Jimmy Recca talks Stooges in a Detroit Rock City outtake

Jimmy Recca, former Stooge, in his inimitable, animated ramble, on writing “I Got a Right” and entering Stoogeland as the bassist. This is an outtake from Detroit Rock City: The Uncensored History of Rock 'n' Roll in America's Loudest City (Da Capo 2013)

Recca: I joined the band around February 1970. The song that was first recorded by the band the three of us, Ron [Asheton], James [Williamson]and myself as a way to break the ice and to get Ron to accept me as a bass player was “I Got A Right.” We all had the same input on it. We had a lot more songs, but my performance rights to those songs, well, that's why they never did any of those other songs after I left.

Also, they never reproduced them because they were too complex and James couldn't remember, to tell you the truth. He had very little to do with anything other than his parts, his riffs. He had his riffs, I had my riffs, Ron had his riffs. Nobody tries to write a person out of history when that's the way it is. I was there and those guys don't want to write me out of history because they don't want to go back to remember what they can't remember. The only thing they remember is that song, “I Got a Right.” Ron knew it and that's why Ron and I finally got along so well, he knew my ability in that band you know. It took at least seven rehearsals before Ron would even say a fucking word to me. He wouldn't even look at me. He didn't like me. He had that fucking rock star thing like ‘I don't have to accept you if I don't want to. Say whatever you want to. It doesn't matter what you say, we didn't join you, you joined us.’

And I think for the most part, none of it was going to fucking matter, nothing was going to come out of it. Ron started feeling the pangs of James hooking up with Scotty because Scotty and James were the same age and they kind of hung out together and James was getting into the band through Scotty [Asheton]  and Scotty was promoting him to come to rehearsal. Ron was not digging that at all. When things get to him, you know he's fucking caustic, man. But he would get over it eventually. So that's the way it was with James and him and that's how it went on.

Niagara on Ron Asheton in the later years - Detroit Rock City outtake

NIAGARA (Destroy All Monsters, Dark Carnival) : Ronnie ended up being a millionaire when he died. He would call me and say ‘I’m almost there.’ He really lived it up.  He bought all these collections, the Nazi stuff.  He bought a ceremonial dagger for like $12,000. When things started back with Iggy, he had money and he would say ‘you like this furniture?’ And I’d be like, ‘no, no.’

Whenever he went up north with the Colonel, he would buy me things like a fur coat.

Even after we split, he would come over and we’d stay up all night and talk and he’d stay the night and get high. So he used to stay here a lot. Then he got his place up north, near the lake up by Saginaw.[Michigan]. We used to hang out at antique places and he’d come in and they’d say ‘Ronnie, I got something you might like.’

He bought a decent place, more modern, perfect for him. Ronnie did the right thing. He always said ‘I’m only going to live 10 more years.’

When I was with him we bought a '66 Cadillac. We must have had some money at that time, because I was with him then.  

When he died, Ronnie was supposed to go out with us, January 4 is the Colonel’s birthday. So he called him a few times, and Ron didn’t answer which was normal. Ronnie never answered his phone, he just let it go to voice mail. But now the voice mail was full and that never happened. So a couple days later, Colonel said to me, ‘this is bad, there’s something wrong.’

I thought Ronnie was going to die but I wasn’t sure this was it. So we called [Asheton girlfriend] Dara, who Ronnie bought a house for a few doors down.

We called her and said ‘go see Ronnie.’  She said, ‘we had a fight, fuck him, he’s a clown, I’m not going over there,’ and finally she said ‘ok.’

It was the middle of the night and she went and called us back and said he’s dead. He was in his bed. Ron was not taking care of himself and he would not go to a doctor. Those tours were really strenuous and he was always on stage doing his thing. One night he woke up and his nose was running and he put a Kleenex in it and when he woke up there was blood all over it.  Something had burst.

He had been diagnosed with high blood pressure, and he wasn’t fat, he had like, from waist down he was so skinny and he had been losing weight.

He was so skinny with the Stooges that he always looked bigger.

Anyway, he was smoking and drinking and taking the high blood pressure pills, which he ran out of and he wasn’t going to get more.

I was always telling him to think about it. Ronnie hated anything new and I never got him started back on the pills.

Iggy Pop talks about Jack White not recording the Stooges

photos, 2003, Mojo (www.mickhutson.com)

A largely unknown part of a book like Detroit Rock City is the portion that is never seen. In movies, it’s called the cutting room floor, and these days you can see what ended up on that floor through DVD extras. We aren’t smart enough to come up with that in the book world, and “updated” has little of the panache of an "extra." So what didn't make it into Detroit Rock City for any number of reasons? I'll be running some of these extras once a week or so over the summer. 

Check it out.

IGGY POP (on Jack White producing a post-reformation Stooges recording) : It was one of these things, it went back and forth two or three times. I heard he [White] wanted to do it and I thought that could work in the group’s favor for a couple of reasons, but I didn’t want to do a whole record, I just wanted to do a few tracks. That was mostly because I had already recorded some of that record, that record, this was around the time we did Skull Ring, and I needed to respect the fact that I had already recorded half of that record with my touring band, The Trolls.

I wasn’t going to tell them, or call them up “Hey I’m going to work with a bigger star than you and fuck all your work.”  I can’t do that to an artist. So I offered him a few tracks and Jack being Jack, said, “well I don’t want to do that, I want to do a whole thing.”  

Yes, of course and he wouldn’t want to be a part of something else, being a Jack White production. Let’s just say I felt where he was coming from.

At one point I felt I was just about ready to do it and we were having a conversation and the last thing he had to say was, “Okay I’ll call you up when I have time.”

I put down the phone and part of me was like, “fuck you kid.” I didn’t say anything because I’m not a confrontational person, so we didn’t do it at that point. And he had some good concepts, it would have been interesting. But I think what we would have ended up with would be a kinda indie reality show. He wanted to lock us in a house together and record the results. The idea was nobody would leave until we had an album done. I think had we agreed that very quickly cameras would have come into it.

It would have been interesting... At one point there was a lot of pressure from the record company, “What are you crazy, you’re not going to play with Jack White?” Blah blah blah. At one point I was ready to do it and I think he wasn’t. Then much later he was ready to do it and we had a lunch about it in Australia. But at that point I had a meeting with Ron and Scott and Ron said, “Look, for me that would be like all of the glory of it would be about Jack White and not about me.” And he made a gesture if someone was sitting on his head. And Scott said to me, “Yeah the way I see it, Jack White is a pot of gold and we don’t want to be part of his pot of gold.”

What I said to the guys is, “Hey look, that is absolutely fine with me. But as the leader of the group,” which I finally did become in this century, “I gotta let you know that if you do it with Jack, you’re going to sell more and get more attention, but it’s also true, due to market forces, the result will emphasize Jack’s participation.” I told them, “I have no opinion at all, I could go either way.” And so we didn’t, we ended up not doing it, which was fine with Jack and we’re friendly.