By Paul Freeman [February 2012 Interview]

George Thorogood likes his rock the same way he likes his booze - in straight shots. “Take a good shot of bourbon, pour it in a glass. Take a sip of it. And it hits you. Then you take the same shot of bourbon, put a little water in it. Put a little more water in it. Put a little more water in it. After a while, you can’t taste the bourbon. There’s no water in our bourbon.”

Thorogood and his Destroyers band rouse audiences, barreling through such signature hits as “One Bourbon, One Scotch, One Beer,” “Bad to the Bone,” “Move It On Over” and “Who Do You Love,”

Thorogood’s set these days includes material from his latest album, “ 2120 South Michigan Ave.” That’s the address of Chess Records and Thorogood pays tribute to that legendary label and its artists.

As much as the Delaware-raised Thorogood was drawn to music, his long-time dream was baseball. He made it as far as semi-pro.

His focus turned to music after attending a John P. Hammond concert in 1970. Through years of toiling at little clubs, Thorogood persevered. A breakthrough came when Thorogood and The Destroyers opened for The Rolling Stones, one of his original inspirations, on their 1981 tour.

Wildly enthusiastic audience reaction makes Thorogood, 62, realize that he still knows how to give listeners a 120 proof rock ‘n’ roll jolt.

He took time to talk with Pop Culture Classics.

POP CULTURE CLASSICS:
Hi How are you?

GEORGE THOROGOOD:
Bad.

PCC:
As in ‘bad to the bone’?

THOROGOOD:
Exactly. You’re up in the Bay Area?

PCC:
Yes.

THOROGOOD:
Remember the Keystone, Palo Alto? We played our first California gig there. It was funny. We came in. We had a record out at the time. We went in and there was nobody there. It was about five o’clock in the afternoon. We set up our equipment and started playing a sound check. And on the floor of the place, there was a wedding reception going on. A guy came up to us while we were like rehearsing a couple of songs and said, ‘Hey, you guys sound really good. The band I hired really stinks. Would you play, if I fire these guys?’

They didn’t even know who we were. I said, ‘How much will you give us?’ ‘We’ll give you 150 bucks.’ I said, ‘Oh, yeah, sure. We’ll do it.’ So we took our stuff off the stage, put it on the floor and started playing for the wedding reception. And then the club owner came in and tried to throw us out. And said, ‘What’s the story? We have George Thorogood coming in here.’ I went, ‘I am George Thorogood.’ They thought it was like some publicity stunt. We didn’t know if anybody was going to show up. We were booking ourselves at that time. It was quite an evening. We’ll never forget that. You couldn’t have planned that, if you tried.

PCC:
The couple is probably living happily ever after because of your music.

THOROGOOD:
Well, they probably didn’t remember, because once we got done playing, they left and we’d never even let on who we were. They didn’t know. They were just happy to have a band that could play at the wedding reception. The band they hired, they didn’t care for. So we got the money. And then we played again that night. So we walked off with more cash than we’d ever seen before. That’s for sure.

PCC:
So you’re really a multi-purpose band.

THOROGOOD:
Well, you know, everybody likes ‘Bourbon, Scotch and Beer.’ That’s a given.

PCC:
Your current set includes songs from ‘2120 South MIchigan Ave’?

THOROGOOD:
I do everything. Everything within the law. Everything that time allows me. I always say, ‘How much time do I have to do this?’ It’s not like the old days, when Elvin Bishop and Duane Allman jammed until five in the morning at the Fillmore West. The world’s changed a lot since then. There are restrictions. And I always have to find out what they are. Even in California.

PCC:
When the record company suggested a tribute to Chess, was it a challenge to narrow down which tunes you wanted to do?

THOROGOOD:
Every time you make a record, it’s a challenge. And I don’t like challenges. [Chuckles] I like easy.

Yeah, it was challenging, because there was a lot of Chess artists that did stuff that I can’t do. I’m not a harmonica player, but Sonny Boy Williamson is one of the highest profile blues Chess artists. There were obstacles there that I had to get past. But with help of Tom Hambridge and Capitol, we got through it.

PCC:
How huge an impact did Chess have in the ‘50s and ‘60s?

THOROGOOD:
I think it had a monster impact on the whole world. I mean, I went to Chicago in ‘81 and I was shocked at how many people didn’t even know what or where Chess Records was. And I was trying to explain to people. I said, ‘This is the music that changed the world. Chuck Berry cut ‘Roll Over Beethoven’ and ‘Johnny B. Goode’ here. These are the two songs that started the whole thing, that just blew John Lennon’s mind and Keith Richards, as well. And those bands changed the world forever.

Chuck Berry was that link. And so was Chess Records. I said, ‘You have no idea how much we all owe to this company, and especially to two artists, Chuck Berry and Bo Diddley. Let’s face it, they were blues men before. And they saw rock ‘n’ roll coming and they took their act and revved it up into a rock act. Sonny Boy Williamson and Muddy Waters and Howling Wolf didn’t quite leap that hurdle that Chuck did. He broke that barrier. So, for that, it was, I think, even more history-making than Sun Records was, in that fashion. I mean, let’s face it. Chuck Berry got that music on ‘Bandstand.’ Come on. That’s amazing.

Wrigley Field is famous in America. But outside America, who knows about it? Chess Records is world famous, because ‘Johnny B. Goode’ is famous.

PCC:
You mentioned Keith Richards. I had read that it was something you’d read about Mick Jagger that led you, as a kid, to write away for a Chess catalog. Is that true?

THOROGOOD:
Yeah. I read a story that he was on a train and he bumped into Keith Richards. And Mick Jagger had an album and they started talking about it. And Keith said, ‘Where’d you get the record?’ Mick Jagger said, ‘Well, I got this catalog from Chicago, from Chess.’ All record labels had catalogs in the old days. Capitol, Columbia, Vanguard, they’d all have a mailing address that you could write to for a catalog. Mick did that. And I thought, ‘I could do the same thing.’ They sent me a brochure and then sometimes I got the records sent to me in Delaware and sometimes I had to go to Philadelphia and New York, places like that, to find them.

PCC:
Getting those records, was that an education for you?

THOROGOOD:
Us kids, on the East Coast, anyway, we never looked at rock or rock ‘n’ roll, especially rock - and the blues is the roots of rock - we always looked at it as more of a social phenomenon than a music phenomenon. It was something that was changing the world. Blues music, or Chess Records anyway, was the cornerstone of that, the foundation of all of that. You can’t tell me that Robert Plant or Jimmy Page or any of those people - Jeff Beck, I met the guy, he didn’t stop talking about Howling Wolf for an hour. So I’m just like the freshman in the college of all of that. Clapton and Jagger and those guys, they’re like the graduates of that school of that. So I just kind of followed along - this is the way it’s done, I guess.

PCC:
You got to know a lot of those roots greats. You cover ‘Bo Diddley’ on the new album. What do you recall most vividly about him?

THOROGOOD:
You gotta understand. I played a couple of shows with Muddy Waters. Very nice to me. Howling Wolf was not feeling well at the time when we worked with him. He was still cordial and polite in the brief time I talked to him. Chuck and Bo were always fantastic to me. But they’re not easy men to know. They’re not easy men to get close to. And they keep it that way. I was fortunate that they’ve always been polite and congenial with me. And my memories of those two gentlemen will always be fantastic. And not to mention what they gave me musically... or gave the whole world.

I finally cornered Chuck one time, and I said, ‘I want to ask him this question, just to see what he says. I know the whole world’s asked him this.’ I said, ‘Chuck, what do you really base your success on?’ Now, I don’t know if he’s going to say it was Sinatra, it was this, it was that. He looks me in the eye and says, ‘Well, George, you gotta eat right.’ [Laughs] I thought, ‘Well, yeah, if you’re not healthy, you ain’t got shit.’ So I thought, ‘Yeah, that’s a good basis to be successful. It seems to have done him pretty good.’

PCC:
Do you still get a kick out of playing with people like Buddy Guy and Charlie Musselwhite? [Who guest on the ‘Michigan Ave’ album]

THOROGOOD:
I get a kick out of playing with the Destroyers. I get a kick out of listening to Charlie Musselwhite. I watch Buddy Guy play a little bit. But I’m not much for playing with other people. We did the album and they overdubbed their parts. But I get a rush out of playing with our band.

PCC:
And does it get better and better, having weathered the years together?

THOROGOOD:
Well, you keep doing anything long enough, you get better at. Unlike an athlete. Everybody says, ‘Oh, Tony Bennett, look how great he is at 85. He’s better than ever.’ I’m going, ‘Tony Bennett’s act has not changed since he was 35. He was a tuxedo lounge act - the greatest lounge act in the world - when he was 40. So quite naturally, 45 years later, he’s going to be better at it than ever.’ So it’s not that big a shock to me. Like, every time you see Tom Jones, he’s better. People go, ‘Wow, he’s really come into his own.’ I go, ‘No, he hasn’t. He was into his own for the last 30 years.’ [Laughs]

PCC:
So you’re still building towards your prime?

THOROGOOD:
Well, it took me a while to get the right players and the right material, the right equipment, the right people working with me. It’s gotten 360 degrees better over the last five or 10 years. Before that, it was a struggle-and-a-half. Rooms weren’t good. P.A.’s weren’t good. I didn’t have another guitarist. We didn’t have as much material. It was a lot of hard work. Now it’s a little bit easier. The audience knows the tunes. They know who we are. When we come into the place, I’m not auditioning [Laughs], which is nice. Yeah, now, it gets to be much more of a groove a lot quicker.

PCC:
When you had to go through the struggling period, what kept you at it?

THOROGOOD:
What else was I supposed to do? Say ‘This is too hard, I'm going to stop doing it’? It’s all I know how to do. Even though it was hard, it’s like when Mays retired, Vin Scully came up to him and said, ‘You know, Willie, throughout your whole career, you made it look so easy.’ And Willie looked at him with real tired eyes and said, ‘That’s nice.’ [Laughs]. Because it was anything but easy. He just made it look easy.

Anybody in my line of work, who thinks it’s not going to be a struggle, ought not to get into this line of work.

PCC:
Was a baseball career the big dream for you, growing up?

THOROGOOD:
I'm still dreaming about it [Laughs]. That’s really never going to go away. It’ll never be realized. But it will never go away. Like Bob Costas. Just like the rest of us.

PCC:
What made you shift focus from bat to guitar?

THOROGOOD:
Well, three things kept me out of the big leagues - I couldn’t hit, run or throw. The power players last a lot longer than utility infielders.

But music, it was the only thing that made sense to me. I was gearing up for this since I was about 15. I tried just about every other line of work. And it was all a mystery to me. I mean, let me ask you a question, man to man - what else could Tom Petty do? Really, seriously? With all due respect to Tom. He’s the greatest. But what else would he do? Could you answer me that? What else would Keith Richards do?

So when it comes to Thorogood, it was like, everybody in my neighborhood was looking at me, when I was 19 or 20 and going, ‘When?’

PCC:
Was it one particular artist or record that really inspired you?

THOROGOOD:
Well, The Stones put the idea in my head. What got me up off my ass is I went to see John Hammond. And I said, ‘There it is.’ You remember that scene in ‘The Blues Brothers,’ where they go into the church and a blue light hits Jake in the face and he’s saying, ‘The band! I see the light!’ Remember that? Well, that was me watching John Hammond. I went, ‘That’s it. There it is.’ It was like I almost had no choice after that.

PCC:
Why? What registered with you so strongly about that?

THOROGOOD:
It made me realize that you could make a living playing this kind of music. You may not be on the level of Led Zeppelin or Elvis Presley or The Beatles. But, playing this kind of music that you’re very good at already, George, and you know how to play slide guitar. Look at this man. He’s making a living doing this. He’s on a record label. There’s a cover charge. And there’s a dressing room. And he’s not doing Top 40. So that’s what hit me. And hit me hard. And said, ‘It can be done. You can do it.’

So that’s what John put into my head. He didn’t know it at the time. But I knew from that point on, that I was going to be successful. One hundred percent.

PCC:
You began acoustic, solo.

THOROGOOD:
Yeah, I would have gone and bought a Les Paul, but they cost 800 bucks. So I had a $200 Harmony, which I got for 30 bucks.

PCC:
But playing acoustic and solo, that’s kind of naked. Was that a good training ground?

THOROGOOD:
Sure, yeah. You’ve really got to know what you’re doing to pull that off. I tried it for a few months and then a guy came up to me, who was from Chicago, actually, who said, ‘Did you ever think of putting together a band?’ And I had. I didn’t say anything. And he said, ‘If you could find a bass player to be your thumb and a drummer to be your foot, you could pull it off.’ And I said, ‘This is as far as I’m going to go, playing this acoustic guitar, making 20 bucks a night, opening for Sonny Terry and Brownie McGhee, which is nice, but it’s as far as I’m going go. So I’ve got to get a drummer and a bass player and an electric guitar. That’s my destiny.’ That had been brewing in the back of my mind, anyway.

Everybody does that. Springsteen did that. Canned Heat did that. They were a jug band. Lovin’ Spoonful. Bob Dylan. They all knew that that’s where you’ve got to go, if you’re going to make your mark, if you’re going to make any noise. I mean, there’s only one Segovia, isn’t there? Ravi Shankar. And The Beatles started out with acoustic guitars. They were a skiffle band. And they had to go electric, as did Dylan and The Byrds and The Lovin’ Spoonful. And just about everybody else.

PCC:
So once you make that decision, what were the biggest challenges, in terms of carving out a niche?

THOROGOOD:
I didn’t have a big challenge. But I was challenged [Laughs]. The problem was convincing any record company that ‘Bourbon, Scotch and Beer’ was a hit. That was the problem. So that was the real challenge. I played it as a soloist. And I played it with the band. And it’s still on the radio today. and that was one of our first songs. And everybody loved it. But I couldn’t break through to anybody. I was saying, ‘Wake up! This is a good tune. If we don’t cover this, J. Geils will or Tom Waits will. Or Dean Martin will. Or The Allman Brothers. Somebody will do this song and it will be nationally known.’ I’m the one who’s got it. And I couldn’t get anybody to get through that. Even some musicians who wanted to play with me. It’s like, ‘This is the tune right here. The one that’s going to break us. It’s like, ‘Looking For A Love,’ J. Geils. ‘That’s what broke them, right? ‘Time Is On My Side’ by The Stones. That was the song that broke them, wasn’t an original. ‘Bourbon, Scotch and Beer’ was our tea.

PCC:
It must have been frustrating, when you knew it would work and couldn’t convince anyone.

THOROGOOD:
Yeah, you did not want to hang around with me between the years of ‘74 and ‘77. Let’s put it that way. I couldn’t even stand being with me. [Laughs]

You know, I met Bob Dylan. Guess what the first thing Bob Dylan said to me was... He said, ‘You know, I like that song, ‘Bourbon Scotch and Beer.’ Where were you in ‘76?! [Laughs] So there you have it. Is that an endorsement enough?

PCC:
You mentioned that The Stones were an inspiration. It must have been a thrill to open for them. Was it daunting?

THOROGOOD:
No. You know, when Hershiser made it to the World Series and he was getting ready to start and everybody said, ‘Boy, you’re so relaxed, so poised. Aren’t you nervous or excited?’ He goes, ‘No, I’ve been preparing myself for this since I was 10 years old. This is where I belong.’ So was when I was with The Stones, I didn’t think anything of it. It was a thrill. I loved it. But at the same time, I was thinking, ‘This is where I belong. I’ve honed my craft, so I could do this. I belong here.’ The Stones turned me on to Bo Diddley. I play ‘Bo Diddley.’ It took me five years to convince promoters that we did belong there, that we were the right band to be doing that. But once we got there, we did a ton of shows with those people. And it was a gas. And J. Geils, too.

PCC:
Do you still learn, playing with bands like that, even as a veteran musician?

THOROGOOD:
Everything is a learning process. I mean, let’s face it. We played a club that had 500 people in it and the next night, we’re playing in front of 110,000 people. So, you have to think fast. And get out there and adapt quickly to your surroundings. It’s a different venue, a different set-up.

PCC:
Your music has a great energy and rawness to it. When you hear rock getting overly slick and over-produced as years go by, does that bother you? Or do you just focus on the fact that there’s always a hunger for the real thing?

THOROGOOD:
Well, let me ask you something. If you take a good shot of bourbon, pour it in a glass. And you take a sip of it. And it hits you. Then you take the same of bourbon, put a little water in it. Put a little more water in it. Put a little more water in it. After a while, you can’t taste the bourbon. There’s no water in our bourbon.

PCC:
Is that why your audiences have remained so enthusiastic, because you’ve remained undiluted?

THOROGOOD:
Well, look at it this way. It took us so long to for us to get to where we wanted to be, once we got out there on the stage... Bill Graham once said to me, I said, ‘I don’t know if these people ever heard of me.’ He said, ‘Son, don’t worry about if they heard about you when you walk on stage. You make sure they know who the hell you are when you walk off stage.’ Our attack has always been aggressive, because we want the gig.

You keep somebody in solitary confinement for 10 years, and then let ‘em out... you get the picture?

PCC:
The audience excitement over songs you’ve been performing for many years, is that what keeps it exciting for you?

THOROGOOD:
You know, there’s a lot of people who have never heard it before. And most of the people, we’ve never played it for them before. So it’s a new experience every night. It might even be the same room. But you know there’s a lot of people out there that have never witnessed our live show. And we both excite each other. That’s what keeps it fresh.

PCC:
At this point, what are the challenges that...

THOROGOOD:
You keep using that word - challenges. [Laughs] I don’t like challenges. I’ve never liked challenges. I like them to lob the ball up there about 50 miles an hour, underhand. If Koufax is pitching, it’s a challenge. I don’t want any challenges.

PCC:
The biggest reward for you, is that the audience response?

THOROGOOD:
Well, that’s what you do it for. The whole thing is to keep the customer satisfied. That’s the payoff. I mean, money pays the bills. I don’t end up on the street. It makes sure my daughter gets braces on her teeth and something to eat every day. But the goal of the thing is to lift people’s spirits. To touch them in a certain way. That’s where I don’t think a lot of the reviewers and critics don’t get the idea of what The Destroyers are all about, what our real strength is. And it’s moving people.

When I first saw John Hammond, I swore on my life, I said, ‘My goal in life is to make people feel as good as he’s making me feel right now. That’s my goal, to make people that happy.’ And that’s what we do. We wouldn’t still be working now, if we didn’t pull that off every night.

I’ve seen top-notch rock acts and thought ‘This is boring. There’s nothing happening here. Why are you doing this?’ It’s like, if you’re going to make love to somebody, make sure they never forget it. Or why bother?

PCC:
What could be worse than boring rock ‘n’ roll?

THOROGOOD:
That’s not what it’s created for.

PCC:
Any goals you’re still burning to achieve?

THOROGOOD:
Yeah, I’d like to live to be 63.

PCC:
[Laughs] You’re 62 now, so that seems pretty safe.

THOROGOOD:
Yeah, well, one thing at a time here, okay? [Laughs] If I get to first base, my goal is to get to second base.

For the latest news and tour dates, visit georgethorogood.com.