INTERVIEW: LEO SAYER – March 2023

According to a recent press release: “Leo Sayer recently announced he’d be returning to the United States after a 20-year tour hiatus to celebrate his 50 years in music with a set of three exclusive live shows.  These three shows will be the precursor to a lengthy tour of the U.S. in the fall which will be billed as the 50thAnniversary Tour. Audiences can expect a night packed with feel-good tracks from Sayer’s career, including hits like the Grammy-winning song, “You Make Me Feel Like Dancing,” “More Than I Can Say,” “When I Need You,” and other fan favorites. Sayer launched his career in the United Kingdom in the early 1970s, and he became a top singles and album act on both sides of the Atlantic in the 1970s. His first seven hit singles in the United Kingdom all reached the Top 10. He achieved national prominence in the United Kingdom with his second single, the music hall-styled song “The Show Must Go On,” which Sayer performed on British television wearing a pierrot costume and makeup. The single went to No. 2 on the United Kingdom singles chart, as did his debut album, Silverbird, co-written with David Courtney who also co-produced the album with Adam Faith. His subsequent singles were all major hits in the United Kingdom – “One Man Band” went to No. 6 in 1974, “Long Tall Glasses” (UK No. 4, 1974) became his first Top Ten hit in the United States, reaching No. 9, and “Moonlighting” went to No. 2 in the United Kingdom in 1975.” We get Leo to discuss new music, old music, great advice, and much more…

Toddstar: Leo, thank you so much for taking out time while you’re waiting for the cruise.

Leo: Absolutely. A pleasure. No worries.

Toddstar: There’s so much going on this year. The most important being your 50th Anniversary in music, Leo.

Leo: Yeah. Fantastic, isn’t it?

Toddstar: It’s amazing. Especially now to have performers around still being able to do it after 50 years.

Leo: I think so as well. I just bumped into in the lobby to John Lodge from the Moody Blues and still looking as fit as ever. And we are both saying we get to this ripe old age and we’re still doing it. And isn’t it wonderful that we can.

Toddstar: Coming up, you’re doing three shows and you’re going to do one down here in Largo, Florida here. It’s all just a tease and a kickoff to what’s going to be a big tour in the fall.

Leo: Yes, exactly. We had the Rock and Romance cruise that we are just about to embark on today, and that goes for the next two, three days. And we end up in San Juan. We then fly to Orlando and then cross over by road to you. We had this Rock and Romance cruise booked in and I said, “Look, let’s try and extend it.” The effort earlier this year was to get a hold of a, because I live in Australia and the band is all in the UK, and basically let’s get a three-year visa together so we can really operate on an idea of let’s crack the States again. It’s about time.

Toddstar: It’s been 20 years.

Leo: Yes, it’s 20 years. Scary.

Toddstar: When you look back at that, going back 50 years, Leo, did you think for a minute, the first time you put voice to record or stood behind that microphone in front of a live audience, did you think in a million years that 50 years down the road in 2023 you’d be coming out and saying, here’s my 50th anniversary?

Leo: No. Because I think at the time when we made records in those days, think at the time we had no internet, jet travel was not like it is today. Living internationally was tough or working internationally was really tough in those days. No internet, no mobile phones, no cell phones. We were all thinking that we are doing this only for a few years. We are youngish. I didn’t get into it in my teens like many musicians did. I didn’t do it until I was 24. That was a relatively old age for a young rocker. I thought that we’ll been doing this for a few years and then they’ll be onto something else. They’ll have usurped all us old guys, our music will be irrelevant. I thought even The Beatles would fade away. And of course, that has proved completely the opposite. We’re like fine wines that they put down and they only get better with age.

Toddstar: That’s so true. My first real exposure to you and a song that stuck with me back when I heard it on Casey Kasem, and I still make sure that it spins in my rotation is “Love You More Than I Can Say.”

Leo: Fantastic. That was even later in the career in some ways because before that there was Roger Daltrey singing “Giving It All Away,” and then there was “The Show Must Go On” covered by Three Dog Night, which was a big hit for me everywhere else, my song. And then there was “Long Tall Glasses (I Can Dance)” and “One Man Band,” and “Endless Flight” with “When I Need You” and “You Make Me Feel Like Dancing” and “How Much Love” and then “Thunder In My Heart.” I was well into my career by the time of “More Than I Can Say.”

Toddstar: The beauty of it is so many bands, performers, and singer / songwriters will put out greatest hits albums and they pepper it with some of their favorite songs. But yours truly, it truly is the greatest hits because it’s like it’s a soundtrack of all our lives. We can all pick the moments that hit us, but they’re all peripheral. When you think back to your catalog, what are the songs that still strike you as hard as the first time you wrote them or performed them?

Leo: Very good question. Yeah, there are some that do that. I mean, the joy that I had in my career was that it was truly international. I would be big in Japan, Bangkok, China, New Zealand, South Africa, Australia where I now live, all over Europe, Canada, Alaska, all over the States. There were hits that were hits in different territories sometimes that wouldn’t get promoted or weren’t ideally poised to be released. There’s a lot of songs that weren’t released in America, for instance, that they missed out because maybe there were a little bit too English, or they were just not applicable, or else the record company just didn’t have confidence in them at the time. And that happens to a lot of artists who have big international careers. It can be sort of scatter gun all over the place. But for me, the valuable songs are “Giving It All Away,” first song that I’ve wrote for Roger Daltrey, and he cracked that. Roger of The Who singing my song, that was a real honor for him to even record it, but then it became a success. So that’s still a very important song for me. I think “Long Tall Glasses (I Can Dance),” that’s another really important one. There’s a song called “Orchard Road,” which was never released here in America, but that’s become quite iconic. And every time I play that in different countries, they go, “Wow what’s that?” You have these songs that kind of mean something in different places. I mean, “More Than I Can Say” is massive in Asia. Massive. I mean, I did a Grammy winners concert and Michael Bolton even had to sing along on it at the Encore because it was the most popular song of all of the songs in the show. And this is amongst some big Grammy winners, over there anyway. It’s amazing how music travels.

Toddstar: With that said, there were things that weren’t released here, there’s different territories that didn’t get your music. If you could go back and change that other than “Orchard Road,” is there a body of work, an album that didn’t see the light of day that you wish you had a second crack at and could put out without any control?

Leo: The next album I’m making at the moment, I went through a pretty bleak period during the eighties and the nineties where I guess the fashion of music kind of changed a little bit. We had all the boy bands here, in the UK, in Australia, and all over the world, Boyz II Men, all those kinds of acts. And we had all the rap acts, and I don’t think people were interested in a singer-songwriter, even a pop writer at that time, so much, or a pop artist. I carried on making records for myself and I taught myself how to make records. I’m about to release later this year, or I’ll finish it later this year, a new album, which is full of those songs that I wrote in the eighties and the nineties. And I’ve got to tell you, they’re really good. I’ve played them recently to some people because I’ve only got the demos of them. And they all said, “You’ve got to release these, they’re hits.” I was always in the zeitgeist. If I couldn’t get a record released, I’d go and make my own album for my me and my friends anyway. I pretended that I was still a player, and I think that’s a very important thing to do. There are about 480 unreleased songs. I could basically carry on making records until I fall over at say 96 or so. As long as the voice is still going. I’ve got all the material backed up and that’s the crazy thing. I’m usually, I mean, the last two solo albums that I’ve made I’ve been working with that backlog. And the songs sound remarkably current as well, which is great.

Toddstar: I recently checked out a covers album, Northern Songs.

Leo: Yeah, Northern Songs, to celebrate the 50 years. I thought, why not sing somebody else’s songs? And I had these rather different versions of The Beatles tracks and first off, I wasn’t going to release it and then Covid came along, so I thought I got to do something, I want to keep active. I just carried on with the project and found more songs to do and it came out as a vinyl double album in the end. It’s a big album and I’m very proud of it. People seem to like it, so it’s great.

Toddstar: It’s a cool spin on the tracks.

Leo: It’s different.

Toddstar: I thought you kept the essence of the originals while smearing Leo Sayer all over it.

Leo: Kind of putting the beat into The Beatles.

Toddstar: There you go. Looking back, Leo, if you could go back and talk to 24-year-old Leo and give yourself one piece of advice, something you know now that you didn’t know then what would you tell yourself?

Leo: Oh, I don’t know. I tend to not look back. I’m always looking forward. I’m always eyes forward. But Paul McCartney, I met very early in my career, and he just gave me one piece of advice. That was, don’t cut your hair. He wouldn’t give me any, I was asking him about what microphone to use. He said, “Ah, the engineers will tell you all that. Don’t worry. You don’t need to worry about that stuff. It’ll come. You are good. You got a great voice.” The best people will tell you what to do. That’s no problem. We had the same thing happen to us, the best that was available at the times we got, and when we went to America, we got the biggest gigs because we were good. And if you’re good you don’t need to worry about that stuff. But personally, keep the look that you’ve got now because it is your look. You are unique. I always think that the most basic advice is the good one. Roger Daltrey told me, “You are going to be the most miserable guy in the band. You’re going to be going to bed early, saving the voice while all the other guys are partying because they can do that. But you can’t do that because you’ve got to get your sleep.” I just go back on the advice other people gave me, and I wish I’d listened even more to that kind of advice. But then again, I’m a very much an individual who goes his own way. I wrote the song “One Man Band,” and that’s what I am, I guess.

Toddstar: There’s nothing wrong with that.

Leo: I’ve been ripped off quite a few times and now I’m very much in control of my career and I’m enjoying it. I don’t think that it’s all in the past. I think that it’s where it is at the moment because I’m finding how I’m able to deal with it now is better than it’s ever been. I’m quite happy in this place now.

Toddstar: Do you think those experiences, and I didn’t want to broach them because I know sometimes those can be hurtful and harmful, but having those experiences, do you think those prepared you for the shift?

Leo: Totally. Toughens you up and I think you’ve got to go through that stuff. I figure The Beatles and the Stones went through all that as well. If they could survive all of that and then still come up happy and laughing and making incredible music. Even when The Beatles split up, the solo music that they all made is still fantastic. If it didn’t dampen their spirits, why should it dampen mine?

Toddstar: That’s a great point. Do you think it prepared you and helped you position yourself as far as the change in the music industry itself, in that labels aren’t giving tons of money and they’re not funding tours?

Leo: Most probably. I think that you’ve got to roll with the changes. And you’ve got to realize that part of music, and this comes from the sixties, you think of San Francisco and you think of London’s Carnaby Street, and all the bands like The Kinks and The Small Faces and The Who and all of those bands, you’ve got to realize that a lot of it is based on style and fashion. And if you’re going to outlive that, then you’ve got to be bigger than that. You’ve got to have a bold imagination. And I think that, yes, with all these experiences, rip-offs, and challenges, trying to be relevant in times when you are not thought of as relevant by the industry, and if you can beat those things, then you learn a lot about yourself. Look at Bob Dylan, it’s incredible. I mean, still as relevant today as he’s ever been, and he’s outlasted everybody. These are the icons that we look to, the heroes, and they’re timeless.

Toddstar: Who are the guys that you still look up to professionally, personally? Who do you still look at as a guidepost? Or do you just look at your own career and say, “I don’t need idols anymore.”

Leo: To a certain extent you don’t because basically you find the format that suits you and suits your life and you live that life. And when you get older, you need more time to yourself as well. You tend to kind of isolate. For instance, where I live in Australia, lovely country area, Sting was playing a concert down the road and all my friends wanted to go and they wanted me to go, I thought it’s what we call a Busman’s holiday. In other words, you’ve been on the bus driving it professionally, and then somebody says, “You want to take a bus ride?” And you go, “No, that’s my job.” I don’t know, I still adore Bob Dylan, Neil Young, people like Keith Jarrett in jazz. And so it goes. I still love all that music. I have to say, I don’t find much of what’s going around at the moment, the younger and newer music, very inspiring because it doesn’t relate to me so much. But I love all music. Recently I just bought myself a new record deck. I’m absolutely adoring playing all my old vinyl again. The influences are always there. There’s always inspiration from all kinds of artists and bands. But I think you work insular in your own knowledge. I mean, that’s your database as it were. What you do and the way that you work, and you can cherry-pick the things that inspire you. I think that thins down as time goes on, because you’ve got to be listening to yourself. It’s more important than being blown away by the latest thing or the latest craze. There are plenty of artists, my contemporaries like Elton John who work with every young artist they can. But that’s not really my style.

Toddstar: Like you said, one man band.

Leo: Exactly. And I think within this genre I can still be relevant. Because I’m listening to hip hop and I’m listening to soul. I’m listening to all of the new stuff that’s coming up from Ed Sheeran to Taylor Swift. I use from it as all artists do I think, I use what relates to me. Just like they’ll use what relates to them from guys like me. It goes two ways. Whenever I bump into those people, they always kind of say to me, “Oh my God, without you I wouldn’t have been doing this.” And that’s very inspiring. Oh shit, I’ve got to go. I’m so sorry. But I’ve got a live TV interview and I must get onto that now.

Toddstar: You’re good. Well then you do that.

Leo: All right, it’s just next door. But thank you so much for talking. Thanks mate. See you at the gig.

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