www . steelnotesmagazine . com
Steel Notes Magazine surrounded by an entourage of people where everything revolves around Alice and we were sort of excluded . So not entirely , I mean I don ' t want to paint a bleak picture , I ’ m just saying this was the bleak side of what was a great experience because we continued to all be friends . There was a lot of joking and a lot of comradery even with Glen by the time we got to Brazil but drugs and alcohol was affecting the way that he played and it was very difficult for us to have our best friend not able to come in the studio and play like we knew he could play . Even though things aren ' t always completely black or white , people tend to say “ Well Glen couldn ' t play ” so we would turn him off on the monitors or he wouldn ' t be in the PA when we would play live . Well that wasn ' t true every night there was an occasional night where Glen would be too drunk to play and there were nights when Alice would crawl around the stage . I talked about Cindy having a drink with Alice backstage in the middle of “ The Billion Dollar Babies ’ tour , but she reminded me that she would have her drink , only one drink , before the show started . She was saying that this little makeshift dressing room that was underneath Neal Smith ’ s drums up on the big stage is where Alice would be , and he would do a costume change and kind of catch his breath and Cindy said there was more than one occasion where she would be holding his hair out of his face while he was throwing up . So you know at that point he and Glen were both functional drunks .
Alexxis : Right , I remember Alice carrying bottles of alcohol on stage with him all the time back then .
Dennis : It would start first thing in the morning , they would water down these drinks but they had to be careful because if they watered it down too much security would detect it and just grab the bottles . There was a whole cult thing going on with that and there were nights when Alice was only able to crawl around the stage and he would forget the lyrics and stuff , but of course with the Alice character the audience just loved it . [ Laughter ] He could get away with it but they would come down heavy on Glen when he would have an off night so Glen was very resentful over that . You know everybody ' s yelling at me for playing a bad note and Alice can ’ t remember the lyrics and they ' re tripping over each other to get him another drink . So there was unfairness like that going on and by the time we got to Brazil that had set in as obvious . Glen was kind of the guy that ok , he ’ s going to go on stage , but when we went in the studio Glen wasn ' t even invited anymore . We would spend half a day , and sometimes he would be fine and sometimes he would be playing like he could play . Other times it would take half a day of him trying to get it together and then it would be very difficult for everyone to confront him and tell him he wasn ' t cutting it and to go home . You know that was a big deal and it affected Glen deeply .
Alexxis : Glen ended up getting pancreatitis right ?
Dennis : Yeah that was something . Glen had ongoing health issues throughout his life . The other one was pneumonia which he had bouts with I think the time , that ’ s what took his life in the end . I think that was the 11th time .
Alexxis : Wow ! I did not know it was that many times that he had pneumonia .
Dennis : I ’ m getting ahead of the story here but to get back to South America , we went to a party there and anyway , this was in ‘ 74 and you were either outrageously wealthy or outrageously poor , there was no in between .
Alexxis : Really ? That could be a problem ...
Dennis : We went to a party , it was up on a hill , and beautiful ! There were orchids up in the trees , natural and jungle kind of thing but beautiful , beautiful homes overlooking this valley that was as far as you could see just houses . There were houses that looked like people dug a hole in the dirt and put up aluminum
Steel Notes Magazine www . steelnotesmagazine . com
13