Latest / Broken Record with Rick Rubin, Malcolm Gladwell, Bruce Headlam and Justin Richmond / Nile Rodgers: Broken Record Classic

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Nile Rodgers: Broken Record Classic · Broken Record with Rick Rubin, Malcolm Gladwell, Bruce Headlam and Justin Richmond

• 0:15
  Speaker 1: Pushkin. Hey everyone, Today we're revisiting one of the early
• 0:24
  Speaker 1: great episodes of Broken Record with legendary producer Nile Rogers.
• 0:29
  Speaker 1: Over the course of me more than half a century
• 0:31
  Speaker 1: long career, Nile Rogers has played his signature guitar on, written,
• 0:35
  Speaker 1: or produced some of the greatest dance songs of all time,
• 0:39
  Speaker 1: including Dana ross As I'm Coming Out, Daft Punks, Get Lucky,
• 0:42
  Speaker 1: and Madonna's Like a Virgin. Back in fall of twenty eighteen,
• 0:46
  Speaker 1: now I met up with Bruce Hellum at the same
• 0:48
  Speaker 1: New York City recording studio where thirty five years earlier,
• 0:51
  Speaker 1: Now recorded the Let's Dance Album with David Bowie. But
• 0:55
  Speaker 1: this time around, Nile brought his famed disco funk band
• 0:59
  Speaker 1: Chic to the interview to perform live renditions of their
• 1:02
  Speaker 1: classic hits, including Lafreak, Good Times and Everybody Dance. So
• 1:07
  Speaker 1: all the music you will hear in today episode was
• 1:10
  Speaker 1: recorded live one take, just for us. In between performances,
• 1:15
  Speaker 1: Nile shares exhilarating stories from his life, including how he
• 1:18
  Speaker 1: found salvation as a young jazz guitarist whose teenage mom
• 1:22
  Speaker 1: struggled with heroin addiction. Nil also talks about the night
• 1:25
  Speaker 1: he played old James Brown tunes with Prince and Rolling
• 1:28
  Speaker 1: Stones guitarist Ron Wood at a small club in London,
• 1:32
  Speaker 1: and Nile explains what it was like going out clubbing
• 1:34
  Speaker 1: with Madonna as her star was exploding in the mid eighties.
• 1:42
  Speaker 1: This is broken record liner notes for the digital age.
• 1:45
  Speaker 1: I'm justin Mitchman. Here's Bruce Edlam and Nile Rodgers from
• 1:49
  Speaker 1: New York City's Power Station studio in twenty eighteen. That's
• 1:53
  Speaker 1: the original guitar. Yeah, this is it. You still only
• 1:56
  Speaker 1: use one guitar? This is it? I only use one guitar.
• 1:58
  Speaker 1: Do you only have one? Now? I have two hundred? Okay?
• 2:02
  Speaker 1: Do you have nice hollow bodies? Mainly I have. I's
• 2:07
  Speaker 1: going to make sure de Angelico d Pristos L five
• 2:12
  Speaker 1: Super four hundreds. But this one was when did you
• 2:14
  Speaker 1: buy that nineteen seventy three? Wasn't it wasn't an expensive one?
• 2:19
  Speaker 1: You put on a no, it's cheap. I didn't, actually,
• 2:21
  Speaker 1: So I traded my jazz guitar and they gave me
• 2:25
  Speaker 1: this and three hundred dollars. So if in nineteen seventy
• 2:29
  Speaker 1: to be imagine giving me three hundred dollars plus a strat,
• 2:33
  Speaker 1: like what was the jazz guitar worth in those days?
• 2:35
  Speaker 1: Who I mean, even though it's a strat, it's not
• 2:39
  Speaker 1: like any other strat. Yeah, it's light, it's a feather.
• 2:42
  Speaker 1: It's thinner than anything you've ever seen. It's the nineteenth
• 2:46
  Speaker 1: strat that they made in nineteen fifty nine. Look at
• 2:49
  Speaker 1: Look at the difference, and just look at look at
• 2:51
  Speaker 1: the thickness. So the head stock there, just check it
• 2:54
  Speaker 1: out at that, you can see it all the way
• 2:55
  Speaker 1: from there. Look at this, Yeah, this one. You can
• 2:59
  Speaker 1: big hands though you don't need a you don't need
• 3:01
  Speaker 1: a thin Wow, No, I got small hands? You do?
• 3:05
  Speaker 1: Oh man, Jesus, you ever see real guitar players like
• 3:08
  Speaker 1: these guys like Steve Vy and Ship and Hendrix. Like
• 3:12
  Speaker 1: for me when I'm when I'm playing classical guitar, I
• 3:16
  Speaker 1: really have to to get this stretch in certain pieces
• 3:19
  Speaker 1: that that's a big deal for me. I have my
• 3:22
  Speaker 1: finger way down here. Most classical guitar players can still
• 3:25
  Speaker 1: you can still see some of their thumb. But me,
• 3:28
  Speaker 1: you still practice classical. Not really, there's no point. But
• 3:33
  Speaker 1: I just did an orchestral version Let's dance, And I
• 3:38
  Speaker 1: had an idea of playing classical guitar, but it felt
• 3:42
  Speaker 1: better to have Bully singing with the strings. Was amazing.
• 3:46
  Speaker 1: Oh yeah, it's unbelievable. I want to ask you about
• 3:49
  Speaker 1: all the songs, but let's start with Let's Dance. I
• 3:53
  Speaker 1: want you to tell me about the first time you
• 3:55
  Speaker 1: heard the song. Yeah, the very first time David played
• 4:00
  Speaker 1: Let's Dance for me. He walked into my bedroom. We
• 4:04
  Speaker 1: were in Switzerland, and I believe that he had said
• 4:09
  Speaker 1: he had just written it the night before, and he
• 4:12
  Speaker 1: um walked into the studio and he played something, um,
• 4:20
  Speaker 1: something that sounded like that. You know. I was like,
• 4:24
  Speaker 1: and I was like, that was and he was into it,
• 4:29
  Speaker 1: um and um. He had the lyrics as well well.
• 4:33
  Speaker 1: He just he was singing very um, true to it,
• 4:38
  Speaker 1: like he knew what it was. He was singing, Um,
• 4:42
  Speaker 1: it's almost hard for me to do it. Um. What
• 4:48
  Speaker 1: was he doing? No, I did that. That's what he said.
• 4:56
  Speaker 1: He's going, let's stand on the radio nothing something like that.
• 5:11
  Speaker 1: Way that's up your face. And then I asked him
• 5:18
  Speaker 1: if I could do an arrangement. So I fooled around
• 5:21
  Speaker 1: with it and I was going and I knew that
• 5:27
  Speaker 1: he liked jazz, so I could put in the jazzy
• 5:30
  Speaker 1: chord and I could tell that he would like it
• 5:32
  Speaker 1: right away. But then when I moved it from A
• 5:35
  Speaker 1: minor up to B flat, it actually had a different vibe.
• 5:39
  Speaker 1: It got it got brighter in like and funkier sounding.
• 5:42
  Speaker 1: So I started going, you can already hear it like.
• 5:50
  Speaker 1: Oh and by the way, when I started playing it,
• 5:52
  Speaker 1: I only imitated his just for a few bars. I
• 5:58
  Speaker 1: started going, but that still sounded dark. So then I
• 6:07
  Speaker 1: moved it up and oct him when I went. But
• 6:30
  Speaker 1: because of the whole disco sucks back backlash, I didn't
• 6:33
  Speaker 1: want to do chucking on David Poley's album, So you
• 6:38
  Speaker 1: ended up slowing it down after that, Um yeah, and
• 6:41
  Speaker 1: only playing like So, if you hear the demo that
• 6:45
  Speaker 1: I did in Switzerland, I'm chucking. I'm actually playing, you know.
• 6:54
  Speaker 1: When you hear the original demo, I'm doing then Rogers thing.
• 6:58
  Speaker 1: But when we got to America, I made a conscious
• 7:01
  Speaker 1: decision not to do that and had the horns sort
• 7:05
  Speaker 1: of doubling me and giving it some punch. And when
• 7:08
  Speaker 1: Bow and I walked into the studio, Um, Bob Clearmontain
• 7:12
  Speaker 1: was getting the different delays that he was going to
• 7:16
  Speaker 1: use on the various instruments on the drums, so we
• 7:19
  Speaker 1: wound up having a multi tap delay happening on the guitar.
• 7:23
  Speaker 1: So even though all I played was the rhythm that
• 7:28
  Speaker 1: you here, winds up sounding something like what the song now,
• 7:48
  Speaker 1: Let's Dance. As many fans, it has one very famous
• 7:52
  Speaker 1: fan who always wanted to play with you. Um, oh
• 7:55
  Speaker 1: my god, Prince is that? Oh my god? Yeah? So
• 8:00
  Speaker 1: um for years, I mean, I can't even tell you
• 8:03
  Speaker 1: how many years, maybe since the first time I met
• 8:07
  Speaker 1: Prince Um. He had asked me to play Let's Dance
• 8:12
  Speaker 1: live together somewhere. So we had played live together in
• 8:17
  Speaker 1: London at a little club in Camden, and we did
• 8:22
  Speaker 1: not play Let's Dance that night, I'm positive of that.
• 8:25
  Speaker 1: We played a bunch of James Brown's songs and maybe
• 8:30
  Speaker 1: the Ohio Players and some funk songs. When I walked
• 8:33
  Speaker 1: into the club, he was playing with Ron Wood and
• 8:36
  Speaker 1: I don't know what they were playing. I don't remember.
• 8:39
  Speaker 1: I was really pretty high in those days, but they
• 8:42
  Speaker 1: were probably playing the blues or jamming on a popular
• 8:45
  Speaker 1: rock song Sunshine or Your Love or something like that.
• 8:48
  Speaker 1: And then when I walked in, Prince said, whoa, now, Rogers, not,
• 8:52
  Speaker 1: this man has the funk. And he gave me his
• 8:55
  Speaker 1: guitar and he sat down on the keyboards and we
• 8:57
  Speaker 1: just jammed for like I don't even know how long,
• 9:00
  Speaker 1: but that felt like one of the most amazing nights
• 9:02
  Speaker 1: of my life. And I remember calling the concierge at
• 9:07
  Speaker 1: my hotel and asked him if they had purple roses.
• 9:10
  Speaker 1: I didn't know if there was, if there was anything
• 9:12
  Speaker 1: as a purple rose, if they existed, So I said,
• 9:16
  Speaker 1: figure out a way to make them purple, either spray
• 9:18
  Speaker 1: paint them or put food coloring in them and send
• 9:21
  Speaker 1: I don't know, I was pretty absurd in those days.
• 9:24
  Speaker 1: I may have sent like a hundred purple roses to
• 9:27
  Speaker 1: Prince's room. Nice. That's crazy, But you ended up playing
• 9:31
  Speaker 1: the song, yeah, eventually. So years later he tricked me
• 9:37
  Speaker 1: a couple of times. We both were living sort of
• 9:41
  Speaker 1: in Turks and Cacos a bit. He bought a house
• 9:44
  Speaker 1: down there and I was part of a resort project,
• 9:49
  Speaker 1: and one New Year's Eve we played and oh it
• 9:53
  Speaker 1: was cool, and John bon Jovie came when John got
• 9:56
  Speaker 1: his start here, so John bon Jovi and Prince came
• 9:59
  Speaker 1: to the show, and Prince said to me, oh, wow,
• 10:01
  Speaker 1: tonight is the night. Now I'll get the play Let's
• 10:03
  Speaker 1: stance with you in the band. So we set up
• 10:06
  Speaker 1: to set up his amp and everything, did the whole
• 10:08
  Speaker 1: sound check. We're ready for Prince to come out and
• 10:10
  Speaker 1: play New Year's Eve. The places crowded, everybody's having a
• 10:13
  Speaker 1: good time, and we're doing our thing. And I get
• 10:16
  Speaker 1: into the middle of the setting. I say, ladies and gentlemen,
• 10:19
  Speaker 1: we have a special guest coming out tonight. I think
• 10:21
  Speaker 1: you're gonna love this, Prince, and I introduced him and
• 10:25
  Speaker 1: the band. We're just standing there, no print. He doesn't
• 10:28
  Speaker 1: come out, and I keep introducing him. I go, Prince.
• 10:31
  Speaker 1: I don't know if I started screaming press because I
• 10:35
  Speaker 1: knew it was there, and someone told me that he
• 10:38
  Speaker 1: actually ran and hid because he wouldn't come out. So
• 10:43
  Speaker 1: after a while we just said to hell with him.
• 10:45
  Speaker 1: We played the song, and then at the end of
• 10:48
  Speaker 1: the night, I didn't even ask him. Maybe I asked
• 10:50
  Speaker 1: him why he didn't come out or something I don't
• 10:52
  Speaker 1: even remember, but we wound up playing. It was great,
• 10:54
  Speaker 1: everybody had a good time, but I was embarrassed as hell.
• 10:57
  Speaker 1: So now fast forward a year or two later and
• 11:00
  Speaker 1: we're playing a show with him at the Superdome in
• 11:04
  Speaker 1: Louisiana in New Orleans, and he told us that he
• 11:08
  Speaker 1: was going to come out. Now we're in front of
• 11:10
  Speaker 1: like seventy thousand people, and I'm not going to be
• 11:14
  Speaker 1: this idiot and make the same mistake again. And ladies
• 11:17
  Speaker 1: and gentlemen, we have a special guest for you tonight, Prince.
• 11:20
  Speaker 1: And then he doesn't come out. And I'm standing in
• 11:21
  Speaker 1: front of seventy thousand people and he doesn't come out.
• 11:24
  Speaker 1: At least at the resort was only about two hundred,
• 11:26
  Speaker 1: so I didn't I didn't introduce him, even though we
• 11:30
  Speaker 1: went through the same steps we did sound check. He
• 11:32
  Speaker 1: had his am there in the whole bit. So when
• 11:35
  Speaker 1: we get into the part of the song where Ralph
• 11:37
  Speaker 1: tells the whole crowd to jump, Jump, Jump, I'm standing
• 11:40
  Speaker 1: on the stage and I'm jumping up and down, and
• 11:42
  Speaker 1: then I hear this crowd like, give this loud roar wow,
• 11:46
  Speaker 1: And I look to my left and there's Print jumping
• 11:50
  Speaker 1: with me, jumping up and holding his hand up in
• 11:53
  Speaker 1: the air, and the crowd freaks out. And then we
• 11:56
  Speaker 1: go into the next bit and he takes over and
• 11:58
  Speaker 1: starts sewing and it's just killing. It's so good. So
• 12:02
  Speaker 1: he did a little bit of like the sort of
• 12:04
  Speaker 1: Stevie ay Vaughan kind of thing, but then he went
• 12:06
  Speaker 1: into like just chucking with me, and that's what I
• 12:09
  Speaker 1: got nuts. And you can go online and see it.
• 12:11
  Speaker 1: It's on YouTube. It's so great. We'll have more with
• 12:14
  Speaker 1: Bruce Headlam and Nile Rodgers after the break. We're back
• 12:21
  Speaker 1: with Bruce Headlam, Nile Rodgers and Cheek. Now. I looked up,
• 12:49
  Speaker 1: and this is for the music nerds out there. I
• 12:51
  Speaker 1: looked up the chords to Everybody Dance, and it's a
• 12:56
  Speaker 1: C minor seventh, B flat eleven, B flat eleven. I
• 13:00
  Speaker 1: should let you tell the chords. You know, the chords
• 13:02
  Speaker 1: C minus seven, B flat eleven to C eleven A
• 13:06
  Speaker 1: flat major seven. Now this chord, you can spell it
• 13:09
  Speaker 1: a number of ways. I like to think of it
• 13:13
  Speaker 1: as a minor seven with a raise five, or a
• 13:16
  Speaker 1: minor a minor seven flat thirteen, but most people would
• 13:22
  Speaker 1: probably call it a D minor eleven with an A
• 13:25
  Speaker 1: in the base. UM to a B flat eleven, And
• 13:29
  Speaker 1: the reason for that is because um, I wanted to
• 13:33
  Speaker 1: have this chromatic movement. So right, so it goes to
• 13:42
  Speaker 1: everybody dances, do do do do? Clap your hands. Okay,
• 14:24
  Speaker 1: you're a serious jazz guy. Yeah, nobody else would do
• 14:26
  Speaker 1: it that way. I don't do do do? You do
• 14:29
  Speaker 1: all your songs that way? It is it that kind
• 14:31
  Speaker 1: of chording I like to think. So, I mean, look
• 14:33
  Speaker 1: at Let's dance? How cool that is? I mean that's
• 14:36
  Speaker 1: um that. I guess that's somewhat of a trademark of mine,
• 14:39
  Speaker 1: putting different types of jazzy chords and cool voicings. Um
• 14:45
  Speaker 1: in pop songs, you know, look at Diana Ross and
• 14:48
  Speaker 1: I'm Coming Out and all that stuff. And you also,
• 14:51
  Speaker 1: was everybody dance the first time? You used to break down?
• 14:54
  Speaker 1: And um, no, breakdowns were actually quite common in our
• 15:00
  Speaker 1: live shows. Um, it was just the first time I
• 15:05
  Speaker 1: did it when I was recording and I was the boss.
• 15:09
  Speaker 1: Every other time that I recorded, I was not the boss,
• 15:11
  Speaker 1: so I didn't have any control of it. Yeah, And
• 15:14
  Speaker 1: was that from jazz? Like breaking it down like that
• 15:16
  Speaker 1: head kind of rebuilding? That's an R and B thing.
• 15:18
  Speaker 1: It's a it's an R and B disco thing. It's
• 15:21
  Speaker 1: a common R and B move. You would hear a
• 15:23
  Speaker 1: lot of R and B bands breakdown and go now
• 15:25
  Speaker 1: I want to talk to ladies for me, or I
• 15:27
  Speaker 1: want to talk to you, or like Earth when and
• 15:29
  Speaker 1: Fire when you hear them say pop, I want to
• 15:31
  Speaker 1: talk to you about things I see every day, you know,
• 15:33
  Speaker 1: and they break down on the record. It's all about
• 15:37
  Speaker 1: So it was very common in R and B to
• 15:39
  Speaker 1: do that. I want to talk a bit about good times.
• 16:24
  Speaker 1: You said in an interview once that all your songs
• 16:28
  Speaker 1: are nonfiction, absolutely, and they're often about things that you
• 16:32
  Speaker 1: want to see happen. Can you tell me what good times? Yes?
• 16:36
  Speaker 1: So when we wrote Good Times in America, at the time,
• 16:42
  Speaker 1: we were in the midst of the greatest financial recession
• 16:46
  Speaker 1: since the Great Depression. We had gas rationing, you know,
• 16:50
  Speaker 1: I mean if you lived in New York State, I remember,
• 16:53
  Speaker 1: if you're a license plate ended with an even number,
• 16:56
  Speaker 1: you can get gas on a certain day or an
• 16:57
  Speaker 1: odd number a different day. So times were sort of hard,
• 17:05
  Speaker 1: and we thought, well, what other period in American history
• 17:09
  Speaker 1: seemed to feel like that? And we went wow, you know,
• 17:13
  Speaker 1: the Roaring twenties and the you know, the the Great
• 17:16
  Speaker 1: Depression and that sort of jazz era and the whole
• 17:19
  Speaker 1: thing about dance marathons, and that's why we came up
• 17:23
  Speaker 1: with the whole yas y'alls the thing on dance, dance dance.
• 17:25
  Speaker 1: The whole concept of the first few Chic albums was
• 17:28
  Speaker 1: all jazz era stuff and h on risque. When we
• 17:33
  Speaker 1: finally did Good Times, we were confident enough in our
• 17:37
  Speaker 1: band to now sort of expose our formula to the world.
• 17:42
  Speaker 1: So the lyrics to Good Times were sort of ripped
• 17:47
  Speaker 1: off from Al Jolson and the song that they used
• 17:51
  Speaker 1: to sing after Prohibition when they were happy Day and
• 17:58
  Speaker 1: then time and any dang about quarter to night. So
• 18:03
  Speaker 1: we go, happy, happy Days are here again. Right, that
• 18:08
  Speaker 1: was we start right with it. So we are obvious
• 18:14
  Speaker 1: again times. Right, let's get together, Let's do it again.
• 18:30
  Speaker 1: Because Good Times came out at a particular political time
• 18:42
  Speaker 1: because the Disco Sucks movement had come they had the
• 18:46
  Speaker 1: riot in Chicago. Yeah, um, summer of seventy nine. What
• 18:50
  Speaker 1: did that feel like for you? Well, it was really
• 18:52
  Speaker 1: interesting because it was sort of like a biphasic kind
• 18:57
  Speaker 1: of feeling because when we found out about it, we
• 19:00
  Speaker 1: were on an airplane flying from Europe back to America.
• 19:04
  Speaker 1: So it happened while we were away, and we didn't
• 19:09
  Speaker 1: think of ourselves as a disco band. I mean, listen
• 19:11
  Speaker 1: to every chic album. We have ballads, everyone has an instrumental.
• 19:15
  Speaker 1: It's always a jazzy, you know type of thing. The
• 19:19
  Speaker 1: Diana Ross album is incredibly As far as the composers,
• 19:23
  Speaker 1: I gotta say that that's really unique. There's nothing I've
• 19:26
  Speaker 1: ever written that sounds like that before or after. That
• 19:29
  Speaker 1: was purely written for Diana Ross. I mean, you listen
• 19:33
  Speaker 1: to a song like I'm coming Out, and I mean
• 19:36
  Speaker 1: I have a fanfare in there. I mean, we're When
• 19:43
  Speaker 1: we first saw Diana Ross, Bernard walked with me and said, wow,
• 19:45
  Speaker 1: look at that. She's like our black queen. So I
• 19:48
  Speaker 1: kept that in my head and when I wrote that fanfare,
• 19:52
  Speaker 1: I said to Diana, I said, look, you know, like
• 19:55
  Speaker 1: when the President of the United States walked walks in
• 19:57
  Speaker 1: the room, they go dad, Hail to the Chief. I said,
• 19:59
  Speaker 1: this is your fanfare. And I told her, I says,
• 20:04
  Speaker 1: you will never start a show without this song ever
• 20:08
  Speaker 1: the rest of your life. And now we see thirty
• 20:10
  Speaker 1: five years later, I was right. She would never start
• 20:12
  Speaker 1: to show without playing out Coming Out at the beginning
• 20:15
  Speaker 1: of her show. Although one of your most famous songs,
• 20:18
  Speaker 1: the Freak, is actually about being rejected at a disco. Correct,
• 20:22
  Speaker 1: Can you tell that story quick? Yeah? So our first song,
• 20:25
  Speaker 1: Everybody Dance, was the real sort of super cool club
• 20:30
  Speaker 1: song on our first album. Even though Dance Dance Dance
• 20:35
  Speaker 1: was popular and was big on the radio and was
• 20:39
  Speaker 1: platinum twelve inch, I mean it was huge, it was
• 20:43
  Speaker 1: Everybody Dance that really secured our vibe as a cool, hip,
• 20:48
  Speaker 1: underground dance group. And so Grace Jones had heard Everybody
• 20:52
  Speaker 1: Dance and she was a fan of that song, and
• 20:55
  Speaker 1: she was thinking about having these two young new producers
• 21:00
  Speaker 1: do what would then be her next album. She said
• 21:03
  Speaker 1: that the only way we could truly understand her artistically
• 21:07
  Speaker 1: is to see her live show. Then we really would
• 21:10
  Speaker 1: understand who Grace Jones is. But the problem was we
• 21:13
  Speaker 1: had only spoken to her that one time. We never
• 21:16
  Speaker 1: met her. We were on the phone. So Grace has
• 21:19
  Speaker 1: a very unique accent. She's the only one on earth
• 21:22
  Speaker 1: that sounds like that, and she says, so darling. But
• 21:25
  Speaker 1: you go to the back door and you tell them
• 21:27
  Speaker 1: your personal friends of miss Grace Jones, and they would
• 21:29
  Speaker 1: let you in so we did that with that accent,
• 21:33
  Speaker 1: and the guy slams the door in our faces. And
• 21:36
  Speaker 1: while he's slamming the door, he's going, oh, fuck off,
• 21:39
  Speaker 1: and we said no, no, no, no no, no, we're kicking
• 21:41
  Speaker 1: the door again because now we had to be above
• 21:43
  Speaker 1: the level of the music. Now once we finally got
• 21:45
  Speaker 1: his attention, so we wanted to get him before he
• 21:48
  Speaker 1: walked away from the door. So we kicked really hard
• 21:51
  Speaker 1: and he said, you know, he reiterated what he had said,
• 21:54
  Speaker 1: I told you the f off, so we knew we
• 21:57
  Speaker 1: weren't going to get in. It was New Year's Eve
• 21:59
  Speaker 1: seventy seven going into seventy eight, and we were walking
• 22:05
  Speaker 1: back to my apartment, which is on fifty second Street
• 22:08
  Speaker 1: between eight and nine, and to get there we had
• 22:10
  Speaker 1: to pass a liquor store, so we bought two bottles
• 22:13
  Speaker 1: of damper On, which in those days we called it
• 22:15
  Speaker 1: rock and roll mouthwash. We bought two bottles of DP
• 22:19
  Speaker 1: and went to my house and we downed them so
• 22:21
  Speaker 1: fast we got really light headed, and we turned his
• 22:26
  Speaker 1: rejection phrase f off into shriek out. We went, oh, well,
• 22:45
  Speaker 1: when we first wrote it, we wrote a whole song
• 22:48
  Speaker 1: using the original lyric and thinking of every situation where
• 22:52
  Speaker 1: the appropriate response would be fuck up. So we're playing no, no,
• 22:58
  Speaker 1: if a cab driver cuts you off, don't, don't fuck up.
• 23:03
  Speaker 1: And I remember saying, if your mother asked you to
• 23:05
  Speaker 1: do homework, fuck up. And we were into, were laughing,
• 23:09
  Speaker 1: feeling great, and then finally my partner Bernard's I'm a man,
• 23:13
  Speaker 1: you notice is happening and I'm like a Bernard. You know,
• 23:16
  Speaker 1: this is two years before hip hop. We can't get
• 23:19
  Speaker 1: you know, a radio record on the radio that's got
• 23:22
  Speaker 1: the F bomb in it. But somehow we wound up
• 23:28
  Speaker 1: with freak up. We have to take a quick break
• 23:57
  Speaker 1: right here, but we'll be right back with Bruce Headlam
• 24:00
  Speaker 1: and Nil Rogers. We're back with Bruce Headlam, Nil Rogers
• 24:07
  Speaker 1: and Chic. You mentioned that you and Bernard didn't see
• 24:11
  Speaker 1: yourselves as stars as frontman and you saw a chic
• 24:14
  Speaker 1: very much as this organization. Yes, you've built this incredible career,
• 24:19
  Speaker 1: You've had hits literally in every decade since you started
• 24:23
  Speaker 1: by being this great collaborator. Why does collaboration seem to
• 24:28
  Speaker 1: mean more to you than being the front man? Because
• 24:31
  Speaker 1: as a composer, I write for ensembles. That's what I hear.
• 24:37
  Speaker 1: The only time I could ever think of writing a
• 24:39
  Speaker 1: composition that was actually recorded and performed for either a soloist,
• 24:48
  Speaker 1: a solo instrument, or maybe a duet. It's just for films.
• 24:52
  Speaker 1: I can coming to America write this queue where they
• 24:55
  Speaker 1: go the Royal Penis is clean, your Highness, and it's
• 24:57
  Speaker 1: just like a pan flute, you know, pan flute and harp.
• 25:03
  Speaker 1: And then in the movie called Soup for One, I
• 25:06
  Speaker 1: do this thing called Tavern on the Green and it's
• 25:10
  Speaker 1: just me playing classical guitar along with a Yamaha CSAD
• 25:16
  Speaker 1: synthesizer with my keyboard player. But those are the only
• 25:19
  Speaker 1: duets that I've ever really recorded. Everything else is for
• 25:22
  Speaker 1: a bunch of a room full of people. But in
• 25:25
  Speaker 1: your autobiography, which I'm going to recommend everybody because it's
• 25:29
  Speaker 1: it really is this incredible life story and it is
• 25:33
  Speaker 1: it's sort of James Baldwin and Charles Dickens wrote a
• 25:36
  Speaker 1: book together. It may start to approach your You know,
• 25:39
  Speaker 1: you had a very you come back to this a
• 25:43
  Speaker 1: very lonely life. Yeah, you're around your parents or your
• 25:48
  Speaker 1: stepfather and your mother, whom you love dearly, but who
• 25:51
  Speaker 1: would send you on bus rides across the country by yourself,
• 25:54
  Speaker 1: who often left you alone. And they were heroin attics.
• 25:57
  Speaker 1: I mean they were in pursuit of their number one love.
• 26:01
  Speaker 1: And when when someone first tuned your guitar and you
• 26:04
  Speaker 1: played I think a day Day life, right, and you
• 26:07
  Speaker 1: thought I'm going to be Were you thinking I want
• 26:09
  Speaker 1: to be a star? I want to be up on
• 26:10
  Speaker 1: snow No, no, no no. Prior to that, I had
• 26:15
  Speaker 1: only really played classical music, so I just wanted to
• 26:18
  Speaker 1: be part of a symphony orchestra. I used to play
• 26:20
  Speaker 1: the clarinet, which is funny now because if I tried
• 26:22
  Speaker 1: to play the clarinet it would probably sound hysterical. But
• 26:27
  Speaker 1: my dream when I was a kid was to be
• 26:28
  Speaker 1: a part of Maybe that's what it's all about it
• 26:31
  Speaker 1: because I've always wanted to be part of an orchestra,
• 26:33
  Speaker 1: to be part of an organization, and because in a
• 26:36
  Speaker 1: big symphony orchestra, basically you could hide, but you know
• 26:40
  Speaker 1: every now and you might get a great solo, you know.
• 26:43
  Speaker 1: So that was sort of my dream growing up. I
• 26:47
  Speaker 1: wanted to emulate my biological father, who was always just
• 26:50
  Speaker 1: a percussionist with bands. He was never like the guy
• 26:54
  Speaker 1: out front, like Tito point there or something. But you
• 26:57
  Speaker 1: like that sense of anonymity, yeah, because it was the
• 27:01
  Speaker 1: way that I never felt attractive or anything like that.
• 27:06
  Speaker 1: And when you looked at stars, stars were always like
• 27:10
  Speaker 1: you know, they walk into the room. You know. I
• 27:13
  Speaker 1: remember I used to walk into a club with Madonna.
• 27:15
  Speaker 1: Now I'm born in New York, knew every club owner
• 27:18
  Speaker 1: in town, and I'd walk into a club with Madonna
• 27:21
  Speaker 1: and she was relatively unknown, and people go, hey, who's
• 27:24
  Speaker 1: that girl with Now who's that girl? You hear it
• 27:26
  Speaker 1: then like who's that girl? Who's that girl? Now? Who's
• 27:29
  Speaker 1: that girl? And she was unknown, but that's because she
• 27:33
  Speaker 1: was a star. She felt like a star from the
• 27:35
  Speaker 1: moment you met her. She you know, they just have
• 27:38
  Speaker 1: that thing, Bowie, it's a star. He walks in the
• 27:41
  Speaker 1: room and like wow, they just you know, you could
• 27:45
  Speaker 1: feel it, so I knew. I never It's funny. I
• 27:47
  Speaker 1: always laugh. I say, you know, if I walk into
• 27:50
  Speaker 1: a room with Lady Gaga, people go, oh my God,
• 27:52
  Speaker 1: there's Lady God. Then he go wow God, Then he go,
• 27:55
  Speaker 1: hey Nile, you want to be the Hey Nile guy.
• 28:00
  Speaker 1: I like being here now, so like I've done, you know,
• 28:03
  Speaker 1: maybe almost like uh, I mean I heard the other
• 28:06
  Speaker 1: day they said like fifteen thousand, eight hundred and eight
• 28:10
  Speaker 1: recording something insane but still like walking through. Hey, n man,
• 28:15
  Speaker 1: are you doing? I think think Fran might beat me
• 28:21
  Speaker 1: up if you guys go any farther. Um and I
• 28:25
  Speaker 1: would stay here all day. We only have one more
• 28:26
  Speaker 1: song to talk about that Daft Punk. But I think
• 28:28
  Speaker 1: we're okay. All right. That was unplugged. That was just fantastic.
• 28:37
  Speaker 1: Thank you. Bruce and Nile didn't have time to talk
• 28:39
  Speaker 1: about the Daft Punk song Get Lucky that Nile played
• 28:41
  Speaker 1: on and co wrote, but Chic did perform it for us.
• 28:45
  Speaker 1: So here it is in its entirety, like the legend
• 29:03
  Speaker 1: the fan all lives with beginning, what keeps the planet spinning,
• 29:27
  Speaker 1: the fall from the beginning because came to far to
• 29:48
  Speaker 1: give star right by and come to die. She's I'm
• 30:09
  Speaker 1: back to the Sun. I'm a fun back to get home.
• 30:12
  Speaker 1: She's a fun night fun, I'm a mom dage. We're
• 30:17
  Speaker 1: a found night to the sun. Were mount again down
• 30:21
  Speaker 1: night Mine run night together, Lucky, We're up fun nice again. Up,
• 30:27
  Speaker 1: We're up fum nice again. Luck, We're ubout Night get
• 30:31
  Speaker 1: lucky night together, Lucky bag and no river my shucket
• 30:53
  Speaker 1: keep funking man, Yeah, what is the time to la?
• 31:01
  Speaker 1: If you want to leave my wet come by to
• 31:10
  Speaker 1: give far And I'm a fun song. She's a fun
• 31:28
  Speaker 1: fun from a fun fun light of the sun. I'm
• 31:34
  Speaker 1: a fun night to get song with a fun night
• 31:36
  Speaker 1: for the fun or up fun night to get lucky
• 31:39
  Speaker 1: from my fun night to get lucky. We're up fun
• 31:42
  Speaker 1: night to get lucky. We're up one night to get lucky,
• 31:46
  Speaker 1: grow up on lack to get lucky. Ship she to
• 32:24
  Speaker 1: get back the sun from a pumack. So she's a
• 32:42
  Speaker 1: funda for the fun about sometime lucky. We're up that
• 32:47
  Speaker 1: of the sun, were up the son. We're up back
• 32:51
  Speaker 1: of the fun. We're upun back together. We're un night
• 32:55
  Speaker 1: to gel lucky. We're up lucky. We're upun back to
• 32:59
  Speaker 1: get lucky. We're up gel lucky. We're up night to
• 33:03
  Speaker 1: get lay sure up night to get lovey for a
• 33:06
  Speaker 1: full night to get laughing my lucky. We're fun to
• 33:11
  Speaker 1: get lucky. We're a fun time to get lucky. We're
• 33:14
  Speaker 1: up fun time to get lucky. We're up found time
• 33:17
  Speaker 1: to get lucky. We're U found time to get lucky.
• 33:20
  Speaker 1: We're found time to get lucky. We're a found night
• 33:23
  Speaker 1: to get lucky. We're fun time to geen, come too
• 33:28
  Speaker 1: far to get up who we are? So let's raise
• 33:36
  Speaker 1: the bar in the car to start. Thanks to now
• 33:51
  Speaker 1: Rogers for the incredible stories and Too Chic for the
• 33:54
  Speaker 1: performances we heard now Rogers on guitar and vocals, Ralph
• 33:59
  Speaker 1: Roll on drums, Kim Davis and Flami on vocals, Rich
• 34:03
  Speaker 1: Hilton and Russell Graham on keyboards, and Steve Janowski and
• 34:06
  Speaker 1: Brendan Wright on horns. Than You Year all of our
• 34:09
  Speaker 1: favorite Chic and now Rogers produced songs on a playlist
• 34:12
  Speaker 1: at broken Record podcast dot com. Be sure to subscribe
• 34:15
  Speaker 1: to our YouTube channel at YouTube dot com slash broken
• 34:19
  Speaker 1: Record Podcast, where you can find all of our new episodes.
• 34:22
  Speaker 1: You can follow us on Twitter at broken Record. Broken
• 34:25
  Speaker 1: Record is produced with helpful Lea Rose, Jason Gambre, Ben Holiday,
• 34:29
  Speaker 1: Eric Sandler, and Jennifer Sanchez, with engineering help from Nick Chafee.
• 34:33
  Speaker 1: Our executive producer is Mia Lobet. Broken Record is a
• 34:37
  Speaker 1: production of Pushkin Industries. If you like this show and
• 34:40
  Speaker 1: others from Pushkin, consider subscribing to pushkin Plus. Pushkin Plus
• 34:44
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• 34:48
  Speaker 1: ad free listening for four ninety nine a month. Look
• 34:51
  Speaker 1: for Pushkin Plus on Apple Podcasts, Subscriptions, and if you'd
• 34:55
  Speaker 1: like to show, please remember to share, wait to review
• 34:58
  Speaker 1: us on your podcast app Our theme mus Expect Kenny Beats.
• 35:01
  Speaker 1: I'm justin Richmond,