Back To Your Roots is a new content series where we look at the early careers of some of this year’s Piece Hall artists – the days they spent developing their talent in the small, independent venues that remain so essential to our music scene.
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Born in 1952, Rodgers’ first musical endeavours were with the flute and clarinet, before learning to play guitar at the age of 16.
He started The Big Apple Band in 1970, which later became Chic. The band had a significant international influence before breaking up in the early 80s. Nile went on to release his first solo material and work with many iconic musicians throughout the 80s, including David Bowie, Madonna, Duran Duran and Diana Ross.
When we caught up with the six-time Grammy winner, we discussed the early days, his roots and the most significant parts of his journey. In particular, Nile spoke fondly of the jazz scene that he felt was integral at the time – being a part of it “was just what we did” – and his relationship with Michael Jackson.
Below is a video of the zoom call, followed by text of selected anecdotes.
DS: What was the first gig you went to?
Nile: “The first one I saw would have been classical. I’m not sure what the programme was, because I saw them almost every week, but Prokofiev sticks out in my head.”
DS: Was there a particular scene you were drawn to?
Nile: “Kids used to make fun of me because the scene that I was in was jazz, modern jazz, and none of the kids were into that. They were into what was popular and what they heard on the radio. We used to have ‘show and tell’, so you’d bring in the music that you like and I played mine and they were all looking at me like ‘What the hell is that?’”
DS: When did you realise you had something special, musically and creatively?
Nile: “When I was playing with a really great symphony orchestra. At least, it was great for our level in the high school I attended. Now that I think back, it was because so many of the kids were Asian and their parents were probably very competitive. We played some of the higher level compositions. You know, everything from Mahler, Mozart, my favourite, Prokofiev. We played Stravinsky. We played everything. We were good.”
DS: What are your biggest memories of those early times?
Nile: “They sort of melt together. That was just what we did, all the time. Now, when we moved to the next level of my musical existence, even though we were in the same physical environment, we used to have dances one day a week where the guys would be on one side of the gym and the girls would be on the other and we’d look across and try to figure out ‘which girl can I ask to dance?’ You have no idea how traumatic that was. You know, we were coming into puberty and it was sexy and exciting. It was great. That was pretty amazing.”
DS: Were there any times you felt like quitting music?
Nile: “I come from the hippie era, which involved a lot of drugs. But I haven’t had a drink or a drug in 30 years. When I decided to stop, I believed I had to give up everything. All the people I knew were into drugs. All the places I went to, we did drugs. All the things we did, we made music, but we were doing drugs.
But what happened was, I was friends with Michael Jackson. He called me up one day and asked me to play on this record called HIStory. I said “no”, because I believed that in order to play I’d have to be around the people, the places and the things. Then Michael asked again and I said “no”. Then he called me back and said “please”, and then I remembered, Michael had done something for me that was wonderful. There was a young girl who was dying of brain cancer and I asked him if I could bring her to his show. He not only allowed me to bring her to the show, but he took her backstage and she said it was the greatest day of her life. She died a couple weeks after. But she wrote me the most wonderful letter saying that she thanked god that she had a brain tumour because she would have never had a night like that.
So when Michael asked me the third time, I said “yes”. I went down to play on this record HIStory. But I said we had to do it on my terms. So I went into the studio, played and I said: “Now I’m going to wait downstairs in the car” because I didn’t want to be in the studio. I thought it would be too much, I wouldn’t be able to resist. So I said “I’m gonna wait in the car and once you tell me the performance is okay, then I will leave. But if I have to come up and fix it, I’ll come up and fix it.” So Michael “You got it right, you can leave”. And that’s it. The day I quit, I never had another drink or drug again, because I realised that I loved music more than I loved drugs and I knew that it was affecting my ability to make music.”
DS: When you stripped it back to just the music, did you think you might struggle creatively?
Nile: “I thought I would. But I played a concert, because a friend of mine mysteriously dropped dead. He didn’t realise he had an aneurysm and he dropped dead on the dance floor of this nightclub. So we went to the nightclub and played and I had never played sober in my life and this was the first time I was playing sober. We went out on stage and we played and we were amazing. It was so good.
I was terrified. I didn’t think I could do it and I screamed out after the first song “I belong out here.”. The audience, they were like ‘What the hell is he talking about?’ I never played sober because basically I’m an introvert, I’m afraid of people and I had stage fright. Then I realised that what helped me get over the stage fright was the love of the music. Paul Simon came to the show, all my friends came to the show. It was amazing.”
DS: What’s the craziest or weirdest venue you’ve ever played?
Nile: “I played for the mafia and they held the event at a nudist colony. I think they did it because they knew the police didn’t have it bugged. We had to show up sort of naked.
Now here’s what’s really funny. I play the guitar, but I played jazz guitar and thank God it was this really big guitar so I could hang it down low over my private parts. But we had a saxophone player in the band and we were all laughing our heads off. He was crying because he had to play with sax and he was full frontal nudity. That was the weirdest gig we ever played in our lives. Thank God we only had to play it once and they paid us well.”
DS: What’s the one piece of advice you’d offer to aspiring young artists?
Nile: “Stick to it. One day it’ll come into your head that either you’re doing the right thing or the wrong thing, and when you realise that it’s right, hopefully you will just do everything you can.
Now, the thing that I think is a little bit weird is that in today’s world, everybody just wants to make it. They want to be a star. You look at Instagram. ‘Oh, how many likes did I get?’ They need assurance from people. But you know what, when it comes to art, you need assurance from yourself, and once you get that, then you just hope that other people like it. But if you feel good, and you feel confident about what you do, and you’re doing the right thing, that’s what I believe is amazing.”
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Interview by Niamh Robinson (Digital Content Apprentice, The Grayston Unity)
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