Rock photographer Neal Preston releases new book

Says Neal: “I want the reader at the end of this book to feel like they’ve just spent a year on the road with Zeppelin with one day off, then six months with Guns ‘n’ Roses, with one day off and then five years with Bruce Springsteen. Exhilarated and exhausted.

“Shooting live music performances is something few photographers do really well. I just happened to discover one day that I was pretty good at it.”

Neal gets inside the action like no other photographer, and his images are brought alive by his own outrageous insights into life as a rock-and-roll photographer. Glimpses of life backstage, stressful deadlines, a 47-year case of permanent jetlag, live performances, post-performance highs and lows, photo shoots gone awry. Many photos, which have never been seen before, are accompanied by incredible personal accounts of touring with giants of rock and roll including Led Zeppelin, The Who and Queen.

All the stories of racing from gig to gig, losing police escorts, sleazy motels, groupies, egos, frighteningly high-alcohol and drug intake levels, hours spent traveling, never-ending offers of sex and drugs in return for backstage passes are all candidly revealed.

“Rock tours were fertile breeding grounds from which many a party would sprout. Call it blowing off steam, having a little fun, or taking a little break; it’s all the same. I had my share, and more. But there was still work to do,” Neal said.

“There’s more drama on one Rolling Stones tour than in a dozen Martin Scorsese films. Flying in on the red-eye from New York to photograph Wham! in London, and back that same night to shoot Bruce Springsteen for the front cover of Time magazine. Neal has made some incredible friendships along the way with artists, managers and crews. His friendship with Stevie Nicks began from a shoot on the rooftop of her Venice Beach condo at sunset.

“I always compare a photo shoot to a dance — I lead, the subject follows, and together we tango.”

What started as a boyhood hobby has resulted in an outstanding career that continues today. Neal has made a huge contribution to music photography. He has shot countless album covers and covered thousands of assignments for Rolling Stone, Newsweek, Time and People, with whom he has enjoyed a 30-year association. In addition to extensively photographing Led Zeppelin, The Who, The Rolling Stones, Fleetwood Mac and Springsteen, his incredible portfolio includes images of Michael Jackson, Bob Marley, Marvin Gaye, Madonna, Billy Joel and David Bowie.

In 1985, Neal was an official photographer for Live Aid at Wembley Stadium outside London. Almost 100 of Preston’s photographs are on exhibit at the Forum in Inglewood, California, and he has held major exhibitions in Los Angeles, New York, Las Vegas, Frankfurt, Zurich, Stockholm and London, where his work is also in the permanent collection of the National Portrait Gallery.

Neal’s photographs vibrate with a palpable intensity. As close friend Cameron Crowe observes in his foreword: “These images live on. You can feel the music, the audience, the desperate need to find a place in the world, all of it in these photos because they were curated by the guy who felt it all when he pressed the button on the camera.”

The extraordinary volume is the definitive archive of the greatest living rock-and-roll photographer who said: “Photography has been everything to me; a blessing beyond my wildest hopes and dreams. My job has given me a life that has been exhilarating and exhausting.”

He put his cameras and film away long enough to talk with me at his Vegas home:

Q: You have shot so many rock superstars over the years. Go back to the very first one you shot. Who was it; where was it, if you remember?

A: The very first one I shot was a Jimi Hendrix concert in Boston, at the old Boston Garden. And it was at the end of 1968. I was a sophomore in high school. I grew up in New York, but I knew the promoters, so I flew up to Boston with a couple of buddies of mine, and I was there to shoot the concert. There was a series of concerts being held that summer and the summer after near my house in Queens. A couple of buddies of mine decided that if we would go and shoot one of these concerts from our seats, maybe we could get some free tickets to the concert series. The three of us went and showed some prints to what we thought was the guys from the ticket office for the series, and it turned out that they was the promoters’ office. They liked the photos they had seen and they started giving all of us passes to their shows. It was an absolute fluke.

Q: You didn’t think of yourself as a photographer at that point, did you?

A: I was still in high school. But from the moment I got my first camera, it made a lot of sense to me. I understood. … I didn’t know what it meant to be a photographer and I didn’t know the basics of photographic composition and all of that, but I understood how a camera worked. I understood the relationship between the lens and the shutter speed and the film speed, things like that. The analogy I always like to make is, when you’re a teenager and you first go to driver’s ed (education) class, you don’t know how to drive. But some kids instinctively know the relationship between the gas pedal and the brake and the gearshift, things like that. And the rest comes naturally if you’ve got it naturally in your DNA, so to speak.

Q: How old were you when you got the first camera, and what was it?

A: My first camera, technically, would’ve been a Kodak Brownie when I was about 10, I guess. My grandpa gave it to me. But my first real camera, where you could change the f-stops and things like that was an Ansco Speedex 4.5, and let’s see, my first brother-in-law, gave it to me when I was 11. And that got me going.

Q: How many cameras do you have now?

A: Maybe 12 or 13. You know, at any given moment there’s a couple in repair, so. … I would say it’s in the low teens.

Q: It’s impossible to name a favorite child. Is it impossible to name a favorite photograph, or are there a couple that really stand out?

A: That is definitely impossible. My favorite person to photograph has always been Pete Townshend, and there’s a couple of photos that I’ve shot of The Who that are among my favorites, both of which were shot the same night at Winterland in San Francisco.

Well, there’s a black-and-white picture that’s a reverse shot, done from upstairs in the balcony shooting out beyond the band, where Pete and Roger are both in full throttle, so to speak, and you see the crowd going crazy in front. And that’s a favorite of mine.

Then a different shot from that night, which got used as the cover of The Who’s box set, “25 Years Maximum R&B” is the title of the album. Those are two of my favorites. I’ve got lots of little favorites: a couple of things I’ve shot of Stevie Nicks, certainly a couple of things I’ve shot of Led Zeppelin, some things I shot of the MC5 in 1970 when I’d just graduated high school. And you’re right. It’s impossible to pick a favorite child.

Q: Did you ever think that you would make a career out of this? Or was that furthest from your thought process?

A: It never occurred to me in a million years that this would become a career. What had happened was, once I started shooting and meeting people in the business, I started getting assignments and it just kind of happened organically. I graduated high school in 1970, and I had applied to three different colleges for admission: Philadelphia College of Art, Rochester Institute of Technology and NYU, ’cause NYU had a big film school. And I was accepted to all three of them. And I had made the decision to go to Philadelphia College of Art.

And then one day, Robin, it kinda hit me. I didn’t want to go to college. I was already a photographer, I was already working in the record business. And I marched into my mom and dad’s bedroom and said, “Oh, it’s a beautiful day outside. I’m gonna go walk the dog and I’m not gonna go to college. See you later.” I don’t think they were super happy, but they were understanding. … I had very liberal parents, and they let me follow my dream, as it were, and a year later I was living in LA. And, that’s how it happened.

Q: One would think of it being an easy life or a comfortable life, but the rigors of the road are something else, right?

A: Oh, absolutely. And that’s a lot of what my book deals with. The book is based around my job. People have said to me my whole life, “God, you have the dream job of the 21st century.” And I beg to differ with them because it is exhilarating and exhausting. You know, they always see the final result. They see the pictures. They don’t see the stresses, the deadlines, all the potholes in the road, the ego management and the having to grab the 5:45 flight to Dallas twice a week. You know, they don’t have the 48-year case of permanent jet lag that I’ve had. And that’s real, by the way, that’s not a joke. Jet lag is real and it’s one of the hardest things about my job, or any job when you travel a lot, as you know. Traveling is tougher and tougher and tougher over the years.

All those things contribute to a very animated life, but a very rough schedule. And you have to have the intestinal fortitude, I think, to deal with it year after year. And I had a Time Life contract for 25 years, which was essentially a guarantee for X amount of shoot days per year. And the majority of those shoot days were always out of town. So, between that and going on the road with every rock band, you know, I’m a million-mile flyer on every airline in existence, and then some.

Q: The toughest most amazing part of it, I would’ve thought from my perspective, is dealing with the egos. We have really nice people in show business, and then we have real divas in show business. How did you sort-of integrate yourself with them all?

A: It’s a good question. Some are easier than others, as you just pointed out. But generally, and every situation is different, but I’ll make the general statement that to do my job, I have to, ideally, when I’m on the road with a band, my plan is to kind of fade into the woodwork as much as possible. Be a fly on the wall, and disappear as much as I can. Then it becomes not about me. It becomes about making the photograph. It’s an interesting dynamic, because the more I’m around, the less I’m noticed.

Every band has its own personalities within the band, and then every tour has a distinct personality. Some are more stressful than others, and the personality of a rock tour can switch on a dime, given a bad show, a bad audience, a lame audience, a bad record review that someone read, the drummer got the clap and he’s gotta call his wife. That stuff does happen and so you have to be malleable and you have to be able to roll with the punches and, again, remain as silent and as non-visual as possible. Like I say, the more you’re around, the less you’re noticed.

It’s common sense that I realized early on. You know, keep your eyes open and your ears open and your mouth shut. Do not act like you’re the fifth member of the Beatles or the fifth member of Led Zeppelin or this kind of thing because that will all draw more attention to you. It will hurt you when you’re trying to do your job. It’ll be another barrier to have to deal with.

Q: Neal, you could’ve become easily corrupted by what I call the side show that goes on with rock tours. It’s a nice way of describing drugs and sex and rock ‘n’ roll. How did you remain sane? How did you remain a photographer and not a groupie?

A: You’re assuming that I did remain sane. Well, when you read the book, you’ll see that there’s a healthy amount of self-deprecation in it, and I had my moments. And there were moments I was the ringleader. I’m not necessarily too proud of those moments, but you become part of the life of the tour, and like I said before, every tour’s personality is different, and some are more prone to the circus than others. Look, I had my dose of drugs and sex.

It’s all about getting the job done, and my work ethic is very high, no pun intended. So, you can party, you can do all that stuff, but you’ve got to get the job done. And, if you don’t get the job done, you’re gonna come back to your hotel one night and there’s gonna be something slipped under your door and it’s not gonna be a rooming list for tomorrow’s city. It’s gonna be a one-way ticket home. So, there is still a sense of professionalism that has to be met, and a level of professionalism that has to be met. And, you know, as far as the other stuff, let the chips fall where they may. But yeah, I’ve been involved in many, many, many shenanigans.

Q: Is it as prevalent today as it was back then?

A: I think with the younger bands it is, because it’s their first taste of it. You know, I still work with very famous bands. I still work with Queen, for instance. You know, Brian May, Roger Taylor. And, look, we’re all getting older and we don’t have the ability to kind of muster up that energy for after-show play, so to speak. … It’s become more of a business over the years. So, you screw around and then all of a sudden the guitar player can’t do a good show, you know. There are ramifications, business ramifications to that. There always have been, but they’re a lot more obvious and apparent these days.

Q: You have a quote in the book: “There’s more drama on one Rolling Stones tour than on a dozen Martin Scorsese films.” What does it refer to?

A: I like that quote and I use the Rolling Stones as an example, but you could insert the name Led Zeppelin in there, you could insert almost any big band’s name in there. You have very, very, very strong personalities in these bands. You know, whether it’s Led Zeppelin, Jimmy Page, Robert Plant. You know, Fleetwood Mac, Lindsey Buckingham, Stevie Nicks, Mick Fleetwood, Queen. It goes without saying those personalities that go into making those great records, also go into making life better or worse on the road. And again, it changes from day to day. So without going into particulars, I would say that it all goes back to ego management and. … Look, someone’s in a bad mood. You know the saying, “The fish rots from the head.”

Q: Is it really ego, or is it perfectionism?

A: I’d say it’s both. It’s ego, perfectionism. There’s pressure on these people to make good records and do good shows. Financial pressure. And creative tension. I mean, you talk about creative tension. If you take a band like The Eagles, the Henley and Frey, that’s all creative tension that created those great records. It’s not the point of whether you are great or not. Those factors all go into creating an atmosphere on the road that can be up or down, can be good or bad, can be tense or calm. And, it does change from day to day.

So, when I talk about the drama, I mean it’s real and it’s palpable, and there can be a lot of tension. There’s more tension on a Led Zeppelin tour. … I mean, you could cut it with a knife some days, for whatever reason. And, a lot of times people like me weren’t told the reasons, but again, like I said before, if you keep your eyes and ears open and your mouth shut, you can figure it out.

It’s not rocket science.

Q: Have to make you laugh. Have you ever used those horrible words: “Say cheese” before taking photos?

A: Abso-(expletive) not. “Say cheese” is not something that would ever come out of my mouth unless I’m in a delicatessen.

Q: The book, in a sense, took you 47 years to write, but how long did it take you to put it together?

A: Couple years. I’m a frustrated writer. I always have been. And my closest friends have all been writers, so I’ve had this percolating in my brain for a long, long time. When I started writing, I thought that the picture selection would be the easy part and the writing would be the hard part. And, I gotta tell you, I had it 180 degrees wrong. The text flowed out of me like water out of a faucet, and the picture selection was so difficult that I ended up leaving most of it to my picture editor, because it was the embarrassment of riches. There were so many photos that I would have wanted to put in, but because I had a fair amount of text, that text took up a lot of pages that pretty pictures could’ve been on. But I think we got the right mix and I know that I achieved my goal, which was to get my personality in words and pictures on the printed page.

And that, I decided, would be what would make this book stand apart from the pile of rock photo books that have been released over the years, and some very beautiful ones. But I looked at all of those and I felt that they were flat as a board, personality-wise, and they all suffered from that same disease of, “Here’s a picture. Here’s a picture of Bruce Springsteen, and then we had a cheeseburger, and he was a great guy.” Well, that’s not me, that’s not my personality and that’s not how I work, and that’s not what I wanted to do. So, I figured out that if I just wrote the stuff that’s been in my head for years and years, but based it on my job and how it is having a job like mine, that the stories and everything would sprout from that seed, as it were, and that the pictures would illustrate what was in my brain. And that’s the concept for the book.

Q: You have over 300 photographs, but how many pages does the book run?

A: The book is 336 pages, which apparently, is the number of pages I can have before they start having trouble with the binding. So I maxed it out, and there’s easily, Robin, 200 photos I would have like to have put in, but didn’t have the room. You will really get what I’ve been trying to do when you start to read it because it is unlike any other rock photo book ever been done. It’s. … I want you to feel like you’ve been on the road with Led Zeppelin for a year, you know, around the world with Bruce, and a weekend with Guns N’ Roses after you finish my book. That’s the point.

I have one chapter I wrote that basically deals with: I went around the world and I didn’t see anything.

I was on the Great Wall of China, yeah, for 20 minutes with George Michael and Andrew Ridgeley. We went around the world on the Amnesty Tour in 1988, and all you see is gig, hotel, backstage, plane, gig, plane, hotel, plane, gig, backstage. That’s what you see. It all looks the same.

There are a couple places I’d love to go back to, like Russia. I was there for two weeks with Billy Joel, and the one day I did some sight-seeing I got dysentery. So thank you, Union of Soviet Socialist Republic.

Q: Looking at the book and looking back at 47 years, have you come to any incredible conclusion about your life?

A: My conclusion would be that I’ve been blessed beyond belief. You know, there’s not a lot of people who’ve had the job that I have had. It’s a handful, really, and it’s a small handful of people that have done it well. And, you know, I couldn’t have planned it.

As someone who loves music — and I do — and loves rock music, I always have, I couldn’t have planned it any better to be around the people that I relate to musically. I’m just completely, completely blessed and I don’t know how it happened, but I guess I’ve written about it.

When I look through the lens, I am there to do a job. … What I see through the lens is actually dictated by what my end result is meant to be, or ideally what I’m trying to get as an end result, which is the photograph that I’m sent to do, if that makes any sense. So, I could be photographing the biggest band in the world — and have photographed the biggest bands in the world — but I’m not kinda grooving to the music, if you will. I am in complete shoot mode, and I am being very careful to fulfill my assignment, if you will. As a journalist, you know what I’m talking about. So I like to say that I’ve always photographed rock stars as heroes, ‘cause they’ve been my heroes. That would be part of the answer. I have an affinity for performance photography, and I’ve always been good at it,

Q: Do you see history in the lens?

A: I never have. But in retrospect — writing this book — I see that I have seen it, if that makes any sense. It’s just come very naturally to me and organically to me. In retrospect, wow. I’ve seen a lot of musical history, and other parts of history on top of that, through my lens. But, it’s not anything I ever thought about consciously while I was doing it.

Q: You obviously shoot in color and you shoot in black and white, but is a black-and-white photograph really the prize image to capture in a day of three-dimensional videos.

A: That’s a good question. For most of my career, I never really delineated between black and white and color or what is more desirable or what’s the prize, or anything like that. To me, they’re both. … Both modes are part of photography. I have noticed, certainly, in the last 15 years or so, I’d say, that most people really respond to a beautiful black-and-white photograph more than they respond to a color photograph. As long as I’ve been doing this, I’ve never really understood why. Maybe it’s the surreal nature of black and white.

I think that dogs see in black and white, or shades of gray, and people don’t, but I’ve never really understood that. So, to me, there’s not been a prize with the great black-and-white photograph as opposed to the great color photograph. I think maybe it presses people’s nostalgia buttons in a little different way. Perhaps that’s the reason. I’m not sure.

Q: With all the global traveling how much time do you get to spend home here in Las Vegas?

A: I spend about 25 percent of my time. You don’t think of Vegas as a relaxing place, but I’ll tell you what, Robin, twenty-four stories above the fray, so to speak, I do find it very relaxing. And if I want to get my hands and feet dirty, all I have to do it go to the bottom floor. Vegas has become a rock city but there’s some really great restaurants there, which never used to be the case. My only other comment on Las Vegas would be, if silicone were helium, the entire city of Las Vegas would float away.

The first time I came here. …. must’ve been in 1972 or 1973, and I got assigned to shoot the Nitty Gritty Dirt Band. And they were playing at the Sahara, obviously the old Sahara. I was 20 years old and had hair out to here, and I used to have all my equipment in an old army knapsack. And I remember being followed around the hotel by security guys because I would play the slots, and the slots used to spit out silver dollars. And I’d throw the silver dollars in my knapsack and these guys all wanted to know what else I had in my knapsack.

Just the cameras though! And they’ve served me pretty good as you will see in the book. Maybe “Exhilarated and Exhausted” will be the history from all of this.