DRAGON: Seal / This much I know / "Having children is the hardest thing in the world"

Sunday, October 23, 2011

Seal / This much I know / "Having children is the hardest thing in the world"

Seal

This much I know

Seal

"Having children is the hardest thing in the world"

The singer Seal, 48, on his 'patchwork' family and keeping his nose clean

Gemma Kappala-Ramsamy
Sunday 23 October 2011 00.04 BST

Stevie Wonder's Innervisions is the reason I got into music. That and Mr Wren, my teacher when I was seven. He got me to perform Johnny Nash's "I Can See Clearly Now" at a PTA meeting and my parents' jaws dropped.

The worst job I ever had was in McDonald's in Kentish Town. I was 16 and they gave me a brown uniform that was two sizes too small. I stayed two weeks, until I got my first paycheck, then I was outta there.

I proposed to my wife Heidi Klum in a quinzee, a room made out of a pile of snow. We were in Whistler snowboarding, which is how I spent some of my greatest days before we met. I figured I should share one of the most precious experiences with the most precious person in my life.

Seal in bed with his wife Heidi Klum in a still from the video for "Secret".
Photograph: Todd Williamson

My marriage is just like any other marriage. People think we're different, but we're not really. We deal with the same issues as everyone else, only ours are more extreme. There are greater highs and greater lows. I can't really elaborate on it any more than that; success doesn't solve anything.

I don't care if I wrote a song. I recently recorded a Dylan track, "Like a Rolling Stone". My new album is all cover songs. I think it's good to bring something fresh to an iconic record, I just don't like to arse around with the melody.

The best thing you can do in the public eye is keep your nose clean. I've made some mistakes, but not anything that makes any odds, to be honest.

After all these years of singing "Kiss From a Rose", I feel like I've finally figured it out. I can enjoy it now.

I don't really see myself as a mixed-race person, I see myself as an Englishman. It's just such an unnecessary detail, I think.

Four years ago, I was reunited with my foster family on Oprah. I hadn't seen them for 40 years. One of the kids in the family was telling me how she used to change my diapers. My mum gave me away as a baby, then came back to get me when I was four, which was wrong [Seal went on to live with his father and stepmother.] If you give your child away, you relinquish the right to take them back.

Seal

Having children is the hardest thing in the world because it's the one thing you can't make mistakes in. You have an impact on a life so you gotta be there, you gotta do it right. I always say my father is my most important role model, because he showed me everything I shouldn't be.

My children have a little bit of English, a little bit of African, a little bit of German in them. One of the names they call us in Germany, one of the few I'm actually fond of, is "the patchwork family". I love that. I'm very fond of patchwork quilts, too. I think they're really cool.

I actually value my albums that weren't commercially successful a little bit more. Ultimately, you've had to face some kind of financial or emotional adversity, and you've learnt something.

THE GUARDIAN