DAVE EDMUNDS, ROCK FAN

Dave Edmunds' second biggest pleasure in life seems to be photography. A slim Edmunds (he claims he was horrified when he first saw his paunch on the cover of Rockpile's Seconds Of Pleasure LP, and has been running daily) is sitting in a Detroit Holiday Inn room, explaining how a CREEM photographer first introduced him to the modern miracles of time and light exposure. Since that time, Edmunds has accumulated over three thousand dollars' worth of photo equipment, and he was recently chosen to appear as "Celebrity Photographer of the Month" in American Photographer magazine.

Edmunds' first passion, of course, is music, specifically rock 'n' roll music and the various classic forms that went into the creation of that terminology. During the course of an hour, he lovingly discusses Chuck Berry, the Everly Brothers, Phil Spector, the Beach Boys, the blues, country & western, and becomes especially animated on the subject of Elvis Presley, standing in front of a mirror with a curled lip he's probably been practicing since 1956, and paraphrasing British writer Ray Connolly: "When Elvis died, it wasn't just that the man had died, but the reflection in the mirror had died as well."

Dave Edmunds is the epitome of the rock fan turned rock star. In an age where nearly every facet of rock has become so self-conscious it seems almost beyond repair, Edmunds knows exactly what he likes and simply does it, cynics be damned. What he likes are most of the names and styles mentioned above—Berry guitar, the Sun twang, Spector's "wall of sound," angelic rock harmonies, the Hank Williams/honky tonk school of country music—all blended together with a modern "va-va-va-room" production. Although his technique sometimes gets him written off as another retro rocker, Edmunds seems to get his greatest thrill in finding hot modern tunes (the more obscure, the better) to incorporate into his past-as-present synthesis.

I like to think rock 'n'roll is more like blues or jazz. It's not in or out offashion9 it's just there.

Like a Welsh equivalent of John Fogerty, Edmunds has always stayed close to the pure roots of American . music, even during periods in which those roots haven't seemed especially fashionable. Still, in light of the recent rock roots revival, which makes it look as though current trends have caught up with him, Edmunds thinks of himself as less a revivalist and more of a keeper of the rock 'n' roll flame.

"I always thought it would be a wrong move for me to grease up and put on a drape jacket and do a show. I've always wanted to give it a bit more integrity, a bit more class than just being a cop-out act like that. There are loads of bands that do it, put on all the gear and do a load of crap, actually. I like to think that rock 'n' roll is more like blues or jazz. It's not in or out of fashion, it's just there. I think it's very important music—it's a form of history— and I don't think it should be cheapened in any way by doing a revival thing. I'd like to think that it's more like B.B. King. He can play the blues the rest of his life, it doesn't matter how old he is. It's a valid musical form, and so is rock 'n' roll."

But does he think that people can continue building on these same foundations forever or will they eventually run out?

"No, it can't run out now. It's been there too long for it to be a fad. Things will come and go, of course. You'll have the Stray Cats coming on, and then you'll have a rockabilly rush. And then that'll go away, and something else will come along. But people like Brian Setzer and the Blasters— where did they get the motive and the information to do it so right? You don't hear it on the radio, but they got it from somewhere. I think the basic ingredient is just pure rock 'n' roll. It's that heavy, it never went away. But it mustn't be cheapened by just dressing up and doing a parody of it. I think it can stand on its own two feet. All you have to do is just go out and play rock 'n' roll with the right feel. It's the feel that counts. "

Aside from his 1970 international hit cover version of Smiley Lewis's "I Hear You Knockin'," Edmunds is probably best known for being one-fourth of the late, great Rockpile. Yeah, they were one of the best rock bands of the late 70's, the union between Lowe and Edmunds was magic, and blah, blah, blah. But the time is probably right to forget about Rockpile. Unlike Lowe, Edmunds is adamant when he says he can't see Rockpile ever working together again, even as a one-shot deal. For the record, he loved Billy Bremner's two U.K. singles and thinks that Bremner "could be very successful on his own," but hasn't heard Nick's latest LP, although he doesn't feel he has to. "I know the guy so well I know exactly what it's going to sound like."

I feel like I'm just a fan who skipped over the fence a little bit to see what it's like to get some hits and play onstage.

After seeing Lowe's Noise To Go perform and Edmunds' current tour, it's safe to say that neither of these guys really need Rockpile. Like Lowe, Edmunds was the best I've ever seen him. More the front man and looking more confident than he's ever been, Edmunds presented an intense, solid hour of no-nonsense, straight-ahead rock 'n' roll. The result was pure dynamite!

"It's just magnificent touring with this band, and I'm not totally sure why. I'm surprised by it. Because with Rockpile, I thought I was safe just being a member of a band, not actually fronting it. But I think this is the first tour I've ever really enjoyed. I mustn't be too hard on Rockpile because that band was really good for me and it did a lot in building up my confidence to go onstage. Before that, I was horrified by the idea of performing onstage. But I think it was the hangovers that might have ruined it. With Rockpile, we had to drink so much every day that everyone had a hangover. That was like the normal way of life, and I think that's why I didn't enjoy touring. I haven't had a hangover on this tour yet, and I'm really enjoying it.

"When Rockpile broke up, I thought I must get back on the road as soon as possible because the longer I leave it, the more chance there is of never actually doing it. You know, like they say when you fall off a horse, you should get right back on. I didn't relish the idea of putting ads in the music trades—'Bass player/ drummer wanted: open auditions'—so I phoned up some of my mates."

Dubbed the "Welsh Mafia" by some, the current band has been individually associated with Edmunds in various line-ups over the years. Drummer Dave Charles ("He's not Welsh, but he's been living there for 10 years, so we'll forgive him.") is an engineer at Rockfield Studios, where Edmunds learned the tricks of the trade as resident producer. Bassist John David was a member of Love Sculpture, Edmunds' first successful band, and played on the band's British Top 10 rendering of Khachaturian's "Sabre Dance." Geraint Watkins, pianist extraordinaire, is a long-time friend. Guitarist Mickey Gee toured with a latter version of Love Sculpture, and, among other things, recorded the B-side "Pick Axe Rag" with Edmunds in 1973. Gee is an amazing axe man, and one of the showstoppers in the current tour occurs when he and Edmunds play dueling guitars on a powerhouse version of Chuck Berry's "It's My Own Business." Edmunds considers Gee his current "guitar hero," no small compliment coming from an amazing guitar hero in his own right.

"Mickey is sensational. He plays guitar in the exact style I think rock 'n' roll guitar should be played. I don't know anyone else who can do it better. He plays in exactly the same style as James Burton— the Ricky Nelson stuff and when he was with Elvis—but I think he does it even better than him. He bends strings completely out of shape!"

TURN TO PAGE 57

CONTINUED FROM PAGE 33

The same band is featured on Edmunds' most recent LP, D.E. 7th, and it may be his most consistent album since the excellent Repeat When Necessary. There is the obligatory Chuck Berry cover in the form of an obscure gem, "Dear Dad," and the Berry-derived "From Small Things (Big Things One Day Come)," composed by another rock fan made good, Bruce Springsteen. There are horns, bluegrass banjos, a mandolin (which Edmunds claims he didn't know how to play, "but you can apply your knowledge of rock 'n' roll to any instrument at all and learn how to play it.") on the great "Bail You Out," and even a semi-retum to the "heavy metal" pyrotechnics of Edmunds' earliest recordings on his cover of NRBQ's "Me And The Boys."

"NRBQ and I have the same publishers in England, Albion Music* and they played me the track. I loved it, but I must admit I felt a bit silly doing it. I never use an amplifier in the studio. I always plug straight into the decks because I don't get along well with amplifiers. But recording 'Me And The Boys,' I plugged into a high watt amp and slammed it full up. I felt a bit silly doing all that heavy metal stuff, though.

"I knew this album was a very, very important one for me, and I had to pull out all the stops I could find, really. I used instruments I would have never used with Rockpile because I don't think it would have gone down too well. I don't know because I never did suggest it, but I know Nick very well, and he would've said, 'Oh, no, we don't need that. We just play guitars, bass, drums and that's all.' And I'd have said, 'OK, sure, that's the way we do it.' Once I was free of that, I could use anything I wanted, and the freedom is marvelous."

D.E. 7th also includes another Edmunds trademark:the haunting ballad in the form of Liam Grundy's beautiful "One More Night." Interestingly enough, Edmunds discovered the song in a London pub where the unknown Grundy was working as a pianist.

"He was just a young guy, and he was really good. 1 was yelling out all these requests and he was getting them all right, so I thought I'd test him out. 'Can you play ^"Disney Girls" by the Beach Boys?' He said he'd try, and he played it perfectly. I thought, this guy is really hot. So we got talking and got pretty chummy during the evening, and after the place closed down, he started singing this song, 'One More Night.' I thought it was incredible!

"I was booked into the studio the next day to begin recording Q.E. 7th, and I said we have to put this down on record. He was paranoid at first because the song wasn't published or anything, but I said, 'Never mind, we have to get it on tape.' So I picked him up the next day, we went to the studio, the engineer miked the piano, and he started playing it. He wrote the words down for me, and I sang it—it was the first time I'd ever sang it—and we had it, in just one take. We thought this is too easy. It was all over in 10 minutes! We tried to do it over and over again, but it just kept getting worse. So I thought it was just destined to be, and I put it out like that. I love that song. I think there's a bit of magic there, the way the whole thing came about was just magic."

Aside from his own musical activities, Edmunds is still very much in demand as a producer. He is currently producing an album for country '^concept" artist Paul Kennedy, and he's also set to produce the Stray Cats' third LP. When I interviewed Nick Lowe, he said he learned to produce from watching Edmunds, but the two men seem to adhere to separate producing techniques. Whereas Lowe has been nick-* named "Basher" for his spontaneous "get it over with as fast as possible" work in the studio, Edmunds is more of a perfectionist.

"There really are no rules. You can still capture the feel of rock 'n' roll by recording every instrument one at a time if you know what you're doing. It doesn't have to be spontaneous. It's great sometimes if it is, but I think Eddie Cochran did 'Summertime Blues' or something like that by himself, and it was perfect. I know Nick has that attitude about just simply churning it out, but I think he's wrong.

"I love the guy dearly, but I think he's wrong and that's where we started running into problems. When we were making our respective solo albums involving Rockpile, he'd have the final say if it was his album and vice versa. But once we started recording together as a band, we began running into problems. It ended up sounding like half a Dave Edmunds/half a Nick Lowe album, which led me to believe we weren't going in the right direction as a whole. I think I know what Nick was getting at, but I still think he was wrong. You have to work on it. I had a talk with him one day, and he told me he likes his records to sound like demo tapes. I don't. I want them to be a bit smooth and a little bit of magic."

One of the Lands Edmunds produced in their prime was the Flamin' Groovies. Shake Some Action was a genuine classic, and the band once seemed to be one of the best power pop units on the scene. But the last time the Groovies played Detroit, they appeared almost pathetic, playing mostly Beatles covers so obvious that the audience might as well have been watching a production of Beatlemania. Edmunds views what happened to the Groovies as a perfect example of the distinction between "revivalist" and "traditionalist."

"I did a gig in Germany with them 18 months ago, and I couldn't believe it. They were doing songs like 'I Wanna Hold Your Hand' and '19th Nervous Breakdown.' When I did those albums with them, they wanted to record that stuff—they did some of it—because they were adamant that they could be huge doing that stuff. I thought they should do more stuff like 'Teenage Head' and 'Shake Some Action.' If they'd have kept doing that caliber of material, they'd have been great, but they wouldn't listen. I have some sympathy for them because they're being rock music fans like I am a fan. I feel like I'm just a fan who skipped over the fence a little bit to see what it's like to get some hits and play onstage. And I think they're fans too, but they just wanted to limit and tie themselves up doing replicas of Beatles and Stones stuff after they showed they had the ability to do some great material."

As far as the future is concerned, Edmunds would eventually like to score another hit single in America, expressing a bit of disappointment over the fact that Juice Newton scored a hit with "Queen Of Hearts," a song he originally cut on Repeat When Necessary. In contrast, Newton's version is akin to Pat Boone's whitewashed covers of R&B material in the mid-50's.

"She did pinch my arrangement, note for note, but I'm not angry with that. What I am angry about is that we put out 'Girls Talk' as a single in England and it got to number 4, and we put out 'Queen Of Hearts' which got to number 11. I asked Swan Song, my old label, to put them out over here, and they said, 'No, we don't think so.' I think they eventually used 'Girls Talk' as a B-side for 'Ju Ju Man' or something like that. And what a waste, because it's like one of my favorite records. So Linda Ronstadt hit over here with 'Girls Talk' and Juice Newton with 'Queen Of Hearts.' But good luck to Juice baby. If I'd have had it out as a single and it didn't hit but hers did, I'd have said, 'Fair enough, great.' I really wanted it out as a single."

Edmunds has taken an amount of criticism over the years for pretty much staying the same and refusing to change with the times. Case in point: a British music publication which champions the modernistic, electronic "post-rock" school of music recently ran a slightly negative piece in which they referred to him as "the nicest old redneck in the world," citing his ignorance of the current crop of Joy Division clones as a major flaw.

"They'll all be gone in 18 months. You always gei one or two with loads of talent in any movement, and they'll last. But I think I can safely say that Soft Cell, Human League and all that synthesizer stuff will go. It'll get ripped off, and then they'll be out of the business. Not based on the merits of their records, but that's the way the business works. And if someone in the music press calls me this or that, I don't give a shit, because I've been in this business for 14 years. This business is not known for job security, but I'm doing just fine. So it's like water off a duck's back. It's not going to give me a negative reaction. It would be stupid for me to take it seriously. Does that sound arrogant?"

Maybe, but then the "truth" sometimes comes across sounding like arrogance.

When we have our regular music arguments here in the CREEM editorial department, I take a lot of abuse for my current "retroactive" musical tastes. They sometimes call me "Mr. Hate" around here, as I haven't been particularly fond of a lot of the "new music" trends to come along during the last year. Sure, I .like the new Gang Of Four album as much as the next person, but a lot of today's trends sound like just another cultural form of the emperor's new clothes to me. I find nothing inspiring or hopeful in gloom and doom, and I can hear nothing exhilirating in imitations of passion. Dave Edmunds' particular rock niche surely isn't going to change the world, it's far from revolutionary, and it probably won't have any major lasting effect at all. Still, rock needs people , like Edmunds, Marshall Crenshaw (who opened the show for Edmunds on this tour and was totally lovable), Springsteen and the like to help keep things in the proper perspective. I sincerely believe that this is the only way to get a stagnating pop music scene back on the right track. Besides, in an age where the possibility of nuclear anihilation seems more real every day and depression rules supreme, there's still something kinda nice and refreshing in songs about "cars and girls."

"I have to keep going back to the late 50's, up to the Beatles, really, and remember that it wasn't much fun being a teenager in England at the time. There wasn't even any such word as 'teenager,' you just weren't quite an adult. It was literally drab and grey. There was no surfing, there were no hot rods, there was none of that fantasy. There's a beautiful fantasy around rock 'n' roll, and when Eddie Cochran started singing 'C'mon Everybody,' there's gonna be a party, and the Beach Boys started singing about the sun and surf and all that—it was the great escape listening to it and just imagining that it could happen. I didn't hit as hard over here because it was an accepted way of life, but I was 13 years old in 1955, and it was terribly bleak in England. There was no fun. You weren't supposed to have fun until rock 'n' roll hit, and it really hit hard in England because it was a bit of fantasy with a hope of it coming true.

"When I got'to be about 20, I figured I i had to seriously decide what I was going to do with my future. I hadn't a trade, so I . went to a government trade center where I learned car mechanics. You stay there for six months learning the trade, and then they get you a job. I loved it, but then one day I just thought, 'Well, I've got to at least try it. I've got to go to London and try to make it.' I went to the foreman of the factory, and said, i'm leaving. I'm handing in my notice.' He said, 'That's a shame. You're one of my best mechanics. Why are you leaving?' I told him I was going to London to be a professional musician, and this guy laughed at me. He laughed at me!

"I went to London, and it was a hopeless failure. Nothing happened, so I went back to Cardiff and formed another band. We were driving to a gig one day in this beat-up van, and it broke down right outside the garage where I used to work. The foreman came past—he was testing a car or something—and he looked and he laughed at me again. Six months later, 'I Hear You Knockin' ' was number one, so I went right back to the garage and bought a Jaguar XJ6 for cash. All my mates at the shop were standing there with their thumbs up, cheering 'Hey Dave!' And this time the foreman didn't laugh at me!"