Episode 708 - Terry Reid / Jim Norton
Guest:Alright, let's do this.
Marc:How are you, what the fuckers?
Marc:What the fuck buddies?
Marc:What the fucksters?
Marc:What the fuckadelics?
Marc:What the fuck'll Barry thins?
Marc:What's happening?
Marc:I'm Mark Maron.
Marc:This is my podcast, WTF.
Marc:Welcome to it.
Marc:How's it going?
Marc:I'm okay.
Marc:I'm okay.
Marc:I saw that film The Lobster last night.
Marc:I talked to John C. Reilly about it, and he was in it, obviously, but thought it was an interesting movie, and I went to see it, and it's sort of a mindfucker.
Marc:It's some serious art film poetry.
Marc:A lot of things coming at you in a way you've never seen before, and it puts a lot on you to process this abstract, somewhat surreal, but very vulnerable film about something that...
Marc:is not real per se there's not a lot of commitment to the idea that you know whatever culture this is that sends away its divorced or widowed people to a hotel that where they have a certain amount of time to meet uh other mates before they are turned into an animal and the only way they can get more time to meet their mates is to go out and tranquilize people who are called loners people who are off the grid and
Marc:out in the woods and bring them in to be, I believe, transformed into animals.
Marc:It's not sure.
Marc:I'm not sure.
Marc:But the flat affectation of the acting in the strange, surreal setting, yet very basic human relationship ideas...
Marc:about relationship dynamics, marriage, are all covered in this, but it's so abstract and so poetic that you just have to sit there and let your brain get fucked by this movie.
Marc:Today on the show...
Marc:Terry Reid, the singer-songwriter, who's been around for a long time, I'm not sure that you would know him right away unless you know him.
Marc:He certainly knew everybody else, but he was around in the 70s.
Marc:He was one of the great white soul singers out of the UK.
Marc:had a record in 68 called bang bang your terry reed and then another record self-titled record in 69 then an amazing record called the river called just river in 73 and a couple of records he's been recording the whole way through but the the the real notorious records are those first three then seat of memory and rogue waves in 78 79 then a handful of other records throughout 2013 well
Marc:Light in the Attic is issuing.
Marc:It's not really a reissue.
Marc:It is a reissue, but it's called The Other Side of the River.
Marc:And I think it's got a lot of the takes that are on River, but also some alternate takes.
Marc:And I talked to Terry a lot about these alternate takes that were found.
Marc:It comes out Friday, May 20th, remastered.
Marc:And it's got six never-before-heard tracks plus alternate versions of songs from River.
Marc:You can go check that out wherever you get music.
Marc:But do check out Light in the Attic.
Marc:Their stuff is is pretty amazing.
Marc:It's they do amazing reissues and some in some original records as well.
Marc:Great label light in the attic.
Marc:I will tell you that right now.
Marc:But Terry Reed, most people know him as the guy that turned down the lead singing position of Led Zeppelin.
Marc:If you know that, if you know that story, but he knew everybody.
Marc:And when I got an opportunity to talk to him, I knew his first three records.
Marc:And then I was given the the the new one.
Marc:This these reissues and never before issued stuff in the mid 70s, early 70s to listen to.
Marc:And it was stunning.
Marc:And he's around.
Marc:He lives nearby.
Marc:He's in California.
Marc:So I kind of jumped at the opportunity.
Marc:But he was one of these guys that had been around England for so long and in the music business so long.
Marc:He's got great fucking stories of all eras.
Marc:But I will give you a heads up on this.
Marc:Not a spoiler, but...
Marc:So if you're young enough or old enough or maybe if you're young and interested, I mean, what's the first thing you think about when you hear the name Brian Jones?
Marc:You think like a genius, like the original member of the Stones that defined their sound, a druggie, a guy who died or maybe got killed in a...
Marc:swimming pool that may or may it depends on what conspiracy you you know you you decide to believe maybe you know brian jones town massacre which has nothing to do with brian jones really but nonetheless he was a rolling stone he was an original rolling stone and terry reed tells one of the best stories i've ever heard about brian jones it's not a long story but you just don't associate a personality per se to brian jones he put you just associate him with the mythology of the stones that he died that he was difficult that he was a genius that he had drug problem but
Marc:But he just becomes this person in one line in the story that Terry Reid tells.
Marc:So look forward to that.
Marc:You mind if I call my friend Jim Norton?
Marc:My buddy Jim Norton is going to be out here, I think, yeah, it's like next week.
Marc:May 26th, Jim Norton will be here in Los Angeles at the Novo.
Marc:And May 27th, he'll be in Las Vegas, Nevada at the Mirage Hotel and Casino.
Marc:You can go to jimnorton.com to buy tickets.
Marc:Jim is one of the most honest, most disgusting, most endearing, most crass and horrible, wonderful little men out there performing comedy.
Marc:I love him.
Marc:And I just want to make sure that
Marc:If there are anybody that is a fan of Jim Norton that listens to this show and you didn't know he was coming, I want to make sure you know he's coming at the Novo here in L.A., May 26.
Marc:And let's get him on the phone.
Marc:I talked to him in New York.
Marc:He hosted a town hall thing at Sirius where he interviewed me.
Marc:Did a great job, and I did Opie and Jimmy's show.
Marc:I enjoyed that.
Marc:But I love Jim, and I'm going to call him.
Marc:We're going to call Jim, and we're going to talk to him, and we're going to tell you again when his gigs are.
Marc:So let me get him on the phone.
Guest:Hello?
Guest:Jim, are you there?
Guest:Is that you?
Guest:Hi, Mark.
Guest:It is me.
Guest:I'm surprised this worked out.
Guest:These connections never seem to work out properly.
Marc:Yeah, I find that with all connections of all kinds.
Guest:Yeah, that's exactly it.
Guest:They sound good in theory, and then they wind up being shitty.
Marc:Yeah, emotional connections, connections with audiences.
Marc:It's all touch and go.
Guest:You know, it's funny, man, especially with one-on-one.
Guest:For you, is it hard to have connection with sex?
Guest:It's virtually impossible for me to have eye contact during a sexual experience if I care about the person.
Marc:Is that true?
Marc:Because I'm weird.
Marc:I don't know what it is about me, but I have to have full eye contact.
Marc:I don't really like closing my eyes unless I don't want to come.
Marc:Really?
Marc:Yeah, the only time I'm closing my eyes is to get my breathing down.
Marc:in a zone to where I don't blow my load.
Marc:But generally, I like to look, I like to feel, I like to see what's happening.
Marc:I like that.
Marc:You don't like that?
Guest:No, I don't mind looking because I'm kind of a pornographic voyeurism.
Guest:But I can't be intimate.
Guest:Like, if it's someone I don't know or a stranger or, you know, if we're behind a dumpster, I can tell her I love her.
Guest:But if it's, like, somebody I'm dating or that I care about, it's got to be filthy and I can't look at her.
Guest:And it really messed me up, Ben, the lack of ability to have that connection during sex.
Marc:Well, I find that I have that experience right after sex.
Marc:It's, you know, don't look at me.
Marc:We did it.
Marc:What do you need now?
Guest:Oh, OK.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:The emotional connection is now broken and hit the bricks.
Marc:Yeah.
Marc:The snuggly part, you know, I get a little squirrely with.
Marc:But but the sex part, I like to be completely engaged.
Marc:What I do.
Marc:Are you with somebody?
Guest:No, man.
Guest:I mean, it's literally five years.
Guest:I've dated a couple of very brief, like, you know, month or two things.
Guest:But I haven't had like a real girlfriend since 2011, and I'm kind of at a point now where I want a girlfriend, you know, and I'm saying girl in air quotes, you know, just somebody to date regularly.
Marc:What do you mean?
Marc:That somebody that is the illusion of a woman might work out?
Guest:Well, yeah, yeah, yeah, you know, someone who's kind of half there, you know what I mean?
Guest:Woman, you know, whatever, just somebody who I get along with and I enjoy having sex with.
Guest:It would be nice to see them more than once.
Guest:And I find that different things fucking up, man.
Guest:Like, I'll start to like somebody, and then I find one little flaw.
Guest:It's like I have to find something in order to sabotage it.
Guest:I'm sure you know the drill.
Marc:I do, but, like, what's a deal-breaking flaw?
Guest:It really depends.
Guest:They're too dirty.
Guest:They're not dirty enough.
Guest:Almost like whatever they present, I will crave the opposite.
Guest:Bad breath would be a deal-breaking flaw, but it's very rare that you run into that.
Guest:Here's the one that's the worst.
Guest:Judgmental, like for real judgment.
Guest:I'm pretty out there about stuff I've done sexually, and if it's somebody who doesn't know my comedy and they start finding out things, and I get that like, oh, I had one girl tell me,
Guest:We were having lunch, and she goes, you know, that stuff you told me last night, you can never tell me that stuff again.
Guest:I mean, I have my idea of what masculine is, and I just can't hear that stuff.
Guest:And I wasn't even mad at her, but as we were eating lunch, I felt every ounce of fucking liking go away.
Guest:And I just was done with her by the time we were finished with lunch.
Marc:Well, she basically just shamed you.
Marc:It's not like helpful advice.
Marc:It's like, you know, you're not a man to me if you tell me that stuff that you obviously have done in your life.
Guest:Yeah, the shaming stuff.
Guest:I don't shame a woman about anything.
Guest:Like, I don't care.
Guest:Like, I've had girls tell me that.
Guest:They wanted to fuck their dads and all this other great stuff, and some have had to go into saying it, but they do.
Guest:But anything you come out with, I'm okay with.
Guest:I'm not going to judge anybody's past.
Guest:So when someone does it to me, that makes me instantly disconnecting.
Guest:Oh, fuck you, man.
Guest:That really is irritating.
Marc:Yeah, I'm just I what I'm having a hard time with, I guess you're a little younger than me.
Marc:But what I what I don't always understand after a certain point, like I'm 52.
Marc:I got no kids.
Marc:I've been married twice.
Marc:I've been through the the fucking mill with with everything.
Marc:It's like I'm not sure what I need right now.
Marc:Like, you know, what do I really want?
Marc:Do I want to get married again?
Marc:No.
Marc:Do I want someone to live with me?
Marc:Not really.
Marc:Do I want kids?
Marc:No.
Marc:So so what do I really want?
Marc:You know, like what?
Marc:I don't understand what the hell a relationship is.
Marc:is good for sometimes.
Guest:I find it's like being greedy.
Guest:That's exactly it.
Guest:I don't know what I want because I know that there are enough people out there where I can get what I want, especially with Tinder and Bumble and Raya and all these fucking dating apps.
Guest:It's not for lack of choices.
Guest:It's the fact that I'm just a greedy motherfucker and I want everything.
Guest:And then as soon as I get it, I throw it away and I want to hunt again of something new.
Guest:It's like I'm unsatisfiable.
Guest:It's really pathetic at my age.
Marc:Yeah, I wish I mean, I think I have a little of that, but I can't, you know, I'm in a relationship, but so I can't really I was never that, you know, that driven to sort of push the envelope sexually.
Marc:But I do I do wonder it's sort of like, is it is sex?
Marc:Isn't sex just sort of enough?
Marc:I mean, if you don't want kids, you don't want to be married.
Marc:You're not really capable of trusting people deeply or having real intimacy.
Guest:uh isn't there a point where you're just sort of i guess this is the way i am it's not horrible uh so i'll just live this way yeah you know you start to resign yourself to like all right maybe this is as far as i'm going this is the best it's gonna get yeah but i just i don't i haven't even fucked in a while like my dick's not even staying hard unless it's an inappropriate thing like it stays really hard through the entire experience i could be if i'm kissing a girl
Guest:My dick is hard to my pants for an hour.
Guest:And then as soon as it touches her vagina, it's like, whoa, whoa, just panics and hides.
Guest:So I think I'm having this real connection thing.
Guest:It's not necessarily a performance issue.
Guest:I think it represents something like a connection or something really nice.
Guest:And there's a part of me that just isn't having it.
Marc:Yeah, despite whatever you're thinking, your dick is panicking.
Guest:Yeah, completely, completely panicking.
Guest:My dick is acting like it's been shamed.
Guest:It doesn't matter who I'm with.
Guest:It has nothing to do with the partner, how hot they are, what they're willing to do, whether it's loving.
Guest:It's not about that.
Guest:I just can't seem to fuck lately.
Marc:From knowing you and talking to you many times, I can say with confidence that your dick has been shamed.
Guest:Yeah, it has been, and in some cases it should have been.
Guest:You know, not all shame is wrong.
Guest:There are certain things I've done that a justifiable amount of shaming was given, but it's the stuff that I shouldn't be ashamed of, you know, that I am, that just seems to wreck it for me, and I can't seem to get out of the pattern.
Guest:Maybe it's because I don't want to.
Guest:You know how they talk about, hey, liking lust seems weird?
Guest:Like I like being that way too.
Guest:And it's just, I'm not willing to stop.
Marc:Well, see, that's something that I've been thinking about lately is that, you know, I think my comfort zone is uncomfortable that like, like I, you know, I think that the way I brought up the way I felt as a kid and all that shit that I generally felt,
Marc:a little awkward, a little uncomfortable.
Marc:So that's really what I know.
Marc:So that's my comfort zone.
Marc:Like I'm just, you know, an uncomfortable guy in a lot of ways.
Marc:And, you know, to feel comfortable is completely alien, alien and not and not necessarily something that that that might that I can adapt to that well.
Guest:and that's the way it is sexually and every other way like the stuff that might have turned me on when i was 15 or made me feel connected when i was 15 is just so far in the past and my normal level is just so far above where it should be and it just there's no way to satisfy it yeah yeah it's it's horrible the the ongoing hunger then then the relief and then the the shame and then the feeling of emptiness then the boredom and then the relief again you know boredom is the worst
Guest:Of all those things, I think the boredom is almost the worst.
Guest:That's hard.
Guest:Because the other stuff, at least, there's like, okay, if I'm ashamed, I know I'm ashamed.
Guest:If I'm angry, I'm angry.
Guest:If I'm depressed or if I... But the boredom, there's really no rational explanation for it.
Guest:That's the one that fucks me up because I'll go like, all right, she's a nice girl.
Guest:She eats my ass.
Guest:She's a trooper.
Guest:She'll do anything I want.
Guest:She'll talk any way I want.
Guest:She'll tell me to wear panties.
Guest:She'll cuckold me.
Guest:She'll tell me she loves me.
Guest:And none of it feels like anything.
Guest:And I'm bored.
Guest:So it's like, what the fuck do you want, idiot?
Guest:She's giving you all this stuff and you're bored.
Marc:I like...
Marc:I like the list.
Guest:Believe me, I cut it short.
Guest:There's a lot more on that list of great options.
Guest:Dude, talking dirty and being... I talk about sex so much.
Guest:I hate that that's my thing, but it just seems to be the focus of most of my...
Guest:discomfort in my obsession.
Guest:I just wish I could get out of that mindset sometimes.
Marc:Yeah, it's hard.
Marc:So you do an advice show now, too?
Marc:You do the Opie and Jim show in the morning, and then how often do you do the advice show?
Marc:What's that called?
Guest:Well, it's just the Jim Norton show, and it's once a week.
Guest:And the reason that came about a few years ago...
Guest:is Sirius gave me a raise, but they kind of want it.
Guest:You know how they say you've got to work for it?
Guest:So they said, why don't we do a music show on the Aussie Boneyard channel every night, which you prerecord, and a once-in-a-week advice show.
Guest:So it started as a goof.
Guest:I'm like, all right, I'll just fuck around.
Guest:Some callers will call in.
Guest:But then people started calling with real stuff.
Guest:It's not that I'm sitting here like some douchey guru.
Guest:The whole thing started as a goop, but then it was like, hey, man, I want to get sober.
Guest:I want to have legit things.
Guest:So I guess it's kind of everyone understands that I'm flawed.
Guest:And I tell the truth about myself, so I think people kind of like that, as opposed to being like Dr. Laura, where you're sitting there like this twat on the mount telling everybody what's wrong with them.
Guest:I kind of come from the same place that you'd probably come from, which is, look, I know I'm flawed.
Guest:I know I'm damaged.
Guest:I've learned certain things, and maybe this will help.
Marc:Yeah, I'm not a professional, but I went through this, and this helps me.
Guest:Yeah, and I think people like that.
Guest:I think they like the lack of perfectionism in the advice or the suggestions.
Guest:And I like a lot of times I'll tell them I don't know, man.
Guest:I have no experience with that.
Guest:And here's what I might do, but I can't be truthful.
Guest:People like once in a while when you say you don't know because at least they know that you're not coming from a place of being holier than thou.
Marc:Yeah, you could say, I don't know.
Marc:Let me see if I can get you a phone number or look it up because you're fucked up in a way I don't even understand.
Guest:By the way, let me see if I get your phone number.
Guest:You've actually taken it one step further than I ever have.
Guest:You've done more work in that than I've ever done.
Guest:I've always just said Google it.
Guest:I have no idea what to tell you.
Guest:People ask about kids.
Guest:First of all, if you take Jim Norton's advice with your children, you're fucking ridiculous.
Guest:My baby's choking.
Guest:What do I do?
Guest:I don't have to tell you.
Guest:Fucking call someone who knows.
Guest:I don't know how to handle that.
Marc:You better do something quickly.
Guest:Yeah, exactly.
Guest:It depends on how you feel about kids.
Guest:You might say, wait an hour and see how it works itself out.
Marc:Oh, fuck.
Marc:Well, that's fucking great.
Marc:So you're coming, you're doing a show here in L.A.?
Guest:Yeah, I mean, L.A.
Guest:is always a frightening one for me.
Marc:What date is that?
Marc:It's next Friday?
Guest:Next Friday, or it's Thursday.
Guest:I think I'm doing the Novo on Thursday, and I'm doing Vegas, the Mirage, on the Friday.
Guest:I should probably know my own dates.
Guest:I understand the value of a plug, and I understand how it's done and how you should be prepared.
Guest:And I see these guys, they come in, and they have no idea.
Guest:And I'm like, what dopes?
Guest:They don't know how to plug.
Guest:And then here I am.
Guest:It's May 26th at the Novo.
Guest:Here I am, and I don't know exactly how to plug.
Guest:I almost feel embarrassed or ashamed plugging, especially with a friend.
Guest:Like, when you're doing it with someone you don't know, it's a disconnected experience.
Guest:Like, yeah, these are my dates.
Guest:When I'm talking to somebody I've known for 20 years, it's almost like, and I'm going to be here, and I just don't know how to do it.
Marc:Well, I mean, you're talking to the right guy.
Marc:So you're in Los Angeles on May 26th in Las Vegas, May 27th, jimnorton.com.
Marc:But, I mean, I'm the same way, but now, like, I get this weird thing where, like, I don't ever expect that I'm going to sell out or a lot of people are coming, but I do want the people that I know like me to come.
Marc:You know, like, I don't know how many that number is, but I want to make sure all the ones, you know, that if they're out there and they're, you know,
Marc:you know not quite paying enough attention like because i get sick of the thing where you got the biggest fans in the world and you promote on every platform available and then you leave the town and you know two days later they're like i didn't know you were coming it's like what the fuck do you want me to do come to your house let every person know individually louis mailing list seems to be the way to go and i guess if i had one the size of him that'd be a good way to do it
Guest:But I don't know either.
Guest:I get the same ones.
Guest:Where are you coming to Philly?
Guest:It's like I was there two days ago, you fucking non-fan.
Guest:Where were you?
Guest:You know, there's no way to tell everyone.
Guest:So I just try to get how it is, man.
Guest:You get out there.
Guest:You plug as much as possible.
Guest:And there's so many forms of entertainment.
Guest:You just hope somebody's interested.
Guest:And you're right.
Guest:The ones that show up, I just want them.
Guest:The people who like me, I want them to know I'm going to be there.
Marc:Exactly.
Marc:And how's the material?
Marc:Do you feel good about it?
Guest:Yeah, I'm going to shoot at the end of July.
Guest:You know, it's one of those things.
Guest:I get so sick of it.
Guest:And my curse has always been a little bit too topical, so like a year later it doesn't feel as relevant.
Guest:So I'm trying to keep it, you know, I talk about obviously Caitlin and my whole opinion and experience in that world, and I'm trying to keep it fairly evergreen so it's not something contingent upon the Vanity Fair cover.
Guest:You know what I mean?
Guest:Like I'm talking about that.
Guest:And obviously the Trump thing I'm trying to keep very, very something that could that could be watchable in a year or two.
Marc:Well, maybe what you should do is like because the last special I did, it was almost all evergreen because, you know, you don't know when the hell people are going to watch it and where they're going to watch it.
Marc:Maybe you should do a scenario with the Trump thing and do a few jokes as if he's president.
Marc:I did think of that.
Guest:I thought it'd be funny to tell the audience, this is what I'm doing, so I don't know when people are going to watch this, and then do a couple of jokes of Hillary being the president and a couple of jokes of Trump being the president.
Guest:Oh, you've got to do that.
Guest:And just see how it works out.
Guest:You've got to do it.
Guest:Or just be lazy and release the special with both, so I've kind of covered all my bases.
Marc:Well, I think it would be funny either way.
Marc:I think you should definitely do that.
Marc:Do a couple of jokes with Hillary and a couple of jokes with Trump as president, and then leave them all in after.
Guest:Yeah, and just see what happens.
Guest:And people are going, well, at least he thought it through.
Guest:They just got lazy in the editor.
Marc:All right, buddy.
Marc:Well, okay, so May 26 here in L.A.
Marc:at the Novo, and May 27 in Vegas at the Mirage.
Marc:I love you, Jim.
Marc:Thank you, Mark.
Guest:I love you, and I'll be out there.
Guest:I'm actually coming out Sunday, so it'd be nice to see you during the week, maybe in the afternoon if you want to grab some lunch.
Marc:Let's do it.
Marc:Text me.
Guest:All right, buddy.
Guest:I'll talk to you soon.
Guest:Thanks, Mark.
Guest:You bet.
Guest:Bye.
Bye.
Marc:Once again, Jim Norton, Los Angeles, May 26th at the Novo, Las Vegas, Nevada at the Mirage Hotel and Casino, May 27th.
Marc:Always enlightening and relieving.
Marc:And, you know, what's great about Jim is that, you know, you can always pretty much if you're like almost any person, you know that you're not as bad as you think you are and you're not handling as much crazy bullshit that you get yourself into as Jim Norton is.
Marc:and that's why he's so brilliant can i just share with you an email about my show we're now into we've now burned through four episodes of marin on ifc it's on wednesdays at nine i'll actually plug my trip any house dates you can also go to wtfpod.com slash tour i'm doing those trippany shows at the steve allen theater tuesdays through june get tickets if there are tickets to be gotten
Marc:I'll tell you again how proud I am of this season of Marin.
Marc:I really think we did a wonderful job making a show that is not it's the it's a cautionary tale.
Marc:Is it an allegory?
Marc:I don't think so.
Marc:I think it's a a fictional cautionary tale of of how my life could have gone or may still go.
Marc:God forbid.
Marc:But people are responding very well to it.
Marc:And I'm in for the right reason.
Marc:And I'm happy for that.
Marc:That's the that's the most I can ask for.
Marc:We did.
Marc:We did an amazing thing, I think.
Marc:But I just got this email from Rob.
Marc:Thanks for this season of Marin.
Marc:Nine months ago, I had the unpleasant task of driving in parentheses, dragging my wife to an inpatient facility.
Marc:I spent a month alone with our kids holding shit together until she got out.
Marc:She's doing well.
Marc:And after a lot of bitter argument, so are we.
Marc:This season gave us a way to really laugh at addiction and recovery from the clueless, quote, all I need is one shot, unquote, stagger and swagger of relapse to the endless nattering but still strangely helpful journey of recovery.
Marc:You nailed the facts while showing that every tragic situation has a pure diamond of comedy within it.
Marc:Your show helped us laugh at ourselves and more than anything else, we needed that.
Marc:Thanks, Mark.
Marc:Best, Rob.
Marc:That, to me,
Marc:is what the show is for.
Marc:You know, it's like in the world we live in now, I never ever in my life had any aspiration or illusions that I would be for everybody.
Marc:And I don't give a fuck that I'm not.
Marc:But I'll tell you, you know, whatever I am and whatever I fought to be in any medium I'm in, if it resonates with you, I am glad to connect and I appreciate the feedback and I'm happy to help out.
Marc:So look, people, this is this is a pretty big deal.
Marc:This this interview with Terry Reed, because, you know, I'm not a complete nostalgia freak, but I like people that live the life.
Marc:I like people that remember the life they lived.
Marc:And I like people that that lived a life in proximity to my heroes or to the people that I always revered.
Marc:And music is music.
Marc:And this guy goes all the way back, and it's a pretty stunning interview.
Marc:As I said before, his new album from Light in the Attic, The Other Side of the River is available Friday, May 20th.
Marc:It's remastered, and it has six never-before-heard tracks from this period where he did the river.
Marc:There's alternate versions of the song On River.
Marc:Go check it out wherever you get music.
Marc:So now let me bring you my conversation with Terry Reid.
Marc:¶¶
you
Marc:There's a type of singing, like, because I was listening to the, well, the new record that's coming out on Light in the Attic.
Guest:Other Side of the River.
Marc:Other Side of the River, which is outtakes from the River Sessions.
Marc:Yeah.
Marc:Right.
Marc:Right.
Marc:And, like, the River, like, I picked up the other day, because I have your first two albums.
Marc:I have Bang Bang, and I have this self-titled record.
Marc:But.
Marc:Someone turned me on to you.
Marc:I think my girlfriend gave me Bang Bang, and then another kid's like, you gotta know Terry Reid.
Guest:Right.
Marc:So I started listening to this stuff.
Marc:I'm like, holy shit, because there's only like four of you guys that do that stuff, and you all sort of came out around the same time, like Cocker, right?
Guest:Well, yeah, yeah.
Guest:Like just this British soul singer.
Guest:Big compliment.
Guest:What are you kidding, man?
Guest:It's great.
Guest:Everybody was a soul singer in England.
Guest:Is that the way it was?
Guest:Nobody went to see...
Guest:All the white groups only went to see black groups.
Guest:Put it that way.
Guest:Right.
Guest:For lack of a better description.
Guest:Whether they'd be blues or R&B.
Guest:Yeah, more R&B.
Guest:Yeah?
Guest:Oh, yeah.
Guest:No, the Four Tops.
Guest:Where'd you grow up?
Guest:Out in the countryside in Cambridgeshire.
Guest:So you would go into London to see bands?
Guest:Oh, yeah.
Guest:We'd go anywhere to see.
Guest:You know, Hammersmith Odeon was where the Four Tops and the Temptations, they always would play there.
Marc:And how old were you when you were seeing that stuff?
Guest:Oh, like 13.
Guest:Really?
Guest:Yeah, 14, you know.
Guest:And that's what just put it in your head?
Guest:Oh, well, we got the records.
Guest:Right.
Guest:So that was it.
Guest:We were devout.
Guest:That was it.
Guest:That's the only way that we heard anything.
Guest:Right.
Guest:You know, you could get Mary had a little lamb and we'd turn it into an Otis Redding tool.
Yeah.
Marc:But it's interesting because some dudes, it seems like, you know, if I talk to, you know, if you look at, like, I guess he's probably a little older than you, but maybe not.
Marc:But there was a whole other contingent that was doing blues, like the straight up.
Marc:I talked to John Mayall, you know.
Guest:Yeah, right.
Guest:I had Mayall in here.
Guest:Very good friend of mine.
Guest:He's a good guy, right?
Guest:Oh, he's a lovely, he's a fantastic guy.
Guest:See, we all came up in that.
Guest:I just, you're born when you're born, and then when you get a little older, if you're into playing music, it's the time whenever you just fall into that whole thing.
Guest:Sure.
Guest:You look around.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:Or you look around the paper, you look at whatever in the music rags, and you see who's doing what.
Guest:Well, with me, it was a bit funny because, and some of my mates too, like Robert Palmer and a lot of people.
Marc:Palmer, yeah, another great soul singer.
Guest:Yeah, oh, he's lovely.
Guest:He was a lovely guy, you know.
Guest:I mean, fantastic songwriter.
Guest:Mm-hmm.
Guest:But we were all developed R&B guys.
Guest:And you'd look around when we were all at school, and none of us had a clue that we'd end up in the middle of all this.
Guest:But just by when it was, that early 60s thing, we suddenly looked around, and we were suddenly playing, and we were on the road and doing this, and things started happening.
Marc:Who was your first band?
Marc:What was the lineup?
Marc:What was the first band you were in?
Marc:How old were you?
Guest:First band, I was like, what, 14, 15?
Guest:Playing guitar and singing?
Guest:Playing guitar and singing.
Marc:So you're always a guitar player?
Guest:Yeah.
Marc:Yeah.
Guest:Yeah, I always play guitar.
Guest:Yeah, yeah.
Guest:Not that well at the time, but, you know.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:You've got to learn somewhere.
Guest:Sure, sure.
Guest:But the funny thing was, it was like 13 and 14, and we had a local group out in the country, so I called the Red Beats.
Guest:The Red Beats?
Guest:Yeah, oh, yeah.
Guest:You know, we all got one.
Marc:Did you dress up the same way?
Marc:Yeah.
Guest:You had matching outfits?
Guest:Well, a little red, a little sparkle, you know, a little glitter.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:Yeah, yeah.
Guest:Not too much.
Guest:Yeah, yeah.
Guest:We hadn't got the platforms ready.
Guest:Yeah, right.
Guest:They were coming.
Guest:Well, it went that way for some, you know.
Guest:But I was never clear.
Guest:It's not exactly right.
Guest:So we all get into it.
Guest:And then I joined a band in London called Peter J and the Jaywalkers.
Guest:that we'd be supporting all these different groups around.
Marc:Like, who was around them?
Marc:Because I talked to, who did I talk to?
Marc:Well, I talked to Lemmy, and I talked to Richard Thompson, and, you know.
Guest:Oh, Lemmy's a big Beatle fan.
Marc:Huge Beatle fan.
Marc:Hugest Beatle fan in the world.
Marc:Yeah, and he'd go see everybody, you know.
Marc:And I'm a huge, like, I'm sort of borderline obsessed with Peter Green.
Marc:Oh, yeah, yeah.
Marc:Anyone who's going to talk about Peter Green, I'll listen.
Marc:But it always amazes me that London, it's one city, and all this shit was happening.
Guest:Yeah, but you see, not everybody came from London.
Guest:But they were there, right?
Guest:Well, all roads led to London.
Guest:Even with the Beatles, they were just dying to get out of Liverpool anyway, which is, when you go, I mean, it has a sort of a...
Guest:nostalgic thing for me sure but did you see the beatles no i never saw the beatles well you guys were almost contemporaries right not quite about no they were the ones that set the stage for what we all love to do there's a bunch of guys from where liverpool right and they wrote these songs are you joking this is some good stuff here what's going on
Guest:They're from Liverpool.
Guest:Now they're in London now when they're making all these records.
Guest:And they're just fantastic.
Guest:Right.
Guest:And everybody wanted to be in a group then.
Guest:Yeah, right.
Guest:And write their own material thing.
Guest:Whether they could or not, that's not the point.
Marc:So you were writing material early on, right at the beginning?
Guest:Yeah, well, I think the first thing, I was just trying to scratch me head one day what was the first thing I wrote.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:Which, that writing thing, I'm not quite sure what that means.
Guest:Right, right.
Guest:How do you write a song?
Guest:It comes out of thin air or something.
Guest:Right, yeah, yeah.
Guest:And being musical at that from an early age, I was like a sponge with tunes anyway.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:So something comes up, and you put this together with that, and voila, you end up with a story with it, and it's a song.
Guest:Right.
Guest:I don't think you really write it.
Guest:Right.
Guest:All that sitting down diligently, and I mean, I've done that with songs.
Marc:But sometimes it just comes to you.
Guest:You got your notebook, and you write a phrase.
Guest:Yeah, I got a tune, and I put words to it.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:Yeah, and that's the way it goes.
Guest:And there's one song Without Expression that I did on that early album that you were talking about.
Marc:On Bang Bang or the other one?
Guest:I think it's, yeah, I think it's on Bang Bang.
Guest:Yeah, which song?
Guest:It's called Without Expression.
Guest:Yeah, yeah.
Guest:That was probably the first thing that I got, penned a paper, and did something, man.
Guest:Yeah, yeah.
Guest:And that's gone around all over the place, right?
Guest:Sure, man.
Guest:Those are big records.
Guest:That Bang Bang was a big record, wasn't it?
Guest:Well, it wasn't just that.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:It's a good friend of mine, Graham Nash, he did it with the Hollies.
Guest:Mm-hmm.
Guest:which I never knew about for years.
Guest:And then he did it with Crosby, Stills and Nash, right?
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:Right.
Guest:And then John Mellencamp did it, right?
Guest:Nice.
Guest:And then there's all these people did it.
Guest:And I thought, well, what about the rest?
LAUGHTER
Guest:Do a few more, right?
Guest:No.
Guest:I mean, to me, Crosby, Stills, and Nash doing one.
Guest:I mean, you've only got, like, what, four or five great writers in the band who have got 50 songs each.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:It's flattering, right?
Guest:It just baffled me.
Marc:Well, yeah, it's interesting.
Marc:Like, even listening to the first records, they're sort of, like, very lyrical stuff, and they do... But they all seem to have their own tone, and I couldn't quite place it.
Marc:It's pretty uniquely yours.
Marc:I mean, I guess...
Marc:Early on, there was a sort of the way kind of like maybe Van Morrison wrote stuff where things just kept moving and you just kept singing over it.
Guest:Although Van, I must admit, at a very, very early stage.
Guest:I remember when he was with a group called Them.
Guest:Them, yeah.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:I remember back then.
Guest:See, we all grew up in this thing.
Marc:So you would see them.
Marc:Yeah.
Guest:They'd be around.
Guest:The Hollies would be around.
Guest:Right.
Guest:Yep.
Guest:And we'd be like the backing group, backing all these groups, the Animals.
Marc:You would play or you were the opening band?
Guest:We'd play the opening band.
Guest:You were the opening band.
Guest:Yeah.
Marc:With the Jay, what was the name of your band then?
Marc:Peter Jay and the Jay Wolves.
Marc:Yeah.
Guest:It was the best education you ever had because not only not what to do,
Guest:But to figure out, well, what is it that they're doing to get it so right?
Guest:The whole is puzzled me to hell.
Guest:Graeme caught me one day.
Guest:I was, after the gig, I'm behind the curtain behind their amps.
Guest:And I'm looking around, you know, behind the amps.
Guest:He says, what are you doing?
Guest:I says, well, Graeme,
Guest:You can't sound that good.
Guest:You've got some other stuff behind there I don't know about.
Guest:He's going, that's the... There's some magic somewhere.
Guest:He said, that's what?
Guest:Yeah, yeah, yeah.
Guest:He said, that's flowering.
Guest:And do you know what?
Guest:He didn't have anything.
Marc:Nothing.
Guest:Nothing.
Guest:Just straight amps.
Marc:Yeah.
Marc:Who the hell knows what the... That's depressing.
Marc:But who knows what the magic is, right?
Marc:Yeah, it was them.
Marc:I mean, they were unbelievably good live.
Marc:What were you about to say about Van at that point?
Guest:Well, Van always had a very, very distinctive style, singing-wise.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:If you listen to things... Even listen to Gloria.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:Which was them.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:And you listen to things he sings now.
Guest:It's... I won't... Don't get me wrong.
Guest:It's exactly the same.
Guest:His phrasing... Yeah.
Guest:Is definitive.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:Right, right, right.
Guest:And you can't put your finger on...
Guest:Where did he get it from?
Guest:All that thing.
Guest:No, it's a total blend of everything he likes, which is what I always say.
Guest:He's never one favorite singer.
Marc:Yeah.
Guest:And were you guys friends?
Guest:We know each other real well.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:Van's a character to behold, I'll tell you.
Guest:Always?
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:Well, he don't take prisoners, put it that way.
Guest:Was he always like that?
Guest:He's always been that way.
Guest:He's very short, short with words and things with people.
Guest:But we know each other real well.
Marc:But that's interesting about vocalists is that it's really on you guys to... It's all going to be in the phrasing.
Marc:It's all going to be the interpretation and the honesty of your own voice.
Marc:So you're going to find it or you're not, right?
Guest:It's what fits your... It's like I always say as well.
Guest:When people go into studio, they say, Oh, that's a nice mic.
Guest:I'll use that.
Guest:Over here, as you discover, that there's the right mic for a certain singer.
Guest:Oh, yeah?
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:I mean, what is right for one singer will not necessarily work on another singer.
Guest:Right.
Guest:There's always one.
Guest:What's your mic?
Guest:Well, there's two.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:There's a couple of, well, there's a couple of different Neumanns that are great if you're singing softer, right?
Guest:Mm-hmm.
Guest:And if you're slamming it and you really like this thing with... Belting it out.
Guest:Belting it out.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:You've got to be careful.
Guest:A ribbon mic is usually the best.
Guest:Now, my favorite mic on that kind of thing, it's a BX44.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:The big RCA mic.
Guest:Oh, yeah?
Guest:Oh, it's the best because it's warmer and the ribbon moves.
Guest:Oh, so you can belt it out and it won't blow it up?
Guest:When you belt at it, it doesn't smack you in the face.
Guest:Oh, yeah, yeah, yeah.
Guest:Like that digestive ad on TV, you know, when a hamburger beats you up, right?
Yeah.
Marc:so it's it you have to be you have to really learn over years of what's the right mic because you know right away when it isn't when you listen back but when you were coming up like when you're because your guitar playing is pretty uh pretty unique as well you know like especially you know the the those first few records that i have like it's really kind of honest and you know it's got a little bit of distortion to it and
Guest:A bit funky then, and then it turned into something else.
Guest:It turned into a rhythm thing.
Guest:When I got to River, and then when it got to Seed of Memory, like Ron albums, there's a lot of things.
Guest:There's one particular man that I didn't want it to influence me that much.
Guest:Who?
Guest:Was Richie Havens.
Guest:Oh, really?
Guest:I got to know him real well, and he was so gentle and so nice.
Guest:And he's one of them guys that will sit down with you and show you things.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:He played open tuning, right?
Guest:Oh, my God.
Guest:I did.
Guest:He got all sorts of raga tunings and stuff.
Marc:Yeah, yeah.
Marc:Because, like, you would see he'd be going, and you're like, he's only using one finger on the fretboard.
Marc:I know.
Marc:What's going on with that?
Guest:And his thumb.
Guest:Right, and his thumb coming over the top.
Guest:He showed me how you can turn this chord into that chord.
Guest:Backwards and forwards and things.
Guest:And I went, what's that all about?
Guest:And drop D and then into different open tunings and then one with two octaves and all these different things.
Guest:And then for a while I thought, that's nonsense.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:I can't do that.
Guest:It's too much.
Guest:And then as a couple of years went by, for some reason, I didn't forget it.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:You know when you like something, you remember it?
Guest:Sure, sure.
Guest:And you integrated it?
Guest:And it got in there in my whole thing, in my head.
Guest:And that ruined me.
Guest:Oh, really?
Guest:That was it.
Guest:There was all sorts of tune-ins there that you work from.
Marc:And that opened you up.
Guest:Yep, open me right up.
Guest:Because you're writing a song, or like I say, whatever, you're working on something, and you think, oh, it doesn't work in this key, or it doesn't work in this tuning, or it doesn't work.
Guest:And you move around, so I have a row of guitars in different tunings, and then as I'm trying to figure out where to put it, I'll go from guitars and then I'll go, ah, now it's a lot easier in that one.
Marc:yeah yeah yeah just the same and play so that's a whole over the years and that is something you sort of develop it's a strange way of going about things but well it's interesting because you know when i talked to keith he just used that one open tuning he uses that what is it an open g yeah open g with with the bottom off yeah yeah right and like there's part of you that thinks like well you will you lost a string and but and what how is that better but it's because there's a tone that's available that you're not going to get with a straight tuning you
Guest:Well, it's not just that.
Guest:It's looking at it like a banjo or a uke.
Marc:Yeah.
Guest:You know, it's like a lot of people that are good on ukulele, a four-string, can get all sorts of inversion of chords out of them.
Guest:Yeah, yeah.
Guest:From, you know... All different positions.
Guest:From Hokey Carmichael days.
Guest:Sure, sure, sure.
Guest:I mean, there's some amazing things when it was the norm.
Guest:Right, right, right.
Guest:And then the G tuning, which is sort of like an upside-down banjo tuning, really, with the high string, right?
Guest:Right.
Guest:So...
Guest:Yeah, he can pull it up on it.
Guest:So he just plays backwards.
Guest:Yeah, yeah, he pulls up on it.
Guest:He does do that.
Guest:I learned a lot from him watching him, you know.
Guest:I mean, I toured with him like twice.
Marc:Really?
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:What years?
Guest:Well, God, well, like we were saying, that group I was in, and suddenly you find yourself in the middle.
Guest:Well, suddenly I get...
Guest:We were playing a club in London with Peter Jay and that.
Guest:And I didn't know that Mick and Keith were there.
Guest:But anyway, they're looking for somebody to open up for their tour in 1965.
Marc:Oh, early.
Guest:And you weren't kidding.
Guest:So we got elected.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:I got elected on that.
Guest:And then I end up, I'm on the tour.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:A few days later.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:And so from being on this side and loving it all so much and everything, suddenly I'm right in the middle of it.
Guest:Right.
Guest:But...
Guest:It wasn't as musical as that people think.
Guest:You couldn't hear a bloody thing, right?
Guest:Oh, really?
Guest:It was screaming, you know.
Marc:Oh, because of all the girls.
Guest:It was like the Beatles to it.
Guest:Right, right.
Guest:Oh, it was pandemonium out there.
Guest:Oh, wow.
Guest:Police and cops.
Marc:But when you go on, how'd the girls, were they like, who was it?
Guest:Well, they'd scream at anything.
Guest:Ha!
Guest:Anything that moved on the other side is screamable.
Guest:Well, it was all opening up then.
Guest:It was all new.
Guest:This is the beginning.
Guest:It was.
Guest:I'm not sure.
Guest:I mean, of course, when the Stones come on, it was pandemonium.
Marc:But if you're talking like 65, you've got to figure rock and roll really came about in the late 50s.
Marc:So it's only a few years old.
Marc:And this is a whole new British version of it.
Guest:So they're the first.
Guest:And Elvis never came to England.
Guest:Right.
Guest:He never played in Colonel Parker.
Guest:I never could figure out what that was all about.
Marc:I wonder what that's about.
Guest:So anyway, what was happening in England, you had a whole series of people.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:Is he coming?
Guest:No, he ain't going to come.
Guest:Right, right, right.
Guest:You ain't going to get Elvis.
Marc:Oh, Elvis, right, right.
Guest:So you had a whole bunch of really good, actual good singers, like Billy Fury and Marty Wilde and all.
Guest:And then Cliff Richard, who was.
Guest:Cliff Richard.
Guest:Well, he's a tame version of Elvis.
Guest:Elvis is on fire.
Guest:yeah yeah yeah watch Elvis now and you go holy shit still yeah he still puts my hair and just a singer too that's what's amazing you know like I think what it is Elvis is just you could you can see right through that he's just a real nice guy yeah I think so yeah I think everybody you'll never hear anybody say a bad word almost fragile in a way somehow yeah very fragile yeah that's what got him
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:I think that's what gets everybody.
Guest:That's what gets you.
Guest:You can't be too nice in this business, you know.
Guest:That's why Keith is still alive.
Guest:It's not going to get here.
Guest:Oh, no, no, no, no, no.
Guest:That ain't fragile, no.
Guest:We can spell it different.
Guest:It might come out, you know.
Marc:So you were opening.
Marc:You opened for them.
Marc:You opened for the Stones.
Marc:You opened for the Hollies.
Marc:Yeah.
Marc:And when did you go out on your own?
Marc:And make your own band and do those... Well, a bit later.
Guest:That was 65, 66.
Marc:So you learned from Richie Havens, but did you sit down with Keith?
Marc:Did you ever sit down with other guys and trade tricks?
Guest:No, not really.
Guest:Just messing around in a dressing room, but there's never really much time.
Guest:Nothing.
Guest:Richie Havens I did, I spent hours with him because he would sit for hours showing me things, and I thought...
Guest:I mean, you've got something better to do.
Marc:What year was this like, around the late 60s?
Guest:Yeah, this was early 60s.
Guest:Early 60s.
Guest:Yeah, this was 60s.
Guest:Wow.
Guest:66, I would say.
Marc:No kidding.
Marc:And he was in England.
Guest:Yeah, but I remember it implicitly.
Guest:Yeah, yeah.
Guest:And I called him because I was a real big fan of his and everything.
Guest:He said, come on over.
Guest:I went, ooh, now what am I going to do?
Guest:Ha, ha, ha.
Marc:So that must have, like, because in your brain, because like I said, there's something interesting about the records, your records, in that, you know, it doesn't matter if there's a chord progression, and some of the chord progressions are a little odd and a little minory, right?
Marc:Yeah.
Marc:And like, but Richie could play one chord all the way through.
Guest:Yeah, but he also could play many different things.
Guest:Yeah, yeah.
Guest:He just, there was him and one of his best friends is a guy, I'm not sure if he's around.
Guest:I mean, I would love to think he was, called Sean Phillips.
Guest:And Sean Phillips, they all came out of this whole thing of, this whole eclectic sort of musical music.
Marc:It was like world music, before world music.
Marc:Yeah, before world music.
Guest:Right, right, right.
Guest:You got it.
Guest:I was trying to say that.
Guest:Yeah, yeah.
Guest:So they all,
Guest:were on a plane on their own.
Guest:Right, right.
Guest:Yeah, yeah, yeah.
Guest:And they were drawing from all this intellectual world music, as you say.
Guest:How did you find that stuff?
Guest:Well, I listened to what they were listening to, going...
Guest:I've been on the wrong track here.
Guest:What's going on?
Guest:Really?
Guest:Like what?
Guest:So like the Bulgarian State Chorus.
Guest:Oh, really?
Marc:So you moved from R&B.
Marc:You're like, there's this other thing.
Guest:No, I got more R&B.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:Right?
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:Because you couldn't get the records easily in England.
Guest:Right.
Guest:So once I started meeting people that had been to America bringing things back, you know, I mean, then I went and I could get the things I wanted.
Guest:Right.
Guest:The other side of me was like the choirs of Bulgaria and Romania and Russia and things like that, which are all quarter tone, eighth tone, sixteenth tone.
Guest:It's very eclectic music, right?
Guest:And the thing is of listening to that, you have to really...
Guest:get an ear for it you have to immerse yourself into it you can't usually the cat will leave the room right yeah but if you if you listen to it over a period of time and start to understand some of these things you develop an ear for it right where is it it's very pleasing yeah yeah it becomes pleasure and then you you take it on in some sense
Guest:Yeah, sure.
Guest:I think that makes sense.
Guest:No, of course it makes sense.
Guest:It gets integrated into your sensibility.
Guest:Then you realize when you start getting a little more educated about jazz and different things and people like Coltrane and Miles Davis to mention only two or Ornette Coleman, that's right.
Guest:You listen to what... You see how all that...
Guest:That's where they're coming from.
Marc:Right.
Marc:They're coming from... Something primal almost.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:All they, and Duke Ellington would say in interviews, he would say, they'd say, well, you're the man of American music.
Guest:Where's your influences?
Guest:He said, well, I...
Guest:I just listen to folk music.
Guest:Yeah, right.
Guest:End of script.
Guest:Go figure that one out, right?
Marc:Yeah, because that is the template.
Guest:That's the template.
Guest:For all of it.
Guest:It's the template for all of it.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:So it's lovely if you can open your mind up and get an ear for things that are not necessarily the norm.
Guest:But you'll find most of all the people
Guest:even Keith or any of the guys in this whole rock and roll thing, when you get down to the bottom of what some of their influences are, they're astonishingly different than what you thought they might be.
Guest:That's true.
Guest:They don't just sit around and listen to blues records every day.
Guest:It's not like that.
Marc:No.
Marc:But so, like, because I noticed, like, on some, I don't remember which album it was.
Marc:I think it might be The River.
Marc:There's a couple songs where the chord progressions are, like, they're really interesting and unusual.
Marc:I can't remember which song I'm talking about, but it must have something to do with all that stuff going around your head.
Guest:Well, there's one at the end called Milestones, which is based upon, like, Gregorian chants and that whole thing I was just telling you, the Bulgarian song.
Guest:Not that I'm that good at it.
Guest:No, but you make it your own.
Guest:Humbly I say, you know.
Marc:And when you were doing all this work, were you more concentrating on the singing or on the playing?
Guest:Was it like, you know.
Guest:I don't like that concentrating thing, you know.
Guest:Yeah, sure.
Guest:If it comes naturally.
Marc:But do you sit and sing without a guitar?
Marc:Yeah, I could.
Marc:Sure.
Guest:You know.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:A lot of people are guitar players, singers, you know.
Guest:You take the guitar away and they stand like that, you know.
Ha, ha, ha.
Guest:It sort of looks a little odd, right?
Guest:They never sort of, I don't know, never really bothered me.
Guest:I just get silly at that point.
Guest:Right.
Guest:And start making silly moves and waving me hands around.
Guest:Yeah, yeah, yeah.
Guest:And then they say, give him a guitar again.
Marc:Yeah.
Marc:So, all right.
Marc:So you're taking all this shit in with Richie and you're opening the band.
Marc:So when do you make the transition?
Guest:Okay.
Guest:So what happens?
Guest:We do...
Guest:At that time, we did that Stones tour, which I thought we were... 65, 66.
Guest:Yeah, I had my birthday on the tour.
Guest:Oh, really?
Guest:That was hysterical.
Guest:Yeah, what happened?
Guest:Well, I don't know.
Guest:I don't remember much of it, to be honest with you.
Guest:It was all just like... It just all went by.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:But anyway, so we did that.
Guest:Then we started doing multiple gigs on the back of that.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:And then we toured... Opening gigs.
Guest:Yeah, we toured with like Jethro Tull.
Guest:We toured with...
Guest:The Beach Boys.
Guest:Really?
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:And the Small Faces, right?
Guest:Well, yeah.
Guest:That was great.
Guest:Because Steve Marriott became a great friend.
Marc:Right, right.
Marc:Well, there's that sort of line of that British soul singer.
Marc:I mean, you and Marriott.
Guest:Oh, we met each other, right?
Guest:And he says, oh, Terry, we're going to have a good time on this tour.
Marc:Did you go up and sing with him?
Marc:Did you guys sing again?
Guest:No, no.
Marc:Not when they were playing.
Guest:Right.
Marc:Yeah, but just having a good time?
Guest:Oh, we had a lot.
Oh.
Marc:Hell of a singer, right?
Guest:Oh, unbelievable.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:But the funniest guy, them guys were just like a bunch of, you know, I couldn't figure out where they got the name Small Faces until they walked in the first night.
Guest:And not one of them's over 5'4".
Guest:This is like the Yellow Brick Road all over again.
Guest:What the hell's going on?
Marc:Now, did you open for Fleetwood Mac?
No.
Guest:Yeah, we did a couple of gigs, but Fleetwood Mac's gone through many transitions.
Marc:No, but like the first one, you were with Peter.
Marc:Yeah, with Peter.
Marc:Now, what was he like, dude?
Guest:He was very quiet, and he was very to himself, you know?
Guest:Yeah.
Marc:He was a great guitar player.
Marc:Oh, my God.
Marc:What a real heartbreaker.
Guest:Yeah, I know.
Guest:I know.
Guest:He was great, you know?
Guest:Yeah.
Marc:And John and Mick were fun, I bet.
Guest:Oh, God, well, you know, Mick Fleetwood.
Yeah.
Guest:Oh, yeah.
Guest:Just a type of lunatic.
Guest:He comes from the lunatic friends.
Guest:Yeah, yeah, yeah.
Guest:And you opened for Cream as well?
Guest:Well, that came next, you see.
Guest:What happened was there was an old thing going on.
Guest:We'd been touring and touring and touring.
Guest:How would you say?
Guest:We're on the chart.
Guest:Did you get some hits?
Guest:No, we never did.
Guest:Most of my records weren't released.
Guest:They escaped.
Guest:Oh, yeah.
Guest:I'm not really sure what that's about.
Guest:Yeah, yeah.
Guest:That's why we're finding them now.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:Now, what happened was...
Guest:Eric heard about us going around.
Guest:I knew Eric from John Mayle and all that.
Guest:I knew Ginger Baker as well.
Marc:What was he like?
Marc:Oh, Ginger.
Guest:Barrel of monkeys, I tell you.
Guest:But you see, some people are where they are.
Guest:You take them as they are.
Guest:Sure, of course.
Guest:You got them.
Guest:You know, were you going to change Ginger?
Guest:I wouldn't even try.
Guest:It could get dangerous.
Guest:We had mutual friends and that.
Guest:Right, right.
Guest:I had another band together by this time, which was just three-piece, a Hammond organ with bass in it, and me on guitar, singing, and drums.
Marc:No bass player?
Marc:Just an organ?
Guest:No, it was keyboard bass, and we wired the lower level of the Hammond into the bass player.
Guest:Like the Doors?
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:Well, sort of.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:Not that different.
Guest:Right.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:So we end up playing with the doors a lot.
Guest:You did?
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:And anyway, but not to get off.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:The next thing is Eric heard about this and they were going to come over and do their, by this time, Cream worked its way out.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:I mean, they were all done.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:They've had enough.
Guest:We don't talk to each other now.
Guest:That's it.
Guest:And Eric's hanging out with George Harrison most of the time anyway.
Guest:So he went off and did, you know, Eric did Delaney and Bonnie and he did a bunch of tees and Dave Mason and George in there.
Guest:It's all over the place, right?
Yeah.
Guest:And Cream sort of was going to, they were going to do one more tour.
Guest:Blind Faith, too.
Guest:Was that Blind Faith?
Guest:Yeah, Blind Faith.
Guest:That didn't work.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:No.
Guest:So they went off and they did one more tour in the States here, right?
Guest:Mm-hmm.
Guest:And so Eric called and said, do you want to do the tour?
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:I said, well, who else is on it?
Guest:You know, because usually at that time, like with the Stones and things, you'd have like four or five acts on.
Guest:Sure.
Guest:Right?
Guest:yeah and uh he said oh nobody i said what do you mean nobody he said well just the three of us and the three of you and i went well that's six yeah yeah okay i didn't mean i'm in emily bands you know there's only six people yeah and they're doing stadiums right we did madison square gardens right i'm saying are you sure about this you know and he goes absolutely terry yeah come on let's go yeah
Guest:Next thing I know, we're on that tour.
Marc:Wow.
Marc:Just you and Cream.
Marc:Just us and Cream.
Marc:And it's Terry Reid.
Marc:That's the name of the band?
Guest:Just under Terry Reid.
Guest:Oh, my God.
Guest:It was, Jesus Christ.
Guest:And I'd heard about this Madison Square Garden.
Guest:I'd seen some good fights there on TV.
Guest:Sure.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:Muhammad Ali and all that.
Guest:Yeah, yeah.
Guest:So we end up getting there.
Guest:and go to the sound check of things.
Guest:And I go, nearly fall over backwards looking up at the scene.
Guest:It's just phenomenal.
Guest:The biggest room you ever played at that time.
Guest:And I go, oh, Jesus Christ, this is unbelievable.
Guest:Then when we walked onto the stage, they don't do that anymore, but the stage was where they had the boxing ring in the middle of the place.
Guest:Right.
Guest:and i walked on there and you get this very funny feeling that you're standing not in the shoes yeah you're standing right in the spot yeah you know yeah we're the greatest yeah yeah well all these people you get a real tingle about yeah yeah i said eric said
Guest:Was he over here or over there when he hit Sonny Liston?
Guest:He was over there.
Guest:He said, boy, do you feel that one?
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:It's just.
Guest:Love the fights.
Guest:It's very easy.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:You know, I mean, they were real fights.
Marc:And they weren't known for a music venue as much.
Marc:No.
Marc:Yeah.
Marc:No, not at all.
Guest:So it was all fights.
Guest:That's funny.
Guest:It was all fights.
Marc:You were in awe of the fact that Sonny Liston and Ali had it out there.
Guest:You could almost get a picture and double image it, right?
Guest:As long as you didn't get hit.
Guest:Right, right, right.
Guest:So how was those gigs?
Guest:Fantastic.
Guest:It was unbelievable.
Guest:Sold out?
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:I mean, you have to be tough.
Guest:You can't be sort of a nice guy with them sort of gigs, because people are all going, cream, cream, cream, cream.
Guest:Oh, yeah.
Guest:So it came halfway through one song or something.
Marc:So you were fighting.
Guest:Actually, you got a good point there.
Guest:I got halfway through and said, now, look, stop the band.
Guest:Hang on a minute.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:They're not even in the building.
Guest:I said, they're never here early.
Guest:I said, they won't be here for another hour yet.
Guest:So shut up and let me play.
Guest:I said, so it's up to you.
Guest:I said, now, there's two things we can do.
Guest:I can either just... Yeah, you can say that.
Guest:I can either split and not play, if that's bugging you too much.
Guest:And you can get a bit of peace in choir.
Guest:Or...
Guest:I don't know what.
Guest:I said, the only problem is with that that I have is if I do that and leave, they won't pay me.
Guest:Right.
Guest:I said, so.
Guest:Help me out here.
Guest:So, come on.
Guest:Help me out here.
Guest:And it's New York City.
Guest:Right.
Guest:So, of course, everybody.
Guest:Cherry.
Guest:Oh, really?
Guest:So, suddenly I get a stand in the face.
Guest:Oh, that's great.
Guest:But that's New York.
Guest:If you just stick up for yourself.
Marc:Look at that.
Marc:You took a couple of jabs in Madison Square Garden.
Guest:Hey, come on.
Guest:You got it.
Guest:Hey.
Marc:And they listened.
Guest:Well, 40,000 people or so.
Guest:I forget how many it was.
Guest:Too many to count.
Marc:And you got to play what?
Marc:What did you do, like 45 minutes?
Guest:Yeah, we did 45 minutes.
Guest:It was tough, you know.
Guest:And then after that, working with Cream, we did a bunch of different gigs around the West Coast and did the Forum.
Guest:And we did...
Guest:uh florida and you know the line or something we did it philadelphia spectrum we did as well anyway we did a bunch of them then all the festivals that were going on how was eric though was he good guy eric yeah nobody's going to work yeah good guy it's like nothing's going on yeah i'm going
Guest:How can you be so calm about all this?
Guest:It's pandemonium going on.
Marc:It might have been drugs at that time.
Guest:Yeah, yeah, well.
Guest:It's a little relaxed.
Guest:It don't help all of it.
Guest:Yeah, yeah.
Guest:It can make you twitchy too.
Marc:Yeah, yeah, sure.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:But he was laid back, huh?
Guest:Yeah, Eric's just, they're all, you see, the thing is, I mean, I'm very, how would you say, humble, to get to work early on, you know, as a kid, working with some of these finite,
Guest:Yeah, yeah, sure.
Marc:Professionals.
Marc:Did you remain friends with him?
Guest:At this rock and roll game.
Guest:Yeah, sure.
Guest:It's not like a business job.
Guest:Right.
Guest:Oh, yeah, yeah.
Guest:It's a whole other job.
Guest:And I'm very lucky to have followed peers like Keith and them.
Marc:But it's interesting, though, when you talk about those guys who are singular, like when you work with them and as a guy who plays as well and obviously as a fan and a peer, I mean, when you watch Eric or you watch Keith at these different times, did you feel the presence of how special they were, even though you knew them?
Marc:Hell yeah.
Guest:Yeah, let me answer that.
Guest:Yeah, it's...
Guest:They wouldn't have got where they got to when I first read about them, or we first read about them, you know, and all that.
Guest:You think, well, I don't know.
Guest:How good can they be, right?
Guest:I don't know how good they can be.
Guest:I like that one.
Guest:I didn't like that song, or whatever.
Guest:Yeah, right, right.
Guest:You start being opinionated.
Guest:Right.
Guest:But when you see them, you see the magic happen.
Guest:Right, right.
Guest:The Stones, for instance, that first show was with Brian Jones in the band.
Guest:Sure.
Guest:Which is a totally different band than it is now.
Guest:It was like a rhythm band.
Guest:right right with him yeah yeah right rhythm player yeah and you'd stand in the wings and listen and you go what are they doing how can they do that how can they do that really and hey how can they hear anything yeah keep it all together and be into they would just yeah they just roll and they go on instinct and they would do phenomenal
Guest:right and later on then when mick taylor joined who was also he was with john mail and he was a good friend of mine then uh then when he joined it was a whole other whole different band total different theory those mick taylor records are great records yeah that's all him yeah i mean oh yeah he's phenomenal
Guest:And I love you on Get Your Ya-Yas Out.
Guest:Yeah, yeah.
Guest:Holy shit.
Guest:Here we go.
Guest:Get Your Ya-Yas.
Guest:I went on that tour in 69.
Guest:You did?
Guest:Yeah, I did that one.
Guest:Wow.
Guest:They called me up and said, hey, Terry, we're going out again.
Guest:Do you want to go?
Guest:I'm going, uh-oh.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:40 cities or something, you know.
Marc:And you did all of them?
Marc:All of them.
Guest:Well, yeah, except out of them.
Marc:You skipped that one.
Guest:Altamont?
Guest:Keith says, are you going to Altamont then?
Guest:I said, well, I'm real tired.
Marc:Was it really just that?
Marc:Or did you know there was going to be trouble?
Guest:No, we all got wind.
Guest:Keith says, I don't particularly want to go myself, but I suppose I have to.
Guest:Why?
Marc:Because you heard that the angel?
Guest:Oh, no.
Guest:It was a mess two days before.
Marc:Like what?
Marc:How?
Marc:How?
Guest:Oh, there was guns going off.
Marc:Oh, really?
Marc:Because it was a festival, right?
Guest:Well, it was a festival with non-festive activities.
Guest:The angels were going nuts.
Guest:And I'd always got on really well with the angels.
Guest:We did a lot of festivals.
Guest:The Atlanta Festival.
Guest:God, about five, six.
Guest:So they were involved with security at a lot of places.
Guest:Bill Graham got them involved with security.
Guest:And then paid them with...
Guest:Things they had too much of.
Guest:Which they were running anyway.
Guest:And I don't know what it was, at first it started, I'll tell you how it started, this is true, is we'd fly into San Francisco, and the freight department would take all your equipment.
Guest:Your amp, like that one over there, and that guitar, take everything, and you get to the gig, and half of it's missing.
Guest:And you go, and you start, you know, you're looking at people.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:What did you do with it?
Guest:You were cute.
Guest:And they ain't got it.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:Right?
Guest:You're paying them.
Guest:So this started going on.
Guest:And Bill says, there's a right in a drain pipe here somewhere.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:And he goes, now they'd heard rumors.
Guest:So we investigate the whole thing.
Guest:And there's a big payola thing going at the freight department.
Guest:They got all the numbers on Fenders and Les Paul's.
Guest:Oh, really?
Marc:Yeah.
Guest:And they're selling them off.
Marc:Shit.
Marc:So you lost good shit.
Guest:I didn't.
Guest:I lost a couple of amps.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:Some big groups, you know, with the stacks and the marshals and things.
Guest:It was, you know, this cabinet.
Guest:They didn't take all of it because that's too suspect.
Guest:Right.
Guest:When the truck turns up, you're missing about six, four amps.
Guest:Holy shit.
Guest:And all the bigger groups had a lot of backups.
Guest:Yeah, yeah, yeah.
Guest:And it got wicked.
Guest:So Bill says, I got it.
Guest:You know what we do?
Guest:I'm going to get the angels down here with all the bikes and their trolleys and trucks and pick up the gear from freight and take it up to Mill Valley and put it in their buildings with the bikes.
Guest:Right, to protect the amps.
Marc:They figured that they'd scare the freight carriers.
Guest:Well, they got dogs up there that look like...
Guest:yeah yeah no ears yeah yeah you know one leg you know i mean you're gonna go in there and steal an happier out of your mind right right they got guns god knows what yeah never got one thing sold for the longest time after that it all went chill right so that's why he brought him in it started that's years before when we're doing the film or eastern film or western so by 69 things were getting out of control
Guest:They got totally out of control.
Guest:What it was at that time, the Oakland Angels and that felt a sense of meaning because let's look at it.
Guest:A lot of them guys, God bless them, were in the war and they never got their dudes, they never got treated how they should have been treated.
Guest:They came back with a real proverbial hair you know where.
Guest:They're pissed off with the whole system.
Guest:I've got to be honest with you, I really don't blame them.
Guest:And
Guest:They just got angry against society, which really screwed them.
Guest:So Bill gave them a little self-meaning again, which I thought was a great thing in the beginning.
Guest:But all good things come to an end.
Guest:And it got ugly.
Guest:It just got real bad.
Marc:And Bill Graham in general, you work with him a lot?
Guest:Yeah, hell of a lot.
Guest:I did Fillmore East in New York, oh, probably 15, 20 times.
Guest:No shit.
Guest:And the Winterland and the Fillmore West, I've done 10, 15.
Marc:Was he a solid guy?
Marc:Huh?
Marc:Good guy?
Guest:Yeah, he'll just shout and scream at you and accuse you for something that you might do.
Guest:Yeah, right.
Guest:No, he's just a very angry guy.
Guest:But he doesn't necessarily mean it.
Guest:Five minutes later, he's just fine.
Guest:After we did the tour, I got a call in England.
Guest:I was still in England at my house up there.
Guest:And Mick Jagger called up and said, look, I'll tell you what, we've been going to all our tapes.
Guest:you know, sorting out another 4,000, right?
Guest:And we found all these master 16, you know, 16 track tapes of the Madison Square Gardens gig.
Guest:With you.
Guest:When we did that, of me.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:Do you want them?
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:i said well for really that's great you know i said well he said no well i'll just send them up so he sent them up in the van yeah and i still have them tapes oh really yeah i never mixed them down well get light in the attic to do those too well you know it's only a matter of money i think it's your time man terry it's your time every man got his price yeah
Marc:Well, I tell you, you know, because like, you know, I don't know, like when I hear you and I listen to you and the extensive fucking work that you did on the road with all these guys and all the fucking playing and all the fucking sweat and skill you put into this stuff.
Guest:You can laugh.
Guest:I've been trying not laughing.
Guest:You can swear.
Guest:And I haven't swore much yet.
Guest:You can swear.
Guest:Oh, fuck it.
Marc:Yeah, sure.
Marc:Absolutely.
Marc:Yeah, we're not on radio.
Marc:But when I listened to this, when I got turned on to your stuff, which wasn't that long ago, I was like, holy shit, this guy is like the real guy.
Marc:And now this beautiful record that Light in the Attic is going to put out is a beautiful record, even if it's outtakes, but it got me to the river itself, to the album.
Marc:Yeah, you go.
Marc:And it's a new experience for me because I didn't grow up with your work.
Marc:And a lot of people in this country I know, they're like, who is this guy?
Marc:Yeah.
Marc:Yeah, right.
Marc:And maybe this is it.
Marc:Maybe this is it.
Marc:Ah, you know.
Guest:It all confuses me.
Guest:The point is, I always say, and a lot of my friends that we've talked about say, look, if you hang into the game, if you believe in what you do and you love what you're doing, do it.
Guest:If you don't love it and you don't believe in it, get the hell out of Dodge.
Guest:Sure.
Guest:Don't even go there because...
Guest:You won't stand, you know, it'll drive you nuts, you know.
Guest:I mean, I've still got bullshitters called me up with, boy, have I got a deal for you.
Guest:Really?
Guest:Oh, my God.
Guest:You know how many bullshitters there are in this business?
Guest:In music, yeah.
Guest:And they're very calculated at how they get you thinking that there's something really going on.
Guest:And I said, look, you got any money?
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:And that's just right up.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:I mean, that cuts right to the bone.
Guest:Well, yeah, I got money.
Guest:Where is it?
Guest:It's coming.
Guest:You want to do all this.
Guest:You want to do that.
Guest:I'll tell you what.
Marc:Yeah.
Marc:Give me some money.
Guest:This is what's going to cost you for me to listen to it.
Guest:Right.
Marc:Yeah.
Guest:Good.
Guest:You got to put your foot down somewhere.
Marc:But like when I listen to you, like I hear like, you know, it just, the one thing that came to me is like, I got to think that Paul Rogers must've just listened to you constantly.
Yeah.
Guest:Oh, you ain't gonna like that.
Guest:I know Paul.
Guest:I know Paul real well.
Guest:He was in a band in Newcastle.
Guest:Free?
Guest:No.
Guest:Before?
Guest:Not before that.
Guest:And the funny thing... Are you guys... Is he younger than you, though?
Guest:Yeah, he's younger than me.
Guest:Oh, yeah, yeah.
Guest:He's quite a bit younger than me.
Guest:I mean, he must be about...
Guest:Six, seven years old, you're going to be.
Marc:But it feels to me that you influence.
Guest:Well, yeah, he comes from that Otis Redding thing too, you see.
Guest:Right.
Guest:But he was in a, I forget the name of the group.
Guest:I'm trying to wreck my brain.
Guest:It doesn't matter.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:Anyway, he was playing up there and we did a gig together.
Guest:You did.
Guest:To his band and my band.
Guest:And I said, well, fuck it, man.
Marc:He can sing, right?
Guest:He can sing, right?
Guest:And I happened to be talking to a gentleman who was a very good friend of mine, still is, right, called Chris Blackwell, the manager, right?
Guest:And he's, you know, with Island Records and that, right?
Guest:And I said, I saw this singer up north, you know, fuck me.
Guest:I said, I'll tell you, Chris.
Guest:you can really bail it out.
Guest:He's the real deal.
Guest:And I told him who he was and his band and everything else.
Guest:And then, I don't know, a few months go by and everything and all of a sudden, the radio's on and I'm going,
Guest:you know what, who's that?
Guest:It sounds like, I've heard that before, right?
Guest:Oh, it's a new group called Free.
Guest:Then when I started checking it out, I found out it was Paul, right?
Guest:And I went, yes, that's it.
Guest:Then they played around the clubs in London, then I got to see him and that.
Guest:And I went, fuck with me, there you go.
Guest:It's good to be right about things sometimes.
Guest:You know what I mean?
Guest:You get a real rush out of that thinking that it's right because it tells you that you're not totally wrong yourself.
Marc:Right.
Marc:Well, that's the story that people who like rock know about Zeppelin.
Guest:Yeah, right.
Marc:And when I read about that or when I first heard about it, before I listened to your stuff, I'm like, of course that makes sense.
Marc:And then I'm like, did Robert Plant listen to you first?
Marc:And there's that whole thing.
Marc:But, you know.
Guest:He says he did and everything else.
Guest:Sure.
Guest:Or whether he did before or after.
Guest:It's not really the point.
Guest:The point was is that when I saw him and Bonham in that band of joy and Jimmy was looking for putting a band together.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:I went, that's it.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:To me, it was just like, that's it.
Guest:But why'd you turn it down?
Guest:No, I didn't turn it down.
Guest:All right.
Guest:See, this is a fucking thing that pisses me off.
Guest:I don't know.
Marc:I don't know.
Guest:I think Jimmy had air up his ass one day.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:Way after Zeppelin was famous.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:And all this, you know.
Guest:And I think too many people ask him, why didn't you get Terry Reid in the band?
Guest:Well, that would piss you off, wouldn't it?
Guest:Sure.
Guest:When you've got your famous, your double platinum, and it's still going on about this arsehole Terry Reid, you know.
Guest:I said, fuck Terry Reid.
Guest:I don't fucking hear about him anymore, right?
Guest:You know, he turned it down.
Guest:How about that?
Guest:And of course, everybody loves a train crash or an accident.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:You know?
Guest:Right.
Guest:And they don't like the good story, whereas I got him the band together.
Guest:That's one of them deals, right?
Marc:So that's really the truth.
Marc:The story was you recommended.
Guest:I was going on tour with the Stones.
Marc:Yeah.
Guest:Right, right.
Guest:Right, 69.
Guest:You know what I mean?
Guest:Early 69.
Guest:Yeah, yeah.
Guest:So you think, and I said, well, call Keith.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:Tell him I'm not going.
Yeah.
Guest:and pay me what he's going to pay me.
Guest:I don't have to do that.
Guest:I'll shoot you in the foot.
Marc:But all these guys respected you.
Marc:I mean, that's for sure.
Guest:Look, well, the first tour I did with the Stones, with the Yardbirds running, I'd known Jimmy for years, you know, in 65.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:And I'd known him, like, with the Yardbirds thing as well.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:And in that band was Jeff Beck and Jimmy Page.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:Yeah, it's crazy.
Guest:And they go solo, and they both run forward.
Guest:Yeah.
Yeah.
Guest:That's how it started.
Guest:Yeah, yeah.
Guest:Double solos.
Guest:Yeah, yeah.
Guest:It was horrendous, right?
Guest:Right.
Guest:They were twice as loud as the Stones were.
Guest:They were the only band that you could hear.
Guest:Jeff Beck is like a whole other- Oh, no, he's iconic.
Marc:I have Billy Gibbons in here.
Guest:Oh, yeah.
Guest:Oh, he's great.
Guest:He's great.
Marc:And he said that they opened for Hendrix in Texas.
Guest:Yeah.
Marc:And he said that all Hendrix wanted to do, Hendrix had them deliver a stereo console to the hotel so he could sit in his room and try to figure out what the fuck Jeff Becker did.
Guest:That's Jimmy.
Guest:That's Jimmy.
Guest:Jimmy Hendrix, right?
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:Jimmy's like that.
Guest:Jimmy, I was very good friends with Jimmy.
Guest:Oh, yeah.
Guest:I know it all sounds ridiculous.
Guest:No, of course not.
Guest:like i said to you earlier i was right in the middle of all this yeah and i'd known jimmy for a while just before all bust bust open you know and went took off and he said to me before he came he came to eagland not came before he went to england i keep forgetting where i am yeah so and he says you know what oh he says you know jeff beck right i went yeah i know jeff beck he says you know eric clamor oh yeah oh yeah you know you know i said all guitar players yeah i can't
Guest:wait to meet men i love this style can't wait to play with you i said well look jimmy just slow up a minute i said the way you play i don't think it's going to be that easy right what do you mean i said well when they hear you play i don't think they're going to be too happy
Guest:But do you know what?
Guest:That's what happened.
Guest:The first night he got up, I was there.
Guest:You were there too?
Guest:At the Bag of Nails, right?
Guest:Or the Scottish Bag of Nails in London.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:He just got up with a group called The Gas, Billy Gas, right?
Guest:And he got up and did a wild thing.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:The trucks.
Guest:Yeah, yeah.
Guest:I'm going to do a little song.
Guest:I know it's close to your heart by one of your favorite groups, and we're all going like, right?
Guest:And Chaz Chandler had invited everybody.
Marc:It was like- Chaz Chandler from the animals?
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:Well, he managed him.
Marc:Oh, okay.
Guest:So what happened was he'd invited Paul McCartney, invited Brian Jones and all this.
Marc:Richard Thompson said he was there.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:There you go.
Guest:He invited everybody, right?
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:I used to hang out there with me and Peter Jay.
Guest:We'd go and have a few drinks there.
Guest:So we'd be there most of the time.
Guest:Most of the time we'd go there because it was empty.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:Well, there's one night we walked in, we're going, what the hell is going on?
Guest:Every musician in London was there.
Guest:Yeah, we knew everybody, right?
Marc:Well, Townsend was there probably, I think?
Guest:Yeah, Townsend, oh, everybody, Jeff Begg, Jimmy Page, everybody.
Guest:Really?
Guest:Right.
Guest:So halfway, he did Wild Thing, and he said, this is a lovely film, your favorite group, Wild Thing.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:Everybody went, yeah.
Guest:Wild Thing, you nuts, right?
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:Because everybody in England...
Guest:the trunks are nice guys don't get me wrong it was the the group you love to hate right right right you know everybody does that you know was was was uh was uh jimmy taking the piss or was he doing no he well you heard him do it yeah i mean he took it a whole lot he took it to a plan and what happened were people well brian jones comes running back to me and peter jay at the table because brian jones does yeah right so and he's hysterical brian he's very funny guy yeah so he comes running back he goes oh you can't believe what it's like in the front and i said
Guest:What?
Guest:Why?
Guest:He says, oh, the water.
Guest:It's flooded in the front.
Guest:I said, why?
Guest:What do you mean?
Guest:He says, oh, the guitar player's crying.
Guest:It's terrible.
Guest:I thought he was just, I said, what are you going on about?
Guest:Oh, the guitar player.
Guest:He knew.
Guest:Some of them got, I won't mention who, got up and left.
Guest:No shit.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:It pissed them right off.
Guest:Really?
Guest:Well, they had it all right there in their fingertips, right?
Guest:They were on it.
Guest:And they owned that whole rock, guitar, blues.
Guest:Right.
Guest:Second generation.
Guest:Right.
Guest:Now this brother turns up, right?
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:And just rips up.
Guest:I mean.
Marc:Turns it inside out.
Guest:I still haven't heard anybody do what he does.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:I watch him now on TV.
Guest:I'll tell him, well, come on.
Guest:I'll go, you know, you go through and.
Guest:And they'll be like, I did the Georgia Festival, Atlanta Pop Festival, 360,000 people.
Guest:And that one he had the night and everything, right?
Guest:And I remember that.
Guest:And it was on, and at first you can't remember, well, which gig was that?
Guest:Because we did a lot of them, right?
Guest:With him?
Guest:Yeah, right.
Guest:Oh, I did a lot.
Guest:I did Yale University with him, right?
Guest:Yeah, yeah.
Guest:All sorts of gigs.
Guest:and uh he pulled me in on things and that it'd be great we were good friends right he's something else and i'd be watching it and then i see myself in the wings yeah i go oh i know that gig i remember it now i usually go by what somebody wears you remember what somebody wears well you know what's interesting is that like you know in talking to you about it like one of the things you forget about these guys who are who are long gone and and you know mythic
Marc:figures is that you guys were out there doing the job i mean like gig after gig after gig oh hell yeah oh man it never stopped right it is yeah yeah and it's just like you forget that that like it's not just the records it's not just the idea the guy you guys were out there working
Guest:Oh, hell.
Guest:Well, it's the only, I always say even now, the only peace and quiet I ever get is when we get on stage.
Guest:That's the only peace and quiet.
Guest:That's the only peace I ever get is on stage because it's all the traveling and this and the bullshit and the monitor guy who you want to kill because he hasn't got a clue.
Guest:Well, I went to engineering school.
Guest:It was a waste of time.
Guest:I can't hear myself.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:That was a waste of money.
Guest:You shouldn't have gone there.
Guest:Oh, you're making a record.
Guest:I see.
Guest:And we're doing a live gig.
Guest:Yes.
Guest:Wonderful.
Marc:Wonderful.
Marc:Oh my God.
Marc:And it still goes on.
Marc:I like that idea though, that the only piece you get is when you get on stage because that's your time.
Guest:I swear.
Guest:It is because- It's your space.
Guest:You go, are we ready now?
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:Okay.
Guest:Okay, everybody.
Guest:Here we go.
Guest:Right.
Guest:And then once you're in, they're screwed then.
Guest:They can't do it.
Guest:They can't go with it, right?
Guest:Yeah.
Marc:So you and Jimmy spent a lot of time together.
Guest:Oh, yeah.
Guest:He used to come and hang out at my house, you know, when it got too busy over his.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:Right?
Marc:Yeah.
Guest:He's such a nice guy.
Guest:Sweet guy.
Guest:He could never tell people to leave.
Marc:Oh, really?
Marc:No.
Guest:Yeah.
Marc:He'd just leave his health.
Guest:He'd leave his own house.
Guest:He'd leave his own house.
Guest:Of course, somebody got back, they'd drunk everything.
Marc:Yeah, yeah.
Guest:But whatever, he didn't care.
Guest:He didn't care.
Marc:So let's talk about these.
Marc:Where did you, because you did those four or five records early on.
Marc:Right.
Marc:And they're great records.
Marc:They're beautiful records.
Marc:They're unique records.
Marc:And then sort of, you know, what happens?
Marc:How did you sort of sustain yourself after you just stopped making solo records?
Guest:Well, it's...
Guest:It's funny how things go.
Guest:You had a lot of things happen.
Guest:I won't say the industry.
Guest:I made some records I really enjoyed making.
Guest:Like River, I really enjoyed making.
Guest:It was a beautiful record.
Guest:I really enjoyed making Seed of Memory because I was working with Graham, my friend.
Guest:He said, let's make a record.
Guest:I went, what do you mean?
Guest:He says, us.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:okay serious his eye was in shock right and he says yeah yeah leave it to me we'll put it together it's a different type of record it's a different production sound wasn't it yeah oh totally yeah totally different you know so but the songs i'd written i'd played him these songs and he loved them yeah and they that's the way they sounded really when i played them to him and he helped me out get you know ben keith and al perkins and
Marc:Oh, and you work with David Lindley on River.
Guest:Oh, David Lindley.
Guest:That was another band we had in England, you see.
Guest:He's a wizard, man.
Guest:This album that's coming out now.
Guest:He's on that, yeah.
Guest:Right.
Guest:Well, that's part.
Guest:He was all over River.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:And half of the album was done in England.
Guest:and then the whole band broke up david went with jackson right because dr my eyes went number one and we're on atlantic so it's you can't really argue and armut was really good about it right and then alan white right joined yes yeah with eddie offered who was producing the album so i went to armut and said
Guest:Well, we know I only lost two members of a four-piece group.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:The producer ain't here.
Guest:I mean, what do you mean?
Guest:He says, oh, don't worry about it.
Guest:He says, tell you what, you like California, right?
Guest:I said, I love it.
Guest:He said, well, go, I'll set it up for you.
Guest:I'll find you a place to live.
Guest:Get on a plane and get out here.
Guest:He said, it's miserable over there.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:you know what, he's got a really good point in there.
Guest:He's pouring water, he's freezing, right?
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:So it was just me and Lee Miles, the bass player, who had put that group together at the time, right?
Guest:We fought for like two years to get it just how we wanted it, right?
Guest:And, uh,
Guest:We suddenly went, oh, okay.
Guest:So Lee came over first, came over, and then I said, I'm out of here.
Guest:I packed a bag, and boom, I'd gone.
Guest:I never went back.
Marc:To Britain, you never went back?
Guest:No, no, I've never lived in Britain since that.
Marc:Because Ahmed Erdogan told you to come.
Guest:Well, to me, he was just... Amazing, right?
Guest:He was the god of the record business.
Guest:You ask anybody.
Marc:Sure.
Guest:It's not my necessarily opinion.
Guest:You'll never see the likes of that kind of musical businessman.
Guest:I just don't...
Marc:And he was nice to be around?
Guest:Oh, he said, right.
Guest:He's the funnest guy he ever, he called you up.
Guest:Come and have lunch with me at the Beverly Hills.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:I'm going, I don't think I'm dressed for it.
Guest:Don't worry about that.
Guest:Come on, just come in your shorts.
Guest:Don't worry.
Guest:I got the bungalow.
Guest:They don't worry about us lot.
Guest:I get there, he's in the smoke.
Marc:He loved rock guys, huh?
Guest:all day long he'd sit there talking not necessarily about what you're doing yeah talk about ask your opinion on some act or something or this oh yeah and yeah he's just like one of the band you know yeah yeah and did he like you know after because yeah i mean you did you worked with a lot of other people too yeah after the the solo stuff right
Guest:Yeah, and now I'm working on this whole thing with Joe Perry, which is fantastic, you know, because now from doing ballads and very sensitive things and stuff, Joe plays me this track that's just slamming to the wall, and so we wrote a song on it, and then we do another one that's like almost Turkish.
Guest:and you're singing you're the front man yeah yeah i'm singing it yeah that's great and writing and writing the living and everything with him you know so it's great and what's it like to listen to like you know this this remastered uh uh river outtakes i mean what oh it's great it's like memory lane yeah all i see is 10 brazilians in my house up in the countryside all playing primitive
Guest:instruments and and a guy who lived in a village yeah go on his bicycle every morning to work yeah he come riding by my 400 year old cottage and he come riding by about seven in the morning yeah they're all still going yeah yeah it's like i've got a tribe of wild indians from by here in my house just going huh yeah it started getting around like what's going on over what's he doing now you know
Marc:Yeah, yeah.
Marc:And what's the Deep Purple story, if we're going to do... Deep Purple?
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:Well, that wasn't my thing.
Guest:I've known Richie Blackmore for years and years.
Guest:That's not my brand paper, you know?
Guest:I mean, it's, hey, to those of our own, you know?
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:And I said, look, Richie, thanks so much.
Guest:I'm very flattered by it, you know?
Guest:And the other thing I remember, like, who left, you know?
Guest:I understand.
Guest:I get the gist.
Guest:Yeah, yeah, yeah.
Guest:But that happens too.
Guest:You'll find if you'll interview a lot of singers.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:A lot of people at that time in England, we call it the dartboard theory.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:Everybody was changing bands around.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:And getting to see to get the winning combination.
Guest:Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.
Guest:And knowing that English rock and roll bands had sort of made a very distinctive impression in America.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:Like the hard metal bands and that which became, you know...
Guest:metal like savage hard rock and you know that they'd sort of made the mold on that right yeah yeah so they go quick quick quick let's get it together before somebody over there does it now it's like every metal or whatever sure yeah yeah i find it interesting because now these days now i've stuck around long enough to watch the young lads and what they do when they put the band together
Guest:Now you've got mileage laws.
Guest:You can only play here, but not for a couple of months in the same area.
Guest:Right, in terms of touring.
Guest:New York is like three months.
Guest:I deal with that all the time.
Guest:So I got wind of what happens.
Guest:The young guys go, well...
Guest:We'll have this band and we'll call it that.
Guest:Then we'll swipe a couple of members, get another name and call it this.
Guest:I went, ah, you crafty buggers.
Guest:I see what you're doing.
Guest:They're all going around.
Guest:Well, is it the same?
Guest:No, it's not the same band.
Guest:it's the same bloody band but two people right so that's how they get around them yeah so you know but also it's the thing that they're all same thing as i say with the bands back then they also are trying to find a winning combination yeah but who's i don't i don't know if that i think one of the best things to do all the young bands out there find a bunch of guys that you hate yeah
Guest:And then make a band, shut the fuck up, go on stage and play, and a cohesion will get you there.
Guest:Every successful band I've ever known hate each other's guts.
Guest:I swear to you, you ask them.
Guest:They all end up like trying to kill each other.
Guest:Really?
Guest:Yeah.
Marc:Like the who?
Guest:Oh, bloody hell.
Guest:Well, he nearly pulled it off a few.
Guest:Ask Roger because a few times he was worried about his own life with Mooney around.
Guest:You never know who he was going to blow up.
Marc:Right, right.
Marc:How was that?
Marc:That guy must have been a... Oh, no.
Guest:He's dangerous.
Marc:Yeah.
Guest:He's a very lovely guy.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:We go out and do things.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:There's hundreds of stories about Moon.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:I'm under thinking I want to write a book because the only way you can do this is... Yeah.
Guest:The only thing long enough is a book that you can tell stories in.
Marc:Why don't you write a book?
Guest:I want to.
Guest:Yeah, I want to.
Guest:I just got to get somebody who's stupid like me that will listen.
Guest:Ha, ha, ha.
Guest:And write it down and understands my wonderful phonetics.
Guest:There are guys who do that.
Guest:Of course there are.
Guest:I know more idiots than you can imagine.
Marc:I read Keith's book.
Marc:Keith's book's like the Bible.
Marc:It's like 500 pages.
Guest:You know what I mean?
Guest:Well, once he starts telling stories, he's got way more than I'll ever have, you know.
Marc:But I couldn't believe it, you know, because with that book, like, you know, I grew up loving Keith and, like, you have these assumptions.
Marc:Like, oh, he's just this, like he's some junkie.
Marc:And then you read that book, you're like, holy shit.
Guest:Oh, no, he's as quick as a whip.
Marc:Oh, my God, he's bright.
Guest:He's got ideas about everything.
Guest:You don't live that long, right, without going around the corner.
Guest:That's right.
Guest:That's right.
Marc:So you want to play a song?
Marc:Yeah, sure.
Marc:So with that, okay, so the story on the...
Marc:On the new record is all the masters were at Warner Brothers.
Guest:Yeah.
Marc:And whose idea was it?
Guest:Now, what happened was I get a call from Matt Block from Warner Brothers, and he'd been set a task to go and get all the masters, because Warner Brothers bought EMI, but...
Guest:And it's like Raiders of the Lost Ark ran there now.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:I mean, they've got so much stuff.
Guest:I mean, God bless them.
Guest:I don't know how they're going to get through it.
Guest:Yeah, yeah.
Guest:I mean, it's Jesus.
Marc:So there's a guy there now just going through shit?
Marc:I don't know.
Guest:Because they sent Matt, who's in Chicago, over there.
Guest:to go through all the stuff that they got.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:It had all gone back to a locker over there.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:I'm not sure exactly where.
Guest:But it's all now Warner Brothers, so it all went to a Warner Brothers-led locker somewhere.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:So he says, so I went, okay, fine.
Guest:He gets on a break, goes over, and he goes into this big locker, and he looks up at this one shelf, and it said Terry Reid on the third shelf, you know, above the Ark of the Covenant.
Guest:That's on the other shelf.
Guest:Yeah, yeah.
Guest:So I meant that respectfully.
Guest:Yeah, yeah, sure.
Guest:So he looks up, and he goes, and he said, what's... And he said, Terry Reid, Terry Reid, Terry Reid, this whole row right across the whole room of...
Guest:endless two-inch masters, you know, tapes.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:And then a whole bunch with them of half-inch, you know, master mixes.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:And he's going, oh, I've got me work cut out here.
Guest:What the hell?
Guest:So he starts pulling them down, looking for the albums that were going to be on this four-box set, that they pressed out a four-box set, right?
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:a four album boxer and uh so he found them and as he's looking through he's going what is this right there's another master and another and another and another mixes so he thought you know while i'm at it i think i'll i think i'll go and play a couple of these and see what's on them you know you never know right and he said it went on and on and on and he found 24
Guest:pieces of material that he says i was popping away and groovy going this terry what happened to this right yeah and uh so he called me up and said i put them on a cd i'm gonna fly out to here to california have you heard them i went well i did when i did them but that's a long while ago what are these well a lot of them were just box titles because we you know we didn't use them so we never got that far yeah
Guest:So he came out and played them, and within a couple of coughs or a breath into the beginning, I'd go, oh, I know what this is.
Guest:And it all comes rushing back to you.
Guest:So ironically enough, he said, well, I tell you what.
Guest:I think you should put it out as an album.
Guest:So we got together and worked it out with Light in the Attic in the end, right?
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:And voila.
Guest:So now it's coming out.
Guest:And they're all outtakes.
Guest:This is just outtakes from the river.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:These outtakes from, see, the memory, but not as many.
Guest:It was a lot more concise working with Graham.
Marc:Let's stick the cans on.
Marc:Let's see if we can make this sound right.
Thank you.
Guest:Is it my maker?
Guest:Am I the breaker?
Guest:Has it come too soon?
Guest:Am I to follow when life gets hollow by some impending gloom?
Guest:It makes me ache right now That the love of her life gets lost somehow And his colors fade in the rain He goes down to the river again And wants to see An open to the sea
Guest:Stop the chair, you'll be there
Guest:Some have trouble with life at the double, part of being you.
Guest:Some think it's hazy or just get lazy, some don't
Guest:Makes me ache somehow.
Guest:It's a pattern of life that is a loving vow.
Guest:That only man has power to ordain.
Guest:Every soul that comes in from the rain.
Guest:And wants to see.
Guest:Find someone.
Guest:Open up until he's wildest dream to that one.
Guest:That's it all before that one.
Guest:That gets it through the floor.
Guest:Oh, the river takes your soul and rides off bed with her.
Guest:Never finding it, never really returned.
Guest:Just find that hard joy.
Guest:Seems that your life's a scheme Though you decide no more I can see the floor even Don't even seem to ever be a part of what can be Of being a river
Guest:Take it day by day Take it anyway Whatever you may You'll see it in a river
Marc:that was beautiful man there you go yeah thank you so much for doing it oh no it's my real honor to talk to you oh no good luck with it man yeah
Marc:That was exciting.
Marc:A master, a great raconteur, a great musician, a great singer, great life he's living.
Marc:And I love that I did not sense any darkness or bitterness.
Marc:And I'm telling you, even when he was having a smoke out there, I got a Mark Boland story.
Marc:I mean, I guess it could have went on for a while, but maybe I'll have him back.
Marc:Terry Reid.
Guest:guitar solo
Boomer lives.