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| Jimi's Last Interview Ever! Interview by Keith Altham Hotel Cumberland: London, England September 11, 1970 KEITH ALTHAM: You were quoted to say prior to the Isle of Wight, that if it happened really big for you, you'd carry on for a while. Were you satisfied with the results of the Isle of Wight? JIMI HENDRIX: Well, I was so mixed up there and at the time it got so confused. I didn't have a chance to really base any of my future on that one gig. Except when I played "God Bless The Queen" [laughs, sings:] if you know what I mean ... I don't know, I can't base my whole thing on what I'm gonna do after that, by just that one job there. I was probably happy just to play there. And I was wondering if they was gonna dig us, then quite naturally I'd go on and try to get it together. ALTHAM: Now Billy Cox has split? HENDRIX: Yeah [laughs]. ALTHAM: So whatever happens you gotta find a new bass player. Is that correct? HENDRIX: Yeah, I guess so. ALTHAM: So, do you intend to form another small unit, or are you hoping to get something bigger together? HENDRIX: I really don't know. I think I'll get another small one together I guess. It's really hard to decide. I'd like to have both if I could, like use one for touring and then sometimes I could do another tour with the big one, whatever. But it all depends. It's really hard to know what people want around here sometimes. All I'm gonna do is just go on and do what I feel, but I can't feel anything right now because there's a few things that's just happened, I just have to lay back and think about it all. ALTHAM: Do you feel any kind of compulsion to prove yourself as King Guitar, which is the kind of label that people have slapped on you? HENDRIX: Oh, I don't know. Well, I was just playing loud, that's the only difference [laughs]. No, I don't even let that bother me. 'Cause they say a lot of things about people they let it bother them, they wouldn't even be around today. King Guitar now? Wow, that's a bit heavy. ALTHAM: Everybody subsequent to the Isle of Wight Festival and prior to it, has been 'talking about the new subdued, mature Jimi Hendrix. And I wonder if you could tell us why this is, and maybe where it started from? HENDRIX: Well there was a period when I stopped talking so much, because I was just going through certain things here and there, I don't know, really. I guess it was something else to talk about or something, 'cause I just got very quiet for a while. I just did the gigs and just stayed in, and tried to stay away and all that. It was probably one of those things. 'Cause I was changing. I felt like I was changing and getting into heavier music and it was getting unbearable with three pieces. And I always wanted to expand and all this, but I think I'll go back to three pieces again now. And get another bass player, and I'll probably be loud again [laughs]. No! ALTHAM: But it does appear, doesn't it, that the days of the baubles and the bangles and the freaky hair style have all disappeared, and are you not worried in a sense that maybe your quieter approach now, may lose a little of the mystique that there was with Jimi Hendrix, which attracted people to begin with? HENDRIX: Yeah, but see, everybody goes through those stages the first time around and you'd wear all these different things. Like I see some other groups, like Mountain and Cactus and whatever, they're getting into them things so you see in some of their new pictures now, now their hair is getting longer and they're [laughs] wearing more jewelry, and strangling themselves with all these beads and jewelry and stuff. I don't know ... I just did that 'cause I felt like I was being too loud [laughs] or something. 'Cause my nature just changes. ALTHAM: You were quoted in one paper as saying that you never wanted to be a visual thing. HENDRIX: Well, I don't want it to be a basically, just only hyped up on all the visual things. I wanted to be listened to. I don't know if they were or not though. After a while I started getting aware too much of what was going down. It started to bring me down a little bit so I just started cutting my hair and [laughs], rings disappearing one by one [laughs]. ALTHAM: Are you in fact saying that that kind of freak thing was really a kind of publicity hype? HENDRIX: No! No! No! All they did was let me do what I wanted to do, one of them kind of scenes. Like one time I said, 'Maybe I should burn a guitar tonight? I really feel, well' [laughs], you know? Or maybe I should smash a guitar or something like that. And they'd, 'Yeah, yeah!' I said, 'you really think I should?' They said, 'Yeah, that'd be cool!' So, okay. So like I just work up enough anger as of where I could do it. But I didn't think too much of the hype scene and all that because I dug wearin' all those different things. It was fun. And I still do, but either I won't see very many other people doin' it, it gives me a dumb or a stupid tendency to hold back from my own desires and so forth, for some unknown reason, I don't know. ALTHAM: So the anger maybe has dispersed a little? HENDRIX: Oh, yeah. That's always happening though. But I didn't know it was anger until they told me that it was, you know, with the destruction and all that. But I believe everybody should have a room where they get rid of all their releases, where they can do their releases at. So my room was a stage [laughs]. ALTHAM: Now, what is going to happen now? You were quoted in one paper as saying that you wanted to do less personal appearances. . HENDRIX: Yeah, right. I think it would count more, if we did less personal appearances. We're tryin' to get a tour of England together now, that's definitely gonna call for another bass player. ALTHAM: Do you personally feel the excitement has gone out of things? HENDRIX: No, I was feeling like that before because I was thinking too fast. It seems like a person has the tendency to get bored, because he always wants to try to do all these accomplishments. Like starting an idea, and never quite finishing it out. Some people should just be lent, to start ideas and other ones should [laughs] carry them out. I don't know, it's really hard to say right now. It's whatever happens. We could do tours with a small group again, or another bass player. I'd probably get very wild though and wrapped up into that other scene again, with the hair and so forth, or the visuals, probably [laugh]. ALTHAM: You've already expressed appreciation in one paper for Pink Floyd, one of the things you admire about Pink Floyd and things they're doing. HENDRIX: Oh yeah, well they're doing like a different type of music, they're doing more of like a space type of thing. I mean inner space it seems like. And technically, you know, they're getting into electronics and all this. Yeah, they do like a space type of thing, like an inner space type of thing and sometimes you just lay back by yourself and appreciate them. That's the type of music they're into, so it's good. But I think I'd want to make mine a little more easier, with a better, with a solid beat probably. More beat. ALTHAM: You seem torn between the idea of getting together a big band, in which you can step back, and a smaller unit. HENDRIX: Yeah. ALTHAM: A kind of rock and roll thing, where you can project your own music or thing. Is that a problem for you? HENDRIX: I don't know. I'm thinkin' about the rock'n' roll thing so much, everybody goes through that, it's the idea of thinkin' they might lose friends, so they might want to get back together as something similar to that, only with probably even a better beat and more music. ALTHAM: Would it be practical for you to get maybe an organist and a vocalist, I mean, so you can step back as a guitarist? HENDRIX: Well that's exactly what I want to do, actually. That's what I have to do. All I do is probably get two guitars, counting myself, and an organist, a singer, and drums, quite naturally, and bass. If I can get something like that, that would be out of sight. ALTHAM: I remember Alvin Lee of Ten Years After some weeks ago, and he said of you, in fact, that you 'd never been truly appreciated or analyzed as a writer. Do you feel maybe your image got in the way of that? HENDRIX: No! ALTHAM: Do you feel that you've never been truly criticized as a songwriter? HENDRIX: Well, probably it's a good thing because I'm still trying to get that together. All I'm writing is just what I feel, that's all, and not really using too many good... I don't really round it off too good. I just keep it almost naked [laughs]. And probably the words are so bland... blank and everything, that they probably didn't want to get into that. When we go to play, you flip around and flash around and everything, and then they're not gonna see nothin' but what their eyes see. Forget about their ears. Well I was trying to do too many things at the same time, which is my nature [laughs]. But I was enjoying it, and I still do enjoy it, I mean by just thinking about it. I just hate to be in one corner. I hate to be put as only a guitar player, or either only as a songwriter, or only as a tap dancer, or something like this [laughs]. I like to move around. ALTHAM: Is it important for you to achieve recognition as a songwriter? HENDRIX: I don't know, really. I guess it would be if I wanted to just lay back and predominantly write songs when I can't go on a stage anymore. ALTHAM: You were quoted in one paper as saying you didn't really care what you did, as long as you turned people on, right? Now, what do you want to turn people on to, apart from your music? Is there any moral or political intent in the kind of things you want to write? HENDRIX: Oh no, I just like for them to get easier in their mind a little bit, 'cause there's too many heavy songs out nowadays. Music has been getting too heavy, almost to the state of unbearable. I have this one little saying, when things get too heavy just call me helium, the lightest known gas to man. [laughs]. ALTHAM: So where are your inspirations for songs coming from at the present time? Where are you turning to for your directions? HENDRIX: I don't know, is it right? From my recent experiences [laughs]. What I try to do is look at the totality of that and give them the other half. First of all you have the one half and then the second half, the solution there, whatever it might be, which is the second. First of all you have the experience and then you have the use of it all. And I was just tryin' to go through a lot of changes and then I could write the nice parts about them, you know? Well right now it's taking a while [laughs]. ALTHAM: Do you feel at all concerned that ... I mean, you've been quoted as saying in the past that music will be the next ... HENDRIX: Semiclassic? ALTHAM: No, the next, wheel as it were, the next circle of music ... that now we're at the end of something, and the next stage of music, of popular music will change the world. Do you really believe that, or do you believe that music is a reflection of the world? HENDRIX: Yeah, it's always a reflection, like the reflection of the world is blues, that's where that part of the music is at. Then you got this other kind of music that's tryin' to come around, it's not sunshine music necessarily, but it's more an easier type of thing with less words, you know, and more meaning to it. I mean you don't have to be singing about love all the time in order to give love to the people. You don't have to keep flashing those words love all the time. But I don't know, or maybe I was just feeling all nice and enthusiastic when I said that [laughs]. Wait a minute! I can't take back on that 'cause it is a nice thought. I think there's no reason why it couldn't, if it's organized like a ... ALTHAM: Do you want that personally, I mean do you want to change the world? HENDRIX: Oh, I'd like to take part in it, changing reality probably, not the way I know it necessarily, but the way that it would get along a little better as of where old and young don't clash so much together. ALTHAM: What are the things that you would you like to see changed? HENDRIX: Oh I don't know, more color in the streets probably. I mean, [laughs], I really don't know. Whatever happens, it should have a chance to be brought into the open. If it's a new idea, a new invention, or a new gas, or a new whatever, or a new idea of thinking, it should be brought at least into the open, and be respected as being new and probably a decent change or a help for the human race or whatever. Instead of keep carrying the same old burdens around with you. And you have to be a freak in order to be different. And even freaks, they are very prejudiced. You have to have your hair long and talk in a certain way in order to be with them. And in order to be with the others, you have to have your hair short and wear ties. So we're trying to make a third world happen, you know what I mean? [laughs]. ALTHAM: I mean it does seem that people like John Sebastian, for example, want to try and change the world doesn't it? HENDRIX: Yeah. ALTHAM: ...With their intention to make the world a better place. HENDRIX: Oh yeah. ALTHAM: Do you feel that same kind of need? HENDRIX: Yeah, but it all has to come from within inside though, I guess. I guess a person would have to change himself in order to be a living example of what he's singing about or something. In order to change the world, I guess he'd have to really get his head together first before he can say anything [laughs] to the world, to change it. ALTHAM: I think certain people think of your music essentially as angry music, as... HENDRIX: No! ALTHAM: ...raging perhaps against the establishment principles, that... HENDRIX: Oh that's not raging against it, this would even ... if it was up to me there wouldn't be no such thing as the establishment, [laughs]. But see that's nothing but blues, that's all I'm singing about. It's today's blues. ALTHAM: Do you have any politics, in fact yourself? HENDRIX: Not really. I was gettin' ready to get into all that, but everybody goes through those stages too. It all comes out in the music, most of the time. We have this one song called "Straight Ahead" and it says like, 'Power to the people, freedom of the soul, pass it on to the young and old, we don't give a damn if your hair is short or long, communication's coming on strong'... and all this kind of stuff. ALTHAM: Have you had any problems with the Black Panther movement in the States? HENDRIX: Any problems? No, there's a lot of political things happening out there that I'd really have to get away from because, then I found myself in too much of a box situation. I'm not saying, if I had anything to say I'd have a say to everybody, instead of just the one little thing, I mean not little thing but one... ALTHAM: Have they ever demanded of you that you play a concert for the Panthers? HENDRIX: Well, actually they asked us. I was happy for them to ask us, I was honored and all this. But we never did do it yet. We haven't done it yet. Mike Jeffery, he's takin' care of that side of it, so I don't know if we'll ever... ALTHAM: When you look back on things like "Hey Joe" now, I mean how do you feel about those musically? HENDRIX: Oh I think they're all right [laughs], I guess. I don't have nothing to regret at all in the past, except that I might've unintentionally hurt somebody else or something. And plus the music. I think they're all right. I can't down them that's for sure. I just look at them as changes. ALTHAM: I mean, it has been said that you invented psychedelic music... HENDRIX: [laughs] A mad scientist perhaps? ALTHAM: What do you, what do you feel about that? I mean do you feel that's fair? I mean was your music written ... originally... HENDRIX: Intentionally psychedelic? ALTHAM: ...or your early music written for psychedelic purposes? HENDRIX: I really don't know. I have to tell the truth. Are You Experienced, one time I just heard that recently, I must have been high or something. Yeah, when I heard it, it was like, um, I said, 'Damn! I wonder where my head was at, when I said all those things,' you know. But I don't consider that more invention of psychedelic, 'cause it's asking a lot of questions. I said, 'Damn! Wait a minute, I feel ... you know, 'scuse me while I do this,' for a second maybe, it could be stuff like goin' in different strange areas and all this, like most curious people do. And I just happened to put it on "Purple Haze." But the way I write things, I just write them in, with a clash between reality and fantasy mostly. You have to use fantasy in order to show different sides of reality, just how it can bend. It was actually a long, long thing ... Even the Bible does that. You have to give people something to dream on. It was actually a long, long thing, you know. I told you that before didn't I? Yeah. ALTHAM: You don 't think of yourself as a psychedelic writer? HENDRIX: Well, I think maybe it's more that than anything else. I'm trying to get more so into other things, as of where reality is nothing but each individual's own way of thinking. And then the establishment grabs a big piece of that, and the Church of England and so forth, on down the line. ALTHAM: How much is still in the can from The Jimi Hendrix Experience that was, or Billy Cox and Mitch Mitchell, I mean ... albums and tracks to come and what's going to happen next as an album? HENDRIX: Well, I think we're gonna have this thing called "Horizon" [sighs], "Between Here And Horizon," or something that pertains to that. And that goes into certain things like "Room Full Of Mirrors," that's more of a mental disarrangement that a person might be thinking. This says something about broken glass used to be all in my brain and so forth. Then we have this other one called "Astro Man," it says something about living in peace of mind, well "Astro Man" will leave you in pieces, and so forth and so on. And "Valleys Of Neptune Arising." But are these all psychedelic? I don't even know what that word means, really. It's like what you say one thing then mean another, you mean, something like that? Or you can get about three different meanings out of one thing, you mean? Is that where that's at? ALTHAM: Well, I think psychedelic to most people has connotations with LSD. HENDRIX: Oh, you mean strictly LSD? You mean with that type of consciousness? ALTHAM: Yeah, with dreams... HENDRIX: Oh right! Oh yeah, well you have to give them a little bit of it to dream on, because so they can hear it over again, 'cause they might be in a different mood. Well, dreams come from different moods. So it's nothin' but moody... you know [laughs]. ALTHAM: One of the other things that you said quite recently, that your next music might be influenced by people like... HENDRIX: Stravinsky? ALTHAM: Wagner. HENDRIX: Yeah, oh yeah I dig that. ALTHAM: And Strauss? HENDRIX: Yeah, well I think, the way things are going right now, materially that's going to take time. But like spiritually and in the head and all this it's always there. I mean it gets better and better all the time. One of these days I'll just finally release all that out. But the way things been goin' lately I think it's gonna take a lot more time [laughs]. We had this one little "Bolero" type of thing, it's kind of nice, but then it breaks down into a very simple pattern though, asking this one question, like where you comin' from or where you goin' to. And then this little girl answers. But it's not really into the really big mass movement in music that I want to do, you know... ALTHAM: Do you want to get involved in symphonies and... HENDRIX: Oh yeah. ALTHAM: ...sort of symphonic orchestras, and that kind of... HENDRIX: Yeah, yeah, but I have to get involved in my own kind of way 'cause I always want to respect my own judgments and different things. So therefore I have to respect my own time and ever get in those. When I finally do get into it the whole world's gonna know about it. ALTHAM: I mean that's really along the lines of mixed media. HENDRIX: Yeah, right! Well that's more universal than this, pertains to this one little thing, isn't it? ALTHAM: The drawback people have said about mixed media, is that people who you are mixing your medias with tend not to be able to relate to you, I mean... HENDRIX: As a person? ALTHAM: ...when you go halfway to them with your music, they won't go halfway to you. Now this is with classical musicians. HENDRIX: Oh, I see what you mean. Well I don't plan to make it that stiff. I plan, if I had the proper timing, that it would be just like what every step is, the mixture of the past and the future, you know what I mean? Well that's the way our music is anyway. Oh you know what I'm talkin' about. But I mean technically [laughs]. I don't plan to just go out there with a ninety-piece orchestra and play two and a half hours of classical music. I don't plan that at all. I plan for both those things to be used, rock and classic, without even knowing that it's rock and classic, with it being a whole other thing then. ALTHAM: You talk about audio and visual importance to ... about the importance of having a film with your music. Now are you thinking in terms of the days when we can fit a cassette into the topside of our television and play music and a film together? Or I mean... HENDRIX: Yeah. First I'm thinking about days when finally people will be able to, a lot of people are making more money than they ever had nowadays, so when they are in their flat, they always find their selves one with an extra room. So like this little room can be like the total audio-visual environment type of thing. Like you can go in there and you just lay back and the whole thing just blossoms out with this color and sound type of scene. Well it's like a reflection room where you go in, or it's just like a tearoom where you go in to have tea. You can go in here and just like jingle out your nerves or something. And that goes with a cassette, yeah, it goes in with a cassette, you put in your favorite star and all the sudden this music and the audio, I mean the visual scene comes on. And plus on stage, if we ever did anymore stage things with this new band, I mean with this new thing, it would definitely have to be audio-visual. Plus it would probably only be about five thousand people at a performance, because we'd like to get this geodesic dome and have the whole thing just lay it out perfect. It'd probably take a week, when you come in town, like on a train or something, it'll be traveled by train and then it'd take about a day or two, about three days to set the whole thing up. And then you'd get a performance in the next three days or something, of just a handful of people coming in. And I think that'll be dynamite. Because then you can work, and then everybody would get more of an effect from it, instead of putting a big block screen behind you. ALTHAM: Now what about the subject of festivals now? Do you think the Isle Of Wight is, as some people have said, the last of the big festivals? HENDRIX: I don't know why they always try to kill the festivals, really? I mean, unless they're gonna keep puttin' them on like they always are. The Isle Of Wight was great, people milling about, digging each other, especially with it being the Isle Of Wight with us. So many mixtures of different countries. And the only static you're gonna get from the festivals is not from the people themselves, but from the other people that can't understand the idea of mixing so many different people together, under the name of music, peace and love. And so, because this is gonna be different than the World War II set-up. And in World War II all these countries were completely against each other, almost, complete opposite. Now we're getting them all together, through the idea of music. ALTHAM: It does appear, doesn't it, that a very militant, political motivated faction is involved in these festivals, the French Maoists... HENDRIX: With any new civilization, that you might find yourself involved in, or you might see growing, with any new civilization they have to have their own officers and police and governments and all that, so it's not all that political, not really. You just take the best from all politics, or all religions, or all countries. You just do the best with that and then, in the meantime we're just forced to be gathered in pastures right now [laughs]. ALTHAM: Yeah, I mean these people that turned up at the Isle Of Wight Festival, and demanded that the music be free, and the festival... HENDRIX: Oh yeah, they learned that from the papers. How come they didn't do that with Monterey? They didn't do all that kind of mess with Monterey. See festivals shouldn't worry about getting so many people. It's a big ego trip now. 'Five hundred thousand people came. Oh wow! That's great!' Well with the five hundred thousand, that's way larger than the average city, for instance, in England. And every city in the world always has a gang, a street gang, or the so-called outcasts. So you're gonna get that with five hundred thousand people. That's a city right there! You know, so you're gonna have to have gate crashers, you're gonna have the other side of everything. It's up to the people. If they really want to keep it going they'll keep it going. If they don't, well then they'll appreciate the music itself. But see, you can't mill about when you're at a rock 'n' roll theatre? Remember when we used to have gigs in the theatre? You can't really mingle too much, you just have to sit there and just ... ALTHAM: Don 't you feel in a sense when the thing becomes too large, that the music is becoming incidental, anyway ... when there is final... HENDRIX: Yeah, oh, definitely. ALTHAM: ...see you and probably can 't even... HENDRIX: Well see, I can understand that part. It's not only the music, but it's, the music draws, I mean well the artist, the artists and the names and so forth, draws the people there. But the whole idea is the people to dig themselves and so forth, you know, just mingle around meeting different other people. That's cool. That's why they should give more to the festival, they should have not only music, but theatre and selling things, and circuses and so forth. ALTHAM: Freak shows. HENDRIX: Yeah! Definitely. Definitely. Freedom in Denmark! Slurpl Slurp! [laughs]. ALTHAM: Now, what about the prices of admission at concerts? Because it seems that you previously expressed concern about the charges that kids were being taken for to see your concerts in the States, but at the same rime most of your concerts in the States, I thought, were self-promoted? Now, I would have thought that you could control the prices yourself? HENDRIX: Not really, because, not the way the people who lay it down, who's ever stuck runnin' it. So promotion only with my name only, that's all I have to do with it mostly. Because they explain that they have to sell the tickets at a certain amount in order to make a certain cover or something. But all they explain to me is something else I don't understand really. LTHAM: But I mean surely, you could turn around and say alright if they charge six dollars or whatever it is to get in to see Jimi Hendrix. I won't play. HENDRIX: Yeah, I could do all that too, but see, there's contracts and all that you sign sometimes, and commitments you make, and then regardless how much they charge, sometimes you don't even get a chance to look into all that. All you can do is express your opinions about it and hope the next time it will be better. ALTHAM: I mean, what would you say would be a reasonable fee for you to do a concert for, shall we say, ten thousand people, for example? HENDRIX: How much would I get paid or how much will the tickets cost you mean? ALTHAM: Well, how much would you consider to be a reasonable fee for you and your band if it was a three-piece band? HENDRIX: Hmm, for ten thousand people? Oh, I don't know, it's pretty hard to say that though, I could say how much maybe the people should pay to get in maybe. ALTHAM: Well, how much? HENDRIX: Say about a dollar and a half, I guess. ALTHAM: Which in terms of English money would mean? HENDRIX: Ahh ... a dollar and a half is... ALTHAM: About seven and six? HENDRIX: Yeah, I think so, six and six. How much do they pay around here, when they go to concerts? ALTHAM: Well, I think it just depends on where you're sitting. HENDRIX: Oh right. Well what's the highest that it could go? Do they ever go to twelve? ALTHAM: Two pounds or three pounds. HENDRIX: Wow, that's ... silly. No, as long as they keep it under ten. I think they shouldn't go any higher than ten shillings. 'Cause after all it is music and they have to pay twice as much or three times as much to buy the LP. ALTHAM: What do you think about the concept of free music, I mean, free concerts? HENDRIX: Oh I can dig that, I can really dig that. ALTHAM: So can you play them? HENDRIX: We should be able to, there's no reason why we shouldn't. We should only collect enough as where we can pay the expenses from the last town to the next town. Do our own kind of things, because we have time, there's no big rush. Well see, sometimes the music people, I mean that's the other end of the business, they put you into these big rush things as of where you don't get a chance to even reply to all that. But there's no reason why we can't do free concerts here. But we would blow a lot of money if we had to pay for everything, like the theatre. If we can get enough money as of where we could like, have the people altogether pay for the theatre [laughs] our fare and our hotel, and, between, I mean just expenses. That's all we would have to pay, so the tickets would really drop down in price so it'd actually be free, it'd be donation-like. ALTHAM: Do you feel personally that you have enough money to live comfortably without necessarily making more as a sort of professional entertainer? HENDRIX: Ah, I don't think so, not the way I'd like to live, because like I want to get up in the morning and just roll over in my bed into an indoor swimming pool and then swim to the breakfast table, come up for air and get maybe a drink of orange juice or something like that. Then just flop over from the chair into the swimming pool, swim into the bathroom and go on and shave and whatever. ALTHAM: You don't want to live just comfortably, you wanna live luxuriously? HENDRIX: No! Is that luxurious? I was thinking about a tent, maybe, [laughs] overhanging ... overhanging this ... a mountain stream! [laughter].
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