Destroyers gassed up (yikes, the prices!) and back on the road again

view interview here

By MARK VOGER
Asbury Park (N.J.) Press
06/03/2006

It’s a fair question to put to a musician at this moment: Have you heard Neil Young’s song “Let’s Impeach the President?”

“Not yet, but I want to,” says George Thorogood, leader of the Destroyers (of “Bad to the Bone” fame). “I’m all for the idea,” he adds with a laugh.

“I don’t need to hear the song to put the idea in motion.”

Young has said he is criticizing the Bush administration in song because he doesn’t believe activism is alive among younger artists.

“I don’t think people know exactly how to say how they feel about this thing,” Thorogood counters. “It’s a bizarre setup. I think Neil’s looking at it like: Who are the good guys and who are the bad guys? It’s hard to figure out. The one thing we do know is that the people will suffer the rewards of the big boys. I mean, look at the gas prices.

Good God almighty! Nobody’s going to be able to afford to do anything at this rate.”

Not even rock stars are immune, says Thorogood, a Wilmington native.

“It’s not just hitting me; it’s hitting people who are going to want to come see me,” the musician says.

“They’re not going to have money for a ticket to come see me play. I don’t put a high ticket price on our show because I think I’m the grand master of entertainment. The ticket price is relevant to the prices of everything. I have to buy gas, too.

“Our fans are mostly blue-collar, working-class people. This is going to affect them. I’d better be damn good if they’re going to buy a ticket to come see me play. They gotta fill their gas tank; they gotta feed their children. This is serious. This is a big crunch. A hundred dollars to fill up your gas tank? That’s a lot of money. So I really want to hear how Neil is formulating these anxieties into music.”

The Destroyers are on the road behind their latest album,
“The Hard Stuff” (Eagle Records).

“If this band has any kind of reputation,” Thorogood says, “it’s for putting out stuff that is, well, hard stuff. I mean, we’re not heavy metal, but we’re not exactly a folk act. When people mention George Thorogood and the Destroyers, you usually hear, ‘Oh, those cats are heavy. They hit you hard.’ That’s the imagery of the group, so I think it fits.

“The song itself ‘[The Hard Stuff]’ is about a guy saying, ‘I’ve had enough of the hard stuff. I can’t take it anymore.’ But he’s his own worst enemy. He is the hard stuff.”

On the CD, the Destroyers cover some of their old musical heroes.
Says Thorogood: “The Jimmy Reed song, [‘Little Rain,’] I’ve been listening to since 1973. Hounddog Taylor has been a huge influence on this band. We opened for Hound-dog, toured with him, before he passed away. We got a Howlin’ Wolf song on there, a [Bob] Dylan song, John Lee Hooker – all the heaviest cats we could come up with. Hence the title.

“It’s us pretty much cleaning out the garage once and for all.”