Sixty Minutes with Davey Johnstone

The music still excites him. Davey talks about the new album and his life now, by Kevin Bell (From East End Lights)

Being the musical director for the worlds hardest working recording artist keeps you constantly on the go. Not to mention when you have seven children ranging in ages of 33 down to 18 months, your time is not your own. Between raising a family, trying to score L.A. Laker playoff tickets, working on several different projects with the band and touring, Davey Johnstone still manages to keep it together with a love and passion for all of it.

Davey Johnstone first worked with Elton John on the Madman Across the Water album in 1971. In 1972, Davey joined the band full-time, and has played on almost every Elton John album after. Since the late 80's he has been Elton's musical director and long-time confidant.

After our opening pleasantries, where we talked about family and friends Davey quickly asked me if we'd had an opportunity to hear his son Tam Johnstone's new project. (unfortunately, it's not available here in Canada) However, you can order it at www.tamjohnstone.com. The proud father praised his son's latest CD by saying; " a friend of mine called the other day and said he was listening to his new favorite album (Tam's) and people are saying this is great, why is it not doing something? It's very disheartening for somebody like him who's so talented, because he's a great, great writer and musician too."

Davey had some criticism for the current powers that be in the music industry; "we've been plugging Tam's stuff for years, but its very difficult, because its not who you know in this business. I mean it might help a bit with a (well-known) dad to get your foot in the door, but not much, but people are afraid of talent". Adding "the people who are in charge these days, you see we forget, we're the dinosaurs, and anyone who are in any kind of control in this industry, are usually pimply-faced kids who don't know , and unfortunately that's the problem and I'm ashamed of the way music has gone and the one encouraging thing I think is that a lot of kids are turning back to the music of the 70's and 80's because they can't find anything current that they like."

"The bottom line is unless there's an awful lot of money behind it, or a big (marketing) machine, even like the way Elton has helped with James Blunt, my kids CD is every bit as good if not ten-times better than James Blunt's "

Strong praise from a man who's recording credits include the albums Goodbye Yellow Brick Road and Captain Fantastic, even if there is a very personal connection to the younger namesake artist. But we're not talking about Neil and Dara Sedaka here, this is "thee" Davey Johnstone talking about his son Tam.

As we moved on in the conversation, we talked about touring, the songs and playing Las Vegas. "How do you like playing Vegas? I asked "I love it!" said Davey "and I think you'll find the whole band loves it, because it's a very fun show to play and the sound in that theatre is phenomenal, it's a great sound in that theatre, and Clive Franks does a great job with the sound, it's such a pleasure to play in there."

The Red Piano show continues to be one of the leading shows in Las Vegas playing to sold-out crowds every night at the "cirque-de-celine" Coliseum at Caesars Palace.

Besides playing Las Vegas, Elton is constantly touring around the globe. "That's what most bands don't do (tour)" said Davey. "Most bands think well, we're rock-stars, we've got a hit, we can sit around on our ass and get stoned or whatever. But you've got to tour. Take your music to the people."

"Elton's advice to James Blunt was very, very good. He told him that he had to go on the road and tour. (if) I'm gonna be part of your management team and be looking after you, we're not gonna do it unless you do your part and get out there and play."

"That's what James has done, he took and look what's happened. His success was because he's worked hard and shown respect for the business, which is what you need to do "

The down-side to touring can put a strain on family responsibilities back home. Missing special occasions, birthdays, even tragedies can cause a musician to consider giving up.

"(for me) It was tough getting back up there again. This has been a tough time for us because it's the 5th year of Oliver's passing and it never gets any easier, but we've had so much support from family and friends and we couldn't ask for more. As much as we miss him, we had him for 9 great years, and he really touched everybody's heart, and my band and especially Elton have been so supportive. I'm still doing things for the school, as a matter of fact today I'm on my way to Bob Birch's for something we did with Steve Trudell. I just sat down and wrote a song about this kid from my kids school who developed cancer, and when Oliver died, his sister, had a form of cancer, and she is now in remission and doing great, but unfortunately her brother contracted another strain of cancer (leukemia) and he was gone in 3 months, he just recently passed, he was 11. It meant a lot to us, so we showed our support for the family and I wrote a song, it's probably thefirst song I've written infive years and basically I wrote it for the school and the family to help pay for their medical bills. When l'm finished with it, which should be today, I'll get some copies to you for EEL, I'd like to make it available. We're doing what we can to help."

Any thoughts on a follow-up to Smiling Face? (Davey's solo album from 1973) "I am working on a kids album that I started with Bob Birch years ago, we started doing some tracks, and its really interesting what came out and I got a couple of friends; Rick Astley sang one, Kiki Dee sang one, but unfortunately it was around the time we lost Oliver, so l put it on the back burner, but I listened to it recently and its really sounding good, so I'm slowly getting back into it, I guess you could call it a follow-up to Smiling Face, that was based around fatherhood, childhood, the whole thing so l guess we'll get it done sometime. It's like Guy Babylon and I, we continue to do these virtuoso pieces, we've got maybe 4 that are almost finished."

Changing gears we talked about the set list and song selection on the tours. With an extensive catalog like Elton's, sometimes you can't please everyone. "We try and do some songs that we know the real fans like. On the British tour we're gonna pull out Elderberry Wine. I'm not sure if its gonna fly yet, I mean Elton may play 3 bars of it and say that. Because what you have to do with him, its kind of like planting a seed, you mention a song, and you wait for a year and a half and he'll go "what if I play this ? " and you say "oh what a great idea", but you gotta make it his idea. If you make it his idea than it's cool. If I want to play a song, I'll mention it and expect to get it a year, two years down the road. He'll go "what about doing this song?" that's what we did with Harmony. The other one we're bringing back is Goodbye Yellow Brick Road." "I'd love to play You're Sister Can't Twist But She Can Rock & Roll, but with Elton, I've mentioned it a couple of times, but I don't even bring it up anymore, because we listened to the CD-Goodbye Yellow Brick Road 5.1 version that Greg Penny did, and the whole album sounded great and I had Elton sit down and listen to the whole album in that setting and he was blown away. We kept looking at each other and breaking up because we couldn't believe it because it was phenomenal, because it's a great piece of work. So now we wait and see"

Are there any songs that you never get tired of playing? "Quite a few of them funnily enough. The reason we change them is to do some things that will take a little risk, because that's the secret, if you keep your songs from going stale, you'll be okay. You have to remember that the public loves to hear these songs, I mean you may think "man if I play Crocodile Rock one more time, I'm gonna slit my wrists" but in actual fact the crowd gets up as one when you start playing it and that's the whole point, you gotta remember."

"Like, when I go see the Eagles, if I don't hear Hotel California, or go see the Stones, if I don't hear Jumpin Jack Flash, I feel I'll kill somebody. It is what it is, that's rock n roll and I have to put my own feelings aside. A lot of people come to hear 7 or 8 songs, and when you play Funeral For a Friend, they go ape-, and they're in for a big night. Most songs don't go away for very long, because the crowd loves it."

Any songs that have more of a special meaning for you? " I Think That's Why They Call It The Blues does because I'm a co-writer on it, but also it's such a great song, and believe it or not I don't think we've ever played it very well live, and we continue to play it, we need to give it a rest. Along with Tiny Dancer, I think it's run its course. There are some songs that we should substitute because he's got such a huge catalog. But the thing is people want to hear certain songs. It's the expectation people have when they go to a concert they want to hear certain songs and if they don't, they don't feel like they've got their money's worth."

The Captain and The Kid

There is a lot of excitement surrounding the release of the new album The Captain and The Kid. Fans have been waiting 35 years for this sequel and expectations are high because the first one was such a masterpiece.

"Well Captain Fantastic was just another album to us at the time, and it was album-tour-album-tour, between 1971 - 1975, we were never home."

Where was The Captain and The Kid Recorded? "We recorded it at a place called Earth-Link Live in Atlanta. It was a facility, where we used to rehearse. We found it because Elton lives part of the time in Atlanta, and he loves Atlanta, and we wanted him to be on home turf, so that he felt comfortable. He could go home every night, sleep in his own bed and it really paid off so well. He said to me a couple of times that this was the most stress free album he's ever made; he was very relaxed and happy. There was no giant wobblers, no moodies or anything like that. He was in a good space with it. And once we had a couple of tracks done, it was obvious that it was gonna be pretty special." "I prefer it when Elton writes and everything comes flowing out of him, he tends to write very quickly, but when it flows out of him like this album did, he wrote it the same way he wrote the original, which was that he wrote the songs in sequence, he and Bernie came up with the songs and we ended up with 10 songs on the album, and he took one off the album because he felt it was a little bit flippant. It was kind of like a Made in England song, very up-tempo, very descriptive, but Elton just felt it was a little bit flippant. It talked about the way he dressed, his sexual preference, the scandals and all that stuff, and he said, you know we've been down that road, lets get away from that, we don't need to be going there, and I think he made a very good point."

Who produced it? "Elton produced it. He produced the last one, and the band is very instrumental, as far as helping, and I always help him. He demands I'm there when he's doing his vocals, and writing his songs, so it was just Elton and Matt Still our engineer, and that was it. The tracks were done live. I'd say about 50% of the songs were done live, meaning we cut the piano, guitars, bass, drums, live; which we haven't done for a long time."

"Sometimes you tend to use the technology you've got to make it very artsy-fartsy, but it also takes away from the ideas that we might have. When you do things live, accidents might happen, that are really important in music, I've always believed that. Great accidents happen, its what can make a track special or not. I like the excitement you can get from doing it live."

So, just Elton & the band? "Yep, no background singers. We did all the backgrounds, no orchestral arrangements, Guy Babylon is quiet excellent in adding things in, but we kept it very organic, meaning its very piano, bass, drums, guitar based. Kind of like in the old days."

So lyrically, as creative as the original? "Bernie really excelled himself, he more than excelled himself in my opinion. The way he has that talent that not many people on this planet do have is quiet amazing and I think unfortunately is taken for granted a lot of the time, its one of those things that doesn't come along every lifetime. The lyrics are as good as anything he's ever done. I mean we'd listen to the first draft (or) the first take of what we played, with the first first vocal of the and and just go like Christ, you get shivers. There's a song called The Bridge, on it. Its gonna be an all-time classic. You hear it one time and you go or holy this is what it's all about. It's about what you have to give up and what you have to do to get to where you get too. But it just gives you shivers; The Captain & The Kid is a great song itself, its actually the last song on the CD and I have a little pride in it because it has one of my ideas that I ended up raping a little bit, but, it's a very, very cool album "

What events did the songs focus on? There's a lot to draw on here: "It focuses on what's happen in the last 35 years. I will be giving away this, but the first song is called Postcards for Richard Nixon, so it's basically from then until now, and he talks about what it was like when they first came over there, and basically what's happened from then on." Is it going to be as elaborately packaged as the original?: "They're talking about it, I've heard all kinds of rumors, I'm not allowed to share anything about it with you, but they are going for something special. There's even some talk about having a vinyl release, which I think would be great. The old days art cover was so cool, it was like a mini work-of-art. The package was so great. Nowadays, with a CD cover you need to get your magnifying glass out. There's talk about doing a substantial vinyl release, to do an album cover, it will be intricate, do a little mirror thing back to the original one. Not as far as the front cover but maybe a band picture, which hasn't happened in a long time, it hasn't been since the One Night Only album, even then Elton wasn't with the band in the picture, it was just us."

What song are you most proud of on the album?: "I like the whole album. I had a playback for the crew in Vegas, I had a couple of big speakers in my suite in Vegas, and luckily we didn't get thrown out of the hotel, but we ended up playing it like 3 or 4 times because people were just blown away, and that's always a good sign. If the crew likes it you go "well ok it's a winner" . There's a song called Noah's Ark on it, that's probably one of my favorites because it's a real rocker, and it seriously rocks. It rocks very hard, and we have a surprise guest on the track actually (Elton's dog Arthur) we decided to do things like we used to do in the old days."

"You know how Songs From The West Coast was a step in the right direction, I believe Peachtree Road was step in the right direction, this one is definitely as well. This one is going all the way back to where he should be in tone, again in the right direction, if it was wrong, I would have known it from the start."

"Elton is very obsessed with trends, he listens to a lot of music, he tends to say I want my album to sound like this or that, and he went through a phase of doing that. Now he's finally finally realized he's Elton John, and he's done pretty well in his career and he just should be happy and content that he can be Elton John and that's what he is, and its a pleasure to still be a part of that"

Any standout performances on the CD?: "The thing about a great album or a great sports team is teamwork and that's the standout thing on this album. Incredible teamwork on this record. Nobody tried to outdo anybody, that was always the beauty of our stuff anyway, I never tried to be Eddie Van Halen, on an album, unless he wanted a bit of flash guitar than fine, what's always been great with Elton's music, what comes immediate is the song. How you dress it up is not that important as long as the song stands on its own, and that's what's important, and that's what comes across on this album, total teamwork"

Do you think there'll be high anticipation and comparisons with the original?: "I think there will be, Elton's doing interviews about it, so there will be comparisons to the original, and of course of who he is he'll get knocks and I'd like him to get to the stage where he just says screw em, I'm Elton John I don't really care, I've done this and that, I'll keep doing great things not only for music but for humanity in general, so screw everybody, I'll be happy when he gets to that stage, but will he ever get there, I don't know because he's so competitive."

Final Comments

What would be the one thing you want the true fans to know?: "I'd want them to know that Elton sincerely, sincerely, is so appreciative of all their loyalty. I know he says it onstage, but he really does mean it when he says it. And I see him leafing through East End Lights, he looks at it, he reads it."

What's the one thing the fans would never guess about you?: "That I'm gay, (not) I'd be the only gay guy on the planet with 7 kids. Seriously, that I probably enjoy it as much as I seem to enjoy it. A lot of people say to me you seem to be happy to be doing this, and I say "hello, are you on another planet", where does one get to play great music and have people enjoy it. I love doing it. If you have a passion for something you follow it, if you don't follow it your stupid, I tell my kids, you have to be the one who chases that dream its not gonna come to you, and in the end it will gratify you. I've been very fortunate with mine, with my family with my friends, and ultimately through the fans who buy the records, who buy our music."

If you weren't a musician, what other professional would you've pursued?: Probably a Skinhead. (no) I'm a massive soccer fan. I was in art college for about 5 minutes but the call of music was too great, I would have been a professional soccer player, but realized that my career would have lasted about 3 or 4 years and I'd been injured and that would be it, so l think I made the right choice"

What's in your CD player?: "Jack Johnson. He's been around for a while. He has great CD called In Between Dreams"

Any thoughts on an autobiography?: "That's one for the long haul, the stories are still coming. Right now were working on a tribute to Dee Murray first "

Thanks Davey, From the end of the world to your town.