Swampland.com

The first record I was not on, The Gilded House Of Sin, at that point Chris Etheridge was playing bass. He’s from Meridian, Mississippi. He has a lot of R&B  influence that he brought to the band. When Chris Etheridge decided to leave, Hillman, who had played bass with The Byrds, went back to bass and they were sort of doing a four piece and only Sneaky Pete was doing any leads so they wanted another harmony singer/guitar player guy. In a country band they typically had a guy that played Telecaster and was a harmony/singer/guitar guy. I got to sing a few songs, like “God’s Own Singer,” that was on Burrito Deluxe. Burrito Deluxe was their next record and I was on that one. Then Gram left after that year and Chris Hillman hired Rick Roberts who later was in Firefall. He was such a different influence that I decided to leave after that album. I did two albums with them in 1969 and 1970.

What was Gram like?

He was very funny, a hoot. He was very bright and he would get...how do I say this...distracted.

That’s a nice way of putting it.

Yeah, he got distracted with The Stones. Near the end he was spending way more time with The Stones in LA than he was spending with us. He brought us the song “Wild Horses” which we got to release before The Stones. I remember The Stones sent over their multitrack of “Wild Horses” and we got to play on it. I think they kept some of Pete’s steel and that was about all. That part was fun. Gram was such a reservoir of knowing these country songs and R&B songs and could pick them up and just pull them out of his head at any time.That part was great and I learned a lot about Lefty Frizzell and those really classic writers and singers. Gram was also erratic. Some of it was pretty humorous. The two stories that I tell is that we would be playing in a club and we would want to kick off so and so, like an up tempo shuffle. We would do this whole instrumental intro and it would be time for the first verse and Gram would be playing a different song, different key in three quarter time and the band would just crash and stop. Gram would continue what he was doing with this attitude of you can play with me if you want to. The other thing that he would do is that he had this Epiphone guitar with heavy gauge strings, but it didn’t have a pick up on it and he would play it in front of a microphone. Kind of like Elvis. The strings would break on it and he would play it until three or four of the strings were broken. Then he would take it by the neck and throw it up over his shoulder and it would spiral into the back curtain and fall to the ground in a clatter, then the roadies would go catch it and put more strings on it. This was not a professional thing, but it was entertaining and humorous.

He did a lot of living in just a few years, didn’t he?

I suspect that he figured dying was a good career move you know. He sort of secretly admired Hank Sr. and some of those guys that had died in their 20s and had become forever young through dying.

We were talking earlier about Bonnie Bramlett.

Oh yeah, she and I are going to catch up soon. I always thought Delaney and Bonnie were such a great musical couple.

That film you were telling me about that featured Delaney and Bonnie and a bunch of you guys, The Festival Express, is there a plan for it to come out on DVD?

Yeah, that must be the plan. They premiered it in Toronto and then a European festival and now they are shopping it to the U.S. film festival.

There is one song of The Burritos, but the Festival Express Tour happened within this short period of time between the time Hillman had fired Gram and we were just a four piece, but there were some big shows with a series of dates across Canada. Everyone traveled on the train. It was The Grateful Dead, Janis Joplin and The Band, and The Burritos were on it but we didn’t have Gram. So Hillman and I sang a few of Gram’s songs and worked up enough stuff to do some half hour sets.

What was that tour like, because I have heard all these urban legends?

Oh, you will have to see the film because it is a complete documentary of everything that happened. It is a priceless piece of film. The Burritos only did Winnipeg and Calgary and we didn’t ride on the train. We must have flown or something. So I can’t testify about the train. (laughs). In the film there is one shot of The Burritos without Gram and Rick Roberts. Just the four of us, me, Chris Hillman, Sneaky Pete and Michael Clark from The Byrds. The clip  is “Lazy Day” and me and Chris were singing duet. Chris is awesome and it is a neat clip done in summer of 70, and I am glad it is on there. I pretty much look like I did in The Eagles, bushy hair and a Telecaster.

 My favorite album of The Eagles was Desperado. I must have worn that one out. How did you get in The Eagles? You were with them on some of their best albums.

We did four studio albums in four years.Then it took them another two and a half to make Hotel California and then another two and a half to make The Long Run and then they disbanded. So in total  they  made six albums before they reunited, and I was on four of them. I told you a little bit about the beginning of it earlier, Henley, Frey and Meisner had all been in Linda’s back up band and John Boylin, Linda’s producer was helping them because they wanted to put together a band. They plugged me into the mix because I think I had heard that they were wanting to put together a band. Boylin had payed for a rehearsal space at Studio Instrument Rental one day and we all got together and played and felt like it was cool and we should get together and do it. Then Glenn Frey and J.D. Souther were being  managed by David Geffen and Elliot Roberts, who had Joni Mitchell and Neil Young, but they were going to keep J.D. and drop Glen. So Glen was scrambling to put something together so Geffen would keep him. So we walked into Geffen’s office and said,” Well here we are do you want us?” That is sort of how it happened. So in one week and a half we formed and then had David Geffen for our manager. We said that we wanted to get  on Atlantic Records because that was the hot label. He said he could do that or he had this new label called Asylum, that goes through Atlantic, and we could be the first band on that label along with Joni Mitchell, what do you think about that? We liked the idea. He used us as a way to show that he was the badass, you know. That worked out really well. Then we were trying to figure out who would produce the record. Instead of choosing John Boylin which would have been the kind thing to do, who had helped us, Glen Frey was very clear that he wanted Glen John, the legendary English producer. So Geffen flew him over and he came to Denver and heard us and he passed, because he felt that Glen Frey was pulling him in a rock direction and I was pulling him in a country direction and it was incompatible and didn’t really work. So we had him come back again on another occasion and he passed again. Then he heard us on a break sitting around singing four part harmony on an acoustic guitar and he said “Ah!” that vocal blend is a sound that I could hang a record on.So we went to England and recorded a first album and it had three top ten singles on it, “Take It Easy,” “Peaceful Easy Feeling,” and “Witchy Woman.” So Geffen put us on the road opening for Yes, Procol Harum and Jethro Tull. I personally  thought those were incompatible bills but a lot of people tell me now that they first heard The Eagles then and went home and bought the record and told all their friends. We would get up there and the people would be screaming rock and roll. We felt like we were dying up there but in retrospect people are telling us that they weren’t that interested in Tull and that they heard us and went home and bought the record. We were on lots of different bills like that and my  last year or so we were playing stadiums and on bills next to The Stones in the big stadiums and that is when I got off the train.

Did you write or co-write some of the songs?

Yeah, I co-wrote “Witchy Woman” and I usually  co-wrote a few on the record. Some included “Bitter Creek,”“Twenty One,” Whatever Happened Saturday Night,”  “Early Bird,” “Hollywood Waltz,” and “Journey of the Sorcerer.”

I really liked “Whatever Happened to Saturday Night.” I liked the flip side of “Best of My Love,” “The Old ‘55.”

The Tom Waits song, yeah.That is pretty much it, after four years I  decided to leave because of the grind of touring and stuff and I had been touring for two years solid and The Eagles guys hadn’t, so they still wanted to sprint around the planet a few more times. I sort of was in the mood to take six months off and went to the beach and ate health food for some time and that was a good thing.

How  much time elapsed before you went on to another project?

I did another record about two years later with a friend of mine named Michael Georgiata.So it was just Bernie Leadon and Michael Georgiata Band on Asylum.We went out and opened for Linda Ronstadt for the whole summer. After that I started a family and the business shifted and disco happened.The business was not interested in a Bernie Leadon solo project so I went “fine” and I had enough money to chill out and went surfing and had a little kid and just focused on that. Then in 1984 I started playing out more in LA and did some touring with people and in 1985 I came to Nashville and started poking around. A bunch of people from L.A. had been moving here like Josh Leo, who had been in Glen Frey’s solo band and Vince Melamed that had played organ and keyboards with The Eagles a few times. People like that were moving here and records were still being made in Nashville with 5-6 people playing live in the studio, like we grew up doing. L.A. had turned into a bunch of computers and drum machines. Everybody was welcoming to me in Nashville and there was plenty of work. I started coming in and doing sessions for Josh and in 1987. I got an offer to join The Dirt Band. It’ s like you were saying earlier it is such a small world.The head of Warner Brothers Records in Nashville at that point was Jim Ed Norman. He still is. He had been the keyboard player in Don Henley and Al Perkins’ Texas band, Shiloh. He  had moved to L.A. with them and done string arrangements on “Desperado,” “Duelin’ Dalton” and all that stuff.Then he had moved to Nashville before me and then by the time I got here he was the head of Warner Brothers. I had been hanging around in Nashville and The Dirt Band was on Warner’s and John McEuen, their long-time banjo player left that band. I had first played on a Dirt Band record in 1968, so this is almost 20 years later and they called and asked me to go on the road. They were having top 5 country hits. So I agreed and made a record with them and went on the road with them for about a year and a half and jumped back in and just  had great fun. It was a blast working with them but that mainstream country thing was not my cup of tea for the long term and I bailed on that too. So I started producing a little bit and doing some sessions. Eventually in the 90’s I produced something for Michelle Shocked and toured with her for a little bit and then I produced a Tiny Town record with some of the guys from the Subdudes of New Orleans, Kenneth Blevins on drums and Pat McLaughlin from here in town. 

One thing that I learned about you today that I  had no idea of,  was that you were part of Run C&W.

Yeah, in fact Vince Melamed who was with the Eagle’s some off and on was in it and Russell Smith of The Amazing Rhythm Aces and Jim Photoglo. How that started,” Achy Breaky Heart” had just hit from Billy Ray Cyrus. Tony Brown,the head of MCA Records and I had run into each other at a club and we just were talking about how we could not believe that “Achy Breaky Heart” had gone to number one because neither of us cared for it that much.So we felt like we should do a parody of it or something, just to make fun of it. Me and the Run C&W  guys got together and wrote “Itchy, Twitchy Spot” which was our parody of it. Tony liked it and wanted to make a whole record.We didn’t want to do all parody stuff. We came up with doing classic soul music, bluegrass style. We did two albums for MCA in 94-95,and did a few gigs on TV and opened for Johnny Cash in Europe and Spinal Tap, (laughs) so that’s the high point of my career. Opening for Spinal Tap would be the next best thing to being in Spinal Tap. (laughs)

As long as you’re not a drummer in Spinal Tap! (laughs)

I did some producing in the late '90s and I realized what I really wanted to do is to go back and do my own thing. Which is what I have not done in my career. I have never been a solo artist, just part of a band.

I want to ask you in a minute about Mirror but first I want to ask you about a few people that you have worked with and get you to give me a brief thought if you will. One of our favorite bands around here is Alabama Band and I see that you have done some work with them, what was that like?

That was cool. It was Josh Rio producing and I think the earliest was around 1986 through 1990-91 somewhere in that range. Josh had to play on that record some and Teddy played bass on all the stuff that I played on. One unique thing about them is that I think that Randy is a really good singer and I think that his voice is why they have  longevity on the radio. Randy does something that no one I have ever worked with typically does, Ronstadt or anyone. With Alabama, the band plays the track until Randy gets his vocals. Even if the band played a great track the rationale is that if Randy has not gotten to where his performance is yet then probably the band hasn’t played it right yet either. He is comfortable doing that. The arrangement would continue to evolve during the process and I think that they make great records and obviously people agree. It was lots of fun.

What about Russell Smith, how much work did you do with The Amazing Rhythm Aces?

After 1995-96, Russell wanted to resurrect the Aces and go out and do some shows. He re-recorded some of their stuff and I played on some of that. The Aces to me were one of the great bands of the time and his voice is very distinctive and very unique. I love his writing and I think the world of Russell.

Did you do something with Stevie Nicks?

Yeah, Glyn Johns produced, he was another producer from the early Eagles and he continued to use me. I think that was mid-'90s and he produced it in L.A.  and had me in the basic track band, so it was off and on for a couple of months and it was lots of fun.

Did you get to know Stevie?

Yes, I think so (laughs). She is a very sincere person and she lives in a bit of a bubble. As I guess happens with celebrities sometimes.  Really nice and sweet person.

What about this excellent album Mirror that you have out, produced by Ethan Johns?

He did all the Ryan Adams breakthrough stuff and he did the last Whiskeytown album.     .

Mirror is a great album and I was kind of knocked off guard when I first played it by the first track, “Vile and Profane Man.” What is that song about to you? It reminded me of a cross between Randy Newman and Warren Zevon.

Well some of it is that I grew up in a church where you could not speak your mind in public. Everybody would speak their mind to each other if they were friends and had had three beers. I guess the vile and profane man is me saying to myself more than anybody else that I have the right to my opinions. I have the right to express my opinions. It was a declaration of independence as well that I am an artist and I can say what I want. That’s part of it. There is also some social commentary in there and on the surface it looks like a song that is designed to offend anyone and everyone, and perhaps I have succeeded.

The first time yes, but when I listened to it the second time and again,  I decided I could see where you were coming from.

It is a song about judgement you know and it sort of prompts the listener to immediately judge it. It is sort of designed to turn those people away that are going to just look at the surface. If you look below the surface it is going to push a lot of some people’s buttons, but if they look beyond just being offended then they may see something else. The bridge says my God is bigger than your God, sort of like a playground kind of thing. But to me the leaders on both sides of every war have always said that God is on our side. Those people work for the devil and that is why we can kill them. About one month ago there was this U.S. General, whose name I can’t remember, except that he was a Lt. General from the Defense Department and he got in trouble in the media because he was going around to these churches in uniform and saying that this was a religious war and that God was on our side against the Muslims. This is a direct quote, he said, “Our God is bigger than their God.” I think that there are probably a lot of people that read your magazine that would agree with that  but my point of view is that Islam, Christianity and Judaism are all Abrahamic. Abraham was the father of all three of them. To me there is one God, whatever you call him there is only one. In my song I am saying that “If you think that there is only one God I am saying that you are wrong. Because My God is bigger than yours.” The point is if I really believe my God is bigger than yours I am really saying that there are two Gods. It is an egocentric point of view. So it is a social commentary song. I am also saying that I am being honest and I ain’t perfect, so accept me the way I am and I’ll accept you. It is about people judging themselves and others.

If they decide not to really listen to the rest of it then maybe they are not listening at all. All the songs on the album are well written. and I was blown away by “The Center of the Universe.” I loved that song.

Cool. It is about the ego and the growth of the ego. Every two year old thinks he is the center of the universe and as we grow we realize that we are not the center.

With Mirror, you get the picture that all of this is coming from your heart as you wrote it. I want people to understand that they need to get this album. Some of it might remind you of the Eagles but some of it is better than the Eagles. I am going to have to call it one of the top ten releases of this year. Is there anything else you can tell us about this album?

I wanted to tell you how we recorded all of this. Ethan’s Dad is Glyn Johns and he produced the first Eagles record. Glyn grew up when recordings were always done in a big room all at the same time. So Ethan learned about all that kind of stuff and also to appreciate the old style gear called the tube gear and what’s called the discrete gear. This was the first generation of solid state that got invented back in the '60s. The tube stuff sounds better than the later stuff that is all computer chip. This is still all analog stuff. We recorded a two inch tape and we mixed through the analog discrete equipment . It was basically put together like the best records in the '60s and '70s were made. The CD obviously was the same until you get to the part when it becomes digital after the mastering process. We took it to be duplicated in Atlanta. The single speed gets a little bit better fidelity than the high speed transfers that they tend to do unless you tell them not to. 

All through this we made choices. We recorded the stuff at Oceanway Nashville in a church that was built in 1850. It was a beautiful space and we recorded in the daytime with all this light coming through the windows and it was a magical process. We took our time and did it right but yet we didn’t mess around either. We tracked it all in 10 days with everyone there playing live. That’s why it has a good vibe and it felt good because we played it until it felt good and everyone was playing together. When you go into it and listen to it there it is. You go in and put vocals on and maybe a lead guitar solo and that’s it. We are very proud of the record.