Zoot Horn Rollo
- An Interview With Bill Harkleroad -
by David Gabrielsen
From DISCoveries, December, 1988 (pp. 20-21)
DG: When did you start playing guitar?
BH: 1962 or '63, when I was thirteen. Surfing and Ventures music.
DG: Is that the music that got you interested in guitar?
BH: Well, actually, it was friends. One of my friends was a guitar
player and he had a band. I thought maybe I could get a girlfriend
if I had a guitar. I joined a band known as the Nightbeats. But
the surfin' music was what was happening. Vocal music wasn't
happening. No Beatles yet.
DG: What about Fifties music?
BH: I'd listened to that from the time I was five years old, because
of my older sister. I totally identified with Elvis Presley, since
my birthday is also January 8th. So, there's a big part of me
that's in the '50s stuff. It was music that was alive.
DG: Did the British Invasion - the new wave after surf music -
influence you, musically?
BH: Oh, yeah. Guitar-wise it did. But before that I got into blues,
and Beefheart was around the area in '64 as a local band doing
heavy, hardcore blues. Still, for me, that's one of the its
best-sounding times of the Beefheart band, through the twenty
years of its existence. Right after surf music, I was listening to
them and getting interested in B.B. King and Hubert Sumlin. Hubert
Sumlin became one of my favorites. To my knowledge, he's the first
guitar player to play that out-of-phase Stratocaster sound, which
you can't get away from in almost any record now. So I listened to
real hardcore blues, and the early bands I was in would do Beatles
and Rolling Stones [covers], 'cause that was what got us gigs.
DG: How did you meet Don "Captain Beefheart" Van Vliet?
BH: I grew up in the same town. I used to see his group and Zappa,
when he was just starting out, in a group called the Blackouts,
playing dynamite blues guitar. They'd rehearse in the junior high
gymnasium, and I'd sneak in and listen to them. Here were these
old guys and a nineteen-year-old playing this blues music.
DG: How did you get into the Beefheart band?
BH: With each new generation, there's more technique that's expected
as the norm. So my group, as we grew into it, had chops that what
rivaled the older guys in his group - but not the soul. Do you
know what I mean? We started showing up at parties where Beefheart
was playing. One of the members of the group I was in was closer
to their age. I'd sneak in bein' sixteen, bein' the kid, and I'd
jam with them and they'd notice, "Hey, the kid can play!"
One by one, a guitar player I played with and a drummer named John French, who's been around that scene forever and one of my favorite musicians, joined the band as Don was replacing the older members. Trying to move on was his idea, and the older members were straight-ahead blues people, and he was starting to expand [his music]. Safe As Milk came out, and for me that was it. I up couldn't believe the music! Ry Cooder replaced Doug Moon, and he ended up playing on that whole album. He went from Taj Mahal's band to Beefheart's band. They were the two most influential blues bands to me at that time, and by far the strongest L.A. bands. Buffalo Springfield was another real good one.
So, anyway, Don knew who the local players were, and I think he wisely drew upon the people who watched his growth, and weren't involved in the city scene; so they weren't so affected by the pop stuff. They were homegrown musicians.
DG: So you became a member of the Magic Band during the recording of
Strictly Personal?
BH: We were in the process of rerecording some of it, and I was going
to be on two or three tracks. While we were in the process of
doing this, the album showed up on the market, via Bob Krasnow. He
started Blue Thumb Records with that LP. I don't know whatever
happened to those tapes we were working on, but they contained the
first studio material I did with the Beefheart band, with Frank
Zappa as the engineer.
DG: From there the band signed to Zappa's label, and Trout Mask
Replica was the first release. Did Don have total control over the
recording of the LP, or did Frank Zappa have some say in it?
BH: As far as my perspective, Don had almost exclusive control. I
think Frank gave him total free reign (sic).
DG: What do you think caused Beefheart to drift from the traditional
blues?
BH: Tough question. He's much too dynamic of a person to give a single
reason for that.
DG: Was he into avant garde jazz?
BH: Definitely. When I first joined the band I was expecting this
blues style of music and he was putting together Strictly
Personal. Definitely different material. I liked it, 'cause it was
blues-based, with slide guitar and his vocals. Anyway, he was
always talking about Monk or Bird. Bizarre tastes that opened my
mind to a lot of music.
I used to fall asleep with John Coltrane on the headphones. That was my transition from blues to jazz. And for me it had to be black or I didn't like it. I had an attitude that black music had more of a gut-level feel than the totally intellectual music. I mean, for me it was the artistic black stuff, as opposed to the mainstream, notey stuff. For me at the time, it was an easy way to corner it by saying I like black avant garde music, whether it's blues or jazz. It was a label for me.
We went to a Harry Partch concert when I first joined the band. Zappa and Don were fans of his, and we were signed to Frank's label, so we got invited. He wrote all of his own music on a 44-tone scale. Instead of twelve tones, he divided them into 44, so there's less than 1/4 tones in his music. He built all his own instruments. Berkeley School of Music had 12-15 of his disciples who learned his music exactly, and performed it. Very interesting stuff.
DG: Going back to the album and Zappa's involvement, did he or any of
the Mothers play on it?
BH: There was one little section on the LP. It was Jeff Cotton, who
was Antennae Jimmy Semens, who had called Frank on the phone from
the studio and recited this poem. It's on the album, under the
name "The Blimp". Frank was working on this particular piece with
Roy Estrada and Art Tripp, and that went onto the tape and ended
up on the album. So they were actually on Trout Mask Replica, over
the phone.
DG: Did the group do any touring to promote the album?
BH: Overall, we didn't do much touring for Trout Mask Replica 'cause
it was hard to get us out on the road. The album was just out and
we went to Europe and we did one festival in Belgium, and then we
went to England where Don did a lot of interviews and promotional
stuff. But we didn't play in England. Then I think we did a show
at the Hollywood Palladium, where there must have been eight
bands, and the Mothers were the final act. That was the first time
I saw Jethro Tull and met Ian Anderson. They had just released
their first album.
DG: Did that lack of going out frustrate you as a musician?
BH: To make a long, elaborate story short; because of the disparity in
age; all of us were approximately nineteen years old, and Don was
about twenty-nine, there was a lot of hero-worship for him... as
well as fear and weirdness towards him. A very uncomfortable
situation. As I am older now, I look at it with a lot less
animosity. But for a long time I thought he was a very vindictive
person. Now, I think he tried in a lot of ways to give what he had
artistically to us, but took claim for everything. He took claim
for every line that came out of my fingers, and I was bitter about
that. There was a lot of weirdness in the band. We'd stay in a
house and rehearse for sixteen hours straight, fall dead in our
tracks, get up and do it again, day after day.
DG: And not necessarily recording?
BH: No, just rehearsing. So, because hero worship got me there, and it
was hard to erase that, I couldn't leave 'cause it was the one
thing I wanted to do. But it was a very intense time. It was my
Vietnam, as I look at it now.
DG: After Trout Mask came Lick My Decals Off, Baby.
BH: Right, which I thought was the best of the batch. The whole band
became more involved; we had more to say about the music. It got
refined, and as members changed, the sound of the music changed.
When Elliot Ingber joined the band, we went more bluesy, because
he was a blues player. My hands were so into playing Don's piano
parts that my blues chops were waning. I almost couldn't play
those parts anymore. So the music became controlled by the players
a lot. Don sang and played harp on the albums, and had the ideas
in his head. The band had more of a say in the music as it was
being created. I would say: "No, I won't play that part; it's
unplayable. I want to do it this way." The music got refined.
DG: You had more say about your part in each piece?
BH: Sure. Even if I didn't speak up, sometimes I just did it, and
because of the overall randomness of the music, his final opinion
on hearing it was great. Unless he whistled the part. He was a
tremendous whistler. If he whistled a single line, he'd remember
it forever and wanted the part played that way. In other ways, the
tunes would come together without his total control in a clean,
clear-cut way.
DG: Did Don run down musical parts for you, as he wanted you to play
them?
BH: Uh huh. And then I had to figure out a way to make it possible.
DG: And in some cases you'd say, "It won't work"?
BH: You've got ten fingers on the piano. You can't play ten notes on
the guitar at the same time. At least I couldn't figure it out at
that point. I mean, I was playing things with two hands, with my
thumb on the face. I was trying to invent whatever I could. Like I
said, I was under the control of that whole ego structure of the
band, where I would work that hard. I'm glad I did it. There's a
real inventiveness in my playing, I think, because of those days.
DG: Did you tour in support of Lick My Decals Off, Baby?
BH: We did a few gigs, but not too many. Right after that, when we
did Spotlight Kid and Clear Spot, was when we did a lot of
touring.
DG: Were you opening for somebody or was Beefheart the headliner?
BH: In Europe we had our own gig.
DG: Did the band have a good following in Europe?
BH: Much better in Europe.
DG: What do you remember most about touring?
BH: It was always a relief to be out of that greenhouse live-in this
situation where we were supposed to be giving up our lives to be
in this band and carry this tremendous artistic burden [laughs].
There were positive moments, but it also had its excruciating
times. I don't want to say anything bad about Don. I learned a lot
from the man, but he was very hard to work with. He wouldn't to
repeat the same lyrics to a tune from one show to the next. He
seemed to have a difficult time performing in public. Sometimes he
could, and there would be magical moments. Because he was so
intense, things could happen that were great. All of this is in
retrospect, and it's clouded with my own opinion. So it's a hard
thing for me to really have a clear perspective on. When he was at
home the man was a tremendous singer, a tremendous talent. It
never came out on record like what he could do.
DG: What's your opinion of the material from the A&M sessions?
BH: The early stuff? Oh yeah, that was the band I first heard before
joining them. He comes across a lot better there. But he could be
even _better_ than that.
DG: For me, I think he did a beautiful blues-style vocal on "White
Jam".
BH: Yeah, that got close. I remember how happy and relaxed he was in
the studio at that time. And that was the bottom edge of what the
man was capable of doing every day of the week. When I joined that
band he could do Jimmy Reed to the point it would be hard to tell
the difference. He could do John Lee Hooker perfect. He could do
Muddy Waters and Howlin' Wolf. I mean, this man could sing! It
just never came out on record, and that was frustrating.
DG: What made you decide to leave Captain Beefheart and form Mallard?
BH: I needed to get on my own and get out of this form of existence. I
was not taking care of my life. It took me six years to be able to
say no to the man. There was so much hero worship, and I needed to
breathe and have a life.
DG: Did it give you a bad taste toward the music business?
BH: Not necessarily. I wanted to get away from that situation. It was
even the thought of whether I wanted to play music or not.
DG: So you formed Mallard immediately after leaving Beefheart?
BH: Right. Immediately.
DG: Was Mallard supposed to be your band?
BH: It was the Magic Band without Don. We figured we had a career, and
it was the band that was a spinoff of Beefheart. But here I was
the person who's feeling that I'm going to be the leader because
I'm the guitar player. Now, I'm the one who has to write and come
up with the music. So, I felt the pressure of that, and I kind of
took over as the leader of that band.
DG: So you were responsible for providing material for Mallard?
BH: Yeah, but I used songs by John and Mark Boston [Mallard's
bassist].
DG: Didn't you say that when you were with Captain Beefheart that you
and the keyboard player worked on a lot of musical arrangements?
BH: That was John French on the very first Beefheart albums.
DG: Did French become a member of Mallard?
BH: John was in and out of the Beefheart band, I don't know how many
times. He came into Mallard for awhile. But then he didn't want to
do it.
DG: Didn't Ian Anderson initially back the Mallard project?
BH: Totally. He set up a situation where we got signed to Virgin
[Records]. Through being the opening act and making the connection
early on, he got hold of Bill Shumow, our manager at the time, and
said, "Hey, where are these guys and what are they doin'?" He got
us into the studio and wrote a song for us. A bizarre song. I've
got the tape of it [laughs]. Real Ian Anderson-sounding! Anyway,
he says, "Hey, here you go. I'll give you the money. Here's a
tune."
DG: So Ian Anderson wrote a song for Mallard?
BH: One song. It never showed up anywhere. He was in town and the way
I thought of it is here's this guy who works twenty hours a day
and needs to be busy [laughs]. He had a day off, so he wrote us a
song. Anyway, he was very nice and I appreciated what he did. We
went to England and recorded the first album in his studio with
his engineer.
The first album was basically a demo tape. I never really considered it an album. It was a demo tape to get a record deal. I thought it was pretty weak. There were some parts of it that were okay. But my intent was that this music was a demo. Virgin bought it and it came out in the U.K. as an album, Uh ooh!
DG: Did you tour to promote it?
BH: Let's see... did we play any gigs with Arty [Art Tripp]?. No, we
didn't. The second LP was the one we were going to tour for.
DG: In A Different Climate?
BH: Yeah. Virgin changed to CBS distribution, and there was some tour
money happening. Now I was starting to see a musical identity. I
was starting to work on my playing as an individual. Before, I was
sort of clone-chasing these musical styles. Anyway, we were
supposed to tour. The album is on the Billboard chart. I'm hearing
it on KHJ, as their logo, one section of "Mama Squeeze". There are
some parts on that album I liked. Anyway, the tour money ended up
in somebody's pocket. We got the band ready, where's the money?
Let's go [laughs]. Nothing!
DG: So the band fell apart?
BH: When Virgin switched distributorship in the States, the album was
not picked up. They dropped it. Out of print, just like that. I
said, "Goodbye everybody, I'm gonna do a domestic scene," and
moved up here (Oregon) and studied classical guitar. Thought I'd
get into guitar playing as opposed to this business trip.
DG: What are your plans concerning recording?
BH: Those are always plans that have always been around since I moved
here. Seems they get put by the wayside for life trips, ya know,
but that's really in the forefront right now. What I want to do is
think of what I want; what kind of musical sound I can be. Also, I
became straight now almost two years ago November. I was drinking
my life away. So I think it's taken me awhile to be long enough
away from that to get into a groove again. So now, with those
attitude things out of the way, I think I'm ready.