Speaker 1: The Craig Ferguson Pants on Fire Tour is on sale now.
Speaker 1: It's a new show, it's new material, but I'm afraid
Speaker 1: it's still only me, Craig Ferguson on my own, standing
Speaker 1: on a stage telling comedy words. Come and see me,
Speaker 1: buy tickets, bring your loved ones, or don't come and
Speaker 1: see me. Don't buy tickets and don't bring your loved ones.
Speaker 1: I'm not your dad. You come or don't come, but
Speaker 1: you should at least know what's happening, and it is.
Speaker 1: The tour kicks off late September and goes through the
Speaker 1: end of the year and beyond. Tickets are available at
Speaker 1: the Craig Ferguson Show dot com slash tour. They are
Speaker 1: available at the Craig Ferguson show dot com slash tour
Speaker 1: or at your local outlet in your region. My name
Speaker 1: is Craig Ferguson. The name of this podcast is Joy.
Speaker 1: I talk to interest in people about what brings them happiness.
Speaker 1: My guest today is one of the to my mind,
Speaker 1: one of the most important artists working in America today.
Speaker 1: He is a singer, he's a songwriter, he is a composer,
Speaker 1: and I you know, I'm not really that comfortable around
Speaker 1: people with great talent, but he's very personal, as you
Speaker 1: will see. Let me tell you what I'm doing, which
Speaker 1: is I'm breaking my rules by A. I really wanted
Speaker 1: to talk to you in person because I feel like
Speaker 1: that helps, and B or two I don't normally. There's
Speaker 1: a couple of people that I've never ever wanted. I
Speaker 1: kind of break my own rules a little bit. I
Speaker 1: never invited David Bowie on my old late night show
Speaker 1: because I thought, what if it doesn't work out, what
Speaker 1: if he's what if he's heard it? And I've had
Speaker 1: the same problem with you and Sting You David boy
Speaker 1: and Sting. I'm like, I don't know if it's gonna work. Yeah,
Speaker 1: so this is really if it works okay with you,
Speaker 1: then our books thing. But other than that, a coupled
Speaker 1: coupled white male. Uh, you worked with him, then you
Speaker 1: didn't you do a tour together with why?
Speaker 2: I worked with with Sting a few times, and and
Speaker 2: I knew David somewhat.
Speaker 1: He he he.
Speaker 2: Came to a few of my shows back in the day,
Speaker 2: and and uh and and we actually even had a
Speaker 2: bit of a of a not a disagreement, but a
Speaker 2: misunderstanding at one point early on, which which was very exciting.
Speaker 1: It sounds very exciting. Yeah, could I ask what it
Speaker 1: was about? Yeah, No, it was, it was, it was,
Speaker 1: it was.
Speaker 2: What what had happened is that we were both doing
Speaker 2: this Tibet House benefit.
Speaker 1: I was very young.
Speaker 2: I was I think I was twenty three or something,
Speaker 2: and we were both doing this benefit, and I was
Speaker 2: also making an album at the time. I was making
Speaker 2: Want One. I was a little older than twenty. I
Speaker 2: was more anyways, So so I'm getting I'm getting up
Speaker 2: there and I'm sixty's it's crazy. But anyways, but I
Speaker 2: was making a record, and I was using a lot
Speaker 2: of David's musicians, most notably this great guy called Oh God,
Speaker 2: now okay, now it's going to happen.
Speaker 1: Great guitar players. Spooky Ghost is.
Speaker 2: Jerry Leonard, great guitar player, and and and then I
Speaker 2: had his drummer and so forth. And I think David
Speaker 2: Bowie felt a little bit scared that I was poaching
Speaker 2: his band, his band at the time, like which I
Speaker 2: wasn't aware of, but he was. That was sort of
Speaker 2: an underlying thing that he had. Anyways, We're doing the
Speaker 2: show together for the Tibet House benefit, and there was
Speaker 2: this quartet, a string quartet that was playing. It was
Speaker 2: also that David Bowie had brought in to do with
Speaker 2: him and and and I said, well, there's a quartet available,
Speaker 2: maybe I'll do something with the quartet as well, because
Speaker 2: and it was kind of offered in that way. So
Speaker 2: so I rehearsed with the quartet, gave them something to do.
Speaker 2: And then the first time I met David Bowie, who
Speaker 2: when he was sitting there, he was thinking, this guy
Speaker 2: is trying to steal on my musicians, you know. He
Speaker 2: was just like that. The first thing I said to
Speaker 2: him was, hey, David, thank you so much for letting
Speaker 2: me work with your musicians. Like it was the first
Speaker 2: guy I brought up. And it kind of took the
Speaker 2: and I was talking about the quartet just because they
Speaker 2: were there. But then he used to have this woman
Speaker 2: with him, Coco, who would hang out, who was sort
Speaker 2: of his protector, this woman, and she yeah, and she
Speaker 2: immediately shielded him from me and was like get away,
Speaker 2: and like, don't you know, I don't know, so so
Speaker 2: I so so it was. It was it was not
Speaker 2: a great first meeting, but then subsequently he we we
Speaker 2: he understood that I wasn't going to steal his entire band,
Speaker 2: and uh and and then he you know, was fine.
Speaker 2: He came to a lot of shows and and in
Speaker 2: a way, It's.
Speaker 1: Funny because I always sort of imagine musicians to have
Speaker 1: a sort of collegiate uh environment where they are quite
Speaker 1: open and collaborative with each other. But I suspect maybe,
Speaker 1: as you there may be egos involved as well, maybe
Speaker 1: slightly slightly.
Speaker 2: I mean, look, you I what what always struck me
Speaker 2: the most about David is how almost childlike he was still,
Speaker 2: I mean in the sense that he was he still
Speaker 2: has such a sense of wonder about everything. Like when
Speaker 2: he went to see my show and I get in
Speaker 2: and I think he enjoyed it. I could really tell
Speaker 2: that he was dumbfounded by what he saw, and I'm
Speaker 2: sure was that's the way he was like with a
Speaker 2: lot of things that he loved. You know, it was
Speaker 2: like a genuine kind of openness, and but that comes,
Speaker 2: you know, with also a little bit of you know,
Speaker 2: childlike anger.
Speaker 1: Yeah. It's interesting because I wonder if you have the
Speaker 1: same if you have the same thing, because you you
Speaker 1: travel across many different type genres of music. It seems
Speaker 1: to me effortlessly like you, like you, you just inhabit
Speaker 1: one and then move to another. You you can move
Speaker 1: from folk to jazz to you know, Broadway kind of
Speaker 1: rasthmatize and remain yourself within it. Is that is there
Speaker 1: a sense of do you have a sense of wonder
Speaker 1: about it? Do you retain a sense of wonder a bit?
Speaker 2: Well, I have to maintain a sense of wonder about
Speaker 2: everything in my life in order or not to you know,
Speaker 2: I'm not gonna say slit my wrist. That's a little
Speaker 2: over dramatic, but but you know, to certainly I understand,
Speaker 2: to certainly function, I I I have to keep that
Speaker 2: spark going and and yes, it enables me to I think.
Speaker 2: I think what I've managed to do, which is pretty good,
Speaker 2: is that I've managed to sort of you know, I
Speaker 2: dropped out of school twice, like I first I dropped
Speaker 2: out of music school and then I dropped out of
Speaker 2: art school. Like I never received a major education in
Speaker 2: the you know, in college. And I think that was
Speaker 2: a real saving grace because for me, because therefore I
Speaker 2: never really felt like I totally knew what was happening
Speaker 2: or what I was doing or like, I never had
Speaker 2: a degree to be like, no, I'm it's official, because
Speaker 2: I would find that so I'm always so I always
Speaker 2: feel like i'm I'm learning as I go along, and
Speaker 2: that's yeah, I think it's important to try to remain
Speaker 2: ignorant a little bit.
Speaker 1: I'm fascinated by that take on it because I how
Speaker 1: how you know your experience of you? Because I find
Speaker 1: you like, I mean, I know and love your work,
Speaker 1: but I knew next to nothing about you. I mean,
Speaker 1: I know of what's available on the internet, but I
Speaker 1: feel like your work and in a way I know
Speaker 1: that it's probably a comparison that's done a lot. But
Speaker 1: but I had the same kind of feeling with Leonard
Speaker 1: Cohan's work that I felt there was a kind of, uh,
Speaker 1: there was a kind of humorous, almost Gothic menace with it,
Speaker 1: with a sense of fun which I could never quite
Speaker 1: pin down. I feel like it's it's contained somewhere in
Speaker 1: a in a minor chord somewhere, or maybe it's a
Speaker 1: or maybe it's maybe it's that that super kind of
Speaker 1: uh weird Canadian intellectual world that I find fascinating. Yeah, well,
Speaker 1: it's a little bit the Canadian.
Speaker 2: I think the Canadian aspect cannot be underestimated in the
Speaker 2: sense that, look, I don't I was born in the US.
Speaker 2: I was born in New York. My dad's loud and
Speaker 2: is American, has lived in New York his whole life.
Speaker 2: But my mother, Kate mcgarago, was Canadian. And yes, when
Speaker 2: when when I was when my parents divorced, I moved
Speaker 2: to Canada and was brought up there mainly. And I
Speaker 2: do feel that there is this kind of and it
Speaker 2: kind of also interestingly enough, relates to Scotland and to England.
Speaker 2: Is that, you know, growing up and the fact that
Speaker 2: it was Quebec, which ad has a whole other with
Speaker 2: the whole French thing, is that you're in this strange
Speaker 2: world where you're part of a faded empire, you know.
Speaker 2: And it's even more it was much more pronounced, like
Speaker 2: in the eighties, it was so pronounced in Canada as
Speaker 2: opposed to in England, where it was it had become
Speaker 2: sort of you know, they'd had enough and uh, and
Speaker 2: certainly in Scotland and and but it was still so
Speaker 2: trying to be English. But then you're right next to
Speaker 2: the United States, you know, which is just so dominant.
Speaker 2: And then I was also in Quebec, so we're all
Speaker 2: doing this in French and and so you get developed
Speaker 2: this strange perspective I guess, of of both, you know,
Speaker 2: being in the middle of everything and also being totally
Speaker 2: and nobody can understand where you come from. So it's
Speaker 2: so it's it's a it's ah. Yeah. Being Canadian has
Speaker 2: definitely influenced me as.
Speaker 1: It has a weird kind of I wonder if it's
Speaker 1: something to do with the darkness. I always think that
Speaker 1: in Scotland, just the fact that there's no light for
Speaker 1: half a year really and it somehow it makes a
Speaker 1: different sort of person.
Speaker 2: What's interesting is growing up in Quebec in Canada and
Speaker 2: we had incredibly cold winters, which sadly I don't think
Speaker 2: there's as cold as they used to be, but they were,
Speaker 2: you know, this these Gothic called winters with a lot
Speaker 2: of snow and the whole thing of like how Russia.
Speaker 2: You know that whatever the Soviet Union was, this evil
Speaker 2: empire that you know that nobody could understand.
Speaker 1: We kind of got it.
Speaker 2: We were like we kind of related more to the
Speaker 2: Soviet Union in terms of what we had to go
Speaker 2: through in terms of winter, because at least even you,
Speaker 2: even you guys had like the Gulf Stream, you know, right,
Speaker 2: we would.
Speaker 1: Get a lid a little bit of beach there.
Speaker 2: Yeah, yeah, so we kind of understood that that me.
Speaker 1: Have you been to Russia?
Speaker 2: I went once, Yeah, many many years ago, and it
Speaker 2: was amazing.
Speaker 1: And I found it fascinating because I grew up I'm
Speaker 1: older than you, but I grew up with the same
Speaker 1: information about you know, these people are the evil different
Speaker 1: this is the Soviet thing was. It's very sterile, and
Speaker 1: they're all kind of like autraumatons and yeah, frightening. And
Speaker 1: I went there and it's very Did you go to Moscow? Yeah,
Speaker 1: I went to mind Did you go to the because
Speaker 1: I went to Red Square in Moscow? I thought it
Speaker 1: was it's about it's it seems to me very high arch. Yeah, yeah, yeah,
Speaker 1: it was fabulous. Yeah, well I would.
Speaker 2: I mean I remember flying into Russia, flying to Russia
Speaker 2: and definitely getting the sense that you were going into
Speaker 2: another universe, you know, like, yeah, it was, it was,
Speaker 2: it was. It has nothing to do. I mean, it's
Speaker 2: it's it's it's own, it's its own planet in a
Speaker 2: lot of ways, and and and you know, and then
Speaker 2: once I got there, I I I felt it it
Speaker 2: was even more pronounced. What I will say, though, is
Speaker 2: that of late and I don't know, I'm just going
Speaker 2: on and on because I tend to do that, is
Speaker 2: that I was just in Greece for a wedding, and uh,
Speaker 2: and I'd never been to a Greek Orthodox wedding. I've
Speaker 2: been to a lot of Catholic weddings, into a lot
Speaker 2: of you know, Protestant wedding or whatever, but I'd never
Speaker 2: been to a Greek Orthodox one.
Speaker 1: And it really.
Speaker 2: Struck me how different it was from from the you know,
Speaker 2: the West, how different the Eastern churches from the Western Church.
Speaker 2: It says that there's it's such a divide, and and
Speaker 2: I know it's sort of harkened back to that.
Speaker 1: That's what the difference is. It's that do you do
Speaker 1: you have a connection to a church? Are you?
Speaker 2: No?
Speaker 1: I don't. I mean, I look, I was I was
Speaker 1: brought up in a very Catholic place.
Speaker 2: I went to Catholic school. I was never baptized. You know,
Speaker 2: my mother was was highly affected by the church. You know,
Speaker 2: she's brought up by nuns and somewhat traumatized by that.
Speaker 2: And uh and and for instance, recently I wrote a
Speaker 2: requiem mass so that the premiered in Paris.
Speaker 1: Uh.
Speaker 2: And it's actually going to be in l A at
Speaker 2: at Disney Hall in May with it has a narrator
Speaker 2: part in it, and Jane Fonda will be the narrator.
Speaker 1: That's tough. Yeah, yes, I was going.
Speaker 2: To I was going to offer myself up, but well,
Speaker 2: you know what, you know what she did. That's precisely
Speaker 2: what she did. Yeah, because I was at an event
Speaker 2: with her. I didn't know her too well, but we
Speaker 2: were just talking and and and then I said, oh, yeah,
Speaker 2: we just we just come. I was just in Paris
Speaker 2: where we was premiered the Wreque. It's called the Dream
Speaker 2: Requiem and and there's a narrator part in it, and
Speaker 2: in Paris it was Meryl Streep.
Speaker 1: Did it in Paris?
Speaker 2: Okay, So and I said, and I said, you know, Jane,
Speaker 2: we're going to bring it to l A. And we're
Speaker 2: going to do it at Disney Hall. And then Jane went,
Speaker 2: I'm doing it. I was like what She's like, I'm
Speaker 2: doing it And she immediately hired herself.
Speaker 1: And I was like, okay, yeah, yeah, I guess I forget.
Speaker 1: I guess that's it.
Speaker 2: But but pertaining to the religious thing, yeah, that's sort
Speaker 2: of I'm not religious, but I'm I'm I'm affected by
Speaker 2: it somehow.
Speaker 1: Do you have a belief system that connects to a deity.
Speaker 2: I'm definitely not. I'm definitely not an atheist. I have
Speaker 2: a strange kind of childlike wonder, hope whatever that they're
Speaker 2: that everything is connected and everything has a reason and
Speaker 2: and I'm able to sort of tie that together with
Speaker 2: my music and and and with my career at all.
Speaker 2: It's always you know, uh that I wouldn't say nicely,
Speaker 2: but it's but it's it's it's always managed to come together,
Speaker 2: should we say.
Speaker 1: And you have a kind of it also didact isn't
Speaker 1: the right word, but you have a quite but you
Speaker 1: have a didactic career. Anyway, you have an odd kind
Speaker 1: of are you looking for something that? Are you looking
Speaker 1: for something? In the music?
Speaker 2: I'm a three headed monster because I have there's a
Speaker 2: and they're all very separated.
Speaker 1: Uh.
Speaker 2: One of them is a singer, you know, I'm a
Speaker 2: I'm a I'm a real singer. Like I sing my
Speaker 2: work and I sing other people's work. And stuff, and
Speaker 2: that is its own animal, who I know very little about,
Speaker 2: you know. It's it's kind of this creature that you know,
Speaker 2: appears and I kind of just have to ride, you know,
Speaker 2: and make sure that you know, to put it back
Speaker 2: or doesn't or doesn't devour other people. So so it's
Speaker 2: this there's this animalistic side. Then there's the songwriter, you know,
Speaker 2: which is more sort of like where I come from,
Speaker 2: like my family. It's like our trade, you know. It's
Speaker 2: like my sisters do it, my parents did it. It's
Speaker 2: what I learned how to do and and I love
Speaker 2: doing it and so forth. And then there's the composer
Speaker 2: wanting to be a composer. I think that's really me in.
Speaker 1: Terms of composer. Yeah, well that's what I want to
Speaker 1: do as a human being.
Speaker 2: I was like, I want to I would like to
Speaker 2: be a composer, and I've I've managed to do that somewhat.
Speaker 2: It's not all I do, but I mean, I'm talking
Speaker 2: up the stream requiem a lot, but it's just it's
Speaker 2: a big deal for me.
Speaker 1: So no, it is a big deal. But to write
Speaker 1: a requiem mass is almost like it it one we're
Speaker 1: thinking it was. It's kind of an act of devotion
Speaker 1: in a way.
Speaker 2: Right, Well, no, no, what's odd about it is that
Speaker 2: you know I wrote, I wrote a lot of it
Speaker 2: here in l A. There's a beautiful mansion in Silver
Speaker 2: like called the Paramour Estate, which is this old. It
Speaker 2: looks like something from Sunset Boulevard. It's up on top
Speaker 2: of a hill with these incredible views. And uh and
Speaker 2: I was and the owner of this wonderful woman, Dana,
Speaker 2: she let me use the a wing of the estate
Speaker 2: to compose the requiem. And I was there for a
Speaker 2: long time for months, and especially the I don't know
Speaker 2: if you remember if you live in a right you live.
Speaker 1: I have done. I don't anymore.
Speaker 2: But there was a there was a there was a
Speaker 2: winter like a couple of years ago where it was
Speaker 2: just raining, and it was when there was like ten
Speaker 2: feet of snow in the mountains like people.
Speaker 1: I think it was webs.
Speaker 2: So I was kind of shacked up in this in
Speaker 2: this estate. And the estate, after it had been privately owned,
Speaker 2: had been turned into into a Catholic girls school. So
Speaker 2: there was all these crosses, and you know, Virgin Mary's everywhere,
Speaker 2: and and and and it just I don't know it
Speaker 2: just poured out of me all of these religious kind
Speaker 2: of feelings, and especially you know, working with the Mass
Speaker 2: and the Latin Mass, and really and and and I
Speaker 2: was a little frightened at how easily it it came forth.
Speaker 2: And and in the end I decided, you know, I
Speaker 2: may not be you know, Catholic or anything, but but
Speaker 2: I would say that certainly, in the world we live
Speaker 2: in right now, which is so crazy and so you know, troubling,
Speaker 2: there is a need for some Christian, real Christian values.
Speaker 2: And I'm not talking about the church. I'm not talking
Speaker 2: about you know, but just just like good you know
Speaker 2: that shall not kill you know, you know everyone you know,
Speaker 2: and you know, let's save the poor and be good
Speaker 2: to the poor, and like, you know, these kind of
Speaker 2: simple Christian things which are very touching and and we
Speaker 2: and the world still needs even though you know you
Speaker 2: don't have to do it as a religious person necessarily,
Speaker 2: and even the religious people aren't doing it right now, which.
Speaker 1: Is it's a real it's a real conflict. Do you
Speaker 1: I wonder if you're talking about living in the wing
Speaker 1: of this like mad old mansion as you as you
Speaker 1: write that, this uh, this Requiem Mass whenever I write,
Speaker 1: or if I talk to people who I write, Pruves
Speaker 1: and other people who write Prus the US. Music as
Speaker 1: as a place to go. A lot of people use
Speaker 1: music as a place to go to to go to
Speaker 1: a place of inspiration or a place where the doors
Speaker 1: open up, or or to put yourself somewhere else. And
Speaker 1: I wonder if that's possible for a musician to do,
Speaker 1: or if there's some kind of other stimulus that has
Speaker 1: to that has to be It is the silence, the
Speaker 1: something that does it is the music inside your head.
Speaker 1: Already it used to be alcohol and drugs. Well, and
Speaker 1: that was a great That was a great one. Yeah,
Speaker 1: that did the trick.
Speaker 2: Now not now, not not as much so, So I
Speaker 2: would say, you know, it's funny because I mean, once
Speaker 2: we get into that conversation, I mean, I you know,
Speaker 2: I certainly I was afraid, you know, when I quit
Speaker 2: drinking a long time ago, that that I wouldn't be
Speaker 2: uh inspired, and I wouldn't be able to find you know,
Speaker 2: and you know and get into that that that that
Speaker 2: place I have found. Actually now that aging is the
Speaker 2: new kind of like hing of like not feeling so strong,
Speaker 2: not feeling more vulnerable, seeing your child have complete control
Speaker 2: over you, you know, and uh and just and and
Speaker 2: it's sort of and then that's when I kind of
Speaker 2: cling to songwriting into you know, lyrics and stuff and
Speaker 2: and and or going to a concert and hearing I
Speaker 2: find myself much more inspired now in a deep way,
Speaker 2: by by by by what's happen, by what's happening around me,
Speaker 2: because I I've gotten a little older and I kind
Speaker 2: of understand it more and it's therefore it's more frightening.
Speaker 1: Yeah, I I think I think the aging thing is
Speaker 1: is a fabulously interested in vain because I always thought
Speaker 1: I actually I have a tattoo right here where I
Speaker 1: normally wear my watch of Saturn, the Bringer of old Age,
Speaker 1: and you know, and and these Saturn and hosts. The
Speaker 1: Planet Suites was was kind of what got me onto
Speaker 1: it because in the Planet Suite with all the kind
Speaker 1: of rumpty tumpty, and then the Saturn piece of music
Speaker 1: is so weird. It's and I feel that aging is.
Speaker 1: I think you really nailed that. These kind of weird
Speaker 1: pushing minor chords, and it's like it's very very odd.
Speaker 1: It's not just the mortality aspect of it. It's the
Speaker 1: whole kind of this is.
Speaker 2: Well, this is it's also the gifts that you from
Speaker 2: from having survived and you know, gone through these experiences.
Speaker 1: I mean, I one thing for me that was so.
Speaker 2: Necessary and and kind of thought out when I started
Speaker 2: my career was was that, you know, I wasn't going
Speaker 2: to be this kind of rock and roll tragedy where
Speaker 2: I was, you know, the sort of flair that goes
Speaker 2: up and it's amazing, and then you know, who knows
Speaker 2: what could happen. You know, you either disappear, or you die,
Speaker 2: or you kind of get bitter or something. And that's
Speaker 2: sort of why I gravitated more towards classical music as
Speaker 2: like my main love and opera and stuff, because in
Speaker 2: that world, all the best music, all the greatest music,
Speaker 2: is written when you're old. Like all the great composers,
Speaker 2: the heavyweights, they're all it's always at the end of
Speaker 2: their life where they finally kind of get into this
Speaker 2: serious space of you know, contemplation or whatever. And so
Speaker 2: I'm you know, I makes a great Yeah, I've always got.
Speaker 1: It makes a great deal of sense. I mean, especially
Speaker 1: if you look at the rokers that do survive, they
Speaker 1: tend to play the songs that they were they wrote
Speaker 1: when they were, you know, in their early twenties, and
Speaker 1: the Rolling Stones are still singing I can't get no satisfied. Yeah, yeah, yeah,
Speaker 1: you know after sixty years ago they wrote that song.
Speaker 1: I mean, and it's great, and that's a great song.
Speaker 1: But but if but if you want to, I wonder
Speaker 1: sometimes what it feels like to be connected so much
Speaker 1: to a piece of your life which is so distant.
Speaker 2: Yeah, it's it's sort of I mean, I it's funny
Speaker 2: you mentioned that, because it is. I feel so fortunate.
Speaker 2: I mean, look, I had I had a lot of
Speaker 2: success when I started out, and but I never quite
Speaker 2: was I never kind of hit the summit, you know
Speaker 2: that that that that of you know, pop hitness or whatever.
Speaker 2: And uh and I that was the greatest godsend that
Speaker 2: I could have ever wished for as an artist, because
Speaker 2: I've always been able to just explore and and go
Speaker 2: further into these other different without having to you know, Harke.
Speaker 2: I mean, there's a couple of songs like everybody wants
Speaker 2: to hear me saying Hallelujah, Okay, we'll do that, and
Speaker 2: maybe cigarettes and chocolate milk. Composers like these kind of things.
Speaker 2: But it's not. But I'm not. My whole career is
Speaker 2: dominated by those by that, by that work. So it's
Speaker 2: so it's I'm very fortunate in that way. I mean,
Speaker 2: I would have loved the you know, financial perks of
Speaker 2: having you know, written hallelujah.
Speaker 1: But but but but what I don't know though. I
Speaker 1: mean I I know quite a few very rich artists, yeah,
Speaker 1: who who I think would be much happier in your
Speaker 1: shoes if you less million dollars. Yeah, totally. I think
Speaker 1: that the the problem is that it particularly now, I
Speaker 1: don't know if you get any pressure to do this.
Speaker 1: I suspect no, because I think I think you exist.
Speaker 1: I see the way I see you, and this may
Speaker 1: not be how you are, but the way I see
Speaker 1: you is you. You live within your own world. You
Speaker 1: you said the you set the limits to what you
Speaker 1: want to do. I I find myself constantly fighting with
Speaker 1: people about can you post this? And Instagram? Can you
Speaker 1: do that?
Speaker 2: And I'm like, yeah, I mean yeah, I mean I
Speaker 2: have to do that as well. Okay, so that makes
Speaker 2: me feel no, no, you have to you have to
Speaker 2: kind of play that game a little bit. And but yes,
Speaker 2: in the end, of the day.
Speaker 1: I have not.
Speaker 2: I never whatever. I never took a bite out of
Speaker 2: the apple or whatever.
Speaker 1: You know.
Speaker 2: I I just I just stayed true to you know,
Speaker 2: what I wanted to do artistically and in a lot
Speaker 2: of ways, not out of desire. It was just I
Speaker 2: didn't know how to do anything else, you know, I
Speaker 2: I was you know, I wasn't particularly I just was
Speaker 2: so driven by what I heard and saw that I
Speaker 2: that I just had to go that way.
Speaker 1: Well I think that's an artistic impulse, though, isn't it.
Speaker 1: I mean, I think that's what that's the gift of being,
Speaker 1: of being like that.
Speaker 2: I mean, it's funny because there's people, I mean, look,
Speaker 2: I know, you know, I'm very good friends with Neil
Speaker 2: Tennant from the from the petch Up Boys, and and
Speaker 2: he's a dear friend, and he's he was, yeah, and
Speaker 2: he's my favorite person to talk to about all things
Speaker 2: kind of cultural and historical and.
Speaker 1: Especially to do with show business and so forth.
Speaker 2: And he you know, really he started as a journalist
Speaker 2: and he and he wrote about you know, pop, the
Speaker 2: pop world and and and so for him, like having
Speaker 2: a pop hit was such a huge deal and and
Speaker 2: really all that he what what he dreamt about. He
Speaker 2: still knows about great music and great art and stuff
Speaker 2: like that. But he was you have to be invested
Speaker 2: in it, and he was still very much invested in
Speaker 2: it and he got it and I was never invested
Speaker 2: in it, you know.
Speaker 1: And yeah, well you come from the strange dark French
Speaker 1: English politician Canada. You know, there's daylight nighttime, but you
Speaker 1: know it's I I don't know. I I imagine you live
Speaker 1: in a you know, in some kind of castle. The
Speaker 1: books are helping.
Speaker 2: Castle esque. Actually actually sang it Hurst Castle over the weekend. Yeah,
Speaker 2: I was up there. I was invited to sing in
Speaker 2: the dining and then they call it the refector reflector
Speaker 2: reflect refectory, refectory. Okay, yeah, but it's it's the dining room.
Speaker 2: But I sang. I sang there, and that was that
Speaker 2: was pretty wild because when you think of who had
Speaker 2: hung out up there, and you know.
Speaker 1: It's a bit I'm fascinated about that time. Actually, this
Speaker 1: is my this is my pitch to you. Actually, this
Speaker 1: is what I think I am. I'd be saying this
Speaker 1: to everybody because of what's going on right now, Like
Speaker 1: everyone's saying, oh, it's so crazy, the politics have never
Speaker 1: been so crazy, and it's so bad. I've got into
Speaker 1: reading Gorfy Dolls Narratives of Empire. These it's like seven
Speaker 1: novels set from you know, America. I think it was
Speaker 1: all the way up to Watergate, from the beginning of America.
Speaker 1: And have you read them? I haven't read them. I
Speaker 1: mean I have a big pho. You've got to read them,
Speaker 1: or because they have such a in a weird way.
Speaker 1: I always found gour Vidal's very reassuring anyway, because I thought,
Speaker 1: for somebody that clever around, it will be all right.
Speaker 1: And he he writes so well about the craziness that
Speaker 1: America has been going through since the beginning. Yeah, and
Speaker 1: and and I found it. I find that the it
Speaker 1: has a real gothic quality about it as well. Yeah.
Speaker 2: Well, I mean I think, no, go ahead, no, no,
Speaker 2: I think I think you're you're correct. I mean, it's
Speaker 2: it's this. I mean, yes, we're we're gearing up for
Speaker 2: will probably be a very violent, you know period with
Speaker 2: the rhetoric is very violent, but there's been periods that
Speaker 2: have been way more violent. I mean, the whole thing
Speaker 2: of assassinations and people are getting made up and like
Speaker 2: mobs and stuff. It's it's very much part of American
Speaker 2: culture and part of world culture.
Speaker 1: I mean, it's it's part of humans. It's the fight
Speaker 1: against that, the fight against the you know, that kind
Speaker 1: of impulse in darkness is is on a big level,
Speaker 1: you know, on on a societal level. It's it's it's
Speaker 1: hard to change, as what you talked about earlier, the
Speaker 1: idea of moving from the self destruction of the alcohol
Speaker 1: and the drugs and all that kind of stuff and
Speaker 1: moving away from it because it feels like agency. I
Speaker 1: think that's why people are so attracted to, you know,
Speaker 1: that kind of rhetoric and violence, because it feels like
Speaker 1: you have agency in the world and perhaps you don't
Speaker 1: really And and I think that I felt the same.
Speaker 1: I got sober thirty two years ago, and it was
Speaker 1: I felt the same thing that I thought, Well, I
Speaker 1: don't know who I am if I if I'm not drinking,
Speaker 1: and you know, in party and who am I and
Speaker 1: and whatever. I always thought I was much funnier when
Speaker 1: I was drunk, and when I got sober, I didn't
Speaker 1: think I was as funny. But a lot of people
Speaker 1: who saw theeople.
Speaker 2: Like yah, yeah, perspective yeah, I know it is. It
Speaker 2: is so interesting because I even I have the same
Speaker 2: thing I I want. I always feel like I feel
Speaker 2: as though I was much funnier when I was stone
Speaker 2: and stuff. But I looked then at footage, you know,
Speaker 2: because for me it's been a long time as well.
Speaker 2: But I look at footage and and I'm hilarious all
Speaker 2: the time, you know, I mean, this is my my
Speaker 2: very nature is hilarious, you know, just to this whatever
Speaker 2: the voice, the way I kind twiddling around, and the
Speaker 2: way I see things, and and it's me, you know,
Speaker 2: and it's I'm not trying to you know, it's not
Speaker 2: an act, which which which is always funnier when it's
Speaker 2: not an act.
Speaker 1: I think the truth is much funnier. It's much harder
Speaker 1: to believe. But that also that that authenticity in that
Speaker 1: truth is going to lead you to I think it
Speaker 1: seems to have led you to the gothic mansion in
Speaker 1: Los Angeles where you write the Requiem mass or singing
Speaker 1: at Hurst Castle or not, you know, writing a surefire
Speaker 1: talp album that will get you the you know, the
Speaker 1: arena tour. And I don't know, I think there's a
Speaker 1: limit to what money can do. For you.
Speaker 2: Well, I think it's also it becomes your your drug
Speaker 2: of choice, then becomes artistic exploration. I mean, I mean,
Speaker 2: I'm you know if I'm like one of my greatest
Speaker 2: stories ever for me in terms of getting sober and
Speaker 2: what that meant, and something that I think about all
Speaker 2: the time is that I was many years ago, I
Speaker 2: was super high and drunk and stuff, and I went
Speaker 2: to see this production of Elektra the Opera Electra by
Speaker 2: Strauss and it was an amazing evening and it was
Speaker 2: so wild and crazy and my head exploded and all
Speaker 2: of that, and I really loved it. And then a
Speaker 2: few months later I had went to rehab and got sober,
Speaker 2: cut to uh, you know, a few months later go
Speaker 2: to the same production of Elektra.
Speaker 1: Because it was still at the opera.
Speaker 2: It was just as amazing and my head was just
Speaker 2: as blown, and it was the art that kind of
Speaker 2: went searing through and it was just and for me,
Speaker 2: there was such an emblematic experience of like, Okay, you
Speaker 2: don't need whatever, just focus on that, you know, because
Speaker 2: it has all the power.
Speaker 1: Whenever I talk to someone who's getting sober, who's artistic,
Speaker 1: and the the worry is always that is that I
Speaker 1: won't be able to create. I won't be able to
Speaker 1: write or sing or play the guitar or whatever it is,
Speaker 1: and or paint or And it always seems to me
Speaker 1: that artists really interest in artists who are who are
Speaker 1: creating work while they are drunk and high, are creating
Speaker 1: network despite the fact that they are drunk and high,
Speaker 1: not because they are drunk. Yes, And and if you
Speaker 1: get if you are in a situation like that, then
Speaker 1: I think it it you get frozen, like you know,
Speaker 1: like you going, like you saying that you went, moving
Speaker 1: into classical music and becoming more you know, I'm getting
Speaker 1: older and weirder, you know, which is I think something
Speaker 1: that's hard to do if you're stuck in that.
Speaker 2: Well. The other thing too, The other thing too is
Speaker 2: that when I was in the pop world, and I
Speaker 2: still am occasionally, but it is more centered around not
Speaker 2: centered so much now, but but it's certainly back then
Speaker 2: about around about around drugs and alcohol. I mean, it
Speaker 2: was pure love and you know, smashing pumpkins and everybody
Speaker 2: and and uh, Jeff Buckley. So it was sort of
Speaker 2: this very hazy time and it was you know, fabulous
Speaker 2: in a lot of ways, and I wouldn't have it
Speaker 2: any other way. When you get into the classical world,
Speaker 2: drugs and alcohol have nothing to do with anything, like
Speaker 2: it's just it's a total other subject. Once you get
Speaker 2: on stage and you're rehearsing or you're composing something and
Speaker 2: you're presenting, it's just one hundred percent about the music
Speaker 2: and that's it and that, And I've just always that
Speaker 2: that has always been very that has helped me a
Speaker 2: lot to have.
Speaker 1: Yeah, I think also the collaborative nature. I mean, if
Speaker 1: you're working with a sixty piece orchestra, got it's now.
Speaker 1: And I think also the idea of collaboration with other
Speaker 1: people who are technically if not if they're not right
Speaker 1: in the piece is the way they can play. They're
Speaker 1: just as good as you in terms of being able
Speaker 1: to you know, better on the instrument.
Speaker 2: Yeah, better in a lot of cases, you know, in
Speaker 2: a lot of ways.
Speaker 1: And I think that that it's also like you want
Speaker 1: to bring your game up a little bit if you
Speaker 1: were around it. I think you're right. I think it
Speaker 1: becomes because I got sober when I was not when
Speaker 1: I was doing stand up, but I was doing a
Speaker 1: play I was doing I was doing the Rocky Horror
Speaker 1: Show in the West End in London, and there was
Speaker 1: a lot of moving parts and a lot of and
Speaker 1: there was a lot of you know, like, I don't
Speaker 1: think Richard O'Brien was sober at that point either. And
Speaker 1: but but you could get hurt if you were in
Speaker 1: the wrong place at the wrong time, if the machine
Speaker 1: came down and it kind of required you to be
Speaker 1: on top of it a little bit. Yeah, And I
Speaker 1: think that that's kind of encouraged me to also, I
Speaker 1: didn't when you see that look at disappointment on people
Speaker 1: who know you can do better. Yeah, the most horrible thing.
Speaker 1: Oh yeah, I know that. I know that, I know that. Yeah,
Speaker 1: it's it's my least favorite look. I try never to
Speaker 1: practice it on my children when I like, but if
Speaker 1: I really want to torture my boys, I'll say, you know,
Speaker 1: I'm not agree, I'm just disappointed to old of your boys. Now,
Speaker 1: I have a twenty three year old and a thirteen
Speaker 1: year old.
Speaker 2: Ah, so you're still in it. You're still in it? Well,
Speaker 2: I mean, yeah, I have a thirteen year old daughter.
Speaker 1: Right, Well you're dead that that's the in it and
Speaker 1: it's it's it's an interesting challenge with the generation, not
Speaker 1: so much the thirteen year olds. Now, like my thirteen
Speaker 1: year old, I feel like I can have a I
Speaker 1: have a direct and easier communication with him. Yeah, but
Speaker 1: the my older son is very much a generation which yeah,
Speaker 1: we we're great, were on fine, but it's it's a
Speaker 1: difficult generation for me to connect with. I have to
Speaker 1: I have to work out it a little bit because
Speaker 1: I feel like I can feign very easily. I don't
Speaker 1: want to do that. I don't want to hit people's
Speaker 1: feelings and I really genuinely don't and I feel like
Speaker 1: it's easy to do that. Yeah. Yeah with that, Yeah,
Speaker 1: I mean my my daughter.
Speaker 2: I think I think our thirteen year olds are in
Speaker 2: an interesting position because I think on one hand, there's
Speaker 2: just really tough what they've had to endure, what they've
Speaker 2: seen with you know, with the whole pandemic thing, and
Speaker 2: then you know Trump and you know, like like there's
Speaker 2: no sugar coating to to the world and phones and
Speaker 2: you know this, you know, like so so it's very
Speaker 2: they're on one hand and and the one time there's
Speaker 2: there's there's a lot of worries, especially I think with daughter,
Speaker 2: with with I think with girls, it's it's it's it's
Speaker 2: kind of well, I think actually it's actually bad with both.
Speaker 2: But but that being said, I think they're I think
Speaker 2: they have to be tough, which is a good thing,
Speaker 2: you know. I mean they have to you know, you know,
Speaker 2: they you know, they have to. They're not they're not
Speaker 2: having it handed to them.
Speaker 1: No, It's also it's also I mean, I'm very grateful
Speaker 1: that I came of age in a time when my
Speaker 1: behavior wasn't being digitized over. I mean, I made a
Speaker 1: fill of myself and a lot of a lot of
Speaker 1: evenings falling down. You know. Just the truth is I
Speaker 1: I sometimes like to talk of my drinking is and
Speaker 1: drugging is is kind of like a bad, wild, sort
Speaker 1: of crazy thing. But if it was just that, I'd
Speaker 1: probably still be doing it. It wasn't. It's kind of pathetic.
Speaker 1: It's it's the fetal position at four o'clock in the morning,
Speaker 1: you know, it's the it's the it's the incontinence of mouth,
Speaker 1: you know, speech and everywhere else. You know that the
Speaker 1: pathetic nature of it. I would hate to see that, yeah, now,
Speaker 1: you know, and I'd be embarrassed by I also think,
Speaker 1: you know, the idea of you know, people, I'm very
Speaker 1: glad that I got married and was in a stable
Speaker 1: relationship before dating apps as well, because I don't know
Speaker 1: how I wouldn't know how to do that. It seems
Speaker 1: it's yeah, it's a it's a law. And you know,
Speaker 1: junior high school is the world is junior high school? Yes, No,
Speaker 1: it certainly is. It certainly is. No, it's very yeah.
Speaker 2: And this is the thing also as talking when I
Speaker 2: spoke earlier about getting older, is is sort of the
Speaker 2: new drug. But it is this strange kind of thing
Speaker 2: where you become Now I do feel like the nerdy
Speaker 2: teenager in the corner, like while the party is going on,
Speaker 2: of like nobody's paying attention to me, and I'm like
Speaker 2: kind of a crush on you know whatever, like the
Speaker 2: football player. Like it's like, it's just it's just it's
Speaker 2: it's it's I've just reverted back to that that state,
Speaker 2: which is horrible in certain ways, but it's also you're
Speaker 2: really looking at the you're kind of fascinated by the
Speaker 2: world as well. Like I've know's it's it's less it's
Speaker 2: because it's more more scary. It's it then becomes more interesting.
Speaker 1: Well, it contains, it contains terrors that I hadn't I
Speaker 1: hadn't kind of done the idea of my own you know,
Speaker 1: crumbling is less frightening to me than the fact that
Speaker 1: you know, I have children and I you know, I
Speaker 1: love them more than I can understand. I don't know
Speaker 1: what to do with that, and and to have that
Speaker 1: kind of man, yeah, to hang around. It's it's a strange.
Speaker 1: It's a strangeness. But I think I think I quite
Speaker 1: like getting older. Yeah, if I'm honest, No, I I do.
Speaker 2: I mean I just hit fifty one, and I will
Speaker 2: say that my I loved my forties. They were Yeah,
Speaker 2: they were just flying high, gliding through, you know, checking
Speaker 2: out the scene. You know, it was just looking great,
Speaker 2: feeling fine. You know, it was just it was just amazing.
Speaker 2: Fift Then you hit the fifties and you really like
Speaker 2: you hit it and and it's only because it's not
Speaker 2: because you feel totally different, but there's a slight change.
Speaker 2: It's a very slight change, and just and you just
Speaker 2: start to have thoughts like you know, that little pain
Speaker 2: could be my death. Like yeah, like like like there's
Speaker 2: it could happen, you know, And it's and it's just
Speaker 2: so there's just this I think the early I'm imagining,
Speaker 2: and you can tell me that the early fifties are
Speaker 2: tricky because you just start to sort of like, yeah,
Speaker 2: there's these little bells that go off, and you're like, oh,
Speaker 2: I imagine that. By the end of your fifties, s's
Speaker 2: just like whatever.
Speaker 1: You kind of get used to it. Okay, I felt
Speaker 1: like my fifties, but end of my fifties that was
Speaker 1: used to it. When I turned fifty, I was I
Speaker 1: was crazed. I didn't even want to talk about it.
Speaker 1: When I turned sixty, I was like I don't Yeah,
Speaker 1: And now that I'm sixty two, every now and again
Speaker 1: it's it's shocking to me. Yeah, you know that. It's like,
Speaker 1: this is shocking that I'm sixty two and it has
Speaker 1: it has that discordant quality. It has that weird, like
Speaker 1: a weird piece of music, that saturn you know, a piece.
Speaker 1: And but not to get too depressing about it, but since.
Speaker 2: We're but we're both of Celtic descent or something like that,
Speaker 2: are the Scottish Celts.
Speaker 1: The Scottish Clts? Right?
Speaker 2: Oh yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, but but no, is that
Speaker 2: what I think is that the sixties, you probably get
Speaker 2: used to it, but sadly and now I'm going to
Speaker 2: get really dark.
Speaker 1: You know.
Speaker 2: My mother died and when she was sixty three, and
Speaker 2: I think, like, if you die in your sixties, it's
Speaker 2: terrible because or if you know you're going to die,
Speaker 2: because you're just you've just gotten into it and you're
Speaker 2: kind of looking forward to old age a little bit, yea,
Speaker 2: like you know, and to have that robbed, you know.
Speaker 2: I think in a strange way is I think so
Speaker 2: so so just make it past your sixties because I
Speaker 2: think sixties, well, that's exactly what you get through. Seventies,
Speaker 2: seventies is the new thirty. That's what it is.
Speaker 1: I think that's right. Seventy is the new thirty. Yeah,
Speaker 1: but it's like it's the day's it is, no and
Speaker 1: I whenever I can be here in the moment, yeah,
Speaker 1: I'm slightly better than when I can't do Yeah. Yeah,
Speaker 1: I think sixties is a new ninety.
Speaker 2: Seventies, thirty fifties, the new fifty fifty.
Speaker 1: One is the new forty. I think you'd be fine.
Speaker 1: It's been a joy speaking with you. Yes, I was
Speaker 1: a little nervous about to talk to you. Because I'm
Speaker 1: intimidated by great talent. Oh thank you. I don't like
Speaker 1: being around it that much. I find it unsettling.
Speaker 2: I think we have one friend in common. I mean
Speaker 2: it's been ages, but you remember Jen Stills? Yes, yeah,
Speaker 2: I know I haven't seen her in ages, but I
Speaker 2: just remember her speaking about you.
Speaker 1: Was it okay? Yeah?
Speaker 2: No, yeah, yeah, no, she she toured with me once.
Speaker 2: She was great fun, an amazing character and a wonderful woman.
Speaker 2: Then yeah, she spoke very highly of you.
Speaker 1: Do you know Dominating Miller as well? Don't? Yeah, he's
Speaker 1: stings guitarist.
Speaker 2: Oh yeah, well well I sort of no, sort.
Speaker 1: Of maybe probably. I haven't seen domin years either, but
Speaker 1: he's a he's a good lad. He can play a bit. Yeah. Yeah, listen,
Speaker 1: it has been a great joy. I am. I think
Speaker 1: going to come to Carnegie Hall of the you must,
Speaker 1: you must, you must.
Speaker 2: Yeah yeah, I think I'm going on the twentynin, yes
Speaker 2: of twenty eight in November, right, yes, day after Thanksgiving
Speaker 2: please right. I think I might be able to get
Speaker 2: it quite again, it's quite I can't gamble.
Speaker 1: We're taking. I think I think you'll be okay, I
Speaker 1: think you'll be all right, I'll bring some friends great,
Speaker 1: please do all right. Okay, thank you so much for this.
Speaker 1: It's been a pleasure. Thank you very much.
Speaker 2: Thank you so much. Okay, goodbye.
Speaker 1: By on four four two four three th