Review Fix Exclusive Q & A: Andy Fraser: Part Two

RF: There are claims by musicians and fans alike and I’m a fan professionally, and personally, but I still think in a way that Free is underrated. I think they are one of the most important bands in classic rock history. What do you say about that?

1. AF: You get no argument from me on that. I mean, I love the band. I loved being in it. I loved where we were heading; I always felt a great integrity amongst us, especially as teenagers when you’re in your formative years. You know, you take your Ps and Qs, and learn your view on the world and your sense of what’s right and wrong from each other, and I could not have been with a better bunch of guys. I thought we were mature beyond our years and a great influence on each other. Competitive among us, there was always someone to knock someone down when someone got out of line, and so we were a very well balanced band. I thought our spirit was always looking to the horizon, breaking new ground. I credit The Beatles with that kind of spirit. I laugh how they were able to do “Strawberry Fields Forever” or “Yellow Submarine.” You know, absolutely use every aspect of their personality.

RF: They evolved as a band from the early stage till later on, an incredible evolution.

AF: One of my disappointments with Free somehow got nipped in the bottom and it started to become kind of like a cover band, when you just do what you’re famous for. It gets old real quick and it happens to a lot of bands. There’s very few that manage to say “no, we are going to forge ahead.”

RF: Yeah, but in that five year period; I think it’s five from about 68 to 73, so much was accomplished. Was it true you guys were supposed to play Woodstock, or is that a rumor that is not true?

AF: There might be a slight bit of truth and this is slightly speculative. We might have been asked by Island [Records]. Maybe we weren’t ready, which was probably true; I think it was probably around the time of our second album, so we were still very formative, but interestingly enough, on the new Woodstock album that just has been released last Friday, there is a recording of “I’ll be Creeping,” which – I don’t know how they’re going to use it – but it was recorded probably the same time as Woodstock.

RF: Oh, it’s a live version of it?

AF: No, I think it’s from the album. It’s just clever of them to use a song from same time period. I’m not quite sure how they use it, but actually, no – we weren’t there.

RF: But you played the Isle of Wight festival, right – which was really something right?

AF: Yeah, it really worked out well for us.

RF: Is that a year after Woodstock?

AF: Yeah.

RF: But I’ve seen video of it and the fans were acting up, or I
don’t know really what was going on there.

AF: We didn’t notice any trouble at all. I mean, it was pretty smooth sailing for us. I mean, Chris of Island Records really made sure things fell into place with us. He was very clever in [that] we were scheduled to go on the night before at a bad time, and he said “no, put them on the next day” and managed to make that work. And another very good coincidence: Ricky Farr’s brother – I think his name was Gary Farr – was doing the PA system and Paul and I had become very close with him in the early days. We used to go around and make two track demos at his house, and so we had a sort of close relationship with him, and he made sure that things worked for us, and I tell you, in a festival situation, where one band is on 50 minutes on after the next, it can get really hairy up there.

RF: In terms of how long a band is on? Is that what you mean?

AF: It’s not like you can get a sound check and get everything going your way. A band’s on for 50 minutes and then you’re on 10 minutes later, and you know you’ve got to just pray everything is going to work. You know, it’s not really like a normal gig where you know the crew will get there on the afternoon setup. You’ll have a sound check, and everything will work. I mean, everything is by the skin of the teeth, so that lucked out although when I saw Free Forever (DVD) and I saw the part where we blew a fuse onstage, that’s not an unlikely thing to happen at the festival.

RF: You guys were great there, though. I’ve seen the performance. What do you think of the DVD overall?

AF: Actually, I was pleasantly surprised. There’s been a lot of “Free” stuff, which I thought was kind of regurgitated stuff. I wasn’t a fan of the five-CD box set. It was really a B version of everything, but there was something about the way the story was told in “Free Forever” that came over really well. I thought it was good and it actually softened me up enough. When Free was over, I was on to other things, and any talk of reforming, I always said “no,” too, but it came up again at that period, and I felt like putting aside my own desires for everybody else’s or at least the fans and I asked Simon and Paul, “why don’t we do a concert –say do a video in conjunction with the release of this so it would make a lot of people happy.” Simon was into this; Paul wasn’t. But that was a fleeting moment. It won’t ever happen again.

RF: “All Right Now” – you probably heard this a million times. It is a rock and roll anthem and is one of the greatest rock songs of all time. I’ve heard Simon Kirke talk about it on the DVD and the rest of it about both of you. The writing of it – how did that really come about? Was it true you had a bad gig?

AF: Very bad. It was like rainy Tuesday night. I can’t remember the city. I think Simon remembers the city, but it was like in a college gig and there was like 30 people there, and they’re all out of their head on mandrax – that was the rage at the time. I thought of them as the rubber people, because it was like a ‘70s mosh pit, whether it be all around the room limping bumping into each other, and we played and there’s many gigs where we play, and we always played for ourselves and whether anybody cared or not was beside the point. We got into it, but we sucked that night. Apart from being ignored, and so when we came off we were really depressed, and we’re in the dressing room and there is awful silence. You know, like the world is about to end, and I started singing “All Right Now Baby.” You know, kind of a bit like common; it’s a new day tomorrow and everybody joins in when they usually did, when you had a jam like we usually do in the dressing room and we get to see another day, and it developed from that the guitar riff was great trying to do my Townsend (The Who) impersonation because I thought he was the best rhythm guitarist. Paul did the lyrics and the verses, which I thought as always kind of a teenage fantasy; in fact, probably really helped propel the song because when you look at most hit songs, they’re all kind of in the Disney vein, which is a little disconcerting but it’s true and even big rock songs are actually pop songs with a rock dressing. Radio stations and record companies are so nervous about their investment. They didn’t want to rub anyone the wrong way, so forget religion and forget anything too sexual so, it all comes down to Disneyland, kind of.

RF: That’s a very good point, but the song just have everything to me. They have dynamics, gaps, the guitar playing is magnificent, your bass playing, the most exhilarating vocals – I think it’s rock and roll brilliance.

AF: That’s great to hear. As a writer, it seems to me like a three chord trick and although people talk about it in anthem terms, it would never be sort of Beethoven to me, so I’m keeping it real here.

RF: I understand what you mean, but it is a masterpiece in the realm of classic rock. I’ve just interviewed Michael De Barres, who was in the band “Silverhead.” He did a version of “All Right Now” for an insurance commercial. How do you feel about that actually?

AF: Well, I haven’t heard their version.

RF: I don’t remember the name of the company, but he was just raving about the song as everyone does. But that time, the synthesis of the four of you, was the recording process shared, was somebody sort of dominant? How was that?

AF: Well, we were very much a live band. Pretty much most of our time on the road and then to say, we’ve blocked two weeks to make an album to when you think of things these days is kind of ludicrous, so whatever songs we kind of got together and plan them night after night kind of helped and shaped them up, but we’d go in the studio and basically play them live, and sometimes we would sort of rearrange them, especially when you don’t have the atmosphere and the audience. Ambiance to fill it out, you’ve got to learn to get over the sterility of the studio, which would be a little intimidating, and then we worked with good engineers like Andy Johns and Roy Thomas Baker. Funny story: we started off in Trident studios where Baker (later with Queen) was the house engineer and wasn’t allowed to work anywhere else. After we turned it into Island, he said “great, but we need to work on the production a bit and Baker wanted us to work for Island studios and do some overdubs and remixes and that, and we said ‘you know we like working with Roy’ and he went into a panic, so we sneaked him in, in the middle of the night, and he sweated like he was going to get caught every night, and he was so nervous he would not even have his name on the credits.”

RF: Did they put down a different name?

AF: Yes, a made up name I can’t remember.

RF: It’s like Paul McCartney did that on a Steve Miller album I think. He called himself Paul Ramon or something like that?

AF: Yes.

RF: I interviewed Simon Kirke a while ago on a radio show I used to do, and he told me that Paul Kossoff’s decline and eventual death was something he wishes he could’ve done more about. Kossof was such an extremely talented guitarist, but a tortured soul. Do you have any thoughts on him? I know it’s hard it’s hard to encapsulate it one statement.

AF: We all felt that way and if you knew him for the first four years, you would not have believed it. He was an unbelievably funny guy. He probably inherited that from his father. He would have these characters, there is this long running English TV series called “Coronation Street.”

RF: I’ve heard of it, yes.

AF: There was some biddies (old ladies) on there and because it’s cold in England, he used to wear this coat that nearly came down to the ankles, and whenever something rubbed him the wrong way, or he wanted to lay into you, he would go into this kind of character and he was the funniest guy. I mean he could just tear you in two and have us cracking up, and so the difference between that and how he ended up was just night and day. I never initially thought of him as tortured, but he definitely became that. When Free started falling apart, there was nowhere for him to go. He invested every inch of his soul into it and I think in a way with his heroes being Jimmy Hendrix, and other people who had died, he lost his confidence, I think and, you know, got into this drug thing and felt – well, if people saw him on stage – and he was bad; he was always nervous. If it was drugs, it was an excuse, except for any other excuse, so I think it was like a weird thing. I think that was going on in his head, and I think after a while, the drugs themselves just take over.

RF: Such a talented guitarist; I think he’s one of the most underrated guitar players ever.

AF: Soulful.