Post by MissChromeNun on Sept 18, 2016 15:25:47 GMT -6
They Said WHAT? Grace Slick, Ginger Baker, Butch Trucks, Jack Bruce, More Opine On Other Musicians
A month old, but I thought you guys might be interested.
A month old, but I thought you guys might be interested.
Jefferson Airplane’s Grace Slick on Jimi Hendrix:
“He probably represents as an individual the sixties more than anybody else if you’re talking about rock and roll. The Beatles and the [Rolling] Stones may represent it as bands. Obviously Martin Luther King and JFK represent the sixties overall, but if you’re talking about rock probably Jimi is the guy. The color, the clothes, the fact that he flipped from being for the war in Vietnam to against it within a year, his music, his stunning guitar playing, his showmanship.”
Cream’s Ginger Baker on heavy metal and show bands, like Kiss:
“These people that dress up in spandex trousers with all the extraordinary makeup – I find it incredibly repulsive, always have. I’ve seen where Cream is held responsible for the birth of that sort of thing. Well, I would definitely go for aborting [laughs]. I loathe and detest heavy metal. I think it is an abortion. When songs like that come on the radio, they immediately go off. A lot of these guys come up and say, ‘Man, you were my influence, the way you thrashed the drums.’ They don’t seem to understand I was thrashing in order to hear what I was playing. It was anger, not enjoyment – and painful. I suffered on stage because of that [high amplifier] volume crap. I didn’t like it then, and like it even less now. That whole Rock And Roll Hall Of Fame thing – at least half the people in there don’t have a place in any kind of hall of fame anywhere, in my opinion.”
The Doors John Densmore on Ginger Baker:
“Unique, really great and really full of himself, too. I did an interview with him one time and the guy asked Ginger, ‘What did you think of John’s drumming?’ And Ginger said, ‘Let me put it this way: We were The Cream.’ Well, screw you too [laughs]. Look, he punched out the cameraman in that documentary [Beware Of Mr. Baker]. But let me also say I stole a Ginger beat – just a couple of bars – in Hello I Love You. Robby [Krieger] said, ‘Why don’t you do something like Sunshine Of Your Love where Ginger turns the beat around?’ That was real cool, so I copped it! At the Rock And Roll Hall Of Fame induction ceremony, I said [to Ginger], ‘I thought you were supposed to be dead.’ And he replied, ‘I am, mate!’”
Allman Brothers Band’s Butch Trucks on today’s music, Lady Gaga:
“I love Lucille Ball. But you don’t call that Shakespeare. It’s just entertainment, you know. And if you like that, then go have a ball, have fun. There obviously are a hell of a lot of people that love Lady Gaga. But to me, she’s theatre of the absurd. And the more absurd it is, the bigger she gets. She’s done all kinds of things. She’s gotten pretty damn close to naked several times on stage. Don’t call that music. Nobody does. I don’t think even the people that go see it think it’s music. But they are entertained by it. And there’s nothing wrong with that.”
Cream’s late Jack Bruce on Led Zeppelin, Rolling Stones:
“I remember Jimmy Page from being a session musician. That’s why I never took Zeppelin seriously. They were a bunch of session musicians that we kind of looked down on. We looked down on everybody [laughs]. We looked down on Mick Jagger and Keith Richards early on when they used to come along and try to sit in with us. We’d tell them to piss off: ‘Go away, learn to play and then come back’ [laughs]. They had this idea we didn’t recognize as valid at the time – the kind of Chuck Berry approach to rock. I think Chuck Berry is great, by the way. But we were darker, more interested in the seedy side of the music, this real bluesy thing coming more from jazz. So in our stupid, arrogant way, we looked down on those people.”
“He probably represents as an individual the sixties more than anybody else if you’re talking about rock and roll. The Beatles and the [Rolling] Stones may represent it as bands. Obviously Martin Luther King and JFK represent the sixties overall, but if you’re talking about rock probably Jimi is the guy. The color, the clothes, the fact that he flipped from being for the war in Vietnam to against it within a year, his music, his stunning guitar playing, his showmanship.”
Cream’s Ginger Baker on heavy metal and show bands, like Kiss:
“These people that dress up in spandex trousers with all the extraordinary makeup – I find it incredibly repulsive, always have. I’ve seen where Cream is held responsible for the birth of that sort of thing. Well, I would definitely go for aborting [laughs]. I loathe and detest heavy metal. I think it is an abortion. When songs like that come on the radio, they immediately go off. A lot of these guys come up and say, ‘Man, you were my influence, the way you thrashed the drums.’ They don’t seem to understand I was thrashing in order to hear what I was playing. It was anger, not enjoyment – and painful. I suffered on stage because of that [high amplifier] volume crap. I didn’t like it then, and like it even less now. That whole Rock And Roll Hall Of Fame thing – at least half the people in there don’t have a place in any kind of hall of fame anywhere, in my opinion.”
The Doors John Densmore on Ginger Baker:
“Unique, really great and really full of himself, too. I did an interview with him one time and the guy asked Ginger, ‘What did you think of John’s drumming?’ And Ginger said, ‘Let me put it this way: We were The Cream.’ Well, screw you too [laughs]. Look, he punched out the cameraman in that documentary [Beware Of Mr. Baker]. But let me also say I stole a Ginger beat – just a couple of bars – in Hello I Love You. Robby [Krieger] said, ‘Why don’t you do something like Sunshine Of Your Love where Ginger turns the beat around?’ That was real cool, so I copped it! At the Rock And Roll Hall Of Fame induction ceremony, I said [to Ginger], ‘I thought you were supposed to be dead.’ And he replied, ‘I am, mate!’”
Allman Brothers Band’s Butch Trucks on today’s music, Lady Gaga:
“I love Lucille Ball. But you don’t call that Shakespeare. It’s just entertainment, you know. And if you like that, then go have a ball, have fun. There obviously are a hell of a lot of people that love Lady Gaga. But to me, she’s theatre of the absurd. And the more absurd it is, the bigger she gets. She’s done all kinds of things. She’s gotten pretty damn close to naked several times on stage. Don’t call that music. Nobody does. I don’t think even the people that go see it think it’s music. But they are entertained by it. And there’s nothing wrong with that.”
Cream’s late Jack Bruce on Led Zeppelin, Rolling Stones:
“I remember Jimmy Page from being a session musician. That’s why I never took Zeppelin seriously. They were a bunch of session musicians that we kind of looked down on. We looked down on everybody [laughs]. We looked down on Mick Jagger and Keith Richards early on when they used to come along and try to sit in with us. We’d tell them to piss off: ‘Go away, learn to play and then come back’ [laughs]. They had this idea we didn’t recognize as valid at the time – the kind of Chuck Berry approach to rock. I think Chuck Berry is great, by the way. But we were darker, more interested in the seedy side of the music, this real bluesy thing coming more from jazz. So in our stupid, arrogant way, we looked down on those people.”
Thank you for sharing!