Interviewer:
John Norris (J)
Interviewee: George Michael (G)
J-So,
Mr. Michael, welcome...
G-Mr. Norris
J-As
some girl shouted out during the Unplugged the
other night, welcome back and I wonder if you
consider this as much as I guess the press
treated it as a comeback for George Michael this
year. Is it a comeback do you think?
G-Well, I
think obviously playing the show was a comeback.
It's the first show I've played in three years
but in terms of music I don't really consider it
a comeback in the sense that everywhere in the
world but America (I) had some very successful
projects in between the last big album and now.
It's only really in America that it's considered
a real comeback.
J-Tell
me about America, is your particular problem, you
know, your stance at this point, are you less
interested in how things are going in the States?
G-No, no. I'm
not less interested how things are going.
Obviously you want to reach the States because
it's such a mass of people. I always thought I
wanted to be successful in America and then Faith
happened and I had been very successful up until
then but then suddenly I realised what it was
like to be very successful in America, you know,
to be the latest hot thing in America and I
don't.., and it was the first time that I'd been
on my own. I was working on my own in that sense.
I always had Andrew to muck about with before and
it suddenly seemed extremely lonely and extremely
high pressure and at the end of Faith I decide to
get a rein on my life again, I wanted to stop
doing certain things.
J-As I
understand it, America was sort of at the centre
of your initial problems and dissatisfaction with
Sony and the way they were not only handling
Listen Without Prejudice but you in general as an
artist.
G-Yeah, it was
very much, it was very much a clash of cultures.
As I was saying I was very confused, very unhappy
at the end of the whole Faith thing and the
stance that I took in order to try and.. in order
to try and redress the balance in my own life was
not offensive. It may not have been ideal for the
Sony executives in the UK and in the rest of the
world, far from ideal I'm sure. Y'know you have
an artist that goes out and sells 15 million
albums, makes the video, does the tour and then
suddenly says 'No, I just want to sit in my
room'. You know, they're not really going to be
thrilled about it, but in America there was
definitely a door that shut the minute I said
that. And that was really what the court case was
really about, finally realising that I didn't
have control over my own career because when I
did something that didn't gel with the record
company's ideas of doing things it just didn't
happen and that was really what I went to court
about.
J-And
lest we misquote you, you actually never vowed to
not record again if things didn't go your way
with Sony but that would have been difficult
maintaining after the case, after the decision
went the other way it would have been difficult
to maintain a relationship with them I'd imagine.
G-Oh my God,
absolutely. I was quite amazed, it was kind of a
formality they did have to.., after the court
case was finished and I had lost and not just
lost but I lost completely, I mean I lost
everything, every count. They then called up and
said 'Well, can't we patch things up' kind of
thing but I knew in reality that that was a
formality and they had to kind of do that. But
ultimately the whole thing was a complete waste
of time, you know? It took complete years out of
my career and it was an embarrassment. I would
imagine to Sony it was all totally unnecessary.
At the end of the day we both came out with the
same thing and they sold my contract to someone
else. Why couldn't they have just done that and
saved us all time and trouble, you know?
J-Were
you concerned about, you know, sort of, it's
probably hard to gauge when you're going through
something like that, what the public perception
of what you're going through is? But I would
imagine that there were people there who looked
at George Michael and the success and this and
that and they hear things like professional
slavery, well, what is he talking about, slavery?
And Prince had.. with writing slave (on his
cheek).
G-Yeah, I
know, and to be really honest as much as I'm a
great admirer of Prince's I was kinda pissed off
about that because we had two totally different
situations going on. I had a situation where I
was bound to a piece of paper I signed when I was
18. I called it professional slavery because I
knew it was a good soundbite for God's sake. I
knew it was going to get out. It was a good
soundbite. But of course you can be an
incredibly, ludicrously expensive slave but at
the end of the day if you can't work anywhere
else or leave your boss or tell him to get lost,
your his slave, you know? It doesn't matter how
well you're paid.
J-With
all things considered, was it all worth it? Going
through all this litigation and taking Sony..
G-Oh yeah. It
was absolutely worth it. It was a terrible waste
of time but I had absolutely no choice. Of course
in between Sony have also become the
most..amazing record company for everybody that's
on them. I mean, their chart success have never
been anything like it is now and that's quite
ironic. But it wasn't about that. What it was
about was..it was just, you know, working with
people that, y'know, didn't want to work with
me..and I've never been in that position before
and luckily now I'm not.
J-What
kind of a personal toll did this take on you when
it was the low point of this whole litigation,
were you creatively, I understand..it was a tough
time for you, were you able to write, was
recording out of the question?
G-Well, in
reality, the truth is that all the time that all
the legal stuff was going on I had other problems
in my life that far overshadowed the legal
problems. So I was not losing sleep over this
court case and I had other things going on. And
creatively I was stifled in so many ways myself
that I couldn't write until the whole thing was
over and I realised that once I actually went in
and started recording, when I knew it was going
to be over and not when it was over and at that
point that I realised that was when I wrote Jesus
To A Child and at that point that I could start
again and really that most of the things that I
had recorded in the years before were not really
up to par.
CLIP FROM
JESUS TO A CHILD
J-So
was it the kind of thing that was getting you
frustrated, depressed? Were you out getting drunk
every night? Because you said there were other
things you were going through that took
precedence.
G-I mean, to
be honest with you, I was probably most out of
control during the whole Faith thing. Faith was
far more difficult to deal with than not working.
It's a typical thing, you're out on the road for
10 months, I was taking drugs and doing things
that I didn't expect to be doing.
J-Looking
for Fastlove? Looking for..
G-Absolutely
fast love, hmm, I didn't have any
fucking(*bleeped out*) time ,mmm, sorry. Yeah,
but I didn't go into deep depressions. I went
into depressions about a number of things but
actually in fact I learnt some incredibly
important lessons in the last 4 or 5 years,
things that have left me feeling so much better
about myself. I have this really strange feeling
that my career almost takes care of itself like
it's supposed to happen. I always felt that there
was a path that would lead me to this point. I
didn't know if it would take 2 years or 5 years,
I just had this complete feeling that I was going
to be able to go out and make music for people
again and that's why I didn't go and worry about
it so much. If there's an equivalent of a
guardian angel with a copy of Q magazine in it's
pocket then that's how I feel.
J-You
said a couple of minutes ago that you're at a
more prolific point artistically than you have
been for some time.
G-I think when
my prolific, um, where I'm going to kind of aim
my output is, for the moment, going to be
B-sides. I'm going to try and make as many
singles of Older as I can so that people are
getting constantly some new material and I will
be doing some shows next year but I don't tour
more and I do feel bad because people do really
want to see me, but at the end of the day for
somebody in um.. I find touring a very lonely,
isolating experience. It's not a matter of being
lazy. I find it's a very lonely experience and I
don't like being surrounded constantly day after
day by people who are working for me and for whom
I'm in a position of power with really. I find
that very uncomfortable. So..for..in order for me
to reach that German fan or that Japanese fan, or
whatever, I have to go through that for however
many months of doing something which is really
not..(it's) something that I find really hard to
do.
J-You
alluded to some dates next year, can you say
anything more about that? I know you've said many
times that you'll never do a tour on the scale of
Faith, and maybe for the reasons that you've just
said.
G-Yeah,mmm,
for exactly those reasons, for exactly those
reasons. I love to sing. I hate to tour. I love
to sing, I love to be up there, I can be 'George
Michael' in inverted commas for a couple of
nights, for a couple of hours in the evening have
a great time, do a great job, give people what
they want, get what I want, but the rest of the
day is a nightmare for me. You know, being George
Michael for the rest of the day is a real
nightmare. I'm a real home-body. I'd much rather
be taking my dog for a walk or, y'know, being
with my friends. It's just...it's not a matter of
laziness, it's feeling that I don't belong. I
feel like I don't belong out there being this
professional person going 'round selling his
wares. For instance, take today. Everyone in this
building, everyone will treat me as George
Michael and on Friday at the Unplugged everyone
treated me as George Michael, which is a very
strange thing to be treated as if you know what
it's like to live it. It doesn't feel like me at
all. It feels like something I put on and it does
the job of communicating the music that I want to
make. And then I take it off again and I like
that, I like being able to stay away from the
professional character.
J-Does
it make you sorry you ever took on the character
to begin with?
G-No, because
at the end of the day I'm very happy with where
I've ended up, y'know. So you really can't..I
mean..I think at any point in your life..I mean
life is short, you have to just get on with it
and at my point in life if you're happy with
where you are, then you can't complain, the way
you got there, you know?
ADVERT BREAK
J-Tell
me about the Older record. You told me earlier
you were gratified by the response to it and
certainly the public response to it and the
critical response, on the one hand, in a positive
way, was I think...people gave you credit for
great lyrics and some of the best crafted lyrics
that you've come up with and musicianship, no-one
faulted, there was also, and this is just a
sampling of comments...
G-I have to
tell you at this point that I didn't read any
American reviews. I read the English reviews. The
American reviews, I just looked at the headlines
and that was enough for me.
J-Oh,
was it? OK. When people say things like joyless,
too conservative, one of the most
low-key,down-beat pop comebacks ever, does that
concern you?
G-Honestly,
nothing the press could write about me could
concern me now. I'm so,I..you know, I think we
all learn over the years about what we do and how
it's received etc. and as I get older I see the
rock press for exactly what it is, and it is
almost entirely rock press, y'know, music press
or youth culture press is not really-it's rock
press. The people that still write about it
normally are people that understand youth culture
and very little about music because if they
understood about music they'd be bloody out there
doing it and most of them have tried and most of
them have failed. It's cliched, but it's true.
J-What
about the rather, what's a fair word..downbeat
side to Older? The fact that an armchair
psychologist might think that the newly liberated
George Michael from the Sony deal we talked about
earlier would be feeling much more upbeat and
that this record would not be sombre, as so many
people read it as being?
G-I mean, it's
like the last one. The last one(LWP) had two
really up tempo tracks on it and the last(Faith)
one had two really upbeat tracks on it, erm, I
don't know..at the end of the day you've got to
write about your experiences and my experiences
for the last five, six years have not been
particularly upbeat I have to be honest, y'know?
You have to write what you feel.
J-Well
maybe we're overestimating what the impact of the
Sony situation had on your life?
G-Yeah,
absolutely. That reference, the last track on the
album is called Free and people have said it's
the only reference to the Sony situation is to
say 'Feels good to be free'. But who's to say
that that is a Sony statement. I KNEW it would be
perceived as a Sony statement but it means the
same thing in the lots of ways in my life, I'm so
free of so many things that in the 80's I didn't
feel I was free of and..and.. it's a personal
statement, y'know, I thought to write about the
fact that I got away from Sony would be
incredibly tedious.
CLIP FROM
FASTLOVE
J-Let
me ask you then, if a song like Fastlove then
stands out as a particularly radio-friendly,
let's call it, song from this album, do you feel
any obligation to put a track like that on a
record like this?
G-At the end
of the day, do I what? Have a certain
responsibility to have everything over a certain
bpm or something, y'know? I write what I feel
not.. and I'm 34, oh no I'm not, oh my God I'm
adding years, I'm 33. I'm not 18 any more. I
don't want to get out there on stage and run up
and down and make people's hearts pound faster.
I'm just, y'know, I'm just writing the way I feel
and I'm not..I'll never put out an album that is
made for other people's tastes 'cos the moment I
start doing that is the moment I start writing
shit as, y'know, far as I'm concerned.
J-Obviously,
some pretty heart-felt stuff on here, Jesus To A
Child, You Have Been Loved are as touching as
songs as anyone's ever heard from you I think.
Can you talk..I don't know how specific you want
to get about some of the inspirations for some of
these lyrics, but can you talk a bit about them?
G-I think
that, er, basically..that I..I..have this..I mean
as ever, I will never talk publicly about things
that are incredibly personal, to the public in
any other way than on record, y'know, firstly
because I think..I've got two things, one, I'm
incredibly bad about talking about my own lyrics
for that reason and also because if something's
really, really personal to me I like to keep it
that way and I also like to leave other peoples
misinterpretations..or interpretations as they
are because I think that's important as well,
peoples own interpretation of a lyric and who it
applies to and I think my best lyrics probably
are very universal, but apart from everything
else I'm just very private about my personal life
and I don't go into that kind of detail other
than on record but I think I go into detail on
record more than a lot of people do. I don't mean
on record, I mean on longing playing record
(mimes a spinning record and giggles) er, so,so I
wouldn't be specific I'd say that both lyrics are
written about something that was very hard for me
and about someone I really loved.
J-The
questions and the speculation is only going to
increase the more that you write from personal
experience.
G-Oh, of
course, yeah.
J-I
mean, I've gotta ask you because the dedication
to Anselmo certainly spurned..spurred another
round of speculation about you, and who he is,
and what he meant to the record or to your life,
is that something you can live with?
G-I can say,
I can honestly say that I think people realise
that I'm intelligent enough to know that by
writing the way that I do and by making the
dedications such as that one that I have no
problems with the speculation, y'know. If I
really didn't want people to speculate about my
sexuality. I wouldn't do it, would I? Is he gay,
is he straight, is he whatever? I have no problem
with that, everybody does it, we all do it about
each other, y'know. I have a REAL problem with
people who think that somehow it's strange that
they're not given the answer like you're supposed
to deny, or your supposed to confirm whatever the
rumour is, you know, and to me I don't know when
it became part of the job that you had to give
your entire life. I mean everybody knows that if
you become a public figure you give up a lot of
your life, but in the 1990s it's 'Don't do it! If
you don't want everything raked over and if
you've got anything to hide, don't do it!' I
don't understand that, I mean, y'know, we're
becoming more voyeuristic to the point that
people are becoming angry that the questions
aren't being answered and it's like 'Piss Off!
This is my life!' I've got absolutely nothing to
hide, I've no fear about people speculating about
my sexuality, erm, if I was worried about that I
would never have attached myself so heavily to
AIDS projects.
J-As
you continue to do so and without..
G-So..so I
just think people, y'know, it's fine if people
want to sit and speculate if they want to
know...most of the things people hear about me
will not be true, most of the things that I hear
about me are definitely not true, but..er..as far
as people who want to..who think that they have a
genuine interest in my personal life..the only
people that have any right to be interested are
the people who like the music.
J-Does
it bother you that they might come to a
misconcl..misunderstanding?
G-No! No, no,
no. People have been misinterpreting me for 14,15
years so it doesn't worry me at all.
J-As
you've acknowledged before,I mean, going back
even to Wham you've had a fair amount of gay
following all the way up to now anyway,um, do
those..do those fans have a right either to know,
well.. a) if he's gay then why won't he come out
and be on our side or b) if he's straight and
clear up the confusion here and stop, y'know,
teasing us, I guess?
G-Yes. That's
the thing. There's people that think that
somehow, that somehow..there are various groups
of people that want you to do one thing or
another and it's like 'I'm sorry, but where on
Earth did I get this responsibility from,'
y'know? Um, I think that my..I think that my
private life is all that I really have that is
really private. There is not a person in my life
that..that I care about or that cares about me
that doesn't know who I am or what my life is,
but outside of the people in my life, I mean, who
am I clearing it up for and why am I clearing it
up for them? I've had all kinds of rumours. I've
had people from the moment I started working
on,um when I started doing any charity work for
AIDS people said he must have AIDS. It's like
there has to be self-interest here and I've never
bothered clearing anything of that up. Y'know,
'he's looking a bit thin' and all of a sudden
there's me sitting, dieting, y'know and I..
J-It's
insulting to the idea of doing good work.
G-Well, it's
insulting and it's also, I think, for people to
stand up and say 'No' to everybody 'I don't have
AIDS' it isn't the same as saying 'I'm not
dying.' Unfortunately it further stigmatises
people with AIDS.
J-Sure.
G-And I would
say that I would, y'know, I've know people with
AIDS and I've seen suffering and I think it's an
absolutely shocking, horrible thing and in
comparison with it the idea that people think you
have AIDS is nothing, right? So I'm doing work to
help people, erm, and to stand up and make
everybody think that I was terrified that they
might think that I might be HIV positive I think,
well, I thought it would have been totally
counterproductive, um, but anyway, I'm used to
it, I'm totally used to it. You don't expect
anything else, do you? I make a dedication to
someone on an album, who's obviously died, um, do
I, do I expect them to treat it sensitively? No,
course not. If the press decides they really want
to have a go at me they'll really have a go at me
and if they don't, they don't, y'know? And I feel
very much more detached from all of the effects
of those things since I don't talk to people,
y'know?
J-Um,
and finally on a general note as it's been so
long since we've talked to you and a lot of
people have seen you, just..how are you feeling
about things and the way this year has gone, and
er..?
G-Erm, I feel
fantastic actually at the moment. I've had, I'd
say, probably 3, 3 1/2 years that were worse than
I could have possibly imagined in most ways.
Urm,..and..I've come out of the end of them, I
mean, the old cliche of 'No pain, no gain'
appears to be true because I've come out of the
end of it and I've never felt, I don't think I've
ever felt as positive about my life and my work
as I do now and I think er..that for everything
I've been through there has been a lesson and I'm
really, really grateful for that. I'm really
grateful for being 33 years old, having the
career that I want and the life that I want and
the opportunity to keep doing it, y'know? So, no,
I've got absolutely no complaints whatsoever.
J-Here's
one vote that it won't be another 3 years 'til we
talk again.
G-Well, I
think the funny thing is now, having taken the
time off, I'm not scared anymore of doing this
kind of stuff, but hopefully there won't be any
necessity for it, y'know? I'm actually much more
able to deal with things like this now, I'm much
more able to deal with them. But, er, I'd still
prefer not to so (giggles) hopefully I won't have
to.
J-Well,
I hope we see you soon.
G-OK. Cheers
SHAKE HANDS
J-Take
care George, thanks so much.
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