Antonia Bennett

Everybody knows world famous singer Tony Bennett, he's been near the centerpiece of music for quite some time. But now it's time to introduce his daughter, Antonia Bennett, with her first EP, "Natural." She's been singing for years and has paired with producer Holly Knight (whose written songs for stars such as Bon Jovi, Tina Turner and Ozzy Osbourne) to create a smooth sounding, energetic and unique EP. She spoke with TheCelebrityCafe's Matt Thompson about her new album.

TheCelebrityCafe: So you just released your first EP, Natural.

Antonia Bennett: Yeah!

TCC: How was it working with renowned producer Holly Knight on the album? She’s written a lot of songs for big stars in the past.

AB: Yeah, it was great working with Holly. Holly and I started out just writing a couple of songs together. And then we decided that we were going to create a record, which we did. We created a pop record, we just finished it and we’re shopping a deal for that now. But before we started with all of this I said, ‘You know, I’d really like to just take a snapshot of all the things I’ve learned along the way’. Because I’ve been performing for so many years and [also done] American Songbook and I really wanted to take a little snapshot of all the things that I had been doing and feeling up until that point. And Holly was great. She always has great ideas. Working with her in the studio, she keeps everything so easy.

TCC: How long have you had your eye on releasing an album?

AB: Well you know I started a lot of projects, but it just wasn’t the right thing. And I’ve done little things along the way and recorded with different people. I needed a little bit more structure and Holly really gave that to me. I also needed some time I think to just grow up and really be sure what kind of artist I want to be. Through that writing process and working with Holly, I’ve really found that now.

TCC: Did you kind of think about this when you were younger? Maybe 10 years ago or five years ago?

AB: Sure, I had definitely been working on different things and had enough material recorded over the years that I could have released something a long time ago. But I really wanted to make sure that when I release something that it was something I really believed in -- that I could stand behind and feel proud of and that it really reflected who I am as a person and where I’m going.

TCC: So what are you trying to accomplish through your music? Are you trying to make money and go on to great success? Are you trying to send a message or maybe you’re just doing it for enjoyment?

AB: Well, definitely for enjoyment number one. It’s my passion and I love it. If I make money, great. Obviously I’d like to be able to support myself and make a good living, which I’ve been lucky enough to do. But more than everything, I feel that when you have a story to tell, other people are generally interested. I just take each one of the songs I do and tell a story with it. I hope that other people like it as much as I do.

TCC: Many of the songs you sang on your record had a “classic” tone to them, most of them sounding like they can be categorized as Jazz or Standards. Are you going for a Jazz-y tone or are you trying to enter the Pop sector?

AB: Well, the Jazz, I don’t see why there’s any reason why I can’t do both. The Jazz EP is that. It’s Jazz. It’s American Songbook. It’s straight ahead, that’s what it is. I grew up with that and I love it and I don’t want to ever have to give that up. But there are other things that I want to express and that I’ve been able to do. So, I wrote a record with Holly. It’s mostly co-writes between the both of us. That record is a little bit more like a “Hot AC” record. It’s not out yet and I can’t give you a date of when it’s going to be out because we just finished shopping a deal for it.

TCC: You took a lot of classic songs and put your own spin on them on the EP. You generally slowed them down from what they originally were, the beat. Why did you decide to do this?

AB: I grew up with so many great entertainers and each one of those entertainers from that period of time brought their own thing to the table. They were each so uniquely different. I would like to think that maybe some of that rubbed off, in the sense that I want to take something and make it my own. It wasn’t that I was thinking, ‘Oh, let me make everything slow’, or anything like that. It was really just when we sat down to work on the tunes, where it felt right. How to make it my own what fits most naturally for me. That’s kind of how we came to that process. Honestly, I really wanted to make it something sultry and sensual and something that people could connect with.

TCC: You pretty much have everything in there: Frank Sinatra, I believe Patsy Cline, Taco, Pat Benatar, I guess “The Thrill Is Gone” would be BB King and then Bing Crosby. It seems like all these songs for their era they were kind of different. But you made them all go together.

AB: Well thank you so much. I can’t take credit for that completely. I think when you work with great people -- they inspire you to kind of make it all work and fit. I’m really excited about this. I hope people will like it as much as me and buy it. (Laughs)

TCC: Did you pick those songs personally or did Holly help you pick those songs out because she thought maybe you would sing them well?

AB: You know we all had input. Obviously “Love Is A Battlefield”, she came to me and said, ‘Would you do a Jazz rendition of “Love Is A Battlefield”?’ I thought it was a really great idea and a great challenge to be able to do that. So, Deron Johnson, the piano player, organ player who is playing on that came up with this really cool arrangement and said, ‘How do you feel about this?’ I went in and sang it and it was great. It fit really naturally and it was really wonderful to just be able to do something like that, such a classic rock tune like that to just put that spin on that. That kind of stuff really excites me too.

TCC: Was the Frank Sinatra, “I Wish I Were In Love Again”, was that the most natural for you to do because it already was in the Jazz category?

AB: Funny enough, I never sang that song before. My dad used to sing that when I was a kid, he had it in his show and I always liked it. That’s kind of how I came about that tune. And “Soon”, Larry Goldings started to play and he said, ‘What do you think about this?’ I thought it was a great song, so we decided to do it.

TCC: I saw on the website “I’m Always Here For You.”Iit wasn’t on the album. It comes off as more of a pop song. Where did this track come from?

AB: That’s one of the songs that’s on the “Hot AC” record that I wrote with Holly, which you’ll get to hear later on. Before that comes out though, I just came back from the UK, I did a whole tour all over Europe with my dad. I performed at Royal Albert Hall in London and we went to Istanbul, I played the Jazz festival there, and in Italy at the Umbria Jazz Festival. We’re going to take some of the [pictures] from those shows and release the live recordings of that stuff. And then hopefully soon the pop record will be out, we’re just shopping for a deal right now. I’m so excited about that. The last two years that I’ve been on the road with dad, whenever I’ve been home, I’ve been working on that record. Holly and I worked really hard on it. We put all of our passion into it. I’m excited for that too. But you can definitely hear on the website, “Here For You”. If you go to my Facebook fanpage, you can also hear “Pill” up there, which is another one of the songs that’s on the pop record. But right now we just wanted to give a taste because we don’t have a release date and anything for it yet.

TCC: You talked about being on tour with your father. Are you trying to capture the same tone as he has?

AB: Well, I don’t know about the same tone. If I could capture some of his energy, boy I’d be happy about that. He’s got so much charisma and personality on-stage, if I could just have a little piece of that I’d be happy. One thing that my dad always taught me is I should be myself and automatically that makes me different. I kind of live by that. That’s not to say I don’t learn an awful lot from being around him.

TCC: What was it like being the child of a world famous singer and an actress? Do you have a close relationship with both of them after the bitter divorce? That must have affected you greatly.

AB: I do. I have a very close relationship with my mother and my father. I’ve been very blessed for that. I talk to my mom on the phone almost every day. I get to Vegas whenever I can to see her. My dad I see all the time because I’m touring with him. Growing up with him and with her was great because I just had so many wonderful influences from so many different people. I never had the fear to think that I couldn’t do something because all the people around me were artists and entertainers and successful. A lot of people might say, ‘Make sure you get a different kind of education or typing skills so you have something to fall back on’, which I think is a great idea too. But I never had the fear of that. Not to say that it didn’t take an awful lot of hard work. My dad works harder than anybody I know. I always knew that if you’re good enough at what you do, whatever it is, you will be successful at it if you work hard.

TCC: Did you realize the enormity of what he was doing, actually how big of an artist he was when you were a child? Or you didn’t really notice?

AB: I always knew he was something special because to me he was dad, so he was something special to me. I think I started to understand very early on -- that being said, there were a lot of other people who were in the same category as him around. Not like him, but they did something different. They were just as successful at it in the arts. Like Fred Astaire, different people like that. Frank Sinatra, Mel Torme. Again, each one of those people were such a different personality and even though they might have all been musicians or artists, they brought something so special to the table. I’m glad to say I was lucky enough to see that. It’s so different now. There will never be artists like that again. It was such a glamorous period of time as well.

TCC: I saw a duet with the two of you “Old Friends” -- it was very good. Who has the better duet, you two or Natalie Cole and her father with “Unforgettable”?

AB: Well I don’t like to compare but I think Natalie Cole is amazing and I love that duet, “Unforgettable”, I think it’s beautiful.

TCC: Have you always wanted to be a singer since you were young or was this something that came to you over the years? I’m talking about when you were really young.

AB: I always did it, my dad would invite me out on-stage and stuff like that. My parents always surrounded me with a lot of art and culture. So, I dipped my hand in a lot of different things. Theatre, dance, art, so I was exposed to all of that. But then as I was getting a little bit older and I was getting ready to go to college, I really started diving into the music more. I went to Berklee College of Music and then I started becoming really serious. I started taking every kind of gig you can imagine, paying my dues and just trying to get as much experience as I could.

TCC: Did you find that you learned a lot more there than you have with your father? Or vice-versa?

AB: You know it’s an amazing thing, when I was at Berklee there was so much information that I had to process quickly that I hadn’t had before. Theory and ear training, just a lot of different things on the more technical side. As I was soaking all of that in, I didn’t really know yet how it was going to affect me. Honestly what happened is after I left I had this base of knowledge that I could choose what was most important to me. It’s just different. I learned things from my dad that I could never learn in college. But the things that I did learn in college were very valuable to me. There are things that I couldn’t really grasp when I was there and now that I’ve stepped away from it and it’s many years later, I can grasp it now a little bit more and go ‘you know what, now I’m ready to go back and really learn that or really understand that or really internalize it’. I guess with my dad it’s the same thing. Sometimes he’ll repeat the same thing over to me many times at different times and one day it’ll just click. I don’t know why it’s like that, but sometimes somebody can say something to you and you think it means something else and then one day it all makes sense.

TCC: You were talking about how he taught you things that were very valuable, has he been giving you pointers on singing and everything since you were young?

AB: Yeah and you know his advice is so mature and basic at the same time. The kinds of things he says to me are like, ‘Make sure you breathe before each phrase’, and ‘when you say I love you make sure you really mean it’. They sound like such simple things, but they’re really not. As you mature as an artist, you start to realize just how important those things are. To do that night after night isn’t as easy as it looks.

TCC: He changed his name when he was younger from Tony Benedetto to Tony
Bennett. Are you legally Antonia Bennett or are you Antonia Benedetto too?

AB: Well I was born Antonia Bennett and on my birth certificate it did say Antonia Bennett, but when I was in college I decided that I wanted to change to my birth name so I changed it back to Antonia Benedetto. For many years I had an [also known as] of both on my passport and things like that. But after September 11th, they don’t allow you to do that anymore.

TCC: Earlier you talked about going on tour with your father. How do you feel about opening for your father in your summer tour? How was that experience?

AB: That was great. We went to some amazing places. It’s always wonderful to travel with him, because we stay at beautiful hotels, we’re playing at miraculous concert halls like Royal Albert Hall, places like that are just spectacular. The show always goes without a hitch with his crew because he travels with the best people. It really gives me a chance to just focus on what I’m doing and enjoy my environment and be the best singer I can be.

TCC: What has been your favorite venue thus far on the tour?

AB: On that tour – wow. Well, I really enjoyed Royal Albert Hall. There was a great concert hall in Glasgow, I can’t remember what the name of it was, but it was beautiful in Scotland. I loved playing Istanbul, it was great. We played at an outdoor amphitheater and it was just beautiful, the audiences were wonderful. Umbria was great, we played in a beautiful concert hall there.

TCC: Do you enjoy touring overseas or in the United States more?

AB: I like it anywhere where people are ready to have a good time. Hopefully I can give them what they are looking for. I’ll go anywhere where the enthusiasm is, I’m there.

TCC: When do you plan on releasing a full-length album?

AB: Well, as I said we’re going to round out that Jazz EP with another EP of live music. Then in September-October, I’m going to go in and start to record a full Jazz record. I don’t know when that will be done, but as soon as it is we’ll release it on Mesa Blue Moon. Then after that, in the meantime, we’re shopping a pop deal for that pop record. I’m assuming things are going to roll pretty quickly. I don’t have dates, but I’m assuming that probably within four to six months there will be new stuff coming. So, people can just check into my website or on my Facebook fanpage. They can sign up for blurbs. I’ll definitely be keeping fans informed that way as new material comes up.