Each album takes two or two-and-a-half years to finish between recording and touring. It's like being with an old boyfriend every single night watching the same things on TV. There is a world out there going on that I'm missing.
There's this label called Neurotica by these sweet girls that have given me some lovely things to wear, and we might collaborate on making a little piece. They're really lovely, and I think they've been quite inspired by me in turn.
'I Just Might Pray' by The David Mayfield Parade has an upbeat tempo without being sugary sweet. 'I Just Might Pray' is an enjoyable track and is easily listened to. As a side note, the video for 'I Just Might Pray' is absolutely adorable.
I always loved reading. I always was the spelling bee champion. I always loved words. I always wanted to know what they meant, why you used them, who first said them. I was always interested in that.
I've always gone to see all kinds of shows and stole what I could, as we all do. We see an artist and hear a song and think, 'I bet I could sing that song. I'll put that in my show.'
Every few years, I go back into all the songs and I update them so that it never sounds like an oldies show. If you come to the shows, they're full of muscle. 'Copacabana' sounds like it could have been released yesterday.
I come from nowhere Brooklyn, New York. Williamsburg, Brooklyn. These days Williamsburg is kind of a hip area, but when I grew up there, the taxi drivers wouldn't even go over the bridge, it was so dangerous.
And there was a real shedding of the old dogma, like boundaries of morality were being broken down and everybody was into the new party mode of just loving on each other. Which destroyed thousands of us. I lost 16 of my personal friends through that ...
I was very laced with drugs myself, but Fred seemed to be even more so than me. That might have had something to do with it. That might have had something to do with nobody wanting to play my records, too, I don't know.
My buddies worked with me for weeks, and I went up to take my test, and started crying because I couldn't remember the words. I can remember songs. If you put it to a melody, I would have sung it to 'em in a minute.
So gradually, and then I had an Italian roadster that I built, it took me five years to build it, it was stolen from me and stripped. I said, well maybe we should have another where we shouldn't steal from each other.
That's why I had to leave Hair on Broadway, because I did it for about a year, and one night I was doing the show, and I realized, well, this is not real. I told the director. He says, man, it was a killer show tonight.
I'd actually been making my living as an organist with bands since I was probably 15 or 16 years old, and then as a senior in high school I put together a jazz quintet called The Bobby Mack Jazz Quintet.
I think what it means to be an 'American Girl,' and what I wrote the song about, is our freedoms. The idea that we as Americans can be what we want to be and say what we want to say and that we take it for granted.
A brain hemorrhage puts it all in a deeper perspective. I'm one of those guys hit by lightning. I see the big picture. Everything is in perspective now. Let's just say I'm the kind of guy who knows how to enjoy the moment.
I keep these songs in my head until I get behind the microphone. I never spend more than 30 or 40 minutes singing the vocal or it will sound mechanical. There are always mistakes, but it's about feeling more than being perfect.
I kinda went back to that period between '88 and '94 where I felt like I was the most creative, without being hindered by powers that be. I was no longer going to try to hinder myself to what I thought was going to be on the radio.
You know, when Michael Jackson does the moonwalk, he's showing off! When Prince or Hendrix do a guitar solo, it's confidence! I would hate to be at a show and some nervous wreck is sweating up there and doesn't feel like he deserves to be there.
What I like about Elvis is the same thing I like about James Brown, Michael Jackson, Prince. These guys, back in the day, there was no smoke and mirrors. It was just raw talent. They would step out onstage and command an audience. Talk about awesome.
You have to be aware. Like, I'm not going to do any downhill skiing. It looks like a whole lot of fun, but I'm not going to risk breaking a leg. I want to be dancing the way I'm dancing now for 30 more years.
Because I was suspicious of the traditional Christian church, I tended to tar them all with the same brush. That was a mistake, because there are righteous people working in a whole rainbow of belief systems - from Hasidic Jews to right-wing Bible Be...
