There’s poetic justice in the fact that Berlin has been vindicated, but also in the sense that the show wouldn’t have been as good as it is 35 years ago. You wouldn’t have had the technology, your experience as a singer, Julian Schnabel’s backdrop, the great musicians…
I think, as one of my songs said, like a good wine, I’m better as I get older. Good wines get better. I think also it’s a great benefit seeing something performed live.

And it sounds fuller than the album, today’s technology is better.
Well, that’s up to you to say. Thank goodness gracious that that’s true or we would have wasted a lot of time and money and effort in rehearsal.

The album speaks to the subconcious in a manner that few music pieces do. It’s really intense. In hindsight, do you understand the piece better now, musically and lyrically?
I was pretty aware what was inside it the first time. It’s very hard to remember what I was thinking 35 years ago. I certainly understand what’s there now. I’ve been playing it live, doing it over and over. You know, I had always studied acting, I was always interested in acting. And I remember very much, at a certain point, when I realized that saying something loud, a piece of lyric or a play, gave it much more meaning than when you read it in your mind. So I think performing Berlin constantly, those lyrics, makes it easier to understand. On the other hand, it’s not that complicated. It’s not complicated at all. It’s jealousy. It’s not that hard to figure. I don’t know anyone that’s not been jealous, do you?

No, no one.
No one.

At that time you’d never been to Berlin, but were there any cultural references, maybe Von Sternberg’s film The Blue Angel or Christopher Isherwood’s Berlin Stories, that attracted you to the idea of placing the story in the divided city?
Well, you know, it was mainly the divided city. I’m a big fan of The Blue Angel, of course, the German black and white film, but the main thing was the divided city I’d never been to. I love the metaphor.

The whole thing works thanks to its strongly portrayed characters, Caroline and Jim. Were they based in living persons, a composite of different people maybe?
Most of everything I’m doing is composite, so it’s the same with this.

This way they seem more real, more human, not stereotypes.
I would hope they’re not stereotypes. I try not to have stereotypes, but no one is based on one specific person.

Do you remember anything about the recording, which I guess were long and intense sessions?
Ezrin has the story. Bob is the historian who remembers everything, you know. He was the producer, he did the arranging or hired people to do the arranging. He’s the one who brought all the musicians. I’m the writer. I came in with the lyric, the melody and the understanding.

And you were also the main actor in the play.
The protagonist, for sure. I’ve always tried to… because I’d always wanted to be a stage actor, so I always write monologues for myself, you know, were I get to play the part. Obviously I didn’t break someone’s arm, I’m not in jail. This is writing. It didn’t happen. It’s a Berlin of the mind, it doesn’t mean it’s not real.

Every word of it is real, as you’ve often said.
Everything is real if I say so. Remember Warhol said: ‘’It’s art if I say it’s art’’. I do believe Andy Warhol said that.

The show sounds really close to the album but there’s more of everything. How did you and Hal Wilner arrange it?
Ah… it’s just fleshed out. The arrangements are the same. The players are obviously different. We are following the arrangements and then within there there’s room to move and do things that aren’t on the record. I think that the stage show is more rock oriented than the record, more guitar driven.

You’re really happy with the Berlin film Julian Schnabel did in the New York shows. Do you think, being a concert film, an experience more for the senses, maybe Schabel’s perspective was in this case closer to the painter than the filmmaker?
I think he’s a great filmmaker. He has a perfect eye to be a filmmaker, for painting with the camera. He’s the perfect person to do this. You get to see things you would never be able to see if you only saw it once. The sound is just amazing, if I could say so myself.

So the sound is what carries the whole experience?
Well, it’s not a contest. If you don’t have good sound you might as well go home. It’s a film about music, so the music better be good.

Talking about music, how does it feel to be playing with Steve Hunter again? I know you’ve been touring the States with him also…
It’s very, very thrilling. You know, Steve has always wanted to perform this, for many years we have thought about trying to do this. We were never able to get a situation where we could do it. Either we didn’t have the money or we didn’t have the stage or we didn’t have the equipment, just a lot of things. We were never able to do it. It was wonderful to play with Steve. He’s a master guitar player. He’s as good as anyone…

And a really nice guy…
And… a really… nice guy! He always was and still is. He’s wonderful.

Yes, I know he always wanted to play Berlin live. You were together in that ambition, right?
It just took a while.

Like good things in life.
Well, you know, it caught me by surprise.

Will the second part of the Berlin tour be presented exactly as the first one. Any changes in musicians or staging?
The only difference is we don’t have Antony, and we don’t have Sharon Jones [as on the film]. We have a surprise female singer, she’s really good. But I always miss Antony, no matter what, and I miss Sharon. Other than that, the horn and string players change from city to city.

So it’s pretty much like last year’s tour.
It should be 99,99 percent the same, as far as the personnel goes. The core people are all the same, what we call the core band.

So Fernando is there.
Fernando is there, Rob Wasserman is there, Tony Smith is there, Michael Rathke is there, Steve Hunter is there, Rupert Christie is there. That’s what I mean by the core band.

I must ask you if there’s any plans for an album of new songs? And if maybe in this age of low fi, compressed mp3s, making an album as a narrative format makes less sense than it did before?
Well, I only really did it once, and the reaction was very bad. And it’s something that’s so simple. If you have twelve or fourteen songs and on the first song character A and character B are there… Now here’s songs two and three, they’ll have characters too, why don’t make them the same characters, make them interact. The idea is that simple, so obvious, there’s nothing, you can’t even call it an idea. Anyway… But I haven’t noticed other people doing it, it’s a form maybe people don’t like, and these days people seem to buy one song. And they’re certainly not interested in good sound, although it’s very low fi stuff, they get great sounds out of low fi things, it’s a whole other art form. They’re getting, you know… these mp3s, if you play them over something smaller they sound great, just don’t play them over something big.

On a good equipment, yeah.
Well, yes, I think so, it’s the real question. I mean, I really like to hear really great sound, but you know, it’s kind of an elitist position I guess. It’s like saying you like a really good car, so I don’t know.

Any plans for a new album?
I have some songs I’ve been putting together. I don’t know if anyone actually wants to hear an album from me. I’m not sure about a lot of things that have to do with that. I wrote a very beautiful song that Laurie Anderson and I got married, it’s called «The Power of the Heart».

Yeah, I’ve heard it.
How did you hear it?

On the internet NPR broadcast of your Asbury Park concert.
On the internet? Where are you?

In Barcelona.
And you heard the NPR thing on the internet, «The Power of the Heart»? You know how we recorded that? It’s one of my best ideas yet. That’s a live recording, that’s not multitrack. It’s a bunch of mikes that I put together and we got them, you know I always love real live recordings. And those hang from the ceiling over the balcony, we put it together, it’s right in the middle of the audience.

Like in your live album Take No Prisoners.
Ha, ha! It’s exactly the same idea, it’s the same basic idea, it’s not Binaural, it’s just right in the middle of the audience. So it’s very, very exciting to listen to, I think.

I really love the version of «I Wanna Know (The Pit and the Pendulum)», that’s really amazing.
That’s staggering, isn’t it? You know, Mike said to me, we should do that one, we should do that one, the lyrics, na, na, na… And we started doing it, and we’re working with Kevin [Heard, from Barenaked Ladies] and Kevin caught on the organ part, and me and Tony went into this thing… oh, my God! You know, you live to do things like that on stage. So exciting, so much soul, if I could say so. It’s cool Ignacio that you heard that. You know, we want to put together a bunch of those things and call it The Best Seat in the House Recordings.

Ha, ha! That’s a good title.
I’m serious though!

- You'll find the Spanish version of the interview in the July/August issue of Ruta 66 magazine -