George Harrison- Interview (Traveling Wilburys) on Countdown 1990

[Music] is this sound okay good okay okay well George Harrison it's it's really great to have us come over here to do this interview and as our sign of appreciation we've got a countdown pin for you thank you it's bit big isn't it Fitz out of here notice yeah that's it inside I have the chewing gum somewhere here so you can stick it to your jacket maybe if you sew something inside is yeah open it I see Thank You captain that's actually the box at the broke Mick Jagger's finger Nilsa a couple of weeks ago huh yeah now we're here to talk about the new album Traveling Wilburys vol 3 first of all I'd like to know because this is the first chance we have to ask you about that how actually did the the will research project come about on the new record or originally the first first-time firstime it came about it I just made a record called cloud 9 in Europe you know they make those 12-inch singles and they usually like to have an extra song on the on the record so they asked me for an extra song and I didn't have one already recorded so I thought the easiest thing to do is just go in the studio the next day write a song quickly record it and mix it give it to them and so that night I had dinner with Jeff Lynn who was having dinner with Roy Orbison we all had dinner together and I said well tomorrow I'm going to go find a studio and go in someplace make up tune and make this record so I said to Jeff do you want to come and help and he said yeah okay but the problem is you know where we going to find a studio and an engineer so quickly so Roy Orbison was then he said oh well if you do something call me I'd like to come along and watch so then I thought well gee Bob Dylan had a little studio it is scary which so I called him and said do you mind if we come along tomorrow he said no come along that's okay and Tom Petty also I had to go to his house to pick up my guitar was around his house so he said oh good I'll come I was wondering what I was going to do tomorrow so the next morning I started to write a song and I thought well if Roy Orbison's going to come it's silly to have him sitting there you know it's you know he's a better singer than everybody I'll write a little part for Roy to sing and Jeff thought that was a bit cheeky now anyway we got to Bob's house and Jeff and I finished the song off where I was music to it we didn't write the words at that point and and then we wrote the lyrics and that story I've said that story many times about to try and think of what the song lyric would be we need a title or some idea and I saw a box in the garage of Dylan's has said handle with care' so we wrote the lyrics around that and as I had the powerful Roy then I thought well I might as well get Bob and Tom and Jeff everybody's singing in the middle part so we made the record we mixed it I took it to the record company and they said oh it's too good to just give to Europe on a extended play cause it's not going to sell cloud9 record it's not on the album and they didn't want it to be imported to America and for it to have no value so I just kept the tape in my pocket I kept playing it I thought well the only thing I can think of doing is if we did that one song in one day all we need is nine days with Bob and Roy everybody and we make an album so so that's what I did I asked them to let's make an album so basically you're the one who initiated the Traveling Wilburys as a group well I came about by those circumstances and it just happened that Roy and Bob and Tom everybody was there what was the main objective for the Traveling Wilburys just to have fun or yeah just to to write songs quickly not get too hung up about it and just see what happened really and have fun when I first read the bio and in the info on the Traveling Wilburys I thought it was brilliantly I'll call everybody it will Rio come up with that well I just thought that you know it would be I mean there was always those groups in the 70s I made these superstar groups and we hated that you know their idea of these famous people all trying to make a record most of the records weren't that good but you know did doesn't mean it's going to be good if you just get these famous people together I wanted to avoid that totally if you look at the record it doesn't have anybody's name on now with the new record everybody knows obviously who it is but for the first record it was a surprise and we didn't put our names we just made up silly names and even the credit to the record company like CBS where you have to say Bob Dylan appears courtesy of CBS well even at it says lucky will grew but they didn't notice you know I put that on to see I thought they were going to complain but they didn't was it really as a plan to stay anonymous at first yeah and just to prolonged the anonymity as long as possible all right did you ever expect that it will be successful as it is right now well by the time we finished the record like we did the the songs wrote the songs in the 10 days but Jeff Lynne and myself then produced it into the album so we spent a little bit more time working on it and by the end of it we thought it was a good record I thought if just by the people who were on the record that's good enough maybe in America to sell four or five hundred thousand copies but if if it's not good music then he won't really sell anymore doesn't matter who it is and the record obviously people liked it and did very well so I was happy about it but I didn't expect anything really and doesn't the success with the same pressure on you as it did like when you each were solo - you mean the from the new record well as Tom Petty said in an interview we did in America he said there was so much pressure we decided to avoid volume - and just go straight to volume 3 where there was no pressure yeah who say the whose idea was that name at volume 3 this will drive the collectors crazy yeah I thought of that because it was I it's obvious you know volume 1 volume 2 it's too obvious you know he had to make it vol 3 just just you know for the change well each of you are very successful and busy musicians wasn't it hard to get everybody back together and to to write him record again yeah I was just a matter of timing just fine out when once I knew that bob was interested to make a new record then it was a matter of just fine him when he had the space in between his tour he's always on tour and then how does it work are you basically all friends or colleagues or D hang out with each other or yeah we hang out together yeah but the fact that they live Tom and Bob live in the States so we see them when we go go over there or if they're on tour we see them we spend most of the time when we're making the record and then who the others are really close like Tom Petty and Bob Dylan who hang out well you know Tom toured for a couple of years with Bob but they don't seem they don't sort of hang out that much together when when they're not on tour Jeff and Tom and they get on well but Jeff doesn't really hang out with Barbara well Bob's always on the road okay when he comes home he wants to be alone suppose now I heard you wrote 14 songs in two days mmm no that's a bit of an exaggeration we wrote two songs a day for the first five days and then the following week we got together again we redid five songs in one day with the drummer hole live but that's the basic structure of the song that isn't with the lyrics and the melody we then wrote the words later and how does that work you all sit in one room and just yeah just sit down like this and set of having microphones and cameras we have guitars mm-hmm now how long totally did it did it take you to complete the complete album volume three well if you add up all the days it was about six and a half weeks usually bands I mean you hear like two safir's took three years to record an album do you think that's it sounds like as well in there sounds like it took three years you think do you think spawning a spawning despite spontaneous yeah well we all want you know when we made solo albums we take longer because it's difficult to you know to make sure that you're doing the right thing in the Wilburys it's a totally different situation with four people there you know there's when you write the words if one or two people don't like that particular line then you just write it again but by the time you've written the words or singing the words then you know that that's final and that'll do so you don't get hung up on it because there's shared responsibility so also in the structure of the songs or the the chord change or the attitude that the song has it's much easier to determine because if the moment everybody agrees and starts playing it you know that's good enough for me if they all like it and now about the new names you changed name your spike now but yeah it's just just a joke really I mean the newspapers already start you know at first they didn't know what was happening and then they all get cocky and they think you know yeah Charlie jr. Tom Petty you know so I just thought just change your name just just to keep them on their toes mmm so with the next album volume 5 you'll probably change names again yeah mm-hmm now it's it's it's almost two years ago since since Roy Orbison passed aways is his influence still there on this album in a way well I don't know about his influence but his I mean we we still have the same feeling about him as we had when he was in the band and I mean we don't sit around talking about him that much but and we don't actually right yeah I think if he was there you tend to write more thinking about his voice but this time we just wrote tunes you know whatever came out that felt good we used we didn't think too much bad you know obviously about Roy's kind his songs and and I understand there wasn't talk about replacement but it was talk in the newspapers mainly we never talked about it because you can't replace him you could then we could get any number of other people if you wanted if he needed other people but the way happened as I just explained it it just is how it happened you know we didn't ask Roy to be in the group till after we'd already made the first record and it was just the fact that he was there that he was in the group still who today would make a good proper Wilbury could you name some musicians you'd like to work with I don't know there's a lot of musicians I'd like to work with but the thing about the Wilburys was it was it just happened is they and the moment you start to try and contrive well we could have this person it'd be easier just to make a new group you know in fact that would be the if you wanted to work with other musicians rather than put them in the Wilburys would be easy just to invent a new name and make a new different kind of album Gary Morris on the brand new single here how did that come about well Gary lives by me he's my neighbor and he was he's been around for a long time but I've known him just about four or four or five years now since he moved he lived near me when we did that song I just thought well it's had to have a guitar solo put on it and I could just imagine me or Jeff Lynn trying to figure out a guitar solo that would not really be in that style and I told well why not just get Gary to play him he came along it took him five minutes it's brilliant great plan you think he's one of the best guitar players he is actually I don't know if from his records yet if that's come across but I've had the privilege of seeing him playing you know just in a little room quietly and he is he's incredible I mean apart from the fact that he's fast it's not just the speed that impresses me but he's um he's got a great sense of melody and improvisation and also pitch you know when he bends those strings he goes straight to the note it's not all flapping about you know in between like a lot of players what do you think is keeping him from from going all the way in his albums like doing basically everything well you know he started out with like heavy metal kind of record now his new album or his latest album is it sort of come backed off from heavy that heavy is sort of it's like blues but more like them sort of heavy blues but I think he's gonna you know become more more focused in what he likes and what he wants I mean I personally I like to hear him play some things on acoustic guitars or all different kinds of things because you know there's more to him than what you're here just in that loud big Marshall stack of and the files you know that kind of style Traveling Wilburys vol 3 you still listen to it are you problem yeah I love it a lot it's really very happy with it are you more happy with it than the volume one well I think in a way it's uh it's a stronger record it's more integrated the first one we you know is so new to us we didn't really know what was going to come out of it we just started to make it we finished it and then we heard what it was like it's only when you put them all together and you see what it is but now we had two years and also we were more comfortable I suppose it was easier to get together and write new songs so all the songs were written together I think it has more of a group feel possibly than the first one I did like the first one a lot when it was done because it was such a surprise but I think the second one's just got a bit more thoughtful third second second album yeah I know well what's what's going to be the title of the the third album we thought about we don't even know if we make one yet so we have to wait and see if we make it that um when we see what it's called at that time probably volume 13b and something like that who knows now when are the Traveling Wilburys actually going to travel well we're traveling all the time I just travel now to get here mm-hmm and when are they gorgeous on the road constantly yeah but when are they going to travel within together you want to do a concert I don't know I know we thought of afterwards everybody all the time that's all everybody talks about him but at the moment we don't have any plan but it doesn't mean it may never happen maybe we'll do something okay now what's been your best experience up until now with with the Traveling Wilburys what's really the good thing about it well just the whole thing about it just the fact that we were able to get together and produce two albums and four videos to me is it's sort of a bit of a small miracle really and then the pleasure of and for the fun of writing the songs recording them and the various other things that have happened because of the will breeze it's just a nice thing you know it's just it's a good thing we're all good friends it's nice to be able to it's an excuse to hang out together really when do you get your inspiration from I know Paul Simon in the Simon and Garfunkel era used to go and sit in the bathroom lights out to have his inspiration come up where do you go we just sit in the room where we're writing the song and we make up the the basic song maybe without the words maybe we get an idea or a title but when we've put the song down onto tape and then we will sit down but to get a pen on the paper and say okay what's this song about and we start writing our then it's usually pretty quick I mean the songs some of them that had a lot of lyrics that take a little bit of time still maybe only two hours because there's so much input from four people okay well we wish you lots of luck with with the album thank you and we hope to see in the countdown studio Chris Young all right thanks slow thanks a lot

Channel: ReelinInTheYears66

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Id: QZFRXJk037o

Length: 19min 6sec (1146 seconds)

Published: Mon Dec 26 2016

Reddit Comments

[u/burzmali]

"Volume 13 b."

"We travel all the time. I traveled to be here."

God I miss him.

[u/harrisonfan81]

Love listening to George talk about the wilburys. Just a man playing music with his friends