Latest / Ghost Cult Magazine Podcast / PODCAST: Episode - 771 Alan Niven (Guns N Roses, Great White) Details The Story of His Life and Career in "Sound N' Fury"

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PODCAST: Episode - 771 Alan Niven (Guns N Roses, Great White) Details The Story of His Life and Career in "Sound N' Fury" · Ghost Cult Magazine Podcast

0:00
You know, at the end, the end of the day, you know, all life has
0:02
its ups and downs and your your bruises and your, your battering
0:07
to every now and then. But at the end of the day, if I
0:09
get run over tomorrow and I'm lying on the curbside, I'm not
0:13
going to regret that I didn't try to do things that were
0:17
passionate to me. And I'll probably lie there.
0:19
And you know what? You've been privileged because
0:22
you didn't have to spend your life wondering what would it be
0:26
like to have a successful record, to tour around the
0:29
world, to stay in certain hotels.
0:32
You know, you've been privileged.
0:34
You're very fortunate. What's up everybody?
0:43
It's Kefi at ghostcultman.com. I am super stoked to be joined
0:47
by the great band manager and music industry legend Alan
0:50
Niven. How are you today?
0:52
A little bashful about being called a legend.
0:56
And also there's something that triggers my head.
0:59
It goes, yeah, manager. But I also did a lot of writing
1:02
and produced some records. It did quite well.
1:04
So indeed, point of fact, I've had a very accidental and
1:09
interesting time in music where there's hardly a thing that I
1:13
haven't done. I even had a radio show once on
1:16
WINC in Miami. So all kinds of things I've had
1:22
to go out. Definitely.
1:24
Obviously the book Sound and Fury is out now The Assignment
1:28
and she was their imprint. And I had such a pleasure
1:33
reading this book and I made notes and I have copious notes
1:37
to pull from and and so many things to unpack.
1:40
But I think one thing that's very apparent to me is that you
1:44
had a lifelong, and you will continue to have a lifelong love
1:47
of music. Because if you didn't love music
1:48
in the 1st place, I don't know that you would have found
1:51
yourself in all these, you know, situations and guiding and, and,
1:55
you know, shaping kind of the soundtrack to an entire
1:58
generation of music and more than one.
2:00
Probably the the fact of the matter is that music, music
2:04
saved my life. It's allowed me not to be a
2:07
working student. I didn't have to be an
2:09
accountant. I didn't have to go to law
2:11
school, didn't have to go Sandhurst.
2:14
And at about the age 17 or 18, I understand the way world was
2:19
going. It would be ridiculous to
2:22
continue to be a conformist, do what the adults told me to do,
2:27
and not have any fun. So at about 17 or 18, I decided,
2:31
you know what? Music.
2:32
Music is so engrossing, so stimulating, so enchanting.
2:38
That's the direction I'm going because I want to spend my life
2:41
playing rather than going through a working life.
2:45
I find it odd when actors in interviews talk about the work
2:50
because it sounds so credentials to me.
2:52
It's like not working. You're playing, admit it,
2:55
acknowledge it, appreciate it. You know, at the end, the end of
2:59
the day, you know, all life has its ups and downs and your your
3:02
bruises and your your batterings every now and then.
3:06
But at the end of the day, if I get run over tomorrow and I'm
3:09
lying on the curb side, I'm not going to regret that I didn't
3:13
try to do things that were passionate to me.
3:16
And I'll probably lie there. You know what?
3:19
You've been privileged because you didn't have to spend your
3:22
life wondering what would it be like to have a successful record
3:26
to tour around the world, to stay in certain hotels.
3:30
You know you've been privileged. You're very fortunate.
3:33
Indeed, I tell people all the time it's the music business,
3:36
not the music friendship. But if you can make some
3:38
friendships along the way, that's always the best.
3:41
I'm fascinated by your amount of recall and self-awareness
3:45
because I think a lot of people in the business historically
3:47
don't have it. But one thing I would remind you
3:50
is when we talk about the music business, the first word is
3:54
music. And the consistent problem that
3:58
I think we all run into is where that nasty word business tends
4:02
to take over ground, where the word music stands.
4:06
But ultimately, at the end of the day, the first thing is
4:09
being in the studio and getting goosebumps when you hear
4:12
somebody perform some something really well.
4:15
That's where the magic is. The rest of it you endure.
4:18
Jack Russell needs to say to me, I don't get paid for being a
4:22
singer. I get paid for the waiting
4:24
around and all the others. I sing for free.
4:28
And that was Jack's attitude. Definite super interesting guy
4:32
and so many great stories about, you know, all the different
4:35
bands you worked with, including great white.
4:38
I'm, I'm just amazed at some of the stuff you shared.
4:42
And again, I, I imagine again, I know you said you were reluctant
4:45
to do the book for a long time, and I feel like it's a fast
4:49
read, but it's very detailed. And like I said before, your
4:52
recall is amazing. I don't know what I wore
4:54
yesterday or ate for dinner, but like your recall of things 30
4:57
and 40 years ago and 25 years ago is amazing.
5:00
I don't know if you ever kept a journal or a diary or this was
5:03
in your mind, but some of these things are obviously burned into
5:06
your DNA, these stories of your life here.
5:09
There are things that people have said along the way that
5:11
that scorched their way into my consciousness and have lived in
5:15
my head for 30 years. They were unforgettable
5:18
statements in in extraordinary circumstance and you tend not to
5:21
lose that. The other thing was I was really
5:24
busy, Ron. I don't think there are too many
5:26
people who can claim that they had responsibility of working
5:31
with two bands that broke almost simultaneously.
5:35
It was just ahead of G&R to start with, and that was an
5:39
awful lot of work. So an awful lot of work
5:41
translates to, no, you're not going to chop lines and get
5:45
fucked up tonight. You, you've got to be up and in
5:48
the office or in your little box of an office underneath
5:52
condominium you live in and you need to be on the phone because
5:55
you don't have a receptionist, you don't have an assistant.
5:59
You're doing it all. So get on with it and make sure
6:03
you don't fuck up. And the make sure you don't fuck
6:05
up was severely branded into me because we got great White
6:10
signed initially to a major label in 1983 and it turned out
6:15
to be a disaster. One day you have the promise of
6:17
we can make the world ours and then a year later nobody wants
6:21
to know your name and have no interest in signing your band
6:25
whatsoever. Which I found incredibly stupid
6:28
because we just spent a month in the UK with Whitesnake touring,
6:32
6 months on the road of Judas Priest.
6:35
And let me tell you, that's a learning curve.
6:38
So the band that was signed in 1983 was not nearly the band
6:44
that got dropped at the end of 1984.
6:47
We'd learnt a lot. We'd learnt how to make a record
6:49
and how not to make a record for one thing.
6:51
But you know, the business thinks the way it does.
6:54
And we were basically an episode very, very much.
6:59
And I had to go to DIY and do another Independent Record to
7:04
keep the band going. Shot in the dark.
7:06
But I was incredibly focused on the fact that chances come hard,
7:11
worn hard and thoughtful, but they can disappear even faster.
7:16
So I was very, very concerned that we won't get a second
7:20
chance with the band. And two, we don't fuck up.
7:24
Yes, it seems like you saved a lot of situations teetering on
7:27
the brink, and I'm sure that's a part and due to your experience
7:31
and partly due to your, you know, I would say moxie temerity
7:34
to hold on to things. I feel like I maybe I think
7:38
maybe one of the most surprising things about the book is how
7:42
much empathy you had for your artists, like they were your
7:45
responsibility wasn't just a check for you.
7:48
You cared about a lot of these folks through their ups and
7:51
downs. Whatever they put you through.
7:53
It seems like you always you affirm, but you were caring also
7:56
when they needed support for whatever.
7:58
And I don't, I think that's a misunderstood thing in
8:02
management. I think we all have that image
8:03
in our brain of, you know, Peter Grant or Don Arden or or
8:08
Smallwood, these these names, right?
8:10
Wait, wait. Wait, wait, wait, wait, wait,
8:12
wait, wait. You threw out three names there
8:14
and they were all very different people.
8:17
Now you mentioned Rod Smallwood. I have nothing but gratitude and
8:23
and praise for Rod. I think Rod is one of the very
8:26
best and a really good guy. The only thing with Rod is I
8:31
might suggest that he's kind of A1 band.
8:34
But on the other hand, look at what he's done with them.
8:38
Absolutely incredible. Which leads me onto the odd
8:41
obvious observation. Is that management and
8:44
occupation where you roll in with your star bar at 10:30 in
8:48
the morning, go and take a long lunch, and disappear back to
8:51
your condominium, you know, at 5:00 in the evening because
8:55
you're going out for dinner and maybe you might do a few phone
8:59
calls in the interim period. Management, if you do it right,
9:03
is a way of life. You live it.
9:06
It's 24 hours a day, 365. It's not something that you
9:12
clock in and clock out that phone at any time.
9:17
And if it rings at an unfortunate time, you know
9:20
they're not calling you to tell you that you've just gone up 10
9:23
points in billboard. You know that if that phone
9:26
rings at 3:00 in the morning, you're going to be scrambling
9:28
for bail money, most likely. Right on.
9:31
Yeah, that story about Jack in Sky Harbor International.
9:35
I also had a run in at Sky Harbor International once in
9:38
Phoenix, and it wasn't pretty. I wish I would have had Someone
9:42
Like You to come get me and tell me to shut up and and get on
9:47
with it. But you know.
9:49
Oh my God, Flying him home from Phoenix that night, he took his
9:53
trousers down. We would.
9:55
It's one of those small jets where you had about 8:00 first
9:58
class seats. Thank God it wasn't bigger, but
10:00
he put his pants down three times on the way back to LAX.
10:04
I mean, he was so out of it that I think the pilot took a
10:09
calculation and figured it's Phoenix, LA.
10:13
By the time I turn around and take him back to Phoenix, we'll
10:16
be in LA. We might as well just go to LA.
10:19
And of course, as soon as the door was open, I had him out of
10:22
the door of the plane and up the companion way and out of out of
10:25
sight as fast as possible. But he was totally out.
10:29
Of it and on you know so many things and so many directions to
10:33
go and you did have a very multifaceted career.
10:35
Thank you for pointing that out at the start.
10:38
Like I said, I think they're just like A and RI feel like man
10:41
management has been misunderstood and you obviously
10:44
learned on the fly how to negotiate and and you know, had
10:49
experience, But also like I can't imagine the range dealing
10:53
with record labels managers getting yelled at by David
10:57
Kiffin in a restaurant in front of everyone in front of Jane
11:00
Seymour or like wild and you and you handle yourself.
11:06
You know, you you comported yourself in a way that made you,
11:10
you know you weren't you were firm when you needed to be for
11:13
your bands, but also you were able to, you know, carry
11:16
yourself a certain way. We Have you always been that way
11:18
or did you learn to adapt? There's no college for learning
11:22
management and the industry will never create one because the
11:26
establishment in the industry, the lawyer, the accountant, they
11:30
prefer to have disposable management and inexperienced
11:34
management because they're easier to deal with.
11:36
They're easier to deceive, they're easier to horn swaggle,
11:40
they're very easier to take advantage of.
11:42
So inherently, if you're in that role, you get to learn from your
11:47
mistakes and you will make mistake.
11:49
At the essence of it all is the art of being cool is keeping it
11:53
keep your head when others are losing theirs because that at
11:57
the end of the day is your responsibility.
12:00
No matter what the crisis is, you've got to stay centered,
12:03
you've got to stay calm, you've got to evaluate what's going on
12:06
around you and you've got to see if you can spot a solution in
12:10
the circumstance and that's your main responsibility.
12:13
We're dealing with the negatives, but there are plenty
12:16
of positives to deal with. You know, putting a show on the
12:19
road and having 15,000 people leave a venue feeling like it
12:24
was worth the ticket. And they had a sense of
12:26
community and they thought the band played really and felt
12:30
connected to it. That's magic.
12:32
That's what you live for. Goes back to Jack's observation
12:35
of I sing for free, I get paid for all the rest of the crap.
12:40
If only more bands adopted that. Maybe that needs to be a new,
12:45
you know, a new mantra for people.
12:47
I know today it's a lot different.
12:49
The onus is on a lot of bands. And like I said, I think ANR and
12:52
management are largely misunderstood.
12:55
And I don't know, you know, I'm, I don't know if you had a
12:58
foresight to see that the labels were going to contract.
13:01
You talked about, you know, returning to capital after your
13:04
fallout with EMI. I love that you turned a guy's
13:07
name into a verb. I'm not going to get Gary Gerst
13:11
again. I'm going to make, well, let's
13:12
make that a thing. And no, you know, no shade you,
13:16
you called yourself out as much as you called out anybody else.
13:18
You know, the so and so didn't like me.
13:20
I didn't like that much either. Like very fair and even handed
13:23
it wasn't a book of you just bashing people or spilling dirty
13:26
laundry. I think a lot of this, some of
13:28
the stuff is commonly known and I think some of it you wouldn't
13:31
know unless you were a family on the wall.
13:32
And so in a lot of those circumstances with you.
13:34
Yeah, there's a degree of that. I mean, you know what I'm seeing
13:38
there, thinking about it with a sense of objectivity.
13:41
If you go onto AG and RG, GNR, forum, my GNR, whatever they're
13:46
all called, which I really, really, really avoid doing as
13:52
best I can and almost completely manage to not see these things.
13:58
But there have been moments of reference.
14:00
And the thing that I've discovered is everybody knows
14:03
everything. That there's not that much that
14:07
you can talk about that it's going to surprise someone
14:10
somewhere. I mean, in our sites know it
14:12
all. It's extraordinary.
14:15
It reminds me of when I first started going to Japan.
14:19
The level of fandom there is just amazing.
14:23
I mean, they had for breakfast three years ago.
14:27
They are that intent on knowing about that which they love.
14:31
She and our fans are almost to that degree.
14:34
There's there's really nothing that I talk about that isn't
14:37
known in one way shape or another, but it's my way of
14:40
telling you if you were sitting in my kitchen, This is basically
14:44
how I tell you the story, how it was seen through my eyes and
14:48
through my experience. I I tried, I tried to avoid
14:52
writing for the fan. What?
14:53
What I tried to do was right for the curious, the people who
14:59
might spot the book in an airport and go, yeah, I'll give
15:02
that the committed fan knows all the information already.
15:06
Fair enough. Not to mention there's no
15:07
shortage of material. I'm interested to see if
15:12
another, outside of slashing Duff, if another member of GNR
15:16
will ever write another book. I think Steven also had a book
15:19
out at one point. Just out of curiosity, was it is
15:22
it was it almost harder to keep Guns and Roses growing versus
15:26
breaking great white for a second time?
15:28
Basically? I know those are, you know, sort
15:31
of similar. They were perpendicular arcs.
15:33
You know, they were kind of like, you know, crossing
15:35
purposes and you were, you know, managing both at the time.
15:39
I feel like, you know, Great White had like a second and a
15:43
third, like a supernova, right? They kept going and GNR had this
15:47
incredible growth. And it wasn't her immediate,
15:49
right? You were, you believed in the
15:51
record and that's why it got so big and, you know, saved those
15:55
tours that kept them on the road and promoting.
15:58
But I wonder if it was almost harder to keep Guns and Roses,
16:02
you know, until they took off the way you expected them to.
16:06
In 1987, given the character of rock radio in those days, I knew
16:13
that I was going to have very little help from rock'n'roll
16:17
radio as it was. I mean, it was, you know, Bad
16:20
Company, REO, Speed Wagon, Sufjan, etcetera, etcetera.
16:24
And I felt the Great One would do better at rock radio than she
16:29
and R would. And I was proved right.
16:31
Rock Me became a hit in 87. I got no for GNR in 87.
16:38
The irony is now you cannot go to any turn on a local radio
16:43
today and not hear a GNR song during the day.
16:46
You know it's omnipresent all the time.
16:48
My perspective was I thought that if I could do a reasonable
16:53
job with GNR, what we might have is one of the best underground
16:57
bands. I thought if we really worked on
16:59
it, we might just get to go with Great White.
17:02
My, my sense of obligation was heavier.
17:06
And I thought if I do this right, we should be able to get
17:10
them to Platinum State. The fact that if you take the
17:14
analogy that GNR was a little backyard BBQ, some fucker came
17:18
along with a 10 gallon drum for a kerosene and threw it on the
17:22
BBQ. It blew up in our face and it
17:25
wasn't contrived and it wasn't expected.
17:28
And you cannot contrive the kind of response they got.
17:31
And of course I've had, you know, 30 years to analyze it and
17:34
think about. I've always seen rock'n'roll is
17:37
primarily a working class blue collar medium.
17:40
I tend to think of things like pop music and disco as urban
17:45
middle class, but rock'n'roll to me was always more salt of the
17:49
earth. When I wanted to meet a factory
17:52
girl, I wanted to take my factory girl down, watch a
17:56
Waterloo sunset. Ray Davies, you know, that was
17:59
my sense of who I would would like to be with because I felt
18:03
that there was a, a more honest integrity to a working class
18:07
state of mind than to the middle class state of mind in England
18:11
that I'd experienced. So that's why I leant towards
18:15
that and Rock'n'roll being fundamentally blue collar and
18:17
working class. Oh my God, did G&R get the most
18:21
massive, wonderful, incredible response.
18:25
Working class American kids, They, they looked at the band
18:28
and they said, yeah, that's us. They speak for us.
18:32
They speak for the value of every soul, including working
18:37
class urchins from under the street.
18:39
Indeed. And I'm one of those guys.
18:41
So a street guy that got out, but similar to those those guys,
18:46
yeah. Is to me the critical creative
18:49
elements in the bands. My perspective.
18:51
He had such an unimpeachable St. vernacular that he crafted into
18:58
his lyrics and I always envied that.
19:00
I loved the streetwise way that he wrote his lyrics and formed
19:06
his lyrics within that idiom. Great writer and an insane loss
19:11
to the band. Idiotic that they lost him, You
19:14
know. What do we get after Izzy's
19:16
gone? 1 Axel Rose solo record and
19:20
that's it since 1991. Yeah, it's definitely a
19:23
different band without him. And you definitely let everybody
19:27
know that Izzy was the person that kind of also was the
19:31
balance for Axel, right? They were, they trusted each
19:33
other. They relied on each other.
19:35
And once he was gone, I wonder, you know, you pointed out in the
19:40
book the exact moment you felt like Axel was asserting control
19:43
and Slash especially back down. And you've you expressed your
19:49
disappointment in that moment like, oh, this is gonna change
19:52
the course of the band forever. You didn't know at that point
19:55
till literally not at all, not at all.
19:58
Was I right? You were right, and then you
20:00
were because you were right. You know, Axel, you know, had
20:03
these grandiose visions, which I love a lot of those two records.
20:06
I think it would have been better served as one great
20:09
record instead of two occasionally great records.
20:12
Occasionally, but you know, he had these grandiose visions of
20:15
Queen and Zeppelin, the Stones. That was definitely part of it.
20:20
And you know, in terms of we all have our viewpoints and
20:23
opinions, I will clearly state to you right now, I think Queen
20:27
is one of the most overrated bands ever.
20:30
Good God, what were they all about?
20:32
And I'll tell you, the very first queen thing I heard was a
20:35
single call. Keep yourself alive.
20:37
And I thought that was great. And I was struggling at the
20:40
time, and it spoke to me. And I thought, that's a
20:44
statement in an anthem that's going to make me feel better
20:48
about what I'm going through right now.
20:49
And it was all downhill from there as far as I'm concerned.
20:54
Bohemian Rhapsody, whatever, what the hell is that all about?
20:59
So anyway, in terms of I fully understand that he had grandiose
21:04
visions of themselves, I lived with it.
21:07
And again, I'm going to say something that's probably going
21:10
to make a lot of people crazy. November Rain was his
21:12
masterpiece. To me.
21:14
It's a little bit of a paint by numbers.
21:17
It's good. It's not the second coming of
21:19
Stairway to Heaven, right? But it's good.
21:22
So he has the grandiose ideas. And we held November just to
21:25
digress. We held November Rain over
21:27
because he hadn't completed it and we needed some material to
21:31
have in the larder for when we came back from the first album
21:35
to have something to build on. But there's something else.
21:38
It wasn't just grandiose ideas. Can you imagine laying in bed
21:42
thinking to yourself, fucking appetite, it sold 3,000,000,
21:46
Fucking appetite it sold 5 million.
21:48
Fucking appetite it sold 8 million.
21:51
And you're lying in bed and you're going.
21:52
How do we follow that? And part of Axe was thinking,
22:00
and there was a sound logic that I can comprehend.
22:03
There's going to be an absolutely impossible comparison
22:07
of whatever we release to Appetite when whatever we
22:12
release comes out. OK, let's bury the fuckers.
22:17
Let's put out a double album with so much material on it that
22:21
they can't figure out a comparison to Appetite
22:25
immediately and be dismissive. Let's overwhelm the fuckers.
22:30
And I understood that. I also understood that putting
22:34
out a double album, we were going to get trashed by the
22:37
critics, excessive and grandiose.
22:39
The economics of it scared me because you're looking at a
22:43
record that's going to cost, say, 30 bucks instead of a
22:46
single album that's 15 bucks. And we have, as we've talked
22:51
about, a blue collar following, 30 bucks might be quite a buy in
22:55
the groceries to buy a double album.
22:57
And we've got a blue collar following.
23:01
God damn. Trump may get into a limo with a
23:03
bunch of models and drive down to Tower on the night of the
23:07
album release to buy them all copies of the record, but we are
23:11
not a Trump audience. We're a Trump audience.
23:14
The people who love Trump would love Guns and Roses to a large
23:18
degree, but we're not making a record for somebody like Trump
23:22
and his models. So I was very, very apprehensive
23:26
about doing a double album. But I sat Axel down and I said,
23:29
listen, let's do something. Guns and Roses.
23:32
Instead of putting out a double album, let's put out two single
23:35
albums. Who's ever done that before?
23:37
Isn't that rather Guns and Roses?
23:39
Isn't that beautifully with the top our way?
23:43
By the way, here are the economics.
23:44
If we put out two single albums, the economics for the band and
23:48
the record company are way superior than putting out 1
23:51
double album. It works out better.
23:53
Of course, the honest thing is, there's no such thing as a
23:56
genius inspirational idea. There are many of those things
24:00
that you saw in the past and you filed away and you remembered
24:04
when it became something that could be relevant to you.
24:06
What I was remembering was Electric Ladyland, which, when
24:10
it was released in the United Kingdom, came out as a double
24:13
album, but Polydor also sold it as two singular albums at the
24:19
same time. That's where I stole that idea
24:21
from. But.
24:22
Nice work. Yeah, nobody remembered.
24:25
And we could, you could say, oh, it's just the Guns and Roses way
24:30
to do things. But in point of fact, I stole it
24:32
completely from Jimmy Hendrix. Amazing.
24:34
One of the things that struck me about the book and about your
24:38
story is that you didn't just care for these artists, but you
24:42
really advocated for them. And I think that's maybe a
24:45
misunderstood facet of management that, you know, aside
24:48
from your personal stake in their success or failure, you
24:51
really went to bat for artists, gave free advice, the way you
24:55
got Clarence Clemons royalties even though you ended up not
24:59
working with him long term after that.
25:01
Things like that I think are very unheralded and really blew
25:04
me away. I never saw a dime for all the
25:07
time I spent with Clarence, and once he left the band and he
25:11
asked me to manage him, I never saw a dime there either.
25:13
Didn't concern me that much. I wasn't in it for the guarantee
25:18
of a payment at a certain time. The very first year I'd worked
25:22
with GNR, I never saw a dime. Then too, in something like
25:28
October, November of 1987 is he went over to their then
25:32
accountant to find out how how much I'd taken out and how much
25:36
I'd been paid. I was freaking horrified to find
25:39
that it was 0. Not a single penny had I been
25:44
paid in a year of working with GNR and in fact he was
25:48
embarrassed by that and a cheque arrived from the accountant very
25:52
soon after his visit. The fact of the matter was we
25:56
were on tight budgets. They needed to be there.
25:59
Their bodies and souls need to be kept together.
26:01
I could get by. He plays a long game.
26:04
There's a long game when you finally get to the point where
26:07
it's going to pay off, Axel says.
26:09
I can't work. With you anymore?
26:12
And you go, oh, OK, whatever. If I may be so bold, what we
26:17
have here is failure to appreciate.
26:22
Nicely done, great reference, and I love that's also like one
26:27
of my favorite gun songs. But you know, I don't know if
26:30
you don't seem bitter, but you've had some let downs over
26:34
your career. Is there any record that you
26:36
work that you work, if you'll permit me?
26:38
Go ahead, don't lose this thought.
26:40
Really simple before I lose my thought and you have the
26:42
advantage. You're younger, you're smarter
26:44
than I am. I'm old.
26:45
I've got holds my brain. If you carry anger within
26:49
yourself, it's like taking poison and expecting the other
26:53
person to die. It's not healthy.
26:56
My house is full of Buddhas to remind me to relax, stay
27:00
centered, and don't get so upset about things.
27:04
Take the Confucian point of view.
27:06
Confucius say he who actually sits on the riverbank will
27:11
eventually see the body of his enemy.
27:13
Vote. By now that's a little bit
27:15
negative, but I get the point. Like, don't throw gasoline onto
27:19
embers. Let the embers die out.
27:22
You know, it's not bitter, privileged.
27:24
I mean, that was an extraordinary period of my life
27:27
where I had extraordinary experience that comes to very
27:31
few people. I appreciate that and stop me
27:34
loving me. Music didn't stop me loving
27:36
writing songs didn't stop me enjoying collaborating with
27:40
people. Still do that.
27:44
Right on. I was going to ask also.
27:47
On one hand, thank you for that. If you had a record you
27:50
appreciate less now because of the external things, whether you
27:54
were with the producer or the manager, you have a record now
27:57
that you don't like anymore because of any extracurricular
28:01
things opposed to the music. I live in Arizona.
28:05
I've got a nice little stereo in the truck.
28:08
If I turn it onto a radio station, I know I'm going to
28:11
hear something that I worked on within the day.
28:14
When I come home, I'm not going to play those records.
28:17
I'm not going to listen to them. And yes, emotionally, for
28:21
example, I don't think I even have a copy of Use Your
28:24
Illusions in the house. I won't play it.
28:26
I love Dust and Bones. It's one of my favorite Izzy
28:29
song. Love that song.
28:31
But will I pull out an album and have Axel's voice bouncing off
28:36
the walls of my home for an hour and a half?
28:38
No. Thank you.
28:40
Well noted. Do you have a favorite record
28:42
you worked on ever? Like one single piece of music
28:46
that you know you're happy and proud to have you.
28:48
And I'm sure all of the all most of the big ones.
28:50
But like, is there a singular moment that, like, this is my
28:53
proudest moment that's either a collaborator, writer, producer
28:57
or manager? The songs I feel best about are
29:00
the ones that have yet to be recorded.
29:02
Some of them have been been written quite a while ago.
29:05
In fact, just this morning I sent a demo of one of the songs
29:10
to somebody I hadn't heard from in 30 years.
29:13
I thought, I'm just going to pick that song and send it to
29:16
see how he responds. As a general rule, those things
29:19
that have not yet been recorded are the things that I get the
29:22
most pleasure out of. And those things that have been
29:25
recorded, it depends on my mood and circumstance, how I feel
29:28
about. Sometimes I'll go, fuck, I don't
29:31
listen to that. And then sometimes I'll go, you
29:34
know, it's not bad. We did all right, that's OK.
29:38
Stuff that is excellent and already exists definitely
29:42
depends on my mood and circumstance.
29:45
I can always get enthusiastic to work on something that hasn't
29:50
been realized yet, but you can hear the form, hear the content,
29:56
have the ideas in your head that I I will get excited about all
30:00
the time. Right on.
30:01
I I wonder, you know, I feel like we're getting to the age
30:06
where our heroes are leaving us and I don't personally think
30:09
there's going to be a next or another GNR, Metallica or
30:12
Maiden. We have some very great bands
30:14
these days. I don't see how it's possible.
30:17
The industry has changed dramatically, but I was
30:20
wondering if there was any band from the last bunch of that you
30:24
saw that maybe has some of that spark those other bands had.
30:28
There have been one or two people that I've worked with
30:30
where I definitely had a sense of conviction and belief in
30:33
their potential. One was a group of really young
30:37
guys from Dallas 383, and they were so determined to get my
30:43
attention. They loaded themselves in a van
30:46
and they drove all the way from Dallas to where I live in
30:49
Arizona and Prescott. And that's a drive.
30:51
And they played in a little bar here in town and that, that
30:55
captivated me. I really did that sense of
30:57
determination. Everybody else I was with at the
31:00
bar said, yeah, don't see it there.
31:03
You're not going to work with these guys, are you?
31:05
You're kidding me. But there was something about
31:07
them. And I spent went to Texas and
31:09
spent a little time with them. We did some pre production.
31:11
We did an initial recording and then we did a better recording.
31:14
And by that stage, I decided that the front man was one of
31:18
the best front man I'd seen. The guitar player was really
31:22
good and I had a clear, simplistic vision.
31:26
ZZ Top, Pantera, they go right down the list.
31:29
So we've got guitar scapes, we've got really strong vocals.
31:33
There are no guarantees in life. The singer died of cancer, went
31:36
down with it and was gone pretty quickly.
31:39
And dealing with those kind of things is, you know, one of the
31:42
hardest things in life because if you've got any sense of
31:45
spirituality or a higher power, you sit there and go, what the
31:49
fuck? Why did he have to go and die?
31:52
What is the point? No guarantees in mind.
31:54
So that that was one band. There was some old guys in
31:59
Phoenix called Razor who made an industrial rock'n'roll record,
32:04
which I could not listen to. My wife made me listen to the
32:08
whole thing and the final track. And when I say the whole thing,
32:12
she'd play 30 seconds of a of a track and I'd go next.
32:15
She played 30 seconds to the next track next.
32:17
And we got to the final track and I'm going cardio persistent
32:21
woman. And suddenly I'm listening to
32:22
something. You're going, oh, hello, wait a
32:27
minute, now we're talking. And if I remember correctly, it
32:31
was them covering when the levee breaks.
32:34
And immediately that was the door that opened for me for a
32:37
reason. I went, let's get rid of the
32:39
industrial hard digital bullshit sound.
32:42
Let's make it sound organic. Let's minimize the processing of
32:47
signals. Let's get feel into this and
32:50
let's find out what this singer could really do.
32:54
And I went down to the bass player's house one day and this
32:57
huge guy comes rolling up on a Harley where everything on the
33:02
Harley was black. Every screw, every lead, that
33:08
entire thing was pure. And he gets off this bike and
33:12
he's a big guy. And I'm going, oh, I'm going to
33:15
tell this guy how to sing. Let's see how this works out.
33:18
So I pulled him back into the sun room, and I sat him down.
33:21
And I said, OK, what do you sing in the shower?
33:22
You kinda looked at me. So do you want me to sing?
33:25
I said, yeah, I want you to sing into my face right here, right
33:28
now. And I want you to sing what you
33:31
sing in the shower. And he started singing Marvin
33:33
Gaye, and I could hear the quality of his voice.
33:36
Immediately I thought, Oh my God, you can sing like Marvin
33:40
Gaye and they've got you sounding like some industrial
33:43
machine. Oh no, we're going to record
33:46
something that Britain's mother's voice.
33:48
We made a really good record. It got imported.
33:50
No one, no one would pick you up and it's a real quality record
33:53
if you can find. It excellent.
33:54
I'll definitely look that up out of curiosity just because we're
33:58
recording this on the eve of this.
33:59
Speaking of, not likely to see their likes again this farewell
34:03
Black Sabbath and Ozzy concert on this weekend.
34:06
I know you're very fond of Ozzy and I love that recollection
34:09
story of him on the plane with you.
34:12
Any any thoughts? I'm I'm nervous.
34:16
I wouldn't want I wouldn't want the pressure of like, here's the
34:18
last thing we ever do. I love the band and I love Ozzy
34:22
solo, of course, and I I'm I think the spectacle of it is
34:26
going to be exciting and interesting, but I'm I would
34:29
hate the last thing. Robert plan always talked about
34:32
Live Aid like they gave Jimmy his guitar untuned out of the
34:34
case. And then, you know, here we go.
34:37
We're you know, why do we do this?
34:38
Why do we say yes? So I'm, I'm fearful of that, but
34:41
what are your thoughts on bands doing so?
34:44
Is this going to be something we're going to be cursed with in
34:47
the future where every band tries to do this?
34:49
Ozzy has a manager who is quite capable of hammering on anyone
34:56
and there are those who are going to be at that gig who are
34:59
not going to disappoint and piss off managers.
35:03
So they're going to do their job well.
35:05
And the reason why I go down that that track is that to cross
35:09
your mind that maybe it's a relief for Ozzy that I had get
35:13
the opportunity to bow out in my own hometown.
35:17
And I don't have to do this anymore because my physical
35:22
condition is such that I cannot do this anymore.
35:26
And I don't want to be embarrassed on stage because of
35:29
my physical condition. I would say for Ozzy to fucking
35:34
relief that you can do it and do it in style and have all those
35:38
people surround him on that day and acknowledge it.
35:41
Now for me being a heretic, I fight with the wife who loves
35:46
fairies, wear boots and loves to try and kick my ass with her
35:50
boots on and I look at her and go your damn band is a one hit
35:54
wonder. It's all about Paranoid.
35:57
That song is it for me because when I was what, 17 there were
36:02
two tracks that were running through my consciousness all the
36:06
time. 1 is Paranoid and the other one was speaking Deep
36:09
Purple. Oh my God did I love to hear
36:11
those 2 tracks. I just did a podcast of a writer
36:16
of ours who has his own platform and we were talking about
36:19
classic rock bands and things and I said that Purple as many
36:23
hits as they had, it's if you they really, I think maybe
36:26
opposite of Queen. Queen has hits and no great
36:30
albums. We did a whole pod.
36:31
I did a whole podcast series on this.
36:33
Believe me, I listen to like 99 to 13 Queen albums and my
36:37
partner wants to choke me out the next time he sees me in
36:40
person. But I think Deep Purple actually
36:42
had incredible deep albums with no skips, not just the hits, not
36:46
just Hush and and Woman Tokyo and.
36:50
Things Deep Purple and rock. Thank you.
36:52
Good night. Yeah.
36:53
You know, they could have retired after that.
36:55
Yeah. I mean, they hit an apex there.
36:57
The extraordinary thing for me too, is that if you put me in a
37:00
position of saying you could choose one Led Zeppelin album,
37:03
which one do you think I'd choose?
37:06
That's a tough one. I'll take a gander and say
37:09
Physical Graffiti since it's the anniversary year.
37:12
Nope. The first one, OK, so three in
37:15
one is monumental to me still to this day.
37:19
The vibe, the space, because it's minimalist, the size of the
37:23
instruments in the mix. That's a record.
37:26
You put it on and I go, I'm captivated.
37:29
I bet I'm with it all the way through and I'm enjoying it.
37:34
On a simplistic level. I used to drink Once Upon a
37:38
time, I might have had a drink or two with it the same time.
37:41
My brain is always going, my studio brain, and I'm analyzed
37:44
to exactly what was recorded and what was recorded and how much
37:48
space there was around listening to me and how much space there
37:51
was in the entire mix and the dynamics all the way through
37:55
that. To me, if you can only take one
37:58
separate album, take the first one.
38:00
Right on. Surely the best rhythm section I
38:02
ever heard in my life. Jones, Ian and Bonham for sure.
38:07
So many things I want. Bonnie, Bonnie, Bonnie, Bonnie,
38:11
Bonnie. I mean, just fucking amazing.
38:14
He do you know he was the only band member who was not afraid
38:17
of Peter Grant. That sounds right.
38:19
I wouldn't want to meet that guy in a dark alley, young John
38:23
Bonham, full of life and and beer.
38:25
I wouldn't want to. I wouldn't want to mess with
38:27
him. All that risk power.
38:30
I'm sure he could punch a dude for sure.
38:33
There's so many things I would I would want to ask you given
38:37
longer time. But I want to be respectful of
38:39
your day and I'm sure you you have other things to do.
38:42
It's not, it's not respectful of the day.
38:44
It's I, I have a calendar. You go this, then this, then
38:49
this, then. But what I will say is if you
38:53
get the notion and the inclination and want to have a
38:56
subsequent chat out and back end closing us off, you're very
39:01
welcome to call me up and say let's let's have a chat about
39:04
something. That's very, that's very, very
39:06
kind to you. Thank you.
39:07
I always like to end with a wild card question.
39:09
And so my wild card question for you today is this, which is if
39:14
you could go back and meet younger, your younger self, what
39:18
piece of advice would you go and give yourself, if any, before
39:21
you started on this path? Trust no one.
39:24
Care to elaborate that was it? Just trust no one.
39:27
Trust no one. Interesting.
39:28
And if you read the book, there are some hints in there as to
39:33
why I would trust no one and no ones I would not want to trust.
39:37
Indeed, Once bitten, twice shy in real life, it's not just a
39:41
great album or a song, it's actually good advice.
39:44
Yes, it is. Alan Evans, Sound and Fairy is
39:47
out now on the assignment. And Schuster, thank you so much
39:50
for this chat today. I learned a lot, I laughed a
39:52
lot. Thank you for everything.
39:54
Well, the appreciations are actually mine for one, reading
39:58
the book and two, giving me an opportunity to talk about it.
40:01
Thank you very much for doing that and.
40:03
If you're inclined at some point that you'd like to have a longer
40:07
chat that we have no time limit on, I all means let me know.
40:10
Be a pleasure, it's been great to meet.
40:12
You same here. Thanks so much.
40:13
We'll do it again soon.