Ted Nugent's decades-spanning career has now been encapsulated in his latest project: an archive (or, as he dubbed it, the “Nuge Vault”) which includes some pretty historic material from Nugent and his rock ‘n’ roll contemporaries.
The newly-available Nuge Vault promises to offer members access to “never-before-seen or heard concert footage, archival audio, and much more.” As Nugent shared with Sirius XM's Eddie Trunk, recovering this material was no mean feat considering the guitarist has been active since the ’60s – or, as he succinctly puts it, “a pain in the ass.”
“When Jason [Hartless, Nugent’s drummer] and I were rehearsing for the Adios Mofo tour with Johnny [Schoen, bassist], we were in my big barn in Michigan and there's just walls and acres – literally acres – of boxes and crates and big giant piles of tapes and videos and CDs and cassettes and stacks of photos and, and rehearsals and jam sessions,” he explains.
“And I had kind of walked past it every day as I do in my daily life, but Jason stopped and looked at it and started digging into these boxes.”
It was thanks to Hartless that Nugent decided to take on such a colossal project, with the two working together to go through each and every recording – a process that ended up unearthing a lot of memories for the guitarist.
“When Jason started digging into these boxes, his eyes bugged out,” he continues. “Because who doesn't want to hear the recording of Ted Nugent and Eddie Van Halen backstage in California jamming? Or with Billy Gibbons and so many amazing things that have taken place?”
Another hidden gem? A “jam session with the Mothers of Invention at the Fifth Dimension in Ann Arbor in 1967.”
“When he shows me this stuff, I get teary-eyed,” Nugent confesses, as he reiterates his gratitude for Hartless' dedication to the project. “I go, God, I remember that. Hanging out with these guys backstage. What a lucky, lucky life. And it's all chronicled.”
Last year, Nugent gave his hot take on top guitarists lists, sharing that he thinks Eric Clapton, Jimmy Page, and Jeff Beck are overrated – and who he believes deserves more recognition.
