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Donny Osmond, from family business to solo proprietor
By Larry
Getlen • Bankrate.com
 If
you're a certain age, the name Donny Osmond conjures to mind a fresh-faced,
brightly scrubbed, clean-cut kid singing songs with his equally
squeaky-clean sister.
Donny the man has more heft than Donny the child star.
At 43, he's shrewd and wise about the business. He is not judgmental
toward the crass side of pop culture. He has met, had a proper conversation
with, and feels no animosity toward, controversial rapper Eminem.
He comes off incredibly confident. He's been in this
business a looooong time, and he lets you know it when needed.
He has a history of hooking up with impressive and
surprising people to advance his career, including Boy George, Chicago
and Jeff Beck. He chose to leave the act that consisted of his own,
close-knit, showbiz family when his career called for it. He has
collaborated with progressive rocker and world-music aficionado
Peter Gabriel.
His oldest child is 22. Before you know it, Donny
Osmond could be a grandfather. Then how old will you feel?
Osmond's latest album, This
is the Moment, is a collection of Broadway tunes given a
pop edge by Osmond and producer Phil Ramone. While certain facts
about Osmond's life and attitudes may be surprising, the sound of
his music is not. It is mainstream, a cross between contemporary
light rock and jazz, and shoots for (and hits) a wide demographic.
Bankrate.com spoke with Osmond about money and choices,
good and bad.
Bankrate.com: I went
to donnyosmond.com, and it's a Web site for an e-business company.
How did that happen?
DONNY OSMOND: Oh, my
site is donny.com.
B: Did you try to get
donnyosmond.com?
DO: Actually, that
surprises me, because I do have donnyosmond.com. Matter of fact,
thanks for telling me. I do have the name. (Editor's note: Visitors
to donnyosmond.com are now redirected to the official donny.com
site.)
B: Did you get heavily
involved in the dot-com world in any way, either personally or through
your investments?
DO: I was protected.
I didn't gamble, didn't get caught in the crash. I've got a good
guy in Chicago that really knows what he's doing.
B: When you were a
kid, I'm assuming your family handled your business dealings. At
what point in your career did you begin to make your own decisions
and take control of your own destiny?
DO: The mid '80s.
B: When you were how
old?
DO: Early 20s.
B: So through your
late teens, you still had your family control things.
DO: Well, we had managers,
we had publicists and people like that. It wasn't necessarily the
family, it was a lot of advisers. That's why I enjoy this side of
the career so much more than in the past, because I'm basically
holding the reins. (laughs).
B: Did you pay attention
when you were a teenager, did you try to learn the business as
you were going, or were you not really focused on that side?
DO: You absolutely
learn the business, but I was so busy, for instance, doing the "Donny
and Marie" show of the '70s. There's not a whole lot of time
to sit back and think. Because you're doing a show a week, especially
the kind of shows we used to do back then, and you're touring in
the summer and doing albums, all this kind of stuff, and you're
16 years old. You've got to trust certain people. When 20 years
old came around, and I had no career, I was like, "Well, excuse
me! Thanks for your help!" I had to rebuild, and I was forced
to take the reins.
B: So it was trial
by fire?
DO: Absolutely. And
then I hired management, publicists, and they kept saying you know,
you really got to dirty up your image. My publicist had this whole
plan of getting me busted for drugs, and I thought, do I really
need to do this kind of garbage? And shortly after that, that's
when I met up with Peter Gabriel, who just basically set me straight.
He said forget that stuff, forget the image garbage and concentrate
on the music. That's when he advised me to fly over to England and
start cutting music over there, and just concentrate on the music,
make the music good. Because he said eventually, if it's good, it'll
surface to the top, and he was absolutely right.
B: Who played the most
crucial role in your show business education?
DO: I can't point to
one person. If I had to, I'd have to point to me. I don't know if
that sounds egotistical, but when you get right down to it, you're
really an island. And you have to make the decisions based on your
gut feeling.
B: It's interesting
hearing you talk about being an island, considering that you grew
up so strongly associated with your family, associated with a group,
and being such a family person.
DO: But you can't rest
your whole career on everybody else's decisions. Eventually it's
going to break. And that's why I have a philosophy that you are
an island, and you have to make decisions on your own. Because in
the early '80s, when the "Donny and Marie" show was done,
there was still some demand there for it, state fairs and things
like that. But I realized, there's going to be an end to this, and
I realized that I want to be able to do my own music, and stand
on my own two feet. That's when I started making the decisions of
doing my music. I can always go back and revisit the past, but I
didn't want to hang my hat on it.
B: Was there any internal
conflict there? Was there ever any guilt, like you were turning
your back on your family, or any kind of bitterness about going
solo when everything was so strongly family associated?
DO: Yeah, a little
bit. Because you're basically bringing the whole thing to an end.
But I think each one of us in the family are intelligent enough
to know that it was the right thing to do.
B: Did being part of
such a prominent and famous showbiz family shield you from a lot
of the pitfalls many young musicians have? So many musicians I talk
to signed stupid deals. Did being part of a big showbiz family shield
you from that stuff?
DO: No, because we
signed stupid deals, too. (Laughs) We lost everything.
B: How old were you
when this all happened?
DO: 22, maybe.
B: Were you privy to
the details, and was this a big part of educating you as far as
what to do correctly?
DO: You betcha, because
there came a time when I fired my accountant, and said I need to
learn this myself, and I think that's when the biggest learning
curve took place.
B: Is this when you
said "OK, I love my family dearly, but I need to go out on
my own for the career"?
DO: Possibly, yeah.
That was around the time when all that transition took place.
B: Did they eventually
get the message and understand that it was for the best?
DO: Yeah, because
everyone was doing the same thing. We realized we had to go our
own directions.
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