DANCING WITH MR. D (-O-G)

When it came to Ted Nugent, there was a first time for every one of us CREEM writers. And this was mine. It dates from a time before everything he said might as well have had a copyright symbol by it, it was so predictable.

He was still fleshing out his persona, and there was room in there for a writer to get in and show what a strange duck he could be. Also, he didn’t automatically distrust music writers. You did have to watch it, though, or Ted would totally take over the conversation. In that sense, it was good training. Send all the young writers to Ted.

The phone jangled and I jumped a foot in the St. Paul Holiday Inn. Horrible, holes in the carpet...rotten hungover weekend and what am I doing a story on a Sunday for? Thanks to a fall taken at a fun party Saturday night I had bruises and welts going up and down my left side. A BMP—bad mutha fucka, Ted would have rated that party. I was smoothing some Noxzema on the wretched arm when the telephone made sport of what was left of my nerves.

It was Ted’s publicist. Instead of doing the interview after the show, Ted was ready NOW! The word from Ted was “Get that lady up here!”

I groaned. No coffee. No sleep. A Mad Dog sniffed eagerly upstairs. Confronting life was one thing; confronting Ted quite another. I shuffled down to the publicist’s room. This would never do. I went back to my room.

It was my own fault, anyway. I knew that [CREEM managing editor] Robert Duncan had been inspired to write “On Becoming a Man” by Ted. I knew that to [CREEM assistant editor] Air-Wreck he was God. What I wanted to know was where a woman fit into Ted’s universe, and since it was my own stupid idea, I had been elected to do it. I hadn’t come totally unprepared, though. I was from Detroit.

Ted, DON’T READ ANY FURTHER! I had to resort to chemical stimulation before I could drag my notebook up to confront The Dog. I’ll never do it again, Ted, promise. But I needed it for you. I’ve never met anyone who talked so fast.

As we made our way up to the sixth floor, where Ted was registered as “Ned Bare” (Oh, God), we heard some twangy primeval voodoo chantin’. As we knocked on the door he wolfed: “Do you come bearing gifts?” “In a way,” said his publicist. I didn’t like the way she looked at me. Ted opened the door and shouted: “ Wangshangalangsweetpoontang— bipbopshebop—boomshikkaboom...is this the lady from CREEM?” He ushered us in graciously. I made a feeble request for coffee, which his publicist didn’t hear. Ted did, though, and was calling room service in the time it took my brain to tell my rear to sit down.

Then he fixed his intense gaze on me. He hadn’t finished dressing for the show yet except for his trademark tight stretchy-fabric trousers. His tawny hair was all over the place, his eyes were manic, and he was chemically as straight as the day is long. Ted graciously joined me in drinking coffee, though, which I thought was an unfair advantage considering our respective hormone balances. Why did he have so much energy?

Ted showed his teeth and seemed genuinely amused/touched. Nice doggie?

“That’s an interesting question. I eat a lot. No raw meat, though—that’s what everybody thinks. Actually, I prefer it well-doner

Ted settled his rangy body down for a long talk with obvious relish.

“Girl, I’m going to give you the best interview you ever had! I’ve just come back from Europe where I've been rupturing foreigners!”

Huh?

“They know! That Ted knows! They were TITS!”

Lots of girls in the audience, huh?

“NO! They were TITS! That’s my way of saying GREAT! They expected the world and we gave them a galaxy. TITS!”

What did the English press think of him?

“Well, they didn’t know what to make of me!”

They must get bored interviewing the same type of—

“Oh yeah! The usual response they get from musicians over there is—” (Takes long toke and smiles beatifically) “Hey, man...”

So the mongrel was sort of acting as an ambassador from the—er—Motor City Madhouse?

“Oh, I’m an ambassador of I don’t know whatl You know, when I was in England they would always ask me—they’d say, ‘Where you from?’ I’d say Detroit, then they’d go into this rap about how the industrial atmosphere created my music. Industrial, hell! Those BMF [One more time: bad mutha fucka] halls we played in the ’60s, d’you remember that? How old are you anyway? Well, you were a little nubile then. Billy Lee and the Rivieras [later Mitch Ryder], the Supremes...we used to play the Walled Lake Casino, that TV show Club 1270...those were suburban kids, that doesn’t have anything to do with an industrial atmosphere! Those halls! At the start of the evening people would be movin ’ towards each other slowly... by mid-evening they’d be touchin’ each other. Then the band’d work its way up to loudness and really blast everybody!

“Well, I said why not START the show like that and NEVER STOP!! Don’t go to a party mellow,” Ted spat out the hated word like so much ear wax, “and expect to get crazy. You go CHAOTICALLY! I learned that in Detroit!”

Ted Nugent and the Amboy Dukes...they played every juke joint, pizza party, sock hop, bar mitzvah, junior high bop, what Ted calls BMP halls, and whatever else from Detroit to Flint to Ann Arbor. Sometimes the Dukes changed—the ones that stepped over Ted’s hard line on drugs—but Ted’s searing siren of a guitar always dominated. When I confronted a former singer of his in a Detroit club with the news that I’d just talked to Ted, I expected to hear some bitching. But his face erupted into a huge grin and he shook his head. “THEO! How is he?”

The Gospel According to Ted: “It” was born in Detroit, “it” infected Ted, Ted’s mission on earth is to bring “it” to the people. Despite his current high spirits, though, Ted looks back on his heavy metal birthing with nostalgia.

“About music today...there’s nothing new. There’s no surprise in rock.”

Howza bout the punks?

“Just young boys doin’ what I did as a young boy. Only they know what it is they’re doin’.”

It was difficult coming up with questions fast enough for Ted because his answers came blasting out of his mouth so quickly that I didn’t have time to sip my coffee. It was also an effort to maintain eye contact with the Wolf. I was a shy child...

Ted sipped coffee delicately, as if he begrudged the faint chemical caffeine its mind-expanding torture to his body. He smiled.

“The world’s run by guitarists, isn’t it?”

A lead if ever I heard one. When had he started playing?

“The guitar came before rock ’n’ roll came. I started playin’ not for any reason. I picked up the guitar because I was young, totally at the mercy of my parents. They bought it for me. Twenty years ago—I was 7 or 8. All the classics started young.”

Steve Miller had said recently that he was bored with the sound of the guitar, that everything had been said with it so he’d noodled around with synthesizers on F/y Like an Eagle and Book of Dreams.

“Steve Miller said that? Steve must have been on the rag that night. Bring him to Ted and I’ll fix him.

"My goal is to almost kill myself onstage."

Whaaaaat? Bored with the guitar? That’s like sayin’ I’m not gonna eat anymore ’cause it’s boring!”

Yes, but haven’t synthesizers been the coming thing for a while now...?

“SUSAN! IF I THOUGHT YOU MEANT THAT I’D THROW YOU OUT OF THAT WINDOW RIGHT THERE!” Ted indicated the window overlooking the Capitol Building in St. Paul. On his orders, his publicist had opened it. I was a gone chile.

“DID YOU MEAN THAT? Synthesizers! Still, it’s true, you can push a button and you’re talkin’ to dogs in Israel.”

My coffee was almost gone. I started to panic, but hit on an idea: I grabbed Ted’s little coffee urn while he was still talking and sloshed the rest of his brew into my cup. He’d either bite me or not see it. He didn’t see it. He was still talking about the Minneapolis/St. Paul gig.

“It’s earth! They know! I’ll lay my nuts in an anvil and hand somebody the sledgehammer if they don’t just eat it up!!!”

One thing, it turns out, that Ted hates worse than synthesizers is...look out, David Crosby...better cut your hair...

“Hippies! Hippies are assholes. There’s only one thing worse than hippies—Hare Krishnas! I have so many ploys for dealing with Hare Krishnas that I’ve got them numbered. I’ve got about six worked out.

“Number one! When we know we’re going to be passing through O’Hare in Chicago we buy several bags of Oreos—the Double-Stuf kind preferably—you chew them ’til you gag. Then when we see those wigged-out q****s—they see my cowboy hat and my leather vest and they think I’m a soft touch—they say ‘Hi bro, where you from?’ I say, 'Detroit, mutha fucka!’ They say 'Oh, me too.’ Then they give me one of the books with the Egyptian f*****s buttfuckin’ each other—I open it up and I’ve got this mouthful of Oreos, right? I spit it out onto the open book, then I slam that mutha shut, and WHAT A MESS THAT IS! They know me at O’Hare now!

“Hell, I’ve thrown off their wigs.... This one creep at O’Hare knew me. He said, 'You’re Ted Nugent!’ I said 'YEAH! Full time!’

‘“Well, take a walk!’ he says.”

Suddenly, Ted lunged. This was it—before I could put down my cup he’d covered the few feet between us, grabbed the neck of my sweater and pressed his flaring nostrils to my own delicately upturned schnozz. “WHAT DID YOU SAY TO ME? Then, BAM!” Ted swatted a big paw through the air, making my head snap to the right by the force of wind.

“I floored him—books and wigs went flyin’...they have fuckin’ interoffice memos now: 'Ted Nugent wears a cowboy hat. STAY AWAY from him!’

“We also do the thing where one of the guys in the band kneels behind ’em and I push him over. Oh they want to punch me so bad!

“I only actually punched one once. San Diego, I think it was...they were preyin’ on some servicemen as usual—those guys must be awful dumb to let them do that. I was in a phone booth when this asshole comes up to me with his shit. I said, ‘Why don’t you leave those guys alone! Why don’t you get a job!’ This guy looks at me and says, ‘All you ever do is get high!’ “He said that to me? He said that to me? He... said that to ME????!!!! So I put the phone down... AND I BLASTED HIM!”

By this time I’d started drinking the little packages of cream out of desperation. Ted looked, puzzled, at his empty coffee urn. “Did I drink all that?” I could actually see the thoughts come rushing into Ted’s brain; his eyes would glaze over and he’d clench his teeth. He smiled again.

“Did you notice I didn’t eat my grapes? I knew when I ordered them that I wouldn’t.”

While I pondered, Ted jumped up, causing me to slam my coffee cup down, and he grabbed a semiconscious leather bag (It’s Alive!) lying on a table. He pulled a letter out.

“I’ve gotta show you this! My fans! If I wanted to I could RULE THE WORLD!” (At this point I was confused. I thought he did!)

“I got this from a fuckin’ criminal. He asks me questions about triads and stuff and how I write my songs...I’m gonna write him back and tell him 1 don’t understand all that shit. I can’t tell you what it is I’m doin’, I just do it!” Do you feel it?

“Thinking is the beginning of deterioration in rock ’n’ roll!” (Air-Wreck thanks Ted for the use of this line in his Bad Co. article last month.)

“I believe that! I have a Master’s degree from Planet Earth University. Come to think of it, though, I practiced like a dog when I started out.” (I was alert enough to note the recurrence of canine metaphors in Ted’s speech. When I asked him what he dreamed about he said, without missing a beat, “Wolves!” Oh? Doing what? “I’m just runnin’ around with them!”) I never listened and tried to cop other people’s licks, though. Except at the very beginning.”

Ted is still a fan—among guitarists, “Blackmore’s a bitch. And I like Ronnie Montrose.” And the Stones...

"It’s Only Rock ’n’ Roll was my favorite Stones LP. Fuckin’ Lips McGee spiffin’ those lyrics out! The Stones are perfect, they can do no wrong! My ears refuse to listen to the reggae and disco shit they do. It’s still the Stones!”

Knowing his stern views on drugs, I had to ask. Did he think Keith...

“Would Keith be as raunchy a guitar player if he wasn’t...the way he was? I don’t know. That’s one of those things you just don’t know!” Unexpected deep thought from the Wolf. “I don’t listen to the needle goin’ into his arm, I listen to his music!”

Lest I thought he was going soft on the English, though, he wanted to make one thing perfectly clear:

“Only Americans really kick ass!” he yelled. “You know that, don’t you?”

I murmured something about Led Zeppelin...

“Led Zeppelin are as English as a fuckin’ FORD! English groups don’t know how to let their balls drag on the cement! Where d’ya think they learned to kick ass, Susan—you tell me!” Then he wheeled and slammed his coffee cup against the wall. Splat! “From the U.S. of fucking A.! Oh, Zeppelin can howl and foam at the mouth, but they’re still English. We’re the mutha-fuckas. Chuck Berry, James Brown—there’ll never be another James Brown!” With that, Ted leaped up and started flailing his arms and legs around in a Caucasian Mad Dog James Brown imitation, strutting and whirling, his hair flying.

“That’s TITS, man, that’s what I want to be doing when I’m that age. ’Course, that’s a long way away. Who knows, maybe I’ll be a logger.”

“Hey, are you from Detroit?” Ted suddenly barked.

Shucks, yeah.

“Well, you’re lucky! Detroit...it’s a way of doin’ things.”

Bob Seger had told John Morthland that he thought Ted, Glenn Frey and himself had made it while many great Detroit bands of the ’60s hadn’t because of (1) Drugs and (2) Lack of stamina.

“RIGHT! He took the words right out of old Ted’s mouth! Iggy’s got the word now, though. I think he’s learnin’!”

All of a sudden my brain stopped giving signals for a while. I tried to disguise it by forming a question on my lips. Naturally it was a foolish one.

How many songs did you write on the new album?

“How many—? Hey wait a minute, I want to clear this up right now! I write ALL of my songs! People don’t realize that I’m a songwriter!

“Listen, I’m going to sit you down in my dressing room before I go on, and I’ll play you a new song right on the spot. That’s how I write songs! First thing before I go on I play a new song, always! I’m ROLLIN’ in fuckin’ rhythm!”

He just sits there and plays whatever comes out of his head?

“NO! It comes out of my hands! Every time I plug in I create! I write about things I can get into...like ‘Wang Dang Sweet Poontang’—that’s about pussy.

“'Sweet Sally’—that’s about American pussy. Come to think of it,” he chortled, “most of my songs are about pussy. Well, what else is there?

“You’ll love this record, though. It’s Detroit sheeet. If I wasn’t playin’ it, I’d go to the ends of the earth to hear it. Why’ve the records been doing so well? My record company is hip to what Ted’s doin’. Everybody there just digs the snot out of what I’m doin’. I’m not different. They’re just catchin’ up to me. I NEVER slow down. I was draggin’ dead weight before. Everybody’s runnin’ now—it’s teamwork. Everybody’s so competent now, and I trust them.”

Ted proceeded to wrap up his toilet for the show. He put on his arm bands, tied his dew-rag, slipped on what looked like a cross between Adidas and ballet slippers, and shook his hair around. How would he characterize his audience, I asked. Deer hunters? Accountants?

“Intense and out of control! But not violent—they don’t want to hurt people. My audiences have positive energy. I go to the limit of escapeeism—is that the word? My goal is to almost kill myself onstage.”

Ted jumped on the bed excitedly. “It’s so much fuckin’ fun...I sometimes feel guilty.”

For taking money for it?

“NO! Because I enjoy it so much!”

Interesting that Ted would stress that his audiences don’t want to hurt people; although his energy and sudden moves had me palpitating like a small rat, I found him to have the manners of a backwoods Rhett Butler, taught at his verbena-scented mama’s knee how to sweet talk young poontang to death.

Upon arriving at the stadium, Ted sprinted backstage to his dressing room, one hand propelling me along like so much driftwood. Glancing uneasily at the stack of amplifiers onstage, I described the stacks I’d seen on the current Led Zeppelin tour.

“Hell, for three quarters of a million dollars Ted would have an amplifier on every seat! I’d have a hall made of amps!”

Ted very kindly provided me with earplugs, and made a point of showing me the coolerful of Vernors ginger ale (the Detroit brew) that he’s never without. “See this? Recognize this?” We popped tops and I managed to match Ted bottle for bottle that night—I must have scarfed down two just while I was watching him tune up.

“’Cause I like you, you’re gonna hear the title cut from the new album. ‘Cat Scratch Fever.'” Ted jabbed out the chords and crooned the words: “Wailll I made that pussy purr with one stroke of my hand...” Then, to prove that he really did compose a song a day, he started strumming chords up and down the fretboard, until a few chords stood out, juxtaposed in a certain way. “See that?” he murmured, repeating the sequence over and over. “That could be a song. You know what I mean about this Detroit thing, though? My roadies are from Detroit. They know.”

I remarked that all of the other rock mags were now based in NYC.

“Yeah,” said Ted, a Travis Bickle gleam in his eye. “We gotta get rid of the slime.”

He stopped strumming and started chopping out the intro chords to “Motor City Madhouse.” He grinned wickedly.

“What’s this sound like?” By then I was trained. “Detroit, Ted!” I said like an eager young wolf whelp.

Then the opening band left the stage and it was time to go on. MOTHER, DON’T READ ANY FURTHER! I have to describe Ted onstage, and one of the first things that struck me was what a sexual shaman he is. This goes beyond your standard axe god posing, primping, and strutting...Ted never makes a fey move. It’s partly those caveman outfits, the clingy trouserscum-tights hugging his buns; the generous expanse of chest showing through the leather get-ups. But it’s not like the calculated Stewart britches; a lady in Atlanta makes all of Ted’s outfits. One can almost imagine him matching clothing tags: “Let’s see, the lion tag shirt goes with the lion tag vest and—” Ted is not the type you’d catch fluffing his hair in the mirror while he’s talking to you. Naturally, the stories of his sexual antics have entered the realm of legend: tales of Ted entering a room with four women and emerging three minutes later having done it in every conceivable way including swinging from the chandeliers...you get the idea.

His show is incredibly athletic, even though on this particular night Ted was operating with a knee that had been attacked with a chain saw (36 stitches and “no rock ’n’ rolling” said the doctors, to no avail). It’s like vintage Iggy—the idea that this creature onstage is so out of his mind that he’s apt to do anything sends megavolts of electricity throughout the hall. And the music can be painful—I have my earplugs in nice and snug, but the roadies still warn me against going “out front.” Ted himself reels off the stage during a break, while his guitar lies on the stage and continues to feed back. A roadie wraps his head with a wet towel and he sits with his head between his knees for a few minutes, head ringing. Ted’s hearing is impaired in one ear, so ironically he can torture himself with his own music. In a frenzy of animal energy, Ted stalks the stage, jumps up and down, leaps from the amplifiers...no wonder the crowd reacts animally. The sheer volume of sound and Ted’s gripping persona make for an intense show—after a while I wanted to tear out my earplugs and feel pain.

Afterwards, while Ted lounged in a chair, breathless, I remarked to his publicist that I’d like to see another show. Ted picked this up immediately. “See! She wants it, she needs it, she CRAVES it!” We popped open some Vernors and watched the groupies file in.

“Girl,” he laughed. “This is going to be a great interview. This story’s gonna be your break! It'll make you as a writer!”

Heeeyyy, I’m not so bad now...

The Wolf yelped. “See? That Detroit arrogance. You’ll go far.”

Originally published September 1977