Interview: Terence Trent d'Arby with Che -  6. 1993
Channel: chemento
Date: 2018-05-20

Mr. K.P. Schleinitz - wherever he’s gone - was some sort of a genius. It was in the late 80s when we first met. Stout, dark, a vicious smile and a frown that would make Billy Idol blush. Always well dressed and exceptionally mannered, a perfect gentleman, he was. And he just knew what was going to come. In predictions were right on spot. Always. Well almost. In music, his soul biz, he knew exactly what to do & what was going on. He was a natural. He exploited the industry like no other, somehow managing to come up with the always needed money to produce or promote at the right time.

One day he came up to me and said: I got this American kid from Frankfurt, some sort of stranded leftover from the time the US Army had occupied that part of Germany after the second world war ended. This guy, funny name, couldn’t remember it at first, would be playing soon at one of my favorite hangouts in Munich. I was based in the Bavarian capital at that time, reporting on police & court matters - and on music, which wasn’t considered a full time occupation at that time. It was the time when Michael J. & Prince started to get big and Terence Trent d’Arby’s fate was, that he was ground in between those very solid musical rocks; no they were actually more like boulders. And Terrence was too brittle, too emotional, too unstable to survive in this biz. 

What a waste of talent! I wonder where he is today and most of all about what he’s doing… Someone told me, TTD lives in Italy now, that he’s married with child and that he changed his name.

That doesn’t even scratch the fact he was a genius. Period. I heard his music live, I heard him croon, I witnessed him perform, I was instantly and hopelessly in love. What a voice, how unique the sound & the songs and the lyrics I just loved, because they hit me right OMG! on the spot. Deep. Wow.

Some years later, long after TTD’s first - and only - worldwide smash hit longplayer „The Hardline according to TTD“. I worked for Germany’s first pay tv station I hab the idea of interviewing him. What had happen to TTD? It took a long time, a lot of phone calls & a lot of negotiation but it finally worked. 

Me and my team, consisting of my brother Stefan Eckert as producer, Per Sasha Zech as reporter for German fashion and trend magazine PRINZ went to California to meet TTD in his mansion-like house  in the hills of Hollywood, with gazillions of hummingbirds around us which he fed with little lamp-like posts everywhere in his huge blossoming garden, filled with sugared water. The birds seemed more like clouds of mosquitos. An absolutely amazing sight! We wanted to do the interview outdoors at first, but it was virtually impossible. The camera couldn’t „explain“ those whooshing, iridescent & flashy color-streaks crisscrossing the frame. 

After years and years of lying dormant in my archive, I present to you: The kind and wonderful, the marvelous Terence Trent d’Arby - talking to me about life, love and everything in his beautiful house in the glorious summer of 1993, in June. Everything was good then.

This interview first ran at Germany’s first pay tv station premiere a month later and it was on the title of PRINZ of the same month. 

Hope you enjoy, please leave comments! So sorry about the TC - gotta protect your rights!

Here's a great chat with him, done more recently: 
https://www.salon.com/2021/05/22/sananda-maitreya-on-being-spiritually-awakened-by-the-beatles-and-the-genius-of-george-harrison/

Here are some of TTDs videos: 

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ynIHsHYaig0

(Helmut Hattler on bass!)

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dluHzQhLcME

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LmobsqVKJu8