Ted Nugent blasts Jann Wenner, says he ‘canceled’ him in 1979
In Monday’s episode of The Nightly Nuge, rocker Ted Nugent recalled learning that he’d been canceled, long before that word was used, during a show in Pittsburgh.
Or it may have been Philadelphia.
The subject at hand on his YouTube show was the recent interview with Jann Wenner in which the Rolling Stone magazine founder told The New York Times that he interviewed six white men for his new book “The Masters” because women and Black artists were not “as articulate enough on this intellectual level.”
Nugent praised Wenner for creating RS and then went on to call his recent comments “so clearly biased and so clearly racist and misogynistic — and those are the things he accuses me of.”
Then, the 75-year-old right-wing rocker from Detroit explained that in March 1979, he was profiled in Rolling Stone. In the cover photo, Nugent was shirtless and holding a Walther PPK, which he said he brandished when photographer Bill King was looking around for a prop to use and Nuge pulled out the pistol.
The profile, he said, “was about the spirit of the wild, hunting, freedom, self-defense, conservative values, work ethic, all the good stuff, pictures of my dogs, picture with a bow and arrow, my guns, my trucks, all the greatest elements of the American dream you could ever ask for.
“When Jann Wenner came out of one of his nonstop stupors, he went berserk. Held a meeting with his staff, according to this young lady, who was there.”
He was at a concert in Pittsburgh, or possibly Philadelphia, he says, when that woman relayed to
him the gist of the Rolling Stone staff meeting with Wenner, a fierce anti-gun advocate.
“‘Never again are we allowed to say anything about Ted Nugent’s career, except negative stuff’ … and that’s what they’ve done since that cover,” he said. “They’ve parroted the lies that I dodged the draft, which is lie. They parroted that I had sex with Courtney Love, which is a lie. I mean, I have proof that I didn’t have sex with Courtney Love because I still have both arms and I don’t have rabies.
“The point is that he always parroted all the nastiest allegations: ‘I dissed the Native Americans,’ which I never did. That I’m a racist, which I’m not. That I’m homophobic, which I’m not. You could ask Bill King if he was still alive.”
Nugent, touring behind his fifth album, “State of Shock,” was at the Civic Arena on Aug. 3, 1979, with AC/DC and the Scorpions and in Philly two nights later.
Nugent should probably go back and read the review of his next album, 1980’s “Scream Dream,” which was positively reviewed by RS legend Dave Marsh who wrote, “Recently, Nugent has achieved some measure of critical notoriety by the very shamelessness of his act. He’s become the thinking man’s heavy-metaller because all the rock writers think that someone so smart must be putting the world on. Double whammy: Ted Nugent really likes his music this way, meaty and brain-shaking, with all the intellectual content of Outdoor Life.”
On the Nightly Nuge, the rocker went on to say that he is not bothered by being snubbed by the Wenner-founded Rock and Roll Hall of Fame.
“I started playing guitar to make music, inspired by Chuck and Bo and Little Richard and James Brown and Wilson Pickett and the Motown Funk Brothers, and I’m still doing that, 68 years later. … The anger I feel is towards dishonesty, political correctness, the cancel culture.”