Billy Joel tells Music Radar that John Lennon is one artist he wished he had performed with live. “When he was shot, that was a horrible, horrible thing for me. It was like, he was like an older brother to me.” He also praised Jimi Hendrix, calling him “from another planet” and “a genius on the guitar.”
John Oates tells Americana UK magazine that he and Daryl Hall didn’t sound very good together when Hall & Oates first started out. “When we first started doing things together, our voices did not blend very well, and we really were coming from two different places. As time went on, I learned from him; he learned from me. In a way, we became part of a collaborative experience in that somehow you subjugate, perhaps, your purer instincts and influences for the good of the whole, and then something else emerges that’s not individual but more of a blending.”
Lenny Kravitz tells Classic Rock magazine that he got heavily into skateboarding when he was young. “I remember one of the first skateboards, before it even had wheels on it, with the hand-drawn Dogtown sign. I spent a lot of time on the beach, and riding my skateboard up and down the streets, and hanging out at kids’ houses, and jamming. Because the parents were all hippies, and it was just a very loose, chilled atmosphere.”
Men At Work’s Colin Hay tells Songwriter Universe magazine that he never intended “Down Under” to become an Australian anthem. “We didn’t really want it to be a theme song. It’s quite a dark song, actually. People don’t really pick up on that, which is not really my job to point out. It’s not a song about waving a flag—it’s really a song about about the plundering…the fear and trepidation of the natural wealth of a country for short-term gain. That’s really what the song is about. But of course, not many people pick up on that. We always really loved the song—we thought the song was very strong and powerful. And I think that people recognized that it is.”
Rolling Stone Magazine says Michael McDonald met his biological son, Michael Goessling, after Goessling discovered their connection. Goessling was adopted as an infant and learned about a half-brother after the brother took a 23andMe DNA test. Goessling met his birth mother on his 58th birthday, then spoke by phone with his biological father, who said he was a musician touring through St. Louis. Goessling asked, “Are you Michael McDonald?” McDonald replied, “Yeah, I’m afraid so.” When they later met in person, Goessling said McDonald gave him a bear hug and told him he loved him. McDonald also learned he was a grandfather, saying, “Yeah, I’m still wrapping my head around that.”
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