Sir Elton John was “not in great shape” while working on a new album with Brandi Carlile.
The pair collaborated on the record ‘Who Believes In Angels?’ along with an accompanying short film ‘Who Believes In Angels? Stories from the Edge Of Creation’ and Elton admitted the experience was difficult.
Speaking at the panel discussion alongside Brandi, producer Andrew Watt and his frequent collaborator, songwriter Bernie Taupin, Elton told moderator Dave Karger: “When you’re in a studio and trying to come to grips with the fact that you want to make a great record, you can’t always predict what’s going to happen. We went in with no songs. Four of us. No plan. Just thought, ‘This is the meeting of the minds and the talent. Let’s get on with it.’ But unfortunately, I was not in great shape. I was tired. I was exhausted.
“More than anything I had so much doubt about my ability to come through in what we needed to come through. And that led to a lot of aggression and bad behaviour. In a way, it was necessary for me to do that because I never had so much doubt and apprehension before I started the project.”
However, Elton believes his “angst” about the project helped him creatively.
According to PEOPLE, he went on: “I’ve never done anything like this before. Eventually, I got a lyric about Laura Nyro, who was one of my idols. It just fell into place as a song. It was like she was inhabiting me when I was writing it. I just felt once we did that, and then we did ‘Little Richard’s Bible’ and ‘Swing for the Fences.’ What happened was my bad behaviour and my angst brought the energy finally.
“At the end of the album, when I did this ‘When This Old World Is Done with Me,’ I cried. I think it was all the pent-up emotion that I was carrying, and the pressure that I was feeling to come up with a decent record – a different record from the ones that I have been making. And it all worked out great at the end, thanks to these three people who stood by me.”
The film documents the process of creating the album, showing the good times and the bad and at one stage Elton can be heard telling Brandi to “f*** off”.
She said: “Things like that got thrown around and I just thought to myself, ‘This is such a wild experience. And this man, his heart is right on his sleeve and what he thinks comes out of his mouth. No filter.’
“And the thing that is so powerful about that is so does the music. The music comes out of his brain and through his hands because nothing stops it, because he hasn’t censored himself. That’s why there’s an Elton John. That’s why you have these songs for the last 15 years.”