Upper Darby-born Todd Rundgren has lived on the Hawaiian island of Kauai for two decades now — a paradise existence except when the perpetually creative singer wants to make an album.
“As a result, most of the records that I’ve made in recent years have been, uh, all me,” the singer says with a laugh by over the phone from New York, where he was finishing a jaunt with Ringo Starr’s All-Starr Band before starting his own tour, which brings him to Penn’s Peak near Jim Thorpe Dec. 1.
“Some collaboration, but it’s just too difficult to have people drop by for a session. So it’s just easier to make the records myself.”
That hasn’t slowed the productivity of Rundgren, who is best known for his 1970s hits “Hello, It’s Me” (a song he originally did with the band The Nazz), “We Gotta Get You a Woman,” “Can We Still Be Friends,” and 1983’s “Bang the Drum All Day.” In the two decades since moving to Hawaii, he’s released 10 albums.
But Rundgren says working solo got him to feeling “like I was getting into something of an echo chamber.”
So for when it came to making his latest album, Rundgren decided he “would collaborate more on the record. And so the record essentially is a result of my reaching out to a number of artists and asking if they wanted to work on something with me.”
And through “various configurations and a lot of file swapping” came Rundgren’s “White Knight,” a disc, released in May, that pairs him with more than 15 artists on 15 songs of varying genres.
Some matchups are obvious. On the song “Chance For Us,” for example, he works with famed sax player Bobby Strickland, with whom he’s played since his early solo album “Todd” in 1974, and fellow Philadelphia-area native Daryl Hall, with whom he first worked when producing Hall and Oates’ third album, “War Babies,” that same year.
Some were less expected: Nine Inch Nails front man Trent Reznor on “Deaf Ears” and classic soul singer Bettye Lavette on “Naked and Afraid.”
In a recent interview from his Hawaiian home, Rundgren spoke about the new disc, his career and his future.
Here’s a transcript of the call:
LEHIGH VALLEY MUSIC: Hi Todd.
“That’s me.”
[Laughs] I saw you when you came through Easton, Pennsylvania, a couple of years ago with that tour [Ringo’]. Enjoyed it very much.
“This is the only tour he’s done this year. We were supposed to take the whole year off, but Ringo couldn’t stand it. So we did kind of, like, three weeks in Las Vegas and two weeks on the road and that’s about it. So…”
So let’s jump into this. I know it’s been out for a few months, but tell me about [your album] “White Knight.” What were you looking to do? Did you do anything differently? Just tell me the story of the album if you could.
“Uh, I live in the island of Kauai [in Hawaii], and as a result, most of the records that I’ve made in recent years have been, uh, all me.”
[Laughs]
“Some collaboration, but it’s just too difficult to have people drop by for a session.”
[Laughs]
“So it’s just easier to make the records myself. But it felt like I was getting into something of an echo chamber, so I decided I would collaborate more on the record. And so the record essentially is a result of my reaching out to a number of artists and [laughs] asking if they wanted to work on something with me.
“And through various configurations and a lot of file swapping, ‘White Knight’ is the result.”
And how did you choose the artists that were going to be on it? Did you just sort of make up a “best’ list, or people who you have worked with? What was the selection process like?
“Yeah, I made a list of about, probably, two dozen people. Just a variety of genres – anyone I thought, you know, might … well, I didn’t know if they’d be willing to. A lot of these people I never met before, didn’t know what their temperament might be. But people that I wanted to work with, people that I had worked with before, as well.
“And the end result is really those artists who actually delivered by the deadline [laughs]. We could have had more, and the project’s sort of half-finished – that I may focus some attention on and have some more collaborations to release.”
That’s cool. Had you … let me ask you just about a couple of them. Had you worked with Bettye Lavette before?
“Uh, not in recording context. Actually, that’s not true. I at one point was in discussions with her to produce a record. That record never got made. But I met Bettye, ironically enough, at a concert at The Hollywood Bowl that was a 40th anniversary of The Beatles’ performance there. And we both had an opportunity to perform with the L.A. Philharmonic Orchestra over a three-night period. And that’s when I first met her and we got to be friends. So that’s why her name was on my list.”
Yeah, she’s an extraordinary talent that I think not enough people still know about who she is, I think.
“Yeah, it’s always a surprise the first time you see Bettye perform. You say, ‘Where had she been?’ [Laughs] You know? And she’s just been doing it the whole time. She has a very particular way of inhabiting a song. It sometimes takes you a little while to recognize it because she personalizes it so effectively.”
Yeah, well put.
“And I was really pleased when she decided to do something crazy on my record. [Laughs]”
Well put. Again, just asking about a couple of others. Trent Reznor – had you worked with him before?
“I did. I did remix for Trent a couple years ago. For … it was not a Nine Inch Nails album; I think it was a solo project. But that was the first time I had worked or communicated with him, and so it seemed kind of an obvious possibility. That I could get something from him.
“And he was especially generous. He and Atticus Ross do a lot of soundtrack work. So he keeps a library of ideas for when a project comes up. And he gave me, like, an entire album’s worth of material to choose from. Hardest thing was whittling it down, trying to figure which single song I wanted to work on.”
Wow. And then the other one I wanted to ask about is Daryl Hall, who seems like a go-to guy – an obvious name for you to work with.
“Yeah, that’s pretty obvious. I mean, Daryl and I go so far back – and actually so far forward [laughs] in a way. Goes back to when I produced Daryl and John’s third album, and then all the way to the recent appearances on [the program] ‘Daryl’s House,’ which still rerun. People still comment about seeing that show.
“So it was, yeah, a pretty obvious choice.”
I want to ask a general question here. More than 50 years into this, you’re still a prolific person, artist – both recording and producing. And I’m wondering why that is. A lot of artists get to the point where, you know, they have so much material that they choose to perform that material or don’t record new albums. But you are not that way. And why is that?
“I still get something out of it, I guess [laughs]. I never … I always realized I was a musician first, and a performer second and an entertainer third [laughs]. Personality fourth [laughs]. So it’s always been my priority to continue to learn about music, continue to express myself through it.
“And to perform as long as I’m able to, but if I was unable to perform it, I probably still would be involved in some sense or another trying to make it.”
Are you, do you have any production projects in the works right now that you can talk about?
“Nothing in particular. Possibilities come and go, but the recording industry is a lot different nowadays. It used to be the producer was the gatekeeper to the process.”
Exactly.
“And decided whether you got into the studio or not. And once you got into the studio, you started spending serious money. Now anybody can have a studio of their own, and many artists do. So it gets to the point where they don’t, they don’t necessarily need a producer to make a record.
“They may want a producer’s input to help them make musical decisions and stuff like that, but it’s no longer such an expensive process to make a record that you would need a producer for that. And that’s resulted in a whole lot fewer, sort of, traditional-style production arrangements.
“You can also say that records have changed their character, as well. That may have something to do with the way it’s made. But collaborations are very commonplace nowadays, and it isn’t that unusual to see three, four or five producers credited on a record [laughs].”
Yeah, absolutely.
“So it’s just not the same as it used to be. You’re not the Svengali you once were, you know? And it’s certainly affected the way I make a living, but I don’t complain about it because this is a natural phenomenon. There’s nothing you can do about it.”
Yeah. Here’s a question sort of from out on the edge: 50 years since [the band] Nazz’s debut album next year. You have any plans to acknowledge it or do anything with it?
“No, I had not [laughs] paid much attention to that. Uh, I don’t know what there is to do. [Founding bassist] Carson Van Osten is gone [he died in 2015 at 70], I don’t know what musical state the other guys are in. It was such a brief period in reality. I mean, from the time the band got together until we broke up was only about 18 months.
“A lot happened during that 18 months, but from my standpoint it was a learning experience and not necessarily something I wanted to forget, but not something I wanted to relive, either [laughs].”
Sure, understood. I read that you toured with Yes this summer.
“With one of the Yesses. There are actually two versions of Yes. There are conflicts between members of the band. And so there’s a version of Yes that we were out with, which included Steve Howe and some of the very early original members, and there was the other version that included John Anderson, Rick Wakeman and Trevor Rabin.
”And at first there was only the Steve Howe version that we were with. Then toward the end of the tour they were both out at the same time. So that had to be pretty strange for people.”
Well how did you connect with that? How did you end up touring with them?
“These things usually come about when two or more acts have the same agency, and the agency puts together a package of what they think are similar acts, or acts that when combined will fil la certain sized venue. And that allows you to share production expenses and other things and it usually works out for everybody.
“And it was working out pretty well for us until the end of the tour when there was an unfortunate death in Steve Howe’s family [his son Virgil, a drummer for the British power trio Little Barrie, died in September] and the last four gigs of the tour were canceled.”
Again, if my math is correct, in June you’re going to be turning 70?
“Yes, I am.”
How does that feel?
“I expect it won’t feel much different than it does right now [laughs]. But you are definitely feeling the effects of age physically. But otherwise I’m enjoying life at this point, challenges and all. And I still enjoy playing. I’m out on the road at least half a year, I guess. Sometimes more, often more.
“And the playing is the part that I enjoy. The traveling is kind of – can do without that sometimes. But being up there and performing for people is still something I enjoy doing. So I expect 70 and beyond, I’ll continue to do it.”
As far as pleasing the crowd, I think you’re still getting it right.
“We’re keeping our audience, which is the important part. Keeping it and, if you can, increasing the size of your audience. That’s another reason why you do these package shows – because you get to play for other peoples’ fans.
“And collaboration albums are also a great way to communicate with new fan bases. So that’s the idea – you have to keep your audience and you have to build it if you can.”
AN EVENING WITH TODD RUNDGREN, 8 p.m. Saturday, Dec. 2, Penn’s Peak, 325 Maury Road, Penn Forest Township (near Jim Thorpe). Tickets: $29, $34, www.pennspeak.com, 866-605-PEAK. ALSO, 8 p.m. Sunday, Dec. 3, Keswick Theatre, 291 N. Keswick Ave., Glenside. Tickets: $39.50-$59.50 adv., $42-$62 door, www.keswicktreatre.com, 215-572-7650