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Interview Podcast

Free Play Stream Lionel Richie’s latest single
"I Call It Love"

MP3: How does it feel to be back in the game after a few years? Lionel : Well, you know what it is, it doesn't change, this thing called the game. I started out in Motown when you could name all of the staff by first and last name. To the point now where Universal is so large now I can't even imagine where they're getting all these people from. But the company is huge. Radio has been just completely consolidated. It's a new business. And I'm loving learning and playing around with a new business. It's really a lot of fun. Yeah, it must be a totally different ballgame, having to deal with the digital music landscape and all of its nuances. How did we ever in life do a record on a 24-track tape? I don't know. I mean I look at this now and go, you know, why have that big, long machine in the room now? It's so fascinating to the point now where I did half of this record between my hotel room and someone's house, my own house. It's really quite fascinating what you can get away with now. It's the whole...and the quality is there. Do you feel it in any way detracts from the magic of being in a studio and being in that environment for a long period of time? Well you know what it does though. There's only one thing I truly miss, and that is, there's so much control now. In other words, back in the day, the magic was you could take an OK-sy kind of thing that you weren't quite sure of and somewhere around 2 o'clock in the morning everybody's dancing around the room because we found the right bass player. Or we found the right addition to the music. Now you can control the entire song, you can play the bass the way you want it to play. You can play the drums the way you want it to play, because you can program everything. And to some degree that's good, but it makes...I call it radio's ear a little bit because everyone is using the same sounds. Whereas you know, every guitar player has their own different flavor. You knew back in the day, in 15 seconds, before the vocalist came in, that was Earth, Wind and Fire, That's Ohio Players, that's The Rolling Stones, you know. That was just the intro because you know, Keith Richards played that guitar just a little different than anybody else. And now we all have the same sound now, we all have the sound that's accessible to us. And it takes away a little bit of the magic. Yeah, yeah. Actually, now that you mention it, I mean, each individual artist had their sound. Right. I have to ask the question now, did the last record go off? I mean, because, it's that common now. And the joke of it is, probably the same producer that produced the first record produced the second and third records. Well, speaking of modern producers, you definitely called in, well quite a few modern songwriters to... All my guys, yeah. Yeah. I had a choice of doing one of two things. Singing with the singers of today, or finding who are the creators of the singers of today, and working with them. I'm a writer first. And I think to get the integrity of Lionel Richie, I need to start back at the ground floor before the song is written and be a part of the creative process. And just see for a minute in my own sparring how far off that Lionel Richie is from back in the day to now. And of course by working with Jermaine Dupri and these guys, you know, Stargate, Chucky Booker, those guys, it's just amazing that the sparring was this fun. What did you feel that you could teach them from your vast, towering history? I love that. That's another way for saying the oldest guy in the room! No. No, but I'll tell you what it was. There were two questions that stood out in my mind. The first question was, "Guys, what does Lionel Richie sound like in 2006?" That's my question to them. And their question back to me is: "We can get a record of Lionel Richie 2006--how do you keep it on the radio for 30 years?" Yes. OK. And the answer was, melody. OK? It stays on the radio because people can sing along with it, number one, and you say something meaningful. Now with me, all I had to do was to make sure that no matter who I work with, I did not under any circumstances compromise that word called melody, because that's where I made my intro. And the second thing is, for god's sakes, say something that's forever. Say something that's meaningful not just today in 2006, but forever. "Easy Like Sunday Morning" is forever. Yes, it is. "All Night Long" is forever. And when you get down to things like the questions, why? Why can't it be like the way it was the first time we met? That question is a universal question that's forever...you know, that's a universal feeling that will last forever. I just had to make sure that I maintained the integrity of what we were doing as we went through this. And I must tell you, it was a great history lesson on both sides, because they taught me more about my own catalog than I could remember about my catalog. So they were all pretty devoted fans. Yeah, the only two phrases I had to get used to was, you know, I kept waiting for "Yo G" and all I got was Mr. Richie, so I figured that was the first thing I had to get over. And the second thing was, my mom. Can you talk to my mom on the phone Mr. Richie, while we're talking? Just to tell her that I'm working with you. Were you in any way sort of tempted to update your vernacular for modern radio, or did you just stay with who you are? Well, you know what they asked me to do? Every time I kept trying to slip away and do something a little bit off the beaten trail, they kept saying, "Hey man, you got to sing it like you did 'Just To Be Close To You.'" Or, "Can you sing it just like you did when you did the Commodores…can you put 'Owww' in there?" Hey, wait a minute now. I thought I was going to do something new! No, they wanted to hear...it's like Diana Ross, when I wrote "Missing You" for Diana Ross. I am not going to write a song for Diana Ross, and not have her have a talking part in the middle of the song. That's just Diana Ross. So I totally understand it from a writer's point of view. You want the authentic parts that made the career move [for them] a long time ago, you want that to be a part. So naturally they wanted a couple of "Owwws." I couldn't get away from it. So, anyway, we started laughing about it as time went on. It was really a wonderful collaboration. And I mean that sincerely, between the two schools. And I realize now that the two schools were not that far apart. You know what is amazing to me is that you've written some of the most--I mean, forget about sales--you've just written some of the most popular music in the past 30 years. Yeah. Very blessed. Is it strange to you to think that there may be a lot of kids out there that are just discovering you for the first time with "I Call it Love"? Oh, yeah. In fact one of the greatest things that ever happened was, at the record company, they said, "We're going to send it out with no name." And I said, perfect. I didn't think they were going to try that. But that was a Lionel Richie trick from way back because I love it when you say, here's "Three Times a Lady." It was a smash. Well it's a smash record but it doesn't fit where we are today, I mean, 'cause disco was out. But then all of a sudden [they said], "But is it a hit record?" Oh, no it's a hit record, and all of sudden you say, it's the Commodores. It's the Commodores. But they were a funk band. But all of a sudden you just told me it's a hit record. Can't go back. And also when I put out "All Night Long." Oh, my God, who is this? I mean, this has got to be amazing. You know, they name off every kind of new Rolling Stone group out there that could have done it, no, that's Lionel Richie on Motown Records. What? But Lionel Richie's a balladeer. I mean they want to put you in that hole. So when they said we're going to put "I Call it Love" out and not put a name on it, just put it out. And of course the people came back [saying], "Oh, my God, what a great record! Who is it?" It's Lionel Richie. That to me is when you, you keep moving forward. You play, you play with people, you play with the whole concept. If I left the name off and just played the record, whoa. And that's what we were trying to achieve with Dallas and the guys...let's just go for a great record and let the name shock value come later instead of saying we got a record by Lionel Richie. That's putting too much pressure on the legendary part of it. Is that why you went with the title Coming Home for the album? Yeah, oh yeah. Coming Home represents two things for me. Number one, finally after long last, when I started out in the business, pop was pop and R&B was secondary. Now R&B is pop. What an amazing transformation. The second thing is, I get to do something that I did when I first started out in the business, I get to go back home to R&B and go back home to the roots of what I do. I'm more comfortable here than any place else on the planet. The second thing is, I spent the last five years outside of America. I am still selling out Wembley Arenas and places all around the world. But coming back home to America is amazingly special. At the same time, I use that word "home" in a wonderful state of mind. Because now I've been traveling so much, after 30 years of traveling, 35 years of traveling, you know, when I get to London, they say, "Welcome home." And now when I go to Paris, it's "Welcome home." I just got back from Dubai, it's "Welcome home." Germany, "Welcome home." So Lionel Richie has become actually a citizen of the community. You are a global citizen. I am a global citizen. So this coming home to people in America--they haven't seen me in quite some time--this is a homecoming for me. At the same time, everywhere else in the world, coming home is the favorite son that was never born in Germany but lived there all of his life. So it's really...I kind of put a double meaning in there just to kind of wake everybody up to the fact that this has been an amazing journey and I'm like the favorite son of the planet at this point. I feel like a 90-year-old guy walking around here but it really is amazing. I heard a rumor about this album that the executive producer is L.A. Reid. Is that correct? Oh, yeah. Oh, believe it. Is it not true that you gave him his start in the '80s? You did some real digging and homework, but that's correct. Years and years, about '82, I got a phone call from a young upstart duo, L.A. Reid and Babyface, living in Atlanta, Georgia. "Could you come up, the next time you're in Atlanta, could you stop by the house? We'd like to talk to you about your advice on how to get us in the business. We want to get into the business and tell us what you think."

They had a couple of hit records and they were just thinking about crossing over and branching out and da-da-da. He is now chairman of the board of my record company. That's what I call a success story. I'm loving it. That is definitely the American dream in action. Well, the wonderful part about it is we've been crossing each other's paths for the longest time. Even, to Nicole…to Nicole, that's not L.A. Reid, that's Uncle L.A. So, she's grown up in a house full of the most talented people in the world, walking through the hallways of Dad's house. But you know, the idea that this could happen to, not just me, but to L.A. and Babyface. You know. We're all in New York and L.A. now and still Atlanta. We still go back home to our roots but it's so amazing how far we've come since those days of...I mean I was retiring when I met them. I was thinking of retiring as a Commodore. How do you like that? Did you, back then when you were thinking of retiring from the Commodores, did you ever consider not doing solo material? Let me tell you something, we were so huge, you know this is the Commodores, man. Remember now, we were the black Beatles. If you talked to the Commodores, we were the black Beatles, man, forget about Earth, Wind and Fire and the rest of them. We were so, there's something bigger than this? Can't be.

Now--we'd been traveling around the world. We just finished a Brick House tour. There's a Brick House contest in every country in the world. So all of a sudden this guy Kenny Rogers calls me on the phone and changes my life yet again. And then I thought, OK, then I'll just kind of retire as maybe a Commodore...I'll write on the side.

And then came along "Endless Love." And then from that, the light bulb went on with Motown, "It's time for Lionel Richie to do a solo record." Now they didn't say, "Go solo." They just said, "Do a solo record." It was from that record truly that, oh my God, it was pretty amazing. I have to tell you even now, and I tell people every day. They just say, "Well, why did you stop?" I said, I had to bail out. That rocket was going so fast regardless of whatever else you think was happening. You know, in this day and age, they consider superstars, you know, how many times they saw you in People magazine or, "I saw you in Us magazine, or I saw you on Hard Copy, or Access Hollywood or..." you know.

Back in the day, they only judged you on two areas, how many records did you sell and how many nights did you play at Madison Square Garden? Was it one or four nights? And I was booked in both. We were throwing records out the door sideways and forget about sold out. Sold out was just done. How many nights did you do consecutively? We would do three to five at Madison Square. I think it was three to five. Wembley was two to three. We now do four. I'm now doing more Wembley now without the record than I did when I was smokin' with the number one record. I do Wembley now more nights now than I did back then. Yeah, did you ever think you would eclipse the success of the Commodores? Well, see let me explain something to you. You have to understand something. I was the shyest guy in the band. So as far as being the reluctant guy out front, yeah, OK, give me the girls, I'm ready to go, baby. That was not me, OK? I'll tell you a great Commodores story and then you'll understand who I am inside.

We were on stage one night and the Commodores kept saying to me every night, "Bend over and kiss a girl." And my reaction was, I'd turn around to them and go, but I don't know her. And they said, "Richie, we don't care if you don't know her. She knows you. Bend over and kiss her." So now one night, I got really brave. I bent over and kissed the girl. The entire 22,000 audience theater screamed.

The next problem the Commodores had was I did less singing and more kissing. They said, "Would you just hit the melody every once in a while?" So thank God for the Commodores because you never would've had the Lionel Richie that you have today only because I had a chance to practice. I think that's probably what most of the kids are missing now when they're growing up--there's no practice time now. They have to be superstars this afternoon at 4 o'clock. They do 12 weeks of American Idol and they've got to be a superstar. That's impossible. How do you feel about that particular program? I think it's the best amateur entertainment on television. You know, it's like the best amateur can get. Now you want to jump over here to the thing called professional? Let me put the winner of American Idol on the stage with...let's not take a new person. Let's take an old person. I'll put them on stage with James Brown. OK? Right now, just toe-to-toe, and they can pick any song they want to compete, and James Brown will sing his song. And you'll see the difference in just the stage posture. Do you think in a way American Idol is lowering the public's expectations for performers? Oh, yeah. We have now learned how to celebrate mediocrity. It's wonderful if you don't know the difference, in other words. What did Nicole say to me? When I told her, I said, God, you know, they're giving away the music. She said, "Well, that's the old-fashioned way, Dad, to buy it." But this is the generation she grew up in. She didn't grow up with the other way. She only knows it this way. So for me to be sitting up here in the corner talking about talent and careers, they're not into...they're into hit records. They're not into careers. We were into careers. And so, consequently, today, 25, 30 years later, you can still go see Earth, Wind and Fire play. And the Rolling Stones have been retiring since '83. Yeah, they're been retiring since the time I was 7 years old. Yeah, and the reason they don't retire is because the people keep asking them to come back, you know. I mean Lionel Richie is selling more seats now in places around the world. We did 530,000 people in Budapest. I'm sorry, you said 530,000 people? 530,000 people in the middle of downtown Budapest, OK? Now let me tell you something. That was ridiculous. Even I have to say it. Even I have to say it. I mean, I'm sure that when Mick Jagger, when they pulled back and looked at that million people in Rio, Brazil? I think it was in Brazil, yes. Yeah, I'm sure he had to even stop and go, "What the hell is this?" But there are just moments in your career where you just have to think, what happened? But it's growing. If it's done correctly, it doesn't die. Frank Sinatra didn't die away. He just kept singing. Only when Frank stopped singing did the music stop in terms of his true popularity, because you won't see him on television anymore. But the music is forever. You said that the American public has sort of come to expect mediocrity in entertainment? In other words, they don't know any different. Let me say this to you: Very few people have what's called that "star presence" and that's the difference. You follow me? Yeah. Like I said to you, I can take the winner of any show and don't even sing, just put James Brown on stage next to the winner. The way James stands on stage is star. Do you follow me? Yeah. Beyonce looks like a star. That's star power there. That's no playing around. And I'm not talking about the dentist's daughter who can say, "I can sing." I'm not talking about that. Do you fear that your abilities could be lost on a generation that's raised on crap? No, no, no. I just left the future of our business, and let me tell you something, they are firmly aware of everything. They're just making it work for this time. But let me tell you something--Jermaine Dupri, Dallas Austin, Sean Garrett, Stargate, those guys, just the ones that I work with, I can even go one step further...Dr. Dre. If it comes down to a point where it's time for them to make the turn, they can make the turn. It's just that everything comes in their own time. Do you follow me? Yeah. We're just into this period. But this is Lionel Richie, the songwriter, telling you I just finished a record where the first thing I told them, "There's only one word I want to keep in focus, melody. If you can plug melody into everything else we do, you got Lionel Richie." And they did it. I'm not talking about just did it; they did it well. So, everything comes in a circle. It's coming back around. Trust me. So you're predicting a turn back to the days of yore when the Motowns were starting up? How about, you mean to tell me you have R&B singers that can't sing, that are not allowed to sing. You can rap. Oh, but where's the singers? There's only a couple. There's Mary J. Blige. There's a couple of them. There's Beyonce. Come on. I named you two. There's Alicia Keyes. I'm at three and stuttering. There used to be a whole industry of people. That's my lesson for the day. Yeah, it certainly is. But you see how it is though, don't you? It's as it should be. Things go in a circle. You know when I was growing up, I remember the first time Henry Mancini and them looked at me in the audience when I went to the Grammys for the first time. And he saw me walk down the aisle with that big Afro on my head and they said, "There goes the downfall of the business."

And P Funk, let me just give you a couple of names. There was a reason why they didn't let the new generation on the air. They gave us the awards before the show started. You know what I'm saying? Because we didn't pass the etiquette test, because there goes the downfall of music. And there's a reason why the Rolling Stones and Elvis Presley never got a Grammy, because there goes the downfall of the music. Do you know what I'm saying? Yeah. Well, here we are again. If you ever find yourself saying, "There [goes] the music," you're just old. You're just old. The point is that every generation's going to bring their shock value to the table. And, of course, they all end up back around to one great thing. They fall in love and use the words "I love you" and the other words are "let's go party." I don't care how hip you got. I don't care whether it's grunge or acid rock, punk rock...sooner or later, you're going to fall in love with somebody and say "I love you" and you're back to Lionel Richie again. Well, it sounds like you're going to have a lot to party about and a lot of people are going to have something to love on September 12th. Oh, please, I am so excited. In fact, they have to stop me from walking outside my gate every morning and saying, "This may be a reason for me to leave home and stay in America." I love it. Well, I sincerely appreciate you taking the time out to talk to me today. Pleasure, I must tell you. And I look forward to bumping into you out there back stage somewhere. Probably at the VMAs. You know what? You got it. All right. OK. Make eye contact 'cause I can't recognize you now. So you've got to come over to me and tell me. I certainly will. OK. And thank you for all the fantastic music over the years. Ah, you're kidding me. I'm enjoying it. As long as it keeps going like this, I'm enjoying it.