As a kid growing up in the UK I was fascinated by American Rock music of the 70’s and early 80’s. My best friend’s older brother had a huge vinyl collection that we could only access when we knew he was out of the house and it contained some of the greats of UK and US seventies rock like Thin Lizzy and UFO from the UK to Lynyrd Skynyrd and Molly Hatchet from the States. It was American Rock though that he had most of and there were some real gems in there. Sadly there was no .38 Special, but on a trip to the local record store (a 40 minute drive down the road) I came across ‘Wild Eyed Southern Boys’ in the import bins. Being a young kid I was taken by the cover and a pound note was handed over (in those days import vinyl had a hole or a cut out on the cover). It wasn’t the Southern Rock I had been expecting… but I was hooked. Well the great news is that album is now being reissued along with ‘Special Forces’ and potentially others from the catalogue. I got the chance to chat with Jeff Carlisi who was with the band until 1997 to talk about… rock and roll, the early days and the Jacksonville scene. It’s one of my favourite interviews in the 11 years of the Rockpit and I hope to catch up with Jeff soon to dig deeper into the history of the band.
Jeff: Hi Mark, can you hear me?
Mark: I can , very nice to see you Jeff and thanks for coming in for a chat. Before we start I have a quick story to tell you. As a young kid growing up in the UK one of the first albums I bought with my own money was ‘Wild Eyed Southern Boys’ one of the two albums that is seeing a re-release, I think in the days prior to the internet I was attracted by the artwork (laughs).
Jeff: Let me tell you a story about that (laughs). And you’ve probably heard this story a lot from various musicians and bands, but very few bands are happy with their album covers and their artwork, we always try to interject our artistic talents and feelings and whatever. So every time we get something, it’s like the scene in Spinal Tap where they’re looking at the black cover and being told about the glossiness. So we were in the studio and the artwork came through and we thought “Oh gosh!” Here we are making a bit of a conscious effort to get away from the traditional redneck Southern labelling of bands. And we were still very proud to be a Southern band but we felt that we had moved on. Then comes this album cover and it was a pickup truck and a crushed beer can and a saloon and a girl in the hot pants, and we were just going “Man.” But little did we know there was an article, I can’t remember what publication, after the record came out and they figured that the album cover alone was worth a quarter of a million records (laughs) just from these kids, such as yourself thinking “I’ve gotta get this! This is brilliant” So yeah, thinks work out in unusual ways.
Mark: They did. And it’s a fantastic couple of albums that are seeing a new release. The band had obviously already been around for a while by then and had three records under their belt. How important were these two records?
Jeff: Well as far as the reissues other than paying homage to something that you were proud of, it was kind of the real mark of success that we were going in the right direction because prior to that we had three records, the first one being in 1977 and those first two were tragically unsuccessful as albums, but we learnt a lot. We worked with Dan Hartman, Dan was the bass-player with the Edgar Winter Group, a phenomenal musician and we leaned a lot, but quite frankly the band was pretty green and we were trying to be everything that had already been done before. You know like Skynyrd, The Allman Brothers, Marshall Tucker and Charlie Daniels. And we just all of a sudden one day said, “Wait a minute that’s already been done, and it’s been done by the best and we’re just trying to emulate it.” We just needed to do something quite different. So the third record which had our first top 40 single, which was “Rocking into the Night” – we made some changes, came back down South, worked with Rodney Mills in Studio 1. He had a track record as an engineer with the Atlanta Rhythm Section. And we were also able to hook up with Jim Peterik who was in the band Survivor at the time and we came up with a real corker of a song that put us on the radio. And that kept us, let’s say, if you will, employed. And so at that point in time it was like “What do we do next? Do we just carry on?” And the real turning point I think Mark is that we took the blinders off musically. We started listening to a wide spectrum of music. And The Cars were a big influence on the band believe it or not. I remember hearing ‘Just What I Needed’ for the first time on the radio, and Oh my gosh! I hated it! (laughs) I couldn’t change the channel fast enough! “What is this!” And after about a week or so I found myself singing along with it. And of course The Cars were great at doing very simplistic types of rhythms – 8 note rhythms and just chunking along. And it was like “Hmmm There’s something there!” So that led to me sitting around watching TV one day (Jeff sings the notes of the riff) and there you have the riff to ‘Hold on Loosely.’ Don Barnes came up with that brilliant lyric “Hold on loosely but don’t let go, if you cling too tightly you might lose control.” It was a message to his wife at the time in the relationship they were having. And then enter Jim Peterik again who we had some success with and al the stars and planets lined-up. We knew it was a good song, but you never know until it comes out and it’s on the radio and it’s going up the charts. So that record (‘Wild Eyed Southern Boys’) was the real turning point because we went from selling 20,000 , 30,000 , 250,000 to double platinum (In those days two million). And then we followed that up with the other reissue ‘Special Forces’ which had our first Top 10 single ‘Caught Up In You.’ So we finally developed a style, a trademark style that people could recognise as us. We were lucky.
Mark: Two great albums, I remember buying them both – two albums I’ve lived with a lot of my life and unlike a lot of albums – two that have never gotten old for me. That combination of you working with Jim and Rodney produced some wonderful music. How did things change for the band when the hits started coming as far as tours went?
Jeff: Well there was a gradual evolution. We went from playing clubs to playing your 2000 seat venues to playing 5000 seat venues and then teh band is going “Hey time to headline now let’s go” but our manager at the time Mark Spector said “Calm down, we need to do this gradually – you don’t want to get into a 20,000 seat arena and do half house” It’s obviously not good business. But it was a gradual evolution, quite frankly the whole tour with the exception of a few dates in small venues here and there, the whole ‘Wild Eyed Southern Boys Tour’ in ’81 was as a support act, in this case with The Jefferson Starship. We at that point in time had become the support act in the country, everybody wanted to have us because we were selling records so we did the majority of that year with The Starship, it was a wonderful Tour, sold out everywhere and we became very good friends with all those folks Craig Chaquico is a great guitar player and of course Mickey Thomas and I are still good friends. It was a good learning curve as well and we carried that on into ‘Special Forces’ doing some more dates with them and headlining a few more. But it really wasn’t until ‘Tour De Force’ which was the record after ‘Special Forces’ that we became a legitimate headliner and doing arenas. And at that point in time our opening acts were Huey Lewis and the News in 1984 and in 1986 some little band, Bon Jovi I think was their name (laughs)
Mark: (laughs) A tiny little band.
Jeff: Yeah. So it was a gradual process and a great run, and wonderful to hang with so many other great musicians and learn from them. That was the best part of it. People say was there anyone that you didn’t like, well you can count that on the finger of one hand, but most everybody was great. There was the one, but that’s for another time.
Mark: (laughs) We will have to talk again!! The Snakefarm Records ‘Reskinned’ series which sees these two albums being re-released will hopefully be an ongoing series, will there be more from .38 Special?
Jeff: Well I think there will be, I actually just got an email the other day from Dante. First of all though I have to say I was so impressed when I received the records that the liner notes had been updated to follow the chronology of the band and bring things up to date with things that had gone on in the meantime. That was extremely well done as opposed to just printing the liner notes like they were in 1981 or 1982. So that was very good, it put a fresh twist on the whole thing. Anyway he contacted me and said they were thinking about doing some more and would I be interested, so I said sure, let me know which ones so I can put my thinking cap on and go back in time and help with some of the liner notes as far as the history of the band. That would be terrific if they did that.
Mark: It would. Before we talk more about the albums, let’s take it all the way back. What made you pick up that guitar in the first place?
Jeff: (laughs) I hated the accordion!
Mark: (laughs)
Jeff: Actually my first instrument technically was the accordion and the way that happened was my parents who gave me every opportunity to nurture my interests and talents – they suggested because my cousins played piano – “Why don’t you play piano?” So I thought “Sure I’ll give it a shot” and I was probably nine years old at the time. So they took me to a teacher expecting that they were going to give me piano lessons and the first thing the instructor said was “Don’t waste your money buying a piano.” So my Dad said “Well what are we supposed to do?” He said “Well if you do and he loses interest then you’re stuck with an expensive piece of firewood!” So she reached down behind the desk and said “Here you rent this from me.” And it was an accordion, so I thought “OK that’s novel” So I took it home, and mind you nine years old accordions are heavy if you’ve ever picked one up it must be 25 pounds! And you’ve got straps and whatever, it’s almost like blasting into space getting ready and then of course you have to pump it which is one thing, then there’s the keyboard, and then you’ve got all these buttons (Jeff looks down at the imaginary accordion) and you think “What do these things do?” To make a long story a little bit longer, I would come home from school and instead of doing my lessons running scales and what have you, or whatever she gave me, I would put cartoons on and I would learn theme songs by ear!
Mark: (laughs)
Jeff: So I’d come back next week and she’d say “OK show me what you learned” and I’d play ‘Popeye the Sailor Man’ and she’d yell and scream and show me what I was supposed to have learnt, and I’d say “Yeah, but check this out!” So she’d say, no, go home and do your lessons, and next time I’d come back with a stash of new cartoon themes and after I’d say a month at the most Mark, I just said this is a deal-breaker and I can’t do it. And my parents said that’s OK, fine. So as you’ve heard many, many times, and this certainly isn’t the first time, February 9th 1964, seeing The Beatles. And for me what struck me wasn’t the screaming fans. it wasn’t the hair, it was the look and sound of an electric guitar literally. It was like “What are those? Listen to the sound of it, listen to the noise they’re making. This is just fantastic.” So I went to my Dad and said “I’d like to play guitar” and he said “Just like you wanted to play piano?” and I said “But not accordion.” So he agreed I’d got him on a technicality and he said “OK I’ll get you a guitar” And I still have it, it was just a little $10 black, it didn’t even have a name on it. Just a black acoustic guitar, I think there’s five strings left on it, but I still have it. And I wouldn’t put it down. I went to bed with it, I got up and I just played it and played it. And as they say the rest is history.
Mark: An incredible story and it’s always incredible to me to hear how many people that performance by The Beatles touched so many people in the U.S. It was an incredible moment like no other in history. It’s hard to imagine these days any band being able to make such an impact.
Jeff: Well it really is and the thing is as I’ve got to know so many musicians over my life, everybody’s story is slightly different, or there’s a different twist. Liberty DeVitto who was Billy Joel’s drummer for 30-odd years and I are very close, we do a lot of work together. He explained to me why Ringo Starr is one of the greatest drummers of all time. I mean I can tell you about guitars and stuff but he’s the man on drums. And he would do the same thing with other drummers – Mitch Mitchell -“Listen to what he’s doing with Hendrix” and it all makes so much sense. But if you talk to anyone that moment when they discovered The Beatles and how it struck them initially it’s different for everybody. The outcome is the same but it’s like there’s some other little bit of magic that happened, and we’re able to share it as you said how many years later? 50-odd? Have you seen, and this is a tangent McCartney 3,2,1 ?
Mark: I have. It’s fantastic isn’t it?
Jeff: Wonderful, I just saw it last week and then I watched it again, and again, and again. Parts of that took me back to that magic scene. And he was so humble and candid in it he became real, he became like you, just a bit more genius on top I guess! (laughs)
Mark: (laughs) Yes, he’s certainly a better song writer and maybe even a better singer and bass guitarist than I!
Jeff: (laughs)
Mark: Growing up in Jacksonville as well must have been interesting to say the least at the time?
Jeff: I’m actually, well my family’s from Boston, but let’s go back further – Sicily. Just before World War II the boat came over and brought my Grandmother and Grandfather. My mother was 9 years old at the time. And after the war she met my Dad who was a fighter pilot in the Navy and he was also Sicilian, so after the war he stayed in the Navy, he loved flying airplanes and we got transferred here, there and everywhere and ended up in Jacksonville right about the time I started playing accordion. (laughs) That was probably ’61 or ’62 I guess. So you grow up and just like everyone else you meet kids at school . Well if you put a net on my neighborhood there was two streets over – Billy Powell who was the keyboardist in Skynyrd, and he and I were in Cub Scouts together before either one of us ever played a musical instrument, and his brother and I are still really good friends. Allen Collins (one of the founder members of Skynyrd), one of my dear friends and one of the greatest Guitar-players I’ve ever heard to this day lived four streets down. Leon Wilkeson (Skynyrd bassist), two streets the other way. And back then you didn’t have much of a choice, you went outside and hit a ball with a stick or you played music. And you didn’t have all the diversions, be it computers, call phones or video games or whatever to distract you, and so the community of musicians really was very accessible. And there were places that we could play – there were teen clubs, there were youth centers, it wasn’t just bottle clubs or places that served liquor where you couldn’t get in. Now on the other side of town, not very far away were the Van Zants and Gary Rossington, Larry Junstrom, and then a whole plethora of other players that were in other bands that intermingled with us. And we all played the same places, we all knew each other. we were all competitive with each other, and we were all friends. So that was the scene. And people say “Well why did so many bands come out of Jacksonville?” well I don’t really know the answer other than there were opportunities for us to play when we were very young. And then even later on there were three military bases, major military bases in Jacksonville, all Naval bases – and they needed entertainment. They had the enlisted men’s club and whatever so we would get… my father actually booked us when I was in a band prior to .38 Special. So we played those places because we had the opportunity. And then I remember prior to Skynyrd, we witnessed The Allman Brothers forming.
Mark: Wow.
Jeff: We were there. I would go to a music store on a Saturday afternoon and be standing next to Duane Allman and he’s checking out guitars and you’re talking to him, not that we were best friends, it was just that kind of community. And they would play these free outdoor concerts. He showed up in Jacksonville, he and Gregg were living in Daytona Beach, they were from, I think, Nashville, but his mother moved him to Daytona and then of course they went to California for the Hour Glass and whatever, before Duane said “I’ve had enough of this I’m going to Muscle Shoals” where he became a session player. When he came to Jacksonville we knew his reputation because of the Hour Glass and the Allman Joys and what have you (the Allman Joys became the Hour Glass pre Allman Brothers), but there were these – they called them “Be-Ins” which were a place where you could go hear them for free and all the hippies would show up, a place where you would keep a look out for the cops while you were smoking (laughs) you know. And then Jaimoe (Jai Johanny Johanson – a founding member of The Allman Brother’s Band) showed up, and this was centred around The Second Coming which was Dickey Bett’s band. In that band there was Dickey, Berry Oakley, Larry Reinhardt (Iron Butterfly) another great guitar player, Reese Wynans (Keys). So there was Duane jamming with them thinking “Wow this is cool check out the Blues” and then Jaimoe, and all of a sudden Gregg shows up one day and the next thing you know they’re The Allman Brothers Band and they’re playing around Jacksonville. And then they left and moved to Macon (Georgia).
Mark: Wow.
Jeff: The point is we saw that come together and we saw how good you could be. I mean they were ferocious – if you saw that original band with Duane, it was frightening how good they were. And you could say the same thing about Lynyrd Skynyrd, it has nothing to do with whether it’s your cup of tea with music, it’s just the way they played and the conviction they had, and how they approached their instruments. It was good education. Bu we saw that they could do it, or Skynyrd did and then they left and I was in college at the time in Atlanta and they were coming up, and that’s when Al Cooper discovered them (Al produced their first three albums and managed them). They did their first record at Studio 1 and we thought “Well they can do it too” so it just gave you inspiration to say well if they can do it we can sure try! So that’s kinda how it evolved. And there were other bands out of Jacksonville that did the same thing, or Florida bands anyway – The Outlaws, who were from Tampa, Molly Hatchet was from Jacksonville. But we had the opportunity to learn our craft by playing a lot at a young age. So when we got to that point 19, 20 years old when we went into the studio we were still very green and not very good! (laughs) It takes a while to get it together. But that was the Jacksonville scene and when you look back it’s amazing how many bands came out of it.
Mark: It’s incredible it was like a magical place to me as a kid growing up and reading about it, but now with the internet filling in the gaps you realise what an epicenter it was and how inspiring it must have been to so many people. And I’d put .38 Special in with those names you mentioned because for me they were the band that was around when I started really listening to music.
Jeff: I don’t know whether it was any different in say San Francisco – the Bay Area, where you had The Grateful Dead, you had Airplane, you had Quicksilver, you had a lot of bands. And maybe their community had the same story as what was going on in Jacksonville but in a different way. But that’s the way it worked for us.
Mark: You mentioned The Cars earlier which was something I must admit I had read before, but there must have been so many other influences in those early days? Obviously the local we’ve touched on, but what else were you listening to when .38 Special came around?
Jeff: Well it’s interesting because prior to .38 Special we were all in our various bands growing up. It’s like anybody else you listen to The Beatles and then you say “Oh Man I’m a Stones fan” then you listen to The Stones. Then you get a hit of the Blues and the guitar-playing in The Yardbirds, or The Kinks and the British Invasion. Then all of a sudden there’s Soul Music – and you could have been a Motown fan or more Stax, or Muscle Shoals type Soul. There was all this stuff. But for a guitar-player – well Jimi Hendrix came out and it was phenomenal but I think he was just so good he scared us. Most guitar-players to this day say “Ahh, I didn’t really ‘get’ Hendrix” and that’s because you couldn’t play it, you couldn’t even imagine it! And then Cream of course – for Skynyrd and us Cream was just unbelievable. But then there were bands like Mountain – they were a huge influence on us, and Creedence. And in 1970 one of the biggest influences on us, and this is another story I’ll tell ya, was Free.
Mark: One of my favourite bands, especially the first two records.
Jeff: I did a show with Paul Rodgers a while back, I was very excited about it as I’d not met him. With .38 in ’86 when they came back with Brian Howe as vocalist we toured together and I became friends with Simon and Mick but I’d never met Paul. So I did this show with Paul and I was so excited – I was like a kid in a candy store and I brought the sleeves of my vinyl records with me to the shows in Las Vegas for him to sign them.
Mark: You did teh same as I did!
Jeff: At the sound-check I said “Would you sign these for me?” and the record that really meant a lot to me was the very first Free record ‘Tons of Sobs’
Mark: My favourite too I think.
Jeff: It’s a great record. And one of the songs on it that I heard Skynyrd play first time was ‘Walk in My Shadow’ – I was probably 16 years old, maybe 17 and I walked into a teen club and they played it. I went up to Ronnie (Van Zant) and said “Did you guys just write that?” and he goes “No it’s this band called Free” So next thing you know we’re checking them out. So Paul looked at me when he saw the album cover and said “How did you know about this?” He was really taken aback by it. He said he could understand if it was after ‘All Right Now’ or ‘Fire and Water’ or any of the albums after that, “but this? hardly anyone in the UK knew us at that point in time.” I said you have to understand this was our education that’s why we ended up growing up, maturing and playing the way we do. (I said) “That was part of our schooling listening to you, we really grabbed hold of that.” He told me he’d never thought of it like that. And I thought that was interesting because he didn’t think that it mattered that much but it was huge for us. But aside from Free Country music was a real big influence too, and I’m talking about guitar-players – guys like Jerry Reed who is still one of my all-time heroes, just his technique and his skills were beyond surreal, and we learned a lot from those guys because we were surrounded by country players. I played Pedal Steel for a while just because I was fascinated by the instrument, never got very good but I liked it. But one of the biggest turning points for me as a guitar player as far as hearing somebody that completely influenced my style, and people go “What?” it was Queen.
Mark: I wouldn’t have pick that, but in a way it makes sense.
Jeff: And they go “You don’t sound anything like Brian May” and I say “Of course I don’t, I’m not supposed to, I don’t want to, that’s what ‘Bri’ does and he does it quite well!” But what it was is that I’d never heard a guitar player play that melodically and follow up what the vocals were doing with somethig equally as valuable in the context of the song and the music. That’s what I said I’m going to do – to put it all together nd mix it up and it’s going to come out being me, but you’re going to be able to remember it. At least that was my intention anyway. So when I play a solo you’re going to be able to sing it, and you’re going to be able to remember it. And that all came from Brian May and how he put t together. That was huge for me. I remember the first time I heard them, I was just out of college and a friend of mine played ‘Queen II’ with ‘Seven Seas of Rhye’ on it – that blew me away more than hearing Boston for the first time which was pretty amazing. And then I was a fan ever after that especially with ‘Night at the Opera’ which was incredible.
Mark: It was, and what fantastic music we had back in the day.
Jeff: Oh exactly and it was all unique. When people say do you like the music today, it’s not as good as the music before, I don’t know if that’s accurate or not, it’s just that the diversity was so much greater back in the 60’s or 70’s or even the 80’s. You can say “Oh that’s Foreigner, that’s Kansas, that’s Journey, you know whoever the bands were they all had a distinct style. The only thing I can say, because of the industry maybe music has become a bit homogenized, because when something becomes a flavour of the month, everyone tries to do that. I don’t know it’s just an opinion. But we had some good music back then for sure.
Mark: We had some fantastic music, which brings me to my next question which I always try to ask everyone when we first speak to them. And after all we have spoken about I would love to hear your answer to this one. If you could have been a ‘fly on the wall’ for the creation of any great album, just to have been in the studio to watch the magic happen. What album would you like to have seen coming together?
Jeff: oh gosh! (laughs) Not fair! Not fair! (laughs) Let me unscroll the list! Well for one, what I just talked about ‘A Night at the Opera’ I would have loved to just see how that went together and the creative process and the engineering process. But I’ll give you three. That’s one – then the second Hendrix record ‘Axis Bold as Love.’ I would have liked to have been a fly just when he did ‘Little Wing’ I’ve spent a lot of time as many guitarists do trying to play that correctly and I realise that was just off (the top of) his head. One time! Because I’ve heard him play it I don’t know how many other times and it’s completely different. Same song but just an extension of the paint brush coming from the guitar neck. He was just brilliant. And of course you’d have to say because I’ve read so much about it and there are so many great documentaries ‘Sergeant Pepper’ just to see again the process. They’re not necessarily my favourite records of all time even though they rank right up there, its more the curiosity of how they did it.
Mark: I think the sheer hard work as well, technology has come a long way since them and in those days the process was more manual and you have to be pretty creative. But I think sonically the Beatles and the Queen album were groundbreaking, both pushed the boundaries of what you could do with tape.
Jeff: Well you’re absolutely right I’ve talked to Rodney Mills who was our producer for many records staring with the ‘Rocking into the night’ album, And we talked about the old days – just reminiscing and we talked about the things we did when we had no automation and we were doing a mix and there were three of us arms across the console, crossed over, remembering our cues to pan or to push the volume up on the fader, and you know, editing two-inch tape with a razor blade. It was state of the art at the time, you didn’t know any different. But now you have Pro Tools and whatever else and as many tracks as you want which I think somehow can be pretty dangerous – you know the expression – “You never finish a record you just quit!” (Laughs)
Mark: (laughs)
Jeff: (laughs) But for the same reason that before you had little portable recording devices to bring a demo into rehearsal for the band – before you had any of that you had an idea a riff or whatever and you’d go to rehearsal and go “What you got” and you’d go “I got this thing, it goes like this” and all of a sudden you would develop that and the band would jump in and you would create the music, the magic and no other five or six members of the band could do that (alone). You might not be the best players in the world but the chemistry of A + B + C + D would equal something and if yu change any of those variables it would all change. So that was magical, to see – how everybody added their interpretation to one person’s idea and created a song out of it. And when you started to bring in outside ideas “I just got in from Chicago and I wrote this song with somebody” It might be just a rough demo but the bass player hears (sings a bass-line) and it’s all that he can hear and it’s hard to get away from it, so if you’re on your own it become a little predictable and that’s when other input breaks that mould.
Mark: That’s the magic though that we tend to lose now isn’t it? Having people in the same room? I think that’s what modern music is lacking in a way for me, I was taking to someone the other day and we agreed that it was great to share ideas and files across the internet but there’s something really magical about being in the same room with everyone getting to put their own spin on that original idea?
Jeff: I couldn’t agree more, I couldn’t agree more, and that’s it – the eye contact tells you so much about where somebody’s going with something. Even in a simple jam. And even to this day you can go online with a guy in Seattle and you can be recording in Atlanta with him,,, I remember the expression “Hank never done it that way” (Laughs)
Mark: (laughs)
Jeff: Technology is wonderful, but you’ve got to be in the room, you’ve got to feel it. But also when I did solos I would do it in the control room sitting right next to the Producer so that you could have that instant communication and dialogue as opposed to headphones and talk-back and that distance. And there I’m only talking about 20 feet! But it makes a difference.
Mark: You left .38 Special in, I think, 1997.
Jeff: ’97.
Mark: Did you leave with any unfinished business? Anything you would have liked to have done that you didn’t get around to?
Jeff: (pause) Well I would have liked to have made another record with Don because there was a departure in ’87 and we did two records wit the extremely talented singer Max Carl (lead vocals, keyboards 1997- 1992) and we had quite a big hit with a ballad called “(Heart Needs a) Second Chance’ (from the 1988 album ‘Rock & Roll Strategy) that he sang on. And he was a great talent and a great song-writer, but it was just different and I don’t think out fans were ready to embrace it, and we were probably trying too hard to be something different at the time. Whatever the case is, when Don returned to the band I just wanted to do another record together. We started writing a bit, but at that point in time, and even to this day I think it was a great long run, but maybe the magic’s gone and it would be hard to recapture it. Who knows? I’ll always wonder? I would have liked to have had that opportunity to have done one more record with the band as it was , but it’s not to be.
Mark: Listening to the records again I was hoping for some bonus tracks, it would have been great i have seen that – do those songs exist – are you one of those bands that had heaps of songs that never made the cut?
Jeff: Well there were always songs that didn’t make the cut and back then that usually happened because you could only load so much information on a vinyl record or the grooves would get thinner and thinner or narrower and narrower and the needle would jump or you wouldn’t get much volume. So there were usually only what was it, 36 minutes of music for optimum sound. So that was usually the reason something got left off and if you had more you had to vote and somebody had to leave the island. So there are outtakes. The problem is unfortunately because of the massive fire at Universal, they may have been caught up in that. Obviously we still have ‘Wild Eyed Southern Boys’ and ‘Special Forces’ because they’ve been digitized fortunately. because there were tapes, especially a lot of Jazz from the 30’s that didn’t take priority in digitization and they’re gone, forever. At least we have the music , the only thing is if you wanted to go back and remix them or add stuff to them it would be pretty difficult. But whether those outtakes whether those were digitized or not I don’t know they may just have been on reels of tape that are now gone.
Mark: That’s so sad that we’ve lost so much and let’s hope we find out one day that those extra tracks made the process. I just have one more question, and I could talk about music all day with you. We always leave the easiest question till last – “What is the meaning of life?”
Jeff: It makes me want to sing a song! Where’s Eric Idle? Here he is! (laughs) Well every time I think of that question all I can think of is “Blessed are the cheese-makers!”
Mark: (laughs) wonderful Python! It’s interesting times we’re living through, but listening to these reissues has been wonderful for me, brought back some great memories and underlined what a great band .38 Special is.
Jeff: Thank you.
Mark: It’s been wonderful to finally get to speak to you all those years after I picked up that record in a UK store as a kid.
Jeff: My pleasure Mark. It’s serendipitous. Anytime you want to talk more just give me a call.
Mark: I think I will take you up on that! I can feel a ‘.38 Special, special’ coming on! All the best, Stay safe.
Jeff: Cheers.
Order: ‘Wild-Eyed Southern Boys’
Order: ‘Special Forces’