“The three of us started the group, Don, Bunk and myself, in 1980. Actually you know, that’s not when the Grandmothers first started. We did one recording session in 1970; right after The Mothers broke up. Herb Cohen got us together and said, ‘How would you guys like to do an album as the Grandmothers?’ And we said ‘Fine’. Tom Wilson was the producer. After we did that first recording session, Herb said ‘The title of the album is going to be Frank Zappa Presents The Grandmothers’ and that’s when everybody said ‘No, it isn’t gonna be like that.’ Because we didn’t want anything to do with Frank Zappa. ‘Zappa’s name will not be on it!’ And then the deal fell through. But that was the beginning of the Grandmothers…The original Grandmothers was myself, Don Preston, Bunk Gardner, Art Tripp, Roy Estrada, Lowell George, Elliot Ingber and Motorhead.”
[JCB interviewed at Moers Festival, 19.5.91, by Axel Wünsch and Aad Hoogesteger, and printed in T'Mershi Duween, ^#24-25, March-June 1992]