It's no secret that I have, at best, a strained and awkward relationship with my dad. The Wasserman family - my mom, my sister, Lew and Edie - raised me. They are the people I define as my family.
When I walked in to read with Edie Falco, it was nice, because I auditioned in New York, and it was very quick. You walk in, there's Edie, the producers, the director, and a camera. I read three scenes, and it was done.
Trust me, the only real way to understand 'Chic' is in highfalutin terms. Our chord progressions were based on European modal melodies. I made those early 'Chic' records to impress my jazz friends.
I think Edie Sedgwick comes back, too. Every five or six years, there is always something about Edie, because she was so modern and stylish and elegant and hippie-ish, all at the same time. So I think that people will always love her.
There is no word in English for chic. Why should there be? Everything chic is by legend French. Perhaps everything chic is in reality French.
They were enormously chic. My father was very chic. My mother was a heavy woman and she wore wonderful, bright colors, and pajamas, but when she was in town or in New York City or in Paris, she would wear navy blue or black. But there was a flamboyance to both of them.
My 12 years in Los Angeles were hell! But I was sent to study hell and to learn as much from it as I could because there is no other place like hell for a full and complete education.
Fashion is really funny because it's something that should be subjective, but there are clear things that are chic or not chic. There are all these rules, but if the right person breaks a rule, then it becomes a trend.
Clothing has a great deal to do with the attitudes and energy that others direct towards you. I favor the chic, and tend to avoid the trendy. I think that it's good to be chic when possible because it is more inaccessible.
I dislike the concept of 'chic' being the highest compliment for a human being. I'd rather someone be nice than to be chic.
I'm not chic, I could never be chic.
I think you are born chic. You cannot be chic. It is something you cannot learn.
Think of Jonathan Edwards who thundered the terrors of God and what Hell was like until men grasped their seats and hung on to them, fearing they were falling into Hell itself. Men were moved by fear to escape damnation. That was believed to be Christianity. Why any coward wanted to keep out of Hell. He might not have had one idea in his soul of what was the real true earmark of Christianity.
You know what Michael did? He got me the most fabulous place to live. If you read the tabloids, it's the enclave of the enclave, Beverly Hills, which I have no idea what an enclave is. If it's chic-chic, it's cool.
Actually, recording the Suite Chic album was so much fun and while working on this new album, people that I've worked with from Suite Chic has lend their voice.
I never, never photograph someone getting high to sell clothes. I was called, at some point, the person responsible for "heroin chic". I didn't have anything to do with "heroin chic".