LISA MARIE PRESLEY IN : TODAY'S MEMPHIS NEWSPAPER BY MICHAEL LOLLAR.
Lisa Marie Presley's album release Tuesday will be the first in what she said is a three-album contract and will
include a tour that includes Memphis, but don't expect a new husband to accompany her.
"I don't know where that's coming from," Presley said Thursday of talk that
she plans to remarry her first husband, rock musician Danny Keough.
"Danny is my best friend, always has been, always will be. I love him
unconditionally, but we are not together. It's not like that,"
said Presley in an interview with The Commercial Appeal in which she
talked about everything from the gravesite awaiting her at Graceland to the belief that might have
saved her father.
Presley, 35, said she is happy most early reviews of her first album, "To
Whom It May Concern," are good, often comparing her smoky, husky voice toCher's.
The pop-rock album is like a checklist of personal songs dealing with Elvis
Presley (Lights Out), to Elvis's Memphis Mafia to failed marriages.
She also expects her share of bad reviews. I'm waiting for the bad (reviews). I'm terrible like
that," she said of the "dark outlook" that finds its way into her lyrics. It is a cynicism she
can't explain:
"I just was overly sensitive (while growing up). I felt more, was aware of
more, too much probably too soon. I was exposed to a lot righ off the bat,
walked a different path around a lot of different things. . . . It' just
kind of the way the mop flops."
That outlook found its way into the current issue of Rolling Stone in which
Presley talked candidly about her second marriage to pop star Michael
Jackson.
She called him "manipulative, calculating" and says it was a real marriage
but that she came away feeling like he used her. Her third marriage,
to actor Nicolas Cage, ended when he filed for divorce with eventual
behind-the-scenes name-calling. She was "spoiled." He was a "hothead."
In spite of her father's destructive lifestyle, Presley said she has no qualms about music - at least for her three-album
deal. Notoriously reclusive, she will have to adapt to appearances night after night before live
audiences. "I absolutely can do that for a while. I'll need to break it up because I
have the children."
Presley said her daughter, Danielle, 13, and son, Ben, 10, both seem
destined for music careers too. "I see it, definitely. I see a deep ear for
it and drive toward it on both ends. It's similar to what I had as a child, not wanting
to play with my friends and listening to records all the time. I see it in
their blood." For her, her father's unprecedented celebrity status has often been
described as a curse, but she doesn't see it that way. "No, I don't. I'm
very proud of who I am, where I come from." Presley said one of her favorite items that she keeps close to her at all
times is a makeup-travel bag used by her father.
"I keep that around with all of his personal items - the usual stuff, hair
dye, toothbrush and all that stuff.
In the song most closely related to her father, Presley writes about the
empty gravesite beside her father on "the d**n back lawn" at Graceland.
She's not sure whether it will be her eventual resting place. "I just saw
that it was absolutely there. There are no written-in-stone plans for
anything."
Presley said she was introduced to Scientology through her mother, who met
actor John Travolta and "asked him what he does to keep himself somewhat
sane."
Priscilla Presley "went in the next day. I went in the day after." It was an
effort to get her to give up drugs during her teenage years. "I immediately felt comfortable with it."
Travolta said Scientology might have saved Elvis, and Lisa Marie thinks it
could have helped. "Yeah, of course, it brings sanity and explains a lot.
And I think he was looking, searching." Elvis had other problems, including the
close-knit group that often stayed with him at Graceland, and, just before and after his death, wrote tell-all
books.
"I think they were upset that they didn't get what they wanted. . . . They
were wanting something out of a will, something out of his soul. They were just
sycophants, little leeches, and they all turned on him and betrayed him. I
hate them."
Presley said the album tour, to begin in May, will come to Memphis, but she
doesn't know when. "The only thing I can say is if I can move people,
if I can play for somebody I admire and they like it, then I'm happy. I'm
just trying to be a d**ned artist.
"The hardest part for me is I just don't like attention on me or being the
focus of attention. That's a hell of a road to walk, but on the other side of it I'm more proud of it this way. I can hold my
head up a little bit higher."
2004/04/08 Todays Memphis Newspaper - published April 4th by Micheal Lolar/ Ep.Gold.Com.