Interview: Michael Penn - Page 2

Also, now that the two major labels I was on had merged and they were interested in doing a collection from my catalog, I didn't want it to be the head of Legacy's (the reissue label of Sony BMG, which is releasing the CD) playlist, because the people who have all my albums aren't going to be interested in that.  I wanted to find a way to do something different.  I re-cut some old songs, found alternate versions of other songs, and I sequenced it with the idea of trying to find stuff I was still connected to and felt that moved from one to the next in a way that made some kind of sense to me.

When March came out, you couldn't read an article about you without a reference to your brother (actor Sean Penn).  To what extent did that help or hinder your career? 

I think it nulled out, in that it hurt and it also helped.  Certainly there were some people who were curious about what I was doing because of his fame, but by the same token I'm sure there were some people who thought, "Well, if this guy's such a great actor, then he can't be any good at that he does."  

My problem with it was the notion of show-biz families, which gives me the willies.  To me, it's a public display of dysfunction, and I find that unseemly.  I tried to avoid it as much as I could, but when I tried to make it not an issue, that became the story, like, "Hey, he's Sean's brother, but that's not an issue," and I couldn't escape it even if I wanted to.  

By the time you released Free For All in 1992, the musical landscape had changed.  We were beginning to hear the end of subtlety and texture on the radio.   Do you think that was why it was not as successful as March? 

I think there are a lot of reasons why that record wasn't successful.  I'll start with my responsibility.  When it was released, I had just fathered a child, and I didn't want to be on the road all the time.  

Also, RCA had just been bought, and Bob Buziak, who was the president at the time, saw the decline of the music business in 1989 and was getting ready to quit.  He wanted to sign something that he really liked before he left, and made sure that it got exposed to people.  But he left after that single, and the new regime weren't that interested in me.  That's just the politics of the record business, and it happens to lots of artists.  Unless you sell millions of the first record, they don't want to keep putting money behind you because it doesn't accrue to their credit.  

Article Author: Dave Lifton

Dave Lifton is a writer whose take on pop culture can be found at Wings For Wheels. He also blogs about soccer at Booked For Dissent.

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