WS: So what was it like working with Pumpkinhead?

MK: [laughs] Buckethead, Buckethead.

WS: Buckethead, sorry. [I snicker]

MK: Pumpkin...there is a band...oh, Smashing Pumpkins. Buckethead's a great cat - I love rock and rollers. I have to say, my God, so is Eric Clapton, he always was, and to have him as a great friend is a thrill, an honor. He is a fabulous musician, and I don't idolize him because he has a nice chin, I love him because he's a phenomenal musician and to get to work with him is unbelievable. I don't know how to describe that to anybody without sounding like a fool but the first time I played with him, I mean, I probably sat at a piano playing with rock and roll bands for 20 years at that time, and I'm always trying to get the guitarist to do what I hear in my head. Time after time after time they couldn't do it because they weren't Eric Clapton, and that first day that I was actually sitting at the piano and he was in the other chair playing guitar, everything that came out of his guitar was...I was sweating because there it was, just like I'd always pictured it.

WS: It lived up to expectations, then?

MK: It exceeded expectations.

WS: Was that yours or Donner's...?
[Richard Donner, director of Lethal Weapon... -rune]

MK: N-n-n-n-no, Eric and I had met on a Roger Waters record. When I was working with [Pink] Floyd, I formed a relationship with Roger. He left the group and decided to make a solo album; actually he didn't even leave the group, at that point, he was still in the group but made a solo record. He needed a guitarist and you can't fill Dave Gilmour's shoes very easily. He was a friend of Eric's, I didn't know Eric, and he brought him on. Eric wasn't very busy in those days. He'd had a peak and another peak and another peak and he was resting in between peaks, I guess.

He came in and played and it revolutionized my life in many, many ways because for the first time I found myself not trying to guide the man from the piano, but just listening to that guitarist and seeing, oh my hands are moving. That was the true meaning of playing in a band. It's not trying to play everybody's part on the piano so they get it, it's combining with what you're actually joining forces with. We discovered to my thrill that we have a love of blues in common and a knowledge of blues in common, and I was intrigued by his playing, his mastery of his instrument and him as a guy.

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MK: When [Eric and I] finished the tour with Roger [Waters], I went off and did _Brazil_ and I brought him to the premiere and he liked the movie. He liked what I had done, and about a week later he got a call from somebody at the BBC asking him if he would score a television show for them. He looked at the television show, loved it, but realized he needed help 'cause he'd not ever done a movie, and he thought of me because he had just seen me in that context.

So he asked me if I'd be interested in working with - "Yes!" Before he had it out of his mouth it was, yeah. He came over to my house and described it. I remember thinkng, isn't it too bad that what he's describing is a small BBC television show and nobody's gonna see it and that's a pity, but still I'll get to work with Eric. We started looking at the movie and it really was a strong piece of television, probably the strongest piece to come out of England in 20 years. It was a show called _Edge_of_Darkness_ and we did a lot of music for them, we were supposed to give them ten minutes of music and it's a six-hour show and six weeks of installments and we probably scored the whole thing. When it was over we had some pretty extraordinary music. It was the first time I had a Kurzweil and I was making strings on the Kurzweil - Eric would just be jamming and I'd be playing and we came up with wonderful ideas.

WS: So you guys just improvised like crazy.

MK: Well we made the theme, we picked it out and it was fun to make a theme with somebody like that because he'll come up with a line and I'll say, "Oh yeah, that goes here." It's like a jigsaw puzzle where we each see the inevitable mixed idea from the seeds of the last idea, and are very compatible that way. So we finished the score, we knew we had done something very good, I was really thrilled with it. Again, I thought, isn't this a pity this is gonna be a simple private television show? But the show wound up coming to acclaim in England, it was a very important television show, very famous, they even aired it again on BBC 2 which is a funny thing to happen in England [Kamen and Clapton also recieved BAFTA and Ivor Novello awards for their work... -rune]. There was a guy at that time named Stuart Baird, an English editor who was working in Hollywood editing _Lethal_Weapon_1_. He remembered the music that he heard for _Edge_of_ _Darkness_ so he got hold of a CD, or at that time a tape probably, and used our music from _Edge_of_Darkness_ to temp-score _Lethal_Weapon_.

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WS: I didn't realize that _Lethal_Weapon_ was actually your big break.

MK: Yeah, I thought that I had a career with _Brazil_. I thought when I did _Brazil_ that I'd be, you know, noticed in this town but it was, "Uh, and you are?" [we laugh] They only notice you if your movie's a hit. And within minutes of _Lethal_Weapon_ soaring to the top of the charts that week, I was getting calls from famous directors.

WS: So Richard Donner, I guess, that was...

MK: That was before, this is Donner being a brave man. This is Stuart Baird saying, I have an idea for this movie that the Mel Gibson character should be portrayed by a guitar and I have these tapes of this guy Kamen who did this thing with Eric Clapton. They used _Edge_of_Darkness_ very extensively to temp _Lethal_Weapon_; I had never done a film like that before and I hated the script and I didn't want to do the movie, but Eric liked Mel Gibson, so I came to town to spot the movie.

WS: You hated the movie?

MK: I didn't like it. [I laugh] I mean I saw a very early cut and it's not my kind of movie. I don't actually like those kind of movies, I like _The_Wizard_of_Oz_. The idea of Eric and Mel Gibson working with good chemistry was fantastic and then he made what could have been a terrible mistake, because at that time and to this day and probably for the rest of my life, there is only one saxophonist living who is worth speaking about. And that's Dave Sanborn. And Dave Sanborn is a great, great friend.

WS: You had worked with him before, then?

MK: Oh yeah, sure. Dave Sanborn, he was in my New York Rock and Roll Ensemble 20 years ago, or whatever it was, and he's taught me a lot about music, although I still to this day know nothing about jazz and he's never stopped digging at me about that. But Stuart Baird said, "I wonder if you think this idea makes sense: you could have a guitar for Mel Gibson and then Danny Glover's character could be a saxophone," and I said "Well, that's a brilliant idea." Because I've always done that, assign instruments to a character, it just makes it easy.

WS: Not just a theme but an entire instrument.

MK: Well, it's _Peter_and_the_Wolf_....

WS: I'd guess I'd be the styrofoam cup.

MK: [laughs] It's a good job, you can't get that job. I became very cautious because there are a lot of saxophone players in the world or would-be saxophone players in the world. And he says, "Well I have this guy in mind," and I immediately went, "Yeah, who?" very, very defensive. And he said, "Well, I don't know if you'd know him or not but I heard him play the other day and he's great." And I went, "Yeah, who?" "I think he's fabulous." And I went, "Yeah, who?!" [I laugh] He said, "His name's David Sanborn," and I said "You got it." So the idea of bringing David and Eric together, two of my favorite musicians, the two leading exponents of their instruments, these two major lead instruments of rock and roll...for me to be the cement that got them together is an honor. And to be in the same room with them and to play music with them, is...are you kidding?