10 Questions with ... John DeNicola

BRIEF CAREER SYNOPSIS:

Grew up in suburban New York in a musical household with parents who were fluent in both radio and records, with a mom who played piano and brothers who played guitar. Won both an Academy Award and Golden Globe in 1988 for co-writing "(I've Had) The Time Of My Life" that you may remember from Dirty Dancing.

1. When it comes to your music, what are you most excited about for 2020?

I'm always excited about making music and hopefully getting it into people's ears. I'm excited about getting "You're The Only One" out on the airwaves and then maybe follow it up with my version of my song "Hungry Eyes." I also am currently producing an EP for the band The Sighs here at my studio which we tracked for three days early in the month, and I'm working on a new Rust Dust record in March and getting the third Fovea record out this year.

2. Can you recall the moment when you thought you could be a musician? What do you think motivated you day in and day out?

I remember being in the basement of my childhood home picking notes on open strings on a guitar that belonged to my older brother, It was a Harmony Archtop, and overhearing my mom say to my dad "I think he sounds like he would be good at it." Around the same time at about 5 or 6 I heard the plaintiff voice of unrequited love sung by Roy Orbison on the song "Pretty Woman." I knew from then on that I would have a career in music--so the love of music is what motivated me.

3. How do you think your hometown has influenced the kind of music that you make? If not, why is that?

Though we moved around a lot I started life in Amityville, NY and the music around me on local radio and in my household through my mom's playing the piano, my brothers all playing an instrument and records my dad would play on his hifi system downstairs all had an influence on me.. We all took music lessons. My parents had a lot of dance parties in our basement. I would hear the bass notes in my bedroom. Perhaps that's why I was drawn to playing bass as one of my instruments. Then when I moved to Centerport, NY I became friends with two brothers there, John and Ken Favre, who also played instruments. We developed a love of both underground and the pop music of the day. We were avid fans and listeners and then we would go down to the basement and emulate what we were hearing. Bands like Moby Grape, Traffic, Stevie Wonder, John McLaughlin, Frank Zappa, Hendrix, Otis Redding. I formed my first band with them.

4. Growing up, how important was music in your life? Were your family and friends supportive of your career choice? If you weren't a musician today, what else could you see yourself doing?

As I said music became an influence at an early age and has never stopped being extremely important in my life. Maybe an obsession actually. I feel best when I'm listening, playing, recording, producing or writing music. My parents were supportive about pursuing music. They were laid back about what I might pursue as a career but would be supportive no matter what I would decide. I was lucky that my parents didn't pressure me to be anything in particular and were open and supportive to what I might want to do. Later on when we won the Oscar for "Time Of My Life" my ailing, hospitalized mother said coincidentally "I think he gets it from me" which is a famous line in Dirty Dancing said by Baby's Mom. Since my closest friends of my middle school through college years were musicians, we were, of course, on the same page. I have no idea what I would be doing if I wasn't doing music.

5. What has been the biggest surprise so far about making music your career? What has been an unexpected or welcome challenge to it all? What has been the best part about it all?

The success we achieved with the writing of two songs that have become such a part of our American vernacular has been a pleasant surprise. One hopes that all of their songs are going to be successful, but it's unusual to have the lasting popularity that "The Time Of My Life" and "Hungry Eyes" have achieved.

Unexpected challenge would be matching that sort of success in other endeavors. I have pursued many different types of music since this success and worked with various types of music and bands from Indie rock to R&B to Jazz and enjoy all of it. I really enjoy producing other artists and working in the studio. The best part of it all is that the success has enabled me to continue to write, record and produce music that interests me and work with artists that I believe in and enjoy working with

6. What was it like working on very successful favorites, "Hungry Eyes" and "Time Of My Life?" Where did the ideas for these come from?

The challenge in doing "Hungry Eyes" and "Time Of My Life" was how to do them in a way that would be different and interesting. For "Hungry Eyes," my son, who is a filmmaker/musician, suggested that many contemporary indie rock bands are influenced by '80s synth pop and maybe I could approach it that way. I think it was a great suggestion and it kick started my recording of it using the Roland Juno -106 that I originally wrote the song on.

I questioned whether I should approach "Time of My Life" at all. Because it is such an up song with stellar vocal performances by Bill Medley and Jennifer Warnes I wondered how I would be able do that in a way that would be interesting. I decided that I would strip it down to just acoustic guitar and a small brass section and close the record with an homage to it.

Originally "Hungry Eyes" was written for my Dirty Dancing writing partner Franke Previte for his record. This track, musically, came to me in ten minutes. The music just played itself down. Sometimes music just comes from somewhere else and subconsciously flows out. Not often, but sometimes.

"Time Of My Life" was written for the movie by myself, Franke Previte and Donald Markowitz. There was a call to all writers to submit songs who were given the parameters that the filmmakers were looking for, but it's not like we were chosen to write it. As the story goes they had listened to 150 songs and our song was on the last cassette they put in. They were getting concerned as they had to film the ending dance sequence and still did not have the song and when this song came on they all were elated knowing that they had what they needed.

7. What was the inspiration for your new song, "You're The Only One?"

The Inspiration for "You're The Only One" was the direction given when Sylvester Stallone described what type of song he needed for his scene in his movie Avenging Angelo. So I responded to the direction musically and wrote the music and melody and Franke Previte wrote the lyrics. I felt really comfortable with the lyric and interpreting the song for my record and my friend Jim Yaeger, who worked with Cindy Lauper, Ozzy Osbourne etc., did a wonderful job orchestrating the song for me. Jim and I were in a fusion band Flight which was on Motown Records. Erykah Badu sampled a song off that record for her song "Back In The Day." Jimmy passed away recently and I think of him often.

8. Do you hope to hit the road at all this year and play these songs live?

I put together a band for my record release show and plan to do more shows in the near future. I have no immediate plans to tour, but it remains a possibility.

9. How do you feel about social media? What do you think social media has done for your career so far?

I guess social media is what was once called Artist Development. In the past record labels would work bands to press and radio and now it seems incumbent on the artist to do their own development. In a way it levels the playing field, but on the other hand it's a lot harder to cut through the myriad of other artist vying for the same attention. The immediacy of social media is helpful to reach out to people who already know about you and you can access them quickly and easily.

10. At the end of the day, what do you hope people take away from your music?

With all that we go through in our world with the many problems politically and with our environment I would hope that people can get some release and escape to a place that relaxes them and that they can find some truth and honesty and peace in that even if it's only for a fleeting few minutes. That would be my hope for any of the music that I get to participate in making.