Starting At Zero

by Jimi Hendrix

  Those little things were just added on, like frosting, but the crowd started to want them more than the music. The more the press would play it up, the more the audience would want it, the more we’d shy away from it. Do you see where all that fits? You can’t prostitute your own thing. You can’t do that.

  Half of the things I did because I just felt like it at the time. I’d say, “Maybe I should smash a guitar or something tonight,” and they’d say, “Yeah, that’ll be cool.” So I worked up enough anger so I could do it. It was fun! Maybe everybody should have a room where they can get rid of all their inhibitions. My room was a stage. But you can only freak out when you feel like it. I used to feel like it a lot, but not anymore. You’d have a heart attack if you were doing it every night like I was. I’d be dead by this time!

  I feel very guilty when people say I’m the greatest guitarist around. What’s good or bad doesn’t matter to me. It’s how you feel about what you’re doing that matters. If only people would take a more true view and think in terms of feeling. Your name doesn’t mean a damn. It’s your talent and feeling that matter. I just toss off those people who are doing it for their own egotistic scene instead of trying to show off another side of music.

  We’d like to turn everyone on to all we know. You can always sing about love and different situations of love, but now we’re trying to give solutions to all the protests and the arguments that they’re having in the world today. Every time we come into town everybody always looks towards us for some kind of answer to what’s happening to them, which is a good feeling, but it’s very hard. Therefore I have to live the life, I have to witness all these bad scenes and all these good scenes, so then I can say what I found out. Anybody can protest, but not too many people can offer a decent answer. So we’re going to try and do that.

  Have you missed London?

  It’s great to be in London again. This is the place I feel most comfortable, and I feel the English are my friends. The English girls are just too much. I was out walking yesterday and it must have been about five degrees below zero, but they were still walking around in their little miniskirts. Yes, we missed London.

  How do you like living in Handel’s home?

  I didn’t even know this was his pad, man, until after I got in.

  There’s a cherub with a broken arm on the ceiling ...

  That’s the groovy thing about him. He can fly with a broken arm.

  Do you have feelings for classical music?

  Oh yeah, it’s beautiful, it’s very beautiful. I like Handel and Bach. It’s like a homework type of thing. You can’t hear it with friends all the time. You have to hear some things by yourself. See, different music is supposed to be used in different ways. I believe the best time to listen to classical music is any time when it’s very quiet or your mind is very relaxed. When you feel like daydreaming, maybe …

  Do you like classical rock?

  To each his own. In another life the people who are trying to do it may have been Beethoven or one of those cats. But this is a rock and roll era, so the people get into rock. Every era has its own music.

  What about jazz?

  If I go to somebody else’s place and hear somebody else’s records, then I’d listen to jazz. But if I’m at home I’d never put on a jazz disc. I consider jazz to be a lot of horns and one of those top-speed bass lines. If it’s axes, I like to listen to it. But to play it – I don’t think that way. I like free-form jazz, like Charlie Mingus and this other cat who plays all the horns, Roland Kirk. The groovy stuff instead of the old-time hits, like when they get up and play How High The Moon for hours and hours. But I don’t happen to know much about jazz. I know that most of those cats are playing nothing but blues though – I know that much!

  Didn’t you play with Roland Kirk recently?

  I had a jam with him at Ronnie Scott’s, and I really got off. It was great. I was so scared! It’s really funny. I mean, Roland, that cat gets all those sounds. I might just hit one note and it might be interfering, but we got along great I thought. He told me I should have turned it up or something. We have different moods, and I think some are on the same level that Roland Kirk is doing. If people read this they’ll say, “That guy must be joking,” but I really think we are doing the same things. I really want to cut an album with Roland Kirk. He’s the most beautiful human being alive that plays jazz. He hasn’t really even started yet. When you hear him you can hear so much of the future. You can hear some of the things he’s going to go into. I mean, not necessarily by notes, but you can hear it by feelings. Running through a field, an everlasting field of beautiful things, man.

  How do you see the future of pop music?

  I don’t know. I’m not a critic, you know. And I don’t like the word “pop.” All it means to me is Pilgrimage of Peace.

  How would you like your music to be described then?

  We are trying to play real music. We don’t play blues, although some people seem to think we do. Rather we play a mix of blues, jazz, rock and roll and a lot of noise. We call our music Electric Church Music because it’s like a religion to us. I don’t like the name “church” because it sounds too funky, too sweaty – you think of a person praying between his legs on the ground – but until we find something better we’ll have to use that.

  An Italian critic recently called you the Paganini of the guitar.

  Paganini? Who’s that? Oh, the greatest violin artist of all time. That makes me extremely happy.

  Does success make you happy?

  All the things I thought were important before I had a hit record are just as important now. Trying to understand people and respect their feelings, regardless of your position or theirs. The beautiful things are still the same, the sunset and the dew on the grass. No material wealth changes the way I think about these things. If you’re looking for real happiness, you go back to the happiest days you had as a child. Remember when playing in the rain was fun?

  Has success changed you?

  It depends on what you think is success. Success, to me, is doing your utmost, achieving the ultimate. Well, I have not done that. I don’t consider myself even started yet. I always try to get better and better, but as long as I’m playing I don’t think I’ll ever reach the point where I’m satisfied. I think I shall always be looking for success.

  You have received the highest critical acclaim.

  That’s part of the establishment’s game. They’re trying to blow us all up and give us awards so that they can just dust us away. But we’re not here to collect awards. We’re here to turn people on to the right way because there are some really strange scenes coming through.

  Are you going to play more concerts in England?

  We plan to have the Albert Hall our last job for a while. I wish we could play more places around the country because I dig England, and when we play here it is a big thing for us. But the problem is we are doing more recording now, and we have to do an American tour in April and May.

  Is there any truth in the rumors about you retiring?

  You know, when you’re young, most people have a little burning thing, but then you get your law degree and go into your little cellophane cage. You can do the family thing. I’ve wanted to do that at times. I’ve wanted to go into the hills sometimes, but I stayed. Some people are meant to stay and carry messages.

  THERE’S OTHER MOVES I HAVE TO MAKE NOW, a little more towards a spiritual level, through music. We concentrate mostly on sound. It’s a very hard and harsh and primitive sound, not necessarily good or bad or stoned. You get the feeling that you’re going to get something out of it if you let your mind flow with it. It’s more than music. It’s like church, like a foundation for the lost or potentially lost.

  That’s why the kids don’t mind when you take fifteen minutes setting up for a concert. Guys come out and set up instruments, and they turn their backs to the audience, taking time to get ready. The kids like it … it’s like watching something being born. They become
like fathers to the music.

  We’re making our music into a new kind of bible, a bible you carry in your hearts, one that will give you a physical feeling. We play unbelievably loud. Not piercing loud – it’s another type of loudness that goes through your chest.

  There’s so many tight-lipped ideas and laws around, and people put themselves in uniform so tightly that it’s almost impossible to break out. Subconsciously, what all these people are doing is killing off all those little flashes they have.

  We try to make our music so loose and hard-hitting that it hits your soul hard enough to make it open. It’s like shock therapy or a can opener. You hypnotize people to where they go right back to their natural state, which is pure positive – like in childhood when you get natural highs. And when they come down off this natural high, they see clearer, feel different things. It’s all spiritual. Except when the eardrums come in!

  Everything is electrified nowadays, so therefore the belief comes through electricity to the people. That’s why the name “Electric Church” flashes in and out. If you say you are playing Electric Church Music, people go “Gasp, gasp!” or “Exclaim, exclaim!”

  The word “church” is too identified with religion. A lot of kids don’t find nothing in church.

  I WAS SENT TO CHURCH WHEN I WAS A KID, and I remember when I got thrown out because I had improper clothes on. I had tennis shoes and a suit, and they said, “Well, that’s not proper.” We didn’t have no money to get anything else, so I just got thrown out of church anyway. It’s nothing but an institution, so they’re not going to find NOTHING there.

  Don’t get me wrong, I’m not trying to stop people going to church, but as long as I’m not hurting anybody else I don’t see why they should tell me how to live and what to do.

  I suppose human beings have to believe in something. People feel they have to be directed in some way, have to have something to follow, regardless of whether it’s true or not.

  The only thing I believe in now is music. Music is going to break the way because music is in a spiritual thing of its own. It’s like the waves of the ocean. You can’t just cut out the perfect wave and take it home with you. It’s constantly moving all the time. Music and motion are all part of the race of man. It’s the biggest thing electrifying the earth. Our music is just as spiritual as going to church. We want it to be respected as such. Our scene is to try and wash people’s souls.

  I SEE FINGERS, HANDS AND SHADES OF FACES

  REACHING UP BUT NOT QUITE TOUCHING

  THE PROMISED LAND.

  I HEAR PLEAS AND PRAYERS AND

  DESPERATE WHISPERS SAYING,

  OH LORD, PLEASE GIVE US A HELPING HAND.

  Quite naturally things are going bad here, but the idea is to get your own self together. You have to live with peace of mind, and that has to be found within yourself. I think everybody should believe in himself. I suppose, in a way, that’s also believing in God. If there is a God and He made you, then believing in yourself is also believing in Him. Once you carry God inside yourself, then you’re part of Him. That doesn’t mean you’ve got to believe in Heaven and Hell and all that stuff, but it does mean that what you are and what you do is your religion. When I get up on stage and sing, that’s my whole life.

  That’s my religion.

  I am Electric Religion.

  MY GUITAR IS MY MEDIUM, and I want to turn the world on. Music flows from the air. That’s why I can connect with a spirit. There’s no telling how many lives your spirit will go through, die and be reborn. Like my mind will be back in the days when I was a flying horse. Before I can remember anything, I can remember music, stars and planets. I could go to sleep and write fifteen symphonies.

  My personal philosophy is my music. It’s almost all philosophy in a very hazy form, because it’s still part of a progression. It’s just like a little baby, and it hasn’t even reached the stage for it to walk by itself. Music is my whole life. There is nothing but music and life – that’s all. They flow together so closely, it’s sort of like a parallel. And that’s the effect I would like my music to have on the audience – if not an awakened state, then maybe in a hypnotic state.

  The everyday mud world we’re living in today compared to the spiritual world is like a parasite compared to the ocean. One way to approach the spiritual side is facing the truth. If only people wouldn’t concentrate on the superficial things they might find the real meaning and true happiness. That’s why the world’s screwed up today, because people base things too much on what they see, and not on what they feel.

  {IN APRIL AND JUNE 1969, THE EXPERIENCE, NOW THE HIGHEST PAID TOURING BAND IN THE WORLD, WENT ON ANOTHER MAJOR TOUR OF AMERICA.}

  There was a time when I worried about money. I worried about whether I was getting all I was entitled to. I wanted to get money to hold me together, to do what I want to do in life. I wanted to make money so I’ll have somewhere to live when I get bald, you know, when all these little curls fall out, when all this shit falls out.

  Everybody wishes for more money. But people get so greedy with money that they choke themselves. They don’t want to give it up, and that makes it nothing but a drug, just like anything else. As a matter of fact it’s one of the worst drugs.

  That’s why I’m glad I just smoke!

  I travel most places without any money, actually. I like to witness different types of life, rich and poor. If I starve tomorrow, it would just be another experience to me. I’d still give money away to people if they needed it badly. What’s money except a piece of paper? Just like a marriage license.

  Sometimes it gets to be really easy to sing the blues when you’re supposed to be making all this money. Because money is getting to be out of hand now. Too many musicians nowadays think of the money and the image first, before they figure out what they’re trying to get across. They get a chance to make all this money, and they say, “Wow, this is fantastic!” and they lose themselves, they forget about the other half of themselves. So therefore you can sing a whole lot of blues. Sometimes the more money you make, the more blues you can sing.

  The money scene can turn you into a slave to the public, a zombie, a penguin. Who wants to be a big, lifeless pop idol anyway? This is where the kids get more distracted than the musicians actually, with the fame and imagery and all that stuff. It’s like a circus that might come in town. “Oh wow! Watch that,” you know? And then they see you fade away, and they go and feed upon the next thing.

  The music’s better now, and people don’t even know. It’s right in their faces, and they don’t even know how to accept it, because they have to have gimmicks and imagery to go by. That’s what made me cut my hair off, because of this being a slave to the public. I cut it short to protest.

  {DURING THIS TOUR, MEMBERS OF THE BLACK PANTHERS MADE APPROACHES TO JIMI.}

  They asked us to give benefit concerts for the Black Panthers, which I was really very happy for them to do. I was honored and all this, but we haven’t done it yet. Mike Jeffery is taking care of that side of things, so I don’t know if we ever will. I just want to do what I’m doing without getting involved in racial or political matters. I know I’m lucky that I can do that, because lots of people can’t. In the U.S. you have to take a stand. Either you’re a rebel or you’re a Frank Sinatra type.

  When I was younger I wrote protest songs that were bitter. I don’t now, because there’s a lot of political things happening out there that I really have to get away from, or I’d find myself in too much of a box situation. If I had anything to say, I’d have to say it to everyone. And I’d have to get really involved before I could say anything.

  I don’t feel involved. I feel almost completely lost now, sometimes from almost everything. I feel sorry for the minorities, but I don’t feel part of one. I’m for the masses and the underdog, but not for just trying to get the underdog to do this or that, because I tried before and got screwed so madly millions of times. So now I’m just for anybody who can do the job.

 
RACE ISN’T A PROBLEM IN MY WORLD. I don’t look at things in terms of races. I look at things in terms of people. I’m not thinking about black people or white people. I’m thinking about the obsolete and the new. There’s no color part now, there’s no black and white. The frustrations and riots going on today are all about more personal things. Everybody has wars within themselves, so they form different things, and it comes out as a war against other people. They get justified as they justify others in their attempts to get personal freedom. That’s all it is.

  It isn’t that I’m not relating to the Black Panthers. I naturally feel a part of what they’re doing, in certain respects. Somebody has to make a move, and we’re the ones hurting most as far as peace of mind and living are concerned. But I’m not for the aggression or violence or whatever you want to call it. I’m not for guerrilla warfare. Not frustrated things like throwing little cocktail bottles here and there or breaking up a store window. That’s nothing. Especially in your own neighborhood.

  I don’t feel hate for anybody, because that’s nothing but taking two steps back. You have to relax and wait to go by the psychological feeling. Other people have no legs or no eyesight or have fought in wars. You should feel sorry for them and think what part of their personality they have lost. It’s good when you start adding up universal thoughts. It’s good for that second. If you start thinking negative it switches to bitterness, aggression, hatred. All those are things that we have to wipe away from the face of the earth before we can live in harmony. And the other people have to realize this too, or else they’re going to be fighting for the rest of their lives.

  I hope at least to give the ones struggling courage through my songs. I experience different things, go through the hang-ups myself, and what I find out I try to pass on to other people through music, so it won’t be so hard for them. There’s this song I’m writing now that’s dedicated to the Black Panthers, not pertaining to race, but to the symbolism of what’s happening today. They should only be a symbol to the establishment’s eyes. It should only be a legendary thing.