A Conversation with Paul Rodgers – HuffPost 11.7.11

Mike Ragogna: Why it’s rock vocalist–nay, rock legend, Paul Rodgers. Hello Paul.

Paul Rodgers: Hello, Michael.

MR: Paul, tell us about a certain Live at Montreaux 1994 CD/DVD release.

PR: This album was done some time ago at Montreux Jazz Festival…the footage was almost a secret. The record company called me and was insistent that it was something we should release. I watched it and I thought it was really interesting. It combines a lot of blues, and a lot of my songs from Free. Did it actually have any Bad Company on there?

MR: Yes, it does.

PR: You’re right I’m just looking at the track list now. That version of “Louisiana Blues” was the one I did on the tribute to Muddy Waters album. The band was very much a part of the recreation of that blues song. We took it to a different place, we took Muddy’s song and did what we did to it. Ian Hatton, the guitarist, was very much a part of that. He’s a great arranger.

MR: You and the band seem to be enjoying the blues workouts, especially on the blues songs you performed from tribute album, like “Good Morning Little School Girl,” “I’m Ready,” and “Muddy Water Blues.”

PR: “Good Morning Little School Girl” is an interesting song because it shows you the malleability of the blues. I remember when we recorded that, I had a particular version that I wanted to do, it was the fast version. We were all mic’d up and ready to record, Jason Bonham had said to me, “Why are we doing it this way?” I said, “Well, it’s the blues, you can do it any way you like.” I snapped my fingers and we did a swing version of the song. We went on and we forgot about this, and we put the fast version down. We then came in to listen and said, “Yeah that’s pretty good. The engineer then said, “Why don’t we listen to that other version you did earlier on?” I said, “Wow, did you record that?” He said, “Yeah.” We had these two versions and it just shows you what you can do with the blues.

MR: And you’re no stranger to the rock, having been the lead vocalist for Bad Company and Free. Paul Rodgers has a signature voice that incorporates blues naturally along with strong rock vocals.

PR: It’s really kind of you to say so, Michael. I think what the blues has taught me–I’m always raving on about the blues–is to emote. It’s taught me to tap into my emotions and express them; that’s what blues and soul music really does. If you’re going to sing a song, you’ve really got to sing it like you mean it. You’ve got to put your experiences into that song and live the part.

MR: And you do. Now, back then, prior to the collaborative project, you included a certain Brian May at this concert

PR: That was prophetic, wasn’t it? That was before any question of my joining forces with Queen. There’s a jam session right there with Brian.

MR: Was that concert where you developed a relationship?

PR: We actually knew each other even before then. The first time I played with Brian, he contacted me and I was in semi-retirement in Kingston in London. He was doing something in Spain for the Olympics. It’s amazing really because nobody knew where I was, I was kind of hiding away. I then got this phone call from Brian May and he said, “Damn you’re hard to find!” (laughs) I was trying to be impossible to find at the moment. He said, “Listen, I’m doing this thing for the Olympics, and I’ve got a thousand guitar players and we don’t have a singer. You’ve got to come over and sing.” That was when we first contacted each other really.

MR: What do you think of your Queen experiences?

PR: Well, we did a number of things. We did some live CDs and live DVDs, we played in Kiev, which was the biggest square in Europe, so I’m told. We had 360,000 people turn out just for us–it wasn’t a festival or anything. We did a lot of things, and we ended up in the studio and recorded a studio album of all live material, of all new songs called The Cosmos Rocks.

MR: And there are Return Of The Champions and Live In The Ukraine.

PR: Yeah, we were very productive in the four years we were together.

MR: Pal, your tribute to Muddy Waters, was nominated for a Grammy, and this was the tour that supported that album, right?

PR: Yeah.

MR: Were you in shock when you heard it had been nominated?

PR: I was really pleased actually. In fact, it was Buddy Guy that actually took the Grammy that year, and I was on his album. So, I felt like I had received one anyway. It was really nice because he’s the real deal. For me, basically a kid from Middlesbrough, to be nominated for a Grammy for the blues was exceptionally nice.

MR: Let’s get some thoughts on the incarnations you’ve had over the years, starting with Free.

PR: Well now, when I first came down to London, I was looking to form a band. I was playing with a blues band in a club called The Fickle Pickle. A guy came up with really long hair down to his waist and he said, “Hey, I want to jam with you guys.” It was Paul Kossoff, and he came up and jammed with us and it was just amazing. I sat down with him afterwards and said, “We need to form a band.” That’s where Free was born, right there. So, Paul and I put that band together, it was beautiful. I miss the musicality that we achieved. Again, we started out playing blues and we took it from there. I became a songwriter, and the first song I wrote was called, “Walk In My Shadow,” which was a twelve bar blues. We branched out from there and started to write our own song structures.

MR: What’s the story behind your hit “All Right Now?”

PR: Well, I was writing all kinds of songs, I was writing all of the time. It was just another song. We had a song called “The Hunter,” which was the only blues song left in the set. The rest of the set was all original songs. We couldn’t go anywhere without playing “The Hunter.” I thought I wanted to make a song that was as strong as that. I tried desperately to come up with something that was strong and had an audience participation part to it. That’s how the song was born really, again, out of the blues.

MR: It seems “All Right Now” might have been a prototype for the Bad Company sound.

PR: I don’t know, I think for me it’s all one long story. Now, when I play solo I play things from Free, from Bad Company, from The Firm. They do jell together very well, I think the center of the bands are the songs. I think that’s what the character is based upon, it’s based upon the character and the nature of the songs. I came out of Free a little bit disillusioned about the business. We had tried to manage ourselves and I realized that we needed a strong manager and that would be the key to the next band I put together. I teamed with Mick Ralphs and we started writing songs. I approached the manager of the biggest band at the time, which was Led Zeppelin, who was Peter Grant. He seemed interested in managing us. I really took it for granted at the time and said, “Well that’s that.” When I look back, it was quite amazing that he would take us on.

MR: And Bad Company was huge, I would say your biggest band association. What was it like during that run?

PR: We came out of the box and exploded onto the scene pretty much. We had everything together and we were in the right place at the right time, we had the songs, we had the band, we had the management, and Led Zeppelin and Peter Grant were instrumental at putting us in the right place and putting us in the right arenas with the right bands. Peter Grant was just an amazing manager. It’s very different now than it was then; it was a little wilder in those days. It was a bit like the Wild West somehow. Peter Grant was one of the big guns in town, and he really took care of us. We, in return, from our point of view, got down and just made the music.

MR: Bad Company was on Led Zeppelin’s Swan Song label correct?

PR: That’s right, it was the seedling label.

MR: I’m probably wrong about this, but for a while, weren’t you the only act on that label?

PR: They signed Maggie Bell to the label, and a band called Detective was on the label.

MR: Just to be associated with the Led Zeppelin label and to be distributed through Atlantic must have made it all very exciting.

PR: It was a very exciting period, one of the great things it did for us was people would listen. It made people sit up and listen, because people would say we were basically endorsed by Led Zeppelin, and people were interested in what we were doing. We did have to deliver the goods though, I feel. We had to come across strong. As I said earlier, we were in the right price at the right time. All of the stars aligned and there we were.

MR: Speaking of Led Zeppelin, you were in The Firm with Jimmy Page.

PR: That came about for a number of reasons. I had left Bad Company because I just wanted to be making music at home. Then when John died, Led Zeppelin, of course, would not be working anymore, and Jimmy would come around to my place to see what I was doing. We started to write songs and of course that’s how all of my bands have formed really. When Jimmy and I started to write songs together, we had a band form around that. What happened was Eric Clapton’s managers called us and said they were doing a tour, and Eric’s going to be on that tour, and Joe Cocker, and Jeff Beck. A lot of people are doing this tour to raise funds for multiple sclerosis and would we like to come to America with them. We said, “We didn’t really have a band,” and they said, “We have a rhythm section for you.” “Well, we only have about a half an hour’s worth of music,” and they said, “You only have to play a half an hour.” So, we sort of ran out of excuses, so I said, “Okay, we’ll come.” That was really how The Firm was born. I really got a taste of what the tour was like again.

MR: This is in addition to your solo career, your second release being the Muddy Waters album.

PR: Yes, it was, yeah.

MR: Was it because you were satisfied with the configurations you were with and there was no real need to solo albums at that point?

PR: With Muddy Waters, I was back off the road again, and I got a call from a friend of mine who was now the head of a record company who said, “Would you like to make a blues album, a tribute to Muddy Waters?” It was perfect timing for me, because I thought I owed a lot to the blues, and it would be such a beautiful thing to do. We got in the studio–Jason Bonham and the guys–we started to put the tracks down and lay everything down. We started to think, “It would be great if Jeff Beck could be on this one, or it would be great if Slash could play on this one.” We started to make a wish list of who it would be nice to have on the album. I said, “I could call them and see what happens,” and I think it was the power of Muddy Waters and the power and name of the thing that everybody came forward. Buddy Guy came forward, and we played the song “Muddy Water Blues.” It was a beautiful thing. I put a little note at the front about how maybe Muddy was watching us from above because it came together so magically.

MR: On the CD and DVD, you feature blues legends such as Luther Allison and Eddie Kirkland. You also have Canned Heat’s Robert Lucas.

PR: Yeah, well they were playing there that night, and everybody just came up for a jam and it was very cool. It was amazing how that came together. Again it’s this blues thing that everybody can find these chords and everyone can join in.

MR: Maybe that’s one of the great things about the blues is everybody knows the chords and anyone can jump in.

PR: It really is, and I hate to keep going on about it, but you think of Jimi Hendrix, that was blues based; Janis Joplin, that was blues based; Led Zeppelin, that was blues based. Rock ‘n’ roll really came out of the blues. I would love to know who invented the twelve bar blues because it’s such an amazing structure. There’s probably already a million songs written on it and there’s probably room for a million more. Name me a structure that you can say that about.

MR: Your band included Steve Lukather.

PR: Steve’s a great guitar player.

MR: You also had Neal Schon.

PR: Amazing shredders, I call those guys.

MR: You also have Jason Bonham on drums, yet another Led Zeppelin connection.

PR: I saw Jason recently, he was at the Greek in Los Angeles and I went to see him. It’s a tribute to his father and to Led Zeppelin, and it was a very moving and touching night. He toured in the UK with me this year, he is a good addition to any band because he doesn’t just drum, he’s also very musically creative. He’s just great.

MR: So, that was 1994, and you have assembled quite a group of friends by this point.

PR: What we are, I think, is that we’re musical friends. Very often, we listen to each other and we know what we’re saying, so there’s a rapport before we’ve even met. I felt like that with Jimmy Page. We felt we knew each other because we heard each other’s music, and we didn’t actually know each other. It’s through the music we did, it’s a great communicator.

MR: Where does your creativity come from?

PR: Well, it comes from outside of me. Sometimes, I feel like I’m a vessel for it and I just need to get out of the way and let the thing occur. I do find when you get a group of good musicians together and you throw them a song and you have the focus being a song, there’s a type of energy created. I also feel the audience becomes a part of that, and if you just let that happen and go with it, something amazing happens. It’s really the addiction for me because I can’t seem to stop doing that. It’s different every time. Every time we tour, it’s unique, every show is unique. Even if you play at the same venue twice, it’s going to be a different show from one night to the next. People come from different places–from their homes, in their cars, to the venue, and they have different stories. They all have brand new energy.

MR: When looking at new acts, do you think they are doing it right? Or do you feel like something is missing?

PR: I think things have changed a lot, there’s so much music out there, and there’s so much opportunity for anybody to make music. So, you get a lot of stuff out there, and sometimes, it’s hard to separate it. Have you heard Adele? I think there’s a spirit that she’s got there. Isn’t she great? There is that blues and soul thing there. She seems to make it so easy, when you hear it, you go, “Yeah, that’s how it is.” It’s flowing, and that’s what I try to achieve, I think. That’s true for everybody as long as they play with passion, if they love what they do, and they feel it, then that is going to come across.

MR: When I listened to her for the first time, it was like finding my long lost favorite singer.

PR: (Laughs) Yeah, the older I get, the more I believe there is a great spirit above us that is just sending us messages, and music is one of the ways through which those messages communicate themselves. People are looking to connect and one of the things music does is trying to connect people.

MR: What advice might you have for new artists?

PR: I think I might repeat what I just said, you’ve got to feel it. It’s got to come from the heart, and listen to those people that move you. When I was younger, like 13 and 14, I would listen to people like Ray Charles and Aretha Franklin, which I still do. I listen to John Lee Hooker and Elmore James. I love Elmore James. He plays the bottleneck and sings, it’s just amazing to me. They do something and it tingles the back of your neck and something happens inside of you. That’s what happens when I listen to these men and women. When I listened to that, I said, “That’s what I want to try and do. That’s what I’m still trying to do. Surround yourself with good people and people who believe, especially when no one else does.

MR: I wanted to mention how when I was in High School, they played the first Bad Company album over and over again in the student area. I have to confess, although it’s still one of my favorite rock albums, at the time, I was like, “God, I could never hear that album again.”

PR: Yeah, well I do understand that. One of the things about being in the studio, very often, is that you hear your own record more times than anybody else in the entire world is ever going to hear it. If you can still stand it at the end of that, then it’s got to be okay. You go through the process of rehearsing it, you go through the process of recording it, and you go through trying to get the take. Then you’ve got to mix it and then you start adding guitars and putting harmonies on it, then you’ve got to balance it. So, you end up hearing that record about a million times, I find I listen in different ways. I notice I can listen entirely on the bass or entirely on the vocal or entirely on that snare drum or that vocal, and then I can withdraw my pigeon-holed vision and look at the whole spectrum of it. That’s what happens when you’re mixing. We would often play it on a crappy old speaker, because in those days, people were often listening to it on crappy old speakers. So, we would see how it sounded on a crappy little speaker because it had to sound good on any speaker.

MR: Who’s your favorite vocalist of all time?

PR: It’s hard to pinpoint one, but I’ve always loved Otis Redding. He did something to me in my younger days, when I was 13 and struggling with my emotions and trying to be grown up and understand the world. He was a great mentor in many respects. When he sang “A Change Is Gonna Come,” it really got to me, I love the way he sings that, especially the way it builds at the end. It’s a very slow build.

MR: It’s one of the greatest songs of all time, don’t you think?

PR: Sam Cooke wrote that song, and his version is very different. It’s beautiful in its own way, but after Otis, it’s kind of lighter weight. Otis took it slower and really dug into it. You believe in it, it’s desperately emotionally.

MR: What is your favorite recording of all time?

PR: There are so many, it’s very hard to pinpoint. I love “Green Onions,” which is by Booker T & The MG’s, it’s an instrumental. I love “Baker Street” by Gerry Rafferty actually. Moving right away from the blues for a second, that still gives me chills, that record. I like “The Midnight Owl” by Wilson Pickett. When I first heard that, it was amazing. The way he hits the end ad-libs is just amazing, what a great singer.

MR: What is on the horizon for Paul Rodgers?

PR: I’m working away, touring and doing my thing. I just finished a tour in Canada with Randy Bachman and Fred Turner. Fred Turner is an amazing singer, and they’re both great guys. I’ve just been down to LA to do a TV show, what I’m going to be doing is a DVD with Joe Bonamassa, He’s a big fan actually. He does a great version of my song “Seagull,” so they want me to come and jam with those guys on a couple of my songs. I think “Walk In My Shadow” and “Fire And Water.” I will be doing a benefit in the UK for a racehorse sanctuary in West Sussex on December 3rd. Steve and my son and Jasmine and my daughter will be playing at that.

MR: Is there any band that you wished you could have been a part of over the years?

PR: The thing is, if I liked a band, I wouldn’t want to take any of the members out and put me in it, that would change the chemistry and I don’t know if that would necessarily work. I hope people find each other and make good music together, that’s what they should do. That’s what I kind of try to do myself, I think.

MR: I so appreciate the time you’ve spent with us.

PR: It’s been really wonderful talking to you, Michael.

Transcribed by Theo Shier