In The Red Records' Larry Hardy: "I Remember Ike Turner Responded, 'Andre Williams Is Still Alive?'" (Part Three)

Larry Hardy is the founder and owner of In the Red Records (ITR). For the past 34 years, ITR

has been one of the leading independent labels. ITR's discography runs the gamut from The

Gories to Andre Williams to Redd Kross. Throughout all the turbulence that’s impacted the

record industry — from streaming destroying the traditional business model, long vinyl

turnaround times, etc. — Hardy and ITR have persevered. Most importantly, the quality of the

label's releases has never wavered. The following interview is the third segment of a three-part series. It covers the years 2000 to the present. Due to the length, this installment will appear in two parts.

In The Red Records founder Larry Hardy with Andre Williams

Ryan Leach: Let's start with the year 2000. 1999 was the peak of the record industry before file sharing and streaming destroyed its traditional business model. What was your experience like around the Millennium?

Larry Hardy: Yeah, I'd say I experienced something similar. In the early 2000s, I had a good run of records that did well. But I knew that had I released them six years earlier in the 1990s, they would’ve done way better.

RL: You’d posit that near the end of the grunge era, say 1994, was the high-water mark for In

the Red’s physical sales. Not for me. I was just starting out then. I was doing okay in 1994. But in the 2000s, I was working with the Black Lips and The Ponys. Later on, I worked with Jay Reatard and The Vivian Girls. They were getting loads of press, drawing crowds. They sold well by my standards, but had a band had that hype in the mid-‘90s, they would’ve sold a lot more. By then streaming had arrived.

RL: Like most independent labels at the time, you were CD heavy with much smaller vinyl

runs on releases.

LH: In the late 1990s, CDs were what made money. Vinyl cost money. I still released vinyl

when it wasn’t profitable because I liked it. The bands liked it. It was that way for the majors too. Releases from that era, the vinyl edition is often expensive. People weren’t buying records back then.

RL: Some of your vinyl releases from that period now go for good money. You might have

pressed 500 LPs of those titles that sold out decades ago. I’m thinking of The Panther Burns'

Panther Phobia (2000). Are you looking to reissue some of that material?

LH: I’m reissuing some of The Cheater Slicks’ releases. One of them (Forgive Thee, 1997)

never even had a vinyl release. It was a double CD. It was too long for even a double album, so we released it on CD because that’s what people were buying then. It’ll likely be a four-LP set. We’ll see how that goes.

RL: That’s your Chicago at Carnegie Hall (1971) release.

LH: Yeah. I'm going to reissue another Cheater Slicks record with demos as a double LP. I do

think of repressing records from that era. I’d like to reissue Panther Phobia. However, I know

Tav Falco doesn’t like the record. Talking to him about it would be strange.

RL: That’s the second-best record he cut. Only Behind the Magnolia Curtin (1981) is better.

LH: Agreed. He doesn’t like it. A guy is writing an article about it currently. I'm interested in

reading it when it comes out.

RL: Didn’t you go to Memphis to oversee the production of Panther Phobia?

LH: I thought I was going to watch them record the whole thing. My guess was it would take

a day or two. But it took a long time. Poor Jeffrey Evans agreed to produce it. Apparently, they

just did take after take after take of the same song. I was only out there for the first day of

recording. I had to go out to Memphis to pay them. It was my first time in Memphis and it was a lot of fun. They played some festival with Rufus Thomas.

RL: Larry, you know The Panther Burns can’t record over used tape.

LH: I know that. And they did it anyway.

RL: Brian Waters (Countdowns, The Flash Express) introduced me to you sometime around

2004. We were at The Scene Bar in Glendale. That was a great venue that I think is forgotten

now. It was a regular stop for bands associated with In the Red, Sympathy and Crypt Records. Of course, Brian backed up a legend you worked with around the Millennium — Andre Williams.

LH: I met Andre Williams through the Demolition Doll Rods. He’d had a comeback album

that he’d done, his first record in a long time. Norton released it on vinyl. The Doll Rods were

huge fans. They went to the East Coast and played a show with Andre. They hit it off. Andre

developed a crush on Margaret Doll Rod, so he ended up following them back to Detroit. Dan Kroha asked me if I wanted to do an Andre Williams record. Dan said he and Mick Collins would back him. It was a no-brainer.

RL: You were working with Andre and Tav at the same time. That’s a lot to handle.

LH: Tav was always nice. With Andre you never knew what you were going to get. Sometimes he was an absolute sweetheart. My mom met and adored him. Other times, he’d fly off the handle. Usually, that had to do with money or alcohol.

RL: I can only imagine.

LH: There’s no way I can mentally deal with situations like that now. I was in my early thirties

then. I couldn’t handle a person like that now. I would get phone calls at three in the morning

from him when he was on tour in Europe. He’d swear at me, telling me how he was getting

ripped off and that I was responsible for putting him in that situation. Andre was dating a woman on the East Coast. I think she was an accountant. She’d always phone Andre’s attorney, then me. She’d swear at me. It turned out Andre wasn’t getting ripped off. He’d insist on getting paid in cash after every show. He’d then immediately blow it all. At the end of the tour, he’d ask, “Where’s the money?” “Andre, you spent it all.” Brian Waters has some amazing stories, having recorded and toured with Andre. Another time we flew Andre out here to Los Angeles. A guy wanted to interview him. He planned to make an Andre Williams documentary. Andre had a show in town that was going to pay him a decent amount of money. We were also putting together the Black Godfather (2000) album. We had a song nearly completed; the track was done but he still needed to put vocals on it. We thought we’d get all of that done while he was here and the show would cover the expenses. Brian Waters checked Andre into a hotel in Hollywood that I had paid for. The next day, Brian went to meet up with Andre and he wasn’t there. The hotel manager told Brian that they had to kick Andre out of his room. He said something like, “That guy is a bad man.” Andre was up there, inviting God knows who over and doing God knows what. Brian actually drove around the streets of Hollywood to find him. Andre had his important show that night. Miraculously, Brian found him. He was hanging out with these super sketchy people. They had taken all of Andre’s possessions and they weren’t giving them back. They said that Andre owed them money. Brian had to navigate that situation. I got him another hotel on Wilshire. Andre chewed me out, saying I was making him stay in the ghetto and that he doesn’t ever stay in the ghetto.

Producer and former Dirtbombs bassist Jim Diamond with Andre Williams during the recording of Silky

RL: This is over twenty years ago, but I remember Brian telling me a story of touring with

Andre. They were in New Orleans and Andre was lost. He was telling Brian they needed to see his friend Ernie. Brian was driving around in circles for hours before they finally found Ernie’s place at 4:00 a.m. It turns out it was Ernie K-Doe and it was the Mother-in-Law Lounge. As I recall, Ernie lived above the club and came out to greet them in a robe with curlers in his hair.

LH: Did I tell you about the time we met with Ike Turner?

RL: No. That’s incredible.

LH: Andre Williams' Silky (1998) was a surprise hit. It sold really well. Andre was excited.

He told me, “I want to do more records with you.” The Blues Explosion was taking him out on

tour. He was drawing crowds. We had this idea of making more records like that. I met with

Rudy Ray Moore. I had breakfast with him where we discussed making a record. I thought, “I

can cut records with these legends and get The Gories and The Jon Spencer Blues Explosion to back them. It could be a cool thing. These garage and R&B records.” It was a terrible idea. I’m glad it didn’t work out. David Katznelson heard from somebody who worked with Ike Turner that he’d likely cut a record for cheap. This was in the late 1990s when most people wouldn’t touch Ike with a ten-foot pole. We arranged a meeting with him; Ike came over to my apartment in Burbank. Ike was nice. I did see flashes — signs that he could be a really mean guy. He had a woman with him. She was younger, a new singer in his Revue. He autographed my Ike Turner record. He made her go out to the car to get his gold-ink pen. When he started shaking it, some of the ink spilled onto his boots. He yelled at her, “Get me something to wipe this shit off of my boots!” Like I said, we saw little bits of his scary side. He then went right back into being charming. He told me that if we made a record together, he could probably get Eric Clapton to play on it. I said, “That’s not what we had in mind. We cut this record with Andre Williams. That’s the kind of album we’re looking to make.” Andre had produced an Ike and Tina LP. They knew each other. I remember Ike responded, “Andre Williams is still alive?” “Yeah, we did a record with him. It’s doing really well.” We gave Ike one of Andre’s CDs. By the way, after our meeting, he left to go to Rick James’ house in The Valley. Rick James was calling Ike on his cell phone while he was at my apartment. Anyway, Ike left our house and phoned Katznelson later on. Ike had listened to Andre’s Silky record. He told Katznelson, “Boy, Andre has been in the business way too long to cut a record so out of tune.”

RL: You got the Tav Falco response. The difference being, Ike was used to cutting very

"professional-sounding" records.

LH: Exactly. Andre was also capable of cutting very professional records. It depended on

what condition he was in. I saw him in the studio occasionally directing bands. I could tell that

he had produced records for Motown. There were other times that were brutal. I had mentioned to you earlier about that track we needed his vocals on for Black Godfather. Andre came into the studio for that session so drunk that Brian Waters had to go into the sound booth and hold him upright because he'd fallen backwards into a bunch of music stands. Almost every word to that song was punched in. He wandered out of the studio and we found him hassling some people at a KFC. There was that side to Andre. You never knew what you were going to get. Later on, he got sober. I didn’t see him then. But I heard he was a completely different person. Just a sweet old man, always nice. But when I was dealing with him, he was still a young 65-year-old.

RL: You might have been onto something. I recall that Adam (Cox) from The Exploding

Hearts met up with Ike Turner. I don't know the extent of it, but it wasn’t too long before that

unfortunate van accident.

LH: Really?

RL: Yes. I remember when it happened all those years ago. At the very least, Adam met up

with Ike and took photos. It’s something I’ll never forget because it was so out of leftfield.

LH: I didn’t know that.

RL: When I think of In the Red in the early 2000s, I think of The Dirtbombs' Ultraglide in

Black (2001).

LH: That was the best-selling record I had before I started working with Fuzz. I didn't see

that one coming. Timing had a lot to do with it. The White Stripes broke. The British music press was paying attention to them. It was almost like the grunge thing where they'd decided that "everything from Detroit is cool now." The Dirtbombs got caught up in that. Plus, it’s just a really good party record.

RL: I'd be remiss if I didn’t mention The Hunches. Didn't you see Chris (Gunn) and Hart's

(Gledhill) previous band The Conmen on a Necessary Evils tour?

LH: Yeah, I drove The Cheater Slicks and The Necessary Evils on a West Coast tour. When

they played Eugene, Oregon, The Conmen were the opening act. We were all blown away. They were still in high school. Their parents had dropped them off. Great band. I would run into them over the years. They mentioned to me that they had a new band. I told them to send me the demo. It all started from there.

RL: The closest thing to an in-house producer In the Red had was Mike McHugh over at The

Distillery.

LH: Definitely. I would've made him the in-house producer if I could have. It didn't work out

that way. It was a fun studio to go to and Mike was into experimenting. He had great equipment and was willing to push it.

The final part to this interview will be posted at a later date. Be in the know with In The Red releases here.