GMTV130505

Neil returned for a short interview with
Kate Garraway and Andrew Castle.

Kate - And now.. we saw him performing one of his classics a little while earlier..
the one and only Neil Diamond is with us again .....
Good to see you this morning.
How are you feeling singing live at that hour of the day?

Neil - It's rough. I was thinking about that.
You know if you were an athlete, you would at least warm up. It would be tough to put your peak performance in at eight in the morning.

Kate - You're sounding OK. I think you might have done it once or twice..

Neil - Thank you, thank you. I am surprised myself there was a voice there.
I had no idea at this hour.

Kate - Now the last time you popped in you were talking about going off on a tour of the UK and now literally it's about a week, two weeks away?

Neil - We start next week in Sheffield.

Kate - Good for you. Are you looking forward to that? Is it still thrilling or is it ..oh gosh.. not sleeping in my own bed?... Do you quite like...

Neil - Oh no, it's thrilling. You want to do it at this point.
I've talked about it enough. Now it's time to do it. So I'm happy we're here and I'm ready to do it.

Kate - Great stuff. What are we like as an audience .. the British? Are we a bit reserved? Are we different from the Americans?

Neil - Verrrry strange.... No actually the audiences are fabulous.
If I closed my eyes, I couldn't tell the difference between audiences here or in New York or in Sydney, Australia. It seems to be my audience and they like what is happening and we try and give them everything they want.

Kate - Fantastic. Well they all love you. You have a huge fanbase here, don't you?
People are desperate to come and see you play. It all started when you were sixteen and somebody gave you you a guitar as a birthday present. That was a good present wasn't it back then?

Neil - It turned out to be a good present. I had always been involved and loved music but when I started taking guitar lessons and then piano lessons, I started to know a little bit about it. Not just singing along with the radio. So it was a start for me really and pretty soon I got hooked on writing songs and that was it. I have been doing it since.

Kate - you almost became a doctor?

Neil - Well yes, almost, in the sense that I studied pre-med and New York University but no, I had my heart set on writing and that was all I could think about. So I had no chance really to graduate pre-med or even go to med school.

Kate - Just thought I'm really going to go for this. And I think it wasn't really a bad decision now looking back four decades.

Neil - Well now it looks a pretty good decision. Back then it was the stupidest thing I'd ever done....

Kate - I can imagine your family must have thought you were mad.

Neil - Well they knew I was in love with writing and they accepted it. They went along with it probably thinking I'd get back to my real business at hand at some point but I never did.

Kate - You've got American Idol of course over in the States and we have Pop Idol here and we see so many youngsters coming on from that show and generally musicians and pop artists all wide eyed and excited at their first hit...

Neil - (trying hard to get a word in!) Well they should be ...

Kate - ...and sadly you don't see them again. Why do you think you lasted and what did you have that kept you going that perhaps these other youngsters don't have?

Neil - Luck.

Kate - Is it just that do you think?

Neil - Well everybody, the people who come into this business, are willing to work hard, it requires a modicum of musical talent but luck plays a very important part of it you know. So this Idol show is one of the lucky breaks that you can get so ...

Kate - But then you have got to do something with it I guess.

Neil - Yes, and as far as I can see, these kids are ready to work hard. The only unfortunate thing I see about it is they're not taking the usual route which is to start at the bottom and work your way up and learn and do all that kind of thing. They audition and if they are liked by the producers, they are on national television. If they win, you know, they are stars. So I kind of like the idea of people working their way up and paying their dues.

Kate - You had time to grow and you are still growing.

Neil - Yes..

Kate - Looking forward to seeing you do your stuff.

Neil - Thank you.

Kate - Starting in Sheffield?

Neil - Starting at Sheffield

Kate - .and then dates all over the country.

Neil - Right and s......

Kate - Well we look forward to seeing you and hearing you sing today was great. Thank you very much.

Neil - Thank you K...

Kate to Andrew - Just a modicum of talent.

Andrew - Just a modicum of talent that has sold 150 million albums worldwide. Have a great tour.

Neil - That's the luck part. That's the luck part.

Andrew - We all need a just a little bit of that. Find out about Neil's tour dates on our website GM.TV.