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Ice-T In 1993

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Nearly 30 Years After Their Debut, Body Count's 'Carnivore' Is The Thrash-Metal Band's Most Fully Realized Album

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Led by iconic rapper Ice-T, the L.A.-based seven-piece keep their socially conscious themes consistent and the music louder than ever on their seventh studio album
Katherine Turman
GRAMMYs
Mar 10, 2020 - 11:06 am

In early 1992 Ernie Cunnigan visited the Burbank office of Howie Klein. The guitarist (who goes by Ernie C.) and the then-president of Reprise/Warner Bros. Records were listening to the upcoming self-titled debut from Cunnigan’s band, Body Count, fronted by his Crenshaw High School buddy Tracy Marrow, already famous as rapper Ice-T. Ice, with the savvy creative connectivity that guides his multi-hyphenate media career to this day, introduced his forthcoming metal band in 1991 via tracks on O.G. Original Gangster, his fourth album.

It's not unusual for high school pals to form a band. What was unusual, though, was that Body Count was a hardcore thrash metal band comprised of all-black musicians, with point-blank lyrics that were both insightful and incite-ful concerning racial and social inequities and the climate of America. Listening to the 18-track debut, Klein praised it, while voicing concern about the lyrics of "Momma's Gotta Die Tonight," a song about the matricide and dismemberment of a racist parent. Turns out it was the last track, a ditty called "Cop Killer," that should have given the executive pause. 

While Klein was and remains stridently opposed to censorship and is a dedicated free speech advocate, Body Count, per the era, was released with a parental advisory sticker (as was Original Gangster). Less than two months after Body Count dropped, Los Angeles exploded in fiery violence in reaction to the acquittal of four policemen in the beating of Rodney King, as well as the shooting death of black teenager Latasha Harlins by a Korean grocer. (The grocer was given only probation.) It was the worst possible climate for "Cop Killer," with lyrics including "F**k the police, yeah!" and shout-outs to then L.A.P.D. chief Daryl Gates, Ice's "dead homies" and King. The blowback went all the way up to then-President George Bush, and though Time Warner supported Ice-T in his fight against the song's opponents, he eventually pulled the cut from new pressings of the album.

Currently, streaming services including Spotify and Apple Music offer the version sans the group's most (in)famous song, replacing "Cop Killer" with "Freedom Of Speech" from Ice's 1989 solo album, The Iceberg/Freedom of Speech...Just Watch What You Say, edited to add samples of Jimi Hendrix's "Foxy Lady" and the voice of political punker Jello Biafra. On YouTube, "Cop Killer" has more than 1.5 million views, with most of the comments thoughtful and positive, understanding the intentionally incendiary messages Body Count was delivering. Ultimately, if Body Count isn’t a classic record in the way that critics consider Nirvana’s Nevermind or Public Enemy's It Takes A Nation Of Millions To Hold Us Back to be, it’s an important and groundbreaking one. As Ice-T has said, Body Count is: "a protest record,” not the norm in the metal world, but still the way BC's songs operate today.

Indeed, 28 years later, things haven’t changed. Biafra is also on Body Count's powerful new album, Carnivore. Police actions like "stop and frisk" (the NYC law enforcement program that was proven to disproportionally target black and Latino men) wasn’t legally discredited until 2014. Body Count’s one-time bassist, Lloyd "Mooseman" Roberts III, was murdered in South Central Los Angeles in 2001 in an accidental drive-by; in the last 12 months, 126 black men were killed by guns in L.A. County, as opposed to 23 white men. And Ice-T and Body Count are still raging against the machine.

Ice-T enjoys pushing buttons lyrically, and if they’ve sometimes been heavy-handed or misguided ("KKK Bitch" or "Bitch In The Pit"), Ice-T is a politically eloquent, passionate and personal songwriter, which can be too easily overlooked given Body Count's volume-heavy metal chops and Ice's delivery, a speedy vocal style that’s been traditionally more aggro-rapping than melodic singing.  

That said, Carnivore is Body Count’s best album to date; it’s the most fully realized musically, and there’s a cohesion to the vocals and music that led Body Count bassist Vincent Price to lay out the band’s growth in a Metallica timeline: "Manslaughter [2014] was basically Kill ‘Em All; Bloodlust [2017] was our Ride The Lightning, and Carnivore’s our Master Of Puppets."

He's not wrong, and though Ice-T’s more than 20-year stint as detective Odafin "Fin" Tutuola on Law and Order: Special Victims Unit has precluded lengthy Body Count tours, the buzz is loud for this seventh album.

Ice-T may be the original gangster, yet he’s patient, articulate and fervent in explaining songs and motivations to audiences and the press alike. "When I'm Gone," featuring Amy Lee of Evanescence, was inspired by the killing of Nipsey Hussle. It’s a reminder, as he says in the tune, to "tell the people that you love, that you love them now. … Don't wait; tomorrow may be too f**king late."

His prolific musical social criticism and seemingly left-leaning views are thoughtful and targeted, despite the vitriol of so many Body Count songs. In the nearly 30 years since founding his revolutionary band, Ice-T observes, "I think you’ve got less racism; less people, but more avid racism. It’s unnerving to think that we’ve come so far but there’s still so far to go." As he advised in a 2017 interview, "Don’t just be angry. Know what you’re talking about so you don’t alienate someone who should be an ally."

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Lamb Of God

Lamb Of God

Photo: Travis Shinn

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Why Lamb Of God Frontman Randy Blythe Is Rejecting The 'New Abnormal'

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The singer for the five-time GRAMMY-nominated metal quintet gives an inside look into the pointed social commentary behind the band's eye-opening self-titled eighth album
Katherine Turman
GRAMMYs
Jun 18, 2020 - 7:11 am

During his more than quarter-century as frontman for five-time GRAMMY-nominated metal quintet Lamb Of God, singer Randy Blythe has been on the receiving end of questions from journalists ranging from inane to tough. But in the heated spring of 2020, as conversations and actions about systemic racism become omnipresent, he is now asking himself those same "uncomfortable questions."

On Instagram, accompanying photos he shot from a June 2 Black Lives Matter protest near his Richmond, Va., home, Blythe was characteristically frank: "I'm a white man with black friends. In this time & beyond, I must ask myself what that really means—in fact, I must ask myself UNCOMFORTABLE QUESTIONS about what FRIENDSHIP ITSELF means." He goes on to mention his musical side projects that feature Black members, as well as his time performing as "the only white dude" in his favorite "legendary black punk rock group" (Bad Brains).

But it was the issues brought to light by the killing of George Floyd, at the hands of Minneapolis police, last month that truly changed the conversation Blythe is having with himself, as it has for many. When the singer meets his Black musician friends, across every genre, Blythe says they hug and call each other "brother." 

"So what does that truly mean to me?" he wonders on Instagram. "Is it just a cheap word for me to throw around in MY world—the safety of a metal festival backstage dressing room where their faces look different than almost everybody else's there?" 

To generalize broadly, metal has largely been the province of white, blue-collar suburban males. Even Body Count, the pioneering all-black metal band who formed in Los Angeles in 1990, attracts a predominately white crowd, despite the fact that the band is fronted by gangsta rap pioneer Ice-T.

In 2013, Canadian-born, New York-based journalist, scholar and metal fan Laina Dawes published "What Are You Doing Here? A Black Woman's Life And Liberation In Heavy Metal," an acclaimed book that explores race, gender and heavy metal. She recently penned an article for metal/rock magazine Metal Hammer, writing, in part, "Black folks in the metal scene are realizing that some of their non-black and white friends – folks they hang out with at a metal show, talk to online or in some cases, are bandmates – are racist. Not uninformed, or simply naive, but balls-out racist."

Read: Skin, Lzzy Hale, Reba Meyers On Women Rocking The Metal World

Blythe, 49, is not uniformed, naive or racist, yet he notes that the phrase "'I'm not racist, I have Black friends,' is a pretty common thing you hear white people say- I've said it myself," he writes on Instagram. "Again, what does that really MEAN? It's UNCOMFORTABLE for me to ask myself this question, but there are A LOT of uncomfortable conversations that must be had if things are to get better … So I cannot have black friends only when it is convenient & safe for me to do so, not if I want to look them in the eye the next time I see them."

While he doesn't call himself an activist—though he's attended Black Lives Matter protests and has documented them on camera—Blythe literally stands up for what he believes, and by dint of his fame, combined with reasoned demeanor, people take notice. 

"I let my words, actions and art speak for themselves, you know?" he tells the Recording Academy by phone from home. It's a not-uncommon refrain for artists, but it's not lip service for Blythe.

"Routes," the fourth single off Lamb Of God's new self-titled album, out Friday (June 19), draws from Blythe's experience protesting, in person, against the Dakota Access Pipeline (DAPL). Its lyrics are gripping: "A black snake beneath the ground / Extinction dripping from his mouth / Poisons water, hearts of men / Who choke the sky and rape the land." The very intentional guest vocals on the track are from Testament singer Chuck Billy, who's born to a Mexican mother and Native American father of the Pomo Native Americans, an indigenous people of Northern California. 

Blythe's convictions are well-suited to Lamb Of God's articulate, informed songs and albums, which have earned the band gold records, with 2009's Wrath hitting the No. 1 spot on Billboard's Hard Rock, Rock and Tastemaker charts and No. 2 on the Billboard 200. They repeated those No. 1 positions with Resolution (2012), while the band's last album, VII: Sturm und Drang (2015), debuted at No. 3 in North America and in the Top 5 in several countries. Alongside Blythe, Lamb Of God comprises guitarists Mark Morton and Willie Adler and bassist John Campbell; drummer Art Cruz, who's performed in and toured with the band intermittently since July 2018, makes his recording debut with the group on Lamb Of God.

As the band's eighth album, Lamb Of God is an eye-opener on every level: It kicks off with the spooky, slow, gloom-to-a-scream of the cri-de-coeur of "WAKE UP" in "Memento Mori" and ends with "On The Hook," a speed-metal, mosh-pit-worthy rager about opioid addiction.

With Lamb of God, the band created excellent, pointed social commentary bolstered by equally powerful musicality, well-suited to Blythe's biggest concern: climate change. On album track "Poison Dream," featuring Hatebreed singer Jamey Jasta, Blythe rails, "Fortunes made on misery / A burning river, a black sea … Toxic temple and polluted bliss / Residuals for evil men / I never had a choice in this / sacrificed for their profit." 

"I realized that every single place I've ever lived has had water pollution," Blythe, an avid surfer, reflects on the song's genesis. "Right down the road from Jamey is some sort of manufacturing plant that spills tons and tons of shi*t into the river there. He and I talked about this, and it's against FDA regulations. But because they're bazillionaires, it's just easier for them to pay the daily fine." (The song's final lyrics capture this dilemma: "Because you're not a human being, just a fine to be paid / Just the cost of doing business in their cancerous trade.") 

Read: Meet Armageddon Records, The Record Store-Turned-Label For Punks And Metalheads

Blythe has a gift for transforming his outrage toward miscreants into words, but he doesn't want to spell things out too clearly for listeners. "I decided against doing a track-by-track thing on this album because I think it destroys all the mystery of the music; it's destroying art, in a way. I think people should look at things and take it in; I don't want my hand held." 

Rather, he opts for the way he came up consuming music: not having an artist give a raison d'être behind every musical move, not being able to look up the minutiae on Wikipedia. For Blythe, not having a "guide" during his musical coming-of-age allowed him to internalize the music.

"It let me make it my own," he explains. "If I say, 'This song is about this and this song is about this,' [then] someone is going to listen to it with that in mind. When you make art, you let it loose into the world. It becomes everyone's. I don't want to deprive anyone of that experience." 

That said, Blythe will give some hints to his passionate process: "Every single one [of the songs on Lamb Of God] relate back to my concern with the environment, from the first one, 'Gears,' because it deals with the industrial revolution, which has a massive, massive, massive impact on the environment. That's how we got here, you know?"

The song "Memento Mori"—the title means "an artistic or symbolic reminder of the inevitability of death"—refers to "the universe in the palm of your hand," which is a pretty clear description of the world's addiction to small screens. 

Once a former alcoholic, the now-sober Blythe recently battled a new addiction: the pull of endless information. 

"I'm addicted to 'more,'" the dread-locked singer says. "More of everything. More alcohol, more drugs, more books, more whatever. For me, and this is something I've had to institute again starting yesterday, I'm going down the news and Instagram rabbit hole. I found myself, and that's where ["Memento Mori"] stemmed from, doing constant consumption of news, mostly."

His digital fixation got so intense—he says he was checking up to 15 different news sources on the daily, from "super tree-hugger left" to the "weirdest alt-right" sites, in search of "some objective truth"—he had to install a VPN blocker to restrict use of certain apps and websites. 

"It was driving me mad," Blythe says, "and I was wasting too much time on Instagram in the studio while I was tracking, just mindlessly looking, under the pretext of 'keeping up with my friends.'" 

Yet, he understood that "if I'm keeping up with my friends, I'm talking to my friends," he reflects. "I'm not looking at their posts, what they did yesterday." Rather than attempting to parse a million discrete sources, or give in to his screen-news addiction, Blythe opted to reach out to those very friends. 

Read: Death Angel Drummer Will Carroll Opens Up About Fighting COVID-19: "It Looked Like I Was Going To Die"

"During this pandemic, I've wanted to stay informed," he says. "But after a while, it comes down to me being responsible for my own health and looking at things objectively, trying to make a semi-educated decision. For me, it looks like talking to my friends who are in the medical professions, in [Emergency Medical Services], who are New York City firefighters, who are scientists. Because I'm not a smart guy, I got to call my smart friends [and] say, 'Guys, tell me what in the hell is going on and what I need to do.'"

When it comes to climate change and going green in the context of the music business, Blythe doesn't shy away from the tough questions—nor does he have all the solutions. There are groups such as REVERB, a nonprofit environmental organization that works with musicians to reduce the environmental impact of their tours. But it can be prohibitively expensive for a band to truly "go green." 

"For touring, that's a frustrating thing," Blythe, who drives a 10-year-old truck he plans to replace with something more ecofriendly in the future, says. "I reached out to our management because there are tour buses that run on biodiesel. And there are hybrid buses, but they're very few and far between and very expensive to maintain. Our carbon footprint as a band is huge. It's massive, and it's distressing to me, because we're either in a plane, a train, on a boat, a bus or in a car on the way to the venue. We've taken every single thing to a venue except for a helicopter so far, and all of that runs on fossil fuels.

"It's important to do what you can and recycle and all that stuff, but I think that the bigger question that needs to be asked is, 'How are we going to move away from these fossil fuels—period?' Because on a purely pragmatic level, fossil fuels are a finite resource. Why? Because they're made out of fucking fossils, things that died millions of years ago, and it become compacted in the earth and turned into coal and oil and gas and all that stuff." 

The singer has hopes that today's younger people—the Greta Thunbergs and future generations—will put words into action. "There's a population explosion, and we're using up these resources more and more and more. That means we do not have millions of years to wait until, you know, stuff turns into oil."

"On a purely pragmatic level, on a common sense level, this is where it drives me crazy" he furthers. "On a common-sense level, wouldn't we start looking for a replacement now? And implementing that now? Oil [lobbyists] and all that stuff, they care about profit margins, and that's it. That is disgusting to me; it drives me insane." 

Fortunately, Blythe has music, especially his ultra-energetic and intense live performances, as catharsis—at least he does when there's not a pandemic. Lyrics and interviews serve as a form of activism, education and personal accountability for him, too. One of his crucial goals is to always work on keeping his "moral compass correctly calibrated." That said, he acknowledges, "I'm a human being and I make mistakes and I say stupid shit just like everybody else, but overall I'm a pretty good guy." 

"I exist outside of my band. I think that's a misconception that people have," he furthers. "I am a human being; I am Randy Blythe, first and foremost. I believe what I believe, and I say what I want to say, when I want to say it, how I want to say it, without any regard whatsoever, as long as I'm not doing harm. And as long as I am speaking the truth as I know it, because I believe the truth is empirical." 

On the Lamb Of God track "Reality Bath," Blythe urges listeners to "Reject the new abnormal," warning against slipping into "dull indifference / when horror has been normalized a cynical defense." The lyrics dig deeper into his hopes. "The strongest hearts will raise their voice against the murderous tide: No! It can't go on like this! / Millions of voices echo in the darkness, screaming: No! I won't accept this!" 

The track ultimately concludes with the man who is not an activist growling his pained and passionate truth: "The faint of heart will fall in line, but I will not submit."

Nearly 30 Years After Their Debut, Body Count's 'Carnivore' Is The Thrash-Metal Band's Most Fully Realized Album

Alicia Silverstone as Cher Horowitz in 'Clueless' (1995)

Alicia Silverstone as Cher Horowitz in 'Clueless' (1995)

Courtesy Photo: CBS via Getty Images

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How 1995 Became A Blockbuster Year For Movie Soundtracks

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From 'Clueless' to 'Dangerous Minds,' soundtracks were big business in 1995, but the year's hits offered no clear formula for success
Jack Tregoning
GRAMMYs
Aug 9, 2020 - 4:00 am

Mariah Carey, Alanis Morissette, 2Pac and The Smashing Pumpkins all had No. 1 albums in 1995. Despite such hallowed competition, four movie soundtracks also topped the Billboard 200 chart that year. Two were family-friendly Disney behemoths: Pocahontas and The Lion King, the latter still powering from the previous year. The other chart-topping soundtracks, for the Michelle Pfeiffer vehicle Dangerous Minds and the stoner comedy Friday, were no one's idea of kids' entertainment. 

Beyond those No. 1 spots, 1995 marked a fascinating midpoint in a soundtrack-heavy decade. According to a New York Times report, a new release CD that year typically cost anywhere between $13-$19. At that price, a soundtrack needed major star power or an undeniable concept. 

For movie studios and musicians alike, the format was rich with opportunity. However, there was no certain formula for success. Some soundtracks were guided by a single producer, while others drew on a grab bag of then-current songs. Several featured one clear hit that eclipsed the soundtrack, or occasionally the movie itself. For all their differing approaches, the soundtracks of 1995 epitomized the energy and audacity of the decade, while also establishing tropes for the next 25 years. 

The Bodyguard: Original Soundtrack Album (1992) set the bar high for the decade. With a 20-week reign at No. 1, it remains the biggest-selling soundtrack of all time. Whitney Houston performed six songs on the album, including the titanic power ballad, "I Will Always Love You." (At the 1994 GRAMMYs, the track won the GRAMMY for Record Of The Year and Best Pop Vocal Performance, Female, while the soundtrack itself earned the Album Of The Year award.)

While The Bodyguard magnified their commercial potential, movie soundtracks like Quentin Tarantino's Reservoir Dogs (1992) and Pulp Fiction (1994) framed the medium as an artistic showpiece. Throughout the '90s, Tarantino and fellow indie auteurs Paul Thomas Anderson, Richard Linklater and Spike Lee made music a key character in their films. (The latter continues the trend on his latest movie, Da 5 Bloods, alongside six-time GRAMMY-winning composer and trumpeter Terence Blanchard.) Both instincts, for commercial returns and artistic validation, were well-represented in 1995. 

Read: 'The Bodyguard' Soundtrack: 25 Years After Whitney Houston's Masterpiece

Batman Forever (1995) epitomized the big-budget, mass-appeal mid-'90s soundtrack. Spanning PJ Harvey to Method Man, the 14-track set employed some tried-and-true tactics. First, only five songs on the track list appear in the movie itself, ushering in a rash of "Music From And Inspired By" soundtracks. Second, its featured artists largely contributed songs you couldn't find on other albums: According to Entertainment Weekly in 1995, U2 landed a reported $500,000 advance for "Hold Me, Thrill Me, Kiss Me, Kill Me," an offcut from the band's Zooropa album sessions. 

Most significantly, Batman Forever backed a surprise smash in Seal's "Kiss From A Rose." Originally released as a single in 1994, the ballad blew up as the movie's "love theme." In its music video, Seal croons in the light of the Bat-Signal, intercut with not-very-romantic scenes from the film. Outshining U2, "Kiss From A Rose" reached No. 1 in 1995; one year later, the song won for Song Of The Year, Record Of The Year and Best Male Pop Vocal Performance at the 38th GRAMMY Awards.

Both Bad Boys and Dangerous Minds had their "Kiss From A Rose" equivalent in 1995. Diana King's reggae-fusion jam "Shy Guy" proved the breakout star of Bad Boys, transcending an R&B- and hip-hop-heavy soundtrack. Meanwhile, Coolio's "Gangsta's Paradise," featuring singer L.V., the key track on Dangerous Minds, became the top-selling single of 1995; it won the rapper his first, and only, GRAMMY for Best Rap Solo Performance the next year. 

Other soundtracks from 1995 endure as perfect documents of their time and place. Clueless compiled a cast from '90s rock radio to accompany the adventures of Alicia Silverstone's Cher Horowitz and her high school clique: Counting Crows, Smoking Popes, Cracker and The Muffs. Coolio, the everywhere man of 1995, contributed "Rollin' With My Homies." 

From the same city, but a world outside Cher's Beverly Hills bubble, came the Ice Cube- and Chris Tucker-starring Friday. Its soundtrack took a whistle-stop tour of West Coast hip-hop and G-funk via Ice Cube, Dr. Dre, Tha Alkaholiks and Mack 10. True to the era, the music video for Dr. Dre's "Keep Their Heads Ringin'" is half stoner comedy, half cheesy action movie. 

Waiting To Exhale, the 1995 drama directed by Forest Whitaker, boasted a soundtrack with a clear author. Babyface, the R&B superproducer with 11 GRAMMY wins for his work with the likes of Boyz II Men and Toni Braxton, produced the set in full. Following Babyface's co-producer role on The Bodyguard soundtrack three years prior, Waiting To Exhale featured two new songs from the movie's star, Whitney Houston. 

Read: 'Score': Soundtracks take us on an emotional ride

Houston's "Exhale (Shoop Shoop)" and "Why Does It Hurt So Bad" led a track list that also featured Aretha Franklin, TLC, Chaka Khan, Mary J. Blige and then-newcomer Brandy. A powerful showcase of Black women across generations, the soundtrack has prevailed as a standalone work, going on to receive multiple nominations, including Album Of The Year, at the 1997 GRAMMYs. In a crowded year for soundtracks, which also included Dinosaur Jr. founder Lou Barlow's work on Larry Clark's contentious Kids, Waiting To Exhale demonstrated the power of a singular vision. 

For the most part, the soundtracks of 1995 tried a bit of everything. The previous year, The Crow: Original Motion Picture Soundtrack went all-in on covers, including Nine Inch Nails overhauling Joy Division's "Dead Souls." That trend continued into 1995, from Tori Amos covering R.E.M.'s "Losing My Religion" for Higher Learning to Evan Dando's update of Big Star's "The Ballad Of El Goodo" in Empire Records to Tom Jones gamely taking on Lenny Kravitz's "Are You Gonna Go My Way"' for The Jerky Boys movie. (Is there a more '90s sentence than that?) 

Elsewhere, the Mortal Kombat soundtrack blended metal and industrial rock (Fear Factory, Gravity) with dance music (Utah Saints, Orbital). For every Dead Presidents, which zeroed in on '70s funk and soul, there was a Tank Girl, which threw together Bush, Björk, Veruca Salt and Ice-T to match the movie's manic tone. 

Continuing from their '90s winning streak, grown-up soundtracks have proven surprisingly resilient. In an echo of Babyface's role on Waiting To Exhale, Kendrick Lamar oversaw production on 2018's chart-topping, multi-GRAMMY-nominated Black Panther: The Album, uniting an A-list cast under his creative direction. On the same front, Beyonce executive-produced and curated The Lion King: The Gift, the soundtrack album for the 2019 remake of the Disney classic, which spotlighted African and Afrobeats artists. In 2016, Taylor Swift and One Direction's Zayn recorded "I Don't Wanna Live Forever (Fifty Shades Darker)," pitching for the movie tie-in bump enjoyed in 1995 by Seal and Coolio. (The millennial stars stopped short of including scenes from the movie in their music video.) 

Like Batman Forever back in the day, the DC Universe continues to put stock in soundtracks. Both Suicide Squad (2016) and its follow-up, Birds Of Prey (2020), are packed tight with to-the-minute pop, R&B and hip-hop. Each soundtrack reads like a who's who of the musical zeitgeist. In 1995, Mazzy Star, Brandy and U2 grouped up behind Batman. In 2016, Twenty One Pilots, Skrillex and Rick Ross powered the Suicide Squad. In 2020, everyone from Doja Cat to Halsey to YouTube star Maisie Peters form Team Harley Quinn. 

As 1995 taught us time and time again, nothing traps a year in amber quite like a movie soundtrack. 

How 1995 Became The Year Dance Music Albums Came Of Age

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Dave Mason

Dave Mason

Photo: Chris Jensen

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Dave Mason On Recording With Rock Royalty & Why He Reimagined His Debut Solo Album, 'Alone Together'

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The ex-Traffic guitarist has played with everyone from Jimi Hendrix to George Harrison to Fleetwood Mac—now, he's taken another stab at his classic 1970 debut solo album
Morgan Enos
GRAMMYs
Jan 4, 2021 - 3:33 pm

Dave Mason is charmingly blasé when looking back at his life and career, which any guitarist would rightfully give their fretting hand to have. "I did 'All Along The Watchtower' with Hendrix," he flatly tells GRAMMY.com, as if announcing that he checked the mail today. "George [Harrison] played me Sgt. Pepper's at his house before it came out," he adds with a level of awe applicable to an evening at the neighbors' for casserole. 

Last year, Mason re-recorded his 1970 debut solo album, Alone Together, which most artists would consider a career-capping milestone. When describing the project's origins, he remains nonchalant: "It was for my own amusement, to be honest with you." 

Fifteen years ago, when the Rock And Roll Hall Of Famer started to kick around the album's songs once again in the studio, he didn't think it was for public consumption—until his wife and colleagues encouraged him to reverse that stance. On his latest release, Mason gives longtime listeners and new fans an updated take on the timeless Alone Together, this time featuring his modern-day road dogs, a fresh coat of production paint and a winking addendum in the title: Again.

Alone Together…Again, which was released last November physically via Barham Productions and digitally via Shelter Records, does what In The Blue Light (2018) and Tea For The Tillerman² (2020) did for Paul Simon and Yusuf / Cat Stevens, respectively. It allows Mason, a prestige artist, to take another stab at songs from his young manhood. Now, songs like "Only You Know And I Know," "Shouldn't Have Took More Than You Gave" and "Just A Song," which demonstrated Mason's ahead-of-the-curve writing ability so early in his career, get rawer, edgier redos here.

Mason cofounded Traffic in 1967 and appeared on the Birmingham rock band's first two albums, Mr. Fantasy (1967) and Traffic (1968). The latter featured one of Mason's signature songs: "Feelin' Alright?" which Joe Cocker, Three Dog Night and The Jackson 5 recorded. After weaving in and out of Traffic's ranks multiple times, Mason took the tunes he planned for their next album and tracked them with a murderers' row of studio greats in 1970. (That year, Traffic released John Barleycorn Must Die, sans Mason, which is widely regarded as their progressive folk masterpiece.)

Over the ensuing half-century, Mason has toured steadily while accruing an impressive body of work as a solo artist; Alone Together...Again is a welcomed reminder of where it all began. 

GRAMMY.com caught up with Dave Mason to talk about his departure from Traffic, his memories of the original Alone Together and why the new 2020 takes are, in his words, "so much better."

This interview has been edited and condensed for clarity.

Where do you feel Alone Together stands in your body of work? Is it your favorite album you've made?

No, I wouldn't say it's the favorite, but it's sort of spread out. When people ask me, "Well, what's your favorite music? What are you listening to?" I'm like, "I don't know. Which genre do you want me to talk about?" I can't pick it out and say it's my all-time favorite. There are other things I like just as much.

I mean from your solo canon, specifically.

Well, even from a solo thing, 26 Letters, 12 Notes, which I put out [in 2008], went right under the radar, because trying to put new stuff out these days is … an exercise in futility. And that was a great album! Really good. [Alone Together] definitely had great songs on it, and it still holds up, redone. So, from that point of view, it's great. It's probably one of my faves, yes.

When you made the original album, you had just left Traffic, correct?

Pretty much after the second album [1968's Traffic], I moved over here in 1969, to the U.S., for a couple of reasons. Traffic was not a viable option for me anymore, from the other three's point of view. So I decided to come to the place where everything originated from, which is America. Bluegrass, which had its roots in Europe and everything else, is uniquely American music. So that, and probably the 98-cents-to-the-dollar taxes, too. But I mostly came here for musical reasons.

Which divergent creative directions did you and the other Traffic guys wish to go in?

Had that not have happened, all those songs on Alone Together would have been on the next Traffic album.

Read: WATCH: Dave Mason & The Quarantines Uplift With New Video Version Of "Feelin' Alright"

You had quite an ensemble for the original Alone Together: pianist Leon Russell, vocalist Rita Coolidge, bassist Chris Etheridge and others. Were there specific creative reasons for involving these musicians? Or was it more in the spirit of getting some friends together?

I knew Rita and a few other people from early on, being in Delaney & Bonnie. All those people kind of knew each other. Leon Russell was new. I think Rita was going out with Leon at the time. A lot of them were gathered together by Tommy LiPuma, who coproduced Alone Together with me. Otherwise, I was just new here. I didn't know who was who.
Many of those guys were the top session guys in town: [drummers] Jim Keltner, Jim Gordon and [keyboardist] Larry Knechtel, for instance. Leon, I had him play on a couple of songs because I'd met him, I knew him, and I wanted his piano style to be on a couple of things. He put the piano on after the tracks were cut.

Let's flash-forward to Alone Together… Again. Tell me about the musicians you wrangled for this one.

Well, that's my band, the road band that I tour with. [Drummer] Alvino Bennett, [guitarist and background vocalist] Johnne Sambataro—Johnne's been with me for nearly 40 years, on and off—and [keyboardist and bassist] Tony Patler. 

Other than the slight differences in arrangements, there's more energy in the tracks. Other than the vocals, they were pretty much all cut live in the studio. The solos were cut live, because that's my live road band. "Only You Know And I Know," "Look At You Look At Me," "Shouldn't Have Took More Than You Gave," all those songs have been in my set for 50 years, on and off, so they knew them.

If I never had that session band on the original album and could have taken them on the road for a month, then that original album would have had a little more of an edge to it, probably. This new incarnation of it has more of that live feel. Those boys knew the songs. They didn't really have to think about them, but just get in there and play.

Aside from that, there are slightly different arrangements. "World In Changes" is a major departure, "Sad And Deep As You" was basically a live track cut on XM Radio probably 12, 14 years ago and "Can't Stop Worrying, Can't Stop Loving" is a little bit more fleshed out, which I like. The other songs pretty much stick to the originals. 

"Just A Song," I think, has a little more zip to it. It's got the addition of John McFee from The Doobie Brothers, who put that banjo on it, which is cool. Then there's Gretchen Rhodes, who does a lot of the girl background vocals on these tracks.

What compelled you to change up the rhythm of "World In Changes"?

I just wanted to see what would happen, taking one of my songs and adapting it to something else. I have a version of it cut the way it was originally done, and it was a question of whether I stick to that and put that on the album or do something exciting and totally different. To me, it came out so cool. The sentiment is timeless, and I wanted something on there that was new—an older song, done in a new way.

It seems like you still feel poignancy and urgency in these songs. Besides the fact that the album's 50th anniversary just passed, why did you return to the well of Alone Together?

Well, I started playing around with doing this 15 years ago. Mostly, it was for my own amusement, to be honest with you. But then, as it started to come together, and it was approaching 50 years since the [release of the] original, my wife and some people around me were like, "You should put this out." That's how it all led up to this.

Any other lyrical or musical changes that the average listener may not notice?

As to whether this ever reaches the ears of some new people, it would be nice. It seems unless you have some Twitter trick or social media thing happen, trying to get people aware [is difficult]. In other words, if a younger audience could hear this, I'm pretty sure they would like it. You'll probably have some people out there—the purists—but otherwise, I don't know. 

"Sad And Deep As You" is so much better than the original version, frankly. To me, it holds up. I think my vocals are better, which is one of the big reasons why I decided to redo it in the first place.

When you said "purists," there was an edge in your voice.

[Long chuckle.] Everybody's got their tastes and opinions, and that's the way that is. Same reason they booed Bob Dylan when he had The Band behind him. Some people are that way.

Even if people aren't familiar with the original album, I'd think your backstory would resonate with them. Your role in George Harrison's All Things Must Pass comes to mind.

Yeah, I played on a bunch of things. With All Things Must Pass, I pretty much just played acoustic guitar stuff in there with a group of people … George gave me my first sitar and played me Sgt. Pepper's at his house before it came out. I did "All Along The Watchtower" with Hendrix.

A lot of it's available on my website. There's a lot of cool stuff on there. On my YouTube channel, there's a great live version of "Watchtower" from the Journey and Doobie Brothers tour we did four years ago. But we'd be here for another half hour or more if we went over everybody I appeared with and everything I've been on.

Read: It's Not Always Going To Be This Grey: George Harrison's 'All Things Must Pass' At 50

Regarding Hendrix, that's an experience that not many other people can say they've had.

Very few. Very few. There are a lot of great guitar players out there, but there are no more Jimi Hendrixes.

You also played with Fleetwood Mac in the '90s, yeah?

I was with Fleetwood Mac from '94 to '96. We did an album called Time, which sort of went under the radar somehow. It didn't get promoted.

Why was that?

I don't know. It's not a bad album, but Warner Bros. was trying to force the issue of getting Stevie Nicks and whatshisname back in there.

Lindsey Buckingham?

Yeah, Lindsey. Christine McVie was on the album, but she didn't go on the road with us. It was kind of weird. The only original members were Mick [Fleetwood] and John [McVie]. It was a little bit like a Fleetwood Mac cover band, but it was cool. It was fun to do for a couple of years, but then they got back together again. C'est la vie. There you go.

Anything else you want to express about reimagining Alone Together 50 years down the road?

I don't think it's just the fact that it's my stuff because there are certain songs I've done that I would not address again. But the thing about those songs is that they all have very timeless themes. "World In Changes," I mean, that could have been written a month ago. To redo them doesn't seem that out of place to me.

Director John McDermott Talks New Jimi Hendrix Documentary, 'Music, Money, Madness … Jimi Hendrix in Maui'

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Johnny Flynn as David Bowie in Gabriel Range's 'STARDUST'

Johnny Flynn as David Bowie in Gabriel Range's STARDUST

Photo Courtesy of IFC Films. An IFC Films Release.

 
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Marc Maron And Johnny Flynn On Why 'Stardust' Is A Cinematic Space Oddity, Not A David Bowie Biopic

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One of the most interesting music films of the year, 'Stardust' has zero aspirations to embody the big Bowie biopic daydream, instead offering an intriguing, arty interpretation of an era that ultimately helped shape the sound and style of Ziggy Stardust
Lina Lecaro
GRAMMYs
Dec 30, 2020 - 3:49 pm

The hunger for a David Bowie biopic has intensified in the four years since the icon's death and in the wake of the breakout box office success of music films like Bohemian Rhapsody and Rocketman. But despite its perfect title and marketing that might suggest otherwise, Stardust had zero aspirations to embody the big Bowie biopic daydream. 

Released last month (Nov. 25) on multiple streaming platforms, Stardust is an intriguing, somewhat arty interpretation encompassing a short but influential window of time before Bowie broke big. The film follows a young Bowie, played by British musician/actor Johnny Flynn, in his pre-Ziggy, boho-rock days. Aided by Ron Oberman, played by comic and podcast king Marc Maron, the record company PR guy tasked with promoting the singer in the U.S. at the start of his career, Bowie takes an ill-fated press trip to America in 1971 that ultimately helps shape the sound and style of one of music's most revered figures: Ziggy Stardust.

Despite a disclaimer that states "what follows is (mostly) fiction" at the start of Stardust, the film's basic premise is based on true facts. Bowie did have to stay with the real Oberman and his family in Maryland before embarking on a bare-bones road trip to promote his music, and due to visa problems, the singer was not able to play any substantial venues or even play his own music during the tour. He was clearly struggling with some identity issues as an artist before he evolved into the Starman, and as depicted in the film, his relationship with his overbearing wife, Angie (Jena Malone), became more and more strained as he grew as an artist, fleshing out his flamboyant, cosmic persona and music.  

While Stardust is indeed a music film, the music logistics for the movie were no easy road. Last February, Bowie's son, Duncan Jones, announced on Twitter that he and his family would not authorize the use of his dad's music for the film. Consequently, fans quickly denounced the project. But the film's writer/director, Gabriel Range, had very specific intentions, and music wasn't necessarily essential to explore them. 

"He didn't want to give us the music, but that's great because it provided us more freedom," Maron said during a joint interview with Flynn before the release of Stardust. "We couldn't afford it anyway. The idea that we can't interpret this moment in David Bowie's life out of respect is ridiculous. David was a public figure who contributed so much to artistic innovation, to creativity in his work, and it's been out there in the world for 50 years. This idea that it's off-limits by any means to express interpretation of this man is ridiculous. They are protecting the brand more than they are protecting the person."

For his part, Flynn, who in the film sings covers Bowie often played live and does a glammy new song he wrote for Stardust called "Good Ol' Jane," didn't take the lead role lightly. 

"He's a big hero to me in lots of ways," he explained. "I passed on an earlier version of the script because I thought this is not a story that needs to be out there; it was more like the jukebox musicals that we've seen out there recently."

Flynn, an acclaimed musician in his own right and a promising actor, reconsidered when Range, working alongside writer Christopher Bell, came on board and took the film in a new direction. 

"He knew Bowie really well and he said, 'We just want to look at this tiny, tiny moment of his life," the actor explained. "I went to see the “David Bowie Is" exhibition in Brooklyn, and I was walking around the exhibit. It was so interesting. He was desperate to escape this sense of mediocrity and what he thought of as banality. [Range is] always looking for interesting truths about situations that change people's opinions of what a certain time might have been. We took things step by step, and it felt right at every step. This is such a small film and it doesn't negate or tread on the toes of a big, estate-backed film about Bowie. This can exist, too."

Indeed, it can. What's explored in Stardust would have probably taken about 10 minutes in a traditional biopic. Though its limited scope and intimate approach is far from the grandiose, glam-rock affair some might have hoped for, the film has many endearing moments music fans, if not the hardcore Bowie base awaiting a blockbuster life exploration, can enjoy. There's a nice chemistry between the two leads, for one, and in many ways, the film is a classic buddy flick/road trip, quasi-comedy featuring two opposites coming together and learning from each other. 

David Bowie's '…Ziggy Stardust…' | For The Record

Of course, the monumental undertaking of tackling a beloved and legendary figure like Bowie on film is a big risk for any actor or creative. The haters were not silent. 

Naysayers pointed to Flynn's lack of facial resemblance to Bowie, but the actor wasn't going for a gauche impersonation. 

"I tried on the wig, then we tried some songs and some scenes, just to see how we could get on with that. And each step that we took just felt like encouragement to move to the next," Flynn said of playing Bowie in the film. "I didn't know if the story we were trying to tell would work, but it felt right. And this era is the only David that I would have been happy with portraying."  

Read: "Space Oddity": 7 Facts About David Bowie's Cosmic Ballad | GRAMMY Hall Of Fame

Rock movies are often in danger of coming off as corny or cliche. Stardust, and the cast and creative team behind it, mostly avoided this by keeping the narrative ambitions specific and the acting fairly measured. 

As for the fan community and their critiques of the film, Maron is pragmatic. "I dealt with that with the Marvel idiots when I did Joker, too," he shared. "The nature of fanaticism and the idea of fans and that kind of religious dogma that goes around what they think is honoring their 'God' is really problematic in terms of moving art forward in a lot of ways."

Flynn, on the other hand, took the feedback as an indicator of Bowie's impact and lasting legacy.

"What made all the reactions interesting to me is the fact that [Bowie is] such an influence, and he's a different person to everybody," the actor added. "For Marc, it was the Scary Monsters era. For me, I discovered him during like "Space Oddity" and the early stuff, but mixed in with Ziggy and Hunky Dory, which is probably my favorite album. I think that makes it worthwhile to examine who this person was. It is fascinating, in terms of cancel culture and people saying, 'You can't touch that.' [But] I'm happy that there's a dialog around it and somebody who is such a beacon of liberal expression and artistic freedom."

David Bowie's '…Ziggy Stardust…' | For The Record

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