Transcription
What qualities most help you get to where you are today? Faith and determination. Practice, right? Practice makes perfect.
What would you have done differently in your career if you knew then what you know now? If you knew what you knew now, I know, practice more. Practice more. I practiced a lot. You practiced a lot, but you're going to practice more. Oh my god.
Okay, what is your greatest lesson learned? Not to trust everybody. Not to trust everybody in the industry. There's a lot of sharks and record companies still. They cheat. You have to audit them. And it's time for artists to take a stand against them because they totally take advantage of them. Totally. They forget that it's the artists who make the company, not the company make the artist. Without the talent, the company would be nothing but just hardware and just, you know, and uh, it takes that real good talent that the public wants to see.
What are some of your favorite albums? My favorite albums would be, uh, Tchaikovsky's Nutcracker Suite, Claude Debussy's The Greatest Hits, which is, you know, Claire de Lune and Arabesque, An Afternoon of a Fawn. I love Marvin Gaye's What's Going On, James Brown Live at the Apollo, um, Sound of Music. I love Rodgers and Hammerstein. I love the great show tune writers very much. And I love Holland-Dozier-Holland from Motown. They were geniuses. So many great writers. So many great ones.
And any other great albums, like contemporary albums? Uh, great albums, it's hard because albums today, they have one or two good songs and the rest stink. You know, we're older stuff. I mean, you could be like Marvin Gaye, um, Stevie Wonder is ingenious. Everyone, uh, Talking Book. Um, I love More, He'd Been Living for the City. I forget the name. Yeah, fantastic. I think that was, uh, Songs in the Key of Life. Yeah, fantastic. And hearing his music made me say to myself, I can do this. And I think I can do this on an international level. Yeah, really. And then when the Bee Gees came out in the '70s, that did it for me. I cried. I cried listening to their music. I knew every note, every this. Broken heart, how can you, man? That one, this broken heart, how can you stop the sun from shining? I love this stuff. And it hit me. I fear, man, that did it for me. I said, I gotta do this. I gotta do this. I know I can do this. And we hit with Thriller. I just started writing songs like Billie Jean, really, Beat It, Starting Something, and just writing, writing. And it was fun.
Any posters in your bedroom as a kid? And of who? Yeah, Hill everywhere. My sisters would get jealous and take him off the wall. Really? Brooke Shields.
Okay, what are the, what are the great shows that you've seen? Concerts or even just shows? Brown, Jackie. What the real entertainers, man. The room was, Mickey, goosebumps. It was James Brown. Where, where'd you see him? We used to have to go on stage after him because he would come on. We would come on. Amateur hour. Yeah. He said, I'd be in the wings just studying every step. On TV? On a TV show? No, look at the Apollo. I haven't traveled through the phone. And, and you saw him perform? Yeah. Jackie, Jackie's Temptations. But the show that you remember, one show where, oh, you saw the Temptations. So yeah, yeah. It was their show that you saw that you were like, oh my god. Jackie Wilson. She, James Brown. Jackie Wilson shows at the Latino made me cry at the Apollo. Yeah, it made me cry. I never see nothing like that. That kind of emotion, kind of fever, feeling. This, it was like on another higher spiritual plane. They were on. They were like in a trance. And they had the audience in the palm of their hand. And I just love how they could control them like that. That kind of power. When they, when they see they have tears running down their face. Oh, because they just get so into it.
Now, what are your face, some of your favorite songs? Favorite songs of all time? Yeah. Um, I love Birdback Iraq very much. Any Motown, Beatles, like Eleanor Rigby, Yesterday. Um, any of the Supremes, all that stuff is great. I think the '60s had some of the best melodies of all time between Peter, Paul and Mary and, you know, all those people. I thought they were great. Mamas and the Papas were wonderful. And, um, the Drifters. Go further back. By the Love, it's on, on the Boardwalk. On Broadway. It's ingenious. Uh, simple. The simple ones are the best. I think I, um, Alfie, you know that one? So beautiful. Um, it's so many like movies. So many great movies.
So listen to the few things that could be helpful to someone breaking into the music business. Believe in yourself. Study the greats and become greater. And be a scientist. Dissect or dissect. When you said it before, you said something else. Uh, don't give up. No. What'd you say? Remember, no matter what. I mean, I don't care if the whole world is against you or tease you or say you're not going to make it. Believe in yourself, no matter what. Some of the greatest men that have made a mark on this world were treated like that. You know, you know, you're not going to do it. You're not going to get anywhere. They laughed at the Wright brothers. They laughed at Thomas Edison. They laughed at Walt Disney. They made jokes of him before they said he was ignorant. He didn't have a college degree because he dropped out of school. Disney dropped out of school. David took fourth to court to prove his intelligence. That's how far they went. Yeah. And, uh, these are men that shaped and changed our culture, our customs, the way we live, the way we do things. And I think God plants those seeds through people on the earth. And, uh, I think you're one. I'm one, um, to bring some bliss, some escapism, some joy, some magic. Because without entertainment, what would the world be like? You know, what would it really be like? Oh, it'd be a totally different world. For me, I love entertainment. And my favorite of all is film. Power and magic of movies. It's the greatest. It's the most expressive of all the art forms. I think it touches the soul. Music and movies, it's the most expressive. It's like almost like release. It's like religion. You get so involved, so caught up. You go in the theater a different person. When you come out, yeah, they've affected you that way. Yeah, that's powerful. That's powerful. I think that's strong. I like that. I like, I love that. And you got them, you know, you make them feel a certain way. They relate to it. Yeah. Yeah. They live it. They live with you. Yeah. They forget their, the experience. The experience of watching a movie affects their life. They're told they're hoping. That's why I was saying, remember about seeing Star Wars when I was seven years old? That it's not, it's a different experience for Paris or Princeton, you know, it's amazing. Even though it's the same movie, at the moment, when you're a certain age, and when you see it, and what's going on in the world at that time, and when, and it's the first time you ever see something like that. And it's like movies affect you just like it's listening to, hearing a song or seeing or seeing an artist perform. Getting to see James Brown and that moment of tears coming out of your eyes is different. Yeah. I can't tell you how incredible. That's amazing. And I just love the great entertainers, the great performers, the great showmen. Yeah. If we bought the storytellers, and just watching them, you just mesmerized. Oh, yeah. You get caught up in it. I love it. One spotlight, baby. Yeah. Frank Sinatra. Yeah. Yeah. It was kind of so cool. Sammy Davis. And I just love it. The whole thing. Magic. Yeah. It's real magic.
What about, uh, James Brown in the hot tub? Hot tub? Okay.