Soul on Sound 1983 Exclusive Madonna interview (cassette)

 

“Holiday” starts playing……..

 

Tony Jenkins: But thankfully the ever faithful John Osborne has been around and he’s been doing more of his excellent interviews and I know one he thoroughly enjoyed doing recently, is when we sent him down to Warner Brothers to interview one of America’s disco sensations of the present time..Madonna. Madonna was recently in the UK to PA at Camden Palace and so while she was here we sent John down to speak with her

 

John: what’s the nightlife like in London compare to New York? I mean things are happening at the moment

Madonna: in New York (laughs) well first of all it’s geared much later…I mean nothing happens in New York until after midnight and everything stays open ’til the morning. And em…I don’t know, people I think people are much more into dancing and stuff in New York in the United States than they are in England. ‘Cuz when I go to clubs in England I just look at all the people and no one really is moving. I mean how can you with all those clothes on (laughs). 

 

John: What Clubs have you been to? While you’ve been out here

Madonna: I’ve been to Batcave, Mud Club, Heaven, Palace, The Beetroot…I mean most. Actually the last time I was here Afrika Bambaatta was DJing at the Mudd Club and but it was so (inaudible) because I came to see him and I expected to hear all these hip hop records and when I walked into the door they were playing hoedown music and people were playing violins it was when Malcolm McLaren was doing all that ehm…country square dancing Buffalo Girls right which I thought was really funny and it looked so strange to me standing here with these violin players (inaudible)

 

John: Afrika Bambaatta?

Madonna: Yeah! anyway there’s just a much more sense of partying and going crazy down in New York. They’re much more reserved here as an audience as they are in you know everyday life 

 

John: I mean it’s happening over here in a small way, in clubs people are just starting to get into the Afrika Bambaatta..the soul..

Madonna: yeah it’s all happening because they see it happening in New York and want to catch on to it and sort of but to me it’s all very derivative y’know. It’s a way of life in New York, it really is. 

 

John: Like we see a lot of film clips of kids breakin’ and body poppin’ along the streets. It’s really like that when you walk the streets of New York, yeah?

Madonna: it’s been that way for years. And actually as far as them doing it on the street, kids have been coming down from Harlem to do that in Times Square and stuff to earn money, for years. I mean as long as I can remember and I know that from what other people have told me but it’s always been an art form up in The Bronx and in Harlem and in Brooklyn. You know in different areas because they don’t have any money they don’t have anywhere to go, they use their bodies I mean that’s all they have…the sidewalk and their bodies, so they develop something and they write on the walls. I mean it’s..all the graffiti, rapping and breakin’ that’s been around forever, I am sure they were doing it down south. 

 

John: It’s just a way of life in New York

Madonna: It’s a way of life for anybody who doesn’t have, you know you have to be really resourceful you know and that just comes out naturally. It’s just now that people are exploiting it and capitalizing it. 

 

John: That’s what I was going to ask, what do you think of people like Malcolm McLaren that goes out to Africa and America and brings back the things to England….

Madonna: (interrupts) I think it’s good to educate people and let them know what’s going on in other parts of the world but I think he’s doing it for more than that 

John: he’s getting money out of it…

Madonna: yeah (laughs) 

 

John: you were born and brought up in Detroit ehm did the Motown in Detroit..

Madonna: (interrupts again) mmm…but still I mean it had a lot of influence on me because even though those records were done before that time I mean actually when I was growing up it was still happening but Motown is really dead right now and but I always listen to those records. I mean the first records I listened to when I was really young were…my mother used to have Twist records all the time and she…I used to listen to Chubby Checker’s and Harry Belafonte and Johnny Matheson very sweet soul singers kind of and I loved like all the 60s girl groups I mean…The Crystals and Shangri-La, The Ronettes and The Vandellas and Supremes and everything. I love that stuff and ehm..that was my main influence 

 

John: Your family were very musical, did they influence you to take a career in music

Madonna: ehm no actually, when I was growing up my father insisted that we all study musical instruments and I didn’t want to, I wanted to study dance so I convinced him to let me take dance classes instead of course he didn’t think it was half as admirable as studying an instrument, he felt that you didn’t have to work hard to be a dancer and I am the only one that’s continued on. None of my other brothers and sisters have continued on 

 

John: You’re from a big family

Madonna: yeah I have 8 brothers and sisters and they all were really musical I mean my older brother has been playing in jazz groups, one brother plays the bass and another plays percussion and stuff, they’re excellent. And another sister plays piano very well, she’s a painter now and my brother that studied violin who was really good actually he’s dancing with me on stage, actually he dances with me everywhere. I have three dancers that perform with me 

 

John: At an early age you pursued a career as a dancer is this still your first love, is that what you enjoy doing mostly

Madonna: When I was really young actually I wanted to be in the theater, I did a lot of musical theater which incorporates dancing, stage, you know theater work and ehm singing! And I didn’t really know I just decided when I was in high school I was gonna concentrate on the dancing aspect of it ‘cuz it gives you a real sense of discipline you know and I really, I just wanted to concentrate. And I knew that I could get really good at it you know and I could incorporate that in whatever I would do after that, which I have

 

John: now you were around at the end of the 70s when the punk craze hit us in America and in England. What was it like as an Rnb/Soul singer?

Madonna: I really didn’t pay any attention to it if you want to know the truth. 

John: What? The Punk Craze?

Madonna: When Punk was really big I was not…I was going to my..I was going to a conservatory like a fine arts school, very strict. I went to bed early I listened to classical music at that time, I was studying ballet seriously and it just really didn’t affect me until all of a sudden like a couple of years after it hit America and it was really big in England, I don’t know if you realize it but I wasn’t really involved in music directly then I was dancing with a company, the closest I got and the closest it touched me I used to have a really like all the dancers I knew were really very like straight people and the girls had really long hair and I had a really short haircut and I wore like safety pins all over my leotards that’s it. I mean it affected me but in a very sort of outside of way and I never really listened to the music, I just liked the look, I like the recklessness and the idea of the banning of old like rules of music and you have to do that every once in a while anyway.

 

 

We tried our best to write down and understand Madonna’s answers, so we apologize if we have misheard anything and therefore errors might be possible.