Mark: It’s one of those albums that you find yourself listening to and wanting to go back to the originals to hear them again. Off the ‘Rough and Tumble’ album you have a few tracks: ‘Better off Gone’, ‘Evil’, and ‘If You ever Get Lonely’ one of my favourites off what is a great album though was ‘Love’s Going Out of Style’ do you play that one live?
John: You know what? We haven’t got to that one yet. Our new guitar player Keri Kelli came straight from Alice Cooper’s band and before that he was in Slash’s Snakepit, and he’s always had a second guitar player to play against. So when he came down to see us to see if we all got one we just dumped the whole thing on him! This was always about getting back to that three piece band with a singer like Free or Bad Company or any of those great bands like Zeppelin. It’s a very British thing, very ‘Seventies’ and it’s a lot to carry. And we just gave him a list of songs and said we’ll see you in three weeks in Detroit – it’s a big gig, there will be about 3000 people by the river, all very upscale all very nice down there, but you’re on your own. Learn the songs and we’ll see you in the lights! And there it was, we didn’t rehearse, we obviously ran through the songs in the dressing room and went through the details but we just threw him in the deep end! We played about 15 songs. ‘Love’s Going Out of Style’ is a great song but there were other songs that needed to be played before that got its five minutes. I mean we had to play some from the Babys like ‘Head First’ and ‘Every Time I Think of You’ and then there’s hits like ‘Missing You’ and other big songs. But at that point songs like that and ‘If You Ever Get Lonely’ were still pretty new and we didn’t want to give Keli too much to think about. We did a gig the other week in Michigan and I think it was the best gig I’ve played in about ten years; the band is really on fire now! So, we’re hoping to do a second live album in six months, and that is one of the songs that will make it. It’s like; I prefer to do those kinds of songs that go back thirty years, just because it’s part of my history, but we’ve already done that on another live album, this is just gigs, and having fun playing.
Mark: It’s great, and I actually think, “Rough and Tumble” it’s certainly my favourite album, the best you’ve put out in years, there’s some fantastic stuff on there. “Better off Gone” is great!
John: Thanks. That one gave me a nervous breakdown!! I did it in two stages, I did two months in Nashville recording with Kyle Cook, from Matchbox twenty, and we got five songs, I then went home for two weeks to see my mum, came back and the management said we need more songs! As they always do, so, I went in to the studio and in three days, cut seven songs! I wrote “Rough and Tumble” the night before, it was like I had to do it, because I’d booked a plane ticket!! I gave myself pneumonia, as I slept for like three hours in three days!! The whole rest of the record was done in a panic, a controlled panic though!!
Mark: I did read something about that, that you leave everything till the last possible moment! That’s how you like to write.
John: Yes, I find it intriguing, but it’s like dancing with the devil, a bit, you have to really ask yourself what you’re trying to say, and that demands a certain quality of what you can do with words, and if it’s been done before, and how to re-say it. Something that’s got a twist on it, you know, everything has to have a slight twist, or it’s just nonsense really! So, I do try and keep it away from me, as far as I can, but, I can look at a guitar now, and look at the neck, and I look at the chords – I can see a ‘G’ and a ‘D’ and a ‘C minor’ and a ‘F major’, and my brain never stops thinking about lyrics and stuff, but I am due another record now. I’ve got to the point where I’ve got two things finished and I know that when I get in the studio I’ll just blast out a record again – I kind of just save it up. I mean I’d like to try to get a second live album out before I try to do another studio record, this year. But the plan is to get both done before Christmas.
Mark: Is it a bit of a godsend to not always have to worry about a label these days?
John: Well I’ve had a label, I mean ‘Rough and Tumble’ came out on Universal and they put it in all the shops and really promoted it, and we had a number one single with ‘Rough and Tumble’ (the title track) on Classic Rock Radio by touring it really hard for a year, touring to the point you wouldn’t believe it – getting up in the morning and doing radio and TV then playing a small club somewhere or an amphitheatre. We really earned that number one! But then I bought the album back off them, I offered them some money and they gave it back to me! And that sort of happens every four years – I get my music back, in fact today ‘Down Town’ came back to me everywhere in the World except America, that was the record that had the Alison Krauss duet on ‘Missing You’. Now that’s number three on my I-tunes in Australia so look out for that, it’s a beautiful version.
Mark: It must be great that every so often songs get picked up, like ‘Missing You’ on the 'Warm Bodies' soundtrack?
John: Well ‘Missing You’ has been a marvellous thing but it almost stopped my clock, it was so big. I think after that everyone expected ‘Missing You’ on every album that ever happened after that or a song that was like ‘Missing You’ (we both laugh) I mean come on! I did it once; it was great, let’s keep it like it is! I always like to change things up a little bit to keep things interesting.
John: There’s a band in Nashville called Love and Theft who had a number one single last year have covered "If You Ever Get Lonely” from ‘Rough and Tumble’ so it is possible to have a number one hit.
Mark: It must be great to have that cross-over potential.
John: Well I’ve always loved Country: I grew up listening to Western music: all these songs about riding into the sunset and meeting somebody at high noon. It was the perfect segue into Rock and Roll, they were both American. The Beatles may have been the British kings of Rock and Roll but either side of them it’s always really been American. The Beatles were influenced by African American music: it’s all American really.
Mark: I think we’ve lost a lot along the way too. I think we lost a lot of feel and soul with the synthesiser rock of the eighties.
John: Yeah it’s gone down the tubes: synthesisers have a lot to answer for! I mean the reason we’re back to this three piece band is to get the keyboards out! I mean rock and Roll is essentially an argument between the guitar player and the singer.
Mark: That’s what I love about the live album, there’s an honesty and a simplicity that proves you don’t need to have all those trappings and enhancements and its all the more powerful for that.
John: No you don’t that’s exactly what I would say. If I could put something on the front page of a newspaper it would have been that. If you can play something and move somebody on the acoustic guitar it’s all you need.
Mark: Someone once told me more or less exactly that – if you can move someone with a voice and an acoustic guitar that’s all you need. It was Steve Marriott that had told them that.
John: (laughs) That’s right! I mean Steve was just an amazingly talented wonderful human being and a great song-writer and if he said that then that says it all. I had the honour to play with him one night then have dinner with him the next and it was one of the major moments of my life. A great guy but what a singer!
Mark: We’ve almost got something else in common then! I once went to see him a couple of years before he sadly passed away and between sets he stood at the bar next to me with his pint and his cigarette and smiled and for the only time in my life I froze up – man this was the man! This was Steve Marriott! I can picture it so clearly like it was yesterday.
John: He was a nice guy, a real nice guy. He had some bad luck Steve. I’ve been a fan all my life. There are only three great rhythm guitar players ever- one is Pete Townsend, the other one is Keith Richards and the third one is Steve Marriott. They were all tremendous rhythm guitar players, and Steve could really play lead too people overlook the fact that that he had a terrific sense of rhythm. He’s one of those people who is adored, he just got the sharp end of the stick in the music business.
Mark: Well he’s always been my personal musical hero.
John: Yeah mine too, mine too.
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