Starting At Zero (14 page)

I’d like to experiment with different instrumentation – keep the basic trio but add other musicians temporarily when we want a different sound. I’m also trying to work out a
whole new concept of putting on a show, something more in the form of a play with good stage presentation. Can you imagine taking
Othello
and putting it on in your own way? You’d write
some real groovy songs. You wouldn’t necessarily have to say the exact lines. Nobody would be the star. Everybody would be working together. Every single song would have a completely
different and strange arrangement and setup. And we’d use films and stereo speakers in the back of the auditorium, all over the place. It’s hard to explain, but it would be so natural,
in a rehearsed way.

BUT MOST OF ALL, RIGHT NOW I’M LOOKING FORWARD TO GOING BACK TO SLEEP …

This is the second time we’ve been to the States. You can have a chocolate milkshake in a drugstore, chewing gum at gas stations and soup from little machines on the road.

{FEBRUARY 1, 1968, THE EXPERIENCE’S FIRST AMERICAN HEADLINE TOUR OPENED AT THE FILLMORE WEST, SAN FRANCISCO.}

I
DON’T EVEN REMEMBER THE FILLMORE LAST NIGHT. I feel completely out of my mind. It was like a scene. We were in the studio in London, into
some groovy things, some really funky little things, and we were snatched out of the studio within a day of knowing nothing. Then we were thrown into the Paris scene, the Olympia theater, and we
found ourselves waiting for two hours at London Airport. Then we found ourselves in New York, lost in the street. All these within hours of each other. Then they had a press conference, and here
you are thinking about these songs. You have these songs in your mind. You want to hurry up and get back to the things you were doing in the studio, because that’s the way you gear your
mind.

Then we were thrown into the Fillmore. We wanted to play there, quite naturally, but you’re thinking about all these tracks, which is a completely different thing from what you’re
doing now. If people only knew what state of mind we’re in, like we’re half there or not. We’re constantly working, except when we sleep. Plus we don’t get a chance to
practice. Most of our practice is thinking about it. We’ve practiced about three times since we’ve been together. We just get a chance to jam sometimes, that’s the only thing. The
longest we ever play together is on stage.

But touring is one of those things you can’t avoid. A lot of people don’t have a full understanding of us yet, and if we stopped touring, they’d never understand. Nobody would
hear us.

{THE EXPERIENCE WERE SCHEDULED TO PLAY AT THE CENTER ARENA, SEATTLE, ON FEBRUARY 12.}

I’m looking forward to going home. It’s been seven years. Maybe I should call them and say,
“Look, um, hey, I’ve started this group and . .
.”

I met my family, and we were happy for a change. There’s my father, who’s married again, and my brother, Leon, who’s nineteen, I think, and is trying to form a band of his own
now. And I’ve got a six-year-old sister, Genevieve, whom I’d never seen. That’s how long I’ve been gone from home. She’s a lovely little girl. She keeps every article
she reads about me and all the pictures. I’ve got a picture of her. She’s so cute. I’m very proud that I can send them articles from newspapers and send them money. That’s
the only way my father likes it. I told him, “Dad, I could buy you a home. I want to buy you a home this winter.”

Before it all started happening nicely for us, I thought about the future. I thought, well, there’s money to be made and I’m going to make it, but I’m not going crazy when it
comes in. I saw so many cats in the music scene who’d made a lot of money and ended up twisted, rich but miserable, that I said, “I’m going to make it better organized for me if
ever I get to that stage.” Half the groups aren’t free to change as they want to because they’re all thinking about their career and thinking about their future so much. I
don’t really give a damn about my career or future. What I’m making money for is to make better things happen.

I
WENT TO GARFIELD HIGH SCHOOL, my old school, where they kicked me out when I was just sixteen. I wonder if my old school teacher digs me getting
the keys to Seattle? Maybe she’s a Daughter of the Revolution now. Man, that Seattle thing is really something! The only keys I expected to see in that town were to the jailhouse. When I was
a kid there I often nearly got caught by the cops. I was always gone on wearing hip clothes, and the only way to get them was through the back window of a clothing store. I did a concert for the
kids there. Just me. I played with the school band in the gymnasium. Only thing wrong was that it was eight in the morning. They canceled first class to listen to me.

“Are there any questions? There must be somebody?”

How long have you been away from Seattle?

How do you write a song?

No city I’ve ever seen is as pretty as Seattle, all that water and mountains. It was beautiful, but I couldn’t live there. You get restless, and before you know it you’re too
old and you haven’t seen any of the world. You’ve got this great big fat old world here, so who wants to live in the same place forever? The next time I go to Seattle will be in a pine
box.

{THE TOUR CONTINUED ACROSS AMERICA THROUGH FEBRUARY, MARCH AND APRIL 1968.}

DIARY EXTRACTS:

I
LIKE THIS TOURING EXCEPT I DON’T LIKE THE TOURING, if you know what I mean. I dig doing shows in different towns, sure, but the hotels, the
lack of service, the hang-ups when all you want is something simple to eat at the time you want to eat it. And you get no kind of private or personal life in this business. A person has to have
five or ten minutes to himself every day. When you’re resting after working for eighteen hours in a day and trying to have a quiet meal somewhere, there’s always kids coming in and
bugging you for autographs and pictures, or somebody looking at you really strange, whispering and all that. So, quite naturally, you get complexes about that. I can’t have fun like anybody
else.