Interviews

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Freddie Steady KRC
Interviewed by Jud Cost... Again

It’s hard to believe it’s been 13 years since I first interviewed Austin, Texas music legend Freddie “Steady” Krc for Bucketfull. Before heading off to South By Southwest in the spring of ‘93 I spoke with BoB’s then editor , Jon Storey, about maybe talking to Roky Erickson. Storey really wanted to put Roky on the cover, and he did. Of course, I had no Idea that interviewing Erickson at that point in his life was impossible. Thanks to the wonderful help of his brother Sumner, Roky has beat the devil ( paranoid schizophrenia) over the past five years and has rehabbed into a healthy, happy and self sufficient person. And it was through Krc that I found out about this feel- good story, and finally did get to interview Roky three years ago.

The bonus from all of this is getting to know Krc, a man who has led a fascinating musical life all on his own. Krc’s musical resume includes so much more than backing up Erickson in the Explosives, which he did to stunning effect in March 2005’s watershed reappearance of Erickson to the live stage in more than a decade. Krc has also spent his adult lifetime on the road with either Jerry Jeff Walker, B.W. Stevenson, Freddie Steady’s Wild Country or his own combo, the Shakin’ Apostles. And now it’s the Freddy Steady 5 that holds centre- stage in Krc’s life. If that’s not a rock ‘n’ roll life well lived, I don’t know what is. He’s recently been inducted into the Texas Music Hall of Fame, a richly deserved honour. So, here it is, 13 years in the making: the Freddie Krc story, part two.

Since we last talked, you’ve abandoned your drum chair with Jerry Jeff Walker for the front man role in the Shakin’ Apostles. What made you decide to do that after all these years?
It seemed I never had enough time to do both. And I really wanted to focus more on my own career. All through that decade, up till 2000, I did both things: had my own band, the Shakin’ Apostles, and played with Jerry Jeff Walker. For example, in ‘98 the Apostles toured Austria, Germany, Switzerland and Italy. And that was really the only opportunity I had to tour with my own band. Jerry Jeff was sorta full time. When he asked me to come back in 1990 he said he was only going to do a couple of tours a year. And I said, “That’s fine.” But then his popularity started to grow again. If we only worked eight days a month it’d be every Friday and Saturday and I couldn’t afford to miss those days with the Apostles.

What have recorded since ‘93?
The first Shakin’ Apostles album came out in ‘93. Then Tucson in ‘95, the one where I wrote the western short story as the backbone of the album. I’ve been trying to develop Tucson for a stage production. A guy in Chicago wrote a stage production for it but it was for five or six actors and I couldn’t afford to workshop that. I’m trying to rework the concept so it’s more like a one-man show. That’s where it s right now: on the back burner because I have a living to make. In ‘97 we released an album called Medicine Show both here and in Germany. In 2000 we did a CD called Too Hot For Snakes, recorded here in Austin on Jud Cost’s birthday.

That’s the truth. And there’s a hidden track to that effect, just to prove it. What inspired that?
You, Big Daddy (laughs). Then lets see, we released Frontier A-Go-Go in 2002. When I first signed to ESD it was gonna be Freddie Steady & The Shakin Apostles, but the label said, “We just want a band name. We’re just kinda doing that.” So, OK. But last year, 15 years after I started the Shakin’ Apostles in 1990, I ran into somebody I hadn’t seen in quite a while, told him I was doing the Shakin’ Apostles, and he said, “Oh, I didn’t know that was your band.” So I decided to start fresh in 2005 and call my band the Freddie Steady 5.

Where’d the Freddie Steady thing come from?
Man, I really don’t remember, but somebody threw that at me in the late 70’s, I liked it and started using it.

Let’s go back to the roots. Tell me about how the Explosives came about.
I knew Waller Collie, the bass player, form playing with B.W. Stevenson, who had a couple of hits (“My Maria” and “Shambalah”). I’d just turned 21 when I started playing with B.W. Cam King, I’m trying to remember. He moved here in ‘75 and I knew him as a really nice guy and a great guitar player. It was my idea to start the Explosives and those were the guys that I picked. Reese Wynans, a keyboard player, was in the original line- up but we figured hauling around a Hammond organ was going to be a losing prospect. We decided we were meant to be a three-piece. I’d started getting into the vintage clothes thing back in the mid- 70’s, and I’d found a bowling shirt with Explosives on the back. And I thought that was a great name. I’ve still got that shirt somewhere.

And you finally got around to putting out an Explosives career retrospective just last year.
Early in 2005 we released a two- CD set called Ka- Boom! One CD’s all live; the other one’s all studio stuff. We released three seven-inchers back then, one single and two EP’s, and that material’s all there. We were a pretty prolific bunch. There were three of us and all three wrote and sang. And Cam had a home studio. We were always demo-ing new songs, so it wasn’t difficult to go back and plough through that stuff. We also have an album that Stu Cook of Credence Clearwater Revival produced, but he owns those masters. It would have really slowed the process down if we tried to license that material, and there was already plenty of stuff. Cam and I discussed the possibility of re-recording that material so you never know what might happen.

Roky’s appearance to the stage last spring took on heroic proportions.
In Jan 2005 when the Explosives CD came out we did a few gigs around Austin and Roky was aware we were active again. He decided after, gosh, at least ten years that he hadn’t performed live , to play again. And he asked me if we would play with him, which we were thrilled to do. Many people don’t realise it, but we were a band, the Explosives, before we played with Roky. We started performing in June of 1979 and a couple months later Roky returned to Austin from SF and we began to back him.

How did the Jerry Jeff gig begin?
By the time I was 25 I also started playing drums with Jerry Jeff Walker. I was the youngest guy in the band and kinda treated that way, even though I had been playing for a living since 1973, when I was 18. When the New Wave/ Power Pop thing - I really liked the Boomtown Rats and Blondie - started happening it was very exciting to me, something I felt really close to. And I wanted to have a band that was mine. As far as Texas bands went, we were the only ones doing the more melodic, Power Pop thing. There was a band called Skunks we felt kinship to, because neither of us was really a punk band. We played the same venues and suffered the same disdain from the kids that thought they were punks.

You did some shows with another of your permutations, Freddie Steady’s Wild Country when that album got reissued.
We re-released Freddie Steady’s Wild Country Lucky Seven album in 2003 with some bonus tracks. It was the year after an Italian label Back Street One released a vinyl version of the Explosives album. I got some of the old Wild Country band members, like Mark Hardwick on steel and John X. Reed, a great guitar player who played with Doug Sahm a lot, to play a handful of gigs to promote the release of the album on CD. That was really, really fun. Now that I have the time to create my own schedule I can pretty much go in any direction I want to go. It couldn’t be any better. I couldn’t be any happier.

Tell me about Masquerade A Go-Go, your Halloween extravaganza.
There’s a local artist named Bill Narum who’s best known for doing most of the ZZ Top record covers. When I started doing the Freddie Steady Five I also had a full-time go-go girl named Dangerous Dana who dances at all the shows. Bill Narum started coming out to see me. Unbeknownst to me, he’s really into anything that says “Go- Go.” He thought we’d be the perfect band to work with because we always do a light show. We decided to go partners on this Halloween show called the Masquerade A Go-Go. He did the visuals and I put together the music. He did some fabulous posters and got a guy for the psychedelic light show named Craig Malek who has a thing called Jar Of Fireflies. I had different musical guests, including this great and of young kids called the NEMStars. I taught at Natural Ear, a rock ‘n’ roll school for kids, last year. It was of my favourite groups of kids I taught, all from age 12 to 16. Then I had this instrumental group, some friends of mine called Three Balls of Fire.

You did a Freddie Steady Five set full of guest star cameos.
The Freddie Steady Five played a long set and had several guests, too. We had Roky Erickson as a guest, and Sal Valentino of Beau Brummels, and a dear friend of mine called Mike Claxton from a ‘60s group called the Sherwoods. They were from my home town of La Porte, close to Houston. I remember when I was in junior high school seeing them play a battle of the bands at a Houston department store called Foley’s, competing against the Red Crayola. I really liked Mike Claxton’s singing. I bumped into him a few years ago and we did some songwriting together. I thought he was one of the best things happening in the show that night. He was just fabulous, did a great version of “ Pushin’ Too Hard”.

How did you know the Sherwoods’ stuff from when you were a kid?
I had one of their singles from back then called “ I know You Cried”, and we cut that song for our new record called Freddie Steady Go! a compilation of some of my all-time favourite Texas rock ‘n’ roll from the ‘60s. As well as songs everybody knows, like “Wooly Bully” and “I Fought the Law”, there are some pretty obscure covers too, including two more from La Porte : “I Want You To Know” by the Promarks and “The Angry Sea” by the Vibrations. We also had a fellow named Lanier Greig, the Keyboard player for Neal Ford & the Fanatics, who were pretty pop, and one of the most popular groups in Houston at the time. He joined Billy Gibbons’ group, the Moving Sidewalks, and stuck around long enough to be in the original line-up for ZZ Top. Then we had Pete Bailey, the lead singer for Josefus, who just showed and sang the Doors’ “Roadhouse Blues”. I have know idea how he heard about the show. That was such a fun show! I felt like Dick Clark putting together one of those Caravan Of Stars. I think we’re gonna do it every year.

Recently You’ve produced the first solo album for Beau Brummels vocalist Sal Valentino. How did that come about?
As you remember, I first met Sal when you and Big Myke Destiny did Goathenge, that wonderful all- day radio tribute to Jimmy Silva on KFJC at Foothill College back in 1994. I was so impressed at how great Sal’s voice still sounded, and I stayed in touch with him over the years. When I played San Francisco with former Charlatans guitarist Mike Wilhelm a few years later, Sal and his wife Catherine drove over from Sacramento to come see us. So, when Fat Pete of Fat Pete Records asked me to be house producer and find some other acts for his label, one of the first people I thought of was Sal. And I made preparations for him to come here, stay for a week and record. I can’t think of much that I’ve ever done that I’ve enjoyed more than that. I consider that guy one of the best singers ever. Sal’s back for South by Southwest this year and we’ve got the Austin Chronicle’s Music Award’s Show. And this year Roky and the Explosives are going to be one of the guests for the show. Then Saturday I’ll host the in- store show for Antone’s Record Store, a showcase for friends of mine who are gonna be in town but not on the Festival. So Sal will do that show too.

Roky has improved by leaps and bounds since he’s been playing live with you.
He did three tunes with he Explosives last March, then the power went out, you remember. We wound up doing ten gigs last year, and every one he got better and better. We’re now up to doing a full hour set. Before we play we always rehearse over at my house. One Day, when our bass player got caught in traffic, Roky, Cam and I were just sitting around. And Roky started playing this blues shuffle, and I said “Man, Roky, that sounds like ‘Before You Accuse Me,’ that old Elevators song. Do you remember that song?” And he went, “Yeah,” and we played it. One song we hadn’t been doing that we used to play was called “The Wind And More”. And I asked him if he remembered that one. And he did. It’s all back. He’s doing better and better every year. He got his drivers licence last year. He drives over here to rehearsal. Getting lots more independent. And he’s happy.

Would you do it all over again if you had it to do over, or would you change up a few things? You might double- cross yourself, you know, if you changed your personal history. That’s what happens in the movies, from It’s a Wonderful Life to The Time Machine.
Yeah, you really can. I think I’d have to go through the good, the bad and the ugly again. Of course, we’d all like to have more money, but mine would all be gone by now anyway. I’m just really happy to have done stuff I’m really proud of. So what’s next, the gold watch or can I work a few more years?

Roger McGuinn once told me he wanted to emulate the career of Segovia. The only gig he ever missed had to be cancelled because he’d died the day before. McGuinn said he wanted to die on stage with people gossiping afterwards, “I saw him fall right off that chair, and he was dead before he hit the floor ... And the Rickenbacker was still ringing.”
Funny you should mention it. That’s my retirement plan too.

Interview by Jud Cost, Bucketfull of Brains, Spring 2006, Issue #69, page 20-21

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