Cat Stevens Interview | Part 1 | SVT/NRK/Skavlan

once upon the time years catch demons please welcome Houston what many people know this but you're actually half Swedish your mother was your daughter yeah absolute yeah I mean I don't speak more than bah I'll have a few little words but yes my mother was Swedish and from here blue how much time did you spend here well I've got a picture of me one at one you know in in the lakes in Sweden northern Sweden we have that picture we have it yes we we borrowed it if it's okay this is you and your sister yeah I've got other ones which I'm exposed a little bit more than that but anyway so I chose that and actually I went to school in in year before when I was 8 for about 6 months and that was an extraordinary experience because probably the first time I realized that was going to be a star because everybody was staring at me I had these brown eyes you know but at that time everybody had blue eyes and and so I had to have my own little playground and I could choose my friends and your father was from Greece right yes yes there are lights from from Cyprus that's thank you yes and III wonder it you sit here now as as Yusuf but can you explain for us the difference between cat and yourself there isn't really I'm sort of trying to explain to people that I'm not two different persons but that you know life is an evolution it's a journey and you can have many names you know your first name is Sun you know you may become a father husband brother I mean you have many many names and I chose Cat Stevens at a time when I needed to be recognized I needed to be known I chose Youssef after a great deal of journey and finding myself and and many things that I've been dreaming about so many things came true for Mia's use of things that I was dreaming about is his cat was there was there it's a kind of defining moment was there was there was this the moment in Malibu where you almost drowned because there is a story about you almost drowning and I'm turning you to God is that right that's right that's one of the incidents and and there are many other lead ups to that for instance I was on the road you know at the age of 18 with Jimi Hendrix you know and one year of that kind of life and I crashed in hospital having a weird disease TB I started to think about this path that I was on and I decided to aim a little bit higher than this world and try to find out a little bit about what was going to happen next you know because we all die and there's a big question if you don't ask that question you may be losing out you know in the end you may find out something that you didn't know before so that was one of the important points in my life then of course well I started singing songs after that about about my journey and wrote to find out you know father and son song about leaving home about getting on that journey joining the revolution and finally there was a point where I've made it I've made it really big but I hadn't found that place and I was I was swimming in Malibu I wasn't a bad swimmer you know but it was a very strong current and that day I just realized I had no power to hold myself up and at that point there was no help to be seen I said God if you save me I'll work for you and at that moment a little wave not a big wave not tsunami a small wave just came push me forward and I was back on land Wow what next and after that I got a gift of the Quran Aslam was not on my list to be honest my father was Greek you know so Turks he'd forget it so but here was this book and I had an open mind it was given to me by my brother he wasn't a Muslim but he just you know said yeah it's another book so I read it and at that point I everything came together you know I I recognized so many things in that book which were part of everything I've learned you know even as a Christian but why did you have to leave music because of this why couldn't you just continue as Cat Stevens being a Muslim you had it well yeah a huge career at that time yeah that's true but again a lot of people don't know but my father wasn't well this was 1978 and I came back to look after him and my mother then I married and then I realized that I could get a life I could get off this road that road you know which is like the heavy road or the mountainous road tours and in agents and everything when you when you think about Cat Stevens being Cat Stevens is is that does it give you a positive feeling or a negative I like the curls I wouldn't mind getting the curls back what kind of reactions did you get when I mean when your fans when when people around you heard about this it was it was difficult very difficult was many of my fans because you know they've been following me and you know and now I was going in a direction which probably was going to be very difficult for them to follow and for many people it became an opportunity to say all the nasty things they ever wanted to say about me because they didn't like my music or whatever but for many it's been an incredible the fact that people have hung around so long and waited for me to come back it's it's great and when we're not doing music being a Muslim you were still a very well-known person and and you you turned into some kind of spokesperson for for Islam and it seemed like you it was reluctantly so how did you experience that well I learned a lot of lessons in that role which was again as you say thrust upon me because hey here is a famous guy famous Muslim let's ask him you know and I was like hang on um what I think it says you know blah and all of a sudden I'm in hot water so as I said you know you can you can argue we refer with a philosopher but you can't argue with a good song so I started to write songs again what made you what made you pick up the guitar you it was actually my son who's got a love of music who writes and and one day I was a live in Dubai now and he bought the guitar in the house I was like one morning it was like me and the guitar looking each other you know who's gonna make the first move come here and I got it and I just started playing and I knew what I had to do next because it was just so good so strong and God had given me back my music and how many years went before this happened without a guitar Oh 20 years nothing yeah well a deletion for a while can you see Islam with Western eyes as well can you see that it it to many Westerners Islam today is very foreign a bit threatening

Channel: Skavlan

Views: 51,673

Rating: 4.8463726 out of 5

Keywords: Skavlan, interview, talk show, Fredrik skavlan, Yusuf Islam (Musical Artist)

Id: HxAc08aaqnI

Length: 9min 0sec (540 seconds)

Published: Mon Sep 08 2014