Michael Bolton has just returned from a series of concerts in Spain, Italy and Monaco, so forgive him if he’s a bit jet-lagged: “My body doesn’t know what time it is,” he apologizes.
On the plus side, the gigs are a good indicator of Bolton’s enduring appeal. At 60, he is a couple of decades removed from his glory years in the ’90s, when such intense, heart-tugging songs as “When I’m Back on My Feet Again,” “Time, Love and Tenderness” and “Said I Loved ... But I Lied” clicked big with largely female audiences.
These days, he reports that an increasing number of men are showing up to his gigs, perhaps a result of his comedic “Jack Sparrow” recording with the Lonely Island from 2011.
Question: Are you always working?
Answer: It’s accurate to say I’m always working. I’m not always touring, but I’m always working.
Q: How busy is your touring schedule?
A: It takes me from the States to Europe, South Africa, South America, China, Asia, Australia. It’s a blur. Over the past three years, we averaged about 80 shows a year, so that means we’re traveling
about 200 days a year. But my kids are grown up. I’m not married. I don’t have the same kind of vigilance over how many days I’m away from home anymore.
Q: So traveling is a major part of your life?
A: It’s a big aspect. Sometimes, I think I just lose track of how much I’m saying ‘yes’ to my booking agent. This is not a complaint, by the way. This is all I’ve wanted to do since I was 13. I never wanted anything else.
Q: Are there any down sides to this life you didn’t realize when you were dreaming about it as a kid?
A: I think the biggest one is time away during the years your kids are growing and developing. My daughters moved in with me when they were 12, 14 and 16. I was traveling a lot at that point, and they were coming out (on tour) with me every summer. The day they were done with school, we’d be out to Chicago, Atlanta or Dallas, flying in and out of shows. They were probably more interested in watching movies and raiding the minibar. But the biggest down side when you commit to six months straight of solid touring is just not being physically there and present. You realize you can never make that time back.
Q: That does sound tough.
A: I would block out the red-letter days, the graduations and birthdays and certain events. I would fly back for those. And I had great people around me, keeping track of things. But when I look back, I can’t fix those things that involved time with family through the growing years. On the other hand, the success did allow me to tell my agents and managers and accountants and handlers, “This week, I’m home. Period.” And I built a recording studio at my home, and the house next door became my offices.
Q: Does everyone who is successful in the business have the same issue?
A: I know on the bus we commiserate a bit about that. It’s tough on relationships. It’s a similar problem for people in TV and film. The most successful artists are living and breathing the work they’ve always wanted to do, their first passion. Everything else has to compete with it. That’s the big, and only, down side.
Q: For you, are the hunger and passion for music still as strong?
A: It’s different. I was sitting with a few artists who are friends of mine, and Bono from U2 happens to be there. We talked about the constant sense of needing to establish your relevance in a very quickly changing world. You think it’s crazy to look at a group that tours internationally and sells out arenas and stadiums to be thinking about relevance, but that’s the fact. But the upside of what we do is amazing.
Q: How so?
A: I have friends who are professional athletes and the windows of their careers are closing so quickly. Everything they’ve wanted to do since childhood, that they worked so hard for, and the clock is ticking in a very different way. They start winding down in their 30s. In music, the Stones are still touring the world. How old are the Stones? Or for me, as a vocalist, watching Tony Bennett tour the world and enjoying it like he’s a kid.
Q: What are your concerts like these days?
A: I have to bring the greatest hits. They don’t want to hear you pushing your new album. They want the songs that were the soundtracks to some of the most important experiences in their lives. But it’s a very wide range we provide. At the end of the night, my band and I look at each other and think, “Did we just do pop and big band and R&B and classical and standards? And this is what we do for a living?” That’s far from shabby.
