One of the most riveting phenomenona ever to engage the recording industry, supported by the most gripping and enthralling video on YouTube, has been released by pop recording artist and philanthropist Sir Ivan. The single and video titled “Kiss All the Bullies Goodbye” is dedicated to his support of the anti-bullying campaign with his Peaceman Foundation and features vocals by pop star Taylor Dayne.
Not only has Sir Ivan launched one of the most relevant anthems of our time, but he has also donated $100,000 in support of anti-bullying efforts, and it isn’t the only time he has donated that same amount of money to LGBT causes. In 2012 he gave another $100,000 to The Trevor Project.
It was an amazing honor to have connected with Sir Ivan, who explained in a very revolutionary fashion why he recorded the song, produced by Paul Oakenfold, and the video, directed by Erik White. We had a very sensitive and enlightening conversation, and although at times extreme, Sir Ivan passionately feels the subject of bullying just has to be brought to light.
By the time the discussion had ended, I viewed Sir Ivan as an iconic prophet spreading enlightenment to the world. His song, his generosity, his video and his compassion as well as his reasons behind them will touch the lives of everyone.
I am so in love with your video.
Thank you so much. I have Erik White to thank for that; he came up with a brilliant concept. He really got to the heart of the matter.
I feel it will touch the lives of so many.
Well, that’s the purpose of it, so I’m happy to hear that.
What inspired you to do this song and this video? I would think that donating $100,000 toward this cause would be overly generous in itself.
It’s not my first hundred thousand dollars to help the LGBT community. In 2012 I gave $100,000 to the Trevor Project.
Wow, really?
Yes. This time I decided to divide it amongst 10 different charities.
That’s so amazing. What inspired you to do the song and the video? I mean, it’s brilliant.
All the songs that I do, since I began my music career with the remake of “Imagine” in 2001, are songs with the lyrics to benefit the world, the social issues, social injustice, and it wasn’t a stretch to help the LGBT community. The soul of all the songs came from Woodstock in my portfolio and are all remakes from the iconic ‘60s anti-war protest songs. So it was in line with that. I just stayed true to my vision, true to my niche. But apart from myself, it’s specializing in songs that are socially important, not just commercially trendy or what would sell. No one, not even the major labels, not Sony, not Universal, makes 10 different versions of one song. It just shows that when you disseminate the song all over the planet and have everyone playing it in uniformity, the message has some effect. Not only that, I’m so into it I just commissioned yesterday another three versions called “electro,” and the other two from the U.K., so that I can get all of Europe playing the record also. There’s another three remixes that are going to come out after the first 10 versions.
It sounds like this video and song are going to take over the world – at least, I hope it does. Can you give me a brief history, a bio about yourself?
I was always in love with singing, ever since I was a child. I performed high school musicals and recitals. I sang in a famous Hebrew choir. I sang “My Yiddish Mama”(My Jewish Mother) in a town hall in New York and got a standing ovation. There wasn’t a dry eye in the place. I was never encouraged to pursue it professionally. Both my father and mother had beautiful voices, and they did everything under the sun, particularly my father, to keep me from going into show business. They wanted me to go to an Ivy League college, and they wanted me to become either a doctor or a lawyer. I wound up going to the University of Pennsylvania, and I wound up graduating the Benjamin Cardozo School of Law – part of Yeshivah University in New York. I finished law school and wound up working for my father for 20 years in a major commercial bank that he built in New Jersey. I was always frustrated. I had a lot of creative energy that was repressed. I did it to make my father happy, because of all the suffering he went through in Auschwitz during the Holocaust. He lost 59 relatives just because they were Jewish, murdered either in the gas chambers, shot or starved to death. Having lost so much family, he wanted family near him. So I deferred my own happiness, my love of singing, until the bank was sold and until he passed away. That’s when I was really able to devote myself full time to writing songs, performing, going in the studio, making videos and getting that message out there. When I started my music career I was 45. At a time and when you’re competing with the Justin Biebers of the world, 45 is a little late in the game. Nonetheless, by day one, the release of my first single “Imagine” in 2001 on Tommy Boy Records, one of the major labels of all time, it took off. Every single song I’ve come out with in the last 15 years charted on Billboard in the United States, one of them reaching the top 10. That’s what inspired me in going further. My first three singles were handled by three very well-known people in the music business, and then from watching how they marketed the record, reached the DJs, etc. The industry changed, and everything became downloads instead of people going to record stores. I decided to open my own label. Since then I’ve done as well for myself as the other labels when I was signed to them.
That’s just an incredible story.
The big leagues, the pop charts, you only make them when the record crosses over to the top 40 mainstream radio stations. Without radio stations you don’t reach what matters. So it requires literally millions of dollars if you’re not signed to a major label, and even then it’s very hard to get Clear Channel. For most of the radio stations you have to get Clear Channel to play your music on the hundreds and hundreds of stations they own, and the big Fortune 500 people who own all the radio stations. Without them, there is just so much you can do.
Do you plan to do a tour to support the video?
Yeah. Most of the clubs and the electronic dance music is set up for and geared for all the attention surrounding the DJ. It’s no longer about the singer or the lyrics or the overall performance. The DJs became the rock stars of this generation. Most of the nightclubs don’t even have stages for me to perform with my dancers. They merely have a DJ booth. If popular demand is there I would do it, some limited engagements. The best thing about the Internet is that you can reach all over the world with your music video. There are only X amount of people you can cram into a club. I prefer to put my money, my time and my effort into the videos instead of running from club to club. You don’t cover enough ground or are exposed to nearly enough people.
Why did you pick this particular issue?
I’ve always been haunted by a couple of tales my father told me. They were the scariest bullying stories I’ve ever heard. One was, I couldn’t figure out why my father never learned to swim. When I asked him, he said it was because some Nazi kids in Germany threw him into a lake, when he didn’t know how to swim, and he almost drowned. So he has a fear of the water for the rest of his life. The other one was even worse than that. His father was in the textile business. He would travel with him as a child and go from farm to farm. In Germany you bought hides from the farmers to make clothing out of. While my grandfather was negotiating with the farmer, my father was looking around. The farmer’s sons dragged him inside the barn and hung him over a meat grinder, while screaming and shouting, “Let’s make Jew Burgers out of him.” Obviously how traumatic it must have been to be hung over a meat grinder by two German hoodlums. In my mind bullying left unchecked can lead to genocide. People look at me like I must be exaggerating. I give them the example that in the ‘30s Hitler came along and took 6 million Jews and threw them in the gas chambers. It didn’t all happen in one day. It took five, six, seven years before they even opened the first gas chamber. There were laws passed that discriminated against the Jews; they were barred from different industries; they were beaten by gangs on the street, and this didn’t happen overnight. What happens is verbal bullying leads to physical bullying. Physical bullying and violence leads to potential death. A single death left unchecked leads to multiple deaths and mass murder. If somebody had stopped the Germans, it would never have progressed. It’s fact; it’s not fantasy. Everyone stood by. That made me more sensitive and emotional toward any persecuted minority. When I read in the papers that bullying leads to an alarming rate of suicide amongst teenagers both straight and gay, and then when I got more into it I found out that LBGT teenagers were four to five times more likely to commit suicide, I figured they needed it the most. I thought, they’re going to get my attention, my love, my talent and my money.
You hear a new instance of bullying every day, especially in New York.
No, it’s everywhere. That’s why I felt it’s an emergency. We couldn’t take our time.
How do you feel that the public can help prevent bullying more effectively?
Like many other things, that comes from the parents. If you bring up your child to be a loving person, you eliminate the amount of bullies in the world, and with the kids, they have to know that there’s nothing cool about it. When they sit around in a group and see cruelty, they should be ashamed of themselves, to sit there and let somebody who’s weaker, who’s being picked on, to be abused and not come to … [their] defense. It’s a cowardly act. It’s not a brave act to start a fight, to call names and take advantage of somebody who’s different. The other kids should be fighting with the victim, not with the bully who’s inflicting both mental and physical torture. The trauma that the children go through is sometimes permanent. It’s called post-traumatic stress disorder, which I also give money to fight, because many of the symptoms are alcoholism, drug addiction, depression and the worst case, suicide. From members of the LGBT community to the armed forces that come back from overseas, PTSD is a problem, and it comes from trauma to the mind, to the nervous system, from the soul. There’s no real cure for it. There’s treatment, there’s counseling, support groups. It’s sort of like Humpty Dumpty’s egg. Once it’s shattered, it’s hard to put yourself back together.
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Download Sir Ivan’s “Kiss All the Bullies Goodbye” on iTunes now!
