Greg Jacobs’ book Hell on Wheels—Tour Stories: Remembered, Remixed, and Remastered collects adventures of rock’n’roll on the road
Photo by Chris Valle.
In 1994, San Diego’s Rockpress published Greg Jacobs’ Hell on Wheels, a collection of tour stories by some of the author’s favorite bands. After discovering via social media that people were still interested in the book, Jacobs—a band manager and former employee of record labels like Cruz and SST—began curating 20 of its best stories and gathering 54 new ones.
The new book, Hell on Wheels—Tour Stories: Remembered, Remixed, and Remastered, features stories from artists like Bad Religion, X, Mike Watt, Ramones, and Dead Kennedys. It will be released by University of Hell Press on Oct. 25.
We spoke with Jacobs about the process of writing the new book, and about his own stories from his days as a record label employee. The book is available for pre-order here.
The Pitch: How did you react upon finding out that there was still interest in the book after so many years?
Greg Jacobs: It was really surprising. Someone mentioned the Naked Raygun story (from the original book) on a Naked Raygun Facebook page, and, all of a sudden, people started reaching out to me and asking if I was the one that wrote the book, and if I had any copies. This was almost 30 years after the book came out, I had all but forgotten about it. So it was pretty shocking that people were still interested—and flattering.
(The book) had been pretty long out of print… I found 10 copies, and sold them online. University of Hell Press in Portland saw that I reposted the post from the Naked Raygun Facebook page, and asked if I wanted to do a new version of this book. It was during Covid, so I was really feeling trapped at home. I said ‘yes,’ and got started.
Was there anyone you wanted to speak to, but couldn’t?
At the top of my list was Iggy Pop. He’s an all time favorite of mine, and I’m sure he has amazing tour stories. But I reached his manager, and he said he presented the idea to Ig and never heard back.
My favorite band since about 1980 has been Stiff Little Fingers, and the singer Jake Burns is very accessible on Facebook. I reached out to him with a private message, and told him about the book and that (Stiff Little Fingers) is my favorite band. He replied quickly, and very graciously said, ‘I think tour stories are best when they’re told, and not written’…Those are the two that got away.
Did you agree with Burns’ line of criticism? And if so, how did you account for it when writing the book?
I agree with it in the sense that, if you’re sitting around with a bunch of musicians and tour stories start coming up, it’s the best thing in the world…(But) I feel like the stories in the book translate pretty well to the written word. If your favorite person in this book was actually telling you the story, it’d be a lot cooler…But I do think it translates.
I wanted it to feel conversational. Half of the stories were recorded over the phone and transcribed, and with the other half, the bands typed them and sent them to me. So some of them are just directly taken from what the band members sent me, and the other ones are recorded conversations. I definitely tried to maintain the artists’ personalities as well as I could.
Greg Jacobs and Ricky Warwick of Thin Lizzy and New Model Army in 1985. Photo courtesy of Jacobs.
Was Mike Watt a nightmare to transcribe?
You know, his chapter is from the original book, and he submitted everything in writing. He faxed it to us. I know exactly what you’re talking about, because he has a very interesting speech pattern, and he has his own vocabulary. But he typed that—no, I think it was handwritten. I couldn’t find the original faxes, but he faxed those to our office so we could transcribe them. It would have been difficult, absolutely. But it wasn’t, luckily. I love Watt. I’ve bumped into him on the road a couple of times, and when I worked at SST, he would pop in every once in a while. He’s the friendliest dude ever, but sometimes I wasn’t exactly sure that I was communicating on the same plane as him.
Exene Cervenka had one of my favorite stories in the book, about X’s van getting towed in New York City. The tow truck driver told the group, “all of New york is a tow-away zone,” which they later used in the song “Your Phone’s Off the Hook, But You’re Not.”
First of all, I’m a total dorky fanboy at heart. Just talking to Exene on the phone was crazy, like, ‘Oh my God, I’m on the phone with Exene right now.’ Then she told me a story that is probably one of the shortest ones in the book. But when she said the tow truck driver was driving away, and he said ‘All of New York is a tow away zone,’ she goes, ‘Oh, and that’s where I got that lyric from.’ I was blown away. I thought it was such a great little story. I could picture it all happening—Exene leaning out the window, and John Doe running after the tow truck in his boxers.
Do you have any music-related stories of your own?
When I got hired at Cruz Records, it had to be the weirdest job interview I ever had. I showed up at Cruz, kind of nervous and excited. I showed up, and Ron Coleman was there. He was running Cruz, and he was the sole employee. Greg Ginn was at SST. He wasn’t at Cruz, but he was supposed to be coming to Cruz to interview me.
About 10 minutes goes by, and Ron comes in and says, ‘Hey, can you go pick Greg up at SST? He doesn’t have his car and he needs a ride back here.’ So I said ‘yes.’ I was now getting to see where SST was, because it’s always just been a mysterious PO box in Lawndale. So I was actually getting to see the physical place. I had to check my cassette player to make sure that Black Flag wasn’t in when Greg Ginn was in the passenger seat of my car. I picked him up at SST, and we actually drove back to his apartment and sat on his couch, where he was playing an unplugged guitar while interviewing me for my job at Cruz…My whole little brain exploded that day. I couldn’t believe what was going on.
Greg Jacobs with Ricky Warwick and Del James (Guns n’ Roses’ tour manager) in 2015. Photo by Jared Sagal.
