Ellie Everywhere: Jody Stephens of Big Star

Ellie Everywhere interviewed Jody Stephens from the band Big Star, a band for the record books. 

So, I’m back at it! Here’s a funny story. So, we went to Memphis, Tennessee to have fun and hang with the one and only Jody Stephens, famous worldwide from the band Big Star. I really am Ellie  Everywhere, right?! So, I was all fired up and ready to do an interview with my questions under my arm, but we didn’t have enough time because my parents were so excited to see him, they spent the whole time talking!!! I had to wait until we came home to call Jody on the phone. So that is why I  present to you today: The one, the only, the famous drummer JODY STEPHENS OF BIG STAR!!! 

Ellie Everywhere: Okay, so for my first question, how did you start playing all the instruments that you play? 

Jody Stephens:  Well, I started playing drums when I was in the seventh grade, or maybe I should say started playing a drum because I joined the junior high school band in seventh grade and played the snare drum. Just sort of got my foot in the door playing, and actually had access to a snare drum. I did that in the seventh and eighth grades. When I was 14 or 15, I got a drum kit; the inspiration for it all was the Beatles and Ringo Starr. You know, it was just exciting and I wanted to be a part of music and the whole musical creative process. I wanted to be a Beatle. I play a very little bit of guitar. I do have a guitar, an acoustic, and Alex Chilton taught me some chords. And I wrote a song that’s on Big Star’s third album called For  You. And after that, I set the guitar down (laughs), and picked it up a couple of times in the last 30 years or so. 

EE:  That’s great! So for my second question. How did you meet your first band? 

JS:  Well, my older brother Jimmy picked up bass guitar for the same reason that I picked up drums, the  Beatles basically, and so we had a little bit of a rhythm section there. And back in those days, there were just lots of kids. It was, you know, the Baby Boomer generation. And there were lots of kids in the neighborhood and we could field baseball teams in our backyard and play football out front in the front yards and also there were musicians. And so four of us got together and that was the first band I  was in. We were doing you know, British Invasion covers, Beatles and Kinks and all that sort of thing. 

EE: That’s great. Another question I’d like to ask you about is how did you meet Big Star? 

JS: Well, I met Andy Hummel – he was a bass player and writer and he played some keyboards. I met him when I was in the seventh or eighth grade through a mutual friend, a guy named Mike Fleming, and you know, we’d hang out a little bit but then I fell out of touch with them. While I was still in high school, I was a senior, I landed a gig playing drums in the Memphis State production of Hair. It was the first college production of Hair and we all auditioned as a band, and the instrumentalists in the band (that included my brother Jimmy) were hired to be the band for the stage production. The lead singer was brought on to play the lead one of the leads, Berger, in the play. So I’m making a short story long, but Andy Hummel came to see that and at the end of the performance, he came up and asked if I  wanted to jam with some friends that he has, and it turned out to include Chris Bell. And so the three of us were the nucleus for a band that, you know, played a few gigs here and there and recorded in the studio a little bit. But that would have been maybe March or April 1970. And then in December or  January, Alex Chilton joined and that’s when we became Big Star, and with Alex and Chris, we put the music and songs together for #1 Record. 

EE: That’s great. For my third question, how did you make your first song? Tell me about it! 

JS: First song for the band? I am not quite sure what song that would have been. Oh! You know what song it was – actually we recorded it before Alex joined the band – it was the song called Life is Right. It’s on #1 Record but we cut it prior to Alex joining the band. We recorded it at Ardent (studio), which is kind of the Disney World of recording studios. We were lucky kids. We had a mentor in John Fry and his engineering talents and his mix talents and so we recorded those there.  

EE: Interesting! Okay, number four. How does it make you feel to play in front of an audience? 

JS: Like I’m a part of something like I’m a part of a community of people with similar interests, and we’re sharing this great thing called Music. That’s why I’m still doing it. I’m 69 years old and I’m addicted to playing music. 

EE: Great. The fifth question is, what are you working on today? 

JS: Well, I just finished a video shoot in Los Angeles. That was fun. I have a duo called Those Pretty  Wrongs. And we shot a video for a song called Paper Cup. It’ll be on a new record out in September.  That was fun. We played a gig out in LA. as well, that was a good time. Today specifically I’m here at  Ardent and doing my daily chores. Today was fountain cleaning day. We have a courtyard and we have a really beautiful fountain out there and I was kind of cleaning it up and then refilling it and then also working on booking a few projects that are coming in and following up on those. And then I’ll practice here in a little bit and get my daily drum practice out of the way. 

EE: For our last question, what’s your all-time favorite movie and why? 

JS: Oh, well probably The More the Merrier. It’s just a fun movie. It’s kind of an ensemble cast of Joel McCrae, Jean Arthur, and Charles Coburn. And it just it’s so much fun. It was released in 1945 before my time, but I’m an old movie fan. Yeah, you should watch it. It’s really funny. 

EE: Great, what’s it about? 

JS: It’s about washing Washington DC during World War II, and the apartment and hotel room shortage.  Washington was flooded with soldiers and people coming in for the war effort, and they were short on housing. And it’s about the challenges of that. Jean Arthur goes to rent her apartment and Charles Coburn answers the advert and she’s not interested. Just the kind of misadventures that go on from there. Call me and let me know what you think about it.  

EE: Okay.  

JS: The More the Merrier. 

EE:  I’ll write that down. Thank you for letting me interview you. 

JS: Thanks. Those were good questions! Wow, you should do more of this. I think you found your calling. 

EE: Maybe! 

JS: Y’all take care.