Big Star: Nothing Can Hurt Me Page #2

Chris was not so much

an electronics guy,

he was a sonics guy.

"How do we get this

piece of equipment

to get this sound

that I've got locked

into my head?"

Jimmy Hendrix had happened

and the Yardbirds

were happening

and I remember

when Chris and those guys

played in the school cafeteria,

I was, like, wow!

I mean, here's

some of these guys

that are really actually out

trying to do this stuff. "

Chris and I just

really hit it off

because we were interested

in these same things.

We were pretty

inseparable in those days,

you know, because we actually

lived with each other

in college.

I was sort of an audiophile

and I had stereo equipment

that was better than

most people had.

So a lot of times people

would wind up in my room.

A really curious thing,

Chris always had a full-body,

purple aura every time

he would do an acid.

We all would say,

"Whoa, what is this all about?"

You know?

Andy and Chris

had sort of convinced people

that they were expert

drug tasters or whatever.

I think, you know, they were

pretty high most of the time.

He came back

a very different person.

I remember we were

in the living room

of his mother's house

and he had on the wall

a framed gold record

for "Cry Like a Baby"

and the label had peeled off

of the 45 records

and was laying down

in the corner

of the frame like a dead bug.

Alex really liked that.

Chris and I came back

to Memphis

and we both had our fill

of going away to college,

no car, having to live

in a dorm room,

we can't play music,

no place to develop

your pictures.

You know, it was

really a drag.

So Chris and I started

working on Chris' back house.

We got what musical equipment

we had and moved it back there

and started playing

a little bit.

So we said, "Well,

we need a drummer. "

I said, "Oh, well, I know

this guy, Jody Stephens,

who I played with back

in the 9th grade. "

When I was a teenager,

I felt like an oddball.

Music was something

that made me feel

like part of a community.

Chris and Alex and Andy

and John Fry,

it's a society of oddballs.

And Alex had already

made enough money

that his parents had put

in some kind of a trust fund

and he went and bought

his own car

and drove it around

and he was kind

of surviving off

being or having been

a professional musician

which was a big mystery to me.

How can anybody do that?

Surely you don't

make money doing this.

We're just doing this

'cause it's cool, you know.

Alex's life was

so far off the chart,

no real pun intended,

while Chris was

having to clean out

the pool on Saturdays.

And I think he felt like

such a victim

because his father made him

clean out the pool.

We would stand out in front

of the old building

of our National.

Well, what do you want

to do now?

Well, you know...

Chris would say

get Alex in the band.

Chris was very...

I think he knew

what he wanted in terms

of band members

and he had this

pretty specific idea

about what this band

would sound like musically

and how all these pieces

would fit together.

Should I use this mic?

Mm-hmm.

I still don't hear

myself through the phones.

How about now?

Uh, yeah. Wah.

And which way should I be

standing in relation

to this mic?

In front of it.

We had sort of weaseled

our way into Ardent a little bit

and we actually were allowed

to go into the studio

late at night,

starting to put down,

no kidding, real tracks.

I even think we got

our very own private

full-blown reel of tape.

We'd just been using

scraps up till then.

Want to put on

some back-up

before it's late.

So we don't have

to do it at the end.

Got a light?

They're over there.

The bands I'd been in

prior to Big Star

didn't have access

to a studio

in that very beneficial time

of evolving as a musician

and being able to do

that in a studio.

Once you step into that

and kind of discover

what you can do creatively,

I don't know that there is

any kind of feeling like it.

# When my baby's beside me

We should have done

"When My Baby's Beside Me"

acoustic.

One, two, three, four...

Very quickly we became

sort of an organic thing.

We jived with each other,

we bonded.

I think a little bit less vocal

and a little bit more guitars

A little less of the other

vocals

The focus was original music.

Alex and Chris

were creating music

that was as relevant

and connected

as emotionally to me

as all this cover material

that I had been doing.

Those two were like

a couple of comets

or shooting stars

or something like that.

Jody and I were

kind of caught up

in the bow wave

of Chris and Alex.

Tell me when.

Now.

I didn't get to hear

much Big Star music

because they usually

wouldn't write in the studio.

When they showed up

with the first songs

for "#1 Record,"

they basically

had the arrangements

completely together the way

they wanted to do them.

They came in, they set up

as a four-piece band

in the studio,

everybody playing

on the basic tracks

simultaneously

and that was the first time

I was hearing those tunes.

Rolling.

# Years ago my heart

was set to live, oh #

# But I've been trying hard

against unbelievable odds #

Sitting down to go through

"The Ballad of El Goodo"

it seems like we'd run

through that song one time

and then the next time

it just all clicked

and it was pretty much realized

the way you hear it

on the album.

# And there ain't no one going

to turn me 'round #

# Ain't no one going

to turn me 'round #

Even just hearing the tracks,

two guitars, the bass,

and the drums, I said,

"You know,

if they've got any lyrics

that are halfway decent to go

with this, we've got something. "

# Ain't no one going

to turn me 'round #

Al Bell at STAX

came to us and said,

"STAX would like

to have a Rock brand.

Would you be interested

in having

Ardent Records be that brand?"

And I said, "Well, of course. "

Chris knew that

that was coming.

I told him, I said,

"You know, if you guys

get a good album together,

we've got a good vehicle,

I think, for putting

some of this music out. "

I can't get over

how really nice

the mellotron sounds on that.

This one wouldn't make

a bad single probably.

I think the name Big Star

was just desperation.

We needed to have a name

and nobody could

think of a name

and when we were

sitting out in between

the old shack on National

and the actual

storefront studio smoking

I don't know what,

smoking something,

and there was, of course,

the Big Star grocery store

right across the street.

You know, we could have been

jinxing our future

by calling ourselves Big Star

and our first album

"#1 Record. "

I do remember feeling

really uncomfortable

with the name because

it was so pretentious.

You want me to do that?

Yeah, I like that.

I would normally turn most

of the overdubbing to them

because Chris could engineer

plenty good enough.

You know, I had

other work to do.

I wasn't particularly anxious

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