12 MusicWeek 06.07.12 THE BIG INTERVIEWELTONJOHN
the organisation and it’s a very experienced side. It’s our job as managers to make sure that Ed Sheeran happens because it’s a brilliant record. He’s won Ivor Novellos. He’s won Brit Awards and now I want him to win Grammy Awards and it’s my job as CEO of the company to make sure our company looks after him. He’s got great people on the road. His manager Stuart Camp’s done such a great job. “We’re a good little company. We treasure our
acts and we relish them and we protect them and tell them the truth and Ed’s never shied away from the truth and he knew it was going to be hard to work in America to break this record, but he’s gone out there and he’s slogged his guts out. I can name you certain British acts over the past 20 years that failed to do that and thought just because they were
“The Pnau record is a totally different thing for me. I’m a dance fanatic and I love that kind of music, but I’m not technically qualified to do it. What Pnau have done is something that hasn’t been done before. It’s not a remix. It’s not a mash-up. It’s creating new songs from back catalogue” ELTON JOHN
enjoy the process. This is his first release in America and he’s going to be a hit and he’s just overjoyed.” In a career now incredibly spanning six decades,
Elton across those years has lent his knowledge, experience and support to even some of the very biggest UK artists when it came to attaining success in the States. This list includes John Lennon whom Elton helped to land a first ever Hot 100 solo No.1 when he supplied harmony vocals and piano to Whatever Gets You Thru The Night. He also played a pivotal role in Cliff Richard finally achieving some notable success in the States after years of missing out as the veteran singer reached the Billboard Top 20 for the first time in 1976 with Devil Woman released on and championed by Elton’s Rocket label. However, when it comes to Sheeran, Elton is
not sure he has much to advise the young singer/songwriter on about succeeding in the US: “He’s such a social artist. He’s a pleasure to deal with and he’s enjoying it. The thing is when I went over there I was so carried away by the fact I was in America and I was meeting people that I loved, other artists that I worshiped and it’s just so exiting. “He’s got that same feel as I do and I have no
doubts. He’s great live. He’s very unusual live. He plays on his own. He uses a lot of loops and he’s endearing and the audiences love him. “You know I’ve always said our mantra at the
management office: if you can’t play live we don’t want you – and he’s one of those people who is great live. Last year he was a support act on the iTunes Festival. This year he’s coming back to headline it so he’s grown as an artist. He’s more confident, but the most wonderful thing about it is he absolutely loves it.” One practical area where Elton surely
will be able to offer some advice is on the subject of US radio. There remains much work to do in crossing over Sheeran to Top 40 with first Stateside single The A Team following an encouraging start at Triple A and Hot A/C. “The A Team has taken a long time [to
break at US radio],” says Elton. “Look at Lights by Ellie Goulding. It’s now in the Top 10 in Billboard, but that’s been going maybe a year, 10 months. [The A Team] is
ABOVE State of The Union: Elton reunited with mentor Leon Russell for his 2010 album The Union. Good Morning To The Night (above right) is one of two forthcoming projects
not the sort of record American radio play. American radio’s gone very dance-oriented, of course, very R&B and hip hop and pop with Katy Perry and people like that and Nicki Minaj. The A Team is the sort of record you have to stay with and work.” Elton is anticipating a more straightforward
time at US radio with Lego House, which will be the market’s next single, and knows in + the project is blessed with a number of potential big hits. “We’ve got a whole slew [of tracks],” he says.
“We’ve got the hip-hop side of him, which is You Need Me, I Don’t Need You, that sort of stuff and that’s what the album is all about. “It’s a very varied album. It’s not just beautiful
kind of songs. He’s a clever musician and because he’s a friend of all the English rappers like Tinie Tempah, Wretch 32, all that lot, that’s giving him a wider base of songwriting and a more broad appeal across the board. “I’m not saying the mission is completed,
BELOW Whatever gets you through: No stranger in helping artists gain notice in the US, Elton was part of Cliff Richard and John Lennon’s American success during the 1970s
because it isn’t. We’ve got work to do. The record company’s still got to bring this home. I’ve spoken to [Warner Music Group Recorded Music North American chairman and CEO] Lyor Cohen. I did this thing for Clear Channel the other night in the south of France and they’re so on board with him. It’s just relentless. We’ve been on this every single week making sure that it gets the adds at Hot A/C and it’s kind of like breaking down the Berlin Wall, but it’s getting there.” The US achievements so far for Sheeran
are clearly providing a perfect advert for the abilities of Rocket Music Entertainment Group, which Elton launched last year and which manages the careers of acts such as Lily Allen, James Blunt, Marina and the Diamonds, Leon Russell and the Rocket Man himself. “It just shows we have a great
management company and [adopt a] policy
of caution, bringing out the record when it is the right time to bring out the record. We have [Rocket North America chairman] Johnny Barbis in America and a whole team of people helping on this record. We have a New York office, which is a very good office. If we didn’t have that we’d be struggling, but it’s important to have an American side of
successful in England it transferred immediately to America, which is not just the case. This is a serious thing. If you want a career you’ve got to work for it. It doesn’t just happen because you’ve made a great record.” In the coming months Elton will be busy
himself with not one but two brand new albums of his own. He reveals his next studio album is already in the can, called The Diving Board and produced by T Bone Burnett, who was also behind his 2010 The Union album that reunited him with his old mentor Leon Russell and gave him his highest- charting new studio album on the Billboard 200 since 1976’s Blue Moves when it debuted and peaked at No.3. However, the new album’s release has been put
back until the spring because he does not want it to get in the way of Good Morning To The Night, an album by Australian dance music duo and Rocket signings Pnau featuring recreations of Elton recordings. This is scheduled for release in July. “It’s really fantastic and [the album’s first single
Sad, credited to Elton John Vs Pnau] is No.30 on the airplay chart already. I’m so excited with that project that I didn’t want the two albums to cannibalise each other so I put my album back to next March,” he says. “The Pnau record is a totally different thing for
me. I’m a dance fanatic and I love that kind of music, but I’m certainly not technically qualified to do it, but this band Pnau, the two boys from Australia, we gave them all my old master tapes and what they’ve done, which is something that hasn’t ever been done before. “For example on Good Morning To The Night -
which is the first track on the album - they’ve taken bass drum, snare drum, bass, guitars, brass, horns and strings from nine different Elton John songs and created [a new tune]. It’s not a remix. It’s not a mash- up. It’s creating new songs from back catalogue, which is incredible,” he says. “It’s so great to hear the album. It sounds so
fresh with what they’ve done with it. The vocals sound great and it just reaffirms we wrote some nice songs and they were brilliantly recorded by Gus Dudgeon. It’s very exciting.” Even four decades after his Your Song
breakthrough, Elton can still talk so thrillingly about a new project - and it is just this kind of enthusiasm that is bound to rub off on Ed Sheeran.
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