STEVE MARRIOTT’S BAD OLD DAYS

Steve Marriott laid back, looking like a spaced-out leprechaun, a cigarette in one hand and a bottle of Guinness in the other. Brewed in Dublin, Guinness is to Humble Pie what Budweiser is to Alice Cooper. Whenever The Pie hits the road, they always pack about a twenty mule team's worth just so they don't get homesick.

Exhausted from a show, buzzing from his brew and laid back from a joint, Marriott was in a very mellow mood* but the son-of-a-bitch still wouldn't tell me the words to the second verse of "The One Eyed Trouser-Snake Rumba" off Humble Pie's debut A&M release.

" 'The One Eyed Trouser-Snake Rumba'?" he cried incredulously. It was a stab from the past. "A one eyed trouser-snake," Marriott inquired. "You know what that is, don't you?"

"Yea, I do," I conceded. "But I could never figure out the words to that second verse. You just garbled 'em completely."

Stevie snickered slightly. He knew what they were. I giggled in reply. I could imagine. Marriott snickered again, only louder this time.

"You're not gonna tell me, are you?" I said finally.

"I'm not gonna tell you." Stevie answered. " 'Cause it is a bit rude. We were, and maybe still are, a rude group. We don't go out of our way to be nasty about it, it's just that everyone, everyone but everyone is into that kind of thing. It's the same as dope. We live in a culture. Or at least I do, and so does everyone else I know. It is a whole drugorientated culture. Just like our parents' was all booze and war orientated culture. It's just as harmless and just as harmful, so there's nothing wrong with writing songs about it 'cause it's what happening today. I'm not trying to sound profound, but it's true. Instead of Jellybabies, today it's joints. Jellybabies was when I was with the Faces."

"Is that why you wrote '30 Days In The Hole'?"

"There were two reasons for that." Marriott replied. "One was because of Hoppy in Detroit, who got nine years for like one joint. The other was the State of Kentucky, where you get 30 days. That's what you get. Then, I was in L.A. with a cat named Elmer Valentino, who owns the Whiskey A Go Go ' Club, and there was this beautiful Humphrey Bogart movie on TV. I can't for the life of me remember the name, but the plot was he was just in prison. Period. And he was a motherfucker. Him and James Cagney. It was a classic. Me and Elmer were watching it and they shoved Bogart down and he goes 'No! Not 30 days in the hole!" and the two things matched up since I'd just come from Kentucky. So it was a good concept for a song. I had all thesewords written like 'Red Lebanese' and 'Black Nepalese' and all that shit 'cause, c'mon. Everybody I know does That sort of thing 'cause it's less harmful than chocolates. I'd rather have a joint than eat a pound of chocolate."

I'vebeenaluckyboy.

Marriott took another gulp of Guinness, then started to ramble some more, reaching progressively deeper into history. "Most people took 'Itchycoo Park" all wrong." he declared. "It wasn't a drug song. '30 Days In The Hole' is a drug song, but the thing about 'Itchycoo Park' was that the era was wrong, and the word 'high' freaked everybody out. All the radio stations. But that song was real. Ronnie Lane and I used to go to a park called Itchycoo Park. I swear to God. We used to bunk off school and groove there. We got high, but we didn't smoke. We just got high from not going to school."

Stevie smiled, remembering. That was a long time ago. "I got expelled from my school," he chuckled. "It was a ghetto school. We've got ghetto schools in England, too. It was nowhere. Like the lowest. You had no chance. It was just heavies. Gangsters. Would-be Mafioso and heavies. I got expelled because I burnt it down. It was indirectly my fault. We all used to smoke in school. I put my cigarette down a hole in the floor. It caught a gas main and the whole school caught on fire. I had nil education anyway, so getting thrown out of a ghetto school was pretty funny. | "It was strange. That meant I had to o leave home at a very early age. I was fourteen. I did odd jobs to live and | music to love. I worked as a dishwasher for a while. The usual stuff. I did a lot of schticks and I hated it. At the same time, it kept me alive. I used to be able to live on 30C a day by buying the odd cigarette and having an occassional meal. That's it.

"Then, the Small Faces were formed and we couldn't get a guitar player to join us so I ended up playing guitar. I only knew a few chords, but we loved it. I'll tell you, the Small Faces first hit record was 'Whatcha Gonna Do About It?' and that meant we were on $50 a week and that was heavy. We had four Number One records right in a row in England and we were still on $50 a week and it was fantastic. Let me tell you, man, $50 a week was better than brownsauce rolls anytime. I've been a lucky boy."

Stevie washed the old days down with another dose of Guinness. I leaned on him for the second verse of "The One Eyed Trouser-Snake Rumba" once again.

"I'm not going to tell you 'cause I'll get arrested," Marriott retorted. Maybe he was remembering the last time he passed through Florida. After the last show in Tampa, there were several gung-ho law 'n order types out to bust him for public profanity.

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CONTINUED FROM PAGE 48

"I got away, didn't I?" Stevie smiled, betraying this mischevious little glint in his bloodshot eyes. "They chased me, man. Do you know those motherfuckers were shooting? It was such a beautiful getaway, too. I didn't even know they wanted to arrest me. The lights went out. I didn't know why all the lights went out. Somebody - one of our people - threw a towel over my head and rushed me through screaming 'Accident! Accident' I didn't know what was happening. They shoved me into a limosine and as they drove me out the back, our equipment truck drove across the exit. It was like a bit of Mission: Impossible. Except for this one motherfucker. He stood there and he was taking aim at the car. Can you believe that? For saying what? Bitch? Shit? Fuck?"

"I believe the word was 'motherfucker,' " I offered helpfully.

"What does it matter?" Marriott cried passionately. "Anyway, the escape was beautiful. The guy missed with the gun. There was a Lear Jet waiting at the airport. I put on Jimmy Reed. I had a choc? olate milk in one hand and a joint in the other and we flew back to New York. I was really laughing all the way. It was the funniest thing that ever happened to me.

"Although," Steve concluded thoughtfully, "if the guy hadn't missed, it would've been a drag."^