A Conversation with Paul Rodgers – HuffPost 12.31.13

Mike Ragogna: Hi Paul, just how royal…hmm, maybe “regal” is the better word…were these Royal Sessions?

Paul Rodgers: Oh, they were very royal. The studio is called The Royal Studios, so we called the album The Royal Sessions in honor of the studio, really. I suppose that’s it, really. I could make some comments about my connections to royalty, but no, perhaps not.

MR: So this album is scheduled to come out on February 4th. How did you decide on a project like this one?

PR: Well, this is special because soul music and blues music have been at my roots for as long as I’ve been in business now, some fifty years. It’s amazing to me that I haven’t really done this earlier, but I think I’ve been getting ready to do it for some number of years. I honestly haven’t really felt worthy of attempting Otis Redding songs. With some of the songs, like “I’ve Been Loving You Too Long (To Stop Now),” I felt I needed more experience before I could really sing those, even though Otis himself was probably in his mid-twenties when he sang them, but there was such a wealth of inborn soul in the man and all of his music, really. I think I’ve been practicing over the years.

MR: Speaking of Otis Redding, you recorded three of his songs on this album. Surely, you like this man and his music.

PR: Yeah, Otis Redding is my man, really, as far as singers are concerned. I was influenced and sort of had my mind blown many, many years ago when I first heard him singing “Mister Pitiful” and “Down In The Valley” and “My Girl” and songs like that. There’s something about the way he sang, the depths of the way he sang. I also loved Sam Moore and I loved Wilson Pickett, but there was something about Otis Redding that seemed to come from a spiritual place as well as a rockin’ groove. There was something even deeper to what he was saying and it touched me on an emotional level that other artists haven’t done, actually.

MR: It seems when we get to sixties and seventies singer-songwriters who were saying profound things lyrically, utilizing the words over their voices in many cases, on an equal level, R&B artists were saying things just as profoundly, their method of communication being soulful expression as opposed to being overt cleverness with lyrics.

PR: Well, there are some great messages that come across lyrically. “I Thank You” has a beautiful message, “I think we should all be grateful.” I’ve come to a stage in my life where gratitude for all of the great things in my life, I need to feel that. That’s one thing that comes close. Some of the messages that Otis Redding delivers to me–“I’ve Been Loving You Too Long (To Stop Now),” I mentioned that one earlier–the way he puts it across, you are taken on an emotional journey and it’s really important to understand the depth of love that this man feels for this woman. He takes you to that place with him very often.

MR: Obviously, Isaac Hayes was the inspiration for your approach on “Walk On By.”

PR: Oh, without a doubt, although I loved Dionne Warwick’s version and I accepted it as the version until Isaac Hayes came along with this one. When Dionne Warwick sang it, it was light and nice, but when Isaac Hayes sang it, suddenly it was heavy and laden with passion. Again, the man took you to that place. Listening to singers deliver that kind of message, that’s what I want to do. I want to be in that place. The only way to take anyone there is to actually go there yourself. So when I’m singing these songs, I’m on that journey, I’m walking down that street and I am passing the girl that I loved and I am walking on by. All of the emotions I feel when I’m doing that, I deliver. The musicians, too, are superb in the way that they walk with me down that street. I don’t think anybody gets out of life without experiencing pain of some kind, especially in the love area. All of us experience rejection as well as love and it’s something we all have to handle. These songs deal with that. It’s very powerful.

MR: Paul, there were tons of Temptations songs to cover, but you grabbed “It’s Growing,” which, to me, has a subtle message happening in the performance in addition to the blatant message of the lyrics.

PR: Yeah, I like that one. I used to perform that when I was a kid of about thirteen or fourteen. I remember learning the [vocalizes beat]. The way they do that, it’s very different from the normal soul arrangement that you normally hear. It sort of steps away from that.

MR: Are there other songs on this album that connect with you from your youth?

PR: They’re all songs that have struck me and stayed with me. There must be hundreds of songs that I could say the same thing about. If you stop and think about it, there are songs that hit you like a ton of bricks. You just go, “Whoa.” You never forget them. When I first heard “In The Midnight Hour” by Wilson Pickett, that did it. But I don’t want to do songs that everybody’s done a million times. I wanted to get a little bit away from “Dock Of The Bay” or “My Girl.” I wanted to dig a little deeper. That isn’t to say I would never do those songs, I just wanted to do that on this particular series of sessions.

MR: Do you feel like you’ll be taking this approach further? Will this influence projects down the line?

PR: Well, we’ve yet to see. I must say, it did feel like it was coming home. When I first went down there, they specifically hadn’t been told who I was. They only knew that I was a singer-songwriter. There was a moment when we weren’t sure of each other, so I suggested we do “That’s How Strong My Love Is,” that’s the song we kind of kicked off the sessions with, just because I love that song so much and I’m so confident with that one. I thought, “I know I can do this one.” It was an icebreaker in many respects because after that, we looked at each other and we knew we were speaking the same musical language. They went, “Okay, this guy has obviously listened to our material. He knows it. He knows where we come from with this and we can open up to him.” And we did, we opened up to each other and went on a musical journey.

MR: Right, the musicians at The Royal Studios. Okay, you’ve covered pure soul on this project, being Paul Rodgers, lead vocalist of many groups and solo outings. It’s almost like this album is more about what Paul Rodgers that can’t be communicated with original material. Do you feel that might the case?

PR: Maybe. Everything that I’ve done as a singer-songwriter has a relationship to this music. I did feel that playing with Reverend Charles Hodges and all of the guys, I was with the authentic, real people here. I wasn’t emulating, I was with them. I’m here right now. These are the guys that made all this music all those years ago that moved me so much. I felt I really had to be on my game, and that meant really being present in the moment with the song. As I said, it was a very authentic feeling.

MR: This was recorded, of course, in Memphis at Willie Mitchell’s studio. As you mentioned, that added to the vibe and to the authenticity…

PR: …oh hugely, yes.

MR: So were you all in the same room together or was there a lot of layering?

PR: Oh, there was very little layering, actually. I think there was one vocal that I did outside of the studio for “Walk On By” but everything else was pretty much the take that I did with the band. So I’m standing there with a brass section beside me, Leroy Hodges in front of me playing bass; I have the Reverend Charles at the far end of the studio at his organ conducting the band and right beside me, I have Hubby on the keyboard, the Wurlitzer. Everybody was in the same room and we all had eye contact with each other and with the engineers, the producers in the control room, so it was really organic and it was a real musical feel. In fact, at one of the record companies who shall remain nameless, who we took these tracks along to, there was a young guy in there who said, “Of course, you have to have used Pro Tools to get this sound on here” and Perry [Margouleff] was very happy to say, “Well, actually, we didn’t use Pro Tools at all in the whole process.” It was purely all analog.

MR: You’re celebrating all sorts of interesting soul traditions like Stax and Atlantic, which also evokes the old Fame Studios and Muscle Shoals history. Are you a fan of that musical lineage as well?

PR: Oh yeah, very much so. I remember touring way back with Traffic and we had the Muscle Shoals band out with us. It was really interesting to meet those guys and see them play.

MR: With regards to your own original music, and I’m not trying to be funny here, but do you feel what you perform and record is “soul” music?

PR: Well, that’s a good question. I’ve often said that I’m a soul singer in a rock band. I think there’s a lot of truth to that. The great thing about soul and blues is that if you look at a lot of the bands–Led Zeppelin, The Rolling Stones–so many bands have taken blues and soul in a different direction, in what we call the direction of “rock ‘n’ roll” I guess. But if you go back far enough, you’ll find that the Stones were a blues band when they started out. There’s a lot of blues and soul in their early recordings and that’s where they got the feel from. I think my music is rock infused with the heart and soul of blues. Or something like that. [laughs]

MR: Okay, let’s go into Free and Bad Company. There was something that was easily identifiable as “Paul Rodgers” in Free. In other words, if nobody knew you, they would say, “That’s the sound of ‘Free,'” but if they examined it closer, they’d say, “Oh, that’s the sound of Paul Rodgers.” I think that was the same when you moved on to Bad Company. What do you think of all that? [laughs]

PR: Wow, there’s a lot in there, me old mate! Let me think. With Free, I felt it very important in my early days to be part of a band. I think The Beatles influenced me in that respect. I didn’t really want to step out and be a solo singer that much, you know? I wanted to be part of a band, and that’s what we did with Free. I wrote a lot of the songs in that band so my influence was very much stamped in that. The same thing happened with Bad Company, I was the singer and I had written a lot of the songs so again my character was stamped on that, and I wanted to be part of a band. It was only later on that I wanted to find my own identity a little bit more and I suppose doing this now is part of that.

MR: But I would say classic Bad Company is stamped with your sound. I’m not trying to stir up an ego here, but what is it about Paul Rodgers that creates such a unique, desirable sound?

PR: Well, thank you. I think I’ve been blessed with the ability to sing; I discovered that from a very early age. I had a bass player that, when we were listening to The Four Tops or something and when one of the singers would do something smooth vocally, he would say to me, “Can you do that?” I would attempt it and I wouldn’t be able to do it at first, but I would keep trying and I found that I could do these intonations, so I gathered a lot of licks, really, a lot of influences and inspirations and I listened to these people and I found that I could copy them. From there, I sort of built a library of vocal techniques just by listening to these people. I’d listen to them and say, “Wow, how did they do that?” It wasn’t just vocal gymnastics that I like. I hear a lot of people fabulously swinging about and doing these great vocal things, but somehow, they don’t connect with the band. I found when I listened to a lot of the black singers–and to be honest with you, there are good white singers, too, but it tended to be Otis Redding, Wilson Pickett–they seemed to merge with the music. It’s something that you have to practice doing. You have to lose your ego in many respects because you are becoming part of the music. It was very much evident when I was playing with the Reverend Charles Hodges and all of the guys; we gelled. Yes, I’m the singer, but there’s a great drummer, too. There’s a great bass player. There’s a great keyboardist. The whole thing is gelling together and telling a story and creating this atmosphere and this mood. You mentioned it earlier about the studio having its own atmosphere. It was like the walls were seeped in this beautiful feeling and we were wrapped in this blanket making this amazing music in our own world. I don’t know if that answers your question, but you sort of become part of the whole picture. I never see myself as the starring singer. I’m part of the overall picture and that’s where I try to place myself.

MR: But you were blessed with a voice that’s so unique that even when you were singing with Queen, it was your voice, not some reverence for Freddie Mercury, that affected the listener. Paul, what are your thoughts when you look back at your career? What is it about your sound and talent that becomes the story?

PR: Thank you for the question, because I don’t think I’ve ever been asked in that manner before so that I’ve had to find “what is it?” The idea that you gel with the band, I’m going to think more on it so I can articulate it further, but that’s what I listen to in singers. That’s what I love about great singers. Paul McCartney can do that. Steve Winwood can do that. Rod Stewart can do it, too, where you lock tight with the band. That’s the difference between a great voice and a great singer, I think. It’s almost like how you’ve got your center forward in football, but without the team, they’re nothing, really. We’re all together. That’s sort of how I feel about it. Not to pigeonhole myself; I follow my heart and I work on projects I feel and if it changes, that’s when I move on.

MR: You also were part of The Firm with Jimmy Page. Has your relationship with him continued through the years?

PR: Oh yeah, Jimmy is fantastic. He comes to all the shows whenever we’re in London and sometimes in New York. He was at the Albert Hall when I played there last. Blowing my own trumpet a bit here, I received an Ivor Novello Award and he was there and he sat at the table with me, with Chris Blackwell and he sat at the table with me. And then I was presented with the award and Jimmy presented that along with Jeff Beck. I love those guys. What I was talking about vocally they do with their instruments. What I said about the vocal thing applies to every instrument, you know? I think with each instrument, its player sings through that instrument. It’s a conversation, really.

MR: Beautifully said. What’s your advice for new artists?

PR: Don’t do it. [laughs] I’m just kidding. It’s such a different world since I started. It was like a village when I started out, and now it’s a great big corporate city and you’ve got to be very careful. There’s so much to watch out for but I think you must remain true to yourself. I know that’s a little bit of a cliché, but you’ve got to follow your heart and do that which you feel is right for you. So many people can pull you in different directions. You can stand there and go, “What the hell, I’m totally confused.” So that’s the point at which you have to do exactly that. Follow your own instincts and your own heart, and even if it fails, you’re still you. You haven’t sold yourself away.

MR: Right. Paul Rodgers five years from now?

PR: Wow. I’ve just turned sixty-four, so in five years… [laughs] Music has kept me very young, though, I have to say, so I hope it will keep doing the job and keep me young. I would like to be still very creative and very active. I look at McCartney and the Stones, they just keep rolling. I think that’s what I’ll do. I’ve got a new solo album I’m working on in between everything else, so yeah. Maybe it’ll be out in five years.

MR: Well, you’ve got a new album to go record, so I don’t want to take any more of your time. [laughs] This has been beautiful, I really loved talking with you, you’re one of my favorite vocalists ever, and I so appreciate the time.

PR: Oh, well thanks Mike. I appreciate speaking with you.

MR: All the best.

Transcribed by Galen Hawthorne