Sometimes and then when you see someone who's not singing anything but his voice and using true gifted
It's got sort of sort of makes you think okay
I can wake up and handle another day in the business because it gets strange
Well in Elton when he first arrived in the country and started rehearsing the whole
Rehearsing with the auction that but on that very first or second day
I'd put him on the second day up here in Sydney
We're so blown out about the fact and he said it on countdown about the fact that of Farnham
Who deserved the success a long time ago, and he believed in his talent
How hard is it well ask both of you for Australians really to get through to the international market?
It's not as hard as it used to be I mean like
it's very strange for me saying it because I came here as an American I still am and
Well people say they talk about Australia at one point just about kangaroos now
It's kind of straight this flavor of the month all over the world
Right and it feels really good because we had to go to America and stop it at basically try and become famous now
They'll come to us. It feels really nice. I mean it's about time
Well now Ross with yourself. I mean like Eagle Rock which is now become one of the great songs in Australia
Still doesn't matter. I mean you put it on there on
Put it on and it fills a dance for you know yeah, that's kind of nice
so I mean like was it hard back in dead a cool days of when you went to America and
Everyone was gonna say they're going to be like really big you know
You don't believe it though. I feel funny thing is I mean I still haven't made it outside of Australia
So I've got a personal view of that. Yes. It is hard
But you know I'm still trying it the main thing is that I think it's great that we're still making records
I'm still being out of putting my songs out if that ever stopped it would be really difficult talking about you know
Someone that's trying to make it in the business. There's a guy. There's this budding artist at the back
He's a drummer. I mean like see I mean like and I mean he may make it one day to your record
You know my son the other day
Phil yeah, I did
Paul made his bash. Oh
Hello Molly. How are you? How was last night's concert in Melbourne? It was okay. It was dry right yeah
We weren't expecting it to be dry. We were
Anticipating rain, but it was dry now for someone
No someone that works with as a record producer and everything else
For getting Genesis and your own solo career as a producer and working with musicians
How hard is it the transition between rock and roll and working with symphony orchestras?
Well, it's hard. I mean I've never done it. You see really I've been out my experience
I would think I mean you work with think in a session thing yeah
It's getting to play in time is tough because everybody has a different sense of time anyway, and they work with different
Different downbeats and of course for drama Charlie's got his work cut out for him tonight
I would think right that Jesus great drama, so you're probably probably do marvelous
I'd love to ask you a million questions, but I think I better go back to Richard and good to say nice to be hey
back to you Richard
Thanks, Molly
James Newton Howard we spoke to a little earlier
But again for those New Zealand people who didn't get a chance to sit
He's one of the many people that Elton have had with him for a long time throughout his career
He's the conductor and also one of the music arrangers when we spoke to him about how he became involved in this particular project I
got called Elton I think called me in January and
Quite honestly when I got the first call it seemed
Like such a massive undertaking that I had I was a bit skeptical as to whether it actually ever get pulled off
But as the months went by
And I didn't hear anything to the contrary
I thought why better get work to work on the arrangements because we are in fact going to do this thing
The arrangements that Paul originally did were so
wonderful and so
revolutionary
And still in fact hold up to this to this day that I didn't want to change them particularly very much
The intent was to maintain the best of the orchestrations and and there was a very distinctive flavor in those orchestrations and in all of Elton's
Excuse me earlier records, which I was very interested in maintaining
The one thing that I was aware of was that Paul was a cello player and tended to write
Very elaborate cello lines and bass lines which work quite beautifully on a record
The danger was that in a live situation because of the cavernous size
A lot of places were playing and the and the potential interference with the electric bass on stage that it was necessary to simplify it a little bit
So really was just a process of a bit of simplification a little bit of expanding for some of the instruments that weren't included in his original charts
I had some doubts. Sure. I think everybody had some doubts. Everybody was a I don't know if they'd say doubts
I think everybody was nervous. Everybody had invested a lot of time in this project and
Now the time had finally come where the opening night was only a couple of days away and was it going to in fact work?
It worked on paper everyone knew or I knew that your orchestrations would be good. I knew that the symphony would be wonderful
I knew that Elton would perform
Brilliantly as always I knew the band would be great
Whether or not the whole thing would be able to mesh and actually work was another story. I think that the biggest concern
was because all of the stringed instruments are
mic'd with actually little pickups on the
On the instruments themselves that the biggest concern was would we in fact be able to get the PA loud enough?
Without having that feedback into the bugs and therefore creating a feedback problem
So that it had the same kind of impact as the first half of the show
And I think that was a concern in the first few sound checks, but when the place filled up with people absorbed some of that
Ambient sound and it did work very well
The very first rehearsal was in Melbourne. Actually. I was there a week early before he joined
The actual band and the orchestra got together just to go over notes and make things work
It was it was quite tense for me there. I was I was nervous for a number of reasons
I didn't know anybody in the orchestra. I was
Concerned that there would be massive amounts of wrong notes that I would have to correct and it would be difficult when in fact the orchestra was
extremely cooperative and the
Not meaning to plug my copyist, but the copying was wonderful and everything really went very smoothly
When we actually got together with Elton, I think it was one of the most emotional experiences of my life
Musically it was it was
Musically it was the most satisfying moment of my life
To have been involved with the orchestration so long
And with Elton so many years prior to that and to really have that many components of my life as a musician come together and work
Reasonably well was very gratifying
James Newton Howard and just before we go back to see Elton for the second half got someone with me who you may recognize from the movie
Desperately Seeking Susan, but you may not know that she's also James Newton Howard's wife Rosanna Arquette. Welcome along. Thank you very much
Yeah, and so you of course have been suffering with James through all of these
Preparation for this enormous tour. Oh, I wasn't really suffering. It was just nice to watch him work
He's very excited to be able to you know, conduct the Melbourne Symphony
It's quite an honor to be on the road with Elton again as nice. Yeah
Things weren't too tense over the brekkie table as he's trying to work out the string arrangements and stuff
He had a lot of work to do but you know, he was excited about coming here. So
It worked out well, right and by the way, happy anniversary apparently today's your wedding anniversary
Three months
Three months and they said it wouldn't last. That's great. Yeah, so and
How much time do you get to see each other for because like you're so busy with your film career and he's busy touring
It's been nice that I could come on the road with him. It's the first time that I've ever done this and it's been
I really like Australia
And he visits me but we have a great relationship because we both have our works
Yeah, we're very supportive of each other
I suppose you have to understand that before you kick off into it
Yeah, and congratulations to on the number of movies you've been doing since desperately seeking Susan you constantly and we saw what it's been
After hours Silverado and now in Australia eight million ways to die. Yes
You don't love it million ways today so much do you? No, it's not the movie that it
They they kind of ruined it in the editing not the director that studio took it away from him
So it's not the movie that I think I'm not would be that can often happen
I don't know how much people realize that that you do something and then you think that was great and walk away and
When you see it again, it wasn't quite the way you imagined it. Yeah, that happens a lot in movies
You know because you're not it's usually the studios that have the power to do that
So they do what they want what they think is gonna make more money, you know
Unfortunately in America, I don't know how they do it in Australia
I'm like so much that I've given the urge to go out and do an independent production of your own sort of thing
Or yes, I'm hoping to work with Ray Cooper who is the percussionist. Yeah, and
I'm something we're gonna do something together. That's good
Now you were telling me earlier that you've also got another movie out right now in the States movie called nobody's fool with Eric Roberts
And it's a romantic comedy. Great. Great. So you've been really busy. What do you got planned for Chrissy?
You're gonna go home and have a rest or we're gonna go to Tahiti. Oh, it's gone. You know, how long you're spending that
Well, that's really our honeymoon because we didn't have a honeymoon. Okay doing strings. We write it. We're writing strings
Yeah, right. So you're looking forward to that. When do you take off for them?
Um tomorrow. Oh, no the depth. Well, we're gonna see Genesis tomorrow, which I'm excited about. Yeah, your big favorite band you were saying
All right. Well listen Roseanne, we'll let you get back and see the rest of the concert
Thanks so much for chatting to us
terrific have a good night for the rest of tonight and we'll go now and
Believe that Elton John's heading on to stage
So let's go back to Elton John the tour de force the final Australian concert his band and the Melbourne Symphony Orchestra