(LW)Like you jerk off. Exactly. It’s a little crude, isn’t it?
(LW)君がマスを掻くようにやるんだ。正に、でも、ちょっと淫らだろ、なっ?
(GP)Middle finger?
(GP)中指?
(LW)Yeah, but I use all my fingers. I see a lot of guitarists who just use the finger that they want to vibrato on. I use every one. That’s the thing I never understood – I see guys use the vibrato [picks up guitar], a lot of San Francisco guys, and they just do it like that [uses just one unsupported finger to shake the string]. But if you’re gonna use it, why not use the whole fucking hand? [Hits a note and uses his ring, middle, and index finger together to add vibrato]. Because that’s all power there. Put your hand on my hand [I do it]. Can you feel which muscle is doing it? [Plays vibrato.] Hendrix had a beautiful vibrato. [Plays the riff Hendrix did just after he sang, “Oh, shucks, foxy lady.”]. Yeah. It’s all in the wrist. It sounds real corny, but it’s like jerking off.
(LW)My roots are The Who – I mean, rock and roll as it is from them. I don’t have roots that go back to blues and all that. I learned guitar by watching the Beatles and the Stones, like everybody else. None of this bullshit where, “Yeah, I used to listen to the old blues guys down in the Delta, hell, aw, shit.” No. Modern rock and roll is my roots. You don’t have to be an old black man to have the blues. You know, you lose your old lady, you owe the government, you this and that, you got blues. You can be Howard Hughes and have the blues, you know. Everything is, as Einstein says, relative. A lot of guys, blues artists, that’s why they used to resent white guys playing blues. Because they thought, “Wow. Nobody dug ’em when we played it.” What, they didn’t believe we had the blues? They see a white kid playing it, aw, he’s serious. All of a sudden, these old blues guys are thanking God the white kids play their music. Somebody did. Jack Bruce told me that his greatest thrill was when – who wrote “I’m So Glad”? Skip James?
(LW)俺のルーツはThe Who、っていうか、彼らのやっていたようなロックンロールだ。ブルーズに遡るようなルーツは全く持っていなかった。BeatlesやStonesを見ながらギターを覚えた、(当時の)誰も同じさ。「イェー、俺もデルタまで遡って古いブルーズマンを聴き込んでたんだぜ、どうだ!」なんてことは全くない。Noだ。モダン・ロックンロールこそが俺のルーツさ。ブルーズを演るために年老いた黒人になる必要なんてどこにもない。女と別れて、生活保護を受けて、なんやかやで、ブルーズが手に入る、だろっ。Howard Hughesのような億万長者だってブルーズは演れるんだ。全ては、アインシュタインが唱えたように「相対的」なんだよ。沢山のブルーズアーティスト達は、かつて白人がブルーズを演奏することに憤慨していたものさ。何故なら「俺たちがプレイしたときは誰も気に留めさえもしてくれなかったのに」ってひがんだから。白人がブルーズを演れる訳が無い、って? 彼らは白人のガキが演奏するのを聴いて、で、こいつはマジだ、って思った。で、ある日突然、年老いたブルーズマン達は、白人のガキ共が彼らの音楽を演奏することを神に感謝しだしたんだ。 誰だっけ、、Jack Bruceが教えてくれたんだけど、彼の最も驚いたことは、、、I’m So Gladって誰が書いたんだっけ、、、Skip James?
(GP)Yeah.
(GP)そうそう!
(LW)Skip James’ wife wrote him a letter thanking them for doing “I’m So Glad,” because she got royalties from it that we astronomical. She thanked them for doing the song, because that money saved her. She was dead broke. So thank God that we picked up on their music.
(LW)そのSkip Jamesの嫁さんがJackにI’m So Gladを取り上げてくれたことに対する感謝の手紙を送って来たんだ。彼女は天文学的な額のロイヤリティーを貰えたって。全くの文無しだった彼女は、そのお金で救われたってわけ。神に感謝しますって。
※このあと、カントリー、Ted Nugent、Kiss、Floyd Rose、Randy Hansen、Eddy Van Halen、と話が続きます。そして、1日目のインタビューを打ち切り、2日目のインタビューに(6日後に行われました)。Steve Marriottとのバンド用に書いた曲の演奏から始まり、「金」の話から作曲の話に繋がっていきます。ここまでの部分は長いだけで大して面白くないので割愛。
(GP)What do you find harder to do – the lick or the words?
(GP)作曲で何が難しいですか、、、曲、それとも、歌詞?
(LW)I never wrote words. I just learned in the last two years to write words. I wrote a couple of songs by myself in Mountain, but I always had to have help.
(LW)“Mississippi Queen”? I had all the music, chords, and lick. That song was already a song. Corky had that from his other group. It was one-chord, disco. It was like, “Mississippi Queen, chicka, ching, ching” [scats the rhythm guitar sound commonly used in disco songs]. And I put a lick on it, obviously. I snorted something really nasty, something that I’ll remember the rest of my life, and that’s how I wrote it.
(LW)Yeah, stoned out of my mind. Boy, we were so fucked up. I was in the bedroom, he was in the living room, and I was yelling “How about this?” We were just shouting shit back and forth. “Yeah, it’s alright! Whatever you want, man.” I swear to God. When we did the track, Felix threw it out one day. He didn’t like it. Then he put his name on it the next time because he stuck a little note in here and there. You know what he stuck in there and got credit for? That little Steve Knight piano part – that little stinky thing that fucks the record up, in my opinion. That little tiny rinky-dink [sings the piano fill]. Just that, and he took 25% of that song. Felix is a legend in his spare time. He’s a legend in his own mind. Really, he was. But I learned more from that guy than anybody else. Hey, you can print every fuckin’ thing I’m saying. I’m not putting the guy down. He was a genius to me. But he also owned the record company, publishing, management, was in the group for half of what we made, owned the production company. And, to top it off, the record company. And I happened to be the artist that got Felix’s Windfall [record label] on Bell Records. I was the first album – Leslie West Mountain. I was the first album for Windfall Columbia – West, Bruce & Laing. And I was the first album on Phantom – The Great Fatsby – for Bud Prager. I was the first album on all of their private label deals. The RCA deal was worth $2 million to Bud Prager, just on that alone. And I was the first album on all of them subsidiary deals. And I do not want to be with a subsidiary if I’m gonna do a group. I just don’t want it anymore. I want the luxury of being with the main label, even though subsidiaries are good – we did it with Bell, and they never had a gold album before. The Box Tops’ “The Letter” – that was their first gold record [single], but it wasn’t a gold album. They never had a gold album. So we did it in spite of what restricted airplay we had – 12:00 at night to 6:00 in the morning.
(LW)イェー、それはぶっ飛びだったぜ。俺たち(Leslie とCorky)は大興奮だった。俺がベッドルームにいて、奴はリビングルームに、で、俺は「これはどうだい?」って叫んだんだ。俺たちは交互に大声で叫んでいた。「これだぜ! これが欲しかったやつだぜ!」って。神に感謝したんだ。 で、(Climbingの)録音をしていたとき、ある日Felixはこの曲を捨てようとしたんだ。好きじゃなかったんだな。で、やりなおしたときに、Felixは何箇所かにちょっとした手を加えたことにより、彼の名前を(作曲者として)加えた。クレジットに値する何を加えたっていうんだ、えっ? 俺に言わせりゃ、Steve Knightのちょっとしたピアノパート、唯の臭み付け、曲を混乱させただけだぜ。この取るに足りない陳腐やつ(ピアノのフィルを口ずさむ)。それだけだぜ、で、奴は曲の(権利の)25%を持って行きやがった。Felixは既に伝説的人物。自分自身でもそう思ってた。マジに。でも、俺は誰からよりも彼から多くのことを学んだ。俺が今言ってるしょうもないこと、何でも書いていいぜ。俺は別に彼をこき下ろしているんじゃあないんだ。彼は私にとって天才だった。同時に、彼はレコード会社、出版、マネージメントも所有しており、すでにこれだけで俺たちが稼いだ半分に相当し、制作会社も持っていた。レコード会社に加えてだぜ。 で、俺はたまたまFelixのBellレコード傘下のWindfallレーベルのアーティストになった。俺が最初のアルバムだった、Leslie West Mountainだ。で、WindfallがColumbia傘下になっての初のアルバムも俺、West, Bruce & Laing。Bud Prager(Windfallのエグゼクティブプロデューサー)のPhantomレーベルも俺が最初、The Great Fatsbyってわけだ。やつらの全てのプライベートレーベルで俺が最初のアルバムだったってわけだ。このアルバム1枚でRCA(訳者注:PhantomはRCA配信)との取引はBudに200万ドルをもたらしたんだぜ。俺はやつらのサブレーベルに関わる全てで最初のアルバムだった。もし自分のグループを組むんだったら、サブレーベルとやるのはごめんだ。もう2度とこういうのはやりたくないね。メインレーベルでやる豪華さが欲しい、いくらサブレーベルが良くてもだ。俺たち(Mountain)はBellとやったけど、やつらはそれまで唯の1枚もゴールドディスクを出せていなかったんだぜ。The Box TopsのThe Letterはやつらの最初のゴールドだけど、そいつはアルバムで無くてシングルだったからな。本当に1枚のゴールドアルバムも無かったんだ。俺たちはそれをやってのけた、しかも、夜の12時から朝6時までしかラジオでかけてもらえない、という制限の中で!(Bellにはノウハウも金も無く、プロモートがかけられなかったっていうこと)
(GP)But you got the gold album?
(GP)でも、あなたはゴールドアルバムを獲得しましたね。
(LW)Oh, yeah. For Mountain Climbing, Woodstock II, and Nantucket Sleighride. In fact, I had three managers in Mountain – Felix, Bud Prager, who manages Foreigner, and Gary Kurfirst, who managed Peter Tosh.
(LW)そう。Mountain Climbing、 Woodstock II、Nantucket Sleighrideでね。実際、Mountainでは3人ものマネージャーがいたんだ、Felix、ForeignerもマネージしていたBud Prager、そして、Peter Tosh もマネージしていたGary Kurfirst。
(LW)In my teens. Everybody in the Vagrants learned to play together. You know, we didn’t know nothing together, and we learned a little bit of something together.
(LW)Four guys I went to school with. My brother. They were all actually three years younger than me. They were his age. Yeah, that’s why I quit school. I couldn’t make it in school. I went to a lot of private schools. I didn’t have enough grade marks to get out of the tenth grade if you added it all up. It was funny.
(LW)Not really, because I just didn’t go. When I was there, I did cause trouble, only because of boredom. It’s the way they teach, you know. They ask you dates about shit and crap like that. They ask you questions they know the answers to. Why don’t they tell you, so you learn? And now you can use calculators – you know what I mean? It’s like Felix was a teacher to me. Recently in Florida we had one of our things where he was in there in the control room and I was out there playing. We used to have good things like that, teach your student. But this time there was a line that I’d come up with, and he said, “You know, it would be real hip to play a harmony to it. It could be something monumental, like ‘Layla.’ You know, that kind of line.” So I spent hours. I don’t know how to read music, I don’t know where notes are, so I had to figure it all out and he’s helping me and this and that. Man, I’m saying to myself that there’s a whole Eventide rack in there with all the things – a harmonizer and everything else. It would be a lot easier if we use a harmonizer – it would have taken two seconds, because I already played the damn line, it was done. It was like a very, very simple thing, like a kid saying to his teacher, “Why can’t I use a calculator?” “No. Figure it out yourself.” Why? That ain’t important. The answer’s important. And that was the thing – he didn’t want use the machine. And I sweated my ass off, working to get those notes. It wasn’t no easy thing for me. But I guess that’s what he enjoyed. I enjoyed getting there at the end – it was very gratifying, I must admit. But fuck the gratification – I’d rather go for a doughnut.