Roy Orbison’s son, Alex Orbison, on an upcoming Hologram Tour featuring his deceased dad:
From Mavis to Matilda, Mikey to Martin, here’s the best quotes Sunday Star-Times interviewers extracted in 2017.
‘‘We thought it kinda made sense to do a hologram tour, you know. Not everyone will like the idea, but Roy would have approved, I think. Someone asked him towards the of his life, ‘How would you like to be remembered?’ He said, ‘I just want to be remembered’. So we’re setting up this tour to make sure that happens. It will have a profound effect on the listener, I think. Let’s just say that this will definitely be the first time that an artist posthumously goes out on tour to support a new record.’’
Mark Owen of reformed ‘‘manband’’ Take That, being pelted with teddy bears on stage:
‘‘It was very strange. They would throw hundreds of them up on stage. We used to joke that if music ever turned bad on us, we could open a shop selling teddies. Our fans are a bit older now, of course. We don’t get things thrown on stage nowadays, but back then, it happened all the time. With some people, it was knickers. We never got that many knickers. With us, it was teddies! They used to throw other things, too, like chocolate. We once said we like Toblerones in an interview. Next thing you know, people were launching Toblerones on stage too. If you didn’t get out of the way, a Toblerone could take your eye out.’’
Anika Moa on losing her father the same week she released her album,
‘‘I’d wake up every day and cry – and then put makeup on and turn it on – that’s my job and that’s what I wanted to do. I wanted to take the album out to the world. But it was very, very hard.’’
Foo Fighters’ Nate Mendel on growing old:
‘‘A lot of times, when we get together to play, it’s a little bit of a men’s club therapy session, where we’re talking about potty training, or whose kid is going through puberty or whatever it is. We are like our own little parenting group at this point.’’
Glen Matlock on rejoining the Sex Pistols for a reunion tour:
‘‘That was very strange. The first time around, we’d all be in the back of a transit van with no windows and the wind howling in, driving 200 miles to these tiny little gigs. When we reformed in ’96, we ended up playing at Roskilde festival in Copenhagen in front of 125,000 people, and did a London show for 36,000 people. It was mental! Me, Steve and Paul would travel on one flight and [frontman Johnny Rotten] would fly by himself. When we toured America, John demanded his own separate tour bus. It was ridiculous, and really expensive, too, but at least it meant we all got the whole tour done without p ...... each other off too much and got paid at the end.’’
New Zealand singer/ songwriter Sharon O’Neill, on writing her biggest hit, 1983’s
‘‘We were living in Sydney when I wrote that. We’d get back from a gig late at night and this poor working girl was always there, so I tried to imagine her story. We shot the video in Kings Cross, and the girls we had playing prostitutes looked so convincing, the pimps started to threaten us, like, you’re taking business away from our girls. But we had protection. We were getting changed at the local police station, so screw them, right?’’
Naoko Yamano, guitarist with all-female Japanese pop-punk band, Shonen Knife, a favourite of Nirvana’s Kurt Cobain:
‘‘Many other bands write songs about love, but I’m ashamed to sing about love by myself. Singing about love – this is too private. So I decide to pick up some different topics, and my favourite thing is food, so I write about that. Also, animals. So, now I write many food songs and many animal songs. When we got the offer to tour with Nirvana, we had no idea who they were. I saw their photograph and they look very wild, and I was scared! But once we met, they were very kind gentlemen.’’
Phil Oakey of Sheffield synth-pop band, Human League:
‘‘We loved David Bowie, Roxy Music, Iggy Pop. And we put all that together with our own ideas during a time when synthesisers first became affordable. If synths hadn’t come along when they did so that someone like me could become a pop star, I would have probably ended up in an office or driving a taxi.’’
Former Beatle Paul McCartney on people over-analysing every song he’s written:
‘‘Just the other day I was flicking through a book with a lot of different people writing about Beatles’ lyrics. Bloody hell! It was the most ridiculous thing ever! This guy was writing about Good Day Sunshine, and my lyric says something about the ground burning my feet. And you know what that is, right? It’s when you’re just walking somewhere in summer and the pavement or the sand on the beach is very hot. That’s all I meant! But the guy is going into this deep thing about walking on fire, and how people in ancient cultures would have to prove themselves by walking on hot coals, and so on. It was a hoot! I wanted to ring him up and say, listen mate, save your breath. It’s not about that at all. I just didn’t have my sandals on, that’s all.’’
Jim Reid of Scottish noise-punk band, The Jesus And Mary Chain.
‘‘Our early shows were really extreme, it’s true. They were very short, and often followed by riots. Partly they were so short in those days because we didn’t have much material, but even if we could have played longer, it was better not to. We made such a musically violent noise, doing it for just 15 minutes was statement enough. Any longer would have been cruelty. And if we’d done it for an hour, it would have bored people to death. I mean, people like Bruce Springsteen think it’s a good idea to play for, like, three and a half hours! Even if you loved the guy’s music, that’s ridiculous! Nobody’s good enough to play for that long. Your a... would have gone to sleep after the first hour! A rock show should be short, loud and exciting, and that’s what we try to do ourselves.’’
Soul singer Mavis Staples, now 77, on rejecting a marriage proposal from Bob Dylan:
‘‘I told him we were way too young! He asked my dad first, told him he was in love with me, and Pops said, well, don’t tell me, tell Mavis! So Bobby came out and proposed. I said, ‘No, Bobby! We can’t get married, we’re too young!’ He said, ‘You don’t have to cook. I’ll cook!’ He made all kinds of arguments against my excuses. He was very serious about it all. We had courted and we were in love. I loved Bobby! But I said no. We were teenagers. If he’d waited on me, who knows? If I’d been in my 20s, we might have been married. We’re still in touch. I went out and opened some shows for Bobby, actually, on a sixweek tour last year. I said to him, ‘Oh, it’s so good to see you again’. And he said to me, in that snarly voice of his, ‘Well, if you’d married me all those years ago, we would have seen each other every day’!’’
Grace Jones on
‘‘When I perform it, I’m not driving a car – I slap my a... It’s definitely, you know, a double meaning, but it’s a great double-meaning song.’’
Push Push’s Mikey Havoc on the time he was sentenced to 230 hours community service after reportedly accruing $20,000 in parking fines:
‘‘I don’t get why it was such a big f ...... deal to be honest. That was a s ...... that one. It was the most abuse I have received in my life over anything... everyone was so holier than thou. Everything else I back myself on. Whether I get it right or wrong I back myself. But that was a s ....... There are lots of things I probably would change in my life, but you just move on, and hopefully don’t do it again.’’
Ed Sheeran quickly changed his mind about making a double album:
‘‘I was told by everyone that double albums are just like musical w...-fests, and people don’t actually want to hear 24 songs.’’
Stevie Nicks gushes about Lorde:
‘‘She is a little odd too, and that’s why I like her.’’
Film Actor Bill Nighy on the voice in his head that tells him he’s no good at his job:
‘‘It used to manufacture negative propaganda about myself. I managed to wean myself off it, to a degree, by having small victories against it. And as you get to a certain point, you think ‘I don’t believe you, I am too long in the tooth, and how come all the news is bad?’ And anyway, people’s response to me isn’t like that, and I don’t mean the audience in particular, but friends