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My Interview with Michael Jackson by Steve Rosen
Started by aramistrong, Feb 14 2012 07:50 PM
421571_304854512910581_100001581051452_822934_1105138238_n.jpg
Well, here it is, the first of the many audio interviews I'll be posting here.
I chose Michael Jackson because this was:
1) A very strange interview
2) A very cool interview
The conversation took place at the Columbia Records offices in Century City, California. All of the Jacksons were there to talk to the press and I was lucky enough to sit at a table with Michael, Tito and LaToya. Michael was quiet but friendly and I was encouraged by all of his smiles and gentle laughter. But when I asked my first question, the wheels sort of fell off the wagon. Here is what happened and here is what was said:
This interview with Michael Jackson took place right after the release of the Jacksons’ album Triumph in 1980. Michael’s solo album Off the Wall had been released a year earlier and the young singer was sitting on top of this world. Here, Michael is sitting at a conference table at Columbia Records, the label they moved to after leaving Motown, with brother Tito and sister LaToya. Jackson was very friendly and in good spirits but this was a strange conversation. Whenever I would ask Michael a question, he would look at LaToya and she would paraphrase the same question. He would then look at me and offer his response. When he first did this, I just thought he was having some fun but he engaged in this pretty strange behavior for the entire interview. I have included the responses from both LaToya and Tito to convey a real sense of what it was like sitting there at this table with the great – if just a bit strange – Michael Jackson.
It's pretty interesting to note that Michael was just 22-years old when this interview took place. He was already a star but the Thriller album was still about two years away from being released and at that point Jackson would blow up like a supernova.
Steven: Destiny was a different album than Triumph. The Jacksons produced the album themselves and wrote all the material.
LaToya: Was Destiny a little bit different for you guys because you produced the album and wrote the songs?
Michael: Well, we did also on Destiny.
Steven: The entire album?
Michael: Sure. I think the difference is in progress and learning. I think each album you get better. But we wrote all the songs on Destiny except for one song, “Blame it on the Boogie.” With Triumph, I think we accomplished a lot of different things we’ve learned since Destiny. Destiny was the beginning and Triumph is like what we’ve accomplished since then. We have more freedom and we’re doing more arrangement. Trying different creative things, different sounds, all kinds of things like that now.
Steven: You feel you’ve progressed beyond the period when you were being produced by Gamble/Huff. Did you want the control of producing yourselves? Do you think they did a good job of producing the Jacksons?
LaToya: Did you feel that Gamble and Huff did a good job with the Jackson?
Michael: Well, yes, but I attribute a lot of that to the Motown days too because I feel Motown was a great school. You had some of the greatest writers in the world: Holland-Dozier-Holland; Hal Davis; the Corporation which involved ‘Fonz [Alphonzo] Mizell, Deke Richards and Barry Gordy [also Freddie Perren.] I think everybody learned from Motown; even the Beatles in their interviews they acknowledged Motown. The Tamla” Motown” days they called it. That influenced them to write some of their songs. But I see all of that as a whole and from that learning experience is what we’re doing now. We grew from that.
Steven: Did you just outgrow Motown musically?
Tito: Well it gets more involved than just a career.
Steven: Business?
Tito: There’s a business side to everything. But commenting on what Michael said with those old Martha Reeves songs and the Temptations and Surpreme songs, there’s not too many records that you could still play on your turntable today that still sound like hits. And those records still sound like hits today.
Michael: Plus it’s all about growing. I mean, you ask why would we want to leave Motown? We want to try different things; we want to grow. It’s like the caterpillar must come out of the cocoon and be a butterfly. We have to try different things and grow and become all those different colors and elements and things like that. We’ve always wanted to write on Motown but it was never in our contract. And we could have changed our contract at Motown. But I don’t think people had confidence in us; they didn’t believe in us. They say, ”Oh, you guys just kids. Just go behind the mike.” And we’d sing. But it was good. They were hits and as long as they were hits, fine.
Tito: It’s working now.
Michael: Yeah, it’s working now. [laughs] I bet they wish they had of listened!
Steven: Can you tell that you’re getting better as musicians and songwriters? Can you look back at any of those songs and see how they might have been improved?
Tito: Well, the old songs were hits then and I don’t know about doin’ ‘em better. You really can’t say because that was a learning experience for us at that time. And now is the results. I wish we had a chance to express ourself back then.
Steven: Can you talk about how a Jacksons song gets recorded? Does somebody come in with a finished song or do you toss around vocal and melody ideas? How does it happen?
Tito: We write separately and also we write collectively. And we all just take our product, put it in one pot and listen. We have listening sessions and that’s mainly how it starts.
Michael: They come about different ways all the time. Like Tito was playing a track for me at his house one day and I said, “God, I like that.” And from that I thought of a good melody for it and it was on the album. I don’t think any writer sits down at the piano and says, “I’m gonna write a song right now.”
Tito: It’s gonna be number one.
Michael: Yeah, you can’t do that. They come. They write you. They become you. I don’t think Michelangelo or Leonardo da Vinci would go to the canvas and say, “I’m gonna create the Mona Lisa right now!” Or whatever. It just comes and you just have to accept that. They work through you. You don’t choose them.
Steven: By the time you’ve entered the studio, are the songs set in terms of arrangements and who’s going to sing which part?
LaToya: By the time you guys are in the studio, is it pretty set what the song is that you are gonna do?
Michael: Well, yes and no, really. It depends doesn’t it?
Tito: It depends. You can go in with one idea …
Michael: And it changes doesn’t it?
Tito: And one thing … the piano player might take the song somewhere and do a lick. You say, “Hey, everybody do that lick.”
Michael: Right.
Tito: So you never know. Or you may hear somethin’ while you’re listening back so it’s hard to say. I think one of the things to a hit song or whatever is a spare moment for things to happen. Unplanned things.
Michael: Yeah, spontaneous. You know, Norman Whitfield at Motown, he used to always do that. He’d throw a bunch of musicians in a room and he’d say, “Play.” And then from that he’d come up with a hit. That’s how he wrote “Papa Was a Rolling Stone” and a lot of those big hits back then. And then what would happen, he would get into trouble because all of the musicians would want residuals and percentage. They’d think, “You didn’t write this; we did.” He got in a lot of hot water doing that but a lot of songs come up the best way that way; you kind of play off of each other and feel it and just let it work itself.
Steven: As the main songwriter, do you play any instruments?
LaToya: Do you play any instruments?
Steven: How do you compose?
Michael: Well, Jermaine and Tito, they play guitar and Randy plays a lot of instruments. I don’t really plan an instrument. I play drums.
Tito: You do plan an instrument.
Michael: Just a teensy weensy bit of piano.
Tito: He plays enough to write the hits.
Michael: I think I have the um, I think the mind is enough alone because I can hear what I want. I have a whole orchestra up here; a whole orchestra. And I hear it and I interpret it to musicians and they put it down. It’s like Stevie [Wonder], he doesn’t write music or read music nor does Paul McCartney and he still can’t today. You just feel it really.
Steven: Does it take long to record the final track? How much time is involved in recording the vocals and everything else?
LaToya: Does the Jacksons’ vocal tracks take long to come up?
Michael: For our vocals?
LaToya: Yeah.
Steven: Does it take hours and hours to cut a vocal?
Tito: It depends on the song. Some songs are easy; some songs you can sing’ em through once and some songs take two days.
Michael: Yeah. [laughs] It depends. Some songs I’ll have musicians to put it down and I find out that it’s the wrong key completely and I can’t reach certain notes. So we have to go all the way back. That’s when it’s stupid; you just get angry. I know everybody gets mad at me but you can’t do anything.
Tito: You can’t do anything about it; you have to do it over.
Michael: But what’s good about that also is when you do it again the song becomes better also. We get better takes. Did we do that with “Shake Your Body” or “Things I Do For You”? That’s what it was; on the Destiny album. It depends though; every song is different like he said.
Steven: Did you approach Off the Wall differently than a Jacksons group album?
LaToya: Did you approach your solo record any differently than you did the Jacksons record?
[Michael is momentarily excited about a certain kind of lens the photographer is using.]
Michael: That’s neat, isn’t it? I’ve never seen one like that? Have you, Tito? That’s really great. What was your question? What was he saying? [this is addressed to LaToya]
LaToya: Umm, I forgot.
Steven: Did you approach your record any different than you would a Jacksons record?
Michael: I guess. Yes, I do really because I don’t think they should sound alike. When people buy a Jacksons album, I think they should buy a group album. When they buy my album, I think it should have a different soloist type sound to it; a different type of sound completely. And when they come to the concert, I think they should hear like it’s two different acts. When they come to the concert they should have the attitude, “They are gonna see the Jacksons and a Michael Jackson concert because of my solo songs and the Jacksons’ hits and the Jackson Five.” So they’re seeing three groups really. [laughs]
Tito: And Jermaine.
Michael: Yeah, and if Jermaine travels with us which we hope he does, they’ll hear Jermaine. And Tito. That’s what’s good about doing solo work when they scream out what they want to hear and we say, “Alright, alright!” That’s real fun. But in the show we have a section where I do my solo stuff. I put on my tuxedo and get into it.
Tito: Funky tuxedo.
Michael: Funky tuxedo! Really.
Steven: Do you have any plans for any more solo records?
LaToya: Do you have any plans for any more solo albums?
Michael: Well, I guess so because the public kind of demands once they enjoy something. And it was very successful but I wouldn’t do it soon. Not soon, no. ’82; 1982.
After the interview, Michael glided-literally-over to a corner of this rather large conference room and began dancing. It was pretty astonishing to watch him as he seemingly floated three inches above the floor. He wasn't trying to be rude or shut anybody out; rather he was just immersed in his own little world. After a few minutes, I walked over and asked him if I could take a picture with him. He smiled, nodded yes, and here is the aftermath.
Started by aramistrong, Feb 14 2012 07:50 PM
421571_304854512910581_100001581051452_822934_1105138238_n.jpg
Well, here it is, the first of the many audio interviews I'll be posting here.
I chose Michael Jackson because this was:
1) A very strange interview
2) A very cool interview
The conversation took place at the Columbia Records offices in Century City, California. All of the Jacksons were there to talk to the press and I was lucky enough to sit at a table with Michael, Tito and LaToya. Michael was quiet but friendly and I was encouraged by all of his smiles and gentle laughter. But when I asked my first question, the wheels sort of fell off the wagon. Here is what happened and here is what was said:
This interview with Michael Jackson took place right after the release of the Jacksons’ album Triumph in 1980. Michael’s solo album Off the Wall had been released a year earlier and the young singer was sitting on top of this world. Here, Michael is sitting at a conference table at Columbia Records, the label they moved to after leaving Motown, with brother Tito and sister LaToya. Jackson was very friendly and in good spirits but this was a strange conversation. Whenever I would ask Michael a question, he would look at LaToya and she would paraphrase the same question. He would then look at me and offer his response. When he first did this, I just thought he was having some fun but he engaged in this pretty strange behavior for the entire interview. I have included the responses from both LaToya and Tito to convey a real sense of what it was like sitting there at this table with the great – if just a bit strange – Michael Jackson.
It's pretty interesting to note that Michael was just 22-years old when this interview took place. He was already a star but the Thriller album was still about two years away from being released and at that point Jackson would blow up like a supernova.
Steven: Destiny was a different album than Triumph. The Jacksons produced the album themselves and wrote all the material.
LaToya: Was Destiny a little bit different for you guys because you produced the album and wrote the songs?
Michael: Well, we did also on Destiny.
Steven: The entire album?
Michael: Sure. I think the difference is in progress and learning. I think each album you get better. But we wrote all the songs on Destiny except for one song, “Blame it on the Boogie.” With Triumph, I think we accomplished a lot of different things we’ve learned since Destiny. Destiny was the beginning and Triumph is like what we’ve accomplished since then. We have more freedom and we’re doing more arrangement. Trying different creative things, different sounds, all kinds of things like that now.
Steven: You feel you’ve progressed beyond the period when you were being produced by Gamble/Huff. Did you want the control of producing yourselves? Do you think they did a good job of producing the Jacksons?
LaToya: Did you feel that Gamble and Huff did a good job with the Jackson?
Michael: Well, yes, but I attribute a lot of that to the Motown days too because I feel Motown was a great school. You had some of the greatest writers in the world: Holland-Dozier-Holland; Hal Davis; the Corporation which involved ‘Fonz [Alphonzo] Mizell, Deke Richards and Barry Gordy [also Freddie Perren.] I think everybody learned from Motown; even the Beatles in their interviews they acknowledged Motown. The Tamla” Motown” days they called it. That influenced them to write some of their songs. But I see all of that as a whole and from that learning experience is what we’re doing now. We grew from that.
Steven: Did you just outgrow Motown musically?
Tito: Well it gets more involved than just a career.
Steven: Business?
Tito: There’s a business side to everything. But commenting on what Michael said with those old Martha Reeves songs and the Temptations and Surpreme songs, there’s not too many records that you could still play on your turntable today that still sound like hits. And those records still sound like hits today.
Michael: Plus it’s all about growing. I mean, you ask why would we want to leave Motown? We want to try different things; we want to grow. It’s like the caterpillar must come out of the cocoon and be a butterfly. We have to try different things and grow and become all those different colors and elements and things like that. We’ve always wanted to write on Motown but it was never in our contract. And we could have changed our contract at Motown. But I don’t think people had confidence in us; they didn’t believe in us. They say, ”Oh, you guys just kids. Just go behind the mike.” And we’d sing. But it was good. They were hits and as long as they were hits, fine.
Tito: It’s working now.
Michael: Yeah, it’s working now. [laughs] I bet they wish they had of listened!
Steven: Can you tell that you’re getting better as musicians and songwriters? Can you look back at any of those songs and see how they might have been improved?
Tito: Well, the old songs were hits then and I don’t know about doin’ ‘em better. You really can’t say because that was a learning experience for us at that time. And now is the results. I wish we had a chance to express ourself back then.
Steven: Can you talk about how a Jacksons song gets recorded? Does somebody come in with a finished song or do you toss around vocal and melody ideas? How does it happen?
Tito: We write separately and also we write collectively. And we all just take our product, put it in one pot and listen. We have listening sessions and that’s mainly how it starts.
Michael: They come about different ways all the time. Like Tito was playing a track for me at his house one day and I said, “God, I like that.” And from that I thought of a good melody for it and it was on the album. I don’t think any writer sits down at the piano and says, “I’m gonna write a song right now.”
Tito: It’s gonna be number one.
Michael: Yeah, you can’t do that. They come. They write you. They become you. I don’t think Michelangelo or Leonardo da Vinci would go to the canvas and say, “I’m gonna create the Mona Lisa right now!” Or whatever. It just comes and you just have to accept that. They work through you. You don’t choose them.
Steven: By the time you’ve entered the studio, are the songs set in terms of arrangements and who’s going to sing which part?
LaToya: By the time you guys are in the studio, is it pretty set what the song is that you are gonna do?
Michael: Well, yes and no, really. It depends doesn’t it?
Tito: It depends. You can go in with one idea …
Michael: And it changes doesn’t it?
Tito: And one thing … the piano player might take the song somewhere and do a lick. You say, “Hey, everybody do that lick.”
Michael: Right.
Tito: So you never know. Or you may hear somethin’ while you’re listening back so it’s hard to say. I think one of the things to a hit song or whatever is a spare moment for things to happen. Unplanned things.
Michael: Yeah, spontaneous. You know, Norman Whitfield at Motown, he used to always do that. He’d throw a bunch of musicians in a room and he’d say, “Play.” And then from that he’d come up with a hit. That’s how he wrote “Papa Was a Rolling Stone” and a lot of those big hits back then. And then what would happen, he would get into trouble because all of the musicians would want residuals and percentage. They’d think, “You didn’t write this; we did.” He got in a lot of hot water doing that but a lot of songs come up the best way that way; you kind of play off of each other and feel it and just let it work itself.
Steven: As the main songwriter, do you play any instruments?
LaToya: Do you play any instruments?
Steven: How do you compose?
Michael: Well, Jermaine and Tito, they play guitar and Randy plays a lot of instruments. I don’t really plan an instrument. I play drums.
Tito: You do plan an instrument.
Michael: Just a teensy weensy bit of piano.
Tito: He plays enough to write the hits.
Michael: I think I have the um, I think the mind is enough alone because I can hear what I want. I have a whole orchestra up here; a whole orchestra. And I hear it and I interpret it to musicians and they put it down. It’s like Stevie [Wonder], he doesn’t write music or read music nor does Paul McCartney and he still can’t today. You just feel it really.
Steven: Does it take long to record the final track? How much time is involved in recording the vocals and everything else?
LaToya: Does the Jacksons’ vocal tracks take long to come up?
Michael: For our vocals?
LaToya: Yeah.
Steven: Does it take hours and hours to cut a vocal?
Tito: It depends on the song. Some songs are easy; some songs you can sing’ em through once and some songs take two days.
Michael: Yeah. [laughs] It depends. Some songs I’ll have musicians to put it down and I find out that it’s the wrong key completely and I can’t reach certain notes. So we have to go all the way back. That’s when it’s stupid; you just get angry. I know everybody gets mad at me but you can’t do anything.
Tito: You can’t do anything about it; you have to do it over.
Michael: But what’s good about that also is when you do it again the song becomes better also. We get better takes. Did we do that with “Shake Your Body” or “Things I Do For You”? That’s what it was; on the Destiny album. It depends though; every song is different like he said.
Steven: Did you approach Off the Wall differently than a Jacksons group album?
LaToya: Did you approach your solo record any differently than you did the Jacksons record?
[Michael is momentarily excited about a certain kind of lens the photographer is using.]
Michael: That’s neat, isn’t it? I’ve never seen one like that? Have you, Tito? That’s really great. What was your question? What was he saying? [this is addressed to LaToya]
LaToya: Umm, I forgot.
Steven: Did you approach your record any different than you would a Jacksons record?
Michael: I guess. Yes, I do really because I don’t think they should sound alike. When people buy a Jacksons album, I think they should buy a group album. When they buy my album, I think it should have a different soloist type sound to it; a different type of sound completely. And when they come to the concert, I think they should hear like it’s two different acts. When they come to the concert they should have the attitude, “They are gonna see the Jacksons and a Michael Jackson concert because of my solo songs and the Jacksons’ hits and the Jackson Five.” So they’re seeing three groups really. [laughs]
Tito: And Jermaine.
Michael: Yeah, and if Jermaine travels with us which we hope he does, they’ll hear Jermaine. And Tito. That’s what’s good about doing solo work when they scream out what they want to hear and we say, “Alright, alright!” That’s real fun. But in the show we have a section where I do my solo stuff. I put on my tuxedo and get into it.
Tito: Funky tuxedo.
Michael: Funky tuxedo! Really.
Steven: Do you have any plans for any more solo records?
LaToya: Do you have any plans for any more solo albums?
Michael: Well, I guess so because the public kind of demands once they enjoy something. And it was very successful but I wouldn’t do it soon. Not soon, no. ’82; 1982.
After the interview, Michael glided-literally-over to a corner of this rather large conference room and began dancing. It was pretty astonishing to watch him as he seemingly floated three inches above the floor. He wasn't trying to be rude or shut anybody out; rather he was just immersed in his own little world. After a few minutes, I walked over and asked him if I could take a picture with him. He smiled, nodded yes, and here is the aftermath.
Ich brauche, glaube ich, noch ein wenig Zeit, bis ich da durchblicke. Das ist alles so wuselig. Na ja, der Tag wird kommen. Ich übe mich einfach ein wenig in Geduld und versuche derweil meine Döppen etwas weiter aufzumachen.
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