Robbie Robertson on his documentary Once Were Brothers

hi Robbie how are you man I'm pretty good nice to see you again it's good to see you but what goes through your head when you hear creek again I you know I I just go over the chords that oh I was writing this too you know it's funny from a songwriter point of view certain things come back to you in it and I was like oh my god I remember in that third verse I couldn't get I couldn't get the like something to rhyme with the last line there's all of these little pieces you know that that made up something that you go back to it's just a natural reflex I guess it's not often that you get a chance to hear it anymore right well you know you hear it the it's still played around and and I sometimes do you think God they haven't got sick of that yeah by the way congrats on leading the Toronto International Film Festival how about that pretty good hang yeah I you know and they told me we've never done this before to open the film festival with a documentary and and I have to say that Cameron who you know made this happen James Bailey from - yeah yeah Cameron he saw a very rough cut of the film of a cut that I if they'd asked me I'd say it's not ready to be seen at all yet he saw this rough cut and decided him and Randy Lennox decided this should open the festival this year and we were all somewhat astonished to hear that because like I said they'd never had a documentary open it and the end also a Canadian you know co-production on it - so it's really really a deep-water I better it is so I want to talk a little bit about the new movie I want to talk a little bit about the new record and I figured the one track off the new record the sort of ties these two things together is is this one once were brothers Brothers [Music] there'll be no room [Music] there'll be no on-call rather snow it's a little the song once we're brothers from Robbie Robertson's upcoming solo album cinematic also the name of the new documentary about Robbie in the band premiering tonight at if we lost our connection after the war tell me about that song well it is obviously a direct reflection of my experience in the Brotherhood of the band and you know when I think about the you know that Richard Manuel Rick Danko and levon Helm are no longer with us it's a very deep sadness for me and and we went through so much together and so many amazing things in in writing my book testimony that is actually the origin of the documentary when I was writing that there was so much to relive so much to go into so much incredible joys and risks and and everything there is no I'd put the story of the band up against any of them the amazing experiences that we had and so in this song I was paying homage to that and I was also addressing the sadness that I feel to that the you know three of the guys are no longer with us what's the war the war well was a couple of wars one of them was in the beginning of the band with music from big pink in the band album and the records that we were making after that there was a war going on and and when that war ended you mean a literal war like the Vietnam War the Vietnam War when that when that war concluded the band started to separate and go in different directions so there was that war then this song the night they drove Old Dixie down about the Civil War that I had written that played a part in it too so I'm just connecting pieces in it and and in in sand some of it was historic you know when you were looking at this documentary because last time we spoke was for the book which then in the documentary is based on the book you know we talked a little bit about how you reflected on writing some of these memories down and it seemed I'll be very pleasant and I'm I'm also aware that when you see or when you listen to something it can be a more visceral experience and simply just remembering in so when you sit down and actually watch these little clips of the van and the Hawks man and and I mean what what emotions come to mind how did you feel it must have been hard at times it's well one of the extraordinary things for me that came out of this documentary was how heartfelt it is how moving the documentary is and I didn't know that that was going to be what we were going after and the result of it and and when Martin Scorsese came in as executive producer on it he really pointed out the value in that emotional thing that was coming across from the Brotherhood of the band and he was saying you know and he had suggestions and they were really about don't let this get in the way of that emotion don't they walk it in the way of them don't because it was different ways of editing and storytelling and things and he was saying when when we go to that place that it is so heartfelt don't cut away to this or do that or stay with that because it's it's that moving and it's that valuable but then you have to actually live it again like does that feel like does it feel like the same guy I do you feel like the same guy who is king a young street you know back when you're with the Hawks and playing with the band like it's it's it must be amazing to relive that life in front of you you know I I look at it and and there is a you know a very strong tie and and there is like you're saying a bit of a distance too because time has passed and I am very much on a mission of working on what I'm doing today and what I need to be doing tomorrow I'm not really big on redoing a reliving or anything necessarily being based on that if it wasn't that there wasn't so many stories to tell if it wasn't such an extraordinary journey and experience I would completely move on and I wouldn't be here talking to you about a nostalgic person you're not someone who lives in the you know I appreciate all of it you know and I've been so fortunate to have had all of this musical being part of world-changing events and things and music and and all of that but in the meantime I'm busy you're still you are you're really busy you're scoring things yeah yeah you can't you can't you don't want to sit in a margarita and listen to you know oh philia I like home feel yeah it's a it's a fav song of mine that I wrote but but I don't sit around thinking about it because I gotta figure out stuff my favorite too by the way yeah I played it at a wedding over the over the summer oh really yeah man it still it still kills it's a great some so I added a yodel to the middle of it I hope that's okay uh-huh well you know you're still in that creek mode yeah you so Marty Scorsese you mentioned in earlier the executive producer behind this film you guys have been working together for a while take us back to the kind of first meeting of you guys when do you remember first meeting Martin Scorsese oh when I first met him he had just made a movie called mean streets and in John Chaplin who was the road manager and when he left he would he said I'm going out in the world I'm gonna produce movies so anybody who says that you think all great well good luck with that right and he went and he produced Mean Streets and he says to me listen he said there's this director this guy that I'm working with I think he's really quite amazing he was a kid right yeah they were yeah everybody was young and he said and there's an actor in this movie oh my god he's like he's as good as any actor you've ever seen it's it's really something so they set up a screening for me to see it and after I saw the movie Marty came to the screening room and said hello to me and and it was wonderful to meet him right after seeing his work and seeing what he did in this movie and Bob De Niro and Harvey Keitel they they did in these early days and everything and it was like it was just overflowing with talent so when I met Marty I was like whoa this is you know and the use of music in it everything so it really stuck with me and then when it came time that I was trying to figure out who would be good to direct the last was because of this special thing that I felt with Marty's connection to music I thought I want to start with him I want to see if he'd be interested in this and you know the rest is a beautiful story well that wasn't a hard sell it was a tough sell because he was in the middle of directing a movie and you know one it's called New York New York and when you're directing a movie the studio's hate it when you go and direct another movie at the same time they really really don't like it so we had to do this all underground and everything and in the beginning he said I'm in the middle of doing this movie they're not gonna let me do this and then as we talked about the different artists that were going to be in the film in at the concert and everything over the course of the evening finally he threw his arms in the air and says I don't care they can fire me they can kill me I don't care I've got to do this so I was like okay because I just felt it's one of those things in my gut I just felt that he's the man to do this and boy was I right my favorite moment of the last vault always has been and I think always will be when dr. John comes out and sings such a night and this past year we lost dr. Jonathan oh man what do you remember of dr. John at the at the last waltz well I remember dr. John from many different things he was a friend and in a fantastic musician and a fantastic traditionalist he could tell you stories about music out of New Orleans that would make your hair stand on end it was like I just absorbed it I just I loved it when he would do this so anyway he was a pal of ours and when we were doing the last walls we just thought the doctors got to be there that said you know and so anyway when he came and he comes out on the stage and he'd gone through his whole gris-gris period and everything of he was like a voodoo priest yeah you know and now he was in a new stage and he comes out in this beret and this pink shirt and everything's like a different guy comes out and he's smiling like a Cheshire cat sitting on the piano and says thankfulness the band and all the boys and he's looking over and he's seeing the horn section so he's thinking I got to include them yeah wow what a cat he was he was a cool dude man oh yeah yeah I've a sad to lose him this year I mean yes there's real loss I I want to go back to Marty just for a second can I call murder you think well I'll check okay thank you so you you work together on the last waltz then you work with him on Raging Bull I mean a lot of love different things I mentioned a couple of them Gangs of New York and and now the Irishman before we talk about that can you have you been able to figure out or distill or can you why you guys continue to work together so well do you have something in common I think that we have a certain musical and film connection that we discovered early on when we were making the last walls that I was a movie bug and I thought there was something so deep in him and his appreciation of music and I thought that in the beginning and as I got to know him more it just went deeper and deeper so we started out he was turning me on to movies that I'd never seen and it was a fantastic experience and seeing them with him and through his eyes in some cases was so rewarding and I was turning him on to music that he had not experienced before but like a like a rockabilly or R&B or pop or soul gospel you know I mean you know Fife and drum blues all kinds of things and so with this connection that we made just stuck and then over the years and then when he was doing Raging Bull he said you know I I need to get the source music for this movie done can you help me figure that out had you done work with this before had you done any scoring work or no no no and I didn't know that I even wanted to and and I still don't know whether I want to but working with him is a different experience you know doing the music for his new movie the Irishman and we're talking every movie we start from scratch what are we gonna do this time and you know all have ideas he'll have ideas and in the process of doing this I said you know I'm hearing this thing and I it doesn't directly connect to anything with this movie but it could be an interesting counterpoint and I would describe something to him a sound of flavor to him and he'd say oh that's good that's good as long as it doesn't sound like movie music uh-huh uh-huh now we're talking my language because doing a traditional movie score he doesn't need me for that there's a thousand on Williams and all those there's are these people that do that and they do it really well but I'm not interested in that and thankfully neither is he okay I have a question about that that corresponds to perhaps you're visually you being visually connected to music in this way that Marty describes there is that I noticed for this new record for cinematic you have separate I've never seen this before you have separate artwork for every single track on the album yeah what's that all about I just decided with this because the stories in this record became so vivid to me and I do this art and I do it just because I can't help but do it and this was the first time that I thought I'm gonna share this because it's all these elements are so directly connected they all add up to me and seeing these pictures with these songs and that these songs are connected to cinematic things all of this stuff the way that it all was feeding off itself and one another just add it up and you know and it was an opportunity for me to do something that I hadn't done before it is the writing process the same just writing music now it's either for the Irishman or for this movie cinematic does feel the same as when you're writing music for the band in the sixties and seventies you know I've always been strongly influenced by movies and I for many years I have thought that in the songs that I'm writing they're like little movies even way back oh yeah you're right the nettle Dixie dance sort of a movie yeah yeah Creek sort of a movie yeah and so I used to read harvest as a movie yeah this is yes it all makes sense to me yeah stage fright is named after a movie Alfred Hitchcock made a movie called stage fright yeah and you know what the waits a movie when I when I sing the way I can I picture everybody in it there you go you know see and when I was writing these songs I was reading classic movie scripts I found a place where I could buy these scripts in New York at Gotham book Mart and so I would go and there in Janis films I had all of these scripts and so I could read this script for a John Ford movie or for an Ingmar Bergman movie or for a Luis buñuel or a Fellini or karasawa or Howard Hawks or Orson Welles all of these things and that became my reading material because I was so fascinated by how when I would look at these movies I was like wait a minute where does this start from where does this begin from and when I was very young if I hadn't have got the music bug the music addiction at such a early age and I would have ended up in movie land maybe as a screenwriter or as a director does it go from music to like if you hear a Beethoven piece if you hear like Beethoven 7 do you want to see the score I I do see images in that and I do think sometimes what that would be a good a compliment accompaniments ooh and there's been many cases and working with Martin Scorsese over the years that I have used music I used to be a big admirer of Christophe Pender s Keys composing and so years ago that years ago I used to we were penpals for a while I was writing to Pender s key really and saying you know I make music it's a different kind of music but I loved your threnody for the Victims of Hiroshima isn't that stunning Han and he would write me back and say oh my goodness I listened to your record in this these songs and everything I love this views they could so for a while there we were setting things then in shutter island' I said to Marty I think painter s keys music could be a centerpiece in this and it was this is incredible I never thought of putting you in that same world but it makes sense to me especially with this new record cinematic I do want to go back a little bit I want to fight the nostalgia courage or the non nostalgic urge a little bit and take a listen to this [Music] I just need some place and once again you tell where a man might find a baby he just shook my head no was always [Music] that is the band in the wait I'm speaking with Robbie Robertson about the tiff opening film once we're brothers Robbie Robertson in the band and is no new solo album cinematic Nazareth is Nazareth Pennsylvania right the home of the Martin guitar Factory that's right right this wasn't in this great but I'm just dying to know where did that first line that first narrative come from I've holed it in to Nazareth feeling about half past dead just need to find a place where I can hang my head like we're did what do you remember about writing that first verse hmm gee it reminds me of the story of of Jesus my goodness I never thought of that before the wait reminds you the story of Jesus well I pulled in the Nazareth you know and there's no room at the end yeah hello yeah no I I that did dawn on me but it really it came from I'm sitting there thinking I couldn't write something what am I gonna write about and and we talked about this in the once were brothers documentary and I look inside the guitar and it says Nazareth yeah and I think I like the sound of that word Nazareth how about I pulled into Nazareth and so all of these elements they just started to come together and fit together and this song to when I was 16 and I went from Toronto and I took a train and I went down to the Mississippi Delta to join up with Ronnie Hawkins in the Hawks that impression of for me going to the holy land of rock and roll this is where blues in gospel and rockabilly and every New Orleans me all of this grew out of the ground whoa I'm going there I am you know my dream is to go to the to this Fountainhead of rock and roll and I'm going holy and so when I got there all these character and all of these things started to gather in a place in my imagination and then some years later when I was writing this song I reached into that attic of all of those memories and all those characters and they just started to pour out in this song it's interesting because I see you in the same way I see Elton John I'll tell you this about me I grew up in a small town Newfoundland I grew up in Big Town Newfoundland which a small town anywhere else and I listened to bluegrass music Bill Monroe and his bluegrass boys I was obsessed with Bill Monroe and I was obsessed with the Grand Ole Opry and I was obsessed with the Ralph Stanley and the Stanley Brothers and I went down to Nashville and for the first time I was like this is where this is the home of where everything this is mecca this is where everything I've ever loved is and I realized people were just kind of living there there was just their everyday life so you bring me to mind a belt and John is because I spoke to Bernie Taupin one time about Elton John and he said people often said that we wrote about America the way America was seen as opposed to the way it actually was because we loved it so much we were so far away from it we had this romantic idea of it and that America really loved the way we wrote about it as fans of America did you ever feel like that I didn't feel probably like but you know Bernie and Elton coming into this this distant world to me it was just down the river you know and so I didn't feel that distant but I do remember Bernie and Elton bringing me the first copy of a record they made they said this is in honor of the band your music inspired this and we wanted to give it to you so you didn't think we were trying to rip you off and and they made two albums that they said were completely tumbleweed connection and and another one that they said was completely inspired by the band a lot of groups back then did that a lot of groups now my friend a lot of girls wearing snap plaid shirts and cowboy hats and had beards and dressed like me I mean for God's sake I probably owe you a royalty for this outfit I know did you feel a responsibility telling I mean as you mentioned a number of members of the band aren't still with us did you appeal a responsibility telling their story in this film I felt like I'm a storyteller and it's one of the stories and one of the great stories that I have to tell so yeah and because you know as we've said it was directly inspired by my book testimony all of these things you know they just one thing leads to another leads to another so just because my story a big part of that is this Brotherhood and is this experience with the band and and so if they were gonna tell my story that's got to be part of it I mean and when asked this is gently and respectfully as I can you know what's yours in Garth's relationship like now I thought I might see a little bit more of him in the film are you guys okay oh yeah yeah oh yeah but Garth is he's always been he's a very secluded type of character he lives in his own world so where he is he doesn't want to be disturbed and and he is just from still to this day one of the most unusual most extraordinary improvising musicians that's ever walked the earth is it amazing he took the band's music to another level I have so much respect and so much love for Garth and but they and we you know and Daniel wanted him in the film and everything but he's he's very hard to capture mm-hmm and you know and also I think at this stage too you know there's probably some health issues that play into this too that does it you know that it doesn't make him feel like I got to get out more often or something you know okay you know what you don't get to be that much of a genius without me being him maybe a little bit eccentric too you know there you go oh yeah and he was born that way he was weird even when he was in the band oh yeah oh yeah oh really yeah he was weird before he ever met I want to talk about something a little tough that came up in the film in the film you'd spend a lot of time was spent some time discussing substance abuse in the band you know alcohol to her to drugs like heroin and it my producer and I were talking about it we were left with this feeling that there's this alternate universe where these things didn't enter the equation the band stayed stronger for longer do you feel like there was a missed opportunity of the band that was squandered with drugs and alcohol there was an effect from it there's there's no doubt about that but we were living in a time period we're experimenting but drugs was so common I don't know that we knew anybody there was it on the same wavelength and in the late 60s and in the 70s it was just the way it was mm-hmm so you didn't it's easy now to look at it and say whoa maybe that was not the right thing to do or something while we were in it it was very difficult to point any fingers and to say oh well you know and there there was struggles in the group because the effects and the distraction that drugs can bring into something and it affected the relationship and it affected the music it affected my writing because I could write for this group when everybody was present when everybody was right there when this was a very particular group of of five members that everybody played such a pivotal role and if somebody drifted off it just wasn't the same and and so it did in and I in it was difficult I it took me some time to actually gravitate to a place where I thought you know what I'm just gonna accept anything I'm not gonna take it personal you had some resentment afterwards maybe a little bit I felt bad that I thought I know when we're in this thing together when the gang is really really supportive of one another we can make magic and when it's not like that then we're trying but we can't be successful because there's something in the way yeah and and is that got deeper and everything I thought well what am i writing for why am i killing myself over here you know when somebody's not gonna even show up or what if they do show up they're not going to be in a condition to do our best work and so that offended me in a certain way yeah and then over a long period of time by the time we got to making Northern Lights Southern Cross I was like if they show up they show up if they don't they don't I'm I'm gonna hit it I'm gonna try to hit it out of the park one more time here and I'm gonna force these guys to make this magic and everybody came together and we did some work that I'm very very proud of oh philia was one of those all certainly an Acadian driftwood and it makes no difference and and it was a joyous experience and everybody did rise to the best of their ability to that occasion but it wasn't a lasting thing and because it was an elastic thing we had to resort and wonderfully so to the last walls mm-hmm what is it about I I what is it about the artistic and creative mind that can lead to that kind of darkness I wonder because I think so much about Oh friends of mine who I've lost to drugs and alcohol who are musicians they were performers were stand-up comedians you know I wonder what it is I wonder what it is about about that mindset you have to have to be creative that can lead you to that dark path well a lot of people that aren't creative go to that dark path yeah you're right so but there's something in human nature that there is a need to walk on the wild side there's there's a need to play with danger there is something about walking that close to the edge and really really challenging almost falling off and I went to some of those places too yeah but I never had I there was something I didn't have whatever that chip is that that would make me say ah who cares you know I I just wasn't a true addict I wasn't a true alcoholic I was just somebody that would chippie with ideas right this is this is an amazing film it's a really amazing record you know an interesting thing about the film is that the director of the film Daniel roars that even has his last yeah roar he wasn't even alive when the band were together I mean and in fact a lot of young people who have fans of yours weren't around when the band was first around they're gonna watch this film there's also people who are gonna watch this film and discover the band is that is that ever overwhelming to you that there's new generations all the time not just appreciating your music but also dressing like it singing it being inspired by it the discovery process for people is so fantastic and the idea that a young person could say whoa I never heard that before yeah you know and they don't even know what an effect that that had on the culture and on the music and all of those things when this might have been the one trendy group that you know in in rock and roll history it's just we weren't cut from that cloth of like oh here's what's happening let's go in that direction and we weren't trying to - we've never wanted to ever do something different just to be different we just weren't on the wavelength we weren't in touch with that thing we were together for several years before we made music from big pink we were honing our craft and woodshedding and gathering musics gathering musicality x' in the chitlin circuit everywhere we went from the deep south all the way up to Canada you know there this was part of our education and part of our discovery process so when someone when you say oh my god somebody just heard this song by the band they were like this is very cool or if they're gonna see this film or hear this new record that I made whatever it is that discovery process is something that gives me a little chill inside there's a lesson there Robbie there's a lesson that you that the band that perhaps has endured and being cool you're like my dad's aviator glasses used to say he bought him in 71 and he said I wore him when they were cool and uncool and then cool again and then uncool again and then cool Agana there's something to be said about the band that has maybe the longest endurance being as you put it a very untrained II band at the time there's a lesson maybe for flying your own fly again well I think you know and I think we were fortunate in that and and that that that we had made enough music and we were building something it was an interior thing for a long time and when we were playing we wanted to be Ronnie Hawkins wanted us to be the best band around we left Ronnie Hawkins because we wanted to be an even better band and when we hooked up with Bob Dylan he hired us because we were a great band all of these things and then when we made music from big pink we were referred to as a great band so part of that thing of being musicians musicians in all of that that really had a big impact on other music people because they thought wow these guys they travel their own path they're not part of this and they were joining our club we never joined anybody's club Robbie thanks for coming in thank you

Channel: Q with Tom Power

Views: 74,573

Keywords: robbie robertson, cbc, cbc q, tom power, robbie robertson songs, robbie robertson sinematic, robbie robertson tour, robbie robertson bodybuilder, robbie robertson 2020, the irishman, robbie robertson broken arrow, Once Were Brothers, The Band, the band members, the band songs, the band youtube, the band robbie robertson, the band movie, the band the last waltz, the band music from big pink, the band the weight, the band ophelia, the band the shape i'm in

Id: Ht2AMZMagFc

Length: 37min 51sec (2271 seconds)

Published: Sat Jan 11 2020