Donny Osmond

Episode Transcript
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Speaker 1 (00:08):
Welcome, Welcome, Welcome back to the Bob West That's podcast.
My guest today is the one and only Donny Osben. Donnie,
good to have you here. I'm nice to be with you. Bob. Okay,
you have a new album entitled Start Again? Why record
a new album now? Well? Why stop at sixty? I'm

(00:28):
actually you know, there's that side of it. But the
music business has changed dramatically since you had your first
hits about fifty years ago. I was certainly conscious. Sounds
like a big, you know, chuck of time. But we're
all here where there were a limited number of labels.
As you got on the radio, everybody knew you. Now
you can be a very famous name, put out a
new record and no one can be aware of it.

(00:51):
So it's sort of the landscape. So did that affect
your thinking? How did you decide to actually make the record?
Before I answer that, I just have to go back
and say I have that situation going on in my
career right now as well, because I'm the the singing
voice of Captain Schang in the Disney movie Mulan and
it streams millions every month and a lot of people

(01:13):
don't know it's me and when I do my show
in Vegas. That this happened just the other night. This
this eighteen year old aspiring singer UM came to the show.
She said, I heard that you were Captain Shang and Mulan,
but I thought, you know, this isn't my kind of show.
This is for the old old farts. You know, it's whatever,
and and I'll watch Mulan and then I'll leave. And

(01:36):
she said, I couldn't leave because not just the production,
but the music. Um is stuff that I listened to,
and it kind of answers your question why sixty albums.
It's because I'm reinventing and a lot of people don't
know my voice as Captain Schang, and when they discover
the new music, well this is and then they hear

(01:58):
they go with a little girl and popular stuff that
what is that? And then they start realizing, yeah, I've
had a six decade career. Okay, So I know that
you did the Voice of Mulam because I saw it
on Spotify and I listened to it. There's the average
we say the movies unbelievably successful. Do you find that
people know that issue? Well, that's just the thing. It

(02:21):
depends on the age. It depends on the demographic. I mean,
it depends on if they're an avid Donny Osmond follower
for years. Um, they know it because I've talked about
it in my social and stuff like that. But by
and large, every time, every once in a while, I'll
come up with somebody and they'll say, you gotta be

(02:41):
kidding me, you're Captain Shang. And I get a kick
out of it actually, because it's the same feeling I
got when I was the first mass singer on the
show The Massing and I was the first one, and
I walked out there Bob with this mask on, and
it was such a cool feeling because there was no baggage,
there was no expectations, there was no history. It was

(03:02):
just my singing and my entertaining and and and what
I did on stage. So it was a reset almost
and I almost one t pain got it from me,
but uh, it was. It's the same feeling. It's like, Wow,
you are that person. I didn't know. How did you
get the gig with Milan? Dina cats is the She's

(03:25):
she books the talents, And Dina booked me on Dancing
with the Stars, which I won on season nine and
Dina called me up and said, you know you're you're
my first call. Um, I'd like you to to be
this the mass singer, the first mass singer. So I
called my manager, Jim Moorey who I think you know? Yeah,
So I said, Jim, I need you to call your

(03:46):
friends at Fox. I want you to find out if
this show is real. He called me back the next
day says, Donnie, this is really real. They got millions
of dollars behind it. So I called Dina back and
I said, Dina booked me because I got the joke. Bob.
I knew if there was money behind this show, it's
going to work. And um, I remember walking out. Now,
keep in mind, Bob, nobody in the audience, the panel

(04:08):
didn't know who I was. The audience didn't know. There
were only probably three people in the booth that knew
who I was, President of Fox, the director, Dina, and
maybe one more. So I walk out there and everybody's like,
what is going on? We're watching a peacock walk on stage.
And let me just backtrack a little bit. Before I

(04:30):
walked on stage, the producers called me, Sadani, what song
do you want to sing? And I said, well, it's
got to be This is the greatest show. It's got
to start with that. So they called me back the
next day. So the publisher is not going to release it,
and so why say, Well, they don't get the show.
It's a stupid show with masks, and we gotta protect
the music. And I said give me a day. So

(04:52):
I found a minus track online and uh, I put
my voice on it and sent it to the producers
and I said, walk us over to the publisher and
they said, well, they said no, but we'll do it.
So they walk in. The publisher said, guys, look, I said, no,
you can't have the song, and he said, just listen
to this, and they played my version and after it

(05:13):
was over he said, who is that? He says, we
can't tell you. All we can say he's going to
be a peacock. He said, well, based upon what I heard,
the song is yours. And I got it based on
that just that because I love the fact they didn't
know it was me. It was just gonna be a peacock. Okay.
The Milan gig, how did you get that gig? Pam Coats,

(05:35):
She calls me up and said, you know, we're doing
this movie called Mulan and would like you to be
the singing voice of Shang. And I said, I'd loved it,
but I'm doing a musical in in Chicago right now.
She said, what are your days off? I said, Sunday, Monday.
Can you fly into l A on Sunday, recorded Monday,
get back for your show on Tuesday. I said, I'd

(05:55):
love to be part of a Disney film. Little did
I know it become a classic. And they showed me
a couple of pencil drawings of Shang and one sequence
where he gets hit in the stomach and said, pretend
you're getting hit in the stomach, and I said, let's
get down to business. And I just threw myself into it,
and little did I know would become one of the

(06:17):
most popular songs I've ever recorded, and it was so
cool to be part of it. So it was Pam Coats.
Did you know Pam previously? I didn't Pam, and I
don't think ever cross paths. It was just a wild
her idea of hers. You know, I love his voice.
I guess. I guess she was a fan back in

(06:37):
the Puppy Love days, and I guess they did some
comparisons to Beati Wong who was the speaking voice, and
there was some you know, comparisons, and she took a
chance on me. I threw myself into the part and
got it. Okay, you're telling the story of the Masked
Singer where you're aggressive. Aggressive's got a bad kind. Let's

(07:00):
say proactive? Okay? Uh? Is that the history of your career?
Are you making things happen? Are you waiting for the
phone to ring? Are you waiting for the phone to
ring and then becoming very active? How does it go down?
This is why I love talking to you because even
Jim told me, he says he's going to ask you
questions you've never been asked. I love that question. And

(07:22):
the it's yes and no. It depends on my age.
The phone stopped ringing after the Donnie and Marie show ended,
which we're putting out of right, and my my I
had no career. I couldn't even get arrested. I couldn't
get a record deal, nothing. So the answer to your

(07:44):
the quick answer is yeah, you've got to be extremely
proactive if you want to a long career, particularly when
you start out as a teeny popper and you've got
this really squeaky clean image from Puppy Love and Gay
Little Girl, not stuff which I I'm not putting down anymore.
It is great for the time, Bob. In fact, in
my Vegas show here I treat Puppy Love with respect

(08:05):
and I sing it right with a beautiful arrangement a
little bit. Do you also sing One Bad Apple? I
do One Bad Apple in its original form with the
costumes and my four other male dancers, and we recreate, uh,
one bad Apple. But at the end of this not
the end, We're going to go into this cool groove

(08:25):
and I sell say to the audience, you know, I
can't hit the high notes anymore. But I got on
my TikTok account and I asked, is there anybody out
there that could sing it for me? And I got
flooded with all of these videos of kids singing my part.
Learned the choreography as well, and we play that at
the end of One Bad Apple. It's it's kind of
a cool little thing. No, that's cool. But I have

(08:46):
to ask, were you TikTok savvy or your kid or
somebody you know in passing? How you know how Internet savvy?
How social media savvy? Are you personally. Well, you're talking
to someone who's who's been an engineer all his life.
I engineer all my stuff. I noticed that in the

(09:06):
credit to you. I almost gonna get to that, but
keep going. But I um that that's my hobby, if
you will. I've built a lot of things. The computer
system that I've kind of designed the whole thing. I've
got some great people that work with me, but I
designed the whole computer system that runs this show. Uh
so uh. To answer your social media question right from

(09:29):
the get go, can you imagine, Bob, what I could
have done with TikTok and and Instagram during the Puppy
Love days, I mean, can you imagine? Yes? So, No,
I'm I'm extremely social media savvy. So you're saying posting
on social media you personally are doing it or somebody
on your team, No, I do it. I do it.
I have somebody that helps me figure out and say

(09:51):
this is when you should post it, this is the
time that works, this is the content, this is what
is current right now, this is what is people are
are trending with. Because my life is so busy, I
need I need feedback, I need information, And I mean
that's what I do uh. And then these people say
you gotta do this, you gotta do that, and this
is what we recommend. Yeah, yea, yea, And then I'll

(10:13):
go produce it and edit it myself and post it
because I like to be involved in every single bit
of what I do. Because there was a day, Bob,
there was a day when I wasn't in control, and
I vowed that someday, when I grew up, I would
take the reins. Because I look back at some of

(10:34):
the songs that I recorded, and again, I've got to
be careful here, Bob, that I don't put my earlier
career down. But let's face it, there were some songs
that I came out with it were just so sugary
sweet that it left me with this really interesting image
that I've spent a lifetime reinventing myself. It was fine

(10:56):
for the time, but there were songs that were thrown
at me, Bob. If you and believe this thrown at
me five minutes before I recorded it. They became gold records.
But it's like, and here's the juxtaposition I was in
as a as a young teenager, I would be in
and this was in at MGM studios on Fairfax. They're
right there Fairfax in Beverly. Um, I was in mtwo,

(11:19):
studio M two. They built us a studio M three,
So I was in M two recording this bubblegum music,
and then I would go to M three with my
brothers and record this rock and roll music because that
was a whole other direction that we were taking. But
my bubblegum music was overshadowing any rock and roll that
we were doing, which is kind of a catch twenty

(11:41):
two because if it's selling, if it's working, you keep
feeding that, right, But it overshadowed everything that we were
doing as a band in a rock and roll sense. Okay,
to what degree was Mike Curb the Leave, the Guy
Ran the Lebel, hands on, hands on all my early hits,
Puppy Love Away, Little Girl, Um, you name all those albums.

(12:03):
He was the one that that really selected a lot
of those songs. And I have him to thank for
all that he's done. And there were songs that he
threw up me I really didn't like, but you know,
we were trying to fill up an album. In seventy two,
I had released four albums in one year, two with
my brothers and two. As a solo artist, you're in
the studio constantly, let alone out on tour. I didn't

(12:27):
have time to even think. So Mike would would give
me songs to record that he thought would play into this,
this whole Donny Osmond image that was the little pre
pubescent teenager girls were buying into. And I was safe
because the parents said, he's safe, let's buy it. So
that was the mentality of my curb at the time. Okay,

(12:52):
so let's look, so you're working in Vegas now and
hair and Harrows. What what kind of deal do you
have there with heros? Now, it's a long term deal,
but there's options obviously on both sides. But I mean
it could go on and on. I mean, the Donny
and Marie thing was supposed to be six weeks and
it ended up being eleven years. So why did the

(13:13):
Donny Marie thing end? It was time Marie and I
felt that Marie, I think, wanted to go a little
bit longer. She wanted to go to twelve years and
maybe break a record or something. And I thought, I
think I'm done, and she said, yeah, I think we're done.
And it's a good thing. We did, because it's almost

(13:34):
like we knew the COVID thing was coming, because as
soon as we stopped COVID hit, we would have stopped anyway. Okay,
so you're that was it the Flamingo, right, and now
you're at Heros. Why one casino is opposed to another.
I didn't want to try to look like I was
recreating um, the Donny and Marie success UM. I wanted

(13:58):
something different because when you reinvent yourself, I don't like
to rest on my laurels. So I didn't want people
to think we're coming back and oh, where's Marie because
this show has nothing to do with what we did
as Donnie and Marie. Donnie Marie is just one part
of my career, and I thoroughly enjoyed it. It was
eleven great years working with my sister. But now we've

(14:19):
gone on. She's doing her thing. I'm doing my thing.
But when I designed this show, I wanted it to
be all inclusive, Bob. I wanted it to be everything
right from the beginning to what I'm doing now. And
I had this idea. Raj Kapoor. I don't know if
that name means anything to you. He's he's like the
go to guy. He directs and produces the Grammys and

(14:43):
the the Oscars that I mean, he's just the most
creative man you can imagine. I called him up and
I said, Raj, we're trying to fit six decades in
the ninety minutes. What do you think of this idea?
It's a little crazy. What if I did a rap?
And he said, excuse me? I said, I did a
rap about my entire life. He said, it's brilliant. It's

(15:09):
like Hamilton's. I said, exactly, And and I start out,
you know it. I'll begin back in Utah I was
four years old, started singing with my brothers in The
sound was like gold. So my folks took a leap
and said, what the hey, we gotta get these monsters
out to California. And it gets faster and faster and faster.
It turned out to be almost a ten minute rap.
And by the time it's over, it's everybody's like, you've

(15:31):
got to be kidding me. You did all that stuff?
And he he said, this is gonna work. And Keith
Harris and my music director, he's he's an alien. He's
just so talented. He was the main man that put
all this stuff together for me. I supplied all the
product of the the clips and things like that, and
it's like one of the highlights of the show. It's
gone viral and my social people have videoed it, and

(15:54):
when I start to introduce it, I can hear the
audience say, here it comes, here, it comes, here, it comes,
we go into it. Okay, So obviously you wrote that,
and on the new album you co wrote every track.
When did you start to write and what was your incentive.
I started writing when I was a teenager. But it
wasn't um, it wasn't the well, actually there were some

(16:17):
good songs. I'm Sorry and I'm Flying into the Wind,
and those were actually pretty good songs. I wrote that
when I was around eighteen or something like that. But
if this goes back to where we're talking about earlier,
Bob about taking the reins, and I thought, if I'm
gonna be known as an artist, I can't be singing
covers because that was the basis of all my success

(16:38):
in the seventies and Puppy Love Too Young, all those
songs were covers. If I've if I'm gonna gain some respect,
I've got to write my music and over the years,
I would hone in my efforts and my talents a
little bit more work on the lyrics. I started this
album about three years ago, and I surrounded myself with

(16:58):
some really really good people and uh, but you know
they can't write it for you. You've got to come
up with the concept. And so that's how it all began.
I I would come up with the concept and come
up with the groove. I wrote this song that we
closed the show, Let's All Dance with Rant Stopson and

(17:18):
aunt Clemens. I mean they're the furthest people you think
Donnie As will be working with it. I mean that
that's the Bruno mars Camp of the world, that type
of stuff. And when I called him up, he said, yeah,
this might be interesting. Um, and so we started and
I'm not dance too and whatever, dot Dom rev up.

(17:42):
I just started coming up with sounds. Peter Gabriel taught
me that. At the beginning of Sledgehammer, he said them
a little bad at you. And when he was involved
in one of my albums as an executive producer, and
I said, Peter, what do you singing at the beginning
sledge Hammer? And he said, nothing, it sounds. He said

(18:05):
that's the where I write whatever it sounds good. So
when Aunt Clemmens came aboard on let's all dance, he said,
he's singing this one like love it write up an it?
Then does hound that sound up? Somebody that about to do?
And I wrote all those sounds down. I said, left
left foot, rad foot, magical dance and shoes, let's yop.

(18:30):
And then I came up, let's saw bat it do?
And it wants to do? And all came from sounds
and that Peter Gabriel taught me how to do. And
so that's one way to write. That's the way I
wrote Let's all Dance with with Aunt Clemmens, and and
Rad stops it. But when it came to a song

(18:50):
like the Way You Are, which I wrote with Amy,
watch Amy wrote picking out loud with that Charon and
she said. I met her just before COVID started and
she said, Donny, I want to write a song with you.
And I said, Amy, let me come up with the concept.
I don't want you to write this. It's got to
come from me. It took me six months and one

(19:13):
day I was getting ready and my wife is getting
ready on her side of the bathroom, and I ware
you know the way you do just make it sounds,
the way you follow that doll that gotten bum and
it's you know what the concept is, the way you are.
It's good enough for me. I picked up the point

(19:34):
that Amy. I got it the way you are, the
way you and I produced that four different ways until
I finally got it the way I liked. But it
all begin with that lyric, the way you are. So
it all depends on where you're headed with the song
because it's all different the way you write. Okay, you

(19:56):
talk about people a little lot of your genre with
a lot of success. How do you actually hook up
with them? You call them directly, You get phone number
and say this is Donny Osman, or you have your
so called I'm doing my air quotes now, people contact them.
You know, I do it myself. I gotta do it myself, Bob,
because I don't know. I'm a little different in that respect.

(20:16):
I don't play the star role. I don't do that
because I get down in the gutter with everybody else.
And I mean, you know, you just talk to anybody
I've written with and they say you actually do this.
There's uh, there's a song on the album called Don't Stop.
And I'm in the booth with Rants and Blush and
and Seth Reager on guitar, and we're coming up with it. Dude,

(20:42):
it's such a great, good groove and it's we're just
feeling it. And all of a sudden, I said, stop, stop, stop, stop, Rants,
this this song has got a problem. It needs a bridge.
And he said, well, there's a piano out in the studio.
Go right one. It's okay. So I go out there
by myself and I sit down at the piano and

(21:05):
I'm thinking what would Stevie do? Because I'm such a
Stevie fan, And I start playing these courts, don't forget
who you are, read your mood. And I start playing
these chords and Rants comes out and says, what is that.
I said, it's our bridge, and he said, come on in,

(21:25):
and I play it on the on the Roads, in
the in the in the in the control room, and
it just happened like that, Dad, If Dad, if you
reach your movie. It's one of my favorite tracks. It's
a second track on the album. Now you mentioned the Roads,
and in the credits you have percussion credits, guitar credits,

(21:47):
What instruments do you play and how proficient are you? Well,
I'm a keyboardist. That's what I do. I mean, I've
tried a lot of instruments. I'm so uncoordinated when it
comes to drums. I've tried guitar, but I'm a keyboard guy,
so I'll get into programming. Um, there's a lot of
ways you can write a song. Uh. Splice dot com

(22:08):
is someplace where you can find some really cool grooves,
and then you split strip him apart and find sounds,
and then you strip those apart and create new sounds,
something that hasn't been heard before, and then you just
keep experimenting. Uh. In my booth here, I just spend
hours and hours and hours creating sounds, creating ideas. I

(22:30):
wrote maybe over forty songs for this album and narrated
down to these twelve. But I'll do something with those
songs someday. But it's all about creating something that's different.
And that's what goes back to your first question, why
do a sixty fifth album? Because I love music. I mean,
this is what I do. I like to create. I
like to be an artist. I want to did you

(23:00):
pay for the recording? Of the album. Did you have
a record deal in place? No, I paid for it,
and then uh n n b MG came in and
heard it and said, oh my goodness. I met with
Thomas and and he said this could be your new home.
I said I'd love it. And then over time it
just got get We got closer and closer and close.
He said, we gotta do this deal. We have to

(23:22):
do this deal because the music is too good, not
too so. Okay, obvious question. How did you meet and
hang with Peter Gabriel. It was a kind of a
fluke thing. It was Eunice seph concert in New York,
and uh, we're both doing it. It was for a
charitable thing and I did my number and then Peter

(23:44):
did his number, and I just want to meet him because, um,
I like Shocked the Monkey and all that stuff. I
love those songs. I just wanted to meet it. And
and this is classic you know Peter. I do not
know him personally, know this is classic Peter. He has
a way of just looking through you, into your eyes,
into your soul. And he asked me a question, what

(24:06):
are you doing with your music? Because I really like
your voice. I can't say I bought any of your records,
but I think you've got a great voice. And I
told him the challenges of being Donnie Osman and I
can get a record deal and all this kind of stuff,
and he said, I'll tell you what. Why don't you
come over to my studio is when he has studio

(24:29):
called Ashcombe House before he built his big place in
what's called Box and Ashcombe House is a barn. That's
where he did Shock the Monkey and sledge hammer and
all those things. And I was the last artist to
perform there before he moved it over a little bit
of trivia, but he said, tell you what, Donnie, I
want you to come over to England and start cutting music.

(24:51):
Just have a producer Georgia Cockney is his name, and
just start cutting music. And I want to hear what
you're doing because I love your voice and I think
you could reinvent yourself. Bob. It was a breath of
fresh air to hear that, because I was fighting like
crazy just to be heard. I was singing demos for people,

(25:11):
for Pete's sakes. So we went over there and and
we released a few singles. But it wasn't until I
met Carl sturk And and and Evan Rodgers and start recording
in in uh New Jersey at a place called the Loft.
I can't believe. I remember that they're the ones that
that pretty much found Rihanna and made her who she

(25:34):
is today. But they're the ones that wrote Soldier of
Love and produced it for me. So coupled with Peter
Gabriel giving me some interesting credibility, people say, well, if
Peter likes it, maybe I should listen. But nothing happened.
I released four singles over in the UK on Virgin
They sign me as a favor to Peter, and I

(25:58):
think Soldier got up to like thirty one and and
then dropped off, and the other songs didn't do much.
So I went home really discouraged Bob, this is Christmas.
And there was a guy in the name of Loose Simon.
He was a programmed director and I got the record
in his hands and he said, this is a hit record,

(26:20):
but there's one problem. It's you. And then I went
back to I think three before Michael released Thriller, and
he said the same thing. Because I said, Mike, how
do I get back on the charge, He said, your
name is poison. I said, crap, I mean, can't people
just listen to the music without getting my name in

(26:41):
the way, And everybody said, no, you have an image problem.
Quincy Jones signed me to Quest and Ed Epstein, the
president of the of the label, got a call from
one of his radio promotion guys out in the field
because Quincy was going to produce me as a no
name right as a as a mystery art. Well, they
all got cold feet because this radio promotion guy out

(27:03):
in the field said, we don't know how to promote
promote Donnie Osman. He'll never get played, kicked me off
the label before we even got started. Um So Peter said,
let's just get started, and one thing led to another,
got this record in loose Simon's hands. He calls his
friends all over the country, said, I got the ultimate
promotional campaign for you. It's a hit record and it's

(27:27):
gonna be called the Mystery Artist, and then he'll come
in and reveal who he is. I went to w
p LJ in New York and number one station, number
one market, p one station. They did the promotion and
my manager calls me. He said, Donnie, I got good
news and I got bad news. The good news is

(27:48):
you have a hit record. The bad news is nobody
knows it's you, and P LJ wants to fly in
and reveal who this mystery artist is. Bomb. I didn't
want to do it because I didn't want to kill
the request, so I flew in anyway. They snuck me
into the building. It was dried time Friday morning. I'll
never forget it, and they do the big drum road

(28:09):
mystery artist, who are you? And with a little trepidation,
I said, I'm Donny Osmond Bob. The phone lines lit
up and it was just the opposite of what I
thought would happen. Everybody came out of the closet, as
it were, and said, I've been a fan of yours
all the time. He said, yeah, right, where were you
in the Lene years? And then it just one after another,

(28:34):
one station after another, all across the country. I did
the same thing, revealing a mystery artist and soldier of
love put me back on the charts. Okay, let's go
back to today for a second. You have a deal
with heroes. How many uh seats in that venue? It's
uh six and a half six times six fifty or
something like that. To what degree do you feel a

(28:54):
responsibility to fill the seats total total, because how do
you act on that. Well, you're talking to a guy
here that comes from the old school. I mean, I
get out there and I promote. You can't expect, you know, Yeah,
you need a lot of people. Get out there. It's
the machine. You know this, You've been around the block
a lot. It's the machine that you've got to get working.

(29:16):
But the machine will quit if that machine realizes, well,
the artist could care less. So I get out there.
I promote like crazy. I'm I'm traveling, I'm doing interviews,
I'm doing all kinds of stuff. I balanced my life
obviously because I've seen so many artists lose it because
I don't balance. But if you're going to be an
artist in this business, particularly one that wants a long career,

(29:39):
you've got to reinvent yourself, like I'm saying earlier, And
with reinvention comes hard work. I mean, I get this
question all the time, Donny, what do I do? I
want to be in the business and I want to
be an artist. It was a four letter word, buddy,
It's called work. And you gotta do the old fashioned
way by promotion. Yes, you social media. You get all

(30:01):
that stuff, but get out there on the road and
play every single gig you can possibly play. That will
give you experience, but it will also get your name
out there. And then once you hit then the work
really begins and it gets harder and harder because now
you have to prove yourself every time. And that's why
I did a sixty album. And going back to that
original question, Okay, so you have the six hundred fifty

(30:24):
seats to sell to the degree you know your perception.
How many people are buying Donny Osmond tickets and then
flying to Vegas to see you? How many people are
in Vegas? Ay, I want to see a show. I
can get tickets to Donny os Uh, good question, I think. Uh.
Initially it's a large percentage, But lately we've been getting

(30:47):
getting a lot of walk up and the ticket sells.
President of Entertainment of Caesar's called me and said, Donny,
it looks like we're on the trajectory for another huge
hit because the advanced sales are great. And I saw
this with the Donnie and Mari show. It's it's it's
all a bell curve. Everything's a bell curve. So you
get that initial inertia. I guess I'll call it an

(31:09):
initial wave. And then, as with anything, the hype is
over and now again the work begins. But I have
so much faith in this show that the word of
mouth has become not is because, but has become and
it's becoming stronger, that it's an amazing show. It's not

(31:30):
just for grandma and grandpa. Like this little eighteen year
old girl I told you about a little while ago,
she said, I had no idea this is the kind
of stuff I listen because I'm a Charlie Pooth fan.
I love that kind of music. And she she even
mentioned Charlie poos some of this stuff sounds like Charlie Pooth.
And I said, you couldn't have said anything better. Yeah, okay,

(31:55):
to what degree if you changed the show now that
it's playing in front of an audience zero, not at all,
no feedback, nothing, whatever. This is the show zero. And
you do one or two shows a night, one five ships,
five shows a week, and it's literally time, it's vague,
it's literally timed down. In the minute ninety minutes show,

(32:17):
I averaged around something like that. All depends on on
a segment that I call the request segment where anybody
in the audience did I mentioned this to you that
I put all of my albums on the on the
wall behind me, and anybody in the audience can pick
any album, any song from any album, and we do
it well. You obviously have a prompter. No, no prompter.

(32:39):
You can remember sixty albums worth the lyrics. It's the band.
They have music that pops up, but they've like last night,
we played songs that they haven't they've never played before,
and they've got three seconds or so to scan. And
that was part of the audition process. Can you read?
There were so many great musicians I wanted to hire,
and we went for the process of audition, and I

(33:02):
couldn't hire them because of that one factor. They couldn't
site read and um. But these four musicians, five musicians,
I said, we have a six saxophonist monster and they
all sit read. So when that cheap music pops up, um,

(33:23):
they play it. Last night I forgot the words at
this point, so I can't remember which one it was.
But the show changes every night and people think they're
looking around. They even told me it's the ground. Where
is the prompter? There's no prompter and I'm ready to
do any song I've ever recorded. Okay, so you have
a consistent does your number per week change on the

(33:46):
attendance or is it a firm number? Which number you're
talking pay? It's uh, it's guarantee with percentage. So it
behooves me to get out and promote, because the better
the room does, the better everyone does, including myself. Okay, Well,
you're obviously successful. Otherwise they would have canceled you over

(34:07):
all these years. What do you do with the money? Well,
it's um, see, I love talking to you. Nobody asks
those questions. Um, I'm very protective of the money. There's
a portion of it I invest back into myself. Um.
And the recent I am very responsible with my money

(34:27):
is because I lost it. I almost had to take
out bankruptcy when the Donny Mishow ended in our Our
attorneys said, guys, you don't have anything. And I remember
sitting in that conference room thinking, you've gotta be kidding me.
After you know, sixty uh, sixty million dollars we hadn't
been This is in the early seventies, right or in

(34:48):
the late seventies. Sixty million. Imagine the value of that now.
And UH said, it was just floundered, bad decisions by
your advisors, and we have to start selling your assets.
And I'm thinking, you gotta hitting me. One of the
most successful boy bands in the early seventies are bankrupt.
And they said, yeah, So I hit the road and

(35:11):
I said, okay, that's that's the fire behind underneath me.
Bob said, Okay, I can't go back and do what
I've done because it's over. I can't go back and
do the Puppy Loves and even the one Bad Apples stuff.
I've got to reinvent myself. I've moved to Los Angeles,
moved to Irvine. I set up a little studio and
I started. That was really good time. I said, okay,

(35:33):
you've got to be an artist. You gotta start writing.
And I listened to some stuff I wrote. It's pretty bad,
but some of it's kind of clever. But I realized, Okay,
you gotta surround yourself with great people. But now I've
got all this baggage, and I hired a great PR firm.
Actually it was Michael Jackson's PR firm at the time
as well. They came up with this idea of Bob

(35:56):
where I was gonna get busted for drugs coming in
from an international like I said, dude, you're gonna be
so have so much street cred and and it's the
Donny Osman. You will be in every paper and every
magazine all of the world, and then people will accept you.
And I thought, and I'm the kind of person who says, okay,

(36:16):
I will listen to an idea, assimilated, and then let
you know what I'm talking about or what I think about.
So I went home that day thinking he's absolutely right.
I will be on every cover in every magazine and
newspaper in the world. But then what then? And I

(36:38):
started thinking, I'm trying to do a trick here. I'm
trying to do a marketing ploy to become popular again.
And I said, no, I'm going to do it with
my music. I did it the hard way. I said,
I'm going to do it with my music because I
want to be respected as a musician, not a clever

(36:58):
marketing person. Because that would have lasted five minutes and
then people would have chewed me up and spit me out,
and I would have lived with that for the rest
of my life. But then you know, there are are
people should I say names. Okay. Simon Leban told me
one time. He said, Donny, I would love for you

(37:20):
to come out on the road with us and tour
with us. I said, are you serious? Um? He said,
I would love for you to come out and shock
everybody and we all do Crazy Horses together. And I
thought that would be a hilarious that would be so
much fun. But but it's a trick. It's it's a
one off thing. It's like whatever. Um. Ozzy Osborne told me.

(37:45):
He said, one of my most favorite rock and roll
songs is Crazy Horses. Now this is just blowing me
away because these guys respected in the rock and roll
industry are saying, we like your talent, but we don't
want your name. Save. Happened with Phil Collin from Deaf Leopard.
I did an album This is when I moved down
to Irvine in the late eighties. Um nose, Yeah, it

(38:10):
was late eighties or something like that, and Phil did.
I called him up. I said, Phil, I need a
guitar solo and I think you're one of the greatest
guitar players. He said, dude, I would love it. Tell
me when I'm there, he comes in, we record this
this solo and he just rips it apart. It's fantastic.

(38:31):
So I'm getting ready to release the album and I
get a call from him. He said, Donny, I gets
some bad news for you. He said what he said,
I can't be on your album. I said why? He said,
management in the band they don't want didn't want death
Leopard associated with Donnie Osmin. I said, I get it.

(38:53):
I understand. I've been through it all my life. I
got I can't lose this solo. He said, no, you
use my alias. So Phil collind had to use as
alias because Donny Osman's name was just too uncool. Let's
go back to the money. So are you hands on
with the money? And are is it in cashes and stocks?

(39:14):
Is in real estates as restaurants or do you have
somebody you trust that deals with it? What's going on there?
I deal with a team of people. I have one person,
Shane Edwards is his name, who watches my money. I
do everything in a triangle. Okay, that's the way I
make decisions. I'm at the top. My business managers here,

(39:34):
and my professional manager, Jim Moorey is right here. And
NASA has the same principle when they launch a rocket.
It's three computers, if three people. If three computers have
a green light, then everything is to go because the
chances of a problem statistically go way down when you've
got three people looking at it or three computers. Not

(39:55):
too because it's you know, it's so um Shane watches
my money, and I watched him like a hawk. Jim
watches my career. I watched him like a hawk. And
when I come up with an idea and I green lighted,
they make sure it's not an emotional thing. They look
at the market, and they look at the money, they
look at the potential. If I get three green lights,

(40:17):
I moved forward. And so I'm very hands on with
every single thing, including the money. In fact, I have
access to my quick books from my computer and anywhere
I were, anywhere I'm at, I can see my my
income and my outcome, my my assets, my liabilities, and

(40:38):
I just make sure. I remember when I was doing
Joseph an amazing technical of the Dream Code, UM, I
was in Edmonton, Alberta, Canada, and I was gonna be
there for about three weeks, and my family had moved
to Chicago to wait for me to arrive there, but
I had a three week gig up there in Edmonton.

(40:59):
I called my accountant and I said, guess what, I
got some news for you. You're fired. She said what
I said, You're fired? She said why because I don't
even know what at ten forty is and you're my accountant,
you're my business manager. I want you to pack up

(41:19):
every single file that you have on me and send
it to me, ups it to me up here to Canada. Bob.
I got, I think forty file boxes, and I for
those three weeks, I went through every single file, and
I would read books, I'd read articles, and I learned
what a ten and forty was and at a W
two and all this atten and I threw away probably

(41:42):
three quarters that stuff that had nothing to do with
my life anymore. And then I went to Chicago and
I hired this Arlen Simon, great guy. He taught me
the ropes of finance, and we started building up the cash,
started building up my bank account and to the point
where I really don't have to worry much anymore. So

(42:06):
when I do make a decision and I get three
green lights, I'll throw the money at it. Because I
believe in myself. I believe in what I do, and
that's why I spent a lot of money on this
show because I know, Bob, I'm sure that I'm gonna
make the money back, plus because it's a great show.

(42:30):
You're investing in yourself. But just like any any any
educated investor, they usually balance it out with other things.
As you're in cash, as it is, stock is in
real estate. I try to stay away from real estate
because it's volatile. I do have a lot of equities,
and even though it's scary, you don't day trade, you

(42:53):
don't do you don't watch the market like Alco Hawk,
because I don't know what I'm doing in it. Um.
But to sticklely, Bob, if you look at history, even
after the depression, it always climbs, it always comes back,
and it's if if you want to play the market,
I mean there's people who do that. I don't date trade.

(43:14):
It's tempting, but it's scary and you can lose your
shirt and I lost it once. I ain't losing it again. Okay,
So you have your kids. Now, you had your kids
relatively young, and they have kids. To what degree do
you support them and give them money? I've I've decided
along with my wife that um, we want to take

(43:34):
the sting out of life for my kids. I don't
flaunt them, I don't. I don't throw money at him,
but I give them just enough to help them with
their mortgages and food on the table. I told them
I'll pay for all my grandkids education because you don't
want to take the motivation out of a parent, um,
but just enough to where they can enjoy life. And

(43:59):
for Debbie and myself, it's important that all of our
children are equal and nobody yet some may have a
better job or whatever. This so maybe out of work
will help them because that's what parents do. But if
you help too much, then the others say, well, you know,
what are you doing that? What about me? So it's

(44:20):
always balanced out from what's what I call a capital account,
so they know, at the end of our lives, everybody's
equal and you're gonna leave your money equally to them. Well,
I'm trying to avoid a state tax, so so you're
giving you to him along the way. Well, there's there's investments, obviously,
and there's there's distributions that you can take advantage of,

(44:42):
um that the I R S allows and I'm taking
as much as I possibly can, because you don't want
to have an enormous bank account that that the government's
going to grab at the end of your life. They
might as well use it now to help them out
in investments. Again, I don't flaunt them, flaunt my money
with them. With him, I don't overdo it, but just

(45:04):
enough to hopefully drain our account when our lives are over,
which I'm thinking. You know, I'm gonna go to a
hundred and six. I don't know about you, but I'm
gonna I'm not gonna make it that far. So how
did you meet Debbie? She was dating my brother. My
brother j dated her and U jo a little but
set the scene a little bit more. What's the age difference?

(45:24):
And we're we're we're we're You and your brother and
Debbie living when all this happened. We're in Provo, Utah.
We've moved there in seventy four, and my brother heard
about her sister, Pam Glenn, and because she was miss
Provo for his so she dated him. He dated her, uh,

(45:46):
and then Jay, I mean he just played the market. Uh.
And then he met little Debbie Glenn, who was a
cheerleader at Provo High and I was in love with
this girl named Tammy, And uh so they we're where's
Tammy from? Okay, Tammy's from Fro. She was a cheerleader
as well. And so you're famous. Not that she doesn't

(46:06):
have assets. How do you meet Tammy? She was a cheerleader.
I just you know, I walked up on Donny Osmond.
I'd love to take you on a date. Were you
going to that high school? No? No, I never really
went to school. I was always correspondence. It was I
went to Okay, we'll get to that a second. So
go back to Debbie. Okay, So Debbie was we went
to this to an Elton John concert up at the

(46:28):
Salt Palace. Insult. You know you're good with your memory.
You know what year? It is? Seventy six, seventy end possibly.
So we go up to Salt Palace and I'm sitting
there with Tammy, who I really really liked, and Jay
was had Debbie next to him, and I definitely remember

(46:49):
this Bob he sat down to sing it's a little
bit funny. I just feeling inside to look over to
Debbie and I think to myself, I'm gonna marry that girl.
Some day I think, where did I come up with that?
And about a month later we'd switch. I took out

(47:10):
Debbie and Jay took out Tammy. He didn't marry Tammy.
That would have been ironic, but it's started. The romance
started there. But I had to keep it secret because
if the fan magazines found out I was dating somebody, seriously,
I would have been ostracized, which I was after I
got married, and so was she by by a lot

(47:31):
of the fans. But um, that's how it all happened.
And I just fell in love with this girl. Okay,
you're a musician, you know, certainly in these this era
of the rock stars, one of the reasons they did

(47:53):
it was to meet women. And they were traveling all
over the country in the pre cell phone camera days. Whatever. Yep,
you know you're meeting a million girls. Nope, no, why
not after a concert? I guess I'm gonna tell you
this story because this is what really led me to

(48:14):
I want to get married. Um. Being um a member
of the Church of Jesus Christ Larity Saints, the moral
code is high. Okay. I lived in Utah for a
couple of years, so you know, all about it. Where
it stal City? Yeah, okay, one one year down in Sandy,
one year in the avenues, Oh okay. So we would

(48:38):
finish this these concerts, girls screaming my names. They're screaming
my name, and um, I couldn't do anything about it.
I mean, come on, I'm a normal guy, hormonal tsia.
But we would go back to the hotel and go
from mass hysteria to silence, and um, Gerald sciences silence.

(49:02):
There was one concert, um, actually there's several, but this
one in particular. It was in Hawaii. We had performed
at this huge arena packed and girls screaming my name
like crazy. After the show, we go to we had
an apartment there. So I go back to the apartment
and I go to the corner of this room and

(49:22):
I roll up into a ball and I just started
crying profusely. My brother Jay walks in. He said, Donny,
it wasn't matter. And I looked up at him and said,
I'm lonely. He said, what thousands of girls just screaming
your name and you're lonely. I said, I'm lonely. And

(49:45):
then I met this debby Glen, and before she was
my lover She was my best friend and I needed
that in my personal life. Several songs on this album
are about her. Beacon Girl is about her, The Way
You Are is about her. She literally saved my life because,

(50:05):
as Justin Bieber released Lonely, UM, I said, when I
saw that video and heard the song, I thought, if
anybody knows what that's like, it's me because I went
through the same teeny boper thing that he did, and
it inspired the song on my album called Life After Loneliness.
And but that that's what begin the process of saying,

(50:28):
you know what, Donnie, take care of yourself. Okay, So
you're together with Debbie almost fifty years. You're on the road,
which makes things more difficult. How do you keep the
marriage together? I realized what I'd lose. I realized that
I would lose respect for my children, my grandchildren, and
I have a conviction of my beliefs. Um, not everybody

(50:53):
believes the same way, and I certainly don't hold that
them into contempt or anything is live and let live.
But I would rather keep my marriage. UM. I don't
want used were pure. I would keep my marriage pure.
I would rather uh be have Debbie be the only

(51:16):
one that i've I've I've had a relationship with and uh,
but that's not the same as as as everyone. I mean,
there's been wonderful marriages without judging that whether people are
lds or something else. It takes two. You can believe
in this all day long. You have siblings, at least

(51:39):
one sibling I'm aware of, got divorced couple. Actually, so
how does she feel she's raising the kids, you're out
on the road, etcetera, etcetera. There must be some arguments, uh,
you you think, And yeah, we've had some I wouldn't
say arguments, but very serious discussions. And comes down to

(52:00):
one little word, and it may sound trite, and that
word is trust. You know, she trust me, I trust her.
And and in this world with social media the way
it is, Bob, if I did something, it certainly would
be out there. Okay, but let's move on beyond that,

(52:21):
because there are plenty of people who are faithful in
the relationships. And anyway, I mean, do you ever sit
at home or sit on the road whatever I say.
You know, I gotta do something for Debbie because I'm
out here alone. She's alone. How often do you communicate
every day? Every single day via phone, via email, text. Well,
now you know FaceTime, you know duo. Since I'm an

(52:42):
Android user, it's duo. Um. Why why are you an
Android user? I just think it's a better operating system.
I think I can do more with it. Well, certainly
it's more flexible. But you have issues of less security.
Shall we say? I'm pretty I've got security. Um, I'm
very secure in what I do, uh and where I

(53:05):
put things? Which phone do you have? I've got the
Note twenty okay, and you have the latest osh you okay, okay,
good to know. So what's your computer? What do you
use for a computers? Apple? I'm an Apple guy. I'm
that guy. So I do cross platforms and it sometimes
it's difficult because Apple is so proprietary, uh and they

(53:28):
make the sinking so simple. But I love the challenge
of of the you know, the the abilities of what
I can do with this thing, um, and the ease
of Apple because that's where you know, I use Cube
as as my dog and it's it's it's it's so
user friendly when it comes to writing music and things
like that and editing. Um. Although you know a lot

(53:51):
of people love the PC, but I am a Mac guy.
Tell me one thing you can do on your Android
phone you cannot do on an iPhone. Probably nothing. I
can't think of anything right now. There's some apps that
I absolutely love that don't come on OS x or

(54:11):
iOS iOS um. Probably nothing. I just I like the
flexibility of being able to drill down to the OS
and make some changes and and and customize what I want.
I've always been that way. Okay, let's go back to
the beginning. So you grow up in Ogden. Certainly, No,

(54:33):
not really, Well, I love you. Then let's just drill
down a little bit deeper. You were born where Ogden?
You were born in Ogden. Now, ultimately the family moves
to Provo, which is certainly more of an LDS hub.
But you you were born. What are your first memories? Well,
my first memories, Um, we're kind of like like my

(54:56):
last memories of Ogden because I moved when I was three,
and I grew up in San San Fernando Valley in
the Los Angeles area. That's home, Um, some of valley, dude,
I guess, But I really grew up on the road.
I grew up out of a suitcase. Okay, Well, the
way you moved to the San Fernando Valley. What point

(55:16):
do they put you to work? So I started working
UH singing when I was four, and finally went professional
at five and a debut at five, and I became
a full fledged member of the band when I was seven. Um,
and then I had my first recording experience one number
one UH and solo art and solo career at twelve,

(55:40):
and then the TV things started at sixteen. Okay, but
let's go back when you're living in the San Fernando Valley.
Do you ever tell your father I don't want to
do this. I want to watch television. I want to
play baseball. Well, put yourself in his situation. But yeah,
the short answer is yeah, I didn't. Nine, I wrote
a letter back to my mom. I was in Sweden
and touring, and I said, I don't really want to

(56:01):
I want to come home. Well what is my father
supposed to do? Stop the tour? Um? No, So you
do your job, You get out there and you sing.
We do three shows a day, and we set up
sounding lights and we did every show is in a
different town. I'm so glad I went through that, Bob,

(56:23):
because yeah, I hated it as a little kid. I
wanted to go play at home with my toys. But
I liked the training. I like the discipline that I
was taught by my dad. I liked the the work.
I liked the harmonies that we were doing on stage now.
And now keep in mind, let's go back to the

(56:46):
beginning of It's four. I'm hearing barbershop harmonies constantly. So
that's my foundation was harmony. And then when I joined,
we went to five part harmony, modern harmony with the
lines and the sixes and all that kind of stuff
in the cord. And so now my my training, my

(57:07):
ear had already been trained at such a young age
in barbershop, but now I'm doing modern harmonies. So when
I record, I listened to, um, Jacob Collier. Do you
know that the artist, Jacob Collier. I know Jacob. Yeah,
So I love that guy because of what he does

(57:27):
with harmonies and with pitch and with he's he's a genius.
And so I try to with my foundation do the
same thing with my voice and try not to use
auto tune too much, but just the real thing, you know. Um.
So that's what was really going on in my mind

(57:47):
when I moved to San Fernando Valley was all these harmonies,
and then Andy Williams were on The Andy Williamshow and
he would challenge us to do all kinds of stuff
and Earl Brown but was Orge Wild who did all
of our arrangements at that point in time, and he
would stretch us. And I remember sitting down at this piano. Um,

(58:07):
we had this piano. I hated the hours in front
of it. It was the same piano that Sonny, thank
you Father, Love that you give to me was written
on this piano. And we would spend countless hours plunking
our parts out. But when it all came together, it

(58:27):
was euphoric because pre auto tune, all of our ears,
all five of us, we would balance, we would listen
to our pitch and all this stuff, and we would
do harmonies that were just so complex. And I loved
every bit of it because that's where my training was,

(58:48):
that that was my foundation. I don't know if this
is answering your question, but there's ale. So you say
that you were not h you know, involved with girls
when you were on the road, What perks did you
get for being famous? I mean, this is a day
of three network TVs channels, and you know, every kid
wanted to be famous. You were, So what were the

(59:11):
benefits of that they opened Disneyland early? I mean, what
what was you get? All those perks? But what better perk? Um?
And I know this may sound a little interesting to
your listeners because they're you know, hardcore rock and rollers
or you know what musos, and that's the last thing
they think of when they think of Donny Osmond. But
what better perk than to get on stage and to

(59:34):
do your music? You know, as teeny bopper as it
was my stuff, but although also the rock and roll
stuff I was doing my brothers. What better perk do
you want than an audience just screaming and yelling your
name and being able to create music. That's what I
was doing as a musician. I was honing all those

(59:54):
skills um. And I know again that might sound you know,
odd to someone who does really understand the deep cauldrons
of my life, But those were my perks, my music.
I would I would, I would listen, let's just put
a wall between that. Obviously very into that you're not
on stage, you mean, you meet the president? What are

(01:00:17):
some cool things you got to do because you were famous? Yeah?
You get to meet the president, you get to do
all kinds of I gotta listen to this story. This
is kind of cool. So this I don't know if
this is considered a perk, but in in a in
a roundabout kind of way, it is. I got a letter,
Bob from a fan in Sweden, and I'm in Utah

(01:00:42):
and the person in charge of our fan club hands
me this letter. All it says on there it's Donnie Osmond.
There's no address. She allegedly put it in the mailbox,
no stamp, and in the post the postman picks it
up and says, Donny Osbo I get They send it
to the United States. It gets to the shore. Oh,
Donny Osmond, send it to you. Though we get a

(01:01:03):
lot of these, I guess you. Oh, I know exactly
where this goes. It gets to my fan club. They
see it. It's you know, stamped or not stamped, but
it's it's um what do they call that? When they
run it through the male thing and it's um canceled
They canceled. It's canceled. So it's canceled with no stamp
and it says Donny Osmond on it from Sweden. All

(01:01:24):
the way to you tak with no address, that's for sure.
Was there ever a period of time where you felt
you couldn't go out, you couldn't go to the grocery
store or shopping in the department store because either people
would mob you or you felt that people were looking
at you. That only got to me later on in

(01:01:47):
my life, because when the name Donnie Osmond became a joke,
then I wanted to hide myself and because I said
to myself, they're talking about me, you know, in a
derogatory sense. Prior to that, it was like, yeah, I'm
a monkey in occasion, I'm loved being a being a
monkey right now because of all the perks you know

(01:02:09):
that you mentioned Disneyland stuff like that, and Donny Osma,
oh free mill, let me buy a free mill. And yeah,
there's all kinds of perch you get when you have
that kind of career. But my dad was really I
don't know how he did it. Yeah, in a way,
I do know how he did it because he never

(01:02:31):
let us live a an opulent life. He never let
us get caught up in the celebritism um. In fact,
when we we moved to Westwood and come on, we
could have afforded a huge mansion. Right. He bought this
apartment complex and he'd cut holes in the walls to

(01:02:51):
the next complex or to the next apartment, and made
a huge house out of it because he cut these
holes in the walls and it was like a twelve
plex or something like that. And then his thinking was,
we're going to keep a very nice um. Oh, what's
a good word, um unopulent? I can't think of think

(01:03:13):
of the word um unostentatious place to live. And when
we're done, when we move out, you know, put the
walls back together, and we sell it as a twelve
back plex. It was a great business, um way to
do it. But we never drove fancy cars. Do you
know what my first car was? It was a Chevy Chevette.

(01:03:37):
Oh god, yeah, that was my first car. And you
know why I got it. I did a commercial. It
was it was called a n Acadian. It was a
Canadian commercial and they said, we'll give you two cars,
one for Marie and one for yourself. I said, you
gotta be kidding me. I'm gonna get a Chevette. I

(01:03:58):
could have warded a Lambert game. Okay, your father was
the manager entertainment is littered with parents who were managers.
There's some good stories, but a lot of bad stories. Okay,
where you know, whether it be Joe Jackson or Murray Wilson,

(01:04:19):
where they're you know, they're controlling the money, they're the
money whatever. So what we're what was it like having
your father be a manager? And with hindsight were the
things he did that you wish he didn't? Well, he
was kind of a pseudo manager. Jim Moorey and Ed Leffler.
Did you ever know Ed Leffler and Great Kats? Yeah, yeah, yeah,
used to be an agent and then became the manager.
Yeah yeah, So they were the managers at the beginning

(01:04:43):
stages of One Bad Apple and all that kind of stuff. Uh.
Prior to that, um, it was like, you know, hand
the mouth, It was really trying hard to make it
get a career going. So my dad very wise, he
in a managerial kind of way. He surrounded us with
very talented people. That's where I learned that philosophy, and

(01:05:05):
I think he knew where his limitations were. That's when
he brought in Ed Lethler and Ray Cats and Jim
Morey And I don't know why we parted ways a
few years after that, but I'm back with Jim after
all those years. You have to have good representation because
there's only so much an artist can do because you've
got to have people out there all the time work
in it, and I work with them. But I can't

(01:05:29):
look at my dad and say he made erroneous mistakes
other than the fact he let other people start controlling
the money, and that was the biggest mistake, which he
didn't really want to do. He was kicking and screaming
to let that happen. But thank goodness, he had a
you know, a business sense about him because he bought
shopping centers and almond ranches and all these other things

(01:05:52):
that we had to start selling off when we started
going bankrupt because he said, I'm not going to take
out bankruptcy because I don't want to screw an anybody.
I want all of our debtors to be paid off.
And we ended up with nothing thanks to the business
acumen of my dad. Okay, tell me about the education component.
So I never really had time to go to school

(01:06:13):
because I was always working at the age of five,
so I went and got my primary education UM in
Baltimore at Calvert School. I've never been to my school.
It was all through the mail. And then my high
school was at a place called American School in Chicago,
which I've never been at either. So, um, that's how
I got my education. I went to public school for
two weeks of the second grade, a couple of weeks

(01:06:36):
of the sixth grade, and one semester of college. And
that's all I've done. Okay, So tell me the experience
of doing the correspondence. I mean, did you have a
tutor there? Your mother say you got to spend X
number of hours a day? How does it work? Yeah?
I kind of cheated my way. I'll be completely honest.
I'm gonna pull any punches with you, Bob. There are
holes in my education that I wish weren't there because

(01:06:57):
I just didn't focus. I loved electronics, I love math,
hated history all this kind of stuff, and so English.
I didn't like English. And that's why sometimes I'm a
little timid when it comes to speaking because I can't
find the words. Um, So I wish I wish those
holes weren't there. And I've really tried hard later on

(01:07:18):
in my life to figure out how to fill those holes.
But that's where I got my love of electronics and
and math and things like that, which has helped me
in from the technical point of view or technical sense
of my recording, because I love computer technology. If I
were to sing, I probably worked for Apple or something
like that. Okay, you grew up in a large family,

(01:07:41):
one story, real fast. Okay, this is kind of a
funny story. So back in the day when when Disney
Walt Disney would launch a ride, uh there was no
social media, you know, they only three networks, so they
would produce a television show, Disney After Dark or whatever

(01:08:02):
it might be. And uh so when they launched The
Haunted Mansion, they got the Osman Brothers with Kurt Russell
and we produced a television special. I was ten, maybe
something like that, so obviously still in school. I had
to have a welfare worker slash teacher, and they had

(01:08:23):
to find us school, and they had to find a
place for me to have school. There was a room
in the Haunted Mansion. It wasn't being used, but I
think the second floor or something like that they made
a little schoolroom. I think I'm the only person ever
in existence to be able to say the Haunted mansion
was my school house. Right go to school in the
Haunted Mansion. So there's nine kids. What about civiling, ribrry,

(01:08:48):
side nightbrar, Sibling rivalry, it was there. Obviously it was there.
But again pointing to my dad, we had this philosophy
that there was a boss and when it came to
the band, Alan was the boss if father wasn't there,
and Allen was a great boss. I mean, um, but

(01:09:09):
there were times where you couldn't really voice your opinion
because we had so much to get done, especially when
you're on the road where on stage and something happens,
we all look at Alan, he makes a decision, Boom,
we we executed. That gets difficult when you grow up
a little bit more and you want to have a
voice and you can't. That's when I started pulling away

(01:09:30):
from the band and starting my own career in the
mid eighties. It was difficult. It's very difficult. Um, But
that was the philosophy and it kind of curtailed. I
guess it the best word to use any sibling rivalry
arguments because it's like, this is the way we're gonna

(01:09:53):
do it, and boom was snapped in. It was almost
like we were soldiers in a way. And some people
will say, oh, that's sad, you didn't live a childhood
you were a soldier. I looked a different kind of childhood.
It was. Yes, it was very strict, and but look
what we did, Look what we're able to accomplish. And

(01:10:14):
it was that that regiment of respecting authority and whoever
is in charge, listen, like for on this show, in
the Vegas Show, I put the show together. But when Raj,
who I hired to be my director, even Jim Morey
told me this, if Raj says something, listened to him,
can it took me right back to the days. I

(01:10:37):
will listen to you. I will assimilate it because I'm
smart enough to know that all of my ideas aren't
the best ideas. So I have this ability to listen
and then assimilate and then execute. But when you hire
somebody to do a job, listen to him. Otherwise don't
hire him. Okay, you've had a lot of experience in

(01:10:58):
fifty years. Tell me what makes a good manager. Tell
me about some bad managerial experiences you've had. Okay, I
love Jim Moray because he listens to me, and because
he listens to me. I mean, he'll present opportunities to
me and he lets me make the decision. And if
I don't make the right decision, he'll let me know it.

(01:11:21):
But he but I'll say, Jim, I just don't want
to do that, and he respects that decision. Some managers
they don't listen to the artists. They just say, look,
you gotta do this, and you gotta do that, you
gotta do this, you gotta do that, and they'll work
you to death. You know what, Jim tells me, do
what you want to do. Do it feels right. And
you know who else told me that. We go back

(01:11:42):
to that car ride with Michael Jackson and when I said, Michael,
what kind of what kind of material? What kind of
songs should I sing to get back on the charts?
Do you know what? He said? What do you want
to do? What do you want to do? Yeah? Okay,

(01:12:07):
how well did you know Michael Jackson and other celebrities? Um?
I knew Mike pretty well. Um. And that started when
we were thirteen, because we're about the same age and
Mike six months older than me. And it all started
at the Ciene Canadian National Exhibition in Toronto. We were

(01:12:27):
playing a show there as daytime show, and the Jacksons
were performing the following night or following day, and I
wanted so badly to stay and watch the show, because
you know, they were watching our show, and obviously I
wanted to watch Mike, but we had to leave and
do another gig in another town. But they came to
our hotel room, and my memories of that are so

(01:12:52):
interesting because Tito and Wayne and and Jermaine and Merrill
and Jackie and Alan and Marlon and j they were
all talking, and and Joe and Catherine, We're talking to
my mom and dad. Do you know what Mike and
I were doing. We were over in the corner playing
with toys. And from looking back after all these years,

(01:13:15):
it's such a weird thing because just these two little
teenagers wanted to be kids. We were having number one records,
We just wanted to be kids. And so that relationship
grew from there, and I remember going over his home
at Havenhurst when he lived out in Encino, Um. We

(01:13:36):
we would laugh our heads off at the comparison of
each family, and he loved to show me all of
his gold records and stuff like that, and that was fine.
That's fine, Mike, but we would talk about, you know,
the nine children. They had nine children, We had nine children.
Our mother's birthdays are on the same day, and it's
just a similar similar experiences. But Joe told us something

(01:13:57):
that was kind of interesting. Told my dad no, because
we were always blamed copying the Jackson five because they
came out first with I Want You Back. I think
it was the first one, right mistake, and then we
came up with one that apple. Um. So they said
the Osman's are trying to be be the white Jackson's,
and and that started that that that rivalry between the

(01:14:18):
Jackson's and the Osmonds and Mike and I just had
the time of our life about you know, the comparisons
because we were friends, um, and we were going to
do a duet together. This is you know, years and
years later after things really started becoming a mess for Mike.

(01:14:39):
So I went and we were gonna do I Wish
those days good come back. And it was a perfect song.
He was gonna start looking back on where was a
little nappy headed boy. Lyrically it was perfect. I went
over to Stevie's um studio and I played him the
track and so I got Stevie's bussings. She said, it's

(01:15:00):
going to be amazing. So I went over to Neverland.
I played it for Mike and he said, Oh, this
is gonna be fun. This is gonna be great. We
set a date for our vocals three weeks from that time.
He calls me the following week he said, Donnie, can
we postpone it a little bit. I'm just getting hounded
by the press and things are crazy right now. I said, Mike,

(01:15:23):
you postpone it however long you want, because when it's right,
we'll do it. And it never happened. So the relationship
over the years kind of got a little strange as
he started making some weird decisions. I remember getting a
call from him, Bob. I was on the road and

(01:15:43):
my phone rings. I pick it up and he says hello.
I said, hello, Donnie. Who's it? Mike? Hi Donnie. And
we had this conversation and I said, where are you?
I can't tell you. I said, Mike, come on, you're
talking to me. Where Where are you? Where are you?

(01:16:05):
He said, I'm in Phoenix. I rented a tour bus
and I put my kids in it, and I just
had to get out of l A and just escape.
I just need to get away. I said, Mike, you're
a nine hour drive from my home. I'm done this Saturday.
I will be home. You get a net bus and
you drive up to Utah. No one, I'll know you're there.
Your kids can go swimming with my kids. I'm going

(01:16:26):
to give you a weekend of normalcy. And he said,
I really need that right now. He never took me
up on it was the last time I spoke with him.
Why do you think he never grew up? And when
in his direction where you're so grounded and an adult,
that's a million dollar questions. We could pontificate on that

(01:16:47):
all you want, and you know, blame Joe or whatever,
but um, you really want me to go there. Sure,
he made a big mistake when you're that popular, and
he was a genius. I you got to give him that,

(01:17:07):
whether you really liked his music or not. But it
was fantastic. He was a genius and yes, Quincy added
so much to that. That was an amazing team. But
he started surrounding himself with yes people. I saw it happening,
and there was a saying that started going around his circles.

(01:17:27):
Unbeknownst to him, the air is rare up there when
you start breathing your own oxygen, and that can be very,
very dangerous. When you know you're good and everybody's telling
you you're good, it just gets dangerous. It's tip Coin
a phrase of his dangerous, And I think that's maybe

(01:17:49):
one factor I heard for him. Because he and I
had such a great relationship. I knew him in a
in a way that nobody else the world didn't know
the world knew him wacko jacko, and I knew him
as that thirteen year old kid that we met in
Toronto at Cene, and I hold on to that and

(01:18:10):
nothing else. Okay, you're over sixty. You have brothers in
their seventies. Uh, you have a couple of younger siblings.
Obviously the heyday of the group was, you know, the
late sixties, early bid seventies. To what degree do you
feel responsible for the family. You didn't want to ask

(01:18:34):
me that, Yeah, you really wanted to get me in trouble. No,
I mean not that my goal is not to get
you in trouble. But you know, when one sibling, this
is more complicated than any situation you normally come across
because you know, a lot of groups, a lot of families,
kids grow up equal and then one becomes to make

(01:18:56):
us successful. You're all successful together, so you have the
exact same roots and then you have gone on to
have a career in show business. Not everybody in the
family has been able to do that. As you say,
you've been in hard times. You know, comes down to
money and opportunities. It's it's complicated in absolutely every family. Um,

(01:19:22):
this is not an easy answer. I'm going to start
by saying this, it's really hard to answer this, Bob,
because um, as I mentioned earlier, and I don't want
to repeat myself, but I have to a little bit.
I had two careers going on at the same time.
This prior to the Donni and Re career, which is,

(01:19:43):
you know, three careers. But the Tea Popper career that
I had kind of ruined my rock and roll career.
And because it ruined my rock and roll career, my
brothers were part of that rock and roll career. Case
in point um, we did an album called The Plan

(01:20:05):
and for for those who really drilled down into the
depths of my career. For the Osman's careers, the Plan
was way ahead of its time, and um, so my
brother Alan White labeled it did pretty much what I
did was with Soldier of Love. White labeled it and
took it to I think it was Kalos there in

(01:20:26):
l A and the program director and music director met
with my brother Alan from a new band they played.
He played the album to him, said, dude, this sounds
like led Zeppelin influences and the Who and and uh
all these these bands, the Stones. What's the name of

(01:20:46):
the band? He said, it's the Osmand's. Do you know what?
They said? I'm sorry, we can't play it. Do you
know why? Because of me? And this is kind of
like a round about, convoluted way to answer your question.

(01:21:06):
Because of me? Because I was enjoying such success in
the other career and so that really hurts. And so
to answer this question of yours, Um, it's very difficult
because of what our careers could have been like. But

(01:21:29):
I don't want to put down my teeny bopper career
because it was amazing. But the two couldn't exist in
the same world. It's impossible. I found that out. I
know that the hard way, and my brothers found that
out as well. But then an interesting dynamic took place
as all that was taking place, an opportunity from Freddy Silverman,

(01:21:51):
president of ABC, offer the Donnie and Mury Show. And
I immediately realized, there goes my record career, because if
people can watch me every week on television, they're not
gonna buy my records. And sure enough, that's what happened.
For an interesting thing took place with my brothers. The
show was so successful, I mean we were getting thirty

(01:22:14):
thirty two shares. It was crazy. Um my brothers jumped
in and they were behind the scenes because let's sell.
It's all for one, one for all kind of a situation,
and we all made this show very, very successful. But
the the second part of this story I want to

(01:22:35):
tell you was we were in Las Vegas. I want
to say the years four maybe and um, the brothers,
Marie and Jimmy. So it's the Austin Brothers with Donnie,
Marie and Jimmy on the billboard. Bob. I was in

(01:23:01):
every single song, in every segment. I don't hold anyone
can in contempt. I don't hold my brothers. I don't
have ill feelings towards anyone who made me do that.
But I'm just telling you the truth. I'm just being
honest with you because you can spot a liar a

(01:23:24):
million miles away. You haven't done you know, you haven't
been You've been around the block. And if I went down,
that was a problem. We couldn't cut anything, and it
really took its toll on me, and I thought, I'm
I can't get out because everything is being dependent upon

(01:23:48):
you know, make sure you're there, make sure. I had
to stay healthy. I had to stay strong and um
and I hope that if my brothers are here hearing this,
they don't hold me in contempt. Are saying this, but
it's the truth. I mean, let's let's just be honest.
I was a part of all three careers and I'm glad.

(01:24:12):
I mean, it kept me busy, but it was it
kept me dependent as well as it as it as
it no dependent. Yeah, that's right. Okay. Do you feel
any resentment? Well, how can I say that? Because if
I if I blatantly made mistakes and said I don't

(01:24:35):
want to do this and I don't want to do that,
I'm I'm Donny Osmond. You know I've got my career.
If I had said all that, yeah, then I I
would hold resentment because they made me do these other things,
so I can't say that I got resentment because I
learned from it. Yeah, it was very difficult going through
that lonely tunnel, as I referred to earlier, But I

(01:24:59):
learned so much from the business and how to how
to evolve a career and how to write music because
I was down at rock bottom. You talk about motivation, Bob,
you gotta pull yourself out from rock bottom, below rock
bottom because you have to pull yourself up. Now you're

(01:25:20):
at ground zero. Okay, but did your brothers resent you
that you ultimately pulled away and found future success. I
don't think so, because they started their own country career.
They had, you know, some marginal hits with that, but
some talented guys. And I'm not just saying that because
you know, to play Kate, they're very, very talented. Alan

(01:25:41):
wrote the plan. Merrill had one of the greatest rock
and roll voices of all time. Wayne played the down down,
all the guitar stuff on Crazy Horses. Jay an amazing drummer. Um.
So they went on and started doing some other things.
We went on to do her career and this is interesting.

(01:26:03):
After the Donnie and Marie Show ended, Uh, Marie went
on to have hits, you know, country hits and stuff
like that. Donny Osmond, let's put out the pasture. It's like, Okay,
everybody else is now doing their own thing. Everything's split.
You're on your own now. I had to figure out
what I was going to do on how I was
going to reinvent myself. That's when I moved to Los

(01:26:25):
Angeles and said, okay, I gotta I gotta start again. Okay,
So when the TV show was happening, the family built
a studio in are Um. Yeah, the conventional wisdom was

(01:26:45):
ultimately that was a cause it was expensive and you
lost money. So what really happened there? And then after
the show was over, what happened to the space? Well,
it's now a worldwide, famous agree place for stars, it's true,
and stars from all over the world. And I obviously

(01:27:06):
don't have I'm not privy to that information because it's
hip hop. But um, the guy who owns it, it's
a good friend of mine. He said, I wish I
could tell you who's in there in your studio. I
wish he would be shocked. So it went from this
amazing state of the art facility and then it went

(01:27:28):
through these dark years because this is the mistake that
was made in my life. The wrong people were hired
to make these decisions, who had no idea what they
were doing show business, but they were spending money. They
had a commercial division, a movie division, of filling, you know,
an airline division, all kinds of stuff that we had
no knowledge in. You said something earlier, when we're talking

(01:27:51):
about money. That's so true. Invest in yourself, because that's
what you know. And they were investing our money in things,
so we had no business being in and that's when
it all crumbled and we lost the studio, and and
the rest is history. And how often do you speak
with the other members of your family these days? All

(01:28:14):
the time? I just got a text for Marie um
a couple of days ago, and Jimmy was over at
the house. Uh last night, Alan, I talked with him
all the time. We have a family thread and uh
so all the time. It's it's kind of nice when
not business partners anymore and it's just family stuff. Doubt
does anybody in the family say, Hey, my grandkid wants

(01:28:36):
to be in the business, can you hire them on
your show? I think they know better than that. First
of all, there's no room in the show. But nobody
has ever said that to me. How about even behind
the scenes, you know, working with the crew. Oh, there
are several nephews and nieces that have come to me

(01:28:57):
and they say, what do I love the music business?
And I'll sit and spend hours with them and just
give him a piece of my mind. And you know
from my experience. Um, but it all gets back to
the island. Yeah, it all gets back to you. You know.
I can give you as much advice as anybody can
give you, as much advice as you want, but you

(01:29:19):
gotta do it. That's what I learned when I had
to reinvent myself. I can't rest on anybody anymore. It's you,
especially nowadays. Okay, so what's the next step? Have a
have a residency till the end of time? Tire another
mountain to climb. Well, I just started the residency here,

(01:29:41):
so this is this is where my focus is right now. Yeah.
Well you're not that old though. I mean, you could
do the residency for ten years, you'd still be in
your you know, seventies. Yeah exactly, And I might do that.
I mean, we'll see what happens. But I'm an artist.
I've already started plans and ideas and concepts on my
sixty six the album, so I'm constantly writing. I got

(01:30:05):
so many ideas in this little thing that I will
act upon when things settled down a little bit. I
just committed to well, first of all, I'm promoting, you know,
my sixty fifth album that so those two projects are
primary for me. But I'm in the process right now
of learning a new show. I committed to do what

(01:30:28):
is touted to be, um, the biggest show in England
for the month of December. Um. I'm sure you're familiar
with with panto, pant pantomime. It's it's a British cultural
thing and it's starting to make its way here in
the United States. So um. Michael Harrison called me, he's
the producer. He said, would you be interested in playing this?

(01:30:51):
And I said, oh, Michael, it's Christmas. I want to
be home with my wife and kids and grandkids, and
so I I talked it over with my wife. She said,
let's do it. Let's go over there and just have
Christmas in London. Some of the kids are coming over,
some of the grandkids are coming over, and we're gonna
have a blast, huge show. I'm the m C I'm

(01:31:12):
the Wizard, and uh it's they said. Michael said, it's
going to be the biggest Panto show they've ever done,
because last year they started it, they did six shows
and they had to cancel it because of COVID. And
he said, we're taking that show and we're gonna multiply
it by ten. It's gonna be the biggest Panto show
we've ever done. So if someone asks you to do something,

(01:31:38):
what touches your buttons? What makes you say no, how
important our money, how important schedule, etcetera challenge? That's the
first thing that comes to my mind. It doesn't challenge
me as an artist. So panto is going to challenge
me because I'm playing this character and I've got to
play this role. I really loved theater when I did Joseph.

(01:31:58):
And you do the same thing when you record music,
you throw I close my eyes, I go into another
world as an artist, and I say, I know this
may sound silly to some people, but musicians understand this.
Will it challenge me as an artist? Will people walk
away and say I had no idea he could do that?
I mean, I I thrive on that. You know, It's

(01:32:19):
like have I had to because after a teeny bop
of career, you want to surprise people all the times.
When people expect the right turn, you go left. And
I eat that up as an artist when I reinvent
myself and and do something totally different. Um, some people

(01:32:41):
find it kind of interesting that I did. I'm on
Chicago seventeen and David Foster called me up and he said,
not that Chicago really bought your albums like I said
with Peter Gabel, but we want your sound. And he
was pretty soon the two at the time and Build

(01:33:03):
Build Champlain wrote the Weekend stop the hurting for a while.
So he said, I want your sound. I want that
Osmond sound. So I said, I'm there. And the fact
that I would do an album like that, it's surprises.
People said, you were in Chicago seventeen when Dweeesel Zappa

(01:33:24):
called me and said, would you be willing to do
Staying Alive with all these amazing guitar players? And yes,
it's kind of like a tongue in cheek kind of
a thing, uh saying staying Alive and I'm I'm singing
about you know, staying alive as an artist. But it
turned people's heads. Peter Gabriel, I mean it turned your

(01:33:44):
head when Peter Gabriel was involved in Donny Osmond's career.
I love that because it's like I gotta hear this.
It's that's just different. I love that. Okay. Know they
say they're not going to use the netword Mormons anymore.
Church of the Latter Day Saints real reality television has

(01:34:07):
become very big over the last twenty years. What they
noticed is a lot of the winners were LDS people,
And they said, because they knew how to get along
in large families. To what degree is your religious background
benefited your career? Well, let me clark correct you on
one other thing. Yeah, people say l d S two,
but it's the Church of Jesus Christ Letter Saints, the

(01:34:29):
longest name I know. I know you're not supposed to
use ld S either, not thinking what could I say?
You can use it if you want, it doesn't matter.
And the reason why they're getting away from Mormons because
it sounds like a cult. And and that was the
whole purpose behind President Nelson, our prophet. He said, you know,
we're not a cult. You know, we're Christians, but it's

(01:34:50):
not in your name, it's not in the church's name.
It's Mormon. In fact, I've read an interesting article. I
think it was over in Russia. They said, no Mormon church,
we don't we won't allow you here because that's a cult.
And then they found out what we were really where
as the Church of Jesus Christ. I said, oh, you
mean you're Christians? Okay, come on it. So you question

(01:35:12):
how how big of a role has it played? What
restate the question? Yes, I mean to what degree are
the values in the environment responsible for your success, your career,
your ability to fly straight, get along with people. I
don't think it. Obviously it plays a role because it's

(01:35:33):
my life, but I don't think it has dictated my career.
It has to a certain extent because I won't sing,
you know, certainly um explicit sexual lyrics or things like that.
But so I guess in a small way it has.
But I don't let my personal beliefs dictate my career.

(01:35:55):
You might think, well, there's a there's a wrong rub there,
because it should know. No, you talked to a lot
of rock and rollers. I find it quite interesting that
when um seventy two. I want to say we were
playing Earl's Court in London and the band that was

(01:36:17):
playing the night before was led Zeppelin, and we wanted
to go see it. So we were were in the
audience and this guy comes up and says, they want
to meet you. Said, that's what said the guys. Let's
let Zeppelin the band. They want to meet you. So

(01:36:37):
we said sure, it's fifteen minutes before the show starts.
So we get up and we walked backstage. Guess what
was going on backstage? Sexual activities? Absolutely not. They were
playing frisbees with their kids. Now, obviously the sexual activities
and then the Jack Daniels and all that stuff. You know,
obviously that gets sex rock and roll and you know,

(01:36:59):
all the drugs whatever. But they were playing frisbee with
their kids, and and I thought, now, this is just
not what I thought it would be back here. Um.
But what's really interesting, Bob, is that sometimes a hardcore
image UM plays into as an advantage to a rock

(01:37:23):
and roller, when sometimes you know, they're good, solid people
and they use it as as a promotional tool because
it's cool, you know. And I thought, what a juxtaposition
that was to see that so, um, it's my way

(01:37:48):
of life, uh, to be a member of the church.
And I don't shove it down people's throats. I'm not
a zeal it. Uh. It's great for me. It's kept
me safe. But you know, everybody's different, and I acknowledge that.
Have you read have you seen Book of Mormon? And

(01:38:10):
have you read the John krak Our book. I haven't
read the John krack Uh, John crack crack Hour. I
haven't read that book, and I haven't seen the musical,
but I understand there's a reference to me in there.
They say something and a smile like Donny Osmond in
a very condescending way. I think that's funny. But no,

(01:38:32):
I have not. I have not seen them. Well, there
was a story in the Wall Street Journal that actually, uh,
members of your church embraced the show completely. Hey, they
bought ads in the play bill. They have missionaries standing
out by the theater. Explain that to me, Well, you know,
it's like, now you heard their story. Here's the real story.

(01:38:55):
Because it's from what I understand, and I've listened to
the music and it's it's it's uh pretty derogatory, but
it's an all done tongue in cheeks the South Park guys,
you know, And if you could accept it for what
it is, it's fine. Uh I don't take it. I
don't take offense to it. I take my religion seriously.

(01:39:17):
But I can laugh at myself just as much as anybody.
I thought it was so funny. During the two thousand
two Olympics, Marie and I actually were in the opening ceremonies.
There was a sign it was so funny and derogatory
is all get out. And it was on right off
of if you know where that is. It was an

(01:39:39):
average advertisement for beer. I think it was course and
there was a can on the left hand side and
a six pack on the right hand side, and it
said buy one for yourself and get a six pack
for the wives. That that's funny advertising. But little does

(01:39:59):
the world. No, we don't practice polegamy, but that's the perception,
right And uh So I thought, if if people can't
laugh at that, you're taking life too seriously. Okay, Utah
is seen as a red state. Where are you on
the political spectrum? I'm not going there. Okay, I'm not

(01:40:20):
going to press you, but tell me you're thinking why
you don't want to go there because it's a no
win situation. I've seen I see what they did do, uh,
CARDI b I see all these other people who have
you know, made statements. Look what they did to the
Faith Hill, you know, just innocent statements. Innocent And in

(01:40:44):
this world of social media, everyone's a critic. And I'm
not gonna go there because I'm an entertainer. I just
want to entertain. Uh. I have a little bit of
a problem when celebrities get on a platform, a political platform. Yes,
we're all citizens, Yes we have opinions, and they have
every right as anybody else a politician, to say what

(01:41:05):
they want to say, what they're thinking. I do my
I do my I let my opinions know with my votes.
And I mean that could go down a rabbit hole
just that conversation, let alone, whether I'm red or blue.
And so I'm not going to go there because I'm

(01:41:27):
a singer. I'm a politician. I'm not a politician. Okay,
who do you talk to about other than your wife?
You have close friends? I well, it depends on who
what I want to talk about. Give me an example. Well,
some people like Jerry Seinfeld legendarily talks to a comedian

(01:41:50):
friend every day, and then there are other people talked
friends once a week, and then there are people you
see live. But you know, if something, if you have
more questions than answers, she had an interesting day. Is
there's somebody you pick up the phone and talked to
to the agree it. You know, we're living in a
world where it's more communication in terms of text. But
do you have a friend like that? I do. His

(01:42:11):
name is sick Nick and who is that? His name
is Nick, and I call him sick Nick. Okay, is
he in the business? How do you know him? He is? UM?
He interned uh during the Donnie maritsho and plays guitar musician.
He wanted to learn his way around the studio. I

(01:42:31):
took him under my wing and I taught him everything
I know about the studio and recording and writing and UH,
prolific guy. I'm just very very talented. Lived in um
Over and I ran for a while. His dad was
a member the FBI. I'm if I'm not mistaken, and
our secret service. And so he's been around the world,

(01:42:56):
very well educated. UM. And so when I want to
talk about deep things, UM, I'll call sick Nick. UM.
There's there's uh in our ward where I go to church.
I uh there, there's several people that I will call
and uh and talk. But I would rather have a

(01:43:19):
wonderful conversation with my wife. And because if I'm going
to spend time talking with somebody, and time is a
very very precious commodity in my life, I'll spend it
with the one I absolutely love and a door and
I'll talk to my children. My two of my sons

(01:43:39):
were here last week. One is a great photographer. He's
a great advertising UM executive. UM shot the show and
we just spent hours talking. And I love talking to
my kids, love talking to my grandkids. I'll get them.
You know. I planted a tree of a fruit tree
for every one of my grandkids. So when they come over,

(01:44:00):
they say, oh my god, go see my tree. And
it's such a bonding moment. Just as you say, you say,
come over, where is this location? You can? Okay, So
other than your own music, two albums on a on
a desert aisle, what do you bring so kind? So

(01:44:21):
Peter Gabriel, right, I love that album. UM, I would
probably pick um maybe obviously a Stevie song. They have
songs in the Key of Life. Okay, those two I
probably are my go to Okay, you have a double
album there to uh give you more music to two

(01:44:46):
peaks of your career that you're most proud of, two
peaks of my career. Soldier of Love was my major comeback.
Just so you know, it's not on Spotify. I don't
know who owns these. That came out on Capitol. I
don't know. It's not on the surface. There's a live version,
but the original studio version not there. It's on YouTube
but not Spotify. I didn't check the other surfaces. Bob,

(01:45:08):
you're good. You know what you're doing. That's my fault.
I owned the masters of that and I just have
to get through it. Well, that's like one of your
biggest records. It was, yeah, and so I will you
just lit a fire underneath me. I'll probably get it
up soon. So a Soldier of Love and then the
other I'd probably say, See, this is tough because I

(01:45:35):
want to stay dancing with the stars. But I'm gonna
say Joe's iph an amazing technical the Dreamcoat because that
was what I did right after Soldier. I spent ten
years to get back on the charts. I released Soldier
of Love Sacred Emotion, and then I put it all
on hold, and people said, Donny, what are you doing.
You spent all this time to get back on the charts,

(01:45:55):
and now you're gonna go do theater. I said, I
have to because ten years ago I failed miserably on Broadway.
I opened and closed the same night, and I said,
it's a six month run and I'll get back to recording.
That six months turned into six years. And um, so
I guess I point to that one. But then again,

(01:46:18):
you know, it's like trying to pick a favorite child.
You can't do it. I mean, there's so many things.
One bad Apple, the Andy Williams Show, Uh, the Peacock
on the Mass, singer winning, Dancing with the Stars. Um,
there's so many things that I can point to, but
I will. I'll if you want to, I'll go Soldier
of Love and Joseph. Okay, you're a very friendly, charismatic guy.

(01:46:42):
Do you know this is business? Let's be frank, But
in your everyday life, are you trying to make everybody
like you? Or you fine? Or if you fine, if
people don't like you, not fine? Because I believe me
when you grow up with the name Donny Osmond. You know,
there's a lot of people that don't like you because
you're a joke. Um, so I guess you know, if

(01:47:05):
you're my psychiatrist right now and I'm sitting on the couch,
I probably would maybe say to you, Yeah, maybe I
I want people to like me, and maybe that's what
motivates me. And then I have to say to myself,
is there anything wrong with that? Is there really anything
wrong with that? Yeah? There it is if you have
a fake personality and you're just putting on a show

(01:47:27):
for people. But then then you have to look at
yourself in the mirror say are you really real? I
wrote a song that's that that that spoke of that
are you Really Real? And it's called Faces in the Mirror,
Faces in the Live, very much like a Prince kind
of pump pump, very funky thing. It was gonna be

(01:47:48):
a single on Capitol and then the President switched and whatever.
It got lost in the shovel. But I wrote that
song saying, basically like a ventriloquist, who are you doing now?
What hap do you have on? Now? Are you the
puppy lover? Are you the soldier of lover, Are you
the Joseph? Are they dancing with the stars? Are you

(01:48:08):
there a little kid on Andy Williams? Are you this
guy trying to be somebody? Or not? Who are you
trying to be? And with that song it was it
was almost a euphoric eye opening awakening, like just be yourself.
So when you say I'm charismatic and very friendly, am

(01:48:30):
I putting on a show? No, I don't think so.
I don't think so, because just walk around Ask anybody
that I work with, you know they absolutely. I had
this conversation with my dancers last night before the show started.
They walk up and say, I love coming to work.

(01:48:51):
I said, why because you make it fun. And my
band I've got. It's rumored right now that I have
the best banded Las Vegas, and I have to agree.
They are amazing. And they all tell me the same thing, Donny,
we love coming to work because you just make it fun.

(01:49:13):
There's a moment in the show where I just improv
with the band and I just let them go and
I started to start scatting and Earl Campbell on drums
and I just do these things. I just try this group,
try that group, try this group. We tried one the
other night, went to a jazz field. Didn't quite work,
but we still had fun. And I think the audience

(01:49:33):
enjoys it because they see these four musicians up there
with me, scatting and just trying stuff, experimenting, whether it
be for thirty seconds or a minute, whatever it might be.
And then we go into the show a little bit more.
I make it fun now, and I have to I
have to ask you, Bob, Well, well, I'm gonna ask

(01:49:55):
you this question, then you can well go ask me.
Go ahead, I'm gonna ask you. Are you talking to
a fake person? Are you? Are you? Because you do
this all the time. Okay, you do this constantly. You've
interviewed the best of the best. Do you see a facade?
I will be honest you please, I want you to
be completely, whether it hurt whatever. No, No, I don't

(01:50:18):
think I have a percent nailed. That's why I'm asking
these questions. First and foremost. You're a pro. Most people
are not. You understand what's going on. You understand the situation.
And a lot of times because they're even people are
very famous or not pros in this area, you know,

(01:50:39):
kind of stunned. You know, they don't know how to
do it, and you know how to sell whatever, and
then it to be. I've been talking to you for
a better part of two hours. I was stunned at
the charisma. So as I say, I lived in Utah,
I know some of the background, not recently, but I've
been to Utah recently. It's really changed a lot over

(01:51:00):
the last decades, and I'm trying to figure out. And
then as you as you were talking right then, I said, well,
maybe this is really who the guy is, and maybe
the joke is on the rest of us. You know,
you grew up in this environment, etcetera. I don't know,
but I also know that you're so good at what

(01:51:22):
you do. Most people, most people are pros. You're getting
trying to get them off their spiel. A lot of times.
They've talked to so many interviewers. They know the subject,
they know the length to answer, etcetera, etcetera. So you're
trying to get them to be real. I know I
was talking to you know, one person who did stick

(01:51:43):
didn't get real to like two thirds the way through.
You have been consistent, and as I say, I would
have to hang with you personally more to give a
definitive reading. Maybe we should let's go out to dinner
one of these days. Okay, I definitely what I mean,
you picked the restaurant, I'll be there. Okay. Well, you
know you're in Utah, so when you're in when you're

(01:52:04):
in Vegas a lot? Okay. Do you own a home
in Vegas? No? No? Not okay? Final question? Was it
ever done? Or is it always Donnie? I did an
album with Holland. Does your hollow you remember that? That?
Of course? Um? Oh, what's his name? It was one?

(01:52:26):
It was Holland's first name. Anybody did an album with him?
And uh, the year would have been nineteen seventy five
ish um, and it was called Donald Clark Osmond because
I was going to change my yeah whatever. It's like,

(01:52:48):
you know, you know, you can't do it that way.
It was never done. It's always gonna be Donnie. It's
kind of like saying, uh, change your name to Steve Wonder.
It just doesn't work. Okay, So back stage someone says,
you know, they never say don what about this? They
always say Donny. It's always Donnie. Yeah. And it's funny

(01:53:08):
because when you say are you really being really? Are
you being fake? If somebody calls me don I know
they're trying to be cool, you know. But what's really
what's really fascinating is that in the last i'd say
ten years, maybe a little more, I don't hear the

(01:53:28):
sarcastic Donnie or the you know, putting on a facade.
Hey don how are you doing? You know? Police, don't
take this as a as a kind of like a
self aggrandizing statement. That's gonna sound like that. Say it anyway,
Donnie is cool again. It's a similar path to Tom

(01:53:51):
Jones when he came out with Kiss. You know, that
just turned everything around because the association with Prince and
you don't have the big followed and the way he
sang it, I mean, he became cool again, and I
certainly think Soldier of Love played that role. The other

(01:54:12):
thing is we get older and there's so many people
who got you know, we're castigated back then and people realized,
like the carpenters. People hated the carpenters, and now decades
later say oh, there's nothing better than the carpenters. So
in the funny, it's our business is replete with stuff
like that. I mean, Richard genius to think what he

(01:54:33):
was doing back in those days, without auto tune, without
you know, digital, all that kind of stuff. By the way,
he was singing those armies and I knew Karen very well,
amazing voice. But you couldn't say I like the Carpenters,
I like bread, I like you know, if a picture
paints a thousand words, Oh my goodness, what a beautiful song.

(01:54:53):
But Making with You, which was their breakthrough, real breakthrough track,
just to put it all together, beautiful. But you know,
you just couldn't say I like bread, because boy, then
you were pigeonholed, and if anybody knows about pigeonholes, you're
looking at him. Well. The other thing is, I'll be
very specific, talk a little out of school. I went
to see Neil Diamond. He was phenomenal, phenomenal, played for

(01:55:19):
a long time, no sense of humor about himself. Oh really,
you know, no, he's sick now whatever, But I bring
that up, and you know, we're living in the real worlds.
I'll tell a real story. The other thing about you,
you've had a sense of humor, You've poked fun at yourself,
and people like that, especially in an era will we're
all the same online, nobody is really above anymore, and

(01:55:43):
I think that pays dividends. Listen, it's still working for
you because you're working and a lot of people can't work.
I will say one final thing. I'll let you go.
I listen to your record. What do you think the
it's certainly good start again as it hits all thank you? No, really,
I'm being clear. You know, maybe someone else has to

(01:56:04):
see it. I don't know. You know, that's that's interesting.
But it's a hit song, all right. When I I've
just got to do this for the last few minutes
of what we're talking about here. The album is going
to be called Who because I thought, what a cool title,
because I like so who. It played into the whole thing.

(01:56:24):
But then I started listening to Start Again a little
bit more and reproduced it, and I read the lyrics,
and I thought, I gotta tell you, after what we've
gone through with COVID and everything, we're all starting again.
What an amazing message right now for us. I mean,
just if you, if you will, please let me just

(01:56:46):
read the first verse. You know, life's not always simple.
You stumble and fall, and things don't always work out,
and you feel small and when the night goes on forever,
and you're looking for a ray of hope when there
seems to be no answer. Believe me, I know it's
never too late to start again. It's never too late

(01:57:08):
to find your way. So keep your head up and
keep your hearts strong, and remember you're not on your own,
because it's never too late to start again. Well about
a bing. But the other thing is, if you've lived
long enough, those message really rings true. Life does. Life
does not work out the way you planned it whatsoever,

(01:57:29):
no matter how are you trying right? And but it's
not only the lyrics. The changes are good. I mean, really,
thank you. That's okay, Donny. I think we've come to
the end of the feeling we've known. I have thoroughly
enjoyed this, buddy, I did too, As I say, you
know you ask me about you. I'll been trying to
figure out the whole time who you are, and I
love to hearing all the stories. You've done a lot
in your career. But that's as far as we're gonna

(01:57:52):
go today. And we're gonna have that dinner one of
these days, absolutely, And I'd like to see the show.
I don't get the Vegas that much. But I would
like to see the show. Please let me know. Be
my guest. Okay, i'm gonna, I'm gonna. I'm gonna check
out that rap to the rep. You know, everything's easy
now you go online. Drake. Okay, I'm not Drake, but
I do rap for ten minutes. Well, I think it's

(01:58:15):
it's funny that it would be, you know, the story
of your life, Allah, Hamilton's, etcetera, and any of that. Donny,
thanks so much for doing this. Thank you, buddy. Until
next time, This is Bob left Sets

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