Paul Rodgers On His New Album 'Midnight Rose', Nearly Dying & Band Names

Paul Rodgers new album 'Midnight Rose' is a great listen. We dive into the record and talk about several strokes that took away his ability to sing for a time! Paul details his amazing road to recovery.
Gunner prods Paul about band names and, man, does he have some great stories about what record executives suggested instead of Free and Bad Company.

Episode Transcript

(00:00):
All right, sucking Gunner, you'reon with Paul. It is such a
great pleasure to have with us today, the legendary bass player of the road
Runners, Paul Rogers is with us. Gunner. Thank you so much,
you guys, that's the first timeI've ever been called the legendary base players
of the road Runner. Thank you. Now. Now I got to ask

(00:23):
you, Paul, you know,we're going way back with the road Runners.
I found a photo of you andyour mates in a nineteen fifty four
Ford Council convertible and man, thatcar kicked ass. That was the manager's
car. Actually, he was theolder brother of guitarist Colin Bradley, you
know, yeah, Joe Bradley.He was my first manager. He was

(00:46):
a beautiful guy. Actually when hewas dying, on his death but I
went to see him and I askedhim what his secrets was, you know,
for management, you know, andhe said, well, get there
early, do a good gig,do a good or get the money and
get home safely. That was hisuh money. Yeah, there's a nice

(01:07):
lesson for you too, Paul Rodgerson the phone here with us. In
the early days, you saw howit works. The manager's got this awesome
car and the band members are stilldriving bicycles with amplifiers. Yeah, you
want to stool on the bike,you know. Yeah, yeah, we
got Paul Rodgers with us. Paul, how important was a band name in

(01:30):
the early to mid sixties. Well, it's always important, actually, because
that's your that's the label you hangeverything upon, you know, so it's
very very important. A couple ofoccasions, actually two occasions. The record
company tried to change on him,and that was good free they wanted to.
They said, well, we'll signyou up, but you got to
call yourselves the heavy metal kids.And I said no, no, no,

(01:53):
no, back there. Then youwould have stood your grandma to get
a record deal. But I saidno, no, we're not going to
change on him, and they wentwith this. And the second time was
when I called Peter Granto and Isaid, well, Peter, I he
you're interested in management with what wedo, and he said, he said,
well, I'm interested in you.And I said, well, I

(02:15):
come with a band and were calledBad Company. And he goes, well,
I don't know about the name.Oh this is a great name,
I think, go too. Yeah, And you know, I do believe
there's only two bands in the historyof the world that have a band name,
an album name, and a songname that are all the same.
You got Bad Company doing Bad Companyon the Bad Company album, and Black

(02:37):
Sabbath did the same thing. You'rethe only two groups. Oh, Black
Sabbath did Black Sabbath do it?That's good for good. We've got Paul
Rogers with us, and Paul avery exciting time for you, because,
boy, we got the news justbefore we went on. You are in
the top ten of album sales inthe country. You're number eight in the
United States with Midnight Rows. Congratulations, Thank you very much, Thank you.

(03:01):
The album is just wonderful. Andyou know, coming off the physical
struggles that you had, could youimagine that this was going to blossom the
way it did after some of thosemedical problems. Well, you know,
actually it took a year and ahalf to get my singing voice back because
after all the strokes I'd had,and I couldn't speak for a while.

(03:23):
I couldn't tie my shoesses, brushmy tees, walk all these things,
and I had to get it allback and and read. I couldn't read
either, which was which a bigloss. And so you know, I
was very philosophical about it. Ithought, well, if I can't do
it, I can't do it.But I gradually, I you know,
I tried a little by little toget better every day, and hyperbarics helped

(03:45):
enormously, which is oxygen under pressureand good, very good. So that's
what I'm saying. Paul Rodgers,you probably know this more than anybody.
You're nobody in this business until you'resleeping in a hyperbarrack chamber. You know,
you know the next thing, thenext thing, you'll be buying a
monkey what well you know? Actually, you know nobody till somebody loves you.

(04:08):
Yeah, there you go. Oh, Dean Martin, Hey, you
know all right, since you sinceyou hit on some of the classic artists,
have you ever met any of thegreat crooners like Frank Sinatra, Tony
Bennett, Dean Martin? You knowI haven't. I would love to do.
I would love to have done that, I must say, because they
really paved the way for us lesserguys to come along. They were so

(04:30):
great in the day. And Iactually saw Frank Sinatra when I was when
I was in a waiting room waitingto see a vocal expert, you know,
a vocal like doctor. Yeah,Frank. I was sitting there in
the wedding room and Frank Sinatra walksacross the room out the door, and
I was so gob spike. Ididn't I didn't rush. I didn't rush

(04:50):
up to it and get a photographor anything, because I was like what
And that was my that was mybig moment. I sorry I missed this.
Oh my goodness. We hear somebodyin the background prompting you and being
your memory, Like, my wifeis my memory, she tells me.
But is that Cynthia back there?Well, you know I cannot kill a
lie. Guys, it's me Cynthia. All right. We just watched you

(05:16):
on CBS Sunday morning. It wasgreat, great interview. Love seeing you
both. And man, what agreat story. Man, what a scary
story. Glad Cynthia is on withus. Now, yeah, me too.
You know, Cynthia, there isthere is a special place in heaven
for the wives of all egotistical leadsingers, So we will see you there.

(05:42):
I don't have an egoistical singer.A singer, but he's not egotistical.
So Paul Rodgers has none of theLSD the lead singer disease that others
Is that what you're saying. No, quite the opposite. Actually not not
not the confidence that you would expectat all. You know, I think
in his mind he's still just thelad from Middlesbrough that got lucky, right,

(06:05):
very true. I've actually amazed.It's all the attention. I'm getting
to be honest with you, Iam yeah, And I mean the attention
for this album has been spectacular.Everyone's loving it, everyone's getting it.
And what Paul wanted to do,like said in the interview, is he
wanted to wait till the album wasout and then talk about, you know,
his his health because we didn't wantpity or anything like that. And

(06:27):
so people embraced it, loved it, and then now they're looking they're listening
with different years now too. Goingreally so for anyone who is suffering,
whether it's cancer, whether it's dementia, Alzheimer's, even after surgeries, hyper
helped pure oxygen. We don't haveenough of it in our world today,
and it just helps so much.I know, I got bitten by a

(06:48):
dog and it was bad and Iwent in just too visits into the chamber
and it healed quickly. I mean, the doctor was very impressed. Our
natural path was very not surprise.Yeah, well, we're watching you guys
on CBS Sunday morning. The interviewis great. You can find it,
you know, everywhere. We gotit on the Stuck and Gunner page at

(07:08):
Q ninety five dot com. MidnightRose we see Paul jumping up and actually
getting to see the album Midnight Rosefor the very first time. He pulls
it out, throwing it on theturntable. There's the Sun Records label.
Yeah, it's like, yeah,Sun Records, like the Sun Records so
cool. I mean it's not acool Lulu what oh Oh, it's the

(07:29):
best. And now you're you're apart of that Sun Records legacy. As
if you needed any more impressive statisticsabout your career. Yeah, I'm totally
on it, I must say thatbeing great. Yeah, you know,
I do believe it was our friendJohn Mellencamp. I thought he recorded a
record down there, one of hisrecords in the last ten years. But

(07:50):
John Mellencamp has been quoted as sayingthat you are the greatest rock vocalist of
all time. Wow, for whichwe send him a yacht. You know
what, he he lives on alake in Indiana. You could just send
him a five thousand dollars jet Skihe'll be happy. That's right. He

(08:13):
shares a carport with Larry Bird downon the south side. Yeah, that's
right. We've got the great PaulRodgers with us. Paul, so you
had something. One of my friendshad the same surgery you did in in
darter ectomy, where they open upyour neck, they take the carotid artery,
they clear the plaque out. It'sa very scary procedure that there is
a chance you can pass on.Now we have to let everyone know that

(08:37):
the doctor while he was performing surgeryon you was rocking out to Bad Company
as Jam and the Bad Company inthe operating room. We don't know which
track. We must find out becauseI mean, you need to steady hand
obviously, that's right. If Iwas, if I was your surgeon,

(09:00):
and if Paul Rodgers is in myoperating room and I'm the doctor, I'm
putting on Desolation Angels nineteen seventy nine, one of the greatest albums of all
time that comes from the era whereevery single note of every single song is
great. No serial fillers. DesolationAngles go get it, go buy it
all right, thank you. Youknow we've calls come up with this new

(09:22):
album now, Midnight Rose, andthe track, the title track, Midnight
Rose, would be a good oneshould he ever have to go in and
have the other side there this album, Yeah, Lawler Forster highlighting with arrows
to Midnight Rose for the next surgeryif if he has to have that.
But what I like about this iswith the I've listened to most of the

(09:43):
album, heard a couple of tracksfor sure, you're really utilizing that old
school sound of the Hammond B threeorgan and it sounds like a Leslie rotating
speaker. I mean it just there'sthat that just brings it back to the
beginning right there, and it doesn'tsound it just sounds freaking awesome. I
love it sounds so cool. Yeah, yeah, I love the organ.

(10:05):
You know. It was interesting becausewhen we took the tracks down to Brian's
studio in Vancouver, we were probablyfour fifth done, and we brought in
Bob Rock to bring his diamond dustin and he brought in a gentleman by
the name of Chris Jestrin who studiedat the Berkeley School of Music in Boston.
And so in walks Chris, youknow, first time we were meeting

(10:26):
him, and Bob said, okay, well Chris, get on the Hammond,
you know, get on into thestudio. And I was looking around
the studio and I went, hehasn't heard the track yet, and they
go yeah, And I went,well, how can he? How can
he do this? And Bob said, oh, he'll be fine. And
I said, Chris, are youokay with that? And he goes,
yeah, they do it to meall the time. And he went in

(10:48):
and he played along with the trackhaving never heard it, and that's what
we used. Wow. I mean, the guy is so tested. Every
once in a while you meet someonein this business that makes you feel like
you have no talent at all,and you know, you look at a
guy like that, it's incredible.But well, you guys have been very

(11:09):
Paul Rodgers can probably tell you it'shappened to everybody. He's a guitar player
as well as a singer, anda very good guitar player. You think
you're pretty good on the guitar andyou walk in a music store and there's
a ten year old kid smoking theentire room on an electric guitar. True.
Well, congratulations on what is awonderful new album. We encourage everyone

(11:31):
get a copy of Midnight Rowse.The title track is wonderful. Take Love
is an incredible song. Photo Shooteris really fun. You know, he's
come a long way from the Bassand the road Runners. Paul Rodgers were
so glad that you're healthy in yourback and keep making that music. And
we hope to see you guys soon. Oh, thank you, thank you,

(11:54):
thank you. Paul Rogers. Cynthia, next time you're in town,
make sure you get ahold of us. We'll go to some record stories and
also bring Paul with you too.That'd be nice. Yeah, okay,
I will you guys. Take careyou do so bless