DOUG FIEGER INTERVIEW WITH MARK COPOLOV

September 1998

 

MARK: Hello Doug, this is Mark Copolov, Welcome to 88.3 southern FM in Melbourne.

DOUG: Its great to be there..here..anywhere! (laughing)

MARK: Thanks for giving up some of your afternoon to do this interview.

DOUG: Oh, it’s my pleasure.

MARK: I’d like to talk about the next new album but I’d thought we’d start off by talking a bit about your history cause it’s so interesting and I’d thought maybe we’d start off with the point that it’s twenty years ago this year that the Knack formed, isn’t it?

DOUG: That’s right. Twenty years ago, June 1^st.

MARK: Right and just as a matter of interest, is it true you got the name from a dictionary?

DOUG: That’s absolutely true. We had another name, and there was this other band that suddenly sprouted up with that same name. We were forced to find a new one and ah, I just got out a dictionary and stopped at the "K’s". And that’s really the way we got the name.

MARK: And you also liked the double K for logos and all that, is that right?

DOUG: Well, it looked good. Ya it lent it self to a logo. Ya know I’m an old art student…

MARK: Oh alright…

DOUG: Ya, it looked good and it meant something too. It seemed like a really good name.

MARK: I believe you arrived in LA in ’71 and when" My Sharona" came out everyone thought, you guys just formed just now, but hadn’t you been around for about eight years before you hit it big?

DOUG: Well I had a band in high school that got signed by Jimmy Miller, the producer of the Rolling Stones, when I was still in high school and he took us over to London in 1970 and we recorded a couple of albums and in between those albums we moved out to Los Angeles. And then that band broke up and so, I was in Los Angeles from late 1970 until the Knack formed, yes. And I had been doing it for a number of years, before that as well.

MARK: I suppose when The Knack began playing and all that , what was interesting was that you guys I suppose went against the disco craze to some way didn’t you? You didn’t sort of jump on the band wagon and say disco’s popular so we have to play only disco.

DOUG: Well no. We were a rock and roll band and ah, frankly didn’t like disco very much.(laughing) I mean, I actually, I like the records now . When I listen back to them I think they’re very good pop records. But, at the time, .playing rock and roll and not hearing much rock and roll on the radio, it was pretty disheartening. But, we, I have always played the same kind of music basically. Melodic ,straight forward, well constructed, (I hope!)..music with harmonies, music with aggression and power and but still with melody… I mean that’s the kind of music I’ve been making since I was a kid.

MARK: Right right. Well back in ’78 when you formed The Knack, is it true you got on stage with Bruce Sprinsteen and had a bit of a jam with him at the Troubadour, I think it was?

DOUG: Well, he actually heard about us form our original drummer and he came to see us at the Troubadour and he jumped up on stage with us. And we did, we did a couple of songs, with him, . Ya. He was instrumental in getting us a lot of publicity. Because he was the big star at the time and because he did that, we got noticed by a lot of people pretty much the world over. There were articles written about that night in music magazines all over the world and so it was a really great thing. .Plus he also gave us a song.."Don’t Look Back"..which we recorded.

MARK: Right ok... well it’s good to hear something good coming out of that place. One of my past house guests was May Pang and we spoke about that really sad time when John Lennon was thrown out of that place. So I suppose it kind of got a bit of a bad name there for a little while.

DOUG: Well ya know it was a place that people went to party and to have a good time and I think John and Harry were just there to have a good time that night and..(laughing)

MARK: And some of the other people you got to jam with that time were Tom Petty, Ray Manzarek and Eddie Money.

DOUG: That’s right and Steven Stiles…

MARK: Oh Steven Stiles as well. So you really got into the right circles then didn’t you?

DOUG: Well, they came to see us. We became the hot band in Los Angeles and there were pretty much lines around the block whenever we played… and the local stars would come out to see us. We’d usually do two sets so they would see us during the first set and then they would come back stage and we’d would talk and they would ask us if they could get up on stage with us for the second set and that’s basically what would happen. It was great! It was very exciting to play with some of our heroes and some of our contemporaries like Tom Petty and Eddie Money, and it was certainly wonderful to play with Ray. Ray was the first one. That was really a thrill for me. Because I’m a gigantic Doors fan, always had been and always will be. So that was a really exciting thing for me.

MARK: Well you’re following in good footsteps. My last guest happened to be Robbie Krieger and he was fascinating! Ya know the Doors were another great band, as you said.

DOUG: Absolutely! Another great Los Angeles band.

MARK: .Right right, another good L.A. band..Now getting on to the first album Get The Knack…in 1979. That was produced by Mike Chapman from Blondie, so you really were pulling in all the right people weren’t you?

DOUG: Well actually, Mike came late to the project. He didn’t get attached to the project until about two months before we were going in to make the record. We had a list of people that we wanted perhaps, to produce the album. And somebody published this in the local newspaper, the LA Times. And he wasn’t on the list and he called up on the phone to our manager saying, "Why I am not on the list?" (laughing ) So we met him and he said all the right things. Basically ,what he said was " I’m not going to do anything to change you. I think that we should just go in and make basically a live record. What you’re doing is really great, and I’ll just get it down on tape and we’ll have a good time doing it." Which was basically what he did.

MARK: Well I find it interesting in the liner notes that he says, "This record is very dear to me and my bank manager."

DOUG: Well, that was the second album.

MARK: Oh, second one was it? I thought it was the first.

DOUG: No, that was the second album and he was just being funny. And you know, people took that very, very seriously. The liner notes of that album were funny because they were written on an airplane. We were coming back from England where were we had mixed the second album., and I guess we’re getting a little ahead of ourselves in the time line…but just to explain. We were having a really good time and we were being very funny. And he was writing these liner notes in sort of a mock serious way. Because we’re very serious about what we do, but we don’t take ourselves very seriously and as you can tell in the liner notes of that album it’s very funny.

MARK: Ya..

DOUG: They’re not to be taken seriously, but unfortunately a lot of people don’t have a good sense of humor and it was taken the wrong way….but that’s how it was meant….

MARK: I would like to talk about "My Sharona." Well, just before I do actually, the first album, just to read a few things here I had written down: it had one of the biggest debuts in rock history, went to number one, went gold in thirteen days, went platinum in seven weeks, sold at least 6 million copies. WOW! I suppose you guys were like every other rock band . You start off , you hope to make a record and suddenly that happens. And , of course, with" My Sharona"…this is amazing..I looked it up in my books at home. It sold over ten million units, it was only the tenth former number one hit to chart again, it was number one for six weeks, went gold and platinum, and according to my book on Billboard, the Bible of charts in America, it says here, not only was it the number one record of 1979, but it covers a thirty year period between 1955 to about ’85, "My Sharona" was the number 46 top song of all time in those thirty years. Wow, you wrote a really big hit there, Doug!

DOUG: Ya. Ya Berton and I wrote that. . Ya, it’s become a phenomena. It’s no longer just a record or a song.. " My Sharona" is a phenomena and it keeps getting rediscovered by new generations and it makes us feel very good , obviously, to have had a song like that in our career and we’re very grateful for it. At the time, we wrote it to be the ending song of our set. We needed a song that would end the set well. That’s why we wrote it. It really didn’t have any more significance than that. I also wrote it about the girl that I was in love with and I was hoping that, that would impress her in some way and she might go out on a date with me, which she had refused to do up until that point…

MARK: So you had good incentive then ?

DOUG: ‘scuse me?

MARK: You had a good incentive to sing well?

DOUG: Absolutely! Lust is always a good incentive!

MARK: And apparently you did end up going out with her.

DOUG: Yes! We wound up going out and getting together and living together for four years. Yes.

MARK: And apparently, she’s a real estate agent these days or something…

DOUG: Yes! She’s one of the most successful real estate agents in Southern California. She is, as they call her, " the real estate agent to the stars!"

MARK: Alright!..O.K.and just as a matter of interest, did you get, you have to remember this is back in the 70’s, so because of the lyrics, did you get any flack about that? ‘Cause they were fairly raunchy for that time, weren’t they?

DOUG: Oh yes. We got a lot of flack! Not so much for the fact that they were raunchy, although there was a little bit of that,and we had to for A.M. radio, back when there was A.M. radio, we had to change the lyrics to some of the songs so that they would play them. Which I always felt bad about doing but reluctantly did it . We got flack from a… there was a writer in Los Angeles, who I will not name. But, she wrote an article about The Knack, calling us sexists, and saying that we wrote about women as objects, and it was all this feminist….crap, basically, and not that I’m an anti- feminists, I’m certainly not. I believe in equality for everybody, including the sexes and all. But, what she missed, .was the fact that we were writing that album, that album was a concept album. That and the second album actually were meant to be one album. They were suppose to be a double album and Capitol, because we were a new group, wouldn’t release them as one album. So we had to split them in two, and that’s why they were released very close, on the heels of one another, but they were written as a concept album, about how a 14 year old boy feels with and deals with girls…and how basically lust rules the 14 year old boys life. That was the idea behind those two albums. It was suppose to be our "remembered" 14 year old selves. So, she really missed the boat, because she really didn’t know about that nor did she want to know about it . We got tarred with this brush that said we were sort of anti feminist or something like that. That was a big controversy, but I always thought it was…nonsense.

MARK: So you’re saying this lady had a lot of influence in journalism.

DOUG: Well people picked up on that…article and repeated it endlessly.

MARK: Oh…

DOUG: And part of the problem there was, that we didn’t give a lot of interviews

MARK: Right

DOUG: Especially after the record became very successful we didn’t give a lot of interviews, so we didn’t have anybody out there doing what they call spin control now. Everybody’s got a publicist and everybody’s got a spin doctor. We didn’t have any of those people. We were just a rock and roll band playing clubs in Los Angeles and suddenly we were the biggest band in the world and had never dealt with any of this stuff before. Nor did we really take it very seriously in the sense that we really didn’t think what this one writer wrote, especially because we didn’t agree with what she wrote, would be picked up and repeated as often as it was. And it became kinda’ funny and then scary, because suddenly our career wasn’t really what it was. It was what somebody else was saying it was.

MARK: Right

DOUG: That became a problem.

MARK: That must be very frustrating to have someone push your career into a direction you don’t believe it should be going.

DOUG: Absolutely. Especially when they’re not attached to you. They got it all wrong. They got a political agenda. And I've always felt that rock and roll, Jim Morrison’s " Erotic Politician" , not withstanding, rock and roll is benignly political. The way that rock and roll can change people’s minds is by subtle and insidious indoctrination through beat and there’s no platforms here. And we’re not up on a soap box and we’re not preaching to anybody. We’re entertaining…and I believe that’s a very high calling, actually. It’s hard to believe that people take musicians, rock musicians and actors and entertainers as seriously as they seem to. It seems to me there is something very lacking in modern life where we look to these kinds of people as our heroes for more than anything but just entertainment. Jim Morrison, again said in the first line of his book of poetry, "look where we worship", ..and I was very influenced by that statement, to me it’ s an ironic statement.

((((((playing "My Sharona"))))))

MARK: I’d like to discuss a few of your past hits before we go unto the new album. What about "Good Girl's Don’t." Was that another one you got into trouble for?

DOUG: Well, it was because we swore in it (laughing) and we said the line "sitting on your face" which had never been said in a pop song before, but that was a song, that was a true story and it wasn’t about Sharona. It was one of the only songs on the first two albums that wasn’t about Sharona. It was about a girl I knew in eighth grade. We were talking on the phone one night about teachers that we hated in our eighth grade class. And she said to me, "Ya know my parents aren’t home," and I said, " You know a good girl wouldn’t have me over" and she said, " Good girls don’t but I do." I ran to her house! And years later, in 1972, I wrote the song. So it was another true story. . Ya, we got into a little bit of trouble, but it was a huge world wide hit, so I’ll take the trouble for the hit.

MARK: It really is funny listening to what you sang, Doug , because when I interviewed Lou Christie he said he had one of the first songs banned ever and the song had in it the lines , "The windshield wipers go up and down." And that was why it was banned and when you think of what comes out today, it’s unbelievable those lyrics are so innocent compared to what you can buy in any record shop now…

DOUG: Oh absolutely and all of our songs are done with great good humor, too. That’s the other thing that I never understood, why people didn’t- some people. The audience got it and our fans got it, and most people got it but there was a group of really disgruntled and seemingly angry people who refused to get the joke. Refused to have fun with what we were having fun with. And "Good Girls Don’t" is certainly a song that I think of as a fun song. I sing it in a sort of mach Johnny Cash. I imagine what would Johnny Cash be like if he were singing a song about a young girl (Doug singing) "she’s your adolescent dream.". I'm doing Johnny Cash...which is absurd in and of its self.

MARK: "Can ‘t Put A Price On Love", that’s a nice slow ballad isn’t it?

DOUG: Ah yes. It’s one of my favorites of our early songs. It’s one of the ones which Berton wrote the music to it and I wrote the lyrics and that doesn’t usually happen that cut and dry. The music was presented to me and then I wrote the lyric. I think it’s a really good marriage of the lyric and music. And I’m very proud of that lyric actually. I think it’s a really a well written song. It’s another one that the fans really respond to.

((((((playing "Can’t Put a Price On Love"))))))

((((((playing"Good Girl’s Don’t"))))))

MARK: Right, and what about "How Come Love Hurts So Much"?

DOUG: Well, "How Can Love Hurt So Much", which was a song I wrote about Sharona. We were out on tour. It was one of the only ones that wasn’t written after the second album was recorded…but that one was written in a hotel room. But I wanted Sharona, because I was in love with her and she …our record was successful ( laughing ) and she still wouldn’t give me the time of day…except as a friend and I had another girlfriend at the time and basically it was this song. Why can’t I be satisfied with this girl who obviously loved me and but I’m not really in love with and why do I have to be in pain loving you? It was another true story song.

MARK: I assume Sharona isn’t in your life any more

DOUG: No , but we’re still very good friends. Very good friends.

MARK: And what about "That Thing You Do"? I was surprised when that Tom Hanks movie came out and there was the song.

DOUG: Well, we heard the song in the movie. That’s not a song we wrote, and when I saw the movie, I said, "That’s a great Knack song." That’s why we did it. .There wasn’t any big mystery about that. It just sounded like a really great Knack song. As a matter of fact the guy who wrote that song, Adam Schlesinger, called up and said that basically he wrote that song thinking about groups like the Knack, so he was thrilled that we recorded it.

MARK: Right, right.

DOUG: I was happy to do the favor for him! (laughing)

((((( playing "That Thing You Do")))))

((((((playing "How Can Love Hurt So Much?"))))))

MARK: Well, I’m Mark Copolov and I’m speaking with Doug Fieger , the lead singer ,guitarist and song writer from The Knack…who just brought out a really good album, the first one in ten years, called Zoom and Doug, I think leading into this I’ll just quote you and you’ve touched on this before.…you once said " I get the feeling a sense of fun isn’t seen by most people who go to concerts these days." .and I also read elsewhere where you talk about this lack of fun. Now when you put on the Zoom CD, well I've just written some comments down and I’d just appreciate your comments about my interpretation of your album.

DOUG: Ok

MARK: Ok. These are just notes I’ve jotted down once I’d finished listening to it and they’re not in any particular order: good harmonies, easy listening, uncomplicated songs, unpretentious songs, drumming- more prominent, back to basics. Doug is in fine voice. A fun album, just guitars and drums that is not buried in synthsounds…

DOUG: That’s all true! Everything you said! I concur one hundred percent ! (laughing)

MARK: In other words what I’m saying is- nice fun easy album. Its not what you were talking about before. Its not buried in politics and trying to tell every one what to do..

DOUG: It’s a rock and roll album! It’s a rock and roll album that you can put on at a party and dance and jump around to and have fun and you can listen to it over an over again and it doesn’t wear thin. The melodies are fun to listen to. The songs are aggressive and played with energy and you know it is. It’s about having fun! That’s really what it is. It’s about what the whole idea of The Knack is and I really don’t see that much today in groups Everybody seems very serious and very sad. Ya know rock and roll lately, within the past seven, eight years, has become a really down thing and there are some pop acts that are just for fun but rock and roll seems to be just this very sort of leaden and serious and dark thing. Well, there’s certainly a place for that on an album. I don’t believe in only using primary colors. Sometimes, ya know, its good to have a minor chord here and there and sometimes its good to have a song that’s sad. Like "How Could Love Hurt So Much," but constantly and only be hearing that-it gets depressing…

MARK: Oh certainly.

DOUG: And rock and roll for me, when I was young, for me was this glorious and wonderful world that I could go to, to forget and yet remember what was great about living. And when things were bad in my house…I could put on a rock and roll record and it would change my mood. It would get me dancing, it would put a smile on my face. And that’s what The Knack has always hoped to do. When people come to our shows that’s what we do. People don’t leave our shows with a frown. They leave with a goofy grin on their face, yelling into the streets because they've just had an hour and a half of jumping around and it’s the same with the albums.

MARK: Well, I’m glad you said all that because I listen to so many CDs from record companies and I listen to them blindly, like when I put your album on I didn’t want to write anything about it. I just wanted to hear it for the first time and have my own interpretation on it and so much stuff I put on I think these people…are losing the point. I come home form work, I want to turn on the TV and watch something funny or put on some music. I don’t want to be lectured to. I don’t’ want to hear depressing stuff, I have enough of that at work or the office and give me some fun stuff.

DOUG: Right!

MARK: I’ll be interviewing Bruce Johnson soon from the Beach Boys and that’s exactly the point I’ll be making to him about The Beach Boys, all summer long! Fun! Fun! Fun ! Great stuff!

DOUG: Absolutely! And yet they could do a song like "I’m In My Room" or " The Warmth of The Sun" which had sad undercurrents but they’re so gloriously beautiful in the harmony and in the construction of the songs. Just thinking about it gives me the chills. You can have minor chords and every once in a while, you can sing about things more serious but it doesn’t have to be the only color. Black is not the only color,even though it’s the only color that everybody likes to wear. (laughing)

MARK: That’s why I was so happy when the Spice Girls came about. My daughter Carli, who’s only eight, loves them, and although they’re not the Beatles, their songs are really upbeat. Good message for girls and not depressing.

DOUG: Absolutely! And you know what, if you listen to the early Beatles stuff , its like that too. Ya know the early Beatles stuff is not serious deep music. It's "Twist and Shout", it's "Hold My Hand", its "She Loves You". It’s stuff that’s designed for the kid in all of us. You see, rock and roll is not the exclusive province of the young BUT it is the exclusive province of the young at heart. You can do rock and roll at any time. Little Richard has proved that and The Rolling Stones are proofing that. So, ya know , that’s where I'm at. So I’m glad you picked up on that. That’s encouraging…

MARK: Well alright then…to the Zoom album…its produced with Richard Bosworth. And new drummer Terry Bozzio replaced Bruce Gary,who you said, "He kicked us in the ass and made us a better band."

DOUG: Well, . He’s a good drummer. The way we recorded this album was the way we normally play. I sing, the band plays and for this album, because Terry was very new, in this situation, we didn’t spend a lot of time rehearsing, so the songs were really fresh. It wasn’t like the first album and the second album. We had played those songs in concert for a year before we recorded them and this one we hadn’t really played live at all and basically we had just started to play the songs and discover them when we went in and cut the record. So it was one of those very fast learning curves. Very steep learning curves and Terry was definitely a part of that process. He was instrumental in it. Because when we write the songs, we hear the drums in our heads but when you can actually hear it for the first time being played with a drummer, it changes things and it inspires you and makes you better for it.

MARK: Alright Doug, I’d like to ask you about some of the songs on the album. The first song on the album is" Pop is Dead"? Ya got a line in there,"Bring your shovel"…(Doug laughing) So can you tell us about that, ‘bring a shovel. pop is dead?"

DOUG: (laughing) Well, you know…

MARK: What are you trying to tell us there?

DOUG: Well you know, as Frank Zappa once said about jazz…"Its not dead it just smells that way."

MARK: (laughing) OH!

DOUG: (laughing) It’s actually an ironic statement. I wrote it, actually I got the line when Roy Lichtenstein , the pop artist, the one who did the gigantic pictures that were like frames of a comic strip. You’ve seen those…

MARK: Yes

DOUG: And he recently died. He died last year. There was a headline in the paper, "The Father of Pop is Dead", but I didn’t see the "father"…there was another paper covering it…it just said "pop is dead" and I thought "oh my God! They’re reporting it in the paper, that pop is dead?! What am I going to do? " And it was funny and I laughed and I remembered that, and so when we were writing the song, it fit, you know. It’s not meant to be very serious. Although there is a little message in there and the message is- lighten up!

MARK: .Ya! So you’re going back to where there’s too many dark colors in music..

DOUG: Ya.!.Lighten up! And really, the lyrics of the song reflect that and we try to have as much fun with it as we can. "Pop is dead! Bring your shovel!" (laughing.).

MARK: Well the vocals are really clear and Berton is a really fine lead guitarist. The drums are great on the track, well the whole album..

DOUG: Well, thank you.

MARK: Well, moving on to "Can I Borrow A Kiss". It’s a great line from a girl you met when you were apparently fourteen .and you were visiting a friend in Santa Clara somewhere . Is that right?

DOUG: That’s right. Santa Clara. Up in the bay area. What happened was, I saved my money, working at a delicatessen for a whole year and my parents let me go out to stay with a friend. Well little did they know he was really a juvenile delinquent and his parents just let him run wild, so I was basically unsupervised in (Santa Clara) As soon as I got there we hitch hiked in to San Francisco and basically never went home. We just stayed, crashing in hippie pads and going to be- ins and taking drugs and just having a grand old time. And we went to a be-in and this girl ,her name was Merced Villa. I still remember her name, although I only knew her one day. She was an older girl. She was probably 16 and she came up to me and she was beautiful ! Dark hair, fabulous satin skin girl. Really beautiful and she walked up to me and she liked what she saw and she said "Can I borrow a kiss?" and I had never heard that before and it kinda, ya know, ..stuck with me. And years later I was telling this story on a local television show that I was being interviewed on and the president of Rhino records, Harold Bronson, who had just signed us, saw the show and called me up on the phone and said, "you have to write a song and that has to be the title of the song and you have to tell this story in the song." I thought that he was probably giving me a good idea so we did it. And that again, is another song, where I wrote the words and music of the chorus and Berton wrote the words and music of the verse and then we wrote the bridge together and it just fit together like a puzzle. That rarely happens. The songs that we write together rarely are divided up so evenly. I write some of the music and some of the lyrics. Berton will write some of the music and some of the lyrics but this one was pretty evenly divided between verses and choruses and stuff.

MARK: So, Doug between the story "Can I Borrow a Kiss?" and "Sharona" and others I’m sure. You seem to be a bit of an old romantic…

DOUG: (pause) Well I’m not that old! (laughing)

MARK: Well no!

DOUG: Well I guess I am a romantic. Yes, I do believe that love is an ideal and I do believe that love has the power to heal as well as to wound and I don’t think that there is a more worth while subject frankly, not that it’s the only subject.

MARK: No…

((((((playing "Can I Borrow a Kiss?"))))))

((((((playing"Pop Is Dead."))))))

MARK: Well, moving onto "Mr. Magazine". (It’s) Another great song. The Beatles certainly sound like they’re in the background…the background vocals are very Beatlish, isn’t it?

DOUG: (laughing.) Well, you know , we’ve been accused of copying the Beatles for years and years and years and as far as I’m concerned, the influences of The Knack, although we’re influenced by everyone who is good., from Irving Berlin to Nirvana and everything in between. We’ve been accused of trying to be like the Beatles and on this album we just finally said, screw it! We’ve been accused of this, we love the Beatles. Of course we do. We’ve never done it before. Let’s do some real Beatles background harmonies which we’ve never really done before on any other record and the other records have been more influenced by The Who or The Kinks or various other things. Elvis Presley at times and Buddy Holly certainly…but this one, "Mr. Magazine", definitely was a song that when we recorded it, we consciously arranged background vocals that had a Beatles flavor. Yes.

MARK: Yes, ‘cause I don’t think there’s anything wrong with sounding a bit like the Beatles, ‘cause like you say, everybody’s influenced by somebody..

DOUG: Absolutely! When Roy Orbison heard the Beatles, when he toured with them in England, in 1963, he turned to a friend and said, "They sound just like a loud Buddy Holly and the Crickets." And certainly that was very possible. The Beatles were two guitars, a bass and drums, just like Buddy Holly and the Crickets were. .And John Lennon always said that that he wished he could have named his band the Crickets because it worked better he thought for an English band. That’s why he called them the Beatles because he wanted another bug name that had a duel meaning. But you’re right, everybody is influenced by everybody else and we certainly, are not ashamed of any of our influences and yet I don’t think we sound like anybody but The Knack.

MARK: Ya, that’s right, exactly. Well what about the song "Everything I Do?" That’s got a great melody to it.

DOUG: Thank you. That song . There’s a girl that I know, her name is Missy Connell-Melissa Connell. .And she was in a band called The Heaters ,which were contemporaries of ours in 1978 back in Los Angeles. I heard a song by her that had that line in it.".everything I do makes her"..and then it basically was a different song and I called her up on the phone. I got her number through a friend. And said, " I think that there are elements of your song that I could make into a really great song that’s different from your song. Would you let me do it?" And she said sure, so I did. I re- wrote the song basically and presented it to her and she loved it. So, basically, that was something that was influenced by something that already existed and I just tailored it for The Knack. I wrote bridges that didn’t exist and rewrote the verses. It’s one of my favorite songs on the album actually….

((((((playing "Everything I Do"))))))

((((((playing"Mr. Magazine"))))))

MARK: Moving on to "Terry and Julie Step Out". Now you mention about being influenced by the Beatles, now Doug you must have done this deliberately unless I’m going out of my mind…the introduction sounds like "Twist and Shout" and I can even hear "number 9 , number 9 "in there somewhere from "Revolution Number 9" and some psychedelic effects. So surely you can’t tell me you weren’t doing some tongue and cheek here.

DOUG: (laughing) Well, we were. The whole song is about the whole retro movement. That’s really what it’s about. Terry and Julie, of course are the characters from "Waterloo Sunset" from the Kinks song and they were Terrence Stamp and Julie Christie, the quintessential Carnaby street couple. I was just making a comment about the whole retro (thing). A lot of young kids who dress up like the 60’s but really missed what the 60’s was and missed the depth and only get the sort of dressing. (They) don’t get the meat and potatoes so to speak of it and it is a tongue and cheek sort of song. It’s a song that has its antecedents in other songs that we’ve written like "Another Lousy Day In Paradise", from our third album. These are songs that are a bit cynical but always with our tongue firmly planted in check and humor attached to it..

MARK: Well it works really well.

DOUG: Well ,thank you, but yes, we did steal the "Twist and Shout"..

MARK: Well, the next one is my favorite on the album called "Harder On You" you know I can’t get that song out of my head.

DOUG: Well that’s wonderful. Prescott will be very, very happy. That’s a song, that’s Prescott’s first song that he brought to the band. Berton helped him finish it and I threw in some lyrics but I didn’t take any credit, and it’s a song Prescott brought to the band. We’re really happy that he’s now starting to write songs and bring them because it just makes us a better band…

MARK: Wasn’t’ Prescott the one who came up with the riff in "My Sharona?"

DOUG: No no

MARK: No? Berton..

DOUG: Berton came up with the riff.

MARK: Right…Well getting back to this song.."Harder On You." Just for the guitar players out there…it’s really interesting how the progression goes from major to minor.

DOUG: Well, it s a fairly standard 60’s pop rock progression . It goes from a major to a minor to a major to a minor twice. Yes, you’re right it does do that and again it’s all for effect and it works very well. It’s got a power to it and the bridges are in minor to begin with but then they go back to the major to resolve , which is very good . It’s very, very cool.

MARK: Well that’s one I’ve been playing on my show a lot. Which one is being played the most in America from this album at the moment?

DOUG: Probably "Can I Borrow a Kiss"..Can I Borrow a Kiss", that’s the most pop oriented…but people do play "Harder On You".. But the ones that are getting the most play are "Ambition" and "Can I Borrow a Kiss."

((((((playing "Harder On You"))))))

((((((playing "Terry and Julie Step Out"))))))

MARK: Moving on to "You Got Be There" , I believe this falls into the category of over ten years old and this one comes from the period of the second album But The Little Girls Understand…

DOUG: Yes. Well it was written again, about Sharona (laughing).and I had it back then and we didn’t want two ballads on the album and that album already had "How Can Love Hurt So Much", which Mike liked better and also Berton didn't like "You Gotta Be There" for some reason, at that time so it got shelved and it wasn’t’ that I had forgotten about it. It’s just that it didn’t come up again until this album and I wanted a fairly romantic ballad and I wanted to do a song that could have oohs and ahhs, a lot of real oohs and ahhs. Berton is a wonderful vocal arranger. He's really, really good. He’s gifted at it and because there’s only two singers in the band, me and him, we don’t get a lot of chance to do a lot of background vocals. Especially live obviously, because we can only have two part harmony. But in the studio we very rarely do more than two part harmonies but on this album we consciously said , no, we’re going expand it. We’re going to do three part and sometimes four part harmonies…and that was a song that I directed him(on). I wrote the song and then I said, "This is what I want. Bring it to me and let me hear what you got," and he brought back this wonderful angelic (singing, in a falsetto voice) "hark the angels come" It was wonderful.!

MARK: It's interesting you talk about songs that you put on the shelf, that you bring out years later. Being a Beatles freak it was a huge thrill for me to have interviewed Sir George Martin three times on my show. And we talked about how , " One after 909" which appeared on Let It Be, was actually one of the first songs that he ever head them play in the studio.

DOUG: That’s right!

MARK: And he said and I didn’t like it and the boys put it away and it was from 1962 or something right up until 1970 before it would surface, so you might have some other classics there Doug, that you put on the shelf.

DOUG: Well, it’s possible. There are parts of "Terry and Julie" that have existed for a long time. Parts of it. Parts of the chord structure of that song have existed and the lick of "Terry and Julie," that was a lick that was from a song called "Little Lies", that was one of the first songs that I ever presented to Berton when we first met, back in like 1974. And I said, I need an intro guitar lick, now the song wasn’t very good. But the intro guitar link was very cool, it was the same one we use in "Terry and Julie" and we also used that-we slowed it down and used it as the main body of a song on our third album called "Soul Kissin". So that riff has been used actually in three different songs and it predates anything from this album. That riff is probably the oldest thing on this album. (laughing)

MARK: Well, finishing up on this album , and I urge any people who love this sort of fun, pop music rock and roll to go out an get it. It’s just been released here in Australia and it’s called, Zoom. The last track I want to mention is "Tomorrow" and that’s a real rocker, isn’t it?

DOUG: Again, Prescott had the riff and brought it to Berton and I. Then the three of us wrote a song basically around that riff. I think that song has more… Berton, had more to do with it, other than the riff, than I did. It’s a scream’n rocker, definitely. And, again, another very fun…funny kind of song. I envisioned it when we were writing the lyrics as a modern day "Fats" Waller. You know, you’re feets' too big, kinda thing! Where you’re saying, " Get outta here! You’re feets’ too big. I can’t stand, ya! Get away from me!" Basically that’s what the song is. "Ya know there’s always tomorrow ,to make me feel worse than I do today. Tomorrow! Messin’ my mind in a nuclear way." It’s a pretty funny song.

((((((playing"Tomorrow"))))))

((((((playing"Got To Be There"))))))

MARK: I’m Mark Copolov and I’m speaking to Doug Fieger of The Knack. Now Doug, before we finish up I’d like to throw some miscellaneous things at you…

DOUG: Sure!

MARK: Not in any particular order. Now I’ve done, as I’ve said before, three interviews with Sir George Martin. Regular listeners to my show know that I’m an old Beatle freak. People who don’t know, will be very interested to know that you’re a good friend of Ringo Starr’s and in fact you’re on the album that I play regularly on my show, all the time, Vertical Man, on the "La De Da" track.

DOUG: That’s right! And I got to do- Berton and I did background vocals on one song, on his last album, which was , Time Takes Time, which was one of the thrills of my life. Because it was basically just us and Ringo. And then we also got to sing with Brian Wilson on that album, which was another incredible thrill. So, Ya, he’s a good friend. He came to my last wedding. Him and Barbara came to my last wedding, unfortunately I’m now divorced from that girl. But Rich did show up. He has me over to the house for Christmas and stuff like that. We’re good friends. He’s a good guy. He’s a really, really, really good guy and I love him dearly.

MARK: The impression that ones gets from seeing him from the public point of view(is) that he doesn’t take things too seriously. Ya know he understands the grandeur of The Beatles, but I think on his album somewhere he’s got a note, "Life is life and this is just an album."

DOUG: Exactly! But he takes the craft of what he does, very, very seriously. He’ll turn to me and say "Well you know I AM a drummer!" You know (laughing) which is very funny. Like I had FORGOTTEN or something! And he says, "This is what I DO" and he’s very serious about that. But he doesn’t take himself very seriously. And that’s what the world loved about the Beatles. They had such an irreverent attitude to themselves and to everything else. While they were producing some of the most magnificent and wonderful and joyous music of the twentieth century.

MARK: Absolutely. Well, Ringo gives me the impression that, well put it this way,one of his songs he recorded… the lyrics go "drumming is my madness, drumming is my business." I get the feeling that if he hadn’t been in the Beatles and made two billion dollars or whatever, and he had been in a band which had some success he would have been just as happy. . Ya know, cause that’s all he wants to do is play drums. He doesn’t care if he makes 400 million or just enough to live on probably.

DOUG: Exactly! That’s it. That’s why he’ll turn to me and say "Well, I am a drummer , ya know?" Apropos of nothing, but he’s a drummer and that’s what he does. It is true. It is true. He’s salt of the earth. He’s truly salt of the earth. Ya know, obviously, I grew up like everybody else, loving the Beatles. And to have him as a friend, (is a wonderful experience). It’s a wonderful experience in the sense that he has had the kind of life that few people can ever imagine. He’s one of the most famous people that ever existed on the planet. And yet he pulls his pants on one leg at a time and he is genuine in the sense of he’s a human. To his friends he’s Richard. When he’s working he’s Ringo. But to his friends he’s Richard. And he’s very particular about that. And not to go on about him. I love him dearly. He’s a sweet, sweet man. And a remarkable musician. The other thing people forget about him is what a great drummer he is! And anybody who says he’s not a great drummer doesn’t know ANYTHING about music.

MARK: It’s interesting, on the new album he’s got "Love me Do" and I read an interview with him a couple of days ago and somebody said to him, "C’mon Ringo, you put that on there because George Martin wouldn’t let you play on the song originally, on the album tract. This is your way of getting back at him." And he said, "No! Not at all. I just wanted to do it."

DOUG: That’s right! That’s exactly right. He just wanted to do it. I think he did a great job. I love the new album. I think it’s one of the best post Beatles album that any of The Beatles have recorded.

MARK: I think the only one he did that was better was the self titled one in ’72 or something.."Ringo"

DOUG: "Ringo", with Richard Perry

MARK: I think this is the best album since then, in my opinion. It’s a fantastic album. I play it on my show all the time.

(((((( playing "La De Da")))))

MARK: Well, Doug moving on . Just a couple of other quick things about you I found interesting, was that you apparently, is this true? You have done acting and in fact, you’ve done Shakespeare!?

DOUG: Yes. I was a Shakespearean actor when I was young . Yes, that’s true.

MARK: You can’t get much higher in the ranks than Shakespeare.

DOUG: (laughing) Well, then again, he was just a popular entertainment of his time. He’s become hoity toity because people don’t understand that his language is just the archaic English language that was used at the time. It is beautiful poetry. It is the great literature of the English language, probably the greatest. BUT I always approached it as, this is popular entertainment. These are stories that were meant to entertain people and amuse them. In everyone of Shakespeare’s plays there’s humor and tragedy and all the things of life. And I fell in love with it from that prospective and I fell in love with the poetry. I don’t think about it in terms of it’s stature as from a social stand point, but it’s beauty as language and to understand the language. And to really immerse myself in it. Which is why I did it. Again ,I take a line from Jim Morrison…"I’ll always be a word man. Better than a bird man.." The English language has always fascinated and thrilled me . And if you’re going to learn from somebody learn from the best, so that’s why I studied Shakespeare.

MARK: Have you ever wanted to get into any movies or anything like that?

DOUG: Well I haven’t really pursued it. I’ve really not had the time. Movie acting is a whole other thing. I did a bit of TV acting with my friends Roseanne and Tom Arnold. When they had a TV show. It was a big TV show in America, "Roseanne", I’m sure you’ve heard of it.

MARK: Sure. Sure.

DOUG: I did some episodes. I was just a minor character in a couple of the scenes. I studied with Strassburg, who’s a big acting teacher and I studied with Jeff Corey, who’s another big acting teacher here. But when I was a kid, ya , I did Shakespeare and I love it and I hope to do that again someday.

MARK: Right. Now, when I read a bit about you, you said you liked Frank Zappa and The Turtles, and I actually have a message for you. One of my upcoming guests is Howard Kaylan the lead vocalist…

DOUG: I love Howard! They were on our third album, Howard and Mark.

MARK: Absolutely. Ya . Ya..

DOUG: Please give them my love and my best…please!

MARK: Well, I’m just dealing with Howard but he said to say hello. He told me that you are one fine song writer.

DOUG: Well, tell him thank you. Oh man! Howie’s wonderful!

MARK: And it’s interesting to hear that he said, that you said, that you like Frank Zappa and The Turltles and he was in both of those. You must be a real Howard fan.

DOUG: I’m a huge( Howard fan). He’s got one of the great rock and roll voices. One of the great under appreciated rock and roll voices of all time. The only one that I think is as good and as under appreciated is Mark Lindsay from Paul Revere and the Raiders. But I think Howard Kaylan has a voice that ‘s instantly recognizable. Its’ perfect. He’s always on tune and he always expresses the song perfectly. He’s a great singer. I learned a lot from him. Just listening to those records. His sound always was very teenage, but better, if you know what I mean. He seemed to speak to me when I was young. And I really appreciated that. He’s a great guy. I love them both, Flo and Eddie are two of my favorite people. They are really great.

MARK: Right. Right. Well, what about a tour of Australia? Do you think that’s possible, at all?

DOUG: Well, it’s all up to the fans. If the record does well enough we’ll come and play for you. We would love to . We haven’t been there in eighteen years and it was one of the greatest experiences of my life was playing in Australia. I have incredibly fond memories (of playing in Australia) and not only that, I have a lot of friends in Australia. My best friend is an Australian. Who now lives in Los Angeles. His family is still there. They come over and I see them fairly often so I’m connected with Australia. And I hope The Knack gets a chance to come over and play.

MARK: Alright Doug, I’d better let you go. Thank you very much for a fascinating interview.

DOUG: Thank you so much Marcus! My pleasure!

MARK: Good luck with "Zoom" and I hope if you do come to Australia you’ll come onto my show and we’ll have another chat and we’ll tell everyone you’re coming. And come to the concerts. Maybe even have a chat when you’re next album comes out. What do you have planed for the future?

DOUG: Well I’m just writing songs now. I’m always writing something and this one has just come out so we’re not thinking too far in the future. The Knack will continue (and) hopefully we’ll have another album out in a couple of years.

MARK: Congratulations on "Zoom". It’s a great album. I urge any people out there who love good music and especially Knack fans go out and get it ‘s available now!

((((((playing"Ambition"))))))

*Thanks Mark for making this available to us and thanks to Doug for giving us permission to reproduce it!