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By Jeb Wright
Transcribed By Eric Sandberg
Above Photo by Brown Photography
Ted Nugent has released a new album full of piss, vinegar and tons of guitar solos. Titled The Music Made Me Do It the album is totally Nugent. Part rocking’, part silly, part ‘shake yer head at what he said’ all centered around lickity-split guitar playing.
Nuge took time to discuss the new album with me. I purposely stay off most hot political topics because I am interested in the music…the music that made him do it!
Jeb Wright: It's so great to have a new album from you. I got started with Double Live Gonzo. It's nice to still be talking to you about a new album after twenty years of interviewing you.
Ted Nugent: I appreciate that too because, just like the title says, the music really does make everybody do everything. It's the audio-stimuli in our lives, it's the soundtrack to our rollercoaster ride adventure, the ups and the downs, the good, the bad and the ugly. It's really a powerful force and for me to have the passion that I have for it. It's absolutely out of control and I know that's what you and I share - we love the pulse, the attitude and the spirit of the music.
I think Greg, Jason and I captured it on this new record at the tender age of seventy so I'm a lucky son of a bitch.
Jeb: Have you hit the big seven-oh?
TN: December 13th, I'm actually 69.9 years old right now [laughter].
Jeb: Only you could come up with a song called "Backstrap Fever."
TN: It would be sacrilege if anyone else did it, but for me it makes perfect sense!
Jeb: I need to know the story behind this one.
TN: Well, I do a lot of campfires, a lot of charity work - children’s charities, military charities. We auction off hunting trips that I donate. People pay a lot of money and they're for the most important causes of all, certainly children and our military.
When we get around a campfire there is an openness. Nobody holds anything back. I certainly don't hold anything back, ever. There's a higher uninhibitedness and an honesty and a lot of outrageous things happen. I'm always whipping out a guitar and I play "Fred Bear" and "Tooth, Fang & Claw," Great White Buffalo" and "Geronimo & Me," songs that are outdoor, hunting and conservation oriented.
Everyone wants to hear the "Cat Scratch Fever" riff because it's so cool! When I do it around the campfire I just have fun with it. There's another version of it called "Can't Track Beaver." [laughter] I just have fun with it.
We're at a hunting campfire and there's usually a dead critter hanging from a pole, and we're dining on back straps over an open fire. I just went with the instinct of it all and started singing "back strap fever" one night. I thought "I've gotta record this!" so I did.
Jeb: It makes me smile and shake my head.
TN: That's why God sent me here, to make you smile or downright make you laugh out loud. Absolutely!
Jeb: You either seem to make people smile or piss them the f#ck off!
TN: That's the story of my life. If you don't think America needs secure borders then I hope I drive you nuts.
Jeb: Is the video that's out for the title track from the live DVD that comes with the Deluxe Edition?
TN: No, the video for the song was just something we created for the song while on tour last summer. The DVD in the package is a full concert from Detroit we played last year.
Jeb: This three-piece you have now, with Greg Smith and Jason Hartless, is a mother-humper of a band. I put Jason up there with the best drummers you've ever had.
TN: No doubt about that. You can tell right away that the guy's not only gifted with talent but he's got the spirit. If you really stop and list my drummers, from Carmine Appice, Cliff Davies, Denny Carmassi, Chad Smith, Cliff Brown, Tommy Aldridge and Tommy Clufetos...come on!
I've had the world's greatest musicians at my side all my life! When you can have all those guys in your band and then get Jason Hartless, who is one third their age, you know you've got a gift from God.
Jeb: What is the process for Ted Nugent at 69.9 to create new music? Are you bringing them full demos or are you jamming together in the studio?
TN: I play my guitar every day. I'm always playing with new amps and old amps in different combinations as I pursue the definitive tone - something I've accomplished throughout my life - but I'm always seeking the uncharted territory tone-wise to achieve a new musical expression and sound.
And when I play my guitar, Jeb, every time - these licks happen. The way I touch my guitar, the tone I might have it set at, the new experimental highs or lows or mids or volumes, makes me play these licks. That's where "Just What The Doctor Ordered" came from. That's where "Hibernation", "Dog Eat Dog," "Wang Dang..." or "Wango Tango," "Stormtroopin'," and "Motor City Madman" came from. "Crave," what a killer lick that is. "Tooth, Fang & Claw," "Spirit Of The Wild," "Fred Bear" comes from me just touching the guitar.
I love music so much it's like I have a calling. My hands start moving and I'm so groove oriented, so rhythm addicted - coming from the great black artists that we've talked about. The Funk Brothers, James Brown's incredible, tight band. The pulsations of Bo and Chuck and Little Richard and all that original high energy rock and roll.
So, as my amp comes on and my guitar starts making noise, I'm pursuing some groove, some lick, some pattern...I don't write songs, I just let them happen. I unleash the grooves and the licks. And the licks have syllables. What would you sing? "Cat scratch fever...dog, dog, dog eat dog." I didn't try any other lines, those were the first lines that came to me. The guitar lines have lyrics. The guitar has a voice and a cadence ala the master Chuck Berry.
I don't write songs, I just start jamming and they happen and they arrange themselves, verse chorus, the bridge, the guitar solo in "The Music Makes Me Do It" [sings riff] "Everybody loves the groove, you gotta get up and move and take it into your soul." It's so organic! Where else could that have possibly gone? So I make these songs and I call my band and say "F#ck! I've got some killer songs here! I think you're gonna love these songs!"
Of course, when I play them for them, they say "That's awesome!" They love the song, they love to play it. They love the attitude and the spirit so there's a real unified passion. You just don't make music like that in the barn for yourself. That's where they all start, but when I share them with other music lovers, who love that original outrageous, irreverent, authoritative rock and roll/rhythm and blues, you don't dare not capture them, so you've got to record them.
In fact, I'm hooking up with Michael Lutes and Jason Hartless next week in Ann Arbor Michigan - I'm up in the Michigan swamp right now - and we're going to lay down two new songs I wrote that are an absolute riot.
Even at 69.9 and ascending...the title of the record says it all, the music makes me do it. It makes me pick up the guitar and seek uncharted territory though a lot of it sounds familiar, the magic of a good songwriter and a good song is, you know it's new, you've never heard that title, those lyrics, that lick, but it feels comfortable.
Jeb: I'll tell you an example of that on the new album, if you're a Ted Nugent fan, is "Cocked, Locked and Ready To Rock."
TN: It's like "Stormtroopin'" backwards (laughter). It's the same lick upside down.
Jeb: That's what I like about your music. Some people get lazy or they try to chase after some new sound. You've made a Ted Nugent record. I think the track I'm listening to the most is the two-part "Sunrize."
TN: Really?
Jeb: It's mellow, it's not a typical Ted Nugent song, but it's got a lot of warmth to it.
TN: Thank you for that. We love it. We have the band version and then my solo Thunder six-string bass. There's a certain energy to it. It captures the image of a sunrise whether it's a literal sunrise or the awakening of an individual, an awakening of ideas, or love, or the spirit...of dreams. "Sunrize" can be the Sun coming up or the glow inside someone coming out.
Jeb: How old is that song?
TN: I was on my way to Detroit one day and I had one of my six-string basses, a classic Fender. I think Jack Bruce played one in Cream and I know Joe Perry played one on "Back in the Saddle," that deep, grinding pattern. I love it. It had its own voice.
Michael Lutes called and said "I've got a brand new recording unit. Could you stop by and play something?" I went in his living room where he had this recording unit set up and tuned up the six-string bass and, Jeb, I played it. I had never played it before. I just started dickin' around on the bass and, quite honestly, the melodies on "Sunrize" are so rudimentary. They really are just chordal notes but it sounds like a concerto.
I've experienced and cherished so many sunrises as an outdoorsman, sitting in a duck blind with my dogs or in a tree or the Sun coming up around me in the forest or a swamp, and it really is special. It really is a spiritual moment where you're so close to God, so close to the pulse of his creation.
You're a player. You're going to use his resources and you're going to try to use your predator reasoning skills and your radar level of awareness to overcome the miraculous, impenetrable defenses of a whitetail deer with a sharp stick. It's almost impossible! So you're so tuned in to your surroundings that, before the sun comes up, you feel something.
It's one thing to see it on the movie screen or TV on a National Geographic show but, when you're in the belly of the beast and in his domain, and the day is coming on, and that sun creeps up behind the cattail marsh, through the tree branches and over the mountain edge, it's the highest of highs and it really strengthens your spirit and your soul and your vision.
And when you get out of the swamp and grab your guitar, that's what it sounds like. That's a perfect example of the spontaneity that I'm blessed with coming out of my aboriginal swamp, literally. You've heard about people referencing the primal goo, I'm actually walking in it every day. I've got primal goo on my boots!
When I pick up my guitar I can literally deliver the primal scream I was just in. Not many people can do that. They've heard about it, they know about it, but they're not in it. I'm in it every day with my bow and arrow.
Jeb: I thought it might be an older one that you just hadn't unleashed on us before.
TN: Well it was on a custom made CD before called Ted Nugent Hunt Music. I think it's been around since '94. Last year on tour, which was the greatest tour of my life, we played "Sunrize" as the guitar solo section of "Good Friends and a Bottle of Wine" and it worked really well.
Jeb: "Comfortably Dumb" sounds like a classic 70's Ted Nugent song.
TN: Isn't that great? That would fit right on the Free For All album or right next to "Death By Misadventure" on Cat Scratch Fever. I'm real proud of that. If I'm anything, I'm absolutely honest in my musical love. I don't overthink anything. I don't even think! [laughter]
Jeb: You've got so many good songs. How are you going to squeeze these new ones in live?
TN: I don't know! We did "The Music Made Me Do It" and "Big Fun Dirty Groove Noise" this year and people loved them.
Jeb: "The Music Made Me Do It" is a powerful song.
TN: Powerful, and it's so infectious if I do say so myself. It's a great chorus and who doesn't believe the music makes them do it!?
Jeb: Of course, you've always had your critics, and it seems like the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame is always going to ignore Ted Nugent.
TN: You know you've got real music lovers and then you've got goofballs. The real music lovers know that I love my music. I put my heart and soul into every musical moment of my life. And that's why they keep coming to the concerts and they keep buying the songs, and the communication...go look on Facebook and see all the love that is spread because they love my music. We all love my music and we love the music that inspired my music.
Everybody has musical moments in their lives constantly and they know that I'm honest about my statements. I write grossly politically incorrect lyrics and I don't even try. I just express myself on any thought. I don't worry about what I have to say, because I'm confident that what I have to say is accurate and honest or at least fun and outrageous.
Jeb: What do you think is an underrated Ted Nugent album that you would recommend to a new fan?
TN: Probably Craveman or Spirit of the Wild. Spirit of the Wild is a monster.
Jeb: I agree. That's the one for me. That's got "Fred Bear," the title track, "Tooth, Fang & Claw" ranks in my top five Nuge songs.
TN: I think so. Mine too. I hear that a lot. At the charity campfires, we do here Saturdays in Michigan, I guarantee "Tooth, Fang & Claw" gets requested every time. I think the battle cry for quality of life is to repeat the greatest philosopher of all time, Dirty Harry. Dirty Harry said "A man's got to know his limitations..."
I warned Doug [Banker, Ted's manager] after the 2016 tour, and nearly seventy gigs, that I was really tired. I could have kept going but it was adrenaline. When you really, really love something, and the adrenaline keeps you going, your physical capabilities can't keep up with the adrenaline. I have to take a deep breath because I can become blinded by my craving to do another concert.
At some point you've got to go home. I-want-to-go-home. I told Doug that, in 2017, I can do three months, June, July, and August. That's it! After the three month tour in 2017 I was really, really tired and I told Doug "I'll give you six weeks in 2018. He told me he didn't think we could do six weeks because by week four we haven't even paid our bills yet.
I said "Well, make it happen" and he did. We had full pay, full production...it was a very successful tour. More important than anything it was the most fun, musical, outrageous tour. The band has never been tighter. And Jeb, you know when I say that - that's an outrageous statement.
Because with Cliff and Rob and Derek, and Damn Yankees and with all the different incarnations of the Ted Nugent band, we were so tight all the time, but what Jason and Greg did every night was just bombastic. It was the tightest, grinding-est, most fun...and that's the important thing...the most fun tour of my life.
I'll reveal this to you now. After the tour was over, we did six weeks, six nights a week. Nobody does that anymore, six nights a week. I do. At the end I thought "This is awesome!" Thank you Doug, Dennis, the booking agents, everyone involved.
But I will tell you now, in 2019 I will tour, but here's my demand: I will only tour if I can hub out of my Texas home. Anywhere I can go that is an hour and a half out, flying on my private plane, I will play. So that means all around Texas, Louisiana, Oklahoma, Arkansas...
Jeb: You can get to Wichita…
TN: Yeah, Kansas, we can get up there. I will only do it if I can get home every night. And then, I can do a few gigs on the way to Michigan and spend the night in hotels, but when I get to Michigan I will do fifteen or twenty shows where I can hub out of my Michigan Cabin so I can get home to Shemane [Deziel, Ted's wife] and the dogs every day, because that's where I charge my batteries.
Doug goes "Wow...I don't know if we can do that!" I said "I bet you can." He's already found out that the demand by, and love from, the promoters and the confidence they have that I can hub, not only out of my Texas house and my Michigan cabin, but also out of my daughter's house in Connecticut, where I can do New Jersey and New York and Connecticut and the East Coast. I've got to come back to my bed every night. I need that battery charge at this age.
Jeb: I don't know if you saw it but I recently did an interview with Charlie Huhn about the 40th anniversary of Weekend Warriors.
TN: I did! It was awesome! You did a great job and so did Charlie!
Jeb: What are some of your thoughts on that album after forty years? Do you even think about anniversaries or is the past the past?
TN: I always do because I'm often asked what my favorite record is and I don't like being limited to that. I can't just pick one album. I can't because there are some songs I've just got to play. I can't do a concert without playing "Stranglehold" or "Cat Scratch Fever" or "Great White Buffalo." That song goes all the way back to the Amboy Dukes.
So I'm well aware of anniversaries and I certainly appreciate people always talking about them on my Facebook and sharing the celebration of the time that has gone by and how the music still drives us. They love those old songs. But when I'm getting ready to go out on tour, I'm a bit selfish. I look at that hour and a half to two hours on stage and think, what do I want to hear? What do I want to play?
Jeb: That's why you brought out "Good Friends..." That was awesome for we Nugent fans. "Venom Soup", "Smokescreen," which I call "Son Of Stranglehold."
TN: Right. And you know, when you say stuff like that, Jeb, those words are repeated by thousands and thousands of people. They bring up "Smokescreen," "Thunder Thighs" and "Thighraceous." People bring these songs up all the time. How about "Papa's Will" from The Amboy Dukes? They're always asking for "Papa's Will!"
Jeb: I can see why. You've got strong fans. You once called me your "rock and roll blood brother" because all we talk about is music, but I want to ask you - at what point did you decide to start speaking out about things other than music, and why?
TN: As time went on in the ‘70s, I was so consumed with touring, playing three-hundred nights a year. It was just music, music, music, music, travel, travel, travel. I was contacted by people from every branch of the military and law enforcement and first responders. These are very special people and they have a certain perspective on politics because political considerations impact their lives and sometimes contribute to their deaths.
I realized that I was really ignorant about the history of America and the world. I started reading about WWII, the Bataan death march and the rape of Nanking, the atrocities at Auschwitz and the Holocaust and how evil people can be, because I didn't know about these things. They didn't teach this stuff in school. They still don't. They intentionally keep it away from us so we can be stupid.
In 1979, I was the top-grossing act on planet Earth and I'm hearing from these people who served our country and I learned that our government put the greatest warriors in the world, the United States Marine Corp, in charge of security at the US embassy in Teheran, Iran. They were guarding the front steps of our embassy but they weren't allowed to have ammo, which is why those punks took our people hostage. It's like telling a fireman to put a fire out but he can't use water.
I started realizing that these guys were taken hostage while they were representing me, and these warriors were coming home in flag draped coffins fighting for my freedoms and rights. I thought that was such an atrocity, such a criminal level of corruption and abuse of power.Now the term "Politically correct" hadn't even blossomed yet, but what kind of idiot in charge of our government would put Marines in charge of security without any bullets? My brain, to this day, rejects the notion. It was so wrong...so rotten.
And so I started speaking up, prodded by the guys and gals of the military and law enforcement. Then I started studying more and more and I realized that the politicians were not adhering to their oath to the Constitution so I felt betrayed by the people who work for me. They're not elected officials, they're elected employees.
They're supposed to represent "We the People..." based on Constitutional oath accountability and they were not. None of them were! So I started raising Hell and I started being contacted by people who did know the history of our politics and our Constitution and this experiment in self-government, so I was cocked, locked and ready to rock the Glock doc the way the founding fathers wanted all Americans to do.
I absolutely believe that I am exactly what the Founding Fathers wanted all Americans to be; suspicious, demanding and forcing elected employees to be accountable to their elected oath. That's what an American is supposed to be and that's what I am.
Jeb: In some ways it's made you an icon, but in other ways there have to be some places that won't book you.
TN: I don't care how it's interpreted from a standpoint of love or hate. I know I'm right. I know the Constitution isn't a bunch of hunches. A guy told me "Hey Nugent, I love your political views!" I said "Views?" They are self-evident truths, inspired by God. Individual freedom, The Declaration of Independence, We the People...the first time ever that society was able to experiment with having their own government.
We are the government. That was the first time that had ever happened. So I know I'm on the right track. The confirmation doesn't get more powerful than when families invite me to welcome home their son or daughter in a flag draped coffin. They seek me out and thank me for "fighting for the freedoms that our son died for."
Jeb, is there a more important love available to man than a family thanking somebody for fighting for the freedoms that their son or daughter died fighting for? That's it. I'm sitting on the mountaintop of "We the People..." unification with the people who matter the most, the people who fight the wars for us.
Jeb: Last one: I remember the time, when I was backstage at a show with you, a guy gave you his Purple Heart. I couldn't believe my eyes.
TN: That was special. What more confirmation could I possibly desire? The sincerity from that soldier speaks volumes about what he believes I represent. For him to believe that, how can I think that Michael Moore's opinion of me could matter [laughter].
