Episode 634 - Richard Thompson / Lemmy Kilmister
Marc:all right let's do this how are you what the fuckers what the fuck buddies what the fucksters what the fuckadelics i am mark maron this is wtf my podcast thank you for listening i appreciate your patronage interesting show today a doubleheader
Marc:The amazing genius guitar player Richard Thompson talks to me for the first part of the show and plays a beautiful song.
Marc:And next up, the amazing and singular Lemmy from Motorhead hangs out for a bit in the garage.
Marc:I put them together for a reason.
Marc:Perhaps I'll tell you that reason.
Marc:They've both been playing a very long time.
Marc:They're very different musicians.
Marc:But what's interesting about them is I don't think whether they said it or not, maybe I'm projecting.
Marc:I don't know that they've gotten the fame or the respect that they deserve.
Marc:Either of them in their own worlds, in a way.
Marc:Well, you know, that may not be true.
Marc:I might be projecting that.
Marc:But these are not huge stadium arena rock stars.
Marc:Never were.
Marc:These guys are specific, and they are the kings of their worlds.
Marc:But what I found to be interesting is that they both grew up in England, not too far apart from each other age-wise.
Marc:And also just they both had amazing stories about who was around and who came and who they saw in England when they were kids because so much of...
Marc:You know, that second wave of rock and roll really came out of England.
Marc:You know, and I just I thought there was sort of a connection there.
Marc:That was my reasoning is that for some reason I got I started asking these guys about other musicians and about who they saw and who they knew.
Marc:And and I don't know why that happened.
Marc:I hope it didn't seem disrespectful, but that's sort of why I put them together.
Marc:All right.
Marc:There you have it.
Marc:I do want to tell you this.
Marc:The days of the hole are over here at the Cat Ranch.
Marc:Many of you who have been with me since the beginning know that I have a fear and a dread of the powerful downpours that happen rarely but do happen here in Los Angeles.
Marc:There are times that I hear an El Nino is coming that will not only end the drought but will wash away the badness in Los Angeles.
Marc:There's going to be a storm so intense that people are going to be morally more decent afterwards.
Marc:It's going to be a cleansing storm.
Marc:I think it was called the Great Flood at one time.
Marc:When God did it the first time, I just hope my garage floats.
Marc:But I will say this, and some of you who follow me on the Instagram or maybe on the Twitter, I don't like people that say the anythings, but I just did it twice.
Marc:You saw the astounding...
Marc:Cement squirter that I shot as a morning greeting in a video form.
Marc:My driveway, I replaced my driveway.
Marc:I have my driveway redone.
Marc:And I now have a French drain that runs along the front of the garage.
Marc:So no more mystery hole.
Marc:For those of you listening, you remember the mystery hole.
Marc:I had this hole right next to the garage that when it rained, the water would go in the hole.
Marc:No one knows where the water went.
Marc:No one knows.
Marc:I've stuck hoses down there to try to track the water.
Marc:Me and Dennis, my neighbor, tried to assess maybe it's going down the hill.
Marc:Maybe it's going under the garage.
Marc:Maybe it's going into Dennis's yard.
Marc:Nope, we have no idea.
Marc:The mystery hole.
Marc:Just water went in.
Marc:Don't know where it went.
Marc:Not a good feeling.
Marc:Could be a large hole beneath my house.
Marc:A sinkhole, perhaps.
Marc:But those days are over.
Marc:I no longer have to rely on the mystery hole.
Marc:I have a new driveway with drainage.
Marc:And now all my guests who park in my driveway, they don't need to fuck up their undercarriage.
Marc:And nor do I. I'll tell you, man, cement finishers.
Marc:There's a fucking art.
Marc:There's an art to watch guys work cement.
Marc:And I look, I'm not even a fucking truck guy.
Marc:And I don't think I was a truck guy when I was a kid.
Marc:But man, to see those two cement trucks pull up and they have this separate motor car, not a motor car, like just a trailer that runs the cement through it and then into these giant hoses.
Marc:And it just it just goes.
Marc:poos out cement and they're they're working it and they're going up and down they're on platforms they're in weird boots and they're just uh they're moving that surface and they're making those lines it was fucking beautiful to watch it was like goddamn movie production over here it was very exciting here for a couple of days people drive by you know what you know what men love to do
Marc:They love to drive slowly by anything that's being built or constructed, any kind of construction.
Marc:I can't tell you how many dudes just slow down in front of the house.
Marc:Right.
Marc:Nice job.
Marc:Look at that rebar.
Marc:Good job.
Marc:Good work.
Marc:Yeah.
Marc:And I thank them as if I did it because I didn't know what else to do.
Marc:Anyways, don't forget about the Howl thing.
Marc:All the WTF archives are now on Howl Premium.
Marc:If you sign up for that at Howl.fm and use the promo code WTF, that'll get you full Howl access for about $3.99 a month, for exactly $3.99 a month.
Marc:And if you already have a WTF premium account, if you have that account, make sure you switch it over to how by emailing support at how dot FM doesn't cost you anything more than what you already paid.
Marc:And you'll keep your current price.
Marc:I know some of there's a couple of bugs in the system.
Marc:We're on top of it.
Marc:We're working it out.
Marc:This, you know, sometimes this takes a little bit of finessing with new platforms and technological things.
Marc:But I know that we are on top of it.
Marc:All right.
Marc:So let's move on to Richard Thompson.
Marc:Many years ago when I was applying to colleges, I applied to the University of Indiana in Bloomington.
Marc:And I was a sort of like weird kind of fragmented self, uncomfortable, neurotic, confused young man.
Marc:And I went up there to Indiana.
Marc:I remember the first time I flew on a small plane to
Marc:to the campus i stayed the night and i wandered around sort of like a weird amoeba like an emotional amoeba not knowing what i was doing not knowing why i was looking at a college not knowing exactly what i wanted to do not not comfortable with my haircut or my pants yeah i think i went jogging up there and that was awkward i can't explain it but i wandered around for many years like lost
Marc:And I remember I wandered into this antique store in Bloomington, Indiana.
Marc:I don't remember where it was, but it must have been 1980.
Marc:And there was a woman there who I immediately became enchanted with because I was just, I didn't know how to talk to people that well and I felt uncomfortable and I just wandered into this Art Deco antique store and there was this beautiful woman there.
Marc:And I tried to talk about music and I think I just learned about Brian Eno and I was trying to impress this woman there who was probably twice my age.
Marc:But I had not talked to anybody and I was very needy.
Marc:And I just remember at that time that she told me about Richard and Linda Thompson.
Marc:And it wasn't until years later when I moved to Los Angeles for the first time that I knew nothing at Fairport Convention at that time.
Marc:But it was years later I moved to Los Angeles and I was living with Steve Brill and Pete Berg.
Marc:And for some reason they had the Richard and Linda Thompson shoot out the lights album.
Marc:And there's a song on there.
Marc:I believe it's that album called Calvary Cross.
Marc:And every time I heard it, it almost made me cry.
Marc:The guitar playing was so insanely perfect.
Marc:And that's when I became just blown away by Richard Thompson.
Marc:And I had those two Richard and Linda Thompson albums, which are stunning.
Marc:And then I follow Richard Thompson's solo career.
Marc:And no one plays guitar like that guy.
Marc:And then years later, not too long ago, I realized that he played on some of the Nick Drake stuff.
Marc:And then I decided that Mark Knopfler kind of stole his riffs and his style.
Marc:I decided that.
Marc:I talked to Richard about that.
Marc:And I don't know, man.
Marc:I've always loved the guy, and I've loved his guitar playing.
Marc:It was a real special thing for me to get to talk to him.
Marc:He's got a new album out that he was working with.
Marc:Jeff Tweedy produced it and is there with him.
Marc:And it's an amazing match, and it was amazing to talk to him.
Marc:So let's go talk to Richard Thompson.
Richard Thompson
Marc:The last album, you did at Jeff Tweedy's.
Marc:Jeff Tweedy's Loved, yeah, which was a great experience.
Marc:And what's it called, the new one?
Marc:The new one's called Still.
Marc:So now, recording with that guy.
Marc:Yep.
Marc:Now, obviously, every guitar player in the world is a great fan of yours.
Marc:I think, my goodness me.
Marc:You know that.
Marc:How come I'm still poor?
Marc:Well, that's the difficult thing about being the genius that everybody aspires to be.
Marc:It's like you invent something.
Guest:Well, I think I'm a genius rather than a genius, but thank you anyway.
Guest:Homo sapiens, probably.
Marc:Well, nobody plays like you, and that's a rare thing.
Marc:To have a sound that's so specifically your own, it's not common.
Guest:Well, one tries to be different.
Guest:In a land of guitar players, there are so many guitar players.
Guest:The number of the millions that...
Guest:It's desirable to be distinctive.
Guest:And I really tried to do that since I was quite young, since I was about 16, I really thought.
Guest:You always knew that?
Guest:Well, you know, in the 60s in Britain, it was all blues guitar players.
Guest:You know, you make Taylors and you're Peter Green.
Guest:So I thought, you know, I've got to do something different.
Guest:I've got to sound different somehow.
Marc:So you knew that at 16?
Marc:Yeah.
Marc:Yeah.
Marc:Because, like, where did you grow up?
Marc:Grew up in London.
Marc:Uh-huh.
Marc:And was there any musicians in the family?
Guest:I mean, did you... Yeah, I mean, my father was a kind of bad guitar player.
Guest:He played fairly bad dance band guitar, but he had great records.
Guest:He had Django Reinhardt records.
Guest:He had Les Paul records.
Guest:Yeah, yeah.
Guest:So I heard that stuff growing up.
Guest:My grandparents had a Scottish dance band, but I kind of missed that.
Guest:That was another generation.
Guest:Yeah.
Marc:But there seems to be something kind of Celtic and exotic about the playing.
Guest:Well, Celtic, absolutely.
Guest:I mean, that's a reflection of some of the music I was listening to.
Guest:So I grew up listening to Django Reinhardt, rock and roll, and Scottish country dance music.
Guest:Plus, you know, my grandmother sang in Gaelic.
Guest:She sang Gaelic folk songs.
Guest:So I got this real mixture of stuff.
Guest:And when you started playing, what was the first guitar?
Guest:First guitar I had was a piece of crap.
Guest:We can cuss here.
Guest:Was it your dad's guitar?
Yeah.
Guest:He bought it at home.
Guest:It was basically broken.
Guest:It was an old Spanish guitar that had been dropped.
Guest:Nylon strings?
Guest:Yeah, nylon strings.
Guest:And so he repaired it with the idea he was going to play it or my sister was going to play it.
Guest:But then I grabbed it first.
Guest:And did you just teach yourself?
Guest:Pretty much, yeah.
Guest:How to get those sounds?
Guest:I also had a sister, God bless her, who's two hours late for everything, for life.
Guest:So her boyfriends would come and pick her up.
Guest:Right.
Guest:And she'd be two hours getting ready.
Guest:So I get a guitar lesson off her boyfriends.
Guest:Oh, so she dated musicians.
Guest:Yeah, yeah.
Guest:She seemed to.
Guest:I was a musician.
Guest:Yeah, yeah.
Guest:So that's how you learn.
Guest:These guys would come over and they're like, let me show you some Chuck Berry.
Guest:Yeah, Chuck Berry, maybe.
Guest:A lot of Buddy Holly at the time.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:Buddy Holly, he's an underrated guitar player, I think, isn't he?
Guest:He was a great guitar player.
Guest:I mean, on some of his records, it's a guy called Tommy Alsop.
Guest:Right, yeah, yeah.
Guest:He was also a fantastic guitar player.
Marc:And so that sound.
Marc:So you're up in... Who's popular in pop music when you're 16?
Marc:I don't know how old you are.
Marc:So you're listening to Buddy Holly and...
Guest:When I'm 16, you know, The Who were- Were they already a band?
Guest:Oh yeah, they were a great band.
Guest:So I used to go after school, go down to the Marquee Club in Soho and see The Who on Tuesdays.
Marc:And they were almost like an R&B band then, right?
Marc:They were an R&B band, but-
Guest:But they were doing all the nihilistic pop art stuff as well.
Guest:They were smashing gear and wearing flags, and it was all terribly exciting.
Guest:And they were just an incredible club band.
Guest:I mean, imagine that energy.
Guest:Right, right.
Guest:In a 400-seater.
Marc:So you saw all those people playing, and you knew that you needed to transcend that regular sound of blues.
Guest:well absolutely yeah uh you know there was blues and soul and that's about it right and then you know pink floyd started to get rolling and the psychedelic thing came in so did you see them oh yeah yeah we used to do shows with with pink floyd with sid with sid you know and you know it was never quite the same after sid i don't think it was it was different but it was like the ghost of sid they were all just reckoning with his absence for the for the next 20 records
Guest:Yeah, but he had this extraordinary kind of whimsy to his music and sense of fun and sense of humor.
Marc:Yeah.
Guest:It was just extraordinary.
Marc:You got Fairport Convention.
Marc:How long were you with that band?
Marc:About five, six years.
Marc:And you toured heavy.
Guest:We worked a lot.
Guest:We worked a lot.
Marc:And you opened for all these people.
Guest:We opened for them.
Guest:At some point, people started to open for us.
Guest:Oh, that's good.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:And that's where you and Linda met.
Guest:Probably because Linda was a friend of Sandy Denny who was in the band.
Guest:So I kind of got to know her that way.
Marc:And when did you two decide to sort of do it solo?
Guest:Do it solo?
Guest:I was playing in Sandy's band.
Guest:She was being groomed as kind of a pop star.
Guest:But we didn't see each other because we'd both be touring at different times, different places.
Guest:It was the dilemma of having two musicians in a relationship.
Guest:So we thought, well, we could just team up and do stuff together.
Guest:We'll just play around the folk clubs.
Guest:We'll keep it small.
Guest:And were you dating at that time?
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:Oh, yeah, yeah.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:I mean, this is after we started dating.
Guest:Nice word.
Yeah.
Guest:So, yeah, that just seemed a logical move, you know, and we can have a life together.
Marc:What shifted it into, because those were big records, the two Richard and Linda Thompson records.
Guest:Well, big in one sense.
Guest:Big, big.
Marc:Well, I mean, like, I knew about Fairport Convention.
Marc:I'm like, I'm 51.
Marc:So everything that, most of what you did from that period, you know, I'm getting after.
Marc:I wasn't, you know, I wasn't conscious enough to know.
Marc:But I know that, like, I want to see the bright lights tonight.
Marc:and shoot out the lights.
Marc:At some point when I was maybe a freshman in college, someone said, this is the shit.
Marc:I mean, this is important records.
Guest:In the way that Trout Mask Replica, which sold 60,000 copies, what was the record?
Guest:I think it was a little more accessible than Trout Mask Replica.
Guest:Similar sales, probably less actually.
Guest:I mean, we're talking about cult records.
Guest:I mean, you know, Bright Lights was a cult record.
Guest:Shootout the Lights was still a cult record.
Guest:These were records that never quite hit the mainstream, never hit the charts, really.
Marc:But so, is this a... I'm in the charts now.
Guest:Right now?
Guest:I wasn't then, yeah.
Guest:With the Tweedy produced record.
Guest:Yes.
Guest:How's that feel?
Guest:It feels immensely rewarding.
Guest:Seriously?
Guest:Yeah, I mean, we hit number six in the UK album charts, which is... Well, congratulations.
Guest:Which is actually incredible for an old folk rock dinosaur like me.
Guest:Was that like 50 years coming?
Guest:About 50 years coming.
Guest:I mean, we were up there with Taylor Swift, you know.
Guest:Oh, my God.
Guest:That must feel fucking great.
Guest:It's okay.
Guest:It's okay.
Guest:Yeah?
Guest:Well, if people still sold millions of records, you know.
Marc:Well, you're always going to figure out a way to frame it so it's not quite, you know.
Marc:Okay.
Guest:Right?
Guest:Is that true?
Marc:But you're telling me that those two Richard and Linda Thompson records were not, they never sold big.
Marc:No, absolutely not.
Marc:Absolutely not.
Marc:And who like who was guiding you at that time, like production wise?
Marc:I mean, how who was like who made sort of decisions that like I don't quite understand how it all works because you were obviously singled out as like this amazing guitar player.
Marc:I mean, you were doing a lot of studio work at the time.
Marc:Like who guided you through that?
Marc:Was there a producer that was like, you're the guy?
Guest:Well, it varied from place to place.
Guest:In Fairport, Joe Boyd was a tremendous influence on us and a guiding hand, you know, a kind of eminence grise, although he was probably about 22 at the time.
Guest:Perhaps not so grise in his eminence.
Guest:And what was he known for?
Guest:Joe was the stage manager at Newport Folk Festival when Dylan plugged in and went electric.
Guest:Oh, he was there?
Guest:Yeah, he signed the incredible string band, Fairport Convention, Pink Floyd, but made the first Pink Floyd records.
Guest:So Joe's one of those people with really good taste.
Guest:He's an American guy?
Guest:American guy, yeah.
Guest:But he's lived in the UK for a long time.
Guest:Is he still around?
Guest:Yeah, he's still around.
Guest:Joe was a great guide for us in the early days.
Guest:And then, I mean, the early stuff I was producing with the engineer, John Wood, the Richard and Linda stuff.
Marc:Well, those two records, the Richard and Linda Thompson record.
Marc:I mean, like Calvary Cross is on one of those, right?
Marc:yeah awesome i love that song like that was like one of the first time when i first heard that it was like so haunting i couldn't stop listening to it like on over and over again you're weird i am yeah am i picking the weird songs well you're just not not the normal demographic we expect well like that would that song and like from the solo album when when the spell is broken that one brutal brutal okay but but there is a heaviness to most of your music am i misreading that
Guest:Serious, maybe.
Guest:Okay, serious.
Guest:Serious.
Guest:Well, you know, I write a lot of love songs, and I think it's flippant to say, I love you, you know, here's a few flowers, you know, isn't love great.
Guest:A little tension to it.
Guest:You know, yeah, I mean, that's a nice song and that's good.
Guest:But to do justice to love, I think you have to go a little deeper and you have to say, well, I love you in spite of, you know, we're together in spite of this, this, this and this.
Guest:This horrible thing.
Guest:You know, yeah.
Guest:You know, we've been thrown together.
Guest:You know, sometimes, you know, love's like, you know, hanging on to a life raft in the middle of a storm.
Guest:You know, I mean, there are other things to consider.
Guest:So I like to go a little bit more deeper.
Marc:Right.
Marc:And there's also the element of sometimes love is fraught with drama and pain.
Marc:And pain.
Marc:And you're not sure whether that's why you're in it.
Marc:Yeah.
Guest:So, you know, it's there's a lot of facets to deal with here.
Marc:Right.
Marc:And I've talked to other songwriters like Nick Lowe.
Marc:I made this mistake with Nick Lowe because I assume because of what I do as a comic that you guys are living every song.
Marc:The Beast in Me, I decided was Nick Lowe talking about himself.
Marc:And it was very jarring to me where he's like, no, I write songs.
Marc:I don't live them.
Marc:Do you find that you write songs or do you live them?
Guest:I write songs, first of all.
Guest:I think you have to be able to live them as well, but if you invested everything... I had a great interview with a classical pianist, and she said, you know, if I truly felt everything that Beethoven put into this, I would destroy myself every night.
Guest:I wouldn't be able to... I'd collapse on stage, I would not be able to... So I have to hold back something.
Guest:Right.
Guest:It's professional.
Marc:It's professional.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:In order to be a professional, I have to somehow contain this incredible emotion that comes from the music and get through it.
Guest:And I feel often performing and writing as well.
Guest:Sometimes if I'm writing, there are tears streaming down my face.
Guest:Really?
Guest:Yeah, really.
Guest:Oh, my God.
Guest:And then afterwards you say, okay, well, you know, you kind of have to now contain that and kind of put that in a little box and kind of, you know, bring it out occasionally for a concert.
Guest:Right.
Guest:Several times maybe.
Guest:Maybe a hundred times.
Guest:Right.
Guest:Maybe a thousand times.
Marc:That's interesting to me because I guess that's the difference between...
Marc:That's being a professional.
Marc:It's managing the magic of a song.
Marc:It's just managing the power of it.
Marc:Yeah, I think so.
Guest:Music is powerful stuff.
Guest:Oh, man, yeah.
Guest:And if you feel it deeply, then you really have to have methods to convey it to other people.
Guest:And you've known people that have destroyed themselves with music in a way, haven't you?
Guest:With music, I think more with lifestyle than with music.
Guest:What was your relationship with Nick Drake?
Guest:Nick Drake was not unusual in 1968 in saying nothing in given situations.
Guest:A conversation between myself, who was incredibly shy in 1968, and Nick Drake would be pretty sparse.
Guest:I don't think a word would not be spoken.
Guest:He and I could sit in a room, as we used to occasionally, and just sort of not look at each other.
Guest:nod and, you know, smile.
Guest:And understand?
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:But, you know, in 1968, this was not unusual behavior.
Guest:There were a lot of people like that.
Guest:In the folk scene?
Guest:You know, the folk scene, you know, rock scene, psychedelic scene.
Guest:Everybody was too high to talk.
Guest:People were drugged up.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:But also, it was considered kind of okay, you know, to be, you know, sort of psychotically inward-looking as a way of life.
Guest:You know, that was just fine.
Guest:And the few that were able to capture it in music were the gifted.
Guest:I think so.
Guest:The other people just drifted away quietly.
Guest:Yeah, that's very true.
Guest:And there was a few people sort of standing on the edge, sort of watching and thinking, how can I market this?
Guest:Right.
Guest:And that they became the managers.
Marc:Well, thank God for them on some level, or else you'd just be wandering around the street being quiet and playing somewhere.
Marc:occasionally i i i don't quite say thank thank god for them but no that's well i mean it's a it's another uh uh painful sort of troubling relationship it doesn't seem to be any way around the business sometimes but i mean until you get a reputation for yourself and you can say like you know well fuck you i can fill this place without your help i suppose so but you know the um art interacting with with commerce is always a a slightly uncomfortable um uh friction yeah
Guest:Have you had a lot of problems in that area?
Guest:I don't know anybody who hasn't.
Guest:Right.
Guest:At some point in your life, you're going to sign some stupid contract that never goes away for your whole life.
Guest:Do you have one of those?
Guest:Oh, I've got lots of those, yeah.
Guest:With publishing?
Guest:Yeah, lots of publishing.
Guest:Some record stuff, although that's changing now.
Guest:The laws are changing in some cases where you can now recover your older records.
Guest:I think it's after 30 years in the US.
Guest:It's a good time for you.
Guest:Well, you got hit on the charts.
Guest:Unfortunately, the majority of my records were actually recorded in the UK.
Guest:So that hasn't quite happened there yet.
Guest:But, you know, the laws are slowly changing.
Guest:You played on how many Nick Drake records?
Guest:Two?
Guest:I think I did the first two.
Guest:There's only three.
Guest:Yeah, I know.
Guest:And what happened to him?
Guest:What happened to him?
Yeah.
Guest:I think he had, you know, mental issues.
Guest:Yeah, yeah.
Guest:He was fragile.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:I don't know if this was brought on somewhat by drugs.
Guest:I suspect maybe it was, but he was fragile.
Guest:I don't think he was intending to kill himself.
Guest:Right.
Guest:I think he just mixed up some medications.
Marc:Bad mix.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:Bad math.
Guest:You know, he was back at his parents' house.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:You know, to live.
Marc:And it just went down.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:Seemed just a fragile human being.
Marc:But yeah, you can feel that in the music, and I guess that's what people gravitate to.
Marc:Were you guys friends, or you just hired Gunn?
Guest:I wouldn't say friends.
Guest:I don't know if Nick had any friends.
Guest:Well, I suppose, you know, John Martin was a friend of Nick's.
Guest:John Wood was a friend of Nick's, but he didn't have a lot of friends.
Guest:He was really, really difficult to get anything out of.
Guest:And at the time, I didn't have the skill to do that.
Marc:Right.
Marc:But you played some beautiful leads there and some beautiful background.
Guest:I tried to, yeah.
Guest:But they're fantastic records.
Guest:Some of those tracks are just mind-blowingly good.
Marc:Do you remember, like, you know, as a kid or when you were playing?
Marc:Because, I mean, I know that Clapton talks a lot about when the band sort of did their first record or Pete Townsend sort of talks about when Hendrix showed up for the first time in London, that it was like, oh, my God, it's over.
Guest:That guy won.
Guest:It was incredible.
Guest:And they were all there.
Guest:They're all sitting together, I think.
Guest:Eric and Townsend and Clapton and all of them were sitting there.
Guest:And it was the week Sgt.
Guest:Pepper was released.
Guest:Were you around?
Guest:I was there.
Guest:I was there.
Guest:And so Hendrix comes out and he's learnt, you know, the first track of Sergeant Pepper.
Guest:Sergeant Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club.
Guest:Yeah, yeah.
Guest:So he opens with that and it's all kind of fairly true to the tune until he takes a solo, which is like, you know, from space.
Guest:You know, it's like all Nick Coleman suddenly sort of started channeling through Jimmy.
Guest:You know, it's just the whammy bar and the whole thing.
Guest:And, you know, mouths are dropping in the audience.
Guest:And at the end of the song, you know, he starts tuning his guitar and he says...
Guest:Hey, Eric, man, are you out there?
Guest:There's a little voice, yes.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:He said, could you come and tune this for me, man?
Guest:I can't make out of time.
Guest:Did he really?
Guest:Yeah, yeah, yeah.
Guest:Just the fact he had the balls to kind of do that, I thought it was hilarious.
Marc:Call him out.
Marc:Yeah.
Marc:So he definitely had something to prove when he was over there.
Marc:He wanted to show.
Guest:Well, you know, he really did, yeah.
Guest:Do you feel like that changed everything?
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:I think Hendrix changed it for a lot of people.
Guest:A lot of people.
Guest:It was an extraordinary kick up the ass for these people.
Marc:I can't imagine being in that room.
Marc:Can you remember it?
Marc:Do you feel it?
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:It was the Saville Theater.
Guest:How many is that seat?
Guest:Oh, maybe 1,000.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:800 to 1,000.
Guest:Actually, probably less.
Guest:Maybe 600 to 800.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:and um you know it was a western theater that put plays on and on sundays that they were dark so they have uh they have music on sundays right and they had a series called sundays at the savile uh-huh and that was the day he played yeah yeah yeah oh my god it was uh it was it was great fun
Guest:Well, the thing is, he was kind of real.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:All these English guitar players have really been learning the blues off of records.
Guest:And American blues musicians have come over here and there, a few of them.
Guest:But Henry came and kind of embodied the whole thing.
Guest:He was very sexy, incredibly physical.
Guest:Plus, you could do anything with the guitar.
Guest:He's like the history of American music.
Guest:Yeah, in a sense, you know, it just went further.
Guest:You know, you do sort of outrageous things and all this sort of showman stuff.
Guest:Yeah, yeah.
Guest:The British guys never even considered as being possible, you know.
Marc:Yeah.
Marc:It's interesting that because I never really thought of that.
Marc:And it just seems that like the British interpretation of the American blues, it's kind of the way that they went.
Marc:Either you go the way the Stones did or you go the way Fleetwood Mac did.
Marc:Yeah.
Marc:Like they're like they're the purists and then they're the guys that seem to pop it up a little bit.
Guest:Well, you know, in a sense, I mean, the purists to me are less interesting.
Guest:Where bands like the Yardbirds get interesting is when they start to write their own material.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:And they're writing stuff that there's somewhere between Tim Pan Alley and the blues.
Guest:And then they're adding something original.
Marc:And as you approached it, did you, in your mind, just sort of overstep or just forego the blues and stick with traditional?
Guest:Pretty much, yeah.
Guest:I mean, like everybody else, I grew up listening to blues records for about the age of 12.
Guest:Who were your guys?
Guest:Who'd you like?
Guest:Well, the records my sister had, which was Sonny Terry and Brownie McGee.
Guest:Oh, yeah, Acoustics.
Guest:Lightning Hopkins.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:Oh, really?
Guest:And I didn't really hear, you know, electric blues until much later.
Guest:And did you have a relationship with the Stones?
Guest:No.
Guest:I mean, I saw the Stones in the early days.
Guest:I wasn't very impressed with them, actually.
Guest:Yeah, a little sloppy?
Guest:Yeah, they're a really sloppy band.
Guest:They weren't particularly good.
Guest:But, you know, they improved later.
Guest:I mean, the Stones, I mean, they're still a kind of sloppy band.
Marc:they vary and it's beautiful it's just occasionally you know they'll hit this thing yeah you know charlie and keith will hit this thing right there's just the greatest groove you know so when you were coming up though i don't want to like just talk about that like i love talking about these guys but who were your primary like influences if it wasn't the blues i mean outside like leonard cohen i mean you obviously had people that were contemporaries or influencing
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:I mean, in Fairport as a band, we were always a lyric band.
Guest:We love lyrics.
Guest:So our earliest cover versions were people like Leonard Cohen, Obscure Dylan.
Guest:We went to Dylan's Publisher.
Guest:and said you know have you got any uh songs that the the bob hasn't hasn't released oh yeah here you are here you are boys they gave us a pile of acetate recordings that were basically the basement tapes yeah so so it's 67 they gave us the basement tapes we went to joni mitchell's publisher and we said oh we did this girl joni mitchell um you know we'd love to hear what she's oh same thing you know pile of acetates you know stuff before her first album
Guest:And they just give them to you because if you record them, they get the publishing anyway.
Guest:Yeah, it's in the publisher's interest to do that.
Guest:So, you know, we're always trying to find obscure stuff.
Guest:You know, we go to great lengths to find, like, Percy's song by Bob Dylan, which he never recorded.
Guest:But, you know, it's in a Bob Dylan songbook.
Guest:Right.
Guest:So we found the songbook, and then we found a version by Joan Byers, and then he sings...
Guest:you know, one verse of it in Don't Look Back, you know.
Guest:Yeah, yeah, yeah.
Guest:So we kind of piece the song together from these obscure places, you know.
Guest:But we were always looking for, you know, B-sides and, you know.
Marc:Well, yeah, so you sort of like capture that, you know, something exciting in the magic of these guys, and then you just make it your own.
Guest:Yeah, I suppose so, in a sense.
Guest:But at a certain point, we decided, well, you know, we really have to be our own songwriters.
Guest:And so then that whole era kicked in.
Marc:And did you do most of your writing alone or with the band or with how much did you write with Linda?
Guest:I'd say I did most of the writing, 98% of the writing.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:98.3% of the writing.
Guest:You know, she helped out on a couple of verses here and there.
Guest:Right.
Guest:But yeah, and that was a nice challenge too, was having to write for, you know, from a female perspective as well.
Guest:So that taught me a few things.
Marc:And how many kids you got?
Marc:Five.
Marc:Oh, you do?
Marc:Yeah.
Marc:I guess I only know a couple of the music of a couple.
Guest:Yeah, three of my kids are musicians.
Marc:Well, I actually saw you at the Chrissy Hines show.
Guest:Oh, right.
Marc:I saw the back of your head, and I was with my girlfriend.
Marc:I'm like, that's Richard Thompson.
Marc:That's his head right there.
Guest:Yeah, yeah, yeah.
Marc:And then I didn't realize.
Marc:I knew that was your daughter.
Marc:It's Cammie, is that her name?
Marc:Yeah, Cammie, yeah.
Marc:And her husband's a fucking hell of a guitar player, huh?
Guest:Isn't he a great guitar player?
Guest:Oh, my God.
Guest:Which is fantastic.
Guest:So he was playing in Chrissy's band.
Guest:What's his name again?
Guest:James.
Guest:James Warburg, yeah.
Guest:He's been playing with Chrissy for a few years.
Marc:Right, and I watched him on Chrissy.
Marc:Like, he was with your daughter, and the Rails is the name of their band.
Marc:And he's one of those guys where I'm like, oh, my God, where's that guy come from?
Marc:He's like some, like...
Guest:He's great.
Guest:I mean, I can't think of a better UK guitar player.
Guest:He also plays with Ray Davis when Ray goes out.
Guest:He plays with the Pogues when the Pogues go out.
Guest:So he's a go-to guy.
Guest:Yeah, he's in demand, which is good.
Guest:But the Rails first album I thought was brilliant.
Guest:And they won the Best Newcomer Award at the BBC Folk Awards.
Guest:So they're doing great.
Guest:Did you actually live on a commune?
Guest:Of some sort?
Guest:No, I didn't.
Guest:No, I lived in a kind of very loose community.
Guest:But I mean, a community implies certain things.
Guest:You know, it implies sort of sharing everything.
Guest:Right, right, right.
Guest:And being a socialist.
Guest:It was kind of like a Sufi community.
Guest:It was a community that followed a particular teacher in Morocco.
Guest:And did you stick with that?
Guest:I still do.
Guest:You do?
Guest:Yeah, I still do.
Marc:Oh, that's interesting.
Marc:So, like, in the 60s, you had sort of a spiritual awakening of sorts?
Guest:Probably 70s or 73, probably.
Guest:Spiritual awakening, well, you know, these are kind of cliches that never twice.
Guest:How did you end up, you know, shifting?
Guest:gears.
Guest:Well, I've always been a spiritual person.
Guest:I mean, probably, I started reading spiritual things when I was about 15, 16 years old.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:And I started off with Zen, I think.
Guest:Yeah, yeah, yeah.
Guest:Then worked backwards through the alphabet, you know, to try them all out.
Guest:To A for anthroposopy or something.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:Yeah, and I got interested in Sufism.
Guest:Some friends of mine had just come back from North Africa, and so I went to meet this teacher, and I'm still there, really.
Yeah.
Guest:What is the basic idea, like, if you could break it down?
Marc:Sufism, it's like the inner teaching of Islam, basically.
Marc:Okay.
Marc:Did you, like, raise a whole family in that and everything else?
Marc:Yeah, I did, yeah.
Guest:Yeah?
Marc:Yeah.
Marc:Because it's interesting that your kids, like, they seem to be doing, like, just following not only your footsteps, but the type of music in a way.
Marc:Which is interesting.
Marc:I mean, you would think that they would be like, nah, fuck that, I'm going to jam.
Guest:Yeah, some of them do.
Guest:Yeah, certainly Teddy and Cammy are kind of singer-songwriters.
Guest:Cammy's actually more a British influence, a British kill.
Guest:influence yeah which is kind of appeared more recently in her music which is fantastic my youngest son who's 23 kind of doesn't follow that he's more into kind of trance music and oh really you know slow you know shoegazing stuff and and does everybody get along I'd say everybody gets along yeah which is great it's fantastic
Marc:Do you envy some songwriters?
Guest:Songs or just songs in general?
Guest:I envy some songs, yeah.
Guest:Like what's like one of those?
Guest:I mean, probably, you know, a well-known great song by Ray Davis would be something like Waterloo Sunset.
Guest:Yeah, yeah.
Guest:Just a killer song.
Guest:Absolutely killer song.
Guest:There's some great Dylan songs, you know, Lily Rosemary and the Jack of Hearts or something.
Guest:Yeah, yeah, yeah.
Guest:Tangled Up in Blue, you know, kind of well-known brilliant songs.
Marc:Visions of Joanna's, right?
Guest:Visions of Joanna.
Guest:That's a good one if you've got the time, yeah.
Guest:Yeah, yeah.
That's it.
Marc:I think all the answers are in there.
Marc:That's what I've decided.
Guest:Yeah.
Marc:Decode it.
Marc:Have you ever worked with him?
Marc:Did you ever meet him?
Guest:With who, sorry?
Guest:Bob?
Guest:Bob.
Guest:Yes, I've met him a couple of times.
Guest:We did a tour last year called the Americana Arma Tour, which was ourselves and Wilco and My Morning Jacket and Bob, you know.
Guest:Uh-huh.
Guest:He was great.
Guest:He was charming, generous.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:Just great.
Guest:Did you go up and play with Wilco?
Guest:Well, we did frequently, yeah.
Guest:Yeah?
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:It was like every night there was some new song to jam on.
Guest:How did that relationship start with you and Tweety?
Guest:Well, we probably started there.
Guest:I mean, we've done shows with Wilco going back maybe 20, 25 years, but we got to know them a lot better on that tour.
Guest:And yeah, we started to interact a bit and...
Guest:At some point on that tour, I think a few people said that he'd be a great person to do a recording project with.
Marc:Yeah, and it turns out they were right, huh?
Marc:I think so.
Marc:I want to talk about the family record, too, because I got that recently.
Guest:Oh, good, yeah.
Marc:Yeah, I liked it.
Marc:It was great.
Marc:It made me happy to see everybody together for some reason.
Marc:I don't even know you people.
Yes.
Marc:If only you knew the agony.
Marc:I can't imagine.
Marc:But as a guitar player, you know, do you find that you continue to evolve something?
Guest:I mean, do you find new?
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:Well, you have to.
Guest:You have to.
Guest:You cannot stay still.
Guest:You have to be looking for new things, new ideas, new techniques, all kinds of stuff.
Guest:A new...
Guest:pathways yeah you know your fingerboard is this they're like neurons you know your brain and you have to keep looking for new new connections you know uh between notes yeah and at some point you worked with you did an album or two with uh fred frith and uh
Marc:And Henry Kaiser, yes, and Drombo from Captain Beefheart, yeah.
Marc:So, because that seems not antithetical, but something kind of adventurous for you to do.
Marc:I mean, what was the idea there?
Marc:Because those guys are kind of experimental, out-there dudes.
Guest:Well, I see myself as experimental in a slightly different way, but... Like what way?
Guest:Well, you know...
Guest:I mean, I love, if I'm playing a guitar solo, I love to throw in dissonance.
Guest:Yeah, you can get out there, dude.
Guest:Yeah, absolutely.
Guest:But because I grew up listening to 20th century classical music, among other things, listening to John Coltrane and ever knows what.
Guest:So, you know, it's not such a leap for me to play with Henry Kaiser, who's a very experimental guitar player, and Fred Frith, who's a more trained musician, but also plays kind of out on the edge.
Guest:Did you like those records?
Guest:Yeah, especially the first one.
Guest:I think the first one, we weren't thinking about it too much.
Guest:The second one, I think it was a little more, you know, now what do we do kind of thing.
Guest:I think the first one's a great record.
Marc:What kind of people do you find are coming to see you?
Marc:I mean, you have a diehard, like the cult of Thompson has got to be pretty strong.
Guest:Are they all ages?
Marc:Are you finding people are getting older with you?
Marc:How's that looking?
Guest:Well, that's the original audience.
Guest:They're still there.
Guest:The diehards are actually dying off.
Guest:Yeah, I know.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:um so yeah yeah so there's people my age and even older uh but but uh you know younger generations are coming to sort of check you out or you know sometimes you get that embarrassing thing oh you know you know i heard your music through my parents right sure of course yeah god how old are you yeah oh 40 you know crap
Guest:It's happening.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:So, you know, you get the kids original fans.
Guest:You get the grandkids original fans.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:And people who found you through other means, you know, people who find you on the Internet or they find you through playlists and stuff like that or Amazon recommendations.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:But yeah, the audience is all ages these days, which is great.
Guest:So when you.
Marc:OK, let's talk about the family record, because that's all of you.
Guest:That's the whole family, yeah, pretty much.
Marc:And who spearheaded that effort?
Marc:Teddy.
Marc:Yeah?
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:It was Teddy's kind of concept to put it all together.
Guest:And he stuck with it and got us all to contribute and send our tapes in.
Guest:So you weren't all in the same room?
Guest:Not much.
Guest:Occasionally we were, but not much.
Guest:I think all of us together, it never happened, but...
Guest:So we kind of assembled bits and pieces.
Guest:And there were rules like you didn't play solos on your own track.
Guest:You had to play on somebody else's and that kind of thing to make it a bit more homogenous.
Marc:And do you get along with Linda?
Marc:Yeah, we get along fine.
Marc:But did that take time?
Marc:Because I know that I'd heard.
Guest:Yeah, it only took 30 years.
Guest:No, it didn't take that long at all.
Guest:No, I mean, you know, after we split up, we had kids in commons.
Guest:You have to deal with each other.
Guest:So you have to deal with each other.
Guest:And then, you know, the old animosities go away eventually.
Guest:And how many times have you been married?
Guest:Two.
Guest:Okay, that's pretty good.
Guest:Only two.
Guest:It's not bad for a musician.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:And you've lived here for how long?
Guest:Well, on and off.
Guest:I mean, you know, 20, 25 years.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:I mean, for a while we kind of commuted between here and London because I had family there.
Guest:So I'd go back and see my family and then come out here to work and then go back.
Guest:But when my youngest was of school age, we kind of decided to send him to school in the US.
Marc:But you never were at the time when you were sort of cutting your teeth.
Marc:You never were like, I'm moving to Hollywood.
Marc:I'm moving to LA to make it in the music business.
Marc:You always stayed over there.
Guest:Well, you know, I don't think... You know, musically, I never wanted to pursue an American style of music particularly.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:So I was better off at being in the UK where I could find musicians of similar mind.
Guest:And now I'm insulated from that kind of thing.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:You can't change me.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:Yeah.
Marc:So all the way through, even when you were doing music that wasn't necessarily specifically informed by British roots in that way, you still were like, I'm not going to America.
Marc:This is not an American record.
Marc:This is just a part of what I do.
Guest:Pretty much.
Guest:And I mean, when I did start to make records in America with Capitol, you know, the musical content, you know, the songs are still very British.
Guest:Yeah, yeah.
Guest:In content, even though I was using American musicians, you know, sometimes I had to slap their wrists for putting in the wrong stuff, you know.
Guest:Uh-huh.
Guest:Yeah, so, you know, if musicians are flexible, then they get these things.
Guest:They pick these things up.
Marc:What is the primary difference?
Marc:Is it chord progressions?
Marc:Is it in the sense of where you come from?
Guest:It's a different feel.
Guest:I mean, as I say, I'm trying to bridge the gap a bit between Celtic and rock.
Guest:So some elements of rock music are absolutely fine.
Guest:Other things, it's more the modes of the music, I think, more than anything else.
Marc:Yeah.
Guest:And avoiding cliches, avoiding blues cliches, rock cliches.
Guest:Right.
Guest:Of which there are lots.
Marc:Many, many, many, many, many.
Marc:You're actively avoiding that.
Marc:You're just sort of like, nope, can't do it.
Marc:No turnaround there.
Marc:Yeah.
Guest:Yeah, yeah.
Guest:Yeah, truly.
Marc:Right.
Marc:Let's not go to that chord.
Marc:It feels like there should be a chorus, but no, we're not going to do that now.
Marc:Yeah, we're not doing choruses, but we're just going to do...
Guest:straight through 33 verses no refrain no cut absolutely not no forbidden and were you like did i read that you were you weren't knighted but you were awarded something some uh a great honor by the uh yeah by the queen um yeah i got a thing called an obe which which is fantastic you know oh that's great is it
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:You know, there's this honor system in Britain used to be, you know, given out by kings and prime ministers, you know, but now it's much more community based.
Guest:So the community elects people.
Guest:The community of art?
Guest:The community of everybody.
Guest:Oh, okay.
Guest:The whole country.
Guest:Right.
Guest:Okay.
Guest:You know, you've got some fantastic school teacher.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:Then the community around that school says, you know, that this person deserves, you know, recognition.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:So you kind of elect people now that way.
Guest:So I suppose that, you know, the folk community or something, you know, elected me to receive something.
Guest:And what does it entitle you to?
Guest:Not much.
Guest:Not much.
Guest:You get a castle?
Guest:I get to use a certain chapel in Westminster Abbey.
Marc:You do?
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:It's reserved for OBEs.
Guest:Have you gone over there?
Guest:Had a look?
Guest:I haven't yet.
Guest:I haven't had a chance to get in there yet, but soon I shall make this place.
Guest:But you get letters after your name.
Guest:That's the cool thing.
Guest:O-E-B.
Guest:O-B-E.
Guest:Excuse me?
Marc:I'm sorry, sir.
Marc:damn colonials i know i know we're horrible it seems to me that some of your stuff like if any american music that you really will kind of play around with this country um yeah i i steal country licks yeah um mostly pedal steel licks um so you don't you don't yeah because you just you mean you recapture you reinvent them with just your fingers i suppose i don't know how you suppose so but but there's a trick to it oh yes totally yeah it's yeah
Guest:True.
Guest:And, you know, country music is not a million miles away from, you know, Scots music, Irish music.
Guest:Because it comes down through Appalachia.
Guest:Exactly.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:So it has the same root.
Guest:So I just steal something that's not too far away.
Marc:Well, I mean, is it stealing really or is it just being part of a chain?
Marc:Someone said steal from everybody except yourself.
Marc:Uh-huh.
Marc:but if you're one of those people that just try is there anybody that really doesn't take anything that that has a pure music i mean even beef heart like i you know i recently went down that rabbit hole and it's all howling wolf at the beginning so i mean the howling wolf wannabe really oh yeah it's like all that stuff so so there's no you can have to sort of build on what's before you
Guest:Yes, totally.
Guest:But the great moments in music sometimes happen when two stars come together.
Guest:The birth of jazz is this sort of collision of European music and African music, making this new thing.
Guest:Rock and roll is sort of hillbilly music meets the blues or something.
Guest:Right.
Guest:So I think sometimes you synthesize your influences.
Guest:You love that person, that person, that person.
Guest:And at some point, you emerge as this pure synthesis of these things that you listen to.
Guest:But it's something different.
Guest:It's something new.
Guest:You become a recognizable player.
Marc:Yeah, which you did.
Marc:I think, I don't know.
Marc:Tell me if I'm wrong.
Marc:I think that it's stuck in my head for some reason that it seems like one of your biggest sort of...
Marc:Not Steelers, but I think the guy who maybe learned the most from you, and I don't know if you know him, is Mark Knopfler.
Guest:Arguable, yeah.
Guest:I shouldn't comment on that.
Guest:Oh, really?
Guest:Should I?
Guest:Sure.
Guest:I don't know.
Guest:Well, yeah, I mean, he uses the same kind of out-of-phase Stratocaster sound that I use, but I was probably 10 years before him.
Guest:Yeah.
Marc:Right, well, that's what I mean.
Marc:It seems like he just sort of like, you know, you were his guy.
Marc:Maybe, maybe not.
Marc:I don't know.
Marc:You never met him?
Marc:I can't say.
Marc:He never said, show me something, Richard, that came up to you?
Marc:Is there tension between the two of you?
Guest:Perhaps if I knew him, there might be.
Guest:But I don't know him.
Guest:But it seemed like you had a weird response.
Marc:You've been asked that question before?
Guest:You've noticed it?
Guest:Well, you know, I used to get a lot of reviews where I say, oh, and Thompson's guitar reminds me of Mark Knopfler.
Guest:Oh, so not the other way around.
Guest:I was recording 10 years before Mark Knopfler started.
Marc:Well, I would never make that mistake.
Guest:Thank you.
Guest:I am here to say that Mark Knopfler ripped you the fuck off.
Guest:Well, I would not say that, but he has his own style, which is...
Guest:Very different from mine, you know, and he's his own guy.
Guest:I don't know him very well.
Guest:Okay, fine.
Guest:But I was not ripping him off, which was a common perception.
Marc:That's a mistake on the uneducated.
Marc:Exactly.
Marc:Yeah.
Marc:Do you use your fingers?
Marc:I do.
Guest:You don't use a pick?
Guest:I use a pick and fingers.
Guest:It's called hybrid picking.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:So you basically use a flat pick for some things, and then you use your fingers for other things.
Guest:And it's kind of a combination technique.
Guest:It's very useful for a lot of things.
Guest:And there's things that you can't do any other way other than with hybrid.
Marc:When you first started playing, did it come natural to you?
Marc:Do you practice?
Marc:Do you still practice for hours?
Marc:How does that work after a certain point?
Marc:I know you play almost every night.
Guest:Yeah, you have to practice.
Guest:You have to practice.
Guest:Yeah, it requires a certain amount of physicality in playing.
Guest:So you have to keep that up.
Guest:And if you're working on new ideas, then you have to do that.
Guest:That takes time.
Guest:If you're a songwriter, I mean, you're basically just playing, playing, playing, playing.
Guest:So it varies from having no time in the day to play.
Guest:You're on an airplane all day.
Guest:How are you going to practice?
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:To, you know, you're working on a new album, you might play eight hours a day.
Guest:You're in the studio, you might play 12 hours a day.
Guest:Right.
Guest:Or you want to practice something that, you know, four hours, six hours, you know, or just to keep things going.
Guest:You know, you practice watching the TV or something for an hour.
Guest:Just keep your fingers whimper.
Marc:Sure, yeah.
Marc:How much are you touring?
Marc:I mean, how much do you play, like, dates-wise, a year?
Guest:I think I do about 100 and something a year.
Guest:I think we did 120 last year, which is a lot.
Guest:Do you love it?
Guest:I love playing live.
Guest:I really do love playing live.
Guest:To do that, you have to travel, so you have to deal with travel.
Guest:You have to try to not kill yourself.
Guest:So we try to pace all that stuff.
Guest:So you want to play a song?
Guest:Sure.
Guest:That'd be good.
Guest:I'd be honored.
Guest:Let's set it up.
Guest:Should I just roll?
Guest:Sure.
Guest:Hand me down my walking shoes, Mr. Murdoch's news, I'm going thunder, rain or shine.
Guest:Got a papus on my back, we're on the right track, Jack, to leave the beatnik blues behind.
Guest:Amsterdam where good things come in threes Where the double mind had shootin' the breeze
Guest:Take the path down to the mill I'm gonna get my fill I'm going to eat till the pot runs dry At Frank's house and Rembrandt's tomb I better make some room Cause brother Vincent's on my mind Life goes on behind the tiles and chintzes
Guest:Dirty water, fit for kings and princes
Guest:Amsterdam, where good things come in threes Soothe your troubled mind and shootin' the breeze
Guest:The Dutch is not a loving tongue.
Guest:You say you're peace and run.
Guest:You're sure you care in other ways.
Guest:Sailors in their Sunday best.
Guest:I'm feeling overdressed.
Guest:I've got to lose these black sunglasses.
Guest:Hand me down my walking shoes Oh, hand me down my walking shoes I've got to leave these beatnik blues behind I've got to leave these beatnik blues behind
Marc:That was great.
Marc:Thank you so much, man.
Guest:Thank you.
Guest:My pleasure.
Marc:It was really exciting for me to talk to you and I appreciate you coming.
Guest:Thank you for having me.
Marc:Thank you.
Marc:That was amazing.
Marc:I love when people play in here.
Marc:I just get to sit here and pretend like I'm a record producer with my one mic.
Marc:I just used a mic that they talk into on the mouth, and then I run a second mic that I stick into a guitar, and I ride the levels.
Marc:Ride the fader.
Marc:That's what I do.
Marc:That's Richard Thompson.
Marc:I would highly encourage getting into his music and listening to that guy play guitar.
Marc:It's fucking astounding.
Marc:So Lemmy.
Marc:Lemmy from Motorhead.
Marc:Right?
Marc:Lemmy.
Marc:I think you all know him.
Marc:You know what he looks like.
Marc:You got a feel for him.
Marc:I'm about to talk to Lemmy.
Marc:For years, I'm not a metal guy, but I'll listen.
Marc:I've gotten into it more.
Marc:I've had to educate myself.
Marc:I don't like to say late to the party.
Marc:I just was not evolved enough in one direction or another to appreciate the metal.
Marc:But I do remember here in Ace of Spades...
Marc:I remember hearing that album.
Marc:I remember hearing that song when I was trying to understand what was up and who Motorhead was.
Marc:And I knew Lemmy was Motorhead.
Marc:I knew Lemmy was the front man.
Marc:And I talked to Chrissy Hine.
Marc:I talked to Chrissy Hine about Lemmy.
Marc:And I've known about Lemmy and I watch a documentary on Lemmy.
Marc:I'm kind of fascinated with Lemmy.
Marc:And then Ty Siegel got me into Hawkwind and Lemmy played on, I think, three of those records.
Marc:Lemmy's a character and he's now he's a Hollywood character and he's a rock and roll character and he's a rock and roll original.
Marc:So I jumped at the opportunity to have him over, but I was a little nervous about talking to him.
Marc:I didn't think it was going to happen, but he showed up.
Marc:Dude brought him over.
Marc:He looks like he's fucking lived it.
Marc:And, you know, and he's older now.
Marc:And I didn't know what to do.
Marc:I saw him.
Marc:I said, how you doing?
Marc:He's like, all right.
Marc:And I go, you need a beer?
Marc:Yeah, I'll take a beer.
Marc:So I gave Lemmy a beer because I thought he looked like he needed a beer.
Marc:Need to take a little bit of that, you know, a hell of an edge off that guy must have.
Marc:But he is fucking Lemmy.
Marc:I do have beers for guests if they need them.
Marc:I do allow smoking in the garage.
Marc:And people can smoke weed if they need to.
Marc:I'm not judgmental or weird about that.
Marc:I'm not encouraging it.
Marc:But sometimes people need a beer.
Marc:I do keep plenty of tea on hand for my British guests, and I like to offer them tea.
Marc:Lemmy did not want tea.
Marc:I gave him a flat tire ale.
Marc:That's what Lemmy drank during an interview, and he drank half of it.
Marc:So now from Motorhead, maybe I should tell you this too.
Marc:There is a new Motorhead album.
Marc:It's called Bad Magic.
Marc:It's available now.
Marc:This is my little chat with Lemmy from Motorhead.
Marc:You don't drive at all?
Marc:No.
Marc:Never did?
Marc:No.
Marc:How long have you been in L.A.?
Guest:21 years.
Marc:21 years a passenger in Los Angeles?
Marc:Yeah.
Marc:You must have some pretty good friends.
Guest:Oh, I can call a minicub, yeah.
Marc:Yeah, yeah, yeah.
Marc:Hey, Dixon, will you shut that air off for a little while so I don't get the noise?
Marc:I was just in New York City, and I interviewed Keith Richards for an hour.
Marc:how is he he's okay he's okay have you met him no were you ever a fan yeah i like the stones all right one of the stones i like him the best yeah he's the guy right yeah he's like uh he's sort of like you in a way in the sense that you kind of define a certain thing yeah right you know gone now is it is is it gone feels like when you look around you you're the only you're the only warrior standing
Guest:Usually, yeah.
Guest:Unless there's a couple of female ones.
Guest:I don't mind female warriors.
Marc:No, no.
Guest:You got to have them.
Marc:Why do you think that is, man?
Marc:I mean, is the music dead too?
Marc:I mean, it still seems like there's some people out there doing it.
Guest:No, the music's all right, but there's only five radio stations now.
Marc:Yeah, yeah.
Guest:So you're never going to hear it.
Marc:This is your, what, 22nd?
Marc:How many records?
Guest:Yeah.
Marc:22nd record.
Guest:Yeah, not counting the live ones.
Marc:Right.
Marc:It's crazy, man.
Guest:Tell me about it.
Marc:And Brian May played with you on one of these?
Guest:Yeah, he played on one track.
Guest:Did the solo, you know.
Marc:Were you in the studio with him?
Guest:No, he did it in Wales.
Guest:Oh, he just... Phil's home studio.
Marc:Where'd you start?
Marc:Where'd you grow up?
Guest:I started, I was born in Stoke in the Midlands.
Marc:I don't know anything about England.
Marc:Was that nice there?
Guest:No, it was terrible.
Marc:It's horrible?
Guest:Then we went to a little village outside of there called Maidley, which is like a country village.
Marc:Yeah, yeah.
Guest:So that was okay, you know.
Marc:When did you start playing?
Guest:I was about 16.
Marc:Guitar, right?
Marc:Yeah.
Marc:Like what inspired you to play?
Marc:Who were the guys?
Guest:Fats Domino, Fabian, Elvis Presley.
Guest:Yeah, yeah.
Guest:Fats Domino.
Guest:The whole list, you know.
Marc:Yeah.
Marc:And you just wanted to be in a little rock band?
Guest:Well, first I wanted to be black.
Marc:Yeah.
Guest:And then I wanted to be a blues player.
Guest:And through all the bands I've been in, I never got it.
Guest:You played a little blues?
Guest:Yeah, a little blues.
Marc:You played some blues?
Marc:But you didn't set out to be in a blues band though, right?
Guest:No.
Guest:Well, I joined Hawkwind.
Guest:It was already, yeah, going.
Marc:What was the idea?
Marc:Hawkwind, how would you define that music?
Guest:Psychedelic.
Marc:Yeah.
Marc:And when you were playing there, was that how you learned to play bass, basically?
Guest:No, I started playing bass the day I joined them.
Marc:But that's sort of how you defined your style, right?
Marc:Like in terms of figuring out who you were on the bass, it was through Hawkwind, right?
Guest:Well, I knew where I was.
Marc:Right, because you were playing guitar.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:I went through a job as a guitar player.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:And they said, no, we don't need one, because they
Guest:was gonna play lead right i said oh they said do you play bass and dimmick said yeah he does because he wanted another speed freak yeah and uh so suddenly i was a bass player had no idea how to play yeah i figured it out though yeah yeah never even picked one up you know yeah yeah what the hell what was the speed back then what what what was it
Guest:was it it was pills oh like benzadrine oh all kinds yeah yeah dexadrine yeah i used to have a script in harley street yeah it's a lot of fun going down there see everybody you met yeah in your life within about four hours talking jacked up yeah hey man what's going on man what are you doing for the next three days
Marc:you do it anymore yeah a little bit you get tired you know yeah yeah yeah was that the original intention of it or was just a buzz both yeah because you were traveling a lot fuck yeah we were we traveled a lot were they huge when you were in a hawk one were they were big uh were they a big band well the first the first song i sang on went to number two it was the only hit they ever had
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:I don't think they ever forgave me.
Marc:Well, they have to live with that.
Guest:Yeah, they do.
Marc:Yeah.
Marc:And you just left because you got trouble with the law?
Guest:No, I got fired.
Guest:Yeah, for what?
Guest:For getting caught with speed at the Canadian border, but they charged me with coke, and it wasn't coke.
Marc:They didn't have a law for speed?
Guest:So I walked away, yeah.
Guest:Well, they did, yeah, but they didn't charge me with it.
Marc:That's fucking lucky.
Guest:Yeah.
Marc:I had Chrissy Hynde in here.
Guest:Oh, yeah.
Guest:I know Chrissy.
Marc:Oh, I know.
Marc:Yeah, she really sort of credits you for kind of saving her life somehow, in a way.
Guest:Oh, yeah?
Marc:When she got to England, she said that, you know, Lemmy was like, you know, like, he took care of me almost, you know?
Yeah.
Marc:Because I think a lot of people kind of tie you in with what was going on there in the 70s with the punks and everything else.
Marc:And there was a lot of different factions in the mid-70s in England, right?
Marc:Yeah.
Marc:What was going on?
Marc:I mean, how did you sort of sort out?
Guest:There was the punks and the long hairs for a start, and then the ex-mods.
Marc:The ex-mods, yeah.
Guest:The hair had grown out of it, you know?
Marc:Yeah, yeah.
Guest:And there was the original rock and roll crowd, too.
Marc:They were still around?
Guest:Teddy boys, yeah.
Marc:So how old were they, like in their 40s or 50s at that time?
Guest:30s.
Marc:Oh, really?
Guest:Yeah.
Marc:So did they feel themselves slipping away?
Guest:I don't know how they felt.
Marc:Did you work with them?
Guest:Well, you know, we play for anybody who comes in the place.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:You know, it doesn't matter why they come in.
Guest:As long as they're in, you're going to get them.
Marc:Yeah, yeah, yeah.
Marc:And I guess she told me that like ska was a big thing too.
Guest:Yeah, it was.
Guest:Or reggae.
Marc:Yeah, reggae in general.
Marc:Because that didn't happen in the States until later.
Guest:No, I know.
Guest:I never liked it anyway.
Marc:It's a little laid back, right?
Guest:Well, no, it's just too lame.
Marc:Yeah.
Marc:A little too lovey, a little too... Yeah, yeah.
Marc:Too peaceful.
Guest:Yeah, shoot you in the back now, you know.
Marc:Yeah, yeah.
Guest:I don't know, it's the funny thing, reggae.
Marc:Yeah.
Guest:You've got all these people who call themselves gangsters.
Marc:Right.
Marc:Playing it.
Marc:Yeah.
Guest:And it's really laid-back music, you know.
Marc:Well, yeah, a whole different culture.
Guest:There's no edge to it at all, you know.
Guest:No.
No.
Marc:No, I mean, I've listened to it in my life, but I don't, you know, if you go back to it, then you got to start dressing like that and dancing stupid.
Marc:It's just, you know.
Marc:Well, when you were figuring out, I assume that right when you got out of Hawkwind, you didn't want to do psychedelic shit.
Guest:No, it wasn't that.
Guest:I didn't mind, you know, but I didn't want to be Hawkwind.
Marc:Yeah.
Guest:I wanted to basically be the MC5.
Marc:Did you ever see them?
Guest:Yeah, yeah.
Marc:When they came over there?
Guest:Yeah, I sung a couple of songs on stage with them.
Marc:You had known their records before you went?
Guest:Well, I knew Kick Out The Jams, you know.
Marc:Yeah.
Guest:They hadn't released a second album yet.
Marc:What about Iggy?
Marc:You like Iggy?
Guest:Yeah, and No.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:He sings a lot of shit, but he has the attitude, you know.
Guest:I like that.
Marc:Yeah.
Marc:I'd like to break the categories of shit into what exactly defines shit.
Guest:Yeah, that's true.
Guest:It'd be hard to explain.
Marc:I don't know.
Marc:I think that's the next book, Lemmy's Guide to Shit.
Marc:Yeah.
Marc:Shit to avoid.
Marc:Lemmy, shit or shine only.
Marc:Yeah, exactly.
Marc:so but you like it seemed to me that you know when i was talking to chrissy that you guys had sort of built a scene you know like around this around the whole image of of what you kind of invented and and is that true i don't know if i'd say that yeah we had the same manager you know
Guest:as chrissy did yeah yeah tony secunda and uh we used to hang out at his office taping all his albums you know so that was great fun and i i always liked chris and i used to go around to uh we had squats in adjoining streets oh really which is very handy yeah yeah i used to walk over there with my guitar at night sometimes and we'd play for hours you know like
Guest:squats like you guys were just holding up in places yeah yeah yeah yeah I had a three-story house squat just no one in what there is just empty yeah you just walk in yeah yeah there wasn't any furniture in it yeah there's carpets in it yeah it was all right yeah the only thing was we couldn't get the water heater
Marc:got a little chilly so we had to go next door where phil taylor was um you know residing in other bath at his place you know yeah so that's sort of how uh how uh motorhead sort of came together was through uh like going to places to take baths yeah right communal you know yeah the original band how'd you meet the those guys how'd you guys come together initially
Guest:Oh, the original band.
Marc:Yeah.
Guest:I met Lucas.
Guest:And he was handy.
Guest:He had a van, you know.
Marc:Right, that always helps.
Marc:Yeah.
Guest:So he drove me around for a bit.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:And then we got Larry.
Guest:And Larry was kind of doom.
Marc:Doom?
Guest:Yeah, in here, you know.
Guest:Oh, yeah.
Guest:I always complain, you know.
Marc:Dark or just sort of like it was... Just the thing that's his manner.
Marc:Yeah, yeah.
Guest:I didn't go for it much.
Marc:And then you ended up with the lineup that lasted for the first couple of records?
Guest:Well, Phil and Eddie, yeah.
Guest:Lucas, we were at the studio in Wales and he kept... He was trying to match me for speed.
Guest:Right.
Guest:And this vein was in his forehead right down to his eyebrow.
Guest:You know, and he's like...
Guest:It's all jacked up.
Guest:Yeah, really.
Guest:Seized up.
Guest:It fucking ruined.
Guest:And we were in there listening to a playback one day.
Guest:Right.
Guest:And he leaned on the machine.
Guest:Yeah, yeah.
Guest:And it all, it wasn't locked.
Guest:It fell over with all these drinks on it.
Guest:Right.
Guest:And they went in the desk and it went...
Guest:smoke yeah and he went oh and walked out the studio and larry shouted don't walk past my house lucas it'll burst into fucking flames i think that did it you know that was it yeah that was a clincher speed's not for the faint of heart and mind is that do you fight do you think that speed is what defined the pace of the music i mean was that intentional and do you think it just was the way it worked
Guest:i think it was just the way it worked but uh it did it was better for music than what they do now it's like old new romance stuff you know yeah yeah where did that start that was going on in england too kind of wasn't it yeah everything seems to be coming back around but i'm not i'm not always sure it's the best thing to come back around
Guest:No, no.
Guest:But if it is coming back around, then we're due for a heavy metal explosion.
Marc:Yeah, another one.
Marc:Should be all right.
Marc:Would this be the third one?
Marc:Fourth one?
Guest:Yeah.
Marc:What do you consider the first one?
Marc:You?
Guest:No, Deep Purple.
Marc:Really?
Guest:In rock.
Marc:Yeah.
Marc:Did you listen to them when you were young, before you started playing in Motorhead?
Marc:No.
Marc:Never did?
Marc:After?
Guest:Yeah, you know, because when you've met somebody, you have to know a bit about their music.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:In case you meet them again, you know.
Marc:So you could sing something?
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:Hey, I love that second song, you know.
Marc:Yeah, that one song I listened to, I really like it.
Guest:What was it called now?
Marc:Yeah.
Guest:That's right.
Marc:Yeah, that one.
Marc:With the drums.
Marc:Yeah.
Marc:Something vague.
Yeah.
Marc:When did, like, the sex pistols and all that shit happen?
Marc:Was that alongside when you were there?
Guest:76 then.
Marc:So you were right there with all that shit?
Guest:Yeah, yeah.
Marc:And did you mind being lumped in with that shit?
Guest:Oh, we weren't.
Guest:We were long hairs.
Marc:Oh, so that was what you were called, long hairs.
Guest:Oh, no, you know, we were called...
Guest:By most people heavy metal.
Marc:At that time?
Guest:Yeah, because that was how they categorized things.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:Record companies, you know.
Marc:So the first record, who was that record with?
Guest:We did Parole, and then they wouldn't release it.
Marc:Who?
Guest:UA.
Guest:So we went back in the studio with Eddie and Phil Taylor and cut the whole thing again.
Guest:And then when we already had two, three hit albums, they released it.
Guest:Yeah.
Marc:Because they were like, okay, these guys have a little traction.
Marc:Let's bring that thing you have in the vaults out.
Guest:Yeah, yeah.
Guest:But we couldn't get arrested for years in Britain.
Marc:Really?
Marc:Yeah, yeah.
Marc:From what, like 75 to like 78 or 9?
Guest:Something like that.
Guest:I mean, there was nobody like us.
Marc:Really?
Guest:The ones that did really did.
Marc:Yeah, you were their life.
Guest:I don't know if I was their life.
Guest:I was symbolic of what they would like to be.
Marc:Do you handle that all right, knowing that there are so many people now, I mean, more than that, that sort of aspire to lemminess?
Marc:i don't know i'm kind of weird about being a lemmy i'm kind of tired of it you know does it get like i was wondering that when i was talking to keith too because it seemed like he was a little tired of it too yeah that like you do you feel ever that you have to keep going to maintain lemminess in order to appease these guys i don't know about that we've certainly i don't feel i have to keep going i don't
Guest:I think I should, because I'm crippled even, you know.
Marc:Yeah, what happened with the legs?
Marc:Did it just went?
Guest:Diabetes.
Marc:Oh, really?
Marc:When did you get that?
Guest:Since 2000.
Marc:Oh, yeah?
Marc:Do you take medicine?
Marc:Are you watching your diet, cutting back on shit?
Guest:Yeah, but you know, there's a certain lover you can go see.
Marc:Yeah.
Marc:Do you wake up and find it's amazing to be alive?
Guest:No.
Marc:No?
Guest:Not yet.
Marc:Not yet?
Guest:Not 70 till December.
Marc:Yeah, okay.
Guest:After that is when you start thinking it's amazing.
Yeah.
Marc:when you get these bands together because i mean 22 records and you've been through a lot of different players but it's all it's all motorhead music so i guess after a certain point you know people who come and want to play with you they know exactly what they're getting into yeah well yeah you'd be surprised man a lot of people in this country especially yeah haven't heard us really it's all because it's it's
Marc:outside their frame you know i mean yeah i wouldn't i wouldn't like that you know when you tour here though do you do all right right yeah because i know some dudes like my buddy jim florentine he thinks that ace of spades is the the best record ever made well you know it probably is in that case were you brought up with like uh any religion or anything
Marc:No.
Marc:No?
Marc:Got lucky on that?
Guest:My father was a priest, too.
Marc:He was?
Marc:Yeah.
Marc:Your real father?
Guest:Yeah.
Marc:You had two fathers?
Guest:Well, I had a stepfather.
Marc:Right.
Marc:How was that guy?
Guest:Oh, he was too late to exert any discipline.
Guest:Yeah, yeah.
Guest:I'd already learned to, you know, not to correct.
Marc:That ship had sailed?
Guest:Yeah, right.
Marc:Yeah.
Marc:Did you track down your real dad, though?
Marc:Or was he always in your life?
Guest:Oh, no, I never saw him again until I was 25.
Marc:Yeah?
Guest:He left when I was three months old.
Marc:Wow.
Marc:During all that time, did you want to meet him or did you just wait on it?
Guest:Well, I had no way to meet him.
Guest:I didn't know where he was, you know.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:And then he started writing these letters saying how guilty he felt about letting the boy down.
Guest:Oh, yeah.
Guest:Didn't even know my fucking name.
Guest:So my mother says, go out and see him.
Guest:I'll give you some money, you know.
Guest:So I met him in this fucking pizza place on Ells Court Road.
Guest:He was a little weasel with a bald head and glasses.
Guest:And he said, oh, sit down, sit down.
Guest:I'm so glad you came.
Guest:I said, yeah, me too.
Guest:He said, what can I do for you?
Guest:I said, well, I need an amplifier and a stack, you know.
Guest:He said, give me a thousand quid, that'll do it.
Guest:He said, what for?
Guest:I said, an amplifier.
Guest:He said, oh, no, no, no.
Guest:He said, I couldn't do that.
Guest:I couldn't give you money to waste on an amplifier, you know.
Guest:You know what he offered me?
Guest:He said, I made arrangements for you to become a traveling salesman.
Marc:He made arrangements for you to sell what?
Guest:I don't know.
Guest:Magic carpets.
Marc:Yeah, that was his big gift to you after 25 years?
Guest:That was the big thing, yeah.
Marc:I got you a hookup to go door to door and sell shit.
Marc:you got me a hooker yeah it would have been better see so so that didn't go anyway did you see he said he was a priest yeah so he got thrown out the church for leaving my mother for leaving her yeah so it wasn't a catholic church was it catholic no the other one so that was the end of the exchange and that was uh that was it
Guest:Yeah, I said, it's a good thing the pizza hasn't arrived yet, but he'd be wearing it like a hat.
Guest:And I was at the place.
Marc:And that was it?
Guest:Yeah, I didn't want anything to do with it, really.
Guest:I got along without him until then.
Marc:Could you tell it was your dad?
Marc:Was there anything sort of like, oh, yeah.
Guest:No, there was nothing remotely visible.
Marc:Really?
Marc:Yeah.
Marc:So your mom remarried another dude, and you grew up with that guy?
Guest:Yeah, and his two kids.
Marc:Yeah.
Marc:Did you get along with them?
Guest:No.
Marc:No?
Guest:They were both really dumb.
Marc:So music was the outlet then.
Marc:That was all you had, right?
Guest:Yeah, well, you know, I mean, I wasn't conscious...
Guest:it was an outlet you know i was just doing whatever yeah yeah to survive you know so i knew i was in rock and roll and that was it yeah so as far as everyone else is concerned it's details you know yeah what was the first band first band let's see now the rainmakers what kind of music oh awful yeah
Guest:The first band's always awful.
Marc:Yeah.
Marc:Were you doing covers?
Guest:Yeah.
Marc:Yeah.
Marc:Now, what about the Beatles, man?
Marc:Did they play in at all to you?
Marc:Did you like them?
Guest:Oh, yeah.
Guest:The Beatles were the big influence on me, actually.
Marc:Yeah?
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:Out of all the bands I ever heard, the Beatles were the ones that really fastened me up.
Guest:Yeah?
Marc:Yeah.
Marc:Did you ever get to see them?
Marc:Oh, yeah.
Marc:How was the show structured then?
Marc:Were there several bands or just them?
Guest:yeah you get like eight bands on that's fucking amazing that was how easy it was you know now it's really difficult man you know i mean we've got to do this this way because we've always always done it that way the fact they didn't know how to do it in the first place yeah you know means they like improvise and they always do it the wrong way so now here we are with tours like fucking military exercises
Marc:They're crazy, dude.
Marc:I barely ever go to concerts anymore.
Marc:But now, it's insane the amount of money and production that goes into it.
Marc:No one just fucking plays anymore.
Guest:Well, we don't do all that.
Marc:No, you just play, right?
Marc:Yeah.
Marc:I guess if people get older, they get scared.
Guest:I don't know what it is.
Guest:Either scared or...
Marc:clever yeah yeah clever right right right i don't know who they think they're fooling but i guess they think that people who are sitting there just want to have the same experience they had listening to the fucking record yeah so where is that yeah yeah that's not what they're getting yeah so you saw the beatles like in what in 60 what five six no 61 holy shit two three four five you saw them all the way through yeah many times yeah
Marc:I can't even imagine what the fuck that was like.
Marc:Was it electric?
Marc:Yeah, it was magic.
Guest:It was.
Guest:They were magic.
Marc:You could feel it.
Guest:A lot of them bands were magic from Merseyside.
Marc:Yeah?
Marc:Like who else?
Guest:The Big Three.
Guest:You ever heard of them?
Guest:No.
Guest:See?
Guest:But they were magic.
Guest:Yeah, they were.
Marc:Not as magic as the Beatles, I guess.
Guest:No, they were magic, carpet magic.
Guest:The Beatles were all around the world magic.
Yeah.
Marc:Yeah, the big magic.
Marc:What did the big three, what did they play like?
Guest:Well, there were three of them from the start.
Marc:Well, yeah, that would make sense.
Guest:You guessed.
Guest:And they had a really good guitar player, Griff.
Guest:He used to play this rotten old Rickenbacker.
Guest:Oh, yeah.
Guest:Hoffner.
Guest:Yeah, Hoffner.
Guest:A neck like a piece of fucking a tree.
Guest:And he used to play the most amazing guitar.
Yeah.
Guest:But they were all great and they were all really eccentric.
Guest:They were all speed freaks.
Guest:Right.
Guest:You know.
Guest:So they jacked.
Guest:Johnny used to get in the van and throw a handful of pills in the back.
Guest:And they'd be searching for him all the way to the gig, you know.
Marc:Yeah.
Marc:And then on the way back, I imagine, in a little more panic.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:No, not more panic.
Guest:Because when you wind down.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:You know, you round down.
Guest:Right.
Marc:That can take a while, right?
Guest:I did a lot of acid, too.
Marc:Yeah?
Guest:With awkward, yeah.
Marc:Well, do you think that, my experience, I didn't do a lot.
Marc:I did some.
Marc:And, you know, it kind of changed the way I thought during it, but I don't know if it changed the way I thought for the long haul.
Guest:It changed the way I thought.
Marc:It did?
Marc:But I probably took a lot more than you.
Marc:Yeah, I'm sure.
Marc:And it was probably better.
Marc:Yeah, it was probably cleaner.
Marc:It was probably real acid.
Guest:Yeah.
Marc:How did it change your perception?
Guest:It made me judge people different.
Guest:It made me see people different.
Marc:In a better way?
Guest:Yeah, and worse.
Marc:Oh, yeah?
Guest:You know?
Marc:But you feel like you could tell where they were coming from right away?
Guest:Well, you think so, you know, because you're on acid.
Guest:Yeah, yeah, yeah.
Guest:But I don't really think it helped me any because I still got taken to the cleaners by our old manager.
Guest:But all the same, I wouldn't have missed it.
Marc:I think that's the key to having good drug experiences is going into it with the right frame of mind.
Guest:And coming out with the same one.
Guest:If you can, if you can.
Marc:So the big three, the Beatles, and then the bands you were playing in, did you miss guitar?
Marc:I mean, did you...
Guest:No, I was a really mediocre guitarist.
Marc:Yeah?
Guest:I was good on rhythm, but then it went out of fashion.
Marc:No more rhythm.
Guest:No, sorry.
Guest:Yeah, yeah, yeah.
Guest:Switched to bass just the right time.
Marc:So, all right, so you go through acid, start going through the speed, you're doing Hawkwind, you're doing the fucking, you know, mind-blowing, kind of like out-there music, and then you just fucking focus in on the MC5, and you just nail it.
Marc:You just start rocking hard.
Marc:Yeah.
Marc:Now, Chrissy Hine talked about when the Heartbreakers first came to London.
Guest:Yeah.
Marc:And she said that it blew everything up.
Guest:Yeah, I'll never forget that.
Guest:Yeah, we went to see them at the Roxy.
Marc:You were with her?
Guest:No, no, we just went down there, but I think she was in there.
Marc:Yeah.
Guest:With some of the, you know, one of her pompadours.
Guest:But they were great for about, what, a month?
Yeah.
Marc:They hung out in London for a month?
Guest:Oh, yeah, but then they got back into heroin.
Marc:Oh, fuck, man.
Marc:That dude, it was like, see, because I have no sense of that.
Marc:Like, you know, when you talk about seeing the Beatles and having to be mind-blowing, I can't even imagine what that would have been like.
Marc:I mean, no one's ever going to have that experience again.
Marc:No, right.
Marc:And I imagine you, well, you dealt with Hendrix, right?
Yeah.
Guest:i used to work for him yeah i mean i can't so you were you there that sunday when he blew everyone away when he first went to england that night that when um when like you know uh townsend was there i wasn't there for that one that was in the scotch it wasn't one of the good places yeah yeah yeah it wasn't it what do you mean it was lame you know yeah oh really it's all these ex-rock stars sitting around talking about their last hit yeah
Marc:They were all still around, though.
Marc:Like, when I talked to her, I talked to Richard Thompson.
Guest:Yeah.
Marc:So that's the amazing thing about London, it seems, is, like, all you guys were there at the same time, different ages, but it was just sort of around, right?
Guest:Yeah.
Marc:They were just sort of around looking at other people, thinking it was over, thinking they were over.
Guest:Yeah, all of that stuff.
Guest:But bands are like that.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:You know, if you're new and you ever hit, you know, Cock of the Walk, you know, despise everybody else.
Guest:cocky yeah yeah did you see the stones yeah yeah back then stones in hyde park when they did that thing for brian right and released all these butterflies yeah and they all went and sat on the ground and people trod on them so you were walking through this mush of mud and butterflies you know
Marc:I guess that's an apt tribute to Brian.
Guest:Fair enough, yeah.
Marc:It's a fucking, when hippie shit goes wrong, man.
Guest:I know.
Guest:There's one guy who released 200 frogs at the roundhouse.
Guest:Come on.
Guest:And I mean, it's enclosed, right?
Guest:For what band?
Guest:It might have been The Faces, I'm not sure.
Guest:Oh, yeah.
Guest:But they released them and they were hopping about and people were just treading on them.
Marc:you know sad dead frogs everywhere horrible mess you know set them free you know let the frogs go oh the faces fuck they were a good band no they were i like the small faces better than the faces what what was the difference marriott yeah that guy could sing huh yeah you never heard a voice like that
Marc:Pink Floyd, too?
Guest:Yeah, I saw them.
Marc:With Sid?
Guest:Yeah.
Marc:Oh, man.
Marc:You saw everybody.
Guest:I saw everybody.
Marc:Jesus, fuck.
Guest:Almost everybody.
Guest:I didn't see the other birds.
Guest:I just didn't get to see them because I wasn't in London.
Marc:Oh.
Guest:I was up north.
Marc:How about The Who?
Guest:The Who, I've seen a lot.
Marc:Yeah, from early on when they were just R&B to when they kind of did something else?
Guest:Yeah, well, actually, they were a cover band, soul cover band.
Marc:Right, right.
Marc:So who was the ones that, like, outside the MC5, what were the guys that really compelled you to, like, sort of like, I've got to fucking get there?
Guest:I was already compelled.
Marc:Yeah.
Guest:Because we served this show on TV called Oh Boy.
Guest:And Cliff Richard was resident on it.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:And he was our Elvis, you know.
Guest:Right.
Guest:So he was always surrounded by these screaming chicks with hot pants on them.
Guest:Right, yeah, yeah.
Marc:And I thought, that's the job for me, you know what I mean?
Marc:Yeah.
Marc:That's a good reason to get in.
Marc:A lot of people get into show business for that reason.
Yeah.
Marc:yeah well yeah it's the best one i can think of when did they start coming around was it was it before motorhead or when motorhead oh yeah i i always done all right with chicks yeah yeah i took them into it you know sure you got game yeah yeah you got a few kids right they're here and there two and a half two and a half yeah the one the half is the one well you don't know that one
Guest:No, the half is the one where my roadie and me foot this chick on two separate nights.
Marc:Right, you're not sure.
Guest:Well, she called it Lammy, you know.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:But then I was better known than my roadie, so that's probably why that was.
Marc:And one found you after many years, or what happened?
Guest:What's the story?
Guest:No, no, I knew the second one.
Marc:Yeah.
Guest:But I never met the first one because he was adopted at birth.
Marc:So you're never waiting for that knock on the door?
Guest:No, no.
Guest:I don't mind, you know.
Marc:No, no, yeah.
Guest:But I don't think I should interfere with this life.
Marc:Sure.
Guest:Because these are people you might think they're just real parents.
Marc:Right.
Marc:Well, yeah, sure.
Guest:I don't fuck that up, you know.
Marc:And I watched the documentary, so what is it, your third son, you got a relationship with him, right?
Marc:You guys get along all right?
Guest:No, my second son.
Marc:Second son?
Marc:Yeah.
Marc:That must have been, that's good to have, right?
Guest:Yeah, he's really good.
Guest:He's a lot better than me.
Marc:Is he on this record at all?
Guest:No.
Marc:You don't play together in Motorhead?
Guest:No, he comes on stage now and again, plays a song, you know.
Marc:He lives here too?
Guest:Yeah, he lives there too.
Marc:So when the Heartbreakers came, how did that change the game?
Guest:It was just that they were really good and really fierce.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:They didn't change anything.
Marc:No?
Guest:They weren't around long enough.
Guest:They were back in the hole, you know?
Marc:So fucking sad, man.
Marc:So many guys went down from that shit.
Guest:I know.
Marc:You never got involved with that shit?
Guest:No, never.
Marc:Because either you're an up guy or a down guy.
Guest:yeah i'm up yeah i know yeah that's what i mean yeah and uh the terrible thing is it kills somebody in every band one person yeah and then they infect the rest you know right it's really it's like a disease takes that one dude to turn everybody on then everything just turns to yeah you ask people in your bands from a heroin
Marc:oh no we i don't you didn't i won't have it around me no oh you oh really you were like fuck that shit i don't like it man i killed my old lady killed a lot of my friends yeah fuck all right so let's talk the records then so uh motorhead that record did all right that didn't do anything overkill
Guest:Overkill was the first hit we had.
Marc:How high up the charts?
Guest:Twelve, I think.
Marc:Really?
Guest:And then Bomber went in number four.
Guest:And then Ace of Spades went in, I think, two.
Guest:But we never got the number one.
Marc:god damn it well we got it with the record after that the live one yeah no sleep till i'm a smith people love that record yeah they do still oh yeah man metalheads like you know it seems to me like from my you know i'm not specifically a metal guy but it seems to me that you invented the what became modern metal like after that whatever the deep purple generation was that you brought the pace to it
Guest:I don't know, I think it was all of us, you know.
Marc:Yeah, who do you consider all of you?
Guest:Well, you know, the ones that were at the same time as me, like Saxon.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:You know, and who else?
Guest:I don't fucking know now.
Guest:I don't know what age everybody is.
Guest:But, like, there was a whole wave of it when we'd been together about a year.
Guest:And there was a whole wave of it, about a thousand bands, you know?
Marc:Yeah, yeah.
Marc:You've lived here how long?
Marc:20 years?
Marc:21 years, yeah.
Marc:In that apartment that I saw on television.
Yeah.
Guest:No.
Marc:No?
Marc:You moved?
Guest:I moved.
Marc:You did?
Guest:Yeah, I bought a condo.
Marc:Oh, wow.
Marc:Was it hard to leave that apartment?
Guest:No.
Guest:It was hard to pack it.
Guest:I still have it, actually.
Guest:It's got all my mother and stuff in it.
Marc:Oh, you keep the apartment?
Marc:Yeah.
Marc:Well, that's good.
Marc:Is the condo bigger?
Marc:It's nicer?
Guest:Yeah.
Marc:More room for your shit?
Guest:It's more elegant, shall we say.
Marc:You've got finer display cases for your paraphernalia and whatnot?
Yeah.
Guest:I couldn't put them together again.
Guest:You know, I mean, I do them all, you know, individual.
Guest:Right, right.
Guest:I buy a badge from a certain organization.
Marc:And then, yeah.
Guest:Stick it in there, you know.
Guest:Yeah, yeah, yeah.
Guest:And some of them are overflown, but...
Marc:When did that obsession start?
Guest:Let's see.
Guest:About 76, I think.
Guest:Somebody gave me a flag and an Iron Cross.
Marc:Yeah, yeah.
Marc:That's a real Iron Cross.
Marc:Yeah, yeah.
Guest:First World War.
Marc:First World War.
Marc:What's the fascination there?
Marc:Do you just like the... It was funny.
Marc:There was a flea market.
Marc:I grew up in Albuquerque, New Mexico.
Marc:And there was a flea market there in the fairgrounds.
Marc:And there was this Jewish doctor that used to go there every weekend and sell Nazi shit.
Guest:Yeah, right.
Marc:It was fascinating.
Guest:The chief dealer in New York is a big Jewish guy.
Marc:Really?
Guest:And his family gave him shit about it.
Guest:And he says, hey, you don't like it?
Guest:Buy it.
Guest:Take it next door and burn it.
Yeah.
Marc:Is there still a, like, is it expensive, that shit?
Marc:I mean, does it get pretty pricey?
Guest:Depends what you're talking about, you know?
Marc:What's your most prized possession?
Guest:I don't know, really.
Guest:I've got a couple of Damascus Steelers.
Marc:Yeah, yeah.
Marc:That's the good stuff, right?
Guest:It's all layered and twisted.
Guest:Yeah, yeah.
Guest:Those are expensive things.
Guest:But the most expensive one I ever saw was Herman Gerwig's hunting dagger.
Guest:Oh, yeah?
Guest:There was two of them.
Guest:Yeah?
Guest:His brother-in-law had one made for him and one for himself.
Guest:This was his brother-in-law's dagger.
Marc:Yeah.
Guest:And the price started at $100,000.
Marc:Jesus Christ.
Guest:We're not talking about hippies and skinheads yet.
Marc:Yeah.
Guest:This is doctors and, you know.
Guest:I just think it looks cool, you know.
Marc:Well, yeah, you know, I got to admit, you know, and I'm, you know, I was brought up a Jew, but that shit's heavy stuff and it looks, you know, it does look fucking gnarly and cool.
Guest:Yeah, well, this is just as Jewish.
Guest:Didn't take so long.
Yeah.
Marc:Yeah, that's right.
Marc:It didn't quite catch on, thank God.
Marc:We'd all be wearing them, right?
Marc:Yeah.
Marc:It was pretty close there, man.
Marc:It was touch and go for a little while.
Guest:I'm tattooed on your forehead.
Marc:Yeah, exactly.
Marc:What is that hat?
Guest:The hat I just made.
Marc:That's a Lemmy insignia?
Guest:A Lemmy hat.
Marc:Yeah.
Marc:You got guys that do all your outfitting now?
Guest:Well, no, I mean, if you want something that's unusual, you have to get it made.
Marc:How did you decide on the insignia in there?
Guest:I didn't.
Marc:Oh.
Guest:I just came into possession of it somehow.
Marc:Oh, you don't know what it is?
Guest:Yeah, I know it is.
Marc:What is it?
Guest:Well, the swords, the cavalry, and the grenades, the grenadiers.
Marc:Okay.
Marc:Do you go out and shoot?
Guest:No.
Marc:No?
Guest:I don't like guns.
Guest:I like daggers.
Guest:They're much more personal.
Marc:Yeah, you kill them up close.
Guest:Well, no, but if you put a knife in somebody, you've got to feel them jerk and get their blood on you and listen to them die if you got it right.
Marc:Right.
Guest:And I think if that was what you had to do every time you killed somebody, there'd be a lot less of it around.
Marc:yeah you certainly think twice there's sort of an is an intimacy to it yeah i mean even even with like classic dueling there's a sort of weird procedure to it all right yeah it makes you got to think about it yeah you know 20 paces and then you know all right for the whole 20 you're going oh what the fuck did i get into what am i doing yeah is this that important is that chick's honor really that important yeah really
Marc:Give him the check and call him quits.
Marc:So now, what was your relationship?
Marc:You worked with the Aussie, right?
Guest:Yeah.
Marc:How did they call you in?
Marc:What was your assignment?
Guest:Well, I knew them anyway from Britain.
Marc:You saw them when they were starting out?
Guest:no no i still hadn't seen him and then he left him and he was on his own you know yeah and i thought he was much better by himself yeah you know he's a good singer yeah yeah well i wouldn't say he was a good singer
Marc:He's Ozzy.
Marc:He's Ozzy.
Marc:Yeah.
Guest:And the guy has charisma.
Marc:Yeah.
Guest:All over him like a fucking cloak.
Guest:Yeah, yeah, yeah.
Guest:You know, because it doesn't matter if the band's great.
Guest:You don't care.
Marc:Yeah.
Guest:Ozzy comes on.
Guest:Everybody watches him.
Marc:Yeah, yeah.
Guest:He's one of them guys.
Marc:He's got a thing.
Guest:Yeah.
Marc:There's a few of those guys around.
Marc:Not too many, but a few, huh?
Marc:Oh, yeah.
Marc:What the fuck was Hendrix was like that?
Guest:Yeah.
Marc:What'd you do for him?
Marc:I was just roading.
Marc:For how long?
Marc:He wasn't around that long, right?
Guest:About eight months.
Marc:Yeah?
Marc:Did you learn anything?
Guest:Yeah, I learned that I would give up guitar and play bass instead.
Marc:Yeah.
Marc:Was he a good guy?
Guest:Yeah, he was great.
Guest:I used to score acid for him too.
Marc:Oh, you did?
Guest:I'd give him ten and he'd give me three and take seven.
Guest:He'd take seven?
Guest:Yeah, so.
Marc:He was out there, huh?
Guest:That was the sort of habit I got into.
Marc:Yeah, you knew the deal?
Guest:He didn't want to seem like a pussy, you know what I mean?
Marc:Sure.
Marc:Did he ever get too far out there to play?
Guest:No.
Marc:You always pulled it off, huh?
Guest:No, acid, you know, you can do anything you like.
Marc:Yeah.
Guest:As long as you've got the concentration.
Marc:So you've got to hold the frame.
Guest:Yeah.
Marc:Yeah.
Marc:Fixed.
Marc:Yeah.
Marc:Sometimes that's a little bit of a fight, though.
Marc:Yeah, right.
Marc:Things start shaking on the sides.
Guest:Yeah, that's okay.
Guest:But, like, forget them.
Marc:Yeah.
Guest:Because that's an illusion.
Marc:That's the illusion.
Yeah.
Marc:But as a band with those guys, I mean, did you pick up anything?
Marc:Because you're a band leader, really.
Marc:I mean, fundamentally, right?
Guest:I wasn't then.
Marc:Right.
Marc:But was there things you picked up from that experience in other bands?
Guest:From Hendrix, I picked up a few moves.
Guest:But I mean, he's a guitar player.
Guest:I was never a good guitar player.
Guest:So I didn't get anything from that.
Marc:But Redding, did you hang out with him too?
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:I shared a flat with him for a while.
Marc:Yeah.
Guest:And me and Neville and Noel and this chick called Lisa.
Guest:And we were all piled on top of each other all the time, you know.
Marc:Yeah.
Guest:He wasn't cool, you know.
Marc:No.
Guest:He keeps saying, that fucking Hendrix, hogging all the limelight.
Marc:Oh, really?
Guest:Yeah, I was the best guitar player in Kent, you know.
Guest:He didn't appreciate it at all.
Guest:Really?
Guest:Didn't get it.
Marc:Completely bitter.
Guest:Just dumb.
Marc:Yeah.
Guest:Lame, yeah.
Marc:Yeah, yeah.
Marc:How'd he pick up those guys?
Marc:Why'd he choose those guys?
Guest:They came to auditions in... In Britain?
Guest:Yeah, yeah.
Marc:And he just said, you guys are the experience.
Guest:Yeah.
Marc:Wild.
Marc:And that guy never appreciated any of it.
Marc:So when you moved here, what was the plan, man?
Marc:Why'd you leave England?
Guest:Oh, I don't have a plan.
Marc:No?
Guest:No, I'm very impulsive.
Marc:Yeah.
Marc:And did you get your citizenship and all that shit?
Guest:Well, no.
Guest:What I thought was I had the chance to move here.
Marc:Yeah.
Guest:Because we were managed by Phil Carson, who was then offered a job at Victory Records in Japan.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:And left, you know.
Guest:And he passed us on to...
Guest:For a little while we were managed by, what's her name?
Guest:Fucking Ozzy's wife.
Marc:Sharon.
Guest:Sharon.
Marc:Yeah.
Guest:And then she bailed as well.
Guest:I don't know.
Guest:It's been disaster, you know, the whole life.
Marc:Yeah.
Guest:But, you know, it's pretty good compared with ordinary people's disasters.
Marc:No, I think that's true.
Guest:Yeah.
Marc:It's an interesting life that, you know, you live as a fucking artist.
Marc:Are you bitter about it?
Marc:No.
Marc:No?
No.
Marc:not for a moment well it seems like everybody in the world respects motorhead and respects you but do you do you would you have liked to have been a bigger band no i'm all right yeah yeah now this new record man so how do you feel about it i think it's great yeah it's one of the best we've ever done i think well how come why do you feel that way
Guest:We got a bit clever on this one.
Guest:We were building up to it the last four or so.
Guest:But we got a bit clever on this one.
Guest:It sounds really good.
Marc:And in terms of production, who did the production on it?
Guest:Oh, me and Cameron.
Marc:So you do it all now.
Marc:Yeah.
Marc:You can trust yourself.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:Cameron is good like that.
Guest:Because he'll say no.
Marc:You need somebody to say no, yeah.
Guest:A lot of people are intimidated by us.
Marc:Yeah.
Guest:They want to say shit.
Marc:Yeah.
Marc:They're just like, let them go.
Marc:Don't make any waves.
Marc:Don't piss Lemmy off.
Guest:Right.
Marc:Do you have a reputation of being an angry gay?
Guest:No, I don't think so.
Marc:No?
Guest:People who don't know me are scared.
Marc:Right.
Marc:I was a little nervous.
Marc:What's your favorite joke, Lemmy?
Guest:On the radio?
Marc:Yeah, no, we're free to say whatever the fuck we want.
Guest:Yeah, yeah.
Guest:Probably the best one I got was Jesus walking around heaven, you know, checking everybody out.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:And everybody's blissful, fucking hops and halos and that.
Guest:And Jesus, little old fella sitting in a corner, crying his fucking eyes out, you know, miserable as fuck.
Guest:And he says, excuse me, he said, you're in heaven, you know what I mean?
Guest:He said, people go to church five times a week, every week of their lives to get up here.
Guest:He said, and you're here, you've made it, so what's the matter?
Guest:The old guy says, well, he said, I'm sorry, I didn't mean to cause any trouble, he said, but...
Guest:When I was on Earth, I was just a poor carpenter, you know, and we had nothing.
Guest:And we had this little boy, and I wanted him to follow me into the carpentry business, you know.
Guest:But then he said he had to go away on a mission, and he went off into the desert with 12 fellas, and we never saw him again, he said.
Guest:And I was hoping, he said, that when I got up here, you know what I mean, I'd see him again, but...
Guest:I lose everyone.
Guest:I can't find him.
Guest:He's cracking me up.
Guest:And Jesus with tears streaming down his face goes, Father.
Guest:And the guy says, Pinocchio.
Marc:Well, thanks for talking to me, man.
Marc:And have a good time on the tour.
Guest:Thank you.
Marc:That's Lemmy.
Marc:That's Lemmy.
Marc:Godspeed, Lemmy.
Marc:I hope he's all right.
Marc:And I want to thank Richard Thompson as well.
Marc:It was kind of an interesting show.
Marc:Both these dudes that grew up, you know, were there at the birth of rock and roll or whenever it got to England and whatever came out of England.
Marc:And they both had very interesting stories about growing up.
Marc:And who they saw.
Marc:And I like that.
Marc:I like that connection.
Marc:Go to WTFPod.com for all your WTFPod needs.
Marc:My tour dates for Australia are there.
Marc:I'm going to be there in October in Sydney, Melbourne, and Brisbane.
Marc:State Theater in Sydney, Australia, October 15th.
Marc:The Palais Theater in Melbourne, Australia, October 16th.
Marc:And Brisbane City Hall.
Marc:October 17th in Brisbane, Australia.
Marc:Please get your tickets so they know that it's going to be okay.
Marc:I know it's going to be okay one way or the other.
Marc:I'll be there unless something goes weird.
Marc:But yeah, I'm not going to play guitar today.
Marc:What, you think I'm going to fucking play guitar after Richard Thompson?
Marc:Do you really think I'm going to do that?
Marc:Come on.
Marc:Boomer lives!
Marc:Boomer lives!
you