Starting At Zero (25 page)
Authors: Jimi Hendrix
My road manager tries to keep the dressing room free from people, and if people come in I find a corner somewhere else. So right now I just feel kind of nervous, but I think it will be all
right, because now we’re going to go on and do our little gig. Mitch will be playing drums and Billy will be playing bass and I’ll be playing GUITAR!
You know,
instead of up there screaming
.
Most of the time we play a whole vacuum, I mean a wall of sound, a wall of feeling. That’s what we try to get across, you know what I mean? Shhheeeooo! We haven’t been to sleep for
two days. I’m tired, and I don’t have much time.
The Isle of Wight might be the last or second to the last before I form my new big band. If the kids really enjoy it, then I might carry on a little longer. But I will only carry on that way if
I am useful. You have got to have a purpose in life. But I’m not here to talk, I’m here to play. I want to show them all over again what it’s all about.
I’m happy. It’s going to be good.
“Yeah! Thank you very much for showin’, man.
You’re all very beautiful and outasight.
And thanks for waiting. It has been a long time, hasn’t it ...
Oh yes, somebody wants the people in the front row to sit down.
I think it’s probably from the hills.
Don’t forget you can’t fly off the top of those hills.
Don’t forget that.”
Is the Isle of Wight the last of the big festivals?
I don’t know why they’re always trying to kill the festivals. The Isle of Wight was great. It’s a fantastic place to have a show because it brings the
kids together from not only the British Isles but also the whole of the Continent.
There were problems with some of the crowd.
You’re going to get that with five hundred thousand people. That’s way larger than the average city, and every city in the world always has a gang, the
so-called outcasts. So you’re going to have gate-crashers, you’re going to have the other side of everything.
People were demanding that the music be free.
Well, they learned that from the papers. They didn’t do all that kind of mess with Monterey. Sometimes I feel we should do a free concert. I see the prices that
the kids pay to see us, and it’s just ridiculous.
What is the reason for the new, subdued Jimi Hendrix?
I felt maybe too many people were coming to see me and not enough to listen to me. My nature changed as well. I just hid for a bit, and now I’m emerging as me. I
suppose I’m growing up a bit. I feel as though I get little sparks of maturity every now and then.
Do you ever see yourself settling down?
I couldn’t even think of a place where I’d like to live for the rest of my life, but I’d like to settle someplace eventually. Sometimes I am all alone
and I say, “What are you doing here dressed up in satin shirts and pants?” I’ve got this feeling to have a proper home. I like the idea of getting married, just someone
who I could love, though one can never tell if the time is right. With music there’s no time for anything else. I’m already married to my music.
So marriage is not an option?
Marriage is a bit risky now. I’d really hate to get hurt. That would completely blow my mind. But I must admit I’d like to meet a quiet little girl now,
probably one from the country, someone who doesn’t know anything about me and my reputation. One day I want to become a parent. Now that is what the world is all about. Having kids.
Like planting flowers.
How do you relax?
I daydream, maybe paint landscapes, read a little. I’ve always loved painting. In fact it was my first love when I was a child. I used to paint a picture of, say,
a really pretty mountain, then write about four lines of poetry about it. I don’t hardly get a chance to paint now.
What plans do you have now?
I’d like to see as many places as I can and play in as many atmospheres as I can. Your home isn’t America, it’s the Earth. I am planning a major world
tour, either before or just after Christmas. I want to go to Japan and Australia. We also want to come back to England and do one big concert at each of the major cities. Jimi Hendrix at
the Oval! I’d like to do Stonehenge, for the vibes. In fact, I want the group to work all over the place. I want to turn the world on. Music and sound waves are cosmic when
they’re flying from one side to another.
Any personal ambitions?
I’d like to have my own country, an oasis for the gypsy- minded people. My goal is to erase all boundaries from the world. I’d like to take part in changing
reality. You have to set some heavy goals to keep yourself going. As long as I know there are people out there who aren’t fully together, I can’t withdraw to lesser goals.
Do you have enough money to live comfortably?
Ah, I don’t think so. Because I want to wake up in the morning and just roll out of my bed into an indoor swimming pool and then swim to the breakfast table, come
up for air and maybe get a drink of orange juice, and then swim into the bathroom and, you know ... have a shave.
You want to live luxuriously?
Is that luxurious? No! I was thinking about a tent, maybe, overhanging a mountain stream.
{THE CRY OF LOVE BAND PLAYED SIX MORE CONCERTS IN EUROPE, DURING WHICH BILLY COX BECAME SERIOUSLY ILL WHEN LSD WAS SLIPPED INTO SOMETHING HE WAS DRINKING. THE LAST SHOW WAS ON
SEPTEMBER 6, 1970, AT THE VIOLENCE-BESOTTED ISLE OF FEHMARN LOVE AND PEACE FESTIVAL IN GERMANY.}
Billy Cox has split, so I don’t know what to do next. I don’t know what my music will be like. It’s really hard to know what people want around here sometimes. I’m going
to just go on and do what I feel, but I can’t feel anything right now because there’s a few things that’s just happened. So I just have to lay back and think about it all.
It’s got to be quiet for a while.
I’m so tired of everything. I lose myself, I can’t play anymore. I’ve been working very hard for three years. I sacrifice part of my soul every time I play. Certain things
recharge me in an instant. I might get worn out in an instant too. It all depends.
I
T WASN’T TOO LONG AGO,
BUT IT FEELS LIKE YEARS AGO SINC
E
I
FELT THE WARM HELLO OF THE SUN
.
L
ATELY THINGS SEEM A LITTLE COLDER,
T
HE WIND, IT SEEMS TO GET A LITTLE BOLDER,
T
HE EAGLE FLYING,
N
OW IT’S ON THE RUN – BUT THEN AGAIN
I
T’S ALL IN MY MIND.
Direction is the hardest thing for me to find now. I can’t even try and think how this life has affected me. Somehow I must have changed, but I can’t know how.
That’s the problem. I’ve turned full circle. I’m right back where I started. I’ve given this era of music everything, but I still sound the same and I can’t think of
anything new to add to it in its present state. Sometimes I can’t stand to hear myself because it sounds like everyone else, and I don’t want to be in that rat race.
The trouble is that people won’t let me change. I tried a couple of years back, but it didn’t work then either. You’re still supposed to entertain, no matter what’s
happening to you as a musician. I wrote
Foxy Lady
so long ago by now she’s going to have three kids. We’ll dedicate it to her children, because she’s worn out with it.
PURPLE HAZE – BEYOND INSANE.
IS IT PLEASURE OR IS IT PAIN?
DOWN ON THE CEILING
LOOKING UP AT THE BED,
SEE MY BODY PAINTED
BLUE AND RED.
I still can’t figure out what directions my writing is going at the moment, but it’ll find a way. All I write is what I feel, that’s all. And I don’t really round it off
too good. It’s almost naked. The words are so bland that nobody can get into them, and when we play – flip around and flash around – people just see what their eyes see, and
forget about their ears.
I’m trying to do too many things at the same time, which is my nature. I just hate to be in one corner. I hate to be put as only a guitar player or only a songwriter or only a tap dancer!
I like to move around. I’ve got to try something else. I’d like to get something together, like with Handel and Bach and Muddy Waters and flamenco – that type of thing. If I could
get that sound, if I could get that sound, I’d be happy.
I think I’m a better guitarist than I was, but I never have been really good. Every year, like my writing, it slips further and further away. The music I might hear I can’t get on
the guitar. It’s a thing of just laying around daydreaming or something. You’re hearing all this music, and you just can’t get it on the guitar.
As a matter of fact, if you pick up your guitar and try to play, it spoils the whole thing. I think of tunes, I think of riffs. I can hum them. Then there’s another melody comes into my
head and then a bass melody and then another one. On guitar, I just can’t get them out. I can’t play guitar well enough to get all this music together.
I want to be a good writer, and I’d like to be a good guitar player. I’ve learned a lot, but I’ve got to learn more about music because there’s a lot in this hair of mine
that’s got to get out. There’s so many songs I wrote that we haven’t done yet, that we’ll probably never do.
I
WON’T BE DOING MANY LIVE GIGS because I’m going to develop the sound and then put a film out with it. In five years, I
want to write some plays and some books. I want to write mythology stories set to music, based on a planetary thing and my imagination. It wouldn’t be like classical music, but
I’d use strings and harps, with extreme and opposite musical textures, even greater contrasts than Holst’s
Planets
.
Then I would like to write a story for the stage and compose the music for it. Take Greek mythology, for example, or your old stories about the Vikings and Asgard. I’d like to
present that on stage with lights and lots of sound. Or perhaps a space war between Neptune and Uranus.
M
Y INITIAL SUCCESS was a step in the right direction, but it was only a step. Now I plan to get into many other things. I’d like to take a
six-month break and go to a school of music. I want to learn to read music, be a model student and study and think. I’m tired of trying to write stuff down and finding I can’t. I want a
big band. I don’t mean three harps and fourteen violins, I mean a big band full of competent musicians that I can conduct and write for.
I want to be part of a big new musical expansion. That’s why I have to find a new outlet for my music. We are going to stand still for a while and gather everything we’ve learned
musically in the last 30 years, and we are going to blend all the ideas that worked into a new form of classical music. It’s going to be something that will open up a new sense in
people’s minds.
I dig Strauss and Wagner, those cats are good, and I think that they are going to form the background of my music. Floating in the sky above it will be the blues – I’ve still got
plenty of blues – and then there will be
western sky music
and
sweet opium music
(you’ll have to bring your own opium!), and these will be mixed together to form one. And
with this music we will paint pictures of earth and space, so that the listener can be taken somewhere. You have to give people something to dream on.
WHERE IS HE COMING FROM?
F
ROM HEAVEN WHERE A MILLION WORLDS ARE ONE
WHERE IS HE GOING TO? H
E’S GOING TO MAKE
CONTACT WITH THE LIVING AND THE DEAD.
I
T SEEMS TO ME LIKE MUSIC GOES IN A BIG CYCLE. The circle is completed and I’m starting back already. My goal is to be one with the music. I
just dedicate my whole life to this art. You have to forget about what other people say, when you’re supposed to die, or when you’re supposed to be living. You have to forget about all
these things. You have to go on and be crazy.
Craziness is like heaven. Once you reach that point where you don’t give a damn what everybody else is saying, you’re going towards heaven. The more you get into it, they’re
going to say, “Damn, that cat’s really flipped out. Oh, he’s gone now.” That’s what they call craziness. But if you’re producing and creating, you’re
getting closer to your own heaven.
When the last American tour finished I just wanted to go away and forget everything. I just wanted to record and see if I could write something. Then I started thinking. Thinking about the
future. Thinking that this era of music sparked off by the Beatles has come to an end. Something new has got to come, and Jimi Hendrix will be there.
