Today is a big day for Katja Glieson! The twenty one year old Australian recording artist and dancer is releasing the music video for her new song “Look At Us.” This new video produced by well-known producers “Trend Def” features Ongina, who rose to fame on RuPaul’s Drag Race, and we are featuring the video right here at PopEntertainment.com!
You might remember Glieson as the battle rhyming Elsa in the viral video “Snow White vs. Elsa: Princess Rap Battle.” With nearly 24 million views, the popular YouTube video starring Glieson and actress-turned-rapper (at least for the video) Whitney Avalon proves that even the most beautiful princesses can get down and battle with the best of them.
Glieson has a strong following and fan base that she fondly calls the special agents of her Pop Cult. She is a strong and vocal opponent of bullying which she has experienced first hand as a heavy teen. Glieson is also very involved in supporting equality and has participated in many awareness concerts including LA PRIDE, Capital Pride and OC Pride.
Glieson’s new song and video “Look At Us” is described as a song that embodies female empowerment and celebrates being confident and true to who you are. All of these traits seem to be what this young, award winning singer from Down Under stands for, so go ahead and check it out now!
Featuring Brian Wilson, Cher, Nancy Sinatra, Tommy Tedesco, Hal Blaine, Don Randi, Carol Kaye, Joe Osborn, Earl Palmer, Glen Campbell, Leon Russell, Herb Alpert, Roger McGuinn, Dick Clark, Jimmy Webb, Micky Dolenz, Peter Tork, Bones Howe, Lou Adler, H.B. Barnum, Al Casey, Snuff Garrett, Larry Knechtel, Larry Levine, Lew McCreary, Bill Pittman, Carmy Tedesco and Denny Tedesco and archival footage of The Association, Chuck Barris, The Beach Boys, Sonny Bono, James Burton, Sam Cooke, Sammy Davis Jr., Jerry Dunphy, Cher, Nancy Sinatra, Tommy Tedesco, Hal Blaine, Don Randi, Carol Kaye, Joe Osborn, Earl Palmer, Glen Campbell, Leon Russell, Herb Alpert, Roger McGuinn, Dick Clark, Jimmy Webb, Micky Dolenz, Peter Tork, Bones Howe, Lou Adler, H.B. Barnum, Al Casey, Snuff Garrett, Larry Knechtel, Larry Levine, Lew McCreary, Al Jardine, Davy Jones, Barney Kessel, Kurt Loder, Mike Love, Dean Martin, The Monkees, Ricky Nelson, Mike Nesmith, Don Peake, Howard A. Roberts, Frank Sinatra, Phil Spector, Ronnie Spector, Julius Wechter, Adam West, Carl Wilson, Dennis Wilson and Frank Zappa.
Directed by Denny Tedesco.
Distributed by Magnolia Pictures. 95 minutes. Rated PG.
History is littered with great men who never quite receive recognition for their contributions to society. Whether in science, politics, philanthropy, athletics, or the arts, many of the most influential movers and shakers are content to stay behind the scenes and toil away in obscurity.
Take The Wrecking Crew.
Most people who are not involved in the music business have never heard of the Wrecking Crew. And yet, you’ve been listening to their work all of your life.
The Wrecking Crew was a group of musicians who worked together to perform the soundtrack of a generation. They weren’t even really an official band, per se, more an often-shifting collective of studio musicians who worked together on some of the biggest hits of the 50s, 60 and 70s.
The members mostly have names that are completely obscure to everyone except for the biggest music geeks – names like Tommy Tedesco, Joe Osborn, Hal Blaine, Carol Kaye, Don Randi, Mike Melvoin, Plas Johnson, Earl Palmer, James Burton and many others. Occasionally one of the members would go on to greater stardom – Glen Campbell got his start as a member of The Wrecking Crew, as did Leon Russell – but mostly they worked best in the background, putting their own particular stamp on musical history.
The Wrecking Crew could play anything: rock and roll, R&B, country, jazz, classical. They often did TV theme songs or movie background music. Anything or everything, they were up for it. They were artists, they were craftsmen, they were the best in the business. And their music was so ubiquitous in popular music for a generation that often they didn’t even get album credit, because record execs were afraid of people seeing the same names on just about every song being released.
Take a gander at some of the songs that members of The Wrecking Crew played on. And believe me, this is just a small, small sampling. “Good Vibrations.” “Strangers in the Night.” “Can’t Help Falling in Love.” “Be My Baby.” “ABC.” “Twisting the Night Away.” “Mr. Tambourine Man.” “California Dreaming.” “A Taste of Honey.” “The Theme From Bonanza.” “(They Long To Be) Close To You.” “I Got You Babe.” “This Diamond Ring.” “I Think I Love You.” “The Pink Panther Theme.” “River Deep, Mountain High.” “This Guy Is In Love With You.” “California Girls.” “Aquarius/Let the Sunshine In.” “Annie’s Song.” “Love Will Keep Us Together.”
Like I said, that was just a small sampling. Drummer Hal Blaine, for example, played on six straight song of the year Grammy winners. And they never got any credit for their work. Until now.
The Wrecking Crew is a good companion piece to the Best Documentary-winning Twenty Feet From Stardom from a couple of years ago. Like that film, it gives names and faces to some of the greatest musical artists of a generation.
It is a labor of love long in the works by director Denny Tedesco, son of Tommy Tedesco, one of the best unknown guitarists ever. Denny grew up a normal kid who had no idea the huge impact his dad had on pop culture. He just thought he was another working dad, like a doctor or a plumber, who went in to work and then came home.
Denny Tedesco started the film with a filmed summit with his dad and a few other of the Wrecking Crew mainstays soon after his father learned that he was extremely ill. (Tommy died of lung cancer in 1997.) Over the years the film has grown exponentially and deepened, not only celebrating Tedesco’s life but a whole host of forgotten artists and giving a snapshot of a musical world that has passed us by.
For anyone who has even a passing interest in the pop culture of the 20th century, The Wrecking Crew is an unexpected treat.
The Wrecking Crew was the house band for an entire generation. But chances are, you’ve never heard of them.
The Wrecking Crew was a loose collective of studio musicians who played on many of the biggest hits of the 1950s, 1960s, and early 1970s. They provided backing for Elvis Presley, Frank Sinatra, The Beach Boys, Simon & Garfunkel, Nat King Cole, Sam Cooke, The Monkees, Phil Spector and many, many others. Yet they rarely got credit for their work.
Some of the greatest musicians of the era gave The Wrecking Crew its exhilarating sound. Among the mainstays of the group were guitarists Tommy Tedesco and Al Casey, drummer Hal Blaine, keyboard players Don Randi, Mike Melvoin and Al De Lory, bassists Carol Kaye and Joe Osborn,trumpeter Chuck Findlay and a rotating group of other players. Only guitarist Glen Campbell (and to a lesser extent keyboard player Leon Russell) used their time in The Wrecking Crew as a trampoline to stardom as a headlining act.
However, a new documentary called The Wrecking Crew is looking to remedy this. It was a labor of love for director Denny Tedesco, son of late Wrecking Crew axe man Tommy Tedesco. Denny originally started work on the film back in the mid-1990s, soon after his dad was diagnosed with lung cancer. Denny Tedesco got his dad and a few of his old Wrecking Crew buddies to sit down and have a summit discussing their amazing musical careers and accomplishments.
Nearly 20 years later that footage has been supplemented and expanded. The story deepened with lots of additional footage, interviews with members of the Wrecking Crew, as well as comments from the headline artists whose songs the musicians transformed into the soundtrack of baby boomer life.
A few days before The Wrecking Crew was about to get a national release, we got a chance to chat with Wrecking Crew mainstays Hal Blaine and Don Randi and documentary director Denny Tedesco.
You performed on many of the biggest hits of over a decade. What was it like when you would be listening to the radio and many of the songs that came on you had worked on?
Don Randi: I loved it. I still love it. We have a station out here, K-Earth 101 and I turn it on every once in a while when I’m not listening to the jazz station. Two weeks ago, they played five in a row. (laughs) I was like, how many guys can say that? And every one was different. Everyone was such a different style of how I could play. It was so much fun hearing it there.
Hal Blaine: It makes you feel great, of course. Most drummers are gigantic egomaniacs, so when you hear yourself and you’ve done a good job and you’ve got a gold record, or a platinum record, or just great reviews, it really makes you feel good. It really does make you feel good. It’s pretty exciting when those things happen.
Denny, when you were growing up, were you aware of how important and ubiquitous your father’s work was in pop music?
Denny Tedesco: Not at all. Dad went to work. I was born in ‘61, so I was too young for the Beach Boys stuff and what’s going on. But music was being played. I never realized what dad was doing, because dad just went to work like any other dad. My friend across the street, his father was a carpenter. His dad had a saw, a drill, a hammer and all that stuff in the trunk. My dad had a classical guitar, a 12-string, a Telecaster, a banjo, a mandolin and an amplifier. That’s what he went to work with. I didn’t see my dad play the guitar until the 70s, when he started playing at home for his own enjoyment.
Having done so many classic songs, were there any sessions that really stood out to you as exceptional?
Hal Blaine: When they took me to England to record with Richard Harris on “MacArthur Park,” with Jimmy Webb, who wrote the song. Long story and I won’t go into it – but it turned out that they had me come to England and they gave me a ten-day vacation. At the time my wife left me a widower, she had passed away and I had a girl to raise. I was glad they felt wonderful for me, but sad. They brought me to England to record, and it turned out to be ten days of a party, paid. I just had an incredible time. We came back to Hollywood and we did “MacArthur Park,” among the other songs, too [on Harris’ A Tramp Shining album]. It’s an amazing record. I forget how many minutes the song was. Generally you had three minutes and 15 or 20 seconds per record. In this case, it was something like eight or nine. [ed. note: It was seven minutes and 26 seconds.] It was perfect for disk jockeys who in those days actually did needle drop. That was before computers, etc., where they pushed a button. They actually dropped the needle on the record. That led to a lot of interviews in the help of my career. That’s how I made my name.
Don Randi: Well, always working for the Beach Boys. ”Good Vibrations,” the Pet Sounds album, that’s outstanding. Working for Phil Spector. We did 21 million-selling records in a row, for all of those [Wall of Sound] artists. Then working for a lot of the label producers, like Jimmy Bowen, Lee Hazelwood, Dick Lasser. Loads of them. Everybody was good at what they were doing, because they were making hit records. They would hire The Wall of Sound or The Wrecking Crew. For me it’s still ongoing, because I still work all the time, still play. Thank God.
Denny, did your dad tell you of any?
Denny Tedesco: What he would want to be remembered for is one thing. Sessions that he always loved were something like Elvis, because they treated him well. Elvis catered it. If my dad had something to play, he liked it when he had something to play that wasn’t just chunka-chunka-chunka. When he got to let loose. They asked him what would you want to be remembered for. He said: Listen, any one of those guys, any one of those 10 or 12 guitar players that we sat next to over the years, they could do any of those songs. ”Bonanza” or “Batman” or “Green Acres” or whatever it was. Any of the Beach Boys stuff. All that stuff. It wasn’t about that. He said, “I want to be remembered for my film work.” In the 70s and late 80s, when you’ve got John Williams saying, “Hold the first two weeks Tommy in September, I’ve got a movie coming up called The River and it’s all guitar,” that’s when you know you’re being called because you are Tommy Tedesco. You’re not a guitar player. That’s when you know you’ve hit it in your art.
Of all of the amazing musicians of the Wrecking Crew, only Glen Campbell really made the transition to stardom as a headlining act. Are you surprised not more of the Wrecking Crew made that leap?
Denny Tedesco: Well, Leon Russell as well. It’s funny because someone asked that recently. It’s a good question. Someone asked, “Were they upset that they weren’t stars?” But the thing is, they were stars. People don’t realize, when they went to work, they were stars to the artists. When Brian Wilson is sitting in the room, don’t forget, Brian is maybe 20 and my dad is 30 at this point, these guys are basically heroes to some of these other musicians that are coming in.
Hal Blaine: Not surprised at all. We were very happy for those guys, because we were all settled on making the kind of bucks that we were making. We were making a ton of money. That’s all there was to it. We were very happy with that. But we were thrilled with Glen, because he was part of our Wrecking Crew. Leon Russell was a part of our Wrecking Crew. Of course you’d never recognize him if you’ve seen Leon lately, you’d never know it was the same Leon.
Don Randi: Well, for me, I have over 21 albums over the years. Don Randi & Quest, the Don Randi Trio. I always managed to record and some of them were very successful. I had one hit record, years ago, called “Mexican Pearls,” which went to the top 40 [in 1965]. Then I got covered by Billy Vaughn and he went to number 1. But fortunately, I wrote the song, so I came out pretty good on it. But those things never bothered me. More power to you. If you can do it, why not?
Denny Tedesco: [The bands] are watching these guys lay down the parts, going, “Oh, my God! We could never do that that quickly.” It was about let’s lay it down, let’s get it out, let’s get a hit, let’s get the guys on the road and promote this album. Sometimes it’s just singers. Singers were just thrilled to have these guys there. The tour bands, they may be a group, but they are not going to take a chance with a tour band. They need guys that can get in and get out in three hours.
Don Randi: Listen, one of the best songs you’ll never hear was recorded by Glen Campbell. He sang the demo on a song, I forget the title, (sings) “Here I go again, she’s back in town again. I’ll be the clown again one more time.” (ed. note: It was called “Here We Go Again.”) Don Lanier and Red Steagall wrote that. We did a demo of it and Glen Campbell sang the demo. The demo was incredible. (laughs) Then, of course, a number of people got number one records with that, including Ray Charles. Then Ray Charles and Norah Jones did it again years later as a duo and sold a couple of million copies again.
Hal Blaine: Glen Campbell, we just did his last – unfortunately – recording. We got the Grammy for it.
Don Randi: Two years ago we were at a show out here and they had a call for Hal Blaine, Don Randi and Joe Osborn. We had to go into the studio and record the punchy number one record of this last year, called “I’m Not Going to Miss You” by Glen Campbell. It was up for an Academy Award. [Ed. note: For Best Original Song from the Glen Campbell documentary I’ll Be Me.]
That’s right. Should have won it, as far as I’m concerned.
Don Randi: Me, too. Me too. So here you go. Here we are, how many years later?
Hal Blaine: In fact, we’re going in to the Grammys tonight for a film screening. We’re all in downtown LA near the Grammy museum. This is the kick off week for the premieres. On the 13th The Wrecking Crew movie is premiering in Hollywood. Limos, the whole bit. It’s going to be absolutely incredible. Everyone who has seen the movie is nuts about the movie. They love it. It’s a thrill for me to be just even a little part of it.
This film has been in the works for almost two decades now. You originally started it soon after you found out Tommy was sick in the mid 90s. How does it feel that it is finally making it out and getting a widespread release? I saw there was a limited release in 2008.
Denny Tedesco: Well, we did the festivals in 2008. When we did the festivals, I thought, oh, this is it. The film we had is a little different than what we have now, but we thought: Wow, we’re out. We’re going to do it in 2008. And then, nothing happened. The reviews were off the charts, the reactions from audiences were killer. I kept thinking this is going to be amazing. But no one would touch it, because we always had a back end and knew we had to raise the money for the labels and the publishers. As well as the musicians union, as well as photos and stock footage. I thought the success would have led us into someone going, “Oh, let’s just pick this up. We could take care of this.” But the reality was it’s not going to happen when it is a documentary. It’s just not going to make its money. There was an article in 2009 that talked about how director Martin Scorsese was struggling with his musical doc [Shine a Light] on The Stones. [Jonathan] Demme was struggling with his doc [Trunk Show] with Neil Young. They talked about director Denny Tedesco with hisWrecking Crew doc, and I went: Oh, my God! They called me a director. Oh, my God! I’m on the same page [as Scorsese and Demme]. (laughs) Who cares if it’s negative. I don’t care.
Don Randi: I think it’s fantastic. It just shows that with a little diligence and not giving up, you can [do anything]. You’ve got to keep doing it. He could have walked away from this a number of times, but he didn’t. That’s why we’re so gung ho for Denny and for the project. The whole project is amazing. Imagine the sacrifices they had to make to get this done. So, what can I say? I’m proud of them and I’m proud of all of us for hanging in there.
Hal Blaine: It’s great fun. I think everyone really should see this movie. They’re going to wake up to reality, so to speak. It was just the golden era of recording. We got to work with everybody from symphonies to the lowest of the rock and roll records. They were all hits.
Was it fun to get back together with everyone to make the film?
Hal Blaine: Absolutely. Absolutely. And of course, Denny the director, I’ve known him since he was born. One of my jokes is I’ve got drumsticks older than you. (laughs)
Beyond the movie, you are also working in conjunction with Ken Sharp’s new Wrecking Crew book Sound Explosion, which is also a terrific look at these same musicians.
Hal Blaine: Great book. Just saw it for the first time myself. Beautiful book.
Denny Tedesco: The book is amazing. I’m just thrilled. The timing is perfect.
How did it feel to see the movie the first time?
Hal Blaine: The first time I saw parts of it, I broke down crying. I was being inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame when that was happening. In fact, somebody brought that up today. I just cried like a baby, because Tommy was such a sweet guy and to me it was a memorial to [Denny’s] dad, the greatest guitarist in the world and a good friend. Just a terrific, terrific guy, terrific people.
I remember reading a great quote attributed to Tommy a while back about the stages of a musician’s career. “Who’s Tommy Tedesco? Get me Tommy Tedesco. Get me a young Tommy Tedesco. Who’s Tommy Tedesco?” Do you think that pretty much sums up the world of studio musicians?
Hal Blaine:(laughs) Absolutely. Absolutely. You’ve seen the movie?
I have.
Hal Blaine: Well, you saw Tommy doing his bit. That was exactly Tommy. He was fantastic. The feeling that he had and the stories that he could tell, he was a beautiful man. One of those things. He was a terrific guy. We used to work every day together and it was such great fun. I can’t tell you how much fun it was.
Denny Tedesco: (laughs) It sounds like he would have said it. I’ve heard that before. I’ve heard it with everybody. (laughs again) But it is true.
Don Randi: Yeah, he did. Everybody else walked in his shadow. (laughs) Not only was he a musician, an incredible guitarist, but he was… as I like to say, he was a true mensch. [Ed. note: Yiddish for “person of integrity and honor.”] Good guy. Good guy. And helpful to everybody. Helpful to new young guitar players. He helped a lot of guys get into the studios and get working. If he was a schmuck he would have said, “Nah, screw you. I don’t want any part of it.” That wasn’t his style.
Denny Tedesco: The biggest moment in the film for me that mean so much to me have nothing to do with music, that anybody can relate to, is when I asked [producer] Bones Howe: You guys are at the top of the world, you are the A-Team, and then you’re not. How do you deal with that? He says, “You’ve got your ramp up. You’re at the top of the ramp. Then you’ve got your ramp down. It’s not about staying on the top, take the ramp down as long as possible.”
I wrote a biography of Tom Waits and I interviewed Bones Howe extensively for it. At one point he said to me he was at the weird point in his career that people wanted to interview him about his work more than to have him actually do the work.
Denny Tedesco: Right. Yeah. Yeah, it’s true…. Recently Marc Maron, the comedian and podcaster, he gave me the words for it. He told me, “Yeah, of course. We all want to be relevant.” I went, oh, yeah, that’s it. It’s no different. My mom is 83. She doesn’t work. She still wants to be relevant at this point in her life. We all want to be relevant.
Hal Blaine: Meanwhile, I’m sitting here in the back of the Pro Drum Shop, greatest drum shop in the world, in Hollywood, and if you hear a bunch of noise going on there is a lot of customers out there buying drums and cymbals and stuff. So that’s kind of fun, yeah. The gals here have just been terrific. Where are you exactly?
I’m in Philadelphia.
Hal Blaine: Oh, Philly. I can’t tell you how many records I did with so many of those guys. The Bobbys and the Johnnies and the… I can’t think of all their names, now. They were all Philadelphia guys. I think Frankie Avalon might have been one.
Frankie Avalon was a Philly guy, and Fabian Forte, and Bobby Rydell.
Hal Blaine: Bobby,I did Bobby.I was doing all those Bobbys and Rickys and Frankies. It was amazing times. I happened to be working with at the time, it was one of those flukes, my real inception or induction into rock and roll would have to be with a young man by the name of Tommy Sands [an actor and singer probably best known for Babes in Toyland, as well as being Nancy Sinatra’s first husband] back in the 50s. Tommy was close to all those guys. Tommy working in movies, television, etc., and that automatically threw me in with all those guys. I was just looking at a great picture of Bobby Rydell that I had found in an old photo album. I was a shutterbug. I took a lot of pictures. I’ve been a very, very lucky guy.
Don, you’ve been working with Nancy Sinatra for years. In fact, during the movie, you did a good amount of your interview with her. How has your working relationship been with her over the years?
Don Randi: Well, I had to punch her out a couple of days ago, but other than that… (laughs) She is the best. She is the best artist to work with. Always has been. She’s the most wonderful person, when it comes to musicians. Musicians come first. ”Is everything okay?” Hal used to come out and be one of the musicians in our big orchestra, when Billy Strange was conducting, and then when I took over. When I became her musical director. Hal didn’t really want to go out anymore. I always had great drummers in my band, so she said, “I’ll make you a deal.” She would take my whole band out as the rhythm section, so that when we rehearsed, we didn’t have to worry about getting the studio guys. It was all of my guys. On occasion we’d go back and use them every once in a while, but most of the touring bands were always my bands.
They are doing so much celebration for her father’s centennial. What was he like to work with?
Don Randi: He was the best. He treated me very well because he knew how close we were. I was, if anything, overly protective of her. I looked out for her, and Frankie Jr., too. Sometimes we were all together, so it was fun.
Are you helping her do any of the tributes for his 100th birthday?
Don Randi: A couple of them. But mostly, you’ve got to remember, next year is the 50th anniversary of “These Boots Are Made For Walking.” I think next year she may be out doing quite a lot. You’ve got to remember, she’s an older person now. She just had some knee surgeries. She doesn’t really want to run onstage with “These Boots Are Made For Walking.” (laughs) But she’s going to have to and she’s going to do something next year.
I know the nickname “The Wrecking Crew” came about sort of after the fact, but how did that come about?
Denny Tedesco: Hal used to always tell the story about how in those days – in the early 60s – when they were doing cash dates, my dad and Hal and Carol [Kaye] and Don Randi and Joe Osborn, when those guys were beginning, the early days, they were doing dates that the older guys, the more established guys, don’t want to do.
Hal Blaine: The reason it happened was, I used to work as an actor and I was working for Walt Disney. I was on a movie. I was doing bit parts for Walt on his motion pictures. At one point, this was the late 50s, early 60s, rock and roll was becoming prevalent. It was considered filthy, nasty, terrible music. The real studio guys refused to play it. Drummers like Shelly Manne, the great Shelly, these people refused.
Denny Tedesco: They were doing demos. Demos were lower budget, or they were illegal in the union. The older guys, they’re not going to take a chance on getting busted for that, so these younger guys were: “Hey, I’ve got to work. I’ve got to eat. I’m going to do that.” Some of those demos became hits. Those demos became records, the masters.
Hal Blaine: Within weeks, they were calling me. Shelly would call me and say, “Hal, what is it you’re doing that is so popular?” I said, Shelly, it’s just a backbeat on two and four. That’s all it is. It’s either straight eights with two and four or a shuffle type with two and four backbeats. And he understood. A lot of the guys did. But a lot of the old-timers that did all the great, historic saga movies that were done at 20th [Century Fox] and MGM and all of those great musicals, those guys would look at us because a lot of times they were around while we were playing, and we were in Levis and t-shirts and they were in three-piece suits or blue blazer jackets.
Hal was just telling me that a lot of the older players, like his good friend Shelly Manne, refused to play rock.
Don Randi: No, they didn’t. As a matter of fact, we did a gig for Buddy Rich’s daughter. I’ll bet Hal didn’t even mention that. But Buddy hired Hal (laughs) to come in and do the rock, because he knew he couldn’t do it, which I thought was really great, you know? How often is that going to happen?
Denny Tedesco: The older guys started saying, “Well, these guys are going to wreck the business playing this rock and roll.” So Hal coined the term years later.
Hal Blaine: I would overhear them saying, “These kids are going to wreck the business.” We were kids in 1957, ‘58. So I called my secretary and said, “If we’re going to book a date, start calling us The Wrecking Crew.” So you didn’t have to look up names.
Different sources list different amounts of members. Who were the main players of the Wrecking Crew?
Hal Blaine: There was six or seven of us, eight of us. Tommy Tedesco, the great guitarist. Glen Campbell. Leon Russell. Jimmy Bond, the great bass player. Lyle Ritz, the great bass player. It was just a nucleus of about five, six, seven of us. Once in a while we would augment, if someone hired The Wrecking Crew, they would augment with a string section or a brass section. That was a different thing, because once we started getting popular, and famous, so to speak, everybody came out of the woodwork. Calling me, saying, “Hey, I thought I was part of the Wrecking Crew.” I said, well, you were, but this is on a movie that we did and we called you guys in, or a TV theme, or something.
The Wrecking Crew was able to play pretty much any style of music – rock, pop, jazz, country, R&B – and make it their own. Why do you feel musicians these days don’t tend to experiment in different musical genres?
Denny Tedesco: That’s a really good question. Here’s the thing, there are two things about that question that I would have asked my father. I asked him once: What’s the difference between a studio player like yourself or a specialist? He said, “A studio player, there’s a door there, we don’t know what’s behind the door when we walk in. We walk in and we have our instruments. I might have to play classical. I might have to read. I might have to play mandolin. I might have to play banjo.” He said you can’t just sit there and say send me the blues thing. If you want the blues guy, you’d get BB King. But you can’t expect BB King to read the music or you can’t expect BB King to jump on to classical. And you can’t expect [classical guitarist Andrés] Segovia to play blues at the last minute.
Don Randi: Part of it is a lot of us were great country kickers, like Glen Campbell and James Burton and those guys. The most of the rest of us were all improvising jazz players. We all came from improvisational forms of music, so for me it was very easy to adapt to the rock and roll. And I liked it. I didn’t pooh-pooh it at all. It was a great living for me. God knows I wasn’t making any money playing bebop. Although, when all the guys were still in the studios, I kept working in nightclubs. I never stopped.
Denny Tedesco: That’s why [it was] these guys. My father would go in, they would all go in, and come up with things that fit what they needed. Another reason is in those days, they listened to all types of music. Jimmy Webb had the greatest line. He said, “Nowadays, music on the radio is segregated.” If you want to listen to pop or rock, you listen to that. If you want to listen to rap, you listen to that. If you want to hear country, you listen to that. He said, “In those days, we only had three stations. You could hear rock, jazz and country all on one.” There were just three stations or two stations where he was growing up. So you kind of had to influence each other.
People have known for years that studio musicians did the music for bands like The Monkees and The Partridge Family, but may have been more surprised to hear you were behind things like the Beach Boys, some of the Byrds and Herb Alpert & the Tijuana Brass. What songs do people tend to be most surprised to know you played on?
Don Randi: “ABC.” (laughs) I had little Michael [Jackson] coming over and saying, “Mr. Landi, how did you play that?” (laughs hard) The Jackson Five, what can I say?
Hal Blaine: I still laugh, I turn on the television and here’s Three’s Company. Some of the greatest drumming I ever did, because I was not that kind of a drummer. I was never a soloist. I was an accompanist. But when you listen to “Three’s Company,” and each year, we would redo it, when Mr. [Joe] Raposo came from New York, the writer and producer, and each year he’d say, “Hal, more. This year I want you to play more. Play more drums. Play more. Play more.” Until it almost became the Hal Blaine soundtrack. If you listen to that today, you’ll hear my invention, which was the Octoplus, the Ludwig drums that I designed, where I went from a four or five piece set of drums to now I had twelve pieces. I had an octave of drums. If you ever listen to the Carpenters, you’ll hear the fill kind of things I did with those kind of drums. It was amazing timing. Everybody pretty soon heard about this. They saw them. I introduced them on a Ed Sullivan special. Every drum company in the world started making those drums.
Don Randi: And then the more classical ones want to know about the harpsichord solo. The sound of a “Different Drum” with the Stone Poneys with Linda Ronstadt. That’s my harpsichord in that.
That’s amazing. I love the sound of a harpsichord. I wish more musicians would still use it.
Don Randi: You know what? Some of the producers would use it in conjunction with the mixing it in with guitars. It gave them a fuller sound. Especially if you put a 12-string and a harpsichord together, you think you have 9,000 guys playing. (laughs) Now they have the electronic. You get close to it with the electronic gear, but it’s not the same. It’s not the same. Same thing with the acoustic piano. It’s still not the same. They are close, but it’s not the same.
There was so much classic music in the film – was that hard to license? Were there any songs you wished you could get but couldn’t?
Denny Tedesco: No. No, it’s funny. We have 110 songs in the movie. Not one song did we get turned down by. Not one song. It wasn’t about struggling to get the songs, it was you’ve got to pay for it. Even with the fact that the labels and the publishers, they all worked in helping out, they all came in as most favored nations, which means there is a certain rate that everybody gets, no matter what it is. Everybody agreed on it. It was the only way to do it. You couldn’t be breaking down, like this song gets this and this song gets…. We’d have been another 20 years. So that was the way they did it. They all came together. You’d just deal with them and plead your case. 110 songs. I didn’t get one turned down.
Between the movie and Ken Sharp’s new book and Don’s upcoming book, do you think that the members of the Wrecking Crew will finally get their due as the musical innovators that they were?
Don Randi: I think so. Every little bit helps. I was just talking on another interview before that when you are picked as the subject for Jeopardy, one of the categories was “The Wrecking Crew.” (laughs) So people are aware. Mostly in the business. People in the business are aware. Now it’s starting to get out with all the younger people. It’s amazing when I’ll do a seminar, or I’ll go someplace and we’re doing the Q&A after the film, the younger kids are more interested in the Beach Boys now than most of the other artists. I think originally, when the Beach Boys first started, had these younger musicians been able to emulate them more, they would have been even more popular than they are now. (chuckles) They were a little hard to emulate. The doo wops were simple. Some of those other singing groups were pretty basic harmonies. But the Beach Boys were a little complicated.
When you were working with Brian Wilson, did you know you were with a special talent?
Don Randi: Oh yes, absolutely. I loved it. I loved him. I still do. I’ll see him every once in a while. On occasion we’ll be in the same studio or something and we always have a good time.
There were so many songs that members of the Wrecking Crew played on that the labels didn’t give them credit because they didn’t want it to look like these same musicians were on nearly every record being made. After all this time, though, do you think that maybe someday they will be credited for all of the music they did?
Denny Tedesco: Yeah, absolutely. We’re doing it right now. We’re helping with that. We’re actually releasing a soundtrack album, which is on Pledge Music right now. http://www.pledgemusic.com/projects/thewreckingcrew We’ll have three CDs filled with hits. Some of that, what we’re doing is taking all of those songs and putting the contracts from the AFM [American Federation of Musicians] to it. So they are going to get the credit. At the end of the film, when you see all those names, we give credits to string players. All of those names are coming off of contracts, if we could ever find the contracts.
Hal Blaine: There were certain record companies that did give us credit. But there were others that didn’t. It wasn’t that they didn’t want to. Some people thought maybe it was going to hurt the artists that we were recording. When we were doing a Gary Lewis & the Playboys, they never played on their own records. But certain record companies maybe thought we better not say anything or we’re going to burst the bubble. So that’s the story. I wish I knew what to tell you, Jay.
Denny Tedesco: Some of it was, yes, conspiracy, if you want to call it conspiracy. Or you want to call it just business. They’re not going to put the names of these guys on Pet Sounds, because the Beach Boys are still playing at that point. Sometimes if it was instrumental groups…. But, you know, I don’t think it was a conspiracy at all. I think now it’s not a big deal [to give the proper credit]. Then it might have been, “We don’t want everybody knowing.”
Don Randi:(laughs) Well, I think the movie helps us out quite a lot. In my book You’ve Heard These Hands, which will be out September 1st, I really give a lot of other stories you can’t do in the film in 90 minutes. Incidentally, the outtakes on the DVD version of this thing, if you get it, the outtakes are hilariously and honestly very well done. Very well done. They’re great. They’re really good.
Hal Blaine: For me it was just the most incredible time. It was just an incredible time. I’m losing my voice. (laughs) We’ve been talking since 11:00 this morning. Been talking with people all over the country. Unbelievable.Give my best regards to Philly. Tell everybody to see the film. It’s great.
For more information and to purchase The Wrecking Crew movie, theSound Explosion book and more, visit http://www.wreckingcrewfilm.com/
Featuring Paul McCartney, Alicia Keys, Alison Krauss & Union Station, Jerry Douglas, Duane Eddy, Norah Jones, Neil Young with Crazy Horse, Sergio Mendes, Coldplay, James Taylor, Diane Krall, Joe Walsh, Dave Grohl and members of Cirque du Soleil.
Directed by Leon Knoles.
Distributed by Shout Factory. 60 minutes. Not Rated.
As hard as it is for those of us that grew up with him to believe, “The Cute Beatle” is now considered an elder statesman of music. One of only two surviving members of arguably the definitive rock and roll group (and certainly a lot more culturally impactful than Ringo Starr), he someone to honor rather than actually listen to.
Yet, at this point, as a seventy-something year old man, Paul McCartney is more relevant than he has been in decades.
He currently has a hit single for the first time since 1989’s god-awful “Press to Play” and his first top 10 hit since “No More Lonely Nights” in 1984. Oh, sure, on “FourFiveSeconds” he sort of has to ride the coattails of Rihanna and Kanye West to get back to the top of the charts, but he did it and good for him. (The millennials have been having a good time trolling us oldsters, asking who the old guy was on the new Kanye and Rihanna song.)
Dave Grohl chose Sir Paul to replace Kurt Cobain as lead singer on his recent reunion of the surviving members of Nirvana for the song “Cut Me Some Slack” for the soundtrack to the movie Sound City. McCartney’s 2014 comeback album New received some of the best reviews he’d had in years. And late last year, the tribute album The Art of McCartney got some of the biggest names in music to record their own versions of his songbook – including Brian Wilson, Bob Dylan, Billy Joel, Willie Nelson, Heart, The Cure, Cat Stevens, Kiss, Barry Gibb, The Cure, Steve Miller and many, many more.
This video is another step in the right direction for celebrating his career. This all-star concert, again performing McCartney classics and lesser-known songs, recasts some of his greatest moments in starkly different context. The concert itself happened back in 2012, when McCartney won the Man of the Year award from MusiCares, a charity formed by the National Academy of Recording Arts and Sciences (the Grammy people) to help provide for musicians in need.
Even more than The Art of McCartney was, A MusicaresTribute to Paul McCartney had an eccentric and wide-ranging group of artists putting their own stamp on Sir Paul’s finest songs.
It starts off rather weakly, though, with an extended medley of Beatles tunes being performed by Cirque du Soleil’s cast of The Beatles “Love.” Problem is, these aren’t singers, it’s just prerecorded music with a bunch of goofily dressed dancers acting twee.
However, as soon as that endless medley winds down, the concert winds up. Sir Paul is on stage to take part in one of two of his short sets, doing a workmanlike take on “Magical Mystery Tour” and then putting the pedal down on a wonderful take of his Wings song “Junior’s Farm.” It’s an interesting song choice – only four of the songs here are not from his Beatles days, and three of those four solo or Wings songs were performed by McCartney himself. It’s not as obvious a choice as, say, “Live & Let Die,” or “Band on the Run” or “Maybe I’m Amazed” or even “Silly Love Songs.” But it reminds us of a terrific song we probably hadn’t heard in years.
The intriguing musical choices continue as the guest acts take the stage. Alicia Keys takes “Blackbird” and magically transforms it from an acoustic folk ballad to a majestically soulful torch song. On the other end of the spectrum, surf guitar legend Duane Eddy deconstructed the lushly beautiful “And I Love Her” into a raw acoustic guitar instrumental.
Alison Krauss and Union Station (with Jerry Douglas) took on the only other non-Beatles track, reinventing McCartney’s last huge hit “No More Lonely Nights” as an admittedly beautiful rootsy country lament. Still, that song is a pretty minor addition to McCartney’s oeuvre, and you’re left sort of wishing that Krauss had taken the time to recreate a more worthy page from his solo songbook.
Neil Young & Crazy Horse roughed up “I Saw Her Standing There” and gave it a loping country rock stomp, even if Neil played a little fast and loose with the lyrics. (“Well she was just 17, and she was no beauty queen…?” Really?) Coldplay sounds surprisingly low-key and humble on its acoustic take of “We Can Work It Out” and Sergio Mendes sounds oddly timeless while wonderfully old-fashioned in his bossa nova take of “Fool on the Hill” (which Mendes had ridden to the top of charts in 1966).
There is also the added entertainment of playing spot the B-celebrity in the audience. Instead of just random audience shots like most concerts, you have a good shot of recognizing the person clapping along in all the crowd scenes here. Hey, isn’t that David Crosby? Is that Miami Steve Van Zandt? Is that Jeff Lynne? There’s Smokey Robinson. Hey, look, it’s Eric Idle. And there’s Rosanna Arquette. Wait, is that Randy Jackson? Isn’t that Rita Wilson? (In fairness, her A-list husband Tom Hanks was there, too.)
By the time McCartney returns to the stage at the end – with a three-song set including the recent song “My Valentine” (honestly, far from his best work), the lyrically anachronistic but mostly enjoyable “1985” and a super-group run-through of “Golden Slumbers/Carry That Weight/The End” with Dave Grohl and Joe Walsh – the B-celebrity audience is in a lather. If you’re a fan, you will be too.
Adam Horovitz, Amanda Seyfried, Ben Stiller & Noah Baumbach at the NY Press Day for “While We’re Young.”
Ben Stiller, Amanda Seyfried, Adam Horovitz & Noah Baumbach
Examine Life While They’re Young
by Jay S. Jacobs
What happens when hip young professionals in New York City reach their forties and realize that they are no longer as hip nor as young as they had always imagined?
This is the quandary behind Noah Baumbach’s latest film While We’re Young, his second collaboration with actor Ben Stiller. (The two also worked together on the criminally overlooked comedy-drama Greenberg in 2010.)
Stiller and Naomi Watts play Josh and Cornelia, an arty couple (he’s a documentary filmmaker, she is a producer) who have suddenly realized all their friends are devoting their lives to having kids. Unable to have kids, Josh and Cornelia obsess about their jobs and technical innovations to fight the inevitable march of time.
The couple starts feeling younger when they befriend a cute hipster couple in their 20s, Jamie and Darby (Adam Driver and Amanda Seyfried). Jamie and Darby take them to the hip new happenings and show a refreshing ambivalence about life, rules and status, until it turns out that they have some more devious motives than it originally appears.
Also along for the ride as Stiller’s former best friend in a rare acting performance is Adam Horovitz, better known as Ad-Rock of the Beastie Boys. (Horovitz had starred in two indie films – Lost Angels and Roadside Prophets – in the late 80s/early 90s, but has rarely acted in the years since.)
A few days before While We’re Young had its New York premiere, we were invited to participate in a press conference with stars Stiller, Seyfried and Horovitz and writer/director Baumbach.
Adam Horovitz, Amanda Seyfried, Ben Stiller & Noah Baumbach at the NY Press Day for “While We’re Young.”
This is the kind of movie that people of different generations can relate to. At what point did you feel that you were an adult and maybe disconnected with younger people?
Ben Stiller: When I realized all I listened to was the Beastie Boys. That’s all I cared about. (laughs) I feel like having kids. Having kids was the first time for me that I realized I had not think of myself. I’ve never really thought about myself as older, but you start having these more mature responsibilities. Then after you do get to a certain point where you start to realize… like tastes in music, where you just can’t keep up. I remember that years ago, when I started [thinking]: Oh, I’m not aware of that. And it’s just too much trouble to listen to. I’ll try to listen to the stations. Different stations like Alt Nation or something on Sirius [radio], but I always find myself going back to like… Lithium [a Sirius 1990s grunge channel].
Noah Baumbach: The 80s on 8. [A Sirius/XM station that specializes in music of the 1980s.]
Ben Stiller: Yeah.
Your Ben Stiller Show was on MTV when they still played music.
Ben Stiller: Yeah, it was when they started to change over. We were sort of a hybrid. That was a long time ago.
How do you all feel like the advancement of modern technology is affecting the quality of human relationships?
Adam Horovitz: Hold on. Let me text you the answer. (Everyone laughs)
Amanda Seyfried: Good one. It’s true… Besides negatively, maybe?
Ben Stiller & Noah Baumbach at the NY Press Day for “While We’re Young.”
Ben Stiller: I think there is good and bad. I’m on location now working on a movie. Just to be able to FaceTime with my kids is something that is amazing and great. Skyping. I think those things are really incredible. But then there’s that other thing, what Adam was referring to about texting. It’s much easier to hide behind the technology, and not have actual human interaction. A lot of kids in their twenties hardly talk on the phone with one another. Texting is talking to them, I guess. Not that I know what kids are doing. (laughs)
Noah, what do you feel would make a great double feature with this film?
Noah Baumbach: I’m trying to come up with a double show idea. I’m just getting accustomed to the fact that it’s going to be one show. It hasn’t opened yet. We’re already putting it into reparatory. What would be a good one? Nicolas Roeg’s Don’t Look Now. (They all laugh.)
Ben Stiller: I literally just watched that movie. That’s unbelievable. It’s really creepy. Very good.
Amanda Seyfried & Ben Stiller at the NY Press Day for “While We’re Young.”
Amanda, what did you like most about your character of Darby, and are there any lessons you learned from her?
Amanda Seyfried: I really liked that she doesn’t seem to worry about much. There’s this burden that I carry on my shoulders constantly. I’m really actively working on really loosening up and being mindful. She’s got that. I think she’s born with it. So, yeah, I’m learning life lessons constantly from Darby.
The overall film shows that nowadays documentaries often merge the most poignant aspects of life from different people, like the documentary takes significant elements from Darby’s life. What do you think about that in real life, in relation to real art?
Ben Stiller: Gosh, that’s a deep question. That really is. I don’t know. I think Josh in the movie is probably more concerned with this idea of truth in his work and cinema. I feel like, for me, all art is based on other art, to a certain extent. But I think what Noah’s talking about in the film is a very real thing. It’s been going on for awhile. Reality television has blurred the lines in a lot of ways, in regards to what’s real and what isn’t. What’s scripted and what isn’t and what people want to see, in documentaries in particular. They want to be entertained, but I think documentaries that can actually tell you the truth and be entertaining and draw you in – where is that line? I don’t know. I’m not a documentarian. That’s something they have to deal with. It’s probably tougher today, as people now are so used to being entertained by “reality” television. There’s a crossover there and some blurred lines of what is actually truthful. Even great documentarians seem to know how to fashion a story and have it be truthful and still make it dramatic. Those choices are always artistic, creative choices that have to be made by the filmmaker. A lot of times biopics and movies about real life subjects that are dramatic, they are always making those choices. Making scenes that didn’t necessarily happen, but trying to imbue you with the idea of what happened.
Amanda Seyfried, Ben Stiller & Noah Baumbach at the NY Press Day for “While We’re Young.”
Noah, what was the process of deciding to make Josh a documentary filmmaker, as opposed to a narrative filmmaker?
Noah Baumbach: Initially, I liked the idea that it was an occupation that they all could have that would be visual. Also something they could collaborate on. The way you capture a documentary film is different. This notion that you’re really just filming life, which is not really what it is, but at least that’s how we perceive it. I didn’t want them to be overtly staging something, so it couldn’t have been a fiction film. It really was more to create a way that each generation’s work could represent them in different ways. That would be something you could see and something an audience could react to. Once I had this documentary idea, though, I had to then engage in these questions of authenticity. They were arguments I engaged in fully with the characters and through the characters, but I didn’t come to conclusions myself. I felt like I was telling the story of a marriage and I needed to find a resolution to that which was satisfying for the movie and hopeful. The other arguments were things that I wasn’t going to ever have an answer for.
There are so many details that distinguish the generations, one of the things is Ann Roth’s costumes. What was the process of working with her on the film?
Noah Baumbach: Ann and I started working together on Margot at the Wedding. [That] was the first one we did together. People don’t know she worked with Mike Nichols throughout most of his career. She did Midnight Cowboy and Klute. She sees the whole movie. It’s not just the clothing. The actors can speak to this. They will come in for fittings, and she’ll have this whole back story and ideas. The first time I worked with her, she started talking about the back story for one of the characters. I thought I would sound stupid if I didn’t know that, because I hadn’t even thought of the back story. (laughs) She had this whole thing: “Maybe she sits on the porch…” It was like a whole other movie, so I just went along with it. But now I’m used to it. I can let her fill in the back story for me. She has a way of dressing people. It’s something, you can’t quite put your finger on it. It transcends whatever the clothing actually is. Somehow she sees the movie. I’ll then see things later in dailies, like texture in a shirt, and I’ll be: I’m so glad that’s there. I didn’t even realize when we picked it. It was important for this movie, too, because we’re dealing with now. We have to true to what’s going on now and what these people would really wear. I wanted it to feel timeless. We weren’t going to really imitate Brooklyn youth culture. We would never catch up if we tried to document what was actually happening now. So with her, we created our own style. She’s the one to do that. She’s great.
Ben Stiller at the NY Press Day for “While We’re Young.”
Ben, how do you relate to your character? Do you get skeptical when a younger, less established artist approaches you with a project?
Ben Stiller: I don’t know. That’s a good question. I don’t think the character that Adam Driver plays in the movie would know… he has such a specific agenda and it is such a gray area. In general, when somebody comes up to you, I try to be positive and give them the benefit of the doubt that they have some plan. (laughs) I relate to a lot of the issues that are going on in the movie with the character. I think Noah has a great way of illuminating these little things. These little details about life and interactions between people. What it is to live your life. These little experiences that don’t necessarily get translated into movies that often. Movies are usually about bigger, more dramatic events. Noah will find the drama in these little moments. That’s what to me is so interesting about his stuff. As an actor, it’s fun to get into that: Oh, yeah, I know that. I’ve had that experience. Like that runner in the movie where Jamie’s never picking up the check. Those kind of things, the mini-dramas in our lives that are big to us, because you’re thinking about something like that for the rest of the night.
Adam Horovitz: It was just one time. I was going for my wallet. (laughs)
Ben Stiller: (laughs) Yeah. By the way, I thought of maybe a good companion piece to this movie. [It] would be Albert Brooks’ Real Life.
Noah Baumbach: Oh, yeah.
Ben Stiller: Albert Brooks’ character in that movie is sort of a precursor of Jamie.
Noah Baumbach: Is there still time to change the marquee? (Everyone laughs.) Take Don’t Look Now down. Don’t Look Back [a Bob Dylan documentary buy DA Pennebaker], I guess would be a good movie, too.
Ben Stiller: Yeah, it is kind of a Jamie [type of film].
Adam Horovitz & Amanda Seyfried at the NY Press Day for “While We’re Young.”
Adam, was it easy for you to connect to your character, and what really attracted you to the role?
Adam Horovitz: Thank you very much. Well, Noah asked me to do it. So I said yes. Noah asked me to do it and I love the movies that he makes. I love these guys and what they do. When someone like Noah says will you do it, you just do it. Not anything, but some things. I did [feel connected to the character]. Being in a band, as you put out records, as the years go by, new music, whole new styles of music come out. There’s always a thing: do you follow that? I feel like you never follow specific things. So it was interesting to be the guy who didn’t follow the thing in the movie.
What are your future plans now that the Beastie Boys are done?
Adam Horovitz: (long exhale) Well, we’re going to see the movie tonight.
Noah Baumbach: Party afterwards.
Adam Horovitz: The guy is coming tomorrow to look at my dryer between 12:00 and 6:00. (Everyone laughs.)
Ben and Noah, this is your second time working together. Greenberg was a very LA-centric movie, this film is definitely a New York story. How do the settings and cities that you film in become characters in the films?
Ben Stiller: Yeah. I think [it was] definitely very different. The experience of making the movies was very different, I felt. I was using the word laconic, is that right? There was probably a more laconic, laid-back feeling when we were making Greenberg in LA. They are both were very small crews and Noah works in this very focused way. But the energy of both places are so different. I feel like that is what is captured in both movies. I really liked the energy Noah captured of LA in Greenberg. This movie is a much more New York-centric movie and has that feeling to it.
Noah Baumbach: In both cases, I wanted the city to exist as it would around our fiction within it. I like that feeling movies where you feel real life around something that’s clearly scripted. The challenge of course becomes how do you get Ben Stiller in the world without people ruining your takes? We put poor Ben on the streets in LA…
Ben Stiller:(jokes) How do you put Ben Stiller into the take without him ruining your take?
Noah Baumbach: People went like this to the camera (makes horns hand sign). People still do this when you go by if they see the camera. Somehow it announces them.
Amanda Seyfried: Trying to make their mark.
Noah Baumbach: In Greenberg, we would hide in a van with a black curtain. We knocked the window out. We would put Ben was on the street, have him go grocery shopping and mail letters. In this one, when you see him and Adam crossing Park Avenue, that’s real Park Avenue. That’s actually just going on. The subway and stuff. It’s a challenge, but I always feel it’s worth it when it happens. When you make it to the end without somebody doing this. (Makes horns sign again.)
Ben Stiller: So often in movies you see that where they set 100 extras on the street and everybody is walking around with briefcases and they are all actors…
Noah Baumbach: Everybody is looking at their watch.
Amanda Seyfried: Everything is so deliberate.
Ben Stiller: That is the worst, when you see extras and the acting happening. Noah really likes to keep it open. It’s interesting, because you are a director of real life and there is a lot more energy that way.
Noah Baumbach: For sure.
Ben Stiller & Noah Baumbach at the NY Press Day for “While We’re Young.”
Noah, you started your career as a filmmaker here in New York, and in the movie, Adam Driver’s character is starting his career in the city, as well. Do you think New York is a place that can still cultivate you artists?
Noah Baumbach: That’s a good question. Not if you read those articles in The Times about the Time/Warner building and just about the way real estate is being bought here. I think it can be, but it’s obviously a different challenge than what it was. However, people seem to do it. Every year you feel like: Oh, this is it, they’ve ruined it. The new New School Building. That’s it! The one that looks like an air conditioning vent on Fifth Avenue and 14th Street. That’s the worst. I thought that’s it. We’re done. How can we thrive in this environment? But, somehow New York still wins out, I feel like. People find ways to be here. But obviously, I wish it were easier.
Were you conscious of not too heavily emphasizing the us vs. them aspect of the characters within the story?
Noah Baumbach: Well, like I was saying when we were talking about Ann Roth, from a design prospective, we did what was interesting to us. When Ben was rollerblading, Amanda gives him the rollerblades, the feeling was if they’re not rollerblading now, someday they will. We were just doing it the way that felt right for us. When I was writing it, I invested in all sides of the arguments. People assume maybe because I’m in my 40s, I’m going to take the side of the 40-somethings. But I tried to have as much fun with showing what’s not working in the marriage, or Ben’s ten-year investment in his documentary. I’m certainly not showing that as this guy has it figured out. The young people were crazy. I felt like both sides had merit when I was writing it. Beyond that, I felt like people will take away what they take away. I’ve gotten used to that in my movies. I feel like they are often interpreted in ways that I’m surprised by. But I generally like that.
The soundtrack really works. Did any of the songs really impact the trajectory of the story?
Noah Baumbach: The two songs that were in the screenplay were the 2pac “Hit ’Em Up” song, the hip hop that Amanda and Naomi had to learn to dance to that specific song. Amanda I think still performs it.
Amanda Seyfried: Half of it. The other half is tough.
Noah Baumbach: And “Eye of the Tiger” was also in the script. Some of the music came from thinking about the tastes of the characters. Particularly, continuing the technology joke that the younger people are analog and the older people are up to the moment digitally. I felt like the younger people also would play music from Ben and Naomi’s generation, so that was like thinking of “All Night Long,” the Lionel Richie song, or Psychedelic Furs. They were again presenting this culture back to the older people in a new forum that suddenly makes them think: That was a good song. That actually did happen to me with “All Night Long.” I really sold that song short. When I was a teenager, I did not like it. I did not like that record at all. Now I think it’s great. (laughs) Either agree or disagree, feel free to nod or be like [no]. But I love it.
Featuring Steven Tyler, Joe Perry, Tom Hamilton, Brad Whitford, Joey Kramer, Jesse Sky Kramer, Paul Santo and Buck Johnson.
Directed by Dick Carruthers.
Distributed by Fathom Events. 111 minutes. Not Rated.
Aerosmith has gone through a lot of changes over their 40 years on the road, but one thing they never strayed from was their terrific showmanship. Headed by their dueling geniuses, charismatic singer Steven Tyler and guitar heroics of Joe Perry, the American Stones are pretty much a sure thing in concert.
From the hardscrabble drug-hazed early rock days of the 70s to their even bigger middle-of-the-road Geffen period of the 80s and 90s to their recent stint as squabbling elder statesmen and TV hosts, the band has put together a pretty damned good catalogue of songs.
And sure, somewhere along the line they changed from a band whose lyrics morphed from stuff like “you ain’t seen nothin’ ’til you’re down on the muffin” into things like “life’s a journey not a destination.” But what the heck, they can still rock it out.
This concert, recorded last year at a rock festival at Donington Park Speedway in England, is getting a limited theatrical release. The show gives you the best and worst of Aerosmith, all whipped up into a frothy mix. Tyler prances and preens through two hours of classic rock (and shockingly only changes outfits once) while the rest of the band offers the bedrock stomp that has made the band a name for decades now.
The set list is a canny mix of old, mid-period and new. The oldest stuff shines the brightest – songs like a rollicking “Toys in the Attic” and a hopping cover of The Beatles “Come Together.” Yet, the sellout ballad years actually come off pretty well here also, with a drop-dead gorgeous take of “Don’t Want To Miss a Thing,” a throbbing “Janie’s Got a Gun” and rocking shots of “Dude (Looks Like a Lady)” and “Love in an Elevator.”
By the time they hit the show closing triumvirate of classics – the proto-hip hop “Walk This Way,” the swirling hard balladry of “Dream On” and the bratty screech of “Sweet Emotion” – Aerosmith has staked a claim as one of the great surviving rock bands of the last century. Live in Donington 2014 shows that even a decade on from their hitmaking days, Aerosmith still packs a punch.
Set List: Train Kept A Rollin’, Eat The Rich, Love In an Elevator, Cryin’, Jaded, Livin’ on the Edge, Last Child, Freedom Fighter, Same Old Song And Dance, Janie’s Got a Gun, Toys in the Attic, I Don’t Want to Miss a Thing, No More No More, Come Together, Dude (Looks Like A Lady) and Walk This Way. Encores: Dream On, Sweet Emotion and Mama Kin.
MKTO – Sherman Theater – Stroudsburg, PA – March 26, 2015
The duo MKTO with members Malcolm Kelley and Tony Oller both started off their careers as actors, but began their group in 2010. Their first single “Thank You” was released in January of 2013 and following that their hit single “Classic” was released in June of 2013.
The two took stage on Sherman Theater at East Stroudsburg University on Thursday March 26th and preformed an hour long set for their fans. The show began with two openers, one DJ who brought the crowd’s energy up and a singer/songwriter from New York named Ari Zizzo, who preformed a handful of original songs, but also had the crowd singing along when he covered songs by both One Direction and 5 Seconds of Summer.
During the show Malcolm and Tony preformed many songs from their self titled album MKTO including “American Dream,” “Classic,” “Thank You,” “Goodbye Song,” “Heartbreak Holiday,” “No More Second Chances” and “Could Be Me.” The duo also preformed some new songs that have yet to be released: including “Afraid of the Dark,” “Bad Girls,” “Monaco” and “Just Imagine.” Along with singing their owns songs, they covered Rihanna, Kanye West and Paul McCartney’s new song, “FourFiveSeconds.”
Tony and Malcolm received many loud screams as they announced that they are working on a bunch of new music for their dedicated fans. The two also announced that their new single would be “Bad Girls.”
The fairly small crowd allowed for a more intimate experience for the fans. It was filled with a wide range of boys and girls in high school, college and some that were younger. A phone was thrown on stage which caught everyone by surprise, but Malcolm and Tony did not hesitate to pick it up and take a video with the crowd.
Constantly jumping around on stage and being full of energy the guys kept the crowd going. At one point the guys got some water bottles and I thought it was for them to drink, but they had some other ideas. Spraying water all over the fans had everyone screaming about who was going to catch the water bottle after they soaked them with it.
Overall the duo had a great start to their singing careers and with the new music that they are going to put out, they can only go up from here. They kept their fans entertained and had great energy throughout the whole show. I can’t wait to see what these guys do next!
Daniel Skye is a fourteen-year-old singer/songwriter with a ton of online presence that has brought him into the spotlight. He released his single “Maybe” in January of 2015 which has quickly gained popularity with young fans. We chatted with Skye recently and he answered some questions about his experience in the music field and where he hopes to go next.
Hey Daniel, how are you? We’ve got a lot of stuff to talk about, we’ve even got a few questions from a big fan of yours to discuss! Let’s get started… What was the adjustment like for you when you moved from online forms to touring and doing live stuff?
When I first started I used Instagram as a way to share my music with everyone. Actually being able to play live and connect with my fans is a totally different experience. It’s my favorite thing to do, and makes everything worth it.
Tell me about your original song, “Maybe.” What was the inspiration behind it?
I am 14 so I’ve never had a real girlfriend before but everyone can relate to having feelings for someone and not really knowing what to do.
How would you say your career and life has changed over the past few years because of music?
My life has changed a lot, but as a person I am still the same. Over the past year it’s gotten harder and harder to balance school and music, so I moved to online school, where I can balance both of them much better, get good grades, and become a better artist. Today was my first day actually!
Daniel Skye
That’s good, it’s important to find that balance. Who would you say are your inspirations as an artist and in general?
I don’t really have anyone specific, but I would say that artists with great songs and with great achievements are the people who inspire me. I love pop music
How would you describe your own personal music style then?
I guess in a few words it’d be: poppish (but I also want to be more soulful), and very true to myself, so I guess honest.
Do you think that being honest makes your music better because it’s true to who you are?
100 percent. You can never be who you are not because it’ll end up catching up with you in the end.
So then how would you describe who you are as a person?
Professionally, I’d say I am very serious about music. I love to sing and I love to play guitar. Personally, I’d say that I’m happy, upbeat, and positive. It’s a blessing to wake up every morning and do what I love the most.
Daniel Skye
Well that’s good! Looking back on it now, did you ever imagine that you would be where you are today?
When I started, it was all just a dream. It’s been an amazing year, but I still have a lot of work to get to where I want to be as an artist.
Since you began touring, who would you say you’ve become closest with?
Actually, a kid I met this past tour, his name is Hayes Grier.
What would you say is the best part about touring then?
For me, it’s performing and meeting everyone that supports me. Besides that, I just love long bus rides for some reason and hanging out with everyone on the bus. Usually everyone hates them but I love them.
Daniel Skye
That’s good though, because you must have to take a lot of them. If you hated them, I couldn’t see that being that much fun. What’s the coolest experience you’ve had so far then?
I would say the coolest experience was where I did a Digifest where I performed for thousands of people, maybe around five thousand. I never really pictured myself in that place.
When you perform do you have favorite songs you like to perform, or do you just pick randomly?
Well when I perform I usually play my original songs, and add a few interesting covers as well. My favorite song to perform is my new single that just came out this month. We actually just shot a music video for it. It’s called “Lovesick.”
How was shooting a music video? Was that a cool different experience?
Yeah. My first music video for “Maybe” wasn’t actually like a real music video with acting and stuff, so this one was my first actual video. It has a cool twist to it that people will see when it comes out. It was pretty cool to make, and I got to act for the first time and all.
So when you aren’t working on your music, what are you doing in your free time?
I like to say that I am more of an outside person. I’m not watching TV or playing on the computer. Instead, I’m doing something fun outside like jumping in a lake, bike riding, or playing basketball.
Who would you say your dream collaboration is with?
I would say maybe Taylor Swift, Ed Sheeran, or Sam Smith.
Daniel Skye
Oh well you sort of answered my next question, what kind of music do you listen to?
I’m inspired on a song by song basis. I tend to like more of a pop and R&B sound.
Where do you hope to go with your career in the future?
I hope to keep building as an artist, and inspiring my fans with new songs. I’m continuously getting better at writing, so I want to keep working on that, and hopefully put a couple of albums out.
If you could say anything to your fans who have supported you throughout all of this, what would you say?
To anyone who has bought my song on iTunes or watched my videos or vines etc., I would say thank you so much. Your support is what got me here and what made me into the artist I am today. I love you all, and can’t wait to meet everyone!
Life Of Dillon is a British band consisting of brothers Robert and Joe Griffith and their friend David Keiffer. The self-proclaimed acoustic house band is blowing up with their new single “Overload,” coming off of their EP “Prologue” which comes out April 14th. This up-and-coming band has a happy, easy-going attitude that is reflected in their music. Life of Dillon is touring this summer with Meghan Trainor and can be found on YouTube, Twitter, and Facebook. Recently, they chatted with us about their music, experiences and goals.
Obviously your band name is very special to you. Why don’t you tell me about the story behind it?
Robert Griffith: We went to Brazil last year. We had been in London a long time and we needed a bit of time off. We went to where we were born in the North.
David Keiffer: Well, Joe and Robert were born there, I wasn’t.
Robert Griffith: Right. We were enjoying the holiday and all, getting drunk, going to the beach and stuff. One day this guy just comes over as we’re hanging out. [His name was] Dillon. And [he] just starts talking to us.
David Keiffer: He was very free spirited. We felt like his personality and his energy embodied what we were making at the time. One of us might’ve said, “we’re trying to live life like Dillon,” or something.
Joe Griffith: Yeah. At that time we weren’t trying to do anything on a grand scale. We were just trying to get music on YouTube. It was like an afterthought, we just needed a name. It was actually probably one of the first ones we came up with.
That’s an interesting story. Tell me about your upcoming EP, “Prologue.”
Joe Griffith: There’s a lot of feel-good stuff on the EP. A lot of the music is inspirational or positive in general. They all have a very acoustic sound to them. We’ve got some country influences, some reggae ones…
David Keiffer: Like pop, but they’re not all the same. Our background is with producing and writing so we have a ton of songs. It was more like the music that we had that made the group, rather than the group that made the music. It was pieces that we brought together. Each piece has a different feel to it because we want to write hits. We want to write music that is successful. So out of all of the music we have we picked our favorites. The first five are a few of those.
Life Of Dillon
Do you guys have a favorite song on the EP then?
Joe Griffith: I don’t know. I mean I like them all. It depends on the version. We just played at Live in the Vineyard a couple of days ago, and my favorite was “Dreams” hands down. I just thought it was amazing. But right now on the record, my favorite is “Blue Birds.” So it depends. When we play our music to people, everyone has a different favorite. Some people will like different ones. For us, we just hope they like any of them, so that’s good!
Well yeah it’s great that everyone likes different songs because it means each one is reaching different people.
Joe Griffith: We hope so!
When you guys perform, do you have any pre show rituals that you do?
David Keiffer: We all have these kind of personal training exercises that we do, so if you were to walk past our room before we went on stage it’d be crazy. We can give you an example if you want! (Various odd noises ensue, laughter as well.) Now imagine all of those at the same time!
Robert Griffith: Hopefully not for much longer. We’ll get so good and improve. We won’t need it!
It must be very interesting back there! You guys are bringing your vocal warm ups on tour with Meghan Trainor this summer. Are you excited, nervous? Where are you at?
David Keiffer: Well yeah, we’ve only dreamed of being able to tour America so being able to actually do it is incredible!
Joe Griffith: It’s also so much fun. It’s the kind of thing that you never think is possible. We all wanted to be real musicians, but it’s not the kind of thing that happens for many people, even if you’re good. You need a bit of luck, and I guess we have that luck. We were realists. We started out as producers/writers. Our focus is still that because that’s what we love to do. Being an artist was always something we dreamed of doing and now it’s just unreal. It’s going to be fun no doubt.
Robert Griffith: It’ll also be amazing to interact with fans, because we’ve seen the numbers go up on Spotify, etc., but we haven’t heard it on the radio. To see someone singing our songs live would be incredible, I mean we’ve seen it on Instagram, but to see it live would be mind blowing.
Life of Dillon
Who would you say inspires you guys, both as artists and as people?
Robert Griffith: I think the greatest performer of all time, hands down, is Michael Jackson. He could dance, he could sing, he was an all-around entertainer. The guy started the concept of music videos where you’re actually performing. It’s not just looking at the camera and singing, there was a story to it. There are only a few artists out there that are the best and I always go back to him.
Joe Griffith: We all have different influences. Personally mine are more of singer-producers that I’ve dealt with or seen over the past few years, and some older ones as well.
David Keiffer: Yeah and for me I love the singer/songwriter thing. I feel like they’re very much involved with the whole process.
If you guys could pick anyone to collaborate on a song with, whom would that be?
David Keiffer: Ellie Goulding is pretty special. We’d love to work with a female vocalist and we really think she’d fit our style of music. We’d also love to collaborate with someone not really in the limelight now, we’d love people to come up like that, people that are just starting out.
Tell me about your single “Overload.”
Robert Griffith: “Overload” is a song we did off the bat, super quickly, in one day pretty much.
Joe Griffith: When we laid it down, like the guitars and stuff, we expected to go back and change it, but we ended up using the original tapes like from my bedroom. It’s crazy. We record everything at home so rough and they just liked it. They were like, “Don’t touch it, just leave it as it is!” which was weird because as the artist you’re going to be much more of a perfectionist. It’s about a breaking point where you realize that what you’re doing in life isn’t necessarily what you want to be doing and you do something else.
How would you describe your sound?
David Keiffer: We feel like we’ve come up with the phrase “acoustic house.” Really good vibes with tropical feels on top of a slower house beat, mixed with a dash of guitar.
Robert Griffith: We like to be up-tempo and energetic, happy music. We want people to tweet at us, things like “your song makes me feel happy in traffic” things like that.
Our Shana and Rachel sat down with Kalin White and Myles Parrish of Kalin & Myles when they visited Philadelphia on their tour! Find out what to expect from them in the near future!
Cole Pendery and Dana Vaughns of IM5. Photo copyright 2014 PopEntertainment.com.
IM5
Growing Wild on the Road
By Maggie Mitchell
We’ve been following the boys from IM5 for a few years now. Going through some changes as of late, the once five-person boy group is now a trio, consisting of three founding members – Dana Vaughns, Gabe Morales and Cole Pendery. Even through the differences, IM5 continues to go strong, while stealing the hearts of tween and teenage girls worldwide. And they’re not letting go.
We last talked to the guys in Atlantic City nearly eight months ago. Now, as IM5 is about to embark on their headlining “Grow Wild” Tour, hosted by YouTube sensation Sam Pottorff, we wanted to check back in and hear all about it.
Starting out in San Diego next week, the #GrowWildTour is due to hit 24 cities including New York, Atlanta, Phoenix, Philly and Chicago, ending in Sacramento on the 29th of May. Being the headliners, IM5 has chosen some other great acts to take on the road with them: The Weekend Riot, The House on Cliff, Austin Jones and Bailey McConnell.
Just yesterday I chatted with Vaughns, Morales and Pendery while they were on their way to rehearsal. We talked about what to expect from the tour and so much more. Here’s what they had to say:
Cole Pendery of IM5 in Atlantic City NJ. Photo copyright 2014 PopEntertainment.com.
We haven’t talked since last summer. What’s new with you guys?
Cole Pendery: A lot. Oh wow, last summer. A lot of stuff has happened. We got new management, new music and the band’s a little different visually now. So, it’s been a lot of good things happening in the world. We’re happy.
Being down to three, do you plan on looking for more members, or just keeping things as they are?
Dana Vaughns: For right now we are just sticking with three, being that we are about to go on tour in a week. We are just working and we realize that we feel like five isn’t necessary at the moment. In the future we would love to have two dancers, or something like that. But for now, it’s just three.
Gabe Morales of IM5 in Atlantic City NJ. Photo copyright 2014 PopEntertainment.com.
We’re very excited to hear about Grow Wild Tour, can you tell us about that?
Gabe Morales: We’re very excited about the Grow Wild Tour. It starts April 18th in San Diego. It’s our first “tour” tour. We’ve gone around the U.S. and there have been tours we were on, and then we come back weekends or a few days later. Now, we are actually going to be gone for five weeks straight. It’s very exciting. It’s going to feel like a tour tour. A lot of new music is coming out so we’ll be promoting that. We are not flying out. It’s going to be driving this whole time. We are very excited to be doing this. It’s going to be a lot of fun.
What is one stop you are really looking forward to?
Dana Vaughns: I can’t say that there is one stop that I am specifically looking forward to. I’m just excited to go to places that I’ve never been before. I see a lot of people tweeting, “You’ve never been to my state.” We are going to a lot of those places this tour.
Are you guys planning on working on new music and covers on the road?
Cole Pendery: We’ve been talking to producers back in LA, but we haven’t been talking about what we are going to do on the road. That’s actually a good idea, though, we probably should. We are always thinking about new music to put out.
Dana Vaughns of IM5 in Atlantic City NJ. Photo copyright 2014 PopEntertainment.com.
You have so many great groups coming on tour with you, including our friends The Weekend Riot. Is there any chance we could see a collab with these talented groups?
Dana Vaughns: There’s no plans of that right now, but who knows while we’re on tour. Yeah, I feel like it’s a possibility but nothing set in stone yet.
Sam Pottorff is joining you guys on tour as well. Have you been close with him and what should we expect from him?
Dana Vaughns: I don’t know! We haven’t really talked about what he’s going to do on tour, but I know he’s hosting. I’m sure he’ll be funny and will interact with the fans.
Cole Pendery: Sam is great. We always have so much fun together. So, I know we are going to be doing some cool vlogging videos and stuff. We want to do them on the road with him. It’s going to be a fun time. We enjoy Sam and are glad he’s on tour.
Cole Pendery and Gabe Morales of IM5. Photo copyright 2014 PopEntertainment.com.
Other than the last two, who else are you guys bringing on tour with you?
Dana Vaughns: Austin Jones, Bailey McConnell and The House On Cliff.
Cole Pendery: We actually are on our way to meet up with The House On Cliff right now. We have to meet with them and talk tour and stuff.
Are you guys the type to pull pranks on everyone while you guys are traveling?
Cole Pendery: Dana sure is!
Dana Vaughns: I just think that we are going to have a lot of fun and it will be a great experience. But for sure, we’ll pull pranks and stuff like that! At the end of the day you just have to have fun!
Cole Pendery and Gabe Morales of IM5. Photo copyright 2014 PopEntertainment.com.
Do you guys have one thing that you do before you go on stage to prepare for your shows?
Dana Vaughns: We pray collectively. We all try to pray before a show. We just all warm up. Gabe punches the air, that’s kind of interesting!
We also have some fan questions. What’s one word to describe your friendship?
Cole Pendery: Unbreakable.
Gabe Morales: Brothers.
Dana Vaughns: I would say el familia.
Cole Pendery: It’s la familia, Dana! (laughs)
Grow Wild Tour
What’s your favorite thing about being on tour?
Cole Pendery: For me, I like going different places and meeting the fans. It’s true. That’s what you go on tour for, to meet the fans! So just meet the fans and performing. We’re doing what we love and it’s amazing. I think it’s cool. It’s just a great feeling.
What should we expect out of your show?
Dana Vaughns: You should expect some new music. We are doing some hints of stuff that will be on our EP later this year. You can expect dancing, a lot of body rolls! We might wink at you. I don’t know, but it’ll be good!
PopEntertainment.com’s Maggie and Rachel sat down with Hayes Grier and Alec Bailey. Alec tells us all about his music, and Hayes tells us about his clothing line! See what they have been up to!
SHANIA TWAIN – STILL THE ONE – LIVE FROM VEGAS (2015)
Featuring Shania Twain, Cory Churko, Hardy Hemphill, JD Blair, Keith Nelson, Jason Mowery, Joshua Ray, Justin Schipper, Ryan Kowarsky, Don Kowarsky, Andrea Whitt, Jennifer Eriksson, Mandy Andreason, Adrian Lee, Paul Benshoof, Miguel Perez, Devin Walker, Donald Romain, Mark Romain and Carrie Ann Brown.
Directed by Raj Kapoor and Mark D. Allen.
Distributed by Eagle Vision. 153 minutes. Not Rated.
Back in 2003, I was speaking with respected singer/songwriter Rosanne Cash (daughter of Johnny Cash and Grammy winning musician) about the fact that most of what was played on country radio wasn’t actually country music. I mentioned Shania Twain and Faith Hill to her, who were the two biggest female singers at the time on country radio, but who actually played pop music.
“They are pop singers,” Cash agreed. “That’s what I think… that country radio plays pop records now.”
And that was true. Shania Twain is a pop singer, or pop/country if you’re being generous. After all, she was discovered and most of her hits were co-written by that well known-Nashville cat Robert “Mutt” Lange, the man behind the sound of Bryan Adams, AC/DC and Foreigner. Many of her songs were remixed for maximum cross-over success. She climbed the pop charts just as often as kickin’ up the dirt road of the country charts.
Despite her claim that she grew up country (in Canada) listening to Willie Nelson and Dolly Parton (both of whom know how to sell a pop song, but who are legitimate country legends), interestingly the one cover tune here is a lovely a capella snippet of the catchy British Invasion swinger “Carrie-Anne” by The Hollies, which she did as a tribute to her late mother (it was apparently her favorite song) and her sister (who was named for the tune).
She has no real twang, or even deep soulfulness, to her vocals, though she has a perfectly pleasant voice. Sure, she adds on some traditional instruments like banjos, fiddles, accordions and pedal-steel guitar, and the lyrics are all about beer and boots, but these are usually just seasoning to the songs.
And, if you are being completely honest, her short-lived spurt of stardom probably had as much to do with her striking attractiveness as her musical talent. (The same could be said for Faith Hill.)
So Shania Twain don’t really play country. That don’t depress me much.
She’s a pop/country singer. Which is why she’s playing Caesar’s Palace in Vegas in this concert video, not the Grand Ol’ Opry. And guess what? She is actually really good at it. Shania: Still the One – Live from Vegas is about as down home as Country Bear Jamboree in Disneyland, but as a Disney-like extravaganza, it’s pretty damned entertaining.
In the decade plus since her heyday, Twain has kept a fairly low profile. She and Hill have long since been replaced as the go-to cute pop-country queen by Taylor Swift and Miranda Lambert. Much of this has to do with the fact that it took nearly a decade to follow up her 2002 hit album Up!! In that time, she stayed out of the limelight, released a few singles and a Greatest Hits album, did a barely-noticed reality show and weathered an ugly divorce with her ex-husband and musical partner Lange and got remarried.
Still, it was a bit of a surprise when Twain decided to take up a residency in Las Vegas, where she would headline in Caesar’s Palace for two years. This is a representative show during the residency, and it seems to have been a fun and shiny show. From the moment she is flown in to the stage on a souped up motorcycle, Still the One is an orgy of sights and sounds. The fact that it resembles a Britney Spears concert more than something you’d expect by Patsy Cline or Loretta Lynn doesn’t matter so much here.
Twain is finally owning her pop artistry. Good for her.
She runs through a fun and funky grouping of some of her biggest hits, surrounded by hunky dancers, full old-west bar sets, video backgrounds and even a fake campfire setting.
Twain pouts and preens through her biggest hits, the twang-by-numbers boot scooters like “Any Man of Mine,” “Up!” and “I’m Gonna Getcha Good!” go down easy like a nice (light) beer. And if self-reliance anthems like “Man! I Feel Like a Woman,” “Whose Bed Have Your Boots Been Under” and “That Don’t Impress Me Much” aren’t exactly deep, they are damned catchy.
Truth is, though, the best songs are when she sands off any pretenses to country, because Twain is a damned good adult contemporary balladeer. She waits here until the encore before showing off this skill with versions of her two biggest hits, the gorgeous “You’re Still the One” and “From This Moment On.” More than any other songs here, Twain really connects with the emotion of the lyrics, not having to rely on props, sets dancers and video to connect. I wish Twain had done more of this kind of thing, specifically the two spectacular love songs “You’ve Got A Way” and “It Only Hurts When I’m Breathing” are sadly missing.
However, other than these two missing songs, and I have to admit they are slightly more obscure songs in her career, Still the One – Live from Vegas is a fine representation of a very worthy pop artist with a bit of a country vibe.
Starring Al Pacino, Annette Bening, Christopher Plummer, Jennifer Garner, Bobby Cannavale, Giselle Eisenberg, Melissa Benoist, Josh Peck, Katarina Cas, Thomas Smith, Eric Schneider and Don Was.
Screenplay by Dan Fogelman.
Directed by Dan Fogelman.
Distributed by Bleecker Street Pictures. 106 minutes. Rated R.
It has been way too long since Al Pacino has received a role worthy of his talents. It is somewhat surprising that this feel-good comedy is the one to finally break that streak. Though the lead character of Danny Collins is very different from Pacino in many ways (he is an aging pop star who sold out for fame), it is easy to see why this role resonated for Pacino. It is also easy to see how he would use his own experiences in show business to inform his work and add depth to the role.
The opening scroll reads that the movie is “kind of based on a true story a little bit” and that is absolutely true. Danny Collins is loosely based on the story of folk singer Steve Tilston, who discussed how much of a fan he was of John Lennon’s in an early 70s interview right as he was on the verge of hitting it big. He also stated that he was worried that fame might affect his songwriting. Turns out that Lennon wrote Tilston a letter, congratulating him on being true to his artistry and reminding him to never let stardom become more important than the art. Lennon gave Tilston his phone number and suggested he call. Problem was, the letter never made it to Tilston, and he did not find out about its existence until he was contacted by a memorabilia collector in 2005, nearly 35 years after it was written and 25 years after Lennon was murdered. That is where the story leaves Tilston, though, for he never found the fame that was expected for him and his career in no way mirrored Danny’s.
Danny Collins is undoubtedly loosely based on several different artists from the time, though it appears to a certain extent that he is mostly based on Neil Diamond. Like Collins, he was a respected singer/songwriter who started out as a terrific songsmith, but he slowly sold out his values to embrace a slick show business persona. The first concert we see Collins giving in the film is at LA’s Greek Theater, the site of two famous Diamond live albums. And Danny Collins’ bigger hit, “Hey, Baby Doll,” coincidentally or not sounds more than a bit like Diamond’s biggest sing-a-long “Sweet Caroline.” Also, late in his career he made a back-to-basics move, recording some introspective (if slow-selling) artistically adventurous albums.
Then again, Collins’ entire career path doesn’t quite make sense if you think about it. He is supposedly a long-time superstar on his third greatest hits compilation, but his fans only seem to know one song, “Hey, Baby Doll.” Intellectually, I realize that is because the filmmakers only bothered to write two songs for the film (the rest of the movie’s soundtrack is made up of old John Lennon solo ballads), but it is a bit of cheat to the character. He’s been recording and touring for 40 years and still the fans only want to hear one song?
Danny Collins starts with the fateful interview. A young Danny has just released his debut album, a smart and acclaimed folk record that shows him to be a talent to be reckoned with. Fast forward 40 years and Danny Collins has become a monument to shiny, cheesy nostalgia. After the flop of that debut, Collins gave up his songwriting and allowed the label to pick songs for him (unlike Diamond, who was a songwriter before he was a singer and never stopped writing his own music). He has become a huge star, complete with a swanky Beverly Hills mansion, all the money he needs, a way-too-young-for-him gold-digging trophy fiancée and a swiftly aging fan base. And, though he won’t even admit it to himself, he has come to consider himself a joke, a hack, a marginally talented entertainer who just got lucky.
The Lennon note is a birthday gift from his long-time manager and best friend (Christopher Plummer). He had recently found out about a letter that Lennon had written Danny in 1971, purchasing it from a collector. Collins is overwhelmed by the letter, causing him to reflect on his entire life and career. What if things had been different and he had received the letter which Lennon had written to him. How would his life have changed? Would he still be writing his own songs? Would he have lived his crazy rock star life? Would he still like his work, and by extension himself?
Collins decides to make some serious changes in his life. He cancels the tour, breaks up with his clinging fiancée and decides to disappear for a while. He also decides that he wants to meet a grown son who sprung from a backstage one-night-stand thirty years earlier. He had always tried to pay for the kid’s upbringing, but the mother refused. Now she had died of cancer and all attempts he had made to contact Tom (Bobby Canavale) had been met by silence. So he moves into a New Jersey Hilton Hotel “indefinitely” as he tries to get his life back in order and maybe even reignite his passion as an artist.
While there, he flirts reflexively with the nice but apparently uninterested but “age-appropriate” hotel manager (Annette Bening), tries to play matchmaker for a cute pair of hotel employees (Melissa Benoit and Josh Peck) and attempts, haltingly, to do his first songwriting in years. And despite resistance from his son and his beautiful wife (Jennifer Garner) and daughter (Giselle Eisenberg), Collins tries to win his way back into his family’s life.
In the long run, Danny Collins ends up taking some easy ways out and occasionally being a little lighter than necessary, however it is a surprisingly touching and enjoyable little film.
Phase Five is based in Los Angeles, but the band includes members from all over the world. The group was originally brought together through their mutual love of creating and sharing music. Members include Jeremiah Neil, Alex Odon, Nelson Gabriel, Jay C. and Lee Brown. Phase Five has just released a video for their latest single “Upside Down” and are preparing to release an EP soon, thanks to the support and dedication of many fans who even funded the bands efforts through an IndieGoGo campaign.
Recently, the members of Phase Five sat down and talked to us about their fans, their music and what’s next for them.
How would you describe your music and your sound?
Jeremiah Neil: I would say it’s urban pop. It’s sort of a newer Justin Bieber album, Chris Brown sound inspired by urban pop artists – Michael Jackson, Chris Brown, Justin Bieber, Usher.
So you guys just released a single and you have a video coming out. What can you tell me about that?
Jay C.: We shot the video about a month ago, actually. We came up with this concept. It’s basically two parts. One part is a performance scene in a warehouse, where we’re showing off our performance skills. Then there is the storyline. That’s us and our love interests. If you’ve heard the song “Upside Down,” then it correlates to that. We had to get our acting on a bit, which was fun. We shot at some beautiful locations in Malibu, so it was really exciting.
Did you guys have any experiences that stand out to you so far?
Nelson Gabriel: The best reaction we ever had from a crowd was when we opened for Kalin and Myles. It was a great moment. There was a mutual attraction between the crowd and us on stage. We looked out and it was just amazing.
Jay C.: It makes us feel like we’re doing our job well, you know? We couldn’t even hear ourselves through the monitors, because people were screaming so loudly.
Phase Five
Well that’s good, if you messed up then nobody would know! How do you think social media has affected your ability to get out there and get a fan base?
Alex Odon: Social media is a great thing for new artists like us, because it gives us a platform to reach a lot of people.
Jeremiah Neil: It’s helped us connect with people all around the world. I don’t think that we would have the support that we have if this were ten or fifteen years ago, the time when there were the Backstreet Boys, N’SYNC, etc. We would have had to start from scratch. Right now we’ve got all these crazy countries and loyal fans behind us because of social media. It’s the best feeling to know that our music is reaching out all over the world.
Nelson Gabriel: It’s pretty awesome when we don’t know who is going to show up to our performances. Then they’re like “Hey, I’m so and so from Twitter, and we’re like ‘Oh my gosh!’” We put the face to the name. We get excited because we’ve connected with them so much online that it’s very exciting to meet them in person.
If you guys could collaborate with anyone, who would it be?
Nelson Gabriel: Oh there are so many! I’ll say Fifth Harmony definitely, because there are five people and then I feel like I’m choosing five.
Alex Odon: Yeah that would be fun. I don’t think a boy band has ever collaborated with a girl band before, so it’d be new!
Who would you say inspires you then?
Jeremiah Neil: Well are you ready for a long list of people then?
Alex Odon: As a band, I would say definitely N’SYNC, Backstreet Boys, and more recently One Direction. Also solo artists like, obviously Beyoncé, Michael Jackson and Chris Brown.
Nelson Gabriel: I think a lot of our inspiration comes from other groups, just because we look up to them and study them. We see what they did to make it and we compare and see what we need to do for our next steps. Individually, I grew up in Puerto Rico which is a Latin community so most of my inspirations are Latin artists; Ricky Martin especially.
Phase Five
Where do you guys see your band going next?
Jeremiah Neil: After the EP, our goal is to market the hell out of this music, so this summer our goal is to travel, travel, travel and do as many shows as possible, meeting as many fans as possible. We really want to get our message out there, especially after we took three months to buckle down on our music. Now it’s time to put it out there.
Tell me about your docu-series “On The Rise”.
Jay C.: It’s pretty much a bunch of clips edited together to show a behind the scenes look at creating the EP. It’s the stuff people don’t normally get to see. We even showed the hard times, as well as the great ones, too.
Jeremiah Neil: It’s the least we can do. We owe everything to our fans. We started this journey thanks to them. We had an IndieGoGo account for it. They went above and beyond, and fully funded our EP. The least we can do is give them what they want and hype them up.
Nelson Gabriel: I also feel like it’s cool because growing up on MTV there were shows like Diary and Behind the Music where the artist got to be more personable and relatable. When you hear the final product the songs are amazing, but in the studio it takes a lot of work, dedication and persistence to get the sound you want. I feel like it makes us seem more normal. We all struggled and persisted and we get to showcase the amazing producers we worked with, which is really awesome. We hope they get some exposure from that too. We’ve got a few more left that we hope everyone enjoys!
Phase Five
Do you guys have anything to say to the fans who have supported you and funded your EP?
Alex Odon: A big thank you first of all. None of it would be possible without them.
Jeremiah Neil: I think the cool thing about us is that we don’t call our fans “fans.” We call them family and supporters, because we have such a strong bond. If they only knew how much we talk about them by name every day, it’s crazy. It’s because we spend so much time interacting with them on social media. There are fans who donated thousands of dollars so we could get out there now, instead of having to wait until our persistence paid off. We really appreciate their support. Thank you!
How do you guys think that having such a diverse group of people in your band has affected your sound?
Jay C.: If you listen to our music it’s pretty easy to identify the individuality in each of our voices. We sing very differently and have different tones, etc. Yet it works together.
Nelson Gabriel: We’re even surprised. Sometimes we’re like “Oh wow, that sounds amazing!” It’s kind of surreal. It’s a bit of a learning curve as well.
Alex Odon: The thing is we all five have different styles and ways that we sing. So at first it was kind of hard, but once we got it, we really got it. The sound has really come together.
Jeremiah Neil: It makes us different as a group, because in the past there are groups that have one or two lead singers. They pick the people out who have the most commercial sounding voices. In Phase Five on the EP all five of us have been featured and it really works. Everyone gets a chance to shine. That’s what makes us stand out.
We caught up with the guys of IM5 on their recent stop in Philadelphia on their headlining Grow Wild Tour. Find out what they hate about each other, hear how the tour is going and see what they do on stage!
Candid “The Grace of Jake” set shot of Michael Beck and co-star Chad Morgan. Photo courtesy of director Chris Hicky.
Michael Beck
Fondly Celebrates And Reflects On The 36th Anniversary Of The Warriors, The 35th Anniversary of Xanadu, The Premiere Of His New Film The Grace Of Jake, And Discusses His Extraordinary And Iconic Career
By Arlene R. Weiss
Actor Michael Beck is best known for indelibly portraying the iconic role of Swan in director Walter Hill’s fantastical, surrealistic, hit cult film, 1979’s The Warriors. Beck’s dynamic and electrifying portrayal of the heroic leader of the fictional Coney Island, New York street gang has also transformed Beck into an icon himself among movie buffs, film critics, and fans of the film.
This year marks the 36th anniversary of The Warriors, and the film continues to grow as a pop culture phenomenon with every year. Beck and his fellow Warriors cast members continue to celebrate the film’s cult classic status with their many worldwide fans, regularly holding cast reunions and making guest panel speeches. They also hold meet and greet appearances at many international comics and film conventions, as well as at special Warriors fanfest events.
The Warriors did great things for Michael Beck’s career as an actor and silver screen star, breaking out Beck, who at the time was just beginning his acting career. The Warriors helped to firmly establish and place Beck on Hollywood’s map, while showcasing his stellar talents to some of film, TV, and theater’s most esteemed directors and producers.
Beck is a multi-faceted, classically trained theater actor of immense emotional depth and range. He grew up and was raised on his father’s family farm in the Arkansas delta. He attended Millsaps College in Jackson, Mississippi on a football scholarship, but Beck wound up portraying Romeo and Juliet‘s Tybalt on a friendly dare and immediately became enamored with the craft of acting. Beck then studied acting for three years at London’s prestigious Central School Of Speech and Drama. He then spent two more years developing his craft performing repertory theater in the UK, taking on the great works of Shakespeare, Chekov, and many more esteemed playwrights.
Since then, Beck has immersed himself in a wide diversity and range of acting roles and genres – encompassing drama, musicals, science fiction, comedy, fantasy, crime drama, and more – on stage, screen, and TV. His esteemed canon includes portraying Hans Helms in NBC’s 1978 Emmy Award winning miniseries Holocaust, and a multitude of roles on some of TV’s biggest hit shows including, Murder She Wrote, Walker Texas Ranger, JAG, and Babylon 5.
In July of 1985, Beck returned to the U.K and to the theater, garnering much critical acclaim for his starring role as Chance Wayne, in a London stage production of Tennessee Williams’ Sweet Bird Of Youth. Staged at The Haymarket Theater in London’s West End, the production starred Beck with screen legend Lauren Bacall, and was directed by the venerable playwright Harold Pinter.
Beck also starred in the emotionally rich 1987-1988, CBS police drama Houston Knights as Sgt. Levon Lundy, a Texas cop taking a stand for justice.
Beck also acted, danced, and roller skated!… his way into people’s hearts in his starring role as Sonny Malone, the love-struck artist following his dreams in 1980’s pop musical, romantic fantasy, Xanadu, starring alongside Olivia Newton John and the legendary Gene Kelly.
More recently, for more than a decade, Beck has enjoyed a very successful voice acting career, narrating the many audiobook adaptations of legal suspense thriller author, John Grisham’s best-selling novels. Michael’s latest narrative reading is of Grisham’s newest thriller Sycamore Row. Beck has also performed and voiced the audiobook edition of former President Bill Clinton’s memoirs My Life, and performed many more audiobook editions of novels written by the literary world’s best-selling authors.
Michael Beck (on right) stars in “The Grace of Jake.”
Michael is especially proud and exuberant discussing his current return to film acting, starring and performing in his first film in over a decade, the critically acclaimed independent film, The Grace Of Jake.
Directed by Chris Hicky and starring Beck, Jake La Botz, and Jordin Sparks, The Grace Of Jake is a deeply emotional story imbued with well-drawn, emotionally rich, nuanced characters. The film depicts the story of the turbulent first time meeting of an emotionally conflicted son (Jake Haynes portrayed by La Botz) with the father he has never met (Henry Haynes portrayed by Beck). Jake learns to deal with his chaotic emotions for his father, leaving his troubled past behind. Jake comes to embrace the heartfelt people, soul, and culture of the Arkansas delta setting and surroundings that form the catalyst of the story.
For Beck, The Grace Of Jake is a project that is a true labor of love. He joyfully relates that the movie is a powerful and uplifting “story of redemption. Redemptive stories resonate in me.”
On a beautiful spring day the first week of May, just a few days prior to The Grace Of Jake‘s world premiere at The Little Rock Film Festival in Little Rock, Arkansas, the week of May 11-17, 2015, Beck graciously talked with me about The Grace Of Jake.
Beck also joyously expounds about the craft of acting, his storied career, and fondly reflects on the 35th Anniversary of Xanadu, and especially on the 36th Anniversary of The Warriors. Beck and the cast of The Warriors will be celebrating the anniversary when they reunite at the Atlantic City Boardwalk Con 2015 convention, May 14-16, 2015 in Atlantic City, New Jersey. The cast will be part of a special screening event of The Warriors, and hold several guest speaker panels and meet and greets.
Congrats on the premiere of The Grace Of Jake at The Little Rock Film Festival. For people who haven’t yet seen the movie, what can you tell people about the film’s storyline, and especially about your character? How does he relate to his son, played by actor and musician Jake La Botz?
The Grace of Jake is the story of a man who was abandoned by his father before he was even born, and suffers from the wounds of rejection and the lack of a father’s blessing in his life. Upon release from prison in California, Jake’s bitterness drives him across the country to the Arkansas delta, where he hopes to seek revenge on his long lost father. I play Henry Haynes, a local crop duster and the father in question.
How did you become involved with this project? How did you first come to the attention of The Grace Of Jake‘s director Chris Hicky?
In keeping with the title, my getting this role was a gift of grace. A couple of years ago, my wife and I moved back to where I had grown up in the Arkansas delta. One day I was out fixing a leak to my water main when I got a call from a fellow named Byron Burch. We had grown up together as kids, but I hadn’t seen him in decades. He told me that his wife, Sarah Tackett, was casting a movie that was to begin shooting locally in about a month, and wondered if I would be interested in reading the script. They thought I would be perfect for the role of Henry Haynes. He told me that writer-director, Chris Hicky was originally from Forrest City, Arkansas, and planned to shoot the film in and around his old home town. I read the script and loved the story. My wife Cari videoed my audition on her iPhone, and I emailed it to Sarah who then forwarded it to Chris in Los Angeles.
Candid “The Grace of Jake” set shot of Michael Beck and stunt flyer Terry Haynes. Photo courtesy of director Chris Hicky.
How did he approach you for the role, and what did he see in your artistry that he wanted you to bring to the dynamic of the film?
He saw something in that audition that made him want to see more. A few days later I drove to Little Rock to have Sarah shoot a couple more scenes for Chris. Traveling west on I-40 on the way to that audition, a bright yellow crop duster flew low across the highway directly in front of my car. The character of Henry Haynes is a crop duster. I knew immediately that the job was mine. As if that were not enough, a couple of blocks before arriving at Sarah’s office, an SUV suddenly cut in front of me. Its vanity plate read FLY AG. Crop dusters are also known as “ag” planes. I started laughing and said, “Lord, you are so good. I know you know that I don’t always pay attention. But, come on, I got it the first time when the plane flew across my bow.” A gift of grace. And the job was mine.
The Grace Of Jake also showcases your return to acting in over a decade. Why the lengthy hiatus from acting, especially when so many people enjoy your creative work?
My hiatus from acting was not a conscious choice. It is what sometimes happens in show business. I think it was Michael Caine who once said that actors don’t retire, they simply stop getting called. In the early 90’s I moved my family from Los Angeles to Oregon. Both my wife and I grew up in rural settings, and we didn’t want to raise our kids in Hollywood. I thought at the time that I would be able to maintain my career from long distance. However, there is truth in the old adage, “Out of sight, out of mind.”
What was it about this particular film that creatively spoke to you and not only drew you to the story, script, and screenplay, which Chris Hicky also wrote, but made you want to return to acting in film?
I liked the story. It is a story of redemption. Redemptive stories resonate in me. I was thrilled to be given the opportunity to act again.
You were born in Memphis, Tennessee and you grew up on your father’s farm in Arkansas. Tell me about your childhood and life growing up in the southern delta. How has your Southern roots and upbringing informed and influenced your creative interpretation of your role as Henry Haynes?
I grew up where the film is set. Generations of my people come from this part of the country. I know these folks. I am one of them. My pump got primed, through performing the audio book version of John Grisham’s Sycamore Row the week before I began shooting on Grace of Jake. I was definitely in the pocket when I showed up on set.
What inspired you to become an actor and was your first audition and acting role? When was this and how old were you at the time?
I went to Millsaps College on a football scholarship. Acting was not on my radar. In my junior year a friend dared me to try out for a play. I accepted the dare, and the following week I auditioned for the role of Tybalt in Romeo and Juliet. I got the part and have never looked back.
Michael Beck in”The Warriors.”
The Warriorsjust celebrated its 36th Anniversary! Your role as Swan is iconic in both film and popular culture. How did that role come about for you?
How I got the role of Swan in The Warriors is an interesting story. I went three years to drama school in London and worked for two more in repertory theater in the UK before returning to New York City. I had been in New York for about eighteen months when Walter Hill came to town to shoot The Warriors. The casting agents for the film thought of me as a classically trained theater actor and didn’t see me as a Coney Island street gang member. Consequently, they would not submit me for the film. My agent did everything she could to get me seen, but they were adamant that I was not right for The Warriors. It looked like a dead issue.
How did director Walter Hill first learn of your acting talents? What did he think you could bring to the table?
Walter Hill was a producer of the film Alien. [He] screened a movie called Madman to see Sigourney Weaver on film. I played the lead role in that movie, so Walter saw me as well. [Hill] thought that I was right for The Warriors. I auditioned for Walter, Larry Gordon, and Frank Marshall and got the part of Swan.
What was it like filming on location in New York, from Coney Island, to the subways, to the streets and parks of the city?
Filming The Warriors in New York was a blast. All of the cast lived in New York. For many, it was their first film. It was exciting and exhilarating and hard work. We filmed for eighty nights all over the city. We went to work at dusk and returned home after daylight. We lived in an upside down universe. It was great! We were young and having fun. Lifelong friendships were forged over those long nights. It was a physically grueling film to shoot, with all the running and fighting. By the time we wrapped we were in the best shape of our lives.
What are your creative feelings in crafting such an edgy, almost surrealistic film and its fantasy images of gangs in colorful and iconic costumes and make-up?
I love the movie. I love the simple story. I love the way it looks. I love the soundtrack. I love the energy and pace of it. It has become a cult classic, and I am grateful to have played my part in it.
The Warriors
My favorite gang that fights The Warriors is The Baseball Furies, with their make-up and baseball uniforms. What is yours and why, and what are your thoughts on how Walter Hill and the costume and makeup designers choreographed that scene, The Warriors versus The Baseball Furies?
I agree with you, Arlene. The Warriors versus The Baseball Furies confrontation is my favorite fight in the movie. From the first sighting of those Kabuki-faced batsmen on the street outside the subway station to the final image of the victorious Warriors walking off into the shadows of Riverside Park, it is a fantastic sequence. I have no idea whose creative mind came up with the idea of that make-up with those costumes for The Baseball Furies, but it was brilliant. Really exciting scene!
What was it like working with such a talented ensemble of actors as James Remar as Ajax, David Harris as Cochise, Terry Michos as Vermin, the late Marcelino Sanchez as Rembrandt, Dorsey Wright as Cleon, Tom McKitterick as Cowboy, Brian Tyler as Snow, and the lovely Deborah Van Valkenburgh as Mercy?
It was wonderful working together with such a talented cast. Life imitated art in the making of the movie. We grew close. We had each other’s backs. We became a gang. We still are a gang almost forty years later. Whenever we get together for a reunion, like we will on May 14-16 at the Atlantic City Boardwalk Con 2015, it is like we haven’t missed a beat. We still enjoy each other’s company. We still have each other’s backs.
The cast regularly hold reunions at many international comic and film conventions and fan fests. There are also many fan groups and forums devoted to The Warriors. Why do you think that after some four decades, The Warriorsstill resonates so strongly with people?
I don’t know what it is about The Warriors that resonates across the decades with old and new fans. I suppose that question could be asked of any film that develops a cult following. Nobody – writer, director, producers, actors, studio heads – could have predicted the lasting appeal to multiple generations that The Warriors has enjoyed. I am grateful to have participated in such a beloved film.
Michael Beck and Deborah Van Valkenburgh in “The Warriors.”
My favorite scene is near the end of the film, on the subway going home to Coney Island. A dirty and disheveled Swan and Mercy are sitting together, two middle class teen couples dressed up in tuxes and gowns from their prom get on the subway and sit opposite Swan and Mercy. Then one teen stares at Mercy, looking her over and down on her. Mercy awkwardly raises her hand to straighten her hair out of shame. You gently take Mercy’s hand and move it back down as if to say to her, in spite of your differences in social class, neighborhood origins, and economic backgrounds that Mercy should not be ashamed. She should be proud of who she is. Then you give Mercy a corsage that one of the couples drops when leaving the train and she asks “What’s this for?” and you reply “I just hate seeing anything go to waste.” I just love that tender, poignant, and nuanced scene, and the meaning and statement that you, Deborah, and Walter Hill (who also co-wrote the screenplay) made. What are your own thoughts on how that scene was written?
Arlene, that is also my favorite scene in the movie. The night that Deborah and I shot our reaction to the prom couples, there were no prom couples to be found. Their half of the scene had been filmed a few days before. So a couple of pieces of tape on the opposite wall of the train car stood in for them while Walter Hill talked us through the scene. Don’t you love it? The magic of movies!
This is the 35th anniversary of Xanadu! How did that role come about for you? What did the filmmakers want you to bring to the dynamics of this exuberant pop musical fantasy?
Larry Gordon and Joel Silver, who produced Xanadu, also produced The Warriors. It was through that connection that I was cast in the film.
Michael Beck, Olivia Newton-John and Gene Kelly in “Xanadu.”
What was your creative experience like working on that film, and with Olivia Newton-John and especially Gene Kelly?
The creative experience on Xanadu was at times difficult and frustrating, as well as, joyous and wonderful. I loved working with Olivia. She is the down to earth, beautiful person you hope for her to be. A wonderful lady. And Gene Kelly? Are you kidding me? A Hollywood icon! He was thoroughly professional, personable and very kind to me. I am glad to have had the opportunity to work with both of them.
You’ve enjoyed many memorable acting roles in TV series including Houston Knights, Murder SheWrote, JAG, Walker Texas Ranger, Babylon 5and you have performed in theater as well. What can you tell me about the creative experiences of some of these roles, and how have all of your acting experiences helped you to grow, stretch, and evolve artistically as an actor and artist?
I’m impressed, Arlene, you remember my work better than I do! I have been blessed to have played a wide variety of different characters throughout my career which has made it fun and challenging. Every role draws on some aspect of who I am and on my imagination. Some roles draw from a deeper well of my being and help me to discover more about myself, as well as the characters I play. I enjoy getting to know them all.
I especially liked the concept of the wonderful police drama Houston Knights, which ran on CBS 1987-1988. Your character, Sgt. Levon Lundy and his partner, Michael Pare’s Officer Joey LaFiamma were two very well emotionally drawn characters with a lot of rich back story. How did that role come about for you and what was your creative experience working on that series and with Michael Pare?
I auditioned for the role of Levon Lundy in Houston Knights. I read for the producers and then later for the network, and fortunately I got the part. I loved playing Lundy – a good ole boy Texas cowboy cop. It was great fun working with Michael Pare. He is a funny guy. He was like a mischievous kid brother. We were always laughing.
Olivia Newton-John and Michael Beck in “Xanadu.”
You also have enjoyed a wonderful career narrating audio books, including many written by legal suspense thriller author John Grisham, former President Clinton’s autobiography My Life, and many more esteemed novels and books. How did you initially get involved with voicing audiobooks, in particular John Grisham’s and former President Clinton’s? What other books have you done?
John Grisham’s first novel was called A Time To Kill. His subsequent novels, The Firm and ThePelican Brief put him on the bestseller lists. His publishers decided to reprint A Time To Kill and to release an audio version of it. The way I heard it, Mr. Grisham was insistent that whoever performed the novel be authentic and accurate in all the Mississippi dialects in the book. The producer in charge became frustrated when Grisham would not okay any of the readers she submitted. One day she mentioned her dilemma to a colleague, who replied that he knew just the person for her: Michael Beck. This colleague was an old friend of mine from Millsaps College days. We had done plays together there. That was my start in the audiobook world. I have been very fortunate to have performed many of John Grisham’s novels, in addition to other bestselling authors. Because of my relationship with the publishers of President Clinton’s MyLife, examples of my work, along with that of other readers, were submitted to him for his approval. He chose me. I have no idea why. Maybe because we are both from Arkansas.
How long does it generally take to record an audio book in the recording studio?
It depends upon the length of the book. A 400 odd page novel generally would take me about three days to record.
Have you met former President Clinton and John Grisham? Have they, or any of the author’s that you have narrated books for, told you their creative thoughts on your voice acting performances and interpretation of their works?
I have not met the former President nor John Grisham. I assume Mr. Grisham likes the way I read his books since I have been allowed to do so many of them. And I hope President Clinton was pleased with how I read his memoir.
You’re an author and writer as well. You were writing your first novel last I heard. What can you tell me about that? What is your novel is about? Was it published, and if so where can people find your book? Are you still writing and if so what are you currently working on?
I put aside my first attempt at a novel. It didn’t come together as I had hoped. Since then I have written a creative non-fiction book for which I am seeking publication.
Olivia Newton-John, Gene Kelly and Michael Beck in “Xanadu.”
What are some of your fondest memories as an actor?
Filming The Warriors is right up there at the top. I learned so much about acting in film from that experience, and more importantly, I made some lasting friendships. I have fond memories of working with some of Hollywood’s all-time greats: Gene Kelly, Lauren Bacall, Richard Widmark, Lee Remick, Art Carney and Meryl Streep. What a privilege it has been to work with artists such as these.
You’ve acted in many projects that have included some great music scores and soundtracks. The Warriors, Xanadu, The Grace Of Jake, and Houston Knightsfeature soundtracks performed by some of music’s most esteemed artists. Besides Olivia Newton John and Jake La Botz who have acted with you, did you get to meet any of the music artists who performed on the soundtracks? Did you meet Joe Walsh, who composed and performed one of my favorite songs, “In The City,” the emotionally uplifting end credits theme for The Warriors? Also, do you have any musical talents of your own, do you sing or play the guitar or any instruments? Have you ever played in a band?
I did not meet Joe Walsh, but like you, I love the song “In the City.” However, I did meet Jeff Lynne of Electric Light Orchestra during the filming of Xanadu. What a great band! I, however, am not musically talented. I play no instruments. I can carry a tune, but my wife says I sing a little flat. Guess you can’t have it all.
What new creative projects are you currently working on that we can look forward to?
At the moment, I have no projects in the works. The Grace of Jake is being screened at the Little Rock Film Festival during the week of May 11th. I hope fellow Arkansans come out to see it and enjoy the movie.
Emily Hearn has been turning heads as of late, with her newest album Hourglass, which was just released a couple months ago. Her single “Volcano,” is the top-rated song on iTunes from her new album and Emily has gained quite a new fan base after the song was played on an episode of Jane the Virgin.
In concert, Emily smiles after a long round of applause from the crowd after playing “Volcano,” and introduces the man next to her playing the keyboard. He is Michael Harrison, her tour manager, co-writer, and husband. The crowd lets out an “awww,” and applauds.
Emily describes her touring on the road with her husband and the incredible experience it has been being able to write with him. She talks about a time when they briefly visited Michigan and were not prepared for the weather at all, so she is happy she is performing in Philadelphia during the warm month of May.
Backstage before that show, the 24-year-old singer songwriter from Athens, Georgia talked with us about Hourglass, and how she got Bill Murray for her music video.
You’re just a couple days into the tour here, are there any cities you’re really excited to get to?
We end this tour in Anaheim, which is just outside LA. I’ve never been to LA before, so I’m excited about that.
When did you know being on stage and being a singer is what you wanted to do?
Actually it was kind of late, later than most people. I was going to attend the University of Georgia, so in 2008 I packed up and moved to Athens, Georgia. I wanted to study journalism actually. I wanted to write for magazines or maybe write books. Just before I left for college, I taught myself to play guitar. I would sing when I did that, but I never really started writing songs until I got to college. Athens happens to be a music town. A lot of bands got their start out of Athens: REM, the B-52’s and a lot more recent bands, too. There are a lot of venues [in Athens]. I played a venue one time. It was really small. It was just kind of a whim, and I remember falling in love with it. So I kept writing songs and kept taking gigs in local college towns and eventually it spread nationwide.
What do you think you’d be doing if you weren’t a musician?
Maybe graphic design. I’ve thought about that before. I’ve thought about going back to school to study making things look good. I like layouts and I like to paint and draw.
Your new album Hourglass just came out a few months ago. What kind of reception have you been getting?
It’s been awesome. I’ve released three albums before this. Two of them were EP’s and one was a full length. They were all fun and different in their own way, but this has been the one that has been the most exciting. I put more work into it beforehand than I did on any other album. I got to co write with my husband a lot, which was really fun. This guy Ben Rector, I’m a big fan of his and we got to co-write for this album. His career is kind of the dream so I was really excited about that.
When putting together the new album, what did you try to keep in mind for a different sound?
I’ve done a lot more broken down, acoustic things in the past. I did one full band album that was a little bit more like, two electric guitars, and predictable full band [sound]. But for the last album, Promises, I did five songs that were pretty broken down, leaning toward country. So for this album I knew I wanted to add in a little bit of subtle programming, like maybe a lead part on the keys rather than on the guitar. I don’t know if we had many acoustic guitars on the album at all.
Were there any specific types of inspiration you gravitated towards while making this album?
For this album I tried out something new, and I didn’t listen to any music. I listened to a lot of podcasts in the car and I was inspired by subjects. I was doing a lot of traveling. I was on tour at the time, so I was inspired by sights, and cities, and climate, and that kind of thing. How I felt in different cities inspired my music more so than an inspirational album I was listening to, which was cool.
How did you get together with Bill Murray for the “Rooftops” music video in 2012?
I have a mutual friend with Bill Murray, which is crazy. I didn’t know that my friend knew Bill Murray. My friend was helping me organize this music video. We were filming it in Charleston, South Carolina. The song is called “Rooftops, ” so we were going to sing and dance on some rooftops. We get down to debrief before the next morning we started filming and they mention, “Oh we might have a celebrity guest. Bill Murray lives around here. We left your CD on his porch and texted him and said, were filming this music video tomorrow if you want to show up tomorrow, do!” And he did!
The number one track from Hourglass on iTunes is “Volcano.” Can you talk about how you wrote it and what’s it about?
“Volcano” is very different from a lot of songs I’ve written in the past. It’s about loss. It’s even about divorce and broken families and things like that. My husband and I sat down and wrote it with a friend who is also named Emily [Lynch]. We started with the imagery, the idea of a volcano gone cold. All of us have known families and marriages that have ended in divorce and we really felt like it was a subject we wanted to write about. I think its been touching for a lot of people in a lot of different ways, just when someone is feeling alone or feeling lost. Recently, we just had it on an episode of Jane the Virgin on the CW. It was in the middle of a big breakup scene and everyone is commenting on YouTube, “I think Jane should stay with Michael or whoever.” (Laughs)
Tyrone Wells has had much success in his music career over the last decade. Some of his most popular songs have been featured on American Idol, Grey’s Anatomy, and One Tree Hill. The singer-songwriter, who was born in Seattle, last talked to us back in 2007 after he released his album Hold On. Since then, he has become a father, gone back to releasing his albums independently, and added way more production value to his tours.
When Tyrone recently hit the stage at his Philly gig, he immediately started with some fan favorites like his hit “Running Around In My Dreams,” from his 2010 album Metal & Wood. He then went to introduce and play some songs from his newest album Roll With It. His new production really showed, as the band was backlit with some amazing visuals and lights from LED panels scattered across the walls, and a projector that threw beautiful designs behind Tyrone while he sang.
Back in March, Tyrone Wells released Roll With It, and last week he stopped by the World Café Live in Philadelphia to chat with us about the album, his career, and why he could beat you in ping pong.
Would you mind talking a little bit about the process of writing or recording the new album?
Yeah. My role with making a record is I just write a bunch of songs, like anywhere from 40 to 100 songs. I do a lot of collaborating. I like to co-write as well, and do quite a bit by myself. Then at the end of the day we just pile them all up and decide which ones we think are worthy of recording. That’s kind of the process. Then in terms of producers, we just looked for somebody that we thought would be great on an indie budget, but still make it sound like it could rival any record out there in terms of production quality. We found a guy named Dustin Burnett, who is in Nashville, Tennessee. He is fantastic and he made a great sounding record. That process was a lot of flights back and forth from Nashville to LA. We did some recording in LA at my home studio, and some at his studio. It was a great process.
What has it been like touring this album as compared to previous ones?
This one definitely has more production, so this is the first time I brought a light show and just more elements. I’m playing more instruments than I ever have. Usually I just used to play acoustic guitar. On this tour I’m playing keys, I’m playing ukulele and then even not playing any instruments for some songs. There’s a lot of up-tempo stuff on this record, so the show feels like it has a lot more energy, which I dig.
Has there been a certain stop on this tour that you’ve really enjoyed so far?
Yeah, being from the west coast whenever I play the west coast I always love it. I tour more on the west coast than out here, so Seattle and Portland are always amazing experiences. On the east coast I would probably say – no offense to Philadelphia (laughs) because I love playing here – but there’s something about playing in New York. We usually do two nights at this venue called the New York City Winery, which I really love. But World Café Live in Philly is one of the best venues on tour. I always love playing here.
You’ve been really big into indie distribution; in the past you released two albums with Universal, but since then returned to indie distribution. Could you talk about that? What is so attractive about releasing your music this way?
Well just being independent. For me, the best-selling record for me is actually the record that I released after I was on Universal, which is really great because then I own it outright. A lot of times when you sign a deal it’s funny, because you usually get a good signing bonus but then you usually don’t see money for a really long time. You have to recoup all that, and then they spend a lot of money on marketing and make you recoup that as well. Which I get, but as an artist and a singer-songwriter it was actually really beneficial for me business-wise to get off the label and start selling my own music. It was really cool because they helped up the profile of the music and get the music out there. As an indie artist, distribution in record stores isn’t quite as important as it used to be. There are still those like me that like to go into a record store, but very few people buy music in record stores anymore. They buy it online or they stream it. The game has changed a lot so there hasn’t been much of a need for distribution. We are starting to work with a company on putting them in certain record stores across America, but I just feel like for every 20 albums people buy, maybe one of those is in a record store. So I don’t know it’s all that important.
Since we last talked to you, you became a father. How has that affected your career?
It’s a lot harder to leave on the road honestly. I have two daughters, one is three, and the other just turned five months. So, just being away right now, especially with the five-month year old because she’s changing so much. They both are really, so that just means a lot of Facetime (the app) and talking to my kids. Also I think it gives your work more meaning though, too. When I was single working at music I just had different reasons. Once I got married and had kids, now I’m providing for my family. It infuses the music in my career with a lot more meaning and I love that about it. I try to tour more strategically and not be gone forever.
You’ve had a lot of success having your music being played in TV shows, what’s that experience like, and having your music reach people through that platform?
It’s great. Radio is something everyone’s gunning for but very few actually hit it at radio. I’ve had some radio success, but not a lot. I have had a lot of stuff on TV and film. I like it because it just introduces the music to a whole new audience. There have been times where it’s kind of a weird usage of one of my songs, like this one murder mystery they were talking about the grizzly details of this murder and one of my love songs was playing in the background. (Laughs) I just thought, “this is so weird!” As an artist and a musician today that is still a great way to make some really good income. We call that mailbox money, and we love that they just send you a check.
What is one thing your fans might not know about you?
They probably don’t know that I could beat almost all of them at ping pong. I beat a famous professional athlete at ping pong once, which was cool. He’s not a ping pong player, but he’s the quarterback of the Steelers, so I beat [Ben] Roethlisberger at ping pong. He beat me six times and I beat him once!
Our Isa and Maggie caught up with our friends The Weekend Riot again! These guys are beyond fun and in between laughs, they filled us in on touring and what they have been up to!
