PAUL WILLIAMS
Oscar, Grammy and Golden Globe winning songwriter, film composer, actor & humanitarian.
Interviewed May 31st, 2009
ITM: What motivated you the most to write and perform?
PW: I started out acting and couldn't make a living at it. I started writing for my own amusement. Picked up a guitar on the set of "The Chase" in the mid sixties and started doodling. The first reward for writing... the first payment is the beginning of understanding yourself... the writing became a kind of musical therapy... the next step was playing it for someone who related to the feelings... Bingo! Welcome to the family of man. Shared emotions. Shared experiences. Not to mention the magic of a young lady looking at a chubby little blond songwriter with something new in her eyes. That does a lot for ones discipline.
The performing came as a way to support the albums when I started recording. It became a bit of an addiction. I think I became better at showing off than showing up. Doing game shows instead of working on building my craft as a songwriter. But, I love performing once in a while. It offers a chance to meet people who've been touched by the music. That's 'heart payment' for a songwriter. Hearing how someone was married to 'We've Only Just Begun", "Evergreen" or one of my other songs... That the first song they played as a child was "The Rainbow Connection" or something from "Bugsy Malone"... or to hear that their mom was a single mom that found meaning in "You and Me Against the World". That's as good as it gets for a songwriter.
ITM: What instrument would you most like to learn to play?
PW: The Piano... I write on piano but I don't really play at all. If it was a fight they'd stop it. I wish I'd taken lessons... but, I don't think they would have helped.
ITM: Where was your first gig?
PW: Chicago. Opening for B.J.Thomas. I was supposed to do 40 minutes... I was so nervous I was finished in 25...
ITM: How did you react the first time you heard a song of yours on the radio?
PW: Big big grin... It was pretty strange though... The first song I heard was "Fill Your Heart" by Tiny Tim...
ITM: What was your biggest career break?
PW: Failure. "No" is a gift... When my acting career began to fail I started writing. One door closed forcing me to open another. The right one!
ITM: Have you ever lived in New York City?
PW: No. The longest I've ever stayed in the city was several months working on... Ishtar
ITM: How did you come to be involved with Ishtar?
PW: Warren Beatty had called me about writing a title song to "Heaven Can Wait"... I looked at the picture and told him it didn't need a song. He liked that. He had several other writers take a stab at it and none of the songs worked. He said I was right... and he thought I might be the right guy for Ishtar. I met a bunch of times with Warren and Elaine... It took forever to get him to tell me I had the job.
ITM: What was your reaction to the offer?
PW: I approached the gig like an acting job. I became the voice of Chuck and Lyle... two very mismatched writers. One country boy and one city slicker... I wanted to write authentically bad songs. Believably bad songs... Not just funny, but realistically rotten. I couldn't seem to get an angle on what Elaine wanted... and she couldn't really voice what she was looking for. It all began to click when I wrote "That a Lawnmower Can Do All That"... She loved it... so did Warren... I had the job at last!
ITM: Did you have a script or story outline to work with?
PW: A script. A really really funny script!
ITM: Where did you write the songs?
PW: In Los Angeles, New York at the Waldorf Towers and in Morocco
ITM: What inspiration did you draw on while writing?
PW: Stolichnaya. And a variety of chemicals. Frankly, I was pretty much a mess the many months I worked on Ishtar. I'm almost 20 years sober. Sober since 1990... but the 80's were pretty out of control for me. My drinking and using had escalated to a point where I had long ago crossed the line from use to abuse to addiction.
ITM: Any part of the film's plot strike you as being too close for comfort?
PW: I'm not sure I know what you mean.
ITM: How did you approach bridging the gap between naivety and sincerity with the lyrics?
PW: I tried to stay true to the heart of the characters, and let their naivety paint the funny... Their combined lack of sophistication was the boat and funny was the wake! I'd spent a lot of years chasing songs in collaborative frenzy like the ones we created for Chuck and Lyle... I tried to make authenticity job one!
ITM: Did you play any instruments on the recordings?
PW: No... Doug Walter... a great musician, arranger and a very patient man played everything. Incidentally there's a full-blown rock and roll version of the score with great players that's in a vault somewhere. Originally the film was going to end with Chuck and Lyle's greatest hits album being played over the end credits. Michael James Jackson and I produced the album with great musicians backing Warren and Dustin. It was never released.
ITM: Is it easy being both songwriter and producer?
PW: No. But, the real production work was done by Michael James Jackson. The style, direction and the content of the songs was mine... Michael James Jackson brought a great new vision to the project... he's brilliant. On my own I'd still be trying to get vocals from Dustin!
ITM: Any particular anecdotes of the writing or recording sessions?
PW: I spent two nights alone in the desert to write the songs where Dustin and Warren think they're dying... Came out of the desert overwhelmed with emotion... with the beauty of the desert at night. Face it... I was nuts!!! I had an accident at a nightclub the night I finished work on the songs. We were in Morocco and I was backing away from a belly dancer that I'd just tipped... when I slipped on the tile and fell backwards into a fountain with a statue of Neptune holding a trident. The water in the fountain was full of turtles. I hit my head on the trident... and fell into the water unconscious... I was out for 45 minutes and came to being sewn up by a German nurse... I carry my Ishtar scar hidden by my hair.
ITM: Did you meet the actors or visit the film sets?
PW: Elaine May didn't want me to sing the songs to her... She wanted to hear Dustin and Warren sing them... so for every song in the picture even if they're was only need of a couple of lines. I had to write the complete song and then teach it to the guys to sing. So I spent months with the actors, and with the amazing Ms May. It's one of the greatest gigs imaginable... A collaborative process... I'm very proud of the work.
ITM: What did you like most about your involvement with the movie?
PW: The people. Warren's brilliant and stood his ground with the studio... giving Elaine May the reins and allowing her to make the film she wanted to make. It couldn't have been easy. Elaine May's amazing. Iconic comedy brilliance. I touched the hem and loved being there. Although there were times I thought I'd kill somebody if they didn't give me some specific direction. Fact is... she let it bubble up and out of me... and when it was right she said ''That's it!!! Now give me more of the same."
Dustin... He put me on the phone with Arthur Miller... That doesn't happen to you every day! They'd just done a TV version of 'Death of a Salesman"... I was raving about the production and the writing and Dustin said... "here, tell him!!!"
ITM: Do you have a favorite line of dialogue?
PW: The blind camel kills me... the buzzards on spec... 'those are breasts'... Lyrically, 'I'm leaving some love in my will... because you'll have a big void to fill' has a certain... hmm... let me think about it!
LAURENCE JUBER
An accomplished & well respected L.A. musician, Laurence performed guitar on songs in Ishtar's soundtrack.
Interviewed February 20th, 2007
ITM: What exactly was your involvement with any Ishtar recordings?
LJ: I played on the songs that Paul Williams wrote & recorded - the 'Uber' Ishtar album. I think the intention was to actually make & release the album with Lyle & Chuck singing. It's likely that one or two of our tracks ended up in the movie.
ITM: What studios did you work in?
LJ: Oceanway/Western on Sunset in Hollywood
ITM: What other players were involved?
LJ: Drums - Jim Keltner
Bass - Abe Laboriel
Guitar - Waddy Wachtel + myself
Keyboards - Kevin Savigar + another guy whose name I don't recall
Producer - Michael James Jackson
ITM: What type of preparation was presented to you: charts, lyrics, etc. And who presented them?
LJ: Mostly chord charts, some lyrics.
ITM: How long & what dates did your work take place in?
LJ: Maybe 3 or 4 days in the studio. It was over 20 years ago, so the actual dates are vague.
ITM: Do you have any particular memories of the sessions you'd like to share with Ishtar fans & other players?
LJ: I remember the songs being very funny & the studio band working well together. Paul is always cool to work with.
PAUL STANDIG
Guitarist & singer in 'The Swing', the trio performing 'You Took My Love' during The Song Mart scene.
Interviewed July 18th, 2013
ITM: When and where was the band formed?
PS: The band was formed in 1981 in Forest Hills Queens, New York. The Swing started out as a five piece and by the time we did the film we were a three piece band.
ITM: Who was in the band and what were their band roles?
PS: Joe Gmerek played bass and sang background vocals, John Trumpbour played the drums and I (Paul Standig) played guitar and sang lead vocals.
ITM: Did it release any original recordings, and what were some of the band's experience highlights prior to appearing in Ishtar?
PS: We had quite a few original recordings which made it onto local radio and got us into many clubs like The Ritz, Studio 54 and The China Club in New York City.We auditioned for the film with a song called Living it Up, which we wrote but they wanted us to do a country type of song so we wrote You Took My Love with Elaine May.
ITM: How did the band get the role in Ishtar?
PS: I got a tip from my sister's boyfriend who was an actor that there was an ad in Backstage magazine looking for a band for a feature film. We went into a cattle call of bands that were all trying out on the same day. We went up against bands like White Lion and other popular bands from New York and we left thinking we didn't have much of a chance. Two weeks later Todd Thaler calls me and says we got it, but there's a catch. We have to be a country band. So we got some scratch words from Elaine May outlining the idea of a country song and we finished the rest.
ITM: What are your memories of shooting the the film?
PS: The band actually had some other scenes in the film doing some background talking in the club but it was edited out. I remember we had a really nice trailer which we hung out in for several days and we just relaxed as costume and make up people came by to check on us from time to time. We got to hang out with Warren Beatty and Paul Williams a bit and they were very nice. Dustin Hoffman once asked us who we studied acting with and we just cracked up laughing because, hey we're just the band! We don't study with anyone. Elaine May was also very nice to us and couldn't decide how to dress me. She said I didn't belong in a cowboy hat so she gave me a bandana instead. Our scene was originally going to be around a minute and change but in the end it was maybe a quick 20 seconds, if that. But a lot of the other bands didn't make it in the film so we got lucky and a got my SAG card!
ITM: How did appearing in the movie affect the band's reputation?
PS: Our reputation got even better because we really played up the movie and that got us on the Joe Franklin show and better club dates. We even got to the finals of the MTV best unsigned band contest. So yeah it was a boost for the Swing in many ways. I think we did ok by being associated with the film because how many people can even say they were in a film or got to hang out with Warren Beatty and be a part of the wrap up party. I remember at the wrap up party at Kaufman Astoria studios I was sitting right next to Warren Beatty and just talking to him like any other human being. Just very relaxed and easy going. When I got home from the party I didn't think anyone would believe that I just hung out with these stars but when they see my name on the ending credits, they believe me.