^ Veritas
Page 6
Steppenwolf Interview John Kay, lead singer
VERITAS: How did the group come up with
the name Steppenwolf?
I A: We didn't, it was our producer's.
None of us had read the book. This book,
great book, but generally what I'm interested
in is the name, Steppenwolf—German, but,
wolf you know; it's animalistic, like you guys
are (motioning at dirty hippie interviewer);
raunchy, primitive, that kind of stuff. It
sounded just as good as any name at that
time. We didn't have a better idea so we took
that.
VERITAS: Did you start with a Dunhill
group?
A: Steppenwolf did. But our first
group, Sparrow, was a Columbia group. That's
where we learned from our mistakes, which
we didn't repeat when we became Steppen
wolf.
VERITAS: What are you trying to accomplish
with your music?
A: Mainly, number one to satisfy
myself, because you really can't go out there
and play something that is designed to go over
with the audience if you don't dig it. That's
what I did when I was a single act bumming
around with a guitar. If they didn't dig me,
they didn't dig me. The most important thing
was that I dug what I was doing. The majority
of rock musicians that I know who are
anybody are into playing what they dig, and
if that goes over with the audience—it's great.
VERITAS: Then music is mainly an art form
with you?
A: Yeah, see, like this last album
that we've finished is the best album so far.
We've had some problems in the group the
last year and a half which we finally ironed
out by getting some new people who are not
only good musicians but whose attitudes and
life style jives with the rest, more than the
previous members did. When you get that
kind of a foundation where you get along
with one another, then it's very easy to work
that way. If you have people who are hassling
and there's fights, then you really don't get a
helluva lot done. Doing this new album is sort
of like a second coming. We hope to go on to
a lot more progressive things. I mean pro
gressive in our particular musical develop
ment. That doesn't mean compared to Jethro
Tull or anybody else. We're ourselves. We've
got to keep moving ahead so we know that
we're doing something that's new for us. So,
you keep writing songs, and you keep trying
them out. You finish and the ones you don't
dig go in the can.
VERITAS: Is there anyone who has inspired
your music? For instance, Mike Bloomfield
says that he has been inspired by several black
blues artists; you know, 8.8. King, Muddy
Waters, etc.
A: Yeah, but, I dug on people in a
different bag. You see, I started playing as a
single act during the days of the folk revival.
And so, the people that I was into were
people like Lightning Hopkins, Sun House,
and Robert Johnson. YOU know, and count
less others. I was aware of 8.8. King and
Muddy Waters and Howlin' Wolf and all of
those clowns-and I dug them a lot. But I
wanted to start from the roots so that I
understood what the hell I was doing. And I
never really went up into, you know Muddy
Waters and stuff. We've done two songs so far
in our career that Muddy Waters has played.
But I'm more concerned you know, with your
rural blues people than the amplified guys—in
terms of influence, you know. Once we got
our own band together then the influence was
more from within than from outside. I had
absorbed all that I was going to absorb at that
stage as an individual from Lightn' Hopkins
and all these different people. I was exposed
to some Blue Grass during the folkdays.
VERITAS: Bluegrass seems to be making a
comeback.
A: Bluegrass is great music. But it's
been going down for a long time. Because
people like Bill Monroe can't go on forever.
Flatt and Scruggs sort of packed it in. They
were sort of a commercialized form of that
anyway. A lot of people never heard of Don
Reno and Red Smiley and, you know the
Kentucky Colonels and even the Dillards.
VERITAS: What effect did the deaths of
Janis Joplin and Jimi Hendrix have on the
music world?
A: First of all, I don't think that
anyone is going to change his lifestyle because
of it,„The fact that two prominent people
O.D.'d on something that was because of
them being prominent. The fact that there's
people dying in skid row every day, you
know, bums dying of alcoholism is usually
ignored. Although suddenly the deaths of
those two people is supposed to be something
more meaningful than if it's just another
human being. So, when you talk to other
people, Grateful Dead, etc., that's the way it
went. It was almost expected that those two
people would drop that way. Jimi Hendrix
was living almost the reincarnation of the
James Dean legend. Out of nowhere, big
overnight, incredibly popular, I'm sure he
didn't have any place to go musically at that
point. He'd been putzing around with Band of
Gypsies and he didn't dig that because of
Buddy Miles and he tried the old Experience
and Noel Redding was taking the bottle to
bed every night. He was at a stalemate,
almost. It's quite possible that he might have
been able to get over that and into a whole
new bag like Dylan's been going through
many changes. Who knows, he may have done
it purposely, or it may have been an accident,
nobody really knows. But there will be a lot
of things written about it and to most people
it will be like another James Dean thing.
VERITAS: What place have you enjoyed
working most?
A: The Royal Albert Hall in Lon
don,,, You can't really go by geographic areas
„,We've enjoyed a considerable amount of
popularity in the South which surprised us.
VERITAS: Concerning static about appear
ance; has there been any?
A: There are two choices. Either
you constantly let that thing annoy you or
you ignore them. When you reflect upon their
situation (those who harass longhairs) and our
situation, we've got them beat,,,in terms of
doing something that we really want to do
and getting paid for it in the mean time. It's
endless, really. Some resent what you're doing
some resent the freedom that you have.
External stuff is such irrelevant s---. I mean we
have so many idiots with long hair among the
sub-culture. You know, there are a very
substantial amount of sincere and dedicated
people with suits and short hair. The days of
saying that guy's got long hair, he's automat
ically groovy are gone. It all boils down to the
thing of being judged on the thing of individ
ual merit rather than what you look like.
There's enough people who've jumped on the
bandwagon of wanting to have long hair who
should still be wearing grease and ducktails
and motorcycle boots. The external thing is
meaningless. It's certainly noway of identi
fying anyone as anything. You don't know
where you're at until you talk to somebody.
VERITAS: Do you feel that your artistic
style is prostituted by record companies?
A: They certainly were to Sparrow
by Columbia Records; that's why we broke
up. They had the attitude of" Let's cut some
commercial hit records then we'll let you go
into the street and cut an album." They
signed us because of what we played on stage.
Once we got into the studio they wanted
something else. When I negotiated the deal
with Dunhill, there was only one thing I
wanted: guaranteed release of two albums a
year and complete artistic freedom and that
we've had all along. We cut in the studio that
we want to cut in. We use the producer that
we want to cut with and we record the
material that we want to cut. And, when
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we're ready we give them some product that
they can sell for us. Essentially that's all that
a record company should do, unless you have
a manufactured act that needs an A&R man
from the publishing firm that hands them
songs. That's not my trip. That's why I call it
nonsense. For the most part, ever since our
first album, just about 99% of everything
we've done had been original, for better or
worse.
VERITAS: When you get out for a jive
performance, for instance some groups say
that they'd rather just jam. Do you ever feel
this way?
A: We're not that kind of a group to
tell you the truth. We did all our jamming in
the Sparrow days. What happens is that
you're tremendously affected by the mood
that you're in, the particular situation, the
audience, the acoustics, equipment, and un
less you can fall back on knowing that no
matter how bad you feel that night you can
always fall back on a certain arrangement that
you know works. At least you have that
security, that foundation. Then if good things
have happened you extend that; you go above
that. You don't stick to the same melody
part, you may adlib some lyrics. It comes out
in degrees. At the Royal Albert Hall we
certainly didn't play it like the record. It
really depends upon the circumstances. You
certainly start off with a couple of songs that
public's reaction to it. That determines a
whole lot of it too. If you get into a certain
geographic area where they want to hear the
way it was on the record you can die if you
don't do it that way. Then you stumble upon
