WTF with Marc Maron Podcast - Episode 874 - Neal Preston

Episode Date: December 20, 2017

Photographer Neal Preston is known for taking some of the most iconic shots of the world's most famous rock musicians. Neal tells Marc how his love of music and love of photography merged when he was in high school, leading to a rock and roll lifestyle filled with hard partying, head trips and permanent hearing damage. He shares some stories of Led Zeppelin, Gregg Allman, Stevie Nicks, Queen, and Sly Stone, and reflects on the fact that the majority of his subjects have passed away. Sign up here for WTF+ to get the full show archives and weekly bonus material! https://plus.acast.com/s/wtf-with-marc-maron-podcast. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

It's hockey season, and you can get anything you need delivered with Uber Eats. Well, almost, almost anything. So, no, you can't get an ice rink on Uber Eats. But iced tea, ice cream, or just plain old ice? Yes, we deliver those. Gold tenders, no. But chicken tenders, yes. Because those are groceries, and we deliver those, too.

Along with your favorite restaurant food, alcohol, and other everyday essentials. Order Uber Eats now. For alcohol, you must be legal drinking age. Please enjoy responsibly. Product availability varies by region. See app for details. Death is in our air. This year's most anticipated series, FX's Shogun, only on Disney+.

We live and we die. We control nothing beyond that. An epic saga based on the global bestselling novel by James Clavel. To show your true heart is to risk your life when i die here you'll never leave japan alive fx's shogun a new original series streaming february 27th exclusively on disney plus 18 plus subscription required t's and c's apply all right let's do this how are you what the fuckers what the fuck buddies what the fucking ears what the fuck sticks what's happening i'm mark maron it's almost uh what the fuck miss you know what i find over the years is that I'm not a big gift giver.

And eventually that catches up with you is that if you're not a big gift giver, you will not be receiving many gifts. And I enjoy a gift, but I think I've lost my appreciation for them because it's not so much I have everything I want, it's not so much I have everything I want, but generally through barter and through people wanting me to hear or read or talk about things here on the show, I get sent a lot of unsolicited, I guess we could call them gifts, but sometimes they're not gifts. Sometimes they're just things that eat up space or things that I eat that I don't enjoy or things why I enjoy them initially. But then I'm like, it's not that great but sometimes they're all right sometimes they're they're shirts that I can't wear there but I'll tell you one thing if it comes from a publisher it comes from a record store a lot of times what I do is I bring a lot of those books to the library and let them have them for the people who

come sit in the library I've been thinking about going to the library lately because i am up in my new neighborhood up where i'm going to be uh hanging out up where the new house is there's a library not too far away and i was driving by it and i saw it i saw the uh in the windows just the stacks of books and the tables there and there wasn't anyone in there and i thought i should be the guy that sits there at the library all day one day. And so not huge short-term goals to be the guy at the library who probably brings his own snack. The guy at the library brings his own sandwich that smells up the whole library. How about those people on airplanes? Huh?

No tuna fish. I know you think you're cutting corners because you brought it from home. You're not going to spend money on the plane. You're not going to buy it before you get on the plane. You're going to bring your own stinky tuna salad right into the plane. It'll stink up the entire fucking plane. Can you believe that we smoked on planes? I still can't believe that.

I got an email here I'd like to read. I got some other stuff. But look, I do want you to have a good holiday and be safe you know christmas is not my bag but i like how everything quiets down like this brought probably the last day in la where there will be that that'll be populated because a lot of people from around here live other places and they all split it's just nice and quiet and you know what you can do that you can never do here that's amazing over the holiday here in L.A.? Is you can actually drive on the highways and drive.

It's very exciting. I can't wait till this weekend. I'm probably going to spend a lot of time in the car just going like, holy shit. Look, we're moving. This is what these roads were made for, baby. Just driving. God damn it. Yes, I'm sorry if you're going to be destroyed by this new tax plan.

And I guess I'm speaking to most of us. I won't be destroyed. But it ain't good. Not in this state. But I imagine this is going to really hurt a lot of people over time. It might even destroy the country even further than it's already being destroyed exciting time merry christmas did i mention it did i mention the holidays are here neil preston is on the show neil preston is uh one of the great rock photographers just seminal is that the word that i want? Seminal images. Seminal images.

Talk about that in a minute. I do want to say I bought a suit today. I've neglected to keep you totally up to speed. Because if everything goes well and things keep moving in the direction that they are, whereas I'm alive and these events are still taking place. And I'm still part of them. I will be going to the Critics Choice Awards. And the SAG Awards.

Screen Actors Guild Awards. Because I'm nominated for them. And I do not have a suit. I'll be honest with you. I don't wear suits ever. And when I do. It's usually this western suit. That I got on Marin. do it's usually this western suit that i got uh on marin that uh it's just got it's a western cut black suit it's kind of a cheapo suit but it's a high-end western suit

but that's the only black suit i have and all the other suits i have i'll be honest with you i took from the wardrobe of the remake of never mind the buzzcocks back in 19 fuck 99 maybe 2000 17 18 years ago those are the suits i'm working with so i went out and bought a grown-up suit spent some money on it i don't have any kids i don't have a wife i don't you know i don't have any kids. I don't have a wife. I'm not in debt. What am I going to do? Just die with my money? What am I going to do with it? Give it to my mom? Give it to the cats? Leave it to a cat charity? Nah, I should

probably leave something in there for the ACLU. That's for sure. Someone's got to fucking try to fix this mess. The point being, I went to Tom Ford in Beverly Hills and I bought myself a black, classic black three-piece suit with a white shirt and a black tie

and black shoes. And I enjoyed wearing it in the store. I enjoyed getting it, looking at the tailor make the little wax marks on it and i look good in that fucker i look good in that mirror i look good in that suit it was worth the bread i don't give a fuck anymore i'm gonna i'm gonna wear that suit to those two shows and maybe never wear it again but but so what you only live once i don't know how long it's going to last anymore i don't know how much time i have left if you're familiar with my special that would be another callback

i'm going to read an email that i'm going to bring on neil preston talk about him for a minute heartfelt a heartfelt grateful thank you hi mark i don't know if you'll ever read this but you have become the most unlikely hero of my life in my 20 20s, which I've come to realize were a lot like yours, only with inferior narcotic quality and without Bill Hicks, I fucking hated you. Literally. If we met on the street then, I'm pretty sure one of us would have had to punch the other's mean, smirking face just out of general principle. In my younger days, I always thought of you as a pose searching for an elusive cause that would never arrive. Now I am 45 and i've just watched your last four stand-up specials and i was truly amazed at what you've become you are

finally the cool older teacher you idolized when you were younger you have become a truly timelessly cool great fucking comic because when i listen to you i admire both your specific kind of unvarnished honesty and even more the subtle command of craft and storytelling that makes you the only person who can do that set. Anyway, it should be obvious that clearly what I hated in you in my 20s was what I secretly hated in myself, just projected onto a human-shaped screen. I was the snarling, contemptuous, cred-obsessed, punk indie kid who was defined never by what he loved only by what he hated i'm trying to get better as i get older just like you and as fucked up as you admit to being

you have a earned stillness maybe not inner peace but i admire the hell out of you for finding whatever that is and despite this not being a great time of life for me your specials gave me real joy and hope for the future sorry for the long rambling nonsense sincere thanks blue isn't that interesting an earned stillness maybe not inner peace i have a earned stillness i like that man i like that blue i appreciate that i never thought of stillness versus inner peace. Stillness. I can do that.

I think it's because my brain is rotting, though, and there's some gaps. You know, like a lot of the stuff that I used to sort of like really fester about, a lot of my memory is kind of like, it's not foggy. It's just it's not as present as it used to be. I got to dig a bit. There's a stillness in that until I start digging, until I start digging. And if I'm not digging for memories,

I'm digging for things to be unstill about. But I appreciate that input, man. I'm glad you enjoyed it. And I, you know, I don't know if I would have hit you. I've never hit anybody in my life. So I don't think that would have happened probably just the look though just the look um neil preston it's an interesting guest because you know i it came to me through um cameron crowe's people it neil preston has a book out called exhilarated and exhausted

it's available wherever you get books. It's a big, beautiful book. You can check out his work at PrestonPictures.com. But he did all, like, so many great rock photographs. And how important were photographs, man? I mean, how important were they, like, you know, especially before the internet when you were younger, if you're my age, those fucking, those pictures, man.

Those pictures. there are certain pictures. He took the picture of Robert plant with the holding the dove. He took that picture. I talked to him about it. It's just that pictures meant so much. They hung on our walls. We looked at them pictures of our heroes. They were, they were comforting. They were how we saw them. There were moments that humanized them and elevated them at the same time. There's a lot of those, of all kinds of people. Heroic people, important people,

or maybe just fucking rebels, right? But sometimes that's the pick you want, that one that just characterizes everything that you look up to in that person, even if it's fucked up. Anyways, I got an opportunity to talk to Neil. I thought he would have some good stories, and he did. And this is me talking to Neil. It's winter, and you can get anything you need delivered with Uber Eats.

Well, almost, almost anything. So, no, you can't get snowballs on Uber Eats. But meatballs, mozzarella balls, and arancini balls? Yes, we deliver those. Moose? No. But moose head? Yes. Because that's alcohol, and we deliver that too. Along with your favorite restaurant food, groceries, and other everyday essentials.

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18 plus subscription required. T's and C's apply. Preston. Preston. The reality is that you've done all these iconic photos and they're stunning and they're memorable. But I would say 80% maybe of the people in there, 70% are probably gone. I haven't done the count. You want to work hands?

Yeah, sure. Like, I love Petty, and I love Bowie, and on some level you realize, well, this generation is of that age. People live longer, but people like yourself, what are you, in your 60s? I'm 65. So you're a little younger than the guys you were shooting a lot of times of that generation.

A lot of times. On the other hand, Tom Petty was one year older than me. But they lived hard. They made the choice they made. And you're not horrendously surprised when a rock star dies in his 60s. Sometimes you're surprised if they made it that far. But still, when it happens, even if you didn't listen to their last four records the idea that they were here meant something absolutely and um and each one of those uh

each one of those artists that i've that who have passed away that i've worked with each one of those deaths yeah takes a little bit of my soul with it and um some i knew better than others yeah uh you know how well did you know tom uh i mean i knew tom we didn't hang out and you know play poker or anything but uh i shot him many times over the years i did all the wilburys pictures and and uh went to the super bowl with tom when he when he did the super bowl and shot him many times uh during his career and it's just you know it's gut-wrenching it's absolutely gut-wrenching when you get news like this the the news about uh glenn fry really just took us for a loop. Oh, yeah.

I guess they're all sort of a surprise. Yeah, it's like it's a surprise. You're not shocked, but you're surprised. I mean, it's going to happen sooner or later. Greg Allman, that was really tough because he was a guy who was very important to us early on in my career and Cameron's career and was a god. Greg Allman was a god to us. I saw him pass me by. I was at the Bowery Hotel.

It must have been not even six months before he died. I felt a presence walk behind me, and I just turned around and it was greg and he he looked like a ghost and you know and i didn't realize how small he was well he well here's the thing he never used to be that small when we met greg in 73 yeah greg was about six he had to be six one really oh yeah yeah yeah you know long and lean long blonde hair. You sure he wasn't just wearing platforms? I'm telling you, well, he was, but he was really tall and lean. Yeah. And when we finally, 43 years later, Cameron and Greg and I were in the same room.

We went down to Del Mar to see him play, greg had shrunk in florida no at delmar oh at the racetrack oh okay by san diego yeah and we walked into greg's um dressing room and the three of us had not been in the same room together in 43 years yeah and he had he was about six inches shorter really yeah it was really insane and he he was he six inches shorter. Yeah, it was really insane. And he was much shorter than Cameron and myself. Well, Cameron was like 15 when you met him the first time, right? Yeah, but I was 20. But Greg was visibly had aged 80 years and 40 years. And we took a picture with him and and greg insisted that i be on one side and karen

be on the other side so that he could rest his arms on each of our shoulders as if to pull himself prop himself up and what i've just found out recently is greg knew at that point and a couple years before that he was dying because of the liver yeah he had he had found out uh five almost five years before he passed away yeah and uh it's very it's a very interesting story um i was in london uh i don't know two months ago three months ago and i got an email from someone at gibson guitars saying that uh one of greg's daughters was trying to get a hold of me, that it was important, something to do with the posthumous album that was going to be coming out later this year. tour when i got back to la and it turned out that um uh greg had uh recorded an album at muscle shoals studios uh which was and he knew he was going to be dying he recorded this record and the title of the record is southern blood and his daughter uh layla allman uh contacted me saying that the that Greg had become enamored of this painter

in New York named I believe Vincent Castiglia whose whose kind of thing was to use human blood in the paint as a part of the pigment and Greg fell in love with this guy's paintings he bought bought a piece and then called the guy and said, I want you to paint my album cover in my own blood. And so he sent Greg, he sent Vincent a couple of vials of his blood, and the painter put them in the fridge. And they were supposed to set up a photo shoot to do a reference photo so the guy could paint from it,

and Greg was too sick to do that photo shoot, and he passed away. So Layla called me saying, the entire family has decided that the one picture that we want him to use, it's unanimous, is your photo of Greg. Which one, from the 70s? Yeah, from 73 yeah that very angelic looking portrait and i said i called her back and i said absolutely i i'm honored i don't want to you know whatever you need and and the guy did the painting and they unveiled it uh about three

four weeks ago at the grammy, and it's painted in blood, and when blood dries, you get that kind of rust color. It's not bright red. Heavy, huh? Really heavy, and I was iffy about how it would look, but when I saw it in person, the painter caught the gleam in Greg's eye. Oh, yeah.

And it's, I mean, the surreal aspect of shooting a picture of Greg Allman 43 years ago and then having it be included in his album that has just come out, you know, and he recorded Muscle Shoals and, you know, there's all those ghosts in the machines. Don was, produced the record. And there's some really great there's one track i can't remember the name but it's really swampy and bluesy kind of like midnight rider but just swampy was it with almond guys no it was with his um with his touring band okay actually because like you know don did the that last i think he had a lot to do with that last stones

record the blues record, which was great. I haven't listened to a Rolling Stones record since 1981. Well, I mean, I'm the same as you, though. But this was the one that they'd been talking about for years, an all-blues record. It could have been their first album. You've got to listen to it. Well, I'll give it a shot. I'm telling you, man.

Okay. I'm telling you. I was just saying, I believe that the last good one they did might have been 81, and I haven't really given a shit. Right. Right. I liked Emotional Rescue. I was all right, and I liked Tattoo You, too.

It was okay. There's some good ones on there, but as far as the whole record goes, I agree with you. But this thing, if you're a Stones guy, I mean, you'll be like, oh, my God. It's all blues covers. The whole thing's blues covers, dude. And did they bring in other musicians? Yeah, man. It's basically Keith covers. The whole thing's blues covers, dude. And did they bring in other musicians? Yeah, man. It's basically Keith.

No, it's Keith and Daryl. You know, the guy's been with me. Eric Clapton sits in on a few, plays a lead on some. And Mick is all over the harmonica again. Like, real deal. Like, they're covering Alan Wolfe, Jimmy Reed tunes again. I'm telling you, it could have been their first record. Yeah, it sounds like their first record.

Yeah. Dude, you got to listen to it. Well, I'll listen to that if you listen to greg's record i didn't even know about greg's it's called southern blood of course i'll listen to greg's record i mean it's it's and you know what that day that when we saw greg yeah two years ago and he was very frail and obviously not in good health yeah the weird thing was the second he got on stage and started singing, his voice was there. He was right there, right on it. And after the set was over, I noticed that he didn't want to get off the stage. He kind of wandered around as the crowd filed out of the stands.

He's talking to roadies. He's, you know, talking to this person that one look checking his uh keyboards he did not want to get off the stage because that's where he's eternal that's exactly and that's that that's home yeah it's home to him and and i noticed that and it turned out i was i was correct were you shooting that yep you shot that that yeah I shot in fact I shot a picture of Greg going down finally when he went off the stage going down the stairs and I so you see his back and he's holding on to the rail and where's that picture pictures uh in the follow-up you know we couldn't put every picture in the book.

So it's, but I thought this could be the last time Greg ever walks off the stage. It's funny. Now you talk about it and thinking about the book. Really, none of the pictures in the book, like, and I just put it down, were our sad picture, our documents of the end of people they're all very vital you know what i mean like all of them you know maybe even the yeah i almost every picture in the book are these guys whether they're they're fucked up or they're whatever they are they're not dying well you know i mean yeah i guess not visibly i mean john lee hooker obviously that was still

alive isn't he oh no he's dead oh no um and uh right but he always he looked like that for 20 years yeah true true i mean boy if if the lines on that face could talk uh i think it's a good thing but like when you talk about this i never really realized The picture of, when you talk about the picture of Greg, it's sort of, I'd like to see that be, like even the picture of Leonard Cohen, which is 20 years ago, and it's in 95, 2005, 2008, 20 years before he died. He's an older man, and he's in the meditation position.

It's a beautiful picture. I know he's a Buddhist. He was a monk. Yeah, he was a monk? Yeah, he was a monk, and we had to go up Mount Baldy where there's a, what do you call it, monastery? Yeah. A monk-ister.

Yeah. And he was literally living the life of a monk where you don't really speak, and you live in a very Spartan manner. It's beautiful. Except that every once in a while he would go down the hill and play a couple of gigs so you know the gigging monk yeah well that's it's a it's it's a sweet picture of him you know it really is but like you know i looked through the book and i was i was going to tell you like about the painting you get a call from the almond estate the almond

family the almond daughter to to contribute to your photographs so they could be painted i would imagine that there there have been literally hundreds of thousands of high school paint pieces drawings and paintings and silk screens done from your photographs oh more than hundreds of thousands and uh you know that's we'll we'll throw that question over to my lawyer what but not to sell but no no no you know that's we'll we'll throw that question over to my lawyer not to sell but no no no you know in the middle of class when they should be studying they're drawing kiss absolutely in the snow and they all end up finding their way backstage and giving those paintings to someone in the band oh yeah they from your photograph yes yeah absolutely let me ask you especially someone like uh jimmy page or

stevie nicks oh yeah yeah well those those photos you did as stevie nicks it was that the only shoot you did with her oh god no no i mean in the the one on the top of the the rooftop not outside of fleetwood mac no i did i've done uh many many shoots with it that was the first kind of one-on-one shoot that we did i mean i had started doing some performance photos of fleetwood mac uh around the time just before the rumors tour but uh when stevie uh did her first solo record called belladonna uh i was assigned by a magazine who knew that that i had a some sort of relationship with fleet Mac, and they sent me to her house to do a solo shoot with her. And that was the beginning of what's been a very long friendship,

and we've done lots of photo shoots. To be honest, I'd have to say she's the closest thing I've ever had to a muse in my life. You read the last page in the book where I thank people, and there's three people, three artists that I set aside to thank specifically, and those three people are Brian May, Stevie Nicks, and Pete Townsend

for different reasons. And Stevie is one of the most creative people I have ever met in my life. Yeah. And why Brian? Brian, well, I've worked closely with Queen for years and years and years, and Brian has been a friend, a cheerleader for me. He is literally a rocket scientist.

I don't know if you know that. I know. He's a great guitar player. Yeah, and he's got a doctorate in astronomy. Oh, no kidding. And he co-wrote a book about the origin of the universe. He's also an expert in 3D photography, stereography. Uh-huh.

Stereoscopy. Well, 3D photography. And he's also the only rock star that ever came to my mom and dad's house. Oh, that's sweet. the only rock star that ever came to my mom and dad's house that's sweet and uh but but he's been a just a big supporter of of mine and you know i've spent a lot of time with queen yeah before and after fred passed away and uh and pete pete because of well pete's one of my two idols in my life, the other being John Lennon. But Pete's lyrics, Pete's tortured brain, he's a mental level intelligence. And his self-doubt and all that stuff, it just really speaks to me.

Interesting. And reminds me that it's all going to be okay. He's one of the self-doubters huh oh big time it's funny i had randy newman in here a few weeks ago talked to him for you know a couple of hours i love him did you read my piece i read your piece on randy about when he couldn't talk what happened that day well i i what year was that that was so god that had to be the early 80s late 70s, something like that. And I get the assignment to shoot Randy Newman, and I'm really excited.

I mean, political science is still one of the great songs of all time. I just saw him perform it recently. It's great. He's great. I mean, he's fantastic. So I get sent to Randy's house and knock on the door and he opens the door. I stick my hand out. I'm Neil.

And he shakes my hand and he has a piece of paper in his hand that says, can't talk, doctor's orders with an arrow pointing to his throat. And I thought he was kidding. Yeah. So I'm doing this whole shoot where he can't say a word. Yeah. And I'm doing anything I can to bust him. Is it necessary?

You just felt like... Well, this is the guy who can say more in one sentence than anyone can say in an entire book. So you're personally disappointed that he can't... Oh, I'm beyond personally disappointed. I mean, I just want to get inside his brain a little. But I'm there to get the pictures. Right.

And at first I thought he was kidding. And after 15, 20 minutes, I realized he's not kidding. Yeah. So, but I'm getting a lot of nods and smiles and this. And can you go over here? And yeah, and I'm getting thumbs ups. Finally, after, I don't know, a couple of hours, I rapped. And I said, okay, Randy, it's a rap.

And big smile now. And my assistant's packing up the equipment. And I've tried everything. I've stood on my head and spit out nickels to try to get him to even laugh. Can't do it. But I decide I'm going to try one last time. And I'm walking out the door. And I turn around and I say, so you're starting a tour next week?

And he nods yes. And I say, what city are you starting? And he comes up to me and he whispers in my ear, Detroit. That was the only word he said in two hours, Detroit. Yeah, he's a sweet guy. Oh, my God. Do you find it's necessary? Do you feel that you're compelled when you shoot?

I mean, obviously, because Randy is Randy, you said he wanted to get inside his brain, but do you feel you need to do that generally with these musicians that you shoot? Yes and no. It depends on the artist. I mean, I do my homework going in, but it's more a question of how do I get,

how am I going to lead the person into the photograph that I want to shoot? Because it's a dance. Yeah. You know, I lead, you follow, and together we tango. But if you're shooting a concert it's not you can't you don't have that much control right if i'm uh well i have the well i have a lot of control as to what i decide i want to shoot right but i'm at the mercy of the lighting

director and this and that but if you let me do what i do i'm gonna get the shot that you want me to get because i know that especially my performance photos, they don't look like anyone else's photos. They just have a different, it's just the way that I frame things and shoot things. I like clean backgrounds and negative space. Yeah. I can see it. What do you think is your most iconic photograph? Well, the one that has become, well, there's two or three, but the one that that has become well there's two or three

but the one that if i had to pick one it would have to be the photograph of jimmy page swinging the jack daniels yeah because that has become the iconic photo representing 70s excess yeah and you know to me it's just a dude swigging Jack Daniels. But interestingly enough, the Jack Daniels company refused to buy a big print for their wall. Because that's not how you drink Jack Daniels? Close. Because they said, you know, because it is arguably the most famous picture of anyone on earth drinking Jack Daniels. But they said we we

can't and and my agent said why and and the guy from jack daniel said because in the photo jimmy page is not drinking responsibly he's gonna drink any fucking way he wants okay but but that has become for some reason and that was just a literally a one click and move on to the next thing the weird thing is is like jack daniels was the rock and roll drink for years because i know keith drank it everyone drank it and when i was in high school that's what i embarked on was to drink that and it was difficult to drink because it's terrible tasting oh it's it's god awful yeah i mean and i forced myself to drink it because i thought that was the shit to drink well there was one point uh I love the label.

You've got to love the label. It must have been around the time, I don't know, I was out with Van Halen or someone like that. And I decided it would be cool to go through a swigging Jack Daniels period. My gastroenterologist is still giving me shit about that. Yeah. Because that'll rip your guts out. How'd that go for you? Not very well.

It's hard to keep down. Well, I don't drink anymore and haven't drank in a long time. But that's nasty shit. It's been a long time. It is nasty, nasty stuff. So what are the other two? What are the other two iconic ones? Oh, well, there's Robert Plant holding the white bird.

Oh, the bird, yeah. And that just happened? That's a happy accident. Yeah, that was an outdoor gig in 73 at Kezar Stadium in San Francisco. It was a daytime gig, which is unusual. The band had 12 white doves. Let's be honest, they're probably pigeons. Right.

But six in one cage, six in another cage, and one cage was behind Jonesy's amps, and one cage was behind Jimmy's amps. And the idea was that at the end of Stairway, as a metaphor for peace and love in San Francisco, the birds would be released into the air and into the crowd. And Stairway ended, and the roadies opened the cages, and the birds fluttered away except for

one bird that did a slow turn around the crowd and came and then flew right back towards the stage robert just happened to stick his hand out and the bird just happened to land come on i swear to god i mean it was it you couldn't plan this i mean it's not one of those eagles at the super bowl that you know yeah yeah it's it's a pigeon it's a white pigeon and um and that's how that's how it happened i mean you know what i like to say if you have your hands on the bat and your eyes on the ball sooner or later a pitcher is going to hang a curve and boom and at that time i mean did you were there did you have a i guess did they have shutter engines then i mean could you be motorized yeah oh yeah okay so yeah but but you just you have to you have to keep your eyes open you know and it sounds like from the the the when you talk about earplugs and stuff

that you need to hear that you between the shutter drive and just your finger, you need to know the decision. I have to be able to hear it. Otherwise, there's a weird disconnect. Yeah. I tried earplugs once at a Motley Crue show, and I could feel my cameras fire, but I couldn't quite hear that. And it just threw me off a little bit.

It's a missing part of the experience. Yeah. You were disconnected a little. Yeah. Because it's all, after a while, it's like a guitar player. Yeah, you become one with it. It's by touch. And muscle memory, whatever you want to call it.

And I did have, there was one day in particular with the Foo Fighters that I probably lost 20% of my hearing. You feel it now? Your hearing's fucked up? Yeah. If I'm in crowded restaurants, you know, I cannot have a first date in a crowded restaurant because I turn into George Burns. Huh?

What? Huh? Yeah. Yeah. But, yeah, the Foo Fighters rehearsed in a little garage room, not much bigger than this studio, probably just a little bit bigger. Yeah. And as they walk in there, and as I'm getting ready to walk in,

a roadie says, here, you might need these earplugs. Yeah. And I said, no, no, don't want them. The roadie says, you might really need them. And I said, no. Yeah. And the roadie says, trust me need them and i said no and the roadie says trust me you're gonna need them and and and i rarely do something like this but i said listen you know i've worked

with this one and now yeah the who and kiss and sell you know as you wish closes the door band starts to play within 15 seconds i have a migraine it's so loud. Within 30 seconds, I'm sure blood is pouring from my ears. At 45 seconds, I am physically ill and about to vomit. Really? Yeah. And I shot out my one roll of film and I had to get out of there. I was physically ill. It was so loud.

And they didn't wear headphones, earphones, earplugs. They didn't wear jack shit. And I know that that day ruined a good 20% of my hearing. Yeah, my buddy Dean Del Rey, he tracks his hearing loss to an ACDC concert, I think, with the Those About to Rock tour with the blasting of the gun. It was right next to the speaker, and he lost it. Yeah, well, Motley Crue used to have the floor monitors in the pit. Right where you're running around in the pit.

Oh, yeah. Yeah. And on stage. Yeah. And still, it's not going to help your hearing. Well, where does it start, though? Like, where do you get the... Like, I did some photography when I was a kid,

but it sounds like you were a real nerd for it. I mean, where did you get interested in both music and photography? Well, music, my life can be divided into two absolute distinct phases. Yeah. Pre-February 1964 and post-February 1964. Right. If you know what I'm talking about. The Beatles.

The Beatles on Ed Sullivan. Yeah. And literally- How old were you? How old was I? I would have been almost 12. How old were you? How old was I?

I would have been almost 12. And that's, as I think I wrote in the book, that was the nuclear bomb that John Lennon delivered directly to my cortex. And the day before that, my whole life was, what did Mickey Mantle do to hit a home run yesterday? The Yankees, blah, blah, blah. The day after, I do to hit a home run yesterday the yankees blah blah blah right the day after i gotta have a guitar beetle boots blah blah blah blah blah were you growing up at this i grew up in forest hills new york in queen in queens that's right and by the world fairground oh yes

so we i used to walk to the world's fair and and you used to be able to get in for a quarter if you were with your your. So me and my buddies. You were there for the World's Fair. You saw it happen. That was 64, 65, yeah. And it ran for a while? Well, it ran two years, 1964 and 65. And you could just go over there? We would walk.

I mean, it wasn't a short walk, but it was two, three miles. And then me and my two buddies would stand outside the uh the uh cashier and we would wait for a couple to come by and we'd ask if they could pretend that they were our parents sure and people would say yes and we'd give them a quarter for each of us to get in and they'd pay the 75 cents and then the second weekend on the other side of the turnstile we'd tear off running away from our quote parents and i must have gone 20 times what was there to do oh my god all the pavilions the general motors futurama yeah they had the the spin art things with the paint sure yeah yeah it was the world's fair the video telephones which now you know i laugh at but but you've never seen it before that.

No, I mean, no one had ever really seen it before then. And, and then the unisphere became a, after the world's fear was over, the unisphere became kind of a meeting place for all the teenagers and Queens. And it's where you'd go to hang out,

cop pot and drink second, all's reds. Yeah. And, uh, and meet girls and all that so the fairgrounds were open once the fair was gone yeah well it's flushing meadow park right um right and and what happened was uh i had gotten my first camera when i was right around the time of the beatles uh from my first of three brothers-in-law sorry Sorry, Carol, but I just blew it for you. And so photography was my hobby,

and somehow my love of music and my love of photography ended up morphing into one super hobby, and there was a concert series at the New York State Pavilion, which was left over from the World's Fair. And a couple of my buddies had gone and shot some pictures at some concert there from their seats. And then I went and shot one of the other shows there, and I don't remember which one it was and we decided that if uh if we showed some prints to someone at the local ticket office for this concert series maybe we could get them for

free where are you where are you processing at that point are you doing your own processing i'm i'm souping film and a friend of mine sink yeah absolutely and uh the negs are a little dirty what can i say yeah and um so through a weird quirk uh i mean just a bizarre happenstance yeah the office that we took these prints to try and get free concert tickets turned out to be the promoter's office of the whole concert series yeah and um they started letting us into their shows for free and that's how I got my start. How old were you at that point? Sixty and a half. And how did your parents feel about this?

What did your father do for a living? Well, my dad was a Broadway stage manager. Oh my God. He was a production stage manager for every big musical in the heyday. So you grew up in the theater a lot. I grew up around the theater. I mean, he was stage manager for The King and I, Camelot, Fiddler on the roof oh my god my fair lady you saw all those shows oh yeah

and and in fact the first performance photo that i ever shot i must have been 14 and it's in the book is a photo of the understudy for the lead and federal fiddler on the roof and i brought my camera i used to love going to the theater. Was it Topol's understudy or Zero Mostel? No, it was Herschel Bernardi's understudy. Oh, Herschel Bernardi. Did those other two guys do it, or am I making that up? Well, no, one did the movie, I think,

and Zero Mostel, I think, opened the show, but the show ran for like 100 years. Yeah, right. So Herschel played tevye yeah the lead and bett midler was also in the show believe it or not as the daughter as one of the daughters yeah but uh herschel was sick one night and and this guy harry gauze yeah was his understudy and i had my camera with me and my dad used to stand at the little podium right on stage left calling the lighting cues now i'd seen the show so many times that i knew when there was going to be a big

speech and when there was going to be a laugh so when when uh harry was kind of near me yeah and was doing the speech i knew there was going to be a big laugh i waited for the laugh and i cocked my shirt or i shot one frame during that laugh because my dad could have gotten fired if if the stagehand saw me shoot okay union rules union rules for your kid come on doesn't matter this is new york unions baby and he could have gotten billed for a photo call for hundreds or even thousands of dollars but i snuck the photo i made a print my dad loved it he gave gave it to the actor who loved it, and it turned out that Harry had a series of photography books

similar to like the World Book Encyclopedia, and he gave them all to me, and I devoured them. Isn't that interesting? From that point on, I didn't even make a decision to be a photographer. I just was. You did this amazing picture and then the guy's like, this kid's interested and he gave you the things that changed your life.

Absolutely. Because he saw your creativity, encouraged it, and he's like, this kid could use these. Absolutely. He just had them because he's a hobbyist? I guess so. Who knows? I don't even remember. And they were big books. And you just nerded out completely. Completely. And they were big books. And you just nerded out completely.

Completely. And the analogy I make is when you're 15, 16 years old, you go to driver's ed in school. Some kids get behind the wheel of that car. They don't know how to drive, but they instinctively know the relationship between the gas pedal and the clutch. That's how I was with a camera. Yeah. and the clutch and you know that's how i was with a camera yeah the shutter the the the shutter release the the the diaphragm the film speed it just made sense to me and unlike driving you know you you operate that machine you get these amazing results that last forever tell me about it i mean

i i mean i i mark i don't know how it happened but it happened just that organically well the interesting thing about the book too is in in the is in the essays, there is a sort of teaching element to it. Like there is a tone in some of them where it's like, if you're going to do this, these are the rules. Yeah. Well, yes. And I wanted the way I tried to frame everything in my book, no pun intended, was that to make it about my job. Yeah. This is the job I have. There are very few people in the world

that have this kind of job. And you think it's so glamorous? Well, sometimes it is, but a lot of times it isn't. You got another thing coming if you think it's so super glamorous. And these are the potholes in the road. So for a while there, you're getting in free, and that was your camera.

Oh, I'm always getting in free. No, I know you're getting in free and that was the your camera i'm always getting in for i know but at the beginning you know that was the ticket that was this that was that was your pay yeah at the very beginning you showed the promoter the pictures yeah come shoot the right and come come to our shows and then uh every time i was backstage i would you know it was a burgeoning rock scene and there were people who were starting new rock magazines, and I'd get little assignments from them. When was the first time you made money? The first, it's actually in the book. I had photographed, me and my shooting partner at the time had photographed Steve Winwood. Yeah.

Who was a big star at that time. Yeah. Traffic, et cetera, et cetera. And we go down to the 1 5th avenue hotel in greenwich village and shoot these pictures of steve winwood yeah uh and uh you know 15 minute 20 minute photo shoot yeah uh and uh after they ran in this little rock magazine we get a call from d anthony's office steve's manager yeah uh d really likes the photos and he'd like you to come down to his office tomorrow and bring a stack of prints and you know this is big time to us right so we print

up 12 14 prints and we get on you know we used to get on the subway to go to go into manhattan and you know i was still a senior in high school and And we get up there, and we walk into D's office. And D was a legendary figure. He was a lot of bling everywhere. And he was obviously someone not to fuck with and a very imposing guy, legendary guy. And we give him the stack of prints. And he's got a diamond ring about the size of a watermelon on. Yeah.

And he looks through them and looks through them, and not much of a reaction. He says, boys, I'm buying these. He's not asking us if he can. He's notifying us. Yeah. And he pulls out a wad of bills and peels off 320s. Yeah.

And says, uh, well this do now 60 bucks cash to us in 1970 was like a trillion dollars. Yeah. And we walked out of there, you know, high as a kite, 60 bucks for princess.

Okay. The end of that story is two years later, I'm sitting at United artists records on sunset Boulevard. And I see this new compilation called Wynwood that had come out. What do you think is on the cover? You know, a $60 photo. And so I learned my lesson about that. It still must have felt good.

Oh, it felt fantastic. Did you get photo credit at least? I did, yes. So the company we had at the time got photo credit and and it was the first time i'd ever seen anything of mine on any record package and and you were like 18 or 19 yeah well at that point i would have been 19 or 20 because it was a couple years after we made the sale yeah maybe 19 and a half it seems like the formative years of you really getting your legs in this were with Zep and the Almonds. Well, yeah.

I mean, what happened was I moved to L.A. in 71. My girlfriend at the time was in publicity, and she worked with a lot of big bands. And I was just immersed in the business. I knew people from the business in new york you mentioned danny goldberg yeah danny i knew from what danny was a was a rock writer for hullabaloo magazine which was the previous incarnation of circus magazine so i knew danny what was he like as a younger man same as he was as an older guy he had hair down to here i mean he was great i mean he's very bright and um but i knew him from from circus magazine so uh i i my partner and i had a retainer deal with

atlantic records that we negotiated in 72 so we would we'd be sent out to shoot all the the atlantic uh artists uh be it led zeppelin or a guy, whoever was on the, the label at the time. I can't even think Manhattan transfer, you know, people like that. It's a big, that's a big gap.

Well, those are two opposite ends of the spectrum. And actually I, and I did my first album cover assignment for Atlantic, which was an Eddie Harris cover. And I don't even like jazz, but it's called Eddie Harris Instant Death. Yeah.

At any rate, when Zeppelin was out in 72 and 73, I was sent by Atlantic to do some pictures here and there. And 73 was when I finally met Peter and they kind of... Peter Grant? Yeah. And they kind of... You talk a lot about Peter Grant. Well, Peter Grant was.

You learned some lessons, huh? I learned a lot about life from Peter Grant. I mean, Peter Grant. Was their road manager? No, it was the manager. The manager. The manager. Richard Cole was the road manager.

But anyway, I started doing some stuff for them at the end of 73. And then they formed their own label called swan song in 74 and danny uh at the we were we were hired to to photograph the uh launch party at the bel air hotel uh and then danny uh had said to me uh yeah i think we're going out on the road uh you know in the winter and i said well if you we're going out on the road, you know, in the winter. And I said, well, if you want anyone to come on the road with you as a tour photographer, please consider me. He was in publicity.

Yeah, he was doing their PR. And never, never dreaming that the call would come a couple months later. And I remember distinctly the phone rang and it was Danny. And he said, you still want to come out on the road with us uh yeah uh and i was hired right there and then as their tour photographer and it you know when you're 23 1972 well 74 i was hired yeah so i was 22 and it will never hurt you having led zeppelin on your resume yeah ever but i mean i i knew what i was getting into but i didn't know what i was getting into but it was that was the turning point of my career i mean because you know it's like working for sinatra and elvis at the same time yeah this led zeppelin they're

a cloistered bunch you've all heard the rumors and not all of them are true but um which ones well you know the everyone talks about you know how crazy they were the sex and drugs and if if that's how you define crazy i will tell you that an ario speed wagon tour is just as crazy as a zeppelin tour okay but there was a lot of drama and tension and uh and they were a very cloistered bunch i mean it's almost like the mafia once you're in you're in and once you're out you're out well i think you made a good point in the in in the text of the book and saying that like whatever you hear whatever you may know or whatever really went on these guys were still professionals that showed up for work and did

the fucking job of rock star oh yeah yeah as as i had to do yeah i mean i had to you know yeah you you were partaking i was the ringleader some of the time i mean if you read the article about robin zander getting arrested but yeah uh but I'm there to do a job. Yeah. And regardless of what happens that way or any other way, I'm there to do a job. And if I don't do my job, I'm going to get thrown out on my ass. Well, the way you describe cocaine in a couple of those passages, I was like, this guy knows. Like the excitement in the text.

There's two descriptions of cocaine where i'm like oh yeah this guy did some blow the rock in venezuela and then the pharmaceutical glittering coke on the rug i'm like yeah there's that moment where you're like what a waste oh how about the one where sly stone was was smoking crack in my car best story and and when we've got to where you know but he wasn't it didn't sound like that was before crack he was smoking base oh there's base yeah sorry and uh you know after chasing him around for a week i finally have him in the car we're supposed to go five minutes up the road uh man lake uh in uh mandeville canyon yeah and uh he says hey man i just five minutes around the corner man i just gotta do a quick error man come on come on come on

five minutes around the corner yeah okay he takes me 22 miles as the crow flies to labrea and jefferson and we're on the way on the san marco freeway free, he pulls out an acetylene torch out of a little box and... And, you know, I'm rolling with the punches. And then we get to some weird ex-Marines house, some PTSD guy who... That's where coke takes you. Who can clearly not sit in a room without facing a window. Right. And they proceed to bring out the biggest bag of blow I'd ever seen.

And as I wrote in the book, I was torn between wanting to run as fast as I could out of there and wanting to stay forever. Sure, man. Yeah. Yeah. Those are the days. You know, but. And you got the shot.

He got high and you got the shot. Yeah. Yeah. We got it. It's pretty crazy. And, you got the shot. Yeah, yeah, we got it. It's pretty crazy. And, you know, Coke, I don't recommend cocaine to anybody. I mean, it's nasty. You know, I have this theory that you could be the sweetest little girl growing up in Nebraska,

do enough Coke, and a week later you're going to be hanging from the ceiling in handcuffs with a nun's habit on and whips. Yeah, there's something about it. And it's weird because looking back on it, I've been sober like over 18 years now. And it's like, it's all about that first hour. You know, the rest of it. It's not even that. It's I and it's been longer than that since I've done blow.

And it's been longer than that since I've done blow. I remember that going to the dealer's house was more of a turn on than actually doing it. A scoring. Yeah. Yeah. It was. And I had that epiphany one night. I remember that there was this girl that I had a real crush on. Her name was Maxie.

And I done everything I could to get her to come over the house. And finally, one night she called me up and said she was going to come over the house yeah and i had been just hoovering hoovering hoovering and i was convinced i saw a ufo okay i was on the deck of my house and cameron i downside of prolonged cocaine oh this is way downside and cameron and i were roommates at the time and he was down san diego and i was upstairs, and I'm hoovering, and I'm waiting for Maxie to call. And I'm convinced there's a UFO. You could not convince me of anything else. And I got to the point where I actually, and I'm embarrassed to say this,

I called the Naval Observatory in Mount Palomar near San Diego. Hi. Hi. I'm calling from calling from the hollywood hills my name's neil i want to report a ufo and the guy on the other end of the line is like yeah okay okay what was your name again yeah okay well i'll put it on on the list okay and then of course she calls five minutes later yeah hello hi it's maxi maxi maxi there's a ufo you know needless to say she never came over i never heard from her again and did you what did you find out what the ufo was it was there wasn't a ufo there was it might have been a guy with a lighter or something you know yeah

smoking a cigarette on mall yeah who the fuck knows and uh that's where Coke takes you. Oh, baby. But you got to do, but see, I got a little taste of it. I used to hang out with Kennison in the 80s when he was at the peak of his career, and that was where I really hit the wall on Coke. And you talk very specifically about the charisma and the personality of some of these guys. And to be around them, if you're of a certain type uh is pretty energizing and pretty intoxicating yeah that's a good word you know it's intoxicating but you know every member of certainly the bigger bands every member of every band has his or own

personality yeah and as i say in the book a rock tour also has its own personality. Yeah. They're very different things. And the personality of a rock tour can turn on a dime given a bad review, a bad audience, an interview gone awry, the drummer getting the clap.

Yeah. And that's where the tension comes from on rock tours. Girl problems. Yeah. You know, and that's where the tension comes from on rock tours. Girl problems. Yeah. I mean, all of that stuff. Photographer, you know, pulling a cable out by mistake. Yeah, because you forget that, like, these tours,

sometimes you're with these guys for months. Mm-hmm. You know, like, it's like a closed community. Oh, very much so. Smaller than high school. Very much so. And that's why we have things on tours called Road Wives. You know, you hook up with one of the girls on the tour,

and then the second the tour is over, you never see her again. Yeah. I just remember that from Almost Famous. Well, everything in Almost Famous is pretty much true. And that was all about the Almond Tour, right? Most of it was based on the almonds? pretty much true. And that was all about the Almond tour,

right? Most of it was based on the almonds? Well, the, the character that Billy Crudup played, where, where the, the, the kid writer is trying to get the key interview from,

that's, that's Greg Almond. Yeah, right. Yeah. The band itself is, I think Cameron would tell you, is an amalgam of a lot of bands that had,

that had two competing, uh, uh, creative, uh, entities. of a lot of bands that had two competing creative entities, Glenn and Don, Nick and Keith, Jimmy and Robert, that kind of thing. But the actual girl who got traded for the case of beer was, let's just say, a groupie I used to fraternize with. Oh, yeah? the one in real life yeah that's a real story that's a real story it's sort of sad right yeah but but the the irony of all this is the more i'm around on a rock tour, the more I'm in the room, the more invisible I become.

With the camera. Yeah. I mean, the more that I'm just blending into the fabric of the tour, the less obvious I am. Yeah, you also made some good points in some of your rules where it's sort of like you can't get too familiar. You can't overstep your particular station. Don't be the fifth member of the band.

Yeah, and don't get fucked up and make a fool out of yourself. Because, as you said, you're not, you may be friends with them, but you're just one step away from getting thrown out. Yeah, you're an employee. Yeah. Okay? And they, you know, I'm very good friends with Brian May, Roger Taylor. Yeah. with Brian May, Roger Taylor. But you do the wrong thing, and what you get slipped under your door

is not the room list for the next day's hotel. It's the one-way ticket home. Yeah, and the wrong thing could just be like, just party, just have a few too many drinks, too many lines, say the wrong thing to one guy. One guy. Yeah. You're fucking out.

Exactly. But you always go in knowing who that guy is. Right. You never got thrown off a tour for being an asshole? No. Did you ever get in trouble? Yes. Not for being an asshole, but I got in trouble.

Well, I'll tell the story. What the hell? We were in with Zeppelin. We were in Cleveland at Swingos Hotel. And our next gig was going to be in detroit it was the big show at the pontiac silverdome uh we had found out that there was a little feet press party that was going to go on in detroit and we had a couple of off days so myself uh the zeppelin's pr girl my friend daniel marcus who was the atlantic records guy and robert yeah uh decided to leave the tour

get on a commercial flight from cleveland to detroit and just go to the little feet party right unfortunately i did not tell peter grant or richard cole that we were taking robert with us right and we essentially kidnapped robert and went to det Detroit and never made it to the party. But that's all another story. And when the band finally showed up the next day, I got a very heated phone call from Richard Cole, the tour manager, saying you need to go to Peter's room immediately. Peter was really pissed off because he didn't know where Robert was. And the photographer and the Artis Relations guy from the label hijacked him. So I was spanked.

And what he did, and this was on a Saturday, he said, I need six 11x14s of John Bonham slipped under his door by 12 noon tomorrow, or else. And I knew what or else meant. So now I have to find someone to print you know there's no labs open yeah and everyone i knew in detroit had had been spending the whole last 48 hours coked out yeah i managed to find someone who let me into the cream magazine dark room on a sunday morning you know the cab ride alone was like a hundred bucks and uh i hadn't mixed chemicals

in years and somehow i made it happen i went in the dark room i made six prints i got out of there and i made it back to peter's room by 11 58 a.m by two minutes right and i showed him the envelope he said put it under Bonzo's door. And I did it. And that was his way of spanking me. But did he even need the pictures? Of course not. No, because he knew it was going to be a pain.

The drummer's pictures. You need 11 by 14 drummer shots. The point was that this is the price you have to pay. And it's your job. That's your job. Yeah, that'll teach your ass. Yeah. And so, you know, things would happen.

I love that story about the aerial photograph. Oh, at Nebworth? Yeah. I mean, because I've seen that photograph, and I wouldn't have known that photograph, and I wouldn't have known you took that photograph, but I wouldn't have known, certainly, why. So, Peter Grant, tell that story. Well, first of all, i love to fly yeah i've taken flying lessons i never got certified but i'll go up in anything i'll go up in two ice cream cones

sticks with wings and rubber bands and uh we're at nebworth what year is this this is 1979 yeah august 1979 yeah and one of the guys from uh from the record label comes over to me and says, do you have any problem going up in a chopper? I said, no. I mean, let me at it, you know. Yeah. So he said, good. Peter wants to take some aerial shots of the crowds.

I said, no problem. We go out to the little helipad that they have set up, and there's a chopper coming in that Jimmy's in, and it lands, andimmy comes out yeah and then wait for the rotors to stop and then i run into the chopper and uh it's just me and the pilot it was like a jet ranger helicopter and i'm i'm tied in with not even a seat belt it's maybe something like a huey like a four-seater kind of two-seater thing oh just like they're like there's like a i think it was a four-seater but no door no door right no door

and i'm held in by some dental floss yeah right yeah and uh and i've got uh a body and two lenses i think in a couple of rolls of film and uh and i and but we put the cans on the pilot says so so well what what would you like me to do and i said we'll just make two passes around so i could do a couple rolls of color a couple rolls of black and white and we do that and he takes a 360 around the crowd and he kind of banks this way and i'm i'm petrified that a lens is going to roll out the door and kill somebody. A roll of film, you know, 3,000 feet up, right? But I had a blast. You know, I love that. So I took the photos, and we landed.

Forgot about the, you know, I just put them in the batch with everything else. And about a week later, someone from Swan Song calls me up and says, And about a week later, someone from Swan Song calls you up and says, we need you to take the dozen best photos that you have from the aerial shots, black and white and color. Put the negs in an envelope. Someone will be coming to your door tomorrow. Give him the envelope.

Don't ask any questions. Next day, very James Bond-like james bond like yeah next day uh knock on the door yeah i opened the door is the guy's jacket and tie you know sir i'm here for the envelope and i just hand it to him no thank you no nothing he just walks away and that was the last i ever heard of it for a couple of years yeah And I found out why it was so important to get those photos. Yeah. Peter Grant had a feeling

that the promoter was going to try and fuck him on the ticket sales. Yeah. Because I think they reported 110,000, but there were obviously 130, 140, 150,000 people there. peter had access to some software that had just been developed for nasa but this was revolutionary revolutionary at the time by which you could take a photo blow it up split it into quadrants and the computer the software could figure out plus

or minus about 100 people how many were in each quadrant thereby multiply it by four and you'd have plus or minus 400 or so the size of the crowd yeah he wanted that in his back pocket in case he had to sue the promoter which he did yeah and he won no shit he won yeah so that was that was why that's they needed that aerial that's forward thinking peter grant and i'm telling you he was one of the great managers of all time and uh So that was why they needed that aerial shot. That's forward-thinking Peter Grant. And I'm telling you, he was one of the great managers of all time. And I owe him a lot. And Jimmy and Robert and all of them.

But Peter was, he had street smarts. He trusted me from the get-go. And I have no fucking idea why. He just had a feeling. He also had your number. Yes, he did but uh you know i mean this is led zeppelin you don't sure man you don't this is the top of the mountain baby you don't fuck around with them and yeah and that and that really kind of built your resume right yeah exactly and the the passport photo i took for jimmy i love that thing and that seemed to kind of

and you know what? That ended up years later being the cover of Jimmy's photo autobiography book. No kidding. That came out about three years ago. Oh, yeah. It's the cover. And there's just something about his eyes. And then you did. But there's a whole series of portraits in there that, I mean, I don't know what the

first portrait you did that close. But the fact that it was for, again, you had to turn it over overnight. They needed a passport. Oh, yeah yeah yeah you could go to egypt so you were shooting it for a very specific reason but there was something revealing about the portrait that must have compelled you to do more portraiture well i mean i i would do some whenever i could but this was a specific need they came to me on the plane about one in the morning saying uh jimmy and robert are going to egypt at the end of this leg of the tour and we need a passport photo for jimmy's visa excuse me that has to go to the egyptian consulate what times they have to be there because i'm all about deadlines just right you know tell me what the fucking deadline is well it's got to be there by

3 p.m tomorrow, oh shit. So, so I take Jimmy in the back of the plane and I shoot three frames. Yeah. Uh, and I know pretty much how tight it has to be. I know what a passport photo is. And I, uh,

run the film over to the lab and I get there early. You know, I put it in the night drop and I get there early and I wait around for the prints and, uh, and Jimmy let me pick the photo around for the prints and, uh, and Jimmy let me pick the photo out. Um, and, uh, we got the prints made and I brought them over to the band's office and they sent someone to the Egyptian consulate and, and we got in under the wire and, and 40 some odd years later, Jimmy picked that photo for the cover of his book,

years later jimmy picked that photo for the cover of his book which it was astounding and a huge honor for me and showed me that even a passport picture could have can have that glint in the eye or you know that window to the soul whatever you want to call it well you know what also fascinated me about the about the stories was how yeah it was a smaller world then there were two things that were happening clearly there wasn't as much traffic. You got that fucking right. You know, like, you know,

you guys are running around. I got to get this over there in an hour. I got to get this into the city. I got to get this over to the lab. And you're like running around. And I'm like, that would have taken three hours today. Yeah.

Yeah. Four hours, even in New York. And also the idea that there were labs. I mean, that like the entire business was, was hard copy shit, man. I mean, like that whole world is gone. Pretty much.

I mean, there's still a little of it here and there, but that's what you did. You had film developed. You had prints made. You had duplicate slides made. Contact sheets, contact sheets. Contact sheets. And people look at my contact sheets.

And I mean, there are people. Just put a book of contact sheets out. You never know. There are people who are not that much younger than we are who have never seen a contact sheet. Don't get the concept of it. at the concept of it and when you look at my original contact sheets these are the ones you know the dog-eared ones that i've been printing off of and and looking at for 45 years yeah and i i hate editing on a on a screen i hate digital i hate everything about digital photography but that's all another you like you like the little i find the little things well i can just at the context with my eyes you find what if the

eye hole oh a loop a loop a loop yeah yeah but but my eyes and my brain is trained to look at an entire proof sheet and then be able to zone in on a certain frame but i gotta tell you it's got to be on some level yeah i don't know how when or how you made the transition, but the difference between running with a bag of 95 rolls of what, Tri-X, to the lab, and just having a camera of a self-contained computer unit with a filing system has got to be more what? Anything? Well, I'll tell you what. Practical.

Not to me. It's impractical. I can edit 95 rolls of film on contact sheets in a quarter of the time, even less. Oh, to go through it on a computer. Then I can go through them on a computer. Because I guess with a computer and with what you can do to an, before you even print it, it creates the same. It's like when you write, there was,

there must've been something like writing with a typewriter where, you know, you didn't have the option to cut and paste. You didn't do it. Right. Well, it's not even that. It's just the way that,

uh, on a computer. Yeah. I have to download the cards. Then the, the, the originals have to be put in a folder. Then your selects have to be marked and then this and that originals have to be put in a folder then your selects have

to be marked and then yeah this and that and it's it's fuck give me a contact sheet and a grease pencil boom boom boom boom boom print these yeah that's it you still do it that way yep well whenever possible i mean i have to shoot digital sometimes but you can still get all the film we usually shoot what was all the concert stuff? Tri-X with the. Tri-X. Usually Tri-X pushed a stop or two. Yeah. Which would be 800 or 1600.

High speed Ektachrome. High speed Ektachrome type B, which is tungsten balanced. Kodachrome 200 when they came out with Kodachrome 200. And that was pretty much it. And. The right lenses. Of course, the right lenses and faster lenses. The lenses are not,

the optics are not much different than what you use now. I mean, a 135 millimeter lens is still a 135 millimeter lens. But there are so many bells and whistles on these damn cameras now that i mean the instruction book for an for a nikon f5 or or the f6 yeah you know it's like this thick yeah same with cars yeah it's like they keep adding things what do you need i mean i have to travel with instruction books for all my digital cameras we were in rio with queen two years ago and i have an assistant out by the soundboard and all of a sudden she calls me on the cell phone there's something beeping and blinking that i don't know how to turn off and so i gotta like send a guy out

with with the spanish version of Spanish version of the instruction book. I mean, give me a fucking break. And I use them on manual override anyway. Yeah. Well, I tell you, it's a great book. And, you know, and I don't usually, you know, I get a lot of books and I get a lot of photo books. And there's not that many photo books where, you know, you have them. But how many times you go, you know, look at them.

And I read the whole book, you know, too. whole book, too, and I'm a rock fan. So the essays really made a difference for each segment. But I liked what you said. What was interesting, after all the concert footage and some of the intimate portraits, I really liked the one of Booker T and Steve Cropper. Oh, great, great. That was out of nowhere. You got Booker T and Steve Cropper.

And they're really kind of weirdly intimate photographs. Yeah, I was 17 when I shot those. Oh, some of those are that long ago, huh? Yeah, those are kind of rescued, what I call rescued negatives. Oh, those are the ones from the section where you didn't have enough light, but because of computer technology. Right, you can scan something and get as much information off the next as possible. Oh, no, really?

There's a bunch of those in there, right? Yeah, and we could do a whole book of those rescued ones. I think there's a shot of James Taylor in there. Oh, yeah, man. That's a rescued negative, too. No kidding. In that period, too, I talked to him in here, and he was submerged in dope. Oh, yeah.

Oh, yeah, I know. And you can feel it in that photo a little. Am I wrong? No, no, I agree with you. I mean, I'm really proud of the fact that, you know, it's a body of work. Oh, dude, yeah. And the way you broke it up is beautiful.

The performances, those pieces. But I really like what you had to say about studios. Oh, yeah, they're kind of a place that I've never. It's not that I don't feel comfortable in a recording studio, but I feel like it's a place I'm not supposed to be. Yeah, that I have because that's where those people feel like anyone should be. Do what they do. You know, so I guess sanctuary. Yeah.

And and I just like I'll go in and shoot and I'll hang back because that's their dark room. That's where their process happens. And I'll tell you what, I'm thrilled that you dig it because I'm really proud of the text and wanted to let people in on the experience of what I do. And at the end of the book book i want the reader to feel like you've just come off the road with led zeppelin for a year and a week with guns and roses and

around the world with bruce and feel exhilarated and exhausted because that's how i feel every day yeah and that's where the title came from yeah the title is and i just thought oh god is that a great title i saidhilarated and exhausted. I sat on it for a day, and I called Cameron, and I said, am I out of my mind, or is this really genius? He said, it's fantastic. Oh, and also, you told some of the stories, which is great, but I don't want to ruin the kiss in the fake snow story for anybody, or Motley Crue on the real glacier for anybody. Yeah, or Pearl Jam in the plane. Oh, that for anybody yeah you know or pearl jam in the plane oh that's good too and i also like uh that moment you had with dylan which i think probably lasted

it still lingers bob dylan called me a leech is the name of the piece and and that was and he did and well you know that picture of him and joan where he's looking at me in those steely eyes? That's Bob Dylan. Yeah. But you shot him a few times, and he eventually seemed like he accepted you. Well, yeah. I mean, look, he's been photographed. He's probably been photographed more than all four Beatles together. I mean, so it's all, you know, he just goes by rote.

And, you know, I did the Wilbury stuff, which... I like that. That whole thing where... Yeah. The phone call. Tom and George. Yeah. The phone call with Tom and then George gets on.

And that's all I remember. They were all nervous about Bob. Yeah. They're all, hey, we'll shoot when Bob's ready. And just be careful of Bob. And this is George Harrison telling me this. You're a Beatle. bob dylan okay so uh and then tom walks in the room saying okay i just want to tell you now when bob's ready and bob this and okay i get it you guys you already had a chip on your shoulder

about bob jesus you know you know but the bob that would have been so good if he said, there's the leech. Tell me about it, man. I know I was petrified. Leech. You're a leech. And we'll let the listeners read the book and find out the rest of that story. Great book. Thanks for talking, Neil. Thanks so much, Mark.

That's it. That was interesting. That bird just landed there. I'm going to play a little guitar and we'll get out of here. I think that's a good tone. It's just built-in vibrato and the... Some reverb. Stratocaster.

Three chords. I'll add a fourth one. That's the way it goes in here. Did I tell you that I'm going to have the garage documented before I dismantle it? Boomer lives! Boomer lives! Goal tenders, no. But chicken tenders, yes. Because those are groceries, and we deliver those too. Along with your favorite restaurant food, alcohol, and other everyday essentials. Order Uber Eats now.

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