Roots Legend Chris Hillman Talks New Book, Byrds, Burrito Brothers & Gene Clark (INTERVIEW)

When I interviewed Chris Hillman back in 2017, he mentioned writing a book about his life and joked that he was just “too lazy to go find anybody to work it – meaning that you have to find an agent to go to a publishing company.” Well, that book finally did come to fruition with a publisher and on November 17th, BMG will release Time Between: My Life As A Byrd, Burrito Brother & Beyond. What Hillman had originally started as a way to tell his children and grandchildren about his life before they were born, has become a gift to his fans as well.

If you’ve ever had the opportunity to speak with Hillman, you’ll have noticed he is a humble man, with a soft-spoken sense of humor, a passion for what he does musically, a great love for his family and a knack for telling stories from his life and career. He does the latter with such ease during a live performance that it’s a much looked-forward-to part of the show. He does not ramble, he does not gloat, he certainly doesn’t criticize another musician. What he does is share little snippets – about a song’s creation here, about working with a particular musician there – and then quickly kicks into the next song. It’s his music that tells his stories best. He just adds a little marmalade to top it off.

Now Hillman has taken that ease of storytelling straight into his book, making Time Between a chat between old friends about old friends. Hillman goes from his seemingly idyllic childhood as a wannabe cowboy to playing bass in The Byrds, the Flying Burrito Brothers, Manassas, the Desert Rose Band and many adventures in-between. Inducted into the Rock & Roll Hall Of Fame with The Byrds in 1991, the mandolin master has also had his share of fires, quakes, band turmoils and an illness that may have tortured his body but never snuffed out his spirit. And he is honest about it all, without going the route of tawdry tabloidism. He is respectful, he is forthcoming and he is self-deprecating. 

Having interviewed him on several occasions, I wanted to talk to Hillman about some things in his book that we hadn’t really gone in-depth about previously: playing at Altamont, his battle with Hepatitis C, his now under control temper, and the decline of Byrd bandmate Gene Clark. For more about his recording with Tom Petty, his days in the Scottsville Squirrel Barkers, Gram Parsons and Herb Pedersen, and his – hopefully not last – album, Bidin’ My Time, go here until you can read about them in his upcoming memoir, Time Between. For now, sit back and enjoy learning a little more about Hillman’s book from the man himself.

Chris, the last time we talked, I asked you if you were going to write your book and you told me you had one done. But then you said, “Why does the world need another old, aging ex-rock star’s autobiography.” So what changed?

(laughs) Well, that was just my sense of humor, but Leslie, I’ve been doing this off and on for seven years. I was going to write this for the kids, for the grandkids, and I got real serious when somebody wanted to make a deal, which was BMG. So okay, we’ve got a book deal, so we got heavily into going over it and re-editing everything. Connie, my wife, was really helpful and it really should have her name on it, cause she was pushing me to elaborate on certain things. She’d say, “When you were in the studio with the Burrito Brothers, what did you do on this song?” That kind of stuff. And she was right. So I would embellish a little bit on those things. So she helped and my daughter is a high school English Lit teacher and she was pretty tough on the editing (laughs). 

But you know, you’re a writer, you get into writing and you’re writing and writing. And then my daughter says, “Dad, you’ve got so many clichés,” and she pulls out the red pencil and she starts marking it up (laughs). I think I wrote, “It was like a gift from Heaven,” or some dumb thing I put, and she’s like, “Dad, I don’t think so, let’s not go there.” (laughs) She was great and my wife was great and Scott Bomar, who heads up the publishing division of BMG, he was fantastic and it was his idea, Leslie, to open the book with our fire [2017] and that was a brilliant idea. We start the book with this, here we are immersed in this horrid fire. All my life I’ve been haunted by fires growing up in California. In The Byrds, I lost my house completely. Growing up, we had a fire. You guys have hurricanes and floods, we get fires and earthquakes, which you never know when that’s going to happen. The fire you get an alert and you see a red glow in the sky. Hurricanes, you guys know to batten down and get ready. Floods, that’s part of the hurricane. Tornadoes are bad too but you can almost predict and see them coming. But earthquakes, no. Out in California, all of a sudden, here we go and it’ll start rocking and rolling.

I was sharing a house with Bernie Leadon right before the Eagles started and Bernie joined the Eagles, and we had a house in Venice, California, when a big quake came and the floor was literally rolling. Bernie was in the other bedroom and he yells over and says, “I think we’re going somewhere here!” (laughs) That’s the adventure of living here.

What was your process of writing this like when you started? Were you writing down little stories as they came to you or were you consciously writing a book?

I think I was writing a book but I just sat down and started writing. It was, what’s the old, once again cliché, the old Chinese proverb: the first step of a thousand mile journey is the hardest. Well, that’s it. Basically, you sit down and you start writing and then the first word is on the paper. I can’t quite remember why but I felt like I should start with where I grew up and when I grew up. A lot of it, Leslie, was maybe I’d read so many bad, inaccurate stories about The Byrds or the Burrito Brothers; that was part of it. But I think I just wanted to write a story about me and it was about music and everything, growing up in a small town in California in the 1950’s and how wonderful that was; I had a great childhood. And it just sort of came out and I remembered a lot of stuff. Then sometimes I’d go back and look it over and remember something that I’d forgotten to put in the first time. 

I went back to the town I grew up in, which is not the same, they never are, and drove around and walked around it and I’m going, “That used to be where the café was,” or “This was the gas station.” It’s all gone now but I went and did that in the process. I went to the little historical museum in the town that I grew up in and went in there and got a lot of info and pictures. I’ve got some incredible photos from where I grew up and pictures no one has ever seen of the bands and all that I did. 

But it was a labor of love and just about every day I’d be writing and saving it and writing and I wasn’t even looking for a publishing deal nor was I thinking I’ll do it myself with Amazon. I didn’t want to do that. If nothing else, I’ll just write it for the kids: here is what I was doing before you were born. But it all changed and got serious and someone was interested so I sent them the manuscript, initially about four or five chapters, I think, and they loved it and they wanted to do something so we made a deal and I continued. 

I think I was actually done with the book at that point but of course I redid a lot of stuff, the ending. Tom Petty had passed away and that involved a new epilogue and things like that happened. And of course going on the tour with Roger McGuinn and Marty Stuart after Tom passed away, that required adding another section to it. Then after the Sweetheart Of The Rodeo anniversary tour, that was it, really, that was it for the book. And then the coronavirus, I didn’t even go there, cause the book was already done by the time that horrible thing happened.

Were you planning to get out there and promote it? 

Originally, we were going to go on the road in September with John Jorgenson and Herb Pedersen, my Desert Rose pals, and that has been put off. In January, we are supposed to go to Florida to play a few shows. I do stories and songs but I will read a little bit out of the book, perform with John and Herb. March is when we’ll really get going for some more stuff. Hopefully, we’ll all be back doing that but we’ll see what happens. I think it’s time to open the country back up, stop this lockdown and get going with everything. That’s what we’re waiting to do.

What I found a little surprising in your book is that you had a little bit of a temper. I couldn’t imagine Chris Hillman, one of the nicest men I know, having a temper.

(laughs) It wasn’t little! But that was a long time ago and I’m not that person anymore. I did have a pretty volatile, combative temper at times and there was a lot of anger but I came to grips with it and changed. And that’s basically the premise of the book, is where I started doing something I had a passion for, loved music, loved it, never thought I would make a dime, never thought I’d get a nickel. When I got paid the first time, it was like ten dollars and I went, “Wow, you get paid too!” I couldn’t believe it. I mark that, 1963, as when I really became a professional musician and got paid. I thought I’d go to college or university but things kept opening up. 

But it was really the story in that book about me coming out of a very, very, horrible time when my father died; it was a dark, dark time. And even though I was successful, I was very angry and very unhappy. Finally I came to grips with it and I embraced and reached out to Jesus Christ and brought him into my life and I came out of that darkness and I forgave my father. So I am not that guy anymore. And yes, I tried to write this as honestly as possible and there were moments when I had some issues but we’ve come to grips with that and fixed it, as everyone can. You can always moderate your behavior if you really are aware of it and want to.

You talk very openly about your father’s suicide and even when you’re not talking about it, it’s running underneath your words. When did you really realize it was underlying you?

Oh gosh, I think I was in my early fifties. I was at my brother’s house and he had some old movies of our folks, old 8mm or something, and I’m a baby and my dad is playing with me on the beach and for some reason that connected with me. He was really a good guy. It wasn’t like he was this horrible, abusive father. He was a sweet, loving man and taught us all in the family responsibility and to work for things, to be responsible; all the things you’re supposed to learn growing up. That, I hold in high, high accord. He was a good dad. He just had some issues that were terrible that just overcame him. He had demons in him and he couldn’t rise above it. But we pray that he is okay and hopefully God has forgiven him and he rests now in a good place. 

You are very honest in your book but you don’t really toil up the really bad.

I’ll put it this way: here I am, a pretty lucky guy, been in all these bands, right; so here I am at seventy-six years old, in a couple of months I’ll be seventy-six, and I don’t hold any animosity or any issues with anybody I worked with. I don’t need to. What’s the point? That doesn’t mean I wish everyone the best that I worked with, it doesn’t mean that I’m going to hang out with them and have dinner with them; I don’t really want to renew a relationship that wasn’t really that strong. But I just don’t hold any negativity and I purposely did not denigrate anybody in this book. I didn’t say, well, Gram was a drug addict and we fined him and he’s got a needle in his arm. What’s the point? The poor man had issues. 

I read Linda Ronstadt’s book, and I don’t read autobiographies, I really don’t. But I read Linda’s book and all she wrote about was music and she never denigrated or never said this guy was a bad guy or this guy was whatever. I sent her a note and said, “You really inspired me. I wasn’t planning on doing it but you just really convinced me.” And that’s the point. What’s the point of going into a dark place? When I did make the book deal, I said, “I’m not going to hand you a book with a bunch of sordid facts in there, rock & roll, drugs, blah blah blah. It’s not going to happen. You’re not getting that kind of book. It didn’t happen anyway.” And that’s how I wrote it. That was a long answer (laughs).

You talk about the moment when Gene Clark has like this panic attack on a plane and then he was gone. Had you seen that moment coming at all?

No, did not see it. I don’t think any of us did. For a minute, and I think I mention it in the book, when Gene had to get off the plane, he’s freaking out, and we all thought, did he just get some kind of prophecy? Are we going to dive into the Florida swamps in this plane? (laughs) But we were all nervous and the plane goes back and lets Gene off and the captain comes down and he’s calming people down. You know, why is he getting off, what’s going on here? This is 1965, for gosh’s sake, there wasn’t hijackings or any kind of terrorist thing or anything. But off we went and continued on. 

I actually talked to Gene when I got home from that tour and I said, “You sure you want to do this?” He was a very strong part of The Byrds. His songwriting alone was phenomenal. He looked great onstage, a good-looking man, strong, but boy, he just had some issues and nobody was aware of them, none of us were. He fought that his whole life. He did some really amazing work. I usually worked on his projects throughout the next twenty years or so, I played on his records. But he had some bad stuff. Poor thing and when he died, I think the body finally gave out. It was drugs for years and years but I don’t know, I can’t say that, but I know he had a massive heart attack. He was a good guy. [Clark died in 1991]

One thing we have never talked about is when you played Altamont with the Flying Burrito Brothers, and you bring that up in your book. When was the moment you felt this was not going to be good?

The minute I got out of the car (laughs). I’m not kidding you. I started walking, and we had to park way far out, nothing was organized and here we are one of the acts on the show and we have to walk through the crowd. It was so packed with people and I’m going sideways through the crowd. I get up to the back of the stage and our road guys had managed to secure a good spot and they’d backed the van up right to the stage and everything but it was a nightmare. I knew it was bad when we got out of the car. As the last note I played on the bass was ringing out, I was handing that to the road guy and I was out of there.

But you said you played a good set

We did. The Burritos actually calmed people down. We played a very good set but it didn’t mean, oh, everything’s okay now. Noooo. While we were playing that set, the Hell’s Angels are beating up this poor naked fat man, and they kept pounding on him. I went, my God in Heaven. So I left and got out of there. Bernie Leadon and Michael Clarke stayed and managed to get a ride out of there later. I don’t think they wanted to stay, they just got trapped in there. But they got back and they were safe.

Speaking of Bernie, you talk about him and Stephen Stills with such respect, as you do about a lot of others you worked with. What made them stand out to you? What made you respect them?

Oh gosh, you know, I’ve respected Stephen, I gave him honors because he was such a very good musician but he was a good man. He was there for me a lot and helped me through some other things, beyond Manassas he was very helpful. He’s a good guy, I like Stephen a lot. And Bernie, of course, I’ve known Bernie since he was in high school. He’s only a few years younger than I am. I was just out of high school and he was still in high school. They’re good musicians, dedicated to their art. Bernie never was seduced by all that dark stuff; Stephen a little bit but he’s in a great place now, in great shape, he looks great, healthy, got lots of kids and grandkids so he’s doing fine. Everybody is doing fine. At the end of the day, it’s not the gold records on the wall, it’s not your bank account, it’s your family. That’s what it is, that’s all that counts.

Your illness was pretty scary. At what point were you most scared during that time?

I don’t think I was scared as much as I was. I didn’t have a thing about dying cause I had really committed myself to Jesus. I felt I was okay. But the night I was really sick in the hospital in intensive care, our priest came to the hospital and gave me communion and I was fully prepared to go and I prayed and I asked God to take care of my family, everybody in my family. I was fully prepared. It was not a problem at all and I think the biggest part was, as you know having gone through chemotherapy, with the interferon shots I was taking, which is like chemotherapy, man, it makes you crazy. I was so depressed and I’d break out in tears. It wasn’t from fear as much as just total helplessness. You feel horrible and it’s toxic and it’s so insidious, it goes after your body, the good cells and the bad cells, unfortunately. But we’re still here, Leslie. I took a three hour intense black belt test when I was sick. I hadn’t started my therapy yet but I had Hep C and I made it and I got my black belt out of sheer will power.

What was the most surprising thing you learned about yourself while writing this book?

That is a fantastic question. It’s funny, I realized I wasn’t such a bad person after all and I really wasn’t such an incompetent, insecure guy. We all have our insecurities. I went through a lot of stuff. I look through the book and go, my God. But there’s people that have done fifty times more things than I have done, and better things, but I learned that I was okay, I was really okay, and I did fine and I was really blessed with a wonderful family. But I often thought, why am I still here? You know, silly things and hindsight: I wish I hadn’t done that or I wish I had done this. And it doesn’t really matter. I realized God put me in these different places, cause I went through that years ago, why didn’t I stay in The Byrds or God put me in certain places. It was a learning curve all the way up until I had grandchildren. 

Portrait by Lori Stoll; live photograph by Leslie Michele Derrough