Don't touch that dial! Coming up next, Greg Lake live at the shoot out at the Hard Rock Cafe at 102.7 WNEW-FM.

DJ Scott Munie:

Welcome everybody and all you folks who can get a chance to come by today, tomorrow or Friday, please do. It's 27 years for America's and NY's greatest rock & roll radio station....it's having its birthday and anniversary and all of us are happy to share our music and some of our friends with you... this afternoon.....we have Greg Lake of Emerson, Lake & Palmer in the house now. He's tuning up. You've already given him a warm welcome. A great friend of our radio station...Greg Lake.

GL: "Here's one you might know".... he plays LUCKY MAN

"I'd like to play a song now off the new Emerson, Lake & Palmer album. This song is called HEART ON ICE."

Q: Greg Lake of Emerson, Lake & Palmer and the new album that he just made reference to there. The album is IN THE HOT SEAT. I guess first, welcome...welcome buddy, great job!

A: Thank you... it's lovely to be here, lovely to see you again.

Q: I've got to get a few questions in and find out what's going on...of course IN THE HOT SEAT, the new cd and the title I guess expresses a lot of your things that you have going on, right?

A: Well it does, it does, it's a title...its got a humorous title really....it's just the title for this album....right now we're out promoting it as you know, and doing this new song DADDY.

Q: Now we're having our anniversary and coming up, I know from the very first days, you're having a 25th anniversary.

A: That's right.

Q: What about Keith now, you've got to tell us about the latest information on Keith with the wrist and the arm.

A: He's recovering from a hand injury. He lost control of two of his fingers.... actually it's rather nasty to say over your hamburgers, but he had a nerve removed from this part of his elbow...the funny bone here and moved to this side of his arm. So that's what he's recovering from, but he's ok.

Q: And that means then, if he's going to be ok, that next year then, maybe, we can look forward to the tour. The 25th anniversary tour of Emerson, Lake & Palmer....great! I got to hear a lot of the new album and there's a song in there that really stopped me cold...it was called DADDY and we have to talk about that because we wanna play it, but first of all you have to tell us the story. Actually, it's about a missing girl.

A: I was actually watching the television. And I saw a program called America's Most Wanted. And on there was the story of a girl named Sara Ann Wood and she was abducted and actually murdered. And her father who was talking on the program was really recounting the story. It really touched me, I mean I've got a daughter of my own and it touched me so much that I just wrote this song very quickly. And some time later actually, my manager, Stuart Young, who's over there, actually heard the song and he said you know, there's a tremendous message in the song. And it occurred to me that maybe we could do some good with it and try and raise some money for the charity. Robert Wood, Sara's father, has got a charity called the Sara Wood Rescue Center and we're supporting that and going round with America's Most Wanted, whose contributed a video for us and which only raises money for the charity.

Q: Ok, so that now you can hear...you heard the story of it. So let's listen everybody, to, in the new Emerson, Lake & Palmer album a song called DADDY.

<recorded version is played>

Q: Heavy duty stuff. Very real.

A: It's a very serious subject and very touching. I just felt as though if anything I could help do to maybe prevent further things or even prevent one of those tragedies is something I encourage everybody we can to be aware of it all. Anybody whose interested, the Sara Wood Rescue Center- it is somewhere local to here. It's upstate right?

Q: We've got it right here.

A: Oh you've got the address.

Q: Yes we do folks... PO Box 296, New Hartford, New York 13413. It's the Sara Ann Wood Rescue Center. It's great that you and the guys have put this out and we'll be obviously.....

Greg's manager has suddenly pulled him aside....

"Pictures of what?"  He wants to know the story of PICTURES AT AN EXHIBITION.

A: I've just been reminded about.....I'd forgotten completely that on this new IN THE HOT SEAT album there is a version of PICTURES AT AN EXHIBITION which with, of course, you associate with.

Q: I love it!

A: And you're the original person to play it on the radio in NY and the reason why it's successful. And we just did a new studio version in surround sound. It was actually recorded for the box set RETURN OF THE MANTICORE and we decided that because these box sets are so expensive basically, that we really wanted people to hear this version of PICTURES, so we included it on the HOT SEAT album as a bonus.

Q: So you have made a condensed PICTURES AT AN EXHIBITION?

A: Right, that's right.

Q: That's in the new album.

Q: IN THE HOT SEAT is an interesting title....I think you alluded to it before that it was humorous. Do you want to follow up a little on why you say.... ?

A: It's just that to say Emerson, Lake & Palmer has always been a group that has been the subject of considerable amount of scathing criticism. So we kind of felt that we were always "in the hot seat" one way or the other, so it was kind of a funny thought and everybody laughed when we heard it and that was that, y'know.

Q: I think it's appropriate though, and it's good that you have a sense of humor about it. Some people take it a little too much to heart.

The box set was RETURN OF THE MANTICORE which we talked about the last trip in....

A: That's right, that's the whole collection.

Q: And this totally separate....tell us a little bit more. You brought up the RETURN OF THE MANTICORE. When you did that box set, you actually went in and re-recorded certain things. Now why was that, and what specifically did you do?

A: I think it was that we tried to make a complete life picture of the band throughout its entire existence. And I think what it was, was, we wanted to show where each one of us come from. I mean I had come from King Crimson, Keith had come from the Nice, and Carl from Arthur Brown. So we just thought we'd take one of the songs from each of the bands....it kind of completes the picture, it shows you how the band really came about and that was all it was.

Q: OK.

A: And fun to record them, y'know.

Q: Well it's nice to have a nice collection there. What about the new album as you went in to do IN THE HOT SEAT, did you want to just recapture what ELP was, did you look forward, or, how did you go about it...what was the attitude, what was the thinking?

A: The thinking was that we just had just finished making this whole boxed set and which was all retrospective material and I think we just wanted to do something new, and fresh, and we'd met this producer called Keith Olson. He was the person who did Fleetwood Mac and Foreigner. And he was a big fan of the band, and I think it, y'know, it was a refreshing new energy and came into the album and off we went. We never did actually stop recording from the moment we started the box set to when we finished IN THE HOT SEAT. So it was a long recording period, but we're very happy with what we've got and look forward to being out on the road with it.

Q: Yea, we look forward to that too and your 25th anniversary. And everyone, not just the folks here live...we've got a great crowd at the Hard Rock, but all the people who are in our audience wish Keith the best...you guys get together and get ready and we'll be ready for your tour... and your 25th anniversary. You were here for ours and we'll be there for you.

A: Thank you very much.

Q: WNEW NY anniversary and birthday time, and I think with Greg Lake here I think everyone should readily recognize this stalwart sound at NEW FM...

<they play recorded version of WELCOME BACK MY FRIENDS....>

(Thanks to J. Walker Grant for transcription)