M L INTERVIEW
AN INTERVIEW WITH NILE RODGERS
From Diana Ross , David Bowie , and Duran Duran to Madonna , Lady Gaga , and Daft Punk to name but a few ! Nile Rodgers has worked with some of the biggest names in the music business . The co-founder of Chic , he has written , produced , and performed on albums that have sold more than 500 million copies and 75 million singles worldwide . He is a three-time Grammy Award-winner , and the chairman of the Songwriters Hall of Fame . Should I go on ?
He ' s heading back to Merseyside in June to play at Aintree Racecourse , so we caught up with him ahead of the tour …
How does it feel to be back on the road ? To start playing live again , is it good ?
It ’ s going to be amazing because as a cancer survivor I treat every day – and I ’ m not just saying this , this is not some cliché thing – I honestly treat every day as if it ’ s a gift and it ’ s special and having something to wake up for the next day I believe gives you that energy to live and to know that I have a tour coming , that ’ s great . When I look out at an audience , at a festival , the way I see it , I look out at thousands of friends .
I ’ m so thrilled to be doing live shows again . You are smart enough to be able to put the numbers together and know it has absolutely nothing to do with the money . I could ’ ve retired 30 years ago but I do this because I love it !
I love how the music makes the people feel and when I first started practicing guitar , I was practicing so that I could do live concerts , so that I could play for big audiences . That was my dream and now that the dream is a reality - why would I not want to continue to live it as much as I can !
As you say , you ’ ve been doing this a long time so I ’ m guessing you don ’ t get nervous anymore - is there any little ritual you do every time you go on stage ?
Nope . Just make sure my guitar is in tune .
Speaking of your guitar – the one they call ' The Hit Maker ' - didn ’ t you leave it on a train once ?
Ha ! Oh my god , well this is what happened . So , I did a blog when I was ill , and I had videos and all sorts of stuff . I would write these blogs every night to let people know that cancer was not always a death sentence and that you should live your life to the full . I wanted to show people , ok I was here .
Now one of my friends that I had known since the early days , told me , Nile , do you know that I first got cancer when I was like
20 something years old and I have it again now ? and I was like - what ? I was in tears , I couldn ’ t believe it because she lived such a vivacious life that you would never , ever imagine that she had cancer .
So , I guess I was distracted as I was taking the train home and hadn ’ t noticed I had got to my stop . When I realised the train was going to take off , I ran off the train , not realising that I had left my guitar in the overhead bin .
I got all the way to my house , which is about a mile and a half from the train station , and I realised , oh my god , I don ’ t have my guitar .
I said to myself if my guitar is going to be anywhere , it ’ s going to be at the end of the line . So , here ’ s the cool thing , I jumped in my car - most people don ’ t know that I ’ m a former amateur race car driver so I really know what a car can do , and I ’ m zipping in between cars breaking every traffic law and I get there , and they said “ no , no guitar on this train . It ’ s not here .” Like total disdain .
Hour after frantic hour searching every possible destination , I met a police officer , he said “ let ’ s try this , let ’ s go to the train terminal ” so we went there , and they had a bin in the back which said , ‘ lost and found .’ Oh my god , we opened the bin and there was my guitar sitting there with a kid ’ s skateboard . It was a skateboard that could ’ ve , at best , cost $ 70 and there ’ s my $ 2 billion guitar .
You ’ re meant to have that guitar .
Yeah , it was just sitting right there . It ’ s such a workhorse , everybody can ’ t believe that I treat it like it ’ s the cheapest guitar in the world . I show up to a session with somebody and they ’ ll look at me and they go “ is that THE guitar ?” And they can ’ t believe I have it in the cheapest gig bag because it ’ s small and it ’ s snug and it ’ ll fit in any overhead bin on any plane as I will not allow it to not be next to me , people can ’ t believe I just carry it around in this cheap little case .
In terms of all the hits you ’ ve written throughout the years and the other artists that you ’ ve worked with , produced with , and recorded with , how do you choose them ?
So , this is not snobbery on any level , but people expect a certain level of precision and expertise when they call me to play , and I plan to give that to them . If I ’ m not on my game , I don ’ t deserve to be on your record , that ’ s just how I feel about it .
I come from the world of being a studio musician and as a studio musician , we don ’ t know the song before we get there . This is old school , right , this how I got in the business . We get there and the producer or the arranger expects a certain precision and
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