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What was your first wage?
I lasted half a day at a job and was never an employee again. Aged 15 I got a summer job at a commercial greenhouse, going up on scaffolding to paint all the white wooden frames separating thousands of panes of glass.
The first day was hot, and I began painting and stepped straight through the glass. I ended up on my back in the flowerbed and got fired, without being paid the $5 hourly wage. After that I taught guitar lessons and played in bands.
Have you ever worried about not being able to pay the bills?
After university I sold my motorcycle for $400, bought a backpack and landed in London. I took the hovercraft across to France and busked my way around western Europe and ended up back in London in September.
I had to figure out how to get home. In those days you went to the American Express office to get messages and I saw a card: “Flights to New York £100”. And it wasn’t until I was getting ready to get on the plane that I discovered the destination was Niagara Falls, New York State, not New York City.
On landing I had to call my parents and get them to wire me some money so that I could get back to Pennsylvania – because by the time I got to Niagara Falls, I had no money.
I was always able to live modestly, I was a hippie. In the late 1960s and 1970s I shared apartments, slept on the floor or on sofas, I taught guitar lessons throughout college, played in some blues bands. I was always able to get by some way or another.
If you live within your means, you’ll never have to worry about it.
In 1987 you discovered that, after selling 80 million records, you were broke, with $50 in your wallet. How did that happen?
I didn’t look after my money or pay enough attention. It was an era when it was presented as: “Hey, why should you get bogged down when you’re travelling the world, having fun, playing music, making records? That’s your job. Money is our job, let us take care of it.”
It’s very seductive to be told not to worry about something, go and have fun. I don’t blame my managers; I blame myself for not being more educated.
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https://news.winestle.com/2023/01/01/we-sold-millions-of-records-but-i-didnt-have-a-car/?feed_id=222838&_unique_id=63b286f7b5a6f
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