Bob Gruen Shoots Rockers

Bob Gruen has arguably been the world's foremost rock 'n' roll photographer for the past 40 years, but it's taken until now for him to present the first solo exhibition of his work in Canada.

Toronto's Liss Gallery will host "Rockers," a show featuring about 70 of Gruen's works, starting on Thursday and running until Oct. 11.

"It covers my whole career, so it covers everybody from John Lennon to John Lydon, from Elvis to Madonna, from Bob Dylan to Bob Marley," the 62-year-old New Yorker said while visiting Toronto earlier this month. "It covers the whole gamut of the music scene.

"There's a shot of Iggy Pop hitting on Kate Moss, who was going out with Johnny Depp at the time. I like that picture because Kate is obviously thrilled to be meeting Iggy, and Iggy's being charming and Johnny's shooting him a sideways look like, 'Watch out, you dog. That's my girl.'

"There's a lot of backstage and casual, informal pictures as well as a lot of really exciting live shots."

Gruen took up photography as a child and went from shooting his friends' band to some of the biggest names in the business when word spread about his work. Fortuitous timing has also always seemed to be on his side, like when he ran into Ike Turner and showed him some shots he'd taken of his wife Tina on stage. The couple loved the photos, took Gruen under their wing, and introduced him to other people who kept him working almost non-stop.

Gruen claims to have met most of his heroes, and he remains friends with a lot of them. He's taken some of the most iconic pop culture shots of the past four decades and published photography books of the Sex Pistols, The Rolling Stones, The Clash, John Lennon and, this year, the New York Dolls.

Despite being caught up in the rock 'n' roll lifestyle with many of his subjects ("I could probably have a doctorate degree in pharmacology, and it would all be self-taught," he confesses.), Gruen has retained his faculties and has an encyclopedic knowledge of rock. His eyes still sparkle when he recounts many of the defining moments of his career.

Here are some of the anecdotes that Gruen shared:

On his involvement in the early punk movement:

"Towards the end of the New York Dolls, as they were breaking up, Malcolm McLaren came over. He's kind of credited with managing the Dolls, but actually he was selling them clothes. And as they were breaking up, he organized a couple of shows for them to play. Then about a year-and-a-half later in the fall of '76, I went to England for the first time. Malcolm's was basically the only phone number I had, and I called him up and he took me to a place called Club Louise, where in one night I met the group that was going to become the punk rock scene of England: The Clash, the Sex Pistols, Siouxsie from Siouxsie And The Banshees, who didn't even have a band yet, Billy Idol, Marco Polo, Caroline Coon and John Savage, who were the writers who publicized the punk scene. It was all happening in the basement of a former lesbian club in London that was used to having unusual people around. They were comfortable with the punks."

On The Clash:

"I got to see The Clash play one of their earliest shows in London on my first trip. I absolutely loved seeing them and the energy and the power. I couldn't understand the lyrics, but the energy and the power really got me. So when I came back a year later in '77, they were the ones that I wanted to see the most. I remember calling the record company and asking them how I could get to see The Clash, and they said, 'They don't work with the record company and they don't do interviews and they're impossible to deal with, so we can't really help you.' I just told them to tell me where they were playing because I was a fan and would buy a ticket on the sidewalk to go see them. They told me they were in Edinburgh, so I went up there.

"As I was checking into a hotel, Mick [Jones, guitar] and Paul [Simonon, bass] from the band were at the desk asking about something. We went over to the elevator together and Mick turned to me and said, 'You're the photographer from New York,' because he had seen me in the club a year earlier. I said, 'Yeah, I came to see your show tonight.' Paul turned to me and said, 'You're the press?' I said, 'Yeah.' And he said, 'You better watch out for us because we're cunts.' And I said, 'Yeah, well, you look it.' We became fast friends from then on."

On the New York Dolls:

"They were so far ahead of their time that people were really afraid of them. It took years before people started realizing how much influence they had on all the bands that were coming up afterwards. It's interesting that people as diverse as Joe Strummer and Gene Simmons from KISS and Bret Michaels from Poison all found something in the New York Dolls that inspired them — whether it was the music or the clothes or the attitude. The New York Dolls made it look like it was fun and easy and anybody could do it. In that way, they inspired a lot of people to pick up a guitar.

"Joe Strummer told me that he was sitting in his aunt's room when he saw them on TV in England, and they were so chaotic and so loose and having so much fun that Joe thought that he could do that. Previously, you had to be a musician. But by watching the Dolls, you realized that you could just get up there and play. They were the most colourful and fun band I've ever worked with. They enjoyed having their pictures taken and we enjoyed the same kind of lifestyle. There were many very late nights and it was very free and very open and direct. I really liked that.

"At the time, people thought they were gay or bisexual. David Bowie had done an interview where he said he was bisexual, so they asked David Johansen if he was bisexual, and he said, 'No, I'm trisexual. I'll try anything.'"

On meeting John Lennon and Yoko Ono:

"When I first met John and Yoko, it was through an interview that had been set up, and the writer brought me along to take pictures. When I first got there, they said John and Yoko had just woken up, and they didn't know that there was going to be a photographer and they might be a little cranky. I was told that I should wait a few minutes and, not to worry, that they'd feel better and let me come up and take pictures, and they'll like my pictures and they'll like me, and I'll probably become friends and I'll do album covers for them because that's the way they are. I just said, 'Yeah, sure. I'll be in the bar. Call me when you're ready.'

"He came back 20 minutes later and said, 'You can come up now.' I remember walking down the hall and shaking because I was so nervous because I was going to meet John and Yoko. Everybody likes The Beatles, but I was a bigger fan of The Rolling Stones and The Who at the time. But John and Yoko were special. They had carried it to a new level of really doing art for peace and to help people. They were such world-class people that I was really nervous to meet them. But I remember before I got to the door of the hotel room, I stopped and realized I was shaking. It wouldn't work if I walked in with my camera shaking, so I stopped and took a breath and said, 'The only way this is going to work is if I just calm down and do what I usually do and be myself.' And that's what I did.

"I walked in and took some good pictures of them and, some years later when we got to be friends, Yoko mentioned that she was aware of that. So often a photographer will come in who's so nervous that it makes them nervous. Sometimes he'll get angry at his assistant. She said that often in pictures they look uptight or angry because the photographer is. But I was always so calm that it let them be calm, so they look calm and comfortable in the pictures."

On his legendary photo of John Lennon standing in front of the Statue Of Liberty:

"I think a lot of people relate to it because the Statue Of Liberty stands for personal freedom and liberty, and so does John Lennon. I like that one especially because it was my idea. John Lennon was being hounded by the U.S. government, and the Nixon administration was afraid that he would somehow stir up resistance to them and they tried to deport him from the U.S. I thought that standing in front of the Statue Of Liberty would be a good symbol of his predicament. I suggested it to John and he agreed with me. I still remember the moment when I was telling him about it and he agreed and I was like, 'Wow. This guy is such a great world-class artist and he liked my idea.' So we went out and did it and I felt really good about that.

"Doing it was very simple. I don't sit around with art directors and use storyboards. I'm very spur of the moment. I show up and figure out the best way to get something done in the situation we're in. John and I took the ferry like regular tourists and he stood in front of the Statue Of Liberty like so many millions of other people. The only hard part was trying to line up a person just under six feet with a statue that goes up hundreds of feet and to try and get a perspective without distorting anything."

On The Police:

"One time when I was in Germany, a guy from a major magazine had set up an appointment to take pictures of Sting for the cover of the magazine. They came in for the photo session and Jake [Riviera] said to the photographer, 'OK, take three frames and make them good.' The guy said, 'But I need a really good one for the cover.' So Jake goes, 'Oh, you only need one, then take one.'"

On Blondie:

"I met Blondie when they weren't even Blondie yet and they were still called The Stilettos. I was with them the first night that Blondie went into a recording studio to make a demo, which was so unimportant that I didn't take any pictures in the studio. But when we came out, there was a horrendous car accident where a car was upside down in the street. It had been there for a couple of days, actually. I just suggested taking a picture by this old, wrecked car. And Debbie [Harry, vocals] and Chris [Stein, guitar], being the kind of creative people that they are, instead of just standing there, got into it. Chris put a guitar in the back of the car and Debbie went into the front seat and came crawling out as if it were her car wreck. We got a great picture out of it."

On Alice Cooper:

"There's a shot of Salvador Dali and Alice Cooper, two artists from the art world and the music world, which for me has always been part of the same thing. Dali was quite a character, and Alice is a really charming gentleman when you meet him backstage. On stage, he's a scary monster. But he's really just an incredibly good actor and a real professional.

"I remember one time I took a picture of Alice with Jack Benny and George Burns when Alice was presenting them with an award. He just looked so comfortable. To me, that was a real turning point because it was before punk rock, but Alice was this crazy shock-rocker, and I had grown up seeing George Burns and Jack Benny. To see Alice on that level and being so comfortable with it was really interesting."

Finally, here's Gruen's advice for young photographers:

"If you take a lot of pictures, you're bound to get a couple of good ones. And if you only show the good ones, people will think you're good."

and

"Take pictures of people before they're famous. That's where it came in handy that I was a workaholic. I took pictures of everybody. As much as I have a lot of pictures of famous bands, I have tens of thousands of pictures of musicians that you'll never hear of — or people you've heard of, but the four bands they were in before they were in one that became famous. It's much easier to get access to people who are not famous but want to become famous and want to have their picture taken."