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December 5, 2024 • 12 mins
Gregg talks with Randy Bachman

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Speaker 1 (00:00):
Talking to a legend today on the Greg Stone Show.
We've got Randy Bachman on the phone. They'll be in
Colorado Springs on Monday. That's at the Pike's Peak Performing
Arts Center. First off, Randy, it's a pleasure to talk
to you have been a big fan, you know, my
whole life. I'm sure you hear this all the time
when you talk to us radio geeks. Condolences first on
the passing of your brothers last year and bto members

(00:22):
Tim and Robbie, and I know your other brother passed
as well. That's all like within six months or something
like that. That's crazy.

Speaker 2 (00:29):
Yeah, it's been a really rough three or four year
starsis for me, but for everybody when I'm playing, and
I mentioned it to the audience, they've all gone through
the same strange experience literally around the world, and it's
nice to recover from it. It's lice to come back
and play a concert, to get together people and share
the memories that playing these songs which I was very

(00:51):
fortunate enough to write and perform on with the guests
who and bto and the band has evolved as becoming
a family band. Like Leonard Skinner, there's easy talk my
son Toals in the band. He had a big hit,
She's so High, and he does that on stage and
the people are loving it, and then we're loving it too.

Speaker 1 (01:08):
How cool to have been in a band that was
so successful with your brothers and now with your son.
I mean, that's that's beyond cool. You couldn't have dreamt
that up.

Speaker 2 (01:18):
Yeah, you're right. When I was growing up, I would see,
you know, old trucks on the road that would say
Johnson and Son plumbers, and that just says Doctum and
Son rock and rollers. You know.

Speaker 1 (01:31):
So the set list is all the bto hits and
then so, like you said, Tals hit and you're also
playing some guess who.

Speaker 2 (01:39):
Well had so many fans saying look, we've driven, you know,
six hundred miles or three hundred miles and spent this
spunt of money. Can you please play no time? Or
she's coming done? And so I figure, what the heck?
I mean? I was in the bands, like seeing Paul
McCart and him doing Beatles songs with wings and his
solo stuff. I wrote them, I plate on them, and
I'm I'm thrilled to do them. That to see the

(01:59):
audience react to them, even you know, ten year old kids.
You can see they're they're with their parents and their grandparents.
Well they're in the audience. It's quite an amazing thing.
And it's pretty much happening around the world. And I've
seen it said before. We are all very fortunate, you
and me and people our age between I don't know,

(02:20):
forty and eighty. We were born in the rock and
roll era. We were just coming off of Little Richard
and Chuck Berry. We're the guys who kept rock and
roll going. And now it's around the world. It is
called classic rock, and it won't go away. We created
a new genre of music all over the world. It
was just you know, inspired by Elvis and the Beatles
and the rock and roll trios and Hendricks and Cream

(02:41):
and stuff. And we all have the same kind of
school we went to in different cities, and we all
produced this incredible music called classic rock.

Speaker 1 (02:50):
You can tell how dominating it is as far as
the rock genre is concerned, because of all the young
people that are listening to it.

Speaker 2 (02:58):
Yeah, and it goes back to the days when you
locked yourself in your bedroom with a guitar or drums
and you played your head up to records and you
didn't have a computer. And then you find a guy
at school who does the same thing, or a girl
at school who wants to be a singer, and you
go and do that together. And when you start to
do it together, a magical thing happens where you become

(03:22):
one blob of humanity, of vibes and love and excitement
playing this song. And to go and play for people
in an audience, whether it's two hundred, two thousand or
twenty thousand people and get that collective consciousness of everybody
singing taking care of business or American woman or something
like that, you know, one of their songs together and

(03:44):
everybody having the same vibe is quite an incredible thing.
It's like a super Bowl every night, you know what
I mean. It's like boom, this is the game, this
is the game, the world series every night.

Speaker 1 (03:54):
So in effect, man, you are talking to me like
this is your drug before me music.

Speaker 2 (04:00):
I've never done any drugs in my life. I haven't drank,
I don't I've done nothing except rock and roll and
then playing music since I was five. I started with
classical violin so Elvis when I was fourteen on television
and put down my classico violin and said, I want
that guitar. And when I got the guitar, I could
play it right away, because all you play in violin

(04:22):
is melody. You play the lead instrument. You like a flute,
you play the one note on top. So I got
a guitar. I start to play lead guitar and then boom,
I played on shaken all over and here I am,
decades later, coming to your city to come and play
for people.

Speaker 1 (04:37):
We are talking to Randy Bachman. He'll be in the
Springs on Monday at the Pike's Peak Performing Arts Center.
Tickets available through the Fox dot Com. It's my understanding
that you know you got all these all these illegal
woes out of the way. You retain the rights or
retrieve the rights, I should say to bto and to
the guess who you and Burton Cummings are going to

(04:59):
tour next a year. When BT was done with this
fifty year a celebrations happened.

Speaker 2 (05:03):
After fifty years, I got my stolen guitar back by Gretz.
Guitarilt was stolen in nineteen seventy six. I got that back.
That's the guitar I wrote and played all the guests
who in bto hit, So that's the only guitar here
on taking care of business in American Woman and stuff
like that.

Speaker 1 (05:17):
It was a big deal. They made a documentary about.

Speaker 2 (05:19):
THEO back and then I Burton and I've got the
guests who back. So we're now formulating what we're gonna
do with the guests who we're going to go back
and play. I don't know, guess who had thirty eight
songs that made the top hundred and Billboard and Burton
had his own solo stuff and I had my bto stuff.
So when we get out there with the guests who
maybe in twenty twenty five, later on next year, it'll

(05:40):
be it'll be a karmic circle again for us and
the fan.

Speaker 1 (05:45):
This is a renaissance for you, Randy, Yeah.

Speaker 2 (05:48):
It is. It's really I'm very excited and like you said,
this is my drug, and it's so great that it's free.
In fact, I get paid to indulge in my There
you go, buddy.

Speaker 1 (06:01):
Hey, Now I also heard that that you're writing with
Fred again as well, and that Fred is popping in
on some of these fiftieth anniversary shows.

Speaker 2 (06:10):
Yeah, he lost his wife and then last year through
that whole crazy getting jabbed in the COVID yeah, and
all that stuff, and he's coming out of his funk now.
He and are contributing. They're naming the big bridge in Winnipeg,
where we're from our hometown. It used to be called
the Disraeli Overpass, but how they're calling it to back
Maturn Overpass, and they're doing that in April.

Speaker 1 (06:33):
That Rock.

Speaker 2 (06:34):
We're going to be playing a gig there with another
Canadian band called April Wine. Yes, and we're going to
be touring Canada, and Fred said he kind of feels
like he'd like to play and sing again, so he
and I are writing some songs. And I also when
I was in Japan getting my lost guitar, I got
bto Live in Japan in nineteen seventy six and we
were hot and we had the number one album in
the world, number one single with you Ain't Seen Nothing

(06:56):
Yet Not Fragile. I got those tapes by mixing bto Live.
It's eighteen songs. It's fantastic. That'll be coming out in
vinyl and then we're going to follow it for the
fans with a new BT. All my friend's writing and
I'm writing and we wanted to sound like and I've
still got all the gear from the seventies and we
recorded everything will sound like that the next BT all
and that's supposed to have come out in seventy seven.

Speaker 1 (07:19):
So so back in the sixties, did you ever thought
you'd be doing this at eighty one?

Speaker 2 (07:25):
Well, I dreamt I wouldn't. My father, Okay, you did
a real job. You'd like to work at nothing all day.
That ended up being a genesis of taking care of business.
I would just be sitting there and he'd say, what
is it, Get a job? And it's say I'm working.
He say, lying in the sun. Yeah, but I'm working, Dad,
I'm thinking of a song and he got He was
very happy when we made it. And you know that
I put my brothers into it. The fourth Cents for

(07:46):
Like the band when was our manager and the other
two were playing in the band.

Speaker 1 (07:50):
Wow, truly a family affair. As you reflect back on
all these years, is there anything you would have done different?

Speaker 2 (08:01):
Because I'm here right now and in my life I've
had a lot of ups and downs, and in the
downs you tend to see a helper, you know, a
shrink or something like that, and They've taught me to
say something. All the stuff that happened to you in
your life doesn't happen to you, that happens for you,
and what you do about that when it happens will

(08:23):
make you a better, happier person and a better, you know,
better human being, a better earthly kind of thing. So
I feel like where I am everything that has happened
to me that happened for me, for me to become
here right now, for me to come back and be
idling idolizing Paul McCartney like I used to Mick Jagger.

(08:45):
These guys are still at rock and roll. I saw
the Stones last month. They were amazing. Before that, I
saw you Young, my old friend from when we were
sixteen in Winnipeg. He was a crazy horse. It was
an amazing rock show. We are so blessed. Unfortunately we
can go out there on rock and the fans come
out and see it. They want it, and it's such
a great feeling when we're I'm on stage. I'm thirty

(09:05):
thirty years older than I'm thirty five years of age.
Never mind Mick Jagger being eighty, he's running around like
he's third.

Speaker 1 (09:11):
I saw him too last summer.

Speaker 2 (09:13):
They're amazing. Yeah, And there's nothing like sitting there and
hearing the beginning of starting them out, starting me up,
or jumping jack flash. When I start American Woman, when
I start taking care of visits, the reaction is just boom, explosion, lightning,
jumping out of the bottle. It's really amazing.

Speaker 1 (09:31):
Oh man, Well, you're beloved here in the States and
we really would like to see you in the Rock
and Roll Hall of Fame. Is that a Is that
a big deal for you or not? Do you care?

Speaker 2 (09:39):
Lest year it used to be, But you get over
it because when you find out the Rock and Hall
of Fame was owned by John Winner, who owned Rolling stonemagazine,
and he only put his favorite people in there. I
was not one of his favorite people. I never sat
down and drank with him, or went to his parties
or or did drugs or anything. So I wasn't a
cool hip guy. I had to come cool in half,

(10:00):
just with my music and not with the additives.

Speaker 1 (10:03):
What a pleasure to talk to you, man. I've been
a big fan a long time. I hate to sound
like such a dork, but you know I play your
music every day.

Speaker 2 (10:11):
Oh I love hearing that, and I love hearing that
kind of thing from from DJ. So basically, you don't
know how important DJs are. People don't realize. People don't
even know what a DJ means. It's not that the
young kids.

Speaker 1 (10:23):
It's changed so much.

Speaker 2 (10:24):
Disc jockey, Well, what's a disc jockey? What a disc
is called a record? Rather, there's no records anymore. Yes, no,
it's really great to hear that coming from a DJ
who's in radio. That because growing up we idolized Dick Clark, Wolfman,
Jack Alan Freed. These guys were our key hole to
the room. We made a record unless the DJ's played it.

(10:45):
In the old days, we would take our record, go
to Chicago, walk into WLS and Dick Beyondy or something
and take our record. He'd go, yeah, give me a
break and he would play it and break. Yeah, played
on the ring. He played right then, and you got
a gig dot and that was like.

Speaker 1 (11:02):
That was magical. Yeah, and you know you even wrote
a song for the Wolfman.

Speaker 2 (11:08):
Yeah, club for the wolf and yeah we had him
on the record.

Speaker 1 (11:11):
Yes, and that was a hit. That song was a hit.

Speaker 2 (11:17):
Yeah, it was well, he did midnight specials and then
suddenly everybody knew who he was. When I was growing
up in Winnipeg, which is a northern town or northern plains,
right in the middle of Canada. Our big deal at
night was to listen to w LS and Chicago, w
and E New Orleans and from somewhere don't know where,
you'd get Wolfman Jack, who's on a five hundred thousand
watt station in Mexico where they don't restrict the watch

(11:40):
in America was fifty thousand. What's where he was in
Mexico with like five hundred thousand what I know, you
heard Wolfman Jack everywhere. It was incredibly became a legend.

Speaker 1 (11:50):
My dad told me that story. He grew up in
Massachusetts and they would listen to him.

Speaker 2 (11:54):
Now you go to bed, your parents are think you're
going to sleep. They had this little radio you put
under your pillar, a little earphone and you're put in
your ear and we listen to rock and roll all night.

Speaker 1 (12:03):
That's awesome, Randy, I'm so glad you called today.

Speaker 2 (12:06):
Well, I'm looking forward to coming there and to people
are going to have a history. I tell the story
of Winnipeg. The guess who Neil Young Burton Cummings Bachman
turned over Drive, all the music that came on, and
the whole evening is filled with stories in rock and roll.
The band is great. We can't wait to get there
and rock out, and we're going to have a great
night together.

Speaker 1 (12:25):
Randy Bachman, everybody bt O in the Springs at the
Pike's Peak Performing Arts Center on Monday. Thank you so much, sir.

Speaker 2 (12:33):
See you soon.

Speaker 1 (12:33):
Bye bye yep, bye bye Wow
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