Today’s guest is Mike Curb, best known as the head of the independent record label Curb Records, which started out in 1964 as Sidewalk Records and is still going strong in 2025. Over the years, Curb have released records like the best-selling COYOTE UGLY soundtrack album and music by Gloria Gaynor, Willie Nelson, Bananarama, The Four Seasons, LeAnn Rimes, Sixpence None the Richer and many other great artists. Mike Curb has also served as the lieutenant governor of California from 1979 to 1983, he’s owned a NASCAR team, he renovated a house owned by Elvis Presley, he supports many charity programs through the Mike Curb Family Foundation, and much more.
The focus of our conversation, however, lies on the films Mike Curb was involved in back in the 1960s. He scored Roger Corman’s biker movie THE WILD ANGELS starring Peter Fonda and worked on numerous other biker and counterculture films of the era – he produced the soundtracks for films like THE GLORY STOMPERS starring Dennis Hopper or THE DEVIL’S ANGELS starring John Cassavetes, he scored Richard Rush’s THE SAVAGE SEVEN, he released the music for Corman’s LSD film THE TRIP on his label, and was involved in many of the other films released by American International Pictures at the time – and so his music was instrumental in creating the sound of that particular part of film history.
My interview with Mike Curb was conducted in connection with our German-language podcast Lichtspielplatz, so if you speak German, please check out episode #77, which features an in-depth discussion of THE WILD ANGELS and other biker films of that era.
If you enjoy my interviews here on Talking Pictures, please consider heading over to patreon.com/TalkingPicturesPodcast to support the production of new episodes.
So without any further ado, here’s Mike Curb!
The mp3 file can be downloaded HERE.
Photos courtesy of Mike Curb
Editing: Christoph Schwarz
Music: Clark Kent
Thanks to Becky Judd for organizing the interview.
