Speaker 1: I'm Alec Baldwin and you're listening to Here's the Thing
Speaker 1: from My Heart Radio. The recently released HBO documentary How
Speaker 1: Can You Mend a Broken Heart mentions the term blood
Speaker 1: harmony or bio harmony that unique Blendwin siblings sing together.
Speaker 1: I think the Beach Boys, the Jackson Five, the Everly Brothers,
Speaker 1: and the Bjs. My guest today is Barry Gibb with
Speaker 1: his younger twin brothers, Robin and Morris. The b Gs
Speaker 1: conquered the world with their ethereal harmonies. Today Barry misses
Speaker 1: his brothers. Maurice died in two thousands three, Robin in
Speaker 1: two thousand twelve. I wanted to know if he'd ever
Speaker 1: considered what kind of solo career he might have had. Well,
Speaker 1: I I don't know. I know what I wanted. I
Speaker 1: wanted to be a pop star or a rock star,
Speaker 1: or whatever it is that goes through our heads at
Speaker 1: that point. At some point in your life, you wanted
Speaker 1: to be an actor, you know. All I know is
Speaker 1: that the moment that my brothers began to do individual things,
Speaker 1: and I didn't know about them, but I thought, well,
Speaker 1: it's okay. I can do individual things too. But I
Speaker 1: I never did that before they did. And once that began,
Speaker 1: I thought, oh, wow, they've gone and done this on
Speaker 1: their own. Morris has done this, or Rob has done this.
Speaker 1: It's pretty good. You know. Wow. I didn't know that
Speaker 1: they did that without even a question. So I figured,
Speaker 1: well it was okay. And once Barbara Streisan came along,
Speaker 1: I just grabbed the bar you know. I thought, this
Speaker 1: is a wonderful opportunity. And I love her and the
Speaker 1: idea of working with her. I learned so much from that,
Speaker 1: and I think you learn things from just about everyone
Speaker 1: you work with. You just pick up something that you
Speaker 1: didn't know before. Who brought you in stressand together? Was
Speaker 1: it a producer and no, it was Barbara calling me
Speaker 1: up about and she just called up and said, will
Speaker 1: you make an album with me? And so after I
Speaker 1: got up off up the ground, I told my wife
Speaker 1: and I told everybody in my family that I just
Speaker 1: had this call from Barbara Streisan, and of course everyone's going,
Speaker 1: you gotta do it, you gotta do it, and I
Speaker 1: was terrified. So I came to the conclusion that if
Speaker 1: I call Neil Diamond, you don't bring me flowers that
Speaker 1: he might give me some advice. So I called Neil
Speaker 1: Diamond and I said, what is she like? What is it?
Speaker 1: What's the experience like working with her? He just said,
Speaker 1: don't worry about it. Just go do it. You know,
Speaker 1: everything falls into place if the stars aligned. Don't worry.
Speaker 1: He says. She's terrific and she's changeable, but that's fine.
Speaker 1: Just go with her. You know, when you recorded with her,
Speaker 1: were you in the same studio for some portion or
Speaker 1: all of it or not all of it? We coult
Speaker 1: all the tracks in Miami at Criteria, which is now
Speaker 1: the Hit Factory. The interesting thing about Barbara was that
Speaker 1: if she sang something, she considered it to be sung.
Speaker 1: She didn't think she had to sing it again. And
Speaker 1: that's old school, you know. It's like that's how she
Speaker 1: grew up. And I would say, you know, especially on Guilty,
Speaker 1: first song she sang, I said, can you give us
Speaker 1: about four or five tracks? And she said, well, I
Speaker 1: just sang it. No, No, can you give us choices?
Speaker 1: Can you give us for five tracks so that we
Speaker 1: can pick and choose which are the best moments? But
Speaker 1: I just sang it. Boy, I'm gonna try that when
Speaker 1: I got to work. I'm gonna that's it. I'm like
Speaker 1: Bob Hope and that's one take fellas focus hit the spot,
Speaker 1: say the words get out. You talk about, you know,
Speaker 1: wanting multiple tracks to Cheo is from when you were
Speaker 1: recording with your brothers. Was that a rule you had
Speaker 1: where you had unanimity about what the take was and
Speaker 1: what what worked or was there a decider there was
Speaker 1: there a producer there that you will entrusted the decision
Speaker 1: to um myself, but really also adhering to my brother's opinions.
Speaker 1: We never did anything where it was two out of three.
Speaker 1: It wasn't a democracy. You know. We had to be
Speaker 1: in total agreement about everything we were doing. So if
Speaker 1: if we love something, we were all on, you know,
Speaker 1: and okay, what do we do next? What's the next step? Yeah,
Speaker 1: we need a lead guitar on this, We need something here,
Speaker 1: we need something there. But we were always in agreement.
Speaker 1: Real life is very different, so you know, we didn't
Speaker 1: live together, but we did have the van. We did
Speaker 1: have the minivan with the BJS on the side. You know,
Speaker 1: people talk about the documentary has introduced the least as
Speaker 1: far as I'm concerned, it might have existed somewhere else
Speaker 1: the term bio harmony. And when I first heard that phrase,
Speaker 1: I was like, oh my god, I never thought about that,
Speaker 1: that they sing differently and they interact differently because they're
Speaker 1: actually related. I believe that's true, that I've never heard that,
Speaker 1: But yeah, I agree with all of that, and there
Speaker 1: are many different side stories to all of that. I mean,
Speaker 1: the Beetles sound my brothers, So there's a lot. There's
Speaker 1: a lot about where you come from. The Beatles come
Speaker 1: from Liverpool. They all have the same accent, the same tone,
Speaker 1: if you like, and so blending together was something special
Speaker 1: for them. You didn't really have to be brothers. And
Speaker 1: I was talking to a little big town yesterday and
Speaker 1: they are incredible and they all come from the same
Speaker 1: basic area of the country. So it wasn't that they
Speaker 1: were blood. It was that they all had the same dialect,
Speaker 1: the same kind of tonality, you know. And that's Nashville
Speaker 1: when you're working with people that are your family, yea,
Speaker 1: and God knows, um, yes, you have brothers. I have
Speaker 1: brothers in that way that you want everyone to do well,
Speaker 1: you know. I want my brothers to do well and
Speaker 1: succeed and have what they want. And you realize that
Speaker 1: the businesses uh is fragile. You know, you even when
Speaker 1: you're successful, when you're with your brothers and you're recording
Speaker 1: with your brothers and they've been gone for a while now, yeah,
Speaker 1: about eight years since Robin left. So it's eight years
Speaker 1: now where both of them are gone. And um when
Speaker 1: when when when Maurice passed away, was it understood between
Speaker 1: you and and Rob that you wouldn't continue just the
Speaker 1: two of you know, Robin wanted us to wanted to continue,
Speaker 1: and I didn't. I didn't think it was the right
Speaker 1: thing to do. I felt we should suspend the group
Speaker 1: as it stood, and if we were going to work
Speaker 1: any more together, we would do it as as the
Speaker 1: two brothers, you know, we wouldn't do it as the bjs.
Speaker 1: So but but Robin didn't agree with me. He wanted
Speaker 1: to continue being the bs and but then lo and behold.
Speaker 1: What I didn't know is that Robin was getting ill
Speaker 1: and as time went on he became more immoral, but
Speaker 1: he didn't tell anybody, and so you could you could
Speaker 1: see that something was wrong, but you didn't know what
Speaker 1: it was. And he it wasn't like he was capable
Speaker 1: of really doing anything because in my opinion, he wasn't
Speaker 1: you know he was? He was going very frail, very quickly.
Speaker 1: Did you guys when you went your separate ways, was
Speaker 1: there always a sense of like the Eagles and like
Speaker 1: Fleetwood Mac and like csn Y were they professed to
Speaker 1: have some tension between them he had, They always got
Speaker 1: back together because that band together whole was the cash
Speaker 1: cow for them. It was never going to be as
Speaker 1: successful as that did. The bjs go through the same
Speaker 1: thing where you we were. Each of you had your
Speaker 1: respective and you had a very successful solo career. Well,
Speaker 1: the background to all of that, what you just said
Speaker 1: is really important. The cash cow was not the center
Speaker 1: of attention because because for us it was always tough
Speaker 1: to get paid always that's the that's rock and roll,
Speaker 1: you know. And we didn't really make any real money
Speaker 1: until Saturday Night Fever. So success equals money that wasn't
Speaker 1: happening for us, So we didn't worry about it. What
Speaker 1: we're worried about was getting more hits, making more records,
Speaker 1: writing more songs. You know, that was what preoccupied us. Crosby, Stills,
Speaker 1: Nash and Young when we were doing Children of the World.
Speaker 1: They would sitting along along the wall, four of them
Speaker 1: watching us do the vocals, and they were in the
Speaker 1: next studio. So the greatest thing about all of those
Speaker 1: days is that the Eagles Leonard skinnerd were always in
Speaker 1: the next room or two rooms away. And in those
Speaker 1: days you could visit each other. There was no you know,
Speaker 1: you can't come in here. There was none of that,
Speaker 1: you know, and we enjoyed that I could go in
Speaker 1: and listen to them. I played with them all night
Speaker 1: without coming up with anything creative. We were just having
Speaker 1: a blast, you know. Was there a sense from you
Speaker 1: or all three of you that you had something special
Speaker 1: and that was the hand you wanted to play? Well
Speaker 1: there was a brand name, well, you know, then you
Speaker 1: deally with the brand name, which wasn't even called that
Speaker 1: when we were a group, you know, there was no
Speaker 1: such thing as a brand name. You know, it's branding. Yeah,
Speaker 1: So I've had people come up to me Clive Davis's
Speaker 1: dinner a couple of years back. I worked for Forbes magazine.
Speaker 1: I'd like to talk to you about branding. I don't
Speaker 1: know anything about branding. You got there. We just became
Speaker 1: a group, you know, so it wasn't really this is
Speaker 1: the cash cow, this is what we gotta do. I
Speaker 1: think it was that way for a lot of people.
Speaker 1: But I remember the time when R. S O. The
Speaker 1: company took away our song copyrights without telling us, and
Speaker 1: so suddenly they owned all of our songs. How were
Speaker 1: they able to do that? By forming a company in
Speaker 1: Holland and playing all kinds of tax ga they managed
Speaker 1: to acquire all of our copyrights without us knowing. And
Speaker 1: that caused really like World War three, I mean, And
Speaker 1: so you look at the period when the bags were
Speaker 1: in trouble, look behind the scenes. You know there was
Speaker 1: something else going on that was intense. Were you able
Speaker 1: to get the rights back? Got them all back? But
Speaker 1: that took a lot of energy out of me. It
Speaker 1: took me about a year or two to finally get
Speaker 1: things back in our own ownership. I told Robert stick
Speaker 1: Would that I would never write another song if he
Speaker 1: didn't get back the songs. And Morris and Rob they
Speaker 1: didn't really want to fight. They were still too naive.
Speaker 1: They just sort of, you know, it's having success, let's
Speaker 1: not let's not argue with it. But did that fall
Speaker 1: on you to be the more the business mind in
Speaker 1: the trio would do. The other two were more pure artists,
Speaker 1: and they were like, hey, man, I really don't have
Speaker 1: the stomach for that. Well, I couldn't. I couldn't stomped
Speaker 1: the idea that someone could take away your songs. I
Speaker 1: just couldn't live with that. So if they were okay
Speaker 1: with that, it wasn't really a matter of that's how
Speaker 1: they felt. It was more a matter that Robert Stick
Speaker 1: would on rso played divide and Conquer, you know, so
Speaker 1: they would nurture and be nice to Robin and Morris,
Speaker 1: and Robin and Morris wouldn't worry about it, you know.
Speaker 1: So it's all about that. It's people whispering in your ears.
Speaker 1: It's the same with every group. You know. There's always
Speaker 1: going to be someone in the industry that thinks they
Speaker 1: can make something out of you if you don't have
Speaker 1: your brothers. And that was said to Robin, was said
Speaker 1: to Morris, and was said to me, I want to
Speaker 1: do a movie about your career. I'm gonna do a
Speaker 1: narrative film, and I want to play the record executive
Speaker 1: who gets each of you alone in the same evening.
Speaker 1: It says, you know, Marris, if you just unloaded these
Speaker 1: two losers. You have no idea that the heights we
Speaker 1: could hit. And Robin, these guys are just dead weight
Speaker 1: around your I mean your brother. I mean we've seen
Speaker 1: every color they have, Barry, I mean, come on, these
Speaker 1: guys are just dragging you down. Man. You know all
Speaker 1: that stuff Divide and conquer, But industrial, yeah, not the
Speaker 1: family is not the wives, but the people who who
Speaker 1: sought to gain from something or to or in fact
Speaker 1: to screw Robert stick, would you know. So it was
Speaker 1: it was a huge industrial game. Armad hurt Kin and
Speaker 1: who was the head of Atlantic Records, and Robert began
Speaker 1: to fall out because Jive Talking in the movie Saturday
Speaker 1: Night Fever, where Robert only used the live version of
Speaker 1: give talking so you wouldn't have to pay the extra,
Speaker 1: you know, and a Reef Mardin and Armored went berserk
Speaker 1: because they didn't have a record in Saturday Night Fever.
Speaker 1: They didn't know it's going to be successful. In fact,
Speaker 1: most of the time I think they doubted us anyway.
Speaker 1: So when that happened, they were unhappy. They were really unhappy.
Speaker 1: And so I think that was the cause of a
Speaker 1: lot of a lot of crisis points for us as
Speaker 1: well as Robert. I'm Alec Baldwin. You were listening to
Speaker 1: Here's the Thing. If you love conversations with legendary singers,
Speaker 1: be sure to check out my episode with the incomparable
Speaker 1: Barbara streisand we shared lunch and talked about our love
Speaker 1: for food and Barbara's early dreams of fame. I read
Speaker 1: Nancy Drew Mysteries. I read movie magazines, you know, and
Speaker 1: dream that someday maybe I could be famous. Do you
Speaker 1: have that dream? Then when you're here, I would have
Speaker 1: my pint of coffee, ice cream Briers and sit in
Speaker 1: my bed and dream go to the movies sometimes on
Speaker 1: a Saturday afternoon the Lowise Kings. We had the greatest
Speaker 1: ice cream, and we also well yeah. Here the rest
Speaker 1: of my conversation with Barbara streisand at Here's the Thing
Speaker 1: dot org. After the break, we talk about disco and
Speaker 1: how the b GS soundtrack to Saturday Night Fever in
Speaker 1: ninety brought them near total domination of the music charts
Speaker 1: and the dance floor. Hi'm Alec Baldwin, and you're listening
Speaker 1: to Here's the Thing. The BGS distinguished themselves vocally with
Speaker 1: their lush harmonies. Robin had his distinctive vibrato, Maurice anchored
Speaker 1: the melody, and then, like an ace pitcher discovering a slider,
Speaker 1: Barry found his falsetto well. It first happened on a
Speaker 1: song called Please Read Me that I did a few
Speaker 1: different false know harmonies to that song, basically because because
Speaker 1: of the Beach Boys and Brian Wilson and I forgot
Speaker 1: all about that. So we were recording Nights on Broadway
Speaker 1: and a ref Martina producer at that point said, can
Speaker 1: anybody scream like Paul McCartney. We all looked at each
Speaker 1: other and said, well, how do you mean? He said, well,
Speaker 1: you know, like I saw her standing there and and
Speaker 1: how Paul suddenly screams high note? Can anyone? Can any
Speaker 1: of you guys do that? And I said, well, yeah,
Speaker 1: I've done something like that way back, I said, but
Speaker 1: I became the volunteer. Nobody else really wanted to take
Speaker 1: a shot at that, So I went out there and
Speaker 1: just discovered it. At first, it was tentative and nervous
Speaker 1: and and I didn't know what it was. And then
Speaker 1: it just began to get stronger and stronger. With you
Speaker 1: and your brothers, there's such a quotient of beauty inside
Speaker 1: the music. There's so much sensitivity inside of the lyrics
Speaker 1: and the singing. And I'm wondering when you would perform live,
Speaker 1: what was your ritual if you had one. On the
Speaker 1: day of a live show, did you cardle your voice?
Speaker 1: How did you prep for a show? I would wake
Speaker 1: up singing because after a show you lose your voice.
Speaker 1: It's gone. So the next morning you just hope and
Speaker 1: pray that it's going to come back again, you know,
Speaker 1: so when you wake up, you start warming up, So
Speaker 1: I'd be I'd been doing a lot of this different
Speaker 1: range stuff. One set of principles for the falsetto another
Speaker 1: set of principles for the real voice. Check out your
Speaker 1: highest note, do it all day and it comes back
Speaker 1: if you're lucky. And how much before you would do
Speaker 1: a live show? How much would you rehearse prior to
Speaker 1: going on the rope? Rehearsal would you would usually be
Speaker 1: about a month with weekends out so you could work
Speaker 1: your chops back again, and that way you develop strength
Speaker 1: and you develop confidence. And these days I have had
Speaker 1: these three eighties that are amazing, and so any song
Speaker 1: where Robin might have sung, they cover me and they
Speaker 1: do those things. But there's actually nothing like walking from
Speaker 1: the dressing room to the stage. Nothing like it. In
Speaker 1: the word I think Bruce Springsteen said it, there's there's
Speaker 1: something magical about hearing the crowd two minutes before you
Speaker 1: walk on the streak coming. You're getting closer to that. Yeah,
Speaker 1: music occupies such a unique place in people's lives, and
Speaker 1: really dwarfs of film and television, because film and television
Speaker 1: is something you have to make an appointment with, you
Speaker 1: have to sit and watch it. Where music is something
Speaker 1: that you can have in your life anywhere. You can
Speaker 1: be driving, you could be having sex, you could be
Speaker 1: at the gym jogging. Music is in your ears at will,
Speaker 1: whenever you want it to be. And therefore, and I
Speaker 1: think when people I always say the same line when
Speaker 1: you die, Uh, you don't remember an episode of Seinfeld?
Speaker 1: You remember? How can you ment a broken heart? You
Speaker 1: know what I mean? Yes, I do. And then the
Speaker 1: question then becomes why why does music and harmonics and
Speaker 1: vibrations and notes mean so much to us? You know,
Speaker 1: I love Frank Sinatra as much as I love Pavarotti.
Speaker 1: I love the Distant Past, the immigrant music as much
Speaker 1: as I love country music. I don't have categories, you know,
Speaker 1: I just love what I love and if it's not
Speaker 1: turning music? But why why do we all do this?
Speaker 1: You know? What is the need in us? So I
Speaker 1: want to do something about that. I'd love to do
Speaker 1: a program about trying to understand that. I mean, this
Speaker 1: is a corny question, but like, have you ever stood
Speaker 1: there and you were going to sing a lyric there
Speaker 1: was a particularly exquisite lyric of one of your most
Speaker 1: famous songs and you thought you were going to break
Speaker 1: down crying? Yeah, have you over been almost overwhelmed by
Speaker 1: the music you're singing? Yes, we wrote a song called
Speaker 1: Wish You Were Here for Andy because he passed away
Speaker 1: at the age at thirty, and we wanted to do
Speaker 1: it on stage and we never could. So, you know,
Speaker 1: we got through about two or three lines and then
Speaker 1: looked at each other, we can't do this. We just
Speaker 1: can't do this. It's it makes it just makes me cry.
Speaker 1: I just can't sing it. At least the song is there,
Speaker 1: you know, But yes, that was a moment. That was
Speaker 1: a moment. It's all part of it. You're you're in
Speaker 1: a way, you're sort of acting and you're pretending to
Speaker 1: be someone that you probably don't believe you are anyway.
Speaker 1: You know, the song has always moved me. How deep
Speaker 1: is your love moves me? And and immortality the song
Speaker 1: that Celine Dion. I can't believe you said that. Every
Speaker 1: time I hear that song, I think I would break
Speaker 1: down if I sang that song because just the meaning
Speaker 1: of that song. You wrote that song? Yeah, yeah, what
Speaker 1: is that song about in your mind? Well, I think
Speaker 1: it's a it's at some point in your life you
Speaker 1: reflect on who you are and what you are and
Speaker 1: and the culmination of your opinion. And if you can
Speaker 1: do that, then everything's okay, you know. So so for me,
Speaker 1: it's like, so this is who I am, this is
Speaker 1: all I know, and I must choose to live for
Speaker 1: all that I can give the spot that makes the
Speaker 1: power grow. But I also find it's kind of a poem,
Speaker 1: if you will, about being a famous artist. You know,
Speaker 1: like inside some of those lyrics, I hear someone sitting
Speaker 1: They're going, there's no turning back for me. Now that's right,
Speaker 1: that's right. But we don't say goodbye, And that to
Speaker 1: me is the key part of the song. It doesn't
Speaker 1: matter whether I'm here or not. There are no goodbyes,
Speaker 1: you know. And it was written for Robert Stiegwood wanting
Speaker 1: a song for the stage version of Saturday Night Fever,
Speaker 1: and we'd already come up with the song, but he
Speaker 1: wanted the guy in the show to sing it. And
Speaker 1: I thought, but this is a woman's song. It's a
Speaker 1: woman's song. Some songs of women and some songs of
Speaker 1: the men, you know, so there's a masculinity in some music,
Speaker 1: and there's a femininity. And that's why I went with
Speaker 1: Barbara's right work with Diana Ross and the ability to
Speaker 1: mean Selene, to lock in to the feminine side, you know,
Speaker 1: and understand that a Barber Streisan still doesn't quite understand
Speaker 1: what woman in love means, you know. It's it's a
Speaker 1: right idea. Call her and get a rebuttals. It's a
Speaker 1: right out offend, which is in the song. She just
Speaker 1: what does that mean? It's a right out offend. And
Speaker 1: I did spend some time explaining before the Me Too
Speaker 1: movement that women can fall in love too without telling anybody.
Speaker 1: It's not all down to the guy, you don't know,
Speaker 1: And I had to sort of talk her through that.
Speaker 1: Kenny Rogers still doesn't know what Alans in the stream
Speaker 1: is about. Come on, Kenny, well, let's let's let's throw
Speaker 1: your cards on the table here. What songs that you've
Speaker 1: immortalized do you not really know what they're about? Come on,
Speaker 1: it's it's time for you to fest them saying you
Speaker 1: don't really get the meaning of We never recorded a
Speaker 1: song that we didn't understand. You know, there were some
Speaker 1: very abstract songs lemons, never forget. I think he's a
Speaker 1: very abstract song and not everybody's favorite. Everything had a
Speaker 1: purpose to it. We began to learn from the Beatles
Speaker 1: that you could write about anything. You could write about
Speaker 1: life itself. You know. So you had Paperback Wright or
Speaker 1: and you had Yellow Submarine, and and it was okay,
Speaker 1: you know, you can write about these things. It doesn't
Speaker 1: all have to be about having your heartbroken or falling
Speaker 1: in love or they went through that, but then they understood,
Speaker 1: they understood something about life. That's where Sergeant Pepper reached
Speaker 1: its point, the culmination of the peak three creativity that
Speaker 1: these guys were giving us. You know, well, when you
Speaker 1: mentioned Sergeant Pepper, and I think when you go into
Speaker 1: Saturday night Fever and when you're inside that experience and
Speaker 1: you're recording the music to that. Did they show you
Speaker 1: cuts of the film? Did you see some footage of
Speaker 1: the film or the whole film to inspire you to
Speaker 1: go write the music? Or you had to write the
Speaker 1: music without any cinematic reference point. Robert sent us a script,
Speaker 1: but we didn't read it. We just we just listened
Speaker 1: to his verbial describing what it was, which to him,
Speaker 1: it was you didn't see the film finished and then
Speaker 1: write the music. Wow. He sent us a script, but
Speaker 1: we didn't read it, and we just said, tell us
Speaker 1: what you want, tell us what you think it's it is, Well,
Speaker 1: it's tribal rites of a new Saturday Night, okay, and
Speaker 1: as that was an article by Nick con And in
Speaker 1: New York right. And he said, but I need a
Speaker 1: better name for the film. And I said, well what
Speaker 1: about night Fever? And he said, no, that's too pornographic. Okay. Um,
Speaker 1: But then in the end it turned into Saturday in
Speaker 1: Night Fever and I didn't know. So when you're inside
Speaker 1: that experience of making that music, do you kind of
Speaker 1: know that you're onto something or you had no idea
Speaker 1: what that was going to become. We had no idea
Speaker 1: what it was going to become and we were trying
Speaker 1: to reinvent ourselves anyway. We just mixed a live album
Speaker 1: that we've done in l a and then Robert called
Speaker 1: up and said, I need five or six songs for
Speaker 1: this film with this new gentleman named John Travolta. So okay,
Speaker 1: all of that in itself is exciting enough. It's sort
Speaker 1: of kickstarted the ideas, and staying alive was one of
Speaker 1: those ideas. More than a woman, if I can't have you,
Speaker 1: how deep your love obviously a night fever. So we
Speaker 1: just started writing. Were fifty miles outside of Paris. We
Speaker 1: didn't have, you know, television, we didn't have any of
Speaker 1: those distractions if you like, and we just got on
Speaker 1: with it and about three weeks, two or three weeks,
Speaker 1: and then we got serious when we got back to
Speaker 1: Miami and made the records for real. Well, I just
Speaker 1: want to say as a reference point that I am
Speaker 1: in Washington, d C. I went to college down there first,
Speaker 1: my then girlfriend, who was very much of a nightclub dancing.
Speaker 1: She and her roommate, I think there was like three couples.
Speaker 1: We go see the movie Saturday Night Fever, and we
Speaker 1: said to ourselves and the guys are looking at each other, going,
Speaker 1: Jesus Christ, look at this. You think I'm gonna get
Speaker 1: up there and do that in a room full of people,
Speaker 1: Like she wants to go to clubs and go dancing
Speaker 1: like this. I said, that's never happening, right, happening within
Speaker 1: two weeks, I had the platform shoes. I had my
Speaker 1: hair blow dried to death. My hair was blow dry
Speaker 1: like it with some French pastry. I put more hair sprayed.
Speaker 1: My hair was all poofed out and out. And the
Speaker 1: shirt I got, the shirt opened right to I got
Speaker 1: the I'm ready, I'm ready to go. It was a tsunami.
Speaker 1: Saturday night. Fever was a tsunami. Yeah, whether you like
Speaker 1: it or not, it was. It was gonna stay around,
Speaker 1: It was gonna liked it. It was just every week.
Speaker 1: Well that My story is that we were starting to
Speaker 1: shoot Sagan Pepper the movie right and and we had
Speaker 1: Peter Frampton had his own win a bagel, and we
Speaker 1: had one Winner bagel between us, and about two weeks
Speaker 1: into shooting, at the same time, Fever came out and
Speaker 1: all of the dancers in the movie was suddenly dancing
Speaker 1: to this music at the launch breaks and we could
Speaker 1: hear it from Win a Bagel like, what what are
Speaker 1: they doing? Why are they playing Saturday Fever? You know,
Speaker 1: because at that point hadn't taken off, you know, And
Speaker 1: with then about a week we had our own separate
Speaker 1: Win a Bagel. So there's Hollywood right there. You know,
Speaker 1: we made that up. But we made that movie. The
Speaker 1: soundtrack to that movie. We're the only other group to
Speaker 1: record the Hold of Sergeant Pepper with George Martin. Right,
Speaker 1: So there's something that's something I'm proud of. How would
Speaker 1: you describe that experience? You're performing somebody else's music. Oh yeah,
Speaker 1: but we were learning serge Yes, the legendary music, and
Speaker 1: we wanted to perform that music. And George Martin was
Speaker 1: happy to show us the different ricks that that they
Speaker 1: would all get up to, you know, the song Sun
Speaker 1: King or because they all sang the same melody once
Speaker 1: and then they would sing the harmony all together, the
Speaker 1: same thing again, all singing the same melody, and then
Speaker 1: they did the third harmony and they'd sing all that together,
Speaker 1: so that you've got three guys on three tracks singing
Speaker 1: each harmony, not three part harmony. And then you played
Speaker 1: that back and it's mind blowing. So we just learned stuff.
Speaker 1: We learned stuff. Whose idea was it to do the documentary? Well,
Speaker 1: it was Frank Marshall, Nigel Saint Clair, and they had
Speaker 1: done this an Archer documentary. They've done a couple of
Speaker 1: others that they were very proud of the Beatles eight
Speaker 1: days a week, I think they did that. The day
Speaker 1: that we signed with Capital was the day I met
Speaker 1: Frank Marshall and Steve Barnett, the president of that point,
Speaker 1: introduced me to Frank Marshall. Frank Marshall said, we're gonna
Speaker 1: do this documentary and and tell us tell us something
Speaker 1: about how it began for you guys. And I did.
Speaker 1: I told him a story and he went, okay, we're
Speaker 1: going to do this documentary. And that's how it began.
Speaker 1: But it was it was two years, two and a
Speaker 1: half years before we saw anything, you know, and the
Speaker 1: verse cut didn't fly very well. Why uh, there were
Speaker 1: too many untruths, too many misconceptions that were everyone was saying, well,
Speaker 1: that's true, but it really wasn't. So I had to
Speaker 1: take issue with some of the things. And I know
Speaker 1: that in the end some of those things may still
Speaker 1: be there, but I never. I could never watch it
Speaker 1: again because I can't watch my family pass one up
Speaker 1: to the other. That's not fun. Very GiB Subscribe to
Speaker 1: Hear The Thing on the I Heart Radio app, Apple
Speaker 1: Podcasts or wherever you get your podcasts. While you're there,
Speaker 1: leave us a review. When we return from the break,
Speaker 1: Barry talks about his regrets and will also hear from
Speaker 1: his son Steve. I'm Alec Baldwin and you're listening to
Speaker 1: Here's the Thing that is, of course more than a
Speaker 1: woman from the soundtrack of Saturday Night Fever. It's been
Speaker 1: a busy time for Barry Gibb. There's the new HBO
Speaker 1: documentary about the Bigs, and earlier this year, Barry released
Speaker 1: an album of big songs covered by some of Nashville's
Speaker 1: biggest names. It's called Green Fields. These are people I
Speaker 1: admired the most. These are country artists that have always
Speaker 1: been in my blood so ever since I was a child.
Speaker 1: Dolly Pardon has has been a really important part of
Speaker 1: music for me. Hey day to me, I wanted to
Speaker 1: get people I admired the most to sing our songs
Speaker 1: and maybe it's volume two that it will happen in
Speaker 1: the future. I don't know, but this was great fun
Speaker 1: and I was more than intimidated. But it wasn't in
Speaker 1: my hands. It was in Dave Cobbs sense. When you
Speaker 1: say you were more than intimidated, absolutely, how so, well,
Speaker 1: how many people do you truly admire? You know, so
Speaker 1: when you're in their company, you just feel. When I
Speaker 1: meet Paul McCartney, I don't know what to say. My
Speaker 1: mouth won't won't say anything. You know. All I can
Speaker 1: say is I feel fine. And you granted they must
Speaker 1: have been intimidated to sing your music as well. Oh yeah, no,
Speaker 1: it was all the way around, there's no question about that.
Speaker 1: The only person I think was not intimidated by any
Speaker 1: of us was Dave Cobble, the producer, So he was
Speaker 1: the decider, he was the sider, he was the director. Well,
Speaker 1: the cut you do with Dolly, What a beautiful rendering
Speaker 1: that is of that song. When you hear other people
Speaker 1: sing your songs, what goes through your mind? It's a
Speaker 1: very flattering thing. It's like anytime over the years anyone's
Speaker 1: sang one of our songs, it's someone's covering your song.
Speaker 1: That's a huge compliment. So at the same feeling every
Speaker 1: time and that goes back a long, long way. So
Speaker 1: anyone's singing our songs is wow, why did that person
Speaker 1: sing our song? Now, when someone wants to sing your songs,
Speaker 1: is it open to anybody? Anyone who records our song
Speaker 1: doesn't need to ask us. They don't. It's just the
Speaker 1: way it works. No one needs to ask us to
Speaker 1: sing one of our songs. If you're using one of
Speaker 1: our songs in a movie or in a single license
Speaker 1: like a commercial, you have to ask, and you have
Speaker 1: to make a sure. But beyond that, anyone can record
Speaker 1: our songs. But they pay you the royalties for you
Speaker 1: as the songwriter, Well it will be we'd be paid
Speaker 1: indirectly by the system that works, like mechanical royalties and
Speaker 1: things like that. But what the only question I ever
Speaker 1: had was, I don't like commercials about alcohol. I don't
Speaker 1: like commercials about cigarettes. Is it true that you have
Speaker 1: a someone's making a feature film about the Beach's. Yeah,
Speaker 1: the biopics in its own process right now. Graham King
Speaker 1: is in charge of that. He did the Bohemian Rhapsody movie.
Speaker 1: You're gonna have some participation in that. Absolutely. I'm sort
Speaker 1: of an agreement with Graham and that is that sometimes
Speaker 1: the story can be a little different than the truth,
Speaker 1: but not too much. You more than your two brothers. Um.
Speaker 1: I'll say this only because this is my recollection of it.
Speaker 1: You know, you guys would get out there and sing.
Speaker 1: When you watched you sing on film, you know, it's
Speaker 1: a different story when you're just listening to the music,
Speaker 1: But when you'd watched you sing. Your brothers are pretty
Speaker 1: straightforward musicians, and here you are, and the hair and
Speaker 1: the clothes. He was like this preposterously handsome guy. And
Speaker 1: then you'd open your mouth and you'd sing these like
Speaker 1: heart stoppingly beautiful songs. And I want to ask you that,
Speaker 1: when the bjs were at the zenith, when everything was
Speaker 1: just clicking for you, what was the best part of
Speaker 1: it and what was the what was the downside of
Speaker 1: it for you? You know, I I there's a lot
Speaker 1: of things I regret. Saturday Night People wasn't something I regretted.
Speaker 1: I didn't like people disregarding us after fever. I thought
Speaker 1: that was unfair. But but that's the industry, you know,
Speaker 1: it's very fragile. As you said earlier, it will it
Speaker 1: will turn on you in a heartbeat. And so I
Speaker 1: think generally, what I regret is that we became over exposed,
Speaker 1: and I think that that was from fever, yeah yeah,
Speaker 1: and everything else was just having five songs in the
Speaker 1: top ten or three songs in the top five. We
Speaker 1: were becoming pretty tainted. You know. We were beginning not
Speaker 1: to really appreciate having a number one record. But we
Speaker 1: equaled the Beatles record. We have six number ones in
Speaker 1: a row, and that was all right. I can live
Speaker 1: with that. I can lit work. That'll work, you know.
Speaker 1: But I mean, my other thing is that I find
Speaker 1: that the business is that people tend to look at
Speaker 1: something that's super successful and say, well, if it's successful,
Speaker 1: then it's like potato chips. It can't be really that great.
Speaker 1: It's just it's just it's like a snack food. If
Speaker 1: it's something that appeals to the general public too, masses
Speaker 1: of the general publish. If you're selling tens of millions
Speaker 1: of records, it can't really be that it's too commercial, right,
Speaker 1: did you get You got it with that? Yes? But
Speaker 1: you know, I look back a long way and I
Speaker 1: see the final year of Elvis's life, the final year
Speaker 1: of the Beatles, Michael Jackson and how they began to fragment,
Speaker 1: you know, and because nothing ever really less a group
Speaker 1: is not a natural state to be in, unless your relatives,
Speaker 1: unless your brothers or sisters. So I see all that.
Speaker 1: I see that in the end, people like Elvis Michael
Speaker 1: Beatles began to make records that weren't quite up to
Speaker 1: the scratch of Sergeant Pebble was well, when the disco inferno,
Speaker 1: if you will, dies down, what happens to your songwriting
Speaker 1: when you realize that's petered out that well because of
Speaker 1: the backlash, we didn't base our lives on fever. We
Speaker 1: just sort of well back to the studio, you know
Speaker 1: that we were. You know, I've been married for fifty
Speaker 1: years now. Last September was fifty years and and I've
Speaker 1: had a wonderful time. You know. I love this that woman,
Speaker 1: and we've been together for that long, and so I
Speaker 1: always had her at my back. I always had I
Speaker 1: never I never had to be out there on my own.
Speaker 1: You had a home family. So at the end of EVA,
Speaker 1: we were starting to raise kids, you know, and so
Speaker 1: the distractions were plentiful, no plentiful. And you know, even
Speaker 1: when that happens, you think to yourself. I know, I
Speaker 1: thought to myself. Well, maybe that's it. That was warm,
Speaker 1: that was great, that was wonderful. Maybe go back to Australia,
Speaker 1: maybe go back to England and you start to question
Speaker 1: your life and if it's time to change your life.
Speaker 1: That was the moment you could have done it. Speaking
Speaker 1: of family, your son plays with you from times. Yeah,
Speaker 1: he's right, son, Stevie plays with you, and he also
Speaker 1: plays some other types of music. He's like into heavy metals.
Speaker 1: We need CTV to command just for one second, tell
Speaker 1: us does he get the bends when he goes from
Speaker 1: the music of Barry Gibb to the music of Metallica
Speaker 1: or whatever you're doing. What's the seam in between that
Speaker 1: kind of music? You know, I grew up watching the Bags.
Speaker 1: I stood on the side of the stage as a kid,
Speaker 1: and I thought my dad was the coolest guy on
Speaker 1: planet Earth. You know, I really did. But what happened
Speaker 1: was is there was a band called Kiss that came
Speaker 1: out around a similar time, and that was my introduction
Speaker 1: into hard rock and heavy metal. And I was always
Speaker 1: fascinated with the guitar. So you know, when I saw
Speaker 1: a guitar that was on fire, I said, Okay, I
Speaker 1: don't know how or when I'm gonna get to do that.
Speaker 1: But I gotta figure out how to do that. And
Speaker 1: I knew enough to know that being a musician and
Speaker 1: being Barry Gibb's son was probably a terrible idea, and
Speaker 1: I knew that from a young age. So I followed
Speaker 1: my joy with the guitar, and that took me a
Speaker 1: lot of places. I I you know, I've played in
Speaker 1: a bunch of heavy metal bands over the years, like
Speaker 1: Black Label Society, Crowbar came to a sorrow, And the
Speaker 1: thing is is that I figured it made me different
Speaker 1: enough that I could maybe carve out a career and
Speaker 1: not be compared to my dad. Well what happened is
Speaker 1: my dad and I have always kind of, you know,
Speaker 1: messed around a little bit, you know, writing songs and
Speaker 1: stuff like that. So you know, I got to learn
Speaker 1: about songwriting from the best, you know, and I got
Speaker 1: to watch the BGS right many times over my you know,
Speaker 1: the course of my life. So I'm I've been a
Speaker 1: student of theirs. But you know, when when Robin passed away,
Speaker 1: Dad was clearly struggling to figure out where to go
Speaker 1: in life. And at that point I was like, Dad,
Speaker 1: you gotta channel this into music, like you can't sit
Speaker 1: here and and and mourn forever, you know. And he said, okay,
Speaker 1: well let's do let's do a show. And I said, yeah,
Speaker 1: you should do that, and he goes, well, I only
Speaker 1: want to do it if you do it with me.
Speaker 1: I mean, I definitely didn't feel like I could step
Speaker 1: into those roles that Robin and or Morris had. But
Speaker 1: over the course of a few years, you know, with
Speaker 1: his patients and uh and kindness, I found my place
Speaker 1: with him. You know. I sometimes joke that I'm his
Speaker 1: emotional support animal. But the fact of the matter is
Speaker 1: is we've come to understand it. Even especially recently. Now
Speaker 1: I know how to harmonize with him, which I didn't
Speaker 1: really know how to do. I began to learn that
Speaker 1: really by being thrown in the fire with him. And
Speaker 1: to be honest, it's been probably the greatest gift of
Speaker 1: my life to come full circle and actually be with
Speaker 1: him making us to Australia. Yeah, we told England, we
Speaker 1: told America, and that was an incredible year of just
Speaker 1: finding yourself again. Stevie said that he thought his father
Speaker 1: was the coolest guy. Let me tell you something, stev
Speaker 1: your father is the coolest guy. Your father that reminds
Speaker 1: me of Nat King Cole. Your father reminds me of
Speaker 1: a guy that could sing and just bring you to tears.
Speaker 1: He was so beautiful and the songs were so beautiful,
Speaker 1: and he sang them perfectly. And then when you'd watch
Speaker 1: him on film doing you go, oh my god, he's
Speaker 1: also the coolest guy I've ever seen in my life.
Speaker 1: Look at this guy. You know. I don't know that
Speaker 1: anybody will ever be able to relate to this, because
Speaker 1: I do feel a little unique in that I've had
Speaker 1: this experience. But I think that for me, we all
Speaker 1: have great memories throughout our life, whether it's the you know,
Speaker 1: the birth of our children, or or you know, that
Speaker 1: first big accomplishment that you make, or whatever it is
Speaker 1: in life. But I have to tell you that I
Speaker 1: was talking about that show that we did after Robin died,
Speaker 1: and there was a moment where he was singing and
Speaker 1: I was off to his right on stage, and and
Speaker 1: he was really in a I have to say, he
Speaker 1: kind of transcending into another level in front of my eyes.
Speaker 1: I was like, I could not I was reduced to
Speaker 1: tears while I was on stage watching him sing because
Speaker 1: you know, I remember being a very small kid standing
Speaker 1: on the side of the stage going hey, Dad, you know,
Speaker 1: I'm over here type of thing. And then two, you know,
Speaker 1: thirty something years later, I'm standing on stage with him,
Speaker 1: and there was a moment where he took a breath
Speaker 1: and just looked at me, and it was he winked
Speaker 1: at me, and there was the most pure expression of
Speaker 1: love with no words, between a father and son in
Speaker 1: that moment. And I remember thinking to myself, I'll never
Speaker 1: forget this moment for the rest of my life, because
Speaker 1: there are no words for that kind of love between
Speaker 1: a son and a father. And I tell him this
Speaker 1: all the time. I said, Dad, it's okay that you
Speaker 1: don't think you're the greatest of all time, but just
Speaker 1: don't ever forget that there is in a set and
Speaker 1: that I don't believe that you're the greatest of all time.
Speaker 1: Just be true to yourself and and do what you love.
Speaker 1: Because his love is pure and his expression of it
Speaker 1: is incredible, and I'll never get tired of it. Listen.
Speaker 1: I say this only because it's true, and I feel
Speaker 1: that we all are seekers of the truth, your truth
Speaker 1: and beauty, and that is Stevie your father knows full
Speaker 1: well that he's the greatest of all time. He knows,
Speaker 1: and this modesty thing, it's just a part of an act.
Speaker 1: It's a part of a public It's always like this,
Speaker 1: Oh thank you, Oh God, that's so nice of you
Speaker 1: to say that, Oh thank you. No no please, no,
Speaker 1: no please. Your father is fully aware of who he
Speaker 1: is and what his towering achievements in the music industry are.
Speaker 1: Him and his brothers and him on his own frozen
Speaker 1: for that matter. I want to say I have loved you,
Speaker 1: and I have loved your music. I mean, I'm good
Speaker 1: music is good music, and I have loved you and
Speaker 1: I loved your music forever. I mean, I have so
Speaker 1: many Begs albums, so every now and then I gotta here,
Speaker 1: I can't see nobody. I play that song and I'm oh,
Speaker 1: you know, I can't see nobody. Was written in a
Speaker 1: dressing room with strippers. I thought it was you were
Speaker 1: like in church. It was one of it's one of
Speaker 1: my greatest memory bad bums. And here's a song. You know.
Speaker 1: Let's stop right there and let me just say I'm
Speaker 1: so grateful to you. You are one of the greatest
Speaker 1: musicians that ever lived. And one of the greatest vocalists
Speaker 1: that ever lived. And I never get tired of listening
Speaker 1: to your music. Never very kind. Thank you both for
Speaker 1: making time to do this. This has been a joy.
Speaker 1: This has been a real joy. It's been a real
Speaker 1: joy for us too. I'm Alec Baldwin and you're listening
Speaker 1: to Here's the Thing, When to Be if you need
Speaker 1: show Indeed, we're produced by Kathleen Russo, Carrie donohue and
Speaker 1: Zach McNeice. Our engineer is Frank Imperial. Thanks for listening
Speaker 1: to open up your to love