After brief stints in some other bands, he formed the Jefferson Airplane, a band that needs no introduction. The Airplane, along with The Grateful Dead, the Mamas and the Papas, Janis Joplin and many more led the way in developing a counter culture that drew hundreds of thousands of people to the city in 1967. They also churned out some great music, both commercially successful and remaining strong and relevant to this day.

Balin left the Airplane but rejoined when it was reborn as Jefferson Starship and did several stints with the group contributing more hit singles and his smooth vocals. Along the way, he also carved out a successful path as a solo artist and has maintained, right up to the present, a distinguished art career.

Recently Marty released not one but two new records. The first is The Greatest Love, a sparkling collection of 15 new songs. Several, like the amazing title cut and the stirring "Crazy Over You" are among the best material he has ever written. The tracks are recorded along with Lloyd Goldstein on upright bass and Chuch Morrongiello on lead guitar so the sound is very stripped down and it works wonderfully with the spare instrumentation adding some tasty flavoring.

The second disc is Good Memories a double-disc of some reworked Airplane/Starship songs. The standout song is a reworking of "Good Shepherd" which is now titled "Good Memories", a touching tribute to the legendary Airplane and it evokes great, warm memories indeed.

It was a real pleasure and honor to speak with Marty to discuss his new records. Here's our conversation:

antiMusic: Man it's just a real privilege to have the opportunity to speak to a real rock n roll icon. You've made some just amazing music over the years and it's a real blast to talk to you. Thanks for making the time for us today.

Marty: Sure...sure.

antiMusic: A lot of established artists seem to sink under the challenge of making new music but such is not the case with you. I absolutely love The Greatest Love and it has some of your strongest material ever so congratulations on a great job.

Marty: Ah well, thank you. That's the stuff I do in our live show, you know?

antiMusic: Yeah. From what I understand you've been touring as a three piece in recent years.

Marty: Yeah, just like on the record. Just three guys.

antiMusic: Why the decision to leave out a drummer? Was it economics or just a desire to really shine the light on the lyric's and vocals a bit more?

Marty: I haven't really found a drummer around where I live and rehearse. These guys kind of live near me and they come to rehearsal on time and you know we went out and started doing shows together. This was without a drummer or a keyboard or anything so I kinda felt like it's a folk thing. We just pared it down. And it kind of gets the music across at the moment so I was happy with that. So I thought, well let's put it on the record the way it sounds, you know?

antiMusic: With 15 songs and all of them of the highest quality, what do you owe in your life to the pronounced streak of inspiration, the guiding force behind the record?

Marty: Well, I got married about 3 years ago and I think that had a lot to do with it. My new wife is a big inspiration to me so a lot of the love songs come from her.

antiMusic: I absolutely love the first song on The Greatest Love and I'll let you bail me out by saying the title:

Marty: Scheherazada.

antiMusic: (laughs) Okay. It's got such a cool vibe and for some reason I picture a belly dancer whenever I hear this.

Marty: Yeah, yeah. Well that's the idea, you know. Actually we were recording the album and the guitar player started playing this riff and I started singing "dance with me , dance with me." And then the bass player started playing these Arabian kind of lines behind it and I said, "I've got to write something that goes with that." So I got this idea and it just came about as we were doing the record actually.

antiMusic: What's the significance of the title?

Marty: Well Scheherazada was a famous lady in mythology and the 1001 nights story. She was a storyteller, a dancer and every time the king had one of his wives tell him a story, he would kill them. So she would tell him stories but she would never come to the ending, so she would never finish the story. And so he had to keep her around and didn't kill her.

antiMusic: (laughs) Cool. My absolute favourite on the record is the title track. I assume you're talking about your current relationship...

Marty: Yeah. I'd like to record that one with a whole orchestra some day.

antiMusic: That would be wicked.

Marty: You know maybe somebody will cover it for me, do it with a big orchestration.

antiMusic: The song has got this hypnotic quality that just builds to this tour de force. Did you envision it coming out like this from the first bits of an idea or it sounds like it could also have been a more folksy version of what came out?

Marty: Well it just came out the way it came out, you know? I just get out of my own way and let these things happen. I don't try to guide myself in any way. I just try to get out of my way and whatever comes through, comes through.

antiMusic: Close to my favourite track is "Crazy Over You". Man you don't need a drummer on that track to make that sound powerful. Tell us something about writing that one.

Marty: Well, you know I've been playing these small theatres and clubs and keeping it kind of small when I go out and play. So these songs are more intimate that way.

antiMusic: "Always" has such a great laid back vibe. I get a sense of the islands, like Jimmy Buffet�

Marty: Being up where you are, that's a good thing! (laughs)

antiMusic: Yeah, absolutely. Tell us something about writing this one.

Marty: Actually that came about real quick. I was just playing with the riff and suddenly I got the idea that came through. Like I said, I get out of my way and take notes. (laughs) I do what ever they tell me.

antiMusic: "Rollin' Ball" has a really cool riff driving that one.

Marty: Yeah�.

antiMusic: Did the riff come first for this one, or the lyric?

Marty: The riff first actually.

antiMusic: Sort of related is "Stripper" with another excellent, slinky riff. It sounds like one of those that kind of comes out of nowhere on a good day. Was it like that?

Marty: Well, I've been doing that one for a while actually. When we recorded it kind of was loose, like people in a club looking at a stripper.

antiMusic: "What Can I Do" is indeed the vocal showcase on the record. You sound amazing here. What can you tell us about this song?

Marty: That was the first song I wrote with my guitar player. He kept bugging me about writing songs together and I had this old lyric around from the old days. So I said, "Here, take this and quit bugging me." And he took it and came back with that, and said, "Here." So I said, "Well, that's pretty good. I like that." And we did that. It's one of the few songs where I'm losing on love. I've lost on love. I don't do those too many but everybody seemed to like that song so I put it on the record.

antiMusic: Along with The Greatest Love, you've also released a salute to the 50th anniversary of the airplane, with a double record where you revisit some Airplane classics with your current stripped down format. The song "Good Memories" is just absolutely excellent. When did the idea first come to you to update "Good Shepherd"?

Marty: Well you know I was always singing background behind Jorma when he did that song and you know every time I hit that line, my mind would go off on this old trip of Paul, you know, one for Paul...one for..., why not mention the whole band? But I couldn't get the Airplane or the Starship to ever do that because once they'd get something in their head, they didn't ever change. But I always had that in the back of my mind. So when I did it myself, I re-wrote it for me because you know I can't sing them ol' blues lyrics, they don't have any meaning for me. So I re-wrote it to make sense, so that when I sing it, I can relate to it.

antiMusic: It's a visual piece, as you're talking you can just see the faces drift by�

Marty: Yeah, and I mention Bill Graham and the Fillmore...you know, the old hippy days. Yeah.

antiMusic: Out of all the old material that you decided to give a fresh coat of paint to, what was the one that turned out the most satisfying for you?

Marty: Hmm, jeezz, I was listening back to them and started doing them. When we did them live in the show, some of these oldies, the fans really dug it. So I kept adding to it and you know we had quite a bunch of them and learned and played live. So when the 50th came around people asked me to put these on record. And I thought it was a good idea. It's a good way to commemorate the old Airplane, Starship. It actually didn't take too long to record it all. We did kind of both these albums at the same time.

antiMusic: I really loved "3/5 of a Mile in Ten Seconds". It came out great.

Marty: Yeah. Those are all fun songs and they bring back great memories.

antiMusic: Absolutely. Over your career you seemed to have no boundaries with regards to style. You go from ballads to harder material and lots of areas in between. When you're writing, do you get in a certain headspace and knock out stuff in one style for a while or does it just emerge as the song comes to you..

Marty: I play with different styles. I've got a whole bunch of blues songs which we've recorded but we haven't put out. I have a whole bunch of heavy metal tunes that we did and recorded but I don't put out because I don't want people to think of me that way. I'm not a blues singer, even though I write these little blues songs just for fun, because they're fun to do a little turnaround on and lyrically fun. But I haven't put them out because I don't want to be known as a blues kind of guy. I'd rather sing positive love songs, you know. So I've got all these different styles that I flirt with, and I actually record them and put them in the pocket. Some day they'll come out, maybe.

antiMusic: Nice. I hope so. Since this is the 50th anniversary of The Airplane, I'd like to ask you to reflect on a couple of huge milestones in your career. Tell us about Woodstock and first on your impression of the size of the crowds when you got to the site and then on your performance that day since it ended up you had to go on early in the morning.

Marty: Well the size of the crowd...I saw it first flying in on a helicopter and I was amazed. The radio was on and they said it was the second largest city in New York state at the moment. (laughs) Which I thought was kind of funny. And it was just people over the hills...it was just amazing. It was like an encampment of the Roman Army or something like that. But it was a thrill. It was a big event and all these bands had come together. It was really a high point of music being played. It was a lot of fun. It was rainy and a mess but other than that, it was a lot of great fun, a lot of great experiences.

antiMusic: What was it like going on first thing? Actually for you guys it was probably just one continuous day.

Marty: Well it was funny, I was back at the hotel. We were playing cards, me and Janis Joplin, Jimi Hendrix, and Pete Townsend from The Who. Janis kept winning and she would tell everybody when they'd go on. "Okay, you can go on next, Jimi." And you know, then it was "Okay, you guys can go on next." And we were last so we didn't get to go on until the morning broke and oh god, it was horrible.

antiMusic: (laughs) Going from a positive experience to a lesser one...I'm sure you're sick of talking about it, but can I ask you about Altamont? What possessed you to take on the Hell's Angels and when you woke up did you realise how close to greater harm you came.

Marty: Well you know I got on and started the first song of the set and everybody just suddenly steps back and these guys in front of me below the stage are beating this guy up with pool cues. All these Hells Angels are beating this guy up with pool cues. And the whole crowd steps back and allows this to happen. Well nobody's paying attention to me suddenly and so I thought this guy might need some help because there's was nobody helping him. So I jumped down and (said), "Hey cut it out. I'm trying to sing here." And the guy says, "hey Marty, you should be up there working man." And I said, "Well nobody's paying any attention to me, you idiots."

So I got back up on stage. They quit in the front and I started the song again. And then behind me on stage, they started beating up this guy again. And so, you know, well there goes my set. I'm really mad. They're ruining my set. So I went back and I got into a fight with this guy and he had this wolf's head on. He was their leader guy or something. And there was this big empty semi van behind the stage and I was kind of backing him down toward this semi van and just at that very moment I'm thinking to myself, "Hey I'm doing pretty good here. (laughs) and then bam. Black out. They had stomped me from behind. I woke up in the semi van, had all these boot mark tattoos all over my body. I just got up and went home.

antiMusic: Wow. We keep hearing that the Angels were responsible for all the mayhem but it's also been reported that the audience was kind of out of control from the start. What's your take on what led to the violence and did it sour you on live performances for a little while?

Marty: No, no but that was the end of the good vibes that people were having with these get-togethers, music events for a while. It kind of spoiled that. The dark times and it was a dark period in life, you know. God what was that? Sixty-nine? Yeah, that was a dark year. I remember that. It was a dark, dark year.

antiMusic: Well, I'm not going to take up your whole morning. It was just a real privilege to get to speak with you. I love your new records and I wish you all the best with them.

Marty: Well, all right. I'm glad you're playing it...that you're listening to it. That's cool.

antiMusic: Thanks for the time, Marty!

Marty: My pleasure. Thank you.

Morley and antiMusic thank Marty for taking the time to do this interview.

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