WEBVTT - Joe Jackson Suffers No Fools 0:00:00.200 --> 0:00:03.040 This is Alec Baldwin and you were listening to Here's 0:00:03.080 --> 0:00:31.560 the thing. The list of genres that singer songwriter Joe 0:00:31.640 --> 0:00:37.040 Jackson has covered pop, jazz, punk, dub reggae and classical 0:00:37.520 --> 0:00:41.600 reads like a school syllabus. It's fitting given that's where 0:00:41.600 --> 0:00:46.000 the Englishman's love for music was born. A slight precocious kid, 0:00:46.080 --> 0:00:49.760 he came alive when playing the piano, and for good reason, 0:00:50.080 --> 0:00:54.760 he was exceptional at it. By eighteen, he'd earned a 0:00:54.840 --> 0:00:58.320 scholarship to London's Royal Academy of Music, and by his 0:00:58.360 --> 0:01:01.440 early twenties he had a d with A and M Records. 0:01:02.080 --> 0:01:05.800 His first album, Look Sharp, was released in nineteen seventy nine. 0:01:06.319 --> 0:01:09.880 It was daring, the mix of pop and punk with addictive, 0:01:09.880 --> 0:01:13.680 sardonic lyrics. By the time he moved from the UK 0:01:13.880 --> 0:01:17.200 to New York City in nineteen eighty two, Jackson was 0:01:17.280 --> 0:01:21.080 being approached by fans in public. I should know. I 0:01:21.200 --> 0:01:26.200 was one of them. Gutsy, clever and unparalleled. His boldness 0:01:26.319 --> 0:01:28.840 ushered in the new wave era of the late nineteen 0:01:28.920 --> 0:01:33.280 seventies and set the stage for experimentalists of today like 0:01:33.360 --> 0:01:37.840 Lady Gaga, But unlike many of his successors, Joe Jackson 0:01:37.840 --> 0:01:40.760 didn't set out to make music from the start. No, 0:01:40.800 --> 0:01:43.360 I don't no ambitions to be a musician. So I 0:01:43.400 --> 0:01:47.320 was probably like thirteen or fourteen. Was your family music 0:01:47.400 --> 0:01:49.680 or your parents not at all. I'll come from a 0:01:49.760 --> 0:01:54.040 musical desert, Portsmouth on the south coast of England, but yeah, 0:01:54.040 --> 0:01:56.440 a lot of sailors and not a lot of music really, 0:01:56.720 --> 0:01:59.480 um and my parents were not musical at all. Is 0:01:59.520 --> 0:02:02.000 I don't know where it comes from. It's a big mystery. 0:02:02.000 --> 0:02:04.880 I'm the total odd one out. And it began how 0:02:04.960 --> 0:02:07.840 for you? It began when I got the opportunity to 0:02:08.200 --> 0:02:12.680 escape from school sports by joining a violin class. And 0:02:13.480 --> 0:02:15.560 I didn't like sports because I was an asthmatic as 0:02:15.560 --> 0:02:18.320 a kid, a terrible asthma, was always sick. I don't 0:02:18.320 --> 0:02:21.760 really get it anymore, but I need to get beaten 0:02:21.840 --> 0:02:25.680 up all the time. So basically sports period was the 0:02:25.720 --> 0:02:28.480 excuse to beat me up, and then I had this 0:02:28.520 --> 0:02:31.120 opportunity to get out of it. You hated as so much, 0:02:31.120 --> 0:02:33.480 you're willing to take up the violin, yeah, which is 0:02:35.120 --> 0:02:37.760 which is saying something, I believe me. But the violin 0:02:37.840 --> 0:02:41.239 is like a sort of medieval torture instrument, and you 0:02:41.280 --> 0:02:43.760 can just imagine a bunch of snot nose, the eleven 0:02:43.840 --> 0:02:47.040 year old kids scraping away. And then of course you 0:02:47.040 --> 0:02:49.160 were walking around carrying a violin case, so you still 0:02:49.200 --> 0:02:53.960 got beaten. But in the meantime, I sort of discovered 0:02:54.000 --> 0:02:56.600 that I was fascinated by music. So I got really 0:02:56.600 --> 0:03:00.679 interested in music and learned the music theory and all 0:03:00.720 --> 0:03:04.679 that stuff really early on. It's a good thing. Yeah, sure, yeah, yeah, 0:03:05.280 --> 0:03:08.720 And and I switched to piano pretty soon. Did you 0:03:08.720 --> 0:03:12.640 play guitar piano before a guitar. I've never played guitar, never. Never. 0:03:13.520 --> 0:03:17.040 I don't understand it. I think it's a really weird instrument. 0:03:19.400 --> 0:03:22.120 I don't understand why people think it's easy. Actually, I 0:03:22.160 --> 0:03:26.840 think a keyboard is much more logical. But by the 0:03:26.840 --> 0:03:29.120 time I was about four teen, my hero was Beethoven. 0:03:29.720 --> 0:03:32.119 And then I let you listen to classical music, and yeah, 0:03:32.120 --> 0:03:34.440 I was like really really into it. And then I 0:03:34.480 --> 0:03:37.200 got interested in jazz, and then I got interested in 0:03:37.360 --> 0:03:40.360 apart from rock music again, which I hadn't really been 0:03:40.400 --> 0:03:42.320 interested in since I was a kid, because when I 0:03:42.360 --> 0:03:44.440 was ten, I loved the Beatles and the Kinks and 0:03:44.480 --> 0:03:46.960 so on. So in a way. That's my real roots 0:03:47.120 --> 0:03:50.400 is British pop music. But I went on this kind 0:03:50.400 --> 0:03:53.760 of roundabout route back into the pop world gradually and 0:03:53.800 --> 0:03:56.520 into writing songs. So how old were you when you 0:03:56.560 --> 0:03:59.360 started writing? Well, my teens, I suppose when you wrote 0:03:59.400 --> 0:04:02.360 for what? Just for yourself? And was there an eye 0:04:02.360 --> 0:04:04.840 towards you getting a group together even as a solo 0:04:04.920 --> 0:04:09.680 acting performing well? Um not. For a while I was 0:04:09.680 --> 0:04:12.960 convinced I couldn't sing. I still sometimes wonder actually, But 0:04:14.080 --> 0:04:16.359 I was writing songs and trying to get people to 0:04:16.400 --> 0:04:18.640 sing them, people I was playing in bands with, and 0:04:18.680 --> 0:04:22.440 it never sounded right. They never phrased it how I 0:04:22.480 --> 0:04:25.200 wanted or anything like that. So I started singing myself 0:04:25.240 --> 0:04:28.800 and it sounded terrible, but I just stuck with it. 0:04:29.880 --> 0:04:32.920 Sheer desperation. You kept telling people from the key would 0:04:32.920 --> 0:04:35.040 no do it like this? Yeah exactly, And they couldn't 0:04:35.080 --> 0:04:37.920 get it. Yeah, And so they'd say, we'll sing it yourself, 0:04:38.040 --> 0:04:42.640 you know, yeah, Yeah, you had to be had a band. 0:04:42.760 --> 0:04:46.679 Eventually had a band. What was it called Joe Jackson band? Okay, 0:04:47.080 --> 0:04:50.960 it's always yeah, well it keeps it simple. I'm glad 0:04:51.000 --> 0:04:54.400 actually that it was never a band. Identity you know, 0:04:54.880 --> 0:04:57.720 um in terms of what, well, in terms of not, 0:04:58.480 --> 0:05:00.920 I've never been in that situation. Oh yeah, I liked 0:05:00.960 --> 0:05:03.120 it so and so, but I didn't like him solo 0:05:03.360 --> 0:05:09.240 kind of thing because I've always been solo. Um and 0:05:09.440 --> 0:05:15.000 uh yeah. So my basic motivation was shared desperation and 0:05:15.040 --> 0:05:18.559 you get out of Portsmouth. When with my late teens 0:05:18.600 --> 0:05:21.320 I went to the rural Academy of Music, I got 0:05:21.360 --> 0:05:25.160 what I guess you'd call a scholarship and did three 0:05:25.240 --> 0:05:27.880 years at the Royal Academy Music, where I didn't fit 0:05:27.920 --> 0:05:30.240 in at all. I just wanted to play in rock 0:05:30.279 --> 0:05:33.320 and roll bands. But so I did everything I could. 0:05:33.360 --> 0:05:36.719 I mean, I played in jazz big bands. I played 0:05:36.720 --> 0:05:38.800 piano for a theater group. I mean I did all 0:05:38.880 --> 0:05:43.440 kinds of things, top forty pop bands, playing piano in 0:05:43.520 --> 0:05:48.520 restaurants and pubs. Anything I could do. Um. I think 0:05:48.560 --> 0:05:52.480 I was a great believer in the that the old 0:05:52.960 --> 0:05:56.040 adage of whatever doesn't kill me makes me stronger, even 0:05:56.040 --> 0:05:59.120 though I don't think i'd heard that yet. But but 0:05:59.200 --> 0:06:00.960 a very shot an approach to it. You do, who 0:06:01.000 --> 0:06:04.960 would try anything? Yeah, anything absolutely any work yeah, and 0:06:04.960 --> 0:06:08.919 then learning something and hopefully making a few pounds to 0:06:09.080 --> 0:06:11.440 live on. I never expected to have money. I mean, 0:06:11.520 --> 0:06:13.120 I figured, well, if I'm going to be a musician 0:06:13.120 --> 0:06:17.320 and forget about that. I wasn't that worried about it really, 0:06:17.800 --> 0:06:20.159 as long as they had enough to just about live on. 0:06:20.560 --> 0:06:23.760 So by the time I actually got the record deal 0:06:23.800 --> 0:06:25.640 with A and M and made my first album, I 0:06:25.680 --> 0:06:28.680 felt like I was this sort of seasoned professional, you know, 0:06:28.760 --> 0:06:31.160 who'd been around forever and done everything. And I was 0:06:31.200 --> 0:06:34.080 twenty three. Well how did that happen you? When you've 0:06:34.080 --> 0:06:35.320 got to deal with A and M? How did they 0:06:35.360 --> 0:06:39.560 find you? Through a guy called David Kershenbaum who was 0:06:39.880 --> 0:06:43.000 he was acting as a kind of unofficial talent scout 0:06:43.040 --> 0:06:46.400 I think for them, um, and he ended up producing 0:06:46.400 --> 0:06:50.520 my first couple of albums. And well, yeah, it all 0:06:50.520 --> 0:06:55.440 happened just sort of like overnight, really after many years 0:06:55.440 --> 0:07:00.159 of slugging away playing gigs and like naval bases and 0:07:01.240 --> 0:07:03.560 weddings where fights broke out and all the rest of it. 0:07:03.839 --> 0:07:06.719 But I'm really glad I did all that stuff look 0:07:06.760 --> 0:07:09.080 sharp as your first out. That was the first album. 0:07:09.120 --> 0:07:11.920 And what happens then, Well, all of a sudden, I 0:07:12.000 --> 0:07:16.800 was working regularly, you know, I was able to keep 0:07:16.800 --> 0:07:19.520 a band together, going to all kinds of places that 0:07:19.560 --> 0:07:21.720 I never thought I would go to, all over Europe 0:07:21.720 --> 0:07:25.840 and the States, and uh it was great fun and 0:07:25.920 --> 0:07:28.640 a bit scary at the same time because you're so young. Yeah, 0:07:28.760 --> 0:07:30.520 you know, I didn't really know anything. Did you have 0:07:30.520 --> 0:07:33.440 a manager? I had a manager, somebody who relied on 0:07:33.480 --> 0:07:35.920 that helped you. Yeah, yeah, he was okay. I don't 0:07:35.960 --> 0:07:38.800 think he was already all that much more prepared for 0:07:38.800 --> 0:07:40.240 it than I was, to be honest, But we just 0:07:40.320 --> 0:07:44.600 kind of blundered through. And when you became successful, was 0:07:44.600 --> 0:07:50.720 it what you hoped it would be? Uh? Wow? It 0:07:50.800 --> 0:07:54.240 was both like way way better than I ever dreamed 0:07:54.240 --> 0:07:57.160 and way worse at the same time, because well, I 0:07:57.160 --> 0:07:59.320 mean I never thought that I would have that kind 0:07:59.320 --> 0:08:03.440 of audience or those kind of opportunities or make any money, 0:08:03.880 --> 0:08:06.480 you know, So it was it was amazing unfamiliar with 0:08:06.520 --> 0:08:09.600 the feeling there you go in my business as well, Yeah, 0:08:09.640 --> 0:08:12.360 you don't go into something like making music or acting. 0:08:12.600 --> 0:08:15.760 I guess assuming that you're gonna success is more of 0:08:15.760 --> 0:08:18.520 a stranger than failure. Yeah, well, I think you have to. Well, 0:08:18.560 --> 0:08:20.600 I gradually learned over time that you have to have 0:08:20.640 --> 0:08:24.360 your own definition of success. Right, you know, because otherwise 0:08:24.400 --> 0:08:27.760 you're always trying to chase someone else's And I mean 0:08:27.760 --> 0:08:29.520 to me, if you can do something you love and 0:08:29.520 --> 0:08:33.160 you've got enough to live, you know, just to live 0:08:33.200 --> 0:08:38.760 on and have a reasonably enjoyable life, you know, what's 0:08:39.200 --> 0:08:43.040 what's wrong with that? Who were people that you admired them, 0:08:43.520 --> 0:08:45.320 that all of a sudden you're one of them, you're 0:08:45.320 --> 0:08:48.559 in rooms with them, you meet them. Oh no, well, 0:08:48.679 --> 0:08:50.720 you know that's never really applied that much to me. 0:08:51.040 --> 0:08:54.400 Um My heroes have always been people who were mostly 0:08:54.440 --> 0:08:57.280 dead a bit opening. It wasn't around could be get 0:08:57.360 --> 0:08:59.400 him to come to the opening of the party. Now 0:08:59.520 --> 0:09:01.960 he's gone, okay, And I would like to talk too 0:09:02.040 --> 0:09:06.719 much about people you might say my peer and you know, 0:09:06.760 --> 0:09:09.280 I don't know. I mean, I may or may not 0:09:09.360 --> 0:09:13.280 have things in calm with them, but that's not what 0:09:13.360 --> 0:09:17.000 I looked to for inspiration. I look I suppose more 0:09:17.040 --> 0:09:19.839 to the past. Yeah, now when you do, when Luke 0:09:19.920 --> 0:09:22.959 Sharp comes out, is there a way that you I 0:09:23.000 --> 0:09:26.280 mean McCartney once told me that he said that they 0:09:26.280 --> 0:09:29.400 would go to the studio and they'd record two songs 0:09:29.400 --> 0:09:31.520 in the morning, go to the pub, have fish and chips, 0:09:31.520 --> 0:09:33.600 and a paint and a cigarette, come back and to 0:09:33.600 --> 0:09:35.600 do two songs in the afternoon. They were on the 0:09:35.640 --> 0:09:37.880 clock in the early days, and they had cut records, 0:09:38.280 --> 0:09:41.040 and then then then it's a while before we're going 0:09:41.080 --> 0:09:43.120 to take a year to do Sergeant Peppers, you know. 0:09:43.160 --> 0:09:46.200 But in the early days was work and what changed 0:09:46.240 --> 0:09:49.280 for you and albums like that? I mean, the studio 0:09:49.440 --> 0:09:53.040 was only available for at certain times, and I actually 0:09:53.040 --> 0:09:55.240 had to go in and try to work in the morning, 0:09:55.240 --> 0:10:00.599 which was first possible. I don't, oh why, but I 0:10:01.120 --> 0:10:04.600 never was a morning person even as a kid. I couldn't. 0:10:04.800 --> 0:10:07.120 I just couldn't drag myself out of bed man as 0:10:07.160 --> 0:10:09.679 a kid. And one of the reasons I became a 0:10:09.760 --> 0:10:11.800 musician is in the hope that I wouldn't have to 0:10:11.840 --> 0:10:13.800 get up early in the morning. And that's actually true, 0:10:13.800 --> 0:10:16.880 but none pleaves me. But anyway, it was a bit 0:10:16.960 --> 0:10:19.560 like that near early days. But I've always been a 0:10:19.600 --> 0:10:22.200 quick worker anyway in the studio. I mean, I don't 0:10:22.280 --> 0:10:24.760 I don't see why people should take years to make 0:10:24.760 --> 0:10:26.599 an album. I think it's silly, to be honest. But 0:10:26.679 --> 0:10:29.080 were things that were available to once you became successful 0:10:29.120 --> 0:10:31.600 that you didn't have before that you're excited about being 0:10:31.640 --> 0:10:35.440 able to make another album, basically to be able to 0:10:35.520 --> 0:10:39.439 keep going to to do another tour. And I mean 0:10:39.480 --> 0:10:43.160 that's what it's all about. What was songwriting like for you? 0:10:43.280 --> 0:10:45.559 Running out when you wrote the songs and look sharp, 0:10:46.120 --> 0:10:47.960 how long did they take? Well? It still comes in 0:10:48.360 --> 0:10:51.079 fits and starts. I quite know how to describe it, 0:10:51.080 --> 0:10:53.120 because sometimes I'll get on a role and I'll write 0:10:53.120 --> 0:10:54.840 a lot, and other times I don't know anything quite 0:10:54.840 --> 0:10:57.280 a long time. And that's gotten to be more the 0:10:57.280 --> 0:10:59.880 case actually in recent years. I take longer and longer, 0:11:00.320 --> 0:11:03.320 but more fussy because you know, I think some of 0:11:03.320 --> 0:11:06.280 the early stuff is pretty lame, quite honestly. I mean 0:11:06.520 --> 0:11:08.640 some of it I still like, and I think it 0:11:08.720 --> 0:11:10.920 was the best I could do at the time. But 0:11:11.040 --> 0:11:13.000 I tended to just like if I had an idea 0:11:13.040 --> 0:11:15.160 for a song, I kind of like throw it together 0:11:15.200 --> 0:11:17.920 and think, well, that's all right, I guess, and right, 0:11:18.040 --> 0:11:20.320 so let's move on, and it would get recorded and released. 0:11:21.200 --> 0:11:23.840 Just looking back, I don't really have any serious regrets 0:11:23.880 --> 0:11:27.640 about anything, but I think I've been too prolific and 0:11:27.840 --> 0:11:31.000 made too many records that if I had taken a 0:11:31.040 --> 0:11:33.360 bit more time in between you know, I might have 0:11:33.800 --> 0:11:36.720 made a couple less records, but they would have been better. 0:11:37.840 --> 0:11:42.120 So that's more how I work nowadays. But I think 0:11:42.160 --> 0:11:45.000 I was a bit more workaholic in the early days, 0:11:45.200 --> 0:11:46.840 you know, like I felt like I had to be 0:11:47.040 --> 0:11:49.920 doing something new and putting something out. But when you 0:11:50.000 --> 0:11:53.839 say you would release songs early on that you look 0:11:53.880 --> 0:11:55.439 back on them now and they might not have been 0:11:55.679 --> 0:11:58.920 something you would consider now, you know. Obviously that's that 0:11:59.080 --> 0:12:01.800 hindsight thing is tricky, but that would apply to probably 0:12:02.600 --> 0:12:04.120 things I've done in my life as well. But well, 0:12:04.160 --> 0:12:07.360 you can't. You can't know, you can't. And also, you know, 0:12:07.600 --> 0:12:10.080 we're supposed to move on, we're supposed to progress and 0:12:10.120 --> 0:12:13.760 get better as artists. Otherwise, why are we doing it? Why? 0:12:13.800 --> 0:12:16.240 I think? But what's what's an album that when you 0:12:16.520 --> 0:12:18.960 when it came together, you thought, I really am proud 0:12:18.960 --> 0:12:22.040 of this, this really represents here's one I thought for 0:12:22.080 --> 0:12:24.160 the most what we got it right? Most of them. 0:12:24.440 --> 0:12:27.080 At the time I did it, I generally felt excited 0:12:27.120 --> 0:12:29.400 about it and like I've done the best I could. 0:12:30.280 --> 0:12:31.760 And it takes a little bit of distance to be 0:12:31.800 --> 0:12:33.480 able to say, well, looking back on it, this one 0:12:33.600 --> 0:12:37.560 really wasn't so good as this one. Um, But I 0:12:37.600 --> 0:12:40.040 think I'm more consistent these days. I think my last 0:12:40.120 --> 0:12:43.360 two albums have been among the best I've done, partly 0:12:43.400 --> 0:12:45.640 because I took a lot of time over them and 0:12:45.720 --> 0:12:48.360 actually throughout stuff that I didn't think it was good enough, 0:12:48.480 --> 0:12:50.440 or I rewrote stuff that I thought was a bit 0:12:50.640 --> 0:12:54.640 too obvious, or have been done before or whatever. In 0:12:54.679 --> 0:12:58.560 the earlier days, you had done videos like everybody to 0:12:58.600 --> 0:13:01.960 support your work, and then you stopped making videos correct 0:13:02.360 --> 0:13:04.360 for a little while, I did. I thought, I mean, 0:13:04.400 --> 0:13:09.839 this is remember this was or something, and the video 0:13:09.880 --> 0:13:13.480 thing it got very big, very quickly, and I think 0:13:13.480 --> 0:13:15.760 that I didn't really take it all that seriously. I thought, well, 0:13:15.800 --> 0:13:17.599 all right, yeah, we'll make a video. Might be a 0:13:17.640 --> 0:13:20.320 bit of fun. And then more and more it's just 0:13:20.400 --> 0:13:23.920 seemed like you couldn't even have a single without a video, 0:13:24.000 --> 0:13:28.719 for instance, And I heard stories about young bands not 0:13:29.160 --> 0:13:32.480 getting signed because there wasn't enough money for a video, 0:13:33.280 --> 0:13:35.400 whereas before that, you know, a record would have been 0:13:35.520 --> 0:13:39.000 enough actually, and things like that. And I started seeing 0:13:39.000 --> 0:13:41.000 more and more videos that I thought were stupid and 0:13:41.240 --> 0:13:44.800 nothing to do with music, and I decided, in my 0:13:45.080 --> 0:13:50.840 almighty hubris and arrogance to to not only not make videos, 0:13:50.840 --> 0:13:53.840 but to sort of make a protest about it. And 0:13:53.880 --> 0:13:57.439 I wrote that was published in Billboard. I think saying 0:13:57.520 --> 0:13:59.600 video is killing music and we shouldn't do it. And 0:14:00.320 --> 0:14:02.320 there was only one other artist that I'm aware of 0:14:02.400 --> 0:14:06.079 who made similar comments, and that was Bruce Springsteen because 0:14:06.080 --> 0:14:09.120 he didn't make videos for a long time, and he 0:14:09.200 --> 0:14:11.199 said when he finished the song, he felt like he 0:14:11.679 --> 0:14:14.200 painted the Mona Lisa, and if he had, if he 0:14:14.240 --> 0:14:15.640 had to make a video, it was like he had 0:14:15.679 --> 0:14:18.360 to draw a mustache on it. And I thought that 0:14:18.480 --> 0:14:21.720 was great, and that's how I felt too. I felt like, well, 0:14:21.720 --> 0:14:23.800 why should I do this? It's it's silly. You know. 0:14:25.240 --> 0:14:28.560 This did my career absolutely no good whatsoever. But if 0:14:28.560 --> 0:14:30.040 you had it to do over again, you might have 0:14:30.080 --> 0:14:33.240 done things differently About that. I don't know. I mean, 0:14:33.320 --> 0:14:36.160 I think I probably it's like you can't hold back 0:14:36.200 --> 0:14:41.640 the sea, you know, the waves, you know. I still 0:14:41.640 --> 0:14:43.520 think a lot of videos are stupid and a waste 0:14:43.520 --> 0:14:46.880 of money, But eventually got talked around to it and 0:14:46.920 --> 0:14:51.840 did a couple more a bit later on, but I 0:14:51.880 --> 0:14:53.960 think was the last video I made. I haven't done 0:14:53.960 --> 0:14:57.400 it since the only time I see videos nowadays, it's 0:14:57.480 --> 0:15:02.040 like on the exercise at the gym, you know, and 0:15:02.160 --> 0:15:04.680 like one video after another, and it's quite amazing. I mean, 0:15:04.680 --> 0:15:07.000 what I sort of said was happening all those years ago, 0:15:07.040 --> 0:15:10.080 it really has sort of triumphed, which is that the 0:15:10.200 --> 0:15:13.480 videos are now used purely to distract you from the 0:15:13.560 --> 0:15:15.520 music exactly, you know, which a lot of the time 0:15:15.600 --> 0:15:17.960 is so lame to enhance a week song. Yeah, and 0:15:18.000 --> 0:15:20.000 that's true. And a lot of the videos now seemed 0:15:20.040 --> 0:15:26.080 to be basically soft porn, like pushing candy to Yeah, 0:15:26.200 --> 0:15:28.960 and uh, it's that, you know, I'm all right with that, 0:15:29.400 --> 0:15:31.520 but it doesn't change the fact that the songs suck. 0:15:32.040 --> 0:15:35.080 It's masking something, that's masking something. When did you first 0:15:35.120 --> 0:15:36.680 come to the States? What was your first trip here? 0:15:37.480 --> 0:15:41.320 It was actually before my first album was released. The 0:15:41.360 --> 0:15:44.280 American division of A M. Records wanted me to come 0:15:44.280 --> 0:15:46.520 over and just meet people and kind of schmooz and 0:15:46.560 --> 0:15:49.160 some one and that was, believe it or not, in 0:15:49.280 --> 0:15:53.480 nineteen seventy eight. I think I was back in sevente 0:15:53.560 --> 0:15:55.880 to do my first American tour. I met you then 0:15:56.120 --> 0:16:00.440 you did, I don't remember, Oh yeah, was going to 0:16:00.560 --> 0:16:03.640 n y U and Gary my roommate, he was my 0:16:03.720 --> 0:16:07.000 roommate in college. And beyond Gary and I come to uh, 0:16:07.200 --> 0:16:10.160 we come to the Binnie Bomb in the East Village 0:16:10.680 --> 0:16:14.440 and there you were sitting there eating and you back then, 0:16:14.640 --> 0:16:16.400 and I don't want to characterize you, just not in 0:16:16.360 --> 0:16:20.200 a pejorative way. You were very, very kind of imposing. 0:16:20.280 --> 0:16:23.320 You know, you were sitting there eating and you your 0:16:23.360 --> 0:16:25.280 album was this big album and when New York in 0:16:25.280 --> 0:16:28.400 the East Village the kind of epicenter of self conscious 0:16:28.400 --> 0:16:31.000 bullshit coolness in New York, and there you are. Me 0:16:31.040 --> 0:16:34.520 and Gary walked up to you and I said, excuse me, 0:16:34.560 --> 0:16:36.320 can I ask you a question? And you looked up 0:16:36.360 --> 0:16:38.120 and you and looked up at me and you went no. 0:16:39.280 --> 0:16:44.000 And you could just tell you were like sick. I 0:16:44.040 --> 0:16:46.560 didn't make it. I wouldn't do that anything kind of 0:16:46.560 --> 0:16:48.680 fake news. Well it might as well be, as far 0:16:48.680 --> 0:16:50.680 as I'm concerned, because I certainly don't remember. Of course 0:16:50.680 --> 0:16:52.240 you don't remember. It might be it was one of 0:16:52.320 --> 0:16:54.320 countless people who might have been in a bad mood 0:16:54.480 --> 0:16:56.160 or who knows what was happening. He was sick of 0:16:56.160 --> 0:16:58.280 fame and it was just acting like I was sick 0:16:58.280 --> 0:17:01.640 of fame from the beginning. I mean, I look, I 0:17:01.720 --> 0:17:05.439 love performing and connecting with people through music, right, but 0:17:05.560 --> 0:17:08.479 I'm not interested in being a celebrity that way. So 0:17:09.000 --> 0:17:11.600 and I think like, especially in the early days, I 0:17:11.640 --> 0:17:14.639 was very defensive a lot of the time because I 0:17:14.720 --> 0:17:17.879 just felt like, you know, so much of what was 0:17:17.920 --> 0:17:21.200 going on around me was sort of phony and and bullshit. 0:17:21.280 --> 0:17:23.159 And it did take some getting used to, you know, 0:17:23.200 --> 0:17:25.240 being stared at and people coming up and there's sort 0:17:25.240 --> 0:17:28.600 of weird things where someone would come up and say, Hey, 0:17:29.520 --> 0:17:31.760 my friend tells me you're someone called Judge Jackson, and 0:17:31.800 --> 0:17:34.200 I've got a bet with him. It's worth twenty bucks 0:17:34.240 --> 0:17:35.680 to me, So are you aren't you? You know that 0:17:35.840 --> 0:17:38.760 kind of you think? And then people would say, why 0:17:38.800 --> 0:17:40.800 do you have a problem with that? They're your fans, 0:17:40.840 --> 0:17:43.360 they love you. When did you move to New York 0:17:43.400 --> 0:17:46.240 and get home here? Um N two? I had a 0:17:46.240 --> 0:17:49.679 sublet here for four months and I was really in 0:17:49.720 --> 0:17:53.840 love with New York and made I'm called Night and Day. Here. 0:17:54.640 --> 0:17:57.240 Where did you recordinating? It was a student called Blue 0:17:57.359 --> 0:18:00.640 Rock in Soho. It's long gone actually, as are most 0:18:00.640 --> 0:18:03.040 of the studios in the city. But so yeah, it 0:18:03.080 --> 0:18:05.720 was actually in Soho, and at that time, Soho didn't 0:18:05.720 --> 0:18:08.400 have a whole lot of shots, even the New York 0:18:08.440 --> 0:18:11.600 that I fell in love with. And I don't want 0:18:11.600 --> 0:18:14.560 to start getting into all that because I'm sure that 0:18:14.680 --> 0:18:17.360 anyone younger, if anyone who wasn't here in the eighties, 0:18:17.440 --> 0:18:20.920 rolls their eyes. I'm the same way, the old New York, 0:18:21.000 --> 0:18:22.920 the old New York. So you moved here in two 0:18:23.200 --> 0:18:25.000 and you'll record night and day. How long did it 0:18:25.040 --> 0:18:27.320 take you to record that album? It was all done 0:18:27.359 --> 0:18:29.879 within a month, I'm sure like most of my albums, 0:18:30.440 --> 0:18:33.080 did you did you have a sense of what you 0:18:33.119 --> 0:18:35.640 were onto when you recorded them? Not at all? And actually, 0:18:36.119 --> 0:18:39.840 to this day, I'm surprised that that's well my most 0:18:39.840 --> 0:18:43.000 successful album ever because it was a bit of a 0:18:43.000 --> 0:18:46.919 departure from the earlier ones, which were more like I 0:18:46.920 --> 0:18:49.240 guess what you would call rock and roll and had 0:18:49.280 --> 0:18:53.240 guitars in them. And I've broken up that band. I 0:18:53.240 --> 0:18:56.440 mean it broke up because the drummer left. But anyway, 0:18:57.280 --> 0:18:59.560 I had this crazy idea to do an album no guitars, 0:19:00.040 --> 0:19:03.520 and I was really interested in, um, let's say, non 0:19:03.640 --> 0:19:06.440 rock and roll music, like a lot of the time 0:19:06.880 --> 0:19:08.320 when I was in New York, I would be going 0:19:08.359 --> 0:19:12.000 to check out Latin music or things that were more 0:19:12.080 --> 0:19:14.600 like in the direction of soul funk, and you know, 0:19:14.640 --> 0:19:17.520 even the early beginnings of hip hop all interested me 0:19:17.560 --> 0:19:19.320 more than rock and roll at that time. You like 0:19:19.400 --> 0:19:22.000 to go to clubs, and yeah, and jazz clubs. I mean, 0:19:22.000 --> 0:19:24.080 I've always been a big jazz fan. So I wanted 0:19:24.119 --> 0:19:26.840 to make an um that was a bit jazzy and 0:19:26.880 --> 0:19:30.359 had Latin rhythms in it, and my keyboard and all keyboards, 0:19:30.560 --> 0:19:35.480 keyboards and percussion and no guitars, and so what's what's what? What? 0:19:35.480 --> 0:19:37.800 What Spanish club were you win? The Motivated? What Latin 0:19:37.840 --> 0:19:39.720 club were you in? What we were listening to? The 0:19:39.880 --> 0:19:44.119 Inspired cancer? Um yeah, yeah, Well that was what I 0:19:44.160 --> 0:19:47.040 saw as something that was starting to happen then, which 0:19:47.080 --> 0:19:48.760 has happened a lot more now, which is a kind 0:19:48.800 --> 0:19:54.280 of like terrible, all encompassing obsession with anything to do 0:19:54.359 --> 0:19:56.919 with health and the possibility of any kind of risks 0:19:56.920 --> 0:20:00.440 in ones health becoming dominant to the point of sort 0:20:00.480 --> 0:20:04.000 of like sucking all the fun out of life. Um. 0:20:04.000 --> 0:20:06.639 So that was about that when it was supposed to 0:20:06.680 --> 0:20:08.800 be tongue in cheek. I don't know, But what made 0:20:08.800 --> 0:20:10.720 you put it through a Latin beat like that? I 0:20:10.760 --> 0:20:13.320 don't know. It's just I just thought it would be fun, 0:20:14.160 --> 0:20:16.439 you know, I mean it's funny. People say why did 0:20:16.440 --> 0:20:17.879 you do this? And why did you do it this 0:20:17.920 --> 0:20:19.760 way all that way? And usually it's just well, I 0:20:19.880 --> 0:20:22.320 just thought it would be fun. But occurred to you, Yeah, 0:20:22.359 --> 0:20:24.520 I thought it would be worth a try. Why not? 0:20:24.720 --> 0:20:49.639 What the hell coming up? Joe Jackson reflects and what 0:20:49.720 --> 0:20:53.000 it was like working with Francis Ford Coppola. To hear 0:20:53.119 --> 0:20:56.760 from another musical legend as well as pianist. Take a 0:20:56.800 --> 0:20:59.240 listen to my interview with Billy Joel. I know what 0:20:59.320 --> 0:21:02.080 good piano ling is, and I'm not good. My left 0:21:02.119 --> 0:21:05.600 hand is lame. I'm a two finger left hand piano player, 0:21:05.800 --> 0:21:08.080 as opposed to post somebody who knows what they're doing 0:21:08.080 --> 0:21:11.560 with the left hand. I never practiced enough to use 0:21:11.600 --> 0:21:13.320 all my fingers on my left hand, so I just 0:21:13.359 --> 0:21:17.639 play octaves, bass notes. My right hand tries to compensate 0:21:17.680 --> 0:21:20.960 from my left hand being so gimpy, so I overplay 0:21:20.960 --> 0:21:23.320 on my right hand. My technique is horrible. I can't 0:21:23.359 --> 0:21:27.000 read music. I never really don't read music I used to, 0:21:27.119 --> 0:21:31.000 but I don't anymore. I forgot how here our entire 0:21:31.119 --> 0:21:36.960 conversation that here's the thing, Dot Org, this is Alec 0:21:37.000 --> 0:21:40.480