Ben Marcus Rules

Billy Gale. That’s a good country name. Billy Gibbons x Crystal Gayle. That a stage name?

Nope that’s my real born name. Not into stage names because I never did this to be public or famous. I just like making music. 

Where and when were you born when they gave you that good country name?

San Pedro in 1946. I was an Army brat. My dad was stationed at Fort MacArthur in San Pedro. I grew up on a five-acre berry farm in the middle of the cornfields. They bought our property to build the Harbor Freeway. We moved to Mulholland. I found the route to the beach and that was that.

That was what?

I started surfing - let me see - when I was about six years old I guess. My first board was unrecognizable. My dad made it out of pieces of styrofoam that we glued together with white Will Hold glue and shaped it. Four layers of 12 ounce glass and blue house paint. Weighed about 50 pounds.

Weighed more than you?

Oh yeah. I guess that was before Clark Foam. So that would be the mid-50s or earlier. I started surfing Malibu with all the boys: Johnny Fain, Lance Carson, Miki Dora and all those guys. I was the little guy in their way. Dora hated me and dropped in on me all the time.  Actually I dropped in on him a couple of times. That’s where he learned the Miki Dora shove I think.

By the time I was 10 I got hip to Secos - Leo Carrillo. This was about the same time they built Neptune’s Net. The Jacobs family. It was called the County Line Cafe back then.

They call me a legend up north. I guess it's because I'm the oldest surfer in the water. I surfed Secos when Leo Carrillo lived there. 

Where was Leo Carrillo’s house?

Up on the bluff where Tower Two is now. Beautiful house. Spanish style, bougainvillea. I couldn’t believe they tore it down. Should have been a historic landmark like the Adamson House. Never saw anybody there.

You had to climb over his fence and run to the water. No one ever bothered me. I surfed Secos alone so many times. Beautiful memories. Once in a while Johnny Fain would show up, Or Dewey Weber and Donald Takayama. Nobody else knew about the place. You might remember when SURFER Magazine did a monthly article on secret spots. They did an article on Secos and that was the beginning of the end! Now I paddle out with 100 of my best friends. How times change! 

There were other guys who surfed Secos but they were all Ventura Boys: Charlie Barton, Rick Gilligan, Bill Althaufer. And that was about it. 

I remember the first time I saw six people in the water there. Blew my mind.

I hear your dog is a legend at County Line, too.

The dog in the picture is my best friend William the dog! Now my name is Billy, my son’s name is Willy and then there is William the dog. One day on the bluff at County Line William the dog was sitting under Wayne Boehmer's van. He saw a squirrel across the street and decided to go for him. He got hit 60 miles an hour and got knocked 100 yards down the highway. He survived it. The next day on the bluff I was talking to Bear Wozniak. His son Jeremiah - who is my son's age and his surfing pal - was in the water surfing, saw me talking to his dad. Bear knew that the dog had been hit but I guess Jeremiah got a mixed signal and thought it was my son Willy who had been hit. He paddled out of the water and came up soaking wet and was listening to our conversation.

Bear said “Well what happened?”

I said “Bear, he ran across the street, got hit by a car at 60 miles an hour, got knocked 100 yards down the highway.” 

Bear says “Well where is he now?”

I said “He is across the street laying in my truck. He might have internal injuries, I don't know.”

Bear said “Didn't you take him to a doctor?” 

I said “Hell Bear I ain't got the money for a doctor.”

He says “Well what are you going to do?” 

I said “I guess I'll let him lay there and see if he lives or dies. Can't do much about it. Might have to shoot him.”

I looked at Jeremiah and I will never forget the look on his face! 

William the dog survived it and went on to have a long and happy life. 

He is a legend at County line.

Well I’ve always said I envy anyone who was a surfer in California in the 1950s. Cruising in an Army Surplus Jeep or a Woodie or a Chevy Bel Air or an F100 pickup. Gas was 25 cents. Jobs were plentiful. America was a super power. All of Southern California was as clean and quiet and prosperous as Malibu is now. When did the music start?

I started playing guitar when I was six years old. That means I have been playing music for 70 years now. I have so many stories we could write another book. Just don't know how far you want to take this. Maybe I'll tell you about the time Mick Jagger tried to pick me up. But I don't think that is for publication.

Let’s see, the top 10 country songs in 1956 were Heartbreak Hotel and Don’t Be Cruel by You Know Who, then Young Love by Sonny James, then Hound Dog, then Singing the Blues by Marty Robbins, Crazy Arms by Ray Price, Blue Suede Shoes by Carl Perkins, I Walk the Line by Johnny Cash, I Want You, I Need You, I Love You by Elvis and Love Me Tender by Elvis.  That old boy just done tore it up, didn’t he? Can’t imagine why anyone would be influenced to get into music listening to all that.

Wasn’t Elvis for me at first. It was Nelson Eddy and Jeanette McDonald. Don’t remember the songs. Remember I was a little kid listening to that because my mom loved it. 

Let’s talk about mom and dad.

Wait a minute back to the influences. First album I ever bought was Bill Haley and the Comets. Rock Around the Clock. Also Louis Prima and Keely Smith - one of the greatest jazz singers ever. Badass. Too good, to this day.

So you were a child of the 50s, on the cusp of jazz and rock and roll.

Absolutely. That’s it. 

That’s why I say I like the British Invasion drummers. John Bonham, Keith Moon, Ginger Baker. They were all jazz guys. 

I didn’t pay too much attention to them. I got involved with them later. Ahmet Ertegun was looking at me to sign me. I passed on it.

Why?

Because they were all… Let’s just say I didn’t go their way.

Really?

Oh yeah if you didn’t play ball with them you didn’t get anywhere and if you did play ball you’d be in a castle in Spain.  We had to participate.

Rock and roll and jazz but also country. Great country through the 50s.

Eddie Arnold was the biggest thing before Presley but then when Elvis showed up he just disappeared. I listened to a lot of the Everly Brothers. I almost wrote for them in the late 60s. Snuff Garrett was producing them but they couldn’t get Don Everly out of bed. He wasn’t in shape to do anything so we kind of passed on the whole deal.

Did you play on other artists' albums or songs?

No, I just wrote songs and recorded them and handed them into Cliffy Stone and went to the beach. Never wanted to be in a rock band. I was always just on my own. I didn’t like the star trip. Egos and everyone believing their own press. I never wanted to be a public figure rock star. Just avoided that like the plague.

Malibu doesn’t have a music scene. Which is weird since everybody lives here, from Bob Dylan to Beck. Did Malibu ever have a music scene? What was the best era?

Not really. It was just a surf town.

Santa Cruz had a great music scene in the 1970s.

Santa Cruz rocks. Everywhere. La Honda. A place called Apple Jacks. I played there a lot.

Heading to this interview I talked to a guy who remembers you from The Old Place. How far back does that go?

A long way. About early 70s, me and a bunch of the boys lived across the street in one of the oldest houses in Agoura. It was called the Turquoise House. 

What was that like?

That was the HQ for the Agoura Borealis Boogie Band. Well me and Tyler Gibson and Tiny on the drums. It was a bunch of crazies. That was when Lake Enchanto was still going. Peter Strauss lived across the street.

Lake Enchanto?

Lake Enchanto was an old amusement park in the 1940s and I guess it shut down - I don’t know what year. Wasn’t operating when we were there. We had a blast in the Turquoise House. There was nothing out there then.

Isn’t much out there now.

Except the Old Place. We’d walk across the street and close the place down every night. I got to know Tom Runyon. Morgan’s father. He was something. He was a character. 

We had a bonfire in the front yard that never went out and a keg of beer. All the time. Bob the Cop would come by on his motorcycle and stop on the edge of the driveway and yell “Hide your shit I’m coming in!”

What kind of music? 

Whatever we could play. We had some crazy people coming in there. We didn’t play anywhere, just at the house. Party central. And The Old Place.

I played the Old Place all the time. Just hung at the Old Place. It was intimate. We just had a blast. A lot of fun. Steve McQueen and Ali McGraw would show up. Just had a great time. It was chill. It was mellow. We just had fun. I enjoyed that. I could walk up to someone’s table and talk to them and play for them and it was just great.

How often did you play the Old Place?

Gosh at one point I played there four nights a week for about four years. It was just the Old Place. There was no winery next door and it was out in the boonies. 

I can imagine it had an outlaw aura at the time.

It was the hideout for the movie stars and I met Michael Preece. He was a director. Movie director. Interesting story there, don't know if you want to print this. He was the script consultant on The Getaway with Ali and Steve McQueen. He was going with Ali and from behind the camera he watched Ali and Steve McQueen fall in love.

He became a fan of mine and he was on the board of directors for the Malibu Playhouse and arranged for me to do a couple of shows there. That was fun. A 99-seat theater. Great acoustics. One of the best rooms in Malibu I think.

Any Irish in your background?

Oh yeah. 

That’s where the music comes from. Have you been to Ireland?

Can’t get to Ireland right now. Can’t even fly. I don’t have the right driver’s license. Trying to get a passport together to go to Puerto Rico with a friend.

The Irish are the most musical white people I’ve ever seen. The Brazilians are the most musical people over all but Ireland is music from one end to the other.

Irish on my dad’s side. My grandfather was an Irish horse trainer who came to the states and joined the Army. He trained horses for Teddy Roosevelt and the Rough Riders. When Teddy went to the White House, my grandfather went with him.

I always ask people “What was your favorite era, period or decade in California?? Usually it’s the 1950s into the 1960s.

Probably for me it was 1969 when I signed with Cliffy Stone and started writing and recording and fell in with Joni Mitchell and Graham Nash and those folks. I learned a lot from Graham. A beautiful person. Just the kindest gentleman. Just a great guy. I learned the beauty of a first take.

The story I got was when Crosby, Stills and Nash were recording Teach Your Children. They had Jerry Garcia playing pedal steel on that. He was in the studio and said “Okay run it by me and let me listen to it.” So they played it by him and sitting there with his pedal steel messing around and figuring things out and unbeknownst to everybody Graham Nash slid over to the mixing board and punched the record button. After Jerry listened to the song once he said “Okay let’s do one.”

And Graham said we already did one. And so what you hear on that is Jerry Garcia playing his pedal steel to a song he never heard before. One take.

And that’s how I always did my music. Live in the studio. One take.

You handed me a CD with your current music, but I can’t find a CD player. What’s on there? 

Ten songs, all live, first take.

Where did you record?

All over the place. LA, Nashville. I don’t remember half the studios.

Over what time period?

Oh my gosh…. Actually several years I guess.

Just you?

Oh no I had some of the best players in the business working with me. That’s why we could do it first take. If you couldn’t do it first take you couldn’t get in the room.

People like Johnny Hobbs on keyboard, Joe Shmay on bass, Nickie Brown on guitar, Ronnie Krasinski on drums and JD Mannis on the pedal steel. That was the LA crew.

In Nashville it was Johnny Neil on keys, Martin Parker on drums. They were from the Dickie Betts band. Reno Kling on bass. He played for Steve Earle. Chris Lucinger on guitar. He played for Crystal Gayle. And Sonny Garish on pedal steel. There were a couple of other sessions up in Ventura with Dwight Yoakum’s boys. Cary Park, a great guitar player.

Right now at Whole Foods as I’m editing this they’re playing It’s my Life by No doubt: “It’s my life. Don’t you forget. It’s my life. It never ends.” Which inspires this question. This is your immortal statement on here, so who would you like to thank? For all time?

I don't know. We could go on forever but sometimes less is more. The only thing I would add is a mention of Kevin Zinger and SRH records. Don't kiss ass too much but Kevin is a very special person. He babysits 25 bands, sponsors all kinds of surfers. Sends them monthly checks and helps them on their surfing trips. He's not a Malibu trust fund baby. He earns his money! He put all this together and put me online. And never asks for anything in return.

I guess I should thank Cliff Stone and Steve Stone for keeping me in the game. And Graham Nash. He didn't know me from Adam but he sat and talked with me like we were old friends.

What a gentleman. A rock star!

Oh hey, and Tom and Morgan Runyon at The Old Place for giving me such a great place to play.

I asked Morgan if he had any photos of you playing at the Old Place back in the day. He said he didn’t but he sent this one for atmosphere. Any idea who these people are?

You've got me thinking about who else to thank. That could go all the way back to Yellowstone Kelly and the Galloping goose Motorcycle Club. Jammed for them at a place called The Omnibus. A fun crew.

Who else to thank? That would be another two-week interview.

Is your music available online?

Look for Billy Gale on YouTube.

Looks like there are at least two Billy Gales on YouTube. Which songs are yours that music lovers should look for?

This 10 song collection is kind of the tip of the iceberg. The first cd I ever put out was a note from my heart 18 songs. It's somewhere out there. I guess Protecting Her Heart, Margarita, Her Alibi and Mama's Money.