Ted Nugent has been around for a long time; he’s paid his dues, he’s seen and played a hell of a lot of rock and roll: “I haven’t been kickin’ ass for twelve years for nothin’, goddammit. I paid enough dues for everybody in this room.” The Amboy Dukes were a mainline suburban draw in the late Sixties, renowned for such hits as “Baby Please Don’t Go” and ' “Journey to the Center of Your Mind,” and he is currently regirding his loins with a new album entitled Call of the Wild and a series of “Guitar Battles” with Mike Pinera, Wayne Kramer, and Frank Marino of Mahogany Rush among others.

So he is hardly reticent about the competition, whether pro or con, since he has in all pragmatism concluded that he is the greatest guitar player on the planet. At least. “If you gave somebody with my talent one tenth of the paper you gave that crust” — referring to our coverage of Iggy Pop in April — “I’d be so big it’s pitiful, because I’m better. You hear me?”

Sure do, so rather than contest the man’s opinion, CREEM’s editors have, acr cording to their own pragmatism, decided to let Ted take an extended solo. The readers can draw their own conclusions.

SAYS TED NUGENT

Ted is a big fan of The Exorcist, so we asked him if he saw a parallel between his act and that film. ISLugent: "Yeah, I'm going to buzz the evil out of everyone with my guitar, it's going to cure all."

TED TALKS ABOUT TED

We wondered what scale Ted used to deem himself indestructible and undeniably the best. Ted was eager to spill the secret of his success, although he says that it is only recently that he has begun contending that “I am the greatest guitar player in the world.” What makes him so good? “My ears, my eyes, and what I see and hear. I have a phenomenal communication with my audience.”

Ted also pays close attention to his own development, with an ear and an eye toward self improvement: “I hear my tapes-every night, I record them and I see video tapes of myself playing and I listen to them. I’m constantly listening to music and it’s my opinion that I’m the best. I know my limitations; I was pretty quick to answer on how good I was but I’m not as quick to answer on my limitations* because they’re so few.”

Still, he keeps the lines open: “The way I look at it is, if someone wants to put up competition, I don’t compete with anybody. As far as me thinking I’m the best, I’m not competing with them, I’m really just competing with myself. I’d rather listen to my guitar playing than anyone else’s. But I constantly listen to other. people’s because especially today humans are so limited.”

Ted is renowned as a Nimrod. He hunts and shoots all his own food with guns and bows and arrows, and there's no telling what's gonna be on the plate tomorrow night:

NUGENT: "It's strictly knowing where I'm at ya know, and not pretending to get covy meat from trees. That's all there is to it."

CREEM: "You still carry a bow and arrow around with you on stage sometimes? Why is that so that if anyone boos you can shoot them?"

NUGENT: "I have shot 'em."

QREEM: "How do you feel about your guitar playing?"

NUGENT: "Erect."

CREEM: "The guitar is a phallic instrument of agression. Would you like to go into the psychological manifestations of that?"

NUGENT: "No, I prefer to remain on the physical manifestations." u

TED BUSTS HEADS

Ted hates lots of people. Why be tolerant when there isn’t time between guitar battles and hunting trips to feel sorry for such pretenders to the throne as “this Mahogany Rush dude, which was an out and out blatant joke. I guess he was going to challenge me, so I crushed the fucker.”

Same thing goes for John McLaughlin: “I mean, why go to a planet beyond communication? Why play stuff that far out, man? You know, you listen to an album, and the twentieth time you hear it, you hear a lick in it. I mean you shouldn’t have to listen to an album with 14 bloodhounds, a magnifying glass and an interpreter, you hear me?”

Okay, how about a downto-grits boogie doodler like Alvin Lee? “He’s too mechanical.”

Then there’s Hendrix: “Alive the greatest, but he died about a year later and it was drugs, don’t tell my any different. In other words, point blank, the guy took acid, made some great music, it was definitely a byproduct of what his physical, mental and social and spiritual makeup was with the addition of drugs and he made1 fantastic music. Too bad the fucker kicked off.”

But he reserves his special ire for Iggy, the Stooges and erstwhile Stooge guitarist James Williamson of Raw Power fame. “The Stooges are just garbage. You dare put me on the same plateau with Iggy? I’ve got an Irish setter with one leg you might rack him up against. Iggy’s definitely a talented due, but maybe a 2.1 on a scale of 20. But what good is he if he’s going to get so fucked up that he can’t continue? I’d kill that guy right now if he was in front of me. I’d crush him.”

CONTINUED ON PAGE 76.

CONTINUED FROM PAGE 26.

You’d kill IGGY?

“I’d crush his face.”

That poor helpless guy?

“Right. That’s why I’d kill him.”

Fine. What’s your beef with James Williamson?

“He’s probably one of the worst guitarists I’ve ever heard. Definitely in my bottom five. No, I can’t give you the bottom five, ’cause he is the bottom five. He can’t stay in tune, he has no taste, no cohesiveness, no continuity, no extremes, no speed, no dexterity, I don’t think he knows more than three or four chords and even those he plays wrong. If you like the Stooges you better not even watch us, because we might give you-a heart attack.”

Okay, Ted, let’s mellow out a bit. What about Duane Allman?

“Too bad he was an asshole.”

Why, how do you mean?

For getting so fucked up he couldn’t control his motorcycle. I know the cat was stoned that day. Fuck him. He deprived a lot of people of the Allman Brothers music that could have progressed to phenomenal heights, and isn’t that what we’re all here for is each other?”

Nevertheless, there are other guitarists towards whose work Ted will give the nod. When we asked him if there was a guitarist extant who could possibly come near him, he was able to think of “Jeff Beck. And Keith Richard was my favorite, back then. He’s not anymore because he’s stifled. He stopped his progressing in ’67, maybe ’69. The only guitar players I’ve ever listened to in my life I mean where the guitar put welts on my chest from listening to licks was Keith Richards and Jimmy McCarty.”

Jim McCarty of the Godz?

“Yes, he is one of the gods, believe me. Cactus was one of the most phenomenal bands I’ve ever witnessed.”

TED ON DRUGS

Intoxicants of any kind get Ted madder than a wet hen. That’s one of the main reasons why he’s so displeased with Iggy and Duane, and it’s no secret that he used to regularly throw people out of his band for using drugs: “I sure did. I’ve never taken any drugs. The other guys in my band may take drugs on their own time, but I don’t let them go onstage stoned. No way. They can’t play that way. I’ve never met anyone who can. People would say that the reason I’ve gone through so many musicians is because I don’t allow drugs on my planef. It’s not true. The guys can bathe in heroin, they can shower in cocaine, they can wash their face in diseased peanut butter, live it up, but if it’s time to jam and if they can jam while they’re bathing in that stuff—out of sight.”

We asked Ted if he didn’t think it was ironic that his music might be used as a vehicle for which people would take a lot of downs and obliviate.

“Yeh. What about the early Amboy Dukes? All the fuckin’ LSD that inspired? Tell: me ‘Baby Please' Don’t Go’ wasn’t just a death to a thousand young boys.”

So what you do for kicks then?

“Right after a gig, right after getting blown by seventeen queens, whooooooo, I turn inside out and head for my farm with .a malt.”

Malt liquor?

“No, with a fuckin’ chocolate malt.”

TED’S REPUTATION

Well, see, for, some reason, Ted is thought of by many people, most likely jealous inferiors, as a conceited prick. He is well aware of this: “That’s cool. It doesn’t bother me at all. The only time I fight an opinion is when it really gets in my way, someone really tried to cross something negative to me. If someone thinks I’m a prick and pops me in the, mouth I’d crush the fucker.”

Do you, we wondered, see yourself as kind of a noble savage?

“A noble savage? I’ve never quite looked at it like that, but that would probably cover it. Now I’m going to straighten you out and show you that I’m not a prick.”

Okay, show us you’re not a prick. Straighten out the misconceptions which have sprung up like so much ragweed around you.

“I already have. You know where I’m at. I think I’m so fucking obvious it’s a joke.”

Doesn’t it get boring being obvious?

“Oh no, not at all, ‘cause I’m so obviously exciting. How could that be boring? When I get onstage, is it boring to have 8000 people in Chicago shouting for the tenth fucking encore? And having people charge the stage, do you think that’s a bore? You’ve got your head blocked severely up your ass when you say that.”

You seem rather defensive about this, we said in devil’s advocacy.

“Of course I am, because I’ve got BIG GIANT RED FACTS THAT I CAN SHOVE IN FRONT OF YOUR FACE. Tell me in all sincerity, have you ever talked to a guitar player as interesting as me?”