ZANG TUMMM TUMB ARTICLES “the first draft of history”

GJ: No. Basically, the whole album is like a story. It’s a small screenplay, biographical, or whatever you want to call it. I’m there as the star of the record. The record is about me. It’s the producer’s image of me. Jean Paul Goude, who also worked on the music with Trevor, saw the visuals before the music. You know what mean? It’s like you have a film and you want a score for the film. We worked the score and the visual score at the same time. The record speaks for itself in that way. When you hear the record with all the inserts, the interviews, and the stories, you get a feeling that you can see what you’re listening to. You can see it It’s not just listening to something. It goes further than that.

KZ: You’ve maintained your relationship with Jean Paul Goude. I understand he did your latest video. Was it a mutual decision to use excerpts from “Jungle Fever” on the record?

GJ: Jean Paul and I have always maintained a relationship. I just give him carte blanche because we think so much alike. We like the same things artistically. We have this understanding that he has the freedom, artistically, to explore and create whatever he wants to. Usually I know what’s behind it. Most other people, of course, don’t know. They’ll see a lot of other different things. They’ll try to say, ‘Oh, the relationship,’ the personal stuff. That’s nothing to do with it at all. We collaborate very well together. Until we don’t, we will work together.

KZ: Do you think that people make too much about your personal relationship and his past obsession with you?

GJ: Sure. Sure. I don’t think they see the humor in it all, and there’s a lot of humor in it They take it all so seriously.

KZ: Some of your past work, “Warm Leatherette,” “Walking In The Rain,” “Private Life,” all seemed so suited to your voice. What was the process you used towards selecting material?

GJ: My voice on those songs is the same voice that I had with “That’s The Trouble” off the Portfolio record. My voice is very similar to the voice four albums later. That had a lot to do with producers and how much input I was allowed to have at the time. Sometimes you work with producers who are quite forceful and powerful. They try to push you into a corner where they feel you belong. You’re singing in a voice they want to hear you in. This is a voice they think is going to sell records. Finally, I realized that that was ridiculous and it was some kind of mental abuse.

KZ: Are you referring to (disco producer) Tom Moulton?

GJ: Partially, yes. The only cuts where I was singing with my own voice were the songs I wrote which were “That’s The Trouble” and “Sorry.”

KZ: I’ve always thought that the Nightclubbing album was an artistic breakthrough for you. Not just because it had “Pull Up To The Bumper,” but because you used Sly (Dunbar) and Robbie (Shakespeare) for a pop reggae sound.

GJ: It started with Warm Leatherette. Nightclubbing was the most complete. It was the first time I had a lot more artistic freedom. It was also the albums after Tom Moulton. I love a lot of stuff that Tom did. I was not happy with a lot of the songs that I had written myself because they all started sounding alike. I knew each song had its own breath. I hated when they treated them all with the same formula.

KZ: You were one of the first, outside of reggae, to work with Sly and Robbie.

GJ: Yep.

KZ: Was that a return to your Jamaican roots?

GJ: It was catching up with it, actually; not returning. To return to the roots, then you’d have to get into calypso and all that. To me, Sly and Robbie are super modern. They’re really in front and they never burn out. I was very hard on them as well. I was quite a different person for them to work with. They’re accustomed to being the kings! Jamaican men! (laughs) The male population is a different culture than here. Continue »

I know how to deal with them, you know? I have a lot of brothers, my dad, and grandpa. We just tell them, ‘You be quiet over there.’ There’s a way of talking with them to get your way, not letting them intimidate you. For people that don’t know, I’m sure they can come up very intimidating, if they say, ‘we do one cut and we’re not gonna do it again because we know this is the best cut.’ And I’ll say, ‘You’re gonna do it again tomorrow.’

KZ: That’s why those records are so successful.

GJ: I think so. I pushed them very far.

KZ: Do you have a twin brother?

GJ: Christian.

KZ: So do I.

GJ: Really? We’ve got something in common. He’s just done an album as well. Three singles and he’s made a deal for an album. I produced a couple of the tracks as well. Sly and Robbie are playing on one track called “American Lover.” It’s really good. It needs some remixing.

KZ: How do you manage to jockey your busy schedule? You have so many projects, movies, modelling — 

GJ: I don’t model anymore.

KZ: With movies and music, are you spontaneous or do you carefully map out your career moves?

GJ: I’m very spontaneous. I don’t care how much we map it out. It never sticks to what is mapped out. There came a time where I’d pick between one or the other. That was when I was thinking about resigning with a record company. I realize how they both actually help each other. Especially now. It’s a form of the future. That whole movies-and-music thing is coming back.

KZ: Like back in the thirties and forties. You were a pioneer at being a contemporary multi-media star.

GJ: People always ask, ‘Well, what are you? Are you an actress in singing? Because you’re not this regular singer that’s touring.’ They find it very difficult to deal with. They want to see a rock and roll band up there. Okay, I’m rock ’n’ roll or okay. I’m R & B. Who’s to say what is what? You just do what it is you do. I don’t think about the labels. I create where it feels right with me. It’s not going to be the same as what everyone else does. A lot of people, when they come into the business, automatically want to do what everyone else is doing because they think that’s the key to success.

KZ: What is the key to success?

GJ: Well, it ain’t that (laughs). I know what it’s not. I can’t tell you what it is exactly.

KZ: Are you starting to write songs for your next album?

GJ: Oh yeah. We’ve got about thirteen songs done already.

KZ: What can we expect? Any clues as to what direction?

GJ: Well… I think the direction will be continuing in the direction of “Slave,” taking it a bit further. More stories. The story from MY point of view. Some of it will be fantasy, some of it will be true. Musically, everything will be in the groove.

KZ: Is Nile Rodgers going to do your next album?

GJ: If nothing happens to him between now and April or to me. If World War Three doesn’t break out.

KZ: How did you end up on the Arcadia single?

GJ: They asked me if I would. We were hanging out and I liked the song. I was in Europe at the same time, writing with Bruce Wooley. (He co-wrote “Slave To The Rhythm.”) I’m co-writing most of the songs with him. Alex Sadkin, who co-produced my last three albums, was co-producing Arcadia as well. So as a favor to them, I did it and I donated my fee to AIDS Research Foundation.

KZ: You were also in Fashion-Aid. How was that?

GJ: That was great! A lot of fun. I modeled for Miyake who was the first person to hire me in 1976 and I sang at the end of the fashion show in Japan for two weeks. We had sold out audiences all over the place — 10,000 seater places.

KZ: Are you going to tour America?

GJ: Yes. Not until we get the record up there (laughs). Continue »

I’ll tour Europe first because the record is number one all over the place. In Europe, they don’t have this pop, R & B, Dance, what not. They like a record and that’s it. It plays.

KZ: Then what are your feelings about radio in America?

GJ: I think they can travel a bit and learn something from Europe. I think they should just play a great record. I don’t think the record should be based on color. Music has no color. Do you know what I mean? I don’t know. I think they do it that way because maybe they feel it generates more money or something. Different markets. I don’t know what the reasons are. Advertising? Certain people in certain areas like this and that It keeps people limited, is what it does. It doesn’t allow them to expand.

KZ: Tight formats exist because programmers wish to reach a specific, key person as a listener.

GJ: But those key people like to hear other things. I think they get awfully bored. I do. Everybody welcomes a change. I think even if they have a certain format, every now and then they should inject a little change in there to show what else is going on in the world. It’s like putting walls around the radio. You might as well be in Russia. In London, the (club) deejays outside of radio play the best music. Stuff I’ve never heard before! What’s this record? My God! They just find great music over there. I think here where you have the formats, even with the club deejays, it limits them and makes them lazy. They don’t have to go out there and create a sound. They just get all the records sent in to them. This is the Top Forty, or whatever, and that’s what they play. How on earth can they get any kind of fun out of that?

KZ: How do you feel about the role of dance clubs and how your career has grown from that?

GJ: I think clubs used to be a lot better. I’m sure there’s still some around and I haven’t had time to get to them. Some that take chances and play different music. Good deejays are hard to find. it’s really an art to create a mood and feeling with

music. A lot of people get their jobs through politics and connections. Then they don’t know what they’re doing.

KZ: What are your memories of the Disco era when you were gigging at Studio 54?

GJ: A lot of my older friends were (club) deejays. There’s a lot of really good people squeezed out. They’re not working anymore. I used to go dancing for working out. It was a total physical, soulful, and spiritual experience. I’d come out feeling like I had been totally renewed, feeling great. I remember I went to this club. I was playing two nights. The first night someone said, ‘Well tonight, you’ve got the PCP crowd,’ or something. Everyone was walking around bumping into walls (laughs). I thought that was pretty weird. Then they said, ‘Don’t worry. The next night you’ll have your tripping crowd.’ So you get a different audience depending on what drug they’re into.

KZ: I remember reading about your “One Man Show” tour. Somebody handcuffed himself to you.

GJ: That was a teenage kid. The time that happened, my audience started crossing over. In 1982, I was attracting about everybody. The audience was so mixed, it was incredible. The audience ALONE was a trip. That was the show. I had students, professors, professional people. All different races. The age went from teenagers to old people.

KZ: What kind of film roles are you interested in? Are you interested in doing some serious drama like maybe Whoopi Goldberg did in The Color Purple?

GJ: Whoopi was made for that role. I like glamorous roles. I think there’s a space to be filled there. (The part of) Shug Avery was a glamorous role. I could have played that role. I would have been better in that part, actually.

KZ: Would you liked to have recorded the theme song for A View To A Kill?

GJ: I love what Duran Duran did. Oh no. Continue »