Finding a second disc’s worth of outtakes, demos and alternate versions of material for the deluxe reissues of Bad Company‘s first two albums was something of an adventure for frontman Paul Rodgers.
“It was all very surprising,” Rodgers tells Billboard about the new editions of 1974’s Bad Company and 1975’s Straight Shooter. “When we recorded we would always focus on the one track we thought was working best, and everything else was a work in progress and whatever we did to reach that point was irrelevant to us. It was just a means to an end. Once we got the final track, that was all we cared about, so it’s interesting to listen to the outtakes and different versions of what we did because it’s 40 years ago. Who remembers exactly how you got there?”
Paul Rodgers Busy With a Brace of New Albums, Bad Company Trek Starting June
The bonus disc for Straight Shooter is particularly illuminating. Among its assorted unreleased material are two entire songs — “See the Sunlight” and “All Night Long” — that never saw the light of day. “They’re actually quite good, so that was quite a surprise to find,” Rodgers says. “I couldn’t think why we wouldn’t have released them, except that possibly you were limited to 18 minutes a side back in those days of vinyl, and to get the best sound you didn’t want to go over that. So we probably pulled them in order to improve the overall quality of the album and forgot about them. When we found ‘See the Sunlight’ I was going, ‘Did we record that?’ ‘Cause I remember writing it, and obviously we did ‘All Night Long.’ So I was like, ‘OK. Yeah. Interesting…’ “
The Straight Shooter bonuses also include a version of “Feel Like Makin’ Love” with harmonica, which Rodgers says is “the take apparently before the one we chose to use, so we didn’t finish it. It didn’t have a guitar solo on it yet. That was part of the process; it wasn’t THE one. But it is surprising there’s so much interest in that version, and in the other stuff. We never thought anyone would ever be interested in that process, the, ‘How did you get there with this song?’ But lo and behold, people are.”
Rodgers — who’s particularly pleased that the original analog tapes were used for remixing and remastering the two albums — says no decision has been made about deluxe versions of Bad Company’s other albums, though he adds, “I would imagine that the record company will be very interested in following this up so, yeah, I would think so. But I don’t know yet.” Bad Company will not be on the road this year after two consecutive years of touring, mostly with Lynyrd Skynyrd, while Rodgers has about 15 North American solo dates planned and is also plotting his next recording project to follow 2014’s The Royal Sessions Memphis soul album.
“I’ve got so many things on the boil,” he reports, including a filmed version of a Royal Sessions concert he performed last year at Royal Albert Hall in London, as well as original material he’s been working on with producer Perry A. Margouleff. “They’re great tracks. I don’t know what we’ve got a whole album yet; we need to get in the studio and get that finished. We’ve been doing that between other things, so we need to get focused on that one of these days. I just try to keep an open mind, and that’s the way a lot of good things happen.”