"The Stars Speak"
Songs and Stars, February 1966

Reading the personal biographies that follow, we're sure you'll agree that the Lovin' Spoonful are a very unique and fascinating and humorous new addition to the record scene.

Songs & Stars: Tell us about yourselves.

John: I was a student. Then I was an assistant gin-buying lead boy for Lightnin' Hopkins.

SS: What was that?

John: Lead boy. You know. That's a folk term. THAT'S A FOLK ROCK TERM! Really, it means I tuned his guitar and drove him around to jobs. I was an apprentice to a guitarmaker. And then I was somebody who wanted to be a sail-maker's apprentice but I only sanded the bottoms of boats.

SS: Anything else about yourself, John? How did you get into the music business?

John: Well, I played music. (Ha ha ha.)

SS: What do you play?

John: Harmonica and guitar...

Steve: I play baseball.

John: ...autoharp and rubber bands a lot.

Zal: I used to play spoons. I can play my hands... and my armpit! I was a high school dropout. I started playing guitar when I was 15 and I quit school when I was 16. I was folky.

And then I went to Israel and worked on a Kibbutz for 4 months and didn't dig that very much.

SS: They wouldn't let you Kibbutz around?

Zal: All our Jewish readers will know what a Kibbutz is, won't ya folks? Buy bonds! (ed note: A Kibbutz is a Collective farm or settlement in Israel.)

The Kibbutz was a stepping stone.

Then I ran around for 2 years all over the place and came back to my native Toronto and lived in a laundromat and played my guitar a lot and didn't do anything for almost a year but was the funniest kid on the block. I used to hold court in an all-night restaurant every night.

Then I accompanied the Halifax Three. They also quit school and now they're all selling shoes...

And then I... uh... blah blah blah.

And then I was with a group called the Mugwumps in Washington D.C. where, incidentally, John Harmonica (ed. note: John Sebastian) had worked before us. I used to pay him a salary to play harmonica for us. John and I got very tight. They said John and I were getting too critical of the music we were playing.

SS: What sort of music were you playing?

Zal: Rock and roll... Folk Rock! Heh heh heh.

SS: The Mugwumps never made it, right?

Zal: The Mugwumps broke up and John and I got together and that's what I've been doing ever since.

SS: All right, we'll pick up with Joe.

Joe: I went to school in Long Island and I pole-vaulted and then I got out of high school. Then I fulfilled my military obligation. I worked in a weather station. At the same time I started a band.

SS: What branch of service?

Joe: The Air Force. At the same time, I was in the weather station I went to college. I studied economics, but I got tired of college and went into music full time.

Between college and the Air Force I learned to add and kill people, but I decided I didn't want to do that. So I played the drums a lot... and loud.

Then I moved to the Village and eventually became a Spoonful.

SS: Your turn, Steve.

Steve: I starved for a whole year. I was an attendant in a grocery store and then I became a musician at the age of 17 after an automobile accident. I played rhythm guitar for 2 years in an 8-piece twist band.

Zal: You bum!

Steve: Then I was in a 4-piece swing band and didn't play rock and roll. I played for mobsters at dances. Then I quit playing music to go back to college, because I was in college at one time.

SS: What were you majoring in?

Steve: Engineering.

Zal: How were your marks?

SS: Would you care to mention the college?

Steve: Sure... Suffolk Community College.

Zal: They'll get a big charge to know that one of their guys made it to the big time! (Ha ha.)

Steve: Then I went to Europe and came back and met John.

SS: And as they say in the press releases, "the rest is history."