Medium Rare Interviews

Rare classic rock interviews by Redbeard from the vast In the Studio archive

Edgar Winter Group- They Only Come Out at Night

the Edgar Winter Group's "They Only Come Out at Night". Edgar shares songs including "Tobacco Road","Keep Playing That Rock'n'Roll",; "Dying to Live"; "Easy Street" from 1974's "Shock Treatment";  and three hits from "They Only Come Out at Night",  "Free Ride","Hangin' Around", and the #1 song in 1973, "Frankenstein". The late Ronnie Montrose also is interviewed.
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Meat Loaf- Bat Out of Hell

Meeting Meat Loaf head on in the narrow hallway at midnight "on a hot summer night" in 1978 left an unforgettable memory. His debut album "Bat Out of Hell"  had been building slowly over the ten months since release, and now the bombastic, passionate, outrageously funny music of composer Jim Steinman as performed by Meat Loaf was one of the hottest new things in American music then. The late Meat Loaf is here In the Studio for the story of "Bat Out of Hell".

Peter Gabriel- Us

The various subjects on Peter Gabriel's "Us", like the deep funky grooves, are all killer and no filler, from the pleading divorced parent to his regressing child on "Come Talk to Me". the matter-of-fact demystification of personal therapy in "Digging in the Dirt", to the Biblical allusions in "Blood of Eden", inspired by Gabriel's study of capital punishment. My exclusive classic rock interview with Peter Gabriel, in front of a small intimate audience, was his first reveal of those songs in September 1992, plus "Love to Be Loved", "Steam", "Kiss That Frog", and "Secret World". Part one of two. 

The Doors- Strange Days- the late Ray Manzarek

"Strange Days", The Doors' second album in only nine months,  was uncanny in capturing seismic changes already underway in America which would signal the end to the all-too-brief "Summer of Love" in 1967. The Doors’ late co-founder Ray Manzarek In the Studio for "Strange Days".

Mark Knopfler- Kill to Get Crimson

Mark Knopfler's fifth solo album, "Kill to Get Crimson", released in September 2007, has a distinctive late Fifties Post War perspective,"...but it's not nostalgia. It's something else," Mark insists.

Creed- My Own Prison 25th anniversary

On "My Own Prison" 's twenty-fifth anniversary of "Torn","What's This Life For?", "One", and the title song, here is my charming conversation with Creed lead singer/ lyricist Scott Stapp, guitarist/songwriter Mark Tremonti, drummer Scott Phillips, and original bass guitarist Brian Marshall from December 1998.

George Thorogood Talks Baseball

When Major League Baseball presents their mid-summer classic the All Star Game, they have a treasure trove of more than a century of legendary sportswriting, reporting, play-by-play radio and television recordings, Hollywood movies, books, and the sublime Ken Burns episodic tv documentary from which to draw. While Ken Burns had Negro League player/coach Buck McWilliams, sportswriter Studs Terkel, and George Plimpton, here In the Studio we have former minor league ( one season, "A" League) player George Thorogood to talk about baseball.

John Fogerty- Blue Moon Swamp

John Fogerty talks In the Studio with Redbeard about the Grammy winner ".Blue Moon Swamp".

Eddie Money- No Control

Eddie Money was always an effortless interview before his death in September 2019, a real pleasure, because he loved people, he loved to tell stories, and he had a million of 'em. As I prepared dual anniversaries for two of the late Eddie Money's best selling albums, “Eddie Money” debut in October 1977 and the big breakthrough “No Control” five years later in June 1982 forty years ago,  it occurred that one of the less recognized aspects of the brief but all-important Punk Rock trend in the latter half of the Seventies is how it aided and abetted countless upstart bands at the same time which were not necessarily a part of that CBGB Club scene. The late Eddie Money is my guest here In the Studio.

Alan Parsons Project- I, Robot

Rare classic rock interview with the namesake British recording engineer/producer of the Alan Parsons Project, whose 1977 second album in collaboration with composer the late Eric Woolfson was once  again based on a famous literary work, this time the Isaac Asimov science fiction classic "I, Robot".

Alice Cooper- School’s Out: Best Of pt 2

When it came exploding out of the dashboard radio in May 1972, "School's Out" by Alice Cooper was louder, brasher, with more swagger than anything we'd ever heard on the Top 40. But with the Woodstock Generation inheriting a world of endless Viet Nam War escalation, Richard Nixon landslide re-election, while astronauts golfed on the moon, "School's Out" ominously was a sobering reality check for millions as well. Alice Cooper is my guest In the Studio on the golden anniversary.

Supertramp- Even in the Quietest Moments- Roger Hodgson

The wonderful music on Supertramp's "Even in the Quietest Moments", peaking at #16 on Billboard and #12 in their native UK, sounds to my ear as vital today as ever, somehow frozen in time like the snow atop the grand piano on the album's cover. One of the Supertramp singer/ songwriters, guitarist Roger Hodgson joins me here In the Studio for a rare classic rock interview while sharing spectacular live performances from transitional album “Crisis? What Crisis? “ plus sublime songs "Give a Little Bit","From Now On","Downstream" and "Even in the Quietest Moments".

Scorpions- Blackout- Klaus Meine, Rudolph Schenker

‘Blackout”, the March 1982 big breakthrough in the US for the irrepressible Scorpions. Over the decades I've had countless famous musicians claim that rock & roll had become their life, but only John Kay of Steppenwolf and the members of The Scorpions knew that playing rock music could COST them their lives...

Jo Jo Gunne 50th Anniversary- Jay Ferguson

When artist manager-turned-media mogul David Geffen started his first Los Angeles-based record label Asylum Records, his first signing was Jackson Browne and his third deal was with the Eagles. Who was Geffen's second signing? Hometown heroes Jo Jo Gunne. singer/songwrite/pianist Jay Ferguson reveals all kinds of influences when he told me, "If Sly and the Family Stone and Little Feat had a love child, it would have been Jo Jo Gunne!" Here In the Studio Jay tells the innocent tale of "Run Run Run","Shake That Fat","Babylon"," 99 Days","Barstow Blue Eyes", and"Take It Easy".

Bryan Adams- So Far So Good/ So Happy It Hurts

"So Happy It Hurts" is the Canadian rocker's fifteenth (!) studio album, and he's not even old enough to get the Early Bird Special down at Denny's. Adams became a star way back in late 1984 with "Reckless", one of the Eighties' biggest sellers, then in 1991 absolutely crushed it with "Waking Up the Neighbours", an all-time biggest selling album in history. Bryan Adams' seventh studio album, "18 'Til I Die" , was a #1 seller in the UK and Top Five sales internationally. But when  "18 'Til I Die" came out in June 1996, US rock radio programmers decided, in spite of the music actually on the album to the contrary, to brand Bryan Adams a love song balladeer, not rock enough, not alternative enough, not cool enough. Adams finally addresses the issue with tongue firmly in cheek on the song "Kick Ass" from "So Happy It Hurts" with the help of the brilliant British pillar of Python humor, John Cleese, who has been skewering pompous pundits for half a century. Also listen to the infectious "Never Gonna Rain Again" which could be Bryan Adams' next big hit.