Original subtitles

[MUSIC - BAD COMPANY, "BAD COMPANY"]

BAD COMPANY: [SINGING] Company always on the run.

Destiny with the rising sun.

I was born six gun in my hand.

Behind a gun, I'll make my final stand.

That's why call bad company.

I won't deny.

Bad till the day we die.

Oh, you're beautiful.

Thank you.

What you get is rough and ready, but it's real.

I was always aware of music, because in my home

in Middlesbrough we always had the radio on.

It was on all the-- all day.

So we listened to things.

Elvis would come on or Frank Sinatra, and lots of the pop

in through the '50s, and I didn't really

realize I was influenced by it, but looking back I

think I was at, you know?

I first got into music--

oh, god-- when I was about 13.

I was brought up on the border of Wales

in a little place called Newcastle on Clun.

Logically speaking, I was a late starter

because I didn't start playing till I was 18, but I--

my first intro into playing in bands

was in a local dance band, if you will,

you know, playing standards, and piano, and accordion, all

that sort of thing.

I saw my first TV program at about I guess 14.

It was called "All That Jazz," and it had featured big band

jazz, you know, swing bands, and I

was fascinated by the drummer.

MICK RALPHS: And I just learned to sort of pick up by ear,

you know, chord changes and what have you.

I think I was not really doing that much musically at all,

and then I got involved with some local bands in Hereford,

which ended up being the basis of Mott the Hoople,

you know-- from all different guys

from different local bands, but to that

point, it was just playing like in local village halls,

you know, the usual stuff.

It wasn't until, oh, I suppose I became a teenager, really,

that I started to be interested in the pop music of the day,

which-- which was the Beatles, and the Stones, et cetera,

but when I heard the Rolling Stones sing "I Just

Want to Make Love to You," which was-- it's an old blues song,

I heard something different from the normal from the pop,

really, although I still loved the Beatles and the Stones.

And I dug a little deeper and discovered blues, really--

Muddy Waters, and Howlin' Wolf, and John Lee Hooker, and it

was a whole new world to me.

That's the thing that really deeply influenced me.

I've always tried to emulate those guys because when I

heard, say, you know, Wilson Pickett

singing or Elmore James, you know, and they'd-- they'd hit

a certain--

a way of singing, and I'd go that's it.

That's the way to do it, you know?

I went to two Windsor jazz festivals,

and that really opened my eyes, but I knew

that I wanted to be a drummer.

I wanted to try my hand at playing drums,

so I made a deal with my parents.

After I got my A-levels, give me two years,

and if nothing nothing happens in two years,

I'll go to university.

And it was during those two years that, you know,

I came down to London, did all sorts of jobs,

answered auditions, and in the last couple

of months of those two years I met Paul

Kossoff and Black Cat Bones.

So, you know, the drawbridge was coming down,

and I was fully prepared to go to university.

My father bought me a six string guitar.

Actually, that's how I got into music, really,

because that made me eligible to join the class band at school,

you see?

All you had to do is have an instrument.

So we started playing together in somebody's kitchen,

and I stayed with it.

I switched from six string.

We needed a bass player, so I traded

that in and got myself a bass.

And I played bass for a while and sang, and then I--

I put the bass down and just focused on singing, you know?

Because that's what the band wanted me to do,

but I always found that it was helpful to be able to play

piano and guitar acoustically, electrically,

and the bass for songwriting when I would write

on any of those instruments.

I was with a band called Brown Sugar,

and they started playing a riff.

Dum, dum, dum.

Dum, dum, dum.

And I start to sing lyrics over that,

and it was like long, dusty road.

Long, dusty road to nowhere.

Dun, dun.

And I said to the guys, well, did you write that riff?

And they said, oh, no it's some old blues riff, you see?

But that's what made me think, ah, then if I come

up with my own riff, you know?

So anyway, to cut a long story short I came up with a riff.

Do, do, do, do, do, do, do, do, do, do, do, do, do, do,

and then I wrote "Walk in My Shadow,"

which that was the first song I wrote,

and that appeared on the "Tons of Sobs" album with Free.

And once-- once that had happened, I was kind of off

and running, really, because I thought,

wow, I can write songs now.

You know?

I ran into Paul Kossoff at this gig, the Nags Head.

You know, the blues boom was-- was huge in London

at that time, and I didn't think the Black

Cat Bones were that good, but Kossoff was wonderful.

And I said during the break-- you know, he came off stage.

I said, oh, you know, I think you're great,

but I think your drummer is crap.

And he said, well, it's funny you should say that,

because he's leaving tonight, and we're

having auditions tomorrow.

So anyway, I went along.

Long story short, I got the job, and I played with Kos

in Black Cat Bones for about six months, during which time

he said I know this great singer who's

in a band called Brown Sugar.

And he's leaving, and he wants to form a band,

and, you know, would you like to come along?

And I said, yeah.

And, you know, so there was three of us.

And then we had to find a bass player,

and we knew Alexis Korner, who mentored Paul Kossoff.

He was a family friend, and he said

I know this great little kid, Andy Fraser.

He's just-- he was playing with John Mayall for six months.

We went, whoa.

And he's just got the sack, and we

were just staggered that a 15-year-old kid

could play that well.

And we asked him later if he'd like to join the band.

We had a rehearsal there the first time the four of us

got together, and during those rehearsals,

Alexis came along just to see us, you know?

And we were stumped for a name, and he'd

been in a band called Free at Last

with Graham Bond and Baker.

And he said, you know, why don't you call the band Free?

And so we said, yeah, OK.

And then we played--

Alexis took us on the road for a couple of months.

We did about, I guess, 12 or 15 shows with Alexis,

and we were off and running.

[music - free, "all right now"]

FREE: [SINGING] There she stood in the street,

smiling from her head to her feet.

I said, hey, what is this?

Now, baby, baby, she's in need of a kiss.

I said, hey!

What's you name, baby?

Maybe we can see things the same.

Now don't you worry or hesitate.

Let's move before they raise the parking rate.

All right now.

Baby, it's all right now.

All right now.

Baby, it's all right now.

SIMON KIRKE: We were a blues band,

I mean, but we were a little bit more than a blues band.

We wanted to be like a progressive blues band,

not just rock me, baby, and, you know, the old standards.

We wanted to do--

you know, we wanted to write our own stuff.

[music - free, "all right now"]

[SINGING] To my place, watching

every move on her face.

PAUL ROGERS: And I didn't really realize

I was a songwriter until we--

until Island Records stuck a publishing contract

in front of me and said, OK.

I said, what's this?

He said, this is the publishing contract,

and we want you to sign it.

Blah, blah, dah, dah.

And I said, it says, well, songwriter.

He says, yeah, you're a songwriter now.

You've got songs on the album.

I went-- that was the moment I realized, hey,

I'm a songwriter, you know?

And then they stole them all with a contact.

No, I'm just kidding.

We played hundreds of shows, and we

built up a very good following.

And "All Right Now" was a sort of a catalyst thing,

whereby it just blew everything up in a nice way.

I mean, the fact that we were now on TV, top of the pops,

or whatever, you know, we were available to a lot of people.

I remember the first thing that we did behind "All Right Now."

We were playing-- instead of playing

towns one after the other, we were playing countries,

you know?

Holland, France, Belgium, Germany, Scandinavia.

Whereas before, it was just, you know, up and down the M1

down to Cornwall and back.

So it was a lot of pressure, and ultimately it--

it brought about our demise, I think.

Well, we've been working for--

for two years fairly solidly around England and Europe.

And we'd had a couple of singles out and two albums,

which had done fairly well, you know, but nothing phenomenal.

And then-- then "All Right Now" came along, you know,

and sort of was a hit in just about every major country.

And it opened up the market incredibly,

and we found that we are playing to countries

that normally where we would probably never gone to.

WOMAN: What are you intending to do

when they get back to England?

Rest.

Get a long rest.

Not many people know, but we did

two Isle of Wight Festivals.

And the first one, which was not the big one, was in '69,

and we did about a 20 minute set,

but the big one was, of course, in 1970.

We had the hit, and it was while we were waiting

to go on the ferry Pete Townsend came up and knocked

on our transit window, and said I love that fucking song

of yours, and then walked off.

And we're going, wow.

[music - free, "all right now"]

[SINGING] All right now.

Baby, it's all right.

SIMON KIRKE: Kossoff's demise started after the first break.

We had the disappointment--

the follow up tour right now.

You know, we had "Highway" after "Fire and Water."

We released "Stealer," which I thought was a great song,

but it wasn't a hit record.

That didn't do very well.

"Highway" didn't do very well.

So we took it personally, and Andy and Paul made the decision

that after "Highway" after the world tour that was it,

and it broke our hearts.

I'll be honest.

It really-- it upset me, but it devastated [inaudible].

So you know, I know now that he was an addict--

what I know now about addiction, because I'm

in the program meself.

And he was born an addict, and-- and this breakup

completely devastated him.

[cheering]

MICK RALPHS: The basis of Mott the Hoople was formed

in a band we had in Hereford.

Pete Watts himself, Verden Allen, Dale Griffin,

the drummer and a singer.

Of course, Stan, Stan [inaudible].

He was the original singer, and we

went to London to try and get a foot in the door

with Island Records and--

in the days when they were [inaudible].

You know, it is getting frustrating because you'd

sit around all day, and wait, and then somebody would say,

oh, he's gone home for the day.

I was trying to see Guy Stevens.

So in the end, I just burst into his office one day.

I said, I'm fed up with doing-- you know,

I'm not going to come all the way down from Hereford

and waste my time, blah, blah, blah.

And he said, oh, come in.

I like your attitude, and sort of that sort of

sparked it off with Guy, because Guy Stevens was

then in the early days violent.

And he was the A&R man, if you will, looking for talent.

And he liked the band.

He wanted to replace the singer, you know, for the--

for the look, and the image, and all the rest of it.

So that's how we came across Ian,

and Guy Stevens liked the look of him

with the shades and the curly hair.

And that was the basis of--

the start of Mott, really, yeah.

The first I met Mick was sometime in '69, I

would imagine, walking in for the audition

in-- in Regent Sound.

We had a good live following, but we

couldn't really sell records.

We weren't that commercially successful.

We tried different styles, different albums,

different singles to the point that we

were getting very frustrated and losing money-- decided

to knock it on the head.

And unbeknownst to us, David Bowie had heard about this.

Suggested we do one of his songs that he was

willing to offer to us to do.

We were already dead to radio.

We'd had a couple of singles out already,

and radio just didn't want to know,

but we also knew we had to keep-- you know,

we were filling everywhere, and you

don't fill everywhere over a long period of time

if you don't have a hit.

So it was getting to the point where something had to happen.

And he came back with "Dudes."

MICK RALPHS: So he-- he sent us the tape--

reel to reel tape with "All the Young Dudes" on one--

on one track, and "Suffragette City" was the other one.

And a nice handwritten letter.

And we loved the song of course.

And then he said, well, why don't you come record it,

and I'll produce it for you?

But that really turned out fortunes around.

[MUSIC - MOTT THE HOOPLE, "ALL THE YOUNG DUDES"]

MOTT THE HOOPLE: [SINGING] All the young dudes.

Hey, dudes.

Carry the news.

Where are you?

Boogaloo dudes.

Stand up.

Carry the news.

MICK RALPHS: Suddenly you get a break,

and then the band changes into a different--

so it wasn't the same band for me.

It had lost its underground sort of sub--

subversive feel, and it had become

more of a sort of a pop band, you know,

and the top of the pops.

And Ian got into writing songs in a certain vein that

were kind of based on "All the Young Dudes," which is great,

you know.

IAN HUNTER: Pete Watts, the bass player, and Mick--

they were the two writers.

They didn't really want a writer, and then after a while,

Pete Watts couldn't be bothered.

So I just started doing it, you know, with Mick.

It-- it went away from the original concept of Mott,

and I wanted to play something a bit more earthy,

a bit more rough, if you like.

And that's when I hooked up with Paul.

He was out supporting us on Mott the--

on Mott the Hoople tour with a band he had then called Peace,

and because we'd all--

we'd always liked his singing anyway from the Free days.

And we got on really well, and I had a load of songs

that we weren't doing with Mott that I'd written.

Mick was coming in with "Ready for Love."

He came in with "Can't Get Enough."

And I couldn't sing them.

Paul was the sort of guy that could sing the sort

of songs I was writing.

And it was really sad, because we had a very powerful band

that was selling out everywhere, but it was just pissing him

off, and I knew exactly how he felt, because if it had been

him that had the couple of hits on that particular record, then

I would have probably left.

So it was an unfortunate kind of situation.

Initially we were just going to record

some stuff [inaudible].

We didn't-- we hadn't thought about forming a group then.

We just to-- record some songs that we had,

and I had some songs.

He had some songs.

We worked together really well.

PAUL ROGERS: With Mick's songs, I can step into them.

You know, with things like "Simple Man," "Moving On,"

"Can't Get Enough of Your Love," I can step into them,

and-- and they're very simple.

And that leaves me a lot of room to play, you know,

and do my vocal thing.

It was very funny, because it was just Paul

and I writing songs, and, you know,

working out stuff together.

And Simon turned up one day from one of his world jaunts

to wherever.

They said, well, you know, you want

to-- you want to get a band together, and I was in Brazil.

And I called--

I believe I called Paul to see how-- you know,

how things were.

And he said, look, he fancied me playing drums in this band

that me and Mick are putting together.

And I love Mick.

Mick was so funny.

I mean, I love him to this day.

He's just a great character, and he's a very, very good player.

So I said, yeah, man.

I'd love to.

Well, we were putting the band together

with Mick at my cottage, and I had a friend of mine,

Clive Coulson had worked for Free earlier.

And he came round to my place, and he now worked with Led

Zeppelin, and we got talking.

And I said, well, we need a manager.

And he said, well, you know, why don't

you give Peter Grant a call?

Because they have just formed a new company, Swan Song,

and they're kind of, you know, talent scouting.

It was a mark of accomplishment

for a rock superstar to have their own label.

You know, The Beatles had Apple.

And then The Rolling Stones, had Rolling

Stones Records, and then Jefferson Airplane

had Grunt Records.

So for one thing, it was a mark of status

to have their own label and to be able to develop

some other artists.

And so I gave them a call, you know, and--

and he said-- and it was kind of nervy,

really, because there's--

I'm-- there's me calling this, you know,

manager of Led Zeppelin, who were bigger

than God at the time, you know?

DANNY GOLDBERG: The members of Led Zeppelin and Peter

thought they had good taste in music

and that they could do a good job of picking some artists

and attracting them, because Zeppelin was at the time

the biggest band in the world commercially in terms

of their concert sales, and their record sales, and so on,

and that it would be a prestigious thing

for a new act to say, hey, I'm on Led Zeppelin's label.

MICK RALPHS: And luckily he-- he said

he'd be interested in hearing us,

which we couldn't believe our luck.

And he arranged to come and see us at a rehearsal

shortly after that.

PAUL ROGERS: He said, yeah, yeah.

He said, yeah, I'm interested in you, yeah.

And then he came round, and I said well, Peter,

I come with a band, you know?

And we're going to be called Bad Company.

And they weren't sure about that.

I've had problems in the past with names,

but, you know, I wanted to stick to my guns,

and Bad Company it is.

Bad Company it was.

Funny thing was, when we were rehearsing, he--

we didn't know he was there.

We were rehearsing in this village hall in Surrey

in [inaudible] and looking at the watch

and said, well, he'll be here in a minute.

And we carried on playing, and then it was 2 o'clock, then

it was 3 o'clock, then it was 4 o'clock, and 5 o'clock.

By the time it came about 6:00, Paul said,

oh, this is ridiculous and he's not going to turn up.

We must be kidding ourselves, you know?

And we all got really pissed off, and played like vengeance,

and decided to go to the pub.

And when we went out to the hall,

there was Peter sitting in his car, and Paul said something.

Well, you turned up then.

He said, well, I've been here for ages actually.

He said I didn't want to come in,

and I just wanted to hear you in your natural state.

Thinking he was late, we all got pissed off and played,

you know, demonically, which he thought was great.

And then he took us on, yeah.

PAUL ROGERS: He liked what we were doing.

We had-- we had "Rocky Steady."

We had "Can't Get Enough of Your Love."

We were playing "Bad Company," the song.

So we had some good songs going on, you know?

Some were mine.

Some were mine and Paul's.

Some were Paul's, you know, but, yes, that

was the basic essence of it.

PAUL ROGERS: Peter said to me I'm not going to sign you guys.

What we'll do this-- what we'll do-- we'll just try it.

We'll just try it for six months on a basis of a handshake,

and so I said, OK, let's go.

MICK RALPHS: He was one of the lads, you know?

He was very much on the side of the musician,

you know, and didn't stand any nonsense

from the business side of it.

Don't fucking talk to me.

It's my bloody act.

[inaudible] leave you anytime.

You couldn't even give them a starting line.

Peter did what was good for Zeppelin.

Peter understood that the extra money that they were paying

the agency after a certain point was

wasted because Zeppelin didn't need an agent anymore

in his opinion.

Promoters all wanted them, and he also renegotiated the money

on behalf of the band with promoters, too,

and kind of was the architect of what's

called a 90/10 deal, which meant the artist would

make 90% of the net.

Prior to that, 50/50 was the paradigm.

Peter was a real trailblazer in terms of getting

more money for artists.

MICK RALPHS: He was very keen to let us be ourselves.

He didn't impose himself in production, or song choice,

or anything like that.

He just wanted us to do what we wanted to do.

DANNY GOLDBERG: Peter really believed in Bad Company,

and I remember when he first gave me the record,

and I heard it, and I think I went to his studio

and heard some music, and met them

or whatever, he was very worried that I

wasn't sufficiently excited.

And he really--

Peter Grant was 300 pounds.

He'd been a former professional wrestler.

He was an extremely intimidating guy to begin with,

and he was very insistent that I understand

how much this meant to him and how strongly he felt about it.

It was all very gentlemanly, and he said,

you know, you do the music, and I'll take care of the business.

And he did.

You know, he was great.

I mean, he divided his time between us

and Zeppelin at the time, because both doing

big stuff in America by then.

SIMON KIRKE: Because he wasn't that

savvy about music, which was probably one of his saving

graces.

You know, he didn't know if F went with A minor

or with that bit went with that.

He just knew what he felt, and--

and I remember him saying to Robert

Plant and-- and Paul at the time was, you know, you want--

I just want you to wear something bright

and jump up and down a bit.

It was a very knee jerk reaction that he had for things,

and he had this incredible business acumen, as well.

Plus this 300 pound wrestler--

ex-wrestler persona behind me--

I mean, he was wonderful.

Whenever he'd come to a show, at some point,

he'd come to every crew member, look you straight in the eye,

and say, is everything all right?

Is there anything that I can do for you?

And he meant it.

He not only looked after his band.

He looked after everybody.

If you were in, you were in, but by the same time,

if you did something wrong against Bad Company or Led

Zeppelin, you might as well just pack your shit

because you were done.

Did we get on with him?

Yes.

Well, yes and no.

I, being the naive country kid, questioned him

about his underworld dealings.

Great.

I must've been out of my fucking mind.

I said, Mr. Grant, I understand that you have some--

I can't believe that I said it--

you have connections with the London underworld.

Is this true?

And he was totally straight.

He says, no.

And then the next band meeting we

had he pulled out this submachine gun

full of ping pong balls and went--

and I'm ducking.

But that was me, you know?

The completely naive, green--

and he loved me for it.

What he did for us was wonderful,

and I think of him most days.

I loved him.

He was like a dad to me.

PAUL ROGERS: We didn't even-- hadn't even

settled on a bass player at the time,

although I liked the guy we were trying.

It was a Welsh guy.

He didn't want the gig, strange enough,

so we had to keep looking.

We had the three of us.

Simon, myself, and Paul for ages.

We kept trying out all these different bass players,

and they were all very good, but they didn't quite-- for me,

they didn't quite click chemistry-wise.

SIMON KIRKE: Boz wasn't even there in the lineup when

Peter Grant came to see him.

MICK RALPHS: No, he came in at the last minute--

Boz.

We were desperate to do this record,

and-- and we took him on not knowing what we'd taken on,

but it turned out to be great.

You know, he was a real character.

I took to him straight away, because he wasn't that

experienced on the bass then, and I loved it when

he turned up for rehearsals.

All the other bass players were so dead keen to play.

We said the Boz, what do you want to do?

He said, listen, I want to go to the pub.

Let's go to the pub.

You know, he didn't want to play.

He just wanted to hang out.

So I thought that was great.

So of course we went to the pub and got completely pissed,

played a load of rubbish, and said he was in.

And then next day Paul phones up and said, what was he like?

I said, I don't know.

I was drunk.

He said, so was I. He said, I think I gave him the job.

We had a list of bass players, and Boz was right

at the bottom-- number 16.

I'll never forget-- because we weren't

really big fans of [inaudible].

MICK RALPHS: [inaudible].

Paul [inaudible].

Yeah, we-- we kept auditioning.

We auditioned for months.

And one guy we just kept trying because he looked so bad.

He was dribbling a bit.

Oh, and we had [inaudible].

And Boz was the last guy.

And we auditioned a lot of bass players.

Sorry bass players [inaudible].

You were wonderful. - Yeah.

Yeah.

They were all great.

MICK RALPHS: But Boz was the last resort,

and it happened to be--

SIMON KIRKE: One of them looked exactly like Eric Clapton.

We couldn't have him in the band because he

looked too much like--

MICK RALPHS: You said that [inaudible]

why couldn't get [inaudible].

I had all these reasons [inaudible]

look like Eric Clapton [inaudible]

phoning [inaudible].

He could stand up there and stare at 50,000 people,

play bass like it was nothing.

He absolutely had that thing.

The ability to do it--

he had it in abundance.

The desire to do it-- if there was anything that made

him uncomfortable, it was that.

It certainly wasn't the music.

MICK RALPHS: But he was endearing,

and I loved Boz, because he was actually

a singer first and foremost.

Boz was the singer and King Crimson.

I only knew he was a bass player.

MICK RALPHS: He bluffed it.

He said it said bass player/singer wanted,

and he couldn't play the bass at all.

So Robert Fripp taught him how to play the basics,

and then of course he improved and learned more

about the instrument from then on.

PAUL ROGERS: And he played the bass in a very melodic manner.

It was a strange thing for him at the time

because obviously his peers were Jack Bruce, and Alan Spenner,

and all these amazing bass players.

So he was like--

he had to get in there real hard.

Get his stuff together, which he did real quick, actually,

and developed quite a phenomenal technique compared

to most rock bass players, because he had a very

exacting technique on the bass.

PAUL ROGERS: He could play some high things.

Do, do, do, do.

You know? What was that?

"Ready for Love" or something?

Yeah, the slides.

Yeah, he does some really--

He also-- he played a fretless bass,

which is very hard to do--

an Ampeg scroll neck.

ZOOT MONEY: I thought he was actually

going to develop it, and develop it with a company,

and get his own thing.

It was very, very useful in certain tunes

where it could go lower than most

and could actually slide about.

Difficult to play because you don't have any, you know,

frets making it obvious where everything is.

So you have to be pretty accurate.

I had never worked with a fretless bass before,

and I was really intrigued.

It's a very kind of provocative sound.

You know, it's got a very interesting aspect.

I had just been working with basic rock

and roll bass players that went bum, bum, bum, bum.

And he came more from an R&B background,

and I thought it was perfect for the band.

When he first joined the band, he came up with great ideas--

unusual, like that that skipped beat beat in "Burning Sky."

That was his idea, and it just--

No, had some really-- he was really inventive.

And "Gone Gone Gone."

You know, he wrote a song called "Gone Gone Gone."

If we were playing in D, we'd play in F sharp instead

of the D. You know, he always found

not the obvious thing to play, and didn't

feel like making course.

He doesn't actually play the do do.

He just come on the push.

Everybody else does-- bass player goes do do bum.

But he didn't do the do do.

He just went bum.

SIMON KIRKE: He was not your normal bass player.

MICK RALPHS: So he left holes, which was great.

And I remember years ago, we were doing all these interviews

in America, you know, when we'd just come out,

and it was going on about how great the rhythm section was.

And they were saying to Boz we really like your style.

It's so economical.

So [inaudible].

I didn't want to play, so I just stopped.

[MUSIC - BAD COMPANY, "SIMPLE MAN"]

BAD COMPANY: [SINGING] Oh, we're gonna make it.

Typically understated.

He was a very deep thinker about music.

You know, Boz-- Boz was very, very passionate.

He wasn't just somebody who likes music or loved music.

He was a musicologist, and he's-- you know,

you could go as deep as you wanted

to about classical music.

He was massive Schoenberg fan.

He introduced me to George Russell's

Lydian chromatic concept of tonal organization

when I was about 12.

He was-- you know, he was very, very deep into music,

so his ideas of space and time passing notes

were thought about a lot.

[MUSIC - BAD COMPANY, "SIMPLE MAN"]

BAD COMPANY: [SINGING] I'm just a simple man.

Yeah.

Freedom is the only thing means a damn to me.

I'm just a simple man.

SIMON KIRKE: I got to say, the first few years in Bad Company

were the happiest of my life because we had four guys who

were just having fun, and we didn't have to worry

about guitars falling over.

We didn't have to worry about deadlines to meet.

We-- we had a superb management.

We-- we had-- everything was clear.

All it-- it was only left for us to play,

and-- and there was such a sense of relief after Free that--

I'm speaking for myself, not for Paul.

You know, I just--

I loved it.

And we could do no wrong.

It was just wonderful.

MICK RALPHS: We all got on famously.

We were-- there was a lot of energy there,

you know, the four of us.

PAUL ROGERS: I think there was--

there was a compatibility.

I can sing Mick's songs, you know, and he can play mine.

So that's really probably the nucleus of the band--

was that-- really that song writing

team, because that's how we hooked up in the first place.

To me it was immediately an advantage

because it's hard to take on the role of songwriting for--

songwriting is really the lifeblood of any band,

and it's a tough call to keep on coming up with new stuff

all the time, you know?

And there's also that sense of a little bit of competition.

You did that, so I'll do this. - Yeah.

And you know, I mean, you could

throw songs at each other.

And there's also the thing of I can't get this thing finished.

Why do you got any ideas for this?

And then you can--

Chuck a bit in.

Amalgamate ideas.

Oh, I've got a bit that would work with--

- That's right. - And off you go.

- [inaudible]. - Yeah.

Yeah. Yeah.

Well, "Feel Like Making Love" was a classic example.

Paul had the riffs, and had the riff,

and they just worked together.

We really captured what we're singing about, you know?

Yeah.

The boy bit and the girl bit, but Simon's

a great writer, as well.

He's written some great stuff, and I

think that's why he's so good to play with as a drummer,

because he does understand music,

but he's not just a drummer.

You know, he's great drummer, but he also plays guitar

and piano, sings, write songs.

So he has great empathy for a song.

As a guitar player, I find that great as--

in a drummer that actually listens to the words

and takes the dynamics where the song is going instead

of just crashing through it.

Like some drummers will just--

I'm the drummer.

We'll you see you at the end.

He rides through song beautifully.

- Thank you, man. - You know, up and down.

Oh, yeah.

I think really that's the only way to be, you know?

I-- I can't do it--

I couldn't work with that.

I can't be doing with people that aren't listening.

What's that?

That's not-- music is actually listening to each other,

and reacting, and bouncing off each other.

That is what it is, you know?

It's not-- do you know what I mean?

MICK RALPHS: Absolutely.

PAUL ROGERS: It would drive me nuts

if everybody was playing and just

not listening to each other.

It's all about me, blah, blah, blah.

MICK RALPHS: We've all played with people like that

in various jam situations.

PAUL ROGERS: Yeah, but not for long.

MICK RALPHS: And then you realize

how lucky we are because, you know, it's not about technique

or, you know, showing off.

No, it's about feeling.

It's about playing other people.

Everybody knew that this was going to be-- it just--

it was right.

It was Paul Rogers, Mick Ralphs, and Simon all together.

Everybody knew it was good.

To give you the example, the first UK tour they

did there was no album out.

There was no single out.

It was pretty much word of mouth that the band was together,

and they sold out a national tour

as it was then Hammersmith Odeon, Newcastle City Hall,

like the headlining thing.

You couldn't get a ticket, and they didn't have an album.

It was just simply word of mouth,

and it was completely sold out.

SIMON KIRKE: We were seasoned veterans in our early '20s,

and we had a great repertoire.

We-- we'd been around a bit, and we had the backing of the Led

bloody Zeppelin and Pete Grant, who is possibly the best

manager I ever worked with.

We had a good set.

We had-- you know, Paul was a great singer.

We-- we could do no wrong.

[MUSIC - BAD COMPANY, "GOOD LOVIN GONE BAD"]

[SINGING] If I hear you knocking upon my door,

ain't no way that I'm gonna answer then.

Cheating is one thing, and lying is another.

When I say it's over, that's it.

I'm gonna quit.

SIMON KIRKE: I believe the first album went to number one,

or was it Bachman Turner Overdrive beat us by--

I don't know.

There's always someone just preventing us,

but it was a great debut album.

And we were off and running.

Peter phoned me, or Paul, or both of us

and said we've got this Ronnie Lane's mobile studio

and this empty house, and Zeppelin aren't going

to go in there because Bonzo is not well,

and they want have some weeks off.

Why don't you go in there and lay down some tracks?

We said, right.

We were in there like a shot.

And we had the guitar in one room.

We had maybe the vocal on the balcony

somewhere and had drums in the--

in the foyer.

It just was cool.

MICK RALPHS: Paul sang outside, yeah, on one of the--

Bad Company in the--

in the moonlight.

PAUL ROGERS: We set the mic up way out in the field

and everything, and there's a full moon,

and the wind blowing across it and stuff, you know.

And it was-- it was incredibly atmospheric,

because I was standing out there in the dark

with headphones on and just--

just-- I could just hear the music,

you know, and just my voice.

And it was a very cosmic place to be,

and it made for good atmosphere.

I suggested that Paul sing outside.

It was a little chilly night, and I remember that

because at the end of the song "Bad Company,"

there's a little-- it goes "and the cold wind blows."

You know, it's just a little ad lib at the end

because he was really cold.

[MUSIC - BAD COMPANY, "BAD COMPANY"]

BAD COMPANY: [SINGING] The cold wind blows.

These are the days before reverb.

Before digital reverb you had to have either a live chamber

or a plate.

You didn't have that in a little mobile truck,

so you looked for little nooks and crannies

that you could create a sound with.

And lay down all the--

the backing tracks, vocals, overdubs in two weeks, yeah.

It took 10 days.

We just slammed it down.

I think that one of the things that

made that first album so important was that, as a group,

they had gotten together.

And if you look at Paul Rodgers, who

had an amazing run with Free, but also

Andy Fraser as his other writer in the group--

Andy was much more an R&B guy.

Paul had some good balance that he had stored,

and if you look at Mott the Hoople,

Mick took a backseat to Ian Hunter

in a lot of the writing capacity.

And he had some good rockers like "Can't Get Enough

of Your Love" and all that.

He put them together, and those days, that rocker

guy and the ballad guy--

and you had a lot of great material.

Well, we'd been rehearsing, and we were bursting

to get this stuff done.

The interesting thing was at that time we--

I didn't really have too much of a vision

of what the band would be.

It was really a bunch of guys with a bunch of songs, really,

and we put everything down that we had.

RON NEVISON: We went down there and recorded more material

than we needed, actually.

We had-- there was a song called superstar women that I think

eventually came out, but--

that I really liked that didn't make the cut.

PAUL ROGERS: So there was no--

no feeling of, well, you they've all got-- all the songs

have got to sound this way, or they've all got

to sound this way or that way.

There was everything from Bad Company to Seagull, you know,

all of the songs.

And it-- it made for an interesting album.

And I've always liked--

if there's such a thing as a format for doing things,

that would be the best way.

Instead of saying, well, all the songs

have got to be in a certain sort of way, you know,

a certain character or a certain thing,

they can be totally different.

The more different, the better, I think.

RON NEVISON: It went very quickly because they

were well rehearsed.

They had a lot of good ideas.

PAUL ROGERS: And the song "Bad Company," for instance,

I had that--

having got the idea of this sort of dark, mysterious vast

expanse of the Wild West, you know,

this lawless, featureless area where you want

to go out and try and settle.

And the chords seemed to portray this feeling of being

way out there and being--

having to survive with yourself, your family, whatever, however

you could in a lawless world of-- of nature,

really, a wild place.

And so I had all the structure of that, and Simon came around,

and I said, here's a song I'm working on.

So Simon threw a few lines in for me with that,

and that became "Bad Company."

[MUSIC - BAD COMPANY, "BAD COMPANY"]

[SINGING] Six gun in my hand.

Behind a gun, I'll make final stand.

That's why they call me bad company.

I can't deny.

Bad company till the day I die.

Yeah.

I mean we did tour in England and Europe,

which was very well received.

The next step was-- the logical step was going to the States,

and we did our first big tour supporting Edgar Winter,

and then the following winter we were headlining.

The first Bad Company album, "Bad Co,"

was one of those rare records that people heard it once,

and they liked it.

I remember I did a press mailing,

and-- and two days later I was at a party,

and Joan Downs who was then the music writer and editor

for "Time" magazine came up to me and said,

wow, Bad Company is great.

I was so surprised that she knew--

bothered to listen to it, or thought it was great.

And similarly, the song "Can't Get Enough of Your Love"

was just so perfect for American rock and roll radio

1974 that the promotion people at Atlantic

were-- were very delighted with the record.

One of the last shows was in Boston,

and Peter Grant flew up, and he always

had this habit of giving us a little pep

talk before we went on.

He says, you had a good tour.

You've done well, and I just want to show you something

before you go onstage.

And he whipped back this towel on the table,

and there were four gold albums.

The first album had been certified gold.

I mean, we just--

we had no idea, because there was no internet in those days.

There was no-- you know, we just didn't know

how well it was going, so anyway he says [inaudible] well done,

boys.

Now get the fuck out of here and go and do what you do well.

This was a bullseye in terms of rock commerciality in 1974,

and there was very little difficulty

in getting them on tour, getting it on the radio,

getting press for them.

And it went to number one very, very quickly.

SIMON KIRKE: So when we came back the next time in '75--

our first tour where we headlined--

I mean, you know, we went from opening--

an opening act to headlining.

PAUL ROGERS: It meant we did a lot of shows, it seemed to me.

We were flat out on the road and sort of trying

to catch up with ourselves.

And when we suddenly confronted with the studio again,

and hey, record another album, we were like, OK, what did

we do the first time, you know?

Now with hindsight I can think back

and say, well, this is what we did, and this is how it was,

but at that time, it was just a whirlwind, really.

And so we were back in the studio

ready to do another album, and it

mostly reflected our experiences on the road at that time.

MICK RALPHS: I'd like to apologize for Paul not being

here, but he's been attacked by some notorious lady,

I think, and--

Yeah [inaudible].

--absconded with.

But he sends his regards.

He says he thanks you.

PAUL ROGERS: You have all your life

to make your first album more or less [inaudible]

long as it takes to get there.

Next thing you know you're back in the studio to do it again.

We went to Clearwell Castle, I think,

and it was a little bit different, though.

It wasn't-- I-- I didn't find it quite so organic in the sense

that the place was also run commercially,

and they had parties for-- you know,

you could do a medieval party there,

and everybody got dressed up in armor--

suits of armor and drank mead.

And they roasted pigs and stuff like that.

It was really weird sometimes. I'd be wandering.

I'd be like, where's the bass player?

You know, and I'd go through all these corridors and things,

and there would be a big party going on,

and all those people dressed in medieval gear.

And right in the middle of it all

would be Boz drinking mead, and eating, you know, roast pig.

Boz, we got a session to do.

Come on.

You know.

So it was a little bit different,

but it was-- it was still very atmospheric.

WOMAN: I heard you produced your last album in a Welsh castle.

Yeah.

WOMAN: What's the story behind that?

We just fancied doing it in a situation where we could be

just-- just the band together, because I don't know

if you're familiar with studios, but there's this

tendency to waste a lot of time in studios, I think.

BOZ BURRELL: They're sterile.

With people coming in and out all the time,

and there's an atmosphere of having to make a record.

PAUL ROGERS: Down through the years,

I've shared a lot of the songs that I've

written with the band, and I do that because--

to give a sense of cohesion, and it's not all about me,

you know?

MICK RALPHS: He'd had an idea, and he'd play it to me,

and then we'd chuck it around, and I'd come up with a bit

for it, or a chorus, or a--

a middle eighth of it, but I think generally he

wrote some good songs on his own,

and I wrote some good songs on my own.

Like "Shooting Star" he wrote on his own.

"Good Lovin Gone Bad" I wrote, and this is the second album,

and so we were both quite prolific at the time.

So we used to do that, you know?

He'd have an idea, and I'd say, well, it needs--

you know, it's all very nice, but it needs something here,

you know?

Give it a bit of action like "Feel Like Making Love."

PAUL ROGERS: "Feel Like Making Love" was a song that I had--

I'd been working on.

I mean, I had it on the back burner.

I had lots of songs on the back burner.

I'm sure a lot of songwriters do.

It's-- not everything gets finished.

From my time with Free, actually,

when I was touring with them in San Francisco, I said--

I had some experiences of then.

That song came from then.

"Feel Like Making Love" was two songs.

He had the verse, and I had the chorus.

And I said to Mick, oh, here's this idea I had.

Baby, when I think about you.

And I said, it just needs something--

something to take this somewhere,

and he comes up with--

and I went OK.

Feel like making-- you know, and that's how that came about.

[MUSIC - BAD COMPANY, "FEEL LIKE MAKING LOVE"]

[SINGING] Feel like making love.

Feel like making love.

Feel like making love to you.

PAUL ROGERS: I sometimes feel like they're almost

written through you sometimes.

"Shooting Star" was a song like that

because I was just walking along, and I was--

I think I was out at my cottage, and I started to sing.

Johnny was a schoolboy when he heard his first Beatles song.

I went, hm, I must have heard that on the radio somewhere.

I went no.

And I ran back in there, and I started to work out

the chords and stuff, you know?

And the song just flowed out.

And I couldn't believe, really, that no one had thought to--

no other songwriter had come up with the idea

of equating a shooting star with a shooting star,

you know what I mean?

Like the idea of burning out too early and that kind of thing.

So, you know, I just thought it was a good idea.

One of these days I want to create a musical

around "Shooting Star" and expand the story,

and I think that would be quite a nice-- because it's

happened so many times before.

SIMON KIRKE: We went from opening--

and opening act to-- to headlining.

We were full of ourselves.

And we were actually--

we had our own plane, for god's sake,

so we could zip from city to city, and it was wonderful.

RON NEVISON: They were so filthy rich they couldn't afford

to stay in Britain because they could only be there

for whatever the restrictions are--

63 days a year for a tax situation.

They looked at a lot of different options.

One was the US, but they didn't want to use up their--

their days of touring visa, and so they

decided on the south of France.

And we rented this villa up in Grasse,

which is just north of [inaudible]

in the south of France.

The album, "Run With the Pack."

We used the Rolling Stones' mobile.

We all arrived, and we all had a, you know, cup of tea

waiting for the thing to arrive.

All of us sat around the table-- the road crew, you know,

Paul, and myself, and Mick, and Boz.

Suddenly we hear this huge bloody knock on the door.

[inaudible]

And it was Mick [inaudible].

He was the Stones' mobile engineer.

He [inaudible] all right.

He says, well, bit of a problem.

Can't the fucking mobile through the gates.

It's to wide.

You're kidding.

No.

It's about two feet too wide.

The truck got stuck about 200 yards short of the house.

And one of Clive's suggestions was to bring in a helicopter

and raise it over the wall.

So we called [inaudible] and he says rent another villa.

So we rented another villa, and it did have gates wide enough

to accommodate the mobile.

And we did the recording there, and we kept the villa

where we were and stayed there.

So we had more money than sense in those days.

No one thought to take a tape measure

and measure the bloody mobile.

Would it get through the gates?

So we had two villas on the go at the same time,

and defeated the whole object of being residential-- commuting

from one villa to another.

We always produced ourselves for our faults,

but I think we were pretty, you know--

I suppose opinionated is the wrong word,

but we really felt strongly about how we wanted it to sound

and which way we wanted the music to go,

and we didn't want anybody taking it away from them.

We did work with various different people

in different stages of production.

We used the guy from Jimi Hendrix--

Eddie Kramer, and he was very good.

You know, we did some mixes with him in LA.

That was great, but I think that in all situations

we all overrode their opinions.

We-- we knew what we wanted.

You know, we-- we maybe used them to help us to get where we

wanted to go, but we never actually acknowledged

the use of a producer per se.

The first three were particularly well received, and

well recorded, and very strong.

The fourth one wasn't so strong because we

were-- we'd been on tour.

We'd do an album tour, album tour, album tour.

Came to do the fourth album, and Paul and I really

hadn't got a lot of ideas.

So we did the "Burning Sky" album

anyway and knocked together some songs, but it wasn't--

we didn't have a good stockpile of songs,

which is the best thing to do before you go into a studio.

You know, you go in with about 15 or 20,

and you end up with about 12 or something.

We didn't have about six when we went to do that record,

and they weren't all going to make it.

So we were writing things in the studio, which

is always not a good idea simply because of the schedule we

were at.

I mean, it wasn't as if we hadn't had any time off,

but when you come off major tours,

you don't want to go straight into a studio.

So you have a bit of time off ostensibly to write,

but I mean, you don't.

You just sort of recover from the tour.

SIMON KIRKE: We did one tour in America of 70 cities.

70 cities.

It was like, wow, where--

we didn't know half the time where we were playing.

You know, Mick would have to have,

hey, Springfield, or hey, Chicago, great to be here.

Sometimes we didn't know where we were.

It became a big problem for us.

It was something that Paul brought up very well.

He said, listen, I can't take this endless tour album.

I need some time off, man.

I need-- give me just a month or two months,

but don't keep booking things without,

you know, consulting us.

MICK RALPHS: We suddenly realized, well,

we can't go in and make another record

without more preparation, without having more songs.

I mean, we got away with a fourth album.

It was not a bad album at all.

There's some good songs on there,

but there wasn't the abundance of the--

as there was in the first three, and so we just

had to try to make up for that on "Desolation

Angels," which I think we did.

PAUL ROGERS: I needed to write a song for the album,

and I was thinking, you know, what

I'm going to write about now.

And I actually had a--

a synth guitar.

It was one of the first synth guitars

that ever came out made by Roland,

and when you got it going, it made some fantastic sounds.

And it had-- you know, it had harpsichord sound.

It had a bass sound.

The guitar could be made to play harpsichord, bass,

a guitar, acoustic, everything, you know,

all these different sounds.

And I was putting all these sounds in,

and I-- and I hit this, and I went, wow, this is like a rock

and roll fantasy, this guitar.

And I went, a ha, that's it.

So and then I just--

I just-- I wrote, OK, what would a rock and roll fantasy be?

Well, it would be being on stage, and the lights,

and the crowd, and everybody singing,

and just brought the song around there.

[MUSIC - BAD COMPANY, "ROCK AND ROLL AND FANTASY"]

[SINGING] It's all part of my rock and roll fantasy.

It's all part of my rock and roll dream.

SIMON KIRKE: Everythone was doing blow--

everyone except Paul Rogers, and I'll

categorically state that right now, because Paul quit

all that stuff in the mid '70s.

So he was never involved in any of this,

but I was, and I did a lot of blow.

Boz did. Mick did.

The whole Zeppelin camp did, and, you know, as anyone out

there will know--

by the way, I'm many years sober now,

but I speak with experience that coke just

makes you incredibly paranoid.

It makes you drink like a fish.

There is no redeeming factor in cocaine.

JASON BONHAM: "Desolation Angel" just came out.

They just played Birmingham Odeon,

and dad got me to learn "Rock and Roll Fantasy,"

so when they came over, I played it,

but even Paul tells the story different.

Ah, yeah, you played "Can't Get Enough of Your Love."

I went, it wasn't "Can't Get Enough of Your Love."

I played "Rock and Roll Fantasy" [inaudible].

MAN: So where did you play?

At my house.

At my dad's house, yeah.

When-- I was in my pajamas.

I remember be woken up.

It's your time, you know?

Down I come, you know.

And just played it.

So that-- that was the first time

Paul actually turned to Simon and went, you're fired.

It was one of the many times he did that, [inaudible] but yeah,

it was [inaudible].

So that's the truth.

1980 was a horrible year.

You know, Lennon was shot.

I believe-- you're going to have to look up the chronology,

but I think it was just after Bonzo had died.

It was horrible.

When John Bonham passed away, he--

he sort of became a virtual recluse.

He took it really hard.

SIMON KIRKE: The band had been--

it had run itself into the ground.

We were tour, album, tour, album.

We were all knackered, and then when John died,

Zeppelin broke up.

It was like a house of cards, because once Zeppelin went,

Peter Grant went into seclusion.

There was no one to look after us, Bad Company.

We'd go to his house for meetings,

and we wouldn't see him, you know?

And we got the feeling that he-- he wasn't really that--

well, understandably he'd lost a lot of enthusiasm for the job.

So we soldiered on without him, but that

was not very successful.

I mean, you know, when you have a band of four

strong characters, and the manager is the stronger--

stronger than any of us, and he's done on the scene,

everybody then decides they know best.

So when you've got four people in the band

thinking they know best, you know, it's not going to work.

At least he was the one we listened to in terms of,

you know, touring or recording not material,

but timing of everything.

So then we did an album that was-- it OK, but it was--

it was not the same after--

without Peter's involvement.

That was the last album, "Rough Diamond."

Then after that, Paul decided that he wanted to quit.

SIMON KIRKE: By the end of 1979, when

we'd done "Rough Diamonds," which was really not very good,

there'd been a fight between Paul and Boz.

Paul-- he expressed a desire to do his own album,

so he was saving songs for his own stuff.

Mick wasn't-- you know, they weren't collaborating anymore.

Mick was writing his own stuff, and it's--

it happens, you know?

It happens with all great song writing partnerships.

Eventually there will come a time

where you'll save your own stuff for something that you want

to do solo, and that's what Paul did,

and to a lesser extent, Mick.

PAUL ROGERS: The thing about music for me

is that music is really the most important thing,

and we were-- we were young, and we were successful,

and we did a lot of partying.

And I felt that we were losing touch with the music,

and it was getting too much about the parties.

It was too much like a "Shooting Star" situation,

if you know what I mean.

And I just felt that we--

we'd lost track of the original fire that we had,

and I wanted to get away and do something else basically.

We weren't getting on, and that was mainly to do

because Peter wasn't around.

He would always sort out any friction.

Oh, don't be such an old tart and stuff like that--

and get us all unified as a group again.

We'd lost that unity.

And you know, I love Paul, and I respected and admired

Paul since, you know, 1968.

That's how far back we go.

I think he's one of the finest singers in the history

of "singingdom," but I don't know

what he got under his bonnet about Boz, because Boz

was new on the scene.

Christ, he'd been a singer up until 1973.

I mean, he'd only been playing bass a couple of months,

you know, when we got hold of him.

The thing about Boz was he was very musical,

and he wasn't scared to voice his opinion about, you know--

almost bloody annoying, actually.

You know, we'd come to the end of this frantic song,

this great, you know, like a woomp on the end of it

on the drums.

And he'd go, uh, should we do another one.

Simon would start complaining about how it sounded,

and he'd go up to the desk and turn it up full volume,

look around, and look at everybody,

and then [inaudible].

Around He said, well that used to work in the old days.

We were saying I know what to do, and Paul was saying,

I know what to do.

And, you know, Boz is-- so it was

all like four different people as opposed to a group.

And I think that's [inaudible] that's when Paul decided he

didn't want to do it anymore.

And we quit just after that.

SIMON KIRKE: Paul said, you know, I

can't take this anymore.

I'm going to do my own thing.

And it was just a general screw up all around.

So that really was the end of Bad Company

and the end of Led Zeppelin.

My emphasis has always been about music.

Really that's the thing that--

that's the only reason I do it.

It's not to be successful or to be famous.

It's to be a songwriter, and to sing, and to reach out,

and to connect with people.

That's really my thing, you know?

And everything else is a side issue, you know?

And I felt we were losing touch with that--

the idea of playing just to reach people.

I don't know.

And so I went to seek something else, you know?

I thought at the time that maybe

he just wanted some time off, you know, as you sometimes do.

When you work closely together, you just want

a bit of a breather, you know?

Get on each other's nerves if you're in each other's company

all time.

In the old days, I remember so-and-so leaves The Searchers.

End of group.

No reunion planned.

It was all headlines, but with us-- with Free

and with Bad Company it was like we just kind of dissipated

and went our own ways.

MICK RALPHS: And also at the time

he was the only one that had kids.

See, at the time, none of us had had children.

He just wanted time apart from the group

to spend with his family and do his own thing.

So that was probably the right thing to do,

because I think if we had continued,

somebody might have got hurt along the way.

You know, I mean, he was-- he was quite heady,

and I think his--

his decision to stop was the right one.

It was a horrible time, as I said.

1980 to '82 was an awful time for me personally, and I--

I developed an addiction, and I went to treatment.

And when I came out, you know, it

was all a bit of a-- bit of downer, really,

and I missed the band terribly.

I did.

I mean, it was a great band, and we made some great music,

but we really did need some time off.

The group didn't continue, so we all drifted off

into other things, but I think there was a period where we

were just hanging around thinking,

well, Paul will want to do something soon,

but it didn't go that way.

The door was always left open by pretty much all of us.

Anyway, everybody went off and did whatever they did.

Paul did some solo stuff.

[inaudible] "Cut Loose."

I think he did his first solo album.

Yeah, and then Paul got involved

with Jimmy Page a put together the band called The Firm.

PAUL ROGERS: Because of John's death--

John Bonham, you know--

and Jimmy said to me, well, we should form--

let's form a band and go on tour.

And I said, well, you know, I really don't want to get

into the grind again, you know?

And he said, I'll tell you what-- what we'll do,

we'll make two albums, and we'll do two tours,

and that will be it.

That's all we'll do.

And I said, OK, that sounds good.

And that's what we did.

I did an album called "Take This"

in about 1980, '81 with Simon and a few other musicians.

Boz went off and played his jazz.

He loved his jazz, and that's what he ended up

doing, getting himself a 10, 12 piece jazz band up

in Edinburgh, which he got his rocks off on,

so thank goodness he did that.

You know, we all find things to do,

but it wasn't as rewarding as being in a group.

Particularly, Simon, me, and Paul always

being band members-- you know, when

you make a living in that mentality,

you depend on the other people you're with.

PAUL ROGERS: I met BB King and played with him at his club

in New York, and we did a song called

"Every Day of the Blues," which is the first song I played

with Paul Kossoff on stage at the Fickle Pickle [inaudible],

so for me it was a fantastic full

circle to be playing that song.

I-- I met Hubert Sumlin, who is--

and played with.

He actually played "All Right Now" with me.

CATHY BURRELL: Boz decided he wanted to retire,

and Boz just basically stayed in the hammock on the poop deck

for six years and got browner, and browner, and browner.

The Four Tops invited me to play at their 50th anniversary

in Detroit.

When I met Paul, we were on the same show in Detroit.

We were both doing a tribute to The Four Tops.

And that was a real honor, because I

didn't even know that they would be aware of me, you know?

Naturally, everyone knows about Paul

Rogers and Bad Company, but I had no idea he was even there.

[music playing]

Because I really love you.

Really, really love you.

I'm thankful that you love me too.

PAUL ROGERS: And I got to sing a couple of songs--

a couple of their songs, and they came on stage,

and they actually stood behind me like I was their lead singer

and they were my backing band, which was--

I mean, it was a real honor.

To me Paul Rogers is one of the most

underrated personalities you would ever want to meet.

This man has talent beyond talent.

This man can sing anything.

He can sing the telephone book.

I was watching TV one night, and then

there was this Brit Awards or something, and Queen were on.

And then I realized Paul was singing with them.

You know, they arranged to do "All Right Now"

or something together.

And I thought, wow, you know, that's great.

And then they obviously invited him to be the vocalist

for some Queen shows.

PAUL ROGERS: I had just played with Brian

for [inaudible] charity at Wembley, and so we got talking.

And he said, you know, we want to play that,

but we need a singer.

If you'll sing for us, our couple of songs--

"We Will Rock You," and "We are the Champions"--

we'll be your backing band for your song in "All Right Now."

I sad that sounds like a good deal, and that's what we did,

and it was dynamite.

BRIAN MAY: That, to me, was a great thing.

It was just something which was kind of in my blood

because we grew up on Free and Bad Company.

Freddy was a big fan of Bad Company.

So I went on and played with Paul,

and it seemed like the most natural thing in the world.

There was an instant easy chemistry there.

PAUL ROGERS: People-- people from the bowels

of this building where we were rehearsing all came rushing up

to see what the excitement was.

You know, they were popping their heads in the door.

So from the get go, it was very exciting.

BRIAN MAY: And Paul, as it happened,

was in a sort of lull, and Paul told

me later that he was considering giving

up playing at that point.

You know, he was feeling that he wanted

to have some more home life and stuff,

but I'm afraid we put an end to that.

[MUSIC - "FEEL LIKE MAKING LOVE"]

[SINGING] Feel like making love.

Feel like making love.

Give it to me [inaudible].

Feel like making love.

Don't you [inaudible].

Feel like making love.

MICK RALPHS: It was very sad.

We found out that Peter Grant had passed away in 1995.

Obviously missed him terribly.

Still do.

It was good to see everybody, of course.

We'd all lost touch with each other.

We'd all gone off and done different things.

Yeah, I mean, you know, we never felt out.

We just went our own separate ways,

so it was-- it was kind of nice to hook up,

although it was a sad circumstance in which

to get everybody together.

And Robert Plant suggested to us at the

get together that perhaps we should think about getting back

together and doing something, which sowed

the seed in everybody's mind, which eventually

led to the 1999 reunion.

PAUL ROGERS: It was like as if we hadn't stopped.

We started playing again, you know,

and then really quickly we had the old chemistry back,

which was quite amazing, really, because everybody

had gone off and done loads of different things.

[MUSIC - BAD COMPANY, "CAN'T GET ENOUGH OF YOUR LOVE"]

[SINGING] I can't get enough of your love.

You know that I can't get enough of your love.

SIMON KIRKE: The reunion was not a success,

and I think we could all agree that primarily

there were two camps.

There was Paul and myself, who were sober, and there

was Mick and Boz, who weren't.

And when-- when I'm trying to maintain sobriety,

and I'm only speaking for myself here,

and we have Mick and Boz who are completely the other way,

it led to a huge divide.

And we didn't get on.

Bottom line is it was not a success both commercially

or personality-wise.

And I think we were all quite glad to see

the back of each other.

Not so much me and Paul, because I've

always gotten on fairly well with Paul, but Boz

became a problem.

His intake was pretty bad, and, you know,

it eventually killed him.

It was Boz's belated 60th birthday party

and had some friends staying, some musicians staying.

And there was a lot of people arriving later on.

I was in the kitchen cooking up a huge buffet,

and Boz was wandering around.

I think we're watching horseracing.

We were betting on the television on Sky.

And Boz turned round to his friend Billy and said, gadger,

life doesn't get any better than this.

And he walked outside onto the patio,

and picked up Alvin's guitar, and said to Tam White--

he said, no, no, no.

That's the wrong note for this tune,

and he's going this is how it's played.

And the next thing we heard was the guitar hitting the floor,

and that was that, I'm afraid.

MICK RALPHS: Well, it affected me a lot.

You know, I was very, very upset and obviously saddened.

He was a great friend of mine.

Probably in the group we were the closest two, you know?

I mean, he got on with everybody,

but me and him used to hang out a lot

and used to go out together, and if we shared a house on tour,

we'd share it together, you know?

So I was very good friends with him, and he was a lovely guy,

and it did change, you know, the band.

We plodded on without him, but I do miss him terribly, yeah.

He was a great character in the band.

[MUSIC - BAD COMPANY, "GONE, GONE, GONE"]

BAD COMPANY: [SINGING] It ain't the first time, baby.

Baby, it won't be the last.

I better get the boys round and do some drinking fast.

Cause she's gone, gone, gone.

Boz did drink heavily.

Some would say detrimentally so.

I wouldn't agree with that, because in all the times

that I saw him drinking, he was always practicing, working,

recording, laughing, listening, understanding, philosophizing.

He lived a full life.

Alcohol didn't prevent any of these things.

He was never the curtains closed on your own bevy merchant.

He wasn't one of those guys.

He drank socially.

He enjoyed drinking.

I never saw it as a bad thing.

ZOOT MONEY: He did have an incredible tolerance

for stimulants, and he could actually

function, because he would play in whatever state he was in.

He just wanted to continue doing what he liked to do.

And so if he could have any excuse really to be playing

or to be listening to music.

He didn't believe in going out on a half life.

[MUSIC - BAD COMPANY, "GONE, GONE, GONE"]

BAD COMPANY: [SINGING] Cause she's gone, gone, gone.

I don't know if I'm happy.

I don't know if I'm sad.

She's gone.

MAN: He was just something else, and if you could have seen him

play in the last few years of his life,

he became a world class bass player.

Phenomenal.

The whole reason we got back together

was there was concern about the trademark of the name,

and because the band wasn't working,

there was a danger that other people might use the name

and all these sort of things.

So the obvious thing was to do something.

Well, Paul was still in Queen, and so I said, well,

why don't we just do a gig?

At least then it can be seen that we

are working as Bad Company, you know,

with Simon, and me, and Paul.

Obviously without poor old Boz.

So that's what we did.

We did a gig in Florida at the Hard Rock.

August, 2008.

[MUSIC - BAD COMPANY, "ROCK AND ROLL FANTASY"]

[SINGING] Yeah.

Here come the jesters, one, two, three.

SIMON KIRKE: Wonderful.

I got to say that was absolutely--

came out of the blue.

I can't even remember why we did it.

The name was being plagiarized by certain people,

and in fact, Mick, himself took it out on the road,

and I didn't like that.

And I decided that what we needed

was to pull the thing together to have a new contract

between us which stated that none of us

could play without the other's permission or use the name.

So we said in order to define that we would do a show.

We'd video the show.

DVD the show.

And we'd release it.

Well, we had a good time playing that show,

and the audience was fantastic.

MICK RALPHS: So it was yet another kind of reformation,

I suppose, but it was-- yeah, but it

was like we hadn't stopped.

It was great.

SIMON KIRKE: We filmed it, and Paul

did some remixing of the tapes, and it was a big success.

And it paved the way to do these 10

shows earlier in-- in '09 when we

did the east coast of America.

We were all a bit, you know, not quite sure

how it would be without Boz and how we'd be received,

but of course, soon as he started

playing and the audiences responded so well that we--

we felt good about it again, you know,

despite Boz not being there.

The song still came across quite fresh, and--

and it was-- it was suddenly as if we hadn't stopped,

but there was a long period in between where

we hadn't done anything.

There was Mick, and there was Paul, and there was myself.

And we had Howard Leese and Lynn Sorensen from Paul's solo band.

And it was a wonderful combination.

All I've ever wanted to do is be in a band,

and the band that I've been in the longest is Bad Company.

And I can do that.

I'm good at that.

No, I think everybody else probably feels the same.

I mean, we've all done different things in the interim,

but nothing is rewarding-- for me, anyway.

Well, I'd just come off tour, and I

said I'm not going to do another three month tour, thank you.

Not straight off the bat, but we can do a couple of dates.

So we end up doing these 10 dates.

The 10 shows in--

in '09 were some of the best that I've ever

experienced in any band.

But whether we go beyond that into recording new stuff is--

is-- you know, it could.

And no reason not to.

See, it was a bit like the early days of Bad Company where

we had left behind those demons, and we

were now playing unfettered, unchained,

and just having a ball.

[music playing]

PAUL ROGERS: I wasn't quite sure what to expect because it's

been such a long time, and we--

Considering we hadn't played for like, what, 10 years?

Yeah.

Somebody said to me, is it like riding a bike?

I said, no, it's like riding a wild stallion.

[laughter]

I like that.

You don't forget how to do it, but it doesn't

make it any less dangerous.

No, I like that.

[inaudible] put that top lift in first.

MAN: And here we go. Jolly good.

Hey, Chris.

All right, buddy.

[inaudible]

Thank you.

See you later.

[inaudible]

Thank you, my friend.

[cheering]

PAUL ROGERS: [inaudible]

[MUSIC - BAD COMPANY, "CAN'T GET ENOUGH OF YOUR LOVE"]

SIMON KIRKE: I'm always trying to hear what Paul is doing

and trying to, you know, supplement it, complement

it, whatever, back it up.

Like you said earlier on, you've got to have a structure.

You can't be too free from, but there's certain times in songs

that, you know, he'll do something,

and I'll try and back it up rather than ride over it.

MICK RALPHS: Yeah, if Paul goes somewhere,

we'll go there with it, you know, or whatever way.

You know, it's just at the moment whatever [inaudible].

PAUL ROGERS: Yeah, well go run with it.

MICK RALPHS: And whatever dictates it-- you know,

the mood of the audience, or the way we're feeling.

We're always right there to compliment that,

and it's just a natural thing we do.

It's not a problem for any of us.

It's a magical experience pretty much every night.

I have to pinch myself once in a while

because I'll be standing next to him, and I'll look back,

and there's Simon, and I'm going, wow.

These are the guys that I grew up just loving.

They're playing their music.

I think Paul is the greatest rock singer that's ever lived,

and to this day, I mean, he hasn't lost a step.

A lot of singers of his generation

are substituting the high notes for lower notes

or tuning down a little bit, but Paul-- we

play everything in A 440 concert pitch, the same as the records.

A lot of the times I'm playing I'm thinking about what I'm

doing, but now and then, when I get a chance,

I'm just listening to him play and seeing what I'm playing

is-- it's a magical feeling.

All of the gigs have--

all of the shows have been exceptional.

The UK tour was another endorsement of that.

You know, the response was great, and we played well.

Good morning.

Hello, Chris.

Mick [inaudible] how you doing?

[interposing voices]

What we'll do is we'll walk in at 3 o'clock.

[inaudible] will get up and make an introduction.

You'll play.

We'll do a photo session.

Then do the Q&A. And then a signing of a guitar

that we'll present to the Hard Rock, and then we're done.

I'm getting too old for this shit.

You're gonna have to whip me into shape here.

Hello.

This was the first [inaudible] ever.

Not many people know that.

What?

MAN: There's your drumhead.

All right.

Ah, Boz is up there.

Look at that.

[music playing]

[chatter]

[MUSIC - BAD COMPANY, "FEEL LIKE MAKING LOVE"]

I was in the States last year for 10 shows,

and then when I come home, my friends and family were asking,

you know, is the UK thing going to happen?

I said, well, sworn to secrecy, but possibly, you know.

Ladies and gentlemen, would you please

welcome a true super group.

Ladies and gentlemen, Bad Company.

[MUSIC - BAD COMPANY, "SHOOTING STAR"]

[SINGING] Don't you know that you are a shooting star.

Keep on shining somewhere [inaudible].

Don't you know that you are a shooting star.

All the world will love you just as

long, as long as you are alive.

I like that sound, basically.

Classic British rock sound.

Yeah, that's it.

That's what we're missing, you know?

Well, that went well, didn't it?

WOMAN: [inaudible]

It was really good.

I thought they were fantastic.

That-- that kind of chemistry is still there.

There's absolutely no doubt about that.

Hello.

Nice to see you. First gig.

Lovely.

[cheering]

WOMAN: Come on, Simon!

[MUSIC - BAD COMPANY, "CAN'T GET ENOUGH OF YOUR LOVE"]

[SINGING] Well I take whatever I want.

And baby, I want you.

All right.

You give me something I need.

MICK RALPHS: It would be nice to do some more,

and it would be also nice to do some

new stuff if-- if that's the way it's going--

I mean, I haven't written for a long time.

I must be honest.

I haven't really felt like it.

You know, you go through a patch when you're not working,

and then you have marital problems, whatever, you know,

all that stuff, and you don't feel like writing anything.

There's nothing to write about that's good.

I like to write about stuff that's good, you know?

Not miserable stuff.

So-- but I'm starting to write again now.

I'm feeling good about everything,

and having the band there as a vehicle is

an incentive, because I've always written for a band,

you know?

And Bad Company stopped-- there was no vehicle.

Although I kept writing, it was all kinds of various stuff.

At least having Bad Company there gives me a focus

to think, well, [inaudible] there

is a certain thing that we do, whatever it is, like it or not.

So I try to tailor the stuff I'm writing to fit that bill,

you know, to keep it up to date but still keep

the essence of what we did in the early days.

And Paul played a couple of things,

and I picked up on them, and I said, oh, what's that?

You know, like little glimpses of things.

It would be nice if we did some new stuff.

We shall see.

SIMON KIRKE: Who knows?

I mean, we're fit, sober, and who knows

what the future will bring?

But I really hope that we can do some shows together

in the future.

As long as there's a market there, and a demand for it,

and we're enjoying it, there's no reason not to do it

as long as we physically can.

I don't think any of us want to do marathon tours anymore.

We're too old for that.

I would love to do another album.

You can't predict it, really.

You just have to see how it goes,

but hopefully there will be more.

That would be lovely.

That would be lovely.

I'm going to take a break, and I'm

going to focus on songwriting.

Songwriting, really, you know, that's

where everything kind of stems from,

and I'll see where that takes me.

[MUSIC - BAD COMPANY, "ROCK AND ROLL FANTASY"]

BAD COMPANY: [SINGING] Here come the jesters one, two, three.

It's all part of my fantasy.

I love the music, and I love to see

the crowd dancing in the aisles and singing out loud, yeah.

Here come the dancers one by one.

You're mama's calling, but you're having fun.

You find you're dancing on a number nine cloud.

Put your hands together now and sing it out loud.

It's all part of my rock and roll fantasy.

Yeah.

It's all part of my rock and roll dream, yeah.

It's all part of my rock and roll fantasy.

It's all part of my rock and roll dream.

Yeah.

Put up the spotlights one and all.

Then let the feeling get down to your soul.

The music's so loud you can hear the sound reaching for the sky

and churning up the ground.