The whole interview - complete with spelling errors. I've tried my
best!
(Don't hesitate to mail me
corrections and general comments. I welcome them!)
The interview was made in England before The Big
Picture was released. There's references to it still being put
together with the running order of the songs still unclear etc.
Some of
the questions and answers may be a bit "old" to you as a fan of
Elton / Bernie (i.e. question 4 & 5), but
I decided to put the whole interview up and not cut anything out.
So what does this "interview-CD" look like? It comes in a standard clear
plastic CD-thingy, with a four page booklet.
The booklet has the
TBP-cover on it and folds out to reveal the 29
questions printed together with "incues" and "outcues" and the time for each
answer. In- and outcues being a few words that start and end each answer.
The thought behind this kind of promotional CD being that the radio station who
gets the CD can ask the questions, cut in Elton's answers and
get an "exclusive" interview on the air! Aaah, the wonders of modern
technology...
Page four of the booklet has a small stamp-sized picture of
the TBP-cover, while the back of the CD-case looks
like the full length CD, but with the track listing absent. Instead it says
"Elton John. The Big Picture. The
interview".
When you take the CD out of the case it reveals a nice
head-and-shoulder photo of a smiling Elton. (I just might
persuade a friend to scan this and put it up with the text). And speaking of
text...
- Per-Gunnar Eriksson
It's an exciting year! 30 years writing with one person without any
hiccups is pretty amazing, I mean, I'm very proud of that.
I mean,
Bernie and me are like brothers, you know. We've never really
had a major argument. Both have done different things outside of the
relationship we've had professionally, and I think that's probably what's kept
us together. We've never been jealous of each others other achievements - he's
gone off and written things for other people and I've written stuff with
Tim Rice. We're still close, in fact closer than we ever were.
It always saddens me when you see a partnership that was a great
partnership break up - like Bacharach and
David, Goffin and King (and
I think that was marital probably).
But, you know, I'm very happy about
that.
50 ... you know, I don't feel 50. What is 50? You're as old as you
feel I suppose. And I've just got so much to do; I've been writing a lot in the
last two years before I made this album. I took two years off from touring and
making records to do writing.
And in that time Tim Rice
and myself has written some extra songs for The Lion
King which opens on Broadway in November, and a full length 25
song musical of Aida - not the Guiseppi
Verdi Aida - but based on the same story.
And also a full length animated project for Steven Spielberg's
Dreamworks company called Eldorado - City of Gold. So
I haven't been sitting on my backside.
But when you write things like that
you stay in one place so I haven't travelled so I spent more time at home.
I like to work. I mean, I've reformed the record company in America,
we've now got a film company in this country which is through Disney. It's a
development company, so we want to produce and make movies. So, yeah, I don't
like sitting still.
I think if you have the energy and you've got the
ability I just can't...
I don't know what other artists do, actually, if
they don't make albums for like five or six years some artists, maybe even ten.
I mean, Lionel Richie is a perfect example: I said to
Lionel "WHAT do you do all day? You don't play
golf..." I mean, it fascinates me. I have to be busy. I love being in
the thick of things.
It's such a great thing when they got in. And I can't see them
getting out, thank God, because I think this country desperately needs the
change. I think John Major was a very honorable man - and I
had a lot of time for him - but the conservative party as a whole it sort of
self destructed and people had no respect for them at all.
I think the
Labour party did their homework and I think now that they got into power
they've done a lot of preparation for that. And everything they're doing at the
moment makes a lot of sense.
And it's given this country a lot of hope and
made everybody feel good. Its no good having a feel-good factor if it only
affects one part of the community. It's gotta affect everybody. I think under
this government it will affect everybody and I think that's what democracy is
all about.
- Through an advert in a paper; in the New Musical Express many
years ago. And it was... I knew that when I left Bluesology
the only thing I could do was to write songs. I said "You don't sing and
I don't want to play the organ or the piano in a band again - I've been
travelling on the road for five or six years - what can I do? Songwriting".
So I got the New Musical Express as I did every week saw this
advertisement from Liberty Records saying "Songwriters, artists
needed".
I said "I can't write lyrics" so he said
"Well, that's interesting". On my desk was a pile of lyrics sent
in from Bernie. He said "This guy from Lincolnshire's
sent me some lyrics, take them home and have a look". So I did and I
wrote a lot of songs to them without ever meeting Bernie for a
long time. And that's really... you know, it's just a complete accident.
It's all words first. And it's always been like that. I think now,
maybe because he's made albums on his own and he's got a new band together
called Farm Dogs, that in the last two or three albums I've
consulted him more on the musical side of things, because I think it would be
insulting if I didn't.
But, you know, he's never really objected to
anything that I've written or said anything. I think he would nowadays. I think
he would say "well, that's not quite how I saw it", but in the pat
if he didn't like anything he obviously just grinned and bared it, cause we've
never really disagreed about anything.
That's the way it works. We don't
really consult each other. He's not in the room when I write.
And as soon
as I've written he's the first person I call in if he's there. Because he came
over when we made the new album for the first two or three weeks and then came
back in the end of it. And it's the same way I write with Tim
Rice as well. He gives me the lyrics first.
And I would find it
extraordinary to write a melody first and then do the lyrics after. I HAVE done
in the past with Gary Osborne when we did the
Single Man album. I enjoyed the process, but it was a
much more difficult process for me than having the lyrics first.
Actually there was a rewrite on the new album; a song called
Long Way From Happiness. I had the verse written and I couldn't get a
melody around the chorus. It was too long and kind of uneven, so I rang
Bernie up and said "Listen, I've got a great verse. I
need you to rewrite the chorus more simply" Which he did. And as soon as
he did the song fell into place.
Maybe years ago I wouldn't have done that.
Maybe I'd have just thrown the song away. With Tim I don't
think it's ever happened because we've written for musicals. We've never
written anything I've had to record myself.
Again, Bernie
... there have been periods in our life when one of us has been happy or sad or
both have been sad. And I think on the Blue Moves
album - around that time - several things that I... it was kind of a heavy
album anyway. There was a couple of things I couldn't write to 'cause I
couldn't really relate to it and it was so heavy so I didn't do it.
But I
always get more lyrics than I need anyway, so I am able to drop a few that I
don't think I'm able to write to.
I've wondered that myself sometimes. So I've sat down and tried to write lyrics and I'm just not very good at it. I mean, I'm a very verbose person. I can have a very great conversation with someone but as far as writing things down and things coming to mind I just have to accept that I'm not very good. So there's no point in doing things that you're not very good at I think.
I rebelled in my 20's instead of my teenage years, so by the time I
got to perform as Elton John and got a band together and went
to America I'd had a year of playing with my band in Britain and evolving a
stage act.
And I used to wear Mr. Freedom hotpants and
flying boots. And when I went to America it wasn't "Let's dress up and go
to America". This was what I had been wearing anyway.
And, of
course, the Americans, with the Elton John cover,
thought that they'd get a Randy Newman or David
Accles-like figure who was gonna come out and be very moody and
mysterious ... and I wasn't at all. Some of the songs on that album are very
melodic and there are a few uptempo songs on it. But basically I was an uptempo
piano player who loved playing that kind of piano.
I wanted to use my piano
like a guitar. They said "You can't. If you try to kick a piano you break
your foot". So I jumped on it. You do everything to it that you could
possibly do to make it more interesting. Otherwise you're stuck behind a nine
foot plank.
People said that "You know, I don't think he should do
that when the music's so good" and I thought "Well if the music's
good it's gonna stand up for itself. And also; I'm going to entertain
people".
If I went to see Leonard Cohen and he did
that I'd be horrified you know. Or Joni Mitchell. And I
wouldn't expect it. But it's part of my nature so it just evolved.
And I
got to the part were I realised I felt like mutton dressed up as lamb and this
... I've gone too far. And I still have a lot of those costumes - every now and
again we sell one or two to raise money. We still have a lot left.
But I
did carry on too far. I didn't know when to stop and I became a parody of
myself on stage. It was beyond ridiculous.
Well we started four years ago ... or nearly five years ago now.
When I got sober and clean I wanted to do something positive with my life. I'd
been around a lot of people who had died, a lot of close friends who had died
and I'd been around the Ryan White family in America. I'd been
at Ryan's funeral and the last week of his life.
It was a
point in my life that I was so unhappy. Being around that family made me
realise how out of whack my life was. I didn't appreciate anything, I didn't
have any values whatsoever.
And they could forgive the people that had
been completely harmful to them. They'd been attacked ... they'd been
maliciously treated and Jeannie (sp?) White, who was
Ryan's mother, was able to forgive them when he died, because
these people came and said "listen, we're sorry".
At the
beginning there was so much ignorance about AIDS; Ryan wasn't
allowed to go to school ... blah, blah, blah... She had the dignity and grace
to forgive those people and I thought "God, you just lost your only son
and you've gone through all this crap, and still you're able to forget".
And I thought "It just shows you were I'm at".
So very shortly
after that I got sober and I spent a year after that doing what people told me
to do. I started doing concerts for other people for AIDS and things like that
and thinking "I'm not sure how much money they're going to raise here,
because there seem a lot of hangers-on and hotel bills" and I thought
"right, you've been the chairman of a football club. You know how to run
something. Run something well, and put something back". And that's the
start of the foundation.
And we do. And we give all the money to direct
care. And I'm very proud of it.
It's a very small organisation in the fact
that I have one in North America and one here and it has about five employees
and volunteers. 86 percent of what we earn in America and over 90 percent of
what we earn here gets out. So our overheads - which we pay ourselves -
offices, wages and stuff like that, are pretty low. And most charities ... if
you look at the figures at what they raise and what actually gets out it will
astonish you.
So I'm proud of that and I it is is something I think I will
be doing for the whole of my life now. Because even though in North America and
Europe and in Britain AIDS is beginning to find its level because of the
medicine that's available, in third world countries, some European countries
and South America the situation is very grave indeed. We have to carry on...
I really don't play it often live, but ... yeah ... it's an
instrumental with a bit of singing at the end, and I've always been fascinated
with sad music and I love sad music.
And I had written this piece actually
before he died... and I had never known what to call it - it's very hard naming
instrumental pieces. When he was killed I just consulted with his family and I
thought it would be nice to dedicate it to him. And it has the words
"life isn't everything" at the end. And ... perhaps it isn't ... I
don't know, but ... I just like writing that kind of music
It's difficult 'cause I don't listen to them very much. But having
listened to the albums when they were remastered a couple of years ago I'm very
proud of the Captain Fantastic album because it tells
a story and it's about me. So when I was writing the song I felt an allegiance
to the lyrics straight away because it was autobiographical.
I think
Blue Moves is a great musical album ...
Yellow Brick Road is a pretty good double album ...
But then again I like Don't Shoot Me... and I like
Tumbleweed.... There are bits and pieces.
I think
we used to change the sound of our albums from album to album quite a lot -
Caribou was followed by Rock Of The
Westies which was followed by Blue
Moves; which were three different sounding albums, because I
changed personnel as well ... and if you change personnel I think the sound of
the record changes ... but Tumbleweed... was totally
different from Madman... which was totally different
from Don't Shoot Me..., from
Honky... and then you got the double album of
Yellow Brick Road.
So I think it's very hard to
make a double album that's interesting all the way through and I think
Yellow Brick Road achieved that. I'd have to put that
high on the list
I think Leather Jackets which had a lot of
good songs on it. But I was in such a drug induced haze at that time. I
wouldn't have put that out. And probably Victim of
Love. I would never had put that out if I had a second chance,
'cause I love disco music and dance music but I came ... too late, basically.
And I put it out when disco died (laughs).
You know, it was an attempt at
something and after that I said "right, always stick to what you know
best and never try and jump on anybody's bandwagon ever again".
I
mean, I love different sorts of music. But it doesn't necessarily mean because
I'm a good musician that I can do something like Underworld. I
mean, Underworld's Second Toughest In The
Infants was probably one of my favourite albums of the last five
years and I'd love to be able to make a record like that but I wouldn't know
where. So if I said to Underworld "Oh, let's make an
album together", it would be more their input than mine because that's
the kind of music I do not know how to produce but can appreciate it.
So
after I had put the Victim of Love album out I said
"never jump on a bandwagon again and just be true to yourself and do what
you do best and just resist that temptation".
It's very tempting to
try and do because you hear a record and you go "God that's SO
great!!" I mean, like a Massive Attack record or
something like that... but that's them, not me, and so ... I learnt my lesson
with Victim of Love.
Yeah! I listen to everything that comes out. I think
Noel writes brilliant songs and I think that's the key to
anything. I haven't seen them live, but everybody who saw them live say they
were fantastic so I'd love to see them. I think they're tremendous.
I love
Dodgy 'cause they remind me of The Who ...
very fond of Dodgy, one of my favourite English bands. I think
Blur are a fantastic live band. And I really don't go and see
many live bands, but I've seen them play at The Brits and they knocked me out.
What else have I listened to ... I really liked the
Spiritualized album Ladies and Gentlemen We're
Floating in Space, which is a fantastic album. What I really like
best as far as new music ... I think ... since the late 70's there's been punk,
there's been rap, and now there's this Chemical Brothers -
Underworld - Prodigy type stuff, which I find
is a different sort of music. It's like dance music but it's got an edge to it,
and it incorporates the rock and roll kind of stuff, and it incorporates other
music, but it's got its own sound. And I think that's the newest sound that we
have and its a sound that will take os into the next millennium. I find that
type of music extremely exciting.
Apollo 440. I listen to
a lot of that stuff, which will probably surprise you if you heard my latest
album 'cause it's full of slow stuff! But that's what excites me. It's great to
hear something new and exciting and with a raw edge like that.
I get the charts every week and you see British bands like
Blur, who been over there and toured a lot, their albums
beginning to happen. Jamiroquai, who's album I think is
fantastic, their album's beginning to happen. You've got Sneaker
Pimps in the charts, the new Radiohead record will do
extremely well. It's very encouraging. I think there was... when the brit pop
thing happened we had all this angst in America, all those kind of ... you know
... like Soundgarden-bands and there was a lot of misery
flying around. And that wasn't happening with the British scene.
The
British scene was much more poppy. And I think now what's happening is that
people are getting rid of the angst and discovering, thank God, more the poppy
side of ... which the British bands have always been about; the melody and
attitude and a good album.
Apart from a couple of American bands I prefer
much more listening to a British album by a British band. There are exceptions
of course. I like Collective Soul, I love
R.E.M.
Bands like Sonic Youth and stuff
like that are so bloody miserable.
- I think when you're involved with a football club, it's very much
a team effort - if you pardon the pun - off the field. I'm not involved on the
field. When Graham and I was involved with Watford the first
time and we had so much success for ten years, and Graham left
and went to Villa, then to England and to Wolves, it wasn't the same for me
even though we had various managers. The atmosphere wasn't the same and
eventually I sold out to someone else. And I became life president. And I used
to go to some matches and I just saw the lack of ambition there. Which I think
really started with me when Graham left. They never gave
Basset a chance in Watford so ... he was there and gone in a
year.
And then Graham phoned me and said
"Listen," - we've always kept in contact anyway - "the owner
of Watford wants me to come back". And I said "I think it's the
best thing for you", and he said "Well, I don't know. I'm just
about ready to walk away from soccer. I've had a gutful with the
Englands-thing, with the Wolves-thing and the press and being called a
turnip". And I said "Listen. I know what you mean, but you can't
let other people run your life for you. You're a football man. Come back to an
area that loves you and be General Manager". And that's what he did. And
I said "If you come back I promise I will try and find a way to come
back".
And I obviously couldn't come back under the previous owner.
What we've done is put a consortium of people together with much more money
than ... you know, before I was a sole benefactor, but football's changed so
much now; the amount of money. You can not do that, the one person ... the one
chairman guy, unless Jack Walker or someone else like that or
... Sir John Hall ... And I don't want that financial strain
and I want a board that's gonna be a team. So we've put together a new board
and back at the club I'm the Chairman, not the majority shareholder. But I'm a
very good foil for Graham.
I miss the team footballers I
miss the people in Watford I miss the camaraderie that I had at the club. You
know, you don't spend 15 years of your life at a club ... and it wasn't just
the football that I loved. It was the community spirit, the spirit after the
game wether you won or lost. It was very, very good for me. And now I am
delighted to be back.
And Graham's the team manager
chomping at the bits. He's had his break and now he wants to manage again.
I said "Graham, you're a young man, relatively
speaking. Gotta do what you're best at" ... so we'll se what happens.
Just nice to be somewhere were there's a bit of ambition back.
It's gonna be harder, let's face it. The Premiere League is gonna change in a couple of years - I read today that there's only gonna be one team relegated. But there might be another league formed. I read in the paper about this new Phoenix League - though we've not heard about it we'd want to be part of it. You can achieve anything if you put your mind to it. If there's only gonna be one club a year admitted to the Premiere League the we'll have to accept that and go for it. Before, when Graham came to the club, people said "Oh God, Watford!" - I remember Kevin Keegan saying "Blimey, what are you doing in Watford?" and I said "We'll get there." We did. And we have a ground now. We'll be sharing with Saracens (sp?) Rugby, so we'll have rugby at the ground as well, which I think it's great. We have enormous plans to redevelop if we can. So ... we can get there ... You can do anything if you put your mind to it. And you've got the right team of people
To be recognised by your country is a great honor. So I was very
proud of that. The Royal Academy thing meant a lot to me, because I hadn't been
back to the Academy in 35 years and I went back to receive my honorary
membership, and it's changed so much. When I went there as a little boy from 11
to 15 I was so afraid of going. It was like you walked into the building and
there was this smell of fear. And it was very intimidating...
There are all
the students there sitting in the hall. And they got their own rock band, which
was exceedingly good. They have courses now for songwriting. It's been
modernised. It's wonderful. So I was very proud of that.
It's very hard
when it comes to awards. What I like best of all - which may sound really
cheesy - are the platinum records and the gold records, because it means that
people has actually gone out and bought them. That means more. Because they've
liked the record, they've liked what I've written and recorded. So they've gone
out and bought it and ... I still value those more than any other award
probably.
When I get a gold record for an album it's still the same as when
I got my first one, it's still, like, so exciting. This is an exciting
business. it's not a boring business at all. It's a surprising one. There's
always a chock around the corner. You can never tell what's gonna be a hit.
Some albums you've records you think are great do worse than things you
don't think are so good. And so there's that continual surprise element
involved. After putting out 38, 39 albums, or 40 albums or whatever it is, and
still getting a gold or platinum record and thinking "Yeah, come on, come
on!" you know, that's good. I don't really think age really comes into
it. I know that certain things have changed with records. In America, for
example, things are categorised.
There's either urban records or there's AC
records or Hot AC - what the hell "Hot AC" means I've no idea. And over here
there's an age element creeping in, where I think music is music and it's a
very broad element. And it can bring many pleasures on different levels.
And I don't see why you can't hear something, say by ...
Radiohead followed by something like ... The Spice
Girls, followed by Muddy Waters followed by
Aretha Franklin. Music is that broad to me and I hate seeing
it categorised. Listening to records by a lot of young people - I never listen
to records by older people anymore, unless I'm at home and put a Billy
Holiday record on or whatever... I'd rather listen to what other
people produce that I haven't heard before. I can't see the point of listening
to In the Midnight Hour or I Got My Mojo Working as I played
them about a thousand times when I was in a band. So ... I appreciate their
value and, you know, they're great songs and performances, but I wanna hear
something new too. It's hearing the younger bands and the younger
singer/songwriters, artists that keep me going.
I was approached to do the Southbank Show, which is a very good show
and it's brilliantly put together. But it's very reverential and I thought I
just wanted to do something a little different. So I asked
David, my partner, to follow me around for a year with his
partner Polly (sp?) Steel.
And they took a hundred hours of
film and we ended up with Tantrums and .. I wanted to
be as honest as possible. To show people what it really is like touring for a
year. The pressure you go on, how impossible you can be, how funny situations
can be. You read interviews and it's always how wonderful they are. And you see
a documentary about someone and it never really examines the darker side of
someone.
And it was the first thing about me that I could watch all the way
through without flinching, because it was accurate. I mean, when you do a talk
show and you go on you kind of put on a different persona. It's that showbiz
glitzy thing and you play along with it.
If we're gonna do a documentary,
let's try and change the level of honesty and set a new standard of honesty.
And it was accepted very well. I mean, a lot of people didn't like it. It was a
very good experience for me, a very kind of cleansing experience as well. I was
a monster in some of it, but I just sat there and laughed at all. I just
thought "God, this is so funny".
I'm very friendly with Julian Schnabel, who is one
of the most celebrated painters of our time, and I asked him if he would do a
portrait for the album cover. He did two portraits - one of which is going to
be on the cover one that's actually gonna be on the CD itself.
Bernie wrote a song called The Big Picture and I
thought "wow, that's pretty amazing ... we'll call it The Big
Picture".
And it's turned out very well. The actual
front of the album cover he's done on porcelain plates, which he's very famous
for, and the other one is a straight portrait. As straight as you can get
anyway.
Basically there's 10 songs and there's two uptempoish songs - and
the rest are just kind of ... either slow or middling. And they're all about
relationships apart Live Like Horses. If we put another track on it
will be called Wicked Dreams which will probably be the eleventh track
-an uptempo track and we'll put it on last because we don't want to break the
continuity of the album up.
I'm very proud of the songs that we've done.
They're very melodic songs ... they're either about good relationships or how
difficult it is to have relationships or relationships that's gone wrong. And I
can relate to that. I've been in all three situations.
But, you know, when
I get the lyrics from Bernie I try and just write the very
best melody I can possible. And I'm very happy with the melodies. Some of them
are very simple, some of them are very complex. There's a song called I
Can't Steer My Heart Clear of You which is one of the most complex
melodies I've ever written. It's like a song in three parts. And another one
which is in three parts called January. The quality of the songs is
really, really good and that's all I can do.
But the running order is
important and I think we've left a lot of songs off ... We've left about three
songs off that we could have put on, because I'm a great believer in "less is
more". You have a CD and think "Oh, I can fill all this time up!".
And so you buy a CD and you get to track 15 by someone and you think "Oh
my God, I can't cope anymore!" It's too much, it's too much.
I know
with a CD you can switch from track to track but I still think in old album
form where you listen to the first track and go all the way through to the end.
So, we're trying to get 50 minutes of music on the album, and that's
it.
I think now, because he's much more musical, he will say what he
feels about something. And I know he's exceedingly pleased with all the stuff
we've done on this album.
I think in the past that there must've been times
when he said "Oh God, blimey! That's not at all what I expected."
But he's never ever said he actually doesn't like something. Because we've been
together for such a long time it's nice to actually say "Do you like
this?". Before I never did. I said "This is it". Now I say
"Do you like this?" and I call him in before we record it and I
say "Is there anything you don't like in it, I'll change it", so I
think he's really happy.
It is very important, I think, because it's gotta to be cohesive,
it's all gonna have to fit from one track to the next. And the reason I have a
record producer - and I've always had a record producer except for a couple of
albums - is that they're usually very good at that. They've got an overview of
it. They've been listening to it, they can tell which ones will go next. I
mean, we've tried two or three different running orders on this album, and I
think we've come up with the best one, which - when I saw it this morning - I
thought "Oh my God, that's revolutionary! I don't know about it."
And the more I've looked at it the more it makes sense. And Chris
Thomas, who produced the album ...
You know, when you write a
song, for example. And I play it to Chris. And you've only
written it about five minutes ago, so it's very precious to you.
Chris will come up and say "I really like it, but I
think the chorus should be here and I think you should change the melody
here." And I go "EEEEEE!"
But the whole point of it ...
he's looking at it from a whole different angle than I am. And, usually, when
he says to me "Change something", he's usually right.
That's
why you have him there for. And I never go to mixes, and I never go to running
order things. That's his job, and he's bloody good at it. And that's the reason
why I employ him, 'cause I need that advice, I need that editor. He's a
producer/editor as far as I'm concerned.
And it's very necessary, because
artists can get so carried away - whether they're painters, whether they're
writers - they'd have everything they've done in it instead of selecting the
best.
I think Chris is very firm with me and he's always
been in favour of having just ten tracks. There's gonna be eleven, but that's a
compromise ... In the past I would've said "Let's put 15, 16" But
it's not a double album, it's a single album so ... it's very important for him
to actually tell me the truth, which he always does.
Yeah, the reason I love Chris is everything he does
... he seems to have such a broad taste. He's in the middle of my album and
he's in the middle of Pulp's album. Mine's finished, so now
he's gonna finish the Pulp album.
He's got that wide
range. The Pulp album will sound nothing like my album, and it
will sound nothing like an old Pretenders album or an
INXS album or an old McCartney album or
Roxy Music album. But he brings that experience and that
listening to different sounds and other musicians play things.
I've known
Chris for 39 years - we were at The Royal Academy of Music
together - we're fellow R.A.M. people ... and, you know, I trust him
implicitly. And he knows about loops, he knows about drum machines and
computers - I don't. I'm not technical at all. And we use real drums on this
album, but we use it as a mixture in some tracks with a bit of electronic loops
and stuff like that to make it sound a little bit more modern.
You have to
acknowledge technology. You have to accept new technology. Because it can be
very exciting. And it can be very helpful. He manages to merge the two of the
actual ambience live playing with the electronic side of things.
That was written for the Made In England
album and I tried recording it and it never worked out. It was such a difficult
song to record. And also, it's very long, quite a long song, and we already had
a couple of long songs on Made In England, so I put
it in my drawer 'cause I really love the song.
And I started to play it
live. And it went down so well live and then I got fans with placards saying
"Please play Live Like Horses". So I thought "What
are we gonna do with this song?". And I suddenly thought "Let's do
a duet with Luciano", 'cause it's a quite classical
song in chord structure. So ... we did that with Luciano and
we put the single out last year. And I wanted to put the song on the album
'cause fans had written to me saying "Please put the song on the
album". But I don't think I could've put the
Luciano-version on there because it would've disrupted the
flow of the album. It's a duet. So I put the solo version on it. And to be
perfectly honest with you I prefer the solo version.
- I don't think it's intimidation so much as respect. You just find
out how they work and how they do things and he was a joy to work with. He
always has a big smile on his face and ... the thing with him is he's a live
singer. He finds it a little bit more difficult in the studio.
And I think
that applies to a lot of classical singers. Their forte is to get out there.
And when you hear him sing on stage ... it's very moving. It's just the most
beautiful voice. Someone said "Yeah, he's got the voice of God",
and when he sings at his best he has. And when he sings one of your songs it
just "Wooo!".
And we did a concert with him at Modena for the
children in Sarajevo and we sang it live. And it was really an emotional
experience. It was Beautiful.
Sheryl Crow springs to mind. I adore
Sheryl. I think she's fantastic. There's a new singer;
Jewel, I love her voice. I think she's fantastic.
Michael Stipe from R.E.M., Billy
Corgan from Smashing Pumpkins. There's plenty of
people around.
There's always people ... Mary J Blige - I
don't know if I'd survive the session, but, you know, she's a great singer.
- No, but my hunch is going on Something About the Way You Look
Tonight, because it was the first song we wrote on the album. And I chose
it because it has a really loving, up lyric. I thought "Well, let's start
with this one" ... and I think people will relate to the lyric. It is
very much on the lines of Wonderful Tonight - the Eric
Clapton song -as far as the lyrical content.
And I would think
they would choose that one. There's a few ... I mean, they might go for
Recover Your Soul or they might go for Love's Got A Lot To Answer
For. I am too close to the album to be able pick it, quite honestly.
- If you pay attention to reviews ... Eric Clapton says "I don't read reviews". Because if gets to you and it's horrible it affects you and it shouldn't ... You know, I don't make records for reviewers, I make records for me and the punters out there. So I try not to read them, but obviously they filter through.
Well, Aida opens in Toronto next May or
June. Off Broadway, I mean, out of town, so that we can iron out all the kinks
in it. And then it should go to Broadway in September of '98.
The Lion King musical - which we've written three
extra songs for - is about to open soon in Minneapolis. And that will go to
Broadway in November. It's gonna be sensational. It's been directed and the
costumes have been designed by this woman called Julie (sp?)
Teymore, who is a very, very respected young, brilliant director.
Disney had the foresight to see her work and say "God, she's so
incredible". She uses people as scenery and she's really revolutionary
in what se does. I've seen her costumes for The Lion
King, and they had a rehearsal last week which was sensational,
so ... I'm very happy about that.
Aida is a
different kettle of fish, because The Lion King has
already been in the cinema. So it's not as if you're building a musical from
scratch. Aida has been written by Guiseppi
Verdi - we call it "the Joe Green musical" - that
Joe Green thing...
And I think it's very dangerous to be
given a project where something has already been written brilliantly by
someone. But the story of Aida is such a great story
- it's like a Romeo and Juliet situation,
only it's a triangle of love - and so Tim and I wrote 25
songs. And they came out so quickly. When things come very out quickly they're
usually the very best songs I always find. I mean, I don't spend a lot of time
on a song, but when it just come out straight away. So I'm very excited about
that, because it's a project that started from scratch.
And the
Eldorado-thing, which we did last year as well, is
... when you do an animation movie you have to have the songs first because
they have to place them in the film. And they'll get moved in the next four
years ... they'll get moved. Tim will do lyrical changes, they
might get taken out, we might write extra songs. But so far there are seven
songs for that for Dreamworks, and that's gonna be fantastic, I think.
And
then this October I go out on the road in America with my band and play smaller
venues. I wanna downsize a little before we go out on the road next year. So
we're playing places we haven't played in for a long time like Mobile, Alabama,
Memphis, Fargo, North Dakota which we've never played. There won't be 20,000
arenas, they'll be maybe 10-12 000 things.
And then I'm coming to Britain
in December and then in January I start with Billy Joel on our
world sojourn, around the world. We did it in America once. And it was so much
fun I said "Billy, we should really take this around the
world before we both are too old." So we're going to do that. We start
in America in January. Then we go to Australia, Japan, New Zealand, the far
east and then come to Europe in the summer next year and take it all around the
world.
Comments and corrections invited to pergunne@algonet.se!
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