Interview with Paul Kantner

Paul Kantner was the co-founder of the Jefferson Airplane and Jefferson Starship, author of many, many fine songs, a science fiction fan, and possibly the best 12-string guitarist in the history of rock music. He died five years ago today. 

I was a major fan of his music since I first heard the Airplane in 1967 and as much as any musician has influenced my life, he is one of the big ones. Part of the reason for that was the science fictional subject matter of many of his songs, especially on the albums Blows Against the Empire, Sunfighter, and Baron von Tollboth and the Chrome Nun. If you have not heard these, give them a listen. (All are available on Spotify). 

You can get a good idea of his talent from this live recording from the Cavern Club in Liverpool in 2004, which features some of his lesser-known songs. The Jefferson Airplane album, The Woodstock Experience, should give you a good idea of his skill on the electric 12-string. 

Here's a long interview with him conducted by Steve Silberman in 2005.  

When a remastered version of Blows was released in 2005, David Gans asked me to interview Kantner for broadcast on Dead To The World on KPFA. We had a blast, smoking joints as Kantner loved doing even in airports, and exploring a wide range of San Francisco countercultural history. I submitted the transcript to the editors at Relix, who promised to publish it. But they never did, and for many years, I believed the interview had been lost forever.

Recently, however, I gave a public talk at San Francisco’s Tenderloin Museum on PERRO, and in the course of doing research, I found the transcript again. It has never been published before and contains revelatory exchanges on everything from how Paul and Grace Slick first became lovers to why Jerry Garcia got a credit as “spiritual advisor” on the Airplane’s Surrealistic Pillow. I’m honored to see this interview, conducted on September 16, 2005, finally published in JamBase.

In 2006, I was in San Francisco for a technical writing conference and a friend gave me a quick tour of the city. We were in a café in North Beach, and Kantner was sitting in the back of the room reading a newspaper. I didn't have the nerve to go up and approach him. I wish I had, though I am not sure I'd had anything much to say, other than thank you for the music.