I saw David Essex singing an aria for Stardust and got goosebumps... I knew I had to do music
PIANIST SACHA PUTTNAM, SON OF PRODUCER LORD DAVID PUTTNAM, CHATS TO MARION McMULLEN ABOUT CELEBRATING HIS DAD’S MOVIES WITH AN ALBUM
What can you tell us about new album Spirit Of Cinema?
I’VE actually been putting this album together for 10 years. This has been a real labour of love because obviously I was recording in England with the best London session musicians I could find.
You remember on Bugsy Malone there was a lovely line they used as a tag which was ‘Every year there is a great movie, every decade there is a great movie musical’ and I feel this is the decade the really great movie album is coming out. It’s great.
There are 12 tracks covering everything from Chariots Of Fire and Local Hero to Midnight Express and The Mission. I’m so proud of them.
What is the story behind the Bee Gees song First Of May that was featured in the 1971 movie Melody?
IT is the story of how my parents (film maker Lord David Puttnam and Patsy) met and fell in love. They met with that song and the film Melody is their story.
They fell in love and married when my mum was 17 and my dad was 20, not even 21. Their parents weren’t best pleased, but luckily they are still happily married and more in love than ever more than 50 years later.
Did you do much acting before turning to music?
AT 13, I made a short film called Sredni Vashtar which won a Bafta. It went out before Omen; The Final Conflict in the cinema in the days when they showed a short film before the main movie.
I had been doing really well with the acting and someone gave me a script for
The Name Of The Rose. It was between myself and Christian Slater and I saw the naked scene and I was so mortified because I was worried about how I would look naked and I told the director ‘I just can’t do this’ and then, of course, you see the scene many years later and you realise there is hardly anything showing (Laughs).
What is your earliest musical memory?
I THINK I was about four or five years old. Mum and Dad had just moved up to London from Southgate and I remember one of their friends coming in going ‘ You haven’t got any curtains” and my Dad going “Yeah, but we’ve got a record player’.
I think I realised from that moment that music was far more important than curtains. And they loved music. Our lives have been soundtracked morning, noon and night. Dad is very self taught. He would get into things like classical music, jazz and all these different areas, so suddenly in the house we weren’t listening to Cat Stevens, we were listening to Mozart. So really I’ve got to thank him for the most wonderful education... and the record player. The record player was so important.
What was a turning point for you?
IT was David Essex singing Dea Sancta in this big, big studio at Wembley and I heard this huge orchestra and chorus and David Essex singing this wonderful aria for th the end of the movie Stardust. I h had goosebumps everywhere and Ij I just knew I had to do this.
It was wonderful. I was very, ve very lucky because I guess it was d daddy day care. I went along to all th these meetings and I got to meet D Dave Edmunds and saw him pu putting together stuff for Stardust an and That’ll Be The Day, and H Howard Blake when he was doing Th The Duellist with director Ridley Sc Scott and meeting Vangelis. That wa was a big moment in my life. Going to Vangelis’s house first of all and th then him inviting me down to Nemo Studios – it just sealed it. I thought these guys are the most fantastic people in the world. Really hard working and they love what they do and are passionate. It was just being around passion, that was it for me. That is infectious.
Do you play any other instruments apart from piano?
(LAUGHS) I do, but less and less well. I started off playing the violin when we were living in America. I play clarinet because my grandfather played clarinet and when he died he left me it to me.
Guitar, of course, and the best thing of all was when I was touring with [rock band] Bush and I got to play bass, which is fantastic. It is the most rock and roll of all the instruments. The only thing is it was so heavy and I was trying to leap around the stage.
What was it like studying at Moscow Conservatoire?
IT was quite lonely, but actually really quite a good experience. I think I hit it just at the right time which was just at Perestroika so Yeltsin had just come in. In fact, I remember one Monday morning when the cannons were going off, I think there was a coup, and I remember calling into the college and they were like ‘No, stay at home. and keep your head down’ but, of course, I couldn’t. I had to go and head out on the streets and see what was going on. Incredible moment.
Spirit Of Cinema is out now along with an accompanying podcast about the tracks. Go to sachaputtnam.com for details.