PHIL VOLK INTERVIEW: Fangs For The Memories
by JUD COST

As bone rattlingly exciting as those classic anthems created 30 years ago by Paul Revere & The Raider were, this well seasoned combo-sprouting organically in the unlikely hothouse of greater Boise, Idaho in the early '60s-never received the critical acclaim lavished on some of its less talented peers. But if any American band of the era can match the excitement the Raiders and their producer, Terry Melcher, created with this string of smashes-"Steppin' Out," "Just Like Me," "Kicks," "The Great Airplane Strike," "Good Thing," "Ups And Downs" and "Him Or Me-What's It Gonna Be?"-I'd like to know who they are.

No matter how many Raiders were plugged into the mold later by Paul Revere and Mark Lindsay, the personnel of the band that cut all those wonderful sides remained constant from 1965 until 1967 when guitarist Drake Levin, bassist Phil "Fang" Volk and drummer Mike "Smitty" Smith left to form the Brotherhood. With one notable exception, of course: Jim "Harpo" Valley filling in for Levin for a year until Drake had fulfilled his military obligation and could re-join the band.

Phil Volk, now residing in Las Vegas, Nevada, describes himself as "still the Raiders biggest booster. When the original band was together," he declares, "everything up until 'Him Or Me-What's It Gonna Be?,' was recorded by us, not a bunch of studio musicians." And it's Volk, himself-his melodic bass lines prominently featured on all the Raiders' hits-who (along with the likes of Paul McCartney) fired the first shots in a bass players' revolution whose effects are still being felt. Liberated at last from its status as barely audible back-up instrument, the bass, in the capable hands of the Who's John Entwistle or Cream's Jack Bruce, was finally granted full partnership in the working relationship of rock and roll.

Do you remember what got you interested in music, Phil?
It was all around me. I have to credit my mom with introducing me to song. We were a musical family. My dad was an actor and a singer, and my mom was a dancer and a singer. They were both in show biz. Dad did Broadway and he did some film work, and he did a lot of Shakespeare. He knew the Barrymore family. In fact, when we moved to California my dad taught at the Pasadena Playhouse in Pasadena. This woman, Gloria Stewart, nominated for Best Supporting Actress from the movie Titanic, was performing at the Pasadena Playhouse the same time as my dad. When he went to Hollywood my dad did small parts in movies with Clark Gable, David Niven, Gregory Peck and James Stewart
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What kind of songs did your mom sing to you?
When I was about two and a half she would bounce me on her knee and sing me songs. I would try to pick up a word or two as she sang, so she started teaching me songs. By the time I was three, I could sing entire songs, and my mom realized that I could carry a tune. That's when she took me to a little carnival where they had these record cutters where you could make your own record. And I sang two songs: "Slow Boat To China" and "If You Call Everybody Darling," and I sang them impeccably correct, both melody and lyrics. And I eventually used that little recording on a Brotherhood album. The Brotherhood were me, Drake and Smitty, who left the Raiders in l967. We did three albums for RCA Victor. On our third album, kind of a psychedelic adventure into Never-Never Land, we did some really bizarre things. We went to this school yard with a tape recorder and recorded children playing-once in an upscale suburban area, and then we went down to Watts to a black school ground. Then we merged them all together-laughing and jumping and playing their little games. We integrated them. That was our way of saying that all children are alike. Then we filtered in some of our spontaneous music, and right at the tail end of this ten minute piece, over the top, in this deep spacey echo, you hear this little song that I recorded when I was two and a half. It was almost like something John Cage would have done-musique concrete or music abstract. I happened to be playing it after we got our first pressing when my mom walked in and asked, "What's that sound?" And when she got to the end and that haunting refrain came in, she stopped in her tracks and started crying.

What got you interested in rock and roll?
I took tap lessons for a while, and then Elvis came on the scene. My bigger brother George was a big fan of Elvis, and then my bigger sister, and then pretty soon the whole world knew Elvis after he appeared on the Ed Sullivan Show. Our family would gather around watching TV every Sunday night to watch Walt Disney and then Ed Sullivan. It was like a holiday. And when I saw Elvis, I said to myself, "That's what I want to do." I was about thirteen. By fourteen I had my first guitar. The first song I taught myself was "Teen Angel" by Mark Dinning. And not too many years after that I was on the Ed Sullivan Show, myself, with Paul Revere & The Raiders.

Did you have a band with your school pals?
Once I got that guitar in my hand I got together with some guys in Nampa High School (in Nampa, Idaho) and we formed our first band, called the Classics. The big event at Nampa High was the annual variety show. They'd bring in someone more professional to close the show and make it a big event. And the year I got my guitar the guest artists were Paul Revere & The Raiders. With his big blonde pompadour, playing the boogie woogie piano, he was the lead of the show. Mark was basically playing sax. They were an instrumental band then, playing "Beatnik Sticks" and "Like Long Hair," and the crowd went nuts. And I was riveted. Everybody around me was going crazy, but I was just soaking it all in, saying, "This is rock and roll."

When did you next catch up with the Raiders?
Drake and I saw Paul Revere at his nightclub, Le Crazy Horse-a teenage nightclub with no alcohol-up in Boise in the summer of '63, before I went to college at the University Of Colorado. We couldn't believe that Paul Revere had a nightclub in Boise. He was one of our idols. He was our role model. Drake and I had formed a little rock and roll band together called the Surfers, but we didn't play any surf music. We played R&B, Ray Charles, that kind of stuff. We thought it was a real tricky gimmick to wear cut-offs and Hawaiian shirts and play R&B. So we came to Paul's club, watched him and listened to him and talked to him after his set, and got real close to him. He showed us the Paul Revere version of "Louie Louie" he'd recorded a few months earlier. It was on the charts, and yet he couldn't draw anybody into his nightclub. He was really discouraged. Paul was from Caldwell, a little farther away from Boise than Nampa. And he knew my family anyway from my older brothers and sisters. So we talked him into letting our band play there. He hired us and we worked the summer there as the Surfers. And then we did a concert together with Paul Revere & The Raiders at the National Guard Armory in Nampa, for a dollar a person. It was really a kick in the butt to do it.

Who was the first one of you to join Paul's band?
At the end of the summer, Paul fired his guitar player, or he left because he was on medication. Paul always loved Drake's playing. He loved everything Drake did. Drake calls me and says, "Phil, you won't believe it. I auditioned for Paul and he wants to take me on the road tomorrow. So I've gotta learn all these songs." He was up all night, playing his guitar. He even fell asleep, laying in bed with his guitar. Paul got there the next morning, and found Drake still in bed with his guitar and says, "Come on, Drake. We're leaving." He went on the road for a week and then he came back. I was ready to leave for college. And I took the midnight train out of Boise. My parents had moved to Europe, and my girlfriend had moved to Washington. So I had all my bags packed, and Drake and I go down to the train depot. And got me on the train, at midnight. And the train starts chugging out and Drake starts walking alongside the train. And I'm waving at him from the window. He starts going faster and faster, and pretty soon he starts running alongside the train-just me and Drake, midnight in Boise. It was kind of sad, seeing Drake fade away into the darkness, because we were the tightest of friends. Every time I think of that scene I get a lump in my throat.

What did you plan to study in college?
I was getting into classical music and opera. I was going to become a music major at the University Of Colorado. It was an awesome feeling when I pulled out of Boise. I was only seventeen and I was totally on my own. I was lonely, depressed, excited and exhilarated-so much ambivalence. A year and a half later Drake calls me and says, "Hey, man, better start practicing your bass guitar, because I think Paul's gonna fire our bass-player, Mike Holiday." Mike's on one side of the Here They Come album. They had half of it recorded when I joined the band. So Mike's name is on the early pressings of that album, and mine is on the later pressings. But that's Mike Holiday in the album cover picture.
 
How did you get the official word that you were in?
Drake, being the salesman that he is, kept grinding on Paul until Paul agreed. Paul knew me from playing at his club, and he knew I smiled a lot. And he knew I was a great dancer. And he knew Drake was a great dancer, because the Raiders did a lot of steps. Drake and I were both the same height and size, whereas Mike Holiday and Drake were dissimilar. And Mike wasn't as good of a mover. Drake and I could do a lot of sophisticated things. So Drake convince Paul that if I came in the band, the showmanship would go to a new level and the steps would be upgraded. We did the pony and Mike couldn't do those fancy-schmancy steps. So Paul bought the bill of goods. He called me up in Boulder, Colorado, right after the end of the first semester-they were in Las Vegas-and he says, "Do you know how to play bass?" And I said, "Of course." I wasn't really playing much bass. I was playing rhythm guitar. But Drake and I had this little band called Sir Winston's Trio, playing jazz, R&B and top forty in Quinn's Lounge up in Boise. Since it was only a trio, Drake and I traded off on bass, and we had a keyboard player-no drummer. When we added the drummer that's when we became the Surfers and we really started to rock out.

How long before you took the plunge?
I quit school, much to the chagrin of my parents. They called the Dean Of Music; they called the administrators; they called the police, saying, "Where's our son? We just got a telegram saying he quit school. And you let him quit? And he went to Las Vegas to join a rock and roll band?" Mind you, I was studying classical music. But I'm glad I had that training. I learned how to notate and how to write. I was the only Raider who had any formal training to write charts and who knew chord structure. So when the time came to work with Terry Melcher in the studio, I was able to talk a little different language, and Terry could rely on me for ideas. All the arrangements were done by Terry, Drake, Mark and myself. Everybody's going to have a different angle on that. But Smitty didn't say much. He's not too vocal; he was kinda quiet. And he would add a lot of good ideas for drums. But Drake could always come up with his guitar line, with Terry feeding him ideas. And I would come up with something tricky on the bass. Like on "Kicks" there are two distinct lines: the guitar line and the bass line, and those two act together. When you think about "Hungry," it featured a guitar hook with a very up-front bass line. I think I put three basses on that-a regular bass, an octave bass and a fuzz bass.

Or how about "Steppin' Out"-a knockout guitar and bass intro if there ever was one? It grabbed you by the throat.
Yeah (sings the bass line to "Steppin' Out"). Absolutely. All you hear is bass and guitar. And the other stuff is just back-up rhythm. Even on one of our album cuts, like "Louise," normally basses didn't play a busy line like that. But because Terry liked to feature me up front with a nice, dynamic bass line, he gave me a lot of space to come up with stuff, which was fun, because I always felt I had to top myself from the last song. The pay-off was that I get bass players coming up to me all the time-and I'm not trying to sound like I'm bragging here-and they'd say, "Phil, your bass lines were some of the first bass lines I ever learned. And it's because you played so many neat bass lines that were so easy to hear because they were so up-front on the records." Some guys even want me to sign their bass. I feel very fortunate that Terry used my bass almost like a lead line-I wasn't just a back-up-in counterpoint to Drake's lead line. And Terry also liked this Mick Jagger/Eric Burdon/Van Morrison sound I got in my voice. Terry almost made "In My Community" the A-side of "Great Airplane Strike."

It's too bad in a way you were always onstage and couldn't hear how great it sounded from the audience's perspective.
Well, I was sick once with tonsillitis. This was when Harpo had joined the band and Drake had gone into the military. But Drake had a little window of opportunity to do some gigs, and I just happened to be sick. So I told Paul that Drake should play the first week or two of the tour until I got well. He filled in for me, playing bass, and when I rejoined them on the road I came a night early before I went back onstage. I listened to the band and actually got a chance to hear the band I was in from the audience's viewpoint. I couldn't believe how stunning, how powerful it was, how much dynamics it had. It was strong, really punchy. I thought, "I'm proud to be in this band." I didn't know we sounded that good out there. I mean, the girls were always screaming, and I never knew what it sounded like. We were as tight as a gnat's ass. The whole thing was a complete package. It was a well oiled machine.

I've never been able to understand why the Raiders weren't considered every bit as cool as the Beach Boys or the Byrds.
I want to go on the record that Paul Revere And The Raiders was an American band, and America should be proud of this band. They always give the Beach Boys a lot of credit. But we played a lot of shows with the Beach Boys, and they really didn't sound too good live. The harmonies were a little off, and they had to bring a lot of additional musicians with them to fill out their sound, because they had more production to worry about. We didn't have to do that. Our stuff was based around a few parts: good solid drums, a straight organ thing backing up Mark screamin' and me and Drake having our parts. We were America's number one rock and roll show band. We may have been TV stars, but before that we were just a garage band that made it famous. We played the dance club circuit for years. We paid our dues. Before there was a Woodstock, before Jimi Hendrix burned his guitar, the most visible American group, the most viable band in this country-that was breaking all concert attendance records, that played some of the most energetic, most emotional, high impact rock and roll in the world was Paul Revere & The Raiders.
 
Prof. Jud Cost
Santa Clara, CA 1998

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