Transcript of the interview:
Backstage with Michael Jackson, as close to his private world as you could ever hope to get. People are always asking about the man behind the myth. But in this electric moment is there really any difference?
If you wanna find out more about the real Michael Jackson, you start here at his magical moment to impact and let yourself be part of the illusion.
A high voltage performance wide up to another world. The man they call pop’s peterpan is in full flight.
If there was ever a pure entertainer machine, you’re watching it.
Watching him on stage and the power of his performance, i remember the shy kid i interviewed in New York for Countdown in 1977.
Even back then he’d already come such a long way. The son of a clean driver from industrial America, tripping a life fantastic when his friends were struggling in school plays. The boy who has born to sing knew nothing but the stage. At the time i talked to him he was getting ready to Rock with you.
Ten years and ten’s of million’s of records after, the song remains the same but the singer has become far more illusive.
Waiting in a Tokyo hotel room, i still can’t quite believe that of all the world’s press Michael has agreed to talk to me again. His first major t.v. interview this decade. But you don’t get this deep inside the fortress without conditions. Strict limits on time, even the number of questions
I took Michael back to our interview all those years ago
Molly: You had a lot of it- aspirations at that time, alot of dreams. Would it be fair to say a lot of those dreams over the last ten years, cause it was 1977 the interview have come true for you?
Michael: Most of my dreams seem to come true and i’m so thankful that they do. Uhm… i don’t know over what period of time but i have lot’s of dreams in me they usually come true and i’m so glad.
60.000 fans on a warm september night watch Michael set music alive. Tonight it’s Tokyo. An inkling of things to come when his magical mystery world tour hits Australia in November.
Even if his music is not your style, few can resist the lord of the dance.
Michael: I dance a lot anyway, i’ve always loved to dance. When i was just real little i used to watch eh… Sammy Davis, Fred Astaire and James Brown and just dancing about the house. So i don’t remember not dancing.
Like all superstars, Michael has to deal with the plague of allegations about his private life. Headlines which would paint his as a weird recluse. Rumors about his supposedly mammoth plastic surgery. About his supposed fascination for bizar relics like the elephant man.
How much of it is true? Ask the question and you’ll meet Michael’s manager, sigar smoking Frank Dileo. He joins the interview as Michael friend and [unintelligible] now about those headlines.
Molly: Does it affect you, does it hurt you to see some of the idiotic stories that are written?
Frank Dileo: I’ll answer that question of you don’t mind, ah… it hurst me, and if it hurst me i know it hurts Michael, he is a little more blasé about it than i am, he just sort of shrugs it off. But i find it very terrible that some of the stuff that is written, ah… particularly about plastic surgery, and eh… it’s more the majority of it, not the majority, all of it is garbage and rubbish, and eh… you know if that’s the best thing that the- if that’s the only thing they can figure out to do with their life than you know, they’re pretty sick people.
Avoiding the spotlight offstage for this most wanted star require some extraordinari escape routes. And in talking to us Michael at least confirms one of those myths. That he’s done disguises to slip unseen in the real world.
Michael: I’d like to sneak into theaters without being noticed sometime, uhm… sometime is really nothing you can do about it, it’s the price you have to pay.
Molly: But i have heard sometimes you turn up at the most unexpected places to your friends dressed in- than they don’t eve recognize you.
Michael: I have incredible disguises, eh… i can fool my own mother and… eh… i enjoy doing it because i get to see life the way it really is sometime, which is fun.
But when Michael does step out as himself, it’s an event. While in Tokyo we were lucky enough to catch a rare glims of Michael’s home video, showing a Jackson shopping spree. Together with a few select friends Michael has a huge department store to himself.
When you’re locked inside the four walls of fame and looking out at the clash of fans looking in there is nothing quite as precious as one true friend.
In Michael’s case that friend is Quincy Jones. They met on the filmset of the Wiz.
Quincy Jones: I met Michael at Sammy Davis’s house when he was about twelve. And you just- you know fall in love with Michael at any age. And eh… the Wiz was when we really connected. And he was a scarecrow and he’s pull out bits of paper, quotes with confusions etcetera, all these great philosophers. And one time he says: “Bla, bla, bla bla, bla, signed socrates”, and he kept saying socrates, socrates, socrates, and nobody would correct him and after a while i [unintelligible] to come over to the side and said: “Michael, forgive if you don’t- but it’s Socrates you know!”
And at that moment our eyes met and something happend that… that’s never changed since then.
Quincy jones has produced Michael’s three major solo records, including pop’s biggest selling album of all time Thriller
Molly: We’re you aware of the sales, like did you check upon sales each week and realize that it was doing this?
Michael: Uhm… i pretty much did the album in the setback and watch, cause i- it was another one of my dreams, i knew what it was gonna do what it did.
Selling over 40 million copies, Thriller not only changed the way music was made but also video clipped. But perhaps one of Michael’s greatest influences has been on dance. He took break dancing out of New York’s ghetto’s and made it a passion for his generation.
Molly: Did that amuse you that people were- or did it flatter you that people were trying to do your dance steps and-
Michael: Always love watching that, specially the children. When they wear all the gear and everything and… and imitate me, i think it’s fun. Stunning good taste is fun
He has been called everything from the from the Frank Sinatra to the Fred Astaire of the eighties. The spotlight has made him music’s first billionaire, all that at twentynine.
Frank Dileo: He’s like a laser beam, all the time, always does his homework, i’ve never ever seen him nervous about anything. I call him just before he went on this show, this is his first solo tour ever, i said: “You nervous?”, he said: “No, i can’t wait to get on stage tonight!”
The cliche’s seem to fall away when you watch Michael perform. When he says he’s inspired by things spiritual, you’ll believe him. And when he says that four letter word “Love” you’ll believe that too.
Michael: Yeah, i love children and animals and Quincy and Frank… Quincy. And euh… that’s what’s so wonderful about traveling, i get to see all the cultures and the people and the children, it’s wonderful. It’s my greatest inspiration i would say.
It was that sense of humanity that inspired to sit down with Lionel Ritchie in the summer of ’85 and write this
[clip played of We are the world]
I was lucky enough to be at the recording of We are the World, and even amongst the greatest collection of superstars ever gathered, all eyes were on Michael. The pitch perfect performer who soon to be singing out a dream
Michael: I said i wanted it to be something like an anthem, where it would affect the whole world. You know where everybody could sing it and have such melodic simplicity to it, where it would be s- a five year old child could sing it and like it, that type of thing. And ah… as i remember, waking up from my sleep the next morning, before putting it down really, most of the song was there and ah… i went in the studio and kinda did a demo and presented it and- First Quincy asked me to it with Lionel, you know and ah… i remember calling Quincy telling him i had the tape and ah… and then Lionel put some lyric to it and ehh…i-i-i hate saying who did what- it sounds so-
But just when you thought it was save to call Michael Pop’s good boy, he comes up with this
[clip played of Bad]
The squeaky clean superstar, who takes his rock n roll without the sex and drugs has called his latest album Bad.
In a world where he could have cashed in on his fame overnight, Michael spend six years making Bad sound exceptionally good, i asked him why.
Michael: Oh boy, that’s euh… hard question to answer.
Molly: Well fist of all you write nine of the songs on this album.
Michael: Yeah. uhm… it’s just a series of collecting songs and writing songs eh… in my mind. Over a period of years or whatever and eh… it’s hard to say how one creates music. Because it’s hard for me to take credit, i feel it’s more spiritual and heavenly then, i can’t take credit for it, really
The peterpan figure bath in blue light. Michael Jackson is truly one of modern music’s enigma’s. Some say, he’s a kid who never really grew up. But perhaps, his friend Steven Spielberg had it right when he said: “It’s a nice place Michael comes from, i wish we could all spent some time in his world”
Molly: If a- If you’ve given one wish now, what would you like?
Michael: One wish?
Molly: Yeah, if i was- i was gonna say the fairy godmother but i won’t say that. If i could give you a wish, is there anything you’d wish for?
Michael: There’s so many i have, but one of them, one of the main ones, would be euh… simple as making the whole world happy and world peace, and eh… that is part of the reason i do what i do
Last night 35000 people found out that there’s nothing bad at all about Jackson’s Bad tour. After making a spectacular entrance with his backing singers, it set the crow roaring with an old favorite.
The combination of fancy footwork and a laser and light show, Jackson dazzled his fans in a two hour performance. Despite the big crowd there were no problems at the alcohol free show. Once again there will be strict security to protect Jackson and his fans tonight. Brisbane is the next stop of this so called Bad tour
Transcript Source: SlaveToTheRhythm
Slave To The Rhythm 