When Nestor Aparicio was the music critic for The Evening Sun in Baltimore, he didn’t just talk to hairspray acts at Hammerjacks. This is a depth-packed discussion with the guy who made the 7th inning stretch at Orioles games feel like life on the farm…
John Denver discussed his tour schedule, including concerts in Japan, Europe, and the U.S., and his new album “Different Directions,” set to release in September. He highlighted his environmental activism, emphasizing the importance of educating children and inspiring them to act for a sustainable future. Denver also mentioned his foundation, WinStar, and The Hunger Project, which aims to end hunger by the end of the century. He reflected on his experiences in Africa and his potential space flight, which he had to forego due to personal reasons. Denver expressed satisfaction with his current career, including his new label, American Gramophone, and his upcoming projects, including a Christmas special and re-recorded albums.
SUMMARY KEYWORDS
tour cost, Japan concerts, solo show, new album, environmental activism, songwriting process, litter frustration, sustainable future, Hunger Project, Africa tour, space program, RCA departure, American Gramophone, Christmas special, Earth songs
SPEAKERS
Nestor Aparicio, John Denver
John Denver 00:00
Hello. Is this Nestor Sure? Is John Denver Colin,
Nestor Aparicio 00:04
hi. How are you?
John Denver 00:05
I’m good, a little late, I beg your pardon.
Nestor Aparicio 00:07
Oh, it’s fine, fine. Indeed, I actually was a little late waking up and getting my stuff together, as far as reading your stuff and getting some questions, how expensive is your tour this summer? I understand you were in Rhode Island the other day, but you’re home now, right?
John Denver 00:19
Yeah, I’ve got five days off I’ve been on since about the last week of July, except for these five days, all of job, all of July and a couple days of August. That’s about all I’m doing in this country. There’s a few other concerts in that are scattered after the end of August and September.
Nestor Aparicio 00:38
You playing Wolf Trap in September? And yeah, right.
John Denver 00:42
I I’m off to Japan in the end of September, and Europe and October, November.
Nestor Aparicio 00:50
How popular Are you in those countries? As far as you know, the size venue you play,
John Denver 00:54
well, sort of, sort of like I am here. There are some places where I have really large audiences. Everywhere I play halls. And have, you know, two or three, 4000 people, and I have a very loyal following. Is
Nestor Aparicio 01:06
it like when you go to places like Japan, do a lot of Americans show up at the shows? Oh, yeah, yeah. I figured as much. It seems like a lot of the rock bands I talked to same thing to say it’s all army people, and we go over there. So as far as putting a show together, always, I’ve seen you twice now, and I saw you last summer, and I love the show. Is the same show your songs, no this
John Denver 01:29
pretty different show coming into Baltimore and a wolf tap, I’m going to be solo without my band, just me and the guitars, and I use the string quartet in the second half of the program for about eight or nine songs. I have some new songs introducing from a new album that’s coming out in September and like that.
Nestor Aparicio 01:49
Okay, wondering when you put a set list together, and what do you what do you put in, and what do you take out? Why do you play certain songs and not other songs? And it must be really difficult having what? 29 albums now,
John Denver 02:01
30 will be this new one. What’s the new one going
Nestor Aparicio 02:04
to be called? It’s called different directions, different directions. Okay,
John Denver 02:11
there’s a song on the album called two different directions about a relationship, and then there’s different directions on a lot of different levels, lyrically and musically, there are some songs that have a little stronger edge to them, I think, than I’ve done in the past,
Nestor Aparicio 02:26
like rock songs, or pretty close to
John Denver 02:28
rock and roll. Yeah,
Nestor Aparicio 02:31
with all your traveling and your activism and all that, when do you find time to still sit down and be John Denver from 1970 and write music and
John Denver 02:41
well, it’s it seems to be more more difficult these days sometimes. And I’ve never been one who has sat down and worked every day at writing a song. You know when the songs come, or when there’s an idea that you have for a song, which, funny enough, quite often happens when they’re traveling. Then I’ll sit down and work on that to see if I can make a whole, a whole thought. And you know when the song is important, when you get one that’s that’s happened for you, you find the time to do that. You make it, make it work.
Nestor Aparicio 03:18
So these songs get written on airplanes.
John Denver 03:20
No, not on airplanes. I write a I write a lot of songs in my head when I’m when I’m driving or when I’m walking. It’s happened a couple times in flight and route between cities, but but more often in in cars, and sometimes it’ll be just the start of an idea, a verse, or a chorus, or like that, and then it sitting down with a guitar, the piano and and working on
Nestor Aparicio 03:48
it. How often do these writing modes sort of strike you? I mean, this is something you do at least once a week, or is this something that happens
John Denver 03:56
every time I say it’s that often I only have four songs on the new album. There were a lot more that I had available, but they just didn’t fit the album The way it ended up. And the four, one of them is actually three songs, is bluegrass symphony or sweet that I wrote, so kind of like that. Okay,
Nestor Aparicio 04:20
now with the environmental issues and things like that, when did you become active? I mean, when during your childhood Did you, you know, start to observe the planet and say, We got problems here with throwing trash away and we’re shooting bad things into the sky and putting out bad things. I’m sorry. When, when during your childhood did you find out about environmental issues? When did you really start to become, you know, an activist?
John Denver 04:45
Well, I don’t think it’s how I found out about environmental issues. What happened? I was an Air Force brat, and when we moved to Arizona, where I started, about the first grade, second grade, and. And from then on, whenever my family moved, I really enjoyed being outdoors, whether it was the desert in Arizona or the woods in Alabama or the prairies out around Fort Worth Texas. I just really enjoyed being outdoors and in the woods. And I was, I was kind of shy, and so I spent a lot of time by myself, and when I started to write songs like the first song I ever wrote was called sitting on the banks of a lazy little stream, and it was at a church camp in Arizona, and I was 13 years old, I remember correctly. And so what happened when I started to try and express myself and started writing songs, a lot of my images came from nature. And then as I began to be a little bit more aware of life beyond myself my own growing up, then I began to be aware of environmental issues, and certainly had a very strong vision of a direction that we were going environmentally, where there were going to be real problems if people didn’t start paying a different kind of attention to nature. And so I found myself as I was becoming successful and able to do something with music. And I think there’s another part here too, which is when I joined the Mitchell trio, I think it was the first time I became socially and politically aware and found out that there were aspects in those areas that had to do with the environment and with nature, and that music could have an impact on some of those things. It could have an impact on people. It could have them. It could give them a different perspective about a certain issue. It could give them some humor, in a satirical way, about some things that were going on, and could be sometimes moving enough to have people be inspired to take a different kind of action than they might ordinarily have taken out of hearing a song, or point of view expressed through music that that movement, and so all of that just kind of kept growing in my life. And you know, I think I’ve been involved in environmental issues for over 25 years now.
Nestor Aparicio 07:19
Do get frustrated by the intensity of the whole thing and how, you know, we see it on TV now Earth Day. And I know you have earth day every day, and we do get frustrated by people who just would throw trash out on the street. I mean, it’s not that hard to see. I mean, you can go probably anywhere. Well,
John Denver 07:36
yeah, I guess one of the greatest frustrations in the world, and I think it exemplifies how we how we think about the environment, is the amount of litter you see everywhere. You know, if people would just take the time to throw their trash in a trash can at some place where it could be recyclable, and if people would just take a moment a day to look around them someplace and pick up a piece of trash, then I think that that would show a greater sensitivity to nature in a very positive way, and could support a commitment to doing something positive about our about our environment. And I think that people, as much as we are doing more and more recycling, we are being more conscious about how much energy we’re using and and what we’re doing with with energy in our homes, I still don’t think that people get that we are an endangered species. You know, the people that I talk to say that in all likelihood, in this decade, in this last decade of the 20th century, that we are very liable to determine whether or not the earth remains inhabitable by higher life forms, such as human beings.
Nestor Aparicio 08:49
Do you think on the whole, I mean, there were the education level and the intelligence level is there to make this change happen? I mean, do you feel like sometimes it’s just so darn fruitless, you know that? Do you feel like sometimes it’s just so darn fruitless that you’re trying and you’re trying, but it’s not going to be accomplished in your lifetime.
John Denver 09:13
What I just said is that I think it’s got to be accomplished in our lifetime, the changes that we have to make, the recognition of what’s going on and how critical it is has to happen in our lifetime. Nestor, and we’re not going to we’re not going to be the ones who are going to be end up doing the job. But out of what we do now, out of the choices that we make and how, out of how we educate our children and inspire our children, children to recognize that they can, they can have the world that they would like, and the one that we would have liked is our job. And you know, one of the things that I look at, I think the most critical thing in the world right now is that we have a generation. Of young people who do not have a vision of a better life, that it can get me better than this. I think they think it’s going downhill. Why get an education? Why worry about it? We’re such a material society in this country and in the way we lead the world, the way that we influence the world through arts and movies and everything else. We’re teaching the whole rest of the world to be materialistic. And if we just leave it that way, I say we’re on a downward spiral now, and if we turn it over to them, lacking a vision or a sense of possibility that it can be better, then I think that we’re writing ourselves on
Nestor Aparicio 10:40
Okay, tell me about the win star Foundation. And
John Denver 10:42
star foundation is the nonprofit educational foundation. Our stated purpose is to be a catalyst for responsible action, for a sustainable future and a healthy environment. And that’s just what I was talking about. Right? Exactly we’re trying to do is to be a catalyst out there to one, move people, to educate people, to move people to action, and to do so in a way that that creates a sustainable future and a healthy environment.
Nestor Aparicio 11:08
Onto a new topic, I tell you about the Hunger Project. I saw in the notes that you’re the founder. Is that correct?
John Denver 11:15
I can’t hear I’m sorry.
Nestor Aparicio 11:16
I can hear you perfectly. So I just keep thinking, you can hear me. Tell me about the Hunger Project, as far as your founder of
John Denver 11:23
that, I’m one of the founders of The Hunger Project. I haven’t been I’ve been absent for the last couple years. I’ve been working so hard with WinStar and on environmental issues. So I’m not up to date with where things stand with the Hunger Project. But we say that a world without hunger is is possible, that it can be done. Our commitment is to, is to create that as a reality by the end of this century. And we believe that it has to do with individuals making a difference, individuals, you know, taking a stand for the end of hunger. And that’s, you know, totally compatible. I think that the end of hunger and a healthy environment are totally compatible. You’re not going to have one without the other. I think that the end of hunger and a healthy environment and a sustainable future, and the conscious use of energy resources and the resolution of conflict between peoples and nations, I think all of these things are the same issue,
Nestor Aparicio 12:22
really, okay. Now, you took a tour of Africa, did you not?
John Denver 12:26
I was in Africa, golly, about 1985
Nestor Aparicio 12:32
I think it was right when all the Live Aid thing was happening. And it was, it was before Live Aid, before Live Aid. Now, what did you see, and how did it make you a different person? I mean, I just I see video, and every time I see it, I feel like I’m a different
John Denver 12:47
person. Well, the thing that we didn’t see in the videos, that I was most moved by is that there are people over there who who are turning things around. It’s like the Peace Corps and some of the other developmental agencies and relief organizations are working a little bit differently, and the people themselves in the villages are looking at things differently. Initially, we went in there and said, Ah, this is what you’ve got to do. And they said, Oh, these people say this is what we’ve got to do. And so that’s what they did. And very rarely did that work out. And what was happening now is that more and more the people themselves are saying, This is what we need to do in our community. And will you help us do this? And so the example was, you know, a lot of education before it happens, before a kid gets into first or second grade and starts learning how to read. And most of the countries in Africa at that time, well, at this time, are less than 25 around 25 years old, and they’re just beginning to learn how to read. So a whole lot of education has happened, and now starting to move forward in a more significant way. You know, there are countries in Africa who are now exporting food and grain, which was not true five even 10 years ago. 10 even five years. So things are turning around. We’re trying to find where those kind of activities are taking place in The Hunger Project, and support those people, and also let the rest of the world know about it. And you know, have have the people on both sides of this living not in the futility of hunger, but in the possibility of the end of
Nestor Aparicio 14:49
hunger. Okay? Now I remember a few years ago, you had links with the space program, and there was talk of you becoming an astronaut. Now, how close did that come to happening? And I know. You had said that you wanted to, but did it ever? Did you ever get close?
John Denver 15:03
Well, I was a catalyst for the whole citizen of Space Program getting started in this country, and had been assured of a flight when we had the Challenger accident. And I think that put, you know, a private citizen flying in space way on the back burner, almost nonexistent at this point around that, I received an invitation from the Soviets to fly in their space program. And I had a flight scheduled a year ago, last December the 18th, and had all kind of stuff going on. You know, the Soviets charge everybody ten million to fly in their program. And governments have stepped forward and paid this for the cosmonauts that they have, the citizens that they have put into the cosmonaut program to fly for one reason other, the most recent being a British lady. And I had a circumstance where I was getting all of that waived, although that’s not the story that hit the press. What the press said was that I had offered the Soviets ten million to fly in space, and so that was not at all true. And what’s going to happen that way? In any case, my wife became pregnant, and I chose to let that flight go at that time to be with her during her pregnancy and during the birth of our baby. And I don’t know if that’ll come around again. It’s been interesting this this year, I’ve had the chance to talk to quite a few organizations, and it’s come up about, you know why I wanted to fly in space and and why I wanted to fly in space about 1000 different reasons, but mostly it’s connected to that thing I was saying earlier about young people not having a vision of a better future. I think that we have to find a way to reach them, and I think that the space program is one of the ways to do that, to get them excited about education and also to give them a different perspective, not only of the future, but of what’s going on here on planet Earth. Thank someone who has the kind of celebrity that I have, and the experience in other areas that I do, that there would be a great opportunity to do something around that kind of endeavor that could possibly reach young people all over the world, and that’s what I was going for. Are
Nestor Aparicio 17:35
you regretful that you didn’t take the opportunity? I mean, not everybody gets the opportunity, and almost no one turns it down. Well,
John Denver 17:41
no, I’m not regretful, you know? I don’t try not to live with too many things that are a source of regret in my life. That’s just the way the things turned out. And I think I did the right thing over here from where I sit, and people have asked me if I would try to go again and and I actually am still very, very interested in it. I don’t know if I have the energy to get that whole ball rolling again, but I do have a couple of situations that have come out, as I said, out of these talks this spring, where I’m going to take a pretty hard look at it, see if it is possible. So out
Nestor Aparicio 18:22
of all the things, you know John Denver, the entertainer, the tour person, the musician, the studio musician, you know the actor, what gives you the most pleasure at this point?
John Denver 18:34
Well, it’s, it’s not any, any one of those things you know. It’s, it’s all of them I find. I guess the thing that gives me the most pleasure right now, outside of my my children, is the fact that I’m in a position in my in my life and in my career where there really is the opportunity to do anything that I want to do, to work in, in whatever area, still have concerts, still making records, and still writing songs. I’m doing television shows. There’s the opportunity to do films. I can really take it any anywhere I want to and and that’s that’s very, very exciting, very pleasing.
Nestor Aparicio 19:17
What happened with RCA? When did you go off the label
John Denver 19:20
RCA? I think what happened, you know, it’s, it’s a comp. It’s more complex than what I’m going to say, but, but this is a major part of it. RCA went through a whole bunch of changes. The record company was was in trouble itself. There were a lot of changes over going in, in the administration of the company, and in people out in the field. It got sold to General Electric for a while, and subsequently sold to BMG in Germany. And during the process of all of that, I think that that I had an enormous i. Is maybe the best contract that RCA has ever, ever put out, and maybe one of the best in record company history, not Michael Jackson’s most recent one, for sure, but still a very, very good contract. And with the amount of sales that I had, had every reason to expect another contract as good as that, if not better. And at that time, my record sales were dwindling. There was nobody with RCA anymore who had been connected with my success, and they were looking at an enormous expenditure for me to sign a contract, and they didn’t want to do that. And at the same time, over where I sat, there was nobody there who was working for me, right? And this is very competitive business, and you need somebody out there who’s really working for you and who believes in you, and that was simply not the case at RCA anymore. And so it was a perfect time
Nestor Aparicio 20:58
to part time now when stars your own, your own baby, who distributes this thing for you, then American gramophone. Okay, that’s good. I mean, the distribution is the hardest part. When you go in and ask for the new John Dennard record and they don’t have it. Is that? Is that possible because American gramophone not being as big as RCA or Well, I
John Denver 21:20
think, I think that it’s, it’s taken some work, but the thing I’m excited about most with with American gramophone is twofold. One is I do have a company here that that really likes me, believes in me, and is working for me, and has the wherewithal to get that product out there and so I anticipate that we’re going to have a larger kind of record success than I have in quite a few years, because of how all of this is coming together. That doesn’t mean I’m going to be the biggest selling record artist in the world again, and I don’t know if I’m going to have hit records again, but I know that I have a huge audience out there still, and I know that that I’m singing better than I ever have before. I think much of the new material I’ve written over the last five years is as good, if not better, than anything I wrote before, at least. That’s the kind of response it gets in my concert offices. And I think I’m going to have record success again.
Nestor Aparicio 22:18
You know you’re off? RCA, do you pretty much you stay with your own label forever now, right? This is not right.
John Denver 22:26
I don’t see any reason not to do that, right? So
Nestor Aparicio 22:28
do you just pretty much the out of the music, politics thing, just do your own thing now?
John Denver 22:32
Well, yeah, that’s that’s beautiful, because, I mean, just to be a part of it, you know what I was looking for, and what I want to do Nestor is, is do what I want to do on my own terms, with people that I feel real good about working with and not getting into a lot of the bullshit that I think it goes on in the record business. Yeah,
Nestor Aparicio 22:55
you’re not kidding. 99 out of 100 bands and artists I talked to just complain and complain about the politics of the business and how, you know, when they started picking up guitar and strumming it, this was not what they bargained for. Well,
John Denver 23:08
you know, it is business, and more and more, even at the radio station level, you have bankers who are buying radio stations, and so they turn it over to somebody, or they turn it over to a specific format that’s programmed out in LA or someplace, and it’s hard to break through that. It’s real hard to break through that.
Nestor Aparicio 23:29
Now I’m sorry, well,
John Denver 23:31
so you know, you have to be able to do the business to be in the business, but that doesn’t mean that the business needs to run, run the creativity of it.
Nestor Aparicio 23:47
Okay, now, what’s in your future? Plan? Just so I can tell your fans in two paragraphs, okay, you have an album coming out in September, and what else? Got? A Christmas Special
John Denver 23:56
for CBS. Planned again this year. I’ve got a bunch of touring. I’m in the process. I did Earth songs. Where that comes from is I did a re recording of a bunch of songs that I had done over the years that were environmentally oriented, like Rocky Mountain High Calypso, eagle in the hop, sunshine on my shoulders. We re recorded them, mostly the same arrangement. Some of them we played with a little bit. But we did it all digitally, recording, mixing and mastering and singing the way that I’m singing today. I’m singing differently than I did 20 years ago when I wrote some of those songs. And so that was a real nice project. And we’re having fun with the acceptance of that those those albums are not available in stores. And so I’m going to do the same thing with another album be called love songs, and another, another album will be called Live song and and so that’s that’s going to take me into, well into next year, and I’m trying to slow down a little bit, get a little bit more time at home, a little bit more time to myself, not so much on the road. That’s
Nestor Aparicio 24:57
great. I look forward to seeing you Saturday, and I really enjoy. New shows. You’re playing a brand new facility. Yeah, the place opens tomorrow night As matter of fact. So I think you’re the third artist, and everything’s brand spanking new, and it’s right on the waterfront. So you might like, I look forward to seeing you Saturday. Thanks.
