NILE RODGERS
CRACK SPENT AN HOUR WITH NILE RODGERS: DISCO MAESTRO, ARCH COLLABORATOR, AND THE WORLD’S MOST SUCCESSFUL MUSICAL MOOD-IMPROVER
We’re in the meeting room of a hotel. It’s one of those affectedly grand conference rooms designed to impress symposia delegates and corporate functionaries. It doesn’t much impress us. The floor is besmeared with a fecund-green (tiled) carpet punctuated by blotches of dried-on gum. From a low (tiled) ceiling hang spent-looking strip lights, scattering shafts of harsh orange- yellow onto beige plastic tables made, unconvincingly, to look wooden. They buzz like the stridulations of angry crickets. Some chairs in half-arsed, furtive little stacks line the edge of the room. It reeks of PowerPoint presentations. There are no windows.
Seemingly unaware of this scene’s pseudo-literary potential, Nile Rodgers breezes in, cheerily, and punctures the lofty music journalist musings clogging up his vibe with a broad smile and outstretched hand: “Hi, I’m Nile”, he says.
Born in the Bronx in 1952, Nile Rodgers has led (and still leads) a fascinating life. His autobiography, Le Freak, details his struggle-filled, itinerant childhood and teens. He moved often, and his parents, friends and he himself all became addicted to hard drugs. In the midst all this rootlessness, music emerged as a constant support. He mastered several instruments, eventually choosing the guitar as his main form of expression. He got his first break playing on Sesame Street, later working at The Apollo and then forming, with Bernard Edwards, the band that would epitomise disco: Chic.
Throughout the 70s, the hits – Le Freak, We Are Family, Good Times – kept coming for Rodgers & Edwards until Chicago shock jock Steve Dahl catalysed a backlash with his ‘Disco Sucks’ movement. Dahl (and, it must be said, many others) had two problems with disco: one, disco was ‘gay’; two – worse – it was ‘for’ people of colour. Against a backdrop of racism and homophobia, disco was derided out of the clubs and charts.
Rodgers and Edwards continued to produce until they disbanded in 1983. Fortunately for us, Nile went on to forge one of the most successful production careers of anyone, ever, helming the records of Madonna, Eric Clapton, Mick Jagger, Bryan Ferry, Michael Jackson and many others. Rodgers and Edwards eventually resumed touring after patching things up in 1992, but tragically, Bernard Edwards died of pneumonia in 1996, and after his own recent battle with cancer, Rodgers perhaps sees it as his duty to honour their legacy. Given the phenomenal success of his recent collaboration with Daft Punk, Get Lucky, it seems he’s bent on creating new ones too.
What explains Rodgers’ enduring career? Rodgers is free of two things that often ruin people’s enjoyment of music: firstly, pretentiousness (as in the first paragraph of this introduction); secondly, specious ‘irony’ (as in the second). He genuinely, truly, lives for music. What did he do after beating cancer? He hit the road, of course, hard as ever, and now works with just as many other musicians as before – perhaps more. The evening before our interview, Chic had headlined Bristol’s Love Saves Sunday festival in spectacular fashion, though their set was cut short due to a late start. They’d been stuck in Monte Carlo, you see, and were forced to soundcheck in front of around 5,000 people.
This hectic schedule is what we talked about first. Collaborations, Deep Hidden Meanings, The Hitmaker and an hour later, we’d only covered a fraction of what we could have. Rodgers is a garrulous, vivacious interviewee. We came into this encounter grumbling about decor; we left revelling in his Madonna anecdotes. Perhaps, then, his achievements have less to do with what he isn’t – pretentious, ‘ironic’ – and more about what he is: the world’s most successful musical mood-improver. In this, our Great Recession, we need people like Rodgers more than ever.
You’ve got a pretty relentless schedule. How do you keep that going?
Well, I do a reasonable amount of exercise, I try and eat as well as possible … see, I had a problem … [laughs] ‘had’ a problem with cancer. Regardless of what the doctors say, music has always been a sort of saviour to me. It’s always helped me through the worst times of my life. I wrote a song, that we gave to Sister Sledge, called Lost in Music. If you listen to the lyrics of that song, that’s my philosophy. My ex-partner and I, Bernard Edwards, used to say every day to each other “we’re lost in music”. You could listen to those lyrics and that’s the answer to that question. It’s 100% of my life. Getting up on that stage, freezing cold, travelling like crazy – I just wanna be on that stage.
Yeah, I read your biography Deep Hidden Meanings and that’s something that really came across: commitment and drive.
I find that it gives me balance. So many people are going on and on about the success of Get Lucky, and believe me, no one appreciates having number one records more than myself. But when you see me relatively nonchalant it’s not because ‘I’ve had so many of them’ or anything, it’s because I have to stay balanced. Anyway, I’m ten times more happy for Daft Punk than I am for me – they’re in the history books! I’ve been in the history books a number of times; people just don’t know it! [laughs]
I’m glad you mentioned Daft Punk – how did that come about?
Well, we met 17 years ago, around the time they released their first album. It was really interesting for me to hear a band sampling a lot of my stuff, or that of others I liked, and using it in a creative, new way. Others were just sampling; using the older stuff as the complete basis for their own material. These guys were different. I felt an affinity with Daft Punk. It’s not like I’ve ever been ‘famous’. When we were younger, we were sorta like Daft Punk – anonymous. That was the whole thing about Chic. We called it the ‘Chic Mystique’. We wanted everyone to love our music, but we didn’t want everyone to know what we looked like. We had a whole made up image that was good enough for a few pictures and concerts but otherwise … [laughs].
‘Chic Mystique’ – there’s another phrase I read several times in your biography. Could you explain that a little?
I’ve never written a song in my life that was fiction – ever. I write non- fiction with fictional elements. Every song has its basis in reality. So when I write music, I understand exactly what’s happening because it’s all ‘right there’. I feel I can’t do anyone else justice [as a producer] unless I understand what they’re talking about.
I remember working with David Bowie on a song called China Girl. At the time, Bowie was sober, and I didn’t want to talk to him about drugs and stuff overtly. I come from a super-druggy background – my parents were heroin addicts – so to me, when I hear a song called China Girl, it’s clear as a bell: it’s heroin and cocaine. ‘China’ means ‘China White’ (heroin); ‘Girl’ means coke. And I figure: David doesn’t want to be that obvious, so he calls it ‘China’ and ‘Girl’. I just knew that was what the song was about, but I couldn’t ask him about it because he was so adamant about being sober — he had a tattoo and stuff, y’know; how could I talk to him about speedballing? So I just made it up. I made up my own reality [for that song]. Even after all this time, we’ve never really spoken about it. He knows I’ve spoken about it, but he’s never called me up and said, “Nile you were right! It was about speedballing!” … or he may have said “you idiot, that’s completely wrong!” [laughs] But I can’t work without clarity. If I don’t know what the song means, how the hell am I gonna transmit it to you?
Do you always try and get the lyrics first then?
Nah, it doesn’t make much difference. As a composer, instrumental music is really important to me. Sometimes, with instrumental music, it’s actually more important for me to understand someone’s meaning because it’s not quite so clear. If you’re doing film-scoring, you can look at the pictures and it’s pretty obvious. But when you’re working with an artist, and say they’re writing a song but haven’t quite focused on the lyrics yet, I wanna know if they actually know what they’re thinking about before I see these lyrics or hear them.
Lots of cities are proud of their music, and Bristol’s one of them. How does it compare to all the other places you’ve been?
It’s funny – I had no idea so many people I really like and have great relationships with were either from Bristol or had gigged there the day before, like Seth Troxler. And Eats Everything – I had no idea he was a Bristol dude. We just made a new song together, and he gigged that day!
You mention Seth Troxler and Eats Everything – what do you think of today’s dance music?
I’ve always loved dance music. The one thing I’ve never done, though, is try to, as they say in hip-hop, ‘perpetrate’; I’ve never tried to be a part of something I don’t naturally feel a part of. That doesn’t mean I don’t like it, just that I won’t play on it!
A little over a year ago I started working with different artists. What I’ve done is say, ‘that’s what you do, this is what I do’. I think it helps create respect and a good working relationship. Chase & Status are a great example. To them I said, “you’re mainly drum and bass, so why don’t you do all the bottom stuff, and I’ll do all the top stuff ”. Now, that was a little weird for me, because I consider myself pretty good at the bottom stuff. But you’ve gotta respect what your collaborator does so that they can do what they do and you can do what you do best.
So you’re still learning?
For sure. I don’t work with people I don’t respect and everybody I respect can always teach me something. With the first session I had with Avicii, I had brought my whole team – they’re all highly accomplished musicians – and afterwards we were like, “did we just witness what we just witnessed?!” … I’m not trying to gas him up here but the dude just absorbed all their knowledge, it was amazing. I’d be saying things like,“alright we’re gonna play a minor with a natural seventh, going to a seventh, going to a sixth” and he’s saying “OK, what exactly is that note?” Next thing I know he’s right in there with us. He retained it all.
To go back in time a little, what was it like working with Bernard Edwards?
It was actually the same type of thing. Every working relationship I’ve had is a slight variation on the one I had with Bernard: total respect, listen to each other, but fight for your ideas, and whichever idea wins is always gonna be the better one. Working with Avicii was like working with Bernard was like working with Daft Punk … actually, that was a little different. Usually, I’ll be the first one to come up with ideas. But they rang me up and said “We have a song we want you to play on”, meaning just one. After we did that song, we just had so much fun that one song turned into two songs into three songs … a while later and I was like “Dudes, I’ve gotta go! I got another job!” [laughs]
How did collaborating with Daft Punk work? Did you fly to them?
No, they came to New York. We recorded it at Electric Ladyland, where we recorded the first Chic material. So it was a space that was very comfortable for me. You couldn’t have planned it – Get Lucky and so on – it had to be some kind of divine, big ‘Deep Hidden Meaning’ thing! Guy- Manuel [de Homem-Christo] and Thomas [Bangalter; aka Daft Punk] are two really bright, wonderful guys, but nobody’s that smart – if we were, we’d always have mega records!
What about Eric Clapton? You worked together when both of you were experiencing difficulties.
When we were working together he was very sober and I was the most drugged-out person in the world. Worse: his son had just died. I wasn’t deliberately being disrespectful, but inadvertently I was – bringing around drug dealers, hookers, you know – I was ‘That Guy’. But I saw him recently and he was totally cool. In fact, he asked his manager why they hadn’t booked me for [Clapton’s festival] Crossroads; well, it was probably because, years earlier, Eric had told him, “Nile’s a complete asshole”! Hopefully I’ll play the next one.
Has anyone been a bit ‘trickier’ than the other artists you’ve collaborated with?
[Long pause] … two things on that: Sister Sledge and Madonna, but we worked through both. We’d never met [Sister Sledge] before they came in to record. Problem was, everything we knew about them came from the record company – a group of young, attractive girls, super cool – so we wrote songs as if they were on the leading edge of pop culture. In fact, they were virgins, religious girls, and we’re having them sing about one night stands! Take He’s The Greatest Dancer. There’s a lyric about “please take me home”, and Kathy [Sledge] said “I’d never do that, I’m not singing that”. So I had to flip it. I said, “woah – you’ve just made me a genius. In this song, your feelings are so strong for this dancer that you’ve just reset your moral compass. You’ve just made this song ten times better!” [laughs] Think we did that in one or two takes. We stuck to our guns, and it paid off. Listen to her delivery on that record and she’s bathing in the sexuality.
As for Madonna, as so often in my life, I just happened to meet her at a club. We talked after the show, and we hit it off. It didn’t work out immediately, time-wise, but we came back to it. Anyway, it was one of the only records I ever quit. She’s really tough, and one day she was being a little bit cruel to one of the musicians. He wanted to go to the bathroom, but she wouldn’t let him. She was paying the bills – “time is money and the money is mine”, she used to say. Finally I couldn’t take it and stormed out. Our part was done, she just had to sing that shit. So I was walking out the studio, she comes out and shouts “Nile!” – I’m trying to not pay her any attention – “Nile!” … eventually I turn and shout, “Yeah?” Madonna pauses, then says, “does this mean you don’t love me anymore?” I just started laughing. That was the shortest workers’ strike ever.
Let’s go back even further. I’ve read that you started out on Sesame Street?
Yeah, that was my first professional gig. I guess I got that job because I can read music well – ‘cos I sure look funny – but maybe they liked the fact I had green, vegetable-dyed hair. All the characters on it are deliberately multi-coloured, because the show’s makers didn’t want kids to see colour as a defining part of anyone’s personality. When I went for the interview, I was a hippie and had this slight green tinge to my hair – so I got the job! Through that I got an audition at The Apollo. I got that too. That was an amazing experience; it taught me about R’n’B and funk. Before that, I was a jazz man. Bernard was the one who taught me about that real funk. He knew that if I could get funky, with my jazz knowledge, we could get somewhere. He took me to a funk gig once and I was like “wow, this is amazing!” and he said, “that’s what I’m saying you should do!” So the next day, I traded in my big ol’ jazz guitar and bought a Fender Strat that I still use to this day.
The same one?! “The most successful guitar in the world”? Does it have a name?
Yeah, same one. We called it ‘The Hitmaker’ years ago because we kept getting so many hits. We actually got kinda pissed off with it – so many gold & platinum records [laughs] … there was no FedEx back then, so you’d have to go down there and pick them up. One time, they rang up Bernard and I and said, “Hey we’ve got another gold for you”, and we just looked at each other and said “aw fuck, not again!” [laughs] That was the last one we ever got! Serves us right, I guess. Now I’m just thankful.
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Catch Chic at Bestival, Isle of Wight, September 5th-8th. For information visit bestival.net
Words: Robert Bates
Photos: Ben Price & Diego Paul Sanchez
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