Tuning in…
Tuning in…
Castaway
1 appearance
Musician, producer and co-founder of Chic, best known for producing iconic hits across disco, pop, and dance music for artists from David Bowie to Daft Punk.
On the island
Eight records
This is a perfect example of DHM, to have a concept and understand it so well that you can turn it into something that seemingly appears to be something else.
I learned a song by the Beatles called A Day in the Life. First thing I ever played on guitar.
The EndFavourite
They kept playing this song called The End over and over and over for about a day and a half.
We went home, we looked at the libretto, and the next thing you know, we were like, hey, these are the lyrics to this song called We Are Family.
They said to me, 'We want to act as if the Internet never existed.'
This is really what we stand for. We want people to have good times when they come see us. Like we say, leave your cares behind.
The keepsakes
In conversation
Presenter asks
4:00You've said that every song you've ever written has a DHM. Can you enlighten us?
So DHM means deep hidden meaning. ... I really don't know how to do it any other way.
Presenter asks
4:45What about producing? What defines that role for you?
I read an early interview with Quincy Jones saying that the maker of a record a producer of a record is much like a film director, except the budgets aren't that high. So we really are in charge of the entire movie, if you will.
Presenter asks
7:50You were born in New York City and brought up by your mother and stepfather. What was life like back then?
Um, it was actually um I would say a series of up and downs, but I don't stay down very long. ... I was around really great intellectual people. My stepfather is Jewish, but he was a beatnik. ... They were bohemian with a capital B.
The book
Presenter asks
When you were five, you were sent to a convalescent home because of the asthma. What was that experience like and how did it change things for you?
That was pretty horrible, but I always made the best of everything. So it was a difficult place to be, to be separated from my mom. ... The biggest takeaway I got from that place was that we were all in a one-room classroom. ... I learned what the 16-year-olds learned. I was reading Treasure Island was the first book I ever read. The second book I ever read was Moby Dick by Melville.
Presenter asks
17:19You saved your dad's life once, didn't you? What happened?
I've actually saved his life twice. ... I found him on the fire escape, it looked like my dad was trying to kill himself. ... I talked to the officer and I said, Look, that's my father. He's a really nice guy. I said, I think I can talk him down. And the police let me talk him down. I was all of seven or eight years old.
Presenter asks
39:33Many years of your success ran alongside drug taking and drinking. How bad did those problems become for you?
Um uh I would say really bad. Um my heart stopped a number of times uh one night. I did drive all the way home, though, and passed out in the elevator. ... Had I gotten to my apartment floor, they would have already done the trash, and there'd be no Niles sitting here talking to you.
“I did drive all the way home, though, and passed out in the elevator. And thank God I was right across the street from the hospital. And thank God. The janitors who were collecting the garbage happened just happened to be on the floor that I had passed out on, which was not my floor.”
“That was the last time I ever had a drink or a drug, and that's more than 24 years.”
“Music is the thing that keeps me going. I love it.”
“My dad was really uh a genius, a super genius I mean so much so where a white man who's considered the king of jazz would only allow one black man to play with him. It was because my dad knew all this stuff these other guys didn't know. But there's no record of my father.”
“I'm a loner anyway, so I'm cool.”