The Magnificent Others with Billy Corgan - Simon Kirke | The Magnificent Others with Billy Corgan

Episode Date: November 19, 2025

Billy Corgan sits down with Rock & Roll Hall of Famer Simon Kirke (Free, Bad Company) for a sharp, funny, and revealing dive into 50 years of rock majesty. Simon traces his journey from growing up in poverty to the lightning-bolt moment drums grabbed him, the fateful coin flip that led him to Paul Kossoff and the creation of “All Right Now,” and then to forming Bad Company with Paul Rodgers and Mick Ralphs. Together, they dive into the grooves of Stax vs. Motown, the genius of Al Jackson Jr., Ringo Starr, and Charlie Watts, and the art of serving the song rather than showing off chops. Along the way, Simon shares stories about Jimmy Page, John Bonham, Steve Marriott, and Queen. It’s a masterclass in rock history and rhythm. Subscribe to the Magnificent Others YouTube channel: https://www.youtube.com/@BillyCorganTMO?sub_confirmation=1 Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoicesSee Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

So we got a TV, a black and white TV. And the very first thing that I saw when the thing, you turned it on and that little white dot opened up, was this thing called, a program called All That Jazz. And it featured big bands. Yeah. All in black and white. So I'm riveted by this.

And the drummer and the lights were shining off the symbols. And then he did a... Br-r-R-R-Barr-Dat. He said, well, it's funny. He should say that because he's getting a sack tonight, which is last night. And we are auditioning tomorrow at this same place. So I tossed a coin.

I did, I swear to God. We came off stage to the sound of our own footsteps. A lot of space in that, man. A lot of space, a lot of hatch. We swunk a lot of hash. Congratulations, Rock and Roll Hall of Fame. Thank you. Well deserved.

Thank you. Mr. Simon Kirk. Billy Colgan. Thank you for being here. What's the best drummer joke you ever heard? Oh, it's kind of. but I'm, you know, it's worth it. We have time.

It's worth it. So there's a drummer sitting in the rehearsal room waiting for the others in the band. And it goes on and no one's arrived. He's sort of playing, practicing. And after about 35 minutes, it says, fuck it. And he throws down his sticks. He said, I'm fed up with being a drummer, waiting for the others. So he rushes down to the mall and goes into the music store.

And he goes up to the county. He says, I want to be a guitarist like that bloke from Food Fighters. I want a custom gold, Lesbill gold chop. I want diamond encrusted picks and the best leather strap and the best strings. And the guy at the county says, you're a drummer, aren't you? He says, why? Is it because I'm doing this on the counter? He says, no, no.

This is, the music store is next door. This is a Dunkin' Donuts. da-da we'll overdub the symbol craft all right in your illustrious musical life I need to start here

tell me about Mr. Lane oh my lord mr. Lane wow what a great question Mr. Lane was a bus driver in my high school when I was brought up on the border of Wales

and our school was about six miles from where I lived in the country and this bus driver after about a year, I was about 14. And as I was getting off the bus, he said, oh, I want a word with you. I thought, oh, what have I done?

Caught me smoking in the back or whatever. He says, I hear you play drums. I said, well, I do, yeah. And he said, well, I have, this is before disco, but he had a stack of 45s, a couple of turntables, and he used to go around all the village halls playing, you know, the songs of the day. And he said, I think it would be a good idea if you brought

little drum kit and played alongside, you know, and I was like, whoa, well, I'll have to ask my parents. And they agreed as long as it didn't affect my homework. And I did that for about two and half years, Billy. Wow. And that's where I've got what I consider to be a pretty good sense of time, because in one minute you'd be playing Can't Buy Me Love by the Beatles and baby love by the Supremes and then waltz with Jim Rees, he'll have to go. And then a Valita, which is, you know, some kind of weird tuba pumping umpah umpah. So I did that for two hours a night for nearly two years. It seems, I mean, maybe it's a stretch what you tell me, but it seems like it's so in the

foundational route of your playing, you know, because the great, and I mean this is the ultimate a compliment. The great pocket drummers, they have such a love of rhythm. They don't necessarily have a love of the drums. They have a love of rhythm. And it's shown up in their playing. That's a good distinction. Yeah. Well, I think it's important because people get lost on what drummers are good at. Most of the popular records historically are played by guys who are really great rhythm players. They may not be the most flashy chop guys, but they've got the backbeat that makes the kids want. to dance to sort of paraphrase. Well, that brings me to the three biggest influences

in my career were Al Jackson Jr., the number one from the Stax Band, Booker T in the MGs. Of course, Ringo, who I had the pleasure with touring alongside in the All-Star band, and Charlie Watts, who was not flashy at all. He says, I'm not good enough to be flashed. Didn't care about any of that. You know, he didn't.

He played that. jazz grip like Stuart like Cochran. And then the weird always lifting. And the weird mechanical. But he had this beautiful backbeat and he just, those three guys laid down a rhythmic foundation. And I like the

distinction between a rhythm and actual, you know, beat. I had a question about Al Jackson and so you, no, but it's fine because stacks in the American canon is in a way underappreciated because Motown gets all the glossy love.

But musicians are very aware of how important Stax is. And I think it's interesting because a lot of guys from your generation, they were attracted to Motown. Obviously, the Beatles were huge on Motown. But a lot of the guys who ended up playing like heavy blues, they tended to be more Stax guys. Correct. Can you speak on that a bit?

Well, I think the difference between Motown and Stacks is that Motown had a huge roster of artists and they were a little more flamboyant I mean they had that wonderful rhythm section James Jameson on bass, Benny Benjamin but they had a much bigger roster they used strings, they used flutes whereas Stacks was a bit more muscular

always you know with that wonderful Al Jackson and they had maybe a handful Otis, Sam and Dave, Wilson Picky, you know, know, so they never really made the inroads, certainly into England and Europe, that Motown did. Oh, I see. So was it like if you were a kid listening around time? Stax was a little bit more of a secret. Stax, when I first heard Otis Redding, it was Dock of the Bay, and it was the week. But he'd already died, right?

He'd already died. And Steve Kropper said the most, the toughest thing it was for him was to mix Dock of the Bay the week after Otis had passed. But I was in just finishing high school I was 18 so it would be 1967, 68 And I heard the sit In the morning sun I thought oh that's nice

And I only heard that sort of side stick It didn't really Until Al started branching out into the snare And the full thing Oh that's great But then after that There was a bit of a lull

Until midnight hour came in Wilson Pickett And I heard that back beep for the first time And I went, whoa. But at the same time, Motam was coming up with Marvin Gay and the Supremes, Smoky Robinson, The Miracles. And they started kind of overtaking. They were more pop.

Right. I guess that's it. They were more pop than stacks. Yeah. But every time, before I went on to play on stage, I would put on the best of Otis Redding. And Sam and Daylor. Lovely. Yeah.

It's interesting because my father was a musician, and never really had any success, but one of the bands that he had for a while, the drummer was one of Wilson Pickett's touring drummers. Okay. A southern drummer. And so when I was five years old, I go down and listen to playing the basement,

and this guy had that heavy foot backbeat thing. Yeah, yeah. So I was always conscious of that music because my father loved that music. So connecting the dots with you on Al Jackson, it made a lot of sense because not a lot of guys know how to play that. That I don't even, it's even like there's the English version of the shuffle, but there's the American version of the shuffle.

See, you know what I'm talking about, right? Yeah, yeah, yeah, very good. Well, Mick Fleetwood. Because, like, the English version of the shovel to me is, I can I give his name, the drummer for your eye heap. Oh, and Lee Kerslake. It's more of a rock lean. It's like, cordon, like, can't get enough.

But your version is a little bit more stacks, right? Sonny Freeman was B.B. King's drummer. Yeah. And me and Mick Fleetwood, his good friend of mine, agree that Sonny was the king of the shuffle. And with Sunny, everything was including the left hand and the bass drum, not quarter notes on the bass drum. There's that groove, though.

The whole thing, you know. There's that groove, though. Yeah. Because it's interesting to me how English musicians interpreted American music and American musicians interpreted English music. Well, you gave us Wilson Pickett, and we gave you Benny Hill. Is that a fair train? Maybe Benny Hill, his own genius, though.

He is his own genius, yeah. I'm curious because I was doing my poke around on your life. What did your parents do? My mom was a stay-at-home housewife who had an amazing record collection. I won't go too far into it. No, tell me. She was very nice. And she was a bit of a mystery, my mom, because, number one, she was illegitimate.

Okay. Which back in the 20s, I mean, the 19-20s was huge. Yeah. So she grew up with this kind of. a stigma and she, I didn't know until she passed away. And my older brother told me, you know, mum was a really good pianist. She got to be kidding me. She apparently played real beautiful. And she had this amazing record collection, which she amassed over her teenage years and 20s, which she had to give up when she moved to the country, where we lived very

primitively. We had no electricity, no running water. It was great. So what did your dad do? Dad was a bus driver. Okay. Yeah, he was a bit of a dark horse, my dad, but yeah, and he's a bit of a a Philistine. He didn't like music. He wrote poetry, and I found a book of his poems years ago, which kind of moved me to tear because he was a bit of a closet, you know, poet laureate. I was amazed. Dad, you wrote this? Yeah. So because you were talking about growing up in this, you know, in a form of poverty, what happened that changed? Because at some point, you know, you start to become aware of mass media. Good question.

You know, the radio, the television, that something changed economically in the family? Electricity. But I mean, did your dad get a better gig or? Well, we got what's called a council house, which is a state-owned dwelling. and you go on the list. And we moved from this cottage up on the hill in the country with no electricity of running water. And we finally got the news that we've been accepted

into this state-owned house, which had electricity. And within a month, and I'll never forget mum scraping the wall and clicking the light switch, and the light went on. She almost burst into tears. So we got a TV, a black and white TV. And the very first thing that I saw when the thing, you turn it on and that little white dot opened up, was this thing called a program called All That Jazz. And it featured big bands.

All in black and white. So I'm riveted by this. And the drummer and the lights were shining off the symbols. And then he did a blast. And I'm like, me, sideways. And that was it. That was a lightning bolt. Sorry for my French.

No, no. This is a podcast and I'm getting all wound up. But that was the lightning bolt where I went, that's what I want to be. And you were how old when this lightnings? 13. It's funny. For me, it was 14. Was it?

Yeah, same. I saw a guy playing the guitar. I saw, sorry, I didn't need to. No, no, no. I saw a guy playing the guitar. I thought, isn't it funny? Yeah. That was it.

Wow. Because I saw the trombone, the saxophone, eh. And the sticks. And, of course, it was not. Well, you intuitively knew the drummers get all the girls. Yeah. Now. How do you...

I have to interject. Please. That I have to thank this radio station that was actually set up for the GIs in Europe, who was stationed after World War II. Was this radio for Europe? No, Luxembourg. Radio Luxembourg, 208. And it was in this tiny country sandwiched between France and Belgium called Luxembourg. It's about the size of this studio.

But they had this amazing station that played. stacks and tamil and blues, catering mainly to the Black Truths. Yeah, in Germany and France. And so I went out to the hedgerows and I bought, I cut a pair of sticks, which is about that big. I had no idea how long sticks were. 16 inches, you probably know by now. So I had these little things and I put a couple of books on my bed and had a little transistor radio with an earpiece and I tune into, you know, like,

and gentlemen, please walk. And suddenly you'd hear. Yeah. You know, and I play along on my tins and books. Yeah. That's it. That was my education. How did you float down to London at some point?

Good question. Well, the big stepping stone for me was I wanted to leave school early. And being a parent now myself, I know that it was a tough decision for my parents to say, no. You're not going to leave at six years. you're going to leave at 18 because there are two grades of exams in high school. There's O levels, it was called ordinary levels, which are, yeah, not bad. And there's advanced level, A levels. And if you get two or three of those, you can get into a good college.

Right. So I wanted to leave when I got my O levels and go down to London. No, no, no, no. Because if it all fails and you come back with a bunch of O levels, you get into technical schools. So they made me stay the extra. two years, which I did. And when at 18, I said, right, I want to go to London. And they said, okay, you've got two years.

You can still go to college at 20 if it all fails. Okay, so they supported the decision. Well, my dad didn't, but my mom did because it was a musician in her that said, go on, give it a shot. Because the two saddest words, two of the saddest words are, if only. Yeah. And I wanted to give it a shot. So I went down to London. And this was at the height of the blues boom

Yeah In England where you know Halber King and Beebe and Freddie Josh White Howlin Wolf was coming over They couldn't get arrested in this country But they'd go to Europe In these package tours

And they'd sell out the album And also was they were being treated well They were They were shocked I mean these great musicians Which are all legends now They couldn't believe how well They were treated in Europe

And the UK Or in America They were treated like bugs And then the saxon tour came in 67, I believe, or 66. I interviewed Sam of Sam and Dave. We recently passed away and we talked about that tour. Yeah. Oh, I never saw it, but wow. There's video, I think, of it. Yeah. I know there's a live record of it. Well, Otis said never put me on after Sam and Dave again. I was mother because they were so, they were something else.

Yeah, yeah. Right. So you float down to London. I went down to London and I had two years so the clock was ticking and I would answer ads in the melody maker which is the primo musical newspaper in England at the time and drummer wanted la la la at the same time I'm doing car washing and construction and working on building sites construction site and I answered several auditions and I never got in any of them really no no except for one and it was a toss-up between me and this other drummer who was the son of the manager. And the band was called Love Affair, which was this pop band that had quite a big success.

So I was really disappointed when they phoned me and said, sorry, Simon, you're not in. The manager's son is in. But anyway, so cut to the 23rd month of my 24 allotted months. And I'm thinking, it ain't going to happen? Yeah. Oh, fuck it. That's a long time. It's a long time.

And when you're young in musical time, that's a long time. Yeah, because I knew that I was going to honor. I gave it a shot. So I picked up the Managed Lakeer, and they're in the ads for clubs, and there was a lot of blues clubs in those days in London. Was this band called The Black Cat Bones? I thought, what's a great name? Never heard of them.

So, but they were in. Were they looking for a drummer? No. Oh, you saw an ad for them to play. I just liked the name. Oh, okay. So if you imagine London like a huge American football, I'm here and this club is here, like it's a 45-minute subway ride.

Oh, what do I do? So I tossed a coin. I did, I swear to God. And it came down ahead and I thought, and I went to this club and I walked in and this band were playing. They were pretty good. They were doing like killing floor and um, ba-da-don-don-down-down. A born-on-a-bad on a bad sign. I thought, wow. The band were okay, but the guitarist was fantastic. Little guy, it was Paul Koso. Yeah. And during their break, they had a little two minute, two 45 breaks, two 45 minutes. He came to the bar and I had me half a pint of whatever. I said, hey man, can I buy a drink?

He said, yeah, yeah. I said, you play so well. You were really great, but you're drummers. And I'm not normally a pushy guy, but. Something made me say that. He said, well, it's funny he should say that because he's getting the sack tonight. It's his last night. And we are auditioning tomorrow at this same place. So if you want to come, so to go all the way back, and then the next day, all the way back again. I hope he didn't flip a coin.

And there was another drummer there. I played a shuffle and a little bit of a slow blues. And I got the gig. And that was for about six months. I was on Cloud 9 because I was earning months. it was a semi-pro band. We were playing five or six nights a week. Wow.

And then after about six months, Paul Kosoff came to me and said, look, I'm tired of playing this, you know, the same old, it was good, but it wasn't really

what he wanted to do. But I've met this singer who's in a band called Brown Sugar. He's leaving, and he wants to, you know, perform a band with me. You know,

you want to play drums. And that was the beginning a free. Yeah. Did you Paul Kossoff, I mean, as a guitar player, I mean, he's a legend, you know, incredible. Incredible. Like, very few guys to me, and I'm speaking as a snobby guitar player now, very few guys can play straight blues or blues-infused rock and stand out. And he's one of those guys. And I don't know how they do it,

because I can't do it. Because, you know, every, guitar playing, you've been in those jams. As soon as you starting the blues jam, everybody sounds like everybody. Yeah. You've got to be really a Johnny winner or a Kossah. Stevie Ray. Or, um, what's his, Peter Green? Oh, you know, somehow, when they play the blues, somehow it sounds different. It just rises

about it. I don't know what that is because I couldn't do it. My daddy was really good at the blues, so I have a respect for, at least in my own world, I could understand that I couldn't play the blues as good to my dad. Oh, wow. You know what I mean? And he loved the blues and he loved Albert King, so he was kind of a blues purist.

But Kossop's one of those guys, it really sticks out. Well, what happened when the light bulb came on for me, when you work alongside people, and I had a basic knowledge of guitar. I play guitar much better now than I did all those years ago. I kind of took him for granted. You know, we're playing alongside. Sure.

Yeah. He's just your mate. He's just your mate. He played with him. 11s, by the way, really thick strings. Stevie Ray. Steve Ray, too. Yeah.

So high action too? And a high action. I don't know how he did it because he was only a little bloke. I don't know what it is about those guys. They want the high action and they want the heavy strings. I mean, I think it's all about kind of forcing the note out. Yeah. So we were playing with Blind Faith at Madison Square.

We did a couple of gigs. You fly over and you're playing Madison Square Garden and opening for Blind Faith. Hello. I never saw such a big. You've got to remember. It's still a big game. It's a big, and it's the old one. This is the old one.

It's about 10 blocks south of the one that is now, but it's still 20,000 bloody seats. So when we played a little club called the Blue Angel in Surrey, and two nights later, we walk into this and we hear Bonnie and Delaney doing a sound check because it was free Bonnie Delaney and Blindfield. And I saw Jim Keltner, the first real drummer I'm going. I'm laughing because it's just like, it's so like. Right. You're in it now.

And so we did three or four shows, and one night, we'd done our little set, and one road he came and he said, Eric wants to come in. Yeah. So what do you mean, Eric Clapton? That Eric. Yeah. He said, he wants it. He's all right. I see, you're kidding me.

Of course. So he walks in, he goes up the cast, he said, you know, pats him on the back. He said, how do you do that vibrato? And, course, so he says, you're kidding me. the greatest guitarist in the world and you're asking, yeah, you do it so slowly. So they start talking guitar speak and, you know, we're just like,

and I think that's when I realized, God, Cosso really is good. Ah. Because he's just your guy, right? Yeah, yeah. Yeah. And then, of course, once I got playing guitar myself, I realized just how he was.

He's really, he's one of those guys that really stands out. If people don't know Paul Kossop's playing, he's one of those guys It's just, he never disappoints as a guitar player. Well, he's solo in All right now. Yeah. You know, Rolling Stone, they have, you know, the greatest.

I have a story for you on that. Okay. I have an insider story for you on that. Really? Yeah. And I believe All Right Now came in around 30 or 40, one of the greatest guitar. I think he should have been in the top five. But anyway, when he did it, you got to remember back in those days, we would just had a 16 track.

Yeah. So I believe he took the solo three times. And it starts in the middle of A, you know, around on the fifth fret, and gradually winds its way right up above the 12th. And we're going, yeah, come on, you little, come on, yeah. And he comes in, we'd give him a hug, yeah, go on, do one more. So I think we spliced two together. Okay, this is, I know a story.

I'm glad I could contribute to this. So I worked with Roy Thomas Baker in 2006 and 2007. God bless Roy's pastor. Yeah. And... Of course, we knew about Roy doing Queen and the cars and Mali Crew and stuff like this. But one day I was, I don't know, I was on the Internet, I realized that he had produced that record. That fire and water.

And I came in, I said, holy, boy, you did all right now, too. And very Roy Thomas Baker, he goes, yeah. And he makes this, like, sad face. And I'm like, what's to be sad about? He goes, every time I hear the record, I wish I could do is, you can, you can, You can hear his voice. Yeah, yeah. I know it's like very Ponzi, Roy.

Yeah. He said, every time I hear that record, I hear where I didn't get the punch right on the solo. Get out of here. And if you listen very closely, somewhere in the middle, you can hear, because of the old recorders, they didn't punch in very well. Right, right. You can hear a little clunk. Millie second. You have to really listen for it.

And he said he punched, he punched Paul in somewhere in there. And I've heard it. Wow, wow. So that's my, that's my contribution to your, to your lore. That's a good one. Yeah. You guys, so you guys had put out a couple records. Didn't do great.

No. Obviously, it's a fire, fire and water. Then you guys just blow the hell up off the record. What happened was we did what's called the transit circuit. Transit is an old sort of a van. And we'd go in our little van with all the gear in the back. I saw, I saw this somewhere. Paul was the driver, right?

Paul was the driver. Yeah. He was your only driver. He was the only driver. And he'd have this, you know, he'd have a little shiggy guy. And we have to talk to him to keep him awake. Hey, Paul, wake up. And so we went all over England and Scotland and a little bit of Europe, France, Belgium, Holland.

And we amassed this sort of ground fan base. And, you know, we got to be a really, really good club band. And so what happened was with All Right Now was we came off stage to the sound of our own footsteps because we had this, the main free groove was, you know, it was kind of a sort of head rocking, but not, you know, it was not lively. A lot of space in that, man. A lot of space, a lot of hash. We swunked a lot of hash.

So we were at this university in the north of English. And we came off to the stage Like that was it And we had to walk through the crowd To get the dressing room They weren't at the back of the stage So it was like, excuse me Excuse me

Yeah, sorry And we get to the dressing room We said fuck We need a song That people can dance to you As simple as that And another lightning bolt Hit Andy Fraser

In that dressing room And he says Oh right now Baby it's on We go oh that's good Really? Yeah, I swear to God. And he had to da, da, da, da, those three notes already. And him and Paul Rogers, who were the main songwriting team, went off.

And the next, I think the next week, we did a sound check. And this is what happened. We were listening. Me and Paul Kossov used to have these listening sessions. In fact, the four of us would have listening sessions of an album of the week that we would like. And the year before all right now, honky tonk woman came out in open, G. Bump, bong.

And I didn't know at the time it was open G without that bottom-oose string. But that kind of lit a fire under Paul Kossoff bum. And he slid it up to A and they go, da-b-b-bam, bum. It's funny how things, you know, germinate. So we honed it and played it and we finally debuted it at a gig in the north of England where we couldn't fail. We were very popular. And the place went nuts. It went, no, it went.

And off it went. And honestly, Billy, it became a bit of an albatross around on it. Because we couldn't follow it up. We had this huge global hit. I see, yeah. And it was great because suddenly we were playing different countries. Yeah, it's the Isle of White, 600,000 plus people. Yeah, yeah, that's another story.

That's a great story. But, yeah. So we were the flavor of that particular month in July of 70. I think it was 70. And they said, would you like to appear, you know, on the same line that was Hendricks, Janice Joplin, the band. Oh, we're there, man, we're there. So they flew us in, and we're supposed to go on at 8 on Saturday night, which is the Marquis.

This is Isla White? Yeah. And we flew from our little hotel on the west end of the island, and we flew over, first time in a helicopter. And we looked down, we see the sea of what I thought were ants all over the place. They said, that's the crowd. And then right there about the size of a postage stamp was the stage. So anyway, we get there, and it's about 5 o'clock. We're supposed to go on at 8, a bit nervous, have a little puff, a little sip of something.

The hours go by and by. Everyone's running over time until like 10 o'clock at night. Our manager comes in and says, you're not going on tonight. No, everyone's running over. By the way, on Saturday night, Sly and the Family Stone, took the stage at four o'clock in the morning. So he said, you're going to go on tomorrow, Sunday, 1 o'clock. Best thing he ever did for us.

We flew home back to the hotel. But when we came out on Sunday morning, got to the site at noon, we went on at 1 o'clock, we were energized, the crowd was energized, and we just blew it out in the park. Wow. Yeah. That's cool. That was the Isle of Wight. So when you, two things.

I get what you're saying about not following it up. But what was the what was the aesthetic in the band? Because, you know, some bands were pure blues. You know, there was that whole vibe. Sure. And listening to your music through the years, it's not a commercial band.

No. It's a band that's just say, hey, we want to do what we want to do, play, do it our way. And it holds up. I mean, the music is very credible. Obviously, Paul's an incredible a singer as well.

But what was the internal thought in the band? Well, all right now filled a void, and it ticked a particular box. All right, we've got a pop hit. Now, let's really, and it's enjoyable, and I still enjoy playing it to this day. But it didn't define Free. Free was a, I guess you could call us a progressive blues rock band. Because the blues was really the foundation of all our music, you know. So when we couldn't follow all right now

We had a song called Steeler, The Steeler, which was great But it was that loping beat It didn't chart, the album didn't chart And we were kids and we were like, well, fuck that And we'll break up I didn't say that. Paul Rogers and Annie Frageson were breaking the band up And we were barely in our 21

Paul Kossom was 90 and we suddenly were going, let's just have a break, come back in six months, which you couldn't really do in those days. No, it wasn't like that. You know, nowadays, now it would be a business strategy.

Yeah, you know, bands release albums every two or three years now. Back then, you know, two a year. So Island Records, you know, and I don't want to go on about it because I know more about addiction

than I ever did back then. And Paul Kossoff, became addicted to pills. And he was starting to show signs of that when free split. And it really sent him into a downward spiral without Paul, Rogers and Andy. And he got really bad and very downhearted, started doing lots of pills. So six, nine months later, we reformed for him. And I didn't know, I don't mind.

saying, I'm in recovery myself. I don't, I abuse substances. But back in those days, addiction was something you swept under the rug. You know, you didn't deal with it. You were a pariah if you were addicted to alcohol or pills or coke or whatever. Well, you also, I think maybe that crowd, you were seen as weak, right? Is that it? You were seen as weak. Yeah, absolutely. Because you couldn't handle your drink or even, especially in a drinking culture like the UK. Yeah, yeah. You can't handle your drink. Yeah, yeah. What are you? Some, pussy or something. Yeah, yeah, exactly. But Eric, Eric was great because Eric was the first person of publicly, Clapton, obviously, put his hand up and say, you know, I'm a junkie, I'm an addict.

And he was using this, the, um, this called the box invented by Dr. Meg Patterson. Okay. Which gave an electric shot, which sounds horrible nowadays. Um, but it helped him get off. and he reached out to Koss, because he had a little, you know, and he said, look, you know, go and see Meg Patterson, famous doctor, but he poo-poohed it, and he just got worse and worse. So the reunion of Free didn't last very long, and it led to some horrible. So Rogers had his own issues on, Paul Kossop has his own issues. Yeah.

And then you guys are trying to kind of bake it. Well, we reunited for the wrong reason. He should have gone to rehab. and to this day I kind of blame Island Records for not for not pulling him by the scruff of the net and putting him in rehab because I really think he could have made it but the culture back in 1972 just wasn't around. Nowadays there's a meeting every block it's much more in the open

so anyway he's continued to spiral and free broke up again Yeah. And we did go our own ways and we and poor formed bad company. Before we set aside free, we talk about your other small band. I was listening to some of the music last couple days, and I thought, oh, this is interesting. Because I'm a big fan of Steve Marriott. And I came very late to the Steve Marriott party. And what I mean by that is

Humble Pie was sort of big in America A couple hit 30 days in the whole Great band But who Humble Pie and who Steve Marriott was In music never translated Into America into a message They were just another band with a couple songs Right

But I'm listening to you guys in the time When Free's still up there, right? And I'm thinking I wonder how Steve Mary This is just totally off the top of my head. I wonder how Steve Marriott felt about free. It's funny you to say. So I start Googling around as you do,

and I'll let you pick it up from there. Well, when Paul decided to leave the band of Free Splinter finally, our manager at the time said, why did me get another singer? So how are you going to fill Paul Rogers' boot? Steve Marriott. And Steve is an incredible singer.

Unbelievable. Oh, a little 120-pound dripping wet, five-foot-fall. But for our generation, same thing with Kurt Cobain. Yeah. You'd look at him and say, how does that sound come out of that little body? Yeah, that's a skinny little thing. That's the same thing with Cobain. You would watch him on stage and you couldn't believe.

No. And I think that must have been this. I never saw Marya Live, but watching the, even going back to small faces, what a voice. What a voice. Well, we toured our first package tour, because, Back in those days, there was a thing called Package Tour, which was taken the leaf out of Stacks, who had, you know, that wonderful package tour

that went all over Europe, was free. We had 20 minutes. The Crazy World of Arthur Brown, fire with the helmet. Gina Washington, no, our Crazy World of Brother Brown, Gina Washington, Joe Cocker. Okay, nice.

The small faces in the who. Not a bad bill. All on one. So we got to see Marriott at his peak every no. every night. And he was only going up for, what, 20, 30 minutes. So he was yelling at it. Yeah, yeah. Wonderful pitching. Such a soulful voice. Anyway, he came to my house when Paul had made an exit. And... But can I stop me one second? Yeah, sure. But he was critical of free. Like, there was a bit of kind of a weird jealousy there, right? I don't know.

Oh, maybe. No, apparently what I read, and of course it's the internet, was he said negative stuff about you guys and he later apologized. Oh, all right. He kind of felt bad. But I can see why because you guys were a little younger. We were. And in a way, you had the breakthrough that he never had.

Yeah, yeah. Well, three were kind of shackled by poor Kosso's addiction. We only completed two tours of America. Yeah. We were slated to do five and three of them were canceled because of Costa's addiction.

So we never, we were never, we never, we never allowed ourselves. Yeah, he never. It allowed us off to give it a big shot. Otherwise, I think Free would have been much bigger. Yeah. Because we were at that great little band that could, but never did. Yeah. So along comes Humble Pie, same lineup, great guitarist, Frampton.

One of the most underrated guitar. And Marriott and the great singer, and Jerry was a great drummer. And they were just a great band, but they just, there's something they didn't really click. But that's a good point. So anyway. So it comes to your house. He comes to my house and it's about 11 in the morning. Yeah.

And I have a little boat house at the bottom of my garden where my studio is. And he says, oh, it's fine. Good to meet him, mate. La, la, la, la. What time do the pubs open? I said, oh, 11.30, they're still open now. He said, well, I'll come back in a minute. I just want to grab a pint.

So he disappears for, you know, 20 minutes. Come back. Half an hour later. I'm just going to go to those. the public and I'm just getting over Paul Kossoff with his addictions and here's Stevie it's one o'clock and he's already half cut yeah so I told the manager it ain't gonna work it's not gonna oh wow and I think he told merit sorry guys and that started the enmity oh okay that that makes it make a bit more sense yeah did you uh I only ask you because I saw this recently I was watching an interview with Glenn

he was of Deep Purple fame. Great player. And he was talking about when he first came into Deep Purple, how there was talk that before they got Coverdale, they wanted Paul Rogers. Is that a true story? Yeah, it's true. I don't think he auditioned. Yeah.

But he was approached and he turned them down. I doubt they would ask him to audition because... No. You're one of those things like, do you want the king? Well, who's going to follow Ian Gillen at that? No. Only a guy like with Paul Rodgers. Well, there was a different style.

I mean, purple in their heyday, fantastic band. But they were the kings or the forerunners or precursors to heavy metal. And Ian was one of those, you know, so almost operatic before Freddie. I like your, I like your. And Paul was more blues, more Otis, you know. So it wouldn't have worked. I'm curious because on paper it says that you and Paul Rogers go on and form that company. But that only happens because you know and I get it in reverse.

People tend to focus on the lead singer, whether the lead singer is the band or not. It's right. People tend to focus on the lead singer because that's the face of the band. Sure. And I'm sure Paul, just like we're talking about Rogers, would have had innumeral opportunities as a solo artist, whatever. So the fact that he goes and starts another band with you, I was like, okay, they must have had an interesting relationship.

Because that's usually where if Paul Rogers was about Paul Rogers, he would have bolted on you and gone and done whatever and made it his world. Yeah. But he wanted you and him to carry on. Yes. Is that accurate? I pretty, not 100%. The story of the formation of bad company,

just going back a little bit, going through that sort of forged in that fire of free, you know, kind of bonded us. You know, we were experiencing the demise of our little band that became so big and we loved each other. But when Paul Kosoff started spiraling out of control, me and Rogers kind of bonded on a personal level. Andy Fraser kind of went his own way.

So when I called Paul in Spring of 73, he said, I've been in Brazil just trying to get my head straight away from the mess of three. I said, hey, Paul, what you're up to? And he said, well, I've met this great guy from Motta who, Paul, Mick Ralph's, and we want to form a band. So it was mainly Mick and Paul. Paul had formed a band called Peace, and they were opening from Motta Huple on a tour of England. Oh, okay. And Mick was getting disenchanted with Ian Hunter, and he wanted to go his own way. And he had a little cassette of this song called Can't Get Enough.

And it was a little Lindrum machine, and this open-sea tuning where the neck of the guitar is like, because it's so tense, you know, and he played this open sea, bam, bam, bam, bam. And Paul said, this is a fucking hit, man. And Mick told me, when he started singing in that, dressing room along to the demo. The hair's on his back of his neck. It's a classic.

Yeah. So he said, look, would you want to come and play drums? Absolutely. So it was Mick and Paul really came up with bad companies. Yeah. No, because it's just, I just, I know too well how musicians think, right? Yeah. So at least I appreciate it from a fan point of view that, that you guys

had enough of a relationship that you want to continue that relationship. Definitely. I'm trying to find the right way to phrase the question. Was it deliberately intended that bad company would be a more commercial band? Was that in the roots of the thinking from the get-go or it just kind of go that way? No. Commercial was not. What we had in mind was to throw off the shackles of our three previous bands.

As you know, Bauds, Borell came from King Crimson. Mick, you know, left the hoopoe. Me and Paul had left the ashes of free. So we just wanted to play what we wanted to play. And it just so happened that what you're hearing on the first three albums is about four guys who are having fun. And if it was a hit, it was a hit. You've got to remember in 73, it was the advent,

the emergence of album radio, FM radio, which kind of discarded the 45s, which was left to AM earlier. So they started playing entire albums. And at the forefront of this was Led Zeppelin. Yeah. So is the logic then, okay, we can just focus on being a great band with great songs and the rest will take care of itself. Yeah.

And we don't have to worry about single, single. Exactly. Which is interesting because you guys end up being a really commercial band. Can't get enough. It was like in the top three in America. Yeah. Well, we didn't plan it, but it happened. So what?

Yeah. And Zeppelin, of course, at that time were bigger than sliced bread. And they said, they stewed that whole thing about singles and so on. And their albums, you know, sold by the ton. So when Peter Grant asked us if we'd like to be on their label, we said, well, think about it. Yes. You know. You guys were the first artist signed this one song?

And it was a perfect storm. Yeah. Because we were, we were like greyhounds let out of the trap, just, you know, allied with this amazing lead zeppelin and swan song record. What was it, what was it, because it's not fair to, it's apples and oranges, but what was it about Mick Ralph's skill set as a musician and as a guitar player and as a writer? Yeah. That kind of made it, because I don't, and I don't mean commercial in a denigrating way. But there's something about that formulae that produces all. all this, and it's not wholly different music.

You guys are still playing kind of blues-basedish rock. But suddenly it all sets into focus. No. B.B. King said a great thing years ago in an interview. He said, I don't like playing with geniuses. I like playing with people that I like, that I get on with. And it's so true. I play with geniuses, and to a man, they're a pain in the ass.

You know, you have those moments of, whoa, what the, that's incredible. followed by great bouts of, oh, what guy's going to walk through the door tonight, I wonder. With Mick, you had a guy. I think I resemble this from my. So,

you know, with Mick, Mick was number one, he was fun, funny, gregarious, easy to get on with, and he just happened to

write these wonderful songs. Everything was like one straight finger because it was moving on, can't get enough ready for love beautiful song yeah and he was just easy to get on with and and and paul was had this weight taken off his shoulders he his writing partner was someone that he liked and got on with and it was just a wonderful marriage you know um so that's that's we were like kids in a candy store really yeah first few years those rest those records uh still hold up very

well because there's a sort of muscularity to the sound. Was that intentional or was that just the way the records were being made at that time? Oh, I never heard. Never thought of that. Because when I think of bad company, it is muscular. Because I was listening when those records were coming out. Right. And you guys were huge in Chicago on the radio.

I mean, all your top songs were huge in Chicago. And you're still getting played like crazy. But I remember thinking like, and I didn't make the connection of the time between free and bad company to me just back Well you wouldn't They're two totally separate bands What I'm saying is I didn't even know there was a historical connection I didn't even know it was the same singer

You know what I mean just suddenly there's this band called Bad Company I saw these hits songs on the radio But it always struck me the records Have a real muscularity to like a physical thing Where a lot of bluesish type bands They end up sounding kind of not thin

But yeah They don't have that I don't know there's a weight to bad company That I always liked Like even the song Bad Company It's like the production is just so good. You know, they asked Charlie Watts and Bill Wyman there, the two reluctant interviewees,

and the backstage at some enormous stadium, and Charlie and Bill shuffle in, and the guy says, how come you two are the best rhythm section in the world? And Charlie said, no, I don't know, we just play together. And it's one of those trite answers that you can't. I played to enjoy it. I played because I was only 24.

25 at the time. I was in awe of Al Jackson, Jr., but I had that muscularity because I wanted to lay down something that was solid, like a cinder block. And we always played in studios, but we're not studios. We rented a house. We had Hedley Grange, which is also where Zeppelin made. What is it? In Clearwell Castle, which was a castle on the border of Wales. So we each had our own room. So the separation between the instrument. Is that what it was? Okay.

Maybe that's why it sounds so good. Maybe. And all our albums were done in non-studio. Were you usually using the Ronnie Lane mobile? Ronnie Lane or the Rolling Stones mobile. Yeah. Yeah. We never use a real studio.

It seems to me when I get a chance to interview someone with your accomplishment, you know, you can really grind down into details because there's so many great songs. and what about this? And there's always a story and stuff like that. I feel like it's interesting because it's interesting, but it's not as interesting as maybe something that you and I and very few people would understand, which is why the fans are focused and why the media is focused on this incredible moment

and this hit song and this thing. It doesn't feel that way when you're in a band. It's almost like a blur. Yeah, yeah. It doesn't feel like a blur. It's a fun blur, but it's a blur. Yeah. So, and it strikes me because of the success that bad company had,

it's, but tell me, from the outside, looking at it from a musician's perspective, it looks like record tour, record tour, record tour. Exactly right. And that became, that took a toll, particularly on Paul. And you know as a musician that a vocalist only has his throat to rely on. You know, we're lucky, you know, we can. turn up the volume or I can, you know, ask the guys in the monitor, turn me up. But the vocalist is kind of naked for 90 minutes or 120 minutes.

And we had this, we were on this carousel of tour album, tour album, tour album, tour album. And Paul at one point said, I need a break, guys, because we're doing arenas. I mean, it's lovely on paper, the limos and the 20,000 sellouts and, you know, the whole, you know, plethora of stuff that can lead you down dark roads. And we had all of that in spade. Luckily enough, we were young enough to be able to enjoy it and not take too much in the toll. The recovery time. The recovery time. Yeah. But there came a time when Paul Rogers said, I want a break. Yeah. And we didn't get it. And he said, was there a reason you didn't get the there were a lot of drugs involved and I'm not I'm not pointing my finger at anyone but now

that Peter has passed away Peter Grant was going through his own struggles yeah with addiction and Zeppelin were kind of on the ropes and the whole that whole late nine to um cut that whole late 70s period and late 80s yeah became a bit of a millstone yeah and um we were kind of left rudderless if you will, I was having my own trouble with substances and by the when Bonzo died when John Bonham died. Is that 80? 1980. Yeah. You had Lenin being shot

John Bonham died and the whole rudder came off Swan Song Records with Zeppelin Bag Company. Peter Grant was a mess and the band kind of broke up in 1982. We struggled through rough diamonds which was our life last album and they got into a fist fight. It was horrible.

Oh. Yeah, yeah. Once bands start hitting each other, unless you were in the Tennis. Because I read something about there was tension between Mick Ralph's and Paul Rogers, but. No, it was more between Boz, believe it or not. Yeah, Boz Borrell and Paul. There was never any tension between Mick and Paul. Okay, maybe.

So let's say that out. Blame the internet, yeah. Yeah, bass players. God bless them. It's fucking pain in the hour. and keyboard players. I'm kind of kidding. But it did lead to the breakup of the band.

We had enjoyed amazing success. And thanks to Peter's amazing management skills, the bond was Zeppelin. Yeah. You know, they were like big brothers to us. They came to our shows. We, you know, we came to them. And it was, it was, you know, a lovely marriage.

But at some point, it took its toll. and we split. 1982, we pulled off, and that was it. Well, I know you soldiered on, so it's a weird way to ask the question, but did you feel like you should stop? Or, I mean, on the exact moment of like, okay, he's out, where were you at? In a way where you were relieved because, like, you could get off the...

Well, the way that it had suddenly turned was happening so quickly, and I understand now, that Paul really needed a break and I wish that Swan Song had said to Atlantic Records hey let's put the brakes on this thing because these guys are on the ropes and there's something about record companies

they just don't understand that the investment of a few months off will yield more years of being, you know, they just don't get it so Paul went off in a huff and I don't blame him he started his own solo career And we, the three of us, languished, you know, drumming our fingers.

So what the fuck are we going to do? So I got a call from Army Ertigan from Atlantic, a wonderful guy, a legend. He said, hey, you know, what's bad company doing? He said, well, we ain't got a singer because the best singer in the world has taken a hike. He said, so get another singer. Wow. So we did. Yeah.

You know. And I'll be honest now. Billy there was a certain cue to Paul because he and you know now we're friends again it's been a long time ago 40 years ago but at the time i was like we put all this work in and now i've been there i i was in the exact same situation yeah somebody banged off and i thought no yeah i'm just going to go on yeah you know so we get it's in almost like a siege mentality like i'm gonna keep fighting or something yeah well i didn't want all that work and all that popularity just to go down the drain. Yeah. Because Paul didn't...

Well, and also what else you're going to do? You're going to go play golf? No. Well, I do and I didn't then, but I was only in 82, I was 33. Yeah. And I was just like, come on. Let's go. Yeah. So after two years, you know, I was big friends with Mick Jones from foreigner who said, look, I've got this guy in the wings. We've been grooming because Lou Graham wants to hang it up. He's got medical problems. La la la. And his name is Brian Howe and he's a good singer. He's not like Paul, but he wants to work. He's a good singer.

You want to check him out? I said, yeah, okay. And I met Brian, who was, no, he was nothing like Paul. It was a different style. More like Ian Coverdale. Okay. You know, or Ian Gillen, Dave Coverdale, I'm sorry. More like Dave or Ian Gillen.

But he wanted to work, a good looking guy and he was eager. And we took him on board. And then the whole direction of the band kind of skewed away from the blues, you know, and became more, more heavy metal. And I'm honest now, you know, it was a period where, which I do regret, and I'll put my hand up to say, I, me and Mick kind of made a knee-jerk decision. And we took this guy on board. And it's weird, Billy, because what happened when Brian,

passed away a few years ago, there were all these Facebook and Instagram dedications to him from kids, or, you know, people now who had only come to realize about bad company when Brian was in the band. They didn't know about the former, you know, incarnation. So they were saying, who's this guy, Paul Rogers? I mean, why don't you mention Brian in the Hall of Fame? And like, huck and hell. So there were these two distinct versions of the band.

If you had it to do over again, do you think you should just make a different name or you... I wouldn't do it again. I was coerced. I was doing a lot of drugs and drinking. And I wanted to tour. I wanted to continue the name. And we did. I mean, we sold millions of albums with Brian.

But it kind of tarnished. I think it tarnished the reputation a little bit. Yeah, it's something happened there where... It seemed like the shine went off the band. But I don't have a specific memory of why, and I guess maybe that's part of it. Well, if you were to take the second incarnation of Bad Company and put it out with people never having known the first, I don't think it would have sold a tenth of what it did. But on the back of the original lineup, Bad Company was back with a different singer, a bit

like Journey. You know, Journey managed and still do to this day with different singers. They manage a foreigner, don't even have an original member. Yeah, I think it's different times too because now the expectation is the brand of the band will continue. Journey is the most obvious example where they have a completely different lead singer and they're a stadium band. And then people have gotten very used to the idea that bands go out in much different configurations than the classic lineups. Yeah, and they just want to hear the songs. Isn't it, maybe I'm asking for your, it's like if we were just sitting around just yucking it up,

but isn't it interesting, at least to me, that at the end of the day, the song has become the most important thing, where we grew up thinking the band was the most important thing, and then the song was a part of it, but now it's almost inverted. It's really about the songs, and if you have the songs, then people want to see that brand play those songs. Well, the first band to do that with the role. Rolling Stones. When Brian died, you know, he bought in Ronnie. Yeah.

And he's like, so what? They're still playing satisfaction, an octagon woman. And I'm going, me, yeah, it's okay. I think Mick figured out all of this stuff many years before all of us. I think so, you know. But when you're a four piece and one member goes, particularly the singer, you can change drummers and bass player, even lead guitarists. But to come with a... Well, Paul Rogers is one of the greatest. rock singers in the history of that our shared genre. I mean, there's not even a question.

What did you think when Paul went out with Queen? I thought that was an interesting choice. I was gobsmacked because him and Freddie was so different in terms of singing style. But I went to see them at Nassau Coliseum. They were great. They didn't do Bohemian Rhapsody. Interesting. Well, I mean, it's kind of hard to duplicate that on state. Replicate. it on stage. But they did, we will rock you and Rogers with that. And it worked. And once again, it goes back to the song's rule. Yeah. You know, Roger and Brian were there. Yeah. With, you know, with backup singers and whatever and different bass players and keyboard players,

but we will rock you. You know, I want to break free. All the hits were there and that's what people came to hear. So I was pleased for him because his, the firm hadn't, really blossomed, you know, the thing with Jimmy. I actually saw the firm. Did you? I never saw him. Yeah. It's interesting.

I love Jimmy Page's. I've met Jimmy a few times, but I love Jimmy as a musician, so I mean no disrespect. But Jimmy's had his own struggle. Yeah, we know. Yeah. So I went to see them in Chicago when radioactive was a big hit. Yeah, yeah. And for the first half hour of the show, it was,

magical. Jimmy was on fire, Call was in good voice, and it was like, wow. Like, A-level musicians playing A-level stuff. And then, I don't know what happened with Jimmy. All of a sudden, it was like... Oh. And by the end, it was like a car crush.

Wow. And I was a guitar player and grew up with a guitar player. So I was very aware of, like, what was happening. And he could even read the body. You weren't only just a guitar, but you have a good guitar player. Mr. Coulgan. But so you were disappointed. I mean, just...

I couldn't believe that this was the same show. That I watched a band go from being an elite rock and roll live act in an arena setting, being like, wow. To by the end, I was like, what am I watching? And it was like Jimmy just sort of disintegrated live. Yeah. It was very strange. I've never seen anything like it. And it's a very distinct memory to the stay.

And Jimmy's still one of my favorite. Of course. Songwriters, musicians have ever. I mean, what a musician, guitar player. Well, there are a certain, you know, we sort of followed Zeppelin all over the world. Sometimes we went to each other's concerts. And there'd be many books written about Zeppelin.

Jim has never actually come out and said, yeah, I went through a really, it's been alluded to that he had his struggles with heroin. And him and Bonzo were, you know, Bonzo was the wrecking ball, the one-man wrecking crew. And Jimmy was this sort of ghost of a guy. And I'm not speaking out of term because everyone knows that Zeppelin in the late 70s

were becoming this drug-fueled train wreck, really. They just weren't happening. You had two camps. You had John Paul and Robert, who were the relatively sane guys. And then you had the other camp. Yeah. I mean, maybe that's the root of this beautiful music. There you go. Sparks.

A few more things, and thank you for indulging me. Because you went through that period when Paul left and you soldier on and you do have success, but there's always that sort of vibe. And I get it in my, you know, one so-and-so coming back or it doesn't sound the same and all that stuff. Now that you're sort of in the rearview mirror and everything's happened and the piece has been made where it needs to be made. and all that stuff. How do you view, I guess what I would say is, I'm asking, is, can you speak to what it's like to experience?

Because I think most fans don't really understand those sort of choices. Like you talked about, like, I wanted a tour, I wanted to make bread, I wasn't in the best shape. But now that you have the perspective to sit back and look at it, what would you say to fans to try to explain, like, sometimes, because when fans want to talk to me about the stuff, I'm just like, look, life happens. You know, you're in a beautiful fan.

fairy tale and one day that fairy tale starts to end. You can go home and sit at home or you can keep going and try to make it sort of work itself out. I think it's kind of a two or three-pronged answer because number one, what people maybe don't realize or tend to forget is that I really loved Mick and Boz and I didn't want to start another band with unknowns. Sure, we had a high platform, a high profile because of the success of bad companies. But to go out and go with someone else and audition and start again, and I really loved Mick and Boz. And I didn't want to start again. So when Brian Howe came on the horizon and he auditioned and he was pretty damn good,

it kind of going back to what Beebe said, you have to like someone to live with them, especially on the road. And I was hoping that that piece of the jigsaw, Brian Howe, would fit. with the other three. We hoped that. It wasn't there from the get-go, and it didn't. It kind of got worse as the years went by, and I don't want to speak ill of someone who's passed away, but we started, we started butting heads, and he started doing this monologue in the beginning of bad company, you know, bomb, bomb, which is the piano intro, and he would take it for like three minutes and he'd go on this like political rant

and go what the and at one point I went boom on the bass trance and physically he could see him jerk he said what was all that in the dressing room don't you use this ban as a political forum he was a little red around the next should we say

and it just got worse and I love this stuff so you know you know it's spinal tap it's we're all in spinal tap so we're all in spinal tap so we're all in spinal tap so we're all in spinal tap so we're

Different versions of spinal death. Yeah, we asked him to leave. He'll say he left, but we did ask him to leave. And it's a shame because I know that his heart was in the right place. And when someone passes away, particularly in a relatively young age, I felt for him and his family. Yeah. Plus, to be fair, sorry, I don't know. No, no, no.

But what I'd like to say in communion is it's a tough gig. Yeah. You know what I mean? You're trying to come in and follow Paul Rogers. That's true. Yeah. And oh, by the way, you're singing Paul Rogers vocals half the night. Yeah, yeah, yeah.

It's a tough gig. Well, also, he had this alliance with this producer called Terry Thomas. And they started writing all the songs. And we left Peter Grant because the whole Zeppelin Grant thing just dissolved. And we went with this other manager who managed foreigner called Bud Pryrd. Okay. And Farano were enjoying this huge success. And Brian and Terry, excuse me, started writing these pretty commercial songs that

Foreigner could have done or Journey could have done. It wasn't, it was drifting further and further away from the original bad company. So Mick being one of the prime writers of the original bad company, started getting left out in the cold. That's true. Which only exacerbated this distance between us. three and Brian and then boss said this I'm out and he went because he do you remember that movie the commitments where the horn player starts

yeah jazzy instead of playing like the statute he's doing Charlie Parker yeah and all the others are going okay now what's that was started becoming like Stanley Clark and Jacko pastoria and instead of doing do boom boom boom he got do to pooh-p-p-p-p-p-b-b-b-b-b-b-h. He said, Squire, I'm just learning, man. And it wasn't fitting with, certainly not with Brian Auer, and they started budding heads. And the spinal tern. Yeah, and it was spinal tap. So, so we languished. And then we got in Robert Hart, who was much more like Paul Rogers, great soul singer. But by then I was, I was well and

truly tough. Yeah. And I checked myself into real. rehab, Mick was having his own troubles. And we just said enough. That's it. You know. And that was middle of 90s and then Paul Rogers came back in 1999. I'm embarrassed to admit this, but I only knew the bad company version of I'm Ready for Love. Oh.

I'd never heard the Mott version until not too long ago. And what's beautiful about that version, and I think the reason I didn't know was Mott was because Mick sings it. He's got this beautiful voice. Ian comes in and sings kind of the B section. Yeah, right. So God bless Mick. What a talented, cool.

I really, I loved him the whole life. And I've got to give a eulogy next week. We're having a memorial bash for him in Henley in Oxfordshire next week. I've got to deliver a eulogy, Andy and Hunter's eulogy that he's written. And we're going to play all the Mott the Hoopal and Bad Company song. It's going to be bittersweet, you know, because I miss the old guy. But honestly, Billy, when someone has a stroke, as you know, the whole left side goes,

and he couldn't talk, a very, very basic. And it was horrible to see him. And when I heard he finally passed away, I was kind of relieved because he was in hell. And getting all choked up now. God bless him yeah but he left his mark which is all we can ask

of ourselves well the song that's the beautiful thing right yeah oh when we first turned ready for love Paul said you gotta have this song that Mick wrote I said well all the young dudes no no no ready for love and he played it on guitar an A minor he starts that A minor

what a cool song oh I go wow and every time we did it every night that and shoot I would get a little teary. So, yeah, great song. I had the 45 for rock and roll fans. I just want to say. The picture just.

Okay, two more things. Congratulations, Rock and Roll Hall of Fame. Thank you. Well deserved. Thank you. Yeah. And then you have this, I guess you call it, tribute record coming out. Yeah.

These are not time specific, so it's, we're floating in time. Okay. So by the time people see this, it'll probably be out. But it's, uh, can't get enough. But let me, let me look at my list. it's a cool, cool bunch of people you got on here. Oh, here we go. Hailstorms on it.

Paul Rogers is singing too. Slash, Blackberry Smoke, the Struts, Joe and Philip Deff Leopard, pretty reckless. Nice line up for a tribute record. Well, I don't know some of them, I'll be honest. Oh, really? No, I'm never heard Pretty Reckless or Hardy.

Well, pretty reckless is Taylor Momson, incredible rock singer. Taylor was an actress, child actress, that ended up following her passion into music. Great singer. And they've been, I think they've been the exclusive act opening for ACDC for the last couple years. Wow. So I saw them open for ACDC, I think, in a stadium in Cologne.

Not an easy gig opened it for ACDC and they did a great job. So I think you'll be impressed with. Oh, I want to check them out. Well, someone did send me Hardy and Black Smoke. Yeah, yeah. Yeah, and I was knocked out. in interviews I say, well, what do you think? I think it's great.

I mean, it's an honor to be part of a tribute. Well, the beautiful thing is, is the world we live in now is sometimes it takes younger people to connect younger fans to the older music. But once they find it, and I think you'd be hard. We've just done a lot of touring over the last couple years, and I would say 60 to 70% our audience is now under 25. Wow. Suddenly, all these young kids, they want to see.

rock, guitar rock played by people played rock. So whatever that is is there now. You know, and I'm not really blowing trumpets or whatever, but there's something about the music that we grew up in, we grew up with before computers came in, you know, it had more soul. Nowadays, it's all drum loops and beats and auto tune. There's a certain, there's a certain, I'm trying to think of the word. It's just not, it's not authentic. Literally, it's not authentic. AI is spreading its, it's a poison for want of a better word. But that's going to, that's just going to run. Well, there's bands out now, the Velvet Sunset, they don't exist. And they've got three million Facebook followers. So, but we had it good. We, we had it good. We play with, with real, you know,

with firing our bellies. Yeah, you know, I was trying to, just as a way to finish it, uh, I was thinking about the exact stuff you're talking about. And I was like, what's, what's the thing? What's the thing? And it's, it's, it's, honestly, it's faith in the magic of music, right? Oh, that's good. You know what I mean? That's good.

I testified once in front of the U.S. Congress about a rights issue. I'd been asked by, um, a what issue? A music rights issue. Oh, music, right? Yeah. It's a, it was a, it was a hundred-year-old law that had never been fixed and it was screwing musicians out of money. and at one point, one of the congresspeople,

who was obviously more in bed with the other side of the equation, let's call it anti-musician, said to me, I don't understand why this is so important. And I said, well, if you listen to my girl, don't boom, boom, boom, boom, boom, boom. Okay, I said, any musician could go now and play that riff, play it more in tune and more in time. Why are people still listening to a 60-year-old recording?

Because that musician that day played it the way that touches people. And it's ultimately about rewarding those artists who get that lightning in a bottle. Very good. and not sort of leaving them behind because of the laws and stuff like that. And I said, so the fact that we're still listening to that guy played dom, doong, do, do, do tells you something that there's a value there. And I think it's the magic of that. And we were lucky because we grew up listening to Al Jackson and Smokey and Jimmy Hendricks and whatever.

And when they made that magic, we're still like, we're still trying to figure out what they did. I still remember seeing Jimmy at the Albert Hall and he couldn't tune his guitar and he said and Eric was in the audience Eric can you come and tune my guitar and his G stream the G and B as you know of the Crown Jules on the 6th string and they were flat because he would slur like three frets

and wonder why it was so flat when it came back to normal but he managed he was Jimmy Hendx for God's sake and he couldn't tune his guitar But he still remained remembered as one of the last question go on Greatest drummer you ever saw live Buddy Rich Honestly I mean shocking talent right

Yeah and he knew it which is the best and I know and I met him a couple of times and I was just in awe of him But yeah he had that that ball and chain around his leg that he was not a nice guy But my God what a player And Bonzo you know I saw Bonzo many many many any time. And he floored me with what he did. He was just, I had dinner one night with Eddie Kramer, the great producer. And he said, you know, Billy, people have been asking me for 50 years how you get that bonzo drum sound, right? He goes, how about you just be fucking him? Right? You know what I mean? He goes, he was a big bear of a man. He knew how to hit the drums and he knew how to tune the

goddamn drums. But listen, I'll tell you a quick, quick story before you go. I was, I sat in with Jimmy when he was mixing Coda. Oh, wow. Okay, so he had this lovely studio down in Berkshire. Berkshire, and I sat in, and he was mixing, because you know he mixed and produced all the Zephyr albums. And we're listening to Bonzo. And I thought, wow.

Suddenly he brings up the ambient mics to Senheiser or Neumann, those lovely Neumann mics. And instead of, it's like, so not taking anything from Bonzo. But Jimmy's use of the ambient, the room mics would produce that really crunchy. The snare instead of being that, it's that. And a lot of crazy.

But Bonzo, oh, my God, what a drummer. He was just, he said, I want my drums to sound like cannons. Well, he got there. All right. Thank you, Billy. Thank you, son. God bless.

God bless.