JOHN ENTWISTLE’S ALRIGHT, OR SO HE CLAIMS

John Entwistle’s final words to me: “It didn’t feel like a long trip; it never felt like a long trip; the enthusiasm was always there. The Who were very arrogant when they started; we’d go around telling everybody and each other that we were the greatest, we truly believed it, still do believe it. We tried to keep our integrity all the way through. Every stage of our career has been exciting to us. I have no regrets except being called the Quiet One. Because I ain’t.”

My final words to Entwistle: “Goodbye.”

SETUP

John Entwistle is talking to members of the press to promote his new solo album Too Late The Hero. His first outing in six years, and made with the aid of erstwhile guitarist Joe Walsh, and drummer Joe Vitale. This is his fifth solo endeavor, the other four disappeared without a trace. Opines Entwistle: “A lot of the reason why my other albums didn’t catch on was because nobody knew they were out. Because I didn’t do too much publicity over here.”

A WORD FROM OUR SPONSORS

Time: Five hours before the interview.

Place: Atlantic Records offices. Manhattan.

Patti Conte (Atlantic Records representative) : “Now I realize that it’s difficult to talk with Mr. Entwistle and not discuss the band he plays l?ass with. But we’d like the main thrust of the interview to be geared to his solo career. That is the reason he’s doing it.”

Me (CREEM Magazine representative): “Now I’ve got the address and time, but what’s the room number?”

Conte: “You’ll be given that when you arrive at the hotel.”

"Since I’ve become a nastier person, life’s been a lot easier."

Me: “Shame that, I’d just sold it to a fan for $50.”

Conte: “You’re very funny, aren’t you.”

ALL MOD CONS (If

Entwistle: “I was never a mod boy. I was a rocker dressed like a mod boy. No, I was never a rocker either. I’ve been in groups since I was 15. In the 60’s there was a certain way that groups dressed, and I dressed like them. This publicity guy, Pete Meaden, it was originally his idea to dress us out as mods. He figured mods were going to be the next big thing. So all four of us were taken to a.barber’s and had all our hair cut off in a row. Then he took us to a sporting goods shop and bought us boots and levi’s with half-inch cuffs and skating jackets. He dressed Roger in a zoot suit. I think we all wanted to dress like Roger. He was the Face, and we were the tickets. We all started wearing seersucker and bomber jackets. I hated the clothes. I once threw a hairbrush at my mirror and broke it. I’d walk through puddles on purpose to ruin my shoes; they had cardboard soles. We sabotaged all our clothes, cut holes in them.”

PRIVATE LIFE

John Entwistle is separated from his wife of 10; years. He has a nine-year-old son named Christopher. He owns a 50 room, 15 bedroom, 42 acre estate in England.

THE BEST COUPLET ENTWISTLE EVER PLAYED BASS TO

“Substitute you for my mum

At least I’d get my washing done.”

—P. Townshend

EXACTLY WHAT THE WHO SOUND LIKE TODAY

“With the Who, about 80% of the music we play on stage we don’t enjoy playing. We like the free-form stuff we get into, the solos, which we’re playing completely off the top of our head. It gets pretty heavy then. But that’s pretty boring for an audience, to sit and hear riffs all night. So we break it up, some heavy metal and some pretty melodies, and more melodic stuff.”

RIGOR MORTIS

Making his third solo album, Rigor Mortis Sets In, cost John Entwistle $10,000 in studio time and $4000 in liquor bills. Says Entwistle: “I wish I could do it like that now.”

EXCESSIVE

X-Sessive—lead singer of popular rock and soul band the Nitecaps: “My very favorite band is the Who. They are the band we’re most influenced by. I’ve always loved them.”'

HERE COMES THE NICE

* JE: All my drugs novtf are on prescription.

CREEM: In the wake of Presley, that says nothing,

JE: Yeah. But if, say, I’m on a diet, I only take diet'pills.

CREEM: Which is another word for speed.

JE: True, but if you take three a day every day, they don’t work as leapers. Just as appetite suppressants. Alcohol is the only other drug I take. I mean, this white line on the table is Sweet ’n’ Low.

STRINGS ATTACHED

Around the time “My Generation” was first released, Entwistle was getting sick to his back teeth with bass guitar strings. He bought a set of every type on the market and none of them were good enough; they all vibrated too much. He needed a type with far less vibration, like piano strings. After long consideration, he decided that Roto-Sounds were about the best, at least the D and G were nearly good enough. So Entwistle contacted Roto-Sound and informed, them that both their A string and their E were not good enough, and that if they made the strings to his own specifications he would do promotional work for them. They agreed. And the following weeks found him down at Roto-Sound’s factory getting the thickness just right. After much trial and error, they finally managed the perfect set and Entwistle went on tour with a couple dozen. Halfway through the tour, a manager from Roto-Sound contacted him at a hotel: They’d like to market the strings, would he mind? A deal was made. And that’s why, though Entwistle changes his strings after every. concert and every studio session, he never pays for them.

"I hear a lot of the Who in heavy metal bands."

ALL MOD CONS (2)

“The music was modish, we used to play all the things the mods were into. We used to do Martha and the Vandellas stuff, ‘Dancing In The Streets,’ and lots of James Brown. We used to have to travel around armed because we were the mod group. Even Rod Stewart was known as Rod the Mod. But we were the mod band, us and the Small Faces. The rockers used to come and see us to cause trouble. So Keith used to carry a hatchet in his bass drum, Roger used to use his mike stand. I used to play a bass with spikes sticking out at the end so I could swipe at anybody trying to get at me. It finally ended up after a trip to France with us carrying gas guns in shoulder holsters. Saved my life a few times, but we eventually threw them away because they were illegal. But for a while there the whole bit."

TURN TO PAGE 57

CONTINUED FROM PAGE 23

BITE YOUR NAILS

I’m very nervous at the beginning of the interview, dropping my tape recorder and my tapes, fumbling with the mechanism. A real twit. Entwistle is very kind as I apologize. “Take your time,” he advises. “There’s no great hurry.” Which is nice, because two minutes earlier Ann Weldon had informed me in no uncertain terms that I’ll have exactly one hour. Throughout the conversation I get the feeling I’m being treated with kid gloves. He obviously saw me as some form of super-fan, and though that isn’t the truth at all , I play the part to the hilt. All in all no balloons are burst, and I leave, if not admiring his music, certainly admiring the man himself. I’ve met my own fair share of bastards, but John Entwistle isn’t one of them.

BLUE MEANIES

“It’s the loud and nasty people that get on in this world, the nice guy gets shafted. I’ve found that since I’ve become a nastier person, life’s been a lot easier. I got tired of people taking advantage of me all the time, so I forced myself to be nastier. I was Mister Nice Guy, now I’m a devil. When you’re as easygoing all the time there are so many people around that are not like you. I couldn’t stay the way I was.”

TWO TITLES I ALMOST GAVE THIS ARTICLE

1) A TALK ON THE QUIET SIDE: THE JOHN ENTWISTLE INTERVIEW 2) JOHN ENTWISTLE WANTS YOU TO BUY HIS NEW SOLO ALBUM. THAT'S ALL

MOON THE LOON

“It came as a shock when Keith died, though it was something expected. He was heading in that direction. It turned out to be an accident, Keith didn’t mean to do it. It’s a drag that things like that can kill you. Keith was working on his condition, trying to get his health back. We couldn’t really picture the Who going back on tour with him in that condition. All we had to do was miss q couple of dates and the whole thing would have turned into a disaster: Financially, performance, and publicity. So we were really waiting for him to get back in condition. I think probably if Keith hadn’t managed to [get back in condition] but still lived, the Who would have broken up. In a way it’s a bit like the phoenix. Keith died but the Who were reborn.”

SECURITY

“We only have one security man on tour with us. I mean what’s the use of a lot of bodyguards? A bullet could easily go between his arms and reach you. I’m sure Lennon wasn’t walking down the street that night worrying that somebody might shoot him. You don’t think about it. You can’t think about it, you’d stay home all the time, and then a chandelier would fall on your head.”

OX

In ’75, John Entwistle went on tour with his own band Ox, to promote his fourth solo album Mad Dog Bites. The initial idea was for Ox to play support for some popular group. But that quickly sprang a leak when the various bass players decided they had no intention of following him. Entwistle ended up playing as a special guest of longtime pal Joe Walsh (they’ve been mates since Walsh’s James Gang days.) When Ox were headlining, Joe Vitale—touring in support of his first solo album—opened for him. It was around then Entwistle decided to use them on his next album.

MONEY

“Before Tommy, we operated at about half a million dollar loss. We used to manage to keep our heads above water, but only just. I used to live on $50 a week, and that’s when we were having all those single hits in England. We never made any money out of those singles at all. We were playing six gigs a week, and all the money was going to pay back our debts. At Woodstock, when we were leaving our hotel—it was a five-hour drive and all the helicopters were being used to take out the casualties—the groups coming back told us that nobody was going to be paid. We got paid because we told them that if they didn’t we weren’t leaving the hotel. Otherwise it’d have been a disaster for us. For us to come to the States and go back without being paid would have wiped us out.

“The first inkling we had that we’d ever make any money out of the Who came slowly at first, when after a tour we found we had $1200 between us. We did about seven U.S. tours before the big time, once supporting Herman and the Hermits. Then Tommy came out and the tours started getting shorter, and the money started rolling in.”

EUPHEMISM

John Entwistle doesn’t swear once during the interview, possibly because there is a lady present. When he wants to say “fuck,” he makes an up-down movement with his clenched fist.

SOME TRUTH

“I hear a lot of the Who in heavy meted bands. A lot of the time I don’t know who’s playing, because they don’t tell you on the radio. But 90% of the time I think ‘that’s my riff—I made that up.’ I hear all my bass parts. I like playing heavy metal, I don’t like listening to it. And it is nice, a compliment having all those people copying me, but only if they give us credit for it. I struggled for years impressing on people that the bass is a lead instrument, Building my sound, pioneering it. A lot of people stepped in, took it over; there are a lot of bass players out there using my sound and my strings.

“I don’t know how much longer the Who will last and I want to have a solo carer that can run parallel. I don’t want to stop playing because the Who are no more. Basically I’m in this business to play the bass, live in front of an audience, and I’ll carry on playing as long as people will come to see me. And if they won’t come and see me I’ll play with someone they will come and see. Because that’s the thing I get the biggest kick out of, ”