The Bikeriders – Original Audio Recordings

  • Kathy, Chicago
  • Kathy Bauer, Chicago
  • Kathy at home, Chicago

In 1966, in Chicago, Danny Lyon sat down with some of his favorite people that he knew as a member of the Chicago Outlaw Motorcycle Club. One was Kathy Bauer, the twenty-five-year-old mother of three that had met and married nineteen-year-old Benny, one of the more reckless riders of the club. Kathy was a brilliant story teller and friendly with Danny, she seemed to enjoy telling him her stories of the club and the neighborhood where she had a home. One was “Squirrelly Girl” about a neighbor so in love with the milkman that she would lay down in the street to stop his truck and get his attentions.

When the director Jeff Nichols approached Lyon about making a film based on the 1968 book, The Bikeriders, Lyon gave Jeff access to all his original ¼ inch analogue tapes. These were studied by Jeff as he wrote the script, and by the actors and actresses that would play the roles of Kathy, Cal and Johnnie, all of whom Lyon had recorded. Many of the most powerful soliloquies in the film are verbatim imitations of the words Lyon recorded and published, spoken by the blue collar people of Chicago in the 1960s. Of these Kathy was by far the most brilliant. But so were Cal and Zipco, both of whom were immigrants. Cal, whose real name was Arthur Dion, was born in Canada, and couldn’t speak English until he was four. Zipco, (real name Arthur Jergins) was born in Latvia. In the film Kathy is portrayed by actress Jodie Comer, who has a field day with Kathy’s amazing Chicago accent.

Below are original recordings of Kathy Bauer telling the story of meeting Benny and the Chicago Outlaws, a story that first inspired the band Lucero, to record the song about Benny called The Bikeriders, and the monologue that went on to provide the opening narration for the 2023 film, as Danny, played by Mike Faist, holds out his Huir tape recorder and asks Kathy to speak. In many ways Lyon’s insight at age twenty four, that these working class people were capable of being immortal, that their speech was at times as great as Shakespeare, and could entertain us forever, has, now fifty years later, come true.

Cockroach and his family.

Cockroach, a former policeman was a member of the Chicago Outlaws. His speech about eating bugs in delivered by Funny Sonny in the film, played by Norman Reedus. Below is original audio of Cockroach, recorded by Danny Lyon.  

  • Johnny Goodpaster, Hobart, Indiana
  • Johnny Goodpaster (center), with his family. Illiana Speedway, Schererville, Indiana. 1965.

Johnny Goodpaster discusses racing.

  • Cal on the Springfield run.
  • Cal, Elkhorn, Wisconsin
  • Cal, Springfield, Illinois
  • Cal, Chicago.

Below is an original recording of Cal.

  • Zipco, Elkhorn, Wisconsin
  • Zipco riding with Funny Sonny, Milwaukee

Below are original recordings of Zipco.

  • Members of the Chicago Outlaws club visiting Danny’s first show of the Bikeriders work at the Art Institute of Chicago in 1966.
  • Danny Lyon leans his Nikon F on Brucie Walver to make a slow exposure in a bathroom. Both are riding with the Outlaws.
  • A rare photo of Danny Lyon on his beloved first bike, the TR6 with knobby front tire and no front fender.
  • Actor Austin Butler and photographer Danny Lyon on the set of Jeff Nichols’s 2023 film “The Bikeriders”
Collectors prints from the Bikeriders series are available from
the Edwynn Houk Gallery
The Bikeriders book is available to purchase here.