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 The
Ventures A Go-Go In The New Millenium
Don
Wilson opens a pipeline to rock history and looks
to the 21st Century
By Steve Stav
My hero-worshipping experience with the Ventures
echoes so many of their fans’ - I’ve
literally been listening to the group since I was
born. My parents were (and still are) big fans;
my dad had Ventures albums on vinyl and
reel-to-reel. Records like Telstar, A
Go Go, On Stage, Let’s Go!
and Surfing were part of my childhood
development, and continue to be played (though
most of them digitally) on my hi-fi to this day.
Flash forward to
June 25, 2000 - and the Experience Music Project’s
grand opening gala. As a rock ‘n’ roll
reporter, you’d think I would’ve spend
the last day of the affair working, covering the
dozens of acts performing in venues all over the
Seattle Center. But, no - I spent the day with
just one act - the number one instrumental band
in the world. As the Ventures took the stage at
day’s end, and the familiar drum-roll intro
to “Walk Don’t Run” blasted out of
the stacks, a little chill ran up my spine. The
funny thing is, I’ve seen them perform
several times, and the same thing happens every
time. If you’ve ever seen the band play, you’ll
know what I mean -- somehow, 40-plus years of
touring hasn’t dimmed their ability to
excite a crowd one damn bit.
One puzzling
aspect of the Ventures’ career, given the
band’s long list of accomplishments, hit
albums and singles (the Ventures outsold the
Beatles in the ‘60s two-to-one worldwide,
even their Learn To Play Guitar With The
Ventures series of albums charted; they
introduced the electric guitar to Japan, they
popularized the rhythm-and-lead guitar
arrangement that is standard fare nowadays --
and, along the way, have sold almost a hundred
million albums) is how Cleveland’s Rock and
Roll Hall of Fame keeps ignoring this national
treasure.
 A week before Christmas,
2000 - and two weeks before the Ventures entered
a sixth decade in rock - I spoke to co-founder
Don Wilson (who is grievously hurt by his band’s
omission from the Hall) about the group’s
fabulous past, their still-nonstop schedule...and
his eventual retirement.
Pando: Don, tell me a little bit
about the band’s latest project, the
re-recording of Ventures material.
Wilson: A lot of artists
eventually re-record their hits, because they don’t
own the masters - usually, the record company
owns them; Capitol owns our (60’s tapes) in
perpetuity. To me, the re-recordings we’ve
done are extremely true to the original
arrangements, and the overall sound - it’s
amazing, when you hear it. It’s done with
today’s state-of-the-art equipment. To me,
it sounds a lot better than the originals.
Pando: Your re-recorded version
of “Walk Don’t Run” (found on the
Ventures Gold CD in the U.S., on Pat
Boone’s Gold Label) is incredible, it’s
so crystal-clear and punchy.
Wilson: Well, we have the same
players, which is unique; a singer can hire
musicians to go in and record, unless he has his
own band, but we’re a four-piece group -
though we’ve had keyboards and saxophone on
some recordings. We’re the original players
- me, Bob Bogle, Nokie Edwards - and Leon Taylor,
who, as you know, is Mel’s son (drummer Mel
Taylor passed away in 1996) . He sounds just like
Mel - he’s Mel’s clone. Nokie played on
80 percent of those ‘60s songs; Jerry McGee,
Bob and I took over (lead guitar) for the
remaining 20 percent.
Pando: What is Jerry’s
status in the band now?
Wilson: Jerry goes to Japan,
that’s all he wants to do now. He goes to
Japan with us in the summertime for a 3-month
tour; he does some recording with us, if it’s
new stuff. Nokie does the re-recording of the old
stuff, because he is the original guitarist. I
keep telling our Japanese label - you know, we’ve
done Ventures Gold 1&2, and we just
were in LA recording for two-and-a-half months
for Ventures Gold 3&4 - when I go to
Japan in January I’m going to try and talk
them into 40 more songs. I’m going to tell
them, “You’d better get us to do more
of the old recordings before...we die!”
(Laughs) We couldn’t have done this without
Nokie, it would have been impossible. We’re
still alive, get all you can out of us. I’m
also going to try and get them interested in
another Christmas album - we’d like to copy
the original like we’ve been doing other
material, and add eight more songs. People have
always asked us, “Are you ever going to do
another Christmas album?”
Pando: The Ventures
Christmas Album (Dolton, 1965) is a classic.
What do you remember about making that record?
Wilson: I came up with the idea
of putting recognizable ‘60s introductions -
from hits of the time (including their own) - in
front of Christmas songs, and brought it to
producer Joe Saraceno - he liked the idea, and we
did it. It’s been selling ever since...in
fact, other companies have leased it from
Capitol/EMI and issued it themselves.
Pando: Do you get tired of
hearing it at this time of the year?
Wilson: No...my family plays it
all the time. If you only hear it once a year,
you don’t get tired of it. You know, the
unique thing about that record is on “Silver
Bells” - where it sounds like silver bells
ringing - that’s Red Rhodes, who’s
playing steel guitar. He’s the first guy
that I know of to use a vocoder - and then Peter
Frampton played one much later. Frampton is a big
Ventures fan, so I guarantee you that that’s
where he got it from (chuckles).
Pando: When Capitol/EMI bought
your masters from Dolton or whomever, did you
consider buying them yourselves?
Wilson: No, I wish I would have
thought of that...it just didn’t come into
our heads at the time. I really don’t think
we could have done it...they wouldn’t have
done it anyway...we didn’t have the money,
those albums were still selling very well. There’s
a company, See For Miles, that has put out a lot
of our material over the past ten years - they
lease from Capitol/EMI. Their advisor, Jerry
Woodage, is the President of our World Wide Fan
Club. They’ve just put out a CD that’s
one of the most beautiful things I’ve ever
seen, a double CD that has the Ventures’
story in it. It’s called The Ultimate
Ventures Collection, it’s got some
strange things on it, not your run-of-the-mill
stuff.
Pando: You must have been
continually surprised over the years, with so
much of your work leased or bootlegged...
Wilson: God, I’ve got a
bootleg that you wouldn’t believe...it’s
got some of the most beautiful packaging, and it’s
a bootleg. It says “Sony Music” and
“VH1” on it, and they had nothing to do
with it. The bootleg has 60-70 songs on it, they’ve
spent an enormous amount of money on it...I found
out it comes from Russia. How are you going to
stop them? It’s unbelievable, the balls that
these people have. Most of the stuff I get
surprised by is legit, there are album covers
from countries around the world that I’ve
never seen. Toshiba continues to saturate the
market...we have a new label over in Japan,
M&I. We decided that Toshiba really wasn’t
doing us justice, after they’d had us for
30-35 years.
 Pando:
How was your last jaunt to Japan?
Wilson: It’s always good -
it never seems to wane. Of course, our older fans
are getting older, and they’ll eventually
stop coming to the concerts...but not yet. I don’t
know how much longer we’re going to do it,
either. We have two years left on a five-year
contract - they initially wanted us to sign a
ten-year contract! After the next year and the
next, we might flat-out retire, I don’t
know.
Pando: Oh, Don...
Wilson: (Laughing) I think so.
We’re not kids, you know.
Pando: Last year, you were
telling me something to the effect that you’d
sooner die than retire. What’s changed?
Wilson: Well...we’d never
completely retire. We might go over and do some
specials in Japan. The last tour of this
contract, two years from now, I’ll be
sixty-nine years old. How long can I do this? How
long do I want to?
Pando: It seems like there’s
this stamina competition between you and Dick
Dale and Link Wray...
Wilson: We do 60-70-80 shows
over there (Japan) on a tour - at our age...we
put alot of 25-year-olds to shame. My son, Tim,
came over with us on the last tour. He was there
for 19 days, and he said, “Dad, how do you
do this? I’m worn out!”...and he was
just traveling with us. We’re leaving for
Japan on the 7th, we go there every January and
do the club circuit with Nokie. The clubs there,
they seat around 500 people...they charge an
enormous amount of money, something like $100 a
head. We’ll do an early show, say at 7:00,
and then they empty the room and another 500
people will come in for another set!
Pando: Are there still Ventures
tribute bands over there?
Wilson: Oh, my god, more and
more...it’s incredible. There’s the
Osaka Ventures, the Hiroshima Ventures, the Tokyo
Ventures...they use our name and logo - we’ve
never given them permission to use it, but we’ve
never stopped them, either. It’s a great
complement to us.
Pando: Is there ever going to be
a tour of the U.K.?
Wilson: You know, we might go
over there in May, it’s in the works. It’s
been in the works before, but now they’re
trying in earnest. We’ve got a different
promoter, and he’s trying to get the backing
of a major airline.
Pando: I see that the Webmaster
of the Ventures official site has a petition going to induct
you into the Hall of Fame. I know this will raise
your blood pressure, but I just heard that
Ritchie Valens (an artist with only two hit
songs) is being inducted...
Wilson: You know who else is
being inducted - (Presley guitarist) James
Burton. How does he get in before we ever do? I
know James, I like James - but, Jesus Christ, it’s
a little unfair.
 Pando:
To think that over 40 years in rock ‘n’
roll started with you selling Bob a car...
Wilson: We were fortunate enough
to find Nokie. That was the biggest stroke of
luck that we’ve ever had in our lives...he
was a seasoned guitar player, and we were just
learning at the time.
Pando: When Nokie joined the
group, was it a sting to Bob’s ego to have
to switch to bass?
Wilson: No, not at all. That’s
one thing that has kept us going - we have no
egos, we really don’t. If someone can do the
job better, hey, come on, let’s go - that’s
how we feel about it.
Pando: Bob played some
blistering lead guitar on a couple of tracks on New
Depths. I had forgotten how good a guitar
player he is.
Wilson: He’s really good,
but he’s...limited, I’m limited, we’re
both limited. We just happened to start the
group, we’ve both got good heads for
business, we’re leader-types.
Pando: You’ve got to keep
the group going at least for five or six more
years, even if it’s just for Leon’s
sake...
Wilson: Well, I really wouldn’t
know what to do if I retired. A lot of people
travel when they retire, and I’ve been
traveling for 42 years - so I’d just be
sitting at home, vegging. Leon will keep the
group going with replacements - and it will be
good, we’ll see to that. They can go on the
road, whatever. As a matter of fact, M&I
wants to keep the Ventures’ name alive after
we retire - as long as it’s Leon. He can get
some other players, and I think it would work out
all right...(laughing) but, as you know, there’s
nothing like the original members...
END
Email Steve Stav
The Venture's Official
Site
Sign the petition to
induct the Ventures into the Rock'n Roll Hall of
Fame
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