Before we really started writing our own songs in the James Gang, we'd play covers, and then, in the middle of them, we'd go for a jam for four or five minutes. At some point, we had six or seven of those sections, and we didn't need to cover other people's songs anymore.
We're sober now, and we all have families and obligations of being senior citizens. Oh, that's hard to say. We have grown-up responsibilities. We used to all live in the same car.
People are texting and smash into the car in front of them - I think there is some humor in that. And the virtual games. People are playing these virtual games, but they're real - I mean, the people are really playing, but it's not a game.
In my early twenties, I got the basics covered. In retrospect, one of the great things about success is that I never really had to work in a factory full-time. So that's a blessing.
I was 20, and my reality was that people either went to college full-time, or they were draftable. The dear friends that I went to high school with that didn't go to college eventually wound up in Vietnam, and I noticed that they came home different. I was in Ohio during the Vietnam War era.
I play like I always used to, with no agenda. And, every once in a while, I will play something I really hadn't thought about or even intended to play. And I'll go, 'Whoa! What was that?'
I looked at Willie Nelson and Farm Aid as a role model; they do it every year, and it draws people together, and drawing people together where they realize they're not alone, to me, is strategic in healing.
New Zealand is in my heart, always.
