...Stumbled across this while surfing the other day. It's a little dated, but even older things have at least one enlightening characteristic:


BY MINNIE DRIVER

MINNIE DRIVER: Hello, darling. Are you in L.A.?

SEAL: Yes. I rented a lovely house here. So what are you doing in London?

MD: I'm doing a play. Sexual Perversity in Chicago, by David Mamet--would I be in a play called anything else? [both laugh] So, I just listened to your new record [Seal, due out next month). The stuff you played me on the guitar last year--you threw all that away?

S: Yes.

MD: That's so bizarre! I just cannot imagine how you threw an entire record away. But then again, this new record is brilliant.

S: Oh, thanks. You know, I wrote over 75 songs for it, and there are only 11 on the album.

MD: Bloody hell!

S: I've always been interested in pushing only the best stuff that I have to offer at the time of the record's release.

MD: How do you decide what the best stuff is? Is it a feeling you have?

S: It's more than that. You try to select your best songs, but they also have to be the right songs.

MD: Do you mean you have to pick singles?

S: No. I mean you have to pick the right songs--

MD: --For the whole record.

S: Yes. Exactly.

MD: Now, how do you feel when you hear the finished record? You're putting your inner world out there because you have to--you're an artist and that's your vocation in this life. And the risk you run is having that inner world dissected. Do you ever think about the way your music is going to be judged?

S: Well, obviously I am aware it's going to be
judged. What you've got to do, really, is make an album that you believe. And that was a problem I had with the album I scratched: I listened to it and the songs were good, but I didn't. believe what I was saying. Now, when you make an album that you do believe--that serves as a cathartic experience--therein lie the rewards. You know, when I was writing [the new song] "Love's Divine," I experienced something that has probably happened only three times in my career--I wrote the lyrics very quickly, and I had tears in my eyes because it connected in a profound way. When those things happen, you know you're writing something that's real.

MD: So do you then replace the notion of any kind of needed approbation from anybody else with that feeling of "When I wrote this, I knew exactly what I meant and what I felt, and it doesn't matter if anyone likes it"?

S: I won't bullshit you and say it doesn't matter if people like it or not. But I've had the luxury in my career that when I do write something like that, it tends to be unanimously well received- I've never come across one person who doesn't like the result. I keep going back to this thing I call the "emotional connection." When you write something that has an emotional connection, you can go to the deepest jungle of Africa and play it for somebody, and they will connect to it.

MD: But don't you think that it can be quite subjective--that one man's Morrissey is another man's Boney M.?

S: The translation is subjective. The essence of it is the same.

S: The translation is subjective. The essence of it is the same. How you choose to articulate or convey the message is irrelevant in lots of ways--the words are only sort of relevant for the subjective sense. But one thing that does not change is the emotional content. If you have an emotional investment, that will come through.

MD: Mm-hmm. So what's your extracurricular life like?

S: There hasn't been any. I keep hopping back to these emotional connections--nothing else exists. You're around people, but you're not present. You're absolutely consumed by the thing you love--and also the thing you must do--and there are sacrifices.

MD: Yeah. You pay with the rest of your life. It's consumed by the amount of energy that one puts into creating, whether it's music or acting. Speaking of which, sweetheart, I've got to get to the theater.

S: [laughs] Okay. I'll call you in a few weeks.

MD: You take care, angel. Bye.

Link:Seal: The Metaphysical Wonderer Returns

Wow thanks for posting this Snarky very good interview.

I love how Minnie calls him an "ANGEL".

Thank you so much for finding this Snarky ...amazing nobody else (including myyself) has not yet come across it.

thanks luv sue xx i love the bit about him having tears in his eyes thats real to me.

A gem of an interview- very interpersonal- kudos to you for posting it- delightful and really meaningful in the sense that Seal wants that emotional connection with his audience... Thanks for the info.
Rain

Snarky, you are trully the Link Master's apprentice!

Snarkle is now in a league of her own I think... as is the Link Master.