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lemonade kid
Old Love
USA
9869 Posts |
 Posted - 26/04/2011 : 21:31:16
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For those who never saw it and those who want to read again....
ZIGZAG: Love's very first press hand-out says you are "the least verbal, but, like Bryan and Johnny, an intellectual who has turned thought into direct action".
SNOOP Y : Huh...the ****ing chick who wrote that was full of ****, man. I could make some comments on that, man....like that chick used to **** Bryan, was in cahoots with Arthur, and she didn't dig my trip at all, because I was always trying-to straighten things out - like her dishonesty, for instance. She says I'm the least verbal because I didn't ever used to, talk to her, ...I had nothing to do with that chick, man.
ZZ It's" a pity you didn't get a long biography -like this one on Tjay Cantrelli....you just got a little one - just a few lines.
Snoopy: I always got a little one. I only got a little out of everything to do with Love, man....you name it, and I only got *a little out of it man; including the ****ing bread.
ZZ: Can you tell us about Vito? Did he discover Love?
Snoopy: No, man - he was just a freak, that's all.... he was just one of the first of the Los Angeles freaks. He got the Byrds together, as I remember - they did a lot of rehearsing at his pad - -and he used to do painting and modern dancing, make pottery - and he used to **** all the young chicks. He got married, had a baby, gave it acid, and it fell off the roof and died. He was .a real freak - an old cat, too, but he didn't have **** to do: with_ either Love or Bido Lito's, The only connection he had with us was that he knew Bryan a bit, that's all.
ZZ: Did we get it right (in Zigzag 10) about the Brave New World coffeehouse being the first place that Love played - with Don Conka on drums,' before you came in?
snoopy: Right, and Bido Lito's was where I came in, a few months later,
ZZ : And that's where Jac Holzman saw the group?
S
noopy: Well, all the record companies came down there. The trip was that we, together with the Byrds, were the only two groups in the whole country who were turned on and playing for turned-on people. So, at that time, at the beginning of hippie-ism, anyone who wanted to hear any turned on music, naturally came to see one of us. We were like the underground group, but the word got around fast and naturally the business ears were open, and they dropped by too. They all wanted to sign us, but Arthur wasn't interested in a contract that didn't give him the whole of the publishing - 100% of the publishing. 'Jell, as you might know, record companies don't go or that trip - but Jac Holzman must've found away of talking Arthur round, and eventually he signed with :Elektra Records.
ZZ: You must have made a load of bread out of those first 2 albums you were on....
Snoopy: I didn't make ,NY ****ing bread, man. The only bread that I ever got was 1000 dollars which Arthur gave me "out of the kindness of his heart" he said. That's all I got. I didn't got a _ thing from Elektra - in fact, I've seen reports they've sent Arthur fairly recently which say that Love is still in the red. Can you believe that? Sure Jac Holzman said "take all the publishing".,.. he could afford to because he took all the ****ing money. And you ****ing well better put that down too - that mother****er can't get my money out of me, because he never ever gave me a ****ing dime.
ZZ: How was it that Love's music was so far ahead of its time?
Snoopy: Well, man - Arthur is a very shrewd, aware person... along with a lot of other qualities, that is no doubt about it. And he realised that the time was right to get off and make it. Whilst all the others were still wearing suits and doing Everely Brothers
stuff. he popped in with a little Byrds influence- plus his own
ideas.
ZZ: What other groups were around then? The Beau Brummels were making it with Everely type style, what about the Seeds?
Snoopy: The ****ing Seeds? They came after us, and anyway, they were nothing but a pile of ****. Where have they gone? Huh the Seeds!
ZZ: What about-them? The useless mother****ers. Just listen to their stuff and you'll see where they were at. No...things were only just getting started; the Fillmore had just opened, and we were playing gigs with people like the Dead, Quicksilver, Steve Miller, and those sort of cats they didn't get off the ground till a lot later, but they were around man. Yes.... it was all just starting -to happen?..
ZZ: Is it true that Arthur had an 85000 dollar house?
Snoopy: He didn't have then, but he does now.
ZZ: So he made a lot of bread out of Love?
Snoopy: Well, if he didn't, then I don't know where he got it.... selling dope, I guess (collapsing in hysterical laughter, which he did every minute or so). He's got the pad, sure enough....I've seen it. And he also has a Porsche, an old Bentley, an Alfa Romeo sedan, and my old van.
ZZ: What about Love never playing outside of L.A.?
Snoopy: Well, we played in Dallas Texas, Phoenix Arizona, San Jose and San Francisco but really, that remark is true....we didn't really play outside LA.
ZZ: Why not?
Snoopy: Organisation wise, we were very untogether, The few gigs that we did have out of town were, I remember, pretty disastrous, On two occasions we had to charter airplanes because we missed the scheduled flight,
ZZ: How could that happen?
Snoopy: Well, we used to sit around the pad and get a little too loaded - or not quite loaded enough, and we missed the plane ... it was as simple as that. That was one of the reasons; that we just couldn't get it together. The other reason was that Arthur would. just refuse to do any gigs where Love didn't get top billing. No matter who it was, right from our earliest days, he resented the thought of doing anything that wasn't top billing .... even before anyone had even heard of Love. Same thing with the TV shows; we got a lot of offers from people like Ed Sullivan, but Arthur just said "no", simply because we'd have just been another group on the show and not THE group.
ZZ: He was the boss then? He made all the managerial decisions?
Snoopy: Yeah, he made all the decisions. Love had no manager at the time, because as soon as Arthur got suspicious that anyone was pulling any bull****, he fired them. He didn't allow any bull**** except all the bull**** that he himself pulled, that is.
ZZ: What about Arthur Lee "the Peruvian", "the Maltese"? Is any of that true?
Snoopy: What's all that ****? He was mulatto from Memphis, that's all.
ZZ: Did he used to have his hair straightened?
Snoopy: Yeah, and so did Johnny. They used to wear wigs before they were in Love, by which time they'd got it together enough to realise that the wig scene wasn't too cool. But they were too much into the ego scene not to have their hair straightened. **** me,
man, I had a few curls, and they even wanted me to straighten them out.
ZZ: How did you come to replace Don Conka in the first place?
Snoopy: That's a long story, man. I'll go back as far as early 1965, when I was going to school at the Art College Centre of Design in Los Angeles. In school, I met this cat called Kenny Forssi, who was a bass player and was also majoring in industrial design like I was. He'd come out from Florida and had nowhere to live, so, since we were friends, my mother rented him a room at our house. He didn't really dig school and not only that, but he wanted to be a musician .... he always had, but his parents didn't dig that trip and made him go to college. As soon as he got to LA, of course, he was looking for a group to play in and he eventually ran into the Surfaris and joined them. This was at a time when the ****ing Surfaris were a ****ing crappy group riding out the success of their one hit record ('Wipe Out'), and they were really on the way down - wiped out, you might say. Even so, it was a trip for him to be associated with a name group, because he was from a small town in Florida, and here he was in a recording group that had once had a multi-million seller. It really tripped him out - his ego went zap. And as a matter of fact, it put me on a trip to have a guy from the Surfaris living at my house! I used to go around bragging about it. Anyway, he soon realised that the Surfaris had more or less finished and he began to look around for another group ....and he happened to run into Arthur, who was just getting Love together.
ZZ: That was when they were called the Grass Roots?
Snoopy: Right - then the other Grass Roots stole their name and copyrighted it, so they became Love, which is cool as it happens because I think it's a much better name. So Kenny joined up with these cats and he used to come home boasting to me how this leader cat was another Lennon & McCartney rolled into one, how they ****in well expected to be so big, how they really had something up their arse, and so on. I said "Oh yeah, Kenny", knowing what a ****ing bull****ter he was, but he got me down to see them and they knocked me out.... right off my ****ing arse. Now, this, you remember, was at a time when the Rolling Stones were really big in America, and their records were really doing me in - they were just too much, man - but these cats in Love were so much better that there was no comparison. The ****ing power and energy, the drive and the funkiness .... it was way beyond the Stones, beyond anything I'd ever heard. Those cats moved me.... they were a ****ing trip, man.
During this time, I'd been listening to the Beatles and to Ringo Starr, and I thought, "Well, son-of-a-bitch, if that's all it takes to become pop star, I'm going to get some drums". So I did get some, and I started to practise by playing along to records on the radio, and pretty soon I discovered that there was **** all to playing as well as Charlie Watts or Ringo....or so I thought.
So anyway, I'd been playing for few months (and I wasn't really very good at all) and I started to play in groups, but I didn't stay in any for long because the mother****ers soon found I was no good. It got to be a real hassle; nobody wanted me, so I had this brilliant idea. I decided to get all the other ****ing rejects together and form my own group and that's exactly what I did. I got my group together, and we started playing the YMCA and things like that. We were called the Sticks.
ZZ: Oh no, not the Rolling Sticks:
Snoopy: C'mon, man, give me credit! Well, the best gig we got was this weekend job in a gay bar, and considering my level of drumming it was more than we deserved. The other guys were all better than me, but it was my group ; I was the leader, and I dominated the , ...:. scene. I could rock out and flip out, and nobody could put me on a trip! Not only was I improving my playing slightly, but I was earning up to 6o dollars a week, which wasn't bad. So I began to think of myself as a drummer; why should I bust my nuts studying industrial design all day and playing at night? But I didn't get too caught up in daydreams, and I remained a student too.
Love had this drummer called Don Conka (of 'Signed DC') and
he occasionally didn't turn up for gigs. I forget exactly how they used to handle the situation; I think they just cancelled it
out when he didn't show. Conka was strung out on drugs, you know what I mean, and everyone would be standing around at Bido Lito's waiting for him to arrive so that Love could get on stage and start playing - I think that the manager of the place took Love on the understanding that if Don Conka turned up there was money to be made, but if he didn't show, then Love didn't have to play. So people would often turn up at Bido Lito's and be told "No, Don Conka didn't show tonight", and they'd go off home again.
After a while, this Don Conka' scene become so bad that I heard rumours that they were going to have to get another guy in on drums. So I said to Kenny: "Hey man, it would sure be nice to play with you cats"__-but Kenny knew I wasn't much good, and he never took the idea seriously....so that was it. 'It was just a dream anyway - I knew I didn't have even the remotest chance because there were much better drummers than me in Los Angeles.
Then, out of the blue, they called me up one night: "Hey Snoopy, Don Conka didn't show -- could you come down tonight and see us through the gig?" It was a Friday night, and there were too many people down there to disappoint, so I said "Sure", and I went down there and played with them and it was ****ing gas, man. Nobody criticised me or handed me any ****, because I was just a cat who'd helped them out of tough spot, and it didn't really matter too much that I wasn't very good. So there I was - I'd sat in with Love, and it was just like a ****ing dream,
Well, that was it, and I went back to school ....but then the next week they called me up again, and so again I went down there. Well this happened about ten times - it honestly did - and it got to the point where it was distracting me from my schooling (which was really heavy at the time - it's the best industrial design college in the world, and you had to work ****ing hard if you wanted to stay there) and from my own group (which was still getting the odd gig). "Look" I said, "this is getting to be a little heavy..." Because they were each making 17 dollars a night and, because they knew I was drumming for them for the trip rather than the money, they didn't give me any bread yet I could have been making 20 dollars a night at this gay bar where no-one else would play.
So I said" I'm sorry, man, but I've already got a gig tonight, so I can't do yours". "OK, we'll pay you" they said. So I played with them about another ten times and got 17 dollars a night for it, but it was getting very heavy because they were calling me up on week days too, and my schooling was really going downhill. I was paying 500 dollars for 16 weeks of schooling - a lot of bread - so I told them "you're blowing my schooling man, by expecting me to come running every time you wave your magic wand .... it's gone too far; if you want me to join the band full time and become professional, then I will, but otherwise, I'm not doing it any more".
Well, they thought about it and talked it over, and in the end they said "OK..,.you're in, Conka's out". So there I am - a regular member of Love far ****ing out, man.... I just couldn't believe it.
So I quit school and started working with them, but after just two nights, Don Conka was straight again. "Well, man" says Arthur, "you know that we really want Don Conka - and he's really promised to straighten out this time. So, Snoopy, you're off but you weren't really making it anyway, were you?"
Back to school, working my balls off like crazy so that I can get through my semester, week later, they're on the phone again; "Snoopy man, can you come down and sit in for us please?" "You must be joking, man" I said, "you can stuff it;" Well, they got this cat out of the audience who said he was a drummer, but he ****ed up....and then Don Conka didn't show again the next night. "You're' back in the group, Snoopy" says Arthur. "It's obvious that Don Conka won't straighten up, so you're in". So, I quit school again,.
A week later, and I'm not bull****ting you, man, I was off again. Well, this went on and on and on, but each time, it was really serious: "Listen Snoopy, this time we really mean it - this time it's definite". And it was this big scene every time "no, man, this is really it, we're not bull****ting you this time" you know what I' mean?
Anyway, me, like an arsehole, I swallowed it every ****ing time. I was very gullible and besides, I really wanted to be in the group - and they knew that and played on it. On and on it went - until the time came when Elektra put us in the studios to do the first album.... and it just happened, by chance, that I was the drummer that week; otherwise, it would've been Don Conka on the album and Don Conka in the pictures but since I was the drummer for those days, I got to be on the album.
ZZ: Which tracks were you on on that first album?
Snoopy: 'Hey Joe', 'My Little Red Book' and a couple of others.
ZZ: Who played drums on the other tracks then?
Snoopy: Arthur.
ZZ: Why was that?
Snoopy: Well, you saw how I got to join the group - I just kept sitting in. I never once rehearsed with them, but little by little I got to learn some of the songs, and I was able to do the ones that I knew. The trouble was that I'd never even heard some of the other material and I couldn't play the ****ers. I was a pretty limited drummer and they didn't want me wasting time, experimenting or otherwise ****ing up. So Arthur got behind the drums and did all the songs that I couldn't handle. That explains why I didn't play on most of that album, and it also explains why I didn't have any hair on my ****ing head; I was still at college, right? And in those days, you just didn't have long hair and go to college at the same time, you know. Like, whenever I was in the group I used to start growing it, but every time I went back to college, I had to have it cut off again.
ZZ: Why were you wearing that short-sleeved shirt on the cover?
Snoopy: Because it was ****ing hot - that's why! We got a lot of remarks and mail about that shirt, and Bryan Maclean was always putting me on a trip about it...."why don't you wear groovy clothes like us?" So I used to say "what the **** have my shirts got to do with anything, man? Why don't you wear Jockey underwear?" I used to wear long-sleeved shirts when it was cold, and short-sleeved ones when it was hot. Bryan and Kenny, though, were definitely into clothes - they knew only too well that they were pop stars and that people looked at them. But Arthur wasn't like that,.... he just wore what he liked - like those clothes that he's wearing on both the first two sleeves.
ZZ: So now you're an accepted member of Love?
Snoopy: Right, but only because Jac Holzman said I had to be. There was this chick at Elektra, however, who was dead against it; she used to tell the others that there were hundreds of better drummers around and that any of them would be happy to join Love. She even used to get guys interested, and get them auditioned,
but none of them were prepared to take all the **** that the group used to hand out. Like, I took it all because I wanted to stay in the group,
ZZ: How do you mean? What ****?
SNOOPY: Well, Arthur demanded that the drums be played EXACTLY as he wanted to hear them. No improvising or deviating from his explicit instructions, right? Or else! He used to say -"play the cymbal here, then the bell in this part, then the...'' . and so on. Then, if you did it wrong, he'd turn round and yell "YOU STUPID MOTHER****ER...;;I TOLD YOU TO PLAY THE ****ING CYMBAL". Well, those professional drummers weren't prepared to accept that kind of ****..,."no, man" they'd say, "I'm the drummer, and I'll play how I think". So Arthur would, say "well **** you" and it'd be back to old Snoopy, who swallowed everything he was handed.
ZZ: Which tracks were you on on 'Da Capo'?
Snoopy: I only played drums on '7 and 7 is' because that was cut a long time before (as a single). (I was also the drummer on 'Number 14' - the b-side of the single)..
ZZ : We heard that you started off as the drummer on 'Revelation' but that you conked out halfway through and were too exhausted to finish it.
Snoopy: Ha: ****ing bull****, man. I wasn't drumming at all on that track - someone must be going round spreading a lot of **** about me; I'll tell you exactly what I played on that album: the only drumming I did was on '7 and 7 is' - Michael Stuart did all the rest. I played all the piano, all the organ and all the harpsichord, but Arthur-showed me exactly what to play and when .to play it. You see, Arthur used to play organ in a club, just him on the organ, and that used to be his living - so he could play organ, in his own funky, untechnical wary, and he could explain just what he wanted. If you listen to that album, you'll see that there ain't **** to the keyboard work.
ZZ: Oh, come on....that stuff on 'The Castle' for instance, is really nice.
Snoopy: It may be nice, man, but there's ****ing nothing to it. That bit I play at the beginning- of 'Revelation' is Bach,...it's a bit of Bach that I learned ****ing years ago, when I was studying classical piano. I was just playing it at the house one day,. and Bryan said "hey, that's nice - we'll work that onto the album".
ZZ: How did 'Revelation' come to be recorded like that? I mean, that was almost the first of the whole-side tracks.
Snoopy: Well, unfortunately, man, that track didn't come out at all the way it was supposed to. We used to play a number like it on stage - 'Smokestack Lightnin' - and that was incredible - it didn't have any of that contrived feel to it. On stage, we really used to get into shape and smoke on that track, but they couldn't catch the right sound live, so it was modified into 'Revelation'. But as far as I'm concerned, that track just doesn't make it I mean, if you could have heard us play that live, you'd really have heard some ****, man whew, it was just so good. I tell you, that was a real trip; when it was all new and fresh, but it lost all its feeling when it got too rehearsed....the whole thing became no more than bull****.
ZZ: How did Arthur get on with the producer?
Snoopy: - Well, 'Da Capo' was produced by Dave Hassinger, who'd done the Stones' albums; in fact, it was done at the same studio studio B at RCA. The thing is, that in order to get anything out of anybody, you have to know how to work with him and complement his ideas and your own, you know? Well, Arthur definitely does not know how to complement people .... he doesn't have any idea how to work with others; that's one thing that he doesn't have together.
ZZ Are you saying that the standard of the first two albums fell way below Love's live performance standard?
Snoopy: Too ****ing true; I'm embarrassed to play them - I've certainly never played them to anyone else. They suck; they're thin; out of tune, badly produced, badly recorded.... they just ****ing suck, man. It's no use talking about it, but if only that group could be together now - now that you have cats in the studio who turn on, who know what you want, who have it all together - then we would sure be able to lay some unbelievable **** down, man. All we ever had was a bunch of square arseholes who only knew how to record straight stuff - you know what I mean? When it came down to capturing a live, vibrant sound, they were totally ****ing well lost .... just ****ing lost, man.... and it shows on those records.
ZZ: If you saw the letters we get about those albums;
Snoopy: Well I tell you, if you could have heard us at Bido Lito's man - you'd really have heard something. You'd have **** yourself, man,
ZZ : what happened to Don Conka in the end?
Snoopy: Well, he was strung out all the time, and the needle took over the drums .... that's what happened. He's spent more time behind bars than on the street. If you know anything about freaks (NB Snoopy uses the word 'freak' to mean fixer), you'll know that there's nothing more important than fix.... and that was where he was at. He's still around somewhere, as far as I know.
ZZ: He didn't do himself under with an overdose then?
Snoopy: dell, if you know anything about freaks, you'll know that you can OD, but if someone with you knows how to get you back with artificial respiration or a speed fix, you can literally come back to life from the dead. Like, if you OD on smack, you can often be revived with speed fix.
ZZ: So people can actually die and come back? Did you see any of that ?
Snoopy: Everyone of the ****ing group went through that, man.... everyone except me and Arthur, that is. I mean, I tried everything those cats put in front of me, man everything except the needle
....I was willing to follow on most things, but even though I took large quantities of smack and some large quantities of speed, I never ever put a needle in my arm. I saw too much of what it can do to you.
ZZ: But Arthur was cool?
Snoopy: Right...Arthur is a very shrewd cat; he's got enough
sense to look after himself. You can see that someplace he has rooted within himself something very strong - and nothing is ever going to uproot him. I mean, he shoots up, but he's nut stupid enough to let it get out of hand. When I saw him, eight months age in 1970), when I sold him my van.... wait a minute .... let me see now; if you want to get all this down straight, I'd better tell you something about my relationship with Arthur.
I couldn't play drums very well, right? On stage we were definitely enemies, but off stage he was one of my very best friends. He used to say "You're not like Kenny or Johnny, man.... you're strong like me.... we're leaders. We know when to stop".
But I used to tell him that whatever happened, I'd never fix. Well, the whole group, as it evolved, got heavier and heavier into dope and drugs generally, until everyone of the group, except me, was shooting up.
Arthur's stopped shooting now. The last time I saw him, he nearly ODed on cocaine; he called me to the bathroom because he suddenly found himself going through some unexpected changes. I think he gave the rest of his coke away after that.
ZZ: What about the roadie: who died under strange circumstances? Snoopy: Well, the roadie, who was called Neil, used to be Don
Conka's shooting partner. You see people who are strung out
usually have a partner - that way, if one can't get it together, chances are that the other cane Going around in pairs, as shooting buddies, is a common trip for freaks, So Neil was always a part of Love's life .... when bon showed up, so did Neil .... you saw one, you saw the other. Well, as long as he was going to be around, why not put him to work? So that's how he came to be the roadie.
As it happened, Neil, Don, Johnny and Arthur all ended up fixing. followed by Bryan and Kenny later on. But Johnny wanted to get into it heavier than the others and so he used to hang around with Neil...he replaced Conka, who, at this point, spent most of his time in prison. So Neil and Johnny became shooting partners - and then, one day, Johnny fixed Neil just a little too much can you dig it? Technically you could call it murder, but each guy prepares his own needle....
ZZ: ****ing hell! If we'd realised all this, we'd never have dreamed of treating it as flippantly as we did in
ZZ 10
Snoopy: No, man, that article was cool. It was a combination of dreams and nightmares, romance and reality, and it was ok - it gave the aura of the way things were going down.
ZZ: So heroin is the reason why the group split up when it did?
Snoopy: Yeah - first one wouldn't show up, then the others began to miss gigs, and the group couldn't even get on stage. It was ok when Conka didn't show because I was always around, but later on, when Johnny didn't turn up, they couldn't find a ready stand
in. Towards the end, it got pretty bad.... they started to pawn
their instruments to get fixes .... all of them pawned their instruments to get fixes, and when it gets to that .... well,.
All this time, Arthur was the only one with enough sense to see what this ****ing stuff did to you, but the other cats couldn't see it. They ****ed him up so much that he was forced to get some new musicians after 'Forever Changes'.
ZZ: The drug hang-ups explains why there was such a long gap between 'Da Capo' and 'Forever Changes'...
Snoopy: Not really.... that lapse just happened to be an extended lapse of all the other lapses. You see, we worked very seldom and we were very disorganised - spent more time getting loaded and tripping out than anything else.
ZZ: But when you did manage to go out and gig, the music was pretty good, yeah?
Snoopy: It was just amazing, man. I remember one gig we did, fairly early on, at the whisky in LA., and the Stones all came to see us. Now, on stage we used to do a few original songs, a few Dylan things, a few Byrds things, and some Stones stuff - but we used to change them all about and make them different. If only someone had recorded those early gigs, they'd have had a real Love record, because Love live was just totally unbelievable, man. Anyway, the Stones told this chick that our versions of their songs was better than their own.... and you wouldn't hear that kind of compliment coming from them very often. Oh, christ.... those albums just didn't give a good impression of where we were at .
ZZ: What songs were you doing then? Do you recall any titles?
Snoopy: We did 'Mr Tambourine Man', 'Playing with fire'(Stones), Smokestack Lightnin' which evolved into 'Revelation' and lost everything. The rest were mostly on our records.
ZZ: Why did you leave?
Snoopy: I'll tell you some of the things that happened on stage, and you'll understand why. One time, we did a gig somewhere and afterwards Arthur said "come round to my pad tomorrow at 4 and I'll have the bread ready for you guys". So I went round there, but I was half an hour late because I'd had something else to do, and when I got there, I asked for the bread. "Oh those other cats must've taken it, it was there on the table....I told you to be here at 4". So I go to Bryan, and he says' "No, man, I haven't got it", and no-one would admit taking it.'...so I didn't get any bread for the gig, and what's more, they blamed me for not being there at exactly 4. There were lots of bread hassles like that and I used to get really pissed off.
Right; now on to stage scenes. We'd be playing a number, and the whole band would be just waiting for me to put a foot wrong, just longing for me to **** up. So I had this fantastic pressure on me all the time; I couldn't play naturally - all I could do was try and remember what I had to do next and just hope and pray that I wouldn't **** up. I was just a bundle of frayed nerves. Sure enough, out of pure fright and paranoia, I'd goof somewhere -not anything that the audience would notice, but just a deviation from the way that Arthur had instructed me to do it...and the whole band would turn on me. This was in front of big audiences too; Arthur would turn round and scream "the ****ing cymbal, man.... you ****ing...." and my faces would go through several colour changes, and I'd start hitting that ****ing cymbal before my heart exploded. oh christ....and this sort of thing would happen several times in one night.
Then we had a lot of trouble over 'My Little Red Book', Arthur would say "Right, Snoopy, this is our hit record and it's very important that we do it right so you'd better not **** it up, man", "OK" I'd say, sitting there, **** ****ing terrified. Now that song has the backbeat on 1 and 3, instead of the normal 2 and 4, and it always used to **** me up so I used to sit there cringing, waiting to fumble into it. Hundreds of people are out there looking, right? and after the break, when the drums come back in, sure enough I'd come in wrong. So Arthur stops the whole song ... all the cats stop playing, and they're all looking at me as though I'm the **** of all time. And the audience is staring at me too, wondering what the **** I've done wrong, and I just ' don't know where to put my face, man.
Well, that was the sort of thing that went down. Looking back, all that I ever got out of Love was a little ego. That's all. A lot of ****ing paranoia, a lot of ****ing ****, but that's about all.
ZZ: What was behind your switch to keyboards around the time of 'Da Capo' ?
Snoopy: Well, after it became evident that I was ****ing up their scene and they were ****ing up mine, they decided to get Michael Stewart in from the Sons of Adam... ,he was schooled and trained on drums and could do all that Arthur demanded. Well, by then, Arthur and I had become very close friends off stage --we definitely understood and appreciated each other and dug each other's trips -
like, we learned from each other and our trips were mutually constructive. This, however, was off stage only. It was just a question of awareness, spiritual evolvement and all those kind of things. Also, I was the only one who dared to point out his defects to his face - all the others were far too petrified ever to criticise the cat.
Right at the beginning of my association with Love, I was a very sensitive cat; I'd never been away from home, and I'd certainly never met any people like these before. So, when they got on at me on stage, I was on bummer for hours afterwards .... I used to get very deeply depressed. Anyway, one time, Arthur had the heart to come up to me and say "listen, Snoopy, the music and our friend ship are totally different trips" and I realised that he wasn't just a hard, rough bull****ter. So that was it ... off stage it was just fine, man.
When it became evident that I wasn't really making it on drums, Arthur decided to get Stuart in. He wanted some really technical, precise drumming on 'Da Capo' and Stuart had studied it at school and everything. Arthur still wanted me around, though none of the other cats did; they hated me as much as I hated them, and they were always pushing t; get me replaced and out of Love. But Arthur, being the wheels of the group, put me on keyboards. That, however, didn't really work too well; I used t sit there and play the introduction to 'Revelation' and then just sit doing nothing while the others played the rest of it. I wanted to play, but I just couldn't improvise at all.... I could only read music or play bits that I knew, So, I just felt stupid; my role on 'Revelation' was playing the intro and then messing around with a ****ing tambourine for the rest of the song. It was a drag; I didn't dig it, and none of the other cats did either .... so I left.
ZZ: A_ friendly split?
Snoopy: As far as Arthur went, yes, it really was. There was a total understanding - it was nothing to do with either being fired or walking out.... it was a friendly, mutual arrangement. The other cats, I'm sure, were cock-a-hoop with joy - like I said, they didn't like me.
ZZ : Can we go back to 'Da Capo' again for a moment? Why go back to that pile of rock again f ,o-r the cover photograph?
Snoopy: That was supposed to be symbolic of do, cape, which means back t > the beginning. Arthur was, at the time, very much on the trip that everything that goes around, comes around ... whatever you put out, comes back to you a very meaningful line. It's the law of Karma, the law of life.
ZZ: Tell us about Tjay Cantrelli.
Snoopy: That ****er! He was just an arsehole - that's all he was. Arthur knew him and thought he was a good flute and sax player - and he wanted some of that sort of **** on 'Da Capo'. The only problem was that Cantrelli made the serious mistake of coming into the group and thinking he was a big part of it...he thought he was
pretty heavy, that cat. He used to spend bars tuning that instrument of his, and never, ever got the ****er in tune, even then. As well as that, he was talking back to Arthur and telling him how to play songs .... and that's something that you just didn't do. Arthur had brought him in to play the sax and flute parts that he wanted on his songs; just that. He didn't want someone who was going to start putting his own embellishments over material that had already been arranged as he wanted it, and so, in the end, he just said "later, man" and that was the end of Tjay Cantrelli and his bag of ****ing instruments.
Now, before we go my further, I've just remembered something that y.: u put in your article (in
ZZ 10), and I'd like to; ask you -_ question. Where did you get that story that me and Johnny Echols were a pair of queers?
ZZ: Someone told us about it.
Snoopy: **** me; Someone tells you a loan of bull**** like that and you believe it? Listen, man ...I never ever had anything to do with Johnny. We hated each other. Even if I was into teat sort of thing, which I'm not let me emphasise, I would still never have have anything to do with Johnny....what a story. I could see where you got a story Iike that about me and Arthur, because I used to live at his place or me and Kenny, because he used to live at my house but where a story about me and Johnny could've originated, I just don't know, I had nothing to do with that cat,. Right - get that one straight, and put it in your magazine. I don't want people getting the wrong idea about me,
ZZ: Yeah well, sorry 'bout that. Anyway, where did the rest of the band go after 'Forever Changes'?
Snoopy: Well, Johnny and Kenny are in San Quentin on 20 counts of armed robbery.
ZZ: ???!!! What??-?
Snoopy: they held up a lot of doughnut shops to buy fixes.
ZZ Honest?
Snoopy: Honest. Kenny was the getaway guy, Johnny had the gun. It was In all the LA papers when they got arrested; 'The Doughnut thieves are caught".
ZZ: How long are they in for?
Snoopy: They're in, man.... they're in. One count of armed robbery will get you ten years.... and they were convicted on twenty counts. Kenny tried to get cured at this country club-type place for addicts - it's sponsored : by wealthy musicians and things - and it's a dreamland for addicts to get straightened out. If you can't kick it there, you stand little chance elsewhere but Kenny went straight back to the needle and now he's in San Quentin.
ZZ: What about Bryan Maclean?
Snoopy: Now he's someone I have a lot of respect for. Personally, he's an arsehole .- a very nasty, sarcastic, unwarranted bad vibes and remarks all the time... . I never got on with him. Nevertheless, I'm still able to took at the cat objectively, and know that he's an aware, intelligent guy. Musically and awareness wise, he had it together his was some of the best stuff that Love ever did. He left the group after he got strung out, and he went back to school to study music. Last time I was in LA, I was living with Michael Stuart's girlfriend, and she told me that Bryan was writing a symphony.... which wouldn't surprise me at all, because he could well do that.
ZZ: We heard he was forming another group.
Snoopy: Not to my knowledge.
ZZ: What about Michael Stuart?,
Snoopy:' Welt, he was' just a purely technical drummer - lacked any soul and after Arthur had got his technical album, 'Da Capo', he realised that, Stuart was no good as a jamming, on-stage drummer. My back beat drumming was stronger. He was never very productive, and he's given up drumming now doesn't want to play drums any more. I saw him recently and he's writing and playing guitar.
ZZ: We heard that Bryan and he were forming a band together.
Snoopy: Very doubtful - too many personal differences. Where did you hear that?
ZZ: -Someone wrote to us - people, tend to write to us about Love; we're one of the few sort of central bodies that are interested in them.
Snoopy: Well, I've found' that I'm better known here than in America so you must be doing a good public relations job for Love.
ZZ: Was there another -album by that old group.... one that Elektra have got but won't release?
Snoopy: No, that's not true. . .. there are no other recordings. Elektra have released all they've got.
ZZ: So, after that group collapsed, Arthur set about finding a new Love?
Snoopy: Now, after I left Love, I got a group together for a while, but I couldn't find a lead guitarist - so I put a notice on the board at the Musicians Union office in Los Angeles. Jay Donnellan, among others, answered, and he joined my group; he was the best of them all. I thought he was a very nice, tasteful guitarist. Well, we played a few gigs - like a club called the Factory in LA, but that venture didn't really get off the ground. The only notable, remembre-able trip that went down was when Paul and Ringo walked in as we were playing 'Lady Madonna'.
Anyway, where was I? Oh yeah - Arthur was looking around, for another group, so I told him about Jay, who'd left me by this time "You don't want to be so pissed off about losing Echols, man" I said, "this cat Donnellan is ****ing miles better". "Oh bull****" he said, "nobody's as good as Johnny....; .nobody". "Alright" I said, "but you're a fool if you don't listen to me.... he's really good, and on top of that, he's a real easy cat to get along with, which is ****ing important with an arse hole like you. You just give him a try and let me know what you think". You see, Arthur was always so sure about himself, always knew he was right and everyone else was wrong.
ZZ: So he signed Jay on your recommendation?
Snoopy: Right. I saw him a little while later and he said "Hey Snoopy, you know what' This cat is really good" and Arthur had got him to join him. Now, at that time, I saw Jay and said to him "I hope-you're not getting into this group for any other reason than because you like playing and for the bu
ZZ and the exposure,
because there's no bread none at all . No-one has ever made any bread out of Love, and it sure ain't going to change now". "Oh no" he said, It its ail different now, man.... we've got management, agencies, lawyers - everything's cool now". ill, of course, I just kept quiet and let him get on with it, because I figured that whatever happened, it would do him a lot of good to be with Love.
About a year later, Jay realised I was right. Every time I bumped into him, I'd say "Hi, man, got any bread yet" and held say "no, man, not yet". Well, I used to keep drumming it in to old Jay and Suranovitch that there just wasn't any bread in the group and eventually they called up that cat at Blue Thumb - what's his ****ing name now?
ZZ: Bob Krasnow?
'snoopy: Right - they called up Krasnow or some other cat up there and said that unless the bread scene got straightened out pretty fast, they'd walk out. .So this guy from Blue Thumb immediately got on the phone to Arthur and told him about it. So, right there and then, Arthur sent telegrams to both of them saying "your dream has come true, you can go and get your own scene together - you're fired"... and that was the end of them.
A while later, I saw Arthur and he told me he'd fired them. "You ****ing fool, man, " I said.... "you fired Suranovitch" That cat is unbelieveable... " because he really is an incredible drummer. Then Arthur came up with Drachen and I told him he must be nuts.... "****, man, are you trying to tell me that he can touch Suranovitch?" Well, then Arthur did something that was very uncharacteristic - he called up Suranovitch and asked him to come back.
ZZ: How had he found Suranovitch and Frank Fayad In the first place? (As on the 'Four Sail' album)
Snoopy: Well, when the old group crumbled, he went all over the place looking at other groups, and he found Nooney Rickett's group, which was Rickett, Suranovitch, Fayad and Gary Rowles. He called me and took me out to see them at this club in the Valley, and they were very impressive; playing their own material but they were out on their own.... nothing at all like Love but very ****ing good, man. So Arthur ended up taking Suranovitch and Fayad, adding them to Jay and him, and calling them Love. Then, when Jay went, he got Rowles in, and then, I don't know why the ****, he got ****ing Rickett in too. I can't figure that at all.
ZZ: Are they still gigging like that?
Snoopy: Yeah.
ZZ: But presumably this new group doesn't have the drug hang-ups that finished the last one?
Snoopy: No man. I'll tell you; I took a lot of acid and I freaked out to the extent that I decided I shouldn't take any more. A friend of mine turned me on to meditation and I quit getting high altogether I didn't smoke hash day in and day out like I used to, I stopped taking all the speed, opium, downers, snorting and everything else which had been such a big part of my life in those days. And I got into a very sincere spiritual thing.
Well, I was trying to tell Arthur about it "dope ain't worth a ****ing thing, man" I said, "but he wouldn't hear any of it. "I like getting high" he said. Anyway, one day we were out walking and talking about shooting birds and wildlife, re-incarnation and things like that, and Arthur was really taking the piss out of me. "Do you mean to say that you're never going to eat meat anymore?" He just couldn't believe it. thought I was totally crazy. well; man, guess what? Now, Arthur is a vegetarian too he got, rid of all his leather stuff too. , He's growing, man.
And the rest' of the group are definitely more spiritually oriented than to let their lives revolve around hash and acid and that sort of thing.
ZZ: What do you think of the present Love?
snoopy: WelI _it's not Love - it's just another group. The recent albums have none of the purity and style of the first one that was the best as far as I'm concerned.
ZZ: What about 'Forever Changes'-?
Snoopy: That was the Love masterpiece - a ****ing masterpiece, man - something that Arthur can be proud of till his dying breath, man but it's still not as dear to me as the first one.
ZZ: Do you know anything about the rumours of Arthur playing all the instruments on that album? ('Forever Changes')
Snoopy: No chance - he may have played a bit of rhythm guitar but he never, ever played bass and he never played drums after the first album. He never did any lead work either. Nor did Bryan - he just played rhythm and all the fingerstyle acoustic work, played some ****ing beautiful stuff.
ZZ: What about Arthur not wanting any strings on?
Snoopy: Listen man, nothing ever went on those records that Arthur didn't want on them. He was always right there controlling everything
ZZ: Let's get back to that rumoured album after 'Forever Changes'. That single of 'Your mind'/'Laughing Stock' was supposed to have come- from it, but the rest of the album ended up too tatty and untogether to release.
Snoopy: No man - it's the other way round. Those two tracks were too tatty to go on 'Forever Changes'; they were recorded at those sessions. Arthur stopped them from going on the album, but Elektra put them out subsequently. I remember when they were being recorded - that was at the time when Arthur was deciding who would play on the album and who would be replaced, because he wasn't satisfied with their standard.... they'd gone downhill.
ZZ: Was some of that album done by session cats then?
Snoopy: Yes, but I don't know which parts I know they had a lot of studio cats involved on that, including drummers and everything. You see, Arthur got to the point where he was going to have ALL studio guys, but the others got all resentful and pulled themselves together - they managed to get off their arses for long enough to do the record. Some of the tracks were originally done by nearly all session men, and then re-done by the group, but, as I say, I'm not sure about all the details. Who was on what; that's something you'll have to ask Arthur.
ZZ: A long chat with Arthur is something I'd give a lot for - as long as he promised not to beat the **** out of me. What about that quote from Big Brother - that the name was Love, but they were Hate? Is that what other groups felt about them?
Snoopy: generally, yes, I should imagine so we didn't get along with other groups too well.
ZZ: Why do you think he decided not to resign with Elektra wen his contract ran out l
Snoopy: What? Holy ****ing ****, man.... I wouldn't sign with those arseholes... I mean_ I think that Elektra was really downright uncool. We made that company indirectly we made them - because we were the reason that the Doors signed with them and the same with all the others who signed. Elektra didn't do anything for us - we had to do all the selling ourselves. If the Doors had come first and been the guinea pigs, Love would have been a ****ing super group, man.
ZZ: Why did the Doors sign with them - they were friends of yours weren't they?
Snoopy: No. We weren't friends of anyone - except the Byrds, because Bryan was their roadie.
Z: There was a review of a Love gig in LA in January 67 which said that-they played against a background of other people's records to produce a cacophony of sound.
Snoopy: yeah, I saw that.. ..bull****. The guy who wrote that must've had his head up his arse. I couldn't believe that bull****... Jesus Christ.
ZZ: What did you think of the new version of 'signed DC' on 'Out Here'
Snoopy: I didn't dig it; and I told Arthur that I didn't. He thought it was a lot more powerful - I mean, he's not infallible - his taste does freak out and then. He thinks that track is great. I don't listen to his newer records - It's just another group, one of a million.... nothing unique any more.
ZZ: Would you agree that Arthur Lee is a genius?
Snoopy: yes. There's a lot more meaning in what he says and sings than you'd realise. A lot of people think his songs are just psychedelic or trite, but they, aren't. He's quite a trip Arthur is quite a ****ing trip, believe me, man.
If you hung around with him, you'd find that out pretty soon. He's a genius.... not particularly a musical genius, because he cops a lot of ideas off other people, but he's a genius alright.
ZZ: I'm very worried about how much of this to print - I don't want to get you into any trouble. .
Snoopy: Look, man.... if it's important, put it in. you can write down anything that I've told you.
ZZ: Love were going to sue us over that last thing in Zigzag 10.
Snoopy: Did you have any direct threats?
ZZ: Yes, one of their managers got heavy outside one of their gigs - we had a couple of guys selling copies.
Snoopy: Listen, man, forget it - don't worry about Arthur when he reads anything about him, he just cracks up. Put in everything about dope, gigs, records, everything all Arthur does is laugh.
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I'M NOT
AS THINK
AS YOU
STONED
I AM
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Edited by - lemonade kid on 26/04/2011 21:31:41 |
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Snoopy's famous-infamous ZigZag interview
