Gary James' Interview With Tim Abbott Of
Chocolate Watchband



They formed in 1965 in Los Angeles, California. The following year, 1966, they were signed to Tower Records. They enjoyed quite a following in San Jose and San Francisco. They opened for The Doors. They performed at the first Rock festival in the U.S. - the KFRC Magic Mountain Festival. The band we are referring to is Chocolate Watchband. Tim Abbott of Chocolate Watchband spoke with us not only about the history of the group, but what he's doing these days.

Q - How should I refer to this bad, The Chocolate Watchband or Chocolate Watchband?

A - We go by both. (laughs) Chocolate Watchband and The Chocolate Watchband.

Q - Which to you prefer? Does it matter?

A - Chocolate Watchband is fine. I think it was a matter of websites. We let our website for Chocolate Watchband lapse. So we've been using The Chocolate Watchband with our website. But most of the time when we bill we just bill as Chocolate Watchband.

Q - You have your own recording studio. Who's coming through that studio of yours? Are people recording CDs? Commercials?

A - Oh, gosh. I'm doing so much stuff. I work with a lot of singers. I kind of turned into a vocal producer specialist with singers. I'm one of the few producers in the area. Most of the studios around have engineers, but I'm a producer/engineer. I'm always kind of pushing my clients and artists that I work with to get the maximum performance out of them. A lot of studios you go to, my clients will tell me when they go to other studios, "I'll sing something and the engineer will say, 'How did you like that?' You're different. You'll say, 'Man, I don't think that was your best' or 'I think you can do better' or 'Let's try this. Ad this.'" So, I coach them. I'm also a voice teacher. Then I've spent the last ten years specializing in this software program called Melodine, which is like a real cool version of Auto Tune. Auto Tune I can't stand 'cause it sounds so robotic and un-natural when you hear stuff that's been done with Auto Tune unless the person is really, really good with it. It sounds like something's been done. One of the things I've worked on very hard is to be able to help all my artists and singers and make it sound natural so you don't really even realize that I've worked on their voice at all. So, I've got a lot of people coming to me for that. Because we've in Silicon Valley we do a lot of commercial stuff. I have to call Google right after I get finished with you. They want to come in and do some voice over work. We do stuff for ESPN and ABC Magazine. We got a Rolex commercial a few weeks ago. A lot of different Silicon Valley companies for voice over work and podcast.

Q - Corporate work then.

A - Yeah. I have an assistant that does most of that stuff. My focus is on music. I create music tracks with my artists. I play several instruments and I'm a vocal producer. That's really where I want to stay. I don't particularly want to do voice over work.

Q - In addition to the work you're doing in the studio, is there a Chocolate Watchband group that performs?

A - Oh, yeah. We've done probably seven or eight performances in that last two years. We're just mainly doing festivals and bigger concert kind of things. In fact, we're going to be in Parma, Italy. It's a big festival in North Italy.

Q - And they heard about your band, did they?

A - We'll, we're actually bigger in Europe than we are here in the States. So, we've played in England, Paris. We played a big show in Spain. This is our second trip to Italy. We did Rome in 2000. A couple of shows in New York. Quite a few shows on the West Coast, Boston. So, we've been banging around.

Q - Yeah, I can see that!

A - I'm actually going to be speaking this afternoon to a promoter we worked with in London about coming back and doing London and some other dates, possibly Scotland, France. We want to go back to Spain. So, a few dates in November (2018).

Q - Did you start out as the lead guitarist for Chocolate Watchband or were you the rhythm guitar player?

A - I'm the lead guitar player. Chocolate Watchband has been through four or five different versions. The second generation of the band was the one that was really known. The second generation is the one that did the "No Way Out" album, the "Inner Mystique" album, which are the two biggest albums and the ones that the band is really known for. I came in right as those albums were releasing actually. I came in to replace the original guitar player, Mark, who left the band. So, I came in, in '67. I came in, in June of '67.

Q - A good time to be in a Rock band.

A - Yeah, it was a great time. We had some amazing shows. The bass player and I were good friends. I got a call and he wanted me to come in and take Mark's place. Our bands had been working on the same bills. He knew me. We were personal friends and he really liked me as a guitar player. My first show with the band was, I got a call Tuesday evening and he said, "Can you come down tomorrow? We want you to be in the band." I said, "Oh, that's great." He said, "We got to get ready for a big show on Saturday." (laughs) So, my first performance was for a huge festival. I don't know how many people were there. It was more than 60,000 or 70,000. It was packed. It was an outdoor, all day, outdoor, Rock festival.

Q - That was the Magic Mountain Festival with over thirty bands? That was your first gig with the band?

A - That was my first gig with the band.

Q - Who also performed at that festival? Do you remember?

A - Well, I know when I came off the stage The Fifth Dimension's manager came up to me and said, "The band really liked the way you played guitar and they want to know if you'll play with them." I said I'd be willing to as long as you have good charts and I went and met them. They pulled out the music and it was all notes. (laughs) I said, "Don't you have chord charts?" And he said no. I said, "I'm not getting onstage in front of this many people and sight read. I'm just not ready for it." So, I turned 'em down. They were on the bill. The Doors were on the bill. Sons Of Champlin were on the bill. Kaleidoscope was on the bill. It was a lot of really great bands. That was shortly after the Monterey Pop Festival. It was just when this whole festival thing started getting rolling. Woodstock ('69) happened shortly after that.

Q - But, you weren't at Woodstock, were you?

A - No, but we actually got an invitation to Woodstock. The band wasn't together at that point.

Q - Did you get to meet Jim Morrison at this festival?

A - I met Jim actually not at that date. I met Jim, well as much as you could meet Jim, he wasn't very communicative. He would more like nod his head. I was backstage, talking to Ray Manzarek in the dressing room. We played with them at the Oakland Coliseum. They were the headliner. We were the opening act. That was probably two months after we played with them at the Magic Mountain Festival. I kind of remember being in the dressing room with Ray and we were talking music and gear like musicians do. We were talking about dates and things. I kind of looked over at Jim who was almost comatose. What's with him? (laughs) And Ray just kind of rolled his eyes like, "Yeah, he's like that." So, Jim was almost comatose. He was in his own little zone. Just the most you could get out of him was a nod, like "Hey, Jim. Hey!" and kind of like a nod. That was it. Nobody talked to him. Not even his own band.

Q - But when he'd get onstage he'd be alright, wouldn't he?

A - Well, he was practically in a fetal position in the hallway and I was watching him. The band went up onstage and started playing. Once they started playing I was kind of off in the wings watching him. I was really curious, like what's his thing? He started unfolding himself. Stood up, shook himself off a little bit and then he started walking up the stairs, up to the stage. With every step he had more energy. By the time, and I followed him up the stairs, I was bending in the wings watching him, by the time he hit the microphone he just exploded with this energy. So, he was a really different kind of person. What you saw was what he was. It wasn't an act.

Q - Is it possible he was putting on an act, knowing you were in the room? He was looking to see what kind of reaction he could get from you?

A - I don't think he was interested in impressing anybody. (laughs) He was just who he was. An amazingly talented guy, but a really troubled person I think, based on the way his life went. The Chocolate Watchband had Darryl Hooper, the piano player from the original Seeds and he played with us for about a year and a half, 2015, 2016, first part of 2016. And we talked about Jim a couple of times and kind of compared stories. The Doors opened for The Seeds for a full year, up and down California. So, Darryl had a lot of chances to communicate with Jim and he said, "That guy was a mess."

Q - Would you be surprised if I told you I've interviewed people who say Jim Morrison faked his death and he's very much alive today?

A - You know what? I wouldn't be totally shocked. I wouldn't be shocked because I think he wanted to die to what he was. It's sort of like what happened with Kurt Cobain (of Nirvana). He didn't want to be a Rock star. I think that's what drove him to commit suicide.

Q - Or maybe, just maybe he was murdered.

A - Yeah. I don't know, but I know that Kurt Cobain didn't want to be a Rock star. I think he just wanted to leave that life. He was either in pain or he wanted out. I think Jim Morrison wanted out too. He just didn't want to do it anymore.

Q - Jim Morrison's death (?) is very suspicious. I don't want to go on and on about it because I realize this interview is about the Chocolate Watchband, but when his own band members can't say whether he's alive or dead, you have to know something strange happened.

A - Well, you know, he's supposedly buried in a small plot in Paris. I've seen the grave marker. I think that was his first attempt to escape his old life, by moving to Paris and getting into other things. I think he was into writing poetry and doing other creative things. I think he wanted to get away from his old life. I don't know, if he had continued on with the lifestyle he was on as far as drugs go, it was pretty lethal. So, it's hard to say. I just had those very brief run-ins with him. We played two shows with him and I didn't know him that well.

Q - I know that you didn't name the group, but where did this name Chocolate Watchband come from? Any idea?

A - Yeah. I met Tony, who was in the first generation of the band who has also passed now. Ned (Torney) and I were in three bands together. Very close friends. Ned was with the guys first and he's the one who told the story to me of the naming of the band. The first generation of the band was a different singer. The only real member who's still around from the first generation and still playing with us is Gary, the drummer. They were sitting around the student union in college in Los Altos, California and they were trying to come up with band names. Jefferson Airplane of course was just starting to peak in popularity and they were really taken with the idea of the concept of, oh, they're two names that have nothing to do with each other. Jefferson Airplane. What does that mean? They just started doing a word association thing. Somebody said Chocolate and somebody said Watchband and everybody looked at each other and said, "Wow! That's cool!" So that's how it happened. It was just one of those brainstorm sessions that popped out that way. Some groups put a lot of work into their names. Other groups, not as much. I do remember when Journey got their name. I was friends with the guitar player and I actually still see him once in awhile and the first keyboard player/lead singer, Greg Rolie from Santana fame. We were friends. We went to college together. I remember there was a radio contest, name this new band and it turned out to be Journey. So, they got their name through a radio contest. I don't know if that's actually how they got it. That's how they supposedly got it.

Q - Tower Records signed Chocolate Watchband in 1966. I always thought Tower Records was a retail chain. I had no idea they were a record label as well. How much promotion would they have given your record?

A - They didn't promote much.

Q - That's what I thought you'd say.

A - It kind of had to grow organically. They were into the band and thought the band was a viable 'live' band. That's why they put the band in two movies. They thought the band, performance wise, was strong. The band really kind of missed a big opportunity. Two weeks before their first recording session; this is just two months before I joined the band, all the recordings happened very quickly. And the movie actually happened very quickly, bang, bang, bang. Within weeks all of it happened. But two weeks before they went into the studio with Ed Cobb, their producer, he had recorded "Dirty Water" with The Standells. He told David, our singer, "I would've given you guys that song if we had started working together sooner." He liked David's voice a lot. Things might have gone differently for Chocolate Watchband if we picked up that song, "Dirty Water". That song of course put The Standells in the history books.

Q - Yes it did. It got a lot of air play.

A - It's still getting a lot of air play. They play it in Boston at the big baseball stadium. Our singer, David lived in Boston for awhile. He said, "Every time they play a game, they play that song and Oh, Boston you're my home and he thinks, yeah, it could've been us. (laughs) He kind of grinds his teeth a little bit. It was one of those things where the band wasn't promoted right. There were a lot of things that went wrong with the first two albums as far as the group was concerned. They didn't use Dave's voice on all the songs. They didn't finish recording and the band had to go back out on tour. So they brought a studio guy in to do a couple of the bigger songs on the record. Their first version of "Talk About Girls" isn't David. It's an African-American singer named Don Bennett doing that song. It just absolutely infuriated the band. Not only did David's voice get cut on stuff, but in order to fill out the album the engineer, Richie Podolar recorded a couple of instrumentals they stuck on the album that were actually pretty successful for the band, that got a lot of traction. The band said, "What the hell is this? This isn't us!" I remember I was in the band when they received the albums. They were furious. We were using them for target practice. Then later on in the '80s those albums turned out to be worth $300 to $500 a piece. I'm thinking to myself, "Oh God, there's thousands of dollars worth of broken pieces of records sitting at the bottom of the canyon." We lived kind of out around the mountains when we were in the band. We used to shoot the records off the back porch of our cabin. (laughs)

Q - I guess the lesson learned is that you can't let your emotions take over.

A - Yeah. I know that the guys in the band just felt like they got a raw deal. They got a raw deal from the record label and we got a raw deal from out management, which is why I ultimately left the band. We were doing the Fillmore. We were doing these big concert venues. They were paying us chicken feed. I said, "I know what we're making and I need to get paid. I'm starving." "Oh, this is all we can afford," the manager said. Meanwhile he's driving a Lincoln and we're driving beaters. That's why I left the band. The singer left shortly after I did.

Q - I hear this story all the time. Why isn't someone looking out for your interests?

A - You know, just think about it, you've got a bunch of kids.

Q - Yeah.

A - 19, 20 years old. They're musicians. Just want to smoke pot and play Rock 'n' Roll shows. Meet girls. (laughs)

Q - Not necessarily in that order.

A - Not necessarily in that order. (laughs) There were no lawyers for the band when it came time to signing contracts. The manager handled everything. We trusted the manager to take care of us and come to find out the manager and the record label were both ripping us off. By that time it's too late. So, I left the band in the early mid-'60s. I think '68 or so, before the "One Step Beyond" album came out. And then we re-formed the band we've been recording and doing concerts since '99.

Q - When you guys originally got together, you were being compared to The Rolling Stones. Is that helpful or hurtful?

A - In the local area every group just about was emulating some British band. (laughs) Rain was a band from our area and they were emulating The Beatles. I was with a band called The Good News and we were emulating The Animals. In Chocolate Watchband, David was very enamored with Mick Jagger. We just had that kind of persona I guess and it's all because of that. I don't think it hurt the band. It's kind of like the way it was. We had enough of or own original material so that we had our own thing, but we were frequently compared to The Rolling Stones at one time.

Q - One of your first gigs was opening for The Mothers Of Invention at the Fillmore. That would have been the Fillmore West?

A - Yeah.

Q - What kind of a place was the Fillmore West to perform in?

A - The Fillmore was great in those days. Bill Graham in fact wanted to sign the band. The band had just signed with Ron Roupe, the manager that I was just telling you about. Bill Graham wanted to sign the band and wasn't fond of Ron Roupe. In fact, I think it's one of the reasons we didn't play Fillmore very much. We only played three or four times. I think we would have done a lot more Fillmore dates if Bill Graham got along with out manager. Actually, Bill Graham wanted to manage the band, but Bill Graham really knew what he was doing. At times you'd think, "What is he thinking?" But you'd realize, well, it works. The different acts he would book, you'd think, "Those groups don't go together," but you go to the show and think, "That was great!" They don't have to go together perfectly. He would have all kinds of things going on and so much variety. Those shows were terrific. The venue was great. He knew how to promote it. He knew how to kind of squash the competition. He was a business guy and he knew what he was doing. I had big respect for him. I got along really well with him.

Q - That's what I miss about the old days, the pairing of different acts on the same bill. Today all you hear is demographics, whatever that means.

A - Demographics just describes the age group, the economic group. It has to do with being able to understand the marketing part of any product and essentially music is a product to record labels and people doing concerts. So they need to know who your demographics are for your group and who you're going to appeal to and who we're going to market to. Who do we put with who that's going to fit the demographics? We've analyzed that ourselves. It's like looking at our shows we feel like we're not a nostalgia band, which a lot of bands in our age category would be considered. We never had a hit record. We had some records that did okay. We had some movies that did alright, but we never had a big hit record. So, people that come to our shows, it's really a mixed bag. I would say the last dozen shows we've done, we've had about a half and half audience. Half the audience is younger and half the audience is more our age and that's great for us. We love it. In fact, when we played in Spain I would say there were almost no one over thirty-five in the audience. It was all younger audience. And it was a fantastic show. I want to go back and do Barcelona. We were up in Leon doing the Purple Weekend, which is a huge festival. We headlined that. I'd love to go back to Spain and do a show there again.

Q - I know Chocolate Watchband was popular in San Francisco. Does that mean you would've crossed paths with Janis Joplin and/or Jimi Hendrix?

A - Well, the band did open for Jimi Hendrix at the San Jose Fairgrounds, which is south of San Francisco. It was unfortunately before I joined the band. Janis and Big Brother And The Holding Company, which is her band during our time frame, we didn't do any shows with Janis.

Q - How about Jerry Garcia, The Grateful Dead?

A - Yeah. I knew Jerry since I was in high school and I played with both of the drummers in The Grateful Dead. I played with Bill Dreutzmann in a band and Mickey Hart in a band. I was friends with Bob Weir. In fact, Bob came down to our cabin and spent the weekend with Chocolate Watchband. The very first time I saw a wireless guitar set-up was the one that Bob brought down to the cabin. So, I knew all of those guys and then I played with a band called Kingfish. I was in the beginnings of Kingfish. Kingfish was Bob Weir's back-up group for when he did his own kind of solo thing away from The Dead. I've been up to Bob's house several times. I knew all those guys through other deals, but we didn't do any dates with them as Chocolate Watchband, but I did know them. During that period it was a small music community and everybody kind of knew everybody.

Official Website: www.TheChocolateWatchband.com

© Gary James. All rights reserved.