New York Daily News, 09/15/1998

Grace Slick Looks Back, and Ahead

The '60s icon has a new book about her raucous rocking life

Grace Slick apparently was the last person to be notified that in the 1960s she was a red-hot fantasy for many  a young rock 'n' roll-loving American boy.

Fronting the Jefferson Airplane on anthems like "White Rabbit," Slick proved that a woman with knockout looks could also blast you through the back of your seat with 180-proof rock.

Plus, she had these really great eyes.

Today, Grace Slick is about twice as old as she used to be — "58, almost 60," she volunteers — and she says she'd feel "absolutely ridiculous" on stage singing the old songs.

She doesn't even listen to much rock music, these days. Not, it turns out, that she ever did. But she has written a book on her life, "Somebody to Love" (Warner, $25), which means that for a few weeks she's back on tour, in a sense, retelling her story.

 "Sex, drugs and rock 'n' roll," she says. "To be honest, it doesn't interest me much anymore.  "If I had my choice, I'd write about biomedical research fraud. But I realize that's not interesting to as many people as sex, drugs and rock 'n' roll. And since Warner is putting up the money for the book, not me, that's what it's about."

It is. There's plenty of sex and drugs, especially drugs. And the drug part is not all cautionary.

"I didn't like everything about drugs," she says. "But I liked most of it. I think whether you take them depends tirely on the individual. Some people can handle them and some can't."

The sex part includes Slick's sleeping with every member of the Airplane except fellow vocalist Marty Balin, whom she still seems to regard with caution. Then there was the night she invited herself into Jim Morrison's room in some European  city for a one-night stand that involved strawberries. Still, she shakes her head at the phrase "sex goddess."

 "I'd never even heard that until years later when one of my lawyers brought it up," she says. "He was talking about how he used to see me and the band when he was in school. But I'd never thought of myself as attractive. I knew some people liked me, but I figured it was more because of personality. You know, people like Kate Smith, but it probably wasn't for her looks. Same thing with me, I thought."

Okay, maybe some of those drugs did alter her sense of reality. She has also wrestled with alcohol, and she talks in the book about AA.

But these days, she says, she's basically clean and sober. She still smokes. She prefers sweatpants,  doesn't have a boyfriend, figures maybe someday she will again. Sign of the times, she has Alcatraz-like security around her house after three break-ins.

She draws, writes songs she doesn't expect she'll ever record, and listens to the Gipsy Kings. And a lot of flamenco.

"Almost all instrumental," she says. "Lyrics don't interest me very much at the moment, for whatever reason."

"At the moment" is a crucial concept with Slick.

"People ask me what my favorite song is, and I can never tell them because it depends on what day it is, what my mood is, what color I'm looking at. . . . If you played me a song I sang in 1973 five years later, I might have hated it. Another five years and I'd like it. Another five years and I'd wonder why I didn't do it with horns. It's always changing."

As this suggests, and the book confirms, she is also a woman of constant impulse.

"Most people, if they think about doing something, there's a counter-thought. 'Maybe I shouldn't, because . . . ' Me, if I want the marshmallow, I take the marshmallow. It's gotten me into some trouble over the years, but I'd do it all again."

Not a Rock 'n' Roll Girl

What may get the least attention in Slick's book is rock 'n' roll. With the exception of "White Rabbit" and "Lather," she talks little about songs. She loved playing with the band, she says. She just doesn't dissect much about it.

In fact, in contrast to all the musicians who can describe their Elvis epiphany, or the moment they first heard "Brown Sugar," Slick says she's never been a rock 'n' roll girl. "When I was growing up, I created my own world and I spent a lot of  time in it," she says, which might at least help explain "White Rabbit."

She sang as a teenager, once performing "Summertime" at  an audition for what turned out to be a black record label.  But her leap into rock was more career decision than irresistible musical impulse.

"I was working as a model and I went to an Airplane concert,"  she says. "I realized they made more for two hours than I made in a week, and they had a lot more fun. And I thought,  hey, that's for me. Happily, I have a voice that was built for  rock 'n' roll."

So it all worked out.

"Rock 'n' roll, and what I got from it, enabled me to live the  kind of life I wanted to live. If I'd been a banker, say, there   would have been a lot more restrictions."

As for what happens next, Slick shrugs again. She's amused  by the Ruth Gordon factor — "when you get to 80 years old, you can do anything you want and people think it's great" —  but she says she really has no idea. "Whatever comes, I'm ready."

And by the way, all you middle-aged guys out there: She still  has great eyes.
 
 

Original Publication Date: 09/15/1998