Interview Jimi Hendrix

Interview Jimi Hendrix

Reprinted from the L.A. Free Press (UPS)

Bill Kerby and David Thompson

In the avant-garde of pop music, one oí the most fruitful thrusts is being led by a 22 year old black hlghschool drop-out named Jimi (spelling was never his strong suit) Hendrix.

On a good night, he can sound like the best of lightning Hopkins and Karlheinz Stockhausen. Hendrix, on the threshold of a meteoric career, was greeted at the Monterey Pop Festival by the normally coolly laconic Stone, Brian Jones, who ripped his glasses off trying to scramble over the press picket fence to get closer to him. In England, Hendrix's home for the last 9 months, the Beatles, M.B. E. s and all, sit at his feet in the front row of clubs and watch him whip an endless procession of miracles out of hl guitar.

He is normally Joined by Mitch Mitchell on drums and Noel Redding (who Hendrix thinks looks suspiciously like Bob Dylan's grandmother) on bass, and together these three musicians produce a sound so wide and thick that it may well serve as more than just a figurative base for the Pop music of the future.

*If you can get your mind together come across to me . . .

Are you experienced?"

. . . Jimi asks the musical question. He is experienced and he IS an experience. Hendrix doesn't just play a guitar, he rapes it, abuses ít, violates it, eats it, and masturbates it. Out of this chaos comes a beautifully absurd electronic sound, a dirty sound as opposed to a group like the Paupers whose electronic sound is clean. Not in value, but in style, like the difference between the Beatles' sound and the Stones' sound.

Hendrix and the Who, both show stoppers at Monterey, along with "unknown" English groups like the Pink Floyd, the Move, the Action, and the Soft Machine are involved in not just playing music but in acting it out; performing theatrical and environmental pieces that involve the audience as participants, not just spectators. They are adding experience to experience in their music, going far beyond just a llght show. The theatrics of Hendrix' stage performance is not merely a cover íor mediocre playing ability, it is a part of a whole, and idea from a total concept.

FP: How long have you been playing and how long has it taken you to develop your playing and performing style?

JH: I've been playing six or seven years, constantly developing a playing style. Most of it started about four years ago. When I first started, some cat tried to get me to play behind my head, because I never would move too much, y'know. I said, 'Oh man, who wants to do all that junk ' and then all of a sudden you start getting bored with your self.

FP: You played around Nashville and the South for a while before going to England. What was it like?

JH-. In the bars I used to play Ín, we'd get up on the platform where the fan was in one of them nice, hot. greasy, funky clubs. We d play up there, and it was really hot, and the fan Is makin' love to you. And you really had to play, cause those people were really hard to please. It was one of the hardest audiences in the south . . . they hear It all the time. Everybody knows how to play git-tar. You walk down the street and people are sitting on their porch playing more guitar . . . That's where I learned to play, really, in Nashville.

FP: What kind of equipment, guitars and amps, do you use?

JH: I use a Fender Stratocaster. Everyone's screaming about the seven year old Telecaster, and the 13 year old Gibson, and the 92 year old Les Paul. They've gone into an age bag right now, but it's nothing but a fad. The guitars now days play just as good. Y'know the salesman is always telling you that Chuck Berry took this one to the bathroom with him and he dldn't have no toilet paper, so watch out for the pick guard . . .

The Stratocaster Is the best all around guitar for the stuff we're doing. You can get the very bright

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JIMi HENDRIX

trebles and the deep bass sound,

I tried Telecaster and lt only has two sounds, good and bad, and a very weak tone variation.

A Guild guitar is very delicate but it has one of the best sounds. I tried one of the new Gibsons, but I literally couldn't play it at all, so I'll stick with Fender. I really like my old Marshall tube amps, because when it's working properly there's nothing can beat it, nothing In the whole world. It looks like two refrigerators hooked together.

FP: You played on the recent Monkee's tour. What was that like?

JH: We played seven performances on that tour. The personal part was beautiful, they're such good cats, but we weren't getting any advertising. The people didn't even know we were there until we hit the stage. Us and the Monkees? Different audiences. But it wasn't their fault. They knew what they wanted to see. They came to see the Monkees.

FP: Were you influenced at all by the Yardbirds, especially the electronic stuff they did with JefT Beek?

JH: I wasn't really influenced by Beck. I only heard one record by him, "The Shape of Things," and I really dug it. I just listened to it and I liked it.

You've got to dig everything and then get your own ideas. Too much digging and not enough doing will set you spinning. I mean other musicians are doing so much in their own way. There's one cat I'm still trying to get across to people. His name is Albert Collins. He's buried in a road band somewhere. He's good, really good. But he's a family cat, and doesn't want to go too far from home. Ain't that always the way?

FP: What American groups that you've heard do you like?

JH: Well, I really, really like Bloomfield's Electric Flag, and on the East Coast there's a group called the Mushroom. Big Brother. Moby Grape. Vanilla Fudge has a good record, but I've never seen them so I can't really say. East Coast Clear Light will be good. I picked up a whole lot of albums here one time and it turned out to be a whole lot of mess. Now I'm scared to buy anymore until I get to hear them.

FP: What do you think of the trend in Pop music, especially in England, toward the performance of theatrical pieces on stage, a total environment, utilizing a light show and such?

JH: It's good in one way, but it's kind of bad in another, because groups like the Procol Harum are overlooked because they don't move around. Then the people read a review and say, "oh, this proves it, they bore the people," But the Harum's got words to say, they just don't jump around. It's not their fault. It's the fans who want only whatever's in fashion. A light show should work for you, not you for it.

The Jefferson Airplane's nothing but shadows; nothing but voices to the light patterns. It's sloppy now, they'll throw any kind of light behind them. Like in the Roundhouse the strobes were on for four hours straight I don't dig that . . . that's just pure nonsense.

But theatre pieces is really a different scene. Can you imagine taking "Othello" and putting it on in you own way? You'd write up some real groovy songs, you wouldn't necessarily have to say the exact lines. . . Great!

The Who is doing theatre pieces like "A Quick One While He's Away," but golly man, they just stand there when they sing it. They should jump into it ... like we're going to do in October. I can't say any more than that. We got a little something in the skillet and I hope the grease don't burn away. Heh heh.

FP: Have you worked with the Beatles?

JH: Yeah, we work with them. Not musically though. Heh heh. They're beautiful cats. The Beatles and the Stones are all such beautiful cats off record, but it's a family thing. Such a family thing that sometimes lt all begins to sound alike. Sometimes you just don't want to be part of the family.

I believe soon all the English records will sound alike, just like Motown all sounds alike. That's nice in a way, but what happens if you have your own thing going?

FP: What's happening with the Hippie Movement in England?

JH: Ifs not as organized over there, they've just got weird looking cats. It's a small thing, n like it is here. I think the police are very groovy over there. They don't bother you very much. As a matter of fact, I was walking down the street in London completely out of my mind, completely and utterly, and a Police wagon came and they said, "Hl, Jimi, now are you doing?" and I replied, "is it tomorrow ... or just the end of time ..."

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