John Kay of Steppenwolf

by Dan MacIntosh

On "Magic Carpet Ride," "Born To Be Wild," and what he values more than awards and accolades.

When you consider Steppenwolf music, you may think of it as prototypical American hard rock. The band came along during the late '60s at a time when rock and roll was evolving into a style much harder, louder and headphone-ier. The group's big hit, "Born To Be Wild," was prominently featured in the movie Easy Rider, a film that fell within the long line of American road movies. However, when speaking on the phone to the band's leader, John Kay, I can still hear traces of his German accent. Some of Kay's childhood was spent in Communist-controlled East Germany, and when Kay finally made it to Los Angeles and became a rock star, he was anything but your typical American kid made good.

On October 14, 2018, in Baxter Springs, Kansas, John Kay and Steppenwolf performed their last show. That marked 50 years as a touring and recording outfit, which is much longer than most marriages last. However, songs like "The Pusher," "Magic Carpet Ride" and, of course, "Born To Be Wild" remain just as relevant today as ever.
Dan MacIntosh (Songfacts): "Born To Be Wild" has that line about "heavy metal thunder," which was not meant to signal heavy metal music, but it has kind of been referenced in that manner. Was that a blessing or a curse, that association?

John Kay: Definitely a double-edged sword, specifically thinking about the line "heavy metal thunder."

There is a line about heavy metal in one of William Burroughs' books1, and, of course, there's "Born To Be Wild." I don't really have a dog in that race. I don't give a rat's knuckle about it. For me, heavy metal music had its beginnings in Led Zeppelin and beyond, but we always considered Steppenwolf to be a hard rock, blues-based band, with some exceptions in terms of the material.

Sometimes, we would do the Hoyt Axton song "Snowblind Friend," which is basically one voice, one acoustic guitar with accompaniments. So, it wasn't strictly balls-to-the-wall every song we did. We wanted to have that variety to keep things from becoming predictable and stale.

"Born To Be Wild" was, of course, in Easy Rider. That film became hugely successful around the world, and it introduced Steppenwolf in countries it had yet to even perform. So, when we went to Europe the first time, and that was on the tailwind of Easy Rider, people came to hear us play because of that exposure through the film. That song has accompanied the Space Shuttle crew a couple times, and they played it when the Mars rovers hit dirt on Mars: "Get your motor running" and all that. It's a song that has a life of its own. It's out there like a child that left home, and once in a while it sends a postcard. When I was in Burma, my guide after a while asked, "What do you do?" "Well, I have a band." "What's it called?" "Steppenwolf."

Blank stare. He said, "Will I know any of your songs?"

"Maybe. Have you ever heard 'Born To Be Wild'?"

His eyes got real big and he said, "Every bar band in Yangon must know that song or they will not be hired."

So, the point is, the song is out there, whether in Botswana or wherever. It has, over these last 50 years, penetrated pretty much everywhere except Antarctica. So, in one sense, it became the engine that pulled the Steppenwolf train.

But as hugely popular as that song was, Steppenwolf music has been in over 85 motion pictures and over 120 television shows, so the music just kept on going. Yeah, there were the little 16-year-old white girls that were screaming in the audience at shows who listened to AM radio and loved "Magic Carpet Ride" and all of our singles, but it was our albums that really put us on the map to begin with. Before "Born To Be Wild" was even released, our first album was in the Top 5 nationally because of the new, so-called FM underground radio stations that played the whole sides of an album. So, those albums cemented a connection between the Wolfpack2 and the band that has lasted to this day.

When [1969 album] Monster came out, it was enormously popular on the university campuses during a time when there were Kent State shootings and other things. This was a social-political concept album wherein we spoke our minds about the times we were living in. Our first cross-country tour in 1968, that was a year when America was on fire. King had been assassinated that spring, Robert Kennedy was murdered that summer, and very late in that summer, during the Chicago Democratic Convention, there were thousands of people demonstrating in the streets chanting, "The whole world is watching."

And there were cities ablaze from riots in the streets because of the killing of King and other reasons. We had lots to contend with as citizens. The Vietnam War was in full swing. There were demonstrations against that war in all the cities and on the college campuses. So, these times were what caused us to write the Monster album.

The Monster album coverThe Monster album cover
When we had the so-called Great Recession in 2008, we got more and more requests to play Monster again at our shows because people felt it was just as apropos for those days as it had been when we first released it in 1969. And we did start to resurrect the song "Monster" and play it during our last shows until our last show and we retired the Wolf in 2018. That song got a standing ovation every time we played it because it reflected the concerns of so many people.

Yes, Steppenwolf may be known to those who listened to AM radio and bought the occasional single for songs like "Born To Be Wild" and "Magic Carpet Ride" or saw a TV show, but our base, which supported us for 50 years through the ups and downs, they are the ones that can quote the lyrics for songs that others would consider obscure album cuts.

Songfacts: You mentioned movies, and one of my favorite movies of all time is called Lost In America. "Born To Be Wild" is used in the film. Did you like how it was utilized?

Kay: Yeah, I did, because Albert Brooks has a really super-dry sense of humor. In the movie, the guy and his wife are going to retire on their nest egg but blow their retirement savings in Vegas.

For the most part, our music in films was pretty spot-on. It was either ironic, or it was indicative of a particular scene where it seemed to really work well.

Candy, the film that preceded Easy Rider, contained our music, namely "Rock Me," which we wrote for it, and it had "Magic Carpet Ride" in it as well.

Over the years we have gone on to perform in many other places in the world, and these TV shows and films have once again introduced us to places we had never been, Brazil and Greece in particular. So, when we arrived for the first time in Brazil, we couldn't figure out what was going on. There were young people in the audience who were not born when we started our band, and because they speak Portuguese, were singing our lyrics phonetically. We asked a journalist to explain, and he said, "When you came onto the scene, we were under a military dictatorship and your music was damn well forbidden. It was not smart to be listening to your band because you guys were anti-authoritarian, so we raised our young to know this."

It was an amazing experience. We had a similar experience in Berlin after reunification. We played for the first time to people in the audience who had been behind the Iron Curtain, and we could tell who they were because they had a certain look. And afterwards, they came with their stacks of Steppenwolf albums to be autographed that they had to buy on the black market and smuggle across the border and listen to behind closed doors because it was not wise to be caught with that music. The music was considered subversive, and the East German government would jam the radio frequencies of the West German radio stations so their citizens behind the wall could not hear it. So the music had power beyond just being entertainment.

Songfacts: I had read that "Magic Carpet Ride" had initially been inspired by your hi-fi system.

Kay: That is true.

Songfacts: Is it really?

Kay: We were in the studio cutting our second album, and a rhythm track came together. I said, "This sounds really good. I have kind of an idea. Make me a quick cassette tape." And I took it home.

I had just purchased with our first royalties a really state-of-the-art, impressive stereo system, so I popped the cassette into the player, and out of these rather large speakers came this track. And what popped into my head was, "I like to dream... right between the sound machine." The "sound machine" being that stereo system. I wrote the lyrics and melody in 20 minutes, went and overdubbed the vocal, and then we did some more work on the track with instrument overdubs and the like, and "Magic Carpet Ride" evolved from that.

Songfacts: I wanted to ask about Hoyt Axton. A couple of your more notable songs, "The Pusher" and "Snowblind Friend," were written by Hoyt Axton. How did you get connected with his music, and what was it about his songs that really struck a chord with you?

Kay: In the summer of 1964, after having been an East Coast guy in Toronto, and later in Buffalo, New York, I was in Los Angeles. This was the folk music revival, and I played in little coffeehouses. But the places where the pros played were The Ash Grove - which was where traditional people like Son House performed - and The Troubadour in West Hollywood. I hung out there in order to learn from the pros that played there. I hung out there so much that Doug Weston, the owner of The Troubadour, said, "I can use you at the box office. I'll pay you a buck an hour."

But the main reason for me to be there was to learn, and one of the guys that played there regularly was Hoyt Axton. I immediately liked what he played - a bluesy-styled acoustic guitar. And he had a voice that I really liked. He wrote songs that connected, and one of them, of course, was "The Pusher," which brought down the house every time he played it.

It's a simple three-chord song, and I learned it. I did not really meet Hoyt at that time, even though I was hanging around, so when I hitchhiked back to the East Coast with my guitar on my shoulder and wound up in Toronto in a coffeehouse, "The Pusher" had become part of my solo acoustic repertoire and found its way into The Sparrows, which was the Canadian band I joined. So, when The Sparrows eventually migrated from Toronto through New York and to LA and busted up there, from the ashes of that band was formed Steppenwolf. Two other ex-Sparrows members, myself and two local guys from LA, formed the band Steppenwolf in 1967, and we kept a handful of songs from The Sparrows days. Stuff I had written like "The Ostrich," as well as "Sookie Sookie," and "The Pusher."

Steppenwolf had a much more aggressive sound than The Sparrows. That was really a step forward for us. Later down the line, by the time we did the Steppenwolf 7 album a couple years later, Hoyt Axton had become part of the management company we had become tied to, although not for very long. And during that time, he presented a couple of other tunes that turned out to be songs he had recorded. One of them was "Joy To The World," which I thought was a really cool song, but I heard it more like a children's song, with "Jeremiah was a bullfrog." Three Dog Night had an enormous hit with it, but I could not see myself doing that song. It wasn't me.

The other song was "Snowblind Friend," and that song spoke to me because I knew the person that the song was written about. That's why I decided, as a tribute to this young man, that we would do a version of it on the Steppenwolf 7 album.

Songfacts: What are some of your songs that may not have been big hits that you're especially proud to be associated with?

Kay: In the Steppenwolf repertoire, there are several songs – you could call them album cuts, I guess – and the albums themselves were very successful, but there are songs that had a certain meaning. There's a song on the second album called "None Of Your Doing," which is really the story of a Vietnam soldier coming home and nobody understands what he went through. He cannot deal with what he went through and there's no connection between home and what he is now having to deal with. Unfortunately, that's all too often the case now with those coming home from Afghanistan or whatever. That's one example.

There is a song on the Steppenwolf 7 album, "Renegade," which is my own personal story about escaping from East Germany.

There are songs that I still enjoy hearing once in a while, but I've always been a forward-focused kind of guy. The past is a known entity and quantity, and while there's no harm once in a while reminiscing about something that is a special memory, I have always been more focused on what's ahead of me, which is unknown territory, therefore a whole lot more intriguing. You write the songs and you give it a shot, you hope some message in a bottle comes back and perhaps that is what, collectively, is the most rewarding thing. There's a box of letters that I've kept because they were special. And those letters were like, "When I was in a hospital with leukemia and my orderly introduced me to Steppenwolf music, it was this one song that was my daily tonic. It kept me going." Those are the letters. After our Feed The Fire album was released [1996], we got an email saying, "I had a friend with me in the car yesterday, and we were listening to your new Feed The Fire album. We were driving around, and I played the title cut.

You're off to see the land of dreams
Be careful, things are rarely what they seem


And after that song, my friend in the passenger seat asked me to pull over and he poured something out. And I asked him, 'What was that about?' And he said, 'Those were the pills I was gonna take tonight.'"

Songfacts: When your music is pivotal in positive changes in people's lives, there's no greater reward, right?

Kay: Precisely. When you sit in the corner with your guitar and you fumble around and create something, and it turns out well enough for you to release it upon the public, and it goes out there, once in a while something comes back that says, "Wow, that makes such a difference. That song is my daily anthem." Whatever that song may be.

Wherever that song fits into a person's life, that is enormously rewarding. It means a whole lot more than gold records on the wall or Grammys or being inducted into the Hall of Fame, because while those are nice acknowledgements, something you've accomplished, they are not the core rewards you get from person to person that the songwriter sometimes has the good fortune of experiencing.

December 31, 2020
More interviews:
Al Kooper
Bill Withers
Carl Palmer of Emerson, Lake & Palmer
photo: Jutta Maue Kay

Footnotes:

  • 1] The first print appearance of the phrase "heavy metal" was in the 1962 William Burroughs novel The Soft Machine, where the character Uranian Willy is "the Heavy Metal Kid." This was seven years before "Born To Be Wild," but most people heard the phrase for the first time in the song. (back)
  • 2] Could the Steppenwolf fan club be called anything other than the Wolfpack? We don't think so. (back)

More Songwriter Interviews

Comments: 7

  • Donna Patton from Murfreesboro TnFirst I want to apologize for yelling for the song Tenderness I finally realized You had the show on the screen Sync with the music You were playing at The Ryman . Loved Monster each song really a part of my life Great interview Thanks for The Music !
  • Eric Russell from VirginiaAlthough it can be said of several artists, the fact that Steppenwolf has not been inducted is damning proof that the "Rock and Roll Hall of Fame" is a bad joke. And btw, 'Steppenwolf 7' is a masterpiece ... the guitar sound on that album, and the unique collection of songs, make it one of the best Rock albums of all time. As good or better than anything Led Zep or The Who ever produced. Every rock and roll fan needs to own 'Monster' and '7' or your rock collection is incomplete!
  • Thomas Brantner from Mesa ArizonaWhen I listen to "Renegade", the way that the lead guitar solo hits those high notes and then begins fading slightly as the 2nd lead takes over is so well done that it just makes me feel like I was there in the story. Excellent job!
  • Jonesy from Big Bear Lake, Ca.Love the first two albums. But there is something about Steppenwolf 7 that I need a fix every so often. John mentions that album alot, thank you Sir ....
  • Jeff A from Utica, NebraskaYes, I loved Born To Be Wild and Magic Carpet Ride when I listened to WABC radio in NYC in 1968. But in the middle of 1969 I joined the USAF. I heard Monster for the first time early in 1970 and bought the LP at the Base Exchange. It made a definite impression on my mind. I was literally experiencing the verses in my day-to-day interactions on the base. I played the album many times over the remainder of my four years. Great work.
  • Stealthwingman from Coquitlam, British Columbia, CanadaTo: Dan McIntosh
    From: Michael Vick
    What an excellent interview! John Kay must have been very comfortable with this interview as his candid and honest revelations of that period of history is so critical in terms of us individuals that actually lived during that era. I was blown away how he had described the social and political situation of the time which I have felt historians in retrospective and thus individuals in the present time are not truly and historically aware of the actual story! But I will confirm that the reality of that assessment of what was happening at that time as relayed by John Kay is exactly what I had experienced during that time. Our awareness and hope for a better future was hightened at that time I believe that John Kay in his own gracious and hopeful way was trying to suggest that the spirit that was ignited during that pivotal time is needed to be rekindled in our current challenging time! What I can say is that music was, is and always will be the voice of my soul and as the compass of my social, political and spiritual being as that has been the vehicle that represents my existence. How this is realized and confirmed in our present world can only be verified by first person interviews with the artists that were part of those times and the fans that were apart of that times. Please continue your thorough investigation of the past with the first hand participants!
  • Glenn from SeattleEvery time I jump on my Harley there's a cell in my brain that starts humming, "Get your motor running. Head out on the highway..." Thank you Steppenwolf!!
see more comments

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