Interview with CHRIS SLADE

August 2024

To headbangers, he’s this bald-headed thunder-god from AC/DC; to more discerning listeners, he’s a groove master from MANFRED MANN’S EARTH BAND; to Chris Slade, it’s all parts of his spiritual path. And, as Chris reckons, those parts were not too different – despite the Welsh musician’s career has been so varied as to land him jobs not only with two aforementioned ensembles, but also with Tom Jones, in whose band he started out, and such dissimilar artists as Garys Numan and Moore as well collectives in which he shone alongside the likes of Jimmy Page and the types of David Gilmour – because, to Slade, it’s all inventive as long as he can fit his technique around the music.

That’s why the legendary drummer came up with THE CHRIS SLADE TIMELINE a decade ago and took to the road performing pieces by quite a few group’s he had played with; and it took the veteran ten years after the combo’s debut EP was out to sculpt “Timescape”: the album where familiar songs sound unfamiliar and, what’s more important, complement original numbers. A perfect snapshot of his life – and a perfect springboard for our long-overdue conversation.

– Chris, a couple of our late mutual friends, Trevor Bolder and Lee Kerslake, described you as a “technical” drummer. To me, technical always sounded like an opposite of emotional. But again, to me, you always sounded as a very emotional, very warm drummer.

I am a very emotional person, actually. And I always say – I’ve written it in my book, actually, it’s not out yet, but I’ve written it in my book – that I’m a very emotional drummer and also a person. So it’s not true to say that, technical does not mean soulless or something. Simon Phillips is a very technical drummer, but he’s also a very emotional drummer. Vinnie Colaiuta is the same. And many, many others. You’ve got to fit with the song and play with a feel which it gives you, and that only comes with having emotion, playing with a good feel, because you start the band off on their quest to find the emotion in the song. It doesn’t just come from the singer; it comes from the whole band. Even if it’s a heavy metal band, it’s the same: the emotion is very, very much part of it, and you have to convey that in the best way you can. And that means everybody in the band. I can play tricky dicky stuff as you might call it, as well as going boom-bap with a feel, what they call in America playing in the pocket, in the feel of the song. in the feel of the band.

– And what would you say is more emotionally fulfilling: to be playing sophisticated rhythms, like with EARTH BAND, or much simpler but groovier stuff, like with AC/DC?

You can play a simple feel but it’s still got to be emotional. You’re not just a timekeeper. A drummer is part of the band, part of the emotional makeup of the band. One thing does not preclude the other, emotional and technical. You can be both at the same time, whether it’s a simple drum pattern or a very complex drum pattern, as long as it fits and conveys something. You’re not up there trying to be clever; you’re up there to convey a song. It’s like a guitarist who moves you with his solo: is it emotional or is it technical? It’s both, in fact, because you can go widdly-widdly, and it moves you. That’s the whole point of music that you get moved. Does David Gilmour move you when you listen to PINK FLOYD? And that is very technical, believe it or not. You don’t have to play fast all the time, but it takes years and years to get to David Gilmour’s technique. And in that is this whole life, you know? Most musicians have that, and they should be putting their life experiences into their music. That’s my opinion anyway, and I think it’s the best opinion to have. If it doesn’t move you, it’s not going to move the audience.

– What is more physically challenging, then?

Every song is different, and you must give your all in every song. You must give your whole body, especially being a drummer, your whole body and your whole soul to a song.

– Does your karate and Zen archery training helps you with that?

Yes. Well, everything in life is going to help you with that. Everything, everything should be a life lesson, really.

– You’re still practicing it, karate and Zen?

No, I’m afraid not. All I do now is tai chi, and that’s enough for me. It’s a great system, I did it for a few years, and also that’s where I get my energy from. The qigong exercises before tai chi gives you energy to do the tai chi properly. You can access that reservoir inside you, just like an athlete does in a race. I was watching a race yesterday, and the guy came through in the end to win when he was a few hundred yards behind. Where did he get that energy from? He found a reservoir inside himself that gave him just that little bit of energy to run those last 500 yards and to pass the guy in front of him. Where did that come from? How did he access it? That’s what you learn in martial arts, and I’ve used it all my life. People ask me, “How do you play like that?” And my answer is always the same: I use the force. I don’t mean strength, I mean the energy that you can access is the force. In Japanese they call it ki energy, and in Chinese they call it chi. George Lucas calls it the force, that’s where he got the idea. There’s a thing in Japanese budō, which is the martial arts system, a thing called jedia – he nicked it and called it Jedi.

– A lot of people don’t realize that all these martial arts also mean philosophy.

I’m very philosophical. I’ve read so many books on it, hundreds of books about all sorts of subjects, not only Zen, and it’s very important to understand human beings and our makeup, the things we can do or can’t do, our limits. I’ve often thought long and hard, and deeply about this, and it’s always been a part of my life from when I was a late teenager.

– Is “Wheels Within Wheels” – which I would say is my favorite song of yours…

(Laughs.) Oh! That’s a blast from past! I was going to do that with TIMELINE, actually; we haven’t recorded it yet, but I was going to, and you’ve just nailed it. That’s what I’ll be doing next with the band, putting that down in the studio. Thank you for that.

– Is this song a reflection of your karmic philosophy?

Yes, yes, definitely. There’s also a song on the new album called “Time Flies”: if you look at it negatively, it’s about the end of the universe (laughs) – not just the end of human beings but the end of everything. And there’s “End Of Eternity” which comes straight after “Time Flies”… So it’s pretty deep.

– “Time Flies” stands out for me for a different reason. It has your lead vocals, which is a very rare occasion.

Why would you try to be a singer when you’re working with people like Tom Jones and Paul Rodgers? Why would you even try? So it never came in my head. But I always demo my songs. I can sing in tune but I don’t have a voice. To me, a singer is something like Tom or Paul who, again, both convey emotion in their voices. You can think of singers and guitarists being emotional, but it’s very strange to think of drummers like that. Well, they are just as emotional, I can assure you. So I do demos for my songs, and I did this one with the help of Mike Clark, the keyboard player of TIMELINE, and though we have two singers in TIMELINE, the whole band said, “You got to do that song. You got to sing it because it’s your song. and we can’t see anybody else in this band singing it!” So I went ahead and did the recording. I was very pleased to do it, and it turned out great.

– While we’re talking about singing, I want to ask you one thing about “Blinded By The Light”… Was it you who were singing falsetto when Manfred sang counterpoint to Chris Thompson?

I can’t remember. I’ll have to listen to it but it’s very possible, very possible. We all did, we all sang, the whole band sang vocal backing on a lot of things, on most albums.

– On this new album you do a few tracks by EARTH BAND but you put only two on the first disc, alongside TIMELINE original compositions: “Joybringer” and “Questions”… Was it because you wrote the lyrics for these two songs?

Yes, that’s exactly it. The first CD of “Timescape” is original songs and the second disc is about covers, but I wrote the lyrics to “Joybringer” and “Questions.” I’d written a poem with exactly those lyrics that you see on “Questions,” and it took Manfred a few weeks, but then he said, “I found the perfect melody for you!” I didn’t know that at the time, but it was Schubert’s Third Impromptu, which is based on a Beethoven thing, I think. And it was a hit record. That was another reason I put it on this CD: both “Joybringer” and “Questions” had been hits, so I figured: Why not try? It might become a hit again, who knows? People might like it.

– You said it was a poem, so you didn’t write it as a set of lyrics? You used to write poetry?

Yes. I’ve got a whole lot of poetry that’s never been seen. And I sent some lyrics to David Gilmour once, but his wife was a poet, so I didn’t hear, “Yes, thanks, Slade. I’m not going to use it!” (Laughs.) But it was only two and a half years ago that I find out I could write melodies as well. I never thought of writing melodies, I didn’t think it was possible for me because I don’t play a chordal instrument at all, I only play drums. I started classical guitar, only for a couple of years, and then I stopped because there was no time, and I used to tune my own instrument, of course. That’s why I need Mike Clark to put the chords behind it for me. I can write the melodies which became bass lines, string lines, guitar arpeggios, all sorts of things, but they weren’t just melodies of a song – it was the whole song. Mike would interpret my humming or my singing and make it right. As I said, I could always sing in tune, and I know when something’s out of tune – when a band is out of tune a little, a guitar is slightly out of tune, it just goes right through me, I can hear it immediately. It’s a bit painful sometimes, it’s a blessing and it’s a curse, because people in the audience, perhaps, don’t have that facility, but I’ve had that for many, many years.

– Again, a lot of people don’t realize that drums are also a tuned instrument, and what particularly caught my attention on this new album is your handling of URIAH HEEP‘s “July Morning” where you basically took the keyboard part and transferred it to your cymbals.

It’s very difficult, but you would use the instrument that goes with the things you are playing with, and that’s what you should do. And you should tune your drums. Actually, most of the time I tune my drums as low as possible, to get as much bottom-end without the heads falling off, because they do sometimes – not with me, but if you tune them too low, the heads can fall off – so there’s a good balance there. With “July Morning” melody, to be honest, it’s just a drum pattern that I thought would fit. That’s what I mean about being adaptable, that’s what I mean when I was talking about listening to what you’re playing with. When we do “July Morning” live, we have a fantastic, almost orchestral ending, and it’s not on this album – when we recorded it, we hadn’t come up with that ending yet.

– The orchestral sound was another thing that I wanted to ask you about. It’s not a real orchestra on the record, it’s keyboards, right?

Some of it is real violins, some are keyboards, and some are a mixture of both. It really is what works: if you want to have a choir, get a choir, and if you want to have a harp, get a harp – it depends on what works with what song.

– Well, bands like yours don’t have a budget for that, like they did in the Seventies or in the Sixties. You’re not Rick Wakeman to employ orchestras and choirs.

Have you heard of a British band called ELBOW? They use a string quartet, and they’re very successful. People like it. I like it. I love the combination of a band and strings. DEEP PURPLE started that way back in the early Seventies, they were the first ones to play with an orchestra. And I would love to do that with TIMELINE – it’d be wonderful. And the guys can do that, the band can play that, they play appropriately to whatever’s going on. I wanted a band that could play my whole life, the band that would be able to switch from AC/DC to, say, even Tom Jones. and I knew that they could because I’d seen them play. You know, some musicians go, “I’m a heavy player, man, I can’t play Tom Jones’ stuff. That’s so old-fashioned!”

– Ha! Have you heard Bruce Dickinson sing “Delilah”?

Yes, yes! We sort of do half that version, actually. We do half Dickinson’s “Delilah” and half Tom Jones “Delilah”! I think it’s great. It’s funny: because it’s seen as a lighter song, a comedic song, although it’s about somebody killing somebody. But it’s got a great chorus. We’ve done a death metal festival in France, I had written “Delilah” on the set list, and then I thought, “Oh, we’re in trouble here. These guys, hair down their back, motorcycles!” But we played the song, they got their arms in the air and the were singing along. That was amazing! So people do appreciate it. I saw Tom Jones a few years back, we were talking about various things, and I said, “Hey, Tom, TIMELINE does ‘Delilah’ in the set.” And he said, “‘Delilah’? I stopped doing that decades ago!” I said, “You gotta put it back in, man. You gotta do it, because people love the song!” And he did, and he still does it in his mid-eighties now.

– You said, “mid-eighties,” and it made me think of THE FIRM. I’ve always found this band like quite strange. Paul Rodgers is an emotionally hot singer, while Jimmy Page always sounded cold to me. How did you feel in that environment?

I thought it was a great combination to be honest, but it just didn’t come up with its promise, as far as Paul and Pagey were concerned. I think for them it wasn’t working. We had no say, me and Tony Franklin, had no say in the way the band was marketed or done, or toured, or anything like that. We were asked to play in the studio and we did, and on stage, of course, but that was about our input.

– There seemed to be a lack of material, what with a cover of “You’ve Lost That Lovin’ Feelin'” on the first album and “Live In Peace” from Rodgers’ solo LP on the second one, so why didn’t they ask you and Tony to help out with the writing?

The RIGHTEOUS BROTHERS thing was not because there wasn’t enough material: it just was a really good song and it worked when we played it. As soon as we played it straight away, it worked. And we thought “Live In Peace” was a good song – and it is a very good song, a lot of people like that song. But Pagey and Paul, they’re writers themselves – Jimmy Page from LED ZEPPELIN, for God’s sake, and Paul Rodgers from BAD COMPANY and all the rest of the bands he’s been in – and they would want to do it themselves. I’ve no idea why you’d have to ask them, but they wouldn’t come to us for material, they wouldn’t ask me and Tony to contribute.

– Did you find it interesting to be working with them?

Interesting, yes, very. And they were great to work with, and Tony was very young, but also very, very good. He’s one of the greatest fretless players of all time. It wasn’t any imposition in any way. I was surprised when it finished – I thought it would go on for at least one more album, but it was not to be.

– How do you feel about playing with a fretless bass as opposed to a fretted one?

There’s not a real difference to me as a drummer.. a long as they play in time. I love fretless bass! One of my heroes is Jaco Pastorius. And I also worked with Pino Palladino. Gary Numan asked me if I knew any fretless players and I knew Pino. I’ve worked with a lot of good fretted players too, like Guy Pratt from PINK FLOYD and John Paul Jones – I played with him on an Tom Jones album. Me and John Paul Jones were the rhythm section for an album called “13 Smash Hits” – no Pagey, though, but he did play on “It’s Not Unusual” with Tom. But as far as working with fretless, it makes no difference, really, as long as you can hear them, and they’re good and they keep in time, which they all do, of course. So I know what a good bass line should be and I use that to advantage on “Timescape” because Stevie Gee, our bass player, can play fretless as well as fretted – and he does if the song needs a fretless – best of both worlds.

– Gary Numan must have been one of your most unusual gigs. He plays new wave, and you’re a rock drummer, and there’s less space for you to be inventive.

It’s all drums. And as far as I’m concerned, it’s all inventive. You’ve got to adapt to the music and play what the music needs and what the originator of the music wants, whether it’s Jimmy Page or Gary Numan, or anybody. You have to fit, and I’ve been lucky that I can fit my technique around the music that I’ve played in, which has been quite diverse from jazz through to heavy rock. It doesn’t matter to me what sort of music it is. I just want to play drums under any circumstances.

– So when you went to audition for AC/DC, what were you thinking: “It’s going to be a bigger paycheck!” or “It might be fascinating!”?

The paycheck has never been that important, to be honest. Gary Numan wasn’t a great payer, and Danny Laine wasn’t a great payer as it comes to a weekly paycheck. But you still put your all into it, because it’d be silly not to try your very, very best. Whether it’s a pub or whether it’s 80,000 people, you do your best. But in AC/DC we always followed the drums that Angus and Malcolm [Young], when Malcolm was with us, put on the demos that they made. You follow the drumming that, say, Angus does, and you try to play that as professionally as possible. But it’s got to be what Angus already did. So it doesn’t matter whether it’s Phil Rudd or Simon Wright, or myself, or Matt Laug, you follow the script that is given to you, just like an actor with a script. And you can throw some things in, yes, if the writer, whoever it is, wants it.

– How much of a script you were given in ASIA?

No script at all, except for the old songs. When you join a band and they have a history, you’ve got to play the old songs the same as the drummer before you played it. I did change a few things in Carl Palmer’s parts that I thought didn’t work for me, but mainly I can play just about anything. It’s not important to me to put too much of myself in there. If somebody has created a drum part, that’s good enough for me, as long as I think it’s good, which I do, so there’s never a conflict. I’ve been asked to play all sorts of things when I was doing sessions. With Tom Jones, right at the beginning, I was asked to play very busy on a song that was going to be a single, “Chills And Fever.” And I said, “Look, I’ll play this, but it doesn’t work for me. And you want me to do a lot of fills. Okay, I’ll do it!” It was the same with URIAH HEEP: Gerry Bron asked me to play what I call “overplaying” – in other words, more fills than I personally would like to play, but he was playing the belt so he got what he wanted.

– By the way, you did “July Morning” live with HEEP but it had been recorded prior to your stint with them. Why didn’t you choose any of the songs that were on “Conquest” that you did play on?

We can play all sorts of songs, and it’s about choosing something that people think is significant. We play for two hours – I’d like to pay for three hours, to be honest, but sometimes, if we’re in a festival, we only get an hour and a half – so we’ve got to find the songs which people will find interesting. You might like something, you might not like something, but nobody is ever disappointed at the end of a TIMELINE concert. In fact, the only time they’re disappointed is when I say, “This is the last song” – then they complain: “More, more, more…” And I think it’s tremendous that after two hours they want more. There’s a few songs on “Conquest” that I would like to do. John Sloman, the singer and writer, is still a good friend of mine, he is still doing shows and still working, and he wrote some great songs. In fact, I’m thinking of doing one of them, I won’t tell you which, with TIMELINE, because I think it’s a wonderful song. So I will be doing more URIAH HEEP songs because I know we have a killer version of one of them.

– When you joined HEEP, you had known Mick Box and Ken Hensley for years, but Trevor Bolder was still relatively new to the band, and John Sloman entered at the same time as you did. How did it feel?

John plays everything, except for wind instruments – he plays piano really well, and he plays stringed instruments really well – and Trevor was a great bass player, and we did some demos, just the three of us, which never came out: John, myself, and Tufty, as Trevor was known then, because he cut his hair in that sort of spiky way.

– Talking about spikes… You were a part of DAMAGE CONTROL who released two versions of their album, one with Spike on vocals and the other with Robin George singing. How did that band happen?

They asked me to do a session and it turned into an album, and then that became DAMAGE CONTROL. I don’t think it even came out. I’m not sure. It didn’t do very much anyway.

– It did come out. I wrote for liner notes for the Angel Air edition of “Raw”.

Right, I don’t know anything about that. I think they might have used my drums without me knowing. I don’t mean use my physical drum kit, I mean use the sound of my drums. I’m not aware that I played on two versions. I might have. I’m not infallible when it comes to that because I’ve worked with so many people. But yeah, I enjoyed that also.

– Was it your work with Pete Way in that band that led you to work with Michael Schenker?

No, strangely enough. I don’t know how that came about, I can’t remember. Somebody must’ve recommended me. I just cannot remember how I got to be with Michael Schenker. And I was with him not all the time, but for, like, five to seven years, off and on.

– Back to your new record: there are more interesting arrangements. What made me laugh was “Blinded By The Light” where you put in an actual funky break as the lyrics suggest.

Oh, yeah, the Gilmour quote. I thought it fitted. It’s a bit of a laugh there. It was my idea to put chopsticks in the middle “Blinded By The Light” – even Manfred says this in print. He was open-minded enough to do it.

– There was another Springsteen song before that, “Spirits In The Night”…

Yep. That was my idea to put string quartet in that song, and I say it with pride. I thought it sounded great, and that’s another example that a band and an orchestra can coexist.

– EARTH BAND released “Spirits In The Night” first with Mick Rogers and then with Chris Thompson, but did you actually record it twice or was it the same backing track?

I can’t remember that, I really can’t. Probably, thinking back, it would have been the same backing track. I know there was a transition because Colin Pattenden, the bass player, wasn’t on “Blinded By The Light”… We’re still friends, by the way, Colin and I.

– How did the inner-band dynamics change with Rogers’ departure?

We’d been playing together at that point for a long time. I was in the band for seven years. Mick for about five, I think. It’s a long time in a musician’s life. You don’t expect to be with the same band for that long, although TIMELINE has been together for twelve years now, and we still get on well. We still have a beer together and have a chat. I didn’t expect that to go on so long either, but I’m very pleased it did. And it’s going from strength to strength. We’ve never stopped working. As for EARTH BAND, I don’t know Mick’s personal feelings on it; I knew at the time that he didn’t want to play rock music anymore. And he was a great, great player, so we had great difficulty replacing him. And then, after a couple of years, Manfred decided – or at least said he wanted – to retire. He’s 83 right now and he’s still doing EARTH BAND, but he wanted to retire early, which was understandable at the time. He’d been very successful in the Sixties and he was also very successful in the Seventies, so he said one thing, tried it for a couple of years, and then didn’t like it and put the band back together. Mick Rogers went back with him at some point, and he also had Mick Rogers and Chris Thompson working together. Chris has now retired completely, as far as I know. That’s what happens, I suppose, but I don’t ever want to retire. I might be forced to, who knows, but I wanted to be a drummer all my life. I haven’t succeeded yet, but I’m still working on it. (Laughs.)

– It was when Manfred decided to retire that’s TERRA NOVA came about, and you wrote “Wheels Within Wheels” which we talked about for this band. But you said that it was only recently that you discovered you could write melody, so what about that song? Looks like you could do that back in the day as well, right?

Yes, I suppose I could. You’re right there. I never thought of that. I really did not think of it. And it’s a blast from the past that you’re bringing that up. You know, it didn’t do anything commercially, that record, which is a great shame. I had high hopes of it. It just didn’t happen. It’s a shame because it was a very, very good band. Pete Cox, the singer who went on to have great success with GO WEST, Colin and I had given him his first professional gig. A lot of people knew he was a really good singer, but he’d just never been in a band before. So we gave him the chance to be in a band, and I think he learned a lot from that. So it was mutually good for all of us. And then Manfred and the record company stopped us doing it. It’s a very good album and I’ll be trying to steal things off it for TIMELINE.

– You did quite a few sessions back in the day, one of those being Martin Smith’s album “Bitter Sun After Dark” on which you co-wrote the title track. How did that happen?

It’s an instrumental, and I wrote the melody and suggested what instruments to use on it. Again, quite orchestral, although that was all keyboards I believe. There was no mix of real instruments and keyboards, it was just keyboards. Martin and I came up with some good stuff, but I got the idea for that song there was this boiler that used to make water in his studio that used to make a really bad noise when it was starting up, and that’s what you hear on the start of the song. I love taking things like that. I did it on URIAH HEEP’s “Conquest” also. That game you hear going… That was my idea again. I can’t remember which song was that, I think it was at the start of the album. And it’s a bit of a throwaway, but again, that was one of my production ideas, and the guys went along with it.

– You played on Tony Hazard’s “Loudwater House” in 1971. Was it your first experience of working with Gerry Bron who would become EARTH BAND’s manager?

He was a producer, and he was also the manager of URIAH HEEP. Personally, I got on okay with him, but a lot of people didn’t. That was one of the sessions I did. You go in and you do your three hours, and you get your ten-pound payment and then you go away: I don’t like working like that, so I stopped doing it.

– What about Frankie Miller in the Seventies?

Yeah, well, I used to know Frankie. He was recording in the Rock City studio I used to co-own with Colin Pattenden and a few other people, and he didn’t have a drummer. So he said, “Would you like to do it?” I said, “Yes!” So it was very organic, it worked so good.

– You also recorded with Tom Paxton. “How Come The Sun” was an interesting album: an American folk singer backed by British players like Brian Odgers and yourself.

Again, that was one of those sessions I was booked to do. It’s one of the ways I was earning money in those days. But it’s one of the only ones where my name is on the album. I also did some sessions with STATUS QUO, for instance, and wasn’t mentioned on the sleeve.

– You have this particular, very recognizable sound, what “Conquest” credits you with Staccato drums, and you used a particular, horn-shaped kit.

I co-developed the Staccato drum with the inventor, who is an artist called Pat Townshend. He invented the shape, the actual shape, and I developed the drum. It wasn’t a drum because there was no depth to it, it was not deep enough to put the nut boxes on to hold the drum heads down, so I had to make that longer. And also there was no what’s known in drumming as a bearing edge, which is where the skin rests upon the drum, so that was another thing that I did. That’s how it became a workable drum. It became my company, and I wanted to use it to get publicity for the drum, as I was very proud of the kit. It was very successful for a long time, and then recession came about all around the world actually. and the bottom dropped out of that because nobody could afford to buy those drums. They were fairly expensive to make because they were handmade, even though it was of fiberglass. It all had to be put on by hand, and there was no other way to do it: there were molds, and you just put it on the walls of the molds. I’ve still got the molds and I’ve still got the drums. I’ve got a black Staccato drum kit that was played by John Bonham and Keith Moon. But I used a white one with HEEP, and I used it for a few years after that. I used it when I was with Mick Ralphs’ band, just before the Gilmour tour, but Dave said, “I’ve got a drum kit I’d like you to use instead of the Staccato drums,” and I said, “Okay, Dave, you tune them, I’ll play them!” And he did.

– I recalled this sound when while listening to this new track of yours, “Sundance”… By the way, was it inspired, melodically or rhythmically by Arthur Brown’s “Fire”?

No, not at all. It was not a conscious steal, if it is a steal! Do you know what “Sundance” is?

– A Native Americans’ ritual?

Yes. It’s a sort of a rite of passage for the young men. The men who are old enough – thirteen-fourteen or something, but it can be later also, like in their twenties – tie themselves to a pole. It’s like a maypole, only they don’t hold the rope – they put bones through their chest, which are attached to these rawhide strips and tie it to their chests. Then they dance for three days and three nights with no food and no drink in the hope that they will get a vision, which in their case is White Buffalo – that’s in the lyrics of the song. It was outlawed in America, I think in 1941 [in 1881. – DME], but it still goes on, of course, along with sweat lodges and things like that. I did a sweat lodge with some American Indians quite some time back, in Sedona, Arizona. Forty years ago that happened, at least, maybe more, maybe fif, and that was an experience. Actually, I just realized it’s where the lyrics come from – because I had a dream that night after the sweat lodge and it was a lucid dream: it came to me that my soul was made of fire. “My soul can’t burn because it’s made of fire” – I like that lyric.

– Was your cover artwork inspired by that as well?

The artwork came from the record company, I had nothing to do with the design. I wish I had, because I really like it. I designed the TIMELINE logo that’s on the front of the album, because I used to be a graphic designer, professionally even, in between bands. I like to design things. I also went to art college for three years, every day. I can’t paint but I can sculpt or draw, and I love doing that.

– A Renaissance man. You’re versatile in many forms of art.

I think you’ve got to be adaptable in your life. And I’m interested in everything in life. That comes from my meditation as well, I think. I love to go places and meet people, and I’m really happy when I’m doing it. At my age, I should be winding down, but I’m not going to. I won’t until I really have to. I’ve always had an inquiring mind. I went to a good school. I passed an exam for the school, it’s what’s known in Britain as a grammar school. It’s not the same in America or a lot of other places – they take one per cent of the population… Well, they used to anyway, in the Fifties and Sixties. And the one thing they did teach me was to think for myself. So I did, I thought for myself. And I left school.

– I don’t think you’ve ever regretted that.

No, I never did. (Laughs.) And I had a great education because I read everything I possibly could about any subject. If something interested me, I would read about it. And that’s one thing that I could do on the road to fill up the time. And I’ve got hundreds, maybe thousands of books on different subjects. A lot of them are philosophy and stuff like that, and a lot of Zen Buddhism because I was very much into Zen Buddhism. That started when I was about twenty-one, maybe twenty.

– I assume it real books, not electronic ones.

No, I don’t think I have any electronic books.

– Long ago, I had an interesting conversation with Andy Fraser of FREE…

Andy Fraser. Yeah, of course. Great, great player.

– …and he said to me that he didn’t like paper books at all anymore. He used all these devices and gizmos. I couldn’t agree with him.

No, and I don’t. Myself and my wife, we love books. She loves the smell of books. I’m not like that, I’m afraid, but she loves books, really loves books. So we were a great fit, because so do I. Our singer is like Andy Fraser: he buys electronic books. And when my book comes out, it’s going to be an electronic one as well as a print.

– How soon?

I’ve been writing it for 95 years, so I don’t know when it’s going to come out. I always say next year, but that’s a lie.

– And now for something completely different. There is a picture of you standing between Tom Jones and Elvis Presley. What went on in your head when it was being taken?

It was fantastic. It was about four o’clock in the morning. You can probably tell by the way my tie is and my face looks. We’d done a show that night in Las Vegas with Tom, and this was after the show. I just said to Elvis, “Do you mind if we have a photograph?” I don’t think he liked it very much, but he did it anyway, and Tom stepped in and stood there as well. So that was great.

– Is there any other person you’d like to have taken picture with?

Oh, many! In the Sixties, I met everybody: THE BEATLES, THE STONES… I can imagine pictures with those guys, just as a matter of interest, but you didn’t do that in those days. And the autographs I could have gotten! But you didn’t do that in those days. You didn’t go up and say, “Can I have your autograph?” But I thought, “This is Elvis Presley. I’ve got to have a picture!”

– Sorry for this question, but in that picture, is that your real hair?

Yes, it’s the only time in my life that I had my hair like that. The only day in my life that I had a Beatle cut. I’ve no idea why I did that, but I did, and the next day it was back into my usual quaff – or whatever the word is.

– But I assume it wasn’t a conscious decision to create this visual identity for yourself as, first, this balding drummer with bandana, when you played with Manfred, and then, as this shaved-headed player with AC/DC.

It was! I first did it in 1982 with Gary Numan. That’s when I shaved my head for the first time, 1982. Before that I had short gray hair, and because I was very much into Zen Buddhism, it suited that. And then I was one of the first drummers to have a bald head. One of the first, not the first. I think SPIRIT had the first one, and APRIL WINE [respectively, Ed Cassidy and Jerry Mercer. – DME], and I was the third. It just came to the fore with AC/DC, but I’d had it for many, many years before that.

– Creative aspect aside, is there anything else in your life you’d like to take up or achieve?

(Laughing.) Yes, I’d like to claim Mount Everest. But I think it’s got shorter, so I don’t think I’ll do it now. But yeah, or go to the Mariana Trench. No, there’s nothing I would like to do except make “Timescape” a really great album that some people.. a lot of people like. That’s what I would like. But apart from other ambitions, not really, no.