First Interview Since Hyde Park - New Album & Possible Tour
Oct 15, 2014 17:15:41 GMT
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Post by tedblight on Oct 15, 2014 17:15:41 GMT
ELO’s Jeff Lynne: ‘All those hipsters with beards are copying me!’
The Interview
Jeff Lynne performs with ELO at Hyde Park in September.
Hi, Jeff. How does it feel to know that ELO are in the cool leagues these days? (1)
It’s amazing. It’s great to be cool – I’ve never, ever been cool, so for people to think it’s cool now is absolutely wonderful. I’ve thought we were cool all along, but I love it to bits to finally get the recognition from the high end of rock’n’roll – the music critics and people like that. It’s a totally unexpected thing for me to be in this other league where it’s [considered] good.
Were you expecting 50,000 people to turn up to your first official gig since 1986? (2)
The only reason I expected it to sell well is that I was on Chris Evans’s radio show [in March] and he asked if I’d play again, and I said I would if anyone wanted to come – and about 10,000 people rang in in the first 10 minutes. That opened avenues and I saw this could be a reality. I was really worried before the show. I was thinking, what the hell is it gonna be like after all these years? I thought the crowd would all disperse and go their own sweet way [during the gig], but they all loved it.
What if Evans hadn’t asked you?
I’d still be producing and making my records. I have my own studio, and I’m making a new album, which will hopefully be out next spring. Maybe we will do more shows. Did I say we’d do a whole tour? (3) It must have been the euphoria. But there’s definitely a plan to do some shows.
Did you really spend a month rehearsing for that single gig?
That’s right, in various forms. I started off on my own, practising in my studio. I ran through the whole set of songs twice a day just to get the feel again. You really have to get yourself back into it. Standing up playing guitar is the hardest thing, because for the last 20 years, I’ve been sitting down in the studio playing, so you have to learn all over again how to stand up and sing and play. Then I went to Richard [Tandy, keyboardist]’s house in Wales and we practised for a week, and then we joined up with the band [the BBC Concert Orchestra]. Once we got that good, that tight, we wanted to play another gig, but my manager said no. We were all fired up and it would’ve been perfect time to do it.
ELO in 1976.
ELO in 1976. Photograph: Andre Csillag/Rex Features
What was the most complicated song to play?
Probably one I’d never played live on stage before, All Around the World. It’s really complex and has intricate insides to it, lots of bits in there that make up the whole. That was the most complex one we did.
Did you consider retrieving the spaceship from 1978’s Out of the Blue tour from the mothballs? (4)
No, it was broken up in a shipyard somewhere in East Anglia, cos it was just hanging around, costing millions to store. It was great – I used to jump offstage every night to watch the ship close. The noise and spectacle of it and the smoke, these great big whining engines – it was really good. It made our classical music feel like a science fiction movie. It was a big show for its time.
You’re known for being one of the most modest people in rock – surely you must be tempted to say “Don’t you know who I am?” occasionally.
I can’t help it – I’m a Brummie and I’ll always be a Brummie. I was just brought up that way – to be normal. I’ve lived in LA for 20 years, and you’d think that would make me a different kind of person, but it hasn’t. I quite enjoy just being a songwriter, singer and producer.
Will it be ruinously expensive to tour, considering that you need an orchestra to do justice to the songs?
We wouldn’t use a 32-piece string section if we toured. You’d use keyboards. You don’t need the big orchestra – it was mainly for the spectacle. It looks great to have them, but musically you don’t need them. We could do it with 10 people at the most.
I have to ask you about Don’t Bring Me Down …
[Laughs] I know what you’re going to ask.
What?
About Bruce? (4) It was supposed to be Grooss! And we had a German engineer who thought it was Gruß, which means “greetings”. I left it in and didn’t think anything more of it, but then we went on tour and everyone was singing “Bruce”. So I joined in and sang Bruce and I’ve sung it ever since. It reminds me of Monty Python. “Grooss” was just to fill a hole in the song. It’s easier to join in than to explain that it’s not Bruce, it’s actually spelled g-r-o-o-s-s … so I sing “Bruce” instead of explaining.
Why do you think that you’ve been critically rehabilitated from guilty pleasure to national treasure?
That’s a good one. I never thought of myself as a guilty pleasure, I thought we just had a great load of pop songs – nice tunes, good words, good melodies. I’d always thought and hoped my music was good – it’s been around long enough and it still has as many legs as it had to start with. I don’t know why this is happening, but it feels great to go out there and have such warmth from an audience. I’d never known that – I’d never experienced the really deep emotional side of it, where people cry. Some of those songs have been around for 40 years, and they’re just going on.
Now that every hipster has a beard, are you glad you’ve hung on to yours?
They’re copying me! I’ve got rid of it a couple of times and I didn’t like it. Without it I look like … me without a beard. I’ve had the beard longer than I’ve had the dark glasses.
Would it be too much of a shock to pop’s system if you cut your hair and got rid of the glasses?
It would be too much of a shock to my system. I like those big hipster beards – they’re comical, but I wouldn’t want one like that because I couldn’t get close to the microphone. A nice little tidy one, I like.
Were Take That suitably awed to be working with you? (5)
I don’t know if I’m supposed to be talking about it, but we did a couple of tracks in my studio. They did vocals on a track I was working on, and it’s coming out. I think they were pleased to be working with me. I like Gary Barlow – he’s a great guy. That’s another reason I ended up playing in England, because Gary asked if I’d close the show at the [Hammersmith] Apollo for Children in Need [in November 2013]. He’d been trying to get me to work with them for a little while, and as he got me that gig at Children in Need, I worked with him. The Apollo gig turned out great, cos that’s how I met Chris Evans, and that’s how the [Hyde Park] show came about.
Are you flattered that younger bands such as Daft Punk sample you?
I’m delighted we’re being heard by the younger generations. Every songwriter’s objective is to be heard by as many people as possible. I’ve been sampled for the last 15 or 20 years, and I’ve been getting used to it. They take an obscure passage to make it into a feature of their song, which is OK as long as they pay for it.
John Lennon once said that ELO are what the Beatles would have sounded like if they’d lasted into the 70s.
Again, it’s like it’s about somebody else. I was thrilled that John would say that. I got to know all the Beatles in the end and worked with all of them separately (6) and together, on Free as a Bird, with John on cassette. So it was a great thing to hear. But it’s hard to say how the Beatles would have evolved. I suppose they might have gone in an ELO way: they’d have had to leave the three-guitars-and-drums thing to expand their sound. That was why we did ELO in the first place – to get away from the three guitars and drums.
Footnotes
(1) ELO’s genius has been acknowledged by the many hip-hop and dance acts who’ve sampled them.
(2) They played a rapturously received show in Hyde Park in September.
(3) He did, at the end of the gig.
(4) For decades, nobody has been sure whether or not he’s singing “Bruce”.
(5) He produced and wrote tracks on their new album.
(6) George Harrison was a member of his superstar side project, the Traveling Wilburys.
The Hyde Park gig will be broadcast on BBC4 on 17 October.
The Interview
Jeff Lynne performs with ELO at Hyde Park in September.
Hi, Jeff. How does it feel to know that ELO are in the cool leagues these days? (1)
It’s amazing. It’s great to be cool – I’ve never, ever been cool, so for people to think it’s cool now is absolutely wonderful. I’ve thought we were cool all along, but I love it to bits to finally get the recognition from the high end of rock’n’roll – the music critics and people like that. It’s a totally unexpected thing for me to be in this other league where it’s [considered] good.
Were you expecting 50,000 people to turn up to your first official gig since 1986? (2)
The only reason I expected it to sell well is that I was on Chris Evans’s radio show [in March] and he asked if I’d play again, and I said I would if anyone wanted to come – and about 10,000 people rang in in the first 10 minutes. That opened avenues and I saw this could be a reality. I was really worried before the show. I was thinking, what the hell is it gonna be like after all these years? I thought the crowd would all disperse and go their own sweet way [during the gig], but they all loved it.
What if Evans hadn’t asked you?
I’d still be producing and making my records. I have my own studio, and I’m making a new album, which will hopefully be out next spring. Maybe we will do more shows. Did I say we’d do a whole tour? (3) It must have been the euphoria. But there’s definitely a plan to do some shows.
Did you really spend a month rehearsing for that single gig?
That’s right, in various forms. I started off on my own, practising in my studio. I ran through the whole set of songs twice a day just to get the feel again. You really have to get yourself back into it. Standing up playing guitar is the hardest thing, because for the last 20 years, I’ve been sitting down in the studio playing, so you have to learn all over again how to stand up and sing and play. Then I went to Richard [Tandy, keyboardist]’s house in Wales and we practised for a week, and then we joined up with the band [the BBC Concert Orchestra]. Once we got that good, that tight, we wanted to play another gig, but my manager said no. We were all fired up and it would’ve been perfect time to do it.
ELO in 1976.
ELO in 1976. Photograph: Andre Csillag/Rex Features
What was the most complicated song to play?
Probably one I’d never played live on stage before, All Around the World. It’s really complex and has intricate insides to it, lots of bits in there that make up the whole. That was the most complex one we did.
Did you consider retrieving the spaceship from 1978’s Out of the Blue tour from the mothballs? (4)
No, it was broken up in a shipyard somewhere in East Anglia, cos it was just hanging around, costing millions to store. It was great – I used to jump offstage every night to watch the ship close. The noise and spectacle of it and the smoke, these great big whining engines – it was really good. It made our classical music feel like a science fiction movie. It was a big show for its time.
You’re known for being one of the most modest people in rock – surely you must be tempted to say “Don’t you know who I am?” occasionally.
I can’t help it – I’m a Brummie and I’ll always be a Brummie. I was just brought up that way – to be normal. I’ve lived in LA for 20 years, and you’d think that would make me a different kind of person, but it hasn’t. I quite enjoy just being a songwriter, singer and producer.
Will it be ruinously expensive to tour, considering that you need an orchestra to do justice to the songs?
We wouldn’t use a 32-piece string section if we toured. You’d use keyboards. You don’t need the big orchestra – it was mainly for the spectacle. It looks great to have them, but musically you don’t need them. We could do it with 10 people at the most.
I have to ask you about Don’t Bring Me Down …
[Laughs] I know what you’re going to ask.
What?
About Bruce? (4) It was supposed to be Grooss! And we had a German engineer who thought it was Gruß, which means “greetings”. I left it in and didn’t think anything more of it, but then we went on tour and everyone was singing “Bruce”. So I joined in and sang Bruce and I’ve sung it ever since. It reminds me of Monty Python. “Grooss” was just to fill a hole in the song. It’s easier to join in than to explain that it’s not Bruce, it’s actually spelled g-r-o-o-s-s … so I sing “Bruce” instead of explaining.
Why do you think that you’ve been critically rehabilitated from guilty pleasure to national treasure?
That’s a good one. I never thought of myself as a guilty pleasure, I thought we just had a great load of pop songs – nice tunes, good words, good melodies. I’d always thought and hoped my music was good – it’s been around long enough and it still has as many legs as it had to start with. I don’t know why this is happening, but it feels great to go out there and have such warmth from an audience. I’d never known that – I’d never experienced the really deep emotional side of it, where people cry. Some of those songs have been around for 40 years, and they’re just going on.
Now that every hipster has a beard, are you glad you’ve hung on to yours?
They’re copying me! I’ve got rid of it a couple of times and I didn’t like it. Without it I look like … me without a beard. I’ve had the beard longer than I’ve had the dark glasses.
Would it be too much of a shock to pop’s system if you cut your hair and got rid of the glasses?
It would be too much of a shock to my system. I like those big hipster beards – they’re comical, but I wouldn’t want one like that because I couldn’t get close to the microphone. A nice little tidy one, I like.
Were Take That suitably awed to be working with you? (5)
I don’t know if I’m supposed to be talking about it, but we did a couple of tracks in my studio. They did vocals on a track I was working on, and it’s coming out. I think they were pleased to be working with me. I like Gary Barlow – he’s a great guy. That’s another reason I ended up playing in England, because Gary asked if I’d close the show at the [Hammersmith] Apollo for Children in Need [in November 2013]. He’d been trying to get me to work with them for a little while, and as he got me that gig at Children in Need, I worked with him. The Apollo gig turned out great, cos that’s how I met Chris Evans, and that’s how the [Hyde Park] show came about.
Are you flattered that younger bands such as Daft Punk sample you?
I’m delighted we’re being heard by the younger generations. Every songwriter’s objective is to be heard by as many people as possible. I’ve been sampled for the last 15 or 20 years, and I’ve been getting used to it. They take an obscure passage to make it into a feature of their song, which is OK as long as they pay for it.
John Lennon once said that ELO are what the Beatles would have sounded like if they’d lasted into the 70s.
Again, it’s like it’s about somebody else. I was thrilled that John would say that. I got to know all the Beatles in the end and worked with all of them separately (6) and together, on Free as a Bird, with John on cassette. So it was a great thing to hear. But it’s hard to say how the Beatles would have evolved. I suppose they might have gone in an ELO way: they’d have had to leave the three-guitars-and-drums thing to expand their sound. That was why we did ELO in the first place – to get away from the three guitars and drums.
Footnotes
(1) ELO’s genius has been acknowledged by the many hip-hop and dance acts who’ve sampled them.
(2) They played a rapturously received show in Hyde Park in September.
(3) He did, at the end of the gig.
(4) For decades, nobody has been sure whether or not he’s singing “Bruce”.
(5) He produced and wrote tracks on their new album.
(6) George Harrison was a member of his superstar side project, the Traveling Wilburys.
The Hyde Park gig will be broadcast on BBC4 on 17 October.
!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
, but we're OK. 
Apparently it's quite hard to see them with the naked eye, you need to be looking through a camera or other type of lens?