I just did an interview last week with Vanity, aka Denise Matthews, and the interview is in audio format and can be heard here:

http://www.rockoveramerica.com/?view=Media&mediaid=83&type=1&file=media/1/83.wav

We talk about her background, Prince, Nikki Sixx, and her as Vanity, and also now as a preacher, and also about her upcoming new book, Blame It On Vanity.

Sincerely,

Mark Lewis

Founder and Editor-In-Chief

Rock Over America Magazine

www.rockoveramerica.com

markrockoveramerica said:

I just did an interview last week with Vanity, aka Denise Matthews, and the interview is in audio format and can be heard here:

http://www.rockoveramerica.com/?view=Media&mediaid=83&type=1&file=media/1/83.wav

We talk about her background, Prince, Nikki Sixx, and her as Vanity, and also now as a preacher, and also about her upcoming new book, Blame It On Vanity.

Sincerely,

Mark Lewis

Founder and Editor-In-Chief

Rock Over America Magazine

www.rockoveramerica.com

Thank's for the info. I love Vanity! God Bless her..........There's only one man she talks about in the book, well really two, God and Prince.I need that book!

thanks for sharing this!

Denise does seem like a sincere and nice person, but goodness is she difficult to interview! it seemed like there was some miscommunication at times with the questions and answers. Denise also seemed to want to control the interview

for me the most interesting tidbits:

-interesting to hear she mentioned MJ, Tammi Terrell and Marvin Gaye as what she listened to as a kid

-at the AMA's she met MJ and Prince back to back in minutes wonder what that was like

-when asked what was the name of her 1st film (Tanya's Island), she refused to name it cuz she doesn't want anyone to see it

-she only mentions wanting to be paid more as to why she left Prince/Vanity 6

-refuting what Nikki Sixx claims in his book, Denise says he DID propose to her with a $20,000 ring In Nikki's book he claims Vanity just went around wearing a ring she bought herself and would tell the press they were engaged... so I guess their story will always be a case of he said, she said.

-she says getting married to Anthony Smith was the stupidest thing she ever did

-she has met up recently with Sheila E., Dez Dickerson and Matt Fink since they're all born-agains

-at the end of the interview she was kind of asking for the audio to be edited, since there are some awkward miscommunication moments

Well, first off - thanks for sharing that. It was very nice of you to do so.

Secondly, no offense but a good interviewer asks questions; a GREAT interviewer creates a palette for a story to unfold. Part of the way that is done is by letting the "interviewee" speak and not by trying to lead. IF you allow them space, they will tell their side the way they want to. Of course, everyone is different. Some people have to be coaxed into answers. Ms. Matthews was not one of those people. She had to correct you on several pieces of info that you had wrong. If you had been a bit less leading, that could have been averted. She was quite the handful, yes - nonetheless, if you're going to ask questions, you should allow them to be answered by the person you asked. You did a good job on picking the right questions and very politely treading in what could have been delicate issues, like how you dodged the bullet on the "Tanya's Island" question. We know that was the movie she was talking about. Its unlikely she meant Terror Train. I'm sure you knew what it was and just didn't say the name, which was good because I'm sure she doesn't want people looking it up and finding it. Unlike the disastrous Sheila E interview , you knew when to pull out.

Congrats on the interview. You got an hour out of her. Pretty good.

[Edited 8/4/10 23:54pm]

when I did the interview, I wanted to keep this to 30 minutes or less. I wanted to be very brief so not much would be given away from her book. I hadn't seen the book yet, so I did not know how far in depth she goes into things such as Nikki Sixx, which she doesn't, as i found out later. I just wanted to ask basic questions to get an overview for people, particularly those not in christian circles who to this day think she is perhaps dead IE those who don't watch TBN or follow her in christian circles. I have had over 20 people tell me they were surprised she is still alive. I had to rephrase questions over again at different times such as when I mentioned "Okay after the relationship ended with Nikki Sixx, you then met your husband" I had only wanted to touch on the fact that she dated Nikki Sixx, she was then married to her ex husband for a brief period of time and then met jesus Christ. This is the most important part of her life, and understandably so. This is the main focus of her book but for those who don't know what happened to her in the past 18 years, I wanted to give them a little background. I had to rephrase things because on the subject of Nikki Sixx, by just saying after Nikki you met your husband , she had mentioned you make it sound like I jumped guy to guy, and I said, "let me reprhase the question, after a relationship in our life ends we meet someone else" and then again I had to rephrase the question again "After a relationship in our life ends we take time to heal and eventually meet someone new" and at that point she mentioned I did go from man to man. I never even wanted to go there. I was trying at all times to make her look good and sound wonderful. Being a born again Christian as well, the image the world sees of you will make you or break you, I don't want anyone to ever look at her in a bad light. I don't not like gossip or rumor.

I grew up listening to her, as most all of us did ,and thought she was an amazing talent, just wonderful. As mimi2 had mentioned in her post, it was a little difficult at times, and things seemed to go off track, so if I talked alot I was just trying to get things on track. I had mentioned in the beginning of the interview, as I do in all interviews, "This is Mark from Rock Over America Magazine" and later on in the interview she had asked if we could take calls. I had talked with her on 4 different occasions 2 weeks before we did the interview and had let her know I own a magazine and the interview was going to be uploaded in audio format and would run unedited, anm that I was not a radio show. She said good, because she didn't want anyone to add or take away anything she said about Jesus. I had asked about Michael Jackson and if his being such an awesome dancer and overall great performer, who will undoubtly go down in history as perhaps the greatest entertainer of all time, since she sings and dances, in her videos and when she was performing on stage, if that had influenced her as a performer, and she had started talked about "well, I never wanted to get his autograph when I met him, so I re-asked the question and then she said "yes his singing and dancing had an impact on her as a performer".

She had said at the end of the interview that she had enjoyed it, and to this day I still think she is awesome. Sometimes when you do an interview things can go in unexpected directions, or take different turns, this was one of those occassions.

If I sounded leading in any way, I only had wanted to do one thing, lead the interview in a chronological order from when she was growing up and then started performing until today as a preacher and the release of her book. As I mentioned before, alot of people don't know if she is still alive. We all know she had such an amazing voice, she has been panned on some of her albums by ciritcs, but if it means anything, for example, Rolling Stone picked "Knocking on Heaven's Door by Bob Dylan as the greatest song of all time, most would disagree, and I am sure most all of would agree as well that her albums were all wonderful and the critics were nuts when they panned her at times.

In response to Blaque Knight, Thank you for your compliments, but sometimes you had to lead an interview to keep on track, or if not, you may end up taking for 45 minutes on just one subject and never get to anywhere else. That is the only reason why I was trying to lead questions. My focus was to talk about her influences growing up, Prince (who she had mentioned in the beginning of our conversations she would be happy to talk about) Nikki Sixx for a brief couple of minutes, mainly just what it was like , as I had mentioned to be in the Pop world and then step into the Heavy Metal world, two totally different circles, many people don't get to see both sides, then touch on being married and in the that rtime frame is when she had met Jesus and had her life transformed which opens up the main focal point of her life as we know it now, and I would have actually liked to have heard more about some of the wonderful pictures she has picked out in her book, and things like that.

I hope this will help anyone who wonders, understand where I was coming from and what happened in the interview. She had wanted to talk alot about her new book, and I did too, but for those who wonder what ever happened to her and for those who may not know her that well other than some of her songs and the movie The Last Dragon, I wanted to get some background in the interview, from her in her own words, rather than just writing notes and placing them at the bottom of the interview, because people do like to hear and learn about those things. So the first part of the interview is about her life before Jesus, and then I had wanted to mainly go into her life as a Born Again Christian. I will always say she is an awesome person and would be more than happy to again interview her at some point.

Anyone who has any questions for me about this interview is more than welcome to email me thru the magazine, in the "contact us" section

Sincerely,

Mark Lewis

Founder and Editor-In-Chief

Rock over America Magazine

www.rockoverameria.com

[Edited 8/5/10 0:52am]

[Edited 8/9/10 2:29am]

Thanks for posting, listening now

She was pretty defensive, huh.

[Edited 8/5/10 4:18am]

markrockoveramerica said:

when I did the interview, I wanted to keep this to 30 minutes or less. I wanted to be very brief so not much would be given away from her book. I hadn't seen the book yet, so I did not know how far in depth she goes into things such as Nikki Sixx, which she doesn't, as i found out later. I just wanted to ask basic questions to get an overview for people, particularly those not in christian circles who to this day think she is perhaps dead IE those who don't watch TBN or follow her in christian circles. I have had over 20 people tell me they were surprised she is still alive. I had to rephrase questions over again at different times such as when I mentioned "Okay after the relationship ended with Nikki Sixx, you then met your husband" I had only wanted to touch on the fact that she dated Nikki Sixx, she was then married to her ex husband for a brief period of time and then met jesus Christ. This is the most important part of her life, and understandably so. This is the main focus of her book but for those who don't know what happened to her in the past 18 years, I wanted to give them a little background. I had to rephrase things because on the subject of Nikki Sixx, by just saying after Nikki you met your husband , she had mentioned you make it sound like I jumped guy to guy, and I said, "let me reprhase the question, after a relationship in our life ends we meet someone else" and then again I had to rephrase the question again "After a relationship in our life ends we take time to heal and eventually meet someone new" and at that point she mentioned I did go from man to man. I never even wanted to go there. I was trying at all times to make her look good and sound wonderful. Being a born again Christian as well, the image the world sees of you will make you or break you, I don't want anyone to ever look at her in a bad light. I don't not like gossip or rumor.

I grew up listening to her, as most all of us did ,and thought she was an amazing talent, just wonderful. As mimi2 had mentioned in her post, it was a little difficult at times, and things seemed to go off track, so if I talked alot I was just trying to get things on track. I had mentioned in the beginning of the interview, as I do in all interviews, "This is Mark from Rock Over America Magazine" and later on in the interview she had asked if we could take calls. I had talked with her on 4 different occasions 2 weeks before we did the interview and had let her know I own a magazine and the interview was going to be uploaded in audio format and would run unedited, anm that I was not a radio show. She said good, because she didn't want anyone to add or take away anything she said about Jesus. I had asked about Michael Jackson and if his being such an awesome dancer and overall great performer, who will undoubtly go down in history as perhaps the greatest entertainer of all time, since she sings and dances, in her videos and when she was performing on stage, if that had influenced her as a performer, and she had started talked about "well, I never wanted to get his autograph when I met him, so I re-asked the question and then she said "yes his singing and dancing had an impact on her as a performer".

She had said at the end of the interview that she had enjoyed it, and to this day I still think she is awesome. Sometimes when you do an interview things can go in unexpected directions, or take different turns, this was one of those occassions.

If I sounded leading in any way, I only had wanted to do one thing, lead the interview in a chronological order from when she was growing up and then started performing until today as a preacher and the release of her book. As I mentioned before, alot of people don't know if she is still alive. We all know she had such an amazing voice, she has been panned on some of her albums by ciritcs, but if it means anything, for example, Rolling Stone picked "Knocking on Heaven's Door by Bob Dylan as the greatest song of all time, most would disagree, and I am sure most all of would agree as well that her albums were all wonderful and the critics were nuts when they panned her at times.

In response to Blaque Knight, Thank you for your compliments, but sometimes you had to lead an interview to keep on track, or if not, you may end up taking for 45 minutes on just one subject and never get to anywhere else. That is the only reason why I was trying to lead questions. My focus was to talk about her influences growing up, Prince (who she had mentioned in the beginning of our conversations she would be happy to talk about) Nikki Sixx for a brief couple of minutes, mainly just what it was like , as I had mentioned to be in the Pop world and then step into the Heavy Metal world, two totally different circles, many people don't get to see both sides, then touch on being married and in the that rtime frame is when she had met Jesus and had her life transformed which opens up the main focal point of her life as we know it now, and I would have actually liked to have heard more about some of the wonderful pictures she has picked out in her book, and things like that.

I hope this will help anyone who wonders, understand where I was coming from and what happened in the interview. She had wanted to talk alot about her new book, and I did too, but for those who wonder what ever happened to her and for those who may not know her that well other than some of her songs and the movie The Last Dragon, I wanted to get some background in the interview, from her in her own words, rather than just writing notes and placing them at the bottom of the interview, because people do like to hear and learn about those things. So the first part of the interview is about her life before Jesus, and then I had wanted to mainly go into her life as a Born Again Christian. I will always say she is an awesome person and would be more than happy to again interview her at some point.

Anyone who has any questions for me about this interview is more than welcome to email me thru the magazine, in the "contact us" section

Sincerely,

Mark Lewis

Founder and Editor-In-Chief

Rock over America Magazine

www.rockoverameria.com

[Edited 8/5/10 0:52am]

You did good markrockoveramerica, I got a lot of tidbits from her interview. Now I really want the book!...............Thank u again

markrockoveramerica said:

I just did an interview last week with Vanity, aka Denise Matthews, and the interview is in audio format and can be heard here:

http://www.rockoveramerica.com/?view=Media&mediaid=83&type=1&file=media/1/83.wav

We talk about her background, Prince, Nikki Sixx, and her as Vanity, and also now as a preacher, and also about her upcoming new book, Blame It On Vanity.

Sincerely,

Mark Lewis

Founder and Editor-In-Chief

Rock Over America Magazine

www.rockoveramerica.com

cool thanks for sharing

thanks for posting.

interesting interview.

It's great you got the interview, but honestly - haven't we heard these stories before? Drugs. Prince. Nikki Sixx (he talked about it in his book, and she even wrote a response which he included). We know she's a born again Christian. We know she almost died from drugs. We know her body was basically shutting down for a long time. We know Prince put her "Vibrator" vocals on "Orgasm" to allow her to get some $$$ as a "performer royalty".

I guess my query is, what is new in the interview that is going to perk up a Prince fan's ears as something we've not heard before?

ernestsewell said:

It's great you got the interview, but honestly - haven't we heard these stories before? Drugs. Prince. Nikki Sixx (he talked about it in his book, and she even wrote a response which he included). We know she's a born again Christian. We know she almost died from drugs. We know her body was basically shutting down for a long time. We know Prince put her "Vibrator" vocals on "Orgasm" to allow her to get some $$$ as a "performer royalty".

I guess my query is, what is new in the interview that is going to perk up a Prince fan's ears as something we've not heard before?

I think this interview is not geared towards people who already know but rather people who don't know what happened to her and would be interested in an update to what's going on in her life right now. Often times, listening to someone be interviewed is a clue into their personality as well.

That was the worst interviewer that I've ever heard. Couldn't even sit through the rest of the interview. Why even bother to interview her if he's going to answer the questions, and give a summary, and then rush her through it. He should have just presented a summary to his audience. His voice was irritating. I think Monique is a better interviewer than that guy. And that's not saying alot.

Reel said:

That was the worst interviewer that I've ever heard. Couldn't even sit through the rest of the interview. Why even bother to interview her if he's going to answer the questions, and give a summary, and then rush her through it. He should have just presented a summary to his audience. His voice was irritating. I think Monique is a better interviewer than that guy. And that's not saying alot.

I never even made it to the interview because I found the intro completely tortured and unlistenable.

A journalist's first job is to understand that the audience isn't really interested in what s/he has to say. They want to hear the person the story is about.

Not trying to offend - just saying a little judicious editing might be in order. Which one might think he'd be adept at...you know...being an "editor in chief" and all.

[Edited 8/7/10 7:45am]

If anyone has any questions about my interview or the way it went, please refer to my post above concerning this.

It explains everything.

Sincerely,

Mark Lewis
Founder and Editor-In-Chief
Rock Over America Magazine

[Edited 8/9/10 3:03am]

markrockoveramerica said:

I could have just introduced her and let her go in any direction she chose to go and if she rambled any and everywhere, then I am not sure any of the "critics" would have been happy either. Would anyone have just liked to hear a 5 minute interview on her book alone, or just hear about Jesus?

Dude, Jesus saved her life. It's all she's talked about for 15 years or so. So yeah, we expect to hear her joy for the Lord.For your buddies who thought she was dead, they're guaranteed to hear about her walk with Christ, because it's the reason she's alive today. And she will tell anyone who listens, and a few who won't.

The point of an interview is to point the person in a direction, but let them tell their story as they have experienced it. We don't want to hear more about how she was on drugs and in love with Prince, and how she got her name, and blah blah blah. She's not exactly going to hum a few bars of "Drive Me Wild" for everyone. Before I interview anyone, I tell them that I want it to be more like a conversation, not a Barbara Walters interview. I tell them, "If you have a story you want to go off on, or expound on something we're talking about, go for it. I'd rather people hear you, than me."

Yes you can reel her back in with a specific question, but don't try to cut her off and make her turn left just because she was turning right. It disrupts the flow of a good interview. Hell, some of the good Prince interviews is just the interviewer letting him talk. Jay Leno could say "You don't like contracts", and Prince goes off for 5 minutes comparing his deal with the latest Mariah Carey deal with Virgin. I'd rather hear him say that, than talk about "if you don't own your masters, you're a slave" stuff again.

As wacky as the Tavis interview was with chem-trails, etc, the fact is that Smiley let Prince just go on about stuff. Tavis said "Dick Gregory" and BAM! 10 minutes of great sound bites (although wacky in nature - they surely won't boring). Hell people are still talking about Prince and chem-trails. Tavis didn't try to pull him back and ask, "So who would you want in the Purple Rain remake?"

So let her go on about what she wants? Hell yeah!

markrockoveramerica said:

As I said earlier, not everyone will be happy, no matter who does an interview. Just a thought, if you are unhappy with the interview and feel you could do much better, than please do an interview with Denise and post it for all of us. I am not mad or upset, I just don't have any other answer for the "Critics".

Sincerely,

Mark Lewis

Founder and Editor-In-Chief

Rock Over America Magazine

[Edited 8/7/10 17:03pm]

I apologize for skimming the thread and not realizing that the person who did the interview was in fact on this very thread. I would have been a lot more tactful in my critique.

I know that everyone has different styles of interviewing, however as others have said on the post, it's good to come super duper prepared with questions that will "prompt" the individual to expand upon. The interviewer's role is kinda like a stage hand that wears "all black" as to not be detected by the audience while doing an essential job for the set (does this make sense?). You want to "get out of the way" as you do your job to facilitate the discussion. It didn't happen in that interview. It felt like you were desperately trying to hard to control the direction of her discussion, and it was obvious that she also sensed it based on one of her responses. And although I didn't listen to the entire interview, the parts that I did listen to you did as much talking as she did. And even for interviewers who have a "conversation style" of interviewing, the conversation you had was very strained, and again more from the interviewer than the interviewee. Not to say that you didn't but I'd have a better prepared que-card with "prompts" by you instead of lengthy dialogue, and lengthy introduction.

Again, sorry about the bluntness, I didnt realize that you were on board here. Perhaps this critique may better point out why I made the comment that I did.

Mark, I want to thank you for posting this interview and I personally thought you did a great job. I found out a lot of things about her that I'd never known before and more details about things that I'd wondered about (dates things happened, circumstances, etc). You handled things very well when she seemed to fly off the handle at times for no apparent reason.

And to anyone out there bashing it, lets see if you can do better.

So she is not married anymore? I was just looking at her website and she has a really nice photo album on there with pictures throughout her life, childhood etc, the 80s and there's one of her with a man she says is her husband (they are with a car that she also loves too according to the playful caption).

I don't know who he is (but he looks gorgeous in the picture!). Is that her ex husband?

I am very happy for her that she is happy now and hope her health continues to improve.

Really? I wondered if she and Sheila talk now since they are both involved with their churces.

Matt Fink---As far as I know he is Jewish. Are you sure about that last one??

mimi2 said:

-she has met up recently with Sheila E., Dez Dickerson and Matt Fink since they're all born-agains

mimi2 said:

-she says getting married to Anthony Smith was the stupidest thing she ever did

-she has met up recently with Sheila E., Dez Dickerson and Matt Fink since they're all born-agains

Stupidest isn't a word, properly. You don't add "est" to the end of a word with "id" on the end, silly mama.

Matt Fink is Jewish, by the way, not a Protestant.

[Edited 8/10/10 20:14pm]

ernestsewell said:

Stupidest isn't a word, properly. You don't add "est" to the end of a word with "id" on the end, silly mama.

Well, then tell that to Denise because that was the word SHE used. Mimi was just quoting her.

mimi2 said:

thanks for sharing this!

Denise does seem like a sincere and nice person, but goodness is she difficult to interview! it seemed like there was some miscommunication at times with the questions and answers. Denise also seemed to want to control the interview

for me the most interesting tidbits:

-interesting to hear she mentioned MJ, Tammi Terrell and Marvin Gaye as what she listened to as a kid

-at the AMA's she met MJ and Prince back to back in minutes wonder what that was like

-when asked what was the name of her 1st film (Tanya's Island), she refused to name it cuz she doesn't want anyone to see it

-she only mentions wanting to be paid more as to why she left Prince/Vanity 6

-refuting what Nikki Sixx claims in his book, Denise says he DID propose to her with a $20,000 ring In Nikki's book he claims Vanity just went around wearing a ring she bought herself and would tell the press they were engaged... so I guess their story will always be a case of he said, she said.

-she says getting married to Anthony Smith was the stupidest thing she ever did

-she has met up recently with Sheila E., Dez Dickerson and Matt Fink since they're all born-agains

-at the end of the interview she was kind of asking for the audio to be edited, since there are some awkward miscommunication moments

Matt Fink is a born again? Jewish Matt Fink?

markrockoveramerica said:

I could have just introduced her and let her go in any direction she chose to go and if she rambled any and everywhere, then I am not sure any of the "critics" would have been happy either. Would anyone have just liked to hear a 5 minute interview on her book alone, or just hear about Jesus?

I certainly don't want to hear Denise prattle on about Jesus, but in this interview you talk more than she does. To interview someone you have to ask pointed questions and then let the subject tell her story. This interview seems like you are almost badgering her, and she's struggling to respond. I couldn't really get through it.

ernestsewell said:

Matt Fink is Jewish, by the way, and a Protestant.

HUH???

GaryMF said:

ernestsewell said:

Matt Fink is Jewish, by the way, and a Protestant.

HUH???

Typo. He's Jewish, NOT a born-again Christian.

ernestsewell said:

GaryMF said:

HUH???

Typo. He's Jewish, NOT a born-again Christian.

That's what I thought

BTW "Stupidest" is a word AFIK

GaryMF said:

ernestsewell said:

Typo. He's Jewish, NOT a born-again Christian.

That's what I thought

BTW "Stupidest" is a word AFIK

The general rule is you don't add "est" to the end of a word that ends in "id".

The superlative form of stupid is most stupid, as in I made the most stupid mistake, not stupidest. Stupidest can be heard and seen everywhere, but it's wrong. Stupid is just like lucid (same -id ending). The comparative form is more lucid, and the superlative form is most lucid. Likewise, the comparative form of stupid is more stupid, and the superlative form is most stupid. In fact, in general, -id words use more and most instead of -er and -est. (The water was more tepid, he was the most lucid, they could have been more candid, his reflexes have grown more torpid, the milk was the most rancid, his tongue had grown more acrid. No one would even think to say tepidest, lucidest, candidest, torpidest, rancidest, or acridest.)

as Diana80 said, I was just listing what Denise said in the interview

I don't know that much about Matt Fink and I believe you guys when you say he's Jewish but it did sound like Denise mentioned him along with Sheila and Dez when talking about people who are now born agains. There are a few times during the interview when it's hard to understand her because of her phone or something. Is there anyone else associated with Prince who has a name similar to Fink that she could have been talking about? I clearly heard "Matt" and something that sounded like or rhymed with "Fink".

[Edited 8/10/10 20:53pm]

ernestsewell said:

GaryMF said:

That's what I thought

BTW "Stupidest" is a word AFIK

The general rule is you don't add "est" to the end of a word that ends in "id".

The superlative form of stupid is most stupid, as in I made the most stupid mistake, not stupidest. Stupidest can be heard and seen everywhere, but it's wrong. Stupid is just like lucid (same -id ending). The comparative form is more lucid, and the superlative form is most lucid. Likewise, the comparative form of stupid is more stupid, and the superlative form is most stupid. In fact, in general, -id words use more and most instead of -er and -est. (The water was more tepid, he was the most lucid, they could have been more candid, his reflexes have grown more torpid, the milk was the most rancid, his tongue had grown more acrid. No one would even think to say tepidest, lucidest, candidest, torpidest, rancidest, or acridest.)

According to Oxford dictionaries (http://oxforddictionaries.com/view/entry/m_en_us1295145#m_en_us1295145) As well as my American Heritage dictionary:

adjective

(-pid·er, -pid·est)

But I do agree with you, "most stupid" sounds more correct and is what I tend to use.

[Edited 8/11/10 4:49am]