Classic Rock Revisited Interview

* Back to Roger's Page *

4 Maniacs In Your Living Room
by Jeb Wright

A huge Classic Rock Revisited salute to Linda for setting up this interview!

Roger Earl speaks with a distinctive English accent. He laughs a lot and seems to enjoy life. In fact, he has a wonderful sense of humor and is an intelligent and genuinely nice person. When I heard Foghat had a new CD coming out I got a hold of Roger through his wife Linda and we set up a time to chat.

Foghat has created some of the best down home boogie rock n roll to come out of the 70’s. “Slow Ride” alone will keep this band alive and well for generations to come. When Roger lost his long time friend Lonesome Dave to cancer it looked like the slow ride might come to a halt but Earl kept Dave’s musical legacy alive by hiring ex-Ted Nugent vocalist Charlie Huhn to lead the band. After a couple of seasons of touring, Foghat has returned with a brand new CD titled Family Joules. The music is 100% what one would expect and the legacy of Lonesome Dave remains alive and well. The band has revamped their official website as well so get on over to www.foghat.net and order a copy of the new CD today.

Jeb: I hear that Foghat has a new studio CD.

Roger: It is called Family Joules. It is a play on words actually. Do you know what a joule is?

Jeb: No.

Roger: It is how you measure energy. For us, it is our family energy. It is a little play on words.

Jeb: How long has it been since Foghat put out a studio album?

Roger: The last studio album we made was in 1994. It was called Return Of The Boogiemen. We had Road Cases later in the 90’s that was live but had some stuff on it that had never been released that Lonesome Dave had written. This is our first new studio album in a long time. We have 13 songs on it. We were very prolific in the studio. We had 3-4 tracks left over that we didn’t get to finish. We all had ideas. A very good friend of our in Florida gave us use of this huge room and a couple of condos to live in and we played music for a couple of months. It was a lot of fun.

Jeb: Was the album written in the studio?

Roger: It was all written there. Bryan would have some songs and Tony would have some songs and Charlie had songs, as did I. It was a conglomeration of things. It was truly a band effort.

Jeb: How long did it take you from start to finish?

Roger: We started in January and it is just coming out now. That is what happens when you leave the band in charge! This was the first album without Dave singing. We wanted to make sure that we got it right. We mixed it, produced it and we designed the artwork. We also formed our own record company. Between the four of us we have a tremendous amount of experience. Given the present state of the music industry this was the only way we could go. It is pretty hard out there. It is even hard for the major labels.

Jeb: Was it different recording with Charlie Huhn?

Roger: Charlie was the only consideration from the very beginning. There were a lot of people who sent us tapes but he was really the only one we wanted. He was a big fan of Dave’s anyway. They met in 1997 when Charlie was singing with Humble Pie. We did a show together. Dave and I were in the audience and Dave said, “This guy better be good if he is going to try to sing Steve Marriot songs.” We met after the show. Charlie has worked out great, in fact, it has worked out better than I would have imagined in my wildest dreams.

Jeb: I was familiar with Charlie from when he played with Ted Nugent.

Roger: We did a show with Ted this summer in Montana. I will tell you about that later.

Jeb: When Dave passed away did Foghat almost die with him?

Roger: I wasn’t sure at all if Foghat would continue. I was under some pressure from our manager at the time because we had a lot of commitments. Dave wasn’t the sort of person that you replace. We may have another singer in the band but he has not been replaced. The three of us that were left decided we wanted to continue making music together. I got in touch with Charlie and I talked to him. I was a little concerned because I was friends with Jerry Shirley from the old Humble Pie days in the early 70’s. Jerry was no longer with the band and in fact, there were no original members of Humble Pie in the band even though Charlie had been singing with them for over ten years.

I called Charlie up and asked him to join this band. I sent him a whole bunch of cds and asked him to learn some songs. He called me a couple of months later and he said, “I think I’ve got it.” He came out to the house and we sat in the living room for two or three days going over stuff. Bryan and Tony joined us and we played in my living room acoustically and went over harmonies. We were just having fun. We booked some rehearsal space in New York City and off we went. Bryan played with us on the last tour we did with Dave and in fact he was probably Dave’s best friend. He was one of the few people that Dave would write music with.

Jeb: You have had a lot of line up changes but Foghat has remained a powerful live band.

Roger: Dave once said, “It’s all about the music.” We play music for the people. We are fortunate that we are still earning a living at it some 40 years later. We have a blast. Listen… we get paid to play music. It is a great thing. It is not hard like it was in the 70’s either. We play two to three times a week for seven months out of the year. I get to see my children and my grandchildren now. It is a good life. It was never a bad life.

Jeb: A lot of bands have not been able to stand the test of time. A lot of time when personnel changes so does the music. Some people don’t have the same drive.

Roger: Foghat has always been a blues and rock band. We have always recorded music that we enjoyed. This is very much a rock n roll record that we have made. I don’t like putting labels on it but that is what it is.

Jeb: How do you know in the studio if an album is really going to be good?

Roger: That is up to you as an artist and a performer. If we don’t like it then we don’t do it. There were a few ideas that we tried that didn’t work out but in the end every idea that ended up on the record was what everyone liked. We would start out with some basic ideas and then Charlie might have some words he wanted to throw out there. You have to use your best judgment. It is like a moment in time when you record. It may change a number of years down the road but what you do when you make music is you play it as it is at that moment. We were all dancing around the room when we recorded the songs. We would finish around Midnight and take a break and the go back and listen to the songs and we would be dancing around the studio. We knew we had something good. If it worked the next morning then we knew we had something. Every song on there was done on the first or second and no more than a third take. We would write in the morning and afternoon. We would arrange everything and then we would go in the studio and cut the song live. Bryan would sit at the control board and have his guitar on and we would just count it off and go for it.

Jeb: In the 70’s Foghat was putting out a new album every year. I imagine you were under a lot of record company pressure.

Roger: When you have a degree of success -- our success was gradual. We had been playing together since ‘67. When we had our first major hit, which was the first gold record Energized… actually “Want To Make Love To You” off the first album was a Top 40 single as well.

Bill Graham was a great promoter and he was a great musical mind and a great artists manager. He knew how to steer musicians in the right way. He once said, “I think these guys like to play more than they like to breath.” I laughed because it was true. That is a pretty impressive statement coming from someone like Bill Graham. The joy of playing music has never gone away from this band. There have been times over the coarse of the years that it got a little tiring and what have you but the spirit of playing music is very much alive in this band.

Jeb: How do avoid making comparisons to your music now and the music you made in the past?

Roger: I don’t make comparisons to the past. Like I said, that was a moment in time. We have never recorded anything that we didn’t like at the time. You have to attempt to be true to yourself and what you like as an individual. When you are dealing with three other people then that can be stretched. You have to get it right and be your own worst critic but there is a joy in playing rock n roll music. Rock music from the beginning was a joyful music. The name was slang for having sex and that is always a joyful moment, isn’t it? You wouldn’t be doing it if it were not joyful. We are a rock n roll band.

Jeb: I think it is unfair that bands are forced to compete against themselves. For instance, you will put out a new album and then the old record company will come out with a new best of remastered Foghat.

Roger: I don’t have a problem with that. There is a whole new world out there who listen to music. The record companies didn’t see it coming. They were so stuck in the past that they didn’t see this coming. Let’s face it, when they used to start making cassettes I used to copy things off on it. Music belongs to everybody. As artists we should get paid somehow. It is eventually going to catch up. Somebody is going to come along with technology where we can get paid for this.

Over the last fifty to sixty years of recorded music artists and writers have got a reasonable share of the money. At first the artists may have suffered but since the 70’s we have got a share. I am not going to go overboard on this and say the record companies were always fair with us but we were not starving. Technology has changed and we are going to have to find a way where everyone can get a percent or a penny for what is going on now. It will happen. People have been calling record companies thieving bastards for a long time.

I will give you an example of what I mean. Towards the end of the 70’s we build our own studio in Long Island. We bought a board and it cost a half a million dollars and it was second hand. Today you can put a studio together for ten or twenty thousand dollars. People build a studio for five thousand bucks and put it in their basement. I know people who have done this. We paid a half a million dollars. If you borrow some microphones and get a little bit of duct tape then you can spend a few thousand and make it work.

Jeb: Some of the old rockers don’t like the digital recording of today. It does not bother you?

Roger: We use tube amps. We use digital recording as well. It is not what you do; it is how you do it. This new record sounds like the band is in your living room. A fan wrote me an email and he was raving about how much he loved to play Foghat records in his car because it sounded like we were right there with him in his car. Maybe he just has a great stereo in his car! The band, by and large, has an excitement about us. If we didn’t like it then it didn’t work.

Jeb: I saw you his summer and I was very impressed with the way you treat your fans. No one ever talks about this in the press and I think it deserves mentioning. I left the show and you were still sitting at the merchandise booth meeting people.

Roger: The fans are who you do it for. We play music and we have to satisfy ourselves but we have a tremendous fan base and they have been great to us. They have been with us through thick and thin. They know that this band is going to play some rock n roll for them. How was it that night that you saw us?

Jeb: It was incredible.

Roger: Thank you very much.

Jeb: I had seen you years ago with Dave but I also had seen you with Charlie in Tulsa, Oklahoma. You guys played with Blue Oyster Cult. I was impressed then. Musicians can fake having a good time but if you see enough shows…

Roger: There are times when you are having problems and you can’t hear each other and that is not fun. You are playing on a different stage each night. Most of our dates are fly ins. We specify what equipment that we want but it is always different. 90% of the time we get what we ask for. It is somewhat of a challenge. Maybe we got in late and the plane was delayed -- I hate that shit. When that happens then you don’t have a chance to do a sound check and you have to wing it. You press autopilot. Everybody knows how the songs are supposed to be. That is the exception when that happens. 95% of the time, when you see us grinning then we are having a good time. Even when we can’t hear each other and we are on auto pilot then we still know each other well enough that we can do it well.

Jeb: I saw you at the Wheatland Jam.

Roger: That was fun. I know where you are talking about. We had a great time there.

Jeb: There are no rules in a boogie rock band. It is fun to watch music performed by you guys. If Bryan is kicking ass in a solo then you guys will support him and let him go a while longer.

Roger: You see what it is about. There are certain basics to the songs; certain frameworks that we have to stay in. Songs like “Slowride,” “I Just Want To Make Love To You” and “Honey Hush” --any number of them -- we can jam.

Jeb: “Sweet Home Chicago.”

Roger: That one changes all the time. We did a show recently in the Virgin Islands. A promoter convinced us to come down there and he gave us a few days to rehearse old material and play new material. We are going to change the set around a little bit. I have answered fan mails from our website where people have requested songs. We are going to play some songs that this band has not played in forever.

Jeb: Any hints?

Roger: We are going to play “Take Me To The River” which we haven’t played before. We are also going to play “My Babe” which we haven’t played in 25 years. There are a couple of other ones and a few new songs from the new album. The tough part is that we are only on for 45 minutes to an hour a lot of times. If we have our own shows then we will play a lot longer.

Jeb: Is there any part of the country that has been a stronghold for Foghat over the years?

Roger: I love playing in Detroit. I love playing in New Orleans. Chicago is a great town as well. Jackson, Mississippi and Los Angeles are great as well. We have not played Boston in about 30 years but other than that…. We love Boston but no one has asked us to come and play there.

Jeb: So Boston didn’t invite you back?

Roger: A few times about 25 years ago.

Jeb: The Midwestern part of the country has always been huge supporters of bands like Foghat and Ted Nugent.

Roger: I love Ted. We played with Ted in Montana at a festival. We just finished our set and Ted came into the dressing room to say hello to Charlie because they had not seen each other in years. He talked about his hunting and his books. It was really cool to see him actually. We had a good time. He was up onstage watching us as we were playing. He went out and did his show. Ted was singing and storming around the stage, playing his ass off. That boy can play his ass off. Ted, normally, does not say nice things about anybody. He really doesn’t, not on stage anyway. He said “How about that Foghat? I love that shit” and everyone cheered. He is a ferocious player.

Jeb: Will you guys make a live recording with Charlie?

Roger: We have an hour and fifteen minute live recording in the can. We filmed it as well. We did it in a casino out in California. It was a five-camera shoot. It came off great and it sounds great. The band wanted to put out a studio album first. We wanted everyone to see and know what the band is doing now. It didn’t seem right to just go and do a live album. There was a lot of pressure to do that but people come in and they tape the shows anyway. We also have a video for one of the songs on the new album. We have to do a final edit of it. It is for the song “Self-Medicated.”

Jeb: Good title.

Roger: I was involved in being self-medicated. Hey, who hasn’t been self-medicated at some time or another? I am a lot more moderate then I used to be. A few years back I was driving down to Nashville with my wife and this tune came on the radio. I still can’t find out who the singer is but he was crooning, “I don’t drink as much as I ought too.” It just cracked me up. I actually like a lot of country music. I think the first record I ever bought was a Johnny Cash record. I didn’t consider it country music. He was a lot more like rock n roll without a drummer.

Jeb: I am not a county fan at all but Johnny Cash is just cool.

Roger: I am sure that the first rock n roll records to come into my house were Jerry Lee Lewis. My Dad brought that in the house. I love my Dad. He was a piano player and he knew a good thing when he heard it. There was always music in the house. My older brother Colin took up piano after listening to Jerry Lee and Little Richard. I wanted to play the piano but I could never get a look at it because my brother was older and he was in charge. Dad would play the piano at all the parties so I thought that I would just take on the drums. They are nice and loud. I did buy a piano for my wife, Linda. I have not played in a little while. I am going to play the piano for you. (Roger plays a minute long rock n roll boogie). That’s enough of that.

Jeb: You ought to come out from behind the drums once and a while.

Roger: No, I don’t sing. I like my job. I did help out on the chorus of a few of the new tunes. They needed some help on “Self-medicated.”

Jeb: Leading by example.

Roger: (laughing) No it was a joint effort.

Jeb: The 70’s are very famous for live albums that were not all that live. In other words they doctor them up in the studio after the fact. How live is Foghat Live?

Roger: I was there! We recorded it in two places. A lot of early records didn’t say where they were recorded. We had a manager back then who didn’t understand things like that. I always thought it was cool when I bought records when you could see the words and find out who played on what. I thought that was cool stuff. They obviously didn’t.

We recorded that album in Rochester and Syracuse, New York. They were both about 5, 000 to 10,000 seaters. I think Nick Jamison came on the road with us for about four to six weeks. Those are the two shows that all the songs were taken from.

After the tour, Nick and I mixed it. We had to redo a couple of odds and ends like a guitar part where the microphones had went out or something like that but it was a live record.

Jeb: More live than a lot of others.

Roger: I am not going to comment on someone else’s records. I will tell you who I like but I won’t tell you who I don’t like.

Jeb: You may not have had a lot of liner notes but you got a cool record sleeve. It had a hole in it.

Roger: It was a great record. The band played great. It sounds like you had four maniacs in your living room. I think that would make a great title for a live record. 4 Maniacs In Your Living Room or how about One More Time For The People In the Cheap Seats. I am giving it all away now aren’t I? Does Linda have your address?

Jeb: Yes.

Roger: We will send you a new CD as soon as it comes out. Maybe we can come back and play that Wheatland Jam again. I remember wandering around down there. It was a lot of fun. Night Ranger played that night. REO played as well. They both sounded great. It was a good day.

Jeb: We did an interview four years ago. You were in an airport. I have no idea where you were going but it was one of the first interviews Classic Rock Revisited ever had. You have supported us since day one and we appreciate it.

Roger: Actually Linda said she liked the way you write. She showed me the show review that you did. I said, “Yeah, I remember this guy. “ I remembered you. You had a dark beard at the time.

Jeb: Yeah, that was me. It is getting grayer every year.

Roger: I used to have one. My children used to say I had a slug on my face.

Jeb: Last one before you go: What is the worst traveling experience you have had on the road?

Roger: Anyone who travels like we do will always have problems. Generally speaking the airlines do their best but you run into bad weather. I do have one story that comes to mind. It is not the worst story; it is more of a road story. It was around 1974 and we were touring in Louisiana. We had to get up at the crack of dawn, around 5:30 or 6:00 in the morning. We had not slept very much the night before. I remember it was very hot as well. The air down there is very heavy; you can slice it with a knife.

We were struggling with our bags and our guitars. We were going to stick them into our station wagon and get them to the airport. My brother, who was our road manager at the time, goes to put the keys into the door to unlock the station wagon and they don‘t work. I look over my shoulder and I see this maintenance guy walking along with his box of tools. I walk up to him and go, “Excuse me, do you have a hammer in there?” He put it down and backed off a little bit -- I guess I looked scary. I didn’t feel scary but I must a have looked it. By this time we were late for our plane. I walked over to the station wagon and I took a hammer out and I bashed the window in. I pulled up the lock and in we get. We are trying to get the back of the station unlocked. The key doesn’t work in the lock. Somebody looks up and there is an identical station wagon - absolutely identical station wagon. Somebody has a really bright idea that we should go down to that station wagon and see if the keys work. Low and behold, into the lock the key goes and ‘click’ the door opens. We go to the back of the station wagon and the door opens and the window comes down. We write a little note and leave it on the other station wagon’s windshield. The maintenance guy is watching all of this. We write a little note about how sorry we are and that this was simply a case of mistaken identity. I take the hammer back over to the maintenance guy and he is standing there about 3-4 feel away from his toolbox. I put it back in his toolbox and he just looks at me and off we go. Hey, it was only a window. It was an honest mistake. It’s not like we were trying to be bad people. We did leave a note saying how sorry we are.