How is the feeling of this tour compared to the ones when you were first starting?
Well, obviously when we started the first 10 years — I mean no rock band expects to last 10 years for a start, not even five years. Maybe if you have a five-year run, you're doing well. At the start of it, our audiences were all our age. That's what the whole record buying-public was in the early seventies. When I think about it, there were so many great bands out there touring at the same time. You could go and see Led Zeppelin and The Who, and many others, all within a week.
So there was an electric feeling about playing rock and roll in that period of history. And, when I say history, I mean that because the tail end of the Beatles breaking up, there was a kind of a lull where everyone went “well, what are we gonna do now? The Beatles are gone.” And then all of a sudden, all these British bands started doing this next invasion. We were one of those bands and we got audiences who were mental. They were crazy because they were digging it so much, but, I think maybe they were smoking a lot of weed or something, but they were enjoying what we were doing.
The way it's changed now is we still have that element of the hardcore music fans coming to our shows. So, the whole thing is kind of morphed into different ways of showing their allegiance to their favorite band. And, it’s our job to hopefully give them some enjoyment for a few hours where they can forget about all that's going on in the world.
I can't even imagine that throughout the years, even you going on all of these tours and then kind of seeing it lead up to the point where you are right now. I know you joined when you were fairly young and just a kid. At what point did it occur to you that this is what you were gonna be doing for the rest of your life? Did you know that you always were gonna be a musician?
Yeah, I did when I was very young. In fact, when I was at school, in Scotland where I'm from in Edinburgh, that's my hometown. When I was at school, my major was art. I was a fairly good painter and I was shit at academic work. I mean, I was useless really, so I had to get an extra tutor for math just to get through that kind of thing. I played guitar since I was 11 or 12 years old. So by the time I got to be 14 or 15, I was being bitten by it. And I was realizing that I was pretty good and there was a good chance that I could do this if I wanted.
And I remember my art teacher was asking everybody in the class what they were gonna do when they left school. And I told him, I was gonna be a professional musician, and he kind of said, “Well, don't be so stupid. Boy, don't be so stupid you gotta get a real job.” And I'm going, “What do you mean a real job? You're an art teacher. Is that a real job?” And he got very kind of uptight, but everybody considered at that point, if you were gonna be a professional musician, you were crazy. I mean, there was no way, because you were next to nothing at succeeding, but that wasn't the point to me. The point was, this is what I love doing. And I was pretty good at it and I thought I've got as good a chance as anybody making it. All I have to do is believe in my talent, go, and travel to where the music is.
Let's talk about your fashion. I know you wear Juliet's [Johnstone] clothes a lot so let's talk about some of your inspirations. When you're getting ready for a tour or you're getting ready for a show, is there something specific that you like to throw on and wear?
I'm kind of superstitious when it comes to clothes. For example, I did a concert back in the 70s somewhere and I was wearing this amazing suit that was kind of a dark floral suit and it was velvet and lined and all this cool stuff, giant flares. I had a bad night on stage. Things went wrong like my amplifier blew up. So at the end of the show, when I got back in the limo, I said to the driver, “Do you want this suit? 'Cause I'm done with it.” And he was like, “Sure, I'll take it.”And I took off my clothes in the back of the limo and I threw them over the front of the limo driver and said, “There you go take it.” And I stomped into the hotel wearing my underwear, my shoes, and my shirt. And, I think I had a bottle of vodka or something. So I must have looked like a creature out of some kind of mad, psychedelic magazine.
As far as what I like to wear, I've always enjoyed wearing whatever the cutting edge fashion is. Back when I was a little kid, when the Beatles first came on the scene, they were wearing these Beatles jackets, which had round collars, so no lapels. All these kids wanted a Beatle jacket and of course, you couldn't get them. My mother was a bit of a seamstress so as a surprise for me, she made me a Beatle jacket with the round collar and that was it. I was walking out, in my hometown of Edinburg on a Saturday night, going to hang out with my friends and I'm wearing a Beatle jacket and they're all going like, “Where did you get that?”
And as far as you know, I think I really may have inspired Juliet myself with a lot of the stuff I used to wear because she's seen some photos of me wearing the most ridiculous things, from some of our past concerts, with Elton and other people. And she's gone, “Dad, do you still have these pants?” They'll still raid my closet for stuff that I may have worn that maybe Yohji Yamamoto did for us, or Gucci, and different people. But right now when we are doing the Farewell Yellow Brick Road Tour with Elton, we have to wear Gucci clothes, because Gucci is sponsoring the whole thing.
You just released your solo album and you had your whole family a part of it. What was it like creating it with all of your kids and family?
It was fantastic. It was actually my youngest kid who was the star of the album. Elliot is the vocalist on almost the whole record. And it was phenomenal because, you know, it was kind of an accident the way it happened because of COVID. I was at home and I wasn't going to be going anywhere for a while. I was in the same boat as everybody else. And so I suddenly thought, well, I'm free now where I can do whatever I want. So I've always enjoyed writing music and composing my stuff. And this time I thought, well, I could write what I want and when I'd written two or three songs, I realized they were sounding good.
I thought, well, maybe I could do a whole album. So I asked Elliot if he would be into singing a couple. And he said, “Well if I like them, I'll sing them.” And I believe he did like the songs enough to sing them. Charlie, the next youngest, is a wonderful recording engineer as well as a great piano player. So I got him to record us, and I got him to play some piano and keyboards. Jesse, my son from another marriage, is a wonderful drummer, and a great musician. So I had him play drums on, God, six or seven of the tracks, I think. My eldest boy, Tam, who lives in the UK, produced two of the instrumental tracks on the record.
It's just amazing to have all these kids getting to work on my project. The thing was, I don't think they would've done it unless they liked what the music was. I remember saying to Elliot "look, if you don't like any of this stuff, you don't have to do it." And so thankfully they all enjoyed the music and they were happy to contribute and they played and sang amazingly. For me, I just had to play all the guitars, bass guitars, and mandolin instruments on the record.
The only guests on the record were Nigel Olsson, who's our drummer with Elton's band, and then my friend Denny Seiwell, who's a great drummer from Paul McCartney and Wings. It was a wonderful tribute to be able to do this and have it turn out so great. I like the record a lot and funny enough, Elton's a fan of the record because when he heard it, he FaceTimed me and he said, “my God, this is gotta be the sweetest thing I've ever heard.” He was so sweet when he called because he asked to speak to Elliot. I gave the phone to Elliot, and he proceeded to tell Elliot what a great singer he thought he was and if he wants to be a star, he's got every possibility of doing it and he'll help him in any way he can. That's such a beautiful thing for a young person to hear, especially from such an established icon as Elton John, you know? So that was wonderful.