No, Jean Beauvoir is not a famous French explorer. Nor is he a hockey player from Quebec, Canada. He is a veritable Jacque-of-all-trades with an incredible musical resume that has taken him from early R&B beginnings with Gary US Bonds, through a stint with explosive punk trendsetters The Plasmatics and ultimately to international success as a solo artist and leader of the hard rock group Crown Of Thorns. His Haitian background and scattershot musical dalliances all inform Jean’s music; his diversity makes him one of the most refreshing artists in modern melodic rock. And while Jean’s name might not be instantly recognizable to some, he has friends in high places. In fact, some of Beauvoir’s greatest successes have been as writer and/or producer for some of the biggest names in the business – including Kiss, Little Steven, N*Sync, The Ramones and many more. Recently, Jean Beauvoir’s Crown of Thorns has been the subject of a comprehensive box set, ‘Crown Jewels’, which itself came on the heels of Beauvoir’s latest solo album, ‘Chameleon’.
Since then, Jean has been lying low. It’s almost as if he’s gone underground. In fact, that’s exactly where he’s been – tinkering away with Little Steven in the Underground Garage. The Fuze caught up with Jean Beauvoir earlier this year, and at long last we’re proud to bring you an extensive chat with the enigmatic musician. Read on as we dig into Jean’s punk roots with the Plasmatics, his dual roles as solo artist and leader of Crown of Thorns and find out whatever happened to his trademark platinum blond Mohawk. Meet the chameleon, Jean Beauvoir.
Hi Jean, how are you doin’?
Good. We finally got to speak together.
Finally! Man, if you’re regularly as busy as you’ve been since Susanne [Jean’s wife & PR rep] and I started trying to get this together…(laughs)
It’s been crazy, and I apologize. It’s just that besides all the stuff that I do musically, now I’m running Little Steven Van Zant’s company as well. So I’ve got, like, a million things going. It’s a lot of work.
Well obviously your time is at a premium. Thank you very much for taking some of it out to talk with us.
No problem, no problem.
So, tell me a little bit about what you’re doing with Little Steven now.
Yeah, ok. Well, I don’t know if you’re familiar with the whole Underground Garage movement. That’s a radio show that’s syndicated.
Right.
We’ve got the radio show out there, playing all the bands. Basically, you know Steven and I have been friends for years. We worked together way back in 1982. I played with Disciples of Soul, you know. So, we’ve always kept in touch throughout the years and then about a year ago he contacted me and he said “You know, I’d love you to come work with me on this thing.” So, besides the radio show, we did the one festival, which I don’t know if you knew about it - with Iggy Pop and the Strokes and a bunch of other people.
The one where the New York Dolls reunited?
That’s right. We worked 45 bands in. Then, after that, from there we filmed it in 3-D. We’re actually trying to get everything worked out to get that released. And then from there, you know, we’re putting together a label as well. So, now we’ll start signing and releasing a lot of the bands. We have all these bands that he plays on the show, you know, don’t have deals or they get signed to majors and then dropped after their first album.
Right, no time to grow or anything.
Yeah, exactly. So, our whole concept is to kind of have an infrastructure to help these bands grow. A label. And on top of it, now a lot of it is sponsorship based, so the next thing is to put them out on tour. We have a tour thing we’ve been also trying to put together with different companies, to get these bands out playing like 25 different markets at the same time. We’d have different tours kicking off. One leaves, then the next one starts a month later, the next one starts, with three of our bands on each one of the tours, playing all over America. Of course, we’d do it with the sponsors, so we’d promote whatever they are, but at the same time, it gives the bands a chance to be out on the road.
So, are you going to be in partnership with particular venues to host some of these tours in certain markets?
Something like that. Basically, we do deals with the clubs all over America, and then we sit down with, say, Cuervo - that’s who we’re talking to right now - and basically they fund the whole thing. And at the same time, we do promotions for Cuervo, or whatever, inside of the venue. So it’s really not any big expense to the venue. The venue can, luckily, just make some money, you know? We’re also trying to do that with a college tour, and we’ve been talking to a lot of casinos at the same time. It’s funny you’re out there in Vegas!
Maybe you can get something rolling here in town?
We’ve been speaking to the Hard Rock Café. I just got off the phone with them a little while ago. It looks like they’re going to start to do something at the Hard Rock Casino. It looks like Hard Rock Café is coming in as a sponsor again, so we’re trying to get a whole circuit going. Basically, so we can have a label, have the bands out on tour, play them on the radio, and just do whatever it takes to be able to self-promote these bands.
So it’s a major operation, but still on an independent level. This is the kind of support it sounds like you could have probably used back in the day.
Exactly. Well, you know, we’re learning by our mistakes (laughs). You know, we all see what’s been happenin’, how it’s been out there. It’s very difficult. These labels, they’re only thinking about the big fish, and so we wanted to kind of have some kind of structure where it’s not all based on bands selling a million records. The way we want to set it up, the way we do our label, is we’d do a 50/50 split of all income with all the bands.
Wow.
After expenses, of course. But we try to do something where, if they sell 10,000 records, they’re making money.
They’re not just getting 5% of the whole deal there.
Right. Everybody’s making money, so it’s a completely different concept than the major label. I’m not putting it down ‘cause we are doing a partnership with a major, in a way, with a major distributor who will basically distribute the records. It’s not gonna be the kind of setup where they pour all this money into it - the band gets half a million dollars or 300,000 dollars to make a record, and if it doesn’t happen a month and a half later, the whole thing’s dead. It’s better, to start, to make the record fairly cheap, especially with the nature of the bands. It’s basically roots rock and roll bands. These days, you can make these records for $20,000. You make the record, and if you do the right thing, they sell a few records, and already the thing is in profit. And that’s the way you gotta keep it, I guess, to stay out there - to be around long enough for these bands to get good and tour and get creative again, so we can start to have bands like we used to have.
So, as the ball gets rolling with that whole thing, when will people be able to find out more about it? Will they get information through your site, or through Little Steven’s site?
Yeah, the information will be on the site. Everything is pretty much updated regularly, but right now, we’re still just putting everything together. Right now, the radio thing’s together. The label thing, we just closed a deal a couple days ago. And we’ll start out with a few compilations to start, kind of like an introduction of the genre to people, and then that’s it. And the tour thing, we’re still negotiating with sponsors to get that funded. Once that goes, if we can get even those three pieces really working to start, that’s gonna be it.
That all sounds very cool.
So, that’s what is keeping me so busy. (laughs)
And here I was thinking that the new Crown of
Thorns album was taking up all your time! Is that still in the works?
Well, I am working on that also, but we did kind of put it on the back burner for the moment. I got caught up in this for a minute, so I just wanted to take a little break. But I’m gonna continue on that record. There’s no set release date for that record as of yet, but a lot of it is done. We’ve probably got at least 70% of the record finished already. It’s pretty interesting, but I’m not exactly sure when I’m gonna get back into it yet. The last release that I did, actually, was a song called “Christmas with the Kranks”.
For the soundtrack, right?
Yeah, you probably knew about that.
Yeah.
That was the last song that I did, pretty much. Since then I haven’t recorded anything (laughs) You’re probably wondering “Why am I having this interview?”
No, no. You’ve got a couple cool things that came out over this past year and a half or two, and of course, one of those was your excellent ‘Chameleon’ album, which I was pleasantly surprised to find became my favorite of your solo albums.
Really?!
Yeah. Where does it stand with you?
I’ve got to say it’s one of my favorites, too.
Well, of course you’re biased (laughs).
Well, I am, but I’m very selective, too. After you’ve worked so hard on a record sometimes, you don’t go back and listen, you know, for a long time. But that record, I liked it. I thought it was a good record. I worked very hard on it, obviously.
It shows. And when you say it’s a solo album, you really mean ‘solo’. You wrote damn near all of it, played everything on it, produced it…I’ll bet if you could have, you probably would have taken the cover photos yourself. (laughs)
(laughs) It was actually my wife.
Yeah, well, there you go! Close enough! So, where did this heavy electronic feel come from on ‘Chameleon’, and how long did it take you, from start to finish, to do the album?
I took my time on that record, only because it was kind of a situation where I was signed to the label. It was Ulftone/Edel to do the record. And then, like all labels these days, they went through some financial problems and so they stopped it for a while, and then no one knew what was going to happen. So, I kind of kept working slowly on it. I’d say it probably took me about six months. I’m not saying working every day, 24 hours a day, but yeah, working pretty hard on it. Again, like you said, I do everything completely alone. It was me in a room. It took some time. It took some working. I wanted it to be as good as possible. I go back and I change things, and I listen, and I just try to make it the best I can. But yeah, probably around six months.
Sometimes the line between a Jean Beauvoir album and Crown of Thorns gets blurred, especially with songs like “Here She Comes”, “You” or “Once in My Life”. Do you write songs with one project or the other in mind and decide later where they go? How does that work when you write?
Okay, so when you say it gets blurred, what do you mean?
Well, for instance, “Here She Comes” - that could
have easily been on, I think, ‘Chameleon’. Style-wise, sound-wise…
Yeah, that’s true. Yeah, well there’s been some cross-pollination here. ‘Cause Crown of Thorns is kind of my project, but I try to keep it as band-oriented as possible. But every once in a while there’s a song that I do and everybody says “Hey, listen, we like that song. Let’s put that song on the record, too.” So we end up doing that. But you’re right, I do write specifically for different projects. It’s not like I just write and then just decide. They’re recorded differently. With the Crown of Thorns stuff, the band’s involved, and the solo stuff, I’m doing it by myself. A lot of the songs get developed in the recording. It’s not like I write the song completely start to finish. I have kind of a strange way of writing. I’ll kind of put the basic ideas on a little tape recorder, and I’ll have a basic lyric idea, but a lot of times, I don’t write the lyrics until the song’s recorded.
Until you’ve got all the music down, and everything?
Yeah, ‘til everything’s down, and I’m down to the very end. The track is sounding good, and I kind of work off the track. I might have an idea on my little tape recorder. I’ll start writing a song, and I’ll hear a hook in my mind, and immediately when I hear the hook, somehow, the lyric for the hook comes up. But that’s all I’ll have. So, when it comes to making the record, for Crown of Thorns or a solo record, I’ll go in the studio and start putting the pieces down that I have. I’ll listen to these 50-60 ideas that I’ve accumulated over a certain amount of time, and I’ll say “Alright. Let me go in there now.” And I start listening. “Ah, that’s good. I’ll take that. Let me start working on that one.” I’ll work on that song, get it to a certain point, and maybe I won’t even touch the lyrics on it yet. And then I’ll move on, maybe do two or three, and then I’ll go back and start doing lyrics on them and try to finish up a couple. You know what I mean?
Right, it’s kind of like you’re building the songs.
So, that’s kind of how I work it. With Crown of Thorns, it’s similar, but the difference is that the guys come in and we do the same kind of system. Sometimes with those songs, too, I don’t actually, I’ll put down some rough ideas - just some very basic things. Maybe I might have just a straight drum track - nothing intricate, nothing preconceived - so that you can really feel what you’re doing. So, I’ll just give something very basic, with maybe just a humming vocal. And I’ll say “This is the idea.” And then everybody comes in and starts replacing.
Do you guys email ideas back and forth or do you actually sit down face to face and say “Ok, let’s hammer this out.”
Well, we do both. On this last record we spent more time together because I’m in LA now. But before, when I was in Berlin, it was harder. I was in Berlin and Tommy [Lafferty, Crown of Thorns guitarist] was in San Francisco. Hawk [Lopez, Crown of Thorns drummer] and Michael [Paige, Crown of Thorns bassist] were in LA. So it was a little difficult. We had to get some of this stuff done prior, and after that, they’d fly in and then we’d sit in the studio face to face and then do it from there.
Your 2001 album, ‘Bare to the Bones’, featured new versions of songs you’d done on your own and with Crowns of Thorns. Was the album your way of bringing all your listeners onto the same page?
That’s an interesting way of putting it.
‘Cause it really did. There were songs in there that I hadn’t thought about for awhile, and I found myself going back to get reacquainted with the original versions.
Hmm. I don’t know if I thought about it that deeply, but maybe so. It’s kind of an acoustic record. I wanted to keep one style to that record, but show that all the songs do kind of fit in. Because I did find in my career that sometimes you’d think that people would not like the solo record, the last one. I thought “Man, they’re going to hear this thing and ‘Oh, brother’!” - especially the record company. I was telling them “We have to market this generally, not just with the hard rock fans. Because I don’t think the hard rock fans might get this record.” But, strangely enough, I got like really good reviews in melodic rock and hard rock magazines. I gotta be honest with you – I was surprised! (laughs) There was guitar in it, and stuff like that, but I started to realize that the fans, they don’t listen that way. They listen for the most part, to the melody in the song, more so than the nuances that I might think of. I might say “Well, the drums on the Crown of Thorns record are rockin’” and “This song I’m using one straight beat” or “I’m using a synth bass” or something like that. For some reason, it seems like they weren’t as affected by that as I thought they would be. So, they seem to be more on one page as you mentioned before, than I would have actually thought. Which is a good thing.
Well, yeah. I think ‘Chameleon’ and the ‘Crown Jewels’ set would excellent places for people to start, for people who perhaps aren’t really familiar with the rest of the work that you’ve done. Between the video interview, the Christmas tracks, the demos – it’s all gathered together without having to track down six albums on six different labels. The stuff from Point Music, Now & Then, Frontiers - everything is gathered together. I think ‘Crown Jewels’ is a great set.
Oh, well, thank you. Yeah, I do too. We talked about that and thought that was a good idea to do a box set. Just - what you said - to put it all together, and to kind of give an introduction to the whole thing for people who weren’t involved before.
Going back to ‘Chameleon’ – the title certainly seems to describe you as a musician, but as far as the music goes, does it paint the most complete picture of who you are?
Are you talking particularly about that album?
In general.
Umm, partially. You know I try to do that on that record, to a certain extent. I mean, I know it’s not a very hard edged record. You know I tried to let people know that guitars are something that are very important to me. So every song, no matter what it is, has electric guitar of some kind on it - even the songs that are more dance-oriented, R’nB-oriented or whatever. I always love the contrast of heavy guitars of some sort - whether it be the solo or whatever - mixed with the music. I did “Something to Believe In”, which is a Ramones song. I did it completely different, even though I produced the punk version of it for the Ramones. This way I did it…differently. But, I guess to some point, it does paint a pretty good picture. I think it’s pretty wide. You know, I kind of showed a lot of different influences that I had and things that I just like to do musically, and that’s one thing I kind of like with my solo records is that I have the freedom to do what I want to do, and cross boundaries. You know, I’m from the Caribbean originally, and I grew up with Caribbean music. When I was a little kid, I’d be in Haiti, and my Uncle’s a Voodoo Priest. I used to spend time in his yard, watching Voodoo ceremonies and playing Voodoo drums. So, I have a certain influence of Caribbean music in there. “Where the River Runs Deep”, for example, has kind of a Caribbean feeling to it. “Higher” is more of a straight rock song. I didn’t do it consciously, like “I’m gonna make sure I have all these different kinds of songs.” It’s just things that just came. When they come, the ideas come spontaneously. I wake up in the middle of the night, 4:00 in the morning, and I have an idea. I run into the studio, and I end up sitting in there until 3:00 or 4:00 in the morning the next day, putting down this idea - just to make sure that I’ve captured the moment of what this idea is. Now, when it comes out, sometimes you fight yourself and say “Wait a minute. It shouldn’t using this kind of beat”, or “you shouldn’t be doing this” because maybe it’s going in a direction that you shouldn’t be going in. But if I found that happening, I’d say to myself “You know what? Just do it and just see what it comes out to, and that’s it. Just go.” And that’s kind of what I did, and I think that’s why I ended up sometimes with different things. That’s what I was feeling. So it’s me, you know?
How do you think ‘Chameleon’ compares to ‘Drums Along the Mohawk’ in terms of where you’re coming from as a writer? And along the same line, what do you think of yourself as a writer now as opposed to 20 years ago? Those albums both seem to me, as a listener, to be a kind of reevaluation of who you are. You are kind of in a shift in your career, it seems.
You know, the funny thing is that you ask yourself that question all the time, and sometimes you say to yourself “I’m so much better than I was then.” And then you kind of sometimes go back to that first record, and you listen to it and you go “Wow, that was pretty good. How did I do that? (laughs) I’m not sure what I’m doing now is any better than that. How can I get back to that?” At times I would think that I’m better, due to experience and different things. But you know, there are a lot of factors when you are just starting. A new artist who is green actually thinks and does things maybe you don’t do when you have a lot of experience. So, umm, it’s almost like somebody else would have to tell me “You are a much better writer now than you were in 1986.” I don’t know if that’s true. I think it’s all just more of what comes to you. To me, writing is not such a technical thing. There are a lot of writers that are technically based. For me, it’s not. It’s all based on emotion. So, I think that some of your records are better or worse kind of depending on your state of mind. Depending on how you’re focused, depending on how you’re feeling - you could be sad, you could be upset, and sometimes that brings out the best in you. Some people get depressed, and that’s when they write their best shit, you know.
Well, you know, the one song that pops out in my head whenever I think of ‘Drums Along the Mohawk’ is “This is Our House”.
Yeah, yeah.
That is the song that does it for me on that album.
Really?
Yeah, and I don’t know whether it’s for that reason, but that album always seems melancholy to me.
It was a bit melancholy -- yeah.
Was it a hard time at that point in your life?
Well, I think I have habit of…I don’t think a lot of my records are very upbeat - correct me if I’m wrong. They are all a little melancholy because I think that, for me to get emotion out of them and really feel the songs, I usually end up writing about things that…either I feel hurt or things that I think are subjects that people are sensitive to. In reality, sometimes subjects just come into my mind. Sometimes my lyrics are a little vague, so you as a listener don’t know exactly…“This is Our House” - what do you think that song was about, for example?
Well, it actually made me think of a song by Tony Carey, called “Some Tough City”. It seemed like maybe a problem with making ends meet, anger and emotions running high - that was kind of the impression I got. Pretty close to the lyrics, as written.
Ok. Well, I don’t have the lyrics in front of me, but basically it was about people taking things away from you. At the time when I was thinking about it, I was thinking about German Nazis. Actually, you wouldn’t think that, if it was about the household, the finances, all that stuff. But the way it’s written, I noticed that people can interpret an idea that I have when I write a song, very differently than what I was actually thinking.
That’s interesting. I’ll have to go back and listen to it. There is a lyric in there about the soldiers in uniform and all that.
Yeah. So basically, we’re talking about just being a family sitting in a house - you’ve been living there, you think everything’s fine, you’re comfortable - and all of a sudden, people just come to you and just take everything away from you, and there’s nothing you can do about. You’re looking as a person just watching all this happen, you know what I mean?
Right.
But that applies to many different things. I was thinking about that particular situation, but it can apply differently in different countries, it can apply to, I guess, financial problems here.
True - being an international release, people in different places and situations are certainly going to take it differently.
That’s right. And I always try to -- whenever I write songs, try to keep things vague. I know for myself what it is, but I try to keep it vague enough so people can interpret it differently, and a lot of them do. Every time I get interviewed and discuss it, I always get completely different stories. It’s interesting. I’ve had people saying “Oh, I heard this song, and it was exactly what I’m goin’ through at home with my girlfriend, and you know, it’s amazing that you can actually understand that.” You live and work around the world, and you see things happen. Whatever it might be, you realize people are always complaining about this, and there’s a problem with relationships, or people can’t communicate – there are a million subjects. You know, “Higher” might be a stupid subject – well, not stupid - but it’s basically ‘you go around, and everybody’s trying to get to another level’. What does that really mean - everybody’s fucking doin’ drugs all over the world! (laughs) You go to Sweden, Germany - no matter where you go - all over America - I notice every year that 20% more people try and escape and get high, because they are trying to get to another level. They’re trying to, you know, do something. So, I find myself writing about it. Even though I don’t specify “Everybody is doing coke in the bathroom” (laughs), you know what I mean.
Oh yeah.
That’s kind of the way I write.
Well, that’s great because everybody has their own interpretation of it, and they all take something personal out of it.
Yeah, well to me that’s what it’s supposed to be about. People are supposed to listen to a record, or whatever it is, and that’s what makes music great. You are supposed to have a record collection of a lot of different records that you listen to at different times to put you in a certain mood. It’s supposed to make you feel good, or melancholy, or sometimes make you feel better about your situation (laughs).
A while back, you mentioned your production work with the Ramones, and I wanted to ask you, how did you originally get involved in writing and producing with the Ramones?
Well, I started with them ‘cause we had the same manager. My manager from my solo years was a guy named Gary Kurfirst. And he’s an interesting guy. He was the first to bring Jimi Hendrix over to play in America. He managed the Talking Heads, The Ramones, Debbie Harry. And he was a real purist. He took me on right when I thought it was completely over, you know. I was runnin’ around in New York, shoppin’ demos. I had left the Plasmatics. Nobody would touch me, you know, except for Little Steven, who actually took me into his band and told me “Come play with me for a while and you get a little credibility and people won’t think that all you can do is blow up cars!” (laughs). He took me in and once I got in the camp, we were hanging out, and I got to know the other guys from The Ramones, of course, since I had been involved in the Plasmatics. We had a common ground there. And one day, they just said “Listen, why don’t you do some tracks for us?” And we thought it would be an interesting contrast. And it was great, really. I had lived that world, ’cause we all came from that CBGB’s scene, we all came from that punk scene, you know. We were all leather jacket kids, rehearsing in a loft, you know.
Did it seem at like a step backward? At some point, did you say “I don’t know. I came from that. I kind of want to do something different.”
No, I didn’t. Because I like challenges, and I like different things, and I like to get into roles in some kind of a way. With The Ramones, I’m not judgmental. Working with them, I became a Ramone for a certain amount of time. It’s the whole process of producing a record. I got to spend a lot of time with Dee Dee and Joey. We worked for weeks and weeks on just the writing - getting together, hanging out together, going to clubs together, and getting into how they think and how they feel, which was pretty similar, since I had lived that life before. I always thought that they were a great band. You know, a lot musicians or producers get to a certain point that they want to only work with certain people. Ramones are great, but in a different way. It’s not like Dee Dee Ramone was Stanley Clark on bass. (laughs)
Right.
But Dee Dee Ramone was a genius in his own way. He’s a guy that you could sit down with and write songs. And I’ve written songs with tons of people. And that guy could spurt out lyrics in two seconds. He’ll just have ideas just flow through his mind, and it’s his own thing. He just gets these ideas that just come right away to him.
And the flip side of what you just said is that Stanley Clark is no Dee Dee Ramone.
Exactly.
They’re each unique.
Completely unique. And for me, I really appreciated that, because for me, it just expanded my musical horizons in a way. We find out there’s so many different facets of music and artists, and I like to get into them and kind of live their lives a little bit. So, I thought it was great. I never looked at it as a step backwards. It was difficult at times because each one of the guys in the band were different. Joey was kind of a more musical kind of a guy, and he wanted to go to a different place. If it was up to Joey, you’d have orchestra on his songs. We’d sit together and come up with some great idea to do something, and I’d get a phone call from Johnny, saying “That’s it. I want no piano on that song. No way! This is a punk rock band, you know.” Johnny was more of a straight shooter. He knew exactly what he wanted the sound to be, and also had his limitations. He didn’t want to play in minor chords. He’d say “You write a song with a minor chord, you play it.” But it was kinda funny. So, they always were fighting amongst themselves to try to each get their own thing across. So, that’s where it gets tough as a producer. You have to try to mesh all that together and at the same time, you have to satisfy the record company who doesn’t care about what any of us think! (laughs) They just want a record that’s gonna sell.
And they want it by such and such a time.
That’s right.
So, at the time, did many Ramones fans resent the keyboard influence that was coming out?
You know, no. That’s the funny thing, you know. And that goes back almost exactly to what you were talking about, with my solo records as opposed to my Crown of Thorns records. For example – the song “Bonzo Goes to Bitburg (My Brain is Hanging Upside Down)”.
Which was just in School of Rock recently…
Yeah, that song’s in School of Rock, it’s all over the place. I just got word right now that they’re releasing a big DVD set, and again they put that one and a couple of other songs I have onto that DVD set. And, as a matter of fact, it was one of their biggest singles in England. In the top ten. And then there’s “Something to Believe In”, which was a very popular MTV video, and they kind of went to a different place with that. Remember the video with the kind of “We Are the World” spoof?
Right.
They had Gary US Bonds, look-alike Lionel Richie…(laughs)…and anyway, somehow, The Ramones always went that way. If you go back, they were using horns. So, I never got any kind of flack on it, no. Punk rock bells! (laughs)
Hey, nobody else was doing punk bells though, so there you go.
That’s right. So, that’s what made it kind of interesting.
What made you decide to do away with your trademark blonde Mohawk a few years ago?
Uh, it was just really a matter of convenience. It was a pain in the ass to keep that thing going.
Hair care bill getting a little too high, was it?
You know, sometimes, to be honest with you, a lot of people don’t recognize me. It was at a time where I was wasn’t performing as much, even though Crown of Thorns was making records, but I was doing a lot of producing. I spent a lot of time in Europe, and I was just producing a lot of people and writing with a lot of people, and I always had a bandana on or a hat on. It just wasn’t that thing where I was, like, out all the time. So, really, after a while, I just felt like I wanted a change. The whole image was based on that hair, which now when I think back, it is what it is. I’m still not used to it, to be honest with you, because when you have a haircut like that for so many years, everything about you is based on that, and when you shave your head, you feel kind of normal. You just don’t feel that same vibe.
It was a show piece.
Yeah, it was a show piece. Whether I could now go turn around and grow it again, I’m not sure if that would be the right move, you know. You never know.
Well, that will be a surprise. You’ll whip off a hat one day, and there it will be.
That’s right. You never know.
In the interview you did for the Crown of Thorns box set, ‘Crown Jewels’, you said that the band was originally formed by “four black guys who wanted to rock and roll.” Did the shit hit the fan, so to speak, when you parents or other black musicians saw the Mohawk and knew what kind of rock and roll you were going to be playing?
Well, now it’s become a common thing. You see a lot of black people with Mohawks and blonde hair. At the very beginning, this stuff was non-existent. We’re talking about 1979/1980, when I started. I had a really difficult time. I was living in New York, and at the time, things were way different. First of all, there were no blacks on MTV, for one thing. It was a whole different world, and I got a lot of flack, actually, from the black race. Everybody was against the fact that I was putting up a blonde Mohawk. I was looking at it to be raceless. That was kind of my feeling. I grew up on Long Island. I grew up in an all white neighborhood, you know, and I always believed that everybody was equal and everybody was the same. Everybody should be treated the same.
Sure.
And that was kind of my feeling, and I felt “I want to play rock and roll. Why be pigeonholed - just ‘cause you’re black, you have to make hip hop records, or you have to do this….” I wanted to be able to do whatever I wanted to do. I was always a rebel. But in New York, I had a difficult time. Black people hated the fact that I had a blonde Mohawk. I remember going to a Rick James concert - because he was also a freaky guy - and he came to a Plasmatics show one day and loved the show, and he invited me to come to Chicago with him when he had that whole Super Freak tour. So, I flew in with him. I went to do the show, and he had to have these security guys walking me around the audience. I remember him saying “There’s no way I want you guys to let this guy out of your sight, ‘cause they’re gonna kill him in here.” It was an all black Chicago funk audience, and if they’d see this blonde Mohawk walking around, people really resented it. My parents weren’t really involved in the whole thing because I pretty much got kicked out of the house when I was 14. I was playing with Gary US Bonds. I started playing music like at 12. At 13, I was already playing in junior high school rock bands, and at 14, that year, Gary US Bonds actually came and took me and asked me to come out on tour with him. At first, my parents were “Yeah wow, this is great. He’s going out there and making a little money. It’s fun.” Then one day, my dad just came back and said “Ok, that’s it. Enough. No more music stuff. I want you to concentrate on school so you can be a lawyer, doctor or dentist.” That’s it. Those are the three things. That’s kind of like a Haitian upbringing kind of thing. Everybody wants their kid to be one of those three things. So, my dad basically told me “that’s it.” If I come back tomorrow and there’s one instrument in this house, “I don’t want to see you ever here again.”
Wow.
He said “Either get rid of all the instruments and you can stay, or you go with them.” So, the next day, I packed up and left. And that was it. So pretty much throughout my whole Plasmatics career and everything, I didn’t even speak to my dad. I didn’t speak to my dad again until I was 21.
And you were well on your way at that point.
Yeah. No, I spoke to him again for the first time when I had “Feel the Heat” and my first success. I mean, that kind of success. And at that time, I invited him to come to New York and then we got together. He was like “Wow. I never would have known. I’m sorry.” And he kind of apologized and explained his upbringing and said “I just didn’t want you to end up being some guy playing in the subway. So, I was just looking out for your best interests.” I don’t think he went about it the right way. But my mom, she kept in touch with me, but never was really that involved, you know. She just also kind of left the kids. She’s not really like a really supportive-of-what-you’re-doing kind of a woman. She just wants to make sure that you’re cool, and you’re alright. She didn’t freak. She knew I was a rebel. She just was like “Eh, let him do what he does.” Now, we’re just super close, and in the end, she’s happy, and everything’s fine.
That’s good. At least it came back the other way.
Yeah, it did.
You are talking about the reaction from black audiences. I talked to Buddy Miles last year, and he expressed some disappointment with a lot of the black audiences that never really latched onto some of the rock that he was doing with Electric Flag and some of the other groups like the Buddy Miles Express. Have you had any feelings of disappointment that maybe you haven’t had as wide a black audience as you would like to?
Oh, yeah. I mean, it expanded as years went by. I mean, even from the Plasmatics, there was such a separation in the music business that blacks would never go to a rock show. But when they saw me in the Plasmatics, then it all of a sudden made it ok. I would see the shows just expand, and you’d get more and more and more. I think overall, my audience hasn’t been primarily black. Definitely not even 20%. First of all, a lot of my stuff’s been in Europe. Over here, when I first signed my solo deal, one of the things that made it very difficult is I was kind of caught between the floors. They literally had a pop floor, then they had the rap floor. And I didn’t fit into that floor because that was really just R&B and a certain kind of music. Vibe magazine and those kind of magazines weren’t really into that. I think I might have done BET [Black Entertainment Television] at one time. They were reluctant. (laughs) Let’s put it this way - a black guy with a blonde Mohawk running around with a guitar is just something that doesn’t relate to the culture. ‘Cause it’s cultural. I think most of my audience has always been primarily a white audience. And they’ve never had any problems.
After going back and listening to the albums you did with Little Steven, I’m somewhat surprised that rock and soul influence didn’t appear on your first solo album, especially given the fact that you were with Gary US Bonds for a while, and he was a big influence on Bruce Springsteen and Little Steven. Did you ever think about bringing that in, or did you just really want to do something totally different.
I think once again, going back to that first record, I wasn’t really giving it that much thought. To tell you the truth, a lot of people wanted me to do that. And maybe I was against it because I was kind of going against the grain. I like rock. I grew up on Zeppelin and KISS. But at the same time, I loved Motown stuff. But I think it just was what came out. I didn’t really give it that much thought. I mean, maybe there’s some mistakes I’ve made from that record on. I got a lot of interest from people even before that record, from Prince and Nile Rogers and all those people, who said “Let’s make a record together.” Nile Rogers was dying to make a great R&B kind of mixed record with me. But for some reason, I was just a stubborn kid who thought he knew everything. That’s what it really comes down to. And then at the end of the day, you go back and say “What an idiot! You could have made a fantastic record with somebody like Nile.” Listen to his Bowie ‘Let’s Dance’ album.
Oh yeah.
Probably combine what you had with his expertise, and who knows what you could have come up with. He’s one of my best friends up to now. I met with him a month and a half ago, and we’ve still never played a note together. That’s not true. We actually did little things. We did some jams together. I wrote a song for one of his artists that he was producing, and that we both knew. But, we never actually - now I really regret, thinking back, that we didn’t actually go in and make a record.
Shoulda, coulda, woulda…
It was just circumstance. It’s just what I was feeling at the time, I guess.
Another association you’ve had is with KISS. You wrote some songs with Paul Stanley. Were the songs intended for another project, or for KISS?
Well, I was always a big KISS fan. They were one of the biggest influences of my life. The whole rock and roll thing, the bigness of it, the bigger than life thing that rock and roll represented. And Paul and I met by accident. I was at a club in New York - a local club called Heartbreak, where everybody used to hang out. And, one day, I’m just hanging out there, and he comes over. I actually didn’t recognize him, you know, without makeup and everything. And, he said “Hey, you’re the guy from Plasmatics.”
“Gee, how’d you know?” (laughs)
He said “I’m Paul Stanley from KISS.” I said “Cool!” Right?! And then from there, we became friends. We didn’t talk about doing anything musically. It was just like two guys hanging out. For months - I think probably a year - we’d go to movies, we’d go hang out and chase girls…we became like partners in crime, if you know what I mean.
Sure.
We were similar in a lot of ways. I dug it, of course. I thought it was great, man. And then one day, I was at his apartment and he said “I’m working on a new album”. He had a little four track that he used to do all his writing on. He’d stick it on his table in his living room, and we started messing around -- boom, boom, boom, and that’s it. Before you know it, we wrote “Thrills in the Night”. And that’s how it started.
Very cool. I read that you actually contributed a good deal of the bass guitar playing on the ‘Animalize album’. Is that right?
Yeah, I did do some, actually. They finally said it in some book at the end. You know Gene. It was kind of thing where Gene was a business guy. And literally, because I would write stuff with Paul, and I’d be around him because we were good friends, if I was in the studio and I was sitting there, Gene would be on the phone, making deals. And instead of cutting a track, he’d say “You want to play on the track?” And I’d go “Oh, what the hell. Ok.” And I’d just play.
Now, it seems kinda weird that you would be working on the new KISS album at the time while Gene was helping Wendy O Williams get her solo album together. Shouldn’t that have been the other way around?
Weird, isn’t it?
Yeah. It’s like “Alright, wait a minute. Jean is playing bass on the KISS album, and Gene’s doing the thing with Wendy. What gives?”
Well, you know what it was? To be honest with you, in the Plasmatics, though we were a band – Richie [Stotts, guitarist], myself, and Wes [Beech, guitarist] - the structure of the band was kinda strange, because it was kind of spearheaded by this manager. This manager kept Wendy very close to him. So, it’s not like we had that very open kind of thing. We rehearsed every day, you know. W sat in a room. The manager had some very strange rule - he felt that, at the beginning, since we were on salary, we should be in a room from 10:00 to 6:00 - every day, as if it was a day job, no matter what you had to do.
Wow, that is weird.
So, everyday, we had to do this. He’s like “I don’t care what you guys do, just do something.” It was pretty funny. But when Wendy went on to do her own - by that time, I’d left the band. I didn’t leave on the best terms with the manager, so I’m sure they wouldn’t let me get involved in doing anything at that point. He was cutting me out of every picture of every book, you know, because he was so upset that I actually quit the band. He presented us with a terrible contract one day, and nobody else in the band really had the balls to actually say no, and I just had to tell him “We can’t sign this. We’re a group. Treat us right.” I was the only one who stood up, so finally, I just quit the band. He was very upset about it.
Probably because he didn’t have the chance to fire you.
Yeah, probably.
You were able to take the first move, so you held the upper hand there.
Yeah, that’s right. He didn’t like it. One day I said “That’s it. I’m out.” I wasn’t joking about the books and stuff. He was the kind of guy who’d literally, wherever he could - I’d go back and look at the books that they printed and all kinds of stuff - actually tried to cut me out of the picture wherever he could.
Does he have a hand in those Plasmatics CD reissues that came out?
Yeah, it’s all his stuff. He’s pretty much doing the whole thing. I’ve gone after him a couple of times, but nobody’s gotten paid on anything. He just kind of held the whole thing to himself.
Wow.
Yeah, so he was a problem. So, that’s one of the reasons, I’m sure, that he didn’t want to get involved with me helping him after I left his band.
Well, and of course, we lost Wendy in ‘98. And actually, in the past seven years, we’ve lost a number of people who contributed greatly to your career, and you to theirs.
I know.
If we could take just a minute and get your thoughts, first on Wendy O Williams, then Tony Thompson, who was with you in Crown of Thorns, and finally the late Ramones – Joey, Johnny and Dee Dee. If you would, share a few thoughts on each of them.
Well, the whole thing is scary. I mean, let’s start with Wendy. Wendy was by the end of the day, she was pretty unhappy. Like I said earlier, we never got to be close enough to her personally because she was always kind of hidden by the manager. But she was a great girl, though. She was strong. The only thing she really wanted to do was play rock and roll. That was her whole life. Personally, I believe that at the end of the day, that stopped - and that’s what made her take her life. She just got to the point where the manager had her out there doing stuff, and then after a while, Wendy just got tired of it. She just wasn’t doing anything anymore. And this is a girl where, literally, that was her whole life. She had nothing else. Without that, she couldn’t express herself, and I think that happens to a lot of musicians who can’t express themselves. That’s their fuel, and it’s a very difficult thing for artists where their career ends at one point, which inevitably happens to almost every body, and then they can’t deal with it.
Well, especially, I would think with someone like her. She seemed to really burn hot. I mean --
Oh, she did. You’ve got to be out there expressing that. If you can’t, what are you going to do? Just sit in a house in Connecticut and cook tofu? I mean, I don’t know what she was doing – but it just doesn’t work. So, I mean, my guess is that’s where that came from. She just got tired of butting heads with him, and finally that’s it. God be with her. Sometimes people do things for reasons, so I can’t really say “How could she do that?” I’ve been in the music business a long time, and I know. I’ve run hot and cold. I’ve seen things get really bad, and things get really good, and it’s really big ups and downs, highs and lows in this business. It can really affect you. You have no idea - it’s heavy. And there are times that people do think that way. What’s it worth? It’s very hard to go from here - on stage and having people worship you, you are getting all the emotional satisfaction, artistic satisfaction - and all of a sudden one day, it’s just gone, and then your life has to go another place. You’ve got to be a really strong person, and you have to be the kind of person that’s ready to go to that next level.
It’s a big hole to fill.
Big hole. But that’s my thought on her, you know. I just hope she’s ok, wherever she is, and I guess she did what she felt was necessary. Tony Thompson, um, was just a pure shame, because that was not his choice. I was in the room with him. We were talking about the weekend coming up, because we did a lot to try to save him. A lot of people contributed money, to be honest with you - Rod Stewart, I believe, Madonna, John Taylor from Duran Duran - were all ready to give money for a special operation because he didn’t have medical insurance. So we raised money. We started a fund that raised all kinds of money, made special gifts to the hospital – did everything to get him the therapy he would need. It was just an accident. He had a big lump in his chest. It was sitting there for how long? He goes to the doctor, and they tell him “Oh, it’s nothing. It’s gonna be ok, you’re gonna be fine.” And then just a couple weeks later, all of a sudden, his wife calls me and says “Well guess what? Now they find out that this tumor is serious, and he’s only got this much time. We have to try to do this.” He wanted to live. He had just started a new band. With my bass player from Crown of Thorns, they were doing a special project. He was really excited about it. He was putting a lot of effort into it. It was great. The record was great - you know, the demos that they had done. He was ready to start rocking all over again. He finally had gotten to the point to get out there, and all of a sudden, boom. It just happened fast and unexpectedly.
You never know.
We lost him as a friend. His wife, his kids and everybody just – it was just sudden. That’s it. That was really very sad. As far as Joey, Dee Dee and Johnny, that one is a really tough one. It’s just amazing how it just happened one at a time. It’s almost like it was planned by somebody or something. I don’t know. It’s just too much of a coincidence that this would all happen so close to each other.
Yeah, they really seemed one after another.
You know what I mean? We’ve never wished death on anyone, you know, and you wonder “Is it because their legacy is supposed to live on?” I don’t know. God does strange things sometimes. So, that’s one that I can’t really figure out. Unfortunately, one thing that happens in this world is that as soon as artists are gone, then all of a sudden that’s when they get the notoriety that they should have gotten.
All of a sudden they’re realized as geniuses.
Yeah. I spoke to Gary Kurfirst after Dee Dee. He was saying “Nobody was interested in this band two years ago, three years ago. They couldn’t arrested. Now I’ve got like every major band in the world calling me to contribute.” And he was actually pissed off about it. But it’s kind of a strange thing. I don’t even know what to say about that situation. I caught me by surprise, because every time I turned my head, someone else was sick. So, I guess you gotta try to look at the positive end of it and say that, if nothing else, for their families they really left something behind that’s substantial, you know, on all levels. I’m sure all of them would be so surprised to be running around seeing 12-13 year old kids - schools of them - wearing Ramones T-shirts, saying that they’ve gone beyond the test of time. It’s not just what they did back then. They’ve actually recreated an entire genre. They’ve given people, not a genre, but they’ve given people almost new music - to a new generation, old music that they believe is new. I guess at the end of the day, if I were to go, I wish I could accomplish that, you know?
And with their songs popping up on a huge movie soundtrack like ‘School of Rock’, it keeps reintroducing the music to a whole new audience.
I know. As a writer, I was surprised, and I was feeling for them. I was sitting there and when they called me for the song, I watched the movie, and I’m seeing all these kids in this movie, and all these other songs - little snippets of it - and all of a sudden, they practically stuck the song in the middle - stopped the movie practically…and they have no dialogue, and they play the entire song. And I was like “Whoa.” Right now, talking to you, I’m getting chills. I was with my nieces, who are like 8 years old and 11, who are like “Whoa, Ramones.” They got Ramones T-shirts on. It’s just amazing. I’m sure that they’d be really happy to see what they left behind. Hall of Fame…they accomplished it. You can only burn so long, and if you burn it too hot, sometimes, the fire goes out.
Well, I didn’t want to wrap up on a downer, but I did want to acknowledge those folks because your careers are woven together.
They were wonderful people. I miss them all, I tell you. I really miss them all. I’ve lost more than that. Rick James was my good friend, he’s gone.
Well, that’s true.
Rob [Pilatus] from Milli Vanilli. He was my great friend. He drew actually more on a level of all the bad things that happened to him. He would come to me after he got it together. I don’t want to get into his career, but in the beginning he was the kind of guy who was stuck up, had attitude was competing with me and everyone else. He thought he was the best thing in the world, and then all of a sudden, he watched his whole career tumble overnight. So, all of a sudden he became very humbled and then actually became my good friend. And finally, he just couldn’t win the battle either and said “I’d just rather not be here.” So it’s been tough, and it’s a little bit scary. It’s very scary, actually. Every year, somebody else is gone.
Well, as you get older and the years go by, people who aren’t necessarily on your mind every day reappear – sometimes you’ll have time with them, sometimes they’re gone.
That’s right, I know.
Lennon said “Life is what happens while you’re busy making other plans.”
I know, I know. That’s rock and roll. As we say, that’s life. Unfortunately, destiny has its plan, and you just hope that it’s got a reason, and that’s the way it is.
Before I let you go, I want to mention your website, www.jeanbeauvoir.com. I was going to ask if you had any tour dates coming up after this Crown of Thorns record, but of course you’ve pushed that off a little bit.
Yeah, for the moment. Some things have been discussed, but for the moment, everything’s kind of on hold.
Do you ever get a wild hair to maybe throw together a couple of LA shows or something out in your area just to get out and play?
We’ve talked about it. And everything with us is pretty spontaneous, so it could happen. I mean, I’d definitely let you know what’s going on our website and stuff, but I’d love to do it. I miss playing. No doubt about it. And I will play again at one point. Pretty soon, hopefully we’ll get back out and at least go do some shows. Like I said earlier, I’ve got to take a little time to help Steven do this. I think it’s a good cause, you know, and I think at the end of the day, it’s gonna help the whole rock industry anyway.
Yeah, it sounds like it’s well worth nurturing just from what you’ve told me.
And then I’ll get back to writing and then do some more stuff with Crown of Thorns. That’s a part of me. I can’t let that go completely. I’ve got to do that. I miss my studio. I was telling that to Steven the other day, I said “I know we’re working hard, but I’ve got to get back in that studio at one point.” There’s just something about sitting behind those speakers and listening to something that you’re creating that just takes you away from everything, and it’s just - that’s what makes you you.
Well, here’s hoping that you continue that for quite some time.
Well thank you very much. I just thank all the fans that are out there that are interested in what we’re doing and have been supporting us throughout the years, either me solo or as a band, and I hope they continue to do so. I really appreciate it.
We like to close with a fun personal question that really has nothing to do with anything. What is your drink of choice?
That’s funny. You’re not going to believe it, but probably what I drink the most is white wine. Chardonnay.
Cheers, Jean!
"Special thanks to Susanne Beauvoir for helping coordinate this
interview.
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