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From Elvis Presley to Dave Grohl: The Gods Of Rock Explored [Episode 345] · Booked On Rock with Eric Senich

• 0:00
  Speaker 1: Up next. There are rock stars, and then there are
• 0:03
  Speaker 1: rock Gods. A brand new book out now called Rock
• 0:05
  Speaker 1: Gods Icons of Rock Music. Over twenty artists including duos
• 0:10
  Speaker 1: who make the book. Is your favorite rocker on the list?
• 0:13
  Speaker 1: Find out We're totally bummed rock and roll.
• 0:18
  Speaker 2: I mean gotta leave you. You're reading Little Hands says
• 0:20
  Speaker 2: it's time to rock and roll.
• 0:22
  Speaker 3: Rock band Rode up a totally booked.
• 0:29
  Speaker 1: Welcome back to book don rock the podcast for those
• 0:31
  Speaker 1: about to read and rock. My name is Eric sanat
• 0:34
  Speaker 1: Our guest is Kathy McCabe, author of the new book
• 0:37
  Speaker 1: Rock Gods Icons of Rock Music. Kathy, thank you so
• 0:40
  Speaker 1: much for being here.
• 0:41
  Speaker 2: My absolute pleasure. Eric.
• 0:44
  Speaker 1: So there are seventeen individual artists and five duos covered
• 0:48
  Speaker 1: in the book. So let's start with what defines a
• 0:50
  Speaker 1: rock god? What makes them stand out among their peers.
• 0:54
  Speaker 4: I think it's you know, I mean, you could quote
• 0:58
  Speaker 4: stats until the cows come high, but I think we
• 1:02
  Speaker 4: can all agree that there's that X factor. There's that
• 1:08
  Speaker 4: charisma and you know, sexuality that goes hand in hand
• 1:16
  Speaker 4: with a voice and a performance, and you know musical skills.
• 1:21
  Speaker 4: A lot of the rock gods, you know, play themselves
• 1:24
  Speaker 4: they're not just you know, the thing is at the
• 1:26
  Speaker 4: front of the band or solo artists. So I think
• 1:32
  Speaker 4: it's that semi quantifiable mix of all all the magic
• 1:42
  Speaker 4: that you kind of see come to bear with these people.
• 1:45
  Speaker 1: And you say most rock gods seem to be fueled
• 1:47
  Speaker 1: by the experiences of a troubled childhood. But then on
• 1:50
  Speaker 1: the other end, that leads them down a path to
• 1:53
  Speaker 1: self destruction, right, I mean that that seems to be
• 1:55
  Speaker 1: the case with at least some of the names on
• 1:57
  Speaker 1: this list.
• 1:58
  Speaker 4: It is interesting, so fascinating, eating sort of microcosm I
• 2:02
  Speaker 4: guess of where society is at, and to a certain degree,
• 2:08
  Speaker 4: society kind of expected this behavior. So there was a
• 2:12
  Speaker 4: bit of a bit of you know, fulfilling the prophecy
• 2:18
  Speaker 4: a lot of the time. But yeah, I do think
• 2:21
  Speaker 4: that when you look, a lot of them, particularly out
• 2:24
  Speaker 4: of Britain, were brought up by their grandparents, you know,
• 2:28
  Speaker 4: particularly in the fifties and sixties, when divorce started becoming,
• 2:33
  Speaker 4: you know, something that was accepted in society. You had
• 2:36
  Speaker 4: all these fractured families and grandparents would step into the
• 2:40
  Speaker 4: breach much as they do now, I would suggest, so
• 2:44
  Speaker 4: a lot of them were fueled. I think Keith Richards
• 2:47
  Speaker 4: in particular, was fueled by his grandfather's love of music.
• 2:51
  Speaker 4: And his grandfather was very much, you know, the cheerleader
• 2:57
  Speaker 4: of his talent early in the peace and made him
• 2:59
  Speaker 4: work for it too, which I thought was really kind
• 3:01
  Speaker 4: of beautiful hop and you know, sort of hiding the
• 3:04
  Speaker 4: guitar up on the top shelf as sort of, you know,
• 3:09
  Speaker 4: the thing that he could aspire to grab down and
• 3:12
  Speaker 4: play one day.
• 3:13
  Speaker 1: Yeah, And it's also a lot of times they're just
• 3:15
  Speaker 1: looking to bust out of this life that they're living
• 3:17
  Speaker 1: where they kind of feel like they are restricted.
• 3:20
  Speaker 4: Yeah. I think with Bruce Springsteen that was very much
• 3:22
  Speaker 4: the case. I mean, he had such a fractious relationship
• 3:26
  Speaker 4: with his father, who you know, was suffering depression and
• 3:31
  Speaker 4: obviously incredibly unhappy with his life, but also battling you know,
• 3:37
  Speaker 4: mental illness, which again you know, wasn't exactly on the
• 3:40
  Speaker 4: mainstream radar in terms of something that could be treated,
• 3:44
  Speaker 4: something that could be addressed, And as Springsteen has said
• 3:49
  Speaker 4: in his book and also you know in Springsteen on Broadway,
• 3:53
  Speaker 4: that was something that came and we've seen most recently
• 3:58
  Speaker 4: in the film, it's something that he has battled with
• 4:04
  Speaker 4: his whole life, but with the benefit of you know,
• 4:10
  Speaker 4: those around him, or just knowing that that you know,
• 4:15
  Speaker 4: depression is an illness that can be treated. He seems
• 4:19
  Speaker 4: to have come out of it certainly less scathed than
• 4:24
  Speaker 4: a lot of the rock gods that we've seen.
• 4:27
  Speaker 1: Elvis Presley leads off the book and he really set
• 4:30
  Speaker 1: the template for those who followed right up until today.
• 4:33
  Speaker 1: Talent looks some controversy doesn't hurt, right, it only makes
• 4:38
  Speaker 1: them more popular. And you say, quote, Elvis Presley was
• 4:41
  Speaker 1: the first rock god, he may still be the best.
• 4:44
  Speaker 1: Why do you feel that way.
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  Speaker 4: I think it's you have to view it through the
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  Speaker 4: prism of the times and just how seismic his arrival,
• 4:54
  Speaker 4: you know, into what music was then. You know, you
• 4:58
  Speaker 4: had then you had sort of the nascent, you know,
• 5:03
  Speaker 4: black seeing the Chitlin Circle where he had little Richard,
• 5:06
  Speaker 4: James Brown.
• 5:07
  Speaker 2: Everybody, well, James Brown sort of came a little bit.
• 5:10
  Speaker 1: Later, but.
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  Speaker 2: There wasn't Everything else was kind of crooners.
• 5:14
  Speaker 4: You know, it was Frank Sinatra or Pat Boon or
• 5:18
  Speaker 4: you know, Dean Martin and these guys. So for this
• 5:22
  Speaker 4: young guy, like he was so young when he started.
• 5:25
  Speaker 4: I think he was nineteen when he stuck his head
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  Speaker 4: in at Sun Studios, so to have this full package
• 5:32
  Speaker 4: of the looks and just the natural way he moved,
• 5:35
  Speaker 4: which of course caused huge amounts of controversy, to the
• 5:39
  Speaker 4: extent that police, you know, were monitoring his movements. Courtesy
• 5:45
  Speaker 4: of a Florida judge. He said, you know, he had
• 5:47
  Speaker 4: to stand still and he would wag wag his finger
• 5:51
  Speaker 4: vigorously as a way to kind of, you know, combat
• 5:54
  Speaker 4: the rather conservative attempt to to shackle him. But the
• 6:03
  Speaker 4: songs as well of that time, the way that they
• 6:05
  Speaker 4: would driven in terms of the R and B rhythms
• 6:09
  Speaker 4: and just the unique melodies that he was sort of
• 6:16
  Speaker 4: taking his voice into areas that people hadn't heard before,
• 6:21
  Speaker 4: but underpin with those R and B melodies, R and
• 6:25
  Speaker 4: B rhythms, it just it was incendiary.
• 6:29
  Speaker 2: It was clearly something that nobody had ever heard.
• 6:32
  Speaker 1: Chapters on James Brown, Johnny Cash follow and then we
• 6:36
  Speaker 1: get into the classic rock era. Chapter four on John Lennon,
• 6:39
  Speaker 1: who was an Elvis fan like so many, and you write, quote,
• 6:42
  Speaker 1: John Lennon revolutionized popular music. He may not have invented
• 6:46
  Speaker 1: the art form, but the English singer, songwriter, poet and
• 6:49
  Speaker 1: artists forged its Boldest Frontiers talk about what made John
• 6:54
  Speaker 1: Lennon a rock god and how he differs from somebody
• 6:57
  Speaker 1: like Elvis in terms of being outspoken on social and
• 7:00
  Speaker 1: political issues.
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  Speaker 4: I think the fact that John Lennon was British born
• 7:04
  Speaker 4: had a lot to do with that. There's that kind
• 7:07
  Speaker 4: of innate sort of kicking against authoritarianism. There's you know,
• 7:16
  Speaker 4: growing up in that post war era where you know,
• 7:20
  Speaker 4: everyone was struggling for survival again, broken home. You know,
• 7:26
  Speaker 4: his mother was killed so tragically in you know, hit
• 7:31
  Speaker 4: by a car when she was walking back home after
• 7:35
  Speaker 4: visiting him. But the thing, like if Elvis was the
• 7:40
  Speaker 4: microcosm of what was happening in America with rock and roll,
• 7:43
  Speaker 4: I think John Lennon and obviously with Paul McCartney, John
• 7:47
  Speaker 4: Harrison and later Ringo were the sort of lightning bolt
• 7:53
  Speaker 4: moment in the UK. And it's it's interesting because Elvis
• 7:59
  Speaker 4: didn't tour the world, He never set foot out of America,
• 8:05
  Speaker 4: whereas the Beatles, you know, got out of the UK
• 8:08
  Speaker 4: as quickly as possible, first to Germany where Hamburg, where
• 8:12
  Speaker 4: they fine honed both their performance, their musicianship writing just constantly,
• 8:21
  Speaker 4: absolutely constantly. And this is the other thing about Lenin too,
• 8:24
  Speaker 4: is he was both of all band members were so prolific.
• 8:30
  Speaker 4: I mean, you think about those schedules of those early
• 8:35
  Speaker 4: tours in the US and the UK and then through Europe.
• 8:39
  Speaker 4: I mean, you know, and it's still something that you know,
• 8:43
  Speaker 4: songwriters battle with now is when do you come out
• 8:46
  Speaker 4: that time to write that next hit? But they were
• 8:48
  Speaker 4: just on it, just perfecting that three minute pop song
• 8:55
  Speaker 4: that was just catchy. Is how the lyrics felt like
• 9:00
  Speaker 4: they just you know, had been plucked from everybody's brain
• 9:03
  Speaker 4: because we could all resonate and relate to what they
• 9:06
  Speaker 4: were singing about. Notwithstanding later on in the career with
• 9:10
  Speaker 4: Sergeant Peppers and Yellow Submarines and.
• 9:13
  Speaker 2: Things like that.
• 9:15
  Speaker 4: But he had the magic formula that you know, can
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  Speaker 4: only come from I think a combination of innate.
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  Speaker 2: Songwriting gift.
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  Speaker 4: But the ten thousand hours, you know, they just wrote
• 9:37
  Speaker 4: and wrote and wrote and wrote, and as we've seen
• 9:40
  Speaker 4: in the amazing Peter Jackson films and everything else, you know,
• 9:44
  Speaker 4: the creative process could be just in that millisecond of
• 9:50
  Speaker 4: strumming a guitar and voila a song arrived.
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  Speaker 1: Yeah, and then we see how rapidly they advanced from
• 9:57
  Speaker 1: that point on, like revolver moving forward, you see.
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  Speaker 4: And do you think about like they were putting out,
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  Speaker 4: you know, particularly in those first few years they were
• 10:06
  Speaker 4: putting out you know, one, two, three.
• 10:09
  Speaker 1: Albums crazy yeah, and touring.
• 10:12
  Speaker 2: And touring as well.
• 10:13
  Speaker 4: And you think about now, like you know, the joke
• 10:16
  Speaker 4: about Chinese democracy, you know with Kinson Roses that we
• 10:20
  Speaker 4: waited you.
• 10:20
  Speaker 2: Know, how many decades was over that thirteen years? Was
• 10:25
  Speaker 2: it something like that?
• 10:26
  Speaker 1: There was something like that. It was I think what
• 10:28
  Speaker 1: a spaghetti incident was like nineteen ninety four or five,
• 10:32
  Speaker 1: And then we got that album finally and I don't
• 10:36
  Speaker 1: know what was it two thousand and boy, would have
• 10:38
  Speaker 1: to look it up. It was a long time.
• 10:39
  Speaker 4: I thought, I've just got a blank A long time.
• 10:42
  Speaker 2: Waited so long for it.
• 10:45
  Speaker 4: But that's the interesting thing about this period because Bowie
• 10:48
  Speaker 4: was exactly the same. I mean, he was putting out
• 10:51
  Speaker 4: two three records a year, certainly in the sort of
• 10:59
  Speaker 4: from late sixties through to the late seventies.
• 11:04
  Speaker 1: Spaghetti incident in nineteen ninety three, Chinese democracy two.
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  Speaker 2: Thousand and fifteen years.
• 11:11
  Speaker 1: I mentioned up top that there are five duos covered
• 11:13
  Speaker 1: in the book. The first of the five would be
• 11:15
  Speaker 1: Mick Jagger and Keith Richards. Now this is interesting. Had
• 11:18
  Speaker 1: you thought about picking one over the other and what
• 11:21
  Speaker 1: led to deciding to go with a partnership scenario, specifically
• 11:25
  Speaker 1: here with Jagger Richards.
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  Speaker 2: Because that partnership is the Rolling Stones.
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  Speaker 4: I mean, if they'd not met on that train station,
• 11:35
  Speaker 4: you know, having gone to primary school, Lost Tuch, there
• 11:38
  Speaker 4: were neighbors lost Tich mixed heading to the London School
• 11:43
  Speaker 4: of Economics, Keith is heading to Art school, and they
• 11:48
  Speaker 4: just happened to meet on this train station at that
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  Speaker 4: that minute, you know, and Keith's holding the records under
• 11:56
  Speaker 4: his arm, which you know got or was it Meck
• 12:00
  Speaker 4: Sorry now I'm completely confusing.
• 12:04
  Speaker 1: The Blues records.
• 12:04
  Speaker 4: Yeah, it was Meck had the Blues records and Keith
• 12:07
  Speaker 4: was was fascinated by the fact that he had these
• 12:10
  Speaker 4: these particular records. The other thing that really made me
• 12:18
  Speaker 4: want to keep them together as a partnership is because
• 12:22
  Speaker 4: it's one of the most fascinating dynamics in terms of
• 12:25
  Speaker 4: a partnership in contemporary rock history. I mean, there's such
• 12:31
  Speaker 4: different people and we've come to see caricatures of their character,
• 12:37
  Speaker 4: you know, sort of evolve over the decades.
• 12:39
  Speaker 2: It was, you know, Mick was the serious businessman.
• 12:44
  Speaker 4: He bristles about that kind of simplistic caricature of him.
• 12:50
  Speaker 2: Keith was, you know, the rock and roll outlaw.
• 12:53
  Speaker 4: He descended far more into two addiction than Meg ever did,
• 13:00
  Speaker 4: and battled you know, Heroin for years, you know, got
• 13:03
  Speaker 4: arrested all over the place on several occasions, and finally
• 13:08
  Speaker 4: you know, got his act together. But the fractiousness of
• 13:14
  Speaker 4: their partnership, the fact.
• 13:15
  Speaker 2: That you know, once Mix started going.
• 13:18
  Speaker 4: Solo and Keith found that such to be such an affront,
• 13:22
  Speaker 4: even though we gave him free reign to be in
• 13:26
  Speaker 4: charge of the Rolling Stones for the first time, is
• 13:28
  Speaker 4: kind of you know, the leader. Because Mick was off
• 13:31
  Speaker 4: doing theirs, he felt it was a real betrayal of
• 13:36
  Speaker 4: the band.
• 13:36
  Speaker 2: He was furious about it.
• 13:39
  Speaker 4: So that kind of dynamic of how they fight like brothers.
• 13:43
  Speaker 4: But also, you know, particularly now, I think even though
• 13:47
  Speaker 4: we've just heard, you know, they've kind of put their
• 13:50
  Speaker 4: twenty twenty six plans on hold and hope black hell
• 13:54
  Speaker 4: that that's just because they're tired and not for any
• 13:58
  Speaker 4: other reason. But the fact that they've sort of come
• 14:02
  Speaker 4: full circle now to kind of recognizing how important that
• 14:07
  Speaker 4: brotherly bond was.
• 14:09
  Speaker 2: It's kind of beautiful to me.
• 14:12
  Speaker 4: Even though I love all the one liners.
• 14:19
  Speaker 1: There have been many. Yeah, I saw the I saw
• 14:22
  Speaker 1: the story that you you just mentioned Keith Richards. I
• 14:25
  Speaker 1: guess he's the one who's saying I can't go out
• 14:27
  Speaker 1: on a full tour anymore. I don't think. Wow, Keith
• 14:30
  Speaker 1: is finally he's showing a moment that he's actually human. Yeah,
• 14:38
  Speaker 1: it's been you know, it's been an amazing run of
• 14:42
  Speaker 1: album tours, you know, massive tours, and you wonder how
• 14:46
  Speaker 1: he's been able to do it. But yeah, I'm with you.
• 14:48
  Speaker 1: I hope everything is. Hopefully it's just just as simple
• 14:51
  Speaker 1: as that. And they just got to slow down the
• 14:53
  Speaker 1: touring schedule.
• 14:54
  Speaker 4: We'll see, yeah, which is a bummer for us because
• 14:57
  Speaker 4: I was pretty hopeful that Australia is going to be
• 15:00
  Speaker 4: back on the route for next year.
• 15:03
  Speaker 5: But I.
• 15:06
  Speaker 1: Thought Hackney Diamonds was great. Wasn't surprised such.
• 15:12
  Speaker 6: A brilliant album, and I think it was brilliant and
• 15:16
  Speaker 6: I think everybody fell madly in.
• 15:18
  Speaker 4: Love with that record because it distilled the essence of
• 15:21
  Speaker 4: what the Stones have always been like, the actual you know,
• 15:27
  Speaker 4: combination of sounds and their influences, and you could hear
• 15:34
  Speaker 4: them in the studio on that record.
• 15:36
  Speaker 2: You can hear them.
• 15:37
  Speaker 4: Being loose and tie and kind of you know, beating
• 15:43
  Speaker 4: the pieces of the puzzle together in each of those songs. Really,
• 15:49
  Speaker 4: for that reason, you know, people just were like, yes,
• 15:52
  Speaker 4: you know, this is to be making that kind of
• 15:54
  Speaker 4: music in the twenty twenties is astonishing.
• 16:00
  Speaker 1: I mean, you miss Charlie. I mean, I know Charlie's
• 16:02
  Speaker 1: on two tracks, but still they're able to. They got
• 16:07
  Speaker 1: Keith's drummer, his solo drummer, Steve Jordan Sorry, yeah, I
• 16:15
  Speaker 1: had expensive one as in my head then instead of
• 16:18
  Speaker 1: rolling Steve John Yeah, but there does there is something
• 16:21
  Speaker 1: too that that fire and ice that opposites the chemistry
• 16:27
  Speaker 1: there creates something magical with these duos. Daltrey in Townshend,
• 16:32
  Speaker 1: different people planting Jimmy Page, you'd say different. Yeah, now,
• 16:37
  Speaker 1: Malcolm and Angus Young that's an exception to the rule,
• 16:41
  Speaker 1: but excellent slash. I mean, all those are in the book,
• 16:45
  Speaker 1: with the exception of the Young brothers. It seems as
• 16:48
  Speaker 1: if all great rock and roll. Partnerships are made of
• 16:50
  Speaker 1: two people who just have a great chemistry. Yet they
• 16:54
  Speaker 1: can't really hang out as friends, you know. I mean
• 16:56
  Speaker 1: even Daltrey says that him in Townshend, they're not really friends.
• 17:00
  Speaker 1: They never really hung out.
• 17:01
  Speaker 2: Well, I'm trying to think of another endeavor.
• 17:07
  Speaker 4: Besides music where these people are literally living together, notwithstanding
• 17:14
  Speaker 4: not being on tour for now we're talking sixty years,
• 17:21
  Speaker 4: Like who does that? Who can consistently not you know,
• 17:27
  Speaker 4: want to kill somebody that you've been annoyed by for
• 17:31
  Speaker 4: sixty years because you're going to know every single little
• 17:36
  Speaker 4: trigger that you know is going to drive you insane.
• 17:41
  Speaker 4: So it speaks to the power of music really that
• 17:46
  Speaker 4: these people keep.
• 17:47
  Speaker 2: Kept on coming back together.
• 17:49
  Speaker 4: They knew the alchemy of them as a unit was
• 17:55
  Speaker 4: greater than you know, somebody sing up somebody's cup of
• 18:01
  Speaker 4: tea or.
• 18:03
  Speaker 2: You yeah, throwing a guitar at somebody's head.
• 18:07
  Speaker 1: Right, And it took Mick Jagger to go solo and
• 18:10
  Speaker 1: do okay. He had lukewarm results as a solo artist,
• 18:13
  Speaker 1: although he's got some moments. I'm a fan of some
• 18:15
  Speaker 1: of his stuff, but Keith did I love his solo work,
• 18:19
  Speaker 1: but neither on their own could do what the Stones
• 18:23
  Speaker 1: could do, and they realized that. So they needed to
• 18:25
  Speaker 1: kind of go their separate ways to understand that. And
• 18:27
  Speaker 1: I think all of these these duos have that understanding.
• 18:30
  Speaker 1: The look, you gotta gotta figure out a way to coexist.
• 18:35
  Speaker 2: Yeah, I mean we've just had Oasis, you know.
• 18:38
  Speaker 1: Yeah, I was thinking of them.
• 18:40
  Speaker 4: Yeah, do the tur and sort of wind it up
• 18:44
  Speaker 4: down this end of the at the the planet. And
• 18:48
  Speaker 4: it was interesting, I'm made of mine who who encountered
• 18:53
  Speaker 4: their management had said that the managers were astonished that that,
• 19:00
  Speaker 4: you know, Liam and Nold Gallagher were getting on famously
• 19:04
  Speaker 4: on this tour.
• 19:05
  Speaker 2: The band was really hitting their stride on this tour.
• 19:08
  Speaker 4: And then it had remarked that they even had breakfast
• 19:11
  Speaker 4: that morning together without anyone organizing.
• 19:14
  Speaker 1: Wow, how about that.
• 19:20
  Speaker 4: But I'd love to have seen that contract because I
• 19:23
  Speaker 4: reckon the Lion's share of the payoff from that reunion
• 19:27
  Speaker 4: tour would have been you know, conditional on them a
• 19:31
  Speaker 4: finishing and be you know, behaving themselves, because I guess
• 19:37
  Speaker 4: sometimes management and the team around need to you know,
• 19:42
  Speaker 4: play the adult in the room to keep the the
• 19:47
  Speaker 4: juvenile delinquents from reverting to their natural condition.
• 19:53
  Speaker 1: Yeah, do whatever it takes to keep that train on
• 19:56
  Speaker 1: the tracks. Man, don't let this rail.
• 20:00
  Speaker 4: It'll be interesting to see what they do next, whether
• 20:02
  Speaker 4: whether you know, they just keep touring or.
• 20:07
  Speaker 2: Decide to do Yeah.
• 20:09
  Speaker 1: We'll see. I mean, it is interesting though they all
• 20:12
  Speaker 1: of a sudden they are back again as among the biggest,
• 20:16
  Speaker 1: the biggest earning tours in rock and roll. Now we
• 20:20
  Speaker 1: have rock guards who are front men, and then we
• 20:21
  Speaker 1: have rock guards who are guitarists. And we got Eric
• 20:24
  Speaker 1: Clapton and Jimmy Hendricks in the book.
• 20:26
  Speaker 4: In the same way that perhaps you know, the songwriter
• 20:29
  Speaker 4: artists like like Lennon Cocabaine, you know, could completely you know,
• 20:39
  Speaker 4: take could could take rock into a completely different direction.
• 20:45
  Speaker 2: The Hendrix and Clapton.
• 20:49
  Speaker 4: Focused on not so much I don't think what a
• 20:55
  Speaker 4: song was, as what the guitar could do, and then
• 20:58
  Speaker 4: that led them to a song or an album could be.
• 21:04
  Speaker 2: And you know, you think the electric.
• 21:06
  Speaker 4: Guitar was such a new instrument then so the limitless
• 21:11
  Speaker 4: possibilities of what it could do. They were the first
• 21:15
  Speaker 4: to unlock those. Yeah, I mean, you know, we all
• 21:20
  Speaker 4: carry on now saying you know, yeah, I've heard that
• 21:22
  Speaker 4: reff before, I've heard that song before, I've heard that
• 21:25
  Speaker 4: that could progression before they were doing it for the
• 21:29
  Speaker 4: first time. And to summons those riffs, you know, like
• 21:36
  Speaker 4: you just think about it as being, you know, this
• 21:39
  Speaker 4: this instrument with strings and either wood or you know,
• 21:45
  Speaker 4: metal and plastic, and to just create these vibrations, these
• 21:51
  Speaker 4: sonic vibrations that physically, you know, there was a physical
• 21:57
  Speaker 4: effect to them. You viscerally felt what they they were playing.
• 22:01
  Speaker 4: That was some kind of wizardry, I think, and I
• 22:05
  Speaker 4: think both of them in that regarded probably more rock
• 22:09
  Speaker 4: wizards than they are rock gods. I mean, I think
• 22:14
  Speaker 4: Hendrix was definitely a rock god because of his performance,
• 22:17
  Speaker 4: because of the way he challenged the status quo, because
• 22:21
  Speaker 4: of have he's innate talent, but also how hard he
• 22:27
  Speaker 4: worked at it. I just think there was something otherworldly
• 22:33
  Speaker 4: about him, particularly when you know, look back.
• 22:36
  Speaker 2: And do your.
• 22:38
  Speaker 4: YouTube dive and check out some of those amazing performances
• 22:42
  Speaker 4: at montro or at Woodstock, you know, any of the
• 22:47
  Speaker 4: legendary moments that were luckily captured.
• 22:52
  Speaker 2: Forever unfilm.
• 22:56
  Speaker 1: The book Down Rock Podcast is part of the Boneless
• 22:58
  Speaker 1: podcasting network. If you're a fan of classic rock and
• 23:01
  Speaker 1: classic film like I am. Go to Boneless dot lovable
• 23:04
  Speaker 1: dot app to find over twenty great shows there. That's
• 23:08
  Speaker 1: Boneless dot lovable dot app. Or just go to booked
• 23:11
  Speaker 1: on rock dot com. Click on the logo, It'll take
• 23:13
  Speaker 1: you right to the Boneless podcasting network. It is what
• 23:17
  Speaker 1: you want to be listen with confidence. Hendricks is the
• 23:22
  Speaker 1: kind of guy like Jim Morrison, Kirk Cobain who are
• 23:26
  Speaker 1: in this book. It almost seems as if they were
• 23:29
  Speaker 1: never even here in real flesh and blood. It's their
• 23:34
  Speaker 1: mythical figures because they died so young. That's the other thing.
• 23:38
  Speaker 1: How much to that is there? And when you think
• 23:41
  Speaker 1: about a rock god, those who have passed away young.
• 23:46
  Speaker 4: Particularly with Hendrix, and I think the same was true
• 23:49
  Speaker 4: of bon Scott. You know what would ac DC have
• 23:52
  Speaker 4: been like if bon Scott had lived. But both of
• 23:57
  Speaker 4: them dying in very similar circumstances in England after you know,
• 24:02
  Speaker 4: binge drinking and you know, ending up just dying so tragically,
• 24:11
  Speaker 4: and you kind of think, you know, all of those
• 24:16
  Speaker 4: things could have been prevented, right, all of those things.
• 24:19
  Speaker 4: There could have been a sliding door moment where you
• 24:21
  Speaker 4: know they've been with people and been.
• 24:24
  Speaker 2: Taken to hospital whatever else.
• 24:26
  Speaker 4: So there's that thing too where you can't help but
• 24:30
  Speaker 4: kind of freeze them in your mind in this kind
• 24:33
  Speaker 4: of peter Pan stage of of prime. You know, they
• 24:38
  Speaker 4: were at literally at their prime when they died. And
• 24:42
  Speaker 4: so when someone's you know, sort of frozen in that moment,
• 24:49
  Speaker 4: not only do you intellectually start hypothesizing about you know,
• 24:53
  Speaker 4: and we do it with Lenin all the time. You know,
• 24:56
  Speaker 4: what would they be like? Now, what would they have done?
• 24:59
  Speaker 4: You know, how with their career have moved. But there's
• 25:04
  Speaker 4: also something kind of mystical I think about the fact
• 25:11
  Speaker 4: that they're trapped in that moment and in time, you
• 25:15
  Speaker 4: know that they lived fast, they produced amazing life changing,
• 25:23
  Speaker 4: you know, culture shifting work, and yet they proved to
• 25:29
  Speaker 4: be so fallibly human that you kind of you kind
• 25:34
  Speaker 4: of want them a little bit up there because but
• 25:37
  Speaker 4: for the grace of God go all of us, I think.
• 25:39
  Speaker 1: And you never saw them grow old, You never had
• 25:41
  Speaker 1: to see them on stage and people start saying, ah,
• 25:45
  Speaker 1: you know, it just doesn't have it anymore his voices
• 25:47
  Speaker 1: and what it was, or he's not moving around as
• 25:49
  Speaker 1: much as he was. Yeah, they're frozen in time as
• 25:51
  Speaker 1: a young twenty seven year old or bond scout was
• 25:54
  Speaker 1: thirty three. But just guys who were before their time.
• 25:57
  Speaker 1: But one exception would be David Bowie. Where here's a guy.
• 26:01
  Speaker 1: You know, he did leave a fairly long life, but
• 26:03
  Speaker 1: he managed to he, like you point on the book,
• 26:07
  Speaker 1: he managed to have surprises up his sleep right up
• 26:09
  Speaker 1: until the end. I mean literally right up until the end. Right.
• 26:12
  Speaker 4: Devin Bowie's was, without a doubt, my favorite chapter. I
• 26:16
  Speaker 4: fell madly, madly in love with him again. I think,
• 26:19
  Speaker 4: probably like yourself, his death rocked me to the core
• 26:23
  Speaker 4: and the outpouring of because I think his death, particularly
• 26:30
  Speaker 4: that year was just such twenty sixteen was just just
• 26:34
  Speaker 4: a hellish year for us to lose so many amazing,
• 26:38
  Speaker 4: amazing artists. You know, it was Bowie, Prince, George Martin died,
• 26:43
  Speaker 4: George Michael died, Lenny.
• 26:45
  Speaker 2: Cohen was that here.
• 26:47
  Speaker 4: It was just it was one after the other, and
• 26:49
  Speaker 4: his was the first. And to see the global shrines
• 26:55
  Speaker 4: and coming together of thousands and thousands of people was astonishing.
• 27:00
  Speaker 2: We've never seen anything like this before.
• 27:03
  Speaker 4: But I think when you look at his life and
• 27:08
  Speaker 4: the you know, tentacles that he put out into the
• 27:12
  Speaker 4: world across you know, from sixty nine until twenty sixteen.
• 27:18
  Speaker 2: Were just they you know, they hit every pocket of
• 27:24
  Speaker 2: the planet.
• 27:24
  Speaker 4: I mean, you know, there's no way that you could
• 27:27
  Speaker 4: go into a karaoke place in Tokyo or you know,
• 27:32
  Speaker 4: Vietnam or Thailand and not have Heroes or changes or
• 27:36
  Speaker 4: Fame or any of those songs on there. So he
• 27:42
  Speaker 4: kind of loomed large to me as as the pinnacle
• 27:47
  Speaker 4: of the rock god as somebody who has had such
• 27:51
  Speaker 4: who had such a formidable presence in pop culture in
• 27:58
  Speaker 4: but huge shape the Zeicheist.
• 28:00
  Speaker 2: Every time he kind of put.
• 28:02
  Speaker 4: Out an album, I mean, he took it somewhere that
• 28:06
  Speaker 4: was unexpected. And you look at his influence now, I
• 28:10
  Speaker 4: would hazard I guess if we did a Google trendsearch,
• 28:14
  Speaker 4: you know, we would find that there's probably more musicians
• 28:17
  Speaker 4: on the planet right now who cite David Bowie as
• 28:20
  Speaker 4: an influence than any other rock god on the planet.
• 28:23
  Speaker 2: One of the interesting things that I discovered about Bowie, and.
• 28:26
  Speaker 4: I think you know a lot of people have come
• 28:28
  Speaker 4: to find out about him since his passing, was just
• 28:31
  Speaker 4: how damn funny he was. Like, you know, the emails
• 28:36
  Speaker 4: that he would send people. Brian has shared a lot
• 28:39
  Speaker 4: of them. Dave Grohl had a famous one where he
• 28:43
  Speaker 4: was working on I think he played Foo Fighters and
• 28:46
  Speaker 4: Dave Grole both played at Bowie's fiftieth big concert at
• 28:50
  Speaker 4: Madison Square Garden. I think that was about ninety seven maybe,
• 28:55
  Speaker 4: And yeah, it was ninety seven. And he then followed
• 29:01
  Speaker 4: up sort of several years later, wanting him to sing
• 29:03
  Speaker 4: on this song that he was working on for a
• 29:05
  Speaker 4: Marvel movie. So sent off an email, thinking you know,
• 29:08
  Speaker 4: nothing would come of it. Bowie replies and says, yeah,
• 29:13
  Speaker 4: I like the instrumental, but that kind of film, that
• 29:16
  Speaker 4: kind of song not really my deal. So thanks, but
• 29:19
  Speaker 4: no thanks. Crol writes bad going on my god, David
• 29:24
  Speaker 4: Bowie is emailing me like.
• 29:28
  Speaker 2: Thank you don't want to take up too much of
• 29:30
  Speaker 2: your time. Take care. Bowie sends back, well, now that
• 29:34
  Speaker 2: that settled off, rolls. GROLs, just like David Bowie told.
• 29:43
  Speaker 1: Me that that's awesome.
• 29:48
  Speaker 5: It's and that all you know, all these people came
• 29:51
  Speaker 5: out with his He would email fans who really somehow yeah, he.
• 29:58
  Speaker 4: Would invite them into the Student in New York if
• 30:01
  Speaker 4: there was somebody milling around, and he you know, like
• 30:04
  Speaker 4: the cut of their jib up into the studio for
• 30:08
  Speaker 4: an hour or so watching the man at work.
• 30:10
  Speaker 2: Iman God, I wish I'd be one of those fans, right, Yeah,
• 30:15
  Speaker 2: could you imagine it?
• 30:17
  Speaker 1: Yeah? And that last album is fantastic.
• 30:20
  Speaker 2: Yeah, blecksaw and just but so heartbreaking.
• 30:23
  Speaker 4: Yeah, you know, view through the prism of him knowing
• 30:26
  Speaker 4: you know he was about to die.
• 30:29
  Speaker 1: Hey, guys, we'll get back to the show, but first
• 30:31
  Speaker 1: I want to tell you about an exclusive deal for
• 30:33
  Speaker 1: Booked on Rock. Listeners get fifteen percent off any purchase
• 30:37
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• 30:40
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• 30:52
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• 30:55
  Speaker 1: code booked on Rock. Also find a link in this
• 30:57
  Speaker 1: episode show notes, or just go to booked On and
• 31:00
  Speaker 1: click on my deals. Kathy McCabe is the author of
• 31:04
  Speaker 1: the new book Rock Gods. Icons of Rock Music. Freddie
• 31:07
  Speaker 1: Mercury his story may be the most interesting of them all.
• 31:10
  Speaker 1: A rock god while he was alive, but you could
• 31:13
  Speaker 1: say he became even bigger as a rock god after
• 31:16
  Speaker 1: his death. While he was alive, you say that it
• 31:19
  Speaker 1: was Freddy's pursuit of pleasure and desired a shock that
• 31:22
  Speaker 1: guaranteed his indelible place in music history. Talk about why
• 31:25
  Speaker 1: you include Freddy in the book. I'm assuming that was
• 31:28
  Speaker 1: not a difficult decisions to make, right.
• 31:30
  Speaker 4: I love Freddie Mercury, another one who you know, frozen
• 31:34
  Speaker 4: in time, died at forty five and so tragically.
• 31:40
  Speaker 2: From HIV aids.
• 31:43
  Speaker 4: I think I don't think there's ever been anyone like
• 31:48
  Speaker 4: Freddy in terms of how well I mean, Bowie actually
• 31:52
  Speaker 4: kind of did steer the rock shift ship into sort
• 31:58
  Speaker 4: of the queer cult to you know, playing the cab
• 32:02
  Speaker 4: card things like that, being very theatric being very you know,
• 32:06
  Speaker 4: almost Broadway to a certain degree. But that voice, I mean,
• 32:13
  Speaker 4: I don't know if you've ever, you know, gone down
• 32:15
  Speaker 4: the rabbit hole of finding those kind of you know,
• 32:18
  Speaker 4: isolated vocals of Freddy.
• 32:20
  Speaker 2: Yes, it's astonishing.
• 32:23
  Speaker 4: It's just so pure and the way that he made
• 32:28
  Speaker 4: it look effortless, He made it sound effortless while you
• 32:33
  Speaker 4: look like he was making great effort in his performance
• 32:37
  Speaker 4: I always found incredibly captivating. Like he he wanted to
• 32:46
  Speaker 4: connect with the audience. It wasn't so much that he
• 32:49
  Speaker 4: was doing it, you know, playing these amazing kind of
• 32:53
  Speaker 4: mozart you know, classical piano, you know, piece.
• 33:01
  Speaker 2: He wasn't doing it for himself.
• 33:03
  Speaker 4: He was doing it as a conduit to you know,
• 33:07
  Speaker 4: unite people. And that seemed to underpin a lot of
• 33:14
  Speaker 4: who Freddie was. I mean, you know, he was incredibly
• 33:18
  Speaker 4: indulgent and I wouldn't say selfish, because the people around
• 33:22
  Speaker 4: him said he was incredibly generous and you know, big
• 33:28
  Speaker 4: open arms to humanity and to those that he loved.
• 33:33
  Speaker 4: But the fact that he you know, I just have
• 33:37
  Speaker 4: in my head on a constant loop that performance at
• 33:40
  Speaker 4: Live Age where Queen, you know, just that that moment
• 33:46
  Speaker 4: in time affirmed their legacy, and I think, you know,
• 33:51
  Speaker 4: set it up for the fact that we've still got
• 33:53
  Speaker 4: the best of Queen Volumes one to probably seventeen.
• 33:57
  Speaker 2: Or whatever it is out there. They're still on the chart.
• 34:01
  Speaker 1: I often wonder what could have been if they for
• 34:04
  Speaker 1: whatever reason, say they just didn't show up to Live Aid,
• 34:06
  Speaker 1: whatever our history would have changed.
• 34:10
  Speaker 4: Yeah, because they've gone off the boil a bit on
• 34:13
  Speaker 4: the charts at that stage, sure, and so kind of
• 34:18
  Speaker 4: being invited to do that. You know, twenty minute slot
• 34:22
  Speaker 4: was a big deal and they filled every second of
• 34:28
  Speaker 4: it with just this power and just aura that that.
• 34:36
  Speaker 2: You know, still gives me goosebumps every time I look
• 34:38
  Speaker 2: at it.
• 34:40
  Speaker 4: Absolutely, without a doubt, one of the greatest show men
• 34:43
  Speaker 4: that ever walked the planet.
• 34:45
  Speaker 1: I love that Malcolm is in there with Angus Young
• 34:49
  Speaker 1: because Malcolm, a lot of people don't know unless you're
• 34:51
  Speaker 1: a really hardcore ACDC fan. He is so important to
• 34:55
  Speaker 1: the ACDC sound, which I'm assuming is that why you
• 34:58
  Speaker 1: wanted to put the brothers to together rather than just Angus,
• 35:01
  Speaker 1: because maybe most would just go with Angus because he's
• 35:04
  Speaker 1: the guy. You see, he's the you know, he's the
• 35:07
  Speaker 1: face of the band.
• 35:08
  Speaker 2: There's no a DC without Mark. They never never could
• 35:12
  Speaker 2: have been.
• 35:13
  Speaker 4: I mean, he was the one who was noodling away
• 35:15
  Speaker 4: on the guitar in the bedroom while you know, the
• 35:18
  Speaker 4: fans of their brother George were screaming on the front
• 35:22
  Speaker 4: yard in western Sydney, a couple of suburbs away from
• 35:25
  Speaker 4: where I am now, and Angus was just trying to
• 35:31
  Speaker 4: be as good as him. But the interesting thing was
• 35:36
  Speaker 4: they deviated in their paths of how they wanted to
• 35:41
  Speaker 4: play and how they wanted to construct music. And that
• 35:44
  Speaker 4: was Malcolm went rhythm and Angus went late and that
• 35:49
  Speaker 4: I guess that kind of happened naturally. Is as brothers
• 35:52
  Speaker 4: would you know, sitting in a bedroom jamming, Well, you're
• 35:54
  Speaker 4: not going to want to play exactly the same thing together.
• 35:57
  Speaker 4: You're going to want to sort of play off each
• 36:00
  Speaker 4: other and inspire and push each other.
• 36:05
  Speaker 2: But Malcolm was He was the captain of that band.
• 36:11
  Speaker 4: The General, the Little General, I think was one of
• 36:13
  Speaker 4: the nicknames that he had. People came and went in
• 36:19
  Speaker 4: that band because Malcolm wanted them to go. You know,
• 36:24
  Speaker 4: he had absolutely no qualms about changing the lineup when
• 36:28
  Speaker 4: he felt that there had been a clash of personality,
• 36:31
  Speaker 4: or somebody wasn't lifting their weight, or were going through
• 36:34
  Speaker 4: some tough times themselves with drugs and alcohol. I mean,
• 36:39
  Speaker 4: he famously took himself off for about eight to ten months,
• 36:44
  Speaker 4: you know, when the drinking got the better of him
• 36:47
  Speaker 4: and started affecting his playing. And that was the first
• 36:50
  Speaker 4: time Stevie Young, their nephew, joined the band, who now
• 36:54
  Speaker 4: you know, is permanently there as Malcolm's replacement.
• 36:58
  Speaker 1: That was in eighty six and then eighty six on
• 37:01
  Speaker 1: the Blow Up Your Video tour.
• 37:04
  Speaker 2: Yeah, and and.
• 37:07
  Speaker 4: You know it's like, obviously the two of them stopped
• 37:12
  Speaker 4: to have a conversation after Bond's death, you know, do
• 37:15
  Speaker 4: we carry on?
• 37:16
  Speaker 2: Do we fold the band?
• 37:19
  Speaker 4: And it was bon Scott's family who insisted that he
• 37:22
  Speaker 4: would have wanted them to continue, So you know, they
• 37:26
  Speaker 4: did their secret auditions found Brian Johnson, and the rest
• 37:29
  Speaker 4: is history. I saw them a couple of weeks ago
• 37:33
  Speaker 4: here and despite the fact that there's been you know,
• 37:37
  Speaker 4: the usual social media pylon about, you know, perhaps they're
• 37:41
  Speaker 4: not at their best anymore. I took a friend who'd
• 37:46
  Speaker 4: never seen them before, and he was just completely wild.
• 37:50
  Speaker 2: I saw nine year.
• 37:51
  Speaker 4: Old goals with their you know, their little flashing horns
• 37:55
  Speaker 4: and their mouths just dropped watching this complete explosion of
• 38:03
  Speaker 4: you know, guitars, drums and bass and Johnson doing the
• 38:08
  Speaker 4: best you can with the.
• 38:09
  Speaker 2: Voice that he's got at his age seventy eight.
• 38:13
  Speaker 4: I think, and I just don't understand why you would
• 38:19
  Speaker 4: begrudge then doing what they're doing when they're able to
• 38:25
  Speaker 4: do it.
• 38:26
  Speaker 1: I'm with you, and TA can do it as long
• 38:28
  Speaker 1: as they want. If nobody's forcing the fans to go,
• 38:31
  Speaker 1: you don't have to buy a ticket.
• 38:32
  Speaker 4: Well, and it's not the fans who are who are
• 38:36
  Speaker 4: leading this, you know, time to hang it up, call,
• 38:40
  Speaker 4: it's people who haven't even been to the gig who
• 38:43
  Speaker 4: are watching you know, the dodgy concept footage that we
• 38:47
  Speaker 4: all take on our on our phones.
• 38:49
  Speaker 2: I mean, it just seems if you're there, the electricity
• 38:52
  Speaker 2: of it is. You know, you can't argue that that
• 38:57
  Speaker 2: is worth the price of admission.
• 38:59
  Speaker 1: Yeah, that's the times we're in now. Everybody's putting up
• 39:02
  Speaker 1: footage on lyons certainly not not even close to the
• 39:05
  Speaker 1: same thing. Like I said, it's an experience when you're there.
• 39:08
  Speaker 1: That's great to hear. The younger generation is still loving
• 39:12
  Speaker 1: ac DC. What's not to love, right, I mean that
• 39:15
  Speaker 1: the songs are just they hook you in and they
• 39:19
  Speaker 1: never let you go.
• 39:20
  Speaker 4: That's the thing about rock music too, I think, you know,
• 39:24
  Speaker 4: and it was notwithstanding you know, the artists that we've lost,
• 39:30
  Speaker 4: there is this you know, inexplicable refreshing of the generations
• 39:37
  Speaker 4: with rock music that I think happens far more with
• 39:41
  Speaker 4: this genre than it does with pop or even hip hop.
• 39:48
  Speaker 4: It seems almost to be a rite of passage that
• 39:50
  Speaker 4: you know, particularly for young Australians that you know, guys
• 39:55
  Speaker 4: turn thirty and the testosterone kicks in and they they're
• 39:58
  Speaker 4: raising their parents.
• 40:00
  Speaker 1: Records that's awesome.
• 40:02
  Speaker 4: Or in excess or min all or colleges or whichever.
• 40:07
  Speaker 4: And then you know led Zeppelin, Black Zabbath, whoever from overseas.
• 40:11
  Speaker 2: And they become real students of the music.
• 40:15
  Speaker 4: They like to dive down the rabbit hole and find,
• 40:20
  Speaker 4: you know, more music, find you know, interesting information. There
• 40:25
  Speaker 4: were students of it, and I don't I don't see
• 40:29
  Speaker 4: that happening as much with pop music. Maybe Michael Jackson,
• 40:34
  Speaker 4: but not to the same degree that it does with
• 40:37
  Speaker 4: all of the rock acts.
• 40:38
  Speaker 1: You're right, interesting to see what happens regarding Michael the
• 40:42
  Speaker 1: movies coming out on I'm Michael, So we'll see what
• 40:47
  Speaker 1: that does for for his his body work, because I
• 40:51
  Speaker 1: mean there's a guy who was just what he could do.
• 40:54
  Speaker 1: Is I mean we had in the eighties, Prince, Michael Jackson, Madonna.
• 40:58
  Speaker 1: I mean, there's so many huge stars within Houston. You know,
• 41:04
  Speaker 1: it's amazing how many people the greatest artist performers of
• 41:09
  Speaker 1: all time in that decade.
• 41:12
  Speaker 2: Yeah, and you sort of see it.
• 41:14
  Speaker 4: I guess around you know, anniversaries and things like that,
• 41:20
  Speaker 4: you'll see, you know, a spike that will happen in
• 41:24
  Speaker 4: in you know streaming or on the charts where a
• 41:26
  Speaker 4: bit of back catalog or go back. But you look
• 41:29
  Speaker 4: at ac DC, I mean they held their music off
• 41:33
  Speaker 4: streaming services until twenty fifteen. They only went on iTunes
• 41:38
  Speaker 4: in twenty twelve, so they held out. Now they've got
• 41:42
  Speaker 4: three songs that are over two billion, Thunderstruke, Highway to Hell,
• 41:47
  Speaker 4: Back in Black, I think you shook me all not
• 41:50
  Speaker 4: On's one point five billion.
• 41:52
  Speaker 1: Yeah, it's got to be up there.
• 41:54
  Speaker 4: So you know, there's not there's there's what the Weekend
• 42:00
  Speaker 4: at Sharon Tyler, Swift, Adele, a bunch of others who
• 42:06
  Speaker 4: you know, Drake and Kendrake whould have three billion, two
• 42:10
  Speaker 4: billion multiple tracks.
• 42:12
  Speaker 2: But I can't think of another rock out that's got that.
• 42:16
  Speaker 4: Many tracks that have hit that that Spotify ceiling of
• 42:20
  Speaker 4: over two billion.
• 42:21
  Speaker 1: And there everywhere sport you go to sporting events, you
• 42:24
  Speaker 1: hear Thunderstruck and Back in Black.
• 42:27
  Speaker 4: And Thunderstruck would have to be the most played sports
• 42:33
  Speaker 4: Highlights package song of all time.
• 42:36
  Speaker 1: Yeah, so many people.
• 42:37
  Speaker 2: I would put money on that.
• 42:39
  Speaker 1: Yeah, so many people know it right away as soon
• 42:41
  Speaker 1: as you hear it. Hey, guys, thanks so much for
• 42:46
  Speaker 1: checking out the Book down Rock podcast. If you've just
• 42:48
  Speaker 1: found the podcast, welcome. If you've been listening, thank you
• 42:52
  Speaker 1: so much for your support, and make sure you tell
• 42:54
  Speaker 1: a friend, a family member, share on social media and
• 42:57
  Speaker 1: let people know about Booked on Rock, And if you
• 43:00
  Speaker 1: do like the podcast, make sure you subscribe give a
• 43:03
  Speaker 1: five star review. Wherever you listen to the Booked on
• 43:05
  Speaker 1: Rock podcast, We're on Amazon, Apple, iHeart, Spotify, Spreaker, tune In,
• 43:10
  Speaker 1: and on YouTube music. You can check out the full
• 43:13
  Speaker 1: episodes on video, along with video highlights from episodes on
• 43:16
  Speaker 1: the Booked on Rock YouTube channel. Find it at Booked
• 43:19
  Speaker 1: on Rock. Thanks again for listening. Now back to the show.
• 43:23
  Speaker 1: We talked about Springsteen earlier. Just one thing to add
• 43:26
  Speaker 1: that I find fascinating with him. He's a rock god,
• 43:29
  Speaker 1: yet at the same time he's known as the everyman,
• 43:32
  Speaker 1: which he may be the only person in this book
• 43:34
  Speaker 1: that you could say that, right. I mean, he could
• 43:36
  Speaker 1: relate to the audience like he's the kind of guy
• 43:38
  Speaker 1: you could almost see in the audience as among the fans.
• 43:40
  Speaker 1: Yet he is a rock god in the sense whey
• 43:44
  Speaker 1: when he's on stage, he really can lift everybody up.
• 43:48
  Speaker 1: You just elevate too. It's almost like a religious experience
• 43:51
  Speaker 1: when you're at his concert, you know, you.
• 43:54
  Speaker 4: Go into the Boss church. Definitely, it's telling that he
• 43:59
  Speaker 4: still lives in New Jersey, don't you think. I think
• 44:02
  Speaker 4: that's the key to it. He you know, he probably
• 44:07
  Speaker 4: I'm sure he did live in la for.
• 44:10
  Speaker 1: A bit late eighties, early nineties and said, yeah, you
• 44:13
  Speaker 1: know what this seem for me, I'm going back home.
• 44:15
  Speaker 1: Because they're Jersey. People treat them like a normal person
• 44:18
  Speaker 1: for the most part. I mean rarely people come up
• 44:20
  Speaker 1: and treat him like a rock god. Most people just like, hey, Bruce,
• 44:24
  Speaker 1: what's up.
• 44:24
  Speaker 4: You know, he got up at the Stone Pony the
• 44:27
  Speaker 4: other night, I think one night last week. But I
• 44:31
  Speaker 4: think that says a lot because I think I think
• 44:34
  Speaker 4: that's what gave him his his you know, Reison Detra
• 44:39
  Speaker 4: in terms of what he wanted to write about, because
• 44:44
  Speaker 4: those characters.
• 44:45
  Speaker 2: I mean, I don't know the history of New Jersey intimately, but.
• 44:50
  Speaker 4: I imagine that there were a lot of tough times
• 44:56
  Speaker 4: in terms of you know, changing industries and employees and
• 45:00
  Speaker 4: and you know, just sort of families struggling to survive
• 45:07
  Speaker 4: on suburban in suburban America. And so his micro cosm,
• 45:14
  Speaker 4: you know, what he was seeing around him was a
• 45:18
  Speaker 4: microcosm of that.
• 45:19
  Speaker 2: But he also tapped into.
• 45:20
  Speaker 4: That that you know, grapes of wrath, that that sort
• 45:26
  Speaker 4: of same over that that you know, elevated the life
• 45:36
  Speaker 4: of the everyman, of the suburban guy, of the guy
• 45:41
  Speaker 4: just trying to put food on the table for his family,
• 45:46
  Speaker 4: and he made it a noble existence, which I thought,
• 45:49
  Speaker 4: you know, that was one of the.
• 45:51
  Speaker 2: Strongest pools of his music to everyone.
• 45:55
  Speaker 4: When everyone's singing it out, you know, one of his shows,
• 45:59
  Speaker 4: they're seeing out their story too.
• 46:03
  Speaker 2: But it's remarkable that.
• 46:04
  Speaker 4: He's been able to do that consistently now for fifty years.
• 46:07
  Speaker 2: It's extraordinary.
• 46:08
  Speaker 1: Yeah, there's a book that came out recently a woman
• 46:10
  Speaker 1: who went to several of Bruce's shows in Australia lifted
• 46:16
  Speaker 1: her out of a depression. And she wasn't even a
• 46:20
  Speaker 1: fan all that much. It was just that her daughter
• 46:22
  Speaker 1: happened to have tickets and she said, yeah, I guess
• 46:25
  Speaker 1: I'll go, and it changed your life.
• 46:27
  Speaker 4: I have to say, like I, you know, in my teens,
• 46:31
  Speaker 4: absolutely loved Born in the USA album.
• 46:35
  Speaker 2: Thought that that was extraordinary.
• 46:36
  Speaker 4: I mean, obviously that arrived as MTV was starting to
• 46:41
  Speaker 4: change everything in terms of pop culture and the immediacy
• 46:46
  Speaker 4: of it and putting these stars into our lound rooms.
• 46:53
  Speaker 4: But I i'd gone to see him would have been
• 46:59
  Speaker 4: around that time.
• 47:00
  Speaker 2: So it would have been eighty four when.
• 47:04
  Speaker 4: He played Australia and that was one of those marathon
• 47:08
  Speaker 4: shows and it was fantastic, but I kind of then
• 47:10
  Speaker 4: missed him. He didn't really come here as regularly, but
• 47:14
  Speaker 4: when he started coming back full on, which would have
• 47:18
  Speaker 4: been around two thousand and I want to say thirteen. Yeah,
• 47:27
  Speaker 4: probably would have been around then. And I went up
• 47:31
  Speaker 4: to Brisbane for the kickoff of the tour, and I
• 47:35
  Speaker 4: sat next to a bunch of die hard Springsteen fans
• 47:39
  Speaker 4: and I was like, I'm not going to know every
• 47:41
  Speaker 4: song he's going to play this three hour plus think,
• 47:44
  Speaker 4: can you guys help me out? Their enthusiasm and there,
• 47:50
  Speaker 4: you know, just expert knowledge and everything else just made
• 47:54
  Speaker 4: everything so heightened and just you know, you just felt
• 48:01
  Speaker 4: like you'd just been adopted into some kind of Bruce Springsteen,
• 48:04
  Speaker 4: you know, world family, and I had to live tweet
• 48:09
  Speaker 4: that gig because, you know, because it was so significant
• 48:12
  Speaker 4: that he hadn't been in Australia for someone. And suddenly,
• 48:15
  Speaker 4: like in the middle of the show, I'm trying to,
• 48:17
  Speaker 4: you know, write the review in my head, live tweet
• 48:19
  Speaker 4: what songs he's playing, and double checking with a guy
• 48:21
  Speaker 4: sitting next to me, and suddenly it's like Hi from Amsterdam,
• 48:25
  Speaker 4: Hi from New York, High from LA High, from London,
• 48:29
  Speaker 4: High from Germany, and just people all over the world
• 48:35
  Speaker 4: like we're aware of this gig, and we're kind of
• 48:38
  Speaker 4: monitoring this gig in real time via social media.
• 48:41
  Speaker 3: It was.
• 48:42
  Speaker 4: It blew my mind how connected that community was. I
• 48:48
  Speaker 4: never experienced anything like it. And the fact, you know,
• 48:51
  Speaker 4: in the middle of it is this guy in tight
• 48:55
  Speaker 4: blue jeans and a vest and a shirt, you know,
• 48:59
  Speaker 4: and dabbing himself with a sponge every ten minutes. Absolutely,
• 49:06
  Speaker 4: you know, running a marathon up there with a band
• 49:10
  Speaker 4: that you know has got to be the best, you know,
• 49:14
  Speaker 4: sidekick band in the history of rock and roll.
• 49:17
  Speaker 2: You kind of just go, where have you been all
• 49:20
  Speaker 2: my life? Bruce?
• 49:22
  Speaker 4: Luckily, Luckily, he's come back a couple of times since
• 49:25
  Speaker 4: that because he realized, you know, Australia was really underdone
• 49:29
  Speaker 4: for him, and that tour was so huge and so
• 49:33
  Speaker 4: successful that he was like, Okay, these are my people.
• 49:36
  Speaker 4: Let's let's let's go down there when the sun shining
• 49:40
  Speaker 4: and you guys are in the depths of winter.
• 49:42
  Speaker 1: Right, similar as Bonno with that type of experience in cancer.
• 49:46
  Speaker 1: You go to a You two show and it's Barno
• 49:48
  Speaker 1: that really has that. He has that charisma and he
• 49:51
  Speaker 1: has that ability to to have the the audience in
• 49:55
  Speaker 1: the palm of his hands, and he, you write, straddles
• 49:58
  Speaker 1: the spheres of music, palota and philanthropy on a mission
• 50:02
  Speaker 1: to convince everyone's songs can change the world.
• 50:05
  Speaker 4: He's kind of evangelical to a certain degree, which I
• 50:08
  Speaker 4: think has got him a little offside with his bandmates
• 50:11
  Speaker 4: at times when I imagine they probably were frustrated about what
• 50:19
  Speaker 4: was You two versus what was Bono? What is the activist?
• 50:29
  Speaker 4: And he's caught a lot of grief for that. But
• 50:32
  Speaker 4: then when you look at the achievements of Red and
• 50:35
  Speaker 4: the One Organization, I mean they have actually, you know,
• 50:39
  Speaker 4: made huge differences to in the realms of poverty, in
• 50:44
  Speaker 4: the realms of education, disease radic eradication in Africa in particular.
• 50:53
  Speaker 4: I think, you know, some of their programs that they've
• 50:55
  Speaker 4: done on malaria is and alongside the Gates found out
• 51:00
  Speaker 4: on polio as pretty much eradicated the disease from the planet.
• 51:07
  Speaker 4: But that man came along in a time when I think,
• 51:14
  Speaker 4: you know, you had pop and it was all escapist
• 51:17
  Speaker 4: and bright and neon courtesy of MTV over here, and
• 51:23
  Speaker 4: then you had this gretty, sort of urgent, very militaristic
• 51:33
  Speaker 4: drums and you know, a very different sonic palette for
• 51:39
  Speaker 4: the guitar from the edge, and then this loudmouth front
• 51:45
  Speaker 4: man who dared you to stand there not doing or
• 51:49
  Speaker 4: saying or thinking anything. I think the way that Bono
• 51:53
  Speaker 4: challenged the audience.
• 51:56
  Speaker 2: Got you to you know, to the top, but then
• 52:02
  Speaker 2: became the very source of.
• 52:03
  Speaker 4: The backlash against them, which you know, we've seen what
• 52:07
  Speaker 4: we call the tall Poppy syndrome in Austray. We've seen
• 52:09
  Speaker 4: that you know, fell many a great rock star because
• 52:13
  Speaker 4: people just started thinking that they were, you know, bigger
• 52:17
  Speaker 4: than their boots, as they say down here.
• 52:20
  Speaker 2: But the way he.
• 52:22
  Speaker 3: Sings the desire for more, for better, for hope to
• 52:33
  Speaker 3: mean something.
• 52:34
  Speaker 2: I think all those things underpin great rock music.
• 52:37
  Speaker 1: Prince. Rock gods can be mysterious, none more than Prince.
• 52:42
  Speaker 1: That's part of what makes him a rock god.
• 52:44
  Speaker 4: Do you think, Yeah, I remember he was down here.
• 52:49
  Speaker 4: I think it was around It wasn't Diamonds and Pearls.
• 52:52
  Speaker 4: It might have been the tour after that, and there
• 52:54
  Speaker 4: was an after party and people were like, told, when
• 53:01
  Speaker 4: he comes into the room, you're not allowed to look
• 53:03
  Speaker 4: at him. And I was like, you can't look at
• 53:10
  Speaker 4: no eye contact. So of course, you know, me being
• 53:13
  Speaker 4: a brat, there's Prince. And then you know, went and
• 53:20
  Speaker 4: stood at the edge of the dance he was dancing
• 53:22
  Speaker 4: and watched him.
• 53:24
  Speaker 5: No one.
• 53:24
  Speaker 4: Yeah, a very big security man did try and stand
• 53:28
  Speaker 4: in front of me.
• 53:29
  Speaker 2: At one stage, but I kept on doing this business
• 53:31
  Speaker 2: to get around him.
• 53:35
  Speaker 4: One of the highlights of my career as a music
• 53:38
  Speaker 4: journalist was just before he was coming here for a
• 53:42
  Speaker 4: piano and the microphone to the last tour of his life.
• 53:46
  Speaker 4: On the friday, a friend of mine who was the
• 53:49
  Speaker 4: publicist for the promoter, rings me out and says, you
• 53:53
  Speaker 4: have five minutes to send five questions for Prince. Now
• 53:58
  Speaker 4: he didn't do interviews. He very, very rarely did interviews.
• 54:03
  Speaker 4: And I'm like, this is a man I could ask
• 54:06
  Speaker 4: a hundred questions of and you're giving me five minutes
• 54:09
  Speaker 4: to come up with five. And she's like, you've now
• 54:13
  Speaker 4: got foreign four minutes that you've got to hurry out.
• 54:17
  Speaker 2: Oh my god.
• 54:18
  Speaker 4: And it's like she said, we've got to get to
• 54:20
  Speaker 4: get them over to him. He wants to do them now.
• 54:23
  Speaker 4: So I bashed out my five questions and he mailed
• 54:26
  Speaker 4: back and he had the two's and the bees and
• 54:29
  Speaker 4: the US and every I was felt ey because that's
• 54:33
  Speaker 4: when he was doing that particular project, and it was.
• 54:39
  Speaker 2: It was absolutely one of the highlights of my career.
• 54:43
  Speaker 4: You know. The next morning, I'm sitting at brunch and
• 54:45
  Speaker 4: I get a text going email in your inbox and
• 54:48
  Speaker 4: I'm just reading it, shaking going.
• 54:50
  Speaker 2: Prince wrote these words, I know, and it was it
• 54:55
  Speaker 2: was beautiful.
• 54:56
  Speaker 6: You know.
• 54:56
  Speaker 4: He was talking about why the show was a love
• 55:00
  Speaker 4: letter to his father, who he had again had a
• 55:05
  Speaker 4: fractious relationship with because his father was a very you know,
• 55:09
  Speaker 4: famous jazz musician and was very exacting, and you know,
• 55:13
  Speaker 4: it wasn't exactly the most encouraging dad of a kid
• 55:19
  Speaker 4: who you know, wanted to be like him, who wanted.
• 55:22
  Speaker 2: To be a star. But his like Bowie, his ability
• 55:27
  Speaker 2: to reinvent, to challenge and to also take on.
• 55:37
  Speaker 4: The industry and the way it was changing, deserves to
• 55:42
  Speaker 4: be absolutely applauded. I mean, it's quite interesting that they
• 55:45
  Speaker 4: were two opposites of the Internet coin because Bowie saw
• 55:51
  Speaker 4: the power of the Internet before anybody else. Introduced those
• 55:54
  Speaker 4: Bowie bonds in the late nineteen nineties, he said how
• 55:58
  Speaker 4: it was going to change not only just popular culture,
• 56:01
  Speaker 4: but all culture, whereas Prince really didn't like the fact
• 56:06
  Speaker 4: that music. You know, in twenty ten, he didn't want
• 56:10
  Speaker 4: his music to be on streaming because he said.
• 56:13
  Speaker 2: You know, I don't want to give it away for free.
• 56:15
  Speaker 2: It's valuable, it has value, we should treat it as such.
• 56:19
  Speaker 2: So it's interesting how.
• 56:20
  Speaker 4: They came at the Internet from very polar polar views.
• 56:26
  Speaker 1: I remember Prince when he was touring, he was selling
• 56:28
  Speaker 1: his new albums as a package deal when you bought
• 56:31
  Speaker 1: the ticket to a show, So he was trying different
• 56:33
  Speaker 1: things to try to get people to listen to his
• 56:38
  Speaker 1: new music, not just buy it.
• 56:40
  Speaker 4: That was with musicology, and he also he was also
• 56:44
  Speaker 4: a bit of a bit of a cheeky businessman too,
• 56:51
  Speaker 4: because well, the labels were all trying to push him to,
• 56:55
  Speaker 4: you know, get with the internet program and you know,
• 56:59
  Speaker 4: make the music available for downloads and then later streaming.
• 57:03
  Speaker 2: Hey did a deal. Can't remember which paper it was.
• 57:09
  Speaker 4: I think it might have been the Daily Mirror in
• 57:10
  Speaker 4: the UK, where you know the old you used to
• 57:13
  Speaker 4: get the CDs stuck onto the front page as part
• 57:18
  Speaker 4: of the package deal.
• 57:19
  Speaker 2: And so you know, he went he went back instead
• 57:24
  Speaker 2: of going to the future.
• 57:25
  Speaker 4: He was like, well, I'm going to stick this in
• 57:27
  Speaker 4: newspapers and make sure it gets into every household.
• 57:32
  Speaker 1: Find the bookdown Rock website at bookdown rock dot com.
• 57:35
  Speaker 1: There you can find all the back episodes of the show,
• 57:38
  Speaker 1: the latest episode in video and audio, links to all
• 57:41
  Speaker 1: of the platforms where you can listen to the podcast,
• 57:43
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• 57:48
  Speaker 1: and x. Also check out the book down Rock blog.
• 57:51
  Speaker 1: Find your local independent bookstore, find out all the latest
• 57:55
  Speaker 1: hot rock book releases, and before you go, check out
• 57:57
  Speaker 1: the book don Rock online store. Pick up some booked
• 58:00
  Speaker 1: on rock merch. It's all at booked on rock dot
• 58:04
  Speaker 1: Com Michael Hutchinson in Excess. So glad you have Michael
• 58:07
  Speaker 1: Hutchins in this book because he seems to be forgotten,
• 58:10
  Speaker 1: at least here in the States. He's he's not talked
• 58:13
  Speaker 1: about that much, and it's and it's a disappointment because
• 58:17
  Speaker 1: he was so charismatic and what a voice in the presence.
• 58:22
  Speaker 1: Talk about what led you to including him in the book.
• 58:25
  Speaker 2: I'm Australian.
• 58:27
  Speaker 1: I yes, I sensed the connection there. So what is
• 58:31
  Speaker 1: it in Australia? Is he talked about still a lot?
• 58:34
  Speaker 1: Because here in the States, it's like, don't you guys
• 58:37
  Speaker 1: remember being in Excess? I mean they were huge here
• 58:40
  Speaker 1: in the States in the eighties and into the nineties.
• 58:42
  Speaker 2: Yeah, I mean Kick in eighty seven.
• 58:45
  Speaker 4: You know well, I mean listen like thieves that kind
• 58:47
  Speaker 4: of set this stage with what you need but Kick,
• 58:52
  Speaker 4: we need you tonight and then Devil Inside.
• 58:55
  Speaker 2: I mean, no other band in the world was doing.
• 59:00
  Speaker 4: What they were doing in terms of, you know, marrying
• 59:04
  Speaker 4: rock with.
• 59:04
  Speaker 2: Funk in that way.
• 59:08
  Speaker 4: But again, that that sinewy kind of you know, sexuality
• 59:16
  Speaker 4: that he had on stage was like you watch the Wembley,
• 59:20
  Speaker 4: the famous Live at Wembley concert, and he's just.
• 59:25
  Speaker 2: Absolutely in his powers there.
• 59:28
  Speaker 4: I mean, he was also I guess a victim of
• 59:34
  Speaker 4: coming up in an era where.
• 59:37
  Speaker 2: Being a rock god also made you with celebrity.
• 59:41
  Speaker 4: And you know, he was chased by Paparatzi, you know
• 59:46
  Speaker 4: obviously when when in that ill fated relationship between him
• 59:51
  Speaker 4: and Paulie Yates, you know, he couldn't poke with that.
• 59:57
  Speaker 4: That was that was and before that, you know, Helene
• 59:59
  Speaker 4: and Chris and and and you know who was part
• 1:00:04
  Speaker 4: of that kind of celebrity cult of the supermodel and
• 1:00:07
  Speaker 4: the rock star. There was a lot of that happening
• 1:00:09
  Speaker 4: in the nineties as well. But he was Michael was
• 1:00:14
  Speaker 4: one of those people that was very unrockstar. When you
• 1:00:21
  Speaker 4: were in his presence, he was very engaged in humans.
• 1:00:26
  Speaker 4: He wanted to know everything about you in five minutes,
• 1:00:30
  Speaker 4: and then he would find the one thing that you
• 1:00:33
  Speaker 4: shared in common and you would talk about that for hours,
• 1:00:38
  Speaker 4: and then the next time you saw him, you know,
• 1:00:40
  Speaker 4: him and I bonded over our dads and the influence
• 1:00:43
  Speaker 4: of our dads and our lives and had some beautiful
• 1:00:46
  Speaker 4: conversations along those those kind of lines.
• 1:00:49
  Speaker 2: But he was he was fun in that rock god way.
• 1:00:53
  Speaker 4: He was naughty, he liked to push the limits and
• 1:00:59
  Speaker 4: I think you know that obviously was was was his
• 1:01:02
  Speaker 4: undoing in the end. But it's interesting that they haven't
• 1:01:07
  Speaker 4: that in excess, hasn't.
• 1:01:10
  Speaker 2: Sort of I mean in Australia, they aren't.
• 1:01:13
  Speaker 4: Talked about a lot because there was a lot of
• 1:01:15
  Speaker 4: activity to kind of reclaim the legacy because they did
• 1:01:20
  Speaker 4: that sort of foray into to you know that rock
• 1:01:23
  Speaker 4: Star reality.
• 1:01:24
  Speaker 1: Show television show.
• 1:01:26
  Speaker 4: Yeah, yeah, which was done by Mark Burnett, the same
• 1:01:29
  Speaker 4: guy who does a Survivor and you know, found the
• 1:01:33
  Speaker 4: front Man and that kind of worked as an experiment.
• 1:01:37
  Speaker 4: But you know, they'd already gone through a few different
• 1:01:41
  Speaker 4: iterations with different singers, John Stevens down here, Terence, Trent Darby,
• 1:01:48
  Speaker 4: even stage.
• 1:01:50
  Speaker 2: Yeah, so they have.
• 1:01:53
  Speaker 4: Kind of been in the zeitgeist here because there was
• 1:01:56
  Speaker 4: a mini series, there's been a couple of documentaries, so
• 1:02:01
  Speaker 4: they've kind of had a presence in Australia, but yeah,
• 1:02:06
  Speaker 4: that hasn't really translated overseas. Be interesting to see how
• 1:02:11
  Speaker 4: you could do that, how you could kind of resurrect
• 1:02:14
  Speaker 4: their legacy because certainly, you know, the X album was
• 1:02:20
  Speaker 4: even bigger than Kick in the UK. I mean Suicide
• 1:02:23
  Speaker 4: Blonde and those songs were enormous. But I mean, Kick
• 1:02:26
  Speaker 4: was such a monster record, and that was the record
• 1:02:29
  Speaker 4: that Atlantic rejected. They wanted to pay the band and
• 1:02:33
  Speaker 4: their manager, Chris Murphy a million dollars not to release it.
• 1:02:37
  Speaker 1: I didn't know that. Yeah, why they didn't like the songs, said.
• 1:02:42
  Speaker 4: Didn't like the songs, didn't hear ahead, absolutely dismissed it,
• 1:02:47
  Speaker 4: totally dismissed it. So Murphy fought with them and what
• 1:02:51
  Speaker 4: he did he finally got them to release it.
• 1:02:53
  Speaker 2: And what he.
• 1:02:54
  Speaker 4: Cleverly did was he did his own indie promo radio
• 1:02:59
  Speaker 4: campaign focused on college radio and got them into colleges
• 1:03:04
  Speaker 4: and that's what made it all blow up in the States.
• 1:03:07
  Speaker 1: That's shocking to hear because those songs are so infectious.
• 1:03:11
  Speaker 1: I mean I would I can't even imagine why you
• 1:03:14
  Speaker 1: would even think there's no hit there. But yeah, they
• 1:03:17
  Speaker 1: proved them wrong.
• 1:03:18
  Speaker 4: Obviously that was a guy at Deco who didn't sign
• 1:03:22
  Speaker 4: the Beatles, so you.
• 1:03:23
  Speaker 1: Know right there, that's the famous story. Of course, Well
• 1:03:26
  Speaker 1: there's a Tom Petty with full moon fever. MCA was like, no,
• 1:03:29
  Speaker 1: I don't hear anything here, really, okay, And then I
• 1:03:34
  Speaker 1: think they got some new people in at MCA, and
• 1:03:37
  Speaker 1: then they, I think the success of the Traveling Wilbury's
• 1:03:41
  Speaker 1: album said Okay, let's let's uh capitalizing, let's let's go
• 1:03:45
  Speaker 1: with this full moon fever thing, and it became the
• 1:03:48
  Speaker 1: biggest album of his career. You know, Axel and Slash
• 1:03:52
  Speaker 1: in the book, Anthony Keatis of the Red Hot Chili
• 1:03:54
  Speaker 1: Peppers in there, Kirk Cobain Dave Broll was the final four.
• 1:03:58
  Speaker 1: Keatus represents rock and roll contradiction. Can you expand on.
• 1:04:02
  Speaker 4: That peace love among means in terms of an aesthetic?
• 1:04:09
  Speaker 4: And yet you know, for a lot of years there
• 1:04:13
  Speaker 4: it was likely that he wasn't gonna live. I mean,
• 1:04:16
  Speaker 4: his battles with addiction were horrendous. I mean, you know,
• 1:04:20
  Speaker 4: he was introduced to drugs when he was twelve, when
• 1:04:25
  Speaker 4: he went to live with his father in LA. There's
• 1:04:31
  Speaker 4: something fascinating to me about kids in that He's such
• 1:04:36
  Speaker 4: a polarizing figure. People either love or hate him. They're
• 1:04:40
  Speaker 4: not ambivalent about him at all, and that's kind of
• 1:04:45
  Speaker 4: that is a rock god to a large degree. I mean,
• 1:04:48
  Speaker 4: you know, well, you and I can agree on loving
• 1:04:54
  Speaker 4: x amount of people.
• 1:04:55
  Speaker 2: Like Jim Morrison.
• 1:04:56
  Speaker 4: I'm not a fan, you know, and writing the chapter
• 1:04:58
  Speaker 4: on Jim Morrison, maybe less of a fan.
• 1:05:02
  Speaker 2: Because I felt.
• 1:05:06
  Speaker 4: I felt the indulgent the talent didn't write the check
• 1:05:11
  Speaker 4: for the indulgence they're you know, I think there was
• 1:05:15
  Speaker 4: a lack of balance whereas kids, and particularly in Australia,
• 1:05:22
  Speaker 4: I'm not sure if it's the same in the US.
• 1:05:25
  Speaker 4: The Red Chili Peppers have always had such a huge
• 1:05:28
  Speaker 4: following here and their music's been omnipresent from the chants
• 1:05:33
  Speaker 4: on the airwaves. I mean you literally cannot walk into
• 1:05:37
  Speaker 4: a shopping center without hearing a Red Chili Peppers song.
• 1:05:41
  Speaker 4: So to that end, you know, there is absolutely an
• 1:05:46
  Speaker 4: argument to be made that they are a great rock band,
• 1:05:49
  Speaker 4: and Ketus is a great rock front man. I mean certainly,
• 1:05:54
  Speaker 4: you know, in terms of performance, he's captivating, you know,
• 1:05:59
  Speaker 4: his unique the wordplay is astonishing, sort of taking rap
• 1:06:07
  Speaker 4: into to the rock realm as as the band did.
• 1:06:13
  Speaker 2: But yeah, he is a contradiction because he seems to.
• 1:06:19
  Speaker 4: You know, a life philosophy sometimes didn't match up to
• 1:06:24
  Speaker 4: perhaps the actions of the way he treated his bandmates
• 1:06:27
  Speaker 4: or how he abdicated his responsibilities as the front man.
• 1:06:32
  Speaker 2: So you know, that's a story.
• 1:06:34
  Speaker 1: You see a lot, but the Red Hat Chili Pepper's definitely,
• 1:06:38
  Speaker 1: I would say as big here in the States from nineties,
• 1:06:41
  Speaker 1: from early nineties with Blood Sugar, Sex Magic, right up
• 1:06:45
  Speaker 1: into the early two thousands, there were just heavyweight. They're
• 1:06:49
  Speaker 1: just one of the heavyweight rockers. You know, any time
• 1:06:51
  Speaker 1: they put out on an album, you're going to hear
• 1:06:53
  Speaker 1: so many singles from the album. It was just given.
• 1:06:57
  Speaker 1: You know, it's as bad the album that they put
• 1:07:01
  Speaker 1: out that had It's a danger mouse that produced it,
• 1:07:06
  Speaker 1: I believe. Yeah, fantastic. One last question I have for
• 1:07:11
  Speaker 1: you was Dave Grohl because I thought that was interesting.
• 1:07:13
  Speaker 1: Kirk Cole beans in there, not surprised by that, but yeah,
• 1:07:16
  Speaker 1: you say, here's here's an example that lightning strikes twice.
• 1:07:21
  Speaker 2: I mean, there's very few people in the rock god
• 1:07:25
  Speaker 2: realm who have had phenomenal success twice. I mean, you know,
• 1:07:33
  Speaker 2: it just doesn't really happen. So for that reason, and
• 1:07:38
  Speaker 2: it's also.
• 1:07:41
  Speaker 4: He's another one of those who was definitely born to
• 1:07:43
  Speaker 4: do it, you know, whether it was play drums, guitar,
• 1:07:49
  Speaker 4: seeing whatever, he was born to do music. And there's
• 1:07:53
  Speaker 4: something fascinating to me about charting the cause of someone
• 1:08:00
  Speaker 4: who as a young boy, goes, that's the thing I
• 1:08:03
  Speaker 4: want to do and makes it real. You know, after
• 1:08:07
  Speaker 4: Kurt's death, it would be absolutely acceptable to crawl into
• 1:08:13
  Speaker 4: a hole and you know contemplate, you know, next move
• 1:08:17
  Speaker 4: someone arouse and he just like ac DC and he
• 1:08:21
  Speaker 4: probably did take a leaf out of their book with
• 1:08:23
  Speaker 4: that went straight into the next scene. There's something to
• 1:08:26
  Speaker 4: be said about somebody whose vision is clear, like there's
• 1:08:29
  Speaker 4: never any doubt that he's the leader of that band
• 1:08:33
  Speaker 4: and what they do next is at his instigation. So
• 1:08:38
  Speaker 4: the fact again that he's also continued the ban after
• 1:08:41
  Speaker 4: the loss of you know, Taylor Hawkins, that would have
• 1:08:45
  Speaker 4: been such a tough call, such tough call because you
• 1:08:50
  Speaker 4: know best mates and you know the drama brotherhood and
• 1:08:54
  Speaker 4: everything else. But he has a vision for the band
• 1:08:58
  Speaker 4: and I think he feels compelled to to continue with it.
• 1:09:02
  Speaker 1: Eddie names that were on the bubble that you're kind
• 1:09:04
  Speaker 1: of like, maybe I'm a huge Van Halen fan, So
• 1:09:07
  Speaker 1: that's why I'm curious. Was davidly Roth almost on the
• 1:09:09
  Speaker 1: list was Eddie.
• 1:09:11
  Speaker 4: That was a hard one because who do you choose
• 1:09:14
  Speaker 4: and they weren't and they weren't really a partnership. So
• 1:09:18
  Speaker 4: if you know, if I was to do rock, guitar
• 1:09:21
  Speaker 4: guards Eddie would definitely be on there.
• 1:09:24
  Speaker 2: I mean, I really wrestled with McCartney whether to make Lenin.
• 1:09:27
  Speaker 1: And Lennon and McCartney.
• 1:09:30
  Speaker 4: And I adore Paul McCartney, but I think in terms
• 1:09:33
  Speaker 4: of what I think about rock, I think Lennon and
• 1:09:37
  Speaker 4: I think pop to a certain degree about McCartney.
• 1:09:42
  Speaker 1: Interesting point that was, that was.
• 1:09:45
  Speaker 2: One that I did wrestle a lot with.
• 1:09:48
  Speaker 4: There were a bunch of Australians, but you know, we
• 1:09:50
  Speaker 4: wanted we wanted the book to be obviously not two Australians,
• 1:09:56
  Speaker 4: so it could find its way to hands in other
• 1:10:01
  Speaker 4: parts of the world. But like something like Jimmy Barnes
• 1:10:04
  Speaker 4: from Cold Chisel would have been absolutely in their Midnight Oil.
• 1:10:10
  Speaker 4: Peter Garrett would have been absolutely in there, probably with
• 1:10:14
  Speaker 4: probably with Rob Hurst.
• 1:10:17
  Speaker 1: Wasn't Jimmy Barnes in the running for ac DC's singing
• 1:10:22
  Speaker 1: singer spot when Barnscott.
• 1:10:25
  Speaker 6: No, he was in the running for another band and
• 1:10:29
  Speaker 6: it's just gone straight out of my head and they
• 1:10:32
  Speaker 6: asked him. They asked him just as he was starting
• 1:10:35
  Speaker 6: a solo career and he decided. No, God, I've forgotten
• 1:10:39
  Speaker 6: who the band. It was an American man.
• 1:10:41
  Speaker 1: It was huh okay, yeah, Jimmy Barnes. Oh my god,
• 1:10:47
  Speaker 1: he was. He was revealed. He revealed he was asked
• 1:10:49
  Speaker 1: to join Van hill And in the mid nineteen eighties
• 1:10:53
  Speaker 1: after David Lee Roth left, but he declined the offer
• 1:10:56
  Speaker 1: to focus on his solo career. He also reported the
• 1:10:59
  Speaker 1: decline and an offer to join Deep Purple. Mm hm, wow,
• 1:11:07
  Speaker 1: all right there you go. Okay, wow, this is great. Yeah, no,
• 1:11:14
  Speaker 1: I don't think so. Rock gods icons of rock music
• 1:11:17
  Speaker 1: out now right. You can find wherever books are sold.
• 1:11:20
  Speaker 1: Look forward at your nearest bookstore. If you want to
• 1:11:22
  Speaker 1: find your nearest independent bookstore, go to booked on rock
• 1:11:25
  Speaker 1: dot com and see if you can get a copy there.
• 1:11:27
  Speaker 1: And where can people find you online?
• 1:11:28
  Speaker 4: Kathy on Instagram as McKay grater and TikTok is.
• 1:11:34
  Speaker 1: Okay, So I'm gonna follow you there. I'm gonna seek
• 1:11:37
  Speaker 1: you out and follow you and I'll put the links
• 1:11:38
  Speaker 1: in the show notes so people can reach out to
• 1:11:40
  Speaker 1: you if you'd like. Thank you so much Kathy again
• 1:11:42
  Speaker 1: for doing this, and we hope we'll have you back
• 1:11:45
  Speaker 1: on again in the future with some more books like
• 1:11:47
  Speaker 1: this man. This was a fun reading.
• 1:11:49
  Speaker 2: Well thanks Eric. Absolutely enjoyed our chat. That's it, it's
• 1:12:02
  Speaker 2: in the books.