Interview with Richard Lloyd

By FLANNERY CASHILL

In anticipation of his show this Friday, former Television guitarist Richard Lloyd talked with us at a mile a minute about Hendrix, rock and roll, and transcendental experiences.

Do you tour a lot?

No, and I want to. This is a real new beginning for me.

Have you been to Kansas City before?

Only with Television, I think opening for Peter Gabriel a long, long time ago. I’ve been to Kansas City with Rocket from the Tombs, I’m pretty sure. Rocket from the Tombs is like nitroglycerin, a one-act play where we blow the theater up at the end. It’s very exciting, hard rock, like Alice Cooper meets the Stooges meets Led Zeppelin, so it was very fun for me. And I’m pretty sure I played Kansas City on my Field of Fire tour which would have been in ’87, but not since then and I’m real excited to get over there. A musician is paid to go where the tourists pay to go and when you get there they applaud. I was on my knees when I was a teenager wanting to be a successful musician. Now I’m not going to look a gift horse in the mouth, I’d be an idiot. But it is true that a week or so into the tour, I think, What have I gotten myself into? I’m playing in rooms with no windows and all-black walls and everybody’s intoxicated and I don’t drink, and I think, Oh my god, and then when it’s half over I say, Oh no! I wish it was twice as long!, and it’s over. They plop you down in front of your house and it’s hard to stop moving.

More after the jump.