Fever Tree: An Interview with Rob Landes [Side A]

[Interview Transcript from the book "Psychedelic Psounds"] FEVER TREE: IMITATION SITUATIONFever Tree originated from Houston in the late 60s and consisted of the following members: Rob Landes (piano, organ, harp, flute, bass recorder, clavinette, harpsicord, and cello), Michael Knust (guitar), Dennis Keller (vocals), E. E. Wolfe (bass), and John Tuttle (percussion).Fever Tree evolved from a group called the Bostwick Vines which was composed of the same personnel except for the guitar/keyboard player, Don Lampton. The Bostwick Vines had formed in 1966 and was a popular local group, who came to the attention of Scott and Vivian Holtzman. They were a couple involved with the arts who had seen the Vines perform and recognized their potential. The Holtzman's took over the group and eventually changed their name, at the suggestion of Vivian, to Fever Tree. They secured a contract with Mainstream and had two local hits in 1967 with "Hey, Mister" and "Girl, Oh Girl (Don't Push Me)." It was around this time that Scott made a change in the group's line-up by inserting Rob Landes, a classically trained musician who could play a variety of instruments, as the keyboard player. The group was now set. Fever Tree had a young guitar wizard known only as Michael, a great vocalist in Dennis Keller (whose voice recalls that of Sean Bonniwell of the Music Machine and also Benjamin Orr of the Cars on the song "All Mixed Up"), a solid rhythm section in Wolfe and Tuttle, and a classically trained rock and roll convert in Landes.The Holtzman's seemed to do just about everything: produce, manage, arrange a contract with UNI, and write many of the songs. Fever Tree's signing with UNI brought them to the West Coast in 1968 and in contact with the brilliant arrangers David Angel (who arranged the classic Forever Changes LP by Love) and Gene Page. The group's epononyi~ous album mixed rock and roll with classical instrumentation with the result being one of the truly great albums of all time. Though time has seemed to erase its memory somewhat, it still has not become dated. Just listen to "Imitation Situation"/"Where Do You Go," "San Francisco Girls," "Man Who Paints the Pictures," "Filigree and Shadow," "Nowadays Clancy Can't Even Sing," "Unlock My Door," and "Come With Me." All of these songs are timeless musical vignettes.Three more albums followed: Another Time/Another Place, Creation, and For Sale, but the quality seemed to diminish (despite several excellent songs on each LP) with each album. The use of drugs by a few members of the group caused the inevitable disenfranchisement whereupon Landes quit and shortly thereafter "Bud" Wolfe.Fever Tree recruited two new members and tried to play on, but the damage was irreparable. The band eventually dissolved until the late 70s when Fever Tree (with key members Rob, Michael, and Dennis) performed with Billy Joel at the Music Hall in Houston. It was a climatic return as Fever Tree was wildly received when they showed they were as great as ever. Unfortunately, this performance was their swan song as Rob Landes decided to pursue a jazz career. One cannot help but wonder that Fever Tree could have been a super group if they had duplicated the success and quality of their first album, but at least we have the Fever Tree album. Accept no imitations.The following interview was conducted with Rob Landes (7/l7/1984), Michael Knust (12/9/1992), and E.E. Wolfe (12/29/1992).

[This section of transcript moved to match audio]AV: Fever Tree signed with UNI which promoted the first LP with billboards in Los Angeles with the advertisement "Fever Tree Is Coming!" What was your reaction since you were completely unknown to the general public?MK: It literally blew us away!! We were the first band to receive such a shot in the arm. It was quite staggering.RL: We naturally had hopes of the album being a big success, but when it got even as far as it did we were happy with it. There was a huge promotional campaign in Los Angeles before the album was released. They had a big billboard campaign all over Los Angeles. Big, big hype. Fever Tree Is Coming. It never said what Fever Tree was. I think they had one hundred signs around Los Angeles saying Fever Tree Is Comin . And when Fever Tree came, finally, I think everyone was relieved and happy to know it was a rock and roll group. They didn't know if it was a soft drink or a new toilet paper.

AV: What were the origins of Fever Tree, which I believe was originally called the Bostwick Vines?MK: Yes, originally the group was called the Bostwick Vines. We originated at a small music store in Spring Branch, a suburb of Houston, Texas. I was a guitar teacher at Mullin's Music when myself and another teacher decided to form a band. I was teaching guitar to a student, but we needed a bass player and E.E. "Bud" Wolfe became the bassman. Greg, the other teacher, had a student who turned out to be our vocalist, Dennis Keller. Dennis had a friend who played the drums, John Tuttle, thus creating the Bostwick Vines.RL: The original group was called the Bostwick Vines. They were a little rock and roll group that wanted some help and so they went to Scott Holtzman who became their mentor after listening to them. One thing led to another and he got them into a studio. Back in those days there was a studio in Houston out off the Gulf Freeway and Broadway called Andrus Studios. Walt Andrus was the owner and he also took an interest in the group. When they went into the studio they needed a little more---I'm going to try be diplomatic about this---a little more keyboard playing than which the keyboard player was capable. So Scott called me and asked me to help with a local record called "Girl Don't Push Me" which got real big in Houston. I had been doing other stuff, but l helped on the recording and they decided to get rid of the guy playing the organ and they asked me to join the group. At that time I was going through a crisis in college and I decided I was going to quit school. It was at that point that they decided to change the name from Bostwick Vines to Fever Tree whereupon we released a couple of singles that were successful locally.

[This section of transcript moved to match audio]AV: How did Fever Tree get its name?MK: After a year of playing as the Vines, we hooked up with Scott Holtzman, a newspaper writer. He dubbed us Fever Tree, Christmas of 1966. The name Fever Tree was the title of a novel.RL: The name Fever Tree, as far as I can remember, came from Scott's wife. Vivian Holtzman had read a book that talked about this tree in Africa where all the natives took their sick people. Supposedly, the bark or sap from this tree sapped the fever out of their sick people and it was called a "fever tree." As far as I know that's where Fever Tree got its name.

AV: How did the Bostwick Vines get their name?MK: Dennis Keller and I found the name in a Playboy magazine. It was an adjective used to describe a suit of armor. AV: Were the singles "Hey, Mister" and "Girl, Oh Girl (Don't Push Me)" recorded as the Bostwick Vines or as Fever Tree for Mainstream?MK: Before we recorded the two songs, we were called the Bostwick Vines. Toward the end of the recording sessions, Scott and Vivian came up with the name Fever Tree around Christmas Eve in 1966. We were opening a show for the l3th Floor Elevators when Scott and Vivian hit us with the name Fever Tree and we all loved it. Also, about this time, Rob Landes replaced Donny Lampton. AV: Why did everyone list their full names except for the guitar player who is simply listed as Michael?MK: To tell you the truth, I wasn't real happy the way some things were going down, and I thought that by using my first name only, I'd retain some anonymity. It also gave a mystique to my image.

AV: Can you remember what your first performance was like?RL: I was playing organ for a church when Scott Holtzman convinced me to join Fever Tree. My hair was real short and I had no facial hair. I didn't look like a rock musician at all. Anyway, Fever Tree was booked to play at at a little high school way out somewhere and so Scott said that somehow they had to fix me up to look a little more like a rock and roll person. Later I grew my own hair and mustache, but I had only three days to do this before our first performance. I had never seen Fever Tree perform, other than being in the studio, and I also had to learn all the music.Since Scott had done a lot of theater work, he decided to glue a big mustache on me and to get some trashy clothes to make me look the part. I also had this little music book where I had written out all the arrangements of all the Fever Tree songs because I only knew the two songs from the record I had played on. When we got to the high school dressing room they wouldn't let anybody in because Scott was putting spirit gum and this big mustache on me.It finally came time to go on stage and I had my little book with me and I set it up on the organ. I didn't know they had a light show. I just thought they were going to turn on the lights and we would play. Back then they had an overhead projector where they had plates with oil and gasoline which projected onto a big screen behind us. The lights went out and the light show came up with me trying to play the organ while I read my book with my glued-on mustache.All of a sudden this strobe light came on and when the rear projection went up I couldn't read my music. I began to panic, then I began to sweat, and then the mustache began to come off. I thought, "Oh, my God, what am I going to do now?" When we got through the first two tunes I went offstage and told Scott we had to do something. So they toned down the flashing lights so that I was able to get through the performance, but it was kind of half-baked because I had panicked so much.

[This section of transcript moved to match audio]AV: The late 1960s spawned a number of good, if not great, groups from Texas: Fever Tree, 13th Floor Elevators, Moving Sidewalks, Bubble Puppy, Josefus, the Clique, Southwest F.O.B., Sir Douglas Quintet, Shiva's Headband, Johnny Winter, and Zz Top. How do you explain the emergence of all these bands, many of whom had psychedelic origins, in a state which was basically conservative, red-neck, and anti-drug?RL: I have no idea. I had been asked that before, not only from a rock and roll standpoint, but also from all of the talent that seems to come out of here. Maybe it has to do simply with the number of people to choose from. I was always amazed because of all the Southern Baptists: no drugs, no alcohol, and if you dance with your hips you'll go to Hell. I don't know. Maybe it's a rebellion against all of that.

AV: What were your early concerts like in Houston and what venues did you play?RL: We played a lot at a club on Post Oak called the Catacombs and also the Love Street Light Circus down at Allen's Landing. I loved all that because it had a little bit of danger connected to it. I don't know why. It's not dangerous like it is now, but there was a mystique about Love Street where you could lie on the pillows and watch the bands play. Of course, it was such a rathole, but it was an experience to go there. I still get a wonderful feeling in my stomach when I think about those days at Love Street.MK: The early shows quickly became small concerts everywhere we played. Love Street Light Circus, Catacombs, every high school gym in the Houston area, the Music Hall, and the Coliseum were some of our early venues. Our first concert, summer 1967, we played with the Five Americans and Jefferson Airplane.EW: I think some of our finest performances were in the smaller venues. It was so much more personal and Mike and I used to feed off the audience reaction. The music was so improvisational in those days, it was easy to get into when you had a good crowd.

AV: Groups such as Fever Tree, the Elevators, Bubble Puppy (later known as Demian), and the Sir Douglas Quintet went to California to achieve stardom, yet none ever achieved major status. Why?RL: Ours was partly due to some turmoil within the group. I think if we had been able to work out some problems with personality conflicts then we probably would have made it. Lord knows we had the backing. We had lots of money behind us. We were signed to Universal of which UNI was a subsidiary of Universal Pictures. We had excellent West Coast publicity and we were touring. If we had stuck it out another six months or a year, then we probably would have been a big group. I can't speak for the other groups.

[This section of transcript moved to match audio]AV: How did you get to work with the likes of David Angel (Love's Forever Changes) and Frank Davis (13th Floor Elevators' Easter Everywhere)?MK: Working with David Angel was quite amazing. I'd never worked with a sixty-piece orchestra before. David Angel's and Gene Page's involvement was astronomical. I don't think the first album would've been as great without them. Also, if we had kept using their styles on the latter albums, we would have probably been even bigger than we were.Frank Davis was one of the best young engineers to be found. He had already worked with groups like the 13th Floor Elevators.RL: David Angel, who is incredible, was hired by Universal. We used both David Angel and Gene Page on the arrangements. In fact, we even used a West Coast drummer on some of the cuts. I don't think anybody has ever known that; not because our drummer wasn't good, but we needed some things that weren't being done.Frank Davis was an old friend of mine. He was doing a lot of work at Andrus Studios and was one of their chief engineers. Frank and Scott were good friends as well and used to be folk singers together in the early 60s at an old club called The Jester. So Frank took a special interest in Fever Tree due to Scott and me and because he was getting into psychedelic music.

[This section of transcript moved to match audio]AV: How did Scott and Vivian Holtzmann, who wrote a lot of the songs, get with the band and how did you get signed to your recording contract with UNI/MCA Records?MK: Scott Holtzman was a local newspaper music critic. We hunted him down and convinced him to listen to our band. The first deal we had was with Bobby Shad of New York City. We released two singles in 1967: "Hey, Mister" and "Girl, Don't Push Me." They were number one regional hits. Later, talent scouts from L.A. checked us out. Finally, we were signed with MCA Records. Vivian Holtzman was the lyricist with Scott and she provided a major contribution.RL: As far as Scott and Vivian, they were actually the driving force behind Fever Tree. They both did a lot of writing for the group and Scott was our manager. They were the ones that got Fever Tree off the ground; otherwise, I don't think anything would have happened to the group except locally.

AV: The flip side of "Girl, Oh Girl (Don't Push Me)" was "Steve Lenore." Who was Steve Lenore and what was the song about?MK: To me, I always thought Rob Landes was Steve Lenore, but I don't really know what it was about.

AV: Your eponymous debut album remains a classic in sound and design. How was the cover photo done?RL: The cover for the first album was shot at Frank Davis family's house in Laporte, Texas. Down behind Frank's house was a gully or river---I have a big picture of this that shows a girl pulling the raft by a rope which wasn't shown on the cover--- where they built a raft for us. Most of the things on the cover came from Frank's house---a bird cage, a telephone, and what looks like a footstool. For that picture they had a tree nailed to the back of the raft and they set the tree on fire. We were scared to death the wind would blow and catch us all on fire. Of course, they enhanced it when they did the coloring for the album, but we were actually floating on this raft.Well, somebody got the word out that we were down there and all the town kids came to see us. Also, somebody else put out the word there was a hippie wedding going on because of this girl in these flowing robes pulling this raft. So the police and everybody came to see what the hell was going on.

AV: Side one of Fever Tree begins with "Imitation Situation" which employs Bach's "Toccato and Fugue in D Minor." It then leaps into that unique high-pitched guitar that leads into "Where Do You Go?" which has a wonderful flute solo by Rob Landes, which in turn steps into your classic hit single "San Francisco Girls." How did these songs evolve?RL: I haven't listened to that in so long, but I think we wanted to do something different since there was an old pump organ out at the studio and we wanted to use it. I had been playing that old Bach "Toccata and Fugue" from my church days. I had played it on a concert right before I joined the group and that sort of music fascinated them because it was unlike anything they had played before. We decided to start out the album with something totally different and that pump organ was sitting there. I think it was Scott's idea. He said, "Go over there and see what that Bach `Toccata and Fugue' sounds like." So then we all threw in ideas about the arrangements, but I guess that is how it initially happened.The end of that piece is interesting. It was suppose to fade out. We had done several takes on it and we had used up all the tapes. So we ran the tapes back to the beginning and started over. When we did it we found a beginning tape we had done days before. Mike was still wailing on his guitar and all of a sudden here came, "Out there it's summertime..." from another take. So we just left it and Mike kept playing his guitar with it and then they faded it out. That was unexpected. It wasn't planned.MK: The way "San Francisco Girls" was created was an accidental mystery. We had two basic tracks cut. Originally the song had a slow intro and a fast ending. When we recorded the guitar tracks, I kept feeding back at the end of the first track which ran into the beginning of the second track, hence creating the slow intro, the fast middle, and the slow ending.

AV: How did "San Francisco Girls" chart across the country?MK: "San Francisco Girls" went as high as #26 on the charts in Billboard Magazine. AV: "Man Who Paints the Pictures" starts off with Keller's heavy breathing. It then proceeds to showcase some remarkable guitar work including one of the greatest examples of feedback ever recorded. Discuss the composition of this song which should have been a major hit.MK: "Man Who Paints the Pictures" is my favorite song. I got the idea for it watching Cream's second American appearance at Whiskey A Go-Go in L.A. It was some of my early feedback techniques that made the song a killer! AV: Who were your guitar influences and what training did you have?MK: I was influenced by Dale Mullins, B.B. King, Chuck Berry and later, of course, Jimi Hendrix and Eric Clapton. I had about six months of actual guitar lessons, then branched out into my own style of playing, experimenting with some of the most radical feedback techniques, still, to this day. AV: "Filigree and Shadow" shows the band's ability to do slower material. Discuss Keller's muted vocals which seem to be sung at a distance and the brilliant string arrangement by David Angel, especially at the end of the song.MK: "Filigree and Shadow" was our answer to the Phantom of the Opera. The string arrangement at the end was Scott's and Vivian Holtzman's audio horror show. David Angel's string arrangement was outrageous!

AV: "Nowadays Clancy Can't Even Sing" outdid the original Buffalo Springfield version. Discuss this composition and Keller's great vocals, notably the momentary lapse before Keller's elongated delivery of "even sings."RL: Yes, that was his idea. I remember we were in Denver and the local radio station held a contest. They played both versions of "Clancy," the Buffalo and ours, and then they had a phone-in contest which we were really glad to win. We heard all over the country people talking about that song in particular. Dennis was incredible on the vocal and sang his ass off. There's also a backward piano piece on that song which I wrote out. Then I played it from the end to the beginning while they ran the tape backwards so the piano had a kind of "pfft, pfft" sound. That song has always been one of my favorites.

AV: The Holtzman's are credited with the composition on "Nowadays," but with all the great strings why wasn't Gene Page given any credit on this song?MK: This is one of the problems I had with the group's production. Why not credit David Angel or Gene Page since they contributed so much? Ask Scott and Vivian. AV: "Unlock My Door" is a beautiful slow composition with beautiful strings, nice acoustic guitar by Michael, and harp playing by Landes.MK: The way I remember "Unlock My Door" was that it was a great melody that Scott and Vivian came up with. I laid out the chord progressions using a Spanish guitar with special D tuning. Also, I never received writing credit. AV: Discuss "Come With Me (Rainsong)" which is another beautiful slow song. Rob previously told me they had played the strings back through a tiny speaker with a microphone in front of it. Whose idea was this?MK: "Come With Me" is a beautiful song. We used some innovative recording techniques. Walt Andrus had the idea of the strings playing back through a tiny speaker with a microphone in front recording it. The rain and thunder were actually recorded live outside the studio with a mike in the rain. It seemed that cars passed and thunder sounded on perfect cue. It was magic. AV: Fever Tree's second album was entitled Another Time, Another Place, but why weren't David Angel and Gene Page utilized since they were so instrumental in integrating the songs on the first album?MK: Another Time, Another Place was recorded while we were touring. We recorded in Denver, Los Angeles, and Houston. The reason we didn't include the string arrangements was because we were trying to get a complete sound just using the group's format. Obviously, things did not pan out as well as intended.

AV: It also seems Another Time, Another Place is not up to par with your first album and may have been put together too quickly. What do you think?RL: Our tastes began to change as we played together. Another Time, Another Place is still my favorite album and has some of our best material.MK: Like Rob, I also feel that it has some of our best music. Unfortunately, the public didn't agree. The album was recorded for one-eighth of the cost of the first one.EW: I agree with Rob and Michael. For me, Another Time/Another Place was much more "us," both musically and emotionally. I think the music reflected a harder edge that was much closer to our live performances than the first album. It was strange that this album didn't do as well. We always had such a good reaction with our shows. It was partly recorded during the group's personality conflicts.

AV: The second album also had a distinctive cover of a blue cube with the band caught inside. How did you find this great cover by Babette Dodson?MK: The second album cover was done with double exposures and some other photographic techniques. It was a really hit or miss situation, but we finally got the one we liked. AV: How much time did the band spend on the West coast? Where was the recording and mixing done? Also discuss what groups you played with and what venues?MK: Unfortunately, we didn't spend as much time as I would've liked on the West Coast. While there, we did record at United Recorders, Sunset Sound, and Wally Heider's, I believe. We played with such groups as Jefferson Airplane, Canned Heat, Buffalo Springfield, Alice Cooper, the Box Tops, and Spirit. AV: The second album featured a live studio cut that was released as a single called "What Time Did You Say It Is in Salt Lake City?" which recalls the Doors "Alabama Song (Whiskey Bar)." How was this song made and how did it chart?MK: "Salt Lake" was recorded in the studio live. We had a big party at Andrus Studio and had a blow-out! By the way, it was me whistling. AV: "I've Never Seen Evergreen" is a soft ballad featuring vocal/ acoustic by Michael and flute by Rob Landes. How did you come to write this?MK: I wrote "I've Never Seen Evergreen" in Evergreen, Colorado. At the time, I was running a 104 degree fever. In my delirium, I was talking out of my head. Vivian wrote the words down, creating the song. I later added the music.

AV:. What are your thoughts about the third Fever Tree album called Creation?RL: I think the Creation LP is all right, but I think we were kind of experimenting. The only way I can justify it is that we were branching out and times were changing. Psychedelic music had begun to run its course and we felt like we were a forerunner of it since we were there at the beginning. I guess we reached a point where we felt we had done it and thought let's move on to something else.

AV: Creation has some very interesting songs. Why was "Love Makes the Sunrise" selected as the single that was released? Was this song and "Imitation Situation" recorded from the first session since Gene Page and David Angel did the strings?MK: "Love Makes the Sunrise" was recorded during the first LP sessions. I thought it should have gone on the first album, but apparently we had enough material, so the unabridged version of "Imitation Situation" and "Love Makes the Sunrise" were put on the Creation album. They are both, really beautiful love songs. AV: "Wild Woman Ways", written by Jancy Lee Tyler, is a beautiful slow song with tremendous vocals by Dennis Keller ("Cooling on the window still is an apple pie") and fine piano work by Rob Landes. How did you come to record this song and why wasn't this released as a single? Great song.MK: I was really never told why it wasn't released as a single. Jancy Lee Taylor was a great songwriter. Possibly, it wasn't Scott's creation, so that may be the reason it was never released. Jancy Lee retired from music shortly thereafter and is living a simple country life somewhere between LaGrange and Austin. AV: "Run Past My Window" (also by J. L. Tyler) is another beautiful slow song. Discuss the recording as well as the recurring images in such lyrics as "come to my door" which recalls earlier songs like "Unlock My Door."MK: Whatever Jancy Lee Tyler writes turns out to be great music. I really can't go into the lyrics, since I wasn't the writer. Scott and Vivian always had a way of combining their lyrics into different songs, such as recurring themes and different lyrics. AV: "Time Is Now" is a song that is representative of the San Francisco acid sound as well as early Fever Tree. Please discuss the song, Michael's great guitar work, and the end where the guitar trails off like the sound of an airplane.MK: "Time Is Now" is a real classic to me. I'll never forget recording it. We got the airplane sound in the beginning and the end of the song by hanging the guitar from the ceiling. Then, we put a microphone at each end of the room. We rolled the tape and swung the guitar like a pendulum between the mikes, thus creating the chorus-airplane effect. The rest of the song was played in a Peter Green-like style. I wrote the music to that song while walking on the beach in Galveston, Texas. The timeless rhythm of the sea gave me the feeling for the song.

AV: Wasn't the For Sale LP made after the band had broken up?RL: The fourth album, For Sale, mentions John Tuttle and Rob Landes as being formerly with Fever Tree. We had a contract to release "X" amount of albums, but we had broken up by this time. The record company said we had to fulfill the contract or our asses would be cooked. Everything on this album had been recorded and rejected from other albums by all of us. The second side is a thirteen minute cover of "Hey Joe." "Hey, Mister" was recorded before I joined the group during the Bostwick Vines days. So they dug out all these tapes and used studio musicians. The result is the worst hodgepodge of sound you've ever heard in your life.MK: Several people (Scott, Vivian, and Rob) gave it that forgettable title. The For Sale LP had some outtakes that were recorded in the early days of the band, around 1966 or 1967. It was material that we played live and I think it was very good. I guess it could compete with the Seattle Sound of today.

AV: Has there been any discussion about releasing a greatest hits or a live LP? I believe Bam Caruso out of England released a Greatest Hits album by Fever Tree. MK: I believe there also was a Best of Fever Tree released on BackTrac in 1985 out of New York. I heard there is also a CD out of England that has both of our first two albums on it.RL: There was also a live album that was recorded just as we were breaking up. I still have the tape around here somewhere. None of us was even speaking to one another at that point. We hated each other. We didn't care if we lived or died and the music all sounds like that. It sounds like an organ part, a drum part, a vocal, and then a guitar. It's like everybody playing their own piece and to hell with everybody else.This tape is even worse than the album we did release. We were absolute idiots for not releasing an actual live performance. For example, it would have been so easy to record the Electric Circus in New York which had some of our very best playing that should have been taped, but we never thought about it.

AV:. Kevin Kelly is listed as the drummer on the For Sale LP. Is this the same Kevin Kelly who played with the Rising Sons and the Byrds?MK: Yes. AV: The For Sale LP has seven songs with four of them being very good covers of the originals: a thirteen minute version of "Hey, Joe," an excellent rendition of "I Put a Spell on You," Love's "She Comes in Colors," and the Music Machine's "Come On In." Regarding the latter two songs, why were they chosen and did Fever Tree come in contact with Love and the Music Machine?MK: First off, we toured with the Music Machine all over Texas, Louisiana, and Oklahoma. Sean Boniwell was a big influence on Dennis Keller as were all the members of the band on us. We played with Love several times throughout Salt Lake City and the surrounding areas.As for the songs we recorded, that was some of our favorite material, so we decided to record them. Live, they went over real well, so why not on record. However, the songs on the For Sale LP were recorded around 1967 as a demo for Bobby Shad, who was with Mainstream Records, if my memory serves me correctly. We thought it was "thumbs down" on that material and that it would never be released, much less put on a LP long after we had broken up. AV:. Gloria Jones is listed on For Sale as vocal backup singer in the group The Blackberries. Is this the same Gloria Jones who was Marc Bolan's girlfriend (who also was driving the car in which he died in 1977) and the songwriter of "Tainted Love" which was a hit for the Soft Cell in the early 8Os?MK: Yes, I believe this was the same Gloria Jones who later became Marc Bolan's lover. That's about all I can tell you. I was not at those sessions. They were held in Los Angeles and the group knew nothing of the overdubs until later. AV: What about the Relayer LP with Michael Knust?MK: The Relayer LP was recorded in 1982. I played on several tracks, but the one I remember distinctively was "The Teacher is a Punk." It didn't get much national attention, but it got some regional play. Guy Schwartz was the founder and leader of the band.

AV: What led to the break-up of Fever Tree?EW: Looking back on it from twenty plus years, I can safely say that although the extensive drug use did concern me, especially as it affected our live performances, my problems were with our management and the ego of our vocalist. Had we stayed together a move would have been made to bill us as Dennis Keller and Fever Tree. What a crock! He did less work than any of us, particularly during live performances. Had it happened, I would have walked regardless of how big the group had become. Things got pretty edgy at the end. After the initial shock, I think Rob took the drug use harder than I did. He was right to leave and it was his choice. But I could have lived with that had our other problems had a solution. Music was the thing! I didn't understand the so called drug scene. There were times when the Tree gave a good live performance that I was so buzzed I could barely walk off stage. What else was there? For me, nothing.RL: This is real sensitive. It's probably real surprising to any rock and roll person from the 60s and 70s, but I was completely anti-drug. I didn't care if the other people in the group smoked the bark off a tree, but just as long as it didn't affect our performing. To me that was what it was all about: the albums and the live performing. I didn't have any big thing about being a rock and roll star. I just wanted to make good music.The bass player, E. E. "Bud" Wolfe, and I always roomed together because we never did any drugs. After performances, during performances, and before performances kids would come up and thrust fistfuls of pills into our hands. Of course, we'd go back to our room and flush them down the toilet, whereas the other guys were practically jumping in the toilet after them. They were getting into some pretty heavy stuff at the end--- especially Mike. I have tremendous respect for Mike as a guitar player. I still don't think he can be topped as far as an individual sound and he had great musical ideas. I didn't care if he went and turned on his car exhaust and smoked the fumes. I didn't care. It was coming on stage that was my big beef.By that time I was road manager and I was supposed to keep everybody a little bit corralled and semi-professional. Anyway, we were playing a date in Chicago and Mike had done something really heavy. He got out on stage and couldn't play. He was just standing there. I was doing all the guitar licks on the organ and we were trying to cover for him, but he was just standing there. When we got through we went back to the hotel and I said if it happened again I'm gone. My reason for being in this group is to make music. If we make a few bucks on the side then fine. A couple of nights later Mike did it again. That was the end of that leg of the tour and we came back to Houston and met with Scott. I said that Bud and I were quitting. We had, with some regularity, what we called gritch sessions where we would all get together and bitch about so and so. This was always done with Scott, who was our manager, because he wasn't in the group and could therefore act as a mediator. So we had a session and Scott smoothed everything over. Our next date was in Florida and so we flew to Miami and got to this club when it happened again. I fulfilled the date, but I took a separate flight back. I shaved and cut my hair before they even got back to town. I told them I didn't give a rat's ass what happened to the rest of the commitments.

[Interview continues at http://av.cah.utexas.edu/index.php/Vorda:Da_00111]