OT: WEB EXCLUSIVE: TERENCE TRENT D'ARBY INTERVIEW
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By Jonathan Lesser
Photographs by ILPO MUSTO/LONDON FEATURES
I was born Terence Trent Howard and I became D'arby at age two because a man
adopted me.
My new name came from a series of dreams that I had where I was being called
"Sananda" by a group of angels. They were always trying to help me locate
something in the dream, and the first couple of times I heard the name I was
really taken aback by how familiar it sounded. And I would keep looking
around excitedly because I was curious to see who "Sananda" was. By the
third time it occurred to me they were calling me.
And it just made sense because two or three years proceeding that I had felt
more and more of an estrangement from the identity of Terence Trent D'arby.
What I mean by that is if you take the first 31 years of someone's life and
tell them this is who you are and this is who we expect you to be. And of
course if you veer from that there are going to be repercussions behind it.
You kind of adopt an identity that sometimes just doesn't hold after the
threat of ass whippin's and other things. You grow up with the rules and
expectations, and sometimes the role that you play fits the truth of your
nature and sometimes it doesn't. I found a schism-a split developing between
who I was led to believe I was supposed to be and the truth about how I was
beginning to feel myself. So the series of dreams came during that period of
time when I was not feeling myself to be who I was told I was. Told by the
society at large, your peer group, your parents, your friends, whatever your
religion is, whatever the series of associations that we make growing up
that serve to reinforce the idea of self.
Maybe I came out of the womb wrong. I was living with a sense of
dissatisfaction regarding what I was expected to do. Something much deeper
was pulling at me to take a more truthful look at the role I was playing,
because it really wasn't leading to fulfillment or happiness.
I had the dreams when I was between the ages of 32 and 33. Around 33 I
basically remembered "Sananda" as something I'd always been connected to.
It's hard to explain. It's like waking up from amnesia and all of the sudden
pieces fall into place and you start to remember who you are. [Does it mean
anything?] Not really, but it sounded immediately familiar. It was one of
those kinds of things. It sounded like something you knew but you had
forgotten you knew, and when you were reminded-you were like, "wow." And
after adopting it as a name it just felt truer to who I was, and things
began to fall into place. It's like changing the name changes the vibration
which attracts a whole new set of things, and those things were just falling
into place with me more than the previous stuff. The previous stuff was
beginning to suffocate me.
[Been making music the whole time since 95?] Yeah, I was just in an
unfortunate situation with Sony. In order to keep another artist happy, it
was decided that in order to retain his services, not as much attention
would be put into my situation. I don't really have a problem with that. The
decision comes down to: our main artist who has been making us a fortune the
last few years is unhappy with this kid. [Was it personal?] It was nothing
like that. I guess I was a threat to his situation. In the political move
between CBS and Sony there were some people ousted, and in order to win
favor of certain marquee artists promises are made. So it was a matter of
saying if you guys want to keep my business you're just gonna have to squash
it on this kid. I didn't have enough savvy or whatever to overcome that.
That's the price of an education. The thing that was really hard for me was
that after it was decided that not a lot of attention be put into my music,
they still held on to me for eight years and wouldn't let me out of the
contract. I still made records, because I didn't want the situation to take
from the opportunity that I was given to hone my craft. I kept recording,
but it wasn't going to be promoted. The attitude was we'll just put it out.
I've done tours in America where people didn't know that the record was even
out until after the gig. So it was kind of a long stretch.
CBS became Sony between my first two projects. I happened in America because
a guy named Walter Yetnikoff, who really was the capo, was running the
American company and he came over to England and saw me and said, "I'm gonna
make this kid happen in America." So he basically sponsored the project.
American companies don't tend to like to be told what to do by a smaller
territory outside of itself because they're the bigger dog at the table. But
he came in and said look, we're gonna make this happen and that's the end of
it. But after he left, and pretty much everyone who was in his regime that I
had developed sort of a rapport with, everything shifted, it was a big sea
change. One of my issues with the industry is that when something like that
happens I think it's only fair that artists should be able to review the
situation and decide if they want to remain. It was an education. As hard as
it was for me to accept, I'm now at the point where I'm in complete
acceptance and grace of what opportunities God has given me, and I'm
grateful that now I can see past it.
I now own the copyrights to my music. It's such an easier thing to do.
Sometimes to keep a big record company's morale up you have to sell so many
records in the first quarter. There's all these political things to take
into consideration that as a young artist you don't really know exists. You
have to sell many more records just to keep the fire alive because you've
got like 1,200 people to feed. I'm in a situation where I can do a tenth of
that and actually make some money.
I can go out and tour and sell records at the tour. This gives me the
possibility to do things that used to be done back in the day, when cats
just wanted to sell records. I don't have to hand over 85 percent of it for
the privilege of it, just to reach the public, that's the beauty of the
situation. I see a guy across the street, I know that guy feels what I do.
This allows us direct access to people who you can directly communicate
with.
The Joker's Edition of Wild Card (newest album, his fifth) has four new
songs that werent on previous versions. I'm printing up the first batch now,
and it will be available sometime in July on the Internet. Then when we come
through town they can buy it at the gig, too.
For a lot of people it isnt about what's your last hit or what they've
heard, it's about someone they've kind of given some of their heart to,
someone they connect with. Next thing you know you're turning them onto
something. People really do miss something that the industry has lost sight
of. At the end of the day I don't want to see the end of the industry;
whether I like it or not, it's my industry.
I last played the U.S. in 1996. I've been surprised. Sometimes you think
you're starting at a grassroots level and you go play someplace and there's
all these people waiting for you. I just did a warm up acoustic tour and
there were over 1,000 people who showed up for each one, and they were all
in what would be called secondary markets. So I was very touched. People are
ready to experience something more direct again, and I'm grateful to be in
that position. For all of the bitterness that I had to absorb with regard to
the industry, it's like with anything -- once you come out on the other side
you're really grateful that you got the education and the opportunity. At
the end of the day I'm not mad at them. I just believe that by listening to
the artists again, and considering our voices more, they could be opening
their businesses back up instead of complaining each year that sales are
dwindling and blaming other industries for their problems.
I'm living in Italy. I came to Italy in January of this year. I've always
felt we have a tradition of people from our culture who just find that
they're just much more accepted in other cultures. Italy, for example, is a
culture where the people feel themselves very much. They just feel
themselves, and anything they feel they feel more and they're able to
express it more. It's a culture that's always appreciated artists and
craetive people. Artists here get treated with the same type of respect that
is reserved for doctors in America. Even really older people here will stop
me on the street and give me compliments. They take their pleasures and
their sensuality seriously. Any artist has it in his or her best interest to
keep themselves close to that, because that's the tapestry youre trying to
weave from and back into. It's much easier to alchemize love than it is the
other shit, but you know you make your best effort at it anyway.
I was in L.A. for awhile and found that a very uninspiring experience. It's
like the capital of the music world. It's really an industry. I didn't find
any people to vibe with. I was working too hard to keep my own vibe up.
Whether you're an artist or not, if you're a person who has some compassion,
just keep yourself as close to where the honey flows as possible, because
you owe it to yourself.
I miss playing for American audiences, but the industry just made it what it
is - very difficult to express yourself unless you let a committee of
motherfuckers tell you who you're supposed to be. With all due respect to
people who feed their families that way, I'm just not feelin' that.
[Did you say your first album was better than Sgt. Peppers?] That was
something I said that caused a lot of controversey, especially in America. I
remember these two girls from a Boston radio station wouldn't even talk to
me. I'm a huge Beatles fan too, but the reality of the situation is that the
English press, especially the music press, operates in a different way. They
have a tradition of what you would call taking a piss, of just saying stuff.
Yeah, I did actually say that, but it was something that had to be seen in
context. Every time a different journalist asked me that question - and it
was a question that was going around for a while - I would just name a
different record. I was going through my Muhammad Ali imitation. I was
having fun, and they seemed to be enjoying it, and I was just very naïve.
My best is yet to come. Im very confident and I'm very excited and I'm very
grateful for the people who seem to have a tremendous amount of patience
with regard to the situation. I look forward to seeing them (fans in the
U.S.), because I have something to share with them now that I didn't have
before and they'll just have to experience it for themselves.
Tune into the website, sanandamaitreya.com, to find out when the new album
will be available. We're finalizing that right now. I post messages on that
site, and there's newsletters going around, and the dates will start
appearing.