Is there a cooler dude that ever walked the Earth?
I stumbled upon some old Waylon Jennings interviews from back in the day, and this one is downright hysterical.
Joking about Charlie Daniels doing Skoal commercials, taking shots at the Nashville machine, girls taking their clothes off at festivals, Hells Angels and more, it’s fantastic.
In the very beginning of this interview Waylon is asked about the latest news from Nashville:
“It’s rolling along, a lot like it was, you know? Trippin’ over themselves and then somebody accidently, every once in a while, does something fantastic.”
And then on playing festivals:
“Festivals are great… it’s always a party going on, a good time thing happening. It’s kinda of hard to communicate as far as with the audience, especially when the girls start taking their clothes off.
How do you sing to that? I ain’t found no rhythm.”
One of a kind…
And perhaps one of the funniest moments of the entire interview is when a helicopter flies over (it was apparently giving rides to festival goers) and Waylon says they asked him if he wanted to take a ride.
He politely (or not so politely) declined:
“They tried to tell me to ride that helicopter and I sent them a note. I just told them ‘I’ll pass’ in country slang… I said ‘bulllllshiiiit.”
Same Waylon… same.
Honestly, I could watch old Waylon interviews all day.
Shooter Recalls Being Babysat By Members Of The Hells Angels As A Kid
And speaking of Hells Angels…
During an episode of Tales from the Tour Bus videos with Mike Judge (Creator of King of the Hill, and voice of Hank Hill), we learned about Billy Joe Shaver’s “Wacko From Waco” incident, a number of George Jones wildest moments, and even Waylon’s DEA raid.
The story goes that Jennings new-found success and notoriety as a country music outlaw had gained him the respect of The Hells Angels motorcycle gang, to the point where they would show up to all of Jennings’ shows.
“We show up at a festival somewhere and Waylon would be like ‘oh God, here they go again.'”
In fact, Waylon’s son Shooter recalled being babysat by the Hells Angels while his dad was touring or off doing whatever.
Shooter said:
“I was literally being babysat by Hells Angels, they were very nice. This one guy Hotfoot, I remember him going to a putt putt course with me when I was a little kid.”
And there was another guy named Boomer who was one of the original members:
“I remember from a very little age, I was like ‘that guy was cool.’ He had a cane with a skeleton on it. He gave me a Pez dispenser with a skull on it because he knew how much I loved that cane.”
Practically all of Waylon’s band, and his family were under the protection of the feared motorcycle gang, and nothing would ever happen at the man’s shows because everybody was scared of them.
