You just released a music video for your song "Early Days," where the chorus goes, "They can't take it from me if they tried/I lived through those early days." What are you singing about there?
Revisionism. It's about revisionism, really. I know my memory has got chips in it that still can go exactly back to two guys sitting in a room trying to write "I Saw Her Standing There" or "One After 909." I can see that very clearly still, and I can see every minute of John and I writing together, playing together, recording together. I still have very vivid memories of all of that. It's not like it fades. Since John died so tragically, there's been a lot of revisionism, and it's very difficult to go against it, because you can't say, "Well, no, wait a minute, man. I did that." Because then people go, "Oh, yeah, well, that's really nice. That's walking on a dead man's grave." You get a bit sensitive to that, and you just think, "You know what? Forget it. I know what I did. A lot of people know what I did. John knows what I did. Maybe I should just leave it, not worry about it." It took a little while to get to that.
I know that I have every memory still intact, and they don't, as I say in the last verse, 'cause they weren't there. I think you'll find this in most bands, but in the Beatles' case, it's got to be worse than any case. For instance, I was on holiday once, and there was this little girl on the beach, little American kid. She says, "Hi, there. I've just been doing a Beatles appreciation class in school." I said, "Wow, that's great." I think, "I know, I'll be really cool here. I'll tell her a little inside story." So I go on about how something happened, and it was a fun story – and she looks at me, she says, "No, that's not true. We covered that in the Beatles appreciation class." I'm going, "Oh, fuck." There's no way out, man! They're teaching this stuff now.
When Sam Taylor did her film [Nowhere Boy], she brought the script round and we chatted about it. She's a very good friend. And I said, "Well, Sam, that's not really true. John didn't really ride on the top of the double-decker bus." She said, "No, but it's a great scene." I mean, the character of Mimi, John's aunt, I said to her, "She really wasn't how she's written in the script. She's written as a very vitriolic, mean old bitch, and she wasn't at all." She was just some woman who was given charge of the responsibility of bringing up John Lennon, and it was not an easy job, you know? She was trying her best. She was kind of strict, but it was with a twinkle in her eye. I said, "I used to go around there and write with John, and she was okay. You've got to change that." Some of the things she did change, but in the end we agreed that this is not a documentary, this is a film, and so she made inferences that weren't there. Like, this whole idea of the first song we recorded, "In Spite of All the Danger," being John's ode to his mother. That's not true, but in a film, it works better. I remember the session, and I remember all the circumstances around that – and we wrote it together. It did not appear to be an angst-ridden ode. We were copying American stuff that we were listening to. American songs were about danger, that's why we put it in. But, for Sam, it worked much better in the film as an angst-ridden ballad.
To get back to my original point, that's the kind of thing that happens in films, but these books that are written about the meaning of songs, like Revolution in the Head – I read through that. It's a kind of toilet book, a good book to just dip into. And I'll come across, "McCartney wrote that in answer to Lennon's acerbic this," and I go, "Well, that's not true." But it's going down as history. That is already known as a very highly respected tome, and I say, "Yeah, well, okay." This is a fact of my life. These facts are going down as some sort of musical history about the Beatles. There are millions of them, and I know for a fact that a lot of them are incorrect.
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In light of what Gregg said in this interview, I feel it almost warrants it's own thread. But I kind of do-did want to merge it with one of the many "Gregg Rolie left Journey because he hated Steve Perry posts"
Or "Lights was written about San Francisco and not Los Angeles". It seems like it came to a point where you eventually wanted to get out and you got out. Did the situation make it easier for you to do that?
No, for me honestly, after building two bands and living out of a suitcase, you know, the gypsy life is fun when you’re doing it. When it’s not fun anymore, that’s not what I wanted. That’s all I had and that’s all I did. For me, I wanted to have a family and have a different life. So I just reached that pinnacle and decided to do it. I felt worse about leaving Herbie than anything else. I mean, it’s just not what I wanted to do anymore. I was miserable. I’m not giving my best to them and that’s not right, so it was just time to go.
It was really based upon personal decisions about changing my life. I know a lot of people, God, I’ve heard it so many times, “Oh, it’s because you weren’t singing as much” and it’s just nonsense. You know, if you ever look on Facebook at some of the crap that’s on there that people make up and talk about, you can tell them until you’re blue in the face, “Here’s the truth” and they still hang on to this. It drives me nuts. But what are you going to do? Were you there? No! So, shut up! God, it drives me crazy!
You made that decision to be home and put family first it seems like that would still be a tough decision to make when you’re part of a band that is Journey.
Well you know, at the time, it really wasn’t. Like I said, I’d really had enough of traveling and being out there. I did not play for a couple of years afterwards. I mean, I noodled around on a piano at home, but for a couple of years, I didn’t do anything and I was done, living at home. That’s what I wanted to do and that’s the way it went.
Read More: Gregg Rolie Shares Memories Of His Woodstock Experience + Santana Reunion News | http://ultimateclassicrock.com/gregg-ro ... ck=tsmclip
What do we really know definitively about Journey other than the music? The relationships are-were-continue to be complex and ever changing. I don't know what any famous person can do to combat rumors that simply won't die no matter what they say.