Felix Pappalardi - Sounds Magazine
November 20, 1971
Interview by Billy Walker
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" We cannot keep on going the way we're going
under any circumstances, its going to be done
my way or I'm going to quit."
FP: Well there was a huge void left in my life. I was a substantial part of them and it was a band I wanted. I had to move on, playing with other people is all influence, it's a constant cycle so who knows what I brought from Cream to Mountain or what I brought to Mountain of me that I used in Cream and taken to it's logical conclusion, I don't think there's anybody who can sort all that out. But for my own self I don't care. I'm interested primarily in improvisation. I'm interested in players as opposed to just people who play the same notes all the time.
...When Leslie's taking a solo this band is taking care of business, behind Leslie. There's nobody playing and saying 'look at me, I can play that lick better', it's 'get behind Leslie' because he's got to feel it.
With Cream, Eric would get into a feel and then perhaps the others would come in, he couldn't get into a groove long enough. I think that was probably one of the huge problems. Eric was the lead horn, there's no other way to think about it, yet there was this fantastic bass player capable of lead, if it had been organized to the point where Eric would be taking care of business behind Jack, Eric and Ginger behind Jack, and then Jack and Ginger behind Eric, it might have worked.
On the other hand the result of it not being that way was part of the excitement also of Cream, this phenomenal counterpoint, constant, rythmic and melodic. That's all to say Mountain is basically an improvisational unit, a playing bandas much as a jazz band is a jazz band.
When you produced Lelie's solo album "Leslie West, Mountain", did you know then that he was a musician you had to play with?
FP: Not at the time. Mountain didn't come together until '69, it was just after I had done Leslie's album and then come to London to do Jack's 'Songs For A Tailor'. When I got back I decided to go on the road just to get Leslie started and then as I got out there in order to put a show together that i figured was right I began to sing, got sucked into that, fired the drummer that I originally hired to just go out and get Leslie going, and then we got Corky. Steve Knight was already with the band but I knew he was right. He wasn't a keyboard player; he was a trombone player, tuba player, bass player but I needed a musician to play keyboard. I didn't need a triple-flash on the organ. Now he's developed, put his musicianship into the keyboard. It was Gail's idea that Corky joined us...
Steve Knight's organ playing, while an important part of Mountain's sound, isn't as prominent as many organists. Will there be a time when he will be more to the front?
FP: For instance, on "Roll Over, Beethoven" his playing is fierce. His treatment of the keyboard in "Nantucket Sleighride" itself, "Animal Trainer and the Toad" and things like that is so broad and his musicianship so good that it can evolve any time, he really can. I trust it will, given time.
Did your writing partnership with Gail start before Mountain or was it brought about by the need for material for the band?
FP: The best way to give you an example to answer that is on "Nantucket Sleighride", Travellin' in the Dark was actually written in 1965 and first recorded in 1967. I thought it was right for "Nantucket Sleighride" so we did it. Gail and I had actually started in 1964 together, so we've been working on it for a long time now.
Gail also did the covers of Mountain's three albums, were they especially designed for each album?
FP: The actual oil painting on "Nanticket Sleighride" was also done in 1966, the original is, in fact, backwards of that shown on the album. She does all the designs and the major portion of the photography and the main portion of the visual presentation and has always done so.
In your songwriting does Gail provide the lyrics and you supply the music?
FP: Most of the time that's the way it is. She's written some gorgeous melodies and I'd like to do a whole set of orchestrations for an album of them. For instance, "Travellin' In The Dark" is mostly my lyric, and "Crossroader", but without Gail I could never get it. The most important thing is being a songwriting team. Me and my old lady fight but never about that, that's always straight ahead.
Leslie's and Gail's and your style are very evident in the band's sound, his very raw and abrasive, yours more melodic. Are Corky and Steve moving into writing very much, and will it alter Mountain's style?
FP: Corky is in the process of arriving at a style. On the new album I knew what I wanted from it. I wanted a certain thing and style and knowing that I wanted what I wanted so definitely out of what was to become "Flowers Of Evil" that had it been something that Leslie didn't dig the shit would have hit the fan. But it happened that what I was striving for, the only thing I would accept, was something that knocked everybody out, and I think every album will be that kind of turning point for the band and if it isn't I think it's a waste of studio time.
Mountain once played the Fillmore six times in a week, how does this sort of pressure tell on the band's stamina?
FP: A show now can go two hours, there was a time when Leslie would get physically sick after 55 minutes but now he's used to it. Last friday we did Milwaukee, that went 1 hour 55 minutes. Sure we were tired and there wasn't much happening after the show but we felt good. It's hard, like being on an athletic team. I can't stay up the night before and fuck around. I can't do it because I know if I do I'm not going to be able to drive the band.
If Corky stays up all night with some broad and then lays back onstage and I've got to honk him, but if I'm not on top of him he'd run me into the ground. He's a strong cat and only 23 years old. So I've got to take my black pill and go to sleep.
There were rumors in Britain recently that Mountain had split, was there any truth of a break or were the band resting?
FP: There wasn't a rumor in the States but we heard about the rumor here that I had split to write and produce. As long as I can get the people that are booking the band and "managing" the band to understand that we cannot keep on going the way we are going now under any circumstances, there's going to be a choice: either it's going to be done my way or I'm going to quit.It's as simple as that. I'm not going to play this game anymore of three days a week working in the States, so if it's not done my way there will be no more Mountain, however, I can promise you there will be a Mountain because it's going to be done my way.
If a split did come about, could you see yourself playing with anyone but Leslie?
FP: No, Leslie's my man, it would be a joke. It's a once-in-a-lifetime thing and we both know that. The problem is the people who are booking and managing the band, the philosophy has to change. When the band goes out now, and it's getting nearly three years old, it's time to cut that crap out of two three-week periods off a year and the rest of it on the road. Three days out on the road and four days off to recuperate so you can get yourself together for the next three days, it's just got to stop.
In other words, whenever the band goes out on the road it's got to be an occasion. I'm sick of going to cities three times a year where somebody reads an ad and says, "Mountain's in town again, well I don't think we'll go this time because they'll be back in three months." We get a fantastic audience but we're killing ourselves. It will change, it's just a matter of me having enough time to formulate how it's going to be and socking it to everybody
The Who are very bright when it comes to this sort of thing. When you have something like a Who or a Mountain you don't put their asses out on the road like they were a bunch of whores.
"Nantucket Sleighride" was dedicated to Owen Coffin, could you tell me me a little more about the legend that surrounds him?
FP: The Coffin family first of all was one of the great Nantucket families, one of the original owners of the island and one of the great whaling families. Owen was seventeen when he went on his fateful first and last voyage on the Essex. The two biggest disasters in Nantucket's whaling history were The Globe and The Essex. The Globe was a mutiny and the Essex was stoved by a whale. George Pollard was the captain of the Essex and he was only twenty-eight and was Coffin's uncle.
They were into a school of whales and the longboats were out with the harpooners doing their number, then all of a sudden, about a hundred yards off the stern of the ship, a whale was noticed heading for the mothership (the Essex)picking up speed and then stove in the front of the boat. It came underneath the ship and wallowed off to the side; knocked semi-unconscious, the captain realized he was losing his ship and began making preparations for an emergency.
They were a long way from landable land (owing to cannibals)and as they were preparing to leave leave the ship the whale stove in the other side. They salvaged what they could and this was in August and it was February before the last survivors were picked up. In one of the longboats there were five men and they had to resort to cannibalism finally, to sacrifice one man so that the others might live and Owen Coffin drew the short straw. He was in the longboat with his uncle George Pollard, who refused to partake of him but the others did and survived.
Thanks to Phil Beards for contributing this UK article
