Q: What happened after, there was a lawsuit at some point because you weren’t paid royalties? Did that get straightened out? You got paid finally.
A: Yeah, yeah. Boy, what that was. ‘Cause I waited like, two years, three years. I had a contract. I waited like three years then I finally said to Yoko, you know, ‘It’s like really like a lot of royalties probably accruing here. You know, I think it’s time like we maybe have … accountants, have somebody, you know, you don’t have to deal with it, let’s just sort it out, let our people sort it out.’ And I got like a nasty letter. Almost like “Fuck you, you’re not getting anything.” And it was like “What? I don’t get this.” And, I mean, all kinds of nasty business went down after that, you know, being followed and having people offered money to say bad things about me. None of which, even if they had succeeded, I mean, Cheap Trick was approached, none of those things …
Q: To say bad things about you?
A: Yeah, yeah.
Q: By her? By someone in …
A: Yeah, someone In her camp, ex -FBI guys, Elliot Mintz.
Q: What do you think of him?
A: Ugh. I’m not an Elliot fan. He doesn’t like me; I don’t like him … weird because John, you know, didn’t have one good word for Elliot. Sorry, Elliot. It’s like, if Elliot was coming, John was like ‘ugh’. He was more Yoko’s friend. Yeah. I can remember Elliot coming by r place, you know. Someone brought him their not knowing that it was not a good idea but I came up and it was a house I had in the Hollywood Hills … I was doing some records out there. And I so treasured these great pictures that I had, of John and 1, that I would take them with me when I was traveling. I was going to spend six months in a house in Los Angeles so in my little office I had pictures of John and 1. Amazing picture of John and I listening to ‘Starting Over’ for the first time, [while finishing up ‘Double Fantasy’] somebody from the maintenance shop, because we released it as [an advance] single. Somebody from maintenance said ‘Hey, they’re playing ‘Starting Over on the radio.” John and I went running into the maintenance shop and we’re both standing like dumbfounded, like with these stupid smiles, like kids, listening to ‘Starting Over” and there’s a little radio, me and John leaning over it, unopposed just like kids and somebody took a snap of it and so I had all these pictures and someone brought Elliot by and Elliot saw these pictures around my place …
My place was burglarized and you know what they stole? Pictures. That’s all. All the pictures were gone. Every picture I had. There must have been a dozen, really beautiful. That’s strange.
I mean, all my gold and platinum records ended up in a closet at Yoko’s. I never got them! Well, somebody [took] one out and gave it to me as a birthday present. They gave me a platinum single and a platinum record.
