JPG: You seem like someone who has a good degree of self-reflection. So, what is it about Nils Lofgren that interested Neil Young years ago when he made “After the Gold Rush” and then again when he put Crazy Horse back together last year or even Ringo Starr or Bruce Springsteen or….?

NL: I think the main thing that comes to mind is number one, like all musicians or teachers or sculptors, we’ve all been given gifts. Sometimes, you don’t recognize ’em, you never cultivate ’em or you see them and ignore them. Thanks to my parents’ DNA and some higher power…God’s fine with me but I’m very down on organized religion but that’s just me but I believe in a spiritual world and a higher power.

So, between my folks and some higher power, I got a gift of music, how I hear things, how I naturally put notes together. Now, I’ve cultivated and worked at it but how that happens in my brain is not of my own making at all. 

And another thing, just growing up to be a band person, playing covers in the Sixties. Of course, what a great catalog, British Invasion and American counterparts Stax Volt, Motown, all the old great blues guys. So, I fell in love with performing. Looking back, I saw music as a sacred weapon. Even when I was five or six I just studied music. It would take me out of my five-year-old fears or anxiety. Of course, I couldn’t intellectualize that at the time but looking back that’s what happened. 

Then, it was also the idea of the teamwork of a band. I played sports my whole life. I love playing basketball and football; just the idea of being on a team and going to do something. You throw a bad pass, two seconds later, the ball’s in your hands and you get to throw another pass. That’s what live playing is like to me. Hey, I made a mistake. Who cares because now I’m going fishing and I’m finding something special that doesn’t happen any time but in front of an audience and I’m in it and the people are keeping me in the moment. It’s not a studio where you stop playing and analyze a mistake, correct it and start over. That’s the beauty of live. 

Those are the two main elements that I thrive in, playing in bands without being a leader. I don’t have any drop in intensity or excitement or engagement if I love the people and the music. None. That’s served me well going back and forth. 

Case in point, it’s been 35 years since I joined the E Street Band and 50 years ago that I walked in on Neil Young and Crazy Horse at the Cellar Door. And, out of the blue, I did some shows with Neil last year. He talked about doing some work in the fall. No plans. It’s just an idea. Then, out of the blue he called, “I know you got an album. I know you got a tour coming up. I’ve been writing a lot of songs I like. Can you get to Telluride to record with Crazy Horse for a couple weeks, literally right up to when your rehearsals are beginning? Is that something you can handle?” I talked to Amy about it.

It’s been a rough time. We lost my mom in October. We lost my niece to drugs. We lost our dog Groucho then Rain, our 15-year-old passed. She was the heart and soul of the home. It was not a good time for us to do anything except be alone at home and help our other two dogs grieve but these are rare opportunities and Amy knows my history. She looked at me and gave me the thumbs up, “You gotta go. I’ll drive you up there.” It’s a 10-hour drive each way. Next thing you know I’m jumping in with these old friends I walked in on 50 years ago working on brand new Neil Young songs. It was beautiful.

That’s a work-in-progress. Neil’s the captain of that. He’ll steer it forward as he sees fit but it’s just a wild, beautiful thing.

We drove up in a snowstorm up there. Amy came back 11 days later, picked me up, drove me back to walk right into going to the airport to pick up Andy Newmark, my dear old friend who’s playing drums. Now, here we are having to put a show together in six days and hit the road. It’s all been a bit overwhelming, beautiful and kinda rough because this was our time to be alone and grieve but at least I’ve got a fabulous wife who recognizes these opportunities. Anyone else I would have said, “No,” probably anyone except these two extraordinary bands I’ve been in, E Street and Crazy Horse. I’d just say, “Man, I’d love to play stuff with you but I can’t leave home and do a session in L.A. now. Some other time.” But, these are rare circumstances. As all the craziness happens on our planet. Phone rings. Something breaks. You gotta fix it. Madness ensues here and there. Being an adult can be a real pain in the ass at times but, once in awhile, you get these calls. Been very hectic times with loss and gratitude for the things that are left. 

JPG: Well, first off, my sympathies go out to you for the loss of your mom and your niece. And, and being a dog person for the loss of Groucho, too. Altogether, there are losses that leave a hole that stay for quite awhile. 

NL: Yeah, it does and it never goes away but we’ve got two other dogs and they’re still wondering what the hell is going on…but they’re probably handling it better than us, honestly. We were all there with Groucho and Rain, lying with her. We got a beautiful vet who comes to our home. We all lay with them, talk to them, sing to them but still, man, it’s a hard loss. They live on a higher plain than us because the world’s gone crazy and we’re in a real crisis of darkness here with money and power at all expense being the goal itself for the people in charge with complete disregard for life itself and kindness and compassion on every level. It’s just extinct in their minds and hearts, which is very frightening and tragic.

People say, “Man, I wish the aliens would come down and save us.” They’re here. They’re our dogs, our cats, our elephants, our tigers, our lions…Look around. They’re teaching us. We’re just not paying attention. They’re here. They’re living on a higher plain and we’re ignoring the lessons. 

JPG: My mom was of Italian descent and I remember sayings and superstitions. Your mother was Sicilian, did fate and superstition play into your life as much as religion? 

NL: My dad’s Swedish, my mom’s Sicilian. I do believe in some kind of heaven. The soul lives on. I do feel connected to their souls. I feel like they’re with me. It’s funny. My dad who was a philosopher as a hobby, we’d have some serious fun conversations about spirituality, philosophy. He was not into organized religion but he did believe in God. He was very spiritual, and he always talked about the great mystery. “Whatever God’s plan is, that’s it. It doesn’t matter that 95 religions have 300 sets of rules and they believe in them. There’s only one God and what His plan is, it is. Having mortals decide you must do this or else really has nothing to do and doesn’t fit into that.” 

My mom was Sicilian Catholic and was smart enough to recognize my dad was right. It’s not about rules. It’s about compassion. As my wife and I often say the Dalai Lama’s line, “My religion is kindness,” which is, at best, a concept in all organized religions among all the lunatic rules to keep you under their thumb, train you to be fearful and observant of the rules. And to what end? It’s just destruction. 

That whole thing we’re into now. Once again, it’s mankind with “I’m better than you. I look down on you. You stand over there. You don’t count.” We’re totally capable as a species of extincting ourselves. That’s an option for us. Dogs or elephants, they’re not going to do that to themselves. A meteor might hit the earth and do it but they’re not prone to self-destruction like we are. 

My dad was so great at that. I learned so much from him. I accept the mysteries but I do accept, myself included, that I’m flawed. The more I can think of that, let my religion be kindness and compassion because the world’s bred of cynicism into all of us and sarcasm that, sometimes, comes out of our mouths.

And often I will think before you talk because maybe you can find a higher road to take. In most cases I will. I’m not excited that my knee-jerk reaction might have some cynicism and fear in it but I have learned, as my father used to say when I was a kid and pushing my brothers around, briefly before they all got bigger than me. We’d be in a car and I’d be messing with my brothers and my dad would say, “Nils, sit on your hands right now.” He had me literally sit on my hands so I couldn’t slap my brothers or mess with them. Figuratively, I’ve taken that into my life. Don’t speak. Look at what you’re gonna say. It’s probably not the highest, kindest road you can take. Sure enough, it isn’t. Let something come out of your mouth that exhibits a little more wisdom and worldliness that after 67 years here you should be able to access a bit easier. Take the time to try to be a little more kind and compassionate as you live and speak through the day with varying success. 

JPG: Well, we’re all a work-in-progress. Something I’ve always wondered about was in regards to your playing style. I watched your segment on “PBS Newshour” and you were using a pick on your thumb but in other videos and in concert it looked as if you just used your thumb and fingers. For someone who was so inspired by seeing Jimi Hendrix play how did you end up playing in this manner?

NL: It was just an accident. My dad had an old beat-up guitar. He wasn’t a player but he played music all the time. My parents loved music and they danced. That was their expression of it. They encouraged us.

There was a thumb pick in this beat-up acoustic. My brother Tommy started playing, showed me my first chords. I’m left-handed so I put this thumb pick on my right hand and just accidentally took about nine months to be able to play rhythms and have it sound like music. When all the young teenagers I’d meet at school that started learning guitar also said, “You must play rock ‘n’ roll with a flat pick. You have to switch.” I’m like, “Why?” I can’t face sounding awful for another nine months with a new pick. I’m used to this thumb pick. I’m barely sounding musical. So, I’m gonna stick with it. As I took some guitar lessons…my brother was my first teacher and Scottie Ball who would up playing bass in my first couple bands with the “Fat Man” album and “Cry Tough.” He’s now a music professor and [Dean of the School of Music and professor of music at Southern Adventist University between 2000 and 2017]. He’s a very classically-trained, brilliant musician. I took some guitar lessons from him. Learned the “Louie Louie” lick, learning some very simple leads.

Then, Bill Singer, I worked with him just a number of months and we were learning Clapton licks and Hendrix licks. We took a piece from Chet Atkins’ “Picks On the Beatles,”  “Cant’ Buy Me Love,” where the bass player is static (voices the bass line). It never changed. And you learn to independently pick the melody around it with your fingers. It was very difficult. It took months and months. Once I got that, it started opening up the gates of, “Well, I have a bass line going with the thumb pick,” which is very harsh. You can’t get a general sound with it but, conversely, you don’t have to hit it that hard to get more of a rhythmically percussive sound. Then, independently you pick the general melody with the flesh of your fingertips on top. 

So, I’m still doing that. Once in awhlie, I’ll play without a pick but I usually use the thumb pick. It’s just a style that developed accidentally by having it in this case, using it, getting used to it and just never having the heart to make the change to a flat pick. 

JPG: The only other person I can think of that mainly plays with his thumb and occasionally his fingers is Jeff Beck. 

NL: He doesn’t even use a pick and when he does he’ll play with a flat pick. He’s by far my favorite living guitarist, the greatest guitarist alive. I just opened for him last summer. He just keeps getting better. He’s certainly one of my heroes, at the top of my list of guitar players. Him and Tommy Emmanuel are my two favorites but I always thought Jeff and Jimi were off on their own statosphere, ahead of the pack. Somebody’s gotta be. Those two have got the greatest gifts as musicians and guitarists in my book anyway. 

It’s just a journey, man. The more I learn the less I know (slight laugh) There’s so much to learn that you’ll never get there, so I just take it as a journey. Right now, this journey is presenting a new batch of songs. I’m proud I got these ones done with Lou so they’re not hidden and it doesn’t eat at me because I was the only one person who could take that on and get it done because of the history, and losing Lou. 

So, it’s all good. I’m on the road with dear friends and getting to play and sing with Cindy [Mizelle] who sang all over the record and is just amazing us every night. Me and my brother Tommy, we’re just not used to singing harmonies with such a great singer like that. To have Cindy out here every night, and when we sing together, Tommy and I look at each other and just go, “Wow!” What a treat!

Cindy joined E Street Band with three other singers. Look, we got good singers. Me and Stevie [Van Zandt] do a good job but to have those other voices there that are so great to sing to and with is just another source of inspiration to get out there and do a great show. 

JPG: By the way I applaud you for using Ralph Steadman for the artwork on your albums Crooked Line and Breakaway Angel.

NL: Yeah. I was and still am a big fan of Hunter Thompson and Ralph’s illustrations. I was on a plane in ’89 going from Newcastle, England after some late night TV show with a full band on the road, flying back to DC. I was drinking heavily. I was walking the aisles with a triple gin and tonic in my hand. Some guy walked up and said, “Hi,” and we started talking. He was from Maidstone in Kent [England]. I come to find out it’s Ralph Steadman. I said, “You’ve gotta be kiddin’ me.” “I’m a musician.” He said, “Yea, I know who you are.” We talked and started a friendship, and we’re still good friends. 

Last September, I was playing there at Tunbridge Wells and Ralph came down to the show. Andy Newmark usually comes down to that show because it’s near London. 

I just had to ask because I’m such a big fan of his art, and he’s done two album covers for me, which are brilliant. 

JPG: I’m seeing if my memory is correct here. Your song “Keith Don’t Go (Ode to the Glimmer Twin),” at one point was it used in reference to the possibility of Keith Richards going to jail due to his Toronto drug bust?

NL: That was well after I wrote the song, and yes, on the “Night After Night” album and tour because that was happening, I started to go, “Keith don’t go/Back to Toronto.” It was just another chapter of the song. 

Originally, on the Tonight’s the Night tour, where we recorded “Tonight’s the Night” in a rehearsal hall in L.A. and we took it on the road in England and America.  We were in England doing this very dark record. It was our wake album because all our friends were dying, and I really had Keith Richards on my mind. Every night because, of course, I’m with Neil Young doing this very controversial tour in England, there were great musicians around talking. It seemed like everyday I’d meet two or three of Keith Richards’ best friends. I realized that he didn’t have that many people that close but they were all talking about him, his health, just gossiping. I was still young and naive and I thought, “Well, he just made “Exile on Main Street” so he can’t really be that sick, can he?” Listen to that record. So, it got me thinking. On that tour I had this riff (sings da-da-baum da-da da) I thought that is a good rock riff. This is gonna be a song. I had no idea what it was going to be about. I had no lyrics planned or in the works. 

That tour I started thinking about Keith and what he means to me. Literally, Jimi Hendrix and Keith RIchards are my main inspirers. There are so many of them but they’re at the top of the list. So, I thought, “Man, certainly we need Keith Richards here. Of course, I need him here. The world needs him here.” That’s where I got the idea to write kind of a dramatic thank you that was also a plea to say…Look, (slight laugh) I’m in no position to give anyone advice with the rock life I’ve led but I got the idea and wrote that song on that tour. It really didn’t come out until my first solo record, the “Fat Man” album.

On my box set there’s a rare, great Grin version well before that and not too long after the Tonight’s the Night tour, where Grin recorded “Keith Don’t Go” in Falls Church, Virginia at Bias Studios with David Briggs and Neil [Young] was passing through town. David got him down, and next thing we know Neil’s playing a piano session and singing with us. It’s a hellacious version that’s on my box set with Neil Young on piano and vocals. Really cool. 

Anyway, it was a couple years after that the Toronto bust happened and on the live album, as I was recording “Night After Night,” I’d throw in the “Don’t go back to Toronto” line, which came to me because, once again, we were all worried about Keith Richards and that he stay around and stay healthy and keep sharing his magnificent gifts he’s been given with us. 

JPG: Did you ever get a response from him about that song? 

NL: No. I’ve run into Keith at his solo shows and Stones shows. He’s been very gracious and kind. I’ve never asked him about it. I have no idea if he heard the song. It’s very likely he knows about the song. Has he heard it? I have no idea. He remains one of my heroes. 

A strange side story when Mick Taylor left the band, I swerved a U-turn in Kensington, Maryland to drive back and quickly get on the phone and call and ask for an audition, something I knew was a ridiculous idea. Very unlikely but I owed it to myself to do that because I loved the Stones so much. 

Halfway home I veered around, made an illegal U-turn and carried back on with my errands because I thought, “Of course, Ronnie Wood. Of course.” I knew Ronnie from the first Jeff Beck “Truth” tours. I would sneak backstage and Ronnie and Rod Stewart would let me hang out with them and talk to them and they were very kind. I’ll never forget that. A few years after that, Grin was opening for The Faces. Ronnie and Rod were in The Faces. Even back then, they had fond memories of me as a little teenage guitar stalker that they would let hang out with them and give me advice and let soak in their world. 

So, a month went by, there was no announcement. What the hell’s up? Why aren’t they announcing Ronnie’s in the band? Finally, I got on the phone and called Ronnie Wood. I don’t know how I got his number. He answered. He remembered me from those days, of course, and he said, “Yeah, Nils. The Stones asked me to join and I turned ’em down. I’m not gonna take the gig. I’m gonna stay with The Faces.” I didn’t know Ronnie well enough to tell him that sounded like a mad idea but I was grateful for the honesty. He said, “You kow what? Keith’s trying to find someone. He’s not having a lot of luck but he’s at my cottage now, playing with different guitar players. Here, call this number.” And after a month of not being to talk to anybody but his secretary who took pride in blowing me off because why the hell would you think you would help me talk to anybody in the band? And I get that but I had to try. So, next thing I know I try this number and Keith Richards picks up the phone. I said, “Keith, my name’s Nils Lofgren….da da da….” He said, “Oh yeah, Ronnie told me about ya. How ya doing?” I said, “Ronnie told me that you offered him the job and he’s not taking it.” “Yeah, we want Ronnie. He won’t do it. I’m playing with people and not having great luck. So, the Stones are going to have open auditions and have people come in and play with all of us because we’ve gotta find somebody. You’re welcome to come in and sit in.” 

The fact that he was that honest about it and took the call from a stranger and even said, “Yeah, we’re gonna have a cattle call for guitar players. The band’s gonna decide because Ronnie won’t do it and you’re welcome to come in and be one of ’em,” completely blew my mind. I had a little bit of history with Ronnie but for a guy like Keith to be that open and honest about what was really going on then…nothing to do with me. Those auditions never did happen because within a week or two I think Ronnie’s friends must have ganged up on him and said, “What the hell are you doing? This is your gig. You gotta take it.” And he realized they were right. 

Whatever happened has nothing to do with me but the fact that both of ’em were so honest and forthcoming was very striking and inspiring to me.

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