For a Little Ride

The Zoo Crew is rolling out “For a Little Ride,” the opener on The Law, and if you have ever pointed a bike down a two-lane with the tank full and no particular plan, you already know the feeling this cut is selling. The Law was the short, loud handshake between Paul Rodgers, the voice out of Free and Bad Company, and Kenney Jones, the drummer who came up through the Small Faces and the Faces and later kept the beat for the Who after Keith Moon was gone. One album, Atlantic Records, March 1991, and then the phone mostly stopped ringing. Over at THE ZOO we still spin the deep ones, and this track is exactly the kind of freeform album rock the Zoo Freaks pull over for.

The song was not written in the room with Rodgers and Jones. Credit goes to Mark Mangold and Benny Mardones, the same Benny Mardones whose name is tied to the slow-burn radio staple “Into the Night.” Atlantic liked the tune enough to push a promo single in the States, cataloged as PRCD 4127-2, pairing the album version with a remix that added extra guitar from Andy Taylor, the Duran Duran player who was already out on his own by then. Chris Kimsey, the man behind the boards for plenty of Stones sessions, produced the album cut. On the record it clocks in around three minutes and fifty-five seconds, which is just long enough for a chorus that keeps promising a little ride and never bothers with a map.

Rodgers has told the origin story more than once, and the version that sticks comes from a 2007 sit-down. He met Kenney Jones in a nightclub in London, they had a couple of drinks, probably a couple too many, and they decided to put a band together. That became The Law. They walked it into Atlantic and the label said all right, let’s get behind it. Jones’s own site tells it from the other side of the bar. The two of them were in a pub, already talking about a new outfit, and a sign on the wall about underage drinking carried the phrase “It’s the Law.” The name stuck. Either way, it was a chance meeting, a few rounds, and a name lifted off a notice nobody else was reading.

What made the album unusual for Rodgers is how little of it he wrote. On Free, Bad Company, and The Firm he had been the main pen, or close to it. Here he opened the door. Phil Collen of Def Leppard handed over “Miss You in a Heartbeat,” which later turned up in other hands and on other charts. Chris Rea brought “Stone,” and David Gilmour of Pink Floyd sat in on guitar for that one, with Rea playing on it too. Bryan Adams and Jim Vallance wrote “Nature of the Beast,” and Adams played guitar. Pino Palladino held down a lot of the bass. Jim Barber and John Staehely handled much of the guitar work in the core band. Rodgers kept “Laying Down the Law,” “Tough Love,” and “Missing You Bad Girl” for himself, and “Laying Down the Law” was the one that went to number two on the Billboard mainstream rock chart. The album itself stalled at 126 on the Billboard 200 and 61 in Britain. A bootleg pile of leftovers still circulates under the name The Law II.

They played one show. Milton Keynes Bowl, on a bill with ZZ Top and Bryan Adams, with John Young on keyboards. Rodgers later called the whole thing completely barmy. He and Jones could not wait to get on the road, and the road never really opened. He sat waiting for the phone to ring. They even had to twist arms to land that one date, which did not sit well with some of the other acts on the bill. After that, the project folded. Rodgers went on to solo work and, years later, a stretch out front with Queen. Jones eventually teamed with Rick Wills of Foreigner in the Jones Gang. The album stayed on the shelf, and radio stations that still play album sides kept finding the first track.

How Rodgers got to that London nightclub is the longer ride. He was born Paul Bernard Rodgers in Middlesbrough on 17 December 1949. As a kid he played bass in a local band called the Roadrunners. The singer, Colin Bradley, talked him into taking the front, because Bradley wanted the guitar and Rodgers had the voice. Just before they left for London the group renamed itself the Wildflowers. Micky Moody, later of Whitesnake, and Bruce Thomas, later of Elvis Costello and the Attractions, were in that circle. Rodgers has said he worked briefly as a teaboy at the local paper, and that the clubs around Teesside, places like the Purple Onion, were where the music got into him. Otis Redding, the Temptations, the Stax records, that was the church.

London was harder. The rest of the Middlesbrough crew turned around after about six months. Rodgers stayed. He met guitarist Paul Kossoff in a club in Finsbury Park. Kossoff said he had a Les Paul in the car. They built Free with Andy Fraser on bass and Simon Kirke on drums, four players who were still teenagers when the first records came out. “All Right Now,” written by Rodgers and Fraser, went to number one in more than twenty places and later picked up awards for a million, then two million, radio plays. Free sat for a while beside the biggest British draws of that moment, then broke, reformed, and broke again after Kossoff’s health failed. Rodgers put together a short-lived trio called Peace, then in 1973 joined Mick Ralphs, Boz Burrell, and Kirke in Bad Company. “Can’t Get Enough,” “Feel Like Makin’ Love,” “Rock ’n’ Roll Fantasy,” the lot of it. After he left Bad Company he cut the solo album Cut Loose in 1983, then formed The Firm with Jimmy Page for two records. The Law was the next room he walked into, this time with a drummer who had already survived three of the biggest bands Britain produced.

Jones had his own long road into that pub. Born Kenneth Thomas Jones in Whitechapel in 1948, he was a founding drummer of the Small Faces with Steve Marriott, Ronnie Lane, and Ian McLagan. After Marriott left, the Faces carried on with Rod Stewart and Ronnie Wood. When Moon died, the Who brought Jones in for Face Dances and It’s Hard. By 1991 he wanted a new band that was not a reunion, and Rodgers wanted room to chase whatever style walked through the door. They got one album, a stack of famous guests, a charting rock single, and a single outdoor show. That is the whole chapter, and it still plays.

If you want the record from the people who made it, the album page on the Paul Rodgers official site lists “For a Little Ride” as track one, right where Atlantic put it. His home page lives at paulrodgers.com. Jones tells the pub-sign story on his own page for the project, kenneyjones.com. Rodgers keeps an official presence on Facebook, Instagram, and X. Jones does the same on Facebook, Instagram, and X. Fans of the longer Rodgers trail, Free through Bad Company and The Firm, gather in the Free / Bad Company / The Firm fans group. Pull the record, roll the window down, and let the first track do what the title says.