Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:08):
Welcome, Welcome, Welcome back to the Bob Left Search podcast.
My guest today is that one and only Simon Kirk,
drummer of Bad Company and Free. Simon, how do you
feel about Bad Company not being in the Rock and
Roll Hall of Fame?
Speaker 2 (00:27):
You don't hang around, Bob, do you know. I think
it's such travesty. Quite honestly, I mean not just that,
but Free Free certainly should be because you know, I mean,
Free has been around since nineteen sixty eight and we've
the two bands have been responsible for influencing a lot
(00:49):
of a lot of bands who are already in the Hall.
So it's you know, I feel pretty bad about it,
but I'm not going to go on too much about it.
It's just I think we should be in, certainly, Free,
and I think Paul Paul Rodgers should be in on
his own merits. I mean, as one of the great
(01:10):
rock vocalists of all time. You know, if Eric Captain
and Rodge Stewart and Jeff Jeff Beck and be inducted
as solo artists, and certainly Paul Rodgers should be in there.
So that's my two cents.
Speaker 1 (01:28):
I completely agree with you, certainly in both bands. I think,
you know, the focus has become the Music Hall of
Fame because you can't have a rock I've been back
and forth with the members. I'm not a voting member
or anything, but it's a travesty, as you put it.
So what's the status of Bad Company today? Are they
going to ever be any more live dates?
Speaker 2 (01:50):
I honestly I doubt it, and I'll tell you why.
I think a lot of people now already know that
Paul Rodgers has had health problems. He went public with
it a couple of weeks ago on CBS. They flew
him out to New York and he came out with
the fact that he has had some severe health problems
(02:12):
in the last couple of years, a couple of strokes,
quite a few mini strokes and heart troubles. And I
honestly think that our Bad Company's days are pretty much over.
Speaker 1 (02:27):
Okay, Just on this same point, there have been conversations
or talking about Mick Ralf's health. How is his health?
Speaker 2 (02:35):
Oh, Mick, we'll mix uffered a stroke about six or
seven years ago and it's paralyzed his left side, as
most strokes do, so he's really out of commission. He's
in a home in a nursing home in England. Several
people have seen him recently. I'm going to go over
(02:56):
next year, so he's really health is not good and
it's certainly his playing days are over. So you know,
we had a good run and I think we're going
to lay the old bad company to rest pretty soon.
Speaker 1 (03:13):
Okay, this begs a question, how's your health? Well?
Speaker 2 (03:18):
Touch would? I'm great? I am cleaning sober quite a
few years now at last, and I don't smoke, I
don't drink, I eat well, I do yoga and I
have smoothies and my wife make sure that I'm living
another twenty four hours. So thanks for asking. I'm in
(03:40):
pretty good shape.
Speaker 1 (03:41):
So tell me about getting sober well.
Speaker 2 (03:44):
I think it's common knowledge that you know, I had
troubles with substance abuse for many years, and back in
the day, you know, in the seventies and eighties, it
was something that was kept. Yeah, you didn't really broadcast
in whereas nowadays you know it's part of one cv
(04:05):
as it were, that you know you're in the program
or you're clean and sober. It's something that is something
that is to be congratulated rather than hidden under a rock.
So I've been I hadn't done blow for twenty seven years.
I gave up drinking about eight years ago. Finally I
(04:28):
had a little sip down again, La la la. But really,
to be totally clean and sober, you've got to give
everything up. And it's the best thing I did. I mean,
I you know, back in those days, the seventies and
eighties were really crazy days, but I was a lot younger.
I could get away with it and it didn't never
(04:49):
really impeded my drumming. You could just sort of get
away with that shit, you know. But now, Nah, I
don't miss at all, Bob. Quite honestly, I wish I'd
done it sooner, but you know, better late than never.
Speaker 1 (05:05):
Well, let's talk about the drugs. How did you finally
decide to stop? Oh?
Speaker 2 (05:10):
I nearly died, to put it in a nutshell, I mean,
I was on a tour bus and we pulled into Nashville,
and I've been taking ativan with swigging it with Jack
Daniels and doing blow and all sorts of stuff. And
I was passed out in the bunk, one of the bunks,
(05:33):
and they left me there. I mean, everyone was out
of it. We sort of staggering into They staggered into
the hotel to get their rooms, and I was left
with this girlfriend of mine, who God bless her. I mean,
she saved my life. And she dragged me out of
the bunk and walked me around, slapping me, and I
(05:54):
nearly died that night, and that's when I thought, Okay,
now you know this has got to stop. So it
really took a near death experience to give the hard
stuff up. And I say this only as a personal thing,
but coke exacerbates drinking and drug taking because if you
(06:20):
do a line, you want to drink five times as
much as you normally would. If you want to sleep,
you've got to take valume or you've got to take
something to come down. In the morning, you're sort of groggy,
so you do another line and the whole thing starts again.
But I was at that stage. This is in nineteen
ninety six. I was forty seven, and I was a lunatic,
(06:44):
a functioning lunatic, because I went to the gym every
day and I jogged, you know, and then I'd come
back and do a line. It's stupid, really.
Speaker 1 (06:54):
So you have this near death experience, did you stop
cold Turkey. Did you go to rehab?
Speaker 2 (06:59):
Nose. I went to rehab. I couldn't have done it
without rehab. I've been to several and now I'm on
the board of you know, I help kids with addiction.
I'm on the board of a foundation called Road Recovery,
which helps teenagers and adolescents with drug addiction. And I'm
(07:21):
on the board of Right Turn, which is based in Boston,
and we help musicians people in the theatrical business with addiction.
So I'm just passing it on, you know, I'm helping it.
And I see kids, Bob. I mean, there's kids in
seventeen or eighteen, They've got three years sober. You know,
they are sidestepping all that ridiculous black hole that waits
(07:47):
for people who get hooked, and they're getting sober in
their late teens. And I thank people. I have to
thank people like Eric Clapton. Elton Alice Cooper was one
of the first people in my business that got sober.
You know, he's been sober like forty five years. Because
(08:08):
you know, we were all lunatics. Everyone dragged it la
la la la. And then suddenly someone puts a hand
up and says, you know, I'm Vince, Vince Fernier with
Alice's real name, and I'm an addict. Eric puts his
hand ups. I'm an addict, and without people like that
to help people like myself, I probably would have been dead,
(08:33):
quite honestly. So I'm just passing it on to the youngsters.
Saying don't go down the road is a waste of time,
complete waste of time.
Speaker 1 (08:42):
Well, let's go back to the beginning in the sixties
and then seventies, when did mean, yeah, everybody was smoking
marijuana or whatever, But when did your drug increase intake increase?
Speaker 2 (08:55):
Oh, when I started doing coke, no question, because yeah,
the sixties, you know, we didn't have grass in England.
We had hash. It would come over from Amsterdam and Germany,
so grass was very very rare. But we did hash.
So we all smoked, we dragged beer. You know, we
were teenagers. That's what teenagers did. But when I met
(09:19):
some people from Brazil in nineteen seventy two, there was
a little enclave of Brazilians living in London, and I
got very friendly with one of the ladies. She became
nearly became my wife, and they turned me on to
blow and it was fuck me. It was pure. It
was amazing. I mean it really was amazing. But once again,
(09:42):
once I did a line instead of you know, a
bottle of beer would last one minute, whereas before it
would last maybe a couple of hours. So suddenly I'm woh, wow,
where is the stuff? Well drumming, Yeah, come on, let's go.
Boom boom boom. Everything was ramped up. It was like
a Keystone Cops movie. Everything's sped up, and pretty soon
(10:08):
I was I was doing a lot of it. And
then I went to Brazil and I got really really
screwed up, but I still managed to function. You know,
there was still there was still a part of me
that was like, this is ridiculous. You know, you've got
to stop this, or at least put it on a
back burner. You got a career ahead of you, and
(10:31):
no one wants to hang out with druggies except other druggies.
And I started getting isolated from the general the sober
population I would have. I would avoid people who were sober.
I got to meet Derek Clapton at the Alba Hall
backstage right, and I was so nervous because I had
a glass of wine in my head and I opted
(10:54):
out not to meet one of the great musicians of
all time, you know, because I is embarrassed because I
was drunk, you know, just stupid things like huh so, yeah,
that's what That was the turning point doing the blow,
and I did blow for twenty years. You know.
Speaker 1 (11:16):
The average person has no idea of what it's like
being on the road. You have the same group of
people you've known for years in the band, you're kind
of tired of them. You go on on the stage
to vast applause and it's a high that people who
haven't done it have no idea. Then you go back
with the same people in the bus. You can't fall asleep,
(11:39):
and then the sun comes up. To what degree did
drugs help you cope with that?
Speaker 2 (11:46):
Well? What it was, Bob, That's a very good question.
It was pouring gasoline on a flame because you come
off and most of Bad Company shows were great. I
mean we came off to being bay in this applause encores.
I mean the group is the whole adulation la la lah,
(12:07):
and we didn't want it to stop. We're in the
dressing room like brah whoh man. That was great enough.
Get the lines out and suddenly you know, we're like,
we've gone to another level of euphoria. You get back,
get on the bush. It's a four hour bus, like,
oh god, all right, come on, get the guitars out.
(12:29):
Another line, la lah lah. You know, just stupid, stupid
stuff really but a bit nothing really, nothing compared with that.
A good show. And it should have stopped right there.
You know, that should have been enough. That should have
been the reward in itself, going down so well in
(12:53):
ten thousand people applauding you. But as we know that
it wasn't enough.
Speaker 1 (12:58):
Okay, So how did you decide give up drinking?
Speaker 2 (13:02):
Well, when I stopped doing blow, everything else tape it off,
and I still I always loved drinking wine. I love wine,
but I have an addicted personality. And even though I
managed to stop blowing, it was the best thing I
ever did. I still like drinking wine. And one glass
(13:23):
was never enough. Two was never enough. And when I
when I remarried, I had been sober for a couple
of years, and I remarried and I thought, well, he's
a lovely lady, and maybe I can And I told
her up front, you know, look, I've been in several
rehabs La la Lah. So well, I experimented and thought, well,
(13:46):
you know what, and you know what, for a couple
of couple of months it was okay. And then I
went to two glasses and then three and it just
started going as we say in England, it start going
pair shaped and it was really affecting my life and
(14:08):
my relationship. And I had a new wife and I
didn't really want that to impinge and effect this lovely
lady and my relationship with this lovely lady Maria. So
I said, that's it. And I've been going to meetings
for many, many years. They ow meetings. I don't mind
(14:28):
telling people about my drug use and drinking if it
helps other people, you know, because the landscape has changed.
As I said, you know, fifty years ago to say
you were an addict or an alcoholic was like whoa,
But you know nowadays, yeah, it's no big deal. We're
just helping each other.
Speaker 1 (14:50):
To what degree did drug use and other substance abuse
affect the ending of your previous marriage?
Speaker 2 (15:00):
Oh? I mean it was a sledgehammer, because well it was.
It was cyclical. I would get out of it, and
I was not the faithful husband. It was a terrible husband.
Then I get found out because drunks are not very
good at hiding their you know, their trail, so I
(15:20):
get found out. So then I'd leave the house and
go on some binge and it would all start again.
So it ruined my marriage, no question. And it's something
that I regret to this day. And I've been trying
to make amends to my daughters. I have three girls, Domino,
Jamiah and Lola, and you know, I've apologized to them
(15:44):
and it's just an ongoing thing. But no question of it,
it dealt a body blow to my marriage throughout throughout
the marriage thirty three years.
Speaker 1 (15:57):
Okay, I have three daughters. All of them were successful
the arts of the role. Right, how did that happen?
Speaker 2 (16:06):
I don't know of I'm very proud of them, I
have to say. I mean, we've got Jemima who's film actress.
She was in Girls and she's been in quite a
few movies. Lola who's done several quite a few movies,
but she's now a country and Western artist and very successful.
(16:27):
And Domino, who is she had a career, a singing career,
but she became a mum very at a young age
and that kind of sidelined her career. But she's a duela.
She delivers babies, and I'm so proud of her because,
(16:47):
you know, to bring children into the world man that is.
I think she's delivered about two hundred kids. So yeah,
I'm just knocked out with all of them. I love
them to bits.
Speaker 1 (17:00):
How did you come up with the names with them?
They're sort of unique names or names that hadn't been
in use for a while.
Speaker 2 (17:09):
Ah. It was obviously a two way street with me
and my previous wife, Lorraine Domino. There was a movie
called Shark's Machine with Burt Reynolds back in nineteen eighty
and Domino was born in eighty two, and I think
(17:31):
my ex had a little crush on Burt Reynolds and
the star of that film her name was Domino, so
she said, oh, that would be a lovely name. I
wanted to call her Emily. I don't know why. It
was a very English name, but no, Domino came out
(17:52):
of a hat, and that's what we settled with. Jemima.
There was an English series of books called mi'ma Puddle Duck,
and there was something that me and Lorain agreed on.
No Jemimah. But it's a lovely name. And of course
we didn't know about the big fat black lady over here,
(18:13):
Aunt Jemima so and when we moved over here in
ninety seven, permanently everyone was like, oh, you don't look
anything like Aunt Jemilah is Who the fuck's aren't Jamala
and Lola? I don't know. I think maybe the Kinks
song Lo Lo Lo Lo Lola. So, yeah, they're cool names.
Speaker 1 (18:38):
Okay, how'd you meet your new wife?
Speaker 2 (18:41):
Okay, good story. I'm a good friend of Ronnie Wood
and I was over in England and he said, look,
I'm coming to New York. We're doing a tribute to
Jimmy Reid the Cutting Room, which is a great club
in New York City, and I lived in New York.
I was just visiting. The said you want to play drums?
(19:03):
I said, well, I'd love to run it. You know,
she's our cooper on Hammond. We got a great bass
player and a couple of guests. Mick Taylor's on guitar. Yeah,
I'm in. So I went down to the Cutting Room
for a sound check and as I walked in, there
was a lady, a greeter, you know, taking the names
(19:23):
on the door, and this was Maria, Maria Figuretta, and
my jaw just dropped because she was so beautiful, and I,
you know, I mean, I didn't say anything. I was
so tongue tied, and I just went down into the
dressing room, got ready, and I couldn't get her out
(19:44):
of my brain. And then blur and behold she walks
in the dressing room was the manager's office. She needed
to get something from the office, and my first words
to her were hallo, hello, Hello. That was the first
words to my future wife. And she got all flustered
and said, oh, I've just got to get some and
(20:07):
kind of fled the office because she said later, I've
kind of embarrassed him. We were kind of mutually smitten,
and at the end of the show, you know, I
got a number and I was still married. I mean
I was, but it was on the rocks. So we
started this love affair. Really that lasted for a couple
(20:29):
of years until we finally got married and the divorce
came through and we married six years ago.
Speaker 1 (20:42):
Okay, now, with Nick indisposed, Paul having his health problems,
what does that leave you?
Speaker 2 (20:52):
Aha, Well, I'm like a dog without a tail at
the moment. I'm but what I am doing is I'm
co writing a rock opera, a rock musical about addiction
called rock Bottom, and we're putting it together and yeah, thanks,
(21:13):
So everyone I say is that's a great name, and
it's about addiction, and it's I'm writing it with an
interventionist drug counselor and he's a drummer with the Delf
Fegos up in Boston. His name's Woody Geeseman and a
comedian called Tony Viveros. And we've done the script. We've
(21:37):
written about fifteen songs and we're honing it as we
speak with We have bi weekly writing sessions. The songs
are pretty much recorded and it's really shaping up nicely.
It's taking up a lot of my time. But that
being said, you know, I do miss playing. I love playing,
(21:58):
and you know, plays some shows with g Smith, great
guitar player who lives in Long Island, and we do
the occasional show together. I would never start a group again.
I'm too old. I don't want to go through all
that rigmarole. But I would happily do shows with other
(22:21):
people if they want me around. You know, I'm seventy four.
I don't know how much time I've got left actual playing.
But you look people like Ringo who still plays well.
I mean, he's another example. I should have mentioned him
back in the sobriety section. Ringo is a huge example
of getting me sober and he still plays well. So
(22:45):
he still plays great. Actually, So I'm around and I'm
getting into film scoring. I really love I've scored a
couple of independent movies. I really love doing that. I've
got a studio here, I've got all the you know,
all the toys, and I'm a big, big fan of
movie scoring, So that's what I want to do. And songwriting.
(23:08):
I love writing song.
Speaker 1 (23:10):
Okay, you talk about all this drug use and that
eats up a lot of cash. So where does that
leave you financially?
Speaker 2 (23:23):
Well, not just that, but also the rehabs and I
you know, I've written a lot of songs about about
getting sober and the most expensive songs out of the road.
Where does that leave me? Well, rehabs about fifty grand
a pop. Now, you know, so I've been to seven.
So do the math. Where does it leave me financially?
(23:46):
I'm okay, uncomfortable. I'm not rich by any stretch. I'm
square over the irs, that's the main thing. I mean,
a lot of my contemporaries and Beata Grant, my old manager,
I mean he and I found out that. I mean,
he was well in hock to the the Vatman the
(24:07):
VAT in England, which is pretty pretty much allied with
the irs. He was in hock for millions. He had
to sell his houselah la lah. So I always remember,
keep square with the irs, because they are piranas. They
will come after you. So I'm okay. I mean it's
(24:28):
you know, money is like sleep and sex. You can
always do with a little bit more. But I'm quite
happy with what I got.
Speaker 1 (24:35):
Okay, in the seventies, you're recognizably famous now years later,
anybody ever recognize you when you say who you are?
Do they realize who you are? What's it like being
a rock star at this point in time.
Speaker 2 (24:52):
Well, I'm not a rock star anymore. I'm well known
in the industry. I've had a good run. And oddly enough,
here's the weird thing. I got recognized in two places.
You would not believe. I was walking in the jungle
in Brazil, right on a hike while I was staying
with one of my daughters at a camp, some adventure camp,
(25:16):
and we're doing a hike through the jungle and there's
another four or five people coming the other way towards us,
and as we drew abreast, the guy says, you'll signing, Kirk.
You've got to be kidding. I swear to God. He said,
I love you playing man, Thanks God bless and off
he went the other direction. And then I was in
Cuba with my wife, whose father is Cuban, and with him,
(25:42):
and we were in this little village and we were
having a couple of coffee somewhere. It's about one in
the afternoon. They sitting around a table, and these guys
were walking carrying a guitar case and a little drum
case and they started. I said wow, and they said,
look with rehearsing, you want to come and play with us.
(26:04):
I couldn't say no. So it does happen very occasionally,
and it's nice. But you know, being in the drama, Bob,
you're always hidden by behind the symbols and the rat Tom.
No one really knows. Yeah, it's not like I'm Paul
Rodgers or Mick Row. It's okay.
Speaker 1 (26:24):
So at this point, do you only play drums when
someone calls you, like gee, whatever? Or do you ever
play for your own fun? Oh?
Speaker 2 (26:34):
Yeah, I mean I I still have a kit next
door in my my, my basement. I'm speaking to you
from a little room next to the basement where I
have all my keyboards and guitar. But I'll put on
some Motis reading or Wilson Pickett or Bonnie Rait. I
love Bonnie raight, and I'll play along to her, or
(26:54):
then just to I just love playing drums. It's just
when you're playing drum by yourself, it doesn't really achieve
that much. It's not like playing piano where you can
really get lost. But I was never one for practicing.
I'm a field drummer. I'm not a progressive rock drummer
(27:15):
who needs to do paradidls and double flams and all
that stuff. I lead that to people like Simon Phillips
or Dave Weckel or Vinicolo Uto who plays with Sting.
I mean, those guys are like whoa. But you know,
I'm a musician just happens to play a few instruments.
Speaker 1 (27:37):
So let's go back to the beginning. So where did
you grow up.
Speaker 2 (27:41):
I grew up. I was born in London, and then
when I was about nine, we moved to the border
of Wales on the English side, about one hundred and
fifty miles northwest of London, and I was there for
ten years.
Speaker 1 (27:55):
What was that like? Was it like being in the
boonies or was it sophistically? No, it was not.
Speaker 2 (28:02):
We had no electricity or running water for seven years.
Speaker 1 (28:07):
You grew up in London. Why did your parents move
out there?
Speaker 2 (28:12):
Well, I think my dad owed some money, I'll be honest.
We suddenly almost overnight. I was about seven or eight
nineteen fifty seven. I was eight years old. We moved
in nineteen fifty seven and it was a big adventure
for me and my brothers. I mean, we didn't give
a shit. It's great, but I'll never forget this. Bob.
(28:36):
And I was only eight and our dad had gone ahead,
maybe a few weeks prior, and he telegrammed, Mum, so
I had a house, la la lah, come on up
and we met us at the station. We had a
couple of suitcases who were a bit like the Beverly
Hill Billies, and he had the shitty old Austin seven
(28:58):
car and we drove and drove and drove hours to
this little cottage on a hill. It sounds very romantic,
but I'll never forget. It was dusk was falling, maybe
six o'clock in the evening, and mom he opened the
door and she scraped the wall with her hand for
a light switch, and there was no light switch. And
(29:21):
Dad said, well, I didn't tell you this, but we
have no electricity, and she said, well, you mean the
bill hasn't been paid, So no, this house does not
have electricity. And by the way, there's no run in
water either. We have to get water from the well.
And that was my home for about six years. So
(29:43):
for a kid who actually wasn't that bad. We read
by a candlelight, we had a little gas lamp, and
we walked to school. I mean, it was quite a
spartan existence, but it really taught me a lot about
self sufficiency and just being thankful for today's luxuries, you know.
(30:04):
But it was tough on my mom. She was only
about thirty six, beautiful woman, and she'd been dragged from London,
leaving her friends behind. I think he owed money, quite honestly.
He was a bit of than they're do well. My
dad but there it is. How many kids were in
the family, three brothers.
Speaker 1 (30:24):
And where are you in the hierarchy?
Speaker 2 (30:26):
I was in the middle, middle child.
Speaker 1 (30:28):
Okay, I'm a middle kid too. Usually you're kind of
caught lost of the shovel. But I know, man hoten
dreams are in the oldest one. The other one's a baby.
So what kind of kid were you? A good school,
bad school athlete? Friend that was good.
Speaker 2 (30:45):
I you know, they say I'm the people pleaser. I
don't like that. I'm a people respector. And I always
wanted to do well. Number one. I wanted to get
the hell out of that. It was not our you know,
we were city folk, and it became pretty apparent to
me quite quickly that we didn't really fit in there.
(31:06):
You know, this was way out in this like Idaho.
We were way out in the boonies, and we had
this plumbing accent. This we stuck out like sore thumbs.
And even though it was a beautiful part of the world,
it just wasn't for me. And by the time I
was about thirteen and the Beatles came along in sixty
(31:28):
two sixty three and music kind of grabbed me. I
knew that I needed to get out of that area
in Shropshire and go back down to London and try
and make a go of being a musician.
Speaker 1 (31:43):
Okay, you know English radio market's completely different. You didn't
have any electricity, so you can't play the records.
Speaker 3 (31:51):
Yeah.
Speaker 1 (31:52):
How many radio stations? I mean, how did you hear
the music?
Speaker 2 (31:56):
Well, a great question. We had little transistor radios which
ran on a batteries and there was this one, thank
god for it, there was this one radio station called
Radio Luxembourg on the AM dial two to eight to.
And Luxembourg is a tiny country sandwich between France and Belgium.
And for some reason, I think it catered to the
(32:21):
the American forces who were stationed after the Second World
War were stationed all over Europe, so they played they
played black music. They pretty much played black music. I mean,
if you remember Good Morning Vietnam, right, remember when yeah
Robin comes on, they're playing Lawrence Welk and they're playing
(32:42):
in these little waltzits and shit, and then Robin Williams
comes on and the whole place. Well that's what Radio
Luxembourg was, and you could hear it on your little
transistor radio. And then and I keep forgetting to mention this.
The pirate radio stations took up residents just off the
(33:03):
three mile limit around England and they could play whatever
they want because they were outside, they were in international waters.
So Radio Caroline Radio Veronica were the two big pirate
stations and they started playing real albums, not just single
So you had this perfect storm of the pirate radio stations,
(33:26):
Radio Luxembourg and then the Beatles in sixty three. And
in sixty three I was fourteen, and my interest in
drumming took off because having played on little pots and
pans and books on my bed with my transistor radio earpiece.
(33:50):
We moved to a house that actually had electricity after
six years of living in this cottage, and we got
in a a dem I got a very first TV
and one of the first programs I ever saw was
it was a black and white set and it was
this program called All That Jazz and it featured big bands.
(34:14):
And I'll never ever forget this. Seeing the curtains drew
back and there was this huge band, maybe twenty piece band,
and the drums, I was like, Wow, what is this
guy playing? And I'll never forget it. And I think
that was the lightning bolt which zap me. And that's
(34:34):
when I really that's what I wanted to do, be
a drummer.
Speaker 1 (34:37):
Okay, then there are a couple of steps A getting
a drum kit, b forming a band. So what was
happening out there in Shropshire.
Speaker 2 (34:48):
Well, I should write a book about this. I got
in a band, a high school band. I got a
little snare drum my parents bought me for Christmas and
I started just bashing on this little snare drum and
every like most high schools throughout the world, we'd have
an annual concert at the end of every year, every
(35:10):
and every school year. And I did, I don't know,
wipe out the Safaris Doom Doom Doom, Doom, Doom Doom do.
And that became a party piece. And there was a
little drum kit that they had in the school. Anyway,
So I'm coming back on the school bus, which you know,
(35:30):
back from from the school to my house about a
six mile drive, and I'm getting off the bus and
the bus driver says, oh, Simon, I hear you play drums.
I said, well, yeah, I do. Yeah. He said, well,
look do you want to come and play with me?
What what the fuck. He said, well, I have a
little This was before disco, so the word didn't come up.
(35:53):
He said, I have a stack of records which I
go around the village halls and I play on my turntable.
And I think it would be a good idea, novelty
if you brought your little drum kit and sat next
to me and played along with it. I said, wow,
And you know, Bob, that's what I did. For two years.
(36:14):
They got permission for my parents, and I played my
little drum kit, playing along to Can't Buy Me Love,
or the Supremes, or Jim Clark Country and Western, the
occasional waltz, and I played for about two two hours
every night, and I had to keep in time otherwise
(36:36):
it would be a train wreck. And that's where I
think I had developed this. I got a pretty good
sense of time. But those two years of playing along
to those records were an invaluable education for me. And
that really and people applauded. I mean, they weren't just
doing it out of kindness, because country folk can be
(36:57):
pretty tough, especially when they played it hard earned money.
They don't want some little wet behind the ears idiot
ruining their dance. So you know, wherever I went, they said,
oh this new kids are really good and that's what
gave me the idea. I really wanted to be a drummer,
(37:18):
at least given my give it a shot. So a
quick sideline. In England, there's two tiers of education. There's
O level Ordinary level, these are like exams, or there's
A level Advanced level and with A levels you can
get into pretty good colleges or university. O level you
(37:41):
finish at sixteen and you go off and you get
so and so I wanted to leave school at sixteen
because I wanted to go down to London. My mum
and dad said no, because if you fail at what
you're doing and you come back to Shwropshire with only
two or three O levels, you can't get you get
(38:02):
into community college, you can't do anything. Stay another two years,
get A levels and then we'll give you two years.
You leave school at eighteen, we'll give you two years
to do what you want, try and be a success,
and then you come back at the age of twenty
with I got three A levels, you can go to
(38:23):
a decent college. So that's what I did. I had
to put my plans on the shelf for two years
and I stayed the extra sixteen seventeen eighteen and I
got a levels and that's when I left home and
fingers crossed, I went down to London to give it
a go.
Speaker 1 (38:43):
Wait wait, wait, before you go to London, you're playing
with the bus driver or on to records. Oh yeah,
did you ever form any beer?
Speaker 3 (38:51):
Yeah?
Speaker 1 (38:51):
Yeah.
Speaker 2 (38:52):
I was in two bands. One was called the Maniacs,
which I still think is one of the greatest band
names ever. They have seen me at doing my little
disco drumming and this guy came up and he said, yeah,
he played really good mate for a kid. You want
to be in our band? And I said yes please.
(39:14):
And this band had one amp. There was four of us,
now five of us. This amp had twelve inputs, the
only the only amp ever made with twelve inputs. We
all went through this one app can you believe it?
Until it burst into flames on one show. So after
the Maniacs, I joined a band called the heat Wave
(39:38):
after Martha and the Van Della's song. And it was
a trio me singing Tony Lansit on guitar and Stuart
McDonald on bass and we got pretty good. We went
all over the little tri state area and that lasted
about eighteen months and then I got ready to go
down to the big city and give myself a shot.
Speaker 1 (40:01):
Okay, the problem with the drummer is the equipment. Usually
they have a station wagon. You got a show, so
you're going to leave Shropshire. How do you get to
get your drum kit to London? And where are you
going to stay?
Speaker 2 (40:16):
Well, this is where serendipity kicks in. Because my one
of my distatblatives, Lovely Lady, she's no longer with us.
Her family offered to put me up down in Twickenham,
which was a suburb of London, and her son was
a drummer. Can you believe that he had a kit?
So I could, you know, practice or whatever. And when
(40:37):
I went to auditions there were drums there, so no,
I didn't have to schlep you know my kit down.
I didn't really have it. I had a tiny little
kit in the country. So I left all that behind
and you know, I answered auditions, I answered ads in
the Melody Maker, disc New Musical Express, all trades and
(41:03):
nothing really for two years, you know, I just slogged
around doing menial jobs, construction, demolition, car washing, all the time,
answering ads, and nothing really came of it until the
twenty third month of the twenty four months that my
parents had given me, and I saw an ad for
(41:27):
a band called the Black pat Bones, and I thought,
what a great name. That's a great name. And you've
got to remember, back in sixty eight, the blues scene
in London was huge. It was all Carric Clapton, John Mail,
Peter Green. It was blues, blues, blues. Everywhere you went
it was blues club. So now this club was way
(41:50):
across London, like twenty miles on a subway, a long
way away. But I thought, wow, I really want to
go and see this band. So I tossed a coin, literally,
I touched a coin. If it comes downtails, I'll stay
and write some letters home.
Speaker 1 (42:07):
You know.
Speaker 2 (42:07):
I got to get up early in the morning. It
came down heads. I thought, screw it, and I went
to see this band. And I walked in. They were okay,
they weren't great. They were doing covers. But the guitarist, wo,
he was wonderful and he's a little fella, and I
collared him during the break. I say you know what,
(42:29):
you You're really good, mate, really good, but your drummers shit.
I was desperate, and he said, well, it's funny shud
say that, because tonight is his last night. He's leaving
us and we're holding auditions here in this pub tomorrow
if you want to come along. And that was Paul Kossof.
(42:49):
So I came back the next day, another twenty miles
on the subway, and I auditioned. There was another guy,
another drummer there, and we played a of blues numbers
and I got the job. So I was with Paul
coss Off and Black Cat Bones for about six months,
and then he took me aside one day and said, listen,
(43:12):
I've just met this singer who is so good, and
I fed up with playing these same old standards. I
want to form a band with this guy. And this
was Paul Rogers and that was the beginnings of Free.
Speaker 1 (43:31):
Okay. So everybody was very young.
Speaker 2 (43:35):
Very young. I was the oldest and I was nineteen,
you know, and we had to get andy. Well, here's
the thing. Alexis Corner was the sort of godfather of
the blues of the English, the London blues scene, and
he had Paul coss Off. He knew Paul, and he said, look,
(44:00):
I know this. He's a kid, by the way, He's
just he's just played with John mail Wow. They just
he got the sack from John Mayle. I said, well,
if he got the sack, he couldn't have been that good.
But John was always changing personnel. It was no big deal.
The fact that this kid had played with John Mayle
meant that he was good. And I said, yeah, all right,
(44:21):
and Alexis said, but he's fifteen. I said, what, he's
fifteen years old. Wow, But you got to see him.
So me and Paul cross Off and Paul Rodgers went
down to see Andy, who was playing at a show
in London, and he was amazing. He was incredible. So
(44:41):
we called him backstage after the gig and we said, look,
we're forming a band. You want to come in and
he said, well, let me think about it. You know,
it's very cagey. He didn't know any of us. And
we had a rehearsal the next day at that same
pub where I met Paul kross Off a few weeks prior,
(45:02):
and we got on so well. And during that first rehearsal,
Alexis corner came in and he was knocked out. He said,
you guys are amazing. You've been it's like you've been
playing together months and this was our first ever jam session.
And he said, well, what are you going to call yourself?
(45:24):
He said, well, hang on, are we a band? We
kind of looked at each other and he said, yeah,
why not, and he Alexis used to have a band
called Free at Last with Ginger Baker and Graham Bond,
and he said, well, you can't call yourself Free at Last,
how about three?
Speaker 1 (45:45):
So we Alexis came up with a name.
Speaker 2 (45:48):
Yeah, oh yeah, yeah, yeah, he came up with it,
and we thought, okay, why not. But the only trouble was,
you see, back in those days, Bob, you had these
nebulous names like Yes and Clouds and Taste and you know,
it's like, you know, the Grateful Dead, these weird names.
(46:09):
So Free wasn't that too far removed from reality. But
promoters and club owners were not happy because they put
free and people were thinking, oh, we don't have to pay,
so we were getting this feedback, so they've got to
call themselves the free oh God, which we had to
do occasionally. But we stuck it out and Free became
(46:35):
a well loved band in England in the United Kingdom. Yeah,
I love Free.
Speaker 1 (46:42):
So how long until you start playing original tunes? And
how long until you hook up with Chris Blackwell?
Speaker 2 (46:51):
No, not long at all. We started, I mean, Paul
and Andy were the main songwriters. They Paul had in
my shadow from the get go. I mean, that was
one of the first songs we practiced, boom boom, bump
bum bum bump, barb boom, and that was one of
the first songs we played at the rehearsal. Was so
(47:12):
from the very first rehearsal we were doing original stuff.
Then we got a residency at the Marquee, which was
this hallowed club in London where all the big names played,
and we got a residency on Monday Night, which was
the sort of wasteland of the seven nights of the week,
(47:34):
but it was still the Marquee. And word have gotten
out I think through Alexis, because Alexis was known and
loved in the industry and he put the word out
You've got to see this band Free, they really are good.
And Muff Windward, Steve's brother was the an r head
of Island Records. He came down to see us. We
(47:55):
didn't know he came to see us one Monday night
and went back to Chris Black and said, you got
to see this band because they are the next big thing.
So Andy, who was the sort of business manager in
the band, got a call from Chris and said, would
you like to come and we discuss. I mean, I've
(48:16):
heard about you and like to have a chat and
see if we can go to the next level. Wow,
Chris blackwell, ah, you know you had traffic, Joe Cocker.
They were a big label. Island were a really big
label back in the day. So the four of us
went to the Island Records in Oxford Street and here's
(48:40):
the weird thing. We had to climb the stairs past
an organization called rack r Ak, owned by Peter Grant
and Mickey Mose who knew that five years later we'd
be inca hoots with Peter Grant anyway, and that's where
(49:01):
who work with rat Now those people don't know I
know you who were exactly.
Speaker 1 (49:06):
So you go to Chris and how does that meeting
turn out?
Speaker 2 (49:10):
Well, he said that he said, I've heard a lot
about you. You know, I trust Muff Winwards judgment and
he says, he says, you're great, la la lah, but
we've got a problem with the name. And we thought,
oh oh. He said, the name doesn't fly. How about
the heavy metal kids were what you're fucking killing? And
(49:33):
we kind of looked at each other and said, nah, nah,
it's got to be free or nothing. And he leaned
in and said, then there's nothing more to discuss ship
and now just reliving that, my stomach sort of goes
a little cold, and we will, all right. So we
(49:53):
stood up and we sort of turned on our heel
and left the office, and we as soon as the
door closed, we looked at it and said, what the
fuck have we done? We just turned down Island Records
because of the name. But deep in our hearts, Bob,
we knew that we'd done the right thing. We'd we'd
acted as a group, as a unified band, and we said, no,
(50:18):
it's going to be free or nothing. That same evening
and you've got a call from Chris. He said, we'll
give you a six month contract. You go out as free,
see how it goes, and we'll take it from there
and the rest is history. We you know, we stayed
as free.
Speaker 1 (50:36):
Okay, so you get a record deal, you have a band,
how are you supporting yourself as the band playing live
or people working d jobs? What's going on?
Speaker 2 (50:48):
No, we were fully professional and we we slogged around
the country. We had a little van, we had a costs.
Pul coss Off did all the driving. We played seven
pretty much seven nights a week, and we gathered this
fan base. We went all over England, Scotland and Wales.
(51:10):
Never went to Ireland and not until late anyway, a
little foray into France or Germany, but mainly we just
slogged around England, United Kingdom and we built up this
great fan base. I mean especially in the north, Middlesburn, Newcastle,
Durham where Paul was from Middlesbrough, so Paul Rodgers, so
(51:33):
we had a special connection to the Northeast. And we
released a couple of albums. They didn't do a lot,
they didn't do great.
Speaker 1 (51:43):
Well that's a little bit slower. Yeah, first album. What
was the experience there comes out meant nothing in America?
Speaker 2 (51:51):
What was the experience in tons of subs, tons of subs? Well,
basically it was just our it was our set, It
was our fifty minute set. You know, Chris black Will said, look,
I got this producer, Guy Stevens, who was a genius
but a little looney, and he said, I've seen your set.
(52:12):
Just play the set. And that's basically what we did.
It was a live set and we did a few
overdubs and it was great, I mean, but it really
didn't do It didn't make a dent. It was like
a musical calling card. People were aware that there was
a bankle Free, but it really didn't do anything. And
(52:35):
so that was a bit of a disappointment. So after
about six or seven months, we released another album just
called Free, which had ninety percent I believe maybe one
hundred percent original material.
Speaker 1 (52:50):
Okay, that album you saw on the bins in the
US had no impact, But you know, there's this, there's this.
About thirty years ago, they put out a compilation in
A and M Free Molten Gold, which is anybody just
got to get this. It was a double CD set, unbelievable. Now,
(53:11):
on that album, the Free album, I know I'd heard
I'll be Creeping on an A and M stampler in
nineteen seventy called Friends Never Forgotten It. But also on
that album's songs of Yesterday Woman in broad Daylight, I mean,
oh wow, great stuff on that record.
Speaker 2 (53:31):
Yeah, yeah, you know your stuff, boll but yeah, that's great. Yeah.
Well I'll be creeping songs of Yesterday. I mean that's
when Paul and Andy really started yelling as songwrites. Is
Woman broad Daylight? Well, that's that's another thing. I'm just
(53:52):
never crazy about that song. That was when singles ruled
the roost and you had to have a single, and
I to this, I will go to my grade saying
that was the worst possible choice for a single. But
never mind. It kind of established us as not a
flash in the pan. I mean, Paul and Andy were
(54:14):
writing really really good stuff. We were getting better and
better as we went around the country and Europe, and
we started getting really really good. We just needed a
hit single.
Speaker 1 (54:28):
Okay. Before we get to the hit single, the credits
say Chris Blackwell produced the second record? Did he really
produce it?
Speaker 2 (54:37):
Look? For me, when it comes to producing, a producer
is someone, especially if you were wet behind the ears,
newbie in the studio. He you know, he controls everything.
He's the full crumb or the hinge around which everything revolves.
(54:58):
When you've written all the songs are rain all the songs,
and you're performing all the songs. You produced the album
as far as I'm concerned. Now, Chris became a producer.
You'd have to ask him about that, but he owned
the company. He was very musically astute, and he could
tell the hit from a non hit, and he was
(55:18):
like a dad father figure to us. So I don't
give him producer credit. But when it comes to actually,
all the albums in my career we produced, as far
as I'm concerned.
Speaker 1 (55:29):
So the only thing I'll say is I spoke with Chris,
and I forget how we put it. How I put
the question. I asked him about the one band on
Island that he was most excited about, and he said
it was Free.
Speaker 2 (55:43):
Blessing.
Speaker 1 (55:43):
So the second album comes out, as I say, very
little penetration in the US. I can't speak to the UK.
But is Chrys still excited? How do you get the
right to produce the next record in how does Fire
and Water come together?
Speaker 2 (56:00):
Well, by the end of I have to look in
my notes, but after two years of slogging, we had
this huge fan base. I mean, they weren't just huge, Bob,
but they were vociferous. They were passionate. I mean a
free fan.
Speaker 1 (56:16):
Was like whoa.
Speaker 2 (56:18):
And we could do no wrong, particularly in the North.
But we did one show and ironically enough, it was
in Durham, which is in the North, and we came
off to the sound of our own footsteps of the stage.
It was like desultory applause, which was and we had
to walk through the It was unusual because we had
(56:40):
to walk through the crowd to get to the dressing
room at the back of the hall, a different configuration.
So by the time we got even halfway through the crowd,
there was no applause. So we died of death basically.
And we got into the dressing room and we kind
of threw ourselves on the benches and said, you know,
we need a song, a song that they can dance to.
(57:02):
We need to we need something. We we had this
sort of mid tempo to go back. Bat got nothing
that you could really you could nod your head to,
but you could really dance to it. So and I
truly believe it all right now is born in that
dressing room there and then because Andy said, oh now, baby,
(57:26):
and he's bopping around the showers and the dressing room
of the hooks and more, and he's becomes this possessed
a little lad. He's only seventeen, drumming on his body
all right now. And he said that's it. And him
and Paul they took that seed and they honed it
(57:46):
and it became all right now and we rehearsed it
in sound checks and it became this monster literally monster hit.
Speaker 1 (57:56):
And did you know, I mean one of the stories
on this, I remember talking to Al Cooper and got
a call saying, we want to come up to the
studio Atlanta. We got a new song first, Leonard Skinnered
album had just come out, and the new song was
sweet Home Alabama didn't come out for a year. And
I said, did you know it was a hit? And
(58:18):
he go, Al says it was sweet Home Alabama. So
I asked the same thing with all right now. I mean,
you talk about a one listed hit. You didn't even
have to get all the way through the song to
get it. Did you guys know what you had?
Speaker 2 (58:34):
I knew it. I knew it pretty much. I'll tell
you how I knew because every time he played it,
it kind of re recharge yourself. We did that although
we were a lot younger back then, but we did
all right. Now it was about twenty seven takes and
I just don't but but you know, it's a physical
(58:56):
song to play, and we'd be a bright down or
something that would go wrong with someone with a wrong note.
We'd started all over again. We never got tired of it,
never on playbacks. So I think we used track five
or six, take five or six, and we we came
(59:16):
in and the engineer he looked at us and said,
fucking hell guys. So we said it hit that play
and we listened to it and I thought, wow, man,
this is great because it was unlike anything we'd done before. Bob,
you know, it was us, but in a different genre,
of different whatever you want to call it. It had life.
(59:37):
It had so much life. So now here's a lot
of people don't know this, but this was in Basing
Street and Island Island Records was in Basing Street, an
old converted church, and Chris Blackwell had an apartment above
studio number one. And that's just about two in the
morning and the engineer says, we've got to get Crystal
(59:58):
listening to this. Are you kidding? It's two o'clock in
the morning. The matter, get him out of bed. So
I said, all right, what the hell? So he the engineer,
called him and he said the band wanted to hear something, Chris,
and something like, you know what fucking time it is?
They really, really you got to come and hear this. Now,
(01:00:21):
luckily he's only a staircase away. So he comes down
and he says something like it's better be good. So
he's sitting there and we hit the plane and now
it's five minutes nearly nearly six minutes long. So the
whole six minutes, I don't want to look at him,
you know, we're trying not to look him and see
(01:00:42):
his reaction. So the end of the six minutes end
of the song, he said, guys, it's a hit. Wow,
it's a hit, but it's too long boom, And he's right,
I mean, as you know, it's six minutes. At our
top of the pops was ruled the roost nothing under
(01:01:05):
three minutes would be allowed. We had to cut a
huge section out of the song. Now, I'd never done
an edit in my life. I didn't know what it
consisted of, how to do it, and we were like, no, no,
you can't do it. Kind of Chris said, I want
you to leave the studio. Come back. I'll call you.
You know, I'll send a guy. There's an all night
(01:01:26):
cafe around a corner. Come back in half an hour.
I'll let you know when to come back. It'll be
about half an hour. So he's cutting up our baby.
And most people who are pretty you know, pretty good
at engineering will know that the edit on All Right
Now is not very good. But it did the trick.
(01:01:47):
It snipped out about two and a half minutes, and
we came back and we listened to it. It was
a bit clunky, but wow, it's still sounded good. And
he said, there it is, and I believe they released
it the next week. Now, we had trouble with the BBC.
You know, the BBC at this very strict, stern people
(01:02:09):
and everyone thought Paul had said let's raise the fucking rent,
when actually he said it was let's raise the parking rate.
So we had to get one of their guys come down.
We had to isolate the vocal track. We were all there,
little guy with a notebook and pen, No, I just
want to hit the vocal track. So we did and
(01:02:32):
said and Paul kind of fluffed the p it's like
parking bar, parking parking rate. But anyway, the guy said,
all right, I'm satisfied, la lah lah, we can put
this on top of the pops And the next thing,
you know, it was this huge hit.
Speaker 1 (01:02:57):
Okay, there was a version of the radio in the States,
and then there was the version on the album with
little Paul cast Off solo. The version on the album.
Is that the complete song? Or is that correct?
Speaker 2 (01:03:15):
No? Correct? Okay, that's the full one. And I'm glad
you mentioned cos because I really think he should have
got a credit on that song because his guitar solo
was one of the best ever guitar solos ever recorded.
And I'll never forget seeing him, you know, And I
think we spliced together maybe two takes, but it's one
(01:03:36):
of the all time great guitar solos and it made
it made the song.
Speaker 1 (01:03:41):
As far as I'm also talking to Paul, who's played
with Jimmy Page, who's played with Brian May so many
of the legends. He said, cast Off was the best
guitarist you ever played, was the most talented. You have
a take on that.
Speaker 2 (01:04:00):
I'm not of the school of the best in anything.
I never you know, music to me is very nebul
listened to say that someone is the best at anything.
Coss when he was on, was the most satisfying guitarist
to play with. Whether or not he was better than Jimmy,
(01:04:21):
or Page was better than Hendricks, or Bet was better
than Jimmy or La La Lai. You could go on
and on. But at the time, because Coss was a
dear brother and a friend of mine and I loved
him to death before the drugs really took over. When
he was on, he made me weep. He was just
so good. So yeah, Coss is one of the great
(01:04:44):
guitarists of all time. And considering he was only around
not even five or six years, the impact that he
had on guitar playing is staggering.
Speaker 1 (01:04:57):
So what was it like having a world wide number
one record?
Speaker 2 (01:05:05):
What do they say, be careful what you wish for.
It was amazing at the time. It was everything that
we wanted. Bob, You know, why does a band get
together in the first place To have fun, to pull girls,
to have drinking, to travel la la la. But ultimately,
you want to be a success, and you want to
(01:05:27):
earn money, you want to travel to different countries, and
you want to play the thousands of people, and we did.
We got all that, We got all that, and we
you know, we got the Golden Ring. We managed to
get it and then the ship Yeah tell me tell
me the shit hit the fan. Well, the shit hit
the fan because we couldn't follow it up. And this
(01:05:48):
was not just the top fifty hit in some country
or so, this was a top three hit around the world.
It was huge and it was, like I said, everything
we wanted, but suddenly we had to follow it up.
How do you follow all right Now? You can't. It's
(01:06:09):
just impossible because you set the bar. You set the
bar so high. Because we wanted a band too, We
wanted a song quote that people could dance to. Well,
we've ticked that box. How do you follow that with
another song of that success? So we couldn't. Fire and
(01:06:30):
Water was a huge success, or right Now. It was
a huge success. To follow up to the single all
Right Now was the Steeler, which was a great song,
but it wasn't nowhere near. It didn't have the attraction
that all Right Now had a highway. Although musically a
beautiful album and one of my favorite free albums, it
(01:06:54):
just died a death. So we came down to a
very very quickly. And because of the success of All
Right Now, we were playing different countries every night, not
just different towns. We were going around the world. We
were doing this and that, we were doing press comfries
and we were getting burned out, and Ireland wanted to
(01:07:15):
capitalize as businessmen, I want to do and they kept
booking us more shows, more shows. We're getting bet up
with it. Paul Rogers was the first to say, I
want to rest. I'm tired of this. I've had enough.
I want to rest. But no, they wouldn't do it.
So and I really think this is where the management
(01:07:39):
dropped the ball.
Speaker 1 (01:07:40):
Who was the manager, Well, it was Chris.
Speaker 2 (01:07:43):
Black, Chris and John Glover, and they should have listened
to us. And I've told Chris to his face that
you know, they should have given us a rest. You know,
six months. Six months is nothing in rock and roll.
It's not a big deal. We should have had arrest
and they didn't. So we came in to me and
(01:08:06):
Paul Kossoff, we were living together. We came into one
of the mixing sessions for my brother Jake, which was
a single, and the atmosphere of Paul and Andy Paul
Rodgers and Andy were there with the engineer and the
atmosphere was terrible. Hey guys, how you doing that? Okay, oh,
what's up? And then he said, you know when we
(01:08:29):
when we reached Australia, that's going to be our last show,
and me, of course went what. Yeah, we're tired, we
fed up with it. I said, well, let's just have
a break. No no, no, musically I forget the actual words,
but we've come to the end of our road. We're
breaking up the band. And I was I was stunned.
(01:08:51):
I mean wow, and we kept it. Now this is
where we dropped the ball because we should have told management,
and I think there was a certain fuck you. You know,
you're not listening to us, so we're not going to
talk to you. And thinking about it now, it's the
first time I thought about it. We should have. I
should have gone to Johnny Glover and Chris. I said, hey,
(01:09:12):
you're in danger of losing this band unless you light
it up. But once Paul Rodgers makes up his mind,
you can't change it. So we didn't tell Johnny. We
left for Japan and Australia, we didn't tell Johnny Glover
that we would breaking up until we'd taken off of Japan.
We were in mid air, Paul went up to and
(01:09:36):
whatever he said to him, and Johnny's face fell a
thousand miles. So we had to go through the whole
of the Japanese tour and the Australian to knowing that
when we got to Randwick Race Course in Sydney that
would be our final show. And it was until we reformed.
But that's another story.
Speaker 1 (01:09:58):
Okay, you re formed, it ultimately doesn't take Let's jump forward.
How do you form bad company?
Speaker 2 (01:10:08):
Okay, so yeah, free fell apart. Coss developed this dreadful
drug problem, et cetera said, and we we said enough,
we can't do it anymore. So I went to Brazil.
I stayed there for a few months. Paul went to
Japan when a lady married her and formed his own
(01:10:29):
band called Peace.
Speaker 1 (01:10:31):
Before we get there. Had you made any money in
this whole success?
Speaker 2 (01:10:37):
No? Not really. Yeah, I mean not a lot. But
I was single. I had enough to get into trouble nicely.
But no, no, I didn't have a lot of money.
I didn't write the songs. I just saved money from
personal concerts and royalties. Mechanical waters, but no, not a
(01:10:57):
lot of money at all.
Speaker 1 (01:10:58):
Okay, So Paul forums piece, he forms.
Speaker 2 (01:11:02):
Peace and they go on the road with Mot the Hoople.
He's opening for Mo the Hoople and during this time
What the Hoople are huge, huge band, all the young dudes,
as you know, the David Bowie connection, a la big band.
But Mick Ralphs, the guitarist, is very unhappy. He's been
you know, he's not getting on with Ian Hunter, and
(01:11:25):
him and Paul developed this relationship, this friendship, and they
start jamming together in the dressing room before the shows,
La la lah. Mick brings him this little real to
real of this song called Can't Get Enough, and he says,
Ian doesn't want to do it, and Mick plays it
to Paul and said, Paul says, fucking hell, this is
(01:11:46):
this is amazing, and he starts singing along with it.
And Mick told me, he told me later, he said,
when Paul started singing along to Can't Get Enough, his
heart just soared because Paul just did what Paul Rodgers
does to a song. He just elevated it. So anyway,
long story short, at the end of that tour, mix
(01:12:07):
ses I'm leaving mat the Hoople, Paul breaks up his
band Peace and they formed us.
Speaker 1 (01:12:13):
Because it hasn't been covered. After he left Martha Hoople,
they got aerie old Bender, the guy from Spooky Tooth.
They never had, They never had teple a little says,
did Ian Hunter care that Mick Ralph's left to.
Speaker 2 (01:12:25):
The degree, you know, I honestly don't know. I don't know.
Speaker 1 (01:12:30):
So in any event, Mick leaves Mark the Hoople and
Paul breaks up Peace continue. Yeah.
Speaker 2 (01:12:38):
So they started this friendship and they started writing songs together.
And I called Paul from Brazil just to see it.
We always got on very well. Free was dead and gone,
and I just wanted to see what he was up to.
You've got to remember we were still in our early twenties.
I was twenty five. Paul is six months younger than me,
(01:12:59):
so we were both in our late you know, twenty
four to twenty five. He said, well, I'm you know,
I'm getting a band together with Mick. You know, you
want to play drums. I loved him, man, and I
flew back to England and I went to Paul's cottage.
He's got a little cottage outside London for a little
get together. With Mick, and Mick was lovely and I
(01:13:21):
love him to this day. He was a sweetheart. He
is funny, great player, very underrated player, but he just
had this wonderful humanitarian vibe about him and nothing could
be too much sub for him. He was great. And
we had this song. He had this song moving on,
(01:13:42):
this thing in open Sea tuning. He had this guitar
tune to open Sea and he did this wow, wow wow,
And I started playing drums for that. Wow, that's two
songs we've got. Can't get enough and moving on. And
then Paull had rock Steady Barn and suddenly we're like,
(01:14:03):
hocking hell. We got some songs here. And then the
quest for a bass player started. But before that we
needed a manager because we knew it was like you
go back five years when Free was in that little pub.
We knew he had something. Now this was Mick Rause,
(01:14:23):
Paul Rogers and myself, and we knew our road manager
who was floating road manager with Free was a New
Zealander who had a friend from New Zealand who was
roading for Led Zeppelin. And this is where the tie
comes in. And Clive, who rode it for Led Zeppelin
(01:14:44):
gave Paul Rodgers Peter Grant's number, because Paul, being Paul, says,
who's the biggest ban in the world, Led Zeppelin, who
manages led Zepplin, Peter Grant, Let's call Peter Grant. So
he did, and Peter Grant said, I've heard already, have
heard about about you guys. What we haven't even got
(01:15:07):
a bass player, so it doesn't matter. I want to
come and see you. So Peter Grant came to see
us in a little village hall and he did a
very clever thing. Bob. We're waiting and there's no cell
phones in those days. Peter Grant said, I'll be there
at two o'clock. Two o'clock comes, we're playing. It's just me,
Paul and Mick and a bass player who actually didn't
(01:15:28):
get the job. We play the same ten songs. Three
o'clock comes, no Peter, play the same ten songs. Four o'clock,
no Peter. Finally four point thirty, Peter Grant walks in
and hello, and we said, well, take a seat, we'll
play you the set. He said, don't worry, I've heard
it what he said. I've been in the car park.
(01:15:52):
He says, I've been in the car park listening to
you through the open window. He said, I knew you'd
be nervous, so I just didn't want to you guys off.
I've heard what you can do, and I think you're
fucking great. You want to be on our new label
called Swan Song. We said, yes. Please.
Speaker 1 (01:16:10):
Let me ask you this. Do you think this is,
you know, kind of obscure. But do you think if
you hadn't been on Swan Song you get more respect
and you might have been in the rock and Roll
Hall of Fame? Or did you get wrapped up in
the Hall led Zeppelin thing and therefore people didn't give
you the same respect.
Speaker 2 (01:16:30):
I don't know. I don't No one's ever answering that before.
Short answer, I don't know. I don't want to get
into hot water here. But you know, Zeppelin were in
the Hall of Fame. I mean, there's no way you
could not have Zeppelin the Hall of Fame. Jimmy, Yeah,
but I mean one of the great guitarists of all time,
(01:16:52):
Peter Grant was not a popular man. And we all
know Peter's reputation and he's no longer with us, but
he had a fearsome reputation. He pissed off a lot
of people in America. But I think, also, ah, what
the hell I think? Because of bad companies changing lineups
(01:17:13):
over the fifty years that we've been together, it kind
of devalued our currency a little bit. And you know,
you had the Brian Howe era, you had the Paul
Rodgers era one and two. When Paul rejoined the band,
we had Robert Hart. So I honestly don't know why
we have not been nominated, not even inducted. You have
(01:17:38):
to be nominated first, as you know. But I never
thought about the connection with the I mean, Arma Urtigan
was one of the founder members of the Hall of Fame,
and him and Peter Grant were like two p's in
a bard. I mean, they were great friends. So I
really can't answer that succinctly, quite honestly.
Speaker 1 (01:17:58):
Okay, let's start for a second talk about Peter Grit.
What was up with Peter Grit?
Speaker 2 (01:18:03):
Oh, if he was in your corner, you couldn't ask
for a better friend. And I loved him. I mean
he was a father figure. Even though he was only
a couple of years older than me. He was like
the father figure. But he wheah. He had a drug
problem up the wazoo. I mean, he was what I
(01:18:25):
didn't like about the whole Swan song, the whole Peter
Grant thing was the thuggishness, the violence, the thunder and lightning,
the whole thing about, you know, intimidating people.
Speaker 1 (01:18:42):
And I saw that many.
Speaker 2 (01:18:43):
Many times with the whole Peter Grant organization. He hired thugs,
he hired violent men around him and they were all
doing blow. We all did it, and that made people
even worse. And I'm just telling it. I'm telling things
that a lot of people know anyway. That you know,
(01:19:04):
he had a guy called John Bindon who was a
convicted murderer. I mean he he could knock people out
with one punch. He was not a nice guy. And
I think it all it's calm it. It came back
on him because he developed this drug problem Peter did.
He became a recluse. He couldn't lose weight. He was
(01:19:28):
very He's always a very big guy, became obese and
that was his excuse. You I don't want to eat
so much, so you know, I'll do blow or whatever.
But in a rage, you didn't want to be around him.
He was not a nice guy, but when he when
he loved you, he was he was a great company.
(01:19:48):
I have to say, you know.
Speaker 1 (01:19:50):
You've been around how sharp a guy was he is
a manager?
Speaker 2 (01:19:55):
I think he had this this street wise qualit to him.
You'd have to ask people who did deals with him.
I mean, he was fiersome, he looks. He changed the
whole touring right scene. You know, where promoters got the
lion's share of a gate. Suddenly when it was Zeppelin,
(01:20:17):
it was ninety Zeppelin ten percent for the who is
it conscious West with the big promoters. So he changed
that whole scene. And now I'm not saying that that
was relevant to across the board, but he did turn
things around in favor of the artists, no question. So
(01:20:39):
I think he was a very sharp business man, no question.
Speaker 1 (01:20:42):
Let's go back. So how'd you get Barz Burrell?
Speaker 2 (01:20:45):
Ah, well, Buzz. We had a list of sixteen bass
players and Buzz was in King Crimson. And we never
liked King Crimson except for the name. I got to say,
one of the great, one of the great band names
of all time. But it was in our cup of tea.
You know, I was raised on stacks and motown and
you know, soul black music. So King Crimson anyway, Bars
(01:21:09):
was at the very bottom. And we went through fifteen
other bass players and none of them worked, and we thought,
fuck it, and we called him up and we met
in a rehearsal place off the King's Road, and I
believe he came down and he was a great looking guy,
very funny and amenable and gracious, and he said, let's
(01:21:30):
not play for it, but let's go to the pub
and have a drink and get to know each other,
all right. So we went and had a couple of
pints and then we came back and we did a
little Little Misfortune, which was a B side of a
Bad Company song, and mix says here Boss goes from
G to sit and Boss says, no, no, no, I
don't tell me the chords. I'll figure it out all right.
(01:21:53):
And he played. Yeah, he played great, and we liked
him from the get go, and we offered him the
job at the end of the session. He was so good.
Speaker 1 (01:22:03):
Okay, the title album, the title cut Bad Company, which
I prefer to can't get enough. You're a credited as
a Colt writer. How did Bad Company come about? Well?
Speaker 2 (01:22:16):
The interesting thing about Bad Company was Paul came up
the piano riff, and it's an unusual rock song because
it's an E flat minor, and any keyboard player will
tell you that E flat miner was all the black
notes on a piano, and most rock songs are in
A or E or G or whatever. C can't get
(01:22:37):
enough as in C and C is what they call
the people's chord. It's kind of a common chord. So
E flat miner it was. And Paul had this great
bomb bomb bomb and he played it to me on
the piano. The Wow, it's nice. It's set a mood,
and as soon as you hear it on it whatever
radio or high file or sonas or whatever, as soon
(01:23:00):
as you hear then opening chords, it really clicks something
in you and still does to this day.
Speaker 1 (01:23:06):
So we just, you know, we tossed.
Speaker 2 (01:23:08):
Ideas around and I came up with one line, Paul
came up with another line, and I think we did
it in about twenty minutes and a glass of beer
and a joint.
Speaker 1 (01:23:25):
Okay, Ready for Love had been on the first Martha
Ball Columbia album, sung by Mick. How did you guys
decide to do that? On the first Bad Company, right well.
Speaker 2 (01:23:36):
One of one of mixed, one of the best songs
ever written. And as soon as Paul heard it, he said, well,
I want to do it, and Mix said, well, we've
done it already. I don't give a shit. I'm going
to sing this. We're gonna we're going to revitalize it
because the Mamma Hooper version is not great, but the
(01:23:56):
way Paul sings it and the whole piano solo, it's
a beautiful and we were when we were playing it,
Bowie was in the next studio. We were in Olympic
Studios in Barns in London and Bowie came in and
we didn't know he was there. He was just sat down.
We walked in and Bo said, he said, that song
(01:24:17):
is so fucking good. So hey, if if it's all
right by David, it's going on the album.
Speaker 1 (01:24:26):
And of course one more Seagull. What can you tell
me about the Well Seagull was one.
Speaker 2 (01:24:31):
Hundred Paul, and you know, he had this beautiful song
and it's still to this day. I mean, whenever he
plays it, people just go into raptures. It's a very
simple song in D major and he sings the hell
out of it, and it's it's just one of the
all time beautiful acoustic songs.
Speaker 1 (01:24:52):
Okay, So from this side of the fence as a fan,
I can't get enough hit the FM radio. The album
comes out very shortly thereafter, huge success from minute one.
That was a paradigm that was not happening back then
(01:25:12):
for something usually a percolated FM radio you played because
this thing was a monster from day one. What was
the experience on your side of the fence.
Speaker 2 (01:25:23):
Well, you know, you had this perfect storm, Bob. You know,
you had the release of the launch of Swansong Records.
Zeppelin publicity machine goes into overdrive. We had these launch
parties in Beverly Hills and New York City. We're the
(01:25:43):
first band other than Zeppelin on Swanson Records. We had
this out of the box amazing album from the get go.
I mean it just we're all good looking lads, we're
in our mid twenties. We've all come from very well
known bands in England and to a lesser degree in America.
(01:26:05):
So it couldn't really fail. And you've got to remember
that we we could back it up. It's all. It's
one thing having a great album but unless you can
go out on the stage and produce a live show
that is as good as that album, then it's going
to fall. So every book was tipped. We had the publicity,
(01:26:27):
We had Zeppelin. We were riding on their coattails. If
you wish, if you will, we did a tour. We
went all over the States, opening for other people, by
the way, and at the end of the tour we
had our first gold album.
Speaker 1 (01:26:44):
Okay, unlike in Free you do follow it up with
Street Shooter, which is actually bigger than the first album.
Feel Like Making Love just takes over and feel Like
Making Love there's not sound like can't get enough. So
tell me how you get that song, and tell me
more about the second album.
Speaker 2 (01:27:06):
Well, but Paul had Paul and Mick had these two
separate songs. I'll never forget. I think Mick had a
little country d T G B. And then Paul had
this great riff. He might be the other way around.
I'm not sure who had it, But I said, you
(01:27:26):
know what, because neither of the ideas was going anywhere,
So why don't you just marry the two have the
versus a little country thing and have the chorus as
this riff so we ran it a few times and
you know what, it took off. So that was feeling't
making Love. Still to this day, I believe if you
(01:27:48):
go on Pandora, I think it's next to Bad Company.
It's the most played Bad Company song ever.
Speaker 1 (01:27:56):
So yeah, the only time I've sung karaoke in my
life was on a boat, and the only song I
sang was feel like making Love.
Speaker 2 (01:28:04):
I want to see a YouTube of that.
Speaker 1 (01:28:07):
God, it doesn't exist. Can you tell me anything about
Shooting Star?
Speaker 2 (01:28:13):
Oh yeah, yeah, probably my one of my favorite songs
of Paul. Well, we were going on to our next tour.
We were in He Throw, He Throw Airport and we
all got there as the start of our second tour.
Everyone's like, well, can't wait, and Paul is sort of
sequested himself away in a corner of the departure or
(01:28:35):
he's got his little guitar and he's and they're calling
the flights in flight seven three to New York. Paul,
come on, So I'm nearly finished. I'm nearly finished, and
he's finishing the last verse to Shooting Star, which he
played when he finally arrived in New York. He played
(01:28:58):
us and it was just John he was a schoolboy
when he heard his first Beatle song and it was,
oh man, one of the great I think, one of
his finest songs because it's still relevant today. I mean
it's fifty years later, it still rings a bell and
addiction and the price of fame and so on and
(01:29:20):
so forth. So you feel like I'm making love, shooting
star good, loving one bad. I mean, three stellar tracks.
And that's why for me, what's the name? The second
album is my favorite album?
Speaker 1 (01:29:39):
Well, the funny thing is the hits are on the
first side, but once you burn that out Paul's vocal
and deal with the preacher and then I wild fire
a woman really astounding. Okay, Run with the Pack is
the next album I got. I ask you because this
(01:30:01):
is my favorite Bad Company song.
Speaker 2 (01:30:03):
You.
Speaker 1 (01:30:04):
I don't know if there's any story but simple man.
Oh well, yeah, freedom is the only thing that means
a damn to me, to.
Speaker 2 (01:30:13):
Me, yeah, especially if you live in New Hampshire.
Speaker 1 (01:30:16):
What is it? Yeah?
Speaker 2 (01:30:19):
Die?
Speaker 1 (01:30:19):
Yeah?
Speaker 2 (01:30:20):
That was I think that was a definitely a fifty
to fifty collaboration with Mick because Mick came up with
that the beautiful guitar riff, that descending riff and then Paul.
When Paul sung this, I mean whoa when he hit
that that final verse, I'm but a simple man. God Wow, yeah,
(01:30:45):
I'm Yeah. Not much else I can say about it.
It's a joy to play.
Speaker 1 (01:30:50):
Okay, you have three big hits in the album. The
next album is Burning Sky. I like the remember Robert
Hilbert not that just because I live in LA. It
was trashing the lyrics whatever of leaving you, but it
had Bernard's guy had an incredible sound. What was the
experience you had? Did you feel that it wasn't as successful?
(01:31:14):
Was it all blur?
Speaker 2 (01:31:15):
What was it like? Well, it was, you know, we'd
come full circle. Really we had three great albums and
then we started getting tired. We were we were doing
that whole round the world thing again, and we were
we were contracted to do an album. We had a
deadline to meet, and we were being the young rap
(01:31:38):
scallions that we were. We were unaware. We come off
this third American tour where we'd done like one hundred,
one hundred shows in four months, something ridiculous, and we said,
oh now let's have a break. And the guys went,
uh uh, you got an album to make what yeah,
by the end of October or you get penalty of
(01:32:00):
some bullshit. So when we convened in the chateau Ville
just outside Parish to what were what would become Bernie Sky,
we only had I think four four and a half
songs and most of them weren't really that good, quite honestly.
(01:32:23):
So yeah, and we got panned. I mean the album
Bernie Sky was great, and I think that was one
song that Paul had finished and done and that was
really good. But there were a couple of jams we
did to make up for it, and we were we
were getting tired, a bit ragged, and it was a
lot of fun, I have to say, but we came
(01:32:46):
ill prepared and it did show in that album.
Speaker 1 (01:32:50):
So it takes two years for the next album to
come out. What goes on in those two years.
Speaker 2 (01:32:56):
That would be Desolation Angels, right, Yeah, well same ORed.
I mean, the drugs started. I started getting into the drugs.
We all do, quite honestly, except for Paul. I'll put
my hand up there straight away. Paul stopped doing drugs
in nineteen seventy six. But me, but Mick and Boz
we were, you know, I was still in my I
(01:33:20):
was twenty eight, yeah, twenty eight, twenty nine. Boz was
a couple of years older. Mick was maybe in his
early thirties. We were still rocking, you know, partying, to
use a euphemism, and we we were resting on our laurels.
We wanted a break. We deserved it. We had four
(01:33:41):
platinum albums in a row, bollocks. We weren't going to
do anything, and we had to do a tax year
out because of the crippling taxes in in England. So
we just kind of twiddled out armas for a couple
of years. I think we did a tour we will
you know the thing we touched. We still had to
(01:34:01):
mind us touch, but we were getting a little burned
out and it took rock and roll fantasy to rejuvenate us.
Paul once again came up gold with rock andron fantasy
and Destination Angels was a pretty damn good album.
Speaker 1 (01:34:21):
So Desolation Angels is an incredible record. They they hit
the ship. Ratio on that album is beyond belief. It's
you know, been forgot, It's got rock and roll fantasy,
and it's got Atlanta. The best song on the album,
I don't get Lonely for Your Love is just incredible,
and then Evil Wind and Rhythm. I mean that album love. Yeah,
(01:34:48):
it's labeled as bad Company goes Synth, but that's just strong,
if not stronger in its own way than Straight Shooter.
It was a surprise. I mean I was shocked how
good it was. And I did not buy it, Unlike
the previous three albums, I bought exactly when they came out.
I waited a little while before I bought that one.
(01:35:09):
But there were synthesizers on that album. How did those?
It was out an argument. Everybody said, oh, this is
the sound, We're going to go for it.
Speaker 3 (01:35:19):
No, I've always had a love affair with strings, and
back on Straight Shooter, you know, I had a couple
of songs, one of which was Weep No More.
Speaker 2 (01:35:30):
And we used a full orchestra. So fast forward to
to rock and roll Fantasy, I mean Desinats and Angels.
I think we used since because we just maybe got
a little bit bored with the regular lineup. We just
wanted a little bit of a different taste of something
here and there. And Mick and Paul have always been
(01:35:54):
decent keyboard players, so we just, you know, just for
the shaer fun of it, of it to do it.
Speaker 1 (01:36:02):
Okay, that's a huge success. Next album comes out Rough Diamonds.
There is a hit electrically in but the original band
fall support. So what goes on there?
Speaker 2 (01:36:13):
Yeah, yeah, Well, we were pretty much at the end
of our row. And I'm glad you mentioned electric Land
because it's one of Baul's great great songs. But we
were pretty much burned out by then, and we had
a fist fight. And when unless you're skinnered some Southern band,
(01:36:34):
when an English band has a fist fight, that's pretty
much the end of it. And we did and it
all fell apart. We were all doing way too much,
too many drugs. We were kind of screwed up. I
was drinking, and what happened. You had this one two
punch of Lenon being shot and Bonzo dying and Zeppelin
(01:36:57):
breaking up. Peter Grant goes the seclusion. This whole house
of cards just implodes and collapses, and you know, we
invoked a managerial clause. Robert and Jimmy from Zepp backed
(01:37:19):
out from away from Peter. Grant all did the same thing,
and we we kind of recused ourselves from Peter. We
wanted him to get better. We wanted us all to
get better. Zeppelin had broken up and it was a
horrible time. Nineteen eighty was a ghastly time and that
was it for us. Really.
Speaker 1 (01:37:40):
Okay, ultimately you reconstitute the band. Bud Prager is the
mean Okay, Brian Howe who comes first? Bud or Brian.
Speaker 2 (01:37:56):
Kind of one too? Yeah, yeah, Well, Bud managed and
Lou Graham and Mick Jones weren't getting on and Mick
wanted to groom this guy called Brian ow to take
over from Lou. Well, they kind of made up and Paul,
you know, Paul went into the Sunset and I became
(01:38:16):
very friendly with Mick because he became a good friend
of mine. And I said, yeah, we're looking for around,
maybe someone to replace Paul, And he said, I got
this great guy well, and he introduced me to Brian,
and Brian at the time was decent. He wasn't the
same style of singer, but he was eager, he was hungry,
he wanted to work. He was a good looking guy,
(01:38:37):
you know, he was. Yeah, So we took him on
board and it just nah, it didn't work. And to
this day, I don't mind saying that my time of life.
It was a mistake. We made some good music, and
oddly enough, when Brian passed away a couple of years ago,
a lot of people were introduced to Bad Company when
(01:39:00):
Brian was a singer. You have to remember we've been
around fifty years and a lot of people who now
are in their forties late thirties hadn't heard of the
original Bad Company with Paul Rodgers. So for them it
was here comes Trouble, Holy Water. That was bad Company
(01:39:20):
for them. And he got a lot of accolades and
tributes to Brian when he passed away, So I'm not
going to speak ill of him, you know, I don't
speak ill of the dead. We didn't get on and
even though we kept the name alive, we did quite
a few tours, We did quite a few albums with Brian.
(01:39:40):
It just wasn't the Bad Company that I grew up
with and I came to know and love and hate
at the same time. Does that make sense? But it
wasn't Bad Company, nah. It was a different Bad Company,
but not the one with Paul Rodgers.
Speaker 1 (01:39:54):
So what was it like having Bud priegerism minature as
opposed to Peter Grant.
Speaker 2 (01:40:02):
Well, I like Bud. You know the I got to
be scared of Peter Grant, and you can't be scared
of someone who looks after you, I mean really scared.
Bud was a straight up and up, nice Jewish guy.
I don't know if he had You know, I won't
(01:40:22):
speak ill of him because he was always very good
to me. He'd steered foreigner to want a great success.
He was always ready, he was always on the phone.
I mean, you call Peter up, you'd have to wait
days to get a response. So I liked I like
Bud Prager. We played golf together. He was a stand
(01:40:44):
up guy, and I was sorry to hear when he
passed away. You play golfer, I played golf. I'm crazy
about it.
Speaker 1 (01:40:51):
How did you become a golfer?
Speaker 2 (01:40:54):
Well, when I sobered up, I would wake up at
eight o'clock in the morning, bob without a hangover, and
I got to wait twelve hours before I go to
the bloody concert. So I took up gold.
Speaker 1 (01:41:05):
How good a golfer are you?
Speaker 2 (01:41:07):
I'm not very good, but I love it.
Speaker 1 (01:41:09):
How often you play? Now?
Speaker 2 (01:41:11):
Not often? I haven't played this year. I just watched
it on TV. I had you know the COVID and
I had something wrong with my knee and I just
never got out. And you've got to remember up here
in the Northeast, the season is only you know, like
April through October and then it was too cold.
Speaker 1 (01:41:29):
Okay, first record with Brian, you work with Keith Olson's
got a lot of history, especially with Fleetwood. Back then
you worked with Terry Thomas. It's interesting because he had
a band called Charlie, had a couple of very good records,
never broke through. Can you tell us anything about Terry?
Speaker 2 (01:41:48):
Well, what you don't know is that he also had
a band called Maten's Magic Mixture, and that was one
of the bands that I auditioned with before Free came along,
like thirty years prior. And when when I when when
Bud told me about this guy called Terry Thomas, I said,
don't tell me he's a guitar player. He said, yeah,
(01:42:10):
I said, I know him. My god. Terry was very good,
very professional, and once we got gotten over the fact
that we'd actually played together all those years before, we
him and Brian kind of took over the writing duties
and he was good. I mean, he knew his way
around a console, he knew what would work and what
(01:42:33):
didn't work. He was, you know, he didn't drink or
drug much yet a little drink now and again, la
la lah. But he was good for the band. But
he formed this alliance with Brian, and the whole writing
got taken away pretty much from Mick. And I've got
to be honest, Mick, Mick and me were We were
still drinking a lot, and Mick was not the writer
(01:42:55):
that he used to be. He missed Paul terribly. He
needed someone to write with, and of course Paul wasn't around,
So the writing duties got taken away from from Mick,
and we made you know, we made some good albums
with Terry. I mean, very good guitar guitarist in his
(01:43:18):
own right. So I mean I don't really listen to those.
I don't listen to our Bad Company albums anymore anyway,
But I have to say take my hat off to Terry.
He did a good job with what he had and
and I'll take my own hat off. I kept it
together whenever I played I never played out of it.
(01:43:39):
I never played stone. Only one time I ever did
a line of coke, and that was in Detroit before
I went on stage, the biggest mistake of my life.
But I kept it together and we made some good.
Speaker 1 (01:43:52):
Albums and then why Robert Hard After that?
Speaker 2 (01:43:56):
Well, Robert, I don't know. We had a second guitarists
called Dave Bucket Coldwell, who knew Robert Robert was in
another band, and he said, you've got to hear we
weren't getting on with Brian now. I didn't like your
style of singing. It was getting too heavy metal and
to Motley Crewe for us, you know, it was not
(01:44:16):
our thing. And Dave said, I know this great guy.
He sings just like Paul and he's a great guy.
La la h. So whenever Brian would leave the rehearsal
to go home, we'd call Robert and saying come on,
get in here, and he come in and do rock
steady and he'd been out in the car park waiting
for the call. So he do a couple of bad
(01:44:36):
Company songs and we go ooh, this is more like it.
And Robert was great. I really liked Robert. I loved
having him on board. But there's only so many personnel
changes that a band can endure. And we did one
one album, two albums with Robert and a couple of
tours and it was good, but it just I was
(01:44:58):
getting tired of it. It was you know, I wanted
Paul back in the van, quite honestly, and he did it,
came back.
Speaker 1 (01:45:06):
Paul comes back, and then ultimately there's a concert in Florida.
The press said you had to play the maintain ownership
of the name. Is that true?
Speaker 2 (01:45:18):
Well, we we would. Let me get this right. The
record company wanted to release a compendium, a double album
of uh Back Company's greatest hits, and there was a
time constraint which if we went over that time constraint,
the the merchandise or.
Speaker 1 (01:45:39):
The the whatever you call it, mechanical.
Speaker 2 (01:45:44):
Not mechanical, the the registered trademark would expire. Oh yeah yeah,
and people could could take could take the name. So yeah,
there was a certain legal stipulation in there that we
had to Anyway, it was an excuse for us to
call Paul and say, hey, man, come on, it's been
(01:46:06):
twelve years, and he came in. We had a rehearsal
down in the country, and as soon as he plugged in,
I think we did rock and off. Fancy. Wow. It
was like slipping into a pair of old shoes again,
you know, comfortable shoes. It was just felt right and
so we reunited and it was so good to have
(01:46:26):
him back. There was still a little animosity. I don't
blame him for taking on these other singers, but by
the same token, you know, we felt justified because he
just left. I mean there was no discussion. He just
left and that was it. But we made up.
Speaker 3 (01:46:45):
Now.
Speaker 1 (01:46:46):
I saw the band with Howard Lease and Rich Robinson
from the Black Crows. It was unbelievable. How did those
two guys get in?
Speaker 3 (01:46:54):
Oh?
Speaker 2 (01:46:54):
Yeah, good players, good player. Yeah. I love Howard and
Rich was very good, very good guitar player in his
own right. We needed Howard always wanted a second guitarists.
You know, the original band was just Mick Boz, myself
and Paul, but Howard just felt that his playing needed
a little bit of beefing up. I don't know how
(01:47:16):
Rich fitted in, but he was a southern gentleman. We
liked him. He got on very well with him, and
he was I think they were having trouble with the
Crows so he was out on a limb and he
joined the band just for a tour. He was very good.
I liked him very much. Good player.
Speaker 1 (01:47:34):
Okay, now Bad Company is playing and then Paul is
playing with his own band. What was going on there?
Speaker 2 (01:47:44):
Well, he's always had this, you know, they had a
solo career for a long long time now, and he
managed to juggle the two. I know that we went.
The last time Back Company played in Japan. It was
originally going to be a Paul Rodgers' solo tour, but
quite honestly, I don't think the tickets were doing that well.
(01:48:07):
So his manager at the time said, well, let's make
it a Bad Company tour. So me and I was
brought on and it became a Bad Company to him,
it did really well. So you know, Paul has always
had this solo career, and then we do a Bad Company.
Then he go back out again as solo, and he's
(01:48:31):
had a very very good career. Good for him.
Speaker 1 (01:48:33):
And at those times, would you be sitting at home saying,
come on, Paul, let's go back out as far Bad Company?
Speaker 2 (01:48:41):
Well no, not really. I mean the one time I
would have liked to have been involved, and I'll be honest,
he did a thing called the Free Spirit Tour in
in England where he did all free songs and I
would have I would have loved to have been on that,
I have to say, But there it is. It's it
(01:49:02):
didn't happen, and just get on with it.
Speaker 1 (01:49:04):
So where do you live now?
Speaker 2 (01:49:07):
I live. I divide my time between Manhattan and Montalk
in Long Island.
Speaker 1 (01:49:12):
Why mon talk? Man Talk is the furthest out Robert? Yeah,
Shelter Island after that?
Speaker 2 (01:49:18):
Yeah, right, that's why mon Talk. I don't know. It's
just far enough away from from the city. It's a
three three hour drive, beautiful weather, well when it's not
blowing a gale, and it's just lovely. It's a lovely
golf course next door. And it's a nice, nice place,
nice people, beautiful, clean air. I love it.
Speaker 1 (01:49:40):
And you're remarried, you talk about Maria, you're doing the
musical and you're playing drums to records. Are you the
type of guy whose networked, who's talking to all the
people who you've ever played with run into or you're
more of a homebody just with your wife. What's your
life looking like now?
Speaker 2 (01:50:02):
I'm pretty goog garious. I mean, look, I'm a Leo.
We don't like hiding our light under a bushel. And
I'm not very good at the social media. I leave
that to my wife. She's very good at that Instagram
and Twitter or x or whatever it is now, and
we have quite a good social life. I go into
(01:50:22):
the city a lot, and you know, I see my kids,
I go to little functions. So I'm not ready to
become a hermit. I was never that sort of guy.
I like other people, and I still love playing.
Speaker 1 (01:50:39):
Love playing well, Simon, I want to thank you so
much for taking the time to talk to her audience.
Great memories, great storyteller.
Speaker 2 (01:50:48):
Well, an interview is only as good as the questions, Bob,
and you've been a wonderful host. I have to say
so thank you very much, and.
Speaker 1 (01:50:57):
Thank you for being so honest and forthcoming.
Speaker 2 (01:51:00):
All right, my friend, until the next time.
Speaker 1 (01:51:03):
Until next time. This is Bob lofstecks
Speaker 2 (01:51:27):
H