The end of the year issue of Uncut contains Michael Bonner’s long-version interview with Frank “Poncho” Sampedro.
Bonner writes: “I thought it might be nice to share the full transcript – it’s over 6,000 words long, and covers a lot of ground. We started off talking about the current state of Billy Talbot’s health, the Crazy Horse bassist who’d suffered a minor stroke earlier in the year. For the record, our interview took place on November 3, 2014; a few days before the death of bassist Rick Rosas, who’d deputised for Talbot during the band’s 2014 tour dates.”
Poncho’s favorite memory of Neil from this year?
“That’s hard to think of right at this moment. I could tell you a couple from the year before if I had time to think about it. When we played the Bridge School the last time, we were doing the encore where everybody comes out and sings, we were playing “Rockin’ In The Free World” all acoustic. For some reason, Neil took off his guitar and gave it to Lukas Nelson. He was having a great time playing it. And Neil was trying to give us hand signals of where to go and I was just laughing, “What the hell is going on?” But anyway, months and months after that, we were on the road, we were just getting ready and I said to Neil, “I have a question, it’s really been bothering me, I want to ask you.” He said, “Go ahead.” I said, “Why did you give Lukas your guitar? Did he ask for it, or something?” Neil said, “No, we were just up there playing and singing and he was playing air guitar and I kept looking at him, I thought, ‘Wow, he needs a guitar.’ So I just gave him mine.” I think that’s really cool. It was just like this thing that happened. That was a great moment with Neil. On this last tour, when he started giving away the t-shirts, ‘Protect The Earth’ and everything, he was just so overly sincere about the whole thing. It did bring a good feeling to me. And at the same time, it stresses me out because I just don’t know how to reach everybody and hw to make a change in this world. It’s really frustrating.”
Billy Talbot, bass player for Neil Young & Crazy Horse, talks to Radio.com about his solo album, song writing, spirituality and the future of Crazy Horse. Also about PONO, Pearl Jam is a garage band, Nirvana.
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A snippet from the interview (~5 min 40)
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:: Billy Talbot’s website: BILLY TALBOT BAND. Including his latest solo album “On The Road To Spearfish”, audio & video.
Now that cancellations of the Neil Young with Crazy Horse Tour has hit the USA, fans are abuzz with ticket refund angst as to whether they will get back the money they invested in concerts that were scheduled.
Frank “Poncho” Sampedro’s hurt hand earlier scrubbed dates in Sweden and Belgium, though at that time band members hoped a series of planned North American concerts would still be held. Doctors have since apparently recommended additional healing time.
Canceled tour dates include: The August 31, 2013 Greenbelt Harvest Picnic at Christie Lake Conservation Area in Ontario; Sept. 2 with Patti Smith at The Capitol Theatre in Port Chester, NY (promised to be the smallest place that Neil & the Horse would have played in recent memory); Sept. 4 Ottawa Folk Festival, Ottawa, Ontario, Canada; and Sept. 7 Interlocken Muisc Festival at Oakridge Farm in Arlington, Virginia.
According to Something Else! Reviews bassist Crazy Horse Billy Talbot has reached out to disappointed fans.
“I want to be sure each of you know that all four of us in the Horse are extremely disappointed in this turn of events,” Talbot says. “We’ve never had to cancel a show before.”
Talbot says Crazy Horse has developed an all-for-one attitude that makes it impossible to go on without someone like Sampedro.
“After being together for 40 years, we know there’s no way we can play without Poncho, or any one of us,” Talbot adds. “The four of us have to be there for it to be NYCH. If there’s any way that we could have played these shows, we would be there. This is an extremely hard twist of fate for us to accept. One of the reasons that we love what we’re doing and it rocks so much, is the fact that we respect that it comes from the four of us. A unified passion.”
Q&A: Crazy Horse Bassist Billy Talbot on Neil Young, New Solo Album
‘There’s a certain tactic to being in a rock & roll band’
By Andy Greene, July 23, 2013 12:25 PM ET
Talbot has spent the last year touring the world with Young and Crazy Horse, but he took some time off to chat with us about his long history with Neil Young, recording some of their most beloved works and his new solo LP On the Road to Spearfish.
Where are you calling from?
I’m in South Dakota. The prairie is all around me. Everywhere I look, it’s grass.
Sounds nice. Do you think you’re one of the few rock stars that live in South Dakota?
[Laughs] I don’t think of myself as a rock star, but I guess you could say that. I don’t know of any others that are hanging out around this way.
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Let’s move on to “Cortez the Killer.“
I just recently listened to the recording for the first time in 20 years. I thought it was a really good recording. It’s one of our best and our most beloved songs to record. The moment that we start to play that song is always a great moment in the show. Lately, it’s been a little mystery to us, which is puzzling. It’s never been that before. After eight years of not playing it, the song is like, “You didn’t play me for eight years, and now you want me to be right there for you?” When we call it up, cosmically, it’s just not happening.
[note: “Cortez The Killer” has been played lately in at Locarno and also at some other shows during the European Alchemy Tour 2013][For setlists, always consult Sugar Mountain]
Decades later, Neil Young & Crazy Horse still play ear-melting shows.
They will resume their World Tour and ferocious sounds on July 11 in Cologne.
An article by “Someting Else! Reviews” quotes Billy Talbot as saying: ““I don’t use a hearing aid yet,” Talbot tells KJR in Seattle, laughing. “We’re trying to cosmically join together, kind of like planets in space that have to touch each other, gravity wise, in order for it to work.”
You might think, considering the scorching volume of their shows and the way they huddle together so closely in the middle of the stage, that Neil Young and Crazy Horse are all but deaf. Bassist Billy Talbot clarifies things.
“I don’t use a hearing aid yet,” Talbot tells KJR in Seattle, laughing. “We’re trying to cosmically join together, kind of like planets in space that have to touch each other, gravity wise, in order for it to work.”
Crazy Horse, since its founding by Talbot, Young, Ralph Molina and Danny Whitten in the late 1960s, has reconnected sporadically over the years. 2012, however, was a signature moment — with Frank “Poncho” Sampedro and Co. issuing not one but two well-received studio efforts.
“The songs just happened. First thing in the morning, I\'d pick up a guitar, play two or three chords and go, \"That\'s the blueprint. That\'s what my soul told me, so that\'s what it is.\"
Then I\'d go to the studio. I would write the words, without guitar, in my car. I\'d keep stopping on the way -- write two verses, go a hundred yards, stop, write some more. I kept moving, and writing, until I got to the studio.
Whatever I had then, that was the song. \"Devil\'s Sidewalk\" -- the recording is the first time I sang it, the first time the band had ever heard it.” by Neil Young, Rolling Stone Interview, 4 Sept 2003.
Neil Young on Tour
Sugar Mountain setlists
Tom Hambleton provides BNB with setlists, thankfully. His website is the most comprehensive searchable archives on the Internets about anything Neil Young related setlists. Goto Sugar Mountain.
The end of the year issue of Uncut contains Michael Bonner’s long-version interview with Frank “Poncho” Sampedro.
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