by Paul Zollo
I miss him to this day. I miss his voice so much. He was my singing partner. He was my guy I sang with. I miss his voice so much. He was so reliable. And his blend was always going to be perfect, and his pitch was always great. He could sound just like me. Exactly like me. There’s a track called “Something In The Air” in which we are singing double lead; we’re singing unison together. And you really can’t tell that it’s not me double-tracked. But we actually just sang it at the same time.
And the great thing was his tastes were very similar to ours, and his background. He had started as a teenager in bands. And he liked the Byrds and The Beatles and all that. He knew it all really well. So it was really cool, because something we hadn’t counted on is he really had the same tastes as us.
But he fit in very well. Howie was never on anybody’s side in the politics of the band. He never took Stan’s side or my side. He was neutral. And that’s kind of the way he was. Very, very sweet. Just a big-hearted guy. Very nice guy.
I understand that he didn’t have much ego in the studio, that if somebody else came up with a good bass part, it didn’t bother him.
He didn’t say it. I think he could understand it. Nobody likes it much, being left off. But I don’t think it bothered him, because he was usually on the record. Even if he didn’t play the bass, he was going to sing. The Heartbreakers are pretty good about that: If I’ve got a good guitar solo, Michael will say, ‘Yeah, you play it.’ Or if one of us has a good keyboard part, Ben will say ‘Yeah, well, you’re doing it good. You go ahead and do it.’
When you made Hard Promises in 1981, you said you wanted to make something new, and move ahead in your music. Did Jimmy agree with this approach?
I think Jimmy thought we were playing it a little loose, that we should be sticking more to what we had done. But he also had the sense to go, ‘Well, I’m here to get the best of what they have to offer. And I’m just gonna let them lead and I’m just gonna try to get it down on tape the best that I can.’ I think there might have been a conversation or two, in which he said that it’s not really a rock ‘n’ roll album as much as Torpedoes was. Maybe you ought to stick to your guns more. But I think he went along with it. But I always had the feeling, I don’t know if it was ever voiced, but I always had the feeling he thought we were being a little bit frivolous. But I was trying to get somewhere else. He understood it. It wasn’t a big conflict. He was onboard.
Smoking pot had a big influence on The Beatles; it changed their songwriting and their recording. Did it have an influence on you and The Heartbreakers?
[Laughs] Probably not. There was certainly plenty of pot around. I don’t think all The Heartbreakers were pot smokers. I’ve never been a drinker; it just never worked for me. So pot kind of appealed to me, because I could get into another space, and it was kind of groovy. But today I don’t like it, because the pot is much too strong. They’ve evolved pot to where it’s almost like acid. [Laughs] Whereas in the studio we used to smoke a joint, now we wouldn’t dream of it because it would just stop the session dead. But there were times when we could smoke pot and be inspired. Or get into that space where it was fun to write.
Did it affect your writing?
I don’t think drugs really make anything any better. They’re probably more detrimental than helpful. But I’m sure there were times when it helped me kind of focus, or get in the mood to write something. But it was nothing we ever took that seriously. We weren’t religious about it. And in The Heartbreakers, there was very little drugs. None of us were boozers. I think Benmont drank quite a bit for a while. It’s hard to imagine, but he did drink pretty heavily for a long time. And then he completely cleaned up his act and doesn’t touch it anymore. So I don’t think it influenced our songwriting.
You mentioned that Howie would stay neutral in band politics. Did Benmont also stay neutral?
Ben always had something to say. Still today. He has plenty to say, and I respect it. He really is a purist. Doesn’t like us using a sample, or anything like that. He’ll knock that down instantly. We’ll tell him, ‘The whole world uses a sample to get a sound.’ ‘No. No, we don’t,’ he’ll say. ‘We make our own.’ He’s always had a lot to say. He’s very knowledgeable, not only about being a musician, but he knows a lot about the music and the history and the evolution of it. And he’s a lot of fun to talk to on that level. And he’s very passionate. And he would go back and sometimes he’d side with me and sometimes he’d side with Stan. So I think, yeah, he was pretty opinionated.
People always say how influenced you were by the Byrds, but you once said that people don’t understand how influenced you were by The Beatles. And The Beatles certainly evolved from album to album. Was that part of your inspiration to move to a new place with each album?
Yeah. I think they had that effect on a lot of people. You know, before The Beatles, you didn’t really see rock stars trying to evolve. They were quite happy to have a hit, and often the follow-up was almost exactly the same. That’s what I’ve always really been amazed at—The Beatles had that incredible success and really could have put anything out, and it would have been a hit. But they kept their head and weren’t affected by all that going on around them and focused on music. And I think that was our model. We’re going to keep our heads, and we’re going to try to make better and better music. And so in that sense, yeah, we wanted to be like that.
We thought the Stones had done kind of the same thing. I think the Stones were watching The Beatles, [Laughs] to be honest. But I think their thing built and evolved. I sort of like the idea—even to this day—of refining our craft. We’re trying to take what we do and refine it, and get it a little more pure with each release.
More pure?
Yeah. I think that’s what I’ve always been looking for, though I probably didn’t realize it for a long time. But I’m looking for purity. I’m a purist. [Laughs] I want a kind of purity in the music. When I hear Muddy Waters sing, or Slim Harpo, it’s very pure. It’s incredibly honest. It doesn’t need a lot of instruments to make it so pure. There’s a thing about music: If you believe the singer, then the song is going to work. It’s all about believability. If you can believe the singer, it will work. So I think our quest was for purity. [Laughs]
who got lucky chapter six
Howie said that Long After Dark, which came out in 1982, was one of his favorite records. He said, ‘It sounds the way we sounded then.’ But I understand you have problems with that record.
tp: It wasn’t that I didn’t like it. I just had this feeling that we were treading water. I would say it’s a good record, and when I hear it now, it’s much better than I thought it was. But the only complaint I had with Long After Dark was that I’m not sure that we’re really moving forward here. It’s a good little rock ‘n’ roll record with good songs and good playing. But I don’t know that we advanced a lot on that record. So I think that was my only complaint with it.
You said at the time, ‘I thought we were making wrong decisions all the time. That we had gone too far afield and wanted to get back to a good rocking record. It was a tough record for me.’
It was a tough record because I never knew what it was. [Laughs] I didn’t know if we were making the right decisions about songs. And there were songs being left off that record that were really good.
“Keeping Me Alive.” “Turning Point.”
Yeah. Really good songs. Jimmy and I were butting heads at that point. Jimmy didn’t like the contrast mix of those songs. He thought they were country songs. I didn’t see them as country songs. I saw them as something a little more organic, more acoustic-oriented than we had done. I think I would have really liked to go in that direction. He didn’t like the idea of it. So I think I finally gave in to the way he was thinking. But I think it would have helped that record to have those songs on it.
Those songs are on the boxed set. And when you hear them now, they don’t sound like country records. But I think that’s a guy growing up in Hell’s
Kitchen—Jimmy, a New Yorker—he saw that as country music. And that was one thing about lovine. I don’t think he knew music like we did. I don’t think he knew every Chuck Berry song. All of us were huge record fans. We know our roots. We know where the music comes from, and we know all about it. And to this day we’re still studying very, very much. And we’re enthusiastically exploring the history of the music all the time. And he didn’t have that. I think he was starting from a different place than we were. I really think lovine wanted to be a businessman by that point. Maybe I’m wrong, but by ‘82, I think Jimmy was on the phone more than he was in the studio.
Is that right?
Well, the truth hurts. I think he’d agree. And it was good for us, in a way, because he was constantly promoting us. After Damn The Torpedoes, Jimmy became really fascinated with the music business. Which the rest of us had no interest in it at all. And you could see that was his true calling. Because now he owns the record industry. [Laughs] I really think that he would have to agree that he was going in that direction. He was on the phone. I remember taking razor blades and cutting the receiver wire all the time on the phone. [Laughs] Or I’d walk over with a big pair of shears and just cut the cord off the phone. So that was the end of that. [Jimmy lovine is founder and chairman of Interscope Records. The label started in 1989 and now shepherds artists such as Eminem, No Doubt, and the Wallflowers. In the past, lovine has produced Stevie Nicks, U2, and The Pretenders, among others.]
Would he laugh or would he get pissed off?
Well, both. [Laughs] He’d laugh and sometimes he’d get pissed off. That’s how we were. I didn’t think Jimmy was experimental enough. I think he was playing it too safe. When I started Southern Accents, I started it without him.
But on Long After Dark, you cut those songs and then he rejected them?
Yeah.
But I thought you were pretty much calling the shots. Was he able to get his way, or did you give in and agree to keep them off the album?
I was calling the shots. But he had a lot of influence on me. We were very tight. We had been tight for a number of years. I respected his opinion. He never said you can’t have it on the record. But he’s really good at talking me into things. [Laughs]
You did a video for “You Got Lucky” in 1982. Was that your first?
No. We made videos before we knew they were videos. We made them back in ‘78. We made a video for “The Waiting.” For “A Woman In Love.” “Insider.” “Stop Draggin’ My Heart Around.” “Letting You Go.” And before that we did “Refugee” and “Here Comes My Girl.” And what we would do is make a film of the song, and wherever you couldn’t be, you’d send the film. We’d send it around. Europe.
We never really wanted to play on the Merv Griffin Show, or Don Kirshner’s Rock Concert. We didn’t want to appear on those shows. So what we’d do is send the film, and they would play the film. And when MTV did come along, they were so hungry for product that they began to play all those old films. We just called them promo films, they weren’t called videos. And we actually thought the term “video” was weird, because they were on film. They weren’t serious big huge projects. You’d show up, and they’d say, ‘Stand over here and sing “Refugee.”’ [Laughs]
Was it fun?
Yeah, we thought they were kind of fun. And we were well ahead of the game on videos. By the time we got to “You Got Lucky,” we were well ahead of the game, because we’d done a lot of videos. And “You Got Lucky” was really a groundbreaking video. It really changed everything. No one had ever—even Michael Jackson—done a prelude to the video. A bit of business before the song started. And we never lip-sync or anything in that video. That was the idea. We were sick of lip-synching. And we were going to make a film and not sing in it. But, boy, did it explode. It really did change the way the videos went. There were a lot of imitations after that. A lot of bands out in the desert. And I noticed that Michael Jackson started doing the little thing in the beginning of the video, he’d have a little bit of business before the song started.
And talk about famous. [Laughs] That’s when everybody knew who you were. Like, you know, grandmas knew who you were. ‘Cause you’re on TV all day long, you know? [Laughs] It was not like you just made an appearance. You’re on every hour all day long. So we’d be in an airport, and adults knew who we were and were coming up to us.
MTV was this incredible promotional device. It was really great for promoting your songs. It was really exciting. There was this whole new thing happening, and we were right in the front of it. And we made really good videos. We tried to be inventive there, too. It was a lot of fun. I always liked films, and I liked being on the set. I liked learning and seeing what the directors did. We got really involved in it. I wanted to be there through the edit and through the whole thing. Were they your concepts for the videos?
Yeah, pretty often. I think more than not. Actually, I think they were always my concept in some degree. That’s the way we are. [Laughs] We wouldn’t want to be put in a situation that we had no control over. ‘Cause that’s just dangerous.
It changed music, in that people were now watching music, as well as listening to it. Did you embrace that change?
It was a double-edged sword. The greatest thing about it was that if you got a hit on TV, you had a hit record. It was a really great promotional tool. The other side of it was that I felt if you hear a song, you make your own movies, in your head. But it really nailed down, visually, those songs in people’s heads. I don’t think you can hear “Don’t Come Around Here No More” and not think of that video. And not think of Alice In Wonderland. It’s impossible. You know, you just don’t do it. And so that wasn’t so good. I think it would have been better to be a little more ambiguous with that end of it. Let the songs kind of create their own movies. But the other side of the coin was that it was like a new kind of art form, and it was exciting to be involved in it. I thought it was. Though we complained about it.
Did you?
It got to where we’d really complain about having to make a video for every release. Sometimes it was a nuisance. It was really more fun when you made a little film on a low budget kind of guerrilla filmmaking process. But as it got more popular, the industry grew, and it became its own industry. And the films got much more expensive to make.
And the record companies, to this day, have this really shitty deal, where they make you pay for the video. And you get no royalty for the video. MTV doesn’t pay you. Or VH-1. They don’t pay anybody. They get the product for nothing. And then the cost of making the film is deducted from your record royalties. So it got to where we would be spending a million bucks on videos for an album, and that would be deducted from our royalties. That end of it really made us angry. We thought the record companies should be paying for the films, because it was their kind of promotional device. But that just wasn’t the way it went. And now a video can easily cost a million bucks. So we’ve pulled out of that game. We became disenchanted with it, so we just quit doing it.
The liner notes of Long After Dark list vocals by Benmont. Did he sing harmonies on that album?
Benmont often sang in the background. He sang on “Refugee.” [Sings] “Don’t have to live like a refugee…” That’s Ben and Stan. I can clearly hear Benmont sing on that. He sings somewhat in the shows, too. He does the third voice sometimes. And often if there’s a call-and-response kind of thing, he would be involved in that. So I wouldn’t be surprised if he sang on Long After Dark. But we’re pretty hard on singers. Mike never sings. You’ve got to sing in tune. And you’ve got to really hit your note. If you haven’t done it a lot, that’s a hard thing to do. In an arena, where the sound is swimming around. It’s kind of a trick. Mike’s really got his hands full with what he’s doing with the guitars and stuff. It was usually me and Stan and Howie. And now it’s me and Scott [Thurston] and Ben. And occasionally Ron might do a response line, but it’s a small part. But we’re pretty hard on singers. If you can’t hit your note
right every time, you’re gonna get a lot of shit.
don’t come around here as much chapter seven
You started Southern Accents in 1984. And I understand you drove around the South and would write down words that could be potential song titles.
tp: That was when we were touring the Deep South. And I just would write one word titles. “Apartment.” “Rebels.” “Trailers.” Things like that. So when I came home, I had kind of a sketch of what I wanted to do. And then I just started sketching them out. What a really crazy album that was.
You intended to make it a double album?
Yeah, it was intentionally going to be a double album. And it got cut down to one. We never even finished. That was a weird period because I don’t think we’d ever been off the road that long. That was the first time we’d really stopped. It was like, ‘Go, go, go, go, go, go!’ The whole time. And then suddenly, boom. We stopped. We came off the road. This was in ‘83. We toured Long After Dark all around Europe and America. And then we just stopped.
So this is the first time that the evils of success started to creep in. Because we had all this time on our hands. And we were living in Los Angeles. And we started doing cocaine and pot. And drinking started to show up. Cocaine was really popular in the Eighties, around that time. And we had never really done cocaine much. Because we just had never been around that kind of scene. So I think that when that comes into the studio, everything gets confused. But I remember there was cocaine around then and a lot of drinking. We were the wildest we ever were then. In our personal lives. We were just wild and crazy.