Speaker 1: Pushkin. Hey everyone, today we're closing out Black Music Month
Speaker 1: by celebrating one of Rick Rubin's favorite albums of all time,
Speaker 1: Forever Changes, by the band Love. Love was a groundbreaking
Speaker 1: in LA group formed in nineteen sixty five. While their
Speaker 1: name isn't usually mentioned alongside popular California psychedelic bands like
Speaker 1: The Birds or The Grateful Dead, Love's influence is vast.
Speaker 1: They were the first interracial rock band, predating even signing
Speaker 1: the Family Stone up in San Francisco. Their charismatic, fashion
Speaker 1: forward black frontman Arthur Lee inspired Jimmy Hendricks's look, and
Speaker 1: in the mid sixties, Love was the hottest band in
Speaker 1: a Hollywood. They lived together in a castle and played
Speaker 1: sold out shows on the Sunset Strip, where diehard fans
Speaker 1: like Jim Morrison came to see them play. In nineteen
Speaker 1: sixty seven, the band recorded their third album, Forever Changes.
Speaker 1: It was the last album for the original core of
Speaker 1: the group, with guitarist Johnny Ecles and co writer Brian McLean.
Speaker 1: The album ushered in an entirely new sound for the band,
Speaker 1: combining baroque sounding instruments and horns with folky instrumentation and
Speaker 1: poetic lyrics. On today's episode, we'll hear some of Rick
Speaker 1: Rubin's conversation with Detroit rapper Danny Brown, who, like Rick,
Speaker 1: places Love's album Forever Changes at the very top of
Speaker 1: his greatest albums ever. Then we'll hear Rick in conversation
Speaker 1: with Loveslely guitarist Johnny eccles about the intense turmoil surrounding
Speaker 1: the recording of Forever Changes. Ecoles, who grew up straddling
Speaker 1: both black lay and the psychedelic Strip, explains how Love
Speaker 1: was responsible for getting The Doors the record deal, only
Speaker 1: to be quickly overshadowed by The Door's mainstream success. Echoes
Speaker 1: also recalls first meeting the Beatles when they were an
Speaker 1: opening act for a Little Richard. This is broken record
Speaker 1: line of notes for the digital age. I'm just commission
Speaker 1: before we jump into Rick's conversation with Johnny Echos, Let's
Speaker 1: first hear from the one and only Danny Brown. Of
Speaker 1: all the music you listen to, where do you put
Speaker 1: Forever Changes in your very change? My favorite album? I've heard?
Speaker 1: Number one album? Yeah, because I still, like I told you,
Speaker 1: I still hear, I still hear new things to this day,
Speaker 1: and I still haven't understand I don't understand still what
Speaker 1: I'm listening to. I just know I'm not listening to
Speaker 1: it with my brain, like because I know a lot
Speaker 1: of time I hear music and I love it, and
Speaker 1: then three months later it's like your brain tricked you
Speaker 1: to like that. You know what I'm saying, because feeling wise,
Speaker 1: it does nothing for me, you know what I'm saying,
Speaker 1: But forever changes, no matter like how much a lot
Speaker 1: of the shit I don't even understand, some reason to
Speaker 1: just stick with me emotionally beautiful. But I guess the
Speaker 1: first thing that caught me about the album was that
Speaker 1: I didn't know it was black, like hearing some music
Speaker 1: like that, because it was like I don't never want
Speaker 1: to put race to music and stuff, but you know,
Speaker 1: growing up in Detroit almost have like a Motown feel
Speaker 1: to me in some sense to it. But he was
Speaker 1: like doing stuff other like black artists wasn't doing at
Speaker 1: the time, you know what I'm saying as of his
Speaker 1: ram in some sense, but even listening to it nine
Speaker 1: like coming on my way over here is so California too,
Speaker 1: like like I get that viab like I know that's
Speaker 1: meaning the sixties, but it's like it's like a sound
Speaker 1: tractor here almost and and and I know music plays
Speaker 1: a big part for me when environments like me like
Speaker 1: growing up and being like a big Naves fan and
Speaker 1: like Illmatic was like, but my first time, you know,
Speaker 1: seeing Queensbridge projects like this is the and do you
Speaker 1: know this is the scene that this ship was painted
Speaker 1: to you know what I'm saying, absolutely? And I guess
Speaker 1: you know drugs too, because there's a lot of Like
Speaker 1: I said, I got questions too about the album, Like
Speaker 1: the only song I can figure out that means something
Speaker 1: is the And the titles too, are so all over
Speaker 1: the place, the one about them, you know, the snot
Speaker 1: drying up on these pans and stuff and all that,
Speaker 1: Like I feel like that song is about war obviously,
Speaker 1: you know, about going into service and stuff. But after that,
Speaker 1: like all the songs are like open for interpretation for
Speaker 1: I think a lot of different people. You know what
Speaker 1: I'm saying, absolutely, How does the music of it strike you?
Speaker 1: That's the one thing that I think is the big
Speaker 1: deal too about it. Like as good as the songwriter
Speaker 1: Arthur Lee was, I think everybody was like at the
Speaker 1: top of the game far as the instrumentation, and then
Speaker 1: other thing too. They did it in four months, Like
Speaker 1: like you talk about me, someone that take years and
Speaker 1: stuff making albums, Like what the fuck am I bullshit?
Speaker 1: Like how did they do this four months? And didn't
Speaker 1: with they working on the reels and stuff like that,
Speaker 1: and we have pro too, He's just pressing the button
Speaker 1: he could just do know, So it's like they had
Speaker 1: no room for error, especially when you're dealing with Okay,
Speaker 1: you already have a full band, you know, and then
Speaker 1: you want to add in horns and you want to
Speaker 1: add in string arrangements and stuff like that. It's like
Speaker 1: it's so hard to make them make stuff like that
Speaker 1: fluttered like you know what I'm saying. So it was
Speaker 1: like certain parts like he didn't have drums or but
Speaker 1: when he did, it was always like kick ass. Though
Speaker 1: it wasn't like nothing that just set there to just
Speaker 1: hold the tone, you know what I'm saying. Everything was
Speaker 1: there to stick out, which is so cool about you know,
Speaker 1: production and ship too, because a lot of times, you know,
Speaker 1: you can just fall back on the song writing. And
Speaker 1: as strong as those songs was that he's writing, it's like, yeah,
Speaker 1: you could have just never really been that shit could
Speaker 1: have just been acoustic guitar. Next year, we still would
Speaker 1: have knew those were amazing songs and the like, But
Speaker 1: the go that fucking her production wise is like what
Speaker 1: And then it just to hear like the cost of
Speaker 1: the album at that time, it's like fuck man, Like
Speaker 1: for that album to come out, it didn't sell any records.
Speaker 1: It wasn't like a fucking big deal or anything, like
Speaker 1: you know what I'm saying. But now we're sitting here
Speaker 1: in twenty nineteen and talking about it, you know, so
Speaker 1: that gives me, Yeah, it gives me hope, Like you
Speaker 1: know what I'm saying, Like, good music never dies no
Speaker 1: matter what you know, how long ago was it that
Speaker 1: you first heard it. I always judge stuff by, um,
Speaker 1: what I was listening to at the time. I was
Speaker 1: listening to Jay Dillar Donuts. So when Donuts came out
Speaker 1: two thousand and six, yeah, that's a long time for
Speaker 1: an album to hold you. And same for me. I
Speaker 1: probably started listening to it in the early two thousands
Speaker 1: and still anytime I fly, that's what I listened to
Speaker 1: on an airplane always because it has a subtleness to
Speaker 1: it too, because like you know, playing music, it's a
Speaker 1: different thing you want something you can sleep too and
Speaker 1: still wake up and not freak you out, you know
Speaker 1: what I'm saying. So I think for Every Change is
Speaker 1: a subtle album that has that, but I get so
Speaker 1: caught up in the lyrics of it, like the only
Speaker 1: other album I can like compare Forever Changes too for
Speaker 1: me and some sense it's like a mad Villain like
Speaker 1: to me, like I can just take the album just
Speaker 1: read it, and I think I would still feel a
Speaker 1: personal connection just from the lyrics, just from reading it.
Speaker 1: And that's why I can compare it to him. It
Speaker 1: because like I had went to m I had did
Speaker 1: like a year in county jail, and you know, with
Speaker 1: being in jail, you don't have no music or nothing.
Speaker 1: So I would have my brother like praying out and
Speaker 1: doom lyrics for me. Yeah, and that was the way
Speaker 1: And like I connected with Mad Villain just reading words.
Speaker 1: So and I feel like Forever Change, It's genuitely has
Speaker 1: that same type of peal because I had to read
Speaker 1: those lyrics too. Make sure to keep an eye out
Speaker 1: for Danny Brown's new joint album with rapper producer Jay
Speaker 1: Peg Mafia when it drops later this year. Now, let's
Speaker 1: see Rick and Johnny eccles talk through the making of
Speaker 1: Loves Forever Changes. I want to understand why this beautiful
Speaker 1: album is so unique. Okay, should we go through song
Speaker 1: by song? Sure, we can do that. Whichever was I'll
Speaker 1: put them, I'll bring them up and we can listen
Speaker 1: to a little bit of each song and you can
Speaker 1: just tell me who did what, or what was going
Speaker 1: on at time or what what? What memories come up
Speaker 1: when you hear it. Okay, let me let's start with
Speaker 1: this all the time. What do you think about? What
Speaker 1: do you remember about? Okay? This was a song that
Speaker 1: Brian wrote, call Alone Again. Arthur added the oar to it. Yes. Now,
Speaker 1: when we first started working on this song, it the
Speaker 1: introduction on him doing the fingerpick of Spanish guitar. Yeah,
Speaker 1: it was meant to be a banjo so the song
Speaker 1: was a different song. It was a blue grassy kind
Speaker 1: of song when he first wrote it, and we were
Speaker 1: young and naive and thought, well, we play guitar, we
Speaker 1: can play banjo too. So we rented banjo's and we
Speaker 1: came into the studio and we tried doing the introduction
Speaker 1: and playing banjos. Well, banjo's entirely different instrument instruments, yeah,
Speaker 1: and so if you don't know how to play it,
Speaker 1: you can't play it. So we were at the verge
Speaker 1: of just nixing that song altogether. And I was sitting
Speaker 1: in a corner warming up. So I'm just playing that.
Speaker 1: They're not flamenco. There's just Spanish riffs, you know, and
Speaker 1: David Angel here's that. So why don't we just kind
Speaker 1: of transfer those kinds of riffs to Brian's song and
Speaker 1: do it that way. And so he went over and
Speaker 1: talked to Brian. First, Brian was against it, but he says, well,
Speaker 1: if you want the song on the album, from what
Speaker 1: I understand, you're going to have to do something. And
Speaker 1: so Brian said, okay, let's do it that way. And
Speaker 1: so we changed the feel of the song to a
Speaker 1: Spanish song, and the mariachi trumpet in the middle of
Speaker 1: the song was done by David ANGELI came up with
Speaker 1: that part because initially I was doing just Spanish runs
Speaker 1: and nets. What you hear playing behind the trumpet is
Speaker 1: what would have been there. But then I was playing
Speaker 1: certain runs and the trumpet basically followed those runs, and
Speaker 1: so he played what I had played on my guitar
Speaker 1: as a trumpet solo. Amazing. Yeah, it is really fantastic
Speaker 1: the way it turned out. I listened to that and thought, boil,
Speaker 1: this is really a good song where it's really good.
Speaker 1: Before it was kind of a you know, a so
Speaker 1: so song, a throwaway song basically because you know, we
Speaker 1: were basically trying to put the song together with a
Speaker 1: totally different feel, and this was it was just perfect
Speaker 1: for the song, the Spanish feel. How did it end
Speaker 1: up being the first track on the album? That was
Speaker 1: done by the record company. They put together and mastered
Speaker 1: and the order of the songs I was totally done
Speaker 1: by Jack Holsman. It was a bold decision because based
Speaker 1: on everything we know about love at that moment, and
Speaker 1: now here's the new album and you put that on,
Speaker 1: you wouldn't know it was the same group. No, you wouldn't.
Speaker 1: And the fact that Brian's song is opening the album.
Speaker 1: Had Arthur been involved in that, it wouldn't have been
Speaker 1: that way understood. And if you notice on this song
Speaker 1: there are different versions of this the same music, but
Speaker 1: there are different versions and some Arthur his voice because
Speaker 1: he see Arthur wasn't even at the studio when we
Speaker 1: recorded alone again, and he comes in later and he
Speaker 1: hears it and he likes it, and so he sings
Speaker 1: harmony with Brian, all of us sing harmony, and later
Speaker 1: on Arthur he says he didn't do it, but I
Speaker 1: don't see who else would have done it. He put
Speaker 1: his voice ahead of Brian, so you hear more of
Speaker 1: Arthur than you do with Brian on some of the releases.
Speaker 1: They re released the album just recently and they remastered
Speaker 1: and then you can hear the way it's opposed to
Speaker 1: with Brian's voice more prominent. It still sounds almost the same,
Speaker 1: but you just hear Bran. It's different. Balance. Yeah, okay,
Speaker 1: next song, You're just a thought that someone somewhe somehome
Speaker 1: fields you should be And so basically acoustic songs again,
Speaker 1: which is coming from what we've heard before from Love shocking. Yeah,
Speaker 1: it is shocking. This song has a very interesting backstory.
Speaker 1: We were playing up in San Francisco. The place at
Speaker 1: the time was called the Warehouse, wh our house, and
Speaker 1: Janis Joplin was build with us, and she is really
Speaker 1: really loud, and our dressing room would have been right
Speaker 1: behind the stage, and so we decide that there's back
Speaker 1: Then they would break up clubs, and there would be
Speaker 1: section where people that are under eighteen could go that
Speaker 1: they didn't serve alcohol and they could be there. And
Speaker 1: on the other part of it is where the adults
Speaker 1: went and naked buy alcohol. So we went to the
Speaker 1: adult part, even though at that point I was still,
Speaker 1: you know, probably nineteen or something. Wasn't supposed to be
Speaker 1: in there, but we go over to that section just
Speaker 1: to get away from the screaming of Janice. I'd loved her.
Speaker 1: She was a good friend of mine, but she could
Speaker 1: really really get your ears vibrating. So we're sitting in
Speaker 1: this place and some guy just walks up and he
Speaker 1: sits down at the table where Arthur and me and
Speaker 1: Brian are sitting, and he puts a big, huge gun
Speaker 1: on the table, and so he's what's going on, and
Speaker 1: he starts to telling us about he was an a
Speaker 1: wall soldier from Vietnam, and he tells us about blood
Speaker 1: mixing with mud, turning gray, and he's talking about all
Speaker 1: these things. You can call my name is where one
Speaker 1: of the soldiers would be hit and the Vietnam or
Speaker 1: whatever would booby trap that soldier and so he would
Speaker 1: be screaming all night long, and the people couldn't, his comrades,
Speaker 1: his buddies couldn't come and get him and rescue him
Speaker 1: because he had been booby trapped. And so he's telling
Speaker 1: us all of these stories and all of that, and
Speaker 1: you know Arthur's mind, we're listening to it, fascinating. His
Speaker 1: mind's working entirely differently. He's got those lyrics and he's
Speaker 1: doing poetry with this Vietnam vets and that turned into
Speaker 1: a house as not a motel. Incredible, And did the
Speaker 1: did the music come first or did the words come first?
Speaker 1: And then you put music to the words came first?
Speaker 1: This was basically poetry, and then Arthur would sing it
Speaker 1: and he started Arthur not only did he write the words,
Speaker 1: but he wrote the melodies to his son that he
Speaker 1: just didn't have the ability to put music to it.
Speaker 1: But and when he would say if he would sing
Speaker 1: you a song, would it all be in one key? Like?
Speaker 1: He would he sing it like as if there was
Speaker 1: music to it already. Sort of sometimes he would meander
Speaker 1: as far as the key is concerned. But and sometimes
Speaker 1: as once we started putting music to it and actually
Speaker 1: playing it would change a bit. You know, the melody
Speaker 1: phrasing and to work with the music. Yeah, so he
Speaker 1: would do that. But this started out, as I said,
Speaker 1: as poetry. So would you say all the songs started
Speaker 1: as poetry before the music. Yeah, basically all of them
Speaker 1: as a rule. Yeah, fascinating. Yes, I would say less
Speaker 1: music is made that way as well. Yeah, that's why
Speaker 1: it sounds different because the music kind of compliments because
Speaker 1: we got to hear how the poetry went in here.
Speaker 1: So it's almost like you're scoring the poem basically. Yes,
Speaker 1: that's what we're doing, and it means you know, any
Speaker 1: thoughts about the music and that one the direction of
Speaker 1: the music, how it how it evolved. Again, that was
Speaker 1: interesting because there's two guitar solos. Yes, when I'm playing
Speaker 1: the first one the ear phones, the head phones are
Speaker 1: working great and I can hear the backing track and
Speaker 1: I'm laying down the solos. When I'm ready to do
Speaker 1: the second one, something goes wrong and there's a glitch
Speaker 1: and I can't hear the first guitar solo. So there
Speaker 1: was a plan to do the two guitar solos. Yeah,
Speaker 1: they were going to play off each other. I would
Speaker 1: play off myself and when we were playing backing track
Speaker 1: back in the first guitar solo, I couldn't hear it,
Speaker 1: and so we're gonna nix that song too, because well,
Speaker 1: you know, maybe you're not gonna do the second solo.
Speaker 1: But we figured out. Arthur and me talked and Arthur
Speaker 1: was in the booth and we thought of me going
Speaker 1: in the booth and playing it. But I needed the
Speaker 1: amp to be really loud in order to get the
Speaker 1: sounded it because I didn't use pedals. Everything he saw
Speaker 1: was the amp, or you heard from me was what
Speaker 1: was there, and so what was the equipment just so
Speaker 1: that was a vox Ac thirty yes. And then I'm
Speaker 1: playing a give some Less Paul nineteen fifty two goal
Speaker 1: top with p ninety pickups. So I'm trying to do it,
Speaker 1: and Arthur comes up with an idea. He says, I
Speaker 1: will give you signals from the booth. So I'm there
Speaker 1: and I can't hear it. I can hear the backing track,
Speaker 1: but I can't hear my other guitar, and so he's
Speaker 1: tells me when to go up and when to go down.
Speaker 1: And that's what basically how I did the second part
Speaker 1: of it, and it fits amazingly when I listened to it,
Speaker 1: but I'm trying to follow him, and so I'm not
Speaker 1: really concentrating on playing. I'm more concentrated on what he's doing. Yes,
Speaker 1: and that's why that probably made it more. Yeah, it's
Speaker 1: probably some of the best guitar I've ever done. And
Speaker 1: it's amazing how that works now and amazing also how
Speaker 1: it works not by planning but almost by working around
Speaker 1: a problem. That's exactly what happened there was like the
Speaker 1: universe wanted that song done, beautiful way right, Yeah, let's
Speaker 1: do the next one, and you don't know much. It's
Speaker 1: fascinating and it sounds so again, unlike anything else, even
Speaker 1: guitar stylistically, it just feels like another It's coming from
Speaker 1: another world. And that was another song. Aren't many of
Speaker 1: other songs are about this particular lady Anita Billings. He
Speaker 1: called her pretty and the song and More and the
Speaker 1: first album this is and More again, so speaking about
Speaker 1: the same lady Nita Billings and Arthur I think his
Speaker 1: whole life because he really loved her and she was
Speaker 1: his high school sweetheart, and her mother found her diary
Speaker 1: and she had obviously bared her soul in the diary.
Speaker 1: And the mother made her not see Arthur anymore, and
Speaker 1: so basically the rest of his life he's pining for really,
Speaker 1: for real, for this lady. And he got to see
Speaker 1: her one more time when we're at the castle. She
Speaker 1: comes there and he had that's the song I See
Speaker 1: your pictures in the same old for him speaking of
Speaker 1: her again. Wow, you know at the Castle. So many
Speaker 1: of our songs are about this lady. Amazing. Anything else
Speaker 1: you could think of about the song. This one of
Speaker 1: Billy Strange is that there's the guys on the Reagan Crew.
Speaker 1: Remember they played on two songs on Daily Planet. That's
Speaker 1: Hal Blaying playing drums and Billy playing the guitar with
Speaker 1: me and Brian, So Billy's playing with us. That's Brian,
Speaker 1: Me and Billy Strange playing the guitar parts on that.
Speaker 1: And the arrangement that David Angel did is just really,
Speaker 1: really beautiful. The song sounded great without because he showed
Speaker 1: us the arrangement after we had played, because we're initially
Speaker 1: going to leave it alone and just leave it without
Speaker 1: the strings, but then when we heard what his arrangement. Yeah,
Speaker 1: it's so interesting that that little guitar moment right where
Speaker 1: we stopped. I think of it as a string solo,
Speaker 1: even though it's not. You know, it's just this, but
Speaker 1: the strings make their entrance and it feels like, oh,
Speaker 1: that's what's happening, but it's really just a backup report part. Yeah,
Speaker 1: that's he really doesn't get the credit he deserves, David Angel,
Speaker 1: but he would was able to insinuate the violin strings
Speaker 1: into that. Yeah, yeah, really great. Okay, watching Dieu Magnificent,
Speaker 1: that's a very dark song, you know, speaking of the
Speaker 1: times in which we lived back then. But again that's
Speaker 1: poetry put to music. You can just listen to the poetic.
Speaker 1: And then we went to see a was at the
Speaker 1: Art House because Murat saw it. It was about the
Speaker 1: people in the mental institution. They're locking them up today.
Speaker 1: There was a line from that that film, and so
Speaker 1: Arthur was able to put that together into this song.
Speaker 1: And it also makes sense now that talking about the
Speaker 1: way the songs came about why the Doors would have
Speaker 1: been so influenced by love because Jim basically a poet, yes,
Speaker 1: a poet with a band. Yes, now we were you
Speaker 1: know we still because we couldn't blame them for their success.
Speaker 1: Of course, we that upset with the record company. But
Speaker 1: we were always tight with them, and we you know,
Speaker 1: even after not playing anymore, Jim and I often talked,
Speaker 1: We're going to put together, you know, group and stuff.
Speaker 1: Of course we never did, but we were good friends
Speaker 1: and always really we felt kind of proud of them
Speaker 1: because we knew had it not been for our just
Speaker 1: tenacity rather and the doing the things the way we
Speaker 1: did with Jack, there probably would have been no doors
Speaker 1: because they were on the verge of going their separate
Speaker 1: ways until they got a record contract. And also I
Speaker 1: had spoken to him, and I think one of the
Speaker 1: things that helped keep them together is rather than having
Speaker 1: to continually want to receive credit I did this or
Speaker 1: I did this, and people loggerheads, they decided that if
Speaker 1: whoever wrote the song, they would all split, would always
Speaker 1: be yes so. And that worked perfectly for them because
Speaker 1: they didn't have to argue with each other who got
Speaker 1: credit for what, you know, they all got credit. It's beautiful.
Speaker 1: Oh the snot has caked again, small pens, it has
Speaker 1: turned into crystal. There's a blue but ranch. Anything about
Speaker 1: the lyrics or the poetry again, it was poetry, and
Speaker 1: it was shocking poetry in the beginning the snot has
Speaker 1: caked against my pants. You know, you can get the
Speaker 1: image of that. That one is jarring in that the
Speaker 1: lead guitar player lead guitar is rather out of place.
Speaker 1: That's you got a soft, really orchestral song and all
Speaker 1: of a sudden you've got to kind of really rock
Speaker 1: us a guitar. And that even the style of the
Speaker 1: vocals seems like old English, you know, like, h do
Speaker 1: you know what I mean? Yeah, yeah, some of the songs,
Speaker 1: and especially in Dacampo, had that feeling and yeah, which
Speaker 1: really uh helps diffuse the lyrical content because of the
Speaker 1: sort of formality of the way it's being delivered. Yes,
Speaker 1: the words are easier to take and and it's so
Speaker 1: clean the way it was done, you know everything, Like
Speaker 1: as I mentioned earlier, we started out as roc as
Speaker 1: wanting to have distortion to a very clean and even
Speaker 1: the guitar solo there, that's just the vox Ac thirty
Speaker 1: without anything at it. That's just the way it sounded. Yeah. Well,
Speaker 1: I remember when a thing about possible good for you
Speaker 1: we used around around around me. It's really interesting. Yeah,
Speaker 1: Bummer in the Summer, Yeah, yeah, that was the one
Speaker 1: Don Randy's playing the piano on that and it. David
Speaker 1: Crosby had told us that music was going to be
Speaker 1: changing and country was going to be very influential, and
Speaker 1: so we kind of did a little country is Bow
Speaker 1: Didley country kind of song, that's what that is, and
Speaker 1: coming out of the Bo Diddley into the more classical
Speaker 1: like just the way the pieces go together and the
Speaker 1: counterpoint of Brian's guitar. Gus, there's actually two guitars, Brian
Speaker 1: Doom Doom Doom, Da Da Doo doo and I'm playing Day,
Speaker 1: so they kind of mixed together as those one guitar,
Speaker 1: but that's two guitars playing off of each other and
Speaker 1: almost reminds me like the kind of energy of like
Speaker 1: in the context of The Wrecking Crew, like Glenn Campbell's
Speaker 1: kind of driving guitar vibe related in pop music. He
Speaker 1: was great. I learned a lot from him because before
Speaker 1: Love we were assigned to Arthur Mee. Arthur was the
Speaker 1: songwriter and I played sessions with Bob Keen at Delphi Records,
Speaker 1: and so Glenn Campbell worked there as a studio guy himself.
Speaker 1: Learned a lot from him. Yeah, it definitely feels like related.
Speaker 1: You know, it's beautiful. Okay, we have one last song. Okay,
Speaker 1: if you won't shit, bring you water. If you don't
Speaker 1: will little backstory here. This was three separate songs that
Speaker 1: we started working on and never finished, and Kenny, on
Speaker 1: his own initiative, put those songs together and got them
Speaker 1: in the right keys and made this into one song.
Speaker 1: Much of it is talking about Anita Billings. You know,
Speaker 1: I see a picture in the same old frame, and
Speaker 1: that was we meet again, was him meeting her at
Speaker 1: the castle and it not being the same as he
Speaker 1: expected it to be. You know, they've both grown up
Speaker 1: by then and they were That also has a little
Speaker 1: bit of the country feeling are playing as well. Yeah, yeah,
Speaker 1: And it was difficult to beginning because I would and
Speaker 1: uh finger pick the first da da da da da
Speaker 1: da da, and I was continually missing a beat, so
Speaker 1: I had to do that with a pick in order
Speaker 1: to get it to come out right. I see. And
Speaker 1: that was probably one of my favorite songs to play
Speaker 1: on stage because it goes through all of these changes.
Speaker 1: Let's go by the time put yourself. It's incredible, it's incredible.
Speaker 1: Was this prior to or inspired of David David axel
Speaker 1: Rod's music, because this feels very I don't know what
Speaker 1: came first though, I'm not sure which came first either,
Speaker 1: but this, as I said, these were unfinished songs put
Speaker 1: together into one and then the arrangements that again, I
Speaker 1: have to give credit to David Angel because he was
Speaker 1: able to seamlessly put these things together a beautiful and
Speaker 1: so it was. It was meant to be that way.
Speaker 1: It was meant to be this album because had it
Speaker 1: had the other influences, I don't think it would have
Speaker 1: had the same impact that it has. Because everything every
Speaker 1: song on this album fits. It seems like they were
Speaker 1: meant to be there. And the order. Then again, Jack Holsman,
Speaker 1: they did a great job of putting the songs in
Speaker 1: the proper order. So even after the frustration of it
Speaker 1: not being the double album, when you finished this, we
Speaker 1: pleased with it. Yes, yes, And everybody involved was feeling
Speaker 1: good about it. Everybody was feeling great, and we thought
Speaker 1: this was our magnum opus and this is going to
Speaker 1: be it and it's gonna take us to the next level. Yes,
Speaker 1: And the record company for some reason still wasn't you know.
Speaker 1: We had a billboard there for a while, but we
Speaker 1: weren't getting the kind of promotion that we felt it
Speaker 1: we deserved, the song deserved. But then again, the song
Speaker 1: was a bit yet because at that point in sixty eight,
Speaker 1: you know, this isn't Martin Luther King is assassinated, Bobby
Speaker 1: Kennedy and so much is happening at that time that
Speaker 1: I think the song just kind of got lost because
Speaker 1: people were more you know, interested in protests and the
Speaker 1: Barry McGuire's stuff and you know, understood. So I think
Speaker 1: that had this been released just a little earlier, it
Speaker 1: might have done better. Yes, and it did well in Europe,
Speaker 1: especially in the UK. It was when just shot up
Speaker 1: the charts. It's just here. It did okay, but not
Speaker 1: nearly as well as it shit. Maybe those events that
Speaker 1: you're talking about that were a distraction here, maybe there
Speaker 1: was weren't felt as strong. They weren't. And so because
Speaker 1: at that point we were having a lot of turmoil happening,
Speaker 1: you know, riots in the streets and people burning shit down,
Speaker 1: and so it was it was a tough time. Normally
Speaker 1: most of our music reflected the time, but it took
Speaker 1: a while. You have to listen to this album, it's
Speaker 1: not one that you just put on and danced. You
Speaker 1: really have to sit back and listen to it, and
Speaker 1: you have to listen to the words because they have meaning,
Speaker 1: you know, the whole album. And as I said, people
Speaker 1: were ready for you know, just loud rock, us in
Speaker 1: your face stuff, and this was a very subtle and
Speaker 1: it told a story and it told it in a
Speaker 1: way that was not in your face the way some
Speaker 1: of the music was at that time. So it was
Speaker 1: something you listen to in your introspective and you say, wow,
Speaker 1: that's that's right, or you know, it gives you a
Speaker 1: different perspective than what was happening. You know, people were
Speaker 1: really uptight. You know. The best wagon put it is
Speaker 1: just you look at the sixties as all peace and
Speaker 1: love and harmony, and you know there were sometimes like that,
Speaker 1: but then there were other times that were just you know,
Speaker 1: really really raw. We have to pause for a quick break,
Speaker 1: but we'll be right back with more Johnny Eccles and
Speaker 1: Rick Rubin. We're back with more from Rick Rubin's conversation
Speaker 1: with Johnny Eccles. There have been other great albums that
Speaker 1: have come along that in their wake will may have
Speaker 1: started a whole new movement and for whatever reason, this
Speaker 1: beautiful album is well loved everywhere in the world. Yet
Speaker 1: it's the only one. Nobody continued the path. And I've
Speaker 1: been thinking about it as someone who helps support artists
Speaker 1: make music, and I don't know who could even make it, Like,
Speaker 1: I don't know who else knows how to make it.
Speaker 1: It's such an unusual thing. We have to go back
Speaker 1: to the beginning days of the recording and then you
Speaker 1: can kind of see how it progressed and how it
Speaker 1: actually came to be what it was, because it initially
Speaker 1: was meant to be an entirely different album. Arthur was
Speaker 1: a premiere vocalist and wordsmith. He wrote wonderful poetry, but
Speaker 1: he wasn't a musician. He kind of played a little
Speaker 1: bit on keyboards and that was it. But Arthur would
Speaker 1: sing the songs, and I mean we always would hear
Speaker 1: him singing every We lived in a place we called
Speaker 1: the Castle, so we lived together and all day long,
Speaker 1: Arthur would be singing these songs, right, And so Brian
Speaker 1: and me put the music to these songs. And once
Speaker 1: we started recording the first album, everyone received their writer's
Speaker 1: credit and it was cool. The second album, even though
Speaker 1: the method was still the same. Brian and I put
Speaker 1: the music to Arthur's words. Now they were giving Arthur
Speaker 1: credit for this, and it was pissing everybody off because that's,
Speaker 1: you know, there's a lot of money, first of all,
Speaker 1: besides the recognition and publishing and songwriting that actually that's
Speaker 1: where most of the income comes from. And so we
Speaker 1: were upset and we were Brian and I were talking
Speaker 1: about just splitting up and going our own ways, and
Speaker 1: Arthur convinced us that he had spoken with Jack Holsman
Speaker 1: and that we would do a double album Forever Changes,
Speaker 1: which it was called to Get Simony Project. In the beginning,
Speaker 1: what was it called Get Simony right? And you know
Speaker 1: what do you know why? Well, there was a lot
Speaker 1: of chaos going. Get Simony is where Jesus was basically betrayed.
Speaker 1: And so we were looking at ourselves as being betrayed
Speaker 1: by our friend. Because when we started out, we were
Speaker 1: all together. We were friends. As I said, we lived together,
Speaker 1: work each other's clothing, dated the same chicks. So and
Speaker 1: then all of a sudden, once love was becoming successful,
Speaker 1: we noted a change. And then one person is being
Speaker 1: singled out and given all the recognition, and we were
Speaker 1: not happy with that. So Arthur had convinced us that
Speaker 1: we were going to have a double album as I said,
Speaker 1: and Brian would have one side and I would have
Speaker 1: one side, and Arthur would have the other two sides,
Speaker 1: so basically four sides. And so we agreed to that.
Speaker 1: And we had been working on these songs for months
Speaker 1: and months, and when we got to the studio everything changed.
Speaker 1: We were told that it was too expensive. But the
Speaker 1: Doors had broken and they were selling, you know, quite
Speaker 1: a few records, and so the Doors were label mates. Yes, yes,
Speaker 1: and so they Electra said that they were doing a
Speaker 1: new project with the Doors and it was too expensive
Speaker 1: because when we started, Electra was a very very tiny
Speaker 1: folk music label. And the reason we signed with them
Speaker 1: was I was a friend or my parents were friends
Speaker 1: of Little Richard, and Little Richard would say, always own
Speaker 1: your music. Don't let anybody take the copyrights our own
Speaker 1: in mushit. So Jack Holtzman was the only one out
Speaker 1: of all of the record companies that wanted to sign
Speaker 1: us that allowed us to own the publishing. And so
Speaker 1: that's why we signed with him, even though we were
Speaker 1: offered much much more money to sign with other labels.
Speaker 1: And so we did so thinking that, you know, after
Speaker 1: we went to Canners and had to talk with him
Speaker 1: and he seemed cool, so we decided to sign with him.
Speaker 1: So now I get to the point where we get
Speaker 1: to the studio and they decided that it's going to
Speaker 1: be a single album and we'd do the other part
Speaker 1: later as a second totally a different album. Well, now
Speaker 1: everybody's pissed off Brian, especially because you know, Brian is
Speaker 1: really a gifted songwriter and he wanted this stuff heard
Speaker 1: and he was only getting one song here, two songs there,
Speaker 1: and so he decided that he would lay back on
Speaker 1: Arthur's stuff, in other words, instead of doing the little
Speaker 1: things that he did that made this stuff sound really
Speaker 1: cool and like, oh, he would just lay back and
Speaker 1: have Arthur tell him what he wanted to play. Well, Arthur,
Speaker 1: not being a musician, didn't know what to tell him.
Speaker 1: So it was kind of chaos, Dick, when we were
Speaker 1: in the studio after getting this information from Bruce Botnick.
Speaker 1: And then the day we get to the studio, there's
Speaker 1: Neil Young there and Neil is our friend. We hang
Speaker 1: with him, smoked ope with him, you know, and Bruce
Speaker 1: tells us that Neil is going to produce the album.
Speaker 1: Now we were not. You know, that was funny. So
Speaker 1: we all started laughing and stuff, because you know, we're
Speaker 1: not gonna listen to Neil. Neil is one of us.
Speaker 1: So they Bruce calls back to New York and speaks
Speaker 1: to the record company and then so we all of
Speaker 1: a sudden are on the outs with the record company
Speaker 1: because they had had this Whose idea was it for
Speaker 1: Neil to produce it? That was Bruce Botnick. Bruce was
Speaker 1: Neil's friend also, and Neil was broke at the time.
Speaker 1: I mean he was getting kicked out of his apartment
Speaker 1: or house, I guess, and so the money from producing
Speaker 1: the album would have really helped a lot, and they
Speaker 1: had given him an advance. Bruce was sold, you know,
Speaker 1: into him doing it, that he'd managed to get him
Speaker 1: in advance, and when he realized that it wasn't happening,
Speaker 1: that we were not going to do that. Arthur had
Speaker 1: been slated to produce this album, and Arthur knew what
Speaker 1: his song sounded like, he knew what our sounded like.
Speaker 1: So we thought that's cool because basically we all would
Speaker 1: do that together anyway, and Arthur would just be the
Speaker 1: one out front. The record company designed it that they
Speaker 1: wanted to have an adult in the room, so they
Speaker 1: brought had Bruce, who normally was our engineer. They had
Speaker 1: him act as producer even though he produced nothing, but
Speaker 1: he was still part. He was already part of your team.
Speaker 1: He had or engineered the first album. The second album
Speaker 1: he had nothing to do. Well. Interesting, yeah, so we
Speaker 1: were not that pleased, as I had I had mentioned before,
Speaker 1: because the first album didn't turn out the way we
Speaker 1: wanted it too. You know. We were a hard rock
Speaker 1: at that time, a hard rock driving group, and we
Speaker 1: wanted it to sound like that, yes, and it didn't
Speaker 1: to us, So we weren't happy with him. So the
Speaker 1: next album we went to our cia and Dave Passenger,
Speaker 1: who had worked with The Stones and many other hard rockers,
Speaker 1: was the engineer. So Bruce was kind of on the periphery.
Speaker 1: We knew him, but we were not all that enamored
Speaker 1: with him, you know. So anyway, they work it out
Speaker 1: and he's going to act basically as the adult in
Speaker 1: the room and we start the album. Brian and me
Speaker 1: are both still pissed off, and so, as I said before,
Speaker 1: Brian lays off and he just kinds of phones it
Speaker 1: in and it's not happening. Everybody can see that, Wow,
Speaker 1: this doesn't sound like a completed record, which it wasn't.
Speaker 1: You know. It was just you know, stuff that Arthur
Speaker 1: had written and you know, the words, as I said,
Speaker 1: And normally we would really get behind it and do
Speaker 1: the best we could with the music, and this time
Speaker 1: that wasn't happening, and so it sounded really not very
Speaker 1: good initially. So the record company brought in the guys
Speaker 1: from the Wrecking Crew and they were going to lay
Speaker 1: down the basic tracks and then we would add the
Speaker 1: flourishes and our little things that made us sound like love.
Speaker 1: And so they came into the studio and started to play,
Speaker 1: and it was soon realized that they sounded nothing like us.
Speaker 1: They were fantastic musicians, but they didn't sound like us,
Speaker 1: and that wasn't gonna work. So after a lot of
Speaker 1: back and forth, we took a break and decided to
Speaker 1: go back and work on these songs and do a
Speaker 1: little bit better. And I said, Brian, is this how
Speaker 1: this may very well be our last album? Is this
Speaker 1: how you want to be remembered? It's how you want
Speaker 1: to go out? And he said, no man, and so
Speaker 1: let's let's just do it. So we started rehearsing and
Speaker 1: we put the music together for Arthur's words, and the
Speaker 1: album is what you hear, and we all along knew
Speaker 1: that it would be a different album. So we're going
Speaker 1: to do strings. Rock and roll at that time wasn't
Speaker 1: necessarily heavily involved with strings and horns and stuff, so
Speaker 1: we decided that we were going to push the envelope
Speaker 1: a bit. And the Beatles were a huge influence on us,
Speaker 1: you know, the Sergeant Pepper and how they'd put all
Speaker 1: of that together, so we thought we would go in
Speaker 1: that direction. How recently was Sergeant Pepper released? From the
Speaker 1: time you were making your album, Oh gosh, a little
Speaker 1: bit before we actually got to the studio the first
Speaker 1: time to start, just maybe a month or two. But
Speaker 1: we had been working on these songs, but they sounded
Speaker 1: different until we decided we were going to do strings
Speaker 1: and horns and have astand more of an eclectic feel.
Speaker 1: And so I had I'm very much into blues, old
Speaker 1: school blues, so my things were going to be in
Speaker 1: that vein. And Brian dug folk music and Broadway shows
Speaker 1: and stuff, and his things would be in that vein,
Speaker 1: and Arthur would be Arthur, you know, the the amalgamum
Speaker 1: of all of us putting our musical abilities together to
Speaker 1: come up with the sound that was recognizable as Love.
Speaker 1: And so that's basically what we did. We went into
Speaker 1: the studio and laid down the basic tracks, but this
Speaker 1: time we were doing it with purpose and decided to
Speaker 1: do it right rather than phoning it in. How did
Speaker 1: it end up being so acoustic based considering the fact that,
Speaker 1: as you described, Love previously had been a really hard
Speaker 1: driving rock band. This album has a much softer side
Speaker 1: to it does because back then, if you listen to
Speaker 1: the radio, everything was eclectic. You could hear Frank Sinatra,
Speaker 1: and then you would hear the Birds or Bob Dylan
Speaker 1: or very saddler. You know, you'd hear different kinds of music.
Speaker 1: So that's what we were trying to do with the
Speaker 1: album is reflect the times in which we lived. So
Speaker 1: the album sounds the way it did serendipity, it was
Speaker 1: meant to sound that way. It was meant to be
Speaker 1: a very eclectic, as I said, album. Yeah, so we
Speaker 1: get to the studio and this time, as I said,
Speaker 1: we're doing it right and We have David Angel, and
Speaker 1: we didn't know him at the time, but he was
Speaker 1: about in the same age group as us, and the
Speaker 1: man was a genius. He could just listen to little
Speaker 1: parts of stuff and just weave it. And it sounds
Speaker 1: as though it was all a cohesive thing that was
Speaker 1: meant to be that way. But you know, when we
Speaker 1: started it, even though when we initially were putting the
Speaker 1: music together, we didn't know if the record company was
Speaker 1: going to follow through because they had already burned us
Speaker 1: by not doing the double album. So we were leaving
Speaker 1: room for strings and horns without knowing whether or not
Speaker 1: they would actually be on the album. So that in
Speaker 1: itself was difficult to do, and I think it turned out.
Speaker 1: It's very interesting. I love the previous love albums as well.
Speaker 1: It's it's just interesting how different this one is than
Speaker 1: the ones before it, and again just that question of
Speaker 1: why does this thing stand in time all by itself,
Speaker 1: and it's it's interesting. Yeah, And as I mentioned the singularity,
Speaker 1: the universe seemed to just at that point decide that
Speaker 1: it was going to do that because all of these things,
Speaker 1: if you the chaos that was going on, the hard feelings,
Speaker 1: the darkness that was happening, the fact that the album
Speaker 1: really was very close to not being done at all,
Speaker 1: and for it to come out that way with all
Speaker 1: of these things going against us, Yes, and to turn
Speaker 1: out that way because had it been the album that
Speaker 1: we initially envisioned, it would have been entirely different, and
Speaker 1: I don't know if it would have had the impact
Speaker 1: that this one had. By the time Forever Changes was finished,
Speaker 1: and we were basically at each other's throats, you know,
Speaker 1: we did tour, but we were starting to trust each
Speaker 1: other and because of the way that went down, you know,
Speaker 1: because we felt we were being played. We felt that
Speaker 1: they had lied to us, telling us we were going
Speaker 1: to do this. And was Arthur equally upset with the
Speaker 1: no double album or no, he was that that was
Speaker 1: the thing. He was fine with it because yeah, we're
Speaker 1: playing about this stuff. He got stuff his way and
Speaker 1: then but you don't think that he politicked to get
Speaker 1: it that way. I don't know. I at times think
Speaker 1: that he may have because he had friends, sycophants, hangers
Speaker 1: on that were telling him how grade he was, and
Speaker 1: they didn't know the inner workings. They didn't know that
Speaker 1: m Arthur wouldn't know a suspension chord from you know,
Speaker 1: a hole in the ground. So he had, you know,
Speaker 1: as I set sycophanse, who would would continually uh burnish
Speaker 1: his ego and tell him he's called that LSD lead
Speaker 1: Singer disease. Yeah. So Arthur by this time, you know,
Speaker 1: is thinking that he doesn't really need the rest of
Speaker 1: these guys. So that's the attitude that he's kind of
Speaker 1: projecting to us. And then we find out that Brian,
Speaker 1: unbeknownst to any of us, had worked out a separate
Speaker 1: arrangement with Electra in order for him to finish his
Speaker 1: parts on Forever Changes. They were going to give him
Speaker 1: a solo deal to release a solo okay, but we
Speaker 1: were gonna still keep love. But he would have done that,
Speaker 1: and they offered us the same kind of arrangement. So
Speaker 1: Brian calls me and tells me about it, and I said, wow,
Speaker 1: that's great. Let's go chat with Arthur bound and see
Speaker 1: what he thinks. And Brian says, Arthur, I've got a
Speaker 1: record deal with the Elector I'm going to release a
Speaker 1: single and all of that, And Arthur says, wow, Brian,
Speaker 1: that's fantastic. You're fired so that was the end of
Speaker 1: basically Brian's involvement forever. Just like that. Wow, would you
Speaker 1: say as a rule, was Arthur an unreasonable person? Arthur
Speaker 1: was becoming more and more. He was becoming a kind
Speaker 1: of a caricature of the Arthur that I knew because
Speaker 1: he was Arthur in success. Yes, the success was affecting him.
Speaker 1: And he also was an attention hawk. He loved to
Speaker 1: be the center of attention. So Arthur would in the summer,
Speaker 1: he'd wear a fur coat on stage, you know, and
Speaker 1: it stuff like anything to get attention he would do.
Speaker 1: We'll be right back after a break with more from
Speaker 1: Johnny Eccles and Rick Rubin. We're back with the rest
Speaker 1: of Rick Rubin's interview with Johnny eccles. What was life
Speaker 1: like in love pre putting out even the first album? Okay, well, pree,
Speaker 1: we go back now, Okay, from high school. Billy Preston
Speaker 1: and I were in high school together, and so is
Speaker 1: Marilyn the coup of the Fifth Dimension in ron Town
Speaker 1: and was the janitor at our high school. So Billy
Speaker 1: and I had the first group. So Billy Preston and
Speaker 1: Henry Vestein later of Canned Heat was a friend, and
Speaker 1: so we had a group and we played bar metzvahs
Speaker 1: and funerals, weddings, whatever you know, to get paid. So
Speaker 1: we played those, and Arthur came to one of the
Speaker 1: assemblies in high school and he saw the group playing.
Speaker 1: Now Arthur at that point was into sports. And I
Speaker 1: had known Arthur my entire life. Our families go back
Speaker 1: to before we were even born, before our mothers were
Speaker 1: even born, how far they go back, And so I
Speaker 1: had known him all my life. And I knew Arthur,
Speaker 1: you know, poetry, but I had no idea he could sing, yes,
Speaker 1: and was because he couldn't play an instrument. He learned accordion,
Speaker 1: and then he switched over to Oregon because there was
Speaker 1: a guy that was going door to door in our
Speaker 1: neighborhood selling music lessons, and so Arthur took accordion lessons,
Speaker 1: and my father was put on the hook for a
Speaker 1: three hundred dollars guitar, which back then was an absolute fortune. Yes,
Speaker 1: And so I started playing, and I took lessons from
Speaker 1: Adolf Jacobs, who was in the Coasters. He was a friend.
Speaker 1: And so my uncle managed a place called the California Club,
Speaker 1: and all of these acts. It was on the Chitland circuit.
Speaker 1: So that's how we knew Little Richard and Adolf and
Speaker 1: many other musicians. Even though my parents were not musicians
Speaker 1: per se. My father was. He just loved music. And
Speaker 1: so anyway, with Billy Preston and Henry, we did frat
Speaker 1: parties every week and who Billy obviously played keyboards? You
Speaker 1: played guitar? Did Billy sing? Oh yeah, Billy? Because at
Speaker 1: one point we see we were different groups. We were
Speaker 1: Billy Preston and the Soul Brothers, And that was when
Speaker 1: we played Cinnamon Cinder and all of these frat parties
Speaker 1: and stuff up and down the coast. Well, Billy had
Speaker 1: a gospel thing happening and it started to take off,
Speaker 1: so he was going to split and leave the group,
Speaker 1: and Arthur had asked if he could join. Now, not
Speaker 1: being a musician, the guys and oh man, why are
Speaker 1: we gonna have him? He doesn't play anything, So we
Speaker 1: put him on bongo drums. Arthur played bongos and conquo drums,
Speaker 1: and when Billy left, Arthur kind of moved over to
Speaker 1: trying to play Oregon and his parents bought him a
Speaker 1: little whirlitzer or something and he played that so Arthur
Speaker 1: now as part of the group, and Henry left because
Speaker 1: he wanted to do blues. He was really into blues
Speaker 1: as well. So now it was Arthur and me and
Speaker 1: John Fleckenstein who later was with the Standals. He was
Speaker 1: a friend of ours two and so he joined that.
Speaker 1: He played the bass, and then Don Conka was our drummer,
Speaker 1: and that was the We named ourselves the Grassroots, and
Speaker 1: we were the first Grassroots and we were also the
Speaker 1: American four and I think we called ourselves after we
Speaker 1: heard the Birds. We were the weirds with the y.
Speaker 1: Why so when you first started, tell me a little
Speaker 1: bit about the music scene then, like, what would you
Speaker 1: hear on the radio in that time when you were
Speaker 1: just forming, Well, we were a cover band, as everyone was,
Speaker 1: because this was sixty three sixty four. I'm in high
Speaker 1: school and just getting out of high school. Then what
Speaker 1: would be some of the songs you'd coll oh, gosh,
Speaker 1: twist and shout or shout. We would do yeah, Lesley
Speaker 1: Brothers things and so whatever was on the radio that time,
Speaker 1: whatever rocking songs, we would do those. And little Richard
Speaker 1: was going on tour, and there's guy Jimmy James who
Speaker 1: was later, Jimmy Hendricks was going with him as his
Speaker 1: basically his golfer. He was Richards driver and his chauffeur
Speaker 1: and all of that. So Billy and I were part
Speaker 1: of that initial tour and we went to England to
Speaker 1: Liverpool and we at these guys the Quarryman, and later
Speaker 1: we find out that these guys are the Beatles, but
Speaker 1: you know, we didn't know that at the time. We
Speaker 1: just you know, met these guys. And I had to
Speaker 1: come back because a grandmother had died, and so I
Speaker 1: had to leave. So I didn't tour that much with him.
Speaker 1: I just met these guys and went back to Los Angeles.
Speaker 1: The quirement opened for little Richard, didn't they? Is that? Yes,
Speaker 1: I feel like I've seen that poster. Yes, they opened
Speaker 1: for a little Richard And basically they followed him around
Speaker 1: like little puppies. They loved him, and you know, and
Speaker 1: so Richard was being Richard and so he would you know.
Speaker 1: And Jimmy, as I said, was the Gopher. I had
Speaker 1: met Jimmy earlier. Jimmy wasn't playing in the band. Oh yeah,
Speaker 1: he was in the band playing as well. Yeah, he
Speaker 1: played as well. Books when I first met him, he
Speaker 1: I think he was with the Eisley Brothers in auditioning
Speaker 1: for a job with the Old Jays, and we were
Speaker 1: kind of Billy and I and a couple of other
Speaker 1: people in Michael Boliver was a huge jazz guy. Now
Speaker 1: we were part of the backing band, and so we
Speaker 1: would the house banders, so to speaking, we would played
Speaker 1: behind Zz Hill or bb King or whoever Sam Cook.
Speaker 1: They were performing at there, and we were part of that.
Speaker 1: So that's how I first met Jimmy James. So as
Speaker 1: I said, when I had to leave and come back
Speaker 1: to Los Angeles. So a couple of months later, Billy
Speaker 1: and I are playing at a place called a Nightlife,
Speaker 1: and of all things, there was a telegram sent there
Speaker 1: because they knew we were playing there. So it's a
Speaker 1: telegram and Brian Epsteins and I didn't know Brian, but
Speaker 1: Billy did. He said to be on the lookout. There
Speaker 1: was a package coming for us, and so I wonder,
Speaker 1: what the hell is this. So a few days later,
Speaker 1: sure enough, the package comes and Billy opens up and
Speaker 1: there these passes backstage passes to the Hollywood Bowl. And
Speaker 1: we hadn't figured it out yet that those guys that
Speaker 1: we met in England. I allowed Richard around were the
Speaker 1: Beatles and then it says the there'd be no way
Speaker 1: to know, Yeah, there'd be no way to know. Yes,
Speaker 1: So we get to the Hollywood Bowl and we see
Speaker 1: these are those dudes and all of these chicks and
Speaker 1: scream in. It was just amazing, and that's when we decided, hey,
Speaker 1: we're going to do this or you know. And so
Speaker 1: Arthur and I he came along too, and we decided
Speaker 1: to go in that direction. So basically love started that
Speaker 1: night we were at the Hollywood Bowl. Incredible, and that's
Speaker 1: when you decided to write your own songs. Yeah. Up
Speaker 1: till then it was only cover, Yeah, basically only cover.
Speaker 1: And so we would write our own songs. Fleckenstein had
Speaker 1: started writing songs and so he would add to it.
Speaker 1: And so we were probably maybe ten percent of our
Speaker 1: songs were original and the rest of them were covers.
Speaker 1: And we carried on like that, and then we get
Speaker 1: a job at a place called the Brave New World. Now,
Speaker 1: the Brave New World was initially a gay bar, and
Speaker 1: the owner of it wanted to switch over because I
Speaker 1: think they had found a new hangout and so his
Speaker 1: place wasn't in place anymore, and so he brought us
Speaker 1: down to play. And we used to go over to
Speaker 1: place called Ben Franks in Hollywood and where everybody hung out.
Speaker 1: So we went on sunset, yeah, on sunset, and so
Speaker 1: we went to Ben Franks and we saw David Crosby
Speaker 1: and the Birds and these guys are holding court at
Speaker 1: Ben Franks, sitting and all everybody's going back and forth
Speaker 1: from their table. And we met. Yeah, this would have
Speaker 1: been the sixty five or sixty six, I think sixty six,
Speaker 1: And we met Brian and he was fascinated with us,
Speaker 1: because it doesn't appear that way now, but at that point,
Speaker 1: Hollywood was fairly segregated, so you didn't see black people
Speaker 1: that often in Hollywood. So Brian sees us and we're
Speaker 1: kind of wearying the you know, the hippie outfits, and
Speaker 1: our hair had grown long and so and so he
Speaker 1: just came over and set at our table and wanted
Speaker 1: to chat with us because we looked interesting to him.
Speaker 1: You know, he was a gadfly kind of guy. That
Speaker 1: was this thing. He just knew everybody. Was he in
Speaker 1: bands as well? He was a roadie for the Birds.
Speaker 1: I didn't know that. Oh yes, yes, So he introduced
Speaker 1: us to David Crosby, and we invited them to come
Speaker 1: down to the Brave New World to hear us. And
Speaker 1: David didn't come, but Brian did. And Brian asked if
Speaker 1: he could sit in with us, and so of course
Speaker 1: we let him sit in now at that time, which
Speaker 1: maybe he didn't know. Bobby Bussle, who later of the
Speaker 1: Manson thing, was part of that group. He wasn't getting paid.
Speaker 1: He would just come in and sit in with us.
Speaker 1: And when Brian came, we asked Brian to join the
Speaker 1: group and told Bobby he wasn't needed any longer because
Speaker 1: Brian just fit right in, you know, he had. So
Speaker 1: Bobby was in the group prior to then Brian replaced
Speaker 1: Ban replaced him, and so they had hard feelings, but
Speaker 1: I didn't see why, because he just was right the right. Yeah.
Speaker 1: And so when Brian and came, he brought with him
Speaker 1: the people that came to see the birds. This was
Speaker 1: Veto and Carl Franzoni and the guys that ended up
Speaker 1: following the mothers followed us first, and so we go
Speaker 1: from having a reasonably good crowd to having an overflowing
Speaker 1: crowd just within a couple of days of Brian joining
Speaker 1: the group because he brought all those people with him,
Speaker 1: and that's when we decided that that was the direction
Speaker 1: that we were going to go. You know, we were
Speaker 1: going to be a kind of a folk rock Birdsy
Speaker 1: kind of group, and so we started playing that type
Speaker 1: of music and Brian, he basically influenced the transition for us,
Speaker 1: and he was a major influence on how we behaved
Speaker 1: in all of that, because you know, we looked up
Speaker 1: to him and thought it was cool, and we came
Speaker 1: from a different area, so we started dressing more and
Speaker 1: more like they did, you know, in that area. And
Speaker 1: as I said, the fire marshal was they were just
Speaker 1: about every night because there were too many people in
Speaker 1: the club and so we basically took off from that point.
Speaker 1: From there, it just, uh, it just continued to go.
Speaker 1: So at this point, the Birds were still still making
Speaker 1: music and still popular. So just so we have the landscape,
Speaker 1: what else was going on? Like if you were to
Speaker 1: go out one who would you be excited at that
Speaker 1: era of the band? Who would you have been excited
Speaker 1: to go out and see who was playing around? Time
Speaker 1: Iron Butterfly We would see them and during that period,
Speaker 1: this is when everything kind of melted. We'd see the
Speaker 1: Buffalo Springfield they were we all lived up in the
Speaker 1: canyon basically, and the Turtles and Turtles Lay Yeah, Laurel Canyon. Yeah.
Speaker 1: The Turtles were basically one of the first groups that
Speaker 1: we would see and go out. And Turtles the whole
Speaker 1: band or really just the two singers, now they were
Speaker 1: a full band. They were a full Yeah. And the
Speaker 1: people that later became Red Bone Patent Lally Vega, they
Speaker 1: were friends and we'd see them. And the Whiskey Uh,
Speaker 1: basically was kind of a square club. We'd call it
Speaker 1: straight that's what the term was. And Johnny Rivers was
Speaker 1: performing there and the lady that booked the plays, Ronnie Herron,
Speaker 1: who was a friend and she used to come and
Speaker 1: hear us at We moved from Brave New World to
Speaker 1: beat Doledos and Betledos was in Cosmo's Alley, which was
Speaker 1: near Wilcox between Hollywood and Sunset. It was in that area,
Speaker 1: and so we had been offered an opportunity to play there,
Speaker 1: and so we left the Brave New World and because
Speaker 1: we would have been the first group, we were the
Speaker 1: first group to play there, so they allowed us to
Speaker 1: basically set up the sound system. You know that that
Speaker 1: kind of was the way we wanted to sound. And anyway,
Speaker 1: so Ronnie having met her at Beatoldo's, she was the
Speaker 1: booker at the Whiskey and whisk. He had a horrible
Speaker 1: reputation for not paying musicians then, so she asked us
Speaker 1: to come and play, and we said, hell, no, we're
Speaker 1: not gonna pay because those guys are We all thought
Speaker 1: that they were mafia. That's what everybody thought, those guys
Speaker 1: are a mafia. Is that it might have been. I
Speaker 1: think they were okay. But and in those days, how
Speaker 1: long would you play for? Like what would what would
Speaker 1: a night's entertainment? We would play basically four or five
Speaker 1: forty five minutes sets per night. So we'd started Would
Speaker 1: they be the same songs over now over? No? No, no, no,
Speaker 1: we played different songs. So we had a repertoire league,
Speaker 1: so you could play for three or four hours, all
Speaker 1: different songs. Yeah. And again at this time it's mostly covers, yeah,
Speaker 1: just ninety ninety percent covers. And then we started playing,
Speaker 1: um some adding a few of our own stuff in.
Speaker 1: Would people dance, Oh yeah, they try, they would saying
Speaker 1: packed in there. Yeah, that's that's what it was dance,
Speaker 1: and as I mentioned earlier, was kind of blues jazz oriented.
Speaker 1: So right across from us with Shelley's Manhole, it was
Speaker 1: the back of Shelley's Manhole was the front of beat Aledos.
Speaker 1: And so these musicians, they see all of these people
Speaker 1: and they would come back. So I met Paul Horne
Speaker 1: and Miles Davis and Coltrane and stuff, and so on
Speaker 1: our breaks we would go and listen to them, and
Speaker 1: Charles Lloyd. I'd known Charles Lloyd also, he was one
Speaker 1: of the band directors in high school. So anyway, we
Speaker 1: noticed that these guys would take these long, extended solos,
Speaker 1: and so we did a song we titled john Ley
Speaker 1: Hooker that later became Revelation, and we would play this
Speaker 1: one song sometimes for a whole hour. That's just the
Speaker 1: whole set, and you know, trying to emulate the jazz musicians. Now,
Speaker 1: so we would have been probably one of the first
Speaker 1: jam bands, and people started coming just to hear this
Speaker 1: us play one song the whole set. And as I said,
Speaker 1: the jazz guys would come in and every now and
Speaker 1: then Charles would sit in with us or gobores the
Speaker 1: bowl would you know, sit in on one of the songs.
Speaker 1: So we started getting a reputation among musicians as well
Speaker 1: as the hippie crowd. Was it unusual also that it
Speaker 1: was an integrated band. Yes, it was because at that
Speaker 1: point I think we were I believe the Rising Suns
Speaker 1: may have been mixed race. I think of Taj Mahal
Speaker 1: was part of that, and then there was Ray Couder
Speaker 1: and then but but I think that was probably the
Speaker 1: only other mixed race group. And so that again was
Speaker 1: a calling card. And being that we were a mixed
Speaker 1: race and we're dealing with people that you know, consider
Speaker 1: themselves enlightened and you know, and it's it's hard to
Speaker 1: describe this, but they wanted to come. You know, they
Speaker 1: couldn't go over to the other side of town without
Speaker 1: necessarily getting into trouble or having some problems. So meeting
Speaker 1: and black musicians and was something that was a huge
Speaker 1: calling card for us, as having people meet us and
Speaker 1: the fact that we basically spoke the same language. We
Speaker 1: were relatively articulate, and they could speak with us as
Speaker 1: you know, we weren't talking streets lang that nobody could understand.
Speaker 1: And really the common language was the music, right, that
Speaker 1: was the real correct and being that we were safe, dangerous,
Speaker 1: you know, these young girls from the valley would come
Speaker 1: to see us, and you know, and and so that's
Speaker 1: how we got this huge crowd. At one point, they
Speaker 1: would block off the street. Cosmos Alleys was basically a
Speaker 1: private street and they'd block it off at both ends,
Speaker 1: and then they would charge at mission for people to
Speaker 1: come in, even though they could never get into season,
Speaker 1: almost like a block party. Yeah. Basically, yes, you didn't
Speaker 1: see the band, but they put these huge Voice of
Speaker 1: the Theater speakers out there, and uh yeah, so it
Speaker 1: sounds like a sounds like a great event. It was
Speaker 1: fun to come to. This was really fun, and as
Speaker 1: I said, we were starting to get a reputation amongst
Speaker 1: musicians because all the jazz guys came to see us
Speaker 1: and wanted to do something with us. So we had
Speaker 1: basically taken off and then we moved to the Whiskey.
Speaker 1: You know, we still stayed at the beat Alides, but
Speaker 1: we played at the Whiskey and then later the trip
Speaker 1: and we played there the first night. I think we
Speaker 1: played there with the Velvet Underground, and I think we
Speaker 1: played once with the Birds. I believe. I'm not sure
Speaker 1: if they played there with us, And we played many
Speaker 1: gigs with the Doors, of course. So that's basically when
Speaker 1: that whole music scene in Hollywood started. Because then, as
Speaker 1: I mentioned before, the Iron Butterfly and the Electric Flag.
Speaker 1: So there are many many groups and we all lived
Speaker 1: basically in Frank Zapple have done the same street, and
Speaker 1: that that's something that probably will never happen in life again.
Speaker 1: And all of these houses in Laurel Canyon, you could
Speaker 1: rent a house there for sixty dollars a month. Would
Speaker 1: you say that it was a sense of camaraderie with
Speaker 1: the artists, Yes, less about competition and more about friendship, right,
Speaker 1: And there was kind of a friendly rivalry and that
Speaker 1: everybody wanted to do his best that they could, especially
Speaker 1: when we started making records, everybody wanted to kind of
Speaker 1: do a little bit better than the other guys. So
Speaker 1: and then I'll mention how we got the Doors, Yes, Okay,
Speaker 1: after Love had become quite a popular in Hollywood. Of course,
Speaker 1: Jim Morrison became our friend and he would come every night.
Speaker 1: Is still pre recording. No, this is after we've done
Speaker 1: the first Love album, and by then we'd really taken
Speaker 1: off now and so we're playing much much larger venues
Speaker 1: around Hollywood. And Jim, as I said, became our friend.
Speaker 1: He was mostly my friend and Brian Arthur didn't particularly
Speaker 1: care for him, but anyway, he was an interesting person.
Speaker 1: He was also a poet and that was his big
Speaker 1: desire in life is to have his group become as
Speaker 1: big as Love was. And he had mentioned to me
Speaker 1: several times that he wanted us to introduce him to
Speaker 1: our record companies to get him looked up. And of
Speaker 1: course we didn't want to vouch for Jim because Jim
Speaker 1: was a handful of Jim was. He was full of
Speaker 1: drink all the times he was. That was his thing
Speaker 1: is drinking. So we got an offer from MCA, which
Speaker 1: was a rather large record company back then, and since
Speaker 1: we weren't happy with Electro because of the way the
Speaker 1: first album turned out, and they weren't able to promote
Speaker 1: us because they just didn't have the money at the time,
Speaker 1: and they were also mainly folk labor how tote this,
Speaker 1: that's the thing. They didn't have the experience. So when
Speaker 1: MCA came us and they offered us like fifty thousand
Speaker 1: dollars signing bonus, which would be about five hundred grand now,
Speaker 1: and so that was a humongous sum of money back then.
Speaker 1: And so we had spoken to Jack Holsman about leaving.
Speaker 1: We didn't tell him it was MCA. We just told
Speaker 1: him we weren't happy when to leave, and of course
Speaker 1: he was having none of that. So we came up
Speaker 1: with a brilliant idea. He said, if we hooked him
Speaker 1: up with the Doors and he has a rock group
Speaker 1: and he has he's still in the game, he'll let
Speaker 1: us go. And MCA offered to buy us out of
Speaker 1: the contract, and no such luck. So he came down
Speaker 1: the first night and heard the Doors and he hated them,
Speaker 1: and we managed to talk him into coming back to
Speaker 1: see him the second time, and he hated them even more,
Speaker 1: and he was kind of getting pissed off at us
Speaker 1: for wasting his time. So a month or two goes
Speaker 1: by and Jack us here for something else, and we
Speaker 1: speak with him and we said, place come back and
Speaker 1: see these guys one more time. We're still working him,
Speaker 1: trying to get him in the cut us loose, and
Speaker 1: this time we brought Paul Rothschild with him, and Paul
Speaker 1: had just gotten out of prison. Paul had gone to
Speaker 1: prison for grass and so we thought that was so
Speaker 1: cool that, you know, street cred. Yeah, he had street krebs.
Speaker 1: So he came down again and he with Paul, and
Speaker 1: this night Dar in Butterfly was on the bill with
Speaker 1: the Doors at the Whiskey, and he came back that
Speaker 1: that third time, and Jim was on his best behavior.
Speaker 1: It wasn't drunk, and he did the songs, you know, properly.
Speaker 1: And Jim was a very charismatic, good looking guy, and
Speaker 1: he could see the attention that the young ladies were
Speaker 1: paying to him, and he saw what we saw, and
Speaker 1: so he decided to speak with Ronnie or she had
Speaker 1: become our manager by then, and she hooked him up
Speaker 1: with the Doors and made the introductions and they signed
Speaker 1: within a day or so of meeting them, and we thought, cool,
Speaker 1: now he's gonna cut us loose and let us go,
Speaker 1: which no such thing. You know. Basically, what we did
Speaker 1: was we shot ourselves in the foot because the money
Speaker 1: that would have been spent promoting us now was spent
Speaker 1: promoting the Doors. And we were so proud that we
Speaker 1: had this huge billboard outside of Chateau Merma, and within
Speaker 1: a few days they had the doors was right cross
Speaker 1: from us, so and now we've got a rivalry amongst friends,
Speaker 1: and they were doing really, really well. They were selling
Speaker 1: records and so more of the record company's attention was
Speaker 1: focused on them. Now of course it would be these
Speaker 1: guys are you know, they've got a number one song
Speaker 1: with like My Fire, and they are much more malleable
Speaker 1: than we were. You know, as far as listening to
Speaker 1: the advice of Jack Holtzman, because wasn't there also an
Speaker 1: issue with touring. I don't know the details, but I've
Speaker 1: always heard that Arthur didn't want to leave Los Angeles.
Speaker 1: We'll see that that was kind of a misnomer. Back then,
Speaker 1: being a mixed race group, there were most more places
Speaker 1: in this country that we couldn't play them we could.
Speaker 1: We could not play the South at all. We did
Speaker 1: play a Texas once. Other than that, we couldn't play
Speaker 1: the South and much of the Midwest and Middle America.
Speaker 1: We were off limits there as well. Fascinating so even
Speaker 1: though you know, music was our livelihood, that's how we survived.
Speaker 1: So of course we wanted to tour and play, but
Speaker 1: we played where we could, and Los Angeles we were
Speaker 1: getting bookings and bookings, and it turned out because the
Speaker 1: record company didn't back us the way and promote us
Speaker 1: by sponsoring tours the way they did for the doors,
Speaker 1: it was rather than like we could play in New
Speaker 1: York and Chicago and Detroit and places like that, which
Speaker 1: we did later. But initially we found it better to
Speaker 1: play here because we made more money staying here and
Speaker 1: not having to pay the travel expensive. And you were
Speaker 1: in great right and we were in demand here. So
Speaker 1: after Forever Changes was finished, they did sponsor to our
Speaker 1: Electra did and as I said, we went to Detroit, Chicago,
Speaker 1: and Cleveland and New York and just about anywhere on
Speaker 1: the East Coast we could play. We played Boston in
Speaker 1: so many different places. And how were those experiences? Those
Speaker 1: were great because it was basically the same. It was
Speaker 1: like going from here to San Francisco was the same
Speaker 1: same type of people. They looked the same, dress, the
Speaker 1: same talk, the same So it was basically the same
Speaker 1: type of people. There's a question I don't know the answer.
Speaker 1: Did Jimmy Hendrix look like Jimmy Hendrix before Arthur. No,
Speaker 1: he looked like he would wear these cardigan jackets and
Speaker 1: real skinny ties and the processed hair, the pampadour, that's
Speaker 1: how Jimmy looked. That's the Jimmy James that I knew.
Speaker 1: He looked nothing like that. So he basically coopted some
Speaker 1: of Arthur's style. Yes, you know, and because he was
Speaker 1: just so impressed. Because love. It's hard to over or
Speaker 1: exaggerate how huge that group was just in Los Angeles, Hollywood,
Speaker 1: So everybody was looking up to us at that point.
Speaker 1: And we didn't even know when we first heard of
Speaker 1: Jimmy Hendricks, we didn't know that he was Jimmy James.
Speaker 1: And we were coming down from pre internet. Everything was
Speaker 1: information was hard to get, that's correct. We came from
Speaker 1: San Francisco and a friend of ours name's Johnny, also said,
Speaker 1: then there's just dude, Jimmy Hendris. He's playing at the Whiskey.
Speaker 1: You guys should go and see him. So we came
Speaker 1: from San Francisco and we went to the Whiskey expecting
Speaker 1: to see somebody that we didn't didn't we see and
Speaker 1: Arthur says, man, that's that dude from the California Club,
Speaker 1: and he was entirely different. He's dressed in fullar galia
Speaker 1: and now he's doing all of the old Chitland circuit tricks,
Speaker 1: you know, playing behind your back. You know, people think
Speaker 1: that that Jimmy invented that, but that was just an
Speaker 1: old staple of Johnny Guitar Watson and people like Classy
Speaker 1: Blue and those guys did that all the time. And
Speaker 1: Albert Collins they always played behind their back or head
Speaker 1: or you know. So that was new to the people
Speaker 1: in Hollywood, but it was old hat as far as
Speaker 1: we were concerned. He was playing stuff and he just
Speaker 1: you know, he goes from being a journeyman guitar player,
Speaker 1: just the Soso guy playing guitar, to being this monster.
Speaker 1: And I always say, man that you must have taken
Speaker 1: a trip to the crossroads man something, you know. So
Speaker 1: we would laugh about that often. But and I still
Speaker 1: wonder how in the space of a little over a
Speaker 1: year he goes from being just a soco guitar player
Speaker 1: to being God. Basically, what do you think and you think,
Speaker 1: I mean, as a guitar player, was your perception while
Speaker 1: he went from soso to unbelievable? Yes, not just the perception,
Speaker 1: but in reality and what you saw as a musician. Yeah,
Speaker 1: in reality, the way he played music, the stuff that
Speaker 1: he did you know, was different than anybody else at
Speaker 1: that time. I'm not talking about the flashiness, but talking
Speaker 1: about the way he played was different, and he was
Speaker 1: using effects, you know, because they had given me one
Speaker 1: of those things before they did Jimmy. We were signed
Speaker 1: with Vox and Thomas Oregon and so Kenny and I
Speaker 1: went down and they gave me this thing. It was
Speaker 1: called a Wawa tape and this pedal. I still have
Speaker 1: the pedal as a matter of that. And it was
Speaker 1: supposed to emulate the sound of a trombone, you know,
Speaker 1: wa wa with a mew nun. I never knew that's
Speaker 1: what it was interesting, and I thought, a hell, if
Speaker 1: I wanted to do that, I would play the trombone.
Speaker 1: I don't you know, I'm trying, not trying to emulate
Speaker 1: a trumpet or trombone and a guitar player. So I
Speaker 1: put the damn thing in the closet and never never
Speaker 1: bothered with it. And Jimmy gets the same thing, and
Speaker 1: you know, he turns it into you know, I never
Speaker 1: thought about it before, the idea that that part of
Speaker 1: Jimmy's breakthrough involved using new technology. Yes, that's exactly fascinating
Speaker 1: with a fascinating point. Without that, there would have been
Speaker 1: no Jimmy Hendricks. Jimmy was the effects. That's what made
Speaker 1: him sound different. That's what made everybody look because he
Speaker 1: didn't sound like every other guitar player. He sounded different
Speaker 1: and it was because of those effects of that. He
Speaker 1: embraced the technology. The technology, he knew how to use it,
Speaker 1: and he made it his own and he was so
Speaker 1: identified with that that that's who he was. But he also,
Speaker 1: you know, had the foresight and the musicianship to use
Speaker 1: it properly because I saw the same damn thing, and
Speaker 1: you know I didn't do it, so he did it.
Speaker 1: So I have to give him his props for what
Speaker 1: he did. So we saw him and Arthur and him
Speaker 1: started hanging together because you know, they were closer than
Speaker 1: because I think Jimmy, well, there was a song called
Speaker 1: My Diary that Arthur had written that Rosalie Brooks recorded,
Speaker 1: and I think that was one of Jimmy's first recording
Speaker 1: gigs as playing on that. So they were closer than
Speaker 1: the two of us were, but you know we were friends.
Speaker 1: Jimmy look up to Arthur, Yes he did, he did. Yeah,
Speaker 1: And at that time it was as the doors the
Speaker 1: Doors had the number one record in the country, but
Speaker 1: they were deferential to us and that they played second billing,
Speaker 1: you know, and they have a number one record. Normally,
Speaker 1: when you got a number one record, your top billing.
Speaker 1: But you would see some of the old posters who
Speaker 1: would be love and huge letters and then the Doors
Speaker 1: and their number one hit light My Fire underneath it.
Speaker 1: So yeah, yeah, And so Jimmy had basically the same
Speaker 1: kind of deferential attitude toward the crew because we were
Speaker 1: able to, like, you know, we could play the Hollywood
Speaker 1: Poll or the Latium or any place and out draw
Speaker 1: just about anybody, and people that had you know, records
Speaker 1: out so couldn't. Yeah, they couldn't do it even if
Speaker 1: they had hits. They county because you do it, you
Speaker 1: had really built up a grassroots following from the beginning.
Speaker 1: Wasn't based on a song. It wasn't based on the song.
Speaker 1: It was based on the persona of the group, the
Speaker 1: fact that, you know, the lifestyle and the fact that
Speaker 1: we lived in the castle so we you know, and
Speaker 1: we drove around jags and sports cards and stuff around,
Speaker 1: so you know that it just kind of set us
Speaker 1: apart from the other musicians, and so they were all
Speaker 1: trying to emulate that. Yeah, beautiful. Thank you so much
Speaker 1: for coming and doing this my pleasure. Thanks to Johnny
Speaker 1: Echoles for taking us back in time to talk about
Speaker 1: the creation of Forever Changes. You can hear that full album,
Speaker 1: plus some of our other favorite love songs and I
Speaker 1: playlist at broken Record podcast dot com. Be sure to
Speaker 1: subscribe to our YouTube channel at YouTube dot com slash
Speaker 1: broken Record Podcast, where can find all of our new episodes.
Speaker 1: You can follow us on Twitter at broken Record. Broken
Speaker 1: Record is produced Helpful Lea Rose, Jason Gambrel, beent Holiday,
Speaker 1: Eric Sandler, and Jennifer Sanchez, with engineering help from Nick Chafe.
Speaker 1: Our executive producer is Minia Lobet. Broken Record is a
Speaker 1: production of Pushkin Industries. If you like this show and
Speaker 1: others from Pushkin, consider subscribing to Pushkin Plus. Pushkin Plus
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Speaker 1: Look for Pushkin Plus on Apple podcast subscriptions, and if
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Speaker 1: review us on your podcast app. Our theme musics by
Speaker 1: Kenny Beats. I'm Justin Richman,