Paul Rodgers Interview Part Two
DAVE: It sounds like that album was a lark to record.
PAUL: It was really a lot of fun. Yeah, it was. I really enjoyed recording that because I could do it standing on my head, in a way. I just love the blues so much. I had a catalog of material in my head. Actually, as it was going to be a tribute to Muddy—it could have been a tribute to Howlin’ Wolf just as easily, because I love him just as much, or Albert King, you know.
DAVE: Or Willie Dixon…
PAUL: There you go, yes! But we chose Muddy, and I did a lot of research. I pulled out all my Muddy Waters songs, and I’ve got some amazing, obscure things: Live versions from gigs they’d done in Holland and places like that. I couldn’t read the [foreign] liner notes, but the music was very interesting. You could hear them doing songs where I think they were still working on them. They hadn’t quite fully developed them, so it was quite interesting. In the end, I based the album on Muddy’s ‘best of’… what he felt was his ‘best of’. We worked on those particular songs. We thought, "well, if he thinks these are his best, that’s good enough for me."
But, the original recordings are untouchable. I realized straight away that if we tried to get close to them we would only pale in comparison. So I just did my own interpretations of those songs, and they’re much more rocked-out. I still do it that way, cuz there’s no pretending that I’m a black guy living in the thirties or forties down in Mississippi, because I’m not. All I can do is appreciate it. The blues is so malleable like that: You can basically rewrite it, which we did. "Rolling Stone" is almost a complete rewrite. If you compare the original to the live version… Even I have trouble when I listen. I heard [Muddy’s original version of] "Rolling Stone" not too long ago and I was thinking, ‘I know this song…!’, and I couldn’t actually place it because we’d got so far away from it in our own version. [Laughter]
DAVE: That was ‘93, and that was the same act you held together for the Woodstock gig. My understanding is that…
PAUL: No, Woodstock was something different. It was a one-off. I mean, I had been working with Neal Schon and with Jason [Bonham] in different combinations of rhythm sections and things like that, but the Woodstock thing was a one-off thing with Jason on drums, Andy Fraser on bass actually…
DAVE: I guess Free were stuck on the Blind Faith tour and you were asked in 69 to do Woodstock. You were at Ungano’s on 58th in New York… Is that right? You were asked to play Woodstock but you turned it down because there was no money in it?
PAUL: No! Who told you that?
No! Who told you that?
DAVE: Simon. Simon.
PAUL: Oh, Simon’s full of crap! [Laughter]
CYNTHIA: ‘He’s just the drummer!’
PAUL: We did do Ungano’s, though. I remember playing that club with… um…uhh… "Walk on Gilded Splinters"
DAVE: Dr. John? Dr. John?
PAUL: Dr. John! Yeah! And in those days people were so out of it! It was unbelievable. So, I mean, one’s memory does get a little bit… I remember Dr. John’s band there playing and the keyboard player just suddenly keeled over like this [poses] in the middle of their set.
DAVE: I think Mac was the keyboard player! [laughter] I think Mac was the keyboard player! [laughter]
PAUL: Nobody touched him, and he stayed there for the entire rest of the set! Like this! [posing] [laughter] Nobody touched him, and he stayed there for the entire rest of the set! Like this! [posing] [laughter]
DAVE: They called him the Night Tripper for good reason. [Laughter] They called him the Night Tripper for good reason. [Laughter]
PAUL: Actually, no, we just missed Woodstock. We came over with Blind Faith. Actually, no, we just missed Woodstock. We came over with Blind Faith.
DAVE: It was Blind Faith and Delaney and Bonnie. It was Blind Faith and Delaney and Bonnie.
PAUL: Yeah, that’s right. Yes! That was an experience, too! Well, it was an incredible experience for us because we came from playing in what we thought were huge venues of 300 people to going to mega-huge 20,000-seaters. It was just mind-blowing for us!
DAVE: Your first gig off the plane was Madison Square Garden! Your first gig off the plane was Madison Square Garden!
PAUL: Yeah! And it was ‘In the Round’, as they called it then. They had this circular stage that revolved, and it worked for a bit, and I remember going up and watching Blind Faith and the sound went [in and out as the stage revolved.] It was such a weird sound. And then it broke down at one point, and the crowd rioted and the cops beat the crowd up, and then the next thing the cops were trying to turn the stage by hand, and it was just… ahh! Just bedlam!
DAVE: Didn’t you have trouble with the cops getting into America on the first tour?
PAUL: Uh… They went through us, yeah, they were squeezing tubes of toothpaste. It was ‘those days’, y’know. Squeezing the toothpaste out to see if there was anything in it, an all that. Fortunately, they didn’t look up our bums! I’d have turned around and gone home at that point, I think! [Laughter]
DAVE:
Speaking of turning around and going home, why didn’t you turn around and go
home when--- if it’s true—the van broke down out of Middlesborough going
into London the first time, and you’re the only one that decided to hitch down
instead of hitching home?
PAUL: Yeah, yeah. That’s something that did happen. When I first came down to London, we had a band called the Wildflowers. Well, we were called the Roadrunners in England, and we changed our name to the Wildflowers and bought ourselves some caftans and beads. [Laughter] Nothing else changed but the name and clothes. And we didn’t do all that well. We weren’t actually getting any shows, particularly. They were tough days. There was a guy called Bruce Thomas on bass, who went on to play with and still plays bass with Elvis Costello.
DAVE: He’s been in the Attractions since day one, I think.
PAUL: Yeah. And then there was a guy, Mick Moody, was on the guitar, who has done things. We were the biggest unknown supergroup in the world. And a guy named Dave Usher on drums, who was a nice guy but a bit of a head-case. He used to do a drum solo and end up ‘nutting’-- what we used to call ‘nutting’: Playing the cymbals with his head, basically-- and cutting his head open and falling about. It was pretty awful.
We had this gig in Norwich, which is just up the northeast from London, and it was for thirty quid. It would have saved our lives because it was a lot of money then. On the way there the driver, bless him, forgot to put oil in and the engine seized up. And that was it, the final straw. Everybody got out of the van and started hitching home. They dumped their gear and everything. I changed my mind and came back down [to London.] It was the crossroads of my career.
DAVE: Absolutely. Didn’t you end up going down and then going back home for a while?
PAUL: No, I stayed. I went down and got myself fixed up. Pretty soon after that I joined a blues band and they didn’t have a name so I thought of one, and that was Brown Sugar Blues Band. We were playing in a club and Paul Kossoff came up and we met. And then we formed Free.
DAVE: You met at the Nag’s Head and all that…
PAUL: Yeah, I met Paul at a club called the Fickle Pickle, in Finsbury Park. We first got together above a Public House, a pub, in Battersea called the Nag’s Head. It was a venue, actually, a small venue. I saw Freddie King there at one point, actually, which was great.
DAVE: Good gig. Good gig.
PAUL: Yeah. That was the first rehearsal, then Alexis came down. Yeah. That was the first rehearsal, then Alexis came down.
DAVE: Was it at the first gig that you wrote some things? Was it at the first gig that you wrote some things?
PAUL: I can’t remember how soon I brought [songs in, but] I had songs. I had "Walk In My Shadow" and a couple of other ideas going so, yeah, around that time. We got pretty creative straight off the bat, actually.
DAVE: Did Andy come in via Mike Vernon or was it Alexis that had that idea? Did Andy come in via Mike Vernon or was it Alexis that had that idea?
PAUL: I’m not quite sure. Andy had left John Mayall’s Bluesbreakers, and there was one of those ad boards inside the venue where you could put up "bass player wants job", and I think Paul called Andy from a card. "Bass player, ex-John Mayall, looking for gig", basically. So Paul called him, and that’s how we got together. That’s my memory of events… there’s probably a different story from each one of us, you know?
DAVE: Anyway, the second Woodstock…
PAUL: Yeah! Why did we get off of that? Way off!
Okay, Jason, Andy Fraser, Slash, and Neal Schon. A pretty good line-up, really. And that was just a one-off. We had a day’s rehearsal, and away we went.
DAVE: Then you did the Otis Blackwell Tribute album? Then you did the Otis Blackwell Tribute album?
PAUL: Yes, I did. I was doing a club in, I think, New York, and a guy a said that Otis Blackwell was in hospital and was in bad shape. [Otis] wrote some great songs. He was a big inspiration for Elvis Presley. He actually sounded a lot like Elvis. I think I’m right in saying that.
DAVE: Yeah. He put out an album of his own tunes, which came off like Presley covers. Yeah. He put out an album of his own tunes, which came off like Presley covers.
PAUL: He sounded a lot like [Elvis], didn’t he? And it’s said that Elvis got a lot of his style from him, rather than the other way around. Anyway, the guy asked ‘would I help out?’ So I said ‘yeah,’ and gave him a number. They contacted me and I went at some point and sang the song for them. Steve Cropper played guitar, which was good.
DAVE: It’s always good to mix with the older crowd… [laughter]
PAUL: Well, the elite, the royalty. Well, the elite, the royalty.
DAVE: Absolutely. Absolutely.
PAUL: …to me, anyway…
DAVE: A lot of bands based themselves on the MGs sound… the Small Faces, for instance…
PAUL: Yeah the original Small Faces were great.
DAVE: Was it any surprise that the Muddy Water Blues album got the Grammy nomination? You were doing a blitzkrieg press tour on that one…
PAUL: The Blues album? Yeah, I was really pleased, actually. To be nominated for anything is quite nice. It was in the blues section. I, unfortunately, didn’t win it, but when you’re nominated they give you a couple of tickets to go to the show, and it’s a brilliant show. They had it at a museum in New York, and there’s a big pyramid inside surrounded by water and purple lights and stuff. Frank Sinatra played, and Sting and Aerosmith, and it was a really good show. But, Buddy Guy won it. He actually got the award. But I was on his album, so I sort of shared in his victory.
DAVE: …by default.
PAUL: Part of the deal for him playing on my blues album was that I would reciprocate and play on his album, should he require it. He did. They called in the favor and said ‘come and sing with us’, which was great for me. We did "Some Kind of Wonderful". We even made a video of it as well. It was pretty good. It never saw the light of day, I don’t think.
DAVE: How did things progress to getting the current line-up together? How did things progress to getting the current line-up together?
PAUL: This line-up now? I had finished my touring schedule in England with my guys in England: Jeff, Jaz, and Jim. I finished the six days at Ronnie Scott’s with two shows a night, which was a killer schedule. I’d met Cynthia by then, so I came back over to meet her, and we spent some time together.
There were some guys who had a local band together, and they asked me if I’d come and have a jam with them. We had a jam, which led to a show, and that led to the idea which Cynthia and I had of putting something together and doing more touring. One thing led to another, basically. Cynthia introduced me to Chris Crawford, who’s a very good businessman, and he looked at some of the touring that I’d been doing and said that he could probably do better. So, I said, "if you can do better, prove it." So we’re out here doing it.
CYNTHIA: And Chris is a musician, as well. But he’s a self-made businessman and entrepreneur, and he has been a longtime fan of Paul’s. Chris is very instrumental in Paul’s career at this point in time because we have specific goals. We’re running Paul’s career like a business now, which is what should have been done all along.
DAVE: You’re not trying to say he’s any better than Bryan Morrison, are you?
CYNTHIA: I don’t know who Bryan Morrison is.
DAVE: [To Paul] Do you recall him? [To Paul] Do you recall him?
PAUL: Yeah, he was the first manager in the Dark Ages of the history of time, way back when. We were all cavemen in that time. I remember coming out of the cave, and he was the first manager we had. It didn’t last long.
CYNTHIA: The thing that sets Chris apart from other managers is that he does have his Masters degree in business, and he has run his own businesses. He has taken a business from the ground level to a skyrise height, and that’s what we’re hoping will happen with Paul. It’s happened already. His marquee is where it’s never been before, and we threw this together at the very last minute. Paul was visiting, we wanted to be together, and how could we be together with him still doing what he enjoys doing? So we came up with this plan, and it’s working beautifully.
DAVE: How long ago did this ball start rolling, then? In it’s present incarnation…
CYNTHIA: We did the first show in February. In March we spoke, and Paul came out at the end of March and we said ‘okay’. We committed at the end of March, and so this was thrown together at the very last minute. It’s been quite incredible.
PAUL: It’s good. We’ve had our teething troubles, but it’s gone really well from the start, and it’s constantly building. The band’s getting better and we’re getting better at knowing all the little nuances that need getting together for a fairly major tour. I was just about toured out. I was just about ready to say, "well, I’m going to take a long break right now because I’ve been touring for four or five years solid." Since the Blues album, really. I’ve only stopped off to make a couple of albums. Actually, the Now album and the live album and the one that I’ve got in the can. I’ve just been touring.
But this is great. The energy coming off of the band and the input from the management, it’s focused, so it feels like we’re going somewhere. That’s important.
DAVE: This is the same line up that you met up with and did the one-off gig? This is the same line up that you met up with and did the one-off gig?
PAUL: No, these guys are from Seattle and they hadn’t, I don’t think, played together prior to us. The bass player and the drummer had played together before.
DAVE: The guitar player is the only one, I believe, that Jimi Hendrix’ dad gives the thumbs up to at the present time?
PAUL: Yeah, pretty much. The estate and family of Hendrix recognize him… What do they recognize him for?
CYNTHIA: His ability to emulate what Jimi would probably be
doing today, and what he did in the past.
His ability to emulate what Jimi would probably be doing today, and what he did
in the past.
PAUL: There you go. That’s well put.
CYNTHIA: We played recently in Seattle, and Al Hendrix, Jimi’s father, was going to come up to the show but couldn’t make it. He was very, very regretful that he couldn’t make it. We will connect Paul and Al at some point.
These guys are all ‘heart and soul’ people and they play ‘heart and soul’ music. They love Paul. They absolutely love Paul and count their lucky stars to be able to play with a talent such as Paul’s. It’s nice to be appreciated and respected. There’s a lot of respect in that camp.
DAVE: At present Velvel wants to keep lids on the new album and see how the new singles do? At present Velvel wants to keep lids on the new album and see how the new singles do?
CYNTHIA: We didn’t offer them the new album, actually.
PAUL: I haven’t really felt that they’ve done a very good job, actually. In fact, we bought them out on the Now album because it got so much airplay and they weren’t able to follow up on sales, because they weren’t able to put the CD in the shops. But I don’t like to talk about that because it sounds negative. So what we did was bought them out, and we’re independent now.
CYNTHIA: The CDs are available at the shows, and we’re finding out that that’s our market, right there. Bypass the middleman. Paul is the most important focus, and that’s the way it should be. The artist should be the most important thing.
DAVE: What are your plans, then? To continue…
PAUL: I have another solo album ‘in the can’, as they say. I’ve got a lot of touring scheduled for this summer… right through, actually. There’s the Bad Company thing sometime next year, and we’re going to try to dovetail into more solo touring next year. Basically, just keep going
CYNTHIA: There’s the box set with four new songs…
PAUL: For the Bad Company box set, we plan to record four new tracks.
DAVE: With all the original guys, Boz included? With all the original guys, Boz included?
PAUL: Yeah. I want it to be the original band, otherwise I’m not going to bother.
DAVE:
So everybody’s getting along well? There are no ill feelings? You’ve all
been through a hell of a lot together. You and Simon have been together since
practically day one.
PAUL: Yeah, we did go through an amazing amount, because we achieved an enormous amount of success in a very short space of time. We worked very hard. Yeah, we go back a ways. Yeah, we did go through an amazing amount, because we achieved an enormous amount of success in a very short space of time. We worked very hard. Yeah, we go back a ways.
DAVE: Is the box set going to be through Atlantic? Is the box set going to be through Atlantic?
PAUL: Yes… It’s going to be through [parent company] Warner’s, anyway.
[Paul resumes digging through a stack of albums and memorabilia I’d brought to the interview] Oh, Blondel…
DAVE: This isn’t the album you were on? You were on the album just prior to this, called "Blondel".
PAUL: Was I? What was I doing? Ohhhhh…
DAVE: Backup vocals.
PAUL: Oh, I think I did do something with them. These guys, we used to often play with these guys. [Referring to a photo on the cover of "Mulgrave Street", showing an urban English street scene] That’s what I remember as a kid. That’s the sort of streets we had.
CYNTHIA: That’s beautiful.
PAUL: Well, its not actually beautiful, to be honest. Well, its not actually beautiful, to be honest.
CYNTHIA: To me it is. I like the brick. To me it is. I like the brick.
PAUL: That’s the lower end of things.
Yeah, we used to play with these guys. They were very, very good.
DAVE: The rest of Bad Company is on that one. Koss is, as well. The rest of Bad Company is on that one. Koss is, as well.
PAUL: On this? Oh, really? [Looks closely at credits on album] On this? Oh, really? [Looks closely at credits on album]
DAVE: Rabbit’s on there.
PAUL: Dear old Koss. It’s a shame he didn’t make it through, actually.
DAVE: Was it the last couple of gigs that he had in LA that you showed up with Bad Company? Was it the last couple of gigs that he had in LA that you showed up with Bad Company?
PAUL: Yes, we went to see him. It was up there on Sunset. I think it was at the Roxy or one of those clubs along there. When he had [Back Street Crawler], I believe. Yes, we went to see him. It was up there on Sunset. I think it was at the Roxy or one of those clubs along there. When he had [Back Street Crawler], I believe.
DAVE: He had Back Street Crawler together and you went down one or two nights. I believe, if the records are right, that it was his last gig. He had Back Street Crawler together and you went down one or two nights. I believe, if the records are right, that it was his last gig.
PAUL: Yeah, I believe it was. I went up and had a jam, and little did I know that would be the last time we’d ever jam. Yeah… yeah…
[Looking at BSC’s Second Street cover] I hadn’t seen this one…
DAVE: It’s the album that they had in the can, or most of it, when he died.
PAUL: Oh, God. Oh, God.
DAVE: That’s where they got Geoff [Whitehorn] in to fill his shoes.
PAUL: Oh, right, yeah. Oh, right, yeah.
[Looking at the Kossoff double album, Croydon June 15th 1975]
DAVE: That’s an entire gig at Croydon that Johnny Glover released.
PAUL: [Chuckling] I remember this coat he used to wear! Hmm! [Chuckling] I remember this coat he used to wear! Hmm!
DAVE: He went through some amazing shifts in the gear he used to wear. He went through some amazing shifts in the gear he used to wear.
PAUL: Yeah. [Looks at the double album compilation on DJM, KOSS] This is from the old days of Free. Sandals and all. Yeah. [Looks at the double album compilation on DJM, KOSS] This is from the old days of Free. Sandals and all.
Well, you know, it’s all Memory Lane for me. [Sees the Mick Ralphs solo album, Take This!] Oh, Ralphsie did an album, did he?
The tape recorder malfunctioned and did not carry on recording on the second side of the tape when the first side ended, as it is designed to do. Unfortunately, I did not hear the deck stop, and was unable to begin recording again. Therefore, the end of the interview, roughly fifteen minutes, were lost. It was mainly a continuation of rooting through memorabilia and talking about whatever came up. As such, there were a lot of gaps in the tape and not much of anything juicy was lost.