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INTERVIEW
WITH ELIOT KENNEDY Straight back off the flight recording stuff for Bryan's new album in Vancouver at the weekend and of course the Golden Globes, Eliot pops straight into 'BBC Radio Sheffield' to tell them what he's been up to recently. TF: Toby Foster ********** TF: Coming up in the next hour we are gonna speak to Eliot Kennedy Sidekick: He's in the house... he's lookin well TF: Is he really? Sidekick: Yep TF: well yeah of course he's lookin well!.. Sidekick: He's just come back from Hollywood!.. TF: Thats what happens when you're a multi-millionaire and you've just got back from the Golden Globes Sidekick: Hahahaha TF: You tend to look fairly well don't ya! Anyway... he's just put his old studio back in Sheffield so I understand... so we're gonna be talking to him about that Sidekick: ....and he's up for an Oscar apparently... TF: He's up for an Oscar???... Sidekick: Yeah with Bryan Adams TF: He's not nominated... they've not announced that yet! Sidekick: Oh sorry!... so he's not! TF: Hahaha Sidekick: Oh its a Golden Globe! TF: Yeah he was up for a Golden Globe... the Oscar nominations are out today. Sidekick: Right TF: *knocks on window and shouts* Eliot are you up for an Oscar? (Eliot nods) Yeah baby he's up for an Oscar! Sidekick: Hahaha ********** TF: Good morning its the Toby Foster show, you're listening to BBC Radio Sheffield and it's a friend we've not seen for quite a long time and he's back in the studio... Eliot Kennedy good morning! EK: Good morning! TF: Thanks a lot for coming in mate, how are you? EK: I'm really good actually! TF: You're looking really well EK: Thats very nice of you to say TF: How long have you been away? How long is it since you've been away? EK: Do you know what it's been quite a while, probably erm... I moved away from Sheffield, about just over 5 years ago TF: Really yeah? EK: Yeah TF: And but now you're back? EK: I am I am... I've bought a house here again!...and moved my business back to the old facilities in the steelworks... and I've moved back in there and I'm changing the business up and I'm kinda re-organising the business slightly to kind of focus on what I'm doing more on nowadays... which is kinda cross-media, film and all that kinda stuff which is obviously what we are gonna be talking about... TF: Well yeah I mean we were just talking about you tripping up on the red carpet with Bryan Adams... EK: Hehehehe TF: ...at the Golden Globes, that sounded like it was kinda fun EK: The Golden Globes yeah that was interesting fun! TF: ...and what were you doing there? EK: Well err Bryan and I wrote a song for a movie called 'Bobby' which is about the day Bobby Kennedy was killed... TF: Yeah EK: ...and it's a fantastic film written and directed by Emilio Estevez... and erm we got the phonecall from Harvey Weinstein who is one of those, ya know he's 'that guy' when you think about movie producers in Hollywood he's the dude really. ...and erm he called Bryan and said he wanted a song for the film, and of course Bryan's got this history of films songs with the Robin Hood song and ya know... TF: Absolutely that did reasonably well didnt it! EK: ...and countless others yeah yeah! And so we wrote this song called 'Never Gonna Break My Faith' and Bryan sang the demo and its always really hard when he does that because it's very difficult to find an artist that can sing as good as he can. TF: Right EK: ...for the record, but we wrote it with Aretha Franklin in mind. Now ya have to because you have to shoot for the sun everytime ya know what I mean! What often happens is you end up with the moon or somewhere else but in this instance we mentioned to Harvey erm "this was written for Aretha"! And he was like "great i'll get Aretha!"... and sure enough he got Aretha Franklin! TF: Thats unbelieveable int it! EK: and we we're like wow! ...and then it got even better because when Aretha sang it, Mary J Blige wanted to be involved! TF: No! EK: So she did it as well. So it ended up being a duet between Aretha Franklin and Mary J Blige. So from my point of view as a songwriter its just the pinnacle... I mean what do you do after that!? TF: I was gonna say who do you write for now? EK: I don't know really! I don't know because you kind of have to just mark it off and go "we've done that... lets try something else". I mean it's one of my favourite songs that Bryan and I have ever written and I think erm... and it works brilliantly for the film. It was like bespoke for the film, it's a gospel song and it's err... the films not out here yet... it comes out in a couple of weeks I think TF: I think I saw it advertised yesterday... EK: Yeah I think it comes out this Friday TF: Yeah the Sunday Times was full of adverts for it yesterday EK: Yeah yeah I saw it on telly as well last night advertised. It's a wonderful film and it's probably one of those films that I don't know if it will resonate here, because it's about Bobby Kennedy. But from a point of view of watching a film its got an incredible cast. I mean really, every scene has got this monster actor in it, and it's brilliantly written and all that kinda stuff. But erm when you look at the film as a film you realise that its erm... anyway what it spoke to me about was at the end of the film you realise that was the last hope for the civil rights movement in America. Ya know, black America basically lost a lot of its hope after he was killed so basically it needed to be a gospel song. The song starts at the very end of the film... you know obviously, ill not tell you... well you know he dies!!!! TF: Yeah obviously! EK: Thats not gonna hurt!! It's like you know Titanic sinks! But erm, obviously unfortunately he was killed and erm, at the end of the film where you see these kind of amazing images and the people reacting to it, there's this incredible speech of Bobby Kennedy's. His most famous speech... you realise how powerful and how influential and how amazing this guy was. Ya know he was gonna change the world basically, he was the last hope for America I think. And then the song starts, and it's Aretha Franklin and the Harlem boys choir, and the song is a conversation with god at that point and it's saying "whats going on!?" ya know. It was one of those moments watching the screening for the first time in a cinema, full of movie people and critics and stuff. Sitting there... me and Bryan were sitting there and it was the first time it really hit me that "this is a good un" ya know "we've done something pretty cool here"... TF: Yeah EK: And then the next thing was I was actually in LA at the time - my wifes an actress and she was doing a load of meetings there. The day that the Golden Globe nominations were released. So I got a phonecall at 5 o'clock in the morning (which is where 8 o'clock in the morning they are released in New York) from the movie people just frantically trying to get press together ya know "oh my god we've been nominated" ya know and all this kinda stuff... so we got a nomination for a Golden Globe and then we find out tommorrow if we erm get a nomination for an Oscar! TF: That would be amazing wouldn't it?! EK: well it is, it's difficult really, because it's, I'm from Sheffield so it's... TF: Yeah I know!... EK: ...so it's very easy for me to put these kinda things into perspective ya know!... because I'll talk you through the red carpet scenario of the Golden Globes right!? Have we got a few minutes here? TF: Absolutely we've got all the time in the world! EK: Basically theres a whole rigmorall before the Golden Globes start, ya know the whole build up to it is as... there's so many TV programmes having build up to the Golden Globes... so all this is going on and me and Bryan are there a couple of days before, and the movie company have put us up in the Four Seasons on Wiltshire which is beautiful ya know!... TF: Yeah! EK: ...its all beauty! And erm my wife of course is just kickin' back and having all the spa treatments and all this kinda stuff!... and then the night before there's a knock on the door at 10 o'clock and it's 'In Style Magazine' which is an LA Magazine... and they've got this big gift set and are like "Hi!!! This is a gift set for Mrs Kennedy and theres like a robe and toiletries and all this goody bag stuff so we were like "when are you gonna start for the lads!?" ya know?! TF: Hahahahahaha EK: ...it was all girl stuff so far! So anyway that was all clever, and the next morning because we'd been doing a lot of film stuff... Bryan and I, we did a film called 'The Guardian' this year which is a Kevin Costner film about the lifeguards. And we wrote and a song for that which sounds like its becoming the theme tune for a lot of those organisations...the lifeguards, the police, the fire department... they're all kinda taking it as their song which is fantastic ya know! Again its a song where I put a lot of effort into the lyric for, and then we did another one for Disney called 'Bridge To Terabithia' that comes out this year which is a childrens fantasy film... Click here to go to the 'Bridge
To Terabithia' official site go> TF: Oh right! EK: ...so we've had a good run of these things recently so we thought "d'ya know what... we need an agent to kinda work us in that area", so we had a couple of meetings the morning of the Golden Globes... TF: So you and Bryan Adams now think you need an agent? Sidekick: Hahahahaha EK: Yeah well it sounds bizarre... TF: Bryan who? Never heard of him! EK: It sounds bizarre... well you know the funny thing is Bryan does so much of this stuff himself... I mean he rocks up to Disney and they were like "you cant do a meeting you're Bryan Adams!" and he's like "why not!?"... because he's so down to earth ya know... TF: Yeah EK: ...and erm he gets kinda work by doing that. But we kind of decided, ya know what we wanna do this properly. I think we're pretty good at it and Bryan's got a fantastic record... other than, outside of that I've done about 10 major films on my own now... so it just so happens we are kinda focusing this area and its coming together. So anyway we had a couple of meetings planned with some agents in the morning... and Bryan had organised them all at the Beverley Hills Hotel... TF: Hahahahahaha EK: ...now this is that big pink hotel on Sunset Boulevard in LA. You've seen it in films and its one of those trippy kind of experiences! TF: I'm gonna take you to the Letsguard... come and checkout the bagroom with Foster! EK: Hahahahaha... so we go in there for breakfast ...now, Bryan springs on me the first meeting "oh by the way we're having dinner with Katzenberg"... now if you don't know who Katzenberg is, Jeffery Katzenberg is Speilbergs partner in Dreamworks. 'SKG'... Speilberg, Katzenberg and Geffin... thats that company right? TF: Haha EK: Now I've worked for Katzenberg before when Bryan and I did a film called 'Spirit', which was an animated film about a horse a few years ago. It was Katzenberg who was producing it for Dreamworks... and you realise you are in the presence of a major, MAJOR Hollywood dude when you are in a room... and for some reason he kept calling me "Wiiiildman!"... TF: Hahahahahahahahahaha EK: ...I remember turning around to Bryan and saying "did you hear him call me Wildman?!" and Bryan was like "no"... and I was like "well why's he calling me Wildman?" So obviously he'd just taking this upon himself and I apparently was the Wildman from that point onwards! But we got through that session and sure enough he comes to breakfast and he was just a lovely lovely guy.. so we had this bizarre morning... and as we were having breakfast... and I was just like this just tucking into my pancakes... I looked over and Keith Urban and Nicole Kidman came and sat next to us. Now this is bizarre because I kinda know them in a bizarre way because Keith Urban was supporting Bryan the year before on tour, and I was meant to be working with him - we were meant to be writing together ya know? So I kinda turned round and thought "right ok, this is bizarre and really jive" if I turn round and go... TF: "EY UP KEITH!!!" EK: "Ey up!"... yeah exactly!! TF: "YA ALLREYT?" EK: Hahahaha EK: But I thought do ya know what there's no way around this! Because he's seen me and I've seen them, so I looked to Bryan and he kinda clocked me I was like "yeah I know"... so we carry on with our meeting... and that finishes... because obviously theres an etiqette... you can't go "Katzenberg excuse me, excuse me Katzenberg!" So ya know, I turned round and goes "Hey Bryan, Nicole and erm"... TF: Hahahaha EK: Yeah like you know them that well ya know!!!... so anyway, we kinda go over and say hello and all this kinda thing. And you look around this room and you realise... hold on, I'm actually in 'moviesville' here, because the Beverley Hills Hotel was just full of moviestars... all having their pancakes! Well... they weren't they were in Hollywood so they were all having their water and cress or whatever they have!.. TF: Haha EK: So anyway it was a sureal experience from the morning, so we go back to the hotel and we've got an hour or so to go and get ready because its in the afternoon the Golden Globes start ya know? And the limo comes to pick us up, and from that point onwards I get my tux on which is funny in itself! Get me tux on and get in the car and me and Bryan are having a giggle all the way there. Theres all kinds of security procedures in the line which is what you dont see... normally you see people getting out of the limo at the red carpet. Well theres like a line of 100 limos queing up to drop their people off, so you're in this line for about half an hour ya know?! Eventually we get down there and we get to the red carpet and the doors open and Bryan gets out and the cameras are snapping... and I get out and you can hear this collective "urr chuffing hell!" TF: Hahahahahahaha EK: So the cameras stop and they start polishing their lenses ya know! And you just think alright this is clever! TF: Hahahaha EK: So we meet up with the... you have like a 'handler' from the movie company, and they've all, they are like a breed these people they've all got these kinda whiny accents do you know what I mean?... and I'm actually quite good at picking out where accents are from in America, and I cant work this one out it must just be from 'mediasville' or 'moviesville' or whatever... TF: Yeah... EK: and she said things like "ok we're walking..." TF: Hahahahaha EK: and we were like "does she not think we know how to walk? Does she think we need informing kinda thing!?" So all of the time I'm kinda taking in as much of this information as possible but it's quite difficult because theres so much going on. Theres cameras going off and people shouting "Hey Bryan, Bryan!"... ya know, trying to get the attention of him. So Bryan was like "Hell if I'm doing an interview, you're doing it with me" because he's very down to earth and not really one of those media types ya know? I don't know if you've ever seen him in an interview but he's a bit awkward in them. TF: I haven't EK: So of course from starting the red carpet to actually getting into the 'gig' if you like, is about a 40-45 minute walk. TF: Really? EK: Thats how long it takes. Because literally there is one Television camera after another... TF: And you get stopped everytime? EK: Well pretty much... the 'handler' goes ahead of you and sets up the next interview you see... so you're doing an interview with MTV HOlland "ya shor ish goood nish to met yew!" ya know!!! TF: Hahahahahahahaha EK: And then all this kinda thing, and then the next one along is some kind of German Television... literally its International Television all the way up there. TF: I don't wanna stop you but I've gotta do the Traffic and Travel but we will come straight back! ********** *plays 'Can't Stop This Thing We Started'* TF: Thats Bryan Adams 'Can't Stop This Thing We Started' and we've got Eliot Kennedy in the studio with us, fresh from the Golden Globes! We just stopped you at the German MTV... EK: Oh yeah ok yeah! So we start the red carpet thing, and all the time you are aware of whats going on around you and trying to take it all in. BUt its so bizarre that you kinda... well lets put it this way the first kind of American TV Interview they said to Bryan... "well you've been nominated before haven't you Bryan", then she turns and says to me "how many nominations have you had?" And I say "this is my first" and she was like "oh my god this is your first Golden Globe thats incredible, what does this mean to you?" And I said err... "listen love I'm from Sheffield, I think Golden Globes are what brass monkeys lose in the winter where I'm from!" And she looked at me and there was silence for a minute and Bryan just cracked up laughing!!! She went "really?" ya know cos that American kind of humour thing is a bit lost on them... she was like "oh thats funny". And then it starts spiraling downhill after that, so I thought ok I better start and watch what I'm saying or they're not gonna get it at all! So from that point onwards it became more surreal ya know! TF: This is one of those daft questions because... well its one of those questions you really shouldn't ask people because obviously you do what you are doing and you are very successful and its just what you do for a living and you are used to it. But do you feel 'in place' at those kinda things or is there still at bit of you that feels "oooo ang on a minute!" EK: Do you know what its one of those things where you kinda get better at adapting. TF: Yeah EK: You know you have to be a bit chameleon like where these things are concerned. And thats not to say that you are kinda being 'phoney' but you do have to kind of adapt. Its a bit like learning a different language is the best way of putting it. You arrive in a country and you feel awkward speaking that language because you are not confident and you are not fluent... but the more you do it the more fluent you become. The trick of course is making sure you retain who you are... because I know people who have gone out to Hollywood and got involved in this business and you see them a year later and they are like "hey man how's it goin..." TF: Yeah EK: And you just think... get real you are from Bradford or whatever ya know?! I'm not like that at all so in that instance people remember me because I'm that big Northerner. On this particular day I was like the biggest Northern penguin on the red carpet! Ya know I was like this massive Emporer Penguin! I tend to find that around posh people and Americans, I get more Northern! TF: Yeah entirely! EK: You kind of hold onto it ya know what I mean? TF: Yeah EK: BUt obviously you have to work with these people and communicate on a level that they understand rather than having someone to interpret all the time! TF: Well talking about that we've got a text in from Rammy in Haslam saying that if you win an Oscar can you please say "Ay up watch art dee dars are comin!" EK: Hahahahaha TF: The last time we had an hours conversation on the radio you were working with Gary Barlow. EK: Yes we are still quite close we've got a media business together actually. We've done a few really interesting things. Obviously we've been writing and producing together for a good 5 years and then the kind of whole Take That thing started again...I could see that on the horizon and we started positioning ourselves... TF: That was incredible EK: Yeah I mean no-one, certainly Gary was taken by surprise, but I remember thinking at the time "right this is gonna get out of control this" so we need to think about how we position ourselves for this. So we started kinda working separately from that point onwards, so Gary has had the opportunity to focus on Take That and I'd get on with doing what I was doing. But we started a media business called BHK Media Business which actually turned out to be really successful. We've developed 2 TV series which are being commissioned which will hopefully start this year... one of them's music based and the other one isn't. We did a joint venture with a Disney company called Jetix which is a kids channel. They are European based and are kind of like the biggest Disney kids channel in Europe. So they wanted to be a label basically and put together their own band, they had broken bands through their network before... so they decided they wanted to do it on their own. So basically we did a deal and started a company with Disney in order to do this. I auditioned all over Europe, I had an idea of what I wanted to do. I found 3 boys and 3 girls and I wanted a modern day 'Mamas And Papas' like a Army-led kind of vocal group thing. The aim was to release the single in Holland first and build it from there... and it went in at #1! Last week it was #1 the first single in Holland, so as a result Germany take notice, then once Germany are onboard you get Scandanavia... so we've had a real indie approach to building the act. It's a pop act n stuff... so I took 20 writers out to real world which is Peter Gabriels place... 20 of the worlds best songwriters and we did a focused writing camp for this band. They were there, 4 studios, 3 writers in each one kinda thing and that would change everyday. So we ended up writing the album in a week! 2 weeks after that I recorded all the vocals and then 2 weeks after that mixed the album... so from point of auditioning the band to the single coming out was a 6th month period and we've got a number one straight out of the box... TF: Unbelievable EK: It's worked incredibly well, and that sounds incredibly manufactured that but it isn't. It was a very organic process in how it came together. The song were written specifically for them. TF: The other thing is it sounds very easy... im sure its not but it does just sound like you go and find them... weave your Eliot Kennedy magic and your away! EK: I think that here that probably couldn't happen in the UK now because of the ever decreasing music industry as its known... its not the same and its much more like the 70's I think, where its indie led and that kind of pop just doesnt exist here. I still always think there's an audience for it but the audience is kinda into something else right now which is great, its live, its bands again which is the way it should be. Thats exactly what the music is here and rightly so. TF: I tell you what I didn't understand talking about that. I never understood why McFly went one way and the Arctic Monkeys went the other. They are both 19 year old guitar bands. EK: Yeah exactly TF: That just must always be a question of packaging EK: Yeah I think so. From the outset you kind of cut your cloth really. You workout what your demographic is, who your market is and you just work it. Sometimes you get that wrong and you cant stop that and its just a snowball and you have to keep following it down. TF: Yeah EK: But theres no doubt about it no matter how left you start in terms of edge and direction... theres only one way to go and that is more central. Because you can't go more left. Wherever you start from the route is more mainstream because if you listen to some of the sex pistols records... they are pop records now. At the time they were extreme and people were complaining about them but they are basically really mild pop records in terms of rock. So its changing all the time... so the more extreme you start... theres only one route. It enevitably becomes popular and then its pop music. TF: But that it can attract derision and become completely unacceptable which must really jaff you off EK: Ya know what nothing surprises me anymore and the great thing about music in this country is there are no rules and the Americans are freaked out by it because they just dont understand how the UK works... they never have which is why ya know... I was fortunate enough to be a part of the Spice Girls thing but it worked in America because they had no idea of what it was ya know? They were just like "this is incredible this vibe" But they didn't quite know how to package it and all the rest of it. It just kind of took them by storm, so theres no rules in the UK anymore. Its just literally theres no... you know theres usually a record 'sound', there is none at the moment, every band has their own thing and they are able to just rock up to a radio station and sing or play. TF: Yeah EK: Even when we were putting together this thing with Disney that was my directive from day one. They needed to be able to cut it if they could go into a radio station and sing. 2 of the boys are great guitarists, they are writing their own songs, so it was very much scripted towards that kind of project that they could actually be self contained. TF: So you have moved back to Sheffield and you've got the multi-media company going on in Sheffield... EK: Yeah TF: You've got the company with Gary Barlow thats signed a deal with Disney thats doing fantastic... EK: Yep TF: You've got the Golden Globes... you are fairly busy aren't ya! First of all thanks for sparing us the time to come in this morning because you must be knackered! But I mean how diverse is everything now!? EK: It is diverse but I try to stay as music based as I can. I literally got back last night from Vancouver and we've been recording Bryan's new album. We've written pretty much the whole album together and I've been the bass player on the record which has been good fun. We are working closer together Bryan and I on a bunch of different things. So I try to keep it music based but at the same time Bryan's a busy guy. Not only is he an international rock star, but he's a world class photographer, I don't know if you know that or not... TF: I did know yeah... EK: He's doing front covers for Vogue and all that stuff so he's incredibly busy, so in the times when I can't get hold of him just because he's somewhere else... I wanna make sure I'm kept busy doing stuff that interests me. So I've co-written a TV drama series which is being commissioned... TF: Pack it in! EK: Theres a character loosely based on you! So you may well get the call for a role, but thats an exciting thing because its a story I've wanted to write forever. As a songwriter you realise at some point, you're basically, the job in hand... and it comes into play with films because the directive of that end credit song is to pretty much wrap up the entire 3 hour movie up in a 3 minutes. So you get pretty good at being economical with the storyline. But thats a natural going the other way of wanting to stretch that story out a bit. You write a song that just sparks you off onto something, which then leads you onto this drama thing and then I'm writing a novel as well... so it's one of those things where if I get a spare minute I'm like "oh I wanna go back to doing this" so it's all a creative process. I do stick to what I know and kind of dable into these other areas. TF: Well its just a different ways of telling stories isnt it. EK: It's exactly what it is and it can sound a bit naff if you hit people with it in one go but it really is just a way of expression. TF: It's been lovely to see ya, I'm really pleased you came in thanks ever so much indeed. EK: Well fingers crossed for tommorrow and we'll see if we get an Oscar... I mean again, who knows where it'll take us. They'll be another story I'm sure after that! TF: I hope that you will be able to come back in and tell us about it. We've dumped all the songs!... EK: I've ruined your schedule! TF: It's been an absolute pleasure... Eliot Kennedy thankyou very much. EK: Thankyou! |
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APOLOGIES FOR TYPOS (ASSUMING THERE ARE SOME!) BUT THIS TOOK ME OVER 3 HOURS TO TRANSCRIBE... DO NOT POST ANYWHERE ELSE. |