PAUL RODGERS
Sorry, sports fans, but you’d better pass on this particular Paul Rodgers piece if you’re a Free or Bad Company fanatic going through Paul R. withdrawal symptoms (a little late, aren’t cha?). In keeping with its grand tradition of ignorance in journalism, CREEM sent me to do one of the first Paul Rodgers interviews in many years, as per his solo debut, Cut Loose.
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PAUL RODGERS
Got Juice If you Want It!
by
Laura Fissinger
Sorry, sports fans, but you’d better pass on this particular Paul Rodgers piece if you’re a Free or Bad Company fanatic going through Paul R. withdrawal symptoms (a little late, aren’t cha?). In keeping with its grand tradition of ignorance in journalism, CREEM sent me to do one of the first Paul Rodgers interviews in many years, as per his solo debut, Cut Loose. What I know about Free and Bad Company wouldn’t fill a teacup. Speaking of teacup, welcome to the scene of the crime.
Someone smart gave Rodgers a bigwig corner suite at a New York Central Park-side hotel—the stereo system took up space, you dig; not even the plush carpet could hope to cushion potential sonic blows. Two minutes after my hind touched the plush couch Rodgers was inquiring about tea, coffee, and any other couth amenities. The glowering sultan of sulk was not present; in his stead operated a (geeeeeeez) wholesome looking guy in his early 30s, decked in a (very) slightly ’60s jeans outfit; the pants were a little flared, the hair a little long. The face that launched a thousand power chords looked kind and open.
“These are the first interviews he’s done in a really long time,” the leggy publicist hollered over a herd of crunch rock coming out of said speakers. Rodgers stood looking out over the park, jiggling his legs and clenching his fists as if the crowd below was people instead of trees.
When the tea came and the business started, Rodgers started to fill in the blanks without any push from the peanut gallery. “First I want to say that I’m very proud of Bad Company and Free.” As long as you brought it up, what does become a legend most? “A medal,” he laughs. “I’ve been in rock ’n’ roll for 20 years. Don’t I get one?”
How about a purple heart? “The Bad Company tour in support of Desolation Angels in 1979 was a real blinder. It was the highlight of our career. We were almost finished; I was at the end of every rope I had. Then, someone booked on dates for two or three more weeks. I got home to my family carrying the pieces of my mind in one of the suitcases. I was like a zombie. Then 1 recovered, and started to build a studio in my house, which was an incredibly absorbing task. Because it was in my home I had to be really careful about the soundproofing and the like.”
"f wish Pete Townshend had never said that thing about hope I die before I get old.
The 24-track studio, which Rodgers talks about like one of his kids, took 18 months to build. “When I do things I tend to do them to the hilt.” A rueful twitch of the mouth. “I think when you commit to something you should go all the way or you won’t really see what you went into it to learn.”
In essence, says Rodgers, he wanted to learn two things: how he’d feel out of the limelight and off the road, and how he’d do as the buck-stops-here man of the rock ’n’ roll he made. “I wanted to find out what songs could sound like straight from my head to a reel of tape. I was always in bands—I didn’t switch willy nilly. It was basically Free and Bad Company. But now it was time to go it alone.”
By the time he came out of his “room,” his two daughters were 18 months older and his “legend” out in the world that much more divorced from Paul Rodgers, present tense. “When you’re young, you can never see yourself being older—-I couldn’t imagine it. From 21 years old to the grave seemed like a real short step. And I think for some others who also had success at a fairly young age, it’s like they get everything they want so early, they can’t imagine time adding anything more to their lives. It’s like, ‘oh god, this is heaven, let me die/’
Cut Loose does not sound like the gasp of an old geezer, nor the aftershocks of a man nostalgic for his glory days. It’s very much along the lines of Rodgers’s old music, big slices of blues-based-mainstream rock with guitars in slabs like roast beef at a buffet for King Kong. It has juice. You look at Rodgers’s face and see juice still running there, too; whatever he did to construct the seamier side of his legend did not write its diary on his face. “I wish Pete Townshend had never said that thing about ‘hope I die before I get old.’ It’s not necessary to die. I look at the walking wounded and I think about the thin line between pathos and patheticness.”
Suddenly Rodgers appears worried. “I don’t want to project myself as an old fart, as a grand old man of rock ’n’ roll. I still get the excitement. I got a lot of it making Cut Loose. I go for that, I go for the emotional expression, the kind of singing that people like Otis Redding did. He sang for people personally. At the risk of sounding corny, he sang soul to soul and heart to heart. If I’m about anything, I’m about that.”
We were out of tea and time. A full day of chats and more tea waited for him. When do the trees in Central Park get replaced by people with their fists in the air and their feets on the chair? “I’m not going to tour behind this record, because there’s only one record’s worth of material, and I didn’t quit Bad Company and Free to get up on a stage and do a lot of those songs. After the next one I’ll have enough songs.”
And enough juice, one suspects. The boy knows how to save it up. “He skipped some of the extraneous stuff in L.A.,” reported his publicist a few days later. “He got homesick and flew to be with his family.” And that’s how the legend keeps living.
