DESCRIPTION:
Interview with Kim Carnes (part I) - 2009.

"WHO DID THAT?"

From the time we started rehearsing the song my band and I knew we had something special. Once we kinda came on the sound the record was going to have really from that point on the way it was recorded. It was all live, second take, everything with that particular record just fell into place when it came time to figure out who was going to be the director of the video Jim Mazza who was president of EMI at the time and I went into EMI's conference room and at least for 2 1/2 days watched 10 million videos and every one "wrong! wrong! wrong!" and the very last video was Classics Nouveau a song called "Guilty" and we both jumped up and went "Who did that? That's it! That's it!" It was so clear and Russel was living in England at the time and we put in a call to him and asked if he would come over and I sent him a copy of the song so he did (come over) and it was the first that Russel directed in the U.S. I loved working with him from the minute I met him we got on great and for me as an artist, that's the one to me more than any other song and video I've ever done that the video and the song were perfectly integrated. They just really it worked. They really went together.


"THEY STILL HOLD IT AGAINST ME"

Directly behind me that's my band to this day, they still hold it against me that they had to dress up like pirates!


"I TRUSTED HIM SO MUCH"

Well you know Russel! It's he always sneaks in little surprises that are always wonderful and I guess it's like I trusted him so much that I didn't question anything because anything he suggested wasn't out of line. It all seemed perfect to me it all seemed great and I have such admiration for him, I would trust him as I did with every other video, you know.


"I LOVE RUSSEL!"


I love Russel! Working with him is a dream Perfect. He's totally fun! He's fun! He made the shooting fun. He was definite in his ideas and he also explained everything. Every video we did, he would map it out so I knew exactly what was gonna happen and could say "yeah or nay" (yes or no). It wasn't like working with a director who had to control everything and basically didn't want the artist to have a say. That doesn't work well at least it doesn't work with me! And Russel was never like that with Russel you worked as a team but it was always his it was his vision.


"A SHORT LITTLE WINDOW"


You know the shame is the timing. We were... I don't know exactly how many months...5 months 6 months before MTV, just a short little window. So the video was played all over the rest of the world here. It was in theaters and it was in... oh gosh! Slots on television.I guess cable channels, but there was no MTV, there was no VH1 and we missed it by just a teeny little window.


"IT BLEW ME AWAY"

I went on vacation right after we did the video the next day and when I came home and watched the video, it blew me away! That's when I was the most surprised I just couldn't imagine. I knew Russel was brilliant but the way he put it all together and it was that way with every video and I specifically remember coming home and watching the Bette Davis video and saying "I love this! There's nothing I would change. I love it! It's perfect!"


"WE GOT A GREAT VIDEO"

"Say You Don't Know Me" was the second single off the Voyeur album, and we shot it at Val Garay, my producer's studio and it was supposed to be like a live performance video but being done in a studio, tweaked and lots of effects and smoke. We had Dave, my husband, and I had a Christmas party planned that night and when we spoke about how long it would take to shoot the video, it was X amount of hours, and it was going to be no problem for us to get home to our 100 people that were arriving and I do remember walking out after having again a complete wonderful experience doing the video walking out about 5:30 in the morning knowing we missed our party but we got a great video! But it was all done in the studio.


"I LIVED THROUGH THE DIFFERENCE"

No one interfered. We had great freedom. As time progressed though and more directors became part of at least in my experience video departments that didn't used to be at labels. Then they would want to use their people and for me that wasn't videos weren't fun anymore because I wasn't working with Russel. I was working with someone that I didn't want to give my trust to and I didn't think their vision for the song was right. So I lived through the difference of doing it right and being really excited about the outcome of the video, the process to dreading doing the videos. Truly.

(Transcript by Kimberly Nordquist)