Someone posted this interview to the newsgroup, alt.music.rockabilly. I HTMLified it a little bit, and posted it here. Apparently, it originally appeared in Maximum Rock and Roll. I hope nobody gets mad about it.

An Interview with the Haze

MRR: Somebody told me you live on top of a hill and you've got nine cars.

HAZE: I got a bunch, but I ain't got that many. Polka-dotted and all different colors. I don't live on a hill. I live down under a hill, in the bottom and I've got a lot of cars, yeah.

MRR: Like cars?

HAZE: Yeah.

MRR: What kinda cars do you like? I hope I'm not being too personal... 

HAZE: No, that's fine. I like Roadrunners, Satellites, Plymouths, Chryslers, Dodge, Fords. I like Fords...not the V8s cause I don't think they made a V8 that would stand up, but all the six cylinders that I've had have stood up.

MRR: Nice show tonight.

HAZE: You write what you think. I mean that wasn't a good show to me. I could have done a much better show.

MRR: What happened?

HAZE: The guitar was tuned too high. My friend, Mike, he had it tuned funny cause I got drunk - ha ha - and, you know, every thing wasn't just like it should be... I'll put it that way.

MRR: Bad guitar? Trouble with your instrument? B

HAZE: Yeah, Yeah. The keys wouldn't hold in tune and all that stuff. But, hey, they liked it so who cares?

MRR: How do you feel about last night?

HAZE: Well, really not too good, what I heard of it, but some of it was alright.

MRR: Do you enjoy playing music for people?

HAZE: Oh yeah! Yes. Yeah. That's my whole life.

MRR: Aside from yesterday, when was your last concert?

HAZE: Just about a month ago in Huntington, West Virginia. Gumby's Place. The college kids, they went wild, man. They had a crowd you wouldn't believe. They tried to figure me out, how I played this, how I played that. You know, some of them were taking music at college and all that, but they can't figure me out. They ask me "How do you do all this?" I say "You don't do it. You don't figure it out. You just sit down and do it."

MRR: You live in West Virginia?

HAZE: Yeah, Madison. Yeah, Near Madison, right close to it.

MRR: You play there? Have you got a big local following?

HAZE: Oh yeah. I could be playing every night. I could play every night. I don't do it though, cause I just love -you know- to get back in the country and--I want you to put my girlfriend, Hazel Jean, she's the one I love better'n...

MRR: Who?

HAZE: Hazel. Hazel Jean. It's spelled H-A-Z-E-L.

MRR: Is she here?

HAZE: No. She's back home.

MRR: You want to tell me something about her to put in the article?

HAZE: I'm gonna send you a picture of her because everyone wants to see who I go with...who I date.

MRR: The magazine would really like that. We could use some recent pictures of you, too.

HAZE: I'm gonna send you some. I'll send you a picture of her, too. I want you to put that picture in cause she's the prettiest--. Well I think she's pretty. I'll put it that way. Cause she's the prettiest girl I ever had in all my life.

MRR: Can you give ma a rundown of your career?

HAZE: My first record came out in 1961 and then I had one come out in 1962 and then I had two that came out in 1964. The ones that came out in 1964 was "She Said" and "Is This The End" a slow song on the back side of it after that. Aw heck- it just goes on and on after that. My first LP was in 1984.

MRR: Is this the first time you've played in Chicago?

HAZE: It's the first time I played here, but I've been here before. 3 or 4 times, trying to get a break. To play, this is the first time I've been here yeah.

MRR: Do you think Elvis went to heaven or hell? 

HAZE: I'm just gonna be straight out and say I don't know. I hope he went the right way but I don't know.

MRR: I say heaven.

HAZE: Maybe. Maybe. I don't know.

MRR: Do you feel cheated not being big like Elvis considering your extraordinary talent?

HAZE: No. No. Not really.

MRR: Of course you do have a large following.

HAZE: When I played at Huntington, at the college, they drove in from Washington, Oregon, Utah, California, and everywhere. Eight or ten of them get together and come see me. They say, "Well we want to see you some place and we can't get you up there..." And the show I put on I didn't think was that good, but they thought it was wonderful. But they said "Just to see you...to hear you sing anything, but especially 'She Said'" I had to do that for them and they said "Well that's good enough, we drove thousands of miles to see you." But I appreciate that, you know? It's just something you can't explain.

MRR: All of your songs seem to be pretty good. What's the deal?

HAZE: I got so much stuff. I got about 6037 songs I wrote myself and I'm trying to get them on the market and I just wish people could hear them and stuff but they'll do pretty good. And then I got three albums coming out between now and the first of the year with all new songs. The title of my new album which is coming out of New York is "Who took Your Clothes Off?". Well That's a pretty good title. They're going for big letters on the cover and you know it'll cost a lot of money. Really, the songs ain't bad. It's just what you wanna imagine.

MRR: Why are you living in West Virginia?

HAZE: Cause I love it back there. I got me girlfriend Hazel Jean, and I just like where I come from. But don't get me wrong, I love all the country, but I still love where I come from.

MRR: The way you do your records, it's always been your decisions. You make all the decisions, right?

HAZE: Yeah, Oh yeah. Yeah.

MRR: Is that why your in West Virginia?

HAZE: Do what now?

MRR: I'm thinking that with Elvis, he had people making decisions for him. He was maneuvered in certain ways.

HAZE: No. I do it all myself. Well not now, since I gone on the road. They want to guide you and all this. I say, "Listen, just let me do what I want to do." and I do what I want to. Up to now I've done everything I've wanted to do the way I wanted to do myself.

MRR: Do you think living in West Virginia is what made that possible? For instance, say a record company offered you a very lucrative contract on the condition that you were to move to Los Angeles and add an accompanist...would that kill you?

HAZE: Oh no. Yeah. Yeah, I would love living in California, in the country part of it, in Arizona. Yeah, sure I'm gonna move out there, yeah.

HAZE: No. Not right downtown. No.

MRR: How come?

HAZE: Well, I like to go and stay awhile and stuff like that. But to live there, I'd rather live in the country in California and Arizona. And I love it. That's where I'm gonna move to. I'm getting ready to retire and I want to be back where you can fish and like that.

MRR: So you're ready to retire?

HAZE: I hope to. I hope to. I don't think they're gonna let me, but I hope to.

MRR: From the music business?

HAZE: I'm talkin bout retiring from the whole situation.

MRR: You don't think that would bother you?

HAZE: Well, I wouldn't like that. I'd rather play music.

MRR: But you can stand doing it without audiences?

HAZE: I'm gonna retire but I'm not gonna retire totally from the music. I'm just gonna retire where I can go back and cut what I wanna cut at home. You know what I mean. In that situation.

MRR: You can do that now?

HAZE: Yeah, I can do that. That's what I want to do, just go back home and retire and record what I want and let them put out what I want to put out.

MRR: On the album of yours that I got - Out To Hunch - you've got a lot of songs about cutting peoples heads off.

HAZE: You mean "No More Hot Dogs" or "This Ain't No Rock and Roll Show"?

MRR: And "We Got A Date" and maybe another one. It seems to be a theme running through that album.

HAZE: When I was young there was a bunch of girls that was really scared and that's why I made these songs and I would love to scare them. They liked me. They didn't have anything against me or anything like that. But in the dark I would scare them and stuff and that's how I came up with them songs.

MRR: How'd you scare them?

HAZE: In the dark with big sheets on top of you, you couldn't tell what it was, you know? I haven't done it in maybe 8, 12, 15 years or so. It wasn't done to hurt people, it was just something I made up within my own self. I'd love to do it on stage and I hope one day I'll get the chance to do it.

MRR: Do you think the Cramps are scary?

HAZE: Yeah, in a way. They're going to do a few more songs of mine.

MRR: I'm getting a little tired of them myself.

HAZE: You heard that new album they got out? I thought that one was really good.

MRR: What happened at the show last night?

HAZE: What do you mean "what happened"?

MRR: It seemed like you didn't want to play, like you didn't want to finish the songs.

HAZE: A lot of times I just get up there and do so much of one song, a shot or two of it you know. And last night I was to drunk, I'll be honest with you.

MRR: I was wondering if you were drinking because you got stage fright about playing in Chicago?

HAZE: Oh, no, no, no, I was worried about my girl. Worried about her and not having sassed me back on the phone.

MRR: Hazel Jean?

HAZE: Yeah. Not on the count of she does me wrong or anything like that. Well it's just you can't explain it.

MRR: Sure you can!

HAZE: No, no. I've tried to do it with myself and it don't come out right It's not on the count she does me wrong or she's a bad girl. I don't mean that. But it's just deep worries I got inside me about her. But she's the prettiest girl in the world, she is. Be sure you write that.

MRR: I will, I promise.

HAZE: She's the prettiest woman- to me, to me- in the world. I'm gonna send you a picture of her. I think more of her than what I do any woman in the whole world and I know a lot of them. I guess I don't know. She means so much to me. Even if I never see her again, she just means so much to me.

MRR: That sounded ominous. Don't you think you'll see her again?

HAZE: Oh, Yeah.

Go back to the Hazequarters...

The Hasil Adkins Hazequarters.