Rock Talk With Mitch Lafon presents songwriter, Desmond Child. This is the show's second interview with Desmond (recorded winter 2019).
Desmond discusses his latest album 'Desmond Child Live', chanteuse Lena Hall, working with Jon Bon Jovi, making KISS a chart success, times when collaborations didn't work, song doctors, the Scorpions Humanity: Hour I, working with Alice Cooper, lost confidence, Nashville, ASCAP & streaming, and much more.
On working with Bon Jovi: "We had chemistry together. We had a fate that was leading us to each other."
On writing the massive KISS his I Was Made For Lovin' You With Paul Stanley: "I showed up at a KISS rehearsal and during the break... at SRI there was a big grand piano up on the stage. Everybody took off and just he and I were at the piano and we wrote the song. It was a magical experience. I told him, 'do these dramatic chords over a disco beat - just four on the floor and put heavy guitars on it. He was like, 'ok, but I don't think Gene's gonna like that, but whatever." And Gene never liked it, not to this day. But It's there biggest international hit."
Early Aerosmith experience: "It started out not good with Aerosmith to tell you the truth. I was forced on the band. I walk in and there's just some roadies around and I hear some kind of a loop going on backwards. Steven who's a real people pleaser, I didn't even say a word yet, says 'hey come over here - listen to what we're doing.' And so I listen to it and it was this backwards loop and he started singing, 'Crusin' For The Ladies... Cruisin' For The Ladies,' and I said, 'that's really bad.' Those were my first words to Aerosmith."
On his friend's reactions to wanting to work with the Scorpions in 2006-07: "Lots of my friends and manager said, 'Oh, come on - don't work with them. They're has-beens. They do beer halls in Germany, like forget it.' I don't know, I just felt something and I believed in them... I had rules. I made Klaus go to singing lessons with Eric Vetro."
On his legacy: "My music has touched billions of people all around the planet. They don't know who wrote it. They don't even know who sang it, but they know the song. So, for me, it's been very fulfilling"
Get your MITCH MERCH here: https://loudtrax.com/Mitch
Twitter: @mitchlafon
Instagram: @mitch_lafon
Subscribe to Rock Talk With Mitch Lafon for exclusive content and interviews.
Help support the show. Please consider a donation: https://www.paypal.me/MitchLafon
See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.