'To be asked by the greatest frontman in rock & roll to sing for him, what bigger honor is there?' Bernard Fowler says of his work with Mick Jagger and the Stones.
, Alice Cooper, Yoko Ono, and even Steven Seagal. A couple of months after the Stones wrapped up their 2021 U.S. tour, we phoned up Fowler to hear stories from his long life and career.Life is crazy, man. Life is crazy. This Covid thing is just fucking musicians’ worlds.
I want to go back and talk about your life. Tell me your first memory of being aware of music as a little kid. These were the best shows I’d ever seen in my life. I was a fan. At that time, I didn’t consider being a musician. I was just a fan of it. I wasn’t doing it.In junior high school, I was always in the chorus or the glee club, or whatever. One of my teachers heard me singing. She said, “You need to meet my husband. He’s a guitar player and singer-songwriter. I would love for him to meet you.”
I thought I wanted to be a ballplayer. After a game, I was out celebrating with some guys. We had just won the New York City Housing basketball tournament. I was singing and some guy heard me sing. I didn’t know him. He was dating my friend’s sister. He said, “Hey, man, you sound good. I’m a guitar player in a band. We’re looking for a singer. Come and audition.”
And so I join this band, but I’m still playing basketball. I’m playing varsity basketball as a sophomore. I was good. And after practice at 7 a.m., the coach called me in his office. He goes, “Hey, Fowler, I gotta talk to you. I understand that after the afternoon practice, you go and sing with a band.” I said, “Yeah, yeah, yeah. You want to come and see it?” He said, “No. You’re either going to play ball or you’re going to sing with that band. You’re not going to do both.
During your teenage years, New York was just exploding with music. There was the punk scene in the Village. Hip-hop was just starting to rise in the Bronx and Harlem. Studio 54 was happening. The salsa scene was happening. How tapped into all this were you? This is just as hip-hop is starting to bubble. Around this time, Steven called me and was like, “Yo, man. We got to go check out Club 371.” Club 371 was in the Bronx with DJ Hollywood doing his thing and Kurtis Blow.
I went to our loft one day and no one from the group was there. The lover of the keyboard player says, “Oh, they’re at some studio. They want you to go.” I go there and this track we’d been working on in the loft is playing. Larry is sitting behind the console. Everyone is kind of excited. They’re like, “Come on, baby. You need to go in and do your thing.”
“Rockit” comes out and becomes a smash like I knew it would when I heard those tracks. Bill called me and said, “Hey, man, you want to go on the road with Herbie Hancock? Do you want to sing with Herbie Hancock?” I thought, “Are you fuckin’ kidding me? The Peech Boys are getting ready to get de-funked. I’m outta here.”
I loved watching Herbie play. I just loved being surrounded by all the talent. Again, I’m a baby compared to the guys that I was keeping company with. I was an infant compared to Herbie. Most of the guys had gone to Music and Art [high school]. They had been playing for a while. It was the whole experience: sex, drugs, and rock & roll. The whole nine, I was into.In the middle of the Herbie tour, we had 10 days off. I remember it like it was yesterday. We had 10 days exactly.
We drive through London and we’re talking about music. I still don’t know why I’m there. We pull up to a house in a part of London called Swiss Cottage. A big house. We walk up the stairs and ring the bell. A big Black dude opens the door. Bill says, “Hey, Carl, this is Bernard.” “Hey, man, how you doing, man?” He had a really soft voice to be such a big, powerful dude.
During those days, I used to travel with a four-track cassette recorder. When I got to the hotel room, I listened to this stuff. I started to arrange background vocals on my four-track cassette recorder. The next day, we go to the studios. AIR Studios. I’ll never forget it. Also in that studio that day was Paul McCartney.
It just so happened that I was with Carmine Rojas at that time. He’s a bass player for David Bowie and Rod Stewart. We were doing an all-star sideman gig. We were going to the South of France to do a gig. We were in SIR rehearsing. I went out to the bathroom, and as I’m leaving there this entourage starts coming down the corridor. In the middle was Mick. I kind of got his eye and went, “Hey, Mick!” He just kind of looked at me and kept walking. I thought, “Wow. That was strange.
And Carmine again, bless his heart, takes my by the arm, pulls me to the side, and says, “Hey, man, push that shit aside. Don’t let that shit fucking bother you. You go in there and you do that audition and you kill them. It don’t matter if you take that gig or not. Go in there and do that audition.”
The tour caused a lot of controversy within the Stones. Keith wasn’t happy about it. Do you remember that tension in the air at the time?Steel Wheels And then he goes, first thing he ever said to me, “I didn’t want to like you.” I’m like, “Oh, fuck.” I knew they had been fighting. Everybody knew. I said, “Why, man? I’m cool.” He goes, “I know you’re cool. I spoke to Steve Jordan.” God bless Steve Jordan! “I spoke to Steve Jordan and he told me you were cool.” And Keith and I have been tight ever since.
It’s funny. I remember telling [bassist] Darryl Jones when he joined that it was a double-edged sword. You would think that because you were working with the Rolling Stones, when you get off the road with the Rolling Stones, your phone is going to be ringing off the hook. And it’s just the opposite. They think that because you’re doing that, they can’t afford you. You’re not going to work for $100 anymore. People are afraid to call you since they’re afraid you’re going to cost too much.
Believe me, if it didn’t feel good, Mick would give us the eye. If he didn’t say it, all you had to do was look at his face. It said, “Uh-uh. Oops. Let’s go back and rethink that.” And because there were two of us, we tried to make it as beefy as possible without it being over the top. Are you eyeballing Mick the entire show so you know exactly what he’s singing and where he’s going with the song?
John’s vocal coach? Up until then, I had never coached anyone before. I just knew how to do what I’m doing. I remember before we started working together, I was scratching my head. I was going, “John Lydon’s vocal coach? He sings the way he sings.” I stopped putting so much pressure on myself about being his “vocal coach” and I would just show him small things, like how to breathe, how to take breaths, and stuff like that.
A little while later, when I was on tour with the Stones, I ran into him at the Viper Room right before I went on with Stevie Salas, Danny Saber, Danny [Kortchmar], and Adam Duritz from the Counting Crows. He came on and played with us, and Billy Gibbons from ZZ Top even came out. Oh, man. It was like a religious experience. I’m singing with this cat that I dug so hard. I used to always say, “When Mick decides he wants to give up the throne, Michael is the next one in the chair.
That was a treat. And it was probably one of my best and most challenging musical experiences ever. How that came about was producing a record for Ronnie Wood. Charlie came since I asked him to come and play on the record. At that same time, Charlie wrote a children’s book about Charlie Parker. And so I narrated the book and him and the band would play between my narration.
You’d walk into those rehearsals and Charlie wasn’t there, but Steve was so respectful of the chair, of the music. He was in his room listening and he was listening to detail. If the Stones had been playing it this way, I think in some cases he’d be like, “No, that was wrong. It goes like this.”
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