Neil Young News: Interview: Crazy Horse Saddles Up with Phil Lee

Wednesday, April 03, 2019

Interview: Crazy Horse Saddles Up with Phil Lee | Americana-UK

Ralph Molina, Phil Lee & Billy Talbot

Last year, we posted on news of an album by Phil Lee, a long time friend of L.A. Johnson and the Shakey Crew.

Phil Lee's new record -- The Horse He Rode In On -- released in December 2018 with Crazy Horse's Billy Talbot on bass and Ralph Molina on drums as the core of his band. Phil lives near Ralph and they play together frequently. It's a pretty cool record with great tunes.

Phil Lee & The Horse He Rode In On

From Interview: Phil Lee on how he finally saddled up with Crazy Horse | Americana-UK by Paul Kerr:

Q: What it was like to work with the legendary rhythm section?

Phil Lee: Well, it’s taken like 30 years to get these guys in the studio with me.

You remember those gigantic amplifiers Neil had on stage for his Rust tours? The company I worked for built those sets and I was hauling them from gig to gig. I also knew Larry Johnson since NY in the 70’s and he was the line producer on the Last Waltz and he also filmed much of Neil’s stuff so he introduced me to these guys and that’s how I first met Ralph and Billy. We’d always talked about making a record but we had to postpone it several times.

Most recently, Ralph had some health issues, I mean he’s strong as a horse, but he had to take some time out but once we eventually got together it was plain sailing. First off we got the right studio. Ralph helped me find Painted Sky studio and although its taken like forever to get off the ground, once it started happening it was incredible. You know, Billy and Ralph never got the memo that they are rock stars, they’re the most affable hard working chaps. They come in a 10 o’clock and work like hell, take a lunch break and get back to it, they still have the enthusiasm of teenagers.

They’ve been playing together since the early 60s so they’re like twins, I’ve only seen one blow up between them when they started to argue about some shit that went on in 1972 and they were like it happened yesterday! So, we got into the studio and cut the stuff in a week. Ralph and I had been playing together on and off but Billy had only got the demos so he wasn’t quite as up to speed as we were. But we kept it all simple and we were in the studio as I say for a week recording the songs with just the one guitar player and we’ve actually put some of those takes on the album as we didn’t think we could add anything to them.

Q: Phil reminded us of your first band, Danny and The Memories. You were singing kind of doo-wop rock’n’roll back then and I was wondering what got you into the Rockets and then Crazy Horse?

Ralph Molina: I was called to come to California by my cousin, who knew I was singing in Florida with a doo-wop group, he knew I sang falsetto. So I came out and began singing in Danny and the Memories and from there, when The Beatles came, Danny asked that I should play drums and Billy the bass. We got three other guys to play with us and we became The Rockets. Neil had just left the Springfield and used to hang out with us at Billy’s house where we would play in his garage in Laurel canyon. We were going, The Rockets, to play at the Whiskey A Go Go and we asked Neil to sit in with us. I guess he liked our sound and next thing we were recording ‘Everybody Knows This Is Nowhere’ and we evolved into Crazy Horse.

Billy Talbot: It was a natural progression. We came from the east coast, both Ralph and I, and here we are on the west coast with this guy from Ohio, who was really born in Georgia. A real conglomeration. Phil could have just added to that. It would have been great then. It’s really great now. I just love the record—the way it turned out.

Q:What’s the difference in recording with Neil Young and then Phil Lee?

Ralph: No difference. Phil is Phil, Neil is Neil. We record live and they both have the passion, feel and heart…

Billy: It’s like the difference from one day to another.