Tonight Zane Lowe interviewed Elton John for a special Beats 1 broadcast ahead of Elton Johns 70th birthday this Saturday.
Within the in-depth interview Elton talks about everything from his music career to his relationship with David, his children, the Lion King, performing Candle in the Wind, the dangers of celebrity culture, the future of radio and much more.
Here are a couple of snippets and the full video is below.
On who’s playing at his birthday party:Elton John: I have no idea. I know anything about it. It’s a big secret to me. I just know that it’s a celebration of my 70th and the 50 years of partnership with Bernie and myself. It’s a great year this year, it’s the 25 anniversary of the AIDS foundation, 50 years of Bernie and me, and 70 years of me. It’s nice to celebrate things. Life is fabulous. Life is fantastic and I like to celebrate things. The 50th and the 60th were big extravaganzas. One in London, one in New York. This one, basically everything that’s raised on the night goes to the Hammond Museum and the Elton John AIDS Foundation because Bernie is an artist as well as a song writer and the arts are so important to all of us as we grew up, every part of the arts. And have been to me all my life that it seemed that by celebrating 70 don't spend money on yourself make sure it goes to other people.
On his friendships with Eminem and Axl Rose: I’m always a supporter of the people that are getting trashed. For me Eminem was never homophobic. I listened to the whole of the Marshall Mathers album when I drove to a show in South Hampton and I was floored by it. And I thought how could anyone think this is… he’s just writing about the way things are. Not how he thinks but the way things are. And the same with Axl. Never in a million years did I think he was homophobic. So I did things. I did the MTV Music Awards with him and the Guns N’ Roses and I did the Grammys with Marshall and I became very big friends with Marshall. I’ll fight for anyone who is misunderstood and misrepresented by the idiots out there.
