by Paul Zollo
So Stan didn’t fit that picture to me. That was when Stan was pissed. He didn’t like the record. That’s what he told me. And when we got back together to play—we played two nights at this Neil Young Bridge School Benefit. [October 1–2, 1994, at the Eighth Annual Bridge School Benefit in Mountain View, Calif.] And it was just misery. It was misery. That’s when it all fell apart with Stan. He was very unhappy, and we were not digging it. It was the end of the line. It was like, ‘Okay, if this is going to go on, Stan’s going to have to step aside.’ Twenty years had taken their toll, and that’s what had gone on.
Stan didn’t want to play the songs from Full Moon Fever. He said, ‘I didn’t play these. I feel like I’m in a cover band.’ And you can imagine how well that went down with us. [Laughs] He was auditioning with other bands. Or placing stories in the press. There’d be a story in Billboard that was just so clearly channeled from Stan. A lot of games were being played.
And then the other problem was that Stan had moved out of L.A. and back to Florida. So every time we wanted to play, we had to orchestrate this trip for Stan from Florida to L.A. Which was just a huge pain in the ass. And Stan had quit hanging with us. So it was just natural that our circle was becoming independent of Stan. He left the “Mary Jane” sessions without even saying goodbye. We just looked up and he was gone. He went back to Florida.
But getting back to Wildflowers, that was so much fun. It was the first time in a long time that I had a studio set up. I had a little 8-track studio in my room. And I would just write these songs, and do 8-track demos. Then we would go down to the studio and record them.
Do them over, or use your demos?
No, we did them over. Some of them are exactly like the demo. Like “You Don’t Know How It Feels.” Exactly, note for note, like the demo. With better quality and better players. It was great. That was when we met Steve Ferrone.
Did Rick Rubin bring him in?
No, Mike brought him. George Harrison had done a tour with Eric Clapton and his band. And then George was booked to do one or two shows at the Royal Albert Hall in England. And Eric couldn’t make the show. But the band did. And George asked Mike if he would take Eric’s spot and play lead guitar. So Mike played lead guitar on those shows. And that’s where he met Ferrone, because Ferrone was in Eric’s band. So when it came around to thinking about drummers, Mike said, ‘I’ll tell you—I really like this guy Steve Ferrone that played with me. I think he’d be worth giving a shot.’
It’s funny, because we had no drummer. And the band actually had bookings. We were booked to go on Saturday Night Live really quickly after Stan left. And I got Dave Grohl to come in and do that show. We played “You Don’t Know How It Feels” and “Honey Bee.” And that was a gas, playing with Dave. And I even discussed with Dave about joining the band. And he wanted to, but he had his own solo thing developing at the time, the Foo Fighters. And, of course, he would rather have done that.
But Ferrone walked in. And his audition was the track on the album called, “Hard On Me.” And he played that track in one take, and I just went, ‘Okay, you’re the man. We’ve been through a lot of drummers at this point, and you’re the man who’s going to make the record.’ And he’s been around ever since. Because he is just a really, really good drummer. It always feels good.
The very next Monday, after we played Saturday Night Live with Dave Grohl, we played the Letterman show with Steve Ferrone. [The band played “You Wreck Me.”]
Is he as good in the studio as he is live?
He’s incredible in the studio. He’s so focused. He’s really good at it. He’s a pro, and a really good player. I’ve never heard him bitch about the headphones. I’ve never heard him make any excuse for anything. He just plays. That was a new one to us. There was no shirking the blame. ‘I’ll take the responsibility for this track, and I’m going to play it.’
‘Steve, could you play another drum?’
‘No problem.’
‘Steve, could you play this with one hand?’
‘No problem.’
I’ve seen that asked of him. ‘Play this with one hand.’
Why?
I don’t know. [Laughs] Rick asked him that one time, and he just did it. Didn’t even question it. I thought, ‘Damn, that’s pretty liberal.’
That album was a really long project. It went on a long time. But it was very rewarding. It was coming out so good. Unfortunately, it all wouldn’t fit; it was trimmed down to one CD, which is almost seventy minutes. On vinyl it was actually a double album. That was probably wise, though a lot of really great stuff didn’t make it onto that CD. But I think, looking back over all our work, to me, it’s just one of the most satisfying things. You know, I like other ones. There are some other ones I really like. But that one I think is the most me, I think. That’s me. That’s where I live musically. And Rick did an amazing job. It’s the best-sounding record. It actually won the Grammy for Engineering [1995]. It was a really good-sounding record. We worked hard on that record. Mike worked hard on it.
You’ve got most of the band on it. Mike’s on it, Benmont’s on it.
Yeah, Howie’s a little bit on it. I don’t think Howie was there much. And in stages, Ben was there more and more. And then we were just, to hell with it, Ben’s going to play. And I think Howie was beginning to fade on us a little bit. Yeah, he was starting to fade a little bit. He had his big problems beginning then.
So it was what it was. To me, that’s some of the best songwriting I ever did, and some of the best recordings we ever made.
It’s got a great range of material—gentle songs like “Wildflowers” and “Crawling Back To You” and rockers, like “You Wreck Me.”
Yeah. Ferrone’s playing on “You Wreck Me” blows my mind. I mean, I’ve heard drum machines that can’t do that. [Laughs] That hi-hat is so consistent. And it’s such a fast, hard song to play. And he nailed it really in just a couple of takes. I still marvel at it when I hear it on the radio: ‘Damn, is that us? Did we do that?’
Did Rick have a different approach in the studio than you had before?
Oh yeah, yeah. He was a lot younger than us. And he worked me really hard. He really pushed me and challenged me a lot.
As far as what?
As far as, ‘Try it again.’
I’d say, ‘What’s wrong with that?’
He’d say, ‘Nothing’s wrong with it. Try it again. Do it again.’ And he pushed me, and I really think he got the best out of me. Sometimes he just made me down-right angry. And then he’d get a great take. And it was just, ‘Write, write, write! Write more!’ And he’d come to my house and want to hear all the demos, and, ‘Okay, I like this one, I don’t like this one, I like half of this one. Finish this. This is really good. Throw that out.’ He was that way, very song-oriented. And really an intelligent guy. A bright guy. And I enjoyed working with him. We are still good friends. It was a new friendship, which is always a good situation to make a record. So that was a great, great time for me. I loved it. I loved all of it. It was hard work, it was really long. But we knew we were working on something great. So the time didn’t bother us.
Then in the middle of it, My deal with MCA was running out. We were going to give them a greatest hits album, but they wanted another track, they wanted a new track. And this had to be The Heartbreakers. So Stan was brought in. I didn’t want to give anything from Wildflowers to that album. I was adamant that I will not give one of these tracks to MCA. I’m not going to take something out of the album and put it on the Greatest Hits.
Even though you had so many.
Yeah, I wasn’t going to do it. So I went and wrote, specifically for that record. “Mary Jane’s Last Dance.” And with Rick, we brought Stan in, and the five of us cut that. Stan and Howie.
Also “Come On Down To My House”?
Yeah, it was on the same session. We did a whole bunch of songs on that session. We did a lot of tracks. It was a very productive day. Maybe twelve or thirteen. I
don’t know how many tracks were done that day. Some of which still haven’t come out. So it was a real productive day. But “Mary Jane” was the big one done that day. And that was the one we focused on.
Yeah, it’s a great record, and a great song.
Howie’s really good on that. The harmonies are good. I remember Johnny Cash was in the studio when we were doing the harmonies, and I got really nervous. [Laughs] Howie and Carlene lived together a long time, so Howie was family to John. And I think John had come down to see Howie. But he was great. He kept saying, ‘Oh, that’s great. Go for it, go for it, that’s really good.’ I remember [Howie] and I singing those harmonies and being really pleased with them.
Was it tough for you to write a song in the midst of making Wildflowers?
I had the germ of it. I had written it during the Full Moon Fever days. I think one night I had this idea at Mike’s house. And Stan was there. And me and Mike and Stan—Mike playing the bass—cut kind of a rough idea of that song. And I was kind of improvising some of the words. So what I did then was take the germ of that. And I sat down and wrote a chorus to it. And then I really struggled with the words right up to the last minute. I was actually doing the vocal and I was still sitting there, going, ‘No, wait,’ and then I’d sit down and write, and kept polishing. To where I was almost confused, by the time I was finished, and hoping it was right. [Laughs]
It’s interesting you wrote the chorus after, because it has such a powerful contrast between the chorus and the verse.
Yeah. That chorus was probably written two years later.
You played live?
We played live. And that was the end of it. Stan left that session and I never saw him again until the Hall of Fame. [The band was inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame on March 18, 2002.] It was all over. So that was the last real recording of the original group.
some days are diamonds chapter twelve
After Wildflowers, the next album you made was the soundtrack and songs for the film She’s The One in 1996. But before that you made, with The Heartbreakers, the great Johnny Cash album Unchained. How did that experience unfold?
tp: Right about the time of my divorce, I got a call. I wasn’t doing much, and I got a call from Rick Rubin. We had been out to eat a few nights earlier with Johnny Cash. Johnny Cash was someone I had known for probably twenty years; I met him many, many years ago through Nick Lowe, who was a friend of mine, and at the time Carlene [Carter] was married to Nick Lowe. And we had the occasion to go out to their place in Nashville, and have lunch, and we met Johnny Cash at the time. Who is a huge idol of mine. And I really loved Johnny. He was great company, and he was a wise fellow. He knew about a lot of subjects, and he was fun to talk to. And he would come to shows from time to time. I remember once being at Madison Square Garden and being just unnerved, because when I looked to my left, he was sitting in the box just to the left of the stage. And you could see him in the dark; he was such a formidable presence.
So I had been out to dinner with him and Rick. Rick had a record label [American Recordings] and he asked me, ‘Do you think I should sign Johnny Cash?’
I said, ‘Are you kidding?’
He goes, ‘No, I think so, but do you think it would work out?’
I said, ‘Hell, yeah, it would work out. He’s a great guy, and you should sign him.’
He goes, ‘Well, I’m thinking I will. I was just running it by you.’
They did an acoustic album together. This was during the making of Wildflowers because [Rick] would play it for us occasionally during dinner breaks. And we loved it, thought it was great. And so for his next project, [Cash] decided he would play with a band. So Rick phoned me and asked me if I would like to play the bass. And I think Rick knew I was going through a difficult time, and he wanted to keep me busy. And I love to play the bass. So I was there in a flash to play the bass. And through whatever maneuvering Rick had done—because I hadn’t done it—when I got to the studio, it was pretty much The Heartbreakers that were there: Ferrone, Mike, Benmont, and they were augmented by a fellow named Marty Stuart, who is a really great guitar/mandolin player out of Nashville.
So we set about making this record that would later be called Unchained. It was a fabulous experience. Just fabulous. I think we felt a lot of freedom there. John had a few songs of his own, but most of them were by other people. So we were interpreting these songs. And we would not necessarily go to our regular instruments. I played the bass a lot of the time. I would also play Mellotron or organ, and Mike might play mandolin. We had a ball doing it. We recorded more than what was used on the album, and those tracks recently came out on a boxed set called Unearthed.
One night Carl Perkins came in [to the Johnny Cash session]. Blew our minds. Talk about an idol of ours. Carl Perkins was just a giant. And he had played with John for years as his lead guitar player. He dropped in and we had the best night of my life, I think. One of them, anyway. We just never laughed so hard. You know when you laugh to where your gut just hurts? The music was all so good, and so effortless. I was really pleased later on when I read the liner notes to Unearthed, where [Cash] mentions that night, and said it was one of the greatest nights of his life. Which made me feel good, because it was for me, too. And we went on and did another track with Carl Perkins.
These are the things that are the real bonuses to being in The Heartbreakers. When you get to do something like that. That was a man who we really loved. We loved him deeply. That record is certainly some of the best playing The Heartbreakers ever did. It’s funny that it’s not one of our records, but if you go and listen to that album, you really hear what we’re about as a band. We really did play our best on that record. And the record won the Grammy for Best Country Album of the Year [1998]. Which is pretty good for a rock ‘n’ roll band. [Laughs]
After working on that, you turned your attention to the songs and soundtrack for the film She’s The One. Why did you decide to do that?
I often wonder. [Laughs] I had just gotten divorced. And I was living on my own with nothing to do. And you’re in that strange place where suddenly you’re a bachelor again.
You moved out of your house?
Yeah. It’s a condition of my divorce that I can’t legally speak about anything. So I’ll just say that I moved out at that time.
Where did you go?
I leased a house in the Palisades. The Chicken Shack. In this place called Peacock Alley, off of Sunset Boulevard. Kind of like a cabin more than a house. Very funky. Chickens in the yard. But I loved it. It was really green and over-grown. It was just a small house, and I was living there alone. I thought it was a great place. I had my little 8-track studio in the back bedroom. I wrote the She’s The One album, the newer stuff for that. I wrote “Walls” and “Angel Dream.” I stayed there for a few years. This kind of a log cabin kind of place that actually had chickens. Kind of very rural for being in L.A. And The Heartbreakers weren’t doing anything. We had just done this long on-and-off tour of Wildflowers. I was not in a good head space. I won a Grammy then [1995 for Best Male Rock Vocal Performance on “You Don’t Know How It Feels”], and didn’t even go to the Grammys. I remember standing outside in the yard when the phone call came and said, ‘You just won a Grammy.’
I didn’t have anything to do. There was this guy Ed Burns, the director, a really nice guy, a really talented fellow, who had made this little small independent film called The Brothers McMullen that I thought was a really good film. And I got a phone call from his agent that he would really be interested in me doing music for his movie. He sent me the movie, and I thought it was a really charming little film. It wasn’t by any means a big, epic movie. It was a small movie. And I met Ed, and I liked him. So as time went on, I got involved in this project. It didn’t happen right away. But the germ was planted.
And so it started out that I was going to do a couple of songs, and I’ll be the musical director, and I’ll get other people to contribute to this soundtrack album. A
nd then I started calling people, and there were two problems. First of all, I realized that nobody is going to give me anything good. They’re holding on to their really good stuff. Secondly, this job does not fit me. I’m really uncomfortable in this role of calling up friends. I don’t feel good about it. I don’t want to do it.
So I was talking to Jimmy Iovine about it. And he said, ‘Hell, you should just do it.’ And I thought about that, and felt, well, we could do the album, I guess, because we have all the stuff leftover from Wildflowers that is done or almost done. And we could write a few songs and have an album. And so that’s what I did. I took quite a bit of that album from stuff that was done for Wildflowers. And then The Heartbreakers rushed in and did a few songs to fill it out. And we covered a Lucinda Williams song [“Change The Locks”] and one by Beck [“Asshole”]. Because we didn’t have much material. And that became the album She’s The One. Which was a really kind of confused album for us, because it got stocked in the soundtrack section. It didn’t really come out like a Heartbreakers record. So it didn’t really feel like we made a record or anything. We didn’t do a tour behind it or anything. We just did it.
To me, it’s kind of uneven, because it’s not really an album. It’s just a bunch of things thrown together.
Yet it works as an album.
Well, good, I’m glad. I haven’t heard it in a long time. I know I really like some of those songs on it. I like “Hung Up And Overdue.” Which I got to do with Ringo. And Carl Wilson of the Beach Boys sang the harmonies. Carl, one of our hugest idols. And I also scored the movie. There’s not a lot of music in the movie, but I did the scoring. It was a nice project. I thought it was a nice movie.
