Starting At Zero

by Jimi Hendrix

  I’ve never tried to establish one sound as a guitarist. You always knew it was Chuck Berry or Duane Eddy or Bo Diddley when they played. But I’m trying to get new things all the time. Whatever you do, you have to have an open mind. Anybody who’s hungry, who’s young and wants to get into music, has got so much to be influenced by, so many different things in the world. But some cats want to be helped every inch of the way. If you want to get there the work must come from you, even though another guy can maybe give you a bit of help or some good advice. You can get started on somebody else’s back, but you end up having to go your own way.

  I like the guitar best. It’s part of me now. But it’s not necessarily guitar that I’m interested in. It’s my music I’m trying to get across. Music is very serious to me. It’s my way of saying what I want to say. I hear sounds, and if I don’t get them together, nobody else will.

  {VOTED “WORLD’S TOP MUSICIAN” IN MELODY MAKER POLL.}

  Me, the world’s greatest!? That’s silly.

  Now, I appreciate them saying that, but it’s pretty hard to say who the greatest is. I still can’t figure it all out yet, because I’ve only been playing in Britain a year. I consider myself lucky I had a chance to be heard. There are so many good groups who haven’t had a chance to be heard.

  I don’t care about what the critics say. I really don’t give a damn about my future or career, I just want to make sure I can get out what I want. Soon I’ll be going into another bag with a new sound, a new record, a new experience. We’ll go exactly the way we feel. Nothing will be intentional. It’ll just happen. We’re not going to try and keep up with the trends, because we’ve got a chance to be our own trend.

  I feel really respected to do something like this, but I’m still a bit worried. I think everyone should open their minds a bit to the fact that there are three of us in the group. There are two other cats working just as hard as I am. If it weren’t for Mitch and Noel, I couldn’t do my thing. Mitch particularly has so much to contribute. Primarily we are a group, and our new album, Axis: Bold As Love, is designed to show what else we do besides my guitar playing.

  {DECEMBER 1, 1967, AXIS: BOLD AS LOVE RELEASED IN THE U.K.}

  THE ALBUM WAS MADE over a period of sixteen days, which I’m very sad about. But we had to get it out to put in all the kiddies’ stockings for Christmas. We were really deep into it, and all the songs on it are exactly the way we felt right then, so it really is us. We all helped in producing it with Chas Chandler, and I mixed it with him as well. It was mixed beautifully, but then we lost the original so we had to re-mix it the next morning within eleven hours, and it’s very hard to do that. It could have been so much better. The songs could have been better too. As soon as you finish you get a hundred completely new ideas.

  The only people that’s on it is us three, except on one song, You Got Me Floatin’, one of the Move sang the background with Noel and Mitch. And that’s our manager’s big feet on the fade-out of If Six Was Nine. That was a complete jam session, and then we put the words on afterwards. Gary Leeds and Graham Nash did some foot stomping, and that’s me on the flute. That’s what you call a great feeling of blues, how you feel at a particular time.

  I adore If Six Was Nine. It means that it really doesn’t matter if everything is upside down as long as it doesn’t bother you and you can cope with it. It doesn’t say nothing bad about nobody. It just says let them go on and screw up theirs, just as long as they don’t mess with me.

  On Spanish Castle Magic Noel uses an eight-string bass. I was playing the same thing on the guitar in unison with the bass. It didn’t come out as clear as we wanted it to, but it was a hint of what we were trying to do. It’s a place you wouldn’t put your grandmother, and it’s dedicated to the plainclothes police and other goofballs.

  On Up From The Skies it’s thanks to Mitch for the jazz. It’s the story of a guy who’s been on earth before but on a different turning of the axis. Now he’s come back to find this scene happening, like people laying up in gray buildings and so forth, dusting away. And people run around shouting, “Oh love the world, love the world!” eating rodent seeds and so forth. People must respect other people’s ideas, as long as they’re not hurting anybody. They must respect the time sequence. Why keep living in the past?

  Personally, I like to write songs like Castles Made Of Sand. A lot of times you might get an idea from something you have seen, and then you write it down the way you might have wanted it to happen or the way it could have happened. It’s like these buildings ain’t going to be here for all that long. When it’s time for a change, by all means put that thing into operation. I dig writing slow songs because I find it’s easier to get more blues and feeling into them.

  Little Wing is based on a very, very simple American Indian style. I got the idea when I was in Monterey, and I just happened to be looking at everything around. So I figured that I’d take everything I’d seen and put it, maybe, in the form of a girl and call it Little Wing. It’ll just fly away. Everybody was flyin’ and in a nice mood, like the police and everybody were really groovy out there. So I just took all these things and just put them in one very, very small little matchbox. Keep it just like that. It’s very simple. I like it though. It’s one of the very few I like.

  In Little Wing we put the guitar through the Leslie speaker of an organ, and it sounds like jellybread. And we’ve got a gadget called the Octavia that we use on a song called One Rainy Wish. It comes through a whole octave higher so that when playing high notes it sometimes sounds like a whistle or a flute.

  We’ve tried to get most of the freaky tracks right into another dimension, so you get that sky effect like they’re coming down out of the heavens. Like on Bold As Love, we do something called phasing. It makes it sound like planes going through your membranes and chromosomes. A cat got that together accidentally, and he turned us onto it. It was a special sound, and we didn’t want to use tapes of airplanes. We wanted to have the music itself warped.

  But the secret of my sound is largely the electronic genius of our tame boffin, who is known to us as Roger the Valve [Roger Mayer]. He is an electronics man working in a government department, and he would probably lose his job if it was known he was working with a pop group. Whatever incredible sounds we think up, he manages to create them.

  He has rewired my guitars in a special way to produce an individual sound, and he has made me a fantastic fuzz tone. I love different sounds as long as they’re related to what we’re trying to say or if they touch me in any way. I don’t like to be gimmicky or different just for the sake of being different. Don’t forget about the music. We don’t.

  Some people have told me that the first album sounded the same all the way through, but there wasn’t time. It was a first one, a quick one, you understand, for a new group. In Axis there are more gentle things, more things for people to think about if they want to. It’s quieter as far as guitar is concerned, but then we’re emphasizing the words. I think we’re getting less rebellious, if you know what I mean. To people who are not listening very much, Axis will put them to sleep right away.

  I JUST THOUGHT ABOUT THE TITLE. There might be a meaning behind the whole thing. The axis of the earth turns around and changes the face of the world, and completely different civilizations come about or another age comes about. In other words, it changes the face of the earth, and it only takes about a quarter of a day.

  Well, it’s the same with love. It can turn your whole world upside down, like the axis of the earth. It’s that powerful, that bold. People kill themselves for love. But when you have it for somebody or something, an idea maybe, it can beat anger and time and move the sea and the mountains. That’s the way it feels. I guess that’s what I’m trying to say.

  ANGER, HE SMILES,

  TOWERING IN SHINY METALLIC PURPLE ARMOR.

  QUEEN JEALOUSY, ENVY, WAITS BEHIND HIM,

  HER FIERY GREEN GOWN SNEERS AT THE GRASSY GROUND.

  BLUE ARE THE LIFE-GIVING WATERS
TAKING FOR GRANTED,

  THEY QUIETLY UNDERSTAND.

  ONCE HAPPY TURQUOISE ARMIES LAY OPPOSITE,

  READY, BUT WONDERING WHY THE FIGHT IS ON.

  BUT THEY’RE ALL BOLD AS LOVE,

  THEY’RE BOLD AS LOVE.

  JUST ASK THE AXIS.

  MY RED IS SO CONFIDENT

  HE FLASHES TROPHIES OF WAR AND RIBBONS OF EUPHORIA.

  ORANGE IS YOUNG, FULL OF DARING,

  BUT VERY UNSTEADY FOR THE FIRST GO-ROUND.

  MY YELLOW IN THIS CASE IS NOT SO MELLOW.

  IN FACT, I’M TRYING TO SAY THAT IT’S FRIGHTENED,

  LIKE ME.

  AND ALL THESE EMOTIONS OF MINE KEEP HOLDING ME

  FROM GIVING MY LIFE TO A RAINBOW LIKE YOU.

  BUT I’M BOLD AS LOVE,

  WELL, I’M BOLD AS LOVE...

  JUST ASK THE AXIS.

  HE KNOWS EVERYTHING.

  Sometimes you see things in different ways than other people, so then you write it in a song. It could represent anything. Like some feelings make you think of different colors. Jealousy is purple. I’m purple with rage or purple with anger. And green is envy. This is like explaining your different emotions in color towards this certain girl who has all the colors in the world. In other words, you don’t think you have to part with these emotions but you’re willing to try.

  I get a lot of my inspiration for songs from girls. These girls are like one girl to me. Like The Wind Cries Mary is representing more than one person. And she’s the one that really comes around. Little Wing was a very sweet girl that came around that gave me her whole life and more if I wanted it. And me with my crazy ass couldn’t get it together, so I’m off here and off over there.

  You can’t hold on to relationships when living a raving life like me. I’m an adventurer traveling around the world looking for excitement. It’s the same thing as the olden days when the war happens and you ride into town for the drinks and parties and so forth. You play your gig, and these beautiful girls come around and really entertain you. You do actually fall in love with them because that’s the only love you can have.

  When I was on the block starving it was the girls that used to help me. One of them even bought a guitar for me. Ever since then I say to myself, “Well, any girl I meet now I’m going to try to show her my appreciation!” Seriously though, it’s just nature. You shouldn’t be envious, because if you’re not used to it, it could kill you really!

  Sometimes it’s a problem to be nice to all of them. If they invite you to their place and you say “no thanks,” then they think you are big-timing them. And half of them ask you such silly questions, like when was the last time you saw John Lennon and can you get the Box Tops’ autographs. There’s also a big challenge thing with some girls. They’ll say to their friends, boasting, “Oh, I’ve been with him before,” and they’ll say, “I wonder what it’s like to sleep with John Walker?”

  Some people call them “groupies.” We call them “band aids.” They are just innocent little girls trying to do their thing. But the establishment is so uptight about sex that all it wants to do is make the groupies look bad. So the insecure man puts labels on them – suck your favorite star. They don’t talk about the ones who bring flowers and then go home to their mothers.

  I’M THE BIGGEST SQUARE OF ALL when it comes to approaching someone I really dig. You don’t go by appearance ’cause, boy, we know the story. Some of them are the worst people in the world. There are other things that girls have to offer besides their looks. The first thing I look for when meeting a girl is to see if she’s human. It’s so nice meeting girls not wearing masks, who dare to be kind.

  I get sad about all the girls I see walking on the street when I’m in a taxicab, because I’ll never meet them, and perhaps one of them is the right girl for me. I can fall in love, really in love, with one girl, and I can also fall in love with someone else, but in a different way at the same time. I guess I confuse myself sometimes.

  MAY THIS BE LOVE OR JUST CONFUSION,

  BORN OUT OF FRUSTRATION, WRACKED

  FEELINGS OF NOT BEING ABLE TO

  MAKE TRUE PHYSICAL LOVE TO

  THE UNIVERSAL GYPSY QUEEN,

  TRUE, FREE EXPRESSED MUSIC.

  DARLING GUITAR

  PLEASE REST.

  A M E N

  The guitar and music come first for me. Only then do I think about women. With music there’s not time for anything else. I’ve no intention of getting married. I really couldn’t imagine it. Marriage and other artificial forms that have been passed down generation to generation say it’s bad to make love to a girl or whore or cross to the other side when you’ve been going berserk for years. Those are nothing but artificial rules. Those bits of paper called marriage certificates are only for people who feel insecure. You can give yourself to somebody, and you can take yourself away from somebody if you want to. But in a split second because, don’t forget, it’s your life.

  Freedom is the key word to this whole thing. People don’t understand that because their brains are too complex. Why do you think that every single human being on this earth is so different from every other one? There’s a purpose behind this. Everybody has their own ways. They can do exactly what they want. When it’s time for you to die, you’ve got to do it all by yourself. Nobody’s going to help you.

  Sweet words don’t help nobody.

  LETTER TO A FAN:

  Regardless of what people think about you, just so long as you have your freedom of mind and freedom of speech and thought, don’t let nobody turn you on your own thoughts and dreams. I am very interested in meeting you. I believe I would really love to talk to you for a very long time. You seem very different from other girls who may write to us. I believe your mind is really and truly together. BUT!! – don’t call yourself stupid anymore in LIFE. This is your life. You must die by yourself, so for heaven’s sake live for yourself and no one else.

  Love you forever,

  Jimi Hendrix

  Are you glad to be back in London?

  There’s no place like London. Basically, I’m a country cat. I go crazy in the city, but then I don’t consider London a city. It’s more relaxing.

  Why do you carry two dimes in your shoe?

  That was all I had when I landed in this country.

  What do you think of the British police?

  I think the police are very groovy over here. They don’t bother you very much. As a matter of fact I was walking down the street in London completely out of my mind, completely and utterly, and a police wagon came and they said, “Hi, Jimi, how are you doing?” and I replied, “Is it tomorrow – or just the end of time?”

  Do you take LSD?

  Do I look like I do?

  Why not?

  Because it’s naked. I need oxygen.

  How does the British hippie scene compare to that in the States?

  The movement is not as organized over here. They’ve just got weird-looking cats. It’s a small thing, not like it is in the States.

  Do the teachings of Maharishi Mahesh Yogi appeal to you?

  I don’t really believe that his transcendental meditation is much more than day dreaming. If you really believe in yourself, you can think it out on your own. You don’t need someone else.

  What do you do in your spare time?

  If I’m not working, I rarely leave the flat. Mostly I sit at home here playing records. I don’t like having to dress up and go to social parties much, but you just have to do it. I always have the feeling that I will arrive at one of these things in all my own gear, and they might not let me in. I like to leave all that to the glamour people as far as possible, the Engelberts and Tom Joneses. They are the ones who sing beautifully enough to have their voices in TV commercials. Me, I’m just trying to get my music together.

  What are your ambitions now?

  Oh, that changes a hundred times a day. You never know what shape clouds are going to be before you see them. I have only one life to live. I might no
t be here tomorrow, so I’m doing what I’m doing now. Because human beings die too easily, you know.

  Do you like kids?

  Yeah, I like kids. I guess I like them any age.

  What about old people?

  Some old people are a gas. In fact, a lot of older people are far groovier than some of my own generation. You’re only as old as you think you are. As long as your mind can still function you’re still young.

  Can you think of yourself being eighty?

  I don’t think I’ll be around when I’m eighty. There’s other things to do besides sitting around waiting for eighty to come along, so I don’t think about that too much.

  Has making money changed you?

  Well, with the Experience I really don’t know how much we earn today. We just get enough money every week for what we need. I don’t give a damn so long as I have enough to eat and to play what I want to play.

  Is there anything you can’t do?

  I can’t express myself in conversation. I can’t explain myself like this or that. So when we’re on stage, that’s all there is in the world. That’s my whole life.

  How far can you go with what you’re playing?

  I don’t know. You can go on until you bore yourself to death, I guess. I’m happy to be able to play like I feel now. I play it by ear, man! I know the audience is changeable, but I’m not afraid of tomorrow.

  Where do your songs come from?

  From the people, from the traffic, from everything out there. The whole world influences me. Everybody and everything is music. You don’t plan songwriting. You don’t get into a certain groove to write a song. You can get inspiration for a song any time, because music is just what you feel. The ideas come very easily. It’s just getting the song together to where it’s acceptable. I stay in bed most of the time or go to the park or somewhere. I write some of my best songs in bed, just laying there. I was laying there thinking of one when you came in. I dream a lot, and I put a lot of my dreams down as songs.