Elton John has said talent shows like The X Factor and American Idol are “the worst” for aspiring artists, and has instead advised them to “go and play in a pub”.
Ahead of the release of ‘Who Believes In Angels?’, the upcoming collaborative album he has made with Brandi Carlile, the two musicians sat down with Rolling Stone to discuss the record, and how best to nurture emerging talent.
“Just keep trying to play live,” Elton advised. “That’s the way you improve as a musician and songwriter. It doesn’t matter if you’re playing to 40 people. The more experience you get playing to nobody, the better. Because when I played in Musicology, we played to hardly anybody sometimes,” said Elton.
“That experience stood me in great stead for when I became Elton John because I had backbone. And backbone is so important, because the worst thing that can happen to you in the industry are things like X Factor and instant fame on television where you have no experience of playing live.
“You get put on stage, you go, and you can’t do it. That’s the worst thing. American Idol — just the worst. Take risks. Go and play in a pub.”
Elton’s disdain for the two talent shows dates back to 2004, back when he branded the public vote for American Idol “incredibly racist”, comments that came after the shock exit of Jennifer Hudson, who was one of the favourites to win the talent contest.
Since then, he has said he felt sorry for contestants on The X Factor who were “thrown to the wolves” once achieving fame with no previous experience of the music industry. Likewise, his vocal support of new artists drew criticism from Simon Cowell, who accused the ‘Rocket Man’ singer of being “selfish” and doing nothing to help the music industry.
“Go and give [money] to a bunch of young musicians you care about, put them in the studio,” the music mogul of Elton. “Go and nurture them. Then I’ll buy your argument.”
Back in 2021, the ‘Tiny Dancer’ singer spoke to NME for a Big Read cover feature, he said he was hungrier than ever to discover exciting new music and was particularly fond of Yard Act.
“I scan the websites of the NME and places like that to find records that I wouldn’t have heard. I’m always on the lookout for new things. I’ve become friends with most young artists on the record, and I just love promoting new records,” he said.
Most recently, he shared his praise for Kneecap in a BBC Radio 6 Music interview, saying he “loves everything about them”.
That was far from the first time that Sir Elton has used his platform to celebrate new talent across the music industry. Elsewhere in the BBC interview alone, the singer, songwriter and pianist named other artists catching his eye, including Moonchild Sanelly, Beabadoobee, Jacob Alon and Perfume Genius.
Before then, he shared his fondness for former NME Cover star Chappell Roan again this January and revealed that he has been giving her advice on how to handle fame.
“I just try and calm her down and say, ‘Listen, it’s fine. It’s fine. Do what you want. Don’t listen to anybody. Walk at your own speed,” he said. “Do not listen to the record company saying, ‘We want another album, we want another album.’ Do it when you’re ready to do it.’”
In September last year, he also shared his love of Fontaines D.C., and declared them “the best band out there at the moment”.
“Having watched you at Glastonbury, having heard the new album, you’ve just grown every album,” he told frontman Grian Chatten. “You seem to have found your feet with this album in such a big way…it’s a brilliant record.”
Meanwhile, this April, he will release the new collaborative album with Carlile, with the record set to feature the Oscar-nominated song ‘Never Too Late’, which was created especially for the Disney+ documentary of the same name.
