DETECTIVE: Live at Atlantic Studios

Michael Des Barres has been entrenched in the rock ‘n’ roll scene for four decades now; a European nobleman, brought up in England, living in Los Angeles, but with an enduring love of delta blues and the rock and soul of the mid-60s beat boom, he was front man for such seminal 1970s bands as Silverhead and Detective (featuring Tony Kaye of Yes). Jimmy Page personally signed Detective to Led Zeppelin's Swan Song records in 1975. Michael Des Barres was also the singer with the touring and Live Aid version of The Power Station, a Duran Duran spin-off band that became one of the most iconic live acts of the mid-1980s. From 1982 to 1985, Michael was a member of Chequered Past, which included Steve Jones from the Sex Pistols. Clem Burke and Nigel Harrison from Blondie, and Tony Sales of Todd Rundgren ('Runt') and Tin Machine fame. In 1985, Michael penned the song "Obsession", which became a number one hit in 27 countries for LA new wave group Animotion; the track has been featured in numerous movies throughout the years.

In 2012 Gonzo Multimedia were proud to release Michael’s album Carnaby Street; an earthy return to his mid-60s blues/soul roots, and now, we are overjoyed to be bringing you a reissue a record from his distant past; recorded when Michael was a very different fellow to the healthy, happy man he is today.

He told us:

“The Detective albums were made under such a darkness and incredible indulgence.  I always describe Detective recording in a studio as – it was three months just to get a drum sound. It was so costly, it cost 1 million bucks, and then we did it again.  Those albums were under the  aegis of the mightiest rock and roll band in the world, and they could do whatever they wanted. As a result we could do whatever we wanted, so … cocaine makes you particularly analytical <laughs> and we particularly analytical to such a degree that the studio incredibly over-recorded.  When we played live it was completely different.  As you know live rock and roll is what I live for, so that Detective live album is fantastic. Because it really captures what we were really capable of when you’re not thinking, when you are just being and doing, and as you know that is what I love the best. Spontaneous, chaotic rock and roll.”

Detectiveconsisted of vocalist Michael Des Barres, guitarist Michael Monarch, bassist Bobby Pickett, ex-Yes organist Tony Kaye, and drummer Jon Hyde. The band released two albums, Detective (produced by the band, Andy Johns and Jimmy Robinson) and It Takes One to Know One in 1977, as well as Live From The Atlantic Studios, a promotional LP recorded only for radio broadcast, in 1978.

Soon, we shall all be able to hear and enjoy it.

LINK: I am Entertainment Magazine - Michael Des Barres interview

IAE:   Please tell us where you’re from and what influenced you to pursue a career in music some four decades ago?
MDB: I was born in England and as a teenager I discovered blues music.  Like many other young musicians I feel in love with it's (blues) passion and  remain entranced by it.  Blues music has been my primary influence and can be heard on my album 'Carnaby Street' which, in essence is an homage to
the music I heard as a teen.
IAE:   What was the first record deal you signed and what was it like touring the world with so many legendary rock bands?
MDB: My first record deal came about when I was playing an androgynous rock star in a nude musical called "The Dirtiest Show In Town". Andrew Lloyd Webber saw the show and suggested I form a rock and roll band, that was Silverhead, and the rest, as they say, is history.  Touring is a strange beast; a heightened reality that alternates between temptation and boredom...my favorite form of self expression is live performance.


Read on...
If you have not done so already, check out Michael's Gonzo Artist Page

EXCLUSIVE: Michael Des Barres Interview (Part Three)

On to part three of my mammoth conversation with Michael Des Barres on monday evening. I feel very priveliged to have such intimate conversationsd with Michael, in which he opens up so readily about his music, his motivation, and his life...

Jon: I was listening to the Detective stuff the other day. I did what you told me, and I didn’t know you guys were so tight

Michael: It was ridiculous then. Shocking. A lot of those cuts they were like huge here. That band here is one of the seminal bands. The guys at Classic Rock, they’ve all acknowledged it. Classic Rock and Mojo have all given Detective kudos for being seminal bands that never sold millions of records but made great records. You know, sonically. I think One More Heartache is one of the great rock ‘n’ roll tracks, as do a number of people, and that’s enough for me.

I remember listening to it back with Page and Plant – it was obviously on their label - and even though the obvious influences of Led Zeppelin were on that album, it was still felt that when playing it for those two, well first of all getting them both in the same room, is all another chapter.

Barney Hoskins has just got a big definitive Zeppelin bio coming out which I am very heavily quoted in. I knew them very well you know. I mean Pamela was with Jimmy for Christ’s sake and Jimmy was a huge Silverhead fan – why else would he sign us to Swan Song, you know?

Jon: You ought to write your autobiography

Michael: Well I have. You know we have a 95-page proposal out. I was raised in an England which was Lindsey Anderson’s public school in If. It was like Oliver Twist in Dickensian life. I am a marquis, I was raised as a blue-bloodied British elite, which I loathe and despise to this day, and I have a very interesting life just lineage-wise, apart from the rock ‘n’ roll and show business elements. But the abuse that I went through, the extraordinary struggles.

At sixteen I’m a star in To Sir with Love, and my mother is in a lunatic asylum, and my father is in jail. It’s a hell of a fucking story. And I’ve told it. And I’m not going to go in the slew of: "born poor, write a hit record, buy mum a house, OD on heroin, get sober and work with rescue animals..." That is NOT my story.

(He did mention a couple of names there, and I can think of a couple of others, but in the interests of peace, love and harmony between all sentient beings, I have discreetly expunged them)

It’s a real savage attack on the hypocrisy of the British class system. It is also a cold clear objective compassionate view of what sobriety is. See I don’t believe in the twelve steps. I believe that if you are using drinks and drugs and alcohol, there are many more steps to your life than 12 of them. I believe that AA is an incredible organisation. But there are many more rooms than this in that house.

And I talk about that which is extremely controversial given the stance of most of the celebrity rehab stars that now get on the cover simply because they put down a bottle of vodka. Your life starts when you put down a bottle of vodka – it don’t end. You don’t instantly become spectacular and philanthropic and a wonderful human being simply because you quit heroin. There’s a lot more to it than that, Jonathan, as I’m sure you are aware. I am sure someone in your family, I’m sure you have experienced this. We all have.

Jon: I’ve been through a lot of drugs

Michael: Yeah, of course you have and the thing is you probably understand what I am saying. That clarity, and compassion and essential life living in the moment means that you live in the moment, that you don’t subscribe to some dogma.

As I said drugs and alcohol are for kids.

You experiment and you see and you know and you either end up like Aleister Crowley living on heroin and boiled eggs alone in Hastings or you don’t. I don’t see the glamour and the melodrama of drugs, I know what it is and it’s not glamorous. It is a brief glimpse into a consciousness that transcends the physical but it is not something that can continue because it will then do the opposite. It will sedate your higher self and destroy it and I that is not my vision for me, or humanity.

Jon: Well you do too much to be able to sedate yourself, don’t you?

Michael: The Devil makes work...... My hands are never idle, except when I was working for Steve Stevens (Billy Idol's guitarist)

Jon: The other day, I thought bloody hell my wife and I have seen you on television in various things we had watched and didn’t realise it was you

Michael: Well that’s it really. Nobody knows from whence .....but I can’t go anywhere without ‘Hey Michael’, whether it being on Roseanne’s show or killing people on MacGyver or singing on American Bandstand, you know, Dick Clarke’s thing, a lot of holy water has passed under the bridge

Jon: I'm looking forward to the album coming out because I’ve seen the rough edition of the video – I haven’t seen the finished one yet but it’s bloody good.

Michael: It is good – it’s going to be better. There is a sync issue that I don’t know if you spotted but I am such a perfectionist that I’m going to fix it. I’m going to fix it actually tomorrow morning – I’m going to get in there and really fine tune that video. But you know, Rob is the most supportive – I cannot tell you how great he’s been. And you know this, because you and Rob are friends, but I don’t know this and my experience of going into partnership with him I’m telling you has been the greatest and we are going to fucking make history, him and me.

There’s an article The Boss played in LA a couple of nights ago and a piece written how disappointing it is that he’s moved in the direction of the new album, and how he is incorporating loops, and this, and that his audience want to see a rock ‘n’ roll show which - when he does play - is majestic in what he does. It’s gospel, it’s church.

There’s very few bands capable of doing what I can do and when I say I, I mean the whole unit that is Carnaby Street – there’s a timbre to that voice and that keyboard like you picked up on immediately, that D3, that Wurlitzer keyboard is something that is so subliminal and means so much that people don’t even know what they’re listening to, but they know it – it makes them feel different and I am convinced that that is a secret weapon there.

Jon: I think so, because somehow you’ve managed to tune into the Zoot Money mojo, and it works and it’s something that people don’t do anymore

Michael: No, people don’t do it. I keep saying it’s below the waist music, so therefore you have to have some kind of sexual confidence or a love of the carnal which is not hidden or clandestine or masturbatory or secretive, but is exulted and joyous, you know, we have bodies, you know, use them.

Jon: I tell you what, something else I’ve noticed and this is really, it’s weird when I’m getting all this just from the one track – the only one I’ve heard and that live video you sent me of one of the other tracks, but although you are referencing the 60s, it’s not retro.

Michael: No I love that you say that. It’s not in any way whatsoever – it seems that plagiarism is a talent even now and the one who plagiarises the best. In my case it’s me, it’s in my blood that stuff and the sounds have a certain immediacy that transcend any evocation of the past...

And so it ended. I enjoyed our conversation very much, and I am sure that we shall speak again soon. In the meantime, if you have any questions that you would like to ask Michael Des Barres, email me on jon@eclipse.co.uk, and I shall pass them on.

If you have only just started reading this series you can read:

Part One Here
Part Two Here

EXCLUSIVE: Michael Des Barres Interview (Part Two)

Michael Des Barres is one of the easiest people that I have ever had to interview (I won't tell you who the difficultest ones have been) because when you talk to him (or at least when I am talking to him) the conversation goes into free-fall and we talk about all sorts opf esoteric stuff without actually meaning to...

Jon: It’s something I’ve noticed, because ever since we had our first chat I’ve been researching the Michael Des Barres career going back and you’ve always done a lot of different things. Haven’t you?

Michael: Yeah, because one things informs the other. I know.... you’re writing about Rick Wakeman, or you’re writing about Eric Burdon, or you’re writing about any of the guys you’re writing about. Each one informs the other, because you have context. I just want to express myself. That’s all I want to do. I don’t care in what shape or form it takes, I just want to express myself and that comes in a myriad of ways, you know.

I’m very physically fit so I love to run. Running to me is like performance art in a way, it’s a way of expressing your strength, your vitality, your stamina, it’s as important to me as writing a song, going for a run. You know, when I look in my garden, and I know you live in the country and can totally understand, Walt Whitman is a rock star.

Jon: Oh totally

Walt Whitman is also - believe it or not - a favourite and an inspiration to the uber-anarchopunks CRASS who do a totally different thing to that done by Michael Des Barres..

Michael: You know 'I sing the body electric'. He saw in nature what I see in Chuck Berry or .. you know, it’s the same thing. The rhythm of nature and the beauty of roses is as important to me as a melody. Why wouldn’t it be? So everything, if you can see it like that, you can see that every frame that you are looking in is worthy of your absolute, undivided attention, then of course you are going to go in different tangents. Some people call it ADD, I call it a blessing.

Jon: I hadn’t thought of it like that. Yes, because I’ve been studying what you’ve been doing and there is a mate of mine who is an old punk rocker – he’s a journalist in Texas – and he’s been inundating me with ....’Shit when you get on talking about the stuff he did with Steve Jones let me know.’

Michael: Well, Steve Jones, you know, I can answer that. Steve Jones is the greatest rock ‘n’ roll guitar player I ever played with. Very few people have stood next to him and sang. And I happen to be one of them. I’ve also tried to play his fucking guitar, and he’d sit down and smoke or whatever, and I’d pick up his guitar and it would sound like shit. As soon as he picked it up it sounded like Steve Jones. So he’s got a magic touch and an incredible, how would you say it.....there’s a savant aficionado knowledge of the history of rock ‘n’ roll. This guy is as knowledgeable as anybody I’ve ever known from Hawkwind to the Arctic Monkeys. He knows what’s happening and when they think it was just these four tearaways that picked up instruments - wrong.... it was Matisse, that’s what it was.

It was minimal. Brilliant. Because the less bollocks – if you will pardon the obvious pun – the better, the cleaner and simpler it is for anybody that was brilliant. The choice of the note, the stroke of the brush, you know I’ve said it a thousand times, but Steve Jones was the greatest rock ‘n’ roll guitar player I have ever worked with coupled with Clem Burke who I just played with in Texas, last week because we had a big jam on the night of the wedding.

There was Clem, the infamous BP Fallon, and two local Texan guitar heroes and we just played 'Honky-tonk Women' and 'Hoochie Coochie Man' all night, and it was fantastic. Clem Burke is Keith Moon – he has an altar to Keith Moon in his dressing room before he goes on stage every night with Blondie. So there’s a lot of lineage and knowledge and feel and Steve is a God to me – he gets me off – I listen to the Pistols daily when I’m running or I’m in the gym or something.

Jon: Well I know he’s putting some questions for me about Chequered Past for you at some point so.... I’m trying to keep the stories about you on the blog daily up until the album’s come out and we can’t think of anything else to ask each other. And I don’t think that is going to happen any time soon.

Michael: Oh fuck no. We could talk about a blade of grass, you know, in terms of rock ‘n’ roll. It’s all encompassing. There are so many experiences. I can tell you about evenings with Jimmy Page, I can talk to you about, you know, the first time 20,000 girls took off their tops and threw them at John and Andy Taylor. I could tell you about the first gig I did with Power Station, when I walked out live – it was in New York we did a secret show which thousands of people tried to get into because it was announced an hour before on the radio.

I walked out in the middle of that stage, and I felt like Charlton Heston in 'The Ten Commandments' when the Red Sea parts, because one side of the room went to John and the other side went to Andy and I was looking at a complete vacuum down the middle and I thought how wonderful fame is, and I learnt something from it. I learnt so much ... if you pay attention and you get your ego out of the way, and by the end of tour they were throwing their tops and their bottoms at me.

Jon: There’s nothing I can say to that

Michael: The point I’m trying to make is that one’s life has just been a series of vignettes – just violent joy.

Reading this interview again, the one thing that strikes me is that Michael, for all hios fame and accomplishments is essentially a very humble man. When he describes extraordinary events that have hapened to him, he doesn't do it in a "Hey, look at Me!!!" way. He just tells what has happened and attempts to offer un some analysis of an extraordinary situation. That, is probably, the main reason why I like the man...

MICHAEL DES BARRES: Another blast from the past

After I posted a Detective song the other day, Michael Des Barres wrote to me: "Jonathan, The key Detective song,which was recently voted one of the key tracks in hard rock history by Mojo magazine,is One more heartache...!"

I didn't get where I am today by arguing with Marquises, and he is right - it is a spectacular song....

MICHAEL DES BARRES: For those of you not as au fait as you should be with Michael's back catalogue...

...check this out.

MICHAEL DES BARRES - An exclusive sneak look at the next album

I have always liked Michael des Barres. Back in the mid 1980s when I was still a student and dating the girl who was to become my first wife, I heard a band called The Power Station. Alison (my first wife-to-be) was a massive fan of Duran Duran and so being as OCD as I am, I bought loads of Duran Duran rarities and spin-off records for her. One of them was the aforementioned debit LP from The Power Station. Its vocals were by Robert Palmer, a dude whom I always admired, and I was disappointed when I discovered that he didn't want to play live and so left the band after the first album but before they had started touring.

One day we were reading the music press and my future ex-wife said: "Oooh, they've replaced Robert Palmer with some bloke called Michael des Barres".

"Who the hell is he?" I grunted bad temperedly, but I checked him out and soon became a fan. Over the years I have got hold of stuff that he did with his previous bands, Silverhead and Detective. I also got mildly OCD about Led Zeppelin at around that time and as Detective had been signed to Swansong this was an added bonus. Over the years I have heard various bits and bobs that Lord des Barres (yes, he is a member of the British peerage) has done, and I have always been impressed.

This morning I woke up feeling dreadful. Bipolar and diabetes are not a good mix, and I have not been a well man for years, but this morning I was feeling particularly yucky. My sprits were lifted, however, by an email from the big cheese himslf. It contained an MP3 of a new song by des Barres, and a picture.

"This is jolly good" I typed back. "Tell me more".

"Well, its a sneak preview of a track from the forthcoming album 'Carnaby Street' which we are putting out in the late summer or fall" he replied.

I remonstrated him for not using the Queen's English. "It is autumn, dear boy", I wrote, but asked whether I could post the aforementioned sneak preview onto the blog.

"Go for it" he replied.

So I did.