Jump to: Skinterview | Related Links
If the mountain won't come to Mr. Skin, then Mr. Skin will come to the mountain. That is Leslie West, lead guitar and throat for the hard-rock powerhouse Mountain, the group that gave pop the sexiest fantasy it's every heard, "Mississippi Queen".
Years of rocking have been good for West. He lives next door to Eddie Murphy, who is trying to sell his $30 million New Jersey compound, hopefully not because West is a crazy neighbor. Taking time off from his current tour (dates and news about the band can be found on the official site Mountaintheband.com), West spent his down time fast forwarding to the good parts with Mr. Skin.
It was hard to keep West on task, what with all the skinful distractions on the greatest celebrity-nudity site ever made, but he did come clean about the real "Mississippi Queen", the joys of being a breast man, and why today's sex symbols leave him limp.
What brings Mountain back on the road?
We got a new album out, Eruption, and the book came out last year, Nantucket Sleighride and Other Mountain On-the-Road Stories. It's about all the disgusting drug things that happened. It's very funny, if I say so myself. And we're doing a new Mountain electrified Dylan album soon, and I got a new blues album out. And Ozzy did "Mississippi Queen" with me; it's coming out in another month. He's doing an album called Songs I Wish I Wrote. So I went out to his house and he sang it and I played. It sounds great.
How is this tour different than those days when you were a fledgling rock band?
It's a lot less drugs now [laughs]. Not into that. And I got a much nicer bus.
Our readers are more interested in the sex than the drugs.
I'm engaged, man, so I have all the sex I can handle. I like watching and directing. I don't participate. I don't need any rare topical diseases. But these strippers came down to Atlanta to this theater we were at. One of them, I thought, "Is this a guy or is this a girl?" She's throwing me her thong. But afterwards she was a girl and there were about five of them. They had their own bus, so they dropped me off. But on the way, they had an apartment overlooking Atlanta--I guess they must have taken care of basketball players. Corky [Laing, Mountain's drummer] dropped some ecstasy and he got so fucked up in the shower with two of them, he couldn't get it up. And they were all laughing because he couldn't get his dick hard. One of them was pretty nice. And she kept calling. She saw more pubic hair than dick.
You mention your hit single "Mississippi Queen". The world wants to know: Who is the Mississippi Queen?
Corky and I got together to see what to do for the album and he had this lyric wrote. When his first band was playing in Nantucket, the power went out. There was nothing except the drums. He saw some girl dancing and I guess the moonlight--this is what he says, who knows if he's full of shit, but it sounds good. He saw her silhouette dancing and he could see through everything she was wearing. He started playing the drums and scatting these stupid words: "Mississippi Queen, you know what I mean, she taught me everything." He gave it to me, I wrote the music, and that was it.
That song was on the soundtrack to Vanishing Point.
Man, it was in Barbershop just now. Jay-Z did it for something. I don't know, but I got a big royalty check. Outside Providence used it. Lollapalooza, Miller Draft uses it. Vanishing Point, I love that movie, whether we were in it or not.
It's a favorite here at Mr. Skin for the revealing performances ofVictoria Medlin and Gilda Texter (Picture:1 - 2 - 3).
Oh, I love that scene.
Do you remember the first time you saw naked chicks onscreen?
When I was a kid I went to Brigitte Bardot movies; I could not fucking believe how great she looked. My girlfriend now reminds me of her--not how Brigitte looks now, how she looked then. I think I was in the eighth grade and I cut school, Forest Hills, New York, and she was fucking all the guys in the government in France or something. I don't know if she's completely naked, but pretty damn close to it, and that was enough for me. Her and Jayne Mansfield got me going.
Do you have a favorite sex symbol of all time?
Naked? Raquel Welch (Picture: - 2 - 3).
But she's never been naked . . .
No, but you know that movie One Million Years B.C.? She looked pretty good in that. She looks pretty good now! What is she sixty or something?
What about contemporary actresses?
None of them really float my boat. Nobody really gets me excited. Who gets you excited?
I used to go cuckoo for Nastassja Kinski, I loved her big, round ass.
Well, there you go. I like the chest myself.
There must be some chesty actresses, or how about musicians, you're a musician, what about Britney Spears and all those bubblegum teasers?
Oh, do nothing, abso-fucking-lutely nothing for me. First of all, if they're implants, forget it. That's like touching a plunger for a toilet. That's what it reminds me of, I swear to God. I look at pictures and I say no. They got to be real.
What about Ashlee Simpson or someone like that?
Ugh, God! Absolutely not, zero for me. What, a lot of guys want Ashlee Simpson?
Sure, all those pop tarts, like Christina Aguilera ...
Oh God, no.
Maybe it's just because they're so slutty on stage.
Yeah, but when they're slutty on stage they're nowhere near like that in life. I love funny girls. Not the funny that Anna Nicole [Smith] is. Stupid. She must be pretty depressed right now. Oh, I'm looking at a Skinterview with Mamie Van Doren. How does she look now?
Considering how old she is . . .
Oh [very excited], I'll tell you who I like, Britt Ekland. We had this group called The Voices of Classic Rock where all of the lead singers from groups went out and did corporate concerts, and we did golf tournaments and stuff like that, and we did one with Britt. She plays golf. You should have seen what see looked like, man! She looked like a fucking movie star with all the diamonds and the body was great and dirty-mouthed jokes--that's all she was doing was telling jokes. She was the fucking best, man. She really looked the part. And when I was younger I wasn't as into her as I am now. She was telling me some of the dirtiest jokes, but funny, and when you see someone who looks that great telling dirty jokes, it's like, you know she must be a blast. She's not going to be like a Jewish American Princess, when they talk about when they're having sex: "Beige, I'll paint the ceiling beige." She doesn't look like that.
You've done a bit of acting yourself in The Money Pit. Anything new?
I did a lot of auditions for commercials that I didn't get. I did Beast Wars, it was a cartoon. They didn't have to add too much effect on my voice. It was low enough. But I love hearing myself.
You were the musical director for The Howard Stern Radio Show when he was on Fox.
That was great. That's how I met Sam Kinison. Sam, there was a guy that was a party in a bottle, man. I really miss him. I remember he talked about Jessican Hahn; he used to go out with her or screw her. He told the story when Jimmy Bakker had sex with her and got forty-five years or whatever he got, Sam says, "He should have shot her in the head, he would have got one-to-five [laughs]." To this day, if you asked Howard who his favorite comedian is, I guarantee you he'll say Sam.
Howard introduced me to him and he was doing this tour and instead of coming back for an encore he played guitar. So I put together this band for him and every city we went to I'd call whoever was in town that I knew and I actually came up with the song "Wild Thing" that he recorded. I figured he needed a song that you could identify with him instead of just jamming on any stupid song. I thought that fit him perfectly.
Great video ...
He didn't ask me to be in it, but that's beside the point.
You still go on the Howard Stern show?
I went on it about a year ago. I love him, man.
OK, I'll let you go and enjoy MrSkin.com. What's the first thing you're going to look up?
I see you have "Tits and Tidbits" Jennifer Garner, she does nothing for me either. Flat as a board, I don't know, that just doesn't do it for me. But I'm going to look at all this stuff. What should I look at? Oh [excited again] Paris Hilton's (Picture: - - - ) video!
Years of rocking have been good for West. He lives next door to Eddie Murphy, who is trying to sell his $30 million New Jersey compound, hopefully not because West is a crazy neighbor. Taking time off from his current tour (dates and news about the band can be found on the official site Mountaintheband.com), West spent his down time fast forwarding to the good parts with Mr. Skin.
It was hard to keep West on task, what with all the skinful distractions on the greatest celebrity-nudity site ever made, but he did come clean about the real "Mississippi Queen", the joys of being a breast man, and why today's sex symbols leave him limp.
What brings Mountain back on the road?
We got a new album out, Eruption, and the book came out last year, Nantucket Sleighride and Other Mountain On-the-Road Stories. It's about all the disgusting drug things that happened. It's very funny, if I say so myself. And we're doing a new Mountain electrified Dylan album soon, and I got a new blues album out. And Ozzy did "Mississippi Queen" with me; it's coming out in another month. He's doing an album called Songs I Wish I Wrote. So I went out to his house and he sang it and I played. It sounds great.
How is this tour different than those days when you were a fledgling rock band?
It's a lot less drugs now [laughs]. Not into that. And I got a much nicer bus.
Our readers are more interested in the sex than the drugs.
I'm engaged, man, so I have all the sex I can handle. I like watching and directing. I don't participate. I don't need any rare topical diseases. But these strippers came down to Atlanta to this theater we were at. One of them, I thought, "Is this a guy or is this a girl?" She's throwing me her thong. But afterwards she was a girl and there were about five of them. They had their own bus, so they dropped me off. But on the way, they had an apartment overlooking Atlanta--I guess they must have taken care of basketball players. Corky [Laing, Mountain's drummer] dropped some ecstasy and he got so fucked up in the shower with two of them, he couldn't get it up. And they were all laughing because he couldn't get his dick hard. One of them was pretty nice. And she kept calling. She saw more pubic hair than dick.
You mention your hit single "Mississippi Queen". The world wants to know: Who is the Mississippi Queen?
Corky and I got together to see what to do for the album and he had this lyric wrote. When his first band was playing in Nantucket, the power went out. There was nothing except the drums. He saw some girl dancing and I guess the moonlight--this is what he says, who knows if he's full of shit, but it sounds good. He saw her silhouette dancing and he could see through everything she was wearing. He started playing the drums and scatting these stupid words: "Mississippi Queen, you know what I mean, she taught me everything." He gave it to me, I wrote the music, and that was it.
That song was on the soundtrack to Vanishing Point.
Man, it was in Barbershop just now. Jay-Z did it for something. I don't know, but I got a big royalty check. Outside Providence used it. Lollapalooza, Miller Draft uses it. Vanishing Point, I love that movie, whether we were in it or not.
It's a favorite here at Mr. Skin for the revealing performances ofVictoria Medlin and Gilda Texter (Picture:1 - 2 - 3).
Oh, I love that scene.
Do you remember the first time you saw naked chicks onscreen?
When I was a kid I went to Brigitte Bardot movies; I could not fucking believe how great she looked. My girlfriend now reminds me of her--not how Brigitte looks now, how she looked then. I think I was in the eighth grade and I cut school, Forest Hills, New York, and she was fucking all the guys in the government in France or something. I don't know if she's completely naked, but pretty damn close to it, and that was enough for me. Her and Jayne Mansfield got me going.
Do you have a favorite sex symbol of all time?
Naked? Raquel Welch (Picture: - 2 - 3).
But she's never been naked . . .
No, but you know that movie One Million Years B.C.? She looked pretty good in that. She looks pretty good now! What is she sixty or something?
What about contemporary actresses?
None of them really float my boat. Nobody really gets me excited. Who gets you excited?
I used to go cuckoo for Nastassja Kinski, I loved her big, round ass.
Well, there you go. I like the chest myself.
There must be some chesty actresses, or how about musicians, you're a musician, what about Britney Spears and all those bubblegum teasers?
Oh, do nothing, abso-fucking-lutely nothing for me. First of all, if they're implants, forget it. That's like touching a plunger for a toilet. That's what it reminds me of, I swear to God. I look at pictures and I say no. They got to be real.
What about Ashlee Simpson or someone like that?
Ugh, God! Absolutely not, zero for me. What, a lot of guys want Ashlee Simpson?
Sure, all those pop tarts, like Christina Aguilera ...
Oh God, no.
Maybe it's just because they're so slutty on stage.
Yeah, but when they're slutty on stage they're nowhere near like that in life. I love funny girls. Not the funny that Anna Nicole [Smith] is. Stupid. She must be pretty depressed right now. Oh, I'm looking at a Skinterview with Mamie Van Doren. How does she look now?
Considering how old she is . . .
Oh [very excited], I'll tell you who I like, Britt Ekland. We had this group called The Voices of Classic Rock where all of the lead singers from groups went out and did corporate concerts, and we did golf tournaments and stuff like that, and we did one with Britt. She plays golf. You should have seen what see looked like, man! She looked like a fucking movie star with all the diamonds and the body was great and dirty-mouthed jokes--that's all she was doing was telling jokes. She was the fucking best, man. She really looked the part. And when I was younger I wasn't as into her as I am now. She was telling me some of the dirtiest jokes, but funny, and when you see someone who looks that great telling dirty jokes, it's like, you know she must be a blast. She's not going to be like a Jewish American Princess, when they talk about when they're having sex: "Beige, I'll paint the ceiling beige." She doesn't look like that.
You've done a bit of acting yourself in The Money Pit. Anything new?
I did a lot of auditions for commercials that I didn't get. I did Beast Wars, it was a cartoon. They didn't have to add too much effect on my voice. It was low enough. But I love hearing myself.
You were the musical director for The Howard Stern Radio Show when he was on Fox.
That was great. That's how I met Sam Kinison. Sam, there was a guy that was a party in a bottle, man. I really miss him. I remember he talked about Jessican Hahn; he used to go out with her or screw her. He told the story when Jimmy Bakker had sex with her and got forty-five years or whatever he got, Sam says, "He should have shot her in the head, he would have got one-to-five [laughs]." To this day, if you asked Howard who his favorite comedian is, I guarantee you he'll say Sam.
Howard introduced me to him and he was doing this tour and instead of coming back for an encore he played guitar. So I put together this band for him and every city we went to I'd call whoever was in town that I knew and I actually came up with the song "Wild Thing" that he recorded. I figured he needed a song that you could identify with him instead of just jamming on any stupid song. I thought that fit him perfectly.
Great video ...
He didn't ask me to be in it, but that's beside the point.
You still go on the Howard Stern show?
I went on it about a year ago. I love him, man.
OK, I'll let you go and enjoy MrSkin.com. What's the first thing you're going to look up?
I see you have "Tits and Tidbits" Jennifer Garner, she does nothing for me either. Flat as a board, I don't know, that just doesn't do it for me. But I'm going to look at all this stuff. What should I look at? Oh [excited again] Paris Hilton's (Picture: - - - ) video!
