Gary James' Interview With
Micki Free







When he was just 17 he was already in a band that was sharing the bill with KISS, Ted Nugent and REO Speedwagon. He's recorded with "Wild" Bill Gibbons of ZZ Top. He won a Grammy Award for a record he participated in, "Don't Get Stopped In Beverly Hills" from the 1984 Beverly Hills Cop soundtrack album. He is one of the most talented guitarist you will ever hear. His name is Micki Free.

Q - Micki, I was always wondering if someone would pick up where Hendrix left off. And that someone is you! But I suppose you get that a lot, don't you?

A - Well dude, I mean that's like the biggest compliment, I've got to tell you. Thank you so much. People do compare my style with Jimi's because he was one of my main guys growing up man, Jimi was and Carlos Santana. Those are my guys. I was an Army brat if you can believe that. So, when I was growing up in Germany, Hendrix was playing Stuttgart when I was a little kid, man. I was 12 years old.

Q - You sat in the third row for that Hendrix concert. Did you wear ear plugs?

A - You know, I didn't. That was in the days when you didn't even fathom folks wearing ear plugs. I didn't even know it was going to be Hendrix. I went with my older sister. She took me to that show because her girlfriend got in trouble. So her dad gave the tickets to my sister and she took me along with her. That's how I saw Hendrix. She didn't know he was playing. I didn't. She had to drag her little brother with her, if you can believe that. That's what happened. It was crazy!

Q - Back in 1972 I sat in the third row for Grand Funk Railroad and my ears rang for three days. After that concert I bought ear plugs.

A - Yeah, but Grand Funk was loud! You're not going to believe this, but Mark Farner is one of my good friends right now. Can you believe that, man? Every guy I idolized and grew up with in the day are like my buds now. Mark Farner, Grand Funk Railroad. Billy Gibbons from ZZ Top. Carlos Santana. I've been blessed man, but I remember Grand Funk was louder than Hendrix. They were really loud. Oh, my God! They had those big WEM amps. I don't think they were using Marshalls. That's crazy! They were loud, man. They might have been using Kustom amps in those days. I don't know.

Q - You only took one guitar lesson and then you picked up everything on your own by listening to the radio and records. Is that correct?

A - Totally. If you could talk to my sister she could tell it better than me. I wanted to play guitar so bad that they finally got me a guitar. I was plucking on it and I couldn't play anything. So they said, "We're gonna get you guitar lessons too." I said, "Okay. Cool." I just wanted to be like Hendrix. My favorite groups were like English groups. I wanted to be like The Yardbirds. I went to one lesson and the teacher was teaching me how to play "Mary Had A Little Lamb". I said, "Forget it. Are you kidding me?" (laughs) I left and I went home and I'll never forget it, I started listening to records. In those days there were albums. Pickin' 'em up. Trying to find 'em on guitar. Puttin' 'em back down on the LP. That's how I learned how to play. Crazy, right?

Q - Right. How did you know you had that skill to play guitar in the first place?

A - I didn't know it. I definitely didn't know it, man. It's like when you're driven let's say and I've been extremely driven in certain things I wanted to do in my life and playing guitar was one of 'em. So, I just practiced it until I could play something, until I could sound like a record. That was what happened to me. I just played it, played it and tried to find it on the records I was listening to. I tell everybody this. I by no means ever wanted to play let's say like Jimi Hendrix. My favorite song by Hendrix is "All Along The Watchtower". which he didn't even write, as we both know. I never aspired to play exactly note for note like Jimi Hendrix 'cause there's only one Hendrix, man. That's just the way it is, the way it will ever be. Gene Simmons used to say about me, "Micki Free is a Jimi Hendrix improviser, not a Jimi Hendrix impersonator," which was quite a compliment to me. I never tried to be Jimi or play like him per se. I couldn't. I learned a lot from Billy Gibbons from ZZ Top and just listening to records. I found out at an early age that tone is everything when you play guitar. Tone. After you get your good tone and know what to do with it and you're a player, that's when your style comes out and your sound. I've got a pretty distinct sound and my tone is pretty Micki Free. It's borrowed from all the greats. There's no doubt about it. The record company in England called me "The inimitable Micki Free." I didn't know what that meant at first. I was like, "What the hell does that mean?" So, I looked it up and it means can't be duplicated. I love that.

Q - There are very few guitarists around today who play the way you do. That goes back to my first question to you, you're carrying on the style of Jimi's playing.

A - Yeah. Well, there's no doubt I play Blues/Rock. That's what Jimi played. That's what all the guitar players I was growing up with in that ear sort of played, Clapton. But there was only one Hendrix. He just blew my mind. His tone. It was just the best. I tried to emulate throughout my career, searching for the right tone. Yes, you could say that. Yeah, man. There's been countless guys out there that have carried on the torch you could say, like Stevie Ray Vaughan and guys like him, but they were never quite to me Hendix-esque in the tone that Jimi got. Steve was in a world of his own, a league of his own. He had his own style. He loved Hendrix too. We all loved Jimi Hendrix. Kenny Wayne Shepherd, Joe Bonamassa are I think inspired by Jimi. Who isn't these days? Besides just his tone, his looks. Everything I was a sucker for. I just loved Hendrix, man. He was so brilliant. I don't have to tell you that. He was brilliant in everything he did. I just thought he was an incredible guitar player, but I loved his tone. He was versatile as all get out, playing the Blues, Rock, playing Jazz. Hendrix could play anything, but his tone on the Strat was what really turned me on. That was it. Yeah.

Q - When you were 17 and in this group Smokehouse, you opened for KISS, Rush, Ted Nugent, REO. How'd you get those gigs? Did you know the local promoter?

A - You know, it was one better than that. A local, big time promoter happened to be the manager of Smokehouse. When I came back from Europe I was like a fledgling guitar player, trying to find my niche. This was in the mid-West. They heard me play and they asked me to join Smokehouse, which was really kind of a big band in the mid-West when I was growing up. They had Steve Gaines, who went on later to be in Lynyrd Skynyrd. Steve Gaines was in a version of Smokehouse. They asked me to play in the band, the biggest reason is I got all the girls. I could attract a lot of girls. I had a look in those days that was just outrageous 'cause again I was emulating all my Rock stars that I wanted to be like, like Jimi and Joe Perry from Aerosmith. All those guys. And the manager for Smokehouse was the promoter. So he would get the best bands on tour and Smokehouse would open for them. REO, KISS, Ted Nugent. The list is crazy. Rush. We opened a show for KISS and Gene Simmons saw me and told me I was a star. He was like, "You're a star." I was like, "Oh, my God."

Q - I'm going to ask about that momentarily. Where were you performing as an opening act? Hockey arenas? Theatres?

A - They were theatres. Outdoor festivals. We played a couple shows with KISS and Gene and I became friends, but the one that he really saw me play was Burlington Memorial Coliseum or Auditorium in Burlington, Iowa. And that's when we were opening for KISS there when Gene approached me and said, "You're a star. If you ever come out to L.A., look me up." That story is legendary. It's a true story.

Q - Stop right there.

A - Okay.

Q - I don't envy any band that had to open for KISS.

A - KISS in the heyday as you know, forget about it. They ruled.

Q - I first saw KISS as a headliner in October, 1975. They drew 1,500 people in a 10,000 seat auditorium.

A - That's when they were hot. They were just starting to kick butt then. Do you remember that magazine, Rock Scene?

Q - Sure.

A - That's where I would follow KISS, in Rock Scene magazine. Before they turned in to God Of Thunder they would open up for like Aerosmith and blow everybody off the stage. They were just legendary for blowing people off the stage. (laughs) They tried to put 'em down 'cause they couldn't play that good or the costumes and make-up. Dude, there was no one like 'em.

Q - That's right. So, when Gene Simmons told you, "Micki, you're a star," what went through your mind? Did you believe him? Did you laugh?

A - I kind of laughed. I was like, "Yeah, right. Wow! Okay." At that time I didn't even realize that you could make money being in a Rock 'n' Roll band to tell you the truth. I was in it for the girls. Gene Simmons is the one that kind of set me straight on my whole thing. When he managed me he taught me all kinds of stuff. He said to me, and I'll never forget it, he had on those monster boots with the green eyes and he walked out of his dressing room doing the Gene Simmons stalk I call it, and he looked down at me and said that. I was like, "Oh, okay. Yeah. Thanks, man." The band was going, "Dude, Gene Simmons just said that to you." I was like, "Wow!" I was freaked, but I didn't really get it until I moved out to California and I started to see Gene. That when it was crazy, yeah.

Q - You moved out there in 1979?

A - Yeah.

Q - You were at one point hanging out at this bar, The Rainbow. That was a Rock star hangout. Who did you see at that bar? What were you doing there? Looking to talk to different musicians or their management?

A - All of the above. At that time The Rainbow Bar And Grill was the hottest place on Sunset Strip, man. That's where everybody went after shows. Van Halen. I mean everybody would go there. It was the hottest when I just arrived in L.A. That's where everybody would go to. Looky-loos we would call each other, to see who was there at The Rainbow because we all knew the giant stars hung there. I walked in there one night and I'll never forget it. At the front table was like Jimmy Page, Robert Plant. All of Led Zeppelin was sitting at the front table. It was the famous table where all the bands would sit. I think Gene and Paul were there. I can't remember totally, clearly. It was like total Rock stars right at the first table when you walked through the door. I think Bowie was there. It was unbelievable, The Rainbow. I hung out there probably for a couple of years. You're in L.A. You're trying to make it. It was right before Motley Crue, when everybody blew up there on Sunset and they were friends of mine. Dude, it was just crazy, friggin' crazy there!

Q - A regular person couldn't walk off the street and come face to face with the guys in Led Zeppelin or David Bowie, could they? Wasn't there a room in back?

A - Yeah. Upstairs too. Alice Cooper and Micky Dolenz of The Monkees would hang out upstairs. They named it the lair of The Hollywood Vampires. To get upstairs you had to be kind of cool and know somebody. But, as you walked into The Rainbow, that's where everybody was sitting, downstairs if they didn't want to go upstairs in the private area. All in the back and throughout the whole Rainbow was so cool. These big tables with booths, and we'd go in and slide in there. Everybody would be there. On Friday night, Saturday night you couldn't even walk in the place. You couldn't even move in The Rainbow because of all the girls that were there. All the guys like myself were trying to make it, looking for anybody that they could see was in there that day or that night. Saturday night you could see Van Halen in there.

Q - Were you trying to get an introduction to management through a famous musician or were you there to pick up one of the groupies there?

A - All of the above. (laughs) We were there for all of the above. The way I got to L.A. was there was a guy, remember the group Angel?

Q - Sure.

A - Mickey Jones was the bass player in Angel and they fired him for some reason. I don't even remember. He wanted all the coolest stars that were in the mid-West to come out to California and be in a band called Empire, and that's how we started. I came out with Pete Comida of The Thumbs, who later went on to be one of the bassists for Cheap Trick. Those guys are some of my good buddies too from the mid-West. So we came out and Mickey Jones had put this whole band together and we would meet at The Rainbow. We never got anything done 'cause there were like a billion girls there. You'd never get anything done. There were so many young girls it was unbelievable. You have no idea. Eddie (Van Halen) and David Lee Roth would be sitting there, freaking out. It was mostly trying to be seen, to pick up girls, and network with guys, your peers that were starting bands.

Q - You mentioned that Gene Simmons was managing you at one point, but didn't I read that Diana Ross was managing you too?

A - Yeah.

Q - What did she know about management? Did she help you out at all?

A - Totally. At the time when I came to L.A. I was rehearsing at this place called SIR Studio, a very famous place. I was playing and this guy sticks his head in. I look over and it's Gene Simmons. He goes, "Remember me?" I'm like, "Genie, how are you man?" KISS was getting ready to go on tour. "We were rehearsing down the hall and I heard this guitar player and I knew it was you because you have a certain sound." We started talking for awhile 'cause I hadn't seen him. He said, "I got somebody I want you to meet. She's looking for a guy just like you," and I'm like, "Really?" He goes, "Yeah." I said okay and the next day he comes to rehearsal and brings Diana Ross into the rehearsal room. At that time Diana Ross was going out with Gene. That was his girlfriend. He had just broken up with Cher. That's when Prince, and I didn't even know who Prince was, started to take off in early 1980 or something. She said, "I'm going on tour and I'm looking for a guy that's kind of Princely like with that whole androgynous look and plays guitar." I didn't even know who Prince was to tell you the truth. And so Gene set up a showcase for me two nights later at SIR and it was my little band that played. Gene invited like thirty girls. There were no guys in the audience. They were all girls, (laughs) in a private room at SIR. I did a showcase for Diana Ross and all these girls screaming, freaking out over me and Diana signed me right there on the spot to be in her new management company that she didn't even have yet. Gene was talking her into doing all this and she hadn't even done it yet. So, I was the guinea pig. I was the first one. She took me on tour with her. I'll never forget it. Simmons was supposed to go on tour with KISS for like three or four months. So, we went out with Diana Ross. It was called Micki Free And The US Band. I opened shows for Diana Ross. But we were playing 60,000 seats. It was unreal. Houston Summit, Dallas Union Arena, Cobo Hall in Detroit, Joe Louis Arena. Huge places, and Gene was running the sound, if you can dig that one. Is that crazy?

Q - That's crazy alright.

A - That's how Ross managed me for awhile. I was set to do a record on RCA because she was on RCA then. She got really busy and I just became a guy who was in her company, but she didn't have time to do anything with me. I asked Simmons if she would let me out of my contract and she did. I went on to join Shalamar after that. Those were crazy times for me, yeah.

Q - You had no record deal when you'd open the show for Diana Ross?

A - No. I had nothing. Diana just saw me. I played, but I was playing all original songs. That's been my bread and butter my entire career 'cause even then I wrote my own songs. I had this song that Diana Ross fell in love with called "Spring Fever". Her company was called RTC Action Management, which was named after her kids, Rhonda, Tracy and Chudney. So, she took me on the road and I opened shows for her. It was the most surreal thing that I've ever been through.

Q - I don't understand. If you had no record deal, you had nothing to sell. How did you make any money?

A - Diana Ross was paying for everything. I would play and she would pay. She was trying to get me, her and Simmons in that early time, were trying to get me a deal through her company RTC. Like I said, I was set to do a record on RCA with her, but it kind of fell through because she got so busy it didn't work out and then KISS went on the road and I wanted out of the contract and so I got out of that deal, luckily. She was gracious. She just let me walk. I owed her probably half a million dollars. She just wrote it off. Unreal.

Q - And of course it was never Diana Ross, it was always Miss Ross, right?

A - Oh, God, yeah. Everyone had to call her Miss Ross. I didn't, but everyone else did. Everyone that worked for her except for me and Simmons and her ex-husband at the time, Bob Silverstein would call her Diana. I would call her Diana. Everybody else, Miss Ross. God help you if you didn't call her that.

Q - And Ed Sullivan never could get her name right. It was Diane. It was Dionne.

A - That was in the beginning though. She was hungry like The Supremes and she hadn't become Diana Ross yet. When she became Diana Ross and went out on her own after The Supremes, it was Miss Ross, oh, yeah.

Q - I recall seeing Diana Ross with a tennis racket in hand when I took one of those tours of Hollywood stars' homes. She waved to everybody. This was 1977.

A - Was it her house in Beverly Hills?

Q - I believe so.

A - On Maple Drive. I stayed there. I'll never forget it. I stayed there many times and hung out with Gene there. It was crazy. Yup. I would walk around her house in Gene's big KISS boots. It was good times.

Q - You got around!

A - Yeah. Gene had all his leggings there from all his tours. They were having a party at Diana's house and that was when Gene first introduced me to the press. I would come out in Gene's big KISS boots and the press would go crazy. "Who is that guy?" Gene would say, "He's the next thing. He's the next superstar." Before he had his son he treated me like his son. He just really, really doted on be before I joined Shalamar and won a Grammy. He was a big part of that whole deal.

Q - Who was at that party? Rolling Stone? All of the Rock press?

A - It was everything. It was a lot of TV movie stuff 'cause remember I was coming out of Diana's house so they were all there. Everybody was there. It was crazy. It was actually one of those times when there was so much press you couldn't see anything. It was like on TV, "Micki, over here. Micki, over here." Gene would stand up with me for awhile and then say, "You're on your own." He left me there, (laughs) and went into the party and I had to stay out there for like five minutes and it was cool. It was one of my first deals.

Q - You worked with Billy Gibbons and Bill Wyman. Those guys are incredibly famous. Were you intimated by that experience at all?

A - You know what? It kind of did a little bit, but they wanted to work with me too. It kind of blew it out a little bit. I was playing in London and Little Steven from Bruce Springsteen's band is a friend of mine and was a friend of Bill Wyman. Bill Wyman was coming to the show at Hyde Park. There were 100,000 people there to see Bruce Springsteen play. I was there and I opened up the show that Friday and I met Bill Wyman through Little Steven and we became like good friends. His wife at the time was part Native American and she lived in England with Bill and he was such a cool guy. I said to him, "This might sound kind of crazy, but I'm playing here on Saturday. Would you like to jam with me?" He said, "Yeah." I was like, "Oh, my God!" I go, "Awesome!" Then the next day we had breakfast and I said, "Is it alright if I put it on my website?" He said, "Sure. I already put it on the Rolling Stone website that I'm going to be jamming with Micki Free at Hyde Park." I was like blown away, dude. We did "Jumpin' Jack Flash" and "Redhouse" by Hendrix and it was like the highlight of my career at that time, playing with The Rolling Stones. It was unbelievable. What happened with Billy is a guy that used to make guitars for Motley Crue, his name is Sammy Sanchez, killer guitar player and guitar tech, he would make guitars for all these stars. I met him in L.A. at this guitar place called Nadine's and we became really good friends. One day he was on the road and I was in Fort Lauderdale at the Hard Rock. I didn't know this, but he was on the road with ZZ Top because Billy's tech was sick or something. ZZ Top was in Fort Lauderdale and I wanted to go see them. I love ZZ Top. I'm sitting in the audience with my wife and this guy gives Billy a guitar. I said, "That looks like Sammy Sanchez." She goes, "You don't know everybody, Micki. You just think you do." Right after that, Billy turns to Sammy and goes, "Yeah. I want to thank the best guitar tech in the world, Mr. Sammy Sanchez." I ran back there 'cause everybody knew me and Sammy introduced me to Gibbons. We became friends and the next day we flew to Compass Point Studio which is in the Bahamas. It's Compass Point Resort where Chris Blackwell used to own it in the '90s. It's a studio in the Bahamas. It's on the water. Unbelievable, man. The Stones, ZZ Top, Lenny Kravitz, everybody used to record there. So, we flew there because Terry Manning, the guy that engineered the first three ZZ Top records, ran Compass Point Studios. Billy goes, "Let's go down there and visit Terry." Billy flew us down to the Bahamas and we stayed there for a week and I recorded at Compass Point Resort. He gave me a guitar. Can you dig that? He gave me a red guitar. I still have it.

Q - ZZ Top opened a show for Hendrix. Did he ever talk to you about Jimi Hendrix?

A - Of course. Hendrix was his guy too. Billy Gibbons was Jimi Hendrix's favorite guitar player at the time. I think he gave Billy a Stratocaster. He's since lost it or somebody stole it. We talked about when The Moving Sidewalks opened for Jimi. It wasn't ZZ Top. It was Billy's band Moving Sidewalks, before ZZ Top. Billy said Jimi was the most incredible guitar player he'd ever seen. He wasn't even from this planet. I gotta be honest with you, the only guy that really, really impressed me with their guitar playing was Prince. Prince could friggin' shred. He sounded like Jimi Hendrix, man. Unbelievable guitarist. He was unbelievable on guitar. He was a hell of a guitarist, I'm here to tell you. I did some stuff with him as well in the studio. He was a fantastic, brilliant person.

Q - You're getting ready to do a tour.

A - Yes.

Q - Of the U.S.?

A - Yeah. I'm going to do a Blues club tour starting in April (2018). Small Blues clubs, which I love. I'm going out with this guy, Ike Willis, who used to be a frontman for Frank Zappa. It's a double bill. We're doing Blues clubs I think mostly on the East coast, now. Then some dates in Canada probably towards the end of the year. These days as you know there's no more records. You gotta get out there and play and take it to the people. I'm just one of the lucky ones that are playing right now. Music isn't what it used to be when we were big music fans. All the records stores, but that's all done. Crazy.

Q - Do you have a record deal? Do you sell merchandise?

A - Of course. I have a deal now. It's a small Blues label called Mysterian Blues out of Philadelphia. It's boutique label, but very supportive. My new record that came out last year (2017) is called "Tattoo Burn Redubs". It's very Blues/Rock. My stuff is like Blues rockish.

Q - Do you make enough money when you go out on the road to support a manager, band, hotels, food, transportation?

A - You gotta be really creative these days. If you're lucky like I am your small label gives you a little tour support, but you make your money from your CD sales, your Merch(andise). It's always been that way and now it's back that way again like it was in the '70s. You sell Merch, you sell t-shirts, you sell your CDs and you scale down. I'm not traveling on a Lear jet or a big, huge bus anymore. Now you're on Springer. You go with the times. If you're not one of the big five like KISS, Aerosmith, Stones, ZZ Top, dude you're not running around burning money in big buses anymore. It doesn't make sense. There's no money to be made like that. You scale it down. That's one of the things Gene Simmons taught me, business. You make it work for what you're doing. The only reason you go out on tour was to make money. These days guys like me and everybody else, you have to go and make a living 'cause record sales are no more. They're gone. You know that. We used to make big money on records. I used to do one record a year when I was on Interscope Records. If you'd get $350,000 you'd be set. Now you have to really, really work for it unless you're one of the big guys. Me and Gene always talk about this. KISS doesn't suffer 'cause they're legendary. You got guys like you, me who still know who KISS is and our kids, their kids. That's how it rolls out. KISS are just legendary. Areosmith too. ZZ. Stones. All those guys.

Q - Even a scaled down version of touring must be expensive.

A - Well, it's not what it used to be. For me it's what I do. Players that go out with me know you're not going to be playing and making money like you're in a coliseum. If you want to play and makes ends meet and do what we do, which is a musician, then you do that. If you don't do that then you have to do something else. I'll never forget when I met Todd Rundgren. I was really young. He was flying high with "Hello It's Me" and all that stuff. When I met him I said, "Do you have any advice for an aspiring musician that wants to be like you?" Todd goes to me, "Yeah, keep your day gig." I didn't know what he meant. This was in the early '70s. What the fuck was he talking about? Then, as I got older and you get into the business and see it go up and you see it go down, you know what he meant after that. Guys like me do it for the love of Rock 'n' Roll. You do it because that's what you do. You've been lucky. You can still get out there and play. You still have interest from a smaller boutique label. People come and see you. It's not like it was, I have to honest with you, through the '80s and even in the '90s when I was playing. Places like Hard Rock calling with 100,000 people. Opening up for big bands. It's changed 'cause those bands aren't even out touring anymore. That's just the way it is.

Official Website: www.MickiFree.com

© Gary James. All rights reserved.