Gary James' Interview With Bob Spalding Of
The Ventures



He plays both lead guitar and bass for The Ventures. He's been a part of the group since 1980, lending his talents to over forty of The Ventures' albums.

The Ventures of course enjoyed considerable success with a song called "Walk Don't Run". That song would peak at number two on Billboard's singles chart on July 18th, 1960. The Ventures placed fourteen songs on the hit singles charts and have sold over 100 million records to date. We spoke with Bob Spalding about what it's like to be part of such a legendary group.

Q - Bob, had your father not been in the military, stationed in Japan, how likely is it that you would've ever seen The Ventures, much less join the group years later? To me, it's almost fate.

A - It's an interesting story because you're exactly right. I don't know when I would have ever seen The Ventures, at least in that unique way. When they were touring in Japan it was just the two of them, Bob Bogle and Don Wilson. I think that even if I hadn't seen them I think I still would have had the passion to become a guitar player, but not leaning much towards The Ventures. The Ventures captured me early on with "Walk Don't Run" and with their early albums. It was just an interesting fascination like other guys had with how sophisticated they played and the songs they played and how they related to those people who were fledgling guitar players.

Q - So you were a fan of the group before you saw them?

A - Oh, yeah. Absolutely.

Q - When your father returned to the States in 1962, the family settled in Austin, Texas. Did you ever happen to cross paths with Bobby Fuller?

A - I only heard about Bobby Fuller after I'd gone back to California and was going back to college out there. I didn't hear or see him and I didn't know Bobby Fuller, but I certainly knew his music. Is he from Austin?

Q - No. He was from El Paso. I realize Texas is a big state. My feeling was you might have had a chance encounter with him.

A - Not really.

Q - You were drafted into the Army and did a tour of duty in Vietnam. Did you ever see combat? Were you in a military band?

A - No, I was not in a military band. (laughs) I was actually in what was called a 31M20. That's a radio relay operator. And so, we were both inside of compounds and out in the field. We were the guys that made the connections so that the guys in the field could call in for support. So, did I ever see combat? Yes. I was over there during 1967, 1968 and during the Tet offensive, which was the early part of 1968, and I went all the way from the south at a base called Long Binh, to Natrang, and I entered Da Nang and up to a forward operating base called Phu Bai, and that's where we stopped and the first cav(alry) went further up to Hue and rescued the Marines in the Khe Sanh area. But we were hit quite a bit up there because it's very close to the DNC. So yeah, it's pretty scary when people are firing rockets at you and bullets at you.

Q - You went into the military before college or after college?

A - It was right in-between. When I actually had a couple of years in college I came back to Texas because we were going to restart the band again, the band being the band I played with in Texas called The Nomads. So we started the band again in 1966. I could hang out for awhile, but then my draft date became closer and closer. And so by October of 1966 I went into the Army.

Q - You were also part of this group called Sweet Pain that you joined in 1970. That group had a deal with Liberty Records. Is that correct?

A - Yeah. Again, it was kind of happenstance. After I got out of the Army I went back to college. So, I was going to college and at the same time writing songs and submitting them to L.A. I got some interest from a group that was ready to be signed by some labels. That was Sweet Pain. So, they invited me to join based on my compositional skill, guitar skills, and so I joined that group. And strangely enough, (laughs) it was the same label The Ventures were on. I was able to meet them at Liberty Records many times. I struck up a friendship with Mel Taylor, the drummer, and Bob Bogle. They invited me several times to their rehearsals and I got to go one time to some recordings they were doing for the "Shaft" album at that time.

Q - Did you tell them you saw them in 1962? You must have.

A - You know, it was all over. When we signed with Liberty Records there's this little banter about there's this new group signed. Of course they told the guys that, "Hey! One of these guys is a really big fan," and they kind of sought me out while I was there, visiting the Liberty headquarters like we did often. So we got to be kind of friends from that standpoint. They were really, really interested in me seeing them in Japan in 1962. I remember Bob saying; we were at this overdub session, I was watching them do overdubs and making comments. All of a sudden Bob Bogle says, "Gee, how old are you?" (laughs) I was 21, 22 at the time (of the overdub session). I said I was over there with my Dad. He said, "Oh, okay. I understand now." He thought I was in the Air Force over there.

Q - How successful was Sweet Pain? Did you do some road work?

A - Oh, absolutely.

Q - Who did you tour with?

A - Well, we opened for a lot of people. We opened for The James Gang. We opened for Funkadelic / Parliament. We opened for Linda Ronstadt, Seals And Crofts, Nitty Gritty Dirt Band. I think the most interesting and eccentric one was Norman Greenbaum. He had the hit at the time, "Spirit In The Sky". A great guy.

Q - When you were in college you took a Marketing course, or maybe that was your major. Has that helped you in your career?

A - I majored in Business and minored in Marketing and absolutely it has. It's like good news/bad news. One of the advantages that I was able to use my knowledge has always been in the area of trying to get artists and/or other people associated with the music publishers and record companies and try first of all to give them information that, "Hey! There's more to this than just going out on the road and playing for people. There should be a marketing plan on how to get the group out and how to do these things." That wasn't always met with success when you're dealing with people who think they know how to do these things. But on the other hand, when I started to work for Mel Taylor, and he was doing the dynamics and getting that done, I think it worked real well because we instituted a lot of the fundamental marketing strategies into the dynamic products.

Q - Back to Linda Ronstadt. You opened for her at The Golden Bear in Huntington Beach, (California). What was she like? And you also played in Chuck Berry's backup band. What was that like?

A - (laughs) Linda Ronstadt was a very, very nice person. She was not difficult at all and complimented us as we complimented her. We had played with her a couple of times in terms of opening. I think unusually as things happen, we were playing somewhere in Anaheim and we opened and she came up. But before she came up, and I'm just thinking about this now, it's quite unusual, her backup band came up and played a couple of songs. They were the guys out of the Eagles. (laughs) Before they were the Eagles. Guess what they played?

Q - "Walk Don't Run".

A - "Pipeline". I was knocked out by them when they did that. But they were very good. Very good. They were very good with Linda Ronstadt and she was in the Country Rock type of situation at that time. We did another show with her. I think it was in Hermosa Beach or somewhere down there. We were opening for Chuck Berry. The day before they contacted the band and said, "Do you guys want to backup Chuck?" Most of the time the band that's opening backs him up too. I said, "Of course. Absolutely." And so the drummer for Sweat Pain, Marty Foltz, and the bass player, Frank Demme, and myself backed Chuck Berry. It was a very interesting thing 'cause I've backed up other people before and when your backing up someone as recognizable as Chuck Berry, you're going, "This is gonna be great!" I know the music. We do a sound check. He comes out and opens up his guitar case and takes out his guitar, which is like an ES-35 that looked like it hadn't been opened in thirty years. I'm not sure the strings had ever been changed. So, he got plugged in and he said, "Okay, we gonna do, just to run things off, 'Johnny B. Goode'." So everybody gets ready and they think we're gonna do it in the normal Rock 'n' Roll guitar player key. Wrong. (laughs) He said, "Okay. We do this is B flat." (laughs) So, we all adjust our little heads and in real time start the song in B flat, which is fun. Then he gives us these signals. He says, "Okay. When I pull my left leg up and bring it down it means the band stops. When I pull my right leg up and bring it down it means it's just one hit." So, we're saying, "Okay." So, we start playing. He really was an interesting man, but I think he was also a very angry man because he would on purpose screw us up. I don't know if that was to make him look better or what, but we made it through and it was a good show. Of course people just loved him and they loved his songs and he always went over very well. I gotta say it just wasn't me (laughs), because he did the same to Keith Richards and lot of big time musicians when he did the Chuck Berry Special.

Q - Maybe Chuck Berry's anger stemmed from the fact that he got ripped off by the music industry along the way.

A - As it has with all of us. (laughs)

Q - A few of the performers get to keep what they earn, but not many. And it's still happening today.

A - Yes.

Q - I actually met Bob Bogle, or at least I believe I did, at a flea market in Syracuse, New York. He said to me, "I used to be part of a group you probably never heard of." I said, "What's the name of the group?" And he said, "The Ventures." I said, "Of course I've heard of The Ventures." But now Bob was kind of disheveled. He was missing some front teeth. He was wearing a stained, white t-shirt. The description I've giving you of Bob, does that sound like the way Bob would have appeared?

A - You know, that really does not sound like Bob Bogle at all, at least the Bob Bogle I knew for really many years. Bob was my mentor, but no, it really doesn't. I've never known him to be out in public with soiled clothes. He was always a very good dresser and always had impeccable style. He always was very proud of his appearance. So, I don't know. I don't want to say you ran into Don Wilson, 'cause Don wasn't like that either. So, I'm not sure. Maybe it was one of the roadies at the time. We were in Syracuse several times. Was this 1981?

Q - A little later than that. Maybe late 1980s. This guy who said he was Bob Bogle was buying records.

A - No. A couple of things. One is Bob never kept anything and I don't think he ever bought records. (laughs) He just did not keep memorabilia, so to speak. He didn't keep any of that stuff. He didn't have an interest in it. So, I think it might have been somebody else from that standpoint. The reason I say 1981 is, the guys were on the road and they were coming from the North down and I think they were doing Syracuse and maybe another city. But it's when Nokie got sick and had to go to the hospital and their next stop was New York and they called me and I flew into New York to finish the tour that Summer for them.

Q - You've written over forty-five songs that have been recorded by both The Ventures and other artists. Who are some of the other artists that have recorded your material?

A - There was an artist called Bernard Arcadio. He was a French Jazz pianist. Probably my most successful. I had a song, "Columbia" on the NASA 25th Anniversary album and he liked that song and took it more into a Jazz genre. It did very well. It was released world-wide. We both had that song picked up by CNN Japan. So that was good. There was a group called BCV that recorded several of my songs. The most recognizable was "Bullet Train". Another group was called Dolphin Market that recorded a song called "Diego", which I was a co-writer on. I'm sure there's probably another, I don't know, ten or twelve that have recorded some of my songs.

Q - Why do you think The Ventures enjoy such great popularity in Japan?

A - Well, it goes back to when Don and Bob came in 1962 because at that time the environment was just right for a lot of the young people to start to become enamored with you and you try to find out the music outside of their culture, which was to a large degree, Pop and Rock 'n' Roll. What Don and Bob did, they didn't know it at the time, they provided a whole generation of young Japanese guys and the subsequently went on to become young Japanese guys and Japanese girls, this tremendously attractive and energetic instrumental music played on guitars. That just enamored them to the younger people in the 1960s. So, when they continued to record, and their product continued to be exported into Japan, they just became more famous and more famous and the demand just really grew. By the time they got back over there as a quartet with Mel Taylor on drums, Nokie on lead guitar, and Dan and Bob, they were already famous. (laughs) They just built on that and to a degree by the later '60s they began writing specifically for Japan. Subsequently they've had their songs done by Japanese vocalists during the late '60s, early '70s that went on to become Japanese standards. So, when you play them, whether you're The Ventures or somebody else, people know that. It's like what we would consider Pop standards here in the States.

Official Website: www.TheVentures.com

© Gary James. All rights reserved.

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