Elton John
Elton John
Sir Elton Hercules John, CBE, is an English pianist, singer-songwriter and composer. He has worked with lyricist Bernie Taupin as his songwriting partner since 1967; they have collaborated on more than 30 albums to date. In his five-decade career Elton John has sold more than 300 million records, making him one of the best-selling music artists in the world. He has more than fifty Top 40 hits, including seven consecutive No. 1 US albums, 58 Billboard Top 40 singles, 27 Top...
NationalityEnglish
ProfessionRock Singer
Date of Birth25 March 1947
CityLondon, England
You don't know being a performer what kind of performance you're going to give. You know you can give a certain quality of performance, but as I grow older I'm much more content in my own skin because when I come offstage, I have a balance in my life.
Rock and roll came in and changed my life and changed the whole music scene forever, and then I grew to love R&B and Motown and all black music, gospel music. But I never dismiss any form of music. I listen to everything.
What record companies do these days is drain the blood dry of an album, take six singles off it, and harm the longevity of artists' careers by doing it.
We can't keep thinking of gay people as being ostracised; we can't keep thinking of Muslim people as being ostracised because of the fundamentalism that occurs in Islam. Muslim people have to do something about speaking up about it. We can't judge a book by its cover.
Sometimes you can't see the wood for the trees as an artist.
Instead of more violence why isn't there a meeting of religious leaders. It's all got to be dialogue - that's the only way. Get everybody from each religion together and say 'Listen, this can't go on. Why do we have all this hatred?'
We are all God's people; we have to get along and the religious leaders have to lead the way. If they don't do it, who else is going to do it? They're not going to do it and it's left to musicians or to someone else to deal with it.
I am totally against the war but violence is part of mankind and it's going to happen, but as musicians I think we've got to step up and say 'come on'.
Dave and I as a couple seem to be the acceptable face of gayness, and that's great. I've got to use that power to try and do what I can - or we have - to try to make the situations in Russia and Poland better.
I'm going to fight for human rights, whether I do it silently behind the scenes or vocally so that I get locked up. I can't just sit back; it's not in my nature. I can't sit back and blindly ignore it, and I won't.
I can't think of anything until I've got printed words in front of me. I never wake up in the middle of the night with a song in my head.
Until I can visualise what the lyrics are about and see the story or whatever, I can't hear the melody.
I just think you shouldn't expect people to pay money to see someone sing live and then lip-synch.
There is such a thing as good interference from your record label. I don't think I get enough interference from my record label.