By Paul Freeman [2000 Interview]

Paul Kantner, guitarist/vocalist/songwriter, founding member of Jefferson Airplane, remained a fierce force in the rock world for decades. The San Francisco native wrote such classics songs as “Wooden Ships” and “Volunteers.” He was in the forefront of the 60s counterculture.

Pop Culture Classics spoke to Kantner in 2000, as Jefferson Starship was performing the “Volunteers” album live, in its entirety, in primarily acoustic form.

Kantner died on January 29, 2016, at age 74.

POP CULTURE CLASSICS:
This idea for playing “Volunteers” in its entirety - how did that come about?

PAUL KANTNER:
Mutual collaboration with various forces.

PCC:
Was there some sense of rediscovery, when you got into these tunes?

KANTNER:
Yes, actually. There was a certain intensity to the music that was nice to encounter again and approach from now. And particularly a song called “Eskimo Blue Day,” which has the line, “the human name doesn’t mean shit to a tree.” That’s effective. Talking about what’s really important. It’s a nice body of work.

PCC:
Are there other songs that especially seemed to take on new life?

KANTNER:
Well, you know, I took on a song that Jorma [Kaukonen] initially sang, called “Good Shepherd.” And Marty [Balin] and I now are trading verses on it and it turns out really nice. It’s a great instrumental piece, really warm and encompassing. It’s not really gospel, but whatever that music is, it works really well acoustically, with guitars and pianos… and voices.

PCC:
The acoustic approach…

KANTNER:
We’ve done that every year for the last eight or nine or 10 years. We’ve gone out in one period of the year, be it sometimes winter, sometimes early spring, and done an acoustic tour or two, in small clubs. And in some ways, it’s more rewarding that the big, electric band. Although they’re really just different sides of the same coin.

And you get to emphasize different things with the acoustic, that aren’t necessarily available with the electric band as easily. There’s an intimacy there that’s really nice. There’s almost an eloquence, both in the vocal presentations and the lyrics that’s not as evident when you’re a big rock ’n’ roll band. Big rock ’n’ roll bands do other things. I really love the big rock ’n’ roll band, but Marty and myself started in that other sort of music, which was called folk music then. I don’t know what we call it now [laughs]. But acoustic instruments a lot. Not completely. The lead guitar player still plays electrically, but it’s more subtle than just crashing rock ’n’ roll.

PCC:
But you still call it Starship.

KANTNER:
Well, it is. When I started Jefferson Starship years ago, it was begun as just a grouping of friends who happened to be around at the time [chuckles], like Phil Lesh & Friends kind of thing. We were just recording in the studio very casually and everybody from David Crosby and Graham Nash to Garcia, Mickey Hart, and blah, blah, blah, on down the line happened to be recording at the time. And we’d all sort of exchange stuff on each other’s records that we were working on at Wally Heider Studios at the time. And so when Jefferson Starship began, it wasn’t really a band so much as sort of a solo record that included a whole lot of other people.

And from that time on, it’s sort of been my - I’m the science-fiction one in the band. So it was a real natural thing to continue that, after the situation with the Airplane, where we each went off into our own areas. It came about rather naturally that, when we started a band again, Jefferson Starship, it just included this group of people, who, again, happened to be around and available at the time. And through the years now, we started in the mid-70s, ’74 maybe, it’s been a variation of people that have been around, that I have connected with on various levels. Like any kind of trans-ocean, trans-land, trans-space, if you will, vehicle, people can get off and get on at their leisure. And the band still works - on any number of levels, in various ways.

PCC:
The fact that the personnel changes, does that keep it fresh for you?

KANTNER:
No, not really. Just different. There are nice, different musicalities that come into the situation, be it Jack playing bass or the woman who’s singing with us, Diana [Mangano] doing this, that and the other song, me and Marty together, doing what we do.

We’re sort of like Oscar Hammerstein and [Richard] Rodgers [chuckles]. There’s a great love/hate relationship going there, like a good family would have between brother and brother. And there’s a nice tension there musically, because we’re at so opposite poles, relatively, of songwriting.

PCC:
How so?

KANTNER:
Well, Marty can write a love song at the drop of a hat, that’s really good. I can’t write a love song to save my life. Every time I try, it’s just like pathetically embarrassing [laughs]. It’s something that I just don’t do. It’s like an actor trying to be a musician. You know what I’m talking about? Like Bruce Willis thinks he’s a blues harmonica player. [Laughs] That’s what comes out when I try to do a love song.

And I have a good touch for writing big, epic kind of rock ’n’ roll pieces… or acoustic pieces, for that matter… that have a lot, too many words, I think is probably my biggest criticism - “He writes too many words.” It’s like an English major, exploring everything from Plato to Robert Heinlein. And I will generally work some kind of love song into each of those songs. But it’s among three or five or six other things. And Marty has a really great facility for just going right to the heart of the simple melody and the simple song and the simple groove and he can just knock them out, like a factory almost. Well, “Miracles” being a good example of a real touching song that works for a lot of people… and is a real song, meant from the heart. We edit each other, is one of the good things.

PCC:
Have you found, over the years, better ways to make the balance work?

KANTNER:
No, I have no control over it at all [laughs]. It’s like white water rafting. That’s part of the joy of it - that you really don’t know what’s going to come out of it all. If you knew, it would be boring. So there’s always an interest level for me about what’s going to happen, when we start editing one another, when we start combining lyrics and musics from each of our particular areas. And it works on any number of different levels, when we produce.

We’re just gearing up now to go into a new phase of songwriting together. And Marty lives in Florida right now. So we don’t have the luxury of proximity, where I can just drop by his house with a guitar. So I’m getting our agent to help Marty get computer wise, so we can transfer things back and forth and then come together here and there and see what comes of that. I’m looking forward to that. God knows what’s going to come of it. I certainly can’t predict it. And that’s one of the things I like about it.

PCC:
You mentioned Diana, what does she bring to the band as a vocalist?

KANTNER:
With the old and new material, she brings her own level into the situation. I’m always fond of working with good woman singers. I’m a child of The Weavers. And I was really taken with that blend and balance of men and women singing. And it’s amazing, because it usually only takes one good woman to balance a whole band full of five or six men [laughs]. It’s like the prow of a ship type of thing.

I’m really fond of that energy. And I write for it. And Diana just carries it with an elan that’s been of the signatures of the band since Signe was in the band [original Jefferson Airplane singer Signe Anderson], from the very first. And Grace [Slick] took over then and we worked with another woman called Darby Gould for several years, who came out of a local [Santa Cruz] band called World Entertainment War. And then she got married and was going to have children and blah, blah. And Diana came into the picture and has been with us for the past five or six years and has really grown and improved and matured. She really fits into that whole band ensemble situation that we do really well, both on classical - I always think of Beethoven, when I hear “classical” - classical material and then the new stuff that she writes and we write for her.

PCC:
As far as the classic material, did you have any sense, when you recorded it, that these songs were going to stand the test of time as they have done?

KANTNER:
No, it’s not something we ever thought about, no. Because we’re all still writing. So you always want to do your new stuff, as well. And you sort of have to balance that, if you do a live show, because people come and want to see this, that or the other thing. They expect us to do a certain thing. And so you have to sort of - I wouldn’t say “pander” - but pander [chuckles] to that effect, because it’s worthwhile. When I go to see somebody I like, I like to see them do some of their stuff that I’m familiar with. And then you also have the opportunity and the door open to present new stuff to them, as well, in amongst that mix. And we generally achieve a pretty good balance.

PCC:
So with “Volunteers,” how do you round out the current set?

KANTNER:
Well, “Volunteers,” on the record, it’s only like 40 minutes long. And we’ll do like a 90-minute to two-hour show. And we have just a ton of other material, from the very beginning to the very end - or not the end, but the current - it’s a mix. There’s probably 50 other songs that we know now, that we do. And we’re starting to mix them up. You’re sort of driven by the audience in a sense - you feel what’s the right thing to do or not do.

PCC:
In the course of these performances of “Volunteers,” do you think that audience gets a new perspective on the material, as well?

KANTNER:
I haven’t gone so far as to elicit that information in the middle of a concert. We just go out and play. I go to that zone that you go to when you play. It’s like an athlete goes into a zone. Do you know what I mean? And I’m gone, for all intents and purposes [laughs], while we’re doing that. Although, I’m checking in on various internet sites now and we’re putting a request list on our website and people writing in and saying, “I’d like to hear this or I’d like to hear that.” So we take that into account now.

PCC:
You write a column on the site?

KANTNER:
Yes, whenever I feel like it. It starts off me talking about this, that and the other thing. I put a list of the songs we’re planning to do on this tour. And then I put a list of the songs that we’re considering doing within the next year. And there will be a request list, where people can call in and request what they’d like to hear. And there’s a chat room and a bulletin board. Printed lyrics. Stuff like that. Where we’re playing. How to get tickets. Reviews. Fans comments on each show. We have English majors or something [laughs] - they analyze everything down to the last, infinite little period in the songs. It’s mildly amusing on one level.

PCC:
And on the other level?

KANTNER:
And on the other level, I can’t deal with it all. I just run through it and call out the stuff that’s useful and respond to some of the stuff. Maybe they want to know where the wall was that was on album cover from “Surrealistic Pillow.” And there are big arguments - “Oh, it was in the club.” “It was in the studio.” Or “It was in somebody’s apartment.”

PCC:
In general, do you see the internet bringing positive changes for music artists?

KANTNER:
You know, I was on the internet back in 1979, I think, when it was run out of that town where the CIA lives, in Virginia. I think it was called CompuServe before. I went through chat rooms. They got pretty boring pretty fast. I’ve written a little poem that goes, “In all things wet” - At that time referring to the CIA murders, as well as good sex - “In all things wet, F-to-F” - which is face-to-face. F-to-F, still better than the internet. I like to go down to North Beach and hang out at the Caffe Trieste and have an espresso and sit around and talk to people. Or Vesuvio, the bar. Or City Lights. That’s really the best for me.

Chat rooms are rather sterile and most of the time, you don’t know who you’re talking to anyway [laughs]. It’s not real. I’ve sort of grown beyond that. I’ll do it on our website, because that’s a little more connected, fans information stuff. But people stuff, I like to do face-to-face…

F-cking, for example, I don’t want to do on the internet [laughs]. That’s for a lot of nerds from high school masturbating, one hand typing. With porn channels. Porn’s the only thing that makes any money off the internet. Still, to this day. Everyone else is hoping for the future. Nobody else is making money, except porn channels. It’s the way of the world. That’s how it is - sex and death, right?

PCC:
Are you resigned to the way of the world now?

KANTNER:
Resigned? Never. No, my kid’s going away to college next year, the youngest, Alexander. My son with Cynthia Bowman. So I’ve been a relatively devoted father and I have not the slightest idea what I’m going to fill that kid time with, because he’s going to be away. And, like I say, I’m a pretty good father and really intensely connected with the situation and do all the stuff from driving them to their games and their school functions to participating in the schools and blah, blah, blah, blah, blah. And now he’s going away and won’t be here and it’s the empty nest syndrome.

I know I’m going to have to get a hobby or something [laughs]. I figure a circumstance will show up and things will flow into my life, as they always do. I don’t know what it will be. Not Greco-Roman wrestling [laughs]. I’m not going to take that up. Or a Toughman contest. That’s probably out. But figure something will come along. That’s life.

PCC:
It’s just another challenge.

KANTNER:
Being in this city, we’re never at a loss for challenges, this whole area, really, the whole Bay Area is really just rife with challenges.

PCC:
When the band started, it was such an adventurous atmosphere musically and creatively…

KANTNER:
Yeah… and it remains that way. It’s a great, nourishing area for crazy people [laughs]. I always say, if I had been born in any other city, probably by now I’d be executed… as would many of us [chuckles]. Untoward behavior. Or with a long jail sentence or something. We should all be in jail.

PCC:
So the adventurous spirit, it’s still around, it’s just maybe harder to find, as we sift through the dregs?

KANTNER:
There are a lot more dregs around. The internet is a good example. It’s just a surfeit of information, just tons of stuff. I mean, it’s a universe, really, of possibilities, that is being used so limitedly. It’s like television, not taking advantage of all of its possibilities. But you can go through it and surf through it and find any number of interesting things.

For example, I was trying to look up the story that Plato has about the cave - Plato’s cave allegory. Owsley used to compare it to the advent of LSD in the society. Plato presaged everybody in the world, or in the situation, lived in a dark cave and there was a fire behind them that would cast shadows on the wall, in the cave that they were all facing. And this for them was reality.

And then, at some point in Plato’s story, one of the people found his way out of the cave, into the sunlight, and discovered the whole real world. But then some people from the cave came and said, “No, you have to come back into the cave. This is not reality. Reality’s in the cave.” So you can see how it applies to LSD, in the Owsley point of view. And they would punish them for wanting to be out in the sunlight in the real world, saying, “You have to be back in the cave.”

So anyway, I was trying to look up the actual original. And I looked in my encyclopedia, which I know how to use pretty handily. I looked at my Great Book Series, which I can use pretty well. But I could not locate the actual thing. So I looked it up on the internet. And I just typed into the search engine, “Plato/Cave.” And immediately, it took me right to it. Otherwise, I would have had to go through every page of Plato’s “Apology” or “Republic” or wherever it was, and dig it out. So yeah, the internet, I really respect its capabilities. I don’t think it’s being used to its capabilities. But then, neither is television.

PCC:
What about the music scene? Do you see a lot of people still taking risks, though the artists may not be well known?

KANTNER:
Oh, that’s always the nature of music. And the best ones, probably you’ve never heard of. It’s like those Cubans in that movie. You know the one I’m talking about? “Buena Vista Social Club.” They languished in non-recognition for years. And they’re old men now. But somebody brought them back and they have something to offer. And there’s so much of that stuff around. You’ve just got to go find it for yourself.

RCA or Warner Bros. is not really going to offer it to you. You’re going to get Christina Aguilera and Britney Spears, as a general rule. Or NSYNC - stuff like that., which is good, it’s like if comic books lead you to reading. There’s a certain value in any music leading you into music. So I’ll give you that.

But there’s such stuff out there. We’ve become so eclectic and there’s so much available, particularly with the CD revolution, that there’s just a world of richness out there. How to find it and get through it and cull out the diamonds is probably more of the problem than not having any.

PCC:
It’s the 35th anniversary of Jefferson Airplane. That seems mind-boggling…

KANTNER:
That we’re still alive, yeah… yourself included, probably.

PCC:
[Laughs] Absolutely.

KANTNER:
What am I still doing here? I should have been dead years ago [laughs] with all the foolishness I engaged in.

PCC:
Do you prefer not to even contemplate those kinds of numbers?

KANTNER:
They mean nothing. I don’t even know how old the members of my band are. It’s just irrelevant. It’s not on the top of my list of needing to know.

PCC:
Do you think that’s become more irrelevant to the public? It used to gain a lot of attention - rock stars still going after 40.

KANTNER:
Yeah, we pay no attention to any of that stuff. We are as we are and do what we do. We just do it.

PCC:
And without turning your backs on the classic material, you haven’t been trapped by nostalgia. Is that something you’re conscious of?

KANTNER:
Yeah. Well, not conscious of. It’s just, again, irrelevant. I was talking to Ronnie Gilbert, you know, the woman singer, from The Weavers. I got to know her eventually, about 10 years ago. And people were sort of saying the same thing about The Weavers, “Oh, what a great group. God, they were so good.” And she and Pete [Seeger] and everybody else were rather indifferent to that sort of thing. And then she listened to a couple of her old records and she sort of smiled at me with that twinkle that she has in her and she said, “You know, we were pretty good, weren’t we?” [Laughs]

So I listen to our old stuff the same way. And yeah, we had a certain elan, if you will, certain things that we pulled off - in an admirable way, I like to think - and got away with it. Like I say, we should have been arrested 10 times over by now… and were, in certain cases, but didn’t get seriously abused by the process. Had good lawyers [Laughs].

PCC:
Do the possibilities of music seem as infinite as ever to you?

KANTNER:
Oh yeah. I liken it - I’m getting trite with this now - but to that “Fantasia” segment where Mickey Mouse gets a hold of the sorcerer’s brooms and the sorcerer’s books - the “Sorcerer’s Apprentice” section. The brooms all get out of hand, right? [Laughs] And water starts flooding up everywhere. Music is still like that. There’s a certain undefinable quality to it that is out of your control, really.

You’re handling this element, this force, but you don’t really know the rules of it. And you’re just able to sort of manipulate it a bit. But you’re not really a master of knowing what you’re doing. You’re like a native in a jungle, handling electricity or something. It does stuff and you can mildly manipulate it and cause things to happen, but you don’t really know why it occurs.

And there’s still that element of mystery to it even now. When you take your guitar in hand and start singing with other people, something goes on that’s totally undefinable.

PCC:
So the music goes on.

KANTNER:
You’ve just got to encourage, not innocence, not naivete, but some element of both of those goes into the whole respect for the situation, the enjoyment of the situation. An orchestra would have rules. Our rule is to break the rules everyday. Break the laws of physics even, at times. Or metaphysics. Go all the way. You take chances and sometimes you fall on your face.

PCC:
That’s part of the fun?

KANTNER:
Yeah. And the audience likes to see you fall on your face sometimes. And then you pick yourself up and get yourself out of it. That’s the challenge.

PCC:
And you’re still meeting the challenge.

KANTNER:
We’re still around and relatively unf-cked up. Nobody’s a serious drug addict. And we’re too old to die young.