Diverse Interviews - Seite 2 / english

Britain's David Foster talked with Barry about his life, his work and his future plans (maybe 1987/1988):

 

THE MUSIC

Barry: I think, I've been stereotyped. I think, the problem has been the same type of problem that happens to others when they hit it big in one area. I hit it big in one area, in the romantic lyrical ballads and nothing I could do could get me past that image, no matter what I did. I couldn't seem to get past that image and so I finally stopped trying.

I mean, the fact that I did the Paradise Cafe jazz album and Swing Street had
nothing to do with the image. I just wanted to do it myself and by accident it really started to turn the tables around for me.

D.F.: A theme that keeps coming up is your insecurity as something you have to battle against, never really believing that you were good enough to go on stage, never really believing that you were good looking enough to do that sort of thing, that you were talented enough to go out as a performer, and the other people have believed in you. Do you believe in yourself?

Barry: More and more these days, yeah. But it's a constant battle with me because, you know, I'm thrown into an arena that I have never really felt comfortable in - because I found myself in it sort of by accident.

In the book... you know, I was going for a totally different career which I felt and I do feel very secure in, that of an arranger, composer, conductor, piano player, producer, writer, all that I feel very good in.

But the thing that's been the most successful is the performing self-promotion career that I have and I've never been comfortable with self-promotion and so that I'm the most insecure in that arena.

THE BRITISH PRESS(URE)

Barry: It's so funny, you know, the press over there (in Britain) - it's just so slimy to me. You know, they're so horrible to everybody, but they're so horrible to me and we got there and the press of course, zeroed in on the one part of me that was the most insecure which was like I thought nobody would show up. I always think no one's gonna show up.

So we got to the concerts, you know, and there were like 50 empty seats and the press like went crazy and so, you know, I said, "yeah, I'm a failure. This is just the lowest." And there were only 50 empty seats.

But it's not just me, I mean, I think that it's horrible what you guys have to put up with there. I don't know how you get the news. I think it's really despicable...

I mean, here's your own Royal Family who are nice people, I've met some of them, you know, and you just trash your own people that you should like adore, and you should. These are real nice people. And then you have these talented, talented musical stars there and one after another they just rip them to shreds, it's really horrible. I think that you should be ashamed of yourselves! I do.

All the years I've given the British press... I've tried to be as classy as I possibly can in my life and in my career, you know, and I've always been a gentleman to the press - and I read these things that are just unbelievable - they're just outrageous, they look for sensationalism, they look for the headline. It's really too bad. I really feel sorry for them.

THE CAREER

Barry: I didn't like what I was becoming when this career hit because I was totally unprepared for it. I don't know anybody who is really prepared for the hurricane of success when it hits.

D.F.: And you became unpleasant to be with?

Barry: I was.

D.F.: Difficult for yourself to live with?

Barry: I was. I was a brat.

D.F.: And what was it like?

Barry: Well, it was like being in a wad of cotton, that's what it was like for me. I remember it as a haze. I don't do drugs, I never have, but I would imagine that that's what it sort of feels like, so I didn't really need to because I felt that kind of feeling - it was unreal, it was unpleasant and I was totally out of control.

D.F.: Personally and financially, because twice in your life in your career you suddenly found yourself having to pick yourself up.

Barry: Yeah, bad advice the second time. First time it made sort of sense, you
know. First time, when "Mandy" went number one - like I wrote in the book, I got two phone calls at the same time, one that "Mandy" had just gone number one and the other from the other room from my manager telling me that I was bust, that I couldn't get the band home from L.A.

But that sort of made sense, I mean, now we've been spending so much money on the road and I was trying so hard to put together a show that would knock their socks off and that if "Mandy" did go number one that I would have a great act and I could follow it up, but nobody told me that you don't make money back on your records for years after that, because you got to pay the record company back all the money they spent on making the record.

So it took a while. So that sort of made sense, but the real shock was in, I guess 1980, when I found that I had 11.000 dollars after selling 50 million records. That was a big shock, I tell you that.

... It's been like 12 years. It should have ended years ago. This career, this pop singer career, I mean, like I told you, I was surprised when it happened, the bigger it got the more I felt, well, now how long can this last?, you know. A good run would be five years - but I'm still here!

THE FUTURE

Barry: I'll probably retreat if the audiences retreat. If the audiences are there, I'll probably stay there.

Well, I don't think I'll do it when I'm seventy as produced as this. I think that what I'll do is calm down a little bit; it's a huge production. I mean, I say this now. Who knows, come back in five years and I'll probably still have eight trucks that follow me around but hopefully, I'll be able to calm down and just do a smaller version, a more intimate show, but I don't know.

I have a five year plan. I always have a five year plan in the back of my mind and my goal would be to somehow produce other people, to teach other people what I have been able to learn, to help other performers get where I have gotten. 

That's what I'd like to do. I would feel great. I mean, you saw the band tonight. This is just a wealth of talent on that stage. I would have a great time producing records for a few of them or putting productions together for them. I would love that. Or for others.

THE BOOK

Barry: I loved the writing, I did love the writing. Once again, I was uncomfortable with the subject being me, like I said, I'm very uncomfortable with the self-promotion part of my life, but I loved the process of writing.

I certainly loved the interviewing my friends and writing funny stuff about Bette (Midler) and I really had a great time in the process of writing. I was uncomfortable writing about myself but I loved the writing part.

I enrolled in a correspondence course, a writing course. There's one teacher at the University of California in Berkeley and we're corresponding and she gives me assignments and I send them in but she doesn't know it's me. I just didn't feel it would be fair so I just wanted her to think that I'm just an everyday Joe who wants to take short story writing.