John Parks from Legendary Rock Interviews spoke with NAZARETH guitarist and producer Manny Charlton recently about a number of topics. A few excerpts from the chat follow:

LRI: 1975?s Hair Of The Dog ranks right up there with PETER FRAMPTON's Frampton Comes Alive, AEROSMITH’s Toys In The Attic and DEEP PURPLE’s Machine Head in terms of must have records back in the '70s. In other words, if you didn’t have these albums in your collection you were nobody! Your thoughts?

Manny Charlton: "What that album did was set the band up for American success forever…Looking back I’m still trying to understand why it was so successful! I’ve come to the conclusion that it’s all about the attitude of the songs, performances and the rawness of the production. This was the first album that I produced for the band ….beginner’s luck you might say?"

LRI: The song 'Love Hurts' reached # 8 in the US Top 10 and also charted in nine countries. It even spent 60 weeks on the Norwegian chart, how many teenage girls do you suppose used that track as their 'break-up' song and how many times over the years have you wished that YOU had written it?

Manny Charlton: "Wished I had written it?…every friggin’ day! (laughs) Get the girl and the boys will follow! Especially if the lead song on the album is a son of a bitch ..Oops I mean Hair Of The Dog!"

LRI: In 1986 you were originally brought in to produce the GUNS N' ROSES debut classic, Appetite For Destruction album. What was it like working with Axl Rose and crew and do you still have any of the tapes from these sessions?

Manny Charlton: "Ahh, the GN'R saga…. Okay, Axl’s favorite singer is Dan McCafferty. He said to his label, get me the guy who produced 'Hair Of The Dog' by NAZARETH! What Axl wants…. Axl gets! I went over to L.A. to meet them and eventually went into the studio where we recorded straight tape two-track stereo… their whole set live and they were great. We left it saying, if we could get our respective schedules together then great. I was in the middle of recording Cinema with Nazareth and it didn’t happen. I later found out that they auditioned a dozen or so other people for the gig."

Read more at Legendary Rock Interviews.