TED NUGENT
INTERVIEW
Many a hot night was spent shredding
backyard vert in the seventies to the
relentless tunes of the Motor City Mad-
man. Ted has been spreading his super-
hype guitar sound across the world for
over 20 years, appealing to people of all
ages. Nugent gave the world such rock
and roll anthems as "Cat Scratch Fever,"
"Free For All," and "Wango Tango."
"I've got to tell you that a lot of people
call my music metal, and I don't really
call it that," he says. "I choose to catego
rize it as high-energy rhythm and blues,
but because it's played loud and fast, it's
called heavy metal. My influences stretch
from the originators of rock and roll, like
Chuck Berry and James Brown, to short.
skirts and train wrecks.
"Certain guitar licks I play drive me
wild and cause a reaction in my guts, and
over the years certain rhythms I write have
driven people to go wild doing their
thing," he says.
Nugent had been busy recently with his
new group, the Damn Yankees. The Ted
Nugent Group also meets for their annual
New Year's "Whiplash Bashes," and Ted
publishes and edits his own bowhunting/
Nugent mouthpiece called Ted Nugent's
World Bowhunters Magazine.
How did the Damn Yankees material-
ize? Ted says he had always been a fan of
Styx but knew the band was not letting
lead guitarist Tommy Shaw's potential
shine through. Ted saw a similar problem
in Night Ranger with bassist Jack Blades:
the band wasn't able to communicate
what Jack had in his guts.
"Over the years we had always yelled
at each other, 'Hey, we should get to-
gether and jam sometime... and it never
happened," Nugent says. "After the hun-
dredth time, we realized there are only
twelve months in the year. Tommy and i
eventually got togeth-
er, and in the first ten
minutes we were writ-
ing hit songs."
On stage, Nugent
takes pride in demon-
strating his hunting
skills, mainly his bow-
hunting expertise, by
shooting an arrow
through the heart of a
stuffed elk one of the
many trophies of his be
loved pastime. Nugent
also takes pride in pro-
moting hunting, de-
nouncing drugs, and ex-
pounding the benefits of
eating what you kill.
68 THRASHER MAGAZINE
BRONCO
UNDS
"When you take an animal's life," he
says, "it's not like ordering a Chicken
McNugget. It wasn't a chicken that some
body hacked the head off for you. You
never see that. By the time you get it, you
forget how your meal got to you.
"People should be dragged through the
slaughterhouse so they can know where
their meals are coming from. It's called.
honesty! Meat raised for mass consump-
tion is marbled and full of fat. Meat in the
wild is lean without being injected with
chemicals and toxins. I couldn't do what I
am doing if I was full of additives."
"When you take an
animal's life, it's not like
ordering a Chicken
McNugget. People should
be dragged through the
slaughterhouse so they
can see where their
meals are coming from."
The anti-hunters are basically hyp-
ocrites. They are extremists. I've got a let-
ter here on my desk, one of many, where
animal rights activists have threatened to
kill me and my family. They think animals
have as much rights as humans. They
think that if a poisonous snake was coiled
and ready to strike a baby, they would not
kill the snake. That's how ridiculous they
are. I say, 'Come on, I'm ready. Are you?""
Needless to say, Ted has had no comers.
Nugent also has a home video that has
been criticized by animal rights activists..
In the video he hunts, kills, skins and eats
in the way only "the Nuge" can. "On my
Down to Earth' video I kill my dinner
legally, but some people are offended by
it, and I'm sorry. If it offends you, don't
watch it! It's that simple."
Ted claims he has never touched drugs
in his life and never will, and he likes the
members in his band to adopt the same
attitude. His anti-drug stance stems from
his past musical acquaintances.
"I saw these guys with boogers hanging
out of their noses, drooling on themselves,
dying, making total assholes out of them-
selves, and I said, 'Yeah, that's cool,' and I
laughed at these people. When they did
drugs, I went hunting-plain and simple.
Under a ceiling painted with free-floating figures dancing through the heav-
ens, inside the walls of this overtly roccoco theater, the crowd is jumping and
screaming. Primus is playing tonight at the Warfield in S.F., laying down a
thick, bassy, funky, rocking metal sound. Bass player Les Claypool is lean and
lanky. He likes to duck walk all over the stage, stomping his left foot in a high
pseudo-goose step. "That's my stiff white boy trying to dance suburban
strut," he says. Les may be a goofy-looking dude, but he thumps his axe
tough and solid, droning low decibel rhythms that entrance the multitudes
who have shelled out high dollar to see this trio play its stuff. "I like to turn it
up till the amp starts distorting and clipping and freaking out," Les says. "We
pretty much just go out there and do our thing. There's not a lot of pre-medi-
tation to it." Drummer Tim "Herb" Alexander pounds the skins on his multi-
piece set with a rolling, twisting, throbbing beat and Larry Lalonde's guitar
cries on in a meandering fuzz, broken by strains of screeching leads and
melody. A field of sweaty heads bob and move in eddys and currents. They
slam to songs that span the band's six-year career, cuts off the albums Suck
On This, Frizzle Fry and the latest, Sailing The Cheese. Over the years, Primus
has paid its dues and tried to remain true to the funk, playing as many gigs as
possible and producing their own albums. "It's been a slow, steady climb,"
Les says, "a slow progression, evolution, whatever you want to call it, but it's
-Brian Brannon
all in the same vein."
"I was friends with Jimi Hendrix] and toured
twice with him and jammed several times with
him in New York City. I spent time with Bon
Scott of AC/DC and watched him die. John
Bonham of Zep, Brian Jones of the Stones, Jim
Morrison of the Doors all these people
made assholes out of themselves with drugs
and alcohol."
Any advice to young skaters?
"Get in touch with yourself-HUNT!" says
Nugent. "Those of us who hunt have a better
perspective on life and what life is. You're in
touch with your surroundings. Just like when
you get on your board and hit the street, you
are in touch with the city street, same as with
hunting, you use your senses-all of them.
"My son Toby skates, and I ride his board
occasionally, and I almost killed myself. But I
feel that anything you do in life with your sens-
es, like skating, you've got to have your senses
tuned you've got to have your brain and
your eyes and your heart and soul into it.
The only way you can do that is with good
food, good rest, and no fogging agents like
drugs and alcohol that cloud your perception. I
really applaud the pros in skating who show
such incredible talent.
"There are two choices you can make in life.
You can either be productive and in tune with
yourself and enjoy yourself without drugs and
alcohol, or you can take the path of an asshole.
where you're drooling on yourself and stum-
bling all over looking like an idiot."
Write Ted at: Ted Nugent's World Bowhunter
Magazine, 4008 W. Michigan Ave., Jackson,
MI, 49202.
-Jon Stain
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