James Rhodes - Concert Pianist and Author HARDtalk

how it will make sure such

abuses never happen again.

It's time now for HARDtalk.

To the talk. Yesterday is living his

dream, he is an internationally

acclaimed concert pianist and

successful recording artist but read

his account of his life and it

resembles a nightmare, when he is

away from the piano, James Rhodes is

still haunted by the violent sexual

abuse he suffered three years on the

age of six. He has written about how

it drove him to drink, take drugs,

self harm, and spend time in a

psychiatric hospital. And how he was

saved by music, only rediscovering

in his 30s that he could really play

the piano. But in this latest book,

he recounts what his successful life

really feels like, and it is almost

unbearable and distressing to hear.

How could he lived with the pain of

the past?

-- how can he.

James Rhodes, welcomed the HARDtalk.

It is nice to be here, thank you.

Quite a dramatic introduction, I

have to say.

Quite a dramatic look.

Yeah, possibly.

And you intended it

to be.

No, I never intended to be.

The whole drama thing, I've had

quite enough of. Sometimes it can be

quite sensational as the talk about

certain topics and to me, what I

really want to do was just tell the

truth and be transparent. And so, so

much of our lives today seem to

entail kind of perfectly curated

Instagram selfie 's and pretending

everything is a certain way and that

we somehow have all the rules and we

know how to live perfectly well, and

actually, I think the reality,

certainly for me and I think for a

lot of us, is very different, that

actually life is quite challenging

and it can be quite messy, and it is

OK to kind of admit is the wrong

word, but it is OK to say that, talk

about it, be open about it.

And you

have been very open about it in your

book but the descriptions seemed

that almost any time that you are

away from the piano, on your own,

you almost in a state of constant

torment. Is that unfair?

Do you

know, it is probably not unfair. I

think when you put it like that,

God, I feel more depressed now than

when I came in. I... No, actually, I

think it is unfair, I would not say

almost any time. There are more

moments that I feel quite

comfortable with my place in the

world, but there are a surprising

number, large number of moments

where I do feel very tormented, but

I think the thing is, I don't think

I am alone in that. I really think

that many of us wake up a lot of

mornings with that idea of God, I

have had too much to drink last

night -- think last night and I just

had those voices and all that

dialogue going on, today going be

awful. You look at yourself in the

mirror and you just think oh God, I

am a disaster. I feel destroyed, I

do not think that is on common.

But

it is quite extreme review.

It is

extreme with me only because of

where it could be potentially, only

because of...

Because of where you

have been in the past?

Exactly,

because they have history being in

various locked psychiatric wards and

suicide attempts, and AM I suppose

understandably nervous about going

back there, so when I have a bad day

and things seem to be spiralling out

of control, IDP is that I am not too

long away from ending up back where

I was a few years ago.

-- is that.

And we can hear from a concert last

year, when you were playing Chopin,

and I suppose this is the day job.

Yes.

It is awful, watching that. It is

like hearing your own voice on an

answering machine. No one watching

this will know what an answering

machine is, will have voice mail

now, but do you remember when you

were a kid annuity your own voice

and you would go a God?

What do you

think?

Probably the same thing that

you think when you see yourself on

TV or what journalists think when

they are reading articles they have

written, it is just slightly

uncomfortable.

When you are actually

paying its?

That is the best, time

just disappears and that is why I

think it is important to find

something that you love, something

that is ideally created. The big

problem that I have fallen for and I

think we all have it is that we are

not designed to live the way we are

living in 2018, we are just not

built for it. We looked outside of

ourselves all the time to try and

fix what is happening on the inside,

and without sounding too much like

Deepak Chopra, it is not working. I

do not think it works to get

self-esteem from how many retreats

we get on Twitter or how many

Facebook friends we like, or if we

get the shiny new iPhone before

anyone else. That is not the point,

the point is I to find something,

that awful word mindfulness, but the

point is we go inside, rather than

outside. That is what music does to

me, what art does to some people, or

painting. It is always music.

It is

music that safety but the cause, the

reason you need savings because what

happened to you when you were six?

Yes and no, personally yes, look

around you, I think the kind of all

need saving, we have all experienced

former, I think there is no question

about that. Whether it is parents

divorced, disease, people dying, you

cannot quantify trauma, that is the

point, it is part of the human

condition.

Year, it was extreme. It

was the age of six when you are very

violently raped.

Yes, for a long

time, for many years, to the point

where it ended up with spinal

surgery is to try and repair all the

damage, physically, the emotional

stuff is still there. Obviously does

not take a rocket scientist to

figure out if you take a

six-year-old and you do that that to

him for four or five years, it is

going to result in some pretty city

issues.

And it was a teacher who did

it to you?

Yeah, gym teacher at

school and it was the 80s, which is

not an excuse, but nothing happened.

Do you want to know something about

this country, England, the UK, where

we are shooting this, even though it

is what all around the world? People

in other countries hearing this will

not quite believe this but I promise

you it is true. Still in 2018, in

any clerical setting such as a

school, a teacher could walk into a

classroom and see another teacher

raping a six-year-old girl or boy

and they could shut the door and

walk away, and they don't need to

say anything, and they won't have

broken any laws. That is the point,

we do not have mandatory reporting.

For the UK, they do have a duty to

report.

No, they do not will stop

that is the point. We are one of the

only countries in the world that

does not have mandatory reporting

and if they do report to the School

or the police, they have no

protection like whistleblower status

or anything like that.

You bring

that up because comedy teaches at

that school no?

That is a hard

question to answer, yes is the short

answer to that. I was found by

teacher with light on my face in

coming down my legs and hysterical,

and... I mean, as you would be. And

I changed overnight and that was

witnessed also by teachers and one

of the teachers in her police

evidence statement, she said there

is no issue, I have permission to

talk about that because she told me

I can, but she went to the head

teacher and said something is

happening here and it is not right,

and the head teacher said, as they

did in the 80s, he needs to toughen

up and nothing was done, nothing was

done.

And we should explain that she

only came forward after you have

done an interview about it.

Exactly.

You have done your research. I

didn't interview where I mentioned

it, it was a big interview in the

Sunday Times, it was a couple of

sentences were I said this happened

to me when I was at school, and she

got in touch with me and said I read

this interview, I know who it was

and I have Misys -ish and. I was

quite naive, I was quite innocent,

did not realise was in nature but I

realise something was happening and

I thought it was physical, not

sexual. Of course, it was both. She

went to the police, she gave a

statement, they track the guy down.

He is the thing, sometimes, there is

a lot of very angry people, I think,

in the world, sometimes that comes

out on social media, it comes out

below the articles when people are

writing comments. Very occasionally

people will say you only talk about

this because you want to sell a few

albums, and I always tell them this

story, I talked about this for the

first time in 2000, in this

interview, and as a direct result of

that, the police found this guy and

you know what he was doing at the

time that he was arrested? He was an

old man, he was a part-time boxing

coach for boys under ten. When

people accuse me about this to get

sympathy or sell albums, if I had

not spoken, this guy would still be

doing it. It could be teaching your

son, your grandson, God forbid, your

nephew. Would you rather that were

happening?

He actually, there was a

police investigation.

Yes, he was

charged, the CPF board charges.

There was a trial date set and he

died before it got the trial,

Justice turn slowly.

Had he feel

about the fact, though, that he knew

eventually what he done to you, the

damage?

Nothing, is nothing.

No

feeling?

No, God sound so

melodramatic, but that part is dead.

I mean there is no feeling now.

We're talking about your teachers

and things but what about your

family because you say you changed

overnight?

Again, I can only really

talk about myself. It is like in the

book, in MMI wrote, instrumental,

where I talk about it, talk about me

because it is my story, not my

family's story. All I will say is

again, it was the 80s, it was a

different time, people were very

naive then. I think now of any of

those signs going on in a kid, we

would be all over it. It does not

mean that it has stopped, as we

know, it is still an epidemic all

around the world, but people are

aware of it more now. We need to

talk more about it.

There was

something else, you mentioned it

took quite a few years to come out.

This was almost worse than what

happened when I was a kid, if you

can believe that the yeah, you are

right. I had to get the Supreme

Court to give me permission to

publish it. It took me legal fees

because they tried to ban the book,

not only banned the book that they

were at the gagging order that would

stop me from speaking or writing in

any medium anywhere in the world

about any aspect of my past.

And we

should explain it was then ex-wife

was concerned about your son...

Well, ostensibly yes. Her belief was

that I was doing this intentionally

to inflict psychological harm on my

own child by talking about my own

past, which defies belief, but...

Well, eventually, the Supreme Court

ruled...

They intervened and they

change the law to stop this

happening again because the

President was so terrifying.

But he

talked when they book came out about

how people are in denial, whether it

is your family, the teachers...

I

think two people in my family have

read the book, one of them has

barely mentioned it and the other

one has kind of mentioned it is my

mum. It is like it does not exist,

the culture of silence, which is

what allows abuse of any kind to

thrive, it is like we do not talk

about this stuff, how could you

write a book? And the shame, the

secrecy, sexual abuse is predicated

on shame, it is predicated on the

fact that shame will stop you from

talking. And that is why I promised

myself that if I ever had a mark of

one, even a small one, I would talk

about. It is not the only thing I

talk about, I will talk until I'm

blue in the face about Bach,

Showtime and really lovely things.

It is a love letter to my son.

-- Chopin.

But they also about this terrible

thing, that is really one of the

scourges of our society.

But there

were, of course, many years when you

did not talk because he moved on

from the abuse... Tried to. And then

it was in your late teens that you

start a drink, everything.

And self

harming and everything else. And the

truth is, it can't outrun, sadly you

can't outrun these things. It is

another reason I talk is because my

own experience and that of thousands

of people who have got in touch with

me since the book came out, is that

it is talk or die, I mean I know

that sounds very melodramatic but

you have to talk, not necessarily to

your family, not necessarily to your

friends, maybe to a good therapist

or doctor or the Samaritans, who are

amazing, or their organisations you

can call, but you have to talk about

this stuff. Otherwise, it is like a

cancer inside you.

You said your mother had spoken to

you, what did she say? She is very

supportive and loving and kind.

She

is a wonderful woman. The thing is,

when you have a child, all

paedophiles say the same thing. They

say, you cannot talk about this. If

you cannot talk about this, you

cannot imagine the horror of things

that will rain down on you. You will

go to prison I will go to prison,

you will be killed, your family.

Whatever it is used. And when you're

five or six or seven, your brain is

not fully wired, it is still

plastic. It changes the way you

think and act. Every time you around

that person, you have to act

normally, you say yes, server or hi,

dad and shake their hands. You

become complicit in the crime they

have carried out. It's like you have

robbed the bank together and you are

protecting him and every time it

happens, that bond, it sounds crazy

but that bond gets stronger so it's

no wonder that we have people

speaking out now 20 years, 30 years,

40 years later which is why things

like the statute of limitations on

sexual abuse crimes are so

ridiculous. It can take 30 years

before you have the courage and

strength to speak out.

There are

many remarkable things about your

life... We all have stories. But in

your particular life, you got your

life back on track effectively. You

had a successful job at a financial

publication.

I worked in the city,

the only thing I am embarrassed

about, Finance.

You got married and

had a son.

You stopped the piano. I

didn't play from 18 until 28. And

only started properly at 14. I did

everything in reverse. It was like

Amy Whitehouse in reverse. I did all

the drugs and stopped and when I hit

28, I thought life is too short, I

quit my job, said I'm going to be a

concert pianist. Everyone looked at

me like I was crazy. And they are

not laughing now because I did it.

To me, that's a wonderful thing. I

have lost count of the number of

people who said to me, I know I

could write a book or I will always

wanted to be an actor. We get

trapped in these jobs that we don't

like, marriage is that kind of

convenient but a little bit shabby

because we have a mortgage together

or we have to pay the Bills and I

think, you know what? You get one

shot. I walked away from all of that

and I'm doing whatever since I was a

little kid I wanted to do which was

planned concert halls around the

world.

You talk about what it means

to you, music safety. Around that

same time, you were having a son

growing up who then hit the same

age.

They don't tell you this. I

wish they had. I'm not sure how I

would have prepared for it but I

realise afterwards that it is very

common if you were raped or abused

as a child and you also have a

child, when that child turns the age

you were when the abuse started,

it's very likely that your entire

world will implode. That's what

happened to me. On a biological

level, I could not do the maths. I

couldn't see this perfect miracle

child who was four, five years old,

this absolute God-given miracle, and

see that I was that size when this

was done to me and not only that,

the terror of what have I done? I

bought this kid into a world where

these awful things happen. What was

the effect on you? Everything fell

apart. Everything fell apart. I was

aggressively self harming, I was

suicidal, I ended up spending nine

months in various secure wards. I

hasten to add, not because of him.

He is still perfect and the greatest

thing in my life and as any father

would attest, it is the most

overwhelming feeling of love and it

only ever gets bigger. They don't

tell you. Just when you think it

can't get any bigger, it does, it's

amazing the capacity to love your

child. It's everything. But at that

time, it bought up a lot of

unresolved things. I tried to run

away from it because I hadn't dealt

with it. I don't know how I could

have dealt with it. It's like when a

train stops but the carriages behind

it haven't stopped and they crash

into the back of it, that's what

happened with me and it took a long

time to deal with that.

It took a

lot to recover from it but in a way,

that is one of the messages in your

book, it is that you don't ever

really recover.

It is what it is.

It's a daily reprieve. That's why I

am so deeply suspicious of self-help

books, the idea you can find

happiness in six weeks if you do

these simple things or find peace of

mind in one year if you follow these

little guides. The pursuit of

happiness, it's in the Constitution

in America. We shouldn't be pursuing

happiness, I don't think. I think

happiness is fleeting. It's lovely

when it comes but we are not

designed to be happy. Even most of

the time, I would say. Just because

we are not happy does not mean we

are unhappy. There is a giant scale

in between. It can go further down

into depression and anxiety but the

message in the book, if there is

one, it is that life is kind of

messy and imperfect and all the

steel a loan in a crowd sometimes.

All of us feel slightly like we

don't belong. Sometimes, just

getting out of bed, getting the kids

ready for school, getting on the

subway to go to work, getting home,

putting the kids did bed, eating

something and going to sleep is an

heroic act. No one says well done,

you made it through the day like an

adult! A lot of us, it's an

extraordinary thing to achieve when

your head is saying, throw yourself

under the tube, life is meaningless,

no one will care, life is too much.

Just to survive and Intuit is

heroic.

For you, we come back to the

music. Yes, please. You had come out

of hospital and you are putting your

life back together again. It is this

combination of writing, talking and

playing that saw your career saw.

Yeah, I had no career before. I got

out of hospital and that my manager

purely by chance at a coffeeshop and

in 2009, I released my first album

which is crazy because concert

pianists, you start at two or three

years old, six hours of practice a

day and I was in my mid- 30s, I'm

not that old, and I did it all the

wrong way around. But music, is the

one consistent thing. I'd been on 35

different medication, I'd seen the

same number of psychiatrists and

psychologists, I tried so many

different things. The only different

thing -- the only consistent thing

that has worked his music.

Do you

know how it works?

That is the magic

thing. What I do know is that when I

was seven and the world was like a

warzone, I found an old cassette

tape with a piece of music by Bach

and in that moment, everything

changed. Thank goodness it was in

the Bible. Everything would be

different but to me, it was Bach in

a bidding was changed.

You are

sitting here with Bach emblazoned on

your T-shirt.

Let's see you playing.

Sure, why not.

Is there an answer to

the question why Bach? It's like why

oxygen, why water? Everyone wanted

to see that piece. Everyone watching

this programme, everyone watching,

if you have to hands, you would be

able to play that piece by Bach in

six weeks. You are looking at me

like that.

In a stroke of marketing

genius, recalled the book How to

Play the Piano. It shows you how to

do it. You don't need a proper

piano. That can cost £150,000. You

get a £30 keyboard. You spent 40

minutes a day, Sundays off, six

weeks later, you are playing Bach.

Imagine in an age where everything

has an app if we can't do it within

three minutes, to find 40 minutes a

day, it is amazing.

James Rhodes, on

that note, thank you very much for

coming on HARDtalk Thank you.