Mariah opens up about life, her career
LOS ANGELES — Mariah Carey was unfazed by the chaos that surrounded her inside her secluded Beverly Hills estate, as a production crew worked around her.
The 46-year-old singersongwriter is used to this, having spent a chunk of the past year trailed by cameras for “Mariah’s World,” her over-the-top documentary series that proved the superstar, one of pop’s most successful artists doesn’t take herself too seriously.
But all of the bustle isn’t for a show or a new music video. Instead, the star is doing a day of press for an upcoming tour, a trek she’s squeezing around her ongoing residency in Las Vegas as well as the release of “I Don’t,” her first single in two years.
It’s the first time she’s spoken to reporters since a disastrous technical mishap turned her performance on New Year’s Eve into a viral moment that caused the singer to go on a break from media.
The following is an edited transcript.
Q: There was much controversy with your New Year’s Eve performance. What happened?
A: The whole thing was messed up. If I can’t hear the music, I can’t sing to it. And when there’s no monitor in your ear or if they are not working properly and certainly if the mic is off, I can’t make it work. Someone should have walked me off stage, and they should have cut to commercial. That would have been the appropriate thing to do. But, no, they stood there and let that nonsense happen.
Q: Tabloids have long been obsessed with your personal life, but you rarely say anything. Your new single, “I Don’t,” is a nod to your now-canceled wedding. What made you take a more personal approach?
A: Well, technically I still said nothing.
The thing is, people don’t know who I wrote what songs about. We can retrace the steps for a long time. Some are imagination, and some are about real-life situations. It depends on the album. A lot of the more sad songs or some of the love songs and even the festive ones, the “Honey”-type songs in my little world, that approach happens subliminally.
Q: Is that really your actual wedding dress being torched in the music video?
A: It was a dress from a bridal store. But it wasn’t that dress.
Q: Have you begun work on a new album?
A: I’m taking it song by song. And I have another song with somebody that I’m very excited about but can’t talk about. I can’t pinpoint exactly who it is, but we have collaborated before. I really, really love this song. I feel like people are really focusing on singles these days, and I’ve never had that; it’s always been album, album, album.
But I can’t be out of the studio anymore. I grew up in the studio. I love it. I did my first demo when I was 12 in the studio as a backup singer for someone else, a friend of my mother’s son. I had been on the road, away from it. But it was so refreshing to get back in.
Q: You’re going out on the road with Lionel Richie this summer. That’s quite a left-field pairing.
A: It’s a bit of a surprise, I know. Here’s the thing: He’s a legend. He’s been doing this since before I was born, and I really respect him. It’s interesting because I’m going to have my own set in the middle of his show. I’m going to do like an hour. And I know you’ve got to do the hits, but I want to do some fan favorites, obscure songs that real fans will know.