Interviews
Eric Burdon talks to Britsound
(Photo:
Marianna Proestou)
Interview with Eric Burdon (frontman of The Animals) and Rock & Rock Hall of Fame inductee, November 10, 2006.
RQ: You've got a sold out gig tonight. The tour’s been going very, very well from what I understand. What for you is the biggest thrill about playing live after all these years?
EB: Nothing special really. Just going on stage and seeing that the stage is the way I want it. And especially when you step up to the microphone, if I have good monitor system, I’m a happy camper. It’s as simple as that really. It’s usually plain sailing from that point on.
RQ: You started off in Newcastle, England all those years ago. Did you ever think that you’d still be recording at this age? Did you ever think that you’d still be recording albums like Soul of a Man? I read that you once said that you thought you wouldn’t make it past 30.
EB: Yeah that’s true. I mean I did a Q&A for my web site just a few days ago, and I was asked the same question – what would be your greatest aspiration in life and like what, you know, what’s the greatest thing that happened to you? And it’s like just making it to 30 years of age. If I remember back to the other side of 30, that a lot of people that I knew back then were, I don’t know why, but we were all totally infatuated with the concept of death – life and death. All of our heroes seemed to die young. I mean …
RQ: Jimi Hendrix?
EB: Jimi Hendrix. James Dean was the first one. And I can remember in Sweden, for instance, I remember there were riots in the streets by the youth because they didn’t believe that James Dean was dead. They thought it was a Hollywood con trick. Speaking of James Dean and Jimi Hendrix, it’s very strange that the two of them completed three sort of major pieces of work before they died. There was other stuff as well, but the three major albums and the three major films, and then they were gone. It was like we had something snatched away from us.
RQ: But you survived. And The Animals were apart of that original British Invasion.. Let me ask you what you think about what they’re calling the ‘second’ British Invasion right now, bands like Coldplay, James Blunt, Franz Ferdinand, Keane, to name a few. What do you think when you look at these newer bands? You once described the music industry as a slaughterhouse. Do you think that these bands have the chances to succeed that The Animals had?
EB: I hope so. I hope that the mistakes that people like myself made – I’ve written a couple of books in the hope that people will, young musicians will in particular, will learn from the mistakes that I made, and people like myself made. Not everyone did, but I did some really foolish things and the foolish things were done out of frustration and anger. Hanging in there and not giving up is – there’s a lot to be said for that. If you’re going through a bad period – if you’re good, if you excel in what you do when you’re going through a bad period, then you’ll go through that bad period and you’ll rise again.
But you can’t always be good all the time. I understood that a long time ago. Plus the other thing is that business of entertainment, like the film industry and like the music industry, can rob you of your own personal life and cost, heavy cost to myself not only financially but in a lot of other ways. I’ve tried to maintain a private life. I’ve taken time off when I shouldn’t of. I haven’t really plotted and planned things in a way that would have been beneficial to my career.
RQ: Would you consider using drugs as one of those mistakes?
EB: Well the use of, and the talk, and the existence and the more people have to say about drugs in today’s world has got little or nothing to do with what I experienced. To me, I saw my LSD experiences as religious experiences actually. And that certain little alkaloid, whatever the actually pharmaceutical category is for that particular drug, it opened my mind in a lot of ways. It opened me up to a lot of possibilities, and I still recall those days with a clarity that is ingrained in my memory.
But we have to separate the concept of drugs like you would separate the various psyches of certain people. Certain people are killers and murderers. Certain people are near saints. You can’t say that there’s a similarity between Gandhi and Stalin. It’s just gotten way out of control, and there’s a lot of governments that can’t quite step up to the social programs that they’re supposed to have in place. They need something to point the finger at, so “drugs are the problem.”
It’s not drugs that are the problem, it’s people who have no alternative in life but to want to go down. And the way to go down is to do those certain kind of drugs that will put you sleep, or give you a chance to have a suicide without actually killing yourself. That’s the way I view heroin for instance; cocaine’s the opposite. They’re all bad news. The big question is, is how do they get here in the first place? How do they get into this country in the first place? How do they get into Britain in the first place? How do they into the United States in the first place?
RQ: But at the same time, accounts from your time with The Animals suggest that you had a wild reputation. You enjoyed that lifestyle.
EB: I gave people what they wanted. They wanted a ‘bad boy’. They wanted a bad boy image, so I gave them what they wanted, and I enjoyed doing it.
RQ: You once said that, “people seem to be attracted to the ugly side of life, and I seem to be one of those icons.” Do you think you paid a price for that bad boy image?
EB: Oh, absolutely. I’m still paying for it today that’s why you’re having this conversation with me about drugs (laughter). I mean if all of what you just said in a nutshell is true, how come I’m in my mid 60’s and still reasonably in good health?
RQ: Should we move on?
EB: Yeah, please (laughter). Please do.
RQ: Let’s talk about life in America now. How long have you lived here?
EB: 30 years or more.
RQ: Do you still see yourself as British, and what do you think of Britain?
EB: It’s hilarious.
RQ: In what way?
EB: Well, it’s like I love to watch Benny Hill on TV because I think that Benny Hill’s humor and The Benny Hill Show sums up the British attitude towards sexuality. I couldn’t live without British humor. I mean Father Ted being my favorite, although that’s Irish isn’t it? Oh, nevertheless, there are a lot of things that are Irish – that happen to be perceived in the world as being English.
RQ: Yeah.
EB: I’m very proud of where I’m from. I sit in the movie theater, and I go, “Well, great this, is a Ridley Scott movie, man. One of the boys; he’s from the hood.” And just the fact that you can’t get a good cup of tea in the United States; stuff like that. I think that Americans have a lot of problems with, I mean, this kind – when I first came to this country, look at the size of California for instance. You can put England almost into California three times, and England was a big enough country for me. When I first arrived in California, I’m saying, “Wow, this place is three times bigger than the country I was born in, and there’s the rest of the county to deal with all the across the Midwest to New York and all the way down to the South. And then beyond that there’s South America and beyond up North is Canada. Why the hell do they want to try and conquer and imperialize the rest of the world?” I mean, it seems like – I understood why Germany went to war for lebenstraum, breathing room, as Hitler had put it.
And the same thing with the British Empire, they not only needed the finances from the international deals that could be made with countries like India, but they needed to assert themselves. And unfortunately we’re getting payback. We’re getting blowback for that now. But with America, I say, “Why do you want to do it in the first place? You got everything you need here.” Then when you live here you realize that it’s not the United States of America, it’s a bunch of small corporate companies each with its own tax rules, and each with its own attitudes.
I think somebody once said a long time ago, I don’t know who it was, “America is a great country. It’ll be great once they finish it. Once they complete the job.” And they’re never going to complete the job by marching through the streets of Baghdad or scratching through the deserts of Afghanistan. Nobody, nobody ever has, as history has shown.
RQ: But let me ask you about the advantages of living in America. Because even with The Animals, you paid homage, didn’t you, to the American bluesmen of the time?
EB: Ah, music.
RQ: And don’t you enjoy that now that you’re living in a country which is home to Muddy Waters, B.B. King, and other people like that who’ve obviously clearly influenced your music and particularly your latest album, Soul of a Man?
EB: Well the music’s a different thing. It was the music that set me in action to want to come here to find out why it was that the price of bread went up at my mother’s local corner street store when the American stock market fluctuated. What was it that made – that put that in place? I wanted to come here and find out that and not only what Muddy Waters, John Lee Hooker, and what made Louis Armstrong so, such a bright shining light in my youth. I mean seeing Louie Armstrong when I was 11 years of age I think, was one of the brightest moments of my life. And I was like, where did this guy come from? Where did this sense of humor, this smile, and this talent for music come from? And I couldn’t wait to go on that trip of exploration to find out the answers.
RQ: And when you perform live like you’re performing tonight, obviously a lot of the audience want the hits; House of the Raising Sun, We Gotta Get Out of This Place. What do you feel performing those songs after all these years? Do you still really enjoy it, and how do you view those songs now 40 years plus on?
EB: Well, I put as much of my own interpretation into every song that I sing every night. That includes the old Animals catalog, the newer songs, and I’m fortunate enough to have a back catalog that is big enough for me to be able to shuffle the deck and think, “When I was in Germany the last trip, what did we do the last time we were there? Oh, yeah we did that, and we did this one. OK let’s leave that out, and we’ll put that on the backburner as an encore. And maybe – should we do Sky Pilot this time around? No, but we better have it ready.” OK, so we’ll rehearse it with the band, and then when we’re just about to leave the stage, and we’re getting ready to do our final number, and we have people shouting Sky Pilot, so we do it.
And that tends to keep the attitude fresh. I have a new band now, and I’m very happy with the players. We haven’t yet reached the point where I did with the previous bands where I can call the shots and, at the drop of the hat and say, “Let’s do that” and slide right into it. Or slide into a blues, an improvised blues, which for me is the height of performance; to be able to improvise and utilize the things that I learned as a jazz fan in England when I was a kid.
The first bands I ever sung with were jazz bands before I ever started singing rock and roll and blues. I was, on Tyneside, the only kid around that would get up in front of several local jazz outfits. And, in fact, I recorded with some of the best modern jazz players that Tyneside had to offer when I was like 17 years of age in a little studio called Morton Sound in the center of Newcastle. We recorded straight to disk; disk to disk on acetates, which you could play for about 12, 13, 14 times, and then they would just fall apart. But that was a great experience for me. I never forgot that, and I’ll always keep those early lessons within me, you know.
RQ: Let me talk to you about this latest album. Your voice is still very, very strong and has got a depth to it and richness in its texture. Do you think that’s because of your experience as a musician or because of just getting older?
EB: I think that in the arts in general. When I was at art school and studying for a year, I studied classic art, I realized that a lot of the great art in the world was done by guys who kept painting when they were in their 80’s and 90’s. So I realized that in the arts in general, if you can stay the course, you should get better as you get older. And my instrument is a voice, and as long as my voice can stand up to major tours, then there’s no reason why I shouldn’t continue for a lot more years from this point on.
The problem that I’m facing now, the hurdle that I have to get over, it’s not performance and it’s not keeping my voice in shape, it’s travel. The distances they want us to travel. I mean they say the world is your oyster. It ain’t an oyster that’s for sure! (laughter). I mean by the time you finish a transatlantic flight, especially at this point in my life, I’ve always had bronchitis since I was a kid. That’s always a serious problem for me. I need oxygen, and if I’m without oxygen or below the levels of oxygen that you’re supposed to get what you get on most international flights, they drip feed you lower levels of oxygen because it’s cheaper because you need the fuel to create oxygen levels.
RQ: So otherwise your voice is fine, but it’s been a little bit tougher on the body?
EB: Yeah, I’m still in the field. I have to exercise now regularly everyday. It’s tougher on the road; at home it’s easy. And what I’m aiming for now is to work harder but work less. Travel less, but spend more time in the studio.
RQ: Can I mention the ‘R’ word? Is there a time that you could foresee hanging up the microphone?
EB: I don’t think so. As long as somebody sticks one in my hand, I’ll be screaming down the tubes!
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