Even though Elton John‘s ending his touring career, he’ll continue to make music. In fact, he believes he’ll never have writer’s block and will always be able to come up with new songs, because he’s just so much better than everyone else.
During a conversation with Elton, his husband, David Furnish, and ex-Gucci creative director Alessandro Michele about fashion, creativity and philanthropy for Saks Live Events, Furnish tells Elton he’s amazed that he and other musicians haven’t “run out of notes” yet when it comes to writing songs, since there are only a finite amount of them.
“Somebody will run out of notes, but I won’t,” Elton declares. “Most people will run out of notes, but I will not — because I just have faith … that something will happen.”
“Also I’m a better musician than most people,” he boasts. “I’m a piano player, so … I don’t just use three or four chords.” He then admits, “I know it sounds really egotistical to say that, but I wouldn’t be here if I didn’t think that.”
Elton also dismisses American musicians’ fashion sense, saying they “never really got it as far as dressing [up onstage].” “American rock ‘n’ roll acts were usually just very boring to look at. They were just like, ‘Oh, God,'” he added, rolling his eyes for effect.
The exceptions, he notes, were Sly & the Family Stone and Earth, Wind & Fire — “people like that.”
So why are Brits so much better at fashion? “It’s a British tradition,” he explains. “You look at the great British singers like Mick Jagger and Bowie and Marc Bolan and Rod Stewart and Freddie Mercury … they dressed up and they were flamboyant. It’s a theatrical thing in England … and we were raised in Britain to love that kind of stuff.”
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