Robin Gibb HARDtalk

Now it is time for HARDtalk. Stephen Sackur talks to Robin Gibb.

This programme was recorded in January last year.

Last week saw the death of a musician who did much to define the

pop music of the 70s and 80s. Robin Gibb of the Bee Gees. They wrote

the soundtrack for the disco era, perhaps captured in the film

Saturday Night Fever. 18 months ago, he joining me in the HARDtalk

studio to talk about his music and the pressures of pop stardom. Today,

they look back at the HARDtalk interview with Robin Gibb. -- a

look back. Welcome to HARDtalk. Imagine for a

second that the Bee Gees were setting out to make a career in the

music business today. What would they make of the pop industry right

now? I am actually saddened by it. It is karaoke. It is elevator music.

People are posing, not being artists. We are composers, first

and foremost. We have one of the biggest catalogues in the world. In

fact, the biggest, alongside John Lennon and Paul McCartney. We have

written for other artists as well. A whole host of songs. Beyonce's

Emotion, Dionne Warwick. We have a two-tier career. A lot of artists

today are just single artists. They are chosen for reality shows. They

probably never had a history of actually paying their dues and

working their way up the industry. When you see a show like the X

Factor in the UK, which has an enormous influence on the charts,

and which Simon Cowell produces, and he owns the rights to the acts

who are successful, do you burn with resentment? No because I see

the shows as television shows, rather than discovery of talent. In

essence, when the shows go off the air, the people are on their own.

They have to prove themselves. Sting said the danger is that it is

putting popular music back decades. Is that really true? When we

started out, people said it was had to be able to sing and sing

live. Record companies would be evaluating you on that. For

promotion reasons, they wouldn't sign you. It was much harder to get

records on the radio. The standard was higher. British music dominated

the American charts. It doesn't today. Today, they have something

called autotune. If you look great, even if you cannot sing in tune, it

doesn't matter. Would the Bee Gees have used that? Absolutely not. We

started writing songs when we were eight-years-old. We started

harmonies. Nobody taught us. We did it out of fun. We started in

Manchester, copying what we heard on the radio. As young as eight or

nine, we were composing music. there a danger of thinking that the

good old days were always better? Natural is better. If something is

real, that is always better. How often have you seen a reality TV

show have a band that have got back together, c together, co

their own songs, and harmonies, and not many people can do that. I was

struck by something you said the other day about the X Factor

phenomenon. You describe the successful ones on the show as

overstocked puppets. -- overstyled. Simply a product. I would put it to

you, in the end, Berry Gordy was treating the musicians as a product,

a commodity to sell. It has always happened in the industry. With

Motown, there was a host of that. I think that is there. In our case,

we have always composed our own music. We have been our own masters.

We never relied on other people to write our own songs. We have never

been taught anything about music. It is fascinating how you came to

be so good at music so young. Your dad pushed you very hard. He didn't

really. He never knew exactly what we were doing. He never knew

because we did it on our own. It was much later that he discovered,

because we were very young, it was not like Los Angeles where you were

groomed. There is a concern about the pushing of child stars. Justin

Bieber, he is still a teenager, Britney Spears. We never had that.

But it sort of happened to you. Weren't you pushed into talent

shows of the time yourself? Only by enthusiasm. Because that is

something that we wanted to do. A radio station in Brisbane or Bill

Gates wanted us to play in drive- time shows. -- primetime. We loved

that. You were in your early teens. No, eight or nine. So you were one

of these child stars who was pushed onto the stage. Isn't there

something dangerous about that? Working in the outback of

Queensland, we were doing these things like speedway. Like,

reckless speed work. He did not know anything about it. We were

miners. -- minors. You develop quickly. As part of

your development, you came back from Australia to the UK. I want to

remind people what the early Bee Gees, with your first number one

MUSIC PLAYS. # I'm going back to Massechusetts. # Something's

telling me I must go home. # Our life is down in Massechusetts. #

The day I left, standing on the road. There you are, Robin Gibb,

singing Massachusetts. You must have been 17 when you sang that. It

is a very hippy sort of sound. lot of the songs in the catalogue

are still in the radio. I can turn the radio on, including the BBC,

and hear five of our songs a day, in America as well at the same time.

Because of all the other artists we have written for, as well as

ourselves. But I am tempted to ask what happened to your sound?

Because it changed radically in quite a few years. It did. Because

we are composers. We felt we had licence to go into other areas

where people would fear to go, especially older artists, because

we were so young. Were you just casting about to find the most

commercially successful sound? were having fun. Islands in the

Stream is the most successful country song. We haven't lived in

Nashville or Memphis. We are not country artists but we have wrote

that. We have always liked R&B and even soul. For a while, after

Massachusetts, a few other hits which were a bit more hippy, you

and soul thing. You were called the blue-eyed soul boys. You left the

UK to develop that sound. We have to. We wanted to explore what we

were doing. We wanted a transition. We wanted to explore American music,

black music particularly, because that is where we felt the future

was going to be. But the producer, he wanted you to forget that you

were three white boys from Manchester? The fact of the matter

is, he loved the harmonies and the writing. He saw us as composers and

recording artists. We never worried about image. We lived and breathed

the recording studio. Although he was a great producer, we did all

the work. The thing was, we did live and breathe it. If something

sounded good to him, you do it today. Nothing waited. You are

playing around with different styles and you have the ability to

catch different moods. How did you get to the sound that is always

associated with you, which is the falsetto? It has been always used.

It was licence. The Four Seasons, Jersey Boys. And of course people

like The Rolling Stones have used falsetto as well, and Prince, with

The Most Beautiful Girl in the World. But why are you and the Bee

Gees always stuck with that particular style of singing?

Because that particular piece of music, it was the biggest selling

soundtrack album of all time. It still is. It's like walking on the

moon. At this point we had to remind people of that particular

Apology for the loss of subtitles for 43 seconds

sound. This is Stayin' Alive from That was a massive success. It

almost defined an era for many people. It created an era. It did

not exist before all of that. It created its own climate. In those

days, you could not hide anything. It was purely organic. Unlike today,

where everything is hype. But your own brother later said it became an

albatross. Do you still feel that? Do you feel it would have been

better if it was not like that and if you were not so defined by that?

John Lennon said he wished he had a Saturday night fever in his career

because he loved singles. I love them too. He always saw that as an

albatross and came to love it. I am very proud of it now because I do

not think... Many people would like to have a single like that. You

cannot plan it. Did it to annoy you that it became something that

others in the business poked fun at? You had satirical bans.

there are also many tribute bands as well. All around the world. Not

many people have tribute bands. The fact is, it had an impact on the

culture. There are people who have hit records and there are those

that have impacts on the culture. There are expressions around the

song. No doubt, it is part of the music culture. You mentioned John

Lennon. There is something about the Beatles and other huge bands

Bringing it up to date, it with Oasis it was 0 and Liam. In the

Stones it was Keith and Mick. You were a family band, a band of

brothers. There is always going to be Dynamics in any group whether

you were brothers or not. People say you have been together so long

because you are brothers. Brothers may stay together because they are

brothers. You try to quit when... Was that because there were power

relationships that you could not cope with? It happened with Oasis

it is called first success, and it does happen when you feel you want

to spread your wings on your own. I don't think we split up as such but

I showed up on my own. We were still learning the ropes, still

developing and when you have success very young it goes to a

head very quickly. You had problems at the time. I know you had some

drugs problems with amphetamines and I think your brothers and your

father were extraordinarily worried about you. Yes but everybody in

those days was like that, in the late 60s. That was the hardest

thing I have ever done. I never really took anything harder than

that. I never took a hard drugs at all. Never took LSD, heroin, crack.

Never? Never. And that was to stay up all night working in the studio

which we did. The tragedy of the brothers Gibb is the one brother

Andy, who was not part of the BG's, but you were very close to, he fell

foul of drugs in a much more terrible way. He did but that is

not how he died. He died from myocarditis on his 30th birthday.

He had a problem years earlier with drugs but by the time he died he

was clean. He did have a virus in the heart which was not bacterial,

anyone can tell you myocarditis is for life but if you are run-down it

or claimed you. In retrospect do you think it was good for the

family dynamic, all of your relationships, that the BG's had

such remarkable success and became such a success? I do. It is what

you dream about. I don't know anything else. I don't think I

would do anything any different. I love music and I'm working with the

Royal Philharmonic on the Titanic wreck cream for 2012. -- requiem. I

will be working with my brother next year on some very big thing as

a caring. I have to stop you because you could not have said

that a few years ago that there would be things happening because

after the tragic death of Morris, your twin brother, within a week or

so you did say that the BG's as a unit will never be created without

Morris. -- Maurice. He were talking about the group. It is projects

that are related to the catalogue we have written and what is going

to happen with back-catalogue in terms of major players in the

United States which will affect the whole world. In the States, the

Beatles had 26 Number ones, we have written and recorded 22 US Number

ones which is more than any other British act apart from the be tools.

You and Barry to go on stage together no together noWhen

you do that do you feel you're doing it as Bee Gees or something

different? It is a creation. In a way it is almost abstract because

it is just a name. We also see ourselves as the creators of, the

chief composers, even though you don't engineer it is something that

happens. We are the creators and in a sense weather the band or the

Gibb brothers, whatever we are. are still doing it. We cherry-pick

the things that we do, the live shows but the catalogue is so big

it is the movies all the time, it is on the radio, it is a living

catalogue that we are very proud of. And people all over the world know

your music. You did say once and this is quite a reflective comment,

you have been through tough times in your life. I have been in train

crashes as well, when I was 17. Nearly 80 people were killed.

seems to me as an interesting juxtaposition with a lot of your

up-tempo music, you said an artist is an artist because he is not

happy with the world so as a result he creates his own existence.

Charles Dickens said the same thing, it is an extension of yourself

because no matter how much you use your art to fill the void with the

new it is a never ending void because you'll never be satisfied.

Is it? The void that drives your creativity it is as much better day

as it ever was? Yes. You can't can say I will retire at a certain

point, it is just something you have to do until you drop. If you

were too happy in your material world would you not be able to

write music any more? I don't think there is any such thing as actual

happiness but there is contentment. Contentment for me it is writing

Contentment for me it is writing I don't think, as Churchill said,

at rest is frost. I don't like to stand still and back at the sunset.

You rather neatly linked into another interest. You mention

Churchill. You have become preoccupied with a campaign to get

more recognition, a massive new monument, for the young men who

gave their lives for Britain in Bomber Command, those who flew the

bombers. 55,000 of them who have never been recognised for 70 years

between the end just of 22, it for the Nazis. You were born after the

end of the Second World War and you have lived this international live,

a home in Florida, some time in Australia, you are an international

person, why have you developed this particular obsession, a very

British obsession? They are always seen as heroes in Australia and

America, they admire what these guys did because they ended the war

and brought peace and freedom to Europe which affected the world.

Yes. You have just come back from Germany and you know better than I

do that some Germans because of the scale of the monument you want to

put up they have real problems. I am thinking of the mayor of Dresden

who has said that she thinks what you are proposing for London, this

big monument, is contrary to Dresden's notion of what

remembrances all about. From the point of view, I have the backing

of Boris Johnson and the Prime Minister and Nick Clegg. It has

been passed by Westminster Council and is going ahead. Of course they

are going to be bitter but this is an anti- war memorial, showing

young people back peace and democracy and justice are not given

things and not be taken for granted. These guys never got to see it the

freedom they created, not just for the German people but the whole

world. They did it with no reservations at all. Are you doing

this partly because maybe you feel your life has been too easy in a

way? Is that why you are so interested in these young men?

have not been recognised of all the armed divisions. Why a pop-star,

with all the millions who have made,... Popular music. Why it's

has developed this particular interest? Why not? It has certainly

had an effect. The fact that the matter is these guys are heroes,

they should be honoured and it is something the whole country has

supported, including newspapers, and it is up to the point where it