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On the inside
an interview with Don Henley called The End of Nature and it is chock full of valuable and fascinating information. Another of my favorite authors is Wallace Stegner. The list just goes on and on. I’ll never read all the books I want to read in my lifetime, which is a thought that disturbs me. I’ll never read all of the books that I own in my lifetime! [laughs] CM: What do you do when you get bogged down? How do you get going again? DH: I find that a good night’s sleep always makes the world a better place. The way I keep going these days is by strenuous physical exercise on pretty much a daily basis. I lift weights, I do aerobics, I have a stationary bike I ride for half an hour at least three or four days a week until I work up a good lather! These things help to clear my head because I do get overwhelmed almost daily. My life is busier and more complex than it has ever been. I’ve learned how to write, however, in the midst of chaos. I have to get my mind into a state of reception, so to speak, so that my subconscious can bubble up and so that the words and the melodies can come. I’m not sure where they come from, but there is a certain state that I go into and it is a natural state, I hasten to add. It is not fueled these days by stimulants of any kind! I also love gardening — tomato plants and peppers! If I can just get my tomatoes and chili peppers in the ground in the Spring, then I’m okay! It is something my daddy taught me and it has become invaluable to me and I want to teach my kids the same thing. CM: How do you find enough hours to do everything, from fatherhood to music to the environment? DH: I generally work from eight o’clock in the morning to 1 o’clock in the morning. I sleep an average of six hours a night. I have a lot of good people around me. There is only so much they can do. I have to make a lot of the decisions. But I do it, and I guess I enjoy it [laughs] or I wouldn’t keep doing it. CM: Do you see yourself retiring from music? DH: I think so. From the business part of it, I don’t know if I’ll ever stop making music, but I do get weary of fighting the battles that have to be fought in business every day. The battles for fairness, the battles for proper treatment — the Internet is making all of that much more difficult now. Another reason that I would consider retiring is to get out of the limelight and to try to regain some sense of privacy. I value my privacy, particularly now that I have a wife and children. I’m very protective of them. The media in this country is out of control. Not particularly the legitimate media, but there is a trash media in this country comprised of bottom feeders and people who have no conscience or respect for anything or anybody, and those are the people that I want to get away from. Although I don’t have as many problems with those people as do some of my peers [laughs] in the movie profession, for example. CM: Is there anyone in the music world you would like to collaborate with? DH: I would like to collaborate with Mark Knopfler. I’d like to collaborate with Randy Newman in terms of songwriting. I have collaborated with him in the form of singing background vocals on his records and he has collaborated with me by playing piano and arranging the orchestra on some of my records, including this new one. He arranged and conducted the arrangement on the song Annabelle. But I would like to try to write with him some day. Paul Simon is someone whose songwriting I greatly admire. It would be nice to collaborate with him. CM: You mentioned in an interview that “today’s musical climate seems to fluctuate between bubble gum and unintelligible ranting.” Are there any current acts that you feel have earned the title “musician” or that will be long-lasting, like the Eagles? DH: [laughs] It’s hard to tell these days what is going to last. These days, one album is a career for a lot of these kids. I can’t think of anything that strikes me in that way. I haven’t heard a lot of new stuff that really knocks me out. I really enjoyed the song The Way by Austin group Fastball, but I haven’t heard anything from them since then, so I don’t know what they are doing. There are a couple of other groups that I think are somewhat interesting like Collective Soul and the New Radicals. I enjoy Beck on occasion. She’s not brand-new, but I think Sarah Mclachlan is one of the best names to come down in a long time. I have great respect for her work. CM: Do you have desires to venture into other genres of music, say jazz or classical? DH: Perhaps. I listen to classical music quite often, both at home and in the car. I have some ideas about doing, not necessarily jazz, but an album of what might be referred to as standards, although these would be new standards. The old standards have been done to death. |
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