A Quote by James Watkins
If you think about the traditional mafia stories we grew up on, it is always about the death of criminal organisations - things like the 'Sopranos' - the last vestiges of once proud families subsumed by the modern era.
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Families have always been in flux and often in crisis; they have never lived up to nostalgic notions about "the way things used tobe." But that doesn't mean the malaise and anxiety people feel about modern families are delusions, that everything would be fine if we would only realize that the past was not all it's cracked up to be. . . . Even if things were not always right in families of the past, it seems clear that some things have newly gone wrong.
I was researching some of the modern-day figures that The Sopranos were moulded on. So many iconic Sopranos moments. James Gandolfini and Edie Falco had an incredible scene together in the kitchen of that house that looked like it was about to explode. That was an iconic series that changed the way we did television. It is also an extremely realistic portrayal of the mafia. Much more so than The Godfather. The Godfather, one of the greatest films ever, but let's face it, a romanticized version of the mob.
I hear all the time that boys don't like stories about girls. Which never made much sense to me. Wasn't 'Terminator' about a girl? And 'Alien'? Hell, I grew up on 'The Wizard of Oz.' People enjoy stories about anything if they're good stories.
In Japan, there's a TV series called Jin. It deals with time travel. I like stories about time travel. It's a story about people living in modern day that travel back to the Edo era. Those things really interest me.
In a studio situation, I'm able to dig deep and come up with stuff that all the guys think fits the vibe of the song. And I think that's partly due to the fact that I grew up listening to just about everything under the sun. I'm very open to music, and I like to do things in a traditional and musical way.
My father, if anything, first and last, was a man of words. He loved stories; he didn't live for stories, exactly, but I think he lived through stories. I think, like many writers, he loved stories about things he had experienced as much as, if not more than, he loved the experiences themselves.
What I always liked about country music was the stories, the ability to talk about very real things like divorce and drinking and death and jail.
I met all these important people and did all these stories, but I always had such excellent producers and assistants. I could show up to interview a world leader or a criminal and they would have things so well prepared anyone could have done it. It wasn't about 'me,' it was about 'us.'
Between 'The Godfather,' 'The Sopranos,' 'Goodfellas,' and the countless other mob stories that have been both critically and commercially acclaimed over the years, it's not hard to see why a game like 'Mafia Wars' works.
Here's the weird thing about me. I was never one to tell you stories about me. I was always the guy who others told stories about. I was like that up until I was 35 years old. And then I started telling stories about me onstage.
I never grew up dreaming about a wedding - I don't think about things like that. I don't know how to explain it. All I care about is to be happy.
I feel like the kind of people I write about are the kind of people I grew up with, the families that I know in my community. Most everyone is working-class, and there are some intact families, but a lot of families aren't.
If you look at 'The Sopranos,' there's this notion of a criminal element on its last legs.
When you learn about stories in school, you get it backward. You start to think 'Oh, the reason these things are in stories is because a book said I need to put these things in there.' You need a death, as my husband says, and you need a little sidekick with a saying like 'Skivel-dee-doo!'
I grew up in the era of the concept album. What I do now is pick up on singles, and they are their own complete stories; you don't necessarily have to hear the rest of the album because I don't think albums are created like that anymore. They get songs from all over the place.
A lot of the things I do deal with my race, but my race is who I am. I'm an American kid who grew up listening to predominantly hip-hop. I will talk about hip-hop as the music I grew up listening to, and I think sometimes people like to put it as, 'Oh, well, he's talking about black things.' And, yeah, they are, but that's my American identity.
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