Robert Downey Jr. |
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Tue. January 11.2005 12:00 AM EST |
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Robert Downey Jr.: One Future at a TimeOne of our great actors talks about his new singing career, and why he's into Italiano badass Bauhaus. by C. Bottomley |
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(Sony Classical) |
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Some listeners might find Robert Downey Jr.'s first album The Futurist as infuriating as the actor himself. The 39-year-old celeb has quite a history to draw
Downey's voice is immediately appealing: it's a resonant croon reminiscent of Bob Seger or Peter Gabriel that is played off breezy harmonies. He complements that with his own piano work -- he's been playing since he was a kid -- which is placed amid a mixture of lush string sections and sudden bursts of swinging vamps. For an amateur musician, the Chaplin star boasts an unusually wide palette. No wonder Sony Classical isn't sure what to make of him. He's a little bit jazz, a little bit classical, and just a tiny bit Marc Cohn. The lyrics are teasingly allusive, thriving on puns and vivid imagery. Even the covers are bizarre. On the one hand, there's a heartbreaking version of Chaplin's sentimental song "Smile." On the other, a splendid sandwiching of Yes' "Your Move" with "Give Peace a Chance." Whatever the disc might be, it's a portrait of the man in full. Downey spoke to VH1 in a torrent of oddball humor and emotional frankness. Along the way, we learned about getting annual piano lessons from his filmmaking dad's buddy, Phil Spector/Neil Young confederate Jack Nitzsche, and just what the hell his album title means. VH1: My dictionary defines a Futurist as someone who "tries to give formal expression to the dynamic energy and movement of mechanical processes." Robert Downey Jr.: Really? Run that by me again. Wow. VH1: Now that's futurist with a capital F. With a small f it is "One who studies and predicts the future especially on the basis of current trends." You're lying! No, those are great! Those got mine beat to shreds! VH1: So what on earth do you mean when you say the word "futurist"? Well I just pointed to one of the "f" columns, that's all I did. It's a great word, though, isn't it? VH1: The Futurist is both the title of your album and a song. But where did it come from? You know that thing of you and your gal decide you're going to really, really, really commit and go for it? [You think] all of the doubt and statistics are not going to apply to you, because you have this third thing that happens to when you're together. I know, it's a little idealistic. The Futurists were also the people who were a backlash against pre-WWII fascist ideas about commerce and people and the arts and design and everything. It was kind of Italiano badass Bauhaus. VH1: I believe that's where the giving formal expression to the dynamic movement of mechanical processes comes from. There were also those futurists who believe that the prophecies of Armageddon are true. That's why we came up with it. We needed a word. [We had the line] "They'll take the walk, we'll ... what?" There was sage in the studio, so we said, "We'll sage the world" as opposed to "We'll take the world." And then, "We'll take the Futurist nose." So we were clearly running out of ideas in that song! VH1: There's a lot of wordplay going on in your lyrics. I love that stuff. I adore Elvis Costello. But the first thing is function before form. If I can't interchange [words] and feel like they mean something more mixed up then they do in a line, then I won't use them just because they sound good. [Pause] Does that sound like I'm telling the truth? VH1: No. I'm just trying to understand what you meant. Let me put it this way. In "Kimberly Glide," someone says, "He jets a path north past the ports of pitiful sandy sunny San Diego." I wouldn't say that just because it has a lot of popping consonants. I like it because that part is very, very significant, because his sister's soul is traveling north to see her brother. I wanted that to really, really stick out in the song, because what the whole song is about is that moment. VH1: What is that song based on? A friend of mine whose family and - most importantly to him at the time - sister died in a plane crash with him. [It's] about his sister's visitation after many years of him giving up on love and saying he'd never love again and there's no God. He came full circle and now he's just an amazing guy who helps thousands and thousands of people. VH1: You base your songs on other people, but with someone like you the temptation to read between the lines is irresistible. Absolutely. There's a guy at my Monday's night men's group who thought [the lyric from "Man Like Me"], "Men like me when I don't show up on Monday," means that I'm not coming to the group. That's what's great about it. To me that was about someone who's not going to show up [to their job] at the body shop. Even the songs I write that are outside of my direct experience, someone will hear that song and then think, "Well that must relate to an experience you're having right here now with me." No, it's not true. That's just how it was for these eight out of the 10 songs that I wrote. I'm not saying I only write [in that way]. As a matter of fact, I really don't know what I'm doing. Just that I like it. VH1: What was the first song you wrote sound like? The first song I wrote I haven't finished yet. But it's going to be great! VH1: Have you got an opening line for it? Let's see ... "Connecticut Ice Storm caught my eye..." VH1: Wow. When did you begin writing that? Nineteen ... probably ... eighty. But it's about something that happened in '77 and that is my story. VH1: How has your music changed from when you first started writing? Well, I finally have a mild sense of what I'm doing. Before it would be like, "And where is that song?" I'd be like, "Well, I know it in my head." "What are the chords?" "Well, it starts in A and it ends in a G flat." "Okay, and the lyrics are ..." "I've got 'em right here." "Where?" "I know 'em!" Now, it winds up being charted and produced and all that stuff. My follow-throughs were crap! But not any more. VH1: When did you find time to write? The keyboard is always on location, always in the trailer, always playing. It's the ultimate meditation. Anyone who thinks, "Oh, I can't play an instrument," is depleting the very thing that can activate all manner of other enjoyments in their life. There is nothing inhibiting any human being from being able to have some mastery over some instrument. If it's not their voice then maybe it's the ole gee-tar. VH1: Did you ever go through painful childhood rituals of giving recitals in front of family and friends? Hell no, because I was never given lessons. There was just a piano there. I was encouraged to do everything and nothing. VH1: Do you have people you consider musical influences? Well, I remember [Neil Young producer and classical composer] Jack Nitzsche was always saying, "That little thing you're playing, that's not bad. You should modulate it." Then two years later, I'd say, "Hi, Jack. What's 'modulation'?" And he'd say, "Oh, you'd spring it up a half step." Then he'd go back into the editing room with my dad or something. And so it was ... It was a very long process of little hit-and-miss things, little skirmishes. VH1: So basically your piano lessons were from Jack Nitzsche. How could I ask for a better education? [Laughs] VH1: Were there a lot of musicians around the house when you were growing up with your father? I remember David Sanborn doing music from one of my dad's underground maverick movies. It was a series of vignettes I believe it was called Moment to Moment or Jive. David Sanborn's sax held together all of the black and white scenes of my fathers film that I and my mother were in. It was communicated to me very clearly that music was something well beyond what I was listening to on the record player or on the radio. It was something that transcended all mediums and could interact with a variety of different experiences. With great alacrity it could do anything. VH1: Has your voice always had that Bob Seger grit to it or you think it's the cigarettes? It's probably the last couple of years of a marathon of Camel non-filters. I had kind of like a sweet underdeveloped type of voice when I was in junior high. But I didn't really find my voice until my late 20s or early 30s. Then I didn't know how to sing until probably 36 or 37, in a way where I could sing more than 15 minutes a day and not be hospitalized. VH1: When you're singing with [Yes's] Jon Anderson do you ever ask, "What on earth are you singing about?" [Laughs] No. It's so cryptic. People around me, say, "Oh, he's talking about a chess game." He's really like two centimeters short of the Beatles for how allusive the true meaning or non-meaning of what he's saying is. VH1: "Smile" is the song that ends the album and you released it as a single in 1993. It seems to be a song that follows you around. Why do you keep coming back to it? I can relate to it. There was a while there in some of my recovery ranger Nazi days where I said, "Y'know, that song and Billy Joel's song 'Just the Way You Are' are very inappropriate. 'Smile when your heart is breaking' and 'don't go changing ...'" But they are just great songs -- that's all. I love Charlie Chaplain so much and it always feels good when I do anything that reminds me of him. VH1: Are you worried about your headstone reading, "Robert Downey Jr. - He Played Chaplin"? [Laughs] No. VH1: Is it the role you feel closest to? For the space of time that was my twenties, yes. VH1: Which one defines your thirties? Well, the one I just did that's coming out in a couple months, Kiss Kiss Bang Bang, is probably the part I played that is most like myself, even though he's a thief on the run from the cops posing as a private investigator in Los Angeles, who is also posing as an actor. VH1: Do you ever feel like you are getting bored with acting? I have felt that way before, but you know what? It's been put to me pretty clearly that boredom is an excess of focus on oneself. I've never been less bored than I am right here today. Everything just comes up and goes around and ebbs and flows. It's nice to not be clutching the f*cking board in the tube anymore, not wanting the wave to end and not even knowing what I'm doing or why I'm there. VH1: You've kicked most of your addictions. But why is it that you can't stop smoking? 'Cause I haven't decided to yet. Yeah, I'm very much in the works of that. In fact, I'm waiting on several phone numbers for some support. It's something that I haven't elicited much support from my peers or friends or anything. They're like, "No hurry there, dude." But it's gonna happen. |
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