“The Return of the 20th Century Boy!”

Think of It’s Only Rock’n’ Roll as Michael Des Barres’ musical autobiography, the soundtrack of his youth and the songs that shaped him in the spirit of classic cover albums like Bowie’s Pin Ups or Bryan Ferry’s These Foolish Things, both released within weeks of one another in October, 1973.

That places it smack in the middle of the dozen covers on this album, all originally released between 1971 and 1975 (with the exception of the Velvet Underground’s “I’m Waiting for My Man,” which was arguably the inspiration for everything that followed on this collection).

Des Barres’ love letter to the 70’s and his own entry into the rock ’n’ roll circus includes stateside classics like Iggy and the Stooges’ “Search & Destroy” and Alice Cooper’s “I’m Eighteen,” along with U.K. stalwarts [Mike] C hapman & [Nicky] Chinn (Mud’s “Dyna - mite” and Sweet’s “Fox on the Run”), Roxy Music (“Love is the Drug”), Bowie (“Moonage Daydream”), T. Rex/Marc Bolan (“20 th Century Boy”), Mott the Hoople (Bowie’s “All the Young Dudes”), the Faces (“Stay with Me”), Slade (“Cum on Feel the Noize”), and the Stones’ title track.

All were released within a four - year period when Des Barres was forming Silverhead in London before leaving for Los Angeles and his soon-to-be-wife, Miss Pamela of GTO’s and I’m with the Band renown, to form Detective. And while he remains true to the songs’ hook - filled origins, he makes each track vocally his own.

I recently caught up with Michael, and first wondered, with most all 12 tracks here released around the same time that he was a part of both Silverhead and Detective, how they were influencing his own sound/recordings back then? “It was not necessarily about the music, it was often more about the trousers. I may sound glib, of course, but at that time, I was more into the classic blues artists; that music entered my soul. The idea of glam rock and the fashion that it created made a wonderful relationship between Muddy Waters and T. Rex. I admired and adored the originality and uniqueness of that fashion conscious androgyny.”

Your new album is entitled It’s Only Rock ’N’ Roll, obviously due to the included Stones song, but I was wondering if there were musical genres other than rock ’n’ roll that you would still like to delve into before you decide to retire? “Rock and roll is in my blood, but I also paint and I write poems. I have lived a creative life that rock and roll is the soundtrack of. Rock and roll is it for me. As they say, ‘It’s Only Rock and Roll.’”

What more can you tell us about the new album cover art for It’s Only Rock ’N’ Roll? “The imagery on the cover photograph demonstrates and manifests the times. We were in a world that hadn’t existed until we walked into it.”

Taking aside just three of the tracks, please sum up what they mean to you personally:

David Bowie - ‘Moonage Daydream’ = “David Bowie is a chapter, a very important chapter of the rock and roll bible. Androgyny arrived into the sexuality of rock and roll musicians. In other words, there was stardust in the air.”

Slade - ‘Cum on Feel the Noize’ = “It is positively Shakespearean; the noise was poetry.”

Mud - ‘Dyna-Mite’ = “Nothing!”

You delved into the late 60’s/early 70’s for Carnaby Street, the 70’s as a whole for this new album, so will you pay homage to the 80’s on your next album, perhaps? “No, I’m going backwards, to the 1950s, within which I can record the absolute simplicity of guitar, bass, drums, and a vocalist. Rock and roll’s origins, of course, are in the world of the blues and country and western music, within which we all discovered rock and roll.”

And following that train of thought, if you were to, what 80’s artist’s songs stand out to you that resonate with you still today? “Bowie.”

Your documentary Who Do You Want Me To Be? reveals an awful lot about you, and goes places that most wouldn’t dare, but were all cards put on the table, or did you intentionally keep some more personal things to yourself? “I’m a personal personality who will give you everything that I’ve got. No secrets.”

Indeed, it details how the son of a junkie aristocrat and a schizophrenic showgirl grew up and thusly became the man we see before us today, but as accomplished as you are now, are there still some Bucket List things that you would love to get to? “I do believe there is a hole in the bucket. In other words, rock and roll needs help. In the last few years, I have been painting images that I love and despise. We live in a world that is on a precipice. When I say that I write a poem or paint a painting that I despise - it is to negate the demons. Really, there is no yesterday and no tomorrow, therefore I do not make many plans.”

On a side note, you acted in eight episodes as the character of Murdoc on TV’s original MacGyver, and even had two episodes in the reboot as the character Nicholas Helman, not forgetting the enormous slew of other TV and movie acting roles between 1967-2019, but are there taken roles that to this day you personally cherish the most having had the chance to act? “I just think that I got lucky because biology gave me high cheekbones, but my favorite role would have to be Murdoc on the original MacGyver.”

In closing, and after 50+ years worth of recording and touring within the music industry, what lessons have you learnt along the way that you still adhere to today, and perhaps wish you had known sooner? “Keep your eyes on the prize, and the prize is you.”

Thank you for your time today in answering these questions for us, Michael, and we wish you nothing but the best for all your future endeavors, my friend. “I want to thank you very much, for being at all interested in me and my surrealistic life. I remain very grateful.”

Interview by: Russell A. Trunk

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