Richie interview

Jon's Interview: Master Class in Oprah program (Transcription) by Nancy Munhoz

Good Morning Jovi Friends!!!!

This is a transcription that our Jovi Friend Nancy Munhoz (Nany BJ) did to us, Jovi Fans!!!

(Thank you so much Nany !!!!! as ever, you were Amazing!!!
















Jon's Interview: Master Class - Oprah.

Nothing makes me more angry or more sad than somebody's dream getting crushed by somebody else wagging their finger.

But I see that, I've seen that a lot.

Somebody once told me that he wouldn't pay for his kid to go to music school and be a bass player.

He was in my driveway and without bragging, I live in a pretty great house, music paid for all this. Encourage your kid.

Life's too short for you not to reach for that ring, at least try it.

Even as a boy I always said that I'd rather "I did it and failed instead of shoulda, couldna."

I'll tell you one thing at 50 I don't have any regrets.

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Nada me deixa mais irritado ou mais triste do que ver o sonho de alguém ser esmagado por alguém abanando o dedo (apontando o dedo na cara)

Mas eu vejo isso, eu vi muito isso.

Alguém uma vez me disse que não pagaria para seu filho ir para a escola de música e ser um baixista.

Ele estava na entrada da minha garagem e sem me gabar, eu moro em uma casa sensacional, a música paga por tudo isso. Incentive seu filho.

A vida é muito curta para você pelo menos não tentar.

Desde pequeno eu sempre preferi tentar fazer alguma coisa e falhar do que ficar pensando se eu deveria ou se eu poderia fazer aquilo.

Eu vou te dizer uma coisa aos 50 eu não tenho nenhum arrependimento.

#2

When I was 7, my folks (who wanted me to try something) took me to guitar lessons.

The teacher was smoking a pipe in this small room, stinking up the place, falling a sleep...this wasn't fun, this is nothing.

I went home, threw my guitar down the stairs breaking a couple of tuning pegs.

And there it stayed until I was 13.

Al Parinello moved across the street, he was in a club band, he was hip.

He showed us how to play songs. He showed us "The House of the Rising Sun" and said we had one week to learn it.

I came back and hadn't learned it and he said, "don't waste my time, get out of here, leave.

And that was the best thing he could have said.

He didn't coddle me; if he had, I wouldn't have taken it seriously but he said "don't waste my time, get out of my basement, I got a family, get lost." I learned it and I learned the next one and the next one.

When you learn a song, you start to think about songs, you want to write songs, when you write songs, you get to be here. It was with his encouragement, with his encouragement, I stayed with it.

{story of the Slippery diamond medallion} Started in 1986. By today's standards of bling, it is a joke....You have to do two world tours, every leg of each tour, if you don't make it through every leg, you don't get one.

You have to be with me a number of years before you get one.

There is 150 in existence.

People take great pride in ownership of them.

Al Parinello took mine to his grave.

That's where mine went.

It is a special thing and that was a special man in my life.

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Quando eu tinha 7 anos, meus pais (quiseram tentar algo) me levaram para aulas de guitarra.

O professor estava fumando um cachimbo numa pequena sala, o lugar fedia, o cara caindo de sono ... isto não foi divertido, isso não é nada.

Fui para casa, joguei minha guitarra descendo as escadas quebrando um par de cravelhas.

E lá ficou até que eu tinha 13 anos.

Al Parinello se mudou para o outro lado da rua, ele estava em uma banda de clube, ele foi hippie.

Ele nos mostrou como tocar músicas. Ele nos mostrou "The House of the Rising Sun" e disse que tínhamos uma semana para aprender.

Voltei e não tinha aprendido nada e ele disse, "não desperdice meu tempo, saia daqui, vá embora.

E essa foi a melhor coisa que ele poderia ter dito.

Ele não me mimar, se ele tivesse, eu não teria tomado a sério, mas ele disse: "não perco meu tempo, saia do meu porão, eu tenho uma família, se manda." Eu aprendi e aprendi a próxima e a próxima.

Quando você aprende uma música, você começar a pensar em músicas, então você quer escrever músicas, quando você escreve músicas, você começa a estar aqui. Foi com o seu encorajamento, com seu incentivo, eu fiquei com ele.

{história do pingente de diamantes do Slippery} Iniciado em 1986. Pelos padrões de hoje do bling, é uma piada .... Você tem que fazer duas turnês mundiais, cada leg de cada tour, se você não fizer cada leg, você não ganha um.

Você tem que estar comigo um certo número de anos antes de ganhar um.

Existem 150 atualmente.

As pessoas têm um grande orgulho de possui-los.

Al Parinello tem meu em seu túmulo.

É para onde o meu foi.

É uma coisa especial para um homem especial em minha vida.

#3

In 1978-79 Led Zepplin was big, there pictures were on the walls.

The vision of grandeur was there: girls, guitars, money, fast cars...rebellion--not having to work for the man.

At 16, 17 I had no great responsibilities yet but I had a singleminded, laser-beam focus that nothing was going to distract me from being a better singer, better writer, better player.

My parent reinforced my optimism, they believed that you can be what you want to be--work hard, never say never--whatever you wanted to do was at your fingertips.

They came to the early realization that if I was going to be playing in a bar at 3 am at least they knew where I was.

I was in bars until 2-3 in the morning and went to school with sunglasses on. In retrospect that was wonderfully singleminded but ...there was nothing to fall back on.

It was part of the romantic luckier than lucky that it worked out but in my home town you worked in a factory, joined the service or wrote a hit song.

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Em 1978-79 Led Zepplin era demais eu tinha posteres nas paredes.

A visão de grandiosidade estava lá: garotas, guitarras, dinheiro, carros velozes ... rebelião - não ter de trabalhar para o chefe.

Aos 16 anos, 17 eu não tinha grandes responsabilidades ainda, mas eu tinha uma fixação, o foco de luz (no palco), e nada ia me dispersar de ser o melhor cantor, o melhor escritor, o melhor músico.

Meus pais reforçavam meu otimismo, acreditavam que você pode ser o que você quer ser se trabalhar duro, nunca diga nunca - o que você queria fazer estava na ponta dos seus dedos.

Eles vinham para a passagem de som no bar onde eu iria tocar as 3 da manhã, pelo menos, eles sabiam onde eu estava.

Eu estava em bares de até 2-3 horas da manhã e ia para a escola de óculos escuros. Relembrando, foi tudo maravilhoso ... mas não havia nada para cair de costas.

Foi mais que sorte que deu certo porque em minha cidade natal, ou voce vira operário de fábrica e gosta disso ou escreve uma música de sucesso.

#4

I grew up in the shadow of NYC with all its media...learning to play the guitar and perform in bars in NJ.

I had a 2nd cousin who owned a recording studio.

My Dad asked him to come and see me as I was so singleminded he wanted to know if I was wasting my time.

The cousin said my band stunk but I was ok and to call him if I needed more advice.

After high school I quit that band I was a singer for plus I had quit my cover band because I knew even in high school that you had to write your own music to go anywhere.

I asked this cousin if I could work for him as a "gofer" and I did that for a couple of years for $50/week...One thing I learned was that the bigger the star, the nicer the person.

You don't forget it, I still haven't forgot it 30 years later Mick Jagger asking me "how's the demos going."

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Eu cresci na sombra de NYC com todos os seus meios de comunicação ... aprendendo a tocar guitarra e tocando em bares em NJ.

Eu tinha um primo de segundo grau, dono de um estúdio de gravação.

Meu pai pediu-lhe para vir e me ver como eu estava tão obsecado ele queria saber se eu estava perdendo meu tempo.

Meu primo disse que a minha banda era horrível, mas eu era ok, e era para ligar para ele caso eu precisasse de mais conselhos.

Após o colegial eu parei com a banda na qual eu era o cantor além de sair da minha banda cover porque eu sabia que mesmo no colegial que você tinha que escrever sua própria música para chegar lá.

Perguntei a esse primo, se eu poderia trabalhar para ele como um "estagiario" e eu fiz isso por um par de anos por US $ 50/semana... Uma coisa que aprendi foi que a maior estrela, é também a melhor a pessoa.

Você não esquece isso, eu ainda não esqueci 30 anos depois... Mick Jagger me perguntando "e ai, como está indo com as demos?"

* Gofer é tipo um estagiario que ganha menos que os outros funcionarios pq está lá para aprender. É um faz tudo, como por exemplo o JON arrumava os estudios, pregava anuncios no quadro de avisos, saia pra comprar comida/bebida pra quem precisasse, pegava correspondencia e distribuia, essas coisas.

** Vale lembrar que JON já contou em outras entrevistas, que ele também ajudava a limpar o estudio em troca do primo deixar ele dormir durante toda semana no quartinho onde eles guardavam as vassouras e os produtos de limpeza, num colchão inflavel no chão, já que seus pais moravam numa cidade bem fora de mão em NJ.

#5

If you don't believe in yourself more than anything, you are already behind the 8 ball.

You got to have that, there are people telling you no every step of the way.

That takes determination, singleminded focus that you are willing to fight everybody ...to get the job done.

I didn't have a band at that time, I didn't have a manage, I had an idea.{story of him trying to get his song (Runaway) listened to)...

He approaches a new radio station, so new there was no receptionist...

The DJ listened and offered to put the song on a homegrown record.

It wasn't what he wanted but Jon reluctantly agreed.

What happened was that not only did that station play it but the station belonged to a chain and it was played in other cities so got airplay and it started to snowball.

Then A&R guys started calling him.

So he put a band together which was to be for 3 weeks "and 28 years later I can't get rid of them."

We got a record deal in 1983, I signed in 1983.

We worked 4 band albums from 83-90 never leaving the road.

Two of which were monsterous albums: Slippery When Wet and New Jersey.

We went from playing in a band in bars to a record deal and things didn't change much.

Then suddenly you are a CEO of a corporation, having millions of dollars, people fawning over you, you got your parents coming to you for advice.

I was 25 years old. With that the world changed but, in truth, we didn't.

We were still as afraid and insecure (and cocky and confident) as we ever were.

So in a weird way we sort of hung on to each other even though we were coming apart at the seams.

We were led to help, not a psychiatrist but a mediator, Lou Cox.

The band was adamantly opposed.

He came in and said 'that was really dumb what you just said, and that was really dumb what you just said.

Why don't you say it again so I can tell you both how dumb you sound and you can say it to each other."

So we sat with this guy and worked through our issues.

I asked the guys to have faith in this vision--if we believed in it, we could be the Rolling Stones.

One by one they put their hands in and that became the cover.

Not only did we survive but thrived in that records. because they had faith to give it a shot, 20 years after that record we're still believing.

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Se você não acreditar em si mesmo mais do que qualquer coisa, você já está atrás da bola 8.

Você tem que ser assim porque tem pessoas te dizendo não a cada passo do caminho.

Isso exige foco, determinação obsessão para que esteja disposto a lutar contra todo mundo ... pra conseguir terminar o trabalho.

Eu não tinha uma banda na época, eu não tinha um empresario, eu tinha uma idéia. {

História dele tentando conseguir que ouvissem a demo de Runaway) ...

Ele foi a uma estação de rádio nova, tão nova que não tinha nem recepcionista ...

O DJ escutou e se ofereceu para colocar a música em um disco caseiro.

Não era o que ele queria, mas Jon concordou relutantemente.

O que aconteceu foi que a estação não só executou a música mas a estação pertencia a uma cadeia de estações em outras cidades assim com a música tocando começou a bola de neve.

Em seguida, os caras da A & R começaram a ligar para ele.

Então, ele teve que formar uma banda em apenas 3 semanas "e 28 anos mais tarde, eu não consigo me livrar deles."

Nós conseguimos um contrato de gravação em 1983, eu assinei em 1983.

Nós trabalhamos 4 álbuns da banda 83-90 nunca saindo da estrada.

Dois dos quais foram sucessos monstruosos: Slippery When Wet e New Jersey.

Passamos de banda de bar para uma gravadora famosa e as coisas mudaram muito.

Então, de repente você é um CEO* de uma corporação, com milhões de dólares, as pessoas bajulam você, você tem seus pais vindo para te aconselhar.

Eu tinha apenas 25 anos. Com tudo isso, o mundo mudou, mas, na verdade, nós não mudamos.

Ainda tinhamos medos e inseguranças (mas fomos muito senhores de si e arrogantes) como jamais estivemos.

Então, de uma maneira estranha apesar de nos escorarmos uns nos outros estavamos explodindo e nos separamos.

Tivemos que pedir ajuda, não de um psiquiatra, mas um mediador, Lou Cox.

A banda se opôs. Ele entrou e disse apontando para nós "o que voce falou foi estupido, e o que voce falou foi realmente estúpido.

Por que vocês falam novamente para que eu possa dizer para todos como voces soam estupidos uns para os outros. "

Então, nós nos sentamos com esse cara que trabalhou através de nossos problemas.

Pedi aos caras para ter fé nessa visão - se acreditássemos nisso, poderíamos ser os Rolling Stones.

Um por um fomos nos levantando e colocando as mãos uma sobre as outras e isso virou nossa proxima capa!

Não apenas sobrevivemos, mas prosperamos fazendo discos porque tivemos fé para dar essa arrancada e 20 anos após continuamos acreditando!

* CEO (Chief Executive Officer) Chefe executivo de um escritorio, em outras palavras o bam bam bam de uma Companhia.

#6

A band is not dissimilar from a family, it has its dynamics; it's not totally dissimilar from a family and it doesn't have many differences from a football team.

I use all these examples because somebody has to be the quarterback but you can only have one quarterback.

You can't win the game without others blocking for you and catching the ball.

You can't get through a marriage without a true partnership and you can't have a family without someone to look up to and somebody to beat up on once in a while.

All of these things are a part of my leadership ability.

You have to lead by example, be a good listener, be a good friend.

You have to know when to take a punch and when to give one, when to share the spotlight and when to take the spotlight.

Love one another unconditionally but push each other more than anyone else would.

Right from the first, Richie and I established a creative partnership.

We enjoyed each other's company, we respected each other's ability and we grew together.

Tico was a generation older so he came off as the big brother.

But he had his demons and when he got his demons straightened, he was our mentor.

Dave had to be the black sheep for a long time because he didn't get to collaborate on the songs...he went off and proved everybody how talented he was.

He wrote the best musical on Broadway last year and now he his writing plays.

No one is more proud of his accomplishments than me and we.

I call it the Henry Ford theory of leadership....he had the vision but other people needed to implement it.

Alec Such was the 1st rock star in the band.

He looked the part, he was crazy as the day is long...alcohol, drugs, women, he did them all.

But while we were young, dumb and having fun, we started getting very serious about it.

Our 5th album in we were releasing our Greatest Hits and had written a couple of new songs and he couldn't play them.

He knew that I had to get somebody else to play on the record. And I let him go.

God bless him, he never wrote a book, never told tales in the media, he just quit the business...

but that slot will remain vacant, that slot will never be filled because Al was there at the beginning and that means a lot to me.

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A banda não é muito diferente de uma família, tem sua dinâmica, não é totalmente diferente de uma família e não tem muitas diferenças de um time de futebol.

Eu uso todos esses exemplos, porque alguém tem que ser o quarterback, mas você pode ter apenas um zagueiro.

Você não pode ganhar o jogo sem que os outros façam o bloqueio para você e pegar a bola.

Você não pode entrar em um casamento sem uma verdadeira parceira e você não pode ter uma família sem alguém para te ajudar a vencer obstaculos e seguir em frente de vez em quando.

Todas estas coisas são parte da minha capacidade de liderança.

Para ser um lider, por exemplo, voce tem que ser um bom ouvinte, ser um bom amigo.

Você tem que saber quando tomar um soco e quando dar um, quando compartilhar o centro das atenções e quando ser apenas voce o centro das atenções.

Amar uns aos outros incondicionalmente, e incentivar uns aos outros mais do que ninguém o faria.

Desde o inicio, Richie e eu estabelecemos uma parceria criativa.

Nós apreciamos a companhia um do outro, nós respeitamos a capacidade um do outro e crescemos juntos.

Tico era uma geração a frente da nossa e ele se tornou nosso irmão mais velho.

Mas ele também tinha seus demônios e quando chegou teve que se segurar e assim ele foi o nosso mentor.

Dave foi a ovelha negra por um longo tempo, porque ele nunca foi um colaborador com as músicas ... Mas ele saiu e mostrou a todos o quão talentoso ele era.

Ele escreveu o melhor musical na Broadway no ano passado e agora ele começou a escrever personagens.

Ninguém está mais orgulhoso de suas realizações do que eu, do que nós.

Eu chamo isso da teoria de liderança de Henry Ford.... ele teve a visão, mas ele precisou de outras pessoas para implementar isto.

Alec foi o primeiro rock star na banda.

Ele assumiu o papel, ele era maluco o dia todo ... álcool, drogas, mulheres, ele teve tudo isso o tempo todo.

Mas não ficamos o tempo todo sendo apenas idiotas nos divertindo, nós começamos a ficar muito mais sérios em certo ponto.

Estavamos lançando nosso 5 º álbum, uma coletanea com nossos maiores sucessos e algumas músicas novas e ele nem conseguia tocá-las.

Ele sabia que eu tinha que conseguir outra pessoa para tocar no novo disco e deixá-lo ir embora.

Deus o abençoe, ele nunca escreveu um livro, nunca contou historias para a mídia, ele simplesmente saiu do negócio ...

Mas o seu lugar sempre permanecerá vago, seu lugar nunca será preenchido por ninguém, porque era Al que estava lá no começo e isso significa muito para mim.

‎#7

The stories that I have with these guys, we've lived more of our lives together than we did apart--28 years with the band, 21 years without.

We've seen marriages, babies, parents die, divorces, we've see poor then rich.

We've seen the world change...a lot of things together.

All those things make for a unique experience one that I haven't had with my own wife, or with my siblings or parents.

We have lives this story for almost 3 decades, no one else was there but us.

I don't care if its 500 or 50,000.

For me the experience doesn't change a bit.

I'm trying my hardest to be the best I can be...I mean that...there is no facade between me and the audience when I'm out there doing what I do.

What I love to see is the exchange...if it's in their eyes or their actions, I know when the connection is made.

And if the connection is made you're on another plane and you don't come out of it until its over--and it's euphoric.

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A historia que eu tenho com estes caras... já vivemos mais de nossas vidas juntos do que separados - Tenho 28 anos com a banda, 21 anos sem.

Junros vimos casamentos, bebês, alguns pais morrerem, divórcios, nos vimos pobres, e agora ricos.

Nós vimos o mundo mudar ... vivemos um monte de coisas juntos.

Todas essas coisas contribuem para uma experiência única que eu não tive com a minha própria esposa, ou com meus irmãos ou meus pais.

Temos esta história juntos por quase 3 décadas e ninguém mais estava lá, apenas nós.

(Sobre o publico dos shows) Eu não me importo se o são 500 ou 50.000.

Para mim, a experiência não muda nem um pouco.

Eu dou tudo de mim para ser o melhor que posso ser ... Quero dizer que ... não há uma barreira entre eu e o meu publico quando eu estou lá fazendo o que faço.

O que eu gosto de ver é a troca ... seja em seus olhos ou suas ações, eu sei quando a conexão é feita.

E se a conexão é feita você está em outro plano e não saio dela até que termine - E é eufórico.

#8

Case in point, It's My Life in all honesty, I took it directly from the Animals because you can't copyright a title.

I had just come back from shooting U571...I enjoyed in immensely, really wanted to pursue acting.

I found a great humility in the craft. It gave me all the exuberance of youth with the knowledge of experiences I had had in the music business.

I was already successful but I was starting over again.

I was excited, feeling good about where I was with the movie and the music and ...Richie and I sat down for a couple of last shots at the single.

I told him, "I got this one." I was really enamored of Frank Sinatra who had just passed. And I said, "like Frankie said, I did it my way" knowing full well that it was Frank Sinatra who said that he did it my way--

I did movies when I wanted, I did music when I wanted. I was really enamored of Mr. Sinatra. Richie fought me tooth and nail on this lyric.

He said, "who cares about this Frankie, who's Frankie, stop explaining it to me." I said, first of all, I have to sing it every night; second of all, I get the meaning.

Richie backs down, the song goes out...became universal for people.

Frankie became you, or your friend, or brother or somebody else you were thinking about.

That song empowered so many people...Everybody became, "I'm Frankie." It was about me wanting to be in music and acting at the same time.

When you write a song like that and it hits that nerve, you don't know where it comes from or why but if it comes from that pure place, chances are it's going to hit that pure place with someone else.

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Assunto em questão, "I'ts my life" com toda a honestidade, eu roubei isso do Animals, porque você não pode por direitos de copia num título.

Eu tinha acabado de voltar das filmagens de U571 ... Gostei imensamente, realmente queria seguir atuando.

Desenvolvi uma grande humildade nesta profissão. Ela me deu toda a exuberância da juventude com o conhecimento e experiência que tive no mundo da música.

Eu já era sucesso, mas eu estava começando de novo.

Eu estava empolgado, sentindo-me bem onde eu estava tanto com o filme como com a música e ... Richie e eu nos sentamos para alguns acertos finais do single.

Eu disse a ele: "Olha esta que eu tenho ." Eu estava realmente apaixonado por Frank Sinatra, que acabara de falecer. E eu disse: "como Frankie disse, eu fiz do meu jeito", sabendo muito bem que foi Frank Sinatra, que disse que fiz do meu jeito -

Eu fiz os filmes quando quis, eu fiz a música quando quis. Eu estava realmente apaixonado por Mr. Sinatra. Richie lutou comigo com unhas e dentes por causa dessa letra. Ele disse, "quem se preocupa com este Frankie, o que é Frankie, pare de explicar isso para mim." Eu disse, antes de tudo, tenho que cantá-la todas as noites, em segundo lugar, entendi o significado.

Richie voltou atrás, a música saiu ... tornou-se universal para as pessoas.

Frankie tornou-se você, ou seu amigo ou irmão ou outra pessoa qualquer que você tenha em mente.Essa música tem poder com tanta gente ... Todo mundo se colocou no lugar, "Eu sou Frankie".

Isso era apenas sobre eu querer estar na música e atuando ao mesmo tempo.

Quando você escreve uma música como essa e atinge o alvo, você não sabe de onde vem ou por quê, mas se se trata do lugar certo na hora certa e as chances são de que vai acertar o alvo de outras pessoas.

‎#9

It's unbelievable the power that music has...it's unbelievable the reach that American pop culture has.

It's truly phenomenal.

It bridges all kinds of cultures. Language barriers.

They don't speak English but get the concepts.

They don't believe the same things that you do but it brings people together.

(relates playing in Moscow at the Lenin Stadium "where even our Olympic athletes couldn't go.)"

They hadn't been exposed to music like MTV but there vision and version of it was alive in their minds.

They embraced us with that same curiosity as we were embracing them...

even though we grew up in the era where we were told that they were the bad guys--we had to fight the bad guys, hide from the bad guys.

If you could see the Soviet infrastructure like I saw it at that time, you would shake your head and say, "these are the bad guys?"

First of all, they were kind, wonderful people, they didn't have enough food, or infrastructure to build proper buildings--the stadium looked 60 years old and it was only 20.

People are generally very good, not always but generally... curious, they love their kids, their wives, fathers, mothers, their homeland but they are led by the media, by fear, led by ignorance which becomes kind of an arrogance: "I don't like you because you have purple hair... "Try because I like purple hair".

We all need to be blind sometime in order to see.

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É inacreditável o poder que a música tem ... é inacreditável o alcance que a cultura pop americana tem. É verdadeiramente fenomenal.

Alcança todos os tipos de culturas. Barreiras linguísticas.

Eles não falam Inglês, mas entendem os conceitos.

Eles não acreditam nas mesmas coisas que você faz, mas isso une as pessoas.

(Contando sobre tocar em Moscou, no Estádio Lenin , onde até mesmo os nossos atletas olímpicos não podiam ir.)

Eles não haviam sido expostos à música como MTV, mas havia uma visão e uma versão que estava viva em suas mentes.

Eles tinham sobre nós a mesma curiosidade que tinhamos sobre eles ...

Crescemos numa época em que nos disseram que eles eram os bandidos - nós tivemos que lutar contra os bandidos, se esconder dos bandidos.

Se você pudesse ver a infra-estrutura soviética como eu vi naquela época, você sacodiria a cabeça e diria: "estes são os bandidos?"

Primeiro de tudo, eles foram amáveis, pessoas maravilhosas, elas não têm comida suficiente, ou infra-estrutura para construir prédios próprios - o estádio parecia ter 60 anos e tinha apenas 20.

As pessoas são geralmente muito boas, não sempre, mas geralmente ... curioso, eles amam seus filhos, suas esposas, pais, mães, sua terra natal, mas são levados pela mídia, pelo medo, liderada pela ignorância que se torna uma espécie de arrogância: "Eu não gosto de você porque você tem o cabelo roxo. .. "Experimente porque eu gosto de cabelo roxo".

Todos nós precisariamos ser cegos por algum tempo para podermos assim enxergar!

#10

I believe that all the arts are reliant on each other in that books, movies, music and art are interdependent.

An artist may have music on in the background while he's painting his picture.

A songwriter reads a book or watches a movie to influence his song.

Movies rely heavily on the music that underscores it or the song that accompanies it in order for it to really come to fruition.

And each of the writers and creators of these four art forms are definitely inspired by the others.

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Acredito que todas as artes são dependentes umas das outras, livros, filmes, música e arte.

Um artista pode ter a música em segundo plano enquanto ele está fazendo sua pintura.

Um compositor lê um livro ou assiste a um filme para influenciar sua música.

Filmes dependem muito da música que ressalta isso ou a música que o acompanha, a fim de que possa realmente vir a ser concretizados.

E cada um dos escritores e criadores dessas quatro formas de arte são, definitivamente, inspirados uns pelos outros.

#11
I got to be around Paul McCartney and Paul Simon a couple of days ago...they had their heads together and I was smiling like a Cheshire cat.
Paul Simon asked what I was smiling at. I said "look at you two." Paul Simon turned to Paul and said "we have a few copyrights.
" I said " you guys should be on Mt. Rushmore -you are gods! I think that continuum is so important,because god knows the world wouldn't be the same without Dylan, Simon, McCartney and I want those guys to come back again, I do.
In this disposable age and era I was fearful that the next generation
was going to lose touch because the music was going away
as everything is out of a reality show or formatted radio that wasn't going to allow a croaky voiced singer that was cranky half the time to change the world.
There was a dry spell in the last decade where it seemed the fuel had run out.
Radio stations are so fragmented, the opportunity we had as young men to purchase a record by looking at the sleeve, making the judgement call by looking at the artwork, the song titles, the credits, the pictures, your imagination.
Now radio stations play 15 songs that sound the same with disposable artists because radio stations only caters to this audience.
The voice of the DJ -who created my being- isn't as influential as he once was.
The concept of touring and having an opportunity of doing 3 albums before you break has changed.
But I think, I hope, that there is an opportunity for some rebounding through things like YouTube and that a kid doesn't need a record deal like I did to get his music out.
He could start it on a viral kind of plane. I'm seeing some sparks leading back to that.
My hope is that it will happen.

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Eu estivce com Paul McCartney e Paul Simon alguns dias atrás ... eles estavam trocando uma idéia e eu estava sorrindo como o Gato de Cheshire*.
Paul Simon perguntou porque eu estava sorrindo. Eu disse: "olhe para vocês dois." Paul Simon virou-se para Paul e disse: "nós temos copyrights".
"Eu disse" vocês deveriam estar no Monte Rushmore**, voces são deuses!
Acho que continuidade é tão importante, porque Deus sabe que o mundo não seria o mesmo sem Dylan, Simon, McCartney e eu quero esses caras de volta, eu quero.
Nesta era do descartável eu tenho medo que a próxima geração perca o toque,
porque a música estava desaparecendo, pois tudo sai de um reality show ou é formatado para as estações de radio que não iam permit um cantor de voz rouca que estava rabugento metade do tempo para mudar o mundo.
Houve um período de seca na última década, onde parecia que o combustível tinha acabado.
As estações de rádio estão tão fragmentados, a oportunidade que tivemos quando jovens para comprar um disco era olhando a capa, olhando para obra a arte, os títulos das músicas, os créditos, as imagens, a sua imaginação.
Agora estações de rádio tocam 15 músicas que soam exatamente iguais com artistas descartáveis porque as estações de rádio só servem para esse público.
A voz do DJ-que ajudou a me criar, não é mais tão influente como já foi um dia.
O conceito de sair em turne e ter a oportunidade de fazer 3 álbuns mudou.
Mas eu espero que ainda haja uma oportunidade para alguns retrocessos em coisas como o YouTube mas que um garoto não precise de um contrato de gravação, como eu precisei para poder lançar a sua música.
Ele pode iniciá-lo em uma espécie de plano viral. Eu estou vendo algumas faíscas que conduzem de volta a isso.
Minha esperança é que isso venha a acontecer.

*Gato de Cheshire, para quem não está lembrando, é um personagem do livro Alice no país das maravilhas, o gato tem um enorme sorriso que pega de orelha a orelha.
**Monte Rushmore - Conjunto de esculturas imensas dos rostos dos presidentes americanos esculpidos nas pedras, fica no Parque Nacional em Dakota do Sul, EUA.

‎#12

In this last segment Jon explains the reason for his sense of optimism and hope that is apparent in his songs and his life.

I born in a time when John Kennedy was president.
There was a sense of optimism in my house, where I came from which was middle class, hard workng, ethically diverse.
That optimism was definitely repeated over and over in my house.
By the time I was old enough to vote, President Reagan was elected to office and telling everyone that everything is going to be ok...
the good guys were going to win, we were going to go to the moon, we can do this, USA wins a hockey game.
So growing up you felt that you could do this, you can be whatever you want, you can still go and dream and reach beyond.
Those messages of hope was a part of who I am.
The grand part of our appeal is that it is timeless, classic, optimistic, uplifting lyrics because people believe in that hope in those messages that I can if given the opportunity and if I don't have the opportunity, I'll make it.
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Neste último segmento Jon explica a razão para seu otimismo e esperança que é evidente em suas músicas e em sua vida.

Eu nasci numa época em que John Kennedy era presidente.
Havia um sentimento de otimismo em minha casa, de onde eu vim, da classe média, que trabalha duro, eticamente diversificada.
Esse otimismo foi definitivamente repetido várias vezes em minha casa.
Até quando eu tive idade suficiente para votar, o presidente Reagan foi eleito para o cargo dizendo a todos que tudo vai ficar bem ...
os mocinhos iriam ganhar, nós estávamos indo para a lua, nós podemos fazer isso , EUA ganha um jogo de hóquei.
Então crescendo você sente que poderia fazer isso, você pode ser o que quiser, você pode seguir em frente, sonhar e ir além.
Estas mensagens de esperança fizeram parte de quem eu sou.
Grande parte do nosso atrativo é que ele é atemporal, clássico, otimista, letras edificantes porque as pessoas acreditam nesta esperança
nestas mensagens que eu passo se quando me é dada a oportunidade e se eu não tiver essa oportunidade, eu a crio.

#13
When we wrote Born to Follow on what was the heels of Obama being elected, I felt that message...we the people were tired of being led around by this guy/that guy it was time to do what we do and speak up and speak out.
That song worked the world over...people relate to those story lines and they become international, timeless and classic--that's the goal, isn't it. It doesn't matter where you are, everyone has that kind of optimism that it is going to work out and if you don't have it, this might help you believe it.

My wife always says that I need to start every sentence "on *my* planet"...I don't live in the real, real world but I get to visit it often.
I've been blessed more than any man should be and maybe that's why I feel so responsible to continue to give it back.
(Talks about The Pres. Council on Community Solutions and Obama appointed Jon to it. Talks about what it is and what it's doing.)
I am a firm believer that the collective we really can do something.
I spent a lot of time thinking in my 20s & 30s I was trying to build a legacy.By my later 40s and now walking into 50 I'm just trying to leave one.
And it's frail, you're doing good things everyday, you're trying to live a full life and have some fun but I could walk out of here and get hit by a car...you got to think "did you actually do something that made a difference?"
I knew early on that I wasn't a scientist, that I wasn't going to invent a cure but my desire, my ability to partner with people...it just takes determination and dollars a lot of time.
(Talks about his partnering with Sister Mary (his patron saint, mentor, idol) to help the homeless and hungry.
Segment includes his opening remarks at the opening of the Soul Kitchen and shows him working as a dishwasher in the kitchen.)
There's no politics involved in this, there's no religion involved in this.
There is just the common brotherhood of man.
So the benevolent America that I still believe in, it's out there, it's out there.
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Quando nós escrevemos Born to Follow, Obama estava prestes a ser eleito, eu senti essa mensagem ... nós, as pessoas, estavamos cansados de sermos coadjuvantes nessa historia, sermos apenas a luz ao redor de um cara, era hora de fazermos o que fizemos e falararmos alto e claro.
Essa música funcionou em todo o mundo ... as pessoas se relacionam ao conteudo da letra e se tornou internacional, intemporal e clássica - esse é o objetivo, não é?
Não importa onde você está, todo mundo tem esse tipo de otimismo aflorando e se você não tem isso, talvez possa ajudá-lo a acreditar.

Minha esposa sempre diz que eu preciso começar cada frase dizendo "em * meu * planeta" ... Eu não vivo no mundo real, real, mas eu venho visitá-lo muitas vezes.
Eu fui abençoado mais do que qualquer homem deve ser por isso que eu me sinto tão responsável de retribuir.
(Fala sobre o cargo de Presidente do Conselho de Soluções Comunitárias qual Jon foi nomeado pelo presidente Obama. Fala sobre o que é e o que está fazendo.)
Eu firmemente acredito que juntos podemos fazer algo.
Entre meus 20-30 eu passei muito tempo tentando construir um legado para depois dos 40.
Aos 50 estou tentando deixar um.
E é frágil, você tenta fazer coisas boas todos os dias, você tenta viver uma vida plena e se divertir um pouco, mas eu posso sair daqui e ser atropelado por um carro ... você tem que pensar "Voce realmente fez alguma coisa que fez a diferença? "
Eu sabia desde cedo que eu não seria um cientista, que eu não ia inventar uma cura, mas meu desejo, minha capacidade de parceria com as pessoas ... isso custa muita determinação e muitos dolares por muito tempo.
(Fala sobre sua parceria com a Irmã Maria (sua santa padroeira, mentora, ídola) para ajudar os desabrigados e famintos.
(O segmento mostra seu discurso na abertura do Soul Kitchen e mostra JON lavando pratos na cozinha.)
Não há política envolvida nisso, não há nenhuma religião envolvida neste processo.
É apenas a fraternidade comum do homem.
Assim, é a América benevolente, que eu ainda acredito, que está ali, está ali.
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#14 (Ultima parte)
I came up in an era where the genre of music and the peer group and I had very little in common with --and our music was put into. I enjoyed their music....
I remember that they wanted to be on the cover of Circus Magazine and even as a boy I said that I wanted to be on the cover of Time....
I'm going to be on a whole different level, I just had a different vision.
It was being on a long haul on a much bigger and brighter plane than the cliched rocks star stuff.
There's a lot of people my age at the side of the road, their dreams didn't come true but there is that great story of a 50 year old who just started doing X today and he's going to tell you how great it was at 60, 70, 80.
Anytime you think you've hit the top of the mt, the truth is that you have just reached another mt and its there to climb over again...
Each step along the way is just a life lesson in humility and it gives you the ammunition to go on and be excited about the next step.

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Eu vim de uma era onde o gênero da música de todos os grupos eram muito parecidos, mas tinhamos muito pouco em comum - e nossa música foi colocada nisso.
Eu gostava da música deles.
Lembro-me que todos queriam estar na capa da revista Circus, mas desde que eu era muito jovem eu dizia que queria estar na capa da Time....
Vou estar em um nível totalmente diferente, eu só tinha uma visão diferente.
Foi durando, durando em um plano muito maior e mais brilhante do que o material clichê das estrelas do rock.
Tem um monte de gente da minha idade na beira da estrada, os seus sonhos não se concretizaram, mas também há grandes histórias de caras que só começaram fazer X coisa aos 50 e ele vai te dizer o quão grandioso foi isso aos 60 , 70, 80.
Quando você pensa que já atingiu o topo do mt, a verdade é que voce apenas acabou de chegar a outro mt e segue em frente para começar a subir de novo ...

Cada passo ao longo do caminho é apenas uma lição de vida com humildade e lhe dá a munição para continuar seguindo em frente e se empolgar com o próximo passo.

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Jon and Richie - intervew

David Intervew

Billy Falcon fala sobre o nosso Grupo no Facebook - Bon Jovi friends

Billy Falcon fala sobre o nosso Grupo no Facebook - Bon Jovi friends em sua entrevista para o site May the rock be with you

Segue trecho da entrevista.

Tradução: Adriana

..." você fez agora um EP das músicas do Bon Jovi que você escreveu é verdade?

Sim, de fato em algum momento, vou gravar um cd inteiro com os sons que co escrevi só por diversão, para poder fazer algo diferente. Mas existe este grupo de fas do Bo Jovi no Facebook, um grupo em particular, eu acho que é “Amigos do Bon Jovi” ou algo assim. Elas são fantásticas, são fãs com toda certeza maravilhosas e minhas amigas. Elas divulgam meu cd para os membros do seu grupo eu disse pro meu amigo...

Todas as coisas que você vê no facebook, não sou eu que posto, eu não pderia fazer tudo isso. Eu tenho um amigo em Nova York chamado Marty  ele é mais que um fã e como se fosse um irmão. Ele ouve todo tipo coisa que às vezes enche o saco! Coisas que você nem imagina... porque ele é mais que um fã da música, ele vive para a música é uma causa pessoal dele fazer com que as pessoas ouçam o que eu faço. Eu agradeço a Deus por ele!

Eu leio as mensagens no Facebook e as respondo, mas, não posto música, Eu nem tenho como postar, Marty é quem o faz por mim.

Mas essas garotas... Eu disse pro Marty, essas garotas são muito gentis, e se elas quiserem eu faço uma apresentação ao vivo para elas, no horário que elas quiserem, porque elas vivem na América do Sul ou em outro lugar.

Como elas me adicionaram como membro do seu grupo, eu faria uma apresentação para elas de alguns sons do Bon Jovi, porque todos eles são singulares. Então eu fui e fiz um especial, com uma gravação rápida desses sons de  4 a 5 sons, convidei alguns dos músicos da minha banda Sowing Circle, pegamos uma caixa box , fizemos como bateria que usamos pra fazer umas batidas, em 3 ou 4 horas de corte, 4 ou 5 musicas. Foi muito divertido, eu quero dizer, pareceu meio largado, mas o som ficou muito legal...”

Billy Falcon talk about us in your interview!

Billy Falcon speack to The site May the Rock Be With You !

Friday, 24 June 2011

Interviewed by: Troy Culpan

Billy Falcon is a name you may know, then again a name you may not but I can guarantee you’ve heard one of his songs in some way shape or form. A veteran of the music business for over thirty years Billy has become one of the greatest songwriters around and has not only written for others such as Cher, Stevie Nicks and Bon Jovi but is an accomplished artist himself. From his early works back in the 70’s and 80’s to his ‘comeback’ album for want of a better word in 1991 thanks to some help from Jon Bon Jovi ‘Pretty Blue World’ which gave us the hit single ‘Power Windows.’

Releasing no less than twelve albums over his career Billy has just given us his new album ‘When’ an amazing, heartfelt album that is for want of a better word, honest. It is an album extremely special to Billy and we were able to give him a call to discuss this amazing album as well as listen to some stories that just make you shake your head and realise that good things can happen to great people in times of hardship. The story of how Billy got involved with Jon Bon Jovi in itself is one you wouldn’t believe if you didn’t hear it from his mouth. Just see how long it goes for here…

It was a pleasure to talk to Billy about his career and his project he has in Nashville and I can’t wait to see what’s next…

Mr Falcon, over to you.

You were a rocker back in the 70’s and 80’s and now take on more of the singer / songwriter type artist, can you take us through the musical evolution of Billy Falcon…

Sure… Yeah you know I think I’ve always been a singer songwriter, it would always get lost in the production of things because it’s always been lyric driven what I do and I would think it’s interesting because I think I found what I’m doing. I started out writing eight minute songs but then you couldn’t do that kind of thing, I just got my handle on the production this time, the last couple of records anyway where I didn’t allow the music or band to overwhelm. You kind of get guitars in your head and you get excited and it stops being the communication of a thought to something that sounds the end of a set, it’s called squeezing the last drop out of something which is fine and it tends to happen live also. Moving to Nashville had probably a little something to do with it, you just learn, this town is like a big school for songwriters, we have obviously the best and the worst in the world in this town as the concentration is so big so you know you’re hearing somebody and you learn from it all if you keep your ears open.

How did you end up in Nashville?

It had nothing much to do with what was going on musically here, visiting here a couple of years after losing my wife and was struggling to figure out a way to raise my daughter who was three or four at the time, and have a life doing my job, write songs, make records and New York where I was it’s at in a perfect world New York is a tough place to live you know, as great as New York is and as much fun as it was to be there and a great place to come from, it was tough living there especially, I was trying to figure out a way to deal with it and take care of my kid. When I visited here I just kinda fell in love with the place and what a community it was around music. The songwriting community and just the artistic community in general and it’s a very easy place to live and I thought, well if I could figure out a way to work here I could certainly raise my kid here, the best of both worlds kind of stuff. That was pretty much it. Nashville is a great town.

I want to say Congratulations on ‘When’ it is an amazing album, obviously a very emotional release too. Take us through the process of creating this album, seems it was many years in the making?

Yeah the record didn’t take too long to make, the process of writing it was probably a couple of years and some of the songs, like the song When for instance took I think twenty years for me to write although I sat and wrote it in an afternoon pretty quickly. It was a song that had been begging me to write it for the last twenty years you know, and the process of the record was I just kept starting and stopping, coming up with a few different ways of starting this record. I had the songs, I had so many songs and I was just kind of shy, I learned how to and now I’m pretty good with the Pro-Tools stuff and you can sit at home and make a record by yourself and it’s a wonderful thing and a very dangerous things. My daughter Rose Falcon who is also an artist, a great wonderful singer songwriter and also smarter than her Dad, she would hear my early demos of some of these songs and she’d say ‘Dad these songs are too good you should get the best players you can, don’t make it by yourself’, because I was starting to make it myself in the house, playing all the guitars, playing bass, trying to program drums which I’m not very good at. If the song was great I didn’t care I wasn’t that excited in the process of making a record if I can just put out something that feels like the demos cause you don’t lose the song, as bad as sometimes the quality of those things are, its that first look at something, its rare that you can duplicate or enhance or improve upon that initial feeling when you sing a song you’ve just written and throw a little lousy demo down.

Well she was there to tell me this was a bad idea, so I did go and find a Co Producer, and it was in the house but I did go and get a bunch of great players to help and the idea that it was in the house and that I could sit here until four in the morning and record my vocals and with the exception of cutting the tracks which is the first two days and the mix I did all the engineering on the record. So I would sit here and record myself with no one in the house, nobody, not even the co producer as I know these days when I do a vocal and to me that’s the easiest thing to lose is the vocal. You go from communicating to performing and when other people are around you usually start performing as that’s what we do, so being that there was nobody here but me, I would be sitting in my room, literally sitting, like the anti rock star, I wasn’t standing up behind a microphone, I was sitting at a desk where my rig is, hitting the button and communicating there and it worked, this is one record where I don’t look at it and go ‘God I wish I would’ve done that differently’ cause that usually happens, or I wish I didn’t do that. I think that’s really the difference, I think I hit a point with these songs where I really left no stone unturned, I really pined and pained over these lyrics and every chord change and everything I did there so I’m particularly happy about this record and spending a lot more energy actually trying to get it to people so they can at least hear it.

There are a couple of songs, in particular ‘When you were mine’ and ‘When’ that brought me very close to tears, how hard is it for you to not do the same when you perform these songs?

epending what I allow, sometimes if I’m doing it, like if I’m singing ‘When’ and I see my daughter which I usually do, its not hard, its kind of beautiful to me because some people cry when they hear it but for me it’s a celebration of the life we’ve lived over the last twenty years and I didn’t think about it when it was happening I was just reporting, every word of that song is true, literally every word is true, and it felt like I was writing the news and making it rhyme somehow. So it’s not hard to perform at all, I stay in the moment and I become part of it when I sing it. If it’s right. We’re not always playing it out in front for Bon Jovi, sometimes we’re playing it out in a little bar somewhere with people lifting beers and you hear some guy laughing in the other room, you disconnect a little bit but most times it isn’t hard at all. Because it is true it’s a little different I think.

Authentic is a word that’s been used to describe your music, if you had to describe what you do how would you do that?

I don’t know, its music and it’s this thing that happens. I think when it comes to art, I mean to me the greatest music, the number one qualification for great music is honesty and believability or in any art at all. I’m sure any good painter could copy what Monet looks like but it won’t have his soul therefore it will not be believable, its not honest, not even the fact that its stolen. I could sit down and write, sometimes you listen to music and you go ‘wow that’s so simple’ and these people are selling millions of records, I think about The Ramones growing up and seeing them and thinking ‘Wow, they cant even play like they cant play and their songs are completely ridiculous but there was something great about it and the reason anybody can imitate, anybody that can play guitar can imitate it and write those songs but no one’s going to believe it therefore they wont be great songs, maybe the same chords and maybe the same level of mimic of lyric but it’s the soul and whoever is behind it needs to believe it, whether its true or not, they’re behind it thinking yeah I mean this. That to me is what sets them apart and its not how complicated it is or how brilliant the singer is, its to me what gets to you is the honesty. It’s like if I can believe a singer he could be singing about Martians, if he believes it, I’ll believe it you know. I think that’s the most important thing for me is making people believe it. Right from the guitar playing to the piano playing to the drums, I’d rather hear a guy play two notes and believe it than play one of these shredders who’s just a technician you know, one thing makes me feel something, the other just makes me go, wow, he’s good. I’d rather feel.

I will easily proclaim you in my opinion to be up there with the Springsteen’s and Dylan’s and Petty’s as one of the best songwriters I have ever heard, what is it that you do to create the perfect song?

Well, I think the thing I have over those guys, Springsteen, Petty and Dylan, that’s nice company, thank you for that, what I have over those guys is that I’m pretty close to the ground, I still walk around on the ground, I’m not a tycoon, I don’t have a hundred people calling me every morning asking me what to do with my assets. These guys are running multi national corporations, good for them, they’re gotten so successful, but they don’t walk on the ground anymore and there’s no way around this but they’re version of getting to the people is watching them on TV or seeing the people from the stage. I’m still taking care of my daughter and she’s twenty five years old you know, I’m on the ground. I just think God gives you gifts and if you shut up long enough to listen as opposed to letting your ego get in the way or whatever it is driving you to write these songs, like on this record I kind of did more listening than I did , and I got in a place where I could be inspired. I think all great artists are inspired and if they aren’t inspired then it’s just manufactured, its fun you know, maybe, but I don’t think it stands the test of time and the guys you just mentioned were inspired. When they’re great they’re inspired songwriters but I don’t think everybody’s always great you know.

You’re also involved if not the ring leader of the ‘Sowing Circle’ can you give us some more information about this?

Oh yeah Sowing Circle it’s my ongoing adventure and experiment and its turned into and hopefully its still turning into, its this thing I started with my daughter about five years ago and we started with just friends and people that just happened to be around and other musicians and its grown into this proving ground for these young artists, I work with a bunch of young artists they’re my friends first and they kind of gravitate towards what we do and they come and watch some of the original Sowing Circle so I’d invite them and get to know these people and they’d come and do a song and its started out about six people and now when everybody shows up and musicians it’s probably like thirteen people. It’s almost like a co operative, everybody supports everybody so I’ve got, there’s a fella named Caleb Owens who I write with and what I do is write with these guys and then the rest of the Sowing Circle becomes their band, every Wednesday night. So Caleb Owens is a brilliant singer songwriter and twenty years ago would already be a huge rock star, given the state of the industry he’s just out there trying to help and develop what he’s doing or hone what he’s doing just put it in the right vehicle and so we can maybe take him to record labels cause I think he’s a complete rock star he just has it all. There’s another fella named Trinity James and it’s the same thing, there’s a Norwegian guy named Peter Nova who’s a cross between Tom Waits, Randy Newman and just brilliant. People here go wow that’s great and just keep walking because everybody’s scared to do anything these days.

My daughter thank God is kind of there, she’s got a record made and she’s signing with a major label here so Rosey’s in good shape, but some of these guys are gonna have to do it independently and what I hope that the Sowing Circle becomes, I’ll help them write their songs if they need help writing their songs and develop what they do as most of them have no money so I can basically make the record in my house and I get people to bring in favours so I get drummers and bass players and pay for studio time. I made a record for a guy named Brad Nelson, a wonderful guy from Memphis and lives here now, another complete package, I think the record cost him $1,500, it’s a twelve song record, real strings, but just paying musicians a tip you know. So the Sowing Circle I hope at some point someone will come along and say ‘wow what a great group of artists here’ it’s a big thing, its so big its hard to move around, so when Bon Jovi called me and said I want you to open some shows I said ‘Do you care how many people I bring?’ He says ‘No’ so I bring the Sowing Circle, he said ‘Bring em all’ he knows them as he jumps up on stage with us, so basically when Jon called me, I didn’t have a band per se to play my music, the Sowing Circle would play because I play three songs a night because there’s so many people playing, and then I’m kinda like a key change of human beings I just run the night by how it feels, I call up the guys in the club we do a couple of songs, they support every body else whether its playing the tambourine or doing background vocals or just standing there singing along. So I basically had a choice, when Jon called me to do these shows because there wasn’t a lot of money and I thought I’d rather bring my friends than go find three of four guys that are just studio guys and go rehearse maybe twice and go hit the stage in front of 17,000 people, so I did exactly that, we do it for gas money you know so when I play with Bon Jovi I have twelve people in my band, horn players and string players, its such an amazing thing, we’re doing Memphis next week and maybe going over to Norway and doing the Oslo stadium we’re doing with them. Yeah we’re doing that June 15th and then we do an after party and then the next three nights we do shows, so we do the Bon Jovi show and then hopefully go across the street to another joint and be the official Bon Jovi after party and we invite people over and we do the whole Sowing Circle set, as I was saying my daughter’s involved in that and its just such a blast, we bring rubber buckets and we hand them out to the audience as drums and who ever wants to jam, we have people banging on buckets for percussion players, its really fun. Everything involved with the Sowing Circle is pretty cool. It’s a trip, it’s inspiring.

Back in 1991 your album ‘Pretty Blue World’ was put out through the Jambco label which was Jon Bon Jovi and Richie Sambora’s how did this association with Bon Jovi begin?

Yeah well it’s miracle upon miracle upon miracle and if you don’t believe in that it’s just an insane co incidence. I call it the miracle signing. It takes a long time but I will be as brief as I can… feel free to cut me off as it’s a little complicated.

It’s all good…

My wife had passed away and I was living in New York just writing these songs, the songs that would eventually find themselves to that record ‘Pretty Blue World’ and I was writing these songs and as I would wrote them, I would put them on this cassette tape as that was the format at the time, so I would record on a reel to reel and when I felt I had a good version I would put it on this one cassette that I had that I was somehow building this record on that I didn’t think anyone would ever hear to be honest, I didn’t think anybody would ever hear the record but I’d write a song, I’d record it and if I thought it was good enough I’d put it on this little mock record I was building and I already had it titled ‘Pretty Blue World’ and as I’m writing these songs, one day I was writing a song called ‘Die Twice’ I believe I was recording it and my phone rings and its an old friend who used to play guitar with me in a band and he tells me he had run into someone on the street in New Jersey and old friend of his and they began to talk. My friend happened to be washing the windows of some drug store or delicatessen at the time and somebody comes up to go in the store he sees him and it’s a buddy of his, like a high school buddy and they get to talking about friends and my friend is kind of embarrassed not that it’s a terrible thing but he’s a musician, so he says ‘I work with Billy Falcon, I’m in Billy Falcon’s band’ and this guy goes ‘I work for Bon Jovi as pretty much his right hand man, he’s like my best friend and I live in his house and blah blah blah’ so I guess they part company and the guy that works for Jon goes back to his house and mentions that he ran into someone that knows me and at the point Jon proceeds to go into the closet and I think find four or five of my EP’s from the late 70’s early 80’s and starts playing my records in the house and he says to this guy ‘Call your friend, find out where Billy Falcon is, see what he’s doing’ and because my wife getting sick and passing away I had disappeared for about five years from the business just taking care of Rosey and just taking care of my wife while she was sick so everything kind of went away from me and for all intensive purposes l was not around, I disappeared so this guy calls my buddy who he met earlier and he said Jon wants to know where Billy Falcon is can you get in touch with him and see if he has any music, if he’s still doing music, Jon wants to hear it.

So I get this call saying Jon Bon Jovi is a huge fan of mine and that he wants to hear music and at this point I’m going ‘really’ at this point Jon is nothing but a Rock Star now, he’s a huge Rock Star, this is before Blaze of Glory, the Young Guns record but he had already done the other records those other huge ones and at the height of it. I’m going ‘yeah sure’ I didn’t believe it at all and it wasn’t the kind of music I play what Jon was doing, it was cool and I knew he was a huge Rock Star and it was nice and hilarious and I don’t believe it but OK, yeah sure. The person tells me he wants to know if he has music he can hear and if he can he’s going to see Whitesnake at the Arena tomorrow and Jon wants you to come and see you there as he may be there, otherwise you can bring the music and give it to his assistant, this guy. So I said OK I’ll go and see Whitesnake, so the next night I wind up at the Whitesnake show and Jon isn’t there but the guy is there and my friend is there and I give him one these cassettes labelled ‘Pretty Blue World’ pretty much probably eight or nine of the songs from ‘Pretty Blue World’ are on this cassette. That was the end of that. Again, I went to the place I was living in Long Island, my wife and best friend had passed away, my daughters Mom and it was a very terrible sad creepy kid of existence, I was like I was in a movie I never really wanted to be in. I spent my days writing songs and waiting to go and get my daughter from school to take care of here but it was really a dark dark time, so when I heard that Bon Jovi was a big fan I didn’t believe it but I needed to grab onto something, I used that as my family was worried about me and what was going to happen to me at that point, how was I going to continue to have this devastating thing happen in my life, and so I was so happy to have something good to say to my parents and to my brothers and sisters ‘Bon Jovi’s a big fan’ and blah blah blah.

In my mind I’m going This is Bull shit, nothing, I never heard another word and about a year later I came down to Nashville as my buddy’s down here and they knew me and they knew my wife and they loved my wife and they invited me to come down and thought that Nashville would be a good thing for me and knowing my situation. So I agreed to have my parents watch my daughter for the summer and I came to Nashville, such a loveable town and proceeded to try and get a deal down here, a publishing deal, anything, and Nashville is a funny town, no one ever says no in Nashville so from the first publisher I saw, everyone was all going ‘yes yes yes’ but they don’t do anything, and they want you to move down here and I couldn’t move down here without a deal and my songs weren’t country songs and they’re saying ‘we’ll be cutting these kind of songs in ten years’ well I ain’t got ten years, but while I was down here, this was year after giving this cassette, I had to go home in late August in a week or two to put Rosey back in school and I remember having a meeting one last meeting, a publishing meeting and walking back in the house I was staying in, and I’m sorry, the night before that I got another call from someone else who was in the same band with the guy that was washing the windows, I get a call from a guy names Gene Boccia who played bass for me for years and he calls me and he finds me in Nashville and he says ‘Billy, I ran into Jon Bon Jovi at the Stone Pony in Asbury Park New Jersey and he came up to me and asked me if I knew you as he’d seen me play at a few of your shows and he asked me if I’d heard any of your new songs and then he sang me the chorus to your new song Power Windows’ so Jon at the bar didn’t know this guy but sings to him just the chorus and asks if he’d heard this song and Gene says ‘yeah I did hear this song’ he said ‘Do me a favour, get in touch with Billy and have him call me’ so he did, this guy is now calling me in Nashville and telling me Bon Jovi wants to talk to me which is a year after giving the demo, so that night I called Jon, he answered the phone and was as if I was talking to one of my friends from High School, and his words, we talked for a minute were something like ‘Hey man, I’m running out to the movies but I’m your biggest fan you have some of the coolest songs I’ve ever heard, send me more music please’ I said ‘OK.’

So I woke up the next morning and recorded some more things I’d written and sent them and a week later I walk back in that house having a few more days before I have to drive back home and put my daughter in school in New York and I walk in the house where I was staying and the people I was living with had a seventeen year old son, him and his girlfriend were sitting at this answering machine phone listening to three or four messages from Jon and his manager Doc McGhee saying ‘Billy Falcon this is Jon Bon Jovi calling, please call me’ and it was very funny, they were like ‘That’s Jon Bon Jovi’ when I walked in that house, so at that point I called Jon, I think they were concerned I was going to make a deal down here for my publishing and I hadn’t done anything and I get Jon on the phone and he says ‘Billy, what the fuck are you doing in Nashville?’ and I proceed to tell him that nobody up in New York really cared for a guy with a bag of songs and a guitar, everybody in New York was programming drum machines for dance songs and Nashville understood songwriting and lyrics mattered here you know, and he said ‘Cool, well Billy what do you want to do?’ I said, I want to make a record and if I can do that. He said ‘Why don’t you come back, I’ll send you a plane ticket, on me, we’ll talk about it.’ I said I was driving home in two days so don’t send me a plane ticket, he said ‘well call me when you get back.’ That’s basically how it started. We had dinner, I played him a few more songs, he and Doc McGhee were there with his wife at his house, played him some more songs and when I finished they handed me a record contract which is hilarious as that doesn’t happen. There was some negotiation but they just handed me a record contract so three months later I was in A&M studios in LA with Jon and Danny Kortchmar and Benmont Tench and Kenny Aronoff a wad talent, I couldn’t even tell you who else was involved with that, it was pretty amazing, I was pretty overwhelmed by the experience. Eight months after that I’m on Johnny Carson singing songs that I wrote, when life was really bad, so that’s how that started and we’ve just become, through the process, you know a lot of times you get to know someone better through the process me and Jon became really good friends, a brother. We’ve been through a lot and we’ve done a lot of great work together but there are times when I talk to him once a week and there are times I don’t talk to him for three months. But yeah it’s just been a wonderful thing, I go there, he comes here to write the songs, we’ve written songs all over the world, it’s been a lot of fun. It’s a nice relationship. It’s hard to explain but those things aren’t accidents.

Over the years you’ve been a co writer for a number of Bon Jovi songs, how did it become a case of an artist on their label to a key songwriter on some of their most amazing songs, how does that make you feel?

I don’t know, proud I guess, its good work, it’s an interesting process as I don’t have anything much to do other than the writing of the song, you know when I leave there, a week later I wont even remember the song until the record comes out because I stop playing it, until recently I recorded a couple and it was great fun. Yeah the coolest thing I guess is the first record I was on was a record called ‘Crush’ which was a big record and going and taking my daughter to the Arena here in Nashville and turning around and seeing 20 – 30,000 people singing the songs that we wrote in my kitchen, but seeing my daughter going ‘Yeah, my Dad’ that sort of thing is pretty neat, its been fun you know.

Your version of ‘When we were Beautiful’ on ‘When’ is nothing short of amazing and don’t tell Jon but I prefer your version, what encouraged you to release your version of the song?

He does too, he would love to do that kind of thing, he said to me ‘That’s exactly what I want to do’ that’s how we wrote it, it was a little harder than that, it was maybe a little more up tempo than the way I sang it but that was really how he wrote it. He’s gotta think about getting it on the radio so he’s gotta do the big blown out production which was really nice I thought but I know he’d prefer to do it real intimate, which it lends well there.

What do the other guys think?

I have no idea, Richie is a good buddy of mine and Tico I play golf with him once and a while but I don’t really know to be honest with you.

Because you’ve now done an EP of the Bon Jovi songs you’ve written is that right?

Yeah at some point I think I will really record a whole record of the co writes for fun and just do a really different take on everything, but there is this Bon Jovi fan group on facebook, one group in particular I think ‘Friends of Bon Jovi’ or something like that its called, they are wild, such fans they’re amazing and they friended me and they were promoting my record to their members and I told my guy, all that stuff you see on facebook that’s not me I couldn’t do all that, I have a guy in New York named Marty and he’s just a fan, he’s become a brother and he listens to what I do and it kind of pisses him off that more people haven’t heard it because he’s such a music fan, he lives for music, its like his personal cause to get people to hear what I do, I mean thank god for him. I mean I read my facebook messages and I respond on there but I’m not posting music, I don’t even know how to post music, Marty does all that. But these girls, I said Marty these girls are sweet, and if they want I’ll do a live stream for them in their time zone because they’re in South America or somewhere. So if they wanted to add to their membership I would do a live stream for them and maybe what I’ll do is a bunch of the Bon Jovi songs because they’re all Bon Jovi freaks. Then I went one better, let me put down a quick recording of four or five songs and we’ll give them the recordings and I invited some of my Sowing Circle buddies over and we used cardboard boxes as drums and were banging on things and in three or four hours cut four or five songs. Its fun, I mean it’s sloppy as shit but it sounds pretty cool.

How do you feel when a song like ‘Power Windows’ some 20 years on still has that perfect meaning of what life should be all about and people should take on board for themselves? Tell us about that song.

Yeah I might have someone re record that, it might even be my daughter at some point, thank you, that was very inspired, that was a song that I was driving down the street and down the highway on the way to pick up my daughter and it was after her Mom had passed away and it was a really hard time and it was probably a year and a half since her Mom had passed away. I was still thinking and I didn’t know how to continue and carry on and it was a really dark time, it was a beautiful hot sunny day in New York and I had gone out as a single man the night before with a buddy of mine and we sat and drank and I’m not a big drinker and I got drunk and I’m hungover and I’m in my car and thinking what a miserable thing it was being out in a bar single and thinking, God, how do you do this? I don’t want to be there after being married for twelve years and I remember sitting in my car on Grand Central Parkway outside of Shea stadium and a Mets game was about to happen. So traffic had dead stopped and I saw that song play out in two cars while sitting in traffic. One car was overheating and hearing a little voice in my head saying to watch what was going on, had a car in front of me and almost being annoyed that something was telling me to watch some guy in a fancy car who looked like he had the world on a string, and keep watching him. As I kept watching my life just seemed to keep getting worse as I discovered this guy is in his beautiful car, he looks perfect and then he gets a phone call, it was 15 years ago and he had a phone and I was thinking, man this guy’s got a phone, my life just got worse and then on that phone he was screaming at someone so much so that he looked like he was going to have a heart attack.

Then the voice said ‘look over there’ and I see another car, its as far from the car in front as me can be, it’s the exact opposite, that car looks like it’s a couple of miles away from the junkyard, but the guy in it was the happiest man in the world and again, the voice in my head said keep watching and as I pulled up I saw the woman that was sitting right next to him and together they looked like they were the picture of complete joy and I went home and wrote that song in about twenty minutes and that song saved my life. That is the song that Jon wound up hearing, it’s the song that attracted so many good things into my life so again I just had to listen, I just had to shut up and listen. Beware of that moment and that’s what a songwriter has to be to be a songwriter. It’s the present, be aware of what’s going on around you as opposed to worrying about the future or regretting the past, stay in the present.

A number of artists such as Cher, Stevie Nicks & Manfred Mann have performed your songs over the years, how does this make you feel as songwriter?

I really don’t remember that stuff, its neat when it happens but it’s like OK next, it’s never been my thing to just get other people to sing the songs, again it’s that whole staying in the present thing. I don’t get caught up in what’s happened, I’m not a big picture taker, a memory collector, it’s a lot for me to know when my Daughter’s birthday is that’s the important date for me, I don’t know the exact date my wife passed away, I don’t know the exact date of anything, I don’t care. I don’t mark days, I’m not a collector, I don’t even own all my own records, you know when you mention these cuts I couldn’t tell you if I have any of them, the Stevie Nicks record, I don’t have it, I had it, and its not that I don’t think it’s important, it is important, its flattering, its beautiful when someone does your songs but to me I do not live in the past. I run like I’m 25 years old, I run with a bunch of punk kids who are real cool kids in between the age of 25 and 30 and I run with them not behind them.

Rose your daughter as you’ve mentioned is an artist herself, what words of wisdom have you passed on to her?

Oh God she passes them on to me, you know, one of the great joys of my life has just been raising her and teaching her, like when I introduce the song ‘When’ I’ll talk about me and my daughter raising one another over the last twenty years because its kind of like I feel like we did. She’s learned everything, most of it through watching and just being around it, with the song writing, she knows to be honest and most clear thing I’ve passed onto Rose is what I believe and I’m not a religious person but I am a true believer, I believe in God I believe in Jesus Christ and I’m not going to preach to anybody and tell them what you should and shouldn’t do as I don’t even do that to myself. I think if there’s anything I’ve passed onto Rosey or the most important thing is the value of believing that there is a God and he’s bigger and to tackle anything that may come at you, because again, I’m all she’s got, she ain’t got a Mom, she’s got me, she’s got friends but she’s got me. When she was a baby, I’ve spent the last twenty years or so trying to make up for what she’s lost and you can never do that. You can’t ever get back, if someone loses a Mom or a Dad, you cant make that up to them but I believe God takes these terrible things that happens to people and if they allow it, if they don’t get bitter, if they don’t crawl into a hole, if they don’t give up that God is able to take what ever is taken from you and make beauty in your life and I think I’ve instilled that in her and she’s seen it over and over again in my life.

There was a couple of times when life came at me hard but the rest of my life has been a breeze, just dealing with what normal people deal with but the couple of times that life got really cruel and it was like oh my God what’s going to happen next, how can anything good come of this and again to me he’s somehow taken that terrible, terrible ugliness in life and turned it in to treasure in my life and in terms of the song writing, before Rose’s Mom passed away I was just another guy with a guitar whining about not being a Rock Star and not having some girlfriend but I wouldn’t still be doing it, I wouldn’t have what I have to say, I wouldn’t paint with the colours I paint with hadn’t God dropped this thing on me, when my wife left it was something that gave me insight into what’s really happening to people and kind of made the words that come to me richer at least I think they’re richer and the colours are deeper and I guess it’s because they’re believable that’s why they’re richer and when I sing the songs or when I write a song they seem to reach people and touch people, not millions of people but hundreds of people, maybe thousands, but they move people in a way that I don’t think all music does. I’m not saying what I do is great but you know what I mean and I think that’s what my daughter is doing already and I think she’s got this gift and she’s listening to it you know.

Now as a songwriter, if there’s one song from musical history that you could’ve written what would it be and why?

Oh, quickly, probably Hallelujah, I mean everybody would say the same thing, I think that might be it, there’s something so special about it too. It’s an inspiring beautiful piece of music.

Lastly, over your career you’ve released over a dozen albums, 10 of which I need to now go back and buy ha ha but what’s next for you?

Well this record here the ‘When’ record is really important to me, certain things I’ll close down after this record its like I got it done this time, I wont be telling the story of Rose’s Mom, it’s the end and the beginning of something to me and I’ll be making another record, I’ll start thinking about it probably the end of the Summer and look to start recording sometime next Winter and just take these I’m on a mission I’ve got these guys I’m working with, they’re my pals and again, given the state of the music business, I just keep believing that things are the way that they are for a reason and there’s going to be release somewhere, there’s going to be something, individual things that happen to allow people that are brilliantly talented the opportunity to be in this business and to do what they do and earn a living and I’m trying to help these people do this and I’m not trying to do it because I’m Mother Theresa, I’m doing it because I love them and it feels really good. It’s like there’s a couple of things I know how to do, I know how to write a song, I know how to arrange a song and when a sing is right, when a performance is right. Its easy for me to look at someone else than it is myself but with the time I’ve spent doing this, I’m at a place right now where I’m really good at what I do, I’m really good at sitting and listening to somebody’s song and going OK here’s what I think and I’m right now, I believe I’m right now.

Twenty years ago I didn’t have a clue, I did some smart things, I wrote some good songs but ten years ago I still didn’t have a clue, I wrote some good songs but now I feel like I have an instinct that you cant make happen, it just comes to you I guess after working on something for so long. I’m Tiger Woods now when it comes to songs I really know how to do this thing. I wanna use what I have, to me it’s a gift and I want to keep giving it away and the reason is, I don’t do it for money, money comes and I’m not Mother Theresa, I do it because it’s an amazing way to get high, I give it away and when you get to do what you do that’s how I get off the ground, that’s what the song ‘Flying’ is about. That’s how I get off the ground and break the shackles when I walk around playing music and writing music and singing songs, you know, doing something and suddenly its bigger than every body in the room it’s pretty cool. That’s when you know you’ve connected to something greater than yourself. I’m just going to try and connect even better you know.

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