Elton John: Waxing lyrical

Despite the lifestyle, the sexuality, his relationship, the hair and the football club the music's still what matters, Sir Elton John tells KATHERINE TULICH.

Sir Elton John having a tantrum-free day was probably too much to expect, even in these years of now famous total sobriety. Despite the privilege of being invited into his inner sanctum - his magnificent 12ha estate, Woodside, in Old Windsor, on a bright, sunny London day, things decidedly turned gloomy when Sir Elton was nowhere to be seen.

Suddenly a military operation of minders, managers and publicists scurried all non-essential personnel out of the house.

"Don't ask any questions, just leave," I'm told in no uncertain terms.

A frantic flurry of mobile-phone conversations follows and two hours later the crisis is over and I'm allowed to return.

While Woodside is an impressively ornate, three-storey, labyrinthine Queen Anne-style house (apparently even bigger than its nearby royal neighbour, Windsor Castle), with eight bedrooms, five reception rooms, a billiards room, swimming pool, separate video, book and CD libraries, access to the legendary pop performer's world is limited. The interview is conducted in the library, a small annexe that was formerly the squash courts. It's crammed from floor to ceiling with books - virtually all biographies - from trashy pop tomes to more cerebral books on historical figures.

John's career trophies - Grammys, Tonys and the Oscar for The Lion King's Can You Feel the Love Tonight sit on a side-table while the room is decorated in an eclectic mix of tasteful, expensive art work and photography, alongside kitsch artefacts such as the life-size, naked man moulded from multicoloured jelly beans (which had to be coated when John's 10 border terriers kept mistaking it for a giant doggy treat).

Woodside is one of the luxurious residences (along with a house in central London, a villa in Nice, an apartment complex in Atlanta and his most recent purchase, a Venice apartment) that John shares with his partner of eight years, 38-year-old David Furnish.

John says Woodside is the hub, the main house. It was bought in 1975 and has stood witness to some of John's great successes, and worse excesses - his downward cycle of cocaine addiction, alcohol and bulimia, and his past decade of sobriety.

While he may spend up to a $3 million a year on Versace and other designer clothes, today John is dressed casually in powder-blue tennis shorts, light jacket and white trainers. He apologises for having a bad day and snaps out of his mood with a torrent of words. He is witty, sharp and seems incapable of answering a question in fewer than 10 paragraphs.

"My life has been really quite happy since 1990 when I got sober - it's been much more balanced. I know how to relax more and I have a great, stable home life and a wonderful life with David."

This morning, before this interview, it hadn't been a good day, but that happens, he says. "It doesn't happen as much as it used to and it doesn't last for very long. In the old days I'd erupt like Vesuvius."

John observes how his sober years have made for a happier home. "It was a typical rock star's house, just full of junk. This room had stuff from all over the world that I never even unpacked. There wasn't even any place to sit down. Now this place is a home rather than a storage space."

There are still remnants of what he calls his cocaine days. There's the Melbourne tram he bought on tour in Australia in 1983 sitting in the backyard.

"I was obviously non compos mentis when I bought that," he laughs. "Only me could buy a bloody tram from Melbourne and it cost me more to get it here than to buy it ... It's very treasured and now David uses it as his office for his film-production company."

John has not only cleansed himself of substances (during more excessive times he was ingesting cocaine on average every four minutes) but now regularly spring-cleans his hoard of possessions. Most recently he auctioned at Christies 20 luxury cars (including a Rolls Royce and a couple of Aston Martins) which netted the singer a cool £1.9 million ($6.35 million).

While the British press was quick to speculate John was in need of the cash after his expensive and unsuccessful High Court case last April against his former manager, John Reid, over alleged financial negligence which left him £8 million pounds poorer in legal bills (he is appealing), John insists it's more a philosophical change than resulting from a material need.

"I've come to realise that there is no point in hanging on to things I don't need. I sold 20 cars and I have eight left and now people can drive those cars that were just sitting in the garage being pampered, costing me a fortune. I've sold my record collection, my eight-track collection, and every two years I clean out the clothes and donate the money to the Aids Foundation.

"I've always been a collector and I don't think that will ever change. Ever since I was a kid, whether it was bus tickets, records, books or Dinky toys. Now I love collecting photography."

John is meticulous. He makes endless daily lists, catalogues his collections and even keeps a log of all his record sales.

He is opening his doors to the world media these days to promote his new album, Songs from the West Coast, which he feels is his best work yet. It's a welcome return to the simple, piano-led melodic songs such as Daniel, Candle in the Wind and Goodbye Yellow Brick Road that first brought him to the world's stage in the early 70s.

"Whenever anyone talks about me now it's about the lifestyle, the sexuality, my relationship with David, the hair, the football club, The Lion King, and nobody mentions Elton John albums any more," he says.

"I've become this huge persona, larger than life, and the music's the last thing that gets talked about any more, but the music is why I became this huge persona, and it is still what's most important to me."

With tracks like the Beatlesque first single, I Want Love, and the Burt Bacharach/Hal David feel of This Train, John returns to form with his longtime lyricist Bernie Taupin, who originally scratched out some of their first lyrics such as Your Song on the kitchen table at John's mum's flat.

Why Songs from the West Coast?

"It's actually about Perth," he laughs. "All the songs for this album were written and recorded in Los Angeles. Bernie now lives in LA. I never get to spend much time with him any more and we really reconnected. He had already written some lyrics. By the time I recorded the album I had 80 lyrics to choose from.

"We've never collaborated over a lyric. Bernie writes the lyric first, then I go and write the melody. People have always asked me why don't I write my own lyrics. Well (a) I'm not very good at it, (b) I have no desire to do it and (c) it's so great to have a partnership that's lasted over 34 years."



An acknowledged workaholic, John continues to tour incessantly both solo and with that other diminutive piano man, Billy Joel. His last visit to New Zealand was with Joel in March 1998. He plans to return to tour again next April.

"I love doing the live shows, but my partner David gets very frustrated. I'm away so much and he asks me if I'll ever come off the road," he says. "But I'm not a singer, I'm a musician and musicians love to play their instruments till the day they die basically."

"I used to envy singers like Mick Jagger, Rod Stewart, Marc Bolan and David Bowie because they were front men and they could move around the stage, and I was always stuck behind a piano. I can only stand on it, I can sit on it, I can do handstands on it but there is not much else I could do except set fire to it perhaps, but now that I'm 54 I'm glad I'm stuck behind it, because as you get into your 50s it's pretty hard to be still running around the stage like a crazy man."

Songs from the West Coast is out now.

Elton's hip replacement

Might the artist formerly known as Reg Dwight be hip again?

Here's some evidence indicating that in 2001, the pop knight is possibly cooler than he looks ...

* That scene in rock memoir movie Almost Famous when all the people on the tour bus start singing along to Tiny Dancer.

* That scene in Moulin Rouge when Ewan McGregor sings Your Song, just one of the pop classics on the soundtrack.

* He invited hot pop moppet Nelly Furtado to sing at his post-Oscars bash.

* He sang a duet with Eminem at the Grammys.

* He sang on a remix of Moby's Why Does My Heart Feel So Bad.

* He has penned reviews of American R&B artists in Mojo magazine.

* He's namechecked British dance wonders Groove Armada as well as Ryan Adams - the hip new face of American roots-rock whose last album Heartbreaker says John, in the liner notes to Songs From The West Coast, "inspired him to do better". (See story, F6)

* He persuaded singer-songwriter Rufus Wainwright (the openly gay son of Loudain Wainwright III) to sing backing vocals on SFTWC track American Triangle, a song about Matthew Shepard, the gay University of Wyoming student who was murdered in 1998 because of his sexual orientation.

* And, best of all, reportedly John is to sing a Christmas edition of Bob the Builder, and will release a version of his hit Crocodile Rock with Neil Morrissey, who plays Bob.