Meeting Max Merritt

I'd noticed him sitting at the end of the bar at the White Harte Pub in Woodland Hills every time I'd been there. He cracked me up for the first of many times when he dismissed Morrissey as a whiner over the radio's strains of "Heaven Knows I'm Miserable Now." "I was looking for a job and then I found a job?" he cracked. "That's the worst fuckin' lyric I've ever heard in my life!"

Later, another regular told me he was Max Merritt, a 2008 inductee to the Australian Rock 'N' Roll Hall of Fame and author of the classic '70s hit "Slippin' Away." I'd been sitting with rock royalty and didn't even know it.

It reminded me of a time years ago when I had struck up a conversation with an older gentleman wearing jeans and a cowboy hat outside of an AM/PM on the corner of Coldwater and Moorpark in Studio City. As some point he casually mentioned that he had played with Elvis back in the day. It turned out to be guitarist James Burton.

Anyway, check out this awesome clip of Max with his band the Meteors.