One warm summers day last year I was on a road trip with my dad. As usual I was put in charge of the music to make the hours pass more easily.
One of the CDs I chose was one I had recently picked up titled The Turtles Present The Battle Of The Bands. I was blown away and knew that one of those egg laying, chelonian, testudinines was going to have to make their way onto our pages no matter how fast or slowly their webbed feet could get them here. We lucked out when Howard Kaylan graciously agreed to our request.
Beginning with surf-rock group The Crossfires, Howard and high school band mate, Mark Volman have done it all. As founding member of the 60's folk rock/pop group The Turtles, they had multiple hits with songs like "Happy Together," "Elenore," and "You Showed Me".
When the band started to grow apart musically Howard and Mark were asked by Frank Zappa to join his Mothers of Invention and they readily agreed under the pseudonym Flo & Eddie. After a successful run they struck out on their own under the same noms de plume and released a number of records, and performed backup vocals for numerous artists like Springsteen, John Lennon, T Rex, The Ramones and many others.
As if that wasn't enough to keep them busy, they have also recorded many children's movie soundtracks and have hosted their own radio show in LA and NYC. These days Howard is performing with Mark as The Turtles once again to enthusiastic audiences and you can see them this spring and summer as part of HIPPIEFEST at a venue near you.
It is rare that an artist will bring so much of his time and talents to an interview, but Howard was generous with both.
You were the Crossfires before you changed your name to the Turtles. Why the name change and did the line-up remain the same from the Crossfires to the Turtles?
The Crossfires was the name of our band when we were in high school...we were a surfing band playing the music of Dick Dale, the Ventures, the Challengers and others of that ilk. We only did minimal vocals--I played tenor sax and I taught Mark how to play alto sax. We would honk away on the surf instrumentals and only "sing" when the band did "What I Say" or "Money" — those traditional R&B bar songs that every band played.
When the British Invasion hit in 1964, we put the saxes away, learned every English vocal that we could and began to copy the vocal groups from the U.K. Our manager thought that the name Crossfires really didn't fit our new direction, so he suggested The Turtles. At first, we all laughed and rolled on the floor. Then we got mad. Turtles were slow and stupid — not cute like beetles at all -- but then our manager reminded us that a)Turtles was an "animal" name and all English bands had animal names, b) that it ended it "tles" just like the Beatles did and c) that our record company White Whale was new and tiny and would probably be perceived as an import since the Beatles had records released on Swan, VJ, and Tollie as well as Capitol when they hit the scene.
Article comments
1 - James A. Gardner
Nice interview, Cody. While Kaylan is almost always an interesting subject, you obviously did your homework and asked questions that yielded entertaining responses.
"Battle of the Bands" is truly an under-appreciated classic rock and roll album, right up there with "Face to Face," "Forever Changes," and "Twelve Dreams of Dr. Sardonicus." Love his replies about MP3s and "Pet Sounds" or "Sgt. Pepper."
"My Dinner With Jimi," the film Kaylan wrote, is one of the most enjoyable movies I have seen all year, and one of the great rock and roll movies ever. He may not be a prolific writer, but he struck gold with this effort.