The Beat Patrol

Written for BAM magazine, November 1981…

You can’t last any longer than the Jefferson Starship, a band that’s been at the top of the charts with regularity since, unbelievably, 1966.

Back then, they were the Jefferson Airplane, but years later – with the departure of Jorma Kaukonen and Jack Casady, who formed Hot Tuna – they became the Starship and flew into a decent share of hits. With the acquisition of vocalist Mickey Thomas, the return of Grace Slick and Modern Times, their latest bestseller, the Starship continue their stay at the top of the charts.

It sounded like machine gun fire. While Grace Slick, Paul Kantner and the rest of the Jefferson Starship charged into ‘Ride the Tiger’, crackling reports pierced the cool night air at Berkeley’s outdoor Greek Theatre. Ten thousand people in the audience scanned the stage while the Starship stole quick glances at each other. Then more blasts came, this time louder and sharper. The music didn’t stop. The band screamed the lyrics, “Red wants the country back and white wants out of this world…” All the while, crew members in black satin Starship jackets scurried about with small flashlights. What was happening? No one knew until…click, the noise stopped. The music went on. And a relieved stage hand, signaling with his arms, communicated to all who saw him that a faulty connecting cord had been found and replaced. It had only been electrical pops! Kantner smiled. The audience cheered. Then the Starship exploded.

The scene, several hours later, is at “The Airplane House,” located on the northern edge of San Francisco’s Golden Gate Park. With thick, ridged columns framing the doorway, this black, three-story, 1903 Victorian is an imposing sight. It survived the 1906 earthquake. And, since the late ’60s, it has survived the Jefferson Airplane/Starship. High ceilings; broad, elegant staircases; wood etchings; antique sofas and easy chairs; a pool table; thick Persian rugs; old Airplane posters from the Fillmore; new Starship photographs from the Modern Times sessions and, yes, a milling crowd of Starship family, along with invited guests – including your faithful reporter and a beautiful woman named Lucie – fill the Airplane House’s interior at 1:00 a.m. The atmosphere is celebratory. Champagne and beer froth and flow freely. Playing the perfect host, Paul Kantner roams about, joint in hand, greeting people and accepting congratulations. The Starship is flying high following a triumphant national tour in support of Modem Times, the band’s latest album that has yielded three singles, ‘Find Your Way Back’, ‘Stranger’, and ‘Save Your Love’. Not bad, considering the first incarnation of the Jefferson Airplane came together back in 1965.

Of course, much has changed since then. No less than 17 different musicians have broken into the Airplane/Starship starting line-up. For ‘81, the flight squad features:

Paul Kantner – reluctant but steady leader who co-founded the group with Marty Balin in ‘65. Kantner’s pen and voice can still slash into politics, swoon about love and take on critics.

Craig Chaquico – entered Starship clan ten years ago at age 16. His wild lead guitar breaks and pyrotechnics produce a heavy metal edge.

Aynsley Dunbar – former drummer for Frank Zappa and Journey. Joined Starship in ‘78, replacing Johnny Barbata. Pounds the skins like a human steam hammer.

Pete Sears – English bassist/keyboardist who shifted to S.F. Bay area after recording several albums with Rod Stewart. Sessions with Grace Slick led to Starship spot in ‘74. Plays like he has 15 fingers.

Mickey Thomas – swept into national spotlight as vocalist on Elvin Bishop’s hit single, ‘Fooled Around and Fell in Love’. Filled lead singer spot vacated by Marty Balin in ‘79. Thomas can sing higher than the human ear can hear.

David Freiberg – ace harmony singer and bassist for S.F. hippie band, Quicksilver Messenger Service. Adopted by Airplane/Starship family in ‘72. He and Sears play musical chairs with bass/keyboard roles.

Grace Slick – original First Lady of Rock. Back with the Starship after 2 1/2 year solo career yielded Dreams and Welcome to the Wrecking Ball. Off the bottle, but still crazy and singing her heart out after all these years.

“I had to come back,” Slick says, perched on the edge of an antique desk. “After I heard this song of Paul’s ‘Stairway to Cleveland’, with the line, ‘Fuck you, we do what we want,’ I got interested. Love songs are OK, but heavy attitudes with humor, that’s what rock ‘n’ roll is all about. That’s the kind of rock ‘n’ roll I like to sing!”

But while Slick was talking about easing back into the Starship as a “background vocalist” during Modern Times sessions last fall, everything ground to a halt. Paul Kantner, after a particularly lengthy recording session, returned to his hotel room with what he thought was just a splitting headache. But as the night wore on, the pain didn’t subside.

“I don’t really go for a lot of this telepathic stuff,” says Craig Chaquico, thinking back to that night in October. “But at 3:00 am, I wake up and see my girlfriend (Monica Clemans, the wet-suited woman with the green eyes on the cover of Modern Times), she’s walking around going, ‘Something weird’s happening, something fuckin’ weird.’ An hour later, I get a call from Cynthia (Bowman, Starship publicist) and she tells me Paul’d had a brain hemorrhage…at the exact moment Monica was getting these strange feelings.”

It was two days before anyone in the Starship knew if Kantner was going to survive. Chaquico was the first to actually get through to his hospital room and was stunned when all Kantner said over the phone was, “Aaauuuzzzmmaauuaahh.” But when Paul then started laughing, Craig knew he’d been had…the recipient of some classic “Kantner Humor.” “He can be pretty cruel sometimes,” Chaquico chuckles. “Even later, when we got back into the studio. Paul looked at me and said, ‘Where’s Jorma (Kaukonen, original Airplane lead guitarist)?’”

Miraculously, though, Kantner did not suffer any brain damage. Of the whole experience, he now says, “When it happened, I thought I’d better call an ambulance, but I was never aware of the seriousness of what it possibly could have been. I smash my head up regularly, to let out the evil humor and things. When I was about 21, I cracked myself up pretty serious in a motorcycle crash, a famous ‘Bob Dylan– Duane Allman Experience.’ Ever since then I’ve been a little off, they tell me.”

David Crosby, a close friend of Kantner’s, says, “That hole in Paul’s head saved his life. When the hemorrhage occurred, there was a window for the pressure to escape through.”

Regardless of the medical reasons, Kantner eventually recuperated back to full strength as Modern Times evolved into a pounding, aggressive Starship album. The band had never rocked harder.

“We’ve kept all the parts simple,” says Aynsley Dunbar. “Forget hot licks and all that. The less you play, the more you project. It makes for a stronger, harder sound.”

Pete Sears adds, “On the early Starship albums, there was so much going on…sometimes six things at once. It was fun to get loose, but now our records are better, more structured.”

“I’d never heard the band do what they were told before,” says Grace Slick, recalling her entry into the Modern Times sessions. “When the producer (Ron Nevison) made suggestions, they listened, and performed…like soldiers.”

This almost militaristic attitude seems to be an outgrowth of the Starship’s continuing longevity. Just as critics start to write the band off, the members pull together en masse. Around the time Rolling Stone ran an insulting, negative record review of ’79’s Freedom at Point Zero, Kantner and the rest of the Starship were attending a club show in Los Angeles featuring Paul Warren & the Explorers. Mid-way through the set, Warren, in a furious frenzy, screamed, “We don’t care what you think. Fuck you, we do what we want!” This gave Kantner an idea that expanded into a letter to Rolling Stone, then the song, ‘Stairway to Cleveland’, built around this “fuck you” sentiment. Paul Warren is given a “conceptual” writing credit, but the phrase has clearly become a Jefferson Starship motto. At the Greek Theater show, 10,000 voices chanted, in unison with the group, “Fuck you, we do what we want!”

“It’s pretty amazing,” Kantner says. “The audiences all along the tour really responded to that song. And no, we didn’t play Cleveland, but we played Akron (home of Devo).”

Even though the Starship is, by virtue of their history, considered “old wave,” Kantner doesn’t have any negative feelings toward punk or new wave groups. In fact, he says, “That’s where a lot of the vitality that excites me in the music industry is happening right now. The music business has been getting boring. It’s being run by lawyers, accountants…all of these non-musicians. The punk bands don’t fool with ‘em. They just play what they feel and play hard. That’s what the Starship’s been trying to do.”

Back in the mid-’70s, though, an atmospheric, swirling ballad style represented the heart of the band’s sound. Slick’s drug raps and Kantner’s revolutionary rants eased up as Marty Balin’s ‘Miracles’ headed for the top of the charts. The Starship turned platinum with love.

“‘Miracles’ was great,” Kantner says, “a lovely song and unique for the time period (1975). But from then on, we sort of got typecast…’wimp rock.’ The next album (Spitfire, released in ‘76), RCA wanted more songs like ‘Miracles’. But it was time to do something a little more rock ‘n’ roll. So, after Earth (released on ‘78), the music self-destructed, which was probably as it should have been. It was in keeping with our founder, Thomas Jefferson, who said, ‘There should be a revolution every five years’.”

This Starship “revolution” came to a catastrophic head in June of 1978. Minutes before a scheduled show in Lorelei, Germany, Grace Slick decided she was too sick to perform. The concert was canceled and the angry German fans began a riot that destroyed $1,000,000 worth of Starship equipment. Slick, frustrated by the group’s lack of direction and battling an alcohol problem, left the Starship shortly thereafter.

“Everything looked fucked up,” remembers Craig Chaquico. “I’d lost my best guitars, Grace was gone…I didn’t know what was going to happen next. But in retrospect, I’m glad the Germany thing occurred. It was a real turning point, it made the Starship turn in the direction we’re going. It made us get back to rock ‘n’ roll. It made me believe that even the darkest clouds have a silver lining.”

As the Starship rose from its own ashes in 1979, Marty Balin parted company with the group. And while he went on to write/direct a rock opera called Rock Justice, a new lead singer, Mickey Thomas, joined the Starship.

“I tried not to let the shadows of Grace and Marty bother me,” Thomas now says. “You don’t ever replace people like them. I didn’t even try. The band let me open up and, with my gospel roots, I was forced to develop my own style.”

“Right away,” says Chaquico, “Mickey fit in. He has this solid, high range that can cut above the drums. When he started singing, it was true love.”

The public agreed as the Starship’s subsequent album Freedom at Point Zero, rose up the charts behind ‘Jane’, a high flying rocker that featured Thomas’ sonic tenor lead vocals. The Starship had beefed up their rock ‘n’ roll. A metallic urgency leapt from track to track.

“It was like being in a brand new band,” says Chaquico. “And for the first time, we’d used an outside producer (Ron Nevison, known for his work with Led Zeppelin and Bad Company).”

“We went with Nevison,” adds Kantner, “because he had a great reputation for engineering together heavy metal-style electric guitar and drums with harmonized voices and acoustic instruments. A lot of the edge we got in the studio was his, and a lot was ours. The combination is the best recording experience I’ve had.”

Not surprisingly, Nevison was again on hand when the Starship’s building momentum carried into the studio last fall. Modern Times would reflect the band’s drive. Even Kantner’s brain hemorrhage didn’t alter the Starship’s re-energized musical profile. And when Grace Slick returned, well…

“We had to find out if she was real serious about sticking around,” says Chaquico. “The new members in the group had heard all of these rumors and stories and wondered, ‘Is she a flake? Will she get drunk and fucked up all of the time?’ But the more time Grace spent in the studio with us, the more it became obvious she’d really chenged her act. No more drinking. And when she started singing out, harmonizing with Mickey, it was natural she should be there. Grace is family.”

“I’d kept in touch with everyone,” Slick says, “albeit on a non-musical basis. It was never a relationship that was totally cut off. So when I went into the studio last fall, it was like walking into my own living room. What startled me the most was how together the group was, playing just for the music, rather than ‘me, me, me, me.’

“When I think about the Starship of the late ’70s,” she continues, “I just remember what a mess it was. We had four platinum albums in a row, but there’s nothing fulfilling about selling records that bore you to play. Music is very emotional, so how you feel really affects how you perform. If an accountant has problems, he can still come into work, add two and two, and it still comes out four. Musicians can’t do that. Confusion, feeling down…it’ll come out in the music. It doesn’t necessarily mean you’ll play badly, ’cause after a certain number of years, you can play anything. But the feeling – that you can’t get if it isn’t there. An audience can tell if a band feels good together and right now, the Starship feels great!“

Dave Zimmer