Questlove Supreme: Steve Ferrone Part 1

The Quest Loft Show is a production of iHeartRadio. So in twenty twenty two, Questlove Supreme started doing one on one interviews and we wanted to get everybody's voices out there, and I jumped at the chance to interview my absolute hero, my personal god, Steve Feroni, of the average white man, who also is drummed for countless people from Tom Petty and the Heartbreakers to Duran Duran to Shaka Khan so

I will say though, that you know, every journey.

Has to start with a spark, every journey, so me personally, I will say that, you know, before directing and producing and developing TV shows and podcast hosting and movie and TV scoring and late night house band leading and producing and songwriting for artists and when they djaying, music education, designing, flatwear, my own sneaker line, clothes merch, my own drum line, teaching college, whatever it is, I will say that there still has to be a spark, and that spark starts

Everyone knows my passion is drumming.

In nineteen seventy five, while on the road with my musician parents in Toronto, Canada, on a Saturday, I caught an episode of my all time favorite television show, Soul Train, and it absolutely peaked my curiosity. You know, I was already a fan of the average white band and they're scary ass logo, but my four year old self was transfixed on the one figure on stage who was neither white nor average, sitting behind a white forty seven wit

Of a what would Perny do? Moment?

And Look, if I'm talking too much advanced math, I'm gonna slow down. Look, even on a hip hop level, his drums are everywhere, nas Is Halftime, Eric Ban Rock Him's microphone Fiend, TLC's Ain't Too Proud to Big track called Quest check the rhyme in ways that they ain't rough any right, Gang Stars Gotta.

Get over.

Brand, Nubian word is Bond, Jungle Brothers the promo, Jill rob Gs Dope Rhyme's.

Start Us Music Sounds Better with You, Kanye West Through the Wire, Mary J.

Blige, Love Is All We Need and Love without a Limit, pe Rock and Seale Smooth Take You There. B I G Is Notorious but not even just the samples, just the iconic songs. I'm every woman, Clouds, what You're gonna do for me? All Night, Thing, on the Wings of Love, Tears in Heaven, love a Girl, Earth Song, keep Rising to the top, Glow and name the all the iconic artists, They're not official until he's the timekeeper.

Name him.

Freddie King, Brian Auger, Bloodstone, Bette Miller, of Retha Franklin, Sherlyn, Paul Simon, Melissa Manchester, I told she's gonna get awkward, Stephen Christy mcviee Scurti, Politti, Mick Jagger, Patty Austin, George Benson, People, Bryce and Jennifer Holliday, Duran Duran, Algerrue, Howard Jones, Cindy Lauper, Anita Baker, George Harrison, Eda, James, Marcus, Miller, Brian Ferry, Tracy Chapman, Johnny Cash, Zickie Marley Slash, Stevie Nicks, LeAnn Rimes,

Was that was pretty That was pretty cool. There's a lot of people. I didn't even know that.

No, when we did the Elvis Costello episode, Uh, my engineer, Steve, his intro was about twenty four minutes, so my my initial intro was like seventeen, but I cut it down to a good five.

But I was one of my favorite rap groups.

So which one was it?

AMG?

Really AMG? That's aw Yeah, Okay, I didn't I didn't even there's that.

It's like a Janine they used the they used them a schoolboy crush, okay for Jeanne Janine the reprise.

All right, Wow, you're you're you're you're highly aware of how you get utilized. Now, what I'll say that's weird about this moment is the first time that you and I were supposed to talk for Quest Loft Supreme was on March fifteenth, twenty twenty, which is kind officially the day the world shut down because of COVID.

Yeah, yeah, you were.

You were doing you were doing a residency at A at A thirty rock sitting in on the SETH Meyers Show, and the day that we were supposed to speak, that's when we realized that we were in a pandemic.

So we were in trouble.

Yeah, we have to put that on ice. Now.

What's even weirder is you know I had been begging and begging and begging and begging John Mayer and his people like when you come to New York, I gotta go to the show, so.

You know, to really enjoy the experience.

So to speak, our listeners know that in the pandemic, I started micro redosing, So.

You know, I was, I was in my zone. I was.

I arrived at Madison Square Garden. I was ready to really take in the music and enjoy the show. And the first thing I do when I see Pino Palladino, he tells me do And of course you know, I was microdocent.

So it sounds like a mirror for Roon tested positive Can you sit in? And I was like huh what like? And literally I was like, well, let me see the set list?

And I was like, wait a minute, I had to learn fifteen songs and how many minutes and they're like forty seven minutes.

So literally I was like, oh no, m boy.

So you know it's it's like I didn't get to talk to you, but I got to play on your drum set. And what's even weirder is that after two and a half years of avoiding this dodgeball of a virus, today I finally tested positive.

So welcome to the club.

Right, Yeah, we're connected, man, we are connected.

Oh my god?

How you so you know what it's It's like having the sniffles, like I was expecting my taste to go away and all that stuff. I'm I'm having a Paul man. I'm stay in bed all week. I'm watching movies. I'm gonna work. You know, I'm working on the Sliding Family Stone documentary now, so you know, I'm in fine health. I couldn't be happier.

Before I forget congratulations on the OSCO All.

Right, my man, thank you, thank you.

You are God. You are way too hard for me.

We don't work hard, but I work I work fun. Were are you right?

Now? As we speak, I'm at a friend of mine's house in Burbank because my house is being torn apart by contractors.

Okay, we have a lot in common.

I also purchased a farm about a year and a half ago, and I'm still it's almost it's almost in money pit territory.

So contractors, you know, are working on.

These to fire my contact. Yes, it's going.

Same same you too, same guys. I got I got downs two years ago and now you know we're still we're still waiting for it. I didn't I just had to free so I'll work. There's just way too much money to invest in it, so I gotta wait until maybe October, so it'll probably be three years before I get inside my home.

It'll get done when it's supposed to get done. That's what I can.

Say, absolutely absolutely right.

So you know, I start off with every episode with the first five basic questions. Number one for our listening artists, could you tell us where you were born?

Yeah?

I was born in Brighton in England, in the south coast of England, bat now south of London.

I will say that probably Brighton, England ninety four is probably the second best Root show.

Of all time. What did you play?

I don't know. We did a gig with Roy Ayers, and that's where we discovered that the engineer of our show is just as important as the musicians on stage. And we kind of learned, you know, because the thing is, it's like, unlike America, Brighton at least has an understanding. I don't know if it's that a lot of reggae concerts over there, but they have a deeper understanding of bass. And you know, we realized, like we would just push the sound limit like the average show.

You know, if you trust the sound.

Company, maybe you're allowed to do like one hundred and two dbs, maybe one hundred and eight dbs like we were one hundred and forty DB's.

We weren't loud, but we just had a lot of bass.

And so at the point where the audience was holding their stomach, like you know, they were getting a colonic, they still dance, yeah, but still dancing, we realized, like, oh, we have to be the most offensively loudest band in music. And so, you know, we maybe the first three years we were like everyone's nightmare, but nothing compares to that one night with roy Aers in nineteen ninety four in Brighton, Like, I know, you just celebrated.

A birthday yeah, seventy two.

Yes, happy belated, thank you. So I know that you were born in nineteen fifty. Now you weren't born in the States, you know, dealing with Jim cro Deep South racism. But you know, I'm certain that it was alive and well across the world. But what does it mean to grow up at least for the first ten years of your life in Brighton, Like, what experiences did you have?

You know, Well, there's a there's a photographs not around here. I wish I had it with me in my house. There's a photograph of me at school. I was like the only black kid in school and we're watching a Punch and Judy show and guess what, we were just having fun. It didn't come into the question that I was a different color ever. I mean when I was when I was little kay until one day that I was out with my friends and.

We were playing. I lived in a row of houses.

On a street, and then there was there was this alleyway that led up to this little cottage, and then there was this crescent with big houses. And in this cottage at the top of this little alleyway, there was a guy that was a retired Harley Harley Street surgeon. And so we used to play up. There was a couple of trees and we'd play cowboys and Indians and stuff.

Who are you living with your grandparents?

Living in my grandparents and my mom yeah, And my.

Father was in West Africa serially O wow, okay, okay, but he was never around. I mean he showed up when I was nine for a couple of days. I was about it.

But my grandmother then told got my grandfather and did one of those defend my honor?

Oh you went to the house.

He went to the house, and my grandfather went up there and grabbed this guy and him up against the wall and said, don't you ever talk to.

My grandson like d again.

But uh uh oh wow.

The way that it got explained to me at that point in time, I think probably I was maybe five or six years old, as a little kid. My mother said to me that, she said, you know what, there's people out there that think that way, and uh and there to be pitied, which was something that wasn't desirable as far as I didn't want.

I didn't want to ever be pitied. And so anyway, so.

That's that's what that's that's the way I kind of looked at it. But yes, you're absolutely right, there's there's there was a big difference, the big difference. I believe those social problems that bruised Black America and and and I see that, I see it and I and and it's different for me because slavery never came into it.

Wow, that's amazing. I can't even imagine a life there.

Is racist ray. Yes, slavery didn't know. I think there's a difference in the in the in the way that things.

You know, it's weird.

So in the States, I'm I'm part of a one percent that's there's one percent of African Americans that can trace their family name, their slave ship and where they came from.

I'm in that lucky few. I also found out that Elo cool j.

Is there was two percent of African Americans that had nothing to do with slavery. I guess his family settled in a place in Ohio that just didn't have slavery, and like somehow he was able to his family was able to avoid any of that strife, which is, you know, kind of a rare thing.

Can you tell me what your first musical memory was?

Oh?

Well, you know what I was told.

Was was that I used to sit in the high chair and we didn't have TV back then.

We had radio, okay, And I'd.

Sit in the high chair with my spoon eating and then some music would come on and I'd start banging my spoon on the on the on the high chair table there to just keeping time with whatever music was on the radio. And that's was when they they decided that.

My grand my grandma, my grandmother, and my.

Mother decided that I needed to channel that that ability somewhere. So my grandmother was a big fan of of of tap dancing. She she loved Fred Astaire and Jim Kelly and Tic Tac Toe and those guys. Was. She was aware of them, and so she sent me to tap dancing school when I was better, as soon as I could walk, at about three years old.

Yeah, I was going to say, I just discovered that about you maybe a week ago when I was doing my research, and that's kind of my entry and too.

Drums.

I went to perform an arts school in the grade, and it was one of those situations where you go to.

Your drum lesson and the drums are right.

There and you're sort of like, let me at them, let me at him, and they're like nope, and they point to a practice pad on the corner and you got to learn, like your roommate's like, it's almost like I had to practice to work my way up to the drum set. But even before I got to the practice pad, Yeah.

I had to take tap dance.

So yeah, yeah, all that bow jangles me and my shadow like like I was, I was a hoofer, Like.

Good, were you good at it?

I was pretty good at it. I was pretty good at it. I want medals and stuff?

Really, can you can you still hoof now? Or is that.

Replacement?

Okay?

I got that light on my feet anymore?

But I could probably I can probably I can do a timestep still, okay.

Yeah, Like around around maybe nine, age nine or age ten, I kind of eased out of that and just became strictly like music.

Well, you know, I.

Have to say my first, like my moment that you had, that you said that you had with Average White Band, I had when I was about five years old. My parents used to take me. They used to take me. We had this I guess you call it Vaudeville or something like that.

Vaudeville.

There was a theater called the Hippodrome in and the Beatles played there actually, so it's kind of bingo hall now I think it is. But this is one of those theaters that got sort of neglected and sort of let go little theater. And they used to take me there to see these shows. And you know, usually it was comedians and pantomime at Christmas and stuff. And they took me there to see this show. And there was

Luxembourg was was where you would where.

People would go to to listen to something other than the BBC, because the BBC used to just play classical music and it wasn't they didn't play anything at all, you know. So you go to Radio Luxembourg and you tune into Radio Luxembourg and they had a show on there and and I guess they also it was also a show that was that was that was good for like uh, the the American Forces were all over Europe at that point. They had the basis in France and Germany and and uh and and so they used to

Audience listening to this music is like what's this? You know? Oh wow? Where it is that?

Even you find vanilla ice cream, you give a vanilla I skream to a baby first time they have it, They're like, why didn't you give me this before? You know, you got to build this baby food? Why where was this vanilla ice cream. Well that was what what what what I got with from their music, and they sent them manager. They took me and they brought me backstage and befriended, befriended me.

They made me Deep River Boys number six. And that was the time. That was when I found out that I was black.

Oh word, okay, Yeah, I.

Had no idea.

I had no idea that I was black until I went and saw these guys and they took me back back to my parents, my grandma, my mom, and my grandmother took me backstage to meet them, you know, with the they've been invited back. And I looked at these guys and they were six foot tall, which was then back then was gigantic, was a giant, and I said, I wish I could be black black.

You guys, we.

Used the word back then. We never said black was colored because it was respectful. It was disrespectful to say black black. So I wish I was colored like you. And this guy Harry Douglas, who I stayed in touch with for years, he passed away sometimes sometime ago.

You matained a friendship with him, Yes, all.

Through the years.

Yes, it was just amazing and uh, and it.

Was the first Americans that you interacted with. Yes, well, yes, how weird was it to hear? Did they have an accent to you?

I didn't even know. I was just like, I was just so sweet.

I mean, they that's how they sang, and they sang, they sang like they were Yeah.

We heard. It seemed like we sort of heard about America.

And I think we had TV by then, so there'd be a couple of TV series that we've seen. Not much of a TV little thing like this black White thing, right. But but Harry Douglas looked at me and he and he said to me, he says, you know, tonight, I'm going to cause a spell. And when you wake up tomorrow morning, you go look in the mirror and you and you'll be you'll be colored like we are.

I want to sleep. I went to sleep, and then I got up and I went to the mirror and wanted, yes, it whatked? I haven't got anything more about it?

Oh God, that's a great story.

Yeah.

Do you know what the first LP or single that you gravitated towards?

Well, you know, I remember I used to I used to listen a lot to Motown m hm.

So northern soil was a thing then that more than sixties.

It was, Yeah, it was.

It was more of a MUDs and rockers. You know, we had these two factions for warring factions. And the rockers used to listen to sort of Elvis Presley, sort of the rock and roll and skiffle music, and the mods used to listen to to The Who and Motown and Motown and that.

And that was funny because we all everybody started to play air base. You know.

It went from playing like air guitar or just air drums. When Motown came out, everybody was.

So that's what you grab it to it, Okay, digging.

On James Jamison.

Yeah, But when it came to like playing an instrument, the drums was I'd learned. I figured out the mechanics are doing that. But playing in a I got it. I actually got a job when I was twelve and in a in a real show. And while I was on the show, in the kids chorus of this summer show, tap dancing and singing with this a guy named Max Bygraves who was a big star in England. I looked down into the orchestra pit and we did this. We there this thing where it all up yet there doing

And said what's he doing with his feet?

Wow?

Yeah?

So what what? Uh?

Well, I'll re asked the question, do you know what the first single or album that you purchased with your own money?

Because I think it's a little different than.

Sadly, what is it the first single?

I'll it was my mother's birthday and I asked her what she wanted for a birthday, and she said she wanted Green Green Grass of Home.

Who sings that?

Frank? I think it was Frank Gifield.

Oh wow, I look and there it comes Mary Lives. That's what.

Went into the record. So can I get a company of that?

Yeah?

A lot of people and say like Jackson five or some of the but the real answer is, uh, I think the forty five ever purchased was Bad Blood by Nil saidaka and only only because really I judged I lived in a house with like over three thousand records because my parents were musicians, and the Rocket Company, which was Elton John's label, Nil Saidaka's label. I judge records on how good the logo looked rotating on the forty five. So I liked the green and blue hue of MCA

Well, I just what happened was was that when I went to when I was after we've done this, TV is run this this show, the summer show. There was a place called the Regent Ballroom in Brighton and that is not there anymore.

It's Boots Chemists now. But on Saturday mornings they would have they'd have it open.

There would be a disc jockey and or people would take their kids there and drop their kids off there and then they go shopping. They go and do their shopping, they leave their kids. There were safe places on the b and the kids would dance.

And so DJ culture was a thing in the sixties where yeah, yeah, you put a record or on you hear it over a PA system.

Yeah yeah, yeah, we had they had two things that they had a live band and then the stage would revolve and there would be a disc jockey, and so they would they would the band would take a break, and then the dis jockey would be out there and play the records.

And we used to like them the records.

A lot more than the band, yeah, because the band played the old stuff. Really there was sort of like a ballroom band, you know. The disc jockey used to play the motown and we used to love that, loved it.

Yeah wow, okay, yeah.

And and so we were we were there.

We used to go there on a Saturday morning and me and my me and you know, a young boys with the raging hormones who go up to these young girls and and they dance with us.

You know, we might get a kiss on the cheek and that was it. It was finished.

You know.

That was a lot. Well, one day, Manfred Man's band they were playing that night.

At the in the in the in the in the ballroom, right, and they set up early when we were all in there, and they played I think, I guess they did their sound check and they played for us little kids and every and every every little, every little twelve year old girl and there went completely crazy about this band, like like they were the Beatles, screaming. And so I said to my friends, we're doing we're doing it all wrong. We need we need to be that, we need to

I knew where to do it.

And the only song there was a guy that he had a real guitar, but he had an old record player that his dad had changed into being an amplifier and there okay, yeah, and he played and we played saw standing there at the t chests with the string and the tech that was a that's that was the bass in that's and that's all we could play with saws standing there and we did that.

Let me make sure I'm clear on this. You mean Manford Man, the actual blinded by the Light guys. Yeah, okay, see I know him from their seventy six I didn't realize yeah yeah history.

Yeah yeah, yeah for then yeah yeah, yeah.

Oh, and so we were we would we would go and play in the afternoons at friend's house.

He couldn't do it. My grandfather, Yeah, he was.

He was a meltman, and he would go out and start work at three o'clock in the morning, and he didn't want to.

He hated music all kinds.

The only thing you like was classical music, and anything young was just he didn't like anything about young.

Kids noise, right, okay.

Yeah, so we go up to another friend's house and we'd set up and we'd play with this little toy drum kid thing that I had. My grandmother bought me a snare drum for Christmas, a real one. And the guy with the guitar because he had a real instrument, his father, his father on the gas station.

Okay.

He used to go and hang out in the music.

Stores, which is where all the older kids that had bands used to hang out.

Okay, right, so yeah, there's these there's these big kids what they we.

Call them big kids because here we are twelve year olds and there's his like eighteen year old kids, sixteen, seventeen, eighteen year old kids that had started playing bands, playing making bands and could play but we had money, had jobs because someone would leave score at fifteen and they would they would buy and save up and buy an instrument and make a band. So this kid was there trying to be in a little twelve year old I got a real guitar, trying to hang out with these older kids.

And there was a bunch of guys in there.

The way gigs used to be got, there would be a bulletin board, right, they put a bulletin board in the music shop. And if you if you wanted a geek, you go and look at the bulletin and see who was who was looking for a drummer, who was looking for a guitarists or.

You know, and and and and.

They put up this thing and they were talking to the propriety of the store and they were saying, to our drummer's got to go and get his appendix out, and we need we got a gig at a youth club on Saturday night, and we need to get if.

I hear any drummers coming in here.

My friend took his life into his hands, talking to like older kids like that and said, I know a drummer. And they said, well, who's that? And they said, well, you know, good thing. He said, you're a blues band, right, the Flames they called them.

Yeah, where this guy? He's black?

So that was that was the first. That was the first. They said that as old as he's he's twelve years old. They said, well is he any good? And get yeah, you can play it. He said, okay, hav him come over and meet us at this at this house. And so this kid and we no telephone, you know, you had to come over to my house.

He said. There's these big kids and they got a band and they're looking for a drummer. And I'm like, well, big.

Kids, because big kids used to beat up kids like my sights, you know.

And he said yeah.

So so I went over there and I took my life in my hands and I walked in there, and I sat down and I played a few songs with them, and and and they said, okay, well you can come play the youth.

Club with us and pass the test. Passed the test, yeah, because I knew. I knew songs.

You know, it was for the tap dancing you feel you were, you know, I knew introduction versus chorus bridge, you know, and and and and and how the dynamic the dynamic of a song, so I could kind of follow that. I didn't even have to know the song follow it.

There's one time I went to not an all white school, but there's one time I went to. I was playing a pick up a game of basketball, so naturally, you know, the white kids thought like, well, we'll take a mirror because he's black.

And yeah, I was in a sports game. I found out.

They made be captain of the football team. Dude, really, I said, yeah, that's useless.

I was useless.

That means you're a room musician. I always say that room musicians don't know sports.

I'm sorry, man.

Well, one, you're saying you were twelve, which basically means that this is sixty two.

Yeah.

You know, for the United States, the what we call the British invasion will happen in a year, a year and a half. What is the Well, you lived in the British invasion, so I guess it wasn't a big deal to you. So what is the effect of white based blues these teams that are listening to these blues records and starting rock bands, Like, how how influential was it was?

It was extremely you know, because this is what happened. You know, these older kids, they knew somehow, I don't know how, but they knew about Muddy Waters, Sonny Terry and Brownie McGee lad and Hopkins. Oh, they knew all about that stuff, and that those guys.

Had a tour and they would come and play the Dome in Brighton.

Yeah.

And so Bill Doggett, he was my least favorite.

You ain't Bill Doggett. He is my least favorite.

But now and listening to him, I got to wonder why, right, But when at that time I loved John Lee Hooker. John Lee Hooker was just and Sonny Terry and Brownie McGhee.

I loved it.

And they and so these guys they come around every year and the band that I was, this band that I was playing.

With, they take me, these eighteen year old kids would take me right to see it.

I mean, I would have paid more attention had I had I known what I was watching, right, you know, But I got to see those guys. It was incredible, and that was that was the start of it for me.

I'm currently trying to shop there's someone that's written a series based on a lot of those Chicago blues legends coming over to Germany, coming over to the UK, finding a new audience over there.

We're trying to shop that series.

Right, they knew who they were, right, I mean, we didn't have computers and stuff to look at these pod Who the hell is that?

Yeah?

What's good?

Because you know they couldn't get arrested in the United States?

You know, well, yeah, if they could get arrested in the United States. So I remember seeing that that that movie about Standing in the Shadows of Motor Down, when they were absolutely shocked when they arrived in England that people would say, come up and say, who's James Jamison?

Which one I used? James Jamison? They were like, how do you know about James Jamison? Which one of us? Benny? Which one he used? Benny Benjamin. We knew that all those people were were you.

Were you developing any heroes? Like who would you say, is the first drumming hero that you had? Okay, up, yeah, I was gonna say, I know, I knew you guys covered what his Soul on the seventy seven Benny and Us record?

Was that your idea to cover that song?

Yes, because that was the first time that I ever heard jrumps pay with syncopation like that I was were I was working, I said, when I was about fourteen years old, I started to go like in summer. I left school at fifteen, but we started to go over and work American bases in France. And I remember it, it was yesterday. I was in the in the There was a place called the Casern and it was in ta in the middle of France. And we were there playing at the Enlisted Man's Club, and and we could

It out, Dug, dug, and what what what was that?

I heard, I heard, I heard Charlie Watts. I never heard drums played like that. Where did that come from?

Wow?

So I went over and I had to look what records that? Oh? Then eat King? What is so?

So how do you know who's playing drums? Because I don't know if album credits are even a thing like when I was You know, Purdy did a session for my dad in like seventy four, so that's how I got to meet him.

But how do you know who is what?

And well, I don't know.

I found out that it was Putty, but maybe it got the album or something or us around and somebody somebody else knew I.

Got to know. We couldn't look it up on the computer.

I don't remember having an album with that with any information on it.

But somebody told me, oh, that's been Puddy.

Okay, well you mentioned sort of dropping out at fifteen. When you do that in your mind, is it like okay, do or die? I have to be a musician? And how does your family feel about this decision?

It was it was revenge. You know, it's class system in England.

I wasn't supposed to be anything more than maybe a bus driver or plumber.

I wasn't. I wasn't gonna.

I wasn't going to stay an extra year at school and become a banker or like a working a bank clerk or civil servant or something like that.

I was.

It kind of started. I mean I sort of stayed in. We had forms A, B, C, D forms. I was in the A form. I was kind of in. I could hover in the middle of the A form. I wasn't done, okay. I decided that I wanted to play drums, and especially you know since now at Ringo Star have become a huge star, right Charlie Watts. These were like

Was he destroying his kit back then or well.

Not in the beginning, but then he started to once they started, once they started to give him equipment and the whole story behind that.

But I used to go I take pieces of it for spares for Mike.

I had an Olympic drum kit, a little Olympic which is at wasn't it wasn't a gigster. Gigster was was the was the was It was the really cheap, horrible thing, right, and then he had Olympic, which was intermediate, and then premiere. Right, but I had this Olympic thing, and but and the premiere stuff would like different lugs and stuff would fit on there.

You So if I had stuff that broke, I could take that.

And Keith Moon would take a sledgehammer to his drum kit and just smash it into matchwood, and I'd say, to the road, can I have yeah, sure to take it.

Really.

Pete Townsend destroyed the guitar on the Tonight Show and the let me have it, so okay, well it was like it was like a ukulelele.

But still you know, it's like a guitar.

But like I'm saying though that this was pears that were that were that we're doing it. So when they started to ask me when I was like fourteen year olds, you know, what what do you want to do when you leave school? And I said, oh, I want to be a drummer. I want to I want to play drums. And they said you can't do that. I said why not? And they said, well because it's not a real job. So I said, well, ringo star, does it? Charlie wats does it? Yeah, but you know you're a ringo star.

Okay, wait you were there was boxing curriculum and hid yeah.

Oh yeah yeah, until one kid got killed and then they stopped it. There was a couple of years.

But but but they they we boxing at school and I was always all right, had that And I used to do that for the school. And I used to run track at school. But when they started to mock me about what I wanted to do about music, then I went on strike and I said, right, that's it. I'm going to play music. I'm not going to do this anymore. And I rebelled, complete rebellion. I'd go into go into exams and I'd sit there and they'd say you got five minutes to just read the stuff through.

We'll try.

I don't honor, and they wouldn't want to argue with me, so I just say, okay, get out, and I'd leave.

I go play drums.

What was what was considered making a good living as a musician, at least at that point in your life.

Within nine pounds a week with a bit of a fortune. You know when I when I left and Let's school and got a job, I was earning like four pounds a week. You know, four pounds went a lot further than.

It does now.

But but oh because of place, yes.

But it was still very little, very little money.

Give it about one pound fifty to my mom for rent and.

Really, yeah, okay, That's how I was brought.

Up eventually, I know, in your mind, is it is the goal to make it in America? Is the goal to get on the radio? Is the goal to play a large theater? Like what's the first step? And you making it?

Never really had any particular ambition at all and any anything except to play, to play music.

And make a living at it.

I mean, I mean, I mean I did the starving musician bit in London, you know, and with a couple of guys we lived in a one bedroom one bedroom apart wasn't even an apartment room, right, and we're starving musicians and there's some people would would live. Was a charity of people go and hang out and get picked

Or right here we have now yeah that's yeah what what I what is rent a month in Okay, let's say like you're now eighteen in nineteen sixty eight, what is.

Rent a month in the UK?

Oh? Maybe two three pounds a week maybe something?

Yeah, so you make that on a gig?

Yeah?

Yeah.

So when the sort of psychedelic movement eases in, or at least like by post nineteen sixty six, like when the Beatles start experimenting, when Hendricks is starting to come over to make a mark, is this affecting you at all and your musicianship?

Absolutely? I mean yeah, I mean it was wonderful. It was one of the sixties. Was a wonderful time, you know, as far as like music fashion.

You know. So, were you a hippie?

No, I was, I was.

I was, well, I you know, I started off when when, like I said, the boring US MUDs and rockers, right, I thought, well, you know this still started like an Easter Sunday down at the beach, and I thought, well it was gonna win.

Yeah, the rockers they count, you know.

So I sort of put on some rocker garb as close as I could get to rocker GB and I went down to the beach and there were thousands and thousands of MUDs. So I went back home and I put on some Levi's and a white T shirt chase it, and then went down there and became a modern rioted with everybody through throwing stones and running up and down the beach and beating up people when we could find him with them.

Oh God.

So you know, from what I know it is was the American group Bloodstone your first experience in the United States or was that was there a group.

Or in the United States?

I mean, I'd done the Freddy King album, I've worked on the Freddy King.

Album okay, and there was that like playing with him.

It's incredible he was And the producer was a guy named Mike Vernon, a hush guy named Mike Vernon, and Mike had come down to see this I'd started. I come back to England from from being living in Europe and went to music school.

What school U is?

The Nice Conservatory of Music?

You went to Nice?

Yeah? Yeah, There's a.

Guy named Jack car who was the percussion the percussion teacher. And I was too old actually to get into the school as a student. So he got me in as a teacher because I could play, so.

He had me teach the kids.

And because I was teaching the kids how to play modern drums, because all they talk was classical music.

That was about it.

So you could read music.

By the time I left, I could, yeah, minimally. Not not like the guys. I mean, there was guys that have been since they were tiny. I had learned to play their instrument to reading music, you know, and that. But these guys they couldn't play modern drums. I could, so I have to teach them. So when I'm teaching them, I'm writing them out exercises and They're like, oh no, no, no, mister Feroni, this is this is how you write that out. And so I was learning. I was as I was teaching.

You would play that gig until you couldn't make it anymore. Then you leave.

And then guys like Richard Bailey, so I'd switch up with like Richard Bailey and that was that was how that band. And we opened for Average White Band once.

Really yeah, okay, yeah, I was going to say, at this point, were you running into Allen or Hamish or the Glasgow guys.

I was really good friends with Robbie McIntosh when I was when I went to Italy, when I was like seventeen years old. I went to Italy and I met Robbie down there and Alex did it, would you know?

You know Alex is.

He sang with Santana. He sang that song I'm Winning with Santana, really okay? And Alex and Robbie used to play a band called the Senate and they were there in Italy and I was there. I was there working with an American guy named Ronnie Jones. He's still alive, God bless him these eighty three years old, eighty three years old now, and he lives he lives in Milan.

Did McIntosh have what you would say a pocket then or was he just.

Well, really he came.

Up with listening to the same stuff as I did.

You know, It's funny, you know, we all came up listening to the same music, even Tom Penny and went. After spending some time with the Heartbreak, as we start talking to oh you know this song or that song, and I came to find out that Tom and Mike were listening to the same stuff as I was listening to as the English Invasion.

We were all listening to the same.

Music, the same thing, okay, Yeah, And.

So there was a connection made through the through the music, you know.

And there was a connection made with with with the guys from Average white Man because they grew up in scott and I was down at the way up there in Scotland with Dundee and Run. I'm down here in the south of England and we're all listening to motown and listening to stacks.

Yeah. And so when we sat down and started.

To play that music, we had a way of playing it that was it would give a note to it, but we didn't copy.

We didn't.

It wasn't a it wasn't derivative of it.

No, No, you could tell what it.

Was, you know, because you were sort of the drummer whose DNA I studied the most. Always wanted to know this the the sort of trick or at least your signature feel, which I kind of believe maybe Pretty did it first, the infamous.

Oh yeah, yeah, that's pretty is okay.

I was gonna say, you you heard Pretty do that? And then Matt just instantly became part of your DNA.

Absolutely yeah, and then and then and then the other high hat stuff that I got that from Stevie Wonder.

It's so funny, Okay, I'm glad I'm talking to you.

Well, An, I might be, I was gonna say, quote unquote, I might be quote unquote working on a Stevie Wonder project as well.

And you know Stevie.

To me, I don't know any besides James Gatson and maybe Bonzo. I don't know another drummer who I define more with his symbol work, you know, like all music of my mind, just the sloppiness of like love having you around and just.

I miss that when he started programming drums so much.

I know, like I love when he stopped him just all over. I think it's also the fact that he would sort of Motown style overdubbed those Tom Thomson overdubbed those high hat feels that it sounds super intense because you know, it just sounds like he's playing it within an ench of his life.

Oh, it's wonderful. This is that's wonderful.

Suff What was the first American city that you arrived in in New York and what was your first impression of America?

Wow, I remember I remember landing.

I remember landing at the airport and I had my drums, my drum kit on.

On a on a car right and I don't think. I don't think I had to work for it. What And and I came through and this.

This guy, this customs guy, looked in and he says, what are you doing? I said, oh, we just hear like a vacation. And he said, oh okay. He says, your first time here visiting. I don't know is because I had an English act because back then he was kind of unique for a black guy to speak with an English accent, you know. And he said he and he said, and he said to me, he said does He said, have you got any drugs? And I said, no, I'm good, I'm got any drugs. It's not He said,

And that was that.

And that was that.

Sixth Avenue we wrote, were writing up six Sevenue and I remember, wow, just.

Looking out and amazing. Yeah. Yeah, when was when is the era of back line?

Like?

Were you expected to provide your own gear, your own drums?

Are you setting up your own gear?

Was there a roadie back in the day or were you setting up your own stuff?

Well, there were a couple of roadies, but they would they would help, but you know, we will have to really sort of take care of her own stuff.

Okay, I've heard many accounts of how Robbie passed away and how you got into the group, but I've never heard an official version from official band member. How did Robbie pass away? And how did you get the gig? For the average white man?

Well, you know where were you know, we're friends. I was supposed to go to that party.

I was supposed to medium with that party, but I was, I was, I was. I was doing the film, doing the film with no I played, well, I might be in them, but I did the move music for it.

So did it ever come out?

Yes, yes, I I think I have it. I think I could have found it.

Oh my god. Okay, yeah, they're train. Yes. When they when they.

Were promoting that album on Soul Train, uh, Don Cornelis showed like a minute of the clip where they're riding in the train and they're in the bunkers and yeah, doing show tunes and whatnot.

And so it's funny. I mean I had to go there and be on set with them and then and then we go we do it called music and yeah.

So you're all over that record. Yeah, Wow, that's not you. On Natural high money.

Money is but no, it's not a master, but but money is money. Badass. Something actually said it to me. That's why I started looking for it. I forgot all about it.

Wow, we did that. All the best things in life for you, right, get So.

So I was doing I was doing that, and and they were playing that. They were doing a run at the Troubador. And Robbie caughed me out and he said, come on, man, come and go and be a party on It was Sunday night or something.

So I got to work. If I can, I'll be there and and and as fate would have it, I didn't.

I didn't go. Okay, and and and the next morning I woke up and my my my drum tech. Then the guy that was working for me, guy named Terry Merchant.

Mm hmm.

He said, Steve Robbie is dead. Yeah, And I said what dead? Drunk?

Because Robbie, Robbie and I used to go out drinking together. Robbie was the hell of a drinker. And he said, no, no, no, he's dead.

You know, he died. He died an overdose. Robbie. It wasn't so much of a drug taker.

I could say. There wasn't so much of a drug. He's more of a drinker, right. But Robbie, this is this was the thing was Robbie. Robbie could drink. I'd seen Robbie drink Butler vodka and then he just switched to Scotch, right, and I get sick. But I never saw Robbie throw up. Never saw him he would pass out, right, you know. And and from from my understanding, because I wasn't there for a lot of what when when the whole was just there for the aftermath was that he

He was not that sort of a person either.

He went bigger.

Yeah, when he went and he went, he went bigger, and and everybody everybody else that did it got sick. And Robbie went home, went to sleep and stayed in his system. It was it was heroine and it was cut with strychnine, and it killed him.

Jesus Christy, is that simple? You know?

You know, I mean we talk a lot about you know, accidental drug overdoses. You know, sometimes the house I'm saying at the moment, there was three guys that died of fentanyl overdoses, and one of those one of those guys was his was his nephew, right, and uh and accidental. I don't think anybody goes does any of that stuff to die, you know. I mean, if they want to do that, they say, I'm I'll write a suicide note, right exactly, you did this to me, and then they're

And unfortunately, yeah, he's a killer.

It wasn't like that in the sixties. I can tell you that right now.

But I don't think anything any of the drugs nowadays like they were in the sixties and seventies, and it was it's a it's a different animal. So you know, Robbie, it was a tragic, a tragic accident.

It did. It was a lot of pain, probably still being felt felt today.

You know. I hadn't spoken to his widow in over twenty years. And she called me last week from from real England. Yeah, he did, and and and and she she was telling me that she she just just now has come to terms with the fact to be able to just say, you know, this is what it was. And not much point running around feeling resentment. In years of running around feeling resentment, you just make yourself that broke.

Her heart for all those years, forty five years. It just wow.

She remarried, but yeah, still painful.

Yeah, you know, Robbie was a great guy, a great drummer and a great guy.

How how long does time go by before you're getting the phone call to join the average white band and before they call you, are they trying to at least maintain the status of the name of the group and find a white guy that's funky?

No, Well, I tell you what happened was was this was that was that when when I found out about Robbie being being dead, I went and I called, I got hold of Hamish, and I went over to the hotel and sat over the hotel with everybody and we were all drinking, because that's what we did with the Scots, and and and I said to them, listen, you know, Robbie wouldn't want you guys to stop.

Now.

You know you just gotten to get this airplay with pick up the pieces that's happening for you. I don't know how this is all gonna en, but you guys, you know you shouldn't shouldn't stop.

There was talk of maybe we should stop the group.

Well it was it was everybody was sitting around sort of like it was all over. You know, it's like it's not over, it's you know. And so I said, if there's anything I can do, let me know, and and and and I was under contract to Bloodstone, right, So what what I would do is Stick super and myself. What would happen if I couldn't do it, if I was working with a Bludstone, Sticks would go and play with them?

Yeah, And then.

Sticks briefly joined the Average White band.

They played No average White Man, So he go and play the gig and then and then if he could, if he couldn't do it, I do it. And and and you know, I go and play with them.

They were auditioning people. S I R. There's drummers all black white And it didn't really matter.

They were just looking for a drummer, Yeah, okay with sticks and sticks and I would go we'd go to the auditions and we'd sit there in the SI and the drummer would come in. They start playing with them, and they say, okay, no, that ain't working, and they would get more and more depressed, you know, and so either sticks on myself would go up and we jam with them and they come back to life again, and then they wheel in another drummer, and.

Then we'd sit there and we'd watch them and they would go there.

Any any drummer of note that tried to audition for the band that didn't.

Make nobody, nobody that I knew, but there was a lot of kids wanted to play. They would, you know. It was it was a big audition to go to. And so and so I had to play this gig with them down at Long Beach at Long Beach Arena, at the old Long Beach Arena, and.

Were down there. We sit there and come out, we start to play. I remember this gig there was.

They were also like kind of state static audience. They weren't really doing too much. And then there was this one I saw this one guy sort of started to rock, you know, so I sort of hold him owned in on him, and it kind of spread out from him and by the end of the show, everybody was like dancing and going crazy and it was It was a great show. And I came off the stage and this little fella came walking up to me, dapper. You know, it's really well dressed, and I said, you know, a

I can't. I can't do it, you know.

And he said, you're out of that band, and you're in the band, and then he walked and he walked off and Bruce mccaskell was the manager at the time of the banner.

I said, Bruce, who the hell is that? And he said, oh, that's how I did.

And I was out of that contract and I was in average white Man just like that.

All Right, ladies and gentlemen, I know you dread when you hear this, but you got to come back next week for the next QLs episode of our special one on one Question of Preme with my idol Steve Faron. He's going to talk about his time with the average white bend Duran Duran, Tom Petty, playing with Prince all this other stuff. Man, I hope you come back and