Steve Jones
In the 1990s, I was in a band called The Unforgiven. I was this rock’n’roller kid from Pomona, California, and with Rank and File, Lone Justice, Dwight Yoakam and others, we were part of LA’s punk rock offshoot Cowpunk scene. Willie Nelson saw us and before we knew it, we were in Texas playing with Willie and Waylon, Neil Young, Johnny Cash, and just about everyone else you can imagine, from small Austin club shows to Willie’s mammoth 4th of July picnics to the first few Farm Aids, benefits that Willie organized for America’s struggling small farmers. It all happened so fast, nobody had time to be freaked out that we were playing with our idols.
Kris Kristofferson was part of the Willie Nelson family. I'd known him before, but it was in Lincoln, Nebraska at the 1987 Farm Aid that Kris changed my life. My hippie mother had hauled me along to protests and marches and candlelight vigils during the Vietnam war era, and for me, the Buffalo Springfield song For What It’s Worth was the soundtrack and heart of that period. Most people know the chorus: “Stop, hey/what’s that sound/everybody look what’s going down.” Our hard rock version was propulsive and a big crowd pleaser. Halfway through it, I looked over to my right and saw that Kris had jumped up to sing with us.
I wasn’t surprised. We’d become kind of the cool young Americana house band for the gang. We’d do our own sets, and we’d also be part of impromptu supergroups that would form, often working out songs we didn’t really know, in real time, in front of tens of thousands of concertgoers. Everyone played together. It was something.
As we geared up to hit our final number: Brink of Destruction, I rallied the crowd with the words “On a day like this I feel like I can change the world!” We played that blistering tune for all we were worth. After our set, I handed off my guitar to my roadie and headed for the exit.
Suddenly someone came up behind me and got me in a headlock. Someone strong. We wore a lot of leather and long coats in The Unforgiven, heavy gear for a midday set in sweltering Nebraska and I was soaked in sweat. Was this someone in my band being too enthusiastic? A crazed fan?
Whoever it was, I was not happy. Before I could react, I heard a familiar gravelly voice. “‘Days like these I feel like I can change the world!’ That’s your next song.”
I didn’t realize until much later that he’d tweaked it just that little bit because, after all, he was the poet laureate of rock’n’roll. I knew some of the background: Rhodes scholar, boxer, helicopter pilot, movie star. After he died this week, The New York Times would describe his writing this way: “Steeped in a neo-Romantic sensibility that owed as much to John Keats as to the Beat Generation and Bob Dylan, Mr. Kristofferson’s work explored themes of freedom and commitment, alienation and desire, darkness and light.”
Back then, all I knew was that when the guy who wrote “Freedom’s just another word for nothing left to lose” gives you the name of your next song…you fucking write it. I did.
I retired from being a touring musician the following year and became a full-time songwriter and A&R guy. Days Like These became a number one rock hit for the British band Asia. It was their comeback hit and it changed my life. With the money I made from that song I bought a ranch out in the desert, and it’s where I live now, with horses and mountains stretching farther than I can see. I owe it to Kris.
I spent a lot of time with him over the years, and I must have told him about seeing A Star is Born when I was a kid, and how much I aspired to be him. I remember him talking about shooting that movie, a remake of the classic 1940s film about the doomed marriage between two singers: the husband falling into depression and drink while the wife’s career soars.
He told me that when Barbra Streisand had a scene where she was supposed to cry, she used fake tears, like a lot of actors. When Kris played drunk, he got drunk, and when he cried, he thought of things that made him cry. They were real tears.
Steve Jones became a professional musician at 16. After retiring from touring at 29, he helped launch Hollywood Records for Disney, working with Queen and Nirvana before moving into film and television, directing and producing music videos, rock documentaries, and TV series for networks including MTV and History Discovery Channel