced together maybe two takes, but it's one
Speaker 2: of the all time great guitar solos and it made
Speaker 2: it made the song.
Speaker 1: As far as I'm also talking to Paul, who's played
Speaker 1: with Jimmy Page, who's played with Brian May so many
Speaker 1: of the legends. He said, cast Off was the best
Speaker 1: guitarist you ever played, was the most talented. You have
Speaker 1: a take on that.
Speaker 2: I'm not of the school of the best in anything.
Speaker 2: I never you know, music to me is very nebul
Speaker 2: listened to say that someone is the best at anything.
Speaker 2: Coss when he was on, was the most satisfying guitarist
Speaker 2: to play with. Whether or not he was better than Jimmy,
Speaker 2: or Page was better than Hendricks, or Bet was better
Speaker 2: than Jimmy or La La Lai. You could go on
Speaker 2: and on. But at the time, because Coss was a
Speaker 2: dear brother and a friend of mine and I loved
Speaker 2: him to death before the drugs really took over. When
Speaker 2: he was on, he made me weep. He was just
Speaker 2: so good. So yeah, Coss is one of the great
Speaker 2: guitarists of all time. And considering he was only around
Speaker 2: not even five or six years, the impact that he
Speaker 2: had on guitar playing is staggering.
Speaker 1: So what was it like having a world wide number
Speaker 1: one record?
Speaker 2: What do they say, be careful what you wish for.
Speaker 2: It was amazing at the time. It was everything that
Speaker 2: we wanted. Bob, You know, why does a band get
Speaker 2: together in the first place To have fun, to pull girls,
Speaker 2: to have drinking, to travel la la la. But ultimately,
Speaker 2: you want to be a success, and you want to
Speaker 2: earn money, you want to travel to different countries, and
Speaker 2: you want to play the thousands of people, and we did.
Speaker 2: We got all that, We got all that, and we
Speaker 2: you know, we got the Golden Ring. We managed to
Speaker 2: get it and then the ship Yeah tell me tell
Speaker 2: me the shit hit the fan. Well, the shit hit
Speaker 2: the fan because we couldn't follow it up. And this
Speaker 2: was not just the top fifty hit in some country
Speaker 2: or so, this was a top three hit around the world.
Speaker 2: It was huge and it was, like I said, everything
Speaker 2: we wanted, but suddenly we had to follow it up.
Speaker 2: How do you follow all right Now? You can't. It's
Speaker 2: just impossible because you set the bar. You set the
Speaker 2: bar so high. Because we wanted a band too, We
Speaker 2: wanted a song quote that people could dance to. Well,
Speaker 2: we've ticked that box. How do you follow that with
Speaker 2: another song of that success? So we couldn't. Fire and
Speaker 2: Water was a huge success, or right Now. It was
Speaker 2: a huge success. To follow up to the single all
Speaker 2: Right Now was the Steeler, which was a great song,
Speaker 2: but it wasn't nowhere near. It didn't have the attraction
Speaker 2: that all Right Now had a highway. Although musically a
Speaker 2: beautiful album and one of my favorite free albums, it
Speaker 2: just died a death. So we came down to a
Speaker 2: very very quickly. And because of the success of All
Speaker 2: Right Now, we were playing different countries every night, not
Speaker 2: just different towns. We were going around the world. We
Speaker 2: were doing this and that, we were doing press comfries
Speaker 2: and we were getting burned out, and Ireland wanted to
Speaker 2: capitalize as businessmen, I want to do and they kept
Speaker 2: booking us more shows, more shows. We're getting bet up
Speaker 2: with it. Paul Rogers was the first to say, I
Speaker 2: want to rest. I'm tired of this. I've had enough.
Speaker 2: I want to rest. But no, they wouldn't do it.
Speaker 2: So and I really think this is where the management
Speaker 2: dropped the ball.
Speaker 1: Who was the manager, Well, it was Chris.
Speaker 2: Black, Chris and John Glover, and they should have listened
Speaker 2: to us. And I've told Chris to his face that
Speaker 2: you know, they should have given us a rest. You know,
Speaker 2: six months. Six months is nothing in rock and roll.
Speaker 2: It's not a big deal. We should have had arrest
Speaker 2: and they didn't. So we came in to me and
Speaker 2: Paul Kossoff, we were living together. We came into one
Speaker 2: of the mixing sessions for my brother Jake, which was
Speaker 2: a single, and the atmosphere of Paul and Andy Paul
Speaker 2: Rodgers and Andy were there with the engineer and the
Speaker 2: atmosphere was terrible. Hey guys, how you doing that? Okay, oh,
Speaker 2: what's up? And then he said, you know when we
Speaker 2: when we reached Australia, that's going to be our last show,
Speaker 2: and me, of course went what. Yeah, we're tired, we
Speaker 2: fed up with it. I said, well, let's just have
Speaker 2: a break. No no, no, musically I forget the actual words,
Speaker 2: but we've come to the end of our road. We're
Speaker 2: breaking up the band. And I was I was stunned.
Speaker 2: I mean wow, and we kept it. Now this is
Speaker 2: where we dropped the ball because we should have told management,
Speaker 2: and I think there was a certain fuck you. You know,
Speaker 2: you're not listening to us, so we're not going to
Speaker 2: talk to you. And thinking about it now, it's the
Speaker 2: first time I thought about it. We should have. I
Speaker 2: should have gone to Johnny Glover and Chris. I said, hey,
Speaker 2: you're in danger of losing this band unless you light
Speaker 2: it up. But once Paul Rodgers makes up his mind,
Speaker 2: you can't change it. So we didn't tell Johnny. We
Speaker 2: left for Japan and Australia, we didn't tell Johnny Glover
Speaker 2: that we would breaking up until we'd taken off of Japan.
Speaker 2: We were in mid air, Paul went up to and
Speaker 2: whatever he said to him, and Johnny's face fell a
Speaker 2: thousand miles. So we had to go through the whole
Speaker 2: of the Japanese tour and the Australian to knowing that
Speaker 2: when we got to Randwick Race Course in Sydney that
Speaker 2: would be our final show. And it was until we reformed.
Speaker 2: But that's another story.
Speaker 1: Okay, you re formed, it ultimately doesn't take Let's jump forward.
Speaker 1: How do you form bad company?
Speaker 2: Okay, so yeah, free fell apart. Coss developed this dreadful
Speaker 2: drug problem, et cetera said, and we we said enough,
Speaker 2: we can't do it anymore. So I went to Brazil.
Speaker 2: I stayed there for a few months. Paul went to
Speaker 2: Japan when a lady married her and formed his own
Speaker 2: band called Peace.
Speaker 1: Before we get there. Had you made any money in
Speaker 1: this whole success?
Speaker 2: No? Not really. Yeah, I mean not a lot. But
Speaker 2: I was single. I had enough to get into trouble nicely.
Speaker 2: But no, no, I didn't have a lot of money.
Speaker 2: I didn't write the songs. I just saved money from
Speaker 2: personal concerts and royalties. Mechanical waters, but no, not a
Speaker 2: lot of money at all.
Speaker 1: Okay, So Paul forums piece, he forms.
Speaker 2: Peace and they go on the road with Mot the Hoople.
Speaker 2: He's opening for Mo the Hoople and during this time
Speaker 2: What the Hoople are huge, huge band, all the young dudes,
Speaker 2: as you know, the David Bowie connection, a la big band.
Speaker 2: But Mick Ralphs, the guitarist, is very unhappy. He's been
Speaker 2: you know, he's not getting on with Ian Hunter, and
Speaker 2: him and Paul developed this relationship, this friendship, and they
Speaker 2: start jamming together in the dressing room before the shows,
Speaker 2: La la lah. Mick brings him this little real to
Speaker 2: real of this song called Can't Get Enough, and he says,
Speaker 2: Ian doesn't want to do it, and Mick plays it
Speaker 2: to Paul and said, Paul says, fucking hell, this is
Speaker 2: this is amazing, and he starts singing along with it.
Speaker 2: And Mick told me, he told me later, he said,
Speaker 2: when Paul started singing along to Can't Get Enough, his
Speaker 2: heart just soared because Paul just did what Paul Rodgers
Speaker 2: does to a song. He just elevated it. So anyway,
Speaker 2: long story short, at the end of that tour, mix
Speaker 2: ses I'm leaving mat the Hoople, Paul breaks up his
Speaker 2: band Peace and they formed us.
Speaker 1: Because it hasn't been covered. After he left Martha Hoople,
Speaker 1: they got aerie old Bender, the guy from Spooky Tooth.
Speaker 1: They never had, They never had teple a little says,
Speaker 1: did Ian Hunter care that Mick Ralph's left to.
Speaker 2: The degree, you know, I honestly don't know. I don't know.
Speaker 1: So in any event, Mick leaves Mark the Hoople and
Speaker 1: Paul breaks up Peace continue. Yeah.
Speaker 2: So they started this friendship and they started writing songs together.
Speaker 2: And I called Paul from Brazil just to see it.
Speaker 2: We always got on very well. Free was dead and gone,
Speaker 2: and I just wanted to see what he was up to.
Speaker 2: You've got to remember we were still in our early twenties.
Speaker 2: I was twenty five. Paul is six months younger than me,
Speaker 2: so we were both in our late you know, twenty
Speaker 2: four to twenty five. He said, well, I'm you know,
Speaker 2: I'm getting a band together with Mick. You know, you
Speaker 2: want to play drums. I loved him, man, and I
Speaker 2: flew back to England and I went to Paul's cottage.
Speaker 2: He's got a little cottage outside London for a little
Speaker 2: get together. With Mick, and Mick was lovely and I
Speaker 2: love him to this day. He was a sweetheart. He
Speaker 2: is funny, great player, very underrated player, but he just
Speaker 2: had this wonderful humanitarian vibe about him and nothing could
Speaker 2: be too much sub for him. He was great. And
Speaker 2: we had this song. He had this song moving on,
Speaker 2: this thing in open Sea tuning. He had this guitar
Speaker 2: tune to open Sea and he did this wow, wow wow,
Speaker 2: And I started playing drums for that. Wow, that's two
Speaker 2: songs we've got. Can't get enough and moving on. And
Speaker 2: then Paull had rock Steady Barn and suddenly we're like,
Speaker 2: hocking hell. We got some songs here. And then the
Speaker 2: quest for a bass player started. But before that we
Speaker 2: needed a manager because we knew it was like you
Speaker 2: go back five years when Free was in that little pub.
Speaker 2: We knew he had something. Now this was Mick Rause,
Speaker 2: Paul Rogers and myself, and we knew our road manager
Speaker 2: who was floating road manager with Free was a New
Speaker 2: Zealander who had a friend from New Zealand who was
Speaker 2: roading for Led Zeppelin. And this is where the tie
Speaker 2: comes in. And Clive, who rode it for Led Zeppelin
Speaker 2: gave Paul Rodgers Peter Grant's number, because Paul, being Paul, says,
Speaker 2: who's the biggest ban in the world, Led Zeppelin, who
Speaker 2: manages led Zepplin, Peter Grant, Let's call Peter Grant. So
Speaker 2: he did, and Peter Grant said, I've heard already, have
Speaker 2: heard about about you guys. What we haven't even got
Speaker 2: a bass player, so it doesn't matter. I want to
Speaker 2: come and see you. So Peter Grant came to see
Speaker 2: us in a little village hall and he did a
Speaker 2: very clever thing. Bob. We're waiting and there's no cell
Speaker 2: phones in those days. Peter Grant said, I'll be there
Speaker 2: at two o'clock. Two o'clock comes, we're playing. It's just me,
Speaker 2: Paul and Mick and a bass player who actually didn't
Speaker 2: get the job. We play the same ten songs. Three
Speaker 2: o'clock comes, no Peter, play the same ten songs. Four o'clock,
Speaker 2: no Peter. Finally four point thirty, Peter Grant walks in
Speaker 2: and hello, and we said, well, take a seat, we'll
Speaker 2: play you the set. He said, don't worry, I've heard
Speaker 2: it what he said. I've been in the car park.
Speaker 2: He says, I've been in the car park listening to
Speaker 2: you through the open window. He said, I knew you'd
Speaker 2: be nervous, so I just didn't want to you guys off.
Speaker 2: I've heard what you can do, and I think you're
Speaker 2: fucking great. You want to be on our new label
Speaker 2: called Swan Song. We said, yes. Please.
Speaker 1: Let me ask you this. Do you think this is,
Speaker 1: you know, kind of obscure. But do you think if
Speaker 1: you hadn't been on Swan Song you get more respect
Speaker 1: and you might have been in the rock and Roll
Speaker 1: Hall of Fame? Or did you get wrapped up in
Speaker 1: the Hall led Zeppelin thing and therefore people didn't give
Speaker 1: you the same respect.
Speaker 2: I don't know. I don't No one's ever answering that before.
Speaker 2: Short answer, I don't know. I don't want to get
Speaker 2: into hot water here. But you know, Zeppelin were in
Speaker 2: the Hall of Fame. I mean, there's no way you
Speaker 2: could not have Zeppelin the Hall of Fame. Jimmy, Yeah,
Speaker 2: but I mean one of the great guitarists of all time,
Speaker 2: Peter Grant was not a popular man. And we all
Speaker 2: know Peter's reputation and he's no longer with us, but
Speaker 2: he had a fearsome reputation. He pissed off a lot
Speaker 2: of people in America. But I think, also, ah, what
Speaker 2: the hell I think? Because of bad companies changing lineups
Speaker 2: over the fifty years that we've been together, it kind
Speaker 2: of devalued our currency a little bit. And you know,
Speaker 2: you had the Brian Howe era, you had the Paul
Speaker 2: Rodgers era one and two. When Paul rejoined the band,
Speaker 2: we had Robert Hart. So I honestly don't know why
Speaker 2: we have not been nominated, not even inducted. You have
Speaker 2: to be nominated first, as you know. But I never
Speaker 2: thought about the connection with the I mean, Arma Urtigan
Speaker 2: was one of the founder members of the Hall of Fame,
Speaker 2: and him and Peter Grant were like two p's in
Speaker 2: a bard. I mean, they were great friends. So I
Speaker 2: really can't answer that succinctly, quite honestly.
Speaker 1: Okay, let's start for a second talk about Peter Grit.
Speaker 1: What was up with Peter Grit?
Speaker 2: Oh, if he was in your corner, you couldn't ask
Speaker 2: for a better friend. And I loved him. I mean
Speaker 2: he was a father figure. Even though he was only
Speaker 2: a couple of years older than me. He was like
Speaker 2: the father figure. But he wheah. He had a drug
Speaker 2: problem up the wazoo. I mean, he was what I
Speaker 2: didn't like about the whole Swan song, the whole Peter
Speaker 2: Grant thing was the thuggishness, the violence, the thunder and lightning,
Speaker 2: the whole thing about, you know, intimidating people.
Speaker 1: And I saw that many.
Speaker 2: Many times with the whole Peter Grant organization. He hired thugs,
Speaker 2: he hired violent men around him and they were all
Speaker 2: doing blow. We all did it, and that made people
Speaker 2: even worse. And I'm just telling it. I'm telling things
Speaker 2: that a lot of people know anyway. That you know,
Speaker 2: he had a guy called John Bindon who was a
Speaker 2: convicted murderer. I mean he he could knock people out
Speaker 2: with one punch. He was not a nice guy. And
Speaker 2: I think it all it's calm it. It came back
Speaker 2: on him because he developed this drug problem Peter did.
Speaker 2: He became a recluse. He couldn't lose weight. He was
Speaker 2: very He's always a very big guy, became obese and
Speaker 2: that was his excuse. You I don't want to eat
Speaker 2: so much, so you know, I'll do blow or whatever.
Speaker 2: But in a rage, you didn't want to be around him.
Speaker 2: He was not a nice guy, but when he when
Speaker 2: he loved you, he was he was a great company.
Speaker 2: I have to say, you know.
Speaker 1: You've been around how sharp a guy was he is
Speaker 1: a manager?
Speaker 2: I think he had this this street wise qualit to him.
Speaker 2: You'd have to ask people who did deals with him.
Speaker 2: I mean, he was fiersome, he looks. He changed the
Speaker 2: whole touring right scene. You know, where promoters got the
Speaker 2: lion's share of a gate. Suddenly when it was Zeppelin,
Speaker 2: it was ninety Zeppelin ten percent for the who is
Speaker 2: it conscious West with the big promoters. So he changed
Speaker 2: that whole scene. And now I'm not saying that that
Speaker 2: was relevant to across the board, but he did turn
Speaker 2: things around in favor of the artists, no question. So
Speaker 2: I think he was a very sharp business man, no question.
Speaker 1: Let's go back. So how'd you get Barz Burrell?
Speaker 2: Ah, well, Buzz. We had a list of sixteen bass
Speaker 2: players and Buzz was in King Crimson. And we never
Speaker 2: liked King Crimson except for the name. I got to say,
Speaker 2: one of the great, one of the great band names
Speaker 2: of all time. But it was in our cup of tea.
Speaker 2: You know, I was raised on stacks and motown and
Speaker 2: you know, soul black music. So King Crimson anyway, Bars
Speaker 2: was at the very bottom. And we went through fifteen
Speaker 2: other bass players and none of them worked, and we thought,
Speaker 2: fuck it, and we called him up and we met
Speaker 2: in a rehearsal place off the King's Road, and I
Speaker 2: believe he came down and he was a great looking guy,
Speaker 2: very funny and amenable and gracious, and he said, let's
Speaker 2: not play for it, but let's go to the pub
Speaker 2: and have a drink and get to know each other,
Speaker 2: all right. So we went and had a couple of
Speaker 2: pints and then we came back and we did a
Speaker 2: little Little Misfortune, which was a B side of a
Speaker 2: Bad Company song, and mix says here Boss goes from
Speaker 2: G to sit and Boss says, no, no, no, I
Speaker 2: don't tell me the chords. I'll figure it out all right.
Speaker 2: And he played. Yeah, he played great, and we liked
Speaker 2: him from the get go, and we offered him the
Speaker 2: job at the end of the session. He was so good.
Speaker 1: Okay, the title album, the title cut Bad Company, which
Speaker 1: I prefer to can't get enough. You're a credited as
Speaker 1: a Colt writer. How did Bad Company come about? Well?
Speaker 2: The interesting thing about Bad Company was Paul came up
Speaker 2: the piano riff, and it's an unusual rock song because
Speaker 2: it's an E flat minor, and any keyboard player will
Speaker 2: tell you that E flat miner was all the black
Speaker 2: notes on a piano, and most rock songs are in
Speaker 2: A or E or G or whatever. C can't get
Speaker 2: enough as in C and C is what they call
Speaker 2: the people's chord. It's kind of a common chord. So
Speaker 2: E flat miner it was. And Paul had this great
Speaker 2: bomb bomb bomb and he played it to me on
Speaker 2: the piano. The Wow, it's nice. It's set a mood,
Speaker 2: and as soon as you hear it on it whatever
Speaker 2: radio or high file or sonas or whatever, as soon
Speaker 2: as you hear then opening chords, it really clicks something
Speaker 2: in you and still does to this day.
Speaker 1: So we just, you know, we tossed.
Speaker 2: Ideas around and I came up with one line, Paul
Speaker 2: came up with another line, and I think we did
Speaker 2: it in about twenty minutes and a glass of beer
Speaker 2: and a joint.
Speaker 1: Okay, Ready for Love had been on the first Martha
Speaker 1: Ball Columbia album, sung by Mick. How did you guys
Speaker 1: decide to do that? On the first Bad Company, right well.
Speaker 2: One of one of mixed, one of the best songs
Speaker 2: ever written. And as soon as Paul heard it, he said, well,
Speaker 2: I want to do it, and Mix said, well, we've
Speaker 2: done it already. I don't give a shit. I'm going
Speaker 2: to sing this. We're gonna we're going to revitalize it
Speaker 2: because the Mamma Hooper version is not great, but the
Speaker 2: way Paul sings it and the whole piano solo, it's
Speaker 2: a beautiful and we were when we were playing it,
Speaker 2: Bowie was in the next studio. We were in Olympic
Speaker 2: Studios in Barns in London and Bowie came in and
Speaker 2: we didn't know he was there. He was just sat down.
Speaker 2: We walked in and Bo said, he said, that song
Speaker 2: is so fucking good. So hey, if if it's all
Speaker 2: right by David, it's going on the album.
Speaker 1: And of course one more Seagull. What can you tell
Speaker 1: me about the Well Seagull was one.
Speaker 2: Hundred Paul, and you know, he had this beautiful song
Speaker 2: and it's still to this day. I mean, whenever he
Speaker 2: plays it, people just go into raptures. It's a very
Speaker 2: simple song in D major and he sings the hell
Speaker 2: out of it, and it's it's just one of the
Speaker 2: all time beautiful acoustic songs.
Speaker 1: Okay, So from this side of the fence as a fan,
Speaker 1: I can't get enough hit the FM radio. The album
Speaker 1: comes out very shortly thereafter, huge success from minute one.
Speaker 1: That was a paradigm that was not happening back then
Speaker 1: for something usually a percolated FM radio you played because
Speaker 1: this thing was a monster from day one. What was
Speaker 1: the experience on your side of the fence.
Speaker 2: Well, you know, you had this perfect storm, Bob. You know,
Speaker 2: you had the release of the launch of Swansong Records.
Speaker 2: Zeppelin publicity machine goes into overdrive. We had these launch
Speaker 2: parties in Beverly Hills and New York City. We're the
Speaker 2: first band other than Zeppelin on Swanson Records. We had
Speaker 2: this out of the box amazing album from the get go.
Speaker 2: I mean it just we're all good looking lads, we're
Speaker 2: in our mid twenties. We've all come from very well
Speaker 2: known bands in England and to a lesser degree in America.
Speaker 2: So it couldn't really fail. And you've got to remember
Speaker 2: that we we could back it up. It's all. It's
Speaker 2: one thing having a great album but unless you can
Speaker 2: go out on the stage and produce a live show
Speaker 2: that is as good as that album, then it's going
Speaker 2: to fall. So every book was tipped. We had the publicity,
Speaker 2: We had Zeppelin. We were riding on their coattails. If
Speaker 2: you wish, if you will, we did a tour. We
Speaker 2: went all over the States, opening for other people, by
Speaker 2: the way, and at the end of the tour we
Speaker 2: had our first gold album.
Speaker 1: Okay, unlike in Free you do follow it up with
Speaker 1: Street Shooter, which is actually bigger than the first album.
Speaker 1: Feel Like Making Love just takes over and feel Like
Speaker 1: Making Love there's not sound like can't get enough. So
Speaker 1: tell me how you get that song, and tell me
Speaker 1: more about the second album.
Speaker 2: Well, but Paul had Paul and Mick had these two
Speaker 2: separate songs. I'll never forget. I think Mick had a
Speaker 2: little country d T G B. And then Paul had
Speaker 2: this great riff. He might be the other way around.
Speaker 2: I'm not sure who had it, But I said, you
Speaker 2: know what, because neither of the ideas was going anywhere,
Speaker 2: So why don't you just marry the two have the
Speaker 2: versus a little country thing and have the chorus as
Speaker 2: this riff so we ran it a few times and
Speaker 2: you know what, it took off. So that was feeling't
Speaker 2: making Love. Still to this day, I believe if you
Speaker 2: go on Pandora, I think it's next to Bad Company.
Speaker 2: It's the most played Bad Company song ever.
Speaker 1: So yeah, the only time I've sung karaoke in my
Speaker 1: life was on a boat, and the only song I
Speaker 1: sang was feel like making Love.
Speaker 2: I want to see a YouTube of that.
Speaker 1: God, it doesn't exist. Can you tell me anything about
Speaker 1: Shooting Star?
Speaker 2: Oh yeah, yeah, probably my one of my favorite songs
Speaker 2: of Paul. Well, we were going on to our next tour.
Speaker 2: We were in He Throw, He Throw Airport and we
Speaker 2: all got there as the start of our second tour.
Speaker 2: Everyone's like, well, can't wait, and Paul is sort of
Speaker 2: sequested himself away in a corner of the departure or
Speaker 2: he's got his little guitar and he's and they're calling
Speaker 2: the flights in flight seven three to New York. Paul,
Speaker 2: come on, So I'm nearly finished. I'm nearly finished, and
Speaker 2: he's finishing the last verse to Shooting Star, which he
Speaker 2: played when he finally arrived in New York. He played
Speaker 2: us and it was just John he was a schoolboy
Speaker 2: when he heard his first Beatle song and it was,
Speaker 2: oh man, one of the great I think, one of
Speaker 2: his finest songs because it's still relevant today. I mean
Speaker 2: it's fifty years later, it still rings a bell and
Speaker 2: addiction and the price of fame and so on and
Speaker 2: so forth. So you feel like I'm making love, shooting
Speaker 2: star good, loving one bad. I mean, three stellar tracks.
Speaker 2: And that's why for me, what's the name? The second
Speaker 2: album is my favorite album?
Speaker 1: Well, the funny thing is the hits are on the
Speaker 1: first side, but once you burn that out Paul's vocal
Speaker 1: and deal with the preacher and then I wild fire
Speaker 1: a woman really astounding. Okay, Run with the Pack is
Speaker 1: the next album I got. I ask you because this
Speaker 1: is my favorite Bad Company song.
Speaker 2: You.
Speaker 1: I don't know if there's any story but simple man.
Speaker 1: Oh well, yeah, freedom is the only thing that means
Speaker 1: a damn to me, to.
Speaker 2: Me, yeah, especially if you live in New Hampshire.
Speaker 1: What is it? Yeah?
Speaker 2: Die?
Speaker 1: Yeah?
Speaker 2: That was I think that was a definitely a fifty
Speaker 2: to fifty collaboration with Mick because Mick came up with
Speaker 2: that the beautiful guitar riff, that descending riff and then Paul.
Speaker 2: When Paul sung this, I mean whoa when he hit
Speaker 2: that that final verse, I'm but a simple man. God Wow, yeah,
Speaker 2: I'm Yeah. Not much else I can say about it.
Speaker 2: It's a joy to play.
Speaker 1: Okay, you have three big hits in the album. The
Speaker 1: next album is Burning Sky. I like the remember Robert
Speaker 1: Hilbert not that just because I live in LA. It
Speaker 1: was trashing the lyrics whatever of leaving you, but it
Speaker 1: had Bernard's guy had an incredible sound. What was the
Speaker 1: experience you had? Did you feel that it wasn't as successful?
Speaker 1: Was it all blur?
Speaker 2: What was it like? Well, it was, you know, we'd
Speaker 2: come full circle. Really we had three great albums and
Speaker 2: then we started getting tired. We were we were doing
Speaker 2: that whole round the world thing again, and we were
Speaker 2: we were contracted to do an album. We had a
Speaker 2: deadline to meet, and we were being the young rap
Speaker 2: scallions that we were. We were unaware. We come off
Speaker 2: this third American tour where we'd done like one hundred,
Speaker 2: one hundred shows in four months, something ridiculous, and we said,
Speaker 2: oh now let's have a break. And the guys went,
Speaker 2: uh uh, you got an album to make what yeah,
Speaker 2: by the end of October or you get penalty of
Speaker 2: some bullshit. So when we convened in the chateau Ville
Speaker 2: just outside Parish to what were what would become Bernie Sky,
Speaker 2: we only had I think four four and a half
Speaker 2: songs and most of them weren't really that good, quite honestly.
Speaker 2: So yeah, and we got panned. I mean the album
Speaker 2: Bernie Sky was great, and I think that was one
Speaker 2: song that Paul had finished and done and that was
Speaker 2: really good. But there were a couple of jams we
Speaker 2: did to make up for it, and we were we
Speaker 2: were getting tired, a bit ragged, and it was a
Speaker 2: lot of fun, I have to say, but we came
Speaker 2: ill prepared and it did show in that album.
Speaker 1: So it takes two years for the next album to
Speaker 1: come out. What goes on in those two years.
Speaker 2: That would be Desolation Angels, right, Yeah, well same ORed.
Speaker 2: I mean, the drugs started. I started getting into the drugs.
Speaker 2: We all do, quite honestly, except for Paul. I'll put
Speaker 2: my hand up there straight away. Paul stopped doing drugs
Speaker 2: in nineteen seventy six. But me, but Mick and Boz
Speaker 2: we were, you know, I was still in my I
Speaker 2: was twenty eight, yeah, twenty eight, twenty nine. Boz was
Speaker 2: a couple of years older. Mick was maybe in his
Speaker 2: early thirties. We were still rocking, you know, partying, to
Speaker 2: use a euphemism, and we we were resting on our laurels.
Speaker 2: We wanted a break. We deserved it. We had four
Speaker 2: platinum albums in a row, bollocks. We weren't going to
Speaker 2: do anything, and we had to do a tax year
Speaker 2: out because of the crippling taxes in in England. So
Speaker 2: we just kind of twiddled out armas for a couple
Speaker 2: of years. I think we did a tour we will
Speaker 2: you know the thing we touched. We still had to
Speaker 2: mind us touch, but we were getting a little burned
Speaker 2: out and it took rock and roll fantasy to rejuvenate us.
Speaker 2: Paul once again came up gold with rock andron fantasy
Speaker 2: and Destination Angels was a pretty damn good album.
Speaker 1: So Desolation Angels is an incredible record. They they hit
Speaker 1: the ship. Ratio on that album is beyond belief. It's
Speaker 1: you know, been forgot, It's got rock and roll fantasy,
Speaker 1: and it's got Atlanta. The best song on the album,
Speaker 1: I don't get Lonely for Your Love is just incredible,
Speaker 1: and then Evil Wind and Rhythm. I mean that album love. Yeah,
Speaker 1: it's labeled as bad Company goes Synth, but that's just strong,
Speaker 1: if not stronger in its own way than Straight Shooter.
Speaker 1: It was a surprise. I mean I was shocked how
Speaker 1: good it was. And I did not buy it, Unlike
Speaker 1: the previous three albums, I bought exactly when they came out.
Speaker 1: I waited a little while before I bought that one.
Speaker 1: But there were synthesizers on that album. How did those?
Speaker 1: It was out an argument. Everybody said, oh, this is
Speaker 1: the sound, We're going to go for it.
Speaker 3: No, I've always had a love affair with strings, and
Speaker 3: back on Straight Shooter, you know, I had a couple
Speaker 3: of songs, one of which was Weep No More.
Speaker 2: And we used a full orchestra. So fast forward to
Speaker 2: to rock and roll Fantasy, I mean Desinats and Angels.
Speaker 2: I think we used since because we just maybe got
Speaker 2: a little bit bored with the regular lineup. We just
Speaker 2: wanted a little bit of a different taste of something
Speaker 2: here and there. And Mick and Paul have always been
Speaker 2: decent keyboard players, so we just, you know, just for
Speaker 2: the shaer fun of it, of it to do it.
Speaker 1: Okay, that's a huge success. Next album comes out Rough Diamonds.
Speaker 1: There is a hit electrically in but the original band
Speaker 1: fall support. So what goes on there?
Speaker 2: Yeah, yeah, Well, we were pretty much at the end
Speaker 2: of our row. And I'm glad you mentioned electric Land
Speaker 2: because it's one of Baul's great great songs. But we
Speaker 2: were pretty much burned out by then, and we had
Speaker 2: a fist fight. And when unless you're skinnered some Southern band,
Speaker 2: when an English band has a fist fight, that's pretty
Speaker 2: much the end of it. And we did and it
Speaker 2: all fell apart. We were all doing way too much,
Speaker 2: too many drugs. We were kind of screwed up. I
Speaker 2: was drinking, and what happened. You had this one two
Speaker 2: punch of Lenon being shot and Bonzo dying and Zeppelin
Speaker 2: breaking up. Peter Grant goes the seclusion. This whole house
Speaker 2: of cards just implodes and collapses, and you know, we
Speaker 2: invoked a managerial clause. Robert and Jimmy from Zepp backed
Speaker 2: out from away from Peter. Grant all did the same thing,
Speaker 2: and we we kind of recused ourselves from Peter. We
Speaker 2: wanted him to get better. We wanted us all to
Speaker 2: get better. Zeppelin had broken up and it was a
Speaker 2: horrible time. Nineteen eighty was a ghastly time and that
Speaker 2: was it for us. Really.
Speaker 1: Okay, ultimately you reconstitute the band. Bud Prager is the
Speaker 1: mean Okay, Brian Howe who comes first? Bud or Brian.
Speaker 2: Kind of one too? Yeah, yeah, Well, Bud managed and
Speaker 2: Lou Graham and Mick Jones weren't getting on and Mick
Speaker 2: wanted to groom this guy called Brian ow to take
Speaker 2: over from Lou. Well, they kind of made up and Paul,
Speaker 2: you know, Paul went into the Sunset and I became
Speaker 2: very friendly with Mick because he became a good friend
Speaker 2: of mine. And I said, yeah, we're looking for around,
Speaker 2: maybe someone to replace Paul, And he said, I got
Speaker 2: this great guy well, and he introduced me to Brian,
Speaker 2: and Brian at the time was decent. He wasn't the
Speaker 2: same style of singer, but he was eager, he was hungry,
Speaker 2: he wanted to work. He was a good looking guy,
Speaker 2: you know, he was. Yeah, So we took him on
Speaker 2: board and it just nah, it didn't work. And to
Speaker 2: this day, I don't mind saying that my time of life.
Speaker 2: It was a mistake. We made some good music, and
Speaker 2: oddly enough, when Brian passed away a couple of years ago,
Speaker 2: a lot of people were introduced to Bad Company when
Speaker 2: Brian was a singer. You have to remember we've been
Speaker 2: around fifty years and a lot of people who now
Speaker 2: are in their forties late thirties hadn't heard of the
Speaker 2: original Bad Company with Paul Rodgers. So for them it
Speaker 2: was here comes Trouble, Holy Water. That was bad Company
Speaker 2: for them. And he got a lot of accolades and
Speaker 2: tributes to Brian when he passed away, So I'm not
Speaker 2: going to speak ill of him, you know, I don't
Speaker 2: speak ill of the dead. We didn't get on and
Speaker 2: even though we kept the name alive, we did quite
Speaker 2: a few tours, We did quite a few albums with Brian.
Speaker 2: It just wasn't the Bad Company that I grew up
Speaker 2: with and I came to know and love and hate
Speaker 2: at the same time. Does that make sense? But it
Speaker 2: wasn't Bad Company, nah. It was a different Bad Company,
Speaker 2: but not the one with Paul Rodgers.
Speaker 1: So what was it like having Bud priegerism minature as
Speaker 1: opposed to Peter Grant.
Speaker 2: Well, I like Bud. You know the I got to
Speaker 2: be scared of Peter Grant, and you can't be scared
Speaker 2: of someone who looks after you, I mean really scared.
Speaker 2: Bud was a straight up and up, nice Jewish guy.
Speaker 2: I don't know if he had You know, I won't
Speaker 2: speak ill of him because he was always very good
Speaker 2: to me. He'd steered foreigner to want a great success.
Speaker 2: He was always ready, he was always on the phone.
Speaker 2: I mean, you call Peter up, you'd have to wait
Speaker 2: days to get a response. So I liked I like
Speaker 2: Bud Prager. We played golf together. He was a stand
Speaker 2: up guy, and I was sorry to hear when he
Speaker 2: passed away. You play golfer, I played golf. I'm crazy
Speaker 2: about it.
Speaker 1: How did you become a golfer?
Speaker 2: Well, when I sobered up, I would wake up at
Speaker 2: eight o'clock in the morning, bob without a hangover, and
Speaker 2: I got to wait twelve hours before I go to
Speaker 2: the bloody concert. So I took up gold.
Speaker 1: How good a golfer are you?
Speaker 2: I'm not very good, but I love it.
Speaker 1: How often you play? Now?
Speaker 2: Not often? I haven't played this year. I just watched
Speaker 2: it on TV. I had you know the COVID and
Speaker 2: I had something wrong with my knee and I just
Speaker 2: never got out. And you've got to remember up here
Speaker 2: in the Northeast, the season is only you know, like
Speaker 2: April through October and then it was too cold.
Speaker 1: Okay, first record with Brian, you work with Keith Olson's
Speaker 1: got a lot of history, especially with Fleetwood. Back then
Speaker 1: you worked with Terry Thomas. It's interesting because he had
Speaker 1: a band called Charlie, had a couple of very good records,
Speaker 1: never broke through. Can you tell us anything about Terry?
Speaker 2: Well, what you don't know is that he also had
Speaker 2: a band called Maten's Magic Mixture, and that was one
Speaker 2: of the bands that I auditioned with before Free came along,
Speaker 2: like thirty years prior. And when when I when when
Speaker 2: Bud told me about this guy called Terry Thomas, I said,
Speaker 2: don't tell me he's a guitar player. He said, yeah,
Speaker 2: I said, I know him. My god. Terry was very good,
Speaker 2: very professional, and once we got gotten over the fact
Speaker 2: that we'd actually played together all those years before, we
Speaker 2: him and Brian kind of took over the writing duties
Speaker 2: and he was good. I mean, he knew his way
Speaker 2: around a console, he knew what would work and what
Speaker 2: didn't work. He was, you know, he didn't drink or
Speaker 2: drug much yet a little drink now and again, la
Speaker 2: la lah. But he was good for the band. But
Speaker 2: he formed this alliance with Brian, and the whole writing
Speaker 2: got taken away pretty much from Mick. And I've got
Speaker 2: to be honest, Mick, Mick and me were We were
Speaker 2: still drinking a lot, and Mick was not the writer
Speaker 2: that he used to be. He missed Paul terribly. He
Speaker 2: needed someone to write with, and of course Paul wasn't around,
Speaker 2: So the writing duties got taken away from from Mick,
Speaker 2: and we made you know, we made some good albums
Speaker 2: with Terry. I mean, very good guitar guitarist in his
Speaker 2: own right. So I mean I don't really listen to those.
Speaker 2: I don't listen to our Bad Company albums anymore anyway,
Speaker 2: But I have to say take my hat off to Terry.
Speaker 2: He did a good job with what he had and
Speaker 2: and I'll take my own hat off. I kept it
Speaker 2: together whenever I played I never played out of it.
Speaker 2: I never played stone. Only one time I ever did
Speaker 2: a line of coke, and that was in Detroit before
Speaker 2: I went on stage, the biggest mistake of my life.
Speaker 2: But I kept it together and we made some good.
Speaker 1: Albums and then why Robert Hard After that?
Speaker 2: Well, Robert, I don't know. We had a second guitarists
Speaker 2: called Dave Bucket Coldwell, who knew Robert Robert was in
Speaker 2: another band, and he said, you've got to hear we
Speaker 2: weren't getting on with Brian now. I didn't like your
Speaker 2: style of singing. It was getting too heavy metal and
Speaker 2: to Motley Crewe for us, you know, it was not
Speaker 2: our thing. And Dave said, I know this great guy.
Speaker 2: He sings just like Paul and he's a great guy.
Speaker 2: La la h. So whenever Brian would leave the rehearsal
Speaker 2: to go home, we'd call Robert and saying come on,
Speaker 2: get in here, and he come in and do rock
Speaker 2: steady and he'd been out in the car park waiting
Speaker 2: for the call. So he do a couple of bad
Speaker 2: Company songs and we go ooh, this is more like it.
Speaker 2: And Robert was great. I really liked Robert. I loved
Speaker 2: having him on board. But there's only so many personnel
Speaker 2: changes that a band can endure. And we did one
Speaker 2: one album, two albums with Robert and a couple of
Speaker 2: tours and it was good, but it just I was
Speaker 2: getting tired of it. It was you know, I wanted
Speaker 2: Paul back in the van, quite honestly, and he did it,
Speaker 2: came back.
Speaker 1: Paul comes back, and then ultimately there's a concert in Florida.
Speaker 1: The press said you had to play the maintain ownership
Speaker 1: of the name. Is that true?
Speaker 2: Well, we we would. Let me get this right. The
Speaker 2: record company wanted to release a compendium, a double album
Speaker 2: of uh Back Company's greatest hits, and there was a
Speaker 2: time constraint which if we went over that time constraint,
Speaker 2: the the merchandise or.
Speaker 1: The the whatever you call it, mechanical.
Speaker 2: Not mechanical, the the registered trademark would expire. Oh yeah yeah,
Speaker 2: and people could could take could take the name. So yeah,
Speaker 2: there was a certain legal stipulation in there that we
Speaker 2: had to Anyway, it was an excuse for us to
Speaker 2: call Paul and say, hey, man, come on, it's been
Speaker 2: twelve years, and he came in. We had a rehearsal
Speaker 2: down in the country, and as soon as he plugged in,
Speaker 2: I think we did rock and off. Fancy. Wow. It
Speaker 2: was like slipping into a pair of old shoes again,
Speaker 2: you know, comfortable shoes. It was just felt right and
Speaker 2: so we reunited and it was so good to have
Speaker 2: him back. There was still a little animosity. I don't
Speaker 2: blame him for taking on these other singers, but by
Speaker 2: the same token, you know, we felt justified because he
Speaker 2: just left. I mean there was no discussion. He just
Speaker 2: left and that was it. But we made up.
Speaker 3: Now.
Speaker 1: I saw the band with Howard Lease and Rich Robinson
Speaker 1: from the Black Crows. It was unbelievable. How did those
Speaker 1: two guys get in?
Speaker 3: Oh?
Speaker 2: Yeah, good players, good player. Yeah. I love Howard and
Speaker 2: Rich was very good, very good guitar player in his
Speaker 2: own right. We needed Howard always wanted a second guitarists.
Speaker 2: You know, the original band was just Mick Boz, myself
Speaker 2: and Paul, but Howard just felt that his playing needed
Speaker 2: a little bit of beefing up. I don't know how
Speaker 2: Rich fitted in, but he was a southern gentleman. We
Speaker 2: liked him. He got on very well with him, and
Speaker 2: he was I think they were having trouble with the
Speaker 2: Crows so he was out on a limb and he
Speaker 2: joined the band just for a tour. He was very good.
Speaker 2: I liked him very much. Good player.
Speaker 1: Okay, now Bad Company is playing and then Paul is
Speaker 1: playing with his own band. What was going on there?
Speaker 2: Well, he's always had this, you know, they had a
Speaker 2: solo career for a long long time now, and he
Speaker 2: managed to juggle the two. I know that we went.
Speaker 2: The last time Back Company played in Japan. It was
Speaker 2: originally going to be a Paul Rodgers' solo tour, but
Speaker 2: quite honestly, I don't think the tickets were doing that well.
Speaker 2: So his manager at the time said, well, let's make
Speaker 2: it a Bad Company tour. So me and I was
Speaker 2: brought on and it became a Bad Company to him,
Speaker 2: it did really well. So you know, Paul has always
Speaker 2: had this solo career, and then we do a Bad Company.
Speaker 2: Then he go back out again as solo, and he's
Speaker 2: had a very very good career. Good for him.
Speaker 1: And at those times, would you be sitting at home saying,
Speaker 1: come on, Paul, let's go back out as far Bad Company?
Speaker 2: Well no, not really. I mean the one time I
Speaker 2: would have liked to have been involved, and I'll be honest,
Speaker 2: he did a thing called the Free Spirit Tour in
Speaker 2: in England where he did all free songs and I
Speaker 2: would have I would have loved to have been on that,
Speaker 2: I have to say, But there it is. It's it
Speaker 2: didn't happen, and just get on with it.
Speaker 1: So where do you live now?
Speaker 2: I live. I divide my time between Manhattan and Montalk
Speaker 2: in Long Island.
Speaker 1: Why mon talk? Man Talk is the furthest out Robert? Yeah,
Speaker 1: Shelter Island after that?
Speaker 2: Yeah, right, that's why mon Talk. I don't know. It's
Speaker 2: just far enough away from from the city. It's a
Speaker 2: three three hour drive, beautiful weather, well when it's not
Speaker 2: blowing a gale, and it's just lovely. It's a lovely
Speaker 2: golf course next door. And it's a nice, nice place,
Speaker 2: nice people, beautiful, clean air. I love it.
Speaker 1: And you're remarried, you talk about Maria, you're doing the
Speaker 1: musical and you're playing drums to records. Are you the
Speaker 1: type of guy whose networked, who's talking to all the
Speaker 1: people who you've ever played with run into or you're
Speaker 1: more of a homebody just with your wife. What's your
Speaker 1: life looking like now?
Speaker 2: I'm pretty goog garious. I mean, look, I'm a Leo.
Speaker 2: We don't like hiding our light under a bushel. And
Speaker 2: I'm not very good at the social media. I leave
Speaker 2: that to my wife. She's very good at that Instagram
Speaker 2: and Twitter or x or whatever it is now, and
Speaker 2: we have quite a good social life. I go into
Speaker 2: the city a lot, and you know, I see my kids,
Speaker 2: I go to little functions. So I'm not ready to
Speaker 2: become a hermit. I was never that sort of guy.
Speaker 2: I like other people, and I still love playing.
Speaker 1: Love playing well, Simon, I want to thank you so
Speaker 1: much for taking the time to talk to her audience.
Speaker 1: Great memories, great storyteller.
Speaker 2: Well, an interview is only as good as the questions, Bob,
Speaker 2: and you've been a wonderful host. I have to say
Speaker 2: so thank you very much, and.
Speaker 1: Thank you for being so honest and forthcoming.
Speaker 2: All right, my friend, until the next time.
Speaker 1: Until next time. This is Bob lofstecks
Speaker 2: H