www.musicweek.com
28.06.13 Music Week 15
going on? No. What Steven wanted to do and Roger Birnbaum and Stacey Snider at DreamWorks, what they wanted to do was to create a Broadway show and I kept saying, “I think the movie is amazing. Why would you not want to make the movie?” So there was a lot of that going on and they were really centred on doing a Broadway show and I thought, “Well yeah, all things in good time.” The story of our childhood is a saga. The story after we arrived in England was another saga. Maybe there will never be a movie, but boy what a story.
Would you ever consider writing an autobiography? I’m working on a book, but I tend to go in spurts. It’s like, “Ok I feel like continuing the story.” I got to the point where we grew up in Australia and we arrived in England. That’s where I’m up to so I’m up to Carnaby Street and the pageantry of how Britain was in 1967, Strawberry Fields and Penny Lane and how that changed how lives, meeting Robert Stigwood who was probably the greatest influence on us as a group in our lives.
with him and I think we’re going to see each other at the Nordoff-Robbins awards so I look forward to that because we met each other in Australia when I was doing the telethon for the Victoria fire victims with Olivia Newton-John and he was playing Sydney at that point with Coldplay and we had breakfast together and we talked about songwriting and stuff like that. I’m sort of hopeful that might come about. You never know.
Do you pay much attention to new covers of your songs? Well, I’ve just done a song with Ricky Skaggs because I love bluegrass music and he was the one person I wanted to see and wanted to visit the studio in Nashville and I did that. I try to chase little dreams now. I don’t do anything for income. I chase the music I love. I haven’t heard too many covers recently.
I was just thinking Michael Buble did To Love Somebody on his new album. I actually haven’t heard it. Those days are gone when the record company would send you the record. You know. “You’re the writer. What do you think?” We don’t get that anymore. I can’t even buy the damn thing. I’ve got to download it somehow.
It’s hard to find a record shop these days. You have to really hunt them down. In Miami there is no record store and the book stores. It’s really aggravating. I’m a browser.
Can you get your head round the modern music industry because in the last five to 10 years it’s changed ridiculously? No, I just have to go my own way and listen to my own signals and make an album if I want to make an album because I want to make an album. I never enjoyed the last 10 years because the record company would sit there and tell you what they thought you should write or what kind of song you now needed to put on your album. We never did
“I love Coldplay and Chris Martin. He’s an inspiration for me. I would love to work with him. I’m hopeful that might come about” BARRY GIBB
that in our youth, never. To have a guy sitting there making notes while you’re recording is no longer the way I want to do it.
I would be thinking if I were in the record company, “This guy must know what he’s doing by now.” Not necessarily. You know what happens is that younger people always know better than older people. You have to deal with all the young guys now in the business and young ladies and the people who are what you call current executives and that’s a little difficult. Somebody of my age trying to have my own way is not so easy anymore, so I’ve just got to go my own route. I don’t feel I have to prove something at this point. I just want to make music.
You did a deal a few years ago moving the catalogue from Universal to Warner. What kind of job do you think Warner is doing with it? Well, I would like to see some more creativity. I would like to be able to take part at a greater level than I am able to. How’s that for a diplomatic response?
I think that was diplomatically put, but makes the point.
It makes the point the record companies and the artists don’t really have a centre anymore and I think that needs to be addressed.
I read a few years ago Steven Spielberg was looking to make a movie of the Bee Gees story. Is that still
ABOVE Main Course: The Bee Gees ruled the airwaves and dance floors in the late Seventies
What makes him so special? Insight, intuition, the simple things of knowing that that song is a hit record or this is what you should do next. He was the kind of person who would create an opportunity, but you had to live up to it and that was why it was such a great partnership because up to that point we were a comedy trio. We were actually a comedy trio and we had to move from there to becoming a pop act to competing with The Easybeats or The Seekers who had come back from Australia and tried to make it in England and succeeded, so here was an Australian in London who was a partner with Brian Epstein at NEMS. Can you imagine being signed to NEMS in 1967?
The other thing that blows my mind when I think about your story is to have a run of hits over years is amazing, but you wrote big hits over decades. There are many people who have done that, but not in quite the same way as we did it because it never looked like it could work ever and every now and again we really rose to it and managed to pull something up because of the way we all thought as a unit as three brothers and with Andy. Working with Dionne Warwick. Working with Dolly Parton and Kenny and Barbra and Diana Ross and having that good luck being able to work with people that set you on a different path. Fantastic stuff when you think about it. Those are the reasons the hits came around each decade not just because of the Bee Gees because there was a time when if we had recorded Islands In The Stream it wouldn’t have got played. If we had recorded Guilty it wouldn’t have got played or Heartbreaker, Chain Reaction. These songs would never have been played if we had recorded them. It was necessary to work with different people.
Do you ultimately see then what you are is a songwriter, that’s the main job? Yes, that’s what it is. That’s the source. Keep our heads down, keep writing, don’t lose focus on writing songs. That’s what we do and that’s what we did. I’m proud of that because we stuck to that and it worked in the long run.
Page 1 |
Page 2 |
Page 3 |
Page 4 |
Page 5 |
Page 6 |
Page 7 |
Page 8 |
Page 9 |
Page 10 |
Page 11 |
Page 12 |
Page 13 |
Page 14 |
Page 15 |
Page 16 |
Page 17 |
Page 18 |
Page 19 |
Page 20 |
Page 21 |
Page 22 |
Page 23 |
Page 24 |
Page 25 |
Page 26 |
Page 27 |
Page 28 |
Page 29 |
Page 30 |
Page 31 |
Page 32 |
Page 33 |
Page 34 |
Page 35 |
Page 36 |
Page 37 |
Page 38 |
Page 39 |
Page 40 |
Page 41 |
Page 42 |
Page 43 |
Page 44 |
Page 45 |
Page 46 |
Page 47 |
Page 48 |
Page 49 |
Page 50 |
Page 51 |
Page 52 |
Page 53 |
Page 54 |
Page 55 |
Page 56 |
Page 57 |
Page 58 |
Page 59 |
Page 60