About five minutes ago, I looked up at a shelf that hangs above the entryway into my living room. It’s not the first time I’ve looked up there. Hardly. In fact, over the past twelve years or so since I’ve lived in this particular guesthouse in the Hollywood Hills, I’ve probably stared at that overhanging ledge hundreds of times. But I’ve never really thought about what is perched there. I mean I have but not on any truly meaningful level.
So, I’m looking at these binders seated on this shelf, dozens and dozens of them, and each spine is labeled: Rosen’s Interviews Vol. 1 … Rosen’s Interviews Vol. 19 … Rosen’s Interviews Vol. 64. And then about two minutes go by and I start thinking that seated inside these tape-holding notebooks are the actual touchstones of what I’d been doing for the preceding 30+ years of my life. These tapes, these cassettes, represented the hundreds and hundreds of interviews, conversations, exchanges, arguments, differences of opinion, and general repartee I’ve engaged in with the most extraordinary human beings in the world: musicians.
I pull down one of the volumes and open it: there are 16 cassettes there, all held in place by a form-fitting cutout. Like one insect, the same insect, held in place over and over. The tapes are numbered and indexed with a white/typed label: Jeff Beck … Joe Perry … Jimmy Page … Mick Taylor … Brian May … Def Leppard … Jason Newstedt. There are 64 volumes and each one holds this same amount. I’m musing, “That’s a lot of talking.” The musing becomes a deeper meditation: “In all this talking, there really is an astounding oral history of classic rock guitar. The best pieces should be selected, assembled, and presented.”
They were. The most significant stories were gathered up, cleaned up, edited, revised, and rewritten. And that’s what you’re going to be reading: that’s what Rock Chronicles is all about.
Recorded on these tapes, were conversations and dialogues, artists theorizing, philosophizing and bragging; musicians expounding, lecturing, lying, remembering, recalling, reminiscing and foretelling. Guitar players spouting truths and near-truths and what they hoped were truths about other guitarists, about the business of music, about the music of business, about recording, about soloing, double-tracking rhythm guitars, punching in, getting punched out, about recording tracks live, overdubbing and overdoing. They talked about guitars, amps, picks, effects, boards, strings, pickups, mics, studios, songs, lyrics, labels, tours and tones. And they weren’t all guitar players; there were bass players, singers, drummers, keyboardists, producers, soundmen, and managers.
On those cassette tapes were the recorded moments of my life. I had been, and still am, a music writer, and it’s been my job – and great good fortune – to talk to musicians about the music they make, how they make it, and the most difficult question of all to answer, why they make it.
I’ve interviewed hundreds and hundreds of them; I’ve never taken an exact count but 700-800 is probably a safe estimate. And that’s not counting the players I’ve interviewed multiple times (I believe Joe Satriani holds the distinction of being the most interviewed artist on the list; we’ve spoken about ten times maybe). Some of these people were great, legendary, historic figures that shaped the sound and direction and dynamics of the guitar universe. Some of them were less than great but in their own way, had also contributed to the passionate and plangent sonic solar system.
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| "Steven Rosen and Jimmy Page" |
Whether it was a veteran whose music had been represented by the releases of multiple albums or a one-stop picker whose entire legacy consisted of a single album or maybe a single song or even just 16 bars of a particularly inspired solo, they all had something to say. What I found as an overriding element in virtually every conversation I ever held, was that these people possessed an unyielding, unswerving, and immutable belief in and love for the thing they were doing: creating music.
To a fault, these Englishmen and Americans, Italians, Canadians, Jews, French, Germans, Australians, and Japanese (let us simply say: they came from everywhere) were devoted to the process of making music. They hailed from rich families and poor, working-class, middleclass, upper class, and some with no class at all. Some were schooled, some unschooled; some had pursued peripheral pursuits like art while others engaged themselves in unrelated subjects like business and finance. Some were drug takers, pill poppers, acid eaters, cannabis tokers, heroin shooters, multi-substance sniffers, partiers, late-night revelers, and as a rule, most of them were chain-smoking nicotine addicts. Some were overweight, some thin, some tanned, and some sporting the gray pallor that is the English skin tone. They were junk food junkies, vegetarians, red meat eaters, gourmets, gourmands, and connoisseurs of grease. Eventually, some of them even succumbed to their habits and in the end, what they put into their bodies eventually started controlling the guitar notes coming out of their fingertips and the songs issuing from their mouths. Even then, only death could stop them from running down their dreams.
Ultimately, what set these people apart (like the specially selected few chosen to board the mothercraft in Close Encounters Of the Third Kind) from the myriad other musicians all running after this same, seemingly unobtainable brass ring, was really something nameless, something without definition. We can call it drive, determination, pigheadedness, blind devotion, or even stupidity. Because you have to be out of your mind to want to be a musician. No, that’s not entirely accurate - you have to be out of your mind to want to be a musician and actually earn a living that way.
Whatever you want to call it, each and every one of them possessed it. This inability to let go. When they’d been turned down, beat down, turned around, and messed around with by an industry as heartless as the devil’s own workshop, they still didn’t surrender. That is what makes them different and that is what makes them worth reading about.
That, in some small part, is what was on those tapes. You’re going to read about this exchange of ideas between interviewer (me) and interviewee (all of them). You’re going to read about them revealing their secrets and memories and personal explorations. Sometimes they pulled back the covers on dark and tenebrous moments; once in a while they’d expose an anecdotal tale meant to expurgate themselves of something mean and nasty. Certainly, they talk about the irenic moments, the fun times, the periods of positivism.
Every one had a story, a tale to reveal. Some of them were reticent in the telling, some virtually falling out of their chairs to tell all. Some of them spoke loudly, in stentorian tones, while others barely whispered, hiding behind a shy persona. They talked in long sentences and clipped responses; they muttered, murmured, mumbled, and moaned. Some joked, some cajoled, and some were jocular; some were venomous, vulgar, and some just downright vile. There were exotic accents and weird dialects and strange vernacular. One time, when interviewing Japanese metal band Loudness, an interpreter was required. During a Michael Jackson interview, sister LaToya acted as a de facto interpreter. We are all seated at a table and whenever the gloved one responded, he’d turn to his sibling, whisper in her ear, and then she’d relate Michael’s words. Talk about strange …
In whatever fashion they spoke or whatever mood they were in, they all wanted to talk. Even Jackson. The very act of showing up for an interview or agreeing to accept a phone call implied a kind of tacit consent.
Even when they didn’t want to talk, they wanted to talk. To varying degrees. Not all of these conversations went smoothly. For some, though not many (out of roughly 800 interviews, maybe 2% could be labeled as nightmarish), the scene took on more of the appearance of inquisitor and victim. I was forced to brandish the microphone like some medieval torture implement in order to extract information. A literal interpretation of verbal abuse. That’s a bit of a stretch, well, it’s a hell of a stretch, but from time to time, it was necessary to become a bit heavy-handed.
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Some of the conversations took place in the afternoon; some were late night meetings. Phone calls at 4 AM. There was breaking bread over breakfast, banter over brunch, and discourse during dinner. We met in hotel/motel rooms, record company/management/publicity conference rooms and meeting rooms; recording studios, recording studio lounges, and recording studio parking lots; we arranged tete a tetes in backstage dressing rooms before and after concerts; in concert hall hospitality suites; in cars, limousines, and on tour buses (sometimes in motion, other times stationary). We gathered in rehearsal studios and restaurants. I’ve conducted interviews at the homes of artists and at my own home.
In the end, everyone wants to talk about himself, even if that means reducing the interviewer to some sort of microphone-holding toad in the process. Those people, that terrible 2%, wanted to talk but they had to be made to feel as if they were doing you a favor. It was as if they were attending an intervention – they railed and fought and screamed that they didn’t want to be there. Once there, they argued and denied that they need any help. But in the end, they all acquiesced; they all received treatment (did the interview) and even managed a cautious “Thank you” at the end of therapy (conversation).
People can’t help but spill their guts to a stranger with a microphone.
And every once in a blue while, if interviewee and interviewer have tuned in to a mutual wavelength, if both parties have expressed themselves in trenchant and open fashion, and if simple good vibes crackle in the air, something profound might be uttered. The subject will pause momentarily, allow some question or proffered comment to seek in, and he will respond with a never-before-uttered response. That is, he will see himself or what he does in some new light, the aha bulb of discovery will be turned on, and his words will tumble forth as a true revelation. He will learn something about himself, hopefully, and he will share that realization with the tape. And from the tape, those words and thoughts will be transferred to text.
Those moments are rare but they do exist. Within Rock Chronicles, you will read the words of these artists as they hit upon these epiphanies.
So, there was my life in analog and this is that life digitally presented on a computer screen. Rock Chronicles is made up of 42 (more or less) of the most important, intriguing, intense, weird, and whacked out interviews I’ve had the pleasure (and sometimes pain) of participating in. These musicians have been grouped by eras corresponding to when they did their most significant and influential work.
Here is what you’ll be uncovering in coming weeks:
1970s
Legend: A / designation means two or more artists are part of the same interview.
Angus Young/Bon Scott
Angus Young
Tony Iommi
Paul McCartney (Yes, yes, I know; I can already hear the argument: “Paul McCartney was a Beatle and of course the Beatles whipped up the majority of their magic in the 60s. So why is he listed under the 1970s?” The bassist is inserted here because the interview took place in 1973. If he was located under a 1960s banner, the reader might assume (and rightly so) that the conversation occurred during that era. That would be misleading. There are some other names here that may belong in that hallowed decade as well. But the first musician I ever spoke with happened in 1973, and thus, any 1960s-centric eccentric is going to be lined up here in the 70s.)
Nicky Hopkins (Another perfect example of what was described above. The great, late Hopkins plunked out his black-and-white keyed magic with The Who, Rolling Stones, Jeff Beck, and just about every other important 60s artmaker. But we didn’t speak until around 1979 and so here he is).
Joe Perry
Aerosmith (entire band)
Jimmy Page
John Paul Jones
Noel Redding
Ritchie Blackmore
David Gilmour
Jeff Beck
1980s
Viv Campbell/Phil Collen (Obviously this is a Def Leppard peppered conversation and not just these two guitarists chewing miscellaneous fat. Just want to clarify …).
Robert Plant
Mick Taylor
B.B. King
Ian Gillan
Glenn Hughes
John Densmore/Robbie Krieger
Dave Mustaine
Marty Friedman
Alex Lifeson
Yngwie Malmsteen
Tom Petty
Motley Crue (entire band) (One of them arrived late and right now it’s difficult to remember which one it was so when you finally read the story, you’ll know [and I’ll have finally remembered]).
Dave Murray/Adrian Smith
Wayne Charvel (Yes, the Charvel of Charvel – read: Van Halen – guitars)
Tim Marten (If you already know who this is, you know way more than is necessary to sustain normal life! Go to the head of the list … I mean class. Marten was Jimmy Page’s guitar tech during The Firm days).
1990s
Izzy Stradlin
John Petrucci
John Myung
Tommy Lee (I know. “Motley Crue was covered in the previous decade so why is he here?” This is a one-on-one talk with the drummer who plays with an 8” splash cymbal. What did you think I was going to say? Here, Tommy talks frankly about songwriting, solo albums and staying afloat in a post-Motley residual wash.)
Brian May (Queen) – talks about Queen/guitars
Chad Smith (Red Hot Chili Peppers – circa late 90s – talks all about RHCP
2000s
Billy Cox
Gilby Clarke
Jason Newstedt
Gary Carnes (This is probably another unfamiliar name. Carnes was Zeppelin’s lighting director. Here, he is unbelievably enlightening as he regales with tour tales of life on the road.)
Richard Cole (Another survivor of the Page/Plant juggernaut, Richard was the band’s longtime tour manager and author of the first Zep tell-all, Stairway To Heaven.)
Guitarchitects/Amplifierman
(conversations conducted during the 1970s/1980s)
Leo Fender/Dale Hyatt
Grover Jackson
Les Paul
Jim Marshall
These are the wonderful creatures you’ll be staring at from behind your computer screen. As a music writer (* - I thought if I tried to clarify what I am, it might better define the people you’ll be reading about), I was sent out into rock’s wild kingdom to track down these denizens, lure them into a literary lair (a far too poetic way of describing a record company office or hotel room), and capture them. Rather, capture their words and verbal state-of-mind at that particular moment.
* Note: It’s always been confusing to put a label on my job description. If someone asks you what you do and you reply, “I’m a music writer,” their first response is, “Oh, you write songs.” Well, I do write songs but that is not my primary occupation. If you say, “Music critic,” they tend to visualize a reviewer of classical music. Don’t ask why. And if you dredge up the term, “Music journalist,” they view that moniker as a newspaper columnist or a book writer or something. And as an unschooled scribe, I don’t merit that tag in any event. So, music writer seems fitting and innocuous enough).
Though the analogy might be a bit farfetched – comparing rock and rollers to rare and exotic beasts – the stretch isn’t beyond all believability. On these hunting expeditions – organized by magazines, record companies, management agencies, publicity offices and personal assistants – you had to prepare. Be ready. Tapes, recorders, paper, pads, pens/pencils, earphones, headphones, extra cables (RCA; 2”), aspirin (woe be to you if you forgot the Excedrin), extension cords, power supplies, and batteries.
You need to keep your tape player (a recording gun) clean, oiled, dust-free, and battery acid-free. Try leaving a battery pack on the front seat of your rented Japanese-whatever it is mid-size in the broiling afternoon beneath a blazing 109 degree Las Vegas sun and see what happens. There is a soup sitting there that in no way resembles what it used to be: four AA Duracells in a plastic battery holder. This new concoction has every attribute of an alien’s upchuck. And after you pay Hertz for cosmically altering their fine vinyl interior, you’ve cleared about $50 for the entire safari.
So, you better have extra batteries or you’re going to have to gnaw off your own hand in supplication when you try and explain to your editor what an imbecile you were. That happened. No, I didn’t have to chomp down on a finger, but I did have batteries explode. It was in Las Vegas while trying to intercept the regal and noble B.B. King. That interview is here in Rock Chronicles. I brought that trophy home.
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| "Steven Rosen and Jeff Beck" |
Remember we talked about preparation? Being cocked, loaded, and ready to take off in pursuit? In 1977, I was given the trail of the exotic Jimmy Page. His bizarre ramblings and mannerisms, his almost indecipherably unintelligible manner of communication, made him one of the rarest one-off species in the entire sonic jungle. It took over a year talking with his handlers and trainers to be allowed into his protected sanctuary. Once there, it required 4 more days before a single glimpse was made. Then, when finally given entrée into his private domain, I saw evidence of broken walls and smashed telephones, telltale signs of the alpha dog on a rampage.
The results of that hunt are also here in Rock Chronicles. That one will leave you, like it left me, stunned and stone-cold paralyzed. Truly, you wonder who was hunter and who hunted? Thrill of the chase indeed.
Rock Chronicles is the first time all these artistic animals have come to drink from the same waters. If we can drop the Great White Hunter motif for a moment, never before have all of these stories been gathered together in this type of presentation. Some of these artists have been interviewed multiple times and in a very unique approach, the two conversations will be combined. That is, bits and pieces of one interview will be inserted into the body of another. The attempt here is to reify an artist’s thoughts and philosophies by combining what he said over the course of many years.
If, for example, he espoused a certain approach to guitar playing and then in a second interview several years later, re-addressed that concept, it becomes interesting to see how his thoughts may have changed – or stayed the same.
Rock Chronicles is the result of about 34 years of interview-conducting and story-writing. Being a music writer doesn’t require super intelligence or novelist-like writing skills. Really, what it demands as much as anything, are these sort of indefinable skills. I mean, yes, you need to be a concise and hopefully creative writer, and capable of placing periods in their proper places.
I think you have to know how to listen. You have to know how to listen through and beyond what is being said.
What is he trying to say?
What does he really want to say?
You need to strike a balance between offering yourself up as friend and professional, as therapist and confession taker. You can’t become too chummy because the conversation evaporates; if there is no drama, no tension between the two, nothing of import gets revealed. You need to present yourself instantly – like some sort of fast food professional – as someone capable of listening to what this person is saying. And more importantly, as someone capable of understanding. There is moment, and this was described a little earlier, when all the lines are erased. You’re not there for a story and this person is not there to tell one. It is simply two people engaged in the singular and private pursuit (when a musician’s manager or publicist sits in, this dynamic is always upset and the interview is always damaged) of two people talking about what they love best in this world: music.
So, if I’ve done my job correctly, you’ll read these stories and feel like you’re there on the couch, in the car, backstage, or in a hotel room. You’ll know that the tape is in the cassette player, the batteries have been inserted, and the questions are at the ready. Your heart will pound and you may stutter because when you look across the table, Jeff Beck is sitting there. You tell yourself that you are here, that Jeff is there, but somewhere between your head and your heart, a power line is broken. You try and gather yourself, fit your lips around your teeth, stare down briefly at your typed notes, and begin.
That’s what I want for all of you. I want you to feel the absolute aorta-slamming adrenalin that rushes through your body when you open your mouth for that first question. It is a terror and ecstasy – and yes, 34 years later, that’s what it feels like – like nothing you’ve ever felt before.
That’s what Rock Chronicles is supposed to be …
That’s what Rock Chronicles is meant to be …
I hope that’s what Rock Chronicles is.
2007 © Steven Rosen
/ my profile 
