The Gibson Interview: Steve Miller (Part 3)
http://www.gibson.com/en-us/Lifestyle/Features/steve-miller-interview-3-0308/
The Joker Takes a Big Ol' Jet Airliner to London and Meets The Beatles
Michael Wright
03.10.2010
Read Part 1 of this interview here,
http://www.gibson.com/en-us/Lifestyle/Features/steve-miller-interview-1-0305/
and part 2 here.
http://www.gibson.com/en-us/Lifestyle/Features/steve-miller-interview-2-0308/
Steve Miller knows everybody. And we mean EVERYBODY. For instance,
when we meet Steve at his tour bus outside the Gibson Custom Factory
and the breakfast discussion turns to T-Bone Walker, he rather
matter-of-factly pulls out a CD, that just happens to be lying
around, of T-Bone playing at a house party…in his parents' living
room! Later, he takes a break from our discussion in the showroom to
take a phone call from Billy Gibbons to chat about, among other
things, the Gibson Pearly Gates reissue that is now a regular part of
Steve's live show. Steve Miller IS rock and roll. He's more than an
observer of the great musical form of the late 20th Century. He's the
very fabric of it.
--
Capitol was going through a rough time. We put out, I guess, five
albums in 18 months. That's what they did to us. And I started
writing a lot of songs. And that part I didn't know any better. And
of course, every time I would (put out an album), I'd get 60,000
bucks and, you know, keep the band alive. At the same time then, we
started like...We went to Detroit and played The Grande Ballroom. And
then we went to Boston and played The Electric Circus. And then we
went to the Cafe au Go Go…
We had such a bad time recording at Capitol Records. We were hippies.
And the engineering staff was just a bunch of right-wing country guys
at Capitol Records. And they hated us. The record company the
president Alan Livingston, the guy who signed us, thought we were the
future of the company but…I thought I was joining a recording club
where I was going to get a lot of help…you know? (laughs) And
basically I was jumping into a pool of people who were all fighting
for the same resources. And it was, stab-you-in-the-back-in-a-second.
I got there and they wouldn't book us any studio time until midnight,
and I didn't understand what it was. "What do you mean, 'midnight'?"
They didn't want us in the building. They were trying to make it as
difficult for us as they could. So we drive down, we've got all of
our equipment, we go in and it's Friday night at midnight or
something. And we go in and we get set up and we're at Studio B at
Capitol Records, and it's pretty exciting, you know? It's Les Paul's
label and I'm really excited to start recording. And I'd written a
bunch of songs and I'm ready to go. We set up, tuned everything and
started recording and by four o'clock I said, "I can't even see, I'm
so tired." And they said, "All right, we'll stop the session. We'll
start again tomorrow night at midnight." We go back the next night at
midnight and they say, "You've got to move all of your equipment out
of Studio B. We're moving you to Studio A, because somebody else is
going to be using the studio tomorrow. You gotta get this stuff out
of here right now." I went, "What?" You know? So we move all the
stuff over to the next studio, get it all set up and the
engineering staff had walked out!
So I called up my producer, John Palladino, and I said, "Listen, man.
You can have the contract back right now. I'm done with this. I'm not
going to put up with this. I'm not going to be treated like this.
These guys are nuts!" I said, "I've come to work!" And it was, like,
3:30 in the morning and I woke him up at his house. And I just said,
"I'll be right over. You can have the contract back. You can have the
money back. You can have it all back. No, no, no, no, no, no, no, no,
no!" So, then we started trying to figure out where we were going to
record, and we ended up going to Olympic Studios in London and got
Glyn Johns to be our engineer. And that's how that all started.
We showed up over in London and they loved rock and roll. They were
way ahead of the American guys. Jimmy Page and all those guys were
hanging around, coming in and going out. Glyn had just finished
recording The Who and The Rolling Stones. We met all those guys. They
were just there at Olympic. We spent, I don't know, six weeks, seven
weeks, two months. Something like that.
The Olympic Studios in London, there was so much going on. This was
just insane at the time; like when I met the Beatles in '69, I was
there recording and I needed a guitar and said, "You guys got
anything?" And I ended up with Lennon's Epiphone. And I had Keith
Richards' little…he had some tiny little amp that was like they'd
just done "Honky Tonk Women" with. Stu, their road guy, said, "Oh,
you can have that, mate." "Oh, thank you very much." (laughs) "I'll
just take that back home with me." And there were The Beatles were
recording over here and the Stones were coming in there, and Jimmy at
that time was a session guy. And I was there when Led Zeppelin
started doing their very first sessions.
I was there at (Led Zeppelin's) first gig in San Francisco. The
English bands were, like, from another planet. We were standing
around in t-shirts and we were hippies. And they were like this
remarkably professional, beautifully dressed, magnificent they had
these giant Marshall amps. You know, I was playing through my old
Bassman that I'd had since 1959. And we were just stunned. First it
was Cream. Then it was (Zeppelin) and Hendrix.
But we did all of our stuff at Olympic, and then Wally Heider started
building better studios and stuff, and I stayed away from Capitol
forever. The next time I went back to Capital was when (I did) "The
Joker" and, by that time, I had gotten rid of all the producers. I
fought with everybody every step. To make Children of the Future I
just had to whack Glyn Johns with a baseball bat. He hated
electronics. He hated the idea of hooking everything together. He
just thought that was all crazy. Jimmy (Page) sat in the control
booth and watched me do all that and thought it was great. So we were
on the cutting edge of all that stuff at that time, and then I kept
going back and mixing (at Olympic).
I would record…I think we did Sailor with Wally Heider in L.A. Then
Wally built a studio in San Francisco, but I would go back to Olympic
to mix. That's how I met The Beatles and how I ended up meeting all
these guys. But that was wonderful. It was really amazing because I
went to…whichever album it was…Brave New World or something. I was
going to mix it, and The Beatles were just finishing up some work
with Glyn and they needed a couple more days. So they said, "Come on.
We're going over to George's house." "George's house? George?! Wait a
minute. I have to go change clothes!" So we go to George's house and
George opens up the door and there he is. It's George! He was so
sweet. In ten seconds, he said "Gosh. You know, Steve, I heard
Children of the Future. What a great record." And I was just like,
"George Harrison knows who I am? My God." "Come on in," he said. I
was twirling his prayer wheel and playing on his synthesizer in two
minutes. And he was just a sweetheart. He invited me to the sessions.
So the next night, I go to the session and Lennon and McCartney come
in and sing "Get Back." And I'm just sitting there watching that and
not making a noise, you know. Real quiet. And the next day, they were
going to do some stuff and John and Ringo didn't show up for the
session. They had all their gear set up and everything at Olympic.
And so, George and Paul (were there). And I'm there, and Linda is
there. And Yoko Ono was there. And that really...that was trouble. I
mean, I remember sitting in the room and going, "Who is that?" And
they were doing a mix and she's going like, "Hey, can you turn that
down. I'm on the phone!" It was like…what?!
You know, The Beatles, man. The way they recorded. They recorded so
fast it was ridiculous. I've (talked to Paul about it). I remember
making records and The Beatles would come out with a record and you'd
just feel like, "God, how am I ever going to…whew!" And they were so
talented. When I met The Beatles, they had two records in the can.
They were so far ahead of everybody it was nuts. I learned so much
from those guys. Their approach was just, like, old school. They went
to work at ten o'clock in the morning and they stopped at five
o'clock in the afternoon. And if they needed more songs, they wrote
"Hey Jude" and something else that night. And they went in and cut it
the next day.
I've worked with Paul a lot and I've watched them record, and I can
tell you that when they sang "Get Back," it took 12 minutes. I mean,
they walked in and went "Yeah, okay. Da-da-da-da-da-da-lot-dut-dut."
And it was done. And you kind of went…(gapes) "Holy cow!" You know?
And then Lennon left and he went and did a television show and then
he took the country and turned it upside down and did that to it and
he came back in and he, you know, sang another song. And that was it.
And when I was talking to Paul, I finally got to know him well enough
to (ask him about The Beatles). He said, "People thought we were so
brilliant. Man, we just tossed that stuff off so fast." And I was
just having this come-to-Jesus kind of conversation with him. He
said, "You know, I wish that I had taken more time with a lot of
tunes." And I'm thinking to myself, "Yeah? Which one?" You know? What
could be (improved upon)? They just kicked that stuff out.
It's funny, because when I worked with Paul…first of all, he called
me up and said, "Will you come and sing with me?" And I went, "I'm so
tired of carrying you people." (laughs) "You guys. Who gave you my
number? You tell Sinatra…" (laughs) But finally I said, "Why don't
you come over to my place? I've got a great studio and everything."
So he brings his engineer. He brings Linda, brings the kids. Brings
Stella, brings James. They all come. They all stay. And we're all
recording. And any time I would ever go, "Let's do (another take)."
He'd go, "There you go again." It's always the first take and the
only take. There was never any more. What I did, when we were through
with his stuff I love the way he plays drums. He's a great, great,
great drummer. Really big, bad-ass drummer. So whenever it was my
turn, I'd go in and get my Les Paul out and start grinding and he'd
play drums. And I've got lots of that kind of stuff where we just
made stuff up and cut it.
But they really worked fast. I went to Paris after they cut "Get
Back." I went to do some shows or something. And three days later, I
came back and that song was out. The way they worked, they had this
huge backlog of stuff that was already recorded. And if they came up
with a hot single or something, (they would pull from the backlog for
a b-side). And that song, I saw it recorded and, within three days,
it was out and it was number one all over Europe. And I just went,
"How the hell did they do it?" I mean, how did they press these
records and get them into the stores? But they did.
Everything they did every step of the way every record, for me as a
musician and all of the people that I knew was like a giant
revelation and a whole new level of consciousness. Incredible,
incredible creativity.
--
Join us in two days for Part 4 of The Gibson Interview, where Steve
talks about the brand-new Steve Miller Band album and the new Golden
Age of Gibson.
.
--
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