Words » In Tune

David Foster face to face

I always get calls for offbeat gigs. Like the other day, I pick up the phone, and my friend Fisher asks me,

"Do you want to go to Los Angeles to do an interview for a cartoon?"
"Gee, I dunno. When is it?"
"Day after tomorrow."
"Just like that?"
"Yup. Fly there, fly back. Two days. All the food you can eat. King size bed."

It sounds like one long sore flight, and too little many bottles of Smirnoff.

"I don't know... Who am I supposed to interview?"
"Some music guy."
"Who?"
"David Foster."
"I'll be there."

I mean how many times do you get to meet the world's most famous music producer? His productions have held the Billboard number one spot for an incredible 25% of the time. That's as unbelievable as George Martin streak with the Beatles. Foster was responsible for such mega hits as Whitney Houston's "I will Always Love You," Celine Dion's "Power of Love," All 4 One's "I Swear." He has a mere14 Grammy Awards, has been nominated 41 times, and he's worked with everyone from Chuck Berry, Barbara Streisand, Rod Stewart, Madonna, Chicago, Earth Wind and Fire, Paul McCartney, Kenny G, Michael Jackson, Brandy, En Vogue, Bette Midler, and on and on and on. On the pop music ladder, Foster has a pretty good view from where he's standing.

To top it off, I find out that he's being paired up with his writing partner, Carole Bayer Sager, who wrote such huge hits as "That's What Friends Are For," "Arthur's Theme," and "Nobody Does It Better." The first song she ever wrote (at the age of seventeen) was "A Groovy Kind of Love." Together they wrote the original music for Warner Brother's first animated feature, "The Magic Sword, Quest For Camelot," featuring Celine Dion, Bryan White, Andrea Bocelli, Steve Perry, LeAnn Rimes, and the Corrs.

One long flight, fifty back issues of Golf magazine, and a dozen small bottles of Smirnoff later, I arrive at Tom Bradley International Terminal, put on my sunglasses, and head for Warner Brothers. A live interview with a musical god.

Two hours later, I sit down at a piano with them. Just like something out of Casablanca, me at the piano, about to say, "Play it again, Sam," except Sam happens to be the most famous producer of the past two decades, and I'm not wearing a long dress and gloves. I knew I should have packed better. The only thing missing is a roomful of smoke, and Humphrey Bogart. The set definitely has character. It's near the end of the day for these two, and I know they're thinking, "God, I hope this guy from Taiwan doesn't ask me the same stupid movie questions again."

The crew hooks slips a mike on me, I take off my sunglasses, and we're live.

David Foster: Please! Tell me you aren't going to ask about working with a dragon.
CW: Well actually, I have to. Warner’s sent me here to talk about the movie. I'll try discussing other things as well, but I have to ask about that dragon. Ok?
D: Laughs, of course. (starts playing the piano)
Carole Bayer Sager: Of course you have to.
D: Gee, China.
C: Some great music coming out of Asia.
CW: Actually, you know....
Director: Be sure to sit back. We're rolling.
CW: I'll ask you these questions while we do the interview. You aren't tired out by all these questions are you?
D: Not at all.
C: We're fine.
D: 'Cause you're gonna go places nobody else has gone, aren't you? You're not going to say, "What's it like to write for an animated feature?" You're not going to say that are you?
CW: No, I'm not going to say that, but I'll have to say something in that vain. I'll ask you more involved things. The show this'll be on will be watched by a lot of families.
C: Great!
D: (Plays a definite chord on the piano)
CW: Well I guess that we're on.
D: All right. You should've brought your sax.
CW: I should have!
D: C'mon!
CW: I should have brought it. I could go home and say that I jammed with David Foster and Carole.
You know, I saw the movie. Saw it in Taiwan, I saw it here, and I thought...
D: Wait a sec. You saw it in Taiwan, and you saw it here?
CW: Yeah. Better sound system here. As I watched it, I was actually listening to it. It's interesting because first it's an animated feature, and when you do something like this, you have to match the song to the character. Now how do you go about finding a voice? I mean how does that work out? As producers you work with real people in the studio, but with a cartoon it seems so much different.
C: Yeah, but we heard the actor's voice, so we knew what we had to match. Then we narrowed it down. The only one who we cast first was Andrea Corr, the singing voice of Kayley, and they actually matched the acting voice to Andrea. Every other instance we matched the singing voice to the actor, except with our villain, Gary Goldman...
CW: A great villain.
C: ...Who sings and acts, and with our dragons. It was much more important that they act their songs and get into them than try to match their voices with singers. It was more that they have the spirit.
CW: The people you have worked with, it's a who's who of the music world. But this must be the first time you've worked with a two-headed dragon.
C: First time, and maybe the last!
D: It was fun though, and you know Don [Rickles] wanted to sing, and Eric Idle is a singer. We had a lot of fun.
C: Actually I read a review I guess this week that said they loved the dragons so much they could see them spinning them off into a TV series.
D: Oh my god!
C: I mean wouldn't that be funny if Don Rickles and Eric have to work together forever.
CW: I could just see them in the studio recording this.
C: They had fun.
D: I brought Brian Adams to the studio when they were doing this, and Don Rickles, he didn't know who Brian was, he went up one side and down the other cuz Brian had his little T-shirt on and jeans. He says, "You tell me this is a rock star? Christ, you got two nickels you can rub together? What's wrong with you kid, why don't you dress better?" He really went off on him.
CW: Working in the music industry as you have for so many years, when you find a song, or get the idea, or someone gives you a song, what is that spark that tells you that this is something you're are interested in?
D: Well in the case of the animated feature, these folks behind us here (points to the movie poster) became the co-writers, so they were the spark for all the songs in Quest For Camelot.
If we're just writing a song, and you know, you're a musician, if you're just sitting down to write, you have a complete white page. A blank page. But with the animated feature, we had all this to work with (looks at the poster again), so we knew these two were gonna fall in love [Kayley and Garrett], we knew these guys [the two-headed dragon] didn't really get along but they ended up getting along. You know, it's just things that helped us along the way.
CW: As a songwriter, you have a lot of themes to work with.
C: Yes, a lot of themes.
CW: You know, in music there's so much emotion happening, because that's our language, emotion. This program will be aired on a family show. A lot of parents will be seeing it, a lot of kids will be seeing it. I feel in a movie like this the themes are so strong there, but when the song comes out, everything just soars.
CW: That's wonderful. Well songs that come for me and for David, we found the places in the story where the emotion was so strong that it said, "Ok, now you can sing." Otherwise it would feel wrong, so given that, they just take it one step above speaking into music, and you know when you have a hero that's blind it already opens up so many images of what you can say about his life. I mean he's a hermit and he's living in a forest...
D: And he's not part of civilization as we know it. He wants to be by himself, and so Carole came up with the great title of "I Stand Alone" and it really just fits this character.
C: But on the one hand "I Stand Alone," you know, he's saying it, but the challenge was for the animators and the artists and for us, to as he says it make you know that he really doesn't want to be alone.
CW: You have to catch that feeling that he's a little bit lonely.
C: That he's a little lonely, even though he says it, he still takes Kayley with him, and when he says it again towards the end of the movie, when she says, "Oh Garrett, Camelot! It's so beautiful! C'mon," and he goes, "No no no, you go in there. It's not for me. It's not my world. In Camelot you'll just see me like a blind person, not a knight, not anything," and then David did the same song that was done spiritedly in the beginning...
D: Good word!
C: Spiritedly!
D: And we sat down and did it as a ballad.
C: And suddenly you feel the pain of what "I Stand Alone" was.
D: (Begins to play and sing) "Like every tree, stands on it's own. Reaching for the sky, I stand alone. I share my world with no one else, all by myself, I stand alone. All by myself, I stand alone."
CW: Nice.
D: I like that melody and I love those lyrics.
C: And when he sings it slow like that, you suddenly get that the last thing he wants to be is alone, so I think children get that too. They understand it. They just feel it. They don't have to understand it. They just have to feel it emotionally.
CW: I love ballads. They're so real.
D: Without ballads I'd have no life! (laughs) And as a sax player you wouldn't either!
CW: Ballads are like an international language. The Chinese language, Mandarin, has such a melodic quality. I know you've worked over there. You've been over there.
D: Sure. Sally Yeh I love. She's a Mandarin artist that I've worked with, and a couple others too.
C: It's very melodic.
CW: Yeah, the language is very melodic. It really fits ballads. And as ballad writers, can I say that? Ballad writers?
C: Sure, you can say that.
D: Yes, and you can include yourself in that.
CW: I mean David, you're the most awesome ballad writer, and Carole your lyrics from such songs as "That's What Friends Are For."
D: That's like only the greatest song on the planet.
CW: That's it you know.
C: That's great. Thank you.
CW: Everyone can sing that song. You know Taiwan is a singing culture. We all know that song there.
C: And do they sing it in Taiwanese?
CW: No they sing it in English.
C: Oh they do?
CW: Because of the meaning, it's about togetherness. That's just what the ballad is. It's an international language.
C: Well, it's a heart connection. I think all ballads connect you at some heart level. David and I were talking before, when we got this opportunity to work with Andrea Bocelli. I mean for David obviously it was a thrill, he's producing it, and it's this extraordinary voice, and I didn't know what he was saying. I mean I don't understand Italian, and he was singing in Italian.
D: It didn't matter.
C: But I felt it. I totally felt every bit of "The Prayer." So I didn't need to hear it.
CW: I want to ask you something. This would be like kind of off the wall. In Chinese, 'I love you,' are very beautiful three words.
C: What are they?
CW: Wo Ai Ni.
C: Wo Annie?
D: Wuhnee?
CW: You can say "wall, eye, and knee."
C: Oh! Wall Eye Knee.
CW: Yeah, pretty close. And I was wondering if with those three words you could come up with something for your fans back home.
C: Sure we can do that.

David begins finding a key on the piano, and Carole starts thinking out loud. "You and me, let's see, hmm." Immediately David plays a beautiful melody, and Carole complements it with a perfect "Wo ai ni."

C: Ok, so you could do like..."I tell honestly, wo ai ni..'I tell you from my heart...wo ai ni..."

David continues to play, and the artistry and brilliance of the duo come to life. In seconds, a pop ballad materializes, and the goosebumps rise on my arms.

D: Not bad, huh? You see, she's a lyricist!
CW: I've got goosebumps.
D: (begins to sing) "I tell you honestly, wo ai ni...I tell you from my heart...wo ai ni."
CW: Maybe I can add a little "do di do di do" with my horn at the end.
D: Yeah, there you go! Record that on your next album.
CW: My next album? Hey, I hope there's a chance someday to work with both of you. That would be my greatest dream.
D: I've been to Taiwan, and I think it's fascinating over there, and Carole you've got to go to the Pacific Rim because, and I said this earlier, it's very possible that the next superstar could be a Mandarin artist. Without a doubt it could happen.
CW: I feel the same way.
D: You're really poised for it.
CW: We're right on the verge.
C: Yeah, that's what David has been telling me.
D: That's right.
C: And I've been listening to more and more artists, so I hope to see it happen.
CW: Terrific, I hope to see you both in Asia soon.
D: Thanks. Nice job man.
CW: It was great talking with you.

The day ends, the crew wraps up, and we hang around talking for a while. They ask me if I brought any of my music with me, and I quickly dig two CDs out of my bag. David takes his, and I give one to Carole. “Cool cover,” he says, “I’m gonna listen to it in the car. But if you suck I’m not going to call you for a gig.”

You never know. In this world, you just never know.

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