Ted Nugent Exclusive All Access Interview Motor City Madman Shutup & Jam P2

More Than 10 Questions with Ted Nugent on ShutUp & Jam Continued ….

by Mark Capuano

Ted Nugent Interview Part 1  |  Ted Nugent Interview Part 2  |  Ted Nugent Interview Part 3

Based on an exclusive interview transcribed from a phone call on July 14^th, 2014 with the Motor City Madman Guitar God Ted Nugent.  The views and opinions expressed in this article do not necessarily reflect that of the company or author.  #Shutup&Jam #TedNugent #MotorCityMadman @TedNugent Shut Up & Jam

The Review of Ted Nugent’s most recent album ShutUp & Jam after 7 years without releasing a new album.

Ted Nugent Questions Continued:

11.
Mark Capuano: Yeah Like Trample The Weak and Hurdle The Dead Right?
TED NUGENT: Yeah another love song 🙂 (LOL)
TED NUGENT:  Isn’t it beautiful? You gotta love that stuff. Like Dog Eat Dog and Stormtroopin’, come on I’ve always written songs like this. I’ve always identified with the warrior and good over evil and you don’t negotiate for good over evil, if you want peace and love, kill people that deny you that.
Mark Capuano: Well we do have freedom for one reason, we fought for it.
TED NUGENT: Yeah because guys were coming home in bags and boxes and they fought evil so that we could be safe and secure and free, come on…

12.
Mark Capuano: So kind of leading into that whole evil thing, in the song Never Stop Believing you were saying something changed. I don’t know is that kind of going in this type of vain was there some sort of change in your life when you wrote that song or something you experienced that changed your life?

TED NUGENT: Well like most of my songs, you know you can take the lyrics to I Love My BBQ and I suppose you can take them literally, but it’s also just funny J I also have fun with stuff like that, same with Trample The Weak and Hurdle The Dead you know I won’t trample anyone who’s weak and I won’t hurdle dead people.

But, you know on 9-11-2001 you know what those brave men running up those stairs yelling the words that I use often. If people were in the way just yelling what do I do? Some people are just inept. Some people just become paralyzed by fear. Well warriors don’t become paralyzed by fear, so sometimes to get up into those stairs, into that fiery inferno you have to trample the weak to get to the other innocent people to save them and you also have to hurdle the dead. Now that’s discomforting and it’s not what everybody’s capable of doing but in order to save innocent lives sometimes you have to trample the weak and hurdle the dead. Because if someone is paralyzed in fear and is getting in the way of saving other people’s lives sometimes you might have to kick them down the stairs in order to save them and might also have to jump over some dead bodies in order to save other people.

But it is also about my career, it’s also about trampling those that are dedicated to getting high and destroying their lives and by being in my band destroying my life and my music I had to trample those weak MFs and I had to hurdle those dead guys that already died from drugs and alcohol to get to my mountain top.

Mark Capuano: That’s Awesome!

TED NUGENT:  Yeah, sometimes too much tolerance can kill you. If you are tolerant of people poisoning themselves to death they will drag you down. They will ruin your life by being intentional obstacles to your dreams. So sometimes you can try and help them by saying please stop doing that, get the needle out of your arm, quit with the Meth, quit with the Dope, but at some point you have to trample those sons of bitches to move forward. You tried to help them but they are self destructive and they will take you down with them. Because they do not have a heart and soul, they do not have a conscience, and you have to move forward. So after you have tried to help them all you can we come to the realization that only an idiot can help themselves and if you keep trying your life is over too.

Mark Capuano: …. Right, yeah they’ll drag you down.

TED NUGENT: That’s a burden I have to carry in life, I am always right.

Mark Capuano: (LOL) Well it’s tough I’ll tell you, but somebody’s got to say it enough and say the hard stuff sometimes and a lot of people are just not willing to do it.

TED NUGENT: Well I’m 66 years old this year Mark and I have had a pronominal life because I did try to help my friends on drugs and alcohol, I did try to get my friends to lose weight and to stop with the smoking and the insane suicidal diets. I help them year after year, encounter after encounter, and I beg and I pray, and I hold them and I cry with them, but you know as well as I know that the lessons in life are indisputable.   Only and abuser can make the decision to stop abusing. So you want to maintain your friendship if you can and never give up helping them but you do have to move forward. You have to maximize your quality of life. If I didn’t love me completely, if I didn’t have the self esteem, through trial and error and learning from my mistakes, I wouldn’t be as good of a father or husband, or neighbor, or brother or uncle, I wouldn’t be good enough to help those that I love. So by loving me and maximizing my health and my capabilities, and my decision making capabilities I wouldn’t be a good asset to my family, and my band, and my crew and my team and my fellow Americans and the good Mother Earth.

So a conscientious cause and effect learner, when we learn from our cause and effect we increase our positives, we chip away and hopefully eliminate our negatives, so we can be beneficial to everyone else. It’s not about being good for me, it’s about being the best that I can be so I can be a good husband, father, and neighbor.

Mark Capuano: Well sure, if you get wrapped up in helping just one person you can get distracted from helping ten or twenty other people that might really need and appreciate your help.

TED NUGENT: Yes, exactly! People that will learn and not kill themselves. I mean I told Bon Scott he was going to die, I told Keith Moon he was going to die, I told Jimmy Hendrix he’s going to die. I looked him right in the eye, I said, “what are you doing? You’ve got to be kidding me.” So enough’s enough.

Mark Capuano: Yep, Absolutely.

TED NUGENT: Heart Breaking?

Mark Capuano: Yeah, it is, it is. I’m 45 and I haven’t seen a lot of my friends go yet, but I have seen a handful here and there and it is painful as well.

TED NUGENT: And even if you don’t know them, when you are blessed with the music of these great creative geniuses and then they are dead when they are 28 and they just keep dropping. John Belushi and all these phenomenal comedians, I mean come on give me a break drugs and alcohol its suicide you numb nuts.

13.
Mark Capuano: When you are writing a solo do you generally plan it out or just rock as you go along?

TED NUGENT: You know Mark, I don’t plan nothin’, I really don’t. It’s so spontaneous I wish all rock lovers and rock journalist could witness a Ted Nugent recording session. It is so primal, it’s like idiot kids in the garage with their first loud amplifiers, its intoxicating, it is irreverent, it is uninhibited to the enth degree. It is just ridiculous but because we are all great players, we are all dedicated musicians, dedicated again to that black soulful motivator it’s all spontaneous. I’ll never forget the Wango Tango session it was in the Criteria Studios in Miami when that’s when I told Bon Scott he was going to die. AC/DC was doing Highway to Hell and that whole middle ramp in Wango Tango was a planned dual harmony guitar solo and I didn’t write it out, just like all the harmony stuff I have ever done or all the solo stuff I have ever done. Stranglehold was probably the epitome example but I knew where it was going to go just musically and instinctually but because I had such a great night of adventures in Miami Beach the night before I was so inebriated on the flesh aspect of life that I just went into that insane rant on Wango Tango which you know holds the test of time. It’s everybody’s favorite insanity rant, but know when I go into record a solo on Semper Fi, or on Never Stop Believing, I just instinctually know where it should go and what kind of tone I have. Nothing’s really mapped out.

Mark Capuano: That’s great; I mean that’s great you just go with the feel of the moment I presume.

TED NUGENT: Absolutely and I got to tell you it is intoxicating. When you get done with a session your drained like you just did an Iron Man decathlon. Because the music draws the energy to a peak. As you can tell, every one of my songs is a crescendo.   I mean there is very little plateaus in my music. It’s all hyper fun intensity. That’s that motor city high energy stuff I was raised with you know the Amboy Dukes competing with the MC5 and Scott Richardson Case, Grand Funk Railroad, Brownsville Station, and Bob Seger. That same thing that Kid Rock has was invented by Mitch Ryder & the Detroit Wheels. That energy comes right out of the school of James Brown and Wilson Pickett workin’ up a sweat in the first song. It’s so much fun it is inebriating.

14.
Mark Capuano: I never got to see you when I was younger and I wanted to so hopefully this time I will get to catch up and final see you for the first time in my life.

TED NUGENT: Yeah you’ll love it the band is so good. Mick, Greg, and Derek put everything they’ve got into every song, every night. It’s really an orgy plus if the 25 year old Ted Nugent showed up I could kick his ass. (LOL) So this would be a great year to witness it.

15.
Mark Capuano:  That’s Awesome! So now I don’t know if we ever got on to this question but I was saying earlier. It’s been 7 years I guess since you last put out an album. Do you plan on starting to put out more albums more often or will it just be however it works out?

TED NUGENT: I think it was just shit luck that I was able to do this record because I was immobilized by the double knee replacement surgery. But I’ve got so many songs, so many killer songs that didn’t make it on this record and other licks that happen every night when I am tuning up before I go on stage. So I’ve got dozens of just killer grinds which of course all my songs come from a grinding, kind of grunting, grooving, guitar lick. They all come from that and that inspires a cadence, it inspires a syllable pulse, and then the music inspires lyrics. Trample the Weak, could only be Trample the Weak and Hurdle the Dead, it couldn’t be any other kinda of song and that’s what my song writing boils down to. It is just spontaneous grabbing the guitar every day and new songs and new lick erupt. So I’ve got so many right now, I hoping that maybe next summer, I’m probably not going to tour next summer, but I think I would like to make another record. But again, that’s all just hypothesis right now. It’s going to be based on what’s going on with my family and what else is going on.

16.
Mark Capuano: I saw the cover of this album and it just reminded me of old school days. I mean you got your Gibsons still and it is awesome! Is that the same Gibson you have had for most of your career or your whole life? Do you have 30 or 40 of those or what?

TED NUGENT: Yeah I got 19 of those unbelievable Gibson Byrdland Hollow Body Jazz Guitar pieces of American craftsmanship, masterpieces. They really are special guitars and they inspire licks, they inspire songs and just playing them makes so much noise and so much different tonalities and voices yeah I still got those.

17.
Mark Capuano: And the body too.

TED NUGENT: I’m a tall guy, I’m 6’2” and I’m still pretty good shape for an old man, but I am going to be 66 years old this year. I mean when you really stop and contemplate that, I remember my dad when he was 66 and he wasn’t like this (LOL) of course my dad was never like thisJ. Nobody’s dad was like thisJ. I’m a lucky guy, I’m really healthy except for my knees, and those have been replaced.

Mark Capuano:  So what happened there? What happened to your knees and why did you have to have them replaced?

TED NUGENT: Well you know leaping off those amplifiers like an idiot for 5,000 concerts I absolutely destroyed my knees. So I had them both replaced in February and the pain has been a serious test in my life. It is very, very difficult, but it is getting a little better right now and I spend so much time with military warriors that don’t have any legs or arms or eyeballs or skin I try not to complain even though the pain sometime brings me to my knees (figuratively speaking).

That’s one of the reasons Shutup & Jam was even possible because I was literally immobilized after February 26^th. I couldn’t do much. I couldn’t walk 20-30 steps at a time without my cane so it was a great time to shut up and jam J

And thank God all the great members of my team, the music loving maniacs of on my team were all available. It was just a very fortunate alignment of the planets that we could all get together and I was immobilized so could make the record. I love the record, the people love the record, I have made my statement in 2014 and I couldn’t be more proud.

18.
Mark Capuano: How has today’s technology effected the way you record and play? Is it a plus? Is it a minus?

TED NUGENT: Well I will go back to the great Dirty Harry’s line of “A Good Man Knows His Limitations”. (LOL)

I don’t know nothin’ about the technology. I know that analog has a much more wide range in sonic capability and delivery. But Michael Lutz, that’s why Michael Lutz co-produced it with me because he is so tuned in to the cutting edge of tomorrow’s technology that he knows what advancements or changes because some of the changes are not advancements. But those that do enhance the delivery in the final product of the real tone of my Byrdland, the real tone of Mick’s drums and John’s drums. He has an ear for that original authenticity of tone and the blend of the bass drum, guitar, and the vocals. It is very specific in what kind of mike and what kind of cable that goes from the mike to the board. What is in the board that goes on to the analog or digital technology so I leave that to the technological guys. I’m kind of limited to Guitars, Machine Guns, and Wood Chippers J I’m really good with hand tools.

I have a laptop because I write. You want to have the time of your life Mark, go to World Net Daily WND.com located here: http://www.wnd.com/. Go to Newsmax.com located here: http://www.newsmax.com/ or even go to Deer and Deer Hunting.com located here: http://www.deeranddeerhunting.com/ and even though it is about deer hunting and conservation. It gets real political and it’s really funny, I’m a funny guy. But I write incessantly, I’m very productive, I write for a dozen publications and blogs and websites. A lot of very hard core political stuff on Newsmax.com and WND.com I write a weekly feature. So I’m busy, busy, busy, and I express myself. But when it comes time to make music that same absolutely unleashing of total honesty zero inhibitions it just flows like a stream of conscientiousness because I will not be silenced no matter what my point might be. I think that unabashed, uninhibited, honesty is appreciated by an awful lot of people who see where that is lacking it is very counterproductive. So yeah I am a busy guy and I’m hoping to make a record next year, but my knees immobilized me in February with the perfect alignment of the planets to get me to sit down and make some f***n music. (LOL) 🙂

Mark Capuano:  Right, so it kept you in one place allowing you to write both for the blogs and your album.

TED NUGENT: Absolutely and I am always writing music. I have got unlimited ideas because I have been clean and sober for my entire life so everything is working pretty good. In fact I think everything is working as good as could possibly be imagined for 66 years old. But the energy is off the charts, the passion for the music is more intense today than ever, it’s so much fun and then I get to stop on the 18^th of August and I’ll hunt for 7-8 months in a row, do all kinds of charity work for kid’s charities, and military charities, it’s a full life. My wife is beyond the dream, my kids, my grandkids, we have an incredible life. Everybody is very healthy and productive and very conscientious, caring, loving, funny, and cocky and we thank God every day.

19.
Mark Capuano:  That’s awesome! Sounds like you are blessed.

TED NUGENT: I am, very much so.

Mark Capuano:  I appreciate you taking the time to talk with me.

TED NUGENT: Mark, it’s my pleasure. I love talking about the things that I love, the Good, the Bad, and The Ugly (LOL) J and it’s important that more people speak out because you are not going to maximize the good unless you are honest about the bad and the ugly and you work to destroy it, you know?

Okay, BBQ like you mean it and give my best to your wife and tell her that Tofu just might kill you 🙂

Ted Nugent Interview Part 1  |  Ted Nugent Interview Part 2  |  Ted Nugent Interview Part 3