- On the phone with Donrad - Summer 2001
- How cool is it that I get a message from Angel Air records main man Peter Purnell asking if I would like to do an interview with Mick Ralphs?
- I was jumping with joy at the thought of this becoming a reality. Mick Ralphs has been one of my favorite musicians for a long time. It all started when I was a high schooler and a friend of mine turned me on to a band called Mott The Hoople. That guitar intro to "All The young Dudes" hooked me. I thought they were the coolest damn band ever. They had a cool image, great clothes, fine music, and weren't over played/exposed on the radio. Needless to say I bought all of their albums.
- After Micks' departure from Mott The Hoople, he scored very big with the band Bad Company. He has never looked back since and his blazing guitar has brought many good memories to people who know the songs and the mega hits that Bad Company provided.
- The thing that most people aren't aware of, is that Mick has released a new CD called "It's All Good." Appropriate title as far as I'm concerned as it definitely is "All Good." The new CD is all instrumental though and has no vocals and is on a different course than the Mott or Bad Company songs. It is a very interesting CD and at times reminds me of some earlier Jeff Beck material (buy it and judge for yourself). There is also a live track on "It's All Good" that Mick recorded with Bad Company a couple years ago that is also interesting.
- Back in my high school days I would never have guessed that thirty years later I'd be talking with Mick Ralphs, on his personal phone to boot! I didn't know what to expect when talking with Mick. Would he be a jaded old grump? Would he be boring? Would he be cool? All these possibilities went through my head as you never know what to expect. Then it came the appointed time to give him a ring... my anticipation was growing.
- When the phone was picked up, I said "I'm calling for Mr. Mick Ralphs?" "Speaking," he said. I told him that I was calling to interview him as per the record company and he said "cool!" It was all good after that. Matter of fact, Mick was one of the coolest people I'd ever talked with. We covered many issues and he answered all of my questions with ease and seemed happy to do so. Mick liked to laugh quite a bit and he appears to be a very gregarious personality.
- Occasionally while talking with Mick I would hear a loud "whooping" sound in the background. I found out that it was a talking parrot that he has (among many other pets... read the following interview for more info) at home that mimics his whistling and singing, all to Micks amusement.
- Before I hung up the phone Mick said "call back anytime if you have more questions." I got the impression that he meant it and the comment wasn't some phony after thought like many others in this business.
- The following is how our conversation went. I hope you enjoy it as much as I did conducting it. Thanks Mick for being so cooperative and for being a great person to chat with, it is appreciated.
 K2K: I'd like to talk about your new album "It's All Good."
- MR: Oh... you got it?
- K2K: Yes. I love it.
- MR: That's great!
- K2K: But it doesn't sound at all like your other music.
- MR: Well no. It's funny, when I'm not on the road or doing stuff with Bad Company - or whatever- I've always written songs galore... a lot of stuff people don't even hear. A lot of the stuff on this particular record ["It's All Good"] is just sketch pad ideas I had for songs that I've never got around to putting lyrics to. Because I've always put them down, I generally tend to get music more than I do lyrics... when you get the two together, you've got a good song. I've always got these bits of music - I came back from the tour with the original Bad Company - and I thought "Well, I've got all these bits of songs what am I going to do with them?" Then I started to write more songs and I thought "Why don't I just log them all down and see if I can compile enough for an album." I found I had more than enough for an album and Peter Purnell [from Angel Air records] luckily said he'd put them out as a sort of an off-shoot of Bad Company if you like.
- You know I did this album all at home without any plans of putting it out at all. It was just like I'd jot this idea down as this might be a good song, but I think because of that I'd done - not thrown away - but without sort of thinking "Oh my god, who's going to hear this?" I just put it down as I felt like it. All the guitar stuff is like one take because I was just doing it for myself. I thought I'd just put a bit of guitar on this and rattle it off and say "ok, that's near enough."
- K2K: I didn't know you played keyboards.
- MR: Yeah! I have been playing a lot of keyboards, especially in the last five or six years. I suppose it gives you more scope than the guitar, although it does tend to make you write a different way. But I find that the keyboard is the complete instrument you know? Guitar is great for a certain thing, but a piano is so much more expansive. I suppose people wouldn't think I played the keyboard, but I enjoy exploring the keyboard. I mean I only play by ear like I do guitar. It's fun to explore it. I'm sort of trying things out and I think "well, that sounds nice." I don't know what the chords are half the time, I mean if it sounds good it's fine.
- K2K: On the "Barking Mad" track, where did you get all the crazy sound effects?
- MR: Ahhh.... well, that's funny. I bought my wife's daughter a Yamaha drum machine last year or the year before, and it had these pads on it that kids can hit them and change the sounds they make, like tom-tom sounds or snare drum sounds and then one of them was a special effects sound. One of them was like breaking glass, another one was like a bloke laughing, another one is a horse winnying... like kiddy stuff you know? Not only that, it also has these sort of funky grooves built into it like sort of hip-hop stuff. So I was playing around with it - instead of the usual drum machine I use - and I found I couldn't link them up because the Yamaha wasn't keeping time like a regular drum machine should, it was actually going ahead a little bit. So I thought "well never mind, I'll just use that and play it along with that" because it has some different sounds in it. So I laid down a track and I'm playing along with it and I start hitting these pads and all of these silly sounds start coming out and I thought "Well what the hell, why not? It sounds pretty stupid but it's alright."
- K2K: It added to it.
- MR: Yeah, it made people smile, so that's ok.
- K2K: Do you still go to pawnshops and look for guitars?
- MR: I do it the lazy way now. I go on the internet [laughs] and surf around america, much to the annoyance of my wife and much to the cost of my phone bill. It's a new thing I've gotten into. The kids have computers and I never get to go on them, so I'm going to get my own lap top and nobody's going to use it but me. Then everybody's said "you've gotta try "G Base" and I'm looking at all these guitars and going "YES!" It's like having "Vintage Guitar" magazine everyday in your home you know? I'm still a guitar nut, so I look up all these Les Pauls and Fender Esquires and photo them in. Some are great and some aren't so great. I bought one guitar off the internet and it arrived in about three days, it was brilliant. I didn't even go anywhere.
- K2K: How many guitars do you have in your collection now?
- MR: Not as many as I did. At the moment I have probably more than anyone should really need because I like them so much. I have about thirty I suppose.
- K2K: Do you have a favorite guitar?
- MR: Yeah, it's a 1957 Fender Esquire. It's the only one that's not in a case, it's sitting in the studio right now. It just sits there and says "Play me!" [laughs] It's just a funky piece of wood. I still like Gibson, I've got a beautiful old Les Paul that's been hacked about a bit. It was a 1959 Sunburst, but somebody scraped the finish off and it's pretty beat up, but it sounds great. It's not like what they sell in shops as an awesome piece, it's just a working mans '59 Les Paul and it sounds great. I used it on the [Bad Company] "Reformation Tour" a couple of years ago, it's great to play.
- K2K: When you joined Bad Company you obviously came into a lot more money than you did with Mott The Hoople.
- MR: Yes.
- K2K: And that probably allowed you to collect a few more things that you always wanted.
- MR: That's right.
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- K2K: I remember a picture of you in "Creem" magazine with a 1964 1/2 Mustang.
- MR: That's right. I gave my daughter that picture because she couldn't believe it was her dad.
- K2K: Do you still own that car?
- MR: No. I had it when I was living alone in London in my youth. I'd just come back from the states and Paul [Rodgers] and I caught the american car bug, so he bought a Camero and I... that '64 1/2 was my second Mustang, I had a "Bullitt" type Mustang before that I wish I'd kept, like the car in the film "Bullitt."
- K2K: What kind of car do you have now?
- MR: Oh I'm very sensible now I'm afraid. I've got a Range Rover. It's brilliant actually but it's manual. I always [still] have manual, I steer away from automatic. The new type Range Rover is really nice. I've had Range Rovers for a few years actually. I suppose after going through the usual thing people do when they have money, like Porsches and the rest of it. Then they have children and they suddenly start getting sensible and the Porsche goes, although you still want one- really- you just think you shouldn't because it makes you do things you shouldn't really do if you're a dad. So you have to wait till they're all grown up and then have one again [laughs].
- K2K: Who were your guitar influences?
- MR: Oh lots of them really. Mostly the blues players. Hubert Sumlin that played with Howlin' Wolf, Albert King. Chuck Berry I like particularly for his song writing and his rhythm style. I had the honor of meeting his son actually at a gig in St. Louis. He's a nice kid. You wouldn't think he was Chcuk Berrys'son. He's like a real straight, computer whiz kid you know? He said "you gotta talk to my dad, I'm a big fan of Bad Company, you gotta talk to him." I'm thinking "you want me to talk to Chuck Berry?" This kid's excited because he's with Bad Company and I'm excited because I'm with Chuck Berrys' son.
- K2K: Did you ever meet Chuck Berry?
- MR: No. No. I've seen him play. I've seen him on gigs in america lots of times, but I just like his records really. For what they did you know? The lyric and the groove. The groove is still going on from all those blues guys from Chess in Chicago. Otis Spahn, Willie Dixon and all those guys. I learned a long time ago- and not many people know this- that they played rock and roll with a shuffle across a straight four. Those old songs like "Johnny B. Goode" just sort of grooved and that's what a lot of the rock bands in England- especially in the early 60's- didn't get. It didn't dawn on them that that was what they were doing. It was natural for those american guys because that's how the black guys played the blues, shuffles and fours. Chuck Berry just put fours across the shuffle. If you try it, it really works. It's quite amazing, you'd think it wouldn't work but it's great.
- K2K: I think Keith Richards stole all those riffs.
- MR: Oh yeah. He's great too.
- K2K: What about the Freddie King song "Hideaway" you did on the new record?
- MR: Yeah, well I like all the Kings... Albert, Freddie, B.B.
- K2K: I saw Bad Company this summer and they did a John Lee Hooker song and dedicated it to him as he had recently passed away.
- MR: Oh really? That's nice. Paul's a big blues fan. A chap I just spoke to was saying he realized that there were a lot of influences there in the original Bad Company. We were all R&B and blues fans, all four of us. Paul was Otis Reddings band and Simon and I were Booker T. and the MG's. I wanted to be Steve Cropper and Simon wanted to be Al Jackson.
- K2K: So you liked the Stax stuff too?
- MR: Oh yeah. Definately. Our rehearsals were a joke really, because we'd never play Bad Company songs, we'd always do Stax songs. Sam & Dave stuff and Wilson Pickett. People would come in and expect us to be playing "Can't Get Enough" and we'd be playing "Knock On Wood." We were terrible at rehearsing really, because we'd always want to do all that sort of music.
- K2K: You played some of that stuff on the "Run With The Pack" album.
- MR: Yeah! We loved all that sort of stuff and still do.
- K2K: In the old days before Mott The Hoople, you were in a band called the Buddies. Overend Watts supposedly took ill and was replaced by a guy named Dave Mason, is this true?
- MR: Well, Dave Mason was in a rival band in a nearby town.
- K2K: Was that the same Dave Mason who started Traffic?
- MR: Yes. Then he was later in a version of Fleetwood Mac. That's the last time I saw him actually [a crazy squawking sound is heard in the background at this point].
- K2K: Is that a bird in the background?
- MR: It's a parrot. A noisy parrot I'm afraid.
- K2K: Cool. I was going to ask if you had any pets.
- MR: Oh Yeah. There's a German shepard lying on the floor here, there's a talking parrot over there talking away and we've got dogs outside and another dog somewhere else. It's kind of nice having them around, they're good people. The parrot's so funny. He imitates me and I don't even realize he's doing it. I'm walking around the house talking to myself and whistling and the next day he's said something I've said... it's scary you know? Like what the hell is that? He'll probably start whistling in a minute. He whistles a lot 'cause I walk around the house whistling and he just picks it up, it's funny.
- K2K: In the 70's there was a rift or a fight between Mott The Hoople and Led Zeppelin. Were you in Mott at the time and do you recall the incident and what it was about?
- MR: I'd already gone by then. It was at the Broadway show wasn't it? When John Bonham insisted on playing drums or something and they didn't want it. That wouldn't have happened if I was there because I would have said "fine, come ahead." I read about that somewhere. He was quite hard to handle John was, but he had a heart of gold really.
- K2K: Did you know John Bonham?
- MR: Oh yeah. I knew all of them [the members of Led Zeppelin]. We were on the road together with the same management.
- K2K: What was it like dealing with [Led Zeppelin and Bad Company manager] Peter Grant?
- MR: He was great. He was great because he was on our side [laughs]. He was a good manager. He was Zeppelins man, but he looked after us equally as well you know? Now we always felt we were like the number two band, I mean obviously they were the big stars of the time when we came on the scene. But we were on their label [Swansong] and it helped us an awful lot. I honestly think without him, we wouldn't have achieved what we'd achieved. He managed to put us in the right places and help us in that way
- K2K: He had a lot of connections.
- MR: Yes he did. He was a great manager. He was definately unique. A lot of people aspire to be like he was. He was quite an astute manager in his way.
- K2K: What was the first concert you ever saw?
- MR: That I've ever seen?
- K2K: Yes.
- MR: Well the first concert I can remember seeing was the Rolling Stones in Italy in about 1967, when Brian Jones was in the band and he had gold paint all over his face. People were like screaming. We were in a little band in Italy touring and went to see this band the Rolling Stones, who we obviously knew from England, but now they were big stars you know? They were just awesome. Brian Jones looked like someone from another planet with the gold face, the Gibson Firebird guitar and shades on. It was freaky kind of- like they were "out there" somewhere. There again I thought he [Brian Jones] was a very important member of the band, a bit like Syd Barrett of Pink Floyd, he was a key member.
- K2K: He started the Rolling Stones didn't he?
- MR: Yes he did. He was the R&B kid.
- K2K: Plus he could play any instrument you put in front of him.
- MR: Yeah. Guitar, harp and he had a great knowledge of the blues. I think there was a bitter rivalry there.
- K2K: Yeah, with Mick and Keith.
- MR: Yeah.
- K2K: How would you compare your first U.S. tour with Mott The Hoople as to your first U.S. tour with Bad Company?
- MR: The first tour of the U.S. with Mott The Hoople was more like a group of students coming to visit america whereas when we came as Bad Company we were definately on show. It was like suddenly the bar bands played in big bars. It was a different level all together. It was just as exciting in both ways because the first time in america with Mott was like "WOW... America!" It was a real eye opener because obviously you know you have all these illusions as you probably do of England and you arrive in Newark, New Jersey and you're totally disappointed because there's no cowboys, it's raining and it's shitty. Then you think "this isn't like what I thought it was going to be." Then you get to realize that's just a tiny little bit and it's huge. The times I've been there [the United States] it doesn't get any smaller.
- K2K: Depends on what part of the country you're in. The east is different from the west.
- MR: It's a different world. I mean I love it. A lot of people who live in america haven't traveled probably as much as I have. It's like the same land mass but it's almost like different continents as far as climate and culture. You've got the midwest, the mountain and desert areas, you've got the west coast, you've got the east coast, got the southern part and the north... it's great.
- K2K: Do you have a favorite city?
- MR: Lots of them. I couldn't really say one because there's so many great places. I do like Chicago because it's like New York without the stress. It's like compacted, it's all there but it's not overwhelming. I didn't like Los Angeles very much but I like San Francisco.
- K2K: San Francisco's a great town.
- MR: It's got a great character. Seattle has character... that's a cool place. Santa Fe is a great place which people don't get there often, but it's like a unique place.
- K2K: How did you like Detroit?
- MR: Next... [laughs]. Listen, there's a great gig there, the fans are great but I wouldn't want to live there. The thing about you americans I've figured out, is you move in the course of your life about six or seven times in different parts of america which is great. English people are so boring, they tend to stay where they were born and never go anywhere... 'cause England isn't that big anyway. It's amazing to find that somebody was born in, say Detroit, then they end up in Florida and they've been via California and Wisconsin or somewhere. Those places are so different, it would be hard to find anywhere quite as extreme as lets say Dallas, Texas as opposed to Portland, Maine. There's such a difference isn't there? All these different cultures. That's what I find so great about it. Plus the places sound great, so you can write songs about them. You can't in England. You can't get excited about about places like Wigan and Cleethorpes, like you can about Chattanooga and Des Moines you know? All these wild names you have, they're great.
- K2K: What don't people know about you that you wished they did?
- MR: That I'm alright really [laughs].
- K2K: That you're a regular guy?
- MR: Yeah. I'm just a working musician. When we were really doing well in Bad Company, people would ask "What's it like to be a star?" I would say "What do you mean? What is a star?" I just got lucky. I'm a guitar player that happened to be with the right people and suddenly "Poof!" You know? You're just lucky to be in that situation. At the end of the day you're just a guitar player that caught a lucky break.
- K2K: Do you still get residual checks?
- MR: Yeah! Thank god, it pays the rent.
- K2K: Bad Company still get a lot of airplay over here.
- MR: I know. It's amazing. It actually is quite amazing to me. Songs like "Can't Get Enough" and "Feel Like Makin' Love." I still get ASCAP royalties. It's very heartwarming to think that people in America still like that kind of music - and they do! It's on the radio all the time. It's what they call "Classic Rock" now. Which is fantastic really, because it gives creedence to what you do. So hopefully it might encourage people to listen to what Paul's doing or what I'm doing as a spin-off. Not that what I'm doing is supposed to be taken that seriously - it's a bit of fun - but it might show people that I can do that other stuff as well.
- K2K: Are you still afraid to fly?
- MR: I'm afraid to crash. I've had a few rough experiences in my early days in traveling around america. In my Mott days- in the three flights a day sort of thing- it was all Alleghany Airlines, Piedmont and Eastern. It was like "...oops, the one you were just going to catch isn't coming in, it just hit a mountain." It's really a lot safer than it ever was - though at the moment I don't know if it is - but I mean before THAT [the world trade center attacks] happened. I'm sure it is fine, it's just that I've done so much of it I just get nervous about it all. It's probably like if you're in a car with a wreckless driver and you have to keep going somewhere with him, you think "Can I just get out now and have a break here?"
- K2K: Do you still prefer to take the bus when you're touring?
- MR: We do when we tour, that's all we ever travel by. I came back from one american tour - out of many - on the Queen Elizebeth [the ship], which like after two days got really boring. I would think "I could be home now if I'd have been on a plane!" But I was scared of heights and scared of depth [laughs].
- K2K: What songs of yours are you personally proudest of?
- MR: Ummm.... I suppose something like "Ready For Love" which I did in the Mott days and then it went through to Bad Company and it still goes down so well at gigs and people still love it, which is very nice for me as a writer. It still has a lot of emotion and it's very nice that people think that way of it. I've got a lot of new songs that I wish people felt the same way about, but they haven't heard them yet. Maybe next time. Maybe they won't be as good. I don't know... it's a different time isn't it?
- K2K: Oh yeah. What's the chance of you getting back with the original Bad Company again?
- MR: Oh, every chance in the world. I speak to Paul quite a lot. I want to do a studio album and he says "Well, you write another 'Can't Get Enough' and I'll be there." I say "Well I hear that, but I'm older now and three chords don't seem to work backwards." [laughs] So it's difficult, you can't really do that, but I know what he means, something of that caliber of whatever it is. I send him songs all the time and he says "Yeah, well that's ok and that's ok," but I know what he means. He's looking for something solid gold. I've written a lot of songs and Bad Company songs are like a narrow musical parameter, if you like. Then there's all the other stuff I like - jazz and blues. Then there's classical and it's like I wallow into that sometimes. Paul says "Put your Bad Company hat on and come up with a corker!" Sometimes you can work toward it but sometimes it's hard. You just find yourself thinking like "Hang on, this is just not flowing." It's like I'm really trying to make this happen and it's not happening, you know what I mean?
- K2K: Oh yeah, trends change.
- MR: Yeah. It's like you've got to write a letter to your auntie that sent you a scarf and you keep thinking "I must do it," but you never do. Then one day you just rattle it off and you think "Well, it wasn't that difficult after all." I just think that if something good like that's going to come along, it'll come and I'll just capture it rather than dwelling on it and trying to make it happen... it'll never happen that way. That's what I find with any good song, you just have to let it happen. Out of about twenty songs you might write, one of any significance. It might be thirty or forty, but I just keep churning them out and churning them out in hope that one of them will stick. I just go through the process of putting down these ideas as they come to me rather than taking one and spending hours on it. If something comes and it comes back to you, then it's a good idea.
- K2K: I've always liked the song "Violence" that you did with Mott The Hoople.
- MR: Yeah!
- K2K: "Drivin' Sister" too...
- MR: Yeah! That's cool, thank you. Well now I suppose it's interesting for people now to hear the instrumental stuff that I've done [on the new album "It's All Good"]. It's just another way of expressing myself.
- K2K: I love it. It's completely different. I didn't know what to expect, it reminded me of some earlier Jeff Beck music.
- MR: Ahhhhhh..... cool! I like that. It's just a little bit different and it's something that was done without too much care and attention, so I think it's kind of wild but it'll do. People either like it or they don't. It's no big deal, but hopefully people will like it and see a different side of me and that's the whole point really.
- K2K: What were some of your favorite tours?
- MR: I would have to say - I suppose because of ones' age - the last tour we did was great, the [Bad Company] "Reformation Tour." It encapsulated all the tours we did before, but in one tour, if you know what I mean? Then you realize why you didn't tour with that person for twenty years, because he was such a pain-in-the-ass. He's forgotten [laughs]. But we're all like that, I'm sure, to each other. As you get older you tend to think "Oh, he's ok really." You know he's a dick, but he's ok. It's not like "He's a dick and I want to kill him!" It's like "He's a dick, but alright... I like him." You think "Well I'm stuck with this guy, so what the hell." You know it works so let's get on with it.
 K2K: How did you like Mott The Hooples' "Rock 'n' Roll Circus" tour?
- MR: That was different. That was good. Funny that the Mott things were kind of in a different sort of area than Bad Company. Bad Company was a lot more serious and a different kind of vibe. Mott The Hoople was much more radical, free form, obtuse... you know? Not artistic but "whatever." It was more like "whatever" whereas Bad Company was pretty much more cut and dried R&B/Rock you know? Both are good. I enjoyed both. I've still got that wild Mott streak in me, but I've also got the R&B in me so one has to balance the other one way or another.
- K2K: On the "Rock n' Roll Circus" tour I heard you had a fire eater. Where on earth did you find him?
- MR: Well we had a knife thrower and I went to the board on the last gig. He said "Well... are you sure you want to do this?" I said "What the hell? You haven't stuck a knife in your wife yet, obviously you like me a little bit better than her, so miss a bit further." [laughs] Anyway I did it and it was like "Did I do that? What an idiot I am."
- K2K: Yeah. What were you thinking?
- MR: I don't know, I just do things. I used to ride motocross. I still have the bike and I took it out the other day because my eldest son - who's now thirteen - wants to learn how to ride it and I'm showing him. I thought "geez... did I really ride this thing? I must be nuts, it's like a wild beast!"
- K2K: But you were younger then.
- MR: Oh yeah. Back in my heyday, I used to come off tour and go thundering around the motocross course with my friends. It was like... crazy. As you get older you think "I maybe shouldn't be doing this" but you do it because you want to impress your son. Then you fall off and you think "Ouch!" Then you pretend it doesn't hurt but God it does. It's bad enough getting old, the worse bit is growing up, you know what I mean? [laughs] So where are you calling from?
- K2K: Michigan
- MR: Well be sure you say "Hello" to everybody out there who's aware of Bad Company and Mott The Hoople.
- K2K: Will do. How do you compare Angel Air records with other record companies?
- MR: I suppose they're more in tune. They're a small company but the guy that runs it [Peter Purnell] is cool because he says "Oh, I can't sign Bad Company, there's no money involved here but if you've got some songs or something you did a couple of years ago and you revolve back into Mott The Hoople and you're involved, we'll put it out and see what happens." There's no advances, there's no money you know? I just gave him the record I made and he gave me a thing that said he agrees to pay me whatever, whenever it comes in. If it doesn't sell then I don't get any money - neither does he, so it's not like a big deal record company where you sign on the dotted line and you're committed to go on tour tour, etc. I think it's cool because with the internet you can just chuck stuff out and on his site [www.angelair.force9.co.uk] he can play a bit of a track if he wants to. All the records or CD's he's released [on Angel Air] are spin-offs of name bands.
- The internet society, I've figured, is why Mott the Hoople's so big again. They're anxious and love anything to do with Mott and they spread the gospel around the internet like "You know Mick Ralphs has done a solo album?.... cool!" Nobody would really know if it wasn't for the internet and he's just latched onto that which is cool. Angel Air is just saying "Hey, if you're interested there's this and that." There's fans saying "Well I'll listen to that, that might be cool!" Where a regular record company wouldn't put it out because they'd want you to go in and re-record it, then it wouldn't sound any good anyway. They'd say "Oh well, you know you can't put that out, you did it at home. You did everything yourself, not good enough." Then suddenly it's a different deal.
- K2K: I noticed in the Mott The Hoople release of "Two Miles From Live Heaven" [Angel Air records] that some of the tracks came from your personal collection.
- MR: Yes. That's when my mother passed away. I had to go through her stuff and I found a lot of Mott stuff that was like brand new that she'd saved... photographs, albums, tapes. It was quite amazing and I passed them along to Peter Purnell at Angel Air, which he's combined that with some stuff and put them out. There's more stuff here. We've recently moved out and you know the box syndrome in the garage, you know... boxes of shit. There's a box that says "Tapes" on it and I went in there the other day and it's all cold and damp and it says "Mott The Hoople Live at the BBC" and had a bit of tape hanging out of the box and I'm thinking "This could be quite valuable." Then underneath it is Bad Company master mixes that were never used from the first album.
- K2K: Will the Mott The Hoople at the BBC ever come out?
- MR: Well I think so. What Peter wants me to do is when I get sorted, is to go through the stuff then send it on to him and he'll go through it and figure out what he can use. I found a cassette the other day which was a live gig from Ft. Wayne, Indiana recorded with a hand held cassette recorder on top of my amp. So naturally the guitar sounds pretty damned good! But you can't hear anything else. I think I used to do it so I could listen to it after the gig to see if you could make anything out of it. If you could really have some serious discussion about it, but back at the hotel all you could hear would be droning guitar. But that's the sort of thing they would put out now. It's like on the cassette it says "Ft. Wayne, Indiana" and there's us talking going to the gig in a van, stuff that people would probably like to hear now.
- K2K: Was there ever any film of Mott The Hoople live other than the Don Kirshner's rock concert footage?
- MR: I don't know. I know there was a guy named Richard Weaver that was an old friend of ours who did some filming for us years ago. Whatever happened to that I don't know, but if you could unearth that it would be great wouldn't it? There was some TV stuff we did. A show called "Big Club" in Germany a place called Breman and that was a regular kind of - like a "Top of the Pops" show. A weekly pop show. All the British bands did that show and I've seen that, someone taped it and got it to me, it's pretty tacky but it's Mott The Hoople. There's a "Top of the Pops" thing we did, with me looking incredibly thin with like platform boots on and not much else [laughs].
- K2K: What song did you play on that "All The Young Dudes?"
- MR: Yes. We did a heck of a lot of stuff for that. That was our big break really, before that we couldn't get arrested [laughs].
- K2K: I read Ian Hunter's book, it was very interesting.
- MR: Yeah. He's good. He's a good kid, Ian. He's a pretty straight shooter.
- K2K: I've interviewed him before.
- MR: Yeah. He's interesting. Anyway, I've got to go. I've got another guy calling. It's been lovely to talk with you and be sure and tell all the people in Michigan and all over the states that I still think about them and appreciate their support.
- K2K: Any plans on visiting the states in the near future?
- MR: I might be doing some stuff with the original Bad Company. Hopefully we'll go into the studio and do some recording or some dates in this country [England], but we'll have to see. It's up to Paul Rodgers... that short little gimp [laughs]. My wife's going "You can't say that!" Of course I can say it. I know him very well. He knows I don't mean it... he's a good kid.
- K2K: Thanks again for your time.
- MR: Thank you very much... lotsa love. Bye.
- For more information about Mick Ralphs, visit: http://www.mickralphs.co.uk/
- For more information about Bad Company, visit: http://www.badcompany.com
- Written by Donrad / Photos © 1999 Philip Anderson
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