Peter Buck can’t deal with the cold anymore. I’m reaching him south of the border at an undisclosed Mexican location, after the guitarist spent the past few months in Brazil “working with a musician” and in Chile “helping move telescope parts and then climbing up in the mountains.” He is ostensibly a man who doesn’t want to be bothered. “Whoever named seasonal affective disorder did a great job because the minute October 16 hits, I’m like, Well, that’s it. I’m done,” he says. “So I’ve been elsewhere.” But here he is in great spirits over the phone, prepared to discuss something Buck has never had the opportunity to until now: his work with the late, great Warren Zevon as a member of Hindu Love Gods, a band formed as an infrequent R.E.M. side project that Zevon sauntered his way into without the need for lawyers, guns, or money.
The timeline begins in 1984, when Zevon — in a tailspin of professional and personal lows — found himself in Athens, Georgia, at the recommendation of his manager to experiment with a new approach to music. With Buck and his fellow R.E.M. bandmates Mike Mills and Bill Berry alongside musician Bryan Cook, the quintet recorded a few demos and went on to play a one-off gig with Michael Stipe. But things didn’t really blast off until 1987, when Buck, Mills, and Berry were hired as the backing band for Zevon’s comeback album, Sentimental Hygiene. (To put it in R.E.M. terms, this was between Life’s Rich Pageant and Document.) The sessions culminated in a series of blues-oriented covers that were repackaged as Hindu Love Gods’ eponymous album. One song in particular, a cover of Prince’s “Raspberry Beret,” even got decent radio play. On April 12, the album is being reissued for the first time. “It means a lot to me that people are going to hear this and actually understand what it’s all about,” Buck explains. “At the time, the reviews were kind of like, ‘What do these guys think they’re doing?’ Well, we were having fun.”
Hindu Love Gods’s release, though, was plagued by internal dissent. The impromptu jam session had been meant to perhaps serve as a bonus track or two to pad out a future box set — it was Zevon’s team that pushed the LP format as an easy payday several years later in 1990. In the name of friendship and Zevon’s money troubles, Buck relented and never took a penny. (“It was a favor for a friend,” as he puts it.) He stresses that his irritation wasn’t directed at Zevon himself but rather at the people Zevon kept in his inner circle. In fact, it hasn’t dampened how he feels about the experience to this day. “I still have a really strong place in my heart for Warren,” he says, “even though he could be one of the biggest grumps.”
You and Warren’s manager, Andy Slater, were familiar with each other in college. How exactly did that parlay into your getting acquainted with the man himself?
We weren’t great friends, but I liked Andy. Then when R.E.M. started, he was like, “I’m in the music business.” Within two months, he signed Macy Gray and other people who were big deals. He was managing people as a young guy. He was working with Warren. I absolutely loved Warren’s records, but he had no career at the time. Part of this was because he drank himself out of a career. No one really trusted him; he didn’t have a record deal. Andy just thought it might be interesting if Warren worked with someone other than the “usual people,” even though his usual crew were the best players, like Leland Sklar and David Lindley.
What were your first impressions of Warren?
I liked him. He was grumpy. He was really funny. He came to Athens to do some demos before we did the record. He used to tell us, “You guys are just kids.” And I’m like, I’m not that young, I’m 25. He’d been through the world, and I hadn’t. We demoed four songs. It seemed like we were maybe in the pool to work on his next record if they indeed could get him a deal, which is what wound up happening.
Warren linked up with Hindu Love Gods during what seemed to be the worst period of his life. Which one of you trusted the idea of a collaboration, even if it was initially a one-off gig and recording session?
I just wanted to try it. The songs, all of those songs. You just can’t deny that, man. I don’t believe that goes away. When he came to Athens, he was … how shall I put this? In the last stage of almost being sober. There was one night where things got a little out of control. I was supposed to be in charge of him. Andy said, “Don’t let him drink.” I went, “He’s 45, what do I say? ‘Don’t drink’?” So I suggested maybe not drinking was a good idea, and that really didn’t go over well. It was the first time I’d ever seen one of those alcohol personality changes. It was like, Oh yeah, that’s really fucking dumb.
He went home, and to his credit, he called Andy to apologize. He was a mess, and he sobered up. As far as I know, he never had a drink again until his cancer diagnosis. So when they came to hire us for Warren’s album, it was a done deal. The three of us said, “Yeah, we’ll do this.” And we actually got paid. I had never gotten paid for anything. They put us up in nice apartments in Los Angeles overlooking a hill. We came into a $2,000 a day studio with no idea what we’re doing.
I found an old newspaper feature from 1984 in which Warren says you made him “feel okay to be shy.” I’m curious what you think he meant by this.
I have pretty decent social anxiety and have treated it with alcohol over the years. When Warren and I were hanging around, we didn’t have to talk a lot. It was like, Let’s get some Mexican food. Okay, let’s go back and work. He didn’t have to regale me with stories about Linda Ronstadt or Mick Fleetwood or anything. We were just making a little record and getting together. It was work. That’s what we did. It was also the weirdest working habits I’ve ever had in my life. We would get there at four in the afternoon and then we all ordered dinner from the place next door. We all would get steak and green salads with no dressing. At around 5:30 p.m. we’d start playing and then around 8:00 p.m. one of us would go, “Yeah, well, I guess we’re done today.”
I got to say, I had a great time in Los Angeles because I had 22 hours a day off. We learned quite a bit about the conciseness of the studio musician, which I didn’t know all that well. We were cutting ten songs in three weeks, so it wasn’t a rush process. Between takes, we would just play songs. We went to see the Georgia Satellites; one day, we played “Battleship Chains” in the studio. Another day, the new Prince record came on the radio, and we did “Raspberry Beret.” We recorded none of it. We just did it because it was fun. We were working on a language that we shared together.
Was there any deeper intention here than just enjoying the company of a fellow musician and getting a paycheck? Were you perhaps trying to give him a bit of stability?
I personally wasn’t. But he was so much more focused doing the album than when we were doing those demos back in Athens. You could just tell he was in a different place and ready to go. All we did for those short hours a day was work, and it worked really well. I was just trying to serve the songs, keep the energy up, and maybe give him a little something R.E.M. had — that young, go-for-it, live-in-the-studio energy, which he hadn’t had recently.
The three of you transcended the backing-band assignment and co-wrote “Even a Dog Can Shake Hands” with him. It’s a big fuck-you to the industry. How did you all arrive at this conceit?
Warren loved words. He’d come in and just start repeating the most random shit: “Monkey wash, donkey rinse. Does the monkey wash the donkey? I don’t know.” One day, he came in and he had this song called “Even a Dog Can Shake Hands.” I thought we should play it, but he never got around to finishing the lyrics. We were rehearsing something or other, and I started playing a riff and we fell into it within minutes. And Warren goes, “Okay, that’s it. I’ve got it.” He had words almost immediately, and we knocked it out. Believe me, it was from his personal experience of having been one of those guys in Hollywood to turning into one of those guys that was an “untouchable.” I mean, when we did those demos with him, he stayed at the Holiday Inn and then when he couldn’t afford it and got kicked out, he spent the night at my house. My house was a shared rental. It wasn’t a home. He was at the bottom of the barrel. Certainly, that song had a lot to do with it.
I interviewed David Letterman a few years back about Warren, and he joked that Warren wasn’t the type of guy you went to seeking advice about the world. I have to imagine this would be different in a musical context. Did you treat the Sentimental Hygiene sessions as a learning experience?
Oh, they were definitely learning experiences. Years after we made that record, we had some ups and downs in our relationship because of management stuff on his side, which we’ll get to. But I never blamed him. Never. Sometimes, my phone would ring and it would be 4 a.m. I’d think, Okay, it’s 1 a.m. in Los Angeles, I bet Warren’s awake. I’d pick it up and would hear this voice go, “Hey, Peter. Have you read the new Thomas Pynchon yet?” And we’d talk about books. We probably did that 20 times. “Have you ever read John D. MacDonald? Oh, you’ve got to read John D. MacDonald.” That kind of thing. I got the feeling maybe when he was lonely or was thinking about taking a drink, he just wanted to talk to someone about books who he knew would be awake at that time of night. So we had a bunch of those conversations.
I learned a lot. I’d never read John D. MacDonald; now I own a whole bunch of John D. MacDonald books, and I understand how that writing influenced Warren. The woman I was with at the time was like, “Who the fuck are you talking to about books at five in the morning?” There are certain friends you would never pick up the phone for after midnight. I would for Warren. Even though I didn’t know it was him, I could guess it was him. I’d always pick it up. Because I knew it wasn’t trouble. It was always his thoughts, which were good.
You said something when R.E.M. was interviewed before your Songwriters Hall of Fame induction, which was “We lived or died on the strength of our songs.” It struck me as a statement Warren would relate to and agree with. Did he at all influence how you approached the art of songwriting?
Yes. He’s a classical musician. There were interesting transitions in ways to get from point A to point B, and I tried to absorb everything I could from him. Warren started as a professional songwriter for the Turtles. It was kind of built into him. He didn’t have a song that had one or two chords — he was going to try to come up with something different. He brought in songs. That was very impressive to me.
The songs that became Hindu Love Gods were recorded after you officially wrapped Warren’s album. Who flipped the switch and initiated the jam?
It was the last day. We were coming in the next day to take back our equipment. Niko Bolas was the album’s engineer, and he had an amazing ear. He put three amps in a room and four guitars, and they all sounded great. So we were listening to everything, and Warren asked if we had heard anything we felt we still needed to do or fix. I said “no.” And he paused and said, “We must have rehearsed 15 songs, and I know record companies — they’re going to ask for 12-inch B-sides and extra songs for the cassettes. Why don’t we just go knock out some of those?” And we thought, Well, all right. We were still set up and tuned up. It was 9 p.m., and we knocked it out in about 45 minutes, maybe an hour. I liked knowing down the line there would be a boxed set and they would throw that on there. I didn’t expect it to be an album.
There’s a lot of conjecture that the album was recorded in various states of drunkenness, which doesn’t fit the timeline of Warren’s sobriety. Can you clarify that for history’s sake?
There was no alcohol in the studio at any time because we didn’t want to put pressure on Warren. So believe it or not, we were sober when we did that. We drank around him once because I was reading a detective novel set in Miami and the characters went to a place called Harry’s Stone Crab Legs. I was talking to Warren and said, “I don’t even know what a stone-crab leg is. I want to get some stone-crab legs.” He goes, “I know this place out in the Valley.” So we went up to the Valley, and three of us R.E.M.-ers had a couple of drinks. Nothing untoward — we all kept an eye on Warren.
Warren was driving, and honestly, I shouldn’t have had the drinks. There was a belly dancer there too. It was that kind of night, meaning it ended at about 7:30 p.m. and Warren got in his car and left to do whatever he did at night — fight crime or who knows. He passed away so you don’t have to worry about this, but don’t ever get in the car with that fucker. The worst driver I’ve ever been with sober. I can’t imagine what it was like when he was drunk. I’m pretty sure I’m immortal because I lived through a 20-minute drive with Warren Zevon.
Did you ever float the idea to record original material as opposed to strictly covers?
I don’t know if I would’ve had the nerve to ask. It would’ve been a bit presumptuous for these kids to go, “Hey, Warren, you’re one of the greatest songwriters on earth. Why don’t we collaborate?” That said, I’m immensely proud that he heard us jamming on what became “Even a Dog Can Shake Hands” and really liked it. I think it’s a great song.
In the aftermath of Hindu Love Gods’s release a few years later, Warren said of the three of you: “They think I’m exploiting them and I think they resented me, but it has nothing to do with any of us.” Did you indeed feel exploited at the time?
I didn’t worry about the record, but we were possibly about to do a tour and his management at the time was exploiting us. They were selling it to bookers as “an R.E.M. tour featuring Warren Zevon.” And I called Warren and said, “Warren, what do you think is going to happen if we go in and we do ‘Sentimental Hygiene’ and ‘Reconsider Me’ and ‘Raspberry Beret’ or whatever the fuck? It doesn’t work.” I was booking my own tour with R.E.M. where I actually got paid for it. It was definitely exploitative. He called me on the phone, and we talked. I told him, “Warren, you got to get your management shit together. The way this works is you’re responsible for the people around you. And if someone around you is fucking me, then you be in charge of it.”
How did he respond to that?
Oh, he was pissed off. Then about three months later, he called me up and wanted to talk about a book he read. But when it came to the album, it was three years later. He called me up and said, “Hey, I’m in trouble with the taxman. My kid’s going to college, and I just don’t have any money. They offered me $180,000 if I put out that stuff we recorded as Hindu Love Gods.” I considered Warren a friend, and he was a friend who had no money. At least that’s what he said. Off the top of my head, I went, “Yeah.” I didn’t ask for our fifth or fourth or whatever. I just said, “Yeah, we could do that.” I hope the money actually went to getting his kid into college and not buying great T-shirts or whatever it is he did to the money that made it disappear so rapidly. Our manager thought we were insane. He was like, “That’s a lot of money that’s partly yours, and it’s your name. It’s the name of the band you had before Warren even came in.”
With Warren, there probably hasn’t been a less financially astute person on the face of the earth. But the main problem was the record companies. All of a sudden it was like, “Well, you all obviously have to shoot a video.” I don’t shoot videos for my own band. Then they started taking clips of us dancing. We were just like, “This is just really fucking cheesy.” They ended up doing a video where they put bird heads on us. I was like, “I can live with that.”
Did the two of you maintain a friendship in the aftermath of this?
We were friendly in the sense that we got through it and still talked. In the days prior to cell phones, I had a familial breakup, to put it lightly. I lived in my car for a year. I mean, it was a nice car and I stayed in great hotels. It was ’91 or ’92. I had plenty of money; I was just on the road. I didn’t take my phone book with me. I knew three numbers by heart, and I didn’t talk to anybody. We sold 30 million records in a couple of years. I grew a beard, drove around, and would drink tequila in really slimy bars with sleazy drifters — and I didn’t call anyone. If we had bumped into each other, it would’ve been one thing. But it never happened.
It wasn’t until we heard he was sick that we reached out again. None of us had his number. We had our manager call through and say, “Listen, the guys think highly of you, and if there’s anything they could do on a personal or financial level, blah blah blah.” His manager came back and said, “Everyone’s coming out of the woodwork to talk to Warren. He has good days and bad days and essentially doesn’t have time for this kind of stuff, but he thanks you.” And that was that.
Buck’s alternate favorite sandwich, sent a few hours after our conversation: “A bacon-wrapped hot dog with jalapeños and hot sauce. Midnight gut bomb.” Photo: Peter Buck
When Warren appeared on his final Late Show episode, he famously told David to “enjoy every sandwich.” In the spirit of that, what was the best sandwich you’ve eaten recently?
Let me think, this is important. There’s this little shack down near my place in Mexico. It’s cinder block and has chicken wire in the front, and it’s got a goat with three women working the counter. Two days ago, I had a torta. The way they make a torta is this Mexican salad — they take three hot-dog buns, put all this stuff in the middle, and then fry it. I took a picture of it, and I’m like, This clearly is three hot-dog buns stuck together. It was really, really good.
