http://www.vintagerock.com/index.php?option=com_content&view=article&id=1646:the-joey-molland-interview&catid=3:interviews&Itemid=4The Joey Molland Interview
By Shawn Perry
When
it comes to what remains of the legendary Badfinger, Joey Molland is the last
man standing. As the last surviving member of a band lambasted by tragedy,
Molland has weathered many career highs and lows, but continues to record and
play live. His fourth solo album, Return To Memphis on UK's
Gonzo Multimedia, is produced by Carl 'Blue' Wise and features 10 new Molland
compositions recorded at the world famous Royal Studios in Memphis, Tennessee.
The album is a slight departure from that Joey Molland/Badfinger sound —
something the Liverpudlian guitarist, using different musicians in a new
environment, intentionally set out to achieve.
In
the following interview, we talk about the process of putting Return To
Memphis together. And we step back and touch on Badfinger, Apple
Records, the Beatles, the untimely deaths of Pete Ham and Tom Evans (drummer
Mike Gibbins passed way in 2005), and, of course, the songs, including “Baby
Blue,” which enjoyed a recent resurgence in popularity and airplay thanks to its
inclusion on the Breaking Bad series finale. We also talk about a few
other musical excursions Molland has been aligned with over the years. All in
all, a pleasant chat with a Vintage Rock legend.
~
Let’s talk about your new
record, Return To Memphis. I guess this is your first solo
album since 2001. And so, I’m assuming since then you’ve stockpiled several
songs. How did you end up in the famous Royal Studios in Memphis with Carl Wise
and lay these down?
Carl
talked to me in 2011 or something, in 2010 — he wanted me to play some guitar
for him on a record he was making. He wanted me to play guitar on a couple of
songs so I told him I would. About six months or a year later, he called me and
said they were doing the sessions and I went down to Memphis and he was doing
them at Royal Studios. Of course, I went in the place and it’s just a fantastic
place — I don’t know if you’ve ever been there. It’s very old, an old
neighborhood cinema. It was converted by … Willie Mitchell and his family, you
know, a couple of the Stax and Memphis soul stars, Sam and Dave and stuff,
grabbed hammers and nails and built themselves a studio down there because
Willie Mitchell went on and founded Hi Records and all those records there. So
there I am, playing guitar there and I really just enjoyed it. The guys I played
with, Lester Snell and Steve Potts, were just great players. I talked to Carl
about it and asked him to get me a budget together to make a record there, and
he did, and it was just inside my budget to make a new record so I decided to do
it there. And I’m really happy that I did.
It says in the press release I
received that you say you were raised on a diet of Memphis music. So I’m
wondering — you’re a guy from Liverpool — what did you get out of Memphis
growing up?
The
very first rock ‘n’ roll record that I really heard was “Blue Suede Shoes.” I
was 11 years old and that’s right out of Memphis. That was the record that
actually started me playing the guitar. I went right out when I heard that
record and got my brother’s guitar out and started to teach myself to play. So
it was that big of an influence on me right from the get-go. Of course, all the
Elvis stuff, Jerry Lee Lewis, even Little Richard, came out from down around
there. It was just a general smokin’ kind of feel of the music from there, and,
of course, all the Stax Records just knocked me out. I learned to play, you
know, Steve Copper’s licks and I’m still learning them now. The singers, the
songwriters, really the whole thing, means a lot to me to go back there. At
Royal, they’ve got Al Green masters sitting on the shelf there, Ann Peebles — a
bunch of blues artists that I’m not familiar with immediately — a lot of great
ones have been there, including B.B. King, and Bobby Blue Bland while I was
there. He was actually at the studio planning a new project; I know he’s
unfortunately passed away now, but he was planning a new record, standards with
orchestras. It was just a great thrill to me, and that’s what I meant by that, I
was really raised on that stuff, you know, along with Chuck Berry and a lot of
Chicago stuff too.
Right, a combination of
rockabilly, R&B, blues. I’m hearing a lot of that on a lot of the songs
on Return To Memphis — I’m thinking songs like “Walk Out in the
Rain,” “All I Ever Dreamed,” “All I Need is Love,” just to name a few. Was sort
of the idea going in, to capture a little of that Memphis
flavor?
Yeah,
it was. And plus, I didn’t want to make the same record again. I’d been
producing my own records, or the past few records anyway, and so it’s been the
same for me and I didn’t realize it until I went down to Memphis and played with
those guys just how locked into a pattern I was. And so, that was a part of it
for me as well. And that’s why I asked Carl to produce it, because I didn’t want
to do that. I just wanted to be a singer-songwriter again and play it with a
band. So that was really the end of it. I wanted to use all Memphis people just
to give me a complete break from what I’ve done in the past, you know. I mean,
you always use some of your friends when you record, and they always expect me
to want to make a Beatle record or a Badfinger record, and engineers go in that
direction. Well, down in Memphis, and particularly at Royal, I put myself in a
completely neutral land. They just were going to record me in the normal sense
of making a record in Memphis. And I was really happy I did it. And you know
what — I’ve been to Liverpool and a few other places since then, and when I’ve
played friends of mine the record and told them that I went to Memphis and did
it, so many of them have said, “Man, I wish I would have done that,” or “I wish
I was doing something like that.” Because we all tend to do the same thing, you
know what I mean? And I’m happy to hear you say you like some of it, and that
there is a difference in the sound to it.
Yeah, absolutely. And like
you’re saying, sometimes you need that change of environment and atmosphere and
playing with different players to sort of bring something out new. I definitely
think you captured that. That being said, there are a couple of songs there that
have that Joey Molland/Badfinger sound. One of my favorites on the album is “Is
It Any Wonder,” which just has an incredible melody. Care to comment on that at
all?
Well,
I wrote all the songs, so they’re all Joey Molland songs, and Carl was
responsible for the production of them and made the arrangements and things. All
I did was really play the song and then Carl would say to me stuff like, “You
know it would be nice to have a bit of slide on this.” And so, when it came to
doing the electric guitar bits, I’d work on a bit of slide and he’d get what he
wanted in it. So, yeah that did have a bit of a Badfinger-y thing to it,
particularly those slide bits. But I don’t think it was — and certainly on my
side — it wasn’t a conscious thing. I just play the way I play and sing the way
I sing. And that’s all I can say about it, really. If it sounds like Badfinger,
it’s because I guess I played a lot of guitar with Badfinger (laughs).
I was going to say, it’s who
you are, and no matter how much you try to distance yourself from your past, a
lot of times it just comes creeping in whether you like it or not,
really.
Yeah,
I definitely agree.
Listening to that song, it
made me go back and sort of revisit some of your other songs that you did with
Badfinger. Two of my favorite songs from the early days that you were involved
in with were “Better Days” and “Suitcase.” I’m just wondering now, when you
first did come into Badfinger, of course you were a guitar player, but you’re
also a songwriter. Was it difficult coming in as a songwriter, knowing that the
other guys in the band were also songwriters? Or was that something they were
looking for?
I
have to believe they were looking for it. I didn’t know a lot about them when I
went down to audition. I knew what I’d seen on TV, and a couple of my pals in
Liverpool really liked them and they told me about them. As far as I knew, they
were a really good vocal band and they were looking to get a bit more rocking.
So that was when I went down to see them. I wasn’t looking at them as a
songwriter. And myself, although I’d written songs and had a little bit of
success with Gary Walker, I didn’t yet think of myself like that. I was just
happy that when I got in the band — and I think they were happy to know that I
had written songs. Maybe they already knew that — that I had written songs and I
had made records before them.
Of course, you did go on to
write a lot more songs with Badfinger. By the time you get to
the Ass album, you have half the songs there. Were the other
guys writing less, or what was going on at that point?
Yeah,
I think so. Pete slowed down and Tommy slowed way down. I don’t know why; we
were all living together in the same house. I was getting ideas all the time. It
must have been my youthful energy levels working or something, because I was
getting ideas all over the place for songs. The good lord was willing to send me
a melody now and again. It was great. How do you explain these things. Pete
wrote all those hits in a row — and then all of a sudden, he stopped doing that.
I still don’t know why to this day. But on the Wish You Were
Here album and on the first Warners album, Pete’s songs were, I don’t
know, not quite so strong, in terms of being up like “Baby Blue.” Even “Day
After Day” was a good beat song. And “No Matter What,” of course, was a knock
out. It was a surprise to everybody, I think. We just played the songs. We all
played our songs and the band [says], “Yeah, let’s play that one.” That’s how
we’d make records. I’m happy that you like “Better Days.” I wrote it for
Elvis.
Yeah, I’ve always loved that
song. There’s a new Badfinger compilation out from Universal
called Timeless – The Musical Legacy. And it does have some of
those latter-day tracks from Ass and Wish You Were
Here. You’ve got the song “Timeless,” which has got to be one of the
longest songs you ever did.
Oh
yeah. You know, we did six masters of that. Six different takes. We actually
recorded the song; we must have done 30 or 40 takes on it over the period we did
it. We did it in three different studios with a couple of different
producers.
Is that you playing
lead?
I’m
not sure which take it is, which one you’re getting there. It could be me, but I
think the one on the record had Pete on it. It’s his last take. We did a couple
of takes where I played. And when I say takes, I mean these are takes that we
took all the way to the final overdubs with the harmonies. So there’s a couple
of those versions that I played on, but I’m not sure if they used one on this
record.
Interesting. peaking of other
versions and outtakes and what have you, are there any other unreleased
Badfinger tracks that we haven’t heard that may come out some day that you know
of?
I’m
sure there are. I don’t know where. Again, I’m not privy to a lot of what Geoff
Emerick recorded when we were playing in the studio or Chris Thomas. You know,
we made songs up in the studio as well and they never saw the light of day, I
mean, some of that stuff. So I’ve got a feeling that there are other tracks
buried somewhere, but I couldn’t tell you what they were.
There were a few bonus tracks
I know on a lot of the remasters that they put out in 2010, which sounded really
good. What did you think of those remasters?
I
thought they did great on them, yeah. I did, yeah. Apple did really well going
back in there and not changing them too much. They didn’t try to make them sound
like records that are made today. They just cleaned them up a little, got rid of
some noise and maybe added a little reverb in them there, but it didn’t seem
like they’d done a whole lot of remastering.
They just sounded really good
with the extra tracks. I mean, actually, they remastered the whole Apple Records
catalog back then. They sent it all to me — there were a lot of artists on that
label I didn’t even know about.
Yeah,
that’s right.
Speaking of Apple Records, of
course now, back when Badfinger was with Apple, you got to know the Beatles and
their inner circle. Of course, we all know Paul McCartney and George Harrison
worked on your stuff and you’ve done some of their records. I’ve always been
curious — did John Lennon ever have any interest in writing a song for
Badfinger, or playing on one of the records, or was that something that he just
never became part of or expressed any interest in?
That
I know of, John was never really involved in our band. It was the end of the
Apple/Badfinger thing that there was a bit of a rumor going around that John
would like to produce us. Maybe produce a record for us. I don’t know how
serious that is — he certainly never called us up and said, “Hey, I’d like to
produce you.” But I believe he liked our band; I think he liked the songs. It
was him who sent Harry Nillson “Without You.” He knew it was a Badfinger song,
and that lets me know that he actually was listening to our stuff maybe, you
know. And, of course, he was nice enough to let us come down or invite us down
to come and play some acoustic for him, which was great.
That’s right, you played on
the Imagine album — “I Don’t Wanna Be A Soldier Mama, I
Don’t Want To Die.”
That’s
right, yeah. That’s right.
Were there any others you
played on?
We
played on “Jealous Guy” that same session, and we only did that one session.
Yeah, “Jealous Guy” and I’m not sure if it’s on one of the remixes, but I don’t
think it came on the original Imagine album. I don’t think they used our parts.
But he gave us credit for playing on his record, and that was good enough for
me, really. It was great. I was sad when I found out that they hadn’t used the
“Jealous Guy” stuff, but what a great song. It was like we knew it was a classic
when we were doing it. Just one of those things.
Of course, you also did play
on All Things Must Pass, which I believe will be honored
at the Grammys this year. And you appeared at The Concert For
Bangladesh, so I guess it would be fair to say that the Beatle
Badfinger had the strongest connection with would be George Harrison. Is that
about right?
I
would think so. Yeah, yeah. He was definitely the closest to the band and he
worked with the band a lot more than the other guys; I think he was a bit more
involved. He did enjoy the making the records with us. He wasn’t recording with
the Beatles anymore, and I know he liked to come and play with us. He’d bring
the guitar in and we’d sit around and knock the songs around the way he did with
the Beatles. We had the same kind of approach as those guys in the studio, from
what I can glean looking at the films of them. I wasn’t privy to go to their
sessions or nothing, but it seems like they did the same things with just going
in and somebody would just start singing a song and everybody would join in and
half an hour later we’d know if we were going somewhere with it, you know. It
was great fun.
George
was really like — well, he was a couple of different things. He was brilliant in
the studio, from all those great Beatles records and all that experience he had
making records. He’s a great guitar player and great at thinking up guitar
parts. He couldn’t resist picking a guitar up and playing along, do you know
what I mean? Finding different things to do, across-the-beat riffs and stuff
like that — he was just really good at it. He was really patient with us. He
helped us finish our songs, you know, helped us with a lyric here or a lyric
there if we were stuck. He was just great to work with. We would have loved to
carry on working with him, but, of course, the Bangladesh thing came up and he
couldn’t finish our record, he had to go off and do that right away.
But he did play the slide on
“Day After Day.”
Yes,
he did; he and Pete did. Pete and I were working the side out and George came in
and [says], “Do you mind if I play?” “No, go ahead” — I just took my guitar off
and gave it to him. I said, “You go ahead. Enjoy.” Next thing you know, he and
Pete were working out the slide bits. Took hours and hours to do it right, but
it was great. He was great at it; he loved it. He was a perfectionist, had to
get it right. He wanted both guitars at the same time — he didn’t want to
overdub, you know, do one guitar and then overdub the other. He wanted to do
both parts and they were slide parts, and you know how the pitch is on slide
guitars. Two guys playing slide. That’s kind of a chance-y thing.
You’re a decent slide player. I’m kind of surprised
that wasn’t you or you weren’t the second guy. It was George and Pete that did
that.
Yeah,
yep. Oh yeah.
So how was it starting that
record with George and finishing it up with Todd Rundgren? That must have been
kind of a weird dynamic.
Well,
it was. It was very, very different. They’re chalk and cheese, George and Todd.
But, I don’t know, George told us he was a great fan of Todd’s. It was kind of
weird though, because he was so different. Todd was very awkward to work with;
he was very rude to us. He had a very high opinion of himself.
So it didn’t go that
well?
It
actually did go well. We actually made a great record with Todd. And it turned
out sounding great. It was our biggest record, Number One, you know, all sorts
of stuff. So it was very cool. It was a bit awkward, like I say, we would have
preferred to have just finished up the album with George and carried on the way
we were going. That’s about all I can tell you about it. Todd came in, did a
great job, and like I say, he was rude and insulting. But we made “Baby Blue”
with him — we recorded that with him and a lot of other songs besides. We ended
up using all the songs that he recorded, so that was all good.
But it wasn’t easy getting
there?
No,
it certainly wasn’t. And his take on the whole thing was, “You just remember me
like that. I wasn’t really like it. I wasn’t really like that.” That’s what he
says, but we just really remember him like that.
I know Todd Rundgren rubbed
John Lennon the wrong way too.
It
was a funny letter, isn’t it? That letter John wrote to Rolling Stone — so
funny.
Obviously it’s well documented
that the Badfinger story was, despite early hits and the Beatles connection,
filled with tragedy due to bad business deals, shyster like Stan Polley, and the
subsequent suicides of Pete Ham and Tom Evans. Since then, various songs — and
I’m thinking of “Without You,” which was a hit for both Harry Nilsson and Mariah
Carey, and, the recent reincarnation of “Baby Blue” thanks to Breaking
Bad — they have added silver linings to the story, wouldn’t you
agree?
Absolutely,
yeah. It is sad that Pete was driven to do what he did and Tommy too, later on,
but at the same time, we had a fabulous, fabulous career there for four to five
years, very successful and very happy just walking along and enjoying ourselves
and living in kind of a bit of a balloon. It was a shock to find out that the
world wasn’t a beautiful place and that these guys were crooks. But it was a
great time for me; I have a nice amount of good memories and fun times because
those tragedies happened after the band had broken up, really. The band was done
in I think January of ’75. I’d already left. Peter had left and come back.
They’d made a new record, the record was shelved by Warner, the money
disappeared again, and I think Peter realized what these people had done and
he’d been a fool to trust them. I don’t know what else he realized to make him
do what he did. But it’s a damn shame. He had a lot more in him.
It’s really a shame that he
wasn’t able to see these songs that he wrote become such big hits. I wanted to
ask you about “Baby Blue” being used at the end of theBreaking
Bad. Was that something you knew about in advance?
No,
I didn’t know anything about it. The Ham estate would have known all about it,
because they’re directly involved in licensing of the song. But they never told
us about it, me or as far as I knew, nobody else in the band knew or any of the
estates knew. So it was a huge surprise. And then, you know what happened, it
went to Number One all over the world in the next few days and stayed there for
a week or so. I’m waiting to get the royalty statement — we’ll get it next March
or June or something — and see exactly what did happen. You know, it was kind of
weird, for the next week after that happened, it was like we were Number One
again in the charts in real time. Like our band had been relaunched or
something. The song was zinging off the hook — every magazine, every TV station,
managers were calling, agencies, all sorts of stuff. And then about 10 days
after it, the whole thing started to quiet up again. And now it’s dead quiet
again; it’s all back to normal. It was like having a hit record without doing
any of the work, or even making the record, you know what I mean?
Did you see the
episode?
Yes,
I did. It surprised the heck out of me. I thought it was a great ending though.
You know, I hadn’t been much into the show or anything. I knew it was the last
episode, and my son was a big fan. So we recorded it. I’ve got all the shows on
my recorder here. So I was amazed. And I was totally amazed on what happened. It
was just incredible. Unbelievable.
I’ve always loved that song.
I’ve actually got the original 45.
Yeah?
Yeah. Now, at present, are
things good in the world of Badfinger as far as everybody being taken care of
and all that nasty business stuff? Was that all sorted out?
Yeah,
that’s all been done, yeah. It’s all sorted out so everybody’s got what they’ve
got coming and I don’t believe that there are any arguments there. Of course,
you never know, somebody might think of something, but I’m hoping that it’s all
done with. We certainly spent a lot of money in courts and stuff like that. But
we ended up getting our money and now everybody gets all their royalties that
are all distributed by a central account in London. They’re court-appointed, and
if anybody screws up now, they’re going to jail. It’s a legal situation.
And you have a current
incarnation of Badfinger going?
Yeah,
I have a band that I call Joey Molland’s Badfinger. We do concerts where we just
do Badfinger songs. We do all stuff from the albums and all the singles, of
course, stuff like “Without You.” And we do them in the Badfinger tradition. We
don’t mess around with them or anything. So yeah, I do do that. I also do Joey
Molland solo shows, and I’ll be going out with a band to promote my new
record.
So you’re going to take a
different band out and go out and play the record?
Yeah,
yeah, yeah. That’s obviously what I’ve dreamed to do. I’m trying to set up a
small kind of theater tour to do that in, if it can lend it self to that, kind
of like your Sellersville Theater down in Pennsylvania, that kind of place. I’d
like to play those, about three or 400-person theaters. They’re kind of
intimate, but at the same time, because they’re a theater setting, you can do a
kind of show for them, you know what I mean? I’m looking forward to it, really
I’m looking forward to it. I just hope that people get into the songs and enjoy
the songs and want to go and hear them live.
And will you also be playing
some Badfinger dates this year?
Yeah,
I’ll do a few of those. I might be doing, I believe, a tour actually with Todd
Rungren, which is kind of a Beatle-y kind of tribute tour or something. And I
believe that’s being put together now and I’ve been offered a spot on that tour.
And there might be a Hippiefest tour going on, where I go out and do the
Badfinger hits.
Cool, cool. Yeah, actually the
Hippiefest came through here a year or two ago, but you weren’t on that bill, I
don’t think. I think it was like Mark Farner from Grand Funk and some other
people. But yeah, that’d be great. That would be great to come out and see. You
know, I just have a couple of last questions for you and these are actually
about activities you’ve been involved with outside of Badfinger. First, I read
that back in 2006 you had a reunion with Gary Walker, who you backed in the
Rain, and I read that you two were writing songs and talking about recording.
Did anything come of that?
Well
we did, and we were planning on stuff but nothing ever came of it, no. We had
all the original guys — well, no, Charlie from the Rain, Paul Crane, the singer,
had died, passed away several years ago. But yeah, we were talking about going
out and maybe doing a few gigs and stuff. But I couldn’t do anything over here,
and the people that Gary was involved with, the management company over there,
never got their end together so nothing ever came of it, no.
Another project that you were involved with — and I
actually reviewed a reissue of this album, probably in the last year or two —
was the Natural Gas album, which I really like. What are your
thoughts on that record?
We
had a tremendous amount of fun doing it. It was a really good rock band. I
thought the record was a bit dull, the production of it. But other than that, I
really enjoyed it and I thought the songs were good. Particularly, I thought
Mark Clarke was like really strong, and what a great singer. Yeah, yeah. It was
a lot, a lot of fun doing it. Really tremendous. And I’ve seen Jerry, when we go
back to England. I haven’t seen Mark in a few years though other than bumping to
him in an airport here and there. But I go and see Jerry. It’s nice to go down
there and have a pint and just talk about old times. He’s just written his book,
hasn’t he, “The Best Seat in the House.”
Jerry Shirley
did?
Yeah,
yeah. Great book too. And also, he’s just remastered, maybe remixed, a live
Humble Pie album. I believe that’s fantastic. I haven’t heard it yet, but I’ve
heard it’s a great job.
It’s actually a four-CD box set, four different shows from the Fillmore run. I
reviewed it and it’s incredible.
Yeah,
yeah.
I know that with Natural Gas,
you did play a few live dates. Was there ever any chance, any talk, of it going
any further, or was that pretty much it?
No,
we did the record, we went and did the Phantom tour. We’d gotten into a bit of
cocaine really, and that’s what fractured the whole band, really. And the guys,
we were all living in Los Angeles, and then all of a sudden, the other three
guys wanted to go live in New York and wanted to do the record in New York. And
the management, the people behind the band, wanted us to stay in LA and do it
there. I was desperately trying to get them to stay in LA, do the record, then
they could move to New York, you know. But they wanted to go do it in New York
and that was the end of the band. It’s a shame because we really enjoyed it. You
know, we rehearsed in LA for about three or four months straight, and just the
stage show was tight, the band was on, you know. Just super on. That’s really
what we wanted to do, was get out on the road and play, but for one reason or
another, the cocaine not being the least of it, it wasn’t to be. The band broke
up. So there it was.
Well it’s a good record, I
enjoy it. And I’m enjoying Return To Memphis. Hopefully you’ll
come out to California and play a few dates. I’d love to come out and see
you.
I
hope so. I love to get out to California. You know, Badfinger wasn’t necessarily
the most popular band in California, but we do get a date out there once in a
while, so hopefully I’ll be out there and play. I’d love to come back
out.
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