by Drew Fortune
At every show, I’ve done a tribute to Chester by playing “In the End.” Before the song, I talk for a little bit about him to set the tone, and I almost never talk about the same thing. For everyone, it’s an introspective, deep moment, but I never want it to be sad. If a fan has feelings they want to get out, I want them to be able to cry, but I never want to feel like I’m bringing everyone down. Some people aren’t there for that, but for me, it’s very important.
Personally, I’m in a very good place. This tour has put me on a high. Having said that, it’s a very delicate thing, and for months, I’ve walked the tightrope and performed that song each night. We were in Cologne, Germany, a couple nights ago, and I didn’t have a curfew. We could have played as long as we wanted. It was one of the biggest venues on the tour, and we sold it out. The fans were hardcore Linkin Park fans, and I was playing random B-sides during the set, and they sang every word. They knew every single sound and syllable of every song.
We got to the moment in the set where I normally do, “In the End,” and I felt like it was the right time and place to do something different. On the fly, I did a little medley where I played, “Heavy,” “Numb,” “Burn It Down,” and, of course, “In the End.” It felt like a religious experience. We were all sharing this very intimate and powerful moment that I can’t express in words properly. There are no words for it. You can go online, watch the video, and get a sense of it, but it’s something where you had to be there. That moment changed my whole outlook on how to play live.
It’s not about playing songs off the record and just giving them a live version of the songs they know. It’s a spontaneous, spiritual bonding that is bigger than the recorded music.
27
JENNIFER HERREMA
(Royal Trux)
The Sid and Nancy of the ’90s underground, Herrema and bandmate/toxic boyfriend Neil Hagerty churned out scuzzy glitter rock, while doing enough drugs to shame Hunter S. Thompson. Heroin eventually tore them apart, but they reunited in early 2018 for their first record in eighteen years. Herrema reminisces about her time with the needle, and the damage done.
All of the weirdest, most embarrassing, fucked-up moments that happened to me on stage, I do not remember. I’m not kidding. All of the best ones, I don’t remember at all. But, that’s why they’re the best ones. People have told me the best ones, and that’s always when I was in another space. One that I do remember was in 1995, in Columbus, Ohio. Neil had a guitar tech at the time named Jim—an older man with a full head of white hair. He had toured with Neil Young and was a totally awesome dude. We were on stage, and he was trading guitars out for Neil. Suddenly, this chick in the front row got gnarly. She was yelling at our tech, “Get the fuck off the stage, old man!”
It was a knee-jerk reaction, and I didn’t even think. I just dove off the stage and landed right on top of her. I started fucking whaling on her, and my jeans ripped, so my ass was hanging out. By the time the security came over, Jim had picked me up and put me back on stage. It was right when I was about to go into the second verse, and I hit it on cue. It was my most shocking moment because I shocked myself. I’m not a violent person, but I fucked her up. It wasn’t a willful thing, where I was thinking about it for a few seconds. I never dive off the stage, and I had never beaten anyone up in my life. I got a reputation because of it, and it scared me because I wasn’t in control of my actions. I played the rest of the show in cute underwear, with my ass hanging out.
I would black out a lot on stage. It was a combination of drinking, drugs, and heroin. It’s like my subconscious has put those nights away forever. People would always ask, “Do you remember what you did the other night?” My response was always, “Uh, no.” Neil would say things to me, like, “You laid down on stage and started tumbling like you were going down a hill.” I guess I was rolling myself back-and-forth, but also singing, evidently. I have no memory of doing that, obviously. One time, when we were strung out in Ohio, I was standing at the front of the stage, and a wave of nausea hit me. Next thing I knew, I was projectile vomiting over everybody’s heads. I was like, “Hello Ohio!” and then lost it. Poor Ohio.
We would shoot before going on stage, or basically, as soon as we could get our hands on it. In every city, we had someone to come to the show with drugs. I would forget what city we were in. On tour with Sonic Youth, I’d yell, “Hello Minneapolis” when we were in fucking Detroit. That happened a bunch of times, and that is the most embarrassing stuff for me, because it’s just moronic. My pants split a bunch, and it wasn’t just the time I kicked that girl’s ass. I have no regrets, and it didn’t bum me out at all to hear that I was rolling around on stage like a log.
On heroin, you just don’t give a fuck. Your body feels so good, and you’re just blissed-out. It feels like nothing could possibly go wrong. It was always just really relaxing to me. People say that you move slow and slur, but I didn’t think that. It must have been the way it appeared. It’s been such a long time since I’ve used or been on stage high on heroin. I drink and smoke weed now but not constantly. My husband and I grow weed. I drink socially, and my husband says, “You should probably do it at home.” It’s much more fun socially, and I can still go super next-level with it publicly, but that’s not on the reg.
About seven years ago, with my other band, Black Bananas, we were headlining this festival in Portland. It was in this big-ass, beautiful old building, and we got in around 11:00 a.m. They had kegs and food, and we didn’t have anything to do until our set, which was way later. I just started drinking and kept drinking. We found this arcade with a bar in it, but video games make me very stressed out, so I was just sitting at a table. It was a two-story arcade with black lights, and this guy walked up to me with two shots in his hand. He said, “I’m a big fan, will you do a shot with me?”
Like an idiot, I did it, and don’t remember anything else after that. I do know that I was in the basement of the venue later on, and people were telling me, “You gotta play! You gotta play!” I guess I said, “OK,” and the next thing I know was that people were freaking out. It was like I could see them in a dream, and the fire department and EMTs were there. I got roofied and was fucked up. I was out like a rock, and my body was dead weight. I could see stuff but could hardly move. That was embarrassing because there’s never been a time when I couldn’t play a show. That was the only time, and it wasn’t cool.
It took a long time for me to get off heroin. It’s not like you just say, “I don’t like this anymore” and stop. The catalyst for me giving it up was that I had been shooting up in my hand for a while, and it got really infected. It got really swollen, and I got a fever. It kept swelling and turned red. I could see green pus starting to ooze out, so I finally went to a walk-in clinic. They needed to drain my entire hand, but I didn’t have any money. I hadn’t seen my parents or any of my family in years. There hadn’t been any contact at all, but I called my mom from a fucking pay phone.
Basically, I told her what I’d been doing for the past six years and that I was calling from a pay phone in San Francisco. I cut off the communication because I didn’t want them to know my life. It was my fault, but I wanted to shield them. I told her I was strung out on heroin, and it was such a relief when she said, “Oh! Is that all it is? We can handle this!” They thought that I had mental problems, which had caused me to walk away and stop communication. They were relieved that the only real problem was heroin. I flew home, and that was the first time I tried to get clean. They cut my hand open, and it was so gross.
They kept me in the psych ward for a week, and that sucked. Because my dad was an alcoholic, they wouldn’t let me go home to my family’s house when I was released. I was sent to Maryland, to a work camp, where female inmates go after they get paroled. That place was total bizarro-world. That was my first attempt, and I stayed clean for a while. I had to stay away from Neil, but of course, I didn’t. I started using again, and the next thing I knew, I was on the streets again. I started living
in a homeless shelter, but I had to leave because I had to piss test to stay there.
At that point, I did a cold turkey at my friend’s house, and she basically locked me in a room. I had to get away from Neil again, but it was a cycle. I’d stay clean for a minute, get back with Neil, and start over again. Neil and I had bought a farm in Virginia, and I went off the rails again when my dad died. I was supposed to be in a movie, so I flew to Los Angeles and didn’t leave. I had insurance through the Screen Actors Guild, so I went to some fucking Malibu rehab place with it. I ended up going to four rehabs, but the last time, I checked in sober. I wasn’t on any drugs, but one morning I woke up with my best friend dead on top of me, and I just lost it.
They put me on antidepressants, and I had never taken them before. That’s really when things changed, and it was the end of the heroin cycle. I had been self-medicating all my life, and I understand that now. I was always aware that I was different, and even as a kid I knew it. My sister would wake up with the sun shining in the morning, bouncing around, but I never wanted to get out of bed. I never wanted to take a shower. It was just impossible for me to care about anything. Music was the one thing that really gave me energy. Once I opened up and expanded my brain beyond the melancholy, punk-rock teen mindset that I had placed myself in, music took me out of my depression. It saved my life, for better or worse.
28
BIG DADDY KANE
With Mack Daddy swagger and dextrous flow, Big Daddy Kane made the ladies swoon and the guys jealous. His ladies-man persona inspired an ill-fated 1991 Playgirl spread, resulting in homophobic backlash that basically killed his career. But he’s still doing his thing, and Kane reflects on hip-hop’s golden age and a very scary female fan.
The craziest thing that ever happened to me with a female fan was in Detroit in the late eighties. She was just staring at me the whole show and made her way backstage. It was like she wasn’t even blinking, with this crazy, serious look. We started talking, and I invited her back to the hotel. We’re in the room, and I told her that I was gonna take a shower real quick. When I was done, I opened the shower door, and she was just standing right in front of the door. It was steamy in there, so I didn’t see her and hadn’t heard her come in. She had that same crazy look. Then she said, without blinking, “I just want to wash your back.”
I’m standing there, dripping wet, and said, “Excuse me?” She said it again, “I just want to wash your back. That’s all I want to do.” I said, “You know I just took a shower, right?” She didn’t say anything and stared back. I said, “I’m actually good.” She took this long pause and said, “It doesn’t matter. I just want to wash your back.” Now, I’m scared. I put on a towel and started looking around the bathroom to make sure I hadn’t left any hair in my comb and checked my pockets to make sure she hadn’t taken anything for some voodoo shit. She said it again, “Can you please let me wash your back?” I said, “Can you just hold on one minute, please?” I went to my security dude’s room and said, “Yo, come get this crazy-ass girl out the room, please!”
In my mind, I wanted to be a super-lyrical, serious rapper starting out. I wanted to amaze people, like the way I would do on street corners in regular rap battles. I thought that would come across well on the stage. When you’re battling on the corner, the people in that small circle can hear every word you’re saying. On the stage, it’s coming through loudspeakers with 500 people in the room. I started out doing club and house parties with Biz Markie, as neither one of us had a record deal at the time. Biz wanted me to do funny rhymes on stage. He wanted funny stuff about girls, and I had those, but it wasn’t the type of rap that I wanted to be recognized for, as that was his thing. One time, we were opening up for Doug E. Fresh and Slick Rick, and I refused to do the funny rhymes. Slick Rick had just put out “La Di Da Di” which was funny rhymes about girls.
Once Biz started beat-boxing, I went into the super-lyrical, fast-flow, Big Daddy Kane stuff. I was just spitting, and that’s when I realized that Biz knew what the hell he was talking about. I watched people in the crowd turning and walking away. We were an inch away from getting booed and, from that day on, I learned that all that serious stuff is cool, but there’s gonna be people in the crowd who can’t get every word. You need to stick to what’s simple, what works, and can captivate the crowd in that moment. I learned a lot that night about being a performer, and it stayed with me. I learned the hard way.
Me and Biz were doing shows for a production company called Mike and Dave, and we were doing shows around Long Island, the Bronx, and Harlem. We were taking the train to get to the shows, and we didn’t have any money. We were always hopping the turnstiles, or we would walk from car to car, hoping the conductor wouldn’t catch us because we couldn’t afford tickets to where we needed to go. Sometimes there’d be a stage, sometimes we’d be on the floor. One time, we performed on top of lunch tables. Rob Base was there, as he didn’t have a record deal either. We came home with stripper money that night—only one-dollar bills—because it was only kids at the show. They were paying us fifty dollars to perform with their lunch money. Imagine two dudes on the back of the A or F train with big knots of dollar bills in their pocket. It looked like a fat wad, but it was pretty embarrassing.
That was the crack era, in 1984. There were definitely drug dealers in the crowd, but it was a party. People weren’t just smoking crack on the floor. It was cool, and even the cats that were hustling came to party. I’d see them on the floor doing the wop, the running man, and even the cabbage patch. People left their beefs outside unless they didn’t like the record playing. There would be thugs, gangsters, drug dealers dancing their asses off, enjoying themselves. But if you played “Brooklyn’s in The House,” by Cut Master D.C., or “Top Billin” by Audio Two, I don’t know why, but it just triggered something in cat’s minds. They’d hear that beat, and it was suddenly like, “I gotta rob everyone.” I’m serious—these were the two chain-snatching songs. Those songs came on, and dudes would lose their damn minds. They would snatch your gold chains, your girlfriend’s earrings, and it made those dudes in the crowd violent.
If it was an entourage of people, they would wild out, snatch somebody’s stuff, and pass it off to one of their crew. He’d pass it to someone else, and that person would stash it until they were ready to leave, in case security was searching people. If it was only one or two people, they’d punch you in the face, snatch your shit, and run straight for the door. There wasn’t jealousy on the scene, but we were all competitive. We’d be doing a show with LL Cool J, and we got to rock hard. L would have explosions and fire lighting up on stage, and we didn’t have all that production. We had to take it to the next level energy-wise.
We all used to rock a club called Latin Quarters, and the wildest night I remember is when they tried to rob Jam Master Jay. It had to have been about at least ten of these cats going at Jay and the Beastie Boys’ guy, DJ Hurricane. Jay had the gigantic, big rope chain with the Adidas on it, and they were trying to get it. Jay was just there hanging out, and I swear, he looked just like Jim Brown when Jim was on the Cleveland Browns. Remember how you’d see Jim running, and there’d be six people on his back? That’s how Jay looked, fighting off all these people that were jumping on him from different angles. I saw glasses smashing, chairs flying, and the music stopped. All this commotion was going on, and they cleared the whole floor out.
I gotta give props to Jay because at the end of all this, when the smoke cleared, he still had his shit on his neck. Jay was stocky but short. But, they didn’t get him. He fought off ten Brooklyn cats that night, going hard on him. They never got him, and you gotta respect that.
29
IAN ANDERSON
(Jethro Tull)
Ian Anderson has an incredibly dry, deadpan wit and had me laughing out loud during the interview. This is one of the funniest chapters, in my humble opinion, but prepare for urine and flying tampons.
In 1975, Jethro Tull was the first band to perfor
m at Shea Stadium since the Beatles had a really tough gig and decided it was over. They couldn’t hear themselves over all the screaming and shouting, and they were going through the motions. They felt bad about it, is what we were told, and they put an end to that kind of touring. A few years later, we appeared at Shea Stadium and suffered a number of problems. The audience was very far away because they weren’t allowed on the field, only in the stands.
In one way, I felt very close to a certain member of the audience that day. As I was waiting in the alleyway to the dressing room, about to walk out onto the field and run over to the stage, I was suddenly drenched in liquid. Someone had tipped something over from high above, and it got all over me. At first, I could only assume it was beer, but I quickly learned it was urine when the smell hit me. At that moment, I got my cue to run to the stage, stinking of someone else’s wee-wee. I’m sure that the person meant well, as it was a generous offering of bodily fluids to speed me on my way.
That was a pretty uncomfortable show because it’s not very nice to smell bad, nor is it very pleasant to play wet, as it was all over my hands, my guitar, and my flute. Somebody out there knows that they did that to me. I’d like to meet that person today, just to discuss the matter, as gentlemen do. Another embarrassing situation, this time that the audience was well aware of, was at an arena show, but I can’t remember where. I was performing on stage, and suddenly I felt something hit me in the chest.
I was wearing an open-necked shirt, which was open down to the middle of my chest. Something hit me, but it wasn’t very hard, and it didn’t hurt, so I carried on playing. After a bit, I looked down and saw blood. My first thought was, “My God—I’ve been shot.” I thought the adrenaline had kicked in, and I wasn’t feeling the pain. I thought that I was probably going to die very soon, so I figured I’d carry on playing as long as I could. These poor people had paid good money to see a show, and I better not cut it short just because I’d been fatally wounded.