Jefferson Starship guitarist Jude Gold had an interview with Ultimate Classic Rock and talked about Bret Michaels’ ‘Parti-Gras’ tour, and the group’s setlist. While talking about the setlist, it was pointed out that their former vocalist Grace Slick co-wrote their 2020 ‘It’s About Time,’ and asked Jude whether she came back to the group. He explained Grace actually never quite left the band due to her friendships within the group:
“Well, she’s always in the mix spiritually and peripherally. She’s been good friends with David and Donny for a long time. She’s known David since the ’60s. He was actually in Jefferson Airplane for the last year, and they did a live record. Of course, he goes back with Paul Kantner all of the way to the folk days. It’s so deep.”
Jude also praised Slick and mentioned her involvement within the group:
“But yeah, Grace is just great to have in our sphere. She sure seems to love us. She’s come to some of our video shoots and a couple of our concerts and taken us out to dinner a couple of times in recent years. She’s just an amazing person and fucking hilarious. She is rad. There’s only one Grace Slick in this universe.”
Gold then praised the group’s vocalist David Freiberg, and expressed his admiration:
“To see David now, up there just peaking at 84 years old, everybody who sees him is like, ‘I want to live my life the way David is living his life.’ He sings ‘Jane‘ every night, which he wrote like 90% of that song – the melody, the chord changes and the lyrics for the most part. To see him delivering that, people are always so surprised. So when you’re talking about a secret weapon, yes, that’s David. He gets up there, and crushes ‘Jane’ and often takes a little vocal cadenza at the end wherever we are.”
Grace Slick previously talked about the main reason she left the band after the band’s Hamburg concert in 1978, and explained her alcohol and substance abuse:
“I decided to wear an 18th century milk maid’s dress on stage, and when I came downstairs, someone remarked that I looked like a ‘cute little Swiss miss,’ which really irked me. I went back upstairs, put on a Nazi uniform, got drunk and did a ‘get back at you for the Second World War routine’ for the show.”
In her 2008 memoir ‘Somebody to Love?: A Rock-and-Roll Memoir,’ Slick mentioned she realised the transformation in herself, and didn’t like it:
“Even as I pulled that stunt, it was clear to me that I’d developed a major attitude problem. I didn’t like pandering to Nazi offspring, I didn’t like the ‘reconstituted Airplane’ situation, and I didn’t like me for taking part in it. I wanted the Germans to see a mirror of repulsive self-loathing, I wanted the band to see an uncontrollable mutant, and I wanted to be so out of line that when I fired myself the next day nobody would object.”
Three years later, Grace came back to Jefferson Starship, and in the meantime, she switched back to sobriety, until her retirement in 1989. When it was asked her about her retirement in a 2010 interview, she argued that old musicians don’t emit the ‘rock star’ vibe anymore, therefore they seem embarrasing. Slick said:
“I feel embarrassed for people who are old. I saw Fleetwood Mac on television, and I saw Mick Jagger on TV. Some people can get away with it. Sting is one of them. Eric Clapton is another one.”
She also pointed out that famous musicians lose relevancy to their songs as time goes by, and gave example over Mick Jagger:
“My biggest problem is what they’re singing. You’re singing, ‘I Can’t Get No Satisfaction’ – Okay, you’re 65 years old, and you’ve got about 8 billion dollars – what do you mean you can’t get no satisfaction? What are you talking about? You’re singing stuff that’s appropriate when you’re 25, but it’s not appropriate when you’re 65.”
‘Parti-Gras’ Tour is almost over; check out the tour dates and tickets here.
