Lou Reed - Interview on 7.30 Report, 2007 (Unedited)

said Tracy Hutchison is my name Tracy yes mystery thank you for talking to me on what is your opening night here in Sydney so I know it's a very busy day for you it's taken over 30 years to stage this Berlin album has it been worth the wait for you I had always hoped we would have an opportunity to do exactly what we're gonna be doing tonight I just never thought it would really happen but then it did in New York and Sydney of all places so I hope I've become an honorary Aussie you come here a lot and I'm interested that Sydney is only the second other type of city that you're performing this working and why Sydney the Sydney Festival helped back our original production for which I will love them forever and that's why we're so happy to be here it wouldn't exist without the help of the Sydney Festival I've a rather breathless fergus and all those wonderful people there hmmm other rather raising son in it he's performing in Australia something that that you might doing you do it a lot you are here recently I would do it a lot more if it didn't take 20 hours to get here alright but I like it because I'm downtown in New York near the river so being on the water here appeals to me very very much and it's a real city reminds me of home that's just very beautiful here the people are incredibly nice always you said you you always wanted to do this with this album in many ways that it was written for this purpose to stage it in its entirety why did you think it would never happen there we are yes yeah you mentioned that you always wanted to do this with this record Berlin but you didn't think it would ever be possible to stage it this way to perform it in its entirety why did you think it would never happen Bob Ezrin the original producer and I had always had a little dream of taking this and putting it on the stage at a certain point Andy Warhol and I had talked about it various people have talked about it over the years but the original reception was so amazingly negative that we never never had a chance to even begin to try to implement the ideas and it was until within the last 10 years when Susan Feldman from st. out from st. Ann's where I had done a thing called songs for gellick with John couch's a musical biography of Andy Warhol and she would always say one of his stage Berlin and at this point I never wanted to talk about it again and I considered it impossible and I told her that and but she would always keep asking and one day I had been talking to my friend Julian Schnabel and he said he wanted to make a movie of it I said well this funny is saying that because Susan Feldman's been saying why don't you stage at his st. Ann's and I figured well why not so I told her okay fine we'll stage it as st. Anne's you talked about the amazingly negative response to this album when it came out and I think the most depressing record ever made was one of the assessments of it from my readings you have always maintained that it be well I mean when someone says the most depressing record ever made if I took this ignorant personal to see Hamlet what my t think of the end to and that point Macbeth yes I keep going streetcar named desire yeah it's just so stupid that you actually have to laugh when you have to listen to someone that ignorant mm-hmm it had an impact on me though because it made you decide to happen the only in the sense we didn't get a chance to stage anything because some people listen to people like that it's the real world out there I'm just saying I can't argue with an idiot it's like talking to a squirrel it is Bellini isn't an exploration of the darkest shades of life and in many ways if you think about it tell them the same thing I mean yeah the sausage hey what do you think Nutella gets jealous huh yeah do you think real people in real life get jealous yeah so that's what it's about so you know this I just am sick you know I always think of it then and I don't want to get into it now about is it depressing is that this is it that it's like you know I don't want to have to decide Tennessee Williams to you I don't want to have the sight Shakespeare to you hmm okay I was saying I was saying that as a commentary on what in life it's actually you know it's it's a beautiful observation that is life and it's as potent now as I guess it was 30 years ago it's just listening to it now you know you wouldn't I don't think audiences will actually respond the same way and if this was the new Lou Retton oh yeah it's interesting that I say man like I saw Mike man good fortune for example if there had been if someone presented that to means that this is a single I would think oh well this is the commentary on modern America and it's an interesting thing to kind of observe that 30 years ago it was seem so bold and so dark and people didn't want to know but in fact as a narrative and observation of modern life it's it's what life is I love you I love you Tracy thank you but it's true you know life is not all about sugar-coated bollocks life is some life is often very hard to take full of people so show me a man that's never been jealous hmm or a woman I'm glad you completed that equation yes people who like goes mmm I do want to ask you you're working you're working with a couple of wonderful emerging artists I guess you described them Antony who you brought with you last time Antony of the Johnsons and the incredible Sharon Jones what is it about those two artists that made you want to work with him on this piece well when we started thinking about staging this I'd always wanted Anthony in any capacity simply because I love the way Anthony sings and writes and I always have since I first heard him that's how I wanted to work with him that certainly I was hoping because he's a monumental star now that he would consider singing with me again and Sharon Jones of course who's from Brooklyn I had heard her through Hal Willner the producer he said you have to hear this young lady from Brooklyn this is really something so we need background singers but I don't like calling them background singers but for lack of another word and it was an easy call it was just were they available the fact that they're here doing this is amazing to me I could listen to them all night I can't imagine that they wouldn't be available when you read phones up and says hey do you want to come to Australia and sing babies with me hopefully you just say Lu knocked on wood your lips to God's ear as I say this part is part of the motivation for working with artists like that about bringing something new to a record like this or is that just about you wanting to work with the best possible people that you've got available to you at the moment I want to work with people that I love listening to I want to work always with the best people and believe me that's the fun part working with someone who is not that good is not fun I guess you've had plenty was like driving a car that's missing a tire hmm you're also working obviously with some of the original collaborators Barban and I know you've enlisted howlman on this and he's done such a beautiful job with that come so far for Beauty pays its and there's about 40 others yeah exactly I guess that's them and I was in the last one hmm I was in the second second touring version of that I went to Dublin exquisite SUNY Leonard yeah exquisite collection of artists performing such great songs they oughta do the hell Wilner collection there's about 40 of these astonishing concerts he's put together it's like an encyclopedia of greatness um from h2w Hal Willner that could be a good title writing song writing and writing of any kind is it it's a fairly lonely craft you spend a lot of time in your head with that occupation is that one of the things that attracts you must don't do well there's no choice if that this you know never been successfully group writing I mean I've collaborated on occasion but it's usually the other person's doing the music of something you start collaborating with someone where you're sharing a lyric someone might kill the other person having said that I'm easy um easy to collaborate with do you think that yeah because I really love working with other people who I really like but generally speaking they wrote they write alone also it's just the way it is last time we toured Australia you bought your attaching master with you in fact bought him on stage I'm really interested it's actually studying with his teachers son today it's been change I wanna 14th generation Chan Tai Chi and his son ping we were working out today it's been really important to you that the Tai Chi has no one what brought you to that what led you to it it's too complicated to go into but I always wanted to do an exercise that was good for something besides being exercise I mean if being an auto mechanic which is actually healthy for you or maybe I'd have done that it's a combination of the physical and the mental Thurman and the spiritual it's everything but in many ways what writing it's about - I'm just interested that you've got to marry those two things together we've spent a lot of time in your handwriting and this I guess allows you to to spend some time getting away from that if you say so I do yoga so I guess that's how I kind of get out of my busy hey sometimes so I wonder whether or not that is an attraction for you you know no that's beautiful hmm a beautiful thing to perform a beautiful thing to do in every conceivable way and we'll teach you about your body will improve your body can transform your body into something you didn't know perhaps that you had the fact that it goes back hundreds and hundreds and hundreds of years these people were very smart and they put together this system that was good for health and also to protect yourself another interesting and you can do it till you're 112 I know it's not just the old people in the park this power in this they call it fudgy I'm gonna skip to something because I'm I'm gonna saying most people don't think of Tai Chi they think of very old very slow not this system which is the first system when other people of the system they were able to leave it but they had to leave certain parts out it's the parts they left out that I like typically I'm going to skip to something that isn't really a sick enough because I'm getting a wind up here and I just I really want to ask you asked yeah I know and I thank you for the answer I'll tell you one other thing some doctor friends might have told me the people they see most with knee problems are yoga people hmm I've heard that my knees are fine you're so lucky beautiful in in shape I'm doing okay you know I know it's tiresome for you to to revisit the tales of the rock and roll excesses that the walks on the wild side when when now I guess the big rock and roll story is really about sobriety well don't even bother it with this side I'm wondering what sobriety has shown you though I just what did I just say to you this is not one of those questions that were submitted so forget it okay um can I ask me Ben about some do you see a time when you when you don't want to be doing this anymore one of the things we wanted to do somewhere in New York City was open up tai chi school where he also had meditation and where we're friends with some people who were fairly well known what they do like mean you are Rinpoche who has a book coming out called the joy of living I study with him and certain herbalist and we thought it would be so great to have this all centered in one place that's something I would love to have something to do I would love to go to China as a photographer for martial arts I mean I'm really good at that because I know what to look for I look forward to seeing the results of those endeavors well two photography books out now hmm it's been a pleasure speaking with you I wish you well Felicia is insolently it's been a very charmed experience thank you very much Tracy thank you okay

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Length: 17min 36sec (1056 seconds)

Published: Sat Nov 02 2013