I interviewed the likes of Jimi Hendrix and Janis Joplin for the San Diego DOOR (yes, Cameron Crowe and I both wrote for them as teenagers), and my own magazine ARTHUR.
But it wasn't just the opportunity to emerge from my shell--perhaps OVER-emerge from my shell--that Horsefeathers provided. It was joining a group of wildly talented and imaginative group of musicians who learned to push the envelope to try to do something new, beyond the confines of three-chord rock anthems. We weren't interested in musical boundaries, we sought to stretch the dimensions of what a rock band was all about.
This ambition to do something fiercely original carried into my work as a screenwriter, novelist, and filmmaker. The humdrum everyday world of pop music--and pop books and pop movies, for that matter--has driven me ever since.
I was only in one band in my life. Horsefeathers was my one and only. I never wanted to do it again. How could anything live up to that? We never made our living doing our music, but it was an awe-inspiring and remarkable journey, opening for major recording acts in venues big and small, producing our own little concerts, and living a life of rock'n'roll.
I moved from flamboyant lead singer to a life behind the keyboard, as a screenwriter and novelist, and the camera, as a producer and director, living behind the scenes. But every bit of that life was inspired by my seven-year sprint with the guys who remain my best friends, fifty years beyond. And now, with this collection, our very first album, you can share some of that passionate musical history with us.