how are you my friend i'm very very well lovely to see you mate lovely to see you too congratulations i'm so oh gosh i don't even know if i have the words grateful is really the first word that springs to mind um and happy and proud of the fact that you've done it with us that you're 300 shows of what is truly a groundbreaking you know music experience the rocket hour congratulations my friend well i couldn't have done it without
your help because you would have asked one to ask me to do it and because i love you and i trust you and i know that you got the impeccable taste um sometimes um so i wanted to do it that i just thought it would be a great
opportunity for me to listen to new music and who i never thought it would lead to uh to doing so many shows i mean it's nearly i thought it was five years it's nearly six years of constant shows i don't think we've really missed anything um
and it we know what it's bought me it's brought me um it's brought me into contact with so many great new artists who become friends uh it's kept me so up to date with what's going on in fact i think i look better now than i did six years ago when i started it so it's like um music good music makes you look younger i don't know but it's just i've had such a great time and every week we find something new and something great to talk about
and you know i'm 74 now and i just think it's so i'm just as excited now as i was when i was you know a kid buying records with my record token so you're doing the best shows you've ever done you're doing the best shows you've ever
done this is the thing like and what what blows my mind is that um everyone who knows you or has has gotten to know you knows how dedicated you are to music and new music and fans do too because it's been well documented
in various documentaries um but but to hear you talk about it is so inspiring because somehow you're able to bring the experience that you've gained throughout your career but you've never lost that feeling of being a fan have you
a huge never and no i'm always been a fan and that's why when you hear something new it means more to me than when i listen to something that i know already and there's in my you know it's in my kind of computer in my brain and i love old
music and it just you know it's fantastic but when you hear someone young and someone who's doing something for the first time like when i played lord on the show for the first time when she was 16 or something or whatever or i played billy eilish or channel trey or marina sawayama or duolipo it's it's wonderful because you know you think god they're 16 or 17 15 years of age how do they do that um and so it's just it keeps me animated
and it keeps me so happy music makes you happy um and you know in the last few years it's not been a particularly wonderful political climate to go through then we've had the pandemic um and we've had a lot of violence and racial problems um and we've had economic problems and so throughout all of this um the music you know takes your mind of what's going on um and it's a joy it's a total joy it's not it's not a hard thing to do it's just
when david and i sit down and do it every uh four weeks i mean initially i did it with a man called duncan um wallace who was my producer in england and you know he passed away about two or three months ago and it was very very sad because he
started me and i had the most wonderful relationship with him um and if it wasn't for duncan i wouldn't have done as many shows because he kept me interested and he was enthusiastic as i do so i have to pay tribute to him um because
i don't want to forget him and i don't want him to be forgotten because it's a team thing um and it's just you know you know how much i love music and you do you're the same i mean for people who are listening to us in the program you know you and i ring each other and talk about music whether it's apple or not and um and it's that you have the same thing you're as connected as i am to music and you and it does the same view as it does for me
um so i'm eternally grateful for the rocket hour and it's just it's a blast what can i tell you i'm so i'm so thankful and and appreciative we all are that you that you mentioned duncan we used to we used to playfully nudge duncan and
say you know you've got the best gig and radio yeah because we'd be like you know if elton calls then of course we're putting you on a plane right wherever you went he would follow you to get these amazing rocket hours as well
but i also said to people you know duncan also had an incredibly important job in radio probably the most important job which was to ensure that you were not just content with the process but inspired and happy and excited and wanted to do the show because that's how important the show is but whenever i met duncan whether it was in london or the south of france or australia las vegas los angeles toronto new york wherever we we did these shows
um he would you know he was a fan too and it's not till i watched his funeral that i didn't know what a big fan of dance music electronic dance music he he was and so he used to turn me onto stuff and i used to turn him on stuff that he'd never
heard because he's younger than i am um and it was it was a great team you know it's not as if he just came along for the job and he was just putting the mic on recording me we would sit and listen to the music and
i said listen to this turn it up and yeah we'd have a blast because you have to have someone who loves music as much and you your producer is so important to you yeah um and so he was such a big part of what i did and i you know i have to pay tribute to him and i you know i call his wife up and see how she's doing and how the family are doing and other children are doing duncan was part of my life and every night i say my prayers and i say to god
give him a hug from me will you alton john we're talking with you your 300 shows the rocket hour um just such an essential experience for music fans um not just a benchmark for other artists who've come and done radio shows
i've completely lost count long ago the amount of artists have said well how does alton do it um but also you know really important moment you know for for you to make friendships and for you to to strike you know beyond just being a fan
um to be able to to be there for other artists and we've got artists who are here for you today to to celebrate this you'll recognize this young man's voice hey ellen it's tommy fender congratulations on your 300th episode of rocket hour
jesus christ that is memphis that's a lot of episodes um i just want to say thank you so much for the first time that you played my song on rocket hour it was such a big moment for me as a young artist because i remember kind of not many
stations playing our stuff at the time i think we had a couple of things a couple of players on radio one and that and there and when you picked it up that for me was a really big moment and a massive confidence boost for
for when i was when i was very very very very new to the scene um and i just think it's amazing that you've done that for so many other artists just keep on trucking on me you're an absolute legend and i love you a bit take care so my
love to the family bye yeah well there's a there's an example of someone who i played very early on and loved that album so much hypersonic missiles and in fact on the rocket show i've just put together this brand new single on show 299. um 17 going under we just got it just before we did the show we slipped it in there um and he's become a friend of the family and the boys we comes to stay he came and did our oscar party for us
and it's because of the rock it out that i got in touch with him and you know we interviewed him on the show um that he's become a dear friend um and i love him to bits and he's again part of our family and uh my boys absolutely love him sammy
fender sammy fender um it's just that's what the rocket show has done to me it's um people like tiana taylor when i interviewed her i ended up doing her video and it was so great and i love her to bits i would you know
i would never known tiana taylor if he wasn't for the rocketer well i wanted to ask you that because i know how busy and proactive you've been you know in collaboration mode um in particular in the last i would say
half a decade you know five ten years you've been very active working with some incredible artists on amazing projects um and i wonder you know how the rocket hour sort of how it weaves into that experience and where they're getting to know
artists through the show has kind of helped you in the collaborative space um it helps me totally because um getting to know people talking to them you know when i first came to america and i was successful i had uh affirmations from people like the
band george harris and leon russell neil diamond except for people bob dylan people that i admired i couldn't believe they were saying nice things about me and writing nice things about me so it's really important that i carry
that torch you call me you called me with my own i called them you with brace card when you were wrong yeah i was in liverpool and you made it your album of the year in rolling stone i mean do you that for me and my friends was i mean it was beyond our comprehension that you had gone on the record and and shared your thoughts on our on our music well that's what i it started before the rocket that what the rocket hour has done
it's widened my scope because i get so much sense so much more new stuff yeah and as soon as i get it and i like it i'm able to interview people on the show um that i would never been able to interview before i mean i'll give you some specific
answer channel trey was one person that i got to know um well hang on pause right there because because i'm i'm glad you mentioned channel tray hey ellen this is channel trace i just want to say happy 300th episode of
rocket hour oh man thank you so much rocket hour was one of the first um stations to play controller which was my first song that i ever put out and you were one of the first supporters my first co-sign and i just want to say thank you i
appreciate you and um keep going strong and um thank you for exposing us to new music and and um keeping us aware of the past the president of the future i mean you know that is such a wonderful message from someone who
who is so deliberate the way that he shows up and what he does and doesn't do and and you know his music is phenomenal and and also now i see his names on so many different things uh flight facilities i've just played flight facilities new record they're from uh from sydney but he was on the last one what about is sg lewis as well another incredible artist just another great example someone who loves channel trey and another great example
of of your love of dance music as well and the fact that you've spent so much time um over the course of your life championing great club culture and great club music we thought it would be a nice touch um to to welcome
somebody onto the show and there he is g lewis hi sam how are you hi elsa hi zayn how are you doing where are you um so i got stuck in standstill traffic so i was as you can imagine i was rather panicked sort of getting out of this uh at this crazy traffic jam
so i'm in the middle of nowhere in beckensville just like uh pulled over on the side of the road but i'm very happy to be here with you guys now i love listening to sans music and i've loved it for a long time and then he put the album out which i really loved and i've replayed the mark knight remix of one of the songs about two or three times um and i rang him up and i just got hold of him and said listen i think we were in the studio with ellie
goldie when i talked to you um um and it's just you know when you i just love what he does and he's british and he does it in a different way to everybody else so i love dance music um you know and we always end the show every rocket hour is
ending with a dance song and dance music is so under appreciated uh by critics and everyone else and it's been a pivotal part of my life when david and i get up and listen to things we'd always put dance music on
um because it's just a good way to start the day it's happy yeah and there's so much good stuff around and sg as or sam uh is a big part of that super talented i can't tell you how much that means and you know i grew up um in a house that played out into music as as most people did and it was a huge kind of formative part of of growing up in my musical education so it you know i feel very lucky now to be able to call him a friend and thank you
for supporting the music as well i really do appreciate it massively thanks time bye buddy guys thanks for having me alton you know you and i have spent numerous times on the phone nowhere near a microphone or any cameras or anything
of that nature talking about you know songs that we love and songs that you know you don't and i want to i i want to say i've never asked you this question but being such an influential taste maker in the world of music how do you know
how do you know when something really hits you how do you know when an arlo parks really grabs you um it's just the soul of it i mean when i first heard the first thing i ever heard from lord which was royals i just thought it was
unlike nothing i'd ever heard before and it was just it blew my mind it was so simple and yet so moving the same thing with billy eilish it was like when i hear her records there's nothing that's the space and the feel of it
when i heard channel trey um the controller it was like okay this guy's rapping over what is kind of like a dance beat music which no one really has ever done before um um and i just thought that was quite amazing and you have to bring these guys up and say this is amazing this is how do you do this kind of stuff um and and that's it you're always going to hear something new i mean when i first heard reena reena sawayama for example
and i heard our album and i raved about it and i you know i got to work with her i got to interview her for new york times magazine we became friends when she's doing a film right now in berlin i think she's got a part in
the new john wick movie so she's got a part in the new john wick movie but she's also taking the time to send you a message my friend oh really oh my god it's rina soyama congratulations on your 300th episode of rocket hour that is insane
well i remember the first time you played my music on your show and you gave it such a glowing review and i just could not believe it um because it's elton john your elton john for god's sake and yeah i mean you you did change my life i mean
it's incredible the support that you've given me uh so many times on the show even before the record came out and you're just supporting new and up-and-coming artists and helping boost their profile you know it it's just incredible you
don't need to do it but you do it and i've seen you first hand trawling through youtube uh everywhere online to find new music and i find it so inspiring so thank you for doing what you do i love you so much and obviously our favorite memory together is recording chosen family and doing the video together and doing that beautiful shoot at your house for new york times in our press shoot and i just think you are an incredible person and i love
you and your entire family oh that's amazing uh thank you i mean she's become a dear friend as well you see it's just incredible what this apple hour has done and there's another example for um when i the apple hour gave me the chance to play when apple did these shows at the roundhouse in london they had live music week and i got to work with gallon um rosie lowe um um parker millsap and christian in the queen so i championed a long
you know and it we they played with my band and i played and sang with them and it was just so great and they were all brilliant in that they're all different artists gallon is an incredible r b singer rosie lowe is kind of this like incredible
torch song electronic singer which is really brilliant um christine is just out of this world and parker is just like country blues americana and it was just such a great show and we all it all went down well because all these
different four artists who were from a different you know categories the audience loved all of them and that's what i love about the rocket show is that i can comply things that are totally different next to each other and and it just sounds the same if it's good it will work you know all right listen and that to me is that is is truly the one through line that the rocket hour has which is if it ain't great it ain't getting played
and uh and i think also that the way the way music has has changed shape you could trace it through the last six years of the rocket hour you know an artist like arlo park you know i think is is somebody whose music covers so much
ground in such a soulful way could only really have occurred in the last sort of half a decade five six years and you were right there when when arlo released her music and now she joins us on this celebrating this show for elton john's
300 i'm so great to see you and i'm so excited for what's happened to you with your album collapse in sunbeam it's such a great record it's on my turntable i've got a i've got a cd player with five cds in it because i'm such a luddite
and there are five series and euros hasn't moved um amazing it's just the most beautiful record it just gets better and better and better and i'm so thrilled about what's happened to her and she's got so much recognition
she did the brits he was brilliant on the brits it's so it's so heartwarming because these new young artists they put out these great albums like reena i light arlo and they couldn't tour them you know so they there wasn't any way of promoting this record um and one of the big bees in my bonnet now is is trying to work out with the government and with the european union and trying to get these ridiculous laws changed so that young artists can go
back to europe they earn their money from playing live and it's such an important thing which the rocket hours instilled in me is that these artists need to get out there and play that and all of that record
is you know which everybody loves i mean you know it's everybody say have you heard the arlo park it's true and i'm still through her she's like she's like a ray of sunshine it's lovely to see younger artists naming their influences like joan and
then jones record goes in the top five so it's brilliant it's great for music there's so much great new music around and arlo you you've done it already and it's just so brilliant i can't i'm so excited for you arlo how does it
feel to know that you have someone like elton in your corner who's not just a fan privately but also takes the time to share that love publicly and let people know that you know whatever inspiration i have for you as a writer or produ you
know performer an artist listen to me and trust me arlo is somebody you need to listen to that must mean the world i mean i'm still gobsmacked um i feel like but what i love about rocket hour is the fact that you are using your platform as such an
innovator and a force in music to uplift you know young artists who are beginning to develop themselves and kind of getting to grips with their identity and gaining confidence in their work and you kind of let them know like
what you're doing is amazing and keep being yourself and to have that kind of recognition from someone such as yourself is is really lovely so i'm very grateful oh you're well you're more than welcome because when you hear something inspiring like you've made with your album it's a no-brainer and uh you're such a for if you've got such a beautiful radiance about you you're so positive you exude positivity and that's what i love about you
and yeah i could squeeze you forever okay thank you very much thank you for joining us on the cell phone have a really wonderful evening in the uk wherever you are it's great to see you all until next time thank you say bye thank you bye bye she's i mean she is a she's a real one you know the first time i hear the real music it just it felt to me like there was the heart of a poet with the with the the real essence of a of a performer and an
artist but someone who is unafraid you know the truth i think is her comfort zone it's like when you first heard kate bush you know there was something really special there and arlo has it and that's great and it's just wonderful to see how her
record's done and celeste is another one and there's so many of these young artists that are coming up and they're so inspiring and it's just wonderful you love rock music we know that and i love this band and so do you
hey elton this is mike kerr speaking here from royal blood um just wanted to say a massive congratulations on your 300th episode of the rocket hour um i know that you've been a supporter of alice in the very beginning and i'll never forget the time uh you played us on your show um it was when we were just coming up and um yeah it was very very new and the idea of being anyone even hearing our music was kind of mad so to hear that you had
you discovered us and you played us on your show um yeah it was an amazing moment congratulations elton and hopefully we'll see you very soon i know i mean what a brilliant band and what an amazing story mike is just
on a personal level you know coming through his own struggles and his own challenges to to look incredible sound incredible that band's making the best music they've ever made and this is something that's very dear to your heart too is the
holistic well-being of the artistic spirit isn't it yeah well he's he's come through a lot and he's come he's in a really good place typhoons is just a whole new different shift into kind of dance and electronic which i love
um which is you know and the thing i loved about them first of all it was like white stripes you couldn't believe that two guys could make this noise i mean with jack and meg and then suddenly you got the you know raw blood with this guy on bass
guitar that's making it sound uh incredible with the most incredible drummer behind him and you can't believe there's only two people there and i just love that kind of thing and i just like the way they've grown musically as well and um i i haven't had the chance to see them live but i just i love people like that i love the pa people like um wolf alice who are trying to do different things um you know um and even friends of yours
like aussie like getting on the aussie record drew and um you know being able to work with people that understand how to bring modern music into the rock landscape and there's one individual who springs to mind who i think is doing that
incredibly well right now who's spending a lot of time working with amazing artists making amazing music and ensuring that you know the best possible result picking up grammy producer of the year and there he is oh my god you're all
buddy there's what are you andrew whitelist andrew has become one of my dearest friends in the last few few months i worked with andrew on an ozzy osbourne track called ordinary man which was the title of uh aussie's last record uh in atlanta and he came down with chad smith from the chili peppers and we did the track quite quickly and then all we did was talk about music and play each other music for about three or four hours like you
and i do when we get together and then this year he said you know i'm doing this metallica record um with miley cyrus so nothing else matters and i want to change i thought of doing it differently instead of starting off with guitar i wanted to do it with piano so i went in the studio in london to uh to our studio in london at the office and he and his i did the piano and nothing else matters at the beginning and i played through the whole thing
and it and he was right he gave it a completely new different take and he ended up with um the most unbelievable performance from miley with andrew playing guitar and and chad on drums and robert from metallica on base and yo-yo mar
ended up on it on cello i mean there you go and this is what this is what andrew does so well yeah is he has the ability to be able to combine all of these different sort of influences there is chad smith from the red hot chili pepper
i keep him in my oh my yeah keep him you've got him on a leash yeah you keep me in the pool he's your his second job is poor boy [Laughter] he's just about the best drummer in the world and uh yeah he's in the pool yeah i love it i love that hey we
couldn't do this without you without catching up with you andrew appreciate a few minutes say thanks to chad as well for the impromptu pool dive looking forward to seeing you soon bro and whatever comes from this this this
new friendship face time you soon love you bye sweetest dude ever and what an incredible producer and and um really excited to know that you two have crossed paths i mean just a powerful combination and a powerful friendship
you know elton i know that we're running out of time and there's only two very small things we want to get we want to do right now as we celebrate these 300 episodes of rocket hour um and then i'm going to ask you one final question
but first of all there's somebody who i know is very very dear to you um that that you've gotten to know relatively recently because she's only become an international global superstar uh very recently but she took the time to send a message and it's a really lovely message hi elton it's doa congratulations on your 300th episode of rocket hour i'll never forget when you played levitating on rocket hour i absolutely lost my mind i was so happy
that you liked the song and you were willing to play it on your show and i'm just i mean i know you know how much i love you because i'm obsessed with you and i just think you're absolutely incredible but i also love how
incredibly supportive you are of so many new artists and artists from all over the world and how much you champion and love and respect artists all over and it's just been an absolute dream getting to know you and getting to see all the magic
that you are i love you and congratulations mwah wow that amazing she's amazing i mean i just as you say i've only got david and i've only got to know her very recently um because she did our oscar party for us
um and was brilliant and professional modest humble incredibly on them on the money all the songs um and phenomenally beautiful in the most beautiful natural way um we had dinner with her in los angeles um and she walked into the restaurant and
everyone's just stopped and when she walked in um yeah she just has this inner inner beauty um and out of beauty but she is she deserves every success that comes her way and future nostalgia future nostalgia is never of our player
right out of control speaking speaking of david i wanted to i this is one of the other things i wanted to do because if we could invite david into the shot that would be really wonderful because i wanted to send a message to both of you
together because here he is erstwhile erstwhile location producer of the rocket hour david furnish everybody still employed still employed by the rocket hour radio show thankfully david david i wanted to get both of you together because um
you know this whole journey began with you and i in an office with with jimmy and a couple of other people and you were so receptive and so warm to the idea and and spoke lovingly on elton's behalf and said look you know you should meet
alton you should talk to him about it of course but i think he's going to love this and within a couple of days we were having dinner and it was it was the easiest sell i had to do in the entire time that we were building beats one it took 30 seconds flat before elton you got it but but this this show wouldn't have continued um without david without you being so instrumental and supportive to keeping us connected and so i wanted to say
thank you not just to you elton but to both of you for allowing us to continue to enjoy the rocket hour uh 300 shows it's an incredible milestone so thank you on behalf of all of us well listen when we do these shows together it's one of the greatest we takes about four hours to put the four shows together and we listen to all the stuff that comes along plus the stuff i have and we have the best time because he suggests something too
he'll say what about this what about that and i think it's great for both of us because we both love music and i think we have the best time doing it i mean right i'm just robin to your batman well which era but
thank you darling thank you very much i love you i love you both very much my last question to say goodbye is we will you keep going please can we get to 600 and 900 and a thousand maybe yeah you never know um you know goodbye love you bye you