Tom Hamilton Talks Rattlesnake Shake

[michelej1]

This is from Bass Player, March 2006

http://www.bassplayer.com/article/cookin/mar-06/18912

Tom: When we got to Vegas and were picking songs, we realized we could take some chances. If they came out well, we’d have them on tape—and if they were bad, well, we’d only screwed up in front of 1,500 people. So we brought out “Seasons of Wither,” “No More No More,” and a song called “Rattlesnake Shake.”

Question: I’m glad you mentioned that song. It’s almost the perfect cover tune for Aerosmith.

Tom: Yes, that song is like the Rosetta Stone of this band’s style. A lot of people don’t know that Fleetwood Mac was a kick-ass blues-rock band back in the ’60s, but I always like to point that out. Joe and I used to meet at this underground club called the Boston Tea Party and see them play, and I’ll never forget their amp line. It was a solid wall of Fender Showman amps; it was just so unbelievably cool-looking to a couple of teenage kids who were still saving up to buy their first good amplifier.

Anyway, they had an album called Then Play On, and “Rattlesnake Shake” is on there, followed by this fast boogie jam called “Searching for Madge.” I don’t know if they meant those two songs to always be associated with each other, but for Joe and me, it was all one big, long song. Whenever we’d see them live, they’d play “Rattlesnake Shake,” and they always did a real good job of explaining the song’s subject matter. I’m not sure many people realize what it’s about, but whenever they’d get to the part where the band stops, and you hear a maraca shaking, Mick Fleetwood—who used to have hair down to his ass—would jump up from behind the drums and show these two wooden balls hanging from his belt on a piece of rawhide. He’d hook his finger in there and, you know, pretend he was stabbing a duck in his lap [laughs]. It was hilarious, and we thought, Oh, my God, that is so cool! So you can see we’ve always loved that song. In fact, Joe and I used to play it in bands two or three years before Aerosmith got together. Now we almost feel like it’s ours!