Gilbert O'Sullivan: Celebrating 60 years in show business

0:00The Pat Kenny show on News Talk. The Pat Kenny show on News Talk.

1:00The Pat Kenny show on News Talk. Oh, it's a real classic masterpiece really, alone again naturally, as performed by Dan Acrawl and Michael Bubley. Now, when it comes to songs of our era that will be remembered well into the future, my next guest has been responsible for so many including that one. He's regarded as one of the most enduring songwriters by artists as diverse as Paul Weller and Seamatt. He celebrates 60 years in the business and 80 years on Earth, so it's great to have men's studio with me. Gilbert is Sullivan. Good morning and welcome.

2:02Good morning, Pat. Nice to be talking to you. 60 years in the business. It sounds like a long time, but I'm sure you feel time flies. I don't reflect that much in stuff. If somebody told me this is your 21st album you're releasing in 20, surely that can't be right. But I mean, it's the key is however, however old you are, if you're doing something that you really enjoy and can't stop doing and don't want to stop doing, that's what gets you through that age barrier because you're not sitting there thinking, I do the age I'm all am I going to do. I know what I want to do. I know what I like to do. You know, my family is good with grandchildren and stuff. That's nice. But on a worth it as a songwriter, I love the craft and I'm there to battle out with anybody. Where did that all come from? I mean, what were you hearing at home growing up? Not much in Ireland. I went to a relic when I was seven. So musically it would have developed in Swindon when I grew up. But did mother or father play music playing in? No, no, no, no.

3:03I mean, in Swindon we had the piano in the house. Okay. But I mean, why would you have a piano wearing glass harmony? And when you struggle with food and money and so it's because parents felt that if their child could play the piano, they could end up in the pub at night. So that was the thought process. But the influences, I mean, listening to the radio. I mean, when I was young we listened to radio in Luxembourg. Absolutely. That was the only place we found pop music. Carol King, I was a radio in September. That's I heard on Luxembourg listening. We had a big radio. So I have to lie in the floor to listen to it. Yeah, so that was there. But I was the only one in the family musically inclined, because one of six. And you didn't go to train as a musician. You went to train as a graphic designer. Well, I did college for, I did four years at art school. I had great time and stuff. The mix between music and art, very close together. It was a great. And were you playing music in art school? Yeah, I was in bands and stuff. You know, everybody wanted to join the band when the Beatles came out. Before the Beatles there was Cliff Richard and the Shalves.

4:03But you didn't feel you could be like them. But when the Beatles came out, they were young. They wrote great songs. No musical background. They couldn't read musics. We identified with that. So we all wanted to be in a band. Can you remember the embarrassing names of your early bands? Well, I knew the first band was the school band. So the doodles. Second band was a youth club band called the prefix. And the third was the big one. Ricks, blues, the Rick Davis and myself. And we could have actually turned professional. We were that good. But the guitarist and the bass player were on apprenticeships. They didn't want to risk Rick and I knew we wanted to be in the business. Rick needed to be in a band. So he joined, a band called the Lonely Ones. We came to a band called the Joint. We became super tramp. Wow. And then I became me. So you were Ray. Yeah. Oh Sullivan. Yeah. And you became Gilbert. Why did you become Gilbert? What was the appeal of that name? The Gilbert of Sullivan link is there. But for me, what I liked about just calling myself Gilbert. I didn't call myself Gilbert of Sullivan.

5:05I just liked the just Gilbert thing. I felt that if you bought the record by somebody called Gilbert, you'd see on the credits underneath the songwriter of Sullivan. So I kind of liked the disparaging little bit going on there. And you know, but it was Gordon Mills who said in the end when he took me on, he said, I'm going to call yourself Gilbert of Sullivan. So. Now the image of your early records and it did change over the over time was of kind of like I was thinking like a newsboy with the peak cap. A bit of peaky blinders influences, which we saw in later years. Where did that image come from? Because it was very telling. Well, to begin with, it's to be different. You know, when I wanted to career in music, the Beatles were the catalyst for how you looked their hairstyle was nobody had seen that before. Colorless jackets, all that stuff. So that was a big image, but it was impossible in 1967 to look different without having long hair and so on. So I created this character based on Charlie Chaplin. I used to hire the Bob Taylor jacket that he wore. I used to hire from the theatrical costumes.

6:08The cap putting based on my haircut, my haircut then was looked upon as freakish, but now early Christmas the main Mary looked like the most contemporary artist going around because the cap and the peaky blinders thing and stuff. So, but you know, so that led to that. I was proud of the image, but everybody turned it down. Every record company, CBS, major minor, they all turned it down. They wanted to work with me, but they just didn't like the image. So how did it get through? Well, because I demanded that they, if you want to make a record with me, you've got to accept the image. And they said, well, OK, I resisted. Yeah, I mean, obviously, if I'd looked like James Taylor, blue jeans, jeans and I would have sold far more money records because if you think about as a college student in 66, 67, walking around with a girl with a cell and I was not going to be the most popular thing you could do. And yet you broke through big time. You've been covered so many, many times by such fantastic artists, everyone from Neil Diamond and the armed and Tom Jones. You mentioned him Gordon Mills also managed.

7:10Yeah, absolutely. And the, the lyrical content of your songs, I mean, you're a poet as much as you are. You are very conscious of the rhythm and the internal rhyming of the lyrics of your song. My very word like, I mean, if you were a singer who needed the gaps to extend your voice, you wouldn't really want to be singing one of my songs. A lot of words in there and stuff. But I know Barry Manard, I wanted to record it when he did an album of 70s music and stuff, but in the end, he didn't do it and it turned out there's so many words that it would he wouldn't be able to to extend his vocal and stuff. But I mean, the process is his is fantastic because you spend all the time sitting on a piano to come up with the melody that you're going to need for the next future record and stuff. And so after a few days of doing it, nothing's coming. But you haven't wasted time, you're practice. So that's good for you. So then you get the melody you like, you really happy melody always comes first.

8:11And it always dictates it will determine what the lyrics would like. So that's that process. Because it's interesting. You were bigger in record sales and popular appeal than Elton John for a period. And yet he always got the lyric from Bernie Topman. And then he put music to it, which is, I imagine a difficult process. And the co-writer Andrew Lloyd Webber doesn't write any lyrics, Tim Reister's all these lyrics and stuff. Elton Bernie does every single lyric, which is fantastic. Elton just does the melody and stuff. But I mean, it's, then you sit down with a notebook to write the lyric and stuff and then you know, very often you don't know where you're going with it, what it will be. That's the love of it because suddenly you develop a story, you develop the lyric you want. And you know, the average song has about three verses in the middle section. Well, you've written five and you're working on the sixth and you're battling with them. Somebody should be tapping on the show and saying, what the hell are you doing six verses for? You're not going to be able to use three of them. That's because you start with nothing and you're not with so much you can resist doing. It's a fascinating process.

9:12But editing, in fact, is a joy really. It's the most disciplined element of the whole thing. Yeah, very much deciding what you discard. Yeah, no, no question. I mean, it's not that you discard. Yeah, it is. It goes into the drawer, doesn't it? It's never wasted. Now, the continuity in the career was interrupted by a couple of things you were involved in litigation with Gordon Mills. And you were quite persistent. I mean, you're not one for turning, I suspect. No, the relationship with Gordon was great in the beginning. He produced my records. Nothing rhymed. Get down. All on me and all that. He was the producer. The mid 70s, 75, 76, Gordon was spending more time in America, particularly with Tom and stuff. But I said to Gordon, 70s, why don't you work like Rod Stewart? Let me work with an American producer. And Gordon said, basically, if I don't produce a record, nobody's going to do it. I said to Gordon, you know, I want you to be my manager still. But please let me work with other producers. It will benefit both of us. He couldn't agree that at all. So that led to the break up. Now, you did crack America. And not many artists at the time did. I mean, you mentioned Tom Engelberg was another one who cracked America.

10:21First Irish singer to have a bit in America, other than Van, I think. So that was interesting. That was interesting. And did you wear your Irishness much on your sleeve? I was always been proud of the fact that I was born here. Even though I left with seven, as a college student, I used to come over a lot. And we're Peter Rhodes, next to our neighbor, who drove because I don't dry. So we go to Colarni and everywhere and stuff. So I love that. When I come back in Ireland, I feel like I'm a... You don't dry. Never driven. Because of my image of where you live now, the Channel Islands would be a birch rack. Going around these coastal roads, enjoying an open top sports car, that's not you. Not me. Now it's my wife and my brother. Kevin, my brother worked with me for years. Yeah, my father never drove. So maybe it's... But I'd be a terrible driver. Because I'm always thinking music. I'd be bullying... I'd be a nightmare. So it's good I don't dry. When you look back on your songs and the min you've been writing, you were 21 albums, and yet there are probably...

11:23There's a clutch of songs that people all know. And I look at my own children and they would sing your songs, even though they were born long after they became hits. So do you have pet songs? Well, the pet songs I have are not ones that weren't successful. For example, yesterday was the 25th anniversary, as you know, of 9-11 and stuff. I wrote a song on an aspect of 9-11, which the horror of the plane hitting the buildings was dominant in the famous. But the other aspect that I picked up on was that people in the airplane knew they were going to die because it was going to crash, which is using the mobile phones to call their loved ones just to say, I love you. So I wrote a song called All They Wondered to Say. I'm really proud of it. When we perform in America, they demand I play it and stuff. I mean, it has a lot of relevance today because it's about 9-11 and stuff. So I'm really proud of that. You still perform. In fact, you're coming to the three arena on Saturday, the 10th of October. And that's part of the tour. Do you get a huge kick out of relating to the audience?

12:25Well, it's not so much. I get an enjoyment out of it. The rapport that you have with an audience. For example, Bill, Bill Channing on myself, have been performing together for the last few years. And the wonderful thing is that we used to get criticism with the band, where people would say, you know, it's the band, we're really good. But a bit loud, we couldn't get to hear the lyrics and stuff. The great thing with the two of us now, Bill and I, it's up close and personal. The intimacy is there. And they get to hear the lyrics that they like and love. If every song was, baby, I love you. I'd be in trouble. So at least there are interesting things that I... There's always a story. There's always a story. I mentioned litigation earlier on you and Gordon falling out. Now, you had a very successful litigation subsequently with a hip hopper. I forgot his name. Yeah, but Marky, he was the biggest rapper at that time before the JZs and all those came along. It is Marky. Now, you had to go with him. Why? Well, because he wanted to use part of a loan again in his recording. They used the intro and looped over that so many times.

13:25And I said, no, but he went ahead and did it anyway. So I had to fight that case to get that stopped. But the great thing was the judge at Marykin, he was a Gungho judge. And he turned around and said, because this was September, maybe he'll come into the Christmas season. He said, if they don't remove... If they don't get this record stopped immediately, I'll have every Warner Brothers record that's scheduled to come out and stopped, prevented. Well, yes, hit the fan. By the time we got back to the office, the lawyer's office, it was all... And the idea was that if anyone sampled stuff from them or from you or from anybody else, they had to pay. They said a president. It's the first time that we'd had that. I had a letter not long ago from a woman who hated me. She says in the letter, she hated that I imposed that because it meant she had to pay if she wanted to. She said, but now, in the second half of the letter, she said, she's really happy that I did it because for some reason she's now in an area where it makes sense and it's good and proper that people get permission to do these things.

14:28How extensive is your tour? It's big. We're doing about 20-30 days. After the arena, we go back to the UK about 20 days. Then in the early spring we go to America, then we have Scandinavian Europe. It'll all tie in with the best promotion for an album pad when you're bringing one out. It's not to release and sit back. Get out there, perform. Meet people like yourself. That's the way to promote your product. Anyway, it's been a long time since you and I were face-to-face, late late show, long time ago. I remember it distinctly because it was a song called So What. Well, it's great seeing you again. We've been around a long time. We've been around a lot. Gilbert O'Sullivan, thank you very much for joining us on the program. The Pat Kenny Show Saturday and Sunday from 10 a.m. on News Talk. Conversation that counts.