Leo Sayer on his new album, Selfie, his book and the perks of going solo

Not content with penning an autobiography and touring Europe, the Grammy award-winning singer and songwriter has also written a new album and announced an Australian tour.

Sayer wrote, performed, produced and arranged every single track on his album Selfie, with the exception of three co-writes. And he did it all in his home studio in the Southern Highlands of NSW.

"It's been a challenge but I built a studio to do this and I really do love working on my own," he tells Weekender.

"I just love going into the room with nothing and watching it grow.

"It's a bit of an adventurous record and it was a bit of a scary thing to do because I decided that I didn't want to have anyone else in the studio and that I was going to do the whole bloody thing myself.

"Sometimes when you've got musos around you and you've all got different ideas, you get all this input which changes the original concept of a song into something else. That's a great thing to do on stage but sometimes in the studio you get this idea in your head and you just want to hold onto it."

I think I'm sitting on a great biopic here, you know. I don't know if anyone would be interested but there is an incredible film to be made out of all this. I wonder who would play the young me? Maybe Robert Downey Jr.

Leo Sayer

Sayer is known the world over for songs like Thunder In My Heart, More Than I Can Say, Moonlighting, The Show Must Go On, One Man Band, I Can't Stop Loving You, Orchard Road and the transatlantic number one smash hits When I Need You and You Make Me Feel Like Dancing. He has also written songs for the likes of Tina Turner, Cliff Richard, Roger Daltrey, Dolly Parton, Three Dog Night, Gene Pitney and Jennifer Warnes.

He's made appearances on The Muppets and The Wiggles and features on the Charles Angels soundtrack. He has performed intimate showcases as well as the Olympic Stadium in Moscow, Central Park in New York, the Las Vegas Hilton and the Royal Albert Hall in London.

Yes, the man has been there and done that.

On Selfie, you hear snippets of sounds that are vintage Sayer but with a contemporary polish. He doesn't stray too far from the sound people know and love him for. As the album name suggests, it's Sayer looking at himself - through a 2019 lens.

"When you're left to your own devices you become an echo of everything that you've heard, but you also become an echo of some of the tricks you've learnt," he explains.

"There are lots of different quotes from early songs in there and people have spotted that and it's quite interesting. I found myself doing the strings and I was emulating my wonderful arranger Gene Page, who used to do all the Supremes and Four Tops hits, and the arrangements for Thunder In My Heart and You Make Me Feel Like Dancing. He had this lovely style with swinging strings, I mean, he was the guy behind Barry White.

"Gene is no longer with us and I wished I could have him in the room for some of the songs because I needed his great counter-melodies. I should have paid tribute to him and added his name in the credits - I listened to everything he had done over the years and thought 'Yeah, that's the style I'm after'."

He does pay tribute to Marvin Gaye on the album, though, and even names a song after him. Sayer is a huge fan.

The 40-plus years he spent "standing behind incredible producers, absorbing what they're doing and thinking" helped Sayer in the studio. He had the knowledge, he just needed the courage to go it alone.

"So here I am at the ripe old age of 71 and suddenly I know things I would never have known at 24 and I'm chasing that dream of being a real solo artist," he says.

"The way that we make records now, the way that we work, I wouldn't think that Dr Dre and I have any different way of working although we come to a completely different musical conclusion.

"We sit down with a computer and a recording desk and we throw sounds into it, and we manipulate those sounds, and that's the way all records are made now. The end product is going to sound contemporary because I am working in a contemporary way."

Sayer's Just A Boy tour will feature his greatest hits as well as songs from Selfie. He says he can't wait to take fans on a musical journey spanning more than 20 international top 10 singles and five top 10 albums.

"There's something for everyone in the show, I like to think," he says.

"There's no bullshit in the way that we push our shows. They exist on their own merit and hopefully that merit brings us more work. I don't rely on hype. I like to go back to the drawing board rather than running around thinking that I am this legend, some kind of big star. I have to prove it each time I'm on stage."

Off-stage, Sayer is continuing to work on his autobiography. It's a painstaking process, poring over old photographs and articles and concert memorabilia, putting the pieces of the puzzle together. But it's also a labour of love.

"I had to shelve it for a while because I had some gigs to do in Europe, and I couldn't concentrate on both at the same time," he says.

"But I am back on it now and I think I've got as far as 1983 so there is still a long way to go. I'm doing it all long form, there are no other editors, it's just me. And just recently I have been rewriting and re-editing almost from the start and it's starting to find some shape.

"I'll be lying in bed and I suddenly go 'Oh my God I've got to tell the story about how that record cover came about because it's really interesting", and I'm back at the computer in the middle of the night and adding a paragraph or a chapter."

He pauses.

"I think I'm sitting on a great biopic here, you know. I don't know if anyone would be interested but there is an incredible film to be made out of all this. I wonder who would play the young me? Maybe Robert Downey Jr," he says, laughing.

"Look, I'm not up there with Freddie Mercury and Elton John but my story is interesting, I think.

"The main thing for me is that I've always been my own man; I've never had to prostitute myself for fame. I've never wanted to be the name on everybody's lips, at the top of the pile - I just wanted to do good work, for people to say 'Hey that's great'. That's where I get off. I get off on somebody in their home playing my record.

"So I sit in an interesting place, slightly outside the business. I'm that guy in the photograph in the background that is just coming around the door. Slightly out of focus."

Asked whether this could be the basis for a new song, he laughs.

"That theme comes in to a lot of my songs. The one that got away, or the mystery man in the shadows. I like to think I still have some mystique."

• Leo Sayer brings his Just A Boy tour to Live on the Lake, on the lawn at Toronto Hotel, on Saturday, October 12. Support acts are Roxy5, Boney Rivers and Pockets Aces. Tickets are on sale now at trybooking.com.

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