Merrell Fankhauser Interview

After all these years, I finally did an audio interview with Merrell Fankhauser. My relationship with him began back in 1999 when I interviewed him via email, which is still up on his website. I have also covered a lot of his music over the years.

Keith "MuzikMan" Hannaleck

Buzzsprout - Let's get your podcast launched!
Start for FREE

Disclaimer: This post contains affiliate links. If you make a purchase, I may receive a commission at no extra cost to you.

Transcript

Speaker 1 0:13

Hello everybody, this is Keith MuzikMan Hannaleck with the Final on Vinyl Podcast, and very excited today to talk to Merrell Fankhauser, literally a legend of music that's been around for uh well since the 60s, he started making music. And um I go back a long ways with Meryl back to like 1999, my my first year in reviewing music, and uh I still look at that as my best interview I ever did. It was in two parts, it's up on his site still to this day, and this is a long overdue conversation. Welcome, Merrill.

Speaker 0:49

Keith, it's so good to talk to you again.

Speaker 1 0:54

Yes, sir. It's great to hear you. You sound great, you sound the same. And uh I I know that you've overcome a lot over the years with health issues. I remember you things you went through, and uh you're still making music and uh w would love to hear what's going on recently with you that you're excited about in in music and uh what's available up there.

Speaker 1:19

Yeah, well, I keep getting uh great reissues of all of my older albums and a label in Spain, Gerson Records. Just did two beautiful vinyl reissues of my 1968 HMS Bounty album and my 1971 Moo album, and those are selling good, and uh they're gonna do an article in a magazine on it in Spain. And the thing I'm most excited about, Keith, is I'm in the movie The Session Man, which is a tribute to piano player Nikki Hopkins, who played on the Rolling Stones Records, The Beatles, uh Rod Stewart, so many, over 250 uh albums he played on in his uh career. And he's he's on one of my albums. And he would come uh to the United States, you know, from England and do play in concerts and stuff, and I was lucky enough uh to do an interview with him in 1991 on my California Music Satellite TV show, and we got to be good friends, and we did a two-part TV show, and uh we played live just with no music, just song titles and the ounce the key, and he is so good, and we had uh Roger Caps, bass player from Pat Benatar's band, with us, and um I've re uh played those now on my current TV show, Tiki Lounge, and people just love it. And the movie they did, Keith, is all of these people, Mick and Keith from the Rolling Stones, just say all of these great things about him, and how his piano part enhanced their songs, and it's true they did a demonstration where they took out his piano from She's Like a Rainbow, and the song just sounded so empty. And uh he was he was great, he just didn't play three-chord uh you know rock and roll 12-bar blues stuff. He he played things with minors and everything in it like the Beatles. And when he and I met and he heard my songs, he loved them because my songs are the same way. They go off into minors and diminished chords. And uh we went in the studio here in California, and he played on my song Queen Moo, and it's just absolutely beautiful, and it's on my Return to Moo album that was released in 2000, and then we did a sold-out concert here at the Pismo Beach Veterans, and that was great too, and he would stop here and stop with his wife and sometimes spend a day and a night or two with me, and then go up to San Francisco, play a concert. For a while they bought uh a condo in uh Encino outside of LA because he was coming over here from England so much and playing. And then uh in 1994, he played with Willie Nelson in Florida, and uh uh he and his wife went out on a small boat, a little boat ride with other tourists, and I guess the waves were real choppy, and after they got into their hotel room, he was complaining of a back and stomach ache. So she took him into a hospital there, and she said that uh they took too much time examining him to find out what it was. He had a stomach aneurysm and died of a heart attack. Oh, that's sad. Yeah, she called that was in 1994, and they were planning to come back out here and do more stuff with me, and she was crying on the phone, and she just couldn't believe it. But she's in the movie uh with all these other famous musicians, uh, including Peter Frampton, and they used part of my interview that I did with him in the movie, talking about playing with different people, and so many well-known musicians just said what a great guy he was, and how he could just sit down and put something in your song that really elevated it. So uh you can see that anywhere in the world on Amazon Prime. Just go to your computer and dial it in. I'm I've gotten uh in the last few months uh oh gosh, close to a thousand emails from people and people in Japan that saw it in theaters, people all over Europe that saw it in theaters, and it had a premiere in New York and then one here in LA. So they were hope they were hoping to get it in uh theaters out here, but now because LA is completely burnt down, uh that distribution to here is on hold.

Speaker 1 7:58

Well, that's too bad. Well, I'm sure it'll come out on DVD and Blu-ray sooner or later.

Speaker 8:03

Yes, yeah, it they've announced that it'll be out on DVD and Blu-ray.

Speaker 1 8:09

You know, I was just thinking, Merrill, I know I've covered a ton of your music over the years, and um a few of them that you just mentioned, but I would definitely like to have another shot at those. Uh if that Spanish label would like to send me those LPs, I definitely would like to cover them again and get the word out. If that's a possibility, I'm all in.

Speaker 8:32

Yeah. Uh I don't know if they would mail it from Spain, and I got enough to cover my show that I'm on, and two of the DJs here. So would a D V or C D be okay? Sure. Okay. Yeah, email me your mailing address again.

Speaker 1 8:59

Okay. So all those people all over the world have your email, huh? That's that's pretty amazing. How did that happen? Have my email? Yeah, you said you got like a thousand emails from people all over the world about the Nikki Hawk Hopkins movie and Yeah, well, um I've been selling stuff, you know, uh mostly CDs, and some of the rare albums that I still had a few copies of, like the Sapper Docley album.

Speaker 9:34

It's up to $2,000 a copy now for a sealed copy. And I've been known uh and played on radio all over Europe and Japan and Brazil, and uh I get about eighty emails a week just from people that you know have either gotten my records and want to know if I have anything new out, and they all listen to my radio show because my radio show that's on kyxz.org uh is available all over the world.

Speaker 1 10:14

That's great. Yeah, that coverage. You know, you bring up Farpa Darkley, you sent that to me back in the day and you uh signed it. And back then, I remember you saying, geez man, this is my bread and butter, they're a hundred bucks apiece. Not for two big amazing.

Speaker 10:31

I didn't know, and then somebody, a record collector said, collector, emailed me and he said, Merle, you're selling it way too cheap. He said, I had to pay 750 for it from another collector. Then all of a sudden it doubled, and it was at 1,500 a copy, and I remember selling two for $1,500, and I was getting getting down to where I only had a couple left, and I always keep one on the wall with all my others, because I'll make a mistake and sell them, and then I won't have one. And then a guy told me that uh he bought one for two thousand.

Speaker 1 11:20

That's amazing.

Speaker 11:23

Yeah. And uh, you know, it's it's highly rated as one of the most collectible albums, and and the music they were all say is advanced for the time. Some of those songs were recorded in late 64 and 65, and then it came out. Yeah, and they sat on the shelf for twenty years till uh record label picked it up and uh released it in '67, and it's I still get requests for it, but I don't have any left to sell.

Speaker 1 12:04

Has it been reissued as well? I thought I saw reissues up there.

Speaker 12:08

Oh yeah, there's there's reissues, and the reissues even go for quite a bit. There was uh oh gosh, uh I you know I've got a hundred and thirty-six releases now, counting albums, forty-fives, CDs, and compilations, and I have to I have a discography book that they did on me, and I have to refer to that sometimes to, you know, remember all the labels that it's on. I'm on so many labels in in Europe and Japan and all over the United States. A label you're probably familiar with in New York is Sundays.

Speaker 2 12:55

Oh yeah.

Speaker 12:56

They've they've put a lot of things out on me, and then this label in England, Cherry Red Records, they put out a beautiful beautiful six C D anthology on me, starting out with Merle in the Exiles from 1964, that was before the Fapper Dockley album, and it has a CD of the Merl in the Exiles, uh Fapper Dockley, and then from Fapper Dockley in 68, it goes to HMS Bounty and then Moo, and then my 1976 solo album, uh I get calls for the original vinyl on that, and it's out on a uh one or two labels uh on CD now, and that's do you have that one, Keith?

Speaker 1 13:58

Oh, I think so. I mean I was just looking looking at the CDs I have in front of me, plus there's more elsewhere, and I did some vinyl releases too. I was just looking at which is actually my favorite album, is um The Impacts. And uh 1999, Sex Wax and Surf. That is my favorite album that you've ever done. I love that album.

Speaker 14:26

Really? Yeah, I thought you were talking about the original Impact's wipeout album from 1962. But yeah, we got all of these requests to do surf music again, and some of the uh musicians that I played here on on the central coast of California, oh, surf music came back real big in 1984 and into the nineties, and everybody said you got to do more surf music. So we got back together, the ones of us that are that were still active, and we started doing more albums, and we did surf and 101, Sex Wax and Surf, and oh gosh, another one. Are you hearing me okay now? Yeah, you're good.

Speaker 1 15:24

I you know, I'm glad I'm glad we're we're talking about this because it falls right in line with the site I'm working on right now that I really haven't pushed too hard because I haven't had too much up there yet, but I want to get all of my reviews that I did of you in the past on it. It's called surf musicandart.com. And I'm gonna continue to put all those up and maybe get some reignition on some of those releases to to help get people aware of your disography. And you know, when you've been around as long as you have, which seems like forever now, it's just I I I don't know how you keep track of everything. It must be mind-boggling. You're what, you're 81 now?

Speaker 16:03

Yeah, I just turned 81 December 23rd.

Speaker 1 16:07

That's amazing.

Speaker 16:08

And I nobody says I look like it. Uh I'm starting to feel that the regular uh, you know, body aches and stuff, but uh I just thank God every day that I've been able to do all of this and still keep going, and I'm getting so many songs in movies and TV, and some of them are those surf songs that you mentioned. In uh 2021 and 2022, I had over 25 songs in movies and TV shows. And uh then when the uh strike uh with Afra and A Agra came in in 80 or uh 23, I only got two in uh one in a movie and one in a TV show. And then I've so far in uh twenty-four, I think I've gotten four songs. But that pays really good. It pays better than radio play, as you probably know. And so that's that's helped me a lot w along with the record royalties.

Speaker 1 17:32

That's for you. That sounds great. You deserve it. So for people out there, particularly musicians, they usually are around as long as you have been. What do you attribute your longevity to?

Speaker 17:45

Well, staying active, uh surfing. When I moved to Maui, I loved it there, you know, I was there for 15 years, but kept flying back and forth here to the mainland to play and record. And uh I didn't fall prey to cigarettes, overindulgence in alcohol or heavy drugs, you know, the b really bad ones. And I think staying active and uh, you know, uh being able to keep some kind of a form of exercise, I've always been very active doing things and staying on a good diet, and I was a vegetarian for twenty five years, and now I eat some chicken and fish. I love the fresh fish in Hawaii, and I occasionally will eat a little meat, but that with a good diet with vegetables and fruit and grains, and I feel all of that is really helped me, you know, and so many of my musician friends, Keith. I lose one, it seems like every other month now. We just lost in May Johnny Barbada, who was one of the first drummers I played with that was in a surf band here, the Sentinels. He went on to play with the Turtles, and then later Crosby Skills and Nash and Young. And uh he he uh he wasn't into drugs either, but I don't know what happened. He had a heart attack uh during a a tornado that came through. He had a house in Ida, Oklahoma, and was trying to move all of the stuff out, him and his wife, and she thought he just got too keyed up and they were trying to get back to California and he had a heart attack and she took him to a hospital in Oklahoma and he died. Oh, that's too bad.

Speaker 1 20:08

Yeah, stuff can do all kinds of things to the body, that's for sure, huh?

Speaker 20:13

Oh yeah, really, really. And the good thing when I moved to Maui, because I'd been living in LA for seven years doing the during the sixties and seventies, it was so mellow there, and I got such inspiration, that's what the 76 Maui album inspired, and then I got in with the local Tibetan Dharma Center there and started meditating with them, and that was very uplifting for me, and they gave me the name Lodru Jantsal, and they would have me play my songs for them, and uh they gave me the name Lodru Jansal, which translated to Oceans of Intelligence, and gave me a certificate with that on it, and it inspired me so much I wrote a song called Oceans of Intelligence. Oh, I never knew that. That's great. Yeah.

Speaker 1 21:21

Well, yeah, I definitely gotta uh take take heed of what you said about you know living a long life and your diet and all that, because I'm facing some things right now myself that I need to deal with you know in regards to that. So it's been great, great talking to you finally after all these years.

Speaker 21:39

Um I just want to say you can Google me and and get all of the latest releases, or go to my website, Merlefankhauser.com, and it's got a lot of all of it listed, and maybe some uh you can email me that that you don't have that you would like to play.

Speaker 1 22:02

Sounds great. I will do that, and uh I hope a lot of people listen to this and get a chance to hear you, and um I'm very grateful. for your your friendship and your music since I began this back in nineteen ninety eight. Um you just inspired me and I'll never forget it. So thank you for your time.

Speaker 22:23

Thank you for your kind words, Keith. I I appreciate it. And I look forward to hearing this and seeing your surf art article.

Speaker 1 22:35

Yeah, I I'm hoping that people are going to want to contribute some uh some things to that. I'm sure you have quite a network if you want to pass the word out that I'm looking for surf art to put on display on that site, I would love to see some things come in so we can get that going.

Speaker 22:51

I will do that and give them your email. All right.

Speaker 1 22:55

Thank you, Merrill. You take care.

Speaker 22:57

Thank you. You too, Keith.

Speaker 2 23:00

Bye bye