Under the Southern Stars tour Press Conference.
Plus, Interviews with Rick Nielsen and Robert DeLeo.
www.underthesouthernstars.com.au
By Paul Southwell.
After the pandemic took hold and brought the entire planet to a standstill, the future of international touring looked particularly bleak. In that light, it is nothing short of miraculous to see the Under the Southern Stars [UTSS] tour finally come to fruition after postponements and some inevitable line-up tweaks over an incredulous two year period. Now, with the Australian audiences pinching themselves that the tour is actually underway and with a bill that brings together a variety of award winning acts, Loud Online (Paul Southwell) joined a contingent of well-established local media for a press conference with members of Cheap Trick, Stone Temple Pilots and Bush, at the apt location of the Hard Rock Cafe, Darling Harbour. Black Rebel Motorcycle Club were at the venue but opt not to participate in the press conference.
Present on the stage are Robin Zander and Rick Nielsen from Cheap Trick, Jeff Gutt and Erik Kretz from Stone Temple Pilots [STP] and Gavin Rossdale from Bush. Hosted by radio legend Rob Duckworth from the house of M’s, aka Triple M radio, the floor was opened up to media to volley some questions at the band members, after which we engaged in some face-to-face interviews where time permitted. The tour also includes a bunch of Australian artists who have also been eager to get back to the live stage, including bands such as Rose Tattoo and Electric Mary. Here is a selection of highlights from that conference which celebrates international live music being back on the entertainment spectrum at various locations, including regional areas, across the country.
To start off, Rod Hunt asked Gavin Rossdale if new music was important to maintain longevity in the music industry. “New music makes us feel vital and connected to the craft that we love,” says Rossdale. “If you just go around and play the old songs that people are familiar with only, they maybe get a sense of lack of progress. So it’s finding a balance and really, new music is meant to lead back to the old people as well and plus it is important that we make a lot of money for Spotify and the record label,” he says, with his tongue firmly in his cheek.
Duckworth initiates the next discussion, noting that the three main bands will share headlining duties at 12 venues around the country such that the bands will each headline four times. Jeff Gutt responds, saying “When it comes to headlining, my main thing is that I just want to see the other guys play. A lot of times when you play last, you’re not able to because you are getting ready. I really don’t have a preference when it comes to playing last or playing first when it comes to these guys because we are all just sharing and we all get even times. As long as I get to see the other bands because I am a fan of music first.”
Kathy McCabe of Newscorp continues the thread, querying if the current tour might create the camaraderie built by other bands during the Big Day Out travelling festival on days off between shows. “Stone Temple Pilots never did the Big Day Out,” states Erik Kretz. “But with that in mind it is really fun being on with Cheap Trick and Bush, [on the] same flights and hotels together. It is like a vacation and a lot of fun. The best part is, like Jeff said, we get to see other bands play.”
Robin Zander then replies to a question from Duckworth on whether bands present have witnessed performances from fellow headliners. “I’ve seen Bush on television and we’ve toured with Stone Temple Pilots, so we know them very well. But this is going to be cool because we are probably the oldest bands here and I am really looking forward to seeing these bands.”
Guitarist Rick Nielsen interjects saying, “Way older,” quicky taking on the comic relief role effortlessly, second nature to his wacky stage persona over the years. “I think they have sex appeal, we just have appeal,” he continues. “We tour so often, we rarely get to see anybody else play. So we’ll watch Gavin, check out his moves and see what I can incorporate into whatever I do. STP, we have known each other for a long, long time but I have never watched them, so it’ll be fun for a change.”
Somewhat surprised, Kretz responds to Nielsen’s humour. “I am so glad you’ve never seen us because in the 90’s when we toured with you, I watched you every single night and now I am kind of heartbroken that you never saw us even though you were only twenty feet away,” he jokes. Nielsen continues with the comical banter and a thinly veiled reference to a previous vocalist, “I watched you because I was a baby sitter for one of your guys, but he’s not here tonight.”
When Troy from May the Rock be with You asks Rossdale about how the pandemic affected rehearsals coming up to this tour, more tongue in cheek frivolity ensues. “Terrible, stuff was all broken, songs were just a nightmare, probably two of the worst days of rehearsal that we’ve ever had,” replies Rossdale. “Technical stuff, things were messed up and our sound man wasn’t going to make it, things were going on with his family. It was a disaster, so I am happy to be here.”
Nielsen then joins in, but changes tack, albeit slightly. “No, it was fun because before this we did four shows in Las Vegas and we rehearsed eighty songs. Rob mentioned earlier that people might know about four of our songs but eighty is ridiculous. We did it because it was a lot of fun but it was a lot of work. I think that playing is just fucking the best and we have always had fun in Australia. We were around The Angels from early on and we got to be friends with Doc Neeson and the Brewster brothers. I tried to emigrate here, to Australia in 1971, and I wasn’t allowed to be in AC/DC because I was too tall. Those guys would have lucked out and ended up with Cheap Trick, so I’m a happy man.”
Zander offers a straight answer, “Don’t get the wrong idea, we normally don’t rehearse eighty songs.” Nielsen naturally drops one of many one-liners, saying, “We haven’t rehearsed in eighty years.” Zander continues, “We decided we were going to do something special for Vegas because we’ve been there many times. We’ve done Sgt. Pepper’s there numerous times but this time we thought we’d do decades because we were so old that we’d do something from every album; we’ve got twenty albums. We had to rehearse eighty songs. But it worked out and we had a blast doing it.” Nielsen, cracks another joke, of sorts. “It was fun. Old men doing young man’s music, was the point. I lied about that ‘old men’, I’m real fucking old.”
Nine Entertainment’s Micheal Bailey asks Nielsen and Zander about recollections on touring with Rose Tattoo, Nielsen offers a tangent in response.
“I’ve got one,” he says, referring to a tattoo on his wrist. “I had mine where I didn’t want to have to take off my shirt or pull my pants to show people. I got it done in Yokohama by the Yakuza, with a bamboo. I used to drink back then. That’s not a joke, I used to drink.” Pushed on an anecdote, Nielsen mentions a couple of AC/DC stories, all with a dry sense of humour. “I had Malcolm, Angus and Cliff came to my house in 1979, and the last tour that Malcolm was on with AC/DC, myself and a friend, we flew down to Nashville to see their last show and they weren’t letting any of the country stars in. All these famous rock or country people from Nashville, they wouldn’t let anybody in. They let me in and I opened the door and he said, ‘Rick, you still live in Rockford?’ I said, ‘I live in Rockford.’ Great story, huh?” Zander then chimes in with a retort, “That was an Australian accent that he tried to do.”
As Duckworth brings up Nielsen’s staggering guitar collection, he divulges that at one stage Nielsen told him of 2700 guitars. The update comes quickly. “I have five hundred in my immediate collection and I only brought six here. I brought one here but Dean [DeLeo of STP] has it, unless he left and he probably locked it up with these guys,” jokingly referring to the archiving of the Hard Rock Cafe.
Cheap Trick readily celebrate the influence of The Beatles in their music and had none other than George Martin, aka the Fifth Beatle, produce their All Shook Up album back in 1980, which was released just one year after the huge selling Dream Police and At Budokan albums. Given Cheap Trick recently covered Gimme Some Truth by John Lennon, on their latest album, In Another World, I ask Zander and Nielsen about the experience of working with George Martin. “George was the best producer I have ever worked with, the smartest music mind than anybody I have worked with and I never asked him anything about The Beatles, it was too, ‘So, what did Ringo eat?’, I was a fan but not like that much,” reveals Nielsen. “It was just interesting to listen to him and we did a record with him in Montserrat [hurricane destroyed AIR Montserrat in the eastern Caribbean in 1989], and we were the first ones down there to record. The Police were jumping up and down on the board [studio desk – see film clip for Every Little Thing She Does is Magic] but when we were there, we didn’t jump on it, and then we finished the record at AIR Studios in London and that was fun too. He was great.”
Zander also adds some thoughts. “He was a perfect gentleman. An unassuming guy, you know, you wouldn’t think that he was a rock’n’roll mind but he simply was and he watched Fawlty Towers day in and day out.”
Cheap Trick’s association with those behind the machinations of The Beatles’ success is further explained by Nielsen. “We also worked with Geoff Emerick [notable Beatles’ sound engineer], when we did the Sgt. Pepper tour all around the country [America] and he engineered every show we did. I shouldn’t say this but he said that we were more fun than The Beatles and we could actually play all this stuff. They put together all their stuff like, [sings lyric] ‘And in the end’ [from Carry That Weight/The End]. It was pieced together but we actually played it all live, it was all there.”
Zander explains the motivation. “Rick and I decided to do it [Sgt. Pepper Live] because Lennon had that famous quote that nobody could ever do Sgt Pepper live and that sort of got us going.” Ever the joker, Nielsen replies to him, “You made me spill my water.”
Further exploring Cheap Trick’s mutual respect for the late John Lennon, Duckworth informs us of a prior radio chat with Nielsen where it was revealed that Lennon was keen for Cheap Trick to be his band on the road for a tour. “Yes,” confirms Nielsen. “I worked on the Double Fantasy album, and when I was doing a song called I’m Losing You, he said to the other guys, and he said to Jack Douglas [producer], ‘Oh God, I wish I had Rick on Cold Turkey [1969 single by the Plastic Ono Band] because Clapton choked up.'” Zander then further clarifies, “And it would have been on the record if Yoko hadn’t have said it was just too loud. It’s true.” Nielsen replies, “Yeah and then he was looking for a band to go out, and it wasn’t even called Double Fantasy at the time but he wanted to maybe have Cheap Trick be his band. We could play in the studio but we weren’t studio musicians anymore. We were not that perfect and we’re still not that perfect. It was cool. Imagine Robin and John Lennon singing together, how fucking cool would that be? Yoko’s songs I can do without [mimics Ono’s singing]. It’s called caterwauling.”
Bush and STP enjoy some more air time in this discussion as Christian Ross from SCENEzine asks Rossdale about his thoughts on participating in the Chester Bennington tribute concert [Linkin Park and Friends], in context of STP’s association with Bennington following Scott Weiland’s dismissal. “That was really traumatising and nerve wrecking, and so poignant. I always get nervous when I sing other people’s songs. When Bowie passed away, his band had a whole series of songs and a couple of shows, they continue to do that whole thing, but I sang I’m Afraid of Americans. When it is your own music and you’re in control of it, you can be nervous and adrenalised but somehow you’re used to the responsibility. When you’re doing a song for Chester’s [tribute] that night and the lyrics; I mean every song of his is a precursor to his own demise, that was his whole world, his lyric. I get shivers when I think about this, it was just so painful, going into the studio and rehearsing with a band trying to make the best of it. It was really intense and it was an honour to be part of that.”
STP’s Gutt and Kretz are then asked if the pandemic has given them time to be creative and to come up with new material. “We’re always writing even if we are not in the same vicinity as each other,” says Gutt. “We haven’t that chance to get together and put all those ideas together. Once those floodgates get opened up, they don’t shut until it is over. When we did the Perdida record we were only supposed to do six songs as an EP. We had to put a cap on it, otherwise we would have ended up with a triple album. I’m excited to get back in and see what they are coming up with because the [DeLeo] brothers are always writing and they always have ideas and Erik has his stuff, and I’ve got a notebook that is almost full of ideas already. It will be exciting to get back in and start doing that again.”
Collectively asked about the possibility of impromptu jams on stage, between band members, Rossdale is diplomatic, saying, “I barely know what we’re doing but am always up for it. I think it would take us all by surprise which is the nice thing about it.” Nielsen confirms the possibility with STP. “Me too,” he says. “I’ve played with STP before and I didn’t fuck it up, did I Erik?” Kretz replies, as the banter resumes, “I think it was me that fucked up because I was looking at you.” Duckworth challenges Nielsen’s earlier comment, “I thought you said you never saw them?” Nielsen quickly provides a retort, “I lied, I’ve seen every band in the world, except Nelly and I was at an awards show with Kanye and he was a dick.”
As the laughter subsides, McCabe queries Rossdale about whether the rock music will ever bother attempting to reclaim being ‘the genre’ crown of pre digital streaming days. “No,” states Rossdale. “We are meant to disenfranchised, counter culture people, we are not meant to be the standard, conventional ideas. In America, we have rock radio that promotes a sound as opposed to going to the bands that are pushing forwards. You write to just be as amazing as you can and then you hope that can get you further along. It is about being yourself.”
As Jimmy of Central Music Media asks the panel about how bands of various ages cope with significant about technological advances. Nielsen delivers a typically offbeat response. “It rains a lot here. When we did a tour with Def Leppard, never rained. Did a tour with Billy Idol, never rained. Did a tour with The Angels, never rained. Did a tour with these guys [UTSS line-up], rained. That significant?”
Gutt answers the query more seriously. “The digital capabilities take away from the feel of most things,” comments Gutt. “If Led Zeppelin played everything to a click, it wouldn’t be Led Zeppelin. I think feel and heart and authenticity are the main things that you can bring as a rock musician, singer or instrumentalist. Not diving head first into the digital world is probably the best thing you can do as a musician when you are starting out. It is also a happier place in certain areas but keeping things natural is the best way to go.”
Nielsen’s off-beat humour is never far aware though as he follows up with a question to Duckworth, “Did I mention I’d like to go guitar shopping?” Duckworth confirms that they are indeed going guitar shopping but is curious why he needs any more guitars. “I don’t need anything,” states Nielsen, “but usually when I come to Australia, they have Tokai and Greco – it is the lawsuit years, that Gibson sued Greco, they sued Ibanez and one guitar store that I went to was across the road from pole dancing lessons. Australia is the greatest place on Earth, they have a school for pole dancing. I thought, ‘This is wonderful, I would love this place.'”
Rossdale concludes the conference by adding some further insights to the previous question about technology and music. “I find it really inspiring that way that technology…is there to help your ideas,” he says. “You have to have a good idea, you have to have a point. And then you can take it like Billie Eilish, who is the most fantastic person in music and they have that creativity with all that technology stuff at their fingertips yet the humanity is still there. So, as with Jeff’s point, I agree that it has to have this humanism to it but I think that it is pretty amazing how young kids can make music and don’t have to get the money to go to studios like we all did, and that is something that makes it more egalitarian.”
Reconvening to another part of the venue soon after the conference, the option for some face to face interviews occurs. I firstly talk to Nielsen, followed by Robert DeLeo, who is seated not far from his brother, Dean DeLeo.
In asking Nielsen to expand a bit on the longevity of the guitars, he divulges his position on advances in technology. “Yeah, I’m the old school, the real old school. I don’t use any effects at all, zero, I plug straight in. I have never really changed.” A quick Q&A ensues and it’s interesting to hear of some highlights of Nielsen’s vast experiences in the music industry over many decades.
Is that a particular guitar you’re most impressed with over years? Also, how may guitars can you safely take on the road?
Nielsen: The early Gibsons and Fenders. They are still the barometer. Leo Fender did it right. Out of my whole collection, I have over five hundred guitars and ninety five percent of them are between 1950 and 1965. In America, for the usual tour, we have two sets of gear with about 25 [guitars] in each set. So, 50 but here, I only brought six. Not my choice.
It’s funny that you came up with a five necked guitar years ago and then Hamer actually did it.
Nielsen: I don’t know how to build anything myself so you have to find somebody that is willing to do some crazy shit. Hamer was the first one that did stuff for me. Before that, I used to do the stuff myself.
A nearby Jimi Hendrix artwork is on display in this room. How much did he revolutionise music? He was making new noises but also had the songs.
Nielsen: Well I saw Jimi Hendrix and it was unbelievable. There were great guys around at the same time, like Jeff Beck, who is still my favourite, Pete Townsend; there were a lot of good ones but Hendrix was one of a kind. Hendrix had the whole package of everything that nobody else was doing. I mean, there were other people who were flashy but he had to put the music together and with his look, with his lyrics, his playing – just everything. It was like how the Beatles were when they came out; they had everything, they had the look, the music, and the fashion that they were working with, it was all a nice package.
What was your awareness of Eddie Van Halen, when he appeared on the scene? Everybody wanted to play like him.
Nielsen: His playing was the thing, but I didn’t [try to mimic]. It was not that I wouldn’t have liked to be able to but that would have meant that I would have to have practiced. I was a songwriter and I still am.
Is it that you come up with a melody and that’s primarily how you write?
Nielsen: Sort of, yeah, that is a lot of it. Just what we observe, I mean, every one of these bands are completely different.
Touring wise, how do you stay interested in performance? Do you just enjoy it?
Nielsen: Yeah, I don’t even think about it. You know, I’ll hear a song and I’ll think, ‘Oh yeah, that’s cool,’ but I never tried to just copy anybody because that is the easiest way to get found out. Every one of these bands here start with the same twelve notes and it is just about what you do with them.
Backing vocals helps boost a chorus. Is there much thought into it, as you do it a lot? Producers might like a chorus but want to build it up.
Nielsen: We have over 300 songs on our albums. We are pretty good…we are songwriters and we put it together with what we think [works] and we usually don’t have a producer or a record company saying to us, ‘Well, here is what you’ve got to do.’ I don’t think that ever happens with us. It might have helped us.
When At Budokan was released, did American audiences realise that Cheap Trick are a bit harder sounding live, and a bit more rock than pop?
Nielsen: Ah, I don’t know. We could not have planned it any better. The old line that we’ve used earlier is that we made the Budokan famous but the Budokan made us famous.
When I asked earlier about working with George Martin, did he have a lot of sway on decisions?
Nielsen: He liked what we were doing. He produced it but he added the strings stuff later, but it wasn’t all full of strings. He just let us do what we do. I think that is what he did with The Beatles. He didn’t start writing I Want to Hold Your Hand, you know, he didn’t write that. I don’t know exactly what he with them that he did with us but he just basically let us run free. He liked the band enough to do that.
Is limitation the key to creativity? If you look at The Beatles, it was four and eight track recorders in their day, used for timeless songs.
Nielsen: It was great stuff. They had great material and they were great players. They were excellent musicians and if you listen to it, you can’t imagine it needing to be much flashier or much more produced. It was full and full of the right stuff. They were a unit that had everything they needed, they didn’t need an outside guitar player, they didn’t need outside writers, they didn’t need an outside stylist. They had it all.
When you do cover songs, do you generally try to remain faithful to the original track?
Nielsen: Yeah, we didn’t try to be something that we weren’t and I think that is the problem with some bands. Maybe it is a good thing. But they try to be something that they are not, but we weren’t and we didn’t try to go overboard one way or another.
How do you do come up with a tight setlist given there’s 300 songs in your back catalogue?
Nielsen: We have the basic stuff, you know, I Want You to Want Me, Dream Police, Surrender; songs that people are happy to hear. Also, some cool stuff that they are not used to and hopefully that works. Videos were just playing right now, including Woke Up with a Monster, and we have not done that in years. All of a sudden it is on here and just this last week, we played it too and it went over great. Oh yeah, it was good, it was funny, but I’m looking forward to doing it.
You were first on the cover of Guitar Player magazine in late 1979 [November 1979]. Did that immediately put you in the realm of respected guitar players globally?
Nielsen: It was quite the honour but then it’s like, people saying, ‘Well, I can play better than that guy,’ and you get all of the other guitar players that are out there saying, ‘Well, he doesn’t do this or that,’ but I never tried to be something I wasn’t. I never tried to be Eddie Van Halen or Jimi Hendrix or whoever, but it was just that I was kind of honoured to be on there.
Columns on wacky guitars from that era [Teisco Del Rey’s Off the Wall column] were great.
Nielsen: Well yeah but I get criticised for it [being wacky] and I get criticised because of it but in a good way. It’s usually, ‘Oh, that is cool, he does this,’ and then I get criticised anyway with, ‘Oh, why does he do this?’ I don’t do it for anybody else except myself.
Do you recall playing at Jindabyne ski resort many years ago? Cheap Trick make the effort to visit little regional venues.
Nielsen: Oh yeah, yeah, big or small, it is all good. I like to play and sometimes the best audiences are the biggest ones but sometimes the best audiences are just twenty five people.
Following a discussion with Nielsen, Robert DeLeo, co-founding bassist of Stone Temple Pilots, is notified by the publicist to have a quick chat. Alert and well spoken, DeLeo provides an enlightening conversation about his band, and how to stay intact in an industry that is regularly prone to impose unpredictable upheaval on all manners of bands.
Are package tours the way of the future for rock?
DeLeo: Yes, and I am thankful that we are still touring. I really didn’t that I was going to be doing this at this age but then I think about Cheap Trick and they have been doing it twice as long. The game has changed and I’ll use that as an example, I mean, they were in the trenches, digging and digging, and out there all the time. Being that they are a band that we grew up on, that was the thing to do, go out and tour. We dug some trenches but now social media has changed a lot of things. Now, everyone is an armchair musician and they think they are great, Mum might tell them so, and I think that it is easier to access fame and it feels like there are a lot of people and that’s what they are after, just fame, without all the other stuff that goes with it.
They also don’t understand how contracts, publishing, and management works. Aspects behind the scenes that maintain an income stream.
DeLeo: Right and I think that really helps managers to further get away with the shenanigans. It is not easy. I look at the music business as a place where you go to see what you can get away with…
When touring the world and rubbing shoulders with huge artists, how do you stay grounded?
DeLeo: I think that it is where you come from and also what you’re after. I always got into music to write the best songs I could write. The other stuff is just like the circus and if you’re interested in joining the circus, it is all there for you. But writing songs was my biggest interest, because the stuff that I grew up on, that we all grew up on, was about writing the best songs that you can write.
You effectively spear headed the post grunge era, but when you were growing up, was it Van Halen that were the big names?
DeLeo: My first show was The Carpenters so I saw them in 1971, then I saw Kiss in 1978 and all that stuff in between with AM radio, FM radio, jazz, country and blues. I was the youngest in my family of a lot of kids so I would go down to the basement and I would dig out these Ella Fitzgerald records, The Hollies or Cat Stevens and it was all that, it was an upbringing of great music.
How creative where you feeling musically by the time of Shangri-La Dee Da?
DeLeo: I thought we were more creative as ever on that record and I thought that was one of my most creative times right then because I got to expand into those areas that I talked about.
Surely the industry would have been asking for another Plush or another Interstate Love Song?
DeLeo: Yeah, but we never set out to write singles, we set out to make a great record. Those are the records that we grew up on, the records that had a journey to them, that you could follow, and listen to, and put headphones on. I mean, that was the main theme of it and when we got to Shangri-La Dee Da, it kind of captured that best.
For the latest album, Perdida, was that something where the song writing process was quite similar to earlier albums?
DeLeo: I look at it this way, I always start on acoustic guitar and it usually goes electric. On that record, we just kind of kept it in its acoustic form and just put it out like that. We’re constantly writing and there are so many influences coming in. It is a constant, take a little bit of this and a little bit of that; just the stuff that we grew up on. It is just a matter of how much gets in there.
The rhythm section of bands can be under appreciated. When you write songs, are there any considerations on handing them to others in the band?
DeLeo: I am fortunate to have Dean as a brother and as a guitar player because when I write something, hopefully, I know that he is going to play it the way that I hear it and I think that is the same when he writes something, I want to play it the best he’s hearing it.
Your sold out show at the Hordern Pavilion in early 2011 was great, with the carpets out on the stage, and Scott was an amazing performer and vocalist. Still, how did you cope with a volatile band member?
DeLeo: It takes a lot out of you and I look back at that, and there were some great times. But I also look at it like it was probably the longest suicide I have ever experienced. You’ve got to enjoy people whilst they are here and present, or sometime mostly present.
How does it work out when they go to another band [Velvet Revolver] and similar issues arise?
DeLeo: Well, I think sometimes you know that you’re not crazy.
With bringing in a new person on vocals, does that present challenges from the old diehards?
DeLeo: Yeah but you know, I just still enjoy playing these songs. I do not really know what else to do, in my life, but to play music. I still enjoy playing the songs that I wrote thirty years ago. Was it thirty years ago? Jesus Christ!
I guess Nirvana was the band that changed the scene completely. Did you feel pushed by the industry to follow that style, to an extent?
DeLeo: No, I think we were looking back at earlier people. Led Zeppelin was pushing us forward and we grew up on so much great music. That really was the reason that we wanted to write songs like the people before us did. I had no control over what was going to get pushed. That was the record company but you make a record and you don’t know what is going to happen. There are many great records that got made that you’ve never heard of, and I think it is up to knowing that you have no control over what the record company is going to do, how they are going to push you.
That being the case, what was the reasoning behind the decision to release a self-titled album twice [both in 2010 and 2018]?
DeLeo: The second self-titled album was kind of put together. It took a lot of work and I think that by the time that we were done with that, I don’t think that there was a cohesiveness between the four of us to even come up with a title of a record. I think the artwork was enough, it was a cool album.
You also called an album No. 4, Led Zep inadvertently did that and Slash did recently too.
DeLeo: Yeah, ha, I saw that. Sometimes coming up with album titles is very Spinal Tap.
On basses, is there a particular model you favour?
DeLeo: I am an avid collector of vintage stuff and [due to influences], whether it be Chris Squire or Geddy Lee, I acquired a Rickenbacker and that was one of those basses that was like the Holy Grail, when I was little. Then there is James Jamerson with all the Motown stuff, that made me wanted to get a P-Bass [Fender Precision bass]. I think John Entwistle was the one who really started it [Rickenbacker], you know. He was the first guy to use round wound strings, playing through a Marshall. That was heavy back in 1965.
Lemmy Kilmister also deserves a mention.
DeLeo: Yeah, Lemmy took that to another level, absolutely. I don’t think that there is anyone that you can compare to Lemmy. When I met him, he was such a nice person. He was so kind but you wouldn’t think that. I love what Lemmy did with the Rickenbackers. It was guitar on bass.