Nugent stands by every word he’s said Ted Nugent
There was a time when Ted Nugent was known more for swinging on stage in a loincloth and tearing it up on guitar than for his politics.
If you listen to “Double Live Gonzo!,” the triple-platinum document that followed “Cat Scratch Fever” up the charts, you’ll hear no rabble-rousing on behalf of his or anyone’s political agenda.
It’s doubtful anyone expected Ted Nugent to go on to earn an invitation to the White House, having “played a huge role in getting President Trump elected in the horror, curse, scourge of reliably blue states of Michigan, Wisconsin and Pennsylvania because I addressed the s--tkickers who didn’t show up for the pabulum gang of Romney and McCain.”
But he’s had 40 years to grow into the role that now defines him as he arrives in Phoenix, where the number of concerts he’s performed will hit 6,717.
“The energy level is at an all-time high,” he says, thanks to a combination of a tight band raised on rock-and-roll, a crazy fan base and “self-evident truth politics,” as Nugent puts it.
Nugent’s previous album was “Shutup & Jam!,” the title track of which includes the lyric, “Everybody’s looking for a free-for-all /Enough of that political stuff.”
Or maybe enough.
“I do shut up and jam,” he says. “And then maybe ... no, I’ll take away the maybe. Then I fan the flames of the cluster-(expletive) of politics surrounding us today. Because it’s inescapable.”
In Nugent’s world, nothing is sacred and political correctness is the devil.
“I follow my instincts on stage,” he says.
“It’s organic, it’s relative, it’s fun and it does make a difference. You can be a hell-raiser and have fun with it without getting hateful or just nasty, though those capabilities certainly have their place in the heat of battle.”
The reason Nugent wasn’t weighing in on the important issues of the day back in the ‘70s, he says, is that he really didn’t have that much to share at that point.
“I could not have been more clueless or uneducated or ignorant of the world around me when I graduated from the American education system in 1967,” he says.
That started changing when fans of his music who’d served in the military began sharing their horror stories, he says. From that point forward, Nugent says, he started digging deeper and was shocked to learn there was more to life than rock and roll, women and deer hunting.
“I started becoming more cognizant of the abuse of power and corruption all around me,” Nugent says.
He isn’t concerned that becoming so politically outspoken would overshadow his music.
“I suppose on one level, based on my management and accountants, it’s unfortunate that I didn’t pay attention to that because I’ve lost about $100 million because of my constitutional conservative hell-raising. But guess what? I. Don’t. Care. I would rather fight for our freedoms that were only attained and safeguarded by fighting than to become like the soulless, spineless wimps who stand for nothing.”
Nugent says he’s exactly where he should be right now. 7 p.m. Sunday, Aug. 5. Celebrity Theatre, 440 N. 32nd St., Phoenix.
$65-$80. 602-267-1600, celebritytheatre.com.
“Am I selling out stadiums? No,” he says. “Do I care? No. Last night in Effingham, Illinois, there were 3,000, 4,000 people. It was a dream rock-and-roll night. These people are so tuned into every lick, every song, every minute, every note.”
Nugent says he stands by every word he’s ever said. “And if it’s reported accurately, hallelujah.”
But he also feels his words are often misconstrued, such as when he spoke out about the Parkland High School students earlier this year.
“I sincerely and passionately brought forth information that would actually save lives instead of abandoning their grief and heartbreak and attacking, with hate, innocent families of the NRA, claiming we were somehow responsible for the murder of innocent children,” he says.
There is one inflammatory statement Nugent says he really did say.
“I did call the president a subhuman mongrel,” he says.
“And I apologize for apologizing because that’s the nicest thing I could say about that evil man. He hates America. He hates the Constitution. He hates freedom. I believe he was manipulated into the presidency by a Democratic Party that actually doesn’t believe that America needs secure borders, that actually believes that you don’t need to be an American to vote in America, that you don’t have to earn your own way, that we need to take from people who work really hard and make sacrifices and give it people who won’t work really hard and won’t make sacrifices.”
And Nugent stands by his word choice, saying people should “get over the (expletive) semantics!”
And now, President Donald Trump is fixing the “mess” left by “presidential” presidents, Nugent says.
“I don’t want a presidential president,” he says.
“I want a s--tkicker, working-hard, playing-hard, taking-care-of-business, logic-truth-and-common sense president. And that’s what we have. The Great White Buffalo is in the White House, baby. He found the battered herd and he led ‘em across the land.”