You might say that at 57, Elton John is not acting his age. This year alone the Oscar and Grammy winner wrote two stage musicals, toured the world and performed at 25 benefits, and still had time to record another CD, "Peachtree Road," and put together a DVD collection that chronicles his career. “Today” host Matt Lauer talks to John in Atlanta, his sometime home, and starts the interview by asking about his Madonna comments.
Elton John: It was a music awards show in London — very irreverent, as the British are — and she was nominated in the best live show of the year. There are elements of her show that aren't live, and I got up and said it's not fair — there are other bands in this that do play live. She shouldn't be in the live section. If she would have been best show I wouldn't have had any problem with it.
Matt Lauer: I think you went on, Elton, and said something like, “Anybody who, you know, records stuff and plays it back during a live show should be shot,” or something like that.
John: Probably. I mean it was a joke. It's been an open secret now that people lip-synch on stage. She's probably the least culpable of all of it.
Lauer: [Did] you see Ashlee Simpson on “Saturday Night Live”? Do you know what happened?
John: I do know. I felt vindicated by that when it came out about three weeks later.
Lauer: No sense of sympathy for her at all?
John: Only the fact that she's very young, she’s very new to this game [and] she was put in a situation. “Saturday Night Live” should never have had her on in the first place. They usually had a history of having great music on their show of live musicians, and they had great acts on. This is a generation of acts that have been brought up on MTV, they do videos [and] they have no experience performing live.
Lauer: Do you think the person filling the seat cares?
John: They probably want it to sound like their CD. I’m saying that it's just a slew of mediocrity that's being flung at the radio and flung at audiences, and they have no lasting talent.
Lauer: So they're getting what they deserve?
John: They're getting what they deserve, the schlock that they deserve.
Lauer: You've never been one not to speak your mind. It seems though, now that you’re in your 50s, people like to say when you speak your mind it's because you're getting to be a bit of a curmudgeon.
John: No, not at all.
Lauer: How do you feel about that?
John: That's nonsense. What is it? Because of the Madonna thing? Not at all. I’m not a curmudgeon whatsoever. [Laughter]
Lauer: Well, I tell you I’ve never seen you look happier or sound happier.
John: I’m really great and you know I’m not a curmudgeon. God, I just speak my mind!
Lauer: You know there's a magazine and you're on the cover and it says, “I’m not cranky.”
John: Yeah, Entertainment Weekly. Well I’m not. I’m very happy.
Lauer: You're going to have to spend the next five years of your life convincing people you're not a curmudgeon.
John: Well, you know, people still think I wear bright glasses and high-heeled shoes and colorful clothes. That’s not happened since the ’70s. But you know, you create a person and a persona and you're going to have to live with it whether you like it or not.
Lauer: Somebody said to me, “You've got to hear ‘Peachtree Road’ … it's a country album.” And then I played it. It’s not really a country album.
John: No, it's got a little bit of country in it. But it's [a] very Southern-influenced album. We had no idea going to the studio what kind of music we would be writing. But seeing as we were recording mostly in Atlanta, and that's where we started the process, it seemed that the Southern element came through.
Elton teams up again on this CD with Bernie Taupin, his longtime songwriting collaborator. From the beginning, they were a perfect match. Taupin could turn out a lyric in half an hour and Elton could compose it within the hour. Together they wrote all 12 songs on "Peachtree Road."
John: I've always written country-flavored songs because Bernie, who writes the lyrics, has always loved country music, and I do too. My voice has gotten deeper over the last few years because of an operation that I had at the end of the ’80s. I had two very serious growths on my vocal cords which were, thank God, benign. But when the operation was finished, it lowered the timbre of my voice and it made it more resonant, deeper. I’m much happier with my voice now.
Lauer: Is it a more soulful voice now, do you think?
John: Absolutely a better voice. I’ve learned how to breathe properly. I’m a better singer than I was in the early days. Diana Krall said [that] I used to be a piano player that sang, and now I’m a singer that plays the piano — that's a good analogy.
Lauer: Do you understand when people hear your songs and they want to attach an incredible autobiographical element to them. I mean, you're not writing them.
John: No.
Lauer: So.
John: There are songs on this album, two at least are very biographical, written by Taupin about me. The first track is called "Weight of the World" and it's about me now having given up the drugs and the drink and how I’m happy to see a sunset instead of a line of coke. How I’m happy to say that I’m still around.
Elton is still around — big time. He's well into his first year of a three-year commitment to perform in Las Vegas, for which he's won raves so far and is making millions from the deal. One critic says the show is a “triumphant step forward for both him and Las Vegas.” He says he never wanted to end up there.
Lauer: Vegas?
John: Yeah.
Lauer: I don't think it comes as a shock to you. When some people think of Las Vegas they think of Siegfried and Roy, they think of Wayne Newton. Was there any trepidation on your part, to say people are going to think I’ve entered a certain phase of my career?
John: Of course. I mean, that old image of Vegas is so old-fashioned. But, I mean, it's in the public domain. It’s usually the graveyard or the end of the artist's career. They go there, they play their hits and they get their money and...
Lauer: The bus unloads people who come into the theater.
John: It's the antithesis of what I ever wanted to become. I mean, we took the risk and it's a thoroughly, incredibly enjoyable show for me. I’ve never done a production show like that before, and the reviews vindicated me for going there. People, of course, they say, that's perfect: Liberace, Elton John … yeah. [Laughter] That was one of the reasons that spurred me on to doing it — saying, I’ll show you idiots, you know that you can do something good there.