Milk 'n' metal - singer Pat Boone - Interview

Trading white bucks for a black leather tux, America's patron saint of white bread, singer Pat Boone, explores the darker world of heavy metal on his new record, In a Metal Mood: No More Mr. Nice Guy (MCA/Hip-O). Here, the wholesome heavyweight talks to guitar wizard Dweezil Zappa about how be found heaven between rock and a hard place

DWEEZIL ZAPPA: All right, Pat, are you prepared?

PAT BOONE: I've braced myself.

DZ: Is it true that the contraband smuggler in the movie Smokey and the Bandit was based on you?

PB: How did you find that out?

DZ: I have my ways.

PB: Folks in my own little intimate coterie know that I've been hooked on the white stuff for years. First it was low-fat and then skim. Finally, I just went with powdered. There's always been that telltale white ring around my mouth, and sometimes I get it up my nose as well.

DZ: How interesting. Now, when was the last time you were arrested?

PB: This may surprise you, but I was arrested in high school.

DZ: In high school? Did this have anything to do with the white stuff?

PB: Even in high school, I was addicted. We had our own source - a cow named Rosemary.

DZ: So you were constantly drunk?

PB: Just completely coagulating. But anyway, there was this one time when I was with my buddy Billy Potter. We had the money to go to the movie theater, but we decided to sneak in anyway.

DZ: All that time, superhigh on the white stuff.

PB: Just coming out of our noses. The ushers came after us, so we thought we'd better go. But this little manager - who, as I remember, looked like a penguin, wide as he was high, in a black suit - had already called the police.

DZ: You were arrested for the movie-theater caper?

PB: My buddy bolted down the street. But I, like a schlump, went on down to the police station. I was fingerprinted, and my dad had to come and get me out of it.

DZ: So that was the first time you were arrested?

PB: The only time. I went straight after that.

DZ: Do you have many groupies?

PB: I grow my own. I like groupies that look like me. So I have four daughters, about ten granddaughters, and five grandsons.

DZ: Were they hooked on the white stuff, too?

PB: Yes. I'm afraid it runs in the family.

DZ: Is them a problem with stage diving at your shows?

PB: I did that twice. That's why my head is shaped this funny way.

DZ: The audience sort of parted like the Red Sea?

PB: Nobody knew they were supposed to catch me. Plus, I was at a nightclub, and I just hit the tables, with the silverware and the plates and the candles. I decided that wasn't for me. But who knows? After this next album, I may try it again.

DZ: It might be more appropriate.

PB: We're doing a college tour, and it may be set up the way it was the time I saw Ozzy Osbourne.

DZ: Do you wish that your audience was that enthusiastic?

PB: I wish they could be that enthusiastic. But my audience might blow their Medicare trying that stuff.

DZ: So, I've heard the new record. Are you excited about the possibilities of bonding with the younger generation?

PB: I really am. I've always wanted to stay involved with young people. I never bought into the idea that entertainers owe nothing to their audience except a good performance. In this culture, where entertainers and athletes wield such power, it seems only right to me that they try to make their influence a good one. I've talked to you kiddingly about it, but on my new tour I could almost present myself as Professor Boone.

DZ: Master of Metal.

PB: Master of Metal. I can imagine going beyond the performance of all those songs, having one last chance to be the guy standing at the crossroads saying, "Hey, don't go that way. That's full of potholes." So that's a serious answer to -

DZ: A serious question. What's your favorite heavy-metal song? I know, being the Master of Metal, you're familiar with all heavy-metal recordings. But Is them one that you wish you had done but didn't for your album?

PB: There are several. One is Aerosmith's "Back in the Saddle." Oddly enough, I also like and feel greatly challenged by "Symphony of Destruction" - Megadeth. They're what I describe as Old Testament prophetic, giving that whole feeling of Old Testament doom. The songwriters are like the prophets Jeremiah, Isaiah, and Jonah.

DZ: So it's just a disguise, this heavy-metal stuff?

PB: It's the Torah come to life! The prophets anyway: Ozzy Osbourne's "Crazy Train" and Axl Rose's "Paradise City." There's a very legitimate crying out, saying, "Hey, this is not the way things are supposed to be."

DZ: But it's different from rap music, where they specifically talk about ways of getting back at people - killing them.

PB: In metal music, it's the young people themselves who are paying the price. But for me, what is astonishing about the metal singers is their range.

DZ: Or lack thereof.

PB: Well, the ones that impress me are the ones that just shriek. It blows me away. I don't know how they can do it over and over and not completely rip their treads out.

DZ: Oh, they kill their voices. At what point did you realize you were the Master of Metal? Was there a specific day?