Also we have George Michael back, he's got a brand new CD and he's gonna perform a couple of numbers live in our studio. I'm looking forward to that. Coming up, made upbeat with his pop band Wham, George's back in the solo spotlight, performing live in our studio.
Flashbacks in the 1980s: people were dirty dancing, stone-washed jeans were in, and the singer/songwriter by the name of George Michael was climbing the charts.
The year is 1986, fans on both sides of the Atlantic put 'Faith' in George Michael's solo debut. His sexy songs infused with social commentary and pop looks became international success.
Success continued and into the 90s. And his duet with Elton John topped the charts.
But after suffering personal loses and a much publicized into them and the police in 1998 we rarely heard from him. Until now.
It's been 8 years since this artist who has sold more than 80 million records worldwide released an album of original material. And the audiences had been waiting with 'Patience'.
-George Michael, good morning, good to have you here.
-Good morning. I think I need to point out that even though they were a big part of the times I never had stone-washed jeans.
-No, you didn't? Okay, you had lots of other passions since...
-I wore all kinds of jeans, and I had lots of fashion mistakes. But that was not one of them.
-I stand corrected, and I have to say that I did have stone-washed jeans (laughing). People say you are coming back. How do you feel about that term?
-I don't know if I would think of it as of a come-back. I think of it as me kind of coming here to touch base with my old fan-base and really kind of apologize to them for not being around for a while. I mean, whether it or not a come back we'll have to see. But I think it is more from my own personal reasons, anyway, it is more about actually letting people from America know that there are reasons for haven't been here.
-And when you talk about your old fan-base and apologizing saying that's why you haven't being around, but any fears that as an artist, when you'd get back they'd say: 'Thanks George, but we've moved on...'?
-Um, not really. I think America in many ways has musically moved on from what I do. What I do is very much RnB, pop straight down the middle. And American radio seems to be very much Hip Hop, and country and, things are kind of fragmentive now. I even know the times change work everywhere. I'm pretty sure that people who bought my records in 80s, they would pretty much love this [new] record. So, it's not really about that the finding a new kind of fans, or new audience, generation, I am not trying to hook up the new ones. I am trying to re-hook up with the people that I grew up with, you know.
-Let's go through some of the reasons you were gone, alright. Let's get with the arrest right out of the way, okay?
-Aha.
-6 years ago you were arrested for what I think is the term would be a lewd act, in a bathroom in Los-Angeles. And the question I heard more often than any other at the time was 'He's mega star. He can afford privacy. He knows what he has to risk. Why take the chance?'
-Aha. Well, I think it is all there in the question, isn't it? But honestly I don't want to linger on that, I would say, sorry...
-...But what you mean by 'it's all in the question'?
-I'd say yeah, exactly he has privacy, and the whole point. If people don't actually understand the principle of cruising for gay men, but it's nothing to do with necessity. It is something, I think, straight people don't understand. But why to go through all that I would say, at that time I was feeling self-destructive and I'd been through a very hard time for personal reasons for several years. And I think it was a very-very kind of twisted way of getting rid of what was, as far as I was concerned, the last remaining secret of my life, which was the secret with the public. Coz my life is... my life itself I've been out with my friends for the best part of 14 years.
-When you went on CNN and said to that audience '...by the way, I am a homosexual', most of people, I knew, said 'I don't think it's a big surprise' (laughing).
-Really? (laughing)
-You know, I mean, the funny thing is that, actually, I think that the truth is that whether you're gay or straight, as a man... I think a lot of kind of softer elements of who you are in your early 20 are gone by the time when you are 40. And finally enough, I think now that people know that I am gay, I probably appear a less gay than I did at 22. Because I mean, you look at the video, and I am sorry who needed 'Dobie Towels' [printed cartoon T-shirts]...
-You needed a sign, didn't you?... (laughing)
-... You know I got curtain rings [кольца для карниза] in my ears, wearing a day-glow [блеск для тела?], rolling my eyes and I didn't know I was gay, you know. (laughing)
-You were the last one to figure it out.
-Absolutely! (laughing)
-You know, I was 22 years old and people who much older I am quite sure were gay, thinking 'boy, work out', you know, 'get there'. Because I certainly didn't know that at that particular time.
-Well, let me get a little serious for a second, because you were talking about some things you'd gone through your life that I did not know until reading, to prepare to talk to you today.
-Aha.
- ...That you had some really serious loses in your life.
-Yeah, I think something that I really would like to point out on behalf of gay community as well as myself, is that I want people to realize that, they probably remember the point the easiest way to pinpoint [обратить внимание на] this, is Frank Sinatra's open letter to me in the 'Los Angeles Times' in the early 90s, because I had decided that the level of fame I achieved at 24 with 'Faith', 24-25 [years old], that was kind of too much for me. And fame in this country, as a solo artist, is a very, it's a big deal. And that level of fame I was 'number one' at 2 Christmases in a row, it was, I think I walked around in those aviators [sun-glasses] all day, every day, I think I slept in them for years! Because I was so freaked to the amount of attention was being pointed directly at me. So I did make an effort to step back and I said I was going to stop promoting, stop touring, stop really being present for a while. Because I was really quite freaked up. And, so I think people need to remember that I didn't disappear in 1998 with the arrest, I kind of disappeared in 1991 after the big hit single with Elton.
-But I was given with the information that you lost your partner.
-Yes, and in between, on top of those decisions, in between I lost the partner, I lost my mother, I lost my Coocase, [кофр для мотоцикла фирмы Coocase]
(silent laugh)
-...I lost 2 vertebra [позвонок] out of my back. You know, all kind of those things.
-How tough was it getting back into the music and being free as an artist after you've been through all of this? Some artist might say 'you know what, they added to my creativity, it's all stuff that I brought to the process'.
-Yeah, I think I am a much-much better singer/songwriter in 2004 than I was before all that tragedy. To be honest I'd probably rather be a slightly worse than some writers and still have those people around in my life. But, there's no question - misery fits into creativity. I just can do it at the time. And actually my mother's death threw me into a nearly 4-year depression, which in itself stopped me from writing. So there are all kinds of reasons why I have been away, and I only just now really fighting fit again.
-Some in 'People Magazine' said that the album cover demonstrates what the British star should have been and could still wind up being, and if he doesn't stick to his claim it will be the last CD, 'the Elton John of his generation'. You still have something to prove to yourself, do you think, in this business?
-To myself, no. I think, I suppose it would be nice if this album took off, because it would give an impression that the only reason I haven't succeed in America is because I haven't been there.