Todd Rundgren did not like the production of “arrogant” Robbie Robertson

Take a load, man. Todd Rundgren’s first major project as engineer was the band’s third album, ’70s stage fright, After disbanding his group, Nas. Rundgren served as a valuable sounding board for the quintet and helped shape the album’s ten tracks, which included standout songs “The Shape I’m In” and “Stage Fright.” His solo career took off soon after, but his time in the booth with those American-Canadian crazies endeared him all these decades later, even if he didn’t love the music. In new Guardian interview, Rundgren confirmed a rumor that Levon Helm was prone to stalking him in the studio. “Maybe there was an episode,” he explained. “I was a smart kid, like calling Garth Hudson ‘Old Man’, thinking he was too old to stay awake, and not realizing he had narcolepsy. I didn’t like that kind of music and I wasn’t aware of the fact that the band was one of the biggest bands in the world. Suddenly they had all the money and drugs and drinks and sycophants, and that affected some of the guys.” Helm suffered from severe drug addiction at the time. “Levon had gotten into opioids, so while he was chasing me around the studio, he spent a lot of time under a pile of curtains, dead to the world,” Rundgren said.

Invitation to The last waltz It didn’t extend to Rundgren—although it’s a fun intellectual exercise to think about how he might have commanded the stage if he’d gotten a spot instead of, say, Neil Diamond’s distorted crooning—but he subsequently enjoyed a pleasant relationship with 80 percent of the band members until their deaths. (Hudson was the last member to die in January.) “In later years, they all became my friends except Robbie Robertson, who was kind of a snob,” Rundgren added.