January 29 will see her new single Armed And Famous goes to radio.

Here's an exclusive interview with Toy's manager, Jeffre Philips, taken from churchoflatoya.com

Jeffre Phillips Interview, 2007

Matt Emrick caught up with La Toya's manager Jeffre Philips for an exclusive interview.

M: Hello Jeffre! Thanks for taking the time to speak with me!
J: It's my pleasure. I love what you guys are doing & I'm willing to do all I can to make you guys happy! Here's something that you can go ahead and share with everyone: La Toya spent last week recording a brand new track called "Armed & Famous." Right now, as of today - it's being mixed right now. Wednesday or Thursday it's being sent to radio, then at at point it will probably start playing a week from Monday.

M: Is this going to be a mass release or just to test out certain markets
J: It's for the entire US. It's gonna be out in the major markets but it'll spread. You may not hear it for a few weeks but it'll be out there. We're going to make a music video for it & we're moving forward with the album.

M: Did Peter Roberts produce it like he did the rest of the album?
J: No, he didn't. He did not produce this track. Actually, I produced this track. I've been producing & doing all this stuff for years. I produced this track. It's incredible, La Toya's vocals are incredible, what she wrote on the song is incredible, everything about it is incredible. We're so pleased with it - she's so pleased with it. Universal's pleased with it & everyone's loving it, so we can't wait to get it out there.

M: So I can tell everyone about that right?
J: You can tell everyone about that. Actually, I was gonna have a post go up on her website this week but if you want to break the exclusive news, you can do that.

M: A poster on the Church Of La Toya's forum spoke with you some months back & you told him that there was a song called "Startin' Over" which was going to be the first single. Was that true at one point?
J: That was true at one point, but because of the success of the show and everything - they really wanted La Toya to do the theme song for the show but she couldn't do it. She was on the set for five weeks, filming eighteen hours a day. She didn't have one day off. She came back to Los Angeles for Christmas & during that week we had her in the studio to complete songs for the album. The track list on the album is totally different than what you guys knows about. We knew that was going to happen a couple of years ago. We knew it would get on the internet & everybody would hear it.

M: It took a long time, but it happened.
J: It did take a long time, but do you know what? I know how you guys say we don't - but I know what I'm doing here. I've been doing this for twenty years. I worked at Sony. I've broken a lot of records. I know what I'm doing, but timing is everything. It had to happen at the right time. You don't want to put out the album during Michael's trial or Janet's Super Bowl thing because it's just not the appropriate thing to do.

M: You're really just looking out for a possible backlash, people who think she's trying to cash in on the publicity.
J: Exactly. Let's go back: the album was done September of '02. Now at that particular time, as you guys know, we didn't have a distribution deal for the company. It's not that there wasn't one on the table - we had many offers, but you know a little bit about this business. There are always people trying to rip you off. We went through that problem with almost every major record company. They wanted the whole pie. They couldn't handle just taking a piece of it. So what happened was we decided, 'Let's drop "Just Wanna Dance"!' "Just Wanna Dance" did very well in the dance world, even
better than people expected it to do.

M: I think a lot of that had to do with marketing it as Toy instead of La Toya Jackson & people having no preconceived notions attached to that name.
J: I decided to do it that way just because of that. La Toya & I discussed it and decided that since everybody calls her Toy now anyway - we call her Toy, her family calls her Toy, and her Toy Soldiers - she said let's go ahead & do 'Toy'. The song did well. DJs couldn't believe it was a La Toya track & they loved it. So what happened was I revisited Universal. They loved the whole concept of the album. They took it seriously. They listened to the album & loved it and I got the deal with them in December of 2004. That was around the time the Super Bowl incident occurred with Janet, so we said we'd wait until maybe April to put it out. Well, in that time, the whole Michael trial thing started & we were still dealing with the baby-dangling incident, so we had to wait a year for that to die down. We had to wait a year for the trial. When the trial was over in June of '05 we decided to put it out the following June. But at that point, which was this past June, we had started doing new music & it just wasn't ready.

M: Are you guys nervous now, though, with Michael being back in the studio working on a new album & how that might overshadow the potential success of "Startin' Over"?
J: Absolutely not, and let me tell you why. I firmly believe, and La Toya believes that the album is going to do well. And even if it doesn't, La Toya's in a great place in her life right now. La Toya is very happy. She just wants to put her music out there & she's not worried about Michael's album coming out. Michael's album isn't supposed to come out until December of '07, but the way it's looking, it probably won't be out until '08. I don't even want to tell you when La Toya's album is going to be out but it's going to be out soon.

M: Have you scheduled a time to film the video yet?
J: We have not, but if the single picks up & starts to do well, we are prepared to do a music video. We have several great choices for a second single & this is going to be done right. The album is definitely going to come out this year. We have nothing but good things going on right now. You know, with the TV show going on. It's all set up properly. We're gonna market it & promote it properly. There's nothing for anyone to worry about. All you guys have to do is sit back & enjoy the music because it's absolutely wonderful. La Toya's done an incredible job with this album & I'm so proud of her. From day one, she's probably up to about forty-five songs that she's recorded. They're all good & they're all gonna be used at some point in time. But right now, I think there's only two songs that are gonna be on this album that you guys probably already know of. "Just Wanna Dance," of course, has to be on the album. Everybody loves that song, so we have to put it on the album. Though I can't tell you what the other one is.

M: What about "Free The World"? Will it not be on the album?
J: Well, the album is a dance album. And to be honest with you, "Free The World" doesn't fit. That's the only reason why it won't be on there. She has so much new material that's just been recorded. Since last year at about this time, she's done another fourteen or fifteen tracks. And just since Christmas, she's done three tracks. She recorded "Armed & Famous" this week & the week before that she recorded two tracks. So since about September, she has about nine new, fresh tracks that are really hot that we're just lovin'. The album's mainly gonna be dance.

M: A lot of her success over the years has come from the European market. So are there any plans to release the album on a worldwide scale or are you just focusing on the States right now?
J: Right now we're focusing on the U.S. & Canada but eventually it will be overseas. I feel, eventually, that if the album comes out on a Tuesday we'd probably have it overseas within the next thirty to forty-five days, in all markets. She's gonna support the album with a promotional tour & with a singing tour, so this year you guys are gonna see a lot of La Toya. This show is only one of many things that you guys will be shocked to see.

M: Well, honestly, I think everyone was shocked to see La Toya on "Armed & Famous," doing as well as she did. La Toya is not one that you would think of as a physical person. She's more quiet & reserved.
J: Let me tell you something: I was there on the set with her basically every day. La Toya worked really hard on that show. She really wanted to become a cop. She had never worked a job before; she wanted to work. Any cop in Muncie can tell you that La Toya became the top cop. She started out as the underdog. It was very difficult for her to do push-ups. She ran 1.5 miles in under fifteen minutes. She did thirty sit-ups in thirty seconds. When she first started out with the gun - the way they edited it on TV was different than what really happened. With the gun, she couldn't shoot it at all. La Toya & I, along with CBS, thought, "OK, the Muncie Police Department is not gonna let her be a cop," because she was doing so bad at shooting. But you know what? She was determined to do it & one of the instructors there said, "La Toya, this is how you need to hold your gun." La Toya, every time, would only shoot X's, which is the centre. They showed a little bit of it on TV, but you don't really know what happened. La Toya ended up becoming one of their best shooters. Jack Osbourne was the best. He's awesome. La Toya was the underdog and ended up becoming Rambo. There's a lot more for you to see on the show. She was a prostitute for an evening.


M: That's this week's episode, I believe.
J: Is it? I'm excited for you to see it. She busted a big drug raid & got, like, fifteen pounds of marijuana. She's done some great things that's coming up. You'll see her going to the school & reading books to children. She goes to a domestic violence home. She does everything on this show. Me, knowing her & knowing the family for so many years, I'm very proud of what she's done. As we all know, including you guys, La Toya has never been that physical. She's never done anything like that & she really misses being a cop.

M: I saw, from her conversations on the show with Jackie & her mother, that they seemed to be more surprised than anyone.
J: They were very surprised. Janet said a month or so ago, on the "Ellen" show - I don't know if you saw that - that La Toya doesn't do anything more than pick up her purse. [Laughs] Oh, you know what? It was "The Tyra Banks
Show." Tyra asked Janet, "Who would win in a fight - you or La Toya?" La Toya has never picked up anything heavier than her purse, which is absolutely true. And now for her to do this? La Toya misses being a cop so, so much that she just told me last week, "Jeffre, please make it so I can go back to Muncie for two weeks. No cameras, no nothing. I just wanna work the street & help the people out."

M: That's the next thing I was going to ask about, whether she had expressed interest in returning to Muncie for that purpose.
J: There's no other thought in her mind about it. She is an official officer now. Nothing is fake on the show. I was there. She's a cop: she carries a badge, she carries a gun twenty-four/seven. She is a cop in Indiana.

M: You just mentioned that the show was completely unscripted. People have been talking about La Toya's fear of cats and many were wondering how exaggerated or staged that might have been. Is there any substance in that?
J: Let's put it like this: I think La Toya's a good actress, from the things I've seen her act in, but nobody is that good of an actress. I've been working with La Toya now for eight years. You know, when you drive around town, you're in a restaurant, whatever, and a cat comes running by, La Toya freezes. She breaks out in hives. She will faint. This is something that's been going on her entire life. There is absolutely nothing exaggerated about it. That was La Toya's true fear of cats. I spoke with Janet when Janet saw that episode & she called me and said, "Jeffre, I love that, but I think
only the family can appreciate what La Toya just went through because the world doesn't realise how frightened she is of cats." And now that La Toya's done that, I've gotten more e-mails & fan letters of people saying, "Wow, I have the same fear that you have of cats!" There is absolutely nothing scripted about this show. I was there.

M: I'm glad, because with a lot of reality shows, you're always wondering what's real & what's not, what's been set up, what words have been put in peoples' mouths.
J: Every single thing was real. It was so real that it threw me back because I knew when La Toya went out in the streets that she's a cop, that anyone could shoot her. It's not like they got out there & set up the scene & said, "Okay, La Toya, jump in! Action!" It was nothing like that. Nothing at all.

M: While we're talking about television - La Toya appeared on a few shows in the early '90s. Has she thought about getting back into acting or is music her top priority?
J: La Toya has got the acting bug now. [Laughs] Especially after doing this show. For her, she didn't really do a show, 'cause that's reality. They just filmed what she was doing every day. But she is very interested in TV & since doing this show, and even before the show, we've gotten strong offers for her to have her own television show, her own sitcom.

M: I think La Toya could do really well on the talk-show circuit. She's got that bubbly, fun personality that just attracts you, and people like that.
J: She would. She's been offered her own show but she has a lot of offers on the table. We've been strategizing La Toya's comeback & this is why it's taken so long: you can't do greatness overnight. It takes time. I know all the fans get antsy about it. They blame it on me & they blame it on Ja-Tail & they take pictures of the P.O. Box. If I let that bother me, I wouldn't be a good business partner. I don't let it bother me because I know what the outcome is. You guys are gonna be so happy. It's gonna be fine. All I can say is that we do know what we're doing. Ja-Tail stands for "Just another
timely adventure in life." Everything is timing. Unfortunately, the timing that we have set on the table for certain release dates didn't happen because of other peoples' timing, like Michael's or Janet's or whatever was going on. So when this happens, it's going to happen properly.

M: Her first album was released on CD in the UK for the first time in the middle of last year, with her second one to follow sometime in 2007. I was wondering if she's heard anything about that, if she's got a copy of the CD, or what her opinion is?
J: She doesn't have a copy of the CD & she doesn't know anything about it. She doesn't own the rights to it, or the masters, or anything. Both are deals that Jack Gordon put together & anything that Jack Gordon put together, she has nothing to do with.

M: Her first two albums for Polydor were Joe Jackson productions, I do believe.
J: Still, she has nothing to do with it. Anything before Ja-Tail, La Toya has nothing to do with. The psychic hotline, she has nothing to do with that & never did. The psychic hotline was something - she just went inside a studio. Jack Gordon made her record it. It took half an hour. People always come up to her and say, "Are you a psychic?" She says, "No. I don't know anything about it. It's something my old manager had me do. I had to do it. I had no choice but to do it. They did it & it's still out there but I have nothing to do with it. I'm not a psychic. I was just doing as I was told."

M: It's sad that those things happened, but the good thing is that she came out of it okay and she's doing good for herself now.
J: I know. She did come out of it okay. She's a fun person now. She's happy - extremely happy.

M: We saw a few months ago that she was filming an advertisement for Star Ice, but we haven't heard anything since. Will we be seeing the campaign soon?
J: The campaign is supposed to start the first quarter of this year. Between now & March you should see something on Star Ice. And of course, La Toya wanted to do Star Ice along with the show being out, along with the single being out, along with the album. She has three or four other things coming out in the first & second quarters of this year. Everything will be a surprise attack. You're gonna turn on your TV one day & say "Oh my gosh!" La Toya Online can't keep up with all that's going on right now. The web people I brought to it were just awful web people for La Toya online & I have people who I'm working with now that are gonna come in & take over & update it daily. That's something that is totally my fault & I will apologize to everybody for that.

M: That was the biggest problem a lot of fans had - a lack of updates from an official source, more than once every few months.
J: I know. La Toya sat down & wrote a letter. She worked so hard on it. It came straight from La Toya's hands. She wrote the letter & she was so tired, but she said "I gotta let the fans know what's going on." She took about an
hour of her evening to do that after her thirtieth day of working an eighteen hour day. It was before she went to bed, around three o'clock in the morning. She sat up & wrote the newsletter. I sent it to her web guy who now lives in the south of France. He uploaded it & you guys got it straight from La Toya.

M: While we're talking about her writing - a lot has gone on since her book came out in 1991. Has she expressed an interest in writing a follow-up to "Growing Up In The Jackson Family" or is that something else she's put behind her?
J: Let me put it like this: La Toya has a lot, a lot, a lot of projects coming out this year. If you were a psychic I'd say you're pretty much on. I'm not gonna say yes & I'm not gonna say no. All I'm going to say is that you're very good.

[A little bit of chit-chat about me & how I became interested in Toy...]

J: La Toya loves all of you guys. She always tells me to convey to you guys that if you ever see her in the street, please stop & talk to her. She loves how supportive you guys have been. There've been a lot of ups & downs & you guys have always been there. She really appreciates it & I really appreciate it. Not only am I her business partner but I've been a friend of the family for twenty years. I appreciate it, her mother appreciates it. You guys are just great. You're very supportive. It's a new day & a new age. La Toya's gonna come back strong. You're gonna be so pleased with all of the business moves that she makes. The album? You're not gonna like it. You're gonna love it! It's the number one CD in my car. I constantly listen to the songs, all day, all night. She constantly listens to it. She's a perfectionist. She wants to make sure everything is right. If there's one song or one track in the album that doesn't sound right, we're in the studio changing that song until she gets what she likes. She only wants the best for you guys & for herself. She doesn't want to disappoint anyone.

M: I've only heard positive things about the original draft of "Startin' Over," so if that's indicative of what's to come, then I think most everyone will love it. I still listen to the original album almost every day.
J: I loved that album & I'm very proud of it. Eventually, songs from that album will be out. We've been asked to contribute to soundtracks. The PGA Golf Tournament is using "Don't Want You No More." They use it on the show all the time & I don't even know how they got it. They must've got it from you guys! [Laughs] Her music is very good, but the new stuff doesn't even compare. It's day & night. The new music's mainly dance. The tracks are very big Jackson tracks. No cheap tracks. They're big. I mean, the instruments are there. The strings are there.

M: I think that's one thing a lot of us appreciated with the original album, is the use of live instruments. The guitar throughout almost the entire album, it just blows me away.
J: She loves the guitar, as you can tell. She'll have more on this one. It's gonna be a fun album. Trust me, nobody wants to release this album more than La Toya. She's dying for the public to hear it. But like I said, the timing has to be right. You see how we strategized "Just Wanna Dance" & "Free The World." We didn't plan on it to be a big success. We purposely did it in the clubs because we wanted to test the market and the results were good. And at some point, we will put it out in the mainstream. "Just Wanna Dance" will be on the album, I will tell you that.

M: Will it be on the album in its' original incarnation or will it be a remix or re-recorded version of the song?
J: We just had this conversation two days ago. I can't tell you too much or it won't be a surprise, but we think we're gonna have a remix since so many people have heard the original version. We're pretty sure we're just gonna put an awesome remix on the album that you've never heard. We'll probably go to one of the top guys in the business that we're in talks with to do that.

[More chit-chat about me & a couple personal questions for myself...]

M: Is there anything else you'd like to add before we go?
J: You can explain to everyone that we do have offices. [Laughs] The reason why people make comments is that they don't know. That P.O. Box will be there for the rest of the time & let me explain to you why: when the world, obsessed fans, and just fans in general knows your office address, they just pop by & you can't get any work done. We keep a P.O. Box because we move. I've been in four offices in the past ten years. If my business card has that P.O. Box on it, it doesn't matter where I move my office.

M: If fans were to send album covers to be signed, are there any that they should avoid sending, for fear of bringing out bad memories of feelings when La Toya sees them, or is she accepting of anything?
J: Thank you for asking that question. If it were ten years ago, there are some that would have hurt her, but now La Toya has started over. She'll sign anything. La Toya loves you guys. Do you know Robert? I sent him a few things a while back - some CDs, t-shirts, and things because I appreciate what you guys are doing for La Toya. I understand your frustration. Trust me - I'm frustrated too. I want this album out there. Universal wants this album out there. It's just a matter of timing & now's the time. The TV show's out & we have a few other things coming out.

M: I'm glad she's utilizing this time she's got in the spotlight because it doesn't happen a lot to someone who's been out of the public eye for so long.
J: It's a good time & because of people like you she's going to be able to stay out there & keep doing what she wants to do. You guys are gonna be very happy. Whenever I can get you some exclusive material, I will get it to you. As a matter of fact, I'll e-mail you some exclusive pictures of La Toya from the set of "Armed & Famous" that you can put on the Church for everyone.
[Edited 1/22/07 4:48am]
[Edited 1/22/07 4:48am]

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Oh the shame if this per4ms better than 20 YO

I hope they maintain Tropical Breeze on the new configuration. It's my favorite Toy ballad!