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Ted Nugent
Crime And Punishment
From the desk of Jeffrey Morgan: It was the darkest days of CREEM. A latter-day era when, running scared from the likes of the PMRC, the editors at CREEM, afraid of having their magazine pulled off the newsstands, instituted a self-censorship policy of not having any obscenities printed in the magazine.
Since I rarely used dirty words in my reviews and articles, this normally would have had little effect on my writing--except the new edict came down just as I was about to submit my Ted Nugent interview, which was riddled with Ted's colorful dialogue. I spent days trying to figure out how to submit the interview within the new clean guidelines while still managing to keep the spirit of the interview intact. In the end, I compromised by substituting !# @% for every swear word, which I hated doing. The castrated interview ran in the June 1988 issue. Four issues later, CREEM was dead. Perhaps mercifully, under the Climate Of Fear circumstances.
Still, it has always irked me that this interview was printed in censored form, so I re-transcribed the interview tapes, with the aim of reinserting all the deleted expletives. But a funny thing happened on the way to the typewriter. As I listened to the original tapes, I realized that I had a veritable gold mine on my hands. Which is why I expanded the interview that originally appeared in CREEM. This interview with Ted Nugent was conducted on the evening of December 10, 1987. It's far more relevant now then it was back then.
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PART ONE: CARTOONS AND DRUGS
TED NUGENT: Did you see the show, Jeffrey?
JEFFREY MORGAN (CREEM): It sounded good. You didn't disappoint.
NUGENT: All right, all right! You got questions, I got answers. I'm ready to rock! Yeah, I'm game for basically anything, Jeffrey. I'm saying let 'er rip. Actually, you might want to just start flinging questions at me now 'cause, God am I full of ideas.
CREEM: Got a little history, too, I wanna talk about.
NUGENT: I'll be playing my 24th year at Cobo Hall next week.
CREEM: I thought it'd be 23. 1965, wasn't it?
NUGENT: 1963 with the Supremes. I had a silver sharkskin suit on with black Beatle boots with the black elastic. And I played a white Fender Duosonic through a white Band Master. We opened up with "Shake Your Tail Feather" to "Little By Little" off the first Rolling Stones album.
CREEM: You actually remember being on stage.
NUGENT: Oh yeah. Yeah, because you know why? The Supremes' entire Motown orchestra was beside us. They had to stay in their seats while we were playing. They had a little area on the stage about like this (gestures) with their horns. Fuckin' great. And they were diggin'. I come flingin' across the stage, rip my fucking knees off of my suit. I was only thirteen. I was a wild thirteen. Now I'm all matured.
And Cobo Hall at the end of the month, we're gonna play "Journey To The Center Of Your Mind."
CREEM: When they play that on the radio today, it's still heaver than—
NUGENT: A lotta stuff. Especially nowadays! It makes everything else sound like a Kenny shoe commercial.
CREEM: You got any people asking you to give your songs out for commercials? Anybody wanna license "Wang Dang"?
NUGENT: Dr. Pepper wanted to use "Just What The Doctor Ordered."
CREEM: When you talked to CREEM's Billy Altman—
NUGENT: Billy!
CREEM: …about ten years ago—
NUGENT: (laughs) Yeah, a little while ago.
CREEM: …you said you wanted him on your side. But your side seems to be in the middle now.
NUGENT: I like to look at it that the world is Ted's turf.
CREEM: Well, tonight wasn't a bad show. But the best show I've ever seen you give was the first time I saw you. You were about 23, 24.
NUGENT: Just a boy.
CREEM: Fifteen years ago. You came in—
NUGENT: Was it the opening for Grand Funk?
CREEM: No, better than that. You played a comic book convention here in the city.
NUGENT: Get the fuck outta here!
CREEM: I was there and there must've been 30, 40 people…
NUGENT: Amboy Dukes?
CREEM: Yeah.
NUGENT: Still Amboy Dukes? Son of a bitch. A comic book convention?
CREEM: Sunday, January the 23rd, 1973. This is three of four months before you recorded—
NUGENT: That would be a three piece. Rob Grange, Billy Grange, and Vic Mastriani.
CREEM: This is before you started recording Call Of The Wild.
NUGENT: That's right.
CREEM: So the material you were doing was "Rattle My Snake," "Papa's Will"…
NUGENT: Rattle my fuckin' snake. Cool. "Papa's Will," what a fuckin' masterpiece.
CREEM: You do any of those anymore?
NUGENT: No. These cocksucking people today would go: "Will you write good…" They don't listen today. You know, I got into this…business… Well, first of all, I didn't know it was a business. In fact it wasn't a business when I got into it. But I got into this maneuver because it was the ultimate expression of independence. You turn that fucking amp on and do what you fucking please, Captain. You know what I mean? And that attitude is still the only attitude. I get all kinds of recommendations:
"Well, you should do this song."
"Thank you for your recommendation but I will do what I like."
I'm opening up for KISS 'cause they're going to draw a slamming audience who want to just power out. So I'll focus on some power tunes. But you can't call "Hey Baby" a power tune. "Hey Baby" is a be-bopper, man.
CREEM: Well, I'm glad to see that you've got Mister St. Holmes on the stage again doing it.
NUGENT: Goddamn right.
DEREK ST. HOLMES: Well, thank you very much.
CREEM: Now if I can get serious for a moment…
NUGENT: Go for it, man.
CREEM: About your album titles—
NUGENT: They are grand, aren't they?
CREEM: Now hold on a second here, the jury's still out on that. You started out with album titles like Survival Of The Fittest, then Tooth, Fang & Claw…
NUGENT: Another environmentally sound—
CREEM: …and Call Of The Wild, which contained social commentary in songs like "Cannonball" and "Pony Express." Now by this point you've crafted an image as an outspoken advocate with a little bit of nobility; an image that carries over into the first solo album.
NUGENT: Yeah.
CREEM: And then all of a sudden we get Scream Dream, "Wango Tango," Weekend Warriors—
NUGENT: Overt fun and games.
CREEM: …to the point where you've now become the Hunter Thompson of sex. You've gone from being a noble savage to a cartoon character.
NUGENT: (quietly) You think so?
CREEM: Yeah! There's miles of distance between the nobility of Survival Of The Fittest to the cover of Intensities In Ten Cities. The man on the cover of Intensities In Ten Cities should've been hawking cartoons on Saturday morning.
NUGENT: OK.
CREEM: I understand the satire there, and I'm not begrudging you that. But I'm just saying: looking at that, were you just—
NUGENT: Totally unconscious. Totally unconscious.
CREEM: So you just took the ball and ran with it.
NUGENT: I… I wasn't even aware that I had the ball, I was just running.
CREEM: But didn't you ever wake up and look back and realize that you were looking a little foolish?
NUGENT: Never thought of it until you just brought it up now.
CREEM: Those early albums were predatory. They had teeth. They had impact. And then the rest of them got soft and hokey and vaudeville.
NUGENT: Well, OK. I can acknowledge that, and also tell you why.
CREEM: All right, go.
NUGENT: I was born. Somewhere down the road I'm gonna die. No one, since the dawn of man, is gonna have more fun than I am between those two points. No one. And in pursuit of this right of Americans to pursue happiness, I have pursued it, tackled it, devoured it, puked it, and snorted its remains numerous times. And I hope you got that on tape because I want a copy of it.
CREEM: (silence) You know what I mean.
NUGENT: Yeah, I do know what you're getting at. You know what my biggest problem in life is? I'm my own worst enemy because I am too intense for my own good.
CREEM: You can't say no to yourself?
NUGENT: Oh, I can say no like a champ. But I don't want to when it comes time for rock 'n' roll. And you're right: I'm not motivated in my music to write "Great White Buffalo" and Tooth, Fang & Claw and "Call Of The Wild" and "Pony Express" anymore because—
CREEM: It's a losing battle?
NUGENT: No, no, no. Not at all, not at all. My hunting is my hunting. My music is one…big…hard on. Literally. Sex plays an outlandish role in the whole Ted Nugent rock 'n' roll thing.
CREEM: Where's the tie-in, though? What's the excuse for not writing songs like "Pony Express" anymore?
NUGENT: Because I am overwhelmed and consumed by beautiful firm women. It's so fucking incredible that it motivates every song. Listen to the fuckin' lyrics!
CREEM: In other words, you're too busy these days to notice that the mail's late.
NUGENT: Absolutely.
CREEM: You're obsessed!
NUGENT: I'm obsessed.
CREEM: Are you still a hard case on drugs?
NUGENT: Real hard. I have never done a drug in my life. I have never smoked a joint in my life. I took two tokes off a joint with the MC5 one night and almost gagged and thought it was stupid. And that's it. I took two tokes off a joint once. I snorted one line of cocaine. And one line of crystal methedrine before my draft physical—but God, that was worth it because I wanted to see the look on the Sergeant's face. That's it for drugs.
I went through a basic period in my life of saying (softly) "No, no thanks" to a period of (yelling) "NO! GET HIM THE FUCK OUTTA HERE!" To when people would offer it to me I would just go fuckin' nuts. People would offer me drugs and it was just like they were holding a razor to my fuckin' arm. And I'd go wild because I considered it an affront.
Because every time we were late, every time an amp didn't work, every time a car wasn't serviced, every time there was a fuck up, it was because someone was stoned. PERIOD! And it was a fuckin' thorn in my side and I kicked fuckin' ass. It was the only way I was able to clean house. And the only way I could impress people to keep the fuck… I've had guys come at me and go:
(in a slurred voice) "Uh, wow, Ted. How y'doin' man? Right on. Uh, where's your Strat? Your Strat, man. C'mon, you always played a Strat! The time we did the cocaine together you were playin' the St—"
(screaming) "GET THE FUCK OUTTA HERE! I NEVER PLAYED A STRAT IN MY LIFE!"
CREEM: So you just say no.
NUGENT: I say fuckin' no, loud and fuckin' clear with a large caliber fuckin' weapon. How many of them are even alive today? How many are in jail today? How many talk like the Special Olympics of conversation today? How many drool when they look at you? Fuck them.
I laugh at them. I laugh in their face. When they fall and die, I laugh. I go, "Let's fuckin' celebrate. I'm buying Vernors for everybody, the asshole died on drugs." (laughs) Fuck 'em all.
I've never had a drug in my body. I've never had a cigarette in my mouth. No big deal, it's not like a big ceremony for me. It's not like (in an lofty voice) "Yes, and I'm salvation itself…" Big rat's ass, it's my own personal little thing. And I'm better because of it. I'm faster than most people. I'm having way more fun than most people. And I'm alive. And I don't choke on my own vomit. (laughs)
CREEM: You mentioned the MC5…
NUGENT: I used to go to the Five all the time and try to be friends with them, but they were so stoned it was like talkin' to a fuckin' log.
CREEM: Were you ever approached by John Sinclair to support the White Panthers' Rainbow People's Party?
NUGENT: Many people, many times. I was fascinated by it because I was a major fan of the Five, and I was a major fan of what I thought was a camaraderie there. Not a commune. Not a bunch of dope smokin' pieces of ass fuck. I said, "I want to know about this people's party." And, you know, he's gagging on a joint, and I realized there wasn't a whole lot to talk about. You know, he smelled like a fuckin' hippie, he looked like a fuckin' hippie, he smoked all kinds of fuckin' dope and I said: "No, John. Fuck you."
And I was outcast. Those people made fun of me at every chance. And I made sure I gave them all the opportunities in the world because I'd come to their parties and pretend I was stoned. And I'd end up taking my pants down to my knees and sitting in the brown rice. They want to see somebody stoned, I'll show 'em somebody fuckin' stoned.
CREEM: Would your music have been different in some way if you'd grown up in Chicago or New York as opposed to Detroit?
NUGENT: I don't think it would've mattered. I have a funny feeling that what you see right here, this is exactly what it would be.
CREEM: I don't know, I can't see you being like this if you'd grown up here in Toronto.
NUGENT: I guarantee you I would have been. First of all, I'd have gotten out of here so I could get a Smith & Wesson.
And now on to Part Two. . .
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