April 3, 2006

Steve: You’re listening to Jonesy’s Jukebox on Indie 1031, with Andrew WK in the studio.

Andrew: Hi. So, Jonesy, I wanted to ask you. First, I want to say hello to you, not only as myself, Andrew, but on behalf of two friends of mine who are quite a bit older than me, on eof them is going to have his fiftieth birthday coming up in a week or so. His name is Tom Smith and he and his friend, another friend of mine, Don Fleming, who are both, again, in their…close to fifty. They saw the Sex Pistols and you play in Atlanta on that first tour and thinking about that, to me, that was before I was even born so it’s…it’s hard to me imagine. But what I really was curious um, to ask you was, was does that time, does that show, does that part of your life seem like a very long time ago? Does it…is it something you think about every day? Do you feel like it’s colored your experience to this day, as a person? Not just the show, but that time in general?

Steve: Yeah. Well, it seems like ages ago. It really does, I mean it was thirty years ago and it seems like thirty years ago. But more than anything else, it wasn’t great memories back then. Coming from England and that was the first time we came to America, like for me, America was so different than England. You know, it was, it was so bizarre. I thought it would be kind of similar, cos you can kind of speak the same language and everything. But it was so different, you know, with the big roads and….

Andrew: Was it the entire sensation of being in this place that was different? Was it the people? The way it looked? The way it felt? The way it smelled? Was it all these things or was it anything in particular?

Steve: Well, I always remember as a child, watching a lot of American shows. You know, “CHiPs” was one of my favorites. And I thought, “Wow. I’d love to go there. That looks fun!” All these birds on rollerskates at the beach and guys and cops who are like, with muscles and…you know, it weren’t like that in, in England. You know what I mean? And it just seemed like a different place, America, in all the TV shows I used to watch, like “The Fugitive” and, um, you know, everything on TV. There was always American shows and it was always like, intriguing and you think like, “America. Wow. It’s all big, everything’s big there.” And it was…and uh, but, but it was, as far as rock and roll goes, I mean, we would still be walking around in London, even though we were huge at the time. We didn’t have roadies. We had barely one roadie. I used to tune me own guitar and whatnot, you know. And then all of a sudden, we come to America and you’ve got all these guys wanting to do things, like…and Warner Brothers were, were um, because we got rejected the first time, with our visas, for whatever reason, cos all the hype, or whatever.

Andrew: They didn’t want you coming in the country cos you were dangerous, they thought.

Steve: Right. That’s what they thought, the press, whatever. So Warner Brothers had to uh, ensure the government that there would be no problem. So they hired all these guys, making sure there’s no trouble. So you had weird guys with walkie talkies. We had Vietnam vets who were like bouncers and it was bizarre. The whole thing was bizarre and it didn’t make sense to me, coming from little horse-and-cart land, you know what I mean? It was all kind of strange. But when you…the reason what I tapped on when you said, “Did it seem weird like, thirty years ago?” I mean, how long ago, how many years was Henry The Eighth? Five hundred years ago?

Andrew: Something. Five hundred and two.

Steve: That’s like, not long ago, is it? But it seems like it’s thousands of years ago.

Andrew: Sure.

Steve: You know what I mean?

Andrew: Yeah, well…that’s what I’m curious about is our perception of time. How long…why does five minutes seem like five minutes versus five hours? Or those times when you can make five minutes seem like five hours, or someone says, “Oh, the last fifteen minutes went on forever!” Or “Wow, those last two hours just flew by.”…

Steve: Well, I know one thing, the older you get, time flies quicker.

Andrew: It does go faster.

Steve: Yeah. Without a doubt.

Andrew: That’s what I hear more. Do you have any idea how we could make it feel like it was going slower?

Steve: I don’t want it to go slower.

Andrew: Oh yeah? You want to hurry up and go out?

Steve: Well, I don’t want to go out, but I like it when…cos when I was a kid, fifteen…I’d be walking around the streets of London looking at cars to break in, to steal things and, and shops to steal stuff out of, the day seemed it went on and on forever and I think what you’re talking about is, if you’re happy, I think time goes quicker. I’m a lot happier in my own skin now.

Andrew: It must be because, perhaps we spend less time thinking about what’s to come and less time concerned about what’s already happened…

Steve: Or what I’m gonna get out of the deal.

Andrew: And you’re just, you’re just in the midst of it, right? You’re caught in-between and that’s the state of much more happiness.

Steve: Yeah. It’s all about what’s going on in your head, innit? You can wake up and your outlook, what you see all depends on how you wake up, you know. Wake up in a good mood, things, you know, your whole outlook is good.

Andrew: We have that power. It’s hard to hone it. We wanted to talk about spirits.

Steve: Yes.

Andrew: You want to talk about that, still?

Steve: One more thing before we go to spirits. The trouble, I think with a lot of people, and I guess I am judging in way or, or…not preaching but, a lot of people get a distorted view of what’s going to make them happy. They think like, winning the lottery and having a hundred million dollars, or being better looking by having plastic surgery or getting the right TV show is gonna make them happy. That is a, that is a distorted view. That is not correct. That is completely not correct. And really, it sounds lame, but the only way you really are happy is if your healthy and you’re in touch with yourself.

Andrew: I agree.

Steve: Inside.

Andrew: Turning inward. Turning inward.

Steve: Yeah, exactly. Anything else on the outside is complete hogwash.
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Andrew: Did you have times when you were younger when you felt the way you were describing before, that having a certain…that there was something you were looking forward to that was going to be the answer, that all happiness was going to come from this achievement…

Steve: Yeah, of course. Being famous, successful and have women you know, dropping at your beckon and call on their knees, you know? That was going to fix everything and it actually made things worse. Cos that didn’t work and that’s why, I think, another theory I have, is that bums don’t kill themselves. Rich people kill themselves, more than bums, you know? Because they get what they want and they’re so miserable and they don’t see anything else that’s gonna make them happy cos they, in their minds think they have everything. You know, and then they, they think the only way out is to shoot themselves or whatever, you know?