With your band King Harvest, you had the one hit single "Dancing in the Moonlight." I feel like the rest of your material is very underrated. Other songs like "You and I" brings to mind the Zombies and "Motor Job" sounds like Traffic and Steely Dan. What was the band originally going for?
Ron Altbach: We never went for any copy sound. We, meaning Eddie Tuleja (guitar), Wells Kelly (drums) and I were all musicans who played in bands in Ithaca, NY, where R&B was the real basic force. So, when you listen to "Motor Job," you get the feel. "You and I" was an exception because were asked by a small record company to record the song (actually I wrote the words, lame as they are) to a tune written by the famous composer Ennio Morricone. Eddie and I loved the band, so you can hear some of that in our sound, but generally it's R&B mixed with rock.
This is a question I have always been curious about. Do you blame the Beach Boys for the ending of King Harvest?
RA: No. In the summer of 1974, King Harvest had pretty much run its course for a while. We were playing bars and small clubs in the Buffalo area, actually the area where we were living, Olcott, NY. I was playing drums, with Eddie on guitar, Doc on bass and Rod on this weird electronic sax gizmo he found. But we were a kick ass bar band. It just didn't seem to be going much further. So i left to become a professor at Maharishi International Institute in Iowa. Eddie and Doc stayed in Olcott for a while and Rod had already gone to New York to work in management for Jerry Percell. I had met Mike Love in the Spring of 1973 in New York. Then in 1974 I sailed over to Toronto to see the Beach Boys when they played at the CNE. There was talk of me joining the band, but when I met Carl it seemed he really didn't hear anything from those guys for several months, until some time in October. I had just arrived in Switzerland to spend some time with Maharishi and then to go to Nepal with him to teach TM. But the day I arrived in Switzerland I received a call from Rick Nelson, the Beach Boys' road manager and was asked to come on the next tour.
Was playing live with the Beach Boys similar to playing live with King Harvest?
RA: Not at all. King Harvest was a great band in that we knew each other so well that we would play down the same path at the same time. Think of how the Dead was in concert. I believe all bands get there, but King Harvest was definitely a great performing band, and we enjoyed playing with one another all the time. The Beach Boys, for me, was more like joining an orchestra. Great songs, great energy, fine musicians, but there were distinct parts and the music was all about the vocals, not about improvisation. Carly Munoz, for example, was a killer, killer B-3 player, Guercio was playing bass, Ed Carter on guitar. These guys were fine musicians. I just never quite felt at home playing the Beach Boys music. Although, we did play some of my songs on stage ("Country Pie," which Eddie Tuleja and I wrote, and later, "Lady Lynda," which Al Jardine and I wrote). It was fun.
The album you co-produced (M.I.U. Album) is an album that is hardly talked about in Beach Boys discussions. Being that you put hard work in it, how did you feel about the album at the time and now?
RA: I think the Beach Boys fans in general worshiped anything that Carl, Dennis or Brian did and really disliked Mike and anything he did. The MIU Album was conceived by Mike, in that the band needed to deliver an album to Warners and Mike wanted to do the album in a drug free atmosphere, so we built a studio at MIU in Fairfield, Iowa and built some living quarters where we all stayed while we did the album. I know it's not a particularly inventive album like other Beach Boys' albums had been. It's a collection of songs, some of which were written there at the time. We did it relatively quickly and there's nothing interesting about the sound of the recording. But, the songs are good and I stand by them. "Pitter Patter" is a good song, for example.
One of the best songs on the album is "She's Got Rhythm," which you co-wrote. I read on YouTube a comment you wrote about the creation of the song. Can you elaborate on this one?
RA: I was sitting at the piano playing a shuffle I had written as part of the score for the film Endless Summer and Brian just started wailing away with the melody. It happened quickly. First time in the studio for me with Brian, so it was a thrill, although he wasn't in good shape then so it was a bit sad.
I feel that the M.I.U. Album's inclusion of cover songs lessened the albums potential. The cover songs are great in their own right but the original tracks shed light on a very interesting era of the Beach Boys. Why were these chosen to be on the album?
RA: Al's Idea. He had recorded those songs already at a studio. We didn't do them at MIU.
How do you feel about "Winds of Change?" It's beautiful...
RA: I wrote that melody in Paris and Eddie Tuleja wrote the words. I love the song. Actually, the Track on MIU was done a year earlier at Brother Studio in Santa Monica. Al, Mike, Charles Lloyd and I were planning a band called Waves (later called Celebration) so that Mike and Al could have some creative output about direction. We were planning to use the King Harvest guys in the band. At the session where we recorded "Winds of Change." we also recorded the original version of "Lady Lynda." Bobby Figueroa played drums, Eddie Carter on bass and Eddie Tuleja on guitar. I happen to like the rawness of that Lady Lynda version but it's certainly more Beach Boys like in the final that Al did, although I am pretty sure he used my track and added to it with the harpsichord, etc. On "Winds of Change," Charles Lloyd played flute and Maureen Love played harp. That's it, just piano and vocals. When we used it for MIU, Brian added some vocals.
Why and how did your studio role diminish after this record?
RA: The Beach Boys were asked to do a soundtrack for Almost Summer, but there was no harmony at that point, so Mike suggested that we in our new company Lovesongs, do it. Mike and Brian wrote the title song and I produced all of the stuff. Charles Lloyd and I did the musical track for the film. That was the departure for me. We did a lot of recording for Lovesongs, including a very good solo album with Mike on which he did a terrific song called "First Love," among other songs he had written. We also did a Celebration album with a bunch of tunes EddieTuleja and I had written - "Country Pie," "Go and Get That Girl" and "Lovestruck." I was having the time of my life.
Why did you not perform on Dennis' Pacific Ocean Blue while Ed Tuleja and Ron Novak did? I think your keyboards would have went great with his music.
RA: Dennis was very close with Carly, who is/was a great keyboard artist. He didn't need me.
Do you still contact Mike Love/Al Jardine, etc.?
RA: Mike and I stay in touch regularly. I saw Al last year at the 50th Tour and it was old times for us.
Finally, in a video of you explaining the Beach Boys and King Harvest in the late 70's, you had an awesome mustache and an awesome overall 70's look. How did you look so cool and how did you take care of that amazing 'stache?
RA: Never cut it. Then, one day, I just shaved it off. Now I am an old bald guy. But take a look online under King Harvest. We did a reunion show last year and an interview. It was great fun.
Here is the video from the 70's. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-SVB-EvYtNw
Thanks Ron.
No comments:
Post a Comment