Up Close with PSR
Crystal Zevon

Crystal Zevon is the former wife (and lifelong friend) of the late Warren Zevon, one of the most intriguing rock and roll musician and songwriters of his time. Zevon was noted for his offbeat, sardonic view of life which was reflected in his dark, witty and often biting songs - including several about sports. Best known for his 1978 hit "Werewolves of London," Zevon later gained popularity through a VH1 documentary which chronicled his life as he battled lung cancer while recording his final album, the Grammy Award-winning "The Wind" in 2003.

Earlier this year, Crystal Zevon documented her ex-husband's "dirty life and times" in his biography, "I'll Sleep When I'm Dead: The Dirty Life and Times of Warren Zevon." The book, an unflinching-and often unsettling-account of Zevon's life as seen through his journal entries and the author's exhaustive interviews with family members, associates, musicians, friends and lovers. PSR editor Tony DeFazio caught up with Crystal Zevon to discuss her life with Warren, the book, and the process behind her ex-husband's songs about sports.

PSR: Warren had said for a long time that he wanted this book written, and he wanted you to write it. He even asked you to "promise you'll tell 'em the whole truth, even the awful, ugly parts." You certainly did that, as there is much in the book that's unflattering. Was this a difficult book to write?

Crystal Zevon: Yeah. You know, he asked me write it shortly after he was diagnosed. He and his friend Carl Hiaasen (Warren's novelist friend) had talked about who should do it, and decided I was the one. As you mentioned, we had talked about it earlier, but I had kind of forgotten about it.

But when he asked me, I was still in shock from the fact that he was dying…so I would have said yes to pretty much anything. We talked about it through the year, and that part you just quoted was the last conversation we had. He called me about a week before he died and made me promise I was going to do it. And I don't know that I really thought much about the implications until I actually started doing it.

It was very difficult. Our relationship had moved from an alcoholic marriage where there was abuse…now, there were a lot of great times, too, but we were both alcoholics. He was a more outward alcoholic than I was, but the marriage suffered from a lot of excess. To go revisit those times when we had, in later years, moved on to a really wonderful and satisfying friendship…it was hard to go back and unearth all that old stuff.

In the long run, I think I probably exercised some demons that were still lurking there and got rid of any residual resentment or unresolved feelings. In the long run I think it was all for the good, but it was not easy.

PSR: It was so extensively researched - you conducted 87 interviews. What was that process like, considering you were intimately involved with so many of the people you interviewed?

CZ: The interview process was very cathartic. We laughed, we cried, we got angry…we remembered Warren. It was a way of completing the grieving process in a complete way.

I had no idea whether people were going to be willing to talk to me or share intimate details of their relationships with Warren. There were a couple of people who were reticent or didn't share everything, but people were really forthcoming and open, and just wanted to talk.

I was worried when Warren asked me to do it. I said to him, "I'm your ex-wife. People are going to look at this as some sort of a revenge piece." Which happens - it's how I would think of it if I saw somebody's ex-wife coming out with a book.

He just laughed and said, "Oh, they'll get over it." And for the most part I think people have.

PSR: Did this rekindle some relationships for you personally?

CZ: Well, Jackson [Brown] and I have always been close friends. Jackson has always been like a brother to me. Warren named him [their daughter] Ariel's godfather, so he's always been very close. Jackson officiated my daughter's wedding to her husband, so he has always been close.

But as far as other relationships, I met new people. Billy Bob Thornton has become a good friend - I didn't know him before.

As far as relationships from back in the day, people like Doug Haywood, who was the bassist on Warren's first tour and who also played with Jackson Brown - he lives in Colorado now and we stay in touch. There are a lot of relationships like that.

Jorge Calderon (musician and Zevon-collaborator) and I were friends before I even met Warren, but we talk on a more regular basis now. So it has kind of brought people together. Roy Marinell, who co-wrote "Werewolves of London" and "Excitable Boy," lived between Chicago and Italy, and we've rekindled our friendship.

PSR: You mentioned that the interview process helped you lose any lingering resentment. Do you think it had the effect on some of the people you spoke with?

CZ: I think it did for some people. I'm not sure for everyone. I mean Roy wrote a song called "The Goose That Laid The Golden Egg is Dead." And anyone who reads the book will see where Warren sort of severed their relationship.

PSR: Did you encounter new fans of Warren's that you didn't realize existed?

CZ: You know, Warren always believed that he'd become recognized after he died. He got his Grammy's posthumously.

And I think as I've gone around on these book tours, the thing that's most gratifying to me is that almost everyplace I go there are a few young people out there. And I mean 16-year olds - 25-year olds and 35-year olds too, but also the really young ones. And these are the people that, if they start discovering Warren's music now, it'll do what he wanted to do. And that's to create his legacy in music.

PSR: How has the promotion process been for you - the interviews, the book tours, etc.?

CZ: I started out very nervous. I'm someone who is much more comfortable behind the scenes. I've been around rock stars and celebrities on and off throughout my life, but I've never been the one in front of the curtain.

It was kind of intimidating at first. The ice was really broken in Miami when I appeared with Carl Hiaasen and Dave Berry at a signing. I was really very nervous because the first two signings I did were in Vermont, where I live.

And the guy who owned the book store got out and gave it this rave review, and I was still intimidated despite the accolades. The three of us were sitting on these tall stools, and the guy just handed me the mic - and I couldn't say a word. There were 125 people sitting there and I just went silent.

So Carl took the mic and asked me how I got the idea to write the book, and I said, "Well I was told it was your idea," and everyone laughed. And that kind of broke the ice, and from that moment on I kind of relaxed into it and decided I have to do what I did with the book. Which was tell the truth.

PSR: Has this been enjoyable to you, or has it been a bit of a burden?

CZ: It's been much more enjoyable that I ever thought this part of it could possibly be. People have been so receptive and welcoming, it's sort of been like an on-going conversation.

PSR: As a fan of his music, and as someone who has read the book, it's clear that Warren was at least a casual sports fan, but-

CZ: Oh no, Warren was a big sports fan. Definitely. But Warren was also the kid with glasses who played the violin, and didn't really play sports growing up. He was the one who was afraid of the ball because it might break his glasses.

PSR: What role did sports have in your relationship?

CZ: If the kids were doing something, Warren definitely was there. But as Jordan (Warren's son to his first wife) has said, he did not have the kind of dad who tossed the ball back and forth with him. Ariel was into music, so he definitely went to flute recitals and that sort of thing. So if they were doing something, he would be there, but as far as initiating it - no, that didn't happen.

I think he got interested in sports personalities even more than the game. "Who are these guys?" was his fascination. He envied and admired sports figures. Warren had that macho male side to him that is really evident in his songs. And when he learned that there were sports guys out there, like [former Red Sox pitcher] Bill Lee, chanting his lyrics, he loved that. To him, that was really the most exciting thing that could happen, short of Dylan doing his songs.

His father was a lightweight boxer, so he grew up with some boxing in his background, and he was always interested and fascinated by boxing. And when he and [Detroit Free Press columnist] Mitch Albom wrote "The Hockey Song" he basically threw it out to Mitch and asked him what sport they should chose.

I can't say that he had a team or a sport, but once he became obsessed with a personality within that sport, then he would follow it.

PSR: Warren's 1978 song "Bill Lee" seems more inspired by Bill Lee and his attitude than about him as a baseball player, would you agree?

CZ: I think that's probably true, yeah.

PSR: "Boom-Boom Mancini," about lightweight fighter Ray Mancini, is a great Zevon song. English language literature, from novels to music to news coverage, has always had a special fascination with boxing. What is it about that sport that makes it so captivating for writers?

CZ: That's a really good question. My daughter started boxing in Los Angeles about a year before she got pregnant, and even now she goes downtown to a real boxing gym with a cut-man and all that. As a mother, the last thing you want is to see your daughter punched in the face, but she has been.

So I've read all this stuff on boxing, and I think it may be something about the contact. It's an intimate sport. I don't know…maybe it's that thing in all of us that wants to hit somebody. But you're right, it's kind of a mystery to me. I wish Warren were here to discuss that.

PSR: Warren gets so deep into the head of a boxer in that song - did he have any relationship with Mancini that you know of?

CZ: No. If he did, it's not in his journals.

PSR: Finally, "The Hockey Song." This is almost a novelty song; it's something that may have gotten play on the old Dr. Demento radio show. Would the fact that he wrote and recorded a novelty song have bothered him early in his career?

CZ: It's interesting because when I talked to Mitch about it, he thought it was a novelty song. Warren just said, "Let's write a sports song - what sport should we write about?" And Mitch said hockey, so they started talking about goalies and what their jobs entailed, and Mitch kind of educated him on the sport. So they imagined this Canadian farm boy.

And Mitch never really thought it would be a song. Warren went to his house and they kind of hammered it out in his basement. Then some months later, Mitch was on vacation on some faraway island, and Warren calls him from the studio. He's with Paul Shaffer and David Letterman (who added the spoken-word vocal "Hit Somebody!" to the song).

PSR: We spoke about Warren's collaboration with Mitch Albom on this particular song, but he collaborated throughout his career with other musicians and writers. Late in his career, though, he was writing with people who were not musicians. Carl Hiaasen, Hunter S. Thompson, Mitch Albom - was that surprising that he let "civilians" into his musical world?

CZ: Warren loved writers. His love, really, was more in books than it even was in music. He would go to book signings to meet writers like a fan. And he was a very literary songwriter, so he just figured they would add something to the lyric.

Sometimes it was a struggle. Writing with Hunter Thompson was a struggle - that one didn't come easy. Writing with Carl, they shared a sense of humor. He'd catch a phrase and they'd just go back and forth and hammer something out.

PSR: Do you have a favorite Warren Zevon song?

CZ: I have a lot of them. But recently I was in New York and Mitch's band, the Rock Bottom Remainders, played and they did a tribute to Warren. Mitch, in his tribute, talked about the song off the "Life'll Kill Ya" album, which ends with the song "Don't Let Us Get Sick."

And it's such a simple, simple lullaby - Don't let us get old/Don't let us get sick/don't let us get stupid/alright? And it's so Warren. Really simple, but that's one of my favorites.

An all-time favorite that I think of as the quintessential Warren Zevon song is "Desperados Under The Eaves." There are a lot - "Reconsider Me" is another.

PSR: He had said that "Backs Turned Looking Down The Path" is the song that when he died, people would realize it's the best song he ever wrote. Why did he feel that way?

CZ: I think that it was about us turning away from everything and just escaping to Spain. It was a moment of reckless abandon, and it was a happy song. It was a happy and hopeful song. He didn't write many happy, hopeful songs. I think that's really what it was about. It was sort of his Paul McCartney song.