Mouth it from the rooftops

Michael Winslow came to prominence in the Police Academy series as Officer Larvell Jones, a role in which he showcased his mastery of vocal effects. Winslow will be performing his vocal gymnastics in Dublin next month during a run of appearances at the Bulmers International Comedy Festival. Intriguingly, when Hot Press catches up with the American comic, he reveals that he is currently working on a DVD project with Bill Cosby.

“We’re just trying to get it finished at the moment,” explains Michael. “It’s for kids. I think they’ll like it, or at least I hope they do. They’ll love the noises if nothing else. Myself and Bill had met years and years ago, but one day he called me, out of the blue, and said he’d just seen the commercial I did for Geico, an insurance company in America. He said the commercial was so strange that it completely interrupted his train of thought.
“He liked it, and we talked about things. I told him about some of the stuff I’d like to do, and he gave me some great advice on what I should do with the sounds. He said, ‘Hey man, use those things to do stuff like this.’ I said okay, and that’s where we are right now. I’m in the midst of development. There’ll be a little bit of animation in there, some live action. It’s not necessarily a poor man’s Roger Rabbit, but I think it’ll be a lot of fun.”
Another comic who’ll be performing at the Bulmers Festival is one Chris Rock, whom Michael has gigged with in the past.
“I’ve known Chris for a while,” he says. “He’s very consistent and he knows what he wants. He’s a good producer now. I first met Chris at Caroline’s comedy club in New York. Believe it or not, he was opening for me. It was a good few years ago, before he was on Saturday Night Live. Straight from the off, it was obvious that he was incredibly talented. I knew it was going to happen for him.”
When did Michael first discover that he had an unusual talent for imitating sound effects with his voice?
“Well, I remember when I was growing up, and all the kids wanted to play army. I’d say, ‘Hey man, to heck with that. Why would I want to play army when I can be the air-force?’ And of course the kids didn’t like that. They’d go, ‘Hey dude, you can’t do that. You can’t be the air-force.’ And I’d be like, ‘Oh yeah? Watch me!’ (Mimics explosion) Bye! That’s when I knew something was up.”
Have you ever been tempted to, say, mimic gunfire in a nightclub?
“I don’t use the ability for evil,” he chuckles. “That kind of stuff gets you in trouble. And no stewardess call-button noises on the plane either. Unless it’s Ryanair. (Laughs) I’m just kidding.”
Michael says his favourite experience of working on the Police Academy movies was making the first film, and these days he likes to keep an eye on the progress of the Police Academy diaspora.
“I do keep track of everybody. GW Bailey, who played Lieutenant Harris, is now on The Closer with Kyra Sedgwick. Kim Cattrall and Sharon Stone, who was in part four, have obviously had huge success. Steve Guttenberg was on Dancing With The Stars here in the States, and Leslie Easterbrook has acted in some of Rob Zombie’s movies, and sings opera. Last I heard, Bobcat Goldthwaite had almost married Nikki Cox, but it didn’t happen. He actually opened for Nirvana in the early ’90s. And he does a great Bono impression, by the way.”
Michael, who does vocal renditions of songs by various music acts – including Jimi Hendrix and Led Zeppelin – during his live shows, is quite keen to perform for Bono and the boys.
“I’d love to do a Hendrix thing for them. I’d like to get them in a room with a Marshall stack and my microphone, and see what they’d think if I did a wall of sound. I’m just curious – if I did Hendrix or Zeppelin for U2, what would they think? Actually, I might just do a U2 song while I’m over in Dublin.”
Interestingly, Michael provided sound effects for one of the titular characters in the movie Gremlins.
“I was the mean one with the Bobby Brown haircut,” he recalls. “It was strange, we all signed a lot of non-disclosure agreements to do that movie. At the time it was coming out, there was a huge buzz about what it was going to be. So the director, Joe Dante, made everyone sign an agreement. And he was right. Because the minute Gremlins came out, what happened? Knock-offs. So I understand now why he’s so careful about his productions.
“I mean, I’ve seen those Lucasfilm guys go so far as to book a fake production when they’re going to shoot a Star Wars some place. Because people are showing up to take pictures and cause trouble. So they’ll say, ‘We’re going to be over there’, and then go somewhere else. I don’t blame them. Creative and original ideas are hard to come by these days.”
Finally, what can we expect from Michael’s shows in Dublin?
“I can only promise you one thing – it’s going to be loud! But if you wanna rock and have a good time, come along and check it out. And if you’re a Louis Armstrong fan, you’ll be happy too!”