On September 23, 1999 Classic Rock talked to rock veteran Roger Earl of Foghat. Roger called us at 11:45 from a New York airport. We found him to be very delightful! Foghat is still on tour and is still pumping out great blues oriented rock! (It might help the reader to imagine a rich, English accent when reading Roger’s answers!)

CRR: Classic Rock, this is Jeb.

Roger: Hello Jeb, Roger Earl of Foghat.

CRR: How ya doing today?

Roger: Fine.

CRR: I’d like to start by asking a couple of questions about the new CD Road Cases.

Roger: That’s a good idea. Yeah, we can talk about that one. Why not?

CRR: Why did you decided to go with another live album over new material?

Roger: The band was playing particularly well live. We tend to listen to tapes and mini disks of most of the shows to keep an eye on ourselves and see how were sounding. Some of the shows sounded really good, so we decided to do that. Dave had written a number of new songs that were suitable for live performances. Anyway, playing live is a lot of fun. You know, instead of going into the studio and standing there and being very clinical. It’s a lot more fun being in a live situation. PRESSURE! I LOVE PRESSURE! I NEED THE PRESSURE!

CRR: I’ve seen you guys from stadiums to clubs and live, you are just phenomenal!

Roger: Well, thank you. It may be something to do with experience. We’ve been doing it for over 30 years. It’s about time we got it right now isn’t it?!

CRR: That brings up a question. How do you manage to stay fresh after 30 years. How does it stay fun?

Roger: I bathe on a regular basis! I use, what soap do I use...I’ve forgotten now.....Irish Spring! Irish Spring does it. That’s how I stay fresh! Seriously, I feel very fortunate to be able to earn a living and play on a regular basis. I mean there is hundreds and hundreds of bands and musicians who have to do day jobs and they are stuck in offices and they don’t get the chance to play, where as I do. I play in a great band and it’s a lot of fun!

CRR: You have probably been asked this, but what exactly is a Foghat?

Roger: Umm............well, I don’t no exactly what a Foghat is. Your going to have to ask Dave that one. He made it up when he was playing a Scrabble game with his brother when he was about 12 or 13. Dave insisted it was a word. Of course, his brother said, "no it’s not!" and of course Dave is right. It is a word! We are a name now!

CRR: You have been on the road with Blue Oyster Cult.

Roger: We tour with them. We’ve been touring with them on and off for as long we have both been around. We used to do a lot of dates with them in the 70’s. We get along with them very well. It’s a lot of fun playing with them. You know they are old road horses too now aren’t they?!

CRR: Let me ask you this: Why is it that the drummer is always the wildman in the band?

Roger: (Laughing) I’m not wild at all!! (He puts the phone down and asks the group of people he is with, ‘Am I a wild man?’ In the background the group erupts with laughter!) I don’t know, maybe it’s just our nature. Do you know the story about the turtle and the scorpion?

CRR: No, I don’t know that one.

Roger: Well, you see, a turtle was sitting by the side of the road and all of a sudden a scorpion jumps on his back. He says, "take me across the river." and the turtle says, "no, you’ll sting me!" The scorpion says, "No I won’t...No I won’t!" So he says, " Do you promise?" and the scorpion says, " Of course I promise. I won’t sting ya." about halfway across the river, the scorpion sticks his stinger in the turtle. The turtle says, "What ya do that for? Now we’re both gonna drowned!" He says, "I’m sorry. It’s in my nature!" So, yeah, it’s in our nature to have a good time I think. Maybe it’s all to do with all that banging and kicking things and smashing things. It’s quite a lot of fun being a drummer. Especially in a rock and roll band!

CRR: You used to play with Keith Moon didn’t you? One of the biggest crashers and bangers.

Roger: I sat in with the Who 2 or 3 times in the late 60’s when I was with Savoy Brown. I got to meet Keith. Once back in 1968, we were doing a show down in Brighton with them and Keith came along.......this is when I was a struggling musician! Although, I still struggle sometimes being a musician (chuckles). Keith had a whole bunch of new Zylogian cymbals. I was sitting there and he said, "Do you need new cymbals?" I was playing with cracked things. So he took all his old ones off and gave them to me and put all his new ones on. He was a very generous person. A great guy too. Very warm. He was a bit of a maniac but......the sad part about him dying is that he was probably at a point in his life where he was actually going to be able to really enjoy himself. He’d got most of his demons out of him. It was sad. It was a sad day for the band and rock and roll in general. We lost a real personality there!

Anyway, it was a lot of fun working with him. I used to get up and sit in on Magic Bus. He’d have anybody sit in with him. It wasn’t anything special!

CRR: I’m a guitarist.

Roger: Are you? He probably would not have asked you to sit in with him them (laughter)!

CRR: Could you please tell drummers to stop playing once and a while to discuss song arrangements!!

Roger: You can’t get them to stop playing! Oh, that doesn’t happen to me! I’m an accomplished player heh heh! In fact I’m quite useful in the studio when it comes to arrangements! I know what I’m doing (chuckles again). Hold on, we have to go through security. I have to stop talking for a minute. We’re on our way to....where are we off to.....Nashville and Memphis. We are in New York for a moment and then we are off to Texas for about a week.

(Roger goes through security. I could here the band talking amongst each other.)

Roger: Hi, I’m back again.

CRR: They let you through huh?

Roger: Yes. They said, "Welcome, welcome, welcome!"

CRR: Are you based in New York?

Roger: I live in Long Island. I’ve lived here on and off for about 25 years. In Fort Jefferson, on the north shore.

CRR: One thing I’ve heard that we have in common is fishing. I’m from the Heartland and we do plenty of that here!

Roger: Some of the best people come from the heartland, don’t they?

CRR: I like to think so!

Roger: (Again laughing) That’s right! I love to fish! We live on the ocean so I fish for blues, bass, trout fishing.....We have good trout fishing here.

CRR: We are mainly bass and catfish.

Roger: Bass are good fun aren’t they! My girlfriend Linda is telling me that she caught a 10 pound blue fish yesterday and I did not catch anything! (Much laughter)

CRR: Sounds like she’s got one on you!

Roger: Yes, yes.... the picture is up on the fridge!

CRR: I like channel cat and flat heads myself.

Roger: Ohh, a big fish! What do they go, 30-40 pounds?

CRR: They can get up there. There are a lot of smaller ones but they still make a good filet!

Roger: (Chuckling) Where are you based out of?

CRR: Just south of Wichita, Ks.

Roger: AWWWW Wichita! We have not been there in a long, long time!

CRR: I know. It’s about damn time you came back!

Roger: We were going to play there about a year ago but Dave got ill, so we had to cancel. I imagine we will be playing there later this year or early next year. Lets talk to some people about it then! What’s wrong with these agents!

CRR: Did I read somewhere that you are a grand pa?

Roger: Yes, Grampa Roger! In fact, my Granddaughter came to stay with us this summer. She’s four and a half now! I have 3 daughters too. They will take care of me when I get old!

CRR: When Foghat Live came out, did you expect the reaction it got?

Roger: You know, I don’t think I ever really expected anything. Whenever we made records we did the best we could. We’d just hand it over to the record company and it’s sort of out of our hands. I was somewhat amazed at our success, I really was. I don’t think it’s sunk in even now after 30 years. It’s funny. We turn up somewhere and there is like 15 or 20 thousand people cheering for you. You go, ‘hmmm, I wonder what we’ve done to have all this?’ Actually, it’s a real thrill to play, it really is!

CRR: Why do you think you are still here and so many other bands are not?

Roger: Well, we are a rock and roll band now aren’t we!! I think we were fortunate that we didn’t have too many ballads as hits!! There was only one, wasn’t there? It was a good song but the rest were all rock and roll songs. Dave may have something to say about that but I think that’s it. The rest of the hits were all rock and roll songs.

CRR: You have some memorable ones. Stone Blue, Slowride...

Roger: I Just Wanna Make Love To You. What else was there......

CRR: I love the old Buddy Holly remake off Energized.

Roger: Oh, what was that.....

CRR: That’ll Be The Day.

Roger: Actually one of the biggest songs off that album was Honey Hush. It was a popular radio song. We haven’t played that one in a while. We played it in rehearsal about a month ago.

CRR: Then there is Home In My Hand.

Roger: We play that one. When we first got back together again we learned many, many songs that we had not played in years.

CRR: What’s the story behind the blues benefit you did back in the 70’s?

Roger: I think it was really just a tribute to our heroes. It was great to play with Muddy Waters, John Lee Hooker and Paul Butterfield. I played with Paul before. He used to live up in Woodstock and we would jam up there. It was a benefit for the New York Public Library. It seemed like a good idea at the time....to give something back to our heroes and the people who inspired us. Others were Eddie "Bluesman" Kirkland, Honeyboy Edwards....there was somebody else..... I can’t quite remember.

CRR: Well, it has been awhile......

Roger: (laughs) It’s been a while ago now! But that was the highlight of my career!

CRR: Savoy Brown was more blues based, where as Foghat is more rock. Was that a conscience decision you made.....to go with a more rock sound?

Roger: It was more unconscience! We have always been rockers at heart. Early Elvis, Johnny Cash, Jerry Lee Lewis...they were my early influences. After that I got into John Lee, Muddy and Willie Dixon, of course. And Chuck Berry. Without Chuck Berry there would be no rock and roll. We’d all be out of a job!

(In the background, the PA system is calling for the passengers to board the flight.)

Roger: Uh oh, I’ve got to go catch my flight now. Jeb, I have to go catch a plane.

CRR: Thank you so much for your time.

Roger: Thanks Jeb. Thank you very much!

With that we hung up. Roger went on to Nashville. When Foghat does return to the Midwest, we will bring you a full concert report and more from Roger Earl of Foghat!