Q: 'Rasta Bandwagon', that was produced for...?

A: Niney. Yeah, all three of us release that. Me, Niney and Lee Perry, the three of us come together on that project.

Q: In '76 you mentioned that Rasta had become the fashion rather than a sincere and serious movement in the music, this had become yet another way to generate money. But 'Rasta Bandwagon' spoke about this at least four years prior to the 'Rasta boom' in the mid seventies - you felt that from early on, you predicted that sort of 'wolf in sheep clothing' thing was to come. I suppose that is human nature after all is said and done, that we jump on a bandwagon in life, using it for a period of time to identify with and reaping the benefits or profits from it.

A: Yes, because there is a misconception that dreadlocks sell records. Most of these artists at the studio, dreadlocks, is a style - the way how to sell records. They don't live Rasta life and they don't ask them anything - you ask them anything about Rasta, they can't tell you. All they can tell you is about Jeremiah, Isiah and these guys that was here thousands of years ago. They just basically wear the dread to sell records. And if you listen to the lyrics that they sing under the dread, you can tell that these guys aren't practising the faith. Beca' when you have, like, a guy that profess to the righteous, like Sizzla tellin' you 'Pump up the pum-pum, pump up the pum-pum', and, y'know, Capleton come again as a righteous dread and it's another fraud of moral you reach. I mean, if you're teachin' - teach. You understan' what I'm saying? You don't...

Q: Practice what you preach.

A: Practice what you preach! Is only a guy like Buju Banton try to keep the thing going and people like Luciano is not doing too bad. I hope Anthony B continue on his strength and not succomb to demoral to life, like these other guys do. Beca' we tryin' to teach what is happening in this world, the last of our generation from the age of twelve to the age of thirty, you have to look very good in this generation to find a sensible person between the age of twelve and thirty. So, we have to try to save this young generation now, between the age of one and twelve. I don't know how we gonna do it, but if we don't, we gonna lose them just like we lose this one. Yeah. And the music, the music is fertilizer to the brain, and they're using it in a negative, very negative way. Because Snoop Doggy Dog and these guys, they're role models. Check the music out; these guys have just been watching them on TV and t'ing, when you're lookin' at these two little babies and telling them 'I'm banging your mama'! I mean, these are the immoralities that these guys are spreading in the name of music. It sick my bloody stomach when I hear this, these guys.

Q: Especially when music is so influential to youngsters, I know what you mean.

A: That's what I'm saying. And I strongly believe that the Devil lives on Rodeo Drive (?) in Hollywood and he uses the media as medium. You see what I'm saying? 'Cause these guys are very Satanic and these are the guys that seem to be great role models, so where are we? I'm convinced we have lost the generation from twelve to thirty. Let's try to save these from one to twelve. I'm begging the parents to turn the bloody tv off! I think that's the only good thing they didn't have in Afghanistan, when you didn't allow TV units to buy. It's the Devil instrument.

Q: Did you get any airplay for tunes like 'Babylon's Burning' with Perry and Niney at the time?

A: Nah, they love to ban Max Romeo (chuckles). It's great, beca' you see I'm not in the hypezone and I've been mediocre for thirty-eight years, that's why I'm on the road for thirty-eight years, 'cause I stay away from the hypezone. I don't need a hype, for my music get across - across. And people hear what I'm saying, and they figure out what I'm saying that there's some truth to it, and that takes me through. I don't need MTV, neither do I need Universal.

Q: What was some of your influences in those days, like you lent an ear to James Brown, Bob Dylan's lyrics, the works of the Black Panthers, Stokely Carmichael, all that stuff?

A: My scope of listening, my listening to music is very wide. I listen from Bach to Fats Domino. In them days I loved classic music, I grew up on classical music. And I use it in order to get melodies in my head. I like R&B, in terms of the old time R&B. I like the Temptations, Four Tops is - I still listen to their music. I grew up on them music, Elvis Presley, these people.

Q: Yeah, a lot of that is timeless.

A: Neil Diamond, José Feliciano, some of these guys I grew up on is great musicians.

Q: Definitely more melodious times than now.

A: Yes. More friendly days though, more understanding days, you see.

Q: You never had a problem with JLP in that period, like the early to mid seventies, that you had took side for one party as an official person, 'celebrity', which you are. They wanted you to be or stay neutral and expected you to be?

A: No, it wasn't really like that. Is just that the government at the time under Hugh Shearer wasn't doing nothing for the people, the brownies though was a bloody playboy and, y'know, his cabinet ministers was just loading their bloody pockets when the people was suppose to but didn't get no justice. And that was my observation at the time so it was easy for me to deal with the policies of Michael Manley, which was the alternative at the time. So I give Michael the support at the time because he had the best...

Q: Alternative.

A: Alternative, y'know. Because we had was to purchase - if we want get a little radio to our home, that was to buy it from America. And then by the time we get it we can't afford it. And things like those Michael Manley was addressing, that 'Look man, we're going straight to Hong Kong to get it, because my people want to hear the news too'. America didn't like that.

Q: But you did a couple of one-offs from the 'partnership' with Niney and Perry, like for Glen Adams - 'Coming of Jah', that was for Glen?

A: Glen Adams? No, Glen Adams actually was a keyboard player...

Q: For the Upsetters band, yes.

A: For the Upsetters. He started out with the Hippy Boys too and moved on to the Upsetters. I think there was just one collaboration with Glen Adams, was with a song for GG - that's Ranglin, called '(I Saw Selassie I Stretch Forth His Hand To Take Us Across) Jordan River'. Yeah, we did this in harmony on that.

Q: Wasn't that by the Reggae Boys?

A: No.

Q: OK, I might mix it up. But the Reggae Boys was Glen and the guitarist, Alva Lewis.

A: No, 'Jordan River' is a track, it says it's by 'Maxie & Glen' on the record. So that's what GG put out. But that's the only work apart from, y'know, being a musician we didn't collaborate much.

Q: What about the Chin's at Randy's? Did you do a lot of work for Keith (brother to Vincent, uncle to Clive)?

A: Yeah, Chin's. I did quite a few tracks for Keith at Randy's.

Q: One particular track from this period, 'Red House', is outstanding. Did you come up with the arrangement for that one?

A: Yeah, I arrange most of my songs them.

Q: I love the 'sting' in that rhythm. The inspiration for the lyrics on that one was the infamous Gun Court. An institution to imprison badmen at the time.

A: Yeah, the Gun Court. That's when Michael build the Gun Court to kinda ease the situation with the gunmen that was plaguing the society.

Q: Was that a good idea to create such an institution, the Gun Court, or you felt it was 'counterproductive' so to speak?

A: Well, yeah, but he should go a little further on that. He should've put up a incinerator to these guys. These guys are some wicked guys, they should be dead from birth. Sorry to say that, but it's true. That's the way I feel. You know, they killed too much innocent people for nothing - rebels without a cause. So he was trying to contain them in this building, a four by four room. I would prefer to incinerate them, it's a lesser punishment, y'know.

Q: On the flipside to 'Red House' you had '2000 Years Ago', an overlooked track from that period.

A: Yeah, well, it was actually - that record was done in a time when they say His Majesty was being murdered by Mengistu. It was false anyway to what I understand, he was an old and sickened man, I think he passed before he was to be poisoned by the military at the time. But I don't see it, I don't think he was actually being murdered. So that song was actually saying 'This happened to Christ 2000 years ago'. It's the same thing they were saying, 'crucify him', y'know. 'Cause his own people turn against him.

Q: Speaking about Randy's again, what about Clive Chin, can you recall doing 'If Them Ever' for him?

A: Yeah, it was for Keith Chin. But what happened is that since Keith Chin died, Clive Chin has most of those material. Yeah, I think I did that track for Clive, 'If Them Ever (Would Forget Man)'. I haven't heard that song from I record it. I would love to have a copy of it (chuckles).

Q: (Laughs) A one-off.

A: (Laughs) Yeah, a one-off thing.

Q: What was Clive like to work with?

A: Well, when I did that tune for Clive he was still going to college. Clive is always one of the best Randy's, although he might not seem that way. But he's a very nice guy. You know, I like Clive from he was a kid. He's always a very nice person.

Q: What we always hear from artists is that producers seldom has or had anything to do with how the shaping of the sound took place, at least not very often, engineers and the musicians took care of that. The producer was mainly just the financer for the whole project. What sort of actual input did people like Clive have, I mean his reputation is one of innovation, just like Perry or Hudson or whoever you'd name within that 'creative frame' of that time, rebel producers in a way.

A: Well, in them days there wasn't much financial input, because in them days we were in the music it seems like we was in it for the love of it, 'cause there wasn't anything coming financially. Just a little food money, or a little transportation money. For me, I can't speak for the rest of the artists, but for me I was looking more for days like these, you see. Because music doesn't carry a pension, so you have to create your own pension. That's why I try very much to write most of the songs that I sing. My publishing is my pension. So I wasn't really actually trying to breaking the little pennies that record sales bring, I was waiting for today. Now that, y'know, I did this song 'Chase The Devil' 1976 and it's just become a big hit across Europe. Beca' in this business you have to exclude pension as one of the main things to stay alive and be patient, because overnight success doesn't come overnight, it takes time.

Q: Right, perseverance.

A: Perseverance, the main thing to do is to stay alive and stay healthy, and two part of your body you make sure you take care of if you wanna stay in the business - is your face and your voice, it's very important. Yeah.

Q: These were indeed hard times in the music around four decades ago, you had to create all the time, you couldn't afford any break.

A: Yeah, and not being paid. I mean there was...

Q: How do you face that in the long run?

A: Well, like I say...

Q: Did you ever feel like 'I'm gonna get out of the business for a while and try something else'? But if you do, then quite possibly you are history, losing the position you once occupied. It becomes harder to get back.

A: Exactly. You know, I try to - I have a way in saying it: 'I ride with the tide and I roll with the punches, and wait on my bell to ring'. And that's what I've been doing for thirty-eight years. It's just now that they try to give me a few little pennies. But I survive off the crowns that fall off the table for thirty-eight years, and I never grumble. Because I know that one day before my eyes close they're gonna have to let me get it. And even if they don't, I have eleven children - and twenty grandchildren - who they have to pay, ca' I own my things fifty years after my death, it's still mine. And them of my kids gonna bring in for fifty more, so (laughs)... So, it's just not about me anymore, it's for the children. So I don't let it stress me out. It's only money. It comes, it goes.

Q: How did you get into the circus of publishing? To protect your songwriter's credit, I mean no-one seemed to know a whole lot about publishing in those days.

A: It wasn't, but if you're wise enough to hear...

Q: There wasn't lawyers about like you have today, not what I know of anyhow.

A: No. What happened is that the Performing Rights Society of England, which is one of the greatest societies in the history of music business, they put up an office in Jamaica, and somebody told me about it and I went by, and I was accepted as a member.

Q: And this was... when, approximately?

A: This was.. 1970, 1971 I think it was. After all the years of lost - after all the years without knowledge of publishing, and then after I signed up with PRS everything fell into place. You know, it start with seminars and listen to the lectures pertaining to the business within the business of music, and that's when I get exposed to it. And up to now I am still not greatly knowledgable about it, but the little knowledge that I get from it I bite by it and I survive by it.

Q: You did something for the Black World label,'74 or thereabouts, who was behind that?

A: Black World was for Pat Cooper, Soundtracs Limited I think that was, yeah. Pat Cooper was a guy who made speeches for Michael Manley, he correct and write speeches for Michael Manley and he had an agency that do public relations work for the PNP as well. So this little company is more like a tax write-up at the time. It didn't last for too long, because he left the company to run against Edward Seaga in Kingston and it happened that he didn't end up in parliament. And he lost and left the country then, so the company fold up. But that company produced the album called 'Revelation Time', I produced that one for that company.

Q: This was between you and Clive Hunt?

A: Yeah, Clive Hunt. We did that at Lee Perry's studio. Lee Perry was engineering, Clive Hunt was co-producer, and myself.

Q: That's a landmark album, and a concept album as well, one of the first in the music.

A: Yeah, that's what I write, I write concept albums. I don't compile for albums unless it's old stuff, but within an album I sit down and write it all. This last album I've done here, 'A Little Time For Jah', that's a concept album.