GRACE SLICK’S ALTERED STATES

As Grace Slick enters the 8Q’s, it's ever so appropriate that her name is Grace. Although “Grace-ful” might not fit her image in the last decade—as she became a slightly tubby and almostpitiful shell of her former self—by the “Grace” of whoever, she has slimmed down, straightened up, and got her head screwed on tight and straight.

Grace has once again become the svelte former model whose-, voice “launched a thousand acid trips” and whose look inspired countless masturbatory fantasies. For those of us who ogled her countenance on the cover of Surrealistic Pillow with panting desire, the progression of Grace Slick from cool and crazy beauty to the Liz Taylor of rock was a sad sight. With the Starship during the 70’s, Grace still had the voice, but not the “look you want to know better.” Her favorite trick seemed to be showing her tits (see the “CREEM Profile” of a few years back), and one was almost waiting for the Acid Queen to go down in flames.

Instead she bolted from the Starship (sending their equipment down in flames when a German audience rioted because of her split), kicked her alcohol problem, and launched a new solo career that, two albums down the line, already reflects both sides of a mature and perceptive woman.

But of course, she’s still the acerbic and witty woman we’ve always loved. As we enter the RCA conference room for the interview, both of us admire the neatly padded walls.

“I’ve always thought—‘How perfect,’ ” says Grace. “If I really get out of line I can still use this room. They can just put me in this room. Don’t let her out.”

The point is well taken. Grace—even after kicking booze—is still, shall we say, crazy in all the right ways. “I tried being a spiritual housewife for a period of three years, which was less than successful. Some people are good at it, y’know, and I’m not saying housewives are blech... I’m just saying that some people aren’t cut out to do that and some are. I was really unsuccessful at that.”

But what Grace did need was to get awl from the booze. “There’s a difference between drinking and having a good time— which I did for a long time—and then turning into someone who’s an asshole to people. And you figure that they’re wrong or this or that. But it’s just because you’re too damn drunk.”

"Some people aren't cut out to be housewives"

She compares her sobriety and spiritual housewife trip to a lot of what happened with people in the last ten or so years. “A whole mess of people did that in the 70’s— that looking in the mirror and going ‘What’s the deal!!??’ This country takes a decade to sleep, and a decade to wake up.”

As part of our collective alarm clock, Grace now offers us Welcome To The Wrecking Ball, an appropriate return to rock ’n’ roll after the Wagnerian MOR of Dreams. “The last one was a little apologetic departure,” she says of her first solo effort after parachuting from the Starship. “Which needed to be done of course—1 needed to do it, nobody else did.

“It’s exactly what I wanted to do. It’s not really what I—who I am. I feel a little uncomfortable singing Rita Coolidge songs.

“On the same line, a lot of singers would sound stupid singing ‘Welcome To The Wrecking Ball.’ I feel very comfortable singing that material. I’m not a real ‘Baby come back to me, I can’t make it without you’ singer. If somebody wants to go away, you don’t drag them back by the leg. I want somebody around the house who wants to be there, so I don’t care. If they want to leave they should leave.”

Grace’s concept of rock ‘n’ roll is much like the inner sleeve of the new album— Grace riding a wrecking ball. “I got to ride a real wrecking ball as it was wrecking the building. I just loved it!! It was the greatest ride I ever had!!

“I got to knock in a roof while I was riding this thing—all this stuff flying and stuff. It’s great.

“The New Jersey Water Department came over and said ‘Get her off of there!’ They were mad! The guy who was running the wrecking ball was having a great time. The band was standing there going ‘I don’t know about her...’

“Richard Alpert or Ram Dass or whatever his name said that life is a dance. When I was doing press for the last record I thought about ‘The Wrecking Ball.’ So I called up Scott Zito (her guitarist and co-writer) and told him that I saw this wrecking ball and had a spiritual experience. He’s going ‘oh Christ, she’s drunk again...’

“But as we talked about wrecking balls and the fact that the world’s in that condition and if you wimp about it, so what. What you do is... it’s your attitude. Welcome to this dance we’re having here, and it’s a mess, but so what?”

Grace is once again, as they call Lee “Scratch” Perry (the reggae producer): “The Upsetter.” But even Grace admits that her career as a rock ’n’ roll figurehead was accidental and unintended. “I just got into it because it looked like fun. I went to see the Jefferson Airplane at the Matrix in San Francisco—I was modeling at the time— and said ‘Gee...that looks like a lot more fun. They stand up there, they come into this bar, they’re having a party all the time, and they only work two and a half hours, and they’re getting paid for it! And they aren’t even very good! So if they can do it’...

“My attitude was that I wanted to have a good time, not make this great serious rock ’n’ roll music. I just wanted to make some simple music and fuck off, and musically, that’s still what I wanna do!

“I also want to be Darth Vader’s wife in Star Wars III. I was born to play that part. George Lucas doesn’t even have that part.

“George—you need me,” Grace announces. “Darth Vader has to have a wife. I was born for this part. And he’ll go, ‘That woman is as crazy as everyone says she is.’”

Grace would also like to use the stylistic bent she explored in Dreams to score for films, and spends her spare time on such fulfilling activities as watching the Osmonds Christmas Show.

“I wanted to watch five minutes of that to see what that is. I want to know how people can buy that concept. Christmas is dogshit and pepple don’t want to believe it’s dogshit. It is a commercial enterprise that makes people so depressed every year. People feel they ought to be happy with their family, which most people are not— they’re fighting, they’re crazy, too many drugs...blah, blah, blah.

“It just drives me crazy—Marie in this 1850’s hat. It’s like how the Catholic Church drives me crazy.

“You don’t need all those rings to be pope. If you want to be pope all you need is an office and some secretaries. You don’t need all those trappings. Just a room like this, and an outfit like yours—that’s all you need.

“I don’t mind Liberace wearing all those rings, because he’s not pushing himself off as a spiritual leader. He’s just saying I like to smile and have jewelry and fuck you!”

Although Grace is known as a human wrecking ball, she admits that “I didn’t do it all that much publicly. There’s this big cutting board at Paul Kantner’s place that I put slices into with a samurai sword. I didn’t feel like hurting anybody.. .or mad. I just felt like seeing how far you can slice into a piece of wood.

“God I felt good after that”...

And that Grace is back taking slices at the world—good, sure and sober shots—it feels good for the rest of us, too.