I'll Sleep When I'm Dead

by Crystal Zevon

JORDAN ZEVON: Dad and I went to Hawaii at one point, and I was by myself. I didn’t know what to do. I think I swam once, and he was going through a period where he was taking a lot of painkillers. Or maybe it was coke. He was frighteningly thin. I didn’t know at the time, but he wasn’t eating.

  From John Lescroart.

  KIM LANKFORD: The Envoy had all the people from Knots Landing on the cover. Maybe Warren’s brilliance went unsung by the masses, but the important people knew his genius and acknowledged it. Warren used to say he’d rather be famous than rich, and then toward the end I think he thought maybe that wasn’t so right. He always wanted to die young. Just listen to “I’ll Sleep When I’m Dead.”

  JIMMY WACHTEL: The cover for The Envoy was a good one. We did this big production at Burbank Airport and got the Warner Bros. jet. We got Jeff Bridges and a couple other actors, and we had this giant crew. Then the Burbank Fire Department kicked us out and we never shot one frame of film because we didn’t have the right permits.

  KIM LANKFORD: Shortly after we were at the Walnut house, I had been asked to do a gig with Ray Charles. It was a black-tie fundraiser and I was asked to sing with Ray Charles. Warren was fit to be tied. I was so upset that he couldn’t be happy for me, but he was put off that he wasn’t asked. In his view, he was the rock star, and I was a television actress. He could not be happy for me.

  He was so angry that I was going to be singing with Ray Charles. He started pulling my hair out, and I still had this gig to go to. I could not not go. Finally, I got in the car and left.

  He was getting stoned and drinking, and I just didn’t want to be a part of it anymore. My house was getting shot to bits, and what for? I didn’t go home again until he was gone. I had to leave my own house when he should have left.

  Then, he would not come to get his stuff. It was driving me crazy. One day, finally, I called his business manager, and I said I was putting the stuff in the garage, and if it wasn’t gone by a certain date I would call Goodwill. Someone came and got it.

  After The Envoy was released in 1982, Warren’s productivity withered. Kim had washed her hands of him. His ex-wife and daughter were living in Paris. His son was heading into his teenage years and had little use for a father who was usually too drunk to put a sentence together.

  WARREN’S INSCRIPTION ON THE INSIDE COVER OF HIS 1983 DIARY

  “everything is in flux”

  —Heraclitus

  Elektra/Asylum did have hopes of recouping the money they had advanced on The Envoy, so they sent Warren on a solo tour across the country. He and George traveled by car.

  March 15, 1983—Birmingham, Alabama—Old Town Music Hall

  “Gone with the Wind” TV-debuting in the dilapidated Hilton before I went on—The South shall rise again! Struggled with terrible sound, very funky saloon, but the audience was fantastic—I held on—threw in “Aberdeen, Mississippi” & that piano number Jackson showed me—I used an attorney’s office across the cobbled old street from the club—they had beverages, trays (George had whitefish for me in Ku Klux Klan country) in their swank conference room—would have been swell if they hadn’t trotted one partner after another in, progressively more sinister and Southern gothic (“You the one that wrote the song about lawyahs—Nobody trust us.”—just imagine my comfort)—to get drunk and stare at me. I withdrew successfully into my Sylvester Stallone character & commenced Karate exercises in the corner…After the show, a young couple approached me (politely) in the hotel lobby by the elevators. The man paid me a compliment that highlighted the tour: “Well, you must have a little South in you, ’cause you bad.”

  March 17, 1983—Houston

  A beautiful Baldwin…nasty violence in the alley during the show…I read about noble, brave Paul Getty’s condition in the newspaper in New Orleans airport today & I was shocked & saddened to tears…Strange ride home with promoter’s girl in back seat—“Your songs are about isolation…Are you Jewish?”…Ben brought along Randy Kershaw, who’d have been more delightful if he hadn’t persisted in laying impersonal Cajun swamp-jive on us (as to how his daddy would rip a dog’s head off, skin it, sell the fur & buy a bottle of whiskey). I told him I’d loved “Hey Mae” by Rusty & Doug—of course, I know about Hickory records, and a lot of old 50’s Nashville lore from the Everly Brothers…I jived back and told him “As how” it was “my plan” not to go into the swamp. Cat had long hair and long muff like a Chinese greybear—true Cajun royalty. (I remember a Bros. story about the Kershaws, speed, razor blades & puppy dogs in the bathroom of the Grand Ole Opry—laid that one on my team after our guests had left.) But, Ben offered to play anytime…

  Warren didn’t navigate well without female companionship, but his general demeanor at this point was not particularly attractive to most women. He opted for the sure-fire solution—he reconnected with the DJ from Philadelphia, who let him know she was still around, still available, still all his.

  GEORGE GRUEL: Sometimes Warren’s DJ girlfriend would come out on the road, but usually just Warren and I and a lot of cocaine. Warren hadn’t moved to Philadelphia permanently yet, but he was going to her apartment on Rittenhouse Square. She had the number-one radio show in Philadelphia. He would go back for a few days, and when she did come out they laughed a lot. She had a quick wit, and that seemed to be the basis for their relationship.

  March 21, 1983—Austin

  Gimme a fine old hippie bar like Clubfoot’s—Randy Davis left his friend James Crumley’s new book, “Dancing Bear”…Brendan Collins from Sitges visited after the show—we reminisced about ’75. Three military-looking men bluffed their way backstage, claiming to be journalists. Mutually stirred up combative adrenalin—I politely refused to discuss Roland & challenged their questions, but they were bad looking cats, one esp: his name was David Reeve—it turned out he was Special Forces & had enjoyed my stuff with his outfit, the “wild bunch” when they were training at Bragg. He said he “didn’t know if I was for real,” but that if it meant anything to me, he wanted to give me his Green Beret pin. He told me most of the “wild bunch” was left behind, his friends died in the jungle. His companions in Austin told me they knew I “wasn’t from this country”—?!—did I know what the emblem meant—I assured them I did—“De oppresso liber”—that means “to free the oppressed.” I was totally overwhelmed…I looked up & found David Reeve’s listing in the Austin directory & phoned him at 8 a.m. to try and tell him he’d given me the greatest honor of my life—I could barely talk (although I talked too much).

  Warren and George Gruel, from an appearance in France.

  GEORGE GRUEL: Warren liked to play practical jokes on his fans. The best one was when we were at the University of Wisconsin to tour with Z-Delux Band. He went onstage in front of this wholesome midwestern crowd and did a rousing version of “Werewolves of London,” first song, then he said, “Thank you, you’ve been a wonderful audience.” And he left the stage, probably for about ten minutes. They were applauding, then they booed, then there was silence. I finally said, “Let’s go do it.” It was an amazing show, the longest set he’s ever done. They got their money’s worth.

  GEORGE GRUEL: He had some strange fans. We were backstage after some show and this woman came back. She’d taken the Excitable Boy album cover and cut out eye holes and she made her husband wear it when they were making love. She told him it was the only way she could get off. There was another woman who opened her shirt and had Warren’s face tattooed on her breast. Later, he said, “George, that scared the hell out of me.”

  FIVE

  PLAY IT ALL NIGHT LONG

  Daddy’s doing Sister Sally

  Grandma’s dying of cancer now

  The cattle all have brucellosis

  We’ll get through somehow

  Sweet home, Alabama

  Play that dead band’s song

  Turn them speakers up full blast

  Play it all night long

  During a break from touring, Warren decided to move in with the disc jockey
from Philadelphia. Her star was rising there, and his was dimming in Los Angeles. During what became one of Warren’s darkest and drunkest periods, his family faded from his consciousness like a distant dream. He didn’t tell them he had moved and they had no idea how to reach him directly.

  ARIEL ZEVON: When I was six, Mom and I lived in Belleville, in Paris. It was like my dad disappeared from my life. I remember that I’d sit in a corner of my room, listening to his record and hugging the LP jacket and crying. Then, at school, I told tales in the schoolyard about how wonderful my father was…

  CRYSTAL ZEVON: Once after I’d tried to reach Warren, and his business manager refused to give me a phone number or address, I pushed the record button on my portable cassette player and taped Ariel crying while she listened to Warren’s music. I sent the tape and a drawing Ariel had made for his birthday care of his business manager. I included a note that I would forget about the five-hundred-dollar-a-month child support in exchange for an occasional postcard to his heartbroken six-year-old daughter. I got some illegible, furious response from Warren. Ariel got nothing. The only thing I could really make out was the return address—his business manager’s.

  We had been living in Paris for over a year, and other than one note to Ariel, I hadn’t heard a word from Warren, nor received a dime in child support. One day, I got this cryptic postcard. He wrote to “Old Girl” and said something about sitting on the square in Philadelphia drinking coffee and thinking about what should have been. No return address, no mention of the DJ or that he was actually living there.

  By moving to Philadelphia, Warren had effectively removed himself from the mainstream of his own existence; he was oblivious to what was going on with his own career back in Los Angeles. He was generally too drunk to answer the phone, so if anyone was trying to call him, he would have been the last to know.

  GEORGE GRUEL: I got to where I wasn’t doing as good a job of bookkeeping as I should have, and that was a sign that something was going awry. I got back to L.A. and talked to John Rigney, the business manager, and we kind of worked it out, but I got to the point where I was saying, man, I’ve got to live. There was nothing going on. There wasn’t another album planned. Nothing was lined up to go back in the studio. I don’t remember exactly how it went down, but it just fizzled out between Warren and me.

  May 27, 1983

  I roamed around the neighborhood & bought a Rolling Stone—which reported that I’d been “dropped” by E/A(in a piece explaining that the label was changing its name & logo, roster et al)—I was freaked and enraged—I called the N.Y. TV people & told them “they didn’t have enough money to pay me to work in a moral vacuum”—

  May 29, 1983

  I walked with J. D. Souther back to his hotel; he opted for a limo, of course…it’s hard to say how happy I’ve been to see him & how glad I am to have a real friend who understands me & whom I respect.

  ANDY SLATER, manager, eventual CEO of Capitol Records: I moved to California in September of 1983 to work at Frontline Management—primarily as the publicist and the head of creative services. That meant making album covers, and there was a new thing called MTV, and they said, “You’re a creative guy, you make the videos.”

  Of course, I wanted to be a manager and their roster of clients were all people that I had met or written about in my former position as a reporter for the Atlanta Journal-Constitution, or as a music critic for USA Today and writer for Rolling Stone. At one of the early meetings, they were doing a review of all of their clients and when they got to Warren, somebody said, “He’s 180,000 dollars in debt to the IRS, he has no record deal, he’s moved to Philadelphia, and he doesn’t want to work. We’re going to terminate him.” I stood up and said, “Terminate him? He’s the best artist we have.”

  There’s all this harrumphing and one of the principals said, “Slater, he’s 180,000 dollars in debt, he doesn’t live here anymore, he has no record deal, and he doesn’t want to work.” I said, “Yeah, but he’s a great artist. And he’s the best writer here.” This guy says, “Then you manage him.” I said, “Okay. I’ll manage him.” Here I am, twenty-five years old, and I’m going to manage Warren Zevon.

  I leave the meeting. I go into my office and get his number out of the Rolodex, I call him in Philadelphia, and I say, “Hi Warren, I’m Andy Slater from Frontline Management and I’m your new manager.” Click. Hangs up on me. So, I figure it’s a bad connection or something, and I call him back. I say, “Hi Warren, it’s Andy Slater again. I’m at Frontline, and I’m your new manager.” He kind of growls, “Oh, yeah?” I say, “Yeah.” He says, “Well, I was at the dentist today and I really can’t talk that good right now, so why don’t you call me back in a few days?”

  For about a week, I would call him every couple days, and he would give me some excuse. There would be some fumbling around in the background on the phone, and it sounded like he had other things going on. He wasn’t in the best state. I suspected that all the blurred speech was not due to novocaine from the dentist, but it didn’t really matter to me.

  Warren didn’t have a record deal, so I started calling some friends of mine in A&R positions, trying to get money to make a set of demos. I started having conversations with Warren about his record, and he got the sense that I knew a little bit about his music and was at least enthusiastic about the prospects of him returning to the world of recording and performing.

  I called up his agent, Steve Levine, and I called his business manager, and I tried to get a plan together to get him out of Philadelphia, get him on the road, and get him a record deal. After a bunch of phone calls and convincing Warren that he could trust me enough not to hang up on me, I got five thousand dollars from Michael Austin at Warner Bros. to make demos.

  My idea was to get these friends of mine to back him up. They were a young band called R.E.M. The guitar player, Peter Buck, and I went to college together, and we listened to Warren’s records in the mid-’70s. I called up Peter and I said, “Warren’s up in Philadelphia, and if I send him to Atlanta, could you guys back him up and get a demo made?” At the time, R.E.M. had nothing. They had one record out on IRS Records and a small cult following of mainly rock critics and uncrystallized college radio and television. Peter said, “Sure, man, send him down. I’ll pick him up at the airport, and we’ve got this great studio here, and whatever songs he’s got, we’ll record.”

  I called Warren and I said, “Look, we’re going to go to Atlanta and record with these guys.” I think Warren just wanted to get out of town that weekend, so he agreed to do it. You know, I was sending him a free ticket, and he had a hotel room and all that stuff.

  They recorded four songs. And at the end of the recording, Peter said, “You should come down and listen to the stuff. We’re going to play a show and maybe Warren’s going to get up and do something.” I showed up that night in Athens at the 40 Watt Club, where they were playing. I walk into the venue and I say hi to Peter, and Peter says, “Hey, how’re you doing, Andy?” I look at Warren and he looks at me, because the other guys that were standing there are all saying, “Hey, Andy, how are you?” I say, “Hey, Warren, how’s it going?” He kind of looked at me and he says, “Ah…ah…,” and he gave me a kind of icy stare with one eyebrow raised.

  I figured, well, maybe it’s just not the best time to talk to him. He’s about to go onstage. So, I kind of eased out of his way and out of the room. They played the show and afterward everybody was congregating backstage, drinking beer and having fun. I was there laughing with somebody, and I’m hanging around Warren, trying to talk to him, and I’m getting this strange vibe from him. I didn’t know what to make of it because I didn’t really know him. He’s like avoiding me. I’m thinking, well, maybe he just doesn’t want to be around some guy he perceives as the business guy.

  At one point, I’m standing in the corner of the dressing room and Mike Mills, the bass player from R.E.M., comes to me and says, “Andy Slater, back in Georgia, oh my God, isn’t that great.” Warre
n’s sitting about five feet from me, and he comes over, he puts both hands on my shoulders, and he goes, “You’re Andy Slater!” He had no idea who I was. So, that was my first meeting with Warren.

  CRYSTAL ZEVON: A few months after the postcard from Philadelphia, I picked up my phone one day, and it was Warren. He was in London with the DJ on tour or I don’t know what. He begged me to let him take Ariel back to the States with them. The idea of sending Ariel anywhere with his girlfriend was so repulsive to me that I actually thought he was joking at first. But Warren acted as if I was aware of everything that had been going on in his life, and the implication was that he had totally straightened himself out, and he lived this wholesome life, far removed from L.A. and rock and roll.

  All I knew was that he hadn’t been in touch with us and he owed me a ton of back child support, so it took me a while to soften. He swore he was going to make up what he owed me, and that becoming a father to his daughter was the most important amends he needed to make. I was about to leave on a six-week peace march across France, and Ariel was going to be in a summer camp in Chamonix while I was gone. Warren said he’d pick her up at camp, and he promised to buy her a round-trip ticket so she’d arrive back in Paris right after I did. He put his girlfriend on the phone, and she swore he was sober and that this would be a good experience. I wanted Ariel to know her father, so against all my better instincts, I agreed.

  ARIEL ZEVON: When I was in Philadelphia my dad was always watching horror movies and Rocky movies—the entire time I was there. I remember sleeping on the couch at night and being terrified of everything.