Mr. Dream Weaver himself, Gary Wright, is back on the music scene with his brand new album, 'Connected'. Wright's been known for his hit song 'Dream Weaver' since the 1970s and it's still been utilized in movies such as Toy Story 3. His other hit single, 'Love Is Alive', was just recently used in Grown Ups. His rise to fame peaked by the early 1980s with four songs in the top 50 on the Billboard Top 100. From there, he worked on composing music for films while his records have been used in nearly 10 hit movies over the past 20 years. Today, Gary owns his own record label and just produced his son's first album. He spoke with TheCelebrityCafe's Matt Thompson about Connected, Toy Story 3, Dream Weaver and much more.
TheCelebrityCafe: You have new album out, ‘Connected’, tell us a little bit about how this is different from your most recent releases, ‘The Light of a Million Suns’ and your EP, ‘Waiting to Catch a Light’?
Gary Wright: Well this is really the first pop album I’ve done in over 20 years. ‘Waiting to Catch a Light’ was more like an ambient music instrumental album. ‘The Light of a Millions Suns’ was four tracks of songs I’ve written over the years and I’ve never put on albums that I just released as an EP. ‘Connected’ is really the first album that I’ve done in the studio in over 20 years. I kind of wanted to record really more in the spirit of how I made ‘Dream Weaver’, just very minimalistic, but very funky and with really good songs – with real strong melody lines and lyrics. That was the premise.
TCC: I think you recaptured some of the same tone. One of the songs I thought you recaptured the same tone was ‘Satisfied’. Did you write all of the tracks on the album?
GW: I wrote 80 percent of the album. I co-wrote a couple of songs.
TCC: So what track personally gave you the most satisfaction?
GW: That’s kind of hard to say. I liked ‘Under Your Spell’, I liked ‘Kirra Layne’. I really kind of liked the whole album. I don’t have any super favorites. I like each one for different reasons, so to speak.
TCC: I know Ringo Starr made a guest appearance on the album. How was touring with him been in 2008 and this year?
GW: Ringo’s great. He’s just an amazing human being. He’s funny, he’s great with the audience. He’s a wonderful host. I can’t speak highly enough about him. He’s a great drummer too. He’s just fun to work with. It’s the deluxe version of going on tour.
TCC: Did you know all of the Beatles? Because I read that you were friends with George Harrison.
GW: I have met all of them. George and I were really close. I was closet to him. Ringo and I – I met Ringo way back when I worked on George’s first album, ‘All Things Must Pass’. I’ve played on all of George’s albums. I played keyboards and I wrote two songs with him as well on two of his albums. John, I briefly met in New York once with George and Bob Dylan, when George was doing a concert – I think – for Bangladesh. Paul, I met at Ringo’s birthday when he came on stage at Radio City Music Hall and played ‘They Say It’s Your Birthday’.
TCC: Were you friends with George Harrison while they were actually together or was it after the group split?
GW: It was after the split. It was 1970 that we met.
TCC: I was reading up and I saw that you didn’t release anything from 1999 to 2008, album-wise. Why was this?
GW: I have my own label. I produced and released my son Justin’s album with a band he did called Intangible. The album was called ‘Elevate’. I’ve spend a lot of time recording the album and getting involved with the release of all that. I was actually writing during that time period, but I just hadn’t released anything.
TCC: So the songs you were writing, were any of those songs on this album?
GW: Yeah, some of them like ‘Satisfied’, that was written in that time frame. Probably ‘Can’t Find No Mercy’ was written during that time frame.