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?
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 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 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.
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?
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 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.
Okay, Just on this same point, there have been conversations or talking about Mick Ralf's health. How is his health?
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 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.
Okay, this begs a question, how's your health? Well?
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 pretty good shape.
So tell me about getting sober well.
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 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 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 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.
Well, let's talk about the drugs. How did you finally decide to stop? Oh?
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, 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 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 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, 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.
So you have this near death experience, did you stop cold Turkey. Did you go to rehab?
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 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 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 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, 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.
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?
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 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, 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 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 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 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.
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, and then the sun comes up. To what degree did drugs help you cope with that?
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, 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. 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 ten thousand people applauding you. But as we know that it wasn't enough.
Okay, So how did you decide give up drinking?
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
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, 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 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 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.
To what degree did drug use and other substance abuse affect the ending of your previous marriage?
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 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 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.
Okay, I have three daughters. All of them were successful the arts of the role. Right, how did that happen?
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. 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, 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.
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.
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 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 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, 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.
Okay, how'd you meet your new wife?
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? 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 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 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 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 of years until we finally got married and the divorce came through and we married six years ago.
Okay, now, with Nick indisposed, Paul having his health problems, what does that leave you?
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, 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 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, 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 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 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. I love writing song.
Okay, you talk about all this drug use and that eats up a lot of cash. So where does that leave you financially?
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? 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 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 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.
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.
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, 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, 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. 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.
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?
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 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 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.
So let's go back to the beginning. So where did you grow up.
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.
What was that like? Was it like being in the boonies or was it sophistically? No, it was not.
We had no electricity or running water for seven years.
You grew up in London. Why did your parents move out there?
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. 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 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 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 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. 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.
And where are you in the hierarchy?
I was in the middle, middle child.
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.
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. 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 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.
Okay, you know English radio market's completely different. You didn't have any electricity, so you can't play the records.
Yeah.
How many radio stations? I mean, how did you hear the music?
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 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 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 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,
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.
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. 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 when I really that's what I wanted to do, be a drummer.
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.
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 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, 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.
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.
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 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 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, 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 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 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
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.
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?
Yeah?
Yeah.
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. 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 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.
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?
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 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 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 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 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.
You know.
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, 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. 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, 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.
Okay. So everybody was very young.
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, 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, 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 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, 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? 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?
So we Alexis came up with a name.
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.
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 a well loved band in England in the United Kingdom. Yeah, I love Free.
So how long until you start playing original tunes? And how long until you hook up with Chris Blackwell?
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 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, 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 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 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 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 who work with rat Now those people don't know I know you who were exactly.
So you go to Chris and how does that meeting turn out?
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 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 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, 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.
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?
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. 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 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.
Well that's a little bit slower. Yeah, first album. What was the experience there comes out meant nothing in America?
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. 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 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.
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, 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.
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 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 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.
Okay. Before we get to the hit single, the credits say Chris Blackwell produced the second record? Did he really produce it?
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. 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 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.
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.
Blessing.
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?
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.
Was like whoa.
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 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. 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, 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 and it became all right now and we rehearsed it in sound checks and it became this monster literally monster hit.
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 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?
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 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 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.
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 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, 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 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 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 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. 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 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 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.
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?
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 of the all time great guitar solos and it made it made the song.
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.
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, 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 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.
So what was it like having a world wide number one record?
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 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 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 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 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 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 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 dropped the ball.
Who was the manager, Well, it was Chris.
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
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 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. 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, 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 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.
Okay, you re formed, it ultimately doesn't take Let's jump forward. How do you form bad company?
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 band called Peace.
Before we get there. Had you made any money in this whole success?
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 lot of money at all.
Okay, So Paul forums piece, he forms.
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 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 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 ses I'm leaving mat the Hoople, Paul breaks up his band Peace and they formed us.
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.
The degree, you know, I honestly don't know. I don't know.
So in any event, Mick leaves Mark the Hoople and Paul breaks up Peace continue. Yeah.
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, 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 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,
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, 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, 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 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 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 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. 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.
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.
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, 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 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
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.
Okay, let's start for a second talk about Peter Grit. What was up with Peter Grit?
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 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.
And I saw that many.
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, 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 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. I have to say, you know.
You've been around how sharp a guy was he is a manager?
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, 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 I think he was a very sharp business man, no question.
Let's go back. So how'd you get Barz Burrell?
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
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 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. 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.
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?
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 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 as you hear then opening chords, it really clicks something in you and still does to this day.
So we just, you know, we tossed.
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.
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.
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 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 is so fucking good. So hey, if if it's all right by David, it's going on the album.
And of course one more Seagull. What can you tell me about the Well Seagull was one.
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.
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 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.
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 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. 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, 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.
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.
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 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 go on Pandora, I think it's next to Bad Company. It's the most played Bad Company song ever.
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.
I want to see a YouTube of that.
God, it doesn't exist. Can you tell me anything about Shooting Star?
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 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 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
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?
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 is my favorite Bad Company song.
You.
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.
Me, yeah, especially if you live in New Hampshire.
What is it? Yeah?
Die?
Yeah?
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, I'm Yeah. Not much else I can say about it. It's a joy to play.
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? Was it all blur?
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 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 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. 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 ill prepared and it did show in that album.
So it takes two years for the next album to come out. What goes on in those two years.
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 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 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 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.
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, 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. 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.
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.
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 decent keyboard players, so we just, you know, just for the shaer fun of it, of it to do it.
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?
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, 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 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 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.
Okay, ultimately you reconstitute the band. Bud Prager is the mean Okay, Brian Howe who comes first? Bud or Brian.
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 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, 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
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 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. 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.
So what was it like having Bud priegerism minature as opposed to Peter Grant.
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 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 up guy, and I was sorry to hear when he passed away. You play golfer, I played golf. I'm crazy about it.
How did you become a golfer?
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.
How good a golfer are you?
I'm not very good, but I love it.
How often you play? Now?
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.
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?
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,
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 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 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 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. 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.
Albums and then why Robert Hard After that?
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 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 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 getting tired of it. It was you know, I wanted Paul back in the van, quite honestly, and he did it, came back.
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?
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.
The the whatever you call it, mechanical.
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 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 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.
Now.
I saw the band with Howard Lease and Rich Robinson from the Black Crows. It was unbelievable. How did those two guys get in?
Oh?
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 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.
Okay, now Bad Company is playing and then Paul is playing with his own band. What was going on there?
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. 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 had a very very good career. Good for him.
And at those times, would you be sitting at home saying, come on, Paul, let's go back out as far Bad Company?
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 didn't happen, and just get on with it.
So where do you live now?
I live. I divide my time between Manhattan and Montalk in Long Island.
Why mon talk? Man Talk is the furthest out Robert? Yeah, Shelter Island after that?
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.
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?
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 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.
Love playing well, Simon, I want to thank you so much for taking the time to talk to her audience. Great memories, great storyteller.
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.
Thank you for being so honest and forthcoming.
All right, my friend, until the next time.
Until next time. This is Bob lofstecks
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