JP: H.M.S. Bounty was started by you and Bill Dodd, an old acquaintance of yours. What’s the story behind your partnership? Did the two of you collaborate on the band’s material, or did you handle all the songwriting yourself?

MF: Bill Dodd and I formed the H.M.S. Bounty. We had played together in high school in 1961. Our first band was the Rockin’ Titans. He got a job playing in an r&b/ instrumental band and I went with the Impacts. We later got back together around the end of ‘67. (Ed. note-- Dodd was also a member of Fapardokly in 1966.) I did all the writing, Bill helped with the arranging, background vocals and some great lead guitar parts!

JP: Briefly describe the other members of H.M.S. Bounty. How did you come to know Jack Jordan/ Metz and Larry Meyers?

MF: Jack Metz (aka Jordan) was a member and sort of manager/ vocalist/ sax man in the Impacts. He later became a good bass player. Larry Meyers was a blues-rock drummer who loved Ginger Baker’s playing.

JP: The thing that strikes me more than anything else about the album THINGS is the amazing stylistic range. Moreover, the band demonstrates sheer mastery of so many genres-- psychedelic, eastern, folk-rock, country-rock and blue-eyed soul to name a few. How did you become so adept in writing in so many different styles?

MF: The stylistic range of H.M.S. Bounty was really an outgrowth of Fapardokly as Bill Dodd had joined me on some of the last desert recording sessions before we formed the Bounty. We never dreamt the Fapardokly would get released, much less become one of the most sought-after sixties’ LP’s! This was also around the time we started smoking pot. With my musical range and experience from the past, every joint sent me in a new direction. It was like discovering all these new flavors of ice cream and loving them all!

JP: What were the group’s live shows like? I imagine songs like “Lost in the City” and “Drivin’ Sideways (On a One Way Street)” really made for some sweet on stage guitar duels. Do you currently have any tapes of H.M.S. Bounty performing live?

MF: Our shows were fantastic! A magic really came over the band live... We turned into other people on stage! Bill was a shy kind of guy but would sometimes really cut loose on stage... It was fun to see. We opened for Canned Heat and played a few very large venues and fairgrounds. We really thought we had hit the big time and the money was getting better, although we never saw any royalties! Bill and I had a great time playing off each other on stage. We really admired each other. We would sometimes talk about how we blew each others’ minds with a certain guitar part after a concert.

JP: Which songs from THINGS were released as singles? Did any receive significant airplay in L.A.? You mentioned to me that the record was a hit in certain regions...

MF: The songs that were released as singles were “Things” and “Girl (I’m Waiting for You)”. “Things” made it in the “bubbling under” in Billboard magazine’s Hot 100. “Girl (I’m Waiting for You)” got a lot of airplay across the country but never charted. Around this time our label Uni/ Shamley signed Neil Diamond, who already had a hit on a small label, and all the promotion went to him and the Bounty sank!

JP: What was the experience recording at Gold Star like? Your producers Norm Malkin and Jack Hoffman got a real sweet sound, like on the drum intro to “Things”, when you turn the volume up real loud...

MF: It was great at Gold Star! We recorded in the studio where Buffalo Springfield did “For What It’s Worth” and many other classics by various groups. Jack and Norm didn’t have much to do with the sound. They were more the “exec” types that sat back and said “good, that’s a take, now let’s move along to the next song quickly.” The sound was developed more by the band and a great engineer, Jim Hilton, who went on to produce the Iron Butterfly.

JP: Could you give any relative info on these tracks, particularly in regards to the lyrics?: “What Does She See in You?”, “Lost in the City”, “A Visit with Ashiya"...

MF: “What Does She See in You?” was written one day in the car, going to the office to write. Sitting at a stop light, I noticed this beautiful girl in the back of a limousine. She noticed me also. She was with this much older guy. We raced along Sunset Boulevard and she blew me a kiss as she disappeared into the early morning Hollywood traffic... “Lost in the City” was Bill and I stoned, trying to get to a gig and then getting lost in the building trying to find the stage, right out of A HARD DAY’S NIGHT!

“A Visit with Ashiya” was one of my favorite songs. I had to fight to get it on the album, as our straight producers thought it was just too far-out! It came to me in a meditation. I had already been playing sitar for a year and wrote it in its entirety in three minutes! It came from somewhere else!

JP: Finally, Merrell, is there’s anything else you’d like to add about yourself, the H.M.S. Bounty or your place in the pantheon of sixties’ rock?

MF: I recently did a similar recording (to “Ashiya”) live on Maui, with a sitar song I had written and recorded instantly called “Under a Maui Moon”. Everybody in the room said “Wow! When did you write that?” I said, “Just now!” That’s coming out on a new CD called RETURN TO MU in April, 2000. Its produced by record and movie producer William E. McEuen, who produced the Sunshine Company, the Nitty Gritty Dirt Band and Steve Martin. (Ed. note-- the comedian, not the Left Banke's vocalist.) We’ve been working on this project for eight years now. Aloha!

MORE MERRELL:

Merrell Fankhauser’s Official Website

Buy the HMS Bounty's CD THINGS

e-mail the interviewer Here