June 3, 2005
Interview by Susan Johnson
If you want to catch Richard Elliot, it better be on the run. I caught up with him at a Jazz Attack show in Richmond, Virginia. This saxman is a “rhythmic force of funk and fire.” He's out promoting his upcoming CD, Metro Blue, his debut for the newly launched ARTizen Music Group record label, of which he is a partner with Rick Braun, Steve Chapman (Chapman Management) and Al Evers (A-Train Mgmt). Richard slowed down just long enough for an interview.
SmoothViews (SV): Your new record, Metro Blue, is the first-born of ARTizen Music Group, your record company with partners Rick Braun, Steve Chapman, and Al Evers. Tell me what it was like to cut a record with your own label. How different was it than when you were with GRP or Blue Note?
Richard Elliot (RE): A lot different, actually. This was my 14th (solo) CD, and I can honestly say I felt more… I don't know if pressure is the right word, but definitely there was a new element of motivation in doing this record because there was obviously more at stake. Instead of doing a record for another company, I'm doing it for our company. Of course, my three partners are also my friends, and I don't want to let them down. Being the first release on the label… there's pressure there. But it also gave me an opportunity to work with Rick on the production side which is something that he and I have talked about doing for many years and just never really got around to it. So it was a great opportunity, and we really had an absolutely wonderful time recording together. So it's a lot different, but it's exciting, very exciting. After doing 14 CDs to say that you're really, really excited is a great thing. Very fresh. We're looking forward to getting it out there and trying some different things. You know, it's very easy to be kind of an armchair quarterback when you put your record out and you put everything into it, and then you give it to a record label and say, “Okay, do something with it.” You tend to be a little critical of things even though you may not understand all of the trials and tribulations of what it is to release a record and promote it and market it. Now it's us doing it! So I'm also looking forward to the learning experience… really learning more about that side of the industry.
SV: Everyone has read that you were born in Scotland and grew up in LA. Do you feel that any of the Scotland influences have stayed with you?
RE: Definitely! Both of my parents… well, my father was born in England. My mother was born in Scotland. I have lots of family still in Scotland and lots of family that's Scottish that lives in the States here, so I've been exposed to it my whole life even though I was three years old when I came to the States. So the culture has been around me. In fact, I lost my accent pretty quick being three years old, but I have an older brother and sister who still have a touch of their accent. So it's with me all the time. From time to time I've used those influences in my music, and I still feel my Scottish heritage is very much a part of me.
SV: Your life is pretty full. Besides recording and producing music and touring, you also own an internet company, PacificNet, and are a partner in a record label. Who organizes your busy life and how do you prioritize?
RE: You know I wish I could say I'm really an organized person, but I'm not! I kind of just juggle them and, of course, I've also got a family, and I like to spend as much time as possible with them. It just kind of works out. You know, the big joke to me is if I laid it out on paper and tried to allocate my time in a real scientific fashion I'd probably come to the conclusion that there isn't enough time to do these things. So I kind of just do it and it seems to work out.
SV: Which of these projects bring you the most satisfaction today?
RE: In terms of my musical career, performing has always been the most satisfying part of what I do. I love to perform! I've been asked several times if I had to give up performing or recording, what would it be. I would have to say I'd probably give up recording before I'd give up performing because so much of what I'm capable of doing in the recording studio comes from what I get from an audience. It's really something that started many years ago. I just love the performing aspect. As far as what's exciting, that's still very exciting. But as far as things that are new in my life, the record label is definitely very, very exciting and kind of scary!
SV: How does it feel to be a part of your new label, ARTizen? www.ARTizenmusic.com
RE: Rick is working on his CD right now. It's incredible. Certainly it's interesting for Rick to say, “Hey, I've got a couple new songs that I'm working on. Take a listen and give me your feedback. Give me your input.” And I'm giving it as a friend but also as a record label partner, and it's really neat to sort of be in that area, you know, where I'm able to offer my services as a record company executive, I guess! It's kind of weird actually. People that I've always made fun of… like, “Gosh, why do I have to play this song for the A&R guy at the record company. He doesn't understand this stuff anyway!” Well now I'm one of those guys, and hopefully I do understand it! But it is still an opinion. That's the thing about music… I mean it's such a subjective thing. For a record executive to say “this is wrong and this is right”... that doesn't make any sense. All you can do is give your opinion. I'd like to think I'll be different than the other A&R people. On the side of fairness, I have to say I've also worked with some wonderful A&R guys at record labels. In fact, the last record label I was with, Verve… Bud Harner, who was my A&R guy there, was wonderful but he's a musician. I think that really means something. You have an insight that people may not have if they haven't been there before. He's a great musician. I can't say that every record executive I've ever come across didn't know what they were talking about! They must know something or else they wouldn't have the job. Also, people like Bruce Lundvall of Blue Note Records who's been there for many years. I really learned a lot from him. So are those gems out there, and hopefully I can sort of use some of what I've learned from people like that in this new role.
SV: I understand the ARTizen website is going to have some unique offerings for us. What's up your sleeve?
RE: One of the things that we want to do is really show our listeners and our buyers that we really embrace the new technologies, and we're not scared of it. Unfortunately some of the larger labels were a little scared of it, and I can understand that, especially the whole thing with file sharing. You know, this is what happens with new technologies. They're exciting, they show huge potential for what you can do to now have a much more global audience than you had before, but at the same time there are always going to be people who will abuse these new technologies. I think with the larger labels, the older labels who are used to the whole brick and mortar thing… they saw it as a threat. I mean, they're coming on board now but they're very gun shy. We want to show people that we're not gun shy… things like offering bonus tracks. Pretty much we're going to try to make this a tradition, an ongoing tradition… that every CD we do we do a track that's not on the CD. It's kind of a bonus track and we make that available to people on the ARTizen website and they can download it. They can give it to their friends. They can share it. The idea is… look, we understand. You have copyrighted material and sharing it without permission of the creators is wrong, but kind of to be able to gear things to say, “Here's something you can share. Take advantage of that.” Use it as a way for people to spread the music and say, “Check this out. I got this off this cool website. Go there and check out their music.” We're going to try a lot of different things that are coming down the road, a lot of newer technologies. One of the things we want to put together is actually an educational section. Something that not just myself or Rick, but pretty much every musician out there is really a little bit disillusioned with what is happening with public schools right now in that arts programs are the things that are getting cutting first. It's all about the test scores, and it's very little about enriching the education. So we want to do our part there by offering things like songs that are on the CD… maybe transcriptions of the songs, available and written out on the website and special versions of the songs with maybe the saxophone missing or the bass missing or the guitar missing. Then give people a way to download that and learn to play the songs and sort of use that as an enhancement and a way to kind of attract a younger audience that is looking for things that they might not be getting in the schools now.
SV: Tell us a little about your new CD.
RE: The CD is called Metro Blue, and it is the result of a concept that I had but wasn't quite sure how to approach it, and that's where Rick came in. We sat down the first day, and I said, “Here's the idea I've got. I want something that definitely has R&B influence,” because a lot of my background is playing R&B more so than jazz. “I want it to be kind of an urban feel, but I don't want it to be an American urban feel. I want it almost to be more like a Euro flavor to it. Like definitely an urban environment, but not New York or Detroit, but Milan or Paris or somewhere like that. How do you do that?” It was more of a concept I had, and I wanted it to not be introspective or quiet, but I wanted it to be moody… a little bit melancholy, but at the same time exciting. So, with those ideas in mind I thought Rick was going to think I was crazy, but he didn't. He said, “Okay, let's just get started writing.” We started writing, and we brought in some other writers to collaborate with us… Jeff Lorber, Rex Rideout, Ronnie Garrett, Greg Karukas and Brian Culbertson. We shared this concept with them, and everyone sort of gave us their interpretation of that. The way it came out is interesting. It did come out sounding a little different. For example, a lot of saxophone records that are out there now… you'll generally hear them arranged like a pop song. There's nothing wrong with that… you've got a verse, and you've got a chorus. And the verse is usually the saxophone, and the chorus is 12 saxophones, and it's a great sound. I've used it many times myself, but this time I wanted to go a different route. So every time I felt compelled to… where you would normally put in 12 saxophones to play the chorus, I kept the single saxophone but added a single trumpet or maybe a muted trumpet or a flugelhorn. And what it created was this very… it stepped the song up so it sounds like a chorus but still very personal sounding. And what we ended up getting with that was almost kind of a retro sound. That's not something we were deliberately going for, but that was cool because the arrangements we kept very current, and you had this kind of retro sound over the top. And, of course, in addition to that was the horn section… real horn section stuff… which, of course, when you put two horns together that's what's going to happen. We had a great time with that. Those are some of the ideas we were going for, and we wanted a little bit of a different sound. I think it's really epitomized in the first single, “People Make the World Go Round” which is an old Stylistics' song… one of my favorite Stylistics' songs. And we tried an approach that some would say is that chill kind of thing that's popular, but that has been around for many years. We put that pulse underneath it, but we kept these sort of traditional instruments on the top of it so what you got was this weird melding of that retro sound and this current pulse underneath it. It created a different sound, and that's what we were really going for.
SV: “People Make the World Go Round” is the first single from Metro Blue. It's a beautiful song and is #8 this week and on R&R's most increased plays list. Do you already have your second release picked out?
RE: We're tossing around the next single. In actuality, this wasn't going to be the first single. We were actually leaning towards another song which is a song that Peter White came in and played with me on called “Mystic.” That might be the second single. It is a bit more of a traditional approach to smooth jazz. Nothing wrong with that, but “People Make the World Go Round” definitely had a different sound to it. We thought for better or for worse I think we're going to go with the different sound. At the very least, even if it doesn't get embraced as much as we like by radio it's not going to sound like anything else out there. As it turned out, radio seems to like it. We're very thrilled with that. Of course, it's not something I ever take for granted. You just never know with radio. So consequently I don't record songs for radio. I do what's sincere and really what I'm feeling and then I hope that it works out. I believe in being true. I believe that any time you try to do songs for radio it backfires because it sounds contrived.
SV: Camella is your wife's name, right? Is this a song that you just wrote or has the melody been in your head for awhile?
RE: Yes. It started with Jeff Lorber. [He] wrote a beat for a song, and I listened to it and the chord changes he put together. I loved those chord changes so much I wanted to write a melody, and I wanted it to be for my wife because I knew the kind of feel of the song was something she really liked, so if I could come up with a good enough melody that I would write it for her. The funny part about that is that the kind of interesting thing about writing a song for someone… what if they don't like it. (laughs) Of course, they're always going to be polite… “Oh, I like that song!” So I [knew I] would have to read into the comments… “I really like that.” or “I really like that!” So I had a back-up title just in case I didn't get the reaction I wanted from her. I played it for her first and didn't tell her it was named after her. And I said, “What do you think of this?” and she really responded, and I said, “Yes! Thank you!” It worked out!
SV: You have a great intro to “Metro Blue.” What do you want listeners to feel?
RE: That was the last song that we wrote. We got to the end of the project, and I said, “Well, maybe one of these songs that we're working on that doesn't have a title is going to strike me as ‘Oh, this is the title track.'” That didn't happen with any of those songs, so that's one where Rick and I sat down, and I said, “We have to write the title track.” And at first I was thinking something kind of funky or that same kind of Euro thing but a little aggressive. And I thought to myself, what if we did something the total opposite direction… that Metro Blue was actually going to be something very melancholy and moody and just kind of slow. And moreover let's do some kind of sound-collage that creates some kind of soundscape for people that really sets that tone. Here I am trying to describe to people what it was I was trying to achieve, let's do it for them... or at least my interpretation of it. So we went through some sound libraries, and we got some different sounds that we put together, and we used that to set the stage for the song and then very minimal instrumentation… just the saxophone and a couple of keyboards. Just real moody and hopefully something that people would start seeing pictures in their head. Of course, there's a voice in there… someone talking over a radio but it's in another language, and so you immediately start seeing other places.
SV: How do you decide which guest artist to bring in for a certain song? Is it something you decide when you're writing the song?
RE: Both ways. There's times when I decide that there's someone I want to get involved with the record, or someone that I've been talking about working with, or that artist and myself have said for years, “Oh we've got to do something together.” So I say, “Darn it. I'm going to come up with something that works to have that person on board.” And then on other occasions… the case with “Mystic” and Peter White… we started working on the song, and it was while we were working on the song that I said, “This would be perfect for Peter.” Just hearing the song, I could hear him on it. So in that case it happened that way, but it definitely happens the other way around, too.
SV: In your limited down time, what do you enjoy?
RE: Spending time with my family, my kids and my wife. We like to take trips. We're going up to northeastern Canada when this tour is over. We'll go up there and fish and do wilderness things, hike and stuff. We like to do all kinds of stuff together. Sometimes it's just hanging out at home, playing games and stuff. We have five kids, one is a new baby. He's six months old. It's tough to be out on the road. The way it worked out though… I planned on being home. The baby was born in December and I made sure I was off three months in front and two or three months behind him being born so I could be around. So it doesn't feel quite as bad leaving on tour.
SV: What's next for you after the Jazz Attack tour?
RE: After Jazz Attack… this is going to go on-and-off, even after the bulk of the tour is over we're still going to be doing dates here and there throughout the year. I'm going to go and do some more Grovin' for Grover concerts which I was part of last year which is a tribute to Grover Washington. And I just want to kind of devote a lot more time to the record company when I get back and really concentrate on that and cultivate that. Rick and I are really hoping that we get enough leverage from my CD and then from his CD that we're able to go out and really attract some great artists out there that we'd love to get on board with us… some who are established and others who are new artists. Get some new music in there. I really want to spend time on that.
SV: Anything else you'd like to tell your fans?
RE: They're the reason I'm here. I mean, I'd be sitting at home practicing right now and playing for my kids and my wife… that would be fine to… I do that also. But I never lose sight of the fact that the fans are the reason that I'm able to do this and make a living at it. I'm always very grateful to our fans. I say that every night that we play. I let them know in no uncertain terms that we don't take any of this for granted. Thank you.
Visit Richard's website: www.richardelliot.com
ARTizen Music Group: www.ARTizenmusic.com
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