Sunset Strip: An Interview with Documentary Filmmaker Chris Carter

Judge David Gutierrez

September 28th, 2004

Chris Carter's resume reads like a novel. Former bassist and songwriter for the band Dramarama, he currently manages the Wondermints and the Negro Problem, hosts a weekly hit Beatles radio show, and is now venturing into documentary filmmaking. He took some time and met with me in his Los Angeles home to discuss the production of his latest documentary, Mayor of the Sunset Strip. After a side discussion on the wonder that is Tiny Tim's musical legacy and recall prowess, Carter answered a variety of questions concerning the making of his documentary, its effects, and what else Carter has brewing.

David Gutiérrez: How do you know Rodney? What's your story with him?

Chris Carter: I was in a band, Dramarama, and we lived in New Jersey. Rodney was doing his radio show—this was in 1986—and I knew Rodney because I used to read his name in Creem magazine when I was a kid. I read about this guy, Rodney Bingenheimer. I knew he had a club and I knew—my favorite issue of Creem ever was this Hollywood issue with Alice Cooper on the cover with these two chicks. It was "The Guide to Hollywood" and it had a map of Hollywood. Rodney was the king of the map, the big cartoon of his head. [Laughs] It was like, you know, he was the Mayor. And I always knew that—since I was thirteen, fourteen years old. I'm like Tiny Tim now. I know the years, "It was June of 1973." It really was a part of my growing up-reading those magazines-and I knew Rodney really well, so...We found out he was playing our record. We had made an album called Cinema Verite which had Edie Sedgwick on the cover. And Rodney had purchased this album because of the cover, so he was playing it. We had heard through a friend that lived out here that Rodney was playing one of our records. We called into his show, he put us on the air, and he said, [in a dead-on Rodney Voice] "Come to Hollywood. You'll do great." We're living in a hovel in Lodi, New Jersey trying to just eat, and here was this great opportunity. So we all flew out there. Actually, before we flew out there—my first meeting, our first meeting—was he came out, he said "I'm coming to New York to go to Brooke Shield's birthday party." I don't know if it was her twenty-first birthday. It was some special party in New York. So he came out and stayed with us and that's when we first met him. We picked him up at the airport and took him to New York and hung out with him. That was how we first met him. And then he told us to come out [to Los Angeles]. So that was it. And for some reason, he and I hit it off. We had five guys in the band. I was his point man; I was the guy he'd call in the band.

DG: What was it you thought you had in common?

CC: I just related to him on a music level. We talked about the Beatles and T-Rex, David Bowie and Mott the Hoople. He had this club, Rodney's English Disco, coupled with the fact that he was also a DJ that liked hip, current music. There were different levels we related to. There was obviously the T-Rex, the glam thing. He was actually right there, so he was really great to talk to about that. He loved to talk about it. He had pictures and scrapbooks. I just found it all real interesting and I think he liked the fact that I found it interesting. I made him laugh and I felt comfortable with him, I guess. And he felt comfortable with me. He's very picky about who he hangs out with. [Laughs] So I just went with it. We enjoy each other's company.

DG: Why Rodney? What convinced you his story was something to document and that could appeal to audience and not just something that says "This is my friend; I want to show his life?"

CC: Instincts. Your instincts are that when you're talking to people after a while or you know someone-and you go to their home and know them as a person, coupled with how you know them as an entertainer—in Rodney's case, he's a DJ, and you really get to know the person and you know the story it's a gut thing with me. It's like if I hear a really great song, see something, or hear about a great story, I always think in terms of Hollywood for some reason—probably because I live here—that that would be a great movie, that would be a good book, that would be a great song. I don't know, I just think that way. And I think with Rodney it's almost an obvious story. You don't have to be some astute filmmaker to realize that this guy had an amazing tale to tell. And no one was really going to do it because no one was close enough to him to be able to do it. So I thought it was an interesting position for me to be in and I didn't want to use his friendship to exploit him in a film. It was more I felt like he had given me a really great life. Here I am, I host a Beatles show, I manage Brian Wilson's band—all these great opportunities basically because of my friendship with this guy—and I thought it was a nice way to pay him back because I know, deep down, sometimes he feels frustrated in that he knows all the things he's done for people. He knows that he had cassettes of Oasis. He knows he played No Doubt before anybody. He knows all these things. Sometimes everybody else gets the credit for it—which is fine, I don't think he does it for credit—but at the same time I think it gets frustrating to continually do it year in, year out and not maybe be as recognized as you should be. So I thought the movie was a great vehicle for that. It was a way to tell people his story.

DG: A thank-you card to Rodney?

CC: Yeah. Believe me, it was not anything I could do with out his support. And he was totally aware of it, from beginning to end. The first thing I would do is say "Rodney, are you cool with this?" because he is private to a degree. There are things about him he wants known and things about him he'd rather not. I think that's not just unique to Rodney, I think that everybody's that way. I had to weigh all that. It was a juggling act in a lot of ways because if it was me telling the Rodney story—I would've...I thought of it one way—and when you get a director involved, things change a little bit.

DG: Let's talk about your role as Rodney's friend and as producer of this film. You have Rodney in a number of vulnerable moments: Spreading his mother's ashes, the ever-painful "I like you as a friend" moment, even the argument you two had.

CC: Right.

DG: Was it hard saying we can put these in the film? Or did you step back and allow the director some room in the film?

CC: Yeah. All those things that happened are obviously real. They come about from hours and hours and hours of just filming everything where you don't know what's coming next. I think it's obvious when you see the movie that those things are occurring when they're occurring. As far as stepping back, you have to because—especially with this team we had—we had a very established director who's not even making documentaries at this point in his career, he's doing features. And for him to go back to a documentary, which is almost a step back for him in a lot of ways, creates. when you're doing features, and then all of a sudden...so we really gave him, I mean, he was the man. We respect George [Hickenlooper]. With that said, we do, of course, talk about all those things as a team. "Do you think this is working? Do you think this works?" I did step back. Especially me. I obviously step back because I end up getting yelled at by the star of movie. I definitely took one on the chin there. [Laughs] But that's okay because that's part of the real story and interestingly enough, the first day of shooting.

DG: Was there a reason you chose not to depict the resolution between you and Rodney on film? Obviously you've patched things up.

CC: Oh yeah, like twenty minutes later. Again, for effects desired you do and do not say certain things, because, just like you said, you want to leave things unsaid sometimes. And that's part of the element you choose at the end. You know, we had a different ending for a while. We had a happier ending.

DG: You don't think it has a happy ending?

CC: A happier ending that we had—a very upbeat ending.

DG: What was that?

CC: It was nothing you didn't see. We were thinking of originally using the plaque that Rodney got from Nancy Sinatra with all these people gathered around his table at Canter's [Restaurant] as being a nice way to end the film. For reasons I won't go into we changed it. It made all the difference in the world because how you leave the audience is very important in a film like this where it's kind of a rollercoaster where you're up for a while and you're like, "Oh, wow! This is a fun movie. There's a lot of fast pictures and music. It's fun." And then all of a sudden the brakes get pulled and it becomes "Whoa."

DG: Was it tough to sell this idea to Rodney?

CC: Yeah. Yes and no. It's always right down the middle. It's half and half because he, I think, wanted this story to be told—in a way. What comes with it is it's hard to tell the story he wants you to tell. Like anybody. So that was always the problem. I think in the beginning, the fact that we had George involved and he respected George and I think he liked George, generally. He liked everybody. We never put him in an uncomfortable position or followed him around like these reality TV shows. It was very amicable, very "See you at two o'clock? See you at three or whatever? Okay. You don't feel good? Fine." I think he enjoyed having cameras go to England—Princess Di—the whole thing. I think he liked that. I think he likes to see it, sometimes, I think, for memories to be captured like that. I think he enjoys that. Just for being a pop culture guy.

DG: Was the documentary format always your first choice? Ever think of doing it as a straight narrative?<

CC: Always a documentary. Crumb was our inspiration, basically. We saw Crumb a bunch of times right when we started this. That was the movie, that's what told me, my inner voice, "Do the Rodney movie." I would sit and see "Crumb" in the theater two or three times. I was just fascinated by it. I went there originally because I liked him. It was his family...it was all the people around him.

DG: His brother.

CC: His brother, his mother. I always say, you never left the theater talking about his pen and ink work of 1971. You left talking about his brother and his mom and all the people around him. [Crumb] always seems like the eye of hurricane. I thought the exact same thing about Rodney—like I did about Crumb—in that you've kind of got their number right away. You know how Crumb is from the first two minutes you see him to the end. He's got his little things that turn him here and there and you know what he's all about. It's the same with Rodney. But I thought the people that surround these guys were—Kim Fowley and Ronald Vaughan, I knew all these people existed—I just thought that he'd be an interesting story. Rodney you kind of get, like I say, you kind of get him. He's like Andy Warhol in that whether you have two minutes of Andy Warhol or twenty minutes of Andy Warhol it's the same. It's kind of the way—it's the personality. But all those other people that are around that kind of a personality—and why, it raises the questions, why are these people surround by guys that are so colorful and out there and eccentric? What is it about Andy and Rodney? Is that they're so—you don't want to say bland—just.

DG: Are they an anchor?

CC: Well, they soak up—here's the answer, I think—they're the right audience for the creative eccentric people because they almost perform. People would perform in front of Andy Warhol—whether you're at the Factory and it's Edie and Gerard Malanga with a whip—people would do things for this guy for no apparent reason. He wasn't like, "Hey, hey, I'm Andy Warhol! Hey!" He was just this guy who sat there and basically was a sponge and he just soaked up what talented people did and, in some way, if he acknowledged them, that's all they were looking for. And I think it's the same with Rodney. I watch these people. I watched Joey Ramone come into town, they sit in front of Rodney and Rodney will say, "Your record's great. Your new album's great." And that's all they want to hear. [In Joey Ramone voice] "Hey, uh, Rodney likes the new record." To them they get acknowledged by Rodney—and they need him more than he needs them, in a weird way—because when they go back to New York, they say "Rodney liked our record" to their friend in the bar. And that, to them, makes it. So it's a real interesting give and take about who needs who and what for. It's funny.

DG: Is it a lack of pandering? Rodney's obviously a fan of a lot of these people-

CC: You know what it is? It's old show business in our world and we try to put a spin on it for you. It's really the old way. Rodney is Joe Franklin. He's a guy with a show and every year and a half when somebody makes a piece of product they seek out Joe Franklin. "Oh yeah, Joe Franklin, he's over at that drugstore having a chocolate malt every afternoon at four. And if I want to go over there and get on his show, I'll go over there." Rodney's at Canter's at eleven and people come in there with their tapes. I've seen—even the big, big bands—the Bangles and the Go-Go's will disappear for years and then [makes knocking sound], "Rodney! Hi, we have our new album." And they're all "Oh! Rodney!" Years will go by. It's interesting. He knows that, too, so there's a whole little power game.

DG: How hard was it to sell this idea to investors? When you look at Rodney, he's very meek. He doesn't seem to give a lot verbally. If you looked at him, he doesn't scream "dynamic personality."

CC: No.

DG: "Let's get this guy on film."

CC: No.

DG: What sort of challenges did you have in getting people behind this?

CC: It was a dream the whole way through. I was by myself, right? I started filming myself, I had all this stuff. I signed George Hickenlooper and it's just he and I. We had no money or anything. George goes to a bar, starts telling the bartender about this movie idea and the bartender says, "I know this guy who's looking to invest and be a producer. I'll call him." We meet the guy. The guy comes down from San Francisco. "Hey. I'm George. I'm Chris. How you doing? Here's our idea." George had this nice resume. I had this list of people we would be interviewing for the film. I would basically be able to guarantee these people and we told him it would cost $180,000 from top to bottom. And that was that. Six years later, almost $2,000,000, same guy stuck with us through the whole project and in turn, we sold it within twenty-four hours after it first screened at the L.A. Film Festival. It was one of those classic things you read about that you never really think exists. Like when they say, "All bids have to be in by 6 p.m. on the twenty-fourth." The audacity to think that people are going to be bidding on your thing, and not only that, you're going to give them a time where you cut off the bidding. Where I come from, you'd be praying someone would call you back and offer—and sure enough, we got not only one, two, three, four bids from the major companies and it ended up, from what I understand—at the time now, Michael Moore has now changed the course of all figures related to documentaries [Laughs]. At the time Bowling for Columbine got the highest advance and we were second to that, which is wonderful.

DG: Shooting for six years, how do you know when to stop? At what point do you think, "We have the footage we need? " Not just tons of it, but footage needed to tell the story you want to tell?

CC: We had over a hundred hours that we shot, plus all the rest of the stuff, probably about three hundred hours of footage. The reason we went that long was because George made two movies while we were making our movie. So when you say six years.

DG: It's off and on.

CC: Yeah. It's off and on. We would just keep going. One year it was maybe two months of shooting. We knew were done because it got to the point where we started editing. We edited almost for two years, which is unheard of. We bought the Avid. We actually bought the Avid, the piece of equipment that you edit on that you usually rent at a place and it really made a difference. And we had just an amazing editor. When you see the movie you can see the time, when you watch it.

DG: So you know when to wrap when?

We actually knew we were winding down. What we would do is look at what we had and say, "We need this, this, this and this. We need to address...Rodney, what happened? You never told us what happened at the end of the club." That was one of those last minute things—you go in there and you do that, you piece them all together because you see where everything is now leading and you see what you're not using—so you need to sometimes fill in some gaps—that's how you kind of wind down.

DG: How hard was it to get people to do the interviews? Did Rodney's name just open up doors for you?

CC: I knew, on my own just from hanging around him, these people, his friends. It's exactly what we just talked about, where people need—it's a give and take where there's a reason why Chris Martin from Coldplay comes down and lets you interview him. He's not going to let just anybody come in there and interview him. But Rodney—[Chris] is a kid from England—they all know who he is there. It's like if someone said, "You want to go on the Peel Show? You want to go on Top of the Pops?" in England. "Oh, Top of the Pops? Yeah!" You just say yes instantly. Rodney Bingenheimer? "Oh, yes!" He's like the legendary radio guy to these guys. So instantly, their rock instincts say, "Yes." Courtney Love, "Oh, Rodney! I love Rodney!" They need him as much as he needs them so they say, "Yes."

DG: The Beatles are mentioned numerous times during the film. Did you approach them?

CC: We didn't. When George and Rodney were in England, they went to Paul [McCartney's] business office. There was no good connection there. "Oh, I'm Rodney and George" it was to a guy outside, it was the doorman. It wouldn't get you very far. It's funny because we were all hanging out one night with Paul—Rodney and George and me—we were all hanging out at the House of Blues. We just thought it was uncool to pull the camera the camera out because he was being so nice. It was like, "Let's not ruin it and have him, you know." So we just didn't do it. We even had "Free as a Bird" in there at the end. The whole time "Free as a Bird" was in there because he says—about his mom, when we went to spread the ashes—he says "My mom, free as a bird." And when he puts that tape recorder on, he was really playing "Free as a Bird." We just didn't have the balls. At the very last minute we all said, "We're not gonna get 'Free as a Bird." We probably got a song that was bigger. I mean, "Yellow" by Coldplay is a bigger song, actually than "Free as a Bird"—if you want to know the truth. [Laughs] It was a great idea to replace it with. I think it works just wonderfully at the end of the movie. But it kills me that we didn't just try to do it because we probably—we didn't get turned down for one song in the whole movie.

DG: You could have leveraged that.

CC: Yeah, I just can't imagine.

DG: "Zeppelin's doin' it."

CC: Yeah, right. [Laughs] Exactly. It kills me that we never tried it.

DG: In the DVD's Special Features one the most interesting conversations I've ever seen takes place between Brian Wilson and Elvis Costello. Most of it doesn't apply to Rodney at all, but I'd say it's one of the most interesting things I've ever seen. Any plans of doing anything with that?

CC: Well.

DG: If you love music, that's probably a quintessential conversation right there.

CC: It's longer too. It is classic. It's classic because you try to wonder what Elvis is thinking. He's so respectful and I think it says volumes about the type of person Elvis Costello is because he's so eloquent and well spoken. And he doesn't flinch, doesn't move a muscle, when Brian says the most outlandish stuff to him that has absolutely nothing to do with what he was just telling him. Elvis just doesn't even miss a beat, you know? He just takes it in stride—just like I'm sitting here—Brian Wilson. These things happen. [Laughs]

DG: The saddest moment was when Wilson mentioned that he'd seen himself on television and only noticed that he'd slurred a lot; that nothing else was wrong.

CC: Right, right, right, right, right. Yeah, that interview was one of the most fascinating things I ever watched and there's a lot of it that, unfortunately, we just couldn't fit on there.

DG: What were you trying to say with the movie—if anything?

CC: I originally saw it as a pop culture piece. In that the section of the movie—I don't know if you remember certain scenes, but there's this one point where it kind of cuts to the spotlights and it's go the old radio, "Tonight on the Sunset Strip," the old radio clip—and Sonny and Cher are getting out. That's the way I saw the movie. I wanted GTO commercials. I wanted Monkees' stuff. I wanted it to be really like that first half hour, forty minutes, of the movie—where it's really moving—kind of made it a little bit more and colorful. What we got far surpasses my original idea. I think that's why I had a lot to learn, because I don't think if we did it that way it would have held up as well as this. George is an artist. When you watch George's commentary you realize this guy knows; this guy lives for film. He is a very, very intelligent guy. Sometimes people that are really bright and really excel in their field, you can't pick that up in five minutes of conversations. Sometimes, the smarter the guy, you give him five minutes to tell something he comes off the opposite of how bright he really is because it's just too much to whittle down to five minutes. I think George is like that. If you listen to the commentary, he lays it out and I never could have ever gotten close to getting it in that ballpark. I wanted to not direct this movie; I wanted to learn. I wanted to learn how to direct a documentary. Forget features. I don't think I could attempt to do that—which is my whole reason for hooking up with him, so I could learn. It was a great six-year education. I was just listening to his commentary. It was a great summary of everything that we did.

DG: What comment were you trying to make on pop culture?

CC: I wanted to just show—basically tell the story of the West Coast pop culture rock scene through the eyes of a guy who was really there and through the people that were really the ones who made it all happen. I felt that alone would hold up to be an interesting film. What we ended doing was we made it a little more about fame and what it does or doesn't do to a particular group of people led by Rodney. It really got into Rodney's personal life and his family life—where I may have just touched on that in my original idea, "Hey! Here's his father, Bing. Hey, Bing, how ya doing?" and then moved on to talk about the English Disco and stuff. I probably didn't have didn't have enough vision. Mine was probably limited compared to George's.

DG: Rodney's family seemed to be less his father and stepmother, but more yourself, Kim Fowley and Robert Vaughan. Do you think that based on everything that happened to Rodney as a kid—literally being left on a doorstep—do you think he was trying to build a family out of those he encounters? When you think about the people Rodney surrounds himself with, these aren't the most open people on the planet. They'll show you a version of themselves that they want to show you.

CC: Right. Well, they're very—Rodney's friends are usually as eclectic as he is in that I'm probably the most normal guy who knows Rodney in that I have a family, a wife and a house. Most of Rodney's friends are a little bit more unique, let's just say. And then there are the huge stars that are his friends—which is again why I find him so interesting. They all relate to each other in a weird way because even his friends, whether it be Brian Wilson...the people that feel comfortable around Rodney are usually people that would be classified as eccentric—Phil Spector, for instance. Here you've got a guy who, you know, Phil Spector—I don't even have to say anything. Yet, he finds it easy to talk to Rodney or send him a postcard or give him a call. Brian Wilson, "Alright, Rodney, I'm going to pick you up. We're going to go out." Brian Wilson doesn't pick up the phone.

DG: Well, there's no phone in the sandbox.

CC: He doesn't pick anybody up to go out. The fact that these guys feel comfortable with Rodney is interesting. It's interesting.

DG: I thought it was interesting that Nancy Sinatra and Cher took a very motherly role toward Rodney.

CC: You, again, these are hugely successful women—and mothering types—and they've both known Rodney for years and years. And, again, if Rodney was there and had a wife and three kids and everything they wouldn't be as motherly. But the fact that he's alone and they like to look after him I think is just a natural way to feel about him.

DG: Do you think that there's a difference between celebrity and fame and what do you think that is?

CC: Oh. Well.

DG: You can be famous. Or you can be like Paris Hilton. She's a celebrity, really.

CC: Yeah, sometimes I don't know the difference. I know what it's like to be well known, yet not famous. That's almost sometimes more of a question—how well known are you to be considered famous? I don't think anybody—look at Rodney. I don't think anybody could be—more people know the name Rodney Bingenheimer. I bet you could go around and say that name to people and the percentage would be so high, yet—is he a celebrity? Is he famous? Is being known the same as being famous? There are famous movie stars—I don't even know who they are—these young kids. I don't know who half of them are, yet they're very famous—so I don't really know.

DG: The director said in his commentary that he saw Rodney as a metaphor for the U.S. obsession with celebrity culture. Do you think it's that simple?

CC: No. I really never understood that.

DG: It was interesting that Kato Kaelin kept popping up throughout the documentary.

CC: We have Kato, for God's sake, almost in tears. My only complaint with the DVD is that we didn't put Kato in there. Kato was classic. We were interviewing Kato in the middle of the trial and he was basically all but admitting to the fact that he thought [O.J. Simpson] was guilty. He was almost in tears telling George, "I lay in bed at night and wonder, you know, why don't people like me?" This is classic! We've got the camera right up to this face, and this is Kato, and it's like "Wow!" And we never, never used it. We never used it on the DVD either. And I would be telling people for years, "We have Kato crying!" [Laughs]

DG: Well, he's a good example of celebrity.

CC: Well, he's a whole different thing. You see, the difference with Rodney is—Rodney is very year in, year out—he's infamous. There's a difference, you know? DJs as a rule, DJ's are like B-Level actors in that they're in that world. You know, the Bob Eubanks of the world. Guys that were DJs then they get on TV shows. It's different level with DJs. Rodney's a legendary L.A. DJ and—just like there's New York DJs—they're famous regionally. And that was one of our other big issues was here's a guy from Southern California—this is an L.A. story—a guy from Lawrence, Kansas, is he going to know who Rodney Bingenheimer is? My answer was, "Yeah, but so what? They know who David Bowie is. They know who Gwen Stefani is. They know who all these people are." As long as long as they know Rodney, there's the story. I think any good documentary basically should tell you a story that you really aren't familiar with. That's the whole idea of a story—it's something you don't know the answer to; something you don't know about them, these people.

DG: Environment's a huge part of this story, obviously. Here's Rodney in the center of celebrity and fame in Los Angeles. It's a place that's pretty notorious for chewing people up and spitting them out. How does Rodney steer clear of this entire thing? He seems to get away unscathed from anything.

CC: Well, he would—because what he does doesn't put him in a position to be hurt by anything. The worst-case scenario to fall in line with what you just said about chewing him out would be if he got fired. If he had gotten fired, chances are he probably wouldn't bounce back and be on a station the size of KROQ again. Who knows, maybe he would? Being he's kept his gig for so long, he's doing it. He's got more going on, at the end of the day, he's got more going on that most people because he's still got his job. Who can say that for this long? He still does what he's doing. He's still getting paid. He's still got a 1967 GTO. He lives in a nice, big apartment. And he's got a movie about him and a billboard on the Sunset Strip. He hasn't been chewed up and spit out. He's been taken care of, if anything. One thing about Hollywood, it's got this little, built-in club—just like New York. If you're from there and you've been there long enough—God forbid you're the Mayor of the Sunset Strip—you're in the club. He's never going to be ever in a position where there's not going to be a ton of people to be there for him. There's a lot to be said for that. And you know what? He hasn't needed anybody. Ever. He's been on his own and he takes care of himself. He doesn't need anybody's help. But, God forbid if he did, there'd be people there for him. Because, like you said, there's Nancy Sinatra. If the Sinatras and Wilsons of the world are looking out for you, you're okay.

DG: We only see Rodney having three strong emotional responses throughout the movie—his fight with you, spreading his mother's ashes and when he discusses his feelings toward Camille—is there a passionate side to Rodney?

CC: Oh, yeah. I see it like a relative or a spouse. Because he only has a handful of people he really deals with on a daily basis, you get everything. He's as cantankerous as they come. He is smart. He doesn't miss a trick. Say what you will about Rodney—he might not be a college grad-but he's one of the smartest guys because nothing gets by him. I think the movie is a love/hate thing for him. While he loves to be on the cover of Documentary magazine with David Bowie, he's gotta read all these peoples opinions of him. And they've always got to fill it with adjectives to describe Rodney. A lot times they'll say things that don't necessarily please him. He's like the Mayor police. He'll say, "I can't believe this woman in Boston...!" He'll pick up the phone, he'll call them and give them a piece of his mind. "I was not a latchkey child!" And rightly so. In the L.A. Times, when this came out in the Times, "He drives around in a beat-up old car." For years-he prides himself-he's got a '67 GTO, this mint condition car.

DG: He's only worked on his car once, according to the commentary.

CC: The Nova. They thought that was his car. That's his mother's car. That drives him crazy.

DG: Did he ever have any musical aspirations?

CC: Like to be a musician?

DG: Yeah.

CC: Well, he tries. He's made many 45's. He recorded with Blondie. They did "Little GTO." He did "Rock n' Roll Part One and Two." He did "I Hate the 90's" with he wrote and performed with Eric from Hole and the girl from Elastica and all those people. Every couple of years he does a 45' of novelty type thing.

DG: The thing about celebrity and famous people, there's always the aspect of people wanting to see them fail and get humiliated. It doesn't appear that Rodney's had a major misstep. Is there a lot of resentment toward him and his success?

CC: There has been a little bit over the years. There's this band, the Angry Samoans that wrote a song about him once. He cut them off forever after that. We never heard from them again. Rodney falls into that category where he's genuinely well liked. People like him, the bands like him. The people he wants to like him like him, which is a hard thing to do because, most people, that's what they wish happens. And all the artists like him and respect him. And I think that is all he needs. Because if you choose to be in a business and your peers respect you, that's the highest form of...if you're writer and Lester Bangs is writing you letters, "Oh, I love your stuff, man," then all of a sudden there's this validation within your peers. I think—same with any musician—John Lennon wants to know Bob Dylan likes his record more than he wants to know that Shirley from Reseda is enjoying it, you know what I mean?

DG: Obviously Rodney's a huge fan of music. There's a sense of dread in the film when calls the next wave of music "Skateboard Music." Looking at the music today, there's a resurgence of the punk/rock sound.

CC: Oh, he's happier now. He's happier in the last couple of years. Last couple of years it's turned around much more into rock n' roll. Everything is going a little bit back to guitars. Whereas for a while, it was lost in a sea of...Lance Loud says it best in the movie, "There's less to be jazzed about." There's always twenty good bands out there at all times, but there's less and less that's really exciting and knocking you out. But there's things he worships now like the Raveonettes. There are things that are totally built for Rodney. It comes and goes, you know?

DG: Has this film changed him?

CC: Oh, yeah. I don't know how, but it definitely has. I think it's built his confidence up a lot.

DG: Has it changed his relationships with people in the movie? With Kim Fowley?

CC: They don't speak.

DG: They don't? They seem so different.

CC: They're at odds. They're always at odds. I think for the first time now, Rodney is taller than Kim.

DG: There does seem to be a bit jealousy on Fowley's end.

CC: Rodney scored—the Olympics, they're holding up the tens for Rodney—Kim is, I think for the first time—Kim had always been the, "I've had my songs on KISS albums," he was "The Guy" and Rodney had a radio show, but I think now...When Rodney got that billboard on Sunset, he grew a few inches, I think.

DG: What about Ronald Vaughan?

CC: Ronald Vaughan? He's homeless, but for a homeless guy, he sends out e-mails everyday, he's got an 800 number, he's got a locker full of memorabilia. He just refuses to get a job to put a roof over his head because he's got he's passion for his career. In Ronald's eyes, he's now on a soundtrack with David Bowie and Blur, he's seen on big movie screens and he came to the signing at [The Virgin Megastore] to sign autographs. So in Ronald's book, he's doing alright. We only can wait and see. He does have a lot of synchronicity good luck that happens to him. And he performed on the Jimmy Kimmel Show.

DG: What about with Camille?

CC: Camille? Camille comes around now and sometimes sits in the booth with Rodney. Couple of times, I think Rodney had a couple of dates and wished Camille could be out of there so he could be with his dates. Rodney's fine with it all. She had a baby with a dishwasher at Canter's. So in the end, I think Rodney feels he made the right decision.

DG: And your relationship with Rodney? Better friends?

CC: I think I built up a lot of trust with him because I never—and I could say this with a straight face and look you in the eye and say that everything I ever told Rodney—I never lied to him. I always to him the truth about every single aspect and it all came out, every time I tell him, "I'm trying to get them to change this" or "I'm doing this" and same to Kim, I've always delivered on everything I said—whether it was getting something that he didn't like in the movie out or changing something or adding someone's name to the box on the DVD, I was always his agent on the whole thing. I would always try to represent him and his thoughts, because nobody else really could do it. Once we got sold to a big movie company all of a sudden our requests, even mine and George's, became less important—you're dealing with someone who just paid a lot of money. We can't go in there like we used to and say "I want this here and I want this here." You had to go discuss it with people who also had a part of the decision. Rodney would be telling me, "I want this. I want Nancy Sinatra—oh, I want this." I would have to then bring into the meeting on his behalf. I think he enjoyed the fact that I very honest and up front about all that post-sale stuff. I think I represented him well and that he respected that.

DG: How has this film changed things for you?

CC: Oh, well it's opened up another door for me. I'm all about finding things I like in life and trying to create that as a part of my life. Radio is my first—radio is the only thing I feel that I know how to do well. Everybody knows, whether you're a baseball player or whatever, there's just one thing you really can do well and everything else you just attempt, try your best at. [Laughs] I knew I was good at baseball, I knew I was good at bass playing, but I wasn't the best bass player and I never would be the best. And I knew I wasn't the best baseball player. I was just good. Adequate. I could do it as a profession if I had to, maybe—not baseball—I wanted to, you know? But being a DJ is the one thing that I naturally feel that I have a talent for, that I felt comfortable in, that I enjoy one hundred percent. It's the most comfortable thing that I've ever done. And everything, like I said, I'm just attempting. So filmmaking is just another thing. I was such a passionate fan of documentaries. I'd watch two or three documentaries a week every week of life. Could be about anything—bugs—I'd watch a well-done documentary about anything. And usually I found the subjects that I was least interested in, if they got me interested that was the true sign of good documentary because here was I was not even interested in the subject matter and it kept my attention. I thought that was an interesting way of just making films, more than feature films. I just found documentaries were far and way my favorite. So, I wanted to get involved in them. I could watch Gimme Shelter a thousand times, over and over and over again. The way it chronicled this time period I just totally-I feel like I'm there. I have no idea what day it is when I'm watching Gimme Shelter. I'm right there. And if you can do that, that's like making a great album to me. Music is the same way. You put yourself in album and that's the soundtrack for your life at the moment. Documentaries are the same way.

DG: Is that your favorite?

CC: Gimme Shelter? Probably. Yeah.

DG: You want to direct?

CC: I want to direct documentaries because it's a different...it's not the same as directing features because you're dealing with actors. You can't even really compare them. "Editing" is a better term for documentaries. Really, it's about editing because you're not directing anything. You're letting people say...you're directing their answers in that you're asking questions. To be quite honest, I was very involved with the questions. I interviewed Alice Cooper. I did a lot of these interviews myself. George did most of them. That, to me, is the only part of the directing. You're going to direct your subjects to go to a certain place. George would direct them, "Do you think about death? Do you think about your own mortality? Do you think about fame?" He was directing them to all go in the same place and then go back and listen to everything that they said. The things that I learned from George—I'll never be able to replace those and you can't read any books, you have to watch [George work]—he would some things like hire someone to do transcripts of every bit of interview footage. So we had a hundred hours. One, two, three, four volumes of text—every word Kim Fowley said, "Come to Hollywood." And George would go with his marker and would highlight it. It was kind of chronological, so it told a story, right? And then he'd hand it back to the editing person. They would pull all the clips he highlighted. He did see even of it, he just read it. He didn't know if the scene was good, if there were birds in the background, if the guy had snot running down his nose—it doesn't matter, he's looking at the text. They'd pull all that and edit that together. Then he looks at that. So it's not going to jive visually. The text is all going to make sense. I thought that was a fascinating way to way to just start. That was just something you could never have thought of even though you knew people always had transcripts and read through them. But watching that process was...and that's just a way to do it, that's just one guy's way. But just to know that's just one guy's way when you go to do it yourself, you can say "Do I want to do it that way or do I maybe want to do a variation of that idea?" That's what I wanted to learn from George.

DG: Do you know how you'd go about it today?

CC: Well, yeah. One, I've learned not to take this long. At the same, it's very hard to...if you're subject is alive, you have to spend more time because you need things to happen. [Rodney's] mother passed away. Sono Bono died. Sonny Bono dying is an amazing part of the movie. Here was Sonny Bono, a guy that was going to be very helpful with us, be one of our key guys—show up, be Sonny, do anything for Rodney—and he died! Prior to his dying we had asked Cher's people if she would be involved with Sonny because Sonny and Cher were kind of Rodney's mom and dad when he moved here, and for whatever reason Cher passed and couldn't do it. Then Sonny died and at my house, I got a call from Cher—or Cher's person—and said she wants to do the Rodney film for Sonny. There's nothing more amazing than picking up the phone and going "Rodney, Cher's going to be in the movie." He just went absolutely insane. So did George. Once Cher was in the movie—and [David] Bowie was in the movie—there was no stopping us. Who were we worried about, Courtney [Love]? "Hey, Courtney, Bowie and Cher are in. What time should we see you?" It was easy. Cher, that was huge for us. And that wouldn't have happened if Sonny hadn't died, if we stopped the documentary two years in the making. So you really have to take time. But if someone's dead—it's a lot different—is my point. A Tiny Tim documentary might be...you might able to knock that out in two years.

DG: And that's what you're thinking of doing next?

CC: That's one of my ideas. I have another one. Charles Manson's son has come to me—that's a whole other thing.

DG: Was there a point when you thought it was just taking too long complete it?

CC: Yeah, when George would go make his movies. Nothing against George—I mean, he had to put food on the table. He went and did Man from Elysian Fields and he did another movie called The Big Brass Ring with William Hurt. He'd be gone and we'd be editing. Sometimes months would go and you'd think, "This isn't gonna happen." We knew it was going to happen when we did the L.A. Film Festival. We were astonished because we were playing in the Cinerama Dome.

DG: It spilled over, didn't it?

CC: Into a second theatre on top of which we had 350 people that didn't get in. And we were worried we weren't going to fill up the Cinerama Dome. It was just over the top.

DG: Completely off topic, but Brian Wilson really played piano here?

CC: Yeah.

DG: Wow, that's amazing.

CC: It is.

DG: Thanks, Chris.

CC: Yeah. No problem.