Betsy's View

Niagara Falls, Canada: Graham Russell Sits Down to Discuss The Future As Well As Air Supply

On Saturday, March 24th, 2007 I had a rare opportunity to sit down with Graham Russell to talk to him about his debut CD, The Future. Graham and I spoke about The Future, The Heart of the Rose and Air Supply.

Betsy: Thank you for allowing me to do this. I'm excited and feel very privileged.
Graham: Oh you are welcome.

Betsy: Let me say congratulations. You have had and incredible career and I can only imagine that your life has been as incredible. (Graham laughs) You are now into your fourth decade with Air Supply and you don’t seem tired. What’s your secret?

Graham: You know, really the secret is looking after yourself. Not that I do it, but I try to. You know, and otherwise you just cant keep the pace up with the traveling and everything. And I do my little workout everyday. I have to, for energy, and I do it before I go on stage too.

Betsy: Ok, it’s been 31 years, right, since you and Russell formed Air Supply? Why did you just now decide to release a debut solo…?
Graham: Well, I’ve always wanted to do it. Plus I write a lot of other songs, not just Air Supply songs. I write a lot of different kinds of songs too and the songs that I’ve recorded, I don’t think are particularly Air Supply songs. Do you know what I mean? And I wanted to do it too. I mean, Russell did one in ‘86, and I really wanted to do it. And I had a lot of different songs that I thought would be good on my own CD and Russell was really very supportive of it. And it took me, I mean, I didn’t just do it. It took me a while to do it because I did it at different times when we were off and when I was able to. I mean, Air Supply always comes first and it always will. But I wanted to do this because it’s a different kind of music and as everybody knows I love electronica and stuff like that. And there’s some of that on there too...but it’s cool. I like that, different music .

Betsy: When will it actually be out?
Graham: It’s out now. Well, it came out on the first day of spring, which was intentional but it wasn’t available then. But it is now. They were like a day behind.

Betsy: I know that a lot of people have ordered it already and they already got a letter that says…
Graham: Yeah, they are backordered already, I believe. Yeah, that’s good.

Betsy: Oh, does that mean it’s out of stock?
Graham: It’s out of the original stock, yeah.

Betsy: I thought maybe it wasn’t ready.
Graham: Oh no, they’ve already sold their initial shipment that they got but I’ll just give them some more now.

Betsy: Tell me about the title. Why is it called The Future?
Graham: Because It is, its kind of my future and it’s also the future I saw when I was very young and I, like when I introduce, when I sing The Future live, when I introduce it as a song that, because The Future, the song, The Future, is all about my dream and my vision when I was very young to be a songwriter and to be in a band, which is the only thing I ever wanted to do. And it’s that vision that I always held and I always kept and I just never let go of it. So that was my future. It’s not necessarily my future now. It was my future then when I began. And I used to drive people crazy, you know, all the teachers at my school, ‘cause they all wanted me to be a doctor or plumber or a dentist or something, and I just wasn’t interested. And I just said, no, I’m gonna be in a band and you don’t have to worry about me. And I just never let go. I just held on to it all the time.

Betsy: That is so cool.
Graham: Yeah. Well you know, I’m a big believer in that. I tell a lot of people, a lot of younger people, I’ll tell them if you want something bad enough you’ll get it. You gotta stick at it. There is an old saying, I don’t know where it came from. It says, ‘many are called but few are chosen’. And many people are called to do certain things, but the universe itself thins everyone out, you know, so there’s only a couple standing. And then, and those go forward, in any profession, in any chosen career. You get thinned out and you get presented with barriers and reasons why you shouldn’t do it. And it’s those that persevere. It’s like Darwin’s Theory, you know, it’s the survival of the fittest. Somebody could have come along and knocked me down. I mean, I had plenty of people that knocked me down, but I just kept getting up again. It’s like that…Terminator, the metal man, whatever he is called. He keeps getting up, you know, and then he gets his head squashed in the press and he looks like a pancake and then he keeps getting up again and he comes back you know. It’s that thought pattern. But I’m really into that and I believe in that.

Betsy: Well the world is a better place because of it.
Graham: Well I hope so. I mean, I always thought that, well, I always wanted to be a songwriter and I always wanted to be able to leave something. I don’t know if I have or not or if Air Supply has. I think so, something, but I think that these songs make people feel better and they leave a mark on them, I think.

Betsy: Well I can guarantee they do. And I’m sure you must know that they do.
Graham: Well I think they do. You know, but it’s not just the songs, its what we do as a band and hopefully it will always be that way, that they leave an impression.

Betsy: You know, I know you looked at my blog and one of the pages I created is called your stories. I don’t know if you saw that or not, but basically I just asked people to send in their stories…how Air Supply has affected them in their lives. So it’s really actually very cool because people have put a few things that were meaningful, maybe they met you at a Meet & Greet and you did something but they talk about how you’ve impacted their lives.
Graham: Oh really?

Betsy: And you know my blog just started and I only have probably 10 stories or so on there but some of the stories are really very long and are very special.
Graham: You know, I haven’t read them but I will. I mean, I’ve got on there but I kind of flipped through it. But I’ll get on there ‘cause I’d like to see how it does affect people.

Betsy: You say that you write everyday.
Graham: I do, yeah.

Betsy: So was it difficult to just put 11 songs on the CD?
Graham: There’s only 10 actually. And I’ll tell you why. Because I’m into numbers a little bit. And 11 is always a good number ‘cause I was born on the 11th of June. And 11 in numerology, you cant add it together. You cant add 11 or 22 together. They have to stay 22, where as if it was 13, it would become 4 and 16 would become 7. But 11 stays 11, it doesn’t become 2, and 22 doesn’t become 4. So from a spiritual point of view it’s a nice number. But the 11th song didn’t work for me, you know, when I was recording the 11th one. It wouldn’t come. It wouldn’t sound the way I wanted it to sound and I tried like six times, at different times. And it was going to be a very simple thing with me and the guitar but it just didn’t sound right.

But When I played it, when I would sit in a chair to play it, it sounded great. But when I tried to record it, it just didn’t come out the way I wanted it And I kept getting a little frustrated with it. And I tried another song and that wasn’t right either. And so in the end I said it’s gotta be 10. Then I looked at Bob Dylan’s recent album and he had 10 songs on it. So I thought, ah, people are going back to 10 songs. Because you pick albums up now and there’s like 17 or 18 songs on it . But most of them are usually crap, you know. They’re not… there’s no value. And I’m thinking why not put 10 songs on it instead of have 11 songs when one of them isn’t right. But I kept looking at the list of the songs, and they felt right, you know, and the sequence was right, and I thought, well, I’m gonna go with it. So I kind of broke the cycle of 11. (At this point, someone walked in the room and gave graham a bag that had some vitamins, lip balm and pens in it. Graham then showed me a bag of vitamins that he takes.)

Betsy: You take all those vitamins before the show?
Graham: Yeah. (Graham laughs)

Betsy: So that’s where you have all the energy from?
Graham: I think so. Probably. I hope so. Yeah.

Betsy: You know I actually have a nickname for you.
Graham: What’s that?

Betsy: Tigger!
Graham: Oh right, yeah! You know, I don’t know where that came from, it just happened. It’s only kind of happened in the last 3 or 4 years.

Betsy: Really?
Graham: I think so, yeah. Well you know, I have so much energy from doing the show. I cant just stand there and just...I mean some songs when they are mellow songs, I can, but I get so into it that I just have to let some of the energy go.

Betsy: I love it.
Graham: Oh I , you know what too? It’s a great workout for me too and I look forward to that.

Betsy: I’m concerned for your knees!
Graham: Oh, you know, I actually wear a knee brace on my left knee now.

Betsy: Really?
Graham: Yeah, I actually just put that on last night for the first time in months. But, yeah, I enjoy it because it’s just letting some steam off. But I really like it, yeah.

Betsy: Well I love to see the variety. Because you typically do it during the same songs.
Graham: I do, yeah.

Betsy: And I always know when it’s coming but then sometimes you stop. Sometimes you stop and look at Mike or…
Graham: Oh yeah? See I don’t even know that.

Betsy: It’s fun just to see the variety and I’m sure it’s all spontaneous.
Graham: It is, yeah, but you’re probably right, I do do it in certain songs. There are certain songs that are like triggers so if there’s a part… But I never think consciously, oh now I gotta jump or anything. I just do it.

Betsy: You know, I’ve been to, I don’t know, maybe 20 shows since the summer. For me it’s exciting and it’s very, umm, predictable.  The song list is relatively the same, but I love to see the things that are no longer predictable.  You know, the things that just come up, and I love that.
Graham: Yeah, I do too. I would like to do more of that, you know. Russell prefers to be not so predictable. No, that’s the wrong thing to say. He prefers to know what’s going on. Yeah, he prefers to know what’s going on. Where I’d love to swap things up, but he gets a little nervous when, if I start doing that too much…which is fair enough.

Betsy: Now I have to apologize, but who is Stina?
Graham: Stina is, she sang on Across the Concrete Sky. She’s the girl singer on Shadow of the Sun. I don’t know if you know that song.

Betsy: It’s beautiful.
Graham: Yeah, I love it. She sang on that. And she sings on my album too. She sings on I think 3 tracks. She’s a great singer. She’s an opera singer, and she’s 28, and she’s married. But she’s got a great voice and I love her voice. I really do. And my songs are very suited for her. She writes her own songs too and does all that, but for my songs, her voice is great, you know, as a female voice and I thought it would be fun to use her again.

Betsy: Is she from the Salt Lake City area?
Graham: She is, yeah.

Betsy: I know you have talked about her, but I just didn’t know who she was.
Graham: I also used another girl, a young girl, 19 years old. Meagan Olson is from Salt Lake. She never played, never sang on a record before And she sings on a song called Restless, which you haven’t heard yet. It’s pretty cool.

Betsy: I almost have all of the songs written down. I’ve got Make You Mine, The Future, Lace and Leather, Let Yourself Go, Save the World, This Time, Our Love and Restless.
Graham: How many is that?

Betsy: Eight.
Graham: What’s missing? Let Yourself Go, do you have that?

Betsy: Yes, well of course I have that one!
Graham: Of course you do, yeah. You got, Let Yourself Go…Love Is Warm, you have that?

Betsy: No
Graham: Love Is Warm?

Betsy: Love Is Warm, yeah.
Graham: Third is Lace and Leather, Our Love, Make you Mine…

Betsy: So This Time is the First Time… is it called This Time?
Graham: It’s called This Time, yeah.

Betsy: And that’s on there? That’s nice, it’s lovely.
Graham: Yeah, it’s on there, yeah. That was one of the first I recorded actually.
it’s This Time, Restless, oh Fall With You? Do you have that?

Betsy: Fall With You?
Graham: So that’s 10, that’s all of them.

Betsy: Do you have a favorite?
Graham: Well, I’m very fond of Lace and Leather, you know, and, but I love The Future too.

Betsy: I love The Future. I mean, so I’ve only heard 3 of the songs, no, actually I’ve heard more because when you did some of the songs at Fan Day…
Graham: In Laughlin.

Betsy: And I did love Let Yourself Go. I have to say I love that.
Graham: Yeah. I do too.

Betsy: But you singing The Future, I really love it.
Graham: I love singing that too. So, did I play it then? I cant remember.

Betsy: I don’t know. You played 5 songs in Laughlin but I don’t know…
Graham: I don’t think I played that, I don’t think I played it.

Betsy: I don’t remember which ones they were. I recorded a couple little pieces here and there, but probably just a few seconds.
Graham: No I don’t think I played it. That’s got Lewis Clark’s string arrangement on it, which is amazing.

Betsy: Which song?
Graham: The Future. He did The Future and he did Our Love. Did I play Our Love? I did.

Betsy: I think you did. That sounds familiar.
Graham: Yeah. He did the string arrangement on that too. He’s amazing. He’s the guy from ELO from the 70s, right.

Betsy: Really?
Graham: Do you know the Electric Light Orchestra?

Betsy: I’ve heard of them, yeah. (laughing)
Graham: Oh, they’re fabulous.

Betsy: I was born in ‘69 so I know a little bit from the 70s.
Graham: Oh, ok, right. Yeah, he’s my favorite string arranger. I use him all the time. Yeah, he’s great. Once again, he’s very sympathetic to my songs. I call him up and say, are you available to do an arrangement? And I’ll send him the tracks, you know. But I don’t send him any ideas or anything. He’ll listen to the track and he’ll call me up and say, I’m ready to do the arrangement. And he’ll never say, what do you want, or anything. And I’ll say, you know what to do, right? And he says, oh yeah, I know what to do.

Betsy: Really?
Graham: Yeah, and it’s great. So I never hear the arrangement til we’re in the studio with the orchestra.

Betsy: So kind of how you write for Russell, he arranges for you?
Graham: Yeah. He just does it. Yeah. But he knows that I love ELO stuff. All the da da da da da da da da da da da da da. I love all that. Yeah, fabulous.

Betsy: Yeah, I remember some of their music from way back...when.
Graham: Oh, they’re great, they’re great.

Betsy: So your favorite song then is?
Graham: Well, you know, I can’t really narrow it down because there are a lot of different textures and different...all the songs are different. There’s only really one big ballad, which is Our Love. There’s Let Yourself Go, which is very upbeat, very techno.

Betsy: Love it!
Graham: Yeah, I do too.

Betsy: I heard that one and said I can not wait to get that CD!
Graham: Yeah, it’s...I think you’ll really dig it, you know. But The Future for me, the song The Future is probably my favorite.

Betsy: I love that one. You change the words up a little in some of your songs when you sing them live.
Graham: Do I?

Betsy: Yeah, a little bit.
Graham: Oh. Make You Mine, I got a little lost in Make You Mine last night.

Betsy: Yeah, well, for me, I’m like, well, is he? Or is that really the way it goes. I can’t tell. But I did record in Vegas the songs twice.
Graham: Were they different?

Betsy: A little bit.
Graham: Well, I started on February 14th opening. And it took me pretty much up until now to really nail the words, which sounds strange because they’re my songs. But there’s a lot of words to remember, especially on The Future, there’s a lot of words to remember.

Betsy: It’s so beautiful.
Graham: Thanks.

Betsy: And, it gets great compliments from people.
Graham: Oh does it? See I don’t hear them.

Betsy: Oh yeah, people talk about it a lot. Ok, so there’s a forum where people comment on it. But on YouTube, I see comments on there very once in a while. People will post comments on each of the individual videos. So you can always look there for the comments. I love it. I mean I posted up two videos, Make you Mine and Lace and Leather the first night from Vegas and the next day I recorded The Future and I posted up that. I think I told you last night that Make You Mine has 1,200...
Graham: 1,200 you said. That’s 1,200 people that have come on now and listened to it?

Betsy: Now I started posting the videos of all the different clips in November-ish, and 45,000 we’ve passed now. 45,000 views.
Graham: That’s amazing.

Betsy: And when I saw you in Vegas it was only 25,000.
Graham: I remember. I remember that.

Betsy: So in just two weeks, three weeks, it’s 20,000.
Graham: Wow.

Betsy: The really cool part about it is that these songs are being picked up by mini YouTube sites and are being propagated throughout the world in different sites.
Graham: Oh really?

Betsy: On my site I can actually see people who come to visit my blog and I can see what search engine they use and what they key in to do a search.
Graham: Oh, I see.

Betsy: And I get a lot from Asia.
Graham: Do you really?

Betsy: Oh yeah, and they’ll just put in “Graham Russell lyrics Future”. So people are finding it on their own, not just through maybe word of mouth.
Graham: Right. What was the reaction when I put on Lace and Leather for people to download, do you know?

Betsy: Oh, people couldn’t wait for it. I mean… I was shocked because it sounds so different than your live version, very different.
Graham: You think?

Betsy: Oh absolutely. Your live version is very upbeat and fast and the recorded version is very…
Graham: Mellow

Betsy: Yeah, very mellow. Beautiful!
Graham: No, I know what you mean. See, I’m not really aware that much. Yeah, ‘cause on the recorded one, there’s the strings on there.

Betsy: And there is somebody else singing. People have been asking who is singing. I don’t know, is it you?
Graham: It’s me. Yeah. It probably is a little bit more mellow ‘cause I think I made a mental note, now that I think of it, that live, I needed to attack it a little more, you know. Just to step on it a little more. Because it’s the last song in my three and I don’t want it to be too sleepy, you know? Yeah, I definitely dig in a little more, live. I dig in a little more. But you’re right. On the recorded one it’s a little mellower. Because it’s got the strings on there.

Betsy: It’s beautiful. But it sounds very different. I prefer the live version, myself.
Graham: That’s interesting that you think it’s so different. I don’t think it’s that different.

Betsy: Well, that’s because you’re singing it.
Graham: But you know, but things evolve. Like if I had recorded the song tomorrow it would be different than how I recorded before. It would just be, ‘cause it’s now instead of then.

Betsy: Well look at how you sound today as Air Supply verses what the recordings sounded in the 80s.
Graham: Oh yeah. .It’s totally different. Nothing’s the same.

Betsy: No. Absolutely not.
Graham: And you can’t expect it to be, you know.

Betsy: And they are beautiful now. Ok, I grew up with that back in the 80s. That’s all the music I know. But to hear it now, it’s incredible to hear it. Russell sounds fabulous. You sound fabulous. The band does... The energy…
Graham: Yeah. It’s very different, yeah.

Betsy: I think I say somewhere on my blog, it’s not the same Air Supply you remember from the 80s.
Graham: No, oh thank God, you know.

Betsy: It’s a total rock band.
Graham: It is, yeah, I mean, it was a little bit in the 80s but that’s 25 years ago you know. I mean, I don’t want to sound like we did 25 years ago. That would be terrible.

Betsy: I wouldn’t say it would sound terrible because that’s what people…
Graham: Well it would be ‘cause we wouldn’t have gone anywhere. And I think people are surprised when they come to see us and they go “whoa” ‘cause it’s not what they think it’s gonna be.

Betsy: Here’s a question for you. You said that radio stations won’t play your music. Do you think they will in Asia? And I’m talking specifically about The Future.
Graham: I think they are gonna play it, yeah. I think they are gonna play it here too. Once people hear it.

Betsy: I hope.
Graham: I really believe that, yeah. But they’ll play it in Asia.

Betsy: What are your goals for your sales?
Graham: I don’t really have any goals. I just want people to hear it. But Barry, I think, has got a distribution deal for me worldwide, so it’s gonna get out there, yeah.

Betsy: Do you have any plans to release a follow up?
Graham: You know, I’m sure I will now, once I’ve kind of broke the ice with this one. Doing this one was…for a long time I thought, should I do it or will it not be a good idea. One of the things that I really thought about was the Air Supply fans. Would they think that Air Supply was gonna be finished. And I didn’t want them to presume that. So when I used to mention it some months ago that I was doing it, I’d say, but it’s not the end of the band you know. It wont make any difference to the band at all. I mean, they were just songs that were sitting there that Air Supply wouldn’t have used.

Betsy: And you play them during the Air Supply show.
Graham: Yeah, yeah. It’s funny ‘cause people are surprised that I am doing this. But they say, what a great idea. And I say, yeah, I know! And plus, it quenches my thirst to do something solo a little bit, you know, and it’s the perfect thing.

Betsy: Now how long do you think you’ll be doing it live in shows
Graham: Certainly all this year.

Betsy: So is the intermission type thing gone where you were doing This Time?
Graham: Not necessarily, no. I might bring that back. I mean, eventually, I want to do all of them. I’ll change the songs up. Once people start hearing it and get used to the album then I’ll swap the songs around. And I’ll do different ones, you know. Or maybe extend my thing to four songs or something.

Betsy: Now does that affect the time?
Graham: It does Yeah. It affects it. Because different venues want different times, you know, from us. You know, normally they want 90 minutes so I have to be sure that I don’t take up Air Supply’s time because I don’t want to step on the fans’ time watching the band. You know, people want to hear this song and that song and I don’t want to have to, I won’t pull songs out of the Air Supply set just so I can perform, you know? But a lot of places don’t care. They say, you know, you can play two hours, I mean our set… Well our set, our full set, which we don’t get to do very often, it is almost two hours.

Betsy: I haven’t seen one yet.
Graham: haven’t you?

Betsy: Not a full set, no. Well, I don’t know. I’ve seen the set that I’ve seen for the past six months. And I don’t recall any…
Graham: Right, well we are due to change it up, and, although, we did change it…

Betsy: Recently, with opening with Even The Nights.
Graham: That’s new this year, yeah.

Betsy: Very cool.
Graham: Yeah, I love that. That was actually Jonni's idea to open with that. Yeah, and we just moved things around. We moved the Power of Love down.

Betsy: That was weird for me because I was so used to seeing Power of Love right at the beginning.
Graham: It’s still weird for me

Betsy: But the way I look at it is it’s like the second half of the show. It’s like a new beginning.
Graham: It is the second half of the show. Exactly. It starts the second half.

Betsy: Very cool. But, we miss the intermission where you say, oh Russell’s gone to change his pants, have a cup of tea…
Graham: Right, I know. But I cant do that now because I'm doing that at the front. What I like too is I like to keep everything evolving, and changing. Now people are getting used to me opening up you know. But then later on when they get used to it, I might swap it around again. That’s what I like. I like to keep everyone on their toes.

Betsy: You haven’t done that many shows with it.
Graham: No. Feb 14 I started.

Betsy: What, that’s maybe 15 shows, 10 shows.
Graham: Yeah. But it took me this long just to figure it out. When I started on Valentines Day to where I am doing now is totally different. Same songs, but oh I had the lyrics in front of me and I couldn’t remember them, you know. Course I could, but I was freaked.

Betsy: Really?
Graham: Well, not freaked. I never get nervous. But I didn’t want to mess it up. And when you are on your own, there is only one person responsible and even though the lyrics were in front of me, I’d mess them all up. And I hate reading lyrics from the paper, you know. In fact, I’d tell the audience, I’d say, well I got all my words down here, and I’d still mess it up. So in the end, I just have to take them away and I know them.

Betsy: So for The Future do you have any plans to perform specifically for that?
Graham: I’d like to. In fact, we rehearsed last week. I rehearsed a band last week. Just for fun. For three days in Park City, yeah just to…it was, what do the politicians call it?...an exploratory committee to run for president. So this was an exploratory rehearsal.

Betsy: You need donations?
Graham: Yeah, right, always! You know, we just got together and played and we played all the songs from the album. And it was cool. Course it was me, Mike, Jonni and Stina. I asked Jed to do it but he was on holiday ‘cause it was his birthday. So it was cool. It was weird at first, Russell not being there, but this is just another flavor you know. But I would like to do some shows. If we had some time off I’d probably go out and do a couple of weeks somewhere in small venues and a club in the back, back of beyond, you know. And what I’d call it is Graham Russell and The Future. So the band would be called The Future, which I think is really cool.

Betsy: Oh really? That’s so cool
Graham: Yeah. It is, isn’t it. I cant believe no one has thought of it!

Betsy: What’s the status of the Heart of the Rose.
Graham: Well we’ve done two previews. We did one in Chicago, and one in New York and we’re looking for a lot of money. We haven’t got what we want yet, but we’ll get it. You know, it’s a long journey, and there are a lot of obstacles. Because we are trying to do something different than what a normal Broadway show is. I mean, in New York we had a lot of heavy weight Broadway people there and they’re all saying you cant do it this way and you cant do that. And I just really don’t listen, you know? And…

Betsy: You cant.
Graham: Well, I cant, no. I don’t want to listen to those people. But it was very successful. It was really cool. And the way it was presented, it was very different. Normally, there’s four or five people and they read everything from stands and they don’t act anything out and they just stand there or read it and turn pages and sing a few of the songs. But I had five singers and I only made a cameo role in half a song. But it was really cool. The singers were fantastic and they acted it all out. And Broadway people aren’t used to that. And they were saying, Oh is that the whole show? And we’d say, no that’s not the whole show…all this stupid stuff. But you know, we’ll get there.

Richard Branson is a real mentor figure for me and I read something which I usually tell everyone. I read an article on a plane about him and it said, you know when you’ve got a new idea or something new, he says, everybody will say no to it ‘cause they’re frightened of it. And he said, so get ready for them all to say no. And he said, unless they say no, you’re on the wrong track and you’re not doing anything new or spiritual or innovative. He said they’re gonna say no. But right at the end, somebody will say yes and understand it and go boom! And the light will go on. And he said, that’s being creative and that’s being a leader and doing something that nobody’s done before. And I’ll never forget that. Cause he’s one of those people. You know, I wanna do something different for Broadway, you know.

Betsy: So is that where you intend to…
Graham: I wanna open it in England, in Nottingham first for like a month and then take it to the West End. But it’ll happen you know, in its time. I mean, it’s becoming a lot of years so far. Yep, a long time. But I don’t need it to happen. But it’ll happen.

Betsy: So it occupies a lot of your time, obviously…it’s a long process.
Graham: Yeah, well, it doesn’t occupy a lot of my time now ‘cause it’s finished. So when the impetus is ready for another...we’re talking about doing one in Los Angeles, another preview. We’ll do it. But there’s no pressure to do it. I mean, we have certain funds for it, but we don’t have what we want, what we’re after. We’re after 10 million dollars you know.

Betsy: If I had it, I would give it to you.
Graham: Oh I know you would! But we’ll get it.

Betsy: Are you working on any other projects?...That you can share?
Graham: I’m doing the music for a movie, I just discovered two days ago, which is a small movie. It’s coming out of Utah. And I've read the script and I think it’s really cool. There’s only I think six or seven people in it. So it’s a very low budget small movie and its really cute and very cool. And they asked me to write the music and so, I did, well, I am. I’ve already written the title song for it, which is really cool. And so I’m doing that. And what else am I doing? I’m spending a lot of time now doing promotion for The Future. I’ve just been getting a lot of promotion for it. But I’m not really working on anything else.

Betsy: What’s the status of the Air Supply CD?
Graham: You know at the moment it’s a little bit in limbo only because we just haven’t all got together, you know? I mean, the songs are there. Originally I was gonna do the Zed project, which I wanted it to be a theatrical thing. Not live on stage like theater. I wanted it to be like a concept, you know, but I don’t know about that anymore because it’s been a couple years since that. And I wrote all the songs for it, and everything. And Russell heard them, loved them. But now I’ve kinda got off that a little bit because it’s been a long time.

Betsy: So do you think that we’ll see a CD in 2007 from Air Supply?
Graham: Where are we now, March? I think so, yeah. The end of this year.

Betsy: But you’re not quite sure what it will be?
Graham: People ask me, and it will probably be towards the end like autumn, fall, yeah. I mean, a lot of songs are already recorded. We recorded Miracles, which we already gave on the side, Faith in Love, which now there are three versions of Faith in Love.

Betsy: I like the second to last one.
Graham: Which one was that?

Betsy: The one before this one. I just have to say, from a personal perspective I really miss you playing the guitar in the beginning.
Graham: I play it though.

Betsy: No, no, no…in the very beginning. Now you are clapping and you’re getting everybody moving…
Graham: Right yeah, but I bring it in.

Betsy: And Jed’s just kind of standing there…
Graham: Yeah, no we took all the synthesizers out. Only because we’ve been doing it for a year.

Betsy: But I love that other version. But that’s just me. Other people say they like the new one too.
Graham: No that’s cool.

Betsy: I really love to see you play the guitar and that’s one of the reasons I love seeing you, what is it, is it Make You Mine that you do that in?
Graham: Yeah. We needed to, well, I needed, too, to change it up because we’ve been doing it for a year. And every year, historically, I change the set up or bring new songs in. I didn’t this year because I knew a lot of people really liked Faith in Love and I do too. But I needed to change it up or it was coming out because I cant, I can only do it for so long that way. All of them, Even the Nights…they all need to be changed up a little, you know?

Betsy: What about Sweet Dreams? You’ve been doing The River for...
Graham: Yeah, we have, yeah. Well, I love the poem thing, we all do and I’m not ready to lose that yet. And maybe I’ll bring it in with another poem somewhere else. ‘Cause I like that element, the spoken word. In fact, when we first started that, I was really…I thought wow, are people gonna get it? But people really get it.

Betsy: People today, people who haven’t ever seen a show, they’re wondering, what is this and then all of a sudden Close Your Eyes… and people are like ooooohhhh, it’s sweet dreams!
Graham: Yeah, yeah, yeah.

Betsy: Fabulous.
Graham: Yeah I like that.

Betsy: Ok, here are some more questions. When you look out into the audience, do you appreciate seeing familiar faces?
Graham: Yes, we get used to them.

Betsy: What would you consider the greatest moment in your career?
Graham: I hope I haven’t had it yet. Really. I hope I haven’t had it yet.

Betsy: Is there anything you haven’t done yet that you would like to?
Graham: Yeah, I would love win an Oscar for some music I write.

Betsy: What would you like to be doing in five years?
Graham: This. Exactly this. You know, the Rolling Stones are our model. We are still young and age is just a number. We plan to be around for many years, as long as we can. I don’t know why people think we are going anywhere.

Betsy: With all of your writing, do you know the greatest number of songs written in a short period of time?
Graham: No, not really. Usually, they all come together, fast and furious, one right after another. I’ll be writing one and another one will come right after.

Betsy: So you don’t typically have one here and there? They all just kind of come at one time together?
Graham: Yeah.

Betsy: What do you enjoy doing in your spare time?
Graham: I like to garden. My whole family were gardeners.

Betsy: Really? Do you like to garden things like veggies or plants?
Graham: Veggies and herbs.

Betsy: Me too! It’s not so easy though back on the East Coast.

Betsy: Graham, thank you so much for your time. Really, thank you. This has been wonderful and I feel very honored.
Graham: You’re very welcome my Dear. Thank you.

Thank you to Graham Russell for generously allowing time to talk to him about his debut solo CD, The Future, and a little bit about Air Supply. Many thanks to those who helped make it possible. I was humbled by the opportunity.

This interview was conducted at the Fallsview Casino in Niagara Falls, Canada on March 24, 2007.

Tagged as: Interviews, Music