When I asked to interview Kim Fowley, I knew it would be extremely interesting. The facts speak for themselves. I mean, the guy has been in the industry since 1959 and the list of people he has worked with is endless. What I was unprepared for, was the absolute volume of stories that come pouring out. This guy has done and seen it all. Mention a name and you'll get a story --- a good one.

I was advised prior to the interview not to mention The Runaways as it was a well worn topic and that he had better anecdotes to share. And he wasn't kidding. It was a disappointment not to talk about the famous female band considering I had feverishly scooped up the debut record the day it was released after waiting for months. Imaging being a 15 year-old boy and seeing Cherie Curie and Lita Ford on a cover� And Fowley was responsible for it all. But I digress.

The 45-minute interview I had planned, stretched out to more than 90 and Kim was still going strong at the end, only curtailed by schedule limitations. In fact, this interview was conducted a few weeks prior to Christmas but it's taken me this long to transcribe it all. I thought I knew a lot about Kim but in doing research for the interview, I found out even more that I didn't. The guy is an absolute dynamo in terms of energy (despite having more than a few health problems that you'll read about) and his list of accomplishments is impressive.

Due to the length, we've broken the interview into two parts so look for part 2 to be posted shortly. In the meantime, enjoy this conversation with one of the most interesting ---- one could write it interesting --- characters in rock & roll, Kim Fowley.

antiMusic: You are such an inspiration for anybody in any walk of life to just get up and do something. You're just always working. Are you driven to work? Are you hyperactive? Is it a fear of financial instability or do you simply love what you do?

Kim: I'm bored by everything. That's why I create my own universe to amuse myself.

antiMusic: You wear a lot of hats such as songwriter, performer, producer, arranger, author, movie maker, facilitator, manager. How do you best relate to yourself? Is it all just part of one artistic movement or does it all branch out from one main starting point in your mind?

Kim: I have 28 separate personas with 28 separate skills. And then variations within those categories of those skills. I operate as a reflex to whatever happens. So if somebody wants to fight me, well, my girlfriend fights for me�she's in roller derby and kicks their ass. Or if she can't handle it, I'm army airforce trained and I just stop them from living. And let the 21 year-old girlfriend beat up some idiot in a club. But if it's a ninja assassin I'll have to finish him off.

But I don't get mad when I fight. And I don't get nervous when I perform. And I don't have anticipation on an anxiety level when I do meetings. Everything is as a response or counter-attack to something that's tossed my way. I'm 73 years-old so I have had the experience of being able to do all of these jobs so I can more or less take care of whatever the challenges are. And then most people aren't skilled in multiple jobs so they don't even get it.

I lived in New Orleans and I worked with some new songwriters and then they had their musician friends over. They said "What are we going to do?" I said, "Turn on a machine and make noise with your guitar and I'll make noise with my voice. We'll write an album's worth of songs and when it's over you can say something." So then 13 songs an hour later, they said, "You're a male witch". I said, "OK, that's a good response. Thank you." And then I left.

But that's what a professional songwriter does with a room full of musicians. "OK, play this." Dah dah dah dah, "OK, turn on the machine. I have a lyric that I brought with me or I can make up something. And you just do the song and get on to the next song." And I didn't suffer for three weeks or three months or three years to get the right motivation. I just cranked out some stuff....within their ability to play or not play. And it was just too much for them. And these were adult men who had been on a record label and everything. They were people who had been to New York and back. They had some international experience. And they couldn't handle it.

I was at university when I was 14 years-old with my own mathematical alphabet. By the time I was 19, I had been at 14 grade schools, 3 universities, 4 high schools. And I had been an actor at that time, too, for 11 years on camera. I was ahead of everybody. I had a girlfriend who was 27 when I was 11 years-old. I mean, I've had a very strange life.

antiMusic: You've had many health crises and yet describe yourself as "hard to kill" and "slow to die"�.

Kim: I'm a bladder cancer survivor. I go every six months for the next 2� years. It's the fastest growing male cancer so in between the treatments, it can come back. I'm a skin cancer survivor. Basal cell and prostate cancer. Positional vertigo. Bit by a West Nile spider. Then I had polio twice and pneumonia 9 times. Plus I've been shot. I've been knifed. I've been bricked and I've been bottled. And I've been in the Air Force of America so�

antiMusic: To what do you owe your ability to triumph over less than favorable odds? Are you a secret health freak with a magic tonic? Is it good genetics or are you just plain lucky?

Kim: Common sense within insanity. Good genetics and luck. My dad was 87 or abouts when he died and my mother was 82. So I guess I have between 9 and 14 years to go. Unless somebody's dad murders me for making love to their daughter.

antiMusic: After school you joined the military. What is your greatest memory of that experience?

Kim: The food and the clothes. They were free.

antiMusic: Sometime after your release from the army, you started working as a West Coast rep for Motown. How did you meet Berry Gordy and how did you convince him Detroit needed a West coast presence?

Kim: Ah, because it was time. I never knew him though. It was all over the phone and through the mail.

antiMusic: What were your actual duties?

Kim: Promotion and publicity of all Tamla-Motown in the western states.

antiMusic: What were some of your most satisfying accomplishments from your time with Motown? And was it hard convincing LA people that you actually worked for Berry Gordy?

Kim: They never heard of him. That was before "Shop Around" and he only had "Bad Boy" by The Miracles which was a regional hit on Chess and he had the Jackie Wilson stuff but people weren't following those records. I did. I knew who he was but other people didn't know. I was just another 20 year-old guy showing up with a record. And I had "Alley Oop" at the time. I didn't tour with the band because I was in the Airforce National Guard by then so I was a guy with a number one record as a co-producer, co-publisher, and group member not touring with the band. And then I produced records for other people too. I was a for-hire mercenary doing all this stuff.

antiMusic: At that time, you also worked for Alan Freed.

Kim: That was in '59, the year before.

antiMusic: What was your role and what was it like to work for the guy who coined the term rock and roll?

Kim: I was his food runner and his assistant. He used to go in the studio a lot. He had songwriting and producing and arranging skills and I went in and studied. You listened when Alan talked. If you were there, you learned. He was a mentor kind of guy. So I just learned a lot�the things you would expect to learn. Like etiquette in the studio and why certain songs were played and what sequence they were in and what to say and what not to say to the listeners. How to deal with managers and record company idiots who were trying to get you to play their stuff, when you didn't want to play it.

Because they make bring in six records and one is good. "Love that and the other five suck. Don't argue. You want me to play the last record? Then you and the other five records leave and drive home in your car and tune in at 4:30 and you can hear it yourself and tomorrow I'll sell 40,000 records for you guys." "OK, thank you Alan." "You're welcome." So you know, he didn't take every record they wanted him to play. He played what he liked. What he thought his audience needed to hear.

But I'm on the radio now --- eight years on Sirius-XM 21, Saturdays, 9 AM to 1 PM, PST and then a repeat show midnight to three in the morning and I just do the Alan Freed formula. Only I do Casey Kasem stories. I dedicate my radio shows to my listeners. It's not an ego trip for me. The music is the music that can get them though their lives --- that they need to hear�from my point of view anyway.

antiMusic: About the same time as you started work with Motown, you began your long career in writing, producing and performing. Were you a musical kid? Did you gravitate towards an instrument or music in school?

Kim: No, I was a genius kid. I learned to talk at 10 months. I could read and write at a year and a half. I had a step-grandfather who was one of the cofounders of ASCAP, with George Gershwin and Irving Berlin, etc and he co-wrote "Indian Love Call" and "Rose-Marie" by Nelson Eddy and Jeanette MacDonald who were the Fred Astaire and Ginger Rogers of light opera and they were big musicals for MGM. So my mother married his son as her second husband and I met him and he thought I was more talented than his own son who was only an arranger. He wasn't a songwriter. So I learned a lot from him about how the business worked and songwriting�attitude and philosophy. I was 13-14 years-old.

So my father, Douglas Fowley, he was the director in "Singing in the Rain" with Gene Kelly. He made over 300 movies. And my mother was in Humphrey Bogart and Lauren Bacall's movie "The Big Sleep". So I had the amazing step-grandfather and the adequate arranger step-father and the OK actor father and the sub-par but beautiful step-mother and real mother. And growing up, I had been from Malibu to Beverly Hills and got all the folklore that goes with the territory. So by the time I hit the rock & roll gutter at 19 in 1959, I was well-schooled. But I notice you're sticking to questions from 1939 to 1960 so far and that was 52 years ago. There's a book I put out called "Lord of Garbage" and it covers all the sh*t that you're asking about from 1939 to 1969 and the second volume comes out next spring. Finally there will be a third volume. (link)

antiMusic: What was the first song that you remember writing? What was the response when you showed it to people?

Kim: The first song I ever wrote, I got published. It got me a job. It was "Baby Don't Leave Me.". Bruce Johnston, later to write, "I Write the Songs" by Barry Manilow, wrote it with me and he wrote "Disney Girls" for The Beach Boys and he later became a Beach Boy. Later on, I got him a record deal under the name Bruce and Terry when he was doing a Jan and Dean derivative recording in 1959. I got him signed to Doris Day and Marty Melcher's record company and Terry Melcher was the son and step-son of Marty and Doris and he later went on to produce The Byrds and Paul Revere and the Raiders and so forth. And he was the producer but also was in The Rip Chords with Bruce.

So I didn't waste any time in, "Oh, here's a song. Now I'll go work for a company." I didn't just get it published like any dumb kid would do. I used it as a way to say "I'll get myself to work here and then I'll get my song published and then I'll get my high school friend's (Johnston) record released." So that's what I do.

antiMusic: Did you envision yourself as somebody that would go on to become a successful performer or did you have an eye on behind the scenes stuff?

Kim: I wanted to be a successful human being. Although I failed as a nice person in the traditional sense. I'm not a nice person in the way that Bill Clinton is or Walt Disney is or Santa Claus is. I do nice things but I'm a bad guy with a heart of gold so I don't come across as a nice person. But I'd rather be a bad guy who does nice things than a good guy who does awful things. And there's a lot of those people around. Like Ted Bundy who looked like a Kennedy and he was out murdering people. And he seemed normal and pleasant and that's how he got to kill people. Because he had the digestible look. I'm very creepy. I look like Frankenstein meets John Carradine, the character actor. I played Frankenstein on ABC-TV in '84 on the local Halloween special. I'm disturbing. I'm 6'4 3/4" and I wear black clothes and that type of thing. (pauses) You've seen me. You didn't invite me to your home for Christmas for a reason. I'm disturbing. Although I'd probably entertain everyone with stories. They might throw up the turkey though. .

antiMusic: How do you write songs? Does the melody come first or is everything springboarded from a lyrical inspiration? Has this process changed over the years?

Kim: It depends on the scenario. If it's a band or another co-writer, they say "Well we had an idea for a song about porcupines and we need to write a song right now." I say, "Good, what style? Oh, OK. Turn on the machine." And then the guy who is in the band would probably sing it so you have to memorize his accent and then you give him English lyrics if he sings in English. You have to do it so that when he opens his mouth it sounds like he wrote the words. You figure out his vocal range to see if he can even make the note and what the key is. And see how he or she breathes. And if they play an instrument, then see how they play their instrument. And then within their limitations of what they do well, then you fill it in with what you do well which is why you're there.

Or if it's by yourself, I can bang on a guitar or keyboard or a bass or set of drums and I can show a really good musician, "Play this." And I bang on it like some sort of primitive moron and everybody laughs. And I say, "Go on, laugh all you want. But I played the right part." And then the really good musician plays the part back and they go "Ohhhhhhhh." And then I turn on the machine and grab the lyric or if there's no lyric, then make it up, then comes the vocal melody and you work up the lyrics and somebody's banging away and suddenly it turns into money.

antiMusic: In 1962, you took Tchaikovsky's "March of the Wooden Soldiers" (from the Nutcracker) and presented it to HB Barnum. What did you hear in this song that you thought merited a fresh coat of paint?

Kim: Popular Christmas song. That's all. I knew it would work. I presented the idea to HB Barnum and he arranged my song but his version by Jack B Nimble and the Quicks didn't do well. A later version did well and he helped me out with an even later version which did better. That's one of the things about songwriting, maybe the first time you get it recorded isn't the version that people will buy. So in the case of that song, they didn't buy it on the first version and there were four versions and only two of the four sold. One sold more than the others anyway.

Then there's other songs�.like "Popsicles and Icicles" by The Mermaids, which I produced, no one's ever covered it. But the style was used by Bob Crewe when he produced and co-wrote "Navy Blue" by Diane Renay. You can tell they heard the record because the techniques were there. There's a lot of technique borrowing. It's just like country music. After awhile you need a road map for "who's singing this?" After awhile all these guys have hats on. They all sing about the highway or something.

antiMusic: What were your impressions of the Emerson Lake and Palmer version?

Kim: I'm glad they recorded it.

antiMusic: Who was responsible for the name?

Kim: Me. I made 3,000 records and wrote 5,000 songs so these songs may be more important to you than they are to me.

antiMusic: You were apparently the first producer for the 'N Betweens which of course became Slade. How did you become involved and what were the sessions like?

Kim: I went to a club and they were playing there and were great live.

antiMusic: From the few tracks I've heard, Noddy Holder wasn't utilizing his chainsaw voice at that point?

Kim: It depends on who's listening. I did quite a few�I think it was 6-9 songs altogether. But�there were more than a few versions of the band. There was Slade and Ambrose Slade and the 'N Betweens and another one before. He always sounded like himself but the times changed, the producers changed, the musicians changed and he changed. But you can see the threads. Like the Beatles first album and their last album�it was still the same band. One's new and the other one got to learn how to do albums.

antiMusic: You also produced some tracks for the Lancasters featuring a young Ritchie Blackmore. Could you tell at that point that he was a person of great ability or was he just another guitarist getting started?

Kim: Yeah, well just listen. He was god on guitar.

antiMusic: "Satan's Holiday" has a bit of the riff of "Hall of the Mountain King" by Grieg in there. Was that due to your influence or was it�..

Kim: Of course it was my influence. I'm a musical encyclopedia.

antiMusic: He's said to be quite a forceful personality. What was he like to deal with?

Kim: Pleasant. I'm a stronger personality. But you know, if somebody knows what they're doing in the room, then there's no problem. I mean, I didn't find him to be judgmental or challenging. He was a pleasant guy. It was fun and we did it quick and see you later and have a nice life...which he did. His issues with other people later�I wasn't there. I don't know what happened or didn't happen.

antiMusic: How did you come to connect with Frank Zappa, eventually appearing on "Freak Out" his first record.

Kim: He was difficult. Not to me but I understand he was difficult to others. I recorded with him and he was pleasant and that was it.

antiMusic: I believe I read you're listed as playing a hypephone. What the heck is that?

Kim: It's when you grab your throat and you hang from a rafter. You're choking to death and you kind of sound like a chicken being strangled. So I would tie a rope or noose around my neck and almost pass out and sing like that.

antiMusic: And hopefully you didn't have to do too many takes (laughs)

Kim: One take on everything.

antiMusic: I think I read somewhere that you also were asked to sing at one of their first shows to an audience that included Mick Jagger. What do you remember about that show?

Kim: That was the live album. It was the "Freak Out" album with all the people who had appeared on it done live at the Whiskey a Go-Go. And Frank recorded the record the way it was sequenced on the vinyl and it came out pretty well. It's pretty good. It was quite a good album.

antiMusic: What do you remember about the performance itself?

Kim: I was God on stage! There's a photo online somewhere of Kim Fowley with the Mothers of Invention from the show.

antiMusic: Gene Vincent is a rock and roll pioneer. You would seem like an odd choice as a producer for somebody like him.

Kim: Why?

antiMusic: I don't know but the two names don't add up in my mind when I think about them. How did that come about?

Kim: Well, we're both cripples. I have all my leg issues and he has his leg issue�.. (thinks for a moment) You see, back then. Everybody could do all forms of music. Including Gene Vincent who could sing ballads�I mean he wasn't limited to rockabilly. He could do country. He could do pop and adult and Christian, etc. So all of us were skilled in all these different types of music. Whatever walked through the recording studio door, we could handle it. I mean we were better at surf music than we were at jazz but we could do both, for example. I don't remember how we met but all of a sudden, there he was and let's make a record and we did.

antiMusic: I think I saw a credit that said Linda Ronstadt did backup vocals? How did she come into the picture?

Kim: She was our food runner. She called up and said "I want to come down and study this guy and how he approaches singing in the studio." I said, "You're running for food then." And she said, "I will."

One day, Doors producer Paul Rothchild and one of the Doors who was not Jim Morrison, one of the other three, I've forgotten which one, walked in with the girlfriends, uninvited to the Gene Vincent recording session. Gene was about to sing "Wicked Sexy Ways" by Hank Ballard and the Midnighters and he said, "What impolite person has entered my studio?" I said, "Doors, girlfriends and producer." He said, "The guy in leather pants isn't there because he'd know better but the side men in his group wouldn't know better and the producer should know better. I have a gun right here in my boot. I'm not going to show everyone. I'm a crack shot with this weapon and if you guys and girls don't leave I will shoot you. And I don't miss. I really need you to leave my studio. They all ran out of the hall. And then he sang the best vocal on the record, that particular vocal.

antiMusic: Wow.

Kim: That record's been reissued 13 times.

antiMusic: You wrote a song called "Bubblegum" that was co-written with Mars Bonfire and had the Three Dog Night band on the track which is one of my all-time favorite bands. I understand that you are a friend of Danny Hutton's. What stories can you share about him?

Kim: I talked to Danny Hutton just last week. He was in a band I produced called the Alpines. We were trying to make Ski Rock. You know, winter sports music which was a trend which didn't catch on. And James Brown�he tried, he sang "Ski Party". That didn't sell. And the movie Ski Party. Various people tried doing Ski Music and we all were wrong. Nobody wanted to buy it in large amounts. A few. "Snow Skiing" by the Rangers, "Ski Storm" by the Snowmen. And the Alpines doing "Shoosh Boomer". I produced all three, co-wrote all three. They were on Challenge Records. We thought, and the label thought�"Oh, we're the new Beach Boys. Oh we're the new Eddie Cochrane. Oh we're the new Safaris. Oh boy we're going to make millions making this ski stuff." Nobody cared. "Ski Storm" was a regional hit in St. Louis, Missouri and that was it.

antiMusic: You were hired to produce some sessions for the American Graffiti soundtrack. How did you get this gig and did you know it was going to be a success from the get-go?

Kim: I knew he was a genius because Francis Ford Coppola had just done Godfather 2 and this was his next project. So I figured if that was his next project, George had something going. George Lucas. He was a brand new director and I was going on the taste of Francis Ford Coppola. And then I was sitting at the Troubadour one night. I was about to produce Flash Cadillac and the Continental Kids for Epic Records. And their manager, Peter Rachtman as in Riki Rachtman's father and the Rachtman daughter who did all the music supervision for the Quentin Tarantino "Pulp Fiction" movie, came up to me and said "Do you want to produce these guys for George Lucas?" "What do I get?" "Points, he's run out of cash." I said, "Sure, I know who he is and he's probably make it. I'll take a chance. Why not?" So he paid for plane tickets for me to go up to San Francisco and the boys were on their way up because they were actors and we went in there and did it and that was that. I still get royalties. That's a very honest guy. He still pays me royalties for that. And Harrison Ford and Richard Dreyfuss apparently all got a piece of the movie in later years. Not just the screen actor's guild minimum; they actually receive residuals of some sort. It's a rumor. He didn't have to do that but he did it anyway.

antiMusic: I'm a major KISS fan. Can you tell us how "King of the Night Time World" and "Do You Love Me" came to be recorded by them?

Kim: "King of the Night Time World", the first version of it, once again, the same as "Nutrocker, somebody else did it, not as well. And that someone else was The Hollywood Stars who self-destructed and that version was never released on Columbia. They're on Youtube. You can hear their demo version. And the other one was "Do You Love Me?" which was cooperative. The KISS producer, Bob Ezrin said, "I have an idea for a song. Do you have any words?" And I did and ended up lucky on that one. Both of those songs have appeared on over 35 KISS merchandise�.Unplugged, Greatest Hits, Live, Orchestral, the cartoon show, various television uses and in their live show for two or three years. So KISS has been very good for the pension.

antiMusic: About the same time, presumably because of the Bob Ezrin connection, you co-wrote "Escape" with Alice Cooper. Did you get together with Alice to write or were you in your separate corners?

Kim: No that's another Hollywood Stars original. Both songs were done by The Hollywood Stars first. They were the male Runaways before The Runaways. They were like a west coast version of the New York Dolls only on more of a Raspberries level. It sounded like Eric Carmen was writing everything. All of the rest of their stuff was pretty pop.

antiMusic: I saw a letter on one of your sites that was from Peter Grant about a session that was supposed to be set up. Did you ever have any encounters with him?

Kim: Yeah, I recorded with Jimmy Page and John Paul Jones before Led Zeppelin. The first time produced by Andrew Loog Oldham and the second time by Mickie Most. But we should skip ahead because right now you're stuck in the Hollywood Stars period which was 40 years ago. We still have 40 more years to cover. If you go to iTunes, you'll see a bunch of stuff�..I don't know. I just record all the time and I'm pretty good at this.

Oh, and I also sing under the name of Burning Bones. We think we're the new Rolling Stones and all the guys in the band are burn victims from the hospital that I went to for my first cancer operation. Some of the guys are dead now. We did a record a year and a half ago. I do dubstep too?

antiMusic: Really?

Kim: Oh yeah. (dryly) Just because I'm 73 doesn't mean that I'm dead yet. I have a 21 year-old girlfriend. I know how to go to clubs and hang out and watch people throw up bad drugs on each other at closing time.

antiMusic: (laughing) So I guess in closing�.

Kim: (cuts off) Oh you stopped in 1973. I can just jump ahead and do bullet points with you. You see the danger with me is, I've sold 102 million records, 56 Gold, 26 Platinum up to 1995 and then 30 more Gold and Platinum after that. I'm in 100 books. I write my own. I mean, there's just tons of stories and tons of trivia going on.

To make it go faster for you. After I evolved to the Hollywood Stars, it turned into Blue Cheer which turned into the Runaways which turned into Venus and the Razorblades as a writer, producer and co-publisher. Then I had my KISS moments. My Alice Cooper moments. Then Blue Oyster Cult did a song and British Lions did a song. Then Herman Brood, a Lou Reed version of Elvis from Holland did a couple of albums that charted.

Off I went to Australia and learned about video. Then I went to Europe and had a hit in Austria and Portugal with The Industrials and a few of them later went on to become Kingdom Come. I had a song on Stars on 45. Then Diesel had a number one song in Canada where you are with "Sausolito Summernight", which I was the co-publisher of.

antiMusic: I remember that record.

Kim: I had co publishing. And then the band broke up --- it was studio guys who didn't know the road too well. And then after that Steel Breeze, "You Don't Want Me Anymore" and "Dreaming is Easy" which were top 20 MTV hits and Billboard and then it was time to go to Australia and be a disc jockey in Melbourne during the Olympics in �82. By the time I got there in �84/'85 it was Tasmania. I was Captain Hollywood, Australia's Winter Wonderland in the morning, 6 to 9 and Drive Time. And then I did the weekends only show Saturday, what was it? 6 to 12.

Then I came back and worked with Poison pre-production and named them for the first album. I got a platinum record for that. And then Guns n' Roses. I assisted with some of their behaviour problems early on. They did well. And then Motley Crue --- along the way I published a song called "Stick To Your Guns". And then 10 years of traveling. By then it was �85, I lived in 39 American cities and I went to 22 overseas countries as an itinerant producer, gypsy, songwriting gypsy, performer and just partied and went well and did all that. And came back to town. God I came back. God, by then it was �85. It was time to leave again, and I spent another 14 years doing MORE travelling. A lot of people always say, "Oh, L.A.". No, no, I was, Rotterdam. I was Amsterdam. I was Helsinki. I was Dublin. I was Kilkeny. I was Auklands. I was all kinds of places.

I just didn't confine myself to L.A. but I came back, god, lets see, in America in �86. I lived in New Orleans after trying 15 American cities, out of the 39 that didn't work for me. And I did black music there. Like trigger man stuff and bass, bounce music, which your readers who are into that will understand, it's like cough syrup music before cough syrup music or platinum grill music which was a forerunner to all that. Then I also did house music in Chicago. I was a producer for a dj. I was a producer of bass music in Florida for that DJ Magic Mike and Represent Records.

So I did all that and then came back to the desert in �96, no in 2001 to 2009. For 8 years I lived in California and commuted to Europe and New York for television and Hollywood for acting work. And learned how to make movies. I wanted to learn about directing and editing. I couldn't learn it in Hollywood because I was well-known. I wanted to learn anonymously so Redmond is a Seventh Day Adventist Mormon stronghold, but there are a lot of religious people there who make movies. The Christian product, like all the big wedding videos, the people are out there. They are totally strait-laced, totally different from any of the bohemian types I knew and my career alignment. So I made some experimental movies and if you want to see them on YouTube. they are "Dollboy the Movie", "Frankestein Goes Surfing". If you looked hard enough, not on Facebook but on mine you'll find "Jukebox California". Back to YouTube you can look for "Trailer Parks on Fire", "Golden Road to Nowhere". What I don't have up is "Black Room Doom" which is my take-off on The Runaways movie.

So after sitting around Redmond and learning, it was time to move back to Hollywood. When I came back here after 14 years of not being a permanent resident --- I was an in and out resident but not one who lived here all the time --- I was always on location. So I've been doing experimental rock and roll recording, battling positional vertigo and bladder cancer surgery recall and a bunch of wild girlfriends. I had strange ones. Strange boy girl situations take place. And then this last year, with Trans Siberian Orchestra who did a song and then this year, the Tru-Blood show did a Kim Fowley song. Now I have a book out, "Lord Of Garbage" and that's on Kicks Books. Look it up, it's a good book. All the questions you're asking from 1939 to 1969 are probably in the book, first volume.

The second volume is 1970 to 1995. third volume is 1995 to my upcoming death. I'll try and coincide it for all you guys so you can jack off or smoke joints or whatever you do when someone dies or collect their music. Or whatever you do. I don't know. And then, I have a new girlfriend who's 21. A superstar it says, she's from Dallas, Texas. She'll be here a week from Tuesday. We're going to celebrate Christmas. She runs an art gallery and is a genius experimental filmmaker and performance artist and does roller derby. So I have a body guard who is a goddess. She likes older men. Her last group of men were 57 to 64, so I'm right in that ancient c*ck category. She's been with older men before so it's not "Oh my god he's old! Yup, I LIKE old. I'm an old soul." Or I'm an immature 73 year-old and she's a mature 21 year-old so it's only a 52 year age difference.

antiMusic: I've heard that you're anti drug, is that true?

Kim: Oh I don't do drugs. I don't drink either. I don't smoke cigarettes. I don't take pills. I don't have to, I'm already crazy. And that stuff it either makes you crazy or interesting or numb. And I'm not numb, I'm interesting and I'm crazy but I channel it as a day job.

antiMusic: So what's next for Kim Fowley?

Kim: Dying. That is my next long term project. And so I'm preparing for it by having a good time.

antiMusic: Let's hope you're not successful at it.

Kim: Well, I will be successful at it because as Richard Pryor said, you're dead longer than you're alive. Hee hee hee

antiMusic: I won't take any more of your time, Kim. This has been a real pleasure to speak with you.

Kim: Well let me ask you a couple of questions. Was the interview better or worse than you thought it would be?

antiMusic: I was EXACTLY as I thought it would be.

Kim: Have you had other weird people on there before?

antiMusic: (laughs) Why would you say you're weird. You're just in the music industry. (laughs)

Kim: Who was the prime minister of Canada who had the wild wife?

antiMusic: Pierre Elliot Trudeau.

Kim: Am I a version of him?

antiMusic: I'm not sure that's comparable (laughs).

Kim: Is he alive or did he die?

antiMusic: He died several years ago

Kim: But did he live for a long time?

antiMusic: Yes he did and he had a very exciting life.

Kim: Yeah. I met Timothy Leary you know. And he had the best death. He died with two 18 year old girls naked under the covers. (laughs) And he waved goodbye to everyone on closed circuit worldwide television�smoking a joint if I remember right. I think when I die, I'm going to die without telling anybody. And you'll always worry about me walking through the door to bust your ass, bust your balls. I had an interesting life. The major problem to sum it all up was that I was neither business man nor artist. I was something in the middle between the two extremes and so I didn't do all of this for money. And I didn't do it all for fun. It was some indefinable reason.

I'd think I COULD do it, so I'd do it. I wasn't --- because it wasn't specific --- I didn't concentrate on any one category like we spoke about earlier. I was all over the place doing various types of music or movies so people said, "Well, what is he? Girl bands, R&B or doo wop or novelty or heavy metal? What does this guy do?" Well, all of it! I had hits in every genre. Instead of having a parade for me, they kept saying, "Well, is this an accident?" No, not after all those hits. At least I don't think so.

I remember� here's a P.S. to the article, I remember when I had prostate cancer, and was going through irradiation, I was hired to get away from that and do the Tulsa music conference and brought printing, A&R guys and a lawyer out to Tulsa to the Oral Roberts University Hotel. I'm sitting there curetting with a suit and tie on. Half the audience is in overalls and the other half is in goth leather. It was Black Sabbath on one side and Hank Williams on the other---with the females dressed appropriately for each genre male they were with. All of a sudden the door opens and here comes Hanson, the three boys with mom and dad and the new baby, and another little girl in the family. And they walk in and I'd just read about the Bee Gees and they were the three brothers you know, and I said, "Oh family singing act has just entered the room, is that right?" The father said, "You got it."

I said, "Boys come up here. What are you going to do for us today?" "We're going to do that song by Billy Joel, "Uptown Girl". So they do "Uptown Girl" as Bboys with all the breakdancing that kids then were doing in �82 or �83. One of them is 12, one was 10 and one was 14 or something. And they had great harmony and they were very entertaining. And I said, "any comments?" Oh, nobody applauded. It was complete silence. And Liz Redwing who then worked at Interscope Records, said, "Kim, Ed Sullivan is off the air now. No more kid acts. No more dog acts. Bang your gavel so we can go have lunch. Now." So I banged the gavel and the whole room walked out on Hanson. And I turned to them and said, "You're early in the cycle. Right now Nirvana is number 1 and Pearl Jam is right there. You guys have showed up doing bubblegum for the 1990s." By the way the Spice Girls hadn't even showed up. These guys were right there. They were the first ones. There were no Backstreet Boys. There was none of that.

So I said, "Do you guys write?" And they said, "Yeah." I said, "I'm going to give you a song title. Go out in the car park or the parking lot and write it and come back in five or ten minutes." And they came back and they had written it, I wanted to make sure they could write. I said, "All I can do is make a video demo for you because there's no recording studios I know here in town that are affordable for your dad here. I'm not a record label so I can't finance it." So I sat down and had a tuna sandwich and wrote what their story board should be. Then they went and filmed it and they sent it to me. The dad was an accountant for an oil exploration company so they flew out on the oil parts plane, you know with all the things you drill for oil and they were sitting on boxes and got a free ride. Over 25 labels said no. They took themselves to Austin and we got kicked out of the Four Seasons for singing and they got turned down by the guys who produced the backless pants record. Remember those young kids who had their pants on backwards? They had a no. 1 record. Whoever they were, that label turned them down.

And I introduced them to a lawyer who then introduced them to his partner and they found a producer and they found a label. I never got thanks for it. But I was there and not one company of the 20 odd companies called me back and said, "You were right. You were early. They were early. We should have recognised it. What else do you have? What else are you working on? We would like to hear it." Never got that call. Didn't get mentioned on that album. They had a one album career in them and that was it. They came and went.

That was the downside of being Kim Fowley is that I'm early. For every story about KISS or The Runaways or somebody else having success with something I produced or I've written or co-written or co-produced, there's always "Well, it could have happened but it didn't. Why didn't it? We were early." You have to remember the whole time we are listening to the radio or watching TV and experiencing Lady Gaga now or whoever is number 1 these days�with this guy from Korea, the rapper who's getting into trouble for his lyrics, he's the big deal this weekend, okay? Well the whole time he's doing that, there's a band somewhere in Alberta who could change the world. Or there's this singer in Newfoundland or some guy in Borneo who's going to show up in a year or two and is just going to blow our minds. Those people are out there in a dirty room or a school room, they're somewhere and no one's paying attention. And they're great.

So if any of you are out there, try checking me out on Facebook so I can hear what you're doing. I listen to everything that comes in. Send me a private message and a link and I'll listen. If it's something I can contribute I'll do it. I mean right now the hottest band I've heard is The Mercy Killing from Melbourne Australia. Look them up. They're amazing. Their drummer sets his drum sticks on fire. It's two guys and two girls. They have good songs. It's like a Fleetwood Mac version of AC/DC. And they're really good. I have nothing to do with them except they're good. And they exist. And that's important, that they're out there. No management, no record label, no publisher, no nothing. But they make enough money playing live. And they figured out how to get on Facebook and YouTube.

I haven't done any better than them. Well I sold an extra 102 million records they didn't sell but I entered the industry at a different time. For those who care, was it more fun back then? Yes. Why, because it was the beginning of an art form. What's it like now? Well it could break your heart if you're not made of steel because the rejections nowadays are based on ignorance. The new business model for music and movies hasn't been introduced yet anyone speculating from Netflix to Mobile Society to all of that stuff, I'm not sure that those are all valid buzzwords to throw out.

How do we get heard or seen? The answer, I'll quote my ex-boss as we sign off. Alan Freed said, "You can't hide a hit but you can't cover up a mess and anything that's successful has a hassle attached to it." What that means for your readership on your blog is: if it's it great we'll all hear about you or see you eventually. And once you get there you'll be good and crazy as The Eagles said it, the sound of your own wheels drive you crazy. You'll be good and crazy by the whole experience. And if you're horrible we'll all know that too because you'll be awful. (laughs) If you're great we'll know that. And if you are great it'll blow your mind. And if you don't make it, it'll affect your heart. So either way it should be a motherf*cker. (laughs).

Yeah. And at least I must congratulate you. At least you're trying to spread the word. And the only reason I said all this sh*t is that I think the people who are reading this need to know this stuff.

antiMusic: Absolutely.

Kim: They're not sure. Like, "Is it too late?" No. The final PPS. On the last day on earth. On the last f*cking day, some motherf*cker's going to have a record released on the Internet. And guess what, on Dec. 21, the world is supposed to end, right?

antiMusic: Yeah.

Kim: I have a record coming out on that day. As a co-writer and producer on something called "End of the World". (laughs) by Noizee. And Noizee is on Facebook and online (http://noizee.net/). You can find her. Great record. It's a female Kinks record. Imagine if the Kinks at their height had a girl Ray Davies. It's really a good record and a good song. It's on Cargo in the UK; they're putting it out. If the world ends, I'm the a**hole I just described (laughs). I'm the one who made a record for the end of the f*cking world man. Somebody had to do it and we did it already.

antiMusic: The soundtrack to our demise.

Kim: Yeah. Kim Fowley at the end, you know? You can sit and hear. And Noizee has a Mohawk and has tattoos so it's appropriate. So how did you like my ps and my pps?

antiMusic: Can't be beat.

Kim: I'll tell you I'm the best interview you ever had

antiMusic: That is without a doubt.

Kim: Because you got in there and then you ran out of gas from the last 43 years

antiMusic: No, I didn't run out of gas. I just didn't want to go through every little detail with you due to your schedule.

Kim: But I knew you were going to and I wanted to avoid it so I just skimmed over it because it's exhausting. I mean it took three books to get it all down. You can't get it all down in one or two hours. Three f*cking books to put it all together. Those were the good stories, not the bad ones.

Now what we were about to say was the name of this blog should be Kim Fowley, Death is My Next Project and then in brackets, The Missing Link between Orson Wells and Chuck Berry tells it like it is. (laughs) And now I'm going to give you the prologue and the epilogue and then I'm going to go. I have to clean my room. My girlfriend's coming and she doesn't want to see the cat has misbehaved in the vinyl record stack.

The cat is a girl cat and thinks it's her apartment. I'm just the gardener here. Okay, "Why don't you live in a mansion?" Because I pay my musicians, my actors, my technicians. Sorry about that. Here's the prologue.

Rock n roll history is covered with characters, freaks and madmen but none of them ever go gold and platinum for over 50 years. Kim Fowley is the exception. He still is platinum, even if it's in his own mind. But you can't deny one thing: since 1959, Kim has not been off television, radio or retail charts in Australia, Japan, America, Germany or England---never missed a year. Here's an exclusive interview he gave us as a 73 year old cancer survivor with double canes, cleaning his apartment for the arrival of his 21 year-old girlfriend from Texas (laughs) who shows up next Tuesday. Yes folks, marriage has been discussed. Okay that's the prologue.

Here's the epilogue: well, that was unexpected wasn't it folks? I actually have a memory, sort of. If you want to read more of this, check out "Lord of Garbage", published by Kicks Books. Go online, you'll see it somewhere. It'll change your life. Happy holidaze. Spell holidays holi daze. Okay, what do you think of the prologue and epilogue?

antiMusic: (laughs) Excellent.

Kim: One last thing. Check out Kim Fowley Video Magic. It's a channel on YouTube and there are three videos. No there's four videos. You know you can put this on your blog so people can see what this guy looks like. Here's what you're going to look for: Golden Road to Nowhere official trailer. Then you're going to look for Gayboy Teddy. Where I play a drag queen in a business suit. Which is stupid like Robin Williams playing gay, that kind of s***.

antiMusic: Yeah I think I've seen excerpts.

Kim: It's funny. And then, it's my birthday party using Anthony Newley's voice. It's called "Death Day Celebration, Dark Prince of Sunshine." It's me in a record store singing with a piano player. And the there's Kim Fowley in Rennes, France. That's my last show. That's my entire European show with a 3 camera shoot, which is funny. I have audience remembers doing wild stuff on stage with us. It's all G-rated, all this crap. And then if you want to see me and the cat on YouTube, go to "Evil Pussy Allstars". (laughs) There's a song called "Love Bomb", it shows me cleaning her cat box. Love bombs are the turds inside. I'm in a full suit and I'm talking about the humbling experience of cleaning a cat box. There's some Zappa moments and laughing moments in reverse there. Go to club depression on YouTube and look for "Hollywood Dawgs" which is my white r&b thing. While you're there, check out "Dollboy". "Then Frankestein Goes Surfing", which is kind of fun.

I'm in the new Led Zepplin book. One that Barney Hoskyns wrote. He's a great writer, you know. It's his new book and I start the book off with my quotes. The new Led Zeppelin. So toss that in there. They're very popular, you know.

antiMusic: Yes. (laughs) A few people have heard of them.

Kim: They're great guys. I mean Jimmy Page. And then Robert has his own book coming out. And I was interviewed for that after this book. I have some really good stories for that. So you'd enjoy reading about them. They're cool. The guys who went platinum were easy to deal with. I may name them "easy": Axl Rose, John Lennon, Brian Wilson, Bob Dylan. Kind, human, direct, honest. I liked Jimmy Page and Robert Plant. A lot of people are like: "Ah, I don't know about those guys", you know that kind of thing. Joan Jett, easy, simple.

All of them can tell you in one sentence why they were platinum. However, if you go to a failure band somewhere in Idaho or Quebec, they'll tell you for five hours it was everybody's fault but theirs that their band didn't do well. (laughs) And that's the one thing about the really amazing ones. They already know. They figured it out. They know why they're good and they know what their audience and the media and the public wants and they give it to them. That's why they're those people.

antiMusic: Seems like a long time since I've heard anything positive about Axl Rose.

Kim: I can tell you an actual story about Axl Rose and then I've got to go. I was working for a rich manager of a difficult band who had drug issues and alcohol issues and they were friends of Axl. The guy who was putting up the money for this unknown band was dating the leader of the band's mother. So he said "I don't know about this band I'm investing in." he was paying me three grand a week to be their babysitter, producer, coach, shrink, songwriting teacher, publicist, etc. I was doing like 10 jobs. He said, �Something tells me these guys may not make it. Do you know anyone else who's weird and strange and difficult but possibly platinum?" "Yeah, Guns N'Roses." "Good. Okay. Let's take a look. Oh my goodness. You're right. Okay. Have the singer come by the studio tomorrow."

So we're all in the studio with the unknown band and here comes Axl by himself. And the manager had a $2, 000 suit on and he said, "Well, you guys are great. I want to be your manager, production company etc. And I want Kim Fowley to record and produce right here in this studio. And to show you how serious I am I'm going to open this suitcase and show you what's inside. And you can walk away with the suitcase. Or call the boys up and drive up and I'll pay for the cab if you don't have enough gas. Go ahead Axl, open the suitcase."

So Axl opens the suitcase and there's $50, 000 in cash. And the manger says, "What do you think?" and Axl says, "With all due respect sir, whoever you are. That's not enough for Guns N' Roses. We're going to be bigger than that. It's just a matter of time. I'll say no politely and I'll go away and I'll make more money than this on our initial signing with my guys. What don't you help these guys out? They're deserving. They're probably not as great as we are but if you're going to piss it away, you might as well piss it away on them because you're already working with them. I gotta go rehearse. It was nice seeing all of you. Good bye." And we all applauded him. (laughs) What else do you do, you know?

So he called a cab. We had the money for the cab and he rode away. And I always thought of all the starving musicians I'd ever seen, even the ones who made it or didn't make it, he was the only one who knew exactly how valuable he was, and how not to panic. Because that's a lot of money for anyone. And he just wasn't interested. And of course they got 75 grand for signing with Geffen.

And the day they got the deal, they gave him the check. He came into Rainbow Bar & Grill, he saw me there and he remembered that I had recommended him. He said, "You'll appreciate this." And he opened his jacket and he had a check for $37, 500 which was half of $75,000 and then they would get the other half when they started the album. So he said, "See, I told you we'd get more." I said, "You did. When are you going to cash it?" He said, "Tomorrow, the banks are closed. So buy me dinner." "I said, okay." (laughs) So we did. And he sat there and he hustled this free dinner (laughing) and with his $37,500 he walked away. He had a steak dinner and we thought it was great. Good for him. And that's how I know Axl. I know THAT Axl. The kind of guy who kinda had it under control. And in the end, we're talking about him. Now, you know what I mean?

antiMusic: Yeah.

Kim: Some of these people, until you meet them, or work them, you don't really know what it is that they're like. Final pppps. Jayne Mansfield. I'm sure you know who that is

antiMusic: Of course.

Kim: She was a goddess, remember how beautiful she was? I was 11 years old. She was in a pink Jaguar. There was a traffic jam in Beverley hills. Myself and my English pug dog, Duke, had just shoplifted some boxing and wrestling magazines out of a hoity toity book store. And here's Jayne Mansfield with 40 inch tits and no bra on looking like god out there on a summer day. So I walk right up to her and say, "Congratulations. I demand an autograph. You look great." She said, "You have balls. There are adult men who are afraid to come over and talk to me. I'm stuck here I can talk to you for 5 minutes. When you're an older man, you're going to be very successful with women because you're not afraid of beauty." I said, "I celebrate beauty." And she said, "Whoa, you're going do well in show business I bet." And I said, "Of course." And she signed Jayne Mansfield and she told me she liked the dog.

She noticed the bulging magazines in my shirt and said, "I see why you and your dog just left the bookstore." (laughs) I said, "Shhhh, don't tell anyone." And she said, "I won't but I bet you'll tell this story for the rest of your life." (laughs) I said, "I will. If I could jack off to you I would but it's too early in my development as a man." And she said, "You will." And I said, "Well good luck." And she said, "Good luck to you." And off she went. Later that December, going into late summer, I started going out with my 27 year-old girlfriend who liked young men so I learned oral sex from her but I had to learn how to make out first. So I was on my way. So there's my Axl Rose and my Jayne Mansfield stories�first time in the history of this blog that Axl Rose was ever linked to Jayne Mansfield. (laughs) Encore epilogue.

antiMusic: (laughs). Amazing

Kim: Yeah. Of course. Now you know why I'm on XM radio every weekend. Thank you very much for the interview. Bye.

Morley and antiMusic thank Kim for taking the time to speak with us.