By Jim Barber
It’s one of the most recognizable riffs in all of rock and roll music. There are few online playlist, or compilation of classic rock tunes that don’t have the iconic opening riff and then the pounding drum beat of ‘Slow Ride’ as a highlight. It’s a song that’s been in film and TV shows, video games, commercials. It is as emblematic of the time and space in which it was crafted, the mid 1970s, as it is resiliently relevant as an anthem for taking life at a slower, more relaxing, more laid-back pace.
‘Slow Ride’ and the album it was featured on, Fool for the City, is celebrating 50 years of iconic rock and roll notoriety this year. And for the band that wrote, performed and recorded it, Foghat, it is a touchstone of the band’s past, present and future, a beloved anthem that brings back memories, evokes the idea of better times and better days, as well as a legacy of musical excellence that keeps the band rockin’ and rollin’ both onstage and on record to this day.
There are probably a lot of folks who think, based on the sound of the band’s music, how it evokes a sense of American freedom, the road, good times, infused with blues-based rock magic that Foghat is an all-American band. They’d be partially correct, as for much of their tenure, the band was located in the U.S. where most of its commercial and popular success was built and which continues to this day.
Rhino Records released a special 50 Anniversary commemorative edition of Fool for the City in September, available on the band’s website.
But, this was originally a band of Brits, anchored initially by three former members of another seminal and influential 1970s band, Savoy Brown. Drummer Roger Earl, who was and is a co-founder and now the only original member left in Foghat, and his good pal guitarist/vocalist ‘Lonesome’ Dave Peverell alongside bassist Tony Stevens, left their former band at the same time, and lined up with Rod Price (rhythm/slide guitar) to form Foghat. The band signed to an American label, Bearsville Records, and moved en masse across the Atlantic – where Earl continues to live, in New York State.
Peverett was with the band through to its hiatus in 1984, rejoining when Earl, Price and Stevens reconstituted Foghat in 1993, continuing to be its frontman until his death in 2000. Price left the band in 1999 and died in 2005. Stevens retired in 2005, while another longtime member, bassist Craig MacGregor, who originally joined in 1976 and rejoined in 2005 for a decade-long return, died in 2018. Another former member, guitarist Erik Cartwright (1981 to 1984) passed away in 2017.
The current lineup of Foghat features Earl, lead guitarist Bryan Bassett (since 1999), bassist Rodney O’Quinn who replaced MacGregor in 2015 and newest member, Scott Holt on lead vocals, who joined in 2022, replacing longtime vocalist Charlie Huhn. Holt had been the longtime sideman for Blues legend Buddy Guy and worked with Earl on the drummers side project, Earl & The Agitators, which released the album Under the Influence in 2018].
One of the more recent accolades for the band was getting a special award from Apple Music for 25 million plays of ‘Slow Ride.’ Considering the song is now 50 years old, was originally released on vinyl, cassette and 8-track, and adding in the fact that the band’s fan base is predominantly of the mature sort, the fact that the song has appealed to the younger generations of music ‘consumers’ to this degree is nothing short of impressive. And it’s also informative, in the sense that it says something about the power of that song, it’s timelessness and it’s continuing relevance in modern culture.
“That’s why we’re still playing. I mean, people keep turning up to see us over the years. And there’s also been a number of movies where the song has been in it, like Top Gun – a whole bunch of stuff, and adverts on TV and I remember it really got a lot of popularity again when it was included in the Guitar Hero game. It was actually one of, if not the very first song on Guitar Hero. So we’ve got a bunch of young people, where maybe older brothers and sisters would play our music, or more likely their parents would play it for their kids. I think the way I look at it is that maybe we got it right in the first place you know, to take a line from a really great rock and roll band, it’s only rock and roll but I like it. I guess people of all ages still like rock and roll,” said Earl, a native of London, who then talked about the band he just referenced, The Rolling Stones, who are also still touring and releasing new music well into their seventh decade of existence.
“They’re probably my favourite band. When I was growing up in London, I used to go see them at Eel Pie Island, and in Hampstead at The Railway Hotel in the early days. And then they started getting famous and started doing tours with like Chuck Berry and Bo Diddley. I remember those tours, but you couldn’t really hear them back then that well, but it was still great to see them back in those days. Those Eel Pie Island shows were great.”
Turning to the 50th anniversary of Foghat’s seminal album, the one that broke the band in a huge way on the North American music scene, Earl said that no one knew at the time, as they were writing and recording the songs for Fool for the City that it, and especially ‘Slow Ride’ was going to become this massive launching point for the band, and a bona fide rock and roll cultural moment. They just knew they were working hard, and collaborating well, and that the spirit imbuing the sessions was positive, leading to an outcome that all the band members were proud of.
“Right from the beginning, the band had some terrific producers in Nick Jameson and Dave Edmunds. And it was always a band thing you know. Dave [Peverett] was probably the main writer of words. I put a couple in from time to time, especially if it was a driving song, because Dave didn’t drive. It was always a band effort. As I said, Dave was the main writer as far as the lyrics and stuff go. Rod was an incredible influence as far as his guitar playing, but it was always a full band effort right from the beginning. Dave would often come up with the basic idea and then we would all sort of join in. And it’s the same today with this version of the band. We do it the same way with this current lineup, which hopefully will be the final lineup,” he said.
“In fact, myself and Scott wrote another song last night. We had basically all the bed tracks done with guitars, vocals and stuff on 11 or 12 songs, and we were ready to start putting the bass on them but then last night Scott came up with another idea, and this morning he polished it up a bit, and I added a few touches to it. So we’re just waiting for [guitarist] Bryan to get to the studio so we can finish it off. It’s fun to do it that way. And right from the beginning, after Lonesome Dave passed, I knew the only way that this band was going to continue and be okay with it is we have to continue making music. That’s what you do. That’s what we do. That’s what I always wanted to do. I can play drum solos and they’re fun to do from time to time, but making music and playing in a band is what I enjoy. But getting back to the 25 million plays on Apple, I don’t even really know what that means.
“With ‘Slow Ride,’ it was actually Dave who played that opening lick, that opening part that everyone now knows. Tony Stevens had left the band and Nick Jameson had joined us in 1974. Rod and I had a sort of band house on Long Island, but I was actually living upstate in New York as was Nick Jameson. I asked Nick if he wanted to join the band and we asked him if he played bass. He said yeah that it was the first instrument he learned to play on, after piano. So we drove down to Long Island and Rod and I had the basement sound-proofed, I think it was probably because it was a basement and it was quieter, and also we didn’t want to annoy the neighbours. And that session was the first time we played ‘Slow Ride.’ Dave started off the riff, the beginning, and we were just jamming on it. And Dave said, ‘I’ve got some words that might fit into this.’ Originally he called it something else but then partway through the jam he changed the first words to ‘slow ride.’ It’s a fun song to play. I’ve been playing it for 50 years and I always get a kick out of it,” Earl said, adding that he doesn’t understand when some artists complain that they feel obligated to play their hits night after night for years on end.
“They should be so f***ing lucky! We made 17 studio albums over the years [Sonic Mojo is the most recent, being released in November 2023]. We have a huge choice of songs to make up the rest of the hour and a half we’re playing each night. It’s a privilege to have a hit song that people get excited to hear night after night. We try to keep the hit songs that all charted in the lineup. Occasionally we’ll forget one and we’ll go, ‘hold on second.’ Like, there was one song that I can’t remember what the title was that apparently got to number 15 on the rock charts and the Billboard charts [‘Live Now … Pay Later,’ from the 1981 album Girls to Chat & Boys to Bounce]. And we all said, ‘well, maybe we’d better start playing that one.’ Listen, you know what? I know how fortunate I am. This is what I always wanted to do. Ever since I started playing drums when I was 15.
“I took three years of lessons before that. But I always wanted this, I always wanted to be playing in a band, banging on the drums and doing drum solos, once you get sort of proficient enough. Playing in a band is what I always loved doing. And I’ve been blessed because right from the very beginning, the first band I was in when I was 16 or 17, they were all great players. The bass player in the first band I was in, he was my best friend growing up since I was six or seven. And there was also Ray Dorset, who went on to be a singer in Mungo Jerry with my brother Colin on piano. So I always played with really great players. And then of course, Savoy Brown, which was a fantastic band to be in. I had so much fun in that band. I probably actually had too much fun from time to time in that band, as I have done in Foghat. But, like I said before, I know how fortunate I am. I love what I do, making music and playing. I’m never going to complain, especially about playing songs that people love to hear.”
So, here’s an interesting fact that many casual fans of Foghat may not know. In November of this year, the band will be playing three shows in the United Kingdom. Incredibly, these are the first three shows Foghat has played in the country where the band started – since 1973. By the writer of this article’s Grade 12 math (he failed once and had to take it over again FYI) that’s 52 years. Yes, the band moved from their home country to the United States around that same time, but 52 years. Really?
“We went over there in 1973. Warner Brothers Records, which was the parent company of our label Bearsville at the time, sent over a few bands. I think we played with The Doobie Brothers and Little Feat and one or two other bands. We did one show, maybe two, and that was it, right? What happened was, when myself and Dave left Savoy Brown [in 1970] it was mutual. I think [band leader and founder] Kim Simmonds wanted to go off in a slightly different direction. What happened was we had a meeting and said we were going to leave. Myself and Dave had breakfast the following day with the band’s manager Harry Simmonds [Kim’s older brother]. And we said, ‘look, we’re going to leave, but we’ll stay around until Kim puts his new band together.’ In fact, when we got back to the U.K. after that, we actually did some basic tracks for the next album that Kim put together. But that manager basically blackballed us in the U.K. and said we would never work in England and the U.K. ever again. It was just pretty weird because there was no hard feelings from us,” Earl explained.
“In fact, I had a meeting with the owner of the booking agency. Harry was the manager of Savoy Brown and Chicken Shack, which were two of the biggest bands in the U.K. at the time. And he told the owners of the agency that he would take Chicken Shack and Savoy Brown away from them if they gave Foghat any dates. I heard that and went to talk to them. They lived down near where I lived at the time, in Wallingford in Oxfordshire. And they told me they couldn’t book us because Harry said he was going to take Savoy Brown and Chicken Shack away from the agency. Fortunately, we kind of avoided that. Our first Foghat album was finished and it charted in the U.S. Our manager at the time was an American and he put a tour together. We did one tour with Captain Beefheart in Europe. And we also played some Albert Hall Winter Shows in London. We hadn’t actually played in like a year and a half before this show. A lot of credit goes to Derek Taylor, who was working for Warner Brothers at the time. He used to be The Beatles’ publicist before going to America. Derek Taylor got us on that tour with Captain Beefheart and it was terrific. He also got us a couple of club dates over there too. Derek was a beautiful man, actually. A really, really cool guy. And we owe him a lot actually. He got us those dates and we managed to survive. We put a few pounds [the money, not actual weight] into the coffers and we managed to buy a sandwich or two and feed the kids. Then the record took off in the States.
“So then we went back over in 1973. But that was it. We haven’t played there since, but now we’re going back and we’re doing three shows. Also, what happened was the band took off in the States and myself, Dave and Rod, especially for myself and Dave, America was, and still is to me, this land of music. This is where it all came from, you know, with the Blues, and rock and roll. All our favourite artists growing up were Americans. All my favourite drummers were American drummers that played on the early Chess records stuff. That’s what I grew up listening to. So coming here, always felt like coming home. And it’s now been my home for more than 50 years. To us, it was this land of music, land of magic, as far as I was concerned. So we were pretty busy in the U.S. but also our manager at the time, I think he had a problem dealing with European promoters and stuff. It was not that we never wanted to go back there and play, but it was our manager. His first three or four years he did really good, but then he changed and circumstances changed. We tried to get back there from time to time, but it never worked out. So we’re excited to be going over there. We’re playing in Great Yarmouth and we have a date in London at Shepherd’s Bush and then we have a show up in Manchester. So, yeah, I’m really looking forward to it. I’m going to have a chance to see a bunch of old friends and old bandmates. Next year is going to be busy as well. We’ve got dates in Finland and Sweden and working on some shows in France and Italy … and Canada as well. And I am thinking, ‘why don’t we go to Canada.’ So why don’t you go talk to some people who want us to come to Canada … preferably sometime in the summer. We have been to Canada. It seems to be every four or five years before we get back there. I would love to come there again. I remember one time we played the El Mocambo in Toronto and it was just fantastic.”
One of the reasons why Foghat is still out there touring throughout North America, and now making a short sojourn back to the old country, moving on to 55 years, is because they never stopped making new music. In fact, Earl had taken a break from recording the band’s new album to talk with Music Life Magazine.
“We actually just wrote another song this morning. So after I am done talking to you, I am going to start on that. We’ve got 13 new songs in the works and we’ve got four or five live tracks that we recorded last year on the road. We recorded every show, and they’re songs that we’ve never recorded live before. And we’re going to include some of those on the new album in the works. We come down to the studio here in Florida every January, February, March sort of, when things are a bit chilly up north. Well, you know about that don’t you being in Canada. So we come down here to the studio and we just hang out. The weather’s okay and we just start playing. Then if anybody’s got some ideas about some of the previous songs we worked on last time we were down here we just jam them,” Earl said.
“The creative thing of making music is the reason we do this. It’s fun making music and playing music. And then you get out there and we always put one or two of the new songs in our set and so far it’s worked. People like them and accept them.”
As for Earl himself, he probably wouldn’t mind if it were pointed out to readers that he is currently 78 years old – and still playing with aplomb and power arguably the most physically demanding role in any rock band, the drums. Earlier in our chat, he said, kind of off-handedly, “If the good Lord decides that my time is up, that will probably do it. I take a line from ‘Road Fever.’ I’m going to roll ‘till I’m old, and I’m going to rock ‘till I drop.’ Fortunately, everybody else in the band is younger than me. So I should be okay.”
Later he explained the ‘secret’ for his longevity and durability.
“I mean, I’ve had work done on my feet, my big toes. I’ve had two double-hand transplants [awkward pause]… no, just kidding. I have had some surgery done on my hands and fingers, my right knee, both shoulders. But I also ran most of my life, up until about 20 years ago, and then my knees sort of decided that was enough of that. I always work out. I always find time for a walk. I exercise with light weights. I stretch and barely a day doesn’t go by that I don’t at least sit down at the practice pad. I mean, I’ve got some arthritis in my thumbs and shit like that. But over-the-counter stuff like Voltaren works. And, actually, I really have no sort of pain in my joints. I take supplements and stuff. I’ve been real fortunate like that. I am friends with my doctors back up in Long Island where I spend most of the year, I always have seats for them at my local shows, so I get checkups every year from them just to make sure everything’s functioning. If something feels odd, I find somebody, or more accurately my beautiful, dutiful wife Linda [also Foghat’s manager] will find somebody who can fix it. So I have always stayed on top of it,” he said, as the idea that perhaps part of his sense of dedication and commitment to maintaining his fitness is because Foghat is also a legacy of the bandmates and friends who are no longer here, as outlined earlier in the article.
“Very much so. In fact, on every album that we’ve done, we make a point of thanking those that have gone before us. And also, like with this award we just got from Apple Music, we had one made for Rod and one for Dave and gave them to their families. And we had one for Nick Jameson, who is still with us. Dave was far too young, he was only 56 when he died. And Rod was about 59, which isn’t very old either. Such is life. So we owe a debt to them to get it right. And we’re respectful of that. It’s my job – our job – to carry on. It’s all about the music. That’s why we did it back then, and why we still do it to this day. People want to hear the songs. They want to hear the music, and I’m glad about that. Listen, considering the loss of Ace Frehley, and Ozzy and others, I have an easy way to describe my situation. The good Lord hasn’t seen fit to take me just yet. And I’m very pleased about that. Like I said. I keep physically okay, and I love what I do. I play in a great band. These guys are fantastic.”
For more information on Foghat, upcoming shows and news about the forthcoming album, visit https://foghat.com.
- Jim Barber is a veteran award-winning journalist and author based in Napanee, Ontario, Canada, who has been writing about music and musicians for more than 30 years. Besides his journalistic endeavors, he works as a communications and marketing specialist and is an avid volunteer in his community. Contact him at bigjim1428@hotmail.com.
