Nevada 1999

It’s the fuckin’ desert out here. It’s hot. We’re sucking up serious highway, ghost towns, the odd passing truck, tumbleweeds, boarded up long out of business gas stops and countless, unmarked graves.

Gram Parsons ashes and U2’s Joshua Tree are a couple of hours drive from here…somewhere…but are still probably easier to find than a mobile phone signal.

We crawl a steady 50mph on a weather worn, rusty, fading light blue bus which couldn’t have seen an M.O.T certificate in 19 years.

The thing is rickety, teeming with spores of mould. Patchwork woven cushions strewn across patchwork throws, held in place by their own dampness. It’s musty smelling, agonisingly slow, plus we have the added bonus of having a fuckin’ idiot at the wheel.

Later, realising we’re perilously close to missing our gig in Vegas, there forms a gaggle at the front near the driver.

West Brom asks the question…

“Ow muuuch lon-gaaa to Vaaaay-goos, maaaate?”

Our hillbilly GPS is momentarily at a loss.

He lets out a “hhhhhhhuuuuuuunnnggggk???”

Which was...well…exactly like this:

Before adding “aaaaaah thought we were goin a-Reeeeeeeeeeeeeeno....”

“GIGS OFF LADS!” hollers West Brom. Stating the obvious with his dry and understated humour.

If you’re looking for a good Tour Manager? Look no further.

A parka wearing football fan who’s colour never ran... who held a sweet rarely used authority. A gentleman, who never raised his voice.

Some? Don’t need to.

We were due to do a Melody Maker interview in Vegas later anyway so head, with a certain resignation, toward Caesar’s Palace. Honestly? I didn’t really mind. It’s usually the singer that always has to dig deepest in a live setting unless you’ve got, say, Angus Young in your band.

We might have missed our support slot with Silverchair…every dark cloud though.

Twenty years on, as I write, I ask myself…

Would I rather have played a tired show to 97 mildly uninterested Americans?

Or...

Would I have rather met a genuine Stars and Stripes All American hero?

(No brainer, right?)

After doing photos on the strip, we are now sat doing the Melody Maker interview around a lounge table in Caeser’s, when Front Of House casually says to me:

“Evel’s at the bar”

“Uh?” I reply.

“Evel Knievel... is at the bar” he repeats.

I look up from my Long Island Iced Tea and - fuck my eyes - there he is with his back to us, sitting alone, the coolest motherfucker in the world. Elvis on a motorcycle, replete with black and white chequered leather jacket.

Without a word I get up, leave the interview, and make a beeline for Evel fucking Knievel. It’s much preferable, and way more exciting, than trying to compete with the exaggerated sound bites and tacky, bike shed braggadocio.

I approach Evel, who has the slumped frame of a man who has broken every bone (and the odd journalist’s) in his tired, aching skeleton.

His head is heavy and gaunt at the same time. It hangs downward, staring with the slightest hint of regret through the rocks that keep his bourbon cold, gripped by a bony right hand.

“It’s an honour to meet you” I say, sitting myself down next to him.

He waves his hand with a sweeping grandiosity and doesn’t even look up. It’s either a touch arrogant, or he’s broken his neck a few too many times.

When I was about 6 I got the best Christmas present. My favourite childhood memory.

The Evel Knievel wind up toy.

In the 90’s I got the reissue, it’s not as good but I still have it on display on a shelf over the stairs in my flat, backed by an enormous poster of Evel, beer gut and receding hair blowing in the wind, in a standing position on his XR-750 Harley Davidson. Sat next to it an original 1973 Scramble Van.

Some plastic, doesn’t end up in oceans.

I’m so excited and I ask him “can I get you a drink, sir?”

He says, whilst still avoiding eye contact, through a hard-assed downturned mealy mouth, supported by a clenched jaw “thaaaas aaaalriiiiight son... I got ‘em on the house.”

Free drinks at Caeser’s? Quite impressive. All you have to do then, is risk your own life quite a lot, take out a photographers eyesight and get your broken-boned coma-induced rag doll of a body hoisted into an ambulance for a thirty day stretch in the nearest I.C.U.

I tell him about my toy. I tell him I used to bloody my knuckles trying to wind it...

He snaps, abruptly...

“YOU WEREN’T CRAAAAAANKIN’ IT HAAAAARD ENOUUUGH...”

Sensing he’s a little aggravated at having to talk to a mere mega-fan, I try to explain my bloody knuckles again. He takes another route, an unexpected twist, which completely floors me..

“I SAW YOOOOOUUUUU”

He says this accusatively. And this time I get the full, side-on Evel glare.

“Uh?” I reply... now, a teensy bit afraid.

“I SAW YOOOUUUU.... “

“You did?” I ask.

“YEAH.... I SAW YOOOUUU...”

There’s a pause, before he delivers the oddest line I’ve ever heard. From anyone. On this planet. Ever.

“YEAH” he says “I SAW YOU IN THAT SHOP. YOU STOLE THAT TOY, DINT’CHA?”

Okaaaaaay….time for a sharp exit, before he breaks both my arms with a baseball bat.

They say to never meet your heroes. I disagree completely. The man was mad as a box of frogs. Mentally herding kittens through his own vast desert.

As fucking brilliant as I could have ever wanted him to be.

So happy landings Robert Craig Knievel, and may those bones finally knit.

Your type just isn’t allowed anymore. And I miss it sorely. The fucking devil may care spirit of it all. It’s disappeared from music as well. It’s not de rigeur to be unhinged, or mildly uncontrollable these days...

It’s just not, cost effective, I suppose.

6am the following morning, still up from the previous night, West Brom and I, unsteady on our feet, stumble and sway through Caeser’s parking lot on our way back to the bus. Blinded by a panoramic and beautiful Nevada sunrise, he’s thinking aloud as to how best describe Evel Knievel to his 6 year old boy.

He laughs drily before settling on:

“Ee’s a daaaaaredevil, son”.

We board the steps of the bus, ticking, fizzing and buzzing, excited as we were as children.

Still drunk.

Still chuckling.