INTERVIEW- Madrid, 21th April 1999
[ Page 2 ]
Rick & Adam Wakeman live at Argentina 93.
RW: Absolutely!, anything you ask, yeah!. So I did that, and told the companies, and really liked the idea. And then I went to speak to them, and they said: "How do you see the band?". And I said: "I don't see the band as a one thing, the orchestra as one thing, and the choir as one thing. I see everything as a complete whole thing. So is not the band doing the backing track and an orchestra, I want the orchestra sometimes to play rock things, heavy metal, whatever, I want the band playing a classical thing". And they said: "Well, you don't need to go too far, just do the songs and a bit of the story and orchestra". I said: "No,no, no, you don't understand it!". They said: "That's fine, just do the record now". And I was really worried, if it couldn't be done properly. My two older boys Oliver and Adam both said: "If you can't do it properly, you shouldn't do it". If you can't do as you really want to do it, say no". And literally just about to say "No, I'm not going to do it". It gets quiet complicated, it is complicated actually... I 've got a great friend in America called Nic Caciappo.
YM: He run the YES Information Service, isn't it?.
RW: That's right. He's a great great friend of mine. He is also a great friend of another man called Dwight Dereiter who works for EMI in California, and I told Nic, I can't fight with them, I think I'm not going to do it. He said: "Why?", I said: "They don't understand what I wanted to be, and I can't make any demo, because how can you make any demo of something like that?". So he was going for dinner with Dwight Dereiter, he just mentioned it, and Dwight Dereiter said: "Have you got a copy of the synopsis of what Rick wants to do?". And he said: "No, but I can get one". So he showed it to Dwight Dereiter and he said: "I really like this. The answer for this is through a classical, because they will understand". So he took it to the president in America, he said: "Yeah, I like this. But because Rick is in Europe it has to go through Europe, so then sent it to London, to the head of EMI Classics in London, a man called Richard Lyttelton who has enormous experience with classical, but he's also great experienced with rock, he was the man who signed Queen to EMI. He's so knowledged. He found me and said: "Please come to London, and come to dinner". So I came to dinner not really hopeful, just the opposite. He said: "Question one: Your "Return to The Centre of The Earth" project, have you signed to any label?". I said no. "OK. I want to talk to you about why I think you should be on EMI Classics. Explain to me what you really want to". And I told him, and he said "Fantastic!". And I said: "Do you know I can't play you anyhting, I can't show you now". He said: "Of course you can't, but I understand it. And anything we can give you we will give you". It was just absolutely tremendous!. And it took another month too for the contracts, but I do already start the work because I knew that was right. So I'm very glad that I took my first advice in Arista records who said: "Don't do it now. Wait for the time to be right". And I'm grateful to my two boys who said: "Don't sign the contract. You must wait or don't do it at all". And by listening to this two people's advices I was able to produce exactly, or beyond what I dreamt it to be, because everybody who took part just gave more and more, and more, and I never ever thought that I would ever get the chance to do it. I nearly over 50 this year, and someone told me five years ago: "You know?, when your 50 someone will give you the finance to make the dream". And I would laughter.
YM: Well, you never thought that "Fragile" would reach the top of the charts, and it happened. So life is like that!.
RW: True, true, is very true.
YM: We know you're going to put "Return to The Centre of The Earth" onstage. Is possibly Tenerife - Canary Islands, Spain- the first place to open the Tour?.
RW: Yeah, that's what we're planning, in fact I've got a bag full of faxes from Tenerife. Originally I wanted to try to do it as close as possible to the Teide volcano, but it's going to be difficult.
YM: It could erupt suddenly and it would be very inconvenient!.
RW: Well is a very ecological area, so it's very difficult. The good thing about Tenerife is, and that is my dream for the premier, wherever you are, you have the mount Teide volcano behind you. So is perfect. I love the island very much cause I spent a lot of time, and I've got great friends there -Note: In fact Rick owns a country house in Tenerife, where he tries to get a suntan everytime he can-. Is also that, you know when people do premieres they do premieres in New York or London, or maybe Los Angeles. I think people have lost imagination. "We're gonna do a premiere. OK, London!", you know. And the thing is: How many premieres can you remember now?. I can't remember any because they're all in NY or London. So I look for something different. And I love Tenerife!. And it got everything, it got the volcano, and we're going to film it, my men want to film it, and when we make the film, obviously there will be computer holographics and make the Teide explode...
YM: No more plastic dinosaurs!.
RW: No more plastic dinosaurs. That's the plan. We have to work very fast because the cut off date is June 1st. The problem is that is very expensive, very very expensive, with orchestra, choir, and, you know, we need to talk to Tenerife Symphony Orchestra, because they are fantastic, but first of all we need to get permissions from the Tenerife's government to know if we can do it, there are people working on that now. Is very expensive and it needs sponsorship. Now already we have sponsors, but they're waiting to the CD sales.
YM: But the CD is doing very well, it reached the 34 in the UK charts.
RW: Yeah, but it has just been released everywhere else in the world, one week before I think in Spain.
YM: Yeah, last week. And we can't stop listening the CD every day.
RW: Thank you, that's great. The thing is the sponsors says: "Look, we have the money, we will sponsor the show, but if the CD doesn't sells very well it is crazy for us put on shows, I understand, so we'll wait and see after maybe a month, six weeks, how the CD everywhere is doing. If it's doing OK and well, then we will say OK, we do the concerts. So it's a terrible time for me because I don't know for sure how many concerts or if any concerts until perhaps the beginning of June.
YM: And you have a solo tour now in the UK.
RW:Yeah, we start in a couple of weeks now. It starts for many reasons, one is that ... I want to say my wife thank you for letting me do everything, and also because I finish the tour in June, so it means I have plenty to keep me busy, cause otherwise I'd wonder how the CD is, I want to do the concerts, you know...It keeps me busy. But I desperate want to do the concerts. Everybody who is taking part wants to do the concerts. I'm happy with what I've done, but I think I would feel very miserable if there were no sponsors.
YM: No, it won't happen. I know so.
RW: I hope so.
YM: This is going by itself, I think this is the best thing you've recorded in 20 years!.
RW: Yeah, you know that the great thing with this album is I had the time, is EMI never put any pressure, "Must have it now, must have it now!" : Never. And when I was ill, I couldn't finish it to the time they wanted it, they were fantastic!, and the hospital said: "It will be at least two months till you can work again", so they said: "Then make it three months". You know, they were so good!. And also with the financial side, we wanted Patrick Stewart, and he couldn't come to England and it was going to be very expensive, so they said: "Go to Hollywood and do it". And when you've got that, for example on the mixing, which was very expensive to do because we had lots of special computers software made to help with the mix, we had 96 tracks that incredibly needed computer helps to mix, and it became obvious when we were mixing that we were going to need another two days, and it's very expensive. And I thought: "OK, I can't ask the record company because they' already put enough, so I thought somehow I would put it myself, and I got a call from the company: "I heard that you added two more days", I said "don't worry, I'll pay it", they said "No, no, no, if you need two more days you'll have two more days". I never took advantage of it, but when you have that, and you have all the people who are involved with the album who really want to make it work, you know, you have time to look at every little bit, and Ozzy Osbourne went into the studio three times in Los Angeles, he said: "I want to do it again", and was treated not as a job, or something...
YM: Like sheep.
RW: Yeah, they just really wanted it to work, and for me that was fantastic!. For Patrick Stewart I had booked only for two hours. He stayed for the whole day. Because he wanted to. And when you've got everybody like that..., you know the band, they are very young, Fraser Thorneycroft-Smith -guitar- is 24, Simon Hanson -drums- is 23, and Phil Williams -bass guitar- is 23 I think, very young guys, and I would put them in the studio and they would meant to be working till five, and get back back at ten o'clock and they're still there. "Why are you still here?". Well, we listen to what we did and we wanted to do it again". So all of the time the people just wanted to keep doing it, and that is what made it, to get everybody involved. They really really really wanted it to work. Even the engineers, all of the engineers involved, one classic James Collins and Erik Jordan at CTS studios, they were booked to start every day at 9.30, the were going at 7 o'clock in the morning. Working on things, little problems, just because they just wanted to do it. When you've got that from everybody, in a great encouragement, it makes me work even even even harder. I look to this whole thing and it's taken many years to have the London Symphony Orchestra again to work with, so maybe this is a great opportunity, maybe the last time!, so if I this is gonna be the last time I have to give it everything I've got, so the least I can say : "If this is the last time, then is the best I could ever do it".
YM: You've worked again with the London Symphony Orchestra, 25 years after having some troubles with them because of the recording deals, when you booked them for two concerts for the live recording of "Journey to The Centre of The Earth" on 18th January 1974, and they wanted to get paid for the recording rights of both sessions, even when only one was going to be used. And it took to create the New Symphony Orchestra for the tour. No regrets at all?.
RW: No. thing has changed. First of all, in the orchestra there are only six people left from the original orchestra, is a different one. Is interesting that the London Symphony Orchestra has women in the orchestra, 25 years ago there was no women. Also there is a much greater understanding from rock musicians of the orchestra, and a great understanding from the orchestra to the rock musicians. You now, in the 70's the problem was never with the orchestra, it was with the union people involved, and they were very strict, always people who run the orchestra, now they have a new management, a lot of new people looking after everything, and they were fantastic, and they signed with the choir. And the other interesting thing is that the orchestra now really understand all the music, for example there is a track towards the end, "Floodflames", and the initial music of the beginning is timewise, actually very complicated to read musically, everything is changing, is crazy. When we recorded it in the studio with the band it took a long time to do it, we just kept going wrong, it was ridiculous. We finished, and I wrote it down for the orchestra, and I said to Fraser: "You know Fraser?, this may end up just as a band because I don't think the orchestra will play this, and it took us eight times to get it right". I said, what I will do, I'll try and if it doesn't work I'll do something else. So we went into the studio and it was about the third thing that we recorded, so we put "Floodflames" and I looked to Fraser and also the engineers in the studio who knew that took us eight times to get it right, and they just looked to the top and played first time completely right all the way through. And we just looked to each other, and Fraser said: "Isn't it a bit tricky?", I said: "That's amazing!". The orchestra of 25 years ago could not play this.
"Journey to the Centre of the Earth" Live 1975.
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