Omaha Rainbow : Issue 22

John Stewart - interviewed by Peter O'Brien

Some of the things I'll ask you I will probably know about already, but...

Then why are you going to ask me?  You know everything about me there is to know, things I don't even know!  I can't imagine what on earth you want to ask me.

I'm always telling you, I've got to get the facts down for Omaha Rainbow.

You have more facts than I have.  I should be asking you what I've been doing for the last twenty years.

God, I wish I knew.  Let's start with your decision to produce "Bombs Away Dream Babies."  I can imagine why you decided to do it, but I'd like to hear in your own words what prompted you to be very determined to produce that album.

Mentor Williams for one, though it was really the culmination of working with other producers who had different ideas of who I was, rather than who I really was or what I really should be doing.  And the fact that Lindsey Buckingham couldn't produce it when he thought he could at the beginning.  Fleetwood Mac was so demanding that he just had to say, "I can't do it, I don't have time.  I'll help you out but I can't produce it."  I was bound and determined not to bring some clown in there who was going to make some ridiculous album again, and I'd be stuck with him.

How much hassle was there with RSO over this?

Over producing it?  There really wasn't any at all.  Once I started the album and really got into the album - because I started it three different times - once it began I didn't hear from RSO until I finished it.  They had no idea who was producing it, which was just fine with me because I knew the screams would have been heard around the world if Al had known I was in there alone.

You say you started it three times.  Was one of the times when I was with you?

Yeah, that was the first time, the beginning.  I did 'Gold' and 'Runaway Fool...' 'Midnight Wind' and 'Lost Her in the Sun.'  I took those to Al and he said, "They are not hits.  You've got to find a hit."  Lindsey came in after you left and I began the album, supposedly with my brother who was just sort of there.  He was there when you were.  I said, "Okay, let me do three more songs."  I did three more and about two months went by and finally Al said, "Alright, go in and do the album."  We started it and stopped it, started and stopped it.  You lose all momentum when you do that and it adds to the cost, because everytime you start it takes awhile to get things going.  So it took, really, till the end of September that things really began.  A one month period until I really got into the album and could really begin doing it or redoing it.

So that stuff I was in on, very little of it survived onto the album?

Only 'Gold.'  Well, the only stuff left from 'Gold' from that track was Joey Carbone's keyboard playing and Mike Botts' kick drum.  We had to redo the snare drum and cymbals and vocals and all the guitars, so it was a fragment of that.  And 'Lost Her in the Sun's' the same thing.  We just slowed it down...no, no, 'Lost Her in the Sun' was Rick Shlosser, so from that first session 'Gold' was the only one, the kick drum from that.

I know you've been asked before, and you're tired of being asked, how Lindsey Buckingham got involved...

Oh God, Peter!  You know how he got involved.  You know exactly how he got involved!

I don't, not precisely.

Come on, give me a break O'Brien!

I tell you what I thought happened.  I thought you just loved Fleetwood Mac and you decided you would ring him up and see if he would put on a guitar part.

That's just about right. You know the story about Lindsey learning to play guitar off the Trio albums and me learning to play electric guitar off Lindsey Buckingham albums.  So I met walter Egan at the Union and asked him what it was like working with Lindsey, and he said you gotta meet him because...blah, blah, blah.  So then I went over and met Lindsey when he was mixing 'Hot Summer Nights' and said, "Lindsey, I'd really like you to produce this album."  He said, "I'd like to, but I'm doing Fleetwood Mac."  He came out to the house a few times and we worked on tunes and he said, "I really want to do this."  We went in the studio...I'm trying to remember what the first things we did were.  You know, Lindsey never really went in as a producer now that I recall.  On my birthday last year he and Joey Carbone and Russ Kunkel came down and played for free on 'Midnight Wind'...

Good birthday present.

It was the best birthday I ever had, yeah, it was great.  Got drunk out of our brains.  Then I started doing the rest of them - 'Somewhere Down ths Line' and Lindsey came in and did that live; 'Spinnin' of the World' live; and then just overdubbed the crap out of that.  Then I did 'Over the Hill' and - what else did I do that day? - 'Hardtime Town' that wasn't on the album with Rick Shlosser. Wrote 'Comin' Out of Nowhere' in the studio because I felt it needed that kind of song, with Chris and Gary. So it was pretty much piecemeal.  Lindsey would come in for 14 hours at a time and then I wouldn't see him again for a month.  I never actually went in with Lindsey with him in control at all.  As far as Lindsey went it was just the way he would point the way to things, show me the direction in which to go, make me a mix that was just mindblowing, and play some guitars or do some vocals.  I've forgotten what the question was.  What did you ask me?

I was asking how you met Lindsey Buckingham.

Oh, how did Lindsey Buckingham get involved?

That's great.  Think how long you talked there when you didn't want to answer the question...

I did want to answer it.  I just thought you already knew it.

No, not really.  When I was out there it was already a fait accompli in that you had met Lindsey Buckingham and discovered he had got all your albums.  That was really it, and somehow...as you said afterwards, you had your recording face on.  You actually apologised to me afterwards for being so crabby whilst I was there, which was very nice of you, but you weren't, so don't...

Oh, the pressure that Al Coury was putting me under at that time was really inhuman.  I mean, to make anyone go through that and to have the likes of Lindsey Buckingham in the studio, and not say, "Hey, go ahead, this is going to be great," and to bring in songs like 'Gold' and 'Midnight Wind' and him say they're not hits when you know goddam well they are - or at least as close to a hit as I'm gonna come - and to have no support or encouragement from the record company, I was absolutely against the wall.

It got worse after you left.  At one point as I went in I called up Lindsey.  I was so off the wall I could hardly talk to him.  I said, "Lindsey, please, you've got to come in and play."  I just sounded like a madman.  I was.  It got worse when you left, I got more and more blown out by it and preoccupied with it and trying desperately to figure out what in the hell does this man want?  'Runaway Fool' on the album is practically the identical record I played for Al Coury.  We didn't overdub anything at all on that, and 'Gold' is just about the same record I played for Al, so it was really frustrating.

I was just completely blown out and it didn't get any better till maybe the end of September when things started falling together and Stevie came in and I really found out what I wanted to do.  Because when you were there I had no idea what I was doing. Playing Rolling Stones' licks on 'Midnight Wind' and just really searching around for what to play.  I was really doing the groundwork at that point.  Find everything wrong until I played it right, so it was one of the real low points at that time of my career as far as what in the hell am I doing?  Where am I going?  What is expected of me?

And, moreover, it was your career right there on the line.

On the line.  That was it!  No doubt about it, it was on the line.

It's like standing on the gallows and having two switches to pull, and if you pull one you can walk off and if you pull the wrong one you fall through the trapdoor.

Right, I see one switch is attached to stairs and Al is going, "That's not the switch.''  I'm saying, "Wait a minute, it looks like the switch to me."  Yeah, good comparison.

Trivia time - who's Mary Torrey?

Oh, that's a funny story.  Mary Torrey is a friend of Stevie Nicks and when Stevie came down to do 'Midnight Wind'...we were going to mix 'Midnight Wind' and I really wanted her to sing on 'Gold.'  Because when she did 'Midnight Wind' she heard 'Gold' and said, "Oh, I really want to sing on that."  And I didn't have the money at that time to put her on.  I said I can't do it without seeing that amount of money.  We'd all had a few drinks at that point and what you say at four in the morning half in the bag is not what you might say in the cold light of a sober day.

So when she came down that night to do 'Midnight Wind' I had 'Gold' out prepared - I had it up ready to go and pretended I was mixing it or whatever.  I could tell when she walked in by the look on her face that she was not gonna sing that night.  She just had that 'I ain't singing' look on her face.  So I said, "Stevie I'm gonna go out do the tag on this song - let's you and Mary and I go out and sing the end."  Well, Mary began to cry and I went, "Oh, my God, what did I say?"  Stevie said, "John, this is Mary's dream to sing on a record."  I said, "We've got to go out and do it."  So we went out and did the tag and Mary was singing and crying.

I had the lyrics to 'Gold' written out on enormous cue cards because Stevie really can't see too well.  Mary went back in the booth and I grabbed Stevie and said, "Stevie, come on, let's just do the verses on this song.  It's not gonna take long."  I said, "Turn the tape on," so they turned the tape on and held the cue cards out and I put my hand over Stevie's mouth when she wasn't supposed to sing and hit her in the back when she was and she did it in one take and I got her on the song.  If it hadn't been for Mary Torrey being there that night, Stevie never would have done 'Gold.'

When did you write 'Gold'?

The album began in August, right?  Probably June... yeah.

Was it one of those songs that had been floating around at the back for a long time or...

No, it just came quickly.  I didn't write it in ten minutes like some of them.  It took me a couple of weeks.  It also wasn't one that took any effort to write, just a normal length of time.

Did you get any special buzz about it when you finished it?

No.  Just another tune.  It felt pretty good but I was not elated or anything.

I never know with you when you're kidding me or not, because you have a great way of saying things deadpan, and...

Me, Peter?  Surely you jest?

I remember driving back to Malibu one day, and I was wittering away in my usual fashion about how wonderful 'Gold' was and the reaction from audiences and what a great single it was going to be, you said, "Peter, there is no way that that's a single"...you don't even remember it?

I do remember it.  I do remember feeling that way, too, because of the subject matter.  I just didn't think people would buy a song about trying to get a hit record.  I thought it was too inside.  So did Al.

That's amazing, because I think "people out there turning music into gold" is a thing people automatically identify with.  Anyone who has picked a guitar, listened to the radio, tried to write a song, would identify with that.

Yeah, which it turned out is...really, Pete, the fact that people don't have to identify with the song to like it.  A lot of really young kids - like 8 or 9 years old - love 'Gold' and love to sing it because it's fun to sing.  So if it's fun to sing, I don't think it really matters what the hell you're singing about.  I really don't.

A lot of kids at my school like it.

It's really a children's song when you come right down to it.

'Lost Her in the Sun' - I first heard this album at RSO.  They just had a tape of it...

I made this tape for Al, it was not a finished tape, it was not a master, and I said, "Al, where is that tape?" and he said, "Oh, I left it in Europe."  I said, "Al, for Chrissakes!" so that's the tape you got that you thought was the finished album.

I just heard it, that was all, you know.

Oh, you didn't...I see.

I'd love to get my hands on that.  It's floating around RSO somewhere.

I'm sorry, I interrupted, what was your question?

It was just that the song was different from the way it had been in California when I was there.

Completely, yeah.

I sat there and I thought, 'What is this?'  Again, it was a song I had loved and I thought, 'God, he's really changed it.'  The whole tempo and rhythm of the song was altered.  How did this come about?

The song never really felt right to me and I didn't know why.  I was in putting guitars on the song.  There was a trick that I used to do with the Trio that Lindsey reminded me of, which is called VSO'ing where you slow the tape down, put a guitar on, when you bring it back up to speed the guitar's very airy.  I slowed the tape down, the drums became enormous and the groove was just locked right in.  I remember saying to Bryan Garofalo, "Listen to that."  He said, "Yeah!"  The lyrics should go (da da da) and it's obvious that's what the song was rather than the way it was, so I wrote some new lyrics to it and that's how the song came to be.  It's just one of those fates of slowing the tape down, so it's a good trick.  We're going to do it on the next album, recording a song fast and slowing it down to spread the drum sound.

I hope to see that eventually as a single, I really do.

A lot of people thought it was, a lot of people still think it is, and it's gotten no real vote of confidence from any major influence on singles radiowise in America, so I don't know if it ever will be.  It's gotten scathing reviews in America...a total schlok ballad.  I mean, since the album hit the top ten the reviews have been merciless on it, and they're total bullshit.  I just crack up about it, because they say, "Lindsey Buckingham's stinging guitar part on 'Midnight Wind' saves the record," and I'm playing the guitar part on that thing.  "Lindsey's production bails out Stewart."  It's my production!  And Lindsey's in on it too, getting great reviews for guitar parts he never played.  So they just can't wait to knock you down once you get there.

Still, it's nice to be up there to be knocked down.

Oh, yeah, sure.

Joey Carbone came up with one or two things there and I must say I was very imprsssed with his contribution whilst I was around.

Joey's the man.  Joey hears hit licks...like the opening lick to 'Gold,' and this is something money can't buy.  I plan to use him on the next album again because he hears those things that are catchy, rather than just playing a nice part.

What I liked about him was he would put forward a suggestion and you'd give it a try, and if you didn't like it he didn't get sulky about it if it wasn!t picked up.

No, it's called being professional, that many people never master.  No names mentioned.

'Runaway Fool of Love' you did again for this album.  If I remember right, because Al Coury wanted you to.

Yeah, and I liked the song.  It had never been done in the studio.  It was live on "The Phoenix Concerts" album, so I thought, 'Yeah, let's give it a try, it's a good song.'

And the excellent Barry Ballard (who deserves a mention in this interview) pointed out to me - so I don't know everything and don't even notice everything - that you changed it from "Mississippi boy" to "California boy."

You mean you didn't catch that, Peter?  I'm surprised at you.  Yeah, I did that at the last minute, because it started out with 'Gold' - very California - then 'Lost Her in the Sun,' and there was really a theme going on there.  Out of 'Lost Her in the Sun' to 'Runaway Fool of Love,' being a California album, Mississippi had nothing to do with it.  I just jumped in the studio and cut in the first verse and did another vocal and made it California.  Oh, Peter, I'm surprised you didn't catch that.  Slipping, huh, in your twilight years.

I'm getting old, John.  Nearly as old as you again.

Again!  Not again?

You're a year ahead of me for three months, you see, until December 7th, and then I catch up.

'Somewhere Down the Line.'  It's too easy for people to talk about 'The Fleetwood Mac sound' and 'The Fleetwood Mac influence'.  People don't listen properly.  'Somewhere Down the Line,' to anyone who's listened to you over the years, is a song which the Kingston Trio would have done...

Absolutely, it's a direct Kingston Trio tune done the same way, adding simply a kick drum, otherwise it's a Kingston Trio tune. On some of the reviews in America they've called it "a Peter, Paul and Mary type song," which just infuriates me.  You know, it's like Paul getting a review on one of his songs that it sounds like the Dave Clark Five.  I mean. Peter, Paul and Mary learned what to do from the Kingston Trio.  They were a Kingston Trio imitator group when they started and it just knocks my socks off to hear that.

I guess they say that because Buffy sings on it, therefore it has a female part on it which, of course, the Kingston Trio never had.

Well, you see, everyone thinks that Buffy is Bryan Garofalo...that's Bryan you're hearing.  That's another time we slowed the tape down and put Bryan on, and when we sped it up his voice became really high, so that part became very ethereal.  Buffy's on there with Bryan but the two voices are so intermeshed you can't tell one from the other.

It must have been good to work with Bryan again.

It was great to work with Bryan again.  A lovely guy, absolutely hysterical guy.

The short time I was around it was obvious that he was very important to you in those early stages.

Very.  Oh, yeah, Bryan was very supportive and guided me along.

What's a kalimba?

African thumb piano...you want to know what an African thumb piano is, huh?  Do you?

You'd love to tell me.

I thought everyone knew what an African thumb piano was.  Do you know?  I'll be glad to tell you, Peter, if you don't know.

Please do.

It's a small hollow wooden box, about nine inches by four inches and two inches deep, with a hole in it.  Across the hole are metal strips of different lengths attached to a bar.  You push them through the bar to hit the note and you pluck it with your thumb.  That is an African thumb piano.

At what stage did you incorporate it into the song?  Did you decide you wanted a little bit of something unusual there?

Yeah.  I was over at Village Recorders.  I had been over at the Fleetwood studio and seen their kalimba over there, which I'd used on the Trio. Said, "Oh, yeah, a kalimba."  So I ran over and said, "Can I borrow your kalimba?" and they said yeah.  Put it on - there was no great thought to it.  It was a spur of the moment idea.

I've just remembered that in 'Lost Her on the Sun'...

In the sun.  We went to the moon, Peter, we didn't go to the sun yet.  First man on the sun, right?  I have some good suggestions for that!  I have some good candidates for that trip.

A top ten?

Oh yeah.  I have a top two that would knock your eyes out!

There's a guitar which you come in with on about the second verse, is it, which sounds as if you are...

Yeah, the click guitar?

So that's what you call it.  It's just a little thing, but it's that sort of thing that...

Spices it up, makes it interesting, catches your ear.  That was very much planned out.  Little things that wouldn't be really obtrusive, but after listening and listening you'd finally think, 'Oh, what's that back there?'  You see, it really keeps the hypnotic quality thing going.

When it was first played to me at RSO, just before the track started, Ashley Newton said, "Hey, there's this guitar, listen,'' so that had been picked up on about one hearing by the people at RSO.

Oh, that's good.  It's nice to know that people hear that stuff because you wonder if they ever do.

'Midnight Wind' you have talked about.  It's just nice to see Russ Kunkel there on drums.  It struck me at the time, having played with Crosby and Nash and all these different people for so long, he must have really enjoyed being able to come in and knock hell out of the drums on that track.  It's such powerful drumming.

Doesn't he do that on...no, he doesn't too much, does he?  Yeah, it was great to hear Russ on the drums again.  He is the best.

Really.  I thought the drumming there was very impressive.

Very.  I mean, Rick Shlosser is the new hot guy in LA - he's a great drummer, I would say that, easily a great drummer - but Russ is Russ and I think that his drumming on 'Midnight Wind' really shines on that album.  He's gonna do the whole next album with me so I'm really looking forward to that.  It's going to be terrific to have his drums on every song.

A quick plug for his wife who has a new album out.

Leah?  Yeah, Russ produced it and is gonna do another one with her very soon, I think.

It helps to know she's Mama Cass's sister, but she certainly has some of that Mama Cass sound in the voice there.

Like the Everly Brothers, or any brothers and sisters, there's a similar timbre to the voice which is completely natural.

It's very brave of you to open side two with a song called 'Over the Hill,' because if anyone wanted to be snide they could really...

Yeah, they haven't yet, but they could.

I guess that was your jogging song?

What do you mean by that, O'Brien?  Oh yeah, that's exactly right, it's my jogging song.  Of course...it's not a jogging song . That's my Buddy Holly drum song.  It's just an excuse to use those drums, if you want to know the truth.  That's really true.  I said, "I've got to write a song with that bompity, bompity," and I just started playing that riff on the guitar.  Those lyrics came out without even thinking about it.  No, that's just an excuse to do a song like that.

We can have a plug for Tobler's book.  Did John give you a copy of his Buddy Holly book?

No.  He tried to sell me one but I didn't have the money on me.  No, Tobler did not give me one.

You should have charged it to RSO. You've got Mary Kay Place here.

Mmm, sweet child.  She was doing an album at Village and I've always been a big fan of Mary Kay's.  I think she's a great singer...great attitude.  I went down and I said, "Mary Kay, I'm gonna do this song.  Would you come by and sing background?"  She said, "Sure."  She got to the studio that night and was absolutely petrified with fear.  Said, "I've never sung background before."  I said, "Mary Kay, there's nothing different with singing background.  You're just singing lead with another melody."  Lindsey was there and she was absolutely intimidated by Lindsey, because Lindsey's so confident in the studio that you want to hit him.  She started screaming at him, "You're so confident, you're so damn professional, I can't do this!"  So Lindsey and I sat her down, said, "Mary Kay, don't be ridiculous.  Come on."  Gave her a couple of drinks and she got it great.  She got it in two takes.

Just from that little story, by that stage of recording the album you were having fun?

Having a great time, yeah, it was getting to be real fun.  It was sounding like I wanted it to sound at last and it had direction and purpose.

Not only were you going to do 'Spinnin' of the World,' but didn't you also maybe put down on tape 'Children of the Morning'?

Yeah, I did record that.

In the same sort of way?

Uhuh, yeah.  Lindsey wasn't on it.  It was just me and about four 12 string guitars, and that was one that didn't come on the album.

Maybe on the next album?

If the album needs that kind of song in that place then it would.

I do think you and Lindsey sound absolutely wonderful together.  Really, it's not just bullshit flattery.  It would be really nice if it were possible for you to sit down and do an album of that sort of thing just for the fun of it.

It would be fun, yeah.  Not possible, but fun.

And David Jackson's been around a long time, hasn't he?

Oh, that turkey, yeah.  I let him come in the studio one night, you know.  A mercy gig.  The guy was out of work and down on his luck.  So I said, "Bring him in, we can always overdub it if he can't play it."  He stumbled through the tune, I paid him and kicked him out.

You do know that everything you say gets printed, don't you?

I know.  I mean, the guy's a washout.  What can I tell you?

'Comin' Out of Nowhere' - just looking at the people on it I figured you'd gone in with the band and done this and, again, it's a really powerful, moving song.  I've heard several people say they thought it could have been a hit.  In a way it has been as it gets just as much royalty money through being on the 'B' side of 'Gold.'

Yeah, it does, it brings the same amount as 'Gold.'  I don't think it would be a hit but it was fun to do.  It was the only time I ever wrote a song about another song.  That song is written about a song of Lindsey's on the "Tusk" album called 'That's Enough For Me.'  When I heard it, it was absolutely devastating, and I wanted to write a song letting people know there was something coming that would knock their ears off their heads.  Very much in my Dylan code mode.

And we can give a plug to some other people who are all doing additional vocals.  Chris and Joey we know.  Croxey Adams?

A very fine studio singer out of LA who is a songwriter himself and is looking for a record deal.  A really good singer...good person.

And next on the list, here he comes...Dave Guard!

Dave!  Brother David!  Captain Fantastic.  My fuhrer, my guru.  Dave is great.  He stayed with me almost the whole album - or the whole last third of it - and was really supportive.  He stayed in the studio day and night.  The man was absolutely incredible.  Contributed great ideas and some terrible ideas.  Dave is also like that.  He can give you an idea and you can completely dismiss it and he just moves on.  Doesn't take it personally at all.

And Deborah Tompkins?

Another studio singer who was in a group with Croxey and is one of those people who can sight read, knows immediately how to find the harmonies and get it down like that.  Good singer.

And Catherine's Dave's wife?

No, his daughter.  Good singer, too.  She's 19 or 20.  Has she done anything before?  No, I don't think she has really.  She's going to college now in LA and studies music.

I know the story of 'Heart of the Dream' in that it wasn't 'Heart of the Dream' and it changed shape...in fact, it even changed shape while I was staying with you.  I remember driving down Pacific Coast Highway and you threw a revised chorus at me and said, "What do you think of this, Peter?"  But it originally started as a song about your house falling into the sea, didn't it?

Yeah, not exactly a timeless subject.  After a few weeks with that song I thought, 'Who cares about that?'  So I thought a song about California was much needed - about the experience of living in the promised land.  As you witnessed, that magical mile of highway through Malibu and Santa Monica.

It is magical.  In fact, the whole of the LA trip was, because wherever I looked I would see Ventura Boulevard and think, 'There's a song called that,' or see somewhere else like Rosecrans Boulevard, and you're straight into the 5th Dimension song. Everywhere you go, the whole state is a song - the whole of LA is a song.

Yes, the whole thing, absolutely.  Very true.  It's where it's happening.

This, and 'Hand Your Heart to the Wind,' was the first appearance of Wayne Hunt.  They must have been very late because I actually got - from your then manager - all the details of what was on the album, and they weren't on.

That was the last two days of the album.

Why did you suddenly ditch those two and bring in the other two?

They didn't feel right to me.

Just the question of feel?

Yeah, if I had the clarity of now I would put 'Easy Fever' on there instead of 'Hand Your Heart to the Wind.'  But I just felt the message of 'Hand Your Heart to the Wind' was a more fitting closing.  It was the real experimental track of the album.  It's a real bizarre track.  If you get a little loaded and you put earphones on that track will absolutely take you away.  But just for general listening it's a bit of a turkey.  (Laughs) Nothing ventured, nothing gained, you know.

Tom De Lisle actually said he thought the other song, 'Hard Time Town,' was a very good song as well.

It is a good song.  It didn't feel just right.  It felt a little too MOR.  It felt a little too...what's the word I want?

Contrived?

Yeah, for the want of a better word, that's it.

Was that a song you wrote in response to...

You want to know about that song?  'Hard Time Town' was a song that Buffy wrote and I doctored up a bit to make it more commercial.  Went in and told Al Coury that Lindsey wrote it and that if we didn't do it he'd give it to Walter Egan, and that this was the hit we were looking for.  That's how desperate I'd got.

Did Al buy it?

Yeah.

Does he know that now?

He does now!  I hate to lie to people but what the hell could I do at that point?  My ass was on the line.  Do anything to save your ass at that point.

Personally, I think side one is equal to anything you've recorded in your life.

It was planned that way.  When I sequenced the album I wanted side one to be an absolute killer.  Just have a flow to it, rather than spreading out the better tracks throughout the album and have a more balanced album.  But then you still don't have a favourite side, and most people play - I know I do - one side of an album over and over and don't really listen to the other side.  Side one of the Bob Seger "Stranger in Town" album - and the other side is great, too, but side one is the one that does it to me.  "Rumours'' side one is the one that does it.  I felt that people, if they got through side one and loved it, they would love the album.  It was absolutely preplanned to do that.

Your last two albums have been dedicated to people who were very close to you and died.

It seems that my albums have become obituaries.

I think Rainbow's the right place for you to say, if you want to, a little bit about Bill Compton, and something about Stan Goldstein, because the average person over here certainly wouldn't know who either of these people were.

Bill Compton was a disc jockey in Phoenix, Arizona, who was the number one disc jockey in FM and really loved my music and played it like they were hits, and really was responsible for the great acceptance I had in Arizona and responsible for the gigs that I did there.  He was really an innovator in American radio and later left the station, and the station then changed his format.  Bill was killed in an automobile accident after that.

Stan Goldstein was one of my dearest friends and my agent and was really close.  Once again, he got hit with a car.  A terrific guy.

I must throw a quote of yours at you.  One of your old quotes.  You've noticed how I keep on resurrecting your old quotes?

Making me suffer through my past.

It's this one..."I think it would be a lot easier to get up in the morning, the battle's half won by then.  You do better gigs, get more time in the studio, reach more people, and your life becomes different.  A lot of the dues are over - dealing with record companies and things - are changed.  You've won and you have much more freedom to do what you want and take the time you need to do it..."  That was you talking to Zoo World back in '73.  Is that the way it's working out?

Exactly.  I no longer have to audition for RSO and I can very much plan my life now.  Say I'm gonna do this gig here and this gig there, and go in the studio there.  It's not as frenetic as it was.  I'm still not getting rich.  I have to sell 800,000 albums to make any money.  It's a lot of records.

An incredible number of records.  Has the album gone gold yet?

It should have gone gold this week.  You have to sell 500,000 to go gold.  It should be there by now, I think.

That will be nice on the wall.

I'm just not into that.  The fun is in doing the album.  When you have a gold record on the wall...I'm sure it will hang in my manager's office, you know.  It's a nice landmark.

That's really what I mean.  It's almost the 'I told you so!' thing.  'I damn well did it.'  Despite what everyone thinks and the obstacles they put in your way.

I'm sure it's similar to an Olympic medal.  What do you do with it?  You hang it on the wall and people read it when they come in.  It's there, it's still ancient history.

Talking to Chris the other day, he was saying you are probably going into the studio in October.  Judging by the new material you've got, you must be really excited by that prospect?

I really am.  I started doing demos before I left so I started getting into it, which is a deathly mistake to make because - you know - once I get into doing an album I can't even go buy toothpaste.  I'm just totally obsessed by it.  I'm really looking forward to this one.  Using what I learned on the other one straight off, having that attitude, and having the freedom of going in with a hit record and not having the paranoia of the other album to do.

The song that everyone talked to me about afterwards, and which I had talked about to everyone I could who would listen beforehand - having heard you in Denver - was 'Odin.'

Yeah, 'Spirit of the Water'...it's just a song.

But 'Gold' is "just a song" but some "just a songs" have that little bit of magic that provokes the sort of audience response I heard with 'Gold' last summer and 'Odin' this.

I know, there are songs that have that ingredient, and it's really encouraging to be getting the same reaction from 'Spirit of the Water' that 'Gold' got at that stage.  You can say, "That's the one."  I'm anxious to get Al's reaction to the song because if he doesn't like it I know it's a hit!  Do you edit any of this, by the way?

I will if you specifically ask me to leave out something.

It's really hard to do interviews with you, Peter, because everything I say is printed verbatim.  You don't even clean up my syntax at all - dangling sentences and unfinished words.

That's much better than being misquoted left, right and centre.

Oh, yeah, for heaven's sake.  Yeah, I'm really excited about the next album and doing that song.  I'm going to try to get Stevie in on that one too.  That should be terrific.

Well, you've just mentioned Stevie again.  They're gonna be pretty busy, and you are privileged to have heard this new album upon which the whole recording industry's future hangs.  I'm sure you'd like to give a plug for the album...or maybe you wouldn't!  That's very presumptuous of me to say I'm sure you would.

I don't think they need any plugs, but I'll just say it's a terrific album and not at all like "Rumours."

Well, 'Tusk' certainly isn't.

'Tusk' is great.  It's really a good laxative for the radio constipation of the world.  It's really back to what rock 'n roll started as...fun.  Where music should be.  It is not like anything else on the album.  The album sounds nothing like 'Tusk,' and that's the reason they put it out - just let people have no idea what the album is like.  They took a real chance with the album and I'm gonna have to hand it to them, they were very courageous.  It would have been very easy to go in and do another "Rumours" with the same format and have guaranteed sales.

They're the hardest working people I've met in my life and Stevie Nicks is one of our finest songwriters who is never given any credit for the amount of incredible songs she's written.  I think she puts most of the singer/songwriters in the toilet.  She's got a song called 'Angel' which is the best one she's ever written.  She's got a song called 'Sisters of the Moon' which is a killer - absolute killer.  Lindsey has some really bizarre good songs and Christine came through with some good things.  A much different album, I can't even tell you what it's like, but it's nothing like "Rumours" and it's definitely Fleetwood Mac.

I'm just wondering how your next album will sound?

I won't know until I get it finished.

Your stage show is very impressive...I was talking to Chris about the sound you get, because I said at times when the whole band is really cooking you feel you could almost lean up against this wall of sound which is coming at you.

Mmm, good, that's what I'm after.  I'm still not happy with the sound of the band from the fact, not of the players, but we haven't really had the opportunity yet to go into a rehearsal studio and record what we do and listen back.  Because when you're playing you really don't know how your part is fitting in.  That's something we have to do before we go out again, but it's getting closer and closer to what I want.

I'm sorry to bring this up, but...

Oh, Jesus, here it comes.  What are you going to bring up now, Peter?  When you say you're sorry you're going to bring something up, you're really gonna go for the jugular.

Oh, come off it, no.  People will be absolutely staggered to know that you were devastated and totally brought down by Monday's gig.

Well, that's not really...I was very disappointed.

Your first words to me were, "You asshole, O'Brien!"

I'll say it again.  "You asshole, O'Brien, telling me they wanted to hear all the old songs.  They couldn't have cared less about the old songs.  Did you see the review in the goddam Melody Maker comparing me to John Wayne?  That's all I need now, O'Brien, is to be compared to John Wayne at this point in my career!

Haven't you got the stomach for it?

Oh, Peter!  You said it and I hope you print that, O'Brien.  You have to do it or I'll never do another interview with you again. You edit yourself and not me and don't have...

This is only the second interview you've done with me, you realise that?

Is it really?  That's right!

You only talk to me when you!re in England.

Well, if you'd have tried to interview me during that album you'd have got grunts and moans.

Anyway, give me your reaction to Tuesday night.

Tuesday night was just a complete knockout.  It was the same show I do in America that I know works and the audience went crazy and it was really a great energy charge for me.

There were a couple of things that happened.  One, I guess bec ause nobody had danced the night before, they filled up that dancing area in front and then, of course, you had people up and wanting to dance...

Well, it really helped because it brought me closer to the audience.

Yeah...I've forgotten what the other thing was...  Oh, yeah, the other thing was that you walked on and straightaway people were up and yelling and whistling and so forth.  But I still stand by what I said - I know you don't believe it - but the audience on Monday was absolutely rapt.  I think what it was, they were being too reverent.  It was like being in church.

Oh, God!

You know what I mean?

I know what you mean, but it's real scary.

There was not a sound as you sang...

They were very quiet, they were certainly that.

...then when you finished thered be a burst of applause before everyone settled down to await the next utterance, the next thing coming down from the Mount, or whatever it was.  A helluva lot of people were there on the second night who had been there the first night, and I might say that a lot of them were in the theatre at 7.30 getting the places upfront.

That's terrific!  I hope we can do more next time.

So the people you thought were either dead or hated you, in fact, were right back there and willing to sit for another three, three and a half hours, to make sure they got a seat near the stage.

That's terrific.

I think RSO must have got rentamob in because...

I told Sinki and Arthur (who have just done an incredible job here - they've really restored my faith in record companies), I said, "I know you paid those guys out there.  It's gonna cost you a fortune."  Here's Arthur now!  Sinky said that Arthur would stand next to someone and have his picture taken in case they get famous.

Would you like to stand next to me?

You're famous already, O'Brien.

Thank you very much for that mention during Tuesday's show.

It was the least I could do.

Pete Frame was sitting next to me and he said, "Omaha, there must be tears in your eyes!"

Oh, Frame, that maniac!  John Tobler calls you Omaha.  He says, "Where's Omaha today?"  You should change your name. Omaha O'Brien or Peter Omaha, maybe.

Any messages...for Tom De Lisle, for instance?

I really miss his column.  I thought it was brilliant journalism and I'm really looking forward to the Pullitzer Prize next year.

I'm looking forward a) to getting the next column and b) to getting the damn Dave Guard interview out of him that he's been sitting on for about...

He hasn't given you that?  I don't know if he finished it because I was there the night he started it.  Dave can take you on a primrose lane with an interview like no-one has ever done.  You can ask him one question about his shoes and twenty minutes later he's talking about the secret of the universe, and I don't know if he ever finished it, to tell you the truth.

We can get it started, that's the thing.

I'll see him when I get back and tell him to get off the sack.

I've got all sorts of people coming out to America and every one is going to be ringing up Tom until one of them can come back with that damn interview.

Good for you.  Hound him to death!