INTERVIEW WITH LEVON HELM
INTERVIEW BY TERRY GROSS
NPR’S FRESH AIR  | 2007

LEVON HELM: People referred to us as The Band. You know, Bob's [Dylan] at the hotel, and The Band is headed for the sound check. So on "The Big Pink" record, when it came time for the credits to list everybody's names, I think it said something like The Band, and then underneath it, it told you who all was in the band. So when we cut our second record, the record company kind of shifted that back around, and they liked that better than The Crackers.

TERRY GROSS: It's funny, here was this band that had been on the road together for so long, right, and now that you had gotten used to recording in the basement and had an album out, you didn't really want to go on the road.
HELM: Well, you know, by the time we got our record recorded, we had learned a whole lot more than we had ever known before about our, you know, the way we sounded and the different combinations we could use by changing instruments around.

So we didn't want to go on the road. We wanted to continue to record and try and refine some of our formulas, you know, to help us do better music. And we thought the closer we stuck with it, now that we had learned the fundamentals of playing music in a recording studio, we didn't want to go back to playing live and forget what we had learned, and we wanted to kind of keep honing that particular style of chops.

It's different playing in a studio than it is playing live, of course. So we had managed to develop some studio chops, and we didn't want to back away from it that quick.

GROSS: When did things start going bad for The Band, within The Band, dissension and things like that? I mean, for example, you write in the book about how really annoyed you were when you'd see on records that Robbie Robertson had all the songwriting, or most of the songwriting credits.
HELM: Well, that was a bit of a distraction. I didn't think it was quite fair - not that Robbie didn't do a lot of the songwriting, most of it, in some spots. But at the same time, Richard did some good work, and I always thought that Garth and Rick and myself was there all the way, no matter whose idea the song was or if it was halfway there, or - you know, it was finished, most of our stuff then got finished under that workshop kind of circumstance.

And that was just one of the things that came up that kind of created a little bit of tension in the group. I could see it, you know, hampering our collaboration, and it, you know, started bothering the spirit of it.

GROSS: Robbie Robertson, in I guess it was '76, decided he wanted to leave The Band, and that The Band should break up and have this big finale concert and go out with a real bang. You didn't want The Band to break up, so you tried to resist that. But I guess you weren't able to.
HELM: Well, I wasn't. By then, maybe "The Last Waltz" started back, you know, during some of the disenchantment that I felt when the songs didn't reflect what I thought was the true spirit of things. So by the time "The Last Waltz" came up, it was no secret our collaboration and - I felt - that the quality of our music had suffered.

I didn't hear us getting better. I heard us, you know, doing albums with old songs that we liked, as opposed to getting in and really trying to grow a fresh crop of songs. And so I certainly didn't want to end The Band. "The Last Waltz," you know, didn't set right with me. But, you know, there comes a time when we all want to move on, and that's what we did.

GROSS: Do you think you ever reconciled with Robbie Robertson?
HELM: Well, at this point, there's not a lot of reconciliation that has to be done. You know, that was the way I felt at the time, and it's this much later now, and we're doing good. And Robbie's doing good with his solo career. So it probably all worked out for the best.

GROSS: Since 2006 you've been doing midnight rambles...
HELM: Yeah.

GROSS: ...at, basically at your home and studio.
HELM: Uh-huh.

GROSS: And these are - you describe what they are.
HELM: Well, they're basically music parties. We have, you know, two, three, sometimes one a week, at least two or three a month. And we have them on Saturday nights in Woodstock at the studio. And it started out as basically a modern version of the old fashioned rent party. But since then the musicians that have taken part in it have really raised it to another level. And this, I guess, it's three years going on four years later now, and we have people that are coming in from all over the place to celebrate with us. And that includes the players, too.

GROSS: Did you need it as a rent party? Because I know when you - after you got sick you had to declare bankruptcy.
HELM: This is true. Well, it started off as a rent party, so to speak. It looked like the studio was going to be put on the blocks because I was in pretty rough shape financially. And just as I started to kind of get my voice back and was able to work a little more is when we tried the midnight ramble. And it paid the rent so we basically kept it up. And now this much later it's really turned into a benefit for a lot of players.

GROSS: Now, you named the midnight ramble after concerts that you saw as a child growing up in Arkansas. Describe the midnight rambles that yours are named after.
HELM: Well, there used to be-one of my favorite traveling tent shows at the time was an outfit called, it was called the F.S. Walcott's Original Rabbits Foot Minstrels. And this was a big four-pole, or five-pole tent that they set up, and they parked two of the big tractor trailer flatbeds side to side to make the stage, put the tent around that. And they had a chorus line, a band, a troupe of singers, dancers and players. And they would put on in these small towns through the South, they would play every week, and you would go to the midnight--you would go to the concert. At the end of the concert, which would be over around 10:30, 11, they would offer a midnight ramble ticket. And for the people who could stay up late, all the kids were supposed to go home and get ready for school or Sunday school, and the grown-ups could stay and buy an extra ticket and get an extra half-hour, 45 minutes of music and spicier jokes. And one of the prettiest girls in the chorus line would do a little hoochie koochie and what a show.

The Robbie Robertson Interview

INTERVIEW BY MICHAEL SIMMONS
MOJO  | 2017

MICHAEL SIMMONS: There’s that famous Dylan quote, calling you a “mathematical guitar genius”. What do you think he meant by “mathematical”?
ROBBIE ROBERTSON: It’s having a structure [that’s] improvised and at the same time you have a sense of dynamics – when to rise, when to fall, when to shimmer, when to growl. When The Hawks hooked up with Dylan, he found this explosive, dynamic thing. Because of his intensity, it raised everything up and we didn’t come down enough and people were saying this music is so loud we can’t hear the words. Part of that was he wanted that raging spirit on these songs.

We got booed all over North America, Australia, Europe, and people were saying this isn’t working and we kept on and Bob didn’t budge. We got to a place where we would listen to these tapes and say, “You know what? They’re wrong. And we’re right.” Eight years later, we do a tour, the [1974] Dylan/Band tour, we play the same way, same intensity and everybody says, “Wow, that was amazing.” The world came around – we didn’t change a note.

SIMMONS: In 1968, Music From Big Pink was so different to anything else. It still is.
ROBERTSON: Something happened in that basement. We weren’t playing to an audience, we were playing to one another, and we were in a circle. If you couldn’t hear somebody singing, it meant you were playing too loud. So we found a subtlety, it made you hold your breath – ahhh. Energy and power and excitement and violence had a lot to do with our music. Now, there was a different sensibility. And the songs that I was writing, if you played too hard, it was out of context. All of these things started to have a new kind of grace. Everybody else was getting louder and we’re going to this other place and there was a delicacy to it. Little things meant more than the obvious. All of these musicalities we heard – fife-and-drum blues, mountain music, Delta, Anglican choirs, rockabilly, Johnny Cash – the simplicity is exquisite. The Staple Singers when they sang gospel and it’s just the voices and Roebuck’s guitar… Curtis Mayfield. And jazz – Charles Lloyd. All of this we’re gathering and all of it makes this new music.

SIMMONS: There’s also something spooky about it – otherworldly, impenetrable.
ROBERTSON: It was cinematic. You not only could hear it, you could see it. It had a sound that we had never heard before. Voices were used in a way that we hadn’t heard before. Instruments were played with a delicacy that pulled at your heartstrings and it had this beautiful sadness to it. The more we got lost in that movie, Big Pink, the more comfortable it felt.

SIMMONS: Big Pink comes out and The Beatles and Clapton come banging on your door. Did you realize you’d created something special?
ROBERTSON: We realized that it was touching people in the way that we hoped, but at the same time we were suspicious of success. Most of the stuff we really liked, not a lot of people knew about it and that’s what was golden about it. So when we put out …Big Pink, on one hand you think, Isn’t it wonderful that people are embracing this, but at the same time we would never look at the charts. That’s where you go wrong, when you start thinking about this as a popularity contest. So sure enough, at a certain point we became successful and things changed and it hurt people personally. The more successful we got, the more self-destructive we got.

SIMMONS: The big controversy among Band fans is the deterioration of your friendship with Levon. You went to see Levon when he was dying: was there any talk or exchange?
ROBERTSON: He wasn’t conscious, so all I could do was sit there and hold his hand and think about all of the amazing things that we had experienced together, and that he was still like the closest thing I’ve ever had to a real brother and that I loved him dearly. The negative thing between Levon and me happened 10 years after The Last Waltz. In all of the times that we were together, some of it’s loving and fabulous and some of it, [Levon’s] heroin [use], got in the way. Heroin will let you defy the truth and I did not understand that in our brotherhood. And it hurt me, you know, [but] I knew I had to learn to accept it.

But as time went on, something happened and he got bitter and paranoid. It drove the other guys in The Band crazy. They were like, “What the fuck now?” He thought everybody was trying to fool him and take advantage – concert promoters, accountants, lawyers, managers, Bob Dylan, everybody. This thing grew in him and it was like a plague, and I would say, “Listen, we’re keeping a real close eye, don’t worry about it, I know this is driving you nuts.” Then he started coming up with things we should do and our advisers said that’s not a good idea – he wanted us to build shopping centres in Arkansas.

It got to the point where I couldn’t discuss with him what we were going to do next because we weren’t getting anywhere. When it came time for The Last Waltz, a lot of which was done because Richard was in such bad shape that we knew he’s going to die – we gotta get out of the way. Plus, Levon and Rick were in bad shape. None of us were in great shape, but the three of them were in and out of a heroin thing.

It wore me down – I couldn’t do it. So I said, “Let’s bring this to a joyous musical conclusion because something has to be done.” And Levon’s thing became like a demon inside of him, eating him up. Everybody was having a lot of trouble with it, and it bothered me as much as anybody because I was the one closest to him. The Last Waltz was a relief – I didn’t have to babysit this every day [any more]. Levon wasn’t good at taking responsibility for his own part in it. Finally, 10 years after The Band, it became my fault.

SIMMONS: What about Levon’s claims concerning songwriting credits?
ROBERTSON: There was never one discussion between the guys in the band about me not writing the songs. That would have been preposterous. I worked my ass off and they knew what I did and came to me and apologized for not holding up their end in that area. [Levon] made statements years after The Band that were just blatantly unfounded, and he’d never said one word to me about that in all of our times together. I chose to not say anything ’cos I knew that he was suffering from something and I didn’t want to turn this into anything. It broke my heart, but I knew it was untruthful, and of every song that I ever wrote for The Band, I wrote and brought to them, I never brought a song to them and said, “Can you help me finish this.” I finished some of their songs, but never once did [the opposite] happen. And he played a lesser part in the songwriting than anybody because, as we said earlier, it wasn’t his thing, it didn’t come naturally to him. So, he wrote Strawberry Wine and I helped him finish it, and I gave him credit on Life Is A Carnival and Jemima Surrender ’cos he was there, I loved him and I wanted to give him credit.

SIMMONS: There are those – particularly some punk rockers – who’ve criticised The Band – and particularly The Last Waltz – as representing a tired ethos and being ‘Dinosaur Rock’. What’s your response?
ROBERTSON: Was Billie Holiday a dinosaur? Was Charlie Parker a dinosaur? These people changed the world. These people in The Last Waltz changed the fucking world. Some new people have done incredible work, but the jury’s still out on whether they changed the world. And I have great respect for The Clash. I’ve met some of those guys over the years and they worship The Band and told me, “That’s the stuff that made us wanna make powerful music and do it well.” And Elvis Costello, another one – and I knew the Sex Pistols, I knew Johnny [Lydon]. So I know you’re using “punk rock” as just a viewfinder towards something. But don’t ask me – ask them.

A FINAL WORD

Rolling Stone - Interview by Brian Hiatt - 2020

BRIAN HIATT: You can look at the story of the Band as a triumph. You made incredible albums that will live forever. It could also be seen as a tragedy in some ways, because you were never able to come together again after The Last Waltz. And then there’s all the resentment and some tragic deaths and later years for some of the guys. So which way do you see it?
ROBBIE ROBERTSON: It’s so sad that in this brotherhood, three of the guys are no longer with us. But after The Last Waltz, everybody had a certain intention. We had things we wanted to discover on our own. We were like, “OK, let’s all do our thing, and then we’re gonna come back together. We’re gonna get in a huddle and we’re gonna make music as good as we ever have.” And that felt great, and it kept us together in our soul in that way.

And as time passed, at one point it just felt like everybody forgot to come back. Everybody went on to do other things. And then, there was probably no way of actually finding our way back. The after-story that Rick, Richard, Garth, and myself had — there was no resentment ever. We had the greatest brotherhood, and we were thrilled about that. And when they decided some years later that they wanted to go and play some gigs together, it’s in their blood. I completely understood that.

And they called me and they said, “Do you wanna join us in this?” And I said, “No. What I am interested in is the creative process, and if we were gonna make some new music, I’m first in line for wanting to do that. But I don’t want to go back out on the road.” Then they said, “Is it OK that we use the name ‘the Band’?” I said, “Of course it is. I don’t wanna get in the way of somebody doing their thing and making a living or whatever.” So they did, and that’s my side of the story.