“When I die, I want people to play my music, go wild and freak out and do anything they want to do.” – Jimi Hendrix
The greatest electric guitarist in the history of music was just 27 years old when he was found on the floor of his girlfriend Monika Dannemann’s home in Notting Hill, London. And it was at precisely the same age that Darrell Young, better known as Niki Buzz – founder of 1980s US hard-rock power trios Vendetta and M-80 – picked up a guitar for the very first time. It would not be the last. “I’ve been imitated so well I’ve heard people copy my mistakes,” Hendrix once said. What his Rock Hall biography describes as ‘the greatest instrumentalist in the history of rock music’ would make of Play Like Jimi, an Amsterdam-based tribute band fronted by Buzz, can only be imagined. For as John Mayer writes in Rolling Stone magazine’s 100 Greatest Artists Of All Time, “Hendrix invented a kind of cool. The cool of a big conch-shell belt. The cool of boots that your jeans are tucked into. If Jimi Hendrix is an influence on somebody, you can immediately tell. Give me a guy who’s got some kind of weird-ass goatee and an applejack hat, and you just go, ‘He got to you, didn’t he?’” As Hendrix devotees celebrate what would have been his 70th birthday on November 27, days after the news that previously unreleased Hendrix material is due out next year (People, Hell and Angels will be the 11th posthumous Hendrix album), The Advisor corners Play Like Jimi’s flamboyant front man, who plays 13 instruments; won a James Brown-sponsored music contest when he was 13; has performed with everyone from The Ramones to Patti Smith, once formed a band with the only man ever to get thrown out by Ozzy Osbourne for being too badass (Ozzy himself once bit the head off a live bat on stage), and, yes, has got some kind of weird-ass goatee. Joining him are bass player Martin Seij, a Dutch metalhead, and former Wailers drummer Winston Scholsberg.
What would Jimi be doing if he were alive today?
Niki: At this point, he’d probably be doing jazz fusion of some sort. He was going in that direction; he was already jamming with Miles Davis and a rap group back then, a group called Lost Poets. Jimi would have been at the forefront of rap.
The new album has been described as pioneering what became Earth, Wind and Fire’s sound.
Niki: Toward the end of Jimi’s career, he wanted to experiment a lot but his manager didn’t want that at all; he wanted the original experience. The last thing he wanted the world to see was Jimi as a black man. He wanted the world to see Jimi as a white rock star with a good tan, and the blacker Jimi became the more it upset him.
How much of a political force was Jimi?
Winston: The way he used his music, the way he spoke about the war, the way Machine Gun talked about the injustice of the war – that was the most political statement he made. If you listen to Machine Gun, you understand how deeply concerned he was with what was happening.
The song Machine Gun has been described by musicologist Andy Aledort as ‘the premier example of Hendrix’s unparalleled genius as a rock guitarist.’
Niki: I was a drummer when I first heard the Band of Gypsys album. I’ll never forget the first time I heard Machine Gun. It completely changed the way I looked at guitar – and I wasn’t even a guitarist then. I didn’t start playing guitar until I was 27, which is strange because Jimi died at 27. When I heard the sound of his guitar crying and wailing, just like a mother or father watching their child being shot down… On top of that, he made the guitar actually sound like a machine gun and bombs dropping. I never thought such emotion and visualisation could come out of any instrument. There’s no way you can listen to Machine Gun and not feel every ounce of the pain of war. It’s probably the best song that’s ever been recorded in the history of music.
You’ve said before the only way to play like Jimi is to let the guitar play you.
Martin: If you let the instrument play for you, instead of struggling with the notes to make the song sound like it sounds; if you let the music flow through you and let the guitar do its thing, that’s when it becomes like Jimi.
Niki: Most people, especially guitarists, believe that playing like Jimi is putting on the record and learning it note for note. Any moron can do that; it doesn’t take any talent. If you want to play like Jimi, first of all you have to be in touch with nature then you have to be in touch with your emotions. Jimi played in colours and he played completely from his emotions. He was very shy so he expressed all of his feelings through his guitar: his love, his anger, his hopes, his dreams.
Curtis Knight, who was close to Hendrix, has described you as the best guitarist he’s ever played with since Jimi. That’s one hell of a compliment.
Niki: I really love Jimi Hendrix, but didn’t play him at first. I had a band in 1982 called Vendetta. A dream come true for most guitar players would have been being produced by Eddie Kramer, who produced Hendrix. Kramer came to me and said ‘I want to produce you.’ And I said no. I chose Max Norman to produce the album, because I didn’t want the stigma of being Jimi Hendrix. Everybody was comparing me to him anyway. I should tell you about how I met Curtis Knight. He used to manage Pure Hell, the first black punk rock band. I was the resident Dr Fix-it sort of guitarist at Planet Studios. I came in one day to play and Curtis was sitting on the couch. He looks at me and says: ‘Yeah, you look like you can play.’
That’s how he gauged your musical ability: ‘You look the part!’?
Niki: [laughs] So he says ‘Come listen to this!’ and he took me into the studio and played a track. I then played it and he goes: ‘OK, you’re my guitar player now.’ We mostly just did studio stuff, and he owned a limousine service. I finally talked him into doing a couple of gigs down in South Carolina and we were on stage, playing, and there was a guy in the front row who was weeping and sobbing to the point where it was disturbing. I told someone to bring him back stage and he’s on his knees, sobbing. He thought Curtis Knight was dead and I was dead because he was a big Vendetta and M-80 fan, and I hadn’t been on the scene in a while. He couldn’t believe he was seeing two of his biggest idols on the same stage and they were alive.
You’ve rubbed some extraordinary shoulders: Joan Jett, Patti Smith, The Ramones. Who stands out?
Winston: [laughs] That’s a good question. Answer that, brother! Come on!
Niki: Since you’re a punk vocalist, I have a great story for you. Do you know The Dead Boys? OK, so me and The Dead Boys’ lead singer Stiv Bators were best friends. He was an absolute intellectual; we’d sit in a coffee shop and discuss politics for hours. The drummer, whose nickname was Beaver, he was a normal guy but he really wanted to be a punk. The Dead Boys were down near Avenue A, Avenue B – we call it Alphabet City. At that point in New York, Alphabet City made Beirut look like Beverly Hills. The only people there were Hells Angels and drug dealers; it was serious. Anyway, the drummer decided to earn his punk badge by going into Alphabet City and throwing some racial slurs at the Puerto Ricans there. He ended up getting stabbed 32 times. That’s a hell of a way to earn your punk badge.
And what was it like in M-80 working with Don Costa, the only man ever to get kicked out of Ozzy Osborne’s band for being too much of a badass?
Niki: Oh, Jesus. OK, I’m going to tell you about the most famous M-80 gig ever. We were at The Troubador in LA, going to the gig, and Don Costa says: ‘Look, I can’t go in the limo with you. I’m going in my own limo.’ Alright, whatever. So we arrive at the gig and Don Costa is wrapped up like The Mummy; he was taped up head to toe, there was nothing but his eyes showing, and he had smeared cat shit all over himself.
Oh no.
Niki: Oh yes! [laughs] And the drummer sat down and played in an LA jail cell. He literally went to the LA County Jail, where they were replacing the cells, and reconstructed a complete jail cell as our stage set. He had to go into the cell to get on the drums and when he went in he took one of Costa’s extra bass guitars, which I thought was his own. Here we go: we start the concert, and of course there’s this girl on her boyfriend’s shoulders and she starts flashing the band with her big tits. Costa leans over and starts sucking them while he’s playing, which the boyfriend didn’t take too kindly to. So he puts the girl down and starts to swing at Costa. Costa then goes to the back of the stage and comes back out with a pickaxe and starts swinging it at the guy. So now we don’t have a bass player any more because he’s too busy swinging a pickaxe at this guy he’s fighting with. I’m saying to myself OK, I’m the lead singer and the guitar player; I’ll carry the show until he quits this. All of a sudden the drums stop. Sam opens up the case for what I thought was a spare bass guitar and it’s a 12-gauge shotgun…
No!
Niki: …and he starts blowing holes in the ceiling of the club! Now I’m the only one left actually playing music here, and at that point I was only wearing a chamois – I’m part native American – and so you’ve got this guy in a loin cloth playing guitar; one guy blowing holes in the ceiling, and another guy swinging a pickaxe. That was M-80. Costa was certifiably insane. This wasn’t an act. You know why he got kicked out by Ozzy?
Something to do with a cheese-grater…
Niki: Worse. He used to bring live bunnies on stage and gut them. And he had a cheese-grater on the back of his guitar, which would grate his stomach while he was playing until there was blood everywhere.
And you thought forming a band with this guy would be a good idea why?
[laughter]
Winston: Yeah, Niki. Why?! Thank you for asking that question, Phoenix. We’ve been waiting for him to answer that for years.
Niki: He was the best bass player ever. I just got a fan mail the other day asking if he was still alive and someone told me they think he’s dead, because no one’s heard from his since. Last time I saw him was at The Rainbow, where he showed up in women’s lingerie, motorcycle boots and smoking a cigar.
So how does one go from shotguns, pickaxes and cheese-graters to recording the soundtrack for The Personals, a documentary about the sex lives of the elderly in New York? Just how kinky ARE old people in Manhattan?
[Laughter]
Niki: Every time I land at JFK, my phone starts ringing. People just know I’m in town. This time, it was Planet Studios. I go down there and am just shooting the shit when this guy comes running down the stairs with complete panic on his face. ‘I need a drummer! I need a drummer!’ Everyone pointed at me. It was Miles Davis’ road manager; we hadn’t seen each other in ten years. Miles used to have a recording studio next to mine and would come in and watch me play. Anyway, this guy was recording the soundtrack for a documentary but his drummer hadn’t shown up. So we played through it for about 45 minutes and then I took off the headphones and said OK, I’m ready to do it. And the guy says: ‘No, you’re done. Don’t touch it.’ They had four days to do it; I did it in 45 minutes, first take – and holy shit, it won an Oscar! You know what my wife said to me? ‘That’s good. What are you going to cook for dinner?’
So your Oscar-winning experience will forever be wedded to the visual of old people having sex?
[More laughter, none of it Niki’s]
Niki: No! Let me tell you something: I have never to this day seen the damned film…
WHO: Play Like Jimi
WHAT: Hendrix resurrected
WHERE: Memphis Bar, St. 118 (Nov 30) & Sharky Bar, St. 130 (Dec 1)
WHEN: 8pm November 30 (Memphis) & December 1 (Sharky’s)
WHY: See ‘What’