The Berlin Chronicles: An Interview With Terri Nunn

But first, a word from our sponsors…

So how did this improbable interview come about? After all, we’re just a couple of regular guys, albeit on our way to becoming middle-aged Berlin groupies. It all started a couple of months back when we (Paul and Ron) were talking about the discussion that occurred after the Club Caprice show. (Paul had gotten a taste of the many things that were cooking with the band while backstage, courtesy of the record company rep and her "20 Questions"). We also talked about how despite Berlin’s many recent concert performances, we hadn’t seen any real in-depth interviews with Terri or the band.

At a recent show, we were fortunate to talk with a member of the Berlin organization. To make a long story short, we ended up being granted the privilege of an interview with Terri. We both had nightmares of babbling incoherently throughout, despite having put together some questions, many with help of those supplied by fans in the Berlin Page’s "Comments" section.

What’s it like talking with Terri? It’s like getting to talk with the coolest, hippest lady at the party. It’s like when you get on the phone with your best friend and a couple of hours have gone by before you know it. She’s just as engaging and candid and alive in person as she is on stage, not to mention intelligent and very well spoken. And after only a few moments, Terri managed to put us completely at ease (well that’s probably stretching it a bit…she was still far more relaxed than we were!).

Terri is also full of surprises. She spent the first 15 minutes interviewing us! We were quite surprised to find that she had prepared a list of questions for us! (Since we all know who the real star is here, we left this material out, unless it directly related to Berlin).

And so here’s the interview, featuring the warm, wonderful, candid, funny, sometimes outrageous Terri Nunn. We hope that you enjoy reading it as much as we enjoyed doing it!

[Special thanks to Terri’s Paul for all of his help in arranging the interview.]

Paul and Ron

Transcript of Interview With Terri Nunn

April 26, 1999

Ron: We know that you and Berlin are so busy, could you give us a rundown on some of the things you’re doing?

We’re going to put out "Fall Into Heaven II", which will have a song called "Turn You On" on it that we’re doing live…that’s been recorded. There will be a new version of "Steps", because it’s changed since we recorded it last year. There will probably be a live version of "I Can Love" and I don’t know what the fourth song is going to be yet…but, oh, wait a minute! That’s probably what it’s gonna be…OK, there’s this guy, who’s just kickin’ my ass, he’s so great…he did a remix version of "No More Words" for the remix album that’s coming out in July [ed.note: "Reconstruction" (Cleopatra Records)]. His name is Mikey Mike, and his remix is awesome!! The band is freakin’ out over this guy, and everybody I’ve played it for is freakin’ out over him, and he would really like to work with me in any capacity.

So, I want to do a lot of things with him…I want to write with him, I want to give him things that I’ve already recorded and see how he can mess with it for the new Berlin album, and one of the things that I might try him out on is a song called "Gabriel" that is on the first CD, because the one problem I have with that recording is I want more percussion on it. The beat just never kicks in for me and I would like to see what Mikey Mike could do with that. So I think I’m gonna hand him the track for that and see what he can come up with and if something great happens, I’m gonna put that on the CD as well. So that’s this week.

[Terri mentioned several performances which are now in the past]… the next show after that is June 12 in San Juan Capistrano at the Coach House. And then we have a bunch of shows with the Go-Gos starting at the beginning of July. They just extended it. There were seven shows in nine days and now they’ve added three more shows, in Phoenix and Dallas, and somewhere else…I forget. But I think we’re confirming that today (4/26), so we’ll get that on the web site, too.

Ron: And then you also have "Reconstruction", which is coming out in July?

Terri: "Reconstruction"…yeah, they’re saying July now. (Cleopatra)

That’s a lot, isn’t it?! It’s great! Oh, yeah, and then we’re doing the Gay Pride Festival in July, in San Diego, it’s July 24. And there was an August 18 show at the Universal Amphitheatre but I don’t think (we’re going to do that show) because we’re playing the Greek in July.

And the only other thing that …well, there’s two more things…on Labor Day we’re doing a show at a racetrack, 4000 seat capacity, in San Francisco, at Bay Meadows Racetrack…September 5 or 6.

Then we’re doing New Year’s Eve at the Coach House!

(Laughs) We’re doing two shows there. That’s a fun time! By the second show I am a mess! It’s really funny! (Laughs) You’ve gotta go to the second show, that’s where the fun will be!

Ron: I know a lot of the fans on the web site, the people in the midwest and the northeast have been wondering if there’s any chance that you might get over in those directions anytime soon.

Terri: Atlanta’s the farthest (east) it’s gotten so far, unfortunately. That’s the farthest east we’re going to make it to, at least on the schedule right now. But as these shows start packin’em in, the offers will start coming. One of the main problems for us is, because we’re not record company sponsored yet, it’s very expensive to go east. It’s one of the main reasons we haven’t gone. Because…everything…the more you have to fly, the more stuff you have to ship. It just gets expensive. So we either need to get some better offers, so that it’s cost-effective, or get a record company to give us tour support so that we can go out there. And that’ll happen once the record is recorded and comes out.

Paul: Do you have any plans for a concert video, Terri?

Terri: No. Actually there’s more talk about a live record than a concert video. One of the things the [record company] people were talking to me about is that they would like to do a couple of live versions of the classics to put on the new album coming out. Because there has never been one. I think there was a live concert video in Japan, but that’s the only one that’s ever been done. So they thought that would be a nice addition to a new album.. So that would be great for me, because some of the songs, like "Metro" are so different and so interesting, a lot of people have told me that they would really like to have a copy of that live version because it’s so different…it’s more punked out…and people really like that.

Ron: I can’t tell you how many people I’ve talked to, mostly at your concerts, who have said … how incredible your voice sounds. Have you spent an awful lot of time doing something special or is that just professional experience?

Terri: Thank you! Yeah, I have. Let’s see…where do I start with that? I think one of the best things I did recently was study with a guy named Ron Anderson. He’s worked with a lot of people whose voices I really like…some of his clients are Bjork, and Scott Weiland of Stone Temple Pilots…God, all the way down the line…that guy is just…I just really liked the voices that he’s worked with.

It’s very learnable; the only thing that’s not learnable, that separates the men from the boys in rock music is emotion and passion. That’s something that you can’t teach somebody. You just have find what it is that you give a shit about and sing about that and make sure that you mean it and can put it into your voice. That’s the only thing that makes rock music great. Because there really aren’t that many great singers in rock music, there are great emotionalists…I guess you would say…the kind of passion that comes out of Mick Jagger, or Janis Joplin, or Grace Slick…you can’t teach that! It’s just something you have to get in touch with inside of you.

In fact, I remember the day that I realized that I didn’t have that and that I was never going to be a great singer until I got that. And it was the day that I was practicing singing with a Bonnie Raitt song, and it was way back, one of her first or second records. I was a big fan of hers long before anything ever happened with her, and I was singing this song and I listened back to it and I could hear her voice and my voice. And I listened to it and I had all the notes perfect, everything was great, I could do everything she did with my voice, but the difference was night and day. There was no way I was even close to how great she was. And I could hear it instantly, because I didn’t feel it like she felt it…I wasn’t …I didn’t have that passion in my voice; I was just singing. She was meaning it, you know, she was feeling it! And I thought ‘Shit! I’ve got to get that! I’ve got to…get that in my voice, or I’ll be nothing. I’ve gotta find that…that passion!

Her and Stevie Nicks, who was really passionate, and Heart…both of them, Nancy and Ann Wilson, who’d just kick my ass, and…God, Grace Slick was the first one! She’s the goddess of rock’n’roll to me. She’s the reason I sing at all. When I saw her, my whole life changed. Everything. I thought, "Oh, my God! That’s livin’ right there! Doin’ what she’s doing!" (laughs) She was one of the guys! She wasn’t like this little flowery Joni Mitchell type, which did nothing for me. Good writing and all that, but man, Grace Slick was about sex and fun and rock’n’roll! She was just everything that there was any reason to be. She had it all. And when…I think I was seven or eight when I saw her, that’s when I decided that somehow, some way, somewhere, I had to really give a shot at music if I was ever gonna really live, because I’d never seen anything that turned me on more than she did.

Ron: We know that from your concerts that you play some Depeche Mode and you cover the Tragically Hip, and we were wondering …what’s on your turntable these days?

Terri: At the moment, funny enough, is a lot of INXS, because I’ve decided I’m going to cover an INXS song. So I’m going through their whole catalog of stuff. I’m so in love with that band and that guy, and I’m just not over him being gone. It’s…it’s…I’m not over it. It’s not OK with me, and it has to stay alive for me. That guy was one of the best performers that I’ve ever seen in my life.

We went and saw him in England. We were doing some tracks there with a producer and they came for the first time to England, and this is back in…1985, maybe? 1986? They played a small club called the Marquis, and our record companies were the same, so somehow we got wind of it, that they were over there, so our whole band went down to see them. And I’ll never forget that night, ever. I was…I was …I don’t know, maybe it was a 400, like a Roxy…no, the Roxy’s about 800…it was maybe three to four hundred capacity club, no seats, just standing, and in the space of five minutes, by the end of the first song, I was putty. I was like wetness on the floor, a mess, watching this guy. He turned me into a 15-year-old screaming maniac. (laughs)

I would do anything to have that experience again! I’ve never felt like that before or since. I…oh, my God! That guy! He was such an amazing performer…and the band was so incredible!

I’ve been really lucky to meet this lady…I wanted to study lyric writing, and I took a class at UCLA last year about the business of songwriting. I asked the teacher afterwards and I said ‘I want to get a great lyric teacher, I want to study.’ And he said, ‘Well, I’ll give you the name of this lady, she teaches at UCLA…maybe she’s doing a class right now, I don’t know.’ So he gave me her number, and I called her and I told her who I was, and that I wanted to study, and she’s like, great! She’s written for Frank Sinatra, Whitney Houston, Aretha Franklin, I mean she’s like a serious writer. And she said…get this…God, I can’t believe how lucky I am…she said ‘Well, I’m not doing a class right now at UCLA, but how about this…how about if we write some songs together and I’ll show you what I do, and if you put it on your record, we’ll split the publishing.’ (laughs) That’s so awesome!

So we’ve been doing stuff together, and she wanted to hear some songs that really blow me away, and so I took her that Alanis Morissette song…and she doesn’t even understand it. When she listened to the lyrics, you know, like the verses ‘How about no longer being masochistic, how about how good it feels to finally forgive you’…and then the choruses, ‘Thank you clarity, thank you providence, thank you silence’. She said, ‘Well, what’s the story?’ (laughs) And I said ‘Well, it’s not really a story, it’s more like a philosophy, I guess. She’s putting across ideas, ways to think.’ And Pam was like, ‘Whoa!’ It was a whole different way of writing a song. It wasn’t just that the concept was great, it’s like, ‘Fuck! Songs aren’t written like this!’ So that, to me, is also brilliant.

Then I played her Nine Inch Nails’ "Closer" (laughs), and she gets to the chorus, ‘I want to fuck you like an animal’ (laughs)… Oh, my God! On one of the songs that we were writing together, I wanted to put the line ‘masturbation fantasy’ in it. The line in it was something like ‘tell me this is more than just a masturbation fantasy’, and she said, ‘You can’t put that (in)!’ And I said, "Well, yeah, you can! You can do that now, I mean, this is kind of what I mean, and what I want to say, and she said ‘well that’s just too graphic!’ So I played her the Nails song! (laughs) I said, ‘You know, this was a hit.’ (laughs) So that’s when she got into it…she got all excited and she got into the whole idea. But anyway, that’s a tangent .

Ron: Well are there other people that you haven’t collaborated with who you’d like to. We know that you have done "I Can Love" with Johnette Napolitano, is there anyone out there that you’d just like to hook up with?

Terri: Have you got an hour?! (laughs) How much paper do you have?! Are you kidding? Oh, yeah…shit, yeah, there’s a lot of people…just too many to list. And that’s why I want to study with great people because there’s so many opportunities and I’m lucky enough to get, just playing with people and meeting people…and I get so intimidated when someone like even Johnette says ‘Hey, let’s write together!’ I’m like ‘Oh, fuck! She’s amazing! She and I are going to sit down and write something? Oh, my God!’ It’s scary!

Paul: You know, another thing that Ron and I were talking about was your solo disc. It’s got a tremendous range of material from the original techno-type stuff to the more conventional type rock, and I’ve heard "Steps" compared to industrial rock. I was wondering if there’s any particular style of material that you have as a favorite.

Terri: I just keep coming back to the electronic stuff. I love it…I love what’s going on with it. I love how bands like Nine Inch Nails and Steven Seibold’s band, the guy who produced "Steps", he’s got a band called "Hate Dept.". I went to see them, they played at the Roxy a week ago, maybe a little longer, and what he’s doing with electronics…the pounding rhythms of it, and the fact that computers have become the new instrument! They can make sounds happen that are impossible. They’re impossible to play live, they’re impossible to do acoustically; no instrument can make them. But a computer can…it’s changed everything. It’s so exciting to me, that I keep coming back to it because it’s limitless. A guitar will always sound like a guitar and, granted, the people who play it are different, so it will always be played differently, but at the same time…I’ve heard enough guitar solos in my life. I don’t need anymore. We’ve heard every different kind of thing that can be done pretty much, and unless the guy is God, I’m ready to move on to some new ideas, just some new approaches. And that is the best avenue. It’s just the most exciting…it gets me off. So bands like Garbage and Nine Inch Nails, and Hate Dept. and Sneaker Pimps…and even Marilyn Manson, who lyrically is just not my cup of tea, he’s just too down on everything and depressing, but musically he’s amazing! He’s just incredible, the kind of sonic landscapes he’s creating. All of the bands, it’s completely new. Even the drums on the live Garbage concert…wow! I mean, everything’s triggered, so all of the sounds are different, they’re...he can put anything on…while he’s playing drums…he put any sound he wants. And so you’re hearing a drum kit do what a drum kit can’t do.

It’s awesome…it’s so hot! It’s just…she’s not a great performer yet, she’s young, but it doesn’t matter. The sound…what they’re doing to her voice…is awesome! The sound of the band…a lot of it’s on ADAT, and a lot of it’s triggered, but so what?! I mean…Berlin’s had triggered bass since we started, and honestly on stage I don’t miss the bass player yet!

Ron: (laughs, with Paul) Have you, uh, heard … about the debate on the web about that?

Terri: (laughs) I have. (laughs) I haven’t read it yet, but… (laughs) You know, everybody’s got their opinion, and has a right to it. For me, that is one of the best decisions I made for the live show because I always had bass players trying to simulate what was happening on the record, and they can’t. It’s not…it’s a different feel. It’s a live feel versus a programmed feel, and they’re both great, but Berlin is programmed. And so there’s a…an excitement to it that, yeah, I just love it… really like that aspect of the show now…in fact, I want to go even more electronic. I don’t think that I can describe to you what that is, I’m just gonna work with Steven Seibold on the kind of elements that he’s put into his show, and do it with Berlin, because I want to move even more in that direction with our stuff.

Ron: I apologize if you’ve been asked this a lot, but…have you ever ridden the Metro in Paris?

Terri: Yes! We finally did…

Ron: Were you recognized?

Terri: No, we weren’t. Once "Take My Breath Away" came out, it really changed for us, it got a lot better. We got to play in a lot of countries for the first time, that didn’t care about Berlin, that didn’t know anything about us, before. And we did a tour with Frankie Goes To Hollywood at that time, and so we got to go to France. They were huge there! They played stadiums! We played massive, like Wembley Arena, and they were just huge, and we got the opening slot for that. And that was the first time that I rode on the actual Metro.

Paul: That’s pretty cool. I was telling Ron I was back there in, like 1993, or ’94, and I remember sitting on the train and thinking of you and this song …that was another one of those moments where you think back and you say, "Oh wow…it’s amazing what sticks with you." I think music tends to mark major milestones in…my life, and I think a lot of people’s lives.

Terri: Yes. Our lives are movies, and I think that’s one reason that I enjoy watching them. Maybe why everybody does. Because lives are really like that…they’re like quick cuts, and..and highlights, and, you know, big swelling music backgrounds to things…completely! That’s what life is like. It’s that romantic, and that dramatic, and that exciting.

Sometimes it’s the soundtracks we want, sometimes it’s the soundtracks played by the universe for us at certain points, and it’s like, ‘Wow, is this perfect or what?’

Ron: Oh, one other thing, too: you mentioned that you were looking at a "Fall Into Heaven II". Is there any time when people might keep an eye out for that?

Terri: As soon as the tracks are assembled, it will take about six weeks, so it will most likely be available for the San Juan Capistrano show. That will be the first time that we’ll be able to sell it. Look at like mid-June for the release date for that.

Oh, guess what?!! I gotta tell you about something else we did! It’ll come out in June, I think they said. We did a game show! I’m not even gonna tell you what happened…(laughs)…I shouldn’t tell you, because it’ll go on the web site…but we did this new game show. I think it’s going to be a success; it’s on Comedy Central, and it’s called "VS" (versus), and what they do is they pit completely opposite groups of all types against each other. So, like they had gay guys vs. lumberjacks. They had PETA, that animal rights organization, vs. hunters. They had dykes on bikes vs. strippers.

So they had Berlin vs. Warrant. (laughs) So it was synth band vs. metal band. And we did this show, and the subjects were…well, they had general subjects, too, but midway through the show they had synth band questions versus metal band questions. And that is where we pulled ahead, actually…I will give you that much. I won’t tell you who won, but we pulled ahead there because both Dallan and Scott were not only from metal bands, in their history, but Scott was in Warrant for a while. He played keyboards for them. Like a tour.

So that was great. That really helped out on it. But I have to tell you…the biggest gaffe…I mean this host tore me a new asshole when I said this, because it was so fucking bad! OK, the topic’s religion, and the question was, ‘What is the holiday that is celebrated seven days after Palm Sunday?’. Warrant clocks in and the guy says ‘Ash Wednesday’!

And the host goes, ‘Excuse me, SEVEN DAYS!’ So I’m thinking, Easter, maybe? I don’t know. And I’m conferring with the guys, ‘cause they’re getting it wrong, and someone threw out…Scott completely denies this, but I think it was Scott…he threw out ‘Good Friday!’ So I thought, ‘Ah, shit, I don’t know Catholicism, …all right’…so…I ….said…GOOD FRIDAY! (laughs) The crowd fell to their knees laughing! Everybody did. I mean I looked like the consummate blonde…chick singer! Oh, God! So anyway, that got the biggest laugh of the show. It should be out in June sometime. I’ll let you know. I don’t know yet, but sometime then. It was great. That was a lot of fun. I’ve never been on a game show.

Paul: Hey, Terri…do you have a personal favorite, as far as the whole Berlin catalog, and your solo work and so on? Is there one album or CD that you like the best?

Terri: I think as an album, "Pleasure Victim" holds together the best. It’s just a great collection of songs together. I don’t think any of the other ones held together as well as that one. I listen to that album and it’s like ‘Wow! Those songs…’ It just holds together. Not only good songs, but it’s a good cohesive unit. So that would be my favorite album. "You Don’t Know" is probably one of my favorites, "Metro" never gets boring…

Paul: "You Don’t Know" is just an incredible song! And I was wondering…are there any others, favorites like that that you have that you haven’t been performing as part of your typical live set?

Terri: No. No, I mean sometimes we have to take songs out, because there just isn’t enough time, or we have too many ballads. So I can’t always do "Gabriel" or "Courage". And sometimes I can’t do "Confession Time"…I really like that song, and the band really likes that song. They always fight to keep it in the set. But no, pretty much everything. There’s one song that I might stick in from the second album, called "Pictures of You", that somebody played me the other day, and it was like, ‘Wow, that’s a cool song’, and I’d forgotten about it, and it’s really good. We might do that live. But right now I’m focusing on an INXS song, and there’s another song that Johnette and I wrote together that the band’s been working on, called "The Rhythm of You", that I want to put into the show. So those will probably be the two new ones.

Ron: I have to tell you that I sought out "Moment Of Truth" specifically so that I could have a recording of "Confession Time" because that is just such a dynamite song.

Terri: Maybe we should do a live version of that.

Have you ever heard of a band called Underworld? They had a song in that movie "Trainspotting", and they’re really big in England. They’re a techno-electronica band, and that song was written with the guy who’s the main writer and singer for Underworld. I did that back in England with him. His name’s Karl Hyde. He’s a really good writer.

Ron: I also wanted to tell you that just before you phoned, I was on the Internet conversing with Rob (RJA) and he wanted me to definitely tell you ‘hello’ and best wishes.

Terri: Awww…thank him very much! That’s nice. Well, tell him I love him, and I love his site, and I’m just so appreciative and impressed with it, that …it’s so much work to do something like that. And he fulfilled a dream for me, because I’d always wanted to have a web site, but I’ve been pretty much computer illiterate until I met (my boyfriend). He got me on the Internet through his system. (Sigh) When I finally saw the Berlin Page, I don’t know how long ago it was, it just blew my ass away…I couldn’t believe that somebody had done that! And I don’t even know if we were playing at that point! He just decided to put it up. And it was like a dream come true for me…that somebody gave a shit enough to do that. That’s wonderful! So, he will always have a very dear place in my heart.

Paul: You know…, I appreciate all the time that you’re taking here with us, Terri…, and I had just one more question, I was wondering if songs like "Soul Sister" and "Turn You On" will be on your new disc…

Terri: Yes. Yes, they will. I don’t know about "Fall Into Heaven II", …"Turn You On" will be…that’s recorded. "Soul Sister" has not been yet. And we really need to put out something new, so "Soul Sister" we’ll probably save for the album, but it definitely will be on it. That one is from the heart. I wrote it in France, actually. I went to a songwriters’ retreat that just changed my life. It was so wonderful. This guy named Miles Copeland, who managed Berlin for almost a year, he has these retreats every year, where he invites 25 songwriters from all over the world to write with each other…at his castle…in France. And he pays for all of the accommodations…food, and every day, for a week, we were paired with three other writers. We had a day to write a song, and record it in three recording studios he had built into the castle at different locations. And then the next morning we’d start over again…three new people,…’hello, how are you, I’m Terri, I’m John, I’m Joe,…’ go! Write a song. It was incredible. So in six days, I wrote six songs…with six different sets of people, and that was one of them.

That experience was just fantastic. And great writers…I mean, Howard Jones was there, Jane Wiedlin was there, and all kinds of songwriters…in fact, it opened my eyes to that world of songwriting that I’d never seen before. The songwriters who don’t perform, all they do is they get sent around to different artists and they collaborate with them and they write songs for albums. That’s their job…that’s all they do. I met a lot of people like that there. And I thought ‘Wow! That’s a cool job’. You know, maybe some day when I’m too old, or I don’t want to play any more live, or I’ve got a kid and I really don’t want to travel all over the world any more…for a while I could just do that. I could write songs for other people. Write for their albums…give them my skills that way. It was a great, great eye-opener. It was a great experience.

Paul: Terri, I’ve got to thank you for allowing us…to get close, as it were. The whole experience has exceeded my wildest expectations. And I’ve gotta say that you’re one very special person.

Terri: Thank you. Likewise.

Ron: And the same goes for me, that’s for sure. Thanks very much for taking the time; we know how busy you are. I know a lot of people will be anxious to see what you have to say. This was a lot of fun…it was great talking with you!