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FAN MAIL Puts The Stamp Of Success On TLC's First Headline Tour!

Special To Midwest Beat Magazine
by Chris Akin
Editor/Music's Bottom Line
www.musicsbottomline.com

   They are the single biggest selling female group since the Supremes!
Considering the list of some of the big female sellers of the last 20 years
(Bananarama, The Bangles, The GoGos, etc.), being able to boast this fact is
quite a feat.
   Their album Crazysexycool went well past 10 million in sales, and their
latest, Fan Mail, has already soared over 8 million as of mid-November.
   Clearly, they are a force to be reckoned with. Yet, more than any other
band, TLC has been stricken with horrific turns of events that have left its
members - Left Eye, T-Boz and Chilli - broke, jailed, and near death in
hospitals.
   But they have persevered and continue to make great music. Midwest BEAT
Magazine's musical cohort in crime, Chris Akin of Music's Bottom Line in
Cleveland, caught up with Chilli recently on our behalf and discussed the
many controversies that surround TLC, as well as their unprecedented success
and their first ever-headlining tour. Chilli was far more forthcoming than
one would expect, and gave us the inside dirt on a lot of issues. Read on
and get dirty!

BEAT ~ First thing, smoking record, as usual. Are you surprised that after
the long layoff that people responded so well? It debuted at #1 on
Billboard, didn't it?

CHILLI - Yep, it did. Actually, this is the first time we've had a #1 album.

BEAT ~ As many as the last one sold, it never got there?

CHILLI - It was never #1. We had #1 singles, but never the album.

BEAT ~ Well, that's cool.

CHILLI - I know, huh!

BEAT ~ How has it sold to this point? Is it doing what you expected it to do?

CHILLI - Worldwide, I think we're at eight million.

BEAT ~ So I guess then it's doing OK (laughing)!

CHILLI - Yeah, it's doing pretty good! (laughing)

BEAT ~ It's no secret that you had big problems with money last time out.
With this one selling so well, are you in a better financial situation this
time?

CHILLI - Yeah. We paid all of our bills, and the contract is much better.
We don't have a lot of people involved this time, so that really helps. It
is much better this round.

BEAT ~ From watching the VH1 Special, it seems like it was pretty bad.

CHILLI - It was bad.

BEAT ~ You guys are one of the very few bands that has ever sold that many
records and ended up owing money when it was all said and done.

CHILLI - It's crazy, but it happens. It's still happening to a lot of
artists.

BEAT ~ What caused that for you guys?

CHILLI - You know what it is? What happens is when you want to do something
like this; it is that person's dream that they always wanted to do. If you
get a chance to do it, you will do anything. You'll sign any piece of paper,
because you think 'Oh, I can fix it later.'   You think - 'Whatever! This is
my chance. This is my break, and I'm gonna take it.' That's what makes it
so hard. You want to sign a good contract. You don't want to get yourself
into a bad contract, but at the same time, you want to fulfill your dreams
too. It's a really hard situation for a young artist.

BEAT ~ I'd suppose that with the instant success, touring with Hammer, MTV,
etc. that you didn't have time to.

CHILLI - No, we did read it. Pebbles told us that if we didn't sign the
contract, we weren't going to be her group. She was going to let us go. It
was either sign the contract and go through all this craziness to fulfill
your dream, or go on. Go somewhere else and we'll find another group.

BEAT ~ Well, money aside, wouldn't you say that everything that Pebbles did
in the beginning was working?

CHILLI - Well no. That's why I really don't want to get involved with
artists, because you are either going to be honest, or you are going to be a
crook. You can't be both. A lot of times, people try to mix the two, and
you really can't. You make us sign these types of contracts, and you know
they are not good. It really upsets me most when an artist becomes a
manager, because you forget that you were once an artist. It's no different
than when you have children. You have to remember that you were once a kid
yourself. When you grow up and forget and get all big and bad, it doesn't
work like that. You hurt people. For me, I know I'll be the honest one, and
I will have to really go to battle with the record companies. Uhhh, I don't
even want the headaches.

BEAT ~ You just want to make your music, make your money and be happy?

CHILLI - Uh-huh.

BEAT ~ Let's talk about the records. The first record seemed to be a poppy
record.

CHILLI - You think so? The first one. I would say straight R&B.

BEAT ~ Poppy more in the sense of radio pop. It had a lot of that, where now
it seems like you guys are now trying to send messages. You know, songs like
"Unpretty," with the plastic surgery message, and "No Scrubs - definite
message." Even a song like "Shout" has a message. Are you guys going that
way more by design?

CHILLI - You know what I think? I think that just comes with getting older.
When you get older, you go through stuff. We've always had stuff and we
always talked about things that we felt were important. The older you get,
it intensifies. To me, 'Unpretty' is like a part two of 'Waterfalls,' as far
as the message. Those two songs are our biggest songs, as far as the
messages that represent what we are trying to say. People are getting it,
fortunately and I'm glad that they are.
    The response from 'Unpretty' has been incredible. We get these young
girls coming up to us all the time about that song and what we are singing
about. I've even had a lady that was my age, in her late 20s, come up to me
and say, 'I was considering getting breast implants, but when I saw the video
and listened to the lyrics, I changed my mind.' I was like... 'Yeah!'

BEAT ~ I know that T-Boz and Lisa are in that video on the performance side,
but it seems like you took an active acting role in that clip. Is that
because the song was written about an event that happened to you personally?

CHILLI - We all wanted to hit different subjects within the song. T-Boz
wanted to talk about how when people feel unpretty, they tend to pick on you.
(With) Lisa, she feels a lot of people in gangs resort to that kind of gang
life stuff because they feel unpretty, you know, a lot of them are growing up
with no love from their parents and stuff. They act out their feelings in
violent ways.
    For me, that (breast issue) was something I went through. Growing up, I
always wanted big boobs, because I didn't have them and everyone else did. My
friends all did. I was always like, 'I'm gonna get me some breast implants
one day.'   Then I found out that when you get implants, you can't breast
feed.and for as long as I can remember, I've always wanted to be a mother.
So I changed my mind really fast.
    Plus, I want to get into the acting side of the business, so doing ( a
bigger part than the others) in that video was really fun for me and a step
in that direction...

BEAT ~ Are you planning on doing some more acting?

CHILLI - Yeah. I did a movie with Chevy Chase. It's a Nickelodeon film
called 'Snow Day.' They tell me it's coming out in January. There's a lot
of other things that I'm getting involved in to, but I've got to do this tour
first!

BEAT ~ Any more singles planned for "Fan Mail"?

CHILLI - Well, we just shot our video for 'Dear Lie', and that will be
coming out real, real, real soon. We had two days off last week, and on
those two days off we shot the video.

BEAT ~ Is the release of that to coincide with the tour?

CHILLI - Well, it's fourth quarter, and we've got to have something else out
there. You've just got to keep them coming.

BEAT ~ There's probably four or five more singles that could be released on
"Fan Mail".

CHILLI - - We're going to shoot the video for 'Shout' afterwards. We did a
remix, a Latino remix with Enrique Iglesias and Sheila E. I was very
fortunate to be in the studio to see her work, and I was blown away. She is
incredible. She promised me she would do the video, and Enrique did too.

BEAT ~ It's no secret that you guys always have controversy swirling here and
there. This time, it seems to be Lisa's comments about not standing behind
the project.

CHILLI - Yeah, when she said that in VIBE.

BEAT ~ I haven't read it, but I heard that you said something back in
Entertainment Weekly. With all this going on, is this maybe the last run of
TLC?

CHILLI - NO! No, definitely not. And it's not anything that's back and
forth. We're in a group, and you go through things. Some people choose to
talk about it. All groups go through their (internal) things and their share
of troubles. We all have our share of problems. I think the real reason
that now it has become such a big deal (in the media), is because everybody
got so used to Lisa being the one to create controversy. She's the one that
always calls back and has something crazy to say. She's always putting us
out, and making people look at us and say, 'that group is a trip,' or
whatever. We always just kept quiet. We didn't say anything. I guess it
took everybody by surprise that we decided to air how we felt.

BEAT ~ Am I right by saying that there is tension between you guys, or is
this the typical band stuff?

CHILLI - This is not something that's new. We've been going through stuff
like this even before she burned the house down. We just talked about it.
When you don't talk about stuff, then people don't know. We're just
basically letting people know that 'yeah, it may look all great and fun, but
we have our good times and bad times too.'

BEAT ~ If it ever came down to it, could there be a TLC without Lisa?

CHILLI - In my opinion, I wouldn't want it to be. I wouldn't want it like
that. I think that it's just at a point now, where, including T-Boz and
myself, even fans are just tired of the whole Lisa thing. It's dead. It's li
ke, 'ok, let's grow up. That was cute back in the day, but now it's kind of
dead. Let's just make great music and be there for our fans and stuff.'
That's the page I'm on with the whole thing right now.

BEAT ~ Let's talk about better topics, like January 18th when you kick off
your first world tour. Who are you guys taking out with you?

CHILLI - Christina Aguilera will be with us at first and then Destiny's
Child will be on the second leg. That would be straight girl power going on
right there.

BEAT ~ A definite 'ladies night'. Now, this is your first headlining tour.
How do you approach that differently than before? There's a lot more
production issues and things that go into that, isn't there?

CHILLI - There is. There's a lot more production planning involved. As the
headliner, suddenly everything is on you. You're responsible for everything
and everybody. That's a big change for us. Before when we used to tour, we
would do our show, and then we would go in the back and watch the headlining
group. I would always watch Hammer and Bobby Brown and Boys II Men, and I
was always like, 'I can't wait to do our own tour!'. Plus, by the time the
headliner is on, everybody's in the seats and settled in for the show...

BEAT ~ Are you nervous about doing the big tour?

CHILLI - At first I was nervous because we haven't been out on the road in so
long, but since I've been on the road now, I'm not nervous anymore. I just
want to get up there and deliver.


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    TLC perform in Chicago on JANUARY 14 at The Allstate Arena. Being their
first ever headline tour, the group has put together a multi-dimensional
sonic and visual extravaganza that features state-of-the-art lighting and
video production, with a stage set designed by John McGraw, who has done sets
for tours by Prince and Madonna.

(* Chris Akin is the publisher/editor of Music's Bottom Line, a publication
based in the Cleveland/Akron, Ohio market. Our publisher, Tom Lounges,
encourages all Midwest Beat Magazine readers to visit the cool Music's Bottom
Line web site and enjoy more excellent music news from Chris and his
dedicated staff.)
Log on at: www.musicsbottomline.com