During an appearance on a recent episode of “The Joe Pags Show”, Ted Nugent was asked if there is a newer band that came out in the 1990s or early 2000s, such as maybe the FOO FIGHTERS, that he really loves. He responded in part (as transcribed by BLABBERMOUTH.NET): “The FOO FIGHTERS are not really a new band, but when they came on the scene, they were delivering the same dedication and work ethic. You can tell that [Dave] Grohl and his bandmates really put their heart and soul into delivering a monster every night. Now, as much as I love and adore and admire the FOO FIGHTERS, and Dave Grohl is one of the masters of crescendos, but you were mentioning [John] Coltrane and these great saxophone players, that sax solo, that guitar solo in all the best music in the world, that’s the crescendo. And with all due respect to the FOO FIGHTERS, and I love you, Dave — I love all you guys; you guys are awesome — but there’s not that fire-breathing crescendo guitar solo that elevates the entire musical moment to a higher place. And I’ve gotta tell ya… I don’t know nothing about Auto-Tune. I let my ears and my spirit and my balls dictate the delivery of my music… The point being is that I want a killer guitar solo or a sax solo or even a Jimmy Smith keyboard monster. Andy Solomon with the AMBOY DUKES would deliver a Hammond B3 solo that was just so elevating.”
Ted continued: “So I’m afraid to say in this world that’s gone down the toilet in all aspects, I’m afraid the success of Taylor Swift, and God bless her work ethic, God bless her musical dreams, but that’s cartoon music. I mean, it doesn’t have any piss and vinegar. There’s no fire, there’s no sensuality in that. It’s all poppy nonsense as far as I’m concerned, and it’s the most popular stuff in the world, which is an indictment to the music industry and music fans. They’re not looking for that fire from a ZZ TOP or from a MITCH RYDER AND THE DETROIT WHEELS or from a BROWNSVILLE STATION or an AMBOY DUKES. And I miss that. Thank God I’m still around. We still deliver the fire that THE BEATLES did [at clubs] in Germany.”
Nugent previously expressed his dislike for Swift‘s songs this past June during an episode of “The Nightly Nuge”. Offering his opinion on the “current state of music in America”, he said in part: “Well, thank God I was born in 1948 because Chuck Berry and Bo Diddley and Little Richard and James Brown and Wilson Pickett and the Motown Funk Brothers and all those great soulful musical authorities inspired all the best music that we still love today. So I’m spoiled to a fault, because I lived in a whirlwind, the energy vortex of the most intense work ethic-driven music.
“The reason we love AEROSMITH and AC/DC and ZZ TOP and HEART and JOURNEY and CHEAP TRICK and FOREIGNER and so many bands I could name… I cannot overstate the incredible animal work ethic that we put forth to practice and practice and practice, because the music makes us do it,” he continued. “And as young kids, all we wanted to do was be as tight as James Brown, as energized as Chuck Berry, as soulful as the Motown Funk Brothers and Wilson Pickett and Howlin’ Wolf and Muddy Waters and Mose Allison and Lightnin’ Hopkins. We wanted to get that black soulfulness, so the work ethic was unbelievable.
“Now, we’ve still got some bands that are doing it, like GRETA VAN FLEET out of Grand Rapids, Michigan here. There are some bands out there — certainly the FOO FIGHTERS with the great Dave Grohl; they still play fire-breathing real soulful tight music. But I’m afraid it’ll never be like it was with THE [ROLLING] STONES and THE BEATLES and THE WHO and THE KINKS and LED ZEPPELIN and what VAN HALEN created and what the Ted Nugent band and Ronnie Montrose and what Sammy Hagar still does — so many people out there still doing it. But I’m afraid that most of the successful music today — some of it is mind-boggling.”
Ted added: “I don’t know this gal’s name with the long legs, but she gets a thousand bucks a ticket or whatever it is.” When “The Nightly Nuge” co-host Keith Mark threw out Taylor Swift‘s name, Nugent said: “Yeah, Taylor Swift. But that music, to me, sounds like cartoon music. It sounds like if I bumped into a child’s cartoon show on a Saturday morning, I would probably hear the No. 1 country song or I would hear the No. 1 pop song, because it’s all formulated to give a certain vocal delivery and a certain chord change and a certain tempo that they examine so closely that it’s not organic and instinctive and sexy and unleashed and genuine and believable.
“I liked it when we were in the experimental stage of trying to duplicate what Chuck Berry had invented, what Little Richard had invented,” Nugent said. “And again, there’s some great artists. I got to play some of my songs with the Big & Rich band, with the Toby Keith band, and these bands are unbelievable. There’s a Tim Montana; I got to play ‘Cat Scratch Fever’ with the Tim Montana band. Ira Dean, who co-wrote that amazing Aaron Lewis song ‘Am I The Only One’. There’s some great, great musical moments still happening — but not the unlimited flurry of incredible music in the late ’50s and the ’60s and into the ’70s. And even the POISONs and the WARRANT and — I can’t think of all those… RATT and some of the big hair bands, they played really good — they were great musicians. But there will never be a 1966 ever again, because it was so raw and primal. Now it’s predictable, and I’m afraid it’s mostly cookie-cutter stuff. Now, only the guilty need to feel guilty, ’cause there’s some great artists out there that are making some wonderful music. But it’s just not as raw and primal as my original inspirations, and I cling to that.”
In August 2022, Nugent blasted Swift for her “hypocrisy” after she topped a list of celebrities whose private jets had produced the highest amount of carbon dioxide in 2022.
Ted launched his last-ever tour, dubbed “Adios Mofo ’23”, this past July.
Nugent‘s self-titled debut album in 1975 was certified double platinum in the United States, while “Free-for-All”, “Cat Scratch Fever”, “Weekend Warriors” and “State Of Shock” all reached the Top 30 on the Billboard 200 chart.
Nugent has reportedly sold over 40 million albums and was named Detroit’s greatest guitar player of all time by readers of MLive.
The conservative rocker, who been eligible for the Rock And Roll Hall Of Fame as a solo artist since 2000, has enjoyed a remarkably successful and eventful musical career over the past five decades, but his music is increasingly overshadowed by his political outbursts.
Nugent‘s latest album, “Detroit Muscle”, was released in April 2022 via Pavement Music. The follow-up to 2018’s “The Music Made Me Do It” was recorded with Ted‘s most recent recording band, which included bassist Greg Smith and drummer Jason Hartless.
